Good Life Project - Bankruptcy to Poo-Pourri, a Mystical Journey | Suzy Batiz

Episode Date: February 5, 2019

At 38, Suzy Batiz (https://suzybatiz.com/) was depressed and struggling through her second bankruptcy. A handful of years later, she'd built a $400-million company around bathroom odor, with zero-debt.But, the journey was anything but traditional. Standing in the eye of the storm, Suzy experienced what she calls "the surprising luxury of losing everything." She'd lived through poverty, sexual and domestic abuse, depression, multiple bankruptcies and a suicide attempt. Seeking deeper answers, she decided to try something completely different. She turned to a therapeutic ceremony with plant-based medicine, Ayahuasca in particular, as a path to processing and letting go of her past and awakening her sense of possibility and freedom.While not fun, in fact, she describes the early ceremonies as largely horrific, Suzy began to experience shifts, lightness and freedom she'd been seeking for years. Along the way, a deceptively-simple idea for a new venture dropped. Surprisingly, it was about blending her love of essential oils with entrepreneurship and a simple, near-universal need. This led to the creation of the Poo~Pourri (https://www.poopourri.com/) bathroom spray, along with a massively-viral ad campaign and a company that she's now grown into a behemoth with no debt and complete control.As we sat down to record this conversation, Suzy was in the process of shifting gears, devoting a portion of her energies toward the launch of a new conscious, plant-based cleaning products venture called Supernatural (https://supernatural.com/). And, along with that, she's become deeply-focused on teaching entrepreneurs the feminine approach to business—how to tune into intuition, turn on your body intelligence and dive into creative energy to achieve a naturally abundant flow state she calls resonance.--------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sparketypes/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So at 38 years old, my guest today, Susie Batiz, was depressed and struggling through her second bankruptcy. But a handful of years later, she found herself sitting on top of a $400 million company that she had built from the ground up around bathroom odor and done the whole thing with zero debt. But that journey was anything but traditional. Standing in the eye of the storm, Susie experienced what she calls the surprising luxury of losing everything. And she'd lived through poverty, sexual and domestic abuse, depression, multiple bankruptcies, and a suicide attempt. She was at a point where she was kind of

seeking deeper answers. So she decided to actually try something completely different. She turned to therapeutic ceremony with plant-based medicine. Ayahuasca in particular was a thing that she began to work with as a path to processing and letting go of her past and awakening her sense of possibility and freedom. While it wasn't fun as she shares in her conversation, in fact, she describes the early ceremonies as kind of horrific, Susie began to experience shifts and lightness and freedom that she'd been seeking. And along the way, a deceptively simple idea for a new venture kind of dropped.

Surprisingly, it was about blending her love of essential oils with entrepreneurship and a simple near universal need. And this led to the creation of something called Poo-Pourri, which is a bathroom spray, along with a massively viral ad campaign and a company, she's now grown into pretty much a behemoth with no debt and complete control. And as we sat down to record this conversation, Susie was in the process of

shifting gears once again, devoting a pretty significant portion of her energies and brilliance and love towards the launch of a new conscious plant-based cleaning product venture called Supernatural. And along with that, she's become really focused on teaching entrepreneurs what she would call the feminine approach to business, how to tune into intuition, turn on your body intelligence, and dive into creative energy to achieve what she says is a naturally abundant flow state called resonance. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.

