Introduction

Ben BeeriWhat's up, everyone? Welcome to the first ever episode of the Authentic Journey. I'm your host, Ben Beeri. I'm excited to be here with you today. Like, really excited. For me, I feel like this podcast is a purpose project. Yes. I said it. A purpose project. It's not a passion project. I think your purpose is so much bigger than your passion. I feel like a Kobe Bryant. His passion was basketball, but his purpose was so much bigger than that. His purpose was mamba mentality. He'd come into the gym every day at 4AM. He'd outwork everyone that was there playing, And he helped instill this mindset in many people of all ages all across the world and left us all with just an incredible remembrance of the type of person that he was and how he worked on his craft and worked to better himself each and every day.

For me, this hits home. It feels really special that I'm able to share some of my journey with you guys, some of my authentic journey. And it means the world to me to be able to dive deeper into my authenticity in hopes of inspiring you to dive deeper into your authenticity. We have a lot to look forward to here on this podcast. I'm excited to share some of my journey, some of my entrepreneurial journeys, some challenges that I faced in growing businesses, some challenges I've faced with making friends, building relationships, both business and personal, and just kind of how I went on with my journey of just being as authentic as I can be as a person, and where it's kind of gotten me looking at things from a long term perspective rather a short term perspective, a growth perspective versus a comfort perspective, and just taking the extra necessary steps to be more myself and show up as more of myself.

One thing that I've learned is the more that I show up as myself, the better person and the better friend I can be towards other people. And essentially, they tell you what kind of when you're on an airplane, it's like, hey, put your own oxygen mask first, and then you can help other people around you. You really do wanna show up as the best version of yourself that you can be, and that helps uplift everybody that's around you. I was having some conversations with some friends the other day, and we were really talking about how it would be so great if we could share some of the stuff that we were saying with you guys. And if somebody else could hear this and be in on this conversation, can we help inspire somebody else to kind of grow into themselves more, dive deeper into themselves, be more authentic, better themselves, expand their comfort zones, and what that could mean.

That's something that inspired me to come on here and help share some of my journey with you guys. I started my first business when I was 17 years old. That was a pretty big turning point for me. I was in high school. I was just coming off of getting kicked out of middle school. Not many people said I was gonna make it to do much, And it's been one hell of a journey over the last few years to say the least. And I've had many turning points, many good days, many not so good days. Some days you're totally down and out, and some days you're excited for what's coming up next. You have no idea what it is, but it's an exciting time.

Big turning point that I had recently was learning from being a founder and starting and doing everything myself to transitioning and learning how to work with a team and how to empower other people to work on their crafts and become the best they can be and the best versions of themselves. And it really is truly great and truly uplifting to see the people around you becoming their best selves and pouring into them and then pouring back into me. And it's the most beautiful analogy ever that you can't pour from an empty cup. And when your cup isn't empty and you pour into other people and they can start working on building themselves, They can pour back into you and you can work on continuing to build yourself as well.

This is my last summer before I turned 30 years old. I'm here. I'm living life. I want to share my journey with you guys. I wanna be the best me that I can be, the most authentic me that I can be. I'm excited for the person that I'm becoming. And it took me a while to get there. It took me a while to accept myself, to respect myself, to love myself, and to be at a space where I'm willing to share my story, where I've come from, what my shortcomings are. None of us are perfect. Sometimes we try, but we never truly get there. We're always in the process of building.

And there's a lot of fear that goes into trying new things. And the only real answer to fear is to take action to combat that fear. And I'm excited that I'm at a point now where I can take that action and try to turn those fears off. And even if they're still kind of present, by continuing to take action and taking a step forward each and every day, I feel like I can share more of my story and hopefully help inspire some of you guys to be more authentic and dive deeper into your authentic journey. This podcast is not about going viral. It's not about saying anything crazy. It's not about being controversial.

It's just being my most raw and authentic self that I can possibly be, bringing on some guests that can share with you guys their stories and where they've been and their shortcomings and how they've been able to overcome things. And I hope that we can inspire some of you guys to go and just be your most authentic selves and really be somebody that you can admire and love and respect and accept and go into every situation knowing that you have the ability to become a better person from it and grow from it, expand your comfort zones, and just be the best you that you can become. There's a lot I'm excited about on this podcast.

Some of the episodes will be me coming on here, sharing a message with you guys. It means something to me. Some of the episodes will have some guests on, some guests you may have heard of, some guests who have really incredible stories, stories of overcoming things, stories of successes, stories of failures and shortcomings, and just being who they are as people and learning to accept themselves and learning to respect themselves and learning to love themselves. We're gonna have some fun on this podcast.

Some of our conversations are gonna get uncomfortable. They're gonna get deep. Some conversations are just gonna be fun. They're gonna be free flowing. We're gonna have a good time here. All of our conversations are going to be real. They're going to be authentic. They're going to be uncensored. You guys are gonna hear our journeys directly from us and whatever we've been through, the good, the bad, the ugly, and how we've grown, how I've grown to become who I am today and our guests who they've grown to become who they are today in an effort to just dive as deep as we can into our own authenticity.

That's the goal. I'm excited to dive deep into why our mindsets are what our mindsets are and what we desire versus what are our disciplines, where we're looking to grow in life versus where are we looking to be comfortable in life? Why do we choose one versus the other? And what makes us the person that grows the most or the person that is the most disciplined? Does our discipline outweigh our desire? Or are we sometimes held back by some of our desires and a lack of discipline? Do we choose to grow, or do we choose to be comfortable?

In order to grow, you have to give up being comfortable. Yeah. But in order to be comfortable, you have to give up being able to grow. Right? And some of our mindsets hold us back from one because we choose the other. If you choose to be comfortable, you're not actually able to grow. And if you choose to grow, sometimes you have to give up on being comfortable. But then once you get that growth, you end up in a spot where that growth can be permanent. And now all of a sudden, you can still be comfortable in something that wasn't once comfortable to you.

I'm really grateful you were able to spend some time here with me today. If anything that was said today resonates with you, I hope that you can check us out on some of our future episodes. This is The Authentic Journey. We're on Instagram as the authentic journey pod. I'm your host, Ben Beeri. I'm on Instagram as benbeeri, b e n b e e r I. And I'm excited to see you on the next episode of The Authentic Journey. See you soon.