EXPERIENCE 210 | Alex Raymond - Serial Entrepreneur, Techstars Alum and Mentor, Founder of the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit and Host of the Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast

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Alex Raymond is a three time tech startup founder and entrepreneur who made the journey up from Boulder to the Loco Experience Studio to share his journey and some wisdom he's learned along the way.

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He was an early client of Techstars and has been a long term mentor in the program, and he shares how listeners can expand their business brains and mindfulness.

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At the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit, upcoming May 28th and 29th in Boulder.

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Alex is also the host of the Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast, which has hosted many dozens of conscious leaders on topics as diverse as building teams for scaling, developing a personal brand, or redefining happiness in your life.

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He's a generous guy and gave our listeners the opportunity to save 100 off your summit tickets by March 31st.

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Use code LOCO and one lucky listener will win 50 percent off tickets, but you'll have to listen to win that.

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As always, Alex and I enjoyed a wide ranging conversation dialing in on crucial business and life principles and chasing lots of squirrels.

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So please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Alex Raymond.

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And welcome back to the local experience podcast.

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My guest today is Alex Raymond and Alex is the founder of the conscious entrepreneur summit.

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Coming up in May, we'll talk more about that.

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He's the host of the Conscious Entrepreneur podcast, as well as the founder of a business called Amplify, and he's been involved with Techstars, mostly in the Boulder area for a long time in various capacities.

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So, uh, Uh, long list of titles and accomplishments there, Mr.

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Raymond, thanks for being here.

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Awesome.

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Uh, thanks for, thanks for having me, Kurt.

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Great to see you.

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So, um, I guess let's start with the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit.

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Like, uh, when is it?

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Who should go?

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What's it cost?

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Who will they see there?

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Um, how long you've been doing it?

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All the, all the, all the Yeah, let's start, let's start with, with Conscious Entrepreneur.

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And, and actually what I'll do is Link it back to something you just mentioned in the introduction, which is, which is tech stars.

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So I've been an entrepreneur for a long time, primarily in the software space.

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And when I say a long time, I mean it like 15 years.

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I just turned 49 last month.

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And so probably 15, 16, 17 years, I've been an entrepreneur, uh, which.

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As you know, it has pros and cons.

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Uh, many years ago, I started a company called CAPTA and we got into the tech stars program in Boulder, um, back when tech stars was really cool right now.

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It's kind of cool, but it used to be really cool.

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Well, it's coming back.

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It seems like it's getting cooler.

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Correct.

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It's a resurrecting brand.

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So, so we went through that, we were going through the program and you know, just, just so that your listeners know.

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Uh, Techstars is one of these startup accelerators and it's one of the original ones has been around for a while, but really well established, really well known, very, very, uh, uh, beneficial program, like tons, really valuable.

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And it's a big deal to get into.

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Did they bring capital to the equation as well?

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They do.

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So they get into the program, like we'll pick the cool kids and maybe we'll even invest in you if we think you get cool enough and smart enough, fast enough.

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Totally.

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So, so there's an application process.

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pretty lengthy and pretty involved.

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Uh, they select very small percentage of whoever applies.

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And then when you apply, you get, uh, funding.

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So you get kind of this equity grant in exchange for part of your company.

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So, uh, when we did it, it was something like a hundred thousand dollars for 6 percent of the company.

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That's their business model, right?

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I would make that trade right now.

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So they take, they take equity in your company and return for.

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Uh, for you going through the program and they invest a small amount as well.

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So that you have capital, but on top of that, then they open up other funding facilities so you can have access to convertible debt notes and stuff like that.

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And so it's a great program.

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A lot of people are excited to be in it.

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Uh, it's a big deal.

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Uh, it's, it's, it's prestigious if you will.

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And so.

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I was going through this program and just like maybe 12 other companies or 11 other companies in the program itself, uh, everyone at various stages of how far along they are from like very, very little to, you know, at that point, my company, I think we were probably one of the farther along we were doing like maybe a quarter million dollars a year in revenue or something like that in software as a service.

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Yeah, right.

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So, so, so this company I was with at the time was software as a service and.

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A lot of companies are sort of tech in one form or another.

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So it could be apps or FinTech or software, the tech stars, hence the name.

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Yeah.

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And so I was going through the program and it's a very, it's structured.

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There's a lot of mentors.

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There's a lot of support.

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There's a lot of people out there kind of.

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Designed to be, to be helping you.

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And one day I'm back at home in the evening and I'm sitting on a couch, kind of, kind of like this one.

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And, uh, I've got this look on my face that my wife calls my fish face.

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Fish face, meaning like, it's kind of droopy.

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I'm not looking very excited.

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You know, like I got something on my mind.

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Uh, and she looks over me and she's like, why do you have that fish face?

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Like she, and then she followed up with like.

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Why are you so miserable?

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And I was like, wait a minute.

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She goes, you're supposed to be yours.

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She's like, you're supposed to be at the height of your entrepreneurial career.

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You just got into textiles.

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You've all these people supporting you.

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You just raised some money.

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Uh, all these things are happening in your life.

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Why are you so fucking miserable?

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Like fair question.

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Right.

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And, uh, and it was kind of like a whack on the head.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Right.

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And after I got over my initial defensiveness, once I got over my initial defensiveness, um, And I, and I started to think, you know, what is going on?

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Like, yes.

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Why am I, why am I unhappy?

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Why do I feel unsatisfied?

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Why am I miserable?

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What I realized Kurt was I was spending all this time that I was in the program, comparing myself to everybody else.

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Hey, this guy's farther along because of this.

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This person's farther along because, Oh, these people have more money.

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They've, they raised more money than we did.

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Oh, they, they have a sexier app.

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They have a, this, they have a, that they have a bigger team.

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They have a marquee.

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Mentor, whatever it is.

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Right.

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And I was like, giving away all my energy into this like, doom loop spiral.

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I don't belong here.

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Uh, I feel like an imposter.

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I just snuck in.

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When are they going to find out that I don't really belong?

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You know, all these sorts of stories in my head.

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Yeah.

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And entrepreneurs have been there.

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So a lot of entrepreneurs have been there.

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And so, so here's, here's what, how this kind of.

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Evolved for me was, you know, went on with building the business, but I had this thought in my head that, Hey, you know, I can do better here.

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Like it doesn't have to be this way.

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It doesn't have to feel this way.

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And so as we built that business, you know, went through a number of different stages and we raised money and hired a team and then.

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Shifted and fired a bunch of people who had revenue and lost them and customer, you know, up and down and sideways and so on, you know, but along the way, I kept on this journey to say, to really understand and explore what was going on inside of me, what was going on in my, what was going on in my head was going on in my heart, what was going on in my body as it relates to being an entrepreneur.

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And I know we just talked about, we're going to, you know, come to our faith family, uh, uh, politics segment later, but like, what was your faith perspective?

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Were you also like.

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learning about meditation, or Buddhism, or Taoism, or something at the same time, like, or was that the instigator to that for you?

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I basically did everything.

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Right, threw everything on the wall.

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Everything there was to do, I did.

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Went to church, said a dog.

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I mean, you know, uh, at this point I had done, you know, the meditation programs.

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And I had done the retreats, and read the books, and watched the videos.

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I even spent months at an ashram in India.

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Uh, so my wife had gone to Anantara in India a long time ago, she went for six months, I went and joined her for three months.

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So, uh, that was a big part of it, is like, how can I use the tools I already know to quiet my mind, or to still my mind, or to understand what's going on.

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Yeah, so that was definitely a thing.

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I'm starting to jump in, but I just felt like it was part of that exploratory, for you at least.

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It was, it was a thing.

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And, uh, I also then tried to tap into local resources.

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So I joined entrepreneur groups and a men's group and 1 million cups or all this sort of stuff.

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So, so like, um, it was EO Accelerator at the time.

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Cause we were sub a million dollars with EO Accelerator.

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And I went to, and I joined a men's group and then I had my own sort of like gaggle of entrepreneurs and we would get together every couple of weeks and talk about stuff.

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And, uh, and so this was all part of me tapping into whatever was out there trying to help get support for myself.

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Then I became.

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A mentor in the tech stars program.

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Okay.

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So one of the things they do is they have all these measure of success through this.

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So you weren't rich yet, but you were figuring it out.

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And it's basically people who could, who can be helpful to entrepreneurs at some point in their journey.

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So since I'd gone through and.

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Survived the program and raised money, and we started a business.

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It was like, great.

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I could be of help to people who were a year or two behind.

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Okay, great.

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And I would go to all these mentor meetings and you know, people would be with, come to me thinking that they wanted to talk about their pricing strategy or their go to market strawberry strategy, of You know, how to build the website or, you know, how to, how to do a sales deck or enterprise sale, whatever, something like this.

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Right.

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Totally.

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And, uh, so everyone's like, what do you really want to do?

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Well, everyone's very serious, right?

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They're all very serious and they want to talk about their go to market strategy.

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But what I realized was they all just wanted to say, they want an answer to the question of when am I going to start feeling better inside?

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Yeah.

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And a lot of entrepreneurs just didn't have.

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The vocabulary, they didn't have the awareness.

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They didn't have permission to talk about stuff like that.

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Because think about it, like you're building a business.

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There's a very, there's a very specific playbook.

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You find a problem, you investigate the problem, you have a solution, you raise money, you, you staff up, you go solve it.

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You scale up and then everyone's a gajillionaire and happy ever after.

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Right.

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Except, except it doesn't really look like that for most people, right?

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For most people, it looks like this, blah, blah, blah, like kind of bouncing around.

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And there's a lot of stuff.

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Uh, that's driving you.

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So fears and limiting beliefs and whatever you got left over from your childhood and all this time and stuff.

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So I'm still answering the first question on, on why conscious entrepreneur.

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So.

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Here's, here's how it, here's how it emerged.

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I realized, Oh, everyone else wants to talk about this stuff too.

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Uh, and none of the things that I found around me were particularly suited in the way that I wanted, but it was important to realize I'm not alone.

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Yeah.

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And all these people are also looking for some type of community.

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So, in the summer of 2021, during mid pandemic, Yeah, yeah.

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I was out walking my, I was out walking my dog.

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Just getting ready to come back into lockdown again.

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Quite.

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We didn't know that yet.

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Or maskies or whatever.

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We didn't know that yet.

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Yeah, it seemed like we were done with it finally.

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Mm hmm.

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Uh, I have a, I have a miniature schnauzer.

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Her name is Dash.

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Oh, I've got a schnauzer cocker.

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A schnauzer.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Nice.

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Uh, so I was out walking Dash.

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And just as we're rounding the corner on 26th street, coming back toward my house, uh, in, in Boulder, um, I had one of these, you know, kind of like epiphanies in my mind and the epiphany in my mind went, boy, I really like being an entrepreneur.

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I really like all this personal growth stuff that I've been working on and doing.

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And even though I'm an introvert, I actually really like.

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Putting on conferences.

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Yeah, it's a thing.

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Yeah.

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And so basically it was like this Venn diagram of these three things like boom, boom, boom, all coming together and Literally, you know sometimes as an entrepreneur, there's something that you can't not do Podcasting for me is one of those so this this is what it was for me.

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It was okay.

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This is gonna happen There's gonna be an event for entrepreneurs who are dedicated to their personal growth And somehow this is going to come to life, and I guess I'm the one who's going to be doing this.

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So What do we got to do?

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Off we go, right?

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Like, what's next?

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And, and that was the, that was the origin of it.

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So that was in the, that was in the summer of 2021.

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The first event took place in May of 2022.

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Okay.

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So I had like nine or ten months to, to put it together.

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Um, but the thesis So this will be a third year event?

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This is year four.

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Oh, yeah.

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22, 23, 24, 25 already.

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Dang.

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Yeah, so, so, the, the thesis of the event is That growth starts from within and that there are ways to build a business and to scale a business without sacrificing yourself.

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Hmm.

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Yeah.

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I, uh, I resonate in part.

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I'm actually reflecting to our next level summit last summer.

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Uh, and part of the, the talk from our, uh, one of our facilitators was kind of this concentric circle of, you know, kind of focus on yourself.

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First and be thoughtful about where that growth is happening.

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And then now your business.

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And then now let's take it out to the community.

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And where are you engaging in the community and in what capacities, where are your special powers and things like that?

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Totally.

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When you talk about working on yourself, like it sounds like so many different things, you know, right?

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It's like your relationships, your, your gym, your physical health, your food intake, all the stuff.

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Is that, or is it more business y focused on that entrepreneur role?

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Who, who is coming for, for this?

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So it's, College Entrepreneur Summit, well the answer's in the name.

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Uh, it's for the, it's for the, Person on the website.

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It's for the founder.

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It's for the person in the arena, right?

00:14:18.245 --> 00:14:19.605
That's who we're, that's what we're focusing on.

00:14:19.615 --> 00:14:31.085
We don't, we, while we, while we, we welcome other people like maybe the COO or the, so on, like for the most part, these are founders, CEOs, the, the person who is the entrepreneur and.

00:14:31.850 --> 00:14:39.590
You know, we all have this perception that being an entrepreneur is just nonstop hustle, nonstop success.

00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:41.950
Everything is up and to the right, uh, and so on.

00:14:41.970 --> 00:14:47.850
And when you get into it, and you know, a lot of entrepreneurs here in Colorado, like when you get into it, so many people.

00:14:48.379 --> 00:15:02.889
They may not be open to telling you about this, but maybe they're having issues with their health or their marriage or their, their, their, their unhappy for all, for multiple reasons, or, you know, the internalizing so much stress, anxiety, fear, et cetera.

00:15:03.299 --> 00:15:05.129
And we need a place to release that.

00:15:05.649 --> 00:15:07.274
We can't, we as entrepreneurs.

00:15:07.524 --> 00:15:12.134
Often can't go to our spouses and have the same level of conversation.

00:15:12.315 --> 00:15:12.445
Yeah.

00:15:12.485 --> 00:15:18.034
We can't go to our team and have that same level of conversation because it sets the team off, right?

00:15:18.044 --> 00:15:21.625
Like, well, and plus they don't want to know you're going to have trouble making payroll.

00:15:21.634 --> 00:15:26.004
They don't, they don't, they don't want to know it doesn't land very well.

00:15:26.789 --> 00:15:32.879
Um, and by, by the way, it's also not that helpful if you're the CEO to go to your team members and say, Oh, I'm having all these doubts about X, Y, Z.

00:15:33.100 --> 00:15:33.909
Right.

00:15:34.169 --> 00:15:34.649
Totally.

00:15:34.690 --> 00:15:35.820
So you have to be that.

00:15:36.559 --> 00:15:39.669
Frankly, I, I mean, I just wanted to share some resonance, I guess.

00:15:39.740 --> 00:15:40.090
Yeah.

00:15:40.129 --> 00:15:47.279
Um, loco think tank is local community think tank, but it's also make you crazy if you don't talk to somebody about your challenges.

00:15:47.504 --> 00:15:56.294
And creating this business that you're building, um, and, or make your spouse crazy if you bring them all your challenges that you can't talk to with your team about.

00:15:56.504 --> 00:15:57.565
Yeah, absolutely.

00:15:57.745 --> 00:16:01.004
And so because of that, a lot of people just clam up and they don't yeah, yeah.

00:16:01.004 --> 00:16:03.495
They just work harder at the problem without any perspective.

00:16:03.495 --> 00:16:06.504
And so that's like, we're doing.

00:16:06.919 --> 00:16:10.649
The same thing in different ways, I guess, is some ways how I would say it.

00:16:10.730 --> 00:16:11.059
Yeah.

00:16:11.070 --> 00:16:13.679
And that's why, that's why I'm here to share these stories.

00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:14.110
Fair enough.

00:16:14.129 --> 00:16:18.379
So people, people get, you know, like the pressure just builds internally.

00:16:18.649 --> 00:16:21.970
And you know, there's a lot of, unfortunately, there's a lot of stories.

00:16:22.090 --> 00:16:25.480
I recruited my marriage counselor to my second Loco Think Tank chapter, actually.

00:16:25.500 --> 00:16:25.820
Nice.

00:16:26.070 --> 00:16:26.840
He became a member.

00:16:26.840 --> 00:16:28.919
He was scaling his counseling practice at the time.

00:16:28.919 --> 00:16:32.330
And so it was kind of like, I could keep going to counseling because I couldn't really afford it.

00:16:32.330 --> 00:16:35.590
But as long as he was a member, I was like, well, he's kind of paying me to.

00:16:36.034 --> 00:16:37.375
Go see him, you know, that's good.

00:16:37.804 --> 00:16:41.095
Uh, and, and so, so So, yes, I understand is what I mean to say by that.

00:16:41.105 --> 00:16:42.804
Well, you, you, you understand, like, you get it.

00:16:43.259 --> 00:17:00.259
And if we don't have a place to, to share, if we don't have community, if we don't have people, we can talk to about this stuff, the pressure builds up and then lo and behold, you've got an illness or you've got some issue in your, with your health or with your family or with your whatever, or you're exploding, your temper or stress, whatever.

00:17:01.549 --> 00:17:03.330
And these things can, can, can kill.

00:17:03.330 --> 00:17:07.619
And unfortunately, there's also stories about entrepreneurs who take their own lives, for example.

00:17:08.109 --> 00:17:08.420
Right.

00:17:08.829 --> 00:17:09.210
And.

00:17:10.150 --> 00:17:12.970
Probably at a much higher level than the general public, I'm sure.

00:17:12.980 --> 00:17:14.829
Well, there's a lot of, there's a lot of data on this, right?

00:17:14.829 --> 00:17:16.490
So, so So, uh, Dr.

00:17:16.490 --> 00:17:22.900
Michael Freeman has done a lot of research on, uh, entrepreneurial mental health, on entrepreneur resilience.

00:17:23.170 --> 00:17:28.490
And entrepreneurs have a lot of very pro, uh, growth capacities, right?

00:17:28.490 --> 00:17:33.250
Like we're creative and we're industrious and, uh, we fix, fix problems and we're social, et cetera.

00:17:33.329 --> 00:17:35.119
Meritocracy generally and stuff like that.

00:17:35.250 --> 00:17:40.160
And we have a lot of, you know, negative orientation as well.

00:17:40.180 --> 00:17:42.420
Depression, uh, stress.

00:17:42.430 --> 00:17:44.809
You're never where you want to be by now.

00:17:45.095 --> 00:17:46.335
All of these things, right?

00:17:46.704 --> 00:17:48.204
And so it's a real, it's a real thing.

00:17:49.204 --> 00:17:59.835
And, and what, what we've done with conscious entrepreneur summit is create a place where people can, can not only connect with one another, but then learn tools and ideas and resources.

00:17:59.875 --> 00:18:00.164
Okay.

00:18:00.535 --> 00:18:03.474
So we bring it, it's a very, very high quality event.

00:18:03.565 --> 00:18:06.464
This is, uh, we bring in incredible speakers.

00:18:06.464 --> 00:18:10.835
We've had people like Gay Hendricks, the guy who wrote, uh, all about zone of genius.

00:18:10.835 --> 00:18:11.684
We invited his own genius.

00:18:12.194 --> 00:18:29.585
Uh, Keith Farrazi, the guy who wrote Never Eat Alone, Ryan Holliday, uh, who wrote all those books on, on Stoics, uh, Liz Foslein, who does all this work on, um, uh, emotional, uh, like emotions at work, Kaylee Klemp, one of the coauthors of the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.

00:18:29.795 --> 00:18:33.015
So we have really, really You talk about people you actually pay to come.

00:18:33.025 --> 00:18:33.765
Serious people.

00:18:33.775 --> 00:18:34.025
Correct?

00:18:34.025 --> 00:18:35.464
Yes.

00:18:35.464 --> 00:18:35.904
Big money.

00:18:35.924 --> 00:18:36.285
Big time.

00:18:36.734 --> 00:18:39.045
Uh, and, and this year we're bringing in Dr.

00:18:39.045 --> 00:18:46.930
Benjamin Hardy, who is the coauthor of a book, well, many books, but The one that really attracted me was, uh, this book called 10 X is easier than two X.

00:18:47.160 --> 00:18:47.500
Have you read it?

00:18:47.549 --> 00:18:48.710
I've heard about it, but I haven't read it yet.

00:18:49.339 --> 00:18:50.329
A super book.

00:18:50.589 --> 00:18:59.920
And it's, it's really about the, it's not about the, Hey, if you want to grow 10 X, you need to raise your price or sell more products or go enterprise or whatever.

00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:04.740
It's not that it's here's the psychology of what it takes to think.

00:19:05.295 --> 00:19:09.085
And become the person who's going to grow like this, as opposed to the person who's going to grow like that.

00:19:09.565 --> 00:19:22.275
So really, really interesting mindset shift is all the mindset shift allow for that, which then can allow you to explore the systems, the processes, the sales literature, whatever that is for your business.

00:19:22.275 --> 00:19:23.230
Yeah.

00:19:23.230 --> 00:19:26.204
And so, you know, really great, really great gang.

00:19:26.464 --> 00:19:29.924
It's coming up May 28th and 29th in Boulder, Colorado.

00:19:29.924 --> 00:19:31.055
We'll have a couple hundred people there.

00:19:31.285 --> 00:19:33.265
Right after the Memorial Day weekend.

00:19:33.285 --> 00:19:33.464
Yep.

00:19:33.819 --> 00:19:37.589
So what is that a Thursday, Friday, Wednesday, Thursday, Wednesday, Thursday.

00:19:37.589 --> 00:19:37.930
Okay.

00:19:38.430 --> 00:19:38.910
All right.

00:19:39.309 --> 00:19:43.869
So sign up through like, uh, everything you want, everything you want.

