Episode 31: The Power Of Being Limitless: Opening Doors To More Possibilities And Success With Ben Yurcisin
What does it take to become limitless? Ben Yurcisin had more than enough time to reflect on this while he was living a digital nomad’s life, traveling the US for an extended period of time. Ben is a transformational coach as well as founder and CEO at BeYu Media. Joining Anand J. Sukhadia on the show, he talks all about being limitless and starting the journey to success. Ben explains that being limitless has launched him to where he is today, as he is able to finally live his dreams and work on it slowly but surely. Through his connections, he was able to build a phenomenal tribe around his passion and to this day, he is helping small to medium-sized businesses build their online presence and strategize their growth.
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The Power Of Being Limitless: Opening Doors To More Possibilities And Success With Ben Yurcisin
Lessons From 30 Days Across The US
Have you ever wanted to experience the digital nomad life and travel the country for an extended period of time? Our guest will tell us about his travels through the US over 30 days, becoming a tech entrepreneur and building a phenomenal tribe around his passion. We're going to go limitless with an inspirational and positive soul, Ben Yurcisin. He is the Founder and CEO of BeYu Media. He brings Jersey City together at the Jersey City Tech Meetup and is also a transformational coach. Ben is passionate about helping individuals and brands find and amplify their authentic voices and live a life of purpose. He is a master of creating community. He also hosts and emcees monthly events covering diverse topics in tech, moderating panel discussions, and creating a hub for innovation. As a world traveler with a never-ending curiosity in life, Ben has a yes attitude towards everything in all life experiences. He spends his free time jamming the guitar, snowboarding and inspiring all those around him to live a life of positivity. Welcome to the show, Ben. How are you doing?
Being Limitless: You can have your goals and visions but if you’re thinking, “I’m only going to be happy once I get there,” you’re setting yourself up for failure.
I'm great. Thank you. I want you to introduce me at every gathering I’ll ever have for the rest of my life. You say it so smooth. I’m like, “Who is this guy talking about? He sounds like a rock star. It's me.” The way you say it is awesome.
Everyone knows I'm available for voiceover.
I feel great. I'm back home for the travels. I've been getting back into my routine, meditation and working out. I'm feeling grounded, present and excited about what the future holds.
I see you’re all Zenned-out in your Mayan temple background.
We got to find peace somehow, even if it's virtual temples.
Ben, let's get right into it. What is living a limitless life mean to you?
Limitless life to me is not living life to anyone's terms but your own. It’s thinking about what it is that truly ignites you, fires you up, inspires you and living in your truth. I've worked a 9:00 to 5:00 job in the past five years of my life and that was a limited life for me. For some people, that might be a good life that's fulfilling and meets all their needs. For me, it wasn't limitless because I was having to ask, “Can I take some time off to go have this adventure?” I constantly feel someone else controls my life. For me, a limitless life is when you're doing the things that resonate with your heart and you're living in your truth.
From knowing you through the Jersey City Tech Meetups and the community, you're such a positive guy. You always have a smile on your face. What is it about life that you love so much? I've never seen you in a bad mood.
For everyone, it seems to be a lot. I want to express this more. I'm smiling all the time and I'm happy when I'm around people because I want to spread positivity. I am happy but there is a shadow side too that we all face. I want to make it clear that I'm not happy all the time. The people close to me can see that other side of me. The thing that I love about life is that there are endless possibilities, especially since I've become a full-time entrepreneur. It's exciting to me that anything you can dream of, you can make it happen. I'm happy about all the amazing people that are around me and support me and this life I've created for myself and the fact that there's so much to be grateful for.
I stress the part about having these amazing people by my side. As I've gone further and further down my life path, it's clear to me that it doesn't matter what I achieve. If I'm alone, it's not going to feel that great even if I achieve so much greatness. It's important to me to be surrounded by incredible people. I'm grateful to have you in my life. Joe Cameron introduced us. I love him and all the people in my network and my community. That's a beautiful thing. I'm happy and positive about the people around me and the fact that all my dreams and my vision for life, I have the support system that I feel like I can't fail because they all got my back. That's a great feeling and I love that.
Human connection for me is the ultimate. You can make millions of dollars and be all alone and be miserable, but if you don't have anyone to share it with, what's the point of this whole journey? For me, the whole purpose of being alive is to connect with these beautiful souls that are here and to inspire other people to live limitless lives. That’s the whole point of this show and interviewing amazing guys like you. We're invested in bringing the community together, bringing so much joy and happiness into our own lives so then it overflows into other people's lives. If everyone gets to that mentality rather than a scarcity mentality, they think in abundance. It’s like, “This life is completely wide open for me to achieve anything that I want to.” That's the direction where it's the most positive outcome for humanity. If we're living in this scarcity mindset, in this division mindset, it's never going to bring us anywhere to a positive outcome.
Being Limitless: Getting people through the door when you have nothing to start is the challenge but that’s when you leverage the network you have.
The abundance mindset is important. You can have these huge goals, dreams and visions, but if you're thinking, “I'm only going to be happy once I get there.” That's setting yourself up for failure. I'm reading The Power of Now and this resonates with me. I read a page and it's like, “You free yourself of drama once you can accept exactly what it is right now.” It’s true because sometimes I get caught up in the mentality of like, “I'm not moving fast enough. I'm not where I want to be yet. I'm not further along the path.” I then come back to myself and once I can realize I'm extremely abundant where I am now, even if not as financially abundant as I desire to be, I still am abundant in life, the people around me, the experiences I have and all this. I want everyone to think more like, “How am I abundant now?” versus, “When will I be abundant?”
What separates this mindset is that gratitude for this moment. Ben, tell us a little bit about how you got to this place. Walk us through your journey as a young baby Ben and how you got here.
