Recognizing the Unseen: Building Inclusive Virtual Communities

Have you ever felt like you were invisible? In this episode of New Horizons, we explore the universal feeling of being unseen. Shawna and Brian (Mr. & Mrs.KillerB) kick us off as they discuss the significance of recognizing and valuing individuals, inspired by a book they're reading together called, "One at a Time" by Kyle Idleman. Our special guest, Martin Reid (AKA MetaClean Rupert in the Metaverse), shares his journey of feeling invisible and how his experiences are fueling what he's doing in the Metaverse on Horizon Worlds, fostering a community where everyone is seen.

Authenticity and legacy take center stage as Brian, Shawna, and Martin discuss the true essence of success—impact over popularity. Through personal reflections and a profound psychology class exercise comparing Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill, we learn that outward behaviors don't always reflect true character. We also hear how additional incidents involving law enforcement may help us all become more aware of the necessity of grace, patience, and empathy in interactions. Lastly, we celebrate the return of MetaClean Ruperts shows called "Meta Talks Live", returning for its fifth season. Join us for a heartfelt, thought-provoking episode that encourages seeing and valuing each other, both virtually and in reality.

Transcript

Topic Hook: Being Unseen

Speaker 1 0:01

Everybody is going through something at any given time, right, but sometimes the things that we've been through shape us into the people that we are today and cause us to do the things that we do. You know, for me it was never really wanted anybody to feel how I felt in being unseen or being invisible Virtual reality. We know that this isn't necessarily a replacement for our real lives, but I also know is that we're looking for something that we can't always physically get in our physical lives once we take the headsets off.

Speaker 2 0:32

Welcome to the New Horizons podcast. I'm Brian Curie.

Speaker 3 0:36

And I'm Shauna Curie, also known as Mr and Mrs Killer B, in virtual reality. So this podcast is recorded live from the metaverse at the Kilderby Studios where real life stories and God experiences are shared in a way only the metaverse can offer.

Feeling Invisible

Speaker 2 0:50

With that, let's go ahead and dive into today's episode. The topic is really going to be based around feeling invisible. Now I want to ask everybody here in the audience, by throwing some confetti, has anybody in here ever felt invisible before in life? Throw some confetti, okay. Yep. All felt invisible before in life. Throw some confetti, okay. Yeah, all right. Yeah, wow, a lot of people, all right. Mrs Killer Bee, how about you? Have you ever felt invisible and would you like to share that about that a little bit? Or have you noticed, maybe, somebody else in your life that you realized, that maybe they felt invisible, that you were aware of?

Speaker 3 1:31

Yeah, so thankfully Brian gave me a heads up on this question, but not so thankfully, I did not think of a specific situation, but I definitely have felt invisible before and I've definitely noticed other people around me that you know. I felt like we're not being seen in the way that they should be and, even though I don't have a specific example to give, I know it's such a common thing and it's definitely something that I want to get better at is being able to see, and I'm sure we're going to talk about this soon, but we're reading a book right now by Kyle Eidelman about what's it called darling. I always forget the name of it.

Speaker 2 2:14

I open up real quick.

Speaker 3 2:15

Okay, he'll open it up, but it's about being able to focus in on the person that's in front of you.

Speaker 2 2:22

One at a time. One at a time.

Speaker 3 2:23

Okay, one at a time. That's in front of you, one at a time. One at a time? Okay, one at a time. And it's interesting how this topic keeps coming up, because I want to be the kind of person that is able to pick out and see the person in the crowd who needs to be seen, right now.

Speaker 3 2:40

So I wish I could have thought of a specific example. But yeah, I'm just glad we're talking about it because I know how common it is, I know how often I've felt it in the past and you know I don't want anybody to feel like that and especially if I'm there and I have the ability to listen and to make someone feel seen, I want to be able to do that.

Introducing Martin Reid (AKA MetaClean Rupert)

Speaker 2 3:03

I love that. Yeah, it's a really good book. We'll make sure we put notes, put a link to it in our show notes on the podcast, if you're listening. Well, I'm really interested to hear from Metaclean on his story of feeling invisible and how this has fueled what he's doing now and just really how it's played on his life. So, if you guys would, let's go ahead and bring out our guests, arkane, if you want to cue the guest music and everybody, let's throw some confetti, for I guess you'd call him an OG here in Horizon.

