313 Brett Kaufman: Mental Health Life Lessons From A Millionaire Investor

I think a lot of times you mentioned people that are kind of like, what's my purpose? What's my purpose? They don't know. They don't know. I think that's where the action comes in. That really what you don't know is about fear. A doubt, a worry, a racket. It's some programming that's the don't know piece, the abundant thinker. That person says, well, I don't know that I know, but I know enough, and it feels right, and I'm just gonna do it, and if it doesn't work, it's okay. And I think trusting that is really the key to purpose, is kind of letting go, that you've got to have it all figured out and that it's gotta be perfect, that it's gotta be right. That's the programming.

That's Brett Kaufman. And this is episode 313 of Wellness Force Radio. Wellness Force Radio, where we discover the physical and emotional intelligence to live life well.

You can have the same BR as.

Someone who's done an hour of meditation every day for 40 years. There's a lot of losses that we go through, so the ability to be able to cope with those losses is very important to build skill in it, because loss will happen.

You know, you have to have spiritual courage to really grow spiritually, because if you really want to take guidance from.

Your soul, you have to be ready.

To realize that many of the things that you're asking for guidance on your ego has some kind of an addiction to or an investment in.

Hey, what's up, everybody? It's Josh Trent. Welcome back to Wellness Force. I'm in such a good mood. Just did five minutes of breathing, literally, and then jumped right on this podcast. I'm sure you can feel it in my energy and in my voice. You can get your free breathwork journey. Seven days of free breath work. It's my gift to you. It's part of the M21 guide. Just go to wellnessforce.com M21. You're gonna get the six biggest, boldest, most amazing practices for your morning routine. If you are struggling with a morning routine or you're struggling with meditation, do.

Some breath work first.

It's in the guide. Wellnessforce.com M21. Welcome to the podcast. Today we're talking to Brett Kaufman. Now, Brett is a unique soul. This is a powerful man. He's actually a perfect guest for Wellness Force because he's had the traditional success in money and finance and business and purpose. He's a father. He's A husband. He's a pillar for his community. I mean, he's got a lot of those boxes ticked that many of us are working on. But you know what he also has. He has a connection to spirit. He has a connection to higher intelligence, to why we're actually all here. You know, the love that fuels all things that we tend to forget about when we're stressed. Brett is at this stage of his life where he's contributing back through his media outlet, Gravity, his podcast, which I got to be a guest on. And by the way, big thanks to Crate Media for creating the video that we have on our YouTube channel today with Brett. Everything has prepared us for this podcast. I mean, literally everything. The conversations we've had with Paul Check, with Mike Cannings, with Gretchen Rubin, with Dr. Kyra Bobinet, learning about neuroscience and plant medicine from Rythmia. I mean, the amalgam of episodes that have come before this bombshell with Bret Kaufman, it's prepared us to really receive Brett's message. Brett is a pillar of mental health and his company, Gravity, it's in Columbus. I got to go down there and see this in the flesh and walk with bread and have healthy food and have dinner with bread, and really a unique experience that only sometimes podcasting can provide. And this is why I love sharing my life with you. This is what this podcast has always been. My lessons about my own discovery, path of intelligence and mental health and what it really means to be a human. How do we heal? How do we be our best self? This is all the stuff that you and I are working on all the time. You're going to get a lot out of this podcast, specifically the topics of reprogramming, the subconscious mind, dancing with the ego, mental health, how to drive through your career, finding your purpose, connecting with higher intelligence and understanding how to live this life well, how to create purpose and vision and all of these things that we're all doing our best to learn. Brett has mastered many of these things, and so this is the biggest value you're going to get from this podcast. And when you feel the story from Brett, Share this Share this Share this Podcast with somebody that is working on their mental health, that is working on their purpose, that is working on living their life well. This is what our show is all about. Make sure you go to Brett's podcast as well. It's called Gravity. I got to be a guest on that podcast, which was a super treat, where Brett asked me some challenging questions. I mean, this dude almost made me cry. He actually did kind of make me cry a little bit. And that's a good thing. I mean, tears are actually just salt water leaving the body, and with salt water, there's detoxification, physically and emotionally. If you enjoy this show, leave us a review. It would be a huge favor to our entire team. And you know what it really does is it's a way for you to express yourself about what you like on the show. I read every review myself, and we pick a review every month to give 90 days of Organifi to for free. All you have to do is go to wellnessforce.com review or you can just go to itunes and leave us a review. It means a lot. I'm smiling while I ask you this, because it is really my heart's intention to reach as many people with this mission and this message as possible. You're part of this with us, so leave us a review. It would mean a lot to me. Thank you so much for just 60 to 90 seconds of your time. And now let's get into this podcast. Let's talk with Brett. Let's get down in Columbus, Ohio, at Gravity Headquarters, the wellness community. I think of the future right here, right now with the one and only Brett Kaufman. Isn't that the greatest conversations where we're not thinking about what we're gonna say, we're just responding like a beautiful, energetic tennis match.

Yeah. It's why I asked you about preparing. And, you know, you can use whatever, however you want to do this. Not that you need me to tell you that. So we're just hop in.

I guess we're going.

All right.

Yeah, we're going.

Yeah. You know, because I've. I've tried to. I've had this little conversation, you know, with myself about preparing, and it goes against kind of my natural way of being to really study, to prepare, to, you know, kind of get in there and do that work. Because, you know, what I like to do is something that feels a lot more free and doesn't take the same kind of energy, you know, to have to sit and focus and dive in. Those are things that, like, just don't kind of naturally come to me.

Yet.

I've learned through tools and masterminds and coaching that the value of the plan and the preparing and the kind of execution of something, rather than the kind of discomfort that comes with the uncertainty, can really be of value. And so I'm kind of trying to, like, in the context of podcasting, figure out how much of this is good for me to be hearing for the first time, for this just to be natural for me, just to come in, tune in, follow the threads, you know, don't over complicate it.

Yeah.

And how much is it like I don't want to miss stuff that I know you've got in there.

Well, I have the same thoughts about being a parent. You know, you didn't know exactly how you're going to be a dad, but you just, you figured it out. You used your heart and your intuition.

Yeah.

This is why I feel like you are the perfect. If we ever had a perfect quote guest for the show, it's you. The physical, the emotional, the financial, the spiritual, the plant medicine. I mean, every facet of which we explore in wellness Force. Here you are. Brett Kaufman. Thanks for coming on, man.

Well, it's. First of all, I'm going to ask you wait till the end of this just to decide if I'm the perfect podcast.

We'll see, we'll see.

But oh, man, it's, it's really great to be with you and honored to have you here in Columbus at Gravity.

And to spend some time we're recording at this really, I guess you could say next level wellness lifestyle apartment, not complex. What do you call this? It's not an apartment complex. It's something different. Community. This is a community. Yeah.

It's a mixed use community. So it's live, work, play, all of the above.

There's these three concepts that you have, which I loved. And it was about, well, being, expression and impact. Yeah. Well, being is not typically on a contractor's mind when they design a dwelling space. They're more like, how do I maximize the square footage that I get the best roi? We're going to talk about a lot of different pieces of your life, but specifically the way that you've created gravity. Like just first, can you tell people what gravity is? Sure, yeah.

So you've kind of hit on the kind of three principles of gravity. Well being, expression and impact. And you know, gravity is at its core is, as we were just saying, it's a mixed use development. It's made up of 234 apartments, 50,000 square feet of office space, 30,000 square feet of retail. I could give you all the numbers and there's a probably five times the size second phase that's coming and hopefully a third phase. But so really what gravity is is a neighborhood today in its existing form that is holding space for people to, as we talked about earlier, to be met where they are and expand. And that can happen in any number of ways. And we're here in Columbus, Ohio. We're here in the Midwest. And so the meet people where they are piece of this is really, really important. There are people here that are traveling to the coast that are getting all these goodies, all these modalities and therapies and access to community and doesn't really exist in most of the country. And so that's what gravity stands for, is to really figure out how we can be of service to people in the communities that they. They live in and want to be a part of.

I think about the definition of gravity. Like I pick up a phone, it drops to the ground. There's weight, there's gravity. Toss to gravity. Like it's gravity something. You can resist it for a while, but eventually gravity is going to win. And the truth is the same way. And we can resist the truth, but eventually the truth is going to come in. So when I think about the name Gravity, why did you name it Gravity? Does it have something to do with truth or connection or the weight of truth? I mean, what's behind gravity? Or was I going way metaphysical there?

No, it's not. I mean, it's an interesting story and, you know, it's probably highlights like another belief of mine, but really, I've always had a hard time naming our communities. And even our company, Kaufman Development, was the name. Not because it had my name on it or was the easiest thing to do. It was because I went through an exhaustive search of trying to find language that really, really felt like it was embodying everything that we wanted to be.

Yeah.

