0:00

I love coaching hockey, you know, teenagers, professionals, whatever it is.

I want to be a good influence and say I can help you along your journey because I've been there.

Welcome everybody.

To a historic, very first in person, much love podcast.

0:15

Today I'm thrilled to introduce my guest, Eric Levine.

Eric, thank you so much for joining me.

I'm happy to be here.

We have the same shirt and the same beard.

That's right.

For those of you who don't know Eric, Eric holds a very special place in my life.

0:31

Eric was one of my very first customers at Ruben Digital.

Eric is family with my best friend.

Eric has supported me in so much of my journey and conversely, I've got to help him in his journey.

He's a really accomplished hockey goalie, which is what most people know him for, but he's also a Yogi.

0:52

He's a deep thinker.

He's very introspective.

He loves golf.

So I'm sure we're going to talk about a lot today.

Please at home, give a round of applause, warm welcome for Eric.

In hockey, usually do some finger snaps.

Like anytime you have a new player that, like it's their first game, you you call clicks, You're like a couple clicks for Eric and then you're like, all right, all right, that's enough.

1:12

That's a couple couple clicks.

Do something first before we give you some clicks, so welcome to the team.

I love it.

I'm excited to be here.

Man, this is so cool.

The Historic First Video Podcast.

Yeah, I mean, I've, I've done it on Zoom before, where it's been someone in another room, but we're in person today, so this is very experimental.

1:29

Forgive us if the audio's bad, if our angles are bad.

We're work in progress.

Yeah, I can guarantee the conversation won't be bad, though, because Eric's a great guy.

Where I'd love to start with is really your hockey.

Journey.

You've done something most people have, and that's play sports at a professional level.

1:48

What was it that kept you going from level to level as a youth to college to pros that had you want to put in the work in time and effort to be a professional occupier?

That's a great question, man.

I I can only say that from a very young age I knew that it was I was a very singular minded person.

2:08

It was like hockey was all I wanted to do.

Like I played hockey for the first year and I loved it and I was just one of those kids where I said this is what I want to do with my life.

Like I knew from a very young age that I was going to be a professional hockey player.

I was very naive at that time and I didn't realize how hard that would be to get there.

2:25

But past all the experience, I think there was just a determination and a passion for the game of hockey.

I can't believe where the career has led me.

I've I've, you know, I just finished my my 10 year professional career.

I've played for over 25 years.

The places that I've got to go, the teams I've been on, that's all been part of this crazy journey.

2:45

But it's pretty nuts to say that as a 10 year old, to say I have a dream of doing something and then to actually do it.

It's pretty cool and I'm extremely thankful, very blessed, for every opportunity I've gotten.

It's been a wild ride.

I I love that.

And I I admire and respect and even to some degree envy kids who are very clear about what they want to do in life.

3:07

Not everybody who's successful knew what they wanted to do at age 10, but everyone who I've ever met, who's achieved at a real high level, especially in sports, has always been like, yeah, this is what I want to do.

I'm just going to focus on it.

What was it like in terms of being a kid, being clear on that?

3:22

Did Were your parents supportive of the goal?

Parents were extremely supportive.

Like most people, I wouldn't be here without my parents, right?

And especially in the game of hockey, it's not a cheap sport, you know?

The reality is, is that renting ice time at at any level, no matter if it's for coaching, if it's for teams, like it's expensive to rent ice and travel.

3:42

Hockey becomes quite expensive with, as you can imagine, the travel and the tournaments.

And so like without them basically sacrificing their own life for my development, there's no way I'd ever have the opportunity to play.

So they were extremely not only important in that role, but later on when I, for instance, I took two years off high school to play junior hockey, which is a level that you have to play at to get to college, A lot of parents would be like, there's no chance that you're taking two years off high school to follow this dream.

4:10

But they said, you know what, this is what you want to do.

You're a good kid, like, go for it.

So it always encouraged me to follow my dreams as long as I was continuing with my education and as long as I wasn't screwing around.

Yeah, that seems kind of nuts to be like, hey, you're going to take two years off school.

4:27

Yeah, I was a 21 year old freshman.

I'll never forget.

I definitely was the guy that all the freshman girls were like, hey, could you please buy me beer here?

Because I'm 18 and I'm like, well, I guess so because, like, I want to be cool.

But it was weird in hockey.

It wasn't weird.

4:42

It was a very normal thing.

But when I wrap my head around outside of hockey, it's a very weird career path to be going into school as a 21 year old and saying, I haven't been to high school in two years, What have you been doing?

Well, I've been playing junior hockey.

Well, what's that?

It's like, well, it's professional hockey, but you don't get paid.

4:59

And I was up in Canada and now I'm in Pittsburgh playing college hockey and they're like, what?

Yeah, it's just wild.

So.

Well, your parents were really progressive to let you do that, yes.

But also, in my opinion, the education system was designed to help people either become factory workers or cogs in a big corporate machine.

5:19

And for anyone who wants to do something unique and high skill level, they have to throw that playbook away.

They have to be willing to spend a lot of time cultivating their passion, hard work, determination, and getting really good at that thing.

So for your parents to say, yeah, he's going to buck this traditional education plan and just go all in on on hockey.

5:40

I mean, you you came back to school anyway, so I guess it all worked out.

Yeah, and as my dad will tell you, he's like a little nerve wracking.

He goes.

But you know, for a parent to see their kid not only fulfill their dream of playing Division One hockey, but to get a scholarship, he's like, all right, you're basically debt is paid for all the years that I sacrificed because you got a college scholarship out of it.

6:03

So, like, there was always that light at the end of the tunnel, that it was something that, OK, this is a sacrifice and you have to take this alternative route in life, but it could provide you a big payoff if you were lucky enough and if things work out.

And they said, I was super fortunate that I got to play hockey, got to go to college, got to go basically get a scholarship to play, to get an education, and then from there to play professionally.

6:24

And it was like, wasn't one of those things where I didn't like school.