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Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations iphone tennis or later required charge time and actual results will vary mayday mayday we've been compromised the pilot's a hitman i knew you were gonna be fun on january 24th tell me how to fly this thing mark walberg you know what the difference between me and you you're gonna die don't shoot if we need them. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. And, you know, there was a lot of racism. This was, you know, I grew up in the 70s in Arkansas and just really structured religion, super conservative. Like everything in my core was

just like, this isn't right. I don't know what else there is, but this doesn't feel good. So I was always questioning and I was always in trouble because of it. It wasn't, these aren't happy memories for me. Now I can say I was a rebel and, but I really, but I couldn't within my being just believe what they believed. It's just, it's weird. Yeah. Did you have, it's weird. Yeah. Did you have, I mean, did you have friends then or did you feel like even socially things were different? Oh, I knew no one. So that's another thing. I had not even anyone that I knew believed anything differently. I didn't even know there was any. It seems like you can get out of here, I'm gonna. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I grew up, my childhood, you know, my dad was

bipolar, alcoholic. My mom was depressed on pain pills. They my childhood, you know, my dad was bipolar, alcoholic. My mom was depressed on pain pills. They got divorced. You know, I got a stepdad. He molested my sister and I. So I was ready to get out of the house. I was ready to get out of the house and I got married when I was 18. Divorced when I was, well, I was almost 19. I was divorced. I was married, bankrupt and divorced by the time I was 20 years old. Then I tried to kill myself when I was 21. Do you want to know this story? I do want to know this story, actually. I mean, yeah, obviously. Okay, so you just created, offered, like tumbled out an entire life cycle of emotion and circumstance by the time you're 21 years old. I mean, what was actually going on? So you get married at 18.

And I know you also have a son, right? Yeah. So I got married when I was 18 to get out of the house. That was my escape plan. You know, like, okay, this is opportunist. You know, it's like I can get out. So I got out. For some reason, I didn't think I could live on my own, which is really bizarre.

Like that concept never, because I didn't even know people could do that, I guess. You know, in Arkansas, you got married, that's how you get out of the house. And I knew within the first year, like, I don't know what I've done. I got to get out of this. And I'd bought a little bridal salon and I bought old inventory. Wait, you bought a bridal salon? Yeah. Yeah. I bought a bridal salon from this woman and, you know, I owed her a ton of money and I ended up filing bankruptcy because the inventory was all old, like it was unsellable. So I kind of... So there's also an entrepreneurial side to you that was presenting pretty young. Oh yeah. When I was 17, I designed a pair of denim pumps. I kept thinking people should wear pumps with, you know, there should be denim that way that match everything you have. So my boyfriend that I ended up marrying's aunt worked at a shoe factory.

And I cut up a pair of jeans, drew them. She made a pair of shoes that I wore around. And I called guests in New York. And, you know, this naive little girl from Arkansas. And I said, oh, my God, I made a pair of denim pumps. And they said, we're coming out with a shoe line. Come see us. So I go to my mom. And I tell her, like, Guess wants to see me in New York.

Because back then, Guess jeans were it. They were everything. Everything. And she says, you can't go to New York. Like, they're going to chew you up and spit you out. You're just a little girl from Arkansas. So I never went. And guess what Guess did a couple of years after that?

Denim pumps. I mean, who knows, you know, but the point is, is I was always a maker. Like I grew up without a lot of money. So I just always made things. So to me, making something doesn't seem impossible. It's like, oh, if it doesn't exist, you just make it. Yeah. It sounds like we're wired similarly too. People ask me, what do you do? And my first word out of my mouth is I'm a maker. Yeah. Like this guitar. Yeah. It's like, people are like, wait, you made... That's what I said. Yeah. I just went to Amish country and lived above a roadhouse for a month

and made a guitar. What of it? That's what you do, right? I mean, isn't everyone like that? But it's interesting because I've learned, you know, over the years that no, everyone is not like that. It's actually, I think, pretty unusual. Really? Yeah. Gosh, it's just so, you know, I guess it's one of those things when it's your genius. You know, my mentor Gay Hendrick says that when you're in your genius, it's like breathing. Right.

Like you, like I can't help making. It's just what I do. Yeah. I go, oh, I want that. Let's figure it out. Yeah. And when you're out of it, it's like suffocating. Oh, yeah.

You know, it's like nothing is right. Exactly. Yeah. So, so you're, you're making stuff, you're making shoes, you're exiting the circumstances. I'm hustling. Yeah. And you take your first business. That goes south and you end in bankruptcy.

