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Speaker 1
Appreciate you all for listening. Just wanted to give you a heads up that we had some video and audio challenges and these recordings give us a little grace. We're going to get a ride for you, but hang in there. There's still some quality information and inspiring information for you to move closer into to your financial flow. Thanks. We love the power and grace of athlete artists and high achievers with their zest and grit.
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Speaker 1
But have you ever wondered how they harness their energy and get into flow? And then what did they do with the money that comes their way? I am Darren Wright, author of Financial Fitness. Join me on a fascinating journey to gain a peek into the intersection of highly successful people and everyday financial life. There will be highs and lows and relatable flow stories for you.
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Speaker 1
All right. Well, welcome, everybody, and thanks for tuning in. I've got my good buddy, Bryce Scala here. Welcome, my man, Darren.
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Speaker 2
Always a pleasure. Sarah, great to see you.
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Speaker 1
Yeah, great to see you, too. Thank you for coming so much. So I've known Bryce quite a while now, but he is a 20 year entrepreneurial veteran with a background in psychology, therapeutic psychedelics, brand development and revenue generation. He's been involved in brand creation for over 100 companies across an array of industries, ranging from CPG and fashion to wellness and professional services.
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Speaker 1
Most recently, he founded Item nine Labs Corp, OTC, IQ X, AI, and will be as CEO with a focus on quality, transparency and fun, which we all love. You led the charge in taking the company from a privately owned cannabis enterprise based in Arizona to over-the-counter publicly traded corporation operating in multiple states with a market value of 350 million.
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Speaker 1
Currently, Bryce has created Hojo Distro focusing on premium plant medicine products throughout the Southwestern United States. That's quite a lot of shit going on, Bryce.
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Speaker 2
Okay. And at credit do you said Hojo. Correct. So it's it's normally a third or fourth time someone gets it. So I want to give credit where it's due.
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Speaker 1
Well, you know. Thank you. Yeah, a little coaching on the front end. So that's that's pretty amazing. So tell me, let's back up a little bit, though. Tell me a little bit about your story and how you got started.
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Speaker 2
Okay. I grew up in its use, California. Lived out there for most of my formative years, moved to Arizona and ten years tumultuous teen years and moved around a lot. Growing up in Encinitas. So it was a very spiritual community. And there was, you know, we had the new realization fellowship there. Deepak Chopra did a lot of speeches and stuff out of my area.
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Speaker 2
And so I there was a lot of spirituality and awareness. I was young. They also picked up all the baggage that we pick up in our, you know, teen years. What I had was a stepfather who was an entrepreneur himself who was also a cheapskate. And so from very early age, we didn't get allowance in my house if you wanted money works for as much as it was rough when I was a kid.
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Speaker 2
I'm so grateful for those lessons now because I've either owned a company or had a side business of some sort since I was 12. Never not had a side business. It's always been my thing. It was distributing plant medicines before they were legal for a long time, and now it's illegal. That past experience has helped me. But it also, you know, taught me that there was always a way, you know, if you wanted to get something done, there was always a way.
00;03;37;07 - 00;04;08;13
Speaker 2
I had a I decided to see what was possible in the trouble realm through most of my twenties and I, through that experience and coming out of that experience, I wanted I knew that I wanted to do something that would help others. And so I ended up I went to school initially for education and for music and ended up getting a degree in psychology, psychology that had been my mainstay that did that for about ten years before kind of deciding to go full tilt Entrepreneur.
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Speaker 1
Any specific reason why you found your way into psychology?
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Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, I think, you know, my experience with psychologists and counselors is that, you know, normally when you needed this because things were easy, you know, and I had a lot of childhood traumas with, you know, family members with suicide attempts. And it was a lot of drug and alcohol use and abuse. And my just throughout my entire family, not it not all just in my direct childhood, but just kind of throughout the family.
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Speaker 2
And I think that I saw an opportunity to let people know there was a different way. I think that was the hard thing. I think when you're in that dark hole, sometimes you don't think there's a light out there and once I kind of found the light, it was just important to me, to other people. You know, when I when I was young and doing bad things, I had a big heart.
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Speaker 2
And so it was a liability. A large portion of my, you know, younger years. The older I got, I realized that that big heart and I didn't give up on people as quick as some other people did, and that that was a superpower. And if I used it for good, then it was going to be a huge benefit.
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Speaker 2
Otherwise, it was not. And so I just figured that was the best way to do it. Yeah, I love, I mean, social work and like, there's counselors and psychologists and social workers and like a pop up, you know, And I separate myself from that group out during war. But it's a very noble profession. When I when they told me to go back to school for my masters and spent 60 grand on making an extra $2 an hour, the numbers did add up for me, you know.
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Speaker 2
But what I really saw was that there was a way to be in service other places and that I didn't have to be everyone on the worst day of their life, because that's really what it was. It was a decade of helping. A lot of people have been amazing stories and have, you know, really beautiful, you know, blessings where I've seen people that I didn't think we're going to make it, make it that are successful now, you know, doing great things.
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Speaker 2
But it was also meaningful on the worst day in life. And like, you can only, you know, emotionally take that so long before you need to break ground. And, you know, and I also realized that there was a lot of people that needed to help in other ways. You know, I you know, I employed a lot of people that didn't have the opportunity to regular job unless they met someone like me who was like, give me a chance, man.
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Speaker 2
And so to me, that has been as impactful as some of the other people that maybe I helped get off drugs, alcohol or stabilize on their psych medications. You know, they were all it's to watch a family flourish because if somebody has good choices is a powerful thing, you know?
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Speaker 1
So yeah, for sure. Yeah. So cycle Energy CEO, they all bring in a company public. Deepak Chopra. I think I heard a little Deepak Chopra name drop in there. So tell us about Deepak.
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Speaker 2
Well, I think, you know, growing up, I was really lucky that my mother, because of like kind of her spiritual beliefs, you know, I grew up in like we I roommate's that channel that's it's tease. I grew up and we had Tai chi lessons at my house and, you know, you know, a shamanic bris like breathing workshops at my house.
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Speaker 2
And so, like I, you know, I grew up around that stuff. And I think for a long time, you know, and when I see that, I think it's, you know, it's important because what I you know what I've come to understand about me is that I'm a you know, I'm a fleshy, but I'm this kind of energetic being that lives within that.
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Speaker 2
And I get to choose how much power that energetic thing has on the given day depends on what I feed it, how I heart to I, how I look at it, how I relate to it. And I learned a lot of that when I was a kid. But because of that trauma, I also always used to joke that I had like the New Age Catholic upbringing because my family's Catholic.
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Speaker 2
And so there was all the traumas associated with like, Oh, people do that stuff and they're not real. You know, I have a lot of people that I know that like might say the same thing about the Catholic religion, the Christian religion, where they had some trauma that just all of a sudden they separated themselves from that group.
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Speaker 2
And if that was it for me, and I think that as I got older and started to have, you know, sort of to find my own truths and just do my own work, that's when I started to see that there was a lot more to that. And it wasn't, as you know, it was much more direct, applicable science that was Google.
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Speaker 2
And I just think I needed the awareness to get to that point. You know, it's one of the things I love about the I have some friends that are, you know, just absolute, you know, can't talk about God. Can you talk about anything beyond where they are today? Not necessarily like, you know, against the religion, but they just don't understand the more than the sum of our parts.
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Speaker 2
And when I started to do my own work and I started to see that it became so applicable to my journey now, professionally, personally, you know, it's one of the things that I talk pretty openly about with spirituality and with business because it's, you know, who I am. And I've yet to find a high, high profile executive or professional of sorts, you know, regardless of whether they're C-suite or independent or whatever it is, that does not have some sort of a spiritual ritual or practice they do every day.
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Speaker 2
Sometimes it's so.
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Speaker 1
You you said you have to find anybody that does.
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Speaker 2
Not correct. Yeah. Now there are some that are on the way up, but even I would argue the ones that aren't necessarily spiritual have a moment of silence. They take every day and they go out back on the patio and they sit still and they might not have defined it as such, but they know that the benefits that it has to them.
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Speaker 2
The interesting thing to me about I would say spiritual sciences is that there's typically a quantifiable result that they just haven't seen the numbers yet, you know, And so I think that the the the higher I got the better that the the more successful I found, the harder became to manage all of those moving pieces. And the more I realized that I had to do those things on a daily basis if I wanted to continue to operate at the level that I was, and that if I didn't do those things, there was going to be short circuits.
00;09;49;25 - 00;10;10;26
Speaker 2
That happened in a number of ways. Now, for for me, I'm a very compassionate, kind, patient, loving, fun guy. When I'm in my lower self, I start to short circuit, I get impatient, I get immature, I lash out, I get moody. You know, that's that's where my lower self kind of shows up. And those are all things that are maladaptive to the environment that I live in on a regular basis.
00;10;10;26 - 00;10;26;21
Speaker 2
So those were all tools that I was able to establish to utilize for me. And they're different for everybody. But it was like all of those things that I'd heard as a kid. It was like one day, you know, I had some plant medicine experiences that like kind of changed things. For Meno, it was like, Oh, they were right about all of this.
00;10;26;23 - 00;10;44;03
Speaker 2
Well, know, hey, have me that. It wasn't like 25 year old like, oh shucks, ours were right about everything. It was like a deeper level of that, of like, oh, all those things that they taught me were real and there was some validity to them and they might not have shown up in the box that I was presented them in, but they were real.
00;10;44;03 - 00;10;47;16
Speaker 2
And then I needed to learn how those things worked for me. So yeah, it was a big piece of it.
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Speaker 1
Yeah, that's super interesting. You talk about that spirituality piece because have have you ever read Ray Dalio's book Principles? Oh yeah. You know, so he credits meditation. I think he might have said 2 hours a day is, is average that but he credits that 2 hours of meditation that day is the single most important thing to his success.
00;11;11;20 - 00;11;27;13
Speaker 2
Well, Phil Jackson talks about in Sacred Hoops, which is one of my favorite all time leadership books. But he talks about that mindfulness to him was the most important thing, honestly. And when you were on the 91, the 93 balls, if you couldn't tell him what was happening on the court, he would let you play, you know, Hey, you're up.
00;11;27;21 - 00;11;41;13
Speaker 2
Where? Where's the ball at? Who got Alaska's last shot? Where the guards can't tell me you're up where we are because that's stillness. And mindfulness of what was happening around him was more important than the ferocity that you were going to hit the court with.
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Speaker 1
I got to read that book. I was a rabid. All's fair growing up in Illinois.
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Speaker 2
You ever read Sacred Hoop? No. Overall, I just blew your mind.
00;11;48;29 - 00;11;49;15
Speaker 1
Yeah, you did.
00;11;49;15 - 00;11;58;29
Speaker 2
It's like 250 pages. Okay. I've 17 times. I still have a half a case in my house that I haven't given out yet, so I have to see if I can dig it. If I could dig at the storage and find it, I got to have a case on.
00;11;59;15 - 00;11;59;27
Speaker 1
Awesome.
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Speaker 2
So it's right next to my half a case of like, you know, this is the seven habits of highly Effective people.
00;12;04;03 - 00;12;04;11
Speaker 1
Are.
00;12;04;25 - 00;12;06;29
Speaker 2
The five habits of the Seven dysfunctions. Like I've got all.
00;12;07;20 - 00;12;18;26
Speaker 1
I'm a big fan of all those books, but Sacred hoops. Now I have to have that. I actually give out The Richest Man in Babylon to a lot of like high school and college graduates. Yeah, that's a good one.
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Speaker 2
Is another good one, too.
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Speaker 1
What is it?
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Speaker 2
The wooden story.
00;12;22;00 - 00;12;22;23
Speaker 1
What's a wooden story?
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Speaker 2
Victor Wood. Sorry. From Allegro. I got.
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Speaker 1
No more.
00;12;26;21 - 00;12;27;26
Speaker 2
I'll give you a box. Somebody.
00;12;27;28 - 00;12;29;09
Speaker 1
I thought. I thought I had a grandma.
00;12;29;10 - 00;12;46;14
Speaker 2
Oh, I love it. But know it's. I love it. What? Other people are avid readers like yourself, you know? But the thing I loved about Phil Jackson, too, was that for him, you know, the reason why I read that book is amazing. And I'll actually, you know, Michael Wells, you're a rock star, so you inspired me. And amazing sales, one of the better sales guys I never worked with absolute pain in my.
00;12;46;14 - 00;13;03;15
Speaker 2
But probably one of the biggest need is probably because he was a lot like me as it drove me bananas. But I needed to figure out how to capitalize on that. And, you know, one of the things that that sacred hoop stopped me was that, you know, Jordan was he led the league in, you know, and plus scoring.
00;13;03;24 - 00;13;23;12
Speaker 2
He was MVP. It wasn't until the year that he did win MVP that the team became a championship team right. And it was it was about that. You know, he was better than the others. And so what what Jackson expected of him was he expected him to give more to Albert Schwab or teach better to do those things to elite because he had that to give.
00;13;23;22 - 00;13;35;28
Speaker 2
And it was once he harnessed that for the team, that that was when he won. And Jackson was he studied indigenous, you know, spiritual ceremonies. He noted every day the team meditated every practice.
00;13;37;01 - 00;13;39;17
Speaker 1
I did not I knew he did, but I didn't know the team did as well.
00;13;39;17 - 00;13;50;11
Speaker 2
It was like like a requirement. The I loved the mindfulness. I mean, he would just straight call it out on the court. Do you know what's going on right now? If you do not, you're not paying attention. You don't you're not mindful about this entire game. You can't play. Right.
00;13;50;27 - 00;13;52;08
Speaker 1
Well, thank you for that tip. I mean that.
00;13;52;08 - 00;13;53;07
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Yeah.
00;13;53;23 - 00;13;59;08
Speaker 1
You know, then I tell you, I just wrapping up a book, Financial Fitness.
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Speaker 2
Oh, you told me about it, but I haven't heard. I hadn't heard this.
00;14;01;24 - 00;14;30;21
Speaker 1
I started it of COVID, and I've been working through it. But the reason I bring it up right now is because really, over the last 12 months, I'd have to say my wife and I went to Canyon Ranch up in Woodside, California, met this amazing woman, John Murray Mudd and she turned me on to a little bit more of a more of the slow element of things and incorporating that into finances, which kind of led me to change the book a little bit and led to this podcast as well.
00;14;31;21 - 00;14;51;14
Speaker 1
And so that that flow and that mindfulness has kind of got me down this road diving into a number of different books, see what colors books rise, Superman, a bunch of others that I have now started to feed in back into the book before I publish it. So I definitely appreciate that. So I'll have to get into that.
00;14;51;14 - 00;14;51;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's.
00;14;51;24 - 00;15;08;28
Speaker 2
Such an it's such a quick read too. It's a fun it's a real, real, real quick read. Yeah. But I think that's, you know, that was one of the things, know, I got cycling was something I got into, especially with you know, we've talked about that like if there's just the my brain doesn't shut off ever, ever shut off.
00;15;08;28 - 00;15;26;29
Speaker 2
It's constantly going and I'm grateful for it. It's been all I've learned how to harness that for, for, you know, for my benefit. But it's also a lot. So, you know, it's the stress we take on. It's the you know, if I make a mistake that people lose jobs and, you know, millions of dollars lost and I'm a fiduciary responsibility in all of my businesses today.
00;15;27;26 - 00;15;49;19
Speaker 2
And, you know, I think that what I learned as I got to as I started, you know, and I wouldn't even say that it was the mean, the public company was definitely the vehicle by which I learned a lot of these things. You know, learned what true fiduciary responsibility was not, I don't think intrinsically have that already, but what a sacred right that is when somebody says, hey, I'm going to give you my money because I believe in you, this much like there's something so sacred about that.
00;15;49;19 - 00;16;05;13
Speaker 2
And like, so it's it's, it's me watching your kids and like, there's the people that caught baby you. I'll watch your kids and there's the people that are your friends that are like. These are the things that I've set up for them tonight, whatever you call with us, because it's an honor to them to watch your children. They see what an honor it is.
00;16;05;13 - 00;16;31;27
Speaker 2
And and to me, that's fiduciary to really mindful about it. It's not the like you're you're feeling comfortable enough. And with me that likes the thing that we all we all hold for safety whether we want to admit it or not. Because it's easy to say like right now, Naval Ravikant, who's like one of my favorite talks, you know, last time I saw you, you know, he talks about like, figuring out what you want because it's easy to find a passion, but if you can't support yourself, then that's all you're going to focus on.
00;16;31;28 - 00;16;52;02
Speaker 2
You know, he talks about like Jesus denounced every segment, but it was a prince. So she got where you want to be before you try to really find that pure, unbridled happiness. Because the reality is those are always going to be intimate factors. If you have decided that yet, you know, if you're going to burn out, you know, denounce everything and live in a, you know, a commune, great, you're going to find happiness isn't so you're not going to do that.
00;16;52;02 - 00;17;09;25
Speaker 2
And you have to find a stable means of supporting yourself for your family or whoever, because that's going to be what you wake up and worry about. And once that's addressed now, you can sort of on passion and happiness. And those are you know, those are ongoing things, but you have to address those, you know, and I think that that's, you know, a big piece of that.
00;17;10;12 - 00;17;11;01
Speaker 2
I yeah.
00;17;11;01 - 00;17;33;19
Speaker 1
That makes total sense. When you think back, you said you had some struggles growing up. What are some of the struggles that that you went through on your journey and you know, what did you learn from them that kind of kept you in the game and kept, you know, have really what I feel is a real growth mentality that you have.
00;17;34;03 - 00;17;37;15
Speaker 1
You're always trying to get better, always smart, trying to grow and help others.
00;17;37;27 - 00;17;51;04
Speaker 2
Well, I would say there are a couple of big things on, you know, my both my parents were. But usually it's you know, my parents got divorced when I was very young. I really don't remember them together at all. My mom's been around since I was three, so I got a bonus. Mom, she's been there just as long.
00;17;51;18 - 00;17;52;13
Speaker 2
Just as say, Well.
00;17;53;25 - 00;17;55;07
Speaker 1
I like that term bonus. Mom.
00;17;55;07 - 00;18;18;04
Speaker 2
Yeah, because she really is. You know, I really lucked out this life. I got that, you know, And one of the things that they always taught me is if you don't like your reality, you're the only one who can change it. And so if you want something different and that was through, you know, me putting myself in, you know, in institutions and, you know, and whether it was, you know, state paid vacation or we were paying through for insurance and it was a hospital or whatever that vacation was like at the time, it was that I was the creator of those.
00;18;18;10 - 00;18;33;07
Speaker 2
And as soon as I wanted to start creating a different lifestyle, I had the ability to do that. I just had to do it, you know? And so it got to a point when, you know, my father, I hit that stage where, you know, I think I got that day and I've got my takes to to be the man, you know, it was that the like, Hey, this is your reality.
00;18;33;07 - 00;18;44;21
Speaker 2
If you like, change it. I don't wanna hear you. I wanna hear you complain about it. Verjee complained about this for a long time. And then you keep making these choices, you know, like, do change the oil in your car for you want to break down. I don't want to hear you bitch about work.
00;18;44;27 - 00;18;46;20
Speaker 1
How long did it take for that to sink in?
00;18;46;26 - 00;18;48;16
Speaker 2
Oof! I'm.
00;18;50;04 - 00;18;51;19
Speaker 1
I would say. Or is it still cigaret?
00;18;51;20 - 00;19;10;02
Speaker 2
No, I said okay. But I would say it was a it was a good 25 years of hearing it before it really like struck me and it struck me honestly and I'll be I'll give you the the that it was Christmas 2004, it was incarcerated and a very clear understanding with my parents. I didn't call them if I was incarcerated or if I legal issues.
00;19;10;02 - 00;19;27;17
Speaker 2
I didn't want them to pay my bills. It was always my choice. And I do that from early age and they would never visit. And it was a it was no, it wasn't like they they were not can see obviously there was no reason to see me in a box. And so that Christmas I was in I visitors and it's my dad, my step up and I was like, oh shit, somebody died.
00;19;28;06 - 00;19;43;11
Speaker 2
And, you know, in my head I always inconvenienced them with the things I was doing. And so they were just tired of dealing with my shit. And what they said in that meeting was the thing that really upset us, wasn't that you created all these issues. It was a you robbed us of having a son and we wanted your presence.
00;19;44;04 - 00;19;59;29
Speaker 2
We wanted you to be there. And like by the time we were able to kind of have those experiences with you, you're out causing trouble. And so it wasn't any of that should we want to deal with that? But I want to teach you how to play catch. I wanted to teach you about women. I wanted to teach you what a good man does and I didn't give him the opportunity to do that.
00;19;59;29 - 00;20;19;28
Speaker 2
And so for me, it was that was a pivotal lesson in life that my presence was really what was wanted most of the time. And I was too busy creating all of these things that I thought everybody wanted. But there was a job where we were hustling or whatever it was. It was what they really wanted was just me to be there with them through that and then work on it with them.
00;20;19;28 - 00;20;37;05
Speaker 2
The food was something I wanted to work on with them and be around, and I think that for me that was a really big piece of understanding that all of the other stuff I was doing was noise, you know, all the little things of trying to create this reality that really wasn't creating reality. It was causing chaos around.
00;20;37;13 - 00;20;56;23
Speaker 2
It wasn't it was taking it was detracting from me being able to be present, which I think at the time was probably what I was seeking. You know, it's the it's the people now that I talk to you that are, you know, I've been on cannabis now for a while, and when I started that company, it was really a sort of products for people like me who, like I didn't want something that had Rashidi on it that was like really kitschy.
00;20;56;23 - 00;21;08;29
Speaker 2
I just wanted a quality product because I could understand why they did it the way they did it. You know, like if I go to the store and buy organic and don't think my wife will still shun me, if I could show up with something that's part of the Dirty Dozen that wasn't organic and they had an option, you know what I mean?
00;21;08;29 - 00;21;26;06
Speaker 2
It's it's that stuff, right? So it was just that I was just starting to understand that, like, there was intentional stuff there with like, when I started that company, I wanted to start something that was a product for me and it allowed me to start to move into a place where I wanted to to remove noise from my life.
00;21;26;06 - 00;21;41;28
Speaker 2
And I wanted to show up authentically in places, and I wanted to create things that were authentically what I wanted. You know, I had a clothing company for a while that I don't feel like it was authentically me, but I learned a lot. And it was a because I learned a lot to do the wrong thing. I learned a lot through it.
00;21;41;28 - 00;21;56;27
Speaker 2
And it was like when I moved into the space, I was able to see that if I showed up, how I was like I was okay. It was it was good. I found out the people wanted of me or who they wanted me to be or the other things that I saw that you need to possess or own in order to to be liked.
00;21;56;27 - 00;22;15;02
Speaker 2
It was just creating noise and distance between all those things. And the it seems like the older I get, the more simplified things get, you know, the more powerful and important they get to, the more responsibility that other people can of those things. But the more simplified. It's not a lot of noise, it's just showing up authentically with supports in place to make sure that I can able to be there.
00;22;15;02 - 00;22;29;18
Speaker 2
And I think that for me was a big piece of that, was just hearing my father say that that day made me realize that like I was the gift wasn't what I could do. It wasn't who I know. And like, you know, I love traveling because it doesn't matter who, you know, when you show up, if you're nice, you have friends.
00;22;29;18 - 00;22;44;16
Speaker 2
And if you're not, you don't. It's just that easy. Like, it's so simple, right? And when he said that to me that day, you realize that, like, I was the gift to the world, you know, just like you are. Just like our wives, our children are like, you know, you know, you're like, I am with my kids, like the biggest gift I've ever been given.
00;22;45;01 - 00;23;07;19
Speaker 2
But that's the gift. It's not how he plays video games. It's not how I do work. Now, if I show up and I am able to authentically be me in a way that also helps to to generate revenue and or affect a business in a positive outcome, then and that's my intention that I can be authentically be me generating wealth for myself and others.
00;23;08;00 - 00;23;26;03
Speaker 2
But I have to show up with that intention and I can't show up thinking I'm going to do all these things because I think that's the you know, because I was watching Fox business this morning and that's so, you know, it's not that. It's that if I show up intentionally, they authentically want to be me in a business environment, then that means that I'm going to be diligent because that's who I am.
00;23;26;03 - 00;23;40;04
Speaker 2
I'm going to work harder than most because that's what I do and I'm going to care a little bit more than the next guy does, because that's what I do. And if that is directed with the intention of generating opportunity, then I get to do that generating opportunity. If I want to do it at home for my kids, I could do that too.
00;23;40;18 - 00;23;59;24
Speaker 2
I just did. You know, lucky enough that I believe business is an art. I've seen it as such. It didn't always it was a job for a long time. But it's creating, it's creating a passion, digging a passion and putting structure around it, a scalable structure so that it can be duplicated, rebooted, moved of markets, sold, whatever that is.
00;23;59;24 - 00;24;14;27
Speaker 2
But it's me showing up authentically, doing noise and just applying those same principles that, like he's told me that day that like Stuck Clear is telling and it was cut in concrete from me that day and it was, you know, and in a piece of that is remembering my value, right. Like, you know, through all those that trauma.
00;24;15;11 - 00;24;30;12
Speaker 2
You know, I think all of these things sync up once the work stop, you know? So like, I had these lessons that were carved in stone at these points in time. And then once I all that come out, I realized that there was a lot of, you know, mess inside of me that had been created by me, had been happened to me, whatever that was.
00;24;30;12 - 00;24;50;13
Speaker 2
But it was like once I was able to clear some of that wreckage out, those two things aligned where it was like, okay, I really, really value who I am personally. You know, I have friends, which tells me that other people value me. Okay? Now I really I want to work and accomplish things. And so it was like starting to figure out how I could monetize that and how I can structure that.
00;24;50;21 - 00;25;07;11
Speaker 2
And like, I can't look at a business not just for me, like owning so many businesses. Like how do you make money? Is that is how you talk about Moneymaker? Do you speak to demographic? How is your brain? How is it like like for me, that's that's how you know, it's the it's you know, it's it's a contract you're looking to build.
00;25;08;14 - 00;25;20;19
Speaker 2
Like I really want to hear like I have some friends that have, like, their own little thing going and they want to call me about it because it's not that I'm not fun with it. I love hearing about business, too. Like, I don't know how to like not look at it in that light because to me it's like, that's what it is.
00;25;20;19 - 00;25;34;28
Speaker 2
It's your art. Like, what meeting did you use? What? How, how did you know? Where do you see it hanging. How does it, how is the light? Is it is it is is it back. It was a document is a fragment or you do spotlight like thinking through all of those things. And I think for me it was that stuff with business.
00;25;34;28 - 00;25;50;00
Speaker 2
And I realized like once I cleared that noise, I had the ability to create. Was it just generating it on a and I say like revenue generation because that was like my specialty with business consulting, but it was really just like moving bullshit, you know, we get so, like bogged down and it was just like removing bullshit. Like, what do you do?
00;25;50;00 - 00;26;10;27
Speaker 2
Do you believe you do that? And I was like, No, my responsibilities, right? Like, so if I see that my products better than people. So I have a responsibility to get that some other people and don't have a responsibility uses louder megaphone as humanly possible to get that out there. Yeah it's not because I'm be greedy or deck it's because I really believe have a better product if I can show that that mindset and say hey listen I think this do you think this is better than theirs?
00;26;10;27 - 00;26;14;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. Okay, good. So we need to make sure that that guy buys our stuff is it's better than theirs.
00;26;16;17 - 00;26;36;02
Speaker 1
That's amazing. And on that note, I'm going to I'm going to toss you because I was that was outstanding. And we're so see a little bourbon, actually. Was it an old fashioned man And the old fashioned. Okay. Old fashioned. So so Bryce was played bartender as we we got going here and it's. What time is it? It's about 5:00.
00;26;36;02 - 00;26;42;15
Speaker 1
Well, after five. Phenix time. And so we're we're happy hour. Yeah, happy hour. Kind of starts around three And Phenix does that.
00;26;43;04 - 00;27;01;11
Speaker 2
What would I think the you know it's the other it's one of the things that like honestly I really enjoyed about you you know and then you know Russians it was like we're really lucky to have the lives we have. We've also worked really, really hard and it's important to us. And each day, you know, I know for me I wake up and I think, okay, how do I get to do this a little bit better?
00;27;02;04 - 00;27;18;04
Speaker 2
How do I support a little bit more? And it becomes fun somewhere along the line, like that, that amount of work, because we've grown accustomed to the the stress that comes along with that, which is something that you have to adjust to. But I think it's one of the things I like, like I love sitting down talking about this stuff, like how do we how do we effect change?
00;27;18;15 - 00;27;35;29
Speaker 2
And the reality is there's a lot of people who affect change through, you know, through social programs, through these things. And we get to affect change in the way that the revenue changes hands and to how businesses and make money. And like, you know, there's not if you really look at that world where there's a whole lot of us that in fact revenue on a large scale.
00;27;35;29 - 00;27;51;02
Speaker 2
You know it's it's the person like I was talking to a buddy the other day who does ayahuasca ceremonies and he sees like, you know, I really want to touch kids. I really want to like, get to a place where I can fact kids who play by the same you can have their families there. We can support them because everyone do everything for their kids.
00;27;51;02 - 00;28;08;03
Speaker 2
And I'm like, well, are the two children in my world? What about that CEO? You fact him, You just touched 10,000 lives and like I get it to like the altruistic and us wants to help that child. Everyone wants to help their child. Think about how the children's homes you touched by helping that CEO be a better guy.
00;28;08;25 - 00;28;23;16
Speaker 2
And I think that's the thing that like I try not to lose sight of the mess that like we have the ability and honor to affect a lot more lives than just the people that we touched directly because of our our networks and because of the people that we get to associate with. And like. That's such a cool thing we see.
00;28;23;18 - 00;28;46;04
Speaker 1
Yeah, you, you and I talked about that a little bit about about this podcast and act and the altruism of it. And then that's fine. But also then pushing it out, how do you push it out to even impact more people? Totally. There's a lot of people out there that probably sat there and listened to what you had to say about your energy.
00;28;46;05 - 00;29;09;17
Speaker 1
Your brain's always working and obviously it is. We're hearing you. You're a little like Elon Musk. You're just going, Yeah. And it strikes me as you're some of them wants to optimize maximize your what I like to call green and growing or ripe and writing. So you're you've got that growth mentality. You're always trying to grow. You hit a goal, you look for the next one.
00;29;10;12 - 00;29;37;11
Speaker 1
Be very dynamic in that mindset. What are some of the drivers behind that that that drive you and push you? So when there's some of the sitting at home listening to us or driving and they're and they're like and that Bryce guy, he's he's done so much in such a short period of time, he's always thinking what are some of the things that drive you your, your true north or your goals or your, your compass?
00;29;38;10 - 00;29;59;26
Speaker 2
I mean, a couple of things. I would say that I'm a I'm an extravagant and I don't mean bougie and extravagant, meaning that if we're going to go out to dinner tonight, I could just hit you and say where your glasses are, or I can just take 10 minutes. I could find what new restaurants opening? Dozens. Nicest restaurants, just some new place, have cool views, and then figure out what's happening around after that.
00;29;59;26 - 00;30;11;10
Speaker 2
And that 10 minutes is the difference between me saying, Hey, do you wanna go to dinner? Or Hey, Jared, there's a really cool spot opening in North Phenix. Let's go check it out. And right down the street from there is this other cool spot that's opening. That's the same group that did so and so and so and so.
00;30;11;23 - 00;30;33;14
Speaker 2
It just changed the course of our night. That was 10 minutes of my time. That's everything. That's every single thing in my life. And sometimes it wears my wife out. God blessed me, but it's everything in my life that like the difference in like I was watch. A lot of that was the show earlier. Oh, no. I fell asleep with Netflix on auto to the show waiting last night.