I was born at a hospital. It was crazy. Babies were screaming all around me. I had no idea what was going on. I don’t even know how to talk. That's how it all started. I grew up in the Jersey Shore area, down by the seaside. For a lot of my life growing up, I felt different. I'm feeling a lot of people are saying, “I wasn't one of them. I felt different.” Growing up, I didn't have any problem making friends. I made friends easily because I'm good with the human connection and that's my thing. I was never part of something. I could make friends with the football team, the skaters and the punks. I'm friends with everyone but I didn't have a home. I knew something was a little different about me and I wanted to figure out what that meant and how I can apply that to my life.
Fast forward to when I'm getting ready to go to college, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with my whole life. I felt like I had this superpower. There’s something about being able to have this deep connection with people and have an influence and impact but I didn't know what it was. I ended up knowing that I was good at math and science. I went to Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken and I studied engineering. I studied Engineering Management because there's product management and business. I figured wherever my life goes, whatever direction, I can apply that anywhere. I'll skip through the college years. A lot of fun was had. I learned a lot of lessons. It was a great experience.
Afterward, I started a full-time job as an IT consultant. I don't want to talk bad about the experience. I was doing that for five years because I learned so much from that experience. I had a lot of great opportunities. I got to go live in London for three months, which I can talk about that alone for days. I learned so much about business and life and how to deal with certain types of people. Deep down inside of me, something wasn't right. I was working for someone else. I needed a bigger purpose. I needed to feel I was doing something that resonated with me and that I was the leader of a pack or something like that. That's when I started dabbling in the entrepreneurial journey.
It all started at Propelify Innovation Festival in Hoboken, New Jersey. This is running for over four years. I went there because I knew there are a lot of entrepreneurs, speakers and there's a lot to learn. I didn't have a business that I started but I wanted to go and explore and see what was up and meet people. I always believe that even if you don't know exactly what you want to be doing, it's good to expand your network and connect with people. One day, you'll be like, “I have a guy for this. I have a guy that I can talk to about that.”
I went there and in all honesty, I was going to have some drinks and have a good time. The drinks were $11. I was like, “This is too expensive.” I saw the VIP section and the drinks were only $2. I told my buddy, “We need to get in the VIP section. The drinks are more affordable there. We could get drunk for the price of one drink out here.” That was my mentality then. I was still in a party-college vibe. He's like, “How are we going to get in the VIP?” I said, “Follow my lead. We're going to stand near the entrance and watch the speaker that's talking right now.” It was James Altucher. I remember it. I was like, “Once I start moving, follow me.”
I'm near the VIP entrance and I see this camera crew going over to the VIP. They all got there. There are eight guys and they're talking to the security and all of a sudden, some confusion started. I could sense confusion. They were looking for the badge. They're like, “What company you’re with?” Once I sensed that confusion, I was like, “Time to strike.” I saw the security go, “Come on in," to the team of cameramen. I grabbed my buddy and we got right in with them and walked right behind them. We never looked back. Once we were in, I was like, “We did it. We're in here.” We were chilling and talking to all these people. They were probably wondering, “Who are these guys?” I was like, “We belong here.” I was acting that we belonged there. Trust me, this is all going somewhere.
I saw a woman interviewing a bunch of entrepreneurs. It looked like these were fun interviews and I was like, “I wonder what she's talking to them about.” My friend was like, “I don't know but we probably shouldn't get on an interview because we don't have a business and we're not supposed to be here.” I was like, “This is our time to get known.” I always had this thing about, “I got to get famous. This is our time to rise.” It was the end of the day and I go up to her and I’m like, “I’m wondering, what are you interviewing people about?” She's like, “I’m interviewing all the entrepreneurs of the day who are creating badass businesses. It's exciting but I'm wrapping up for the day.” I was like, “That's interesting you say that because I started a business myself.”
I was just making this up out of my ass. She’s like, “Really? What business do you have?” I was like, “I'm a fun consultant. I help people find fun.” She's like, “This is interesting. I was going to wrap up for the day but would you like to do an interview?” I was like, “I was going to get going but I could squeeze it in.” She interviewed us. By the way, I'll give her a shout-out here. She was January Barnes of ParlayMe. She has this whole vlog that's awesome and has a huge following. She does all the tech and entrepreneurship in the New Jersey scene. This video is on YouTube. I made up a company on the spot in the interview called FunFinders. It’s like being a coach for fun. Once we did that, she released it the next day.
There was a huge following of her vlog and I was like, “This is out in the world now. It’s not a joke anymore. This is real.” I was like, “We got to start this business.” I was still waiting for the right time. One day at the end of the summertime, I tripped hard on mushrooms. I took something like 4 grams. I went out into Hoboken and it was a crazy day. I was working through so much. I remember the day ended with my face down in dirt and grass. I had dirt all over my face. That day, it was like something switched and I was like, “Tomorrow is the day I start my business.” I had some transformation where I knew, “This is where it begins.”
FunFinders was the first business I started. It didn't succeed but I'll never look at it as a failure because of all the lessons I've learned and the connections I made along the way. Through that, I met some people collaborating with businesses to try to find fun places to send people to. I met the guy who runs the Jersey City Tech Meetup, Dan Sullivan. Don't worry about what your end goal is. Be open to meeting new people and talking. He was looking for someone to take over the meetup. He was moving. From my five-minute interaction with him, he said, “You're the perfect person for it. I would love it if you took it over.” I was like, “Let's do it.” That was a few years ago.
