From Paramedic to Bitcoin Evangelist - Part 2

Tali: 00:00:00

Hi everybody.

Tali: 00:00:01

Welcome to part two of my conversation with Lindsay.

Lindsay: 00:00:04

Why bitcoin is a superior asset.

Tali: 00:00:07

Do they generally accept that bridge from inflation to Bitcoin,

Tali: 00:00:12

or do they have, is there a common question that comes up after you

Tali: 00:00:16

share that analogy about the grocery store owner versus the grocery worker?

Lindsay: 00:00:21

Yeah, that usually is kind of, that kind of directs the conversation into

Lindsay: 00:00:26

a, a conversation about broader economics.

Lindsay: 00:00:28

Um, there's usually a question, you know, 'cause it's everybody's, you know,

Lindsay: 00:00:33

foundational teaching that you learn in school, that, you know, inflation is

Lindsay: 00:00:36

necessary for an economy to, to run, you know, deflation is, you know, you're gonna

Lindsay: 00:00:41

have the great depression all over again.

Lindsay: 00:00:43

And there's a lot of, there's a lot of misconceptions in that model, but

Lindsay: 00:00:46

it's, it's ingrained in almost everyone, especially if you live in the West.

Lindsay: 00:00:51

So then, I don't know, we tend to tend to do a little history of money, um, and

Lindsay: 00:00:56

like kind of attributes of what makes one money, what makes something a good money,

Lindsay: 00:01:00

and what's makes something a bad money.

Lindsay: 00:01:01

And, you know, why, why gold is money and why, you know, notebooks aren't, you

Lindsay: 00:01:06

know, the, the, the path to, to breaching the topic of Bitcoin specifically with

Lindsay: 00:01:11

this analogy is, is usually not something I would even necessarily do in the

Lindsay: 00:01:15

same day if I'm just kind of casually introducing someone to this world.

Lindsay: 00:01:19

It's, you know, it has to be a slow process and if, if someone feels like

Lindsay: 00:01:22

you're pushing something, they're gonna back off and they're gonna back off hard.

Lindsay: 00:01:26

And that's something you have to be aware of.

Lindsay: 00:01:28

It's like you, you have to meet people where they are.

Tali: 00:01:30

Yeah.

Tali: 00:01:30

That is so true.

Tali: 00:01:32

So I'm just curious again, when you, when you went down the rabbit hole and you're

Tali: 00:01:36

getting excited and you're starting to talk about it, how, what was the reaction

Tali: 00:01:41

from the people who are closest to you?

Lindsay: 00:01:43

A lot of skepticism, um, and a lot of kind of concern that

Lindsay: 00:01:47

I was, you know, being scammed or gambling or, you know, something

Lindsay: 00:01:51

like that after, I don't know.

Lindsay: 00:01:53

It was pretty clear to most people close to me that I was spending an

Lindsay: 00:01:56

enormous amount of time in this space.

Lindsay: 00:01:57

'cause I mean, I'm, I'm a bookworm anyway.

Lindsay: 00:01:59

But I, I was really, really spending a lot of time researching and reading

Lindsay: 00:02:05

about this, and I think there came a, there came a point where they realized

Lindsay: 00:02:08

that, you know, no, this isn't, this isn't gambling, this isn't, you

Lindsay: 00:02:13

know, just some, you know, involved in a bubble or something like that.

Lindsay: 00:02:17

I'm a pretty, I'm a pretty thoughtful person and, uh, I think those closest

Lindsay: 00:02:21

to me kind of recognized that, and were like, all right, you know, this is, You

Lindsay: 00:02:25

know, not something that they personally might wanna get involved in, but it

Lindsay: 00:02:28

was something that they could respect.

Lindsay: 00:02:29

And, uh, they kind of, they kinda learned that if you bring it up that you're,

Lindsay: 00:02:33

you're treading on a slippery slope.

Lindsay: 00:02:35

I might not stop talking, but Yeah.

Lindsay: 00:02:37

Af after a while they, they came to respect it and I think that that

Lindsay: 00:02:41

was, that was kind of an important part of eventually getting some of

Lindsay: 00:02:44

them to kind of, to follow me and to understand, you know, why, why I'm so

Lindsay: 00:02:50

interested and why it's so important.

