Following the Intuitive Breadcrumbs with Anthony Capobianco

• [00:39]Stephan introduces Anthony Capobianco, the founder of Zen Tea Traders, where he helps people step up their tea game while slowing things down a bit.
• [04:36]Anthony tells a story of the early days of his business, Zen Tea Traders.
• [10:33]Stephan and Anthony discuss prayers being heard and learning life lessons by looking at the bigger picture.
• [16:17]Anthony shares some of the recent synchronicities that showed up in his life.
• [22:45]Anthony tells a fascinating story of him receiving messages in his dream.
• [26:48]Stephan shares a story about a chicken butcher who followed guidance from his late dad, who talked to him in his dream.
• [32:37]Stephan tells us an example of synchronicity he had that led him to meet a person who was a vibrational match.
• [38:42]Anthony describes the impact of believing and asking for alignment in your life.
• [42:42]Anthony shares some of the people he is currently inspired by or gets coaching spiritually; one of them is Preston Smiles.
• [48:34]Visit Anthony Capobianco’s Zen Tea Traders website at Zenteatraders.com, to check out fine artisan teas.

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Anthony, it’s so great to have you on the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

Anthony, we sat down and had tea maybe a couple of years ago now, maybe three years ago. You really struck me as somebody who is a go-getter, somebody who has a big vision and then takes action to see it through. Do you want to share a bit about your story of how you ended up in the tea business?

Thanks. Actually, it’s really interesting because you don’t know what you don’t know. You’re going through life. You’re filling out the form. You’re standing in lines. You’re doing everything you’re supposed to do, and then all of a sudden, something hits you. That’s what happened to me. I was a mortgage banker right out of college, grinding it out at 90 miles an hour. Footballs flying across my face while I’m on the phone selling, it was interesting.

If you can picture the stockroom trading floor, what happens is you redline yourself. You push yourself, “Let’s go, let’s go.” That’s great until something happens and you fall off, and you’re like, “Wait, what’s going on?” It started to happen to me like little tiny signs, where I would get sick a lot. I couldn’t figure out why. I’m super healthy. People at work started calling me the strongest sick guy because I trained in martial arts and karate for 20 years of my life. I had a third-degree black belt in my training, yet I was calling off work a lot because I was sick.

Why was that? It’s because I was going on a treadmill and I didn’t have a chance to stop for a moment. I found myself asking questions like, “What’s going on? I don’t understand. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do. Why am I not feeling right? Why are my emotions feeling down?” I was starting to feel sad. I found myself starting to gravitate towards tea. When I was younger, I was a kid, maybe seven years old or eight years old, I remember having tea with my grandmother at the kitchen table.

I started to learn about just the basics like Lipton red rose, that kind of thing. At a point in my life where things would get really difficult if you will, I found myself sitting silently and having tea. I never really paid attention to it. The more I started to do that, the more I asked, what is this tea thing about? It just started to show up on its own. Here I am at work, and one day I’m zoned out in my space. If you could picture an open floor with a bunch of cubicles, and we’re all wearing headsets, and everybody’s up on the phone selling.

I was just sitting down at my desk, and I had like a little water boiler. I had a teapot, some tea, and I’m just pouring tea. Then some of my coworkers would come by my desk. This is an open floor plan where it’s 300 to 500 people, you can see across this huge space. They would come to my desk and say, “Hey, Anthony, can I have some of this tea? Can I buy some of this from you?” I’m like, “Yeah, I’ll sell you some.”

When I was younger, I remember having tea with my grandmother at the kitchen table.

It started to grow from there. Then one day, the CEO of the company came by my desk and said, “Come here for a minute.” I said, “What’s up?” He said, “This tea thing you’re doing.” I’m thinking he’s going to yell at me for having a water boiler at my desk and pouring tea. He says to me, “This tea thing that you’re doing, it’s got legs, I love this, keep doing this.” There was something there.

Now, the tea thing happened but what was under all of that was stillness because here I was going 90 miles an hour and no matter what I was doing, I wasn’t achieving enough. But then when I would stop and smell the roses if you will, things started to show up for me. Instead of seeking answers, I started asking questions. That’s really where my journey began in 2007.

Like most people, a lot of people out there, I grabbed the movie The Secret. That was like the entry to, “Wow, what’s all this about?” That was the journey I started going down, asking more questions. What is this law of attraction thing? A lot of people thought it was like the super hippie dippy granola thing. I kept it on the DL and just did my own thing. I love learning about what I don’t know, in that space of calling things into existence or just sitting quietly.

