Podcast Transcription: How To Make The Impossible Possible with Shannon Graham  

Ted Ryce: Shannon Graham, thanks so much for coming back on the show. It’s been so long since you’ve been here. I was just checking out the previous episode. It was Episode 140. We’re in, I think, the 400s now, so it’s been a while, my friend.

Shannon Graham: It’s been a while. I’m happy to be back.

Ted Ryce: Yeah, and for those of you who don’t know Shannon, he is a coach who helps visionary leaders achieve the impossible. In fact, one of the things that you’re up to right now that we’re going to dive into, sounds—I mean, I was talking to some friends about it, some entrepreneurs, and my cousin about it, it sounds impossible, what you’re helping people with. And I just want to catch up with you and just ask, like, what have you been up to throughout these years, and the COVID changes? You’re thriving right now, just to hear a little bit about the journey of the past few years.

Shannon Graham: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the last few years have been a trip, man. So, in 2008, when the stock market crashed, my business had a record year. And the reason for that is because when uncertainty hits, the one thing that’s most valuable during that time is certainty.

And I work with leaders, so when COVID hit, there was a lot of uncertainty that got created. How are we going to navigate this? How do we continue to still create impact? All the things. And so that was a record year for me as well, 2020. And I’ve been able to ride that over the last couple of years as well.

And so, it’s been great, man. And yeah, I’ve just also been really focused on how do I expand myself? I think that anyone who has a business, whether it’s a product or a service, should be thoughtful about how do I deliver a better product? And how do I innovate it? How do I make it more valuable, ultimately? Even if it’s highly valuable already, I think that’s what people get caught up with sometimes.

It’s like, if you’ve created something that’s really good, sometimes people will rest on their laurels a little bit and focus on more sales, rather than more excellence. And so, I’ve been focused on both.

Ted Ryce: Love that. Yeah, I can’t say 2009 was a record year for me, but certainly COVID was a great time. As you said, it created a lot of uncertainty, and when people feel that, they’re looking for something or someone to give them more clarity, to give them more certainty, I would love to talk about that a bit.

Now, this show, we talk to entrepreneurs, we talk to people who want to make big change in the world, who want to achieve the impossible, right? And there’s a lot of other people who listen in, who aspire to be those people one day. Man, I just want to jump into what you’re doing right now, because it’s such an incredible—when I heard it, I was just like, “Oh man, so cool.” So, can you talk about what Astranaut is, and why you created it?

Shannon Graham: Yeah, absolutely. So, Astranaut is the world’s first company to combine space travel, human potential training, cryptocurrency and NFTs. And I created it ultimately, because I believe that humanity has the potential to become something much more than what it is right now.

And I believe that evolution is an effect that comes from some cause; there’s always some causality with evolution. And so, we have this dormant potential in our civilization, so we need some type of catalyst, some type of causation or causality to ignite that potential, to bring it forward.

You see this with entrepreneurs all the time; they do things they’ve never done before when their back is against a wall, when something happens and it’s a disaster, and it’s unexpected, and they don’t have the time, and they don’t have the money, and they don’t have the resources, but it has to get done. Their back is up against a wall. They go to a level of resourcefulness, and creativeness, and tenacity, and sticktuitiveness or collaboration, or whatever, that they’ve just never been to. But without that impetus, they don’t experience that. So, it’s kind of fascinating.

And so, Astranaut really seeks to be the lead domino to tip humanity towards what I call a tier one civilization. Kardashev was an astrophysicist back in the late 50s, and he theorized that there is intelligent life beyond us in the universe. And if that’s true, then there’s probably multiple levels of intelligence, and that those different levels of intelligence correlate to different tiers of civilization.

And so, I believe from a consciousness standpoint and a technology standpoint, we have the potential in the next 50 years, to reach a very, very high level of existence, both technologically and consciously, and we need a catalyst for that. And so Astranaut ultimately seeks to send people to space, who want to make the world a better place.

And what happens when you go to space, I haven’t been yet, but when you see the Earth from space, you have this unprecedented perspective, you see the Earth in a way that you’ve never seen it before, you see it without borders, you see it without boundaries, you see it without race, or religion, or creed. You see it completely as it truly is, which is, one planet, one human race.

And you also see it against this backdrop of just vast nothingness, blackness, and you realize how fragile it is. And everyone that has gone to space comes back completely changed for that reason. So, what if you took people to space who really have a deep desire to make the world a better place in some way, shape or form that’s very specific?

