neoslife with Vincent Daranyi | BONUS Episode

This episode explores the concept of Neos Life, a regenerative village project initiated by Vincent Daranyi aimed at creating a sustainable and fully integrated community outside Lisbon.

1. Neos Life is a project aimed at creating a sustainable community incorporating regenerative agriculture and holistic practices.
2. The project is located 75 minutes outside Lisbon and spans over a thousand acres.
3. It seeks to integrate modern technology with ancient wisdom to create a sustainable living model.
4. The episode discusses the impact of personal transformation on professional pursuits and societal contributions.
5. Vincent's journey from investment banking to entrepreneurship and community building illustrates a shift towards more meaningful personal and professional life goals.

1: Introduction

John Ellison introduces Vincent Daranyi and the concept of Neos Life, focusing on Vincent’s background and the origins of the project. John Ellison: "Vincent is a former investment banker and serial entrepreneur."

2: Neos Life Detailed

The discussion goes in-depth into the specifics of Neos Life, including its location, the principles behind it, and its structure as a regenerative village. Vincent Daranyi: "Neos Life is the new earth operating system for life, integrating regenerative practices and holistic community living."

3: Sustainable Practices and Personal Growth

Vincent shares insights on how sustainable practices can be integrated into personal growth and community building. Vincent Daranyi: "We use regenerative agriculture and permaculture principles to support a sustainable community."

1. Explore regenerative agriculture as a means to sustainable living.
2. Consider the impacts of personal values and transformations on professional choices.
3. Evaluate the role of cryptocurrencies in funding and developing sustainable projects.
4. Look into community-based projects that integrate modern technology with traditional wisdom.
5. Engage with local communities to understand the practical implications of building sustainable villages.

In this week’s episode of the ReFi Podcast, John is delighted to welcome his friend Vincent Daranyi, a former investment banker turned serial entrepreneur, to share his profound journey of self-discovery and his vision of neoslife—a 1,000 acre regenerative village just 75-minutes outside of Lisbon that offers an entirely new way of being.

Vincent has spent the last eight years diving deep into life's biggest questions and found a unique perspective on the role of awakening human consciousness in addressing the most pressing challenges of our time. In this conversation we get to hear about Vincent’s transition from working inside the world’s top financial institutions to the pursuit of a more meaningful and beautiful life.

He reveals his latest ambition to establish a regenerative village located just outside of Lisbon, which aims to serve as a model for the new world we’re all working to build together.

Vincent offers some unique and often radical insights on the intersection of spirituality and finance, his stance on the use of psychedelics, and his perspective on Bitcoin as the one currency above all others.

The conversation also delves into the essence of human energy and emotion, the process of awakening, and the vital role of community in driving the regenerative movement. Tune in for a journey that promises to challenge conventional thinking and inspire a collective effort towards regeneration.

Vincent’s journey is a fascinating microcosm of the broader regenerative movement as humanity discovers it’s rightful place as a part of nature and seeks to build new systems and social experiments that embody this deeper understanding of what it means to be human.

People

Vincent Daranyi, John Ellison

Companies

Neos Life

Books

None mentioned.

Guest Name(s):

Vincent Daranyi

Content Warnings:

None

Vincent Daranyi

I would also like to use this an opportunity to invite the listener, like, to really think, you know, what is your life really about? And I'm not saying so much from a want, but who are you? How are you meant to express yourself? And Nio's life is also meant to be a place where you can express yourself fully and your skills and your gifts are being used.

John Ellison

Yo, what is good refination? John here with another episode of Refi podcast today. I am so grateful to sit down with a good friend of mine, Vincent Daryani from Neos Life. Vincent is a former investment banker and serial entrepreneur who's been on a journey over the last eight years asking some of life's deepest questions. He found himself experiencing successes of the financial institutions and startup life and really being very dissatisfied, wanting to know, what is this all for?

Why am I here? What are these problems that we face? And what can I actually do about it? He's arrived at a place where he's found a thousand acre plot of land to build a regenerative village just 75 minutes outside of Lisbon that can act as a beacon of hope for the new earth that we're all trying to build together using the most powerful tools of our time. We get to hear more about Vincent's personal journey, his view on psychedelics, his view on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and the kinds of communities that we really need to push forward this regenerative transition that we're all trying to contribute to in our lifetime.

I think for me, this episode veers into some different territory. We talk about energy, we talk about spirituality, we talk about awakening. And from somebody who has a deeply analytical and even engineering mind, to have gone on this path, I think, for me, is very interesting, and in some ways acts as a microcosm for the broader regenerative transition that our entire economy and our financial institutions are going through, that as we realize the byproduct of the systems that we've created, the impact that it's having on ourselves, on our community, and on nature, we recognize that we need to do something different, radically so, and recognize the role that we are playing as individuals in creating these challenges. And to really inquire, what is the unique contribution that I can make as a person, to make the world a better place, and to show up as my fullest self. And for me, the vision of a thousand people or more living on a regenerative village just 75 minutes from a major city is incredibly compelling.

And while this isn't investment advice whatsoever, there's no offering here. It's very fascinating to see Vincent raise a pretty significant sum, €5 million, to bring this project to life and put his own skin in the game in a very significant way. I'm excited to see what people think and hear about the investor retreat happening on April 10 to 14th. There are some phenomenal guides that I've personally had the pleasure of working with over the last year who will be facilitating journeys there on the land. So if you're interested to partake, hit up Vincent at Neos life and let us know what you think of the show.

Thanks.

Vincent, my friend. Good morning. How are you, John? I'm great. Thank you for having me, dude.

So incredibly grateful to have you on the show. It's been such a journey, man, from meeting you at the heart protocol with Doctor Sam back in April, almost a year now, and then actually going into ceremony together, and now seeing your vision come to life in the most unlikely of ways. I'd love for you to just start us off. I think it'd be great to hear, what is Nios life? Who is it for?

Where is it? What's happening on the land in Portugal? But then also, I think it'd be wonderful to unpack your personal journey, because I know I've been really inspired by the inner work that you've been doing to show up as your fullest self. And then we can follow all the rabbit trails and see where it takes us. Yeah, kick us off.

