Zuby
But I think it's kind of interesting to even think of like, kind of, I don't know, what does it even really mean to be like, from somewhere because it's not always as clear cut as you know, what's your passport, or what's your official nationality you can live in a place and be in a place and really have a strong affinity for it sometimes stronger than for your home country. And you really feel that sense of national pride. But I don't even think it's just the national pride, I think it's good to see. It's good to see human beings flourishing and doing better. I think if you have a genuine love for humanity, then it tends to go beyond the scope of just, you know, quote, unquote, your people or your nation. And it just generally makes you feel good to see people doing well. And to see a community doing doing better, right, you talk about how it was five years ago, and then you see it now. And it's an improvement and that's good to see.
Mike Peterson
We have renowned rapper, podcaster, author, I believe champion, women's dead lifter Zuby with us today, I always wanted to be one of those people that just needed one name. Could never pull it off with being a mic, but I'm stoked that you're here with us today.
Zuby
Mike, good to see you, man. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation.
Mike Peterson
And first time in El Salvador?
Zuby
First time in El Salvador, first time on Bitcoin Beach, and first time on the podcast.
Mike Peterson
Nice. So you are in town why?
Zuby
I'm in town for a Nayib's Bukele's inauguration, which I'll be going to in a couple of days, I was invited. And so I've never been to a presidential inauguration before. And he is one of my favorite world leaders. There are not many politicians in general, let alone presidents and prime ministers in this world that I particularly have a lot of respect and admiration for. But seeing what he's been doing in this country, and being here in person, and seeing some of that turnaround firsthand, is remarkable. I think he's a courageous man, I think he's a great leader. And he seems to be trending the country in a really positive direction. And every local person I've spoken to, in the few days I've been here so far seems to have a very positive impression of him the 92% approval rating, or whatever it is, I mean, that's unheard of worldwide, I travel a lot. I've been to many, many dozens of different countries. And most people have quite a disdain for their national leader or, at best are kind of lukewarm. Or they're just very polarizing, where half the people like them, and half of the people can't stand them. And yeah, he seems to be doing something very, very different in that regard. So that's what brought me here. And I figured instead of just coming for a couple of days, or just for a weekend, let me come for at least a week and really see what's going on.
Mike Peterson
I'm glad you decided to so we get you here on the show. I've been following you for quite a while on Twitter. And I, I did see this week you talking about that? And and somebody say, hey, you've only been there for a few days, how can you really say that you have? And I could see them having that opinion if you hadn't been here, but when you're here, it's like so overwhelming that you're like, Okay, no, I'm asking all these people and and they are wanting to talk about the president and wanting to talk about how happy they are. So it is one of those things where you can after a few days already have a sense of where the population that
Speaker 1
Yeah, for sure. I traveled so much. I think this is my I was I actually counted before this podcast. This is my 44th country that I've been to, I mean, some of those on that list. I've been to many dozens of times. But yeah, just when I travel, I like to not just I'm not someone who travels and just sort of stays in one spot and doesn't talk to anyone or just sort of hangs out at a resort or a beach or anything like that. To me that's not really proper traveling. I like to talk to people, I like to go to different parts of the city or the region or the country as a whole. I like to talk to everybody that I can whether that's Uber or taxi drivers or it's random people at a shop that I'm at or at a restaurant, whatever the case may be. I like to interact with locals and just do my best to really get a vibe of whatever city or nation that I'm in.
Mike Peterson
Well, it's funny when when you leave here next place you go when you're talking to Uber driver mentioned that you've been in El Salvador, and I can almost guarantee you that your Uber driver will start talking about Nayib Bukele. That's been my experience. When I'm in Miami or anywhere in Latin America and Uber, and you mentioned, you're from El Salvador. It's amazing. Now,
Zuby
It's good you can you can, I've only been here for a few days, but I can feel the positive energy. One thing I'm really sensitive to when I travel from place to place is what traject, what trajectory somewhere is on, I don't just notice how things are in the immediate, but you can tell which direction things are trending in, and you get a different feeling and energy. And people have an overall different attitude between optimism and pessimism, depending on if the general population feels like somewhere is getting better, and that they have things to look forward to in the future, versus places where it's like, oh, our best times are behind us. And things are now declining. So you have places where as it currently is, they're not that bad. They're okay. But there's this general sense of decline. And younger people are feeling like they're not going to have it as good as their parents or even their grandparents, in some cases, and
Mike Peterson
Most of the first world you're describing right now.
Zuby
Well, I wouldn't even say all of it. I mean, even if you look at a country like the US, I mean, you've got certain cities, you know, maybe like a New York City of San Francisco, and LA, certainly certain parts of it, where, you know, if you go want to go back further, you've got obviously got places like Detroit, and so on, which have already experienced severe decline. But these sort of top tier global cities, as they've always been throughout my entire lifetime, there's generally a sense amongst people who live there, and even people outside it, that they're getting worse rather than better. Whereas you have cities in that same country in the US whether that could it could be Miami, it could be Dallas, it could be certain parts of Utah, it could be Las Vegas, where things seem to be on an upward trend, more and more people are coming, rather than going. People generally have a sense of, okay, this place is going to be better in five or 10 years than it is right now. And you the feeling is palpable. The feeling is palpable. Some of it you can measure. But some of it is also just a sense, generally amongst the population, I think it's hard to measure quantitatively how optimistic and positive people are feeling. It's very subjective. But it's something that you can quite quickly notice. When you actually have your feet down somewhere and you are talking to people and interacting and just feeling the I feel weird saying feeling the energy, it feels really like vibe, you feel the vibes, man. But it's real.
Mike Peterson
Well, I think what you're saying it's hard to measure that is, those kinds of animal spirits are the most important thing whether a place is going to develop and move forward is the attitude of the people. And so while it is hard to measure, that's what you see in cities that are rising up is that sense of optimism, that sense that people are willing to sacrifice today because they believe tomorrow will be better, versus places where they feel like well, this is as good as it's gonna get. So we might as well just live for today. And El Salvador five years ago was the exact opposite. People really felt like this was just terminal decline. And they really did live for the day, they didn't want to invest in their community, because their plan was to leave to the US illegally, for a lot of them. And so there was this real sense of despair. We're now like you're saying you just show up and you show up in the airport, you just feel there's something different. You can't maybe can't put your finger on it, but it's in the air.
Zuby
And yeah, it's even little things like the ride from the Uber into San Salvador. And I noticed it was at night, and I noticed all the lampposts all the lights with the Salvadorian flag, the blue, white and blue, just all the way down the entire 45 minute journey. Just seeing that. And I was like, that's, that's cool, right? It's just, it's a small symbol. But it means something right? Seeing the nation's flag, like that lit up. It shows, okay, we, at a minimum half pride in our nation. And we've intentionally put this from the airport, because we want this to be the first thing that you see. And that you sense we want you to see 1000s Not hundreds of 1000s of of our flags. And just that alone is cool. I mean, I'm from the UK. And I feel like in the UK these days, they'd almost be afraid to do that. It would be you know, it'd be a bit a bit go shoo, it's a bit it's a bit too much. It's a bit like no like, why what's wrong with flying your nation's flag. I know, in certain pockets of the US there's that same mentality where you know, we have people who are very, it's like waving a US flag has now become some sort of, you know, right wing Republican symbol or whatever or American flag means you're a Trump supporter or whatever it is, and I'm not American, but I know that earlier in my lifetime, it wasn't like that, you know, your rights through flying your native nations flag was not seen as just associated with a particular ideology or political party, let alone any type of ad animus any type of bigotry or hatred or anything like that. I mean, it's really goofy. I think a country is not a country's cultural health is not in a good place when showing the national flag something that actually all the people there are supposed to unite under and in theory have some sort of positive association with is viewed by a significant chunk of the country as some type of hate symbol or sign of bigotry or sign of oppression or any anything like that. So yeah, I'm a big flag fan. I like the fact that they they wave the flag proudly.
Mike Peterson
Yeah, it's been fun for me to see because that was not, you know, like I said, you go back five or six years, and that was not happening. People, most Salvadorans weren't that proud to be from El Salvador, even when they're outside the country. They say like, I'm from Central America, because it was known as the murder capital of the world and, and know if I told myself door, and they're gonna think I'm a gang member. Now you have this real sense of deep national pride. And so it's fun, you know, as as a resident who is very invested in the country. I'm not Salvadoran, but, but I've spent a good portion of my life here raised my kids here. It's, it's amazing just seeing that transformation. So I feel a sense of pride. You know, maybe it's not my country, per se. But I feel the secondary pride.
