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Magic Minds

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Dec 27, 2022 • 1h 2min

#139 — Navigating (and Avoiding) a Mental Health Tragedy

A friend’s brother died by suicide last week. There are many resources online about how to avoid a mental health tragedy, but after losing my sister to major depression and suicide nearly twenty years ago, I’ve never come across a resource on how to navigate life after such a tragedy. And with estimates suggesting 1 in 5 people are suffering from a mental illness at any given point in time, and 1 in 20 suffering for a major mental illness (bipolar, schizophrenia, etc.), that means nearly all of us will either be directly or indirectly affected in one way or another by the tragic nature of mental illness. So at the request of another family member, I’ve decided to record what I often tell people that find themselves in this tragic and familiar situation. Here are some of the resources and citations for some of the data I point to and links for more information: https://www.nami.org/nami/media/nami-media/infographics/generalmhfacts.pdf https://afsp.org/story/if-someone-tells-you-they-re-thinking-about-suicide-a-realconvo-guide-from-afsp/ https://twitter.com/jamesbeshara/status/1606051266680934402?s=20&t=K8zXPfi-_x_9MeigUooBRQ
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Dec 14, 2022 • 1h 56min

#138 — Mind, Meaning, and You — Dr. John Vervaeke

https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine  Dr. John Vervaeke is an associate professor at the University of Toronto, where he teaches courses on thinking, reasoning, problem solving, and cognitive development. He also frequently teaches a course on neuroscientific cognitive scientific theories of consciousness. In addition to his work in cognitive science, Vervaeke is also interested in bridging the gap between spirituality and science. He has created several video series on these topics, including Awakening from the Meaning Crisis and To Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Round Two. Awakening from the Meaning Crisis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncd6q9uIEdw&list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ&ab_channel=JohnVervaeke "The mind is between you and the world in a fundamental way. And that you shouldn't think of your mind just as between your brain and the world. But the way in which your brain is in your body is fundamentally relevant to the way in which your brain connects to the world. And you have to understand your mind as the intersection of those two connectivities, how you are connected to your body and how you're connected to the world. And that's where the mind actually is." John Vervaeke, PhD believes that the mind is not just between the brain and the world, but also between the brain and the body. He says that the mind is a dynamic, self-organizing process that is constantly adapting to its environment. He also believes that the separation of cognition and emotion is a false dichotomy, and that both are deeply interwoven. Finally, he believes that the mind is perpetually susceptible to self-deception, and that wisdom is the ability to overcome this self-deception. In this episode, you will learn the following: 1. The mind is not just in the brain – it is also between the brain and the body, and between the individual and the world. 2. Emotions and cognition are deeply intertwined, and neither can be understood in isolation from the other. 3. Most of our knowing is non-propositional – it is knowing how to do something, rather than knowing that something is true. 4. A rapid fire summary of some of the greatest philosophical minds of the last 2500 years including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Buddha, Jesus Christ, St. Augustine, Plotinus, Henry Corbin, Carl Jung, and more. Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show at 424-272-6640, email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline  Support Our Sponsors Magic Mind https://magicmind.co About your host, James: James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.
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Aug 25, 2022 • 1h 25min

#Voicemails — Word Association — Below the Line #137

https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine On today's show, James Beshara is joined by friend and fellow founder/investor Ajay Mehta to play some word association and share what comes to mind when they hear the words, 'ETH', 'GPT3', 'Recession', 'India', 'Failure', and 'Elon'. Follow Ajay: https://twitter.com/ajaymehta GPT3 Support Our Sponsors Magic Mind https://magicmind.co Chargebee https://chargebee.com/partners-signup and use promo code BTL Shopify https://Shopify.com/BelowtheLine About your host, James: James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.
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Jul 19, 2022 • 2h 15min

