SHAWN STEVENSON: Welcome to The Model Health Show. This is fitness and nutrition expert, Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today. Do you know what's really amazing for your health? Freedom. Freedom is an absolutely regenerative, powerful, life-affirming asset that oftentimes we don't appreciate until we no longer have it. In all seriousness, it's within the context of freedom that lies some very deep human needs. Some of those human needs reside in or feeling of significance. We all require a sense of purpose and a sense of value and a sense of significance to be able to thrive as a human being. We evolved as being a part of a community, being part of tribes and having our value place within that in our sense of connection and being seen is incredibly important, so having the ability to share our perspective, to share our life, that is an aspect of freedom. Another human need under the umbrella of freedom is the need for growth. There's a statement that says, "You're either growing or you're dying." You can't sit still. Life is Moving, life is happening, life is evolving. And so, growth is required if you're going to participate in life, especially right now, and when your growth is controlled and it is imprisoned, it creates this very strong tension, but there's good tension and then there's life-detracting tension.

There's life-affirmative tension and life-detracting tension. Like if you think about the chicken and the egg. The egg is all the baby chick knows, but suddenly that world starts to get very crammed and tight, but it's requiring for the baby to start poking away, to start pecking its way out of this, what it thought was the entire universe of itself and expand its horizons and venture into an entirely new world. So, it's that kind of life affirming contraction that can take place, but if we were able to just stay inside of that shell and just be like, "This is the limits that I have," and allow that to crush us and to crush our potential, then we would probably be the biggest chicken of all. And so, what we're talking about today is being able to break out of the perceived restrictions that we have on our freedom. Oftentimes, again, we don't even realize these things are happening, we often exist in disbelief about freedom that has many different contexts that we're operating in. So, to give you an example, we love the ability to choose freely. It's a big driving force of even what we do as far as our diets.

We do not like to be told what to do. Alright, if you tell somebody who's... Their family grew up, maybe their families from Sicily, and they grew up eating all these wonderful pastors and amazing, decadent desserts that they're coming and they're trying to get a health issue addressed, you know what? We're going to take care of this health issue, but you can never have pasta again. Pastas off the menu. I know your family has been eating pasta for centuries, but that's taken away. That person, because they want to get... Fill in the blank, benefit, maybe it's to lose weight, they'll do the thing for a while, but in the back of their mind the whole time is, "They're putting me in prison. They're putting me in a prison of what I can and can't do. They're taking away the thing that I love that's a part of my heritage, that's a part of my value." And at some point, it might not be a week later, it might not be a month later, it might not be a year later, but at some point, when you put someone in prison and we value freedom, they're going to be... Maybe they achieve their weight loss.

They might be driving home after work and they catch a whiff of Olive Garden and it's not even top tier pasta, by the way, but suddenly the aroma tickles their nose hairs, and they pull in quickly and aggressively into the Olive Garden parking space, and they're just going absolute ham on fettuccine, alright? And hopefully you know what ham means, it's hard as a mother, alright? Shout out to Samuel L. Jackson, I said that in his voice in my head, and also shout out to the song, the collaborative efforts of Jay Z and Kanye, H-A-M, ham, but they're going ham on Fettuccini because they want to break out of that restrictive box.

We do not like to be told what to do, however, we can create structures. The thing about it too is that, when we are left to our own devices, we can also fall into this place where we experience what's known as the paradox of choice. Where there's so many freedoms, there's so many options to choose from that we end up choosing nothing. It paralyzes us, and this goes back to a great book and also a TED talk from Barry Schwartz, and this paradox is very interesting. But here's the thing, humans operate really remarkable when we have boxes to operate in. Within that box of different choices, within that box of freedoms, it makes life a little bit easier because we have a framework. Now, here's the thing, do you want to be able to choose your own framework? That's what we're talking about here. Creating your own constructs of freedom and freedom in your nutrition, freedom in your movement practices, in your sleep, in your financial health, in your relationships, in your ability to express your voice, because right now, one of the deep...

Again, one of these human needs is community, and our community has evolved in recent years to where now, a lot of our community connection is happening "online", in this cyber world. Now, this is not a debate of whether that's good or bad, it just is, and it is the human experience right now. Now, I do want to put in a special word for offline communications, because truly that's what our genes expect of us, our DNA expects us to interact in the real world with other humans. This other format is in new invention. We haven't been doing this very long, we don't know the long-term ramifications, but the beauty of it, this does not mean that it can't be used to great service and impact and value, but it just depends on... It's a tool on how you use it. We could be getting online and just jumping on and spend a lot of time in the gossip sites and that kind of thing, or we could be getting online and having in-depth conversations about ideas and about breakthroughs, and about science, and music, and discovery and appreciation, and all these wonderful things that expand our reach, expand our connection.

And I believe that every single human being has the right to share their voice, but right now we're existing in a time where one of the big monikers that's governing, that's infringing upon our freedom, is this concept of misinformation, alright? Misinformation. Not to say that misinformation does not exist, but who deems what is misinformation and what is not? Who deems what is a fact and what is not a fact? Therein lies the schism, therein lies the problem, but also therein lies the potential growth. I believe, and this is what we've evolved doing, the solution for misinformation is better information, not to suppress the voice of the misinformation. Because if we were rightfully flagging and suppressing the voices that are pumping out misinformation, then the head of the CDC would be guilty of this. On several occasions, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the governing body that our citizens have been directing our attention towards because it's been flagged in all of our posts, if we're talking about this subject matter with COVID-19. It's directing people to the CDC, alright?

And the head of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and I'm sure again, brilliant human being, passionate about service and doing this work, she is on record video, and we're going to play it for you, saying with her own mouth that the COVID-19 vaccines stop the transmission of the virus. Listen to her say it from her own lips.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Our data from the CDC today suggest that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don't get sick, and that it's not just in the clinical trials, but it's also in real world data.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Now, this statement should have been censored. It should have been flagged. It should have been taken down. All of the things, if the governing bodies of social median and information dissemination were doing things equally because it was wrong. It was not just wrong; it was blatantly destructfully wrong. Now, also, we have to put this in parenthesis, this was not necessarily her intention, of course, to spread misinformation, but the voices who would have opposition towards her statement, those were the people who were de-platformed or censored. And that's just not okay. I believe she has the right to make that statement, and I believe that other people have the right to speak up against that statement and to oppose a statement, so we can have healthy conversations, that's how society moves forward. And also, we should be questioning when she says that statement that this stops the transmission of this virus.

We were all receiving this information about this... There's this 95% effectiveness with these new vaccines, and that sounds amazing, sounds absolutely amazing on the surface, but most folks never stop to ask 95% effective at doing what? What does that even mean? And from her perspective, what she was sharing that this stops the transmission of the virus, is that it's going to be 95% effective at stopping the transmission of the virus. And then that story devolved, but what we did was, as soon as the data came out from the vaccine trials, I immediately reached out to an epidemiologist and somebody who had a published peer-reviewed analysis, peer-review paper analysis of the vaccine trial data to articulate and share with the public, to share with all of us in our community, and of course having that spread at a wider magnitude, what does this actually mean? What does a clinical trial data actually mean? This 95% effectiveness for Pfizer, 94% effectiveness for Moderna respectively. What does that actually mean?

And what he revealed, and again, it wasn't his intention, he's just analyzing and sharing what the data says, and of course, we'll put that episode for you with Dr. Ron Brown, if you happen to have missed it. And this again, this was very early on, we were working to share this information because all we need was better information and clarity, so people don't just have this superficial belief about what a thing is. And so, what he shared was, the clinical trial data for Pfizer and Moderna with the 95% and 94% effectiveness respectively war, was 95% effective at reducing mild to moderate symptoms, and Moderna, 94% effective at reducing mild to moderate symptoms. This was not reducing transmission, this was not reducing hospitalizations, not reducing death, those were not primary end points that we're seeing in the vaccine trials and that's just what is. And that's okay but people don't know that they didn't know that then and most folks have no idea about it still to this day.

And what was being propagated was 95% effectiveness, and that's all you hear 'cause it sounds remarkable, but that was the relative risk reduction seen in the clinical trials. And that particular number is great for clinical comparisons. We'll just say from one analysis group to another or one trial to another, but that is not the number that is usable for an individual in the real world. That risk, that relative risk reduction does not apply to an individual. That number that applies to an individual is called the absolute risk reduction. That's the absolute risk reduction is the risk reduction of that person in the real world in relationship to this virus, and what that number came out to be was not 95% effective for Pfizer, it was not 50%, it was not 30% effective, it was not even 1% effective. The effectiveness, the absolute risk reduction for an individual in the real world with the Pfizer vaccine was a 0.7% absolute risk reduction.