So you're kind of like mid-early 20s now. Yeah. So I was 20 years old when I filed bankruptcy, my first bankruptcy. And then I thought, you know, I got to get the hell out of here. Like this whole life is not worth it. So I tried to kill myself. And obviously that didn't work. And then I met this guy, you know, this rich guy.

And I thought he was really hot shit and married him. And that ended up being an abusive marriage. The light in that is that we had two children that were pretty incredible. But it was one of those things where I had to really plan and get out of the marriage, which, you know, that four years of my life, I always say it could be like a six season Netflix series because of what you have to do, just the psychological state of mind. You know, I really believed I was crazy. You know, at some point I made a choice to stay and then I had to get out.

So I got out. What was it that, I mean, because I'm always fascinated if you're in a circumstance where there is pain, there's suffering and you're in it for a substantial amount of time and then something happens, something snaps, something changes. It's like there's a switch that's flipped. What was it that sort of, what happened where you said, done? You know, like whatever belief system I have, whatever I'm suffering, whatever I'm during, no more. Yeah. I woke up one morning and like I said, I believed I was crazy. And I, like my ears were ringing. I couldn't really focus on things. So I really was kind of losing grasp of what we might call reality. You know, I was in a really not great place. So I got the phone book, called a psychiatrist, and I'm getting a little angry. Like, why do you keep asking me about him?

Like, I'm here to fix myself. If I can fix myself, then I can fix my marriage. And eventually, it just dawned on me, and I spent three hours with him. I don't even know what happened to those other two appointments after me, but I was with him. I booked an hour, and I was there for three hours. And it was like this faucet just came out of what the reality of my life. And at the end, I was so relieved. And I said, when do I get to come back?

And he said, you don't need to come back. And I said, what are you talking about? I'm not crazy. And he was like, no, you're actually more sane than me. You don't need a psychiatrist. You need a coach. Like you need to get the hell out. So that was my wake up call. It wasn't as easy as just leaving. You know, there's, you know, there were lots of threats for my life and I had two children and

the attorneys in the town wouldn't take my case because their family was wealthy. I mean, I'm telling you, I'm not, the drama was deep. But what they told me is that if I could move to another state, that I would have a better chance of keeping my children. So some circumstances happened. And I talked to my husband at the time to move to Tennessee. He actually got arrested in Memphis. And yeah, I talked to him and moved into Tennessee. The minute I landed in Memphis, I went and found an attorney.

And they said, you have to live here six months. I said, six months to the date. File for divorce. So I really had to strategize getting out. He had found out a couple months earlier and hadn't paid the bills. So I ended up homeless at that point. So you're homeless with two kids at this point and still waiting out, like kind of knowing like it's got to be six months and a day to make everything work legally.

Yeah. Yeah. legally. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It was pretty, but you know what? It was amazing. It was the first time in my life I got a taste of freedom, though. It's like somehow I had, I got myself out.

You know, I was in deep shit and I got myself out. So regardless, if I didn't have a place to live or, or money or food, somehow I pulled that, that's, I hate using that word survivor, but you know, there's an instinct that you have when you're a maker, like you're a hustler, right? I can just make stuff happen. I knew I just needed to get enough stuff going and I was going to be okay. Yeah. So where do you go from there? Yeah. So I met another guy. Seeing a pattern here. There's a pattern.

And he was amazing. He was a drummer, but he had no money. So it was perfect. I'm like, oh, great. Now we all control me with money. This is awesome. We'll just be poor and happy. And we were.

And we grew a family. We had a daughter together. We were together 26 years. And I was always trying to work and had a side hustle. You know, I was always trying to like claw my way. I really thought money was a ticket out. So I just kept clawing and clawing and clawing. And when I was 38 years old, I filed my second bankruptcy.

