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The Smoke Trail, hosted by Smoke Wallin, is a journey into awakening consciousness, weaving authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests to unlock high performance and perfect health. Each episode delves into spirituality, leadership, and transformation, offering tools to transcend trauma and find your bliss along the way. It’s a reflective space for achieving peak potential and inner peace in a distraction-filled world.
I'm super excited for my next guest, Jason Ma. He brings clarity, leadership, and legacy in the age of AI. He's a founder and chief mentor at 3EQ, where he coaches and advises some of the wealthiest families in the world all around the world. He's also an investor. He's got an AI company, and he's just a a wonderful person.
Smoke:Jason Ma, welcome to The Smoke Trail.
Jason:Smoke, it's always good to see you.
Smoke:Great to see you. And we had a wonderful time together when we got to be on stage together at IPI Camden Wealth back in February, the conference I cochaired. And you were a keynote speaker and did a panel and we had a great engagement with the family offices. When we first talked before that, getting ready for that, you and I hit it off and I think we had planned a thirty minute call. And I think after about an hour and fifteen minutes, we was like, oh, wait.
Smoke:We have to go. So I thought it would be wonderful to have you on, talk a little bit about what you do, how you do it, and and how, you know, the importance of spirit in your life is, and and how it it kind of intertwines all the things and all the actions you take.
Jason:Well, thanks for inviting again. I also loved your work. Smoke, keep keep it up on a spiritual level, on a business level, the contribution you make.
Smoke:Well, thank you. It's I'm called to do it. I wasn't really planning to do a podcast, but something made me do it and here we are. So this is episode 45 and super excited to have you. And you now you're in you're at home, which is in the Bay Area, know.
Smoke:I don't know where you are exactly, but I see behind you, like a wall of letters. And I know you you told me a little of the story, but what are why do you have a wall of letters in your in your office there?
Jason:These are wall it's entirely, 100%. My my children, my daughters when they're young. They are Gen Z daughters. They're 29, Sabrina, 25, Alilia. Both are engineering leaders in big tech.
Jason:One work at Google, one work at Stripe. When they're young, when they're young, they used to write me every year all the time, happy birthday, love letters, I love you dad, you'll make me drawings. So in my home office here, it's entirely my kids' pictures and their love letters and the drawings in one, two, three, four, four walls.
Smoke:That's so awesome. So everywhere you turn, you're reminded of two of the loves of your life.
Jason:Oh, can you imagine the spiritual and the emotional anchor?
Smoke:Yeah. Keeps you grounded, right?
Jason:Yeah. Absolutely. Love it.
Smoke:Yeah. And and when when when you not if not that you would ever have an argument with one of your daughters, but when you have a disagreement, you just look around and you say, oh, look. They love me. And, you know, you you pass right through. Right?
Jason:Oh, man. Girls, they they they know how to kick your ass. I get my butt kicked sometimes. And but love comes first. Right?
Smoke:Yeah.
Jason:My wife is a bit of a chief nurturer and the chief mentor, but love always comes first. Unconditional. And you know the mafia family, you know I joke around a lot, I'm I'm very playful. The mafia, the mafia, capital a. When Sabrina, when she was back in high school she said, dad, we are the mafia with a capital a.
Jason:I said, innovative, what does it mean? The mafia family. The mafia thumbs up, man. Thumbs up.
Smoke:A good mafia.
Jason:The the mafia values are unconditional love, humor. I raise my hand. I'm the factory of bad jokes all the time. It's like there are 90 bad jokes. My younger daughter Lydia back in high school and college she used to lock all these bad jokes from dad, Oh my God, that's another crazy stupid joke or dad.
Jason:And then the third value is really high standards in what matters. So in unconditional love, humor, high standards in what truly matters. And the third value, I kind of leave it a bit vague to leave some wiggle room, right? Like Viktor Frankl mentioned, watch between stimuli and response is a space. The Yeah.
Jason:Where you could, you know, make an impact. Right?
Smoke:Yeah. That that's that's one of the most powerful books. And for those that don't know, Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl. He was a psychologist, psychiatrist was imprisoned in Nazi camp. And he wrote this book coming out of that and came up with a whole new way of kind of mental approach to life.
Smoke:But it was all about like surviving it when he was in the camp. And the ones that survived, he observed were the ones that had something to live for. Right? That thought about something outside of the camp. And that was that whole thing about stimulus and response.
Smoke:Can respond to your environment, you have choices, right? And his choice was to live, to survive. So he did, And a lot of them didn't, but that's a beautiful teaching. I love that you bring that up because I I haven't talked about that book on here, but I I know my youngest daughter, she's also 27. So I have two daughters, two sons, 27.
Smoke:I won't say all their ages because I'll mix it up, but 27 to 37, the four of them spread out. And and my youngest, Tally, when she said, what is your I asked her what her favorite book was. She said that book. She she named Viktor Frankl.
Jason:Yeah. Absolutely. Great books, highly recommended.
Smoke:Yeah, well that's beautiful. And so those three pillars, I guess of your family, of the way you've approached things, that was the way you started when you had them from the beginning or that was something that evolved?
Jason:You know, I think we evolve all the time and. Yeah. My encouragement, you know, that some people, a lot of people know me as a chief mentor next gen leaders, right? So, over the years, I have recognized patterns at work, patterns that don't quite work. It's about pattern recognition and how to use the patterns.
Jason:Great entrepreneurs, great innovators and how to create new patterns, You create new systems. The best way to predict the future is to invent it, create it. I would say it's been a transformation in my life.
Smoke:And
Jason:for you know that already for many, many decades. I was bit of a, I was raised in San Francisco born in Hong Kong, raised in San Francisco and super liberal end to end but the older we get the wiser we get, fiscally conservative and all that but socially very accepting. In the Bible there's at least seven times in the book of Revelation that talks about, hey, God is inclusive. It's about your different races, tribes, languages, tongues, blah, blah, blah. So it's a very good inclusion.
Jason:But I say ever since the last six and a half years, ever since I began my journey in faith and I began growing after being secular for fifty something years, it's been the best most empowering phase of my life. It's crazy. The accelerated transformation in the last six and a half years, it made me to be a better father, husband, chief mentor, global rate maker, AI tech, entrepreneur, investor, speaker, community leader, etcetera. So it's a ever changing evolution but with spirit deeply embedded in you nothing is more powerful frankly speaking. So that I see light the way that approach life and people tell me, hey Jason how are doing?
Jason:I roll my eyes it's like I hate that question. And I tell them, say okay, I wake up every morning I'm very, very sincere because God is love and truth. And I'm also like at the same time. So it's like love, truth, pragmatism. And I tell them I wake up every morning grateful and inspired.
Jason:That's it. I roll it up. I'm a happy boy. I'm rolling Yeah.