00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:52.390
And more is on the website at conscious entrepreneur dot U S I realized that those are two very difficult words to spell conscious and entrepreneur.

00:19:52.390 --> 00:19:52.930
You put them together.

00:19:52.930 --> 00:19:55.740
It's even harder to spell and we don't even have the.

00:19:55.779 --> 00:19:56.859
com it's a dot U S.

00:19:57.109 --> 00:20:00.269
But if you Google any sort of approximation, it will find us.

00:20:01.369 --> 00:20:14.285
So, um, How has the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit evolved over now it's coming into its fourth year, easier to get cool speakers probably because you've had cool speakers before.

00:20:14.994 --> 00:20:15.494
Yeah.

00:20:15.904 --> 00:20:20.194
So the evolution has been, um, so several things are going on.

00:20:20.585 --> 00:20:23.664
Uh, we have consistently been able to attract.

00:20:23.910 --> 00:20:26.660
Good speakers because we pay for the ones that we, we want.

00:20:27.119 --> 00:20:30.829
Um, but I've also learned about how to create a really great event.

00:20:31.309 --> 00:20:40.779
So in the past, my, you know, my bias on this Kurt was, I'm just going to get as many cool speakers and we're going to fill the day.

00:20:40.779 --> 00:20:43.009
And it's going to be like a fire hose of information from the stage.

00:20:43.009 --> 00:20:44.700
And everyone's going to say rah, rah, and then be done.

00:20:45.859 --> 00:20:51.220
Uh, and what, what I realized over time, like the feedback I was getting from people was like, Hey, this is really great.

00:20:51.559 --> 00:20:55.059
And we would like a lot more space in the day to connect with one another.

00:20:55.630 --> 00:20:56.400
And then, so great.

00:20:56.400 --> 00:20:58.410
So then we created more space in the day to connect with one another.

00:20:58.470 --> 00:20:59.490
Guess what they said after that?

00:20:59.619 --> 00:21:01.730
Oh, we'd like more space to connect with one another during the day.

00:21:02.150 --> 00:21:13.779
Uh, and so, so we're, we're building in the way I think about it is, is a hierarchy and the hierarchy that I use to run the summit is connection at the top.

00:21:15.365 --> 00:21:15.974
Event.

00:21:15.984 --> 00:21:20.325
So let her experience and then, uh, and then content at the bottom.

00:21:20.424 --> 00:21:20.984
Oh, interesting.

00:21:21.035 --> 00:21:24.664
So in the past I would have said, let's put content on at the top and like blast the content.

00:21:24.984 --> 00:21:29.744
Now I've realized that what entrepreneurs value most is connecting with others who, and sharing their journey.

00:21:30.305 --> 00:21:35.355
So if we can build in experiences, like we do connection dinners.

00:21:35.444 --> 00:21:43.295
So, so community, community organized connection dinners around a specific theme, we do a connection hike where everyone gets out in nature.

00:21:44.075 --> 00:21:45.795
Yeah, and walks around and connects that way.

00:21:46.154 --> 00:21:57.734
Um, and those things, and plus, you know, whatever, whatever workshops or things we're organizing during the summit itself, they allow people to open up, to be, to be vulnerable, to create connection, to meet new people, to network a little bit, and so on.

00:21:57.734 --> 00:22:01.365
So, we do a lot more of that than we have in the past.

00:22:01.654 --> 00:22:02.434
What's your venue?

00:22:02.884 --> 00:22:10.654
Um, The venue, we're at the University of Colorado in the, in the, the Glenn Miller Ballroom at the UMC, so it's, It's one big room?

00:22:10.664 --> 00:22:11.994
It's one big, so it's one big room.

00:22:11.994 --> 00:22:19.015
So, my other philosophy on this is, I like to guide, I like groupism and I like everyone together for the entire thing.

00:22:19.125 --> 00:22:20.234
So we don't break up.

00:22:20.234 --> 00:22:24.454
We don't have, we don't split up into speakers over here and speakers over there and choose your journey.

00:22:24.525 --> 00:22:26.335
No, we were doing it.

00:22:26.505 --> 00:22:28.484
So I'm a little bit of a control freak in that regard.

00:22:28.875 --> 00:22:30.974
Uh, but we do it, we do it all together.

00:22:31.005 --> 00:22:37.795
Cause that way we can really build a fantastic experience and arc for everybody as opposed to, Oh, I went to this one.

00:22:37.795 --> 00:22:38.505
I went to that one.

00:22:38.505 --> 00:22:39.414
I didn't meet you yet.

00:22:39.414 --> 00:22:40.515
I haven't seen you before.

00:22:40.785 --> 00:22:42.105
You know, where it gets really diluted.

00:22:42.105 --> 00:22:43.424
I try to keep everything.

00:22:43.964 --> 00:22:44.575
Everything together.

00:22:45.065 --> 00:22:51.984
That sounds like a pretty interesting, and, like, you can literally, like, hike out the back door and go for a cruise.

00:22:52.045 --> 00:22:52.315
Yeah.

00:22:52.325 --> 00:22:55.164
So it's like the most amazing scenery in the world right outside the door.

00:22:55.174 --> 00:22:56.015
Who's your demographic?

00:22:56.035 --> 00:23:01.865
Are you, like, half Boulder Denver region and then half people from around the country?

00:23:01.894 --> 00:23:03.944
Or is it way different than that?

00:23:04.115 --> 00:23:08.464
We typically get about, uh, 75 percent of our audience from Colorado.

00:23:08.535 --> 00:23:08.825
Okay.

00:23:09.105 --> 00:23:11.134
And, uh, 25 percent from not.

00:23:11.134 --> 00:23:18.855
So, so we've already, we've already had some international visitors, people flew in from, uh, London and Mexico and, uh, Spain.

00:23:19.204 --> 00:23:22.244
So we've had, we've had some, some amount of, uh, non U.

00:23:22.244 --> 00:23:22.375
S.

00:23:22.375 --> 00:23:26.625
folks, Canada, of course, uh, but, um, mostly Colorado.

00:23:27.039 --> 00:23:32.220
And then people who are like really interested in these topics come from other, other parts of the U S yeah.

00:23:32.220 --> 00:23:36.200
And when it, within Colorado, you know, it's going to be mostly, mostly Denver and Boulder.

00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:36.529
Right.

00:23:36.559 --> 00:23:43.670
And is, is it mostly also kind of that tech oriented software, banky stuff?

00:23:44.279 --> 00:23:45.700
Well, that's where, that's where it's interesting.

00:23:45.779 --> 00:23:52.339
Also now, like manufacturers of windows or sign company.

00:23:52.339 --> 00:23:53.380
It's exceedingly diverse.

00:23:54.154 --> 00:23:56.634
And, and, and that's an awesome, awesome thing about it.

00:23:56.765 --> 00:23:57.055
Yeah.

00:23:57.144 --> 00:24:11.355
So what I mean is you're going to find everything from, uh, you know, software or FinTech, you know, kind of thing, which you might think it's more traditional entrepreneurs, but that's kind of what comes to mind, uh, to people who are doing funded entrepreneurs.

00:24:11.670 --> 00:24:24.980
Yeah, but, but we also have people who are doing, uh, consulting companies, people who are doing manufacturing, people doing healthcare, people, uh, there was one year, some people came who run a franchise of like swim clubs for kids.

00:24:25.279 --> 00:24:36.490
Uh, we have people from the construction business, so it's pretty broad and, and here's why it's broad because there's so many commonalities for entrepreneurs in their experience, no matter what industry they're in.

00:24:36.500 --> 00:24:38.880
So as, as a founder.

00:24:39.075 --> 00:24:46.244
In tech, I have more in common with a founder in healthcare than I do with someone else in tech.

00:24:46.295 --> 00:24:46.605
Yeah.

00:24:46.644 --> 00:24:46.984
Right?

00:24:47.085 --> 00:24:47.515
Yeah, yeah.

00:24:47.575 --> 00:24:48.464
Who's not a founder.

00:24:48.535 --> 00:24:49.845
And so, that's the bond.

00:24:49.855 --> 00:24:50.855
Like, that's the glue.

00:24:51.515 --> 00:24:51.845
Okay.

00:24:52.105 --> 00:24:54.125
So, it's especially founders.

00:24:54.845 --> 00:24:55.734
Like, Correct.

00:24:55.755 --> 00:25:09.384
Not necessarily second generation, not necessarily, I mean, that's, that's, because, because that is Like if you were handed the keys to something, you just got to drive it in a way, but being the founder comes with its own special set of challenges.

00:25:09.384 --> 00:25:09.855
Correct.

00:25:10.105 --> 00:25:10.384
Yeah.

00:25:10.384 --> 00:25:12.785
So it's, it's very much, it's very much the founders.

00:25:13.164 --> 00:25:16.484
Uh, and that allows us to really talk to them.

00:25:16.515 --> 00:25:16.714
Right.

00:25:16.714 --> 00:25:18.105
So, so it's highly, highly.

00:25:18.289 --> 00:25:26.900
Um, should we shift to the conscious entrepreneur podcast?

00:25:26.900 --> 00:25:27.970
We can talk about the podcast.

00:25:27.970 --> 00:25:31.930
The, the, the podcast is an effort to broaden the conversation.

00:25:31.930 --> 00:25:33.029
So when did you start?

00:25:33.289 --> 00:25:37.589
Uh, about a year and a half ago, I think I'm 75, 76.

00:25:37.589 --> 00:25:38.250
You're crushing them out.

00:25:38.250 --> 00:25:39.220
So you're about one a week.

00:25:39.220 --> 00:25:40.309
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:25:40.309 --> 00:25:43.789
It's a, it's a bit of a slog.

00:25:43.789 --> 00:25:44.910
It's a lot of work.

00:25:45.190 --> 00:25:45.630
Do you love it?

00:25:45.900 --> 00:25:46.799
It's a lot of work.

00:25:46.809 --> 00:25:50.319
There are parts that I love and there are parts that I'm like, Ugh, let me tell you.

00:25:50.319 --> 00:25:52.029
I mean, so you do podcast, you know all about this.

00:25:52.309 --> 00:25:57.779
Uh, the parts that I love are the interviews and learning something new and finding really cool people to talk to.

00:25:58.440 --> 00:26:07.630
Uh, the parts that I don't like as much, actually the one part I really don't like, which is writing the intro and then recording the intro.

00:26:08.019 --> 00:26:09.400
For some reason it drives me nuts.

00:26:09.400 --> 00:26:11.240
I'm always, I'm always putting it off.

00:26:11.535 --> 00:26:13.234
I put, I shrunk mine way down this year.

00:26:14.134 --> 00:26:20.404
I'm like, I'm just going to do like, uh, uh, eight line, two paragraph introduction.

00:26:20.404 --> 00:26:22.335
And if people want to listen to this person, they should listen.

00:26:22.575 --> 00:26:27.065
But I don't want to like, try to think back to three weeks ago when I interviewed this person.

00:26:27.085 --> 00:26:27.825
Cause you got, you got it.

00:26:28.045 --> 00:26:31.315
And plus you got to get everything in one take and it's got to be perfect.

00:26:31.315 --> 00:26:34.825
And you got to have the right energy and inflections and intonations.

00:26:35.194 --> 00:26:38.355
Anyway, that part, I'm always just like, Oh, who else could do this?

00:26:38.384 --> 00:26:44.825
Yeah, but I do, I do have a great partner, uh, with, uh, with the podcast, uh, which is Sarah Lockwood at Hivecast.

00:26:45.115 --> 00:26:45.795
She does.

00:26:46.910 --> 00:26:51.230
company, a production company, her company does all this stuff for me, which I'm, which I'm super glad for.

00:26:51.410 --> 00:26:52.509
So they take a lot of it out.

00:26:52.779 --> 00:26:53.509
Hey, Sarah, what's up?

00:26:54.410 --> 00:26:55.769
She does a lot of great stuff for us.

00:26:55.769 --> 00:26:56.109
Awesome.

00:26:56.680 --> 00:27:00.210
Um, so like, what are you trying to achieve?

00:27:00.279 --> 00:27:04.359
Is it really just a voice for that conscious entrepreneur summit?

00:27:04.390 --> 00:27:05.579
Are you trying to just.

00:27:05.829 --> 00:27:11.170
Take your voice farther away than people that would come to the organizing.

00:27:11.430 --> 00:27:14.140
So it actually serves multiple purposes, the podcast.

00:27:14.140 --> 00:27:19.789
So the podcast serves one purpose of just broadening the message around conscious entrepreneurship.

00:27:19.799 --> 00:27:23.150
So broadly it's because people hear it and they make a lot of assumptions.

00:27:23.400 --> 00:27:29.220
I'll tell you the one assumption they make is if it's got the word conscious in it, it's for a bunch of barefoot hippie people who are not serious.

00:27:29.230 --> 00:27:30.099
I forgot to offer.

00:27:30.119 --> 00:27:31.980
We always have a, I got a joint.

00:27:32.095 --> 00:27:33.755
A homegrown joint right there, if you want.

00:27:33.785 --> 00:27:35.875
And there's also a mushroom in the bottom of that little can.

00:27:36.454 --> 00:27:36.734
Thank you.

00:27:36.755 --> 00:27:37.625
Cause you're hippie, right?

00:27:37.674 --> 00:27:39.015
Like you're a conscious entrepreneur.

00:27:39.075 --> 00:27:40.055
Thank you for that.

00:27:40.115 --> 00:27:42.994
I'm a conscious entrepreneur and I drove here.

00:27:42.994 --> 00:27:44.125
So I think I will pass.

00:27:44.134 --> 00:27:45.414
I thought you would.

00:27:45.424 --> 00:27:47.715
But being Colorado, I think it's well played.

00:27:47.715 --> 00:27:51.494
If we were in your backyard instead of my backyard, then you would perhaps indulge.

00:27:51.565 --> 00:27:52.005
Correct.

00:27:52.134 --> 00:27:52.704
Correct.

00:27:54.365 --> 00:27:56.055
Um, so anyway, I digress.

00:27:56.125 --> 00:27:58.085
I think it's just kind of a funny thing to.

00:27:59.365 --> 00:28:00.224
Offer the community.

00:28:00.305 --> 00:28:00.625
Sure.

00:28:00.785 --> 00:28:03.545
Uh, and you never know, usually go about nine weeks.

00:28:03.795 --> 00:28:04.894
By the way, help you help yourself.

00:28:05.339 --> 00:28:06.319
No, no, I'm okay.

00:28:06.450 --> 00:28:06.819
I'm okay.

00:28:06.819 --> 00:28:08.690
You polished off your drink.

00:28:08.690 --> 00:28:09.589
Do you need a second drink?

00:28:10.319 --> 00:28:14.720
Not yet, because I had a little splash before you got here.

00:28:14.750 --> 00:28:15.785
Got it.

00:28:15.785 --> 00:28:18.906
Otherwise your voice will start to slur a little bit.

00:28:18.906 --> 00:28:20.279
I hear myself.

00:28:20.349 --> 00:28:22.759
Like, do you hear yourself slur when you've been drinking?

00:28:23.299 --> 00:28:25.539
I drink very little, but I do, yes.

00:28:25.549 --> 00:28:26.730
So, you have, and you do.

00:28:28.075 --> 00:28:35.394
I think there's like, I do too, and I'm even, I'm a, I'm a like a 4 percent slur right now.

00:28:36.375 --> 00:28:44.835
Um, just cause I've had two whiskeys and, you know, not big whiskeys, but small whiskeys in the last hour and I can, I can hear it.

00:28:45.414 --> 00:28:49.575
Um, and so whenever I hear it, I'm like, nope, I'm good.

00:28:49.634 --> 00:28:50.214
Have some water instead.

00:28:50.214 --> 00:28:55.505
And it, and it doesn't take much, like, like nobody would notice my slur.

00:28:57.474 --> 00:28:58.085
You think?

00:28:58.335 --> 00:28:58.894
I think.

00:28:59.505 --> 00:29:03.875
Um, but a lot of people wouldn't notice their own slurs, is the thing.

00:29:03.875 --> 00:29:03.934
Right.

00:29:03.934 --> 00:29:04.265
Right.

00:29:04.325 --> 00:29:07.015
Like, and those are, that's the dangerous thing.

00:29:07.015 --> 00:29:17.734
If you can notice your own slur, I think you're not quite I used to drink, I used to drink, you know, like any, whatever, in my 20s and whatever, I just used to drink like anybody else.

00:29:18.144 --> 00:29:42.849
Uh, and I, essentially because I started doing a lot of, uh, meditating and I told you I was in the ashram in India, um, there was a time during the ashram in India, uh, well first there was no alcohol but we were there, fine, but then when we were doing other programs kind of around it, there were all these rules and one of the rules A decent amount of time, I think it was a hundred days, was no meat and no alcohol.

00:29:42.960 --> 00:29:43.490
Oh, wow.

00:29:43.690 --> 00:29:47.299
And, and at first I was like, Which one?

00:29:47.670 --> 00:29:48.400
Which one bothers you more?

00:29:48.450 --> 00:29:48.859
Both.

00:29:48.859 --> 00:29:53.410
And then once I did it, I was like, oh, that was easy.

00:29:53.450 --> 00:29:57.910
And by the way, day 101 is a lot easier to tack on after you've done it for a hundred days.

00:29:58.509 --> 00:30:05.269
So that led to me being, like, not eating meat for probably another two years or three years after that.

00:30:05.279 --> 00:30:21.710
And then alcohol, uh, Probably also and then, you know, it came back a bit, but it is not playing a significant role at all in my life anymore So I probably now drink three to four units Yeah.

00:30:21.799 --> 00:30:22.319
A month.

00:30:22.559 --> 00:30:22.910
Okay.

00:30:23.299 --> 00:30:23.829
So.

00:30:23.880 --> 00:30:25.849
Like a glass of wine with dinner once in a while.

00:30:25.859 --> 00:30:29.960
Like, actually, what I, what I, what I most like is, uh, tequila and mezcal.

00:30:30.339 --> 00:30:30.579
Oh.

00:30:30.700 --> 00:30:30.980
Yeah.

00:30:30.990 --> 00:30:35.700
My wife's from Mexico, so we spend a ton of time in Mexico, and, uh, that's like, I love it.

00:30:35.779 --> 00:30:41.920
I do have the Anejo of the, the Boulder Base brand of tequila, if you'd like just a little tiny sipper.

00:30:42.315 --> 00:30:45.744
Um, so no, that's an opportunity because we are on the Local Experience Podcast.

00:30:45.795 --> 00:30:49.035
Indeed, yes, well, I, I, I support local businesses as well.

00:30:49.194 --> 00:30:50.845
And it's, what is that brand?

00:30:50.984 --> 00:30:52.045
It's called Suerte.

00:30:52.355 --> 00:30:53.404
Suerte, yeah.

00:30:53.785 --> 00:31:01.775
Um, actually, one of our chapters launched with Suerte, like, sponsored, I guess?

00:31:02.015 --> 00:31:05.305
An event we had, and we, we, it was, what was it?

00:31:05.325 --> 00:31:09.825
It was called, um, Tips, Tacos, and Tequila.

00:31:10.670 --> 00:31:13.029
And so we had business tips from yours truly.

00:31:13.710 --> 00:31:20.069
We had tacos from the Hooli and Juan who were on my podcast a few months ago.

00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:26.950
Um, and we had tequila from Swarte and Melissa with an unusual spelling.

00:31:27.119 --> 00:31:33.450
was our sponsor for that and she did a really nice talk about how Suerte was like smoking their Oh cool.

00:31:33.500 --> 00:31:38.500
their agave hearts before they turned it into tequila and that was why it tasted that much better.

00:31:38.640 --> 00:31:39.079
Right.

00:31:39.140 --> 00:31:43.269
So, anyway, that's like six years ago in May.

00:31:43.410 --> 00:31:43.940
It was a while ago.

00:31:43.980 --> 00:31:44.289
Okay.

00:31:44.289 --> 00:31:45.200
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:46.089
Anyway, I digress.

00:31:46.099 --> 00:31:47.349
Sorry to change.

00:31:47.799 --> 00:31:48.819
Uh, that's what we do.

00:31:48.970 --> 00:31:49.289
here.

00:31:49.420 --> 00:31:50.380
Uh, we chase squirrels.

00:31:50.519 --> 00:31:51.250
We chase squirrels.

00:31:51.289 --> 00:31:52.099
We chase squirrels.

00:31:52.400 --> 00:32:00.240
Um, talk to me about, uh, while we're still on the topic of, uh, self destructive behaviors or enlightening behaviors, perhaps.

00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:00.500
Sure.

00:32:00.740 --> 00:32:06.289
Uh, talk to me about your relationship with, uh, both mushrooms and marijuana.

00:32:06.974 --> 00:32:07.744
In light of that.

00:32:07.994 --> 00:32:14.954
Yeah, I, you know, I'm, I'm lucky in, in so far as, uh, I never, I didn't do very much marijuana in college.

00:32:15.065 --> 00:32:15.414
Okay.

00:32:15.535 --> 00:32:16.934
And I consider myself lucky for that.

00:32:16.934 --> 00:32:17.305
Yeah.

00:32:17.605 --> 00:32:17.924
Yeah.

00:32:17.984 --> 00:32:18.855
It's better for people.

00:32:18.944 --> 00:32:19.730
Yeah, it's better for people.

00:32:19.730 --> 00:32:23.484
Like, people that started smoking marijuana before 15, 16 especially.

00:32:23.535 --> 00:32:23.934
Yeah.

00:32:24.134 --> 00:32:24.454
Hmm.

00:32:24.525 --> 00:32:25.055
Not so great.

00:32:25.085 --> 00:32:25.775
Not usually.

00:32:25.884 --> 00:32:27.934
Uh, but, but I, I did, I did.

