233 Ret Taylor & Adriaan Zimmerman, Founders of Ned | Hemp Oil & Healing

Both marijuana and hemp, I would love to see that fully legal across the country because not only are we seeing the benefits on the medicinal side of things, but we're also seeing incredible economic impact and, you know, less people being put in prison. And from a systemic and foundational level, it's such a no brainer, you know, and this is where the frustration comes in. It's just the powers that be certainly have plenty of reasons not to legalize this.

There's a lot of money to be made in ibuprofen and in anxiety drugs and, you know, all the other pharmaceuticals that address the exact same things that hemp does.

The fact that, you know, cocaine is a Class 2 drug and marijuana and hemp, you could smoke a garbage bag full of hemp and the most you'd get is maybe a headache. You're not going to get high. And the fact that that's a schedule one drug is just staggering.

That's Rhett Taylor and Adrian Zimmerman. And this is episode 233 of Wellness Force Radio. What's up, my friend? It's your host, Josh Trent. And welcome back to another episode for your weekly access to global experts in all things wellness as we discover the physical and emotional intelligence we need to live life. Well, in this podcast, we're talking about healing the human through a well known, yet often misunderstood and powerful plant called hemp. And no, I'm not talking about marijuana. I'm talking about a plant that for the past 80 years has been federally banned in the USA. But due to decades of clinical research and public outcry, the 2018 farm bill will include hemp legalization. Now, hemp has been grown as far back as the 17th century and up until 1937, when oligopoly businesses and paper mills came together to demonize hemp because it it threatened their businesses. But as scientific research and the data is showing, hemp oil with its healing power and even better, full spectrum hemp oils containing no psychoactive properties, you do not get high from this stuff. You get. Well. These are showing a range of active cannabinoids, each carrying their distinct healing property. This is why I felt deep down after the past three months, it was time to finally bring on experts to the show to talk about this, because we what I'm seeing now across the wellness industry is that we're essentially in a wild, wild west when it comes to CBD and hemp. So I cannot wait for you to hear this story of these two men that came together after experiencing a dark contrast in the concrete jungles of New York to eventually let go of all their flashy clothes and high paying jobs, to leave that all behind, circle the globe and then make it back together to meet an almost mythical organic farmer in the fields of Colorado named Farmer Kurt. You're gonna wanna go to the show notes for this epis. They're found@wellnessforce.com as well as an awesome hookup from Ned. If you've been curious about hemp oil for healing and you've been learning about the health promoting benefits online from friends, this show is the best one for you right now. We talk about why CBD and hemp oil can be used as a first line of defense. Naturally, we expose the common myths and misconceptions about hemp and cbd, the endocannabinoid system, how hemp oils can synergistically help us in homeostasis. That's the balancing act of our biology and our psychology and our physiology. We also talk about using hemp oil in combination with other wellness modalities and why this is not for hippies anymore. This is for weekend warriors, athletes, professionals, moms and dads, people like you and me that are looking for ways to decrease anxiety and stress or emotional distress so we can live our life well. I know you're going to dig both Rhett and Adrian's story. They have been through their own hero's journey to make it to us. Today. They were kind enough to give the Wellness Forest audience a great discount. 10% off. Give their product a test drive. If you've been looking for a tool to help with stress, you've been researching about CBD and hemp, all you have to do is go to helloned.com, enter code wellnessforce. You'll get the 10% off. Just go to helloned.com and enter code wellnessforce and you'll get 10% off your test drive of the hemp oil. Now let's hear from these two guys behind Ned, Adrian Zimmerman and Rhett Taylor. Josh, let's drop in. I am Josh Trent, this is Wellness Force. And my guests today are the founders of ned, a revolutionary natural health company specializing in CBD who are both on a mission to find the best natural remedies from around the world and to create a better first line of defense for health. Now, both of these men are veterans in the business world who met in New York around five years ago while one of them was wearing Vibram five finger shoes on Saturdays in Central park, swinging on trees. But they formed a friendship around a shared Experience of personal transformation through the power of both of them. On paper, they had it all in Manhattan. Flashy clothes, high paying jobs, status and title. But they found in their own unique journeys that burnout and health complications were part of the Manhattan lifestyle that they were not willing to stand for. Through these two unique stories of hardship, travel, cancer, and triumph, they both left the Big Apple behind and went on a solo spiritual quest to find the answers which we're talking about today on the podcast. The answers about how to have a life based in connection, contribution, and abundance of health, wealth, and relationships. Today we're exploring why CBD is this first line of defense for better health, who it's for, and why CBD is the next revolution in health. Welcome Rhett Taylor and Adrian Zimmerman to Wellness Force.

Thank you, Josh. What an intro.

You know, this is your first podcast. I feel very honored that you guys, you know, came in from Colorado today. What's your experience of San Diego?

Well, I mean, it was great to touch down here. Rhett and I have both spent a lot of time here in our past lives, whether it's for work or for play, and it's always nice to be back.

Yeah, we got here a little bit early and, you know, I just, I love California trees. So about 45 minutes ago, I was up in a tree, climbing that tree.

We have the Torrey pines here in San Diego, one of the few places in the world where they grow. What's unique about Colorado? You guys live in Colorado now or where do you both live?

Yeah, both in Colorado, near the farm.

Which we're going to talk about this. This first line of defense. You know, I've been diving into CBD myself, gosh, 18 months now. It's the wild wild. Today we're going to talk about the myths, the misconceptions. There's a lot of BS info out there about cbd. But I think what's really cool about this podcast is both you guys have been through an evolution of self, you know, real true transformation of, as I said in the intro, like triumph and overcoming really incredible odds to actually be a CBD company. Now, let's set the mark, though. I think. Earlier this year, the World Anti Doping Agency removed CBD from the banned substances. So more and more athletes now are using CBD for pain and relief instead of opioids and instead of ibuprofen. So where are we at now, you guys, with the State of the Union for cbd? Like, give us just a brief snapshot of the legal aspects of cbd. Like, what's going on there.

