Be You. Get Paid.
Conversations with creators... who are having conversations that matter!
My guests are all examples of their work. They are successfully monetising their interests, knowledge, passions, expertise and experience through businesses and brands they’ve built themselves from scratch.
They also happen to be sharing valuable, relevant information and contributing to our collective progress as humans. My goal is to showcase the vast opportunity that exists for anyone listening, to do the same.
In many conversations, we discuss the role Bitcoin has to play in this brave new world - one that is being built on a system of meritocracy. A system designed to reward individual creativity and contribution.
***DISCLAIMER*** Any opinions expressed on this podcast are my own and the personal views of my respective guests. This content is for conversational, educational and entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as financial or investment advice.
Be You. Get Paid.
#012 Winemaking & Building Community with Bitcoin, w/ Ben Justman
"It took me a long time to figure out that it wasn't the wine that I was necessarily passionate about. I like the business, but what it gives me is... I'm really passionate about the connection between people, the connection between place and food and everything that wine brings as a connector. It's not necessarily the wine that I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about all the things that wine brings along with it..."
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Ben Justman is the young and inspiring Founder of Peony Lane Wine.
Committed to producing wine in its purest form - Ben farms without irrigation and embraces natural, sustainable growing practices without pesticides or herbicides. This, in turn, produces wine that fully expresses the natural complexity of our world... there’s a few lessons in this story!
Nestled in the remote town of Paonia - among the mountains of Colorado, USA - Peony Lane represents the fruition of his father’s life dream. Inspired by fleeting experiences on his grandparents’ peach farm and after searching all over the country for the right place, Ben’s dad was pulled to Paonia and in 2004, planted his first plot of Pinot Noir.
A few years later - after experiencing what we could call “post-college employment disillusionment”... Ben decided to take his natural, entrepreneurial flair and turn his father’s passion project in to a thriving business - as well as creating a lifestyle he apparently thrives on personally too!
Follow Ben on Twitter https://twitter.com/BenJustman
Read the story about building his house! https://twitter.com/BenJustman/status/1665448366292230144
Check out Peony Lane Wine at https://www.peonylanewine.com/
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So it took me a long time to figure out that it wasn't the wine that I was necessarily passionate about. I like the business, but what it gives me is I'm really passionate about the connection between people, the connection between place and food and everything that wine brings as a connector. It's not necessarily the wine that I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about all the things that wine brings along with it, but the fact is we've gotten to a point where people don't even have an estate, people don't have a thousand dollars in a bank account at all, and that makes people live in this like fire flight state where you can't help your friends, you always have to be looking out for yourself, and it destroys communities. So, coming back to wine, that's a huge part of wine is building community, and within that I've just found the Bitcoin community as a group of people that has a lot of the same values as I do, as in values hard work, values building slowly for the long term, and values connection within people.
Speaker 2:Well, hello human. Thanks so much for tuning into the BU GetPay podcast. I'm your host, amy Taylor, and I have one goal by being in your ears to explore as many conversations and perspectives as possible on stuff we did not learn in school, you know, stuff that would have actually helped a lot more of us thrive, rather than just survive as grownups in an often challenging and ever-changing world. As the title might suggest, this includes anything involved with knowing ourselves, understanding money and generally anything that might offer some insight into how we can all be happier humans. With that in mind, wherever you're listening, you'll find links to some of the best resources I have personally found to help with all of those things. Sometimes I'll talk about these in a bit more detail, and I want you to know I will only ever recommend products, services and companies that I am a customer or user of myself. Now, real grownups here, and as such, you'll possibly hear the occasional use of grownup language. More importantly, anything discussed here is personal opinion and intended for conversational and educational purposes only, and should not be taken as financial or investment advice. That's housekeeping done. Let's get into what I hope is some helpful chat. So thank you for being here. It's very cool to meet you.
Speaker 2:You were someone who, when I tweeted out about wanting to speak to more bit coiners for the podcast, a few people tagged you.
Speaker 2:I'd seen your wine because other people had tweeted about it and it took like 4.2 seconds to look at your profile and be like this guy fits the bill for kind of what I'm trying to get across with BU get paid like living your best life, being fully you, figuring out what that is. You just told me you're 29. I thought you're a bit younger and you're just an example, I think, of what is possible in this day and age. That doesn't necessarily fit what most people subscribe to in terms of go to college, get a job, figure out you don't like your job, not earn enough money, not understand money, and the last episode I published was homeschooling and I feel like you're a really good follow-on from that. So where I want to start and we'll end up going around in circles, probably and coming back to your story, because I know not everybody grows up on a farm and tell me how to pronounce the town you're from.
Speaker 1:Paonia.
Speaker 2:Paonia Okay, that's a tricky one. Paonia in Colorado, in the mountains, cool. So not everybody grows up. You grew up there, right In that area.
Speaker 1:I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not everybody grows up on a beautiful sort of massive area of land on a winery. But, that said, you've sort of taken your own path and it's anyway. I don't want to distract myself, but I just was very inspired by what I saw, because not many young people after college go and do what you're doing build a house, live on, you know, build a business more than anything. But, yeah, you're a great example of someone who just seems to be loving their life. So I'm like, right, this Bitcoin I'm definitely going to talk to. But take me back first of all. You mentioned on a podcast I heard you on, which again is a follow-on from homeschooling for me. You said your parents cut you off when you went to college financially. Is that right?
Speaker 1:Oh, I think right after college. So my the deal was that they were going to support me through college, to and like all growing up like my job during school time was school. So in college it's worried about school. But yeah, I remember day after graduation filled up the gas the tank one last time my dad said, all right, give me the credit card.
Speaker 2:Did you know that was coming?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. And, honestly, like I've kind of been excited for it because I had been realizing that like I wanted to focus on my personal finances and that's just something that I was weirdly really into, and so I couldn't really do that if I was living off of my parents and so basically as soon as I got off that, I just dove into building a crazy Excel spreadsheet that I still operate to track everything.