What it all leads back to is sitting still and doing nothing and letting things show up for you because people will say, “What about this, what about that?” I’m like, “No, just sit quietly.” Can you sit in a room? Can you sit in a room for 30 minutes to an hour, without doing anything? Turn your phone off, just sit still. Eventually, if you do that enough, things start to show up for you. You don’t hear voices, maybe some people do. What I call it is I call it broadcasting in HD, high definition to my higher power, my source, whoever’s on the door for you upstairs. That’s what it allows me to do. I went from buying things trying to “keep up with the Joneses” if you will—sports cars, boats. I had beautiful girlfriends, all this stuff. But it was never actually filling enough.

It’s almost as if you were starving, and I said to you, “Stephan, you’ve got to have this Doritos. It’s amazing.” You’re going to eat the Doritos and be like, “Wow, this tastes good but I’m not really full. I’m still hungry.” That’s the stuff. That was the car, that was the boat, that was the women, that was whatever it was at the time.

In order to gain anything, you must first lose everything.

I’ll never forget this. I was sitting in my house. I had all that stuff. But I was still feeling depressed and sad. Now, I’m the kind of person where if I have that emotion, I don’t stay there very long. I find ways to get out of that, whatever that is. I’m sitting there on the couch, and I’m watching. Something comes up and it says something about the Buddha on TV, like the life of the Buddha or some documentary. I checked it out.

There was something in there that said, in order to gain anything, you must first lose everything. I stopped. I said, ‘I wonder what this is.” I didn’t really know what that meant at that time, but within 24 hours, things started to show up for me like, “You know what, get rid of your car, get rid of your boat, get rid of the stuff, and let’s see what shows up.”

The stuff didn’t make me. I made the stuff. However, I was acting as if the stuff made me, who I was, “Hey, I’ve got a boat, come hang out.” “Hey, I got a sports car. Come check me out.” “Look at me.” I might as well have big bright lights on the side of my car that said, “Look at me.” That’s what I was becoming. When I got rid of all that stuff, I went into a different area of myself. I call it Anthony 2.0, where I started asking more questions going down this pathway where I didn’t need as much stuff, but the life experiences in my connections were what actually helped me evolve to a different level.

If I look at my 2007 self and look at my 2021 self—obviously, we change every so many year anyhow—but I’m a way different person. My thought process, everything. I haven’t drunk alcohol in 11 years. People say to me all the time, “Oh, did you have a problem?” I’m like, “No, I never had a problem.” Shit happens when you start meditating, I guess. I call it like I was saying before, broadcasting in HD. Whatever’s going on around me, that thing is taking away heavyweights from me, and putting me in a space where I never quit drinking. I guess drinking just left my body. That’s all I can say.

I mean, I’ll take a mouthful of beer or wine just to taste something once in a while, but I don’t actually drink a glass. It’s not that I can’t. It doesn’t even sound good to me. It’s the questions that have led me to where I’m at today.

Wow. It’s amazing. I really resonate with what you’re talking about regarding stillness and meditating, quieting your mind, quieting that monkey mind so that you can be receptive to all the magic, all the synchronicity, all the serendipity that happens in life, all the messages that you can receive if you just shut out the noise. People don’t take enough time to do that. They don’t participate in the magic. Having a conversation with your Creator, with God is bidirectional.

It’s the very nature of a conversation. How can you receive messages back if you’re not really listening? It’s just praying for things, praying for stuff, praying for opportunities, whatever. Then you don’t listen back for what the answers are. Sometimes, the thing that you ask for isn’t the right thing. That’s going to lead you down a path that doesn’t lead you to your highest best self. Not all prayers are answered in the way that you want them, but all prayers are heard.

It’s interesting because a couple of years ago, I was in Japan. I was visiting tea farmers in Japan. I was just on top of the world. I was like, “Oh, my God,” it was the best thing for me because I really love the whole experience of it. It was one of my dreams just to visit Japan. I started to write down on a piece of paper the things that I want. I wanted at that point in time to call somebody into my life to build something with and eventually have a family. A person came into my world. Now I thought that that person was going to be what I was seeking. However, that person came into my life to help me become a better version of myself.

Not all prayers are answered in the way that you want them, but all prayers are heard.

I wasn’t really ready at that point in time for what I thought I was because what we think and what we feel are two different things. When you wake up in the morning, you don’t say I think good or I think bad. You say I feel good or I feel bad. I was thinking, this is what I want, but not knowing that what I want is something much deeper than what I thought I want if that makes any sense.

I went on this journey and then instead of judging it afterward when I got away from all the emotion of everything, and then once the dust settled, I started to look back. I’m like, now I got the lesson. I asked for something and my higher power was like, “Okay, you can have that, no problem.” However, you’re not going to get it the way you want it. You’re going to get it the way that it’s supposed to be because you need to become a better version of yourself in order to do that.