Sure. You know, the best way to talk about is it's still murky waters. There is the kind of mainstream acceptance of it now to a certain extent, but there is still this seven pointed leaf stigma that carries from cannabis. And even, even though cannabis is also in its own right being accepted on a broader level, you know, with the farm bill, which basically allows for industrial hemp to be distributed across the country, it's allowing more and more people to, you know, have this medicine in their hands.

I think the interesting part too is that cbd, a lot of people don't know this. We have an endocannabinoid system in our body. And, you know, maybe we can talk a little bit about when CBD became vilified. I think it was somewhere around the paper mill with a few rich people in the 30s. But we know that the endocannabinoid system, without these natural healing pieces from the plants, our body can truly suffer. And you look at the amount of meat that's consumed in the world right now, the way that we're, as we talked about with Paul Chek, not caring about our outer environment, not caring about our inner environment. The endocannabinoid system. We're going to get into your guys stories, but someone talk about this endocannabinoid system because a lot of people maybe know that I guess plants are good for them, but they may not know exactly how this system functions.

Yeah, well, you know, the endocannabinoid system is something that goes back to prehistoric beings. I think it's either 50 million years ago or maybe 500 million years ago. And we just found out about it about 20 years ago. So it regulates many, many different types of. Help me out here. Agent.

Yeah, biological systems in our bodies. It's a major regulatory system that just helps kind of manage homeostasis in our bodies. So cannabinoids are found naturally in breast milk. It's one of those things that humans are consuming from, you know, from our earliest days. And it really manages the balance of, you know, pretty much. I mean, you could call it almost every major biological system in our bodies. So, you know, as with many other compounds that a lot of us are missing these days, you know, due to soil degradation and agriculture and, you know, our diets and all these other factors that are just prevalent in our lives, we, you know, we don't have balance in our systems. So, so, so the discovery of the endocannabinoid system and this whole movement around medical cannabis, medical hemp, you know, we're Just on earthing more and more every day. And, you know, there's still a lot of mysteries. Like, we know THC pretty well. We know CBD pretty well, but there are all these other cannabinoids that we're still learning about.

Yeah. Today we'll focus on the cbd, because, as you said, there's so many things to talk about. I think this is why we're seeing such a swell of information and interest in CBD is because we're in this exciting time in the health and wellness industry. I think if we look across the full spectrum of health and wellness, I don't think right now in Q4 of 2018, there's something that's being spoken about any more than CBD. I think it's probably the hottest topic in everyone's website and on their blogs. And there's a lot of people right now just trying to make money with cbd. Your company, Ned, it's got such a cool brand. There's a farmer that backs it all. Would you mind, Rhett, telling us the story about how you even met this farmer?

Yeah, yeah. It was a great moment for me, actually. It goes all the way back to 2015, when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. And they caught it really early, and thankfully, it was in a good place. She had a double mastectomy. She had great doctors. And those doctors told her, we would like you to do chemo, and we can take your chance of recurrence from 17% down to 12% by doing that chemo. And she thought. She thought quite a bit about that. And we all did. The entire family did. And at the same time, I was. Sorry. I'm. I'm remembering it very clearly.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of people deal with this, so it's a really. I mean, I honor the fact that you even want to talk about it.

Yeah. Well, thank you. So she said, instead of doing chemo, instead of just thrashing my body for the next four or five months, giving myself that 15 chance of bringing my cancer cells down, I'm going to. Instead, I've decided to just eat much healthier and to be healthier, to act healthier, and to fight cancer through a natural path. And so I asked her, I said, you know, that's great, mom, but what does that mean to you? And she said, you know, I'm just going to eat more lettuce and salads and I'll drink more water. I said, well, what kind of water? You know, tap water and what kind of lettuce and you know, just lettuce.

This is the answer for most people. I'll just eat the healthy foods, not knowing the actual integrity of the foods.

Exactly. So. So, you know, and I, at that point, 2015, I, you know, I've been very, I've been paleo, I've been around, you know, nutrition for about 10 years at this point. And I said, well, that's just not really good enough for me. And so living in Boulder, Colorado, where every single person is a health expert and health nut and you can get advice on everything from, you know, what is the best lettuce to shamanic journeys and many other things. So I did a deep dive in the winter of 2015 into 2016, and I found as many mentors as I could, which again, were abundant and Boulder. And the one thing that kept coming up over and over was cbd, really more full spectrum hemp oil, which contains CBD and all the other compounds. So I started buying the products, the, the brands that were on the market and I was sending them to her in, in North Dak in North Dakota. And then later when she moved to Dubai, I was sending them there. But I just, I couldn't relate with any of these brands. I couldn't. I didn't know where they're, they're, they were growing their hemp. I didn't know how they were extracting it. I didn't know what kind of people they were, what their ethics were and what their reasons were around creating their brands. And around this time. So last summer, around June, I started thinking to myself how cool it would be to create a private label for my mom and I and my friends. And if nothing else, it would be neat for me to go and meet hemp farmers. And so I started traveling all over Colorado, out east, down south, up north. And I met with several different. I think I met with seven different hemp farmers all over Colorado. And, you know, all great guys, all good farmers, beautiful crops, but what I was seeing was that they were growing their plants very much like their soybeans or their, their corn. And you know, they had been corn farmers for generations and now they were.