00:32:27.934 --> 00:32:28.805
After 20, better.

00:32:28.855 --> 00:32:30.575
I did smoke in my, in my 20s.

00:32:30.914 --> 00:32:44.164
Um, and it got to the point where like, I realized that this just wasn't fun, it wasn't good for me, it wasn't a thing that I was enjoying, but I still found myself, it was like a default behavior.

00:32:44.214 --> 00:32:44.684
Yeah.

00:32:44.795 --> 00:32:45.924
And, uh.

00:32:45.934 --> 00:32:47.065
Plus you were hanging out with hippies.

00:32:47.444 --> 00:32:52.234
Well, plus just like, uh, no, I've not given you my, my whole history.

00:32:52.244 --> 00:32:52.674
We'll come back to it.

00:32:53.315 --> 00:32:54.065
We'll come back to that.

00:32:54.065 --> 00:32:57.954
But there was a time right before my 30th birthday.

00:32:58.535 --> 00:33:02.654
Where I essentially was like this is not an appropriate thing for me to be continuing.

00:33:02.724 --> 00:33:08.295
I don't like it I don't know why I'm doing this all the time And so I literally did the proverbial take my stash flush it down the toilet.

00:33:08.355 --> 00:33:08.684
Really?

00:33:08.755 --> 00:33:18.164
Yeah, and not to say I've never gone back I have but Every time I do anything, edibles or whatever, I'm like, I'm like, yeah, it doesn't make me feel great.

00:33:18.474 --> 00:33:21.234
Mushrooms, psychedelics, on the other hand, I'm a huge fan.

00:33:21.644 --> 00:33:26.365
Uh, I, I, like, I think these are incredible, powerful tools, powerful tools.

00:33:26.394 --> 00:33:30.785
I don't, I don't do these things in social recreational settings.

00:33:31.194 --> 00:33:32.684
I just don't, like, I'm not interested.

00:33:32.684 --> 00:33:33.765
It's more of a guided introspective.

00:33:33.765 --> 00:33:36.525
I do it in a ceremonial setting.

00:33:36.555 --> 00:33:36.984
I do it.

00:33:37.299 --> 00:33:48.029
Internally laying on a couch, eye folds on, boom, like that whole thing, you know, much more significant dosage as opposed to like go part, you know, go concert or whatever.

00:33:48.609 --> 00:33:50.130
That part I've got zero interest in.

00:33:50.190 --> 00:33:50.740
Interesting.

00:33:50.960 --> 00:33:51.269
Yeah.

00:33:51.359 --> 00:33:51.670
Okay.

00:33:51.940 --> 00:33:52.480
Well, thanks.

00:33:52.599 --> 00:33:58.940
I like, I find that that's part of why I put those there in my little dinosaurs, because I think it's really interesting.

00:33:59.640 --> 00:34:05.210
Well, Colorado obviously being like the first state to really rock it.

00:34:05.740 --> 00:34:07.670
Uh, and in, in the mushrooms too.

00:34:07.789 --> 00:34:08.039
Yeah.

00:34:09.025 --> 00:34:12.125
But I haven't had mushrooms on the podcast for two years.

00:34:12.204 --> 00:34:13.434
Nobody's taken me up on it.

00:34:14.985 --> 00:34:17.724
Well, I mean, look, they're a really, really powerful tool.

00:34:17.844 --> 00:34:18.155
They are.

00:34:18.164 --> 00:34:24.269
And for me, any time I've done a micro I get all agitated and irritated.

00:34:24.369 --> 00:34:24.909
Oh, wow.

00:34:24.929 --> 00:34:25.119
Yeah.

00:34:25.119 --> 00:34:25.340
Yeah.

00:34:25.340 --> 00:34:28.019
Like, so, Oh, so you're like big or nothing.

00:34:28.570 --> 00:34:29.440
Oh, interesting.

00:34:29.449 --> 00:34:29.650
Yeah.

00:34:29.650 --> 00:34:30.960
Some people really like the microdose.

00:34:30.960 --> 00:34:31.210
Yeah.

00:34:31.210 --> 00:34:31.619
Yeah.

00:34:31.989 --> 00:34:41.130
That's what mostly I've done like since those early twenties days when I would like see streaks and colors and stuff, but to mine, Hmm.

00:34:41.570 --> 00:34:41.840
In.

00:34:42.630 --> 00:34:43.380
inspection.

00:34:44.079 --> 00:34:49.289
Um, like a little bit is like, you know, the green is just a little bit greener.

00:34:49.409 --> 00:34:54.960
The sun's just a little bit warmer and you don't actually have a change to your behavior quotient.

00:34:55.375 --> 00:35:12.514
Um, but for you, it's like annoying because you're not far enough or it's just, it's just like, it's just, I'm slightly heightened and I'm slightly like aware and I'm slightly irritated and yeah, I was like, I've done it.

00:35:12.594 --> 00:35:14.965
I did it several times and I was just like, ah, I'm done.

00:35:14.965 --> 00:35:15.724
I don't need to do this.

00:35:15.965 --> 00:35:20.231
So you're like, I'll just hero dose and talk on the couch to somebody.

00:35:20.231 --> 00:35:20.614
Yeah.

00:35:20.614 --> 00:35:20.795
Yeah.

00:35:20.934 --> 00:35:21.405
Fascinating.

00:35:21.405 --> 00:35:21.954
Yeah.

00:35:21.954 --> 00:35:26.375
Uh, in fact, um, uh, Many of my experiences for this happened in Arvada at Ceremonial.

00:35:26.494 --> 00:35:27.034
Have you been there?

00:35:27.094 --> 00:35:27.545
No.

00:35:27.695 --> 00:35:27.846
Oh yeah.

00:35:27.851 --> 00:35:27.905
Yeah.

00:35:27.905 --> 00:35:28.114
I dunno.

00:35:28.114 --> 00:35:28.594
Anything about it?

00:35:28.835 --> 00:35:31.085
Uh, it's a psychedelic church.

00:35:31.295 --> 00:35:31.565
Oh.

00:35:31.594 --> 00:35:36.034
Uh, and, and uh, I bought some mushrooms at a psychedelic church in Oakland.

00:35:36.155 --> 00:35:36.454
Okay.

00:35:36.454 --> 00:35:39.994
So it's a psychedelic ago, just down, just down the street in, in Arvada, Colorado.

00:35:40.355 --> 00:35:41.614
Uh, run by Austin Mao.

00:35:41.614 --> 00:35:42.934
He's actually been on my podcast, podcast's.

00:35:42.940 --> 00:35:43.190
I've heard of that.

00:35:43.190 --> 00:35:43.594
Been a speaker.

00:35:43.625 --> 00:35:45.804
He's been a speaker at my, at my events.

00:35:45.894 --> 00:35:50.635
Super, super great guy and someone dedicated to helping people.

00:35:50.849 --> 00:35:55.579
Transform their lives by seeing and learning things that you get on a psychedelic experience.

00:35:55.579 --> 00:36:09.394
One thing I've noticed from both my own observation as well as podcasts and stuff is that It's one of the real things that can bust you out of a rut.

00:36:09.775 --> 00:36:10.144
Totally.

00:36:10.275 --> 00:36:16.434
Like whether it's PTSD or depression because you think you suck as an entrepreneur or different things.

00:36:16.434 --> 00:36:21.434
Like a lot of people have used it as that kind of lever that gets them out of a stuck spot.

00:36:21.614 --> 00:36:22.045
Yeah.

00:36:22.394 --> 00:36:25.784
I mean, you know, you know the expressions about like ski grooves in the mind, right?

00:36:25.894 --> 00:36:26.295
Yeah.

00:36:26.519 --> 00:36:28.340
We're always chasing these same thoughts.

00:36:28.340 --> 00:36:29.369
We wear those tracks.

00:36:29.380 --> 00:36:31.519
We have 60 thoughts a day.

00:36:31.530 --> 00:36:35.329
90 to 95 percent of them are the exact same thought as yesterday.

00:36:35.500 --> 00:36:39.739
Most of them are not positive because we tend to be negatively oriented because that's what keeps us alive.

00:36:40.010 --> 00:36:45.769
Therefore, I'm thinking 40, 000 negative thoughts a day and they're the same thoughts every single day.

00:36:46.119 --> 00:36:52.409
That creates a lot of super powerful connections in my brain and what the psilocybin does is it disorganizes my brain.

00:36:53.235 --> 00:36:55.264
All sorts of new information to start flowing around.

00:36:55.264 --> 00:36:56.275
It's like fresh pow pow.

00:36:56.514 --> 00:36:57.934
It's exactly like fresh powder.

00:36:57.965 --> 00:37:00.045
And it allows me to then reconsider.

00:37:00.405 --> 00:37:04.744
And it doesn't mean that, you know, I'm never going to have some type of fear or anxiety or worry.

00:37:04.744 --> 00:37:08.465
But I can then see stuff and say, well, is this thought really true?

00:37:08.684 --> 00:37:08.925
Yeah.

00:37:09.074 --> 00:37:09.315
Right?

00:37:09.315 --> 00:37:16.385
And that's incredibly powerful because then I can interrogate my own mind and say, Based on this information, how do I want to show up in the world?

00:37:16.434 --> 00:37:16.635
Yeah.

00:37:16.704 --> 00:37:18.025
Yeah.

00:37:18.105 --> 00:37:22.474
Um, so we're going to chase the squirrel back onto the tree.

00:37:22.585 --> 00:37:22.844
Sure.

00:37:23.164 --> 00:37:24.724
Um, what is Amplify?

00:37:25.445 --> 00:37:25.684
Oh.

00:37:25.715 --> 00:37:28.139
Uh, you have another operating business right now.

00:37:28.139 --> 00:37:30.304
I have, I have a business called Amplify.

00:37:30.635 --> 00:37:34.005
Uh, we just started it in October, so like four months ago.

00:37:34.105 --> 00:37:34.585
All right.

00:37:35.114 --> 00:37:41.025
Uh, uh, Amplify is a professional development community for a very specific set of people.

00:37:41.034 --> 00:37:41.065
Okay.

00:37:41.175 --> 00:37:46.344
So, so the very specific set of people is, uh, B2B post sales.

00:37:46.724 --> 00:37:47.655
Account managers.

00:37:48.684 --> 00:37:53.894
So let's say I'm, uh, whatever I'm IBM, right?

00:37:53.894 --> 00:37:59.514
I probably have, CSU is probably a client of IBM or they're a client of Google or AWS or whatever, right?

00:37:59.954 --> 00:38:08.034
And, uh, AWS or Google or IBM will have a whole team of post sales people whose job it is to make sure that CSU is happy that they stay that way.

00:38:08.074 --> 00:38:09.195
They keep buying their stuff.

00:38:09.224 --> 00:38:10.795
They're aware of the new releases.

00:38:10.795 --> 00:38:12.514
They buy new things when it's appropriate.

00:38:12.534 --> 00:38:14.394
They're not looking at the competitors.

00:38:14.480 --> 00:38:15.039
You know, and so on.

00:38:15.039 --> 00:38:17.539
So there's a whole world out there, people called account managers.

00:38:17.900 --> 00:38:22.059
Uh, this happens to be a world that I've been working in for a long time and I.

00:38:22.469 --> 00:38:27.000
Realize that there's basically nowhere for them to go get support, get, get training.

00:38:27.320 --> 00:38:34.099
Uh, if you're a CFO or a CEO, you've got lots of resources, you got a lot of resources, account manager, right?

00:38:34.099 --> 00:38:46.460
And so within a typical company, who's getting training, the sales team is getting trained in the marketing teams, getting training and the, and the, the account managers are literally like sitting at the back row, like, and they're being told, well, this one's get paid good.

00:38:46.659 --> 00:38:49.179
They get very valuable job.

00:38:49.219 --> 00:38:51.210
They're very, really important to their company.

00:38:51.239 --> 00:38:51.530
So.

00:38:51.994 --> 00:38:52.844
Here's a stat for you.

00:38:53.144 --> 00:38:57.494
In a typical year, 71 percent of your revenue comes from existing customers.

00:38:57.554 --> 00:38:58.244
Wow, yeah.

00:38:58.324 --> 00:39:03.034
So therefore, why don't we do more to help these people do their job well?

00:39:03.034 --> 00:39:04.125
Yeah, even in a high growth company.

00:39:04.295 --> 00:39:04.735
Correct.

00:39:04.795 --> 00:39:06.344
So why don't we help them do their job well?

00:39:06.355 --> 00:39:14.235
So Amplify is Tools, resources, courses, and community for account managers so that they can get really, really good at their job.

00:39:14.394 --> 00:39:15.085
Wow, that's cool.

00:39:15.105 --> 00:39:15.335
Yeah.

00:39:15.625 --> 00:39:18.844
Um, subscription type service?

00:39:18.844 --> 00:39:20.344
Like you become an Amplify member?

00:39:20.364 --> 00:39:22.715
It's a member, it's an annual membership.

00:39:22.724 --> 00:39:26.815
For their people based on how many member, employees they have and whatever.

00:39:26.875 --> 00:39:28.105
It's an annual membership.

00:39:28.344 --> 00:39:30.494
Uh, people are signing up on their own.

00:39:30.635 --> 00:39:30.885
Oh.

00:39:30.914 --> 00:39:32.715
So they're, because they want to grow.

00:39:32.755 --> 00:39:36.534
Because they want to connect and network and improve their skills.

00:39:37.025 --> 00:39:37.054
Nice.

00:39:37.065 --> 00:39:38.605
We have corporate members?

00:39:39.210 --> 00:39:46.840
We do have some core members, but core members, the engagement tends to be lower because like, you know, Oh, my boss told me to do this final, go do this versus I'm like super psyched to go.

00:39:46.840 --> 00:39:47.030
Yeah.

00:39:47.030 --> 00:39:47.309
Yeah.

00:39:47.340 --> 00:39:47.949
Different story.

00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:48.510
Really cool.

00:39:48.559 --> 00:39:48.800
Yeah.

00:39:49.050 --> 00:39:50.909
Um, how's that working?

00:39:50.909 --> 00:39:51.940
Are you, it's going great.

00:39:52.130 --> 00:39:58.050
Are you costing it by your focus on the podcast and the conscious entrepreneur summit or is it super fun?

00:39:58.050 --> 00:39:58.989
It's super fun.

00:39:59.039 --> 00:40:00.030
It works great.

00:40:00.150 --> 00:40:03.210
Uh, there's no reason that this business won't work.

00:40:03.699 --> 00:40:06.690
I don't yet have a sense of what the scale of that business is going to be.

00:40:06.719 --> 00:40:06.960
Yeah.

00:40:07.335 --> 00:40:09.135
But like the economics are good.

00:40:09.394 --> 00:40:12.184
The delivering value, we're delivering value.

00:40:12.195 --> 00:40:18.684
The funnel is, you know, I mean, I'm still trying to figure out lots of stuff about the business, but generally speaking, it looks like it's going to work.

00:40:18.824 --> 00:40:21.045
And then, uh, I just don't know.

00:40:21.219 --> 00:40:25.110
Um, you know how it evolves and changes over time, but so far I'm super excited about it.

00:40:26.369 --> 00:40:29.800
Um, we already kind of covered the lots of stuff with Techstars, I think.

00:40:29.809 --> 00:40:30.030
Yeah.

00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:38.269
Um, and so now our norm is to jump in the time machine and uh, go find little Alex.

00:40:38.280 --> 00:40:38.530
Sure.

00:40:38.590 --> 00:40:42.900
At like five years old or seven years old or something like that.

00:40:43.079 --> 00:40:45.030
Um, where would we find you?

00:40:46.599 --> 00:40:53.940
So, like let me, let me just think about how, how I want to start.

00:40:54.324 --> 00:40:59.545
Um, the answer is, the answer is I grew up in Europe.

00:40:59.945 --> 00:41:00.264
Okay.

00:41:00.344 --> 00:41:03.025
And most people, most people don't, they don't know that about me.

00:41:03.264 --> 00:41:03.775
As an American?

00:41:03.855 --> 00:41:04.105
Yeah.

00:41:04.885 --> 00:41:07.925
Like, it's not quite like, it's not immediately obvious that that would have happened.

00:41:07.954 --> 00:41:08.344
No.

00:41:08.385 --> 00:41:12.954
But let me tell you, I'll tell you how it did come about and then what it's done for my life philosophy.

00:41:12.974 --> 00:41:13.324
Please.

00:41:13.769 --> 00:41:16.750
So, uh, I was born in the States.

00:41:16.769 --> 00:41:18.659
My parents are both from Massachusetts.

00:41:18.659 --> 00:41:21.469
They met at the University of Massachusetts in the late 1960s.

00:41:21.820 --> 00:41:32.460
Uh, they met on a blind date and, uh, uh, and then my dad finished one year before my mom and he took a job at Union Carbide, Union Carbide Chemical Company, which is now part of Dow Chemical.

00:41:32.789 --> 00:41:39.420
And he moved to a bunch of places doing different roles, rose fairly quickly, like through their, through their, um, bureaucracy.

00:41:39.820 --> 00:41:41.539
And when he was in.

00:41:41.679 --> 00:41:47.530
I guess he was 35 and we were living in Connecticut somewhere outside of, you know, suburbs of New York city type of thing.

00:41:48.010 --> 00:41:56.630
And, uh, he had the opportunity to nominate someone on his team to go be the, some version of like deputy CIO for Europe.

00:41:56.639 --> 00:41:57.639
Think of it that way.

00:41:57.639 --> 00:42:00.599
I don't think that was what it was called, but that's essentially what it was.

00:42:01.070 --> 00:42:02.989
And he basically said.

00:42:04.045 --> 00:42:09.914
Well, hang on, this is a slightly more junior position than I'm in now, but I would really like to go work in Switzerland.

00:42:09.914 --> 00:42:15.445
So he put his hand up, and when I was five, we moved to Geneva.

00:42:16.014 --> 00:42:19.375
And so, I grew up in Geneva, Switzerland, until I was 16.

00:42:19.715 --> 00:42:21.835
Oh wow, what a hub too, right?

00:42:21.835 --> 00:42:33.744
So my entire schooling, from grade, from first year, first day of first grade, up until halfway through Uh, 10th grade, I was at the same school, the international school of Geneva and I lived there.

00:42:33.744 --> 00:42:34.824
It's a bilingual school.

00:42:34.824 --> 00:42:40.255
Yeah, I was going to say they taught you English and stuff properly, but also It used to be the UN international school, then it changed its name.

00:42:40.474 --> 00:42:44.644
So it's, uh, there were two sides, there's a bilingual English side and a French side.

00:42:44.965 --> 00:42:46.684
I had to learn, I had to learn a third language.

00:42:46.684 --> 00:42:48.045
I took German for several years.

00:42:48.394 --> 00:42:55.494
Uh, and What that did for me was it kind of showed me how small the world is.

00:42:56.644 --> 00:43:00.534
Now, the school that I went to, the school that I went to had probably.

00:43:01.210 --> 00:43:05.489
I think the, I think the number was like 60 different nationalities represented within the school.

00:43:05.869 --> 00:43:13.460
And so, you know, you go to, you go down to the cafeteria and there's someone from Saudi Arabia and there's someone from South Africa and there's someone from Canada and there's someone from England or whatever.

00:43:13.800 --> 00:43:15.489
And we all learned to get along.

00:43:15.500 --> 00:43:17.199
We all, we all growing up together, right?

00:43:17.199 --> 00:43:19.539
So you're just kind of figuring out what does it mean to be human, right?

00:43:20.349 --> 00:43:21.820
How many students in this whole school?

00:43:21.969 --> 00:43:23.079
It was not a big school.

00:43:23.250 --> 00:43:23.900
Not a big school.

00:43:23.920 --> 00:43:25.630
I don't know the full number.

00:43:25.630 --> 00:43:30.329
I would guess there might've been like a hundred to 150 in my year.

00:43:30.574 --> 00:43:30.914
Okay.

00:43:31.204 --> 00:43:31.505
Okay.

00:43:31.554 --> 00:43:31.844
Right.

00:43:31.844 --> 00:43:33.284
Divided into different little classes.

00:43:33.295 --> 00:43:33.824
Yeah, sure.

00:43:33.835 --> 00:43:35.144
So, but that's just a guess.

00:43:35.204 --> 00:43:35.454
Yeah.

00:43:35.554 --> 00:43:38.735
Um, probably like a medium, pretty big, medium sized school.

00:43:38.775 --> 00:43:39.164
Yeah.

00:43:39.215 --> 00:43:45.844
Not a gigantic thing, but the whole, everything from first grade all the way to the end, but the diversity quotient is off the charts.

00:43:45.844 --> 00:43:46.635
Super high, super high.

00:43:46.804 --> 00:43:47.045
Yeah.

00:43:47.085 --> 00:43:50.664
And, uh, so, cause a lot of people are like, oh, wow, you grew up in Europe.

00:43:50.664 --> 00:43:51.094
What was it like?

00:43:51.684 --> 00:43:54.335
And I'm like, it was just, for me, it was just, Right.

00:43:54.335 --> 00:44:01.965
I mean, I did basketball and baseball and boy scouts and, you know, there's some classes I liked, some classes I didn't like, and right.

00:44:01.974 --> 00:44:03.505
So, you know, sort of normal stuff.

00:44:03.505 --> 00:44:07.605
It just happened to be in, in what a lot of people think of as an exotic and interesting setting.

00:44:08.074 --> 00:44:18.315
Um, and, but, you know, for me, it was really suddenly understanding or not suddenly, it was, it was really embodying and seeing every day that.

00:44:18.789 --> 00:44:38.730
The world is small, there's people all around, everyone basically has the same needs and challenges and interests and, uh, that there's nothing to fear from going somewhere new or exploring something or, or working, you know, having colleagues or, or friends who are, look different than you or sound different than you or speak a different language at home than you do and stuff like that.