In the real world as an individual, their risk reduction from that vaccine was less than 1%. That is the most ethical viable number to share with the public, but the thing is when they share this particular number, if they were to share the absolute risk reduction, people would not be running out and lining up and creating so much divisiveness for something that had less than a 1% effectiveness. There's no context, there's no well-rounded education, but the thing is the 95% effectiveness is not a lie, it's just the framing because the relative risk reduction was 95% in the clinical trials. But true informed consent provides all the data, but again, it creates this silo of informed consent, this silo of belief about freedom to choose that didn't really exist because people did not have the complete information. And this is what we're striving to do, is to make sure that well-rounded information coming from multiple perspectives, multiple voices, is something that rings true from here on as a society.

We need it so badly, because as soon as it becomes one guild of voices who know all, control all, tell all, tell you what to think and what to do, man, we're getting to a very, very dangerous place. That has absolutely decimated society after society, after society. This experiment, this freedom of experiment here in the United States, this experiment of democracy has gone pretty, pretty well for a long time, of course, it's not been perfect in the slightest, but it's gone pretty well. But now we're starting to venture into some territory where freedoms are being taken away from citizens under the guise of protecting themselves and others. Under the guise of, "We know what's best, we know what's true, and if you're not abiding by what we believe to be true, then you're out." You're eliminated from this platform, from this conversation, you're ostracized, you're attacked, and this is just simply not healthy. We need to have healthy conversations. We need to be open and understanding. We need to evaluate multiple perspectives, and today's episode is about pushing that conversation forward. How can we do that?

Because right now it's so volatile and divisive, and from somebody like myself, I don't have a dog in the fight. I don't like that analogy, by the way, 'cause I guess is with dog fighting, but I don't have a dog in the fight, I don't have a horse in the race of whether or not a vaccine is effective. I don't care. If it's effective, great. If it's not effective, great. I just care about the science. I just care about effectiveness at the end of the day. I'm a results guy. I care about results, is something working? And I care about logic, being able to look at things rationally and say, "You know what, it's not working," or "You know what, that's working." That's all... That's how I'm driven, that's how I'm wired up. And with that being said, as we move forward as a society, we have to step into real empowerment. Real freedom, not superficial freedom, not conditional freedom, but freedom that allows for conversation, that allows for inclusion, especially of people who have opposing viewpoints to be able to have healthy conversations.

And if you don't want to participate in those conversations, so be it, you don't have to, but having the freedom to choose that. And so, because of the turbulence that has taken place, innovations have been taking place as well, because that's the beauty of humanity. We respond. We solve problems. We're driven to figure things out, and so we've got some very special guests. We've got a trio on today with three of us, alright? We got a trio on to talk about some really incredible things that are happening right now, and just really, really excited about this. Now, both of these guys are joining us today from Austin, Texas, and this is the home base of one of my favorite places on planet Earth, and that's Onnit HQ. And Onnit is a leader in human optimization, whether it's from all of the physical treatments that they have there. Like they were one of the first companies to bring in the sauna technology and the cryotherapy and the Jujitsu training gym, and they've had all these world class athletes working out there, NFL players, top people in MMA and everything in between, and of course, everyday folks.

So, their facility is fantastic, so if you're ever down in Austin, pop in to Onnit HQ. But also, they're a leader in human optimization in the form of nutrition, and one of the few companies that actually does randomize controlled trials for many of their products to actually get the feedback, get the clinical data with respected universities to see like, does our products actually do what we say they do? And so that's what's really remarkable about them as well, and one of the things that I utilize from Onnit, literally every day, and I had today, is there MCT oil. A randomized double-blind study published in the International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, place participants on a reduced calorie diet that included either supplemental MCTs, medium change triglycerides or supplemental long chain triglycerides or LCTs. After the data was compiled, it was revealed that the group who included MCT oil lost more weight, eliminated more body fat, and experienced higher levels of satiety.

Additionally, again, another study, this was cited in the Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, reveal that MCTS are able to boost the oxidation of stored body fat while increasing satiety at the same time. The study also noted that MCTs enable study participants to retain more of their muscle mass during the weight loss process. Really remarkable stuff, and again, putting it head-to-head with other oils with the diets being the same, we see that MCTs do something really remarkable for our metabolism. Head over there, check them out, it's onnit.com/model, that's O-N-N-I-T.com/model, you get 10% off their MCT oil, and they also have an emulsified MCT oil as well, and all their other human optimization supplements. It's onnit.com/model, now let's get to the Apple podcast review of the week.

ITUNES REVIEW: Another five-star review titled, "Thank you, thank you, thank you," By Hardy B. Gill. "One year ago, I had an accident in my truck and subsequent scans revealed NAFLD, and I was 250 pounds with the rubbish junk diet. I immediately started researching fatty liver and nutrition, and thankfully stumbled across John's podcast. That day, my life changed forever. Shawn is clear and concise. He explains everything so we understand exactly what's going on in our bodies. I listen to him so much; he feels like family. I've bought both his books, 'Eat Smarter' and 'Sleep Smarter'. I've learned so much that I'm literally a new person from inside out and outside in. From fasting, sleep quality, nutritionally and brain function, I feel like I'm 20 years younger with a new renewed energy and appreciation for life. Oh, and my fatty liver completely cured. Now, 100% normal. Thank you, Shawn."

SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's go. That is absolutely amazing. And I'm just speechless. You are a superhero. Thank you for executing, for putting these things into place for yourself and for being empowered, and just even taking the time to share your voice and to share your story, it matters, it matters so much. And we are family, I appreciate you so much for making me a part of your world, and everybody, thank you so much for popping over to Apple Podcasts and leaving a review for The Model Health Show. It means everything. And on that note, let's get to our special guest and topic of the day. Our guest today are the tandem Justin Rezvani and JP Sears. Justin was featured in Forbes 30, under 30 as a founder of a remarkable influencer marketing platform with a reach of more than 500 million people back in 2013. And he's just done some incredible things since then that you're going to learn about today, including a brand-new book called Unapologetic Freedom. And JP Sears is one of the leading content creators on planet Earth right now and creating incredible conversations and content through the lens and the platform of comedy.

He's often referred to as an enlightened or conscious comedian, but his roots, a lot of people don't realize this, are working as a life coach and a health coach, and if you see JP himself, you see, oh, that guy. He's healthy, he's fit. He really does take care of himself. So, he walks his talk and he's really been such a powerful voice, especially the last couple of years, and bringing to light important conversations and insights, and helping to bring people together and to empower people, and I'm really excited about this conversation, to have both of them are together. So, let's jump into this conversation with Justin Rezvani and JP Sears. My guys, JP Sears, Justin Rezvani. Welcome to The Model Health Show.

JP SEARS: Thank you for having us brother.

JUSTIN REZVANI: Yeah, great to be with you Shawn.

SHAWN STEVENSON: We've got a tripod set up right now between the three of us, and people could take that however they want. And man, it's just such a great honor to be able to talk with you guys right now because you guys are brewing some very special things, which we're going to talk about today, and some absolutely world-changing things. But I want to kick things off because a big part of human health is community, is connection, is even being able to express ourselves and to have a feeling of significance and value. JP if you could, talk about what those things mean to you and what you're seeing in the world right now.

JP SEARS: Yeah, at a high level, I think connection is what allows the life force in us all to flow. You look at disease, whether it's societal disease or disease of the body, and disconnection seems to be what causes disease, you get a cancer and that's like cells of the body behaving in a very disconnected way, but when you can transcend that and connect what was previously disconnected, not only do I think we return to health, but we realized in that state that life is a freaking miraculous gift. And I also believe the design team gave us all a beautiful mind, a beautiful heart, and a voice to express our beautiful unique minds and our unique heart and our voice is part of what allows us to connect with other people. Now, to say the least, right now, we're living in a way where disconnection is being perpetuated, I would even dare say disconnection is being celebrated as a virtuous thing. Now, the people that celebrated and promote that narrative of disconnection is good, they believe something different than you, you got to get them out of your life like your parents are making different choices than you.

Well, you got to yell at them or disconnect them, disown them. People perpetuating that aren't people I want to take advice from. Yet that disconnect mentality in all the ways it's stated, it's masqueraded as a healthy desirable virtue and to me, that's like putting cyanide in the health food section, it's not a healthy supplement. It's actually a detriment. Many would say, by many I mean this is something I say, I don't know if other people say it, but I think we're either in the process of the Great Reset or the Great Awakening, and I do think we're in the process of choosing to make it the Great Awakening. The Great Reset, it's all about disconnection, disconnecting you from your truth in order for you to perpetuate some narrative that's outsourced, it's not coming from you. The Great Awakening is we connect to our truth, we connect to our critical thinking, we connect to our heart, and we connect with our courage in order to be honest with ourselves, and that allows us to therefore connect with the outside world, because we're connected on the inside, and I think that's all the Great Awakening. And I know that's what Justin and I are doing together at a high level, but man, we live in a world...