What's Neos life, man? What are you building? Nio's life is the new earth operating system for life, and it's a thousand acre, 410 hectare state at the moment, 75 minutes outside of Lisbon, where the idea is to create a new, what I like to call a new way of being. What do I mean by that? I think so many of us are yearning and think there's something broken in the world, and there must be a better way.

Vincent Daranyi

And the idea is to bring kind of all the best practices together in one place. So regenerative agriculture, permaculture principles, have our own water, food, and energy, live in harmony with other, have all aspects covered, have our own school, have a well being and healing center. We'll have a hotel and retreat place and residences at the same time. So there will be living people permanently, residents, there will be people coming through as guests. So really, it's a complete village.

And in case of a lockdown or anything else, we have everything in the village. We have our own community, our own health services, our own school, our own, as I said, energy water, food, everything. So. And it's also meant to serve as a model to the world to, as people come through to visit day visitors, retreat visitors, to see there's a better way, there's a better way. And actually easy, we have all the tools, we have everything we need to create something like that.

John Ellison

Man, this is so freaking cool. And I'd love to. For those who are tuning in on YouTube and actually can see this, I'm just going to share my screen and give a little quick scroll and walk, walk through because it's a bit pretty amazing plot of land, man. And I can't wait to hear how this came to life. But, um, what an amazing place.

You've got grazing animals, you've got water on site in Alentejo of all places. You've got so much tree already in place and building infrastructure, 36,000 trees. It's crazy, man. These ancient stones like this could really be something exceptional. And I absolutely love the concepts of the wellbeing center, the hotel concept, and also how you're tying this together with the awakened to beauty retreats that you were doing earlier this year.

How did this come to be? Where did Nia's life come from? Well, it's really, it's been a story for me of like surrender in a way, like the vision I had eight years ago for such a place. And then it was just a crazy idea at that point. And then a few years ago, the name Neos life came to be, which funnily, as I'm sure you noticed, also stands for Neos Life, the life of Nios.

Vincent Daranyi

Like waking up, Red Pill and Nio knew and also won, but it really came from new earth operating system. And then the domain.com was taken. I was like, Neos life. And then it became Neos life. It's funny how these things work and then in hindsight you understand why.

And yeah, it's like my, I mean, I've been right. My career started investment banking. I was working seven years for JP Morgan, Merrill lynch, and then I was six years an entrepreneur in Brazil doing a startup with Rocket and then doing my own startup and had a big falling out with my co founder. And that made me leave Brazil after six years, move to New York. And every morning I woke up I was thinking of, I'm going to do my next startup.

But every morning I woke up and said, like, who am I? Why was I, you know, having this conflict? Why was I in Brazil anyway? Why was I building a startup? What are we here to do anyway?

What is lifeless about. And that kind of journey started in 2014. And so it's been a decade, and I just realized that I don't have answers to most questions in life. And so with kind of the money I got from exiting the company and some money I had from previously, I just went on a journey and I said, okay, I need to find out how can I choose what to do in life? How can I choose build a next company or do anything without knowing why Im doing it?

And so that really started a journey into diving into personal development. Going to the Tony Robbins things, going to my first spiritual retreat in Bali, experiencing my first psychedelic ayahuasca, reading all spiritual books, going deep into meditation, vipassana, and then going into solitude, abstinence, you know, fasting, like cold showers, like, going through all, like, literally trying everything, exploring, you know, what is money? I mean, I work most of my life in finance or related to finance, and I really didn't understand money until I started diving into crypto and then more specifically bitcoin. And so that opened the whole world. And so Nio's life is a synthesis of all of that.

Like, in a way, everything that I've learned, and obviously it's an ongoing process. And so it's really, the idea is because there is a better way for us to live, and it doesn't have to be a kind of, and I say that with love. It doesn't have to be a hippy way, it doesn't have to be like people that escape, but there is a way for us to have it. Everything they have, the modern and kind of, but, you know, bring the ancient wisdom in and bring spirituality in. But enough completely free canvas for everyone to flourish without dogma.

It's all about just exploration. It's like, okay, and it's about growth. It's allowed. Constantly asking myself, how can I do it better? And you know what just popped into my head now?

It's been kind of like it's been in the making all my life. When I was just a few years old, as a child, as a baby, so to speak, I just took everything apart. Like, you know, you would give me a toy and I would just take it apart. And in a way, that's been my journey all along. I've always asked myself, you know, why are we doing it in such a way and how does it actually work and how can we do it better?

John Ellison

Yeah. Yeah, man. And I think that engineering mind also with a clear understanding of how the money system works and its role in channeling human attention and human energy towards specific goals can actually be redesigned, and that our society can be much more beautiful if we just change the rules and the conditions and the environment in which we're interacting with each other. And so I think there's a really interesting phenomenon here where obviously you're working on NIOs life. In Alentejo.

Sam Dalesk has been building the traditional dream factory not far from you for the last few years. Nick Katz is building good mountains as a Regena village with Victor Borsky up in Edisata, just outside Ed Iseda. And then Jeremy, obviously, was working on his regenerative village project just south of the bridge. And it's like there's something happening in Portugal and in Lisbon where all of these people are like, okay, we understand the problems we're facing. We see the tools that can address this, but actually there's something deeper that needs to be done that really we need to figure out how to show up differently in ourselves and to do this in community and to rebuild new systems from scratch.

And I'd be curious to just maybe take a quick glance at, like, when that moment hit for you where you maybe were like, okay, actually, maybe it's not the tech, maybe it's not all these external things. Maybe it's something that's actually happening within. Yeah. And it's funny, it's been really, like, so many things for me, a kind of full turn going from one. At some point, my mom and also other friends were said, like, I don't know anymore who you are, because I went from one being an investment banker, rational atheist, to kind of the other side.

Vincent Daranyi

And the only reason is because I realized what I thought, what I used to believe, I realized the evidence speaks against it. So I kind of started little by little. And then once you go down one rabbit hole, you enter the next rabbit hole, then the next. Then they're all kind of connected, because everything is. Is connected.

And it's really like, in 2010, I was at a place called singularity University in California, and there was all about. And it was the second class of that institution, and it was all about, how can we use technology to improve the world? Like, I'm the most techno filled person, but along my path, I realized, and actually, funnily, I just. At the beginning of this week, I was at a conference called Change now in Paris, like a huge change event. And I left after one day.

