Money, Systems & Microdosing with Erica Ash, Ian Bishop & Julie Cyvonne

We get a credit card and we're like, yeah, I have a business credit card. It has my LLC name on it, but it is, in fact, a personal credit card. You use your Social Security, therefore your consumer credit, to get that card. Oftentimes we don't run into that till we go to finance a car. And they're like, oh, I'm sorry, you're declined mortgage.

Oh, it's against your debt to income ratio. You're like, oh, that's a business card. They're like, no, it's not.

No, it's not.

I did an event back in January on Maui and we did owners and operators together. What we find is a lot of times visionary wants to talk about what's working. Integrator wants to talk about what's not working.

Yep.

Yes. Oh, my God.

To a T. I truly believe, like, 90% of millionaires and billionaires have done psychedelics, and just not all of them are willing to talk about it. Intentional use for healing, that doesn't get out of control. That stays at, like, that micro dosing level is the secret to success.

Erica, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me. I couldn't. I couldn't be more grateful for this moment.

Oh, same.

We feel the same way. Because I actually. I don't know, Chris, you're probably just as grateful, but I. I do think I win on this one.

Oh, yeah.

Because you are all about helping women with something that I have struggled with my entire life, which is numbers, which. Which is understanding my numbers, which is feeling empowered by numbers, which has really stopped me from feeling empowered and making a lot of decisions in my life. And so I want to get really vulnerable with, you know, how I felt in the audience. To know that this is actually a problem that most women deal with.

Yeah. And I kind of want to piggyback on that. Cause I have a ton of female clients. Right. And one of the biggest gaps is they've never taken the time to learn their numbers. And it does. Does create problems. There's that old adage, you don't know what you don't know. And it's not what you know that'll hurt you, it's what you don't know that'll end up hurting you. Right. And this is where we see so many people get into trouble. Like they didn't know that somebody ordering their inventory put 200 grand on a credit card, or they didn't know that they had one month where cash flow was going to go inverted. And all of these things can be avoided. But it's intimidating because it feels like it's a big subject. And I've watched Lori, you know, struggle with learning these things and say what a lot of people say, and that is, well, I'll let someone else do it. Well, I've got my husband or, well, I've got my CFO team. And in this day and age, that's not good enough. You have to know your numbers so that the sneaky things don't happen to you. That's why we're excited to have you here.

So, Erica, why do you think so many women avoid the financial side of their business even when they're doing everything else in their business? Right.

I'm really glad we're starting here. And it is a lot of the points that you already mentioned, we were raised maybe without that financial language or just those financial conversations at all. And that was in our family unit, you know, at dinner, whether you had those discussions or not. But then we jump into this magic world, but chaotic world of business, and all of a sudden those numbers get amplified. The money conversations, the stakes around money get bigger. But yet no one sat us down and was like, hey, here is the 101, you know, and we dove into business with a what and a why and a mission and a purpose and this big, a beautiful vision. We don't got time to learn from finances. Like, for me, when I started my journey, I was like, now, later, Like, I'll get to that later. Like, I'll look at my finances later. So I was just saying yes, yes, yes to things that deducted that amount. So it was yes to expenses. A software, a program.

Oh, God, yeah.

I mean, even your. Your simple editing software, that's still, whatever, a month. And we don't stop to pause and be like, wait, how is this going to impact me a year, three years or more down the road? So that's where it turns into a chronic circle of avoidance. Main thing we. We avoid is it's like a shame and embarrassment that you weren't taught that. So when you go, you're like, oh, well, perfect scenario. I go and look at my numbers and I'd assess them, but what if I don't understand them? Or I go to a mastermind or a roundtable and I get asked a financial question, oh, my gosh, what if I don't know the answer? So again, it turns into that chronic avoidance cycle.

It's a cycle. So then you don't go to the thing that could actually help you, or you don't ask the question in Fear of looking stupid. Like, that was one of the biggest things when I was raising money and starting this company. I saw where I could have gotten stopped over and over, and I saw where my other friends were getting stopped because they're like, well, I don't know that answer. What if I look stupid on that call? Or what if? And I'm like, I had the realization in order for me to learn, I'm going to have to, like, be okay with looking stupid or find people. Which this is. This is the point of this whole podcast. And why you're so, like, pivotal for. For women is I knew I would have to find someone that I was comfortable with who would say to me, like, hey, I was there too. I understand this. Let me tell you my story, and here's how we're going to turn it around this weekend, because we're at the VIP Mastermind right now, and you shared with me, like, a moment where you had given, like, you felt like you just kept giving your power away and something shifted for you. Can you tell me that story?

Yes. So my husband and I were in a business, and I sat in the shadows. So I was the background of everything. And in a lot of the business situations, I would have great ideas and I would try to present them or engage in these conversations, but I realized I wasn't communicating because it was all men. I wasn't communicating in a way that reciprocated back. So I was getting dismissed because I wasn't answering in. What I learned was the language of business, which is numbers.

So.

So through all of that, I developed this belief. And it. Honestly, it started as a child, was reinforced throughout my young adulthood that I was bad at numbers. I just wasn't a numbers person. This wasn't for me.

It was like a mantra.

It was a mantra.

It was my mantra, too.

I mean, I remember getting a chemistry test back, and it was a C minus. And on the top of the test, the professor in red writing was like, learn to use your calculator. Oh, my goodness. I never signed up for another class that said, must learn, you know, no algebra or have a calculator. So I was not a numbers person at all, and just compounded and compounded. So I had the most embarrassing experience where I didn't have the answers. I didn't know how. Oh, so shameful. I. I mean, I would beat red cry. I'm like, do I need to fake an emergency and exit stage right? And that came from this. So delegation, the avoidance and the embarrassment and shame, it led to Delegation. Mm. So I delegated to my husband. Even in our personal. In our marriage, I'm like, nope, he's got the finances handled. I'm good. Like, not for me. Not my zone of genius. And delegation can be a slippery slope when you are a business owner. And that is the moment where I realize I am 100% relinquishing my financial power. Therefore, I was relinquishing my ability to be a true leader as a founder. And that perpetuated when I moved into being the face of my brand and my business. So I was like, no more. I am taking that wheel.

I love that so much. And, you know, it's. It's not just really what you're saying. You're relinquishing the power. And when you relinquish power, it means the power to make an informed decision of when you said, hey, I'm not speaking up because I'm like, you know, there's this idea, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea. And when you know your numbers, it's like, no, we can absolutely do that. Here's how this could work. Here's how it could look. Or this idea is great, but I think this is a next year idea, and this is important because of the numbers. Like, there's so many places that you cannot grow. You're stifled. Like your. Your growth is stifled because you don't know what's possible. And maybe you're spending too much and you could lose your business as well. Like, there's so many dangers to not knowing your numbers. So can you tell me some of the. Some of the dangers and maybe some of the stresses that come when, you know, the women that you work with don't know their numbers, what's happening in their brain and in their business?

Absolutely. So this connects with. You don't know what you don't know. And I think we are all hyper aware of that possibility looming around. Like, oh, there. There possibly is things I don't know, but oftentimes when we don't understand our finances, we know we.

There's a gut feeling.

It's a gut feeling, but it's also the thing that'll keep you up at 3:00am like, oh, my gosh. Like, can I pay or is. Is. So is that invoice going to come in or not? You just can't make these informed decisions. Therefore, your nervous system cannot be at peace. You cannot sit in your mindset meditation, you know, spiritual practices, and be fully at peace and grounded in order to receive that Abundance because you're still like buzzing worried about this thing that you're avoiding, you're pushing down the road, you're not necessarily taking full ownership or responsibility for. So those dangers lead into big problems and they compound where we are losing money in our business. We cannot spot red flags. We cannot identify mistakes or changes in the money. One of my favorite stories is when we were running our e commerce business, it was time to just take a look at where we were saying yes in spending our money and our operating expenses. And I was just looking through non judgmentally which is I always invite women to do just look. This is just awareness. It's just money in, money out. It's just numbers. Don't have judgment, but know that you have the power to make a different choice and say yes or no to that expense. And I did this audit and I found $27,000 that we were spending a year on copy paper.