Like I loved school and I was always a good student.

I just knew that hockey was what I wanted to do and school allowed me to live that hockey dream.

And then now turning it back around, things have come full circle where now my job isn't.

6:40

I know I'm an educator, I'm a teacher, so I I really got both sides of things, but a really unique perspective for sure.

Talk to the audience a little bit.

What is the Midwest Goalie Academy?

How did you get involved?

Because this is an organization that has real staying power, has, you know, churned out professional hockey goalies consistently and.

7:01

And what is it that you do now with the?

Organization.

Yeah, So Midwest Goalie School, now Midwest Goalie Academy has been around since 1982.

It's the goalie school.

And I say goalie school.

Let's say basically summer camps.

You know, it's the summer camp that I went to when I was a kid to learn how to be a goalie.

7:18

Goalie is a very specialized, unique position.

You can't just have any schmuck off the street teach you how to do it.

Like I tell people, it's a very unique language.

You have to speak the language of goaltending, just like you have to speak the language of computer programming, right.

It's it's own thing.

Goaltending's that way.

7:35

So the camps have been running since 1982.

I went there as a kid, started working for the camp when I was in high school.

Just my dad's like, hey, you need to get a summer job.

And I was like, well, I don't want to, you know, go, you know, wait bus tables, let me go try to do this because I like hockey.

It'd be a great way to stay involved, Ended up getting hooked up, Worked that throughout my high school career.

7:55

And then this, you know, happenstance opportunity came by.

The owner of the school at the time wanted to do something else and he said hey, you are the perfect person to take this over.

What a compliment.

Yeah, he's like, you're you're obviously into this.

You're really good with kids, you're good teaching, you have good business skills, acumen.

8:13

I want to sell you the goalie school, and I want like 10 grand for it.

Well, I had just come into a small inheritance from my grandmother who passed away and left all of her grandkids some money.

And I had about 10 grand left me.

And I asked my dad, I was like, do you think this would be a good idea?

8:30

And he's like, this is what your grandmother would want from you, is to spend your money on something that gives you an opportunity in life, not just go blow it on a car or something that's, you know, trivial, like do something important that you want to do in life.

And I was like, you know what?

I want to do this.

8:45

I don't know if it's going to work out.

I might end up running this into the ground and I have no idea what I'm doing.

I did not go to school for business.

It's one of those where I learned on the fly, I learned on the job, but it was a great investment.

I bought the goalie school and it's been about 10 years now, so I run it.

I operate Midwest Goalie Academy.

9:02

It's basically Goalie Coaching services, which has a lot of branches, but we do summer camps, we do clinics.

Anything that a goalie would need, we're trying to offer.

Well, and one of the things that's been beautiful about your journey.

AI didn't even know that story about your grandma.

9:18

That's incredible.

But BI got the privilege of helping you create the first website.

First one.

And it was a learning experience, because I got to learn what matters to parents who are going through this process of signing their kids up for camps.

9:34

But I also got to learn a little bit more about what makes goalie culture unique.

Got to learn, you know how to somebody who's running a business for the first time and grow and and Eric did really well.

I mean, it's a perfect example of what I call building the plane while it's flying.

9:50

That's.

A good way to.

Describe it.

You know, sometimes you got to just go out and say this is what I'm doing, I'm passionate, I'm going to make it work.

And all the strategy and planning, you know, it could be nice.

But if you don't even know what you don't know, sometimes just got to get into action.

Yeah, I think had I, you know, there's a great actually saying that I had learned as a hockey player that I have found applies in the world of business, at least in my end, is hockey is a reactionary sport.

10:16

It happens very fast, especially being a goalie, right.

You don't have time to think.

You have to just do.

So there's this saying it's, you know, paralysis by analysis.

Like the more that you analyze things and you think about them, the moments gone, it's too late.

I felt that way with with running the business.

10:32

I was like, if I think about all these steps I have to do, I'm going to psych myself out.

I might as well just go put one foot in front of the other and I'll figure it out the old way we used to do things.

And this is like where I learned as a assistant, you know, coach is like, we would mail out a flyer to all the prospective parents and say if you want to sign up, you'll send us a check in the mail.

10:53

And then we'll keep track and we'll kind of organize the camps that way.

And I was like, there's no way AI didn't have a permanent residence.

I was living with random people.

And I was like, there's no way I want hundreds of parents sending me checks to an address that's not even mine.

I was like, I need to get a website.

Tried for a week to make one on, you know, one of those wiki websites.

11:13

It looked like a third grader made.

And I was like, OK, I am not built out for this website.

I need to find someone.

And that's where I talked to Stacy, who was doing my taxes at the time.

Stacy Rosa says.

You got to talk to my friend Nate.

And that was like the best decision that our business could have ever done because it took us out of the Stone Age into this, like, hey, this world of doing interaction with coaches, with parents, with money, with trying to build your brand.

11:38

It needs to have a host.

You have to have a website where things interact, where things move through.

And so that was a really cool process because I got to learn through your endeavours of like, OK, what does it mean to have a business that runs online?

How do you navigate?

I can do the hockey part, but I can't do the management part without a website, without payment, without structure.

11:59

So that was a cool process to learn.

Well, not only was it and.

You did a great job.

You were, like, literally the savior of the Stone Age of sending checks into.

Now we can take payments.

Thank you.

So I'd say I helped usher you into the digital age.

Yes, probably my claim to fame when I ran routine digital is I I started the business in 2014 when you could sell a customer on, hey, your website looks terrible on a phone.

12:24

I can fix that.

And like that was enough to get going.

Now it's extremely competitive.

There's a whole lot of value proposition and differentiation.

But what was really cool about the website was that every year it allowed us to start adding new features which transformed your business.

12:40

So in the beginning it was can we talk about what the campaign is?

Can we get people to register, can we get them to pay.

And then it was oh let's add subscriptions where they could pay on a payment plan installments.