What were you doing that led to that? Yeah, so I had this idea that was about 20 years too early that if it was called Greener Grass, it was a recruiting platform. I knew that if you could, that a company needed to match a culture, a person's culture to a company's culture. And I had psychologists on board, and I was in the final stages of getting $5 million in funding. And this was in 1999, like 99, 2000. That was just before the bottom fell out of like everything with a dot com on the end. That's what happened. Okay. So timing is an issue. Timing was an issue. Yeah. And

I'll tell you after that, like I was done. Like I knew I wasn't going to kill myself again. Probably if I didn't have kids, I wouldn't have been here. But I was like, I'm done. I really literally got down on my knees. I screamed to God. I get a little emotional. Like, I screamed to God and said, I'm done. Like, I just can't do it anymore.

So that surrender that people talk about, like that's what I had. And it was because I literally didn't have any juice left because I had fought and done everything the way I was supposed to do it. Did you believe, I mean, when you say you got on your knees and prayed to God? I screamed and prayed. Yeah. Given everything that you'd been through to that point, did you have a strong faith at that point that there was something? No, I'd abandoned God a long time ago because when I was being molested, I used to pray to God every night. I grew up

conservative Christian that God's going to save you. And I would pray every night to God, like, please let it happen to me because I can handle it and don't let it happen to my sister. It was so weird. I didn't take action. I just thought God was going to save the situation. And when I found out that my sister was also molested, I mean, I really was done with God. Like, are you kidding me? Like, you know, like, no, not cool, dude. Dude. Capital D. Capital D, yeah. So I really didn't have any really faith or spirituality. And I just screamed.

And I went to a hypnotherapist after I screamed to God and said, I'm just done. I started, I put on Disturbed. I don't know if you know this, like, and I'm just painting in my house and this anger's just flying, rage is just flying out of me, you know? I came in, like, it was just, and I went to a hypnotherapist and he said, you have no meaning in your life.

So he gave me Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning. So powerful. Yeah. I'm like, what are you talking about? And then a couple of weeks later, I had Byron Cady's Loving What Is in my hands. I remember seeing that on the shelf and I see Loving What Is and I'm like, yeah, right. That's not going to happen.

Are you kidding me? Okay. That book I'm not getting. Yeah. And at that point I was drinking not just a bottle of wine a night, but like the big bottle. I don't even know what you call it. But I mean, I really was. I'm not sure if I was an alcoholic, but probably if you look up the definition. They are self-medicating on some level. I was self-medicating.

Oh, yeah, I want it out. Like, I really want it out. And I went to Byron Katie's, you know, little 10-day thing and walked out and was sober. Like, and I didn't even think I needed to quit drinking. But it's like some, you know, a lot of the craziness in my head got cleared up. And I started, the freedom for me came when I started taking responsibility for what happened in my life instead of being just a victim. So what I do is I say I had the luxury of losing everything because I think rarely do we get that clean slate. And I had a clean slate. And then I screamed and told God I'm done.

And then I got to really decide how I wanted to rebuild. And I really wasn't interested in business at all anymore. I'm sitting at home listening to Gangaji and crying. Grace is visiting me all the time. I'm not joking. I found happiness for the first time in my life. And then when the idea for Poo-Pourri came, that was a whole other venture, but that idea was alive. I remember feeling it in my body. I felt like this spark of aliveness that I hadn't felt. And that's how I practice in my life and my business. If it turns me on and I feel alive, I go towards it. Because what I know is in the past, I didn't do that. I did everything the way you're supposed to do it. I sold out and I clawed and I did you a favor

because I was going to get a favor and cut all those business deals that are very normal in business, which are just really gross. But yeah, so when I came back in it, I started really listening and really feeling like, because I thought if it all goes to shit again, then at least I've had a good time.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Did you, I mean, did you do any work or any experiences or to, to reconnect with that intuition, to reconnect and sort of like bring it back to life, to make it the center?