And most of the time, I would come up empty. So Kaufman Development, Most of our communities in the past have been named after the address. Nothing real creative, but Gravity was gifted to me by a friend, Christopher Celeste, who was working on a concept that was about belonging. It was about community. It wasn't a physical asset, but it. But it had the kind of similar threads to what I had been working on as I founded Kauffman Development and really trying to shift how people lived and where they worked in creating spaces that allowed them to be their best selves. And so we had this commonality and we started to kind of jam on like a little, kind of not so little public private partnership that would turn into this space of community centers and business and kind of a social innovation center, which, ironically, we're now circling back around to. But gravity is what became Gravity. This community became of that idea. And Christopher gave me the name, and he told me at the time that words mattered and it wasn't something that I really connected to until we're now a few years down the road and we're launching other products that will use that gravity name. And to specifically kind of answer your question, it's not so much about truth. It's more about kind of. You know, when I hear that pull, that's. To me, it's more about kind of an anchor in a groundingness, you know, that there's this pool that is, whether it be grounding us or lifting us or binding us, it's really bringing people together, you know, as the one that we were born to be and finding ways for us to connect, to collaborate, to love, to expand. You know, to me, that's what the word gravity stands for.

The man that built gravity is not the man that started in banking. This is a totally different man. The way that you started in your banking career came from a place of childhood conditioning. And this is why I love having conversations like this, because people can look at you now and they get a snapshot of where you are now. They're like, okay, successful businessman doing some philanthropy, helping other people. But that has not been your mindset since the very beginning. Your mindset in the beginning was totally different. And it was different because you received the contrast that you needed to grow from. And you've talked about this in media and even in your Mind Body Green article you had mentioned here in Columbus. There's a lot of people with a Western mindset, whether you want to call it Western mindset or not. It's people that want to be healthy, people that want to live their life well. And the way that you facilitated a space for them. I haven't seen or heard anything like this in the entire country. This entire process for you has been about giving people a space for mental health. You know, really giving people a trusted space so that they can be healthy, mentally, have the resources that they need. Where did that come from inside of you to give them that?

Yeah, so, you know, you're right about kind of the banker times, but, you know, really what I look at, that entire period is kind of just the unconscious time. And. And it was the awakening. And those are happening in bits and pieces along the way, but really starting to look at them in depth and see kind of the full body of all of that allows you to kind of see, well, that's where it came from. So it came from my whole life. And there are so many little data points that I can point to that got me to want to do this work and to be able to have something that would make the human experience, the experience I had, which in some way, shape or form is comparable to everybody's experience. How can we make it a better experience? How can we help people move through that experience? How can we just support them and love them? You know, maybe we could actually give them some other modalities or some support, some help, some friendship, some love, whatever it might be, by being a part of this community to make that easier and better. And. And that, you know, just came to me over time. And it had to be all the things it had to be, including banking. You know, it. For me, banking was probably one of the best learnings I've had professionally still. And I was not in it that long. I spent about five years right out of college, you know, working in, you know, very kind of corporate environment.

Why did you choose banking?

I chose banking because I candidly was right out of school. I'd probably gone a few months without a job. And in my world, that was like giant fail. And that was stories and programming I had taken on as a kid. Nobody was actually telling me that if I didn't get a job, you know, I was a failure, sure, but I was telling myself that. And I was pretty sure everybody else was saying it, just not to me, including my girlfriend, who was four years older than me, and potentially her parents, who were looking at me as this young kid that their daughter had broken up with her much older.

It's so easy. It's easy at that age to feel pressure because what are you, 22 years old and not.

Yeah, yeah, I was probably 21. 22. 21.

The psyche is very soft at that point, you know, depending on what's happened before that. So there was a piece of safety and security. And I'm going to be careful to not project my story on you because we just did an epic podcast for your show and you asked me about, like, what did I need when I was that age? I needed safety and security. Was it safety and security for you that drove you to banking? Or was it just I need something, so I'll just kind of pick this out of the random.

I think there was some level of safety and security, but I think it was actually more interestingly enough, cause you shared this with me more about kind of the not enoughness. And so to me, what I really wanted to do, and I didn't know this that clearly, so I don't want to make it sound like it was like that obvious and I skipped it, but what I really wanted to do was Something in either the real estate development space or in the psychology space. Those were the two things. And really, when I say real estate development, it was more about architecture. I actually wasn't as interested in the business of real estate. I was more interested in the creative side, which is still actually the thing that fuels me today. Yeah, I loved architecture and I loved design. And there was something about the beauty of it that really felt inspiring to me. And I loved learning about the human condition and the brain and psychology. Those were subjects in a incredibly disconnected academic life. I mean, I had zero interest in academics for my entire life.

Did you love math?

I might have early on, but I loved almost nothing I studied. I took a speech class in middle school and I enjoyed that. But I loved the teacher. I loved my fifth grade teacher. And then I remember like three classes in college, one of them being a psych class, the other two being architecture classes, both in the kind of architecture, history and design. And those were the only things that I ever loved about academics. But I didn't follow any of that. And it's funny because, like, what am I doing now? You know, the creative piece.

Sure.

We're trying to figure out how to make the human condition better and I'm speaking about it and all of that is really enjoyable. But I spent, I spent about 20 years doing other things before I was able to get the confidence that that was something that actually could be a way of living and a way of working. So long answer to your question. But the truth is I went to work at the bank because I wanted to impress my girlfriend and her parents and do really shallow things like show up at a five year class reunion with a business card that said I was a banker. Yeah, you know, that, that is honestly where my mind was at 22 years old.

Can you also have great compassion for yourself at that time? Because that was the level of consciousness and awareness that you had. I mean, this is the real gift, isn't it? You can be here now and look back. Can you hold that space for.

Oh, you know, absolutely. And in that case it's really easy for me to do. So, you know, big deal. I went, I was a banker. Like, it's not like I was doing something, you know, horrendous. I happen to have hated the work. But I learned so much and I have so much gratitude for bankers who are a critical part of what I do. I understand what it's like to be them, to sit in a credit committee, to be in that culture and so relentless. Well, it's, it's tough. And, you know, it was really just not my calling. But I have friends that are still working at those banks, and they love it and they've made a life out of it. And so I have a different perspective on when I'm engaging. But there's. There's way more kind of profound examples of how to learn from everything, especially the hard stuff, and how that can be a very fulfilling and, you know, totally like, gratitude experience.

Yeah.

And so it's not so much about kind of the first job as it is just getting that it is all happening for our benefit.

What was the relationship with money and your parents? How did you see money when you were younger?

Well, money was a very big part of kind of the programming. And it was not, like, so specific, but it was more in the action. So, you know, it was clear. My grandfather on my dad's side, you know, told the story that he had holes in his shoes and could never afford to go to college and started a business with his brother. And they started to do well and they started to have families. And so what did they do? They gave their kids everything they didn't have. Well intended. Absolutely. Having a good old time, you know, living life that. A life that they never dreamed they could or they now had, and they're sharing it. But what that did was really spoil their children. They became entitled, they became addicted. They became, you know, kind of at the mercy of their parents and their business. And so there was a lot of kind of learning about money, the value of it, you know, how to misuse it, how to, you know, make assumptions about it. My father, I think, kind of lived his whole life thinking that he was inheriting money, which he never got. And so there was some real kind of, you know, stunting that was happening along the way that actually led to cutting corners and really going about things in a way that really ultimately ended up, you know, really negatively impacting my father's life. He was in prison. He, you know, was unable to really get employed. He still, to this day is, you know, in his 70s, working 30 hours a week. And so, you know, tons. Now, on my mom's side, it was kind of the opposite. It was not that money wasn't important. In fact, I think there was a lot of kind of material kind of value in the things that you could buy and do with money. But mostly it was about kind of the experience of it and that there was a connection to that being fun and important and a thing that, you know, you could do because you've had Such success. And I've had to kind of unpack all of that, too, as I've started to raise my own family and have success and money and have to kind of really think about how you want to be with it.

Do you have an earliest memory where you can remember feeling love or appreciation towards money? Or was that belief more negative and more cautious around money?

I think mine were more about love and appreciation. There was caution. Caution came later in business where it was like, oh, well, I don't want to end up broke. You know, I don't want to end up like my dad. So there was a lot of kind of fear and caution around losing what was made. But mostly, I think my memories were about kind of valuing or being kind of attached to or excited or energized by what money allowed you to do. And I don't want to make that sound like it's. I had this positive outlook on money because it really wasn't. It was more kind of. For me, it ended up being, like, a connection that I made that I would equate having money with whatever I was doing that I was getting happiness out of. And so it took me a long time to realize that money wasn't happiness, because to me, money was, like, always, well, we're in Hawaii. We're on vacation. We're eating at a nice restaurant.

Yeah.

You know, we have money, so we can do these things. And that, to me, equated happiness.