And then it was let's take the old model of how the camps used to run and make them your model and and we changed that and and slowly but surely this this business became your business and now the Midwest Foley Academy.

13:06

I want to totally pivot away from hockey for a second because you're also a Yogi.

I was at your class.

That was like the Eric's coming out as a yoga instructor, going through the his final and his yoga teacher training.

What inspired that journey?

13:23

So 8.

I always tell people there's like eight people that have a special place in my heart.

The people, the eight people that are at my very first yoga class, 'cause that was one of the just crazier, more like out of this body experience moments I've ever had, because I've never done something like that.

13:41

So to backtrack, right?

COVID happens.

So I'm playing for the Peoria Rivermen in 2020.

We are in first place.

We were in first place all season having the best year of my life.

COVID cancels our season with like 3 weeks to go before playoffs.

13:57

They say literally they say you have a week to get out of here, like the borders are going to shut down.

We have a lot of Canadians on our team.

They go seasons canceled.

Crazier was we were actually on the bus to Fayetteville, which is like a 14 hour bus ride.

So we get in, we leave Peoria from our time from Peoria to Fayetteville.

14:15

The NBA canceled their season and all these other things were happening quick.

So we're like, OK, what's going on with us?

We're like a low level minor league.

Maybe they won't cancel us because we're not big time.

So we get to Fayetteville, You know, We bus overnight, we practice in the morning.

14:31

I'm back at the hotel in the afternoon taking a nap.

We get a call.

Season's canceled.

Bus leaves at 7:00 AM tomorrow to go back to Peoria.

Wow.

So we're like, OK, we just came all this way.

We practice, season's canceled, We're in first place.

We're playing the only team that has a chance to catch us.

So we're like, why can't we just play a three-game series like we're supposed to play for this championship?

14:51

Like whatever season's cancelled, It's crazy.

We go back home.

So the next year is when a lot of these regulations are in place and we play in the Southern Professional Hockey League, so most of our league is down South.

So out of the 10 teams, only five of them continued to play the next year because they didn't have regulations about people that could be gathering in the stadiums and they kind of figured out how to play a season without a Max capacity.

15:17

But they could have enough.

Peoria being in Illinois, very Democratic state, they said that you can have 50 people in your building at one time.

Our owners are like, that's just not going to work financially.

So we were one of the teams that opted out.

So I basically had no place to play because I called the other four teams in the league and they're just like, man, we have enough goalies.

15:38

Like, we don't need you.

Thanks.

So let's go.

OK you know what?

I'm going to retire.

Like my career's done.

I had played up to that .8 years.

I was like, I had a good run, extenuating circumstances.

COVID wiped our season.

Nothing I can do about it.

So then my really good friend Michael, who I had been following around to different studios, left Tri balance, which is where I first did yoga and Schomburg and said, hey, I'm going to this new studio in Hoffman Estates.

16:06

He's like, I'm also doing a teacher training and it's my first one and I want you to do it.

And I was like, dude, of course I have literally nothing to do.

I was like, I would love that.

I've always been into yoga, never wanted to be a teacher, but I was like, I would love to like, as they say, deep in my practice.

I'd love to learn about it.

And I've never had the time because hockey's always consumed my life.

16:24

Hockey was done.

I was like I would have nothing to do.

What a beautiful place to find yourself in.

Yeah, I'm.

I'm free right now.

Let's dive into yoga.

So teacher training, that's what I did.

So it was a 8 month thing.

It's a 200 hour training.

A lot of trainings that happen are like 100 hours online, 100 hours in the studio.

16:45

This was a 200 hours in studio training.

So we took the training.

I fell in love with the studio that we did it at, got to meet the owners who are now some of my best friends, and it's a place now that I work.

But going through that training process and like learning how to become a yoga teacher and then for our our thesis, it was like you had to do a class based on your interests.

17:09

So you can do whatever you want, but you have to basically theme the class to yoga.

It has to follow along the guidelines of a yoga class, but you can theme it however you want.

So it's like, you know what it would be very like.

Boring and very cliche of me to do like a hockey theme class.

Let me do something outside the box.

17:25

And it was, it was very outside the box.

He's going to tell you It was so outside the box.

I love it.

I'm very interested.

I've always enjoyed documentaries on space, on just learning about the universe right outside of Earth.

Like just learning about where we are in space and time.

17:40

And like I've always been fascinated with people like Einstein and the theory of relativity and just these like mind bending concepts.

So I was like let me do a space themed yoga class.

And so I kind of worked at it and I did this like whole outer space theme class where the music was all, you know, space themed.

17:57

I had, you know, Odyssey playing, I had some Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon.

I just had all these crazy trippy musical things.

We did a lot of like space themed and outer star themed, you know, poses and you just basically, I actually did a PowerPoint where I kind of did a lecture.

18:14

I'm like, what is space?

What are some basic principles?

And I actually had my teacher's wife in class and she's a grade school teacher.

She's in 8th grade and she's like Eric.

She's like, I felt like I was at a 7th grade science class in like the best way.

18:31

That's like a compliment.

Like, that was so cool.

Yeah, well, you are such a natural teacher, and I think your ability to think outside the box, to break the mold of how people might perceive you and to just explore all of your creativity is really a gift.

18:48

And I think you get yoga.

Like, yoga is not just awesome.

It's not just poses.

It's not we're going to a class to keep a toned body so we could stay hot for our partner, which certainly helps.

I mean, I'm happy to be a trophy husband for my wife.

Me as well.

19:04

But there is this component of the union between the body and the mind which the breath facilitates.

And in a yoga class, the instructors that always resonated with me were like focused on your breath.

19:20

Because if you can't breathe in this pose, you shouldn't be doing this pose.

And when you're in the union like that you can start to be in union with the greater world around us which contemplating things like outer space has us think about our importance as it relates to the world and the universe and and realizing it's all space.

19:41

And and in yoga and meditation that we're all hollow and empty and and just as much.

This is actually from the revenge of the nerds too.

