#120: Pivoting Into Our Higher Calling with Brandee Powell

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I feel incredibly blessed this morning as I do pretty much every morning. I mean, life is such an interesting thing and I feel like every day gives us some new challenges. It gives us something new to to sort of chew on. It's a riddle. It's a mystery. It's tough at times. And yet the one thing that is a true north for me, it's a constant, is to remind myself, the reminder to be grateful, especially at the beginning of the day. This is the key. If anybody was to say to me, wake me up at 3 o'clock in the morning and say, Adam, what's the key to life? What's the key to having a life that you truly adore, that you love, a life that's filled with prosperity? That's money, but not money exclusively. In fact, not money even in the top 5 things, actually. If I woke up in the middle of the night, what I would say is that I feel grateful a lot of the time. Not all the time. I complain and I get agitated. Certainly what's been going on in our world in the last couple of years, I think, has agitated me on the inside. And I've been in a deep inquiry about that too, because I know that when I'm agitated about what I see, Politics, or I see with any number of other things, I realize it's just a reflection of something that's unresolved inside of me. And I didn't realize that 10 years ago. So it helps me to redirect my energy. And I think that's really important that when— Mm-hmm. Our emotions are so vital to us, our feelings are so vital to us, but when we don't understand them, it's difficult to redirect them. So we do get angry, do flip people off on the highway. And yell it at folks, our kids and other people sometimes for apparently no reason. We hate on ourselves as well. I think we're the most brutal to ourselves. At least that's my experience of it. So redirection is super important. And one of the greatest vehicles or tools for redirection that I know of is gratitude. So it's raining outside in Southern California, man. You do not see rain in Southern California very often. So. Being a boy from back East, I say back East because that's where I'm from, but I saw rain a lot and now I don't. And I'm not missing it too much, but when it comes, I am grateful for it. Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out We're in need of it and it's a blessing. So I feel blessed and I also have the blessing of spending part of my morning with someone that I absolutely adore. I think this is a spectacular woman, somebody that you all now will have the blessing to meet and enjoy and learn from, be inspired by. She's had a very interesting life, a really interesting life. She's doing incredible things in the world, helping a lot of people in some pretty unique ways. I would say she's quite outside the box on one level. She's sort of somebody that you might think you went to school with or that lived next door to you, just feel like you know her. And of course, we all know each other on a really basic level. And yet she's doing things that are far out. And I'm going to share a little bit about her bio and then we're going to dig into some really exciting conversation about her past and her pivots and where she is now and what she's doing with other people in just a second. Her name is Brandy Powell and Brandy Powell is a conscious thought leader, speaker, and medicine woman. You heard me right, a medicine woman at the intersection of the healing arts and entrepreneurship. She is the co-creator of Rythmia Costa Rica, a life advancement center infusing ancient and modern wisdom, plant medicine, and breakthrough technologies for healing. Additionally, she founded Majesty Mystery School for Women, where she blends ancient technologies from across the world with the traditions of indigenous medicine. Before Rythmia, Brandy owned numerous marketing and advertising companies for over 12 years that built hundreds of companies, hundreds of businesses. Her companies specialize in product development and marketing. Brandy was the producer of the Reality of Truth film starring Michelle Rodriguez and Deepak Chopra. She continues to create inspiring and informative content by producing projects in entertainment that will have a positive impact. Brandy is passionate about supporting world-changing entrepreneurs and individuals unleash their purpose, find their tribe, and inspire a movement through mission-driven business and media. Wow, that's incredible. Welcome to the show, Brandy.

Wow, Adam, that was an amazing intro. I feel So important this morning. Thank you.

Don't you, right? It's so funny.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for that intro. And thank you so much for having me on your show. I'm just super blessed to have you in my life. I've been working with Adam through the Heart of Enrollment, and he's been a huge catalyst in everything that I'm doing. So thank you.

Oh, you're so welcome. That's a mouthful. That, that introduction is so funny when I hear myself get introduced in places both home and away. I always think, gosh, that's a lot. I go, no wonder I'm so tired. No wonder I lost my hair. It's like, look at you. You don't look tired. You have all your hair. In fact, your hair is longer than the last time I saw you. I'm going, okay, I don't know what you're eating, drinking, what you might be smoking, but I want it. That's for sure. So, Brandy, that's a remarkable list of accomplishments. What is not written in that bio, in that intro, that you would love for people to know about you?

I'm super weird. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm just myself, same little kid. Like, you know, when I was a kid, I used to dress up in little business suits and I used to make businesses, and that was what I did for play. You know, it's funny, I had a vision of that recently and I'm like, I'm that same little kid. I'm just Making businesses, and it's my form of art, and it's fun. And, and now to be creating businesses that make an impact just makes it so much better. It's— it just lights me up. It just makes life so beautiful.

Way cool. Way cool. All right, I'm— I want to know, you, you've pivoted like we all have. Yes, you've pivoted quite a few times in your life.

Yeah, many times. Pretty much every couple days.

How about every couple of minutes? It's so funny.

Seriously, like when you're on this path of waking up and healing and, you know, working in all of these quantum fields of healing, it feels like every time you pivot, I'm like, oh, okay, great. Can I just land here for a minute? And the next thing you know, it's like another pivot. The next day you wake up. So I'm used to it.

Isn't it true, Brandy, that we're holistic beings? And so anytime we make a change, if we impact one area of our life, Whether it's our, our emotional body or physical body or something, it changes everything so that you can't change one thing without it impacting everything.