And you got me excited, Shawn I'm going to shut up in a second. But we live in a world where the nutrient that our human body is starved for is the nutrient of connection. Last thing I'll say on that, the illusion of connection is agreement. The reality of connection is acceptance, and what I mean by that is, I think the junk food version of connection is believing that if we agree on something, then we can be connected, and that's real connection. Nope, that's still a divisive mentality because it implies if we don't agree, you're disconnected right away. Oh, you voted for so and so, out of my life. No, real connection, in my opinion, is not agreement-based, that's trying to connect with our minds, that's not built for real connection, I think our hearts are what's built for connection. And our hearts have the ability to unconditionally accept. So, Shawn and Justin, we can all sit around and talk about health philosophies, politics, we're not going to agree on everything, but we can accept each other in spite of the reality that we hold different perspectives about different things. We're living in a beautiful time where we're soaking up more connection, 'cause we've never needed it more, and I think we do that by having the mentality of accepting other people in spite of our differences, celebrating our differences, to me, that's real diversity, not the illusion of diversity.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, I love that so much. This understanding of acceptance versus agreement is a powerful hallmark, and the crazy thing is that our connection has ventured from offline connections to online to a great extent. And we're not in to get into a debate of good or bad here, but it's just what is, and it's a beautiful opportunity, of course, but these platforms can become silos of agreement. And it's one of the complex things that we're trying to navigate right now, and I feel as you mentioned, this is an opportunity to awaken, it's turbulent, but that turbulence allows us to fly to new levels. But right now, we're in the mess, we're in the suck right now. And I want to ask you about this because Justin and by the way, this story is amazing, we'll get to your story in just a moment, but right now through social media, we've recently seen big social media platforms implementing practices that marginalized people that steal and sell our information, our private information, and censoring of its users voices and working as even a purveyor of government agenda. It's just crazy things that you wouldn't think would happen here in the land of the free the home of the brave. So can you talk a little bit about the changes that have been happening with popular social media networks in the last few years.

JUSTIN REZVANI: My turn?

SHAWN STEVENSON: Absolutely, yeah, let's go.

JUSTIN REZVANI: Fundamentally, what we're seeing is as the business models expand and as the fundamental understanding of how do these platforms make money, we are actually shown the true potential of their power. Because if you think about every one of these services, they own so much of the inherent internet that we understand. And I think the internet is made up of a few core things, one is your identity, then the next is a verifiable credential of who you are within that identity, and then the money that moves around that system. All of those elements are highly centralized and controlled by individual companies.

So, we've had this illusion to think that we have any sort of ownership on traditional social networks, and we've had this illusion to think that we have rights when we in fact have zero rights. And I think that's the thing that we're just trying to make people aware of is everyone's like, "Oh my God, they're censoring me, or they're turning off my account," it's like, first of all, it was never your account in the first place, it was never your followers in the first place, it was never your identity in the first place, it was never your content in the first place. Everything that you do, say and engage with is owned by these centralized companies, everything you do. Even down to the base layer of who you are is owned by these individual companies. So, I think that once we've realized that and kind of come to that and now, it's like, "Okay, where do we go to move forward," because there is a fundamental illusion that we've set along ourselves like, man, they turned us off and they weren't supposed to do that.

It's like, well, who said they were never supposed to do that? It was like, let me start a Facebook account. Let me get a bunch of followers on Facebook, and then the moment that we need to start making money, it's like, oh actually, if you want to reach those people, you got to pay us a lot 'cause we own the relationship not you.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Man, this is an idea that I got to tell you, even getting on to these platforms myself, I didn't really think about them. We're really just acting like it's our account, we're actually on their territory, and they could... But this is also one of the big arguments, is that they can do whatever they want because it's their platform, and we have this concept that it's all being done equally though, because at least we would have this concept of equality and freedom, but in fact, and I'm going to share this with everybody, this report was published in the Wall Street Journal, and the headline reads, Facebook says its rules apply to all company documents reveal a secret elite, that's exempt, and a quote from the report says, "We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly," and this was from a confidential reviewer. It called the company's actions, "a breach of trust", and added "Unlike the rest of our community, these people can violate our standards without any consequences."

So, we see this discrimination taking place, marginalization, we also coming into it thinking that these things are equal, we follow the community guidelines, and JP had a great piece saying that the biggest community guideline that he broke was breaking community guidelines. It's very difficult to find out what the f*ck that actually means. And it's happened to me as well, of course, sharing something that is all based on what I would seem to be all these different peer reviewed papers, and that not being good enough and having that censored or taken down. And then you have the ability to appeal and I'm like, "Okay, I examined all of these community guidelines, I didn't break any of these things," and it still gets denied because I broke community guidelines, it's a very complicated terrain, and of course, you guys have seen this happen a lot all these last couple of years.

JP SEARS: Yeah, I think it's entirely our fault, and I'll share what I mean by that in a second, but first just to amplify something that Justin said, looking at reality, not what we want, not the way a lot of people think it should be, but what the reality is. When you're on any of the mainstream social media companies, you not only don't own your identity online, you don't own your profile, you don't own who you think you are on Instagram, Facebook, you don't own that, nor do you own your audience. So, I look at the audience I've built up online outside of Zion, it's a little over six million people. That's a mansion I built in someone else's backyard; they can kick me out any time. I've had threats, I've been censored, but I don't own that audience, nor do I own my identity online, so that's not what a lot of people want, but that's the reality, and it's 100% our fault, and I think it's great that it's our fault because we as a collective, we've put all our eggs into that basket. It was the first paradigm of social media. The first of anything, is it going to be perfect from the get-go, no.

Could you imagine the first car that was ever built and be like, this is the first paradigm of car is like, there's no problems, we're never going to improve this. We've made so much improvement now, so now we're entering the new paradigm of social media because we've had a chance to learn what the problems are with the current model, you don't own your identity, you don't own your audience, community guidelines that you don't really know what they are, free speech is infringed on, it's all centralized. So that's taught us a lot of what doesn't work. We've had a couple of decades to learn that, so now we're entering the new paradigm where we've realized it's our fault, 'cause that's what we've subscribed to, where we've put our energy or money or time and attention. And the good news is, if we admit some things our fault, just like if someone's 50 pounds overweight, they realize, "Hey, this is my fault, I don't exercise, I eat garbage, I don't sleep well. It's my fault." And that empowers the individual to choose a better way, but you first got to take responsibility, so we've taken responsibility, it's our fault, and now we're choosing to do things a better way.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, that's powerful. So many people, once all of this really started to transpire, a lot of folks were jumping off of "bigger platforms" like Instagram and Facebook and going over to places like Parlor and Rumble, and those are great. And I use them, I think they're fantastic, but there's still a fundamental issue that we are missing when we're utilizing these platforms, thinking that our information or our voices are our own and that they're safe. Justin, can you talk about... Parlor got straight up taken off the internet. So, can you talk about that?

JUSTIN REZVANI: Yeah, look, they're all building the same thing, I think that's... The thing is, if you look at the fundamental tech stack that these companies are being built on, it's exactly the same stack. It's a centralized server, established through a centralized identity, they're using third party advertising to subsidize the cost of the services onto the network. They take the data that you use of your account and all the videos you watch and subsidize through a third party, it's just a different pledge, it's just like... It's literally, I would think technically the same exact website with a different logo at the top and a different owner. One is owned by some Canadian, the other one is owned by... Its publicly traded, the other one is owned by Donald Trump. At the end of the day, it's the same stack, so you're either choosing, do you want to give Mark Zuckerberg your data or Donald Trump your data, which one do you choose, which is the one that you're feeling out of that day. So, fundamentally, if you're going to build a new network, a new type of network, a new type of social network, you have to start at the base layer of what is the monetary instrument that allows this company to be created.

So, I have this general thesis that I put out into 2020, and really the lens of this was the pandemic starts, and I'm like, "You know what, I think social is going to break over the next few months, and I think there's a future thesis that I have of what does the future of social media look like?" It's six points. One, it must be built on a digital monetary layer. The second thing, it has to allow for permission-less innovation, which means that it's open source. The next thing is that it has to be focused on peer governance versus platform governance, meaning that the individuals that use this service govern what happens inside of it versus a overarching platform. It must be censorship resistant, the creators own everything, and you as a user have digital property rights set through encryption, private, public key encryption. This is like my general thesis of what should the future of social look like. There aren't a lot of companies that are live today that meet these standards, one of them might use one or two, but generally they don't meet all of these standards. And I always set out to say something shouldn't exist in the world that has all of these particular standards, because it's what we deserve as a society, is that we have the technology for the first time to have full control of a monetary asset digitally, which is Bitcoin, and that's the thing behind me here.