The universe is infinitely large, but it's also infinitely small.

And that's when, like the jocks and the nerds came together because they said like, hey, you guys are so big and strong, but we're also so smart and there's a value in being small at times and.

20:04

It's just it was such a beautiful thing.

I didn't expect that.

It stuck with me.

And like, I've been doing yoga for 15 years, so we're practicing for you to have made an impact in one class.

I just feel like you have a very special career ahead of you.

That's cool.

I I love to hear perspective from other people on what yoga means to them because that's truly one of the, you know, the gifts of the practice is it's so personal, but like you said, it's about connecting to something greater than yourself.

20:33

And it's gaining this perspective that you are small in relative terms to what is out there.

But also the whole universe is inside of you.

And that's what's cool is you have this deep cosmic connection.

And so that's kind of where I went with my thesis is like, let's get the perspective of how big and how infinitely vast space and time are and how insignificant we actually matter because we're just matter and energy.

20:59

But we think we're so important because we have this ego.

And yoga is about transcending your ego, about transcending this idea that you and I are different.

We are the same.

We're just individuated.

We're representative of our individuality, which is our sense of ego.

21:15

But once you remove that and you remove the label of who Nate is and who Eric is and what my job title is and what my, you know, things I I care about.

Once you get rid of all that, we realize we're the same.

Just as we're the same as this table, we're the same as the bugs that are outside.

21:30

We're the same as the guy that's homeless and the guy that's a billionaire, right?

Everything you strip down, we're the same.

And there's this deep connection that we have.

So yoga offers this like awareness and perspective, which I think is really cool, especially in this day and age when we're so technology driven and you're very on your phone and you're very, you know, everything is instantaneous.

21:52

We want instant gratification for everything.

Things move fast nowadays you can get get access to information at an alarmingly fast speed, which is both cool and scary.

And yoga is a very, like, I had experience with hockey.

When you're playing hockey, there's no phones, it's just you, the game.

22:11

You have this like time dilation, where two hours can either go by in what feels like 5 minutes or in five hours your sense of time goes away because you're just very in the moment.

That's what yoga does, is that it's like this hour of being truly in the moment, like you said, with your breath.

22:28

And you have this very cool perspective of you get to sort out and deal with a lot of problems without having to talk about it.

Because sometimes when you talk about it, things get lost in the words.

But yoga is not about talking.

It's about doing.

It's it's about the practice.

22:44

An experience.

Experience.

It's all experience.

They say yoga is 99% practice and 1% theory.

I love the theory of it because it's so stimulating and it's very like, wow, I can learn a lot It it brings about a lot of questions, but it's mostly practice.

22:59

You have to practice in order to do it.

Well, when you hit on probably 90% of what is meaningful to me in yoga, this idea of ego, transcendence, every now and then I get really blessed with an awesome meditation.

And when I try to describe it to somebody, words don't always do it justice.

23:18

No, because I can walk somebody through like I did yesterday, the seven layers of self concept and about transcending ego to the high self and losing the little eye and getting to this place of of universal consciousness and and where it's you know, I said yesterday to my friends, I got to this point where I realized Nate Rubin is just bullshit.

23:40

It's noises that I make and and noises other people make and none of that matters.

And then sometimes coming back into the ego and back into the little self can be destabilized.

Like, what do I do with this knowledge that there's something greater than myself?

23:57

And that's where for people who really like to study and walk on this journey, I think that Bhagavad Gita has, like, really good advice for that.

It's like, you know, Arjuna still had to do his work.

Karma yoga.

Yeah, he didn't want to fight his enemies, right?

24:12

But that was his duty.

His karma was to be in the war.

That was what he had to do.

He was living in the moment, doing the actions that were right for him at that time without consequence.

The best I think philosophical concept I've taken away, which is from the Yoga Sutras, which is all about the Bhagavad Gita, is you do your work without thinking about the results, right?

24:38

Do the the work, the practice and have fun and have unattachment right.

Don't attach to what you think this was good or bad.

You know this is a good thing, a bad thing.

This means this, this is that.

I'm doing this because I want this.

Just do your work and let everything else come from there.

24:55

You know, if you're going to do, let's say, a favor for someone you know, you call me, say, hey, I need you to come help me move some stuff, I could do that.

But if I do it with the intention of, well, I'm doing this for you, so then later on you're going to owe me a favor and it's going to make me feel like a better person.

25:12

That's all ego.

That's all me trying to justify and pump myself up to think I'm better than what I am because of this action, That's not now doing the action.

In the moment, I'm doing the action, but I'm attached to the result that comes with it.

Where then I'm missing out on a very key concept which is truly being in the moment and experiencing for what it is without attaching to the result.

25:33

Good, bad and different doesn't matter.

Yoga gives you that perspective and the awareness that you do what's best in the moment, whether it's good, bad.

You breathe on purpose, you do your best, and then you say, OK, the results are not mine.

I don't own those results.

I own my effort, but I don't own what happens from it.

25:50

Well, and what's beautiful about that is it's rooted in such universal truth.

Another book that I really enjoy is that Dao de Ching, which is developed in a totally different culture.

And there's this one, one chapter, one meditation, where it talks about the master, does his work or does her work and then walks away.

26:14

It's not.

And it's anyone, I think, who's ever achieved anything great or out of the ordinary, whether it's in art or business or sport.

There's this sense of when the thing motivating you is the goal of what's at the end.

26:30

You get there and it's such a let down.

It's like, OK, now what?

But the people who have longevity and staying power, they tend to be doing it because it's the thing they would do anyways.

Like you would have played hockey for the rest of your life because you love hockey.

You just happen to find a way to make money at it.

26:47

Very little money.

You know, I wasn't in the NHLI, didn't make millions of dollars.

I made enough money basically to live.

But to me, I was as happy as I would have been had I played in the NHL.

The money never mattered.

It was getting to do, like you said what I loved.

That was why I did it.

27:03

Not because of any external factor that was motivating.

