Kickoff Sessions

#266 Lara Acosta - Brutally Honest Business Advice in 86 Mins

• Darren Lee • Episode 263

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Lara Acosta built a business that hit seven figures in record time.

From the outside, it looked perfect:

  • The money was flowing
  • The audience was growing
  • Everything she worked for had finally materialized

But inside?

It felt completely different.

She found herself buried in pressure.

The systems she built to create freedom started feeling like traps. And the success she thought would bring fulfillment came with heavier sacrifices.

We talked about the reality of scaling—something no one tells you:

  • The emotional weight of running a fast-growing business
  • The trade-offs you have to make to sustain the growth
  • The personal sacrifices no one sees

It’s not the fairy tale of overnight success. It’s what happens when the business you built begins to own you instead of the other way around.

Here’s what Lara realized:

  • Scaling doesn’t fix everything; it amplifies everything.
  • You have to stay in control of your systems—because if you don’t, they’ll control you.
  • The most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who constantly refine, adapt, and make space to breathe.

If you’re chasing seven figures, ask yourself:

Are you building something that works for you?

Or something that will consume you?

This podcast is the most personal, raw, and honest conversation we’ve had.

It’s about what really happens behind the scenes of success—and what it takes to get your life back while keeping the growth.



Connect with Lara: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laraacostar/



(00:00) Preview

(01:25) Embracing the Girl Boss Persona

(02:20) Challenges of Personal Branding for Women

(04:17) The Power of Specialization

(07:18) The Artist’s Dilemma: Creativity vs. Productivity

(09:28) Recognizing Personal Growth

(10:21) Impact of Confidence in Entrepreneurship

(15:43) The Ego Trap in Storytelling

(17:28) Why Podcasts Are The Future

(20:51) Overcoming Alcohol and Finding Clarity

(25:20) The Power of Fitness and Discipline

(28:26) The Reality of Online Businesses

(30:52) Persuasion vs. Manipulation in Marketing

(32:15) The Problem with Generic Cold DMs

(33:39) Discord, Crypto, and the Power of Memes

(39:51) Spirituality, Religion and Internal Work

(44:23) Why Every Business Needs Content

(45:26) The Science behind Manifestation

(50:36) Developing a Business Mindset

(53:10) Experimenting with Psychedelics 

(58:20) Realizations on Seeking Validation

(01:00:49) Parental & Societal Expectations

(01:10:28) Lara Acosta’s Social Media Strategy 

(01:17:52) Relocating and Gaining Personal freedom

(01:24:28) Designing your Dream Life

Support the show

Lara Acosta:

Become aware of the problem that you have today and then fix it. Otherwise you're going to keep repeating the cycle. I have high standards and I want everything to be to perfection. Probably why the same reason why I don't post as regularly on YouTube because I want every script to be scripted to perfection. Every line needs to make sense. I don't want a single ounce of fluff in these videos. I want them all to be fully valuable. You can't call yourself self-aware if you're only self-aware about the bad things about you, and I self-reflect a lot on the things that I could be doing better, but I don't reflect enough on the things that I've done right, which is a fault on its own.

Darren Lee:

How does it feel to not be in a studio?

Lara Acosta:

It feels amazing.

Darren Lee:

I feel like that you can actually be a lot more chill and a lot more if everyone's not in a studio. That's my biggest takeaway just from the past, like four or five months. Like I don't think it's good. I think like for our conversations, because we're always like ripping shit and just talking dumb shit Like we don't need. I don't think we should be doing that in the studio all the time.

Lara Acosta:

Really.

Darren Lee:

I think you'll get more. You'll have more fun doing it yourself, Just like a cup of nicotine gums. Tuesday like nine o'clock at night.

Lara Acosta:

What do you think I like? I like the desk vibes really but I'm a nintendo girl, it's like because you're a boss babe yeah, I like the formality of a desk and I'm like do you?

Darren Lee:

do you like that persona? Like what, like what? What brand do you want for yourself? You could pick at it.

Lara Acosta:

The girl bus archetype.

Darren Lee:

If you can't see by the glasses. The darkness does work.

Lara Acosta:

Yeah.

Darren Lee:

But I wouldn't work in a studio though.

Lara Acosta:

I guess not, but I guess the girl bus persona comes out.

Darren Lee:

I think it is a lot harder for women, though, to like do like branding than guys. Oh, of course I think, since you said it. Harder for women, though, to like do like branding than guys. Oh, of course I think, since you said it's my max's podcast.

Lara Acosta:

You know how many girls have like talked to me about that specific bit.

Darren Lee:

That's been stuck in my head.

Lara Acosta:

That's good.

Darren Lee:

There's a few things for me like the difference between girls and guys. As Dakota looks at me, one is like it's so different for branding right, because, like just the positioning right, guys can say like dumb shit and then it's like all brushed off. But, as you were saying, that's the last podcast, but you want to be more conscientious of it. And the second that we talked about as well, to go, that was like I don't know, just like general traveling, like it's less, you guys will be careful.

Lara Acosta:

It's a completely different if it's like a woman or a guy traveling, working, doing their own thing it's perceived it's perceived differently I think all men in the industry and I don't I don't say it's not bad they think that it's easy for a woman to to do things and it is. But there's always like a nuance to it, like, yes, pretty girls will get, I guess, more attention. It'll be easy to grow their accounts, but for but, when you go deep down into the reasoning, they're growing fast for not the right reasons and then it makes you feel like it is, then then people aren't buying.

Lara Acosta:

So if you're trying to grow your business and you're basing it off your looks, then ultimately people are not going to want to buy what you're selling. So the product they're gonna want to buy you and you're better off going on to all the platforms to sell your beauty yeah, but that's the whole problem.

Darren Lee:

What even like for guys like they're building this, like the og fitness guys who create a content on on instagram. They're putting it up, they look good, but then no guys were actually buying their stuff yeah it was just like 80 girls, true, that were following them.

Darren Lee:

So they were so broke, so like that's the ideas are like the more outwardly that you look like you're that part you're actually not, unless it's education. So education is the opposite. Education has an inverse relationship to like if you actually truly don't do know your stuff, you can crush it. You could have a coaching program you can consult. But it's the opposite for entertainment interesting.

Lara Acosta:

Yeah, I think that's why I've always respected people in the fitness industry who are able to make a career out of it, because then it's not just about fitness, it's about the programming, and even even pts, like some. Some of them don't even know how to sell themselves, or even they have a program, but they don't even know how to put it on a platform yeah, well, that's the thing, right.

Darren Lee:

Everyone is 99.9 basic at everything they do, apart from that one thing. Yeah, so if you're like really fucking good at writing linkedin copy or if you're good at doing ab crunches, it's like you should lean into that and then either build a team around you or just outsource it to someone who does know that thing do you get me.

Lara Acosta:

There's a big kind of like inflection there versus what we think that we need but then even outsourcing is hard, because then you end up outsourcing the wrong thing or to the wrong person, then you end up wasting a bunch of money and time. You, me and like we all know that in what?

Lara Acosta:

way well, so many times like I've tried to hire to reduce my problem because I'm not uh, I don't understand that thing as well as I could, but then I realized I end up hiring the wrong person. They don't know what they're selling. I think that you don't realize that thing as well as I could, but then I realize I end up hiring the wrong person. They don't know what they're selling.

Darren Lee:

I think that you don't realize that you're actually really good at things though.

Lara Acosta:

Yeah.

Darren Lee:

And that's like a girl thing Genuinely Like me and Dakota are both like absolute dumbasses, right, but we just think that we can just do anything, you know, you know that we're like we'll just figure it out like that's actually it. It's like the meme curve, because we're banging our head off the wall until the tweet is produced or the video comes out right, and that means we get the outcome, which invariably equals the out. So we get the output sorry, which equals the outcome, under the variable of time that you can't dictate, whereas, like for yourself, I think you undervalue, like your actual ability and you can actually do a lot more than what you think you can.

Darren Lee:

That's really sweet, yeah, I think that's true, for, just like a lot of women in general, they're insecure about their ability. Just want to take one quick break to ask you one question have you been enjoying these episodes? Because, if you have, I'd really appreciate if you subscribe to the channel so that more people can see these episodes and be influenced to build an online business this year.

Lara Acosta:

Thank you, I think what for me is like there's a line where you know I started as a freelancer where I was like raw-dogging it, like literally going in, like going in for everything, getting the reps in grinding so hard just by brute force, and then trying to get myself out of that mentality of I have to do everything myself because I want to scale. And then I start hiring people that I still want to do everything myself, but then I can't you know, wait, what's going on under the surface. What do you mean?

Darren Lee:

Like why do you not have the ability to let go?

Lara Acosta:

Because I have control issues.

Darren Lee:

Why.

Lara Acosta:

Because I'm a perfectionist.

Darren Lee:

But why, though? There's always a reason underneath as to like why that is Like? What's the reason why you're like raw at the Hulking Gate?

Lara Acosta:

I guess it's just. It comes from who I am and I work Like. My standards are very high. I have high standards and I want everything to be to perfection. Probably why? The same reason why I don't post as regularly on youtube because I want every script to be scripted to perfection. Every line needs to make sense. I don't want to. I don't want a single ounce of fluff in these videos.

Lara Acosta:

I want them all to be fully valuable and then that is, my biggest bottleneck is myself, and you'll find most creatives have that bottleneck, because to me the other day I realized this like I get highly stressed with my editors or anyone that I hire for my YouTube team, because they don't get it. Sometimes they don't get the standard to which I want the videos to come out, and the reason for that is I am also a consumer of this content that I'm trying to create and I know how it feels when I don't watch a video, and I watch a video and I don't enjoy it, or when the music is wrong and all these things like. To me it's really an art and I guess that's also why artists are so sad often because they're not getting to that ideal outcome. Often it takes them a while, like michelangelo took so long to do his like paintings and like sculptures and they dedicated their entire life to it and then he came out as a masterpiece.