I booked a return flight. And I'm like, you know, it's beautiful because there's many solutions here, but no one is talking about the inner aspect, and I could feel it energetically. I wanted to get out of there, but that took me a long time to understand that, because in my own journey, for most of the years, I was just about acquiring knowledge. Like how does this work, etcetera. I was very kind of mentally cerebral, focused.

And then over time I realized, especially in the last one or two years, I realized, no, it's all about my way of being. It's a little bit like when I'm an alcoholic, it's one thing, and it's a very important part to understand. I'm an alcoholic. But then the much more important part is to stop drinking. And I think what we're mostly focused on is kind of this knowing bit, okay, I am or this is wrong and this is wrong in the world, but okay, then the inner part needs to, I need to change myself.

It's not, I need to change the world, and I don't need for tools to create to change the world. I need to change. And if we do all of that, we are in a new world. Absolutely. Yeah.

John Ellison

And I think there's a really interesting dance between the information we receive about who we are, the challenges that we face in the world, what we're really equipped to do to address them, and also the kind of lived internal experience of how it feels to show up in the world and to try and be that person and to, you know, embody that change. And then theres also the incentives, the motivations that come from outside of us. Actually, you know what? I can make a lot more money doing this as opposed to that. And I think itd be very interesting to unpack and understand the influence that crypto, bitcoin, ethereum, and these kind of monetary systems that also have very deep ideological backgrounds have influenced the work that youre doing at Neos life.

And what do you think the correlation is between this really fast alternative, fast growing alternative monetary system and these new ways of living that are beginning to emerge? Yeah, I think, let's call it the crypto journey. And then it became a purely bitcoin journey for me. I think just like in any other world, we see the same themes. So the kind of greed that we see in the normal world is also present in the crypto world.

Vincent Daranyi

Many people are simply Mordevi. And I think this is why many people enter that space and there's nothing wrong. That's a human, you know, it's just a human reality that we want more, we want more resources. And I see it in the same thing in spirituality, right. Spirituality is all about waking up and going inside, and then there's something like spiritual ego.

Right now, I'm more enlightened than you type of thing. And so then the ego just takes on a new cloth. So in crypto, I think it's the same. You know, it's. It's just a new club, so.

And that's what I kind of realized across my journeys. Most things are maybe even all things are neutral, but then it's how we use them. What gives makes them good or bad. So technology is not good or bad. Like, take nuclear fission.

You can build a bomb or a power plant, a hammer. I can put it in your head, or I can build a table. And so the same with social media or AI. All these technologies are neutral, and our consciousness decides how we use them totally. And I think in the crypto space, I rarely use these words nowadays because I.

This might be very controversial on this podcast, but along the journey, I realized there's only bitcoin. And the reason is, and that was in a journey in itself, is because when you have. What is the purpose of money? Money is to kind of store of value and means of exchange and unit of account. And one of the most core aspect is that you cannot create more of it.

And when I realized that, we don't realize that when we. That's kind of the bitcoin journey. Like the scarcity. The finite supply. Yeah, the finite supply.

Because as long as you can print more. And I think now we all. It has become very clear to all of us over COVID, because governments started printing so insanely and so fast that we could all feel the effect immediately. I mean, inflation was always there, and we kind of, like, I've been taught in economics at the university, like, you know, that's part of how finance works. There is inflation.

But once you study bitcoin and austrian economics, you realize, no, it doesn't have to be that way. It's just the way the system is set up.

And I think I found this along my journey. All the time is like, I believe something, and then I take actually the time to go down in the rabbit hole and really try to challenge this, and then I realize, okay, it was just a belief. And actually, most of the time, it's the opposite. That is true. And so we really live in an inverse world in so many ways, including the inside out, really, from the outside in, each other than from the inside out.

And so the monetary system is also inverse. And in a way, you can say we're walking on our heads because we're navigating life through our mind rather than through our heart. And that's where also all the suffering comes from. All the world's suffering is literally created by a lack of consciousness and a lack of consciousness about ourselves, how we behave, how we treat each other, how we manage our resources. And that's when I see conferences that are like the one I was this week that are all about, oh, we need to create change.

Well, why is the change happening? There's so many people working on it, because it requires a change in our consciousness, it requires an inner change. And that is kind of not on most agendas. And you know, on a really high level, this is my dream for Neo's life, to help us go through this inner change, but not forced from outside, but that the environment helps you to go through that change. And that it's a culture that not only invites the interchange, but also is actively participating in the outer restoration of the earth and communities.

John Ellison

Because I think one thing I really resonate with is the story of Internet native money and sovereignty and decentralized systems that are censorship resistant. Really evoked a deep sense of desire to be autonomous, to be in control of my own life, and to participate in something that doesn't have this lever of influence, of top down control. And along the way there becomes this very interesting path where it's like, okay, well, if I'm really taking my own keys, my own destiny into my own hands, then what does this actually feel like? To really fully own my fullest power and to be responsible for my money, my life, my emotions, my actions, my beliefs. And I think the interesting confluence that I'm curious in terms of what you're building is a kind of a combination of these two things, where it's inviting that transition from a sense of a separate self that believes I'm a rational being, motivated by my own self interest, I'm accumulating wealth, protecting myself from this dangerous world around me, and relating to people on that basis to then all of a sudden shifting to this insight, this lived experience of like, actually I'm an inter being.

I am my relationships, I am more than my body. I am something that I'm discovering every single day as I wake up and center and focus on my breath and learn to express generosity and to create beauty in the world. And I think there's so much desire and so much yearning for spaces that really hold this, but with integrity and with the capability to actually make change in the world and not just sit around the fire all day. And so I'm curious to get a sense of, like, you've got a thousand people here that are coming together, you're building an initial village, but, like, what is it for beyond those thousand people? What is really the change that you're trying to realize in the world through this initiative nes life?

Vincent Daranyi

Yeah, if I could just use one word, it's awakening. It's like to wake up to who we truly are and how all the experiences, all the suffering, all the problems, the wars, all of that is created by us. Like, we always point to others. Oh, it's the government, et cetera. Yes, there are certain systems in place that create certain outcomes, but we empower them, right?