Dabbling into hemp and a lot of pesticides as well. Yeah, one of the safety concerns with CBD is pesticide amount.

Exactly. And that those were questions I was asking these guys. And you know, after this fifth and sixth guy and then the seventh, I was like, well, maybe there isn't, you know, an organic, a really well grown hemp crop here because these guys all came highly recommended. And, but at the Same time, I kept hearing about this, like, mythical farmer in this place called Peonia, Colorado. And Peonia is, if you know farming, you know, Paeonia. It's the place where the Japanese pay, like, $75 for a peach. You know, it's. It's got this amazing microclimate that's the same as Kansas. The dirt comes from an amazing ancient riverbed. It's got 330 days of sun. The water is coming straight off the Rocky Mountains, and some of the most talented farmers in the world have flocked there. So I kept hearing about this farmer there, and nobody knew. Everybody knew who he was kind of, but nobody. Everybody was, like, 2 degrees separation from him. And then finally, it turned out that my sister Catherine knew him, and she eventually got his phone number and connected us. And right around this time last year, so late September, ish, I connected with him, and he invited my daughter, my wife, and I up to his farm, and we went.

What did he look like? Like, it just sounds like a mythical being.

Yeah, yeah.

Did he have, like, a corn cob pipe and overalls? Like, what is it? What is a. It's hemp, Right? Hemp is the farm.

Well, he. He has 12 acres just outside of Paeonia, right on the foot of Mount Lambort or Lambourn, and it's a beautiful 12 acres, but he really only farms about an acre. At that time, he was only farming one acre. So I drive up, and immediately I know he's our guy. I mean, I see the prayer flags, and I see his crop, and then he comes out, and what did he look like? He looked like Kurt the farmer at the time. He had these great long braids and, you know, checkered vans, and he looks like you would expect a hemp farmer to look.

This. This man has been probably an inspiration to the underbelly of the whole company, Right? This connection to the farmer. Yeah. For people that have never even heard of Ned Adrian, what exactly is Ned? I introduced it as a revolutionary natural health company, because I think that's what it is, based on my experience. But I'd love for you to describe. How do you say Ned, and what do you say Ned is if you're in an elevator with someone?

Yeah. Well, I say Ned is a wellness brand that's really just committed to our mission, which is to help people feel better and live better through much simpler means and a deeper connection to the natural world. And going back to Kurt, I mean, he was a representation of that. He was a guy who had spent a lot of time all over the place, and comes from a family of farmers. And, you know, as he. As he, you know, entered like, later adulthood. He's now just about 40, I think now. Right, right.

Yeah.

He.

He got to a point where he just wanted his land and he wanted to do something that he could feel good about. And when you hear him talk about the healing powers of hemp and what he's doing every day in his fields and how he. You know, why he literally walks around his field playing reggae to his plants is because he thinks that every little kind of contribution and every. Every. Every consideration and every energetic infusion, every tone that these plants hear goes into the development of something superior and something better and something that holds healing power.

This is fascinating because just a few months ago, there was a study at a major university. We'll link this in the show notes. And there was a plant that was placed in a hallway, and right next to it, there was another plant. One of the plants was bullied and cursed at and had a bunch of, like, hateful energy shot to it. The other plant was loved and it had, like, hugs, and people were giving it positive affirmations. After a few months, one of the plants started growing towards the ground, the one that was receiving the hate. I think it's fascinating that plants can receive energetic infusions, and the results are the proof of the pudding. One of the things you guys do is, I love this. On your site, you say everything in life is vibration. Albert Einstein, and that's been mentioned a couple times on Wellness Force. We know about the law of vibration. But from seed to bottle, these hemp products, they are infused with love and gratitude and positive vibrations. What exactly is this? You use binaural beats at 35 and 7.83 Hz played to each bottle. Tell us about the science of this.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, the science is not necessarily what many scientists would call science. It's more of a, you know, mandula oblongata science than it is a prefrontal cortex where we can completely logically write it down. But, you know, there's many, many, many experiments like that with the plant. And I think the biggest, most famous example is the New York Times bestseller, the Hidden Messages in Water. The Hidden Messages in Water, yeah.

And this is Marimoto, or. Yeah, someone like that.

Dr. Imori Emoto.

Yeah, Morimoto. Yeah.

And he. He showed that water can receive energy, and the frequencies that are given to it dictate how it behaves. And so we talk about this book a lot, and it's really the foundation of that science that we have used. And whether or not it works, we believe it does. And a lot of our biggest believers, our customers, believe it works as well. And when they hear that we do that. When they hear that, we also use binaural beats to infuse the Shulman resonance, which is the resonance of the Earth, which is that 7.83, and then also the 3.5 Hertz, which is a very grounding, healing, affirming resonance, or frequency, rather.

On your site, you list this as the Schumann's resonance. This is more of a focus, a balance and a calm. This 7.83 Hz, a healing frequency, very similar and connected to the Earth's magnetic field. This is. You're talking to the right audience because we know about the power of things that can't be seen but can be felt. So in science, there's a war between science and religion and, you know, the analytical mind versus the spiritual mind, they are connected. And I think what I get from you guys, which is very different, I've come across a lot of CBD companies lately, especially you have a much more grounded approach, a much more connected approach to this being a business, but also being a respect to Mother Mother Earth. Can you articulate this connection between, you know, making money? Because let's make money. That's how we live in this game, in this world. But also, how do we make money with cbd? How do you guys plan on doing this and then also honoring Mother Earth at the same time?