00;30;33;14 - 00;30;35;04
Speaker 2
What? Rachel's like one of those early movies.
00;30;35;06 - 00;30;35;14
Speaker 1
Yeah.
00;30;36;00 - 00;30;55;00
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like one of the catchphrases for shenanigans. The restaurant is like the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is just a little extra and so cheesy, but it's so true. Like my old assistant is now the head of h.R. For our company. She worked for me for three years. She's absolute just boss lady. So proud of her. And she's an over the top person, too.
00;30;55;00 - 00;31;06;01
Speaker 2
And I always talk about it like I've never officiated her wedding. So instead of asking me, she sent me this box that was this beautiful box with candles and a little journal that said, like, you know, we married. So was this whole thing. I'm like, That's so cute. She's like, It was at sea. Took me 5 minutes and 20 bucks.
00;31;06;24 - 00;31;22;19
Speaker 2
That's the difference. Everything in my life is that like, if I'm sitting on my couch and I want to start a business, the difference between us being the best business it can be and just being a business is literally that 10 to 20 minutes of planning every day. And like early on, I just realized that like a lot of people do the bare minimum.
00;31;22;19 - 00;31;42;27
Speaker 2
You know, I always said there's a difference between the employee that wants a promotion and the employee that doesn't want to get fired. They both do their job today. There's a whole diff outcome between those two people. And I think the driving factors for me are that I know that I have the it's that big hearts of the great you know, one of the like one of the best compliments my partners ever gave me is like, I don't know how you keep going.
00;31;42;27 - 00;32;09;20
Speaker 2
You just don't stop. It just know doesn't mean a thing to me. It's this No, just means not. You know, right now, it doesn't mean it's not going to happen for me. Just means it's not going to happen with you. And like, I just learned that early on that, like, if I could keep going and I could keep pushing, there was going to be an opportunity that presented itself as long as I didn't give up and that as long as I continue to have that same intention with I could I could exceed, you know, I always say like, I'll either outsmart your I'll work you, but something one of those two things is about to
00;32;09;20 - 00;32;21;15
Speaker 2
go down. Right. And it was just that thing that like I wasn't the smartest of the other people. I wasn't always the most talented sales guy, but I got no problem getting an hour early, say an hour late. As long as you can keep up with those numbers were got it right.
00;32;21;15 - 00;32;29;25
Speaker 1
Well, as you were making the drinks, you said that your ski trip up to Park City. Yeah. And the only people that are allowed are you're the first one on the mountain and the last one up.
00;32;29;25 - 00;32;45;24
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, that's the whole thing. And it's, you know, and go as hard as you want. You could drink as hard as you want, but, but that's the, those are the qualifications and I think it's just that and I think that, but like the funny thing is usually you know when those are your qualifications for a trip, think about the characters you get on that they're the most extreme of the extreme.
00;32;45;24 - 00;33;01;24
Speaker 2
Like, you know, a couple of guys that were like pro skiers and like, this is, you know, and I'm a snowboarder, so I'm like one of two snowboarders on this like six person trip. And so I got to like, work extra hard to like. But but it's just that I think, you know, for me was I just saw that like I had the ability to put in a little bit more effort than other people.
00;33;01;24 - 00;33;05;25
Speaker 2
And the outcomes were so substantially different, you know, and since.
00;33;05;25 - 00;33;08;14
Speaker 1
That one plus one equals two is one plus one equals four.
00;33;08;15 - 00;33;13;25
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like and it wasn't just once or twice, it was like every aspect of my life, you know.
00;33;13;25 - 00;33;24;04
Speaker 1
I get all that, it makes total sense. But is there, is there a moment where you, you take a pause where you kind of like, fuck, you know, I need to I need a break?
00;33;24;17 - 00;33;54;11
Speaker 2
Yes. And I think for me, that was, you know, when we did the two kind of nine public in what I'll give the quick elevator and how that happened. So I was in Josh Schneider, fashion clothing company. We sold all over the world for a number of years, 2008, 2009 happened. And, you know, a lot of businesses that went out of business and through, you know, any kind of a big, you know, bankruptcy, you know, or restructuring of the company, fashion is typically net 90 terms.
00;33;54;11 - 00;34;11;08
Speaker 2
So you have clothing that's there. They have it after your plays and sort all that and all the things. And then when they declared bankruptcy, it now that's part of their stock. And I have to then take them to court to show that that wasn't paid and so that those products are due back. And after about the first four court cases, it was like, okay, we're going to go broke trying to get our clothing back.
00;34;11;27 - 00;34;33;05
Speaker 2
And so we still had some stuff that ran it legally for a while, and I ended up opening a retail store and then we still opened our flagship and I sold other places. But what happened to that was I realized that I was pretty decent at marketing those businesses. And so, you know, the retail store turned into selling other people's brands, which then got sold, and then it moved into marketing and it was marketing as a great industry.
00;34;33;05 - 00;34;52;16
Speaker 2
I love creative marketization, but it's also an industry that doesn't at least today, align with my personal views. I think it did line more with them back then. And I and I've always kind of been a searcher. You know, I was not I didn't really have a spiritual awareness then, but I was asked to sit in and I was extremely did not know I kind of do.
00;34;52;16 - 00;35;16;13
Speaker 2
I mean, I've studied historically what these things are and indigenous traditions and things like that. But when I had the experience, the first thing that was very clear to me was that marketing wasn't the end wasn't word the industry was supposed to be. It was great, but it was also, you know, you and I, if you're our friends and we were both marketers and you left a lead list on your desk, I was going to take a picture of it, not because I was addict, but that's because that's what we do.
00;35;16;29 - 00;35;33;21
Speaker 2
And I've had to happen multiple times to me to the point where I wasn't mad about what would happen. I was mad at myself because I left it face up and I should have put a face down on my desk. I knew that they were coming over and I had that experience. It was just very clear that, like I was, I kind of had a side, says Canada, so to speak.
00;35;33;21 - 00;35;53;20
Speaker 2
I was helping fund a couple of people out in California that were trying to get stuff going, and it was clear as day to be that marketing was not my arena anymore and it was time to go full time with cannabis. So when I started that, it was a both feet. Yeah, you know, and I told my parents I was getting into cannabis and legitimately my dad told me not to call it, but I got locked up again, hung up the phone.
00;35;53;20 - 00;36;11;12
Speaker 2
We didn't talk for nine months. Well, so all we got a meal envelope in the mail with a Time magazine article. The said the it was the smart entrepreneurship moving to cannabis and just sort of literally have legal notebook piece of paper that said I gave it left out right And that was that was the first contact we had after nine months.
00;36;11;12 - 00;36;27;19
Speaker 2
And so when I got into that, it was it was really I knew that it was the end of probation. It was an emerging market, which is so cool. We like to see part that I was not a cannabis smoker. I mean, I don't have dreadlocks at the time this recording, but I hadn't in luxury years. So I'd meet with a, you know, property owner to get a property.
00;36;27;19 - 00;36;33;02
Speaker 2
And of course I look like that just caught in the pot. And I've got like dreadlocks and tattoos and a voice. You don't use.
00;36;33;02 - 00;36;34;07
Speaker 1
Any any cannabis.
00;36;34;17 - 00;36;49;20
Speaker 2
At the time I didn't use all through the first two years in the industry and in smoke at all. It wasn't my it wasn't my thing. Yeah. And and so I've been meeting all these people, doing all this stuff, and I started going out shopping. It was there is the, you know, of your budget buyers and then your quality buyers, they're both just like hanging out.
00;36;49;20 - 00;37;05;14
Speaker 2
There's, there's, there's people who shop at Walmart and Wholefoods. They both exist for a reason. They're both John game. There's plenty of customers for both of them. I wanted to go to Wholefoods for my cannabis. I did want to go to war and at the time there wasn't. There was just Walmart you didn't have like you had there.
00;37;05;16 - 00;37;25;05
Speaker 2
Not that there wasn't. If I was listening, it was like, man, there was. There might have been good stuff back then, but it wasn't for me. I walked in the store, I didn't have $100 budget. I want to know what was on. I want to go buy the best cannabis product. That's cannabis product. To me. Whenever this was released at that time and every time I went to a store, wherever it was, it just I couldn't have that conversation with them.
00;37;25;23 - 00;37;45;28
Speaker 2
It was some little shoulder behind the counter. It was like when I said, I want the best product. She's like, Oh dude, this one tested 98% THC and you're like, Sweet. Not really looking to talk to the angels, right? And a rod, just like it's due to the strikes. And so, you know, we created that and started kind of like just a real simple brand that was like, you know, like I really like just consistency, transparency and let's have fun doing it.
00;37;46;24 - 00;38;08;03
Speaker 2
And so we created that. We started the public process on Oxy, and it was a Pink's first. It was like 2015. We didn't have it. There was no cannabis public companies, so we were a synthetic biopharmaceutical. So for the first two years we were a year and a half year public. It was we were like with incest before, like they got all the founders get arrested and all that.
00;38;08;18 - 00;38;35;06
Speaker 2
And so there really was a space for it. But what happened through that process was we watched those markets emerge. Medmen went public a year later and just destroyed the markets for everybody for a year because they did everything you're not supposed to do. But people still invested in them because it was the new gold rush. Right? And I think through a lot of those, I started to realize that there was a way to just intentionally do this alone about it.
00;38;36;03 - 00;38;58;26
Speaker 2
You know, there was other best practices and places. And I think that that was like that for me was like really where those lessons started to set out that it was like it was because we had that awareness that it was just a little bit extra, you know, like putting if we got put a sticker on the side of the case by like up a sticker on the side of the put the QR code and just put the test results on that QR code, like little stuff like that where it was like, Oh God, no, you don't even have to worry about the test.
00;38;59;01 - 00;39;27;18
Speaker 2
Yeah, the store has the test, but you could just test it from your house, scan that to pull up our whole laboratory test results and, you know, little things like that, the like aren't that big a deal to someone like me who was out shopping. I spot a quality product, and I want to know, say, like those were the differences and so is how like all that stuff with like just that intention waking up a little bit earlier it and so like once I had that this is full tilt going into cannabis like I knew that that was my arena and that was where, you know, I talked about it before, but you know, I'd
00;39;27;18 - 00;39;55;23
Speaker 2
had multiple businesses like I've always really liked. I would, you know, I do consulting while I was starting at Buy, so I would do a couple of like really, really, really wonderful yoga teachers that I helped with, primarily one of them being me and Tom Mackey, just an incredible guy. And he acted this devil for years. And when my clients, he was also like kind of a mentor and like as I'm waking up and I've had this plant medicine experience where I know that I'm not really in the kind of flow with my life and we're supposed to be.
00;39;56;13 - 00;40;12;25
Speaker 2
Yeah, working with through this while I'm supporting him and, you know, helping him build his business. And it was I just started to see that like there was a real opportunity here to to apply a lot of those same principles of like being a little bit more intentional, a little bit better, you know, as the you know, we're a corporate company of origins, right?
00;40;12;25 - 00;40;18;10
Speaker 2
So, you know, I've I've employed two people that that have never had jobs before. They were both in their forties.
00;40;18;15 - 00;40;20;13
Speaker 1
And I was I feel amazing.
00;40;20;15 - 00;40;26;17
Speaker 2
It's it's it it is more than anything else you know and it's it's it's an I keep track and constantly you know I.
00;40;26;22 - 00;40;27;10
Speaker 1
1300.
00;40;27;10 - 00;40;49;13
Speaker 2
Employees or 273 people I don't have employed and it's a it's a really, you know like yeah you know it was good we totally company that was you 1.7 million by the time I was I was retired from the company I think they're doing they 38 states about to be three countries and so you know 359 the day that I took public like that's a really cool number.
00;40;49;13 - 00;40;57;29
Speaker 2
And that was a really beautiful, rad lesson that I got to have. I got to have such a cool experience in that and employed 1373 people and see the result.
00;40;58;14 - 00;40;59;11
Speaker 1
Well then, yeah, I did.
00;40;59;12 - 00;41;13;13
Speaker 2
And like those two people, I remember wanting to sit down with them and he was so honest. He just looked at me as like, Melissa, I've never had a real job. I've slowly my entire life, I'm 43 and I have kids. I just want to shop and I'm like, man, like, there's not a better pitch that's amazing.
00;41;13;13 - 00;41;40;21
Speaker 1
In your now you're taking that knowledge and expertise as well as your grit, determination and applying that to the psychedelics space and Yeah, and that's how, as you know, you and I first met, we sat down on a plant based journey, Ayahuasca, Joshua Tree and you were a great shepherd along with our buddy Rustin and this and.
00;41;40;21 - 00;41;41;05
Speaker 2
That trust.
00;41;41;05 - 00;41;52;16
Speaker 1
And. Yeah, yeah, it was nice, you cowboy. Yeah. So? So anyway, words deal with all that. So you're taking the psychedelic space.
00;41;52;28 - 00;42;10;04
Speaker 2
What? I think I'd like to know what you were. You and I were talking like, there. I expected psychedelic the first time I went. It was a white T-shirt. It was gray sweatpants. I wouldn't bring any my belts on my watches. It was flip flops. Like, I want to be very mindful that I'm going to be in this like very spiritual.
00;42;11;29 - 00;42;34;01
Speaker 2
But, you know, a white in Native American reservations when I expect it. And the first time that I saw it, it was two rocket scientists. I mean, a Hollywood producer, two big name actors. And and what I learned in psychedelics, because I have terrible experience with psychedelics in high school, I didn't party with them later. But what I learned is, you know, and much like we've become friends, is this is for the people that are searching.
00;42;34;09 - 00;42;56;07
Speaker 2
They work. You know, I expected the I expected psychedelics to be the full will. What I found was a bunch of people that were very, very high functioning. They were very, very high performing that it hit the ceiling of where they were at, you know, And I and I think, you know, one of the things that you talked about is that, you know, I think, you know, we had our executive session for our C-suite was every Tuesday.
00;42;57;05 - 00;43;15;06
Speaker 2
I had moved to Wednesday now, but it was every Tuesday. We sat down and I would say like, you know, as the CEO, I had a very clear vision of what I thought needed to happen. And one of my favorite things it's ever that ever happens to me is when my employee tells me how wrong I am. Here's all the reasons, because it tells me that I hired the right person and they know that that sector better than I do.
00;43;15;06 - 00;43;29;09
Speaker 2
And that's exactly how it should be. And I think that what I learned through that was you had all of these people that were super high achievers. You know, that was the funny thing. I think I was about to do the IPO. And I'm sitting there like I'm the broker at this table. This is incredible. Like I'm the least successful person at this table.
00;43;29;19 - 00;43;47;25
Speaker 2
And I just had this experience and it was it's for those people, like my executive session was for me to see a different perspective on our business. Psychedelics became the tool and I realized I could get a different perspective on everything in my life, and I could do it very, very easily with this single plant that was going to help you there.
00;43;47;25 - 00;44;07;26
Speaker 2
And that was the game changer for me, was the the people that I have those experiences with are people like you and Rustin and Chris, like these people that are high functioning, high achieving people so that we can do better, you know, we talked about like I've talked told you before, I have a lot of endurance, really, you know, being a cyclists, you know, I'm not a competitive cyclist, but I'm a, you know, 30 to 40 mile bike rider.
00;44;08;27 - 00;44;30;09
Speaker 2
And, you know, I had guys that are 5000, you know, they're already doing endurance like runners, you know, cyclists, whatever. And I found a lot more of them sort of to use it as well because they're able to have a, you know, to microdosing mushrooms and go for a long run. And they have such a better awareness of their body of where the paths of where the where they might have to witness, where they need to stretch.
00;44;31;14 - 00;44;35;27
Speaker 2
And like those are the overachievers, those are the underperformers.
00;44;36;02 - 00;44;43;29
Speaker 1
They're all yeah, so, so tell me tell me a little bit more about that, because when you told me about that, that really blew my mind about the, the traveling.
00;44;43;29 - 00;45;00;12
Speaker 2
So, yeah. So what we're finding now, I mean, it was funny when I was first in cannabis and the I mean, in Dare you know Me, the listeners will look me up and see how it went. But you know, I'm just big on like, let's just get loud, let's see who we are. And so I remember meeting with you talked to Coach Glassman, who's the head of CrossFit.
00;45;00;22 - 00;45;16;17
Speaker 2
He was a gym out here that had had some legal issues and they were supporting them because of some of the claims they made. I tried to get them to endorse our our brand. They were like, he's like, listen, you can't do that. All I can tell you is that the top 10% of all cross trusted athletes in the world use products like yours.
00;45;17;02 - 00;45;34;13
Speaker 2
Yes, they count macros, and so they're not going to have a beer afterwards. They're not going to chance those macros to let cannabis allows them to deal with the anti inflammation, relax without messing up any kind of a diet restriction that they might be currently working with. And it was just I like the psychedelics with with our other athletes.
00;45;34;13 - 00;45;57;16
Speaker 2
We're finding that they're able to perform better to, you know, more off to like just more optimal workouts because they don't have that same inhibiting thought pattern like, like you and I know too, that is that we get these like meet these patterns. Like I love The Tibetan Book of the Dead says it backs there's one true reality and we just get all these prejudices that mean there's this many prejudices.
00;45;57;16 - 00;46;12;09
Speaker 2
There are grains of sand Saharan that we pick up over a lifetime. And with any kind of exercise, especially like in darts, we really pushing yourself through what you're whatever that wall is. This helps you to have a better understanding of that and push through that whatever you thought was capable.
00;46;12;18 - 00;46;43;00
Speaker 1
So, Bryce, you you took a of that experience that you took in the cannabis space and you brought it over into psychedelics and mindfully. And we, we got involved a little bit and talking a little bit about mindfully, I'd like to know more about mindfully and what their mission was. Yeah. And also the work that they were doing with veterans and the if my memory serves me 90 plus percent success ratio on helping veterans with PTSD.
00;46;43;00 - 00;47;01;17
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, let's see now. So 2012 when cannabis it's just started, Colorado was just going legal. California had a quasi legal market. It remembers 2012. Obama is in his second term and he's decided the cannabis program in California has to stop. So the two months he's the DEA is kicking in doors to families and raiding houses and stores.
00;47;02;01 - 00;47;21;21
Speaker 2
So this is all just happened. And I'm watching the emergency room, the I lived in Telluride, Colorado for of years and it's a small town. Everyone knows each other. And we watched the emergency room visits there go through the roof with those edibles, not because they were being prescribed or an assault, but people just don't you know, if you say take two, people take a handful.
00;47;22;08 - 00;47;49;08
Speaker 2
And my concern with psychedelics and the importance that they played in my life, having used them responsibly ceremonially, is that when we're selling a box of gummies at the store that sell cider, meaning magic mushrooms, and that person doesn't need to eat a handful at a yard visit looks really different. And my fear was that if we started to have these, you know, this products on the market without some sort of education or support that we're going to be issues.
00;47;49;08 - 00;48;09;02
Speaker 2
And so I really wanted to post, you know, call announce 2020, 2021, and it was five nine and we've got a new CEO and so on to do some things. And so one of them was psychedelics. And you know, a little difference between the markets. You know, cannabis started at a state level where they put framework and industry around it.
00;48;09;02 - 00;48;35;16
Speaker 2
So it was easier for the state level operators to create industry psychedelics by different rule, which I think was smarter for the industry in the long run. They went through the federal route and they went directly to you had maps is the primary organization that's funding all this and pushing it forward. The maps were smart. They went straight to the unhelpful veterans, not me that all veterans have been helpful, but there are a very large demographic of veterans with PTSD that we don't as we hadn't as of yet have The ability to help.
00;48;35;29 - 00;48;57;19
Speaker 2
You could reduce their symptoms, you know, like I said in, you know, in mental health and opiates, like our hope was to reduce symptoms by 30. And when I started looking into the clinical trials on with these, I started seeing that there was veterans that had been houseless, that had they had been able to hold a job they had, there was no stability to their life at all.
00;48;58;03 - 00;49;27;01
Speaker 2
And after a series of suicide, juries now also keep in mind that, you know, even we talked about ketamine. BRINDLEY Before this, like, you know, ketamine treatment is actually deemed a 30 session treatment protocol through maps. That's how it was. That's what the clinical approved for use. Now, that doesn't mean that everyone follows those, but when you're doing a clinical trial and you have X results, those results where were were derived from the successful completion of this program.
00;49;27;24 - 00;49;44;27
Speaker 2
So if you had 30 sessions and only two of those are administered medicine, then you go to a psychedelic psychedelic ketamine treatment center and they give you five sessions or two sessions and whatever that looks like. It's not 30. You didn't have talk therapy leading up to that. You didn't set. We didn't really go through that to add or refine where your attention for being there is.
00;49;44;27 - 00;50;06;07
Speaker 2
You're just going to get help. You're not that that's not it can help, but it's a very different outcome in that way. And so with the veterans, they were doing all these clinical trials. So traditionally with clinical trials, you have three clinical trials. If those clinical trials showed improvement beyond the threshold, like a trademark or copyright, you have to prove guilty on threat like beyond the 10% threshold.
00;50;06;07 - 00;50;34;02
Speaker 2
I think with a with a copyright or with a patent, with with clinical trials, I want to say it's 10% could be upwards of 20 or 30%. This exceeds all of those so able normally there's those three trials. If you've if you've improved the outcomes beyond that threshold, you're done it out to five clinical trials with SIL. So just to make sure they covered all their bases, not they're showing a 90% cure rate a year, which means no, no remission of symptoms at all.
00;50;34;15 - 00;50;54;21
Speaker 2
And these are people that have never had any success. You, one of the beautiful people I've met with is named Brett Brett's. He's well, look, lawyers are probably one of the most impressive humans I've ever seen. A person who's a double amputee struggled with opiates like a lot of our our veterans do, because we only have a few solutions and we want to get on.
00;50;55;08 - 00;51;31;19
Speaker 2
And as a result of psilocybin experience he had with a girlfriend, he stopped using opiates immediately. And now he works with combat oriented veterans on this. And really what's happening in those spaces is you have someone who had serious trauma running about who has a neural pathways and alignment, and it's been burnt. So there's a there is a thought out here that is literally being engraved into their brain and what the psychedelics are doing now is giving him the opportunity to go to that experience in third person, watch it occur, and watch it from a third party view where you can have a new perspective on how that transpired and like what his role in
00;51;31;19 - 00;52;01;21
Speaker 2
that situation was and allow himself to find peace and to find acceptance with that the like. He everything he could do, he did everything that was there. So a lot of the remorse, the guilt, a lot of those things that we keep us in that little box that we put ourselves in there, it's able to remove those. And so, you know, we're right now with psychedelics, we're showing you that the PTSD is probably the biggest, but they're using it now in hospice care for end of life patients and removing that fear of death, which in turn helps to improve the quality of life for the end.
00;52;02;07 - 00;52;23;05
Speaker 2
You know, they know now they feel it's not the end of this. It's just that they're transitioning. And so, you know, we're seeing so much there and and I think, you know, it was mindfully it was my goal because I think there's there's a guy named Hamilton who does Hamilton psychedelics or Hamilton Pharmacopeia. It was a show on ice for a while kind of a science nerd who's in the psychedelics and there's medical use.
00;52;23;05 - 00;52;52;13
Speaker 2
It's like it's like campus, right? There's a medical use for cannabis if they're there, you know, Phenix Cheers icon is the alcohol was actually blocking right now. And if you ask me the other time I could spit these stats out pretty clearly but so Phenix here XCOM is a website for campus Tincture. Rick Simpson Rick Simpson Oil is a very ERSo is it's called the Ship has been doing research since the seventies with cancer patients and helping to reduce and or cure their cancer.
00;52;53;01 - 00;53;04;22
Speaker 2
We know that this is the case. There's been all of these things done, but it's not something that we can talk about. That is a really critical piece of cannabis. But you know what else is critical? The data used to drink a lot that comes home and smokes a joint. Now he's loving it. He plays with his kids.
00;53;05;03 - 00;53;17;10
Speaker 2
I would argue that that is as big of quality improvement of life as the cancer reductionist. That's critical. So there are ceremonial uses for all these things, and there's also daily uses for these psychedelics is one of those.
00;53;17;21 - 00;54;00;09
Speaker 1
And he mentioned and he also so we have the PTSD work which which I appreciate and I'm you know, like you veterans are near and dear to my heart. I have a lot of good friends that I'm excited to share this story with. But also you mentioned elite athletes, the arts and artists. But let's talk a little bit about, you know, flow and, you know, my my take on flow being financial flow is that sense of groundedness you get when you have clearly defined your goals and you've attached energy and resonance to that so that you there's a big enough way behind those goals.
00;54;00;20 - 00;54;22;10
Speaker 1
And then you have your Maslow's hierarchy that you work up, and that helps you to define, again, your why your values, really, you know, what's important about your finances to you. Any kind of work can work up a few levels there. So you get those two things and then you know where everything is. You know what you have, where it all is, and and you're organized.
00;54;22;10 - 00;54;36;10
Speaker 1
And when you have all that, there's that sense of groundedness that you it's almost like when you meditate, you just have a little bit more peace and calm and allows you to move more to your flow, which then allows you to achieve other things that are important to you.
00;54;36;10 - 00;54;53;18
Speaker 2
What you really touched on, I think, is there's the key thing that like at least that I see with people I'm working with and even honestly, what I was doing consulting is to find your goals. It is, I would say, more times than not as a human, I have a goal that I'm working towards and then the actions I'm taking are not in alignment with that goal.
00;54;53;18 - 00;55;12;11
Speaker 2
And that is today. That's yesterday and this is an ongoing real time self-check. And I think like you said to me, the piece comes with the definition. It's all I know what those goals are, whether I'm working towards them or not is undefined. So am I accomplishing anything? I don't know. What am I working? So I you said it just like that.
00;55;12;11 - 00;55;31;18
Speaker 2
It's just that definition because it once you define that, you can. But the power and the resident set intention into accomplishing those goals which you really have to define those you know you touched on earlier with like what some of the things like without an I, you know, I have two children. I love being a dad, but anyone who knows me know it's like the cool thing I've ever done did I did want children.
00;55;31;18 - 00;55;45;13
Speaker 2
When I met my wife, I didn't want to get married. I was open to them. I just wasn't on my bucket list at all. I can't imagine my life without my kids Now. I was present for my son. It wasn't that I was gone, but I worked six or seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day.
00;55;45;29 - 00;56;00;23
Speaker 2
Will his life be better off financially because of the choices? I mean, yes. But did he have a present father that whole time? No. When my daughter was born, I had retired from nine and I was doing side projects and I was able to be presence. So for me now it's that balance. Yeah, he yeah.
00;56;01;01 - 00;56;26;12
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I mean, and the balance is key. And the thing about goals is that I agree you have to define them. Write them down. But what's interesting about goals is that the dopamine release that happens when you actually verbalize a goal happens early, so you're better off not verbalizing a goal, which a lot of times, you know, if you think about it, people, coaches, parents told us to shout it from the rooftops, put it out there.
00;56;26;12 - 00;56;50;15
Speaker 1
Yeah, but there's a dopamine release when you actually do that. And If you don't do it, then you can save that dopamine related release for later when you actually achieve the goal. But with psychedelics helps, it can help you get into a state of flow. Obviously, Special Forces have used psychedelics and experimentation to have more groupthink in flow.
00;56;51;17 - 00;57;01;29
Speaker 1
Aristotle or Socrates, one of the other, you know, use I forget what was the substance. You might know. It's not ketamine, but it's something else.
00;57;03;27 - 00;57;11;12
Speaker 2
Acacia McKeon Oh yeah, right. Yeah. Was it? Which is all of the, it's all of the like that the EMT family.
00;57;11;12 - 00;57;25;05
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. And so they, they use that do that and trip out and philosophize. Yeah. And so they, you know, shut down the prefrontal cortex, be able to think creatively and so forth. What Larry Page is ready to.
00;57;25;05 - 00;57;41;22
Speaker 2
Learn and finally understand what we're saying that like that final cortex is what gives you your social norms, which are the limiting belief systems, right? So it's like if I wake up today, this is all I can accomplish because this is I told myself, like an album. Since I came, we're able to shut that off the boundaries off of what we believe that box has bigger.
00;57;41;23 - 00;58;07;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. And so with that, you know, with the athletes you work with and the artists and other people, what about, what about that executive or just the, the, the entrepreneur that's trying to to grow and get better, you know, psychedelics. How can that help them? Larry Page Sergey Brin You know, the Silicon Valley said a lot of them have experiment and so do during the day.
00;58;07;23 - 00;58;18;15
Speaker 1
You know, it's not like a party drug. It's really just a tool, really a supplement, an herbal supplement in a way to enhance productivity flow ability to achieve their goals.
00;58;18;16 - 00;58;41;21
Speaker 2
You said that perfectly. There's so psychedelics are intersect because they're the only medication that I know of when taking in a large dose or back or dose has a completely different chemical reaction than a micro dose. So macro dose is where we rewiring thought patterns, behavioral patterns, a micro dose where we're improving synapse firing. So your improved mood, improved empathy, right?
00;58;41;21 - 00;59;02;16
Speaker 2
And so to that executive, if I can go on and I can align with my even more, you know, not even like my C-suite call with my BP level, my director level, I can go in and I can get in the trenches with them and understand where they're coming from a little bit better. The outputs for the company are substantial because I'm able to set us up in a way to capitalize on the opportunities that they have in front of them.
00;59;02;16 - 00;59;21;12
Speaker 2
And that's really where that team kind of thing comes in. And what I've seen the most with a lot of the executives that I've worked with is that, you know, the thing that's that's known and not talked about is that inhibiting stress, that impending doom, that that when something happens, it no longer just it's it's your family, but it's your family family.
00;59;21;12 - 00;59;46;08
Speaker 2
It's everybody that's affected. And that could be very inhibiting. And what I've found with people who are microdosing on a regular, which doesn't necessarily mean every day there's a lot of different protocols out there. If anyone's looking into it, you can look them up. There's a ton of different ones with different outcomes and different purposes. But what I've seen is those executives tend to be a little bit happier, a little bit more resilient, a little less affected by negativity in the workplace, which in turn those are the things that slow us down.
00;59;46;18 - 01;00;11;21
Speaker 2
So that what I've seen with a lot of the executives that I work with that are, you know, microdosing throughout their day, they're just a little bit more effective. They can be a little bit more supportive to that staff number. You know, like the reality is that we all have direct reports that struggle and if I can help them turn that around more quickly, just purely from a business standpoint, the efficiency that say through that the amount of dollars that are generated by having that, you know, that all start come back quickly are substantial.
01;00;12;06 - 01;00;25;26
Speaker 2
But at the end of the day, it's it for me it's it's also that workplace if I workplaces have flow you know I always I've always said like why hire people which is why I don't what's why of each other not because I can't hire people about again I shouldn't also work with entry level employees and it's it's good with that.
01;00;25;26 - 01;00;37;24
Speaker 2
But it's not like it's a workplace, it's a family workplace. So if I come in and you're in a bad mood and I could tell you're a bad mood and I ask you why you're in a bad mood if you tell me that there's nothing wrong, I'm going to send you all you can come back when you could tell me what's going on.
01;00;38;10 - 01;00;51;23
Speaker 2
I don't have a we don't have the energetic a surplus to to help carry anybody that's not willing to do that work. And it doesn't mean that we don't have bad days and you don't get that we often end up the boss will send you home and it's not going to be a thing. It's actually on your record.
01;00;52;02 - 01;00;54;19
Speaker 2
But very seriously, I don't want to work with you so you could tell me what's going on.
01;00;54;19 - 01;00;58;11
Speaker 1
It sounds like you're talking a little bit about IQ and positive intelligence.
01;00;58;11 - 01;01;00;08
Speaker 2
Also Yeah, it's it's it's critical.