Smoke:That's what else could you ask for? That's beautiful.
Jason:Yeah. Can I explain that with logic? I'm very logical. Yeah. It's a broker engineering.
Jason:I'm super logical, very systematic, good in sympathizing complex problems and buoyant and learn to communicate pretty well. So hyper strategic, systematic, methodical, but things about God, I cannot explain sometimes through logic. I just cannot.
Smoke:Well, yeah, because obviously everything that is including ourselves is God. It's like, it's unexplainable to any human, but that I love, I love that. I share your, your joy and your enthusiasm and, and bring spirit into the world. That's what this podcast is about. Well, not bringing into world, bringing into awareness.
Smoke:It's already in the world. It's everywhere. It's inside each of us. It's inside and outside all of us. And we just, we run around and I too, I had a long career as an entrepreneur.
Smoke:I had a lot of memories blocked out and I was pretty secular, like just, kind of just living life, good values and everything, but not connected. And when we get connected, we bring our wholeness to the party. So you don't lose any of the things that you're good at, like skills, the ability to speak, the ability to do deals or make connections, coach people, all the things that you do in your career, invest in entrepreneur businesses, you can do all those things, but when you bring your wholeness to it, you bring much more. It's a divine intervention that is actually manifests in everything you do. Absolutely.
Smoke:Yeah, I love that. Well, one of the things that you mentioned it, but I know that you are a trusted advisor and coach to many, many very successful families, very high net worth families around the world. Based where you live, in the tech center of the universe, you have a lot of extremely successful families and they come to you often to help them with their next gen, right? The next kids coming up, they're growing up in a very successful home, a lot of resources and responsibilities. They're like, what do I do?
Smoke:How do I do this? Of all, I know you don't take every client. First of all, when some powerful CEO that's running gazillion dollar company and calls Jason says, Hey, Jason, I need you to help me my kid. Here's the kid. You don't just say yes.
Smoke:What give us a little flavor for like that process because I think it it informs like how you how you approach business and and all the things you do.
Jason:Absolutely. You know, always operate from first principle like Elon, right? Very first principle focus. In fact, when it comes to Elon, Steve Jobs, just in second, you know, signal to noise, zero noise, right? And Steve Jobs like lots of signal, some noise, and then most people is like, signal lots of noise, correct?
Jason:So, I, you know, I encourage you to be outcome focused. What results you're looking for? What outcomes you're looking for? If they're not clear, if they're suboptimal, I correct them. I help them figure out the optimal direction, clarity on direction.
Jason:Okay, number one. Even very powerful families they think they know that but sometimes after they talk to me they kind of correct their course a little bit you see. And so it all depends on the family. Yes I am selective these days over the years. It's not just Silicon Valley it's really global.
Jason:And I've served private client families throughout the world really across North America, across Asia Pacific, even East Africa, Europe, correct? So selective. It doesn't matter. I start from where you are. So start with outcomes and be being being very purpose driven.
Jason:Because when it comes to the matriarchs and patriarchs, let's for example, you got a kid in high school, okay? Your kid already goes to a top private school. I got these kids still coming to me because they they trust me better than than than what they're experiencing. And then what they want are great outcomes, correct? Now when it comes to wealthy families, they care about the success of the kids.
Jason:Come on then. Let's face it, okay? And they care about the social currency. They care about their well-being for the kid and for themselves. And they care about legacy.
Jason:Those are the outcomes they're looking for. So what happens to high school kids typically on average they care about getting kids into a top good schools, It doesn't have to be big names. Some families do care about the brand names for whatever reasons, right. And I help kids get into all the top schools over the world over the years, All the eight Ivy schools, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn.
Smoke:But you do it the right way not like that guy who was doing it like with the fake He's
Jason:great singer. Right? Yeah. Operation Bossy Blue. If I ever meet him, I will physically drag him to the back alley and beat the hell out of him.
Jason:I said what's wrong with you? That's evil. Okay? Yeah. In fact a a client family, a former client parent of mine, mom, great great great person, husband now a fortune 300 public tech company CEO.
Jason:We all become very good friends of course, right? Yeah. What's more important? Health, wealth, happiness, the next gents, I'm the chief mentor. I know them so crazy well.
Jason:We naturally become become great friends. Right?
Smoke:Yeah.
Jason:Yeah. And she said, Jason, one of my friends of mine, she's in jail Because she's one of my moms that Yep. Subscribed to Rick Singer service, and she was in jail for a little bit. How how bad is that?
Smoke:Yeah. I I think I knew five or six of the people that got in trouble. Right. You I mean, you're in a certain circle and you had access and this seemed like too good to be true. And that's a good It's warning
Jason:a great lesson learned, And that's part of a holistic process that I take people through is number one, I get what you want. High school kids to make it very simple, of course it's a bit more complicated based on the people, the individual, the parent, the student, the parents or the adult, the parents or the independent adult based on who they are. Just like single family offices. You talk to one SFO you talk to only one family. That's it.
Jason:They're all different. So high school kids typically it's about college admissions. Even though I was a Thio fellowship mentor for a bit in the past and the majority of the billionaire AI tech entrepreneurs in the late 20s and early 30s used to be Thio fellows. So I know how the system works, Yeah. That's the brightest.
Jason:They drop out of college, drop out of Princeton, Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard to found their own thing to do the things. Some of them went back to school because they missed their network blah blah blah, right? And I know a whole bunch of these kids, right? And now back to high school, typically you care about college admissions. When it comes to college university kids and when you go to Europe they say university.
Jason:I say we Americans. When we say college it means university, okay? Because some of the high schools out there, they call themselves colleges. No. Mhmm.
Jason:They're high school, okay? Now, so when it comes to college kids, it's about their career, early career, maybe grad school or no grad school, and certainly academics, activities, internships is really building up their employable skills and mindset. Most kids these days they go straight to work for someone else or some of them found their own companies. Not that many like to go straight into working for an intergenerational family business. We can talk about that, we go deep.
Jason:It's all over the map. And along the way like high school kids, like college kids, they are high anxiety, a lot of them. Okay? Stressed out, a lot of them, high stress. Some of them depressed.
Jason:A few literally even worse, suicidal, okay? So, I see that all the time from the inside. It's my job to love you to the max. All the kids love mister mom. Mister mom.
Jason:Mister mom, let's book our next Zoom meeting. They always say, right? But I go very pragmatic with them and and what I do is that I would help them clarify the direction, the goals, right? Because once you're clear in a goal, you believe in it, I make my students believe in what we talked about and they totally believe that. I get kids come back to me years and years and years later.
Jason:For example, a kid who got into Y Combinator which is not easy to get into. I'm simply executing the strategy that we devised back in high school. How cool
Smoke:That's is that really cool.