Speaker 1 3:33

Worlds? Oh, I think so.

Speaker 2 3:34

Yeah, an OG. I'm trying to use that hip lingo. But come on out, MetaClean Rupert. Everybody throw some confetti for MetaCan Rupert. He should be coming out here any second, there he is oh look, he's changed. Hey.

Speaker 1 3:47

Metaclean. What's up, mr and Mrs? How's everybody?

Speaker 2 3:48

doing. Thank you so much for being here, hey everyone how y'all doing Awesome. Hey, you guys have no idea.

Speaker 1 3:53

The people that's listening to the podcast have no idea how convenient it is that you were just in the back does an awesome job getting us ready for the show.

Speaker 3 4:10

So yes, she'll get a raise, definitely after this show.

Speaker 2 4:16

I love it. I love it. Medical report we're so happy you're here, so I've been looking forward to to this time for us to be able to come together a long time coming, yeah it has. It has you, I guess. First let me give you 30 seconds before you can introduce yourself to everybody. Some people here might not know who MetaClean Rupert is.

Speaker 1 4:33

All right, so in short, my name is MetaClean Rupert. I've been on a platform since December of 2021. Basically, I'm a UX designer who specializes in immersive experiences that operates in virtual reality. I'm somewhat of a serial entrepreneur, or getting back to being a serial entrepreneur, I've kind of took a break from it for a while to as I kind of went through a period of complacency taking care of my family and which I think we all kind of have and found virtual reality and it's just re-sparked a muscle inside of me. It's got me going again.

Speaker 2 5:07

So yes, I mean his meta age. He said 2021. Is that right?

Speaker 1 5:12

Yeah, yeah yeah, pretty much, you know. I think the platform itself is roughly about five years old. There was a period where only a few people were allowed access, but when it opened up to the general public in the first beta stage or maybe the second beta stage, I was one of the first people to get on here by mistake, as a matter of fact, not, even on purpose. It was absolutely by mistake.

Speaker 2 5:36

How did it happen? By mistake, yeah, so.

Speaker 1 5:39

I actually bought the headset thinking it was going to be the hottest toy of the Christmas season and I was going to be the hottest toy of the Christmas season and I was going to be able to resell it and make a few hundred bucks and realized two weeks before Christmas that Costco decided to get another 250 units and I thought to myself well, that's probably not going to happen now, because now I thought there were going to be short supply and they proved me wrong, and so I just opened the box and put it on and it just changed my life.

Speaker 3 6:05

Yeah, oh my gosh, that's so interesting.

Speaker 1 6:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2 6:09

Yeah. So since you've been on here since 21, I would love to ask you what's been now. Okay, I'm going to remove this from the equation. You can't say legs, we got legs, so what's been what's been the biggest change that you've experienced, Not counting legs, which I mean legs are.

Speaker 1 6:31

obviously it's great to have legs in here, but beyond that. So from a technology standpoint, I think just the ability of immersion which we've progressed in. For those of us that have been around for a few years, we know even our avatars look pretty differently. For those of us that have been around for a few years, we know even our avatars look pretty differently and you don't even really notice it until you start looking back at some of the old videos and say well, we really went from Atari 2600 to PlayStation 3.

Speaker 3 6:54

We're not quite.

Speaker 1 6:54

PlayStation 5 yet. But we're getting there. But we've changed a lot and you know just some of the features and you know, from a technology standpoint we often think like we're moving really slowly in this space. But when you think about how big this cruise ship that we're on and you know takes to change sometimes, I mean we've actually kind of moved pretty quickly in the past three years with the development of the technology and you know we've all suffered. You know we call it Horizon World, horizon Worlding. We've all suffered with some of the glitching and the things we get annoyed about. But really, when you think about the amount of people that play this game and how far we've transitioned with some of the technology, it is actually happening really, really quickly.