01;01;00;08 - 01;01;01;15
Speaker 1
Like here at the Unique.
01;01;01;19 - 01;01;14;27
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, they're critical to it. And I think they're like those of us that have that awareness, the conscious, especially conscious employers, business owners, I'm it's to me it's almost one of the like I could you know I always say like you're I have to be the smartest if you got to work ethic I'll work with you.
01;01;15;04 - 01;01;30;08
Speaker 2
You know you don't have to outsmart me. Show up 20 minutes before me every day. You got my respect. And I think that one of the most important things that I think we can we can teach to people, which is one of the hardest things to teach, is at issue of reading a group, a room intelligently in one condition.
01;01;31;03 - 01;01;44;23
Speaker 2
It's not reading a room to figure out what pitch you to say. It's reading the room to figure out how to get the most out of the room, which is a completely different way of looking at it. You know, How do I set this room on fire in a positive way? And, you know, for me, that's where like sacred hoops, a lot of those things come in.
01;01;44;23 - 01;01;59;27
Speaker 2
And that's But what I'm finding is the executives that are willing to because it's is it's a willingness, right. Like it's it's going to wake up and run every day. That's the willingness and the physical and mental benefits of that are huge. But that's because you're making a decision to wake up every day. It's the same thing with Microdosing.
01;02;00;09 - 01;02;17;15
Speaker 2
You're making a conscious decision to change the outcomes of your day. And yes, you're going to be a little bit more sensitive to staff. Morale is going to be more aware. Someone who's not searching through awareness like it's tough, someone who is searching for awareness. This is it's it's a big part of the answer now. All right. Medicines aren't the only option.
01;02;17;16 - 01;02;37;12
Speaker 2
There's there's shamanic breathwork, there's meditation. There's a lot of other ways that we found to get into those ecstatic states. But this is for me, it's this is what I found was very well for me. I still do yoga every day. There is a there's a intelligence that comes with a lot of these plans for me that I found that helps to benefit me in everyone's network.
01;02;38;20 - 01;03;05;22
Speaker 2
You know, our public company operates in seven states and as a result of that was 100% result of that awareness that came from psychedelic medicines, not because it was a concert, made a bunch of mushrooms and the sage and all it. But because I was able to look at some of the shit that I had, the blocked me that that made me in fact is as a leader and as a coworker and was able to deal with that and I was able to instill some of those key points on other people saying this is how you encourage your people.
01;03;05;23 - 01;03;09;11
Speaker 2
It's not about holding them accountable, it's not encouraging them. You know.
01;03;09;17 - 01;03;31;15
Speaker 1
You know, I really appreciate that there's a author and I'm I can't think of his last name, but it's first name. Shirzad. So if you were to Google Shirzad and his books called The Positive Intelligence Quotient, I believe and I did a study with John Marie Mudd from Canyon Ranch about that for for a few months. And it's about IQ.
01;03;31;21 - 01;04;05;11
Speaker 1
And there's a number of exercises you go through. And it's the mindset behind it is it's like muscles, training, muscles. You don't go to the gym once and you're fit right. You got to keep working the muscles. Same with the mind. And so there's certain exercises you do tactile, rubbing your fingers together and some different things, putting you're putting yourself in a mindful set so that when an inevitable things happen that are high stress or whatever, that you're able to deal with it better, deal with employees or superiors or colleagues or family members or friends or whatever, so you don't blow up.
01;04;06;20 - 01;04;35;13
Speaker 1
And so so what you're saying really resonates with me. And and one of the things I really hope to inform others of beyond typical finance, which you can read books you can watch podcast podcasts about are all the other things that we're talking about to help people move more into flow. And so what are the other holistic things and little things that can be end up being big, things that can a real positive impact.
01;04;35;23 - 01;04;37;29
Speaker 1
And so I really appreciate what you're saying there.
01;04;39;15 - 01;04;57;20
Speaker 2
Well, there's a what are the stats? I read that I was loved. Was that the difference between a happy self and a poor stuff is 10% of your bottom line, whether they're happy and killing it or they're sad and poor and they're just everything sucks. It's 10%, that's 7 to 9. And I think that's the thing is all these things like that other stuff is quantifiable.
01;04;58;13 - 01;05;15;22
Speaker 2
It's easy for us to say that if I do this, the operating efficiencies improve or if I do this and I add another sector and product, here's here's what that looks like from a revenue standpoint. These are the things that are the things that are typically in a standard company. Not they're not quantifiable, but they are they really are.
01;05;15;22 - 01;05;34;16
Speaker 2
When you're where it's the culture, you know, it's the you and I do a lot of work on us and like showing up so that we could be the best example of us to other people. But are we taking the time to quantify that into a culture for our business? Right? Because like one of the things we did was like pillars, cultural pillars for the company and like I and my moleskin guy, like taking notes on everything.
01;05;34;16 - 01;05;51;00
Speaker 2
I was shooting memory. So I write everything down. Everybody in the company in July are not going to free Moleskine When they started, he felt it didn't give a shit where it could be Doodles. I don't care. Fill it, come back, show it to me. And I've been there every one of those and are cultural pillars in it because I want those same pillars of like happiness and kindness and like, be the best you like.
01;05;51;13 - 01;06;07;25
Speaker 2
The cheesy things that we all say every day are real. Things are cheesy. So if you remember the do not be afraid to take the work that you're doing every day. It's one of the things I really admire about you, sir, is that it's being open about the work that we're doing. If I'm not open with it, I can inspire anybody else.
01;06;08;09 - 01;06;23;10
Speaker 2
It's just my little journey. The second that I'm willing to be vulnerable and share that I'm doing work on me because I'm not perfect and these are the things I'm working on and this is what I'm doing and why work. We can inspire people like you do that all the time. It's one of the things I really, really like honor you for it.
01;06;23;21 - 01;06;28;05
Speaker 2
And that's what this is all about. It's just it's. It's those. It's the other things.
01;06;28;28 - 01;06;30;10
Speaker 1
Yeah. Right on. Appreciate that.
01;06;30;10 - 01;06;30;28
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's.
01;06;30;28 - 01;06;49;13
Speaker 1
Real. So as you check in where you are now in your life, kind of take status, your body of work, tell me a little bit about as you reflect back over your body of work and the impact you've made, what are some of your highlights and think some of the things you're most proud of?
01;06;50;29 - 01;07;06;23
Speaker 2
And it's got to be stuff. I would say a couple, you know, one, having a business that lives beyond me, you know, it's the day that you decide to leave a company you started. It's a it's a weird feeling, you know, But I can quantify it, too. Everyone wants the best from the kids and the best you can hope for.
01;07;06;23 - 01;07;32;09
Speaker 2
Someone loves them as much as you did. And you know, so. So watching a company like Beyoncé is very cool. But I would say that like my biggest victories in the stack two hands down, I have not so many stories. I know one of our first employees, we had a little struggle with alcohol stuck with him and is still with us today.
01;07;32;17 - 01;07;44;23
Speaker 2
I saw one of my cars and breathalyzer and it was the day I walked into the facility and he told me that he had a year sober and that he was going by he was trading in the car that I'd sold him for a new car. He was the first person in his family to get his own place.
01;07;44;23 - 01;08;01;03
Speaker 2
That was his grandparents and his mother and his special needs sibling. You took care of you get his own place and help them support themselves. And like, it's just things like that. Like it because, you know, because like, I've had some I've had pre parties, I've had good stuff, I've got a great car house, I've had those things.
01;08;01;03 - 01;08;17;20
Speaker 2
But like at the end of the day, like I've never had a house that I sat and I thought about all the time. No matter how cool it was that that was so short lived. But like that happened to be years ago. And I can still remember the look on his face when he told me that, you know, the people like my my older sister, she's the head of h.r.
01;08;17;20 - 01;08;35;23
Speaker 2
For publicly traded company. She's making six figures a year, and she's marrying another guy who makes six figures a year, who loves her like he's never loved. He didn't on this planet being able to facilitate those things because I'm open about, like, who I am and what my struggles aren't. I'm a human with my people. Those are like the biggest victories, You know, I'm proud of what I've accomplished.
01;08;35;26 - 01;08;52;19
Speaker 2
Never thought, you know, I always tell people I do not look at my story because if you add one plus one, it does not equal the outcome. Like it's it's so different, but it's just like, do give up. It's going to be hard. If if it was easy, it would be fun. That's my thing, too. Like, the only reason I'm here is that I didn't give up.
01;08;53;09 - 01;09;09;13
Speaker 2
I tried to be a good dude. No, His lack of integrity has ever cost us my not this never happened. You could be a dirt bag. You can rip us off. You can do that. There's so much more money to be made by doing good business with me and written off all you want. And there's an extra common there if you had, you know.
01;09;09;13 - 01;09;17;02
Speaker 2
And so I would say that like, that's probably the the my biggest homeruns are the people that I've been able to affect because I wasn't in debt.
01;09;18;12 - 01;09;37;03
Speaker 1
Yeah, right. Yeah. Well I know that about Yeah. And that's really cool. It's a great way of being and a great way to live your life. Well, I just really want to thank you. I'm grateful that you took the time to come by and and hang with us today and chat. And thank you all for listening really appreciate you guys tuning in.
01;09;37;03 - 01;10;00;13
Speaker 1
And I hope that you were all inspired and informed and if you like, where you heard whatever channel you're listening on, go ahead and really appreciate it. If you were to review and and rate us a little bit and otherwise steak's for tuning and go a little closer to your financial flow. Take care. This was the Financial Flow podcast with me Darren Right.
01;10;00;19 - 01;31;58;20
Speaker 1
Thank you for listening and I hope that today you were inspired and informed to move even more into your peak financial flow for success. All right, Well, welcome everybody, and thanks for tuning in. I've got my good buddy Bryce, scholar here. Welcome, my man.
01;31;58;26 - 01;32;00;23
Speaker 2
Jared, Always a pleasure. Sarah, great to see you.
01;32;00;23 - 01;32;27;23
Speaker 1
Yeah, great to see you, too. Thank you for coming so much. So I've known Bryce quite a while now, but he is a 20 year entrepreneurial veteran with a background in psychology, therapeutic psychedelics, brand development and revenue generation. He's been involved in brand creation for over 100 companies across an array of industries, ranging from CPG and fashion to wellness and professional services.
01;32;28;07 - 01;32;55;13
Speaker 1
Most recently, he founded Adam nine Labs Corp, OTC, Ex I and will be as CEO oh with a focus on quality, transparency and fun, which we all love. You led the charge in taking the company from a privately owned cannabis enterprise based in Arizona to over-the-counter X publicly traded corporation operating in multiple states with a market value of 350 mil.
01;32;57;09 - 01;33;10;11
Speaker 1
Currently, Bryce has created Hojo distro focusing on premium plant medicine products throughout the South United States. That's quite a lot of shit going on.
01;33;10;11 - 01;33;18;15
Speaker 2
Bryce Hospital credit. Do you said Hojo correctly. It's normally a third or fourth time someone gets this. I want to give credit where it's due.
01;33;18;19 - 01;33;31;17
Speaker 1
Well, you know. Thank you. Yeah. A little coaching on the front. So that's that's pretty amazing. So tell me, let's back up a little bit, though. Tell me a little bit about your story and how you got started.
01;33;31;22 - 01;33;54;27
Speaker 2
Okay. I like Groupon. Just California lived out there for most of my formative years, moved to Arizona and teen years, tumultuous teen years, and moved around a lot. Growing up in Encinitas, it was a very spiritual community. There was, you know, we had the realization fellowship there. You know, Deepak Chopra did a lot of speeches and stuff out of my area.
01;33;54;27 - 01;34;14;16
Speaker 2
And so I there was a lot of spirituality and awareness when I was young. They also picked up all the baggage that we pick up in our teen years. What I had was a stepfather who was an entrepreneur himself who was also a cheapskate. And so from a very early age, we didn't get allowance in my house. If you wanted money works, were it as much as it was rough when I was a kid.
01;34;14;16 - 01;34;38;10
Speaker 2
I'm so grateful for those lessons now because I've either owned a company or had a side business of some sort since I was 12. Never not had a side business. It's always been my thing. It was distributing plant medicines before they were legal for a long time and now that's illegal. That past experiences helped me. But it also taught me that there was always a way, you know, if you wanted to get something done, there was always a way.
01;34;39;15 - 01;35;04;26
Speaker 2
I had a I decided to see what was possible in the trouble realm through most of my twenties and and through that experience. And coming out of that experience, I wanted I knew that I wanted to do something that would help others. And so I ended up I went to school initially for education and for music and ended up getting into read psychology and psychology.
01;35;04;26 - 01;35;10;21
Speaker 2
And that kind of been my mainstay. And I did that for about ten years before kind of deciding to go full tilt entrepreneur.
01;35;11;13 - 01;35;15;09
Speaker 1
In reason why you found your way into psychology?
01;35;16;02 - 01;35;39;00
Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, I think, you know, my experience with psychologists and counselors is that, you know, normally when you meet them, it's because things are easy, you know? And I had a lot of childhood traumas with family members, with suicide attempts and there was drug and alcohol use and abuse in my just throughout my entire family that it not all just in my direct childhood, but just kind of throughout the family.
01;35;39;00 - 01;35;59;14
Speaker 2
And I think that I saw an opportunity to let people know there was a different way. I think that was the hard things. I think when you're in that dark hole, sometimes you don't think there's a light out there and once I kind of saw the light, it was just important to me that other people, you know, when I when I was young and doing bad things, I had a big heart.
01;35;59;14 - 01;36;15;07
Speaker 2
And so it was a liability. A large portion of my younger years. The older I got, I realized that that big heart and I didn't give up on people as quick as some other people did, and that that was a and if I use it for good, then it was going to be a huge benefit. Otherwise it was not.
01;36;15;07 - 01;36;37;17
Speaker 2
And so I just figured that was the best way to do it. Yeah, I love social work. I like counselors, psychologists and social workers are like a you know, they separate myself from that group and I'll do it anymore. But it's a very noble profession. What I when they told me to go back to school for my master's and spent 60 grand on making an extra $2 an hour, the numbers didn't add up for me.
01;36;38;21 - 01;36;57;24
Speaker 2
You know. But what I really saw was that there was a way to be of service in other places and that I didn't have to meet everyone on the worst day of their lives, because that's really what it was. It was a decade of helping. A lot of people have got amazing stories and have it, you know, really beautiful, you know, blessings where I've seen people that I didn't think we're going to make it, make it.
01;36;57;24 - 01;37;14;20
Speaker 2
They're successful now these are doing great things. But it was also being everyone on the worst day of their lives and like you can only, you know, emotionally take that so long before you need a break, you know? Yeah. And, you know, and they also realized that there was a lot of people that that needed help in other ways.
01;37;14;20 - 01;37;30;09
Speaker 2
You know, I you know, I employed a lot of people that didn't have the opportunity to regular job unless they met someone like me who's like, I'll give you a chance, man. And so to me, that has been as impactful as some of the other people that maybe they helped get off drugs and alcohol or stabilize on their psych medications.
01;37;30;09 - 01;37;36;19
Speaker 2
You know, they were all it's to watch a family flourish because if somebody is good choices is powerful, then, you know. So.
01;37;37;12 - 01;37;51;17
Speaker 1
Yeah, for sure yeah so psychology CEO the bring a company public Deepak Chopra I think I heard a little Deepak Chopra name drop in there. So tell us about Deepak.
01;37;52;12 - 01;38;11;25
Speaker 2
Well, I think, you know, growing up, I was really lucky in that my mother, because of like kind of her spiritual beliefs, you know, I grew up in like we my roommates, the general entities that I grew up. And we had Tai Chi lessons at my house and, you know, and, you know, she like, breathe like breathing workshops at my house.
01;38;11;25 - 01;38;25;13
Speaker 2
And so, like, I you know, I grew up around that stuff. And I think for a long time, you know, and when I see that, I think it's, you know, it's important because, you know, what I've come to understand about me is that I'm a you know, I have a suit, but I'm just kind of energetic being that was within that.
01;38;25;13 - 01;38;42;02
Speaker 2
And I to choose how much power that energetic thing has on you. Again, that depends on what I see, that how my heart is it, how I look at it, how I relate to it. And I learned a lot of that when I was a kid, But because of that trauma. I also always used to joke that I had like the New Age Catholic upbringing because my family's Catholic.
01;38;42;17 - 01;38;56;01
Speaker 2
And so there was all the traumas associated with like, oh, people do that stuff. And they're not really, you know, I have a lot of people that I know that like might say the same thing about the Catholic religion, the Christian religion, where they have some trauma that just all of a sudden they separated themselves from, that group.
01;38;56;01 - 01;39;14;21
Speaker 2
And if that was it for me, and I think that as I got older and started to have, you know, sort of to find my own truths and, just do my own work, that's when I started to see that there was a lot more to that, that it wasn't as you know, it was much more direct applicable science than it was.
01;39;15;09 - 01;39;35;12
Speaker 2
And I just think I needed the awareness to get to that point. You know, it's one of the things I love about the I have some friends that are, you know, just absolute, you know, can't talk about God, can't talk about anything beyond where they are today, not necessarily like, you know, against the religion, but they just don't understand the more than the sum of our parts.
01;39;35;23 - 01;40;01;23
Speaker 2
And when I started to do my own work and I started to see that it became so applicable to my journey now, professionally, personally, that's one of the things that, you know, I talk very openly about this for a while, even with business, is it's, you know, who I am. And I've yet to find a high, high profile executives or professional of sorts, you know, regardless of whether they're C-suite or independent or whatever it is that does not have some sort of spiritual ritual or practice they do every day.
01;40;02;15 - 01;40;03;00
Speaker 2
So that just.
01;40;03;19 - 01;40;06;18
Speaker 1
The use You said you've yet to find anybody that does not.
01;40;06;18 - 01;40;21;04
Speaker 2
Correct. Yeah. Now there are some that are all the way up, but even I would argue the ones that aren't necessarily spiritual have a moment of silence to take every day and go out back on the patio and they sit still and they might not have defined it as such, but they know that the benefits it has to them.
01;40;21;04 - 01;40;53;15
Speaker 2
The interesting thing to me about I would say spiritual sciences is that there's typically a quantifiable result to that. They just haven't seen the numbers yet, you know, and so I think that the the the higher I got, the better that the the more successful I found, the harder to manage all of those moving pieces and the more I realized that that I had to do those things on a daily basis if I wanted to continue to operate at the level that I was and that if I didn't do those things, there was going to be short circuits happened in a number of ways now.
01;40;53;16 - 01;41;13;05
Speaker 2
So for me, I'm a very compassionate, kind, patient, loving some guy when I'm in my lower self, where I start to short circuit, I get impatient, I get mature, I lash out, I get moody. You know, that's that's where my lower self from shows up. And those are all things that are now adapted to the environment that live in on a regular basis.
01;41;13;05 - 01;41;28;28
Speaker 2
So those were all tools that I was able to establish to utilize for me. And they're different for everybody. But it was like all of those things that I had heard as a kid. It was like one, you know, I had some plateaus and experiences that like kind of changed things for me. And I was like, Oh, you were right about all this.
01;41;29;03 - 01;41;46;12
Speaker 2
Oh, no. Hey, let's meet that. It wasn't like 25 year old, like, oh, shucks. Parents were right about everything. It was like a deeper level of that. Of like all those things that they had taught me were real and was some validity to that. They might not have shown up in the box that I was presented them in, but they were real.
01;41;46;12 - 01;41;49;26
Speaker 2
And then I needed to learn how those things worked for me, you know? So yeah, it was a big piece of it.
01;41;50;17 - 01;41;57;10
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's super interesting. You talk about that spirituality piece because have you ever read Ray Dalio spoke principles?
01;41;57;15 - 01;41;58;15
Speaker 2
Oh, Vedolizumab.
01;41;58;25 - 01;42;13;27
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, so he credits meditation. I think he might have said 2 hours a day, this is average that. But he credits that 2 hours of meditation that day is the single most important thing to his success.
01;42;13;29 - 01;42;30;09
Speaker 2
Well, Phil Jackson talks about in Sacred Hoops, which is one of my favorite all time leadership books. But he talks about being mindfulness. That was the most important thing on this team. And when you were on the 91, the 93 balls, if you couldn't tell him what was happening on the court, you would let you play, you know, Hey, you're up where?
01;42;30;12 - 01;42;43;15
Speaker 2
Where's the ball at? Who got it? Last was last shot. Where? The guards can't tell me you're up where we are because that's stillness and mindfulness of what was happening. Round two was more important than the ferocity that you were going to hit the court.
01;42;43;15 - 01;42;48;09
Speaker 1
With trying to read that book. I was a rabid Wolves fan growing up in Illinois.
01;42;48;10 - 01;42;51;05
Speaker 2
You ever read Sacred Hoops? No overall? I just blew your mind.
01;42;51;08 - 01;42;51;15
Speaker 1
Yeah.
01;42;51;23 - 01;43;01;01
Speaker 2
It's like 250 pages. Okay, I've 70 times. I still have a half a case in my house that I haven't given out yet, so I'll have to see if I can dig anybody, if I could, to get the storage and find it. I got a half a case.
01;43;01;03 - 01;43;01;26
Speaker 1
I'm all right.
01;43;02;11 - 01;43;05;22
Speaker 2
It's right next to my half. A case of like, you know, some have some halo effect of.
01;43;06;02 - 01;43;06;20
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah.
01;43;07;03 - 01;43;09;07
Speaker 2
The 5000 to the seven as far as I've got all.
01;43;09;28 - 01;43;21;00
Speaker 1
Right. I'm a big fan of all those books, but sacred hoops. Now I have to add that I actually give out The Richest Man in Babylon. So a lot of like high school and college graduates. That's a good.
01;43;21;00 - 01;43;22;09
Speaker 2
One. Is another good one, too.
01;43;22;10 - 01;43;22;22
Speaker 1
What is it?
01;43;22;27 - 01;43;23;29
Speaker 2
The wooden story.
01;43;24;09 - 01;43;25;02
Speaker 1
What's the wooden story?
01;43;25;02 - 01;43;27;26
Speaker 2
Picture Wadsworth from a Although I got to.
01;43;28;06 - 01;43;29;06
Speaker 1
Know that more, I'll.
01;43;29;10 - 01;43;29;27
Speaker 2
Give you a box.
01;43;29;28 - 01;43;31;17
Speaker 1
But I thought. I thought I had a great one.
01;43;31;18 - 01;43;46;26
Speaker 2
Oh, I love it. I love it. What? Other people are avid readers and like stuff, But, you know. But the thing I loved about Phil Jackson, too. Yeah. Was that for him, you know, the reason why I wrote that book is amazing intellectually. You know. Mike Wells, you're a rockstar, so you inspired me, an amazing sales guy for the better sales guys.
01;43;46;26 - 01;44;05;24
Speaker 2
I've never worked with absolute pain in. My but probably one of the biggest is probably because he was a lot like me as he drove me bananas. But I needed to figure out how to capitalize on that. And you know, one of the things that that sacred hoop stopped me was that, you know, Jordan was he led the league in scoring.
01;44;06;03 - 01;44;25;20
Speaker 2
He was MVP. It wasn't until the year that he didn't win MVP that the team became a championship team. Right. And it was it was about that. You know, he was better than the others. And so what was Jackson expected of him? Was he expected him to give more to help show up, more to teach better, to do those things to lead, because he had that to give.
01;44;26;01 - 01;44;38;06
Speaker 2
And it was once he harnessed that for the team, that that was when he won. And Jackson was I mean, he studied indigenous, you know, spiritual ceremonies, humility, that every day that he meditated, every practice.
01;44;39;10 - 01;44;41;23
Speaker 1
I did not I knew he did, but I didn't know the team did as well.
01;44;41;24 - 01;44;52;24
Speaker 2
It was like a requirement. The I loved the mindfulness. I mean, he would just call them out on the court. Do you know what's going on right now? If you do not if you're not paying attention and you don't you're not mindful about this entire game, you can't play right now.
01;44;53;05 - 01;45;01;18
Speaker 1
Well, thank you for that tip. I mean, that absolutely. You know that tell you, I just wrapping up the book, Financial Fitness.
01;45;01;27 - 01;45;04;03
Speaker 2
Oh, you told me about it. But I haven't heard I haven't heard this.
01;45;04;03 - 01;45;33;00
Speaker 1
I started it in COVID, and I've been working through it. But the reason I bring it up right now is because really, over the last 12 months, I'd have to say my wife and I went to camp and ranch up in Woodside, California, met this amazing woman, Jean Marie Mudd, and she turned me on to a little bit more of a more of the slow element of things and incorporating that into finances, which kind of led me to change the book a little bit and led to this podcast as well.
01;45;33;29 - 01;45;53;23
Speaker 1
And so that that slow and that mindfulness has kind of got me down this road of diving into a number of different books. Stephen Cutler's books, Superman, a bunch of others that I've now started to see it in back into the book before I publish it. So definitely appreciate that. So I'll have to get into it.
01;45;53;23 - 01;46;11;07
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's just such a quick read too. It's a fun, it's a real, real, real quick read. Yeah, But I think that's, you know, that was one of the things, you know, I got cycling was something I got into. Yeah. Especially with, you know, we've talked about that like and there's just the my brain doesn't shut off ever, ever shut off.
01;46;11;07 - 01;46;29;08
Speaker 2
It's constantly going and I'm grateful for it. It's, you know, I've learned how to harness that for, for, you know, for my benefit. But it's also a lot it's the, you know, it's the stress we take on. It's, you know, if I make a mistake, then people lose jobs and, you know, millions of dollars lost. And I do share responsibility in all of my businesses today.
01;46;30;04 - 01;46;51;27
Speaker 2
And, you know, I think that what I learned as it got to as I started, you know, and I wouldn't even say that it was the public company was definitely the vehicle by which I learned a lot of these things, you know, learned what true fiduciary responsibility was not helping in terms of we have that already, but what a sacred right that is when somebody says, hey, I'm going to give you my money because I'm giving you this much like there's something so sacred about that.
01;46;51;27 - 01;47;07;21
Speaker 2
And like so it's me watching your kids and like, there's the people that call big money to watch your kids and there's the people that are your friends are like, These are the things that I've set up for them to know, Are you cool with us? Because it's an honor to them to watch your children. They see what an honor it is.
01;47;07;21 - 01;47;26;25
Speaker 2
And and to me, that's fiduciary through really mindful about it. It's not like you're you're feeling comfortable enough with me that like the thing that we all we all hold for safety whether we want to admit it or not. Because it's easy to say like now Naval Ravikant, who's like one of my favorite I talked to that the last time I saw you.
01;47;27;10 - 01;47;42;16
Speaker 2
You know, he talks about like figuring out what you want because it's easy to find a passion, but You can't support yourself. That's all you're going to focus on. You know, he talks about how, like Jesus lost everything and guru was a prince. So figure out where you want to be before you try to really find that pure and real happiness.
01;47;42;16 - 01;48;01;18
Speaker 2
Because the reality is there's always going to be intermittent factors. If you have decided that, you know, if you're going to burn out, you know, denounce everything and live in a you know, a time is great. You're going to find happiness in if you're not going to do that and you have to find a stable means of of supporting yourself, your family or whoever, because that's going to be what you wake up and worry about.
01;48;01;18 - 01;48;12;05
Speaker 2
And once that's addressed now, you can start to find passion and happiness. And those are you know, those are ongoing things, but you have to address those, you know, and I think that that's, you know, a big piece of that.
01;48;12;27 - 01;48;35;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, that makes total sense. When you think back, you said you had some struggles growing up. What are some of the struggles that that you went through on your journey and what did you learn from them that kind of kept you in the game and continue to have really what I feel is a real growth mentality that you have.
01;48;36;12 - 01;48;39;23
Speaker 1
You're always trying to get better, always trying to grow, help others.
01;48;40;06 - 01;48;54;21
Speaker 2
Well, I would say there are a couple of good things. You know, my both my parents were first, usually my parents got divorced when I was very young. I really don't remember them together at all. My step mom's around since I was three, so I've got a bonus. Mom. She's been there just as long. Just as stable.
01;48;56;05 - 01;48;57;15
Speaker 1
Like that term bonus. Mom.
01;48;57;15 - 01;49;21;05
Speaker 2
Yeah, because she really is. You know, I really lucked this life. I got that, you know, And one of the things that they always taught me is if you don't like your reality, you're the only one who can change it. And so if you want something different and that was through, you know, me putting myself in, you know, institutions and, you know, and whether it was, you know, state paid vacation or if we were paying through for insurance and it was a hospital or whatever that occasion was like at the time, it was that I was the creator of those issues.
01;49;21;05 - 01;49;36;13
Speaker 2
I wanted to start creating a different lifestyle. I had the ability to do that. I just had to do it, you know. And so it got to a point when, you know, my father, I hit that stage where we was again, I got that day and I've got what it takes to to be the man. You know, it was nothing like, Hey, this is your reality if you like to change it.
01;49;36;26 - 01;49;47;01
Speaker 2
I don't wanna hear you. I want to hear you complain about it. Do I heard you complain about this for a long time. Then you keep making these choices, You know, like do change the oil in your car. You don't want to break down. I don't want hear you bitch about it anymore.
01;49;47;06 - 01;49;48;28
Speaker 1
How long did it take for that to sink in?
01;49;49;05 - 01;49;49;24
Speaker 2
Oof!
01;49;50;03 - 01;49;53;28
Speaker 1
Um, I would say. Or is it still sinking in.
01;49;53;29 - 01;50;12;08
Speaker 2
Now as it's here? But I would say it was it was a good 25 years of hearing it before it really like struck me and it struck me honestly and I'll, I'll give you the, the that it was Christmas 24, it was incarcerated. My very clear understanding was my parents. They didn't call them as I was incarcerated or my legal issues.
01;50;12;08 - 01;50;27;16
Speaker 2
I didn't want them to be my parents. It was always my choice. And I do that from early age and they would never visit. And it was it was nothing. It wasn't like they were they were not inconceivable. There was no reason to see me in a box. And so that Christmas often their visitors and it's my dad invisible.
01;50;27;22 - 01;50;45;16
Speaker 2
And I was like, Oh shit, somebody died. And, you know, in my head I always inconvenience them with the things I was doing. And so they were just tired of dealing with my shit. And what they said in that meeting was the thing that really upset us wasn't, that you created all these issues. It was that you robbed us of having a son and we wanted your presence.
01;50;46;11 - 01;50;59;11
Speaker 2
We want you to be there. And like by the time we were able to kind of have those experiences with you out causing trouble. And so it wasn't any of that we would have dealt with that. But I want to teach you how to play catch. I wanted to teach you about women. I wanted to teach you, and a good man does.
01;50;59;25 - 01;51;22;08
Speaker 2
And I didn't give him the opportunity to do that. So for me, it was that was a pivotal lesson in life that my presence was really what was one of the most of the time. And I was too busy creating all of these things that I thought everybody wanted, whether it was a job or a hustle or whatever it was, it was what they really wanted was just me to be there with them through that and then work on it with them.
01;51;22;08 - 01;51;45;06
Speaker 2
If it was something I want to work on with them and be around. And I think that for me that was a really big piece of understanding that. All of the other stuff I was doing was noise, you know, all the little things of trying to create this reality that really wasn't creating reality, was just causing chaos around it wasn't it was taking it was detracting from me being able to be present, which I think at the time was probably what I was seeking.
01;51;46;02 - 01;52;02;24
Speaker 2
You know, it's the it's the people now that I talk to that are, you know, I've been in cannabis now for a while, and when I started that company, it was really a sort of product for people like me who like I didn't want something to happen, advocacy on it that was like really catchy. I just wanted a quality product because I could understand why they did it the way they did it.