Which one? Tell me like the big ones, the big, like what, was there any sort of like- I drank ayahuasca like 90 something times. There's the, okay. So that helps. It helps. Yeah. I've been-

Tell me about that experience. Yeah. I've been a warrior for about, actually my son was in a really kind of goth period. I just say goth because he was in a kind of a dark place. I'm just going to, I don't like using stereotypes, but I just did. And I wake up one morning and I hear ayahuasca and dust and I didn't know what it was. So I go to my computer and I type A-W-A, like I'm trying to spell it, you know, phonetically. And I come up on this National Geographic article and I was like, oh my gosh.

So I sent my 19-year-old son down to the jungle. That was 12 years ago. Just sight unseen? Sight unseen. Well, I talked to a shaman that was running a camp and he said, you know, I booked him for two weeks. He said, we have a tour coming on in two weeks. Was your son, was he open to it?

Oh, yeah. I sent him the article and he's like, I got to go. It was a matter of fact. So I'd booked him two weeks. That was on a Wednesday morning. I had these words in my head. I found the shaman, had him booked on Friday. He calls me, no, on Thursday.

And he calls me and he's like, mom, I got to go now. So Saturday morning, after the Wednesday morning words, he was on a flight down to Peru. Ten days, no Wi-Fi, no cell phone, into the jungle. And people often ask, like, did you, you just sent your son down into South America with no contact? And I said, you didn't hear the voice. Like, it was super clear. Dustin called me ten days later. and I'll never forget that call. He calls me from Akitos and his heart's just blown wide open.

And his first words were, mom, God is real. And his heart's just blown open. And he said, I'm healed. I was like, what? And then I went down after that. And then our whole family started going down. And we did a lot of tracks down to Peru. I really thought I wanted to be a shaman.

I was like, I don't know what I'm doing in business. Yeah. Why did you go? I mean, I can understand why you sent him because he was struggling and you thought then you got a message. You thought maybe this is the answer and then saw that it was. What was your motivation for following yourself? I was curious. I wanted to know, when he came home, I remember he got home like at nine o'clock at night. I stayed up talking to him till like 2 a.m., asking him questions like I would a guru.

Like, okay, what happened? And what'd you see? And what was your experience? I was super curious. So I went down out of curiosity alone. I really kind of doubted. I was like, I don't know if it's exactly what you're talking about. And I go down and of course what happened is my first 35 ceremonies were literally hellacious. Like I'm not, I mean. Wait, did you say 35? Oh, I've drank it like over 90 times. Okay. So 35 times are hellacious, but you keep going back. I kept, yeah. And my husband at the time, exactly.

My husband at the time was like, why do you keep doing this? Because each time something within my being was resolved. Like, so it was worth it. And you have to understand, remember, it's like, I've got to go for this because I'm not going back there. And when I knew that there's something that can help me balance and shed some of that old dysfunctional part of my life, like, I'm going to do it. I don't care how hard it is. Like, sign me up.

And each time I sat in front of that cup, I mean, I was tremoring and shaking. And I would still drink and then have a hard time. And then finally, I started realizing that there's, I think there's an agency you kind of develop in the medicine. I don't know if you've ever experienced it. And I started kind of getting, developing some sort of agency to where I could navigate the medicine more instead of just getting my butt kicked all over the place. Yeah. I mean, for those, so for those who have no idea what we're talking about, ayahuasca is an indigenous medicine that a lot of people go to Peru to do journeys guided by a shaman who've been trained, you know, hopefully for generations. Hopefully. And people report some pretty stunning, everything from stunning awakenings or revelations to like you just said, horrific, horrific, hellish experiences that take you into

the darkest place you could ever imagine and magnify that by a hundred. I've known a lot of people that have had both experiences. I haven't known many that have had more than one of the hellish one and gone back to do more. So I'm kind of fascinated by this. Yeah. They were bad, but you have to understand I lived a really hard life. I lived a hard life without resolve. So for me, if I can chunk off in that four hour period, if I can go through that and come out with some sort of resolution, I was like, that's four hours. I used to spend decades there. So for me, it was like, let's four hours. I used to spend decades there. Yeah. So for me, it was like, let's do this thing. Like, I am serious.

