00:00:00
with Joe Rogan as my partner we sold out in 12 hours zero to 60 million how step
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one it was [ __ ] wild Aubry Marcus the man who built and sold on it with Joe Rogan
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one of the fastest growing Human Performance companies in America her mother was a professional tennis player
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my father was a Pioneer and that was the driving desire it's like my parents were
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big I know I can be big and I was frustrated because nothing was happening there were so many failures and I really
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thought like I'm just never gonna succeed but I think the key moment for me was what Joe Rogan said I can meet
00:00:37
you 30 minutes for coffee I was starting a supplement company I went to Joe what supplement would you like the most I'm
00:00:44
gonna make the best one that's ever been made that was the pivotal moment that changed everything Alpha Brain I really
00:00:50
felt like I didn't want to do anything without it we sold out of that product in 12 hours we could barely keep it in
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stock from zero to 60 million we were I think 500 fastest growing company over
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the next four years I mean I couldn't have designed a fantasy better but it comes with a cost right
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in that moment I realized like I'm not gonna fly into a fit of rage and hurt
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somebody you can see how much it still affects me
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what happened
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before this episode starts I have a small favor to ask from you two months ago 74 of people that watch this channel
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didn't subscribe we're now down to 69 my goal is 50 so if you've ever liked any
00:01:45
of the videos we've posted if you like this channel can you do me a quick favor and hit the Subscribe button it helps this channel more than you know and the
00:01:51
bigger the channel gets as you've seen the bigger the guests get thank you and enjoy this episode
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[Music]
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Aubry when I read through your story and a lot of people's story what I tend to see is a
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series of almost dominoes that have fallen to make the person who they are
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today that sign in front of me can you take me to the first Domino that you think was significant
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um in your life that fell to make the man that I see sat in front of me today that I've spent the last couple of days learning and researching about
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I mean the first Domino is my mother giving birth to me of course right like
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it starts from the drop it starts and we can't ignore all of the things that happen at Birth that have nothing to do
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with us and I was super blessed my mother was a professional tennis player went to the semi-finals of Wimbledon
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lost to Billie Jean King like legit professional tennis player my father was
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a Commodities Trader and he was a Pioneer in his field so he was actually
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kind of stretching what the market and what the world understood about Futures Trading he's written up in a book called
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Market Wizards they split up really early and so I got two more parents my
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stepmother was a naturopathic doctor who worked with a lot of the NBA basketball teams and the Lakers in the 80s the
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Knicks in the 90s the heat in the 2000s but from the naturopathic side not within the team aspect of it
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and then my stepfather was a SWAT team squad officer just big badass Burly man
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and from all of those sources I got models of greatness I got models of
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really testing yourself to see what you're capable of and I think that's like the
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foundation of what I was and then there's my grandmother who inspired this like craving desire for knowledge just
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to learn about the world and I think the key moment for me with all of that framework with my parents
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that craving for knowledge instilled by my grandmother my grandmother's tattooed on my arm actually and then I go and do
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my first psychedelic medicine Journey After High School when I'm 18 years old and I really feel like I wanna
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find knowledge and then be able to distribute that to the world in an interesting way I wanted to build my own
00:04:25
in Legacy so to speak and in that first psychedelic medicine ceremony I felt my
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body disappear and I felt what I could only call Consciousness or maybe even
00:04:39
use the word Soul even though I wasn't religious at all so I didn't believe in Souls but I felt something come online
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and that was kind of the the Genesis of me being where I am now even though that
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doesn't have a lot to do with all my business accomplishments and anything else it's just this desire to be great
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because it was modeled for me in the parents that I had this thirst and quest for knowledge that quest for knowledge
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turned inward with the Psychedelic medicine Journey so I was looking inside that's the field of psychonautics which
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is really the field that I'm the most passionate about psychonautics the exploration of the inner aspects the
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inner Cosmos of Who We Are and then offering what I learn out to
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the world and sometimes that comes out in the form of products and practices and workout equipment and supplements
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like with the company on it that I started sometimes it's with a podcast or a poem or a story and uh yeah that's
00:05:43
probably one way to look at who is Aubry Marcus if you were to draw a circle
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around all of those products the content the podcast on it and you'll current Mission today through all of the work
00:05:55
you're doing what is the similar what is the mission there if I had asked you if I asked you right now what is your
00:06:02
mission in life what would it be
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if you would have asked me I don't know 15 years ago it would have
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been just to make a big impact I just want to be big I want to be big my parents were big I know I can be big I
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feel it in me I feel like there's something big that's supposed to emerge right and I was frustrated because
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nothing was happening and so I found in my company and I created on it and then things started to get big I started my
00:06:33
podcast things started to get big I wrote my book things started to get bigger and that was the driving desire
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right it was actually and yes I wanted it to be for the good of all I've always
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felt very connected to everybody else and recognized that you sitting across
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from me right here you're just me living a different life right like we're all part of the same source of life itself
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so I did always have this belief like I want to contribute to the greater good
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of all as one of my teachers Don Howard said para el bien de todos for the good
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of all so that was was always there but it was a lot more about me it was a lot more about me being big
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if I'm being honest and now right now some of that's removed it's like I've a
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I've accomplished that thing where it's like Aubry has made his Mark but that doesn't even matter anymore now I look
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out at the whole world and I say all right world what do you need and what do you need from Aubry like what can Aubry
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do to help you the most like I hear you like I know that you're hurting and I
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know that you're beautiful you're beautiful in every way and what can I do to actually serve the world in the best
00:07:51
way possible and that's the that's the mission man your parents breaking up at two years old
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was that significant for you in hindsight you look back as an adult it was that significant moment
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the ramifications of that were incredibly significant because it brought in my stepmother and my
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stepfather into the constellation of my family so there could be very few things that were
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more significant than that as I had four models of parent rather than two and
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with four I was able to get a much more well-rounded approach like the difference between my father and my
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stepfather were immense what were these differences well my father was
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an incredibly acute and attuned intellectual
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philosopher a thinker you know he was able to actually analyze a logician he
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was able to analyze the world in this very kind of philosophical way and it helped shape my mind in that way my
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stepfather brought that bare energy of what it is to be a man the physicality
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he was always the best to play with as a kid too because of course you want to play with the bear they know how to roll
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around and laugh and tell stories and you sit on their shoulders and you go
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climbing around and and it's not that either both parent didn't have a little
00:09:14
bit of that but they were very different archetypes and so my understanding about what it means to be a man included so
00:09:22
many different things it included the eloquence of being able to write poetry and solve problems and play Scrabble and
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play chess and it involved also Brute Force wrestling and playing and telling
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stories and standing you know standing as a hero against that didn't serve you
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know and and so with two models of father I got to actually
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have a much more well-rounded kind of idea of what it meant to be a man was
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there lessons that you had to unlearn from that of course yeah I mean you don't learn just the positive aspects of
00:10:04
your parents you learn the negative aspects of your parents too you those those are learned in
00:10:09
in ways that your mind can't even comprehend so things that my dad was
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stressed about I find myself being stressed about because I transmitted this kind of General sense of worry
00:10:22
about things so I've had to unlearn those aspects of worry my father also
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you know was want to fly into fits of Rage at a
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certain point I remember one time this is a very like
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very important story in my own trajectory because my father when he would get
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angry he would start he would just yell you know just like he would just erupt and
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um it was early and early after I started on it and it's probably 2013 2014 and we