Yeah, well, you know, we started this company because Rhett and I had both been in positions where we were making money and we were living these lives that we were thought to believe is what we should aspire to. And, you know, each in our own ways, found ourselves living these lives and just, you know, empty and miserable and questioning, you know, existence. Like these existential questions that started coming up for me personally when I was about 30, completely threw into question everything I had been raised to know and every thing I'd been taught to know, you know, and I found myself there, 30, and having checked off all these boxes that it set off to. To accomplish in my 20s. And, you know, I was living this life in New York where I had my, you know, my sweet bachelor pad and I had loads of dates and I had my New York Rangers season tickets, which was like a childhood dream come true. And I was living this life that I thought I wanted, and I just came out the back end of it just empty. And, you know, I. I was living this life that was really relegated to lower Manhattan. I would have my business trips and I'd be jet setting on the weekends, but at the end of the day that there was no, there was no connection to nature. And you know, I'd grown up going to my grandparents farm in Finland every summer. My mother's side is Finnish and grew up on four acres where most of my time was spent outside. And by the time I was 30, I'd completely severed this connection to the natural world. You know, so having lived this life in New York, you know, I was totally struggling because, you know, you work so hard to accomplish this person and build this identity that, you know, in essence became this, this life raft for me. And questioning that completely threw into question what I was here for.

You got to the top of the mountain and you were like, is this it? Is this all there is? Yeah. Thousands of people listening can relate to that totally. You get to this goal that you think is going to be great and then it's so anticlimactic.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I was, I was sitting there and I had been advising a company out in the UK that had turned into probably the most prolific digital media company in Europe. And you know, I was like, okay, well it's definitely the place, it's not the person. So let's go to the UK and everything's going to be all right. I'm going to make a bunch more money and then I'm just going to like, you know, all my worries will go away. It was great for about a month and then I just started waking up with that same feeling of, holy shit, my life is not my own, time is just slipping away and I, I'm just lost. And you know, I just suppressed that feeling as long as I could. And then, you know, it. You talked about sledgehammer moments with us. You know, my sledgehammer moment was about six months in that gig. I was presenting in front of the entire company. I was sitting as the executive director so, you know, leadership role in that company and, you know, started my presentation just as I would any other. And halfway through, my hand started to shake and my voice started to go and this overwhelming fear took over. And I was looking out at this room of my employees who were all friendly, great, young, vibrant people. And I just found no solace in that whatsoever. And just this transpired, this full blown panic attack in front of the entire company as a leader.

Did you pass out? You feel like you couldn't breathe or.

I did not pass out. Thankfully I managed to choke out some more words and just, you know, basically turned a 10 minute presentation into about a minute and 18 seconds and just walked back to my chair in utter confusion. I had never had a panic attack before and I just had no way to reconcile, like, what just happened. And, you know, two days later I broke out in shingles. The entire right side of my body was like in a rash. And I went to a doctor and he just said, have you been under a lot of stress? And it was probably the first time I actually stopped to take inventory of that. Have I been under a lot of stress?

This is what led you to India was having this shingles event and all this. And this is where people listening can connect to this. The emotions that are unprocessed. I mean, Bruce Lipton calls it, the issues are in the tissues for a reason. Yeah. So in India, like, what did you learn there? What did you.

Yeah, well, you know, I. Within about two weeks of that moment, I was out the door of the company in the uk. Like back then I was saying it was mutual, but I got fired. You know, I was.

You got the gift of being fired?

Yeah, they did. They didn't want, they don't want me there anymore. Yeah, they, you know, I was this hot shot from New York that they brought in to, to take their company to another level. And this collapse that just completely threw that into question. So, so they, they, you know, bought me out. I was all of a sudden left there with, for the first time in 10 years, no email to answer to, no presentation to put together, no spreadsheets or whatever it might be. And yeah, you know, it was on this little road trip after a wedding in Seattle that I, for the first time and probably since college, I took time to just be outside. I was road tripping by myself from Seattle to where my parents live in Northern California. And I was camping and hiking and, you know, sleeping under the stars and.

Just.

All of a sudden feeling this entire, like, crazy lift where, you know, I could breathe again. And this first moment really happened in the redwoods where I was just walking and I was like, okay, well if I leave the hey, like what. What's going to happen with taxes? And what if I want to go do this like, travel thing? Like, what's going to happen? And. And all of a sudden I just stopped in my tracks and I was looking up these massive redwood trees and I heard insects, I heard the wind in the leaves. I saw streaks of light coming down from the trees and I just stopped in my tracks and I, I cried And I think I cried because it was the first time I've could release in that long and I was stepping away from this identity that had consumed me for so long. So sorry, that's total tangent to get.

No, I could visualize you in front of this redwood with the insects, completely sober and just having a threshold experience.

Well, not totally sober.

Okay.

Just kidding.

Well, we never know on Wellness Force, right? So you're standing there and then I want to pause the tape on your story because this culmination of like Manhattan brick and mortar having a panic attack, going to the nature, going back to the source, that's really to put on pause with your story. Also a mirror of Rhett's story. So Adrian, standing there in front of the tree at that moment, where were you? Because his evolution was different than yours. But yet you guys came together in the future.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I left New York and moved to Saudi Arabia where I. Where my first job had been. And I was asked to come back and start a business there. And it was going to be, you know, work here for five or ten years and then you're done, you know.

You were going to retire early.