But happiness and fulfillment are different sides of a seesaw, because happiness is like this fluttering state. I've heard some people say, oh, the meaning of life is to be happy. I don't agree with that. I think. And I'm curious how you feel. I think the core element of life is to connect with a divine purpose, something that comes through you, something that you're here for. And there's so many people that listen to the show that are like, if I just knew my purpose. If I just knew my purpose, when did you know that this would be your purpose? And what do you believe the happiness purpose divide really is?

Yeah, I mean, I can tell you I. For me, I think purpose is constantly unfolding and sometimes shifting and sometimes shifting fairly significantly. So, like, you know, we talked about your path through the different lines of work, and each one of those, for me, and I think for you, too, was very purposeful. Sure. Right. And in some cases, you were actually being of service to people, so you were really being of purpose, not just that you were learning from them, but you are now actually being of Purpose to other people.

Yeah.

So I think for me the, it was a number of events that really got me to make the entrepreneurial jump. I. And none of this, you know, seems coincidental. This all feels very well now.

It doesn't. Today you can look back and be like, oh, I see, I see the light.

Yeah, today, you know, yes, you're right. At the time I was just going with it and I didn't know what it was, but I found Summit Series, Landmark Forum and a coach. All three of those things happened within about a three month period in 2010. And I shifted in a way that had me needing to start this company. And really it was seeing at Summit people living freely with purpose and doing stuff in the world that was really game changing. I mean, this was like, you know, I was seeing the Google guys kind of, you know, starting to really, you know, blow up PayPal and first exposure to Gary Vee. And you know, there was this world that I didn't know existed living here in Columbus, Ohio. I didn't know that was going on and I got exposed to it and it, and there was something that called me saying, you know, you too can have this. You want this and you can have it. Landmark Forum got me to really kind of understand what was possible and that I could create something that was really connected to who I am truly, and not the stories and rackets and attachments that I'd been living my life under. And then my coach really helped me understand how it was possible to integrate my work in my life and that the things that I was passionate about did not have to happen after work, on the weekends or in retirement, that I could actually love what I did every day. And so with that, we created Kauffman Development with the idea that we could provide communities for people to live and work that were of high design, but that really honored well being, impact and expression. We used a little different language when we started and that would be our way to try to change the world. And that if you were working in this company, you would be able to live that integrated life, not just to provide it for other people, but that would be the culture of our company. And you know, that was kind of my real purpose moment. Now, you know, and I won't, I won't continue on. But you know, the truth is, is that my purpose moment continues to shift and so building communities and spaces and we are doing that more now than we have, you know, in the last nine years. 2020 will be our biggest year as a company. I am actually Focused on how we create and improve and enhance and upgrade the human experience in other ways now more even than I am focused on the real estate side of things.

Well, it's no surprise that I went to a dinner with Dave Asprey where I met Mike Cannings. And then Mike introduced me to you then. Because Upgrade Labs is about up leveling the human condition. And so now I can trace the energy back, and I'm curious, can you trace the energy back to one of your rackets that you let go of in Landmark and for people don't know, you can maybe explain to them what the racket means and can you see how that racket. Can you educate us on how that racket served you up to that point and then how it served you when you let it go in regards to this financial conversation, you know, creating purpose?

Yeah, I think the biggest racket that got kind of cleared in a racket is like, you know, maybe an attachment. It's a story. It's a thing that you kind of start to believe is true, that it isn't really true. So, like, for example, I had that it was too hard or you needed too much money or that people that started businesses needed to do that at certain times in their life, whether they were young or old. I think I thought both that there was too many reasons why I couldn't do my own thing. And the possibility, which is kind of landmark language that I created for myself coming out of that was. And it's funny because I was just doing a little like, Marie Kondo cleanup session at my. In my closet and bathroom over the weekend, and I found this piece of paper that I keep, and I just hadn't seen it in a long time. It's all soft and kind of crinkled now.

It was right next to your nootropics you forgot about.

It was down the hall from the nootropics, but same, same exercise. And it was the possibility that I had created. And it was really about being the author of my own life. And that was the kind of language that I was using. It was about being courageous and fun and compassionate and being the author of my own life. And that's who I am. But that's not how I was living. And there was a lot of rackets and stories that were not allowing me to really write my own story, direct my own movie. And so, you know, I think it's impossible to really. I shouldn't say that. For me, that meant I needed to start my own business.

Yep. And you knew right then so the racket was everything we do is connected to how we were imprinted as kids. Yeah. If your body's been aching, your energy's low, you're in a bad mood and you're not getting good sleep, this is all things stacked up for you to have a pretty shitty day. Let's be honest. It does not have to be like this. However, there are tools out there, trusted tools. Specifically our show sponsor, Cured Nutrition. They are the creators of a wonderful product that is full spectrum hemp. And I say wonderful because that's how it makes me feel. I have been taking this organically grown full spectrum Colorado hemp before I go to bed. It makes me sleep like a baby. I back up the sleep data with my oura ring. It works, y'. All. This is really, really high quality, organically farmed full spectrum hemp. It took me a year to partner with a company like Cured. And you can go to Wellness Force 300, our episode 300 where Joe actually interviewed me. You can learn about why we partner with Cured. There's a lot of companies out there when it comes to hemp. A lot of them don't really walk their talk. But Joe and the entire team at Cured, they not only walk their talk, they give you hemp so you can walk better. You can get 15% off with their generosity. Just go to wellnessforce.com cured and pick up the mint, the regular flavor. You can even get it for your your pets. They have oils and tinctures and they have everything you could ever ask for. When it comes to the world of full spectrum organically farmed hemp, that's wellnessforce.com cured. Use the code wellnessforce. You get 15% off your entire order. Pick up your full spectrum hemp today. This is a company that I stand behind. It's. I don't care if you're a deeply spiritual man or woman or if you're a scientist, if you're a neuroscientist, all of us can understand the conception of when we come into the world, how malleable our right and brain, left hemispheres are, how everything isn't necessarily formed yet. Think of a plant. When a plant starts coming up, it opens slowly. How it's fed, how the light comes in, how much water it has, the soil, everything's very dependent on that health of the plant and its surrounding environment. So the things that happened for you when you were a kid, specifically this father, really, it's a father wound. I think so many of us deal with a father wound that we grow from you obviously grew from it. But that father wound and the corollary between you being either fed the right kind of sunlight just like a plant would be. What was one of the rackets that you got from him? What was a racket that you got from him that you identified and that you let go?

Yeah, so most of my rackets coming from childhood, from my father specifically were pretty harsh, but also not uncommon. And I've kind of learned that. I don't want to minimize them because they were really impactful, but I've also just learned how common they are. And we talked a little bit about this before. Not enough was really a big messaging. My father was a big believer in work ethic and manners and behavior and men in particular were the ones that needed to look the part, act the part. You know, I was wearing three piece suits, you know, before the age of 10 and like it wasn't uncommon and being told to shake a hand and look somebody in the eye and you know, perform, perform, perform. School athletics, you know, when I'm with my parents or grandparents, you know, behave certain way and you know, it was never enough. And you know, he was, he was drinking a lot and you know, in his own struggle and work and life with young family and all the stuff that I understand today. But he was angry and he was verbally abusive and scary and intimidating for me and for my mother and my sister. And there was a lot of fear that came in. There was not enough love. And there was definitely kind of a you're not smart and a you're not enough message that I took on. I took those kind of mostly, you know, lack of love, fear, not enough and something around kind of intelligence.

Yeah. So the played a part for a while because I'm sure as most entrepreneurs there's a shadow side. It's what drives, I mean I look at Bedros Kulian or a lot of the big people in the health and wellness industry and they have been very open about how their shadow drove them to succeed. And I think about what you've accomplished and it begs my question, what part of that shadow? What part of that not enough or whatever, however you want to describe it, there's an energy there. And that energy created a vacuum. And we know that nature hates a vacuum. So that vacuum, unfortunately though, and never be filled completely, but yet it drives so much of our society. And this is a mystery for me, you know, how do we do it without that dark shadow? How do we create amazing things without a dark shadow? And how did that dark Shadow drive you? Yeah.

So, I mean, I think that it definitely drove me and still does in a more kind of aware way. And it's an ongoing thing that I'm still learning how to use to actually serve me in a way that feels aligned. So it served me in that it created a lot of outputs that were beneficial to other people and beneficial to me and my family and the many people that worked on them. So for us to build communities and for people to actually live there and feel good about the life that they're living in, part because of the environment that they're living in, because of the people they're surrounded by. You know, to me, that does feel like it all is serving, and then it was also serving for the learnings that I was getting, for the challenges, for the growth opportunities, for the things that, you know, would then get entangled into my family and how I would learn through all of that. And balancing and everything about it feels very serving in what I'm starting to do now, which is really help other people, invest in other people, coach other people, just support people, entrepreneurs, friends, family. You know, it's showing up for me in droves. And it feels, again, like I'm called to it in a way that I can use all of that experience to now be of service to other people. And when I'm of service to other people, it's filling me up, too. And so it's a constant, I believe it's all constantly serving and again happening for benefit and as it should be.