For the first time, we can own our money. For the first time, we can own all of our data. For the first time we can own our digital identity and be free to communicate with another individual without a third party arbiter in the middle being the broker, and by the way, that all can be on an open standard on the internet. There are so many layers to why this is one of the most important things, it's like, the money needs to be fixed. I think one thing that came up today, I was with a friend, and I don't know if you're seeing these sanctions happening in Russia, but who knew that two companies can literally turn off a country's entire monetary flow overnight. Do we realize how powerful Visa and MasterCard are, that they can turn off a country and no one can transact within that country and be more like doing nothing that that's a problem in the world, that someone can just turn you off and then you realize, okay, that's one layer, your money can be turned off, then what about your identity?

Oh yeah, there's 1.5 billion Gmail accounts that you use to log in downstream to 10 billion centralized services, but the base layer is Gmail, what happens if that Gmail account turns you off, everything goes away. So, it's like we have given up convenience for control for these companies, they have full control for our convenience, but it's the first time that we have to go back and grab it, we have the opportunity to take it back. I'm fired up about this stuff, 'cause it's really meaningful to me, it's my life's work at this point.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, yeah.

JP SEARS: Justin... May I interject real quick, Shawn? I'm going to censor you; this is your podcast. But Justin, as you were sharing those six points to your thesis, what I heard you describing as a digital democracy, like what a democracy is meant to be, where you have property rights, you own your things, you're not governed over and it's the people determining the rules, not the rulers determining how the people are going to be ruled. So, what I heard you say is, the old way still exists, if you want to succumb to it, the old way is a digital dictatorship. And the new way that we need, that we were hungry for it, is The Digital Democracy and where do you want to live is the question.

JUSTIN REZVANI: And it's not just that, this is kind of a transition a little bit into... We're going to talk a little bit about the book that we wrote, JP, and one of the chapters in the book is "The Centralized Century versus The Decentralized Century." So arguably, the 20th century was the century of centralization and the problems that we're dealing with today is because all of the downstream systems that we're using were developed in the centralized era. So, the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, was established in the 1950s to regulate very specific large conglomerate companies. They're like, "Okay, we have to the regulate Pfizer and Merck and these individuals." But they never had the concept that there would be individual doctors doing individual studies on what's important for our health, and it freaks them out that there's people in these fringes doing their own studies to learn about the body 'cause it's not a centralized body, 'cause that's how they've been built.

We're finding a centralized system because that's what everything was established towards. This will go downstream of every effect, even the internet, for the most part, started out to be the centralized authority. But now we have the innovation with cryptography and transistors that allow us to go into the decentralized century, the 21st century that we're living through now, and that combating of those two environments is why we're seeing so much turmoil and chaos. Because, as you've said so many times JP, we are decentralized humans at our nature and being centralized is not what we're built to do, it's not fundamental to us. And that's the conflict, is these two worlds in these two system is colliding.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Fact. So, the FDA, of course, I have quite a bit of insight into their inner workings and have been working to just share these things with people. And we wonder why things can get to this place, why is it that there's this one governing body that's telling us what's okay for us to do? That in and of itself is a problem. And Justin, I heard you say before that, in regard to the FDA, the truth doesn't always win in a centralized system, the narrative always wins. It's powerful stuff, man. And just one little nugget here to add, the FDA right now, we see again, with the centralized system, that corruption is so much easier and it's so much to overlook it because it's happening within that same chamber. Right now, with the FDA, it's been set up in a way under the guise for our good, that pharmaceutical companies can pay them billions of dollars every single year to give... Paying in the form of these "user fees" to get their drugs reviewed, right?

JP SEARS: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Under the guise that we're going to get drugs to people faster. But what that does is, it opens a big gaping hole for corruption, for bribery and all these things to sneak their way in.

JUSTIN REZVANI: Yeah but remember how these things started. When the FDA started, it was designed to regulate very specific organizations, and there was one news network and there was one newspaper, and you had one television and you had one... Everything was centralized at that time. And now you move into this century where we have our cell phones, we have app stores, we have the ability, we have independent journalism through sub-stack, and now there's all this fringe messaging that's occurring and the system can't handle it. It's like, "Woah, this is not how we were built. You're only supposed to listen to the one thing at the one time for the one... " That's... The failures, I think, of this last two administrations and the failures of COVID is just a result of the centralized authority of what was happening. There was no doubt that COVID was dangerous, there's no doubt that it killed people. But the problem was the centralized system could not handle breaking people up in different perspective, they have to just have this, "This is the way we do it for everybody," and that's not how the world works anymore. They have to keep up-to date that we are living in a decentralized world and every base layer has to move to this decentralized air and the conflict will eventually evaporate, but we're still in the middle of all that conflict.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Conflict is where JP swims. He's swimming in conflict, so he knows a thing or 20 about this. So, JP, what was it... And actually, you know what, I think this is a good point. Before getting your insight on this, Justin, your ideas... You're not just pulling these out of your *ss, you actually went through something really remarkable to get you to this place of understanding. Can you share a little bit of your story, just a snapshot of going from selling your game-changing tech company to unexpected brain surgery, which I don't know if any brain surgery is expected necessarily, but can you share a little snapshot into that and what got you connected with JP?

JUSTIN REZVANI: Yeah, I mean, so I've been just a fundamental believer, and creators are the most powerful mechanisms of change for the past 10 years. I started my first company 2012. It was an app that connected influencers to brands. And basically, it was an idea that, "Hey, influential people on the internet should be compensated for the things they are doing on social media through brands in a simple way. Here's an app to do that." Sold that company 2016, stayed on the board until 2018, did all the lists and all the stuff for my parents, got Forbes 30 under 30, all those things really for my parents to be proud of me and stuff. And then 2019, in the end of 2019, I was sitting in a dentist chair and this light turned on, you know, those lights in a dentist chair turned on, and I passed out.

I kind of like went into the light. I woke up a few minutes later, I was pale white, start throwing up and the doctor was like, "Oh, you just passed out. You're fine." Eventually I get to the ICU. They found that I had a cavernoma and my right temporal lobe, which was a series of blood vessels that had exploded and created a hemorrhagic stroke in my right temporal lobe. And so, basically, they said, "Hey, we got to keep you here for about three days." They did an angiogram to check if it was an AVN or not, well thank God it wasn't an AVN. And then six weeks later, I had a craniotomy to take this benign tumor out of my brain. That was January 6th, basically two months before COVID started. And then, so I had a nice pre-game to 2020, which was a brain surgery.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow.

JUSTIN REZVANI: And it's very... It's a challenging experience. I had just done an Iron Man, full distance Iron Man two months before, and I was like, Man, I'm top of my game. I sold my business, all was good. And then boom, your brain starts bleeding and, what are you doing in the world? And it kind of woke me up to the fact... I was taking some time off, and maybe I should get back to work. And then, so basically three months after brain surgery, I get introduced to... I read The Lighting White Paper, I'm like, "Wow." The Lightning Network and Bitcoin is actually one of the most incredible solutions for creators to monetize directly from their fans with no central authority. And then I started Zion a few weeks later and begin coding the application at the end of November of 2020. Six months after brain surgery, started building a new business. So, I think that's like a short version of my story. And then I moved to Austin, and then how I met JP? A bunch of people said, "Justin, you got to meet JP." And so, I met JP.

SHAWN STEVENSON: People say that a lot. People say it a lot. "You got to meet JP."

JUSTIN REZVANI: He's an amazing human.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So, you had a COVID appetizer of brain surgery, a hole drilled into your head.

JUSTIN REZVANI: Yeah, still have a titanium plate holding my skull together on this side.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Jesus, man. Justin, you're a superhero man. So, JP, if you could elaborate, when you met Justin, what was it about this idea that resonated with you? And for both of you guys, I really see and I, truly, I really do deeply, deeply admire and I just really love you guys and appreciate what you're doing because your action-takers. When these things are happening in the world, a lot of people are like, "You know, it would be great if somebody did... " Fill in the blank. You guys are like, "I'm doing that sh*t." So, JP, what was it about Justin and this new platform that attracted you?

JP SEARS: Yeah. First, all the people telling me I've got to meet Justin. And I'm in a fortunate position where there's far more people that reach out to me than what I have time to even handle, but the heavy hitters in Austin, like Aubrey Marcus, and just these amazing people kept saying, "JP, we love how you're standing up for freedom, how you're helping to awaken humanity to our God-given nature of freedom, love what you're doing. And because you're doing that, you got to meet Justin." So, after enough people let me know that I'm like, "Well, I guess I got to meet Justin then, don't I?" So, Justin and I, our first conversation was February of 2021, and it was great. I learned a big picture of what he was doing, but quite honestly still didn't have the technical knowledge to fully grasp it. But I knew like, oh, this guy, he's working on solving the problem that pisses me off the most, censorship and centralized social media companies having power over human expression and human connection. I didn't know exactly how he was doing it 'cause I didn't understand, but I was very intrigued.