Speaker 2:So how old are you at that point, when you finish?
Speaker 1:22?
Speaker 2:Because it's your 22 when you finish college, so you're 22. What did you study at college? Was it relevant to what you're doing now?
Speaker 1:A little bit. I was a geologist. It was really just yeah, my school was you take a class for three and a half weeks and then you get four days off and then you take another class, so you're really focused on one thing and the geology. You go camping for like two of those weeks. So I took one class and was like wait, I can do this for school, I'm gonna.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna be a geologist, and so when you say school, are you talking about high school or college?
Speaker 1:College yeah.
Speaker 2:Sorry, a little bit of that. Yeah, there's just different countries, Okay it's probably university for you.
Speaker 1:There's different designations, they're the same thing but like you're bigger if you're a university but you, I went to a college but it's the same thing.
Speaker 2:So like 18?
Speaker 1:18 to 22.
Speaker 2:Got it Okay, yeah, that's the same. Same as university.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, and prior to that, were you homeschooled or did you? Was it kind of?
Speaker 1:I went to public school.
Speaker 2:Public school, Okay, cool. So outside of what you're doing now pretty traditional upbringing you get to 18, you go to college, or what we, some of us, would know as university. You study geology and then you get to 22, you're filling up the petrol. Your dad says give me that credit card, you're on your own. So where were you living? What did you do?
Speaker 1:Well, I got a job as a for a water resources consultant company, just as an intern in Denver in Denver, which is the big city in Colorado, yep and just moved up there Bunch of people. I went to college with girlfriend at the time. We live in there, so it was just, you know, pretty easy right out of college. And then I moved to what that was just for the summer. And then I moved to a ski town in Colorado and worked in a ski shop and skied all the time that winter. And then I moved to Vietnam for a year and taught English.
Speaker 2:Wow, so you did. You've got your travel things out of your system as well. That's good, good to hear.
Speaker 1:I'm getting it back again. I mean, starting the winery is kind of having the bigger little cash strappings and location, no location centralized for the last five years. But yeah, that I got my for sure. That was a life goal was just ski bum, then travel, so got that out of the system.
Speaker 2:I can understand that. Yeah, it's interesting actually. Side note, I was listening to you talking about how I think Pinot Noir is your focus wine, or your sort of the one that grows best where you are. I lived in Queenstown, new Zealand, for a while, as a result of initially going there to do a ski season, and Central Otago probably one of the leading other regions for Pinot Noir, so that's the extent of my white knowledge, to be honest.
Speaker 2:So when I was listening to you, what I loved was when you said and I'm jumping around the things I wanted to ask you, but it's just kind of segueing in and you said someone in Texas asked you how do we get Pinot Noir to grow here? It just won't grow here, and this is where what you do and my lens for what I'm trying to achieve to bring Bitcoin to more people is. Your answer was just make Texas wine, stop messing with nature and let it express itself. So it talks me a bit about what made you want to start a winery, because those kind of value systems underneath what you do is just perfect for me. I just think it's such a great way to live and it's obviously why you then understood Bitcoin or feel the way you do about Bitcoin. It's certainly why I do so. Yeah, tell me what made you want to start a winery and how that went.
Speaker 1:I always knew that I would have my own business or figure out something I didn't really ever plan on working for. People Knew that that was going to be the case, getting started and everything. But I grew up with my dad always did his own thing. My mom was a stay at home mom once I was born and so I kind of just always had the idea that I'd find something to do on my own and I tried a couple like little small businesses. Basically, when I lived in Vietnam I realized for sure that I wanted to be an entrepreneur or businessman, whatever it was, and started a couple small businesses.
Speaker 1:When I moved back and then those didn't really go anywhere. I was hating my job as a geologist, realized there was no real career path there as far as having my own business and actually doing geology, and just was on the phone with my dad one day Like normal conversation and he had been making wine as a hobby for ever since we moved to Pano and so he made really good wine and I knew that he didn't really know what he was doing at all. So I kind of just said that's a good idea, I'll go for it, because if you figured it out I'm sure I can.
Speaker 2:And a couple of months later, I was doing the paperwork to start a widery.
Speaker 1:So really it was always something that like. I think it was like my fallback option to move back home and do something. I always didn't think I would move back home until I was like 40 with a wife and a kid. But here I was, 25 and single, moving back to a 2000 person town to start a business on the farm.
Speaker 2:Wow. So when you said when you'd move back home, you mean to your hometown. Which of 2000 people would move back home? I can't imagine how remote that must be. I can't imagine. I've been to remote places. So your dad or your family obviously had land. They had a place for you to do it.
Speaker 1:Yes, my dad's life dream was to live on a farm and grow all his own food, and so he, like I said, built houses his whole life and, at 54, sold everything that he'd amassed and bought this farm, basically. And so I grew up on the farm, working the fields and, honestly, wasn't a huge fan of farming, probably because I was forced into it and it was, you know, you hate, you rebel as the son of a farmer. But I knew, also knew it was a pretty special place to be. I mean, we're right on the river, surrounded by other orchards. It's an awesome town. It's just small and there's so much good food and good people that move here to create their own thing and just kind of live and not be bothered by anything else. So it's a great spot. Like I said, I always thought I'd move back here. I just didn't think I'd do it until I was older.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's very cool. It sounds so wholesome and I think it's one of those things, now that that people are. I have mixed feelings on it because my partner and I have talked about it would be so nice to have more space. But unless it's something where you can, it's either a labor of love, because it's a lot of work having having land as a farmer whether it's a working farm or just a lifestyle it you've got to want to do that work. I think a lot of people now are starting to think I want to grow my own veggies and have all this space. But if you've got a full time job, you've then got to come home and spend your weekends doing that.