Darren Lee:

But it takes a lot of time yeah, but in that case of michelangelo, he did a lot of reps right yeah he did. Who was the statue? Oh, it was, um, it's a hercules initially. And then he decided david. What I'm saying is he had like monumental leaps through his career. That's like that's an important part, right? It's not like, oh, I'm gonna do the same shit like I did yesterday, like you fundamentally have to change for it to get better yeah and I'm kind of, I've seen that evolution in yourself thank you how have you seen it in yourself?

Darren Lee:

I haven't seen it you have to stop somehow and think about it. I feel like you do as well, because you are reflective I reflect on.

Lara Acosta:

I was thinking, like someone was, are you? You can't call yourself self self-aware if you're only self-aware about the bad things about you, and I have self-reflect a lot on the things that I could be doing better, but I don't reflect enough on the things that I've done right, which is a fault on its own. So I'm highly self-aware, but more self-aware of the things that I could be doing better, because I'm always consistently looking for, I guess, perfection or just the best version of myself which, ultimately, I will never reach.

Darren Lee:

Okay, what do you? What have you done? Well, how?

Darren Lee:

I don't know yeah, like if you think about that. So like what, what is it you look at, you're like okay, like I'm happy with that progress because, like we you know all of us we've all evolved, but we've all outdone what we expected to do in the beginning. Before we go any further, I have one question for you. Do you want to generate more leads for your business? Well, I've put together an entire system how anyone can use a podcast to generate more leads for their business, and the best part is you don't even need a podcast to get started. I've created an entire guide and framework for you to be able to get more guests, more clients, more customers, more people in your pipeline and generate more revenue. This exact system is available right in the description down below, and you'll be able to leverage a podcast to generate more leads for your business and be able to increase your exposure, increase your authority and increase your influence in your industry. So check that out right down below.

Lara Acosta:

I think the thing that I'm proudest of is how confident I've become in the process of becoming this entrepreneur that I'm striving to become. If you met even my mentor was having dinner with me, like for my birthday, and the way I even spoke to the waiter, like with such directive, like I'm so direct, I was like I don't like this, can you change it. He took me for lunch Like when, when I first started, when I was like I don't like this, can you change it? Uh, he took me for lunch like when, when I first started, when I was like 24, 25 and also shy and I wouldn't ask for what I wanted or anything. He just looked at me.

Lara Acosta:

He's like I'm so proud of you and I'm like I just ordered sushi man. He's like, yeah, but even the way you just approaching it, like you would have never done it, and I think it just reflects on everything else I've done. And my biggest achievement, honestly, is my circle of friends, like my I always say my friends are my biggest flex. The people I surround myself with is truly, um, a reflection of me, uh, including you, and even the character. Like it's just like I am surrounded by highly either intelligent people or smart, or just successful.

Darren Lee:

Kylie is a very debatable, very, very debatable.

Lara Acosta:

Everybody's highly highly you know silly and I guess good at scamming.

Darren Lee:

Yeah, we're all just fucking scammers, all stripe scammers, stripe refuck scammers. No, I get you, though, but I think that the the, the big thing about like the kind of like network networking effects is like um, you said this to me to go to the day, which is like, every one of us is kind of like like each other yeah you know, we're all kind of just like each other, like the internet kind of finds.

Darren Lee:

It finds the people that are like you. That seems like obvious, but it's not, though, because when you get in person then you realize, oh fuck, like we actually are quite similar. It's not just like the post on linkedin or the video on youtube does that make sense?

Lara Acosta:

yeah, I definitely know. Like my online persona, offline I think I've got a little bit more humor than I let on. I'm I'm funny person.

Darren Lee:

I promise it's debatable, but, but, but, but do you think that's a? I think that's a problem like that. Online personas are different than a person.

Lara Acosta:

I don't think it's a problem, um, because my online persona, it is a part of me, but I don't necessarily think I need to show all of me to get my points across.

Lara Acosta:

I am trying to build a Basel brand based on education, not just personality, because I used to be a fitness influencer right and a lot of it was my physique and what I looked like and even how I behaved, and I am very proud that I can excel at mastering delivering value in a way that it's without people can't take the information and consume it, whether they like me or not, I guess, and that is cool because I can then impact more people without them judging me. It's like George Mac he's a vessel of information and I can take that and I also do that. I take that, all that information, and I dissect it. I make it easy to understand and people can take that like, and I also do that. I take that, all that information, and I dissect it. I make it easy to understand and people can grow and then, if they're interested in getting to know me, then they can come watch our podcast where I where I'm like idiots we should do a live podcast yeah that actually would be cool me we should we should.

Lara Acosta:

Yeah, let's do it.

Darren Lee:

We could do a live podcast.

Lara Acosta:

Live stream.

Darren Lee:

Again, I just think that if you're, if you're known for something so let's say you're known for personal branding, or let's say you're known for like sales or marketing you shouldn't be trying to be known as great as everything else.

Lara Acosta:

Oh, yeah, right.

Darren Lee:

But that's the problem is that people look at people through the lens of well, their relationships are fucked. They don't take his advice because, like hermosy right, I love hermosy, help me a ton. He's a g and he's jacked. People are like I don't like his. Really I don't like his attitude towards like life. I'm like he's not telling you his the attitude towards life, he's showing you the fucking funnel you know, so, like, judge him for the funnel because that's what he's perceiving to the world.

Darren Lee:

Like, your own observations are your own observations. But I think that and I find that a lot, because I interview not Ramozi but these types of people and everyone always says like, yeah, but like this guy, and I'm like, but if you looked at me, yeah, but like this guy, and I'm like, but if you looked at me, you would say the same thing this guy sits in his dungeon all day and just talks to people on the internet.

Darren Lee:

That's weird but the same person would say the same thing, right. So that's why. That's why it's tough for people to create a brand, because they're thinking like oh, like I don't want to be perceived in that particular way, but like people not liking you is gonna be the reality yeah, everybody.

Lara Acosta:

No, if you, if no one likes you, then if everyone, everyone likes you, you're doing something wrong. But I suppose there's like two sides to this argument, because too many people think that and there is a problem with humans it's an ego thing. We all think that we're so special that we should be talking about ourselves and everybody should care about all these other new little things that on our lives, like our relationships or hobbies, like our background. Like I write a lot for people, especially when in the ghostwriting days when I was, when I had the agency and I would have clients really hate the copy that we were writing for them because it wasn't the full story that they were giving us.

Lara Acosta:

Like, let's say, this person was became a dentist through this, this and this and went through all of these things and I wouldn't include the nuances. Like they had a dog and it died and their kid went to school and then they changed. Things are so crucial for them because they are so attached to this memory they're not interesting to someone else. But then people think that they they must put them on and people should care. But the moment they like people need to let go of that. Like you should care about this.

Lara Acosta:

It's more about the value that you're providing someone do you know what I mean yeah but then I also had this issue recently, actually very recently. I hired someone to help me out with some things and I said I can't. I don't want to be too specific about this um, it was business stuff and girls stuff no, it was it was a guy and, uh, he started tweeting stuff like his personal personal ideas.

Lara Acosta:

Like you know, on twitter you just go and talk about your personal beliefs and stuff and I really shifted the way I saw that person, because I didn't necessarily agree with everything that he was saying and I don't think I would work with that person again because they were so forward with their beliefs. And I see now what people see in Hormosis when they don't want to take advice from him, even though the advice is insanely good and can make you millions. I understand why people wouldn't take it because they're they're not receptive.

Darren Lee:

They're you're you just you're not open to wanting advice from this person it's like everything in a vacuum, right, like everything has to be nuanced case. That's why you can't. That's why I love podcasts, because it's not painted in one brush, right yeah like we will upload this with no fucking editing and just throw it up and and it's like you can make an assumption. And if people make an assumption they don't like me, it's cool.

Lara Acosta:

Yeah.

Darren Lee:

Cool. But I think again this may Dakota might not agree with this, but I think when you write something like Twitter, where it's very, very crystallized sometimes, sometimes you could write something that's not aligned to you, but it's aligned to the person you're trying to yeah, trying to see, because it's because there's so little room for like, there's so little room for adjustment, whereas a podcast I can kind of just be like, oh, like I do this yeah, I got dogs, all this kind of shit, and I can kind of wrap in those other stories and then have the central team.

Darren Lee:

As to what we do, everything we talk about is about building offers and growing an audience and building the community and making fucking making money. But then we talk about other things too, right? So I just mean like, if you're really conscientious about that, you just need to understand the game that you're playing, because unfortunately, people will read stuff like that and then say, oh, I didn't like that or I didn't like this well, is a lot of perception.

Lara Acosta:

like you know, robert chaldini always says like we like where we't like this, well, it's a lot of perception. You know, robert Cialdini always says we like what we're like and it's always like how much of you are you willing to put out there in order to get what you want? So most people will always highlight the things that they want people to see so they like them more. But then there's all the people that are just unfiltered, like this is who I am and then just put that, put it all out there. But then these people then have to be okay with being judged for being 100% of who they are and some people can't handle it like, and that's why a lot of people don't do social media, because they don't want to be judged. Other people are completely okay, like I don't care, but all people like I have friends who just are super educational and they don't want to share anything about themselves besides the education, because they don't care.

Darren Lee:

You know that I've like that's what I've learned from you was being able to kind of come out of my shell more and just be more like.