Jason:And I kind of, he came back from Europe and I kind of show him around SF and all that was so much fun. I got so many of, I got a small army out there so much fun. So but along the way it's really about your what I call besides your vertical life stage goal achievement. You got high school kids, college kids, graduate students and then you got kids you got people that are working like you and me. We're a bit more mature with mature leaders but you and I care about next level business career personal success don't we?
Jason:With well-being. Yeah. That's yeah. About that. That's my goals all the time and I'm improving and moving towards my goals all the time for God's glory.
Jason:That's that's the X factor right there for God's glory, correct?
Smoke:Yeah.
Jason:Now I call it vertical life stage goal achievement. But horizontally I do the same thing with every single one of my private student. Whether you are a 15 year old high school sophomore or a 63 year old entrepreneur with mature students, a female. One of my private students she's a entrepreneur with grown up kids and all that. She came to me and said Jason I've been searching for executive coach for two years.
Jason:Finally, I found you. You're perfect for me, right? Yeah. Basically, she said, you know, kind of help me, guide me to be more competitive. I'm getting my kicked by some competition in certain things.
Jason:I go in there, got to know them real, real well, and I get to know my students. I call them my mentees or whatever so well. I probably get to know some of them better than the husband or wives know them in some ways. Yeah. Get to know.
Smoke:They'll they'll they'll be open with you, right? They'll share things that they don't share others.
Jason:Exactly. It's just mother nature at work. Right? Like, do you tell your family members everything? I don't think so.
Jason:Do you tell your wife everything? No. Does your wife tell you everything? No. Correct?
Jason:And it's just mother nature at work. But I'm the trusted third party mentor. Man, I tell you the secrets I know about all my students is so interesting. I keep it very very private, right? Yeah.
Jason:And and so and I get to know students. Sometimes students tell me, people tell me, Jason, don't tell my family this but like, okay, I gotta keep that thing and sometimes parents come to me and say Jason I said got it I'm the monkey in the middle. Yeah. All listen to me then I kind of reshape redirect kind of reoptimize the direction and the relationships. Along the way one of the things I'm very grateful for, very excited about is that on average a family relationships become better because of a Jason Ma effect.
Jason:Only do I help you achieve the greatest outcomes in the most important goals in your life stage, But the relationships get better, your legacies of everyone gets higher, okay? And you end up making a lot more money, certainly, right? Impact is tremendous. So, if you write me a check, you know, you have to imagine and believe that that check, the return on your investment, your your return over, it's kind of like Moych and Roy. We over invested capital.
Jason:You gotta believe that the multiple is high. Otherwise, don't talk to me. Don't waste my time. You know? Say that directly but seriously, So I qualify you.
Jason:You got to be coachable, committed, resourceful, decisive and you got to be investment minded. If you shop around based on price, you're the wrong fit, we stop the conversation. We'll keep socializing, okay? But we don't have to work together in this particular context. You're not the So I got to be very selective, correct?
Smoke:Yeah, no, Yeah, makes no, it makes perfect sense. And you know what better what more important investment does someone make than in their their up and coming kid or themselves to better themselves. Right? Like that's
Jason:So much fun. And that's why peep a lot of people know me now little as a chief mentor next gen leaders. Right? So my mission, part of my mission in life is to help create better next gen leaders. Because seriously, there's a dearth out there, not that many.
Jason:You go to certain situations, certain contexts, you see the top 1%, top point 1%, not the label people, but it's quite true. You got these fit you got these AI engineers out there in Silicon Valley making a $150,000,000, $100,000,000 a year. Yeah. These are more talented than the other guys. It's kinda AI.
Jason:AI is not your competition. Other people who use AI better than you in your particular context using Yeah.
Smoke:We could talk
Jason:a lot about that too.
Smoke:Yeah. Well, mentioned six years ago, had a shift. In 2019 or so, like what a lot of times, when people go through a change and recognize divinity in whatever lane they're in doesn't matter to me, but like they, it easily, like there's a health problem or a track, like it's some kind of tragedy or, you know, ND or, you know, there's something that happens, Not always, but something like a lot of times that's what spurs someone. So did something happen with you or did it just spontaneously you just started to awaken?
Jason:The only person who knows is him. Okay? And I think I could tell you one story be before that. Years and years ago, over a decade ago, and something nudge me and I had my daughters were young. She said, Jason, daddy, you have this Jewish fetish.
Jason:Right? Because I was like rolling into studying the Jewish culture, Jewish Americans and history, culture. I went through nine books on Jewish history, culture, religion, street talk, modern day life and all that and a follower rabbi, blah blah blah. And of course within my client base I got Jewish family. I was wondering how come 25 to 30% of the Forbes 400 billionaires are Jewish Americans while the Jewish American population in The US is less than 2%.
Jason:It's very disproportionate. Economically for economics curiosity, I was very curious, right? But fast forward and then another episode, it was back in 2012, 2013, something nudged me, Sachin, go go check out a synagogue close to Downtown Palo Alto. I popped in. Just out of curiosity, looked around and said, cool.
Jason:Alright. It's kinda like a kinda like a church kind of, you know, interesting But when I came out, when I walked in, still sunlight. When I walked out all dark evening and this thing never happened. Suddenly, a loud voice in my head. It never happened before.
Jason:A loud clear voice with crickets and still in dark at night before I open the door in my car is it Jason, you're forced for good. Apply yourself fully. I said, where the hell did that come from? Let me say it again, Jason, you're forced for good. Apply yourself fully.
Jason:A still powerful voice in my head that never happened before. There are many other instances in my life in the past decades before six years ago where things happens at the right time even technology which used to work but suddenly stopped working because I was about to do something sinful, right? Something from god's standpoint is sinful, right? We all sinners.
Smoke:Yeah.
Jason:It's like it stopped. It's at the right times it's like how do you explain that? And so late twenty nineteen I had an older sister, younger brother and I got into a big argument with my older sister and part of it's out of my own ego probably, right? And I discovered that she went to BSF, the Bible Study Fellowship. I said that's interesting because that had really helped her a long long time ago.
Jason:And I said I got to go to BSF. And I said I got to go to church too right because my family, my children became Christians when they were back in junior high, middle school. My wife was a Christian ever since late college right? And and but I was the only secular guy but I was the achievement of the father. So and then one thing led to another, I picked the church, I'm super picky, right?
Jason:So I picked the right church locally December 2019 and that was when my journey began and I started jumping into the book of Acts in the Bible study fellowship. I have like, oh my god, what is this, right? So I'm learning about being a church or not. One thing led to another. The church and then COVID hit, Okay?
Jason:And along the way I joined St. Jude executive council, the head there was very, you know, so that's one of my financial. And then the senior pastor led the life group, the small group. We did it over Zoom because of COVID And he was so good. And I was like assolating like that, my learning, my spiritual.