Exactly. Exactly right. There's infinite possibilities. And every time you make one change, universe just, just reorganizes. And now you have a whole new realm of possibilities that you're dealing with.

Our son Max calls that a micro pivot, which I think is a really cool term for it. He was saying to me, Dad, you know, not everybody is going to pivot, you know, like to move to Fiji or change their job or, you know, start a business on the side. I mean, those are big, big pivots. And I said, you know what? You're right, Max. And he says to me, so lately— He's sharing. He goes, he's up at college. He's at Santa Cruz. And he says to me, lately, I've been thinking of these things as micro pivots. You know, all the daily pivots, all the things we do from moment to moment during the day. And I'm like, Dude, you gotta write the next book, man. That's the name of it. That's the whole concept. Literally our mindset from the moment we wake up to the moment we lay our heads on the pillow at night in the day, it's a series of pivots, these little, little, and sometimes not so. Yeah. So let's start with how you define a pivot. First of all, what's your definition of that word?

Uh, a pivot is, for me, it would be, Having an awareness and making a shift in a different direction than maybe you were the moment before or the time before.

Yeah. Are there any signs to you, like the signs of a pivot coming, something off on the horizon?

Yeah. I think a great sign when something's not working, you know, that's a great, great sign that it's time to pivot. And A lot of times, like, we want to, you know, fight and hang on to what's comfortable and what we know and what our plan was. But, you know, our idea of our destiny and, you know, and the greater vision for our lives is so much smaller than what's actually happening, right? So it's constantly surrendering to, you know, maybe not knowing exactly the details of how it's going to unfold. And I find in my own life that when I live in that way, when I let go of gripping and hanging on and trying to control, that is when the most amazing things have happened and unfolded in my life. And that's when the greatest pivots have happened that actually landed me in the direction of my highest calling.

Yeah, I can identify with that. The visual of sort of white-knuckling the steering wheel of life during, during certain times, you just like have your hands so gripped tightly on things. And for me, that grip is tightly on control. So I'm going to just sort of out myself in the moment and say I'm a recovering— and I say recovering because it's definitely not— I'm not there. I want to be there, but I still require a certain element of control over things. I crave it on some level. And I think we

all do. And it's a constant process to let go of it. It's a constant realigning and remembering To surrender, because it's like you can have a huge event happen and feel like, oh my gosh, I learned that lesson. I let go, I let go of control. And then something else comes at you, you know, and it's just human nature to want to be safe and to want to know what's coming next.

Mm-hmm.

And when you don't have that, your ego, it goes into survival really quickly. And you can— everything that you read and all of your experiences from before go right out the door in those moments. And so it's a practice to pull yourself back to, you know, realign with that truth and to remember that everything that's happening is happening for you, not against you, always, no matter what it looks like.

It's so interesting because let's say a large portion of our community here are pretty, I mean, they're people that are like me interested in consciousness. They're interested in raising their own consciousness and working on themselves. So there's It's not the first time anybody listening to this or watching this has heard that let go or surrender stuff. In fact, I read a book called The Surrender Experiment. I'm not sure if you ever read Michael Singer's— it was the follow-up to The Untethered Soul, which is incredible.

Wow.

And then The Surrender Experiment was sort of this guide to how it was that he surrendered and allowed for spirit to guide him in his business life and his personal life. And it's a remarkable book, but I got to tell you, I think that's one of the toughest things. Even after you've gotten more awake and more aware that gripping tightly the steering wheel of life, meaning being attached, whether it's attachment to the past or it's attachment to somehow controlling or knowing the future, you know, the crystal ball tells me exactly what's going to happen, that in the end life is about letting go. How do you remind yourself? Yeah. How do you bring yourself back to that? Not just the awareness that Letting go is, is what's required in the moment, but how it is that you just pry your hands, you pry your white knuckles off that steering wheel. How do you do that, Brandy?

Yeah, for me, it's like I have to— sometimes I'll find myself, you know, going back into old patterns. And like, I have serious control patterns. You know, I was born and raised in Oakland. I came from a super tough childhood and I made things happen and I forced my way and I, I was a survivor, you know? So So that's, you know, no matter how much healing and work I've done, you know, that's in the core of me in such a deep level. And so sometimes it's like I could be pissed off at myself because I'm like, oh my God, did I just do that? You know, I'm like the true definition of a spiritual gangster because like I will, you know, be like, ah, namaste, and then all of a sudden this whole other side comes up in a moment where, you know, it's like fight or flight. And I'm like, oh wow, yeah, I just did that. Step back. A big part for me is the reaction piece, right? Like taking a moment to breathe and step back before reacting, because I've been so hardwired to, oh my God, okay, what's coming next? You know? And for me, it's a practice of stepping back, taking a breath, and taking some time before making a decision, being impulsive. It's taking space. And, you know, the times when I was impulsive and I reacted and I say something, that's the times where I'm like so regretful. And it's the control. The times when I step back and take space, it gives me a chance to respond rather than to react and to take all of the things that I've been learning and working on and put them into action.

Yeah. As I was listening to you, I was also looking at your last name. I was looking at the name Powell and I was thinking to myself, Wow. There's embedded in that word is power and will or well. And I'm thinking,

well, I never thought about that.