00:10:59
had a smaller office then not the smallest office it was the second biggest office that we had
00:11:05
and I had my own office and I was in there and I was filming a video and it was an important video for me to film
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and we had a kind of front desk customer service person also in the office who
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was handling emails customer service things and also handling anybody coming in the door something came up where she
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started knocking on the door well I didn't know it was her that was knocking on the door I didn't really know who was knocking on the door I was just trying
00:11:31
to film a video and back then we didn't have a bunch of video editors so it wasn't like we weren't able to just stop
00:11:37
I had to kind of hit it in one take you know we didn't have the tech resources then so I'm like five minutes into this
00:11:43
take I'm killing it and the knock comes and then a second knock and then a third knock and finally by the third knock I
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couldn't ignore it anymore I was throwing me off a mental track and I just started yelling like what what is
00:11:55
it you what the [ __ ] do you want you know like one of those moments where I just got really angry
00:12:02
and then I hear like I'm sorry and I was like oh man that was that was
00:12:07
our front desk girl it was just a sweetheart like absolute sweetheart like the sweetest and and I like
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take a deep breath and I like open the door and I walk out there and she's crying in
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her desk
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in that moment I realized like I'm not going to do that ever again like I'm not going to do that [ __ ]
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I'm not gonna fly into a fit of rage and hurt somebody you know I want like I
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won't and you can see how much it still affects me you know because
00:12:47
that was the point that that pattern broke for me and it's not that not that I haven't gotten mad since then or
00:12:54
whatever but never like that you know and there's something else in me it's like no never again because I
00:13:00
saw her and I saw what I did and of course I apologize and but that's
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where I stopped that lineage transmission and said it stops with me
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where did that lineal transmission start in your father
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did you ever figure that out yeah with it with his father you know I mean it I don't know how far
00:13:30
it went back I mean I don't have a strong genealogical tree I didn't even
00:13:36
get to meet either of my grandfathers actually but uh I've heard the stories
00:13:41
you know I heard the stories of that my dad did the best to kind of shed as much
00:13:46
of the trauma that he could shed so he would pass on as little as possible to me and he did his best and and he was
00:13:53
actually the one that encouraged me to go on my own psychedelic medicine Journey because that was one of the tools that he used to try and actually
00:14:00
change who he is so that he could be better for me and be
00:14:06
better for the world and he did he did a great job you know compared to the
00:14:11
stories of my grandfather to him he did a amazing job and it was my job to clean up the rest and that's what I'm in the
00:14:18
process of doing is cleaning up the rest so that when I have my son Huxley is
00:14:24
going to be his name you know of course Source willing that that we have a we have a child
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I don't want to pass any of that on I just want to pass the Legacy a new fresh
00:14:37
fresh Legacy like fresh powder on a on a mountain you know like Fresh Tracks a
00:14:42
legacy of love a legacy of support a legacy of like I'm here son
00:14:48
and also you're so much more powerful than you think you are and let me show
00:14:54
you and bring him through all of the initiations the sweat lodges the cold mountains like I've climbed with Wim Hof
00:15:00
the when he's old enough the medicine Journeys bring him through this path of initiation but the whole way just love
00:15:08
love love the whole way where that never wavers so he's not trying to prove
00:15:14
something to me so that he can get me to love him he knows that I love him are you speaking about a younger version of
00:15:20
yourself and your father when you say that about that approval of course of course have you got an example of when
00:15:27
you realize that you would you were following that pattern
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I mean the examples most of my whole life right like am I doing it right am I doing it right
00:15:40
Dad you know am I doing it good enough dad is it was the subconscious dialogue that
00:15:48
I've been in for a long time now it's it was my father first
00:15:53
you know so that my father was Dad so my Michael Marcus represented that image of
00:16:00
dad but it would transfer to other people it could transfer to a mentor it could
00:16:05
transfer to a partner it could transfer to a boss and I would put this kind of approval seeking desire on them they
00:16:13
would be the surrogate father and I would be trying to show them how good I am and and then then they would love me
00:16:19
just like when I scored 25 points in a basketball game my dad was all [ __ ] love and happy and when I scored you
00:16:27
know seven points and had a bad shooting night it's not that he didn't love me but it
00:16:33
felt like he didn't love me because he was just quiet and Sullen and I was quiet and Silent in all of the all of
00:16:40
the love felt like it had been sucked out of the room like a vacuum right so I learned and that's just one
00:16:47
example of many different ways that I learned that if you perform well you're loved and if you don't you're not loved
00:16:54
what's this ping pong story yeah well that was that was just one of the
00:17:01
moments that my father just flew into rage you know so I was four years old
00:17:08
and my father was playing ping pong and he mishit a ball it hit off the corner
00:17:17
of the paddle flew up into the into the stratosphere basically because he was
00:17:22
trying to hit a smash and I go home run I'm just a kid and I was like I thought
00:17:28
that was a funny thing to say but for my father he was so locked in this intense competition which of course didn't
00:17:34
matter he's not like in the ping pong World Championships it was in his house and later he started yelling at me from
00:17:42
like for saying that during his ping-pong match because it threw him off his game or whatever whatever it was
00:17:49
so moments like that really made me kind of
00:17:54
aware to the point of being scared about what I was saying and so
00:18:00
it gave me and as I said before like one of the stoic mindsets is everything that happens to you happens for you why did
00:18:07
it happen for you I look at that story now and say okay at that moment I realized that I
00:18:13
have to be very mindful of everything I say when I say it because there's drastic consequences if I don't what
00:18:20
does that make me do it makes me a very good listener it makes me a very good communicator
00:18:25
it allows me to understand how my words could be perceived what if what a gift
00:18:32
that's my superpower thanks Dad but it comes with a call still superpowers right of course and the cost
00:18:39
was and sometimes still is less now I have to be you know have to
00:18:46
be honest and not claim a false humility but sometimes still is but the cost is like
00:18:53
you're not present you're not really present if you're thinking all the time
00:18:58
about every different way that what you say could be perceived by somebody else
00:19:03
and you're going through these hypothetical scenarios in your brain about the hypothetical conversations
00:19:10
about if they took that the wrong way how you would respond and what you'd explain it's mentally exhausting
00:19:17
and anxious you know and it's I live so much in my life playing out a million
00:19:25
different scenarios about every single thing that I said and how that could be interpreted and as I said like I'm
00:19:32
mostly free of that but every once in a while for a text that matters I'll look at it and I'll see like like nine
00:19:39
different ways that that thing could be interpreted the wrong way and then I have to manually like with manual
00:19:44
override of my own Consciousness be like it's all good they know you they love
00:19:50
you they're not going to take any of these different interpretations and then abandon you or get mad at you or
00:19:57
anything like that this process you describe starts um according to all of the therapists
00:20:03
and child trauma experts I've spoken to with something called awareness and that kind of allows you to take on
00:20:10
the challenge but there's a lot of people that are living unaware of the um puppet master in the back room that's
00:20:15
pulling the strings what has made you aware
00:20:22
I mean everybody has their own path and so I don't want to sound like my
00:20:29
path is my recommendation my prescription for everybody but for me it's been the Psychedelic medicine path
00:20:36
and psychedelic medicine doesn't have to involve taking anything I think
00:20:41
you mentioned that your partner is a breath work practitioner breath work at the highest level is as psychedelic as
00:20:48
anything it's incredibly cathartic and magical and Visionary even I mean you're
00:20:55
actually there's been some studies showing that actually in that deep breathing process you're producing endogenous levels of DMT DMT which is
00:21:03
called The Spirit Molecule which is also the active psychedelic compound in Ayahuasca it's happening when you
00:21:09
breathe so there's a lot of different psychic like psychonautic technologies that can
00:21:15
get you there from sensory deprivation tanks to sweat lodges to lots of things but I have done
00:21:21
many and if not most of the plant medicines of the world most and really
00:21:29
experienced a lot of the Great lineages that have had that wisdom and then also
00:21:35
started to look to see how those lineages can evolve how we can use this
00:21:42
unique time where we have access to many different medicines and access to many different ways of thinking and
00:21:48
psychological Technologies like internal family systems for example which has been paired with psychedelic medicine
00:21:54
therapy so using all of this and create a new emergent lineage about how to hold these
00:22:01
medicines in a way that is accretive and actually supportive to our life because
00:22:06
for me that's been the process again psychonotics the ability to look inside and see everything as Rumi said you know
00:22:14
we're not a drop in the ocean we're the ocean in a drop so if you want to understand anything about the cosmos you
00:22:20
can look out at the cosmos you can look inside into your inner Cosmos with the k
00:22:26
and that's the way the Greeks spelled it and and say like okay
00:22:31
like what's what's really on the inside what's really on the inside and the
00:22:37
medicines have helped me do that you'll first experience with plant medicines was when you were 18 years old
00:22:44
is that correct that's right you went on a um you call it like a vision is it like a vision mission I can't remember
00:22:49
the word you used yeah um After High School yeah that was it a vision mission
00:22:54
yeah it was it's I mean there's a it's a Vision Quest but there's definitely many
00:23:01
traditional ways to do a vision quest which involve fasting for four days with no food no water and that's more of the
00:23:07
Lakota style of a Vision Quest or the North American First Nations you know kind of style this was more of a
00:23:14
medicine Vision Quest which is a little bit different in that I'm still going on
00:23:20
a journey for a vision and going to a place but the medicine was actually there instead of the fasting and the
00:23:26
Stillness and the silence and it's not to say that the medicine is better or worse it certainly worked out really
00:23:31
well for me but that was the pivotal moment that changed everything I actually had a vision of who I actually
00:23:37
was so that first step of four in my mission was illuminated where I started
00:23:43
to understand the kind of limitlessness and the undying
00:23:49
source of who I actually really am I read that in your story but then the
00:23:55
next sort of 10 years of your life didn't seem to manifest what I would have assumed a
00:24:01
plant medicine Journey would have manifested in the sense that you described that from 20 onwards you were
00:24:07
still relatively sort of Lost in seeking approval and partying a lot oh yeah drinking a lot
00:24:14
so there's a it was interesting because I had connected to my soul that was all that
00:24:20
is but myself the Aubry still wanted approval still wanted to be loved still
00:24:26
wanting to make his Mark still wanted to be big you know so I was advancing rapidly in the internal
00:24:34
kind of dynamics of understanding who I was but externally I was not meeting that
00:24:40
criteria and I couldn't see beyond a reason you know I there was not a point
00:24:46
where I I thought well maybe I don't need this actually and actually even now even after all
00:24:52