We elect them, or we at least let them stay in power. Like, if all of us would get up and say, okay, we're going to change the world now to a certain way, and we all agree, then it would change instantly. And so, right, everything, everything we think kind of the world is a certain way, but it's not. It's just because we agree. Like, for example, if you think about countries or borders or governance systems, they all just agreed, as they're only in place because we agree.

Yeah, it's just consensus. And if the moment that consensus changes, everything changes. And so, in a way, the whole world could change right now if we agreed, or if many of us agreed. And so, coming back to your question, like, awakening, it's awakening to how we are creating all of it. It's our creation, and it starts all from the inside.

If I'm in constant fear, it informs how I'm acting, and maybe I'm hoarding and I need more resources, and that creates the competition, and it creates the fighting, and that creates the wars, et cetera. It's all. Everything starts from the inside. So I hope that nio's life amongst all the kind of beautiful external things like regeneration and having our own farm to table food and all of that will really be a place where it helps you to evolve from the inside. But again, not because this is kind of what you have to do there, but it's kind of something that's automatically kind of induced.

And I think at least everyone who has been on the land so far, the land is really inviting for that. It's a really special place. You know, some people say, oh, yeah, you could do it anywhere. And I disagree. Like, it's a special place.

When you feel the energy, it's very conducive. I think, for this kind of work, it kind of helps you to do the work. And I think some of these terms like awakening or energy, can be sometimes hard to grasp for people who haven't maybe experienced certain experiences. But there's also the kind of lived reality of our nervous system and how our nervous system responds to biodiversity and the presence of nature and other people whose nervous systems are regulated, and an environment that really feels safe and also invites us to step into our highest capacity and really contribute what we're uniquely able to do. And I think this is something for me that I'm super interested to begin to witness is watching somebody like yourself, who gets put through the societal mold of like, no, you're not going to do this.

John Ellison

You're going to go make a shit ton of money and work in the financial institutions of the world and grind 100 hours a week. And actually there was a kind of process you went through, a force of really remembering and becoming who you were. And I think the idea of a community of people who are all on that path to really show up as who they are outside of the conditioning of society, the wounds of the trauma, the influence of the parents, is incredibly powerful because I've seen in my own founder journey, like you described, it's those relationships with the people that we're trying to build with that really ultimately determine how successful we are at building our vision and bringing this to life. And I think there's an interesting ingredient there around what you're building at Nio's life and the balance of what you're trying to seek. And I wonder, who are you trying to bring on board with you?

What do you need to bring this to life? Because I know you're putting some of quite a lot of yourself and your own energy into this. And I'm just curious, what's the call to action? Who do you need on board, and what do you need to make it happen? And where are you in the stage of bringing this to life?

Vincent Daranyi

Okay, many questions. Well, really, it's an invitation for everyone who feels called to be part of it. Like, it's been incredible along the journey that the right people found their path towards the project to me at the right time. So it's also a big, for me, the whole journey is a big lesson of surrender, because how we are trained, or definitely how I was trained, is you need to control, you need to plan, you need to structure, you need to process everything mentally. And what this project has been teaching me, including how I found it in the first place, the land is just all the serendipity, it's just meeting someone at the airport who tells me, oh, I'm going to find you the land.

And I wasn't even looking for it. And so there is this magic knife. You met someone at an airport? Hold on a second. What do you mean, so?

I wasn't actively working on this project. As I said, it was a vision. It's something I held. But I wasn't actually working on it until I had my Kriya yoga initiation in Vienna five months ago. Pretty much five months and a couple of days ago.

And I was on my flight back to Lisbon, and I stand in line for the plane to board. I'm the second last person in line. That's also interesting. And then there's one person behind me, and that person suddenly says, are you Vincent? And I turn around and I say, I am.

Do I know you? And she said, no, but I'm reading your newsletter. She found it on LinkedIn. And she's one of, you know, I know many of my readers out of the 2000. She's probably one of a couple of hundred that I don't know.

And so what are the chances? And so I keep and I know it's not a coincidence. Like, my journey has taught me that these things happen. And so life always sends us messages. We just have to pay attention.

So I was like, okay, this is not a coincidence. So I asked her, like, why did we meet? Why did we meet? And at some point she asked me, what's your vision? And I tell her about Neo's life.

And then she pulls out her phone and shows me also a village concept. And I'm like, wow, okay, what are the chances of that? And so I keep asking, why did we meet? And then she says, well, what do you need? And I said, oh, I'm not actively working on it, but I guess we need to start with the land, and said, okay, I'm gonna find you the land.

And five days or three days later, she sends me a PDF with the land. And then a week later, we're on the land. And as we drive on the land, I'm like, wow. Yeah, this is it. It's so beautiful.

It's the first land I actually looked at, and the last one. And not only that, one of my spiritual guides has taught me that has not taught me, had told me that the land will be beautiful, which it is, and it will have big stones on it. And on the land, you have ancient human made structures, stone structures, and you have big, massive stones, like three meter stones. So when I saw that, I was like, wow. That can't be.

And maybe to your point, what you said earlier, also with the energy, et cetera, I didn't believe in any of this. I didn't, you know, and. But then I realized I'm wrong, and it's a journey that we all have to go through individually. I'm not here to convince anybody, and I won't convince anybody. But energy, we can actually feel it.

Like, you go into a room or you talk to someone on the phone, and then you can just check in how it makes you feel. And that is energy. That is, so to speak, frequency. And we feel it. Right.

You walk in a room with strangers, you feel either, like, welcome or you feel repulsed or something in between and similar with the land. When you step onto that land where we're building Nioh's life, you can feel the energy. It's like elevating the place. Yeah. And so you've identified the land, it's for sale.

John Ellison

You've got a purchase option agreement lined up. Where are you at in terms of acquisition? Development? Yeah. So we're signing the purchase agreement.

Vincent Daranyi

So we have gone through all the steps. Right. Obviously, due diligence, legal accounting, all of of these aspects. I started working with architects. We've talked to municipality and urban planning.

We met the mayor. Yeah. We put up the website. We're working with a 3d visualizer master planner. So there's a lot of stuff happening already, even before we have acquired the land, so that we can then go.