Like, they want to revolutionize technology, or the economy, or medicine, or whatever, you give that experience to that type of person, and it becomes gasoline on their desire to make the world a better place, they have an unprecedented level of perspective, and then you take that down back to earth, and you tangibly use that fuel to move that initiative forward. So, that is ultimately what Astranaut is about.

Ted Ryce: Incredible. And what you’re talking about is, the story you used about entrepreneurship, and people having their back up against the wall, in these circumstances that force transformation, force creativity, force problem solving. And what I hear you doing with Astranaut, is you’re trying to say, hey, listen, instead of waiting until your back’s up against the wall, waiting until the shit hits the proverbial fan, let’s proactively create a shift in consciousness, a shift in perspective, and go after that.

And I love that. I love that so much. It’s something that we haven’t talked in a while, but I left the United States in 2018, moved to Bangkok, Thailand. Had never been there before, didn’t know what to expect, but I knew I needed to make a big change, and man, it’s not going to space, but I’ll tell you it changed my perspective, changed me as a person.

And while we may not all be able to pick up and leave our home towns, or home countries were, in the case that you’re talking about, going to space, right? We all can…So if you’re listening to this, you’re like, “I ain’t never going to space, I don’t know about that.” Well, don’t count it out, but the idea here that I hear you talking about, which I’m very much into, all about, is that we need these experiences to somehow drive a shift in consciousness.

And with the Outback, the Netflix, the Apple Plus series, the going out to eat and having the gold leaf, Tomahawk ribeye, and downing a few glasses of Petris, or buying a new car, buying a new house, those things, they’re fine, there’s nothing wrong with them, but it really doesn’t cause the shift, it causes an altered state, but not altered traits, we don’t become a better version of ourselves. And if I’m hearing you right, that’s what it’s about.

Shannon Graham: Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, if you look at suicide amongst high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals, is at an all-time high.

Ted Ryce: I did not know that.

Shannon Graham: Most people don’t, it’s fascinating. You would think that if anyone had it good, that it would be them. And in fact, it’s the opposite of that, what we’re seeing is more drug use, and just abuse of substances overall, depression, isolation, and disconnection.

And ironically, the guy who sold Minecraft to Microsoft, I can’t remember his name. But sold Minecraft to Microsoft for like, I don’t know, a billion dollars or something.

He would spend a million bucks just casually on a Friday at it, just for a house party. And he wrote this big expose on himself, about how he was not happy, about how he was not fulfilled, and he got fried for it, because the majority of the planet was like, “Fuck you, man, like you’ve got all this money, like you have no reason, you have no right to complain.”

And that’s a little bit of the problem, we move away from one race, when we begin to separate ourselves from each other. This person, though, he’s got plenty of money, at the end of the day, he has a heart, just like everyone else, and his pain and his suffering is just as real as anybody else’s. It might be on a different scale, it might be a different experience, but it’s still pain and it’s still real, and it’s still valid.

And so, as of today, for the most part, the only people that are going to space that are non-agency level, meaning like NASA or etc. are high net worth individuals, because the price tag of going to space is still relatively high, although it’s democratizing fairly quick.

But I’m using Astranaut also as a way to kind of reshape the landscape of what it means to be a high net worth or ultra-high net worth individual. It doesn’t have to come with this secret narrative of that it’s kind of going to suck, and that you’re going to be miserable. I want to reshape it to that, it’s actually, the rest of your life is going to be the best of your lives. And going to space is actually not the peak of your experience, the impact you create and who you become is actually the highest part of that. So yeah, there’s a lot of cool pieces to the puzzle.

Ted Ryce: Yeah, and I would love for you to talk a little bit more because…So I had a shift too, right? I went from just struggling to pay my bills every month, which a lot of people are in, and you’re in that struggle, and that struggle gives you purpose, it defines you, it gives you purpose, it gives you drive, it gives you something to do.

And then when my business started doing better, and all of a sudden, there’s like, “I could go do things, you know, I could take time off from work.” And all of a sudden, you start getting into these existential questions, like, what am I? Okay, so money, I can go buy more stuff than I used to, but what does that really mean? What does that do?

And I think a lot of people either are concerned about that, or have experienced that directly. And what can you say for someone who might be in that situation and maybe feeling the depression that you talked about, this statistic where high net worth people are feeling this way?