Speaker 2:So I think people possibly have a bit of a fairy tale fantasy of what that looks like, but it's something you knew. But I love the fact that I actually thought your dad started a wine business and you kind of just took it and grow it and grew it. So it's cool to hear that it was actually your idea and you kind of saw that he had just everything I love, like he had a passion and a skill, I guess, and you kind of brought the business mind to it to turn it into something much bigger, which is very, very cool, and you're getting to do it with your dad, so you move back and you tell me about building the house, because I saw that toy and was like, oh my god, this is amazing.
Speaker 1:Just to step back real quick. I've seen a lot of people move here that want to own a farm and it's their life dream and everything, just like it was my dad. So like I've lived both, lived in and seen it second hand and most people don't last. My dad's 75 and still works eight hours a day on the tractor and doing physical labor, but that's what he loves to do, so it's not a huge deal for him. Like I said, grew up knowing that it wasn't necessarily for me, so I like the wine and the business side and the farming stuff. I still leave up to him, honestly. But since my dad built houses his whole life, I've also spent a lot of not a ton of time, but I've also built things. Growing up, I mean, that was my summer job, was always on the farm and sometimes there were sheds to build and all that kind of thing. So I had started the winery in 2019, made my first batch of wine, was still working full time as a geologist and living in Denver, so five hours away from Peonia and commuting home once a month to make the wine.
Speaker 1:The thing with wine is it takes at least a year, maybe two years, depending on how long you want to age it. So I started the winery in 2019, invested my entire life savings and I didn't have anything to sell for two years. I didn't know what I was doing, so I didn't know if my wine was good and I have to figure out stuff to do finance my life. So work another job and continue investing a second value worth of my life savings the next year. So I really was hating my job as a geologist and was kind of looking for the next thing to do, knowing I had all this wine in the cellar and the wine was my next big step. So I have to stay nearby because I have to touch the wine once a month at least and then I don't really want to work just some random crappy job and just live.
Speaker 1:So we had this space on our property that was just kind of begging for a house to be built that wording coming from someone who builds houses this whole life. So my dad just had a vision for this space and it was the logical thing for me to do was move home and build a house and presumably inherit it one day. So I kind of just went for it. So, honestly, just like the winery was the low hanging fruit. Logical next step. So was the building that house. And just, it was really just taking what was the? What was it laid out in front of me and working hard for it. And now I've got a lot to show for it all these years later.
Speaker 2:Oh, my god, that was so well articulated as well, because you know there was part of me thinking you know, will people relate to this? Because not everybody has a family that's got a massive amount of land in a remote place where they can just build a house. I think that trend will probably start to flourish as we move to a Bitcoin standard, or at least I believe it will. Anyone who doesn't understand that, please listen to Ben and go learn about Bitcoin and it will start to make sense because you know, people do flock to cities, like you said. Even you went off to Denver.
Speaker 2:But I just love so much of what you said because, through my lens of both entrepreneurship or solopreneurship and starting your own thing, you know you knew it was going to take a crap ton of investment and risk. You were kind of winging it. You'll figure it out as you go. That's a huge lesson for anyone who wants to fly the plane whilst they're building it and take that leap of faith, but also just accepting that you're not going to make money straight away.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of parallels from your story, regardless of someone's circumstances, that I think are just so important, especially on the financial front, and I'm glad you've already told me all of that about your dad and his background, because I think I've got friends, certainly, that have got family businesses and it seems like the natural thing to step into the family business and then, I guess because it's in front of them and it's an easy option, but they don't actually love it. So I love that you kind of had the awareness to go. Well, there's all these elements here but I don't want to be a farmer but um, Honestly, it took me a while to even.
Speaker 1:I was never like a big wine guy either, so it wasn't for the love of wine that I started this. It was really just I wanna have a business and I wanna commit. I really wanna commit to something right now that I can move forward with my life and really strive towards something. And so it took me a while to figure out look, if I'm gonna be a wine maker, if I'm gonna do this, I have to be somewhat passionate about it, or else I'm just not gonna do it very well. So it took me a long time to figure out that it wasn't the wine that I was necessarily passionate about.
Speaker 1:I like the business, but what it gives me is I'm really passionate about the connection between people, the connection between place and food and everything that wine brings as a connector. It's not necessarily the wine that I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about all the things that wine brings along with it. It's an incredible business to have. It's like so low time preference and I can learn alongside as my wine grows and I get invited to a lot of good dinners and can just be part of dinners for a lot of people. I mean, whether I'm there or not, it's cool to share my wine with them. So I don't think like day to day it's necessarily realistic to say I'm gonna find something I'm passionate about all the time.
Speaker 1:I agree and I hope it is. I like. I hope it is for most people. Follow what you wanna do. But if you can find that angle that you're passionate about and do the rest but really strive, let's build on that angle. Like I wanna build a community space beyond a tasting room that my whole community gathers it hopefully revitalize the main street of my town because it's a small town. One business can have a huge influence and with that, like I said, it's a small town there's some negatives to living here. But if I can be a bit of that change and build some more community, then I can also build a town that I wanna live in. Oh amen.
Speaker 2:It's people right Everything comes down to people and, yeah, so much, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:I hadn't heard you say that on any of the podcasts I found you on or any of your tweets. But, oh, wow, so much to unpack from that. We should just end there. No, it's too short.
Speaker 2:Well, it's true, like I think a lot of people do, I try not to use the language of just follow your passion, but I do think you can bring your passions in there, your passions into whatever you're doing, to make you more of a unique character and a unique personal round, which is what I'm about. But everything you've just said there is so on point for anyone who wants to start their own thing. It's just, you know, don't wait, you are gonna wing it. But on top of that, you're not gonna feel passionate about jumping out of bed about anything every single day. And, like you say, if you can find your angle and have a vision and I think your dad had a vision as well I'm sure he's loving having family on the property as a farmer, it's something that I've got a mate who's a farmer and it's a real family. It's so wholesome. I couldn't do it, but it's lovely. But there's so much gold in that advice, I think, because it is hard.