Jason:Yeah. Very curious. Went to the bible, entire bible in thirteen months bedtime reading. You read one chapter old testament OT, one chapter new testament new OT, boom boom, every day. Every so and then the Bible on the back guides you to finish your Bible in twelve months at the end thirteen months.
Jason:But then again the Bible is so complicated it's like right so many parts. Today even many parts of the Bible, many books, many chapters, I go through it many, many times. I still don't fully
Smoke:get some of them. The Lecta Lecta Divina. Right? It's so when you read divine texts, you you know, you get something out of it each time. And the more you do, you peel away layers of understanding.
Smoke:And this this
Jason:got towards you. Yeah. And it's part of his talking to you. Right? Through thoughts.
Jason:You could like, today, I could discern who's talking to me. Correct? Is the devil talking to you? The devil attacks Smoke and adjacent on a daily basis. Mhmm.
Jason:You're a deep, dark, persistent criminal, the devil's gonna leave you alone. You're doing his job. Okay? Guys like you and I, the devil attacks you all the time.
Smoke:Yeah. The the the more the the more you raise your vibration and and raise your spiritual embodiment, the more of a target you are.
Jason:The target, right? So so when when thoughts start our temptations, that's from a devil. K? And in the bible, right, you know, the point of the Lord's Prayer, Matthew six thirteen, you know, kind of lead us not into temptation but deliver
Smoke:Deliver us from evil.
Jason:Right? But but God did not say, hey, I'm gonna block you from temptation. No. Lead us not into temptation because God gives you free agency to do whatever hell you want.
Smoke:We're sovereign beings in this realm.
Jason:Right? You could do whatever you You're gonna go through evil on a daily basis but you're not into temptation. In other words, not implement temptation. Okay? Thoughts are not evil, but we implemented it on a persistent level.
Jason:Yeah. The worst the worst yeah. One of the many things that I that I ingrained into my heart, mind, and soul is is that God is very forgiving, right? But one thing he does not forgive is that if a person is persistently blasphemous against the evil, the Holy Spirit, man, God's not gonna forgive you. Then good luck to you in the eternity.
Jason:Okay?
Smoke:Maybe there's a eventual forgiveness but you might have a long hard road in many many realms. I agree with that.
Jason:Back to my story. One thing led to another then I you know it's like then then I I I stopped. It's all habits, right? Character is some of our habits and choices and then god wants us to build a great character before we go home, correct? We're just visitors.
Jason:You know, in the old days, eighty years, hundred years now, maybe one twenty, etcetera. But the gods takes me
Smoke:In the really old years, maybe three hundred, four hundred years, maybe longer if you read the
Jason:Nine hundred years plus. Right? Yeah. Way back before the the great flood. Separate separate conversation.
Jason:Separate conversation. They the atmosphere change, right? And all that. Yeah. All they about the diaspora after god came down, knock out Nimrod and blah blah blah.
Jason:And so back to the the story and I established a set of habits in you know, daily prayers and meditation And these are it's all aligned with God's word. Right? Like, I'm a flawed individual. I'm imperfect. Right?
Jason:No one is perfect. No one is otherwise, we're God. I admittedly raised my hand. I'm flawed. I'm imperfect.
Jason:A lot of people say, Jason, you are perfect. No, I'm not. Are you kidding me? I wanna be just like you. Please don't.
Jason:God created you to be you. God wants you to be the best you can be for his glory. Right? I Yeah. For me, when you do the math, I spend on average, right?
Jason:I'm very methodical, right? It's an engineering mind in here. So, and I used to be, yeah, I love math and all that. It's like, on average, about one point five hours of meditation, including prayers. Day and night, especially bedtime, when I'm at home not traveling at home, I intentionally do dishes, took away that chore from my wife years ago.
Jason:I do dishes manually. It's part of my meditation time. Then I let
Smoke:you do
Jason:pots, right?
Smoke:Yeah. That that's I think that's a really good point because people think meditation is always like, you know, the traditional meditation. Well, no. Actually, it's called contemplation. You can be in a meditative state while you're doing the dishes, while you're hiking, while you're while you're doing whatever your activity is, you can be in that state which is a It's
Jason:a combination of listening, reflecting, quiet time, talking to God, and celebrating, you know, kind of praising. But I tend to like to listen to a lot of podcasts and books and bible. Right? Listen to the bible all the time. I'm very visual.
Jason:But over the years, like, condition myself to build up the audio listening skills as well. Yeah. And it's very convenient man.
Smoke:Walk It's so good. I've gone through literally 400 books in the last four years with Audible.
Jason:It's incredible. It's incredible. You got some more books than I have. Right? I have only 200 in my Audible.
Jason:And so that's like meditation time. And then prayers and church and light groups and sometimes go to seminars and I contribute. Also do the math twelve hours a week times fifty two weeks a year times six and a half.
Smoke:Yes.
Jason:That's a thousand hours. Yeah. That's how much time I have invested in my own spiritual growth and contribution. So Yeah
Smoke:and and that it like the daily practice that you talk about. And it doesn't really matter what your anyone, you can pick your own practice.
Jason:Right.
Smoke:But having a daily practice is like the most important thing. Doing it like consistently, even if it's like, can't, oh, I could never do what Jason does. He's does it way more than I could do. And even if you took fifteen minutes a day, that would have a big impact on your life. And if you could do more, great.
Smoke:I'm with you. I'm pushing probably a little more even than that, but I don't track it like you do.
Jason:Part of a practical humility, right, is I would say that, you know what? Not me, man. It's in the book. It's it's in it's in God's word. It's in the bible.
Jason:It's very simple. Daily bread. Okay? Matthew six, the Lord's prayer said, give us our daily bread.
Smoke:Yeah.
Jason:Not weekly bread, not monthly bread. I hate to say it, over 200 adult Christians in The United States, three forty million plus population, the majority of Christians are casual. Jesus said at least twice in the Bible said, I'm sorry I did not know you. That's blunt, right? Yeah.
Jason:That's blunt. You you claim to be religious and all that, you know, that that's a hint right there. So your heart's gotta be rolling in it. Your heart's gotta be in it. I say that, I nag my family that all the time.
Jason:Your heart's gotta be in it. I pray for my children to to really be more consistent in growing in his kingdom. And I pray as part of my own personal mission, one at a time, I literally help shepherd people into the kingdom. Okay, one at a time if you're willing to listen. So if you're not willing to listen, if you're a very kind of high ego edging God out, I cannot help you.
Jason:But I smile diplomatic at the right time, but if I sense a portal is open then it's the right time where you're with diplomacy and respect, gently, sometimes not too gently with alpha male. With alpha male CEO friends of mine, sometimes I can be very blunt. That's how they listen, right? Like it's like I remember one of our billionaire managing partners at Sequoia Capital, like twenty years ago, I overheard him say after speaking, it's like, I had to use a virtual two by four to whack these 40 year old CEOs two dozen times because they don't listen, they don't get it, right? So sometimes with some of my alpha male friends that are stubborn, I have to, you know, I'm like an alpha male, sigma male, right?