Shannon Graham: Yeah. Well, it boils down to two things. It boils down to that ultimately, we’re talking about two different things. We’re talking about what I call the art of fulfillment, or the science of achievement. And they’re two very different things.

Unfortunately, most successful people believe that they can reach or at minimum approximate fulfillment through achievement, which is not true. No level of achievement will ever make you fulfilled. It will make you feel like you’ve achieved something, but achievement is not necessarily the same as fulfillment. I know people who have no money that are wildly fulfilled, wildly fulfilled. And I know people with tons of money that are not, and so obviously there is not a correlation.

But our wires get crossed, especially in Western culture, where we’re so indoctrinated with this idea that money and success really buys you the good life. And it can, if you know how to spend your money, but the houses and the cars, and the flexing and all the things. Even having more options doesn’t necessarily do it. I know people that from a mobility standpoint, financially are very limited, but yet they’re still very happy and very fulfilled. So, that’s not necessarily the answer.

So, the answer is, what makes you fulfilled? What makes you happy? What makes you expand as a person? What’s challenging for you, as a person, not business-wise. Those are the questions that cause people to saturate into more fulfillment, into more happiness. It doesn’t mean that you can’t chase big money, it doesn’t mean that you can’t chase big impact and things like that. I frankly think people should do both.

But one without the other, you know, Tony Robbins calls it the ultimate failure. If you have everything you ever thought you wanted in life, and you realize that it’s not it, then you’re really screwed, because then it’s like, “Well, shit, I got everything that I thought was going to do it, and it didn’t do it, now what?” Now you have no idea, you have no blueprint for how to move forward from there. And it’s because they were asking the wrong question from the beginning.

So, you can save yourself a lot of heartache and a lot of time by simply asking the right question from the beginning, and that is, what do I want? Not what have I been conditioned to want? Most people that I know that have Lamborghinis, when I really drill them on why they got it, it wasn’t even because they really wanted it in the first place, it was because somebody else had it, and they thought that’s what they should do in order to be whatever.

So, what do you want? What makes you happy? What makes you fulfilled? What are you passionate about? What feels challenging to you, but in a good way, like what character traits are like, ooh! Yeah, if I had a bit more integrity, or man, if I had a bit more compassion, or man, if I was a bit more focused. None of that has anything to do with money, all of that has to do with character, because it’s who we become at the end that we fall in love with, anyway.

Ted Ryce: This conversation right now reminds me of a quote from the late American mythologist, Joseph Campbell. And what he said was, “The cave that we fear to enter, holds the treasure that we seek.”

And I think one of the things that people don’t get about our society, American society, and something that hit me in the face as I’ve been living outside the United States, is people who are really good at making money, and you make more of it because—and you knew how to make more, it was just a matter of doing A, and then doing B, and you had it. It’s not challenging anymore. You’re stuck in the comfort zone.

And I’ve worked with a lot of high net worth individuals in Miami beach. My demographic of who I’ve worked with is kind of different now that I’m running my business online.

But when I was in Miami beach, especially which attracts a certain type of person, in the party scene, and the social scene, in the showing off scene, it’s like well, “Hey, let’s go do this, thing.” “Oh no!” You know, there’s people who are afraid to have a conversation with someone that they’re close to, but they’ll go crush it in business, or…Yeah, there’s so many examples of this, and that’s what I feel like you’re talking about right now.

Shannon Graham: Yeah, you’re a thousand percent correct. The challenge is, also the narrative with wealth, is that it tends to be a vehicle to create comfort. And that’s great, it can get you a really comfortable car, it can get you a really comfortable seat on a plane, it can get you a really comfortable hotel room, and it can get you a really comfortable house in a private gated community, where it feels really comfortable and really safe, and that’s great, but that’s not where we grow, we grow at our edge.

To your point, what’s the conversation that feels edgy to you? What’s the experience that you could go have that would push you out of your comfort zone? Because that’s where we grow. So, what happens is, these guys get all these luxuries, and they’re super comfortable, and it’s great for a while, but it really doesn’t last very long, because our desire, our innate human nature is to expand, is to grow.

And so you’re comfortable for so long, and it’s nice, and it feels good, and then your soul is calling for something different, because you cannot sit at the table of success for that long. You’re got to get back out into the game, you’ve got to get back out into the field, where there’s danger, and there’s risk, and there’s uncertainty, and ultimately there’s growth, right?