Wow.

This was and 27 grand a year wasted in the business in paper. And I solved that with a $30 a month subscription and three iPads which was like I went to Costco online and bought them. And problem solved. $27,000 right back into our bottom line. That could now go to reinvestment for our future goals. It could go into our owner pocket and pay us more as owners or another employee, another employer, you name it, the opp. Now it's like, wow, I have choices because I just free freed up because I found $27,000. So that is one of the biggest mistakes. And on the opposite, it's like losing money but saving money but then the opportunity to make more so we can make save or earn.

It's so huge. Like there, you know, are times too in your business where you're working with people that especially when women work with a lot of men, if, especially if you're in a new business or a new industry. So many women pivot into different industries. And if you don't know your numbers or what numbers should be or what prices you should be paying or anything like that, you don't have negotiating power. And this is a huge place where women spend way more money in their business and what men spend because they'll know the dollar amounts, they know where they can negotiate. They know they can negotiate because everything is negotiable. And these are places where women are going to spend far more in their business. If they don't know these things or if they don't feel empowered around their numbers, we don't even ask.

Here's what strikes me the situation around your numbers, whether it's good or bad, isn't going away just because you don't know it, but if you choose to know it, you can make it go away. Does that make sense? So, like, it's not just, oh, I want to be empowered. It's not just, oh, I want to be knowledgeable. It's if I actually took the time to learn this, I would realize two things. Number one, it wasn't as hard as I thought, especially when someone like you teaches it. But number two, any problem you find, there's a plan to make it go away so you don't have to be afraid of what you're going to find when it comes to your business numbers. Right? There are so many solutions. Also something that you teach. But one of the things that you teach the most, I like. And, you know, I've got the privilege of working with you and your husband Barrett as one on one clients. So, you know, I get all these great conversations with you. And we're having a conversation about the seven emotional stages of business finance. So could you kind of break down. I know it's asking a lot because there's seven of them, but real quick, would you break down the seven emotional stages of business finance?

100%. So we already briefly touched on the first three, which is avoidance. And that is, I would rather do anything else but look at my numbers. And then the second is often shame and embarrassment. And this usually comes from a moment or an experience that gets that belief that reinforces, like, I'm not good at numbers. It's not my thing. And then delegation, which is, I think, the most dangerous stage that we can find ourselves as business owners. And then we move into the transformation. So that's where they start gaining that clarity. And they go, oh, this actually makes sense. It's not as hard as I thought it was, especially when I bring in the right guide to show me how easy it is to understand these things. And then we move into that empowerment feeling. So we come back to that internal like, yes, I am steering the ship. I have that wheel. Not Jesus, but me. I am making these decisions, and I know how to make the decisions and I have that data to back it up. And then we move into full ownership, which is like, heck, yes, this is my business, my responsibility, genius, my rhythm. And you have now set in these rituals and these rhythms that really work with you and the way that you want your business structure. Because we all need to find. I think that's customized how we look at our numbers is customized to the individual. And then that's when we're in that exception. Acceptance and peace. You go to that. Those numbers with so much peace and clarity. And like, yes, I know this. This is easy. And you can make those decisions without fear, and it's beautiful.

First of all, you know, to everyone listening, I would love to know what stage you think you're in out of those seven stages. And what strikes me about these seven stages, every time I hear them, is people think that they have to wait until they get to stage six or seven to feel good about their business finances, and that's not the case. And you know. You know, when you feel like something's too far away, you don't tackle it at all. That's not the case. It's closer than you think. You just have to get to stage four, which is clarity. And clarity can happen real fast. Right? You start out in avoidance, and then you learn a little something once you stop avoiding it, and that's called embarrassment and shame. And you're like, oh, my God, I don't know if I want to face this or I'm embarrassed that I got myself here. But then if you get a little bit of courage, you start delegating some of the financial responsibilities to start fixing some of it. And you really get the empowerment when you say, damn it, Erica, show me how to never end up here again. And that's clarity. And clarity is not that far down the totem pole for you to feel really good going forward.

It's amazing how the confidence and the empowerment and the, like, heck, yes, I got this. Starts to really brew with just one layer of that foundation of clarity set in place. You're like, oh, my goodness. I. I do have everything within me now. It's in there. You just mirrored that back to me. It isn't that hard. And, yeah, let's do this.

Where do you think you are a babe? Because I've watched you start with avoidance and embarrassment.

If I'm being honest, I'm still really in this because I deeply had the mantra of I don't understand numbers. And I also didn't graduate from high school, so I, like, still can find a shame story there, even though I've been out with it for a while. So I'm in the learning phase. I'm still a little bit in delegation, but I'm getting into clarity in certain places. But I have. I have a lot of places to work through still. But I book meetings now with my CFO team. Not just meetings on, like, updates, because I Found update. Meetings weren't making me learn. They were just telling me, showing me what I didn't know. Like, okay, what do these numbers mean, though?

Yeah.

So now I'm taking, now we're doing meetings where I'm actually learning. But honestly, like, even just hearing from you, learning from, from you, I'm like, oh, there's deeper levels that are actually exciting me more. Because, you guys, what I want you to know is, is in the beginning, it's a bit scary to look at everything, but the more you look, the more you get excited. And so now I'm like, you know, Chris, I want to go even deeper into our finances. Because the thing that I saw is after, you know, Chris's dad passed away, I watched his mom really struggle. She. She didn't know anything. And that was like a really eye opening thing that if I didn't have two sons, like she had Chris and Nick to really help her. Where will I be? What will happen? And then also for so many women, I'm, you know, there's been girlfriends who haven't been in a great situation with their partner, but they feel stuck. So.

Yes, because they don't have the clarity or empowerment.

Right. Knowing your numbers gives you options in life, not just in your business, and gives you money back, but it's giving you options to walk out of a bad situation when you feel fully empowered by it. So, yeah, I feel, I feel like I, um, am starting to get in clarity. But I want to know so much more. So I do think this is a lifelong. A lifelong.

The reason I asked is because I've watched you now feel pretty comfortable and pretty good around numbers because I watched you step from delegation into clarity.

Yeah.

And you're right. Kind of bridging the two right now. But scale one to 10, how did you feel about numbers before you got towards delegation? Clarity. And how do you feel about numbers now that you're cruising down that highway of clarity?

I'm so hard on myself, but I was like a negative out of ten and now I'm just hard on myself. I'm a five.

Well, I mean, that's a help and improvement. Yeah, that's halfway there. Yeah, that's cool.

That is. Yeah. And to your point, with clarity, it comes with context. Comes with a side of context. Because it's one thing to know the ingredients, but you have to know how they connect and build upon each other and affect the get the other. So that's where you really can step into a deeper understanding with your conversation. So you, you delegate and you are working with like a financial team, bookkeeper, cfo, whatever it is, and they point out things to you and you can go, okay, well I understand this number, I'm tracking this number. How does that relate to this? And then we can start to put the breadcrumbs together and have a, a more holistic understanding of that cause and effect with your business, which is so huge because you as the founder, you have that decision of the cause and effect.

Okay, so tell me about your top three money moves. So these are like non negotiables.

These three money moves, they come from mistakes that we were making. And the most common mistakes I see pop up. And the first one is legally separating your business and your personal finances and your money. Your separating the two pools.