01;52;03;07 - 01;52;16;03
Speaker 2
You know, like if I got the storm to buy organic, that whole thing, my wife will still show me if I could show up with something as part of Dirty Dozen that wasn't organic and they had an option. You know, that means it's that stuff, right? So it was just that it was just sort of to understand that like there was intentional stuff there.
01;52;16;13 - 01;52;42;17
Speaker 2
When I started that company, I wanted to start something was a product for me, and it allowed me to start to move into a place where I wanted to to remove noise from my life. And I wanted to show up authentically in places, and I wanted to create things that were authentically what I wanted. You know, I had a clothing company for a while that I don't feel like it was authentically me, but I learned a lot and it just was a because I learned a lot to do the wrong thing.
01;52;43;08 - 01;52;59;06
Speaker 2
I learned a lot through it. And it was like when I moved into the space, I was able to see that if I showed up, how I was like I was okay. It was it was what I thought. Other people wanted to be, who they wanted me to be, or the other things that I thought I needed to possess or bone in order to be liked.
01;52;59;06 - 01;53;17;11
Speaker 2
It was just creating noise distance between all those things and that. It seems like the older I get, the more simplified things get, you know, the more powerful an important get you, the more responsibility that other people can on those things, but the more simplified they are. It's not a lot of noise, it's just showing up authentically. The supports in place to make sure that I am able to be there.
01;53;17;13 - 01;53;31;28
Speaker 2
I think that for me was a big piece of that, was just hearing my father say that that day made me realize that like I was the gift wasn't what I could do and wasn't who I know. And like, you know, I love traveling because it doesn't matter who, you know, when you show up, if you're nice, you have friends.
01;53;31;28 - 01;53;45;09
Speaker 2
And if you're not, you don't. It's just that easy. Like, it's so simple. Right? And when he said that to me that day it made me realize that I feel like I was the gift to the world, you know, just like you are. Just like our lives and our children are like, you know, I know you're like, I am with my kids.
01;53;45;09 - 01;54;09;27
Speaker 2
Like, the biggest gift I've given, but that's the gift. It's not how he plays video games. It's not how I do work. Now, if I show up and I am able to authentically be me in a way that also helps to to generate revenue and or affect a business in a positive outcome, then And that's my intention that I could be authentically be me generating wealth for myself and others.
01;54;10;09 - 01;54;28;13
Speaker 2
But I have to show up with that intention and I can't show up thinking I'm going to do all these things because I think that's the you know, because I was watching Fox business this morning and, you know, it's not that. It's that if I show up intentionally and I authentically want to be me, a business environment, then that means that I'm going to be diligent because that's who I am.
01;54;28;13 - 01;54;42;13
Speaker 2
I'm going to work hard as the boss because that's what I do and I'm going to care a little bit more the next guy does, because that's what I do and it's not is directed with the intention of generating opportunity. Did I get to do that? Generating opportunity? If I want to do it at home with my kids, I could do that too.
01;54;42;27 - 01;55;15;01
Speaker 2
I've just been lucky enough that I believe business is an art. I've seen it as such. It did. It always was a job for a long time. But it's creating, it's creating a passion and taking the passion and putting structure around it, scalable structure so that it can be duplicated. Goods that are markets sold, whatever that is, that it needs showing up authentically, it needs noise and just applying the same principles that like he's told me that day that like stuck clear stone and he was cut in conduit for me that day and it was you know and a piece that was never in my value.
01;55;15;01 - 01;55;35;15
Speaker 2
Right like you know through all those that trauma, you know, I think all of these things sync up once the work stop, you know? So like, I had these lessons that were carved in stone at these points in and then once I all that come out, I realized that there was a lot of, you know, mess inside of me that had been created by me, had that happen to me, whatever that was, that was like I was able to clear some of that wreckage out.
01;55;36;03 - 01;55;56;25
Speaker 2
Those two things aligned where it was like, okay, I really, really value who I am personally. You know what? I have friends, which tells me other people now you mean, okay, now I really I want to work and accomplish things. And so it was like starting to figure out how I could monetize that and how I could structure that, you know, like I can't look at a business not just for me.
01;55;56;25 - 01;56;15;28
Speaker 2
Like our business is like, how do you make money that isn't your top moneymaker? Do you speak to your demographic how is your brand? How is it like like for me, that's that's how you know, it's the it's you know, it's it's a contractual of you to build that I really want to hear like I have some friends that have like know a little thing going and they want to call me back because it's not that I'm not fun with it.
01;56;15;28 - 01;56;32;06
Speaker 2
I love hearing about business, but like, I don't know how to like not look at it in that light because to me it's like, that's what it is. It's your art. What? What? How do you know? Where do you see it? Hanging out. How the light is? Is it is it back? It was back that is from that.
01;56;32;06 - 01;56;51;07
Speaker 2
Are you doing that spotlight like shooting through all of those things? I think for me it was that stuff with business and realizing once I cleared that noise, I had the ability to create wasn't just generated, you know, and I say like revenue generation because that was like my specialty with business consulting. That was really just like movie bullshit, you know, We get so, like bogged down and it was just a bullshit.
01;56;51;07 - 01;57;04;11
Speaker 2
Like, what do you do? Do you like to do that? And I was stuck on my responsibilities, right? Like, so if I to my products that the people don't have a responsibility to get that in the hands of other people and don't have a responsibility to use as loud a megaphone as humanly possible to get that out there.
01;57;04;14 - 01;57;16;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's not because of being greedy or dick, it's because I really believe in a better product. If I could show that that mindset and say, Hey, listen, I think this. Do you think this is better than theirs? Yeah. Okay, good. The we need to make sure that that no buys our stuff just doesn't.
01;57;18;26 - 01;57;27;28
Speaker 1
That's amazing. And on that note, I'm going to I'm going to toss you because that was that was outstanding. And we're just a little bourbon, actually. Was it an old fashioned Manhattan?
01;57;27;28 - 01;57;29;06
Speaker 2
The old fashioned.
01;57;29;08 - 01;57;45;15
Speaker 1
Okay. Old fashioned. So so Bryce was played bartender as we we got going here and it's. What time is it? It's about 5:00. Well, after five feet time. And so we're we're it's happy hour, you know, happy hour kind of starts around three and finished as well.
01;57;45;17 - 01;58;03;19
Speaker 2
But I think, you know, it's the other it's one of the things that like, honestly I really enjoyed about you and I you know and then lessons I was like we're really lucky to to have the lives we have. We've also worked really, really hard, important to us. And each day, you know, I know for me I wake up and I think, okay, how do I get to do this a little bit better?
01;58;04;13 - 01;58;20;13
Speaker 2
How do I support a little bit more? And it becomes fun somewhere along the line like that, that amount of work, because we've grown accustomed to the stress that comes along with it, which is something that you have to adjust to. But I think it's one of the things I like, like I love sitting down talking about it and stuff like how do we how do we effect change?
01;58;20;23 - 01;58;50;13
Speaker 2
And the reality is there's a lot of people who would like change through the all, through social programs, through these things, and we get to affect change in the way that the revenue changes hands and how businesses are embodying. Like, you know, there's not if you really look at that world where there's a whole lot of us, in fact revenue on a large scale, you know, it's it's the person like I was talking to a buddy the other day does I watch the ceremonies and he was saying, like, you know, I really want to touch kids, I really want to, like, get to a place where I can select kids to play medicine.
01;58;50;13 - 01;59;10;12
Speaker 2
And we have the families there. We can support them because everyone do everything for their kids, for the two children in the world. But what about the CEO view section? You just touched 10,000 lives and like I get into like the altruistic and wants to help that child. Everyone wants to help child. Think about how the children's homes you touched by helping that CEO be a better guy.
01;59;11;04 - 01;59;25;03
Speaker 2
And I think that's the thing that like I try not to lose sight of in this that like we have the ability honor to affect a lot more lives than just the people that we touch directly because of our our networks and because of the people that we get to associate with. And like. It's such a cool thing.
01;59;25;10 - 01;59;50;23
Speaker 1
We see that. Yeah, you and I talked about that a little bit about about this podcast, in fact, and the altruism of it. And then that's fine, but also then pushing it out, how do you push it out to even impact more people? There's a lot of people out there that probably sat there and listened to. What you had to say about your energy your is always working and obviously it is.
01;59;50;23 - 02;00;14;08
Speaker 1
We're hearing you. You're a little like Elon Musk. You just going, Yeah. And it strikes me as something that wants to optimize maximize your you're what I like to call green and growing ripe and rotting. So you're you've got that growth mentality. You're always trying to grow. You had a goal. You look for the next one being very dynamic in that mindset.
02;00;16;03 - 02;00;39;17
Speaker 1
What are some of the drivers behind that that drive you and push you? So when there's someone sitting at home listening to us or driving and they're and they're like, Yeah, I'm that Bryce guy. He's he's done so much in such a short period of time. He's always thinking, So what are some of the things that drive you your, your true north or your goals or your, your compass.
02;00;39;26 - 02;00;40;06
Speaker 1
Um.
02;00;40;16 - 02;01;02;03
Speaker 2
I mean, a couple of things. I would say that I'm a I'm, an extravagant and I don't mean boujee and extravagant meaning that if we're going to go out to dinner tonight, I could just hit you and say where you glasses are. Or I could take 10 minutes. I could find what the restaurant's opening. Just the nicest restaurant, just some new place that views and then figure out what's happening around after that.
02;01;02;05 - 02;01;16;03
Speaker 2
And that 10 minutes is the difference between me saying, hey, during lunch, dinner or Hey Jared, this is really cool spot opening in North Phenix. Let's go check it out. And right down the street from there is this other cool spot that's opening. That's the same group that did so and so and so and so. It just changed the course of our night.
02;01;16;19 - 02;01;37;12
Speaker 2
That was 10 minutes of my time. That's everything. That's every single thing in my life. And sometimes it wears my life out. God bless you. But it's everything in my life that like the difference in like I was watching all that was the show earlier. Oh, no, I fell asleep with Netflix on. I don't play the show waiting last night right now is like one of those early movies.
02;01;37;12 - 02;01;37;23
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah.
02;01;38;10 - 02;01;57;09
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like one of the catchphrases for shenanigans. The restaurant is like the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is just that little extra. It's so cheesy, but it's so true. Like my older sister is now the head of h.r. For our company. She worked for me for years. She's an absolute boss lady. So proud of her. And she's an over the top person, too.
02;01;57;09 - 02;02;09;26
Speaker 2
And i always talk about it like I'm the officiated wedding. So instead of asking me, she sent me this box that was this beautiful box of candles and a little journal that said, like, you know, we nereus it was this whole thing about this so huge. Like it was actually took me 5 minutes and 20 bucks. That's the difference.
02;02;10;06 - 02;02;24;27
Speaker 2
Everything in my life is that like if I'm sitting on my couch and I want to start a business, the difference between us being the best business it can be and just being a business is literally that 10 to 20 minutes of wanting every day. And like early on I just realized that to like a lot of people do the bare minimum.
02;02;24;27 - 02;02;45;03
Speaker 2
You know, I always said there's a difference between the employee that wants a promotion and the employee that doesn't want to get fired. They both do their job. Today. There's a whole different outcome between those two people. And I think the driving factors for me are that I know that I have. It's that big hearts that really, you know, one of the one of the best compliments Life Partners ever gave me is like, I don't know how you keep going.
02;02;45;06 - 02;03;10;10
Speaker 2
You just don't stop. There's no the thing to me is because. No just means not you know, right now, it doesn't mean it's not going to happen for me. It just means it's not going to happen with you. And like, I just learned that early on that like, if I could keep going and I could keep pushing, that was going to be an opportunity to present itself as long as I didn't give up and that as long as I continue to have that same intention with I could I could exceed you know, I always say like either I'll smarty or I'll work it.
02;03;10;10 - 02;03;22;27
Speaker 2
But some one of those two things is about to go down, right? And it was just that thing that like I was the smartest of the other people. I wasn't always the most talented sales guy, but I got no problem getting an hour early. So an hour late, as long as you can keep up with Those numbers were good.
02;03;23;21 - 02;03;32;04
Speaker 1
It was. You're making the drinks. You said you do a ski trip up to Park City. Yeah. And the only people that are allowed are you're the first one on and I'm the last one off.
02;03;32;04 - 02;03;54;17
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, that's a little thing. It's, you know, and go as hard as you want. You can drink as hard as you want but the that's the, those are the qualifications I think it's just that and I think the like in the funny thing is even you know when those are your qualifications for a trip think about the characters you get on that they're the most extreme of the extreme like, you know a couple of guys that were like pro skiers and like this, You know, I'm a snowboarder, so I'm like one of two snowboarders on this like six person trip.
02;03;55;03 - 02;04;08;03
Speaker 2
And so I had to, like, work extra hard to like, but but it's just that I think, you know, for me it was I just saw that like I have the ability to put in a little bit more effort and other people and the outcomes were so substantially different, you know, and so.
02;04;08;03 - 02;04;11;07
Speaker 1
That one plus one equals two. It's all plus one equals four. Yeah.
02;04;11;28 - 02;04;16;07
Speaker 2
And it wasn't just once or twice, it was like every aspect of my life, you know, and.
02;04;16;07 - 02;04;26;13
Speaker 1
I get all that. It makes total sense. But is there, is there a moment where you you take a pause where you kind of like, fuck, you know, I need to I need a break.
02;04;26;25 - 02;04;56;21
Speaker 2
Yes. And I think for me, that was, you know, when we did the two kind of nine public in one aisle gives a quick elevator on how that happened. So, yeah, I was in Josh and I had a fashion clothing company. We sold all over the world for a number of years, 2008, 2009 happened. And you know, a lot of businesses that went in business and through, you know, any kind of a big, you know, bankruptcy like or or restructuring of the company, fashion is typically net 90 terms.
02;04;56;21 - 02;05;13;17
Speaker 2
So you have clothing that's there and they have it after your plays and sort all that and all the things. And then when they rob see it now that's part of their stock. And I have to then take them to court to show that that wasn't paid and so that those products are due back and after about the first four court cases, it was like, okay, we're going to go broke trying to get our clothing back.
02;05;14;06 - 02;05;32;14
Speaker 2
And so we still had some stuff and really, really for a while and I am opening a retail store and that we sold out of their flagship and I sold other places. But what happened to that was I realized that I was pretty decent at marketing businesses. And so, you know, the retail store turned into selling other people's brands, which then that sold and then moved on into marketing.
02;05;32;14 - 02;05;54;25
Speaker 2
And it was marketing is a great industry. I love creative monetization. It's also an industry that doesn't at least today align with my personal views. I think it did like more than then, and I've always kind of been a searcher, you know, I was not really have a spiritual awareness then, but I was asked to sit in and I was extremely did not know I kind of do.
02;05;54;25 - 02;06;17;20
Speaker 2
I mean, I've studied historically what these things are and the indigenous, you know, traditions and things like that. But when I had the experience, the first thing that was very clear to me was that marketing wasn't the game wasn't where the industry is supposed to be. It it was great. But it was also, you know, if you and I, if you and I are friends and we were both marketers and you left a lead list on your desk I want to take a picture of that because I was addicted.
02;06;17;20 - 02;06;35;29
Speaker 2
That's because that's what we do. And I've had to have multiple times to be to the point where I was mad about it. What would happen? I was mad at myself and I left space up and I should put a face down on my desk. I knew that they were coming over and I had that experience. It was just very clear that, like I was, I kind of had a side this canvas to speak.
02;06;35;29 - 02;06;55;29
Speaker 2
I was helping sign a couple of people out in California that were trying to get stuff going. And it was clear as day to me that marketing was not my route anymore and it was time to go. So the time of year was. So when I started that, it was a BuzzFeed. Yeah, you know, and like I told my parents, I was getting into cannabis and legitimately my dad told me not to call it, but I got locked up again, hung up the phone.
02;06;55;29 - 02;07;13;20
Speaker 2
We didn't talk for nine months. Well said, Oh, we're going to Manila Envelope in the mail with a Time magazine article that said the it was the smart entrepreneurship of the cannabis and just a literally a legal piece of paper that said, I get it. Loved it. But that was that was the first contact we had after nine months.
02;07;13;20 - 02;07;34;26
Speaker 2
And so when I got into that, it was it was really I knew that it was the end of probation. It was an emerging market, which is so cool to me. Like you see far that I was not a cannabis smoker and I don't have dreadlocks at the time. This reportedly had dreadlocks for years, so I meet with a property owner to look at their property and of course I look like they just cost the pothead about like dreadlocks and tattoos and a voice.
02;07;34;26 - 02;07;35;10
Speaker 2
You don't use.
02;07;35;10 - 02;07;36;15
Speaker 1
Any any cannabis.
02;07;36;15 - 02;07;54;17
Speaker 2
And at the time I didn't use all. So the first two years in the industry and smoke pot, it just wasn't my it wasn't my Yeah and and so I mean all these people are doing all this stuff. And when I started going out shopping it was their list of your budget buyers and then your father brothers, they're both just like, you know, there's, there's, there's people who shop at Walmart and wholesales.
02;07;54;19 - 02;08;12;14
Speaker 2
They both exist for a reason. They're both on the game. There's plenty of customers for both of them. I wanted to go to Whole Foods from a cannabis. I didn't want to go to Walmart at the time. It wasn't. There was just Walmart. You can have quality. He had enough. There wasn't a balanced listening. There's like, man, there was there might have been good stuff back, but it wasn't for me.
02;08;12;14 - 02;08;27;15
Speaker 2
When I walked in the store, I didn't have $100 budget and I want to know what was on sale. I want to go in and buy the best cannabis products to build a cannabis product. To me. This was what I needed at that time. And every time I went to a store, whatever it was, it just I couldn't have that conversation with them.
02;08;28;02 - 02;08;48;09
Speaker 2
It was some little stoner behind the counter was, like I said, I want the best product. He's like, Oh dude, this one tested 98% THC and you're like, You're sweet. Not really looking to talk to the angels right now. Rod Just want to get some of his products. And so, you know, we created that and started kind of like just a real simple brand that was like, you have like the type of really, like just consistency, transparency and let's have fun doing it.
02;08;49;01 - 02;09;10;12
Speaker 2
And so when we created that, we started the public process on Oxy. There was Pink's first, there was like 2015. We didn't have a there was no cannabis public companies, so we a synthetic biopharmaceutical. So for the first two years we were a year and a half to the public. It was we were like with incest before, like they got all the founders got arrested and all that.
02;09;10;27 - 02;09;37;15
Speaker 2
And so there really wasn't a space for it. But what happened through that process was we watched those markets merge Medmen pot public a year later and just destroyed the markets for everybody for a year because they did everything you're not supposed to do. But people still invested in them because it was the new gold rush. Right? And I think through a lot of those I started to realize that there was a way to just intentionally do this a little bit better.
02;09;38;12 - 02;10;01;05
Speaker 2
You know, there was other best practices and places. And I think that that was like that for me was like really where those lessons started to sit there, that it was like it was because we had that awareness and it was just a little bit extra, you know, like putting a sticker on the side of the case by like a person on the side of the road with the QR code and just put the test results on that QR code, like little stuff like that where it was like, oh, no, you don't even have to worry about the tests.
02;10;01;05 - 02;10;21;00
Speaker 2
Like, yeah, the store has a test, but you can just test it from your house scanner to pull up our whole laboratory test results and, you know, little things like that that like that big a deal to someone like me who was out shopping. I just made a quality product and I want to know was safe. Like those were the differences and so is how, like all that stuff was like just you know, that intention waking up a little bit earlier doing it.
02;10;21;00 - 02;10;45;07
Speaker 2
And so like once I had that this is for sale going into cannabis, I knew that that was my arena. And that was where, you know, I talked about easily before. But you know, I'd had multiple businesses like I've always really liked. I would do, you know, I did consulting while I was starting out. So I would do a couple of like really, really wonderful yoga teachers that I helped with primarily would be me and Tom Mackey, just an incredible guy.
02;10;45;07 - 02;11;02;22
Speaker 2
And he, you know, act is dope using what my clients. He was also like kind of a mentor. And like as I'm waking up and I've had this plant medicine experience where I know that I'm not really in the kind of flow with my life and where I'm supposed to be. Yeah, I'm working with him through this while I'm supporting him, you know, helping him build his business.
02;11;02;22 - 02;11;19;02
Speaker 2
And I was I just started to see that like there was a there was a real opportunity here to to apply a lot of those same principles of like being a little bit more intentional, a little bit better, you know, as the you know, we're a corporate company of origins, right? So, you know, much employed to people that that have never had jobs before.
02;11;19;20 - 02;11;20;18
Speaker 2
They're both in their forties.
02;11;20;24 - 02;11;21;15
Speaker 1
Because I feel.
02;11;22;04 - 02;11;29;12
Speaker 2
Amazing It's it is more than anything else you know and it's a number I keep track of constantly, you know 13.
02;11;29;12 - 02;11;29;19
Speaker 1
Hundred.
02;11;29;19 - 02;11;49;22
Speaker 2
Employees or 273 people Arizona have employed. And it's a it's a really, you know, like yeah, I mean, it was did a company that was, you know, 1.7 million by the time I you know, resigned I retired from the company I think they're doing 38 states, about to be three countries and 359 the day that I took the public.
02;11;49;22 - 02;12;00;09
Speaker 2
Like, that's a really cool number. And that was a really beautiful lesson And I got to write. You got to have such a cool experience in that. And we played 1373 people saying Arizona.
02;12;00;14 - 02;12;01;08
Speaker 1
Yeah, well done.
02;12;01;22 - 02;12;15;22
Speaker 2
And like those two people here, remember one of them sit down and he was so honest. He just looked at me as like Melo's I've never had a real job. So with my entire life I'm 43, I have kids, I just want to shop. And I'm like, Man, I there's not a better pitch that's amazing.
02;12;15;22 - 02;12;44;19
Speaker 1
And you're now you're taking that knowledge and expertise as well as your grit, determination and applying that to the psychedelic space. And yeah, and that's how, as you know, you and I first met, we sat down on a, a plant based journey, Ayahuasca, Joshua Tree and you were a shepherd along with our Buddy Ruston and address them. Yeah, yeah.
02;12;44;22 - 02;12;45;13
Speaker 2
This you cowboy?
02;12;45;22 - 02;12;54;24
Speaker 1
Yeah. So so anyway, words deal with all that. So you're taking the psychedelic space.
02;12;55;07 - 02;13;12;13
Speaker 2
What I think you'd like to know here. You know, we're talking like. Yeah, I expected psychedelic the first time I went, it was a white T-shirt. It was gray sweat pants. I wouldn't bring any my belts and my watches. It was flip flops. Like, I want to be very mindful that I'm going to be in this like very spiritual.
02;13;14;20 - 02;13;36;09
Speaker 2
You know, a white Native American reservation is what I expected. And the first time that I saw it, it was to rocket scientists. Hollywood Producer two big name actors. And what I learned in psychedelics, because I had terrible experience with psychedelics in high school, I didn't party with them later. But what I learned is, you know, and like, we've become friends is this is for the people that are suffering.
02;13;37;00 - 02;14;07;22
Speaker 2
You know, I expected the I expected psychedelics to be the so we knew. And what I found was a bunch of people that were very, very high were very, very high performing and hit the ceiling of where they were. And, you know, and I think, you know, one of the things that he talks about is that, you know, I think, you know, we had our executive session for our C-suite was every Tuesday and Wednesday now, but it was every Tuesday we sat down and I would say like, you know, as a CEO, I had a very clear vision of what I thought needed to happen.
02;14;07;22 - 02;14;26;16
Speaker 2
And one of my favorite things that ever happens to me is when my employee tells me how wrong I am, and here's all the reasons, because it tells you I hired the right person. I know that that sector better than I do, and that's exactly how it should be. And I think that what I learned to that was you had all of these that were super high achievers, you know, And that was the funny thing I think I was about to do the IPO.
02;14;26;16 - 02;14;50;04
Speaker 2
And I'm sitting there like I'm the broke guys. I said, This is incredible. Like, I'm the least successful person at this table. And I just had this experience and it was it's for those people, like my executive session was for me to get a different perspective on our business. Psychedelics became the tool I realized I could get a different perspective on everything in my life, and I could do it very, very easily with this single plan that was going to help you there.
02;14;50;05 - 02;15;07;15
Speaker 2
That was the game changer for me was the the people that I have those experiences with and people like you and Russ and Chris like these people that are high functioning, high achieving people so that we can do better. You know, we talk about like I've talked to you before, I have a lot of endurance athletes. Like really, you know, being a cyclists, you know, I'm not a competitive cyclist.
02;15;07;17 - 02;15;32;18
Speaker 2
I'm a 30 to 40 mile bike rider and, you know, I have two guys in 5000 ordinary endurance like runners, cyclists, whatever. And I found a lot more of them as well because they're able to have a, you know, my heroes mushrooms and go for a long run and they have such a better awareness of their body of where the pain is, of where that where they might have tightness, where they need to stretch.
02;15;33;18 - 02;15;39;08
Speaker 2
And like those are the overachievers those are the performers there. Oh.
02;15;39;18 - 02;15;46;11
Speaker 1
Yes. So tell me tell me a little bit more about that, because when you told me about that, that really blew my mind about the the triathletes.
02;15;46;13 - 02;16;13;07
Speaker 2
Yeah. So what we're finding now, I mean, it was funny when I was first in cannabis, I mean, the listeners will look me up and see how their name, but I'm just big on like, let's just get loud. Was it weird? And so I remember being with you talked to Coach Glassman, who's the head of CrossFit. There's a gym out here that has some legal and they were supporting them because the some of the claims they made, I tried to get them to endorse our our brand and they were like, he's like, Listen, man, I can't do that.
02;16;13;07 - 02;16;31;23
Speaker 2
Well, I can tell you is in the top 10% of all that athletes in the world use products like yours because they count macros and so they're not going to have a beer afterwards and not going to chance those macros. But The cannabis allows them to deal with the anti inflammation, relax without messing up any kind of a diet restriction that they might be currently working with.
02;16;32;07 - 02;17;05;26
Speaker 2
And it was just like the psychedelics with our athletes. We're finding that they're able to perform better. They do have more of like just more optimal workouts because they don't have that same inhibiting sort like. But you and I know to that is that we get these like we these patterns like that look at the of that's there's one shoe reality and we just get all these prejudices that there's just many prejudices there are grains of sand in the hair that we pick up over a lifetime and with any kind of exercise, especially with like endurance.
02;17;05;26 - 02;17;20;14
Speaker 2
We really pushing yourself through what your whatever that wall is. This helps you to have a better understanding of that and push through that level to use up as capable or not going to free. Mostly when this started, if you felt it didn't give a shit, what could be duals? I don't care. Fill it, come back, show it to me.
02;17;20;14 - 02;17;35;13
Speaker 2
I'll give you know, every one of those are cultural pillars in it because I want those same pillars of like happiness and kindness and like, be the best you like. The cheesy things that we all say every day are real things so cheesy. So if you remember them, do not be afraid to take the work that you're doing every day.
02;17;35;13 - 02;17;57;05
Speaker 2
It's one of the things I really admire about you, sir, is that it's being open about the work that we do. If I'm not open with that, I can inspire anybody else. That's just my little journey. The second that I'm willing to be vulnerable and share that I'm doing work on me because I'm not perfect and these are the things I'm working on and this is what I'm doing and why working can inspire the people like you do that all the time.
02;17;57;05 - 02;18;04;13
Speaker 2
It's one of the things I really, really like honor you for, and that's what this is all about. It's just it's. It's those. It's the other things.
02;18;05;05 - 02;18;25;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, right on. Appreciate that. It's real. So as you check in where you are now in your life, kind of take status, your body of work, tell me a little bit about as you reflect back over your body of work and the impact you made, what are some of your highlights and think some of the things you're most proud of.
02;18;27;04 - 02;18;42;29
Speaker 2
That it's got to be stuff. I would say a couple, you know, one having, a business that lives beyond me. You know, it's the day that you decide to leave the company you started. It's a it's a weird feeling, You know, you quantify it to everyone wants the best for the kids and the best you can hope for.
02;18;42;29 - 02;19;08;16
Speaker 2
Someone loves them as much as you did. And you know, so. So watching your company live beyond it is very cool. But I would say that, like my biggest victories in the staff, hands down, I have not so many stories. I have, you know, one of our first employees, um, did we had a little struggle with alcohol stuck with and is still with us today.
02;19;08;26 - 02;19;24;02
Speaker 2
So one of my cars and he did breathalyzer in it the day I walked into the facility and he told me that he had a year sober and that he was going to buy it. He was waiting in the car that I sold him for a new car. He was the first person in his family, his own place, his grandparents and his mother and his special needs.
02;19;24;11 - 02;19;43;14
Speaker 2
So when he took care of, he got his own place and helped them support themselves. And like, it's just things like that. Like it because, you know, because like I had some I've had three parties, had good stuff. I've got a great car house that I've had those things. But like at the end of the day, like I've never had a house that I sat and I thought about all the time, no matter cool.
02;19;43;14 - 02;20;01;17
Speaker 2
It was that that was so short lived. Like that happened to me years ago. And I can still remember the look on his face when he told me that, you know, that people like my I was just. She's the head of h.r. For publicly traded company. She's making six figures a year, and she's marrying another guy who makes six figures here who loves her like he's never loved this planet.
02;20;02;12 - 02;20;19;20
Speaker 2
Being able to facilitate those things because I'm open about, like, who I am and what my struggles are. And I'm a human with my people. Those are like the biggest victories. You know, I'm proud of what I've accomplished. Never thought, you know, I always tell people, like, do not look at my story, because if you add one plus one, it does not equal the outcome like it is so different.
02;20;20;05 - 02;20;36;09
Speaker 2
But it's just like, dude, give up. It's going to be hard. If it was easy, it would be something. That's my thing too. Like the only reason I'm here is that I didn't give up. I tried to be good. You know, his lack of integrity has ever cost us my nothing. That's never happened. You could be a dirt bag.
02;20;36;09 - 02;20;53;05
Speaker 2
You can write this off. You can do that. There's so much more money to be made by doing good business with me that Brittany all you want? There's an extra common there if you have, you know. And so I would say that like, that's probably the the my biggest homeruns are the people I've been able to affect because I was a dick.
02;20;54;15 - 02;20;55;06
Speaker 1
Yeah, right.
02;20;55;06 - 02;20;55;14
Speaker 2
On.
02;20;55;16 - 02;21;17;04
Speaker 1
Yeah well I know that about Yeah and that's really cool. It's a great way of being and a great way to live life. Well, I just really want to thank you. I'm grateful that you took the time to come by and and hang with us today and chat. And thank you all for listening I really appreciate you guys tuning and, and I hope that you were all inspired and informed.
02;21;17;04 - 02;21;32;19
Speaker 1
And if you like what you heard, whatever channel you're listening on, go ahead and really appreciate it. If you were to review and and rate us a little bit and otherwise. Thanks for tuning in and go a little closer to your financial flow. Take care.
Speaker 1
Appreciate you all for listening. Just wanted to give you a heads up that we had some video and audio challenges and these recordings give us a little grace. We're going to get a ride for you, but hang in there. There's still some quality information and inspiring information for you to move closer into to your financial flow. Thanks. We love the power and grace of athlete artists and high achievers with their zest and grit.
00;00;23;05 - 00;00;43;04
Speaker 1
But have you ever wondered how they harness their energy and get into flow? And then what did they do with the money that comes their way? I am Darren Wright, author of Financial Fitness. Join me on a fascinating journey to gain a peek into the intersection of highly successful people and everyday financial life. There will be highs and lows and relatable flow stories for you.
00;00;48;27 - 00;00;56;27
Speaker 1
All right. Well, welcome, everybody, and thanks for tuning in. I've got my good buddy, Bryce Scala here. Welcome, my man, Darren.