It's just an interesting thing. I was, as I was listening to him thinking, yeah, I've been myself really tenacious and willpowered and powered through and, you know, plowed, plowed through, plowed ahead, plowed over, under, around, or through, sometimes even through people. Yeah. Especially when gripped with fear or its cousin, this idea of control, because control is a fear-based feature. It's a scarcity reaction, as you said. It's not a response because there is in the moment nothing to control. And that can bring up fear immediately just to think, holy smokes, are you kidding me? There's nothing to control. What the fuck are you talking about, right? I mean, but yeah, think about it. I mean, and more recently just in California, you know, with these wildfires that were raging, the Camp Fire that just raged through thousands and thousands of acres. And, you know, thankfully—

Yeah.

It's over and it's out and people's lives can now begin to rebuild. And obviously this tremendous loss of life, of property, of things, all just beyond our control. And I'm not going to say, so just to be clear about this, I'm not saying that we can't do something to make our environment better. that we can't control on some level the degree to which we are contributing negatively to our climate, because we certainly can control that. We can control the things that we do. But there's an element of things being out of our control that when we're in resistance to that, I think we do live our lives more in a state, in a place of reaction, and less in a place of being in And allowing and therefore still on some level peaceful inside on some level to be able to respond. Because I know just for me personally, I don't respond well when my fear or any of the other sort of scarcity emotions are triggered inside of me. It's very difficult for me to breathe and respond in those moments. You said earlier you came from a kind of a tough upbringing or situation in Oakland. That may not be the first pivot that you can recall in your life, but why don't we go there for a little bit here? Because I think many of us have had some challenging childhoods, whether it was in the form of just not having a lot or it was being abused in some way or bullied in some way, but we've all got that. I mean, I very rarely meet people that don't look back on their childhood and say, geez, that piece of it, man, it helped me and it made me and it formed me and I sort of wouldn't change it, But, you know, if given the opportunity, I might do things a little different or have things change just a bit because they can be rough times in our life, especially when we're that vulnerable and that, that unresourced. Share a little bit about what it means, quote, to come from a rough upbringing.

Yeah. For me, it all started when I was 6 years old. My father committed suicide. in our house. I walked up to the door and for me, that was pretty much the end of my childhood in many ways. You know, like I look back to pictures of my eyes during that time and they went completely dead from the trauma. And, you know, shortly after that, my mother, you know, who was left a single mother, she did her best to raise us. She took us from Oakland to Oregon. And she progressively got worse. She started taking drugs. She started using meth. Basically, most of my childhood, I was in a very scary situation most of the time because there were parties going on where she was doing meth with her friends. And she had another child. And at 8 years old, I was basically raising my little brother. His crib was in my room. He came to me when he needed something. And as a child, you just adapt to these situations. You don't realize because you don't have anything to really compare it to. So you just step in and you start showing up, you know? But it wasn't until I got older, like when I had my own son and when he was 8 years old, I was like, geez, like this is crazy what I was doing at 8 years old. You know, like I had a child at that age. You know, it was really rough. And my mom, she was this amazing woman and magical woman in so many ways, but so sensitive and so traumatized and just didn't understand how to handle being in this world, you know. So she turned to drugs and, you know, for us it just put me in constant horrific situations as a child. And thankfully, when I was 11 years old, my mother actually went to prison for stealing and I went to live with her mother for 1 year, which is a whole nother story, very— Another traumatic year. And then my grandparents took me at 11 years old with my sister and my brother, and we went back to Oakland. And it was such a contrast because here I had my grandparents in their 80s that were like Leave It to Beaver, never said a cuss word. And then I had this contrast of my parents that were like freaking rock stars, like went way too far, burnt out. And thank God for that contrast. for me because I don't know, you know, what would have happened if I didn't have the contrast to make choices. I knew at some of the darkest moments of my life, I was like, I am not going to end up like my mother.

Yeah. Contrast is a really interesting word. I remember listening to Abraham, Abraham, you know, Esther Hicks and she channels

Abraham. Yeah. I love Abraham.

Abraham. Some years ago, I remember listening to her speak about contrast. And how important contrast is. And often it is in the contrast, which is the thing again we sort of white-knuckle as we don't like it or we don't want it or yeah, we would just have it be different. But it's in that contrast we learn so much. In fact, it's counterintuitive to many things that, that we're even taught because it's like the first page in the personal development manual that you focus on what you want, not what you don't want. It's kind of like one of those early training, right? Teaching.

Right.

And yet in many ways it's not either or, it's both. But I like to look at it from that other angle. When we know what we don't want, when we examine, when we look at the things that don't work in our lives, it can give us great clarity about what we do want and what does work in our lives. As much as that was a really painful, in fact, A time in your life where you were completely out of control and at the mercy of so many things, and yet you were picking up the parenting role and the parenting responsibility for your brother. There's so much contrast in that. There's so much in the way of sort of polarity.

Yeah.

How is that? Yeah, you ended up becoming a mother. I'm sure it's informed how you've parented and what you're aware of, and I want to get a sense of what was the next section of your development like before it was that you pivoted into the work that you're currently doing? So I want to make sure we dive into that as well.