And people aren't doing that, they are doing that.

Like they hear that and they go, well duh. And it's like, yeah, but legally is that line crystal clear in the sand? And oftentimes, you know, we, well meaning people we knew thought we did, but we nope, no. So that starts with yes, a bank account and actually separating the pools of money. But it's making sure your transfers from one to the other are very clear.

It's like personal to business. Totally different.

Totally different. Totally different bank accounts, everything is separate. But the biggest thing is when we start to look at credit cards, oftentimes there's a lot of bad marketing out there, but we get a credit card and we're like, yeah, I have a business credit card. It has my LLC name on it, but it is in fact a personal credit card. You used your Social Security, therefore your consumer credit to get that card. Oftentimes we don't run into that until we go to finance a car. And they're like, oh, I'm sorry, you're declined. Like what? But your business debt is riding on your personal credit.

So you get a mortgage.

Get a mortgage.

Oh, it's against your debt to income ratio. You're like, oh, that's a business card. Like, no it's not.

No it's not. It's personal. And so that liability really can sink you. If your business needs to fold, that debt is now on you and they come after your assets. So that's number one, non negotiable, full separation. So debts and bank accounts and everything stay over here for business and over here for personal.

Personal.

So that's number one. Number two was owner pay. And this was personally. For me, it came into a self worth. But also like my business takes care of me and it's not only paying myself, but it's doing it consistently and therefore it is reliable. And I can count on my business to pay me, but putting my owner pay as a priority, a non negotiable priority. And that comes from where in the equation. You calculate that out. So consistent owner pay. And there are multiple ways to pay yourself, owner pay and delegation. But we always air for the first, which is a true W2 owner pay, because then it's consistent and you know it's coming. So that was the second getting really clear on what that owner pay goal was. So that was looking at our personal life very in depthly and saying, hey, what can we take? But what do we want to take? And then look at the flip side of that. If you're building to sell, okay, what are we. What would that. How would that change? Yes, do we take owner pay? Do we take a different type of owner pay when we want to put more profits back into the business to get it ready to sell? And number three is breaking that cycle of avoidance and looking at my number so creating a really safe for my nervous system ritual to look at my numbers. And it's just awareness, no judgment. But sit down. I call them my Friday money dates. I have a reminder on my calendar to sit down every Friday, have a money date, pour myself a coffee, and we just look. And you're just looking at money in, money out, and asking the questions like, does this still serve my business? Is this a surprise? Did I know this? Did it change? And this is where you're going to pick up on those. Why is my wi fi bill now double? You know, why did this employee charge $47,000 on, you know, like, you find that's when you catch those red flags and potential mistakes or fraudulent checks. But it's weekly. I say weekly.

Essentially, out of those three, the first two I know a million people making this mistake, right? They're not separating business finance with personal finance. They're using a personal credit card, but calling it a business credit card. They're what's called commingling funds back and forth between the business account and the personal account. And then that leads to the second one. They wouldn't have to do that if they would set up formalized owner pay. So just like you'd pay an employee every two weeks, you got to set up an automatic payment to yourself right through payroll every two weeks. So it shows up as W2 income. Now there's some nuances. And this is where your tax accountant will help you out a little bit. You don't want to pay yourself too much W2, because the rest you can pay yourself through distributions and be taxed a little bit lighter on it. But everyone's missing out on that type of tax strategy because all they're doing is this. They're making some money in their business. Like, oh, my coaching business made this much money. I'm just going to transfer some money out so I can pay my mortgage. It's girls weekend. I'm just going to transfer some money out and then they're being taxed wrong on that. And there's no owner paid to account for if they go to buy a car or a house when they say, show me your W2 income.

Okay, is there anything for our audience that we're chatting with? Because I think, you know, if you're listening to this right now and you're like, oh, my God, this is me, what do you want to leave them with?

The biggest thing is it is not. It's not out of reach. You can do it. You have everything within you to. To be a numbers person, to change the knowledge that you have and feel so empowered and be the one in that driver's seat which you with all your being want to be, to make those empowered, confident decisions, to ask better questions of those that you do hire so you get better answers back. I always encourage people, don't opt out and stay in that conversation, even as hard as it gets. Yeah, you can do it. And those first three money moves will change everything like they did for me. And I mean, try me. I have a whole blueprint and a checklist to make it so easy to just start integrating every single one of those. Just hop on my Instagram and DM me money moves. It's fund her underscore capital. Fund her capital and try me. Like, start with just that first money move. It'll change everything. I don't care if you have been in business for years, do it anyway, because there might be something on that checklist you have missed. And it's is a key, key step.

What I like is you're the most safe, nonjudgmental, and open person to teach other women about the language of business, which is finance. Because you're open about, hey, I made these mistakes before. I said no more. I chose to learn it. And now I'm going to teach it to the other people that have that no more moment as well.

Yeah, we're so grateful for you. We will link everything up in the.

Show, not all in the show notes.

So you can go look at the show notes and you can go and DM her down there.

We'll have her fund her underscore capital.

And DM her money move so that you can go and check that out. And that's really huge, you guys, because you can not only see where you're at, but you can also. You're going to find some things immediately for yourself that you can change. And you heard me, I was totally vulnerable. This is my journey as well. So you're not alone. This is like most women. This is majority of women out there still right now. And so it's really important to acknowledge it, to have the conversation to go and do this and empower yourself or it's never going to change. So I'm so grateful for you coming on the show.

Thank you. Yeah, say your numbers drive your entire business. So let's start with that foundation and get a props.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Ian.

Welcome to the podcast.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Yeah, we are so excited to have you. We just had you here actually at our house.

Yeah, it was VIP all weekend long.

VIP weekend. So now what's so fun is you, you were one of the lucky ones who actually got to go at the very end. So now we know you really well, which is so much fun.

That was my plan.

Well done.

Well played.

Really well, actually, I think it was the last spot available.

Okay, great. Well, it worked out in your favor.

Oh, jinx, jinx. Okay, listen, right away I want to dive into this. You are a true ops guy, right? You're a true integrator. And most people listening probably have not been exposed to this idea of you're either a visionary or you're an integrator slash ops guy. Would you mind breaking that down? Because when people can find themselves, oh, I'm this, oh, I'm that, everything else we talk about will make more sense.

Yeah, totally. Like it's, it's such an obvious split where you have the visionary who is like your fast paced entrepreneur. They've got 20 ideas a day and they're usually like the what person? Yeah, it, me. And then, and then you have the integrator or the operator, the CEO. There's a lot of different names for it, but it's the person that figures out the how. Like they translate all of that to the team. They go, okay, like you, you're going a thousand miles an hour. You've got 20 different ideas. Let's, let's, let's discern down like the one we can actually execute on what we have Capacity for. And let me figure out how to kind of control the narrative as we roll this out to the team so they don't feel like they're getting whiplash from that visionary.

Oh, my God.

Yes.

We have been there. We've given Nick, who's our integrator, so much whiplash. It's painful. We've gotten so much better now, but it is a clear line in the sand for sure.

Yeah.

One of the things I always find is, like, visionaries typically feel like they're the only person with their foot on the gas pedal, and that's why they feel like they need to go so fast. And the operator or the integrator oftentimes feels like they're getting whiplash. Like, sure, I thought we were all in on this thing. Now we're all in on this thing. And so sometimes they can struggle.

My life.

They can struggle to be, like, adaptable. And so it's not that either one is, like, right or wrong, but I think if you can figure out how they work together, it can be really complimentary.

Please tell us you're going to tell us.