Goal to Inspire / Feeling Invisible

Speaker 2 7:36

That's good. You know we get impatient, so you know we started off asking everybody if anybody here had ever felt invisible, and you could see them backstage and people were throwing confetti and I think that a lot of us in here can relate to that in real life, and probably even in here in Horizon Worlds and Metaverse and people that's listening to the podcast. So when you mentioned you also mentioned that your goal is to inspire. You mentioned your goal is to inspire, but there's something else that you said and you noticed that sometimes in your life there was times that you felt invisible. So can you share some about that?

Speaker 1 8:13

Yeah. So, uh, let me preface by saying that you know, we, through my show, I learned so many things that changed kind of how I, how I move forward in this space, um and space. And it's because of that that I realized that everybody here, you know, not just because of the show, obviously, it's just a life thing, but everybody is going through something at any given time, right. But sometimes the things that we've been through shape us into the people that we are today and cause us to do the things that we do. And that could be both positive things, right, because some people decide to use the stuff that they've been through and turn it into some positive things. But I also know that a lot of what we've been through kind of manifests itself and shows itself as negative things, right. So I understand that we as humans often sometimes go through both and it's sometimes a struggle to be more of one thing than the other and sometimes we just can't fight that, fight well enough to decide to do the positive thing and kind of live in the negativity, because we just can't get through it. You know, for me it was, it was the reason why I kind of moved through the space the way I do is because I never really wanted anybody to feel how I felt in being unseen or being invisible, right, and you know virtual reality. I just truly believe it's one of those things that you know. We know that this isn't necessarily a replacement for our real lives, it's oftentimes just an expansion. But I also know, through the countless conversations I've had with people, is that we're looking for something that we can't always physically get in our physical lives. Once we take the headsets off right, we're drawn to this place for a reason. We don't always know what that reason is and some of the people that we surround ourselves with we don't always know what their reason is for being here, and that's kind of how my show kind of came to existence Like. For some of us it's honestly just the speed at which it takes to create right, because it takes a lot of movement and energy and sometimes money to create these platforms and these initiatives and these businesses in the physical world. For other people it might be, you know, a mental reason. Maybe they just don't get around enough people to socialize and now they're drawn to the space because you're thrown into an environment now where socialization becomes really, really simple, being a little older than most of the people in here. I want to set an example of how things can be done necessarily to just show that there may be a different way for you to move through the space. You know, we just don't sometimes have the opportunity to do that.

Speaker 1 10:44

I'm the youngest of six children, my my closest sibling to me is um four years older. Um, so I spent a lot of time alone by myself when my siblings were out of age, when they can leave the house and go out with their friends, and I was kind of stuck in the house watching my dad sleep on the couch because he worked nights. Um, so I did a lot of self-raising, right. My parents separated when I was relatively young, you know, and I was growing up in England.

Speaker 1 11:10

I'm English, I'm actually not even American, but I grew up in England. You know, I was a latchkey kid but, you know, with my parents separating at a pretty young age, you know, initially I lived with my father and then got transitioned to live with my mother, which happened to be in another country, because after the divorce my mother left England and moved to New York and you know, I got taken out of environment that I was comfortable in right. I was raised there for the first 12 years of my life and got put into an environment that I didn't know or understand and got planted in the Bronx with an English accent, which was tough. I didn't want to be different. At 12 years old I wanted to be just like everybody else. But it's hard to be just like everybody else when you're 12 years old with an English accent, growing up in the Bronx.

People Are Drawn Here

Speaker 1 11:58

So, I learned it's a joke that I learned. I learned the three F's. Back then I learned um, I learned how to be fast, I learned how to be funny and I learned how to fight because, you know, being very different, you were subject to a lot of curiosity, sometimes a lot of ridicule, and you know I was just one that I didn't really like the ridicule part, so sometimes I had to find ways to defend myself and sometimes I had to be fast to get out of a situation and sometimes I just had to be funny to make everybody feel comfortable.

Speaker 2 12:48

I'm going to rewind just a little bit. You're talking about how people come to this headset because maybe they're, you know, they're missing something in their normal life, so they're drawn to this, this platform, and and and I I agree, I agree with you there too as well. That's good, but also we can see how it could be bad, because when people put on the headset, they're searching for something, and we know there's some people in here that's trying to find who they are. They want to be successful in here, but then they take off the headset and they still feel invisible. They don't feel like they're not as confident in themselves outside of this headset.

