Treehouse: Bend, Don't Break (Namaste, I Guess)

The following photo? Yeah, that was shot down in the fashion district—had nothing to do with Topanga Canyon or the Fantasy Festival, just for the record. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool shot, but you know how people like to spin a story. This one? It’s got no connection to all that chaos up in the canyon.

So. A few years back, somebody thought it'd be a good idea to have me co-host the Fantasy Festival. Topanga Canyon. California.

Real place, real event, allegedly.

My buddy put the whole thing together. We go way back — used to be on a team together, before he found crystals or whatever. He calls me up all fired up, says this is gonna be huge. New age. Spiritual. Healing frequencies. The works. He tells me thousands of people are coming. Thousands.

Hundreds came.

But hey — great cause. Genuinely. Good vendors too. Some lady was selling honey that changed my life a little bit, not gonna lie.

Here's the thing though. My guy, love him to death, forgot one detail. Small detail. He forgot to get a parking permit.

For a festival.

In a canyon.

So maybe an hour in, the whole thing gets shut down. Just like that. And now you've got a couple hundred people who came here to align their chakras suddenly sprinting to the parking situation. And I mean sprinting. People running to their cars. People running to their horses. Yeah. Horses. Don't ask me. It was a whole scene.

And all of us are standing there thinking, well, that's it. That was his one shot. The big idea. The dream. And he ate it. Hard. We're all kind of bracing for him to just completely lose it, because how do you come back from that.

Next day. I open Facebook.

There he is. A photo of himself. Standing right in the middle of all that chaos, doing a Warrior pose. Calm as anything. People fleeing behind him and he's just... holding it. Perfect form, honestly.

Caption underneath. Offering private yoga sessions. Plus — and this is the part that got me — a full yoga teacher training program. Sign up today.

The event that got shut down in an hour became an advertisement.

And here's where it gets really interesting. Because that wasn't the end of the story — not even close. That guy, the one who couldn't remember to pull a parking permit, went on to win multiple awards. Charitable work. Real recognition. The kind that means something. He was out there doing good in the world quietly and people started noticing.

Then one day he just packed up and moved to Hawaii.

I'm serious.

He planted himself right in the middle of the surfer scene — North Shore, the whole thing — and started leading yoga workshops on the beach. Surfers showing up before dawn, mat under one arm, board under the other. And he's right there, building community in this way that nobody really saw coming. Especially not me.

And I don't know, man. I think about all of it more than I'd like to admit. The chaos in that canyon, the Warrior pose, the Facebook post, the awards, the waves.

Because it's true, right?

It's not how hard you fall.

It's how you get up.

And some people?

They get up and move to Hawaii.