Letting Go of the Life That Made You (Ret Taylor)

Got to the point where all my money was gone, but I got this call from a girl I was loosely dating and she said, I just had this dream that you and I moved to Brazil. She was from Brazil. And I thought, yeah, why not? Rhett Taylor is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Ned, a Boulder-based natural remedies company known for premium CBD products. He built Ned to offer honest, nature-based alternatives to pharmaceuticals and now focuses on helping others live with more purpose and connection to nature. Both my parents grew up in scarcity. That was that, that moment where I decided, yeah, no more. You just go out and get the best grades you can, and then you get the best job you can, and then you make as much money as you can, and fuck everything else.

And that'll make you happy.

That will make you happy. Oh, the cost of all those years spent chasing money. I wish I had known that earlier. I always idolized the hardest worker in the room, the first one in, the last one out, you know, all these stories That 10-year-old kid. Yeah.

In the bus station. It's hard to get money and I can do hard things.

Yeah. Yes, yes. And now I've completely flipped that 180 degrees to money should be easy. It can be easy. I feel wealthier than I ever have been. I really wish I had known that. I would pay millions of dollars for that, that learning and growth.

So what did you learn?

Oh, Mike, so much.

Okay. Welcome to Money Stories, where we have conversations with founders about wealth, meaning, and what makes a truly rich life. Today I am joined by my dear friend, Rhett Taylor. Super excited to, to have you here. Yeah. Founded, scaled, and exited Ned, a natural remedies e-commerce company, and now helps founders find what really matters through hard outdoor experiences. And, and I'm sure we'll dive into that a little bit more. Rhett, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Mike.

So let's start from the beginning. How did you grow up with money and how did that drive you to become an entrepreneur?

Oh man, that's, you know, my original wound.

That's why we're here. Yeah. So let's, let's go. Let's, let's, let's do this.

Yeah. So, you know, grew up with a lot of scarcity as I'm, as I would imagine a lot of your guests have as well. And yeah, you know, I was just working with this guy. He's a, He's a writing professor at University of Colorado, and he was kind of helping me tell my story. And he asked me what my original wound was, and I gave him something. He's like, nah, that's, that's too lame. I gave him something else. He's like, nah, we're getting closer, but that's not it. And then he helped me remember this experience I had when I was 10 that I had completely shut out. I blocked it out of my memory, and I recalled being in a bus station, and maybe it was Albuquerque, maybe it was Santa Fe, or— and I was 10 years old. It's, it's, call it, let's call it 2 AM in this bus station. It's cold, it's January, and I've just been ripped out of the place I was trying to make my home for the last 6 or 8 months, where I was trying to make friends and, and, um, and really you know, grow into this place. And for the third time in two years, I'm ripped out of this, and I find myself with my mom and my two little sisters in this cold, scary bus station. And, um, and this memory came flooding back to me, and I realized that that was the moment when I decided I'm gonna take agency over my life. I am going to start getting better grades. There I am in 5th grade. I'm going to start getting better grades. I'm going to start making my own money. And I started doing that. I started raking leaves and mowing lawns and shoveling snow and walking dogs and washing cars and all that shit that us young entrepreneurs, we do. And I started saving all my money and I started, you know, saving capital around getting better grades and giving myself more opportunities. And that was, that was that, that moment where I decided, yeah, no more.

And so what led up to that? What led up to that moment at the bus station? I, I imagine you were moving based on a lack of money.

Yeah, so it's sort of—

yeah, help me understand.

Yeah, so we were, um, My parents divorced when I was 8. My mom moved us to Cambridge, Massachusetts from Colorado, and my mom became a full-time student for the next decade and a half. And, um, and we had very, very little money, although we were in this really unique setting in Cambridge and surrounded by, you know, lots of, of, of, you know, very smart, very wealthy people and beautiful neighborhoods. but we had very little. And, um, and so, yeah, she finished her master's and then decided she was going to go work at an elementary school on the Navajo reservation in the middle of nowhere. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I loved getting out of school and running with my friend up into the mesas and finding pottery shards and arrowheads and exploring this and that. And, um, my sister and I were the only two belagaunas, the only two white kids in the in this school. And, you know, I worked hard to become accepted and get on the basketball team. And yeah, we, after a while, we moved and she just didn't like being that remote. We were remote. That school was basically stuck in the middle of a 50-mile radius where all these kids from the middle of nowhere could come into the center of the middle of nowhere and come to school. And And yeah, there was a lot of scarcity there. And both my parents grew up in scarcity. Um, and you know, I always knew how much money was in the house or how little was in the house. And I never asked for anything. And it was, I got my two pairs of shoes per year. And, and when it came time for summer, I'd cut my jeans and those were my shorts. And, uh, yeah. And so a lot of scarcity.

So you're acutely aware.

Yes.

Of money from a very young age.

Yes.

How heavy was that burden for you as a kid?