We're Programmed

Speaker 2 13:21

I love that you said you have a responsibility. We all have a responsibility. If we really look at what we're doing here and the lives that we've all got to live and your story, which we're hearing right now, you're realizing that in here you have a responsibility to help those people too, like not feel invisible in here, but also build them up and inspire them so when they take off this headset, they have that same confidence there. We've all acknowledged that people are more open to be real and share their real life stuff in here, do you think when it comes to this platform.

Speaker 1 13:54

The avatars kind of remove that, like it kind of frees them for that absolutely um, you know, we, we all kind of bring in what we've. Listen, we're programmed, right? I mean, essentially our brains are just big computers and and whatever we program it to do is kind of what our reality is, doesn't always mean that that's a fact of reality. This space, the normalcy of what we look like, right, so the physicalities already are completely taken off the table, which I think in this really political environment is really important, right, because we're so divided by sexuality, by race, by gender, and the media and all these other forces, in order to gain our support and devotion, use these words to make us feel like we're very, very different from each other, when we know there is no difference at all. Like, my difference in the physical world is just a million content on my skin. It's not necessarily my upbringing, like the cultural things.

Speaker 1 14:49

Like, give us different programming, right Going back to how our minds work, but really like when you cut into us, we're all kind of the same underneath and you know you can peel an orange and you'll still have an orange underneath. But you know, whatever forces that decide to for power, control or to get our attention or money or whatever it is, they lead us into these tropes that make us think that we're really, really different, and this space kind of proves otherwise. I mean, look at the makeup of the room. It's not made up of people that all look like me or all look like you. There's a whole myriad of people and personalities in here and that's why I'm attracted to this space, because until you really speak to somebody, you don't know what it is that they're going through or actually just who they are.

Four Things MetaClean Rupert Lives By

Speaker 2 15:34

One thing I do absolutely love about this platform is I know there was a time when we first started we wish we could have more people in our world, which is great. That's a great thing to think and want to have, but what's really even more powerful is not having as many people, because you really get to know each person. If there are thousands of people in here, it's really hard to connect with a crowd compared to connecting with a community, a tribe. You said there's four things that you live by.

Speaker 1 16:04

Would you mind to share that with everybody? For me, it's always about kind of having a purpose, right, like you have to become synonymous with something, and you can become synonymous with something positive or synonymous with that person working in a room that everybody turns around and leaves when they see them coming because they're going to ask them for money, right? So for me, I developed through my interactions with people here, create, love, inspire and add value, because I just truly believe, like I try to encompass all four of those things. But really, if I did any one of those things really, really well, it would make a difference. I mean, even with my show.

Speaker 1 16:38

Oftentimes the guests that I brought on the show it's not because they're the biggest personalities in the space, it's probably because we've had a 10-minute conversation and within that 10 minutes there's just something that just intrigued me so much that I would extend an invite.

Embracing Authenticity and Legacy in Life

Speaker 1 16:52

It's not a uh, that show is is not a, it's not a scripted show and it's not a show that people can ask me to be on. I really just go through it instinctually and I have to feel something about the guests, because there's something about the 10 minute conversation that we may have had that I knew would make a difference to the lives of the people that would be in attendance watching the show. Those four things. I don't vary from that at all. I kind of remove myself with toxicity and even like even the word toxicity or we may manifest that word into hate. Right, I realize that only shows itself when people don't have the confidence or the know-how to do something and fortunately, the lack of confidence, the lack of not being seen, being feeling invisible or not having to know how to do something, manifests itself in ways that aren't positive, right.

Speaker 2 17:41

I love those four things that you shared too, because it's just amazing to see that those four things is create love, inspire and add value, and from someone that felt invisible felt invisible.

Speaker 1 17:56

There just has to be a point where you have to do things for you and you have to understand that whatever you want to be successful at is your journey.

Speaker 1 18:01

Like my level of success has nothing to do with being the most popular creator or the most popular personality in here. It's about the impact and how I leave the space behind me, because I have less time ahead of me now than I've lived, and I think about that a lot. I think about legacy a hell of a lot, and how will I be remembered when I'm gone? And I've lost friends who won't be remembered for really great things. Right, they've left family members behind that don't care that they're gone. It's only going to take two generations for me to disappear from a family tree anyway. But while I'm here, when I'm gone, I don't want to be remembered as somebody that didn't offer any value to anybody's life, and I think about that continually and I move accordingly in order for me to kind of do that. And, like I said, if I can impact one person right, doesn't even have to be a whole mass of people.

