"Everything Is Connected": Building a Sacred Business from Marriage Crisis with Jay and Cory Fiset

Yeah.

So welcome to Sacred Business Stories. This is our weekly Substack Live where we have an honest conversation about really what it looks like to create a business that aligns with your deepest truth. And today we are privileged and lucky to be joined by not one, but two guests, uh, our dynamic duo, uh, Jay and Corey Fassett. And, um, I'm gonna let them tell their story more because it'll be way more fun that way. But, um, just to kind of kick things off, they are the founders of The Connection Experience. Psychedelic retreats, and really they help create a doorway for reinvention and healing for couples. So we'll just give it a couple minutes to let people join, but welcome Jay and, uh, Cory.

Thank you.

We are so happy to be here and have this conversation.

Yeah, we are very excited to have you. And I always like to remind people like why we do Sacred Business Stories, and our goal is for, uh, it's inspiration. Not only, uh, we are saying that, that this is probably like our favorite moment of the week where we get to connect with people like doing, uh, cool things out in the world and it gave us permission to expand. But the goal is also giving, uh, permission to our audience and people here. They're like, I'm trying to create a business. I want my business to be like a fulfilling thing for myself. I want my business to support my lifestyle. Um, and even to support the marriage, right? Like you both, like just finding like this connection. It's, it's just beautiful to watch. So it is for inspiration, and I'm very happy, uh, that you're here as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, what would you like to know first?

I think they're gonna wait a little bit for people to be able to join. Awesome. One of the things just that might be fun and entertaining as people are joining is we literally just had our 30th wedding anniversary adventure and celebration and all of those pieces, and literally we have run businesses together in sort of different roles for 3 decades, actually longer, for 35 years. So, so not a first time out by any stretch of the imagination.

Well, and congratulations for 30 years. That's an accomplishment.

Thank you. Yes. Cool.

Well, let's jump into it. I think like a great place to start is just to kind of introduce yourself, give us the story about where you find yourself today. Like, I find it to be a very unique story. And then one of the things we really love to kind of highlight is kind of, especially for a lot of people that are kind of considering making the leap and doing more purpose-based or soul work, is kind of like taking people behind the scenes a little bit on your journey from how you got from where you started to where you find yourself today. So I know that's a lot of ground to cover, but, but yeah, just give it your best. We'd love to hear from you and, and we'll, we'll take it from there.

Oh, I, I'm thinking in relationship to this business that we run together, we would start at 2020, right?

That takes—

otherwise this would be a very long podcast. Um, you want to, um, you start. Okay. You're great at telling the story about how— I mean, because this all started, um, with us trying to save our relationship and our marriage when we were just coming up to our 25th anniversary. So, it's, yeah, it's a cool story.

And, I think we were both in the spot of heading towards 25 years of marriage. We were in relationship 10 years prior. So, we were already at 35 years of being together. And, the last 5 years were really, really taxing on us. We had buried 3 parents. We had 2 young boys. I was traveling a lot with business. And, The cool part about it is that we continued to talk about it and recognize that we needed support and assistance and all those sorts of things. We hired, like, we went to, we did a bunch of stuff. In that process, we kept being invited to attempt psychedelics, specifically MDMA. And, you know, we'd come have that conversation and we'd go like, what the hell is that going to do? I'm going to put some shit in our body that some dingbat made in a bathtub. Like, I just, all of the judgments and propaganda and misunderstandings and all sorts of things. We were just like a hard, hard, hard no. For 5 years. And the crazy part about that, while struggling and telling the truth about our struggles and recognizing the distance between us in this weird thing— I can't use my hands— the distance between us growing.

Yeah, and we were on, I think what we'd call like a parallel, parallel tracks. You know, it wasn't terrible, awful. There wasn't any horrible thing happening. It was just, we were just both doing our own thing and we were together, but there was this distance in the space between us. And so many couples we've talked to, you know, since then just relate to that analogy. It's like, yeah, like we love each other. We, you know, we're great parents together and we have a home. We have like all the mechanics of life we deal with and handle together. But there's this, this soul heart distance that has developed between us. And when, when we've been together as long as we were, it, gets to a point where it's, it's really difficult to try to bring that back in.

The patterns get very deep. Yeah. And I should just say that this whole thing of some of the key phrases for our clients that we serve now today is like when we say parallel lives, they go, oh, or if we say we were spending more time coping than creating. And there was a time where we were really focused on creating, which I think is also this important part of this conversation around sacred business flow. So anyway, that went on heading towards our 25th, and we're pretty sure that this is, you know, I think one of our clients called it, we were coasting to the inevitable end of our relationship, even though we were trying stuff. Like, that's really what it looked like. And then in February of 2020, she and I were running two events in San Diego. We had a client and a friend who had been running MDMA journeys for ages. Cory went home to take care of the boys. He asked me if I wanted to have the experience. I said yes, and I had this absolutely transformative, earth-shattering experience that basically like shone a light on this wall that had been built between us. Every brick of that wall had a little story or excuse or justification about how relationships crumble over time, how needs get ignored over time, how it just happened. A promise 30 years ago gets in the way of our presence today. And, uh, and I came home from that perfectly 100% clear for the first time, I think ever, that the transformation was, had to be led by me. And in, in the past when we were trying to fix things, it was like, well, if you do this and I'll do this and then we'll do this and then I'll do this and you do this and we'll do this. And it just changed to, I need to get on with my life. I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to fix my teeth. I'm going to grow my hair and I'm going to engage. And I would love for you to come with me. And I expect that you can't because we've been dancing around this now for years. And the beautiful part about that, two things, is number one is that she chose in really quickly. And to be honest, I was skeptical about her motivation about that. And then shortly after that, I think we had sort of like the big talk starting like March 4th. This is 2020.