I think it was pretty heavy. You know, I loved my childhood. I had a great time. I played a ton of sports, but I, you know, rode my bike to tryouts by myself. And yeah, it was— I was acutely aware. That's a good way to put it. And it was heavy at times, but it also just felt like the way it was. And a lot of my friends, they were growing up in the same situation.

So if you had to distill the beliefs that formed around money at that time into, into maybe one phrase, what would it be?

It's hard to get money. Yeah. Hard.

It's got to be hard.

Yeah. It's got to be hard because my family doesn't have it. And none of the families I knew had it. And the one family I did know, it was inherited from, you know, a fairy godmother.

And there you are in the bus station saying, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to take agency of my own over my own life. And you start heading down the, the childhood entrepreneurial path. Yeah. Like, like we do. What was your foray into real entrepreneurship? What does that path look like?

Yeah. So I had all the jobs in, in, you know, as a, from 10 years old through college. And then I, and then I thought, okay, I've, I've got my college degree. I'm going to go, go to work now. And my first job was super unique. It was in Saudi Arabia. Um, I was asked to come be a part of the first environmental company in Saudi Arabia. Basically, uh, it was a monopoly handed to my friend, my, one of my roommates, his father, who was Saudi. And this was 2001, back before green was anything but a color. And, and yeah, I was invited to go there and head this whole thing up as a 22-year-old right out of school. So it was already pretty entrepreneurial, but it felt very good to be working for this big, cool company.

And were you making money? Did you have a sense that you had made it? Like, what was that time like?

Yeah, I didn't have the sense I'd made it, but I was making money and And it was tax-free money in Saudi Arabia, and I was able to pay off all my student debt within those first 2 years. It felt really, really good. And for the first time, it felt like, yeah, yeah, maybe I did feel like I'd made it past out of survival mode for sure.

Yeah. And then what happens from there? You start, you start making a little bit of money.

Yeah, I started making a little bit of money. I decided Saudi wasn't the place for me. I didn't want to get trapped there. I saw a lot of people get trapped. By the no taxes, the chef, the driver, you know, the really people being unqualified for their, their vice president roles and not being able to go back to wherever they were from. And, and so I didn't want to get stuck there, but I came, I moved from, from Saudi to South Beach, like the one of the most repressive societies at the time. Now it's changed to one of the more hedonistic and I had a pocket full of money. When I left, my boss, he called me into his office and he said, you know, thank you so much. And we had a beautiful conversation. And then as I was leaving, he tossed this envelope on my lap. It was a, it was a thick envelope. And I thought it was Saudi riyals, which is basically like 4 to 1 US dollars. And then I was, I went straight from there to the airport. And I looked in this envelope and it was all cash and it was all US. It was $50 grand in cash in 2004.

How old were you?

I was 25, 24.

I mean, I don't care who you are, $50 grand is a lot for a 24-year-old.

Oh yeah. And then I'm getting on a plane and you're not supposed to carry more than $100 or more than $10 grand. And I was reading this book, I forgot the name of it. About breaking Vegas, and there's like 3 whole pages about how much trouble you can get into if you carry more than $10,000 across international borders.

So, so a burgeoning criminal.

Yeah, I kept every penny of that money.

Amazing.

Yeah.

So you land in South Beach with $50K in your pocket.

Plus some. Yep. And, and that was a lot of fun. It wasn't the right place for me, but, but I learned a lot there. I got into real estate. I thought I wanted to come back to Colorado and build ski houses in the mountains. And I learned a lot about real estate. And I was there during the boom and then the bust. And the bust happened in, in South Florida in 2006, 2 years before the rest of the country. And And I was, I was all locked in and ready with this big project and essentially got to the point where all my money was gone. And I was planning on moving back to Colorado. I was going to become a ski instructor and a raft guide and then go get my MBA and then go do something I was passionate about. But I got this call from a girl I was dating, loosely dating, let's call it. And she said, "I just had this dream that you and I moved to Brazil." She was from Brazil. And I thought, yeah, why not? And so I said, "I'm in if you're serious." And she said, "Yeah, cool." And so 2 weeks later, I found myself in Brazil. I'd sold everything I had, went down there on a tourist visa. And yeah, that was wild. The first day I was there, I wanted to, I went online to join the Brazilian Green Building Council. I'd been part of it in Florida, the Green Building Council, it's environmental buildings. And I realized that there wasn't a Brazilian Green Building Council and, um, ended up connecting with a woman who had been trying to start it. And she and I, over the next 9 months, we, we co-created, co-founded the Brazilian Green Building Council. And that's one of the things I'm more proud of. But I was on a tourist visa, you know, spent all my money drinking caipirinhas on the beach and traveling around and, you know, surfing and kiteboarding and making sure my girlfriend and I had a good time. And yeah, I was down to nothing about 9 months later, although we'd raised over $2 million for the nonprofit.