Yeah, I was going to be retired by 40. And my wife, my brand new wife was down with that, bless her heart. And so I head over there and our daughter had just been delivered as well. And I was supposed to have them there very quickly, very quickly turned into almost two. More than a year of me waiting for their visas. And in the meantime, I'm just absolutely doing amazing business. Things are flying and I'm working with princes and CEOs and I mean, it couldn't have been better. But at the same time, I was away from my brand new family and I missed my daughter's first steps. It was a year and a half and I used to wake my wife up laughing all the time, at least twice a month. And she said, you did it again. You woke me up, you were laughing. And that's my mo. I'm pretty damn happy. But when I woke up for the second time in about a week, crying when I was in Saudi Arabia in this huge house that was supposed to be for the family, and I was all by myself on this mattress on the floor, I said, man, that is it. And I flew to the Netherlands where my wife and daughter were. And yeah, we had a lot of options at that point. And we looked at many of them, San Diego being one of them. But Boulder was really calling me, Colorado was calling me, the mountains were calling, and I had ignored that for so long. And I eventually listened to it, and it has been the best thing I've ever done, because that put me into a place, put me into a state where I was able to then eventually, a year later, really see who I truly am and what is truly important to me. And that happened in the summer of 2015, when the lease ran up on our house and my wife and daughter were going home to the Netherlands for two months. And I said, why would I get a new place on July 1st? Why don't I just get it two months later? And I'm going to be. I'm going to sell my BMW and I'm going to buy a Toyota 4Runner, and I'm going to throw my tent and my sleeping bag and my fishing rod and my bike in the back, and I'm going to live out of that. And I did, and it was amazing. And I lived in Aspen and Telluride and in the tops of mountains and eventually made my way over into Utah. And the whole time I'm working, I've got this whole, like, outdoor office set up with. With all the gadgets I would need to be completely connected. So I didn't miss a beat with work. At the same time, I've got this goal of being inside as little as possible. And in that two months, I might have spent maybe 45 minutes inside, and that would have just been to pay for gas or something like that.

It had to have also been challenging, though, because here you are coming from a palace with princes and sheiks, and now you're separated from your family, living in a van, basically down by the river. So there's this situation, like, what were you going through emotionally?

Yeah, I was having the best time ever. I was finally on the. I knew I was getting close to figuring out who I was, and I sensed that there was something big coming. So I went to the desert in Utah, which is. I know I had have had many past lives there, and there's a calling for me from that place, Zion.

Is that the park you went to?

Zion's beautiful, but way too crowded for me. So I was in Grand Staircase, Escalante national park, or National Monument, rather, which has become, unfortunately, more famous than it used to be because of Trump. But another. We won't get in politics. But, yeah. So I was out in the middle of nowhere, and it all kind of came to me, which is, you know, here I am healing myself through nature. I've always done this, even when I've lived in the biggest cities in the world. New York, Sao Paulo, Riyadh, Boston, Miami. I always sought out those very natural places.

Were you the guy climbing on trees in all those cities? And people were like, who's this dude in the trees wearing the Vibrams?

That was the guy.

That was me. Yeah. We had a big meetup group in Central park in New York with about 2,000 people. But anyways, nature has always healed me. And since 2009, I have been researching why that is. And so I was putting it all into play that summer, and I realized why I'm here. And that is to help people reconnect with nature, to help businesses reconnect with nature, governments and organizations and as many people as possible. And so Ned is very much an extension of that for me. Ned is. You know, you asked about the difference between CBDs and it's the Wild west, and there's no regulations. And, yeah, people really take advantage of that.

Yeah.

And they're buying CBD isolate from China, and they're going, you know, rock bottom prices on their costs, and they're making ridiculous margins. You know, cost has never been really a factor for us. We thought, let's put together an amazing product. Let's create the story behind it. Let's show that story, you know, what that process has been. And Adrian and I honestly don't know how to do it any other way. We have to have, you know, we're all about that quality. So. So that was what that journey to find Kurt was. And after finding Kurt, it was the journey to find the very best extraction process and extractors in Colorado, and. And we absolutely did.

I want to talk about that, too, because there's a lot of questions around the potency, the pesticides, the residual solvents, the way that it's extracted. So we'll get into, like, a bulk of the science here shortly. But I want to go back to Adrian standing in front of the tree, hearing the insects. At that same time, here's Rhett having this transformational experience in the desert. It's so profound to me. This is why I connect with your company so much. You guys have this huge business acumen. You came from concrete jungle. You both went on this kind of spiritual quest, multiple thresholds breached. Then you're both standing there. I'm almost wondering, was it around the same time that you were in front of the tree and that he was in the desert having this kind of, like, recapitulation?

It must have been. It was. It was August 2015. So, yeah, sounds like about exactly the same time.

How did you guys actually meet up once you both realized, this is why I'm here?

Well, I went to Adrian for advice about once I had that vision, which the plan was to manifest it in a company called Reconnect, and I intend to still do that one day. But I came to Adrian for advice on how to create that and how to market it and how to tell the story around that. And Adrian very, very graciously offered as much of his knowledge and wisdom around that as he could. And we met, met multiple times while Adrian's going to Nepal and then down to Patagonia. And every time he'd come back, we would circle back and get together face to face, and he would give me more great tidbits and insights into how to bring Reconnect to life. And then Adrian came back from somewhere far away.

I think it was New Zealand was the last, like, real stop on my, on my time away.

Yeah.

And, yeah, at that point I had, you know, passed through LA and, you know, had come out of this at that point. I think it was about 20 months of travel. And I had, you know, had the whole spectrum of experiences and gone down the spiritual path. And then what did that spiritual path look like?

Because there's a deep spiritual element to Ned.

Yeah, well, it was. It was honestly totally by accident. You know, I, I, when I. So I was standing in front of that tree just to, to close the loop on that story and, you know, is on that trip, I think I must have been in my tent or something that I just decided that instead.

Of.