Speaker 1 18:48

If I can make a difference in one person's life, then I am successful and that's all that matters to me it's a beautiful thing to think about, that.

Speaker 3 18:55

You know, impacting one person actually never is just one person, because, because their life has changed, the generations after them are changed. Yeah, it doesn't matter if anyone remembers that it was you that started that or not, it's, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Speaker 3 19:14

And you know, I think if we can free ourselves from, you know, thinking about getting the credit, it just frees us up to just love people and you never have that bitterness of thinking like they didn't even appreciate it or they didn't even acknowledge me. You know, it's so. It's a beautiful way that you know you've grown into walking through your life.

Speaker 1 19:35

We have to allow people the grace to be who they are.

Personality Profile Exercise

Speaker 1 19:38

You know, and I think I think so, the basis of so many of the of the miscommunications and the conflict we have is really based on expectation. Right, I expected you to be this person. You proved me otherwise, and now I'm mad at you, right? But but that person may have always been that person and it's unfair to ask them to change who they are to accommodate what I want you to be. I've given myself a lot of grace to be who I want to be, but I also extend that to other people Like however you present yourself as a person you are, I then can make a decision to decide whether or not I want to be around that person or not be around that person, but I'm not going to tell you to be a different person to accommodate me. That's not fair to anybody, as I hope you won't ask me to be a different

Speaker 1 20:18

person. When I'm around you, right, and I think when we can show up authentically that way, man, conversations just become different. Our attitude towards people becomes different. I realize that I can't change you, nor do I want to change you, and I'm allowing you to be who you are, whether you are a positive person or a negative person, like I learned something in a psych class a long time ago where I did a personality profile on two people.

Speaker 1 20:40

It was a great exercise that the professor did. He showed us two personality profiles. This person here doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, is is very studious, is committed to their craft and is one-minded and is only focused on success, while this person over here is a drinker, a smoker, a womanizer, says the wrong thing at the right time and we were asked which one of these two people would you put onto your team? Of course, everybody wants the non-smoker, the non-drinker. When we found out who those two people were, there was a realization like man, we just can't really judge person based on those attributes that non-drinker, non-smoker was Adolf Hitler and the womanizer drinker smoker was Winston Churchill.

Speaker 2 21:26

Oh, my goodness, wow Now knowing that which one of these two people do you want on your team the? Drinker and the smoker.

Meta Talks Live (show info)

Speaker 1 21:33

So that is kind of like what life is. Right. We all have a history of things that we may not be proud of, but it doesn't necessarily define who we are as people. We just didn't know how to manifest it or show it in different ways. And, like that lesson, the older I get, becomes more and more prevalent with the people I interact with, and it also again just allows me to give a little bit more grace, because I don't know what you've been through that made you want to drink or smoke, or what you've done with that and impacted other lives. Right, I've known people who had said their one thing and have been. You know I'm a believer. Right, I'm a Christian. I believe that Jesus died to save our sins, and I've known people who have lived that lifestyle that have done absolutely horrible things.

Speaker 1 22:16

Right, but the person who may smoke weed all day, who doesn't believe in any of that stuff, is the best hearted person in the whole world, right so? But you don't know that just by looking at the outside service of people you have to kind of engage and talk to people and give people the grace to be who they are and allow them to be that.

Speaker 2 22:33

Yeah, how does this feed into your show, this, this feeling of getting past, feeling invisible and going through your life, and now this new show you're you're launching now. Is this a brand new show or is this a show that's no, no, so so it's actually been gone for a year and we're going to be coming back for season five.

Ripple Effects: Navigating Perceptions

Speaker 1 22:50

For those that don't know, uh, the show wasaTalks Live. I've had a couple of different shows and I'm working on platforms to bring in, you know, to transition people from the outside in, but really for the most part, it's for Horizon World creators who have a story to tell. The only requirement that I've ever asked of somebody is that this isn't a place to kind of talk about gossip or focusing on the bad things that happen to you, the stories. I would like them to be inspirational, to show people that you can make it through whatever situation you go through and that's really the only requirement that I've ever asked for.