2006, I had my son Nikos, and this was a really crazy time for me. I was just launching my first business, and my husband and I were having all kinds of problems. We ended up getting divorced a year after he was born, and I pretty much was starting with All over with nothing and this brand new business. So my friends would watch me, they'd see me come into the office and they would say, how are you even functioning right now? Because I, you know, my son also had a problem sleeping on top of it. So he was, I was up, you know, I was working off of 2 to 3 hours of sleep for like 2 years basically. And it was a really crazy stressful time. But I would say that, you know, it was amazing just to see the strength of how I was able to maneuver whole situation and create this amazing business. You know, we opened offices in LA, New York. I was making amazing money, like putting my son in the best schools and traveling all over the world with him. So I built a beautiful life. But, you know, it was definitely a gift for me to learn problem solving and self-reliance from my mother and my father. And as I started doing the spiritual work, I realized Wow, I had the most amazing mother and father. They gave me exactly what I needed and the more that I got into relationship with them and accepting exactly what happened and exactly where they're at, you know, my mother, I just saw her this Thanksgiving for the first time in 8 years and it was heartbreaking, you know, she has like a few teeth left, like she's, you know, she's gained like a ton of weight. It was hard, but it was also this opportunity for me to really just honor exactly how she is, you know, with no looking down on the way she chose to live her life. You know, what I saw as I was doing this spiritual work, and especially with the plant medicine work, which we'll get into later, but it was showing me this incredible woman who chose— and this is my beliefs, you know— we chose and made this contract together before Coming here. And, you know, I thought when I really looked at it from this perspective, I'm like, wow, this woman chose this so that I could do this. Like, what an epic, amazing mother. Wow. You know? And so I was able to just love on her in this totally different way. And, you know, it was funny because my mother's got schizophrenia now from doing meth for so long. And there were family members that were getting really triggered because they were addressing her problems. And instead of— now she's developed a defense mechanism that the second that you bring up a problem, she makes up a fantasy world, you know, like of why it's going on. And so she was getting attacked. And I just turned to everyone, I'm like, I agree with her. I believe that these things happened, you know, even though they were really far-out stories. But I feel like I'm just able to love her in such a deep way, exactly the way she is, and be really grateful for what she gave me.

Yeah. Gosh, Brandy, that's so beautiful. And I think what I feel at the moment that, for me anyway, is so beautiful about that is it's— you've just described what unconditional love looks like. Like, here's somebody that you could be angry with and no one would ever criticize you for being upset, angry, whatever the case, because—

Right.

Yeah, the reasons are obvious. And where you've come to is a place of accepting her. of acceptance of her really feels like 100% acceptance because even in how you're sharing that, I don't feel any resentment. I don't feel anything like, uh, that requires even forgiveness. You know, forgiveness, this wonderful thing, this amazing thing, and yet it's also a really tough thing for a lot of people. And I think learning how to forgive is vital for all of us. And yet at the same time, Yeah. If you accept people, if you accept someone, There's nothing to forgive. It's like you could exactly skip over the step of forgiveness, which gives people such fits, just simply by accepting them as they are, 100%.

Exactly. And loving, and loving what is, and trusting that exactly the way everything is, is exactly what you are creating for your highest good. Always. Your whole reality, your families, your whatever circumstances are showing up, It's perfect.

Yes. So you started moving people along in their businesses and you were good at it. You've described some of the qualities of an entrepreneur, of a business, you know, a person starts a business, runs a business successfully. You're tenacious, it's sort of no quit, and you know how to problem solve. I mean, when you're 8 years old and you're a pseudo mother, or not even pseudo, you're literally like a surrogate mother to your brother, This is a skill set that you can apply in so many ways in life. So I'm not surprised, but your business also hit hard times because there was a lot of unresolved stuff. I'm guessing that part of how it was that you continued to pivot was there's still a lot of unresolved stuff at that stage in that phase of your life. So how is it that you move out of the marketing space and that pretty conventional business model into the work that you do? So why don't you share a little bit of that pivot and then lead us into exactly— What it is you do now, which is quite a bit different when it comes to supporting people in their development, both business development and their personal growth as well. Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

Well, when I found personal development work, I just got obsessed reading books every second that I could, and I just found them The more that I was learning and incorporating into my life, the more freedom I was finding. And I loved it so much, I started a program for men transitioning from prison. After my first business, I asked, what if I took money completely out of this? What would I do? And I started putting together this project that I called the Sleeping Giants Project. And what I heard was, wake up the giants. What is the way that I can make the greatest impact? Wake up the giants. And I had this plan. I even put it together on a vision board and it was so detailed. Now, it's not to say that every time, you know, you get a vision that it's going to be so accurate, but this, it's amazing to me in retrospect how much from this vision board specifically manifested. And one of the things I put was a resort in Costa Rica and I wanted to have the most breakthrough healing modalities. And then I had, you know, this whole idea for a platform and content and everything for waking up. This vision was there and I was working on it on the side always. And then I was telling myself, well, I have to keep doing this business to fund what I really want to do. And I kept telling myself that story for so many years that finally the universe was like, all right, we're going to intervene here. This is— your plan is going to take a long time. And so finally, A situation happened with my business partner where we had a falling out overnight. It was a really crazy time because I, you know, I had built up this company and put everything into it and overnight it was gone. And I had a choice, like I had a lawyer that was willing to take it on contingency, ready to go. And I really was so exhausted and I'm like, oh my God, do I really want to fight for this for 2 years? And I made the decision to just let go. And it was hard. You know, I'm a single mom. It was hard to just let go of that security and safety. But I really just committed to stepping into doing what my heart was calling for at all costs. And I spoke it out loud. I said, I want to be used on one of the biggest movements on the planet. I said that because I was fed up. I was fed up with Dragging myself into work every day and doing something that I thought I needed to do to make money to fund what I really wanted to do. It was soul-sucking. And I think a lot of people know how crushing that is on the soul when you're not doing your work, your mission, and you're sacrificing yourself. I finally made that decision. And this is when miracles, synchronicities, amazing things greater than anything I could have dreamed up started to happen in my life.