Our scars are just representations of that we were bigger than whatever tried to kill us. And so, if we go too long without getting in the ring and taking some punches, we lose that edge to begin to generate wealth, and then to have the insight, or the consciousness to be able to say, great, now let’s use it to continue to put myself in situations that makes me uncomfortable, that’s the intelligent thing to do.

Ted Ryce: That’s the way forward, one hundred percent. A mentor of mine, Peter Sage, talks about how our nervous system loves comfort. And we have this desire, and when I hear you talking about how people are accumulating wealth, and getting that first, flying that first-class, or maybe even on their own plane, it’s just gets more uncomfortable, and more comfortable, and uncomfortable, and uncomfortable.

But then, like you said, it’s just, you can’t sit at that table of success for too long, something happens inside of us, because there’s another part of us, our soul, our inner being, or whatever you want to call it, it just longs for growth and challenge.

I’m very curious, man, so, this is something—I’ve lived this, right? Like, I’m always… I’ve had a pretty… we’re not going to go over my story, or I remember your story that you shared here on the podcast, they can go listen to that in Episode 140.

But what are some other things that you have seen that can be very impactful, besides this…

I mean, I’m just thinking, like you’re taking five people this space, right? And so, that’s a very small number of people, although if it’s the right people, it can make tremendous impact. But if someone’s not ready for that step, what else do you see that people can start to do to become more of these people?

Shannon Graham: Yeah, I think a lot of it comes down to…So, the interesting thing is that we’re moving away from a culture that predominantly focuses on finding solutions to problems. We are rapidly approaching a civilization where we really won’t have problems anymore. To a large degree, we don’t as of today.

Now, the flip side of that is we have some really major problems as a society. However, our consciousness is changing to the degree that we’re no longer in a problem solution loop of operating system from a mindset perspective.

What that means is, we are going to graduate into a level of existence where we predominantly think creatively, so it’s the difference between many businesses look at, look for problems to solve in the world, because the solution to those problems is valuable, and that’s how they generate revenue. That’s cool.

But then you have something like art, you have a guy like, what’s his name? Beeple, who just sold his NFT for $69 million. The question is this, what problem? What major world problem did that solve? None. What is the point of dancing? There is no point, and yet we love it, and people spend thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, and they travel thousands of miles to go to Burning Man and dance in the desert.

Why do they do it? Why is that so important to them? Because dancing apparently is valuable, art, music, what’s the point of music? What great world problem does that solve? None, zero. But it’s super valuable.

And so, my suggestion to people who are listening, would be to think about what’s something that you can offer the world, that’s not a solution to a problem, but that is valuable, that is something that gives people more creativity, or it helps them express themselves more, or helps them do one of those things, because that is the trend of where we are going.

So, the people who are ahead of that curve are already doing very, very, very well. And yeah, that’s where I encourage people to think and to play. And what’s cool about that is, it liberates people from having to be in the loop of problem solution, it’s like, well, I’m not really sure, what tools I have that can solve problems.

Well, most creative people don’t, most creative people don’t have….If you talk to a guy like Beeple, he doesn’t have crazy tools in his tool belt that solve world problems, but he’s super good at art, and that’s his thing. But if he was conditioned to think that he had to solve problems, he would be up the creek, because that’s just not his thing.

So, it liberates people to get away from that conditioned way of “the only way that I can be valuable in the marketplace is if I’m bringing some solution.” You can depart from that into something that is much more out of the box, and equally, if not more, valuable.

Ted Ryce: Can you talk a little bit about that? Because what I feel like you’re saying is, entertainment. Just to make it, you know, to wrap it up in a word, so art, right? It doesn’t solve problems for us, but it moves us emotionally, dancing the same thing. And so, what are you suggesting to do exactly, to focus on…? Can you just expand on that a little bit more?

Shannon Graham: Yeah. Well, so basically it comes down to this, it comes down to, if you’re listening to this, and you want to do something really awesome for the world. The question might be, what feels playful to you? Instead of like, what problem can I solve? Which is what most entrepreneurs think about, the question might be, what feels most playful to you? What can you bring to the world that feels playful, that feels joyful?

And I don’t necessarily like the word entertainment, because we very much live in a world of entertainment right now, so that’s not inaccurate. But what I’m really getting at is something that the more people that engage in self-expression, without being attached to problem- solution thinking, the more it liberates other people to do the same.

