¶ Unconventional Journey With Greg Bennick
Welcome to a special bonus episode of Journey with Jake and happy Martin Luther King Day . Today , I'm excited to bring you a conversation with the incredible Greg Benek . Where do I even begin with Greg ? He's a keynote speaker , author , juggler , musician in a rock band , philanthropist and even a rare coin collector . Greg truly does it all .
Our conversation was not only fascinating but also inspiring , and I'm thrilled to share it with you . Together , we'll explore his adventures across Russia and Ukraine and even take a leap literally out of a plane . Get ready for a journey like no other with Greg Benek . Welcome to Journey with Jake .
This is a podcast about adventure and how , through our adventures , we can overcome the challenges of life that come our way . While I expect you will learn some things about different adventures , this show will entertain you . Each episode will feature different guests or guests as they share experiences and stories from the different adventures they have been on .
Not only will you be entertained , but you will also hear the failures and trials each guest faces and what they have done or are doing to overcome the hardships that come their way . My goal is to take each of us on a journey through the experiences of my guests , with the hope that you'll be entertained and inspired to overcome your day-to-day challenges .
After all , it's not about the destination as it is about the journey . Thank you for joining me for this special bonus episode of Journey with Jake . I'll be back on Thursday with our regular scheduled episodes , so be sure to come back in a few days for a brand new show .
If you'd like to connect with me , you can reach out on Instagram at Journey with Jake podcast , or send me an email to Jake at Journey with Jake dot net . I would love to hear from you . Don't forget you can also find Journey with Jake on YouTube . If you stop by , please do me a favor , Subscribe to the channel and hit that like button .
Lastly , a quick shout out to the Podmatch Podcast Network , which we're proud to be a part of . Check out podmatchcom forward slash network to learn more about this amazing community . As I mentioned , I was truly honored to speak with Greg Benek . If you're looking for some motivation and inspiration today , you're in the right place .
Let's dive into my conversation with Greg . Well , this is exciting for me . I've got Greg Benick with me today . Greg , welcome to Journey with .
Jake , thank you . I'm very excited . What people don't know is that , behind the scenes , you and I have tried to connect . We've missed connection . I think I missed one , you missed one and through a miracle of connection , we are here . So I'm very happy .
Third time's the charm , right ? I think that's kind of what happened . You're absolutely right . Greg came on , was ready to talk to me , and I was nowhere to be found . Yeah , we've kind of bumbled it a little bit , but hey , you're here , that's right . I'm excited , it's great , I love it Absolutely .
So Journey with Jake it's an adventure podcast , but , as I've told you , it's more than that though . It's kind of your journey and who you are , and so I kind of want to dive into who you are a little bit . I want to start by first just giving us a background , kind of where you're from , where you grew up , that sort of thing , if you don't mind .
Sure , I don't mind at all . I grew up in Connecticut , spent the first whole bunch of years of my childhood in a town with more cows than people , and I grew up in this tiny town and my parents were really interesting in that they were both kind of career renegades .
My dad was a corporate guy who worked for big companies and was traveling around the world and in and out of New York City and could not stand it and quit his job and started working for himself , doing what he did for those corporate entities on his own terms , and I was like , wow , that's cool that you did that . My mom changed her career every 10 years .
So age 10 , age 20 , age 30 , throughout my life I've seen my mom change her job every 10 years , just to mix things up , I mean . So these career renegade mindset people really inspired me . But yeah , I grew up in a tiny town in Connecticut and then moved to Seattle Washington when I was 20 .
I went to acting school and studied acting and theater and after that formed and joined a punk band and played in a punk band for a couple decades and we still play from time to time . It's been a great ride . So , amidst all of that avid coin collector , coin researcher , coin writer .
I spend a lot of time on numismatics and then , of course , keynote speaking around the world and just wrote my first book Shave my Head when I Was 18 . And there you have it . Here I am . Shave the head when you was 18 . And there you have it .
Here I am Shave the head when you're 18 . And here you are here .
I am . I used to have a ton of hair . You know , I had a Mohawk when I was a teenager and I don't know why I threw that in , but I think it's important to know . You know . Yeah , absolutely .
Wow , what a life , I guess I mean , just with all the different things you've done acting and coin collecting , writing , speaking . Let's go to your childhood for a little bit . Sure , you're growing up there and you're in Connecticut and you're in this little small town . Any desires at that point ?
What kind of grew in you to like , hey , I want to be a keynote speaker , I want to be an actor . What kind of thing as a child kind of led that Rockstar 100% rockstar is all I wanted .
I was a child of the 80s so I grew up listening to hair metal and I wanted to be Stephen Piercy from Rat . I wanted to be Vince Neil from Motley Crue . I wanted to be the drummer of this band , the guitarist of that band , the bassist of that band , and I was upset with my parents for birthing me too late to join the metal revolution of the early 80s .
And that's all I wanted to be . I was a heavy metal rock star . That was it , end of the day . I mean , come on . So yeah , some kids dream about being an astronaut or a firefighter or a police human or whatever they do . I just wanted to be rocking out with intensity and be Ronnie James Dio , essentially .