There's this deep darkness that. That created the vacuum, the energetic vacuum that I spoke about. And then it's bringing all this light to all these other people. But I go back to this question because it's something that I've been thinking about lately, just personally, in my own life and my own evolution of Wellness Force and just why we're here in general. And I see in our society that there is so many great wealthy people who I love and who I can just tell they're doing this for humanity. And then there's some people where it's not the case. And we know that on some level that money is just a vehicle. It's just a vehicle for energy transport. And something that I've been leaning into more is making money from a place of already knowing that it's there and actually embodying that trust. But somebody listening or somebody watching, they're not in a place of full surrender. They're not really embodying that aspect of, oh, I know money's gonna Come because money's never come for them, them. And that could be a belief that they have or it could be just something that maybe they're here to learn. So the big question is, do we create big movements and big money from a place of pain and shadow or do we create big movements and big money from a place of love and of service? Do we have to have the shadow before we have the light or can we have the light sooner? How do we get to that curve?

Well, that's a great question. I actually, we don't think it's an either or and that we're actually in control of that decision. So I think it shows up for us again in kind of the grand design, you know, which might sound a little bit woo woo. But you know, I think there are some people that really need to go through it all that need to kind of get the shadow out, you know, be with it, allow room for it, let it serve you. And that needs to happen for them to really get the knock on the head that allows them to fully embody the next thing. And I think that there's yet a way for us to kind of try to get to that place faster and without the shadow by honoring what we know is really inside of us. So for example, because I do believe money can be made in abundance when you're actually doing it in accordance to your light and, and to not, you know, doing it in the darkness. The darkness. And it is, it's, it's not debatable that people can make phenomenal amounts of money. Maybe even more. Maybe I'm not convinced.

From the dark.

From the dark.

Yeah.

But, but, but very rarely do I think any of them feel like that's what they were actually after once they get it, if they're lucky. And then sometimes it might be on their deathbed. You know, the legend has it that that's what happened to Steve Jobs. You know, that he felt like he had wasted all of his changing the world energy on what was, was, you know, really not that important. What was really important was how he ate and his family.

Yeah.

And being, you know, peaceful. And he didn't. And so I think that at the end of the day, the way forward is really by honoring what's inside of you, your soul, your essence, and creating from that place. And the faster you can start to follow that trust, that the less shadow you're gonna have to be creating from and the more truth and light.

And yeah, let's talk about soul navigation then, because you said purpose is really the Way where it doesn't have to be either. Or if somebody's on sole purpose, they don't need to create from the light or the dark. They can just create from a soul's place. How have you navigated that? When did that start for you where you're like, ah, my soul is tugging me this way. What did that feel like when your soul tugged you and navigated you?

Yeah, I mean, you know, my coach used to say you're people make a jump in, you know, start a business for one of two reasons. Either they're drowning where they are or they're on fire about where they want to go.

That sounds about right.

Yeah. And in my case I was both. So, you know, I think starting the business, you know, that kind of falling my soul. And then, you know, Dan Sullivan in Strategic Coach talks about kind of the four Cs. So it's commitment is being the first step and that's like, okay, I'm going to do this. And then the courage that you need to kind of get through of the challenging stuff that's coming up inevitably. And then you start to get some capabilities that you're doing this and you're good at it. And then comes the confidence. And so you're like, all right, I got this. And then you have to kind of recommit so you can kind of start all over. And I think for me it's been a constant state of commitment. And then really courage. I think courage is the one that gets most people off track. And even commitment, I mean the commitment gets easier because you know when those kind of soul moments come that they're really real and if you trust them and commit to them, it's going to work because you've seen it before. But that first commitment is really hard. All that fear is going to come flooding in and the courage you've got to be able to really access to move through it. Once you get to capability, it's kind of smooth sailing. So I mean again, it keeps coming. It was starting my business. It was going from suburban apartments to urban infill to mixed use to now building large scale neighborhoods. And really I kind of am continually accessing it. As we're starting new concepts. We're just launching this therapy co practice space called inner space here at Gravity. It's an entirely new business that took a whole set of commitments and courage. We're or launching a venture capital fund to really get people to create from their essence. So there's a lot of kind of constant downloads that are coming and Choosing how much I want to do is probably the bigger battle. But the information comes and I'm learning to follow it.

How does one know when they're on that sole navigation path? In other words, is there a certain way of being or feeling they might be experiencing? Whether they want to be a yoga studio owner, whether they want to be a real estate developer or a podcaster, or just something where they feel in their soul they're of service. How do they actually know when they're on that path? How did you know?

Yeah, I think you really in your body, you know, and it's a matter of learning to kind of slow down and, and ask and be with and trust and kind of inhabit your body in a way that you can tell physically if you are aligned. And if that's your soul, your mind wants to really do all the talking and all of the deciding yes, right. And it's loud and it's good and it's gotten you here. So you got a lot of evidence as to why that is the driver's seat, who's sitting in the driver's seat. But it's really not there for me. I think it's in the body. It's really kind of going into that inward space and that's a practice and it's a practice that my meditation's been helpful with. Running is a time where I used to run a lot of long distance races and I would get in the training a lot of kind of meditating negative thoughts and you can just kind of tell what's really coming from that soul place or what may be driven by your not enoughness, your fears, your worries, whatever else is kind of in that programming.

Something I've been really fascinated with lately is the brain gut and just the brain body connection. So people talk about gut feeling a lot. And I'm curious how you feel about if somebody's health is, for example, giving them dysbiosis or their GI tract is inflamed. You know, depending on the research, like 80 to 90% of quote, serotonin is produced in the gut. Well, if I'm going with my body sensation and I'm really well versed, let's say I do yoga and I work out and I think I have physical intelligence. If the conduit isn't clean, doesn't that take away gut feeling?

Well, you know, there's kind of two pieces of that. You know, we, we like to say you get really good gut instincts by doing a lot of sit ups. So your gut gets better with experience. And repetition and a lot of work. You know, it's not for everybody. I think just kind of this like intuitive what's going on there. And when I say physical, it's. It's not so much about maybe the kind of. Although I believe that, you know, your food and how you take care of your physical body can really impact how free that space is. But it's really more about kind of getting out of the mind and kind of into that field, that inner column that whatever it is for you. Your body is what I'm calling it, but it's really like an energy field. It can be surrounding you, it can encompass all of you, your mind and your body. It can extend out as far as you want it to. Right. And it's in there that the soul knowledge is available. And so yeah, I mean I do think that the way you get to that is by good health, mental and physical. So the cleaner your body is, the cleaner your mind is, the easier it is to separate the thoughts and to get to kind of the essence.

One cool analogy. Dr. Tim Brown, one of the coolest men in sports. He's a phenomenal world renowned chiropractor and just all around amazing human being. He said, you know, a lot of our health is like water. If it doesn't flow, it stagnates. So if we're not moving, if we're not standing tall, that he said if we're not having our body move in a fluid way, then we're not recycling the water. And I think mental health has a lot to do with physical movement. I'm not saying that we have to go to the gym, but what I am saying is if our water is still, our thoughts can stagnate. How do you let this unfold for yourself? Like how is that relationship with your body and the way that you care for your body transformed your money, your family, everything else. What's the connection there for you?

Yeah, so the again, it's just kind of like evolved for me. I played sports as a kid. I, when I moved to Columbus, I shifted and got away from soccer and baseball and started playing tennis. And I was never like, you know, so worried about my body. I'd never worked out. When I was in high school, it wasn't my thing at all. Not in college even really, you know, maybe the occasional go to the gym, but like not really. It wasn't until my adult life where I started to really want to take care of my body.

What do you consider the age starting for adult life?

I was probably, you know in my mid-20s when I start and I. That's not what I would say adult life is.

What age might that be?

I think it's like really in like depending on who you are, it's. It's kind of in your, you know, mid-30s and into your 40s, really.

That's how I feel too.

You know, I'm 44 and in many ways I feel like I'm really just starting to adult now. Some people might do it sooner. In many ways I was adulting like as a kid because again, remember I'm walking around in a three piece suit, shaking hands, look people in the eyes. So I learned how to like fake it in an adult world, like really well. But actually stepping into my adult self is really just been happening over the last few years.

Yeah, yeah. This understanding of being an adult. I'm 39. I feel like I've been adulting for three years where I'm actually taking a real honest look at who I am, what I stand for and why I actually want to do it. And what am I willing to let go of within myself in order to call that in Beliefs, certain memories that I think didn't happen for me. So many things that people carry, we all tend to carry as humans, just. That doesn't belong. Right. And it grooves like backpack threads into our shoulders because it gets so heavy. Eventually someone has a meltdown moment. Or like you had said, people start a business because they either want to go towards something that's lighting a fire for them or they're fucking drowning. That was a cool metaphor. I feel like so many of our emotional intelligence lessons happen in that same vein. Can you share with us one that's happened for you where you're like, I'm going to let go of that today because that's not serving me anymore. I either feel like I'm drowning or it's pulling me back from something that's lighting me on fire.