Lindsay: 00:02:51

It's like they needed that, that primer to kind of neutralize the

Lindsay: 00:02:56

negative associations they might've had with Bitcoin before that.

Lindsay: 00:02:59

'cause I mean, you hear on the news, you know, it's magic, internet, money, money.

Lindsay: 00:03:03

It's a bubble.

Lindsay: 00:03:03

It's, you know, for attackers and criminals or whatever, whatever else,

Lindsay: 00:03:07

they try and, uh, attach to the label.

Lindsay: 00:03:10

And I feel like seeing someone that they knew in person.

Lindsay: 00:03:13

Or that they just, you know, someone that they, that they knew wasn't

Lindsay: 00:03:16

involved in any of those nefarious activities, kind of neutralize

Lindsay: 00:03:20

that, that negative association.

Tali: 00:03:22

I think that a really huge tell, like what you were saying

Tali: 00:03:25

before is if, if Bitcoiners will have nothing to gain, keep talking about

Tali: 00:03:31

it with your family and friends...

Tali: 00:03:32

there's something there.

Tali: 00:03:34

Right?

Tali: 00:03:34

There's something that we have identified with.

Tali: 00:03:36

So I'm just curious if we go back in time to 10 year old Lindsay and what,

Tali: 00:03:44

how did you, how did you kind of dream about your life that led you to wanting

Tali: 00:03:49

to become a paramedic in the first place?

Tali: 00:03:51

And can you draw some parallel to where your life direction is going now?

Lindsay: 00:03:56

Oof.

Lindsay: 00:03:56

Well, as a kid, I, I'd never thought I'd do anything with the medical field.

Lindsay: 00:04:00

I thought that sounded so incredibly boring.

Lindsay: 00:04:02

And I, uh, I always loved to, I always loved to write, I always loved

Lindsay: 00:04:06

to tell stories and write stories.

Lindsay: 00:04:08

And when I initially started going to college, right after I graduated

Lindsay: 00:04:12

high school, I went into technical writing, which sounds even more

Lindsay: 00:04:16

boring than, than medical field.

Lindsay: 00:04:18

But I thought I was gonna be a magazine editor.

Lindsay: 00:04:20

And then it was on the first day of my second year.

Lindsay: 00:04:24

And I don't know, I was standing in the grocery store and there was, you know,

Lindsay: 00:04:28

a, a stand full of, of magazines and it's like, I just looked at it and I mean, a

Lindsay: 00:04:32

lot of them were tabloids, but I was just, I just had this overwhelming feeling of

Lindsay: 00:04:36

like, I can't waste my life on something that you barely look at when you're

Lindsay: 00:04:40

in line waiting at the grocery store.

Lindsay: 00:04:42

Like, I need to do something.

Lindsay: 00:04:43

I need to do something that actually helps people.

Lindsay: 00:04:46

And so I dropped outta school that day and I went and talked to a

Lindsay: 00:04:51

couple people that I, you know, was.

Lindsay: 00:04:53

Loosely acquainted with who happened to work on a fire department.

Lindsay: 00:04:56

And I kind of talked about the best, the best way into, into first responding.

Lindsay: 00:05:00

And they told me about an EMT class.

Lindsay: 00:05:02

Um, and I was shortly thereafter signed up and, and well on my way.

Lindsay: 00:05:07

And after seven years of that, I realized it still wasn't for me.

Lindsay: 00:05:09

But I don't know that I really had, you know, any, any concrete dreams as a kid.

Lindsay: 00:05:14

I was pretty, pretty reserved, pretty quiet, and didn't have a, a real goal.

Lindsay: 00:05:19

I was very much in the moment, and I think, honestly, I think

Lindsay: 00:05:22

that changed like most intensely.

Lindsay: 00:05:25

I mean, a, a little bit after that college experience and, and going into

Lindsay: 00:05:28

paramedicine, but I feel like the point at which I found Bitcoin was a, was a really

Lindsay: 00:05:33

kind of transformative time in my life.