We have to take a different road. It’s like if I told you, “Hey, we’re going to jump on a plane, and we’re going to fly to New York, but we have a layover in Iowa. You’re going to get to New York eventually, but we got to stop over in Iowa because the weather was bad or something.” That’s how I see it. I asked those questions in my life. When things show up for me, I’ll just say, “I guess this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” I don’t really get emotional about it. I just let it be what it is because I don’t really know anything. I have no idea. There’s something bigger than me moving the pieces around, and I’m alone for the ride.

A lot of people are seeking something that they think is the thing, but it’s not. They’re not glimpsing the bigger picture. They don’t see how the person that they’re either with or that they’re about to be hooked up with is their soulmate because it’s not that that person completes them or is the perfect match. It’s that that person helps them to become their best self. Edgar Cayce, the famous clairvoyant from a century ago channeled his higher self. He actually channeled the part of his soul that was in the heavens that he was able to connect with and get answers from.

We are attracted to another person at a soul level, not because that person is our unique complement, but because by being with that individual, we are somehow provided with an impetus to become whole ourselves.Edgar Cayce

His higher self told him that a soul mate is an ongoing connection with another individual that the soul picks up again in various times and places over the lifetimes. We are attracted to another person at a soul level, not because that person is our unique complement, but because by being with that individual, we are somehow provided with an impetus to become whole ourselves.

Wow. That’s amazing because you go out there and you think you have it all figured out. Then something different totally shows up. You say you want one thing and then you might say you expect, this is the kind of person that I want to be with, physically, emotionally, whatever, and then something different shows up, and then that’s your actual one. I heard something a while back and I started thinking about this a lot more. It’s not about going out and trying to find the right woman. It’s about becoming the right man.

I’m worried about my side of the street and trying and figuring out how do I become that version of myself. I’ll ask for my higher power. What do I need to do to become visible or on the same frequency as that other being so that we can connect and do the dance together?

When I met my wife and soulmate in 2012, I was at a Tony Robbins event and I just finished writing up my relationship vision, and I’ve defined all these qualities of her. Then I define who I would be in the relationship and what the relationship would be like, which is just as important, as you say, on the other side of the street. After completing that, I prayed for her to show up, for my divine to manifest her for me right away. Twelve hours later, we were introduced by a mutual friend and 18 hours later, I said “I love you” to her. She said it back. It was a gift from God, for sure. That was not just me using my skills to find a hot woman and seduce her or anything like that, that was surrendering to my higher power and asking for assistance.

That’s exactly what I was going to say. I saw something yesterday on Facebook. Somebody posted something like, do you believe in luck? For me, I don’t believe in luck. I believe in alignment. When you’re aligned, you feel lucky because things start to show up. The question is if you want to get there whatever that thing is—a business or a relationship, whatever it is—the question is, how do you raise your vibration enough to get to that space, to that level, or whatever that is?

It’s interesting how you say that. I’m in that space right now where I’ve written out some stuff and I’m starting to picture that happening. I feel like I’m at a point in my life right now where everything is just amazing. I have no regrets. I’m at a point where I’m like, it’s very still and perfect. I just feel ready.

Well, there’s an expression, “Ask and It Is Given.” It’s actually the name of a book by Esther Hicks. It’s all about the law of attraction of just being in alignment with your highest best self and envisioning a compelling, powerful future where you’re assisting lots of other people, making a difference, adding value in the world, clearing any karmic debts, and all that sort of good stuff.

If you just ask, stuff shows up—the wild, illogical, surprising, amazing serendipities, synchronicities. They start showing up in life. I’m curious to hear what some of the recent synchronicities have shown up in your life.

Ask and It Is Given.

One of the things that happened to me, I’ve lost count. I can’t even count how many times these sorts of things have shown up when I’m in alignment. I’ve heard the saying, whatever you appreciate, appreciates. What I’m coming to understand is that when something shows up for you, little or small, whatever it is—and I’ll give you an example, when that shows up for you and you appreciate it instead of saying, “That’s just weird voodoo stuff, whatever”—it starts to go down.

You want to keep that vibration high. For me, to give you an idea, I had two dreams in my life. One was to visit California and then one was to visit Japan. I lived in California for 10 years. I now live in Austin, Texas, which I moved to a month ago. When I was going out to California, my father had said to me, “You’re in your 30s. I don’t know what you’re doing. This seems weird that you’re just taking off like this.” I didn’t want to be in the box. I didn’t want to fill the forms out, be stuck in the box, and just be in one place my whole life.

I left Detroit, Michigan, went out to California and things exploded for me right away. Because I was in such a high vibration, I made the most income I’d ever made at that time in a short period of time, got everything that I pictured and wanted. That’s because I was here. I wasn’t questioning myself or pulling things. I was just raising my vibration.