Yeah, no, they. Wait. This is really good. So right now, people should be kind of identifying, I'm a visionary, or, oh, I'm like, Ian, I'm the ops guy. I'm the integrator. Right. For all the OPS integrators out there. You just mentioned flexibility. I think that's a superpower. If you can be an OPS guy with flexibility, then that means you can speak the language of visionary. And usually where it breaks down is the, you know, visionaries speaking the language of what I call dreaming and ideating. And then ops, slash, integrators speaking the language of detail. Like, you're following this detailed path. When you have flexibility, you can speak both languages. And that's how you strike me.

Yeah, Yeah. I think sometimes you have to be able to kind of translate or dabble in both. Yeah. I did an event back in January on Maui, and we did owners and operators together. So it was like CEO brought their CEO or visionary brought their integrator, and we actually split some of the sessions. So it was like, integrators over here, visionaries over here. And the reason was, what we find is a lot of times visionary wants to talk about what's working, integrator wants to talk about what's not working.

Yep. Yes. Oh, my God.

And so just from, like, a conversation standpoint, there's, like, an immediate disconnect where they're. They're not on the same page. Or like, they don't have productive meetings. Because integrator goes, well, I want to talk about what's not working. And visionary checks out.

Yeah.

And then vice versa. Visionary goes, I want to dream and talk about these big ideas. And the integrator is like, I don't see how that's possible right now.

Oh, my God. He is like, creepy. He must spy on us.

So how. Because you do both. What's important for an integrator and operator to know to work together? Because I will tell you the. The breakdown.

You mean a visionary?

Visionary and operator.

What's the key to them working together?

What's the key to them working together? Because there is definitely. There's a language barrier and it can shut both of them down. Like if they're not learning how to speak each other's language.

Yeah. I think there's two big things I see. One is a lot of times there are not high powered integrators. There are a lot of times just employee mentality that have been promoted because they're very efficient and they're still very much so, like yes men. And so you actually need a really strong integrator, I would imagine. This is probably why it works well with Nick, because as your brother, he's probably not afraid to push back.

No, not at all.

And most integrators aren't that way. They're afraid to push back. They're afraid to say no. These are the objectives we committed to this quarter. And so I'm going to take your great idea and we're going to park it on the shelf here and we'll revisit it in 90 days. So I think a lot of times it's just the, the background of where they're coming from that's not equally matched. And so a lot of times the visionary will steamroll their integrator and they're not hiring somebody that is, you know, if you look at it in a more traditional sense, like could sit at the table at the C suite. They're usually not hiring a C suite caliber integrator.

Yeah, yeah.

And so that's the first one.

And they need to be.

Yeah, yeah. And so that's the first part. The second one is it's a very different skill set to build the thing than it is to run the thing. Explain. So we use this analogy if you're familiar with like Formula one. So in Formula one, you have the team principal that would be like the visionary. Right. He says, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna win the Points Cup. And we're gonna do it. They like to dabble in, like, little bit of macro strategy. So they're like, hey, we're gonna do it by being the fastest in the corners. That's our. That's our thing we're gonna bet on. They then hand that off to their chief designer, who has a whole team of mechanics that's gonna build the race car. And so he's responsible for the actual implementation of taking everything that's theory, working out the micro strategy of how we're gonna do it, and then really making the unseen real and physically building the race car. Once he does that, he then has to rope in the driver and go, hey, how far back do I put the seat? Do you know what all the buttons on the steering will do? How does the suspension actually feel? And we know that people support that which they help to create. And so you do want to have some of those handoffs mid process. But it's a very different skill set to be the designer than it is to be the driver.

Yeah.

And so what a lot of business owners do is they hire a driver and nobody has built a race car and they put them out on the racetrack, either barefoot or in a go kart.

Yeah.

And they expect them to go and win races and they get frustrated and the business owner gets frustrated, and it's really nobody's fault. Other than no one ever took the time to build the race car.

Yeah. No one said, hey, this is the architecture that you need. Would it be fair to say that a business cannot survive long term? You will not hit your goals, you will not thrive if you don't have both a visionary and a strong integrator.

So there's. I don't know if you're familiar with eos, so I have a background in eos. I'm a certified integrator implementer. And they actually say that a business can survive with an integrator and not a visionary.

Interesting.

But it can't survive the other way.

And I could see that. I could absolutely see that.

Oh, for sure.

Because no ideas would ever get implemented.

In the short term, you may, you know, you may catch lightning in a bottle.

Yeah. Right.

But long term, somehow your competitors, the market, something is going to eventually catch up to you.

I will admit I cannot survive without an engineer.

Absolutely not.

I cannot pull the vision all the way through consistently.

And I think energetically too, like, you thrive when you know you have that counterpart that you can hand things off to that you trust who can then go and execute.

Yep.

Because you get to stay in your lane where you're, you know, you're the best. And then them, vice versa. Like I said, they want, they want to dig into what's not working. All the stuff that annoys you and it's in the back of your mind, oh, gosh, I gotta handle that. Like, they're like, oh, yes, let me add it.

Give us real examples of what companies hire you to do specifically so that people could be like, oh, wait, I need that.

Yeah, great question. So we work with a lot of real estate investors and primarily we kind of stumbled into this niche primarily because most real estate investors get in the business for the lifestyle, the freedom. And as the business starts to grow, there goes that freedom, their lifestyle and their freedom. So they're very aware of the problem, they want to solve the problem. And if they've had any kind of success, they can afford to solve the problem. But they don't want to learn how to do it. They just want somebody to do it for them, take it off their plate. Some of them. And this would be not just the real estate investors, this is other business owners as well. Sometimes they hire somebody to be that integrator that they know like and trust, but doesn't have the business acumen or doesn't have the industry specific knowledge. And so nobody's built the race car, but they have a driver, but he's not the best driver. And so they're like, hey, I need somebody to help get my driver up to speed and I probably could use some help fine tuning the race car as well. So we do a couple of different things, but we will come into the business fractionally. So I have a team, CFOs, leadership development company coaches, business managers. We support a lot of functions within the business, but we'll come in and we'll actually build the race car for you. We say we're not trying to hire ourselves as the driver, we're not trying to become a permanent solution. So we'll build the race car and then we do a lot of coaching for the operator themselves. So because I kind of speak both languages, I do quite a bit of advisory work with founders, business owners, where they want somebody they can bounce ideas off of, whether they're still in a position where they're doing a lot of it themselves or they have somebody on their team, but they don't necessarily want to show the underbelly to somebody on their team whose confidence and they want somebody to kind of bounce some of the ideas off of. So we support primarily the owner where I work with them one on one, or we have a whole team where we'll come in from the operation side of things to help support the operator.

How long does that take? Like, is that a three month contract, a six month contract? How long until things like, oh, good, it's working again. We're ready to race?

Yeah, great question. It, it can depend on the size of the company. Really what we focus on is not so much the dollars, like the revenue numbers that somebody's at, but more so the employee headcount or the department headcount. So, like, we've got a client right now that has 250 employees, but we work within different silos of their business. And so this department has 20 people, this department has six people. And so we focus on each one at a time. Those stints usually are three to six months.

Right.

So it kind of depends on, like, how big of a mess have you made?

Yeah, yeah.

How many people are there? How many people. You know, when one of the big things people hire us for is they want results, they want accountability. And so one of the things we'll do early on is just put in some basic, like, metrics or KPIs to see, like, what are we doing? You know, let's get a baseline of where we're at. And we say this is one thing that often distinguishes your A players from your C players. Because on the surface, it can look like you have a lot of B players. And sometimes it's a C player that's tricking you, and sometimes it's an A player that doesn't know what the expectations are.

Oh, wow.