00:44:38.739 --> 00:44:42.269
And so it made me very comfortable in a, in a global environment.

00:44:42.349 --> 00:44:42.639
Yeah.

00:44:42.690 --> 00:44:45.860
And so later in life, later in my life, like I went to, I went to.

00:44:47.199 --> 00:44:51.639
University at Georgetown in Washington, DC, again, super, super international.

00:44:52.380 --> 00:44:53.630
I was in the school of foreign service.

00:44:54.099 --> 00:45:02.619
Uh, after that I lived in Boston, London, Baltimore, back in London, went to business school in France and Singapore.

00:45:03.440 --> 00:45:04.599
Then I moved to Hong Kong.

00:45:04.670 --> 00:45:07.519
Then I moved to Beijing and then I moved to Boulder.

00:45:08.139 --> 00:45:11.610
So out of all those Baltimore seems like the one doesn't really fit.

00:45:11.699 --> 00:45:12.530
Totally doesn't fit.

00:45:12.849 --> 00:45:15.340
And I was, they twisted my arm to get there.

00:45:15.679 --> 00:45:17.179
I was working for the same company.

00:45:17.445 --> 00:45:21.014
And I was in London and they were like, basically, basically they were like, Hey, we need somebody to go to Baltimore.

00:45:21.014 --> 00:45:26.164
We need, we need, we need you, we need you at this office in Baltimore or you're, or we're going to fire you have a future in this company.

00:45:26.164 --> 00:45:26.454
Yeah.

00:45:26.704 --> 00:45:28.045
And I was like, fine.

00:45:28.164 --> 00:45:30.304
And I, and I did it for about a year and a half.

00:45:30.809 --> 00:45:38.730
And there were pockets to like, there were things to like, but generally speaking, it was kind of an outlier in my life and, uh, I didn't stay there for super long.

00:45:38.889 --> 00:45:39.610
Yeah, fair enough.

00:45:39.980 --> 00:45:44.980
Um, and you landed in Boulder and you're like, okay, I'm done moving around with this.

00:45:44.980 --> 00:45:50.389
Yeah, I mean, in between, in between, in the late nineties, my parents moved to Boulder from, from Massachusetts.

00:45:50.400 --> 00:45:52.010
So they moved out here.

00:45:52.039 --> 00:45:55.110
And so my wife and I were living in, in China.

00:45:55.119 --> 00:45:56.980
I lived, in total, I lived in Asia for like five years.

00:45:57.050 --> 00:46:00.289
And, uh, And where did you find her at?

00:46:01.880 --> 00:46:07.659
Um, so, in January 2006.

00:46:07.929 --> 00:46:08.239
Okay.

00:46:08.639 --> 00:46:10.690
I'd been living in Hong Kong for about three months.

00:46:10.789 --> 00:46:11.039
Alright.

00:46:11.469 --> 00:46:19.400
Uh, I moved to Hong Kong for this job, and I, just because I was like, I want to live in Asia, it looks cool, like, bang, let's figure it out, I made it happen, I found a company, awesome.

00:46:19.619 --> 00:46:26.530
So I moved to Hong Kong, and, as you do when you move to a new town, you know, people are like, oh, I know such and such, and, you know, so on.

00:46:26.599 --> 00:46:32.719
My, one of my cousins had said, Danielle had said, Oh, a friend of mine from high school works for the U S consulate in Hong Kong.

00:46:32.730 --> 00:46:33.519
You should meet her when you get there.

00:46:33.519 --> 00:46:34.199
I'm like, yeah, sure.

00:46:34.210 --> 00:46:34.449
Great.

00:46:34.449 --> 00:46:34.809
Wonderful.

00:46:35.610 --> 00:46:43.389
And like, there's a lot of these when, when you're in late twenties, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of people who know people and you're supposed to meet this person, that person and whatever.

00:46:43.389 --> 00:46:49.929
So, so I met this guy at a, at a Mexican bar in Hong Kong and I had a beer and a shot of tequila.

00:46:50.369 --> 00:46:50.639
Right?

00:46:50.639 --> 00:47:01.449
And when we met and drank our cake, great, and we hung out a few times, he introduced me to a friend of his, and that friend of his, uh, had a wife, he also worked at the consulate, he had a wife who was from Spain.

00:47:02.360 --> 00:47:02.829
Okay, great.

00:47:04.880 --> 00:47:05.780
And then you met her sister.

00:47:05.789 --> 00:47:15.210
So, so this was, so this was in, so this was in, so I moved there in 2005, so in early 2006, January 2006, uh, I'm at the gym.

00:47:15.400 --> 00:47:21.559
I'm in the, I'm in the locker room and I see there's a missed call from my, from my friend Tyler and voicemail, voicemail.

00:47:21.559 --> 00:47:24.630
He's like, Hey, uh, I want to see if you want to come over for dinner tonight.

00:47:24.679 --> 00:47:27.070
And immediately I'm like, Oh, I just got back from a business trip.

00:47:27.070 --> 00:47:27.539
I'm tired.

00:47:27.539 --> 00:47:32.340
I don't feel like going out, you know, whatever, like, you know, like, no, I don't feel like it.

00:47:32.949 --> 00:47:35.760
And then, yeah, but then he leaves the little kicker at the end.

00:47:35.760 --> 00:47:38.230
He's like, yeah, I want to see if you want to come over for dinner tonight.

00:47:38.480 --> 00:47:44.500
Uh, we're, we invited a couple of, uh, my wife's friends who, these Mexican girls are coming over too.

00:47:44.630 --> 00:47:45.119
Okay.

00:47:45.630 --> 00:47:48.599
So I'm like, huh, that sounds a lot more interesting.

00:47:48.940 --> 00:47:50.289
I'm willing, I'm willing.

00:47:50.750 --> 00:48:01.289
And, uh, and so I was like, all right, I rallied and, and, and went out there and, uh, on my way into their apartment, they lived on Kennedy Road in Hong Kong and I lived on McDonnell Road, which is just above it.

00:48:01.289 --> 00:48:01.389
So.

00:48:01.920 --> 00:48:12.969
Walked down there and as I'm getting to the, to his, his house, into the lobby of the apartment building, there's two ladies standing there, looking at the little like door thing.

00:48:12.969 --> 00:48:14.179
You're supposed to punch in the code.

00:48:14.670 --> 00:48:20.159
And I just walk up to them and I said, I bet you're looking for 14 B or whatever his apartment number was.

00:48:20.409 --> 00:48:22.260
And they're like, Oh yeah, how did you know?

00:48:22.670 --> 00:48:24.699
And we walk in together and one of them.

00:48:24.989 --> 00:48:25.659
Was my wife.

00:48:25.670 --> 00:48:30.550
So I spent the next, uh, did it take you a while to figure out which one it did?

00:48:30.590 --> 00:48:34.659
I was very clear on the one that, that I was, uh, that I was attracted to.

00:48:34.989 --> 00:48:41.329
And then I spent the next like several days, like chasing her around home, wherever she was going, I was, you know, Oh, I'm going to be in that area too.

00:48:41.329 --> 00:48:42.150
Let's grab a coffee.

00:48:42.179 --> 00:48:42.659
Let's hang out.

00:48:43.090 --> 00:48:47.960
And, uh, uh, but amazingly she lived in some of my wife's name is Laura.

00:48:47.960 --> 00:48:57.585
So, so she was living in Mexico, Guadalajara, uh, and I lived in Hong And so we were like, How is this all going to work?

00:48:57.614 --> 00:49:05.014
And over the course of the one year that we were together before we got married, we managed to see each other pretty much once a month, somewhere.

00:49:05.355 --> 00:49:14.364
So we met in San Francisco, Boston, Guadalajara, Bali, India, Hong Kong, Paris, whatever it all is more.

00:49:14.565 --> 00:49:16.135
Cause you know, like we were both like.

00:49:16.414 --> 00:49:17.565
early thirties.

00:49:17.684 --> 00:49:18.885
I think we were both 30 at the time.

00:49:19.355 --> 00:49:21.965
And so it's just like, you know, traveling for work.

00:49:21.965 --> 00:49:28.014
And so she'd go somewhere and I'd make up some excuse to go to, or, you know, it's also the age when friends are getting married.

00:49:28.215 --> 00:49:29.260
All sorts of social stuff.

00:49:29.260 --> 00:49:30.144
Social pressures are there.

00:49:30.155 --> 00:49:30.775
All sorts of stuff.

00:49:30.775 --> 00:49:31.605
So we'd just meet here.

00:49:31.605 --> 00:49:32.284
We'd meet there.

00:49:32.284 --> 00:49:33.034
It was awesome.

00:49:33.074 --> 00:49:36.954
And then we got married, uh, 13 months after we met.

00:49:37.125 --> 00:49:37.574
Oh, wow.

00:49:37.994 --> 00:49:38.335
Congratulations.

00:49:38.335 --> 00:49:39.664
Yeah, we just had our 18.

00:49:40.449 --> 00:49:42.559
18th anniversary.

00:49:42.639 --> 00:49:43.030
Laura, yeah.

00:49:43.030 --> 00:49:43.900
So, so, I mean like.

00:49:43.909 --> 00:49:44.730
Laura effectively for.

00:49:44.730 --> 00:49:45.679
Laura.

00:49:45.679 --> 00:49:45.980
Correct.

00:49:46.000 --> 00:49:47.719
Laura with the Mexican pronunciation.

00:49:48.050 --> 00:49:49.860
I can't roll my R's properly.

00:49:49.989 --> 00:49:50.409
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:49:50.409 --> 00:49:51.449
I kind of can sometimes, but.

00:49:51.869 --> 00:49:55.610
Um, and so you picked her up along the way and, uh.

00:49:55.619 --> 00:49:56.190
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:49:56.190 --> 00:49:57.199
So we moved, we moved to Boulder.

00:49:57.199 --> 00:49:58.380
So now you're a team moving to Boulder.

00:49:58.400 --> 00:50:02.559
We moved to Boulder because we decided we, we wanted, we didn't want to live in China anymore.

00:50:02.880 --> 00:50:03.119
Yeah.

00:50:03.219 --> 00:50:03.710
And so.

00:50:04.389 --> 00:50:07.760
One of the things about living in China is it's, it's very cool.

00:50:07.769 --> 00:50:08.769
Super interesting.

00:50:08.780 --> 00:50:10.949
Beijing was a really, really neat city to live in.

00:50:10.949 --> 00:50:12.230
I super enjoyed it.

00:50:12.619 --> 00:50:17.840
And I super enjoyed it right up into the minute where I was like, we need to leave now.

00:50:18.570 --> 00:50:19.630
So one day Laura was just like.

00:50:21.255 --> 00:50:23.465
It's over like, we're like now we're, we're leaving.

00:50:24.034 --> 00:50:26.005
And so instead of fight it, I was just like, okay.

00:50:26.224 --> 00:50:32.914
And I think within six weeks we had sold everything, put other things in boxes, bake it in the apartment and boom, we were off.

00:50:33.204 --> 00:50:40.744
But we had a dog, another miniature Schnauzer, Jackie, who we adopted in Hong Kong, and it was like, what do we do with Jackie?

00:50:40.974 --> 00:50:43.425
It was like, well, maybe my dad was, yeah.

00:50:43.445 --> 00:50:47.465
So my dad came over and was like, Hey dad, would you mind taking the dog back with you?

00:50:48.054 --> 00:50:50.135
Uh, and so when we decided to move.

00:50:50.594 --> 00:50:52.735
To the states was literally what we thought of it as.

00:50:53.150 --> 00:50:54.320
Like, okay, let's move to the States.

00:50:54.320 --> 00:50:55.369
Where, where do we go?

00:50:55.380 --> 00:50:56.010
pick up the dog first.

00:50:56.010 --> 00:50:59.579
Well, we'll go pick up the dog first and here we are 13 years later.

00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:03.869
Um, I jump ahead sometimes, but I could tell that's where you were going.

00:51:03.880 --> 00:51:04.219
Yeah.

00:51:04.340 --> 00:51:06.909
Um, well, schnauzers should guide the way.

00:51:06.940 --> 00:51:07.860
They're smart dogs.

00:51:07.929 --> 00:51:14.059
Well, so Jackie, so we, we adopted Jackie from the Hong Kong dog rescue when she was 10.

00:51:14.449 --> 00:51:15.070
Oh, wow.

00:51:15.304 --> 00:51:17.655
So she was this incredibly sweet dog.

00:51:17.914 --> 00:51:26.625
She had this stare, you know, she would just like get her way by like burrowing into your heart and, uh, absolutely lovely dog.

00:51:26.625 --> 00:51:27.885
She lived until.

00:51:28.380 --> 00:51:29.860
Almost 18 years old.

00:51:30.429 --> 00:51:30.750
Yeah.

00:51:30.769 --> 00:51:31.400
Super dog.

00:51:31.519 --> 00:51:34.760
I hope we have the same, uh, Tucker just turned 12 this month actually.

00:51:35.329 --> 00:51:37.539
So, uh, so let's see.

00:51:37.539 --> 00:51:41.260
So you find Boulder and then like, started company, started company.

00:51:41.260 --> 00:51:44.590
Shortly after you started the company, like what was the impetus there?

00:51:44.590 --> 00:51:45.710
Were you capitalized?

00:51:45.719 --> 00:51:47.070
Did you not have a job?

00:51:47.079 --> 00:51:48.699
You were just moving back to the States.

00:51:48.699 --> 00:51:54.530
Yeah, I'd been, I'd been, I'd been an entrepreneur already, but I just moved back to the States and was like, what do I do?

00:51:54.559 --> 00:51:57.070
And, and Laura was like, Oh, well, you've been having this one idea.

00:51:57.079 --> 00:51:57.599
So.

00:51:57.875 --> 00:51:58.565
I had an idea.

00:51:58.565 --> 00:52:01.244
It was in the HR software space, called up a bunch of people.

00:52:01.244 --> 00:52:03.505
I know some of them said, yeah, sure.

00:52:03.505 --> 00:52:04.525
I don't have anything else going on.

00:52:04.965 --> 00:52:12.175
Uh, my business partner, uh, moved here from South Africa, uh, to, to start the business, super incredible.

00:52:12.184 --> 00:52:13.014
Some of that you knew before.

00:52:13.014 --> 00:52:20.605
Yeah, I knew from before incredible coders, super talented, and, uh, we were able to build a, and we had a couple of other people who joined us.

00:52:20.869 --> 00:52:24.699
So we had a great gang and able to get a business off the ground.

00:52:24.909 --> 00:52:26.590
And that's what we went through tech stars.

00:52:26.630 --> 00:52:26.800
Yeah.

00:52:26.800 --> 00:52:27.079
Yeah.

00:52:27.119 --> 00:52:27.380
Yeah.

00:52:27.469 --> 00:52:29.670
That was the cap capta capta.

00:52:29.900 --> 00:52:36.090
Um, like, would you, what would you say were your special sauces in terms of being an entrepreneur?

00:52:36.090 --> 00:52:46.690
It sounds like you were the idea person and kind of needed to build teams, both of skills, people, as well as investors to make these ideas happen.

00:52:46.949 --> 00:52:47.239
Yeah.

00:52:47.340 --> 00:52:48.340
Um, yeah.

00:52:48.349 --> 00:52:50.110
Where, where do you like?

00:52:50.820 --> 00:52:52.199
How, how did you get good at that?

00:52:53.050 --> 00:52:54.699
Like, you hadn't done it before, right?

00:52:54.730 --> 00:52:55.239
Yeah.

00:52:55.239 --> 00:53:03.530
I mean, um, or a little bit kind of, I'd, I'd done, I'd done some of this sort of stuff before and so lemme see.

00:53:03.530 --> 00:53:06.480
Like, what's the interesting way to answer that?

00:53:06.869 --> 00:53:12.480
Um, I'm not sure that I did it particularly well.

00:53:12.840 --> 00:53:13.320
Okay.

00:53:13.440 --> 00:53:13.889
Fair.

00:53:14.300 --> 00:53:21.929
You know, like I would say that, uh, I had some, the idea was good enough to weather all of the The idea was, the idea was good enough.

00:53:22.255 --> 00:53:24.855
And then the spirit was there to do it.

00:53:25.195 --> 00:53:33.335
Um, but when I look back at that part of my entrepreneurial journey, I think we missed some opportunities.

00:53:33.864 --> 00:53:43.304
I think I wasn't as, uh, courageous about really examining all the different assumptions behind the business.

00:53:44.164 --> 00:53:47.235
Uh, I don't, I did not understand.

00:53:47.860 --> 00:53:52.119
What it meant to capitalize a business for the future.

00:53:53.079 --> 00:54:04.440
What I'm, what I mean by that was, is, is I was happy taking small checks and not realizing, Oh, to get a software company off the ground, it actually takes several millions of dollars, you know?

00:54:04.440 --> 00:54:06.289
So we, what we did is we raised.

00:54:06.625 --> 00:54:10.474
We raised like 750 K and it was like, Oh, cool.

00:54:10.474 --> 00:54:10.985
Awesome.

00:54:11.445 --> 00:54:12.894
But it doesn't last that long.

00:54:12.905 --> 00:54:13.934
Halfway there.

00:54:13.965 --> 00:54:14.375
Right.

00:54:14.375 --> 00:54:17.425
And then, and it was like, Oh shit, we need to raise more.

00:54:17.425 --> 00:54:18.914
So then we went back and raise more.

00:54:18.934 --> 00:54:25.724
And then, and then everyone was like, yeah, but you didn't do all the things you said you were going to do the first time and So I thought it was incredibly painful.

00:54:25.735 --> 00:54:26.244
Yeah, yeah.

00:54:26.275 --> 00:54:30.054
And I do remember And the market doesn't get any bigger in the meantime, usually.

00:54:30.534 --> 00:54:31.655
Things don't get any easier.

00:54:31.675 --> 00:54:31.914
Right.

00:54:31.925 --> 00:54:35.405
And, and I remember, I remember two really good pieces of advice that I got.

00:54:35.494 --> 00:54:37.335
Didn't, didn't do anything with them, but they were true.

00:54:37.804 --> 00:54:43.909
Um, the, the first one was someone telling me, Hey, actually to make this work, you need millions of dollars.

00:54:44.369 --> 00:54:47.690
And I was like, no, no, look at how far we're going to get with 750 or 500, whatever.

00:54:48.190 --> 00:54:51.239
And he was like, nah, you actually are going to need resources.

00:54:51.369 --> 00:54:52.519
So I should have listened to that one.

00:54:52.980 --> 00:54:54.659
Um, and then the second one was.

00:54:56.114 --> 00:55:08.905
When you're at the very, very beginning, you can raise on the idea, the energy and the vision, as soon as you start getting revenue and customers, you only raise and get measured on the metrics.

00:55:09.594 --> 00:55:11.965
And so it's great at the beginning, you have no idea.

00:55:12.005 --> 00:55:12.784
And so it's okay to say.

00:55:13.670 --> 00:55:16.849
Hey, we've got this gigantic market and we're going to do this and that.

00:55:16.849 --> 00:55:19.329
And it's going to grow, but gangbusters and so on.

00:55:19.329 --> 00:55:22.579
And, and some people will buy into it and be willing to invest in some people won't.

00:55:22.840 --> 00:55:23.500
And that's okay.

00:55:23.719 --> 00:55:27.989
But then as soon as you get customers, it's like, well, what's your customer growth rate?

00:55:27.989 --> 00:55:28.960
What's your retention rate?

00:55:29.170 --> 00:55:30.409
Are they buying new stuff?

00:55:30.570 --> 00:55:31.949
How many users do they have?

00:55:32.309 --> 00:55:33.920
Uh, what's your NPS score?

00:55:33.920 --> 00:55:36.000
You get all these like, like metrics.

00:55:36.260 --> 00:55:42.730
And then they say, well, since it's a business, we're going to value this based based on your growth rate and your cash flow and so on and so forth.

00:55:42.739 --> 00:55:48.039
So everything gets a lot harder and entrepreneurs don't understand that part about fundraising.

00:55:48.050 --> 00:55:58.360
So raising at the seed round to, to some extent, like you're doing that on the dream and the future and the promise people who are then raising series a, b, c, etc.

00:55:58.650 --> 00:56:00.449
That's all the mechanics of the business.

00:56:00.460 --> 00:56:01.670
So go bigger on the seed.

00:56:01.679 --> 00:56:05.159
If you have a chance, is that a fair statement?

00:56:05.780 --> 00:56:14.010
I like, if I did this again, it would be to raise enough capital at the beginning that we felt we could give it a good shot, right?

00:56:14.019 --> 00:56:14.940
Give it a real shot.

00:56:15.570 --> 00:56:17.340
Or don't go to the well to start with.

00:56:17.409 --> 00:56:17.730
Yeah.

00:56:18.019 --> 00:56:19.065
So basically just like.

00:56:19.644 --> 00:56:24.465
Like right now, amplify not raise money, extremely low cost business, good dynamics.

00:56:24.485 --> 00:56:31.005
I don't need to raise money, but if I was doing something that needed resources, you've got to go find the resources.

00:56:31.235 --> 00:56:39.065
And so, you know, one of the issues that a lot of entrepreneurs that I know, um, are suffering with right now is they raise money.

00:56:39.715 --> 00:56:43.914
500 K a million dollars, something that sounded interesting and meaningful at the time.

00:56:44.315 --> 00:56:52.445
And now they're like, ah, but you know, I've got a 10 person team and we have customers, we have revenue, but we don't have enough revenue to cover everything.