Trying to recover and, like, go seeing a therapist and probably get on anxiety meds, that I was just going to go away. It was the first opportunity I had to just, you know, put away what's ahead of me and what's behind me and just, you know, just heal and look within. And so I, so I decided I was going to go away. I chose Nepal as my first destination because it was so foreign. I've done a lot of travel. I lived in Hong Kong. But, you know, places like Nepal and India are just new territory. And I just knew that they were, you know, going to rattle the cage and take me so far out of my normal. And so got on a plane to Kathmandu and, you know, find myself in this chaotic city with just noise and just endless people and crowds and, you know. And then after a short week there, I retreated to the mountains and wandered by myself into the Himalayas and ended up doing about two weeks on the Annapurna Circuit Trail. Met all sorts of amazing people who were all on the same type of path. Nobody was there just for vacation. Everybody was there in search of something.

People tend to go to these remote spaces, whether it's a vision quest or a spirit quest, because they have this desire to reconnect with themselves. And it's actually to go Back to episode 226 with Paul. Check. When did we stop dancing? When did we stop singing? When did we stop spending time with ourselves? We live in a pretty incredible time to be able to have these tools to help us with our wellness. And wellness starts with breathing and the micronutrients that are inside of our body. Yes, we're talking about healing powers for cannabinoids today and hemp oil and cbd. But there's a little known piece of plant technology called adaptogens that are found in the organifi wellness Force bundle. Now this bundle you've heard us talk about before, this is slow dried organic vegan dairy free soy free non GMO superfood powders. Which means you don't have to go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of produce and then watch it go bad in the fridge, which I can raise my hand. My trips to the grocery store typically end up in wasted produce. Drink Organifi. For just a few bucks a day, you can get your discounted bundle with these adaptogens that help us maintain an even better level of homeostasis with micronutrients fed to our system from the inside out. All you have to do to get this discount of 20% off is enter code wellnessforce@organifi.com WellnessForce we made it really easy for you. Wellnessforce is the code for 20% off@organifi.com Wellnessforce Ned. I see a fraction of Ned as a company. It's really a tool, a wellness tool to go within. Because nobody does CBD because they're trying to be like a better sprinter, specifically. I mean, tangentially they might. But most people find CBD products because they're in some kind of crisis, because they're in some kind of suffering.

Yeah, they're in a prison. And that's the way I look at it, is they're stuck in a prison. Whether that's a prison of insomnia, anxiety, pain, cancer, and people are stuck in those prisons. And it's through nature that we're able to thrive. And the deeper our connection to nature, the more we're able to thrive. And that's why right now people are not thriving as they could. They're really not. But as soon as they go to the mountains, as soon as they stand beneath the redwoods, that thriving begins to happen. And so that's really what we're trying to do with Ned, which is to take something from nature and to do it as ethically and as simply and naturally as possible. Put it in a bottle, and on that bottle put the topography of the land, where it comes from. If you look at our bottle, we've got that design, that's Topo, and that comes directly from our farm. That's the mountain there from which the water runs down onto the farm. And then if you look very small, the GPS coordinates are right there. So we're really trying to connect you with that experience of being there on the farm. And my hope is that every morning or every night when you use it, you are able in your mind to transport yourself to your picture, whatever that might be, of that natural place.

Let's go through the stages then. Because you talked about the prison, there's a reason that the weight loss industry, the pain relief industry, is multibillion dollars, probably tenfold, actually. How does hemp oil specifically address pain management or chronic pain? Because we've been reading a lot and we've been talking a little bit about the health benefits, the relaxation. I myself have dealt with anxiety my whole life, so I can feel a powerful difference. Like we just did a little bit of your product before the show. I'm so calm. I'm connected to you guys. I mean, it helps that we're sitting Indian style at my kitchen table. But at the same time, let's talk about the chronic care portion of CBD and hemp oil. How does this specifically address people with these long term pain conditions? What's the research showing on that?

So we should just give context that we're not making claims here just because that's one of the, you know, realities that we live. Yeah, yeah, one of the realities we live with here. But, you know, what I can say is that we have customers who range from veterans with PTSD and major injuries to, you know, a 70 year old woman with Parkinson's and ultra marathon runners. Ultra marathon runners who are, you know, feeling the effects of their races. And, you know, we continue to get these messages from these customers that are like, holy cow. Like this. This woman with Parkinson's I just referred to, we actually got her message through her niece who bought it for her, but she said, holy cow, I just woke up pain free for the first time in years. You know, so there is a lot of research that, you know, I think it's probably best to let you know, the listeners kind of go and do their own digging. But, you know, the medicine is real. And, you know, it's also that a lot of these. These, you know, traditional medications and prescription pharmaceuticals, you know, with every condition they treat, they create, you know, a cascading effect of others.

Does it. Does it bother you at all that you can't speak freely about the types of things that you're seeing and say, yes, we can claim this just because we are in the wild west?

It does and it doesn't. Because at the end of the day, the FDA created these rules to protect people from, you know, the bad side of the wild west. Those companies that would, you know, sell you snake oil or tell you, like, you know, you pay me a thousand dollars and I'm gonna, you know, bring your, you know, dead wife back or your. Whatever it might be.

Yeah, it is a predatory industry. All angles of health.

Yeah. And. And, you know, so. So we understand it. We're playing by the rules and falls into this kind of new code of ethics that at least really was instilled in my own existence beyond just business, in my love life and relationships. The way I approach, you know, just honesty with myself, which leads to honesty with other people. The way I approach vulnerability, you know, take me back three years. I never would have been talking about a panic attack on, you know, a podcast that goes out to so many people.

Poor, energetic confusions.

Exactly. Binaural beats. And, you know, so it doesn't bother us, per se. We wish we could really just, you know, speak more freely about. Yeah, you know, okay, you could try this for xyz. But, you know, we are limited.