And so when you put metrics in place, it lets the A player know what their batting average is so that they can say, oh, I can see where I can get better here. And they step up to the challenge. And the C players that are tricking you, that are disguised as B players, they feel like they're under a microscope. They don't like being held accountable, their.

Secrets about to be exposed.

Totally. So we've, we've actually had this where, you know, we came into an organization and they asked, hey, I have this guy. I don't know that he's the right fit, but I don't have anything to like, prove it. Can you just kind of help us vet him and either, you know, help him get up to speed and do what he needs to do or like, give me some more data behind why he may not be the right fit? And we did this exactly. We put in just a basic scorecard we do what's called a shack stack. And so we evaluate the skills, habits, attitude, capacity and knowledge for that position.

Hence Shaq. Yep. I thought it's like something which killed Neil.

Oh, no, no, just acronym. And so we did those two things and I think it was within three weeks. The guy put in his two weeks notice.

That's great.

Because he was just so resistant to being held accountable and seeing where he was at. And so it was like, couldn't coast anymore. Well, this solved itself, I guess he was found out, you know.

Wow. I mean that's so powerful just for the, the founder, because those are some of the things that just like keep.

You up to totally.

Like they just take up so much mental bandwidth. So where do you think your skill sets came from? You've had some pretty cool careers that probably kind of helped build this. But, but tell me, tell me where you think you came from.

Yeah, I think the biggest piece was I spent a lot of time in automotive and in automotive everything's focused on gross profit. And so we only built operations for the sake of revenue, for the sake of gross profit. And so when I interact with a lot of businesses or I look at other consulting agencies or EOS implementers, it's like a lot of times they build operations for the sake of operations. Almost like a bookkeeper. Like they're just like, we're going to make this neat and tidy. Because I personally like order and think everybody should have order. And it's like, yeah, but there's no, like, what's the goal? Yeah, what's the goal? What are we really after here?

Yeah.

And so we really approach what we do from a revenue standpoint and look at it like, like feedback I often hear is everybody wants to double or triple. Like if you get a baseline of like, where are you at currently? Like we heard it this weekend.

Yeah.

Right.

Here's where I'm at right now. Here's where I want to be. And it's usually 2x to 3x. Wherever they're at, whether they're focused on a revenue number or a profit number, it's two to three times.

Yep.

And so the analogy we say is everybody has a one story house and they want to add a second story or a third story on top of it. But before we can do that, we have to make sure the foundation can support it. And so operations is the unsexy sell of the operational of the foundation to make sure the foundation can support the sales and the marketing that we're going to stack on top to build the second and the third floor. So I would say automotive was a huge part of that. And then I worked with my brother in law, we used to say he was the what and I was the how. And so I think there was just a little bit of that, just kind of hardwiring. I'm a little bit more naturally operations focused, but that was a huge component of it. And then having a little bit of background in marketing as well as the EOS thing, it all kind of started to bleed together. And then I got introduced to a couple of really awesome real estate investors that uncovered, oh, there's some major gaps here that they need help with because they know how to buy deals, they know how to raise capital, they know how to manage property, but they don't know how to run the business. They don't know how to hire and train people and hold people accountable and they don't really want to either. And so initially we came in with a little bit of an EOS mentality going like, oh, okay, we'll just run this playbook. And very quickly we realized like, oh, this is not a great fit, like these verticals don't apply. And so essentially what we did is we, we used a lot of EOs as a jumping off point to recreate a real estate investor specific operating system. So instead of focusing on like us does sales, marketing, operations, finance, it's a little more complicated in real estate because a lot of times they're running four different businesses under one umbrella and calling it one business. And that's where a lot of the confusion and complexity comes from. So we break it down into five different verticals. So we have acquisitions, capital stack, whether you're raising from a retail investor, private institution, or just the debt side of things, construction or development. Because everybody either rehabs or does some kind of new construction, whether it's ADUs or they're building ground up. And everybody has some kind of property management, whether they third party or not. There's still a level of accountability and metrics you have to look at. And then there's the finance component. And so we focus in on those five verticals using very similar methodologies to how any operating consultant would. You know, whether it's eos or scaling up or you know, any, any system.

Out there, can that be applied? You keep mentioning real estate investors. Can it be applied to other types of businesses and industries like will you step into other companies? Yeah.

So I would say right now probably 20% of our clients are, have nothing to do with real estate.

Okay. Like I said, it's what other types of industries.

Yeah, so I've got people in coaching, E commerce, construction. So, like, it doesn't have to be real estate specific. That was just something we kind of. Most of our business is built on referrals. So real estate investors refer other real estate investors, you know, and here's where I'm at.

You just find yourself in an industry all.

Yeah, and it was just such a perfect, perfect fit where the problems that we solved were the problems that they had. And so we just gained a lot of momentum really quickly because of that.

One good example of this is so, like, this other side expertise that you have. You take these skill sets of being like, okay, I can implement. I can plan and implement anything into creating masterminds for other people that have great brands that have always wanted a mastermind or been curious about having a mastermind, but they're like, oh, I don't know how to do events. I don't know how to plan out a year's worth of content. I don't know how to do this. And you're the guy that steps in and says, no, no, no, I'll do all of that for you. Like, that fits your skillset. I can plan, I can execute, implement everything. And you're a guy that just loves Mastermind because it's benefited your life a bunch. So you're like, no, no, no, I can do all that for you. And then you go and you build this thing side by side with this person, and all of a sudden they have a mastermind that they would never have before. That's pretty printing money. And you're running the whole damn thing.

Like content and everything.

Yeah, everything. It's wild.

Yeah. So, like, I was a huge beneficiary, I guess, of Mastermind Formats coming to your roundtable. A couple other groups I've been a part of, I've just seen such massive impact from that. And I would say I'm plagued by the fact that there's a better way. So I walk into any room and I feel like I can see how it could be better.

Yep, totally.

And we talked about this earlier this weekend. Like, coming to an event like this, I sit for first person and third person. I'm like, first person. Okay, yeah, here's what I need. Here's what I'm working on. But also third person, I'm going, okay, here's the agenda they went through. Here's the timing of things. How. How long did they have a sit before we had a break?

Right.

Just like all these little details and.

Which give us all your feedback.

Yeah.

I couldn't be in your shoes this time.

And so.

Yeah.

So I just. I just obsess about that. I guess I just enjoy it a ton. I freaking love it. I've done events before, three back to back, where it's, you know, 10 days straight.

And I.

People would ask me like, you must be exhausted, the travel to this. I'm like, I could do three more. Like, it just lights me up. And I really enjoy the collaboration that happens.

Right.

How do you ask the right questions to get to the root cause of something to help problem solve, but also get that amongst people. Right. Where I love the pattern recognition that happens and putting the pieces together and so getting that feedback where. Okay, well, hold on. You know a little bit about this. Talk to this guy about what you're doing. Oh, that might be just the next thing that they need. And so I just love that environment. And I've gotten so fun. Yeah. I've gotten roped into doing it for a few different entrepreneurs where we do it all across the country. I've got a partner in that who is a sommelier, master of experience. You guys have actually been to some of his events. And so that has. Has been something again, just kind of stumbling into of like, oh, I freaking love this. And again, it's. Oh, very complimentary. Where the founder, the CEO, they don't want to work on all the details and put all that together. Right. They want somebody else to handle all that for them. Yep.

So if people want to either work with you and have you come in and be their temporary COO team and clean everything up. Right. Build a race car, or if they're like, I'll take a mastermind where I don't have to do anything. How do they get a hold of you and how should they reach out?

Yeah. So online, I'm the Rev Ops coach because we focus on revenue operations.

Yep.