Wow. I certainly can relate to the soul-sucking. The soul-sucking. I don't want to call it sacrifice, even though that's a great alliteration for that. But I mean, yeah, it's such an interesting thing because I did 18 years in a job that for the better part of the last 8 or 10, I felt was sucking the life out of me. But there's an element that we have to fund Sometimes we've got to be able to fund our pivots. We've got to fund those changes and transitions. So it really is, again, one of those things where for a period of time you do suck it up if there's something else you want to do. But then you also get to a period, as I did, where you can't make the sacrifice anymore. And it's really self-sacrifice because it's not like you're doing any— you know, like it's not the sacrifice of what you would do to save someone's life or to protect a child or to protect family. It's more like you're protecting your heart. Mm-hmm. You're doing something, you can no longer do something that's damaging your heart.

Yeah.

I so get where you were at with that and what courage it literally took in that moment to say, I'll let go of the reins. I'll let go of the, you know, again, take my white knuckles off the steering wheel and leave it to spirit in some ways to just sort of, you know, hold me, carry me, guide me or something else. That's, and that seems, that's what happened. So you're a living, breathing example of of truly letting go, not just talking about it conceptually, but you did let go. You did surrender.

Yeah.

And tell us what happened.

So I started getting led to all of these different consulting projects, amazing ones like running Mary— helping Marianne Williamson run her campaign for Congress and all of these really amazing thought leaders and products that I was working with. And then a couple of People from Costa Rica contacted me who had an ayahuasca retreat center, and I had no idea what ayahuasca was. Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca.

I know there's some folks out there laughing right now because they know what ayahuasca is, and then some folks going, I've kind of heard of that. I don't know what that is. What is that? Well, we're about to find out. Yes. What is ayahuasca? Yes.

I wasn't really that interested in what ayahuasca was. I was interested in the fact that I just manifested some people that want to work together that had the most beautiful resort in Costa Rica. So I fly out there.

There's like, they have their own water. Costa Rica. That's all you could hear was Costa Rica.

Costa Rica. Costa Rica. Yes. And a well-needed trip. When I got there, I was blown away by this land. It was just, there was fruit trees. It looked like the Garden of Eden. It was like waterfall. Beautiful. And they were looking to partner together to help, you know, market their ayahuasca retreats. And I'm like, what is ayahuasca? And when they're explaining it to me, I'm like, hmm, that the healing part of it sounded really amazing to me when they were telling me the results and what was happening. But then there was a part of me that was like, are they taking some drug? You know, and especially with my background, I've always been so sensitive to that, extra sensitive to that. So, you know, I thought, okay, well, it looks like it's doing amazing work. The people are so beautiful. And I'm like, okay, yes, let's do this. I'll do my retreats over here and you guys can do your ayahuasca over there. And I go back home and then the synchronicities start happening again. I get invited almost every week for, you know, the next 3 or 4 weeks to do an ayahuasca ceremony. And at a certain point I'm like, this is crazy. I've never heard of this before. Now it's just showing up every week. And I'm like, there's no way I'm doing this stuff. That's just, it's out of the question. And finally a woman, you know, who is in her 60s, has been doing ayahuasca for— and plant medicine for 30 years, and an amazing thought leader that I was working with asked me to come and do a yearly visioning workshop with the medicine. And I tried everything to get out of it, and finally I went because it was her. And I talked to the shaman, and when I understood the difference that, you know, this plant medicine is actually— it's a medicine, it's to go inside of yourself, where a drug is something that takes you outside of yourself. And when I understood what the abilities were for healing and for being able to lift the veil and see, you know, visions for what you're not able to see, I decided it was something that I was going to do. And so I said yes. And that was one of the biggest pivots in my life. When I decided to take that, the medicine, you know, I was told to set 2 intentions. Mm-hmm. Or to set an intention, and I set 2, because during that time I was like wondering, what is my life work? Is this vision that I'm seeing really true? Is it realistic? And then also my pattern with men, because I had this history of attracting the same man with a different face over and over, and it was really the dysfunction that was holding me back from really going to the next level and everything that I wanted to do. That night when I took the medicine, it changed my life forever. It was the first time that I was able to hear my inner voice crystal clear, and it showed me this vision and it said, overcompensating mother. Exactly, those are the words. That's what you are. And it took me on this journey and it showed me every man that I had ever been with and their relationship with their mother, and then it showed that their mother either betrayed them or did something that they were upset about and And that I, because I didn't— never had a mother, you know, taking care of me, I became the ultimate super mother that I wish I had, and I was giving that in excess to people. So it was like the perfect, like, codependent hookup because they were like, Mommy! And I was like, I'll take care of you and give you the love you never had from your mother! And then it would just like be this great high and this great crashing low, and it was really difficult for me. So the medicine showed me You know, I had done a lot of self-help work, but it really was showing me with new lenses because it said that energy, that heart that you have as a mother, that is for your life work. And when you give it, when you put all of that energy into a man or relationship with someone that doesn't want to do the work and isn't there to meet you, you're going to drain the life force out of you. And it's showing me the gift of being, you know, find that healing and to be able to put that into my life work. work and what that looked like. And then it showed me this whole vision of the Sleeping Giants Project, and I was just blown away. It was so detailed, and it was like, this is all happening and you're being guided. So it was showing me to let go of the way that I used to create. I always created from this super masculine way that I learned is the way you make things happen, and I would force and push and control and fight and do whatever it takes to make my— what I want happen. And this was asking me to do the feminine, go and step into my feminine manifestation powers and to surrender and to be guided and to visualize and to, you know, let go, um, have my intention, but let go of how it's going to unfold and to, you know, watch the guidance and just trust that it's all happening. And that is what allowed my greatest dream of my life to unfold.