Zuby
It is in a way. I mean, it is it isn't away. I mean, you've got people who are born here, and then you know, they leave and they've been living. Maybe they've got the passport, but they've never really lived here haven't grown up here. So and then you've got yourself you've been here for what, two decades? Yeah, you've raised you raised your children here, and so on. So I mean, I don't know. I'm not even trying to get too philosophical here. But I think it's kind of interesting to even think of like, kind of, I don't know, what does it even really mean to be like, from somewhere, because it's not always as clear cut is, you know, what's your passport, or what's your official nationality, you can live in a place and be in a place and really have a strong affinity for it sometimes stronger than for your home country. And you really feel that sense of national pride. But I don't even think it's just the national pride, I think it's good to see, it's good to see human beings flourishing, and doing better. I think if you have a genuine love for humanity, then it tends to go beyond the scope of just, you know, quote, unquote, your people or your nation. And it just generally makes you feel good to see people doing well, and to see a community doing doing better, right, you talk about how it was five years ago, and then you see it now. And it's an improvement. And that's good to see just in the same way that it doesn't feel good when you go to I don't know, downtown San Francisco, and you're in one of the wealthiest cities and one of the wealthiest countries in the entire world. And you're just seeing all these people strung out on on drugs and doing their fentanyl and their heroin and whatever, and there's just lying around, just sleeping on the street, and it's dirty, and it's messy. It's just like, it doesn't, it doesn't evoke a good feeling. It's just like, Man, this is miserable. This is just human suffering and depravity. And maybe you don't have the individual power to really do something about it. But you want to and I think that sense of powerlessness is one of the things that's also quite upsetting. But then you like I said earlier on, we've got the flip side of that, where when you just see people doing well, then, yeah, I think if you are a decent person who cares about humanity, then it makes you feel good, too. Even if you're not from the place like I'm, it's my first time ever being in this country. And I feel I feel happy. For the people here. I feel happy that things are getting in a better direction. I'm totally aware that it's not. It's not fully developed, and everything's not perfect. And there's still massive amounts of issues and problems. But progress is good. Progress is good if things are getting better than you give it a long enough timeframe. And as long as the leadership is good, and people behave in a certain way, then things will continue to improve.
Mike Peterson
I'm curious when did El Salvador first pop up on your radar? And what was it that got you to stop? Start following what was happening here?
Zuby
Yeah, sure. I mean, I've known about the country. least heard of the name for several decades. What was it that made me think over the last sort of four to five years? I've definitely I think them making Bitcoin legal tender. Definitely. That headline was like, oh, that's, that's interesting. Because I had been wondering, I've been in Bitcoin since 2017. And I had been wondering, okay, what will be the first country to embrace this properly? And what will that look like? So when I heard Oh, El Salvador becomes the first country in the world, there's a lot of countries in the world becomes the first one. To make a legal tender. I remember thinking, Oh, that's dope. And I also remember thinking that's a bit random because if you'd asked me to predict which country would do it first. I and you gave me 30 guesses? I don't think I would have guessed. El Salvador. So that definitely put it on my map on my radar is oh, okay, that's, that's interesting. And then I was watching from a distance as to online social media, seeing what's going on. And then over the last couple of years, there are people that I follow, you know, Max Keiser, and Stacy Herbert. I remember seeing them starting to post about their trips to El Salvador, I started, you know, just seeing people going out and visiting and things popping up here and there. And then of course, learning more about Nayib Bukele. And, you know, what, what he's done in terms of, you know, going from being the most dangerous country, most dangerous countries in the entire world to being, I believe, the safest in the entire region, I think.
Mike Peterson
I think in all of the Americas, maybe tie with Canada.
Zuby
Okay. Yeah, exactly. Right. So just, I mean, you'll never see that happen. That's not really a thing. And so I was like, Oh, wow. Okay, that's fascinating. I need to look more into this individual in this country. And then, um, yeah, I'd say maybe around 2019-2020. It came on my radar as a places like, oh, yeah, that's, that's where I would like to visit. And that's somewhere I'll visit in the next few years. I don't know exactly what to bring me out there. But lo and behold, I find that in my life, oftentimes, I usually visualize and know things are going to happen. Before they do. I don't always know how it's going to materialize. But normally a few years after that, it does like even with this pod, these these podcasts that I do. There's so many people that I've spoken to and recorded with and met, and I'm now acquainted with who I knew it was going to happen. I had no idea how, like, I knew I would meet Elon, I had no idea. Like, decade ago, I knew I'm going to meet Elon Musk. Somehow, I'm going to meet Joe Rogan. And I'm going to be on Joe Rogan's podcast, I'm going to talk to somebody I didn't know. I have no idea at the time, I had no idea how that would happen.
Mike Peterson
But I was researching this this last week, because I knew we'd be doing the show. And you've sat down with all the big names. Wow. Yeah, a lot of impressive resume. And, and I love that the interaction that you have with them, because you you really bring out the best in them. I think it I don't know what it is you have that natural ability to I think it's that positive attitude to, to really, you know, we were talking about earlier, you hit the hard controversial topics, but you somehow do it in a way and still are nice and friendly. And I feel like when I try to hit controversial topics, a lot of times I come off looking like a jerk. But you have this way of like not backing down and being like, No, this is ridiculous, but doing it with a smile and a friendly way. So that's, I don't know if that's just a natural talent, or if that's something you've really driven to, you know, build into for the last decade.
Zuby
Well, thank you. I mean, I think that assertiveness plus kindness is a lethal in the good way combo. And I think that's just something that I've managed to hone over the past two decades in particular. I mean, I think a lot of it is some of it is just my natural personality and my belief system. But I think a lot of it has also just been forged in the background way before I started being on as public as I am now. So I mean, I used to just be an independent rapper, in the UK, I actually released my very first album in 2006. So we're talking 18 years ago now, which is half my life, which sounds doesn't seem like that long ago to me. But I mean, the way I really built my name and reputation, and kept myself afloat in the UK for over a decade was just going out on the street and talking to people and selling my CDs. And so I mean, I sold over 30,000 albums, hand to hand, really in the UK. So before 99.9% of people who have now heard of me had heard of me, I'd already sold 10s of 1000s of albums and to sell 10s of 1000s of albums hand to hand you have to talk to hundreds of 1000s of people. So yes, of course you develop your skill, sales skills, but you just learn how to be a darn good communicator. And if you're doing that, and the goal is for people to buy what you're doing, but you're also talking to absolute strangers, like I've mastered the art of taking someone from being a complete stranger who'd never heard of me or my music, to within a matter of minutes being a fan and buying my albums. And I did that 1000s upon 1000s upon 1000s of times.
Mike Peterson
Probably some of them didn't even like rap music.
Zuby
Oh, for sure. I converted them. I still converted them right. And so to be able to do that, I think that's the combination it needs, right? You have to be kind and you have to be amiable, but you also have to be assertive, not pushy, and that's a balance and maybe, you know, just going back to what you said thank you for the compliment. By the way. I think that Over the course of time, I've just naturally integrated that into how I communicate both. I learned it offline. And I guess that it just translates online as well, where I'm able to, you know, talk about whatever it may be, or sit down with, you know, such a broad range of different types of people, whether I'm in the hot seat, or I'm the one doing the interviewing, and, you know, just be able to relate to different people, regardless of their walk of life. You know, someone might see me in a, I don't know, someone might look at us to in a room and think, you know, what do you what do these guys, what do these guys have in common? It's like, well, actually a lot, actually, a lot. And I think that's another benefit of traveling the world and talking to people is you just get to know you've done mission work. And so you learn quickly how to just relate to people find common ground, you know, break the ice, get over that weird, uncomfortable stage that you can have, right? When you meet someone who's brand new, particularly if you're from a different culture, and maybe you don't perfectly even speak the same language, whatever it is. And you just learn how to do that. And so yeah, I love communicating with people, as I already said, like, I love people in general, as much as they annoy me sometimes. I still, I'm a big lover of humanity. And I'd like to see us all doing better. So
Mike Peterson
Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
Zuby
Hyper extrovert. Yeah, super extrovert. Yeah. But an extrovert, who's very comfortable being alone? And who spends a huge amount of time alone, partly just because of the nature of my work. Yeah, yeah.