#136 — Future Therapeutics — Dr. Dan Engle

https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine  On today's episode, James is joined by Dr. Dan Engle. Dan Engle is a psychiatrist with a clinical practice that combines aspects of regenerative medicine, psychedelic research, integrative spirituality, and peak performance. Dan was also a Co-Author on James' book, Beyond Coffee. James and Dr. Dan dive deep into Neurological Healthcare, concussions, and what the future looks like with new research and medicines. Enjoy! More Dan Engle: https://fullspectrummedicine.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Dose-Hope-Story-MDMA-Assisted-Psychotherapy/dp/1544521022/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 https://drdanengle.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drdanengle/ Concussion Testing: Testing: https://www.cnsvs.com/RemoteTest.html Disclaimer - The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical recommendation, diagnosis, or treatment. The use of information in this podcast is at one’s own discretion, and is not an endorsement of use given the complexity inherent in these medicines, and the current variable widespread illegality of their usage.   00:18 Intro 03:40 Dr. Dan’s Career Path  25:36 Neurologic Ramifications of Concussions  46:33 Psychedelics Use in Neurological Care  59:58 Resources with Dr. Dan 1:22:35 Medical Practices Continued 1:32:10 Magic Mind 1:53:33 The Future of Health Care Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show at 424-272-6640, email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline  Support Our Sponsors Magic Mind https://magicmind.co Chargebee https://chargebee.com/partners-signup and use promo code BTL Shopify https://Shopify.com/BelowtheLine About your host, James:  James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.
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Jul 6, 2022 • 1h 13min

#135 — The Economy of Giving — Vance Roush

https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine    Vance Roush is the Co-Founder and CEO at Overflow, an app that helps nonprofits and churches accept donations of publicly-traded stock. Vance talks with James about being a pastor and how initially he would avoid talking about his faith when looking for investors but eventually saw the benefits when he embraced it. They talk about some stats underlying charitable giving, and dissect some of the technicalities on how Overflow helps people and companies give in the most efficient way.   More Vance Roush: https://twitter.com/vanceroush https://www.instagram.com/vanceroush/?hl=en https://twitter.com/Overflow_app https://www.overflow.co/ Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show at 424-272-6640, email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline    Support Our Sponsors Magic Mind https://magicmind.co Chargebee https://chargebee.com/partners-signup and use promo code BTL Shopify https://Shopify.com/BelowtheLine About your host, James:  James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line.  “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.
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Jun 21, 2022 • 1h 57min

#134 — A Deep Dive on DAOs — Justin & J.P. Alanís

https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine  On today's episode, brothers and co-founders J.P. and Justin Alanís join James to take a deep dive into the world of DAOs, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. J.P. and Justin also discuss their recently launched endeavor, Story DAO. Story DAO is a new kind of blockchain-based production platform where individuals have the opportunity to collaborate with established Hollywood writers and artists to create and co-own the next generation of culturally relevant story franchises. In this episode, Justin talks about what initially got him into the crypto/decentralized world and sheds light to what the future may hold with decentralized content. J.P. speaks about his career in Hollywood and how it has influenced his decision to join Justin on this Web3 journey. This conversation ranges from NFT's to how the media would look different if it were run by a decentralized organization. Find out more about Story DAO: https://www.storydao.xyz/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13TD8Uksj0g Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show at 424-272-6640, email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com Follow Us: Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline  Instagram @ instagram.com/gobelowtheline Support Our Sponsors Magic Mind https://magicmind.co Chargebee https://chargebee.com/partners-signup and use promo code BTL Shopify https://Shopify.com/BelowtheLine About your host, James:  James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.
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Jun 7, 2022 • 2h 22min