Yeah. First of all, it's funny, I was just thinking about this. It's like a Seinfeld moment where it's. I think the language adulting is so childish.

I mean, we all get it on some level though. It's like, okay, I'm gonna take care of my responsibilities, quote, quote.

But don't you think it's like whoever came up with it was like really like in their adult self, but like kind of part of them was like, we'll call it adulting, which felt so childish.

That's a good point. Yeah.

I don't know. I'm sure. Larry David could make a whole.

That could be an entire skit.

Yeah, yeah. I think that, you know, for me, I'm just trying to think of an example. So you're saying where I was either going on catching him.

I'm loving this analogy. And I think the reason analogies are so great is because even children can understand them. Speaking of the child connection to adulting, there's a point in everyone's life where something emotionally finally comes up and there's a decision. We make a decision to let it go.

I think I've got to now really do that mostly in the moment. I mean, there's been a lot of them. And even just recently, we just decided as a company that we were going to really focus on gravity. We have gravity and we have another product that we're launching which is a real kind of sustainable, kind of green approach to building community, urban infill communities. And I feel very drawn to those product types as being important at this point in time. But we see a lot of opportunities. We could be building real estate all over the place. And we've had to just recently kind of decide that if we just do what we're focused on right now and do it really, really well, it's enough. And so I think, you know, for me, it's maybe boring, but it is kind of the same themes that continue to show back up, like, we're enough, we've done enough, we have enough, we don't need to do anything. And that can kind of really start to spread. And it's now more about not so much the big decisions. It's in the moment. It's in every little conversation, whether it be in conversation with my wife or my kids or a friend or a colleague, or in conflict and even within myself and deciding how I want to be in all of those situations. There's a constant kind of ability to dig underneath it and decide in the moment at that finest little point that I'm enough and that I'm smart enough. And who am I? Well, I'm love and I'm compassion and I'm joy. How am I being those things right now? And that's where I find kind of the refinement really happening. The level of mastery is really kind of in the. It's in the little stuff. The big stuff becomes pretty easy once you get like, nope, we're enough. Nevermind, no thanks, don't worry about it. Let's talk in January. You know, it gets easy to do that, but it's in the real connection in the moment that, you know, the work is.

Do you feel like capitalism, in a way has progressed and it's ignored the laws of nature so much? Where in the laws of nature, there's always a birth, a life and a death, but yet in capitalism, it's always about consistent year, month, day, some kind of metric, you better grow or it's not working. Do you feel like because of how capitalism at its core has completely thrown away the laws of nature, that that is actually why we're at this point in society where the gap, the divide is grown so big? How do we overcome this? How do we start treating capitalism with the same love and care and acknowledgement that we can with nature? How do they mirror each other?

Well, I. I think that whether it be capitalism or other kind of human conditions, you know, capitalism was born out of something, right? So I think, you know, we're talking about generational human conditioning that's led us to ignore the laws of Mother Nature, to be in the situations that we're in. And, you know, we were talking about this at lunch. I'm not so sure if that isn't a necessary thing for us to actually get the learnings we need. Because if, like, things are good and every mother, you know, everybody's thriving mother, maybe, you know, we start to make some other really bad mistakes. I don't know. But I kind of choose to believe that everything is happening as it's meant to be. And so, you know, capitalism, even, you know, the damage that we're doing, maybe, maybe it's necessary now. I'm not activating that. We continue to do damage. You know, I think that there's a tremendous flaw in being a public company where the quarter is so damn important and people clearly are told, here's what you have to do at all costs. Right? It's the same thing in our school system. You know, the testing model where teachers are, you know, teaching to the test. You know, where that happens. There's a lot of places where we have a performance culture that's sending the wrong messages. And that's, I think, something that we need to really evaluate, and it's why we want to launch our own fund, is that the values that we have are around the human being and creating organizations and products that are actually serving Mother Nature and all of its beauty. And so it's. It's about, you know, getting a human to have the support, the resources of both time and money and freedoms of relationships and purpose to actually create in this world from a much more clean and. And Soulful place.

Yeah. So this is the balance that you're finding is by offering space to people who you can intuitively tell to really carry on this message of more of a conscious capitalism, they're going to make money because money's oxygen. We chose to come into this 3D world so that we could be here and breathe. And without cash flow, any business or just any family can't breathe yet. We're in this big shakeup right now. And I'm curious how you feel about this, where technology, podcasting, all the things that are even possible now in the past 10 years, they did not exist from the paradigm of our mothers and fathers because technology just wasn't at that space. Do you feel like right now that there is a true hope for humanity to save itself, to heal the world by utilizing new ways of being in their minds and through technology? How do you see that unfolding?

You know, I don't know that I have the clarity of how it's going to unfold, but I do believe that, that it's all here and it is happening and is really serving right now. And I have a lot of hope. I really do. It's funny, I had this thought this morning, I don't know really where this came from, but I was thinking about kind of maybe we're just living in a period and that there have been periods of time that, you know, my 13 year old is learning about in middle school, you know, where they're going through the different religions and the periods and the way that humanity has lived and evolved. And, you know, I like to believe we're in one of those periods right now. And the thought I had this morning is, you know, well, what. What would you call it? Like, what is it it? And I think it's an awakening. I think we are in a period where people are learning and having access to tools that are allowing them to awaken. And that awakening has to be to serve and protect and honor and love. And so I'm very hopeful and I believe it's happening. And I don't know, you know, kind of how it all unfolds, but I. I do believe it's. It's happening.

Yeah. And I think the fact that we can all feel the excitement, the love, the joy that it is unfolding is fuel that we do have intelligent hope for it to be successful, for us to be here. Whether it's the fall of Rome that you were using that your daughter's learning about, or it was some other civilization. You know, we look at the Mayas and the Aztecs and the Incas, like, they've all kind of had their heyday and then they went away. So I think the one thing that they didn't have, though, that we have is that we have this. You and I talking on a podcast, reaching thousands of people. The ability for us to connect has never been this huge. So I think that is the difference. And even if you look at Ray Kurzweil's work and you look at how he proved about Moore's Law and accelerating returns, which now doesn't even apply anymore, anymore, technological growth is like this massive hockey stick human evolution. It got surpassed five, six years ago. So now we're in this space that's so exciting, where we can choose to create whatever we want if we would just come together and drop the walls. And so with that as a backdrop, how are you dropping the walls? How are you using your resources, your energy, just your life to allow people to drop their walls so that they can access what's true?

Yeah. So, you know, it's an interesting thing because, you know, a lot of. And I wrote a piece about this on. On Thrive, you know, that. That a lot of my kids, friends, their parents are, Would say the opposite of what you just said. As far as us being connected, doing this. You know, most. Most parents that I know think that the phone is destroying connection. Especially when they were little, there was a lot of dialogue. Oh, they just play video games all day. What's happened? I think you're right that there is massive connection. They're playing video games. They're doing it with somebody from some other part of the world. They're doing it from kids within the high school that they might have never talked to. I think there's incredible connection, but it depends on your perspective. But what I'm doing personally is really trying to connect to people and allow them to share their journeys with me and my audience. So that's the podcast. I think there's tremendous opportunity for people to learn from others and from the sharing and the vulnerability, we're all the same. And hopefully people can get their own little Landmark forum moment without having to go to the forum by just a spark of something that somebody said.

There's an evolution of personal growth, I feel like. And the evolution usually starts with, holy shit, this is really hard and overwhelming. I don't want to do it to then, oh, I'm learning little gems. This actually is okay to then, wow. I look back on the person I was three, five, seven years ago, and I can actually love them now. So there's this journey of denial, acceptance of how hard it could be. Then there's an acceptance of what actually is. How has that unfolded for you as a businessman and as a father and having so much responsibility on your back? How do you deal with the responsibilities of real life? Being a father or having all these things going on at all times? How have you created personal growth and done all of those things at the same time?