So the big talk.

I like the title.

Like, everybody loves the talk. If you're in a relationship and you're having the talk, it's It's challenging.

We understand. We totally understand. So that would be like March 4th. And then March 13th, the world shut down. And instead of me being on planes, trains, and automobiles for 2 weeks out of a month, we were home for which we thought would be a couple of weeks.

Yeah. This COVID thing will be over. We'll be back to work in April.

But we had this beautiful time to dive into, and this is one of the things I think is really important. And I think it applies to your whole business thing as well. But we got really curious because in that space, we really dove into this idea of how is it that two people that love each other this much have gotten to this ridiculous spot? And it wasn't this thing. It was like, how on earth did we devolve to this? And that conversation literally went for thousands of hours over COVID and became the framework of our reinvention. Now, in that time frame, we began to experiment with psychedelics. We created this thing that we called our Adventure and Ritual that we did every 6 weeks. We developed this structure of connection and sharing and presence and love and sexual expression and fun and play. And we did that for a couple of years. And then people started showing up and going, I don't know what you guys are doing, but would you help? And we're like, Listen, we're just trying to stay married at this stage.

Helpful.

Yeah.

And that's really how we landed in this spot. And if you'd have told us 3 years ago that we would end up professionally, like that our business would be oriented around psychedelics, like we'd have just said, you fell and hit your head. Like there's just, there's no way.

Yeah, that's really fascinating. I just love the way, And I would love for you guys to talk a little more like, then people were asking you, right? Like you had this for yourself and then life, the way we say it, like life or the universe was co-creating with you and like, oh, there is a way for you to serve, uh, in how you found the solution for you that might be the solution for others. Can you just, can you just share more how like people were like maybe seeing you as the example of like, oh, you guys are different. You guys are relating to each other differently. Like, and then how they were like being inspired through your own path.

Yeah, and that's a great question. And through this process, between the two of us, we lost 60 pounds. So that was, you know, we just got back to what we know works for us, self-care, working out together. And, you know, I know COVID was so difficult for so many people, and it also was like our boys in school and everything. But we created this like hashtag best pandemic ever because it absolutely saved us. Being able to have that time and space. And people just started to, especially our family and close friends, started to notice just huge shifts, huge shifts and changes in us.

Like, one of the things that you're talking about, losing weight. So we really got into this routine of working out together and using that as part of our bonding and connecting time. And literally, we had all sorts of people, it's like, you guys look younger, right? Like, you're downaging. Like, what are you doing? Like, how's that? So there was this visible cue, but I want to share one cool story that, that I think summarizes it. It actually doesn't get right to the heart of it, but it's one. So my oldest sister Lynn was incredible support for us in this reinvention. So when we would go on our adventures, literally, we'd go to a hotel for a night or two nights. Lynn would watch the boys and all those things. And we were packing up one day. And, and just to be clear about this, at this stage of the game, we've already been in relationship 35 years. Like, we grew up together. My sister is her sister for all intents and purposes. We know each other well. And Cori is running out to the car to take something out for our adventure. And she's kind of like skipping out to the car and she goes out the front door. And my sister Lynn comes around the corner and she goes, what the fuck have you done to her? Like, she's not the same person. Like, what is going on? Like, tell me what is happening. And at this stage, we haven't told her all about the psychedelics and all the rest of it just yet. We've been fairly to close that. And I just said, we're doing really well and we're really getting ourselves back on track. She goes, well, whatever it is, do more of that. And then it was shortly after that that we told her about psychedelics.

Was her reaction okay about this psychedelic? She was like, oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and I think by the time we really got grounded around what it meant and that this wasn't some frivolous, silly idea that we were doing it with intention, we, her, her, her reaction was, was actually quite great, as most were. And, and we really didn't care, if that makes any sense. Like, it was, and I think this is a part of this idea of sacred business flow, is that there are going to be a bunch of people with ideas that don't fit the norm. Hell, ideas, depending on where you live, aren't even legal. There are going to be ideas that do not fit within the traditional context of, let's say, business, marriage, religion, like all those. There's going to be all these things. And, and I really genuinely believe that one of the key pieces is to be so clear and grounded about what it means to us that whether you like it, don't like it, approve or don't approve, I genuinely really don't care. And that sounds kind of asshole-ish and maybe it is, but I don't mean it in a mean sense. I just mean it's irrelevant. It's irrelevant.

Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I think like, it's very nice that you're putting words into that, that I would never call being an asshole, but I, it's like, there are things here that make sense to you that could look like against the norm, but it's not like, it's just a rule that was created by someone that doesn't even make sense. And we grew up like trying to fit in boxes and behave in a certain way that it's, it's so against our own nature that, you know, just having you saying that and for whoever's listening, like, we all have that. It's not only the psychedelic, but like how we relate to each other in a relationship. How do we heal ourselves? Right? Like if I heal myself, like jumping, like, and people like, is it weird? But if it works for me, why not? Right? Um, I just love that. It's so important to Give permission, you know, for sure.

