Barbell Shrugged - Soltara with Daniel Cleland and Melissa Stangl — The Bledsoe Show #131

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Starting point is 00:03:18 So, man, I have to admit, I've watched the Netflix a little bit. I don't watch much TV, but when I'm in the sauna, man, I get a nice 45-minute sweat in and I knock out a show. And it's really, really enjoyable. It helps me relax. And I've been sleeping better. I've been sleeping better when I use it. I use that whoop band to measure how good my rest is. And when I do the sauna, it really, really helps. There's also a cardio function on there.

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Starting point is 00:04:31 what drives healthy and intuitive behavior. So if you've ever been wondering about how to tap into intuition around nutrition or movement, these two have figured out a lot around this. And we talk about a couple different techniques for getting there. And I also have some shows that are not posting on Shrug Collective Network this week. And these shows dig much deeper into the topics that we discuss on this show. So make sure you're subscribed to the Blood So Show channel on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you may be listening to catch that extra content all right enjoy the show all right dan we'll start with you yes sir what got you into this line of business well how old are you 37 years old 37 oh we're the same age oh shit from canada yes sir by your your

Starting point is 00:05:27 y'all are down here in costa rica in the middle of nowhere hosting some pretty uh epic retreats one of which i just finished so what brings a guy like you down to a place like this or to create a place like this? Sure, sure, sure. Well, it's a pretty long story. I can start with what actually got me into Costa Rica in the first place. And it has to do with the Canadian winter. So I was like, I was 25 years old and had kind of graduated or not graduated, dropped out of college. I was in the working world, working in Canada and just kind of a little bit bored with the program.

Starting point is 00:06:14 It seemed like I just fell into this program, like kind of the same template that kind of everyone else fell into after, you know, after college and after high school. And, you know, you're just working, school, you know, you're just working, you're paying bills, you're driving around in the winter in Canada. And so I, I was called for a little adventure in my life. I was called for a little bit of travel. And, uh, so when I was 25, I started doing a little bit of traveling and, uh, and got the bug, you know, as they say, got the bug and decided that I wanted to pursue more travel in my life and more adventure and explore the world. So I actually ended up with a job working for an adventure travel company. It's a Canadian company, but they specialize in Latin America and running trips all over the world. But Latin America was what called me, you know, the jungles, the beaches and all that good stuff.

Starting point is 00:07:12 So I ended up working for this company, actually leading group tours in Costa Rica and Panama. So I did that for a couple of years back when I was like 25, 26. And that's before my life of ayahuasca, but that's how I got involved with this part of the world and got my experience down here. So I've actually kind of come full circle because that's where I started. And then I went and had all these different experiences with the medicine and in different Latin American countries. And then 10, 11 years later, I'm back in Costa Rica where I kind of, this life began, I guess you could say. Yeah. What drew you to the I was in a very, very rough place. This is about nine years ago.

Starting point is 00:08:12 And I was coming to the end of my 20s and was just really disappointed with myself. I barely passed high school. I dropped out of college. You know, I was kind of working some random jobs and then I went and I did this travel thing for a couple of years and tried to go back to school, back to university. I actually started a university program in Canada, but then switched over to Australia. So I ended up going to Australia, trying to pursue a university degree, but things weren't really working out. I was unable to make enough money to pay for the degree, so things kept getting deferred. And i was suffering from some depression at the time

Starting point is 00:09:05 um not the least of which was as a result it was kind of like a vicious cycle was kind of like trapped in a in a scenario where i was kind of unhappy with my life circumstances but then um also the life circumstances were a result of me being unhappy and kind of being depressed. So I was, I think a lot of people don't connect those two. They go, they go, Oh, I'm unhappy because of my life circumstances. Right. They don't realize that it's some type of discontent is draining that energy from being able to accomplish anything.

Starting point is 00:09:39 Exactly. That's exactly right. So I kind of actually, that came to an apex in 2009 when I was kind of in this aggressive, self-destructive state of mind and ended up going on a Friday night drunken rock climbing expedition drank a bottle of jim beam and then uh went to climb this this rock face in brisbane it's called kangaroo point um i'd seen people climbing recreationally there in you know in my in my travels down there but you know they had helmets and ropes and all this kind of they weren't drunk and they weren't weren't drunk. So I ended up doing that one Friday night, and I almost got to the top, but then started to panic and lost my grip and fell. So I fell 15 meters and was pretty beat up.

Starting point is 00:10:40 I had a compound fracture of the femur. So in three places, the bone was sticking out of my leg. It degloved my thigh. It pulled all the skin off and my pelvis split in half as well, what's called a vertical shear fracture. So it was a real mess. I ended up spending five weeks in the hospital. And so it was actually in the hospital when I was, you know, I had lots of time to really analyze my life circumstances. And that's when I really made the connection between like the things that I was unhappy about in my life were a result of what was going on inside my mental state, right? My internal circumstances, as I sometimes say.

Starting point is 00:11:33 So having really realized that, you know, I had, it felt like I had these negative programs in my head, which were just preventing me from being happy blaming me for for things that I was unhappy I'd done in my life or blaming myself for some some traumas that had occurred in my in my childhood you know and um and so while I was there in the hospital I started to look up ayahuasca I was it was in my field of awareness but I didn't get serious about it until I was in that hospital and um and so I decided to seek out the ayahuasca experience because I was just really tired of being in that like trapped in that kind of hole you know and it was obviously killing me like I'd barely escaped death by falling off of that cliff, right? So it was like I couldn't keep going down that path because it led to nowhere.

Starting point is 00:12:31 It led to just oblivion, right? So I found a place to work with medicine and and i i pursued that experience and six months later after i had gotten out of the hospital and was you know recovered enough to be walking around and stuff like that i found my first ayahuasca experience and it was extremely extremely powerful. It went like as deep as I possibly could have imagined. It, uh, it, it just shook. It took the entirety of my being and just like grabbed by the throat and just shook it. And a lot of that garbage that was, uh, you know, caked onto my, caked onto my being just like broke apart and fell off. And a lot of the garbage that was inside me came violently roaring out.