So now it sounds like the money story is shifting from it's hard to get money to it's hard to keep money.

Yeah, and I never really made that much up until that point, you know, but, um, but yeah, it was hard to keep money for sure. And so the relationship ended, Brazil wasn't going to be my forever home, and, um, and I thought, all right, now is the time to move back to Colorado and do that raft guide, ski guide thing, and then I'll go get my MBA. And, um, I got a call from a another friend's father, and he said, we really need a sales rep in New York City to sell our mirrors. I was like, Alan, come on, man, sell mirrors in New York City? I thought you knew me. And, um, and he goes, listen, if you don't make half a million dollars the first year and $750,000 to $1 million every year thereafter, you'd be doing something wrong. I thought, all right, well, that's interesting. And I thought, you know what, I'll do that for 2 or 3 years. I'll save some money and then I'll go do what I'm passionate about. 'Cause mirrors, selling mirrors was definitely not it. And I, instead of working for Allen, I started a business where I would represent his company and multiple others as well. And I ended up having an amazing, amazing group of companies that I worked with, uh, all throughout the hotel furniture fixtures and equipment industry and furnished a lot of amazing properties. All over the world. Those— that 2 or 3 years turned into 13 and a half years. Offices in New York City, Riyadh, Miami, and eventually Boulder. Cool.

So that, that sounds like it was maybe more successful than you had imagined.

It was. Yeah. Although I started it at just the wrong time, right? I started in 2007 and then the collapse in 2008 was really tough on the hotel industry. You know, if you're building or renovating a hotel, you're getting a bank loan. And bank loans weren't happening in 2008, '09, '10, or even '11. And then all those properties that were on the shelf had to renovate. Those were some really, really fat years. Those were some good years. So yeah, came into more money than I ever thought and felt really good, but it also felt very, very hollow. And there I am furnishing hotels and, and now I'm starting to furnish hotels for the second time. You know, it's like a 7 or 10 year cycle. And I'm, I'm realizing that all that carpeting, all the fabrics and furniture and all that, that lighting, it's all going into landfills. And that really started to rub me the wrong way. Not only was I doing something that I wasn't passionate about, but it felt like it was detrimental to the planet and to a lot of my core values around, around being a good steward of it.

Yeah. Having, having been in a similar situation myself in the oil and gas industry, how did you reconcile that? Right. It's really hard to leave something when it's working.

Yeah.

Right. So how do you reconcile those two things?

In 2016, I felt this massive need to really reconnect with nature. I had moved from New York to Saudi Arabia, spent 2 years in Saudi doing all types of cool shit. I worked with the now Crown Prince and did all types of wild projects with him, anything from like sweeping his hotel room in Paris for bugs to you know, listening devices, to outfitting this island on the Maldives with a full-on, like, trauma and surgical and dental center so that he and his father could go spend a month on this island and make sure that nothing happened to either of them. And that month turned into 4 and a half days. They spent millions on this. But it was, um, There's some really cool projects. For a while, I was the largest supplier of military tents in the Middle East, which just came up from my partner, my Saudi partner, saying, hey, we know you can supply furniture. What about military tents? So that was a trip. But it turned out that was not going to be the right move for me and my family and had to really kind of cut bait. And that's when we moved back to Colorado. And the move to Colorado was about getting back to nature. And so a year later, in the summer of 2016, my wife and daughter spent 2 months in the Netherlands where my wife's from. And I spent those 2 months, uh, June and July, I spent essentially homeless. Um, and it was the best 2 months of my life. Our lease ended on June 1st. They weren't coming back until August 1st. And I said, why would I, you know, be renting a house if they're away? And I'd actually rather just be in the mountains living in a tent. So it was an experiment for me to— what happens when I spend 55 days entirely outdoors, feeding myself with super healthy food, feeding my soul with with rivers and lakes and mountaintops. And I was working from wherever I could find Wi-Fi. And I could get more done in 3 or 4 hours than I could in a full 10, 12-hour day. And I was thriving. I was healing and then thriving quickly. And at the end of that, I decided I would go do a vision quest in the Utah desert. And I went and just parked myself on this sandy beach along the Escalante River. And I stayed there for 4 days fasting, just drinking water. And I was just allowing the visions to come to me. And really at the end of it, what happened was I was able to really after 34 years, 35 years, fully articulate my purpose in life. And I walked out of that canyon knowing what I was meant to do. And within a year I had, exited from the furniture business, which wasn't a big exit. It was really just me and my relationships and my, my experience. There wasn't much to sell. And at that time, I said, what I want to do next is create, create a business around my passions, that purpose, purpose of helping people heal and thrive through the powers of the natural world, which I had just done for myself. And I have many times before and many times since. And, um, and at first it felt like it was going to be this huge thing with consulting and products and, and, um, and retreats and coaching. And, and I realized after a little while, this is like 5 businesses in one, maybe even 6. And, um, so let me focus in on one of those elements. And I, I said to myself, you know, I just built this company that really had no enterprise value. I spent 13 years on it. Me create something that I can sell, and then I can go do what I really want to do.