And I always go back to our original fear around the whole thing too. Like, I can, you know, when we talk to people and they're like, oh my God, I don't know if I get it. Like, I really get it. Cause I was terrified to try a chemical, you know, like that just, I was sure I was going to be the one person that'll have like, my arm will fall off or I'll have an allergic reaction or I'll like, something terrible will happen. So we do understand people's fear. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. And oh, go ahead, Jeff.

No, no, no, you go, Phil.

No, I was just gonna ask you, like, connected to this idea of out of the box, like one of the things that I've really appreciated about you and we met for the first time, I don't know, maybe like 3 years ago now on a retreat in, in Colombia, but you had shared kind of your mission statement process. And really when I, when I look at you, you've kind of like always been out of the box. Like you, like when you were doing like personal development seminars way back, Way back in the day, that was probably as out of the box as the psychedelic conversation is today. And then now, you know, this idea of like masterminds is like any marketer, you know, out there in the world has like, you know, is throwing this, this term around. But you were one of the first people kind of involved in that conversation when masterminds were a very novel idea. And now here you find yourself in this psychedelic conversation. So I'm curious, what kind of your compass is and how you steer that decision-making and also like, uh, kind of the tipping point and, and there, you know, to decide like, hey, I'm moving wholeheartedly in this direction, but maybe even more importantly for, because a lot of our audience also could be in a state where they're already successful in one endeavor, but their kind of heart's pulling them in a new direction. Like you've seemed to have this incredible kind of gift of kind of trusting yourself and having faith to be like, hey, like, yeah, this mastermind thing is working awesome. Or like, I have this long career in personal development and I'm just going to kind of like turn the ship and walk away from that for the most part and put all of my energy in this new kind of pioneering space. So I would just love to hear kind of how you relate to that and how you make decisions for yourself and trust that process as it unfolds.

He's a trailblazer for sure.

Yeah.

So always willing to step outside the box.

Me, a little more hesitant, but, and I'll come with an idea to Cori and she'll go, huh? Huh? Um, so that's, yeah.

And also Cori, like from a relationship dynamic as well, like you've been there the whole time. So like, like I would love to hear how you relate to like, if he's coming out with like wanting to make this big shift, like these are, you know, that's a whole nother. Dimension, right? It's like having this whole other—

I know, I wish I was a little less risk-averse. Is that the right— but I'm, I, yeah. So we, we often have this when it comes to something new. That's just the way it is.

And okay.

So there's like 5 questions in there, Phil. So I'm going to, I'm going to start with what I think is the beginning. And if this isn't going in the direction you want, you just redirect me.

Okay.

So at the beginning with the personal development work, I had this transformative experience at the ripe old age of 19 that had me change how I saw myself, how I saw my place in the world, how I saw what was possible, how I saw people operate. And I wanted to participate in that space. And it was incredibly powerful and meaningful in ways that I cannot even begin to describe. And through a weird turn of events, I ended up going to work for the organization I took those courses for. And then a weirder turn of events, I ended up owning and buying the rights to that course and program when I think it was ripe old age of 22 or 23. Now, this was a double-edged sword because at the beginning, I was really committed to this mission of consciousness and waking up both myself, my family, the world, And I really was dedicated to that process. Now, you have to keep in mind here when you're talking about personal development, all sorts of things. So I'm running this quite large personal development organization in 1991. And in 1991, just to put this in context and perspective, is like if you were at a cocktail party and somebody says, what do you do for a living? And you said, oh, I'm a facilitator. People would look at you. It's like, what? You're a what? You're a what?

It's like, Where did you go to university for that?

Is that like a social disease? And I said, well, sometimes it itches. People literally had no clue whatsoever. And I always laughed if you fast-forwarded.

Even personal development. Like it was now, I mean, you say anything around personal development, it's as common as saying, you know, I had a breath. I had breakfast. But back then it was like, what kind of personal development?