I started running these monthly events and becoming a leader in Jersey City and connecting people and building community, which is something that I'm passionate about. FunFinders ended up fizzling out. Jumping forward to 2020, I got laid off from my full-time job. With COVID, they didn't have new workers in the construction industry doing IT. I told people and they're all like, “I'm sorry.” I'm like, “No. This is the kick in the ass I needed to start that full-time entrepreneurial journey.” The week after I got laid off from my job, BeYu Media was born. I found out through a partner of mine that I work with overseas that Ben Yurcisin has BeYu in it. Over the years of my life, I never put that together. I'm always telling everyone to be more authentic, be yourself in life and be you.
BeYu Media was born. I partnered with the guy who was helping me with my content and my personal brand. I've been doing that full-time ever since. That was in July 2020 and I've been on the entrepreneurial journey. One thing led to another but it's exciting to finally, for the first time of my life, be doing what I want with no baggage of having a full-time job or trying to sneak doing work for my company. My whole life I was either going to school or I was going to work. This is the first time in my life where I'm limitless. No one's telling me what to do. It's all on Ben, full responsibility and full accountability. It's scary but it's the most freeing feeling in my life. I couldn't be more excited about where I'm at now.
Being Limitless: With starting a business, there is uncertainty that’s both scary and exciting because it allows you to figure new tactics out and find ways to grow and scale from there.
The biggest takeaway for me is there are no setbacks. I've had many friends that were laid off during COVID and they started businesses and they're thriving now. They said, “That was the biggest blessing of my life.” Sometimes, the mist doesn't clear until it's a little bit later and then you realize, “This was the best thing that happened to me.” For anyone who's going through some hardships and may be laid off or something like that, look at the opportunities that are available to you. Ben created his dream business. Your business is in complete alignment with who you are as a person. You want to help people expand their brand. Can you tell us a little bit about BeYu marketing and what you guys do?
I've struggled a lot with my marketing as a business owner and throughout my past as an entrepreneur. I know how hard it is when you're a CEO and founder for a small business owner to also manage and create content and do all that hard stuff to show people who you truly are. Some people put out content that is stock photos or whatever it may be but it's not giving people an idea of what this brand is. In BeYu Media, I'm working with business owners to understand exactly what their vision is, what their mission is and what they're trying to accomplish.
We're creating content and managing their pages to show people the true face of who they are. When people see them online amongst the competition, you can stand out because no one can be exactly you. People say, “What's my competitive edge?” It's important that you don't try to fit the mold of what people do in your industry. With BeYu Media, we help extract exactly what sets you apart and your uniqueness and then push that out into the world and portray that so that everyone can see how awesome you are and bring people through your door and grow your business.
Everybody needs that personalized touch. Otherwise, what is your unique selling proposition? Why would somebody come to you over somebody else if they’re looking for you? It’s to stand out. Ben, going from a corporate job where money was guaranteed safety, to starting your business, was it a hard transition? It was something that was thrown upon you losing your job. Were you able to scale quickly? Tell us a little bit about the journey of building this business.
Let me put it this way. When I first started, I was thinking I would have real consistent money so much quicker than it happens realistically. One thing I want to say is building a business from nothing should take some time.
A week too. That's what you had.
I’m like, “Where's all the money coming in?” I was thinking I'd have a bunch of consistent clients right away. I'm learning to be more okay with the process. To be honest, it didn't scale as fast as I wanted it to but that's okay. I'm impatient. I want to see results immediately. I have to build a foundation here. I realized that I was going too fast. I was like, “I got to step back here and figure out what it is I want to help people with, why I'm doing this and what my process is.” I'm getting now to that point where through word of mouth, a lot of people are coming to me.
The beginning is always the hardest part. For me, once you have a bunch of people, that's where my project management comes into play. I'm good if I have a bunch of clients and figuring out how to delegate and assign it to my team. Getting people through the door when you have nothing to start is the challenge. That's when you leverage the network you have and that's what I did. I leveraged the Jersey City Tech Meetup community. I reached out to a lot of the panelists I used to have and business owners I know that came to the events. I said, “I started a social media marketing company. I'm doing discounted pricing because I'm starting. I was wondering if you know anyone.”
Through hustling and hitting up people individually, I had some clients and I built some websites for them. From those experiences, word of mouth. I'm now getting people coming in from the few people I've worked with that had a great experience with me. For me, my value prop is some people want to work with these bigger social media marketing companies. Generally, you get in a queue or work with a bunch of different people you don’t know. You don’t get a lot of attention. Let me put it that way. The way I see it is when people work with me and choose to work with me, I care so much about the business owner and they work directly with me.
It's been a matter of building the right way versus going to go too fast in the wrong direction. I’m showing people that I care about their business and I'm not here to make a quick buck from them. To answer your question, there's so much more comfort with a full-time job. The money is coming in all the time. This is uncertainty that's both scary and exciting because it allows me to figure new tactics out and find ways to grow and scale from there. I'm at a point where I'm feeling confident about everything.
What's great is that you sat in the driver's seat of running an organization with the Tech Meetup and all your other entrepreneurial ventures. You scaled this entire time and you build a great network. One of your biggest strengths is your ability to build this tribe. We heard the story a little bit about how you became the CEO of the JC Tech Meetup. Tell us why you love it so much. What is your mission with the Jersey City Tech Meetup?
Everything about Jersey City Tech Meetup excites me so much. It brings so much fire to my soul. Especially after an event I have, I feel good about that. My mission is to bring all the diverse and beautiful minds of Jersey City and beyond together into the same room to create a hub for innovation, education and fun. That felt natural. That's not even a line that I wrote down. That's what I enjoy doing. I want to bring people together because I know many different people have many different skillsets.
Something that's always fired me up is if I know one person and they are looking for a certain type of person, then I have that person in my network and I introduce them, then they start working together, that lights me up. I thought, “How can I do that on a bigger scale? How can I bring all these people together and create an opportunity for people to collaborate?” That's what excites me about the Tech Meetup. Once I took it over, I ended up partnering with Joe Cameron and he helped with the social media and did a great job. He helped me bring it to the next level and have these much bigger events like Green Rush, which is an event I had in Zeppelin Hall. We covered the whole cannabis industry and had vendors. It was a whole bigger thing.