Starting point is 00:13:34 And so that was really what started the trajectory. And from that experience, circumstances began to change because my internal circumstances began to change. So I forgave myself. I started to love myself, which changed the way I started treating myself. I got some insight into the path I should be taking. And I rectified some issues with my family. I grieved about some sadness I had in my life. And I had never experienced anything so profound. I didn no idea it's like i i experienced lsd and and uh and mushrooms many many times yeah i have people ask me about how does it compare to lsd and i go man there's just it's not any apples and oranges right there's there's really i mean, I could imagine having 10 grams of mushrooms or something like that and it getting

Starting point is 00:14:48 becoming similar to a really powerful ayahuasca experience but it's in a whole league of its own really. Well, the energy of it's completely different. It's like, yeah. And the context too. How you experience it and who's involved and where you are and the whole ritualized setting of it i think too yeah that's a whole dimension yeah yeah i definitely had that experience this week sitting in four ceremonies with uh healers that have had two healers that are when it has i mean they have a lifetime of experience

Starting point is 00:15:26 yeah over 40 years each i think yeah yeah so the force of all the plants they've worked with it's it's um if you were to try to explain that to me five years ago i go i don't know what that means to be in the same room with that person in that situation. But if they're nowhere near me, I almost feel sober. I feel, I'm like, oh, I'm laying there. I'm like, I feel high. And I'm having an experience and I can navigate my mind in a different way and all this. And then as they get closer, it becomes visceral. The force field.

Starting point is 00:16:07 There's a disturbance. There's a disturbance in the field for sure and i'm just like what is going on and after having that experience you know there's no doubt when it happens night after night after night there's no doubt in my mind that there is something special there yeah someone else could come close to me and they could probably try to sing me a song and it wouldn't matter that happened to me the other night when i was in ceremony just as just as you described it i was laying there on my mat and i had my own thought processes going on and i was like you know quite quite aware of everything that was happening and then uh americo the the the maestro shaman came over and and sang his ikaro which is the the healing songs or chants that they that they sing during ceremony and he basically finished that in this just wave of peaceful bliss just washed over me.

Starting point is 00:17:12 And I laid down on my mat and just kind of went off into dreamland for the rest of the night and woke up to the sunrise. That happens. that happens oftentimes i mean in the in their tradition they feel as though it's actually the songs themselves that are what's really working on people and that the ayahuasca is more like the conduit the channel that allows them to kind of see and read and do it so it makes sense it's it's crazy the way that the effect the effect that these songs have they they're like living beings in the room yeah they're like yeah i've heard of people you know like oh i got some ayahuasca i brought some home and i think i'm gonna do it i go i i like i doesn't even sound appealing missing half the equation yeah it's like if unless you're sitting with a healer, it's not, it's just not even the same thing. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:06 Um, Mel, how did you get, what, what brought you to Costa Rica? What brought you to the medicine? Uh, Reddit actually was where it all started. That's where a lot of shit starts. From the bowels of the internet. My life is, has come forth. Like Reddit and YouTube. of the internet my life is has come forth like reddit and youtube um yeah so i came from a very scientific uh background i have a master's in engineering and i did cancer research in a lab

Starting point is 00:18:35 for a really long time and i was a militant atheist very um very oriented and in the logic sphere and uh for a while i thought that you know i was going to try and help cure cancer in the logic sphere. And for a while, I thought that, you know, I was going to try and help cure cancer in the lab. And it was my last year in college. I was getting my master's and working in a lab and got introduced to psilocybin mushrooms. And that kind of opened me up to the idea the concept of spirituality the concept that maybe there actually is something larger than us out there in this grand universe

Starting point is 00:19:14 we have no concept of understanding so that was pretty eye-opening for me and after after college I was looking towards this corporate America job to pay some intense college bills. And I knew that I was going to hate it. And I knew that it was going to be really not fulfilling for me, but that I just had to kind of grit my teeth and do it. Got to do it. Yeah. Yeah. University is not expensive.

Starting point is 00:19:43 Not cheap. It's very expensive. And so between graduating and starting this job, I was on Reddit and came across a thread on the Ayahuasca forum, which I don't even remember how I had been following it. But it was Daniel Cleland saying, I take people into the jungle to experience ayahuasca with Peruvian shamans. And he happened to have this June solstice journey. This was back in 2013. And it was kind of the first time that he was running these retreats down in Peru, kind of branching outside of friends and family, making it a little bit more public. And the timing really lined up. And I was like, you know, I think this is actually,

Starting point is 00:20:30 I think maybe I'm going to try and do this. Like, I'm about to start this new chapter. It's going to suck. Like, let's do something, you know, really kind of cool and out there. And I had felt very connected to psychedelics at that point. And so I had always been kind of in my field, but never really present and come to me. So my partner at the time was like, you're going to go do drugs in the jungle with some doodgy men on Reddit. Cool.

Starting point is 00:21:00 I was like, you know, I think I have a good feeling about this. The way Dan was looking when you said that. Best boss ever. And it was crazy because I didn't have any real reason to trust this guy. He answered some questions and whatnot. But I really did have a good, I was just like, I think I just need to do this. And my partner's like, oh, cool. You like a good, I was just like, I think I just need to do this.

Starting point is 00:21:27 And my partner's like, oh, cool. You have a good feeling about this. Great. And so, you know, I got my feminism flared up and I was like, I'm going. And if you're so nervous, come with me. And so he did. And it was just a super smooth trip. Well, it had its fun hiccups,

Starting point is 00:21:44 but we made it through and uh everything everything went we really nobody died nobody nobody at least at least pulled back we did think we were gonna miss the first ceremony because our car broke down and uh we had to like bargain with like a seven-year-old Peruvian dude to like take us on a boat and he's like yeah that's what happens when you're in Peru oh yeah it's like insane muddy roads and then Dan happened to find this like really suave seven-year-old who just seemed to know what's up and took us all on a boat yeah you have to know, kind of talk to the locals sometimes and figure out plan C. I think we made it like two hours before the ceremony started that night or something. So,

Starting point is 00:22:32 and we didn't think we were going to make it. And then he's like, nope, we got it. We got a boat. Let's go. And all of a sudden we're like, oh, this is real. We're actually doing this. Real jungle shit firsthand experience so yeah so that that was awesome and really powerful experience just felt a lot of love for people in my life that I hadn't really felt that for and felt a lot of love with myself and healed some healed some childhood things as well so just got a lot out of those just we just had two ceremonies um and didn't we have three i actually i had to leave early yeah yeah so then i had to like make my way back out um for a wedding so anyway those two ceremonies were really powerful and uh and i was

Starting point is 00:23:15 like i love what you're doing like i have to go take the shitty job but like let's keep in touch and uh so a year later he built a center and then a year after that he was looking for an operations manager and that's what I was doing at the time but for an industrial supply company in a warehouse and I was really looking for something else by that point hated it as much as I thought I would and so I was like you know if you can if you can pay me I'll I'll sell my things and and my relationship and learn Spanish and move to the jungle. So that's what I did. And yeah, I haven't really looked back.

Starting point is 00:23:50 Is that what this is? This was our center in Peru. Yeah, I remember hearing there was a first center. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So he had a center in Peru like four hours outside of Iquitos. And I ended up working there managing operations for about a year and a half. And then that changed ownership.