So probably the most courageous thing I've done in my life is actually gone in and, you know, personal development, you know, because when you are in as deep as I was, like, you know, there's a lot of will. You kind of have to get yourself out. Yeah. And you have to believe that somehow, even though the experience of it is so dark, that somehow it's leading to something which is more light. Like, cause you can't keep doing it. If some, if even there isn't like a half of 1% belief that there's something there. Do you remember the first medicine journey that you did where it wasn't like that? Yeah, I do.

I remember I was almost going to go into a dark place. And I remember, and I'm kind of showing you right here on my belly, I remember something inside of me. And what I realized is I had a choice. You see, the whole first part of my life, I was a victim, and I didn't feel like I had a choice, right? So I found some resolve in Byron Katie's work. But then when I got back into medicine, I'm still back in my old world. And then I remember very distinctly going, oh, I can choose whether to go into the darkness or whether to stay into

light. Like I have a choice here. And I call it agency. So I started developing and learning how to work within energetic fields. So I call ayahuasca is like a training ground for life. You know, you get life in a four to six hour period and you start learning how to navigate. I remember the first time in business, I was sitting at my desk and something scary happened in business. You can insert anything, you know, wow, you know, everybody's screaming. And I remember having the distinct like, oh, I'm in ceremony. Like there's really no difference in ceremony and life.

Like I used to think they were separate. And then all of a sudden they all became one. And I started realizing I'm always in ceremony and life. Like I used to think they were separate and then all of a sudden they all became one. And I started realizing I'm always in ceremony. So that same agency I developed and the medicine I learned to develop in life. Does that make sense? No, I mean, it does. It's interesting. It sounds really similar to the way that a lot of people describe when you cultivate the ability to lucid dream, where all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of a dream state. But there is a sense of agency. You can determine what this surrealistic experience will become.

Exactly. You have to create it. I'm going to take what I've learned and the sense of agency in the context of a whirlwind of emotions and experience and then be able to step back into that in the context of real world and business relationships like day-to-day life. That seems kind of powerful to me. So it was the most powerful thing in my life because I would go down to the jungle, do this and come back in life and I kept bouncing back and forth. And then at some point I realized, hold on, there is no jungle and there back in life. And I kept bouncing back and forth. And then I, then at some point I realized, hold on, there is no jungle and there is no here. Like it's all one. Like, what am I doing? So what window of time was this over? Let's see. My son was 19. That was 12 years ago. And we were down, we were going down there hard for about six years. I literally would, my second employee still

works for me. And she goes, do you realize like you would just leave me the business for two weeks at a time with no cell phone, no wifi, no contact. I was like, yeah, I did. She was like, we didn't know what we were doing. I'm like, yeah, it's okay.

And somehow it all worked out. And somehow it all worked out. So at the same time, so this was, was this happening at the same time that you started Poo-Pourri or was this prior? Yeah, it was right when I started Poo-Pourri. Okay. So, so you're starting this new venture at the same time that you're going to this deep,

deep exploration of self. How do those two inform each other? I love your questions. Again, I started realizing that there, I'm always in ceremony. So I kept bouncing back and forth. I went down to the jungle after about the fourth time and I told the shaman, like, I started realizing that I'm always in ceremony. So I kept bouncing back and forth. I went down to the jungle after about the fourth time, and I told the shaman, like, I don't know what I'm doing in business. Like, I need to be a shaman. This is lots of people that go to Peru.

I'm called to be a shaman, you know. And he said, you know, shamans move energy, and money is energy, and business moves money in the world. So you have a better chance of changing the world through business than you do sitting down here pouring ayahuasca to 20 people at a time. So I started looking at my business as energy and as an energetic vehicle. And I also started looking at business as what's happening in the business is what's happening internally to me. So to me, business became a personal development tool, and it still is today. I go, how interesting. I've had four assistants.