this work it's like I appreciate that I wanted to really go
00:24:57
for it I was audacious and I wanted to have a big company and I wanted to make a big Mark I wanted to have resources
00:25:03
because resources are now opening up the possibility for me to really tell
00:25:08
different stories bring communities together do the things that I that I really want to do so I wouldn't have
00:25:14
changed it but there was a focus on me you know from a kind of egoic identity
00:25:21
construct perspective being successful
00:25:26
and that was like The Guiding that was like the guiding principle and I was failing at it really like I was failing
00:25:33
at it I had a marketing company and I kept getting fired by my different clients and even if I did a good job and
00:25:40
I would start I would start things it's funny actually I smashed my uh for
00:25:46
those looking I smashed my finger and it was all purple so I painted it uh with
00:25:52
my wife's nail polish which is gray so I have one painted nail but it's a funny example because that was one of my
00:25:59
failed businesses I was going to start a men's nail polish line because I saw like Chuck Liddell and my friend Roger
00:26:05
Huerta they were painting their nails I was like yeah men can bait their nails and I started that it bombed there was
00:26:10
so many failures and I really thought like I'm just never gonna succeed I mean I
00:26:16
made I made a decent living you know I always always found a client or always found somebody that I that I could get a
00:26:22
paycheck from but it wasn't happening until it did
00:26:28
until it did until it did when you think about that moment and the fact is that aligned to make
00:26:35
it it happened until it did what were those factors that aligned or what what was it fate was it luck was it
00:26:42
something that changed within you was it being more aligned with your own sort of authentic self all of the above
00:26:50
looking back I wasn't ready to hold the bigness yet I had I had to you know kind
00:26:57
of like sometimes if you have a young a young Stallion and they're bucking around in their heart you got to run
00:27:02
them a little bit you got to run the stallion I had to I had to run a little bit and my partner at the time Caitlin
00:27:08
we were running you know we were partying a lot we were out I was standing on the speakers and growling I
00:27:15
was training MMA with the homies I was I was running you know I was running and I
00:27:20
think I needed to do that and at the same time I was also exploring exploring in that path of psychonautics building
00:27:27
experience and I had this feeling I just had this
00:27:32
feeling when I watched Joe Rogan do comedy and we're talking 2008 you know this is not the Joe Rogan of now right
00:27:39
way different thing he was the Fear Factor guy the U.S just you know the UFC commentator but the UFC wasn't what it
00:27:46
is now not even close but I saw him and I was like I'm that guy's friend I know it like I
00:27:54
know we're friends and I would and I would meet him after a show or I'd run into him at a club and I'd be like hey
00:28:00
man but nothing would ever stick of course because I was a fan and he was the guy and like that it's very
00:28:07
difficult to bridge that Gap in that kind of social construct so he started a podcast
00:28:14
yeah and and I was falling when it was like oh wow and that was old Joe Rogan
00:28:19
days back with Brian redband and there was no podcast advertising then again podcast was in its infancy he
00:28:26
had no podcast advertisers so I had one of my clients and I was like look we should advertise
00:28:33
on Joe Rogan's podcast we got to do this and for those of you who know it was the client was Fleshlight which is a whole
00:28:39
other story but I was like Joe we want to advertise on your podcast
00:28:44
and he's like okay cool and it's like it's flashlight and then his his management team is like what the [ __ ]
00:28:50
are you doing Joe you can't you can't advertise flashlights he's like damn right I can't I don't want anybody to take me so seriously that I can't you
00:28:56
know advertise for this thing so which is a sex toy for anybody that doesn't yeah it's a sex toy for men
00:29:01
but what I stipulated in that was like all right yeah we're totally down we'll
00:29:07
be here we'll be your podcast sponsor I just want to meet you for 30 minutes for coffee and then we'll we'll close the
00:29:12
deal and that was really honestly the play it was a it was a strategy now I
00:29:18
was tested I was tested in that moment because at that point I was friends with Bodie Miller who is the best skier in
00:29:24
the world arguably at that point he'd won multiple World Championships he hadn't won the gold medal yet which he eventually won in
00:29:31
Vancouver but he was the best skier in the world and he was going to the Kentucky Derby and Bodhi going to the
00:29:37
Kentucky Derby is a big deal he gets to go with all of the you know the big dogs and it's a huge party and Bodie was at
00:29:45
that point my best friend and the Kentucky Derby happened to be
00:29:50
exactly at the time where Joe Rogan said I can meet you 30 minutes for coffee so I had a choice I could either say yeah
00:29:57
[ __ ] the coffee we'll just advertise and I'll go to the derby which old me
00:30:02
would have been like Derby Derby let's go let's party you know the stallion
00:30:07
that wanted to run but there is some knowledge inside me that no this coffee
00:30:13
with Joe Rogan is important and I'm gonna skip the whole derby party and I'm gonna just meet this man for
00:30:19
coffee and I met him for coffee and the coffee turned into dinner and then that dinner
00:30:24
turned into a friendship and that turned into him having me on his podcast and then a friendship developed and out of
00:30:31
that friendship developed really I was starting a supplement company developed on it as we
00:30:37
know it now Joe Rogan as my partner and then the combination of
00:30:42
again going back to my parents my stepmother had a deep knowledge of nutraceuticals
00:30:49
that actually could functionally impact performance she worked with basketball teams so she had athletic performance
00:30:56
supplements cognitive performance supplements and I was used to that concept so with her help and with all of
00:31:02
the scientific research I could put together a formula I knew how to Market because I'd marketed things and then Joe
00:31:09
Rogan was my partner and so we had a way to get that out we had a way to let people know
00:31:15
so I raised a hundred and ten thousand dollars it got fifty thousand dollars from uh
00:31:20
from a kind of family friend that I'd worked with and with different clients and done some public relations work with
00:31:27
and I had Bodhi my friend who so one gave 50 000 the other gave sixty
00:31:33
thousand that was the start of on it is that money right there and I basically blew through and wasted all of that and
00:31:40
then I went to Joe and I said hey man like what supplement would you like the
00:31:46
most he's like ah man I'd like a all-natural nootropic that really worked a nootropic
00:31:52
being a cognitive answer and I was like you know what Joe I'm gonna make the best one that's ever been made and he's like all right man
00:31:58
and I went to work and I did it and I formulated with all of that help the supplement that was Alpha Brain and with
00:32:05
Alpha Brain and send it to Joe and Joe was like man this is amazing it was actually way too strong at that point it
00:32:11
was like it's like it was gnarly but Joe's a beast you know he's like he's a Savage
00:32:16
so at that moment then we kind of knew we had something so I
00:32:22
dialed down the formula got it right and when all of that came together and we
00:32:28
launched Alpha Brain it just clicked we sold out of that product in 12 hours we had the next batch going and the only
00:32:34
reason I had the money to even buy the first batch was because there was net 30 credit terms
00:32:40
on my purchase order so actually we could receive the product and not have to pay for 30 days so I didn't even have
00:32:47
the money to pay in 30 days unless I sold it right but we sold it in 12 hours
00:32:52
and then there was another order on the back of that so I was actually sold through two orders before I even had to
00:32:57
pay the first purchase order so we grew on it from literally nothing at that
00:33:03
point other than the resources that we'd you know applied to having a website and having a shopping cart Etc
00:33:11
and that was it it was a rocket ship from there and also you know being on Joe Rogan's podcast people started to be
00:33:17
aware of my ideas and my philosophies and these other things that I'd been developing over all of these years in
00:33:23
between all of the partying that I was doing and all of the other stuff and at that moment I started to have a
00:33:30
stage and a platform and started to build a kingdom when you say it grew like a rocket ship
00:33:36
to close off that story can you quantify that in some way for people that are listening from that first launch moment
00:33:42
to where it ended up getting acquired by Unilever I believe yeah yeah you say
00:33:48
rocket ship what do you mean so 2010 on it was founded by me and with
00:33:55
the investment from those two individuals that I mentioned Bodean Howard and uh we sold a little bit but
00:34:02
we had a lot of inventory we couldn't sell it and we were failing it was another failed business just like my
00:34:08
men's nail polish company was going down into the dirt and then at that moment
00:34:14
with the Alpha Brain product we put that on sale and then from there we could
00:34:20
barely keep it in stock we were just selling through as much as we could have and then we developed other supplements
00:34:26
that went and we went from I mean we were Inc 500 fastest growing company
00:34:31
over the next you know four years because we actually went from you know zero to I don't know what the first year
00:34:39
was I don't have all the numbers but imagine like 12 million 24 million 34
00:34:45
you know 35 million 45 million you know and then we then we kind of leveled out around 60 million in annual revenue for
00:34:52
a while and then we had some real trials and tribulations and a lot of deep tests
00:34:58
at that point to get us to the level where eventually in 2021 we were able to
00:35:04
sell the company to Unilever and have a huge exit which has now given me you
00:35:12
know an amazing blessing of abundance of resources and one of the coolest Parts about that is
00:35:18
so many people in my life you know talking about Community again so many people in my life got little pieces of
00:35:25
the company you know like my friend mccot mccad Brooks who's now an actor on Law and Order he was he was an actor in
00:35:30
True Blood black back then I was like yeah man you can have 10 000 shares come on just talk about this I was giving out
00:35:37
I was giving out Equity like candy I was like I love you man here's some shares and then all of a sudden all of those
00:35:44
shares turned into huge amounts of wealth you know for so many people and
00:35:51
and that was such a beautiful thing not only for me not only for Joe but for everybody that that was everybody that
00:35:58
was around me that I was giving a little piece of this Equity to for on it to build that energy everybody everybody won it was like
00:36:06
being on this gigantic hundred person craps table of everybody you love and
00:36:12
everybody wins and the casino just empties out the bank and we all go home and we're like wow we did it and in the
00:36:19
meantime we made great products we inspired people we got people to you
00:36:25
know our concept was total human optimization we got people to actually get back in touch with this idea that
00:36:31
you can be a little bit better tomorrow than you are today and so every step of the way it was something beautiful and
00:36:37
then the payoff was beautiful it was it's just an absolute dream man and
00:36:43
doesn't mean that I didn't live my own little nightmares of fear and anxiety and worry and stress and mistakes all
00:36:50
through the process but looking back now holy [ __ ] what an unbelievable
00:36:57
I mean I couldn't have designed a fantasy better there's going to be
00:37:03
people listening to this who are the version of you at the start of that roller coaster yeah
00:37:10
what would you say to those people because I mean a lot of our listenership are exactly that person they have an idea they're pursuing a dream they maybe
00:37:18
for the wrong all the right reasons I mean who am I to say to Define what either of those
00:37:24
um are but what would you say to them in order to prepare them for that roller coaster
00:37:32
you have to see it you have to see really see it like see it with clear eyes not with the
00:37:39
deluded Eyes of Hope and not with the shrouded eyes of fear but really see what's possible I think people always
00:37:47
ask me the question like can you believe what happened with on it and I was like of course I can believe what happened
00:37:52
with on if I didn't believe that it could happen it wouldn't have happened you know it's the funniest thing can you believe it I was like yeah I can believe
00:37:58
it of course I could believe it if I didn't believe it it wouldn't have happened so the first most important
00:38:04
step is you really have to see it and you have to see it realistically and to see it realistically you have to look at
00:38:09
how difficult it is out there you know I mean I I meet so many people like yeah I'm gonna start this clothing brand I'm
00:38:15
like and I've been you know done a few things with different clothes and that's a hard business it's a hard It's a Grind