So you can go to the RevOpsCoach.com and that has a lot of gateways, I would say, for the different things that we do or on instagram @the revopscoach. And actually for your audience, like, I didn't want to leave them hanging with a bunch of great insight.

Yeah. And no way to take action.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because a lot of people too.

Because you're an integrator.

Yeah.

So this is crazy. This is the number one thing when I. When I do events, the number one thing I look at is how do we take the information and turn it into Action.

Yes.

Because otherwise it's just a conference. Yeah, we're just sitting there.

Yeah.

And so. Yeah, so I open this up just for your audience. If they DM me on Instagram Toolkit, we have some coursework and some products, resources, checklists, EA playbooks, hiring toolkits that we typically sell as part of some other packages for 1295. If they.

1295. Correct. Yeah.

If they DM me toolkit, I'll just send that to them for free. Just.

Dude, that is so cool of you. Like, those are some serious tools.

Yeah, it's honestly, it's the stuff that when we come into a business fractionally, it's literally what we walk through. We're just doing it for you. If somebody wants to start, take action.

Themselves, like, hello everyone, thanks for the $1300 free gift. That's cool. So how do they get it again?

So you go to the Rev Ops coach on Instagram and you just DM me the word toolkit.

That's pretty cool.

Well, we're so grateful for you. Is there anything that you want to leave with people?

I don't think so.

Like besides your toolkit. Yeah, he's like, I just gave you everything, lady. What else do you want? No, I'm really grateful for you. You are? You know, I think one of the, the biggest eye opening things for me when I got into business is I didn't understand truly that relationship between visionary and integrator. I just thought that in, in business, like I was supposed to come up with the idea and I was the person to like learn the website, do all the things like that felt like such a heavy responsibility for me. And truly, it's so much fun now that everyone's pulling back the curtain of their business because I don't know if you remember like 10 years ago, nobody was like talking about their integrator who was doing everything on the other side of, of their vision. And it actually felt so disempowering. And so I think it was so. It's so great for me to meet people like you and go, wait a minute, I can be in my zone of genius because you exist. Like I felt, I actually felt so disempowered and not smart. And like really I felt like there was something wrong with me because I just didn't understand that side of my brain didn't work that way. So I hope that everybody listening knows like your business. If you are not excited about the things that he mentioned, like you actually shouldn't be doing them. You should be finding an Ian. Somebody like Ian and going and being able to do what you do because you'll be able to pull, you know, a visionary can typically pull the eyeballs. They're going to be that top of funnel and you can take care of the rest. So that changed our lives when we were like, wait, this is how people operate. They're the vision. There's a visionary and an integrator. And they're very clear, the two different jobs.

I think people say to me, oh, sorry to cut you off. But they've said to me, like, well, I'm not good entrepreneur like you. I'm like, oh, no, I'm not good at anything other than a vision. And then finding the Ians in my life, or in my case, you know, Nick and Matt, my business partner, but finding the Ians in my life to make everything else happen or I would just be. Be a nobody. Like, nothing would happen.

Yeah, yeah. It's one of the first things we do with business owners. We have a tool, we call it income producing activities versus everything else.

Yes.

And so we audit kind of like ROI on your time. Where should you be focusing? Right. To help grow the business. But one of the things we also look at is just energetically, like what drains you sucks the life out of you.

Okay.

Get that the heck off your plate as well, because that's not going to benefit anybody if you're stuck doing the stuff that drains you. For me, I worked in finance for a few years and I would be the guy bubbly. Hey, how you doing? Blah, blah. And I'm, I'm not super extroverted. It takes a lot to like, you know, gumption up this level of charisma.

I'm the same way.

You're just going to stare at a.

Wall the same way. Yeah, yeah. But so I would come home and I would eat a pint of ice cream and go to bed and I was just like, it just drained me. But I just thought, oh, this is what hard work feels like. And so I think if you're in that place where, you know, it's draining and exhausting and you feel like you're working really hard, there's probably some areas that you probably shouldn't be doing some of that stuff.

Interesting. Good call to action there.

Yeah, we, I mean, honestly, now that we've gotten more in our zones of genius through the years, now that we've figured it out, people are like, wow, how do you do all the things you do? I'm like, it's because everything I do, I love it gives me energy. Like where before I was just. I truly. He knows for about 10 years. I was exhausted all the time. I started to resent, like customers or clients. Clients. And it wasn't their fault. It was because I was in so many things that were not I was supposed to be in them. So everything flipped when I got to put the right people in the right place, get the integrators, find those people who could support me.

It's.

It's really life changing. I can do more. We can make more money when I don't have to be doing those things.

Yeah. And sometimes, like in the beginning, it's a luxury to be able to afford.

Yeah.

It's hard to have the vision for.

Right.

But I think that there are, you know, stair steps to get there. There's a plan you can start putting in place to go, how do I start getting some of this stuff off and build some momentum in it?

And we can get that from your toolkit. Yeah, we can go find all of those things.

So you guys@revops coach on Instagram or revops.com right.

The revopscoach.com the revops coach on Instagram. Awesome.

Awesome. And you guys can go click the show notes. Go check those out. And that's all down there. And thank you so much for being on the show.

Appreciate it. Thank you guys so much. Thank you for this weekend.

It was great. It's great because you're here.

Julie, welcome to the podcast. You're on the earn your happy podcast and you're on the Chris Harder show.

Yes. Double trouble.

I am so excited to be here. I feel like I'm living out a dream because I've listened to you guys for so long.

This is wild.

This is what I love about doing this, by the way, is one you're excited. That makes us excited. Your energy is off the charts. When we were hanging out before, because we're doing this VIP mastermind weekend, when we're hanging out before and you got up to present, I was like, oh, she's awesome. Because you were so enthusiastic and I love enthusiastic people.

Thank you. I have a lot of energy and I'm so grateful and just happy to be here.

Yeah, I love your energy. And, you know, we were talking on the different people who've interviewed as well who are here for the VIP weekend. Like, honestly, enthusiasm is. It's a trait that you all seem to have, but it also is why you're all successful. So your enthusiasm, literally, especially for what you do, which we're going to Chat about in a minute. But I think you have such a gift to make kind of these, you know, either big topics or kind of scary things or challenging things, like you really bring it down to earth and make it feel so comfortable. And that is such a gift of yours.

Well, that's a good fit for what we're about to talk about because admittedly, both Lori and I are wildly unfamiliar with like psychedelics and microdosing and all this stuff. And I can even say it feels intimidating. You grow up your whole life and like, drugs are bad, drugs are bad, right? But now so many of our friends and so many of our even peers and mentors and some of the highest performers we know, they've integrated this into their life and they're crushing it. And it makes you stop and say, wait, am I missing something here? So that's the whole purpose of the episode, is to kind of discover what we don't know that we should know. And I want to start by framing it this way. You were once, how would I phrase this, like part of that professional rat race. I mean, you were this awesome attorney before being an attorney. You were going to school to be a biologist or get a biology degree. Like you thought your path was going to be this buttoned up, professional, high performing one. And something happened in your life that caused you to take kind of a, you know, a turn off the beaten path and end up as this psychedelics facilitator. Do you mind kind of sharing that?

Yeah, you know, I think it's, it's interesting. The thing that really turned my life around was when my dad died when I was six. And that's what put me on the path to constant achievement because I felt like my dad loved me unconditionally and I know my mom loves me unconditionally, but I felt like that was more conditioned on be a good girl and get good grades. My brother has autism. And so it was necessary for me to basically step up as a six year old in a lot of ways. And I was top of my class. And I hinged all of my worthiness on getting good grades. And so I did. I went to a really great undergraduate school. I was going to become a doctor. Figured out I hated blood. Thought, what am I good at? I was like, oh, okay, I'll go to law school. I got a full ride of law school. I practiced for three years, but underneath all of that was just deep anxiety and unhappiness and I was performing for other people. I had no idea what would make me happy. And now I like to say that my life is built around joy and liberation. And I think we all deserve and have access to a really happy life. And that that comes from liberating yourself from whatever stories or things that happened to us as a child.