The motivation came from within.

Well, and that's the thing that I tell people, especially when I when I was running a marketing agency, people would say, oh, should I get on this platform?

Should I get on that platform?

And my thought was always go play with it.

27:19

And if it's a platform you would spend time on because you enjoy it, then maybe it's worth creating a business Ave. there.

But if you don't like what you're doing there, you're not going to succeed because you're doing it for this end goal, this end result.

And that's why there's so many things that I just I pick up and I put down because I might have a certain motivation going into it and realize, oh, this isn't what I thought it would be, or I'm getting what I was hoping to and I don't actually want what I thought I wanted, which is wild.

27:49

Like I I think my biggest challenge since following this path of yoga is that I have a very clear not as this good, bad from a judgmental perspective, but is this working for me?

Am I getting to where I want to be in life and experiencing life from the the how I want to live?

28:07

Sometimes the what and the why are really aligned, but the how might be off and yoga makes you so present with the how things are playing out that if it's not going how it's best I just have to walk away.

Yeah.

And I think that's a really good point because I like what you said, right?

28:25

You're using the term yoga, not asana.

Asana is one of the 8 limbs of yoga.

It's a very small segment.

It's a way to get more connected to your breath, to your body, ultimately to the cosmic awareness.

But yoga is a practice of whatever you do.

I say some of the best yoga teachers I've ever had don't even know what Warrior Two is.

28:45

They've never done a class.

But they teach.

They teach through the lens of yoga because of their perspective, because of their awareness and their ability to be in the moment, to be, you know, have humility, have that awareness that my, my action does not lead to a result.

29:01

I'm doing the action because that's what's right for me and I I really gravitate towards people like yourself, right, that are not afraid to take chances and doing something because it's what they wanted.

And realizing that we're different people than we were yesterday.

And we have this really deep connection in this.

29:17

Like, I have to do things that fit the mold of what I think I am and what other people think I am.

And then you get very stuck in a routine and you get stuck doing things because you think it's what someone else wants or it's what you want.

But we're different people.

We think it's OK to have different desires, wants, feelings and say, OK, I may have, this may have been good for me last week and it was what was true, but this week it's just not right for me.

29:43

So I'm going to pivot and I'm going to do something that feels more aligned to my Dharma, which is just basically what I'm meant to do.

So it's cool when you can dip your toe into different pools because then you really get a sense of like, OK, this is what I like, maybe I didn't think it did, or maybe there's no, you know, there's no, like, gold pot at the end of the rainbow.

30:01

But it's something that aligns me more to my Dharma.

So I'm going to follow up because it feels right.

And so that's why I've always admire you, because you have this amazing sense of you're not putting yourself in any sort of box and you're like, this is all that I do and this is who I am and this is what I have to keep up because my image says that this is what I am.

30:18

You're like, you know what?

I love art.

I'm going to do art.

You know what?

I don't, I don't know about podcast.

I'm going to start a podcast.

I'm going to do all these things because it's just what you want to do.

So there's a lot of admiration for people that follow that passion, which for me was hockey.

I love playing hockey.

And now that I'm done and I'm retired, I almost never want to play hockey again because it's just not where my life is AT.

30:38

And I'm OK with that.

That before, two years ago or last year, it was the most important thing in my life.

It's all that I wanted to do.

And now it's not a part of my life.

And I'm like, I'm OK with transitioning and saying I'm a different person than what I was for the last. 20 years.

30:55

That awareness is huge for getting through each chapter in your story.

You know, a lot of, you know, get back to your concepts on space and time.

A lot of times we view people through a very linear story model because that's how we can understand and that's how we perceive time.

31:16

But when you're in the moment, you're not always thinking about, OK, and this is when Eric picked up his bags and moved from hockey to yoga or yoga to business ownership.

It's you just were like what serves me well today.

And I had a really transformational summer last year where I went through this arduous process of selling my first business.

31:39

I was dealing with trying to resolve some relationship issues within my family of things that have just gotten gotten poor because of how different roles intersected.

And I got some really hard feedback that I processed, I internalized, and then I I also got a a nice check for selling my company and a promise of more money to continue to where for the first time I wasn't in the survival mode of.

32:08

I got to keep this business going so I could keep the lights on, keep paying my mortgage.

And I didn't get life changing money where I never have to work again or I don't even have to work right now.

But I could do things with much better ease and grace and space.

32:24

And I changed.

I changed as a person.

Not good, not bad.

But one thing that was immediate is I couldn't work the same way I used to work.

Like there were times where I worked 70 to 80 hours a week.

I can't work more than 40 or 50 hours right now.

32:41

In most weeks I don't work more than 30.

Like I just my capacity to treat myself that way is disappear and it might re emerge with something new some new chapter.

But what's that done is it's openness space like COVID open space for you.

32:58

And I've re engaged with my asana practice.

I have a mat upstairs that I just leave out now.

I don't put it away because I'm on it so often.

Exactly.

You know, I I get to be here in this gym slash office and I get to cook meals for my wife and I I'm taking my grandma to the doctor later.

33:17

Like, I just get to be present in so many different ways right now that I think through the lens of American business culture, somebody might look at me and go, oh, Nate's just kind of coasting, you know, he got a little money and now his foot's off the gas.

33:33

But in yogic culture, it's just like, no, this is the season I'm in of of what's right for me and where, where is my energy to go?

And I think it's a beautiful, beautiful thing that sounds like we both have an intimate experience of what that transitionary phase feels like.

33:50

Yeah, transition is inevitable, right?

Change is always happening.

So the ability to not only kind of roll with the change, but embrace it, that is a powerful thing I I I'm sure have as you have.

When you gain this perspective, you then start to see other people that aren't on that path and you can kind of see their imbalances.

34:13

And you're like, if only you knew what this awareness and what this practice allows, you would probably reduce the stress that you have by 100.

But that's not where you're at right now.

So that's OK You're on your own journey.

Maybe yoga will find you later, maybe it won't.