00:38:23
that's difficult but you can do it but you have to see it and you have to see the field correctly
00:38:28
you have to see the competition you have to see how challenging the market is and
00:38:33
actually see how you're going to elevate above that and when you can really see it then you can make it happen but it
00:38:40
depends on how accurate your site is so you have to see accurately have the
00:38:46
discretion and then once that's there you have to go all in like push all your
00:38:51
chips in when you see it push all your chips in focus and turn all of that energy into a
00:38:58
single point and push forward with everything you got okay so see it I a few thoughts spring
00:39:06
to mind when you said talked about seeing it so the first one is what role
00:39:11
does seeing it because you talked about the adversity you kind of like glossed over the adversity of that journey and I
00:39:16
think part of the reason I start this podcast in the first place was because I think the adversity matters just as much as the eventual achievement for sure and
00:39:23
obviously because of the way that the media works and the way we tell our stories we focus a bit more on the achievement but what role does seeing it
00:39:29
play in being able to grace those hurdles as and when they inevitably come
00:39:35
foreign well the first one is to see it actually being successful right and I saw I could
00:39:43
see that vision and even even as it was happening it was still you know there was still some part of me
00:39:49
that was like wow it's really actually coming true because I'd seen it before I saw the nail polish company successful
00:39:55
too I just didn't see it accurately I didn't see the market I didn't see the idea that this was going to be a very
00:40:02
difficult thing to actually convince people was cool and that people would be like why buy your nail polish when I
00:40:09
just get any nail polish there I didn't really see it right and with on it I saw
00:40:14
it right you know and I had the right people and and with the right team so so seeing it into success is important and
00:40:22
then what you're going to encounter is a lot of things that you didn't see and that's where the adversity comes I
00:40:28
didn't see that coming I didn't see that coming we had a security breach and on it you know it was one of the early days
00:40:35
2013 2014 when that was happening to a lot of different companies I think I remember Target had a big one and it was
00:40:43
found out and then Target was like oh yeah yeah this happened and you know sorry about about that you know people
00:40:48
got access to credit cards that happened to us and there was a choice point and it felt
00:40:54
like everything was going to be ruined because we got hacked somebody got access to our customer data
00:41:00
we didn't have the right firewalls and all the right cyber security
00:41:05
I mean I thought we did but we didn't obviously and there was a choice point you know nobody
00:41:12
nobody else externally discovered it we discovered it internally we fixed it and
00:41:18
we could have just kind of crossed our fingers and hoped that nothing happened but I made a different choice and in
00:41:24
that choice I just said I got to tell everybody so I just sent out an email I was like look y'all I'm so sorry like
00:41:30
this is on us we didn't have the right security we got hacked and your information was compromised and we're so
00:41:37
sorry and here's you know a discount code for any on it products that you want and like our deepest apologies for
00:41:45
any inconvenience this may have caused if you have to cancel your card or whatever I understand and and I just
00:41:51
came out really authentically and honestly and that ended up being one of like
00:41:57
these powerful moments where instead of the whole customer base turning against our
00:42:03
company being like these losers can't even secure our credit cards or whatever
00:42:08
they actually trusted and trusted our company and trusted me more because of just how authentically I shared about
00:42:15
that story so that's one version of adversity that comes from those things that those
00:42:22
monsters that come from the grass that were slithering around or hiding in the in the tall grass that you don't see and
00:42:28
then all of a sudden you have to confront them and it's going to be about how you deal with those things that you
00:42:35
didn't see and are you Guided by that again that superstructure that I talked about those principles of if you or me
00:42:43
living a different life what would I want me to receive I would want honesty
00:42:48
just somebody to be honest and be like yeah we [ __ ] up and we're sorry
00:42:54
and and this is the best we can do you know and and that was that was kind
00:43:00
of the guiding principle is I was bound by this value structure
00:43:05
and the value structure was the kind of The Guiding Light through all of it and
00:43:11
it it worked when you said about seeing it one of the things that came to mind as well was
00:43:17
when you can see the competitive landscape often that's incredibly intimidating there's you know
00:43:22
entrepreneurs often talk about how being a little bit delusional and naive is actually a driving force and were they
00:43:29
to know how difficult it actually was like where entrepreneurs to to have seen your hardest darkest
00:43:35
days they might not have bothered so my second question here is about seeing it is what would you say to an entrepreneur
00:43:42
that's starting a business maybe in the same you know in the same field as on it was that's looking out and thinking oh
00:43:47
my God but there's already loads of competitors and Aubry did this and Joe did that like I've got this idea but
00:43:53
there's so many competitors I just won't bother because I'm sure when you started there was a big competitive landscape
00:43:59
sure it gets more and more difficult
00:44:05
you know all the time and it's about can you get the bright pieces of the puzzle
00:44:12
together the right product the right energy behind it the right ethos the right experience something that's
00:44:18
actually better than the field I mean when you're talking about this landscape you're talking about one of the beauties
00:44:25
of this capitalist model is you're open to radical competition and that's what
00:44:31
drives the evolution so you have to know that you're a little bit better you're a little bit better than everybody else
00:44:37
and if you're able to show that in all of the ways that you're a little bit better you'll be able to make it through
00:44:43
and yes you're still going to receive immense challenges you know there's going to be times that security breach
00:44:49
was just one of many we had another moment where we made a huge mistake we thought we were getting an investment we
00:44:56
distributed all of our cash we had zero money in the bank the investment didn't happen and then so we had all of these
00:45:03
accounts payable no money in in the bank and we called it cash Apocalypse at that
00:45:09
point our CFO just looked at us said we're we're bankrupt in 30 days I'm
00:45:16
leaving what walked out of the room walked out of the room I was like all right and then our CEO who ended up
00:45:24
becoming the CEO when I stepped down in 2020 right before like a year before the sale
00:45:29
uh he guided us through and we made it and we we made it because of the relationships that we'd you know held
00:45:36
with honesty and with with good faith with everybody we weren't we weren't playing games with anybody so they
00:45:42
trusted us we were like Hey we're in a really tight spot but if you if you trust us and you allow us to pay late
00:45:49
you extend our terms from net 30 net to net 60 to net ninety maybe net 120 you
00:45:56
know like we're going to pay you in four months for the products that you're delivering and they believed in us they backed us
00:46:02
and and that was what it got us through that moment so that CFA that walked down
00:46:08
yeah he made a big mistake he made a big mistake he had also he had you know he
00:46:13
had an equity position he had options that he that he you know forfeited whoops
00:46:22
whoops you know our current CEO our current CEO I mean not current CEO the
00:46:29
CEO that emerged Jason Havey he he couldn't he's such a sweet such a sweet
00:46:36
guy but he couldn't help but stand uh on the anniversary of that day where where
00:46:41
the CFO walked out and and just told us straight up that we were we were going to be out of business
00:46:46
for the next couple years on that anniversary we'd be like hey how's it going we're still here
00:46:55
next oh wow wow I mean some people that's that's natural selection of life there's some
00:47:01
people in the hardest times they bail right right that therefore they aren't
00:47:06
deserving of those kind of good good moments exactly per se
00:47:13
you left in 2020 I don't see a huge desire from you from
00:47:20
looking at what you're doing now to get in get back in bed in that same kind of industry
00:47:26
doing the same kind of thing is that accurate and if so why
00:47:33
the my desire to be a CEO is not really there my desire to be this
00:47:41
kind of visionary founder is there so you imagine someone like Richard Branson in a certain he's really not actually
00:47:48
running any of the companies that he's running running owning he's just kind of guiding them and I am
00:47:56
very interested in continuing to guide different projects and different brands but I want really competent operators to
00:48:05
really start to navigate now I may end up actually working with the CEO that
00:48:11
Jason Havey was with on it for 10 years he transitioned out so he's now no longer there and so we make team back up
00:48:18
get the Avengers back together and put you know a few other brands back on the
00:48:23
table and the reason for that is because they're great products again that are doing really important things like I
00:48:30
want to do important things and the resources that that will allow us to you
00:48:37
know kind of accumulate can then be applied to really great projects that
00:48:42
can benefit again parallel bien de Toros for the good of all so yeah I mean I'm still I'm still in the game but I'm just
00:48:49
doing it at a different level I'm not going to be the guy who's pouring over the P L's who's chasing down purchase
00:48:56
orders but I am the guy who can go out and meet the key allies put the pieces of the puzzle together share the voice
00:49:02
and the kind of idea of why these products are important and and so that's
00:49:07
going to be there's going to be another kind of reload and birth of a new kind of wave of things
00:49:14
that'll come out and and there's also but there's so many other
00:49:19
things now I'm going in many different directions of course there's the podcast there's the book that I'm working on and
00:49:24
other books that are planned after that there's media and documentaries that I'm making and there's stories I want to
00:49:31
tell and there's a lot of different things that I'm doing but I'm just at a level and a purview where I have a lot
00:49:38
of competent operators that are helping execute on all of these different Visions ladies and gentlemen I am so
00:49:45
delighted to finally be able to announce that one of my all-time favorite Brands and now sponsoring this podcast and that
00:49:52
is whoop all of you know that I've been on a bit of a journey in terms of health performance cognitive performance sleep
00:49:58
and all those kinds of things that's kind of been reflected in the guests we've had on this podcast and woof has been a huge part of my life for many
00:50:04
many many years that's part of the reason I also had the founder come on the podcast after having will on the podcast I love the brand even more
00:50:10
hearing about his vision his passion for the project where it came from his own Obsession was solving a problem which
00:50:17
turned into the product that is whoop whoop is a wearable health and fitness coach that provides you with the
00:50:22
feedback and real actionable insights into sleep into recovery into how you're training into your stress levels and
00:50:28
your overall health and for me it's empowered me to be the best version of myself across all of those aspects of my
00:50:33
life the woop team have very kindly offered to give all of you a free month so just head to join.woop.com CEO to
00:50:40
claim your device and your first free month on us you know I never really usually pick the chocolate flavored
00:50:45
heels my favorite are the banana flavor I love The Salted Caramel flavor but
00:50:51
recently I think I in part blame Jack in my team who's obsessed with the chocolate flavor heals I've started
00:50:58
drinking the chocolate flavor heels for the first time and I absolutely love them my life means that I sometimes disregard my diet and it's funny that's
00:51:04
part of the reason why I've had a lot of guests on this podcast recently that talk about diet and health and those kinds of things because I am trying to
00:51:10
make an active effort to be more healthy to lose a little bit of weight as well but to be more healthy and the role that heal plays in my life is it mean means
00:51:17
that in those moments where sometimes I might reach for you know junk Foods
00:51:24
having an option that is nutritionally complete that is high in fiber that is incredibly high in protein that has all
00:51:29
the vitamins and minerals that my body needs within Arm's Reach that I can consume on the go is where he always
00:51:35
been a game changer for me love let's talk about love then I often wonder you know we we learn our models of love and