And, um, this is, this is a theme. This is the thing. Yeah, let me, let me just do this first.

Yep.

Then I'll go do what I actually want.

Make some money, and then I'll have the freedom to go do what I actually want. And so in that moment, what I actually wanted was to coach and lead retreats and get people outdoors and be there with them. But what I did was create a, a business with an enterprise value, a direct-to-consumer CPG company focused on something I was deeply passionate about, natural remedies, natural alternatives to pharmaceuticals. And I did that to help my mom with her cancer at the time. And I did that because I'm passionate about creating natural alternatives to pharmaceuticals. I've seen way too many people, their lives ruined, destroyed by pharmaceuticals. And really too, it was my way of helping people reconnect with nature, find a deeper connection to that natural world and a deeper value within it. But it was, and it was great, Mike. It was so good for the first 3 years. There I was, I was doing what I'm passionate about. I'm out there and meeting with farmers in their fields. I'm working with amazing botanists and herbalists and I'm rallying people around it. I'm, I'm on podcast talking about all these things I'm passionate about. And, uh, it was wonderful. And we, we grew like a rocket ship, you know, number 300 on the fastest growing Forbes 5000 list and just felt great. And then, uh, after about 3 years, it just, it really turned into you know, the operations side. It turned into the spreadsheets and the KPIs, and our growth stagnated. And, uh, you know, just— I went from my zone of genius to my zone of maybe excellence, sometimes even just competence.

Sure.

Yeah, yeah.

And this, this is an interesting arc, right? Because, um, number one, just kind of piecing together the timeline, right? Money's got to be hard. You bust that myth eventually. And but still have this theme of delaying what you really want to do because got to get some money first, got to get some money first, and then take a left turn here and a right turn, right? You go on this vision quest, you find your purpose, which by the way, nobody finds their purpose in their mid-30s. Like, this is awesome.

Awesome.

You've nailed it.

Yeah. And it felt like a responsibility because I know that. It's like, fuck, what a great— what a gift. Now I feel like I owe it to myself and everybody else who's looking for their purpose to go and do this.

And this is what I think is so dangerous about the advice to follow your passion, because you did it, and then you woke up and one day you were like, oh shit.

Yeah, that was on Denali, uh, in Camp 4 at about 14,000 feet, just below the headwall. On Denali last May 2024. And, um, after 6 and a half years, it looked like our business wasn't going to survive. And I leave for Denali with our, our line of credit. We had a bank that held our line of credit and it was clockwork for 4 years. It was great, great relationship. And then, um, And then all of a sudden the funds aren't coming in and I finally get them on the phone and they say, we can no longer lend to you. I said, you can no longer lend to us or to anybody? They said, anybody, we're going down. That's all we can tell you. And so all of a sudden we went from having a, you know, million dollar line of credit to having to go out and find a fixed term loan, which really changed the game. You know, very different payment terms there. And so we got into some debt trouble and then the bank that was going down, they start sending their lawyers and debt collectors after us and it got really scary. And so that was the setting on which I left for 3 weeks to go climb Denali. I almost didn't go. My business partner, Adrian, bless him, he said, you gotta go. You've been training for this forever. And I got it. I got us. So I went and we got, we had, it was very, you know, the climb was actually very similar to the Arc of Ned. The first part was super easy, beautiful weather, great conditions, everything was easy. We made our way up that mountain super fast and it was beautiful. And then we climbed the headwall, the kind of the crux of the whole climb. It's this, big 2,000-foot ice sheet. And, um, and we cache up there, which, which means we put all our gear up there, and we come back down. And our guides come to us and they say, listen, there's two massive Arctic storms heading right toward us, and we're gonna have to make a decision tonight. You guys gotta decide, do we stay? We go up to 18,000 feet and we spend the next 8 to 12 days just surviving in our tents so that maybe we can summit, or do we head down, try it again another time? And so it felt very similar, this climb, to Ned.

And because just, just to pause you there for a second, I love this juxtaposition. You've built this company sort of on, on easy street from the get-go. Then it just gets harder. And harder. And then when you leave for this trip, you've got debt collectors chasing you down.

Yeah.

And how does that feel in that moment?

Oh, I was so scared. I was so worried. And yeah, it was all-consuming. Now, when I would get back from Denali, I would realize just how all-consuming it was. So I wasn't exactly, you know, DEF CON 9 at this point. I thought, Okay, this sucks, but we'll figure it out like we always do.

But, um, so there you are, the decision point. Yeah, decision point. We keep going or we turn around.