And today, this is a dream that is ongoing. And I know I'm privileged to be able to experience this dream shortly. I think we're gonna be out there. Randy and I will be at your retreat center in sometime late March, very beginning of April, which is super exciting. What are you doing with the retreat center now? What's your highest vision for what this work can be in the world? Because you brought up an incredible question. I think it's a question that not everybody is aware of. I really believe that. I don't think it's a question that— While it's simple, can be underestimated or that the importance of it can be underestimated. And that is, what is your work to do? What is yours to do? And the opposite, the contrast question to that is, what's not yours to do? So it sounds like when you were having that vision and you were getting clarity there, part of what you realized was that there was work that you were doing being a surrogate mother, being that overcompensating mother. Is that what came through?

Yes. Yes.

And stepping into that role, which was not your work to do. But what was your work to do was to put that energy and all that love and all that holding space and the tenacity and the willpower and everything into this vision for helping to support giants. And I also want to get a sense, I want to understand where you are with that vision now. And what does Wake Up the Giants mean to you today? And by the way, what was the length of time? When was that? Is that 5 years ago? Is that 10 years ago? 10 years ago. 10 years ago? When did you have that vision?

Yeah. The first vision about the Sleeping Giants Project was, I want to say, about 8 years ago.

Okay.

Yeah. And then, you know, I had always been working on it in different capacities on the side of my business. And then when, you know, Rythmia started to manifest and I met my now husband, Gerard Powell, and Dr. Jeff, and they were partnered with Michael Beckwith. And it was amazing because somebody that I had spoken with one time heard about, you know, Costa Rica and that I had partnered with this center. And he told Gerard. So we ended up meeting up through that synchronicity.

Mm-hmm.

And we knew that we were supposed to do this together. So we flew together to Costa Rica, found this property and built it out. And eventually I decided to let go of the other companies and the other resort that I was partnered with and created Rythmia. And the vision, you know, for Rythmia is basically to align you back with your soul. This is our teachings and our beliefs at Rythmia. We have all of these different ways to access the subconscious, to access altered states of consciousness so that you can have a full healing of mind, body, spirit, and emotional body, which for me was the intention of the Sleeping Giants Project originally. You know, I had been going through all of the self-help programs and they were amazing and I had so much transformation from them. But there was places where I was stuck and it was because I was going through the mind. And so much of our reality is being created through the subconscious and we're not even aware of what's in there. You know, so for us to actually heal quickly, rapidly, we must use modalities that access all of the different parts of ourselves. And this is what Rythmia does.

And that's how the plant medicine is incorporated. I know you guys do breathwork and you have a number of other more traditional modalities that help people to access those sort of hidden parts of themselves, or at least the parts that they're not able to consciously look at and get guidance from. But ayahuasca is another way that the plant medicine known as ayahuasca is another way that you do that. Say a little bit more about that because again, I'm sure there's some folks that just have no clue the way when you first were introduced to it, you had no clue. Right, what it was.

Right, right. Ayahuasca is a plant that's been used for thousands of years, you know, in the Amazon by indigenous tribes for healing and awakening to your higher self. In Rythmia, it's a big part of our program. So we offer the plant medicine. It's facilitated in a medical facility and part of a program where you're able to learn about what this plant medicine is and how to use it, and then how to understand the visions and the healings that you received, and then how to integrate that into your life. Because the magic of this plant is that it has incredible healing abilities, but it handles 50% of the healing, and then the other 50% is up to you and how you're going to take that into your life and actually work it. And it's just like any of the other healing abilities or healing modalities at Rythmia, holotropic breathwork, Or doing The Answer Is You with Michael Beckwith. You know, people have these amazing awarenesses, healings, opportunities to create your future self, but it's really up to you if you're really willing to do the work. Because I've seen people also do this work and have the awarenesses, but then not show up in their life and take action on the visions or the healings.

Mm-hmm.

And you can get into a loop, and that loop actually gets more difficult because the universe is like, wait a minute, you just had this awareness and now you're choosing to ignore it. So then the lessons start getting more difficult. It starts with a rock, then it turns into a big stone, then it turns into a brick, then it turns into a brick wall. And it's like, wake up. So you can't lose either way, no matter which way you go. But I always suggest that if you're going to go on this path of quantum healing, to really be ready to show up and do the work.