So , yeah , so I did not necessarily achieve that goal , but being in a band , being in a punk band , was fun , even if it wasn't Ronnie James Dio status . What can you say ? But yeah , that's what I wanted to do when I was a kid . I just loved music .
I loved rocking out , juggle and became a juggler and made my living as a professional juggler throughout the course of my teenage years and well into adulthood .
So I was a professional juggler at corporate events in the Northeast and at all sorts of different functions , and then branched out across the United States and was doing this comedy juggling show while doing punk rock and collecting coins at the same time . Come on , you must hear that every day . Right , punk rock , juggling , coin collecting , come on .
Yeah , everybody , they're all juggling and doing magic and whatever the case may be yeah , yeah , coin collecting . And coin collecting . Don't forget about the coin collecting .
Yep Can't forget coins .
Okay , so you learned to juggle as a teenager and you were doing this as professional juggler .
as a teenager juggle as a teenager and you were doing this as a professional juggler as a teenager . So I learned how to juggle as in a mini course at my school when I was 12 . I did my first professional show at 13 and was doing professional juggling shows age 13 , 14 .
First corporate was probably 15 years old or so and , yeah , I was doing these things very early on . So I was sure I could sit here and say I was a very ambitious young human . It wasn't even that , though . It was just like you know , it was something I could do that other people couldn't . So why not push it ?
Why not push the envelope and see how far it could go ? So , yeah , that's what I was doing the entire time I was a teenager was doing these juggling shows , and then , in the midst of that , yep , collecting coins and punk rocking and all of those sorts of things all at once .
It's funny because most you know teenagers . They're like , yeah , I worked at McDonald's or you know the younger generation had a paper route . You know that kind of thing . Yep , no , you were juggling at these corporate events .
Yeah , well , yeah , doing strolling , certainly at corporate events , and also doing shows at wherever I could find gigs , wherever I could find gigs schools and community functions and parades , and whatever I could get . I was doing all of it , all of it , all of it , all of it all throughout Connecticut and into New York and then branched out from there .
But yeah , that was the start of it all was juggling , which got me used to being in front of audiences , right , so juggling got me used to being in front of audiences and communicating effectively , or at least communicating , and then that became oh wow , you know , I like the idea of speaking , this is fun .
And then if I'm juggling and speaking , people pay more attention . This is cool . So that's kind of where all that came from .
I lived in Las Vegas for quite a few years . You know magicians , mentalists , those type of things are kind of you know it's big , big there . At least it was when I was . When I was younger , my favorite show was Lance Burton , master magician , and he had a juggler , michael Godot . I don't know if you know him .
Absolutely and absolutely , and I saw the show . I saw that exact show .
Yes , and that was . It was fun . I mean , I loved I loved the juggling when Michael Godot's son went to school with my son . So I kind of knew him from that respect too , which was kind of fun . I knew him from that respect too , which was kind of fun . But it was just . You know , I've always enjoyed juggling .
I think the one thing I love about like magicians , mentalist jugglers , is the interaction that they have with their audience , which I think is key to being a good speaker . So kind of tell me how to you said it helped you get ready for that .
Yeah , it was . It was an essential part of it , right ? So so when you're , you know I could stand here and I could juggle objects and in doing so you would be endeared and entertained for 10 or so seconds , but unless I said something , you would stop caring . And if I start saying things , I would hope that the things I'm saying relate to you .
Like if I start juggling and I'm talking about podcasting or living in Las Vegas , I'm going to have your attention . And that's what I realized early on and I talk about it in my book .
There was a story of when I was 15 years old , I was juggling for Remington company party and Remington was a shaving company is a shaving company , I assume , but they were owned by a guy named Victor Kayam , and Victor Kayam was a heavyweight now deceased heavyweight .
In terms of the corporate world in the Northeast , he owned the New England Patriots at one point , I think . But in terms of the corporate world in the Northeast , he owned the New England Patriots at one point , I think . But he had these commercials when I was growing up and I'm going to use this index card as an example .
He would hold up a shaver I'll hold it right there and he would say Remington . I like the shaver so much I bought the company and that was a tagline that everyone knew , certainly in Connecticut . Yeah , everyone knew this . I knew that tagline , everyone knew this . I knew that . Oh great , there you go . I'm juggling at this Remington party .
I'm 15 years old , in walks , victor Kayam . He's surrounded by a team of handlers I guess you'd say it's it's the middle of the summer and all these guys are like look like linebackers and they're all wearing suits , right ? So , uh , he walks up to me and I'm juggling three juggling balls . He says , hey , juggler , let me see those juggling balls .
And I'm like , oh my gosh , I'm like everyone's watching what's going to happen next . And the teenage kid me hands Victor Kayam you know the , the corporate icon these three juggling balls . He takes them , he starts doing this rudimentary juggle and all of his handlers are like they're all endeared and everyone starts laughing .