Lara Acosta:

That's not a good way to say that but just be more like telling your story, more.

Darren Lee:

Yeah, like you would go to the elevator earlier and you were like to ask me about stuff with elise and the dogs and shit like that, which is more vocal in that regard.

Darren Lee:

And then when someone hits the vsl, they're like oh, this guy isn't just a potato yeah he has more things than the potato potato with personality, but and I really do want to kind of go down this path, which I think I just thought about two minutes ago, which is, like I think, like a lot of your success comes from like when you were younger. You know, I think like your earlier experiences in life have shaped you really well and I kind of know, scattered scattered kind of your plan, your your kind of story, but like my story has shaped everything we do, shapes the person that we are today actually, I had a really good discussion with one of my friends, uh, yesterday about self-awareness.

Darren Lee:

Like you're self-aware of everything that happened to you and why that's been able to help you now, but there's some people that aren't yeah, but I've gone through like a lot of really fucking heavy shit and that's the reason why I've done it like I think, uh, fucking who I sound to, but like I've just gotten through like a shit ton of therapy, like I had a shit ton of ptsd and stuff from like when I was a kid, like really, really bad, awful shit. And then I remember that and I was like jesus, fucking christ, I gotta go sort that out. And then by doing that, I'm like okay, I had the values and the beliefs that were bestowed, bestowed about me, and it was up to me to go and, yeah, forge those new beliefs and change those new neural pathways and discover new ways to do things, because otherwise I'd literally just be a degenerate.

Darren Lee:

You know the path that I was on I was just going to be a degenerate you know, and it's up to you to look at those points, and the biggest things for me was like, coming off, alcohol was huge. Um, that actually was huge. That was a huge influence. I never had an issue with alcohol, but it was a, an obstruction, so it was kind of like, if you just see, like an obstruction to a construction site that was in the way of me getting to the other side. Um, so, yeah, so in your, in your instance, like so when you?

Lara Acosta:

how many years are you? Sober three.

Darren Lee:

Three.

Lara Acosta:

Three same.

Darren Lee:

So a hundred thousand days in March, what did you give up?

Lara Acosta:

I gave up like three years ago. I can't remember the exact month, but it was around three years.

Darren Lee:

What was the event for you to give up?

Lara Acosta:

It was during a party in London. I remember we were at one of those famous Mayfair clubs. I remember we were at one of those famous Mayfair clubs and I remember going out and seeing my best friend at the time get Roofied Roofied and she was okay with it and I was like what is this world doing to people?

Lara Acosta:

oh, my fucking god and she was like I was like someone just put a drip, I think, and you're just like, you're okay, like, and it was. I was seeing my previous smartest friends get drawn into this pit of I don't know hell or and desire and all these things, and I was like I, I don, was like I don't like this, I don't like this anymore, I don't belong here, and I would keep on going to these parties with her sober, because I really loved her. But then I realized I didn't know her and she didn't know me. There was no connection between us without the alcohol, and nothing sucks more than knowing that you're in a room full of people and you feel so alone. And that's how I felt and I was looking for.

Lara Acosta:

I remember this time I was sober at a club and I was looking for real conversation like this, and no one wanted that. They just wanted to like either ask for a number, like get with me, or anything. I was just like I'm not interested and even if I was, I want to just talk and have deep, like real conversation. Uh, it was that.

Lara Acosta:

Also the pandemic really helped, because it took away all the FOMO from going out, and I think that is one of the main things that drove me to drinking and partying, so much was feeling like I needed to be somewhere to belong in these groups full of people.

Darren Lee:

Um, and in your journey has been like a lot more meteor, meteoric meteoric meteoricoric than mine, but it's been the same timeline.

Darren Lee:

We roughly started, probably started a little bit earlier than you, but I was eating concrete for so many years on my podcast, but to the point that it was the pandemic really enabled that right. I quit alcohol as well at the same time. I put that time in and I was like what am I doing? Like what is going on? I was making like 40k a year, then four years of engineering in school. Uh, it was. It was awful.

Darren Lee:

And what I'm trying to say is that the awareness and clarity you get from taking a step out of alcohol and then realizing that, okay, that business is possible, making seven posts on linkedin a week is possible, making two podcasts a week is 100% possible, because you have all this time and then you've clarity. And then why I'm saying that is because, and why I asked you about the inflection is because for me anyway, and for a lot of young guys because I still like help a lot of young guys come off alcohol. I just don't really talk about it and this is always. It's obviously free. The big thing is that they're in a pit, a whirlpool, and they can't get out of it, and then the only way to get out of it is to have like a fucking massive goal. So then you can tell people like, hey, I'm not going out because I'm working on x, y and z, I'm working towards this and doing this or whatever.

Darren Lee:

And then, when you have that goal for so long, you start getting a positive feedback loop because it is inevitable that you will get better at whatever you do. No matter matter, you just do it Like whatever, whatever that is. But then it reaches a point where you get good at something and then you get the clarity as to why I gave this up in the first place. And that's what hit me, which was like ah, alcohol was a huge problem for me growing up Huge, and it's not okay. And alcoholism is rife in Ireland, whatever. Whatever people want to say, it's so bad, so awful. And it was like okay, now I have the things that I've always wanted, with the elimination of the stuff that was destroying everything around me so when men come to you and ask you for advice like what is like, do you tell them find a goal yeah, it's brutal man, honestly, like a lot of guys, they're stuck in that night.

Darren Lee:

They're stuck in like this situation whereby all their friends want to keep them poor, like it's like tall poppy syndrome, and pull them back in. So the first thing I always say is, like, get the health in order. So like plan like a kind of a fitness goal, so whether you sign up with a coach, pay him 100 a month or whatever, and he just helps you like with nutrition and health, because when that starts getting dialed in a small bit, you'll come off alcohol. And then you'll realize then like oh, my sleep's getting better, my training is getting better, I look a bit better. It's confidence. And then if they want to go build something which is a content or a podcast or a business, they can kind of start working towards that and then the positive feedback loop will kind of kick in and then within 30 days irrecognizable as a result and you can kind of follow through that process and you just keep going on and on and on. And then you get to a point where the question isn't when will I drink again? It's, why would I drink again? And that's generally like 90 days to six months in.

Darren Lee:

And I had a podcast with adam power earlier who was saying that he's off for a year and it was because of james blackwell. And james blackwell is a very like grounded guy and Adam met James and James was like, oh, like, I just have clarity and I was like like that's it, that's literally, it was six months he was off alcohol. I was like that's it, man, six months. You just start seeing like the world a little bit differently. So the way we'd extrapolate that in a parody context is guys, you know, trying to get onto girls in a club. That's just fucking weird, right, it's just weird. Um, people falling over the street, weird guys hitting each other with bottles, weird guys stabbing each other coming back so weird. And then you kind of you just get yourself out of that absolute hump to the degree that now that just never comes into the question. You know, like we worked all day on saturday to get a meet dakota and then we went for dinner and we're like I'm going to bed and then we're in bed like nine o'clock.

Lara Acosta:

You know, like that's the game I want to play yeah and I think like boring is the new cool right I understand and I that's pretty cool that you do that.

Darren Lee:

By the way, they're gonna know yeah, but people come for advice to you as well, for different things you don't even realize, right, because those like personal things. For people are everything is a mirror, right, everything's a mirror for, like, what you give. And this is why it's funny because, like you see, a personal development offers all the time and usually the help that they are you give is the help that they need you know, they're like you need to calm down, be more present, and all this kind of stuff that's actually.

Lara Acosta:

Yeah, every time I'm doing a masterclass in my community, I'm like, actually, this is a, this is a call out to myself by the way, don't take it past me, because I get so, so emotional about it. I'm like shouting. I'm like, oh sorry, I'm shouting, but it's a reminder for myself, because I did this yesterday.

Darren Lee:

So, by the way, yeah, it's always a mirror, so true because you're you're interested in it and you want to see other people do. Well, it's just, you got to make sure not to take that too far, because that's what people kind of do, right, they kind of take it a bit too far and they don't live up to that expectation of themselves yeah, I hate when people like over over promise and under the liver as well I met a very, very, very famous author about a month ago and, uh, the guy was super dulled and the first thing he said to me was you'd be surprised.

Darren Lee:

Two people are in the space that, uh, do the exact opposite to what, and these guys are like the, you know, top 10 authors of our generation in the business sector. And he was like, yeah, most people in the space actually, um, they don't do anything, you don't do anything.

Lara Acosta:

So, and this guy was like 50 yeah, the industry is full of lies, uh the good, and I have met so many people that are not like what we thought they were, or like their business models are an entire lie. Um, especially when they try and sell you as a friend, it's been incredibly disappointing. So, again, I can't really get into specifics, but give an analogy.

Lara Acosta:

Someone saying that their business model is this like they're making seven plus seven million, plus seven figures plus a year, based on the systems, et cetera. And the reality is it's not, because then their customers come to me complaining about it and no one talks about those people like exposing them, because they they make them sign NDAs or stuff like that or put them into heavily heavy contracts, so these things don't come out. So it's been actually really disappointing, especially when you look up to these people for years and then you see the true reality that these people are either they have narcissistic tendencies or they're just using you. Um, and it's really heartbreaking, especially for me.

Lara Acosta:

I I love people very much. I always feel honored to surround myself by people that are in the industry, and then I end up I end up being very deeply hurt because people just try and take advantage of me and my kindness or the love that I give or the access that I give to whatever I have in my possession, like I do not when it comes to friends, I don't pull back. Like I'm not going to gatekeep anything. Like you can take anything, I'll give it to you, I'll help you, I'll coach you, whatever.