Well, you know, it's funny. I sold a property recently and I had. I had asked, when I was signing the checks, I had asked if I could pull my check out and deposit it myself because it was significant. And I felt like I should have the experience of really, like allowing myself to celebrate that, you know, I had done something that had allowed for that to happen. But I never go to the bank, so I ended up bringing the check home because the bank was closed by the time I had left work. And one of the kids saw it sitting with my little mail pile. And I said, well, that explains why daddy hasn't been home for dinner a lot over the last few years. And we laughed. And you know, I think that the truth is, is that, you know, there's a time to kind of do what you need to do. And balance isn't a matter of like being this like perfectly segmented individual. It means don't stay over in one area of time for too long. And so there were a lot of nights where I missed dinner. There were a lot of times that I wasn't maybe mentally where I should be when I got home. I think I really was very cognizant of the kind of father I wanted to be because the experience I had. But I was also filled with a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, a lot of fear, a lot of programming when my kids were little. And it really took a lot of work, you know, and for me, it kind of all kind of happened, you know, at the same time, which made it really hard. I was young, I had three little kids, I was married for the first time. I'd never done that before. Nobody really told me about any of it. Starting a business, trying to figure out, you know, what I want to do with my life. You know, all that kind of happens. And when that happens, you're probably going to be out of balance. And so I was. But I started to kind of attack it. And balance is coming always now I get to spend days like this with you. I get to take time to self care. I've kind of segmented out how I Spend my time at work, and I'm home for dinner, and I'm very thoughtful about how I travel and really not missing anything. This past weekend was Joe Polish's Genius Network event. I love Genius Network. It's their big event. By the way, when you pay for Genius Network, you're paying for the big event. And my kids had homecoming, and to me, it was like, nope, sorry, Joe. You know, I'm not missing that. And so that's where balance comes in, is really just honoring what really matters most to you and knowing you can't be all places at all times, and you figure it out.

If it were possible for you to jump in a low time machine, plant a chip in the mind of yourself, three kids, new business, marriage for the first time, if you could insert a chip for yourself back then, would you. First of all, do you think that things happen perfectly? And if somebody is in that space right now, no matter how old they are, what are the ways of being or practices that they could be doing that would make their learning curve shorter or easier?

Great questions. So would I. I really don't know. I mean, I really want to say.

I would say for me, hell yes, I would. I would go back and give myself a shortcut any day.

I really want to agree with you, because that's what we want so badly. Sure. And it's. And it's what I'm now committed to. To doing for other people. So, you know, it feels like a hell yeah. But, like, it's really hard to argue with what happened, you know, but. But I think ultimately it's a hell yeah. I mean, I feel like the times where I was not my best self, you know, the times that I feel like when my kids were little and I get upset with them and I'd be mad at myself later that I got upset with them.

I was.

I wasn't beating him or anything, but I was mad, you know, and they were little kids, whatever. They're acting like they're supposed to act. And that, to me, feels like, you know, boy, if I just knew what I know now, I would change that. And I think, you know, that kind of brings me to, you know, your second part of that question. You know, what. What is that? You know, I think for me, it's. It's really, really focusing on love as the most elevated, most important key ingredient to everything that we do, which means the way that you love your kids, the way that you love your wife, the way that you love yourself, the way that you love all of it really Shifts into this, this profound kind of embodiment of that being the thing, the only thing. And you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's like a. It's a mindset, it's an embod. It's, it's, you know, it's all of that. It's. When you are in the situation, the reframing towards love, as opposed to all the other things that it could be a child crying, spouse upset, you know, whatever it is at work to see how that is all potentially looked at from a more powerful place. And to me, that starts with love.

And love is not something you can always just read. Love has to be embodied and felt and given. And sometimes in those moments where we're the most triggered, how, how dare you do this to me? How dare you act like that? Why is this happening to me? Like, the trigger can be so overwhelming that forces out love, that. I think that's part of us being here is to figure out how to not figure it out and just how to be with it. All the shit, the triggers, the muck, the straining. Whatever word you want, we all know what it feels like. Whatever word I want to use to describe it, we all know that feeling of like, fuck, this is the last thing I want to do right now is love this person. The last thing I want to do in this moment, moment is send love their way. Yet, I mean, I'm getting just chills in my arms just thinking about like that's everything. It's been in every ceremony with me. It's been, it's been in some part, some way. Every breath work, every time I talk with Kerri, Michelle, every time I feel about my mom or my dad, like, it's always there. It's always that little piece that's inside of all of us. Yet there are certain ways to let it spring out more. Right? Like what are your not just self love practices, but what are your practices about being love in moments when you least likely want to? How do you cultivate more of that within yourself?

Yeah, I think, you know, it's. It's easier with some than others. And you know, at times, you know, it's still challenging, but it becomes kind of a default way of being. And when I see my, you know, kids walk into a room, love is the emotion that I have for them. I am kind of more in awe of my wife and how she's being than I am frustrated or annoyed or something else. I'm able to look at it differently. And to me that's love. It's like, well, I love this person enough. I love these people enough. I love myself enough to choose that I'm going to look at them from this place and not that place of judgment or of wrongness or righteousness or shame or whatever else, you know, it is that we always have that choice. And it's just a practice. And again, you know, I fail at it all the time.

You know, love is a choice. Love is also a practice.

It's a practice. And, you know, I used to struggle with that a little bit, you know, because. Because I do feel like there's kind of a feeling, an emotion, a spiritualness to love, too. But accessing it is the practice. And people will argue. People say, well, you shouldn't have to work that hard to love or access it. Well, when you got a lot of shit programming, and that's not the default you're really, really used to, you do have to work at it.

Do you love your dad?

I do, I do, yeah. I've had the kind of fortunate experience of being able to forgive him and to talk about a lot and understand him and understand kind of, you know, what he was going through and is going through. And I feel like, you know, you. You are given what you get for a reason. And for me to be able to have the experience I had, it no doubt served me well. So how could I do anything but be thankful and feel love for that forgiveness?

Tony Robbins said this, which just stuck to my soul forever. He's like, forgiveness is not about the other person. You give forgiveness because it's a gift for yourself. So as you forgave your father, what tools did you lean on so you'd actually unwrap that for you? You, like, what were the ways of being and what were the practices? Was it plant medicine? Was it meditation? Like there was something in there that allowed you to give it to yourself?

Yeah, I mean, ultimately it came to me through plant medicine. That was kind of some of the gaps that were shown to me. But Landmark touched on it too. You know, you do this exercise at Landmark where, you know, you gotta call people and connect with them. And at the time, I wasn't speaking to my dad, and I called him, and that was probably in many ways the beginning of a reconnection. But, you know, this kind of, like, shift to love really kind of came to me in the medicine space. And, you know, there's kind of was just an opportunity for all of that loving energy to come out, to be accessed, to realize that's really who I am. You know, a lot of what squashed that, you know, was my childhood. You know, not being able to express emotions, to not honor sensitivity or creativity or love or emotion or sadness, any emotion. You know, those things were not celebrated. And they were, in fact, you know, the opposite. It was told, no, you know, that's not being a man. And so, you know, that's not kind of how I default. But it is, I think, the most important thing.

Yeah. And I can even think about parallels to being on your show just a couple hours ago, and I'm like, man, we have a lot of similarities. We might be at different stages of life with different paths, but there's been so many different little mirrors between you and I. And I think that everyone, in some way, has the same fundamental mirror system. It's like, God, do you ever have the sense that we're just one consciousness individuated 7 billion times over? We're all either learning from each other or we're not based on our level of awareness? And what even drives people to seek more awareness? Like, what is that for you that you consistently seek out higher levels of awareness? Why even do it in the first place?

Yeah, I mean, I also had a journey where I think you described this on my show, where I kind of got this messaging that was. I was thinking in Ceremony that I wanted to just go back to sleep. And I said it like, I'm just done with this. I just. I want to go back to sleep. And the messaging was, you were miserable when you were sleeping. What are you talking about? You don't want to do that. You know that. That, you know that's not true. And so, you know, I think that, you know, it's. It's. It's. It's just kind of, like, happening. And it has to happen because it's what we're. What we're. Our souls are calling for, you know, that we're being drawn to it. Even if we resist. And we're holding on, the ego's holding on. You know, it's pulling us because it's. It's that natural return to that energy, that divine energy that we were born with, that we came from. And so that's the pool. And, you know, it's just a matter of letting go and surrendering. And it's hard, you know, you think you're doing it, too. And then, like, the ego smuggles its way in. You're like, I didn't even.

How'd you get here?

And you were back in the driver's seat, you know, you sneaky.

Bad.

You're good, you know, and so it's constant. It's constant, but it's. I think once you kind of. Once you peel it back, it's hard to put it back. You can't.

This is what I felt sometimes. I don't know how you feel about this, but I'm really curious. Once you've seen a certain level of awareness, there's absolutely no going back. Once somebody has a breakthrough in a ceremony or breath work or in life, once they've been cracked open per se. Do you ever think it's even possible, even if we wanted to, that we could have a cipher moment, you know, where he bit the stake in the Matrix and he said, ignorance is bliss? I don't think it's possible.

Yeah, I don't either. I don't either. And you know, it's interesting because I'm starting to be asked a lot about plant medicines locally. You know, it's. It's a little bit of a newer subject and I think, you know, a.

Successful real estate developer who also is an advocate for plant medicine. Yeah, we live in an exciting time, my friends.

Yeah, well, it's, you know, it's especially interesting, you know, here because.

Especially in Columbus, Ohio.