He hands the juggling balls back to me and I take the three juggling balls , I hold them up and he said oh no , I take the three juggling balls . And he said those are pretty nice juggling balls . And that's when I took them and I held them up and I said , yeah , I like these juggling balls so much I bought the company .
Okay , no one laughed , and then Victor Kayyem laughed , and then everyone laughed , right so ? But it taught me something that moment . I thought , oh , tie what you're doing into the audience and connect with them , interact with them , make it relevant to them , and you'll get , you'll get somewhere . So yeah , victor Kayim and
¶ Stay Focused
I had this amazing interaction when I was 15 . That sort of changed my life .
So Stick it to your childhood a little bit , your teenage years and you're doing these performances . Yeah , you're still new to it . I'm sure you've had a few times where maybe you dropped something or had a little mishap . Oh yeah , what did you learn from those experiences , too , as a teenager ?
My gosh . There's a chapter Again , I'm not relating to my book as a sales pitch but there's a chapter in my book called Keep your Eyes on the Knife . It's a juggling metaphor . It's about focus . Ultimately , the whole book is about how do we reclaim our focus in a world of distractions and how do we create space for possibility .
As I'm juggling and learning to juggle , I was asked to do a performance in my small Connecticut town . It was a performance at the end of a parade where the entire town would basically gather around a basketball court where I was outside juggling and I had this idea . I was going to maybe 13 years old .
I had this idea I was going to take a knife and I was going to take a carrot and I was going to juggle eventually the knife and an apple and something else .
But I would first take a carrot and we'll use this pen as the carrot and I was going to take the knife and I was going to say , ladies and gentlemen , these knives are sharp and I would swipe through the carrot . Okay , gentlemen , these knives are sharp and I would swipe through the carrot .
Okay , well , you could swipe an index card through a carrot and you'd probably be able to cut it , depending on how ripe the carrot was . It was just theatrical , right , and the way I practice it is . I would hold up three knives . I would pick one , ladies and gentlemen , these knives are sharp and I would chop through that carrot .
Well , I get in front of the audience , I lose myself in the audience , I lose my moment , I get distracted and instead of saying these knives are sharp , I said , ladies and gentlemen , I start cutting through the carrot . These knives are sharp . And as I got to sharp , I'd cut the carrot too short and cut right into my finger in front of the audience .
So I chop into my finger with this knife . Blood spurting Okay , so I mean probably not spurting , I would have been dead , but you know what I'm saying Bleeding . And then I'm juggling and there's blood flying all over the place . Years and years and years went by and I would go back to my small Connecticut town .
I would see people who were kids , then now adults with children of their own , and the first thing out of their mouths wouldn't be Greg , how's Seattle ? Or how's your life , or how's . They would say , dude , remember that time you were juggling , you cut your finger and the blood I mean I'm like , yeah , I do remember that that was 28 years ago , thank you .
But yeah , there were mishaps along the way , dropped things , cut fingers , all of it . But the chapter in the book Keep your Eyes on the Knife is about maintain your focus Even in the midst of ego gratification , distraction all around us , the spectacle of the universe . Keep your eyes on what matters most rather than chop into your finger .
You'll do better that way and keep all your digits . So it's about focusing .
I guess on the knife .
Absolutely On the knife . The knife as metaphor , the most mission critical thing in front of you , meaning that undoubtedly you're going to do something else with the rest of your night , as am I right ? But are we thinking about those things now ? No , we're in conversation . This is the most mission critical thing .
That if I suddenly go , oh wait , what's over there ? And I just walk off screen , I've just killed the interview . So instead , keep your eyes on the knife , on your focus , on the mission critical thing in front of you , and things will fall into line from there . You create space for possibility when you do that .
I love it . Since you've started talking about it , yeah , tell me the name of the book , what it's called , and let's talk about the book a little bit , because I'm fascinated by what you wrote .
Yeah , yeah . So I wrote a book called Reclaim the Moment Seven Strategies to Build a Better Now , and the idea is rooted and I talk about this in the book in the idea that the world is obviously filled with distractions .
But I go into the book about a guy named Guy Debord , and Guy Debord was a member of a group in France called the Situationiste Internationale , and what they were doing in the late 60s in France was taking a look at life and what it means to be alive essentially .
And what Guy de Borde wrote about was that he wrote a book called Society of the Spectacle and in this book he wrote about the fact that we see around us images which represent life . We see them everywhere Advertisements and imagery about adventure and love and excitement .
And there are so many distractions from these images , this spectacle , as he called it , that it's almost as if we're not living our own lives . We're living by way of the spectacle . I don't need to have adventures because I see adventures around me in the spectacle .
I don't need to fall in love because there's images around me of love that will make me feel as though I'm in love . Therefore , we are one arm's length away from life at any point and we are living by way of the spectacle . Okay , that's important because we get one shot to make this work .
So why wouldn't we engage more fully in actually having adventures , being in love , pursuing what we want to pursue , rather than just allowing the spectacle to consume us ?