34:29

But you see other people go through these struggles basically unnecessarily, right?

They create a lot of their own issues and a lot of their own problems.

And that's where I have found trying to bring people to just have that slight awareness can be transformed.

34:48

Or if it can be life changing, if they just kind of step back and say you're viewing life, you're viewing your world in a very narrow lens, let's expand and zoom out a little bit.

And one of the hardest parts about having a conversation with Someone Like You is there's like 8 different places I could take that.

35:04

What comes to mind though is this compassion you get for somebody who you see struggling that you know if they had a different level of awareness, they could let go and they could still have the the issues there, but the way they approach them is different.

35:21

Like problems are never going to leave.

I have problems, You have problems.

Those don't go away, but it's how you deal with them that can really make a difference.

Well, there's this concept.

What you resist persists.

And many times people resist acknowledging the truth because they're caught in ego.

35:38

It's it's about me and it's about them and it's about our story.

And when you can dissolve that part of it through meditation, you know, quiet awareness to just say, oh, this is how our stories is playing out.

Like I I have a relationship right now where there's still there's one person who's very frustrated at me, very mad at me.

35:58

But I know under that is love, and I know under that is disappointment in her.

And what I'm doing is I'm really working on my communication skills because I can see every place in which I might have said something the wrong way.

I might have been insensitive, I might have been too much in my head and not enough in heart.

36:18

And part of my work right now is giving the space to say what will play out is what needs to play out.

But this, this awareness of maybe I don't have to struggle and fight this and just accept it and embrace it and allow myself to be changed, so when the time is right, I can be different.

36:38

That's the whole game, right?

There's there's always going to be people that will bring out something that frustrates you because it hits you emotionally.

And my teacher Rick has always said he's like, right, Realizing that you view the world like the world is a reflection of your own viewpoint.

36:57

So if there's someone that comes into your life that brings about charge, that's an opportunity for practice because it's giving you the opportunity to work on something that you really need to.

So if you attach to that emotional connection to who that person is, I hate them.

I hate this viewpoint, I hate what they do.

37:14

Well, when you really look at it, that's you hating the worst part about yourself and realizing that this is where the practice is.

This is where I have to have, like you said, love, compassion, because that person is doing their own thing.

They're an individuated version, just like you're an individuated version, but you're all collectively moving.

37:34

You're all collectively the same thing, your universal consciousness.

It's just being expressed in a different form.

And so there has to be different forms that express in a different way for everything to be cosmically connected.

There's no other way that things can be.

One of the other things I've really come to learn is like, things are as they are, as they should be.

37:54

There's no other way.

There's no way that this could be any other thing but perfect because it is right now.

It's the moment, The moment of the details don't matter.

But what's happening matters.

What you bring, awareness wise, perspective wise, those are the things that matter.

So if something charges you up, if you emotionally let yourself lose that you can become very imbalanced.

38:13

And that's where you said meditation, yoga, perspective, whatever you call it, it just brings more balance.

And that is where you control the amount of stress in your life.

You think it's as a result of that person.

They cause me stress.

No, they were doing their own thing.

You let that person 'cause you stress.

38:31

You always have the control.

People just don't realize that they have that.

Yeah, no, you're you're spot on.

A book my wife and I are reading right now is called Crucial Conversations, and it it speaks to that very thing, this idea that nobody makes you feel anything.

38:48

It's your story about how events play out that you choose to embrace certain emotions.

And there's another book I've been reading called Letting Go, where it talks about the frequency of different emotions and about how we can get stuck.

But when we can transcend by experiencing and processing, we can get to these higher states of awareness.

39:09

And.

And in the book it will give very specific examples of the same one event, the same thing happening, but how somebody would perceive it from different emotional perspectives.

And it just reinforces this concept that like almost all of life as we experience it is an illusion.

39:28

It is so it's between our ears and how we make sense of it.

Nothing is real in the sense of what we think you touched on earlier, right?

I feel that this table is solid because that's what my brain tells me.

So I have this attachment that this table is solid and this is what it's going to do.

39:45

It's predictable, but this is 99.999% empty space, right?

That's all matter is that's all we are.

It's just that we think it's solid because that's what our limitations are.

When I see this color red on the microphone, every color except red is actually what's there.

40:02

But the red is refracted back and that's what my eye picks up.

So I think I'm seeing red, but I'm actually seeing every other colour.

But red.

Red is just being what's taken away from it.

So it's like we have all these misconceptions about what reality is.

And so we, like you said, we get into our own story.

40:17

People want to believe their own story.

This is who I am.

These bad things have happened to me.

I am the victim.

I am emotionally damaged because this thing happened 10 years ago and I can't get over it.

And then they bring that story with them into every relationship and they wonder why they have problems with people because they're so attached to their story, to their belief, to who they really are.

40:39

And they're forgetting that beyond all that, there's way more cosmic love, there's way more perspective.

If they would just kind of get rid of that veil, they would see things and they would realize my story doesn't matter.

My ego has nothing to do with this, but people get attached to it, and it's hard not to, right?

40:57

I've been studying this for the last three years and I still struggle with this idea of how do I transcend my ego?

Like I need my ego because that's how I live.

I can't just not pay my bills and not be alert when I'm driving and not realize that conversations have to be like engaged.

41:13

And I have to know that I am Eric Levine because I have a set of responsibilities.

It's like I can't just get rid of that.

I have to still live in reality, but I have to also bring that awareness that I'm more than that into every moment, which is hard thing to balance.

Well, and at least my personal interpretation of of how Nate Rubin, at 30 years old, thinks is that we get to experience ego disillusion at times to let us know that it's possible.

41:43

And so we could be aware that that experience is to be had.

And then we can make a choice, and maybe we don't even make the choice, but our brain is at a stage where it thinks it's making a choice, where, you know, is have we properly burned off our karma?

42:00

Like, is this where our journey is to go?

Like if everyone is supposed to get to this place of ego disillusionment, like what happens to Earth and to people?