Mike Peterson
Yeah. You could have told me either, and I would have believed it. Yeah. You have that kind of deep, pensive, like sense of somebody who's a deep thinker that maybe needs to recharge, but you're also great with people. So
Zuby
I can be out there all the time, nonstop, I get my energy from people.
Mike Peterson
Yeah, I'm definitely more of an introvert. I think the older I get, I love people I love but I have to go away and recharge for a while. So I love this type of setting where it's one on one, but when it's like the group setting, those are the ones that suck the life that
Zuby
We need both we need both types of people in the world, man.
Mike Peterson
Definitely. So I mean, you really are the true Renaissance man from, you know, musical performer to podcaster. To author, you were telling me you're working on your third book right now. You know, obviously, fitness is something that that's extremely important to you. And then I love you're able to bring that in to even speak into cultural issues. When I was doing research on you. I was like, Oh, he made made waves when he beat the female deadlifting record in the UK, I believe it was by you know, identifying as female while you're, obviously to bring up the absurdness of letting males you know participate.
Zuby
The craziest thing about that, Mike, is that was more than five years ago.
Mike Peterson
Really?
Zuby
It was February 2019, when I posted that. And what's remarkable is that this quote unquote, debate is still going on, when it's one of those things where I mean, it wasn't a debate 10 years ago, but we're just common sense. It's just common sense. But you know, we are we're living in this strange time where, by the way, I do think we are past peak work. I've said this on many podcasts, I believe we're past peak woke, I agree. But still, there are these strange sort of discussions and battlegrounds and debates that are happening, which are largely a distraction, I believe, just from the things that we really should be more focused on. And talking about, sometimes I actually get frustrated with myself, because I'm just like, I don't even want to. So after I did that deadlift video, I got invited on the on some of the biggest podcasts in the world and TV shows and just all sorts of things. And it was, it was cool. And I'm glad that so many people got introduced to me through it. But you know, in the back of my mind the whole time, I was just like, why are we even having this conversation? Why are we having this debate? Like, this is so stupid? Like, this is, this is really silly.
Mike Peterson
I told you 10 years ago, that'd be a debate. You're like, no way. Yeah, away.
Zuby
Yeah. Like, like, why are we really going to sit here and pretend that that's all it is, is just just playing pretend. And we're really going to just pretend that males and females are the same, like identical and interchangeable, changeable, and go back and forth stronger and faster and bigger. Like before people even knew what science was. They were aware of these differences. Just because it's so obvious and blatant and in your face and all day every day. As you walk around. You can be like, That's a man that's a woman man. That's a woman that's what a you know, there's no it's not a spectrum. And everyone knows this, but somehow, I don't know millions of people will kind of like brainwashed in silence, sort of playing along with this weird game of the Emperor's got new clothes. And no one really wants to just say the thing because it's like, oh, well, I don't want to be called a name, I don't want to be canceled. I don't want to, you know, upset anyone, whatever it is, and it's like, man, just just tell the truth. Just tell the truth. You don't need to be any more aggressive or abrasive or nasty than that. But if we cannot, as a society just speak honestly, about things that are really, really, really, really obvious, then then we're in trouble. And I know that a lot of that is social pressure. I do understand the reasons why it is psychologically but um, but it's a big issue. You know, the same thing happened in the 2020 to 2022 period with the whole time period I refer to as the scam demic. A lot of the same thing went on, where people just were giving into absurdities and things that very doing and saying things that very obviously didn't make sense. It wasn't logical. It wasn't rational. It wasn't
Mike Peterson
And they get mad when you would try to have a logical conversation
Zuby
Yeah, yeah. And that is stuff like that is scary. Stuff like that, actually. I'm not afraid of a lot. But when, when that kind of thing is happening on mass in a society, because it makes you think, gosh, am I am I the am I going crazy. I'm just like, I'm the same person. I was in 2019 I didn't just suddenly switch up in the way that other people are. And now all of a sudden, just, it's weird, because, you know, and now I can say all those same things. So if like, 2019, I was normal 2024 I'm normal, but somehow 2020 to 2022. Like I was, I don't know, some crazy conspiratorial anti Vax, anti this anti like I was like, I'm literally, I've just been consistent. And largely, my position was just the pro liberty, one of like, hey, like, people have their basic rights and civil liberties, and people should be able to make the choices and the risk assessments that make sense for them, because we're all different. And this goes with pretty much everything. But due to the PR campaign, and the marketing and the fear and this and that it just became this weird hyperpolarized time period. I'm glad we're over it, though. Yeah, I'm glad we're over it. For the most part.
Mike Peterson
Do you think when things like whether it's that or the trans issue in sports? I mean, do you think it's important that we are speaking into these things? Or is that just sucking us into things we should have focusing on something else? Or?
Zuby
Yeah, as a society overall, yes, we should be focused on other things. But the apathy does not work. Because the reason why those things got to the level that they did is because enough sane people were not just speaking up and being honest. So when you have a small, intransigent minority, who really is pushing something, it could be the most absurd idea ever. But if they're pushing it aggressively, nonstop, and they're gaining ground with it, and the vast majority of people either go along with it, or just don't say anything, which is kind of the same as going along with it, then you will be surprised by how gnarly things can get. I mean, it's happened many times in history. It's not. It's not a new thing. It's happened many times in history. And I think we people tend to look back at those things and go, you know, how did it? How did it get that for?
Mike Peterson
Well, I remember studying those things and thinking, Yeah, but we're, we're past that we're not we'd never do something like that again. But this, this past decade has been eye opening to me that we're not any different.
Zuby
Do you know something scary, Mike, is that human beings, aren't we are not different from our ancestors. We're not, right, we don't we're not super, we're not evolved from our grandparents, our great grandpa, like we're the same people, we have the same emotions, the same biological wiring, we have the same what the only things that change. I've said this many times before, like if you think of modern people in modern society, we really only have two advantages over our ancestors, whether this is our ancestors in the 1900s 1800s 1700s, whatever it is. One, we have more and better technology. So we can do cool things like what we're doing right now, which our grandparents couldn't do. And two, we have access to history. Should we choose to look at it. That's it. Those are the only advantages we have. We're not bigger, we're not stronger. We're not faster. We're not smarter. We're not like, we're not like human beings, or we have not changed much in 1000s of years. So we have the same virtues. We have the same vices we have the same flaws. We have the same proclivity to sin. We have the same proclivity towards altruism and kindness. We also have the same capability for violence and goodness. In fact, with all of these things, all that's happened because of the technology is it scaled up. So we have a greater capacity for good. But we also have a greater capacity for destruction. If you go back 100 years ago, let alone 1000 years ago, there wasn't the technology to just annihilate every human being on Earth. It didn't exist. We have that technology now. Like how many nuclear bombs exists around there there is there is the potential, that we have the capacity and the technology right now, should all the world leaders choose to just go nuts simultaneously, that every single human being on the planet could just be just wiped out in under a minute. That's new, like that's relatively new. And so we've just got to really be careful with that you can look on, let's just take a technology that is, again, relatively new, just in the past two decades or so. But it's completely ubiquitous social media, you know, the internet and social media and smartphones. And you have a, there's a capacity to do great good with it. And both on an individual level and on a societal level, but there's also a capacity to do huge amounts of damage. Whether this is hurting people's self image, or their mental well being or creating addictions, where addictions didn't used to be leading people down certain rabbit holes, exposing people to certain types of imagery or video, like things that before you just wouldn't have seen or heard. And so the question is, okay, we've got this technology, and it keeps going, and it keeps improving and changing. And it's just like, Okay, well, what are we going to do with this? And I think we always have to keep ourselves and check. I know, I always keep myself in check by just remembering like, Okay, I'm not. Like, I'm just as capable of like, when I look at history, when people read history, they always want imagine they'd be the good guy, right? Everybody, everyone would be the person who freed the slaves and who had the Jews in their house, you know, during the Nazi regime, and who would have stopped the genocide and who would have, statistically, most people would have been apathetic. And quite a lot of people would have been the, quote, unquote, bad guy in these things. And no one wants to read history like that, because it's not pleasant. But I think you have to, I think, to be a genuinely good person, you have to, it's important to understand your, your dark side, and the capacity for evil and wickedness and sin and know, Oh, okay. I'm a human being. And human beings can do that. So therefore, I could, I could do that. There could be some, there could be some world some alternate reality, where, you know, I, or someone like me, is the person doing this horrible, terrible stuff. So that's how you keep it in check. Because if you don't even think you're capable of it, that's dangerous. It's really dangerous if you don't think you're even capable of those things. Because you can that can, you know, stuff can go weird. And all of a sudden, things are not as calm and peaceful, and what's the word I'm looking for? predictable, as they usually are, and you're finding yourself being pushed in a certain way, or maybe society or the culture or the nation is trending in a certain direction, and it's pulling in a lot of people. And you need to be able to break check that and go Actually, wait, no, hang on. I'm not going to, I can feel myself kind of going in this direction a little bit. Let me let me put that in check. And we I think we all do this on a day to day basis, right? Because we have emotions, right? We all get angry. We get mad when you get angry. Like, there'll be something in your head, which you want to say but you're like, No, let me not say that. Right? You get a feeling of I want to do that thing. You feel the aggression. It's like no, let me not, right. There's no man who's listening to this podcast, who's like you've never You've really never you've never wanted anyone you've never like, of course you have right but you, you don't do it. You recognize, okay, I have this feeling I have this capacity for violence. I have this ability to lash out in this way. But you you're like, No, like, I'm not going to I'm not going to do that you're constantly just recalibrating. So I don't want to give a massive lecture. I'm just brain dumping. No, no.