And what's wrong with you? Like, how did we? Like, it was so wild. It was so weird. Yeah. Anyway, so, you know, and then 15 years later, everybody's a coach and everybody's a facilitator. And it's like, it was just the funniest thing. Anyway, so here's the double-edged sword I'm trying to get at, which is I was dedicated to a mission that I saw as larger than myself, but I really oriented myself around what I did. Okay. And this is a very, very, how do I call it? It's a common mistake in the entrepreneurial world. So if somebody gets certified in a particular modality, whether that's Reiki or psychedelic, and it's like, that's what I am. And then from that perspective, I just got to make sure nobody's phoning me. From that perspective, then we try to push what we do upon the marketplace. And here's the honest God truth. One of the greatest things about that personal development company, which over the years, in 25 years, we've put about 40,000 people through our world in a variety of different ways. But literally, we had radio shows, we produced television, we produced infomercials. If you can think of a way to try to market and to sell personal development in a world that's going, what the hell is personal development? We did it. And as straight as I can say it was, hard. It took us 15 years to break $1 million in sales annually, just to be clear. 15 years. So that— I learned the very hard way, and I'm a little bit of a slow learner when it comes to my sort of like, um, so it was through that process that I finally got a little bit tired. I sold the rights to that content, uh, to, uh, an associate of mine, and I wanted to go work in the entrepreneurial world. And what I discovered very, very quickly was instead of pushing a what I do was to present a solution or an opportunity that was meaningful and to listen to the marketplace. So I think the short answer, which make a long story longer, is that after 15 years of struggling to sort of push rope uphill. I took all of what I had learned there and then just got really oriented around what do people want. So we started listening, like our mastermind world. And just to be clear about this, we like long before masterminds were a thing in the entrepreneurial space, like for 15 years in our personal development company, we ran masterminds to support the application and integration of people who went through the courses. So by the time we were in, people were interested in masterminds, we'd already launched hundreds of them. So, you know, just didn't call it that at the time. We didn't call it that at the time. Exactly. But I'm in a, I'm at an event in California. Somebody says something to me about they're struggling with their, with their little group process. And I say, well, you know, I have an internal training that was just for my team. It's been sitting on shelves for years. I'll just give it to you if I think it'll help because it'll help you structure, it'll help you run it, I'll help you do all those things. I send it off to the, to the guy and he's like, oh my God, is there more? And then he's like, you should teach this. So we just started doing this, and this was the very first time, a little beta invitational offer to test, does anybody care? And that little beta webinar had, I think it was 65 people on it, and we sold 42 units at $1,000 as a test. And that one little piece there became how all of these other things you were asking me about, Phil, have occurred, which is I promised myself from that point forward that I was going to listen to the marketplace and that I wasn't going to push my rope uphill and I wasn't going to define myself by what I did. I was going to test what the marketplace was interested in. And then the big magic trick, and then I'll stop talking, is watching for the intersection of my interest, my love, my fascination and marketplace interest. And when those things intersect, everything has become so much easier. And if you had any idea how hard I worked in those 15 years, it's insane. Anyway, I'll stop talking.

Well, and it feels like less— it doesn't feel like it's work when it is just in alignment with who you've become and your passion and your heart and what you're really interested in. Then we have this, we work together, but we have the blurred lines of work and our relationship and work and fun and work and joy and work and going on retreat. And, you know, but it's, it's all work, but it doesn't often feel like work. I love that space.

This is one of the things I love what you just touched on, both of you, because this is something that we talk about a lot in our work, which is, and we kind of talk about it in different terms that maybe it's structure and essence, but like, you know, there's this part of the structure, which is exactly what Jay, you're talking about when you're like listening to the market and, and what, what do people actually want? And then we also talk, which we feel is equally important, is like, what is the identity of the person that needs to set, to stand in the center of this business, right? And so often we find that people either orient too far to one end of the spectrum or the other, right? So then they're chasing the market, but then they end up with something and they're holding that they're like, Oh my God, like, what have I created? Like, my life sucks here. Like, I need to like burn out and go on retreat in, in, uh, in Bali or Costa Rica for 3 years just to recover from the stress. Or they're so far over here kind of in their, their essence without the structure of, and, and, you know, the tactics of things like listening to the market that they're never able to find the grounding. And that's kind of to your point of pushing the rope uphill. So yeah, I feel like what you just described is a, is a perfect expression of a lot of what we're trying to do with our work, which is marrying those two aspects together.

And I just, I want to emphasize because even just in telling this story, I think I've spent a lot of my life in judgment of my ignorance running the personal development company of trying to create a demand, trying to educate people into saying yes, trying to remove the stigma of if you're doing personal development, there's something wrong with you. Good God, I spend a lot of time in that space. And in hindsight, it's easy to judge. But I think the other side of that is it also taught me very clearly about what your business— it also taught me very clearly about what flow feels like and what pushing rope uphill feels like. And I'm too old to push rope uphill anymore, you know? So, so anyway, it, it has had great value even though I've sometimes been pretty harshly judged myself harshly about it.

Yeah. Like one thing that I love and I think it's so valuable for, uh, the people listening to us here is it feels to me that like kind of the example you gave, like, oh yeah, like let's say if I have this certification, but then who I am and how I use that. To my own benefit or to solve my own problem. And then when we speak from experience and then something that matters to you, I think that your heart fully opens and that's like the attraction, right? Because now people are interested. You have like, it's not the content. It's not that you read a book and you're like trying to speak from this understanding. You're, you're speaking from lived experience. And one thing that like we share with our with our clients and it's, it's a huge work, I feel. Um, and maybe you can talk more about it, like, and, and even Corrie, like she said that, like at the beginning, like people would ask, like, did you go to university for that? We are so attached to certification and we are so attached of seeing our value from like, I have this diploma, I went to university, this university, and then the world is shifting so fast. To a place that like, you're gonna serve from the space of experience, but I don't think our human mind, um, caught up in the sense of giving ourselves permission to, yeah, like I'm teaching you this, or I'm in this psychedelic work because I had the experience. And of course you're going to go and you're going to find certifications and you're going to study about it, but it comes first from a space of this is my life, this is my lived experience, and I can turn that into a business and I can serve, you know, from that space, not necessarily needing a university degree, you know, um, how do you feel about it? Like, and to the other side, there's people like with thousands of certifications, but they don't connect with their heart and what they love and their passion. And then the business is always like missing one part or the other because either I need certifications and they're always running after more, or they have enough, but they can't connect like. And I feel that you combine that in a beautiful way.