00:56:52.545 --> 00:57:03.394
And so, you know, they're, and the thing is An investor who gave you money for, you know, back in the day, five, let's say, let's say you raise a million on a 6 million pre or something like that.

00:57:03.675 --> 00:57:13.695
They're like fairly excited about you and they're like, all right, but I understand they're a whole lot less willing if all of a sudden you're down to five people and you might have half a million revenue.

00:57:13.704 --> 00:57:14.210
They're like.

00:57:14.210 --> 00:57:15.789
Uh, right.

00:57:15.840 --> 00:57:16.039
Right.

00:57:16.039 --> 00:57:17.489
Cause these guys are all about swings, right?

00:57:17.500 --> 00:57:19.289
Like they want to see you swing and hitting it.

00:57:19.750 --> 00:57:29.070
And so the other thing that I, you know, when I think back on my journey here is like, I should have thought harder about just shutting it down.

00:57:29.320 --> 00:57:29.800
Really?

00:57:29.840 --> 00:57:30.349
Yes.

00:57:30.610 --> 00:57:33.369
So the business continued and the business is still going now.

00:57:33.619 --> 00:57:33.929
Okay.

00:57:33.989 --> 00:57:35.360
And we pivoted the business.

00:57:35.360 --> 00:57:36.559
We found a thing that worked, et cetera.

00:57:36.570 --> 00:57:42.989
So I'm not saying this as a, as a knock on the business, but I'm saying for me as a CEO, I should have thought more about.

00:57:43.579 --> 00:57:44.960
Do we stick with this or not?

00:57:45.039 --> 00:57:45.429
Wow.

00:57:45.480 --> 00:57:49.690
Because what I realized was the opportunity cost.

00:57:50.340 --> 00:57:56.849
Is real, the sunk cost fallacy is real attribution bias is real, right?

00:57:57.070 --> 00:57:57.800
Attribution biases.

00:57:57.940 --> 00:57:58.809
This is my idea.

00:57:58.809 --> 00:58:00.519
So it must be a good idea, right?

00:58:00.519 --> 00:58:03.059
And sunk cost is I've already been doing this for five years.

00:58:03.059 --> 00:58:04.380
What what's one more year.

00:58:06.269 --> 00:58:09.440
Versus am I excited about the future, which is the opportunity cost.

00:58:09.449 --> 00:58:14.590
So I actually quit the company I founded last summer.

00:58:14.789 --> 00:58:15.360
Oh, wow.

00:58:15.449 --> 00:58:15.949
Yeah.

00:58:16.119 --> 00:58:16.519
Okay.

00:58:16.539 --> 00:58:20.050
So this is the thing is I was, I just got to the point where I was burned out.

00:58:20.614 --> 00:58:23.094
I wasn't being helpful or effective to the business.

00:58:23.094 --> 00:58:26.204
So I was not in service, I was not of service to the business.

00:58:26.664 --> 00:58:31.494
And then I was feeling guilty because I didn't, my head wasn't in it.

00:58:31.925 --> 00:58:34.375
So it made me less effective because I felt guilty.

00:58:35.114 --> 00:58:36.855
And so I was like, what the fuck am I doing?

00:58:37.264 --> 00:58:41.164
Like I'm a bad, I would, I would say I'm being a bad CEO is what I was telling myself, right?

00:58:41.485 --> 00:58:46.224
Because a good CEO would be, you know, focused and hard charging and doing all these things.

00:58:46.224 --> 00:58:48.554
And well, meanwhile, you're passionate about the conscious entrepreneurs.

00:58:48.565 --> 00:58:53.894
Some of it, and I'm just like, and I'm just doing things to like distract me from this, right?

00:58:53.934 --> 00:58:55.434
Instead of what was really going on.

00:58:55.885 --> 00:59:00.094
I'd run my course with the business, the business deserves a new home, a new, new thing, et cetera.

00:59:00.434 --> 00:59:09.454
And it took me a long time to fully separate myself out because I was like, oh, you know, I was, I was like, uh, trapped by this idea.

00:59:10.815 --> 00:59:20.375
Oh, we just need one more X, X, literally one more customer, one more year, one more feature, one more, you know, whatever it is.

00:59:20.454 --> 00:59:20.764
Right.

00:59:21.144 --> 00:59:25.724
And, uh, I would have been bet I would have been better off myself.

00:59:25.724 --> 00:59:26.222
Like.

00:59:27.360 --> 00:59:29.389
Several years earlier saying, Hey, you know what?

00:59:29.599 --> 00:59:30.800
I got it to a certain level.

00:59:30.940 --> 00:59:33.135
I'm, I'm, I'm ready to go on and do something else.

00:59:33.135 --> 00:59:34.469
I'm not as bad as I was.

00:59:34.469 --> 00:59:35.760
And I stuck with it too long.

00:59:35.900 --> 00:59:36.139
Yeah.

00:59:36.400 --> 00:59:39.039
Well, thanks for confessing that that's actually pretty cool.

00:59:39.659 --> 00:59:49.530
Um, oh, and I was just going to mention while I'm thinking about it, that in banking, like people would come to try to borrow, you know, a hundred or 150 grand sometimes for an SBA loan.

00:59:49.530 --> 00:59:52.750
And I was, I was really good at startup financing.

00:59:52.750 --> 00:59:56.489
I could see that combination of talent and perseverance.

00:59:56.489 --> 00:59:56.710
Yeah.

00:59:57.510 --> 01:00:06.840
And gosh, I bet about 20 or 30 percent of the time, and it wasn't because I wanted to make a bigger loan, but borrow a little more than you think you need.

01:00:06.869 --> 01:00:11.710
Like, make that case because you can't really come back to the well with banks either.

01:00:12.079 --> 01:00:12.409
Correct.

01:00:12.440 --> 01:00:19.199
Like, you can get a startup loan, but if you come back for more because it didn't work like you thought it was gonna work, nope, you fool me once.

01:00:19.199 --> 01:00:19.849
It's not a good luck.

01:00:20.079 --> 01:00:20.320
Yeah.

01:00:20.320 --> 01:00:20.760
It's not a good luck.

01:00:20.840 --> 01:00:25.780
And it's probably maybe a tiny more forgiving when you're talking about equity.

01:00:26.164 --> 01:00:27.074
But not that much.

01:00:27.125 --> 01:00:28.945
Well, it's the same kind of game.

01:00:29.144 --> 01:00:36.605
So, so the, the surprising thing about the equity investor, to your point, the surprising thing about the equity investor is that they are willing to let the company go poof.

01:00:37.139 --> 01:00:37.500
Right.

01:00:37.650 --> 01:00:37.920
Right.

01:00:37.920 --> 01:00:39.070
They're just like, Oh, it didn't work out.

01:00:39.070 --> 01:00:39.360
Right.

01:00:39.369 --> 01:00:39.699
Sorry.

01:00:39.699 --> 01:00:40.760
And you're like, well, wait a minute.

01:00:40.949 --> 01:00:42.110
You put in a million dollars.

01:00:42.409 --> 01:00:43.610
And they're like, yeah, whatever.

01:00:43.659 --> 01:00:43.829
Yeah.

01:00:44.019 --> 01:00:45.940
I put a million into a bunch of other things too.

01:00:46.269 --> 01:00:47.800
And I'm going to go put another few million.

01:00:47.800 --> 01:00:49.550
And you're like, but this is my baby.

01:00:49.550 --> 01:00:51.170
Like, and they're just like, I don't care.

01:00:51.179 --> 01:00:51.550
Bye.

01:00:51.630 --> 01:00:51.960
Bye.

01:00:52.369 --> 01:00:52.769
Yeah.

01:00:53.070 --> 01:00:54.659
Banks are always trying to get their money back.

01:00:54.690 --> 01:00:54.940
Right.

01:00:54.940 --> 01:00:55.929
And the investors are just like.

01:00:56.300 --> 01:00:56.659
Yeah.

01:00:57.460 --> 01:01:02.059
Well, part because their, their model is they want a 25 X return on one deal, right?

01:01:02.474 --> 01:01:02.855
Right.

01:01:02.905 --> 01:01:03.264
Yeah.

01:01:03.335 --> 01:01:07.454
Versus the other, the rest of them are just occupying time and space in their brain.

01:01:07.505 --> 01:01:07.704
Yeah.

01:01:07.704 --> 01:01:08.034
Yeah.

01:01:08.085 --> 01:01:08.235
Yeah.

01:01:08.235 --> 01:01:08.625
Understood.

01:01:08.974 --> 01:01:10.264
Um, well, we're gonna take a break.

01:01:10.405 --> 01:01:10.614
Okay.

01:01:10.735 --> 01:01:11.655
And we'll come right back.

01:02:01.094 --> 01:02:02.594
And we are back.

01:02:03.014 --> 01:02:07.885
Um, so now is when we traditionally come into our faith, family, and politics segments.

01:02:08.414 --> 01:02:11.925
Um, Well, do you have a preference on where we start in that?

01:02:11.985 --> 01:02:13.034
Lester, go ahead.

01:02:13.155 --> 01:02:17.414
Um, I feel like we should talk about family more'cause we kind of met your wife along the journey here.

01:02:17.445 --> 01:02:19.065
Um, do you guys have children?

01:02:19.304 --> 01:02:20.324
Uh, we don't have children.

01:02:20.355 --> 01:02:20.684
Okay.

01:02:20.894 --> 01:02:27.315
Even though that social pressure in your early 30 or 30 ish was there to like start making some smart babies and stuff.

01:02:27.465 --> 01:02:28.125
It, it was all there.

01:02:28.125 --> 01:02:31.094
We, we couldn't, we, we tried, uh, IVF we tried.

01:02:31.094 --> 01:02:31.574
Uh oh.

01:02:31.574 --> 01:02:32.389
So you did full boat?

01:02:32.505 --> 01:02:32.894
Oh, we did.

01:02:32.894 --> 01:02:33.465
We did everything.

01:02:33.465 --> 01:02:34.335
But, uh, it didn't happen.

01:02:34.635 --> 01:02:35.534
My wife and I don't.

01:02:35.800 --> 01:02:37.429
Also don't have any children.

01:02:37.429 --> 01:02:40.059
And, uh, but we've hosted a bunch of exchange students.

01:02:40.599 --> 01:02:49.389
Um, and so if you're looking for something to have periods of adulting in your life, I highly recommend like a, we're, we're finishing up our first one year exchange right now.

01:02:49.579 --> 01:02:49.900
Wow.

01:02:49.909 --> 01:02:50.730
The whole school year.

01:02:50.760 --> 01:02:51.179
Wow.

01:02:51.510 --> 01:02:53.010
I'd recommend the semester exchange.

01:02:54.619 --> 01:02:55.309
Start smaller.

01:02:55.380 --> 01:02:58.170
Like, yeah, at least start smaller before you go big.

01:02:58.170 --> 01:02:58.989
And even now I'm like.

01:02:59.630 --> 01:03:00.760
You know, Lenny's awesome.

01:03:00.780 --> 01:03:17.110
Lenny from Finland is staying with us, but like, I'm kind of tired of putting my robe on when I want to go from the shower to my bedroom, um, and there's just things like that, that, well, I mean, you know, we, so, so we have a very, uh, Laura and I have a very quiet life compared to all of our friends with kids.

01:03:17.139 --> 01:03:17.500
Right.

01:03:17.579 --> 01:03:19.730
And so occasionally there's slaves to their children.

01:03:19.880 --> 01:03:38.550
Well, we, you know, and we, we, we have a lot of friends that have kids and, and when we, when we hang out with them, uh, I mean, there's times when we're just like, holy shit, like how do people with children get Anything done ever, like our needs, like my, my niece, our goddaughter was over with, with Laura's brother and his, his wife in January.

01:03:38.869 --> 01:03:41.679
And it's just like total chaos all the time.

01:03:41.929 --> 01:03:44.500
And like the success of the day is like having lunch.

01:03:45.440 --> 01:03:56.639
Well, and I think there's one thing that's interesting about that is I think that people with children actually get like an extra switch flipped where they can actually work a little harder and they have a little bit more.

01:03:56.750 --> 01:03:59.559
Purposeful intention to their days.

01:04:00.059 --> 01:04:12.360
And, you know, probably to some extent they don't, this is going to sound weird, but they don't need the conscious entrepreneurs summit as much because they know that they're working to like raise their kids and provide for their family and the purpose.

01:04:12.380 --> 01:04:12.719
Yeah.

01:04:13.219 --> 01:04:17.980
Uh, if, as long as you got that, you can kind of pedal hard even without really knowing where you're trying to go.

01:04:18.019 --> 01:04:18.329
Right.

01:04:18.530 --> 01:04:22.315
So, uh, talk to me about, um, Your wife a little bit more.

01:04:22.364 --> 01:04:27.905
Um, was she born and raised in Europe also, or like, what was her circumstance in a, as a person?

01:04:27.974 --> 01:04:28.284
Sure.

01:04:28.315 --> 01:04:31.855
So, so, uh, Laura's from Guadalajara.

01:04:31.914 --> 01:04:35.295
Well, she's, she was born in Mexico city and she grew up in Guadalajara.

01:04:35.355 --> 01:04:35.605
All right.

01:04:35.664 --> 01:04:38.965
Uh, so she's a full, full on Mexico.

01:04:38.965 --> 01:04:40.894
She, both of her parents have passed away.

01:04:40.894 --> 01:04:42.260
Uh, but she has a.

01:04:43.130 --> 01:04:46.190
Big family, Mexico, great people that live all over the country actually.

01:04:46.190 --> 01:04:46.369
Yeah.

01:04:46.809 --> 01:04:50.829
Uh, and so we go down there and see them, see them a lot.

01:04:50.920 --> 01:04:51.099
Yeah.

01:04:51.130 --> 01:04:59.119
Uh, and you know, it's funny, she, her, her, you're like the tall white guy that comes to some of the Well, so some, sometimes, yeah.

01:04:59.119 --> 01:04:59.121
Yeah.

01:04:59.184 --> 01:05:02.750
In co comparison to some, some of her friends call me, um, Blanco.

01:05:02.750 --> 01:05:10.250
So uh, you know, yes, I'm a lot, I'm a lot fairer skinned and I burn a lot easier than, uh, than a lot of her friends.

01:05:10.610 --> 01:05:12.619
Um, but, uh.

01:05:13.030 --> 01:05:17.250
You know, she, she has this very adventurous part of her.

01:05:17.500 --> 01:05:28.690
And so when it, when we got married, when, when, when we, when we got engaged and all this stuff, like, um, there wasn't, there wasn't this sense of like, Oh, you're leaving.

01:05:29.079 --> 01:05:29.389
Right.

01:05:29.389 --> 01:05:30.730
Like, Oh, stay in Mexico.

01:05:30.730 --> 01:05:33.425
It was much more of the sense of like, we always knew you were going to.

01:05:33.425 --> 01:05:37.954
Go travel and go find someone over internationally and stuff like that.

01:05:37.954 --> 01:05:44.255
So, uh, that wasn't such a great big shock for her family that she was marrying a foreigner, marrying a gringo.

01:05:44.585 --> 01:05:53.405
Uh, and, uh, so that that's allowed us to have a life living in lots of places because after we got married, we lived in Hong Kong and then we lived in Beijing and now we live in Boulder.

01:05:53.405 --> 01:05:57.614
So it's had a, uh, it's been great for, for us to like have that shared.

01:05:57.860 --> 01:05:58.679
Desire, if you will.

01:05:58.690 --> 01:05:58.989
Sure.

01:05:59.070 --> 01:05:59.349
Sure.

01:05:59.610 --> 01:06:03.550
And are your, your parents were in Boulder before you were, are they still with you guys?

01:06:03.630 --> 01:06:06.130
Yeah, my, yeah, my, my parents, my parents are still alive.

01:06:06.420 --> 01:06:11.280
Uh, my mom moved into a memories care center in Boulder in, in August.

01:06:11.280 --> 01:06:15.559
So she has Alzheimer's and so she needs full time care and attention.

01:06:15.889 --> 01:06:24.659
My dad has been looking after her as, as the caretaker for, for two or three years, which is huge, huge amount of work, uh, really ton of, ton of work.

01:06:24.670 --> 01:06:26.429
It's been wearing him down.

01:06:26.550 --> 01:06:32.925
Of course it was, Pretty tough decision to, you know, they've been married for 55 years, everything you can to keep that from happening.

01:06:32.925 --> 01:06:33.394
Correct.

01:06:33.644 --> 01:06:34.135
Correct.

01:06:34.135 --> 01:06:34.434
You do.

01:06:34.434 --> 01:06:39.005
But you know, in, in, in August, it was like, Hey, you know, we, we really need to do this.

01:06:39.355 --> 01:06:40.264
Uh, we did it.

01:06:41.125 --> 01:06:45.175
The good thing is that the Senate that she's in is super close to my house actually.

01:06:45.175 --> 01:06:47.224
So like, so we're able to see her a lot.

01:06:47.545 --> 01:06:50.375
Uh, you know, she's on a journey.

01:06:50.414 --> 01:06:50.945
She's fading.

01:06:51.014 --> 01:06:52.284
She's on, she's on a journey.

01:06:52.284 --> 01:06:54.664
And, and unfortunately this is just, it's a one way road.

01:06:54.664 --> 01:06:56.275
My, my, my dad's mom had, yeah.

01:06:56.445 --> 01:07:12.644
Dementia, Alzheimer's and, you know, it took, gosh, for her, it was like seven years, probably, that she was institutionalized with, you know, just struggles to live on her own kind of capability and, uh, yeah, it's, I don't know.

01:07:12.974 --> 01:07:15.144
Um, it's an interesting thing.

01:07:15.155 --> 01:07:18.155
Like it's, uh, I don't know how to think about this right.

01:07:18.945 --> 01:07:22.394
Like sub comedian said recently, you know, um.

01:07:23.025 --> 01:07:30.565
You know, a lot of, uh, Down syndrome babies are aborted and stuff like that, and the hospital will be like, Hey, you should do this if they figure it out.

01:07:31.155 --> 01:07:33.994
But Down's people are like the happiest people he's ever known.

01:07:34.744 --> 01:07:52.150
Um, and I've kind of applied that in some respects almost to the Alzheimer's dementia kind of quadrant that Except for those times of extreme frustration, you know, especially early on, like to some extent, they're kind of chilling, you know, some, some of them, some of them, that's not what's happening.

01:07:52.800 --> 01:07:53.570
No, it's not.

01:07:53.630 --> 01:08:19.095
Uh, you know, the, the way that this seems to be affecting her is, um, it's primarily hitting, uh, like her visual perception and her visual analysis and therefore how she, She experiences the world, um, confusion all the time, inability to recognize ordinary objects in front of her, doesn't, not sure what, you know, how to, how to put, you know, the clothing, all that sort of stuff.

01:08:19.175 --> 01:08:19.975
Very difficult.

01:08:20.335 --> 01:08:24.734
She could be looking at two very different objects and have no idea what they are.

01:08:25.135 --> 01:08:26.364
Um, you know, type of thing.

01:08:26.435 --> 01:08:28.784
So it's, it's really, and we don't.

01:08:29.340 --> 01:08:33.300
You know, there's a lot that people don't know about this, and so we don't know what's exactly going on.

01:08:33.329 --> 01:08:39.270
We don't know how to, how to truly help, uh, and so it's like really tough to see this, yeah.

01:08:39.319 --> 01:08:45.039
Well, I'll, uh, maybe be blessed with strength and, uh, perseverance as this goes.

01:08:45.119 --> 01:08:45.489
Thank you.

01:08:45.500 --> 01:08:47.729
And be blessed by whatever service you can provide.

01:08:48.350 --> 01:08:50.170
Um, you guys have schnauzers.

01:08:50.329 --> 01:08:50.710
Yeah.

01:08:50.779 --> 01:08:52.340
Or you had one, now you have another one.

01:08:52.340 --> 01:08:52.609
Yeah.

01:08:52.840 --> 01:08:55.630
Um, so Well, actually, actually, I'll tell you a story.

01:08:55.680 --> 01:08:56.020
Okay.

01:08:56.130 --> 01:08:58.029
So, we had another one.

01:08:58.819 --> 01:09:04.739
Uh We, when, when, when Jackie died, uh, it was devastating.

01:09:04.750 --> 01:09:08.550
Like putting my dog down was just like the worst.

01:09:09.210 --> 01:09:13.590
Uh, and then we finally came around to, okay, we want to get another, we want to get another dog.

01:09:14.000 --> 01:09:16.300
Uh, and right around that time, I read this.

01:09:16.800 --> 01:09:21.189
This great book called Tribe, I think the author is Sebastian Junger.

01:09:21.229 --> 01:09:21.569
Yeah.

01:09:21.819 --> 01:09:22.619
Does that sound familiar?

01:09:22.619 --> 01:09:23.869
I've seen the title, but I haven't read it.

01:09:23.869 --> 01:09:28.439
Okay, so it's a great book and it's about how we all need connection in our lives and how we're all better together and so on.

01:09:28.600 --> 01:09:33.020
So I'm reading this book and I'm like, oh, we don't need one puppy, we need two puppies.

01:09:33.039 --> 01:09:33.579
Okay.

01:09:33.609 --> 01:09:39.364
So that they can keep each other company and they can Each other tribe, it's gonna, they're gonna be each other's friends and they'll all be together.

01:09:39.845 --> 01:09:42.515
Uh, and so my wife's like, are you sure about this?

01:09:42.515 --> 01:09:43.564
And I'm like, yeah, I just read it.

01:09:43.654 --> 01:09:45.215
I read a book, but yeah, let's do it.

01:09:45.574 --> 01:09:48.965
Um, and so we got our, we got our dog in, in Mexico.

01:09:49.534 --> 01:09:49.774
Okay.