Speaker 2:It will be a low time preference and that's probably a perfect segue for anyone who doesn't, who's not a Bitcoiner or hasn't heard that term. It's being patient, right. Essentially, it's putting in the work to know that the rewards will come later and sacrificing in the short term, but you seem to certainly be a very happy guy who's enjoying that process in the now as well, which is brilliant, because I think a lot of people just hustle and grind and try and make something work that they can't find the enjoyment in, but that mindset is great. So that's probably a good point. To segue into Bitcoin because you've mentioned low time preference and I know that you did.
Speaker 2:You start off in farmers markets and just in person in the community, and that's another point. A lot of what I do is online and people are trying to find the hack to be mobile, but at the end of the day business branding everything it comes down to people. So tell me how you got started with the farmers markets and actually, no, let's go back. Tell me how you found Bitcoin, because I think that came next.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I found Bitcoin before I started selling any wine. Oh, okay. Yeah, so definitely the right segue. Chronologically, I had been living with a Bitcoin that I randomly moved in with off of Craigslist and Denver. We were friends, but he was kind of my crazy libertarian friend and I was probably his buddy that voted for left-wing politicians.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 1:So I was just saying I was on a totally different wavelength thinking about it back then and I never really gave it any thought. I remember when he ran upstairs and was like, oh, I just bought some Bitcoin and the 2020 crashed down to 3,000 when everything was going crazy, but really I didn't think much of it. And then right after that, when I moved back home to Peonia, I moved in with another really good friend who was also a Bitcoiner, and so this guy had grown up with and I considered him one of the smartest people I know, and so we just talked politics, finance, global power, ships, all that stuff, and he kind of just convinced me to start learning about it. And as I was building the house, I just put on six hours of Bitcoin podcasts every day. And it was not because I was like forcing it, it was because it was that interesting to me, because I've been really interested in personal finance.
Speaker 1:I've been like going over to my friend's houses for lunch to be like, hey, today we're gonna spend an hour working on your personal finances, because I was a nerd about it and I'd already done mine and I wanted to mess with more of it. I wanted to get people the right credit card, the right savings account, all that stuff. So it was definitely something that I just kind of dove into and it fit. I mean, growing up in this farm, like on a farm where my dad works for everything that he had the low time preference mindset of buying something that is insanely undervalued, and holding onto it was easy. I mean that also with the wine is the same idea. It just kind of came naturally to me. I've never been much of a gambler when it comes to money, so just the mindset of saving my money in something that can't be debased was super natural.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in your investigation you mentioned that you'd kind of naturally had an interest in personal finance and self teaching, I guess, or self educating in personal finance. Had you ever stopped? Cause? I think this is definitely. It's definitely my journey, and I think for a lot of people prior to going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, learning about personal finance never involves the question of what is money or how does money work. Why do we have money, especially from someone on a farm who perhaps bartering is still something you might do from time to time? I don't know, in small communities, you sometimes find that people still do that. So did you.
Speaker 1:I traded on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but love it. But when you were prior to finding Bitcoin and you were learning, self, educating on personal finance, did you ask the question what is money? Or was it Bitcoin that made you do that?
Speaker 1:I listened to a couple of podcasts about it, but it was never a focus. Yeah, so I had some context in the history of money which was super helpful in learning about Bitcoin. But the biggest, one of the bigger things was I was always looking for no. I didn't want to take on risk outside of what you like need to do quote, unquote and so I was never stockpicking. I read a book about investing. I was like, well, I'm never gonna be able to put in that much time. So just index funds, high interest savings accounts and kind of just auto automate everything in budget and save money and you're good. And so then, learning about Bitcoin, well, first of all, my high interest savings accounts lost all their interest rates, so they went down to zero in 2019. And so I was like, okay, so this is kind of rigged, I can't keep up with inflation just by saving money.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So then started learning about Bitcoin, because the floor got ripped out from under me and realized that all the I mean all the money was just a scam at this point. So opt out and with Bitcoin I can just save money and keep it simple, and it's I mean, it's not stockpicking, it's learning about money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you said something just there. I was gonna inflation. So what was your understanding of what inflation was in simple terms prior to Bitcoin?
Speaker 1:This was like the ultimate bogeyman for me and the hardest thing for me to the last wall to break, before I finally totally understood Bitcoin. I just took CPI number for what it was and then, as I started learning more and more about Bitcoin, obviously you learn that that's just totally manipulated nonsense.
Speaker 1:And you also learn so much about how I mean price inflation is so psychological. If we all think the prices will go up, they will go up. And I was listening to these NPR, national Public Radio very left leaning, modern monetary policy, modern monetary theory thinking people that were just gaslighting me into thinking like it's in my inflation is in my head and if we just don't believe it, it'll go away. And then with Bitcoin comes, I learned that they changed the definition in the 1980s from monetary debasement to price inflation and once I got that and once I got the natural state of the world, is technology improving, thus giving us deflation? From Jeff Booth's Price for Tomorrow book, that was the final clip for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in because it's interesting. Like a lot of guys that I know, I'm 40, you're obviously 10 years younger, but I think this sort of 25 to maybe 50 age group that I seem to sit in, which I know, is a big broad range. But it's usually, I find men who are especially in relationships heterosexual relationships have to be so easy to say are very interested. I guess it's a maybe a primeval thing of providing I don't but they are interested in finance, but not necessarily, again, because they're passionate about it, because they feel they need to be to keep up with inflation. And a particular friend of ours who's super savvy with it but he spends a lot of time studying it. I can't remember exactly what he said, but and he gets it, but he doesn't get Bitcoin is very risk averse. He's very traditional with with doing stocks and shares, but he he said to me well, inflation, we need inflation because we need the prices to, we need the economy stimulated and I was like this guy is so close to getting it, because that's what I thought.