Mike Peterson
This is this. This is the stuff that actually is important in life. Yeah, and has a big impact. I am curious as to hear your Bitcoin story and how that kind of fits in with with the other values and things that you're pursuing in life because, as I mentioned before, like you have a wide swath of areas that you have some expertise in it, and I know that you've been a speaker at a number of Bitcoin conferences, but I I wouldn't say that that's like your focus in life now. You probably wouldn't describe yourself firstly, as a bit pointer, you would you know, so I'm curious as to how it came about the what your Bitcoin story is and how you've wound up speaking at a number of these events.
Zuby
Yeah, sure. Thanks. So I'm actually a computer science graduate. So I studied Computer Science at Oxford from 2008 to 2011. I graduated in a graduated in 2011. And wait, no, no, no, no, no, sorry. That's wrong. That's wrong.
Mike Peterson
I'm glad I'm not the only one that does this.
Zuby
I'm giving wrong dates here. 2011 is when I went full time with my music career. I graduated in 2007. Okay, I was at university 2004 to 2007. Got it. Yeah. And so, being in computer science, coding, programming, whatever. I've always been interested in computers, technology, stuff like that. I first heard I want to say I first heard about Bitcoin, maybe like 2012 or 2013. I don't even know exactly how probably on an internet forum or something like that. But honestly, I never looked into it. The first time I heard about Bitcoin, I thought it was like, something like PayPal were like, maybe in game currency for some PC game or something. I just never really paid much attention to it. I just saw the word. But I didn't know what it meant. If someone asked me at that time, you know, what is Bitcoin? I would have been like, I have no idea. And then in 2017, I started hearing about it more and more. I didn't particularly I particularly had one friend on Facebook named Kelly in the UK, who was I think he just like invested in a bunch of different cryptocurrencies and with including Bitcoin and was just during that was yo during the 2017 bull market, and was just making gains. So he was just kind of like, I think we'd like posting screenshots of like, how much money he was making, and you know, oh, cool. I just got a 200% return on this thing. And I was just like, I kind of kept seeing it. And I was just like, Bitcoin that I heard about it enough times that I was like, Okay, I'm gonna learn what this is. I keep hearing this word, I keep hearing this name. Let me look into this. So this is probably October 2017. And so I'm like, Okay, I think I'd probably Googled what is Bitcoin? And I just spent an afternoon learning and I was sold on the concept really quickly. After about 10 minutes, I was like, Okay, this is interesting, right? Wait a, a, limited, do a decentralized digital currency that's not run by any central bank, or governments, which is limited. That was the part that was kind of weird, because Bitcoin is the first digital thing that is limited, because normally, when you think of anything digital, it's like, well, you can just make copies of it. So obviously, it's infinitive. It's digital. I was like, no, okay, wait, it's scarce. And then I was learning about the mining and so on. So I was I was far from an expert, but just as a someone who has natural leanings, more libertarian ish. And who is aware of some of the issues of central banking. And the current way monetary policy is I'm aware that I was already aware of the inflation and going off the gold standard, and the fact that fiat currency isn't really backed by anything. And you have to also remember, I'm British, but I'm also Nigerian. And so yeah, the British Pound has decreased in value significantly over the past 100 years, probably, you know, 90% plus. But if you look at, you know, the naira, you know, the Nigerian currency versus just boy, it used to be on par with the pound. Now, it's like one to 2000. All right, so we went from being one to one to being one to 2000. And so you've seen that I remember when I was in school, when Zimbabwe I had some friends from Zimbabwe, at school. And you know, I remember when I went through the hyperinflation, I remember which time. Man, it's been a few cycles. There's been a few this would be like, early to mid 2000s. And I remember friends coming into school, and they had these, like, 100 trillion dollar notes and whatever. And again, I did study economics at school for a couple of years. But I was just like, Okay, this makes sense. This, this obviously, is something that's valuable. And again, in my lifetime, I'm an interesting age so I'm 37. So I've seen a lot of technological-
Mike Peterson
Does that make you a millennial?
Zuby
I'm a millennial here, but I've seen a lot of technological adoption curves in my lifetime. So with whether all the different video game consoles or just home PCs, in general laptops, the Internet email, not social media but each of the social media platforms I've been on Facebook for 20 years, right? I joined Facebook in 2004. I remember when I joined Facebook, everyone was like, This is stupid. This is pointless. Nobody uses it. But it's so slow, right? All the things I remember when people said that about the internet, they said it about email, they said it about everything. And I was like, Wait, we are things start out slow, and people aren't using them. And it's confusing, and not everybody gets it, whatever. So like, Bitcoins, just doing this. It's going through the same curve. And I just saw that very plainly. And so I'm bought my first Bitcoin in November 2017. And this was also like, when the market was really heating up. So I remember like buying, I was running on one of my pop up shops at this at the time. And I remember I was just like, market buying Bitcoin with my debit card through the Coinbase app, really regular recklessly. And every time I bought, like, No, it was just number go up. Number I was just like, What the heck have I just discovered like, the fountain. I was the I didn't have a lot of money at the time. So I wasn't putting it all up. I was just like, What the heck, I just put in, you know, I put in 100 pounds yesterday. And today, it's like 112.
Mike Peterson
And that was even with the insane fees.