Starting point is 00:24:09 And we found our way here to Costa Rica and really had like a great network of healers that we'd been working with. And just really, you know, as these medicines are kind of expanding into the world, I think a lot of what's getting lost is that tradition. And, you know, that, that tradition, as we know, is, is really half of what's making this experience so powerful. And so if it's going to move out into the world, like how can we, you know, honor and respect and provide a platform for the carriers of that? Yeah. You know, that was one of the things that, um, really landed for me during one of the things that um really landed for me during one of the ceremonies this week is um when america was singing an icrow for me it really there was this like there was this exchange of

Starting point is 00:24:59 this like ancient tribal type of man i don't even know what to call it like it just this experience this feeling this like uh it felt like a rite of passage for me in a lot of ways that i was being like wow i'm sitting with this guy who's been in the jungle for the majority of his life doing this work this is this is the type of shit they make movies out of you know and it's it's so far out there for the average person to even consider like to go meet with somebody who's you know from the jungle and have this extremely mystical and whatever kind of experience you're having, ancient experience. Yeah. Because I feel so fortunate

Starting point is 00:25:54 that I come from a world that's so modern and I still get to come down here and tap into the old ways. Right. Well, like our society is not really incorporating these kinds of tribal rights of passage into the average life anymore. Whereas like in our history,

Starting point is 00:26:16 it more than likely was in those cultures. And in fact, those, those periods in life where theoretically there should be a right of passage, you know, it's actually almost pathologized. Oh, puberty. Oh, it sucks. Like, yeah, everyone hates it. It's like, this is the worst, most awkward time of my life.

Starting point is 00:26:35 You know, midlife crisis. That's really, you know, when people start to, you know, work towards the path of becoming an elder in their community. But it's treated as like, oh, you've got to go buy a Ferrari. You say midlife crisis. I was writing about stages of human development this morning. So we talk about stages of development with children, and we have names for them. You know, there's infancy, there's, you know, toddler, adolescence, teenage years, and then you're an adult.

Starting point is 00:27:12 And after you're an adult, that's it. You know, like. Then you plateau. Yeah. And I think because there's a lack of conversation about development beyond that, that people do assume I hit 25, I graduated college, I'm fucking done. And that's not true. I found the majority of my own development as a

Starting point is 00:27:36 human being, I've achieved more in my 30s, I'm 37. In the last seven years, I've achieved more development than I did in the previous two decades combined. And it's because I found a way. You know, I found a path. And most, you know, society doesn't provide that path. You know, there's some professional paths out there, you know. But, I mean, that level of development is so fucking shallow. How many different phases did you go through just in the past seven years as you were coming up from where you were pre-30s?

Starting point is 00:28:14 Almost every year. It felt like a new phase every single year. I'd say 18 to 24 months if I wanted to really go if I wanted to like really go back and map it out. I've been through several phases. I mean, you said midlife crisis, and it's like, that's a phase of development that someone's stepping through, and we have this label that sounds like

Starting point is 00:28:38 it's a fucking bad thing. Right, right, exactly. And it's interesting in our parents' generation or the generations in the past where, you know, you would essentially find your career, you know, early on in your 20s and then that would be your career for, you know, 30, 40 years until you retire. And that chunk of time is all, you know, that's all one thing. And, you know, maybe in there you have kids or whatnot. But, you know, nowadays it's like people are changing careers every year or two, you know, and I think that's it's really interesting noticing the why of it. And people are searching for meaning and fulfillment. And, you know, it's not just stability or security anymore. It's actually something deeper than that. And I really feel like plant medicines have been a way for people to understand meaning and what it is that fulfills them in their life.

Starting point is 00:29:25 You know, so many people turn to it, not just for healing, but also for spiritual growth, you know, and really trying to find your purpose and how you can use your skills and passions to actually create an impact in the world. You know, they call millennials kind of like entitled and, you know, whatnot. But really, it's like, I think there's just a real lack of meaning in a lot of the structures of society that have been set up for us. And so we're just scrambling around trying to find what's actually working and what's not. Yeah. I mean, the whole millennial generation is interesting because a lot of people have, there's like a negative connotation around it,

Starting point is 00:29:57 but I mean, geez, it's the first generation that doesn't know what it's not like to be connected to all information all the time. Yeah. The level of bullshit that a millennial can sniff out is super high. You know what I mean? I feel a certain sense of responsibility because we are the last generation that remembers life without the internet. My mom had a typewriter growing up. I didn't get my first cell phone until I was 16.

Starting point is 00:30:23 And so it's almost like the sense of responsibility of, you know, these are powerful tools, you know, and they can be, you know, used to build a house or smash yourself in the face, you know, either way. Plant medicines can help. A lot of people smashing themselves in the face. It feels like the millennial generation too is a lot more kind of switched on when it comes to like environmental awareness and consciousness and stuff like that. Like when it comes to political movements that are potentially brewing right now. It's certainly, you know, we're seeing the results of, you know, what we're inheriting from our previous generation. And, and again, it's like, you know, that's, that's stuckness in, in the ways that the, that our parents and grandparents generation had, where it's like, this is, this is how life is,

Starting point is 00:31:15 this is how life can be, this is how you can create stability in your life. And that's really all you have to think about. And it's like, well, now that's created all of these issues. And we don't, we need to like mobilize ourselves to not only find meaning, but really correct some serious problems. And so we don't have the luxury of that stability anymore in our environment. But it's hard to connect to that because the structures that are in place right now are really geared towards complacency and capitalism and, you know, not, not changing. And so that, and that's really where I feel like so much of this type of work and connecting, you know, to the earth, connecting to nature, connecting to these spirituality and these ancient traditions and things that, you know, have roots in, in history and are time honored,

Starting point is 00:32:02 you know, can help bring people full circle. Oh, okay. This is, this is something worth pursuing. Yeah. Worth changing for. Yeah. Speaking of capitalism, I mean, in my opinion, there's not a better system. Otherwise it'd be replaced. So I think that the presence of people who are in that system, who are operating inside us, I mean, you guys are operating inside the system

Starting point is 00:32:25 and implementing things like plant medicine and then working with the Shipibo tribe people and all this as a way of evolving that system, evolving it from the inside. I think ultimately the system and the process of capitalism is almost just a tool in itself. But if you operate it with a global awareness, and we're talking about search for meaning in life, and if you approach using that tool with having a global awareness and searching for meaning in life and you know if you approach if you approach using that tool with having a global awareness and searching for meaning and um and trying to make a positive impact you know