I remember one day, I had a wallet, and this wallet was poking a hole in my back pocket. I was at a point where I was again questioning, I wonder what this is. I wonder what’s in this for me in a positive way. I ended up going to the mall because I needed to get a new wallet. I’m walking around the mall, Century City Mall in LA, and I go in one direction. I felt something. It wasn’t like a word or anything, but it just was like, “Go this way.” I went in a different direction. I finally found a place that had the exact wallet I wanted. When I came out of the store, there was a group of Japanese people in this tea place right across the way from the store taking a bunch of pictures.

I went in there because I was like, this is great. I love the tea place, and I just love the Japanese culture. I went in there, and nobody speaks English. I started semi-talking in broken Japanese, and they’re talking to me. The guy said to me, “Come to Japan.” Well, I was in the mortgage industry at the time. I wasn’t doing financially well in the mortgage industry at the time. I’m like, “Yeah, it sounds great,” and then I left.

Well, actually, a real quick backup. He gave me his business card and it pretty much showed like a tea farmer. I gave him my card that showed that I have a tea business. He looked at me and he’s like, in his language, “Wow, this is kind of crazy” and I left. The next day, I was on my way to go to church. On my way to the church, I’m driving, and then I felt something basically say, “Be social,” meaning like, “Don’t go to church, go to the farmers market instead today.”

It’s like, okay, I haven’t been there in six months, the farmers market. I’m walking around the farmers market grabbing my stuff and then I come out of the farmers market. I’m about to leave and I hear my name being yelled in Japanese. There are people going, “Anthony! Anthony!” I look, it’s the people from the mall the day before.

This lady came out and she said to me, “Anthony, you’re the guy with the tea business in LA, right?” I said, “Yeah.” She was a Japanese-American and spoke fluent English. Nobody there spoke English pretty much but her. She says to me, “I heard about you.” She’s like, “How did you know we are here?” I’m like, “I had no idea you guys were here. I just decided to come to get some fruits and vegetables. I haven’t been here in six months.” She’s like, “Really?” I’m like, “I’ve always wanted to go to Japan, this is great.” She says, “Well, this was meant to be.” The short of it is I meet the businessman, he set everything up, and he says to me, “Listen, you come to Japan, you can stay at my house.”

Two days in a row—the guy the day before, one of the farmers, and then this. I’m like, I guess I’m going to Japan. I didn’t really have the money to go to Japan, but something inside of me said, “You’re going to Japan.” The next day I called the guy and I said, “I’ll go.” The short of it is, the following month, all of my mortgages closed and I made like $20,000 in one month, unexpected income. I didn’t think the loans were going to close like they were because nobody was getting loans closed.

I had a record month in a long time, paid off all debt, had money in the bank, paid for my trip. I went to Japan. That’s just one example of probably 40 or 50, or 60, even as small and this is a real quick one. I was on my way to go to get some lunch, but I had to go to UPS to make a delivery, to drop something off for my business. I was in Beverly Hills at the time, I could not find a parking spot. I’m driving all around and I just kind of threw my hands back. I was like, well, I guess I’ll find a spot when I find a spot.

I found a parking spot a little bit further out. It wasn’t that far from the restaurant I was going to but I knew that after that I had to get in the car and drive across town to go to UPS. I parked the car. I got out of the car. I’m not really paying much attention. I look up and there’s a UPS store right in front of me as I turn around. I’m like, wow, this is amazing. What a great day, and I appreciated that moment.

As silly as it might seem to some people, but for me, it was another way of the universe showing up for me and saying, “Hey, we hear you.” I went to the store, and I appreciate it. Again, I’ve got 20, 30, 40, maybe or even 100 examples of little things and big things like that happening to me. I love getting to a point where that tells me I’m in alignment. When I’m not in alignment, I feel off, I feel tired, I feel down. I know that I need to sit silently and have a cup of tea. That helps me get back into alignment. That’s where I’m at.

Amazing. I’m curious if you receive messages in a less subtle way that maybe you even hear voices or you get a vision or you are sent a message in a dream or something like that.

Yes. It’s perfect that you say that. I did get a message in a dream. He’s a coach that I’ve become friends with. This was just through Instagram. I really love this guy’s work. I saw what he was up to. I messaged him. I said. “We’re going to have tea together one day.” Fast forward to today, we’re like very close friends. I never knew that was going to ever happen.

As a matter of fact, he moved to Austin. Actually, he’s the reason I moved to Austin because he moved here and I was like, everyone’s coming here. I think I’ll take a little change and come here, too. Fast forward to about a year ago, I had a dream about him and his wife. They basically said to me, “Come work with us.” I didn’t know what any of that meant, but in the dream, they said, “Come work with us.”