Man, the world needs that. The world needs that. So are we, are we walking around as broken people or are we fixable? No matter what ails us inside?

I really don't think anyone's broken. I think it's a return to home. And I think the things that broke you are what's broken broken. It was never about you being you are indelible. You are a beautiful spark of joy. And it's just remembering that. And I like to say dusting off the top of your fridge, that's awesome.

I love that.

Okay, so I have so many different questions because actually, and I don't even think you remember, but I microdose for a hot second, like maybe a week. And because I had no one facilitating it with me, and because I didn't feel anything, know what to do, I just quit. I was like, well, this must not be for me because I don't understand it at all. Like, I did, literally did nothing. I was just like, okay, maybe I'll feel creative. Like it's kind of doing it to see if it could open something up for me. And I'm that person that if I don't feel something working right away because I don't know if that was the, you know, if that's what I'm supposed to do.

She wants to feel the thing, see the walls melting.

No, I wanted to just feel more creative, to be honest. And I just didn't have anyone facilitating with me. So we're going to talk all the things. But, you know, microdosing, macrodosing psychedelics, they're still super misunderstood by a lot of people. So can you break down the science behind how they work and also address some of the biggest misconceptions people have about the practices?

So my favorite thing that psychedelics do is quiet down our default mode network, which is a series of interconnected structures in our brain and includes the posterior cingulate cortex. And that's really where we have self referential thinking. So that's where you go to, you know, play out, rehearse that convo in the shower that didn't go well. You spend a lot of time ruminating. And so FMRI scans show that when we take psychedelics, we stop the blood flow to the spirits of our brain. And if we can quiet down the chatter, the feedback loops in our brain. Then we force ourselves to get present. And studies out of Harvard say that happiness isn't like how nice your car is or how hot your wife is, although your wife is very hot.

We got it on tape.

It is simply, how often are you present? How often are you truly engaged in this moment, not thinking about something else? So it's like a. It's like a shortcut to happiness. And then if you can train your brain to stay in that with intentional relearning tools, then you have an overall happier life.

Okay, so what got you into wanting to help people with this?

It's so interesting. I went to law school because I wanted to help people. I thought I wanted to go to med school because I wanted to help people. But the law is a very protracted process, and if anyone has had a legal proceeding, it takes like, fricking forever. And it's supposed to make people whole again, but no one is ever whole once they enter legal proceedings. So I say now that I'm actually able to make a way bigger difference than I was when I was an attorney, and that if more people not just did psychedelics, but worked on themselves and got that healing support, then they would actually be able to avoid things like the legal process, because they would be happier, nicer people, and treat others in kind.

So I want to know. I want to know more about, like, what it is and what it does.

What can it affect?

Yeah, what people?

What.

What are people coming for? Um, I have a lot of friends who. And, you know, you had spoken before this. Cause you were sharing with the group today kind of what it all is that you do, but you were talking about how so much of what we do is like, very surface, or, you know, you're just talking about it, but this is like, really attempting to get to the root of it. Describe why you can kind of get to the roots of, you know, the deep anxiety or why you keep on sabotaging yourself in life. Like, how does that actually work? Through this?

Yeah. So microdosing is the process of taking a subseptual amount of a substance. I work with psilocybin primarily, so magic mushrooms. So you're going to take enough so that you receive the benefits in your brain, but you're not seeing the walls melt. And it can really help people with so many things, whether it be like, the self sabotage, the anxiety, depression. A great way to naturally manage adhd. And it allows us to get to the root cause, I believe, primarily because it creates a Space of response in between our emotions and our feelings and our reaction to it. So so many people have, you know, the feeling of anger and instantly give over to anger and they scream or, you know, whatever else, or maybe they start to feel sadness and the sadness feels like an overwhelming, really heavy, scary blanket that they can't avoid. And so if you can create a bubble of response, you can see the emotion, you can create safety and processing it in your body and truly work through it, not just talk about it and understand it. And in that way it can actually move and, and shift and. I used to have terrible anxiety. I can remember sitting on my couch in Illinois back when I was an attorney. I was sobbing one night because I just thought I was always going to live with some level of anxiety. And that was like my death sentence, basically. I am not an anxious person. Sometimes I experience anxiety like every other person, but it is not a label I would use to describe myself. And I don't think anyone I know would say that about me either.

So anxiety is one. What about depression?

Depression is a huge one. So there's a really interesting study that just came out that they gave a larger dose of psilocybin to cancer patients and their cancer didn't go into remission, but their depression and their sadness around their cancer, 50% of them saw complete remission.

Wow, that's wild. Look at. What about lack of self confidence? Like the person that is always kind of shy, kind of meek, and feels like they don't want to speak up even though that they know they should.

Yeah. So I really think back to that, like if we can quiet down our negative self referential feel. Speaking of, like, oh, no one wants to hear what I have to say, or I'm not likable or I'm not smart. If we can just turn off that voice, what a beautiful opportunity for you to be who you truly are without all of that noise and chatter in your brain.

Does it helped or has it hurt? I'm assuming it's helped seeing like Elon Musk talk about this. Jeff Bezos, all these, you know, entrepreneurs with these massive followings. They're Aaron Rodgers, everybody. They're all kind of talking about this openly now. What's that done for your industry?

I think it's helped because it's shown that I truly believe most, like 90% of millionaires and billionaires have done psychedelics and just not all of them are willing to talk about it. You know, sometimes when like some people in the news, like maybe people are skeptical that they like abused ketamine and things like that that can kind of create a negative spin. But I believe intentional use for, for healing, that doesn't get out of control, that stays at like that truly, like micro dosing level is the secret to success.

That's wild.

Let's talk about the integration part, because opposite of what I did, I was just like, okay, let's see if I can get creative or whatever people are saying about this, you know, because I just heard so many different things about it. And I also think there was a little bit of like fear around it, which I'm like, well, if I'm not, I don't understand how this really works.

I remember you taking less than they recommended.

I did, I did. It was like two capsules and I took one because I was like, I, I don't know what this is. But let, so let's talk about the integration portion of like what it looks like for you to take someone through a journey and for you to like, you know, for them to feel like this could work for them at the.

Macro or the micro level.

I don't know what that means.

Okay, so microdosing is something more that you can, you would do for, I would say, at least a month on a set of on and off days. You wouldn't do it every single day. And that is really for people who are wanting to put something that they can, that they can do in the day to day, it is sub perceptual, especially if they're more afraid and they can create a practice around it that is going to definitely produce positive benefits for the people who are really looking to have a deeper journey, whether it's because they're more spiritually inclined or they feel like maybe there is like a bigger issue that they want to tackle and they just have this feeling that a larger dose is what's going to support them. Integration does look a little bit different, but essentially at the core of it, integration is simply taking the magic of the experience. Because I like to say that psychedelics can take you to the top of the mountain. They show you what's possible. It's like taking a helicopter and you see how beautiful it is, right? But then they put you back down at the bottom of the mountain. They say, okay, babe, like it's up there, but you still got to go climb. So I help you climb so that you can achieve, get to the top of the mountain. You can stay at the top of the mountain, but they just assign the homework. You still got to do the work.

Wait, so the psychedelic is a helicopter that shows you the view.

Yeah.

But then you realize, wait, I'm still down here. And you are the facilitator that then says, don't worry, I can show you up the hill.