And now it's signing contract, putting the money down, and then it's finding 5 million, too, to close the purchase. And for that purpose, €5 million. Yeah, €5 million. And it's amazing because the land already has around 3200 existing buildings. And that will be also the first stage to convert that into make it nice and turn it into a hotel retreat space, and a well being center, including holistic medicine.

So something really, really cutting edge. And then over time, obviously, all these things will evolve and grow for the purpose, for people that are interested in being part of this journey and to invest. We're doing investor retreat in actually two weeks. Well, I don't know when you're airing this, but in two weeks, as we're recording from the 10th to the 14 April. And the idea of it is really threefold.

One is obviously, to meet the team, the people, to learn about the project. Two, to spend time on the land to understand, because I think you only fully understand otherwise, it's just another real estate or village project. But once you're on it, I think you grasp it. And then third, to have a profound personal experience through medicine with some very special, two very special medicine journeys and very special facilitators and guides through which we also met right through one of them. And so it's also a personal transformation.

It's you, the participant will go through his own, let me call it, awakening or process, as part of that. So it's going to be a very, I believe, a very special weekend. Amazing. And what's the kind of, I don't know, proposition or story around the investment? Obviously, raising €5 million is no small task.

John Ellison

Capital markets are struggling right now.

Why would somebody do this? That's also part why we're doing the retreat, because, again, talk coming back to the heart. We all have to, or I believe we're all here to ask ourselves, what is really the purpose of my life, and especially in the crypto community, because based on another podcast that I did previously, a lot of people from that space, from the bitcoin space, came, and of course, they are telling me, oh, you know, if I invest here, bitcoin is going to be worth double in whatever, six months, you know, the opportunity cost. But we have to ask ourselves, including myself, right? What am I going to do with all the money?

Vincent Daranyi

Like, money has a purpose, right? It needs to be used. It needs to be in flow. And so here's an opportunity to, I believe, to bring it to great, great use, to great purpose. And it's really, I really sincerely hope that the investor is going to be someone that deeply aligns with the project, that really, it's not just a financial, let's get a return.

Because obviously there's a million ways to invest your money, but it's something that you are connected with that you believe makes sense. Maybe even a place where you want to spend time or potentially even live at some point. Yeah, yeah. And yet, acquiring real world assets that are cash flow generating, it's just a valuable proposition. And diversity is important.

John Ellison

And I think there's a hodl mentality. Buy your bitcoin or your whatever and hold onto it forever and let it grow, grow, grow. But I'm very much of the same that these new tools are here for the regeneration of the earth. It's for the water that we have polluted. It is for the birds, it is for the life.

It is for us to realize who we are and to recognize our role as a keystone species, to cultivate beauty and all of its diversity. And if we find ourselves with stacks and stacks of bitcoin, but we live in a concrete jungle with shit everywhere. Nobody's going to be happy. We need nature. We need community.

Vincent Daranyi

Exactly. And, I mean, of course, everybody has to decide for themselves what to do with their money and their lives and their time and their resources, etcetera. I mean, this. This is an individual decision, but I think for the person that feels called by such a project and then meets the people and the land and et cetera, and then starts dreaming, because it's incredible what we can do there, right? We have a two by two kilometer plot, 410 acres.

It's a huge piece. And we're in the middle of nowhere while still close to civilization. 75 minutes by car. So it's really close, actually. The land even has its own airstrip, so, you know, we might even have an airport.

And it came with that. It's not, like I said, we need an airport. No, but it has it. And then I was like, okay, actually, you know, we will reactivate it. It's from Lisbon departing to Nioh's life in 37 minutes.

And my really. I mean, there's so much. It's much more than just a regenerative village. I really, based on also my past journey, working with incredible holistic doctors, etcetera, the idea is to create also a cutting edge well being center. I call it well being.

This is not wellness. And it's really covering everything from kind of, you know, we will tackle diseases like cancer at some point, not stage one, of course, but at some point, all the way to kind of, you know, human optimization and well being and biohacking the whole range, because. And a big part of it is actually inner, inner development, because the diseases we acquired are just a reflection of our emotional state. I mean, this is very controversial and not conventionally accepted wisdom yet, but that's also what I've learned across my journey. So the idea is to bring all these best practices, and so people will come to this place for these experiences, to be in the nature, in the space, to see how it's done.

I really foresee a very active community, both in terms of who people who actually decide to live there, but in just as much. The people that just come there for a day or a week or a month. Yeah, totally. And I think having a cutting edge well being center with the latest in longevity and biohacking and incredible practitioners who can help people with various challenges is an amazing vision. I think I would caveat my own experience that I don't think all illness is created by some sort of internal dysfunction.

John Ellison

If you take a four year old who's been diagnosed with leukemia. They haven't had the opportunity to develop the internal dysfunctions. There are just systemic toxicity and pollution in our environment and also underlying biological mechanisms that can make us predisposed to illness. I definitely was surprised reading Peter Attias work and diving into how much emotional trauma and repressed emotion and how much our own inner world can contribute to the progression of these four horsemen of the chronic disease apocalypse. And I think that there's a lot to be said there.

And I think having a village with that as a kind of centerpiece is a really interesting play. And I think, you know, my mother has struggled with multiple sclerosis for almost 40 years, and she hasn't had an episode since 2014. And she's off all disease modifying drugs. And, like, the conventional medical approach was just like, what happened? And she was like, yeah, I completely changed my diet and started doing physical therapy.

And, you know, they couldn't really believe it until now. There's like five or six peer reviewed papers because of the work of doctor Terry Walls. That shows its not just the thoughts that were believing, but also the food that were eating, which effectively, in our main society is poison. And so if youre also bringing in organic food, regenerative agriculture on site, youre really creating the conditions for people to truly thrive, which is very hard to get in life now. Yeah.

Vincent Daranyi

And I think medicine is also where we are kind of inversed. And we will, like, we will live in a very different medical paradigm in the not too distant future and hopefully very soon. Yeah, I think so. And, and, you know, to your point, with the, with the four year old, like, there's obviously much more than what just what you happen in this life. Like, we are, you know, and this is a whole other topic, but we are a whole soul and we are a spiritual being.