The next morning I reached out to him. I wasn’t really paying much attention because I have forgotten my dream. It wasn’t until I actually had the conversation with them that I realized, oh, my God, I had the dream last night. I messaged him, and I asked a question about something that was going on through my day, and he says, “I am so busy right now. I’m so sorry, I cannot respond to you about whatever you’ve got going on. However, I’ll tell you this. I just launched a program called Amplify. Why don’t you come work with us? It’s about amplifying your vibration.” I’m like, “Oh my God, yes, I’m in.” He’s like, “That was quick.” I’m like, “No, you don’t understand. I had a dream about you and Lexi last night that said, ‘Come work with us.’ I have to work with you because of this.” That was pretty trippy. I didn’t tell a lot of people about it because it sounds kind of woo-woo. For me, it was just another strong sign that said “You’re doing this.”

Amazing. I had a beautiful, otherworldly dream after watching a webinar on how to receive messages from departed loved ones and angels. It was amazing. It was Karen Noe, who is actually going to be a guest on this podcast, coming up here in the next few weeks. She explained that you can pray for a message to come via a dream. When you ask for that, also ask to be woken up. Otherwise, how are you going to remember the dream? Just pray for it. “Please, God, give me a dream that helps me to see what I’m supposed to be doing with my life or where I’m supposed to be moving to, or whatever it is that you’re looking for guidance on. Please wake me up so that I can remember the dream.”

I had the most vivid, beautiful, surreal dream that was unlike anything I’ve ever had. It had a quality to it that was angelic. It was beautiful. I’ll remember that dream my whole life. It happened that very next morning. It was seven in the morning. A very auspicious time, by the way, according to Kabbalah to receive messages via dreams as early as the dawn timeframe. I was woken up spontaneously.

There was no reason for me to have to wake up right then and there. There wasn’t a noise or anything. As soon as the dream finished, I was awake. It’s beautiful. It happened because I asked for it. Again ask and then it’s given. There’s a story I learned in Kabbalah that I might have already told you on a previous call. But I’m going to share it here for our listeners in case you haven’t heard of it. I think it’s relevant to what you’re describing about receiving guidance via dreams or other intuitive ways.

It’s important to take action to follow that guidance, even if it’s just the most subtle, gentle tap on the shoulder from the universe.

It’s important to take action to follow that guidance, even if it’s just the most subtle, gentle tap on the shoulder from the universe. The story is of a chicken butcher, many years ago. This man was a butcher. His father had passed and came to him in a dream one night and told him that he’s going to receive a customer right around closing time on Friday. When he’s preparing to leave for Shabbat to get home for Shabbat dinner and all the prayers and everything, you will end up turning this person away.

Do not do that. This person is somebody you have a karmic debt to. You need to take her in and serve her. He’s very excited because he knows without a doubt this is his father, giving him an actual real message in a dream. He’s excited for Friday to come. It was Wednesday night. Friday comes, he’s waiting for the woman to arrive. She doesn’t arrive. He realizes after that, “Well, my father didn’t actually tell me what Friday it was going to be. It must be next Friday.” Next Friday comes and the woman does not arrive, and then the next Friday, and then the next Friday, and then the next Friday.

Forty years go by, and he has completely forgotten about the dream. This woman walks into his butchery, right around closing time like 3 PM or whatever. He’s like, “How am I supposed to help you? You come right at closing time. I need to get home for Shabbat. I’m sorry.” He sent her away. At dinner, when he’s doing the blessing over the wine, he remembers his father doing the blessing over the wine when he was a child, and then he remembered the dream.

He passed out because he realized what he did. His family gathered around him, brought him to, and asked what happened. He just didn’t even explain. He just gathered all the food because none of it had been touched yet, gathered the food up, and gave it to this woman. Somehow he knew how to find her, and he did that without question. Well, that night, the man passed away. That was his last chance on earth to clear that karmic debt. He almost missed it.

You get these little taps on the shoulder and they’re very subtle. You don’t have to take advantage of it. You don’t have to follow the guidance. But you really should and if you don’t, who knows? You might have to replay something out in a future life in order to clear that karmic debt. It’s much better to deal with it now because you know the old adage, If you ignore the feathers that are dropping, then they turn into bricks. Ignore the bricks, and well that turns into a Mack truck, eventually.

Wow. While you were saying that story, something came to my mind. It was that a lot of people in life and I find this, too, it’s very easy to become asleep at the wheel, because we’re so stimulated by outside things, with our social media and all this stuff, TV, and all this.

And Netflix.