Jason:But with lots of love and compassion, but to get through to them, I have to use a virtual two by four and whack them in the head a couple of times. Yeah. Well, ladies, right, very gentle, more depends on who I talk to. Yeah. Your contextual is part of social intelligence and relational intelligence as well.
Jason:In my mentorship framework, it's four s and three e q. I mentioned that to you before. Right? Visionary story stage strategy soft skills plus hard skills for the age of AI, and and that's four s, practical, emotional, social leadership intelligence, three e q. Do you see emotional intelligence, e q, social intelligence, relational intelligence, and then leadership intelligence.
Jason:I don't care if it's grammatically incorrect, right? But emotional, social, relational, leadership intelligence. Yeah. How to communicate with social intelligence, effectively. But your emotions gotta be more and more and more prime, right?
Jason:It's a combination, instant effect of your belief system, your thoughts somewhere between the devil and God in between, right, the flesh. And then your physiology, you have to man, like part of my strategy which I implement myself and instill it into my students besides your work, education, applications, that's also your sleep strategy, your fitness strategy, your diet strategy. I go through that. Yeah. Implement that, right?
Jason:I'm in my sixties, do I feel and look like in my sixties to you? No, right? So I, you know, it's like I'm living with joy, peace, love and patience I can explain. So it's part of the mindset. Or glory to him, tell you.
Smoke:Yeah, no, it's beautiful. And there's plenty of people out there giving advice and there's lots of coaches out there. But by embodying that living, by having those standards yourself first, because there's nobody we can fix. We only can fix ourselves. Now, you can help point people at what they need to do or what you see, because we're a mirror and we can reflect back to them, Hey, these are the blind spots.
Smoke:I talk about the Johari window. I don't know if you're familiar with that. Use it in YPO a lot and coaching. It's about the blind spot. So there's things you know and I know.
Smoke:There's things you know and I don't know. There's things that I know and you don't know about you. And there's things that none of us know. You don't know and the world doesn't know. So it's about moving those blind spots into the conscious awareness side.
Smoke:That's expanding your consciousness. So the idea of there's lots of coaching out there, but the reality is not all the coaches are doing the work. Right. And so I love your example, you leading by example of like how you embody it and there's different transmission that happens when you're talking to somebody and you're coaching somebody or helping somebody. When you are talking from your truth and that's beautiful.
Jason:Well you have to be true leaders start with self awareness. Got to walk your talk, talk your walk. Okay? It doesn't sound perfect. You make mistakes and the right thing to do is to raise your hand.
Jason:Admit the mistake and in fact your staff, your family appreciate that. Like these days when I make a mistake, I would raise my hand and say I apologize, I made a mistake, I messed up, I effed up, but I learned from it, right? Because because it's about forgiveness and repentance, right? You know, you have to recognize that and then transform and then and so forth, right? It's like Paul got massively transformed by Jesus but and there, what you said there, you you also covered the four levels of competence, correct?
Jason:Subconscious incompetence. Subconscious incompetence is that one does not even know that he or she is incompetent. They don't even know about what they don't know. Yep. Happens all the time.
Jason:And then there's conscious incompetence. They know that they're weak. They need to fix it. They can move to fix it or to improve it or not. Okay?
Jason:I I I hope that it's a former, not the ego holding them back or devil holding them back. Then there's conscious competence, but you still have to think about it. Then there's subconscious competence, You're so good at it, it's second nature.
Smoke:It just happens, right?
Jason:Happens, right? Like you Yeah. Those are
Smoke:the those are the four quadrants really, same thing. Yeah.
Jason:Then at the same time I hear all about mindfulness and all these you know kind of wee wee kind of Buddhism things like, oh my god, I I roll my eyes again. That's embedded, that's part of your process. It's not an outcome, dude, okay? So, it's like, then they make it into outcome. No, you're confused between outcomes versus part of a process.
Jason:There's a difference. And like me, I try to do things where the signal is very high in the right direction and then the noise is lower and lower. Correct? And do the same thing with them. And not to, of course, my private mentees, even in my tech company where we're moving in a direction where at the end is a smaller byproduct benefit is yet you still get your eight hours of sleep, you get your time to watch movie with the family, get the joy.
Jason:You know, in the old days, right, I used to work, work, work and meeting, meeting, meeting, phone call, phone call, call all the time. These days, every single day smoke. I have a lot of intentional white space.
Smoke:That's that's The Yeah.
Jason:Older we get, the wiser we get. It's more of a it's like for example, in the b twenty g twenty in Brazil a couple of years ago, and I'm one of few Americans who who who serve as a b twenty member, which is the G twenty's official private sector forum, right? There's only a few Americans who get appointed every year. I've been doing it for twelve years, right? US is hosting and I'm very excited.
Jason:I started ever since G twenty Australia two thousand fourteen and and and back in Brazil, I was in a in a shuttle to to to to the gala dinner, bunch of young people. I said, okay. Once you get older, get more experience, you you wisdom and all that, you become a bit of a sharpshooter. Right? Like a sharpshooter.
Jason:You hold a rifle, you aim it, boom one shot you hit it. The young people, hey mister Ma or Jason, we young people we're like monkeys holding machine guns. We waste a lot of time, we still miss spray and pray.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah.
Jason:That cracked me up by the way. That was so much fun.
Smoke:That's great. Well, I I want to circle back to something you said, which I think is really good teaching and and it can help a lot of people because the point isn't meditation. It's a tool. But the more we spend time focused internally and with divinity, which is where we find it, the more we become it. So the more time you do spend meditating and in a contemplative state, the more like God you become.
Smoke:We're all little pieces of God and the more we reflect that in the outside world. And so that like, I think that's a really important distinction because a lot of people like me until I learned this, right? I was like, I really did my wife was meditating for a long time and I was like, yeah, no, not for me. I don't understand what that's for. Until I started doing it and at first, I didn't understand it and then it's and then it becomes clear and it's like, oh, so as we that you can't not think about this.
Smoke:If a divine being was in the room with us and we would immediately, in reverence, we would bow down and we would feel it, right? You can't not become like it. So much power. So when you spend time with divinity, you become it.
Jason:Yeah, absolutely. You know, I never thought about this in-depth, but it's really truly God aligned, or God word, or Bible aligned spiritual intelligence. Think about that. So that's part of why you meditate, you learn, contribute, church, study the bible, listen to the bible all the time and plus other parts and books and derivatives and so on. And I could discern between that's false, Okay?
Jason:That's good. Ah, that's something new, you see. Then then it really aids your decision making. It makes it so much easier. So for example, whenever I get on stage, I get invited to speak quite a bit, you know that, right?