Yeah, that's a good warning for that as well because consciousness is a bitch. You know that old expression that ignorance is bliss is true. I mean, on some level ignorance really is bliss. So careful what you ask for. Like you want to be more awake, you want to be more conscious, more aware. That's a tough road at times because the price that you pay is a very different price. The price that spirit or consciousness or whatever— I would use the word God— that is exacted out of you when you violate what you now know to be true about yourself, about the world, the price you pay is greater. You know, sometimes to not know is safer on some level. I just don't think that's the journey. I don't think that's the journey for any of us. However it is that we are brought to more self-awareness, I believe it's what's in store for all of us. And I think it's— Right. To be in an environment, you've got all this love and all these people that are there to help facilitate integration and help you to heal or at least discover things that have been maybe hidden in your subconscious or things that you've wondered about but just didn't understand how it is that you are the way you are. You know, how it is you've been impacted by your life experiences including the traumas and we've all been traumatized. Yeah. At various points. So to make heads or tails, make sense of that, is such a powerful thing. But you're right to put that caveat, to put that warning out there that once you become aware, it's not like you can become unaware again.

Yeah.

The balloon, you blow up a balloon, it's a great visual for this, I think. You blow up a balloon, it'll never go back to its original shape. It's the same thing with us when we become aware or more in tune, you can't go back to that place of ignorance again as to that thing, right? So, wow, what a blessing it is that you're doing this work in the world, Brandi, and such a great example of living it, not just, you know, in some way speaking or talking or sharing it with other people, but actually living it and being an example for that yourself. So, you know, rituals are very important, and obviously that plant medicine itself is an ancient ritual. When I use the word ritual, I don't think about religious context. I don't even think in terms of spirituality, and I'm a very spiritual person. I think about consciously created action, and it could be the action of thought or the action of a doing, a physical doing, but it's in essence a higher level of habit. Habit to me is the way I brush my teeth without thinking about it, and I pick up the brush with my left hand, and I don't think about it. And I think a lot of our lives on some level are so habituated that we go through hours of the day and take no notice of the beauty or take no notice of our breath or our heart or so many things because we are creatures of habit. Yeah. So rituals are just this, to me, something that we do consciously and we can change so much of our experience of being by being more conscious of what we do. Do you have rituals? Is there one particular ritual, let's say each day that you do and that's paid a dividend for you?

Yes. I have many morning rituals, but one of the most powerful ones is I like to wake up in that kind of half sleep. I'm all about altered states of consciousness, right? And so I love to, you know, I look at myself as like a— yeah. So I like to take control of the program and rather than allowing bad habits or just letting myself be sloppy or not intentional to take over my day. I like to really step in and make my day super intentional, but I start by programming myself. So when I'm in that altered state of consciousness in between wake and sleep, it's a really powerful time that you can program exactly how your day's going to go. And I do like self-hypnosis. I go in and I actually say, okay, subconscious, Here's what I'm programming in here today. You're a badass, number one. You're enough, number two.

Badass, number one.

You're enough, number two. And I just go down the list of all of the things of how I want the day to go, of what belief systems I want to reinforce, you know, because it takes a whole lifetime for us to create what we are. So if we're going to step into our future self, then we need to put the work in. To program this new self. And so in this state, it's a really amazing time where you could go in and you can set your intention for the day. And you could even say, you know how like when you set an alarm clock and you wake up right before and you're like, that's amazing. How does that always happen? It's the same way when you're in that state. You could actually put triggers and you could even say like, okay, this is something where a reaction that I normally have or something that usually takes me down. And What am I going to do when that is coming? You know, and you can program it like an alarm clock so that you actually, oh, okay, now I'm responding with this new response. And that's probably one of my favorite parts of my morning ritual.

Wow. Absolutely love that. And it's so interesting that every time I sort of ask that question to somebody that's been doing really amazing things in the world, they always have a very similar aspect to their morning ritual. I don't even say morning ritual. This is a waking And in your tweak on this, sort of, that's to express that half-sleep state. So it's kind of waking, but you're also sort of still kind of eyes squinted and am I quite awake, not quite awake, that in-between stage. And, and I remember speaking with Michael Beckwith a few months ago about his waking ritual and my waking ritual, and there's this beautiful little overlap between his answer and my answer and your answer. So one of the things that he does when he wakes up, he asks the universe, what's my assignment? In fact, that was one of our podcasts just a little while ago. And I thought that, yeah, what a great question to start the day. Talk about planting a seed with this great potential, that question. Yeah. And questions are so powerful. What is my assignment? And yours is in many ways reflective of the one that I learned by hearing about Benjamin Franklin and how Ben Franklin, you know, hundreds of years ago used to start out with his list of states that he— things he wanted to experience during the day. And he had like 13 states. And I started out with my list of 13. I said, you know, I want to be the conscious creator of my own life experience. So it is very much the same way that things are created in nature. You plant the seed in soil. Do you expect that you plant the seed that you're going to see fruit? Are you going to see a tree? Are you going to see a flower? No. But if you don't plant the seed, will you see a tree? Will you see a flower? Will you see fruit? No. So it's just a question of looking at nature and then modeling what you know to work. I mean, not just know to work, it's the way it works, right? The seed goes in the ground. Mm-hmm. It's in there. The soil nurtures it. The sun nurtures it. The rain nurtures it. And then it germinates. And under the ground, invisible to us, things are happening. Changes are happening. Transformation, metamorphosis, whatever you want to call it. Things are happening. All of a sudden, then there's something that pops out of the ground, this little green shoot. And again, a little while later, something else happens and it becomes that flower, that tree, that fruit. And it's— where does it all begin? It begins with that seed. That seed that We have to have faith that that seed has all the potential in it to become something else through the process that we could seek to understand, or we could simply have faith that that's the process. That's the natural way of things. And the beginning of our day and the first thoughts of our day, to me, are the exact example. It's the corollary to the seed turning into the fruit tree. It's the thought that we start the day with.