00;00;56;27 - 00;00;58;11
Speaker 2
Always a pleasure. Sarah, great to see you.
00;00;58;12 - 00;01;25;14
Speaker 1
Yeah, great to see you, too. Thank you for coming so much. So I've known Bryce quite a while now, but he is a 20 year entrepreneurial veteran with a background in psychology, therapeutic psychedelics, brand development and revenue generation. He's been involved in brand creation for over 100 companies across an array of industries, ranging from CPG and fashion to wellness and professional services.
00;01;25;28 - 00;01;53;04
Speaker 1
Most recently, he founded Item nine Labs Corp, OTC, IQ X, AI, and will be as CEO with a focus on quality, transparency and fun, which we all love. You led the charge in taking the company from a privately owned cannabis enterprise based in Arizona to over-the-counter publicly traded corporation operating in multiple states with a market value of 350 million.
00;01;55;00 - 00;02;08;17
Speaker 1
Currently, Bryce has created Hojo Distro focusing on premium plant medicine products throughout the Southwestern United States. That's quite a lot of shit going on, Bryce.
00;02;09;00 - 00;02;16;07
Speaker 2
Okay. And at credit do you said Hojo. Correct. So it's it's normally a third or fourth time someone gets it. So I want to give credit where it's due.
00;02;16;11 - 00;02;29;08
Speaker 1
Well, you know. Thank you. Yeah, a little coaching on the front end. So that's that's pretty amazing. So tell me, let's back up a little bit, though. Tell me a little bit about your story and how you got started.
00;02;29;13 - 00;02;52;19
Speaker 2
Okay. I grew up in its use, California. Lived out there for most of my formative years, moved to Arizona and ten years tumultuous teen years and moved around a lot. Growing up in Encinitas. So it was a very spiritual community. And there was, you know, we had the new realization fellowship there. Deepak Chopra did a lot of speeches and stuff out of my area.
00;02;52;19 - 00;03;12;07
Speaker 2
And so I there was a lot of spirituality and awareness. I was young. They also picked up all the baggage that we pick up in our, you know, teen years. What I had was a stepfather who was an entrepreneur himself who was also a cheapskate. And so from very early age, we didn't get allowance in my house if you wanted money works for as much as it was rough when I was a kid.
00;03;12;07 - 00;03;36;00
Speaker 2
I'm so grateful for those lessons now because I've either owned a company or had a side business of some sort since I was 12. Never not had a side business. It's always been my thing. It was distributing plant medicines before they were legal for a long time, and now it's illegal. That past experience has helped me. But it also, you know, taught me that there was always a way, you know, if you wanted to get something done, there was always a way.
00;03;37;07 - 00;04;08;13
Speaker 2
I had a I decided to see what was possible in the trouble realm through most of my twenties and I, through that experience and coming out of that experience, I wanted I knew that I wanted to do something that would help others. And so I ended up I went to school initially for education and for music and ended up getting a degree in psychology, psychology that had been my mainstay that did that for about ten years before kind of deciding to go full tilt Entrepreneur.
00;04;09;05 - 00;04;13;00
Speaker 1
Any specific reason why you found your way into psychology?
00;04;13;23 - 00;04;36;21
Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, I think, you know, my experience with psychologists and counselors is that, you know, normally when you needed this because things were easy, you know, and I had a lot of childhood traumas with, you know, family members with suicide attempts. And it was a lot of drug and alcohol use and abuse. And my just throughout my entire family, not it not all just in my direct childhood, but just kind of throughout the family.
00;04;36;24 - 00;04;57;03
Speaker 2
And I think that I saw an opportunity to let people know there was a different way. I think that was the hard thing. I think when you're in that dark hole, sometimes you don't think there's a light out there and once I kind of found the light, it was just important to me, to other people. You know, when I when I was young and doing bad things, I had a big heart.
00;04;57;03 - 00;05;11;22
Speaker 2
And so it was a liability. A large portion of my, you know, younger years. The older I got, I realized that that big heart and I didn't give up on people as quick as some other people did, and that that was a superpower. And if I used it for good, then it was going to be a huge benefit.
00;05;11;23 - 00;05;36;24
Speaker 2
Otherwise, it was not. And so I just figured that was the best way to do it. Yeah, I love, I mean, social work and like, there's counselors and psychologists and social workers and like a pop up, you know, And I separate myself from that group out during war. But it's a very noble profession. When I when they told me to go back to school for my masters and spent 60 grand on making an extra $2 an hour, the numbers did add up for me, you know.
00;05;37;09 - 00;05;57;28
Speaker 2
But what I really saw was that there was a way to be in service other places and that I didn't have to be everyone on the worst day of their life, because that's really what it was. It was a decade of helping. A lot of people have been amazing stories and have, you know, really beautiful, you know, blessings where I've seen people that I didn't think we're going to make it, make it that are successful now, you know, doing great things.
00;05;58;25 - 00;06;19;26
Speaker 2
But it was also meaningful on the worst day in life. And like, you can only, you know, emotionally take that so long before you need to break ground. And, you know, and I also realized that there was a lot of people that needed to help in other ways. You know, I you know, I employed a lot of people that didn't have the opportunity to regular job unless they met someone like me who was like, give me a chance, man.
00;06;20;21 - 00;06;34;00
Speaker 2
And so to me, that has been as impactful as some of the other people that maybe I helped get off drugs, alcohol or stabilize on their psych medications. You know, they were all it's to watch a family flourish because if somebody has good choices is a powerful thing, you know?
00;06;34;00 - 00;06;49;08
Speaker 1
So yeah, for sure. Yeah. So cycle Energy CEO, they all bring in a company public. Deepak Chopra. I think I heard a little Deepak Chopra name drop in there. So tell us about Deepak.
00;06;50;03 - 00;07;09;16
Speaker 2
Well, I think, you know, growing up, I was really lucky that my mother, because of like kind of her spiritual beliefs, you know, I grew up in like we I roommate's that channel that's it's tease. I grew up and we had Tai chi lessons at my house and, you know, you know, a shamanic bris like breathing workshops at my house.
00;07;09;16 - 00;07;23;05
Speaker 2
And so, like I, you know, I grew up around that stuff. And I think for a long time, you know, and when I see that, I think it's, you know, it's important because what I you know what I've come to understand about me is that I'm a you know, I'm a fleshy, but I'm this kind of energetic being that lives within that.
00;07;23;05 - 00;07;39;23
Speaker 2
And I get to choose how much power that energetic thing has on the given day depends on what I feed it, how I heart to I, how I look at it, how I relate to it. And I learned a lot of that when I was a kid. But because of that trauma, I also always used to joke that I had like the New Age Catholic upbringing because my family's Catholic.
00;07;40;08 - 00;07;53;23
Speaker 2
And so there was all the traumas associated with like, Oh, people do that stuff and they're not real. You know, I have a lot of people that I know that like might say the same thing about the Catholic religion, the Christian religion, where they had some trauma that just all of a sudden they separated themselves from that group.
00;07;53;23 - 00;08;12;27
Speaker 2
And if that was it for me, and I think that as I got older and started to have, you know, sort of to find my own truths and just do my own work, that's when I started to see that there was a lot more to that. And it wasn't, as you know, it was much more direct, applicable science that was Google.
00;08;13;00 - 00;08;33;04
Speaker 2
And I just think I needed the awareness to get to that point. You know, it's one of the things I love about the I have some friends that are, you know, just absolute, you know, can't talk about God. Can you talk about anything beyond where they are today? Not necessarily like, you know, against the religion, but they just don't understand the more than the sum of our parts.
00;08;33;15 - 00;08;59;14
Speaker 2
And when I started to do my own work and I started to see that it became so applicable to my journey now, professionally, personally, you know, it's one of the things that I talk pretty openly about with spirituality and with business because it's, you know, who I am. And I've yet to find a high, high profile executive or professional of sorts, you know, regardless of whether they're C-suite or independent or whatever it is, that does not have some sort of a spiritual ritual or practice they do every day.
00;09;00;08 - 00;09;00;29
Speaker 2
Sometimes it's so.
00;09;01;16 - 00;09;04;00
Speaker 1
You you said you have to find anybody that does.
00;09;04;00 - 00;09;18;26
Speaker 2
Not correct. Yeah. Now there are some that are on the way up, but even I would argue the ones that aren't necessarily spiritual have a moment of silence. They take every day and they go out back on the patio and they sit still and they might not have defined it as such, but they know that the benefits that it has to them.
00;09;18;26 - 00;09;49;25
Speaker 2
The interesting thing to me about I would say spiritual sciences is that there's typically a quantifiable result that they just haven't seen the numbers yet, you know, And so I think that the the the higher I got the better that the the more successful I found, the harder became to manage all of those moving pieces. And the more I realized that I had to do those things on a daily basis if I wanted to continue to operate at the level that I was, and that if I didn't do those things, there was going to be short circuits.
00;09;49;25 - 00;10;10;26
Speaker 2
That happened in a number of ways. Now, for for me, I'm a very compassionate, kind, patient, loving, fun guy. When I'm in my lower self, I start to short circuit, I get impatient, I get immature, I lash out, I get moody. You know, that's that's where my lower self kind of shows up. And those are all things that are maladaptive to the environment that I live in on a regular basis.
00;10;10;26 - 00;10;26;21
Speaker 2
So those were all tools that I was able to establish to utilize for me. And they're different for everybody. But it was like all of those things that I'd heard as a kid. It was like one day, you know, I had some plant medicine experiences that like kind of changed things. For Meno, it was like, Oh, they were right about all of this.
00;10;26;23 - 00;10;44;03
Speaker 2
Well, know, hey, have me that. It wasn't like 25 year old like, oh shucks, ours were right about everything. It was like a deeper level of that, of like, oh, all those things that they taught me were real and there was some validity to them and they might not have shown up in the box that I was presented them in, but they were real.
00;10;44;03 - 00;10;47;16
Speaker 2
And then I needed to learn how those things worked for me. So yeah, it was a big piece of it.
00;10;48;08 - 00;11;11;19
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's super interesting. You talk about that spirituality piece because have have you ever read Ray Dalio's book Principles? Oh yeah. You know, so he credits meditation. I think he might have said 2 hours a day is, is average that but he credits that 2 hours of meditation that day is the single most important thing to his success.
00;11;11;20 - 00;11;27;13
Speaker 2
Well, Phil Jackson talks about in Sacred Hoops, which is one of my favorite all time leadership books. But he talks about that mindfulness to him was the most important thing, honestly. And when you were on the 91, the 93 balls, if you couldn't tell him what was happening on the court, he would let you play, you know, Hey, you're up.
00;11;27;21 - 00;11;41;13
Speaker 2
Where? Where's the ball at? Who got Alaska's last shot? Where the guards can't tell me you're up where we are because that's stillness. And mindfulness of what was happening around him was more important than the ferocity that you were going to hit the court with.
00;11;41;16 - 00;11;46;00
Speaker 1
I got to read that book. I was a rabid. All's fair growing up in Illinois.
00;11;46;02 - 00;11;48;27
Speaker 2
You ever read Sacred Hoop? No. Overall, I just blew your mind.
00;11;48;29 - 00;11;49;15
Speaker 1
Yeah, you did.
00;11;49;15 - 00;11;58;29
Speaker 2
It's like 250 pages. Okay. I've 17 times. I still have a half a case in my house that I haven't given out yet, so I have to see if I can dig it. If I could dig at the storage and find it, I got to have a case on.
00;11;59;15 - 00;11;59;27
Speaker 1
Awesome.
00;11;59;27 - 00;12;03;23
Speaker 2
So it's right next to my half a case of like, you know, this is the seven habits of highly Effective people.
00;12;04;03 - 00;12;04;11
Speaker 1
Are.
00;12;04;25 - 00;12;06;29
Speaker 2
The five habits of the Seven dysfunctions. Like I've got all.
00;12;07;20 - 00;12;18;26
Speaker 1
I'm a big fan of all those books, but Sacred hoops. Now I have to have that. I actually give out The Richest Man in Babylon to a lot of like high school and college graduates. Yeah, that's a good one.
00;12;19;00 - 00;12;20;01
Speaker 2
Is another good one, too.
00;12;20;01 - 00;12;20;13
Speaker 1
What is it?
00;12;20;18 - 00;12;21;21
Speaker 2
The wooden story.
00;12;22;00 - 00;12;22;23
Speaker 1
What's a wooden story?
00;12;22;23 - 00;12;25;17
Speaker 2
Victor Wood. Sorry. From Allegro. I got.
00;12;25;27 - 00;12;26;21
Speaker 1
No more.
00;12;26;21 - 00;12;27;26
Speaker 2
I'll give you a box. Somebody.
00;12;27;28 - 00;12;29;09
Speaker 1
I thought. I thought I had a grandma.
00;12;29;10 - 00;12;46;14
Speaker 2
Oh, I love it. But know it's. I love it. What? Other people are avid readers like yourself, you know? But the thing I loved about Phil Jackson, too, was that for him, you know, the reason why I read that book is amazing. And I'll actually, you know, Michael Wells, you're a rock star, so you inspired me. And amazing sales, one of the better sales guys I never worked with absolute pain in my.
00;12;46;14 - 00;13;03;15
Speaker 2
But probably one of the biggest need is probably because he was a lot like me as it drove me bananas. But I needed to figure out how to capitalize on that. And, you know, one of the things that that sacred hoop stopped me was that, you know, Jordan was he led the league in, you know, and plus scoring.
00;13;03;24 - 00;13;23;12
Speaker 2
He was MVP. It wasn't until the year that he did win MVP that the team became a championship team right. And it was it was about that. You know, he was better than the others. And so what what Jackson expected of him was he expected him to give more to Albert Schwab or teach better to do those things to elite because he had that to give.
00;13;23;22 - 00;13;35;28
Speaker 2
And it was once he harnessed that for the team, that that was when he won. And Jackson was he studied indigenous, you know, spiritual ceremonies. He noted every day the team meditated every practice.
00;13;37;01 - 00;13;39;17
Speaker 1
I did not I knew he did, but I didn't know the team did as well.
00;13;39;17 - 00;13;50;11
Speaker 2
It was like like a requirement. The I loved the mindfulness. I mean, he would just straight call it out on the court. Do you know what's going on right now? If you do not, you're not paying attention. You don't you're not mindful about this entire game. You can't play. Right.
00;13;50;27 - 00;13;52;08
Speaker 1
Well, thank you for that tip. I mean that.
00;13;52;08 - 00;13;53;07
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Yeah.
00;13;53;23 - 00;13;59;08
Speaker 1
You know, then I tell you, I just wrapping up a book, Financial Fitness.
00;13;59;17 - 00;14;01;24
Speaker 2
Oh, you told me about it, but I haven't heard. I hadn't heard this.
00;14;01;24 - 00;14;30;21
Speaker 1
I started it of COVID, and I've been working through it. But the reason I bring it up right now is because really, over the last 12 months, I'd have to say my wife and I went to Canyon Ranch up in Woodside, California, met this amazing woman, John Murray Mudd and she turned me on to a little bit more of a more of the slow element of things and incorporating that into finances, which kind of led me to change the book a little bit and led to this podcast as well.
00;14;31;21 - 00;14;51;14
Speaker 1
And so that that flow and that mindfulness has kind of got me down this road diving into a number of different books, see what colors books rise, Superman, a bunch of others that I have now started to feed in back into the book before I publish it. So I definitely appreciate that. So I'll have to get into that.
00;14;51;14 - 00;14;51;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's.
00;14;51;24 - 00;15;08;28
Speaker 2
Such an it's such a quick read too. It's a fun it's a real, real, real quick read. Yeah. But I think that's, you know, that was one of the things, know, I got cycling was something I got into, especially with you know, we've talked about that like if there's just the my brain doesn't shut off ever, ever shut off.
00;15;08;28 - 00;15;26;29
Speaker 2
It's constantly going and I'm grateful for it. It's been all I've learned how to harness that for, for, you know, for my benefit. But it's also a lot. So, you know, it's the stress we take on. It's the you know, if I make a mistake that people lose jobs and, you know, millions of dollars lost and I'm a fiduciary responsibility in all of my businesses today.
00;15;27;26 - 00;15;49;19
Speaker 2
And, you know, I think that what I learned as I got to as I started, you know, and I wouldn't even say that it was the mean, the public company was definitely the vehicle by which I learned a lot of these things. You know, learned what true fiduciary responsibility was not, I don't think intrinsically have that already, but what a sacred right that is when somebody says, hey, I'm going to give you my money because I believe in you, this much like there's something so sacred about that.
00;15;49;19 - 00;16;05;13
Speaker 2
And like, so it's it's, it's me watching your kids and like, there's the people that caught baby you. I'll watch your kids and there's the people that are your friends that are like. These are the things that I've set up for them tonight, whatever you call with us, because it's an honor to them to watch your children. They see what an honor it is.
00;16;05;13 - 00;16;31;27
Speaker 2
And and to me, that's fiduciary to really mindful about it. It's not the like you're you're feeling comfortable enough. And with me that likes the thing that we all we all hold for safety whether we want to admit it or not. Because it's easy to say like right now, Naval Ravikant, who's like one of my favorite talks, you know, last time I saw you, you know, he talks about like, figuring out what you want because it's easy to find a passion, but if you can't support yourself, then that's all you're going to focus on.
00;16;31;28 - 00;16;52;02
Speaker 2
You know, he talks about like Jesus denounced every segment, but it was a prince. So she got where you want to be before you try to really find that pure, unbridled happiness. Because the reality is those are always going to be intimate factors. If you have decided that yet, you know, if you're going to burn out, you know, denounce everything and live in a, you know, a commune, great, you're going to find happiness isn't so you're not going to do that.
00;16;52;02 - 00;17;09;25
Speaker 2
And you have to find a stable means of supporting yourself for your family or whoever, because that's going to be what you wake up and worry about. And once that's addressed now, you can sort of on passion and happiness. And those are you know, those are ongoing things, but you have to address those, you know, and I think that that's, you know, a big piece of that.
00;17;10;12 - 00;17;11;01
Speaker 2
I yeah.
00;17;11;01 - 00;17;33;19
Speaker 1
That makes total sense. When you think back, you said you had some struggles growing up. What are some of the struggles that that you went through on your journey and you know, what did you learn from them that kind of kept you in the game and kept, you know, have really what I feel is a real growth mentality that you have.
00;17;34;03 - 00;17;37;15
Speaker 1
You're always trying to get better, always smart, trying to grow and help others.
00;17;37;27 - 00;17;51;04
Speaker 2
Well, I would say there are a couple of big things on, you know, my both my parents were. But usually it's you know, my parents got divorced when I was very young. I really don't remember them together at all. My mom's been around since I was three, so I got a bonus. Mom, she's been there just as long.
00;17;51;18 - 00;17;52;13
Speaker 2
Just as say, Well.
00;17;53;25 - 00;17;55;07
Speaker 1
I like that term bonus. Mom.
00;17;55;07 - 00;18;18;04
Speaker 2
Yeah, because she really is. You know, I really lucked out this life. I got that, you know, And one of the things that they always taught me is if you don't like your reality, you're the only one who can change it. And so if you want something different and that was through, you know, me putting myself in, you know, in institutions and, you know, and whether it was, you know, state paid vacation or we were paying through for insurance and it was a hospital or whatever that vacation was like at the time, it was that I was the creator of those.
00;18;18;10 - 00;18;33;07
Speaker 2
And as soon as I wanted to start creating a different lifestyle, I had the ability to do that. I just had to do it, you know? And so it got to a point when, you know, my father, I hit that stage where, you know, I think I got that day and I've got my takes to to be the man, you know, it was that the like, Hey, this is your reality.
00;18;33;07 - 00;18;44;21
Speaker 2
If you like, change it. I don't wanna hear you. I wanna hear you complain about it. Verjee complained about this for a long time. And then you keep making these choices, you know, like, do change the oil in your car for you want to break down. I don't want to hear you bitch about work.
00;18;44;27 - 00;18;46;20
Speaker 1
How long did it take for that to sink in?
00;18;46;26 - 00;18;48;16
Speaker 2
Oof! I'm.
00;18;50;04 - 00;18;51;19
Speaker 1
I would say. Or is it still cigaret?
00;18;51;20 - 00;19;10;02
Speaker 2
No, I said okay. But I would say it was a it was a good 25 years of hearing it before it really like struck me and it struck me honestly and I'll be I'll give you the the that it was Christmas 2004, it was incarcerated and a very clear understanding with my parents. I didn't call them if I was incarcerated or if I legal issues.
00;19;10;02 - 00;19;27;17
Speaker 2
I didn't want them to pay my bills. It was always my choice. And I do that from early age and they would never visit. And it was a it was no, it wasn't like they they were not can see obviously there was no reason to see me in a box. And so that Christmas I was in I visitors and it's my dad, my step up and I was like, oh shit, somebody died.
00;19;28;06 - 00;19;43;11
Speaker 2
And, you know, in my head I always inconvenienced them with the things I was doing. And so they were just tired of dealing with my shit. And what they said in that meeting was the thing that really upset us, wasn't that you created all these issues. It was a you robbed us of having a son and we wanted your presence.
00;19;44;04 - 00;19;59;29
Speaker 2
We wanted you to be there. And like by the time we were able to kind of have those experiences with you, you're out causing trouble. And so it wasn't any of that should we want to deal with that? But I want to teach you how to play catch. I wanted to teach you about women. I wanted to teach you what a good man does and I didn't give him the opportunity to do that.
00;19;59;29 - 00;20;19;28
Speaker 2
And so for me, it was that was a pivotal lesson in life that my presence was really what was wanted most of the time. And I was too busy creating all of these things that I thought everybody wanted. But there was a job where we were hustling or whatever it was. It was what they really wanted was just me to be there with them through that and then work on it with them.
00;20;19;28 - 00;20;37;05
Speaker 2
The food was something I wanted to work on with them and be around, and I think that for me that was a really big piece of understanding that all of the other stuff I was doing was noise, you know, all the little things of trying to create this reality that really wasn't creating reality. It was causing chaos around.
00;20;37;13 - 00;20;56;23
Speaker 2
It wasn't it was taking it was detracting from me being able to be present, which I think at the time was probably what I was seeking. You know, it's the it's the people now that I talk to you that are, you know, I've been on cannabis now for a while, and when I started that company, it was really a sort of products for people like me who, like I didn't want something that had Rashidi on it that was like really kitschy.
00;20;56;23 - 00;21;08;29
Speaker 2
I just wanted a quality product because I could understand why they did it the way they did it. You know, like if I go to the store and buy organic and don't think my wife will still shun me, if I could show up with something that's part of the Dirty Dozen that wasn't organic and they had an option, you know what I mean?
00;21;08;29 - 00;21;26;06
Speaker 2
It's it's that stuff, right? So it was just that I was just starting to understand that, like, there was intentional stuff there with like, when I started that company, I wanted to start something that was a product for me and it allowed me to start to move into a place where I wanted to to remove noise from my life.
00;21;26;06 - 00;21;41;28
Speaker 2
And I wanted to show up authentically in places, and I wanted to create things that were authentically what I wanted. You know, I had a clothing company for a while that I don't feel like it was authentically me, but I learned a lot. And it was a because I learned a lot to do the wrong thing. I learned a lot through it.
00;21;41;28 - 00;21;56;27
Speaker 2
And it was like when I moved into the space, I was able to see that if I showed up, how I was like I was okay. It was it was good. I found out the people wanted of me or who they wanted me to be or the other things that I saw that you need to possess or own in order to to be liked.
00;21;56;27 - 00;22;15;02
Speaker 2
It was just creating noise and distance between all those things. And the it seems like the older I get, the more simplified things get, you know, the more powerful and important they get to, the more responsibility that other people can of those things. But the more simplified. It's not a lot of noise, it's just showing up authentically with supports in place to make sure that I can able to be there.
00;22;15;02 - 00;22;29;18
Speaker 2
And I think that for me was a big piece of that, was just hearing my father say that that day made me realize that like I was the gift wasn't what I could do. It wasn't who I know. And like, you know, I love traveling because it doesn't matter who, you know, when you show up, if you're nice, you have friends.
00;22;29;18 - 00;22;44;16
Speaker 2
And if you're not, you don't. It's just that easy. Like, it's so simple, right? And when he said that to me that day, you realize that, like, I was the gift to the world, you know, just like you are. Just like our wives, our children are like, you know, you know, you're like, I am with my kids, like the biggest gift I've ever been given.
00;22;45;01 - 00;23;07;19
Speaker 2
But that's the gift. It's not how he plays video games. It's not how I do work. Now, if I show up and I am able to authentically be me in a way that also helps to to generate revenue and or affect a business in a positive outcome, then and that's my intention that I can be authentically be me generating wealth for myself and others.
00;23;08;00 - 00;23;26;03
Speaker 2
But I have to show up with that intention and I can't show up thinking I'm going to do all these things because I think that's the you know, because I was watching Fox business this morning and that's so, you know, it's not that. It's that if I show up intentionally, they authentically want to be me in a business environment, then that means that I'm going to be diligent because that's who I am.
00;23;26;03 - 00;23;40;04
Speaker 2
I'm going to work harder than most because that's what I do and I'm going to care a little bit more than the next guy does, because that's what I do. And if that is directed with the intention of generating opportunity, then I get to do that generating opportunity. If I want to do it at home for my kids, I could do that too.
00;23;40;18 - 00;23;59;24
Speaker 2
I just did. You know, lucky enough that I believe business is an art. I've seen it as such. It didn't always it was a job for a long time. But it's creating, it's creating a passion, digging a passion and putting structure around it, a scalable structure so that it can be duplicated, rebooted, moved of markets, sold, whatever that is.
00;23;59;24 - 00;24;14;27
Speaker 2
But it's me showing up authentically, doing noise and just applying those same principles that, like he's told me that day that like Stuck Clear is telling and it was cut in concrete from me that day and it was, you know, and in a piece of that is remembering my value, right. Like, you know, through all those that trauma.
00;24;15;11 - 00;24;30;12
Speaker 2
You know, I think all of these things sync up once the work stop, you know? So like, I had these lessons that were carved in stone at these points in time. And then once I all that come out, I realized that there was a lot of, you know, mess inside of me that had been created by me, had been happened to me, whatever that was.
00;24;30;12 - 00;24;50;13
Speaker 2
But it was like once I was able to clear some of that wreckage out, those two things aligned where it was like, okay, I really, really value who I am personally. You know, I have friends, which tells me that other people value me. Okay? Now I really I want to work and accomplish things. And so it was like starting to figure out how I could monetize that and how I can structure that.
00;24;50;21 - 00;25;07;11
Speaker 2
And like, I can't look at a business not just for me, like owning so many businesses. Like how do you make money? Is that is how you talk about Moneymaker? Do you speak to demographic? How is your brain? How is it like like for me, that's that's how you know, it's the it's you know, it's it's a contract you're looking to build.
00;25;08;14 - 00;25;20;19
Speaker 2
Like I really want to hear like I have some friends that have, like, their own little thing going and they want to call me about it because it's not that I'm not fun with it. I love hearing about business, too. Like, I don't know how to like not look at it in that light because to me it's like, that's what it is.
00;25;20;19 - 00;25;34;28
Speaker 2
It's your art. Like, what meeting did you use? What? How, how did you know? Where do you see it hanging. How does it, how is the light? Is it is it is is it back. It was a document is a fragment or you do spotlight like thinking through all of those things. And I think for me it was that stuff with business.
00;25;34;28 - 00;25;50;00
Speaker 2
And I realized like once I cleared that noise, I had the ability to create. Was it just generating it on a and I say like revenue generation because that was like my specialty with business consulting, but it was really just like moving bullshit, you know, we get so, like bogged down and it was just like removing bullshit. Like, what do you do?
00;25;50;00 - 00;26;10;27
Speaker 2
Do you believe you do that? And I was like, No, my responsibilities, right? Like, so if I see that my products better than people. So I have a responsibility to get that some other people and don't have a responsibility uses louder megaphone as humanly possible to get that out there. Yeah it's not because I'm be greedy or deck it's because I really believe have a better product if I can show that that mindset and say hey listen I think this do you think this is better than theirs?
00;26;10;27 - 00;26;14;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. Okay, good. So we need to make sure that that guy buys our stuff is it's better than theirs.
00;26;16;17 - 00;26;36;02
Speaker 1
That's amazing. And on that note, I'm going to I'm going to toss you because I was that was outstanding. And we're so see a little bourbon, actually. Was it an old fashioned man And the old fashioned. Okay. Old fashioned. So so Bryce was played bartender as we we got going here and it's. What time is it? It's about 5:00.
00;26;36;02 - 00;26;42;15
Speaker 1
Well, after five. Phenix time. And so we're we're happy hour. Yeah, happy hour. Kind of starts around three And Phenix does that.
00;26;43;04 - 00;27;01;11
Speaker 2
What would I think the you know it's the other it's one of the things that like honestly I really enjoyed about you you know and then you know Russians it was like we're really lucky to have the lives we have. We've also worked really, really hard and it's important to us. And each day, you know, I know for me I wake up and I think, okay, how do I get to do this a little bit better?
00;27;02;04 - 00;27;18;04
Speaker 2
How do I support a little bit more? And it becomes fun somewhere along the line, like that, that amount of work, because we've grown accustomed to the the stress that comes along with that, which is something that you have to adjust to. But I think it's one of the things I like, like I love sitting down talking about this stuff, like how do we how do we effect change?
00;27;18;15 - 00;27;35;29
Speaker 2
And the reality is there's a lot of people who affect change through, you know, through social programs, through these things. And we get to affect change in the way that the revenue changes hands and to how businesses and make money. And like, you know, there's not if you really look at that world where there's a whole lot of us that in fact revenue on a large scale.
00;27;35;29 - 00;27;51;02
Speaker 2
You know it's it's the person like I was talking to a buddy the other day who does ayahuasca ceremonies and he sees like, you know, I really want to touch kids. I really want to like, get to a place where I can fact kids who play by the same you can have their families there. We can support them because everyone do everything for their kids.
00;27;51;02 - 00;28;08;03
Speaker 2
And I'm like, well, are the two children in my world? What about that CEO? You fact him, You just touched 10,000 lives and like I get it to like the altruistic and us wants to help that child. Everyone wants to help their child. Think about how the children's homes you touched by helping that CEO be a better guy.
00;28;08;25 - 00;28;23;16
Speaker 2
And I think that's the thing that like I try not to lose sight of the mess that like we have the ability and honor to affect a lot more lives than just the people that we touched directly because of our our networks and because of the people that we get to associate with. And like. That's such a cool thing we see.
00;28;23;18 - 00;28;46;04
Speaker 1
Yeah, you, you and I talked about that a little bit about about this podcast and act and the altruism of it. And then that's fine. But also then pushing it out, how do you push it out to even impact more people? Totally. There's a lot of people out there that probably sat there and listened to what you had to say about your energy.
00;28;46;05 - 00;29;09;17
Speaker 1
Your brain's always working and obviously it is. We're hearing you. You're a little like Elon Musk. You're just going, Yeah. And it strikes me as you're some of them wants to optimize maximize your what I like to call green and growing or ripe and writing. So you're you've got that growth mentality. You're always trying to grow. You hit a goal, you look for the next one.
00;29;10;12 - 00;29;37;11
Speaker 1
Be very dynamic in that mindset. What are some of the drivers behind that that that drive you and push you? So when there's some of the sitting at home listening to us or driving and they're and they're like and that Bryce guy, he's he's done so much in such a short period of time, he's always thinking what are some of the things that drive you your, your true north or your goals or your, your compass?