00:51:43
relationships very early and I've talked a lot about um how I learned my model of Love The Good the Bad the Ugly of it and how I
00:51:49
was very much an avoidant in terms of my attachment style I would run from everyone that had any interest in me I'd
00:51:54
pursue someone and then when they showed interest in me I'd run and I was like mimicking some like deep model that I
00:52:00
learned that relationships mean you're in prison basically like the narrative I'd learned because my father I was I
00:52:06
think subconsciously convinced he was in prison in his relationship so
00:52:12
um it took me a lot of awareness and unpacking to like realize that to the point where as I sit here today I'm in a
00:52:18
great relationship obviously it has all of the same you know natural imperfections any relationship
00:52:24
but one that I think is the most special thing I've ever experienced in my life what's your journey been like with love
00:52:30
you have a unique point to your story which you know I'm going to talk about yeah because I know a lot of people ask you about it which is
00:52:36
I don't even know what the correct term is polyamory polyamory I always say polygamy I don't know why I say that
00:52:42
well that would be multiple wives okay polyamory is multiple loves so yeah my journey with love was was
00:52:49
interesting because you know again I had my first major partnership was with who
00:52:55
someone who's now my best friend and also the best man quote of my of my
00:53:01
wedding with my wife is was my former fiancee Caitlyn and we had a
00:53:06
relationship where she it was not it was not polyamory but
00:53:13
however we could bring other female lovers into into our equation right into
00:53:19
our female love is right so other girls could we could have sexual experiences
00:53:27
with other women and so that gave me kind of this release valve to my desires because
00:53:33
I simply again I was bound by these kind of feelings of value and this feeling of
00:53:39
anybody who I'm with is me living a different life so I can't cheat you know
00:53:44
there there was one moment well I did I did actually cheat one time in my life
00:53:50
and it was so miserable the feeling that I felt when I cheated on my partner like
00:53:56
that one time I was like I just cannot do this and I see and again no judgment you know but I see so many successful
00:54:04
and powerful men who are unfaithful to their partners and to me that's like going and skirting around the problem
00:54:10
and just creating a whole bunch more problems and it's also it's it's actually legitimately unethical right
00:54:17
like you're you're manipulating somebody you're lying to them you're not telling the truth and so after that one
00:54:23
experience of feeling how just awful I felt when I actually cheated on a story
00:54:29
I was in Moscow blah blah it doesn't [ __ ] matter like fundamentally I was like this I will not do this like this
00:54:37
cannot be the way and so you in that relationship the ability for us to have
00:54:43
other lovers that were female then it kind of satisfied that desire
00:54:48
although the problem was is that I was still always kind of searching for that and it was it wasn't quite right at that
00:54:56
point for me at that stage of my young stallion life right wasn't quite right
00:55:01
but it was beautiful we had a beautiful relationship and I love Caitlin I love that relationship so much
00:55:07
But ultimately I was you know that wasn't working out she didn't feel like she was going to be
00:55:12
the queen that was going to help me build my Empire you know she's a wild and magical woman but she wasn't kind of
00:55:18
that Warrior Queen focused energy that I was really looking for and then Whitney
00:55:23
came along who's my next most significant partner and I saw that in her and I was like aha I think this is
00:55:30
the one that can be with me be by my side as I build on it to what it's going to become and I step forward in the
00:55:36
world she's got the she's got the right stuff for that so we started a relationship just purely monogamous no
00:55:42
other partners nothing else that lasted about 18 months and I still felt this
00:55:47
strong desire to be with other women to experience the goddess
00:55:54
in many different faces and I've never been any been the type that just wants
00:56:00
to have sex with somebody because that makes me feel good about myself no I I legitimately love women like I love them
00:56:08
I'm like it's the greatest Delight for me to be with a woman you know and so I
00:56:14
had that natural desire I wasn't willing to be Unfaithful and cheat
00:56:20
so I went to Whitney and I said hey I have this idea what about I still want to be with you
00:56:27
but I think I need to be polyamorous and I know that for this to be fair
00:56:34
that means that you get to see anybody you want to so if I get to do it you get to do it unlike you know in the former
00:56:41
relationship with Caitlin I would have been so jealous and be like no man ever never under any circumstances I'm the
00:56:48
lion you know like I had these old old other kind of constructs and ideas
00:56:54
thanks to you know it was really the book sex at dawn by by Chris Ryan then actually opened my mind to this idea
00:57:01
that there is a different concept that different tribes have utilized
00:57:06
throughout throughout history where we didn't have this possessive kind of jealous
00:57:12
idea about what it means to have a partner that we were open to having you know having your partner have
00:57:19
multiple loves and I understood philosophically that our love is like
00:57:24
the sun like it's shining on all of these different places and to have somebody be like your sunlight you're
00:57:31
you're erotic sunlight can only shine on me I was like this is absurd doesn't make any sense to me so philosophically
00:57:38
it didn't make sense and I had my own desires so I said all right let's be polyamorous
00:57:43
and I thought that I would be okay with Whitney seeing other people I thought I was gonna I
00:57:51
thought I was gonna Breeze through because I had a girlfriend first so Whitney after a period of three months
00:57:57
she first she was like you know you're out of your mind go [ __ ] yourself I'm out I was like that that sucks but I
00:58:05
understand your decision I'm not going to change my decision it's it's the way forward a few months later she came back she's
00:58:12
like all right let's try this and I was already involved with somebody else so I had a girlfriend and then
00:58:18
Whitney was still my primary partner so that was the constellation primary partner is Whitney she lived with me and
00:58:25
then girlfriend who I would go meet at a different meet at her house or meet at a
00:58:30
different place and then have my own experiences with that partner
00:58:36
and then when Whitney you know I and I really didn't have the understanding of how hard this would be on the other side
00:58:43
I thought like yeah it'll be easy like I philosophically understood it then Whitney
00:58:48
got her first partner and I cannot describe to you the feeling
00:58:53
that I felt when Whitney had her first lover it was it broke me it absolutely
00:59:01
broke me even though I had agreed to it even though I'd acted on it on my end when she was with somebody else I felt
00:59:07
like I was gonna vomit cry I wanted to punch a wall I wanted to just I couldn't
00:59:13
I couldn't even handle it and I also felt so ashamed for the fact that I had no like very
00:59:20
little compassion for her having gone through this because I hadn't gone through it yet
00:59:25
and it was a really challenging kind of moment and of course what did I do you
00:59:31
know whoever her partner was I tried to like be better than them at whatever they were good at and at one point you
00:59:38
know Whitney was with a professional fighter and I was like I'll be a good fighter and I was like how stupid like
00:59:43
she doesn't love me because I'm a fighter she loves me because I'm me and that was one of the really powerful
00:59:48
lessons that polyamory taught me is you can't try to compete in somebody else's
00:59:54
strength you just have to compete to be the best version of you and every time I would try to be like somebody else I
01:00:00
would become less attractive in her eyes and and that's that was really a deep lesson but for eight years we did the
01:00:07
polyamory thing you know we had our moments where we were off and on and we'd have little breakups and little
01:00:13
issues that would come up but we both were free to see who we
01:00:18
wanted to see and be with whoever we wanted to be with with the understanding that we were primary partners
01:00:24
this had so many challenges and moments where every different boundary that we
01:00:29
thought we had well all right you can be with them but you can't be in love with them whoops I fell in love with somebody
01:00:35
and then whoops Whitney fell in love with somebody and so that didn't work so we're like okay I guess we're able to
01:00:41
really be in love with somebody but then if you're in love with somebody then you want to spend you know and that energy
01:00:47
is so strong that the technical term is limerence it's that new relationship energy where you're just intoxicated
01:00:53
with somebody well you want to be with them more and then the primary partnership doesn't make any sense because you the person
01:00:59
can feel that you'd rather be with somebody else and it was just it was very very challenging and also very very
01:01:05
beautiful you know the the paramours that I had and Paramore is the term for the the other partners you have outside
01:01:12
of your primary partner I had unbelievably beautiful relationships with them and magical
01:01:18
amazing moments and magical moments with Whitney you know there was so much energy and passion and drama in that in
01:01:26
that period but it was honest you know the thing about it was is that it was honest we
01:01:34
told each other everything you know everything that happened we told each other the truth there was little pockets
01:01:40
of withholding where we didn't Express exactly how we felt and but every little minute dishonesty would get exacerbated
01:01:48
into a massive massive issue because there's so much pressure in the system
01:01:53
because of the natural emotions of jealousy and and you know worrying about
01:01:59
whether our my partner really loved me the most and and that was
01:02:06
a really beautiful and and deeply challenging experience and finally you
01:02:13
know at the end I I kind of I kind of was like I can do this but I I didn't Master it
01:02:20
it was always it was it always got the best of me I was never really fully ever
01:02:26
okay with her seeing other people I was okay with me seeing other people and loving
01:02:31
her but I could never quite do it I wasn't up to the task and that doesn't mean that somebody else can't be I just
01:02:37
I gave it my best and with all my tools all my Consciousness all of my love I couldn't do it and so with that
01:02:46
knowledge then you know I met of course I met by Lana and
01:02:52
vinelana like you know immediately I'd been in love with her for a little while and and we could tell that story if we
01:02:58
like but I'd been through the polyamory Journey so when I met Milan I was like I'm not doing that again you know I'm
01:03:05
not doing that again do you know anybody that's made that work oh
01:03:12
for a time and and the thing is is I think it's a it's a journey of growth
01:03:17
and it's a journey of transformation and evolution when things are stagnant or stuck it may
01:03:24
be an opportunity to get things moving I think I would rather have the the ups
01:03:30
and downs the brisk win the floating into the into the Twilight sunsets of
01:03:35
just glorious beautiful experiences and then the card crashes into the rocky
01:03:41
Crags where it's all blood and broken glass everywhere you know metaphorically of course
01:03:47
I kind of my poet's heart kind of likes that more than just kind of steady bored
01:03:54
diminishment of Life Force there's no energy there's no charge there
01:03:59
that never that doesn't really appeal to me so polyamory is one of the ways that
01:04:06
you can really drive a lot of energy and a lot of growth and a lot of introspection and a lot of a lot of
01:04:12
evolution of your own character through that process so
01:04:18
has anybody made it work long term [Music] it's rare and I don't think I have a
01:04:25
good model for it because I think part of the problem is is that the the culture doesn't really support that yet
01:04:30
and I don't think our Consciousness has evolved to a level where we can handle it we don't have models for it we have
01:04:37
models of jealousy it's in all of our songs it's in all of our it's it's everywhere it's like we're flying again
01:04:42
we're going Upstream against a cultural Zeitgeist so if culture changes if Society changes I think that will become
01:04:49
more possible it's of course some people are doing it and they're making it work I haven't seen it personally really work
01:04:57
on like a long-term level but I think it's just because the culture hasn't blossomed for that to really be possible
01:05:04
I've often pundit if there's some kind of like evolutionary darwinistic reason
01:05:10
why it doesn't work and it would make sense from a darwinistic perspective that I want my seed to pass on and I
01:05:16
want I want my genes to survive so if I if there's another man with my partner
01:05:21
for example then that's going to evolve me out of the gene pool so
01:05:27
there's got to be some kind of you know one would assume there's some kind of inbuilt innate mechanism called jealousy