Speaker 2:I didn't really understand what the term inflation meant, other than prices go up and they always will, which is why people buy houses, not because they need to live in them, but because it's something that will always go up. And so for me it was understanding. Eventually, after a lot of brain fog and I don't really get it, and then it just clicked. It's like, well, if they increase the amount of money it's like anything with supply and demand if there's more of it it's less valuable. It's that simple.
Speaker 2:Plus finding out that CPI and these figures that you see that aren't interesting to most people is just completely made up like inflation is things aren't going up because CPI is this. It's like well, my fuel for my car that I drive to work has gone up by 30%. Or, in your case as a, as a farmer or someone with a business, everything I need to produce my product has gone up, which means my profit is less. So how did that click for you? I know you say inflation was the final piece, but how did that sort of flip in your head to what it actually is?
Speaker 1:I had a lot of the same issues as, as your friend I mean, were, if I, if you're really like, listen and learn about modern monetary theory, those people will all say that deflation is bad. What they mean is disinflation is bad and that's the amount of money. I don't, honestly, I can't even totally explain that. Like, get into the fiat system and you're just constantly bombarded by these new tool, these new words that you have to figure out and then figure out all these, these background things. It's just this like quagmire of misunderstanding that is, in my opinion, now is built to dissuade us from learning about it. And so one of my, one of my, the biggest issue was yeah, we need a world where prices inflate, otherwise people aren't going to buy things. And that had me for a little while and because I didn't have another framework.
Speaker 1:And so learning about or thinking about the world with fixed monetary units and thinking about how prices would be is understanding that prices would go down because we get better at producing things. Obviously, some go down more than others and there are some things that are scarce that could cause prices to go up in the long term, but it's not like if the gas price doesn't go up at the fuel station, I'm not going to buy it. I'm going to continue buying gas and I'll probably buy more if it goes down. But the world does not stop if prices don't go up. Because I consume things, I always need to be buying things to live and if I can just save money and have my savings increase in value where I get more comfortable, I'll constantly be a new buyer of new things, because I want to increase my quality of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you can increase, if you can just save your money because you know that money is going to continue to buy the same things at the same price, then there's an incentive to save and keep it as yours in your bank account.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that's where that's where the that's where he probably gets stuck because he's like, well, why would I spend money? If my money gets more value, I'm going to be more incentivized to save, and the truth is, you will 100%, especially if there's like a transitionary moment, the first little bit, so many more people are going to be incentivized to save until they build up that nest egg. And then you build up a nest egg, you're safe, you can spend some money, you can go travel, you can do nice things, but the fact is we've gotten to a point where people don't even have a have a nest egg. People don't have $1000 in a bank account at all. Yeah, and that makes people live in this like flyer flight state where fire flight state, where you can't help your friends, you always have to be looking out for yourself, and it destroys community.
Speaker 1:So, coming back to wine, that's a huge part of wine is building community and within that, I've just found the Bitcoin community as a group of people that has a lot of the same values as I do, as in values, hard work, values building slowly for the long term, and values connection within people, and so the winery has kind of been just my conduit for being able to be out there as a Bitcoiner, and you know I'm a lot of people with that fine Bitcoin want to go work within the Bitcoin industry, but there's only so many jobs it's growing you might not really enjoy it. So I just find that it's pretty awesome to just go do what you do as a Bitcoiner. I mean, all I do is I just put a sign that says I accept Bitcoin, and people then baby, associate Bitcoin with a cool winery instead of crime and climate stuff that the New York Times tries to push on them. So it's really just been a kind of a natural connection between what I really am passionate about and what I'm doing all the time.
Speaker 2:I love it. There was so many points there where I was going to like let me jump in on that, but I've learned to just let people speak because you're on such a good flow, so go, just rewinding. I haven't made notes because I'm trying to stay more present in these conversations because it's so great what you said, let me rewind, let me think you said about money, when you talk about inflation and how they, how it's so complex to understand and you think possibly it's been designed that way. I do think there's an element of that if we go dark and conspiracy theory, but even if we don't and we just say it is complicated, there are way too many layers to it and I think, with what you do with wine and the parallels and the simplicity of nature, is such a great lens to look through Bitcoin as money, as and Jack and Jack Malas and Dorsey in their recent interview in Jack Malas new podcast, which was very long, but it was, so it was the best conversation and how Jack Dorsey knows a barefoot hippie living in Bali, love the guy founder of Twitter. For anyone who doesn't know, I think what you're getting at is very similar. It's wine is a simple process, not easy but very simple Leave it alone. All the wine you make is natural, preservative free, which I've been buying preservative free wine for a long time because, you're right, it does no headaches the next morning. I've heard you say that, for anyone who's listening, a lot of my friends should be pulled into this episode just because it's got wine in it. You know you say about leaving it alone and keeping it simple and as close to nature as possible, which is why you told the Texan guys make the wine that works in Texas and keep it simple, work with nature.
Speaker 2:And Jack Dorsey was saying a similar thing about money. It's just becomes so removed from a natural thing that allows people to interact. You're right, it's now causing us all to be so divided. I don't think people have joined the dots between money being the issue. We're divided about all this other stuff. But people are, communities are falling apart and society breaks when people just don't work together and we reduce ourselves to this animalistic angry behavior because our basic needs are threatened.
Speaker 2:And you kind of touched on that then, with people don't even have enough money, they can't draw on enough savings to cover a health emergency. Right and community that's what we're here for. We're human, like animals, don't necessarily build communities the way we can and trade, and they work probably better together than we do at the moment. So tell me when you started. And you're right about the Bitcoin community as well. A lot of people are looking for jobs in Bitcoin because they get so passionate about it. But there's just I'm trying to do what you're doing, which is just introduce it to what you do anyway, and a lot of what I do is just coaching around, getting people to know themselves better. Not necessarily everyone has to start a business, but just figure out what works for you and Bitcoin as money just fits into that. When people get that the freedom piece, the personal expression piece. So you start going to farmers markets, you say you accept Bitcoin. What kind of reaction does it get?