00;29;38;10 - 00;29;59;26
Speaker 2
I mean, a couple of things. I would say that I'm a I'm an extravagant and I don't mean bougie and extravagant, meaning that if we're going to go out to dinner tonight, I could just hit you and say where your glasses are, or I can just take 10 minutes. I could find what new restaurants opening? Dozens. Nicest restaurants, just some new place, have cool views, and then figure out what's happening around after that.
00;29;59;26 - 00;30;11;10
Speaker 2
And that 10 minutes is the difference between me saying, Hey, do you wanna go to dinner? Or Hey, Jared, there's a really cool spot opening in North Phenix. Let's go check it out. And right down the street from there is this other cool spot that's opening. That's the same group that did so and so and so and so.
00;30;11;23 - 00;30;33;14
Speaker 2
It just changed the course of our night. That was 10 minutes of my time. That's everything. That's every single thing in my life. And sometimes it wears my wife out. God blessed me, but it's everything in my life that like the difference in like I was watch. A lot of that was the show earlier. Oh, no. I fell asleep with Netflix on auto to the show waiting last night.
00;30;33;14 - 00;30;35;04
Speaker 2
What? Rachel's like one of those early movies.
00;30;35;06 - 00;30;35;14
Speaker 1
Yeah.
00;30;36;00 - 00;30;55;00
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like one of the catchphrases for shenanigans. The restaurant is like the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is just a little extra and so cheesy, but it's so true. Like my old assistant is now the head of h.R. For our company. She worked for me for three years. She's absolute just boss lady. So proud of her. And she's an over the top person, too.
00;30;55;00 - 00;31;06;01
Speaker 2
And I always talk about it like I've never officiated her wedding. So instead of asking me, she sent me this box that was this beautiful box with candles and a little journal that said, like, you know, we married. So was this whole thing. I'm like, That's so cute. She's like, It was at sea. Took me 5 minutes and 20 bucks.
00;31;06;24 - 00;31;22;19
Speaker 2
That's the difference. Everything in my life is that like, if I'm sitting on my couch and I want to start a business, the difference between us being the best business it can be and just being a business is literally that 10 to 20 minutes of planning every day. And like early on, I just realized that like a lot of people do the bare minimum.
00;31;22;19 - 00;31;42;27
Speaker 2
You know, I always said there's a difference between the employee that wants a promotion and the employee that doesn't want to get fired. They both do their job today. There's a whole diff outcome between those two people. And I think the driving factors for me are that I know that I have the it's that big hearts of the great you know, one of the like one of the best compliments my partners ever gave me is like, I don't know how you keep going.
00;31;42;27 - 00;32;09;20
Speaker 2
You just don't stop. It just know doesn't mean a thing to me. It's this No, just means not. You know, right now, it doesn't mean it's not going to happen for me. Just means it's not going to happen with you. And like, I just learned that early on that, like, if I could keep going and I could keep pushing, there was going to be an opportunity that presented itself as long as I didn't give up and that as long as I continue to have that same intention with I could I could exceed, you know, I always say like, I'll either outsmart your I'll work you, but something one of those two things is about to
00;32;09;20 - 00;32;21;15
Speaker 2
go down. Right. And it was just that thing that like I wasn't the smartest of the other people. I wasn't always the most talented sales guy, but I got no problem getting an hour early, say an hour late. As long as you can keep up with those numbers were got it right.
00;32;21;15 - 00;32;29;25
Speaker 1
Well, as you were making the drinks, you said that your ski trip up to Park City. Yeah. And the only people that are allowed are you're the first one on the mountain and the last one up.
00;32;29;25 - 00;32;45;24
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, that's the whole thing. And it's, you know, and go as hard as you want. You could drink as hard as you want, but, but that's the, those are the qualifications and I think it's just that and I think that, but like the funny thing is usually you know when those are your qualifications for a trip, think about the characters you get on that they're the most extreme of the extreme.
00;32;45;24 - 00;33;01;24
Speaker 2
Like, you know, a couple of guys that were like pro skiers and like, this is, you know, and I'm a snowboarder, so I'm like one of two snowboarders on this like six person trip. And so I got to like, work extra hard to like. But but it's just that I think, you know, for me was I just saw that like I had the ability to put in a little bit more effort than other people.
00;33;01;24 - 00;33;05;25
Speaker 2
And the outcomes were so substantially different, you know, and since.
00;33;05;25 - 00;33;08;14
Speaker 1
That one plus one equals two is one plus one equals four.
00;33;08;15 - 00;33;13;25
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like and it wasn't just once or twice, it was like every aspect of my life, you know.
00;33;13;25 - 00;33;24;04
Speaker 1
I get all that, it makes total sense. But is there, is there a moment where you, you take a pause where you kind of like, fuck, you know, I need to I need a break?
00;33;24;17 - 00;33;54;11
Speaker 2
Yes. And I think for me, that was, you know, when we did the two kind of nine public in what I'll give the quick elevator and how that happened. So I was in Josh Schneider, fashion clothing company. We sold all over the world for a number of years, 2008, 2009 happened. And, you know, a lot of businesses that went out of business and through, you know, any kind of a big, you know, bankruptcy, you know, or restructuring of the company, fashion is typically net 90 terms.
00;33;54;11 - 00;34;11;08
Speaker 2
So you have clothing that's there. They have it after your plays and sort all that and all the things. And then when they declared bankruptcy, it now that's part of their stock. And I have to then take them to court to show that that wasn't paid and so that those products are due back. And after about the first four court cases, it was like, okay, we're going to go broke trying to get our clothing back.
00;34;11;27 - 00;34;33;05
Speaker 2
And so we still had some stuff that ran it legally for a while, and I ended up opening a retail store and then we still opened our flagship and I sold other places. But what happened to that was I realized that I was pretty decent at marketing those businesses. And so, you know, the retail store turned into selling other people's brands, which then got sold, and then it moved into marketing and it was marketing as a great industry.
00;34;33;05 - 00;34;52;16
Speaker 2
I love creative marketization, but it's also an industry that doesn't at least today, align with my personal views. I think it did line more with them back then. And I and I've always kind of been a searcher. You know, I was not I didn't really have a spiritual awareness then, but I was asked to sit in and I was extremely did not know I kind of do.
00;34;52;16 - 00;35;16;13
Speaker 2
I mean, I've studied historically what these things are and indigenous traditions and things like that. But when I had the experience, the first thing that was very clear to me was that marketing wasn't the end wasn't word the industry was supposed to be. It was great, but it was also, you know, you and I, if you're our friends and we were both marketers and you left a lead list on your desk, I was going to take a picture of it, not because I was addict, but that's because that's what we do.
00;35;16;29 - 00;35;33;21
Speaker 2
And I've had to happen multiple times to me to the point where I wasn't mad about what would happen. I was mad at myself because I left it face up and I should have put a face down on my desk. I knew that they were coming over and I had that experience. It was just very clear that, like I was, I kind of had a side, says Canada, so to speak.
00;35;33;21 - 00;35;53;20
Speaker 2
I was helping fund a couple of people out in California that were trying to get stuff going, and it was clear as day to be that marketing was not my arena anymore and it was time to go full time with cannabis. So when I started that, it was a both feet. Yeah, you know, and I told my parents I was getting into cannabis and legitimately my dad told me not to call it, but I got locked up again, hung up the phone.
00;35;53;20 - 00;36;11;12
Speaker 2
We didn't talk for nine months. Well, so all we got a meal envelope in the mail with a Time magazine article. The said the it was the smart entrepreneurship moving to cannabis and just sort of literally have legal notebook piece of paper that said I gave it left out right And that was that was the first contact we had after nine months.
00;36;11;12 - 00;36;27;19
Speaker 2
And so when I got into that, it was it was really I knew that it was the end of probation. It was an emerging market, which is so cool. We like to see part that I was not a cannabis smoker. I mean, I don't have dreadlocks at the time this recording, but I hadn't in luxury years. So I'd meet with a, you know, property owner to get a property.
00;36;27;19 - 00;36;33;02
Speaker 2
And of course I look like that just caught in the pot. And I've got like dreadlocks and tattoos and a voice. You don't use.
00;36;33;02 - 00;36;34;07
Speaker 1
Any any cannabis.
00;36;34;17 - 00;36;49;20
Speaker 2
At the time I didn't use all through the first two years in the industry and in smoke at all. It wasn't my it wasn't my thing. Yeah. And and so I've been meeting all these people, doing all this stuff, and I started going out shopping. It was there is the, you know, of your budget buyers and then your quality buyers, they're both just like hanging out.
00;36;49;20 - 00;37;05;14
Speaker 2
There's, there's, there's people who shop at Walmart and Wholefoods. They both exist for a reason. They're both John game. There's plenty of customers for both of them. I wanted to go to Wholefoods for my cannabis. I did want to go to war and at the time there wasn't. There was just Walmart you didn't have like you had there.
00;37;05;16 - 00;37;25;05
Speaker 2
Not that there wasn't. If I was listening, it was like, man, there was. There might have been good stuff back then, but it wasn't for me. I walked in the store, I didn't have $100 budget. I want to know what was on. I want to go buy the best cannabis product. That's cannabis product. To me. Whenever this was released at that time and every time I went to a store, wherever it was, it just I couldn't have that conversation with them.
00;37;25;23 - 00;37;45;28
Speaker 2
It was some little shoulder behind the counter. It was like when I said, I want the best product. She's like, Oh dude, this one tested 98% THC and you're like, Sweet. Not really looking to talk to the angels, right? And a rod, just like it's due to the strikes. And so, you know, we created that and started kind of like just a real simple brand that was like, you know, like I really like just consistency, transparency and let's have fun doing it.
00;37;46;24 - 00;38;08;03
Speaker 2
And so we created that. We started the public process on Oxy, and it was a Pink's first. It was like 2015. We didn't have it. There was no cannabis public companies, so we were a synthetic biopharmaceutical. So for the first two years we were a year and a half year public. It was we were like with incest before, like they got all the founders get arrested and all that.
00;38;08;18 - 00;38;35;06
Speaker 2
And so there really was a space for it. But what happened through that process was we watched those markets emerge. Medmen went public a year later and just destroyed the markets for everybody for a year because they did everything you're not supposed to do. But people still invested in them because it was the new gold rush. Right? And I think through a lot of those, I started to realize that there was a way to just intentionally do this alone about it.
00;38;36;03 - 00;38;58;26
Speaker 2
You know, there was other best practices and places. And I think that that was like that for me was like really where those lessons started to set out that it was like it was because we had that awareness that it was just a little bit extra, you know, like putting if we got put a sticker on the side of the case by like up a sticker on the side of the put the QR code and just put the test results on that QR code, like little stuff like that where it was like, Oh God, no, you don't even have to worry about the test.
00;38;59;01 - 00;39;27;18
Speaker 2
Yeah, the store has the test, but you could just test it from your house, scan that to pull up our whole laboratory test results and, you know, little things like that, the like aren't that big a deal to someone like me who was out shopping. I spot a quality product, and I want to know, say, like those were the differences and so is how like all that stuff with like just that intention waking up a little bit earlier it and so like once I had that this is full tilt going into cannabis like I knew that that was my arena and that was where, you know, I talked about it before, but you know, I'd
00;39;27;18 - 00;39;55;23
Speaker 2
had multiple businesses like I've always really liked. I would, you know, I do consulting while I was starting at Buy, so I would do a couple of like really, really, really wonderful yoga teachers that I helped with, primarily one of them being me and Tom Mackey, just an incredible guy. And he acted this devil for years. And when my clients, he was also like kind of a mentor and like as I'm waking up and I've had this plant medicine experience where I know that I'm not really in the kind of flow with my life and we're supposed to be.
00;39;56;13 - 00;40;12;25
Speaker 2
Yeah, working with through this while I'm supporting him and, you know, helping him build his business. And it was I just started to see that like there was a real opportunity here to to apply a lot of those same principles of like being a little bit more intentional, a little bit better, you know, as the you know, we're a corporate company of origins, right?
00;40;12;25 - 00;40;18;10
Speaker 2
So, you know, I've I've employed two people that that have never had jobs before. They were both in their forties.
00;40;18;15 - 00;40;20;13
Speaker 1
And I was I feel amazing.
00;40;20;15 - 00;40;26;17
Speaker 2
It's it's it it is more than anything else you know and it's it's it's an I keep track and constantly you know I.
00;40;26;22 - 00;40;27;10
Speaker 1
1300.
00;40;27;10 - 00;40;49;13
Speaker 2
Employees or 273 people I don't have employed and it's a it's a really, you know like yeah you know it was good we totally company that was you 1.7 million by the time I was I was retired from the company I think they're doing they 38 states about to be three countries and so you know 359 the day that I took public like that's a really cool number.
00;40;49;13 - 00;40;57;29
Speaker 2
And that was a really beautiful, rad lesson that I got to have. I got to have such a cool experience in that and employed 1373 people and see the result.
00;40;58;14 - 00;40;59;11
Speaker 1
Well then, yeah, I did.
00;40;59;12 - 00;41;13;13
Speaker 2
And like those two people, I remember wanting to sit down with them and he was so honest. He just looked at me as like, Melissa, I've never had a real job. I've slowly my entire life, I'm 43 and I have kids. I just want to shop and I'm like, man, like, there's not a better pitch that's amazing.
00;41;13;13 - 00;41;40;21
Speaker 1
In your now you're taking that knowledge and expertise as well as your grit, determination and applying that to the psychedelics space and Yeah, and that's how, as you know, you and I first met, we sat down on a plant based journey, Ayahuasca, Joshua Tree and you were a great shepherd along with our buddy Rustin and this and.
00;41;40;21 - 00;41;41;05
Speaker 2
That trust.
00;41;41;05 - 00;41;52;16
Speaker 1
And. Yeah, yeah, it was nice, you cowboy. Yeah. So? So anyway, words deal with all that. So you're taking the psychedelic space.
00;41;52;28 - 00;42;10;04
Speaker 2
What? I think I'd like to know what you were. You and I were talking like, there. I expected psychedelic the first time I went. It was a white T-shirt. It was gray sweatpants. I wouldn't bring any my belts on my watches. It was flip flops. Like, I want to be very mindful that I'm going to be in this like very spiritual.
00;42;11;29 - 00;42;34;01
Speaker 2
But, you know, a white in Native American reservations when I expect it. And the first time that I saw it, it was two rocket scientists. I mean, a Hollywood producer, two big name actors. And and what I learned in psychedelics, because I have terrible experience with psychedelics in high school, I didn't party with them later. But what I learned is, you know, and much like we've become friends, is this is for the people that are searching.
00;42;34;09 - 00;42;56;07
Speaker 2
They work. You know, I expected the I expected psychedelics to be the full will. What I found was a bunch of people that were very, very high functioning. They were very, very high performing that it hit the ceiling of where they were at, you know, And I and I think, you know, one of the things that you talked about is that, you know, I think, you know, we had our executive session for our C-suite was every Tuesday.
00;42;57;05 - 00;43;15;06
Speaker 2
I had moved to Wednesday now, but it was every Tuesday. We sat down and I would say like, you know, as the CEO, I had a very clear vision of what I thought needed to happen. And one of my favorite things it's ever that ever happens to me is when my employee tells me how wrong I am. Here's all the reasons, because it tells me that I hired the right person and they know that that sector better than I do.
00;43;15;06 - 00;43;29;09
Speaker 2
And that's exactly how it should be. And I think that what I learned through that was you had all of these people that were super high achievers. You know, that was the funny thing. I think I was about to do the IPO. And I'm sitting there like I'm the broker at this table. This is incredible. Like I'm the least successful person at this table.
00;43;29;19 - 00;43;47;25
Speaker 2
And I just had this experience and it was it's for those people, like my executive session was for me to see a different perspective on our business. Psychedelics became the tool and I realized I could get a different perspective on everything in my life, and I could do it very, very easily with this single plant that was going to help you there.
00;43;47;25 - 00;44;07;26
Speaker 2
And that was the game changer for me, was the the people that I have those experiences with are people like you and Rustin and Chris, like these people that are high functioning, high achieving people so that we can do better, you know, we talked about like I've talked told you before, I have a lot of endurance, really, you know, being a cyclists, you know, I'm not a competitive cyclist, but I'm a, you know, 30 to 40 mile bike rider.
00;44;08;27 - 00;44;30;09
Speaker 2
And, you know, I had guys that are 5000, you know, they're already doing endurance like runners, you know, cyclists, whatever. And I found a lot more of them sort of to use it as well because they're able to have a, you know, to microdosing mushrooms and go for a long run. And they have such a better awareness of their body of where the paths of where the where they might have to witness, where they need to stretch.
00;44;31;14 - 00;44;35;27
Speaker 2
And like those are the overachievers, those are the underperformers.
00;44;36;02 - 00;44;43;29
Speaker 1
They're all yeah, so, so tell me tell me a little bit more about that, because when you told me about that, that really blew my mind about the, the traveling.
00;44;43;29 - 00;45;00;12
Speaker 2
So, yeah. So what we're finding now, I mean, it was funny when I was first in cannabis and the I mean, in Dare you know Me, the listeners will look me up and see how it went. But you know, I'm just big on like, let's just get loud, let's see who we are. And so I remember meeting with you talked to Coach Glassman, who's the head of CrossFit.
00;45;00;22 - 00;45;16;17
Speaker 2
He was a gym out here that had had some legal issues and they were supporting them because of some of the claims they made. I tried to get them to endorse our our brand. They were like, he's like, listen, you can't do that. All I can tell you is that the top 10% of all cross trusted athletes in the world use products like yours.
00;45;17;02 - 00;45;34;13
Speaker 2
Yes, they count macros, and so they're not going to have a beer afterwards. They're not going to chance those macros to let cannabis allows them to deal with the anti inflammation, relax without messing up any kind of a diet restriction that they might be currently working with. And it was just I like the psychedelics with with our other athletes.
00;45;34;13 - 00;45;57;16
Speaker 2
We're finding that they're able to perform better to, you know, more off to like just more optimal workouts because they don't have that same inhibiting thought pattern like, like you and I know too, that is that we get these like meet these patterns. Like I love The Tibetan Book of the Dead says it backs there's one true reality and we just get all these prejudices that mean there's this many prejudices.
00;45;57;16 - 00;46;12;09
Speaker 2
There are grains of sand Saharan that we pick up over a lifetime. And with any kind of exercise, especially like in darts, we really pushing yourself through what you're whatever that wall is. This helps you to have a better understanding of that and push through that whatever you thought was capable.
00;46;12;18 - 00;46;43;00
Speaker 1
So, Bryce, you you took a of that experience that you took in the cannabis space and you brought it over into psychedelics and mindfully. And we, we got involved a little bit and talking a little bit about mindfully, I'd like to know more about mindfully and what their mission was. Yeah. And also the work that they were doing with veterans and the if my memory serves me 90 plus percent success ratio on helping veterans with PTSD.
00;46;43;00 - 00;47;01;17
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, let's see now. So 2012 when cannabis it's just started, Colorado was just going legal. California had a quasi legal market. It remembers 2012. Obama is in his second term and he's decided the cannabis program in California has to stop. So the two months he's the DEA is kicking in doors to families and raiding houses and stores.
00;47;02;01 - 00;47;21;21
Speaker 2
So this is all just happened. And I'm watching the emergency room, the I lived in Telluride, Colorado for of years and it's a small town. Everyone knows each other. And we watched the emergency room visits there go through the roof with those edibles, not because they were being prescribed or an assault, but people just don't you know, if you say take two, people take a handful.
00;47;22;08 - 00;47;49;08
Speaker 2
And my concern with psychedelics and the importance that they played in my life, having used them responsibly ceremonially, is that when we're selling a box of gummies at the store that sell cider, meaning magic mushrooms, and that person doesn't need to eat a handful at a yard visit looks really different. And my fear was that if we started to have these, you know, this products on the market without some sort of education or support that we're going to be issues.
00;47;49;08 - 00;48;09;02
Speaker 2
And so I really wanted to post, you know, call announce 2020, 2021, and it was five nine and we've got a new CEO and so on to do some things. And so one of them was psychedelics. And you know, a little difference between the markets. You know, cannabis started at a state level where they put framework and industry around it.
00;48;09;02 - 00;48;35;16
Speaker 2
So it was easier for the state level operators to create industry psychedelics by different rule, which I think was smarter for the industry in the long run. They went through the federal route and they went directly to you had maps is the primary organization that's funding all this and pushing it forward. The maps were smart. They went straight to the unhelpful veterans, not me that all veterans have been helpful, but there are a very large demographic of veterans with PTSD that we don't as we hadn't as of yet have The ability to help.
00;48;35;29 - 00;48;57;19
Speaker 2
You could reduce their symptoms, you know, like I said in, you know, in mental health and opiates, like our hope was to reduce symptoms by 30. And when I started looking into the clinical trials on with these, I started seeing that there was veterans that had been houseless, that had they had been able to hold a job they had, there was no stability to their life at all.
00;48;58;03 - 00;49;27;01
Speaker 2
And after a series of suicide, juries now also keep in mind that, you know, even we talked about ketamine. BRINDLEY Before this, like, you know, ketamine treatment is actually deemed a 30 session treatment protocol through maps. That's how it was. That's what the clinical approved for use. Now, that doesn't mean that everyone follows those, but when you're doing a clinical trial and you have X results, those results where were were derived from the successful completion of this program.
00;49;27;24 - 00;49;44;27
Speaker 2
So if you had 30 sessions and only two of those are administered medicine, then you go to a psychedelic psychedelic ketamine treatment center and they give you five sessions or two sessions and whatever that looks like. It's not 30. You didn't have talk therapy leading up to that. You didn't set. We didn't really go through that to add or refine where your attention for being there is.
00;49;44;27 - 00;50;06;07
Speaker 2
You're just going to get help. You're not that that's not it can help, but it's a very different outcome in that way. And so with the veterans, they were doing all these clinical trials. So traditionally with clinical trials, you have three clinical trials. If those clinical trials showed improvement beyond the threshold, like a trademark or copyright, you have to prove guilty on threat like beyond the 10% threshold.
00;50;06;07 - 00;50;34;02
Speaker 2
I think with a with a copyright or with a patent, with with clinical trials, I want to say it's 10% could be upwards of 20 or 30%. This exceeds all of those so able normally there's those three trials. If you've if you've improved the outcomes beyond that threshold, you're done it out to five clinical trials with SIL. So just to make sure they covered all their bases, not they're showing a 90% cure rate a year, which means no, no remission of symptoms at all.
00;50;34;15 - 00;50;54;21
Speaker 2
And these are people that have never had any success. You, one of the beautiful people I've met with is named Brett Brett's. He's well, look, lawyers are probably one of the most impressive humans I've ever seen. A person who's a double amputee struggled with opiates like a lot of our our veterans do, because we only have a few solutions and we want to get on.
00;50;55;08 - 00;51;31;19
Speaker 2
And as a result of psilocybin experience he had with a girlfriend, he stopped using opiates immediately. And now he works with combat oriented veterans on this. And really what's happening in those spaces is you have someone who had serious trauma running about who has a neural pathways and alignment, and it's been burnt. So there's a there is a thought out here that is literally being engraved into their brain and what the psychedelics are doing now is giving him the opportunity to go to that experience in third person, watch it occur, and watch it from a third party view where you can have a new perspective on how that transpired and like what his role in
00;51;31;19 - 00;52;01;21
Speaker 2
that situation was and allow himself to find peace and to find acceptance with that the like. He everything he could do, he did everything that was there. So a lot of the remorse, the guilt, a lot of those things that we keep us in that little box that we put ourselves in there, it's able to remove those. And so, you know, we're right now with psychedelics, we're showing you that the PTSD is probably the biggest, but they're using it now in hospice care for end of life patients and removing that fear of death, which in turn helps to improve the quality of life for the end.
00;52;02;07 - 00;52;23;05
Speaker 2
You know, they know now they feel it's not the end of this. It's just that they're transitioning. And so, you know, we're seeing so much there and and I think, you know, it was mindfully it was my goal because I think there's there's a guy named Hamilton who does Hamilton psychedelics or Hamilton Pharmacopeia. It was a show on ice for a while kind of a science nerd who's in the psychedelics and there's medical use.
00;52;23;05 - 00;52;52;13
Speaker 2
It's like it's like campus, right? There's a medical use for cannabis if they're there, you know, Phenix Cheers icon is the alcohol was actually blocking right now. And if you ask me the other time I could spit these stats out pretty clearly but so Phenix here XCOM is a website for campus Tincture. Rick Simpson Rick Simpson Oil is a very ERSo is it's called the Ship has been doing research since the seventies with cancer patients and helping to reduce and or cure their cancer.
00;52;53;01 - 00;53;04;22
Speaker 2
We know that this is the case. There's been all of these things done, but it's not something that we can talk about. That is a really critical piece of cannabis. But you know what else is critical? The data used to drink a lot that comes home and smokes a joint. Now he's loving it. He plays with his kids.
00;53;05;03 - 00;53;17;10
Speaker 2
I would argue that that is as big of quality improvement of life as the cancer reductionist. That's critical. So there are ceremonial uses for all these things, and there's also daily uses for these psychedelics is one of those.
00;53;17;21 - 00;54;00;09
Speaker 1
And he mentioned and he also so we have the PTSD work which which I appreciate and I'm you know, like you veterans are near and dear to my heart. I have a lot of good friends that I'm excited to share this story with. But also you mentioned elite athletes, the arts and artists. But let's talk a little bit about, you know, flow and, you know, my my take on flow being financial flow is that sense of groundedness you get when you have clearly defined your goals and you've attached energy and resonance to that so that you there's a big enough way behind those goals.
00;54;00;20 - 00;54;22;10
Speaker 1
And then you have your Maslow's hierarchy that you work up, and that helps you to define, again, your why your values, really, you know, what's important about your finances to you. Any kind of work can work up a few levels there. So you get those two things and then you know where everything is. You know what you have, where it all is, and and you're organized.
00;54;22;10 - 00;54;36;10
Speaker 1
And when you have all that, there's that sense of groundedness that you it's almost like when you meditate, you just have a little bit more peace and calm and allows you to move more to your flow, which then allows you to achieve other things that are important to you.
00;54;36;10 - 00;54;53;18
Speaker 2
What you really touched on, I think, is there's the key thing that like at least that I see with people I'm working with and even honestly, what I was doing consulting is to find your goals. It is, I would say, more times than not as a human, I have a goal that I'm working towards and then the actions I'm taking are not in alignment with that goal.
00;54;53;18 - 00;55;12;11
Speaker 2
And that is today. That's yesterday and this is an ongoing real time self-check. And I think like you said to me, the piece comes with the definition. It's all I know what those goals are, whether I'm working towards them or not is undefined. So am I accomplishing anything? I don't know. What am I working? So I you said it just like that.
00;55;12;11 - 00;55;31;18
Speaker 2
It's just that definition because it once you define that, you can. But the power and the resident set intention into accomplishing those goals which you really have to define those you know you touched on earlier with like what some of the things like without an I, you know, I have two children. I love being a dad, but anyone who knows me know it's like the cool thing I've ever done did I did want children.
00;55;31;18 - 00;55;45;13
Speaker 2
When I met my wife, I didn't want to get married. I was open to them. I just wasn't on my bucket list at all. I can't imagine my life without my kids Now. I was present for my son. It wasn't that I was gone, but I worked six or seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day.
00;55;45;29 - 00;56;00;23
Speaker 2
Will his life be better off financially because of the choices? I mean, yes. But did he have a present father that whole time? No. When my daughter was born, I had retired from nine and I was doing side projects and I was able to be presence. So for me now it's that balance. Yeah, he yeah.
00;56;01;01 - 00;56;26;12
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I mean, and the balance is key. And the thing about goals is that I agree you have to define them. Write them down. But what's interesting about goals is that the dopamine release that happens when you actually verbalize a goal happens early, so you're better off not verbalizing a goal, which a lot of times, you know, if you think about it, people, coaches, parents told us to shout it from the rooftops, put it out there.
00;56;26;12 - 00;56;50;15
Speaker 1
Yeah, but there's a dopamine release when you actually do that. And If you don't do it, then you can save that dopamine related release for later when you actually achieve the goal. But with psychedelics helps, it can help you get into a state of flow. Obviously, Special Forces have used psychedelics and experimentation to have more groupthink in flow.
00;56;51;17 - 00;57;01;29
Speaker 1
Aristotle or Socrates, one of the other, you know, use I forget what was the substance. You might know. It's not ketamine, but it's something else.
00;57;03;27 - 00;57;11;12
Speaker 2
Acacia McKeon Oh yeah, right. Yeah. Was it? Which is all of the, it's all of the like that the EMT family.
00;57;11;12 - 00;57;25;05
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. And so they, they use that do that and trip out and philosophize. Yeah. And so they, you know, shut down the prefrontal cortex, be able to think creatively and so forth. What Larry Page is ready to.
00;57;25;05 - 00;57;41;22
Speaker 2
Learn and finally understand what we're saying that like that final cortex is what gives you your social norms, which are the limiting belief systems, right? So it's like if I wake up today, this is all I can accomplish because this is I told myself, like an album. Since I came, we're able to shut that off the boundaries off of what we believe that box has bigger.
00;57;41;23 - 00;58;07;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. And so with that, you know, with the athletes you work with and the artists and other people, what about, what about that executive or just the, the, the entrepreneur that's trying to to grow and get better, you know, psychedelics. How can that help them? Larry Page Sergey Brin You know, the Silicon Valley said a lot of them have experiment and so do during the day.
00;58;07;23 - 00;58;18;15
Speaker 1
You know, it's not like a party drug. It's really just a tool, really a supplement, an herbal supplement in a way to enhance productivity flow ability to achieve their goals.
00;58;18;16 - 00;58;41;21
Speaker 2
You said that perfectly. There's so psychedelics are intersect because they're the only medication that I know of when taking in a large dose or back or dose has a completely different chemical reaction than a micro dose. So macro dose is where we rewiring thought patterns, behavioral patterns, a micro dose where we're improving synapse firing. So your improved mood, improved empathy, right?
00;58;41;21 - 00;59;02;16
Speaker 2
And so to that executive, if I can go on and I can align with my even more, you know, not even like my C-suite call with my BP level, my director level, I can go in and I can get in the trenches with them and understand where they're coming from a little bit better. The outputs for the company are substantial because I'm able to set us up in a way to capitalize on the opportunities that they have in front of them.
00;59;02;16 - 00;59;21;12
Speaker 2
And that's really where that team kind of thing comes in. And what I've seen the most with a lot of the executives that I've worked with is that, you know, the thing that's that's known and not talked about is that inhibiting stress, that impending doom, that that when something happens, it no longer just it's it's your family, but it's your family family.
00;59;21;12 - 00;59;46;08
Speaker 2
It's everybody that's affected. And that could be very inhibiting. And what I've found with people who are microdosing on a regular, which doesn't necessarily mean every day there's a lot of different protocols out there. If anyone's looking into it, you can look them up. There's a ton of different ones with different outcomes and different purposes. But what I've seen is those executives tend to be a little bit happier, a little bit more resilient, a little less affected by negativity in the workplace, which in turn those are the things that slow us down.
00;59;46;18 - 01;00;11;21
Speaker 2
So that what I've seen with a lot of the executives that I work with that are, you know, microdosing throughout their day, they're just a little bit more effective. They can be a little bit more supportive to that staff number. You know, like the reality is that we all have direct reports that struggle and if I can help them turn that around more quickly, just purely from a business standpoint, the efficiency that say through that the amount of dollars that are generated by having that, you know, that all start come back quickly are substantial.
01;00;12;06 - 01;00;25;26
Speaker 2
But at the end of the day, it's it for me it's it's also that workplace if I workplaces have flow you know I always I've always said like why hire people which is why I don't what's why of each other not because I can't hire people about again I shouldn't also work with entry level employees and it's it's good with that.