And then it was a few months later where Justin called me up and said, "I really want to sit down, have another talk where... What I'm doing is growing since we last talked, and I want you to be involved." And in my head, I'm thinking, "Involved? Like, I don't need anything else to do, my plate's too full as it is." But... 'Cause I knew Justin, knew what he was doing, and I like, I wanted to learn more. So, I was like, "I'm not gonna be involved, but let's talk for sure." And we talked and that question of to be involved or not, man it... My heart was just saying to like... What Justin's building with Zion is so aligned with the mission of freedom, it's my duty to be involved because it's one thing and I'm so proud of it but helping to support the freedom movement through the messages I get out through my comedy, so proud of that. But there's also this other angle of literally building the digital infrastructure of freedom and sovereignty that I certainly don't know how to do, but what I can do is know it's needed, and I've got a lot of eyeballs on me, so it absolutely felt like my duty. It's just kind of like, if there's a life-saving supplement nutrient... Well, I don't know how to formulate it, but I would feel like it's my duty to let people know, "This is essential for life. If you want it, here it is."

So yeah, my heart was very inspired to say, "Yes, I do want to be involved in bringing Zion to the world because it solves a lot of the problems of the digital dictatorship, which is our fault for being in." But where I was at for so long, Shawn, I knew the problem existed, I didn't know what to do about it and I certainly didn't see any viable solution. So, when I learned what Justin is doing with Zion, I said, "Well, that's the solution. That's the digital democracy that the world's been needing, but just hasn't had." So, here's the solution, in my mind, like there's the Holy Grail in broad daylight. So, I don't want to minimize my role with Zion, but I also want to be real. The genius behind it, the digital infrastructure that it's first of its kind, it's not at all coming from my mind. I'm just the guy helping bring awareness to the world about what Zion is, because it's pretty damn important to me.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes, this time in history is forcing innovation of this type. And when I first had the conversation with you guys about it, I could not stop talking about. I've been telling everybody... It's been behind the scenes, like to people who are "influencers," a lot of MDs, a lot of folks who are doing work trying to share on different platforms. So, before we even went any further, I've been telling people about this because it's so remarkable. So, Justin, if you could, can you share exactly what Zion is and how it works and why it's so different from anything that's ever existed?

JUSTIN REZVANI: Zion, first of all, is a utility. I want to express that as that some people, and sometimes I even slip saying it's a platform. I think platform implies centralization. So, the first thing is that it's a utility, it's an open-source utility. And what we allow for is that we allow creators and fans to develop three core things on an open standard. The first thing that they can establish is using The Lightning Network to monetize their audiences through decentralized payments of Bitcoin. The second piece is to establish their identity using a DID, a decentralized identity, this is an open-source standard used by some of the largest companies in the world, and it's an open standard that everyone can use. And then the final piece is data storage through an identity hub. So, the concept is that for the first time, you can go and establish a decentralized identity and then attach a wallet, a Lightning Wallet, to that identity. And inside of the app, you can also create communities. So, for example, JP has a community inside of the Zion application, the Zion client. And inside of this community, the cool thing is that first of all, you own your identity, you own the wallet, and you own all the content that you post within that community through this complex engineering that we have.

And mind you, you don't have to believe what I'm saying, we are 100% open-source. You can go to our website, and you can see every piece of code we've ever rewritten is publicly available for someone to verify what I'm saying is true. But effectively, we're trying to be a Web3 Social Network built on Bitcoin. We're built on the Bitcoin standard, we use everything that the Bitcoin blockchain can achieve in terms of consensus and security, all built into a app that you can see. So, it might look like a regular social app to you, but the underlying infrastructure is very different than a traditional centralized network.

JP SEARS: Amen. And if I could add to that, Shawn, there's three pieces of that that are vital to me. Zion is censorship resistant, it's decentralized, and it facilitates human connection. And the censorship resistance, just speaking to that briefly. We talked about Rumble, Parler, GETTRs, which, Shawn, just like you mentioned, I'm fans of those, I'm on those platforms, I want them to succeed. However, they don't solve the problem. They take a step away from the problem, they pledge, "We're not going to censor." But it's a centralized company, and they still could censor if they wanted, they could govern over you. So basically, as a user of those platforms, you just have to hope that they don't have a changing of the guard or shareholders that start to demand censorship or modulating data as a way of protecting their bottom line. But with Zion, it's not possible to censor.

Justin mentioned earlier, we're decentralized human beings. Shawn, if you and I are out in the woods talking, of course nobody's going to be censoring our conversation, 'cause we're in a natural state, we're functioning how humans should function. Were decentralized out in the woods together. That's how Zion is. It's not possible to censor because it's not built in a dictatorial kind of way. And then the decentralization component, we've seen all the problems with centralization. Justin, you mentioned Visa and Mastercard shutting down funds in Russia, we saw a GoFundMe with the Canadian truckers, we know what happens with our centralized authorities all over the place. So, it's decentralized, it's power to the people. Owning your identity, owning your audience that you build where, cool, you're building your house on your property, your mansion, in your own yard. And then the facilitation of human connection.

I mean, that's really what it all boils down to, to me. Human connection with no one trying to govern how you connect with other people, it's the free exchange, it's the natural state of how I believe humans are meant to function. In a way of dignity, where we have our freedom and our sovereignty without a Mark Zuckerberg or whoever it is, community guidelines looking over your shoulders saying, "You can say that you can't say that." That's the narrative? Cool, go ahead. That's against the narrative? Can't say that. Where it respects the human being, where if you hear something, you don't like on Zion, you stop paying attention to it. You unsubscribe from that creator, problem solved. I have the self-responsibility to do that. So, the censorship resistance, the decentralization and the facilitation of connection are the highlights in my mind, just to give you have a brief JP summary of what I heard Justin saying.

JUSTIN REZVANI: And I think one thing to echo also, is like our business is fundamentally different, like the day we launched, we said, "Hey, Zion is not free." Because we didn't want to subsidize all of this, 'cause it's not easy to build a tech company, it's quite expensive. We said, "Hey, our business model will be, you're subscribing to be part of this particular private network." And the way that we pay for my team salaries, I don't collect any money from the company, is to subsidize their engineering costs to build this infrastructure and you're paying to be on it. That's why we never take your data, we'll never manipulate your data. You are subsidizing for us to build this infrastructure, and we appreciate it so much that you are our customer, 'cause our relationship is with you.

Every other service is the customer is a third party usually, right? Because if you're subsidizing through advertising, the customer is not the person using the service, it's the brand, and that's the world that I came from for a long time. So, the business model is also fundamentally different, and we're not making up our own currency either, we're using Bitcoin. So, there's some people on the Web3 space that are making up their own token and basically inventing a illegal security, we are not doing that, we are using the open standard that is Bitcoin. We're not building in a token, we have no tokens in this thing, so I think these are other important elements of the fundamentals of the business built on Bitcoin.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, as you mentioned, it's an incredible undertaking. And all the people, the little elves that are behind the scenes making this happen, being able to funnel resources to them... I don't know if you guys have ever seen the show StartUp before, but it's a really great show and it's a start-up. It's a start-up, and it's also something related to digital currency as well. But then there's, where the drama comes is like shady investors and that kind of stuff. We don't have any of that here. We've got investors like Aubrey Marcus, Tony Robins, JP. Really incredible human beings who see the beauty in this, in having real freedom financially and also just with your ability to express yourself and to share your voice and to express value.

JUSTIN REZVANI: I think we have so much gratitude of what we've been able to build in a few short months is like, we've been able to build a business, it's very early, but we've been able to go look at the world and say, "Who do we want to be involved in this project?" Self-select the best people on the planet, get them into the mix of it, then go out to the world to be like, "Hey, we built this thing and we built it with all these amazing people. Would you like to help us?" And what's happened and the energy around that experience is just, to me, mind blowing. Every day is like an amazing surprise. Because we have supportive... I think, 'cause our heart is really in the right place. We truly... When I wake up every day, there's a lot of product people, and I would say I'm a product person at heart. They try to build products that allow an individual to work with a piece of code, so they're building an instrument, so an individual interacts with their product and what's more effective. My mission every day is to build technology that allows individuals to interact with each other in a better way, my reframe around how I build technology is around how people are connected digitally in a more cohesive ecosystem, and that's my theme and my lens of how I build things. That's the way that I've always focused on things.

So I think also fundamentally, how we approach product is extremely important, because if we would build a product in the way that all of our competitors do, and I don't really like to think they're competitors in the space, is that people are building those products and how can you interact with my platform better instead of how can I interact with my fans better, or how can I interact with another person better, how can I interact with JP in a more effective way and build a closer connection, because I really have an affinity towards him as a creator.