Speaker 1:I mostly just kind of got the nudge, as like two girls were walking by and be like, oh my God, Bitcoin. We should tell your brother about that.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't like young.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, yeah, like 20 year olds, and then I would also. The most common thing would be a bunch of like baby boomers coming up and be like hey, you better be careful there, boy. You know it's down 50%. They're like dude, it's down 70% and I'm buying more like you obviously don't understand this. I don't need your your patronizing right now. And so that was all well and good and that was for them. For a while. That was all I got, but then I started getting Bitcoiners coming up randomly.
Speaker 1:One of my favorites is this woman came up to me, tried my wine, liked it, but then saw the Bitcoin sign, was like oh my God, bitcoin, you have to talk to my husband. And all I got that was like okay, your husband has gone insane, just like I have, because you figure out Bitcoin and you kind of go crazy. This is the most important thing in the world. I have to tell everyone for like a couple years, and he doesn't have many Bitcoiners to talk to it. I mean to talk about it with, because I mean I know I lived with Bitcoiners and still didn't feel like I had enough. So she's heard enough and so she brings her husband over and we talked for a little bit and then we got, we grabbed a beer like the next week and then a couple of weeks later he was like a while later he was in town and then I saw him this summer as well. So we've just maintained a friendship there.
Speaker 1:But more and more Bitcoiners come up and people are curious and there's a lot of just the nudging as well Just look Bitcoin. But there's also people that ask questions, people that are into it. The coolest thing is the people that have never made a Bitcoin transaction before but are super into it. So I had to. I never used the Lightning Network before I started doing this. I had no reason to, and so I had to teach myself that, teach myself how to teach people how to use the Lightning Network. And that's been pretty cool, being people's first Bitcoin purchase purchase with Bitcoin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it makes it real, because that's what people. That's the first well, not the first thing, but a common thing is I was talking to someone yesterday, older lady, you know. Can I buy my food with it? Yes, yes, you can, providing whoever you're talking to or buying from accepts it in the same way that, as long as the person you're buying from wants dollars or whatever your fiat currency is, that's all that matters. So that's very cool. And the other thing from a monetary perspective is you tweeted recently. People ask why you have and this is more of a brand building your personal brand. Again, whether it's intentional or not, you've done a really good job of that. You said people, you took a picture and said people ask why there's a big truck on your label with Peony Wine, peony Lane I don't think I've ever mentioned the name of the winery yet, but Peony Lane.
Speaker 1:Peony Lane. Yeah, I make natural wine in Colorado. There's a picture of a truck on the label. My joke is that I say I started it every day and I think you should too, but really there was basically this truck that ran for 60 years just cool truck dump truck died outside my childhood and I went to the front window and we just left it there and have now planted a vineyard behind it and that truck was on my dad's original wine label and so I kind of took a lot of the elements of what my dad did. He sold wine for like two years, otherwise it was a hobby. I took elements of his label, his brand, and made it my own. He made it a lot more clean, kept the winery, kept the kind of font and style and everything, because I want to give an ode to him. I mean, I wouldn't be here doing this if it wasn't for him achieving his dreams and also helping me along with this and getting me going. So little odes to him like that are fun.
Speaker 1:But on the Bitcoin commerce thing is, it's super important to support your community.
Speaker 1:I believe you want to have people that are producing things that you want close to where you are, in case there's ever a big issue, Like we saw, supply chains get super wrecked in 2020.
Speaker 1:There's ever an issue with major supply chains, you want to already have dialed who you're going to contact and you want them to actually still be in business so that you can get whatever you need to get locally. And then layering Bitcoin on top of that is just money that can't be debased. So it helps out your local farmer more if you can help them build a Bitcoin stack or educate them on money, and Bitcoin's the ultimate element of that. So I see spending Bitcoin and using it as like a super anti-fragile practice getting good at using it and actually knowing how to do things. In case something goes wrong and you need it in a pinch, it's good to know what you're doing. And two, if you can get people educated on it, they're more likely to be there in the long term as a successful business providing the things you need, because Bitcoin is that life for people.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, so well put. Yeah, and I think that's again we started just before. We're talking about the truck which took you into that. When it comes to making money, building a brand, that part of our conversation just started with storytelling. I'm asking you about the truck and you've again taken it back so brilliantly to real life, real people, real communities, and it's like a lot of people when you sort of I mean, I don't watch mainstream news, but I think people just overlook that part.
Speaker 2:I've certainly had a lot of clients and students that I've worked with when it comes to learning marketing who just want to make money. They just want to make money online and it's like, at the end of the day, you're just it's an online version of making money. Online is just more commerce, but at the end of the day, all comes down to people. You've got to connect with people through your stories, through your brand, whatever you're building, and you just seem to have done that really effortlessly because you're doing it the right way. It's about the people. It's about what we all need goods and services and products that solve problems or meet a desire. So thank you for sharing yourself and your story through the likes of Twitter and social media because it's worked. I mean, you've got a following, I think, of just over 11,000. Has that come? Do you think, from being in the Bitcoin space more of? You've got a sense of where that following has grown from, or do you think that's more your business that's growing that or both?
Speaker 1:I would say it's primarily Bitcoiners, people that are also looking to homestead as well, and those people are generally Bitcoin curious. I would say, yeah, I didn't get on Twitter to like grow a personal brand and build a following or sell one or anything.
Speaker 2:It all kind of just happened by just being there and being myself, I know you did a great job.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:There's the lesson that's exactly what I was hoping you'd say is the people that don't try and do it do it best, and the people that try and do it generally forget the core principles of what you've just said, which is about people. It's about product services, solving problems, helping people, building communities, and you're doing it in the real world, which gives you these amazing stories to share, which is what makes people love you, I'm sure. So, yeah, thank you so much. You've wrapped that up really well.