Lindsay: 00:05:35

And it's like, I feel like I, I think more about, about my time

Lindsay: 00:05:39

and about, you know, my future.

Lindsay: 00:05:40

Than I ever have before this.

Lindsay: 00:05:43

And I think Bitcoin kind of has that, has that effect after you learn enough about

Lindsay: 00:05:47

it and you learn enough about the other people in the world who need it far more

Lindsay: 00:05:51

than I do and who are, you know, using it as a, as a survival mechanism right now.

Lindsay: 00:05:56

It's like knowing those kinds of stories just kind of changes the,

Lindsay: 00:06:00

changes your outlook on life.

Tali: 00:06:02

Yeah.

Tali: 00:06:03

It sounds like, I, I'm hearing a common thread here, which is that

Tali: 00:06:05

you wanted to do something that mattered, something that was important.

Lindsay: 00:06:09

Yes, absolutely I am, I'm terrified of wasting time.

Tali: 00:06:13

That's a great bridge into our next segment.

Tali: 00:06:16

Let's talk about your current project with Bitcoin.

Lindsay: 00:06:19

Yes.

Lindsay: 00:06:19

So after I had been fully down the rabbit hole for a little while, I decided

Lindsay: 00:06:24

I wanted to devote more time to it.

Lindsay: 00:06:26

I had already kind of orange peeled some, some families, some friends, some

Lindsay: 00:06:29

in-laws, and I wanted to kind of broaden my, broaden my reach a little bit.

Lindsay: 00:06:33

So I decided to start a class on through Airbnb experiences to teach

Lindsay: 00:06:38

people about Bitcoin and it's something that anybody could sign up for and

Lindsay: 00:06:41

it would be an in-person class.

Lindsay: 00:06:42

Kind of was gearing it towards people who were, who were skeptic, who were not tech

Lindsay: 00:06:47

savvy, who wanted someone to kind of hold their hand and, and help them through the,

Lindsay: 00:06:51

you know, the, the harder parts of it.

Lindsay: 00:06:53

And that's still a pretty new thing.

Lindsay: 00:06:55

I do it every couple months and it's.

Lindsay: 00:06:58

I dunno, it's been so much fun.

Lindsay: 00:07:00

I kind of walk everyone through, you know, the basics of Bitcoin,

Lindsay: 00:07:03

the history of money, you know, the petro dollar, you know, basics of,

Lindsay: 00:07:07

you know, mining nodes, blockchains.

Lindsay: 00:07:09

And we do, we do practice transactions at the end and kind of just show

Lindsay: 00:07:13

everyone, like, you don't need, you don't need to be a tech expert to get this.

Lindsay: 00:07:16

Like, it's, it's, you download an app on your phone and it's very, very simple.

Lindsay: 00:07:21

And it's, it's fun because sometimes, you know, people

Lindsay: 00:07:24

will like, I'll have a younger.

Lindsay: 00:07:26

Not the last time, but a few times ago I had a younger guy who brought

Lindsay: 00:07:30

his parents over and the younger guy was a little bit into it.

Lindsay: 00:07:34

He, he definitely knew a lot more about it than his parents.

Lindsay: 00:07:37

And I like to always start off, you know, like, you know,

Lindsay: 00:07:39

what made you come here today?

Lindsay: 00:07:41

And he immediately answered.

Lindsay: 00:07:43

And you know, it was more or less what I expected and that, but then I, neither

Lindsay: 00:07:47

of them, neither of his parents had said anything and said, so, like, so,

Lindsay: 00:07:50

so what about, what about you guys?

Lindsay: 00:07:52

What is, what is your feeling about Bitcoin right now?

Lindsay: 00:07:54

And the woman was just like, oh, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole.

Lindsay: 00:07:58

Like, I'm just here 'cause he said we should come.

Lindsay: 00:08:01

And I was just like, oh, I, I completely respect that.

Lindsay: 00:08:04

You know, it's, Warren Buffett says you shouldn't invest in

Lindsay: 00:08:06

anything you don't understand.

Lindsay: 00:08:07

And that, I think that's ... advice.

Lindsay: 00:08:09

Like, hopefully by, hopefully by the end of the day, you'll feel

Lindsay: 00:08:12

like you know enough about it to, to make an educated decision.