01:05:34
to prevent that happening yeah and there's also the genetic impulse to actually I mean again we're
01:05:41
we're having sex but the impulse is to impulses to reproduce right like that's where it's coming from so yes there's
01:05:48
somebody actually sleeping with your partner but you're sleeping with many other people too so you're still genetically you know giving the
01:05:55
opportunity to actually fertilize you know many different people so there's a
01:06:00
there is genetic support I think from like an evolutionary biology perspective to this concept right
01:06:07
but really to make it work we got to go back to that level two that we talked about earlier which is community which
01:06:13
is tribe because if it's for the good of the tribe then it doesn't matter if it's your genetic you know your genetic DNA
01:06:21
it's like will this be the best will this be the best situation for the tribe and if the tribe is in love the tribe is
01:06:27
thriving the tribe has energy the tribe has that life force that then that's
01:06:33
accretive to the overall mission but without that kind of tribe level understanding
01:06:40
and perhaps even that humankind level understanding you can't actually I don't
01:06:45
think you can make it work I was reflecting as you're saying that about the tribe on various cult
01:06:50
documentaries I've watched where there's still jealousy you know um even though they're a unit they're
01:06:57
one big family of course you still see that jealousy throughout yeah I think that jealousy is less like about
01:07:03
a evolutionary biology and more about the ego the ego knows itself in relative position it's a construct that we create
01:07:11
to help navigate our life and our in our body and our soul and so it's this idea
01:07:16
it's a story about who we are and that story about who we are we only know how good we are compared to somebody else
01:07:22
it's like are you a good ping-pong player well that depends who am I playing you know
01:07:30
like if I'm out with my mates yeah I'm a [ __ ] good ping pong player if I'm going to a tournament I'm the worst so
01:07:37
you know yourself in relative position to to the context and that's the problem in this kind of polyamorous Dynamic
01:07:45
there's always this thing of this person's getting loved more or there's
01:07:50
more attention here or you're comparing all of these different aspects and attributes and so until you can actually
01:07:57
observe that ego identity construct from uh from a witness perspective
01:08:04
then you really can't escape the trappings of
01:08:09
comparing yourself and comparing your situation to somebody else's situation
01:08:15
fine Lana oh yeah violana violana your face lights up when you say her
01:08:21
name yeah why is that what does she mean to you
01:08:33
I didn't know that I could love somebody like this I didn't I didn't think it was really
01:08:39
possible I thought it would I thought it would be like a I thought that'd always be kind of like
01:08:45
yeah this is good enough this will work you know like we'll make this work and
01:08:51
we'll find the situation that'll make it work but with philana it's like no no like
01:08:59
I love you so much I wouldn't change a thing about you like
01:09:05
and it's just it's this crazy thing that sounds like it sounds unbelie it doesn't
01:09:11
sound like it's believable it doesn't even sound credible and I don't even know if it's reproducible I can't say
01:09:16
that everybody out there you got your vylana I wish I could go with a straight face and say like there's your violana
01:09:23
out there and for vilanas out there there's your Aubry out there and I know it I don't know I think maybe I'm really
01:09:30
lucky I don't know but it's like we met you know and I
01:09:35
could feel it and I could feel it and she couldn't see it for a long time but I could always see it I didn't know but
01:09:41
I could see this possibility and when we got together I mean I had bought the I
01:09:46
bought the wedding ring before we actually even had sex you know I mean if you follow the story
01:09:52
closely there was uh there was a kind of experience at Burning Man Etc and but
01:09:58
really but really though like I just I just knew I could feel it and I knew it
01:10:04
and I knew she was I knew she was my queen I just knew it and she is in
01:10:11
every way she's the perfect compliment to me and it's not that you know the Jerry
01:10:18
Maguire's you complete me no we're too complete beings of different skills
01:10:24
attributes polarities energies emotionalities sexualities but we merge
01:10:30
together and together we're just so much more and life is so much more beautiful uh
01:10:37
it's uh it's a dream man it's a dream and it's there's no there's no compromise
01:10:43
there's no compromise at all and and that's what all you know you go to a wedding and you know all the old-timers
01:10:49
will be like yeah you gotta learn to compromise and you're gonna have to pick your battles and blah blah it's like no
01:10:56
no what about no what about no what about just it's [ __ ] incredible and
01:11:02
you're in it together and I think one of the reasons why we're able to be that is because we're willing to go into the
01:11:08
deep together if there's something that's that's that we can't resolve then we have tools and again the plant
01:11:14
medicine Journey like we'll go deep we'll go you know multiple times we've drank Ayahuasca together and big things
01:11:21
that were Brewing come to the surface and erupt you know like a giant
01:11:27
volcano and then we have to sort out all the magma and all the pieces that'll come up but we'll keep going back in
01:11:33
going into the deep not looking away from everything and with that attitude we're just cleaning cleaning the
01:11:41
cleaning the connection and the intimacy between us all the time when you look back in hindsight because
01:11:47
I'm thinking for myself but I'm also thinking for the person that's listening to this timing plays a role and when I say
01:11:54
timing I actually mean the timing of your growth Journey kind of Crossing theirs yeah so like had you met while on
01:12:00
10 years earlier yep one would assume Maybe yeah no it wouldn't have worked what was
01:12:07
when you reflect in hindsight what was the work that you kind of needed to do to be ready to receive a violana
01:12:14
well the stallion had to run the stallion had to run step one I
01:12:20
needed to run I needed to be I needed to experience myself and have myself
01:12:25
reflected in the hearts of other people who I really loved and I think people
01:12:30
think of the stallion running you think of just having a bunch of one-night stands and who [ __ ] cares well like what like
01:12:37
you really care that much about that particular type of pleasure you get in
01:12:43
your genitals no you're caring about it because it's your ego because somehow that makes you like collecting trophies
01:12:50
that's all [ __ ] but what I really what I needed was to see myself reflected in other people and to know
01:12:57
like what my impact could be on someone's heart and what their impact could be on my heart you know and that's
01:13:03
why I I have so much love for all of my paramours and for Whitney for allowing
01:13:09
that Journey particularly in that period you know Stephanie and Savannah and Lorena all of the different people that
01:13:14
I was with and and all of the other names that are not mentioned in that
01:13:19
you're in there too right because there was moments that elicited
01:13:25
some aspect of me some quality that came online came alive and and I was able to
01:13:31
help something come alive in them it was so beautiful and I think that at that chapter of my life needed
01:13:38
to happen it needed to happen so I could say I've done this I've seen myself reflected in all of these different
01:13:45
Partnerships and now I'm ready to devote that energy to you phylana because I've really I've
01:13:52
felt what this is really like so that's I think step one of you know a mini step
01:13:59
Journey is there is there a piece of work as well around I guess that's maybe
01:14:05
adjacent or attached to what you've just said but learning how to
01:14:11
control one's emotions you talked earlier on about anger and snapping and the thing in relationships is if you
01:14:17
haven't got control of that the relationship's not going to last especially in you know I think of myself you know you know the
01:14:23
ego I had within my younger years and I still have an eager now of course I'm not gonna pretend I don't but I would I
01:14:29
was a I was the type of person that would just get up and go so if there was any conflict again going back to what I
01:14:35
said about my father feeling like he was in prison I would be out of there and that was my response to conflict it was
01:14:40
just let's get up and go so was there a piece of work that had to be done to learn how to become a master of like or
01:14:46
to get better at conflict resolution from an emotional standpoint the emotions will come like a wave and
01:14:55
the Buddhists they call that the moment of trigger where you get hooked they call it shempa and then this desire to
01:15:02
actually take that energy and then you know flood it onto another person
01:15:07
and it's very difficult it's very difficult to stop that from happening and so but
01:15:15
you can with awareness you can feel it coming and then you can start to develop your you know the right react the
01:15:21
processes and practices about what to do my I have two really dear friends uh
01:15:28
Christine Hassler and Stefano sofondos and they just let a workshop at our fit
01:15:33
for Service Summit and they talked about one of their conflict resolution techniques because he had that type of
01:15:39
anger that would come up and that would be and she would then withdraw and get small and they had this dynamic
01:15:46
what they developed was he actually goes into the plow stretch position where he puts his legs over his head when he's in
01:15:53
that when he's in that angry State and they actually once soon as he gets angry that's their agreement that he's going
01:15:59
to go into that position and if he's going to yell at her he's going to have to yell at her from between his own legs
01:16:04
through his own ass basically you know so like they develop this method that
01:16:10
they'd literally use and there's some of the most conscious people they're you know there but they have us they have a
01:16:16
strategy they have a practice and so vilana and I have developed our own practices but I would say the most
01:16:22
important thing beyond the practices that you can do like that some of the practices we have is like
01:16:27
there's you know we can say like a magic word that'll be like all right when you say this word this level of conversation
01:16:35
is like is the pure level like we can't we can't [ __ ] around anymore like this
01:16:41
word now now we enter a new parlay it's like the Pirates when they're all shooting each other they're like parlay
01:16:46
and then they go and they're like all right let's talk this out a little bit okay so you're like stepping outside right so we'll have like we'll have a
01:16:53
construct we'll be like basically called parlay and then we'll be able to negotiate so we have some moves like
01:16:58
that we can make we have for smaller things we have this this construct we call Bedrock where anytime we're in like
01:17:05
the deepest state of Love we'll be like this is the Bedrock this is where we'll always return to this is the nature of
01:17:12
our love and so either one of us can go bedrock and we go in and no matter if we
01:17:18
don't want to if even if every part of us is fighting we go feel the truth of how much we love each other so those are
01:17:25
some of my and I don't go into plow position but those are some of our own strategies but the most important thing
01:17:31
of all of the things is full radical ownership of every aspect in which you
01:17:39
may have overstepped where you may have made an assumption where you may have made a projection to really be
01:17:44
completely honest with your own culpability in the situation because
01:17:49
without that step there's going to be a kind of accumulating resentment
01:17:56
and that accumulating resentment for that ownership which was not taken will then become the monster that eats love
01:18:03
so you know valana and I we've had a couple fights that lasted you know
01:18:09
a day two days because we weren't able to get to the point of radical ownership we were still kind of pointing a finger
01:18:16
and not able to meet in the middle of like actually owning and it's not always the middle sometimes it's 90 10 and
01:18:23
sometimes like I'm I'm sticking at 10 it's like hold there's like you want to take more you're like no hold I'm
01:18:29
holding a 10. like that's all I can take you got to come 90. otherwise like this is an impasse and and I and I will I
01:18:37
can't I can't move forward if there's fragments of that resentment that are there so we just keep talking keep
01:18:44
figuring it out until we actually get to the truth and the Beautiful part about that is there's no fragments of resentment
01:18:51
there's no marbles that are being added to the marble mountain of resentment
01:18:56
that's going to ultimately destroy our love there's nothing there because we've taken ownership for it we've apologized
01:19:03
for everything we need to apologize for and then we've evolved in our own understanding and taken the onus and the
01:19:09
sovereignty and the responsibility to learn and to be better the next time
01:19:15