Like, I think there's still this, this very real need to have an ego to play the game of the material survival that allows you to experience the mental Wellness, the emotional Wellness and the spiritual bliss.

42:27

That some people are chosen to be spiritual leaders where they focus on disillusionment of ego entirely, because that's what the world needs of them.

The world needs them to be that egoless being, where like we can't all be that.

42:42

And I think it's.

I think about this often because I also think about it from an economics perspective.

Like why is it that the people who do the things we most need are the most underpaid Well, because nobody would fucking do those things if they got paid really well for.

42:58

Them.

Like look, look at what has happened with the travel nurse industry.

There's people who've made two 3-4 times the amount of money they normally would make, and then a lot of times they go, is this even what I want to still be doing?

So when you you multiply that across everything that has to get done in society, if everyone would sit and meditate and transcend their ego and realize this is all pointless, this is all not good, not bad.

43:22

It just is.

But it's an illusion.

Nothing would get done at the physical level.

And then we couldn't even have the spiritual experience, because we'd cease to have a home for our spirit.

You have to have a comfortable environment in order to meditate, right?

I have to take care of my house in order to be in an environment where I can lock my door, close my eyes and know that I'm safe and not going to get attacked by a wild bear in order to provide that environment.

43:46

There's a lot of structural things that have to happen for me to gain access to that place.

I have to earn money.

I have to do this person.

I have to cultivate this relationship.

I have to make this transaction.

I have to garner this money.

I have to pay my taxes.

I do all these things just to set myself up to have a place to think about higher levels of processing and yoga.

44:07

It's called liberation, right?

It's the last limits Samadhi.

It's that liberation.

It takes a lot to get there.

So it's very like, OK, I I wanna do this, but I also have to take care of these things which are like hard physical.

I have to understand that this table is not solid, but I have to believe it is in order for life to move on.

44:27

Otherwise my brain's gonna explode and I can't get anything done, which is a hard concept.

And that's where Hinduism can maybe even start to, you know, transition into Buddhism.

When you think about this idea of harmony in the middle of the middle path, but also this, this thinking about like what?

44:46

What is right.

There's the people who go out and try to reach this state of samadhi, and you certainly can, But I think that the trying is still part of the ego.

And when you get to this place of the root of all suffering is a desire, which is what the, you know, the Buddha said the reason I suffer through some of what I do in the physical world is because of desire.

45:12

I have like I desire to have a wife.

I desire to take care of my body.

I desire to eat really good food.

Like I have a desire for a certain standard of living that's associated with this egoic concept of who is Nate Rubin.

If I didn't have those things, if I could shed those things in this moment or at some point in my life, like there's places where I know I can go and I can give up a lot of the responsibilities.

45:41

I can go join an OSH, like I can go let somebody else tell me when I eat, let somebody else tell me where I sleep, let somebody else tell me how can I be helpful to their community.

I can give up all of that.

I just haven't been ready to do that.

And I don't think necessarily that that's what my karma and my journey is supposed to be, right?

46:00

It doesn't mean that that's good or bad.

It's just that, you know what I I do enjoy the freedom that having decisions that I can make and understanding that there's a path to get what I want because it allows me to fulfill that part of my life that frees up other capacity in my brain to contemplate deeper thought.

46:19

So like there's a very push and pull.

You want something, but you have to do something to get there.

And there's just a really inter interesting play that happens.

And every day.

You know, it's this opportunity to practice, to learn every day, every moment is so different and so unique and so to not get caught up in all the BS.

46:39

But just say you know what, this is happening today.

I'm not going to label it good or bad.

I'm just going to do my best to deal with it and I'm going to continue to live my life in a way that allows perspective and awareness.

Well, and then I think what's beautiful and we'll kind of transition to wrap up here, but is once you have that awareness and perspective, what is it that we go take action on?

47:01

Like for a long time I stopped painting and it was because I didn't know what I wanted to say.

I was so disconnected from that inner voice.

I didn't know what I thought would benefit the world to hear.

And more importantly, what I needed to express, And now I'm very clear and rooted in my art, is this struggle between survival and the physical world and spiritual awareness and things that bring me to this harmonious place of them being in balance.

47:28

And that's what I I try to achieve on the canvas.

And that's what I hope to put out into the world, through through business and through exercise and like that's that's my life's purpose now, is to help reconcile the spiritual and material in a harmonious way.

I'd love to know where you're at on your journey in terms of what are you working towards now, what are you putting the effort in of cultivating and how can people help you in cultivating what your your life's purpose?

47:58

It's a great question man.

It it's cool to first of all to hear kind of where you're at because I've kind of seen your evolution, you know and I've I've seen what's been important to you and kind of where you're at.

And it's and it's neat that you are are doing something that you feel is very fulfilling because it gives you that sense of like gratitude and dharmic perspective that I'm doing what I meant to do.

48:20

And there's doesn't matter what it is.

But anytime someone's doing that I always, I'm like that's really neat and I'm really happy because it's not often the case.

A lot of people go to jobs they hate and they do it because they're sacrificing for the family.

But there's something lost in like going to work at a place that you hate.

48:39

And I just My goal, truthfully, is to find whatever gives me the most amount of awareness and gratitude but also pays the bills.

Like I want to live my life in a way where I love what I do every day.

I love coaching hockey.

There's a million different avenues that I can explore and I am exploring with that to try to maximize my reach, my outreach to kids, to, you know, teenagers, to professionals, whatever it is.

49:05

I want to be a good influence and say I can help you along your journey because I've been there and I can also bring about this perspective that only comes with age and with time and with I don't expect a 12 year old to have the same relationship with the cosmic universe that I do.

49:22

I wasn't there when I was 12, but I would have loved someone that was interested in goaltending to say here's what I've learned and here's how I can help you along your path.

So to sort of bring about what I'm learning in yoga to the hockey realm is really cool to me because it it it's a very unique thing that I I feel like I have a gift at and I want to explore that.