I write about distractions and I write about focus and maintaining our focus , but ultimately it's about when we keep our eyes on the knife , or some of the other chapter titles , when we leap into the dark and jump into possibility and say yes before we say no , we create possibility for ourselves to live a life of meaning and a life of value and a life of
adventure and a life of creativity and development amidst a world which otherwise would just be spectacle and consume us . I mean , we could sit around all day long scrolling through TikTok feeling like , oh man , I could do that someday , I could do that someday , I could do that someday .
No , what you're really going to get is tendonitis or whatever it is in your thumb from scrolling , scrolling , scrolling . That's what you'll get . You're not going to get an adventure from scrolling . And that isn't to decry social media . We all love it , we all hate it , that sort of thing .
But at the end of the day , we have to be living our lives creating possibility for things to actually happen rather than allowing the spectacle of them to happen before us .
Allowing the spectacle of them to happen before us . Wow , that resonated with me talking about that because , as you're talking about that , I'm thinking about my own life and kind of how I've done that myself . I'm kind of just , oh , let me just watch what's going on here , let me just I'll talk to somebody who's you know did this instead of actually doing it .
And I think me doing this podcast has motivated me to get more out outside and start living more , which is fantastic , which has been a huge benefit and blessing to me is being able to talk to people like you . Kind of hearing it from other people sometimes like , oh yeah , it strikes a chord with me . So I appreciate you sharing that , because that's big .
I'm so glad , I'm so glad . And again , one thing I talked about in my book and not even again I didn't mention this is that I'm very clear about the fact that I'm not a guru or the answer person . I wrote the whole book almost as a reminder to myself , in a way .
Like get out there , like let's do this , let's interact with Jake , let's interact with the world , rather than just dream of what we want to be doing . Let's bridge the gap between what we have not and what we could have . And we can do that actively . We can make the choice to do that , so let's make it happen .
So , yeah , this stuff is inspiring to me too . I just codified it in a book , but other than that , it's inspiring to me Absolutely .
I love it . Okay , and again it's Reclaim the Moment .
Reclaim the Moment Seven Strategies to Build a Better Now . It came out on Wiley and it's available literally everywhere . If people are into Amazon , you can find it on Amazon . If you're into independent bookstores , every bookstore on planet earth can get it . They probably don't have it in stock .
I mean , I don't want to be so egotistical and say it's available everywhere . You just you know , but every bookstore . A friend of mine who lives in Reykjavik , iceland
¶ Russian Spoken Word Tour Lessons
, walked into a bookstore and was like can you get this book ? And they looked it up and like yeah , we can get it . So that's the benefit of being on a major publisher is that it's available everywhere . So that's cool .
Awesome , very cool , yeah . So , yeah , check out the book . I'm going to check it out now , especially after our conversation . So , yeah , I love it . Okay , let's talk about some of the cause . We mentioned adventure a little bit and we talked some adventures . You , as someone who's a speaker , a keynote speaker , you've gone all over the place .
Something I know you kind of mentioned to me just in passing before we got on this call was about , I think , some speaking engagements or something you did in Russia and the Ukraine or what was going on there . Can we kind of talk about that ?
For sure . So I made a choice early on that I wanted to see as much of the world as possible and do that as much as I could right and with whatever limited budget I had in limited time . Being in a punk band meant that I had the opportunities to go on tours .
That was cool , and when the band wasn't touring I would do these spoken word tours where I would go out and speak about the ideas and the songs on tour . So at one point I made connection with some friends in Russia and I said that I wanted to do a spoken word tour of Russia and I asked if it had been done before and my friends in Russia said no .
They said that Henry Rollins had done a couple of dates but had not done an actual full tour . So I thought you know what I want to do a tour , a spoken word tour of Russia . Let's do this . So we booked 21 dates across Russia and Ukraine from I mean from Ukraine certainly went up into Russia , from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok .
And let me translate that into as far West as you can possibly get to . As far East as you can possibly get , I mean any more West and you're in Europe . Any more East and you're in the ocean , the entire entire country , all of Russia .
So we did 21 dates and I spoke every single night , showed a film that I produced , a documentary as humans , as people , as people who want something more from life . And it was about bridging gaps between myself and Russian people , because I grew up as a child of the 80s hearing that the Russians wanted to bomb us .
What was amazing , the biggest takeaway , if someone said to me , tell me the one thing you remember about Russia and there's hundreds of things I remember it was when I would mention every night that the Russians wanted to bomb us , people would either erupt in laughter or be completely shocked .
And all this was done with a translator , with translators , and people would say we didn't want to bomb you , you wanted to bomb us . And that's when I realized , oh wow , we are all being played by the media and by other forces in the world . You know , the whole world thrives on fear and profit , right ?
So through keeping people afraid of the Russians , it's easier to keep them in line . And it's basically what I found is that the similarities far outweighed the differences between us and there was no Russians running around building nuclear bombs wanting to bomb us . It was literally a fallacy .
I mean , as far as I can tell , in 21 different communities across Ukraine and Russia , people were like , no , no , that was you guys . You wanted to do that and I'm like I didn't want to do that . I was sitting in a town with more cows than people I'm not building bombs to invade your country .