Jason:Camden, IPI, people loved it. And I'll be the chairman again for Opel Group's flagship family office summit. They tell me, Jason, you're the three years in role. I'm gonna chair their Opel Hampton Summit. Right?
Jason:The family office private wealth legacy summit three years in a row since inaugural. I'll be the chairman. And and before I go on, I hold the mic all the time. My joke is that here's my lightsaber. Right?
Jason:I'm holding a mic all the time. My lightsaber, the Jedi master. I'm very playful. Right? Just a boy.
Jason:And before I go on the stage, I simply go to the bathroom, go to someplace quiet away from people. I hate it when I pray at home when my wife is watching me. No. I don't I wanna be private.
Smoke:Yeah. I
Jason:talk to myself private is my prayer directly. No interruption. No nothing. K? Then I pray a prayer and I ask the Holy Spirit to take over.
Jason:That's it. I surrender to you. And and when it when I when I go on sage, it comes out so naturally and people loved it. And again by that, again and again and again. Right?
Jason:Everyone. And and I tell them, you know, I find that even some atheists, some of them or agnostic people, they actually kinda appreciate that. Then they become kinda more curious, you see. Yeah. Except there's always a small fraction of egotistical assholes, Then I gotta help them, correct?
Jason:But but most of the people actually like, in fact it's like the Christians, people that are spiritual, a lot of them come to me, come up to me and say, Jason, thank you for doing that. That is so useful, powerful, woke me up, blah blah blah. Right? Yeah. And and it's like, I and I think and I think, right?
Jason:I don't have to say a thing to myself because we are thinking to ourselves. I think I'm just doing it for its glory and it's so much fun. It's so much
Smoke:Yeah, it's beautiful. It's really embodying what it means to bring divinity into this realm, which is what our prime directive. A lot of us don't figure it out until 02/08 maybe, but the prime directive is to bring divinity into this living world. Not to wait till you die to go to heaven. It's to bring heaven into earth here in the living embodiment.
Jason:Especially in today's turbulent, super fast changing world. Decades ago, things changed once every couple years, couple years, a year, maybe couple of months, and then changes every week. Today, things change on a daily basis. You know? I stay on top of all that.
Jason:Right? So when I when I put on my my speaking just gravy for me, but my speaking topics, you know, family offices, private wealth, next gens, executive leadership, legacy faith, geopolitics, and direct investing, even emotional social leadership intelligence, mental health. I stay on top of that. And it's kind of like having a couple of pragmatic non institutional PhDs, That's how I think. It's like practical.
Jason:And in my previous education company, and I did it for pre drink post merger, I merged an education FTech startup that I co co founded
Smoke:Yeah.
Jason:With a this Asian firm with a American company chain of learning centers that formed my previous education company. That was like back in 2006 to 2011, sometime. And and so merge it to become my previous education company. I even brought in the founder of Zoom that we're using, Eric Yuan, before I founded Zoom as an investor, as a board member. He gave birth to Zoom in my face in a boardroom in my previous education company, and I brought in some Stanford people.
Jason:And I learned that they are you know, I lost my train of thought, but I was gonna No.
Smoke:I that's alright. Like, I was I was enjoying the story too. Was
Jason:I was gonna make a point. But, anyway, it's it's all it's all for
Smoke:Well, you were talking about, you know, by by having that silent moment of prayer before you get on stage, which, by the way, I I do the same thing. I I when I I spoke to the YPO Global Leadership Conference in Miami and then in Istanbul, so couple thousand CEOs, leaders of YPO, right? The top of the top folks that are all engaged and giving back. That's exactly what I did. Was sitting behind stage, I sat in a chair and I just meditated for the ten minutes while the other speaker was on before I got up and did it.
Smoke:I just cleared my mind and basically my internal prayer and then got up and gave what was a very powerful talk. I attribute it to the divine spirit flowing through me to share my story in that way for that audience, which was my friends, my peers. Yeah.
Jason:And I tell you, Amazon, it's part of transformation, right, and improvement for its glory. And and I must say that it is so it makes it so easy or easier. Like for me, I never prepare for a podcast and so that. For people that are kind of amateurs, I I don't mean to be insulting. They have to prepare a script and all that, it's like you don't get it, right?
Jason:Yeah. Like no preparation. I've been preparing for forty one years. Yeah. I started working, right?
Jason:And now with God in me, I just trust in him. That's it. I surrender literally. You know, big ego people, the secular, the the, you know, ungodly people is like, I'm not gonna surrender. You know, f you, right?
Jason:No. It's I don't mean that. It's a very spiritual thing. It's part of God's family, that's his rule. That's it.
Jason:You have to follow, he's the ultimate chief patriarch, okay? We are all in family business. God's a family business. The vast majority of American businesses are actually family business. And
Smoke:then Oh yeah.
Jason:Majority of businesses around the world are actually family businesses.
Smoke:For sure.
Jason:You know I run a family business in addition to our AI tech company. And you know it's it's it is what it is, right? That's the ultimate family. So when people ask me, hey Jason, what do you do? You can say that faith comes first and then family.
Jason:I said family comes first. Within family two parts, God's kingdom and my family.
Smoke:Yeah. Beautiful. It's a great thing for people to hear. And it is a fast changing world we're in, and you're right, it seems to be doing nothing but accelerating. Things are changing all the time.
Smoke:And there's so much angst and polarization and turmoil out there. I think it's easy to get sucked into that. When you're centered, you talk about by having a practice, by knowing there's a higher power, by being centered, that stuff doesn't really bother you. It just rolls off. It just rolls through.
Smoke:You're aware of it. I'm aware of it. I I I get, you know, I could spend, you know, ten minutes on x, and I'll know everything that's going on. You know, I I have a quick, you know, understanding of like all the different battles and all this, all the arguments, everything is happening. But, you know, I think it's, to live in the world, you, it's important to be aware of what's going on, but not to let it change your disposition.
Smoke:Having a pure equanimity of balance, you can just deal with anything that comes up.
Jason:It's sort of like your sensory acuity, correct?
Smoke:Yeah.
Jason:Usual auditory, you know gussatory, your smell olfactory, etcetera, but also spiritual. And if I sense and clear, if I'm clear that God is smiling at me, I'm doing something right, okay? He, you know, he wants us to be his family for eternity after we drop dead, and you know like God is smiling at us right now as we're talking. We're doing something right. Correct?
Smoke:He's he's smiling through us.
Jason:He's smiling through us right now.
Smoke:Because because he because we're all we're all just actually him in in costume.
Jason:Right. And God God wants us to be, you know, as you talk to the CEO, you're the mature, smoke whaling leader talking on stage to a bunch of mature leaders, but when I talk to him, I'm just a little boy, I'm just a kid. I'm curious all the time. That's how I talk to him. Seriously.