have you heard of professor John gottman his study about couples and they found that in his
01:19:21
his study of why couples end up in divorce it wasn't arguing or anything else it was a buildup of contempt which
01:19:27
is exactly what you've described there as the monster that eats love so he said they could be laughing in the studies they could be arguing in the studies it
01:19:33
didn't matter it was any sign of contempt which is basically he defined as like unaddressed issues building up
01:19:38
so when you're the example I gave on stage when I did the diversity alive tour was your partner going babe come
01:19:44
look at this and you go that yeah that's five years of
01:19:49
being sick of that [ __ ] not talking about it in unaddressed [ __ ] just in that little micro expression that's like an unaddressed recurring conversation of
01:19:56
you being sick of you know whatever so I think that's um I really essential idea
01:20:01
to what you're saying there this idea of constant work and constant communication and constant conflict resolution can you
01:20:07
imagine the world if if all couples could replicate that yeah like when you say it it sounds easy
01:20:14
but there's an an everyday battle underneath that and I know because my partner sat over there and we do this we
01:20:20
we have the same everyday battle because some days I don't want to talk yeah and some days I think you're wrong and you
01:20:26
think I'm wrong and some days my ego gets in the way and some days the thoughts come in just do
01:20:32
this leave run away you know whatever and being able to continually confront that I think is an very very difficult
01:20:39
challenge now I've only seen in a you know I I'm talking here about men in particular
01:20:44
I've only seen it in a couple of men you know yeah the the advantage that I
01:20:49
have again is and this is my path and I'm not saying that this is the formula
01:20:55
but the plants keep me honest you try to you try to you know carry
01:21:01
your [ __ ] story of it's all their fault and you're a victim and then go drink a couple cups available
01:21:09
Ayahuasca and see if Ayahuasca agrees with you you know like it like it's uh
01:21:15
there's a I'm I'm held accountable to the truth and it's not just the medicine
01:21:21
now the medicine lives in me right I've consumed it and that Consciousness is within me so I can't allow anything that
01:21:30
that I that I need to take ownership for to exist and and then sometimes that'll
01:21:36
come up in the past I mean I think as my Consciousness evolves different levels
01:21:41
of I'm sorry are elicited from me I mean I
01:21:47
think over the past three years you know being with philana and having separated from Whitney there was probably a dozen
01:21:55
or two dozen times where there was a new I'm sorry that came out because I
01:22:01
actually could see it from a different level of Consciousness now and I mean she's like all right man like we
01:22:08
split up like you know like I think she appreciated it and I think she's still working through her own you know with
01:22:13
her own process with that and it's our own process of of feeling any grievances we've had and but you know I just try to
01:22:20
do my best to own to own my fault and mistakes in it and
01:22:26
um and that's an evolving process but I am held accountable to this idea of no
01:22:33
no I like I have to I have to be honest and I have to be real and I have to own it and it doesn't make me less than to
01:22:40
admit any of these things it that's that's the way that actually makes you more than to be able to be that and
01:22:49
sometimes just that have the humility to be like yeah I was an idiot or I was I
01:22:54
made a mistake or all of these things and not and then not pile on a bunch of shame on yourself either to just know
01:23:02
that you're in an evolutionary process and through that evolutionary process when you evolve you're going to be able
01:23:07
to look back at your old self and be like damn you could have been a lot better
01:23:13
it's amazing how there's almost this mental conversation I have sometimes when I'm when I
01:23:19
when I'm in that state of conflict with my partner and my ego's there and my ego's saying oh you're right
01:23:26
and then the other voice somehow wins out and says he [ __ ] up you know you reacted badly there you should just go
01:23:32
and apologize and I did this the other day with her where we had a bit of a disagreement about something
01:23:38
and you know a couple of hours passes maybe 12 hours or something passes I realize I [ __ ] up
01:23:44
I picked myself up and I walk over to her and I just said you know from yesterday I just want to
01:23:50
say I'm really sorry because in reflection my reaction was not good there and it didn't make sense and I realized it hurt you etc etc and I'm
01:23:56
really sorry about that I wish I'd reacted differently in hindsight and upon looking at my behavior I realized
01:24:01
why I reacted in that way and like it's not good enough the minute the words came out of my
01:24:06
mouth it was like a weight I just lifted yeah it was like my ego had been fired I felt
01:24:12
great yeah the pressure I had on me up until that point just evaporated and it's funny that I don't
01:24:19
I don't get there quicker I'm getting I think I'm getting there quicker though if I zoom out on myself I go okay look
01:24:24
at yourself over the last 10 years give yourself some credit but um yeah it's great it's it's all the
01:24:30
work you've done do you still struggle with these things
01:24:36
yes but they get smaller and smaller so at like you're talking about like the the time it takes you to go over there
01:24:43
so maybe there was a time in your life where it wouldn't have been 12 hours maybe it would have been 12 days maybe it had been 12 months maybe actually
01:24:49
never yeah you know right but now the time is shortening now you're in hours yeah then eventually you're gonna get
01:24:56
into minutes and then from minutes you're gonna get almost to real time
01:25:02
almost to revealed and then maybe one point you'll touch real time where you're really actually seeing I don't
01:25:09
know I'm I'm not in real time you know but I'm definitely in the minutes category you know I mean I remember the
01:25:15
last little Conflict by Lana and I had actually involved this painted fingernail I'll tell I'll tell this
01:25:22
story so uh I was really we're in Miami I'm really hot we have these big kind of
01:25:27
wooden backed uh lounge chairs and I'm ready to go upstairs and I'm like babe
01:25:34
I'm super hot I'm like thirsty I'm ready to go up she's like uh you sure you don't want to tan your
01:25:40
back a little bit and I'm like am I back are you trying to say my tan is uneven is like that bother you and as I went to
01:25:46
this whole thing and I was like all right fine I'll tan my back for you I guess if that's important to you
01:25:52
well so that's what was going through my head so I flipped the latch on the thing so I could lay flat down because I was
01:25:58
laying with my back up the thing comes and smashes my finger just like smashes like crushes my fingernail right between
01:26:05
the way that the back of the chair was falling and it's just searing pain and
01:26:10
I'm like get up and I want to like scream and hit something because it hurts so bad and I couldn't disambiguate
01:26:17
the feeling of pain with my frustration that she was the one who wanted me to stay there and if she didn't want me to
01:26:22
stay there I wouldn't have smashed my [ __ ] finger and so and then I'm like in there and I'm like kind of fuming and
01:26:29
she's like are you mad at me I'm like no I'm not mad at you because I knew logically that I wasn't mad at her right
01:26:35
but like my whole energy was like yeah I'm [ __ ] mad at you when I was like why did you ask me to tan my back
01:26:43
she was like oh actually I just wanted to stay you know it took her a moment but eventually it was like actually she
01:26:49
just wanted to stay herself and that came out of her mouth in that way and then I took it as like some kind of [ __ ]
01:26:55
critique of my tan gradient you know and uh and ultimately but we got in this
01:27:02
little conflict in in the conflict escalated because we're in the in the heat of this kind of emotion
01:27:08
and she kind of she kind of walked she was like I'm going to the gym I was like all right and
01:27:15
like I took like three you know three minutes four minutes I don't know maybe five minutes whatever
01:27:22
and then I just sent her a long text and I went through every different situation every different aspect of it from the
01:27:28
first moment acknowledging I wasn't able to disambiguate the pain from my anger to her that I misunderstood what she was
01:27:34
saying about my back and that was actually just her way of saying I want to stay longer and I projected that she
01:27:39
was critiquing me but that wasn't actually the case and I didn't you know like all of this thing and then then I
01:27:45
responded poorly in this comment and this and then I said however how you
01:27:50
responded here here here here you know does not feel in alignment with ethos of
01:27:56
our relationship so it's like this whole bullet pointed long long message and I sent that to her and I was like all
01:28:02
right that's the truth of it and then she receives that she comes back and
01:28:07
she's like all right you know like I acknowledge these different things you know and now here's how we can get
01:28:14
better from this and then pretty soon you know within about 15 minutes after that we were just we looked at each
01:28:21
other and I was like we're kind of dramatic aren't we and we just started laughing and it was over you know and so
01:28:27
that process just gets quicker and quicker and quicker and quicker and that's the that's the that's the way of
01:28:34
it is just to shorten the amount of time that you stay out of consciousness
01:28:40
all of that requires a level of vulnerability that a lot of people um still find very uncomfortable especially men in my in my um
01:28:47
in my experience we um we actually made something to help our listeners cool become a
01:28:54
little bit more vulnerable and these are these question cards they're actually taken from this diary so every time we
01:28:59
have a guest here they write a question for the next guest there's been one left for you in there as well so we took all of the questions as you can see here
01:29:05
cool we put them on these playing cards so people can play at home there's about 70 of them I've just selected a bunch of
01:29:10
random ones for you here and I'm gonna just lay them out in front of you and if you could just pick one all right and
01:29:16
then answer the question whichever one you feel called to
01:29:22
this is like an oracle deck yeah on the back it has a QR code where you can see you can scan it to see the person that
01:29:28
answered the question as well here we go
01:29:37
is there something right now that you know you're doing wrong but you haven't fixed yet
01:29:43
if so how will you get unstuck
01:29:52
um well I don't like the word wrong because
01:29:57
the way that I look at my trajectory is the trajectory of evolution so if I'm doing it it must mean that I
01:30:05
needed to do that in order to learn how to evolve from it however I understand the point of the question outside of the
01:30:12
semantics which are important you know because I think we can put ourselves in wrong right good bad in this very
01:30:18
polarized idea so in the evolution of Aubry where am I still stuck where have
01:30:24
I not actually gotten to the place where I want to be as who I know I can be
01:30:31
and it's the Reliance on stimulants to keep me alert
01:30:39
and it's okay that I like my coffee and I like my nicotine and I like you know
01:30:45
Kratom sometimes or whatever but there's a kind of Reliance to go up
01:30:51
you know and then there's a Reliance to go down and I still have you know sleep
01:30:58
medication that I take and I know it's not good for me like particularly the sleep medication like
01:31:04
I'm kind of okay with the caffeine and the nicotine I could probably like maybe fast from it for a little while
01:31:12
um I don't smoke cigarettes or anything but whether it's a cigar or whether it's a you know a nicotine pouch or something
01:31:19
like that so that one feels like yeah there's a little cleaning up to do but but it's
01:31:25
not really it's not really like damaging me in a fundamental way but the Sleep meds I think are and
01:31:32
they're very sticky because I get in this Loop where let's take today for example last night I fly into the hotel
01:31:39
I'm kind of Juiced you know I'm here in Hollywood there's lots of sounds lots of noises and I'm in a new hotel It's
01:31:47
pretty dope and I'm just not sleepy you know watch a cool movie and
01:31:53
I got a big podcast today and I got some other stuff I need to do during the day so
01:31:58
could I have fallen asleep without the Sleep meds yes eventually I could have but that would have come at a cost to
01:32:05
this podcast and then that would have come to cost to the listeners and then so I get in this trap of well I can't do
01:32:11
it today I got this thing to do so then I'll reach for the Sleep meds and I'll take them and I know that those are
01:32:17
deleterious to my health so I'm kind of stuck in this position
01:32:22
where I'm not giving myself the time where I don't have any obligations or any anything that I want to offer the
01:32:28
world where I can really phase out of all of this and even when I do because I have phased
01:32:35
out of it for all of my Ayahuasca Journeys I have to get off everything and I'm able to do it and I'm like this