Speaker 2:I think we've covered everything I certainly wanted to cover, I think, what I normally, what I'll ask you, which I normally like to finish with, is just advice to your younger self. I mean, I think you're living a great life and you've done everything right. What would you say about, I guess, being you, making your own choices, knowing who you are, and also, what would you advise your younger self about knowing money and understanding money, what to do about money? If you say you're rewound to 18 year old Ben who's about to go off to college to study geology, what advice would you give him about those two things?
Speaker 1:Well, about money, I kind of was always pretty frugal, like having my parents credit card was never a carte blanche spend on stuff, it was always. I was raised in a frugal family, so I'm I feel like I did pretty good with that.
Speaker 1:I mean you find Bitcoin.
Speaker 1:When you're going to find Bitcoin, really what where my head went is I always would tell myself.
Speaker 1:I remember specifically one time I was like a little kid and had super horrible posture sitting at a table and my sister told me to fix my posture and I always kind of said in my head I was always like I'll do that when I'm older, and so I think procrastination was always the thing that that killed me with with health and diet and I mean I always played sports but like never really wanted to work out or anything.
Speaker 1:I don't know, it's just I would, I think, do it now, get it over with. And discipline is is kind of the things I would hound on, which are totally the things my dad would tell me and that's why I didn't want to do them. But now that I've figured out Bitcoin, I think I've got this lower time preference because I know I've got something to live. I know I'm gonna have a good life in the future, so I want to be able to enjoy it, and so I'm pretty focused on the present, building the long-term health structures and, obviously, business structures to be able to enjoy those things in the future.
Speaker 2:Wow, awesome advice and I think as well from, certainly from listening to you, and it's done the same for me. Until I found Bitcoin, I had been vegetarian for a good few years and as a child I self-elected to be vegetarian because I couldn't stand the thought of lovely animals and yada, yada, but it was. I know you're into steak. Are you trading your wine for steak? Is that one of the things that you you do in your community?
Speaker 1:Definitely I.
Speaker 1:I went bigger and I bought half a cow because there's a rancher around here that's a Bitcoiner that I wanted to support and it's just easier to buy in bulk.
Speaker 1:But at these farmers markets I trade for all kinds of things and like I come these days yeah, mushrooms, ceramics, a custom cutting board, all kinds of veggies, meat, cheese like ham, beef, chicken, like everything I can get for wine. If I, if I really was like diligent and it's hard because I'm on the road a lot doing these farmers markets but if I was really diligent, I could just not spend money on food and just pay for everything and wine all summer, because where I live there's so much good food and going to these farmers markets you're just in the nexus of of that and people want to share what they make and I share what I make. So I think if you're, if you're generous with producers and you just become friends with them, they want to share what they do with you and that a lot of times and results in really good food oh, there's and there's more lessons in that right, like the proof of work conversation we haven't even touched on.
Speaker 2:You know, when you're there in real life and in a community of real people with real products, that that is the proof of their work, you will want each other's stuff. Yeah, there's just. It's a great blueprint, I think, for how to live wherever you might be. I mean, we now have technology that's that allows us to produce good food in much smaller spaces, so it's not like everyone needs to live on a farm in the remote mountains of Colorado, like we said before.
Speaker 1:I don't recommend it for most people interesting.
Speaker 2:I think that, no, me neither I can imagine, but I think what what I was getting on to there with telling you I used to be vegetarian is just this lens of money. It affects everyone and it touches every area of your life and I just think the fact that you shared the lesson being what you would tell your younger self is to focus on your health. It's it's when you start to see that supply chains and food and literally everything has been destroyed or significantly lowered in quality in terms of what's best for human beings because of profitability, right and broken money, and you mentioned as well with nature. It's just food should be simple. We don't need to mess with it. Interesting that you raise the point that the lesson to your younger self was about health, and it's. It's the Bitcoin lens.
Speaker 2:For me, the reason I told you I went vegetarian was because it was going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and realizing how much it's impacted food production and what we're being told to eat by mainstream media. And you know, I've jumped from being vegetarian to eating meat again and very simple, simple food like meat and vegetables and farmers market purchased fruit and vegetables. You know, and I just it's mind-blowing when I think back to the kind of stuff I was eating. It wasn't. I didn't think it was bad, but health and what we, what we eat, can be very simple and you seem to have definitely gone down that path to.
Speaker 1:Obviously you're a farmer, but yeah, but when I was a kid, my my parents deal was to like eat all the food they grow and it was really always like as high quality ingredients as you could get. But I I'm someone who likes to rebel and so I've rebelled, and my former rebellion was like eating crappy food or just not eating, and so I realized in in college, I think it hit me I'd developed somewhat of an eating disorder where I would hit a point in my meal where if I knew if I took one but one more bite, I would have to go puke, and so I'd my nutrition was really lacking. I didn't really know what to do. All I kind of figured out was if I had it's. I mean, it was all in my head. All I had. The only thing I figured out how to do is if I can just have one, like a portion, like my meal is a burger, instead of going to the all you can eat place and getting a bunch of different things. It's like if you can just focus on this one thing, you can finish it and you're gonna be fine and that helps for a bit.
Speaker 1:But I was always having super clouded mind or just like out of it while still achieving a lot. I mean, I've always been extremely athletic and doing well in school and and work and everything, but it was always with this kind of hollow feeling in my body. And so in 2022, I my goal or my focus for the year which is vague, but it's something I really wanted to improve on was my health, because I knew that if I wanted to take my business to the next level, I needed to take my body and my mind to the next level to really be able to support myself. Because I felt so hollow. I felt like, oh, everything I've achieved now is great, but if I keep like, I would just be so much further if my body and mind were working the way I would like them to work.