Exactly. And I was there and they said, listen, you gotta tell us in the morning. And so I laid in my tent that night and it was a team decision, but I, you know, I was reconciling with myself and I'm there thinking, you know, I can do that. I can do anything hard. It's what I've done my whole life. I've done hard things. It's what I do. It's a massive part of my identity. I do hard things. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an endurance athlete. I've always done hard things. We can summit. I can, I can sit in this tent. I can freeze my dick off literally to, to climb this mountain. Or, and then on the other side, I'm going, yeah, we can retool and, and go back to the garage and figure this out. And, you know, a big part of my ego wants to show everybody that I can do that. And then I realized that my whole life I've been idolizing the hard thing, the thing that's hard. Do hard things— that's been my, my identity. And I realized that, man, this climb has been amazing. It's been beautiful. The spot where I'm at is gorgeous, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life. What is it about the summit that's so much greater than where we are already? And I realized that I've kind of been idolizing the wrong things. I always idolized the hardest worker in the room, the first one in, the last one out. You know, all these stories my family and society have foisted upon me and so many others, and it's the hard thing. And I realized Yeah, I think I've been idolizing the wrong thing. I want to, I want to, I want to put more value on the person who does the hard thing and makes it look easy because it's so deeply in alignment with them. And so I thought about, about that, and I had my fists clenched, and I realized that I've, I've always taken a lot of perverse pride in being able to row upstream. Through rocks and rapids and, and, and out-row everybody around me. And, uh, and I had my fist clenched and I was like white-knuckling it. And I'm thinking, I'm really good at that, but what's the value in that? And in that moment, I loosened my grip and it felt like the oars slipped from my hands and I felt myself going backwards, being swept carried, not swept, but carried by the current into this river with all these different braids and channels and islands. And, and I just saw myself moving in the right direction, carried there by the universe when I let go, when I'm authentic in myself. And it felt so right and real, and I knew what my answer was to both Do I keep climbing? Do I keep building? And that was a huge moment for me.

I mean, really, it's at this point you decide to rewrite your original money story, right? That 10-year-old kid in the bus station. It's hard to get money and I can do hard things.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. Thank you for that connection. That's exactly right. It's hard to get money, and I can do hard things, and there's very little value in it if it's not hard. Yeah. And now I've completely flipped that 180 degrees to money should be easy. It can be easy when you're in alignment with your most authentic true self.

Wow.

And so now Now I'm doing what, what feels truly not just like right for me. Ned felt very right for me. And if you look at the placement of Ned on the ikigai Venn diagram, it'd be almost smack dab in the middle, but just slightly to the right, slightly off. Now I realized on that mountain, because it wasn't fully enough in alignment with my purpose, my authentic self, my zone of genius. It had me in an office behind a laptop looking at spreadsheets, and I'm good at that. Maybe even I'm really good at that, but I'm not great at it, and I certainly don't love it.

Yeah, and I think this is so important for people on the path to understand, right? Because I think that we're told if you just find the right company, the right mission, alignment falls into place. But what I'm hearing from you is that it was the right company and the right mission, you just weren't doing the right work.

That's right.

And that can still be out of alignment. Mm-hmm.

And it can be so subtle, so subtle, but so massive at the same time.

And, and what was the cost for you of, of this realization?

Oh, the cost of all those years spent chasing money out of alignment. And, you know, our generation was just told, you just go out and get the best grades you can, and then you get the best job you can, and then you make as much money as you can, and fuck everything else.

And that'll make you happy.

That will make you happy. And I bought into that hook, line, and sinker. And now I realize That's what the system wants. System wants you to believe that. And the cost of that was, was years. I'm 46 years old now. This all came to me when I had just turned 45. And I'm super grateful for all that. I'm super grateful for the learning. I'm super grateful for the lessons, the battle scars and, and all those wounds that I can now turn into who I can be going forward. It's been beautiful, but there has been a cost to myself, to my family. And I think about my daughter and, um, I— your first question, you know, I'm wondering what her response will be 20 years from now. You know, how prevalent— how much were you thinking about money growing up? Scarcity. And, um, you know, I'm really proud that she's had so much more than I did, but, um, but I wonder what her story will be.

Yeah, it's such an interesting thing to consider because, you know, one of the greatest lies I hear entrepreneurs say is, I'm doing it for my kids, right? Because the reality is, if you ask your kids what they want, they don't want you to build an empire.

No.

They want you to be home.

Exactly. They want your presence and attention.

And that's it. Right. But we make that— we believe this lie that I'm going to— I'm going to skip dinner. I'm going to— I'm going to be on my phone constantly.

Yeah.

I'll just be happy when I'll have time for you. When? When I get enough money. When? Then. Yeah. And, and again, it can be really subtle. You were building a company that you passionately believed in.

Absolutely.

Still do, yet sacrificing yourself.

Yeah, absolutely.

So what do you do from there? What do you go from there? You come down off Denali, you make the decision not to summit.

Yeah.

And what do you do?