Zuby
Yeah, exactly. I wasn't even getting like a good rate or whatever. And I was just like, this is okay, I'm gonna buy more than we put into 1000 pounds. Let me put right and it kept going up. So I think at that time, I mean, no, if I remember correctly, like November to December 2017 Bitcoin ran from something like 7000 to $20,000 in about six weeks. So I was just like, it's probably the most dangerous time to get involved, right? Because I'm just like, I'm a genius. I just put money in this thing. And that number just goes out. Like, what the heck like this is amazing, right? And then I oh my gosh, there's something called Ethereum and Litecoin. And, and these ones are going up even fast. So I just was like, go I was yeah, like every spare bit of money I had because I was I was running my pop up shop selling my T shirts, my CDs, my merch and everything. And it was Christmas time. So all the Christmas shoppers were there. So I was making for me at the time pretty good money. I was making, you know, several 100 pounds a day in cash, right? And so I was just like, boom, go to the bank. biomark. So I was a dumping everything I was earning. While I had an amazing there and 500 pounds, cool, boom, dump it all, dump it all individually. And then of course, the market peaked out was around December 20 something 2017 And then, you know, boom, there was like a little dip and I just started going ham. And then I remember early 2018 I remember Bitcoin Bitcoin kind of flatlined a little bit and it was like this crazy halt season. And then the market just began to just burn out and crap out and dump. And at this point, I was probably in like, you know, a lot. I'm sure a lot of people listening have gone through this, I probably had like 25 different coins. Because you keep hearing about this was the next Bitcoin. This was the next year. So he just like just throw it just gambling, right? Throwing money and all these things or whatever. And then it all starts like, you know, dumping out and crapping out. And but to my credit, I never ever sold my Bitcoin. Right? So some of them I sold back like into Bitcoin. I was like, I don't know about this, but because I kept learning. So to my credit, I kept learning. So I did like the initial learning that I got kind of caught up in the market hype. And then I was just like, Okay, let me keep, let me learn more about this. So in 2018 2019, that's when I really started like, getting a better idea of the market overall, and the value proposition of Bitcoin versus the other cryptos and so on. And I kept, I kept drip feeding, like I actually actually kept buying with little disposable income I had at the time. I kept buying and over the course of time, I was like consolidating more and more into Bitcoin because it was just like, alright, you taste this one. Without that that didn't go well, that didn't go well. And so that was my that was my story. And then yeah, just maintained over the course of time, the conviction grows, the understanding grows. And I think as the understanding grows, the conviction grows and your time horizon grows as well, a went from just being something I was I open November 2017. While I found the get rich, quick cheat code, and then now it's more like, Ah, okay, this is I'm looking at this in terms of decades and generations, it's self sovereignty, and that's exactly self sovereignty. And I think that Bitcoin is going to do for money, what the Internet has done for information. So yeah, over the course of time, yeah, you you you live in you learn, and I think probably the best way to learn something aim is to, you know, get some wins, but take some massive L's take some massive L's as well, so you could reflect back on them and be like, Okay, what would I have done differently? In hindsight? What did I get caught up in? And also, you just you learn the emotional control as well, because it is scary. I mean, prior to Bitcoin and the wider crypto market, the speed of chopping and changing in prices up in prices down, like the speed and the aggressiveness of the swings. I mean, that doesn't that didn't exist in any other market consistently. I mean, stocks, it's like, oh, my gosh, if something goes up 5% In a day, like this is you know, this is a huge day. Yeah, exactly. Right. And then I was just like, I'm holding this oh my gosh, like, from the I remember holding through that drop from late 2017, where Bitcoin dropped from what 20,000 to about 3000 something dollars. And the emotions dealing with the like, I'm I'm very good at keeping my emotions in check. I'm a very low neurotic, very unromantic individual. But even I was like, Holy crap, like this thing I bought has like, lost 70 something 70 80% of its dollar value. But at the same time, as I'm learning more, I'm like, what, I want more of it. And I know it's going to bounce back and actually ended up. I was like, Man, I see this thing going to like, hundreds of stuff. I remember there was a point where, because I didn't start making good money until 2019. So from like, 2011 to 2019 I was just like, you know, barely breaking even. I was I was making enough to keep myself keep my music career going. Yeah, but like, 2019 2020 that's when I started, like, okay, cool. Like, I'm now making good money. And I remember when the market was down, I remember my biggest annoyance being like, oh, man, I wish I had more pounds to invest in this. Because I just didn't have I was I can see, I can see where this is going. And I want to bet on this asset. And I did what I could, yeah. But I was like, Man, I wish I had I wish I had like, tons of money to like, just bro throw into this. And you know, people will call me crazy or whatever. But um, I think I think that's where it is. So I guess. And then there's a long answer. And then over the course of time, I mean, I've I don't I don't publicly post or talk that much about Bitcoin, but I do sometimes. I do. Sometimes. I am a Bitcoin or to use the term. And I do think it's, I've in private, gotten a lot of people into it, including my parents and some of my siblings and some of my friends and so on. On social media, I think I'm at the point where I'll mention it like once in a while. But sometimes they just I kind of can't be bothered, because I'm not trying to how would I put it? I guess I myself get a little bit tired of dealing with the same responses. Okay, you you probably know this better than I do. Yeah, you know, when people are still you know, they, like, man, you're talking points in 2017 are getting tight, right? It's just like, if you get it, you get it? Yeah, there are certain things where I'm like, I'm very happy to explain to people, especially in personal, like I'll explain anything, but online with just random anons and whatever. Um, like, Look, if you don't, if you don't get out or you don't you if you think that it's a scam or what like, cool, you know, before it was like, No, I want to like back and forth with you and try to convince you, and I'm just like, Okay, you think it's a Ponzi scheme? Cool. You know what I mean? Like, I never say that have fun staying poor thing, because I don't think it's very kind thing. But in my brain, I think and I'm like, okay, like if you just want to hold on to your dollars as they inflate them away into oblivion. Fine, like, you know, people can do what they like, with their own money just like I wouldn't you know, I get annoyed when someone's like, No, you're you're stopped buying them. I've had people tell me like not to buy because I'm like, no, like, I'm gonna do it. And similarly, if somebody you know, someone out there is like, No, I think gold is a better investment or I prefer real cool. God bless you. That's fine. I think. I think at this point in the game, not owning any bitcoin is a way greater risk, then owning some, even if you someone's not, like fully convinced or fully bought in or they don't fully understand the technology and the value proposition at this point. 2024 I'm like, man, if you have it being on zero, I think that's the high risk play. I think being on zero is the high risk play. I'm like, Man, at least have some like get yourself like 0.01 Get yourself like some SATs, right? Just have something so that if this thing does go the way that we leave candidate will, then you're not still on a zero, you've at least got some steak. You've got some steak in this. Yeah.
Mike Peterson
And I think a lot of the people that you've talked to that kind of blew you off, or that you don't have that response, you'd probably be surprised at the number of them that have come back as they've watched Bitcoin and see it, do those moves. And, you know, I think that's a process. A lot of people go through their first, you know, intuition is to dismiss it as a Ponzi scheme, but it's the build up of those people, like, you know, talking to them about it.
Zuby
I find that, you know, in my experience, I haven't found that most people think it's a Ponzi scheme, I just find that most people just don't know much about it at all. Yeah. Like the amount of people to this day, like their minds are blown when I tell them that it's limited to 21 million. Right? There's the amount of people who have heard about Bitcoin, but they think that it's infinite. Right? And that you they can just keep making more Bitcoin, or the people who don't understand that you don't need to buy a whole Bitcoin and transact and hold Bitcoins at a time like, you forget that most people, it's weird, because maybe, because I'm just an end. No, I guess, like I said, I think I first heard about Bitcoin for a few years before I'd really looked into it myself. But I think in this age of the internet, we often assume that people are better informed than they are, because the information is so easy to get. And so it seems odd to me that, at this point, someone has heard about Bitcoin, and maybe they've heard about it for years. And they don't even know just like the most the most basic aspects about it, when you could just take your phone, instead of writing dumb crap on Twitter, X, you could just go on Google and type, go to your favorite search engine. And just you know, within two minutes, you can understand the basics.
Mike Peterson
But I mean, most people still think that banks when they do loans are actually taking money they got from somebody else and, and loaning it out, they don't understand. That's just a ledger entry for them. And they're creating money when they do that. So I think in general, a lot of times we assume that people's financial knowledge is a lot higher. In fact, the people that call it a Ponzi scheme are usually the ones that are more educated, because they know what a Ponzi scheme is. So I think for a lot of people, they just don't, don't think about, think, you know, it's amazing that they don't, because finances impacts every area of their life. And a lot of them are struggling in so many different ways. And they know that, but they never stopped to think about what is behind that.