Speaker 1 23:25

Then what you decide to do with it when you get up on the stage is entirely up to you, because I wanted to offer some inspiration to the people watching in the audiences so they can leave the show feeling better and inspired to go ahead and make a change. Because you're right, you were right. Right, the things we do to other people cause ripple effects Like I can it's funny because I can I think about my relationship with with police officers that I had growing up, right, and you know I respect immensely what police officers do. I do know there are bad apples in a bunch that make it look bad for the entire thing, but I can also understand who people who may not necessarily look like me, who have never had those experiences right, can view police officers. They don't do anything bad, right. But you know, I remember a few instances that I've had in my life where I've just been walking and had a police officer put a gun in my face and say I'm going to blow your mother effing head off if you move.

Speaker 1 24:17

And I'm like what the hell is happening right now.

Speaker 2 24:19

I'm just walking down the street.

Speaker 1 24:21

But you know from a smaller instance, which something that happened to me. So you know, I remember my nieces visited me in the United States from England, right. They were, you know, young. I think the oldest was 18, 14, and like 12.

Speaker 1 24:36

And you know, at the time Puff Daddy and I use this now, I know he's in the media right now, but back then he was a celebrity selling records he was going to be at a record store signing autographs. So you know I was like, well, what a cool experience to take them to the record store where they can meet Puff Daddy, because you know they're fans of his, they can go to VIM or whatever the record store was, sign an autograph. And you know I didn't really care about it. I was kind of in the music industry at that time so I was kind of privy to this stuff, so I wasn't enamored by any of that stuff, but for them it's like they'll get to meet Puff Daddy in person. So you know, we drove downtown, parked the car, they had the barriers all blocked off and stuff, and I remember I walked them across the street, put them in line and I was going to walk back to my car but there was a barrier there, but I remember the police officer was there at the barrier, and this is why it's important to pay attention to everybody's experiences, because everybody's relationship to something or somebody can be different. So the police officer is there and the barrier is there, obviously to kind of control traffic.

Speaker 1 25:40

I remember there were two elderly white people coming out of the building and they were like hey, listen, we don't want to walk down the street. Can we go through the barrier? Yeah, sure, sure, come on through, come on through, let them through the barrier. Then about five minutes later, a young, attractive woman comes through. She was like hey, listen, can I walk through the barrier? You know I don't want to walk across the street. Yeah, yeah, coming through. Now, my car is parked directly across the street from the barrier and I was like well, I'm going to go back to the car. And I was like hey, do you mind if I walk through the back? No, you got to walk around.

Speaker 1 26:08

And I was just like. And I stood there and looked. I was like, listen, my car is right there. And he looked at me and said did not tell you you have to walk around? And I thought to myself what is different about me, other than my physical appearance, that would make me make me him not just wanted to say okay and open a barrier, which would have been?

Speaker 1 26:26

a two second event to now turn it into something that's going to make me not want to be around you and have a feeling about you Right? So I understand the environments that you grew up around and your interactions with people are different. Like that elderly couple and that young lady have a positive view of the police officer. What a nice guy. He let me cut through the barrier and now I'm across the street. But for me that experience was completely different. Now obviously I'm smart enough to know that not everybody's like him.

Speaker 1 26:54

I had at the time friends who were police officers, who were great people and knew great police officers from some of the stuff I had been doing in the community and some of the other. You know my interactions with police. I know not all police officers are like that, but sometimes, growing up in certain environments where that's all you see or that's all the media pushes out in front of you, people believe that all officers may be like that. From that one interaction, even now in this space, I tell people your experience or your conflict that you have with somebody in this space may not be the norm for everybody. That might just be you, that person you know and I know a lot of people and I've seen both sides of the story, right, you know, you know what they say.

Speaker 1 27:48

The truth is that's true, rational and clear decisions, because your truth is your truth and their truth is their truth. And somewhere in the middle is what really happened. And you know, I've just kind of moved through the space again, allowing grace for people to be who they are or who they present themselves to you to be, and hopefully it matches up with who they actually are in real life.