I told my business partner Adrian, I said, dude, I'm, I'm ready. He said, yeah, I'm ready too. And we built Ned to sell in 5 to 7 years and we were 6 and a half years in and, and we were, we were both ready. Now, now is when that bank starts really coming after us though. And I go to DEF CON 9. I am so— I spend July and the first half of August last, last summer just worried out of my brain. I cannot sleep. I'm, I'm really struggling. It, it felt like the low point of my entrepreneurial career. It also felt so unfair. Here's a company that's done so much good. We've given away hundreds of thousands of dollars. We've we've helped 100,000 people, um, maybe more. And, you know, we're doing the right thing by all our farmers and the planet and etc., etc. And it just felt like it was so unfair. And I know that fairness has nothing to do with it, but, um, it just felt wrong. And so, yeah, it was really scary. And, um, and I was battling with that, and I went and I sought out a coach, and I met with a guy, great guy in Boulder, Kevin Lawrence is his name. And we sat down and I told him what was going on, and I got this debt collector, I think I might lose my house. And he looks at me in the eye after me pouring my heart out for 20 minutes. He goes, so what are you worried about? Or no, he goes, so why are you worried? And I was like, motherfucker, motherfucker, I just told you. And he goes, um, Yeah, I know, but, but how does it help to be worried? How is that going to help you get out of your situation? And in that moment, that's all it took, just one question, two questions, and I realized, yeah, it's not helping me at all. And I dropped 60, 70% of my worry right then and there. And that felt— I felt that burden come off my shoulders. It felt so good. And then I had told him before that, you know, I just want a parachute. You give me a parachute, I will jump off this plane. I'm not going to take anything with me, but I will leave all this stress behind. And he goes, you still want that parachute? No, I want to, I want to land this plane. Even if it's crash landing, I want to land this plane because I already knew what I was going to do. And it was going to help be to help other people. In that same situation. And by landing the plane, I was going to get those battle scars. I was going to gain more experience and know-how and empathy and all of it. And it felt really, really right. And so I decided, I'm in this until we hit the ground, whether that's a crash or a bump or whatever it is. And a day later, I realized how I was going to land the plane. As soon as I let go of the worry, the answer came to me and it would not have come to me otherwise. And it was, I met a guy at a cocktail party 3 months ago and he's going to buy our company. I called him up. I said, listen, Ned's for sale. He goes, wow, we just engaged a company to help us find a business to acquire. 3 and a half months later, we had closed, signed all the documents.

And what type of outcome financially was this for you?

It was not a life-changing financial outcome, but it's— it is so— actually, let me take that back. It is massively life-changing. Massively life-changing. You know, it is a fraction of the amount of money I would've expected to have in my bank account at this point. But my God, the learning, the insights, the, the growth has been invaluable. Invaluable. And I would pay millions of dollars for that, that learning and growth. And I'm going to turn it into millions of dollars as well. It's going to help many, many other people make millions and millions of dollars. And so it was a life-changing outcome. Now, not from the traditionally from the traditional perspective, but life-changing. And I'm so grateful and so glad, and I feel so blessed from it.

So what did you learn?

Oh, Mike, so much. But follow your alignment, not necessarily your passion. And I really feel like that's dangerous advice. I think follow your curiosity is better advice. Maybe the passion comes, maybe not. But as long as you're following your curiosity and, and working on uncovering your buried treasures, then you're signing up for a beautiful, exciting life, which is what I'm doing. I learned a ton. I learned a ton. And you know what? I think a mutual friend of ours, Eric Hinman, he called me up a couple months later and he said, Rhett, A friend of mine is going through the exact same thing you went through with a bank and the line of credit and the whole thing. Exactly to the, like, every detail. Would you mind talking with him? I said, Eric, like, this is why I went through this. I'm meant to talk with him. And I got to help him over the last 6 months go from the bottom, the absolute bottom. We got on the phone, he starts crying immediately. Turned out I was the only person he could talk to about any of this. And I'd been through it and I got to help him with all the logistical— here's who you need to talk to, here's the statute you need to look up— to the more important stuff of, you know, how's your heart feeling? What are you doing to take care of yourself? What are you doing to stay strong? And how's your worry level right now? Because it's not going to help you. And I'm really proud to say he found his way very circuitously to a life-changing exit for himself. So yeah, I learned that life happens not just to you, not just by you, which is, you know, many people never get to the life happens by you, but then there's that life happens for you. And that felt brilliant. That felt amazing. This is all happening for me. This, this debt issue, every— this is all happening so that I can grow and then help other people. And now I've realized, by spending a week with Boyd Varty in Landa Lhosi, which is a whole other story, he helped me realize that when you are on your true path, when you are fully aligned with your truth, Life can not only happen for you, but it can happen through you. And if there's anybody I know for whom life is happening through them, it's Boyd. And that's— there's this divinity to that. There's a higher element. There's a spiritual element there. This divinity where it happens through you.