01:09:49.835 --> 01:10:01.114
Uh,'cause it's, because, you know, it's, they're in the town where Lara's aunts live and it's very easy and whatever sch now SNS are expensive in the, the US SN are like$200 in Mexico, right?

01:10:01.114 --> 01:10:01.805
So we.

01:10:02.375 --> 01:10:12.095
So we, like, you know, FaceTime with the guy or video, you know, we had the, we know the dogs we're getting and we had the one and we told him in advance before she was born, don't dock the tail.

01:10:13.064 --> 01:10:14.375
So Dash has a long tail.

01:10:14.375 --> 01:10:15.824
So we're like, don't dock the tail.

01:10:16.045 --> 01:10:18.875
We don't want to be, we want our dog to be intact.

01:10:19.255 --> 01:10:21.095
Like we, poor thing, like her tail's cut off.

01:10:21.095 --> 01:10:22.034
So we're like, don't dock the tail.

01:10:22.475 --> 01:10:23.654
And then we're like, Oh shit.

01:10:23.664 --> 01:10:24.534
We don't want a second dog.

01:10:24.545 --> 01:10:25.395
Go find a second dog.

01:10:25.604 --> 01:10:28.045
And he's like, well, we, we've got one, but the tail's already docked.

01:10:28.125 --> 01:10:29.524
And we're like, okay, we'll keep those two dogs.

01:10:30.814 --> 01:10:31.324
We'll do that.

01:10:31.635 --> 01:10:35.515
And so, uh, one night I was, I was drifting off to sleep.

01:10:35.515 --> 01:10:40.225
I was literally like just about to get sleep and I jump up and I look at my wife and I go.

01:10:40.914 --> 01:10:50.734
Dot and dash, like that's the name of the dogs dot for the one that doesn't have a tail and dash for the one that does, that's what we're going to call them.

01:10:51.164 --> 01:10:54.595
And then I went back to sleep and then, and then, but I had the names, the names just appeared.

01:10:54.895 --> 01:10:55.164
Right.

01:10:55.194 --> 01:10:56.045
And it was like, perfect.

01:10:56.395 --> 01:11:01.404
So we go down, we go down to Mexico one time when we're visiting her family and it's Christmas time, we're picking up the dogs.

01:11:02.085 --> 01:11:12.135
And we go to the, we go to the, the breeder thing and we get the dogs, we bring them back to the States and literally all hell breaks loose once we have two dogs in the house.

01:11:12.864 --> 01:11:19.795
Like they are just chasing each other and barking and fighting and they'll pay, they won't pay any attention to the humans.

01:11:19.895 --> 01:11:20.805
Yeah, you're not the boss.

01:11:20.875 --> 01:11:24.774
And they're, they're like just trying to establish dominance over the other.

01:11:25.039 --> 01:11:26.550
And they won't, you know, they're not eating.

01:11:26.550 --> 01:11:31.909
And we, we had to split them up to take them to the humane society for the training sessions and all this sort of stuff.

01:11:31.960 --> 01:11:34.310
And, but it's like, they're squabbling on it.

01:11:34.329 --> 01:11:35.439
And so Laura and I were just like.

01:11:35.779 --> 01:11:37.039
What did we do?

01:11:37.310 --> 01:11:38.729
Like, this is so much work.

01:11:38.729 --> 01:11:40.670
This is exponentially different.

01:11:40.670 --> 01:11:42.399
This is not two times having a puppy.

01:11:42.399 --> 01:11:44.579
This is like 25 times having a puppy.

01:11:44.800 --> 01:11:45.569
What did we do?

01:11:45.569 --> 01:11:46.489
Why is this so much work?

01:11:46.489 --> 01:11:47.470
Why is this so difficult?

01:11:47.989 --> 01:11:55.859
And as soon as we do that, I start Googling and literally every single page is like, don't get two puppies at the same time.

01:11:55.930 --> 01:11:57.579
Don't get two, never get two puppies.

01:11:57.930 --> 01:11:59.970
If there's one piece of life advice, it's never get two puppies.

01:12:00.020 --> 01:12:00.829
And I was like, uh oh.

01:12:01.319 --> 01:12:07.335
Uh, so I guess I made a mistake here because they're, cause they say the dogs, they won't pay attention to you.

01:12:07.345 --> 01:12:08.204
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:12:08.204 --> 01:12:09.305
They want not to do, and, and.

01:12:09.305 --> 01:12:13.954
They're competing for like dominance instead of just acknowledging you as the boss man.

01:12:14.034 --> 01:12:15.045
So therefore.

01:12:15.074 --> 01:12:16.255
So, can I interject actually?

01:12:16.755 --> 01:12:19.484
Cause the first thought that came into my mind when you said that is.

01:12:19.880 --> 01:12:22.390
An old truism, I guess, from my father.

01:12:22.829 --> 01:12:34.390
Um, and it was, gosh, I was probably a teenager in high school, he's like, or maybe I was already in college even, he's like, son, you know, a dog is a good thing to have, you know, a man should have a dog, it's a good, good thing, but.

01:12:34.659 --> 01:12:36.699
No dogs is way better than two dogs.

01:12:37.810 --> 01:12:38.220
Uh, yeah.

01:12:38.479 --> 01:12:40.140
And that was all he ever said about it.

01:12:40.170 --> 01:12:41.220
Your dad was right about that.

01:12:41.520 --> 01:12:42.439
Your dad was right about that.

01:12:42.439 --> 01:12:46.609
So what, what I learned, uh, a little bit too late was that you, it's okay to have two dogs.

01:12:46.609 --> 01:12:48.340
If you want your dog to have a friend, that's okay.

01:12:48.560 --> 01:12:51.840
But wait until one dog is like a year or two old and then get a puppy.

01:12:51.880 --> 01:12:52.319
Yeah, yeah.

01:12:52.319 --> 01:12:52.609
Right?

01:12:52.640 --> 01:12:53.409
Or whatever.

01:12:53.409 --> 01:12:55.069
But when there are two puppies, it's a disaster.

01:12:55.079 --> 01:12:55.359
So.

01:12:55.670 --> 01:12:56.180
It's a nightmare.

01:12:56.199 --> 01:13:02.760
Now on the topic of family, Laura and I are very blessed.

01:13:02.810 --> 01:13:04.529
We have a very peaceful life.

01:13:04.560 --> 01:13:05.720
We have a great marriage.

01:13:05.750 --> 01:13:07.359
We love and respect each other.

01:13:07.369 --> 01:13:08.659
We're committed to one another.

01:13:08.939 --> 01:13:09.850
We've had a great time.

01:13:10.760 --> 01:13:17.489
The closest we have ever gotten to divorce was when I sold the second dog.

01:13:17.609 --> 01:13:18.340
Oh, no shit.

01:13:18.430 --> 01:13:18.720
Yes.

01:13:18.729 --> 01:13:20.310
So you were like, I'm, I'm taking care of business.

01:13:20.310 --> 01:13:26.939
We're like, I put the dog on Craig's list and, and, and, and, uh, made a nice tidy margin.

01:13:26.939 --> 01:13:28.380
Cause it's a snazzer after all.

01:13:28.710 --> 01:13:31.590
So the funny, the funny thing is we had these two dogs.

01:13:32.220 --> 01:13:45.449
We had the one dog, Dot, who was like, jet black, beautiful, very good behavior, smart dog, connected to humans, total doll, like, textbook beautiful dog.

01:13:45.479 --> 01:13:45.760
Yeah.

01:13:45.819 --> 01:13:52.710
And then we had the other one, which is the one we kept, which is like, goofy, not as pretty, she's kind of like the, she's kind of like, I don't know.

01:13:52.720 --> 01:13:53.180
Monocode.

01:13:53.229 --> 01:13:54.250
Yeah, she's just like.

01:13:54.590 --> 01:13:58.350
Anyway, she's not, doesn't look, she's cute in her own way, but like, she's different.

01:13:58.460 --> 01:13:59.750
She's definitely not that smart either.

01:14:00.079 --> 01:14:02.979
But that's the one we decided to keep, and I sold the other one.

01:14:03.279 --> 01:14:03.750
Okay.

01:14:03.810 --> 01:14:12.260
And, you know, basically the family just came over, and Laura was like, Oh, we need to think about it, this, that, and the other, and I was like, Here's the dog, think about it.

01:14:12.819 --> 01:14:14.649
And, whew, boy.

01:14:14.649 --> 01:14:15.890
Uh.

01:14:16.819 --> 01:14:19.819
So I felt like I was just solving a problem, right?

01:14:19.869 --> 01:14:27.380
And I was actually creating a gigantic problem and I was breaking trust with my wife and it caused, you guys talked with your counselor about that.

01:14:27.569 --> 01:14:35.689
It caused tremendous upset for her because that was her baby for a week, for a week or two.

01:14:35.770 --> 01:14:40.739
So that was, that was a big problem and I was reminded of it many times, rightfully so.

01:14:41.060 --> 01:14:42.510
Uh, and.

01:14:43.210 --> 01:14:49.329
Anyway, so yeah, so, so the moral of the story is Good job, Laura, for allowing him that indiscretion.

01:14:49.470 --> 01:14:53.560
Yeah, we, we survived, we survived, uh, it wasn't easy.

01:14:53.770 --> 01:15:01.479
By the way, like, not having the one dog was also not very pleasant, but, you know, like, giving away the dog was, was great, but way better to just have one than, than two.

01:15:01.560 --> 01:15:01.989
Yeah, yeah.

01:15:02.039 --> 01:15:02.250
Yeah.

01:15:02.289 --> 01:15:03.529
Well, you can go steal that dog back sometime.

01:15:03.529 --> 01:15:04.310
Yeah, moral of the story.

01:15:04.310 --> 01:15:06.909
It moved, it moved to, uh, Colorado Springs.

01:15:07.185 --> 01:15:16.494
Yeah, you can go down there for a weekend sometime and kind of scope out the spotting scope, you know, and see if Dash is, uh, ready to be adopted.

01:15:16.914 --> 01:15:20.395
Um, faith or politics would you like to venture into?

01:15:20.645 --> 01:15:22.375
Uh, I mean, I could talk about either.

01:15:22.375 --> 01:15:26.494
My, my politics, uh, I told you I went to college at Georgetown.

01:15:26.710 --> 01:15:27.109
Yeah.

01:15:27.390 --> 01:15:32.140
Uh, Washington DC is a school of foreign service, cultural thing going on right now.

01:15:32.140 --> 01:15:32.699
I imagine.

01:15:32.760 --> 01:15:37.770
Oh, I'm, I'm sure a lot of mayhem going on people's thoughts right now.

01:15:37.949 --> 01:15:38.739
Yeah.

01:15:39.109 --> 01:15:39.460
Yeah.

01:15:39.460 --> 01:15:47.869
So, so, so Georgetown is a school that has produced a lot of people in government and produced a lot of politicians, uh, and produced a president bill Clinton.

01:15:47.939 --> 01:15:48.250
Sure.

01:15:48.409 --> 01:15:54.055
So, uh, I was big, I am big fan of bill Clinton when I was, when I just went to school that when I was, yeah.

01:15:54.295 --> 01:15:58.614
Basically, uh, I started in 94, so he was, he'd been president for two years.

01:15:59.074 --> 01:16:02.005
So it was cool because he would like come back to the alma mater and like give speeches.

01:16:02.015 --> 01:16:02.774
Like, really cool.

01:16:03.145 --> 01:16:06.625
Uh, so, my politics are, are, are liberal.

01:16:07.055 --> 01:16:12.095
Uh, fan of, fan of Bill, Bill, fan of Bill Clinton, Obama.

01:16:12.125 --> 01:16:15.534
Well, Bill Clinton would be conservative in today's world.

01:16:15.635 --> 01:16:16.734
A lot of respects, though.

01:16:16.755 --> 01:16:20.585
Yeah, I mean Um, although the world has changed, not necessarily the rankings, right?

01:16:20.635 --> 01:16:20.965
The U.

01:16:20.965 --> 01:16:21.125
S.

01:16:21.125 --> 01:16:22.734
is always skewed to the right.

01:16:22.744 --> 01:16:24.895
So even the people that we consider liberal in the U.

01:16:24.895 --> 01:16:25.185
S.

01:16:25.255 --> 01:16:27.564
typically would be centrist in Europe, for example.

01:16:27.564 --> 01:16:28.364
Yeah, for sure.

01:16:28.654 --> 01:16:28.994
Yeah.

01:16:29.305 --> 01:16:36.675
And, uh, but, you know, big fan of, big fan of, uh, Bill Clinton, I worked on his re election campaign in 1996.

01:16:36.675 --> 01:16:40.005
So I was like, you know, student volunteer on his re election campaign in 96.

01:16:40.414 --> 01:16:42.145
Uh, and, and that was fun.

01:16:42.164 --> 01:16:45.645
And I had a chance to shake his hand a couple of times at events and whatever.

01:16:46.654 --> 01:16:50.350
Um, What do you think about the current events in politics?

01:16:51.010 --> 01:17:03.680
Um, I'm guessing that the general, like Lerner County, like in the last election, what, like 67 percent for Paris, which is one of the few counties that actually increased from the Biden.

01:17:03.699 --> 01:17:05.479
We were like 88 or something like that.

01:17:05.640 --> 01:17:07.340
So I would imagine that there's a lot of.

01:17:08.159 --> 01:17:18.119
Nashing of teeth and consternation culturally going on right now and Boulder is probably more heavily funded from federal Grants than Fort Collins, which is pretty heavily funded, too.

01:17:18.220 --> 01:17:30.539
Mm hmm Have you gotten in those conversations or no, I don't really have much insight into the into the funding mechanisms I know that like people in Boulder were pretty fucking pissed off, right?

01:17:30.579 --> 01:17:42.744
And it hasn't gotten a lot better since November and You know, and, and, and as it relates to Trump, uh, he is doing what he said he was going to do.

01:17:43.085 --> 01:17:46.284
And so I see a lot of videos on X.

01:17:46.515 --> 01:17:46.784
com.

01:17:46.784 --> 01:17:47.114
Yeah.

01:17:47.154 --> 01:17:55.864
Say that, you know, so the, the, the, the reminders are that elections have consequences and to the victor belong the spoils.

01:17:55.864 --> 01:17:57.335
And.

01:17:57.814 --> 01:18:19.765
He is our vehicle of reminding of us of that right now, you know, like he said he was what he was gonna do He's doing it and we shouldn't all be acting surprised about what's what's going on You know, I don't agree with essentially any of what's happening and I wish I wish it was the outcome had been different I wish Kamala Harris were our president.

01:18:19.765 --> 01:18:34.095
I wish there was some Democrat or whatever but you know the world that we live in is such that We have this scorched earth, winner takes all politics and I don't think it's setting us up for future success at all.

01:18:34.095 --> 01:18:36.064
So that makes me, makes me very uncertain.

01:18:36.064 --> 01:18:40.244
And we have a lot of friends who are like, why are we still here?

01:18:40.244 --> 01:18:40.795
Why bother?

01:18:40.805 --> 01:18:41.784
Why stay in the States?

01:18:42.635 --> 01:18:43.034
Interesting.

01:18:43.444 --> 01:18:50.845
Um, like a lot of what's getting the headlines is just cutting of unnecessary spending stuff.

01:18:50.904 --> 01:18:51.164
Yeah.

01:18:51.524 --> 01:18:53.345
Do you agree with some of that?

01:18:53.375 --> 01:18:55.295
Just not the fashion by which it's done?

01:18:55.305 --> 01:19:00.045
Or when I, as a banker, you know, 15 years of banker, when I look at.

01:19:00.435 --> 01:19:05.715
our like debt profile as a company, the United States of America.

01:19:05.715 --> 01:19:12.545
I look at that, you know, 30, whatever trillion kind of thing and look, if we don't turn this around, it's not going to work.

01:19:12.585 --> 01:19:16.215
And so, and I, I, I voted for Trump for my first time, actually.

01:19:16.215 --> 01:19:29.675
I voted for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian and Kanye West because I thought it was a protest vote last time, but I didn't like the way the Democrats handle the primary and I didn't like Kamala as a, as a candidate.

01:19:29.875 --> 01:19:31.729
I thought she was Terrible.

01:19:31.789 --> 01:19:32.069
Okay.

01:19:32.199 --> 01:19:35.739
Um, and unelected, you know, and unprimaried.

01:19:36.109 --> 01:19:57.140
Um, and so for the very first time I voted for Trump and I'm kind of like in this mix of nervous, but also as a, as a more libertarian leaning kind of guy from a, from a fiscal perspective, I'm like, well, somebody had to stop going 2 trillion more a year into debt eventually.

01:19:57.569 --> 01:20:02.050
So, um, and so there's part of me that's cautiously optimistic.

01:20:02.625 --> 01:20:06.215
about some of the spending uncoverings, we'll say.

01:20:07.104 --> 01:20:13.645
I don't, I don't, I don't know the full detail on all the numbers, but I do know that Republicans.

01:20:14.015 --> 01:20:19.925
Republican administrations tend to talk a great game, and then Well, and Trump was terrible last time.

01:20:19.925 --> 01:20:21.619
Like, he blew that up worse.

01:20:21.619 --> 01:20:23.314
By the way, so was Bush.

01:20:23.314 --> 01:20:25.291
Right, so who did all the tarp?

01:20:25.291 --> 01:20:27.635
Well, because of wars, you know, mostly.

01:20:28.005 --> 01:20:28.944
Well, who started the war?

01:20:29.914 --> 01:20:33.114
Well, and Trump's the first anti war Republican in a long time.

01:20:33.145 --> 01:20:35.475
Which, I don't think there's anything wrong with being anti war.

01:20:35.854 --> 01:20:46.350
Uh, the, but the thing that I do know is The messaging on the debt is one thing, the actions on the debt are something completely different.

01:20:46.380 --> 01:20:46.699
Right.

01:20:46.949 --> 01:20:51.805
And it's, it's funny because The, it's like one of these big immovable blocks.

01:20:52.085 --> 01:21:02.685
Republicans are better at spending and taxation and so on, but as far as I'm aware, at least, and I'm not a professional at this, as far as I'm aware, it's not true in the slightest.

01:21:02.704 --> 01:21:09.104
Like, the only president, or the last one to have anything close to a balanced budget or a surplus was Bill Clinton.

01:21:09.104 --> 01:21:09.984
Yeah, yeah.

01:21:09.984 --> 01:21:10.375
Totally.

01:21:10.935 --> 01:21:16.435
Well, and that's And he was the last person to talk about reducing the size of government in any capacity.

01:21:16.435 --> 01:21:20.994
They had, they had that very, very famous thing with Al Gore and they're doing this whole government efficiency thing.

01:21:21.284 --> 01:21:29.555
So I, I don't think that this is a trade off between should government be efficiently run and effective or should it be bloated and wasteful and stupid.

01:21:29.694 --> 01:21:29.875
Right.

01:21:29.885 --> 01:21:30.864
Like, yes, of course.

01:21:31.354 --> 01:21:38.390
And at the same time, uh, I, I understand the method that That Elon Musk is going through.

01:21:38.390 --> 01:21:42.220
Like, I understand his, I understand how he operates, right?

01:21:42.590 --> 01:21:49.649
Super engineers it, cuts all the way down to the bone, and then add back what we need to, but see what we can survive without, etc.

01:21:49.949 --> 01:21:50.489
Okay, great.

01:21:51.069 --> 01:21:55.585
Uh, I think there's So is it fair to say you're kind of cautiously optimistic as well?

01:21:56.975 --> 01:21:57.704
In that regard?

01:21:57.935 --> 01:21:58.305
No.

01:21:58.524 --> 01:21:58.704
No.

01:21:58.704 --> 01:21:59.145
Here's why.

01:21:59.185 --> 01:21:59.465
Okay.

01:21:59.965 --> 01:22:04.234
Uh, I don't think this is about government efficiency.

01:22:04.515 --> 01:22:07.045
I think this is about bludgeoning the things that they don't like.

01:22:07.085 --> 01:22:07.484
Hmm.

01:22:07.564 --> 01:22:07.864
Yeah.

01:22:08.175 --> 01:22:10.494
And it's, I mean, there's a difference.

01:22:10.564 --> 01:22:10.774
Yeah, for sure.

01:22:10.774 --> 01:22:15.904
There's like an objective thing that said, you know what, we need to take the government down by X billions of dollars.

01:22:16.074 --> 01:22:19.795
So let's do a review and see what's out there and see what we want to keep and what we don't want to keep.

01:22:19.885 --> 01:22:20.404
Okay, fine.

01:22:20.824 --> 01:22:21.914
If instead, it's.

01:22:22.260 --> 01:22:34.869
We're going to go after these things that have cultural significance, or that have some sort of, you know, meaning to us, or that, right, kind of some sort of built in issues, we're going to go for them, and then we're going to basically throw a bomb into their office, eh.

01:22:35.130 --> 01:22:52.795
Now if you see, um, which, I would not be shocked to see this administration, like, announce a big Investment into the inner cities of America, um, in part as a big middle finger to the, the, the leaders of those inner cities, right?

01:22:52.795 --> 01:22:57.805
The, the, the Chicago's, the Boston's, the Detroit's, the New York's, whatever.

01:22:58.984 --> 01:23:07.805
And I think that that would be an amazing thing because we've let our inner cities be rotten for way too long in terms of socioeconomic opportunity.

01:23:09.314 --> 01:23:16.414
Like, is that something that you think the more liberal caucus would support?

01:23:17.220 --> 01:23:21.380
Or would they not like it because Donald Trump said to do it and so therefore we hate it?

01:23:22.199 --> 01:23:28.029
Like, that's one of my concerns about, not just that policy in particular, but that's one that I can imagine that you would resonate with.