And we would just laugh at each other and all go , oh wow , we all got played . How interesting . It was pretty cool , so , building connections across the entire country . It was amazing Traveling by train , working with translators , meeting sometimes 40 people at a show in a night , sometimes hundreds .
It was really , really cool 21 different communities across Ukraine and Russia . Yep , how long like what was it ? Over several months ? How long was ?
this . I was over there for probably a month . I did a day or so just to get going , and then a couple of days in Ukraine , maybe a day in between before we got to Moscow , and then there was a day off here and there . It was close to a month basically .
It was basically a month over there and I've been told that this is a tour that has never happened before . No one's ever done it and at this point I was told it certainly wouldn't happen now . So , yeah , this might be a one-of-a-kind experience that this Russian spoken word tour happened . It's pretty great .
Besides the community , with the people and getting to know them and realizing like hey , we're the same , really , when it gets down to it . What other things did you learn from this experience ?
Yeah Well , a that you can do stuff . You know what I mean . I'm talking to myself now . I mean , if I said to myself no way this is going to work before that tour , I certainly would never say that again now . The tour absolutely showed me that things are possible beyond what I think is possible . That's a huge lesson .
I talk in the book about saying yes before we say no in order to create possibility . How many times a day do I say no to things ? Do I say oh , no , no , that'll never work . Jake suggested that we go to the Caribbean learn to scuba dive and find a turtle , and I was like no , I can't do that . I'm , you know , I can't .
We say no before we say yes . And this was an instance where , for the rest of my life , I'm not going to be able to say oh man , I , I , I can't do that . I did a 21-date tour across Russia . I have no idea how that all came about . It was a tremendous amount of work and it worked .
You know and the same is true with you know the bucket list item of jumping out of an airplane skydiving . I don't know if you've ever gone skydiving . I did it two years ago for the first time , same sort of deal . Terrified , I put it off for two years . I paid for it and put it off for two years . I finally showed up , terrified .
They're like you ready ? And I almost said no , I'm out of here . And walked out the door , not out the door of the plane , but out the door of the facility . But you're filling out the paperwork and the waivers and it's like are you aware that you might die ? You might blah , blah , blah . And you're in the plane .
Terror when you're about to jump , terror when you're at the door of the plane . And the second you're out the door of the plane . Terror is gone . And you're like this rules . And you're like falling to the ground at a hundred and something miles an hour and it's exhilarating . I've got goosebumps even talking about it now .
And you land and you're like , oh man , how can I apply that to the rest of my life ? Anything else that I am up against ? I no longer have an excuse because I just jumped out of that airplane . That was wild . So , yeah , man , things like that , they push our limits , they teach us that we can do more than we realize .
And you don't need to tour Russia or jump out of a plane in order to have that realization . It could be as simple as today I can't go to the gym , there's no way . See what happens if you do . And that doesn't mean see what happens if you do and you leave your infant in a hot car . Let's be responsible . You know what I mean .
See what happens if you do , if you can even imagine creating the space to do it , because then the next day you go , oh , I can't do that , oh , wait a minute . Imagine creating the space to do it , because then the next day you go oh , I can't do that , oh , wait a minute . Yesterday I did .
And all of a sudden , life begins to transform , saying yes , what about ?
what would you say , cause ? And I think you . I think I read this somewhere that you are writing a biography for somebody or something .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah and it's , it's somebody who's big into self-esteem , because I think that's where some people struggle , maybe even , like myself , is saying no , because I'm kind of , you know , I don't know if it's the scared if I don't have enough self-esteem . So what do you say about self-esteem ? What's your thoughts on that ? Yeah , sure .
Yeah , and I am . I'm writing a biography on a cultural anthropologist named Ernest Becker . That project has been going on seven years , but the reason I'm so immense has been , at times , my doubt , my self-doubt that sounded like Yoda .
So my self-doubt has been so immense at times that the project has taken way longer than it should have , because I'm like this guy's way too smart . How am I going to capture his life ? How am I going to write about him ? How is this going to work ?
To the point where I have a friend on the East Coast who's writing a book of equal complexity on a different topic . We have meetings every week on the phone in order to keep each other motivated and inspired . Okay , I say that because I'm not the guru and the master of these things .
I'm constantly working on it too , but the reason that self-esteem plays in is because we have every opportunity to have our self-esteem be questioned . If you and I went on TikTok right now , instagram , facebook , what have you ?
And we challenged each other and I said Jake , I want you to find five or 10 podcasters who are more successful , with more listeners , better headphones and a better microphone , than you Go . I want you to feel terrible . In five minutes . You could easily do that .
And if you said to me , greg , I want you to find speakers who are more exciting , have more hair , have been to Russia for 22 days not just 21 , and collect better coins than you go , I could find somebody and feel terrible about myself . We do that all day long . We can pay lip service to social media being great , and in fact it can be great .