Well, may I? It's interesting you say that because we now have a psychedelic guide certification program called Foundations, and we're just in the middle of building the third cohort. I was having a meeting with a woman who chose to join yesterday.

And we took a certification ourself in this, you know, world, which Again, it's all underground, so it's not like at the University of Calgary.

But that blending you're talking about is that— and I always say to folks in this world, there's sort of— if it's a pendulum, on this side there's the therapeutic world, which is pretty clinical and tight and beautiful, but a little bit limited and oriented around PTSD, depression, a whole variety of things. Then there's on the other side, the ceremonial which is more spiritual, often more indigenous, more ceremonial, and often more group-oriented. And while those two things have great value, I think the biggest win is this center spot in between, which we're currently calling functional psychedelics, where we choose a problem and then we create a protocol around solving that problem. And by the way, this just is a way of me and us forcing our clients to think of the market, right? So test the market. This is not— the world doesn't need another psychedelic therapist and probably doesn't need another ceremonial leader, but the world needs a whole bunch of functional approaches. So we keep pushing people to create a protocol around their transformation, because if they create a protocol around their transformation, which is what we did with the Connection Experience, there's that lived experience and grounded container that people go, oh, I get that. Tell me what you did. Tell me how you did that. Tell me what the difference is. And that to me is the, you know, outside of all the business training, it's the only way to get people to really say, this is what's up for me. This is the result I have created. This is what I am perfectly grounded in. This I could deliver standing on my head, being asleep, because it's who I am. And so literally, I've stopped really pushing people to think of it that way. I just was like, listen, you're gonna design a protocol around your greatest transformation. And, and from there, if they can do that as guides, they have this huge advantage. Anyway, so they, it's so funny that you say this because the certification is really nothing more than them owning them that their own experience with the safety education structure around, you know, pharmacology and all the other elements. Anyway.

And we get a lot of people who we work with that have, have the degrees, have gone to university, have worked in that field maybe for a period of time, and they are done. Like, they're done. They want to do their own. They want to follow their heart and do their own thing. And they, they end up, you know, in some— like doing something like this or something that just their heart is calling them. So I don't think either end is right or wrong. You know, many people have, have their degrees and they make a great living and they do their thing. Um, and maybe they're loving it and enjoying it and that's fantastic. And I think there's a lot of people who do that for a period of time. Or as we have a 19-year-old turning 20, when he got outta high school, this was rolling around in my mind, kind of your question about going to university and there was nothing he wanted to go to university for. And it's funny 'cause I'm like, so many kids at that age just go because that's what you have to do. You just have to go to university. It doesn't matter what you take, just take something, just get to school, go learn something, get a degree, get a degree, get a degree. And I think we're starting to see a new generation of kids kids that are coming out of, um, perhaps, you know what, take some time and just be with yourself. Go travel, just work, be in life for a while and work the jobs. Like, he's working 9 to 5, honestly crappy jobs as far as I'm concerned, and we're happy about it.

More like 6 to 3.

Because it's like, you gotta go out and learn how like the real world lives. And then my hope and desire for him is eventually, at whatever, maybe early 20s, he'll be like, you know what, something's calling me and this is what it is, and now I'm going to explore that. And that might be university, it might It might be something else, it might be anything. But, I think for people just to be able to take that time to allow their kids and themselves to just settle into what feels right and then, go take the courses and go learn everything you can about it. But, so many of us just have fallen into that track of this is what you do. Same with getting married, same with having kids, same with all the things, right? This is just what you do. And then, you find yourself in our late 50s looking at each other going, Holy shit, like, who, who are you? Right? And then you've got to kind of figure all that out.

Again.

Again. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, I don't know if that helped answer that question too, but there's so many people now trying to enter the entrepreneurial space of leaving their corporate, corporate job and then moving into the entrepreneurial world. And I think it's a huge transition and absolutely.

And the skill sets are not the same.

Yeah.

And it's got to be something that, that you that like makes your heart, heart pound faster, you know, like excites you. Otherwise it's difficult.

Yeah.

YouTube can be difficult.

Yeah. Yeah. No, for like, and you were telling your son's story and I just thought of like me, like I, when I finished school, like it was actually not even a possibility in my mind that I could take some time. Like the rule was you finish school and you gotta go to university and you I have to apply. And then in my case, I always say like, uh, here in Brazil, it's very common. Like, if you don't know what to do, you do business management. And that's what I did, you know, because I'm like, I don't know what to choose, but I have to choose. And I have a timeline by December. I need to sign this paper and I need to tell them that I need to do this for the rest of my life until you're like, what am I doing?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