Darren Lee:

What about if I send you my mirror board at 4 am?

Lara Acosta:

I will gladly read it. It would be my biggest plan. It is my biggest nighttime sleeping material. Yeah, it's your noise. No, it's like I wake me up better than a monster. But uh, yeah, no, you, you're fine, you're fine, I love it.

Darren Lee:

I love it but you know, like at the end of the day right, these guys guys at the end of the day right, these guys guys at the top of the game, understand psychology right, and they understand there's a line between persuasion and manipulation yeah, I'm still trying to understand either and both.

Darren Lee:

I don't know well, like this is the logic is that I had this conversation with someone yesterday and they said to me you know, I always look, try to look at the best in people. And I'm like, yeah, that's a good idea, but that's me, it's just case by case, like for sure, you know but I guess you don't know the person that you're either.

Lara Acosta:

You don't know if they're either persuading you or manipulating you, and I, to be honest. To be honest, I'm a fan of marketing. I love being manipulated. I went on to Air One in LA. Do you know? It's like the fancy Whole Foods, but bigger.

Darren Lee:

I went to it.

Lara Acosta:

And I was being manipulated or persuaded to buy products that I didn't want to $40 grapes and.

Lara Acosta:

I happily. I never swiped my card faster, with more pride about being marketed to and I felt like the right ICP and I was so proud of myself for spending so much money and folks I didn't need, because I love marketing, I love good marketing. Yeah, persuasion, manipulation, I don't know they called. They said that I, I couldn't sleep. It was you can't sleep because of this. I will buy it because I can't sleep. So bye that in that, that is me I enjoy. I find so much joy in the marketing of things.

Darren Lee:

Yeah.

Lara Acosta:

I love being persuaded. Please manipulate me Like. If someone finds a way of manipulating me to buy a product, I will admire that person.

Darren Lee:

You're going to get like 50 DMs after this Like. Do you need short form content?

Lara Acosta:

Yeah, I think there's a problem with a lot of the dms that I get and please take this advice like all of us get the typical oh hey, name, um, but I saw you can can't get 50. You can get 50 to 100 uh qualified leads a day if you use our product uh for a business name product uh, thank you name and they don't even fill in the blinds. They don't do anything right and I would much rather be persuaded and manipulated to buy a product and have some shitty cold dm like that. Please just put a little bit of effort. Read influence by robert cialdini. Learn to persuade and I will happily buy what about the outsourced engineering department in vietnam?

Lara Acosta:

what's up if?

Darren Lee:

you get those emails like do you want to develop a no code javascript app? Surely you get those. That's so niche, that's probably. If you get those emails like do you want to develop a no code javascript app? Surely you get those that's so niche.

Darren Lee:

That's probably just you, yeah I get those all the time, which is like we are an outsourced software development company in vietnam. Surely people get that, get that as well. No, I think that that is just I'm in the wrong fucking funnel. I mean I want to be in the qualified leads funnel.

Lara Acosta:

Did you know that you could get 100x on your revenue if you join our school community? No, I don't wanna. Please leave me alone.

Darren Lee:

Where's your community hosted?

Lara Acosta:

Discord. That's nerdy, my, my, um. I didn't know how to change it because I used to be a crypto girly and I joined discord for like discord trading groups yeah, you said you're into crypto. That seems weird for you no, I think it's so aligned with who I am, to be honest, but I think there's lots of crypto girls who like use it as a funnel for like only fans, though.

Darren Lee:

Have you noticed that, dude? I saw this is so off topic. I saw like only fans chicks running a podcast. You see this? Oh yeah, I saw that. So good, so good. They wait, they do a solo podcast and they make up the q a, like 100, you know, because they're like oh, this guy asked me about x, y and z and they have an ig of just super viral clips and then every like forward post is like oh, if you like more, just click that link yeah, there's this like really popular tiktok creator called I'm a palp pool and she's like a lifestyle influencer, but she's got she's funding this lifestyle with her only fans, but she's got teenage girls in love with her because she's so warm and cute and lovely and she's got a family and everything.

Lara Acosta:

She looks like like a nice girl, but then in the back end it's like this very dark only fans thing. Oh, but uh, yeah, okay. So my discord name is like laraeth997 I can't change it. I can't change it. I can't change it.

Darren Lee:

I don't know how can I just create a new discord?

Lara Acosta:

I just couldn't be bothered. I was like, yeah, so anytime anyone talks me on like the community, so it's like what happened to brand yeah, I went off on that. I think it adds that, though they're like, oh, she's into crypto because they're like people, this is your own community yeah and you have ethereum in name of your own community I think it just adds a little bit of mystery that I've got going on oh, my fucking god what other interest do you have outside of like linkedin?

Lara Acosta:

I used to be really into crypto, but I wasn't into crypto for the money. I was in it for the vibes that's bullshit. You're into it for the money no that's like people that said they're into crypto for the technology, really yeah, like I just enjoyed deeply how the marketing for it went and like how they were getting people to buy like because they've they.

Lara Acosta:

Memes were providing information and, as someone who got so like the education system did me so wrong and made me feel so stupid. And then seeing how memes were taking such complex, complex finance information and making it so simple and digestible so anyone could buy stocks and learn like quickly, I got so interested. And then also the communities behind these crypto coins etc. And that actually was the thing that's helped me so much now as to how to build a cool cult like community, because I learned that from dogecoin and that like the gme and everything, and so my not my analysis was like I'm gonna get into crypto, not for the money, because I didn't have any money to gamble on anyway, but I was learning how they were just talking to people. And again, memes are everything. I love memes so much and how I learned crypto was through these stupid fucking memes about like bugs.

Darren Lee:

So that's such a good observation, yeah, yeah have you, did you not like see that?

Darren Lee:

no, I'm a dumbass. Like I didn't see we talked about this earlier, like we were having food earlier. We were saying that. I was saying that I tried to. This is a blessing and a curse limit my exposure to like other things in the world, because everything for me is a distraction from the goal if it's outside of it. Now, there's a massive caveat to that, which is you miss opportunity. So like I wouldn't be on twitter to learn the ecosystem of the community, but I should be, because that contributes positively to what I'm doing and it would.

Lara Acosta:

It would make a positive impact yeah, I guess for me it was intrinsic because I was always seeking, uh, belonging right. And the need for belonging also is really rooted in crypto culture, because all these crypto people maybe they're into it for the money, but they stay for the community you spoke in my community.

Darren Lee:

I don't think you met the guy Adam. He has like a biohacking offer. So a guy in our community has like an offer and he's a podcast. He's a a biohacking podcast, but his offer is helping people like improve their health through like biohacking shit, but it's for crypto guys, so it's the avatar on top is like if you're in Web 3.0 and your health is shit because you spend 14 hours a day looking at Dogecoin. Here's how you improve your health.

Lara Acosta:

That's already good. It's a fucking sick offer, oh fair.

Darren Lee:

Yeah, here's how you improve your health. That's already good. It's a fucking sick offer, yeah, and it's funny because, like I review everyone's offer, like that we work with like everyone, and uh, I'll often look at that and like critically like I'll get rid of it. But then I'll go back to like a day later I'm like that's fucking great, leave that in how's he got working for him?

Darren Lee:

amazing. He just like he's always had a crypto consulting business where he worked with like um crypto projects as an agency and now he's doing a coaching uh health kind of coaching for biohacking for these guys and it's working great puts up loads of calls. Um has lots of people in the industry then that can also consult, like how biohacking guys can consult on these people right program. You know that's a cool model of coaching, yeah, where you don't do the coaching, you get people to do every module. You know iman did that, did your launchpad did he?

Darren Lee:

oh, yeah, yeah he's paul daily doing sales, matt shields doing agency by the way, I love your podcast with paul daily.

Lara Acosta:

It was like one of my favorites. I meant to do another one with him yeah, it is the one that I go back to the most by the way, yeah, we're trying to do it in person, but we're going to do it remote.

Lara Acosta:

I think his podcast really enlightened me on religion, because he had this really such a good quote. Because you asked him about the money and the lifestyle and he's like, why would I look for validation in a world that burned their Lord or something? It's such a beautiful quote and I think about it often and that led me to explore Christianity even more. So thank you for always asking amazing questions.

Darren Lee:

Did you grow up Catholic from Mexico?

Lara Acosta:

No, I was actually raised Buddhist, atheist type. My parents are heavily Buddhist. I know they're Mexican and and, uh, they're weird. I think that's why I'm also very weird. Um, but yeah, I was unusual. What was that?

Lara Acosta:

like it was interesting. My parents are heavily spiritual, like if you go into my house, my dad's office is filled with crystals and buddhas and that's why my dad is such a, I think, such a an amazing role model for me, because he's so aligned and soft and in his masculine, but also in his feminine, he's like very aligned and hence why he's brought me up with such grace, in my opinion, because he understands uh, energy and I'm always around my dad. I'm like always like super girly and like I just like I'm a daddy's girl and they just for me, like it was all about energy, like even the way I was born.

Lara Acosta:

You know reiki healing yes I was a reiki baby, so my, my mom couldn't get pregnant and then he got, she got reiki done and then she was able to then have me and I think that's why I have some sort of like energy about me, uh, to some extent where I I am just highly perceptive to energy and very I saw an energy healer recently.

Darren Lee:

You what I saw an energy healer recently. You what I saw an energy healer recently.

Lara Acosta:

Really, how was that?

Darren Lee:

Fucking crazy. Yeah, it's good, it was the most craziest shit in my life. One of my mates, kat her name's Kat. She's very, very spiritual. A lot of people in Bali are very spiritual, but you take it as much as you want.