Zuby
Something I've learned is that I think intellectual curiosity is rarer than I thought it was. I'm a hyper intellectually curious person, and I have been my entire life. And so I think we all have a natural tendency to project our own personality traits, and perhaps interests onto other people and assume that most people are mostly like us. And it's just not true. These things exist on, you know, bell curves, or some other type of curve. And there are billions of people in this world who are just not intellectually curious. Like they're, they're just not interested in. I mean, like, we're similar in a lot of ways, like we both love traveling you, you see, you look at the globe, if you're like me, you look at a globe, or you look at a map, and you're just like, wow, look at all these places, I want to see this, I want to I saw people who just have no have no interest in leaving their town, even if they have the means not interested. Which to me is weird. I'm like, How can you not like don't, you're not even interested to go to like the other side of your own country or just like checkout? And they're like, No, I'm good here. I'm happy here. And I'm like, okay, you know, like, you have to kind of just, like, just accept that. So with me, my girlfriend's always like, God, how do you know? Like, just know these things. I just have like, all this random information in my head because I'm so I'm so curious. Like, I want to understand things. I want to know where this is. I want to know what this means. I want to understand how this thing works. Like, I'm looking at this canyon, you know, I want to know, like, how did they How did they make this can? How do they make the water bubbly? How do they like get the right, you know, like, I'm just, I'm just curious, how does this microphone work? Right? It's not enough to just Okay, cool. I talk into a microphone, but I'm curious, how does, how does this work? Like, what's the what are the features? I'm just, I'm very, very curious in that regard. And I understand not everyone is like that. So that's okay. But one thing I love about people who are into Bitcoin, is I think one of the things that does draw people into it is intellectual curious curiosity, because, again, you're still at a relatively early stage in an adoption curve. You're still you know, innovators, and you know, early adopters. And those type of people by definition, are going to be above average and intellectual curiosity and that extends beyond money and finance and you know, Bitcoin and sound money or whatever it might be, which is why I think when you talk to people All who are Bitcoiners and are interested in Bitcoin, you could actually talk to them about a lot of things, right, they're gonna, they're gonna have some understanding of politics, they're gonna have an understanding of finances, they're gonna have some understanding of like, you know, long term versus short term, time horizon and investment. And there's just a way that it doesn't mean everyone has the same viewpoints at all. But there's a level of intellectual curiosity that's in there that I believe binds people and brings people together that goes beyond the interest in Bitcoin itself. And I think that's quite an interesting, I think it's quite an interesting filter. And I think it's why in my experience, whenever I talk to people who are like really into Bitcoin, I find them just generally interesting and intellectually stimulating people to talk to, because they have thought, because if you if you if you're really interested in Bitcoin, you think about buy, what does this mean for other number one, why does this matter? And to understand why it matters, you need to understand a few other things, and then to understand its value proposition and to understand the future. And then you start thinking, Okay, what impact does this have on future generations? What impact does this have on my family? What impact could this have on politics and on global warfare, and on the way that things are funded and investments and it just plays into it touches on all these different touches on all these different areas, and so it causes you to, to think about them.
Mike Peterson
We've seen that here, even in the projects that were working in the community with the local kids, kids were, you know, generally not deep thinkers that weren't really thinking beyond, you know, playing video games or surfing or whatever, once they start understanding Bitcoin, it really causes them to start questioning. That's what I love about I feel like it's almost this, we've seen this, the whole realm of economic development in the world, especially within NGOs, and for the most part seem to do more harm than good in the world. But I feel like if you inject something like Bitcoin, and we've seen it in projects, that it's almost like it's that missing secret sauce that helps it go from people just like receiving something to them receiving something in that driving desire for more understanding, putting work into it doing that. And so, for me, that's been eye opening on this project to see just that. And I feel like I'm doing a horrible job describing it. But
Zuby
No, I understand what you're saying. Because I think what you're saying is, I think it, it helps to change people's time preference. So if you are, particularly if you live in a society where the economy is not great, and there's relatively high inflation, I don't mean, high, UK, US high. I mean, high, I don't know Turkey, Nigeria high. You, like you said earlier on you. You develop this short term, time preference, and you have to live for the day, right? You can't, you can't save, you can't invest, you can't really think on that much of a long term basis, because money is energy and the money is short term. It's all short term. So the things that you prioritize are things that are just in the immediate, and the idea of sacrificing something now, for the future, giving up something now to have something later, all of that stuff, even if that's someone's disposition, it doesn't really make sense to have that mentality when everyone else and the money itself is so fleeting. And so I think something that bitcoin does, and I've never even really articulated this before, is I think it increases lengthens out that time preference, which I guess changes how you think about everything, how you how you think about everything else, because you're thinking, yeah, money, money drives a lot. We made. It's not something that's always like fun to say, or talk about or admit, right, we don't want to be on money makes the world go around like money, money, money. We don't want to be like, you know, materialistic or sound money obsessed or anything like that. But there's a lot of truth to it. And if you think of money as stored energy or stored labor, then which is what it is, right? You go to work or you create something or you sell something, and that energy and labor is now stored in whatever currency you've chosen to store it in. And then you can buy other people's labor and energy and products with that same thing. It's all energy exchanges. When you think of it in that way. It also makes you less materialistic, I think, because you don't just think of, I think one reason why people are weird about talking about money. And it's oftentimes this kind of like taboo thing and people sort of looked down on you if you talk about money too much is, I think, because people conflate it with materialism. And again, I think that's that no sort of Fiat mindset to use that term, to just think that more money is just something you buy things with. People aren't thinking of it as like, Okay, this is, this is my, you know, if you have 100, if you have $100, you've had $10,000, or $100,000, a million dollars, that is that much labor and work and energy that's stored up, which you can then reallocate as you see fit. So if you have a super high inflation rate, and that $100, over, you know, 10 years later, is now worth $50 or that 100 units of currency. 10 years later, his net worth is now with 1%. Of what it was before, then it just, it alters everything, it alters everything, it alters the way that you move in the world. It alters, if you if you're someone who has who has children say it alters the way that you are able to think about saving and investing for them and and setting them up. But Bitcoin just disrupts. It disrupts all of this long term. And it fundamentally changes the way people think about money. What's interesting is, it's a progressive technology, but also it's kind of a reversion to how money used to be. What's weird about money is it's one of the technologies that's actually gotten worse. There aren't many technologies that have gotten worse, if you think back to I don't know, Roman times
Zuby
It's gotten better and as far as like speed and ease, sending and moving.
Zuby
But the money itself, the money, the money itself, is worse now than it was in 1900. Than it wasn't 900, than it was probably a 900 BC, right? Because people weren't using gold before. It's like, okay, cool, I've stored up my gold. And that value, that value of your stored labor and energy doesn't decrease over time, the purchasing power of that gold remains stable. You can come back 10 years, 20 years, 30 years down the line, and it's stable. And now with the fiat currency going off the gold currency, sorry, going off the gold standard, all of that has evaporated. And it's been evaporated for so long for most of most people's lifetimes, that they don't really know any different. And maybe this is one of the things that makes it difficult to understand Bitcoin, because you have a certain perception of money growing up. And then, you know, it's unlimited. It's run by Governor. Like one of the points people make to push back against Bitcoin. Sometimes it's like, oh, but it's not controlled by any country or bank. You're like, yeah, good. That's good. Like, it doesn't have to be like, Why? Why? Why have some why we bought into this narrative that it's not real money, quote, unquote, yeah. Unless the US government has told you it is or the UK Government has told you it is or, you know, whichever country you're in, make it applicable. Yeah. So um, I love this podcast, by the way, because it's making me think of ideas and thinking directions that I previously haven't. And as I'm speaking, it's making it even I'm already bullish on Bitcoin, but I'm getting like more bullish as I'm speaking, because I'm just like, Man, this is a real fundamental change in how we handle money in the economy.
Mike Peterson
I think like you were mentioning, people don't like to talk about it because they associated with materialism. For me, here in El Salvador, it's been like, so eye opening and devastating to see the way money destroys families, because the lack of opportunity, the, the lack of being able to invest and have your money work for itself, as most Salvadorans have never had any real investment opportunities, things they can invest in. And the wages are so low that for most of them, it was just a subsistence. And so they felt that the best thing they could do for their family was to leave illegally to the US, and go work there. But what we see time and time again, is the Father will leave sometimes the mother and it's gone for a number of years, oftentimes winds up meeting somebody else up in the US has another family, and so stop sending money back down. Kids have grown up without their parents around so they join the gangs you have this kind of cycle of destruction and so this is an economic thing like this is it's not about materialism, or flashy cars. It's about people being able to support their families and so you see how money actually causes the family to break down and fiat money is what that people don't none of them know that they don't know that this is fiat money that's causing this but it's his fiat system. So to see the the hope come back into Salvadoreans for a myriad of reasons. It's not just Bitcoin but I think long term bitcoin is going to bring that economic development opportunity and that ability for them to support their families and for them to have these families that grew up with their parents around. And so for me, that's, that's why it's so
Zuby
It's important that it touches everything. It touches everything. And this is why I know for a lot of people outside Bitcoin and even for people inside it, like inside it like myself, sometimes you find individuals who become like, overzealous and borderline religious about Bitcoin itself. And-
Mike Peterson
It's still, as I tell people, it's still just money. Yeah, that's money, but it's still just money, don't let it become your idol and your goddess.