Starting point is 00:33:13 capitalism or economics uh can be applied in order to actually affect positive change yeah and exponentiate the impact yeah yeah The problem is when you have, you know, forces of less benevolent nature that are leveraging capitalism

Starting point is 00:33:34 to just essentially rape and pillage the planet or excessively capitalize from the system. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:33:44 That's what's causing the problems. Yeah. That's what's causing the problems. Yeah. There's a lack of checks and balances in a lot of ways. And yeah, we go down some political route that I'll avoid. I'm not Chris Hedges here. But yeah, it's an awareness piece. I think a lot of people who are running businesses that are not serving globally and are really depleting a lot of resources and taking advantage of people, a lot of times I don't think they even have the awareness. And if they do have the awareness, they don't't understand their responsibility and they're not taking the responsibility and i think that is something that's happening with the younger generation where their the awareness is obviously there

Starting point is 00:34:33 well it's like the buck stops here because there's like there's you know who else is gonna stop with exactly yeah and in and of itself it's not a good or bad thing it's like we the people within it are what's applying the moral code yeah you know so so just like any tool it can be used in a not a good or bad thing. It's like we, the people within it are what's applying the moral code. You know, so just like any tool, it can be used in a good way and a bad way. That's one thing I really think is special about the medicine is because it helps people

Starting point is 00:34:56 really get in tune with that, you know? And I think it's a precursor to having a life that is, you know, more directed toward affecting positive change, in my opinion. That's one thing that's really helped. And not so much working. Yeah. And working from less of a survival mode and more of a mode of connection, you know, because I do feel like so much of this medicine work and what people seem to come away with so much, myself included, is that, you know, we are connected, we are interconnected with each other and, you know, how we act is reflected,

Starting point is 00:35:31 you know, the health of the individual is reflected in the health of the whole. And so, you know, when we are working from a survival mode, it's everything is closed in, everything is like, how do I survive? How do i create stability in my life um without that awareness that we are connected to everything else you know so expanding that container for how you live your life you know it's just going to have that that ripple effect beyond yourself things are bigger you know there are larger forces at play yeah so this comes back to you know be the change yeah um working with individuals is going to help impact the world at large. That's really the why for me. It's the why for me.

Starting point is 00:36:12 Yeah, working on the front. It feels like we're on the front lines a little bit, you know, like person by person. And then they go out and they go to their communities and, you know, help their communities and that ripple effect happens. But, like, you know, yeah, all change starts within each effect happens but like you know all yeah all change starts with like within each person's heart you know absolutely yeah and one of the things that uh uh kara was talking about this morning was talking about the uh the shipibo in peru and just

Starting point is 00:36:41 the way that they're living and and was talking about the Amazon and and uh how ayahuasca is um amongst many other plants isn't being replaced all the time the way it could be like it's it actually is an abundance and can grow very easily and really well if taken care of and implanted well. But she was also talking about the Shipibo people and how they, like that tradition is potentially diminishing and being lost because a lot of the healers, their children aren't taking on the work. They're going on to be, you know, they're going on to university and to become a professional and something else um and then you have you know uh a bunch of here's americans and canadians that are taking the work on

Starting point is 00:37:31 like a switch yeah yeah it's like a handoff happening where it it's become more interesting to to us um thoughts on that and on the shipibo people and just what's happening with a lot of a lot of what's happening in the Amazon right now well certainly the fact that that this this work has become a commercially viable option for Shipibo villages right for Shipibo villages, right, for Shipibo healers. And you don't see every, you know, family, like, passing down the healing traditions. But I think the fact that they are able to, you know, take this tradition that they have learned in their home villages and actually go and make a living from it is one positive thing for actually continuing that lineage. The thing is, just like anyone else, the Shipibo youngsters who are growing up in the jungle,

Starting point is 00:38:38 they're connected to the whole world with cell phones and internet. I heard the other day that over 50% of the world is now connected. That's nuts. What's that going to be in 10 years it's going to be 75 you know or i was going to say i bet in three years 100 yeah exactly quick exactly so yeah even in those remote areas like you don't need infrastructure you don't need telephone poles and cables these days you just need you know their satellites that that beam internet service all over the place so so people even if they're in an isolated village in the jungle they're seeing the outside world through their cell phone and they're becoming interested and they're seeing kim kardashian and there's you know they're seeing like justin bieber and and it's And it's like they are just like anyone else

Starting point is 00:39:28 attracted to finding affluence, having a meaningful life, doing something that's exciting, traveling the world, having a girlfriend or boyfriend. So I think it's pretty much a natural process that some of that culture is going to be diminished. But if you didn't have the healing traditions there, right? If it was just subsistence farming and nothing else, like your choice is either stay in a Shipibo village and be a subsistence farmer with your family or, you know, go to the city and take university and try to find a job or do whatever,

Starting point is 00:40:07 I think you would see like less people carrying down the traditions. But the fact that, you know, there is that option, it is a viable profession that, you know, people can go and be a healer and study the craft and actually go and either run their own center or work for other centers and earn a living and raise a family. I think that's probably more positive than not being the case. And I think that's why this interaction of the Western world with these types of traditions is actually really important. But it's more important the way that the interaction unfolds, because, you know, there's a huge

Starting point is 00:40:53 epidemic of cultural appropriation that happens too. And it's something that, you know, those of us in the psychedelic and plant medicine community, you know, some of us are just acutely aware of because a lot of times it's very easy for Western colonialism to take advantage of and scrape the top of, you know, the benefits of these people and their tradition and their healing capacity and their knowledge and not have proper reciprocity for it and not give back to these people who have really dedicated their lives to carrying the tradition. And so, you know, for us, it was really, really important that this tradition is respected, that even though the container is moving outside, you know, everything that we can about the tradition is honored in the

Starting point is 00:41:44 way that we can honor it and that we're meeting them in the middle by trying to help be a bridge for that culture, you know, and really focusing on education and, and how to integrate this knowledge into your life. Because when, when this interact, this interaction that's happening, this kind of handoff that's happening a little bit, I think can be very beneficial for both sides, but it has to come with an awareness of the reciprocity that's inherent in it, because when you have cultures come together, you know, misunderstanding is very easy, and you know, people can easily take advantage of others, and so I think that it really does speak to kind of the way that the culture can shift, but that there's a dark and a light side to it too.