Darren Lee:

Tom is very spiritual as well, you know and uh, I kind of like ever so often just go into get more information from him, more insights, more data. Uh, I was in lombok like last week and obviously I carry like a lot of like stress and pressure and I do think it's down to like energy because like, the energy you admit, is what you receive. You know, the more push you are in calls, the less you close, the more you don't give a shit, the more you receive. Same with dating, same with everything's in business. So I do I'm a big proponent of like energy and how it's transmitted is how it's received. So then I was in lombok and this woman said to me she was like oh, there's like an energy healer guy. He's not that spiritual, so it's not like woo, woo, it's more like based on like your body. So I want to mean my woo is like he's not going to come in and be like you need to forgive your great-grandfather for this troublesome thing. You know, it's not like assumption based does that?

Darren Lee:

make sense. So I went in anyway and this guy was like yeah, lie the fuck down. And he grabbed my wrist, elbow, shoulder underneath here, and the second he touched it, like touched really hard at extreme amount of like blockages where it's described, and I initially was like what the fuck? I had so much pains. And he grabbed my hand and started like running his hand over my hand and he was like yeah, he did, he had broken english. So he was like ah, like super stressed, like too much pressure, like overthinking, overthinking, overthinking, and he worked my hand so hard that I was screaming, full power, screaming, and under here, under here, all on, like the masculine side, the right side, nothing on the left, like not one thing on the left. So no wifey.

Darren Lee:

I was screaming, screaming bare my top of my lungs, and everyone was in a room next door and they're like Jesus, fucking Christ, because they were going next. That was what I went first and on my neck like he cracked. He basically like cracked everything my body that you know. You know, when people like do breath work and they tell you to like exhale, reel out, it's kind of like a bit cringy because you're like just doing it, like uh, I the the way he was cracking my body and especially those parts I was exhaling, not like not by choice, in those breaths, like heavy breaths, heavy breaths and he was doing for like 45 minutes. He did my feet. He said there was always problems with my feet, all the problems with my knees.

Darren Lee:

And then I got up and I was like super relaxed. It's kind of like the feeling of coming off of psychedelics. I was sitting there and the leash was like how do you feel? Because, like you were just screaming for the last 45 minutes and I was like I feel like like forgiving genuinely. That's how I felt. I felt like forgiving for like all the shit that's gonna happen, stuff like this, and uh. So I felt like really good and then I felt really tired and then I woke up the next day and I was so sick and I get the worst flu I've ever had for about 10 years my life the next day and that went on for like a week it's interesting how the body reacts to these things.

Darren Lee:

But yeah, congrats on doing that but again, that's kind of common in like Reiki culture too.

Darren Lee:

I'm not really that familiar with it, but the majority of my guests run content businesses.

Darren Lee:

They've used content as the main element of their business to drive more revenue and build their influence online.

Darren Lee:

We've been doing this through a podcast for many years. We have many guests, clients and even customers use a podcast as their main source of driving more revenue for their business and building their influence online, and we're offering a handful of spots to book in a call with our team to learn how you yes, you can leverage a podcast to generate more revenue for your business and drive your influence online. Many of our clients and customers start from nothing, but each one of them are action takers and they want to learn more about how to build a podcast and a brand right around their business. So if you want to learn more and you're really interested in building a podcast, check out the link down below and book in a free call with our customer success manager and he will guide you into how you can build and generate more revenue from your podcast this year yeah, it's like the whole vibe, spiritual vibe, of these things so would you say, you're quite spiritual yeah, I'm heavily spiritual in what way?

Darren Lee:

like what do you do?

Lara Acosta:

um, well, throughout my life, like my parents have always led with energy, healing and all these things crystals have I know they weren't something new to me when they started becoming like a thing, manifestation all these things, my dad literally manifested me. Um, there's points where I will be in places in london and I'll send my dad a photo and he was like I literally manifested having you when you were like when I was walking in this road that you're walking in right now, and manifested seeing you being graduated and living like a happy life. So I am a manifestation of my dad's dreams and so I think that energy just lives within me. So everything just really comes down to my parents and how they raised me. Um, I manifest things quite like a lot, like I will think of something and it would come reality. It's not just woo-woo, it's also like the actions that I take.

Lara Acosta:

Of course, of course yeah but, um, I will think of something and Nakita has seen that like I will say something and then in two weeks or maybe a month, it just comes through. I manifested being your podcast. I manifested working with sean. I manifested, um, being the person I am today. And it is not coincidence, it's just like a sequence of events where you see it happening and then you manifest the thing, then you let it go and say, and then you just assume it works. So it's called the law of assumption, where you think of your manifestation and you write it down right. And this is where people go wrong, like they think manifestation is just saying things into a mirror and hoping it happens. But ideally, when you take the law of assumption, it is more about you assume it's happened, so you act accordingly to what is happening after that or who you are. If that has happened, and then I think it, I let it go, and then I'm not attached to this manifestation either, because I know if it is for me, it will come to me, and if it's not, it won't. So I just let it go. But then it happens as a result.

Lara Acosta:

So I'm very highly conscious about the things I say and the things I speak into existence. So even if I'm ill and I'm a hypochondriac, so I always think that I have the worst illness possible. And if I'm freaking out and people are asking me about what do I think I have? I'll never say it because I don't want to speak into existence, because I know how powerful our words are. In like our tongue is like literally energy, and words are energy and hence why also in the bible, like cursing is a sin or just not simply allowed, because it is just bad energy. You're not meant to be swearing so much as well, because it's just like negative energy you're putting out in the universe you kind of touched on that, so which was like the difference between manifestation and planning is is what?

Lara Acosta:

I guess manifestation is just allowing the energy there and then putting into the ether, but then you just do the thing. But I think the idea of manifestation is just consciously acting towards a goal and believing it so highly, and then the planning comes within that.

Lara Acosta:

But, that's why there's so many different types of ways of explaining spirituality. Like Joe Dispenza, you're familiar with him, so he is the best person to explain manifestation to highly logical people, which is usually men. So every time I'm talking about manifestation, I will always bring him up, because he's got receipts about why manifestation works, because he's actually tested this um, as he's a doctor, so he has like brain scans of like what people, what happens to people's brains when they start meditating and how it activates their entire brain it's funny because one of my close well mates and he's like also my program, nav deep he, oh shit, I gotta get back to that girl.

Darren Lee:

Fuck, just reminding, just reminding me basically this woman, kaitlyn or two, um, oh fuck, I gotta go back to her she's mentioned. Oh my god, um, I'll leave the message quick break.

Darren Lee:

Yeah, it's fine, we'll leave it in. We'll leave everything in caught nutty, um. So this woman, kaylin or two, which you'll get on really well with, I think you'd be really good fit as well, just like kind of similar vibe she. She's big on like manifestation and like how it all connects, how everything connects, all that kind of stuff. Okay, but but.

Darren Lee:

But the clear distinction here is that it gets picked up by the business community when it's for a business outcome. So, if you're because my mate navdeep asked me a very simple question, which is why does some like spiritual personal development people take off and why do some people not? And I think it's because some of them have the outcome of whatever that may be, your business generally related to business or health. Okay, not necessarily relationships per se, and the reason being is because if you're not orientated towards like what we are, it's, it's very easy to put into the bucket of like the Thailand and flip-flop people. Does that make sense? Whereas, like you're, what you're explaining right now in the Joe Dispenser reference is exactly exactly why it works for these types of people. So, again, you need the receipt. And if you look at that woman, she's super impressive. I'm trying to record a podcast with her today. Apparently it's nine o'clock already.

Lara Acosta:

So she's coming after.

Darren Lee:

Well, we were meant to record a podcast, but I didn't text her back.

Lara Acosta:

Anyway, I'll text you back tomorrow. No, don't text her back now, it's okay, I want to meet her. Shreeku yeah come on, shreeku, she's based in Miami.

Darren Lee:

I'll text you her IG, okay, but the logic, the logic, basically, is just that when you have the action related to the mindset, that's when it's, that's when this becomes like full circle. And that's why I asked you what's the difference in planning, manifestation?

Lara Acosta:

it's just that it's both at the same time.

Lara Acosta:

It's like different labels for different things.

Lara Acosta:

I do I do think that there is like a highly a more, you know, scientific, science-based argument towards why manifestation is not just planning and, um, the thing I think it is more about who you're aligning with and your spiritual self and your higher self and who you want to become and all these things about, you know, healing your inner child and destroying your ego that also come within the acts of manifesting and just simply being spiritually healed with all of these things.

Lara Acosta:

The pandemic and quitting alcohol led me to an extreme healing of my inner child, because my inner child is always looking for I don't, I'm always looking to feel involved. I don't like I was heavily abandoned, not by my family on purpose, but my dad was always working and my mom doesn't really, isn't really an affectionate person. So I always have like that abandonment issue, abandonment issue, and I'm always seeking it, uh, somewhere, and so hence why I was always drinking and a party is not because I liked drinking, but I like being around people that I thought they liked me right and then that, and I love that, um, some swimming pools by, uh, kendrick lamar.

Lara Acosta:

There's like full rooms full of people and you dive in it because, um, he explains why people drink so much.

Lara Acosta:

Like something, drink, something, drink you know, and um, that's why I was drinking, not because I wanted to be drunk, but simply just wanted to be in that company. And then being forced to be alone and isolated during the pandemic again forced me to reflect on who I am as a person and what am I actually seeking? And why am I always seeking all with other people? And then I ultimately, after I guess four years, now five, um, I found what I was seeking other people's within myself, and that came through a spiritual awakening and awakening and healing my inner child a little bit. I'm not fully healed, I don't think I'd let it be, but it's part of it and spiritually, spirituality came in so heavy for me for that would you ever take psychedelics?