It connected us . I mean that sort of thing . However , the opportunities for it to undermine us are also present all the time as well . We just have to be aware of that . And it doesn't mean shut your phone off or throw it in a lake . It means , every once in a while , put it aside and again put the spectacle aside and get back to the actual living .
And it means that when we decide to do something , know that we've been trained like oh , I don't know if I could do that , I don't know if I'm good enough , because podcaster X with the gold headphones did the thing , and the speaking juggling coin collector who has .
And all of a sudden , we start to question our abilities outside of the realm of what we're looking at on the screen . That's a problem . It's a huge problem . So I would suggest it's not your low self-esteem or my low self-esteem , or I think that we're all probably doing better than we think .
We are just engaged in activities that train us to think that we're not doing as well as we are . So that's the problem .
Interesting ? Yeah , cause I . It seems so easy to think like , like you said , it would be super easy for me . I can name five podcasters easy who have better mics , who have more listeners , who you know , no problem . It's just amazing how we just kind of automatically go that way .
Well , of course we all , we all , and we all do it , we all do it . I mean , you know , my friends who are musicians are just like , oh my gosh , how does that band get that gig ? My friends who are chefs are like , how did that person get the guest spot on the cooking show ?
Friends who are journalists are thinking how did that person get a byline and how do they get their articles ? Here , there and everywhere . It's all of us the yoga instructor , the coin part , everybody .
Well , the problem is that we're up against an immense hurdle , and the hurdle is it's not just fun pixels on a screen , it's images designed to keep our eyeballs on that screen . You know , if I had a pizza place and it was called Greg's Pizza and it was near where you live I probably , before all this discussion , would have told you . You know what ?
We've got a special two pizzas for $17.99 . Come in before five and I'll give you a two liter bottle of soda as well . And then , if you did , I certainly would have given you a coupon .
So you come back next week and you bring your spouse and then , if you do that at Christmas time , you get a Christmas card saying hey , merry Christmas , come and get a pizza . Social media is the same thing times a billion .
Keep your eyes on the screen because eventually , as I'm scrolling through podcasters and keynote speakers , I'm going to come across an ad for hiking boots . Because , surprise , surprise , I liked hiking boots a couple of times last week . It knows I like hiking boots . It shows me the ad .
It's kept my eyes on the screen because my self-esteem is dependent on it and all of a sudden , I click and buy a pair of hiking boots and praise capitalism . Life goes on . This is what's going on here . It's like we're getting played . That said , it's fun to be on social media . It connects , connects us .
We just have to , every once in a while , put the spectacle aside and get back to living and get back to connection with ourselves . Back to living , it's a good way to say it . Back to living . I think that probably came from shawshank redemption . But yeah , get busy living or get busy dying right ?
yeah , probably , exactly , yeah , 100 . So besides russia , ukraine , I you've been to a lot of other countries doing this . Any particular place or any particular spot that you just have a good memory of , or something that was like whoa , that was cool to be there .
I mean , if you had 20 hours to the podcast , so I'll just talk for a few minutes and then you can tell me to be quiet . So yes , budapest , hungary , is like a second home to me . I've been there 10 times and I love it dearly . It's an amazing collection of antiquity and modern vibes
¶ Global Lessons on Kindness and Philanthropy
all at the same time and there's just amazing things to see . All of Eastern Europe has been in my heart for years and years . I love Poland Anytime I got to go there spoken word or otherwise . Poland , all throughout Poland , and Budapest has been quite awesome . All over Europe has been amazing For a while .
A friend of mine and we have just kind of talked about relaunching this A friend of mine and I were doing a thing called the Legacy Project where we brought high school students on trips to visit places that had been experiencing or had experienced , trauma or genocide on a societal level and then learn from the people there .
What can we learn from these experiences to help us live better amidst a chaotic world ?
So we went to South Africa to study apartheid , and Poland to study the Nazi occupation , and Chile and Argentina to study disappearances and death squads and dictatorships , and then Rwanda and Uganda , genocide and dictatorships there and learned immense amounts about human beings' resilience and ability to get beyond things .
So all of those places are near and dear as well . Rwanda is an incredible place and I love it dearly as well . My time in Uganda was also incredibly awesome . So , yeah , I've been a lot of places . I spent time in Thailand this last year . I decided to use a credit card for what it's for , which is spending on something you shouldn't .
Booked a trip to Thailand for a month , walked around , went to one of the few verifiably awesome supportive of care of elephants , elephant sanctuaries and was there for a few days and then spent about 10 days on a scuba diving boat .
And talking to Thai people was incredible , just culturally so vastly different and , at the same time , similar in terms of how they live and how they have infused into their culture a sense of almost like meditative calm . And , granted , this is also the home of Muay Thai kickboxing , so let's take that with a grain of salt .
But I mean , you know , when you get pulled over by a cop and the cop gives you a ticket , says you know , thank you , and bows to you , that's a different experience , I would think , than the United States , right ? So , and that happened over there to me .
So the point is is that everywhere I've gone in the world has been , for one reason or another , truly fascinating and has taught me about similarities between people rather than differences .
What do you think it's done for you personally ?