Totally.

And it's just what you said. If your first thought of the day is, look, I'm gonna live, I'm gonna be a badass today. I'm gonna be—

I'm gonna—

I today, I am not gonna question my deservedness, my worthiness. I'm gonna be a great receiver today. I'm gonna open myself to unconditional love today. I'm gonna be a forgiving soul today. Right. I'm gonna live and walk with peace in my stride today. I mean, everybody I see, everybody I speak to, everybody I think of, I'm going to experience the expression of the divine. I mean, when those are the thoughts that you start your day with, what does that germinate and look like later on in the day, later on in the cycle, 5 hours later, 10 hours later? What does it look like? Hello? Right?

Yeah. And when you go to sleep, what does it look like? And then the beautiful part about it is like when you start, when you live your day every single day, Eventually, you turn into this vision that you, you know, that you were holding for yourself. But it starts like when you have these high expectations and you don't have a daily practice and a daily ritual, you know, it could be this dream that you keep putting off, just like the workout that you promised you're going to do when New Year's comes or when this happens or that happens, you know. And it becomes this thing that's so big and grand and unattainable. But when you break it down Moment to moment, day by day, all of a sudden you step in and you're like, whoa, look who I am. Look what I created. Look at my life.

This is a little more science than people sometimes think. It's— there's woo-woo in it. I'm in favor of the woo-woo, certainly. And there's science to support the woo-woo as well. Brandy, I've loved this conversation. I've so enjoyed just our chat.

Thank you so much. Me too. That was awesome. Amazing, Adam, always. Love you, brother.

Oh my God, I love you too. And what I'm loving in this moment is how, again, just thinking in terms of what we just were sharing about that process and how things— what you plant ultimately turns into something. Sometimes we plant seeds consciously. That's why I say, to me, what I aspire to be is the conscious creator of my own life experience. And sometimes we unconsciously plant things, which is Interesting when we think about plant medicine and we think about what work you do at Rythmia, this sort of level at which we are by default or by our programming just unconsciously planting things that we don't necessarily want to turn into something else. Like we wouldn't consciously plant the seed of regret. We wouldn't consciously take that seed of anger or of—

Right.

Resentment or any of those things that we feel or fear, the seed of fear. Who's going to wake up in the morning, put their feet on the floor and go, I'm consciously planting a seed of fear today? I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. So that it germinates and turns into something that is the reflection of fear.

Exactly. I'm going to consciously recreate, yeah, and I'm going to consciously recreate my horror childhood. I'm going to just keep recreating it. Nobody consciously is doing it, but that's what happens when you're taking from the past, projecting that fear into the future, and then bringing it into the now. That's what the cycle is.

Yes. So as we wrap this up, I want to share a waking ritual. I love how you shared your waking ritual. I'm going to share mine, and obviously we'll take it forward because that's, you know, the most important thing that any of us can do. Rythmia and information about Brandy and about Rythmia and the work that they're doing there, which is Absolutely amazing. And as I said, my wife and I are due to be there in just a couple of months. All of that will be contained in the show notes. So please check out the show notes. Please absolutely leave your comments at adamarkel.com/podcast. We'll reply to those comments as well as leave a review on iTunes. We'd love to hear from you. That feedback is like oxygen for us. And if you've not yet joined our community, you can go to startmypivot.com and you can join our Facebook group, which is really impeccable. Just incredible people like Brandy, like-minded, like-hearted folks. That would be a great way for you to continue to engage with the energy. I want to leave you with this. It's been the seed that I've planted in the soil of my mind for about 10 years now, and that is that tomorrow, just like today, we get to wake up. Now, I assume that in this moment we all can feel grateful that we got to wake up today because the alternative, we know that's unthinkable on some level, but there's also no guarantee that we were going to wake up today, that we were going to get a new day, and there's no guarantee that we'll get it tomorrow. So I want you to think that in the moment that you become aware tomorrow morning that you are awake, that that's no accident. As Michael Beckwith, as Reverend Beckwith says, there's an assignment whether you know it or you don't know it. And it's okay that you're not clear because even the Reverend himself asked the question at the beginning of the day, what is my assignment? So he doesn't know every day.

Yeah.

So you don't have to know every day. That's okay. But it's in that asking. It's in that humility, that moment where we can ask for guidance that we can also be led. You know, when we're in our ego heads or we're thinking we know everything, it's very difficult for us to get guidance, to be open to receiving it. So be a great receiver of guidance tomorrow morning when you wake up. Acknowledge the fact that waking is no accident, that there's a purpose for it whether you know it or not, and that is something you can be grateful for. So wake up, be grateful. In those few moments, especially in between sleep and consciousness, as Brandy was saying, that, that sort of fogginess, that little haze that we're in, it's such a beautiful space to plant those seeds. And then if you're inclined to even go one step further and talk about woo, man, just say it out loud, scream it out loud, say it from your bed or when your feet hit the floor, say these words, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. What if you decided to love your life no matter what? Randy, what a joy. What a pleasure to spend some time together. It's been wonderful. Everybody else, ciao for now. We'll see you on the next one. And again, please let us know what your thoughts are about this show and check out Randy in the show notes and get to Rythmia because that's where we're going to. Thank you. So,

thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcasts. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at Pivot Community. Thanks for listening. PivotFB.com.