Lara Acosta:

yeah, I've done it sick I've done.

Darren Lee:

I've done mushrooms with my mom with your mom yeah, she's cool like that I would not expect that from your mom I know she doesn't look like the person.

Lara Acosta:

You didn didn't do my mom.

Darren Lee:

Yeah, I would think that she'd be like do your homework.

Lara Acosta:

She did, she did, but I think at one point my depression was getting slightly out of hand, diagnosed with BPD, depression, anxiety, ocd, all of these things, and out of, I guess, desperation, I seeked information and one of those pieces of information was this book by Michael Pollan called how to Change your Life, and he talks about psychedelics and I was reading it and then I went deep into psychedelic medicine and all these things that you know this mushroom could do for you and I started obviously talking to my parents about it, because I didn't have any friends in mexico when I was in covid and I could only talk about it with them. And mushrooms and all these like um, natural healing is part of our culture, simply like the aztecs and the mayans and all them yeah, so in mexico that that mushrooms and all these are like heavily dominant or like like they, they're part of who we are.

Lara Acosta:

And so I was talking to my mom about it and I guess she caught the gist that as soon as I would leave Mexico I would go and seek psychedelics. And she was very scared that I would end up in a bad place, because there's so many things that could go wrong in an psychedelic trip, especially if you're not around the right people, because your environment in which you're doing the trip really does impact your experience. Yeah, and she was scared, so she one day pulled up to my room while I was like kind of like working, and then she was like the linkedin post.

Darren Lee:

Yeah, like trying to.

Lara Acosta:

No, I think. I think I think back then I was drop shipping. Uh, you didn't know, I have, I have depth, you know I have so much to do it to me, but I was, I was drop shipping my in my fucking uh, hand, hand cleaner, whatever and she was like who what? Go on and then she just rocked up and she was like hey, um, what are you doing first? And I'm like nothing. She's like um, I got us, I got us to like tickets go to the bug.

Lara Acosta:

Yeah no, I got us two tickets to see this shaman. It was like it was going to be a controlled um trip and she was like I'm going to do it with you and I'm like I never asked you and she was like I know, but I know you, I rather you do it with me than do it with someone else. And my mom is like a cynic. You saw her like she's like cynical, like she's quiet, she's, she's just like a black cat. I'm a black cat, but she's even like a black, black, black cat. Um and uh, she just. We went there and we did mushrooms and it was. It was the worst experience of my life, but also the best thing I could have done at that point for me.

Darren Lee:

What was it?

Lara Acosta:

like I know I tried to talk about this before In the book that I was reading how to Change your Life by Michael Pollan. It was explaining how you have this ego death and you find yourself and all these things. I'm going to have this ego death. I'm just going to change. It's going to change my life.

Lara Acosta:

I'm just gonna change and it's gonna change my life and I'm so excited and I'm gonna be a new person is in my dream reality and I take this mushroom and I lie down and I don't see anything for like an hour and I'm like and I take a little bit, oh, no, you're never going to take two, and then my mom or my mom, I think she took the whole mushroom um, while we were there and then so we both lie down and then all of a sudden I start feeling a little bit like and I start seeing alice, alice in wonderland, like the full rainbow thing and cats, and I'm like I don't want this.

Lara Acosta:

I I left that in my uni days because I was already sober. If I wanted to see alice in wonderland, I would do all the drugs or go to a festival like I. I want that ego death. And I think that's why I didn't have my ego death, because I was so much egotistically wanting an ego death, because I was like, yes, I deserve this ego death push right now it's the energy again yes.

Lara Acosta:

So then I look at my mom and my mom is like on the corner just looking at me. Her pupils are dilated and she's like I'm not high and I'm like what do you mean? She's like I don't feel anything and all these people are crazy coming fucking my home. I'm like no, I'm trying to have this and I'm trying to have this crazy spiritual awakening. And then my mom is right there like judging me because I look high and then I'm half tripping seeing cats, and then I'm half like seeing my mom and it's just like okay, well, I'm not, I'm not getting anything out of this. And I get angry. I'm like where is my ego there?

Lara Acosta:

And so at the end, the ladies that were running the thing, who also weren't meant to take mushrooms, but they ended up taking mushrooms as well, so like the entire thing was like a mess and it was not controlled whatsoever. Then they come to us tripping and my mom was already judging them because they were meant to be teaching us, and then she just didn't take them seriously. You know, they're like okay, so what did you get from the experience? I was like nothing.

Darren Lee:

I want to refund.

Lara Acosta:

I was like I want to talk to the manager and the salmon. And then they were like, okay, but what were you seeking? And I was like I don't know I just what were you seeking? An ego death? And I I was like, cause I just need to heal.

Lara Acosta:

And they were like why are you here with your mom? And then we got into it slightly and that question why are you here with your mom? And I said I don't think she loves me. And then my mom goes like why the fuck do you think that? And I'm like cause you've never said it to me. And she's like do I need to say for you to like, do I need to do you, do I really need to say this? And I'm like, yeah, like um, I I have this heavily. I guess I'm always seeking for validation, because my mom never gave, gave me verbal confirmation that she was proud of me and hence why I'm like a high performer, because high performers are always like, deeply insecure and they're always like looking for that validation that they never got when they were a kid like it.

Lara Acosta:

And I went and excelled at university, just on spite of my mom, because I never think I don't, I never thought I would be good enough for her and her. Knowing how like my dad loves me, that does mean he will throw flowers on me. I will. If I wake up he will be so proud of me that I breathed Like if I made my best. I'm so proud of you, sweetie. My mom is the opposite. And so I was like I wrote an entire dissertation. I got the best grade at university. I dedicated it to you. You never read it and I was really hurt by that because I wrote like this 8,000 word dissertation, best grade in the year I was not an asl student and then I did that for her never read it, wasn't interested, and it really hurt me and I said that. And then she was like but why?

Lara Acosta:

And then we got into like the deepest conversation we ever had about it and then it ended up happening that there was like something rooted when I was a child and then we went into it and then the shaman says so they, they, they, they told my mom something about her that I didn't know, no one knew. Like she didn't even remember about her past. Uh, with experience having kids, because I was her regular kid. She obviously had failed having kids before and she they told her something about what happened then and my mom was like, oh my God. And then that tied to and to together as to why our relationship was like that. And then that single conversation changed the dynamic of our relationship forever, and so I went from feeling insecure to just feeling very loved by my family, and that love now powers through me as into every single thing that I've done now, and it goes back to then again, like my, my need, my need for community and belonging, because like that is what powers me what would you say is like your love language.

Darren Lee:

So is it like words of affirmation?

Lara Acosta:

all of it give me the fucking gifts I give attention after service, all of it, but I give all of it as well, like I am a very loving friend you brought brownies yeah, thank you.

Darren Lee:

I was also very late, so you were two, you were two hours late. I see that pattern though quite a lot in entrepreneurs. You know like it is very common that the earlier experiences of like insecurity or not being good enough just vibrates throughout their life. You know it just. It is a constant. I think, and I don't know, is there like a really like a solution to it? Because, like a lot of people have to go through this, like you can reflect on it now and we can chat about it now, four years into your journey, but without going through the grunt work that you've done in the dissertation Dude. I remember when you were in university and you were messing with me saying you were doing your dissertation. I was that long ago.

Lara Acosta:

Yeah, it was crazy.

Darren Lee:

I remember you doing your dissertation. I remember you writing it Fucking hell. That's like three years ago, I know time has flown, man.

Lara Acosta:

But I think also there's a line where you can either choose to become a victim or the hero of your own story with all these things, because everyone goes through something hard in life, right, and then people choose to then stick to the victim mentality of like why me? And like the world is broken and these people are cheating and um, these people are scamming and everything is wrong politics, x, y and z and then you realize that well, I realized you're seeing people, that who cares about what other people are doing? You just focus on yourself now. And then I could have so easily just drawn like get, get, be so addicted to being that victim and be like, oh, but my, my childhood, this and I did this and everything went wrong. And I'm Mexican, I'm brown, and like no one takes me seriously. I get this question so often, like how does it feel to be a woman in business that has of color? And I think of I forget that I, I'm, I'm my.

Lara Acosta:

I forget about my skin color sometimes and I'm like I don't. I don't think about it at all because I don't think of myself as a woman of color or like a woman in business. I just think of myself as someone in business doing cool things.

Darren Lee:

You're just a person.

Lara Acosta:

But these people, people will choose this label and be addicted to this label so much because it defines them. It's why people are addicted to personality types like ENFP, all these things. Because, they love feeling part of this label and it brings them safety right, but I think those labels are harmful. When you're trying to grow out of this thing, that's stopping you and people put, want to put you back in that box.

Lara Acosta:

That's important, it's being in a box. Oh, I'm not. I'm like this because my mom was like this and I'm like this because my dad was like okay, but you are who you are. How are you going to change that, moving forward, become aware of the problem that you have today and then fix it? Otherwise you're going to keep repeating the cycle. There's this audio that I listened to a while ago.

Lara Acosta:

It's like break the cycle today or the pattern will repeat itself tomorrow yeah and that I always think about it when I'm starting to feel bad or I'm going through something hard. And then you get addicted to that comfort of feeling sad or like you're crying or whatever, and then you have to choose to stop it before it gets worse and you become addicted to the feeling, because sadness is also like addictive. And then you turn to alcohol, drugs or whatever to make yourself better, to give yourself that dopamine. But we need to choose yourself better to give yourself that dopamine. But we need to choose better dopamine to change our habits and then break the cycle and not repeat it that's why misery loves company, right?