And so we come into this life already with a lot of stuff. Like, you know, there's generational trauma, for example. I have a lot of sure. Distorted relationship with money. It doesn't make any sense if I look at my, my life, but it comes generationally.

It comes through what my parents went through, like losing everything in the war, etcetera. And now I need to purge it. It's not even my stuff. And so we bring, and I have a really powerful story which just popped in my mind when you, when you talked about your mom. It's my coach.

She had a term. I mean, I'm gonna skip the story how it got to there, which is also an insane story, but just to get to the point. She had a terminal disease and she was five years in bed. She had a near death experience before that. And at some point the doctor had tried all experimental drugs, everything on her, and they said, okay, get ready to die.

And what did she do? She got ready to die, said goodbye to her children, she stopped taking the medication, she stopped eating, and then she had a miraculous healing, and boom, 40 days later, her immune system was back on. And she hasn't been sick in 20 years. And so when people heard this stuff for the first time, and when I heard this stuff for the first time, I was like, ah, that's a crazy story. Someone is just telling something and making something up.

But when you, again, just like all the other rabbit holes, when you dive in, you realize these things are real. Near death experiences are real. You leave your body, you can have it through psychedelics. You can have a near death experience. I experience it.

I experience myself without a body. I know other people have. These are real things. Science is meant to explore those things, but because of the dogma we have in science, we kind of stay stuck in the old paradigm. And this is also something I would love to support being changed, give people the room to really explore these themes and show there's a new way, there's a better way, there's a truer way to understanding that, to get us closer to the truth.

And then that helps us in our process of realizing who we really are as humans. What is a human, really? How does it work? What is the soul? Because there is some such a thing.

And so these are really cutting edge themes. And I hope that we will have a place there where there's room for this to explore and for people to come together, scientists, etcetera, to really explore that in an incredible environment. So now I'm really fast forwarding very fast because this is, you know, it's a huge vision. And we're starting with something very simple. We're starting with a land, a beautiful land and some buildings that will turn into, you know, housing and a well being center.

And then, you know, little by little, you develop the regenerative agriculture, farming, putting residences there, putting a school there, opening the airport. So cool, man. Yeah, it's amazing. And I appreciate you opening up onto your own story. I've also struggled with greed in different ways, and crypto really brought it out in me.

Yes, pull for us, and I had to bleed. I had to pay a huge price several times because of trading with leverage and getting wiped out and making millions and then losing more than I ever had. Yeah, it's been a very humbling journey. Yeah, I'd love to dive into that a little bit, because for me, I got into crypto. I had exited my pandemic startup, not as like, oh, I've got lots of money, but I was like, oh, I started something that was way over my head.

John Ellison

I don't want to deal with this madness. Can somebody buy it off me? And started dabbling with crypto and it was like 2021 bull cycle, and got involved in a project that quickly ten x'd. And instead of being like, oh, I I've made incredible money, I should probably sell and get out and put it to, you know, good use in the world, I was like, I want more, of course. And it was so bizarre.

It was such a weird psychological phenomenon because, like, something really changed me. Something came out and really took over that I hadn't seen before. And when I saw it, I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm also seeing it in all these other people who are doing things that are totally against their values and not in the best interest of this community that we're supposedly trying to build together. And I was really quite shocked and aggrieved in many ways at how deep this runs in a system that's supposed to be trying to do things a different way. And I'm curious to hear your journey of what is the process you've gone through to cleanse it, and what are you doing now to cleanse this as the next cycle emerges, and how are you working with this stuff?

Vincent Daranyi

It's a big journey. And, you know, just to. It's like, there's a number of systems to understand who we truly are. And I didn't, again, just as a side note, didn't believe in any of those. But I look at my gene keys, which is an evolution of human design, which is based on the I Ching and astrology.

And, I mean, it's a huge, it's a conversation, a whole podcast for itself. Yeah. But one of my keys, my shadow, which is kind of what I'm here to evolve from, is greed. And greed, when I move through, it becomes aspiration, and in its highest forms, ascension. And obviously, there's a lot to these words, a lot of content and detail, but it showed me it's part of my journey.

And there's a reason why I have this kind of fear of not having enough. And actually it cost me dearly because that fear led me to, in certain moments, not put money on the table when I should have. And could have made much more. And then the opposite. The greed also led to wanting more and then taking kind of reckless trades.

And when the market turns, not exiting the positions right. When you go up and you work with leverage, then you're like, wow, I'm a genius. But then the market turns, and you get wiped out and end up with less. And I really found myself in this one moment in 2021 when I had really levered up for the first time in my life, and I thought, I'm a genius. As bitcoin was, like, going to new heights.

And then Elon Musk changed his mind and says, like, oh, bitcoin is like an energy hawk and it's not good for environment. And then the price just dropped. And, like, literally, in a matter of, I don't know, a day or days, I went from being a multimillionaire to not. It's been. And when the market turned down, I just looked at my screen and saw the number kind of dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping, and at some point, it was zero.

And I couldn't act. I was, like, frozen. And that is exactly the trauma that we are holding in our body. It's something I have inherited. And I was meant to purge, but I hadn't learned my lesson yet, so I couldn't.

I couldn't, you know, I didn't know yet what to do instead of just, you know, getting out of the position and say, okay, I lost a little bit from the top, but, I mean, you can never get out at the top. Like, that's also an illusion. Yeah, of course. You get out on your way up, just accept that you can't choose the top. Yeah, but then as you go up, you get, like, richer and richer and greedier.

Like, literally, you know, and you're like. And then you're like, I'm a genius. And then also the kind of what I felt there was an entitlement. Like, this is my money. The market is not gonna take it.

And there was, like, a denial then. And then I lost all that money. And then I had to do it another time. Again, like, later in the year, I did it with a smaller amount. And again, I was on the up.

I made a lot of money, and then I destroyed. So really very humbling lessons. And I wrote. Actually, I wrote an article about that as about many things on my blog, just to share the story and help me process it as well. And so life is really.

Life is. We're like. Life is. We're a soul. We're a spiritual being.