But one, yeah. And one of the things that I just admire about both of you is you are You're embodying and owning your experience. And this is the thing, like, I, I'm totally about like, uh, learning. I like, I, for myself, I've always kind of practiced like what I call just-in-time learning, right? It's kind of to your point, Jay, of like the market. It's like, it's like I trust myself and I trust my ability to be creative and find what's necessary to get the result. And when there's a gap, I'll let that gap determine, uh, where I put my attention in terms of study and learning. But I, I think where the challenge comes and, and where, where I think people can see a very positive example in your story is that so often we come across people who are kind of like, I don't even know if it's a word, but like a multimodality practitioner, right? Where they've, they've got a collection of 10 different certifications, but, and they feel that like just that one next certification is going to be the shift that makes their business work. And they're not owning who they are in the center. And this is a lot of what the work we help people do. It's like, hey, like you already have a story, you already have a message, you already have life experience and all these gifts So you can, there's nothing lacking for you just to go out there now and, and be the one who can provide the transformation. And yes, of course, if there's a skill gap, you'll fill it. But, um, don't let that be the thing that keeps you from stepping into the space. And I think even the shift in the psychedelics for you, like you had an experience and then you owned it. You're like, okay, this is, I'm moving in. And I'm sure you're doing all sorts of study and research and things as needed, but you didn't wait for that to be like, I'm gonna step into the space and start doing the work, right? And I feel that that's a really powerful example for people.

Yeah, it's important. I once did, and I wish I could remember what it is. It was like a summary of purpose and sort of profile of who you are, and it came and had to be summarized into 3 words. And for those of you that have been listening, you know that 3 words is hard for me. But here's where it landed and it really resonates as truth for me is that my life, world, time, all those things are really oriented around 3 things. Learn. I'm fascinated by what I'm fascinated about and I actually don't give a shit about most things. But if I'm fascinated about it, I will dive in and learn everything there is to learn about it and I'll do it really quickly. But intellectual knowledge has never been my How do I put it? It's never really been what I valued because for me to actually learn something, then I have to build something. If I can't build it, I didn't learn it. So there's this learn, build, and then somehow or another in terms of our world and training and all sorts of things, when I do that well, people always show up and go, hey, how'd you do that? And depending upon my interest and willingness, what's going on in my life, I I will tell them or I won't. And literally, like, the Mastermind business was built on exactly that. The joint venture business was built on exactly that. The psychedelic business was built on exactly that. So, you know, this idea from my perspective is, what are you fascinated by? What are you going to learn for free because it just moves you in some way, shape, or form? And then test yourself. Like, did you really learn it? Could you build something with it? Could you, you know, I restore old vintage cars and those sorts of, could you actually restore a car with it if you think you know what's going on? And then if somebody shows up and, you know, the joint venture story was we were kind of like a sweetheart success story in the digital marketing world for the Mastermind to Millions brand. And people would always like corner me. It's like, how'd you do that? How'd you do that so fast? You guys went from zero to, I think it was $2.6 million in 14 months and nobody even knew who you were. Like, how'd you do that? And the answer was always joint ventures. It was like, it was, Seemed very simple. And then they'd pause and they'd say, could you teach me about that? And we were like, no, we can't. That's not what we do. Like, but a year and a half later and 7,000 requests later, it's like listening to the marketplace. All right, we'll do some joint venture retreats. And that's how that entire brand started. So I, you know, I guess that framing, and I don't know that it fits for everyone, but if you're truly fascinated by something and it's moving you, learn, build, teach. That's it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have a quote that I love that I think illustrates what you're sharing is knowing and not doing is the same as not knowing. And I forgot who said that, but it's, you know, if you just know, but you cannot do anything with that, then you might not fully know.

Yeah.

That's so funny. Like 100 years ago when I first moved to Calgary, I had a Polish business partner, Andy, and he used to exactly say, To know and not to do is not quite yet to know. Yeah, that was not a Polish physics— that was not a Polish accent.

I'll get—

well, uh, well, shifting gears a little bit, um, and this could be an interesting one since it's in the name of your current brand, The Connection Experience. Um, I would love to hear your thoughts on One of the challenges we hear a lot from kind of creators is how can they kind of create these meaningful, authentic connections online as they're sharing their message, especially if they're, yeah, if they're trying to share something that's really from the heart and maybe they're not in, you know, they're not used to this whole online thing. What is your kind of approach to connection and yeah, what advice might you have for someone who's really trying to share what they have to offer more consistently with the world?

Hmm.

That's a good question. And are you talking about doing it online, like just an online business or, or how to advertise it online?

I would say, uh, for our people, you can kind of take this where you want, but, um, for our people, I think the struggle is often kind of, um, going from more of a personal one-on-one context and then trying to figure out like, how do I let kind of my authenticity and my expression come through in a way that people are able to truly connect with it, um, from an online perspective. And I know your current business is more focused on in-person, but I also know you have a lot of experience in the online space. So yeah, maybe take that wherever, wherever it feels good to you.

Answer that with the online, because right now we are more, uh, we're more, this is a more of an intimate, um, business where we just really do connect one-on-one with individuals and couples and entrepreneurs. As Jay is doing different kinds of masterminds now, which are way better than the original masterminds. I'll just add that. They're awesome.

Yeah.

But connecting online, I mean, you've always been really brilliant at that.

So, um, I, I, and again, I'm just gonna say redirect if this isn't exactly what you're thinking. So I'm going to go to one of the core ideas that we teach in our Foundations Guide certification, which And what's interesting about this is a bunch of folks who have gone through this, who have other businesses like a naturopathic doctor and those sorts of things, been applying it with great results. So because the psychedelic space is, well, number one, very much gray market depending where you live, it can be legal or not legal and all those sorts of things. So there's that issue. There is the whole idea of the propaganda that is a whole another world of interesting things that there's a bunch of misinformation out there. And then the third part is the psychedelic space is full of wackadoodles. And there's just, there's not a nice way to say that, but you know, beware of wackadoodles.