01;00;25;26 - 01;00;37;24
Speaker 2
But it's not like it's a workplace, it's a family workplace. So if I come in and you're in a bad mood and I could tell you're a bad mood and I ask you why you're in a bad mood if you tell me that there's nothing wrong, I'm going to send you all you can come back when you could tell me what's going on.
01;00;38;10 - 01;00;51;23
Speaker 2
I don't have a we don't have the energetic a surplus to to help carry anybody that's not willing to do that work. And it doesn't mean that we don't have bad days and you don't get that we often end up the boss will send you home and it's not going to be a thing. It's actually on your record.
01;00;52;02 - 01;00;54;19
Speaker 2
But very seriously, I don't want to work with you so you could tell me what's going on.
01;00;54;19 - 01;00;58;11
Speaker 1
It sounds like you're talking a little bit about IQ and positive intelligence.
01;00;58;11 - 01;01;00;08
Speaker 2
Also Yeah, it's it's it's critical.
01;01;00;08 - 01;01;01;15
Speaker 1
Like here at the Unique.
01;01;01;19 - 01;01;14;27
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, they're critical to it. And I think they're like those of us that have that awareness, the conscious, especially conscious employers, business owners, I'm it's to me it's almost one of the like I could you know I always say like you're I have to be the smartest if you got to work ethic I'll work with you.
01;01;15;04 - 01;01;30;08
Speaker 2
You know you don't have to outsmart me. Show up 20 minutes before me every day. You got my respect. And I think that one of the most important things that I think we can we can teach to people, which is one of the hardest things to teach, is at issue of reading a group, a room intelligently in one condition.
01;01;31;03 - 01;01;44;23
Speaker 2
It's not reading a room to figure out what pitch you to say. It's reading the room to figure out how to get the most out of the room, which is a completely different way of looking at it. You know, How do I set this room on fire in a positive way? And, you know, for me, that's where like sacred hoops, a lot of those things come in.
01;01;44;23 - 01;01;59;27
Speaker 2
And that's But what I'm finding is the executives that are willing to because it's is it's a willingness, right. Like it's it's going to wake up and run every day. That's the willingness and the physical and mental benefits of that are huge. But that's because you're making a decision to wake up every day. It's the same thing with Microdosing.
01;02;00;09 - 01;02;17;15
Speaker 2
You're making a conscious decision to change the outcomes of your day. And yes, you're going to be a little bit more sensitive to staff. Morale is going to be more aware. Someone who's not searching through awareness like it's tough, someone who is searching for awareness. This is it's it's a big part of the answer now. All right. Medicines aren't the only option.
01;02;17;16 - 01;02;37;12
Speaker 2
There's there's shamanic breathwork, there's meditation. There's a lot of other ways that we found to get into those ecstatic states. But this is for me, it's this is what I found was very well for me. I still do yoga every day. There is a there's a intelligence that comes with a lot of these plans for me that I found that helps to benefit me in everyone's network.
01;02;38;20 - 01;03;05;22
Speaker 2
You know, our public company operates in seven states and as a result of that was 100% result of that awareness that came from psychedelic medicines, not because it was a concert, made a bunch of mushrooms and the sage and all it. But because I was able to look at some of the shit that I had, the blocked me that that made me in fact is as a leader and as a coworker and was able to deal with that and I was able to instill some of those key points on other people saying this is how you encourage your people.
01;03;05;23 - 01;03;09;11
Speaker 2
It's not about holding them accountable, it's not encouraging them. You know.
01;03;09;17 - 01;03;31;15
Speaker 1
You know, I really appreciate that there's a author and I'm I can't think of his last name, but it's first name. Shirzad. So if you were to Google Shirzad and his books called The Positive Intelligence Quotient, I believe and I did a study with John Marie Mudd from Canyon Ranch about that for for a few months. And it's about IQ.
01;03;31;21 - 01;04;05;11
Speaker 1
And there's a number of exercises you go through. And it's the mindset behind it is it's like muscles, training, muscles. You don't go to the gym once and you're fit right. You got to keep working the muscles. Same with the mind. And so there's certain exercises you do tactile, rubbing your fingers together and some different things, putting you're putting yourself in a mindful set so that when an inevitable things happen that are high stress or whatever, that you're able to deal with it better, deal with employees or superiors or colleagues or family members or friends or whatever, so you don't blow up.
01;04;06;20 - 01;04;35;13
Speaker 1
And so so what you're saying really resonates with me. And and one of the things I really hope to inform others of beyond typical finance, which you can read books you can watch podcast podcasts about are all the other things that we're talking about to help people move more into flow. And so what are the other holistic things and little things that can be end up being big, things that can a real positive impact.
01;04;35;23 - 01;04;37;29
Speaker 1
And so I really appreciate what you're saying there.
01;04;39;15 - 01;04;57;20
Speaker 2
Well, there's a what are the stats? I read that I was loved. Was that the difference between a happy self and a poor stuff is 10% of your bottom line, whether they're happy and killing it or they're sad and poor and they're just everything sucks. It's 10%, that's 7 to 9. And I think that's the thing is all these things like that other stuff is quantifiable.
01;04;58;13 - 01;05;15;22
Speaker 2
It's easy for us to say that if I do this, the operating efficiencies improve or if I do this and I add another sector and product, here's here's what that looks like from a revenue standpoint. These are the things that are the things that are typically in a standard company. Not they're not quantifiable, but they are they really are.
01;05;15;22 - 01;05;34;16
Speaker 2
When you're where it's the culture, you know, it's the you and I do a lot of work on us and like showing up so that we could be the best example of us to other people. But are we taking the time to quantify that into a culture for our business? Right? Because like one of the things we did was like pillars, cultural pillars for the company and like I and my moleskin guy, like taking notes on everything.
01;05;34;16 - 01;05;51;00
Speaker 2
I was shooting memory. So I write everything down. Everybody in the company in July are not going to free Moleskine When they started, he felt it didn't give a shit where it could be Doodles. I don't care. Fill it, come back, show it to me. And I've been there every one of those and are cultural pillars in it because I want those same pillars of like happiness and kindness and like, be the best you like.
01;05;51;13 - 01;06;07;25
Speaker 2
The cheesy things that we all say every day are real. Things are cheesy. So if you remember the do not be afraid to take the work that you're doing every day. It's one of the things I really admire about you, sir, is that it's being open about the work that we're doing. If I'm not open with it, I can inspire anybody else.
01;06;08;09 - 01;06;23;10
Speaker 2
It's just my little journey. The second that I'm willing to be vulnerable and share that I'm doing work on me because I'm not perfect and these are the things I'm working on and this is what I'm doing and why work. We can inspire people like you do that all the time. It's one of the things I really, really like honor you for it.
01;06;23;21 - 01;06;28;05
Speaker 2
And that's what this is all about. It's just it's. It's those. It's the other things.
01;06;28;28 - 01;06;30;10
Speaker 1
Yeah. Right on. Appreciate that.
01;06;30;10 - 01;06;30;28
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's.
01;06;30;28 - 01;06;49;13
Speaker 1
Real. So as you check in where you are now in your life, kind of take status, your body of work, tell me a little bit about as you reflect back over your body of work and the impact you've made, what are some of your highlights and think some of the things you're most proud of?
01;06;50;29 - 01;07;06;23
Speaker 2
And it's got to be stuff. I would say a couple, you know, one, having a business that lives beyond me, you know, it's the day that you decide to leave a company you started. It's a it's a weird feeling, you know, But I can quantify it, too. Everyone wants the best from the kids and the best you can hope for.
01;07;06;23 - 01;07;32;09
Speaker 2
Someone loves them as much as you did. And you know, so. So watching a company like Beyoncé is very cool. But I would say that like my biggest victories in the stack two hands down, I have not so many stories. I know one of our first employees, we had a little struggle with alcohol stuck with him and is still with us today.
01;07;32;17 - 01;07;44;23
Speaker 2
I saw one of my cars and breathalyzer and it was the day I walked into the facility and he told me that he had a year sober and that he was going by he was trading in the car that I'd sold him for a new car. He was the first person in his family to get his own place.
01;07;44;23 - 01;08;01;03
Speaker 2
That was his grandparents and his mother and his special needs sibling. You took care of you get his own place and help them support themselves. And like, it's just things like that. Like it because, you know, because like, I've had some I've had pre parties, I've had good stuff, I've got a great car house, I've had those things.
01;08;01;03 - 01;08;17;20
Speaker 2
But like at the end of the day, like I've never had a house that I sat and I thought about all the time. No matter how cool it was that that was so short lived. But like that happened to be years ago. And I can still remember the look on his face when he told me that, you know, the people like my my older sister, she's the head of h.r.
01;08;17;20 - 01;08;35;23
Speaker 2
For publicly traded company. She's making six figures a year, and she's marrying another guy who makes six figures a year, who loves her like he's never loved. He didn't on this planet being able to facilitate those things because I'm open about, like, who I am and what my struggles aren't. I'm a human with my people. Those are like the biggest victories, You know, I'm proud of what I've accomplished.
01;08;35;26 - 01;08;52;19
Speaker 2
Never thought, you know, I always tell people I do not look at my story because if you add one plus one, it does not equal the outcome. Like it's it's so different, but it's just like, do give up. It's going to be hard. If if it was easy, it would be fun. That's my thing, too. Like, the only reason I'm here is that I didn't give up.
01;08;53;09 - 01;09;09;13
Speaker 2
I tried to be a good dude. No, His lack of integrity has ever cost us my not this never happened. You could be a dirt bag. You can rip us off. You can do that. There's so much more money to be made by doing good business with me and written off all you want. And there's an extra common there if you had, you know.
01;09;09;13 - 01;09;17;02
Speaker 2
And so I would say that like, that's probably the the my biggest homeruns are the people that I've been able to affect because I wasn't in debt.
01;09;18;12 - 01;09;37;03
Speaker 1
Yeah, right. Yeah. Well I know that about Yeah. And that's really cool. It's a great way of being and a great way to live your life. Well, I just really want to thank you. I'm grateful that you took the time to come by and and hang with us today and chat. And thank you all for listening really appreciate you guys tuning in.
01;09;37;03 - 01;10;00;13
Speaker 1
And I hope that you were all inspired and informed and if you like, where you heard whatever channel you're listening on, go ahead and really appreciate it. If you were to review and and rate us a little bit and otherwise steak's for tuning and go a little closer to your financial flow. Take care. This was the Financial Flow podcast with me Darren Right.
01;10;00;19 - 01;31;58;20
Speaker 1
Thank you for listening and I hope that today you were inspired and informed to move even more into your peak financial flow for success. All right, Well, welcome everybody, and thanks for tuning in. I've got my good buddy Bryce, scholar here. Welcome, my man.
01;31;58;26 - 01;32;00;23
Speaker 2
Jared, Always a pleasure. Sarah, great to see you.
01;32;00;23 - 01;32;27;23
Speaker 1
Yeah, great to see you, too. Thank you for coming so much. So I've known Bryce quite a while now, but he is a 20 year entrepreneurial veteran with a background in psychology, therapeutic psychedelics, brand development and revenue generation. He's been involved in brand creation for over 100 companies across an array of industries, ranging from CPG and fashion to wellness and professional services.
01;32;28;07 - 01;32;55;13
Speaker 1
Most recently, he founded Adam nine Labs Corp, OTC, Ex I and will be as CEO oh with a focus on quality, transparency and fun, which we all love. You led the charge in taking the company from a privately owned cannabis enterprise based in Arizona to over-the-counter X publicly traded corporation operating in multiple states with a market value of 350 mil.
01;32;57;09 - 01;33;10;11
Speaker 1
Currently, Bryce has created Hojo distro focusing on premium plant medicine products throughout the South United States. That's quite a lot of shit going on.
01;33;10;11 - 01;33;18;15
Speaker 2
Bryce Hospital credit. Do you said Hojo correctly. It's normally a third or fourth time someone gets this. I want to give credit where it's due.
01;33;18;19 - 01;33;31;17
Speaker 1
Well, you know. Thank you. Yeah. A little coaching on the front. So that's that's pretty amazing. So tell me, let's back up a little bit, though. Tell me a little bit about your story and how you got started.
01;33;31;22 - 01;33;54;27
Speaker 2
Okay. I like Groupon. Just California lived out there for most of my formative years, moved to Arizona and teen years, tumultuous teen years, and moved around a lot. Growing up in Encinitas, it was a very spiritual community. There was, you know, we had the realization fellowship there. You know, Deepak Chopra did a lot of speeches and stuff out of my area.
01;33;54;27 - 01;34;14;16
Speaker 2
And so I there was a lot of spirituality and awareness when I was young. They also picked up all the baggage that we pick up in our teen years. What I had was a stepfather who was an entrepreneur himself who was also a cheapskate. And so from a very early age, we didn't get allowance in my house. If you wanted money works, were it as much as it was rough when I was a kid.
01;34;14;16 - 01;34;38;10
Speaker 2
I'm so grateful for those lessons now because I've either owned a company or had a side business of some sort since I was 12. Never not had a side business. It's always been my thing. It was distributing plant medicines before they were legal for a long time and now that's illegal. That past experiences helped me. But it also taught me that there was always a way, you know, if you wanted to get something done, there was always a way.
01;34;39;15 - 01;35;04;26
Speaker 2
I had a I decided to see what was possible in the trouble realm through most of my twenties and and through that experience. And coming out of that experience, I wanted I knew that I wanted to do something that would help others. And so I ended up I went to school initially for education and for music and ended up getting into read psychology and psychology.
01;35;04;26 - 01;35;10;21
Speaker 2
And that kind of been my mainstay. And I did that for about ten years before kind of deciding to go full tilt entrepreneur.
01;35;11;13 - 01;35;15;09
Speaker 1
In reason why you found your way into psychology?
01;35;16;02 - 01;35;39;00
Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, I think, you know, my experience with psychologists and counselors is that, you know, normally when you meet them, it's because things are easy, you know? And I had a lot of childhood traumas with family members, with suicide attempts and there was drug and alcohol use and abuse in my just throughout my entire family that it not all just in my direct childhood, but just kind of throughout the family.
01;35;39;00 - 01;35;59;14
Speaker 2
And I think that I saw an opportunity to let people know there was a different way. I think that was the hard things. I think when you're in that dark hole, sometimes you don't think there's a light out there and once I kind of saw the light, it was just important to me that other people, you know, when I when I was young and doing bad things, I had a big heart.
01;35;59;14 - 01;36;15;07
Speaker 2
And so it was a liability. A large portion of my younger years. The older I got, I realized that that big heart and I didn't give up on people as quick as some other people did, and that that was a and if I use it for good, then it was going to be a huge benefit. Otherwise it was not.
01;36;15;07 - 01;36;37;17
Speaker 2
And so I just figured that was the best way to do it. Yeah, I love social work. I like counselors, psychologists and social workers are like a you know, they separate myself from that group and I'll do it anymore. But it's a very noble profession. What I when they told me to go back to school for my master's and spent 60 grand on making an extra $2 an hour, the numbers didn't add up for me.
01;36;38;21 - 01;36;57;24
Speaker 2
You know. But what I really saw was that there was a way to be of service in other places and that I didn't have to meet everyone on the worst day of their lives, because that's really what it was. It was a decade of helping. A lot of people have got amazing stories and have it, you know, really beautiful, you know, blessings where I've seen people that I didn't think we're going to make it, make it.
01;36;57;24 - 01;37;14;20
Speaker 2
They're successful now these are doing great things. But it was also being everyone on the worst day of their lives and like you can only, you know, emotionally take that so long before you need a break, you know? Yeah. And, you know, and they also realized that there was a lot of people that that needed help in other ways.
01;37;14;20 - 01;37;30;09
Speaker 2
You know, I you know, I employed a lot of people that didn't have the opportunity to regular job unless they met someone like me who's like, I'll give you a chance, man. And so to me, that has been as impactful as some of the other people that maybe they helped get off drugs and alcohol or stabilize on their psych medications.
01;37;30;09 - 01;37;36;19
Speaker 2
You know, they were all it's to watch a family flourish because if somebody is good choices is powerful, then, you know. So.
01;37;37;12 - 01;37;51;17
Speaker 1
Yeah, for sure yeah so psychology CEO the bring a company public Deepak Chopra I think I heard a little Deepak Chopra name drop in there. So tell us about Deepak.
01;37;52;12 - 01;38;11;25
Speaker 2
Well, I think, you know, growing up, I was really lucky in that my mother, because of like kind of her spiritual beliefs, you know, I grew up in like we my roommates, the general entities that I grew up. And we had Tai Chi lessons at my house and, you know, and, you know, she like, breathe like breathing workshops at my house.
01;38;11;25 - 01;38;25;13
Speaker 2
And so, like, I you know, I grew up around that stuff. And I think for a long time, you know, and when I see that, I think it's, you know, it's important because, you know, what I've come to understand about me is that I'm a you know, I have a suit, but I'm just kind of energetic being that was within that.
01;38;25;13 - 01;38;42;02
Speaker 2
And I to choose how much power that energetic thing has on you. Again, that depends on what I see, that how my heart is it, how I look at it, how I relate to it. And I learned a lot of that when I was a kid, But because of that trauma. I also always used to joke that I had like the New Age Catholic upbringing because my family's Catholic.
01;38;42;17 - 01;38;56;01
Speaker 2
And so there was all the traumas associated with like, oh, people do that stuff. And they're not really, you know, I have a lot of people that I know that like might say the same thing about the Catholic religion, the Christian religion, where they have some trauma that just all of a sudden they separated themselves from, that group.
01;38;56;01 - 01;39;14;21
Speaker 2
And if that was it for me, and I think that as I got older and started to have, you know, sort of to find my own truths and, just do my own work, that's when I started to see that there was a lot more to that, that it wasn't as you know, it was much more direct applicable science than it was.
01;39;15;09 - 01;39;35;12
Speaker 2
And I just think I needed the awareness to get to that point. You know, it's one of the things I love about the I have some friends that are, you know, just absolute, you know, can't talk about God, can't talk about anything beyond where they are today, not necessarily like, you know, against the religion, but they just don't understand the more than the sum of our parts.
01;39;35;23 - 01;40;01;23
Speaker 2
And when I started to do my own work and I started to see that it became so applicable to my journey now, professionally, personally, that's one of the things that, you know, I talk very openly about this for a while, even with business, is it's, you know, who I am. And I've yet to find a high, high profile executives or professional of sorts, you know, regardless of whether they're C-suite or independent or whatever it is that does not have some sort of spiritual ritual or practice they do every day.
01;40;02;15 - 01;40;03;00
Speaker 2
So that just.
01;40;03;19 - 01;40;06;18
Speaker 1
The use You said you've yet to find anybody that does not.
01;40;06;18 - 01;40;21;04
Speaker 2
Correct. Yeah. Now there are some that are all the way up, but even I would argue the ones that aren't necessarily spiritual have a moment of silence to take every day and go out back on the patio and they sit still and they might not have defined it as such, but they know that the benefits it has to them.
01;40;21;04 - 01;40;53;15
Speaker 2
The interesting thing to me about I would say spiritual sciences is that there's typically a quantifiable result to that. They just haven't seen the numbers yet, you know, and so I think that the the the higher I got, the better that the the more successful I found, the harder to manage all of those moving pieces and the more I realized that that I had to do those things on a daily basis if I wanted to continue to operate at the level that I was and that if I didn't do those things, there was going to be short circuits happened in a number of ways now.
01;40;53;16 - 01;41;13;05
Speaker 2
So for me, I'm a very compassionate, kind, patient, loving some guy when I'm in my lower self, where I start to short circuit, I get impatient, I get mature, I lash out, I get moody. You know, that's that's where my lower self from shows up. And those are all things that are now adapted to the environment that live in on a regular basis.
01;41;13;05 - 01;41;28;28
Speaker 2
So those were all tools that I was able to establish to utilize for me. And they're different for everybody. But it was like all of those things that I had heard as a kid. It was like one, you know, I had some plateaus and experiences that like kind of changed things for me. And I was like, Oh, you were right about all this.
01;41;29;03 - 01;41;46;12
Speaker 2
Oh, no. Hey, let's meet that. It wasn't like 25 year old, like, oh, shucks. Parents were right about everything. It was like a deeper level of that. Of like all those things that they had taught me were real and was some validity to that. They might not have shown up in the box that I was presented them in, but they were real.
01;41;46;12 - 01;41;49;26
Speaker 2
And then I needed to learn how those things worked for me, you know? So yeah, it was a big piece of it.
01;41;50;17 - 01;41;57;10
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's super interesting. You talk about that spirituality piece because have you ever read Ray Dalio spoke principles?
01;41;57;15 - 01;41;58;15
Speaker 2
Oh, Vedolizumab.
01;41;58;25 - 01;42;13;27
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, so he credits meditation. I think he might have said 2 hours a day, this is average that. But he credits that 2 hours of meditation that day is the single most important thing to his success.
01;42;13;29 - 01;42;30;09
Speaker 2
Well, Phil Jackson talks about in Sacred Hoops, which is one of my favorite all time leadership books. But he talks about being mindfulness. That was the most important thing on this team. And when you were on the 91, the 93 balls, if you couldn't tell him what was happening on the court, you would let you play, you know, Hey, you're up where?
01;42;30;12 - 01;42;43;15
Speaker 2
Where's the ball at? Who got it? Last was last shot. Where? The guards can't tell me you're up where we are because that's stillness and mindfulness of what was happening. Round two was more important than the ferocity that you were going to hit the court.
01;42;43;15 - 01;42;48;09
Speaker 1
With trying to read that book. I was a rabid Wolves fan growing up in Illinois.
01;42;48;10 - 01;42;51;05
Speaker 2
You ever read Sacred Hoops? No overall? I just blew your mind.
01;42;51;08 - 01;42;51;15
Speaker 1
Yeah.
01;42;51;23 - 01;43;01;01
Speaker 2
It's like 250 pages. Okay, I've 70 times. I still have a half a case in my house that I haven't given out yet, so I'll have to see if I can dig anybody, if I could, to get the storage and find it. I got a half a case.
01;43;01;03 - 01;43;01;26
Speaker 1
I'm all right.
01;43;02;11 - 01;43;05;22
Speaker 2
It's right next to my half. A case of like, you know, some have some halo effect of.
01;43;06;02 - 01;43;06;20
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah.
01;43;07;03 - 01;43;09;07
Speaker 2
The 5000 to the seven as far as I've got all.
01;43;09;28 - 01;43;21;00
Speaker 1
Right. I'm a big fan of all those books, but sacred hoops. Now I have to add that I actually give out The Richest Man in Babylon. So a lot of like high school and college graduates. That's a good.
01;43;21;00 - 01;43;22;09
Speaker 2
One. Is another good one, too.
01;43;22;10 - 01;43;22;22
Speaker 1
What is it?
01;43;22;27 - 01;43;23;29
Speaker 2
The wooden story.
01;43;24;09 - 01;43;25;02
Speaker 1
What's the wooden story?
01;43;25;02 - 01;43;27;26
Speaker 2
Picture Wadsworth from a Although I got to.
01;43;28;06 - 01;43;29;06
Speaker 1
Know that more, I'll.
01;43;29;10 - 01;43;29;27
Speaker 2
Give you a box.
01;43;29;28 - 01;43;31;17
Speaker 1
But I thought. I thought I had a great one.
01;43;31;18 - 01;43;46;26
Speaker 2
Oh, I love it. I love it. What? Other people are avid readers and like stuff, But, you know. But the thing I loved about Phil Jackson, too. Yeah. Was that for him, you know, the reason why I wrote that book is amazing intellectually. You know. Mike Wells, you're a rockstar, so you inspired me, an amazing sales guy for the better sales guys.
01;43;46;26 - 01;44;05;24
Speaker 2
I've never worked with absolute pain in. My but probably one of the biggest is probably because he was a lot like me as he drove me bananas. But I needed to figure out how to capitalize on that. And you know, one of the things that that sacred hoop stopped me was that, you know, Jordan was he led the league in scoring.
01;44;06;03 - 01;44;25;20
Speaker 2
He was MVP. It wasn't until the year that he didn't win MVP that the team became a championship team. Right. And it was it was about that. You know, he was better than the others. And so what was Jackson expected of him? Was he expected him to give more to help show up, more to teach better, to do those things to lead, because he had that to give.
01;44;26;01 - 01;44;38;06
Speaker 2
And it was once he harnessed that for the team, that that was when he won. And Jackson was I mean, he studied indigenous, you know, spiritual ceremonies, humility, that every day that he meditated, every practice.
01;44;39;10 - 01;44;41;23
Speaker 1
I did not I knew he did, but I didn't know the team did as well.
01;44;41;24 - 01;44;52;24
Speaker 2
It was like a requirement. The I loved the mindfulness. I mean, he would just call them out on the court. Do you know what's going on right now? If you do not if you're not paying attention and you don't you're not mindful about this entire game, you can't play right now.
01;44;53;05 - 01;45;01;18
Speaker 1
Well, thank you for that tip. I mean, that absolutely. You know that tell you, I just wrapping up the book, Financial Fitness.
01;45;01;27 - 01;45;04;03
Speaker 2
Oh, you told me about it. But I haven't heard I haven't heard this.
01;45;04;03 - 01;45;33;00
Speaker 1
I started it in COVID, and I've been working through it. But the reason I bring it up right now is because really, over the last 12 months, I'd have to say my wife and I went to camp and ranch up in Woodside, California, met this amazing woman, Jean Marie Mudd, and she turned me on to a little bit more of a more of the slow element of things and incorporating that into finances, which kind of led me to change the book a little bit and led to this podcast as well.
01;45;33;29 - 01;45;53;23
Speaker 1
And so that that slow and that mindfulness has kind of got me down this road of diving into a number of different books. Stephen Cutler's books, Superman, a bunch of others that I've now started to see it in back into the book before I publish it. So definitely appreciate that. So I'll have to get into it.
01;45;53;23 - 01;46;11;07
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's just such a quick read too. It's a fun, it's a real, real, real quick read. Yeah, But I think that's, you know, that was one of the things, you know, I got cycling was something I got into. Yeah. Especially with, you know, we've talked about that like and there's just the my brain doesn't shut off ever, ever shut off.
01;46;11;07 - 01;46;29;08
Speaker 2
It's constantly going and I'm grateful for it. It's, you know, I've learned how to harness that for, for, you know, for my benefit. But it's also a lot it's the, you know, it's the stress we take on. It's, you know, if I make a mistake, then people lose jobs and, you know, millions of dollars lost. And I do share responsibility in all of my businesses today.
01;46;30;04 - 01;46;51;27
Speaker 2
And, you know, I think that what I learned as it got to as I started, you know, and I wouldn't even say that it was the public company was definitely the vehicle by which I learned a lot of these things, you know, learned what true fiduciary responsibility was not helping in terms of we have that already, but what a sacred right that is when somebody says, hey, I'm going to give you my money because I'm giving you this much like there's something so sacred about that.
01;46;51;27 - 01;47;07;21
Speaker 2
And like so it's me watching your kids and like, there's the people that call big money to watch your kids and there's the people that are your friends are like, These are the things that I've set up for them to know, Are you cool with us? Because it's an honor to them to watch your children. They see what an honor it is.
01;47;07;21 - 01;47;26;25
Speaker 2
And and to me, that's fiduciary through really mindful about it. It's not like you're you're feeling comfortable enough with me that like the thing that we all we all hold for safety whether we want to admit it or not. Because it's easy to say like now Naval Ravikant, who's like one of my favorite I talked to that the last time I saw you.
01;47;27;10 - 01;47;42;16
Speaker 2
You know, he talks about like figuring out what you want because it's easy to find a passion, but You can't support yourself. That's all you're going to focus on. You know, he talks about how, like Jesus lost everything and guru was a prince. So figure out where you want to be before you try to really find that pure and real happiness.
01;47;42;16 - 01;48;01;18
Speaker 2
Because the reality is there's always going to be intermittent factors. If you have decided that, you know, if you're going to burn out, you know, denounce everything and live in a you know, a time is great. You're going to find happiness in if you're not going to do that and you have to find a stable means of of supporting yourself, your family or whoever, because that's going to be what you wake up and worry about.
01;48;01;18 - 01;48;12;05
Speaker 2
And once that's addressed now, you can start to find passion and happiness. And those are you know, those are ongoing things, but you have to address those, you know, and I think that that's, you know, a big piece of that.
01;48;12;27 - 01;48;35;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, that makes total sense. When you think back, you said you had some struggles growing up. What are some of the struggles that that you went through on your journey and what did you learn from them that kind of kept you in the game and continue to have really what I feel is a real growth mentality that you have.
01;48;36;12 - 01;48;39;23
Speaker 1
You're always trying to get better, always trying to grow, help others.
01;48;40;06 - 01;48;54;21
Speaker 2
Well, I would say there are a couple of good things. You know, my both my parents were first, usually my parents got divorced when I was very young. I really don't remember them together at all. My step mom's around since I was three, so I've got a bonus. Mom. She's been there just as long. Just as stable.
01;48;56;05 - 01;48;57;15
Speaker 1
Like that term bonus. Mom.
01;48;57;15 - 01;49;21;05
Speaker 2
Yeah, because she really is. You know, I really lucked this life. I got that, you know, And one of the things that they always taught me is if you don't like your reality, you're the only one who can change it. And so if you want something different and that was through, you know, me putting myself in, you know, institutions and, you know, and whether it was, you know, state paid vacation or if we were paying through for insurance and it was a hospital or whatever that occasion was like at the time, it was that I was the creator of those issues.
01;49;21;05 - 01;49;36;13
Speaker 2
I wanted to start creating a different lifestyle. I had the ability to do that. I just had to do it, you know. And so it got to a point when, you know, my father, I hit that stage where we was again, I got that day and I've got what it takes to to be the man. You know, it was nothing like, Hey, this is your reality if you like to change it.
01;49;36;26 - 01;49;47;01
Speaker 2
I don't wanna hear you. I want to hear you complain about it. Do I heard you complain about this for a long time. Then you keep making these choices, You know, like do change the oil in your car. You don't want to break down. I don't want hear you bitch about it anymore.
01;49;47;06 - 01;49;48;28
Speaker 1
How long did it take for that to sink in?
01;49;49;05 - 01;49;49;24
Speaker 2
Oof!
01;49;50;03 - 01;49;53;28
Speaker 1
Um, I would say. Or is it still sinking in.
01;49;53;29 - 01;50;12;08
Speaker 2
Now as it's here? But I would say it was it was a good 25 years of hearing it before it really like struck me and it struck me honestly and I'll, I'll give you the, the that it was Christmas 24, it was incarcerated. My very clear understanding was my parents. They didn't call them as I was incarcerated or my legal issues.
01;50;12;08 - 01;50;27;16
Speaker 2
I didn't want them to be my parents. It was always my choice. And I do that from early age and they would never visit. And it was it was nothing. It wasn't like they were they were not inconceivable. There was no reason to see me in a box. And so that Christmas often their visitors and it's my dad invisible.
01;50;27;22 - 01;50;45;16
Speaker 2
And I was like, Oh shit, somebody died. And, you know, in my head I always inconvenience them with the things I was doing. And so they were just tired of dealing with my shit. And what they said in that meeting was the thing that really upset us wasn't, that you created all these issues. It was that you robbed us of having a son and we wanted your presence.
01;50;46;11 - 01;50;59;11
Speaker 2
We want you to be there. And like by the time we were able to kind of have those experiences with you out causing trouble. And so it wasn't any of that we would have dealt with that. But I want to teach you how to play catch. I wanted to teach you about women. I wanted to teach you, and a good man does.
01;50;59;25 - 01;51;22;08
Speaker 2
And I didn't give him the opportunity to do that. So for me, it was that was a pivotal lesson in life that my presence was really what was one of the most of the time. And I was too busy creating all of these things that I thought everybody wanted, whether it was a job or a hustle or whatever it was, it was what they really wanted was just me to be there with them through that and then work on it with them.