Starting point is 00:42:27 And that's the responsibility of people on both sides of that bridge. Yeah. One of the things that I've learned recently is the majority of pharmaceutical drugs being designed is coming out of research from the plants in the Amazon. Yeah. So ironic, right? Yeah, I find it very interesting because looking at science,

Starting point is 00:42:51 science is very good at isolating and very good at looking at parts, but is very terrible about looking at the whole. And so, I mean, there are systems of science, like whole systems science would be one that does attempt to create something out of all the parts. But it's my experience in science is that it gets very, very narrow. And most people in that field have a hard time seeing the hole at all. And what's happening a lot of times with the pharmaceutical drugs is you may find a plant and you are looking for a single compound out of hundreds or maybe thousands that are found in that plant

Starting point is 00:43:39 and you want to isolate it and then you want to you want to patent it and sell it and when they do it comes with all these side effects you know and all this bullshit that comes with the medication and then it's and it's not quite as effective as you think it should be um and uh what i mean what really brought my attention to a lot of this is uh you know, I partake in a lot of alternative medicines, I guess you could say, combo, ayahuasca. And what I do know is,

Starting point is 00:44:12 you know, if we were to isolate just one thing out of this and take that, it may create an experience or it might help with one thing. Well, it'd be DMT. It would be DMT. And I've done that. And which is awesome,

Starting point is 00:44:26 but it's not ayahuasca. Right. And the same with, with a combo. When I do the frog medicine, you know, there's, I know that there, the pharmaceutical companies are looking into that and trying to isolate different compounds out of combo. And, but if you look at what's in combo you go well all these compounds are good for so many different things why would you try to isolate them why you just do the whole thing why would you be so silly but people are so focused on isolating well it's all about patenting for patting a delivery method that's something that can be marketed and well it's a lot easier to sell a pill than to talk someone to burning holes in your skin i don't know why but some people find

Starting point is 00:45:14 that as a little bit strange i don't get it like i think it's perfectly yeah part of the experience yeah the more you get into this world the more it's like i think it's really strange that you walk into a doctor's office for five minutes and you walk out with a piece of paper and you're just gonna pop those pills without thinking about it that's fucking strange it's a difference not the rite of passage you really want you know i i personally prefer burning holes in my arm as a rite of passage just just for listeners like we're talking about burning holes in our arm it's it's they're, they're small. There's only in the, in the upper layer of skin and it's,

Starting point is 00:45:49 you know, very, very surface level. So, so there's this, there's this medicine. It's not, it's not as gnarly as you may be thinking.

Starting point is 00:45:57 It's interesting. You say that though, because that was really what drew me away from the lab and the, the cancer research that I was doing, which did try to isolate specific compounds and how those interacted with things. And it was all very, very clinical. And it's, you know, I would never discount modern medicine and science. I think that there's absolutely, it's done amazing things. There's a place for it for sure what's interesting to me is that a couple things one that it seems to disregard this whole realm as as viable medicines just because it's not doing it

Starting point is 00:46:32 the way that science has done it which to me is like very interesting because why wouldn't you consider adjunct modalities that have all of these effects based on clear empirical evidence that this is this is helpful and healthy. But then also the other thing is that, you know, like exactly like you said, looking at things from a whole, as a whole, you know, more than just the physical realm, like we're also emotional beings, we're also mental beings, we're also spiritual beings. I mean, there's a reason humanity has always sought to connect to something larger than itself throughout its entire history. You know, there's something there and, you know, we can argue about what that is, but

Starting point is 00:47:08 the fact is, is, you know, what I really came to this idea of is, you know, it's almost narcissistic to think that, you know, we're the ultimate things in the universe, then we know what's going on and it's just us, you know? And so for me, it's like looking at expanding what it does actually mean to heal and including emotional mental spiritual bodies in that picture of health is really what this plant medicine and other plant medicines can bring to to health and medicine in general yeah yeah i mean i come from the originally from the fitness world. You know, I would think about health and fitness. I immediately think about, you know, food and exercise.

Starting point is 00:47:51 Yeah, exactly. And it's not that those aren't components, but, you know, there's so much to it, right? The longer I'm on this journey, the less that stuff matters. I just watch so many people. By the way, when's the hard stop? 3.30 is what you said? 3.45. Oh, okay.

Starting point is 00:48:17 We're good. I mean, yeah, the longer I'm on this path, the more I see people who are on diets. They're like, oh, I've got to eat this much protein, carbs, and fat, or I'm going to do this diet or that diet or this diet because they're not happy with their bodies and they're trying to manipulate things and they're constantly weighing and measuring. And I'm going, wow, if they solved one or two emotional issues they have, all this would go away. Eating well would be easy.

Starting point is 00:48:58 And people were like, no, it's the numbers. It's the numbers on the scale. I can measure this. I can see this. There's evidence for this. And yeah, what I've seen for myself, what I've seen for others is get just a little bit of emotional healing. Get some psychological healing. And all of a sudden, all these things that used to be hard to do, getting in the gym used to be hard. You know, even though I trained almost every day going to the gym, there were certain points where I was like, I fucking hated it.

Starting point is 00:49:29 But I did it anyway because I needed to. And I got some healing here and there and around my emotional state and psychological state. And all of a sudden, working is easy and fun. Working out is easy and fun. Eating well is automatic. It's almost like the byproduct of your business. Exactly. Same thing with addictions in a lot of cases too, right?

Starting point is 00:49:52 I mean, the root cause of many addictions is trauma from childhood, right? That's according to Gabor Mate, who's a highly respected uh i would say beyond additions i think almost all behavior yeah right all behavior there's certainly emotional roots yeah a lot of it hey yeah i mean the more i learned about like human development the the ages you know the the further back you go the more of an impact those moments had on you on how you decided how to be for the rest of your life right so yeah fix that up and everything's great yeah it's

Starting point is 00:50:33 almost it's almost like coming at it from a the wrong angle right it's like it's if i apply these specific structures to my life then my emotional state will change. Whereas exactly like you're saying, you know, if you can, if you can really look at it as for us, really a huge part of our integration is tuning into your body, tuning into your mind, you know, tuning into what it is that your body is trying to tell you and how that makes you feel and really having that awareness of what's good for you from an intuitive sense, not from an external dispersant of calories, you know, carbs and fats and proteins. And, and so when, you know, for me, I did struggle with weight for, you know, a while in college and whatnot. When I came to the medicine,

Starting point is 00:51:19 it was very much, you know, what is it that makes me feel good? And how are my food habits actually a reflection of my mental state? And how can I dig deeper into the patterns that cause those choices within my diet as the underlying cause of what's going on? Fix that. And then, you know, it comes so much more effortlessly now and that's you know and that's something that i think is very counterintuitive to you know the way that society does portray diets and you know how you how you can look a certain way how do you get to looking that certain way and and it's like that's completely backwards it doesn't matter how you