So we even met with a couple once and they were just, they were, and we forgot. And at the end of the, they did a little bit of work with us and then we met with them the next day.

And they're two lawyers, incredibly brilliant human beings.

And they just looked at us and they said, we are so relieved that you are not the wackadoodles we thought you might be. Because, you know, we were really nervous about this.

The highest compliment.

He's a lawyer. He read that informed consent probably 14 times and highlighted things, and I was getting a little nervous. Anyway, they, they were all like so worried they were going to be stepping into this wackadoodle world, and they were terrified, and they were so relieved that we appeared fairly normal.

Fairly.

A little bit.

So, so here's the model that, that we follow. And this model, by the way, works both for online and individual. And I'm going to share a couple of ways in which we do it online. Okay. So if you think of it as 3 circles and the first circle is education, what do people really need to know? How do we shatter the myths that they might be carrying? How do we begin to actually get them to ask the right questions? You know, and, and part of what I'm going to share with you is like, Sometimes we just have to tell them questions to ask because they simply don't know. So there's this large, particularly in the psychedelic space, education component. And, you know, well, I won't go into that for timing. There's this large education component. And then the next piece is trust. And I think in large part, our world of digital marketing and our world of anything that's a little bit outside of the box, let's call it, you know, the psychedelic space, that people underestimate the role of trust. And digital marketing, for example, has been full of— if the psychedelics have the wackadoodles, the digital marketing world has the slippery sales dingbats. So, and there are other ways in which I say that. I'm trying to mitigate myself here. But this idea of building trust, like, what is trust based upon? What do they need to feel, to know, to be certain of, to understand, all of those things. And to be clear, particularly depending on your marketplace and all those things, the education and the trust overlap to some degree. Sometimes the education is like 10 miles that way before we're ever going to get to trust. Sometimes if there's an existing relationship, those sorts of things, those two things overlap a little bit. But if you think education, trust, and then what we call a threshold experience. And a threshold experience is just this idea of What is a way for people to have a real, live, embodied experience of, in our case, us, our processes, our protocols, and the medicine? So if we can give them that experience and we can follow those 3 steps, then what happens is we have this thing called a line of customers. And just to be clear, I'm not talking philosophically. We have an event on Friday. It's sold out. We have to do a little juggling because we got one too many couples. But it works in that manner. So what we do, and this would be something that anybody here could R&D, which in this case stands for rip off and duplicate. What we do is we went and spent some money on producing a really great video that we call the Fireside Chat. And it is the top 10 questions that couples should ask if they're considering using psychedelics to increase their intimacy and connection. Because the truth of the matter is most of them don't know. Even if they've had a psychedelic experience, it's not in this context or container. So we just go through these 10 questions and answer them, and we're very transparent about, listen, this saved us. This is what we did. This is where we were at. This is what the difficulty was. We have a bunch of our clients share what their experience was. So we just go through the 10 questions, and throughout that process, it's always at the bottom, you can book a call, you can go see the FAQs, you can find out more about us. And it just steps us so perfectly through education, trust. They can see who we are. We're not bullshitting about we got this all figured out and we're perfect because we once did psychedelics. That is not it. It's like the real world of being in a relationship for 40 freaking years.

And it has. And that's been part of my— just to say on the side, I'm a very private person. And when we've had to share our intimate challenges in our story, it's kind of like part of me is just really like, "Oh," you know, it's hard because it's so personal. And yet I know people connect to it. Like they just— people want to hear in anything. If you're selling anything, you got to solve their problem, right? They're coming to us like sometimes shattered, sometimes this is it. Like we don't know if we're going to make it to next month. And to hear the story, the authentic story of other people also struggling and having struggled. And this is where, you know, it's, it's just, it's helped a lot, but it's been challenging for me to put it out there the way we have. He's always saying too much.

But, uh, but I have to say, I, I watched the video and, uh, it, it's so good because it feels like I, I have talked to Jay more than I know you, Corrie, because of the events and all of that. But like, it feels that I'm in a living room with both of you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, you know, that's, that's the, the vulnerability, like the authenticity that you're like, yes, I'm sharing my experience. So it's, it wasn't really like, yeah, like we're just sitting here in this living room and we're chatting about like things that you're going through that maybe I'm going through and the connection happens, even though it's very interesting because sometimes we think that the connection needs to happen when we're live and there is a component to that, but the way you guys created that video and answering the questions, like the connection happens. Even if I don't know you. So that's a very good, like, yeah, that's really, really well done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's definitely pushed us both, me especially, to my edges. And even we were speaking at the Science of Psychedelics in Phoenix a couple of years ago, sitting on the stage, thousands of people out there. And Jay's like, okay, hun, tell them about all the multiple orgasms that you've been able to have with taking MDMA and all these medications and, or medicines. And I'm I'm sitting there going, oh my God, I am on the stage in front of all these people.

I didn't just say that out of the blue. There was a whole conversation about sexuality. There was like a panel, and this woman said something about it, and I'm like, you have to—

there was a panel conversation. It wasn't just out of the blue, but we were all— and I'm just sitting there all quiet because I'm like, I have my own little world and that's nobody's business. And then there I am, everybody's looking at me, and I'm like, oh Jesus, here I have to go. But anyway, it turned out to be really great.