We've really taken the approach of playing exactly by the book. And that's why you won't see the term CBD anywhere on our bottle, which I know costs us sales, because people come to our site and they go, oh, well, it's just hemp oil. And, yeah, it's full spectrum hemp oil with all of the compounds of cannabis in there.

What does that mean, though? Full spectrum hemp oil? What is a spectrum and why is it full?

So. So a single compound? CBD is a single compound. It's cannabidiol. THC is a single compound. If you take the profile of a hemp flower or cannabis flower or the buds as most people know them, it doesn't have just. Just one compound in there. It has this huge range, the full spectrum of cannabinoids. So full spectrum is really speaking to the Fact that it's not just CBD and it's not just thc. If we were a marijuana company, it is cbd. It's cbc, it's cbg, cbdv, and all these other cannabinoids that we're still learning about. But. But each has their own distinct healing qualities, you know, and we do have a little bit of a. We tried to create as much transparency as possible. So on our website, you'll see that, you know, we break down the profiles of all our oils, so you'll see exactly how much CBD is in our full spectrum hemp oil. So you're not left guessing of like, okay, well, you know, it's great that this has like 100 milligrams of hemp extract.

But.

But how many of. Or how much of that is active cannabinoids? And that's the whole other thing is like, there's not a lot of transparency in the space. And, you know, all the way from seed to bottle, as we've mentioned a few times, from Curt to what we do with the product during extraction and bottling, and all the way to when it gets into our customer's hands, like, you know, we want there to be transparency.

Should there only be a focus for full spectrum, or is there anything that even comes close? Is full spectrum the gold standard in 2018 for hemp oil?

Well, full spectrum enables what's called the entourage effect. So, you know, up until a handful of years ago, it was believed that it was just a single compound that was carrying all these healing benefits. But it's since been really uncovered in the. In the majority of studies now are happening around the spectrum of cannabinoids. And this entourage effect, which in essence means that CBD cannabidiol is a very good activator for. For our cannabinoid receptors. And it also has a host of healing benefits. But, you know, it's also just one compound. And when CBD enters the body as a major compound, we kind of refer to it as that's the bus and bus driver. And then, you know, when that activates all these compounds, all the cannabinoids that are riding in the back have a chance to enter the system.

There's a major transporter, and then all these other ones that science is still uncovering, those go into the body as well.

Exactly.

I guess this is why I even have a slight frustration as I'm hearing you speak about it, because I've seen so much data, and if you go on NIH, and even if you go on PubMed and my own personal experience and my friends and the people in the wellness industry. The reason why CBD has such a massive bump in both SEO and just general attention is because the results continue to multiply. And it's so funny, like all truth goes through three stages. You know, we look at the early 1900s where anything hemp, CBD, marijuana, was completely outlawed. It was the devil's brew. And now we're seeing it be adopted. And it's just a matter of years. Probably within, I don't know, a couple years, federal regulations will change. I mean, we're gonna see a sweeping change about federal regulations in regards to hemp and cbd. And I know you guys don't specifically dabble in marijuana, but even for the companies that do, this is what I believe the healing is going to be multiplied in our world through. I wonder what you guys feel about federal regulations, because this is kind of a controversial piece of the conversation. Like, what would you want to see if you could wave a wand and make any federal regulation happen? Would it be nationwide? What would that look like in a dream world?

Yeah, well, I, I would love to see it, you know, be fully legal, both marijuana and, you know, hemp. I would love to see that fully legal across the country. Because not only are we seeing the, the, the benefits, you know, on the, on the kind of medicinal side of things, but we're also seeing incredible economic impact and, you know, less people being put in prison. And you know, from a systemic and foundational level, it's such a no brainer. It's just, you know, and this is where the frustration comes in. And we don't need to get deep into this because it can turn into a dog fight. It's just the, the, the, the powers that be certainly have, you know, plenty of reasons not to legalize this. The fact that, you know, cocaine is a Class 2 drug and marijuana and hemp, you could smoke a garbage bag full of hemp and the most you get is maybe a headache, you're not gonna get high. And the fact that that's a schedule one drug is just no medical benefit.

That's the definition of a Schedule 1 drug, no medical benefit.

And also the plant medicines that have also been shown through shamanic path we've talked about multiple times on the show, those are also Schedule 1. So it seems like from a policy standpoint, the Schedule 1 is things that don't actually multiply revenue for both the local and the federal level. And we can go there. I mean, look, this is wellness Force, like we're looking for the physical and emotional intelligence so we can live our life well. So why not talk about the things that are in place, that are actually preventing that from occurring, that are actually preventing people from becoming more. Well, I see it and I'd love your guys take on this. I see it as the types of things like alcohol and cocaine and all these drugs that make people work more, more productive, longer nights at the office, more weekends at Buffalo Wild Wings and all these low level vibration activities which have their place sometimes for birthday parties or whatever. But the things that really drive the needle for human health. Why do you see this being a schedule one when really we know it's just a matter of time before it unfolds?

Yeah, to me it's a fear of being uncomfortable. And this is going probably way too deep here, but it's that fear of those who are able to venture beyond the fold and who become comfortable in uncomfortable situations. And the rest of the people are scared of those people because it's a situation that they're both apprehensive of and envious of. And so. So people who use alternative health and people who use what you showed us in your biohacking room, the Naked Jove meditation area. Yeah. I mean, people raise their eyes at this. Right. And raise their eyebrows. And right now, it didn't used to be, but hemp and marijuana are alternative health. And the government has not allowed research to happen on that. There's no funding for that research among universities and other institutes that would typically do that research. That's one part of it. The other part is there's a lot of money to be made in ibuprofen and in anxiety drugs and all the other pharmaceuticals that address the exact same things that, that, that hemp does.