Yeah , I would say it's drawn me closer to people who I otherwise would keep at arm's length , meaning that when we meet someone new , we don't know what to expect of them .
I have a chapter in the book called Believe in the Possibility of Kindness and basically it's the idea that when we meet somebody , rather than thinking to myself , okay , this guy , jake , I wonder what he's is , what's he all about ? Is he going to charge me to be on this podcast ? What's the deal ?
Instead thinking to myself , okay , this could be cool , I can make a new friend out of this . This could be pretty awesome , all right , if we keep our minds open to possibility with people , we create possibility for things to actually happen in our lives .
It's certainly done that because , whether in the jungles of Haiti or in Eastern Siberia , anywhere in the United States or Canada , across Europe , the so-called Far East , whatever it might be , the same is true .
People want their kids happy , their kids healthy all these different things that we would expect , but they want to feel as though they're part of something meaningful .
They just want to feel as though their community is strong , their family is strong , even , even , whatever it might be , that might be their church , it might be whatever , they just want to feel as though they're part of something meaningful .
That's a universal truth and that means that anywhere I go , even if somebody is politically completely different than me , socially different , I could probably find common ground . In fact , I could definitely find common ground if we're both willing . So that's what the experiences have taught to me definitely find common ground if we're both willing .
So that's what the experiences have taught to me . I love that . You said a word in there that I really love .
It's a word that just means a lot to me because I look like people , like you and people I've talked to , the word kindness and being kind to each other , I think the media , I think you would think no one's kind to anybody anymore , ever just kind of from the outside look of things .
But people are kind everywhere and doing this podcast you're going to be podcast number 150 or somewhere around there Everyone's been kind and that means a lot to me . What about kindness for you ? Because you said you have a chapter about kindness .
Yeah , it's immense , it's immensely important . So I make my living speaking to corporate groups , associations and whatnot . But another part of what I do is speaking to elementary schoolers , junior high schoolers and high schoolers about kindness and what possibilities are created when we think in terms of kindness .
And I've done these assembly programs and day-long school programs all across the United States , like in the last couple of weeks . I was in Detroit , michigan , I was throughout Pennsylvania , north of Seattle , lake , stevens , washington . It's huge .
It's immense because you're right , I mean it feels sometimes like the world is completely unkind and the fact of the matter is we are all , in essence , unkind , either overtly at times or covertly unkind at times , like everyone's a jerk every once in a while . But we get lost in that and in the punitive side of that no-transcript about it .
Kids are like , yeah , okay , yeah , we , we know that , let's go . And kids are super into it . And what's amazing is the number of times that school administrators will take me aside and say , hey , do you , do you do this program for administrators and adults too ? I go oh , wow , okay . And corporate folks , associations , say the same thing from time to time .
I've been really interested in what you've already realized , which is that it's everywhere . People are generally good . I'm convinced of that . I don't think that people are generally evil . Yes , everyone does evil things . I mentioned it in the book . Yes , everyone is terrible sometimes .
The default switch , I think , is that we want kindness and caring , and more of it in the world . I'm entirely convinced of that .
You kind of touched on a little bit . You're doing stuff for elementary school kids , high school kids , taking them to these places , things like that . Let's talk a little bit about philanthropy to you , because I know I think you do quite a few things . I saw something about you do some stuff with Haiti . Yeah , can you ?
Kind of just tell us a few of the things you've done .
For sure , absolutely . So you know , 100 for Haiti is a nonprofit that I founded , that I'm the executive director of , and that sounds more important than my position actually is , meaning that that sounds like I'm the guy , but I'm actually not the guy . 100 for Haiti is very small .
We support the work of a community in Haiti on a couple different fronts building houses for people in need and building houses is not building houses . Seattle waterfront it means $250 to $300 homes made out of thatch and mud , essentially with tin roofs , which is more than enough for a lot of people .
Building houses , sending kids to school , providing clean water for communities , making sure that these schools have internet and helping farmers plant crops . We do all these sorts of things and people can find out more at 100forhaitiorg . It's all spelled out like O-N-E-H-U-N-D-R-E-D-F-O-R-H-A-I-T-Iorg . We've been around since the earthquake in 2010 .
I sailed to Haiti on a sailboat with some friends after the earthquake and delivered about 10,000 to 15,000 pounds of supplies and food to the Haitian people . That was all donated stuff .
It was pretty remarkable to start 100 for Haiti and continually at first sending down relief supplies and then switch to being support basically for development on Haitian terms totally on Haitian terms , not on our own terms on Haitian terms , totally on Haitian terms , not on our own terms . On Haitian terms , it's been pretty awesome .
Philanthropic endeavors tend to be person A is wealthy and gives money to person B who is not wealthy , and while with 100 for Haiti , there is the element of money comes in and it gets sent to Haiti for projects .
It's all Haitian run , which is why , going back to my title , sure , founder and executive director that looks great on a resume , hooray me , but really I work for a Haitian guy and what he wants I do , basically he's in charge . So , yeah , that's what it's been . That's been a main focus of it .