And so, really you become just as powerful as an Elon or as a whoever, simply by existing through your self-expression, because other people look at you and go, “Wow, Ted is so self-expressed,” and it, by proxy, illuminates them to be self-expressed in their own way. And the more people that live that way, the better.

And so, to think about like, man, I could start a podcast, or I could start a YouTube channel, or I could make some kind of art, or I could do something that it feels really joyful to me, is so much of the path forward.

Ted Ryce: So, what lights us up inside?

Shannon Graham: Yeah, what lights you up? If you didn’t even have to worry about getting paid to do it, what would you do? Or if you just had a crazy amount of money sitting in the bank, and you just woke up today, and you were like, “man, what feels really playful and joyful for me to do today?” That’s probably the thing you should go do.

Ted Ryce: Well, for me, it’s having more of these conversations, but doing them in person in a studio and speaking on stage, which is in the works for me.

Shannon Graham: Yeah, it’s awesome.

Ted Ryce: Very cool. Let’s go back to Astranaut, like, who is this for?

Shannon Graham: Well, at this time, ultimately, in the future, it will change. But as of right now, it’s for a very particular type of person. It is for a person that is high net worth, or ultra-high net worth, that wants to go to space, that also wants to make a big difference in the world, and they’re very clear on how they want to do that.

So, obviously, in relation to the grand population of earth, that’s a very, very, very small amount of people. And what’s cool is, what I’ve discovered about tipping evolution, is that it really only takes a couple of people to do something really profound in order to create an en masse upgrade on our civilization problem.

Ted Ryce: Yeah, I could see that. And talk to me a little bit about like, because what you didn’t call it, you’ve called the Astranaut Training in other places, or Space Travel Training, I forget the term you used. But you used a different term today, like self-development, you use it? What was the term you used?

Shannon Graham: Human potential.

Ted Ryce: Human potential. So, what are we talking about here? Obviously, you’ve got to handle the Gs, you’ve got to do what…I only know this from watching, like for all mankind and other shows about space travel, but what are we talking about here? What do you mean by human potential training?

Shannon Graham: Well, the interesting thing about going to space today, is that depending on the type of experience you want to have, there’s really not a lot of training involved, it’s kind of a glorified ride, I guess you could say, you know? So, for example, like Blue Origin, the trip that William Shatner did last year, there’s really not a lot of training involved for that, it’s…

Ted Ryce: And he’s 80-year-old.

Shannon Graham: He’s 90.

Ted Ryce: 90, wow!

Shannon Graham: He’s 90. So, for a guy like him to be able to do it is a little bit indicative of what’s involved, as far as training. Now, if you want to go to the ISS, or if you want to go to the moon, or if you want to do some of these other things, obviously, the training is much, much more intensive.

But the point is this: The human potential training from astronaut, has more to do with personal development, than anything else. Ironically, that’s the one thing that tends to be the most missing from traditional astronaut training, they train you for G-forces, and they train you on technology, and they train you on medical things, and they train you on a bunch of different things that are mission-critical, or mission-specific, as they should be.

But Astranaut’s whole slant is well, that’s all well and good, but the real question is, the amount of time you spend in space relative to the amount of time you spend on the Earth is nowhere near the same. And so, the more important question is, what are you doing to train yourself for the time that you’re on Earth? Because you’re going to spend a lot more time here than you are going to on Earth.

And so, the human potential side has more to do with, how do we increase your capacity to produce universe denting results? Again, of course, depending on the type of experience you want to have in space, there’s training to correlate with that. But our angle really has more to do with elevating people from a potential standpoint.

Ted Ryce: It reminds me a bit of another transformational experience I did, Ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica, and it was incredible, for me, it was life-changing. I also saw people who they went to the Ayahuasca experience, and they went back to their high-pressure job, and they found themselves back at Ayahuasca experience again, and again, and again, and it was just a break in.

So, what I hear you saying—and I’m just drawing parallels from my own experiences to try to put context around it, but it’s not like you’re a person who maybe you got a lot of money, but you don’t really care that much, and you’re looking for something to just excite you, and then you go into space and come back, the peak experience is in—like you said earlier, it’s not about that peak experience, looking back at the earth, although that was probably pretty amazing, it’s about what you do when you come back.

Shannon Graham: That’s right, that’s a hundred percent correct. And that’s why you’ve never heard me refer to Astranaut as space tourism, because we don’t believe in that, we don’t believe in just sending people who have a lot of money up to space, simply so that they can brag to their buddies, or simply because they’re bored, and it’s like the next thing that they can spend money on.