Jason:Like a little kid sitting on daddy's lap talking to god. That's how I talk to him. You know?
Smoke:Yeah. Well, I think I'm very
Jason:I play you with it.
Smoke:That that's beautiful and that my experience has been the more I raise my consciousness level and become more connected. The more I know I don't know. And so having that having that that pure like real humility.
Jason:Yeah.
Smoke:That we just that there's so much more, you know, and you can keep raising your awareness and all the things that you're capable of doing and the more you do that, the more you know there's more.
Jason:It's practical humility. Yeah. Gotta be practical, because we should be constantly improving all the time, right? And it's not like work, work, work. No, that's not the point.
Jason:But it's kind of like applied research, I say that I spent over twenty thousand hours in one on one success coaching, mentoring, applied research, speaking and writing. Wrote a highly acclaimed book, Young Lady three point zero wrote for Forbes, write for Impact Wealth, write for other things as well. Worth is going to publish my next article. Family Wealth Report is about to publish my next article about elite college admissions in the age of AI. Because I spoke at Worth, they invited me to be a fireside chat speaker about elite college admissions in the age of AI.
Jason:How cool is that? And I wrote articles recently, spoke about it quite a bit about single family of strengths and direct investing in applied AI tech and also in other parts of AI, right? Because a lot of people are gaslighted. They follow the herd. They're misinformed or not fully aligned and understand how things really work three dimensionally you see.
Jason:So it's about like for me, from my standpoint, my passions besides worship, fellowship, discipleship, endogenism, ministry, ministry simply means loving others like yourself. Yeah. Through my work, through my philanthropy, through my family, through my Yeah,
Smoke:everything we do. There's no separation. Right. Every act, every thought, everything we do, we can either bring love or we can tamper it.
Jason:Your podcast is part of your ministry, right? Because you're doing good. By you're doing well by doing good, right? And that's how clear cut I am in my first principle. So it's got to be very values aligned, God centered.
Jason:And like my private mentees, listen, they are Muslims, they're secular, they're Jewish, they're Buddhist, they're Hindus, they are some super progressive all the way to very conservative, whatever. I love you the same, you see. And bring you to the next level, which tends to be more and more centered.
Smoke:Well, look, I think that speaks volumes to if we had to look at society and what's happening, we talked about the scandal of the college admissions, but there's something called the ways and the means and the ends. There's a lot of folks out there who have lost sight and think that any means is okay to get to an end. And the means are the end. Yeah. The means that we operate under, the way we do things, that is the end you'll get.
Smoke:No matter what. And you might think you get like you get into the school or you get the deal done or make some money or something but actually, the way you do it is what you'll end up with and so, yeah, it it and it's like it's it's such an important teaching.
Jason:Part of the first principle is why god is love and truth, right? And for me, I'm also very pragmatic. So, you gotta operate with love, true love, true truth. There's so much untruths and deceptions out there. Gotta be very careful and then, you gotta have to obey, Right?
Jason:Now you don't have to like for me, I I break rules. If I find that the rules suck, it's done real stupidly by some from some kind of evil people.
Smoke:Yeah. Like when I when I when I when I faked my COVID vaccine, I got the first one and then I had to travel. I had go international and they were making you get all the vaccines and I was like, nope. So I I
Jason:would them out if I have the power to affect the change. Right? If I sense I don't have any power to affect any change, then I would reserve my comment at the right time. Did I influence that? It's sort of like one joke is that you look at a prime minister speaking on TV, most of the times it's not them speaking, it's the advisor speaking through them, correct?
Jason:That's a big type of thing. So absolutely, you know, I've got you have to live, work, you know, be educated, learn with integrity. Yeah. Integrity comes first, right? And
Smoke:Yeah. Well very
Jason:aggressive in in business, but in a nice way. That's fine. Nothing wrong with it. You know, in a nice way.
Smoke:People talk and and this is not this podcast today, but on some of my shows, like, you know, we get into there's a lot of leaders that are going through awakenings and some of them are doing it through plant medicine to clear the shadows or whatever, and they're doing some of that. And actually, it's a great medicine, it's a great tool, but it's all about the integration. Now you just said the word integrity. I don't think people necessarily put it together, but integrity is the embodiment, it's the integration, it's living each step, each way you operate with the right means. Absolutely.
Smoke:And so I think it's such an important teaching. I was listening to a very popular podcast. I actually wrote an article about this, about Taiwan, which I'm sure you're familiar with all the situation there. And the all in guys, love their show. It's a great discussion.
Smoke:It's really fun. Brad Gerstner was on. He comes on a lot. I know him from Indiana days. These are really smart guys, but they all were basically saying, Oh, well, if we build chip factories in Arizona and in The US and we get independent of them, then what's the big deal?
Smoke:Taiwan's not so important. And so I wrote an article about Taiwan is not a chip factory. Taiwan is a free people that live their democracy. Obviously weren't always, but they became very free. And to just look at it at the lens of commerce only is not the way we need to look at things.
Smoke:I'm not saying we should go to a war with anybody. To support a democracy there that is thriving, a great trading partner, and they, as a people don't necessarily choose to be absorbed into Mainland Communist China. You were born in Hong Kong. I was there before, and then I was there right after the transition. And it was a very different place than it is today.
Smoke:A lot of the deals I do now in Asia, we do in Singapore that would have been done in Hong Kong.
Jason:Right. Absolutely. You know, most of my couple of million miles of travel a vast majority is actually across the entire Asia Pacific. Right? So I'm very familiar.
Jason:Greater China, Southeast Asia, which I love. Japan, Korea, Australasia, Indian Subcontinent. Correct? Now what from a US standpoint, pragmatically speaking, besides the chips, we have to have control, the vertical value chain in US. We have to have that here, most important thing, because without chips, one of my private client parents or former parent, because I did my job already, in fact as the CEO of one of the top three semiconductor manufacturing equipment companies out there.
Jason:Yeah. Market cap almost almost 10 x ever since he took over from tens of billions to 300,000,000,000 market cap. Not bad at all. Right? Yeah.
Jason:Without his company and without ASML, without Applied Materials, without Lam Research, you know, Tokyo Electronics, the world does not exist. Yeah. Those those companies manufacture collectively they manufacture the chips, right? So TSMC is like, for example, is configured with a whole bunch of these companies' equipment everywhere, correct? Optimized for their operations.
Jason:But not only technology chips and and our modern living world, the maritime, the military. Okay? Taiwan is strategically important international from a US standpoint for a strategic for advantage. We cannot lose that major advantage, maritime.
Smoke:Yeah. And it's a free people.
Jason:Free people.
Smoke:It's a free people. Like, even if none of those things were true, and I know in the real world, need there's strategic considerations that are huge, obviously, that get people to move. But the fact is there are free people and that is reason enough to help them.