What is this about support? And then I'll go into EMDR and go back into my childhood and remember that I started cooking for my parents at four years old. And I start healing that, and then I start started cooking for my parents at four years old and I start healing that. And then I start finding the great assistant comes along. So I really play with, with business. And in my life, I just don't think there's any separation anymore. Yeah. I so agree. It's so interesting to say that I was a lifelong entrepreneur as well. And with a short aberrant side stint as a lawyer, Oh, wow. But it didn't last long. But it's funny because I'm very much a maker as well, just like you. But what I've come to realize more

recently is that, yes, I'm fascinated with the process of entrepreneurship of building something from nothing. But I think what I'm more fascinated by is how the process of entrepreneurship serves as the canvas for the growth of the entrepreneur. Yes. And like you, it mirrors everything that we need to move through and solve and resolve. It just tends to do it in a magnified, amplified, like shorter, intense way. Yeah. And it is ceremony, right? It's the same thing.

For sure. It's like, oh my gosh, I'm going to risk it all. You know, this could be the move that takes me out. And then you just, you know, I really look in and go inside energetically. And I find the space that I found after my second bankruptcy of just peace and happiness. And I go, you know what? Okay. It may all fall apart. And then from that place, I can make decisions that I need to make. And I can also look at what do I need to clean up in my life that's still resulting in the outside world. So when you start the company, so the product itself, how does your choice of product relate to this bigger sort of experience of energy and money and movement? Because you could have chosen, I mean, I'm guessing you probably have ideas drop like five a day, if not more. I give away ideas on the street every day. It's like, you have an idea, you have an idea, you have an idea.

Seriously. Go do something with it. Most people don't. Right. So if you have all this coming to you and you have this awakening to the fact that this is all energy, this is my expression, this is my way of going out and healing the world and moving energy on scale, why do you choose this one product as sort of like the primary consumer level offering that you're going to build the business around? Yeah. So it's really kind of funny, right? The business I'm in, I would rather say the business

chose me. You know, I asked one time in a ceremony, why poopery? And the medicine said, well, because if it was anything else, like your head would be too big. And I was like, that's kind of a way to keep you, you know, when you're the queen of poop, it's kind of hard to be. It's a humility thing. Exactly. It's a little hard to be, you know, going like, yeah, that's me. I'm the shit. It's like, I'm a rocket scientist. Yeah. I just, I follow alive ideas. And that idea was so alive inside of me. I never thought it was going to be a business. Remember I'd sworn sworn off business. And I just said, I'm done.

And then this idea was just so captivating. And I remember the way it felt in my body. And I just kept moving towards it. And to me, it's still an experiment. I don't know. I haven't figured all of that out. But I know it's a playground that I love to play with. Because I don't know if I use business to change the world or if this business has been changing my world, which is changing the world. It's sort of like a backflip. Chicken egg thing. Yeah. So, you know, and then when I look at it, you know, it's like, you know, people now are talking about poop a lot and people talk about it

freely. And that may not be a big accomplishment, but it is. And I often tell people, our internal teams, I ask them all the time, like, what else can we talk about? Like we have the world talking openly about poop. What can we talk about now? So those are just some of the things. I will tell you, I had a really interesting ayahuasca ceremony about a year ago. And the shaman taught me something so good. He said, whenever you get into a state of fear, you can shift it, which I learned to do. He said, or you can ask the medicine to take you to the source. So I was working through shame, which wasn't fun, right? So I got to see my shame. And I went through about five levels of shame all the way through down to my conception, right? And I saw that my parents were 18 years old in Arkansas, Christian. Of course,

they had a lot of shame, right? So in a typical ayahuasca ceremony, it's hard, hard, hard. I went through all kinds of shame, body shame, sexual shame. I just kept saying thank you and take me to the source. Thank you. So I just kept going deeper and deeper and deeper. So again, I'm having the choice. I'm the one choosing to keep going. And I get down. I have all kinds of freedom. And I'm so excited. And then I hear, and you've built an entire company around shame. Oh, dude, I mean, gut punch, right? And, you know, you can get rid of embarrassing bathroom odors and the word like embarrassing. And so I came back to my team and I said, oh, my God, I know that we've liberated so many people, but we've been slightly selling shame.