What I love about it is the feeling at the event when I see a bunch of people together with good vibes, good music, good energy and they're hanging out. I know I brought them all together. Not only that, afterward, we hosted a panel discussion covering all different topics. I get to have my own podcast where I get on stage and I ask this panel of experts in whatever industry I’m doing. I ask them the things I want to know. It might sound selfish but I ask the things I want to know about the industry. I'm getting to learn a ton of things about a new industry every month that interests me while there's a whole audience that gets to learn all that with me and there's this community feeling. We're all having a good time and learning together. Something about the fact that I brought that all together makes me feel significant. I've always had this feeling since I was a kid. I want to matter and do something impactful. When I do those events, it makes me feel I've done something impactful and that's a good feeling.
It goes in alignment with your desire to bring people together. This is an extension of who you are, having a platform like that. I've been to several of your events. The people are friendly. They're always welcoming. Anytime I go there, I'll meet anybody and then start a conversation with them. One of the things I love most about what you do as well and I do it myself is it's a game of memory. Have you ever played that game, Memory? It's like a card game.
Absolutely.
That's what I feel like. It's like when I met this guy back in 2012. He was doing this particular thing in this industry.” Fast forward, this guy is looking for some connection. I have these people on my contact list and I'll reach out to them. I've created many deals in that way. It brings a lot of happiness because you're creating value for people. It's not like you're ever expecting anything in return. When you need some help, you can reach out to them, “Do you know anyone that has this?” They're going to bust their ass to help you because of the value that you created for them. This is how we build a community. We help each other out and not looking about the short-term, “What's in it for me?” It’s how we move from there.
It's funny what you said about Memory because I used to play Memory in my head with all my contacts. I got too many contacts that I was forgetting. I have a huge spreadsheet now. When I meet new people, I fill in the name, email, what industry are they in and what they can help with. If someone's looking for something, I go into my spreadsheet and do a little virtual reality. I need to keep things organized. I can't focus if I have too many things going on here. I take every opportunity I get to get all this stuff out of my head somewhere, whether it's a journal, a spreadsheet or something.
I'm not as tech-savvy with the Excel worksheets but I know how to use them. I have my contact list. I write this person's virtual reality or this person’s global trade and sugar or whatever it is. I've attended a couple of the events. Your biggest one is the Green Rush. You had a digital one.
I had the Green Rush digital version, which was awesome because we covered a lot of what's happening in New Jersey, the state of the cannabis scene. We’re making a lot of great progress and it's legal, which is a process that's not overnight. It's going to take up to a year until it comes out. I'm grateful to live in New Jersey for that. We also had Women in Cannabis covering some of the badass women that are doing stuff in the space who are often parts of the events anyway.
Chelsea Duffy, who's an awesome collaborator of the Green Rush events, had an idea to bring together a women panel. It was awesome. For anyone interested in any of these, there are all full videos online on Jersey City Tech Meetup on YouTube. You can check out any of them because there's a ton of value. I learned so much from each event. I love that too. Not only I’m bringing people together but I learned so much because I'm always trying to grow and be more of an expert in many different things.
My favorite event was the Wellness event that I was a panelist on. That’s on YouTube. Check that one out.
You were incredible at that.
That was October 2019.
We met before that, right?
We met at the first Green Rush in 2018.
Life flies by fast. We’re already looking back many years. The health and wellness one was Zen out. That was awesome. You killed it on that. We got to make some stuff happen again because that's a great topic. Everyone loves those especially in the hustle and bustle of tech, business and all that stuff. More than ever, we need to learn to chill and find our center. You are a master of that. It was great to have you. We have to make another one happen.
Being Limitless: Spirituality is shedding all those layers and being your truest energy form and being able to share that with people and feel whole and at peace.
For sure. You came back from an amazing trip, 30 days of traveling the country. Tell us a little bit about what inspired you to do that, especially with all the things that you're juggling. You're doing Jersey City Tech Meetup, you have your business, and a couple of other things as well. What prompted you to do that?
For those who don't know, I have an amazing life partner, Sissa. She's incredible. She lived in San Diego. She had goals and ambitions to move to the East Coast. It was calling her and she wanted to move here. She finally decided it's time to make it happen. We started talking later in 2020. When we were starting to see each other before we were committed to each other, she was like, “I'm driving across the country in March. You should come with me and be part of the journey.” I remember I was such a jerk. I was like, “I got to see where I'm at with everything about that. I'm not committed to that.” I was not trying to commit to anything. I was pushing back. I was thinking, “This could be cool, traveling the country but I don't want to jump the gun.” I know I'm trying to build all these businesses. I want to make sure I got everything in order before I can commit to something like that.
After we saw each other going back and forth visiting Cali and she came here a few times, I was like, “Having my arm out resisting is not helping anyone. I know inside that this is right. The more I resist, the more I'm pushing her away.” One day, I was like, “I'm going to come and do this road trip with you. I need Wi-Fi. This isn't a vacation. I need to be working while we're doing this but I want to do this with you.” It's been a bucket list item of mine and hers to travel the whole country on the road and to see all the cool places and be spontaneous. Whatever looks cool. If you see a sign on the side of the street, it’s like, “Let’s go there.”
Now is the first time in my life where I'm in a position where I can make that happen. The way I saw it is two tests. One, can I be responsible and get things done when no one's telling me you have to do it and it's all in me? Two, it's a test of are we meant to be together because we're about to be in a car next to each other for 30 days? Are we going to survive it? Honestly, it was one of the most amazing and profound experiences of my life. It has both tests with many challenges. I'm not going to say it was easy. There were ups and downs and it got tough at times. It was incredible.