We enter the body that's our avatar, and this is the game, and we are playing the game with ourselves to evolve. We chose these circumstances. I chose my parents, and I know these, you know, many people might have a difficulty with. And it's, again, something that we, each, for our own, have to explore, like, you know, these truths, whether it's bitcoin or psychedelics or spirituality. But that's what I found.

And so this is a game, and I set up the game with my own obstacles so that I can evolve. So everything that happens in my life is in service for me. Nothing happens against me or to me. Everything happens for me. Just my human mind, you know, once it easy and convenient and safe and.

John Ellison

Controlled to be in control. But my soul actually is here to grow. So I create obstacles because it's the only way to grow. You know, when you hit the wall or there's a challenge, then you're forced to evolve. And so all of these financial dramas were actually a blessing because if I had all of this money still, then there would be no neo's life, very likely, because I was sitting, would sit in a nice big house and kind of just read books or chill or whatever.

Vincent Daranyi

And would you? And you probably wouldn't have been listening to that person in line. Yeah. Open to it. No, I probably wouldn't be writing about my journey.

And so this poor person wouldn't even have anything to talk to me about. So, yeah, so that's also, I think, important to understand with all, you know, all the adversity. And we're like, resenting, oh, why did this person did that to me? It's all in service of us. Well, that, and that gives no one permission to do something bad to someone.

But it just means that all of these circumstances made you who you are. If you change one thing, if I change, like, for example, this money, this loss, everything else changes. My whole life journey changes. And, you know, one could argue, oh, yeah, but then it would be much better. But that's the illusion.

We have no idea where we would be otherwise. And we just think, oh, if I had more money, then life would be easier. Yeah, but. Or maybe other people would have stolen the money for me or my wife would have, you know, would run away with it, or, you know, everything would be different. We don't have the ability to understand.

And that's kind of the deeper lesson I learned, is if I think I can anticipate, oh, if I do such and such, then I'm going to end up there. That's an illusion. I have no idea what happens? Right? I could walk over the street after this recording and a car drives over me.

It's like, sure. And, you know, who do I meet in the next moment? That's also what the project taught me. All these people that came into my life to make it happen, I didn't call them, they just, you know, it just happened. Showed up when you were ready.

John Ellison

Yeah. And I think these gifts for me are an indication of the abundance that is here for us when we're ready to receive it. And I think it's interesting, the idea that greed is rooted in a sense of scarcity and that our entire monetary system is designed on debt and the scarcity that debt creates. And we are witnessing this cascade of debt upon debt upon debt and the systemic challenges that this is creating as we're running up against the limits of our finite planet that only has so much water and so much living soil and so much life to be extracted. And I think your story is an amazing, amazing almost microcosm of the genitive movement as a whole.

Like, you know, humanity went all in to the separate story of, you know, to the story of a separate self and humanity built cool cars and incredible mansions and had all this stuff. And then all of a sudden we're starting to feel the pressure of the world that we've made through who we believe we are. And now we're in this incredibly powerful, potent, painful transition that is forcing us to evolve as a species and to recognize our rightful place as a part of nature. And I personally think that other cryptocurrencies will play a very integral role in bringing those values into systems and to making sure that the unit of account and the medium of exchange really reflects these values at the deepest level. But I'd be curious to look at actually different set of tools and a different technology.

To wrap up the last quarter of our conversation here, youve spoken quite a bit around your spiritual journey in psychedelics. I wanted to understand how do you see psychedelics as a tool for this process of awakening and shedding and healing through trauma and realizing our role? And which medicines in particular have you personally experienced that have led you to certain insights on the journey? Lets just start there because Im obviously new on this path. I did my first psychedelic journey with the heart protocol just before we met almost a year ago.

And you've obviously been on this path for a while, but they feel like key tools in this transition. So curious to get your overview of the space. Yeah, I mean it was, I mean, there were so many crucial things in my life. So again, if I take one thing out, I wouldn't be where I am. And yes, psychedelics have been a key part.

Vincent Daranyi

And interestingly for me, again, it was completely not on my radar. I had never used any drugs. Okay, maybe I had a puff of Mariana at university, but that was all until age 37, and I'm now 45 and 37. I was at a New Year's party, and dear friends of mine, they kind of, that I trusted, you know, said, oh, do you want to try something? And they gave me a pill of ecstasy, and that was my first.

And I was like, I was open. I was, you know, I had just left my Brazil business that I mentioned earlier, and I was kind of in this exploring, and I was like, okay. And wow, my heart opened and I felt so much love. And I'm like, oh, okay, I need to revisit this. And then I had an opportunity to do ayahuasca, and one thing led to another, and then I ended up, like last year, doing even my own retreats.

Now, I think psychedelics are an incredibly powerful tool, but again, it's just a tool, and how we use it really matters. So, a, we don't need psychedelics, but they can be extremely accelerating and empowering if used in a conscious and in the right way. But they are also not a. We live in this culture that we just want a magic pill. I just have a pill, and then my headache is gone and I have a pill, and then I'm slim, and then I have a pill, and so I take a psychedelic.

I go on a journey, I do ayahuasca or whichever substance, and then I will have no more pain. It actually doesn't work. That, like, the way I look at it is psychedelic is a mind opening tool. So I have a certain amount of time, depending on the substance, that it opens the window curtain, or I kind of. Or another way to say it is like I walk out of Plato's cave, I stop watching the shadow dances, and I get to see full reality, and then it closes again.

And so now I have received information, and now my job is to work that in, to apply it to my daily life, to the human life, in this very physical plane where there is money and there are conflicts and there are relationships and struggles and trauma. And so it's just a tool to open my eyes. So for me then to start doing the work, but the psychedelic doesn't do the work. It just shows me truth. And then I'm meant to implement.

John Ellison

Yeah, yeah, it's super interesting. I think this is definitely something I'm going through now is really learning how to show up and embody those truths that I felt in my psychedelic journeys over the last year. And I was very surprised at how deeply rooted the need to be a good father was in that. And to show up for my children amidst, you know, a failing marriage and separation from countries and, you know, showing up for my kids has given me such a powerful source of energy, and it makes me think about all of the other families around the world that are broken through the wounds that we all carry and the need to create safe spaces for families to do this work, to have support to overcome childhood trauma and negative internal dialogue and toxic communication patterns and all the stuff that we all carry into our relationships with. The best intentions will surface as we grow closer to one another.