SHAWN STEVENSON: We've got a quick break coming up, we'll be right back. The importance of Vitamin C cannot be overstated. The big issue today is its simplicity, something so simple cannot be so effective, can it? Well, vitamin C is obviously a major part of our immune system function and how it does its work, and this is the key, is that it helps to reduce infection-oriented inflammation. A recent study cited in the journal Pharma Nutrition investigated the impact of vitamin C in relation to the cytokine activity associated with COVID-19 and found that vitamin C is effective by inhibiting the production of the cytokine storm. Several clinical studies are now affirming that timely administration of vitamin C can dramatically influence the outcome of COVID-19 infections, and this simply has not been talked about, but we're going to change that.

Now, it's important to also know that all vitamin C is not created equal. We've got synthetic forms of vitamin C, and we've got botanical real food-based vitamin C. A study published in the Journal of Cardiology had 20 male smokers consume the number one source, the highest botanical source of vitamin C found in camu camu berry over the course of a one-week study. And it led to significantly lowered oxidative stress and inflammatory biomarkers and they were measuring this by utilizing C-reactive protein. Now, here's the rub, the camu camu berry was not just put up against a placebo, it wasn't put up against nothing, it was put up against synthetic versions of vitamin C, just an ordinary vitamin C tablet that you might find as you're checking out the cash register or at a gas station, something of the like, and here's what they found. The researchers saw no change in these biomarkers reducing inflammation and oxidative stress in the placebo group. That placebo group again, was a synthetic version of vitamin C.

For the researchers, this indicated that the combination of other antioxidants from the camu camu berries had a more powerful antioxidant effect than standard Vitamin C products alone. This is why I utilize camu camu berry combined with amla berry combined with acerola cherry, the three highest botanical sources of vitamin C ever discovered in my favorite vitamin C supplement of all time, the Essential C Complex from Paleovalley. Go to paleovalley.com/model. You're going to get 15% off the incredible Essential C formula. Go to P-A-L-E-O-V-A-L-L-E-Y.com/model for a special 15% off right now. Vitamin C is of the utmost important, but our sourcing matters more than ever. Get the very best. Not the third best, not the fifth best, not the 100th best, get the very best vitamin C possible. That's going to be in the Essential C Complex from Paleovalley. Go to paleovalley.com/model. Now, back to the show.

I wanted to have this conversation today. This is the Model Health Show, and we're really analyzing and providing resources for all areas of health, it's not this vanilla thing. I'm a nutritionist, so for me, food was everything, but it's also sleep, its movement, it's community, it's our relationships, and also our financial well-being has a huge impact on our health and our levels of stress, you know? And so, these things matter, and there's a transition that's taking place right now. And JP, I want to ask you about this, because you actually did one of your incredible videos, kind of poking fun at Bitcoin, for example, and you just mentioned the ability for people who are protesting in their country, a country that is supposedly based on freedom in Canada, where these truckers who are just wanting to express their voices and they raised money, somebody helped them to raise money, and the government's just like, Nope, you're terrorists. You don't get this money.

And you talked about turning off currency in other countries in Russia, and oftentimes the victims of these things are the citizens who don't agree with nor are they participating in what the government agency is. And so, the same thing happens here in the United States. If we have conflict with other countries, it's not the countries, it's not the people themselves, it's these centralized action figures of what government is supposed to be, who is driving this conflict, it's not the people. We don't want people to be hurt, we don't want to turn off somebody's ability to pay their rent and to get groceries, because there's a conflict between who we deem to be our so-called leaders. So, can you talk about your ideas, how they've changed with this new technology, with currency?

JP SEARS: Yeah. They've changed so much. I want to... I love to call out how I've been an idiot born out of my own ignorance, because I think it models growing, evolving, learning. If we can't look at our past self and find places where we say like, Dude, I completely disagree with what I used to believe, if we can't do that in the name is staying consistent, guess what? You're not learning, you're not growing. You're not someone that I want to learn from certainly. But I think it was back in 2017, I put out a video, like, legitimately making fun of Bitcoin people like, These people are... It's a giant pyramid scheme, they're looking at this currency that has no value other than the fact that other people think it's valuable. And mind you, that's... My understanding of it wasn't based off of an in-depth look, it was based off of what just catching on a few headlines or what are people talking about. But what really woke me up, two things, even right before I started talking to Justin... And thank God I had my eyes open or else I probably would have been too ignorant 'cause Zion runs on Bitcoin, it's fascinating.

But someone... I mean, you just had him on your show, Shawn, Tony Robbins. He sent me a video, he said "JP, watch this video." It was a private video that he recorded for his platinum partners, he just... Generous friend. He sent it to me. It was him interviewing Michael Saylor. Now, if someone's into Bitcoin, you probably know who Michael Saylor is. If you're not into Bitcoin, Michael Saylor, he's considered one of the authority figures on Bitcoin, and this is someone who's made a ton of money, ton of success before getting into Bitcoin. So, he's not someone who just like, Cool, I got rich 'cause I made a lucky investment in Bitcoin, he's a very knowledgeable person. But he explained Bitcoin in such a way that it clicked for me. So, PS, anybody out there? Do you want to learn more about Bitcoin? Look up Michael Saylor. So, just summarizing what I learned, there is Bitcoin the asset and then Bitcoin, the network. Bitcoin, the asset is basically like, Cool, that's your crypto, that's Bitcoin. That's kind of like decentralized money. Solves a lot of problems as being decentralized, but then there's Bitcoin, the network, how that money is sent from one person to another, not one person to a central bank to another.

So, this whole network that can also then be utilized for things that aren't just Bitcoin financial transactions. So, it really woke me of like, "Wow, there's Bitcoin technology and Bitcoin the asset." So, I also learned from Michael Saylor, when you look at our US currency and a lot of the Fiat currencies around the world, they're losing value right now. I mean, we're... You lose your breath, you hit your lactate threshold right now, if you're looking at the rate of inflation in the US. If you're storing your value in US currency, the analogy is, you're holding ice and it's literally melting in your hand. If you're saving money in your bank account, you are losing money, simply because of inflation, the value is melting away. The dollar sign might not change, but the value of that dollar amount is changing. But Bitcoin, it's proven to be the safest, most secure monetary instrument on Earth. And it wasn't built by centralized authorities, it was built by a wise person with power to the people in mind, that's why it's decentralized, and that's why there's a fixed ceiling.

Whereas I believe in the past year, 40% of all US dollars ever in existence were printed in the past 12 months. And what that does is devalues the hell out of all the money that you and I have worked our butts off to accumulate, but Bitcoin doesn't do that, it's a fixed amount, therefore, the value doesn't melt away like ice. So, at this point, Shawn, I've completely forgotten your question, but I will say, my eyes used to be wide shut about Bitcoin. Now, they're eyes wide open, not only in terms of how I protect and preserve my family's future financially, I've gotten really heavy into Bitcoin. And then with my life energy of supporting a solution that solves so many of the world's problems, Zion, that's built on Bitcoin. So, my opinion on Bitcoin has changed tremendously in accordance with me learning about what Bitcoin actually is and what it's capable of, and how bright humans like Justin can use Bitcoin technology to then build technology on top of to serve humanity very well.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So mind-blowing. We got to talk about this a little bit, because I just want to hear you guys' perspective on this. So right now, the United States federal government is in $30 trillion of debt, I believe is the latest numbers. Who the f*ck are we in debt to?

JP SEARS: It's crazy. I don't know.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Can somebody explain that? Like, how is it... Our government is in $30 trillion of debt to who? Like, to itself? Like, that's a good business partnership. It's just so crazy. And the ability to just print off money to try to solve problems, like, there's something's got to give, you know? And we've got to do something different.

JP SEARS: It's our fault. You can look at the countries around the world in our lifetime whose currencies have become next to worthless. You know, the most recent example that I can think of is Greece, I don't know, half a dozen or so years ago, and that's a centralized system. So, Shawn, to me the analogy is, zero to 10, if 10 is very good and zero is absolutely worthless, how valuable would you say the USDA Food Pyramid is?

SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh, man. A scale of what to what?

JP SEARS: Zero to 10.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Zero to 10, I'd give it a two, 'cause you got to eat something.