Speaker 2 28:08

I had a friend that told me once cause I struggled with with you know things from my experience in the past and someone told me to remember that, even if somebody close to me that was hurting me, and this person, a friend, told me remember that that person can only love you as much as they've experienced love.

Speaker 2 28:26

And I was like yeah that's an interesting thing to think about, because even in here, people might be rude to you or mean, but they can only love you as much as they've experienced love, and their life experiences will cause them to act differently towards you as well.

Speaker 1 28:41

I don't get into arguments with people. I think I've lost my cool one time in three years in this space and the times that I haven't been able to manage through that. I'm just not going to be here Because I'm not going to react a certain way.

Speaker 3 28:52

I'm going to take a be here, because I'm not going to, I'm not going to put yourself in a certain way.

Speaker 1 28:54

Right, I'm going to take a break which.

Speaker 2 28:56

I think we all should do from this space sometimes Absolutely, because it does get frustrating right, it does deal with a lot, and especially when you're considered a community leader.

Speaker 1 29:04

You're supposed to be this person all the time and listen, I'm human. I go through stuff I get frustrated. I'm going to step away before I react in a way that's going to have ripple effects.

Speaker 2 29:13

That I can't control.

Speaker 1 29:15

It's okay to just step away for a little bit, man You'll. You'll be missed, hopefully a little bit, but we'll understand, we'll love you when you come back.

Speaker 2 29:22

I mean, we just we just came back from a three month break which we missed it so much. But, man, it was hard to do, but we, we needed it, we really need it, we really need it, we need it, we definitely need it.

Speaker 1 29:33

But you know you're a battery in this community, right. And you know with batteries, if they don't work they offer little value but to be placemats, right. So being a battery impacting people, you have to just to charge your battery, right.

Some Love from MetaClean

Speaker 1 29:49

So if that means a, little bit to recharge so you can do better work and continue to do the fight, the good fight. Then that's just what you have to do, Because if you're depleted you offer nothing to anybody and then your impact won't count for as much. And that ripple effect will hopefully not cause a tidal wave that'll drown somebody. Like a rising tide lifts all boats, but when the water's rough, a lot of things and people are affected.

Speaker 2 30:16

Well, I'm super excited about your show. I'm super excited about your show coming up Tuesday. Keep us posted. When you're getting close to the date, you guys throw some confetti for Metaclean. Isn't it great to have him out. We love what you're doing in here, Metaclean.

Tell Your Stories & Share Your Experiences

Speaker 1 30:49

Yes, we will things that you do in this space, and I've been watching the opportunities that you're presenting to people, man. So just thank you for what you do, because I know it takes an enormous amount of energy to expend to get these platforms up and running and also to sustain them and keep them going, and I just want you to know it has not been unrecognized and you are a valued member of this community and we love having you around here, man. So I'm glad that hopefully you've gotten the rest and the rejuvenation and the recharge that you've need to come back in and create those ripples that will lift your ship.

Speaker 1 31:20

So just thank you for the work that you've also done.

Speaker 2 31:22

Thank you, michael, thank you, thank you. We appreciate it. We appreciate it so much and I would love for we always ask our guests if there's a closing thought that you'd like just to leave everybody with. What would it be for you?

Speaker 1 31:34

Yeah. So for me, I would love everybody to look at the metaverse for all the things that it can do, right? Yes, it's an amazing place to create, but I think, more importantly, it's an amazing place to tell your story and the things that you've done in your life and share your experiences with other people. 2024 has been really different for me. Right, I've spent a lot of time in here building communities, building things, but really for me now it's how do we now tell the story of the things that we do here back outside? Right, because we focus so much energy on bringing people into the space, but not sometimes quite as much energy into telling our stories out of the space. So, use the metaverse and virtual reality for those things, because you can create anything that you want to create.

Speaker 1 32:20

I don't care what people tell you, I don't care who did it first. Whatever your mind imagines can happen in here, but it can be transformative into telling your journey to other people, which will cause ripple effects and impacts that you may not see how far it's going to go. One of my favorite quotes is whether you think you can or think you can't. You're absolutely right, but I'm here to tell you that you absolutely can. No matter what it is you can make it happen in this space.

Speaker 3 32:46

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