Starting point is 00:52:02 look if you feel good you're going to look good Or it's portrayed as though if you do look good, you will feel good. Yeah. But yeah, exactly. That's one thing I found was done really well this week is that conversation around tuning into your body. And so many people in the health and fitness world are, if I bring up, or there's some other people, I would say the people who bring it up are people who've been in the field for a long time. We've been teaching this stuff for a long time. We've been in it ourselves for a long time. And we go, well, really the pinnacle is around nutrition is intuitive eating and people go well how do i get that and i'm like well there was years of weighing and measuring and then there's emotional work and there's all this stuff but what i saw here this week and being in ceremony with people

Starting point is 00:52:57 um from all walks of life dan and i were talking about this on the way in is normally when I'm with a group in ceremony, it's a lot of people who are more like me than not. And in a lot of ways, a lot of entrepreneurs are people who are on the cutting edge of health and all this kind of stuff. And this group was much more diverse. And it was really cool to be in a room where there were people who the idea of intuitive eating had never even been it never even been talked about it was never even a con like i don't like the way that they were talking about it i was like oh this is like a whole new concept okay and by the end of the week people were really grasping the intuitive eating conversation and collaboration with how the food that's prepped here is done uh

Starting point is 00:53:47 how diet is explained before we come in i don't know who stuck to it who didn't um i know the first time i was given diet i was like are you fucking serious no pork for for 10 days now i get it but But yeah, I know that people are leaving and going, I know that they're prepared to, when they put something in their body, be checking in and seeing how they feel. And this week, this retreat has given us the tools to recalibrate our sensitivity to our bodies and connect us

Starting point is 00:54:27 with our bodies. I know that many people reported, oh, wow, I know what it means to be connected to my body now. My mental chatter has died down. I know what it's like to be with myself. And now when they go to put that peanut butter and jelly know, they might go, oh, this actually, I thought I loved this, but it's not really, my body doesn't love this. So maybe I'm going to put this down. It's a whole different kind of concept really, because almost, you know, the whole reason that it can be a little bit strict with the preparation for the diet is because I feel like there's just so much of the nutrition or lack thereof that we use to actually cover up a lot of our emotions and, you know, really inundating our bodies with heavy, you know, foods, a lot of processed foods, a lot of sugar. It like,

Starting point is 00:55:17 it numbs us out to the ability to have any sort of intuition about how you're feeling because then the, it's like the addiction comes back. And then you have like the cravings you know like sugar is more addictive than than heroin or cocaine right like it's it's almost like takes me three weeks to break it anytime i have to break it oh my gosh it's crazy i've talked to a lot of other people it seems like three weeks is about the amount of time if you've been eating sugar um last year i went to france for two weeks and no fucking chance no fucking chance i wasn't eating some sugar and i came home and i i was like all right i'm gonna draw actually i i was nomadic at the time so it made it even tougher to like implement any like strict things around nutrition at all and i go back to, I think it was Austin

Starting point is 00:56:06 after that. And yeah, it took me, I've been exposed to sugar heavily and then come off of it two, three times in the last two, three years. And every time it takes about three weeks before that, that desire for it. And that's like, it's like my body wants it for energy and after three weeks all of a sudden my energy picks right up and my desire for sugar goes away so you basically live keto or just like sugar-free sugar-free yeah i ate um i actually ate more fruit this week than i normally eat uh it was like a real treat uh but yeah i i ate uh more like i eat carbs so i'm not keto okay yeah yeah so i'm eating potatoes and rice and stuff like that but i just don't eat sugar right yeah makes a big difference alcohol no every once in a while I'll have a glass of champagne. Actually, I'll drink.

Starting point is 00:57:10 I always carry a bottle of champagne with me to the burn. So to watch the man burn. Saturday night at Burning Man. That's when I drink a bottle of champagne. And the rest of the year, it's maybe a glass here or there for some type of toast or something. Yeah. You guys drink? Occasionally. Not, not, I mean, it's, you know, I enjoy, I enjoy a glass of wine once in a while,

Starting point is 00:57:30 but honestly it's, it's really at a point now where I feel like I'm just, I don't know if it's like maturity or I'm just kind of like over it and, and bored of, of the party days. But to me, I just can't handle, my body can't handle it. So since I've been working with the medicine, it's very clear that, you know, I just can't handle the toxicity of it and I'm just not used to it. So it's no longer really that desirable. But that being said, you know, once in a while. That happened for me. Oh Mel, you know how to let your hair down every night once in a while uh yeah i mean i think that happens for a lot of people who choose you know being an adult over being an overripe child yeah and i can't afford to like waste two days feeling a hangover anymore you know that's that's what it is i mean yeah when i was 25 if i got hung over

Starting point is 00:58:24 for a couple days yeah exactly who cares but now i've got shit to do right right i wake up the next day oh fuck man i'm even if i do work if i if i work hung over it's just no not nearly as effective there's no way and and it's it's really you know it's to me it's definitely pointed to the way that you know this our culture has really set us up for failure in that regard you know because of the way it glorifies things that either hype us up or numb us out and that's really unfortunate because it means that either way you're never one you're never in balance you're constantly going through a peak crash cycle that you know keeps you either hyper adrenaline or completely crashed.

Starting point is 00:59:05 And there's no, no way for your body to settle, no way for you to actually listen to your body and, and do things that will keep it in balance, you know? And that's, that's really, that's really unfortunate because it literally disconnects you from yourself. And then people search for, wonder why they're searching for meaning and truth and realness and fulfillment. And it's like, you're not even connected to what it is that's going on within. So, of course, you're going to feel this emptiness and this lack of something out even more, you know, it's this kind of snowball effect that people, and then people wonder why, you know, there's an opioid epidemic and, you know,

Starting point is 00:59:50 70% of the population's on, you know, antidepressants. I'm making that number up, but it's like a quite a lot of people, you know? It's a lot. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:59:59 I know people who have gotten antidepressants, you know, maybe lost a loved one and they go oh I had to do Xanax for three years or something like that because that and but the issue is when I come off Xanax they still got to deal with whatever they're just they're just putting it off till later still have to grieve absolutely because it's I've taken Xanax a couple times when I was younger and I think back I didn't like the experience I think back and I go well, I didn't like the experience. I think back and I go, well, that was a very numbing experience. Very, everything just went vanilla, like nothing mattered.

Starting point is 01:00:30 It was wild. And it doesn't do anything with the feelings that are there, you know, it just pushes them down. And at some point, you know, they are going to burst forth and that's what purging's for. I mean, you mentioned, and there's an opioid epidemic right now. So much so that even the U.S. government is making

Starting point is 01:00:52 statements about it. You know we're way past where we should be if the president's coming out and making comments about it. It's a real issue. Also using that to potentially further an agenda to build a wall in the Southern opioid crisis blamed on Mexico.