So starting from I'm gonna get money and then I'll be happy. What does wealth mean to you now?

Yeah, it's alignment. It's alignment with truth, with your truth. Yeah, my exit— I'm not, I'm not flush. I'm very happy. But that exit was about so much more than money. And it's, it's growth, it's alignment, it's truth. I feel wealthier than I ever have been. If you look at, if you talk to my wealth manager, which I did this morning, we're doing well. But, you know, it's so much, it's about so much more than the money. And I wish I had known that earlier. I really wish I had known that. I thought I learned that after the furniture business and when I, you know, hit some real milestones. But in that moment when it came time to decide, am I going to— I came out of that canyon. Am I going to create a company with some real enterprise value and then sell it and then I'll go do what I want? Or do I just now start doing what I want? I didn't give myself permission to do that. And, um, I'm glad I didn't, honestly, because then I couldn't have gone through what I did. I couldn't have had the opportunity to grow a business and lead it through such highs and then lead it through such lows and then land that plane and be on it thinking we were gonna crash, but still being on it. That was really important. To my arc. It's really important that I had that experience for all the people that I'll, I'll work with in the future, and for my daughter to see. Man, she's seen so much, and I'm so grateful that she has. My wife told me years ago when I came downstairs from my office one night to dinner at the table, and my daughter was in a high chair, and I came down all just in a grumpy mood. You know, the furniture business was about being a middleman, really. And I'd spent like 13 hours just being a middleman on email, and I sat down grumpy, and my wife goes, uh-oh, no, no, our daughter needs to see her father passionate about what he does. Like, shape the fuck up. And That was just before I went on that 55-day sojourn through the wilderness to go find that passion.

Yeah, and I think what's so interesting here is that we sort of romanticize, I think, purpose and passion, and that if we just find it, champagne's gonna fall from the heavens, our life's gonna slip into alignment. Yeah. And we'll never be unhappy again. Right. So something I say from stage often is like, the day I sold my company, I thought I'd never be unhappy again. And, you know, the storm clouds were on the horizon, right? And I want to dig into this concept of alignment because it's not just happiness. Happiness is fleeting. So what does alignment really mean to you now?

Yeah, it's that feeling that life is happening through me. You put me— you, you pick me up and drop me anywhere, and within 2 weeks I'm gonna have community. I'm gonna have people going outside talking about deep, interesting topics and, um, and hopefully making a bit of an impact. And that's, that's, that's happening no matter what, because that's who I am, what I am, what I'm here to do. And Yeah, that, that feels like alignment. It feels like, um, this deep knowing. And I'm at this place, this point where, like, I finally know what real faith looks like, like the faith of, of the fanatic, the zealot. It feels like as long as you are true to your belief, then the universe will support. And that's a commitment. Like, that's a real commitment. When times get scary, when I want to grip those oars again and start rowing upstream, I have to have the faith that that's just not the right way for me anymore. And I have to let go. And it can be really scary to let go. But that faith that the river will carry me to the right, the right shore is deep in me at this point.

Well, it's so easy for us as recovering hard things people to pick back that, to pick that identity right back up.

Absolutely.

Right? And I find myself struggling with that of like falling back into, oh, I can put this pack on. This is comfortable. Mm-hmm. It's a lot more uncomfortable to ride with the current.

Yeah.

So how do you keep yourself from falling back into old habits, old mindset, old identities?

It hasn't been easy. I think I spent January back in that old habit. There I was just, you know, building my website and behind my laptop and, and I realized that I thought, it feels like I'm white-knuckling this again. And I took myself and I went and I did just a one-night, you know, winter backpacking trip and went up above Nederland in the mountains up there in the Indian Peaks Wilderness and, you know, took myself back into nature, into simplicity, living out of a backpack just for you know, 24 hours, but that was a really good reset for me. It was very intentional. Also, I have a coach, you know, I have a great coach and, you know, any coach without a coach, I feel like, you know, is a bit of a hypocrite. So I spoke with my coach and I continue to do so. And I have these reminders and I actually will grip my hand really tight and I'll create my, my white knuckles, and then I'll, I let go. And it's a reminder of that. It's a somatic reminder.

What do you wish you could go back and tell yourself 10, 12 years ago?

I don't know that I would change anything, but I spent a lot of time worried that it's not going to work out. Maybe I would say everything's gonna be just fine. I don't know that I would tell myself just be in alignment, you know, like follow what you love most, follow your curiosity, because I, I wouldn't have had that— the experiences I've had on, on the coaching path.

Something I, I strongly believe is yes, the best coaches have coaches themselves, right? We believe our own bullshit. The other thing is that the best coaches have scars.

Yeah.

And there's a, you know, no disrespect intended to anybody, but there's a lot of 25-year-old life coaches out there that don't have the battle scars to actually hold someone and goes and go like, not only, you know, have I been through this, but I got you.