Zuby
I don't think it should be absolutely should not become an idol. And it's not a god. But I can also understand, I think it's such a deep rabbit hole that I can see how and why some people sort of end up that way, particularly if they don't have like, you know, like, a strong religious faith underneath it. Because it's just becomes this like, oh, my gosh, this is the solution to all of these different, all of these different things, right, you're tucking family, you're talking world peace, you're talking about just the economy. And again, the economy is not just money again, people, people hear the word economy. And they just think of like, I don't know, Wall Street, or they just think of stock market tickers or whatever they don't realize, like the economy is the people, it's the market, it's the ability of it's everyone here, if you have a job, if you have a business, all of us are exchanging our time, expertise effort. For, we're all trading all the time, if you have any type of job you are selling, or you are part of some type of product or service that offers something that people need want value, in some way, shape, or form doesn't matter. If you are a waitress or a CEO, you're offering some type of product or service that that people need or want. And it's just so interconnected. And it's more interconnected now than ever, because the world is so the world's never been more connected than it is now. And I don't see that, going back in the bottle, I just think that this century, we're just going to become even more interconnected. And the world is going to become smaller, in many ways. And that could have some pros, it could have some cons, but that's just the way that things are trending, you can't, can't put can't put the genie back back in the bottle. And, you know, I'm really curious about this century man, I spend a lot of time just thinking about how we are in the first quarter of a new century. Coming to up towards the end of the first quarter. And if you think back to the 1900s, I mean, imagine being someone who was around in 1924, 100 years ago, and think between 1924 and 2024, how much has happened and how much the world has changed in every aspect. I mean, we're going to have that between now and 2124. Right, people in 2124 are going to look back at this time period and 2024. Like, we look back at people in 1924. And they're gonna be like, you know, this is gonna be history. And there'll be there'll be fascinated, and there'll be confused, and there'll be, the thing is, you can't even predict it. That's people like to make predictions, but it's not even predictable. There's no way someone in 1924 would have been able to predict a fragment of the things that happened. And that changed in the next 100 years. So people are sitting here now thinking, oh, yeah, this is what's going to happen in the next 30 years is like, man, none of us have a clue who we have no clue.
Mike Peterson
Look at the predictions people have made in the past.
Zuby
Even the predictions from 30 years ago, terrible, awful predictions, right? Like, we have no idea and we don't know what, we know, some of the technologies that are coming, but we have no idea what they're gonna do. I mean, you know, take artificial intelligence. I mean, I'm quite skeptical about lots of aspects about it, in terms of it being a net benefit for humanity. But ultimately, I don't, I don't know. I have no idea. The current state of AI is man, I don't even know. I can't even go back to 1924 and really think of an equivalent off the top of my head because, okay, what I'm trying to think what tech did they have in 1924? That telephones? Yeah, yeah, telephones like the basic super basic telephones where, you know, Operator, put me through to someone. Okay. So imagine from that to like a smartphone, and all the things that a smartphone can do. That is AI in 100 years, like what we have now is going to be the equivalent. If not even more primitive of that, like old school telephone with this goes to a switch room and they put you through or whatever. So it's we can't even fathom what it is. I mean, if you just go back to the 90s, or to the 90s, and you think about computing, think about computers in the 90s, what they looked like, what they could do, you know, like, just think about or think of video games. And that's just 30 ish, 30 years ago, and you think, okay, 30 years from now, people are going to be looking at all this stuff we have now and they're going to be like that they're going to see our iPhones and our Android phones and our laptops and whatever. And they're going to be oh my gosh, people used to be field people used to look this, just like we might look back at an Atari 2600, or an apple, you know, people in my age, and Atari 2600. The original Gameboy, the apple, two II computer, all of these things were, you know, and we look at it back and you know, the old one those StarTAC Motorola where you pull out the antenna, and people had this huge, old first original cordless phones dial up internet, which came later, and just in 30 years and 20 years, people are going to be looking at all the tech we have right now. And they're going to be like, Whoa, I can't believe people used to walk around with that thing. Wow, that was that was the peak of technology then. And, yeah, it's it's exciting. In a way, it's scary in a way. Some of its predictable. Lots of it is totally unpredictable. But um, yeah, I'm curious, man, it's not it's certainly an exciting time to be alive.
Mike Peterson
Yeah, it's, it's exciting. And I'm hoping we get past the, you know, we were talking earlier about how we think we're past peak woke, you know, obviously, we're, it's going to drag on. But that is something that I want to make sure we touch on. Because as I, I spent some time knowing that we were going to sit down and I went back and listened to the you know, some of your music and watched a number of your podcasts. And it really just struck me and I knew this, I have this sense already from, from your Twitter account that you have this way about, even in your, in your rap songs, you're talking about crucial social issues, you're talking about abortion, you're talking about, you know, the focus on racism, you're talking about all of these different things. I think we need more intellectuals like you in the space that have a way of addressing these things. But in a way where they don't come off as a jerk, like they really are able to speak into people's lives. And I think you have that ability. So I don't know if that's so I would, I would love to glean some of that. Because I don't feel like I have that ability that usually when I you know, if it's something that's important to me that I'm emotional about, and I start talking to somebody in my wife kind of sound like a jerk right now. Even though you're you're probably right, you sound like a jerk. So how would you encourage people to speak out? Because like you said, I don't think we should be silent. And I think, and that's what makes me so sad. I hear from so many people there, they'll, they'll message me and be like, I totally agree with you. I can't say that in public, I'm sure you get that all the lessons. Like I can never say this in public, because I'll get fired from my job, or my friends will ostracize me or whatever. But so I think it's important that we have people speaking out, especially people, deep thinkers, like yourself. So how would you encourage people to not just get into that tic for tack back trying to get one liners, but actually try to move people from point A to B as far as the way they're thinking, because I've watched even in some of the interviews, you can tell the people are actually thinking about what you're saying, not just trying to combat you. And that's a unique talent.