49:41

But I also, and as I've seen, right, the day I retired, I got hundreds, dozens of calls, hey, come do this for my team, come do this, come work here.

And as it's continued on, there's more people that want to pull me into hockey to be a full time job.

49:58

And I'm like, whoa, I just spent 25 years grinding at ice rinks and spending.

I'm like not even exaggerating thousands of hours on buses throughout my lifetime, going from ranks, going to tournaments, doing all this crazy thing.

50:14

I don't want to do that full time.

I want to experience what life has to offer outside of hockey.

I still want to use hockey because it's how I make money.

It's what I love.

It's what I am basically most like knowledgeable at at the time.

But I also want to explore what does life have to offer outside of the ice rink.

50:34

And for me, that's doing my work at my yoga studio grounded well in the center in Hoffman Estates.

The husband and wife that own that are just two of the most like cosmically aware and good people I've ever met.

And they are very much aligned with that spiritual enlightenment and the path towards liberation and doing it in a way that serves their community and provides health and Wellness and basically a holistic approach to life.

51:00

And so we do a lot of things there.

We don't just do yoga classes, which I teach and I love, but we make organic cold pressed juices.

We do Reikis, we do breath works, we do anything that is around the holistic nature of balancing.

It's a beautiful, amazing place that I just want to spend more time at because I feel like even just being there and in the presence of those people.

51:23

I'm sure you felt it too.

When you're with someone that's spiritually aligned and spiritual is different than religious right, Spiritually is like they have that connection and understanding when you're in their presence.

They don't even have to say anything to you.

You just feel the balance happening yourself.

51:39

And so I've learned to trust more what I feel rather than more what's being told to me.

So I want to align myself with people and with places that give me that feeling.

One, you can feel it when you walk into grounded bones.

I mean, it's I've been to a lot of holy places and I've spent time in ashrams.

51:57

I've been in, I've been in all kinds of, like yoga asana studios.

But I go and I get body work from yoga, Michael, once a month.

And when I walk in that door that you feel the vibration in that room and it's just it's a beautiful thing to then go and and get a massage into.

52:18

I find myself meditating on body please allow yoga to loosen you up and let happen what needs to so this could be a productive experience and and I leave with some of the most restorative massages I've ever had.

I've had the juices, I've had the the cacao milk I've had.

52:34

And they make organic chocolate.

It's just the best.

Yeah, it's a beautiful place.

I'd be there a lot more often if it weren't such a drive for me.

Yeah, you're about 15 minutes further than when I'm at.

It's about 20 minutes for me.

So definitely would be a little bit of a commute.

It's.

A It's a little bit of a hall, but I love it there.

52:52

A question I asked all of my guests which I want to extend to you, is if you could meet anybody, who would you want to meet and want?

It's a really good question.

I would say I would probably have to put that at I would love to have the interaction and the understanding at the time that Einstein was alive, because he to me has been the door opener to our understanding of the universe.

53:24

Without his cosmic discoveries and without his brilliant scientific mind and his also creative thinking, he was the perfect blend of science and creativity.

Deep thinker about philosophical concepts about the universe, but also had the science and the mathematics to prove it and so to like have any sort of interaction with him.

53:47

At the time he was making his discoveries on the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.

Not that I'm an at all an expert in any of that stuff, because I don't know anything about math.

You know about mathematics.

That's not where I studied.

But I understand what the greater discoveries of those were.

54:04

And so I would have been really fascinated to have him at a table and just to hear how he thinks about the universe and like what his concepts are because he was the only, he was the first person that that that said space and time are different but yet there's a space-time, there's a the space and the time are not this like illusion.

54:24

Like it's an actual thing.

Like we live in space.

It's a 3D, it's a it's a thing that's alive.

It's not just a concept that we have.

It's something that we're actually in.

You can't see it but we know it's out there and like that is the earth shattering discovery.

54:40

So to talk to someone that has that level of thinking and can like layer his process so deep and so, so big, that would be the coolest.

Thing.

Well, wonderful Will Universe.

If you're listening, which I know you are, find a way for these two souls to interact.

54:56

Send him back or or when my body passes, like send my mind to where Einstein is.

You know, I don't.

I don't talk about this often because it shocks.

Some people don't even know.

But when I had my mushroom experience over a decade ago, I had this very clear sense that knowing time isn't linear is a thing that I've heard.

55:16

But I had this experience of being like, Oh yeah, Gandhi isn't dead.

Martin Luther King isn't dead.

They're just existing in a time that I'm not near.

Like I'm so far from them in space-time, but they're still there.

It's just in a different point in space-time.

So who knows, maybe at some point you'll have a meditation where you transcend space-time and you get to interact.

55:36

That is where I think I I think I'm most excited because when you open up your mind to that reality, like you don't place limits on yourself, I feel like as a society, we're a very limited capacity type of human being that we think, OK, this is the contract that I live in and I can't go anywhere past this.

55:58

This is what reality is.

This is what I'm, I'm doing.

So to have that idea that like, you know what, I can transcend all that I think is real.

It opens up the door to so many things that I'm not even aware of yet.

But I'm excited to hopefully, maybe one day find out.

Wonderful.

Well, this has been an all time great episode, Very meaningful on so many levels.

56:19

Yeah, I feel very spiritually enlightened.

I I've really enjoyed this conversation.

It's nice to talk to people that I think have that awareness and you don't feel like you have to reserve, oh, if I say too many things about this, maybe they're going to look at me in a funny way, right?

56:34

It's nice to talk to people that that are open, open minded and also share a lot of the same beliefs.

So it's really it's been a pleasure.

Oh, thank you.

I mean, that's the goal of this show.

It's it's the much loved podcast.

It's not the Nate Rubin podcast.

These are things that I enjoy and and people I enjoy and topics that I enjoy.

56:52

But it's all about how do we raise the level of love in this world.

So love it.

Thank you for being a part of it.

Until next time, much love everybody.