We stayed with friends along the way. I have friends that are part of the network. I have friends all over the country. We got to stay on our friend’s couches. Many great people hosted us. We got to see the country and all these places I've never seen before, especially out West. It was a life-changing experience. I'm re-adjusting to being in one spot again. I’m like, “Aren’t we supposed to get in the car and go to the next city?” It’s like, “I'm home now.” Anyone who can make that happen, I recommend it. That's what brought me to do it.
Do you have any favorite stories from the trip?
Yes, I do. I want to jump to Colorado quickly. It's fun. With this relationship I have with Sissa, sometimes we’ll disconnect. We’ll get into a fight. I'll get in this shitty mood where I'm looking out the window and not connected anymore. Nothing works in either of our lives. The longer we stay that way, nothing is good or works. In business, things start fucking up everything. We learn that if we don't come back to each other quickly, everything else crumbles. There was a period before we made it to Colorado where we were disconnected for a few days and we couldn't get back. One thing on that note is that we weren't doing our daily meditation. We weren't working out. We were going around, drinking, eating and having a good time. That lack of grounding reared its head and brought a lot of things to light.
Up until Colorado, we had a lot of good times too but we were disconnected. We're like, “We need a day where we can come back as spirits full circle and connect deeply.” We were in Glenwood, Colorado. They have some beautiful hot springs. We kicked off our day by smoking this insane Cali weed. We were in the parking lot of this hot spring that we had a reservation for. We got so high. I was sitting in the car and I was like, “I don't even know how if go in and engage with the person at the front desk. I don't even know if I'm able to speak. I wanted to get to that place where we're in the water. I'm going to face this fear and we're going to do this.”
We got in there and we got all situated. They were super nice. The place is called Iron Mountain Hot Springs. We had this beautiful day because we had all these different pools with different minerals that treat your body in different ways and heal you. Spending that morning together with all the mountains around us, we were already both feeling like our souls are coming back. We were re-energizing. It was like a reset. That felt amazing. It got us back into our energy. We went and had this amazing lunch at this brewery, elk sausage, mac and cheese, and these chimichurri steaks. We broke bread together. We had the most incredible food.
We then went to this Airbnb that was called The Hippie House. It’s this big tie-dye house in Colorado. All these different rooms were loaded up with bongs, bowls, everything to enable you to have a good time. My whole life, when I was anywhere, they would be like, “No smoking on the premises.” This place is like, “Don't go outside, you'll get in trouble. Smoke inside.” I’m like, “Nice.” We got there and this is already after a great day, the hot springs, amazing food, and we were feeling connected. We took acid and then we lit candles in the room and had a ritual together.
I won't go into too many details but it was one of the most epic experiences. I don't think I've ever connected with another human as much as that. We had beautiful meditation music on, the candles and we smoked. We had this ritual where it's going to be hard for anyone to understand that wasn't there. Our souls married each other that day. Two became one. It was the most beautiful day. Out of all the days of the trip, that day was hands down the most epic experience because it was what we needed to connect the most. I've never felt that way with another human being in my life. It was such a beautiful day full of positivity and love. I'll never forget it.
That's magical. I want to unpack a few things. We'll get into a relationship coach. Why do you think you were resistant to doing the trip with her? You describe yourself as a yes person. You always say yes to everything. This is not just you. I'm saying this for a lot of people. Why do we say no to the thing we think or know in our hearts is good for us?
It wasn't necessarily me resisting the trip itself. It was me resisting starting a relationship. That's the bigger thing about it. Without diving into too many details, I had this relationship with someone else that was short-lived, intense and it crashed and burned. It was devastating for me. It was a huge wound in my heart. That was shortly before I met Sissa. In my head, I'm like, “Fuck this. I need time to myself. I don't want anything with anyone. I got hurt so bad. I'm not feeling that again.” When I started talking to Sissa, it's funny because she was a coach then and she wanted to coach me for free. She’ll watch this and she knows the truth. She wanted to coach me for free because she wanted to have an excuse to talk to me more and it's okay. I can't blame her.
I was open about vows. I got out of something. It was devastating to me and I'm not looking for anything. It was me pushing back on a new relationship. I was like, “I need Ben time.” I was doing that for a few months but we were still seeing each other. Even though I told her I wasn't ready to commit, she was still there for me with no expectation. She was like, “I enjoy our time together.” The fact that she wasn't pushing me to commit allowed me to naturally see that everything I've been looking for in a woman is right in front of me. If I were to push that away because I got hurt, I'll be the biggest dumbass in this world. She was showing me that she's a mirror of everything that I want. The caring, love, positivity, good vibes, she had all that. She showed me that she was there for me.
While I was resisting because I didn't want to get hurt again, she naturally unfolded where I started to think, “If I keep resisting, I'm going to lose her and that would be the biggest mistake of my life.” Luckily, I caught that before I did that. I said, “Let's commit.” I committed to the trip before I committed to her. Step one was the trip. Once I committed to the trip, I was like, “We're visiting each other every month. We have these deep, intimate experiences together. Why am I pushing this away?” I was like, “Will you be mine?” I haven’t had a girl for a while. I’ve been doing all this stuff. I didn't even ask someone to be my girlfriend. I’m like, “Do I give you a note in school?” It was ridiculous.
Nowadays, it's a text message or DM, “Do you want to be my girl?”
It's like the Justin Timberlake song, “Will you be my girlfriend?” I was like, “I don't know if this works.” She’s like, “Yeah.” I was like, “Cool.” I'm extremely grateful for that because she is helping me learn and grow so much. I learned so much about myself. It's been beautiful.