JP SEARS: Yeah. I'd give it by the two as well. So, if you just thought about completely handing control over your health to the USDA, you'd realize you're getting about it too, you're missing 80% of this, the potential. So, we're doing that with our financial health, we're handing control over our financial health to the Federal Reserve, the US government. And now, I'm not someone who's, argh, that's a... They do amazing things. And they're flawed, they're not perfect. So, if you want a two out of 10 financial health, we know what we're going to get when we put all our eggs into that basket, basically eating the monetary equivalent of the food pyramid. But someone might wake up from that and say, well, instead of feeding myself based off the food pyramid, I might read Shawn's books. He seems to be a lot healthier than the people running the food pyramid, I want to pay attention to him. And the equivalent of paying attention to you for health, I think financially is paying attention to Bitcoin and putting some of our eggs into that basket.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Powerful. Justin, if you could, because I don't want to glance over this, I mentioned a lot of folks when COVID became a part of our lives and different scientists and researchers were coming forward and sharing data that a lot of it has proven to be correct, but at the time they were getting censored, de-platformed and a lot of people were jumping over to sites like... You know, platforms like Parler, for example. How is it that an entire platform can just be removed from the Internet? It wasn't the company that did it, can you talk about how that happened? And...

JUSTIN REZVANI: How it happened was very... It was very sad.

SHAWN STEVENSON: But also talk about how that happened, but how Zion, that's impossible for that to happen.

JUSTIN REZVANI: So, the way that it happened was, they're on centralized app stores, they... All of their code was sitting on an AWS server, so they were simply turned off of AWS, they were banned from every app store, and then their code that was... That wrote... 'Cause usually there's like a repository that holds the actual data... Not just data that's on the system, but like the code that enables it, right? The back end and the front end, that was also sitting on AWS. So, it was just all turned off, right? I think that that's the base layer of everything that was just like, okay, Amazon, no more, App Store is no more. So, they disappeared.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So, what does Amazon have to do with it?

JUSTIN REZVANI: So, AWS runs, I think, 80% of the Internet. And so, this is where the clients themselves where data storage occurs for like a server to run, 'cause usually you need like a relay... You need some level of a service to run and then your phone is actually enabling that particular service. So, I think...

SHAWN STEVENSON: So, they were using Amazon's servers?

JUSTIN REZVANI: Yeah, he was using Amazon's servers and so...

SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow.

JUSTIN REZVANI: I think the... And there was one central point of failure, I think that's the... The key is like, if there's one central point of failure, it's very easy to like, just turn it off, right? You turn off one thing and everything... And all the lights go out. So, I think that the approach that we've been taking is that there's a few layers of decentralization that we've been trying to achieve that allows the differentiation inside of Zion, right? So, the first piece is that the identity, your individual identity, and all the downstream effects of that identity are held by a private and public key on your personal device. So, your identifier is not sitting on some sort of a Zion centralized server, right? We have our relay that are enabled, that's open source, so that piece is owned by you.

The next piece is that how do payments run inside of the network? Number one is, we use the Lightning. We're not using PayPal, which is another centralized service, we're not using the traditional banking environment, which goes bank to bank to bank to bank. We're using the Lightning Network, which is an open monetary network built on top of Bitcoin that allows a transaction to freely move from individuals with no level of censorship to occur, and this is across a multitude of nodes that are sitting in parallel to Zion. So, the nodes are actually outside of Zion as a company that allows the payments to move freely. The final piece is that if you are a very sovereign individual, you can decide to host your own version of Zion, your own version of a relay on your own instance at your house, right? So, you can take this actual data, you can take all of the things related to your DID and actually you store it in your own server, and by the way, it's all also replicatable, right?

So, we had a great call today with Dan. Dan... Daniel was describing this thing, it's like, cool. Like, if Zion for some reason wants to turn someone off, someone just takes their DID and all the downstream information to put it somewhere else and they're running back up tomorrow, right? Because it's not a Zion instance, it's a decentralized standard on the open web. And your DID can be a referral everywhere. So, I think that's the differentiation. It's like, in the new world, what's going to happen with both of you as creators is there's going to be the JP Sears verifiable DID globally. This decentralized identifier with a verifiable credential that we set and other companies will set for JP, everyone will know that anything with this signature, this particular digital signature is a JP Sears true piece of the content and truly coming from JP. That DID can sit on any type of instance on the globe.

Like, what's going to be cool is that in the future, Zion is just one of the apps using this open standard, and all of these different apps can talk to each other. So, JP can go to the next version of something that's building on DIDs and Zion, put in his DID and all the things that he's already created for the past few years automatically pop up on that new network. And then all of this stuff pop-up on this new network, it's open standard. So, I think that's why this is a little bit different is that we don't have a central point of failure. If you want to hack, you have to hack every individual ID to take all that, and I think the privacy piece that we have is also that... You know, Zion has no access to an individual user's data, we have none. Because we don't have access to encrypted private information, only the private key on the device has.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's remarkable. So remarkable. JP...

JUSTIN REZVANI: I think, one other thing I want to know, by the way, please don't trust what I'm saying, verify it, right?

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes.

JUSTIN REZVANI: Like, go to our open-source code, and there's not a lot of steels of balls to say this, like, go verify what I'm telling you. You don't have to listen to me, go verify it, it's 100% open source.

SHAWN STEVENSON: JP, one of the things that you've been talking about, you really... You've been doing remarkable work for many years prior to all of these crazy things taking place in the world, the last two years, but I think you mentioned before when we had a conversation that you really found out what your mission is more recently, which is, your biggest driving force is freedom.

JP SEARS: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And the title of this new book, and I've just been tearing through it, I just got my hands on it yesterday, and has been tearing through it, it's so well written and just powerful. And I'm going to circle back even to the name, Zion, but it's Unapologetic Freedom is the name of the book that you wrote the forward for, its Justin's book, that's just going to take off, of course. So, what does that mean to you? Unapologetic Freedom and also you discovering that this is your driving force, what does that mean for all of us? Because I think that we tend to take our freedom for granted.

JP SEARS: I took my freedom for granted up until Spring of 2020, under the guise of the pandemic freedom started getting taken away, and you look to the horizon and realize like, "Wow, if we don't change, more of our freedoms will be taken away." So, a fish didn't know it was swimming in water, until some of the water starts getting taken away, 'cause I was taking it for granted. That's when I woke up to realize, freedom is my number one value. I think everything else hinges on freedom. Everything beautiful in life, which there's so much, it's all born out of freedom. Any piece of music, any piece of art, any sculpture, your favorite podcast, it's born out of the expression of freedom, not restriction, not control, freedom. And to me, Unapologetic Freedom, that term means reclaiming your birth right. I think we truly are born in a God-given state of freedom, I think that's how we are intended to be. The question is, do we reclaim... Do we claim or if we want to, do we reclaim our natural state? If so, life is pretty good. Our health is pretty good.

If we don't, much like anything else in health, if we're not living in accordance with natural law, we suffer. Or is that suffering to show up, is it mind, body, emotions? I don't know, but suffering happens. So, to me, unapologetic freedom is simply reclaiming our birth right, what was ours and what's always been ours. Some of us have just needed to wake up and realize "I haven't been claiming what's always been mine. I haven't utilized the field of diamonds in my own backyard." Freedom, we don't have to wait around for permission to be what we already are, we're born freedom, we are free now, we will die in freedom. The question is are you living in accordance with that natural state. And we live in 2022, for everything in life, there's the digital version of it, and I think technology, the digital version used correctly in a way that serves humanity, it enhances the natural state, it enhances the beautiful things, use incorrectly. I think it disconnects us from our natural state. So that's why I've gotten passionate about helping illuminate the digital infrastructure of freedom and sovereignty, and I think being unapologetic involved about it is just a good thing, we don't need to apologize for being free.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Facts. Justin, listen, as soon as I heard the names Zion, I immediately thought about Morpheus and this speech that he gave in the Matrix in the cave in Zion. And you put that quote in the book. And I was just like, "Man, this guy... We're locked in here." So, what is this experience been like for you, what is the mission behind putting a book like this together with all the things you got going on in your life, and JP and I were joking about this before, you just go. You've got some big, big d energy out here, man, with all the heavy lifting that you're doing it just like for you, it's just waking up and I just eat massive social and complex issues for breakfast. So why this book right now?

JUSTIN REZVANI: I think it's needed in a way that like this... A piece of literature like this allows us to tell the story of what's happening in our world in a much more detailed way that we couldn't do in a podcast, I couldn't do in an interview, I couldn't do in a video series, it just wasn't enough, so I just... It was something that was built and pent up for years, that just needed it to come out on a publication, and so it just... I think I just needed to be done. And it was one of those things that it was obvious how all the stars aligned was we had an outline, we had an idea, we had someone that was willing to help us do it, so it's obvious like yeah, let's do it. Why wouldn't you do it if you had the opportunity to 'cause we had all the magic and we thought that the world needs to hear this, and I wondered "Who would else write this, who would have the cohoes against big tech in the way that we do in this book?"

A lot of people are afraid because they're afraid to get cancelled, they're afraid to disappear, so it was like well, we have a particular position on the world and we just want to share the truth of how things work to everybody, and this was a great medium to do that. And we had the support of our investors, every one of our investors is either a support on the cover or on the back, and it just made sense, that was the only way it just needed to be written in the world, it just needed to happen. That was the one that was the only logic for me. JP when I asked you about that, what do you think? I was like, I was like, "Hey, do you think we should do this?"