Speaker 1:And so there was a beef initiative, which is like a local rancher support your, support, your local food system. Slash Bitcoin, slash a lot of other things. Conference right nearby me and I give a tour of my winery, for that went to. It met a lot of great people and there's these two guys called the that have a podcast called the meat mafia and they cured some diseases of theirs by just eating beef. And so they came to my house to try wine and I got to meet them and was just like you guys are the most vital, like you have the most vitality of any person I've ever talked to.
Speaker 1:What are you doing? And obviously they're just eating a ton of beef. So I started eating a ton of beef. My brain fog went away and I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to diet. But like I've cut out pretty much carbs or I've cut out bread, I guess processed foods and focus on just whole foods, much of my mom's delight, she brings me raw milk every week just because she's so psyched I'm finally eating healthy. So that helps. But it's been such an unlock that I really wish I'd figured out health earlier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and that's the perfect explanation as to what you were saying about discipline. But it again, I, just as you're talking, I just keep thinking about the parallels with that. That, jack and Jack, conversation about money should also be simple, basically anything in our lives as humans that we've added so much complexity to, ie removing as far away from nature as possible, or the more layers we add between us and nature, the less it works. And Fiat Foods is an example and Fiat Money is the same and the two are absolutely linked because it's like our food has been debased right. The quality and the hardness of how good it is for us just isn't there, and Money's the same and they're 100% a product of one another. So I love what you're saying about food.
Speaker 1:It's great 100% and it's all like this. It's funny. It's all this like grandpa advice that you would get from two generations above you with all that life experience. But all these Bitcoiners are figuring it out and living their best lives, are figuring out how to be on that path, and I think a lot of it has to do with you're not worried about money so much anymore. You're not worried about making it in the future.
Speaker 1:You've figured out Bitcoin. You figured out money. You kind of realize how early it is and you're probably going to see a lot of gains. But also you just have something you have a bright hope for the future because you see that money was such a big problem for the world and if we can just fix money, so many of the problems that we have that people are just like frozen in fear by will be fixed. So it's this hopeful sense that lends to wanting to invest in your present to build for the long term, instead of just being living for the dope and being hits and not worrying about things and partying all the time. So it's funny seeing all these young Bitcoiners become grandpas before our eyes because I mean, I have definitely and I don't know it's going to be a fun future. So it's, I want to be ready for it.
Speaker 2:Oh, I think you're more than ready for it, mate. But yeah, it's I say that a lot the money thing it's. People are in a state of fear and paralysis, with jobs and not changing things, because the sphere of the future, or this constant awareness of you, have to be in and it's like if we fix the money, you don't need to worry about that, which means you can enjoy the present and then you start addressing. You've got the time in their head space to go. Money's taken care of because it works and it can be held into the future without being debate. So I've now got the headspace to actually live as a human should live in a very healthy way, not to say everyone should go eating a diet of beef only, but give it a go, you know, have a crack. Stop buying stuff that you perceive as cheap and easy, because most things that are cheap and easy aren't very good for you. Is that a good way to wrap it up?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean just get. You want to get to the base layer of everything and the base layer of month, the base layer of money, I think is or the best money is Bitcoin, and that's also the most simple, even though it seems complex to people. And the best food is whole food, just like whatever exists, and then you find your balance within that. I mean it's unrealistic to say to tell someone to go 100% into Bitcoin. It's unrealistic for someone to say only beef. You got to kind of try and just see what works for you. I mean it's different for everyone and really just getting down to the basics and actually listening to the results and and having failures is is the best way to learn.
Speaker 2:Oh, even better, even more great advice, if for all areas of life. Thank you so much. Let's wrap it up there, because we've kind of gone format all over the place and tech difficulties, but tell people where they can find you and where they can buy your amazing wine and what I'm in America. Do you ship internationally?
Speaker 1:I wish I'm USA. Only right now you can find my wine at. P&e lane, winecom, and I ship all over the US. If you want to apply with Bitcoin and have it shipped to you, I use Oshie. It's an app where there's a ton of awesome Bitcoin goods or just places that accept Bitcoin. You can buy beef, you can buy mining stuff, you can buy, I mean, clothing and wine and everything. So Oshie's a great spot. And then everything you need yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome. I know of one friend in particular who is she's from California, but she lives in New Zealand and we became friends by living in Queenstown, and her dad is a member of a wine club and he still travels to New Zealand just to drink wine. So I'm going to get him on that via her for sure. So, thank you so much. And what was your Twitter handle remind me? I've got it here. I will make sure it's linked, but tell people where they can find you there.
Speaker 1:At Ben Justman if you want to see pocket steak and some wine pictures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the documenting of your house build. It's all. I'm actually going to link a couple of your tweets linking directly to that, because that was very cool. Thank you so much Great to meet you and yeah, we'll be in touch again soon.
Speaker 1:Sweet, great to meet you.
Speaker 2:Hello, my friend, as someone who's not the best at finishing the things they start, thank you so much for making it to the end of this podcast. I hope you found it helpful. Maybe it piqued your curiosity on something new or even just made you smile for a few seconds. If any of those things apply here, then all my regular tech challenges and tantrums are well worth it to get this to you. If you heard anything at all that you think could help just even one other human being, there's a couple of things you can do that I would really and truly appreciate. Firstly, you can follow or subscribe wherever you're listening.
Speaker 2:On most podcast platforms, this is usually just a case of hitting a follow button or a plus sign on the main show page. This means you'll never miss an episode, which is hopefully a win-win for us both. Secondly, if you're feeling really generous, you can leave me a five-star rating or review wherever you're listening. And lastly, feel free to share an episode with a friend on social media. With any thoughts, feedback, suggestions or even criticism, it's okay, I can take it. Just tag me using the handle at Amy Taylor Says to make sure I see it and can thank you personally Any or all of these things genuinely mean more human beings see and hear these conversations. So again, thank you for being here and helping me with my mission with BU Get Paid to help as many people as possible know themselves, know money and be happy. See you next time.
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