01;51;22;08 - 01;51;45;06
Speaker 2
If it was something I want to work on with them and be around. And I think that for me that was a really big piece of understanding that. All of the other stuff I was doing was noise, you know, all the little things of trying to create this reality that really wasn't creating reality, was just causing chaos around it wasn't it was taking it was detracting from me being able to be present, which I think at the time was probably what I was seeking.
01;51;46;02 - 01;52;02;24
Speaker 2
You know, it's the it's the people now that I talk to that are, you know, I've been in cannabis now for a while, and when I started that company, it was really a sort of product for people like me who like I didn't want something to happen, advocacy on it that was like really catchy. I just wanted a quality product because I could understand why they did it the way they did it.
01;52;03;07 - 01;52;16;03
Speaker 2
You know, like if I got the storm to buy organic, that whole thing, my wife will still show me if I could show up with something as part of Dirty Dozen that wasn't organic and they had an option. You know, that means it's that stuff, right? So it was just that it was just sort of to understand that like there was intentional stuff there.
01;52;16;13 - 01;52;42;17
Speaker 2
When I started that company, I wanted to start something was a product for me, and it allowed me to start to move into a place where I wanted to to remove noise from my life. And I wanted to show up authentically in places, and I wanted to create things that were authentically what I wanted. You know, I had a clothing company for a while that I don't feel like it was authentically me, but I learned a lot and it just was a because I learned a lot to do the wrong thing.
01;52;43;08 - 01;52;59;06
Speaker 2
I learned a lot through it. And it was like when I moved into the space, I was able to see that if I showed up, how I was like I was okay. It was it was what I thought. Other people wanted to be, who they wanted me to be, or the other things that I thought I needed to possess or bone in order to be liked.
01;52;59;06 - 01;53;17;11
Speaker 2
It was just creating noise distance between all those things and that. It seems like the older I get, the more simplified things get, you know, the more powerful an important get you, the more responsibility that other people can on those things, but the more simplified they are. It's not a lot of noise, it's just showing up authentically. The supports in place to make sure that I am able to be there.
01;53;17;13 - 01;53;31;28
Speaker 2
I think that for me was a big piece of that, was just hearing my father say that that day made me realize that like I was the gift wasn't what I could do and wasn't who I know. And like, you know, I love traveling because it doesn't matter who, you know, when you show up, if you're nice, you have friends.
01;53;31;28 - 01;53;45;09
Speaker 2
And if you're not, you don't. It's just that easy. Like, it's so simple. Right? And when he said that to me that day it made me realize that I feel like I was the gift to the world, you know, just like you are. Just like our lives and our children are like, you know, I know you're like, I am with my kids.
01;53;45;09 - 01;54;09;27
Speaker 2
Like, the biggest gift I've given, but that's the gift. It's not how he plays video games. It's not how I do work. Now, if I show up and I am able to authentically be me in a way that also helps to to generate revenue and or affect a business in a positive outcome, then And that's my intention that I could be authentically be me generating wealth for myself and others.
01;54;10;09 - 01;54;28;13
Speaker 2
But I have to show up with that intention and I can't show up thinking I'm going to do all these things because I think that's the you know, because I was watching Fox business this morning and, you know, it's not that. It's that if I show up intentionally and I authentically want to be me, a business environment, then that means that I'm going to be diligent because that's who I am.
01;54;28;13 - 01;54;42;13
Speaker 2
I'm going to work hard as the boss because that's what I do and I'm going to care a little bit more the next guy does, because that's what I do and it's not is directed with the intention of generating opportunity. Did I get to do that? Generating opportunity? If I want to do it at home with my kids, I could do that too.
01;54;42;27 - 01;55;15;01
Speaker 2
I've just been lucky enough that I believe business is an art. I've seen it as such. It did. It always was a job for a long time. But it's creating, it's creating a passion and taking the passion and putting structure around it, scalable structure so that it can be duplicated. Goods that are markets sold, whatever that is, that it needs showing up authentically, it needs noise and just applying the same principles that like he's told me that day that like stuck clear stone and he was cut in conduit for me that day and it was you know and a piece that was never in my value.
01;55;15;01 - 01;55;35;15
Speaker 2
Right like you know through all those that trauma, you know, I think all of these things sync up once the work stop, you know? So like, I had these lessons that were carved in stone at these points in and then once I all that come out, I realized that there was a lot of, you know, mess inside of me that had been created by me, had that happen to me, whatever that was, that was like I was able to clear some of that wreckage out.
01;55;36;03 - 01;55;56;25
Speaker 2
Those two things aligned where it was like, okay, I really, really value who I am personally. You know what? I have friends, which tells me other people now you mean, okay, now I really I want to work and accomplish things. And so it was like starting to figure out how I could monetize that and how I could structure that, you know, like I can't look at a business not just for me.
01;55;56;25 - 01;56;15;28
Speaker 2
Like our business is like, how do you make money that isn't your top moneymaker? Do you speak to your demographic how is your brand? How is it like like for me, that's that's how you know, it's the it's you know, it's it's a contractual of you to build that I really want to hear like I have some friends that have like know a little thing going and they want to call me back because it's not that I'm not fun with it.
01;56;15;28 - 01;56;32;06
Speaker 2
I love hearing about business, but like, I don't know how to like not look at it in that light because to me it's like, that's what it is. It's your art. What? What? How do you know? Where do you see it? Hanging out. How the light is? Is it is it back? It was back that is from that.
01;56;32;06 - 01;56;51;07
Speaker 2
Are you doing that spotlight like shooting through all of those things? I think for me it was that stuff with business and realizing once I cleared that noise, I had the ability to create wasn't just generated, you know, and I say like revenue generation because that was like my specialty with business consulting. That was really just like movie bullshit, you know, We get so, like bogged down and it was just a bullshit.
01;56;51;07 - 01;57;04;11
Speaker 2
Like, what do you do? Do you like to do that? And I was stuck on my responsibilities, right? Like, so if I to my products that the people don't have a responsibility to get that in the hands of other people and don't have a responsibility to use as loud a megaphone as humanly possible to get that out there.
01;57;04;14 - 01;57;16;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's not because of being greedy or dick, it's because I really believe in a better product. If I could show that that mindset and say, Hey, listen, I think this. Do you think this is better than theirs? Yeah. Okay, good. The we need to make sure that that no buys our stuff just doesn't.
01;57;18;26 - 01;57;27;28
Speaker 1
That's amazing. And on that note, I'm going to I'm going to toss you because that was that was outstanding. And we're just a little bourbon, actually. Was it an old fashioned Manhattan?
01;57;27;28 - 01;57;29;06
Speaker 2
The old fashioned.
01;57;29;08 - 01;57;45;15
Speaker 1
Okay. Old fashioned. So so Bryce was played bartender as we we got going here and it's. What time is it? It's about 5:00. Well, after five feet time. And so we're we're it's happy hour, you know, happy hour kind of starts around three and finished as well.
01;57;45;17 - 01;58;03;19
Speaker 2
But I think, you know, it's the other it's one of the things that like, honestly I really enjoyed about you and I you know and then lessons I was like we're really lucky to to have the lives we have. We've also worked really, really hard, important to us. And each day, you know, I know for me I wake up and I think, okay, how do I get to do this a little bit better?
01;58;04;13 - 01;58;20;13
Speaker 2
How do I support a little bit more? And it becomes fun somewhere along the line like that, that amount of work, because we've grown accustomed to the stress that comes along with it, which is something that you have to adjust to. But I think it's one of the things I like, like I love sitting down talking about it and stuff like how do we how do we effect change?
01;58;20;23 - 01;58;50;13
Speaker 2
And the reality is there's a lot of people who would like change through the all, through social programs, through these things, and we get to affect change in the way that the revenue changes hands and how businesses are embodying. Like, you know, there's not if you really look at that world where there's a whole lot of us, in fact revenue on a large scale, you know, it's it's the person like I was talking to a buddy the other day does I watch the ceremonies and he was saying, like, you know, I really want to touch kids, I really want to, like, get to a place where I can select kids to play medicine.
01;58;50;13 - 01;59;10;12
Speaker 2
And we have the families there. We can support them because everyone do everything for their kids, for the two children in the world. But what about the CEO view section? You just touched 10,000 lives and like I get into like the altruistic and wants to help that child. Everyone wants to help child. Think about how the children's homes you touched by helping that CEO be a better guy.
01;59;11;04 - 01;59;25;03
Speaker 2
And I think that's the thing that like I try not to lose sight of in this that like we have the ability honor to affect a lot more lives than just the people that we touch directly because of our our networks and because of the people that we get to associate with. And like. It's such a cool thing.
01;59;25;10 - 01;59;50;23
Speaker 1
We see that. Yeah, you and I talked about that a little bit about about this podcast, in fact, and the altruism of it. And then that's fine, but also then pushing it out, how do you push it out to even impact more people? There's a lot of people out there that probably sat there and listened to. What you had to say about your energy your is always working and obviously it is.
01;59;50;23 - 02;00;14;08
Speaker 1
We're hearing you. You're a little like Elon Musk. You just going, Yeah. And it strikes me as something that wants to optimize maximize your you're what I like to call green and growing ripe and rotting. So you're you've got that growth mentality. You're always trying to grow. You had a goal. You look for the next one being very dynamic in that mindset.
02;00;16;03 - 02;00;39;17
Speaker 1
What are some of the drivers behind that that drive you and push you? So when there's someone sitting at home listening to us or driving and they're and they're like, Yeah, I'm that Bryce guy. He's he's done so much in such a short period of time. He's always thinking, So what are some of the things that drive you your, your true north or your goals or your, your compass.
02;00;39;26 - 02;00;40;06
Speaker 1
Um.
02;00;40;16 - 02;01;02;03
Speaker 2
I mean, a couple of things. I would say that I'm a I'm, an extravagant and I don't mean boujee and extravagant meaning that if we're going to go out to dinner tonight, I could just hit you and say where you glasses are. Or I could take 10 minutes. I could find what the restaurant's opening. Just the nicest restaurant, just some new place that views and then figure out what's happening around after that.
02;01;02;05 - 02;01;16;03
Speaker 2
And that 10 minutes is the difference between me saying, hey, during lunch, dinner or Hey Jared, this is really cool spot opening in North Phenix. Let's go check it out. And right down the street from there is this other cool spot that's opening. That's the same group that did so and so and so and so. It just changed the course of our night.
02;01;16;19 - 02;01;37;12
Speaker 2
That was 10 minutes of my time. That's everything. That's every single thing in my life. And sometimes it wears my life out. God bless you. But it's everything in my life that like the difference in like I was watching all that was the show earlier. Oh, no, I fell asleep with Netflix on. I don't play the show waiting last night right now is like one of those early movies.
02;01;37;12 - 02;01;37;23
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah.
02;01;38;10 - 02;01;57;09
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like one of the catchphrases for shenanigans. The restaurant is like the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is just that little extra. It's so cheesy, but it's so true. Like my older sister is now the head of h.r. For our company. She worked for me for years. She's an absolute boss lady. So proud of her. And she's an over the top person, too.
02;01;57;09 - 02;02;09;26
Speaker 2
And i always talk about it like I'm the officiated wedding. So instead of asking me, she sent me this box that was this beautiful box of candles and a little journal that said, like, you know, we nereus it was this whole thing about this so huge. Like it was actually took me 5 minutes and 20 bucks. That's the difference.
02;02;10;06 - 02;02;24;27
Speaker 2
Everything in my life is that like if I'm sitting on my couch and I want to start a business, the difference between us being the best business it can be and just being a business is literally that 10 to 20 minutes of wanting every day. And like early on I just realized that to like a lot of people do the bare minimum.
02;02;24;27 - 02;02;45;03
Speaker 2
You know, I always said there's a difference between the employee that wants a promotion and the employee that doesn't want to get fired. They both do their job. Today. There's a whole different outcome between those two people. And I think the driving factors for me are that I know that I have. It's that big hearts that really, you know, one of the one of the best compliments Life Partners ever gave me is like, I don't know how you keep going.
02;02;45;06 - 02;03;10;10
Speaker 2
You just don't stop. There's no the thing to me is because. No just means not you know, right now, it doesn't mean it's not going to happen for me. It just means it's not going to happen with you. And like, I just learned that early on that like, if I could keep going and I could keep pushing, that was going to be an opportunity to present itself as long as I didn't give up and that as long as I continue to have that same intention with I could I could exceed you know, I always say like either I'll smarty or I'll work it.
02;03;10;10 - 02;03;22;27
Speaker 2
But some one of those two things is about to go down, right? And it was just that thing that like I was the smartest of the other people. I wasn't always the most talented sales guy, but I got no problem getting an hour early. So an hour late, as long as you can keep up with Those numbers were good.
02;03;23;21 - 02;03;32;04
Speaker 1
It was. You're making the drinks. You said you do a ski trip up to Park City. Yeah. And the only people that are allowed are you're the first one on and I'm the last one off.
02;03;32;04 - 02;03;54;17
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, that's a little thing. It's, you know, and go as hard as you want. You can drink as hard as you want but the that's the, those are the qualifications I think it's just that and I think the like in the funny thing is even you know when those are your qualifications for a trip think about the characters you get on that they're the most extreme of the extreme like, you know a couple of guys that were like pro skiers and like this, You know, I'm a snowboarder, so I'm like one of two snowboarders on this like six person trip.
02;03;55;03 - 02;04;08;03
Speaker 2
And so I had to, like, work extra hard to like, but but it's just that I think, you know, for me it was I just saw that like I have the ability to put in a little bit more effort and other people and the outcomes were so substantially different, you know, and so.
02;04;08;03 - 02;04;11;07
Speaker 1
That one plus one equals two. It's all plus one equals four. Yeah.
02;04;11;28 - 02;04;16;07
Speaker 2
And it wasn't just once or twice, it was like every aspect of my life, you know, and.
02;04;16;07 - 02;04;26;13
Speaker 1
I get all that. It makes total sense. But is there, is there a moment where you you take a pause where you kind of like, fuck, you know, I need to I need a break.
02;04;26;25 - 02;04;56;21
Speaker 2
Yes. And I think for me, that was, you know, when we did the two kind of nine public in one aisle gives a quick elevator on how that happened. So, yeah, I was in Josh and I had a fashion clothing company. We sold all over the world for a number of years, 2008, 2009 happened. And you know, a lot of businesses that went in business and through, you know, any kind of a big, you know, bankruptcy like or or restructuring of the company, fashion is typically net 90 terms.
02;04;56;21 - 02;05;13;17
Speaker 2
So you have clothing that's there and they have it after your plays and sort all that and all the things. And then when they rob see it now that's part of their stock. And I have to then take them to court to show that that wasn't paid and so that those products are due back and after about the first four court cases, it was like, okay, we're going to go broke trying to get our clothing back.
02;05;14;06 - 02;05;32;14
Speaker 2
And so we still had some stuff and really, really for a while and I am opening a retail store and that we sold out of their flagship and I sold other places. But what happened to that was I realized that I was pretty decent at marketing businesses. And so, you know, the retail store turned into selling other people's brands, which then that sold and then moved on into marketing.
02;05;32;14 - 02;05;54;25
Speaker 2
And it was marketing is a great industry. I love creative monetization. It's also an industry that doesn't at least today align with my personal views. I think it did like more than then, and I've always kind of been a searcher, you know, I was not really have a spiritual awareness then, but I was asked to sit in and I was extremely did not know I kind of do.
02;05;54;25 - 02;06;17;20
Speaker 2
I mean, I've studied historically what these things are and the indigenous, you know, traditions and things like that. But when I had the experience, the first thing that was very clear to me was that marketing wasn't the game wasn't where the industry is supposed to be. It it was great. But it was also, you know, if you and I, if you and I are friends and we were both marketers and you left a lead list on your desk I want to take a picture of that because I was addicted.
02;06;17;20 - 02;06;35;29
Speaker 2
That's because that's what we do. And I've had to have multiple times to be to the point where I was mad about it. What would happen? I was mad at myself and I left space up and I should put a face down on my desk. I knew that they were coming over and I had that experience. It was just very clear that, like I was, I kind of had a side this canvas to speak.
02;06;35;29 - 02;06;55;29
Speaker 2
I was helping sign a couple of people out in California that were trying to get stuff going. And it was clear as day to me that marketing was not my route anymore and it was time to go. So the time of year was. So when I started that, it was a BuzzFeed. Yeah, you know, and like I told my parents, I was getting into cannabis and legitimately my dad told me not to call it, but I got locked up again, hung up the phone.
02;06;55;29 - 02;07;13;20
Speaker 2
We didn't talk for nine months. Well said, Oh, we're going to Manila Envelope in the mail with a Time magazine article that said the it was the smart entrepreneurship of the cannabis and just a literally a legal piece of paper that said, I get it. Loved it. But that was that was the first contact we had after nine months.
02;07;13;20 - 02;07;34;26
Speaker 2
And so when I got into that, it was it was really I knew that it was the end of probation. It was an emerging market, which is so cool to me. Like you see far that I was not a cannabis smoker and I don't have dreadlocks at the time. This reportedly had dreadlocks for years, so I meet with a property owner to look at their property and of course I look like they just cost the pothead about like dreadlocks and tattoos and a voice.
02;07;34;26 - 02;07;35;10
Speaker 2
You don't use.
02;07;35;10 - 02;07;36;15
Speaker 1
Any any cannabis.
02;07;36;15 - 02;07;54;17
Speaker 2
And at the time I didn't use all. So the first two years in the industry and smoke pot, it just wasn't my it wasn't my Yeah and and so I mean all these people are doing all this stuff. And when I started going out shopping it was their list of your budget buyers and then your father brothers, they're both just like, you know, there's, there's, there's people who shop at Walmart and wholesales.
02;07;54;19 - 02;08;12;14
Speaker 2
They both exist for a reason. They're both on the game. There's plenty of customers for both of them. I wanted to go to Whole Foods from a cannabis. I didn't want to go to Walmart at the time. It wasn't. There was just Walmart. You can have quality. He had enough. There wasn't a balanced listening. There's like, man, there was there might have been good stuff back, but it wasn't for me.
02;08;12;14 - 02;08;27;15
Speaker 2
When I walked in the store, I didn't have $100 budget and I want to know what was on sale. I want to go in and buy the best cannabis products to build a cannabis product. To me. This was what I needed at that time. And every time I went to a store, whatever it was, it just I couldn't have that conversation with them.
02;08;28;02 - 02;08;48;09
Speaker 2
It was some little stoner behind the counter was, like I said, I want the best product. He's like, Oh dude, this one tested 98% THC and you're like, You're sweet. Not really looking to talk to the angels right now. Rod Just want to get some of his products. And so, you know, we created that and started kind of like just a real simple brand that was like, you have like the type of really, like just consistency, transparency and let's have fun doing it.
02;08;49;01 - 02;09;10;12
Speaker 2
And so when we created that, we started the public process on Oxy. There was Pink's first, there was like 2015. We didn't have a there was no cannabis public companies, so we a synthetic biopharmaceutical. So for the first two years we were a year and a half to the public. It was we were like with incest before, like they got all the founders got arrested and all that.
02;09;10;27 - 02;09;37;15
Speaker 2
And so there really wasn't a space for it. But what happened through that process was we watched those markets merge Medmen pot public a year later and just destroyed the markets for everybody for a year because they did everything you're not supposed to do. But people still invested in them because it was the new gold rush. Right? And I think through a lot of those I started to realize that there was a way to just intentionally do this a little bit better.
02;09;38;12 - 02;10;01;05
Speaker 2
You know, there was other best practices and places. And I think that that was like that for me was like really where those lessons started to sit there, that it was like it was because we had that awareness and it was just a little bit extra, you know, like putting a sticker on the side of the case by like a person on the side of the road with the QR code and just put the test results on that QR code, like little stuff like that where it was like, oh, no, you don't even have to worry about the tests.
02;10;01;05 - 02;10;21;00
Speaker 2
Like, yeah, the store has a test, but you can just test it from your house scanner to pull up our whole laboratory test results and, you know, little things like that that like that big a deal to someone like me who was out shopping. I just made a quality product and I want to know was safe. Like those were the differences and so is how, like all that stuff was like just you know, that intention waking up a little bit earlier doing it.
02;10;21;00 - 02;10;45;07
Speaker 2
And so like once I had that this is for sale going into cannabis, I knew that that was my arena. And that was where, you know, I talked about easily before. But you know, I'd had multiple businesses like I've always really liked. I would do, you know, I did consulting while I was starting out. So I would do a couple of like really, really wonderful yoga teachers that I helped with primarily would be me and Tom Mackey, just an incredible guy.
02;10;45;07 - 02;11;02;22
Speaker 2
And he, you know, act is dope using what my clients. He was also like kind of a mentor. And like as I'm waking up and I've had this plant medicine experience where I know that I'm not really in the kind of flow with my life and where I'm supposed to be. Yeah, I'm working with him through this while I'm supporting him, you know, helping him build his business.
02;11;02;22 - 02;11;19;02
Speaker 2
And I was I just started to see that like there was a there was a real opportunity here to to apply a lot of those same principles of like being a little bit more intentional, a little bit better, you know, as the you know, we're a corporate company of origins, right? So, you know, much employed to people that that have never had jobs before.
02;11;19;20 - 02;11;20;18
Speaker 2
They're both in their forties.
02;11;20;24 - 02;11;21;15
Speaker 1
Because I feel.
02;11;22;04 - 02;11;29;12
Speaker 2
Amazing It's it is more than anything else you know and it's a number I keep track of constantly, you know 13.
02;11;29;12 - 02;11;29;19
Speaker 1
Hundred.
02;11;29;19 - 02;11;49;22
Speaker 2
Employees or 273 people Arizona have employed. And it's a it's a really, you know, like yeah, I mean, it was did a company that was, you know, 1.7 million by the time I you know, resigned I retired from the company I think they're doing 38 states, about to be three countries and 359 the day that I took the public.
02;11;49;22 - 02;12;00;09
Speaker 2
Like, that's a really cool number. And that was a really beautiful lesson And I got to write. You got to have such a cool experience in that. And we played 1373 people saying Arizona.
02;12;00;14 - 02;12;01;08
Speaker 1
Yeah, well done.
02;12;01;22 - 02;12;15;22
Speaker 2
And like those two people here, remember one of them sit down and he was so honest. He just looked at me as like Melo's I've never had a real job. So with my entire life I'm 43, I have kids, I just want to shop. And I'm like, Man, I there's not a better pitch that's amazing.
02;12;15;22 - 02;12;44;19
Speaker 1
And you're now you're taking that knowledge and expertise as well as your grit, determination and applying that to the psychedelic space. And yeah, and that's how, as you know, you and I first met, we sat down on a, a plant based journey, Ayahuasca, Joshua Tree and you were a shepherd along with our Buddy Ruston and address them. Yeah, yeah.
02;12;44;22 - 02;12;45;13
Speaker 2
This you cowboy?
02;12;45;22 - 02;12;54;24
Speaker 1
Yeah. So so anyway, words deal with all that. So you're taking the psychedelic space.
02;12;55;07 - 02;13;12;13
Speaker 2
What I think you'd like to know here. You know, we're talking like. Yeah, I expected psychedelic the first time I went, it was a white T-shirt. It was gray sweat pants. I wouldn't bring any my belts and my watches. It was flip flops. Like, I want to be very mindful that I'm going to be in this like very spiritual.
02;13;14;20 - 02;13;36;09
Speaker 2
You know, a white Native American reservation is what I expected. And the first time that I saw it, it was to rocket scientists. Hollywood Producer two big name actors. And what I learned in psychedelics, because I had terrible experience with psychedelics in high school, I didn't party with them later. But what I learned is, you know, and like, we've become friends is this is for the people that are suffering.
02;13;37;00 - 02;14;07;22
Speaker 2
You know, I expected the I expected psychedelics to be the so we knew. And what I found was a bunch of people that were very, very high were very, very high performing and hit the ceiling of where they were. And, you know, and I think, you know, one of the things that he talks about is that, you know, I think, you know, we had our executive session for our C-suite was every Tuesday and Wednesday now, but it was every Tuesday we sat down and I would say like, you know, as a CEO, I had a very clear vision of what I thought needed to happen.
02;14;07;22 - 02;14;26;16
Speaker 2
And one of my favorite things that ever happens to me is when my employee tells me how wrong I am, and here's all the reasons, because it tells you I hired the right person. I know that that sector better than I do, and that's exactly how it should be. And I think that what I learned to that was you had all of these that were super high achievers, you know, And that was the funny thing I think I was about to do the IPO.
02;14;26;16 - 02;14;50;04
Speaker 2
And I'm sitting there like I'm the broke guys. I said, This is incredible. Like, I'm the least successful person at this table. And I just had this experience and it was it's for those people, like my executive session was for me to get a different perspective on our business. Psychedelics became the tool I realized I could get a different perspective on everything in my life, and I could do it very, very easily with this single plan that was going to help you there.
02;14;50;05 - 02;15;07;15
Speaker 2
That was the game changer for me was the the people that I have those experiences with and people like you and Russ and Chris like these people that are high functioning, high achieving people so that we can do better. You know, we talk about like I've talked to you before, I have a lot of endurance athletes. Like really, you know, being a cyclists, you know, I'm not a competitive cyclist.
02;15;07;17 - 02;15;32;18
Speaker 2
I'm a 30 to 40 mile bike rider and, you know, I have two guys in 5000 ordinary endurance like runners, cyclists, whatever. And I found a lot more of them as well because they're able to have a, you know, my heroes mushrooms and go for a long run and they have such a better awareness of their body of where the pain is, of where that where they might have tightness, where they need to stretch.
02;15;33;18 - 02;15;39;08
Speaker 2
And like those are the overachievers those are the performers there. Oh.
02;15;39;18 - 02;15;46;11
Speaker 1
Yes. So tell me tell me a little bit more about that, because when you told me about that, that really blew my mind about the the triathletes.
02;15;46;13 - 02;16;13;07
Speaker 2
Yeah. So what we're finding now, I mean, it was funny when I was first in cannabis, I mean, the listeners will look me up and see how their name, but I'm just big on like, let's just get loud. Was it weird? And so I remember being with you talked to Coach Glassman, who's the head of CrossFit. There's a gym out here that has some legal and they were supporting them because the some of the claims they made, I tried to get them to endorse our our brand and they were like, he's like, Listen, man, I can't do that.
02;16;13;07 - 02;16;31;23
Speaker 2
Well, I can tell you is in the top 10% of all that athletes in the world use products like yours because they count macros and so they're not going to have a beer afterwards and not going to chance those macros. But The cannabis allows them to deal with the anti inflammation, relax without messing up any kind of a diet restriction that they might be currently working with.
02;16;32;07 - 02;17;05;26
Speaker 2
And it was just like the psychedelics with our athletes. We're finding that they're able to perform better. They do have more of like just more optimal workouts because they don't have that same inhibiting sort like. But you and I know to that is that we get these like we these patterns like that look at the of that's there's one shoe reality and we just get all these prejudices that there's just many prejudices there are grains of sand in the hair that we pick up over a lifetime and with any kind of exercise, especially with like endurance.
02;17;05;26 - 02;17;20;14
Speaker 2
We really pushing yourself through what your whatever that wall is. This helps you to have a better understanding of that and push through that level to use up as capable or not going to free. Mostly when this started, if you felt it didn't give a shit, what could be duals? I don't care. Fill it, come back, show it to me.
02;17;20;14 - 02;17;35;13
Speaker 2
I'll give you know, every one of those are cultural pillars in it because I want those same pillars of like happiness and kindness and like, be the best you like. The cheesy things that we all say every day are real things so cheesy. So if you remember them, do not be afraid to take the work that you're doing every day.
02;17;35;13 - 02;17;57;05
Speaker 2
It's one of the things I really admire about you, sir, is that it's being open about the work that we do. If I'm not open with that, I can inspire anybody else. That's just my little journey. The second that I'm willing to be vulnerable and share that I'm doing work on me because I'm not perfect and these are the things I'm working on and this is what I'm doing and why working can inspire the people like you do that all the time.
02;17;57;05 - 02;18;04;13
Speaker 2
It's one of the things I really, really like honor you for, and that's what this is all about. It's just it's. It's those. It's the other things.
02;18;05;05 - 02;18;25;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, right on. Appreciate that. It's real. So as you check in where you are now in your life, kind of take status, your body of work, tell me a little bit about as you reflect back over your body of work and the impact you made, what are some of your highlights and think some of the things you're most proud of.
02;18;27;04 - 02;18;42;29
Speaker 2
That it's got to be stuff. I would say a couple, you know, one having, a business that lives beyond me. You know, it's the day that you decide to leave the company you started. It's a it's a weird feeling, You know, you quantify it to everyone wants the best for the kids and the best you can hope for.
02;18;42;29 - 02;19;08;16
Speaker 2
Someone loves them as much as you did. And you know, so. So watching your company live beyond it is very cool. But I would say that, like my biggest victories in the staff, hands down, I have not so many stories. I have, you know, one of our first employees, um, did we had a little struggle with alcohol stuck with and is still with us today.
02;19;08;26 - 02;19;24;02
Speaker 2
So one of my cars and he did breathalyzer in it the day I walked into the facility and he told me that he had a year sober and that he was going to buy it. He was waiting in the car that I sold him for a new car. He was the first person in his family, his own place, his grandparents and his mother and his special needs.
02;19;24;11 - 02;19;43;14
Speaker 2
So when he took care of, he got his own place and helped them support themselves. And like, it's just things like that. Like it because, you know, because like I had some I've had three parties, had good stuff. I've got a great car house that I've had those things. But like at the end of the day, like I've never had a house that I sat and I thought about all the time, no matter cool.
02;19;43;14 - 02;20;01;17
Speaker 2
It was that that was so short lived. Like that happened to me years ago. And I can still remember the look on his face when he told me that, you know, that people like my I was just. She's the head of h.r. For publicly traded company. She's making six figures a year, and she's marrying another guy who makes six figures here who loves her like he's never loved this planet.
02;20;02;12 - 02;20;19;20
Speaker 2
Being able to facilitate those things because I'm open about, like, who I am and what my struggles are. And I'm a human with my people. Those are like the biggest victories. You know, I'm proud of what I've accomplished. Never thought, you know, I always tell people, like, do not look at my story, because if you add one plus one, it does not equal the outcome like it is so different.
02;20;20;05 - 02;20;36;09
Speaker 2
But it's just like, dude, give up. It's going to be hard. If it was easy, it would be something. That's my thing too. Like the only reason I'm here is that I didn't give up. I tried to be good. You know, his lack of integrity has ever cost us my nothing. That's never happened. You could be a dirt bag.
02;20;36;09 - 02;20;53;05
Speaker 2
You can write this off. You can do that. There's so much more money to be made by doing good business with me that Brittany all you want? There's an extra common there if you have, you know. And so I would say that like, that's probably the the my biggest homeruns are the people I've been able to affect because I was a dick.
02;20;54;15 - 02;20;55;06
Speaker 1
Yeah, right.
02;20;55;06 - 02;20;55;14
Speaker 2
On.
02;20;55;16 - 02;21;17;04
Speaker 1
Yeah well I know that about Yeah and that's really cool. It's a great way of being and a great way to live life. Well, I just really want to thank you. I'm grateful that you took the time to come by and and hang with us today and chat. And thank you all for listening I really appreciate you guys tuning and, and I hope that you were all inspired and informed.
02;21;17;04 - 02;21;32;19
Speaker 1
And if you like what you heard, whatever channel you're listening on, go ahead and really appreciate it. If you were to review and and rate us a little bit and otherwise. Thanks for tuning in and go a little closer to your financial flow. Take care.