Darren Lee:

so, and even, like you know, me and dakota talked about this in our podcast you both, both sad.

Lara Acosta:

No, it was just interesting, like the way that people channel it in different ways.

Darren Lee:

Right, there's so much people will lean on it and then they're the ones that are disgruntled. At 30, 40, 50 years old they're going to be, there's going to be so disgruntled society, whereas for someone like us, you just channel it and you move, you move the fuck on.

Darren Lee:

It's actually dropping in 4k, you can see it sorry you're all right, take a break yeah but I think that's cool, though, like I think it's, it's cool not to be like a bitch about it and just be like okay, I'm gonna move on from that. Um, the labels thing is just kind of stupid. Now, obviously you could be like oh, it's so easy for me to say, but for the most, yeah, you're a guy.

Darren Lee:

You're a white guy white guy shredded, rich, rich, six foot three. What? The tallest, the tallest man in the room. Tallest, I could be dakota. What? How do you? I'm taller. No, I'm taller, yeah, you know, I'm on my hinge. Bio when I found my wife, I think my height was like five, eight. What's my height? Like six foot, yeah. So I I put yeah. So I had like a fake height. And then apparently when I met up with elise, she like came around the corner and she was like he's not six foot. I was probably the first thing she said in her head.

Lara Acosta:

But yeah, it's just funny, funny, so funny it worked out it's one of the best.

Darren Lee:

It worked out For most part.

Lara Acosta:

Happy for you.

Darren Lee:

Hmm, so what's the what's the plan now? Like, what do you? So you've conquered LinkedIn and you've kind of done that. I know you're going to keep growing it and you're going to get to a million. You're obviously going to get to a million followers and that's going to be big. But what would you want to see next? I know you're doing YouTube. You might want to ramp that up. Do you plan to go broad?

Lara Acosta:

Broad with my content or.

Darren Lee:

Reach or reach, like you know, do like a leila hormosiana I've been thinking about it.

Lara Acosta:

Um, it's something I would like to do, but I don't think I'm ready yet. I've been steering that's bullshit what do you mean?

Darren Lee:

you have everything you need, like you, you already have receipts, you know what you're doing, you have the offers like you have, like you have like the attitude for it. You can go on broader channels you know what do you mean?

Lara Acosta:

attitude?

Darren Lee:

you have the charisma. You're not just like that yeah, you're not like a todd from accounting and kpmg. That's like. This is how I improve my spreadsheets on linkedin. Like you have the, you have the characteristics to kind of dominate on different channels, you know I don't think.

Lara Acosta:

it's not that I'm not um technically able to. I actually I've been approached by like five managers this weekend at the event and they're like oh, but like you, you'd kill it on instagram and you kill it on tiktok. I I know, oh, you could. I know i't I've done it before, but the reason why is that I stayed away from Instagram and TikTok so much. I just hate the idea of being seen for like it's also weird. Like everybody says, like I'm decently looking and I can communicate quite well, I'm not bad to look at and I sort of like hate that there's, like it distracts from the main thing that I want to communicate true, but like you look like cody sanchez, you look at leila hormosi, like they're also women that people find attractive.

Darren Lee:

Right, you know um, but people will find them. People will find them attractive I don't it's.

Lara Acosta:

It's that exactly, exactly. I see how leela gets torn apart on her TikToks because how she speaks like she speaks like a man, apparently, or like she looks like X, and I don't want to expose myself to that energy. It gives me high anxiety. I've kept my sanity on social media and grown a business that does well on itself without having to put so much of me in in the okay, let's simplify that thing.

Darren Lee:

Why not just do you know, like the linkedin style videos you do, like this is your headshot and you're wearing like a blazer or some shit and like, do that on, like linked, uh, instagram or tiktok?

Lara Acosta:

is the attention. Like I don't, I don't, don't, I'm not ready for the mass attention that that could potentially get me, and that is something I had to come to terms with because it's just distracting. I could just double down on the things that I enjoy, like LinkedIn and YouTube, and then leave the rest. I don't think I have to do Omnichannel, and if I do do at some point, hopefully by then I'll have a team that knows how to clip my YouTube and do it well enough so they go viral and they grow and you also Twitter yeah, already.

Darren Lee:

Yeah, it's not like you're not.

Lara Acosta:

I do find more enjoyment in being on LinkedIn, youtube and Twitter because they do have the higher echelon of consumers and creators. Like Twitter, has incredibly intelligent people talking about highly relevant things to me. I know that if I go on twitter, I'm gonna learn something. I know if I'm going to, I'm gonna network with someone cool. I know if I'm going on youtube, I will learn something.

Darren Lee:

On instagram and tiktok it's more like dopamine land and could be kind of how you curtail it too, right, because, like I think of twitter, sometimes with like absolute, you know, just in on accounts and just guys that are, just they're shilling shit right, yeah like there's a, there's also a counter to everything.

Darren Lee:

And then you look at linkedin and say there's todd from accounting. But I think, like even from instagram. Like I was really surprised when we doubled down on instagram like won how much money we made on instagram. Really. Yeah, it's fucking crazy. It was tom that did everything for me, you know.

Darren Lee:

Oh cool he was just like you know, everyone runs these offers on linkedin this way, like a ravi avula style content, like that's kind of what we do for linkedin way less engagement, but it's just very like sniper shit, I mean it's just it's. It's just very interesting to observe because I do this thing where I look through likes and I see which ones are customers, clients, prospects, and it's it's always very high Like majority of people like my stuff or my serum, and that means they've touched something. And that's where Instagram, for me, has really opened up. And the proponent then of like having sales reps and Instagram is another unlock. Uh, because if you get good sales reps they can kill it.

Darren Lee:

And then you know, I know it's very controversial to content creators, but if you do unlock ads on Instagram, it's just like on steroids. Everything is on steroids, you know, and it's really tough to crack. But if you have good people in your corner, kind of what you said already, yeah, like we've done great stuff on it, especially in the past six months yeah and it's, and it's quite easy to grow the right audience.

Darren Lee:

Now, that's not saying you're super viral, but, um, for me it's, it's. It's always about depth of the user versus the breath so I think, you're thinking more in terms of like, how viral your stuff goes on linkedin yeah, because I'm a growth hacker and I'm addicted to dopamine.

Lara Acosta:

I don't want to be on social media.

Darren Lee:

I'm not gonna go viral yeah, and like we just have different ways to go about doing it, like you're equally crushing it, crushing it more than I am. It's just that I think for our clients, because podcasting is such a slow burner, yeah, but it's just, it's helped me realize that not every post has to be a winner to make money.

Lara Acosta:

You know, and I've just taken that into different that's the uh likes and cash uh vibes, yeah you know, but it's, but it's.

Darren Lee:

It's given me a lot of peace and clarity yeah, that it's not like, oh, like, this has to kill because, like I look at my story and see who likes the story, because the story is a tv show, right, it's your tv show with the world, um, it's just like prospect, prospect, lead, dot, closed lead, closed booked call. It's just like um, it can become very methodical. And I didn't think that because I thought it was like ass, abs, only fans links.

Darren Lee:

That was my perception until now it's abs, marbles and then sales basically like I just think if you look at someone like ravi avola and you just look at his account and you just kind of like, oh, like that seems pretty logical and uh, dave's on 25 million from an ig, funnel right I think, the difference between like you and me I go, I just like the vibes and if the vibes are inviting, I'm not gonna be there and that's where I go wrong as a.

Lara Acosta:

That's why I struggle to find call myself an entrepreneur, because I just go on vibes and I don't have systems and whether something makes money or not or whatever, if I'm not happy with it and it's making money, I'm just going to not do it because I don't like the vibes.

Darren Lee:

Yeah, I kind of had an inflection point uh about two years ago with Tim Stoddard.

Lara Acosta:

Tim.

Darren Lee:

I was talking.

Lara Acosta:

I Tim Stoddard.

Darren Lee:

Tim I was talking about this as well the other day. There's another podcast Say love you Tim, love you Tim, love you Tim. There was another podcast that was kind of coming up at the same time as me and he was getting way more like engagement, just like engagement. And I said that to Tim because Tim was on both of our shows. I was like what if, like, I don't understand why this guy's videos are popping off? And I remember him saying to me he was like dude, he was like this guy is not an entrepreneur, he's just like a kid, he's like you're more like an entrepreneur.

Darren Lee:

Yeah, and you should lean like that's what you're like known, but that's what you're known for, what you want to be known for, and I was like, oh, that makes way more sense. So then I kind of went down the path. So, like, I want to get good at running offers, I want to get good at or just building a businesses, and then, when I have these conversations with other guys who are crushing it, I'm nowhere near their level, but at least I can speak their language right. Instead of being like a broad creator, being like how do you make money online? Do you think the matrix is real? Like, because that's the standard of podcast, though, and that's the reason why, bro, like the standard of podcast is so fucking low, because everyone hops on the calendar like, so how would you make money in 2025? Like it's just the, the, the bear of the level of intelligence for like to make money online.

Darren Lee:

Space for the podcast is so low because they know that to click the view, the view metric on the back end is higher when it's the very, very basic, simple and I don't mean like basic like you know, break down a funnel, basic I just mean like things that have no help, like they don't help anyone, and because I go through the podcast and I listen to it, I'm like this doesn't help anyone.

Lara Acosta:

If I say that podcast I hate the most, will you beep it or no?

Darren Lee:

No, I can beep it. Yeah, I'll make a note of it, but yeah, no I look like a beeper.