It’s dangerous. The thing is that two specific people show up for me, and I have a friend then I have a family member where I think about a lake and I think of it like a stone skipping across the pond. I picture like, they’re that person. If they stop, they’re going to sink. No matter what they’re doing, they have to keep moving because they have so much going on inside that they’re trying to push down, that it’s wearing on their bodies. Physically, you can see the difference. They have to keep moving and doing all this busy work going to keep their mind moving.

What ends up happening is things on the outside start to show. I have two friends, like I said one friend, one family member. They’re very close, and I’m seeing that happen. I just want to shake them and wake them up and say, “You’re asleep at the wheel. Wake up.” A lot of times it’s not until it’s too late until that actually happens. There’s just so much more to the world.

If you think about all the years before social media, when we had books and everything and reading and family time, that seems like the kitchen table keeps getting smaller because people are in different places in the world now. Families are not as tight as they used to be. Traditions are starting to kind of go in different directions. We don’t really have much of that. There’s not a lot of knocks at the door.

I saw a comedian, it was kind of a funny story but it was so true. He was talking about like in the 1950s and 60s when somebody would knock at the door, or even 70s and 80s, when somebody would knock at the door you’d say, “Go get the Entenmann’s, the biscuits and put Breakout. We got company.” People came in. Now, if somebody knocks on your door, “Get down, who is it? Are you expecting somebody?” It’s so true. We’re like, “Hold on. I got to turn on the Ring doorbell,” where everybody looks at. 

I like to put myself in a situation where I’ve got to grow.

At any rate, I’m happy when people knock on my door. I’m like, come on in. But it’s just so true. I picture a group of people, when you think of way back when and then now, I just picture one person standing. Husband and wife standing and there’s not this huge togetherness because we’re becoming separate. I cherish my moments with my friends. I’ll sit down, and we’ll pour tea. We put all our devices and we just hang out and have time around the kitchen table or wherever we’re at, and have conversations.

That’s the meaningful stuff. When I was at my old company before when I was about to leave when I was moving on, they said to me, “Why? You’re in a great position and all this.” I said, “You know what, because I’m never going to remember how much money I made in August of 2003, but I’ll never forget the experience I had with my friend going to Europe for 25 days. That will stay with me for my entire life.” And that’s the stuff that’s nourishing and important. That’s why I wanted to create something. That’s one of the reasons why I moved out from California.

Everybody said to me, “Was it this or that?” I’m like, “No, there was no drama involved in me leaving California. I just wanted to try something different. I wanted to shake shit up.” I like to put myself in a situation where I’ve got to grow, and it’s amazing because since I’ve been here in Austin, things have just been showing up for me because my vibrations increased. I feel great.

There’s this way of thinking about it, that someone told me and I really resonated with it; as you raise your vibration, you poke your head up above the clouds, and then other people who have also similarly done this, see you and they seek you out. If they don’t realize they’re doing it, just synchronicity happens for you. I just had an SEO consulting lead contact me yesterday. We had a call.

This person is an incredible vibrational match. His wife is a psychic and has all these incredible supernatural abilities and she’s quite famous and everything. He came through a recommendation from somebody. He’s in Jeff Walker’s Mastermind. Jeff Walker has a Product Launch Formula. He’s in his mastermind and he asked somebody who he should talk to about SEO, and it was me. He contacted me. When he told me about the business, I’m like, “Wow, that’s very aligned with my spiritual beliefs. I’m pretty woo-woo. This is awesome.” 

I had no idea what to expect but these things just keep happening over and over and over again. There was another lead that came to me a couple of weeks prior. Forty-five minutes prior to our call, the weirdest thing happens. Whenever somebody says the strangest thing or the weirdest thing or whatever, that’s synchronicity. That’s the creator at work. That’s angels.

He told me 45 minutes earlier, he was just happened to be listening to a conversation between Dan Sullivan and Tucker Max. The two of them were talking about how to get a book out there, and get a lot of reach, and readership, and get on the bestseller list, and so forth. Tucker is explaining the difference between a memoir and a nonfiction book, business book, whatever, in a particular topic. He’s like, “With a memoir, you can have your own story.” He goes into some details on this. Then he says, “Well, with a nonfiction book, you really have to pick your category.”

“If you pick too broad of a category, there’s an 800-pound gorilla in that space already. There’s no room for you. Like for example, SEO. You can’t just pick SEO because you’re going against Stephan Spencer with his 1000-page SEO book.” This was 45 minutes prior to the call with me. I’m just so grateful. Those things have been accelerating. The kinds of vibrationally aligned prospects that are showing up at my door, without me having to pound the pavement are amazing and beautiful.

I’m so grateful for that. It’s magical. Synchronicity. Do you know where the term “synchronicity” came from?

No.