We see a lot of companies in pharma trying to synthesize CBD in some form and also even like the phytonutrient profile of hemp oil. Do you guys see this as a possibility? Like, are we, are we potentially going to see Big Pharma synthesize these natural compounds? Will they ever even come close?

Who knows? Because you never know what the long term effect of something synthetic is until it comes, you know, and it's just the same thing.

That's our human body with 5G and 4G Wi Fi. We don't exactly know.

Who knows when we're 80, like what, what that's gonna look like? Yeah, so we don't know. And you know what we do know that is if you extract Hemp extract from a hemp flower that it's all natural and it just came from the earth and it doesn't need to be synthesized in a lab. And, you know, it just seems so, so peculiar in so many ways. And, you know, you touched on the paper industry too. And, you know, there's cotton and, you know, hemp, cannabis. I mean, they're incredible sources of. Yeah, you can make concrete out of hemp.

There's homes being created out of hemp. Have you guys seen this on Google? We're going to link this in the show notes. Hemp has so many things, from bags to furniture to homes to even flooring. I mean, it's, it's incredibly powerful plant. But it was actually outlawed in. I think I almost want to say it was a rich man. I forget his name right now, but he had a major interest in the paper mills. He's one of these, I believe, in central California. He has the biggest mansion. I know somebody's listening right now and they're like shouting the name out.

Yeah, totally.

Hearst Castle. It was Hearst. He had an interest in the paper mills and that's what actually blocked and outlawed the spreading of these powerful plants.

Well, it was paper. And then we've heard things about the alcohol lobby and we've heard things, of course, the pharmaceutical lobby. Yeah, Cotton being a big one, just because hemp clothing is so much cheaper and needs. Requires such a staggering amount less water to. To cultivate. It's so all in. Like, it's, it's there. There's. As Rhett mentioned, there's a lot of money at stake here, and that's certainly an inhibiting factor.

And it's going this way, as you mentioned five minutes ago, I mean, and the wave has crashed. It's just a matter until it all settles out and we see Mitch McConnell of all people, getting behind it and that wave has crashed and people are waking up to it. And I think a year ago when we started, I think we were told that the awareness level of the term CBD was maybe 2 or 3% of Americans. And a year later today, I would say It's. It's probably 10 times that.

What do you think people are getting wrong right now? Like, if you had to put your finger on things. But the number one, though, like, what's at the top of the things that are most frustrating because there's many of you kind of leaders, like, you guys are on the bleeding edge and there's companies like you that I've been looking at and seeing what they're doing. What do you guys have trouble with? What's the misconception out there for most people about CBD and about hemp oil?

Well, you know, as I mentioned, wewe call it full spectrum hemp oil, which is what it is. But everybody's looking for cbd. That's the buzzword, you know, cbd, cbd. And then they look on our bottle and they don't see cbd, and they go, all right, so next website, you know, or next bottle. Because unless you look in our ingredients, of which there's only two, which speaks to our dedication to the natural process as well, you'll see phytocannabinoids in there. But, yeah, that's a big misconception for us. And the reason we do that, again, is regulatory. Our lawyers told us that that's what we needed to do, and that's what we do.

Yeah. And there's a reason for that, and it has to do with the pharmaceutical industry, which is because, you know, the first drug was approved that contains CBD as it's named. So cbd, according to the fda, is now an ingredient in a pharmaceutical drug. So saying that this product is CBD is the same as saying, you know, this horny goat weed is Viagra or something like that.

Okay.

You know, obviously a more direct correlation, but given FDA compliance regulations, we're actually not allowed to have CBD in our bottle.

Do you think that will ever change in the future?

I don't see that it would. I think there will be a lot of companies who will go into a lot of hurt because they're not being compliant.

So let's paint this picture for people listening. Then we have CBD on the left, which is like, you know, its own entity. Then we have hemp oil on the right.

Full spectrum hemp oil.

Full spectrum hemp oil on the right. Just to visualize this, what is the key difference between the two?

Okay, so CBD is just a single compound. It's cannabidiol. If it actually is. There might. There are many full spectrum hemp oils that are being called CBD just because it's easier, more easily, easy to sell.

Yeah.

But the biggest difference is that the full spectrum means that it has CBD and a whole bunch of other good stuff.

Okay.

Yeah. And it's. It's honestly the. The closest profile that you could imagine to the plant itself. And, you know, we're not creating CBD isolate in a lab or full spectrum isolate that literally comes in kilos of white powder.

You're pressing it from the plants?

Absolutely.

I mean, we're literally at the farm with Kurt, right?

No, not at the farm. We take his hemp flowers and extract it at a different facility. But we do use only the hemp flowers. And that's another thing to specify is that the standard thing in industrial hemp is to use big equipment and just mass harvest the stuff and then do a whole plant extract, which is throwing the entire plant. That includes stocks and seeds and leaves and. And the flowers too. But at the end of the day, you get a diluted product that does not carry the same kind of flavonoids and terpenes and trichomes. Trichomes are those hairs and crystals that you see on.

Ah. On the pine bud.

Yes, on the kv.

This has nothing to do with marijuana, though. Let's be very clear about that. This is not marijuana. This is hemp, which is still a misconception with people left over from the Judgment era.

Yeah, that's another big one. You know, we get a lot of older folks who say, I've lived my whole life and I've never smoked a joint my entire life. And we have their children or their nieces and nephews in many cases, saying, you know, mom, you gotta try this. Like, this is really gonna help you. And there's a massive resistance to that. So, you know, Ned, the way we've gone about it, with our branding, with our graphic design, and with everything from our website to our product itself, it's all designed to be very approachable. It's designed not to look like the other full spectrum hemp oil CBD bottles out there. It's more.