01:23:28.060 --> 01:23:28.359
Sure.

01:23:28.430 --> 01:23:32.699
And that I think Trump would resonate with, because he loves the black vote, he loves the Latino vote, you know?

01:23:32.770 --> 01:23:34.079
He's a populist.

01:23:34.500 --> 01:23:35.369
That's how they do it.

01:23:35.710 --> 01:23:37.600
Uh, he claims to be a populist.

01:23:37.600 --> 01:23:43.579
And the I think the, the, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, right?

01:23:43.579 --> 01:23:46.680
So, so it depends on what's going to happen.

01:23:46.680 --> 01:23:48.899
And it depends on what these guys are doing, what the outcomes are.

01:23:48.909 --> 01:23:49.250
Yeah.

01:23:49.250 --> 01:23:50.250
Like it, it all depends.

01:23:50.670 --> 01:23:56.399
Um, if let me put it this way, if I felt like I didn't agree with this guy.

01:23:56.854 --> 01:24:06.465
I didn't vote for him, but he's clearly working in the interest of solving big, complicated problems for the benefit of the entire country, if not the entire world.

01:24:06.814 --> 01:24:09.305
And we're all going to put our heads together and see what the outcomes are.

01:24:09.534 --> 01:24:13.335
Maybe he has a different approach or wants to run different experiments than I might want.

01:24:13.555 --> 01:24:15.074
Then I'd be like, okay, I get that.

01:24:16.305 --> 01:24:17.545
But that's not how I feel.

01:24:18.064 --> 01:24:32.465
How I feel is Uh, this is a lunatic with a vendetta who has brought his own set of people in, uh, and are bullying the entire country and basically like a mindfuck on the entire country.

01:24:33.250 --> 01:24:38.399
Which makes me less receptive to what everybody else might be out there.

01:24:38.439 --> 01:24:47.819
Well, I like to say, uh, you know, ask me to do something nicely and I'm probably on board, but tell me and I'm raising both of these, you know?

01:24:47.819 --> 01:24:59.479
And so that perception, like to me, that first scenario you described of doing interesting things to try to modernize and efficiencize the government, that's me.

01:24:59.805 --> 01:25:08.824
Been my heart tone so far, although very much a skeptic, um, and I can see how you could think what you think, if that makes sense.

01:25:09.385 --> 01:25:13.814
Um, we haven't touched on faith yet, uh, not properly anyway.

01:25:13.975 --> 01:25:14.274
Okay.

01:25:57.631 --> 01:26:10.690
tell me about your, your faith background and your wife for that matter, because I think that's interesting when you're talking about international communities and growing up in Switzerland, which is historically, like, is Switzerland still a Christian nation?

01:26:10.820 --> 01:26:16.172
Well, uh, uh, Geneva is, I don't know if it's the birthplace, but certainly the home of John Calvin.

01:26:16.172 --> 01:26:17.529
Okay, so Calvinism.

01:26:17.530 --> 01:26:18.490
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:26:18.530 --> 01:26:20.341
So very serious people, the Swiss.

01:26:21.600 --> 01:26:25.831
But, uh, not, not, that has not necessarily Is Calvinism kind of the predestination kind of thing?

01:26:26.110 --> 01:26:31.560
Uh, it's the Like, oh, I fell down the stairs, but that was bound to happen because I think so, maybe, maybe.

01:26:31.560 --> 01:26:32.041
Anyway, I digress.

01:26:32.100 --> 01:26:34.240
But they're very, they're very like serious and rigid, right?

01:26:34.251 --> 01:26:34.650
Yeah, yeah.

01:26:34.650 --> 01:26:37.900
So there's a reason the Swiss have the reputation that they do.

01:26:37.990 --> 01:26:38.501
Right, right.

01:26:38.501 --> 01:26:39.740
Yeah, because it's true.

01:26:40.081 --> 01:26:43.511
Uh, but, uh, so, but, uh, I'll, I'll share about Lara first.

01:26:43.511 --> 01:26:47.280
So Lara is, uh, uh, culturally and historically Catholic.

01:26:47.280 --> 01:26:48.820
Mexico is a very Catholic country.

01:26:48.841 --> 01:26:49.161
Yep, yep.

01:26:49.270 --> 01:26:56.935
Um, and So she went to Catholic schools and, you know, went to church all the time and, and all this sort of stuff.

01:26:57.225 --> 01:27:05.225
It's not been a guiding force in her life, in her life as an adult, but it's something that's pervasive, it's pervasive in Mexican culture.

01:27:05.225 --> 01:27:07.765
It's just like what you do, it's just like how things are.

01:27:08.105 --> 01:27:10.626
Uh, and so, you know, we got married in a church.

01:27:12.386 --> 01:27:12.945
Scandal.

01:27:14.126 --> 01:27:15.036
It was a negotiation.

01:27:15.655 --> 01:27:17.926
Uh, when she told me we were getting married in church, I was like, what?

01:27:18.225 --> 01:27:26.315
And then But less disruptive than you selling off Well, yeah, it was less of a big deal because we We were still excited about the potential.

01:27:26.666 --> 01:27:27.305
About the future.

01:27:28.501 --> 01:27:35.201
But my, so let me, I'll tell that story in a second, but, uh, so my, my, my mom's Irish Catholic.

01:27:35.280 --> 01:27:35.631
Okay.

01:27:35.690 --> 01:27:36.070
Right?

01:27:36.230 --> 01:27:38.740
Uh, which comes with all the Irish Catholic guilt.

01:27:38.810 --> 01:27:39.360
Yeah, yeah.

01:27:39.591 --> 01:27:40.220
And all that sort of stuff.

01:27:40.220 --> 01:27:42.070
And that kind of, that's why your beard is nice and white.

01:27:42.070 --> 01:27:43.350
That's my beard, and that's why I look up.

01:27:43.350 --> 01:27:43.980
Your head is nice and bald.

01:27:43.990 --> 01:27:53.350
That's how I look, I look like I do because I'm Irish, and so she's from, Springfield, Massachusetts, uh, Irish, Irish Catholic family, uh, grew up.

01:27:53.701 --> 01:27:58.150
So my mom also went to Catholic schools until she got to university.

01:27:58.570 --> 01:28:05.291
And so my dad, uh, probably got dragged to church as a kid, but like, it wasn't such a big deal for him.

01:28:05.301 --> 01:28:06.600
It wasn't really a part of his life.

01:28:06.951 --> 01:28:10.911
Uh, but when we were, when I was a kid, we, I did get dragged to church and.

01:28:11.206 --> 01:28:13.176
You know, it was drag is the word, right?

01:28:13.176 --> 01:28:14.435
It was like, ah, really?

01:28:14.615 --> 01:28:20.435
And my mom, my mom will now say that, uh, that she would have to start warning us like on Tuesday, right?

01:28:20.536 --> 01:28:31.940
That we're going to church on Sunday and just hear all the bitching and moaning until it was time Sunday and, uh, you know, we wouldn't go off, but we would go like Maybe every other week or once a month.

01:28:31.970 --> 01:28:33.310
Yeah, like, you know, sort of thing.

01:28:33.350 --> 01:28:35.440
It wasn't just Christmas and Easter, but it was like occasional.

01:28:35.440 --> 01:28:39.381
And we went to the American church in Geneva, not the, not the Catholic church in Geneva.

01:28:39.780 --> 01:28:45.211
And so we went there and, you know, Which was basically what, like a kind of a bland Protestant kind of church?

01:28:46.570 --> 01:28:47.400
Episcopalian.

01:28:47.701 --> 01:28:48.081
Okay.

01:28:48.381 --> 01:28:49.650
So as close to Catholic as you can get.

01:28:50.261 --> 01:28:51.371
And everything was in English.

01:28:52.895 --> 01:28:53.645
Pope was that cool.

01:28:53.695 --> 01:29:00.966
And the, and the, there was a whole community there and like, you know, friends went there and it's where we had like our boy scout ceremonies were in this church.

01:29:01.185 --> 01:29:03.176
So like, it was like a part of the community if you will.

01:29:03.485 --> 01:29:08.605
Um, and I got, uh, but I had gotten baptized Catholic when I was born.

01:29:08.746 --> 01:29:09.395
Oh yeah.

01:29:09.551 --> 01:29:09.869
Yeah.

01:29:09.869 --> 01:29:14.631
So, so this is going to be, this is going to feature in our story in our story in a second.

01:29:14.690 --> 01:29:14.980
Okay.

01:29:15.020 --> 01:29:21.820
Um, and then I was dragged kicking and screaming through a confirmation process in the Episcopalian church when I was 13 or 14.

01:29:21.820 --> 01:29:25.690
And I was like, Oh, this is, you know, but you memorize the books of the Bible.

01:29:25.701 --> 01:29:32.230
So they were going to withhold my allowance or not give me a skateboard or whatever it was that, you know, I went and I went and I did this.

01:29:32.551 --> 01:29:38.081
Uh, And then, and then I went to, so Georgetown is a Jesuit school.

01:29:38.251 --> 01:29:38.801
Oh, it is.

01:29:38.850 --> 01:29:39.081
Yeah.

01:29:39.091 --> 01:29:39.411
That's right.

01:29:39.461 --> 01:29:44.341
So I actually had a little flirtation with Catholicism my freshman year.

01:29:44.341 --> 01:29:49.051
Yeah, the Jesuits are like the super conservative, no, they're the super liberal part of the Catholic Church.

01:29:49.051 --> 01:29:50.051
But they're a serious bunch.

01:29:50.051 --> 01:29:50.680
They're a serious bunch.

01:29:50.680 --> 01:29:52.570
They're serious, but they're pretty liberal.

01:29:52.591 --> 01:29:53.301
Serious bunch.

01:29:53.320 --> 01:29:56.100
And so I, I went, I went to mass a couple of times.

01:29:56.570 --> 01:30:00.230
Uh, probably like six or seven times my first semester of freshman year.

01:30:00.451 --> 01:30:03.440
And cause I was like curious and wanted to explore and learn about it.

01:30:03.440 --> 01:30:06.871
But you know, it didn't really, didn't really stick if you will.

01:30:07.171 --> 01:30:13.371
Um, and so organized religion has never played much of a part in my life, but never really stuck, never really stuck.

01:30:13.371 --> 01:30:16.389
But let me come back to this getting married in a church thing.

01:30:16.389 --> 01:30:18.784
So after we get engaged, uh.

01:30:19.155 --> 01:30:23.935
You know, we had this conversation about getting married in a church, and I was like, I had never even considered getting married.

01:30:23.935 --> 01:30:25.046
I was like, why bother?

01:30:25.176 --> 01:30:27.136
We'll just go get married on the beach in Mexico.

01:30:27.216 --> 01:30:27.655
It's gonna be great.

01:30:27.655 --> 01:30:28.006
Right.

01:30:28.095 --> 01:30:31.536
And I was like, no, for my family, blah, blah, blah, whatever, we're getting married in a church.

01:30:32.640 --> 01:30:33.451
Okay, fine.

01:30:34.030 --> 01:30:36.131
I exceed, I, I, I will allow that.

01:30:36.461 --> 01:30:46.541
I will call, I will compromise, and then I submit basically, and then, and then she's like, okay, I need like some paperwork because the priests are asking about this, that, and the other.

01:30:47.060 --> 01:30:53.600
Here's the problem, because I had been baptized, I accept the Catholic this and this because I had been baptized Catholic.

01:30:53.661 --> 01:30:56.180
Oh, but not confirmed Catholic.

01:30:56.831 --> 01:31:01.381
I didn't quite count, but I counted enough, like I could have been a.

01:31:01.640 --> 01:31:02.690
Total heathen, right?

01:31:02.690 --> 01:31:06.251
Like, let's say that I was Jewish, or I was not Catholic, or whatever.

01:31:06.451 --> 01:31:11.081
The Catholics would have been fine, he can still get married in the church, he just has to, you know, sign here, or whatever.

01:31:11.461 --> 01:31:16.240
But because I had some Catholic history and background But it seemed like to them that you had rejected the faith.

01:31:16.451 --> 01:31:17.480
I had By going to Episcopalia.

01:31:18.301 --> 01:31:28.100
I had to go have meetings with this priest in Hong Kong, and like, I got lectured like three or four times, I had to go find a buddy of mine.

01:31:28.291 --> 01:31:33.240
To come and like be my sponsor for the Catholicism thingy majiggy.

01:31:33.270 --> 01:31:37.900
And I was like, God, and I was, you know, I was, I had this job.

01:31:37.900 --> 01:31:40.240
I was traveling all over the traveling all over the world.

01:31:40.240 --> 01:31:42.890
I was super busy and I wanted nothing to do with this.

01:31:43.421 --> 01:31:49.850
And it was like part of what I had to go through just to get the stupid piece of paper so that we, so that this.

01:31:50.560 --> 01:31:54.150
Yeah, this guy would marry us at this church in in Mexico.

01:31:54.411 --> 01:32:01.251
So anyway, so all that just to get the piece of paper Largely your faith journey is yeah Reluctant Yes.

01:32:01.251 --> 01:32:03.449
Acceptance.

01:32:03.451 --> 01:32:03.911
Yes.

01:32:03.921 --> 01:32:03.940
Ish.

01:32:03.951 --> 01:32:04.230
Yes.

01:32:04.230 --> 01:32:05.570
Of the cultural relevance.

01:32:06.220 --> 01:32:14.520
So have you, have you investigated, like, like do you think that a God spun this whole thing up?

01:32:14.711 --> 01:32:15.551
Like the God?

01:32:16.051 --> 01:32:16.921
Like the one God?

01:32:16.930 --> 01:32:30.871
Or do you think this is like a happy accident and, and what do you do with Jesus or Mohammed or like the, the Jewish Talmud or the Hindu book of Proverbs or whatever they have?

01:32:30.890 --> 01:32:32.591
I think there have always been.

01:32:33.320 --> 01:32:39.121
Charismatic people in the world who find followers with messages of hope and upliftment and improvement.

01:32:39.456 --> 01:32:46.864
And so you're one of those with the conscious entrepreneur, I mean, to, to like a 0.

01:32:46.864 --> 01:32:50.095
000 fraction of it, but I think there've always been these kinds of people.

01:32:50.376 --> 01:32:56.725
And then I think people hear what they want to hear and I think stories and rituals, uh, emerge as a result of those.

01:32:57.036 --> 01:32:59.746
And I think for the most part, they're well intentioned.

01:33:00.225 --> 01:33:06.655
And I think that these things have been purveyors of death and destruction for pretty much as long as they've been around.

01:33:06.655 --> 01:33:06.926
Yeah.

01:33:07.216 --> 01:33:08.376
Uh, and so.

01:33:08.805 --> 01:33:33.445
I don't spend a lot of time on organized religion, and when it comes to the bigger picture stuff, um, you know, my personal experiences are that I, I spend a lot more time just connecting with myself, and trying to understand who I am, and I spend less time on big cosmological questions.

01:33:35.015 --> 01:33:39.195
Um, like where do you think ethics come from?

01:33:39.640 --> 01:34:02.470
If it's not from a creator type thing or these old texts or these old things like that's one of the phrases or we call it a meme almost sure that if if God isn't God then the state is God is something I've heard the government is God whoever tells me what to do because I've seen a lot of evidence https: otter.

01:34:02.470 --> 01:34:03.845
ai Told what to do.

01:34:04.076 --> 01:34:04.345
Sure.

01:34:04.655 --> 01:34:11.956
Um, in the world and whether that's by some kind of an organized religion or some other stuff, like people cling to that.

01:34:11.966 --> 01:34:14.836
So talking about like, what is the right thing to do?

01:34:14.836 --> 01:34:16.126
What is the ethical thing to do?

01:34:16.126 --> 01:34:17.185
And how do you know that?

01:34:18.305 --> 01:34:39.261
Uh, You know, my personal view on this is that ethics is primarily a social construct and that we've all agreed over time to behave in a certain way or not behave in a certain way to thou shalt not murder was to maximize happiness and potential in everyone and we've realized that it's not a good idea to race to the bottom if we can lift each other up or agree to a certain amount of rules.

01:34:39.640 --> 01:34:43.461
I do think You That there are a lot of people who want to be told what to do.

01:34:43.461 --> 01:34:46.881
There are people who are more comfortable in the passenger seat than the driver's seat.

01:34:47.171 --> 01:34:48.190
I'm not one of them.

01:34:48.661 --> 01:34:55.251
Uh, and I think that, that like my journey in my journey in the world.

01:34:55.270 --> 01:35:08.520
So my spiritual journey is figuring out who, who am I and the vehicle that I've chosen to do that is a physical form and it's running a business and it's being married and all that stuff.

01:35:08.530 --> 01:35:13.060
Like these are all ways through which I test my spirituality and understand who I am.

01:35:13.680 --> 01:35:19.270
Uh, I am one of the people who wants to understand, like I'm an Enneagram five, which is one of the people who.

01:35:19.530 --> 01:35:21.251
Wants to learn, right?

01:35:21.251 --> 01:35:22.350
So I want to connect the dots.

01:35:22.350 --> 01:35:23.890
I want to figure out what's really going on.

01:35:24.180 --> 01:35:26.470
But a lot of my focus is just internal, right?

01:35:26.490 --> 01:35:27.411
Like what's going on for me?

01:35:27.411 --> 01:35:28.570
What's going on inside of me?

01:35:29.081 --> 01:35:31.060
Who am I, who am I showing up as?

01:35:31.180 --> 01:35:32.310
What, what do I have to learn?

01:35:33.020 --> 01:35:42.320
And so, so that's the aspect for me of when I, when I think of faith, you know, I don't so much look outside to say, Oh, give me an answer, right?

01:35:42.381 --> 01:35:45.220
Whoever you are, like, I just need a sign, right?

01:35:45.291 --> 01:35:47.801
That's not really my, my, my experience.

01:35:47.801 --> 01:35:49.694
My experience is, no, it's not my jam.

01:35:50.036 --> 01:35:54.716
My experience is, what's happening inside me and what can I learn from that?

01:35:55.036 --> 01:35:55.365
Yeah.

01:35:55.426 --> 01:36:01.786
Because I'm the product of thousands of generations of humans, and there's a lot of wisdom inside me.

01:36:02.176 --> 01:36:12.695
And there's a lot of stuff that I'm experiencing today on a day to day basis where I can figure out why am I here, what am I doing here, simply in this physical experience.

01:36:13.395 --> 01:36:22.395
So, you're almost, I would say, in the space of kind of material post modern ish kind of thought process.

01:36:22.395 --> 01:36:23.270
Humanism.

01:36:23.270 --> 01:36:24.636
Yeah, humanism.

01:36:24.636 --> 01:36:25.155
Yeah, yeah.

01:36:25.695 --> 01:36:46.466
So, like, from your perspective, there isn't really, like, a, a more powerful force that created this thing, or even a, a necessarily a universal consciousness that, like, you know, if you pray, or if you do this or do that, you can kind of move the consciousness to your thing, or, I don't know, like, talk to me about that.

01:36:47.015 --> 01:36:52.615
I think Like, is there, is there a more powerful, like, a creator force out there in your Understanding.

01:36:54.076 --> 01:36:57.645
Actually, I, I, I have no idea how we got to be where we are.

01:36:58.036 --> 01:36:58.725
Fair, right?

01:36:58.905 --> 01:36:59.055
Yeah.

01:36:59.086 --> 01:37:00.166
How we got to be on this rock.

01:37:00.166 --> 01:37:01.456
Doesn't matter how we got to be on this.

01:37:01.456 --> 01:37:05.655
We're here on this rock spinning, spinning around in the middle of nothing and have water on it.

01:37:05.655 --> 01:37:10.265
And we have people and like, I, I have no idea how we got there.

01:37:10.265 --> 01:37:17.305
What I believe is that we've got a certain amount of time to experience our lives here.

01:37:17.305 --> 01:37:17.426
Yeah.

01:37:17.935 --> 01:37:20.185
Uh, a thing that I really loved was.

01:37:20.780 --> 01:37:23.560
This expression, make the dash dance.

01:37:24.530 --> 01:37:31.180
So here's what that means in my case, in my case, it starts with 1976.

01:37:31.211 --> 01:37:34.421
The year I was born dash some year, I'm going to die.

01:37:35.060 --> 01:37:51.770
I don't know what year that is, but there's a dash in between when I was born, when I'm going to die, make the dash dance means to me, have fun, have the full experience, order the entire, all you can eat buffet, do the things that bring me life.

01:37:51.780 --> 01:37:52.350
The wiggle.

01:37:52.676 --> 01:37:58.126
The Dash with the Wiggle is like, who knows where that end time is, but live there.

01:37:58.126 --> 01:37:58.545
Correct.

01:37:58.545 --> 01:37:59.265
That's fair.

01:37:59.676 --> 01:38:08.176
So, is it fair to say you resonate more with like, Buddhism type notions of the expression in the world?

01:38:08.185 --> 01:38:09.605
Or humanism and Buddhism?

01:38:09.605 --> 01:38:13.240
I mean, look, I've been to, I've done meditation programs, uh, in India.

01:38:13.240 --> 01:38:15.328
Sure, I'm sure you've experienced a ton of stuff.

01:38:15.328 --> 01:38:18.574
I've done, I've done, I've done whole things on, on Hinduism and Hindu gods.

01:38:18.576 --> 01:38:26.985
I think these are, I think these are nice representations to try to understand the world, right?

01:38:26.985 --> 01:38:40.916
So Buddhism, I'm not a Buddhist, but it's probably the one that I'm comfortable with because Buddhism basically just says experience yourself and see what you learn.

01:38:41.305 --> 01:38:42.956
And see how you can become a better person.