Starting point is 01:01:12 I think one of the, one of the really good things that happened, maybe it was two years ago is they signed into law. Trump signed us in, which was a right to try. Have you heard about this? No. So, yeah, there was one really good thing that I thought came out of this presidency

Starting point is 01:01:34 is the right to try law, which is if you're terminally ill and you can basically sign something and you can try drugs that would normally be off, that have not been FDA approved. So you can get things that you wouldn't normally be able to get. You can try things that are, you know, yeah, that just haven't been FDA approved yet. So it's a really good thing and uh psychedelics i know psilocybin for one has uh been able to been used for people who are like you know uh terminally ill and depressed or something like that and that's been really helped turn things around for them yeah yeah the end of life anxiety coming coming to the surface it's it's really exciting actually that... Hey, everybody, we're all going to die one day, just so you know. Freak out now?

Starting point is 01:02:30 Just freak out right now. That's what I did. I freaked out really hard for a short period of time and got it over with. So now the rest of my life gets to be pretty cool. Nice. Good strategy. Extra large dose of whatever to get get that going i think that's

Starting point is 01:02:48 another another really uh essential aspect of of ayahuasca is it kind of really forces you to face your mortality like like you really have to deal with it yeah i remember the first time i did it i I was like, oh, I've been avoiding this death conversation. I didn't even know it. I thought I was ready. Oh, okay. Sometimes you can actually feel like you are dying and actually feel like you're going through the process of death. And you come out on the other side, it's like, well, I'm kind of, I got a second crack at it.

Starting point is 01:03:32 What am I going to do with this one? Yeah. I I've gotten, um, I've gotten, uh, unusually comfortable with it. And, uh, I, I actually, I think that's one thing that's really helped make me be someone who can be very happy a lot it's really contributed to my overall happiness is the fact that i've had i say more than a dozen i think i've lost count at this point of experiences where i was gonna die you know uh with you know ayahuasca or tmt or so like metaphorically or in real life or experience i've had moments where I was like, oh, shit, this is going to – I've had a gun put to my head and put down and told to get in the basement. And I've had – I don't think I've ever shared that story on the show, but I've had moments where I was like, oh, this is how it goes.

Starting point is 01:04:19 Okay. Okay. So, but that along with ayahuasca, DMT, have really brought me to that point. I'm like, oh, I'm taking my last breath. Oh, this is really it. Oh, I'm letting go. Oh, into the abyss I go. And then come back and going, oh, that was kind of exhilarating. That was a trip. And you never know, right? Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day,

Starting point is 01:04:48 it's interesting the level of appreciation you have for existence when you've come that close to not. Yeah. Seemingly not. And at one point it will happen. And I see that as like a really cool challenge. I wonder how many people know they're actually about to die. Yeah. I see that as like a really cool challenge is like,

Starting point is 01:05:06 I don't know. I wonder how many people know they're actually about to die. Yeah. When they die, they're like, oh, okay, it's happening. All right.

Starting point is 01:05:13 Let me get my shit in order. Get my mindset right. Yeah. Or how many people it's like, which is done. Like, you know, someone just hits you from the side.

Starting point is 01:05:22 But I mean, I really liked the idea of being able to make that a very peaceful transition for myself and really being like, okay, this is happening and accept it. Well, you also have to live life and in such a way that, you know, if it does happen, you're not going to die with a bunch of regret, right? Like could happen any day. And I just think it's important to really try to take care of the people you love and also really try to live up to make the greatest contribution that you have the ability to make during your time.

Starting point is 01:06:00 I think that's something that really drives me a lot. It's like I want to do as much as i can you know i want to just like live that potential and and and make an impact according to the extent of my abilities which hopefully are constantly growing and then so you can constantly make more of an impact over time um me and Mel have been talking about some stuff. She's already freaking out about some of the next business ideas that we're going to jump into after. We got a lot of work ahead of us. Well, that's where I think the idea of abundance comes in. When people talk about an abundance mindset and what does that really mean? It's like, to me, it's like when we work together, when we work towards a common goal,

Starting point is 01:06:46 we are more than the sum of our parts, you know? And from that extra is, you know, the potential for real manifestation to happen. And so, you know, when you're working with the flow of life and towards life itself, you know, then that's where all of this, this abundance can really shine. And that's to me where, and how we can fulfill our potential and really, really shooting forward towards that direction, I think is, is a worthy goal and, you know, how we can

Starting point is 01:07:17 really just leave this plane of earth, like knowing that, you know, we've done, we've done our little part in the stream. Ideally, that's the outcome. How has sitting in ceremony impacted both of you as entrepreneurs? Do you feel like you have an extra gear that you used to not have or anything like that? Yeah, there have been a number of times where where ceremony the visions that come or the realizations that come during the ceremony or after the ceremony or having you know clean myself out for you know with a really good purge and then just like the next day the mind is going in a different gear there have been a

Starting point is 01:08:00 number of times throughout the the course of the last nine years or so that have like either caused me to to zig when i was planning on zagging or just to you know so stay on the path or veer off the path into a different direction based on on that so i would say my my path has been very significantly influenced uh since my very first ayahuasca ceremony and the decisions I've taken in like in, you know, my life of entrepreneurship, but also my personal life and also like in relationships and, you know, dealing with recognizing people who are like really special to me who I maybe don't think about every day. But like during the ceremony, you know, they kind of like forces me to appreciate that and want to act in a certain different way towards that person perhaps. I had that happen this week. Yeah. I had someone come up in a vision.

Starting point is 01:09:03 It was like, oh, wow, I don't give her as much attention. And she's really done a great job the last seven years. that person more so as you kind of like get these these intuitions and inclinations throughout you know these ceremonies over the years it can it can help you to make better decisions you know and then ultimately your outcomes based on the decisions that you make yeah so yeah i would say it's it's been great i don't know about mel. Yeah, no, for me, this, this whole path, which includes entrepreneurship has been led by the plants. I mean, uh, it's been, you know, they are really what has guided me constantly and in both like a, like a larger kind of ultimate mission way, but also along the path, you know, trying to really just pushing me to my ultimate, ultimate limits. What are my boundaries? You know, where's my edge? Okay,

Starting point is 01:10:14 great. Let's address that and then move beyond it. I could not do it without, I know I wouldn't be where I am now without the help of ayahuasca. And really, it's because of ayahuasca that I'm even doing this. So I for sure believe that there is some intelligence acting here that is my teacher. And I'm really just a student on this path. And however it works through me, that's where I'm going to go. And that's how it's been happening and following my feet. And ultimately it's, I never thought I would be an entrepreneur at all. So, um, it's, it's just part of the, part of the path, but I really feel like my, my potential is, you know, is being pushed by,

Starting point is 01:11:02 by the plants. Amazing. And Mel makes most of the decisions. So, you know, is being pushed by, by the plants. Amazing. And Mel makes most of the decisions. So, you know, the whole organization is being led by the plants through Mel. Nice. Go into a meeting and, you know, she tells me what to do. So it works out. Man, what, what would, is there anything you tell people who are afraid to do it?