Lindsay: 00:08:15

And if you still don't think it's, you know, worth touching,

Lindsay: 00:08:17

then, then that's your decision.

Lindsay: 00:08:19

And I totally respect that.

Lindsay: 00:08:21

So there's, there's a lot of those kind of initiations.

Lindsay: 00:08:24

And then usually by the end of it though, people are much, much more excited

Lindsay: 00:08:29

about it and, you know, very interested.

Lindsay: 00:08:31

And I kind of, I send them, I send 'em home with some additional information

Lindsay: 00:08:34

so they can look at, you know, different podcasts and books and whatever

Lindsay: 00:08:38

their media choice is to, to learn.

Lindsay: 00:08:41

They have those, those resources pre kinda laid out for them.

Lindsay: 00:08:44

But it's been, it's been so much fun.

Lindsay: 00:08:46

I wish I could do it full-time.

Lindsay: 00:08:48

It would be a blast.

Tali: 00:08:50

Sounds like it's a really important experience for a lot of, a

Tali: 00:08:54

lot of these people, especially in the more rural areas where they have less

Tali: 00:08:58

access to local bitcoin meetups where they can go meet people in person.

Tali: 00:09:03

So can you tell us how are you reaching these people to

Tali: 00:09:07

tell them about your Airbnb?

Tali: 00:09:09

Where are you marketing your, your offer?

Lindsay: 00:09:12

So I started initially on Meetup.

Lindsay: 00:09:15

I didn't have a whole lot of, a whole lot of attention there, and

Lindsay: 00:09:19

I just kind of posted the Airbnb link there after I decided to

Lindsay: 00:09:22

go the Airbnb experiences route.

Lindsay: 00:09:24

And unfortunately I'm pretty rural, so I still don't get a

Lindsay: 00:09:27

whole lot of, whole lot of reach.

Lindsay: 00:09:28

And it does kind of, it does kind of rely on people more or less looking for this.

Lindsay: 00:09:33

Um, looking for someone to help them with this.

Lindsay: 00:09:36

And on one hand that's good because it means that everyone who comes to

Lindsay: 00:09:39

my class is, is pretty open-minded and has maybe, you know, maybe

Lindsay: 00:09:43

knows a little something about it.

Lindsay: 00:09:44

But yeah, I, I really need to, need to look in a, into a way to, to have more

Lindsay: 00:09:49

outreach, 'cause like I said, being...

Lindsay: 00:09:51

Meetup and Airbnb are both, are both kind of local services.

Lindsay: 00:09:55

They really only outreach to people, you know, within, you know, say a 50

Lindsay: 00:09:58

mile radius or something, or unless you specifically look for that town.

Lindsay: 00:10:01

Um, and that is a limitation right now.

Lindsay: 00:10:03

But everyone, everyone who's found me so far has found me through

Lindsay: 00:10:06

one of those, one of those means.

Lindsay: 00:10:08

And I've had a couple people where they've, you know, they've made

Lindsay: 00:10:10

requests for me to, you know, hey, like I can't, can't make it, you know,

Lindsay: 00:10:14

in that month or whatever, like, you know, can you make a special time?

Lindsay: 00:10:18

Things like that.

Lindsay: 00:10:19

But, uh, yeah, I need to.

Lindsay: 00:10:21

I need to invest some more, some more time into figuring out how to market

Lindsay: 00:10:24

to a, to a broader, broader audience.

Lindsay: 00:10:26

But part of the, part of the beauty of the class though, is that it is in person.

Lindsay: 00:10:29

And I think that's really important to a lot of people, especially

Lindsay: 00:10:33

older, less tech savvy people who are my main, my main crowd.

Tali: 00:10:38

Thanks for joining us today and learning with us today.

Tali: 00:10:41

If the discussion with our guest resonated with you and you would

Tali: 00:10:44

like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the

Tali: 00:10:49

Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.

Tali: 00:10:51

The meetup link is in the show notes.

Tali: 00:10:53

Also, if there are women in your life whom you think will both enjoy and

Tali: 00:10:57

benefit from learning more about Bitcoin, please share Orange Hatter with them.