In relationships, how they thrive is when both people are self-aware about where they are and not being pressured by another person. It's good to have people that are going to hold space. We're not our best selves every single day. If I get into an argument with my girlfriend, it rarely happens but for maybe a couple of minutes we'll be like, “We need a second.” We come back and we choose love over being right. We want to choose happiness over being right. That's the biggest thing in relationships. In general, we always think, “This is my side of the story. This person did this.” Removing that ego and allowing yourself to become closer to love and moving closer.
Being Limitless: Trying not to be judgmental and compassionate to others is the biggest test ever, especially when you’re more awakened.
When you both have that intention, you can get through anything. It’s that ego that kills us like, “I need to show my being right over this person.” It doesn't work that way especially if you want to build something truly. If that's always happening where one person is always right and the other person is always wrong, in the other person's head who's always considered wrong, they're going to feel insecure. They're not going to feel good. It spirals into something chaotic.
They won't want to say things because they're afraid you’d be like, “You're wrong.” There's a good quote, “Being right is the poor man's version of self-worth.” I've been having to check my ego so much because I’ll react or get defensive. She’ll say things and my primal is coming up and thinking I'm under attack but she's coming from a place of love and that's my ego trying to protect me from someone who's not attacking me. Every once in a while, there are other words that are factually incorrect, “I'm right on this one.” It's not like you’re trying to be right or wrong. The goal should be to understand each person's perspective. Matthew McConaughey talked about that in his book Greenlights as well. It's not who's right. It's coming to a place of understanding.
Sissa is Brazilian. She grew up in a completely different culture than me. For me to have this expectation that everyone's going to see things the exact way I see them, we all have different lenses. We all grew up in different environments and different things. How can I expect someone to see things my way? I want to understand where she's coming from. At the end of the day, I want her to understand where I'm coming from. That's something I'm working on. It’s not being right. Let's both understand each other's perspectives. That’s what’s more important.
Vulnerability is important and having a platform where you can be open in your communication. We want to say things lovingly. I always use words like, “I feel this when this happens,” rather than, “You do this.”
I started reading this book, Nonviolent Communication. It’s like being in the jungle but it's exactly that. Rather than saying, “You always do this. You always do that.” It's about separating observation from evaluation. Rather than having a judgmental way of how you say about it, be like, “I factually observed that you're doing this and the way I feel about it is this.” Not mixing the evaluation with the observation but separating them can be hugely impactful for coming to an understanding place.
Look at it as a dance. When you're salsa-ing with someone, one person is moving forward while the other person is back. You're not both moving forward at the same time. Otherwise, you hit heads. That's exactly what happens in a relationship. You have to look at it as a dance or martial art where if a blow is coming towards you, you let it go rather than let it impacts you. There are all these little things that we should be aware of but the biggest thing is self-awareness and that's where you get to a better place and a healthy relationship when both people are self-aware. They both want the same goals, purpose and visions.
It's a beautiful thing. It's worth the work. You call it work because it's easy to react. Having to think about these things, it's work but it's worth it. At the end of the day, when you have someone who understands you and is there sharing life with you and is a loving partner, that's the greatest feeling there is. I haven't found with anyone what I've shared with Sissa. Sometimes we're like, “This is hard.” You then step away and you’re like, “This is all worth it because it's a beautiful harmony we share and it’s someone to share life with. It's important.”
There are many parallels in our lives. I had my time where after I broke off my engagement, I was single for a couple of years and enjoying myself. I was telling myself, “I'm never going to change for anyone. I'm never going to have to deal with anyone else's bullshit. The moment some drama hits, I'm out.” That mentality wasn't giving me what I truly wanted and that was a deep love connection. When I met my girlfriend, Kate, she was always present with me. She was loving and kind and never put any pressure on me. It would happen during Corona too. We were able to be without the pressures of, “I have to go to work.” It was a nice time. It showed me that everything I want is right here.
At the time, she was going through some stuff herself so I was present. I wasn't asking her for anything from her end in terms of commitment and that stuff. Eventually, she was able to move through whatever she needed to move through. We were able to deeply connect. We honor each other in this sacred moment, every single morning, every single day. It's nice. It takes a lot of work. You have to plan out these magical experiences like going to these hot springs or going for a hike and going to a nice dinner. It takes work. You never can take that love for granted and those sacred moments. You're not appreciating the person.
One thing I want to add to that is having rituals as a couple is extremely important too. We weren't meditating together every morning and that was showing. Whatever you need to do to get grounded with each other, it's important that you do those things. That's where you can put the ego aside and come from a place of your being of what loves that other soul rather than trying to be in defense mode. One big lesson I learned is if I’m ever doing a long trip again with her, I'm not ditching meditation. Meditation is going to be a priority. Every morning, I start the day with meditation to get grounded. I don't know if everyone who reads this meditates but whether you got to work out together or yoga, have some rituals to get on the same mindset and frequency of love.
Whatever the step is, gets back into the heart. Eye gazing is another one. There's an exercise called Loves, Fears and Desires. That's another one where you’re telling your partner what you love about them, what you fear in life and then what you desire. Both people say thank you at the end after they shared without any judgment or anything. You're able to fully unload your mind, your heart, whatever, and the other person is non-judgmental about it. There are many different techniques.
I’m going to do that one. That sounds great.
Moving on from the relationship stuff. That was amazing, by the way. Thank you so much.
I’m glad that we’re the same in a lot of ways. I love that.
What's next for you? Are you working on anything other than the business and the Meetup?
Besides BeYu Media and the Jersey City Tech Meetup, I'm collaborating with a brother of mine, Alex. He's someone that I met through my Tech Meetups but then got more involved in a men's group called Modern Renaissance Man. Over the course of maybe two years, we got close with each other and are aligned with everything. We started an endeavor. We started at the beginning of 2021. I don't want to dive into too many details but from the experiences we've had, it's exciting to know that I have a business partner that we are on the same page about everything. We mastered communication. For the first time in my life, I did a business partner thing right.