We’re not interested in that. That’s why when you said, who is this really for? I didn’t just say high net worth individuals, I said high net worth individuals that have a very deep desire to make the world a better place. Because it really, really is all about what do you do when you come back? And how do we put the majority of our energy, and our training, and our focus on that side of the equation.

The overview effect, that’s the space perspective will take care of itself, that’s just part of going for the ride. But really, not leaving that impact up to chance, and working very intentionally to create something that makes change, that’s where all the real magic happens.

Ted Ryce: Love that. So, integrating that experience, and saying, okay, so what did you see up there?

Shannon Graham: That’s right.

Ted Ryce: What came up for you, and what are you going to do with that…

Shannon Graham: That’s right.

Ted Ryce: …Epiphany you had?

Shannon Graham: That’s right, imagine if everyone who did Ayahuasca, imagine if every single person who did Ayahuasca had to go through an experience, where they integrated that experience, and they tangibly mapped it out into who they were going to be different, and what they were going to do different in the world.

Imagine the world we would live in, and imagine the experience, and the reality that the people who do Ayahuasca would have. It would be wildly different than the majority of what we see, which is people do it, they have this crazy experience, and then they go back to their high-pressure job, and then nothing really changes.

Yep, six weeks later, they go back, just because it’s more of an escape at this point than anything else. And that’s a very, very real at this point, and it’s very real. And that’s been something I’ve been well aware of in the transformational industry for a long time.

People go to Tony Robbins, because they want to walk on fire, and they want to break boards, and they want to have a really elevated experience for 72 hours or whatever it is. And then they go home, and they fucking fall off a cliff. Well, it’s because there’s no integration. And so, we’re actually like a hundred percent dedicated to the opposite of that. And so, yeah, that’s really what it’s about.

Ted Ryce: Yeah, I love that, man, because it’s okay, I don’t want to talk bad about anybody, because it’s not on, the pressure isn’t on Tony, for example, you brought up, or a lot of these places, it’s like people say they integrate, but it’s just how well do they do it? And also, it’s a two-way street, the person’s got to want to do the work. So, you’re looking for people who are ready to do that work.

Shannon Graham: That’s right.

Ted Ryce: Incredible. And so obviously, if you’re listening right now, and you’re like whoa, this is something I need to figure out more, I need to learn more about this, you can go to astranaut.space,.

Yeah, and five NFTs, five astronauts, five trips to space, five unprecedented timepieces as well.

Shannon Graham: Incredible.

Ted Ryce: And I see the launch is over, so you already have the five people, or…?

Shannon Graham: We officially launched last week at the North American Bitcoin Conference.

Ted Ryce: Oh, very cool. Okay, so, there’s time, if you want to be part of this, you know where to go, that astranaut.space, very cool. And Shannon man, it’s been such a pleasure connecting again, and what would you say to the person right now listening to this?

What would you want? What’s the one thing you’d want someone listening to this interview with you? What’s the one thing they should take away from it?

Shannon Graham: I think the biggest thing would be to listen to what you want. I think we get so confused with that. It happens to be the hardest question on the planet for people to answer, what do you want? It’s so simple.

It’s such a simple question, and yet it’s the hardest question on the planet for people to answer. And it’s because they’re predominantly concerned with what they don’t want, most people are very aware of what they don’t want.

But unfortunately, the way that we create our reality is through our thoughts, and so, if we’re focused on what we don’t want the majority of the time, then unfortunately, that’s what we get, the universe unfortunately doesn’t filter that and be like, I know what you’re really trying to say.

So, to sit with that question, what do I want? What do I want? To have the courage to really answer it, who do I want to be? What do I want to do? What do I want to have? Where do I want to go? What do I want to give? And to just be as beautifully honest as you can be with the answer to those questions.

Because what’s awesome is, when you answer those questions, it typically leads you to a very, very high level of clarity, and that clarity also informs what’s not important, which some people, again, are very aware of, but some people are not. But that clarity allows you to have certainty, and certainty allows you to move forward, and to experienced life in a very beautiful way.

Ted Ryce: Shannon Graham, powerfully stated, so excited to connect with you again, love the conversation, can’t wait to see what becomes of Astranaut, and the transformational change that happens after you take people up into space. So incredible man, thank you so much for your time today.

Shannon Graham: Yeah, thanks, Ted, thank you so much.