Starting point is 01:11:29 Or do you just say, don't worry about it? I usually, you know, say that there's really nothing to fear but fear itself when it comes to the medicine. Because, you know, it really comes down to the approach. If you, it's important to have respect, but there's not any need to have fear when it comes to doing the medicine. You have to respect the fact that it might be uncomfortable for a little while. You might see some things that maybe you're not quite prepared for, but there's nothing to be afraid of the say not prepared for but once once you have the experience you realize what I find is most people realize oh I didn't think I was ready to face that but once I did face it it made me face it but afterwards I was like kind of like a chuckle about it like I can't believe I was avoiding that. Yeah, like I think unprepared and incapable are two different things in this.

Starting point is 01:12:28 So unprepared, you're not prepared to see the thing you're about to see, but it doesn't mean you're not capable of seeing it when it comes, right? Yeah. You don't have the competency to deal with it. So it's like I think before my first ceremony, I was very afraid. I was particularly afraid of confronting the things that I knew were deep inside that were causing the problems in my life. I was afraid of confronting these scary things that were buried inside of me. And actually what I discovered was that there wasn't a whole lot of confrontation.

Starting point is 01:13:16 It was a whole lot of acceptance and forgiveness. And just realizing that a lot of the things that were draining my energy and weighing on my mind and causing me to be unhappy with myself and about life were just not important. It didn't matter. So it more caused things to fall away in some cases rather than actually having to stand there and fight and confront them. I feel like it really comes back to trust and trusting that the it's it's called plant medicine for a reason and you know it's the way that it's been used and worked with you know throughout the time that it's been discovered by humans has always been towards healing so trusting that you know the things that you do have to face I mean it, it is a really big, really shiny

Starting point is 01:14:06 mirror. So it's going to show you what's, what's there. And, but ultimately that's what I've come to find is that that's unconditional love. And so, you know, the difficulties and the challenges that come, come up within the experience are always towards that place of love and acceptance and forgiveness. And so, you know, trusting the process and, you know, knowing that even if it is challenging, you're going to be held through it. You know, you're going to be held by the medicine, you're going to be held by, you know, the container if you, you know, make sure you have the right container by the healers that you're working with and everything there is towards your healing and towards your growth. So, you know, this idea of, of having a compassionate space for whatever needs to come up,

Starting point is 01:14:51 you know, is, is crucial to the benefit of the medicine. And then you can also carry that compassionate space with you throughout the rest of your life. And man, that, that reduces fear for a lot of things going forward. Yeah. All right. Where do people go if they want to find out more about Sultara? Well, we've got this really beautiful, rich website that Melissa wrote up for us at www.sultara.co. S-O-L-t-a-r-a .co and we've also got

Starting point is 01:15:29 quite a lot of free information on our YouTube channel including a full length documentary that I released in the past year with many conversations with a lot of the world's luminaries

Starting point is 01:15:44 and leading researchers and experts that that we uh chatted with at the psychedelic science conference in uh in 2017 um we also work with some of uh some of the the academic fields more well-known or respected people. And we have several interviews with them on our YouTube channel with, with a lot of important free information that can be used to, to, I guess, find the,

Starting point is 01:16:22 find the way or find the path through path through the information that's out there. Yeah, we really try and ground our information and cultural awareness and academic knowledge of the field. And you can also call us at 1-800-397-1730 and I'm happy to chat with anybody if they feel like ayahuasca might be a good fit. Did you say that number again slowly? Sure, 1-800, yeah, no problem.

Starting point is 01:16:52 So 1-800-397-1730. Rad. And I have sat with three different ayahuasqueros now. So this being my third. And my experience here has been top-notch it's the the amount of structure that you guys have put in place the level of i've never walked in the ceremony feeling more prepared um and it was and it was my fourth, the first ceremony here was my fourth ceremony. And I had never felt more prepared. And throughout the week, I felt very cared for.

Starting point is 01:17:34 And I had a couple things come up for me. I spent one day in complete silence. And as I mulled over some things going on in my life. And I'm in a transition right now, so this has been perfectly timed as it goes. And yeah, I encourage anybody who's interested, this is, if you want to have experience with Ayahuasca, I highly recommend doing it with Sultara.

Starting point is 01:18:03 Thanks, Mike. We've got a really, really amazing team. And Sultara comes from sultar, which in Spanish means to let go or release. And I think I speak for both of us in saying that our team will catch you for sure. Yeah, absolutely. It's really humbling to work with such dedicated, knowledgeable, and experienced professionals on our team. We've been very, very fortunate to have some excellent people gravitate toward us. I mean, it's definitely not because Costa Rica is beautiful. It has to do with us. This ocean, though. with us this ocean though so yeah it's really awesome uh just the the caliber of people who've who've come to join the team here and uh and the absolute passion they feel for the work and the cause it's a calling it's not a job it you know, something that they take very, very seriously.

Starting point is 01:19:10 And so, you know, you definitely get hands with this team of people. Rad. Well, thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having us. Thanks for putting together this amazing place with amazing people. Thanks for coming. And I will be back. Always welcome, Mike. Out of home here.

Starting point is 01:19:26 All right. We know out of home here. All right. We know you love this show. So quick reminder, we have some other shows that are digging deeper into the topics we got into on the Bledsoe Show. If you want to go catch those, I'll be posting them up in the next week. They will not be on the Shrug Collective. They will be on the Bledsoe Show channel. So make sure you go over to iTunes, Stitch, or wherever it is you're listening. Hit the subscribe button specifically for the Bledsoe Show channel. So make sure you go over to iTunes, Stitch, or wherever it is you're listening. Hit the subscribe button specifically for the Bledsoe Show.

Starting point is 01:19:50 And yeah, remember, we have the new Enlifted Cognitive Fitness Assessment up. So go over to enlifted.me slash shrug to fill out that assessment. We're going to show you where you may have some holes in your game and things you could fix real easily that's going to make you a better athlete. And for the coaches, make sure to go over to thestrongcoach.com

Starting point is 01:20:10 and get some free coaching tips. If you sign up for the email list, I'm sending out coaching tips almost daily. So things that are going to make you better in the gym, make you better if you're a coach online, you're really going to enjoy it. All right, see you all next week.

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Barbell Shrugged - Soltara with Daniel Cleland and Melissa Stangl — The Bledsoe Show #131

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