And sure , I've been done other things , but that's really kind of the main focus and if people go to the website , you'll see it's out of date in the last couple of years . Try writing a book and updating a website at the same time . It's sometimes challenging , but yeah , we've been working consistently for the past .
Going on 14 years in Haiti , 13 years , wow , good for you . That's awesome , thank you .
What have you discovered about the Haitian people ? What have you learned about them ?
Well , they don't eat pets . I don't know if that needs to be said or not . They don't . They're not eating the cats and dogs , okay . So other than that , though , what I said earlier about being in the jungles of Haiti and talking to folks , the Haitian people are quite amazing , because they've been through a lot and they don't necessarily tell you that .
Right , you go down to Haiti and you talk to folks and they're just living their lives . They're just living their lives at the apex of earthquakes and hurricanes and political overthrow and all of that . They're just going for it , and it'd be easy to say they're resilient , but it's more just that they're just living life .
They're going for it and living their lives . So I've been impressed always with the steadfastness I think I like that word better .
I've never really thought about it that way the steadfastness of the Haitian people , because if I lived at the apex of hurricanes , floods and earthquakes and whatever , I'd probably move or get burned out , and that's a metaphor , meaning I'd probably say , man , I don't know if I've got what it takes , but the Haitian people have what it takes .
They're steadfast and determined and hardworking and community-based and supportive of one another , and in the midst of what has been a political social maelstrom for the last 200 and however many years . They just can't catch a break . But they're living , they're living . So I'm always impressed and in awe and deeply respectful of them .
A couple of two-parter questions here as we're kind of wrapping up here .
but what does the living they're living , so I'm always impressed and in awe and deeply respectful of them . A couple of two-parter questions here , as we're kind of wrapping up here . But what does the future hold for you and what are some of the challenges that you face moving forward ?
Love it . Okay , so future , I really want to write and finish this Ernest Becker book . I've got to do it . Now that you and I are friends , you can hold me accountable as well . That's going to take some time .
I'm always looking to expand my keynote offerings and get more keynote presentations and go out and speak about the ideas in the book , and I actually as ironic as this might be I want to put up more content about the ideas in the book , and I had a shift recently from hey , everybody , here's an idea in my book , with the real hook being the book , the book ,
the book . I thought you know what ? I want to give ideas away . I just want to put up content . That's like , hey , I want to share this idea and just share ideas , ideas , ideas , ideas , and just see where that leads . I'm curious . I think it'll make some great connections rather than some great book sales , which is like meh , I'd rather have connections .
It seems more valuable to me . So that's in the future for sure . More articles on rare coins , more research and writing about coin collecting . That's definitely in the future . The biggest obstacle is inside of my own brain , me telling myself I can't do it .
I'm not sure when I'm going to work this future sometimes and applying it right now and I don't know what the psychology is of that or the game that I'm playing or the racket that I'm running , but basically I'm applying that future what if kind of mentality in a negative way rather than thinking , wow , what if ?
In a positive way and going after the things that I want . So as long as I can meter that and balance it out , I think I'll be in pretty good shape . But check in with me and see from time to time and we'll go from there .
And then the final question it's a question I like to ask everybody who comes on this show is what does adventure mean to you ?
Oh man , we got limited time . We're literally . Each of us is like a clock ticking down , tick , tick , tick , and I don't know how many ticks I've got left right . I mean , any one of us could just keel over in a second . So adventure means living fully and doing things that you didn't think you could do otherwise .
It doesn't have to mean you go to Russia for 21 days . It doesn't have to mean you stand in the jungles of Haiti and you eat mangoes with your friends . It doesn't have to mean you sit in a sauna in Budapest and laugh out loud with people you just met , all of which I've done , all of which doesn't have to be adventure .
Adventure can be you and me walking around Seattle some night at 11 o'clock at night , seeing what we see and seeing what happens . It could mean learning to play a game you've never played before . It could mean learning to play a game you've never played before . It could mean talking to somebody you didn't think you'd ever talk to again .
Like , find that sense of the limits here . I'm going to go past it . That is where adventure lives .
Greg , thank you so much for coming on Journey with Jake .
Hey , thank you . If people want to keep in touch , drop me a line , gregbenikcom , it's G-R-E-G-B-E-N-N-I-C-Kcom , or find me on social media , or just you know , I don't know stand on a street corner , shout my name . Eventually I'll show up . But yeah , it's been really fun , Jake , I appreciate it and thanks for having me .
Thank you so much to Greg Benick for joining me on the show . As Greg mentioned to follow him on Instagram at Greg Benek . I also highly recommend his book Reclaim the Moment Seven Strategies to Build a Better Now . You can grab a copy on Amazon or through his website . I'm ordering mine right now .
Thank you for tuning into this special bonus episode of Journey with Jake . I'll be back with my regular weekly episode this Thursday featuring Bjorn Lesterud . Bjorn was such a joy to talk with , so make sure to tune in . You won't want to miss it . And remember , it's not always about the destination as it is about the journey . Take care everybody .