Lara Acosta:

Yeah, I'll make a note of it, but yeah, no, actually, you know, there's like this one podcast that has like all these like big celebrities and like the conversation is so dull and it's just so painful to watch this like incredibly highly smart and talented, uh, guests being on this podcast that for some reason gets millions of views and it's just ultimately, uh, how do you make money online? And, um, how does it feel to have a chauffeur that drives you around dubai? Like, yeah, okay, cool, that's part of it, but that's not the entire conversation. I don't know where we're going there, rather than how, how did you get to that level? How does it feel? How are you dealing with it? That's more interesting.

Darren Lee:

Well, you get to know the head which is feeling right, because if people want information, they google it exactly you chat yeah and like that's.

Darren Lee:

That was a big thing for me, which is like the real nuance. If we're getting tactical, it's like okay, like, and where did they go in the funnel from here? And I'm asking these people I learned it from brett and brett was like I'll. Brett often said he was like I won't fucking upload a podcast if, uh, the guy doesn't tell me what I want to hear, you know, if he doesn't go to an extra level of detail that's why he has no blood. Oh what did you hold?

Lara Acosta:

back. No, I think I said just not not useful stuff about linkedin video. Oh, shit yeah, brand, I argued in the middle of the podcast but it was funny, it was like a good argument I I it was a more more of like a debate and I had a lot of fun. But I don't think that was a point of the podcast, but it heavily comes out because it's really good yeah, well, it's brett, it's.

Darren Lee:

Isn't it called the brett way? Yeah, the brett way he's great.

Lara Acosta:

He's such a cool guy he's so smart, I was in his program. Yeah, I, I heard Good program.

Darren Lee:

Very cool. What was the YouTube strategy? Huh, youtube strategy, yeah.

Lara Acosta:

YouTube More like I was going to write more for like ideation and what the vibes are, and he's really good with hooks and he's helped me a lot. He's just good to chat.

Darren Lee:

He's a good person and a friend we are. I feel like we're very similar. Yeah, I spent a lot of time when we recorded with him and he's very, he's very to the point. You know, just a super nice guy, but just no bullshit.

Darren Lee:

You know, very to the point and just like yeah, this is what I believed is how I'm going about doing it. This is my path. You know he's a cool guy. What do you want to do for like your own network, like kind of traveling, because I know you're you're doing more podcasts, kind of, but you're very selective, like this one is my third one with you traveling the world with that. We've done two in dubai, though, so it doesn't really care.

Lara Acosta:

Yeah, it doesn't count when you're gonna go to bali I do want to go to bali now that I've introduced you to my friend, danny oh yeah, she was talking to me about Bali, you're kind of a princess though. Yes.

Darren Lee:

You know, I feel like I'm going to be like, personally responsible for you. You will be, yeah, and you're going to be like walking around with, like a Chanel bag.

Lara Acosta:

I'll be like why are we here? Can we go shopping? No, I wouldn't be like that.

Darren Lee:

I feel like you will be I?

Lara Acosta:

I'd be upset at the sun if it was too hot yeah, you could be a problem in bali yeah, sorry, that's why I don't leave my house are you ever gonna get out of london? Probably not why?

Darren Lee:

why don't you like live in mexico?

Lara Acosta:

I really resonated with um alex's moses and you actually reposted that.

Darren Lee:

Uh, why I don't go back home for christmas yeah, well, I can explain why and I think, just from my own perspective, just like I have just like a lot of bad memories in ireland also like I'll tell you something funny. Um, like all the guys that you know like what what mean you do can only work when it's public, right, so it's, it's not building a business in private, like it has to be public. So that was the biggest thing for me was that you know, I started with like no background in content or business or anything, and I had to do everything public and like I would go as far as say like no one supported me, like literally nobody that were like my friends, basically no one. Um, I barely exceptionally two or three, and then the rest like either like laughed at it, joked at it, took the piss out of it, unfollowed me, all that kind of stuff, but the same people have reached back out obviously from my high school reunion and I just go.

Darren Lee:

So I just opened the message and I was going through like 50 dms on on, I think, booking calls on linkedin, and I looked and I was like that's funny and just later kept on going. So I kind of have like that like level of like resentment or whatever you want to describe it. But I'm like why would I open up that door to that like life? And the only reason I asked for living in mescos? Because like mes is like beautiful, you know it's good like standard living or whatever.

Darren Lee:

Um, but that's my that's my kind of area.

Lara Acosta:

Well to me it's the same like, no matter how beautiful you guys would perceive mexico, to me, for me it was just a horrible place to be at and I went back home for the holidays for the first time in two years and I actually had to leave home early during Christmas holidays because I just couldn't couldn't stand it. It was. It was incredibly hard for me to go back to the place where I was, worse than the people who my parents are, and I love my parents so much, but there is an extent to which I've grown in who I am, that that it is no longer in alignment to that place and it just brought up so many bad memories Like I was in Mexico for three days and I was already having panic attacks.

Darren Lee:

You took the words out of my mouth. I'm the same, like I have. Like, have you ever seen Jason Bourne, bourne Identity? You know Bourne. You know Bourne Identity, dakota, yeah, you know that movie. You don't know the movie. You don't know the fucking reference. Basically, there's a point in the movie where you try to identify who. He is okay, and he gets these flashbacks. He's walking through the town, he's walking through Paris, and he's getting on these flashbacks and they're like vroom, vroom in his face.

Darren Lee:

That's how I feel when I'm like going back to ireland, I like have or like I think of, like when I was younger.

Darren Lee:

So I get all these like really bad flashbacks and it like brings up loads of those thoughts and that's why for me it's like again, as you said, it's like the panic attack, anxiety around it yeah and again it's all bollocks right, because, if you think about it, oh, like the holidays, you got to go back and you got to go drinking and then you got to like, buy the present that no one asked for. It's all of it's all made up. Like that that whole thing is made up and, like chris, christmas was traditionally a christian holiday and now it's just turned into this facade of getting pissed and it's capitalism central.

Lara Acosta:

Like christmas is a fabricated holiday to make people spend more and the idea of celebrating it just doesn't sit right for me. It's like artificial happiness. Like why do we have to designate a specific day to enjoy being with family rather than, um, you know, doing all the things with? I hate the idea of having to sit down and do this thing that we're meant to be doing and pretend to be happy, like I am not happy right now in this situation, because it's being forced on me to be happy and whenever anyone's like what are you doing for Christmas? I'm not doing, I work. I worked, yeah, I worked.

Darren Lee:

I worked.

Lara Acosta:

But then. But then they're like oh, but what about your family? And I'm like. Last year I took my parents to Dubai, la and traveling, I gave them more than I've ever been able to give them because I worked on Christmas Day and I decided to take off some days during summer and et cetera. Why is that not socially acceptable? But I have to stay within the social dynamics that people are enforcing on me Like I am not a normal person. Why do I have to stick to normal holiday norms?

Lara Acosta:

And it's also like, if I know what I don't like, why am I doing what I don't like to do? Just because people are telling me that I feel like I should do it. And in the moment I do accept that I'm doing that thing and that I do the thing that I know I don't want to do. I do it and I hate myself for doing it, because then it took me like three weeks to recover from my holiday back to Mexico, because simply was just so emotionally draining. And it's not to blame anyone, it is simply what it is. It's the situation, it's the location, it is the memories and it then brought up more of me and I think I'm's what the holidays were, I mean a big thing for me.

Darren Lee:

Actually, what I was going to say to you was your newsletter and that when you said like christmas for you was brought up someone's like resentment, then this year you realize, like what you're grateful for, for, like for me, like I have a family now and I have like a wife and I have dogs and I have like father and mother-in-law, so I've like welcomed more into my family, but then I've also lost nine.

Darren Lee:

I've lost everything like I've like lost everything you know, so for me, like that's why it's like it was like so much resentment, whereas now, me and the family that I have, we, just we every day is a good day, you know, every day is we. Don't wait to have the good day. Every day is the good day you know, we say good morning, we say good night, we say I love you because I didn't have that you know.

Darren Lee:

So that's where it's funny, right people. People use the calendar for funny, for interesting things, right? It's kind of like the, the relationships that use valentine's day. I've never celebrated valentine's day. I've never bought elise a gift for christmas. You want me a gift for christmas? We're fucking 12, we're adults, you know, we do, we do things together and we have fun together, but we don't buy each other like things I guess that's it.

Darren Lee:

That's the beautiful thing about, though, being so self-aware that you know that you don't know no longer have to conform to the social norms, and you can just create your own traditions, right you create your own world, just from james kemp 101 is that rule number one of the sovereign way is you create your own world, whatever that is, the characters that are in the world, the activities you do, the environment, who's inside and who's outside the world, and that's all that matters and everything else can kind of fuck off right. It's as simple as that and he's very strict on what his world is, which is what. He only works two days a week and he just created his own universe and if you don't like it, you don't really care because you're not really you know, so because everyone's so preoccupied with what's happening outside the world that they're not thinking about what's happening inside their home or inside internally and

Darren Lee:

that's not woo-woo, it's just a reality, because everything else based on the ratio for me being in america was how, if you don't know what you're working towards, they will pull to put things in front of you. So if you go into the gym, there's always two tvs one has sport and one of politics always and you fall into one or two brackets. Probably both people are super focused on politics, who are super focused on sport, because they don't give you an option and america's really like in your face with that. But it's uh, it's just a reality it reminds me of that.

Lara Acosta:

Quote by danko is like if you don't have a purpose, you will be assigned one if you don't have a goal, you will be assigned one. If you don't have a goal, you will be assigned one.

Darren Lee:

If you don't have a lifestyle, you will be assigned one, and I'm speaking from experience because, like I did that, you know, when I was like drinking and shit, I went to university, got good grades, I went to good companies, the good companies, um, and that was miserable all right, this was fun.