Yeah, 100. Because you know, I, I had a lot of anxiety, right. And psychedelics showed me that it was possible to live without anxiety. But it wasn't simply because I kept taking a bunch of psychedelics. It was because I didn't actually believe that it was possible for me to have an anxiety free life. I thought I was doomed by that late label or that experience. And so therefore I didn't have the motivation to go do anything about it or the things that I did. I was like, this might like I was on Prozac, I was going to therapy. I was like, this might make it a little bit more manageable, but it's not going to erase it. I saw what it was like to have it be erased and I was like, okay, let's freaking go.

Yeah. Some people might be listening. Like I'm shocked that they're talking about this or this is terrible or something like that because they don't quite understand the, the this industry yet. Right. And just like things in the past that were once taboo are now life saving. I know very little about this, but already I can tell that I would rather somebody experiment with this and fix the problem than somebody stay on beta blockers for their anxiety and just medicate the problem the rest of their life and have no feeling and no ambitiousness and no anything.

Yeah. At the end of the day, I don't know of any medication that is going to solve the root cause of the issue. Whereas working intentionally with psychedelics truly can. And a lot of what we know in popular culture around psychedelics comes from propaganda. And I was right with you. Like I signed the Little Dare Pledge or whatever. But psilocybin and LSD are the only substances listed as a Schedule 1 substance by the FDA that has absolutely no potential risk for addiction. And they're the potential to kill you is non existent. They have zero toxicity.

Wow. So why'd they get such a bad name?

I believe because the government at first thought they were going to use them to like, you know, there was like the mind control experiment where they were dosing people with LSD without their permission or knowledge.

That was a real thing, by the way.

Yeah, that's a real thing. You can look it up.

Yep, that was a real project.

It's a declassified project, totally declassified. Now you can go Research it yourself. And they thought they were going to be able to like mind control and make people like into this weird true serum. And when that didn't happen, what actually happened was, was the 60s revolution of like, hey, actually this government isn't really working for me. We're entering wars that we don't need to be into. And it just raises your consciousness to a level where you're curious and you're not just numbed out, which is what most prescriptions do.

So are you saying they blacklisted it so to speak, because it went against the agenda of more control?

That's my perspective. And you know, who knows what we'll see as documents continue to be released year after year from the past. But I just think it's really interesting that there's absolutely like no control except for the 18 around alcohol. And alcohol is a known carcinogen. Alcohol causes way more deaths than even, you know, cannabis every year. So it just is interesting to me.

I think of it all like alcohol, cigarettes, all these other things that we know are terrible for ourselves, that are highly addictive, that literally kill people and ruin lives and whole nine yards. There's no fanfare around making that stuff illegal or anything like that, which, you know, it shouldn't be. But there's so much fanfare around making these things illegal when these things seem to have some pretty positive medical benefits.

Yeah. When psilocybin was first brought to the United states in the 50s, it was originally used as a treatment for addiction because they are non addictive and they can actually help people with things like addiction. Ocd, ptsd, anxiety and depression, all of those use similar pathways in our brain and they find form really rigid connections and that's why people go back to the same behavior and over and over again. And so there was a lot of research at first around alcohol addiction treatment and then the government got involved and all the research went away. And you know, now we're, we're here and there's a resurgence of research and I'm really excited about it.

You had mentioned the importance of kind of either a, now I might get this wrong, but like a weekly type of touch base or something for them to do, it's almost like having homework throughout the journey. Tell me about what you were talking about with like if you're just taking it but not giving your pathways something new to cling on to. Can you explain that fully?

Yeah.

So psychedelics will promote neuroplasticity, which is not just the connection of new pathways, but can also be the Deletion of old unuseful pathways. And I once was on a date with a guy who was trying to understand what I did and he goes, oh, okay. So if you use psychedelics but you don't do anything with it, it's like taking steroids but not going to the gym.

Good analogy.

Yeah. We didn't end up saying together, but that was a good analogy.

You got something good out of it.

I got something. I got a big win. I've used that one a lot.

Big win.

Yeah. So the, the research says that if you're not pairing microdosing with intentional relearning, then you're not really going to see a long lasting change. So I like to say you can microdose on your own, you'll probably have a great day and if someone cuts you off in traffic, you'll just wave and say, hello, thank you for your time. But if you microdose and you pair it with things and you integrate, you're going to change your life substantially.

That's interesting. Now I want to switch modes a little bit. You're an entrepreneur and you've chosen an industry that has a lot of headwinds. All entrepreneurs struggle with things. What are you struggling with in your business?

I think a lot of it is just still so much taboo, even from people who have great experiences being a little bit unwilling to speak about it. And then, you know, I can't speak about it on social media in the same way that other people can talk about their business and their tools. But I am so grateful as more people feel more comfortable to speak about it and to share their experiences and to destigmatize it and let people know it's not scary, especially not with me.

Yeah, that's best thing.

So for someone who's new to migrate microdosing, but intrigued by its potential, especially for high performers, what's the first step they should take to explore it responsibly and effectively? And how can they pair it with the right tools to, to create lasting results, like life changing results.

So if anyone's ever heard me before, they know the two words I say all the time are integration and intention. And it's so important to have an intention when you start your microdosing practice or when do you go into a journey? I like to say that psychedelics are always going to give you exactly what you need, even if it's not exactly what you want. But having the intention is the difference between, you know, getting somewhere and just wandering around in the desert. Not literally, but the Desert of your mind. And then I like to say that I don't ever want to teach someone what works for me. I want to help you discover what works for you. So I would say cling on to something that you have done in the past outside of this work, but that has helped you. I mean, that can be mindful movement. It can be going to the gym maybe without headphones and like really connecting with your body and feeling the contraction of your muscles. If people like meditating, awesome. Pair with meditation, pair it with your journaling practice. And that is really the sweet spot of helping someone find their perfect microdosing practice. That is gold going to support with all of the neuroplasticity. But if you know that you really want to work on something and like, maybe you're really drawn to hypnosis, I would say, you know, microdose and take yourself through hypnosis or find one on YouTube. But there are so many resources, it doesn't have to look the same for every person. And if you know that you've done something in the past that's worked for you, double down. Don't break what's not broken.

Just because I've got so many high performing friends that everyone else would like hold up on a pedestal that I know are successful with this, it makes me microdosing curious. So for people who are listening, if they're like, okay, I'm not a yes, I'm not a no, I'm microdosing curious. You've got kind of a really cool quiz that helps them filter out. Is this for them or not? And what I love about it is you often say, like, a lot of times the quiz is like, no, this ain't for you.

Yeah, you know, it's so interesting. I like to say that there is no one right thing for everyone, microdosing and psychedelics included. Actually, there are a surprising number of people who this just is not the right fit for. And I am very honest about that because I also don't want to waste your time and I want to help you find the right thing for you. So if anyone's interested in taking that quiz, they can DM me the word journey. It's a free quiz. I'll send it over your way and you can just make a more educated assessment about what you want to do next.

Yeah, it really tells you, like, is this for you or is it not for you? And like you said a lot of people, it comes back like, oh, not for you. Like, I ain't working with you. Go somewhere else. What's your Instagram so they can find that?

Yeah, my Instagram is Julie Savone. It's Julie C Y V O N N E. It's my middle name. And come say hi.

A link in the show notes, but spell it one more time.

Julie J U L I E C Y V O N N E. And.

They just have to DM you the word journey.

Yep, Journey.

That's awesome.

Thank you so much for coming on the show. And you guys. I hope this answered a lot of questions for you.

Yeah.

Answered so many questions for me. And if not, you can always go and get your free quiz, which is so awesome. Thank you for doing that. So thank you so much for coming on.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me on. I'm so excited to be here.