Yeah, not. It's not as outwardly spoken about and I've always been sensitive to it a bit because my family. But, you know, the questions are coming up and, you know, I think Pollan's book and, you know, Doblin's TED Talk and, you know, the Tim Ferriss, John Hopkins thing, you know, lots kind of like starting to, you know, and, and I was interesting because I was listening to Doblin's TED Talk and you know, he talked about kind of the psychedelic movement in the 60s. And, you know, and he made the comment like, you know, here we are half a century later. It's like, shit. You know, that was a half a century that went by without access to medicine that could have really made a difference in the world because probably it was handled wrong the first time. It wasn't handled carefully enough. And so I worry about it a little bit as we start to kind of get into the mainstream with the medicines and people are asking about it all the time. And by the way, I kind of found myself back in it and recreationally when I was younger, very much the same way, like total happenstance, recreational. Not knowing what I was doing, not knowing, you know, having done a lot of research or had anybody guiding me. And so it's slippery, it's really slippery. And I tell people all the time, like, I'm not an advocate for it. I will tell you my experience, and I will tell you, you know, how hard it is, and you better damn make sure that you actually want to be crafted, cracked open. Because once you are, you can't go back.

You can't.

Yeah, I don't think so.

And I share the same sentiment that you do. And I think what we're really tapping into here is an ancient awareness, an ancient. Whether you look at some of the tribes that we mentioned that practice the medicine as best as they could, or we look at the Native Americans that had their own traditions, I think what you and I are really talking about is here we are in this technologically focused world, but yet we're still human beings less than 1% removed than all of our ancestors that came before us. So really, what I consider this to be is, yes, we're in a time of awakening, but it's still connected to the sacredness of life itself, of plant medicine itself. What do you think if you could wave a magic wand you would do to help the plant medicine movement, to help this consciousness movement? If you did have a magic wand, you know, if you can create these safety and barriers around it. We see centers popping up everywhere, and everyone knows about our relationship with rythmia and how much we trust them. But what are the things that you would create based on if you did have that magic wand to help plant medicine grow and still keep it sacred?

Yeah, I don't know that I have all the answers. You know, I feel like, for me, it's really about kind of a full, kind of holistic support system that needs to be kind of. Of build out to properly take people through all of it. So the medicine is just one piece of it.

Medicine opens a door, and it's beautiful.

And it's really, I think, got a tremendous amount to offer. But if you don't have the other tools in place outside of the medicine experience, I think you're gonna continue to struggle. Not now. Maybe not the same way. I do think that there are seven, ten years worth of therapy treatment that can happen in a day, But I'm still going to therapy, and I'm getting way more out of my therapy now than I ever did before I was doing medicine. And I know what I eat matters, and I know how I move matters and how I sleep matter and what my relationship. Right. So it's got to be held in a space that is all encompassing or a little bit more holistic. Than just in the medicine. And, you know, I think the issue is, and this is kind of, you know, the capitalism conversation we're having is how is it being facilitated, you know, set and setting, Everybody knows it. Right. And that includes, you know, we're talking about, you know, the energy of the facilitator and how they're showing up in the space. And there's so many variables that I think matter. At the end of the day, I don't know if any of it matters, but maybe the plants just need to be gobbled and gobbled however they show up for us, and that'll be the way forward. Maybe it's my control and my conditioning that has me feel like we need to set this up holistically. But if I were to. To tell you right now where my head is, I think that's it. It's all the tools and support around the medicine that I'd like to see integrated.

Me too. And this is why it is so exciting, I think. The major psychedelic conference was just a few days ago in Austin. I think it was November 1st. We're recording this, and one of my friends is there. She's the host of the plant medicine podcast, plantmedicine.org and this is something that I'm seeing, not just with her work, but with most of my colleagues in the podcasting world, is that they've either been called to plant medicine or they've already gone through some lessons. And we're all trying to kind of clear the smoke away and go, hey, what do you guys think? What's really going on right now? Because we have these powerful tools. We are in this really renaissance. You know, there's. There's a. We have so much power and so much awareness and so many tools, and there is so much intelligent hope right now that it's really up to us. And I'm not saying we need to do anything from a pressure standpoint, but I can even feel it in my body when I speak to you. Like, that's the path. That's the path that makes me feel the most. Love is having people not just go to ceremony, but guide them after they get home. How do we do that? And I'm curious if you ever thought about doing something in that space to help people.

Yeah, I have. And you know what I'm kind of playing with right now is a coaching model to really help support people through all of my it. And I have some friends that I'm taking through that now just as a friend, but kind of introducing them to the right medicines, kind of engaging in a dialogue about how you tee that up with a spouse, partner, you know, kind of what its role has in your family life, how you might need to think about integrating.

Yeah.

After you go through the journey, you know, how do we actually, you know, kind of take that and do something with it and really integrate the learning? Even if that means we're doing less, you know, how do we make sure we're doing less? I think there's a way to really support people through this. I've had the benefit of having some people that are familiar with medicine who are also therapists and coaches and who have been able to kind of be there for me in the integration and, you know, all the other learnings, you know, again, about kind of self care and nutrition and how we take care of ourselves. You know, I think you and I both have had the experience when you're physically well and you go into journey, it's a lot easier than if you've been, you know, eating and drinking and, you know, doing other things that, you know, that world doesn't like.

It's. The plant is like this ultimate either hug or slap. Yeah. Or both. Both.

Yeah.

And I've had experiences where the slap was so profound, it was a message for me to wait until the lesson could be learned. But yet, one thing that I want to just say on this show is that in no way am I saying that you should run out and go to a plant medicine ceremony right now. That's not what I'm saying, and that's not why I'm asking you these questions. The reason I'm asking you these specific questions is because I think the world can really value from someone's advice, someone's insight from creating all the things you've created in our world where people would consider you to be very successful. So how do you take that same success you've had in the business world? And how do you give advice to people who might want to have personal success through plant medicine?

Yeah, I mean, I think, for starters, I want to just also, you know, make it clear I'm not an advocate for plant medicine. Telling people to go out and do this.

Exactly.

You know, I mean, I. I think honestly that it's dangerous. You've got to really be careful and make sure you've got the right support, both with the medicine itself, with the facilitation of the journey and afterwards.

Yeah.

And so it's really something to be elevated. And what was the question, looking at.

All the strengths you have in business and how you've created business success. How does that correlate to people using plant medicine or not in their own personal success, their emotional success?

Well, I think for me, the medicine teaches you about all of it. I've learned a tremendous amount about me which informs how I live and how I work. Yeah, right. And so I get to see, you know, using the not enough thing that could show up in both places real fast and does so you the learn. Sometimes the learnings are a little bit more specific. You know, one or the other. The last journey I had, I really got that I did not need. And you were just kind of speaking to this. I didn't need new ideas, new tools, new networks. I didn't need to meet anybody or do anything more. I had enough. I had already been given all that I needed, including medicine that I just needed to integrate and that if I would do all of that right then maybe I could come back and try something new. But right now I had everything I needed. I just needed to focus on implementing what I had learned. And so that was a truth about work and life. That was don't go to Genius Network and be home for homecoming. I don't need to go back out to LA and do more medicine. I can stay home. I can not take on more projects. I've already committed to enough things. You need to put yourself back in that situation where you're stressed. It's too much. You're seeing that now. So I think when you go inward and it doesn't have to be medicine, whether it's breath work or meditation or any kind of way to get into that field, that's when you start to really get the learnings that are available to guide you. And I now can do that. I've been meditating for over 20 years, but kind of in different levels of that space. You know, I can get into in a float spa, for sure. I can get into a, you know, kind of plant medicine, like space without the medicine. And that's, you know, I think achieved by practice. So however you can get there. Yeah, you know, that's where the. That's where the goods are.

How do you think people can get there in order to maybe, let's say they have a big purpose, they have a big dream. What are the ways of being that can get them there in order to have financial abundance? Like, what have you learned that you could share with us in your life where somebody's creating financial abundance from? Maybe key practices, key beliefs or key ways of being?

Yeah, I think that the Thing about the financial piece of it is there's a couple of things that come up for me. You know, one is I actually believe that if you can develop this skill of going inward, a stillness, practice, a meditation, a plant medicine, relationship, whatever it is, if you can get in there and move your shit around, let the thoughts go, get, you know, work, go to therapy, move the trunk, I think all of that has its role in your financial outcome. If you're lucky, maybe. I don't know if that's the right word. You're using it to create money. If that's what you want. The shadow stuff. Yeah, but, you know, that I don't think is how it usually goes. I think more people, despite, you know, kind of our current political climate and a lot of the, you know, kind of stuff you see in business, in the business world, most people let their shadow stuff keep them, them from doing what they want to do. And so I really think it's. It's kind of learning that practice and honoring yourself, however you get there, is really the way to money. That that's one piece. The other piece is if you don't know where you're going, you're not going to get there. And so I believe that there is a visualization practice, a goal setting practice. I use Strategic Coach. I annually create a Pinterest board that I look at on a regular basis. But Strategic Coach has tools where I annually will look at, you know, what am I going to try to do this year to achieve those lifetime goals? Are those lifetime goals still the same? And if so, where do I want to be in five years? Where do I want to be in three years? Where do I want to be in a year? What do I need to do this quarter, this week, today, to get that? And working plans actually will help you move towards whatever it is that you're meant to be doing. You know, it'll kind of twist and turn, but if you're constantly in action in, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna move forward.