01:32:41
time it's going to stick and then I'll get that one night the night before a podcast or a night before I have a bunch
01:32:46
of things to do and I just can't sleep in that old the old sleep mat in the drawer I'm flush them down the toilet
01:32:52
whatever but then I'll find another one or whatever I'll figure it out it starts calling and it's like listen like you
01:33:00
know the solution just pop this bottle and you'll go to sleep and you'll be able to do what you need to do tomorrow
01:33:07
and that Voice keeps me stuck I'm like stuck in this limbo and I can't stay
01:33:14
stuck there forever so what I need to do so part of that question is like what do I need to do to
01:33:19
get unstuck I'm gonna need to give myself the space
01:33:25
to really allow my neurochemistry to reset and also probably have to holistically
01:33:32
change my mindset to say I have to look at the whole Arc of my
01:33:38
life in all of the conversations I have and everything that I'm going to do as more important than any individual thing
01:33:45
and say for the whole Arc of my whole life I have to get my neurochemistry and
01:33:50
everything back in alignment so that I don't rely on these other chemicals to
01:33:56
help me fall asleep and so it's a it's a holistic mindset shift and also a period
01:34:01
because it's going to be Rocky in that period where I just push out all of my obligations everything that I need to do
01:34:08
and I keep threatening to do it and I just haven't made the space to do it I haven't prioritized it enough
01:34:14
but that must happen it must happen and it's just a matter of me doing it and
01:34:21
and I pray and I believe and I trust that I'll do
01:34:26
it before the universe makes me do it by having some accumulation of the you
01:34:33
know negative effects of the medication I'm taking Etc like they'll if you don't listen when it's time
01:34:39
you'll have to listen like the universal make you listen so I'm going to listen before the universe
01:34:45
makes me listen that key step though of awareness is you've clearly you're clearly very aware and that's what you
01:34:52
know when I think about helping my friends or I look at my friend situations when they're struggling with something that first step of really being aware of it like you even know
01:34:58
that it's a voice that calls you to the draw um which means you know from my observation that
01:35:05
I also fully feel like you've done much of the hard work already by just admitting it
01:35:10
to yourself yep you know because this because of the cognitive dissonance so many people would justify it away or or
01:35:17
you know make other excuses to make it okay but you've you've confronted that yeah and it's funny because you've confronted
01:35:23
it even in the at the expense of how it might make you look and you're willing to say it out loud as well that's
01:35:29
amazing in that story I also sort through line to what you're doing with fit for service
01:35:35
for anybody that doesn't isn't aware of what you're working out with fit for service what is it and um how can one
01:35:42
get involved and if they are to get involved what you hope they take from it
01:35:47
it's really the technology of healing and transforming through Community you
01:35:52
know so that's really what we're doing is yeah there's a lot of there's coaching and there's teaching of
01:35:58
different things but we're going through an initiatory explorative practices now we don't do psychedelic medicine as far
01:36:05
as the things you take but we do do all the Psychedelic practices from you know shamanic breath work which is
01:36:12
incredibly powerful you know many facilitators deep deep breathing huge emotional catharsis ecstatic dance you
01:36:20
know Vision quests out on the land or you know wanders out of the land Vision quests are again longer sometimes
01:36:27
um you know Temescal inepi sweat lodges you know by the First Nations people all
01:36:32
of these different initiations and then communication technology initiations from circling techniques which teach you
01:36:38
how to communicate with each other to helping to collectively process archetypal grief you know masculine
01:36:46
grief and feminine grief and using those Dynamics to help elicit the strongest healing but in the process of doing that
01:36:53
altogether deep bonds are formed and we have a survey that goes out to anybody
01:36:58
who's been to you know at least two of our events and we say did you meet somebody in fit for service that you
01:37:04
know will be your friend for the rest of your life 100 say yes and so we're
01:37:09
building yes there's the greater fit for service tribe where there's a lot of it's a beautiful Rich Community but the
01:37:15
bonds that are formed with those people that maybe you did that one eye gazing exercise with and you started crying
01:37:21
because you could see yourself and that other person or you were there with them in that one breath work that was so
01:37:26
intense and the wind was whipping and everybody was screaming and there was three exorcisms happening simultaneously
01:37:32
and it was [ __ ] wild like those experiences then bring a bond together
01:37:39
and you start to learn that actually going through these these difficult things together
01:37:45
will actually you know form relationships and help you heal and help you grow and it's such a beautiful
01:37:52
process to continue to watch this happen you know with so many different people
01:37:58
from so many different places you know and um it's really inspiring to see people
01:38:04
willing to because in some ways as we were talking about nobody wants to mine in some ways you do expose yourself to
01:38:11
your own Darkness willingly by going into a breath work or going into an Iowa or going into these things but you know
01:38:16
that you're fully supported and it's with full intention so in that way we are actually going into the darkness to
01:38:23
to illuminate the light and uh and just doing that together and it's been
01:38:30
it's been really incredible it doesn't feel it doesn't feel at all like like work it
01:38:36
feels like I would do this and and actually last year we switched to a donation model because we thought like
01:38:42
this is the way to do it we lost so much money that we can't do that anymore but nonetheless like so I basically worked
01:38:49
all last year at a huge financial loss and and offered all of these different
01:38:54
Summits and Festival all of this stuff and it was still worth it I wouldn't I wouldn't have changed it now of course
01:39:00
it's fundamentally unsustainable to do it that way but nonetheless like it's what I like it's one of the things
01:39:06
I really love to do and all of our coaches feel that way and it also draws
01:39:12
in some incredible people that we get to learn from other Master coaches and other you know inspiring
01:39:18
medicine people who kind of carry a transmission that we learn from so it's
01:39:23
it's kind of like a a little moment where we get to be in our own little
01:39:29
Jedi school and just evolving our our own internal psychic and an emotional
01:39:35
and a physical technology I watch the um video on your website fit for service.com and it looked um I don't
01:39:43
know so sometimes just observing clip or a trailer can make you feel a certain sense of warmth and
01:39:49
connectedness and that's what I got I felt like a big group of friends that had gone out to like the desert
01:39:54
somewhere and were connecting at a much deeper level than you ordinarily see in that kind of like retreat or event or
01:40:01
whatever so I felt really compelled to be involved I guess so um I think
01:40:07
everybody should go check it out just go watch the video and go go see see if it's calling you because I think um
01:40:12
there'll be a lot of people out there that will realize just from watching that video that it's right for them yeah
01:40:17
we do have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest see what has
01:40:23
been left for you oh okay oh interesting
01:40:32
I actually don't get to see the question before we open the book but um this is a good one who is someone you need to
01:40:37
forgive and then there's another line which is who is someone you need to forgive and
01:40:42
have not which I think guess is the same thing but
01:40:53
huh you know forgiveness is
01:40:59
an interesting thing because it's a it's a spectrum there's yeah I forgive you
01:41:06
but do you but do you really though are you still kind of holding on are you saying the words and are you there true
01:41:14
forgiveness is the place of love that sees no that sees no wrong
01:41:20
right it like it doesn't even actually register that there was a wrong there like that's the zero state of absolute
01:41:27
forgiveness is to get to a place of what grievance what did you do what
01:41:34
remind me again because I don't see it because kind of how I told this story about my dad you know the way he yelled
01:41:40
at me like I've seen so clearly I've seen so clearly that it gave me a
01:41:46
superpower that I'm able to be an absolute forgiveness of that
01:41:52
absolute forgiveness of that in when I get to that place where I've
01:41:58
seen and would never have traded it for anything I wouldn't have changed it one bit
01:42:03
right when I can get to that place where I wouldn't have changed a thing that's where real forgiveness is
01:42:11
it's like if they're like I'm sorry I'd be like for what thank you I mean like I
01:42:16
see how this benefited my life so that level of forgiveness
01:42:22
it takes the time to get there so there are actually many places where I am in
01:42:29
The evolutionary process of getting to that but maybe I don't quite fully
01:42:34
understand what that has given me yet
01:42:39
so somebody's done something and I haven't quite I haven't quite worked that into
01:42:45
my in the way that I can say like all right this was for the best
01:42:50
if I had to say I would have to say the
01:42:56
the governments of the world right now I don't think I've fully forgiven them
01:43:04
and the collusion what I've seen between the collusion between media and politics and you know
01:43:10
big Pharma and big big war and this whole construct of Empire
01:43:17
some part of me says like all right the two like if we take the lord of rings analogy The Two Towers need to rise so
01:43:24
that the Fellowship of the Ring comes together and that's what gets the Elves and the dwarves to get along with the
01:43:29
with the hobbits and the and all and the Wizards and the humans and everybody comes together and it's necessary for
01:43:35
the two towers to be to be built and to try and push their Darkness on the world so that the fellowship will come
01:43:43
but there's been so much pain and so much loss and so much unnecessary
01:43:49
suffering and so much unnecessary fear and
01:43:54
it's hard to get to the point where I can say like yeah I wouldn't change a thing with that
01:44:01
because so I guess it's you know forgiving Empire and and I use Empire to be that
01:44:09
whole construct of that kind of top-down manipulative dystopian control that
01:44:15
we've you know everybody has their own little Oculus to whatever part of that they see and I'm not trying to push my
01:44:21
own view of that but I think we can all feel that there's a force out there that's not in our best interests as
01:44:29
Sovereign beings have I forgiven that force not quite yet
01:44:34
not quite yet but maybe when the full Fellowship comes together and we have all of the out because I start I'm
01:44:40
starting to see that happen like all of the Allies are forming this lattice work this network that's now becoming more
01:44:47
available because because of the pressure of the force of Empire
01:44:53
but until that fully actually crystallizes it and it works
01:44:58
I don't think I'll be I'm not able to forgive Empire yet
01:45:03
Aubry thank you um you're the type of person that I love to speak to because there's I feel like there's no question
01:45:09
you wouldn't answer and the most difficult questions but also you take a pause to answer the questions head on
01:45:14
and um your story of of personal transformation and transition through
01:45:20
various chapters in your life and ego death and all you've been through you speak to it
01:45:25
with such vulnerability and openness and honesty so anybody that's in a different phase or chapter of their journey to
01:45:30
where you know you've found yourself today I think they have the honest road map on
01:45:35
how to progress forward and that's the most inspiring powerful thing and you know it's not often you get to sit with
01:45:41
someone who's had such tremendous business success that can also Analyze That from sort of a meta perspective and
01:45:47
it's now doing work that's tremendously spiritually aligned um with a new
01:45:52
refreshing take on um what their mission should be and in your case it's as you've said not just
01:45:58
any more about you it's much more about um the broader Global community in your tribe so thank you so much for this
01:46:04
conversation today it's been an honor to me and spend time with you I feel Freer I feel inspired I feel I feel more
01:46:10
powerful for it um and I hope we can have it again once the goblins and the Lord of the Rings
01:46:17
let's get all the characters again I've never seen Lord of the Rings so I guess it's happening here we are here we go
01:46:23
another ladder another another connection another node in Ninja's net was formed sorry Empire it's happening
01:46:31
Aubry thank you you're welcome brother thank you [Music]
01:46:36
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[Music]
01:47:49
foreign [Music]