I got a way out. Yeah. Yeah. I really believe that. And I also believe you can really only coach as far as you've been. Which is why I'm doing so much work and it feels so fun. I'm just saying yes to everything. It's been a wild year, from Denali to tracking lions to peyote and ayahuasca ceremonies to, uh, to riding a motorcycle from Yemen to Jordan across the Saudi dunes, and, and tons and tons of, of books and journaling and and deep conversations and sitting by a river and another vision quest. I'm doing another vision quest in September. I've invited a few men to join me. You know, I mentioned this, I say, "Yeah, I just go and sit in nature. I don't eat anything for 4 days and I just sit there and let the visions come to me." And it's amazing the looks I get from men. And they go, "God, I need that. I really, really need that." And so I'm inviting a few men to come along with me on that. We'll have our own separate spots, but I'll set the container and we'll go into it. And then I'll help with the integration afterward. But that feels very right and real to me.

It sounds like this, from this place of alignment, you're really bringing nature as a fundamental element of you into your work, and then your passion for service, and, and blending those two things together. What does that look like for you?

Ah, yeah, so a little while ago it looked like what everybody else's shit looked like.

Right?

And, you know, here's the retreat. And it was like very cookie cutter. And then I realized, yeah, fuck that. I want to do what I want to do, and I'm going to invite people to come along with me on this. And so I'm really passionate about, about getting outdoors, and I'm super passionate about adventure. It's one of my core values. Adventure, freedom, growth— these are core values of mine. And so I'm just doing the things that I'm called to and I'm inviting specific people along and, um, and it's been beautiful. But yeah, nature has always been a big, big thing for me. I was born in a town in Wyoming with 11 people. I was the 12th person in this town. And ever since then, I've just had a deep connection to nature and ended up living and working and, and growing up in some of the biggest cities in the world. And I would always go and find the most natural space in that city, whether it was Central Park or an abandoned lot, um, wherever something was growing, that's where I wanted to be. It's where I went to heal and then, and then come back to myself, where I would go to create resonance and simplify and find that clarity I was seeking. And just that calm remembering of our ancestors who really were nature, in nature always, and part of it. So it, it feels super natural to me to, to bring people to nature, to, to remove a lot of the, the, the things in our lives these days, and to have this bigger, deeper remembering of what it felt like to be natural. And I think we're missing so much of this. We really are and we don't know it. We can't even put our finger on it. But you know, a lot of the depression and angst and anxieties, I believe stems from a deeper disconnect from the natural world. And you know, when I was in Lanzarote a few weeks ago, I promised I wasn't gonna spoil anything.

I'm gonna be real mad at you. No spoiler alert. I can't put on earmuffs. So for those of you guys listening, I'm actually headed to Lanzarote next year, and, and I made a promise to, to no spoilers. But what was your takeaway? How about that?

Yeah, the takeaway was that, um, there are certain things that we as humans no longer have the opportunity to do because of our modern society. And when we get the opportunity to go and do those things, it just feels so damn right. I mean, so damn right. And, um, and I know a lot of us are missing that. And so it's a, it's a beautiful feeling when you can reconnect and remember what that feels like.

So for our listeners who are maybe inspired to reconnect with a part of themselves that they've lost or get back into nature and, and, you know, find themselves drawn to your work, where can they find you?

Yeah, thanks, Mike. Rettaylor.com, R-E-T-T-A-Y-L-O-R.com, or I'm on Instagram at @rettaylor_. And really, that's it. I'm— well, LinkedIn too, I'm there, but, um, no TikTok or whatever. Um, I try to do as little as possible on these platforms.

Yeah, cool. And, and what would you say to anyone out there who is thinking, man, yeah, I've, I've lost my connection to nature. Maybe I'm trapped by my company, you know?

Yeah.

Maybe I'm under a mountain of debt.

Yeah.

What do you say to that person?

Call me. For one, happy to talk with everybody. This is my favorite topic. Reach out for one. For another. Yeah. Just follow, follow that deeper remembering. And that could be anything from you know, looking up at the sky between skyscrapers to signing up for that retreat that takes you outdoors or just going on your own, hop in your car and find a spot. I mean, this is simple stuff. It doesn't have to be complicated. When I did my first vision quest, the one I mentioned, I was actually on my way to go fishing and I did a U-turn on the highway, and I decided I'm going to Utah. And I didn't need anything. I didn't bring anything with me. Just simple, easy. Now I had some freedom because of my circumstances, but yeah, keep it simple. Keep it really, really simple. That's the point.

Brett, thank you so much for sharing your story, sharing your wisdom. I'm really excited to have a front row seat to the work you're putting into the world. Thank you for following your alignment, and I can't wait to see what you do.

Yeah, well, thanks. Thanks, brother. And thanks for giving me the platform here to hopefully connect with a few people.

Absolutely, man. Thanks for being here.

Yeah.