In the beginning, we had a deep conversation about the fears. We talked about, “What do you fear could go wrong with a business partnership? What's gone wrong in the past?” We created such a solid foundation of what this looks like. We have a quick two-year strategy that we're implementing. I know I’m saying this all so bad because I'm not trying to give things away. We're still in the works. Every week and every month that we're pursuing what we strategize, the universe is consistently showing us, “You're doing the right shit. This the right path.” We're talking to a lot of executives with our ideas to make sure it's a need in the market.
What we're working on is awesome. It's a big social media marketing company but at a different level than BeYu Media. Our first collaboration is going to be on May 26, 2021. That's what the Tech Meetup event is in person in Jersey City. I'm collaborating with Alex to put our brains together and start showing people that we're building something together. We're doing it on May 26 at Belunified Brand Experience Labs in Hoboken. It's a cusp of Hoboken and Jersey City. We're going to be having this panel of paid media buyers, different people that are doing the paid ad space, which is the direction we're going with this thing. Joe Cameron is going to be on the panel. We're excited to make this awesome and a big summer kickoff welcome-back-to-events deals.
Everybody wants to get back in person. It's tough to do everything digitally.
People are getting tired of digital events. My attendance for the digital events has been going down. I was trying to figure out why and I'm like, "People are over with looking at their screens and they want to get back in person." May 26, I hope you'll be there if you're around.
If I am, I certainly will.
That's what we're working on. I'm excited about that. Other than that, I’m trying to continue learning every day, doing a lot of reading, growing and trying to be the best person I can be.
Thank you for that. Thank you for building this community. There's not a lot of people out there building positive communities where everybody is trying to help each other out in a non-judgmental way. You were traveling and I saw one of your posts that you made. It was in Ohio or something like that in some park. You talked about how you were sick of all the division going on. Can you elaborate on that?
That stemmed from the vaccination. It's okay if people want to get vaccinated. That's fine. If someone doesn't want to get vaccinated because it’s their body, whatever health things or wanting to protect your temple, people slam you and be like, “It's your responsibility. It's your duty.” They don't talk to you. I was like, “What the hell?” I respect you and your decision. It sucks. It stemmed from seeing a lot of people being weird about me not wanting to get the vaccination. I don't want that for me and my body. I'm going to try to be careful about how I say it.
If everyone's concerned about me getting the vaccination, why don't you worry about yourself? If you got the vaccination, then you're good. Why do you need me to get it too? You got it. You're safe. Why do I need to get it if that's not what I want to do with my body? It trickled into more things like politics. I don't like to dive into politics a lot because that's a negative frequency. People are extreme on the left and are extreme on the right. They say, “Fuck you. You don't believe in what I believe.”
They don't ever ask someone, “What was your environment when you're growing up? What was your home life like?” No one is trying to understand why they had these beliefs. It’s like, “If you don't believe what I believe, screw you.” That’s a terrible way for people to live rather than trying to have a dialogue and come from a place of curiosity. It feels good to get this off my chest now because it has been weighing on me. It’s upsetting to me that people are acting that way. I love everyone. Why can't you respect my opinion and what I believe and I’ll respect yours?
I'm on the same wavelength. We have so much love for everyone and everybody has the right to choose what they want to do. This is something that's going to go in your body and it's going to affect you the rest of your life whether you want to believe it or not. It could be healthy for you or whatnot. I also trust my body. I trust my ability to make decisions for my health and what I put in my body. My body is my temple. The food that I eat, what I listened to, what I meditate to are all inputs that I put in. I will not put something in that I don't vibe with and that should be fine. Nowadays, if you're a healthy person, that's not enough. You have to prove that you get this.
I'll take care of myself.
I'm good. Let me be.
Stop judging me. You're not above me because you got stuck with it. It's the same people who are like, “Women have the right to choose not to dive too deep into abortion.” I believe women have the right to choose what they do with their bodies. A lot of people who also believe that are judging you for not getting a vaccination. I'm like, “You said her body is her choice. Why is not my body my choice?” I think logically. I see a lot of conflicting logical views about all this. I'm like, “Think logically here.”
What this is all designed to do is to create so much mental gymnastics in somebody's head that they give up any independent thinking and then they go with whatever they're told. Throughout this whole pandemic, we've heard many conflicting things like, “Masks work. Masks don't work.” Even from the top-level guys like Fauci. If you're putting all this disinformation, it will fry anyone's brain who's invested in wanting to know from a higher source on what should we do. If you believe in yourself and you understand what immunity is and what you want out of this life and you're not hurting anyone, everybody should have the right to do what they want to do. We're given these gifts by God, not anyone else.
This is why we vibe because we have the same beliefs on that. You don't always need to be looking for the answer. We all have the answers within. It's all right here. Trust yourself. I'm not being reckless. I'm not saying if you have health issues, don't get the vaccine. Everyone knows their situation and I respect that. All I ask is you respect this too.
That’s what this life is about because it's short. We have this little experience and I want to have a good quality of life and these are the decisions that I make based on what I want to do. I want to create a limitless life so I become an entrepreneur. I want to live healthily so I eat right and I drink good water and I exercise. I do all the things that I need to do. I don't want anyone else telling me what I need to be doing.
That is exactly what limitless is. That's the same reason I didn't like corporate. I want to be an entrepreneur because I want to call the shots. At some point, the world puts all this pressure on you. They say growing up, “Don't get peer pressured into trying experimental drugs.” What's happening?
Unless it's labeled. Unless it comes from a trusted source.
Trust the experimental.
Ben, why do you think that you came here to Earth as Ben Yurcisin? What did you want to experience?