Jason:Separate topic. Real politics, so.
Smoke:Yeah. I know. And and you know, I I I I I don't have to go to China anytime soon, although I have been there. And I I I actually did push ups in Tiananmen Square, and they chased me off. The guy with the the rifle soldier came and tried to take my phone because I was recording it.
Jason:Long ago. What year is that?
Smoke:This was 2035 and or maybe 2016, right around there. So it it was the people's congress, whatever year that was. And I had to go around barriers and give us the Tiananmen Square anniversary, and and they they were not happy with me. And I probably it was probably a dumb move.
Jason:By a number of times for that b twenty g twenty China. They did a great job, by the way. Yeah. China put on a great show, it was so much fun. That's where I met Jack Ma, that's where I met Steve Schwartzman and all that.
Jason:Yeah. Did a great job, they're very hospitable, very host, very good. But that year, yeah, the first question I asked is that, okay, what year is that? Because the context could be very different. Oh, sure.
Jason:So 2015, 2016? Okay. I see.
Smoke:It was it was getting a little it was getting a little crunchy. And but now it would be probably a lot worse actually. I I you know? And and look, obviously, Chinese people are beautiful and divine beings, but that government is not necessarily in the interest of all the people. I'm sure they've got some good positive things, but it's anyway, we don't need to go there, but it's an interesting place.
Jason:To, I guess mentorship, technology, AI and spirituality.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll tell one story and we're going to wrap up here soon, I had the opportunity after I did those talks, the Bangkok chapter of YPO invited me to come to Thailand and to give a talk. And my talk was to be on spirituality and a lot of things I've been learning.
Smoke:I said, okay, great. They flew me there, they took care of everything. Was beautiful. I don't charge YPO people because I'm a member, so I just do it, but it was a cool thing. I took a neat trip, my wife.
Smoke:Then as I was kind of thinking about my talk, I was like, wait a minute, this is a Buddhist country. These guys grew up around Buddha and meditation. So they know all this stuff. Like, what am I going to say to them? And I talked to some of the organizers and then and I was like, well, how should I think about this?
Smoke:She said, well, yeah, we we we understand Buddhism. We grew up and around it. My mind understands it but my heart doesn't know. Okay, I can work with that and and I end up talking about the commonality between the Buddhist, the the Hindus, and the Christian mystics and the and the Jewish faith, the Kabbalah and the you know, the because there's a there's a there's a strain of all of these religions that is the same. It's all about recognizing divinity within.
Smoke:And so it actually was a great talk and I was like, you guys have an advantage over a lot of them have a little bit of insecurity because they're a smaller country, they're dealing with China, they're dealing with The US, they're trying to run, these are all successful people, they're competing on an international basis and their tradition is like, well, that's the old way and I need to be like the West. No, actually you have an advantage. If you can come centered with equanimity and an understanding of your inside, then you have an advantage over people that are not connected.
Jason:Oh, absolutely. I Thailand's one of my favorite one of my favorite countries. Right? So one of the in that case, a Chinese Thai tycoon family, Bill and their family flew me in to meet with their family, put me in this presidential suite in one of the five star hotels they run and said, no need to do that, but he did it anyway. It's like one guy, I don't need that.
Jason:Just need that. That's it, right? As I waited with my family, sure, right, you treat me, take care of me, they took care of me. And another observation is that when you go to Indonesia right, which is one of my absolute favorite countries right, you got about roughly 3% Chinese Indonesians surrounded by mostly know Sunni Muslims and all that and very good people to get along real well. And I find that a good portion of these tycoon billionaire Chinese Indonesians are evangelical Christians.
Jason:So they're actually very faithful. They're very deep in faith database. That's very interesting. And they get along real well. They're very sharp, You could imagine it's not easy over the years.
Jason:And it's like that's something to learn from that, right? And you go to a lot of countries out there, you and I travel quite a bit, you go to Japan, it's all Japanese companies running short, you go to China, it's all Chinese, except for one Jewish American guy in the board sometimes, yeah Chinese, you go to Germans, all Germans, right? Like in America, you got this diversity, what the hell are you complaining about? You know? Yeah.
Jason:It's like you go you go to Hong Kong, it's all Hong Kong Chinese, and I could tell you in Hong Kong and observe some of the fractions of a very wealthy people, if you talk about racism, you have no idea. You go there, you observe, that's hyper racist in many parts of the country. From American standpoint, but don't let it bother you. That's how they are. Respect them.
Jason:Let it go. You know? Focus on merit. That's my one key takeaway here is that focus on merit. Right?
Jason:Yeah. Focus on really contributing, don't get distracted. The devil is here to destroy you, the devil is here to lie to you, the devil is to accuse you, the devil is here to deceive you. If that doesn't work, devil is here to distract you. Look around politics and all that.
Jason:Okay? Certain people directly, indirectly through proxies in their thoughts, just be acute more more and more acutely aware spiritually. For me, I could detect bullshitter as I even believe. Right?
Smoke:Yeah. And well, and when you say about the devil, I I agree with you completely, but those are thought forms that are coming into your head. We're getting thought forms from all different places.
Jason:Right. Right.
Smoke:And and like part of the spiritual journey is being learning discernment, but what you can do is, if you're not sure, if if if you have a thought and it's like, oh, well, where did that come from? Ask your heart. If you say my heart or god, you know, whatever you you're you choose but if you ask for guidance, you'll get it and you'll know. And and and like that's how you can tell because like the devil can't answer that question.
Jason:That's right. Yeah. Jesus said that. Right? You know?
Jason:You know, knock, ask, and you'll receive. Yeah. So seek him. Go to the narrow road, right? Not the wide road, the secular, the narrow road.
Jason:You you do have to it's okay to suffer because no pain, no gain and because God wants to see how you're gonna grow. Which direction? Are you growing Are you bitching? Right? Are you growing?
Jason:Are you bitching?
Smoke:Every suffering, challenge, every trauma, every difficult situation is a portal to God. It's a portal. If you look at it that way, like what am I supposed to learn with this situation? It will open up your world.
Jason:Absolutely. True.
Smoke:Well, Jason, I want to thank you so much from my heart. This is a fun conversation. I think we're going to have more. This is a great discussion. Now if people want to find you, I'll put all the in the show notes, I'll put your connections and everything else, but best best way to connect with you is on your website?
Jason:Yeah. Just go to my just go to 3q.com. Three.com is my family business. Everything is there.
Smoke:So Yeah. And I'll put it all in the show notes so everybody can get it. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Jason:Thank you. It's fun, man. Okay. It's an honor and pleasure. Next time, I guess, we'll go deep on something else.
Smoke:We got lots to talk about.
Jason:Yeah. Alright. Thank you, Smoke. Have a great weekend.