01:38:42.956 --> 01:38:44.076
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:38:44.166 --> 01:38:44.496
Okay.

01:38:44.525 --> 01:38:48.305
Well, it doesn't necessarily have a creator force in it.

01:38:48.466 --> 01:38:49.876
It's just like, hey, you're here.

01:38:50.345 --> 01:38:50.515
Yeah.

01:38:50.515 --> 01:38:51.536
Make the best of it, dude.

01:38:52.086 --> 01:38:58.320
So I don't, I don't know what, you know, what it is, but I typically don't have These like big philosophical questions.

01:38:58.430 --> 01:38:58.730
Yeah.

01:38:58.810 --> 01:39:01.211
Yeah, you're more much a center on me.

01:39:01.211 --> 01:39:02.240
I sent her on me instead.

01:39:02.270 --> 01:39:14.081
Yeah I I definitely would say I'm not quite opposite But it's interesting how we came to so many similar places like earlier in our conversation, but from a different Psychosomatic context.

01:39:14.591 --> 01:39:15.701
So this is our grab bag.

01:39:15.990 --> 01:39:16.511
Yeah, let's do it.

01:39:16.511 --> 01:39:20.121
It's a Numbers on them.

01:39:20.150 --> 01:39:27.006
So I pick one pick three Okay One.

01:39:27.475 --> 01:39:28.435
Number one.

01:39:28.775 --> 01:39:29.256
Okay.

01:39:29.765 --> 01:39:34.055
Um, do you want to give me all three numbers and I'll decide what order?

01:39:34.115 --> 01:39:34.855
Twenty nine.

01:39:34.895 --> 01:39:35.286
Okay.

01:39:35.445 --> 01:39:36.176
And five.

01:39:36.315 --> 01:39:37.515
One, twenty nine, and five.

01:39:37.945 --> 01:39:41.355
So one is what's your favorite childhood memory?

01:39:42.836 --> 01:39:47.576
Five is what's the most important lesson you've learned from failure?

01:39:48.990 --> 01:39:54.150
And 29 is what's been the most surprising thing about running your business.

01:39:54.480 --> 01:39:59.190
And I would say in this context, it's probably the, either the summit or the podcast.

01:39:59.980 --> 01:40:04.310
Um, so I'm going to start with that last one.

01:40:04.661 --> 01:40:04.890
Okay.

01:40:04.900 --> 01:40:07.770
What's been the most surprising thing about running your business?

01:40:07.780 --> 01:40:15.291
Whether it be CAPTA, whether it be your current recent enterprise or the summit, the podcast.

01:40:15.400 --> 01:40:42.626
Like, what's surprising about that to you that you wouldn't have imagined before you became a Um, the thing that surprised me most, we talked about this a little bit earlier, but the thing that surprised me most about running the conscious entrepreneur summit is the emotional context and emotional meaning that people put on the word conscious.

01:40:42.815 --> 01:40:45.935
Um, uh, so I assume you're going to smoke a joint with me.

01:40:45.935 --> 01:40:46.916
Yeah, quite, quite.

01:40:46.916 --> 01:40:48.305
So people make all these assumptions.

01:40:48.305 --> 01:40:48.945
It's like, Oh, it's.

01:40:49.336 --> 01:40:56.975
It's, uh, you know, it's all hippies or it's all totally out there or, oh, it's all for like, you know, people who, these aren't real businesses.

01:40:57.036 --> 01:40:57.475
Right.

01:40:57.555 --> 01:40:57.826
Right.

01:40:58.105 --> 01:41:03.036
These are, these are fake, this is a bunch of, you know, small, small potatoes businesses kind of thing.

01:41:03.046 --> 01:41:03.315
Right.

01:41:03.765 --> 01:41:06.065
And that's not how I think of the word at all.

01:41:06.076 --> 01:41:10.314
I think of the word as, uh, intention and meaning and, Yep.

01:41:10.636 --> 01:41:17.315
Uh, purpose and manifesting and awareness, like all that goes into creativity to me, all that goes into conscious.

01:41:17.615 --> 01:41:21.006
And so when I get that response from people, I'm always like, Oh, right.

01:41:21.105 --> 01:41:21.315
Yeah.

01:41:21.315 --> 01:41:21.496
Yeah.

01:41:21.496 --> 01:41:21.975
That's fair.

01:41:21.985 --> 01:41:28.716
And I I'm like the most open conservative born and raised in North Dakota.

01:41:28.735 --> 01:41:29.775
Can I go, you're going to meet.

01:41:30.155 --> 01:41:35.655
And so for me, conscious doesn't mean that at all, but I recognize the truth of that statement, if you will.

01:41:36.225 --> 01:41:36.586
Okay.

01:41:37.105 --> 01:41:37.836
Um.

01:41:38.765 --> 01:41:42.336
Well, good job starting to break that barrier.

01:41:42.336 --> 01:41:42.876
I'm trying.

01:41:43.725 --> 01:41:49.756
Um, what did we say, number one, favorite childhood memory or the most, no we already said that one.

01:41:50.086 --> 01:41:53.336
And number five, the most important lesson you've learned from failure.

01:41:53.336 --> 01:41:54.626
Let's go there next.

01:41:56.525 --> 01:42:03.815
So, I'm going to talk about failure in the context of what I was talking about earlier with my journey with CAPTA.

01:42:03.876 --> 01:42:04.206
Yeah.

01:42:04.756 --> 01:42:06.006
The business is still around.

01:42:06.115 --> 01:42:06.506
Right.

01:42:06.636 --> 01:42:08.836
So it's difficult to say it failed.

01:42:09.086 --> 01:42:11.735
But I can say that.

01:42:12.640 --> 01:42:17.640
There were multiple places where I could have been stricter with myself.

01:42:17.970 --> 01:42:24.850
Mm-hmm I could have held myself to certain standards and I could have followed through more on the things that I knew I wanted to do.

01:42:25.501 --> 01:42:31.560
And so to, to a certain extent with that experience, uh, I wasn't being courageous.

01:42:32.310 --> 01:42:34.051
I wasn't being as brave as I could have been.

01:42:35.070 --> 01:42:35.581
And.

01:42:36.970 --> 01:43:02.456
What that meant like so what the fit how the failure manifested it was a failure of me Fully express my needs and wants and desires Yeah and to implement those instead of being on the On the train and swept along or in the passenger seat of the entire thing So you feel like maybe if you could have Advocated a little bit better, you'd still be there pointing toward what you were focusing on, potentially?

01:43:02.876 --> 01:43:07.145
The way, the way I think of it is I probably would have made, I would have made a decision for myself to leave sooner.

01:43:07.206 --> 01:43:08.645
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

01:43:08.735 --> 01:43:09.015
Yeah.

01:43:09.095 --> 01:43:12.206
Um, alright, last question.

01:43:12.206 --> 01:43:14.265
Your favorite childhood memory?

01:43:14.326 --> 01:43:14.716
Oh yeah.

01:43:16.746 --> 01:43:23.975
And one of these questions we're gonna give a gift away to a lucky listener, but they have to listen to the whole darn podcast to get here.

01:43:24.086 --> 01:43:26.725
Favorite, let's see, favorite Yeah, favorite childhood memory.

01:43:35.525 --> 01:43:44.444
There's a really amazing fireworks show that takes place in, uh, in Geneva during a festival called the Fête de Genève.

01:43:44.445 --> 01:43:47.336
It's the, it's like the town celebration of itself.

01:43:47.336 --> 01:43:51.225
You know, the town, the town, the towns all across North Dakota where I grew up.

01:43:51.275 --> 01:43:51.475
Yeah.

01:43:51.475 --> 01:43:51.706
Yeah.

01:43:51.706 --> 01:43:52.525
So it's like, right.

01:43:52.525 --> 01:43:55.185
So, so it's a, it's a, it's a great thing.

01:43:55.185 --> 01:43:59.435
And it's, you know, Geneva is a very well off town, so the fireworks are impressive.

01:43:59.636 --> 01:44:01.076
And they're synchronized to music.

01:44:01.185 --> 01:44:03.305
And even when I lived there in the eighties, they were synchronized to me.

01:44:03.515 --> 01:44:04.716
It was like, it was like big deal.

01:44:05.176 --> 01:44:11.015
Uh, but I will say that the, you know, very, very fond memories that I have is.

01:44:11.586 --> 01:44:16.605
Being with my dad and my younger brother, Sean, uh, up on a mountain.

01:44:16.605 --> 01:44:22.305
There's a, there's a mountain just outside of Geneva called the Salève and we would go camping up there in the summertime.

01:44:22.435 --> 01:44:34.555
And I just remember being up there and being able to watch the fireworks that were, so it's probably, you know, from above them 15 miles or 20 miles or whatever, but being able to see the fireworks from up there, it's all dark over the mountain.

01:44:34.555 --> 01:44:39.985
We're camping out, we, you know, go outside with the tent and watch the fireworks in the distance with my dad and brother.

01:44:41.930 --> 01:44:43.490
Let's jump to the final segment.

01:44:44.251 --> 01:44:51.060
Oh, um, and for our listeners, I think we're going to choose, what was the second topic that we talked about?

01:44:51.520 --> 01:44:53.310
Uh, the failure kind of thing?

01:44:53.310 --> 01:44:54.011
Yeah, five.

01:44:54.426 --> 01:44:55.786
Um, is that the topic?

01:44:55.905 --> 01:44:57.126
Or is it the fireworks?

01:44:57.176 --> 01:44:58.636
Maybe it's fireworks in Geneva.

01:44:59.506 --> 01:45:06.595
Alright, for listeners, um, PM us the fireworks in Geneva, and that'll be your winning answer.

01:45:06.926 --> 01:45:07.176
Nice.

01:45:07.286 --> 01:45:12.065
Um, the Loco Experience is your craziest experience of your lifetime.

01:45:12.095 --> 01:45:12.515
Alright.

01:45:12.926 --> 01:45:14.786
That you're willing to share with our listeners.

01:45:24.376 --> 01:45:32.220
In 1995, I was a freshman in college and between my freshman year and sophomore year in college, the summer in between.

01:45:32.350 --> 01:45:32.720
All right.

01:45:32.801 --> 01:45:38.270
And, uh, you know, as I already told you, I, I, you know, you can tell I have a bit of an adventurous streak in me, right?

01:45:38.270 --> 01:45:38.541
For sure.

01:45:38.650 --> 01:45:41.310
So I like to go, I like to go places and do things.

01:45:41.560 --> 01:45:45.751
And so I recruited two of my friends, one from college and one of a friend of mine from high school.

01:45:46.150 --> 01:45:51.600
And we were going to drive from my house in Massachusetts all the way to.

01:45:52.336 --> 01:45:55.595
Uh, Yellowstone National Park and back to start the summer.

01:45:55.595 --> 01:45:56.246
Like for spring break?

01:45:56.246 --> 01:45:56.805
Oh, for summer.

01:45:56.805 --> 01:45:59.355
For summer, because I, I didn't have a job lined up yet.

01:45:59.376 --> 01:46:02.286
And, uh, we all had like a couple of weeks, we could do this.

01:46:02.286 --> 01:46:03.756
And we were 19 years old.

01:46:03.756 --> 01:46:05.815
It was like, Oh, totally, uh, let's go do this.

01:46:05.895 --> 01:46:10.586
And, uh, so there was three of us, me, Mark and Sean, and we all get in this car.

01:46:10.586 --> 01:46:13.695
It was a, it was a red 1991 Ford Taurus.

01:46:14.046 --> 01:46:14.506
Very nice.

01:46:14.555 --> 01:46:15.286
Yeah, totally.

01:46:15.376 --> 01:46:15.845
Classy.

01:46:16.006 --> 01:46:16.985
Only four years old though.

01:46:17.036 --> 01:46:17.256
Yeah.

01:46:17.676 --> 01:46:18.886
Great, great car, new car.

01:46:19.155 --> 01:46:21.206
And, uh, so we drove that.

01:46:21.480 --> 01:46:28.930
You know, through, you know, whatever, Massachusetts to Connecticut, uh, Pennsylvania through Chicago, through Illinois.

01:46:29.201 --> 01:46:37.970
And, you know, we kind of, everyone's taking turns driving and we stopped in, uh, South Dakota and, uh, and, and had some adventures and camped or whatever it was.

01:46:37.970 --> 01:46:39.860
And then we went to the next place, went to Wyoming.

01:46:40.280 --> 01:46:41.921
Uh, we went to Yellowstone.

01:46:41.930 --> 01:46:42.671
It was amazing.

01:46:42.671 --> 01:46:43.661
We went to the Badlands.

01:46:43.661 --> 01:46:46.001
We went to devil's thumb or devil's tower.

01:46:46.291 --> 01:46:47.411
Oh, it's like super cool.

01:46:47.640 --> 01:46:50.220
Uh, and then plus you were like all born and raised.

01:46:50.515 --> 01:46:54.426
Well, you were in Switzerland, so you knew mountains and stuff, but everybody else was probably like It was beautiful.

01:46:54.426 --> 01:46:55.015
It was super fun.

01:46:55.015 --> 01:46:55.876
It was super, super fun.

01:46:56.055 --> 01:47:01.046
And we had a great time, and we were just like goofing off and, uh, you know, being 19 year olds and having a great time.

01:47:01.345 --> 01:47:06.416
And we stayed in Yellowstone, and then we drove down into Jackson Jackson Hole.

01:47:06.466 --> 01:47:07.055
Jackson, Wyoming.

01:47:07.890 --> 01:47:13.640
Grand Teton National Park, we had this incredible adventure, like out there paddling on the lakes and all this, all this sort of fun stuff.

01:47:13.661 --> 01:47:14.541
So super, super fun.

01:47:14.850 --> 01:47:16.201
And then we're going to turn around from there.

01:47:16.201 --> 01:47:21.850
We're going to go and drop my one friend off to see his girlfriend in like North Carolina and then go back up to Massachusetts.

01:47:21.900 --> 01:47:22.201
Okay.

01:47:23.110 --> 01:47:26.150
And I, I didn't have a job lined up for the summer yet.

01:47:26.230 --> 01:47:26.470
Right.

01:47:26.470 --> 01:47:27.801
So I was like, I'll figure it out when I get home.

01:47:28.270 --> 01:47:28.600
Yep.

01:47:29.201 --> 01:47:30.761
And we get to Jackson.

01:47:31.671 --> 01:47:36.405
Early June and there's help, help wanted cowboy signs.

01:47:36.405 --> 01:47:38.720
The Cowboy Boy Saloon is like, is like Help Wanted signs all over the place.

01:47:38.966 --> 01:47:39.246
Yeah.

01:47:39.440 --> 01:47:39.711
Right.

01:47:39.711 --> 01:47:41.810
It's like, oh, you know, help, wanted, help, wanted help wanted.

01:47:42.801 --> 01:47:47.051
And I was like, Hmm, it's pretty nice out here, right?

01:47:47.081 --> 01:47:47.890
I'm help.

01:47:48.270 --> 01:47:49.905
I could be helpful, I could be wild.

01:47:50.345 --> 01:47:51.421
I could figure this out.

01:47:51.890 --> 01:48:01.011
And so the craziest thing I'd ever done in my life to that point, which is still up there, is I called my parents, I said.

01:48:01.565 --> 01:48:11.725
I'm not coming home, I'm gonna miss my brother's high school graduation, I'm gonna stay in Jackson, I'm gonna find a job, and my friends are driving your car home.

01:48:12.836 --> 01:48:13.365
I love it.

01:48:13.756 --> 01:48:20.810
And so I stayed there, I found a job at the Jackson Hole Lodge, where I was in charge of Not even the housekeeping.

01:48:20.820 --> 01:48:28.341
I wasn't, I was the guy who was filling the closets and the carts for the housekeepers so that they could do their jobs.

01:48:28.860 --> 01:48:35.570
And I also worked at the pool on occasion and I had a second job at the Jackson Hole Public Library restocking books.

01:48:35.890 --> 01:48:39.951
And I stayed there for eight weeks and that was my entire summer.

01:48:40.110 --> 01:48:40.400
Yeah.

01:48:40.470 --> 01:48:43.661
And then I got back, I returned from Jackson.

01:48:43.970 --> 01:48:48.211
To Massachusetts to Boston on a Greyhound bus.

01:48:48.220 --> 01:48:48.801
Nice.

01:48:48.860 --> 01:48:56.060
It took 60 hours and the only book I had with me, the only book I had with me is probably a book that you appreciate.

01:48:56.110 --> 01:48:56.310
Yeah.

01:48:57.930 --> 01:49:02.150
I read about a quarter of it and I thought, this sucks.

01:49:02.381 --> 01:49:03.520
Why does everybody like it?

01:49:03.520 --> 01:49:05.411
It's not zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance, is it?

01:49:05.440 --> 01:49:06.190
It's worse.

01:49:06.701 --> 01:49:09.070
It's Atlas Shrugged I love that book.

01:49:09.100 --> 01:49:12.310
I know I could read that book three times, six hours.

01:49:12.310 --> 01:49:15.881
Everybody was like, everybody was like, this book is so great and I'm reading this book and I was like, oh my.

01:49:16.126 --> 01:49:18.485
God, what a bunch of nonsense.

01:49:18.865 --> 01:49:20.756
And, and I'd like, I just couldn't do it.

01:49:20.775 --> 01:49:21.985
I couldn't keep reading the book.

01:49:21.985 --> 01:49:26.645
So I was like, I would rather stare out of the window for 40 hours than read this book.

01:49:26.836 --> 01:49:28.176
Anyway, take that Ayn Rand.

01:49:28.286 --> 01:49:29.685
So it goes.

01:49:29.695 --> 01:49:31.886
So Ayn Rand, I love you.

01:49:31.945 --> 01:49:32.996
I think you're awesome.

01:49:32.996 --> 01:49:34.676
Despite some of your fallacies.

01:49:35.895 --> 01:49:38.765
And, um, so what'd you think of that story?

01:49:38.805 --> 01:49:39.746
I think that was awesome.

01:49:39.926 --> 01:49:41.095
I think that was a great story.

01:49:41.525 --> 01:49:42.565
And, um.

01:49:43.951 --> 01:49:55.421
Alex, why don't you talk to our listeners about like, where to go register for the conscious entrepreneur summit, your LinkedIn profile, whatever like that you want to do wrapping, wrapping up, wrapping it up.

01:49:55.421 --> 01:49:55.690
Yeah.

01:49:56.270 --> 01:49:59.331
You know, anyone who's interested in, in the conscious entrepreneur summit.

01:49:59.451 --> 01:50:02.461
So first of all, you're an entrepreneur of some form or fashion.

01:50:02.470 --> 01:50:11.251
You're building a business, you're in the trenches, you got blood on your knuckles, you're out there doing things and you, and you know, there's got to be a better way, you know, there's got to be a better way.

01:50:11.310 --> 01:50:11.621
Okay.

01:50:11.730 --> 01:50:12.051
Right.

01:50:12.341 --> 01:50:13.581
It doesn't have to be this hard.

01:50:14.336 --> 01:50:17.845
Uh, I want you to come and check out the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit.

01:50:18.315 --> 01:50:20.286
It's a, an incredible community.

01:50:20.296 --> 01:50:21.815
It's an incredible experience.

01:50:22.195 --> 01:50:23.706
Uh, the website is consciousentrepreneur.

01:50:24.895 --> 01:50:25.326
us.

01:50:25.595 --> 01:50:27.605
On top of that, we have the podcast.

01:50:27.636 --> 01:50:29.155
We've got a YouTube channel.

01:50:29.435 --> 01:50:30.536
I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.

01:50:31.456 --> 01:50:33.695
Uh, so there's a lot of materials there.

01:50:33.735 --> 01:50:36.416
It's very easy to tap into us and super rewarding.

01:50:36.456 --> 01:50:37.605
Do you want to do something cool?

01:50:37.605 --> 01:50:37.945
Like.

01:50:38.576 --> 01:50:46.206
Half off your registration for the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit for like the first person that responds with a DM to our Instapage or something.

01:50:46.216 --> 01:50:49.786
So the first, let's, let's give for the first person who does the fireworks in Geneva.

01:50:49.905 --> 01:50:54.586
Let's give them, in addition to whatever you're going to give them, a half off discount code.

01:50:54.636 --> 01:50:54.926
All right.

01:50:55.051 --> 01:50:56.390
And I'll one up you.

01:50:56.390 --> 01:51:00.121
I'll see you in one up you and we'll offer a hundred dollar code off.

01:51:00.161 --> 01:51:13.081
The code is loco L O C O is the code for anyone who signs up for the conscious entrepreneur summit before the end of March, we'll get a hundred dollars off either the one day or the two day.

01:51:13.470 --> 01:51:13.850
Thank you.

01:51:14.360 --> 01:51:15.240
That's very generous of you.

01:51:15.801 --> 01:51:16.841
I hit you out of the blue with that.

01:51:16.841 --> 01:51:17.881
We didn't talk about it before.

01:51:17.930 --> 01:51:18.371
Let's do it.

01:51:18.451 --> 01:51:22.011
Um, did I cover all your social handles and stuff like that?

01:51:22.411 --> 01:51:24.591
Um, LinkedIn, LinkedIn is the best place to find me.

01:51:24.810 --> 01:51:25.100
All right.

01:51:25.475 --> 01:51:25.786
Yeah.

01:51:25.945 --> 01:51:27.365
Uh, hit him with the chat bot.

01:51:27.685 --> 01:51:28.006
Yeah.

01:51:28.935 --> 01:51:30.555
Hey, uh, thanks for being here.

01:51:30.886 --> 01:51:35.615
Uh, drive safe back to Boulder and I've enjoyed this conversation very much and thank you.

01:51:35.756 --> 01:51:38.375
Thanks for having me.