I just learned this recently. It was from Carl Jung. Carl Jung was famous for all this research and pioneering work in the area of psychoanalysis, psychiatry, psychology, and so forth. He experienced this incredible moment of synchronicity. He wrote an entire book on it and came up with the name Synchronicity, and that was the name of the book as well. He was doing psychoanalysis on a woman who didn’t believe in anything, nothing supernatural, nothing magical or anything, just if she can’t touch it, or see it, or feel it, whatever, she did not believe in it.

He’s having her recall a dream. She’s talking about this scarab necklace, a piece of jewelry. He starts hearing this tap, he’s on the third floor. He hears the tap on the window on the third floor. The room is dark because he had the room dark for the psychoanalysis session. Tap, tap, tap. It keeps going. He goes to the window. Guess what’s waiting at the window? He opens the window to see a scarab beetle trying to get in and it does get in. He puts it in his hand and he shows it to the woman.

Here’s your scarab beetle. That changed her life because this is the manifestation of everything supernatural that she didn’t believe in right then and there at that very moment. Perfect timing, something not just unlikely, but practically impossible. Three stories up? A scarab beetle incessantly knocking on the window until Carl opened the window. Amazing. That started him on this journey of really studying synchronicities.

I don’t even have words for that but I can say that this is what comes to mind when you were talking about that, is that we’re not plugged into a wall. We are living, breathing beings. There was a movie called, What the Bleep Do We Know!? Literally, what the bleep do we know? We don’t really know anything. We think we have it all figured out and then stuff starts showing up for us. I don’t know, whatever. That’s just this. Maybe it’s just something bigger than us moving stuff around and showing up.

That’s a perfect example for it and that’s why I can’t put words on that, but I can say, there’s a lot of things in the world that we can’t physically see or understand. But why try and say that that’s not possible? Look, I did martial arts for 20 years and I saw my instructor who had cancer who passed away, do some things and break stones with his bare hand. Stone, not bricks with air in or cinder, but a stone. I watched him do that in front of me and thinking like, this is insane. The human body is not supposed to be able to do that. Again, what do we know? We don’t know anything.

When that kind of stuff happens, I welcome it. I don’t push it away because it’s not scary to me. It’s just interesting. Can I be in the driver’s seat and could I have more of that stuff show up for me? How do we do that? That’s what makes it fun is when you can start to say, “I would like to experience XYZ. How do I get there?” Instead of asking for things like, “I want this, I want that, I want this.” No, just ask for alignment. Because when you’re in alignment, the things that serve you, show up for you. The things that don’t, they go away. Friends, I’ve had friends that disappear. I’ve met people in my life that come and go, and it’s like you’re on a train. Some people get on, some people get off, some people get on and stay on. I’ve had friends that I’ve had for many years, and they just disappear.

I don’t question it. I’ve tried to talk to them, but then there’s this thing about energy, and people in our lives either take our energy or they give us energy. I want to be around people that elevate me. Just recently, I had somebody that I was very close to, a good friend of mine, unfortunately, we just stopped chatting, and I could feel it. But I knew that every time we talked, I felt more like he was knocking me down when something good would happen to me in my life. I just was like, “I can’t really have this. No.” I didn’t stop talking to him. It just kind of happened, and that was it. I said, “Okay, that’s it. No problem.”

Well, you can continue to unconditionally love a person who’s no longer a vibrational match. It could be a family member even, and you just don’t seek them out to spend lots of time with them because we do become much more like the people that we hang out with the most. Like the old adage, you’re the average of the five people you hang out with the most. Love them and don’t spend all your time with them.

That’s the thing, too. I hear that. I’ve heard that a bunch of times. I’ve heard that from the financial perspective of your income is within a couple of $1,000 of the five people you hang out with, but it’s not just that. It’s no secret that my closest friends, like five of my closest friends, whatever, they don’t drink. I didn’t choose them. It just showed up like that. You are a mirror of them in every which way, shape, and form for the most part. It’s not just about the income thing and all that. That’s great, but look at who they are as people and look at yourself, and you’re going to have a vibrational match as you say.

I’m curious, are you doing anything to tune in more to get further guidance, messages, synchronicities? Are you taking any courses? Are you getting any spiritual coaching or anything like that?

There are two people that I connect with. One of them is a guy named Preston Smiles. He’s got some amazing stuff going on. He’s a close friend of mine. Again, that’s the guy the reason why I decided to come to Austin. Just because when he said he was moving, something in me after he told me he was moving. I was in my car. I was like, “I’ll move to Austin, too.” It just happened like that. He isn’t the reason. It wasn’t like, I need to be close to Preston. There was something in what he said that rattled something or opened something for me that said, I should move to Austin. It was nothing to do with us being close together.

This guy was the guy that said, “I don’t have time to talk to you, but you should come work for me.”