And to be clear, after that, after her being authentic about this transformation in terms of routes to orgasm.

So suppressed sexuality growing up Roman Catholic. Let's just start there.

Right.

And then also how this has supported me in just my own process of that. And yeah, I had a lineup of women.

A lineup of like 60 women for the rest of that entire conference.

That's who talked to me after that conversation. And I was blown away because it's like they were all that, that's been me. That's me. That's me and my relationship. That's me. And like, tell me how, tell me what happened. Tell me how you did. Turned out to be really beautiful. But again, sometimes, you know, to get your message out there, you really need to be vulnerable and share the thing.

And it's probably share the thing that you don't want to share.

Yeah, it is.

It's probably that. Like, it was funny, even just talking about when we started this, just saying the truth of we're heading towards our 25th and both of us thought we weren't going to make it. After, after trying to work on this and fix it and get it on track for 5 years. And like, we're fairly sharp human beings. We've been in the personal development space for 40 years. Like, if we can't figure it out, what the hell's the matter with us? You know, like, even that had some sort of shame and embarrassment wound up in it that we didn't want to tell, but it's, it's, it's exactly what had to be said. And anything less than that, this business, I don't think, would exist.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. That's beautiful.

Well, cool. Jay and Corrie, you've been super generous with your time. I know we're kind of coming up on close here, but I want to give you the space to, A, just share exactly what it is on offer, because I think you have a really beautiful gift to offer people. And then for anyone that's listening here, that's been kind of following along or maybe came in in the middle, what would be a first good step for someone if they've, if their curiosity has been piqued and they want to learn more? I know you're here on Substack, but I don't know if this is really your official home. So where would be some good places for people to, uh, to connect with your work?

Uh, well, number one, thank you for all of that. Um, yeah, we, we, we're just learning Substack. Like, I, I had to— yeah, this is—

I know I said to Jake, what is— where, what, where is Substack? What is it? How do we do this?

So we're learning. I, I think honestly the easiest route would be this if people are interested in this larger idea of psychedelics. There are sort of two routes and, and, and a whole bunch of gifts actually that we could do. If you were interested in psychedelics with couples, there is this fireside chat that we were talking about that answers top 10 questions. And I would love, love, love if we could share that link. That is going to go through an entire process that will answer all those questions, see if it is something that might serve and support a couple And just to add to that, we still do quite a thorough intake process.

So we have had, we have said no to people that this is not a fit for either mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or physically, like their bodies, you know, you need to have certain medications anyway, all that. So we do go through an intake process as well with people before, before working with them.

Of course. We're seeing that. So, you know, they can go watch that video. At the end of it, there will be an opportunity if they want to go through this IDEAS because that's education, trust building, and there'll be a little threshold experience. So there'll be an invitation there that could certainly support folks. So, that's one of them. Then, the other, if anyone's interested in more of the larger idea of integrating psychedelics into their practice, integrating psychedelics into their business, integrating psychedelics in a manner that could magnify the magic of what they offer to their tribe and community, if they're interested in the Foundation's guide certification, we're currently building Cohort 3. And, this is not for the uninitiated. This is for people that have been utilizing them, have some experience with it, understand what what it could possibly do. Those two pieces would be great. And there's also, I'll include in that, how to choose a psychedelic guide. If you're at the spot of it, it's like, I have been thinking about it, but I don't know. There are two guides that we have, which is how to choose a psychedelic guide for couples, how to choose a psychedelic guide for a personal journey. And those are really important resources because this is not something you want to make a mistake at. And, you know, I'm being somewhat facetious, and I know that lots of people in my space don't appreciate this, but you must be wary of the wackadoodles. And that doesn't mean that there aren't great people out there. There's a multitude of great people out there, but you must choose wisely, and those guides will help you do so.

Yeah, and you're putting yourself in it, not only in like a guide's— you're in an altered state. Right? So you absolutely need to know you're working with someone who you feel 100% trust with and you have like a connection with them and that they know what they're doing.

And I— this is in those guides, but really the core thing is this is, do you heart, mind, and soul feel as though you are safe with this person physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, that there is not a shadow of a doubt or a concern? And all those questions will lead you to that space of I am 100% certain that this is safe, appropriate. I'm cared for in every possible way. And my friends, I just have to say this. If there's ever even the slightest second thought or doubt, don't. Just don't. Psychedelics aren't for everyone. Every guide is certainly not for everyone. Just please be careful and intelligent and wise out there.

Uh-huh.

Beautiful.

Well, thank you. We will, uh, share with them. Yeah, I was gonna say, I know we have the link to that video, but I'll check in with you, Jay, and get those links because I'd love to include them. We do a recap of this episode, which we can also share with you if you feel it's useful to share with your folks, but we would definitely love to share all those links so that people can easily connect with your work if they're feeling called. So, um, Yeah. Thank you so much. Um, thank you so much for your time and being here with us. I feel it's always a fascinating conversation with you both and yeah, we're really grateful to have you here with us.

Thank you so much.

We deeply appreciate this.

Yeah, this was really a lot of fun.

It was, it was a lot of fun. Thank you so much.

All right. Have a beautiful day. Thank you.

Bye-bye.