Yeah. Two things. First is, do you think it's possible if somebody hasn't done the shadow work, for that plan to even be executed that you learn in any kind of coaching model? First question, and then secondly, if it comes from you really taking action and being in action, can't there also be a caveat of somebody taking so much action that it's actually the same value as them taking inaction?

Yeah, well, so, you know, I think like the Strategic Coach thing for me came to me simply we use something Called eos, the entrepreneurial operating system. Gina Wickman created eos and it also has kind of a goal setting component, but it's predominantly off the shelf operating system that any business can use. I would highly recommend it. It's been amazing for our business. But the facilitator of that said to me when I was in, in kind of an email calendar hell where I was non stop never catching up, said, oh, I hear this thing, strategic coach really helps people with that. Now I did not know when I went to coach that I was going to get a time management tool, which is what I was looking for, and that really was very valuable, but that I was going to get access to an entirely new way to think about the world, life, work, everything, and how I could start to plan for it. That did not come from plant medicine. So that came, I do believe, from the same place, which is this universal energy where I make some random comment about email hell and some guy who doesn't even know me that well, who doesn't even know a strategic coach is just says, hey, you know, I hear this and next thing you know, I'm there and like my life is changing. So, you know, no, I don't think it has to come from the medicine.

Yeah, yeah. And my second question was somebody's always taking action. So you said if someone comes from inaction. I was, even when you said it, I was like, wait a minute, if they're taking so much action without a clear direction, wouldn't that be the same value as them taking no action at all?

Well, no, but, but I think if you're taking and not in my opinion, I think if you're taking no action, that's actually an actionable step. Right.

So no action is still action.

Yeah, I mean action. Right. It's like there's a choice there that says I am going to intentionally choose not to do anything. And so this is the no part. It's not because I think that's getting you to the same place, but it's because, because it's getting you to the place that you desire, that you feel is aligned with your soul, that there might be a time and place for doing nothing as being exactly what you need to be doing. And yet there are times that if you want to create certain outcomes, you are going to need to be in action. And for me, you kind of go deeper with it. Well, what's the outcome you're trying to create? Is it happiness? Is it fulfillment? Is it whatever? Right. And so then could you just do nothing and Just work on getting that. Yeah, I get it. Maybe, maybe. But I think there's a lot in between where you're starting in this kind of like where you want to go, that being in action helps you really, really get to whatever it is you actually want to do, even if that's nothing.

Okay, great answer. Because I was feeling like, gosh, we hear so many analogies of like, ready, fire, aim, and all these catchphrases. And even someone that you and I have mentioned a few times. Like, I have gotten really great downloads from Gary Vaynerchuk, yet I've also received messages that don't resonate. And almost as. Not as parting guidance, but as almost parting guidance, because we gotta wrap this up at some point. I could probably talk to you for another two hours because it'd be fun. So as semi parting guidance, if somebody is on this path of creating purpose, we've talked in the show from multiple leaders about how incredibly powerful purpose is for wellness without purpose. Specifically, I'll just speak for men. Like in my life, when I haven't had a purpose, I felt like I was going to die. And I think a lot of people, men or women, feel this way too. If someone is reassessing where they are with their purpose, in other words, if they're finding their new purpose, can you speak to them right now? Could you give them anything solid that they could be doing, thinking, or being around? Creating their purpose?

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think creating purpose is, you know, you really need to be able to just sit with yourself and really ask and whatever comes, trusting that. And I know that that might not sound that simple for people, but I think it is. I think a lot of times you mentioned people that are kind of like, what's my purpose? What's my purpose? They don't know. They don't know. I think that's where the action comes in. That really, what you don't know is about fear. A doubt, a worry, a racket. It's some programming that's the don't know pie, the abundant thinker, the strong kind of core. That person says, well, I don't know that I know, but I know enough and it feels right and I'm just going to do it. And if it doesn't work, it's okay. Or if it's not my purpose and that changes, that's fine, I don't care. It feels right now. And I think trusting that is really the key to purpose, is kind of letting go, that you've got to have it all figured out and that it's got to be perfect, that it's got to be right. That's the programming. And that's, you know, been kind of a challenge for me is that, you know, I kind of started the business as a one person business and then added people. And yet there were certain things, because I had so much on the line, because I had been doing it all, that were hard for me to just kind of let go.

Yeah.

And, you know, I think you've got to really learn just to let go and trust. Trust when you know it's coming from that sole place and, you know, to your Gary V. Point, sometimes the trusting is knowing what's not landing with you. Right. So I love Gary. Gary I met at Summit, actually at that same first Summit experience. And I had dinner with him. And it's not because he knew me or I knew him. We literally coincidentally ended up at the same dinner table. Five people for dinner, and Gary's one of them. And he totally, like, blew my mind. I had never seen anybody on stage talking like that, you know, being that way. And it really opened me up. It was very inspiring. But there are some parts of Gary's content today that I think even Gary would say, that's not who I am anymore. Right. That's not what I believe now. You know, I used to listen to Howard Stern for years, and like, I watched Howard, like, go through a change. I really wasn't around for kind of the stripper days and all the wildness, you know, that he was like, kind of shock jock.

Yeah.

I kind of like came in when he was like, doing unbelievable interviews and he was like talking about his therapy and like, it was really interesting that, you know, and I think he's embarrassed of those days to some degree. And so, you know, I think as a in practice, you have to know when things are right for you and when they're not. Both with what you're going to do and what you're going to take in. And there's a constant kind of, you know, core building, trusting, self process that, you know, is required to really tap into that purpose.

When you were speaking, I was visualizing like a sort of intuition and you sanding it, you know, like constantly sharpening, like, when do we do the thing, when do we not do the thing? When do we trust? When do we not trust? When do we share or when is it over? Sharing? And I don't know if that's ever going to stop for our lifetimes. And I think the same thing happens for our wellness So I always love to hear people's stance, their insight on this question. And the question is, you know, we have this physical body. We're learning how to be intelligent inside of it. We have this emotion, we have this brain. We have this emotional intelligence that we're understanding. And all the while, especially with you, that. And of all I. We have this spiritual energy that guides us as well. And in the center of that, it's like a nexus. In the center of that, there's us living. Well, there's us living a life of wellness. So knowing all of that, how do you define wellness? Like, what does wellness mean to Brett Kaufman?

Yeah, wellness to me is really about kind of a total state of being, and it's about being who you are. And to me, for the most part, I think love is at the core of that. And so a kind of, well, life is really about kind of being who I said before, that I am, my compassion and light and joy and love. And if I'm being those things, then I'm, well, being. And that's what wellness means to me.

Well, if people live in Ohio, they know where to go here at Gravity. And it's been such a joy to spend time with you, man. This is why I love podcasting, is I get to practice this skill, really, of communication. And so many people I've had on the show, they've had success in varied degrees. But a big takeaway for me is if we want to be successful, then we get to embody these practices of love, self love, doing the shadow work. That's. That's where all the money comes from, actually. That's where all the abundance comes from. And we covered a lot of ground, man. That was. That was a really good conversation. We talked about a lot of things, but I want to leave space for you. If there's anything else that you think would be of service to people, people that might be able to learn from you or garner a gem from you, is there anything else you could leave the audience with?

Yeah, I mean, I think we've talked about a lot, and thank you for having me. And it's been awesome to hang and have these conversations. They really mean a lot.

You guys should have heard our lunch conversation. We'll record that next time.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's fun, and it's great to share our work with people like you and your audience.

And.

Yeah, I think that for me, everything we're doing, Gravity, the fun inner space, the projects, the coaching, the speaking, the writing, it's all about trying to make A difference in people's lives. And I think that is probably the thing that I don't really push people to do anything. But I would like to see people really get this connection to kind of not just money, but yes, money, because I think that matters a lot to people. But money and actually what you're really after, you know, which is what you were saying about the, you know, no action thing, you know, what you're really after is this life of fulfillment. And I think the service to other people into this world are really, really an important part of that fulfillment. And don't think that that can't all be really tightly intertwined. That in fact that's what the world needs. We need more people and more organization and more companies for profit and not that are aiming at trying to make a difference in the world. And you know, Dan Sullivan says, you know, the narrower the niche, the greater the opportunity. I still think it's a pretty narrow niche to go after making phenomenal amounts of money and achieving all of your, your work and your life goals by helping humankind. I think that's like a, a pretty big free zone frontier. So if there's one thing I would say, it's follow that. I think there's a lot there for everybody still.

Well, people are gonna listen to this twice, maybe three times. And as you guys listen, just know that you're loved, you're supported and that you're on the right path. And thank you for listening to the show. Brett, thanks for coming on.

Thank you.

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