Zuby
Thank you. Wow, this is a big question, man. I think the first thing to do is self reflection and to develop self knowledge. I've spent a huge amount of time by myself, since like, 2011, when I went full time independently with my music. And you know, I told you, I used to stand out in the street all day selling my music, and I've had a lot of time just with my own thoughts and ability to really think about okay, what do I want to do in this world? What impact do I want to have? What do I want my legacy to be? What is the meaning of life to me? What are my values? What are my principles? What are my ethics? What's my sort of hierarchy of values, all that kind of stuff, but I've been thinking about this since my late teens. And so I think for each individual, it's important to really get to know yourself first. Get to know yourself first and get to know where your lines are, and really have a good understanding of your values and your core principles. And then next step is I would say, think about what it is once you've established what it is that you want to do and what your core mission and purpose is. is, is, then I mean that that gives kind of gives you the next step, it gives you the next step. Because then you can think about your, the space you're in, and the sector you're in, and your abilities and your talents and your experiences and your personality type. And you can get in where you fit in, right? Not everyone is built and wired to be on a podcast, like this, not everyone is going to be a YouTuber, not everyone is going to be a musician, or, you know what, anything, not everyone's gonna be a doctor or a lawyer, whatever, whatever the thing is, right? Like, we're not all meant to do the same thing. We don't all have the same interests, proclivities, and talents. So find out where you fit in and what your mission and purpose is. And then I think from that point on, it becomes easy to just live in it. And to do that day after day. And the way you do it is not going to look the same way as the way I do it is the way you do it. And in terms of courage, I would say, I would say a couple of things here, because I think courage is massively lacking in at least Western society on many levels. And I think firstly, just as a very practical thing is people need to recognize that you don't need to, you know, I often encourage people to be 10% or 20%, more bold and courageous than they currently are. I've told people before, you don't need to go full Zuby right. And there's people who go way harder than me, right, you don't need to go from wherever you are now to Okay, I'm going to just be the most like outspoken passionate, you know, you don't need to become an activist, you don't need to go full on into whatever whatever the thing may be, if that is your calling, and that's your passion and you're good at it, then sure you can you can put all your chips in, but just a 10% or 20%. And you could be at college, you could be in your workplace, you can be self employed, you can be whatever it is, if there's something that you know, you feel strongly about, and your your values and your ethics and principles are tilting you in that way, you know, be 10% be 20% more bold, and vocal. And you will find that firstly, you will find that way more people agree with you, then than you probably think you'll find that it's not that scary. In fact, it's very cathartic and relieving to not be, you know, wanting to say something and not doing it. I think every time you do that a little bit of your soul actually dies inside. And so the more you do, I guess my
Mike Peterson
question is, and I love all them. Sure, sure. But I'm I'm being selfish here. Because I have no problem speaking up. But I love I feel like you have a way of doing it in a way that makes the person want to come to your point rather than I may win an intellectual argument, but they're like so pissed off that they're not going to change their way of thinking
Zuby
I got I get that? Well, I think you have to think about what is the point of the interaction? Right. So what is your purpose of the firstly, you don't have to talk to everybody. All right. There's some people that some people are jerks, man, like some people are unreasonable. And there's no, there's no value to be gained in having a conversation with them or engaging in a debate or whatever, because they're just so far gone. And they're so unreasonable, that all this can happen is you'll get frustrated, they'll get angry, you'll waste your time, and nobody gains anything from it. So I think the first thing is okay, is this someone who is open to learning. And also you have to be as well. One thing I always keep in mind is I walk around the world, assuming that everybody knows something that I don't, and I can learn or glean something from anybody. And everybody doesn't matter. Children too, right? I can learn something from someone. So there's a humility that I have that I go into any conversation with, even in something where I'm confident and I might think, you know, I think I'm right. There's still a level of humility of okay, well, I could be wrong. I'm open to learning. And as long as that the other person has that same attitude, and I think as long as you avoid any, avoid any rudeness. Just always be kind and polite. Avoid any rudeness. Keep one's emotions in check, especially anger, no ad hominem attacks, no insults, anything like that. And I find that most people even if you're coming from really different perspectives on something, if you afford them, that level of dignity and respect and politeness and kindness, it tends to be returned. And in the situations where it isn't. Usually it kind of just ends up making them look bad. look bad. I mean, so. Yeah, that's the I guess that's the practical way that I think about it. And the way that I tried to do it, I think it's easier for me just because I have a very naturally chilled out disposition. So I've done over four 500 interviews and podcasts and you're gonna struggle to find me, you know, like, screaming at somebody, like I just don't do that.
Mike Peterson
Probably the years on the streets selling your music was, you know, a very formative part of just building that sense of, of both humility but also a belief in yourself and it's, you know worth putting your
Zuby
hand to get to get a little bit deep here as well as I do try to remember, sometimes it's difficult because we live in the world and the world is very fallen. By but I do believe that human beings are made in the image of God. And so when I'm talking to anybody, regardless of their background belief system, what I may know or not know about them, I always try to remember that I am speaking to, you know, there's a level of human dignity and decency that I always will offer to people just based on them being a human being, as well. And I think it's, you know, we're increasingly sometimes living in a society in a culture that doesn't believe that, or, you know, selectively believes it. But I think when you truly believe it, it always acts as a sort of check on your own attitude, and mentality and behavior. So I do my best to always bear that in mind. So, you know, it stops me from ever going to going to going going past a certain level of, you know, harshness that's unnecessary.
Mike Peterson
I love that. I think that's a great note for us to wrap up on. I want to make sure people know about your, your books, so sure. Can you let people know where they can find them?
Zuby
Yeah, sure, thanks. So if you want to check out any of my work, my music, my books, check out any of my merchandise, if you go to teamzuby.com, Team Z u b y.com You can get everything on there. I have my own podcast, it's called Real Talk with Zuby that's available on all platforms. And you can just find me everywhere at zubymusic. So find me at zuby music teamzuby.com, very easy to find.
Mike Peterson
You have a huge Twitter following a huge subscriber base on YouTube. So obviously, your message is resonating with people. So definitely encourage everybody to check it out and follow you on this platform.
Zuby
Thank you, Mike, I appreciate it.
Mike Peterson
Hey, I appreciate you. Being willing to spend some time with us here in the studio, and I'm hoping that you'll make it back to El Salvador, you know, in a year or so we can we can check back in and see the progress that's being made. And we'll definitely be following your career as things continue to blow up for you. One last question. Did you convince Ben Shapiro that rap was music? I didn't. I didn't watch the whole thing. Got part of it. So
Zuby
Yes, I did. Actually. In fact, there's a video from I think, from 2020 of him speaking at a university campus and somebody asked him if he now believes that rap is music, and he said that I he's peed named me in the answer and said that, yeah, I changed his mind on that. So
Mike Peterson
Well, that is incredible. You're having an incredible impact. And like I said, just the you know, all the platforms that where you've been able to be a guest and to get out this positive message. I do have one one last question. Do you prefer? Do you prefer being a guest or the interviewer the interviewer and interviewee?
Zuby
Wow, that's a good question. I probably prefer being interviewed. Because it's harder.
Mike Peterson
I'm the same. I enjoy that more, because-
Zuby
It forces me to think and you know, I do so many interviews and podcasts that I don't like to be that guy who just repeats the same thing. On every episode. I know that there's maybe there's some crazy person out there. But um, I think it's unlikely that there's anyone who's listened to every single interview that I've ever done. But I run under the assumption that there is, and I need to at least, like give that give him or her some different. Even if I'm going over topics I've been before I'm like, alright, you need to explain this in a different way or come at it from a different angle so that there's always something new and it forces me to grow and evolve as well.
Mike Peterson
Well, thank you zubi. Appreciate it. Again, enjoy the rest of your week here in El Salvador and your you have to get a suit right for the inauguration. All right. I've been looking for some posts on Twitter that
Zuby
I appreciate man.
Zuby Unfiltered: El Salvador Edition
Jun 15, 2024•1 hr 24 min
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Episode description
Live from Bitcoin Beach in El Zonte, El Salvador, we have a special guest today, the renowned rapper, podcaster, author, and champion women's deadlifter, Zuby. In this episode, we delve into Zuby's first impressions of El Salvador as he visits for President Nayib Bukele's inauguration. Zuby shares his admiration for Bukele, highlighting the significant economic development in the country and Bukele's unprecedented approval rating.
We explore Zuby's extensive travels to 44 countries and his unique approach to truly understanding a place by engaging with locals. His reflections on the palpable optimism and national pride in El Salvador are both insightful and inspiring.
The conversation broadens to discuss the transformative potential of Bitcoin, especially in providing investment opportunities and fostering long-term thinking within communities. Zuby shares his personal Bitcoin journey, offering a compelling narrative on the broader implications of Bitcoin on financial systems and personal sovereignty.
Zuby also shares his philosophy on effective communication and engaging in controversial topics with kindness, humility, and respect. This approach, he believes, is crucial for fostering meaningful dialogue and understanding.
Tune in and hear about Zuby's thoughts on the technological advancements of the 21st century and the importance of intellectual curiosity.
- Mike
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Connect with Zuby:
X: https://x.com/ZubyMusic
IG: https://www.instagram.com/zubymusic
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@ZubyMusic
Website: https://www.zubymusic.com/
Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:01:22 - Who is Zuby: Rapper, podcaster, author, and champion deadlifter?
00:01:45 - What are Zuby's first impressions of El Salvador and Bitcoin Beach?
00:08:24 - How has El Salvador transformed over the years?
00:15:47 - What is the significance of El Salvador adopting Bitcoin as legal tender?
00:19:37 - How did Zuby succeed in selling music independently?
00:24:11 - How does Zuby handle controversial topics and societal debates?
00:28:29 - How do human nature and historical behavior cycles relate to today?
00:30:25 - What is the role of technology in society and its future impact?
00:35:11 - What is Zuby's Bitcoin journey and how did he gain conviction?
00:44:38 - How can Bitcoin transform economies and promote long-term thinking?
00:50:12 - How do people's perceptions of Bitcoin evolve over time?
00:54:50 - How is Bitcoin impacting local communities in El Salvador?
00:59:15 - What is Bitcoin's historical context and future potential?
01:03:33 - How will rapid technological advancements shape the future?
01:06:13 - What are the future implications of AI and technology?
01:10:20 - How to discuss controversial topics with respect and kindness?
Live From Bitcoin Beach
Transcript
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