And so I'm curious, you know, because TDF is definitely more focused at the kind of digital nomad, younger professionals crew. Like, if Neos life has a particular demographic, demographic focus in terms of who this village is really for. Because building a village for families is a very different tone than building a village for a bunch of digital nomads. Like, yeah, my dream and my vision is that it's for everyone who feels called to spend, you know, that's why I'm saying a village for a thousand people, you will have everything. The idea is really, there's everything.

Vincent Daranyi

It's a village. So there's not just one type or another type. And, yeah, it's multi generational. And because I think there's so many incredible things, and you need to kind of. You need that completeness, in a way, to also make it a model for the world.

Because if you take certain pieces out, then it's not so, you know, even things. When you said munchy degeneration, what just popped into my mind, like, elderly people, they're incredible teachers for young kids, and they're often in society completely. Yeah, for all of us. But all of us are busy, most of us, with jobs, etcetera, and family. There's the older people that have a lot of time, and there's the younger ones where the parents often very busy.

So they are great to go together because they have all the wisdom and no one is using them. There's other cultures, like in certain. Like in Japan, for example, there are no elderly homes like people. It's, you know, there's much more social cohesion. So I think that's what we also can recreate.

There's just so many incredible things because there's this very wise and experienced resource, so to speak, of, you know, elderly people and they feel useless and we put them away in old people's homes, but that's not needed. They can just be integrated in society and so they thrive and they probably live healthier and better lives. And the kids have someone, you know, to. To look after them or to learn something. She's really present as well and isn't constantly distracted by the digital devices that everyone else carries at the palm of their hand and hunched over.

John Ellison

That's beautiful. Well, man, I really wish you the best of luck, and I'm super grateful to hosted this conversation. And I'm just wondering, for people listening who are really resonating, what's one thing that they can do to get involved, to help out? Well, to reach out. If this resonates with you, reach out, because obviously there will be many things.

Vincent Daranyi

Right now, my focus is to bring the funding together to acquire the land. And so if that could be you, then there's the investor retreat, April 10 14th. And I can share more details, like, they can reach me at Vincent, at nios live or in social media. And I'm sure you will put it in the show notes. And, you know, and again, like, you know, building a village for a thousand people will require so much aspects and resources and.

And skills, etcetera. So there will be people who will live on the land very early on and, you know, help. I will be moving onto the land and live there full time the moment we acquire it. So, you know, maybe that's you. And so I think if you resonate with this, reach out, and because I really want this to be an invitation also for everyone to do what they're passionate about, rather than saying, hey, I need ABC.

Yes, there's certain things like, you know, money right now that's needed, but there's many other things. For example, I'm looking for someone to do social media for Neil's life. You know, if you're passionate about them, maybe that's you. So there is so many things to do. So whatever you love to do, if you resonate with this project, there's probably something for you to do here.

So I just invite you to reach out. And of course, if you're just one more thought, if you're close, if you're in Lisbon or around Lisbon or you're coming through Lisbon, then visit the land. I go there regularly. I was there just yesterday again. And then, of course, I will be there for the retreat.

So there's an opportunity to actually see it for yourself. Yeah. Good mountain does these really fun nature meditation walks. Evgenia, who does eternal forest, does these. Yeah, it's a really good way for people to connect deeply with the land.

John Ellison

And it also sounds like you're putting your own skin in the game to this. I assume you haven't raised any other investment. You're doing stuff, you're making stuff happen, you're bringing people together, and you're really putting your money where your heart is. It sounds. And that's coming also to the point again, with the, with the greed and the money story, etcetera.

Vincent Daranyi

It really this project, because I'm not there yet either, right. Like, I haven't resolved all of this. So this project is really pushing me and forcing me to revisit myself and, you know, look in the mirror and say, like, okay, where are you with the topic, with the money topic? Are you willing to put your money back out? And, you know, yes, and I have to.

And it's kind of a purging as I'm walking this path because I really realized this, you know, again, it comes with the example I gave with the alcoholic. It's one understand one thing to know you are one. It's another thing to stop being one. And so it's one thing to talk about all of this and realizing it, also realizing it's another thing to kind of let it go and surrender, to process, use my resources and make it happen. And so the universe is constantly asking, how much do you want it, how much willing?

And the more we want it and the more we really to put our money and our resources where our mouth is, the more we make it happen. Being challenged with that every day. And to be honest, Vincent, this is really what drew me to reach out so frequently is I saw you putting your money and your time and your attention where your heart is, because I know, I know your heart. You know, we really connected at a very deep level. And I was like, okay, he's really going for it.

John Ellison

Like, this is happening. I'm so freaking excited. And if I. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

Vincent Daranyi

I appreciate that. What I learned also is, like, when we put our weight in, then it just creates a momentum and it draws other people in, and then the reason, and then it becomes this train that is kind of rolling and blasting through in the best way. And we all have that potential. So I would also like to use this as an opportunity to invite the listener to really think, what is your life really about? And I'm not saying so much from a want, but who are you.

How are you meant to express yourself? And Nio's life is also meant to be a place where you can express yourself fully and your skills and your gifts are being used. Beautiful, brother. Because what a world if we all live our gift. I mean, that's the world I'm envisaging, where we all doing what we came here to do, who we truly are, rather than sitting in a cubicle or looking at a screen and trading some random commodity on the other world to make money.

Like, yes, you can do that, but there's much more beautiful things you can do, and there's much more beautiful things probably you want to do. Amen. Oh, thanks, Vincent, man, it's been such an incredible journey today. Honor, absolute honor and gift, to witness you showing up as a leader and doing what you believe, man. And I know very, very well.

John Ellison

We're going to sit down at an amazing, gorgeous dinner table and that wellbeing center, look back at this conversation, be like, do you remember that? Do you remember that? Yes, I certainly do. And it's an honor to know you, man. I hope you have a great rest of your day, and, yeah, go say hey to the land for us.

Vincent Daranyi

Thank you. Thank you, John. And I'm looking forward to that dinner. Peace be with you, my friend.

John Ellison

Peace be with you, my friend.