My name is Mazzi and I'm part of Spice Of My People.
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I'm originally Syrian. I grew up in Brazil and then when I was 14 my parents
decided to move to Dubai. And one of the things that stuck with me in Dubai was
that how everybody was always trying to make money.
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At the age of 23 I decided that I wanted to be a millionaire at the age of 30. My father had already made
it in his life and he retired at the age of 40 and, so for me, it was kind of like
trying to get an achievement that I could do it before he did. At 23 I
started my first business and when I was 30
I had made a few million dollars. I bought myself a Ferrari for my 30th
birthday. About two weeks after I bought the car I was coming out from a party
and I was drinking that night. I got into a really big accident with five cars and
I ended up under a pickup truck. I spent one night in jail and in that one night
that I was in jail was really, really powerful night because here I was this
guy that you know in my own mind and my own ego I had achieved so much but yet I
was in the same kind of cell and everything as everybody else. And I
realized that my lifestyle was not really what I wanted. I thought that you
know happiness could be bought and I would go and stay in 5-star hotels
around the world, but I wasn't happy and so I left Dubai. I gave away my
businesses and I started traveling. I went to Europe, I went to many places.
I backpacked at first. I stayed in hostels. It was just strange being coming from
5-star kind of hotel life to you know sharing dorms with people. I basically
now I travel mostly in South America. My base right now is in a place called
Vilcabamba, Ecuador and it's a beautiful little village in the mountains.
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Every so often I decide to go away for a few months and go and discover so I
don't get used to being just in that beautiful place. Now I'm actually living
in my van and I'm absolutely loving my life.
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I bought this van in San Diego.
That's where I started my journey up here to Oregon. This van is a 1985 VW Adventure Wagon.
It's really nice because I can actually stand up in this van, which is
a little different than the Westfalia. So I can stand up. I can be totally
comfortable while I'm cooking while I'm doing anything here and it's easy to
access my storage area up here. This desk folds down and then over here is where
my bed pops out so I lower the seat and then this unfolds into a double bed.
Up here is another bed but for now I've used it mostly for storage and then over
here I have a sink and just where you are over there is where I have a stove.
Then I have also a fridge in here. The only thing I don't have as a shower, but that
I can always go out and get showered somewhere else.
So I've started a new business now, but now this new business that I've started
has a completely different purpose. Spice Of My People is basically I buy things
from different parts of the world like stones and medicine from Brazil like
tribal medicines and things like that and I take them to different places
where people haven't heard about them or things are starting to get known and
that's what we call Spice Of My People. This is the box of goodies, some of the
things that I carry. Some incense here. These are Frankincense from Ethiopia.
I have frankincense from Oman. I carry Myrrh.
I have copal from South America. Sage from the United States and then a bunch of Tibetan Sandalwood.
These are also some of the goodies that I carry. These are
mouth harps, they're musical instruments. It's one of the oldest musical
instruments ever made. *plays* I'm not very good at it, but I'm learning and this is a
really cool instrument for meditation and you know just playing by the fire. it
goes really well with the didgeridoo which is also another instrument that
I've been carrying as well. I have portable didgeridoos which are
easy to store in the van. And so the most valuable incense in the world is
actually this Omani incense. Boswellia Sacra is the name of the
type of incense and it's just has such a wonderful smell and now in Oman,
which is near Dubai, they've been using it for treatments of cancer as well.
I want to be able to get the best products out there to the people. All my businesses
now which is I have got this business that I just started and I've got a
falafel restaurant I started in Vilcabamba. 50% of everything that I make
I donate it to charity. Right now we have one active center that is in the south
of Brazil in this small fishing village and we've set up a little medical clinic
for them. We have a full-time doctor and a full-time nurse that is paid by the
government. We've donated the house that was on the property and we basically
provide services to people completely for free. The reason why I've changed
mostly is because I met this really inspiring woman. Her name is Milena and
today she's my wife. When I first met Milena she got really sick. She's had
two cancers, a bone-marrow transplant, and then later on a tumor in her
thyroid. Basically all the money that I had mostly made in Dubai
went towards buying these properties and then paying off for medical expenses
from her and from people in her family that we helped.
Feeling that suffering and seeing that suffering that she's going through it
was like a direct experience for me even though I wasn't actually you know being
the one that was sick, but I noticed how much money we had spent. We've spent over
a million dollars in hospital bills and so this project that now we're doing
just seems like the right thing for us to do and have it completely sustainable.
And the way to do that is with this new business ideas that I've been coming up
with and just living like a hippie you know. I'm living like a hippie, but I'm
also you know have the mind of a businessman you know.
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I've been realizing that the secret to my happiness at least has been to detach
from a lot of the things that I gathered over my you know thirty first years of
my life. I own properties in Dubai and and I own properties in different places
but it was always a worry or the money I had in the bank and what's the
interest rate I'm making on this and how much of that and so now I've gotten
to the point where most of this is not important anymore. And so my secret to
happiness is to live in the present and I feel that the more I'm in line with
what I'm really here to do, the more I am happy doing it and and then the right
people come my way and the right situations happen and everything just
becomes great. I am happier than I've ever been in my life. I don't remember
ever ever seeing a picture of myself smiling in it and now I can hardly take
the smile off my face whenever I'm going around you know.
I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. I apologize for not posting for the past three weeks. I've
been working on a farm out here in Oregon to replenish my funds so that I
can continue to make content for you. But today, I launched a Patreon campaign that
if you would like to support the channel and become an assistant producer to the
content that I produce go over to patreon.com/dylanmagaster
Contribute as much as you would like to. It would be greatly appreciated
and you would help support the channel and support the content so that I can
produce better content for you. Also over on the Patreon page I'll be putting out
little bits of content here and there that is exclusive to patrons and so if
you would like to be a member of that group in that little club that I'm
creating go over to patreon.com/dylanmagaster and contribute as much as
you would like. But anyway, thank you guys and I will see you guys next week!