JP SEARS: Yeah, people need to know is how I saw it. And because I look at my past self, Justin, before I met you, got involved with Zion, I knew we have a problem, I didn't know how it could be solved, I didn't know there was a solution, and I'm passionate about letting people know there's a solution, people just need to know, people need to know where we're at. How we got here and how you can move forward. If you choose to take your feet out of the old paradigm of digital dictatorship and move to the new paradigm of digital democracy, or do I just... I want the horses to be led to water and then they choose if the water is right for them to drink, so I just want people to know because I didn't... I'm not a techy, most people in the world are techies. I didn't know there's actually a better way that social networking amongst other things can be done, so I look at my past self, it's like, dude, I'm glad I know for you, and I just want other people to know.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Awesome. So, guys, we've got two things here. Number one, can you let everybody know where they can get their hands on unapologetic freedom?

JUSTIN REZVANI: So, we have on amazon, just go search the name, unapologetic freedom, it will be available, I think once this podcast is live, it will be everywhere. The audio book, I think is really cool. So, I want people... For the audio book, JP and I both read the audiobook. JP his interjection throughout the audio book are really cool because he's reading the sub-chapters, he reads a lot of quotes from people... He is Morpheus. So, to hear JP Morpheus in the audio book is so powerful, I would like... Please get a copy of the book. We actually, 10 bucks we try to do the least amount possible to get this print in an Amazon said this was the least we could do for this size of a book, the least amount possible, and then the audio book, and then if you want the forward for free. We're offering JP's forward for free on the website. You could go to unapologeticfreedombook.com, and you can download JP's forward for free. So if you want to get a taste of what is this going to be we are offering the forward there, and then if you want to get to the book, it's a support to our org, this book is not going to Justin, it's not going to JP, it's going to Zion as a company to help us continue to grow this utility for sovereignty in the world, it's going to towards that because that's what we want to help provide in the world.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Second, we've got Zion, and the quote comes to mind that, there's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. I know a lot of folks are wanting to get involved with Zion, to utilize it, how and when our folks going to be able to do that.

JUSTIN REZVANI: So we are launching Zion FYI starting next week, so that on the 23rd, that new website comes out on the app is available on the app store but the version two that involves decentralized identifiers, decentralized data storage with IPFS is lightning wallets more communities to all the interactions that we've been working on for over six months in the new development will be available in every major App Store as well, so from Apple all the way to Android. So, if you search Zion on any of those services, you'll be able to find us, so we would love your support, and we'd love for you to be a member of our community, that's like the thing that pushes us forward isn't just the fact that we have this book but being on Zion and then being a member to contribute to our growth and their growth of... It's the price of a cup of coffee per month but you could really support us in building this organization for the future, and not have to subsidize our costs through anything else, but our mission.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, this is something very special. And guys, it's not often that something like this comes along and everybody involved sees this, so I'm hoping that this is knocking at the doors of your heart, and you see the importance of this, and this is the time to get involved, because things are changing very quickly. As JP mentioned, right now, it's either the great reset or the great awakening, and it's really about, right now we're in the suck and we're in the part of the story where we're deciding which path, we're going to take. JP, and I think you mentioned earlier, I'm pretty confident in which path we're going to take, you know, but at the same time, we're in it. The thing still has to get done. And JP, if you could, I want to ask you this, man, because you've been such a light for so many people during this time, and the ability to look at things through the lens of comedy and to laugh at the craziness, but it doesn't take away from the importance of it, or the necessity of doing something, but being able to see thing through the... See things through the lens of humor is so powerful and so healing, so can you talk a little bit about that and why for you and if you think it's possible that folks can start to lighten up a little bit, not even take themselves so seriously, and start to look at things through the lens of humor a little bit more often in our lives.

JP SEARS: Yeah, I think it's an important tool to have, and I don't think many of us use the tool of humor for our own benefit enough, there's two mindsets that I'd ask everybody to keep in mind, so you can benefit from the tool of humor, just like you can benefit from the tool of a given supplement. One is an Oscar Wilde quote which is really stuck with me, "Life is too important to take seriously," and then also combined with that in an Ellen White quote "Nothing is as it seems". Whether you're looking at the news, you're looking at someone saying to you, or you're even looking at your own thought, if you can lighten up a little bit and realize this is true, nothing is as it seems. Here's how it seems to be, but what could the truth of it actually be in the distance between how it seems to be and what it actually could be, the space in between is room for humor, that's the wiggle room. And when we explore that space, we're divorcing ourselves from our marriage of certainty to how the things seem to be. News flash, just 'cause we're certain that something doesn't make it true, it just means we feel safer, the more certain we convince ourselves of that thing, but you're married to a fence post, it's not going to serve us too well, but when we can create space between us and that fence post we used to be married to explore "What could the actual reality be here, be curious about that, humor will help take us there.

And also realizing seriousness is the psychological posture of fear when we're really serious about something, we're usually not vulnerable enough to say, I am really afraid of that. No, no, we get serious as a way of avoiding how afraid we actually feel, but when we're... Whatever we're taking most seriously, if we can just be honest and say, I'm scared about this, we're already lighting the load quite a bit, and then we can start to loosen it up more by exploring like, "Wow, if nothing is as it seems." What could the reality be?

SHAWN STEVENSON: Perfect. Or we can have some fence posts babies.

JUSTIN REZVANI: Yeah, we could. And I've tried to mate with fence posts in the past, Shawn as you've taught me, it's not a comfortable process.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I almost fell over, man. I'm a very visual person, so... Man, JP, listen I appreciate you so much, Justin, thank you so much for the work that you guys are doing. It's just remarkable, and I'm grateful to just be a witness to this taking place right now and participating in this. Again, there's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. And Zion is something that is going to change all of our lives, and it's just a matter of when are you going to get tuned into it, it's an incredibly important innovation. And thank you for the turbulence we're all experiencing to birth something like this, because again, we had a vision of freedom that was superficially in many ways, and so now we're going to create real freedom in multiple ways, but it takes us to go through the tough stuff, and you guys are built for it, I'm built for it. Everybody listening is built for it. Let's go. Justin, JP, I appreciate you guys so much.

JUSTIN REZVANI: Thank you, brother. Thank you for being on the journey with us as well, we greatly value you.

JP SEARS: Okay, I love you, Shawn. Love you, Justin.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Awesome, love you guys. Thank you so much for tuning in to the show today, what a powerful conversation and something really amazing that we're looking at happening right now. When Facebook hit the scene, it was kind of this strange French thing being utilized on college campuses, and it's evolved into this major platform that actually governs so much of what people are doing in their daily lives, whether it's connection and communication, whether it's commerce and shopping, and the list goes on and on, it's really transformed into something else, but it's also become, in a strange way, the arbiters of truth, and the guidance counselor of tunnel vision in our lives that have kind of just pointed our attention to a very specific, a very vanilla way of thinking about different issues and labeling or de-platforming various people and their voices as misinformation or as somebody or an entity that does not fit lock step with the predetermined narrative, and it's just very dangerous. And as I mentioned during the show, that governance is not shared equally. There are people that have been given the ability to break set guidelines, and these aren't people who work for Facebook, these are people who maybe are "Celebrity," maybe they have all the esteem or whatever, so they get a pass.

They can be more controversial, they could say things that are deemed to be misinformation and they don't get flagged if they don't get their posts taken down, they don't get deep platform, so it's under the guise of freedom, but it's not really free. Now, what if you see, not the next Facebook, but something better evolving right now, right before our eyes. And it's been brought into the light because of the turbulence is taking place with these social media platforms, it's forced the birth of something new, and I believe that that's taken place right now with Zion. So definitely check them out. And by the way, being on this highly complex blockchain technology where it can never... It's not in one location, it can never be censored, it can never be taken down, it's really remarkable what it's been... It's taken time to build literally a piece at a time in many cases. And so, understanding that everybody can't even get on there all at once, it's not something you could just jump on board, and everybody is just freely admitted into. They've got to, there at a place still where they're placing people into it bit by bit to make sure that everything is working to the best of its ability. So, you are within the tribe of people who are learning about this early on, and so being a part of something that has a potential like this is really special.

So definitely check out Zion, and of course, unapologetic freedom is available right now. So of course, you can pick up a copy of that as well. I appreciate you so much for tuning into the show today, we've got some remarkable masterclasses and special guests coming up very, very soon, so make sure to stay tuned. Take care. Have an amazing day and I'll talk with you soon? And for more after the show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow.com, that's where you can find all of the show notes, you could find transcriptions videos for each episode, and if you got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well, and please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that this show is awesome, and I appreciate that so much. And take care, I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.