#133 — Pursuit of Clarity — Shapel Lacey

Comedian Shapel Lacey sits down with James Beshara to talk about his decision to move to LA, dealing with the loss of young ones at a young age, making the choice to quit drinking, and how daily journaling has been pivotal in his pursuit of clarity. He also talks about the strategy of looking at his passion of stand up comedy as something he clocks and clocks out for, and the importance of living a full life to be a great stand up comic. Find more Shapel Lacey https://instagram.com/ShapelLacey Check out his podcasts Shapel's World and KATS After Dark every week at https://www.youtube.com/c/ThicccBoy https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show at 424-272-6640 // James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com // or follow us on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/gobelowtheline Support Our Sponsors Magic Mind https://magicmind.co Chargebee https://chargebee.com/partners-signup and use promo code BTL Shopify https://Shopify.com/BelowtheLine — About your host, James: James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 15 years, selling his last one to Airbnb, and invested in several multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.
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May 26, 2022 • 1h 25min

#Voicemails — Tech Bear Market? — Below the Line

https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine  In today’s episode, James is joined by his good friend Ajay Mehta to take callers from listeners.  00:21 Intro 11:20 Question 1: Is Tech heading for a bear market? 37:52 Question 2: One piece of advice that keeps returning in your career? 48:46 Best Piece of advice ever given to james 58:04 What is something you believe that no one else you know believes? Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show at 424-272-6640, email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline  Support Our Sponsors Magic Mind https://magicmind.co Chargebee https://chargebee.com/partners-signup and use promo code BTL Shopify https://Shopify.com/BelowtheLine About your host, James:  James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.
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May 21, 2022 • 49min

#131 — When the Walls Close In — Emergency Pod

For profitable, large businesses, a downturn can be great for recruiting and retaining talent as there is a flight to safety and security. For small businesses that have focused maniacally on profitability from day one, a downturn in the market is also managed relatively well.  This is in contrast to technology startups that often have to spend years building the product before they can monetize or spend the first few chapters of the company's life focusing on growth over revenue maximization. This means that in an economic downturn, these startups/teams/founders are the most vulnerable to shifting markets, especially those that are dependent on outside capital.  This episode is the resource for how to manage one's own psychology, as well as the psychology of the team around them when building and leading a business like this. In the episode, I outline tactics like getting comfortable with the worst case scenario (in order to maximize the chances of the best case scenario), as well as outlining the five guidelines for managing and optimizing your psychology in the midst of circumstances that often present a “fog of war” type of scenario for most leaders. In short, I put this together for you to avoid that scenario.   The guidelines have more details within the episode, but they are here below as well for you to reference: 1. Assess and set *proper expectations* for yourself and the team.   2. Find and orient towards a *higher ideal*.   3. Manage your *mental wealth*.   4. Question everything, *especially your own assumptions* going into this new environment.   5. Find your *community of truth*.   Please let me know what I may have missed in the comments and share this with any creator that may be going through the extremely intense situation of feeling like the walls are closing in on them.  And if you are a creator in this scenario, please reach out to me on Twitter or Instagram if there's a way I can help.    https://twitter.com/jamesbeshara https://www.instagram.com/jamesjbeshara https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine You can also always hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show at 424-272-6640 // James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com // or follow us on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/gobelowtheline Support Our Sponsors Magic Mind https://magicmind.co Chargebee https://chargebee.com/partners-signup and use promo code BTL Shopify https://Shopify.com/BelowtheLine — About your host, James: James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 15 years, selling his last one to Airbnb, and invested in several multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.
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May 3, 2022 • 2h 10min

#130 — With Reality, Start Small — Duncan Trussell

https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine  Today's episode is with Duncan Trussell. A brilliant man in many facets of life. We touch on cold dips and how they equate to philosophy.  Duncan opens up about his early use of psychedelics and how they help him realize his own consciousness. We then go even deeper into how psychedelics have affected the whole world. Duncan also explains how certain epiphanies have changed his mindset through his life including the love of his children. To conclude the episode, Duncan talks about how life is all about YOU and no one is going to save you. Start small and make the change within you.     Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show at 424-272-6640, email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline  Support Our Sponsors Magic Mind https://magicmind.co Chargebee https://chargebee.com/partners-signup and use promo code BTL Shopify https://Shopify.com/BelowtheLine About your host, James: James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.

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