I want to experience love and connection. There's a reason I'm doing this tech meetup stuff. This is all the beginning. I see myself having a huge impact and a huge movement. Ben Yurcisin came here to bring people together and cut the divide. That's the simplest way to put it. I could go more in-depth but I’ll keep it at that.
What does God or spirituality mean to you, if anything? What role does it play in your life?
Spirituality means a lot to me. People get all weird about the word God. I'm not a Christian. I don't believe in any specific religion. To me, God is the overarching energy of the collective. I'm God. You're God. We’re all Gods right here. That's how I see the God thing. Meditation is my pathway to spirituality. Especially when I became an entrepreneur, I've been practicing it more and more. If I need to take a half-hour or hour of meditation during my day, I can do that whenever I want. That's going back to your source.
For me, when I get the closest to God is when I could put the ego aside, all these things that have been conditioned on us from our upbringing. Spirituality, for me, is shedding all those layers and being your truest energy form. It’s being able to share that with people and feel whole and at peace. The peace element is what brings me into spirituality because my mind is always crazy. I'm always like, “What am I doing next?” I'm always moving. If I don't have that spirituality, life goes by too fast. It helps me to come back to myself and be God. What about you? I want to know your answer to that.
Everybody asks me the same thing right after they say it. I answer every single week. I'm trying to come up with new ways. Our minds, our universe, everything is completely unlimited. It’s limitless. There's nothing out there that could not possibly exist. The extent to which we open our minds to what is out there, the more we realize that we don't know so much that's not out there. It's this ever-evolving journey of our souls. We start out as God, we separate, and that was the whole purpose of creating these lives and these third dimensions.
Eventually, we'll learn all the lessons that we need to through reincarnation. Multiple millions and trillions of whatever lifetimes it takes for us to get back to the simplest truth, which is love. We start with love. We separate. We go through every iteration. We become all the worst things of humanity possibly can be and all the best things. We have to go through that muck, shit, goodness and love. We then circle back so we understand what the entire experience can be and that experience is infinite. It's mind-blowing to think that this life of ours is a little piece of the whole journey.
Since you feel so much love now, do you think that you're close to closing the loop of reincarnation?
I would like to think that. That's coming from ego, “I'm almost done.”
You’re like, “I'm tired.”
Going back to the previous question I asked you, I came here to first find love within myself because that was a hard journey on its own. I had a lot of lack of love for myself and from other people. I had a lot of anger. I had to first understand the love for myself and then understand that everybody here is capable of so much love. What I'm trying to work on is to never judge anyone else even though they're in a frequency of not being in love, but to believe in them and love them so that they can get back into that frequency. Many people are disconnected from that reality of what truth is and that's love. That's where I need to work on myself and not feel that they're lost and hopeless.
That's hard for me too. Everybody is like, “Fuck that guy.” Maybe it's my upbringing in Jersey or whatever it is. Try not to be judgmental and compassionate to others is the biggest test ever, especially when you're more awakened. Empathy is what it comes down to. It’s like, “Look at that person. They didn't get the opportunity to have this awakening that I had.” It's easier said than done. I understand that.
We don't know what pain they went through in life, what upbringing, what social conditioning they've received. There are many different things, how they were treated by their friends, their family or relationships or they've been in pain. Everybody walks a life. Until you're walking in their shoes, you have no idea. That's what I'm working on in my life in terms of how I reach other people. To answer your question, I would like to think that but I know that there are deeper levels where I can get. You talked about psychedelics a little bit. Psychedelics have helped me tap into those unreachable places in my heart that I never was able to get to. I was able to experience them and I’m like, “I have so much love. My heart is my superhero power.” I then have to constantly remind myself through meditation, “That's where you get back into it.” Psychedelics give you a bigger perspective and awareness but you have to keep climbing into that and making sure that you're not closing it off. It's easy in this world to close your heart off.
Have you practiced ayahuasca?
Yes. I did six ceremonies.
Has that been a huge breakthrough for you? I still have yet to have my first.
We'll have to talk about this. It was the reason why I started Om.Life.
We'll talk about this.
We'll have another conversation after your first ayahuasca experience. Ben, thank you for coming on. How can we learn more about you?
First of all, thank you for having me. I love this show. Now that we've done this and I've experienced this. I want to go back and watch all your other episodes. I want to see all the answers you said to that question. I'm active on Instagram. @BeYuWorldwide is my account. From there, there are links to all my other accounts, which are JC Tech Meetup and BeYu Media. Instagram is great. For a professional connection, find me on LinkedIn. I’m Ben Yurcisin on Facebook. I'm happy to connect with all of you and chat about how we can collab or even have a chat, hang out and jam.
Thank you. You’re such a beautiful soul. I'm glad to have this conversation. I learned so much about you this time too. We'll have to do this more often.
Thank you. We got to hang soon.
Important Links:
FunFinders - Facebook
Jersey City Tech Meetup - YouTube
Wellness – YouTube
BeYu Worldwide – Instagram
@BeYu_Media – Instagram
@JCTechMeetup - Instagram
LinkedIn – Ben Yurcisin
Ben Yurcisin - Facebook
About Ben Yurcisin
Ben is the Founder, CEO @ BeYu Social Media Marketing 📲
He Brings Jersey City together @ Jersey City Tech Meetup 🤝
& is also a Transformational Coach 🦅
Passionate about helping individuals and brands find and amplify their authentic voice and live a life of purpose 💪
He is a Master of creating community | Host and MC of monthly events covering diverse topics in tech, moderating panel discussions and creating a hub for innovation 🚀
As a world traveler with a never-ending curiosity in life, Ben has a YES attitude towards new opportunities and life experiences. He spends the free time jamming the guitar, snowboarding, and inspiring those around him to live a life of positivity.