I saw a video on Instagram that he put out. Literally, when I saw that video, I went celibate for an entire year, after I saw the video. It’s called Calling in Your One. It wasn’t like I had to try. I was meditating afterward. I felt something leave me and it was that need for that specific action. Celibacy for an entire year, I didn’t put a date on it. It just happened when it happened, but it was over a year. All my friends were like, “How are you?” I’m like, “I don’t know. I’m just tapped in.” I messaged him and said, “Hey, thanks for doing what you do. You’re very powerful. Keep putting out content. We’re going to hang out one day. I want to have tea with you.”

He blew me off for like a year because he was really busy. He didn’t really blow me off. He was just saying, “Hey, look, I don’t have time for this.” Then one day, this is so funny, this is a synchronistic moment, I was calling customers for my tea business in Los Angeles and one of the guys responded and said, “Yes, come on over. Bring your stuff.” I showed him the tea. He said to me, “This is amazing. I want to carry this.” I said, “Great.” We’re finishing up our meeting. I’m about to leave, and I see Preston’s wife walking by and I go, isn’t that Alexi Panos?

Then he said something like, “Oh yeah, she’s married to Preston Smiles.” “Yeah, I know. Does he come here?” He goes, “He works right there at WeWork.” I’m like, “Was WeWork here? Wait, he’s going to be coming down here and getting my tea?” He’s like, “Yeah,” and I’m like, “This is great.” I messaged him. I said to him, “Hey, I told you we’re going to have tea together one day. I just didn’t tell you when or how. Now, you can go downstairs and order tea from Eddie.” The short part of it is that he and I connected at that point. We became friends.

Fast forward to today and he’s one of the people that I follow. That’s the program I was in a year ago called Amplify where they amplified my vibration. During that process, there were all kinds of small activities you would do to amplify your vibration. There was one point where I went to one of the exercises I did because every week has a different exercise. I went to a park in Beverly Hills. I wrote on a post-it note, like, “We’re all going to get through this, sending you love.”

I put a bunch of post-it notes on garbage cans inside the park, anonymously. Nobody knew it was me, obviously. I just took off. Just to send that out there and put that out there to heighten the vibration of everybody in the area and just show positivity, that’s just one little thing. Preston is somebody that I follow. I love his work, and then somebody else too is Joe Dispenza. I was doing the Joe Dispenza meditation called Blessing of the Energy Centers. It’s a 45-minute meditation.

I was really deep in this meditation. I came out of it. I’ve done a couple of his meditations, but something that day rattled me. When I came out of that meditation, I was crying. I’ve never cried during a meditation. I’m not that emotional. But all of a sudden, there was something like, coming out of me. I was releasing all whatever this something was. That night when I went to bed was the night that I had that dream about Lexi and Preston saying, “Come work with us.” there was definitely something there. I’m not going to lie. Literally, this whole week, I felt off. I felt out of vibration.

You need to get good sleep, don’t eat sugar, and start meditating.

I haven’t felt aligned and I’m getting back to the space of being quiet, working in my place, and being silent, and allowing things to show up for me. As I’m doing that, yesterday, I received a call from somebody I haven’t talked to in a long time. They reached out to me and said, just randomly, “You need to get good sleep, don’t eat sugar, and start meditating.” I’m like, where’s this coming from? She’s like, “I’m getting a vision of really good things happening for you.”

In my mind, I’m like, this is kind of tripping me out that she’s going this direction with this conversation. But she was like, “I had to call you, and I didn’t know why.” I’m like, “Oh, this is perfect preparation for my talk with you today.” I got up extra early today like 4 AM. I just sat silently, had my breakfast, had my tea. I was like, “Alright, prepare me for this talk today and help me raise my vibration through it. Let’s see where it goes and what happens.”

Amazing. It is all perfect and it’s all meant to be. One last real quick thing I’ll share. I think you’ll benefit from it as well as it’s a great example of synchronicity. Also, listeners, you will, too. I recently was led to a Kabbalah course, it’s on kabbalah.com about receiving messages and signs from the creator and from angels.

Alright, how do we send our listeners to get your tea?

Perfect. There are two ways you’re going to reach me. One, my Instagram is @zenteatraders. I’m also on Clubhouse and then as well zenteatraders.com. If you have any questions about tea, if you’re just getting into it, you want some advice, feel free to reach out to me. It’s really easy, anthony@zenteatraders.com. I’d love to talk to you. I love talking about all things tea.

Awesome. Thank you, Anthony. This was really fun and inspiring. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. This is great. I’m already feeling a lot different than I did this morning when I woke up. Thanks.

You’re in the vortex.

I appreciate it.

Thank you. Alright.

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