And we didn't even know it. We launched a new campaign called Girls Do Poop and we got banned from YouTube because we say the word shit way too much. And we have, you know, real women telling their poop stories. So that's the way I use like the medicine and the business is really looking at what are we really doing and how can we keep spreading more messages through the world. And we have a lot more up our sleeve that we want to do. When something like that happens, so at this point, the company has become pretty substantial. I don't know what the inner numbers are outwardly. People report it's a $400 million company. So you've got people,

you have got salaries, you've got lives, you've got families, you've got all these people relying on you, you've got structure, you're serving millions of customers, and you've built something substantial. So when you then go and get a message like this that says some piece of the heartbeat of everything that you've built is something that has to be changed. Do you come back from that? And I mean, when you come back and have that conversation with your staff, is there fear at all that gets tethered with that? Because it's sort of like, okay, so if we take this away, is that going to harm what we've built, which will then potentially go out and have a ripple and harm

all the people we're supporting. Like, does that ever, is that a part of your experience or your journey at all? I wasn't, I was afraid for a little bit in the ceremony, right? And then I, then I got to see sort of the resolution and I did see the girls do poop. I saw us changing our YouTube. I mean, I saw it all. Oh, wow. So in ceremony.

Yeah. At the end of the ceremony, I saw exactly how it could go down to change it. So I just came back to our team and I'm very open and transparent. And I said, this is what I discovered. And how do you feel about that? And everybody's mouth drops open the same way mine did. And I said, I think we need to change this. And they were all like, yeah. So I don't make those decisions alone anymore. I really, you know, it's like, how do you feel about that? And boy, they went way stronger than I would have. I was kind of wanting to tiptoe out into the world. We pulled it back just a tiny bit because there is also energy and you kind of have to watch how you do that. But I know that inside everything has shifted us.

And our team is just as passionate as I am. To me, it doesn't matter. Once you see something like that, I don't care how much money it's worth. I'm not going to continue being a part of that. Yeah, it's like you can't unsee it. You can't unsee it. You can't unsee it. And because this is not a venture, which is sort of like your primary metric is not scaling growth, it's not scaling revenue. It's something different.

Yeah. How can we keep evolving and how can we keep evolving as beings on the planet? The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So how do you build a substantial company with a team that's competent, that's got skills,

that is also 100% on board with the founder, CEO walking in and saying, I just came back from ceremony. And this is what Spirit told me. You know, it's just, if they're not in, they leave really quickly. I would imagine it's like a pretty good early test. It's a good early test. They're like, I'm out of here. Yeah. But what I, I choose to not talk woo-woo. I choose to just say truth. And this is what I saw. And this is what I feel. And I felt it in my body.

How do you feel when I tell you that? That's truth, right? So I'm not preaching or selling. It's like once truth lands, like you, again, you can't unsee it. Like you feel it. So I keep people around that are, we just had a campaign that I chose not to do. We worked really hard to get this song and the song has the word toxic in it. It was the Britney Spears thing. And I wanted to put it out and it was kind of like a screw you to some competition. It was like a,

kind of a knee jerk move that I had. After I felt in, I'm like, I don't want to put that word out into the world anymore. I know you guys went and you got the song and our team was just like, you know what? We're not sure if we 100% agree with you, but we appreciate your integrity and we're going to back you. Yeah. That's amazing to have that. It's, I've, we're similar in so many ways.

I've had that same experience where I've made a call. I thought it was great. Then you invest money and resources and time and you harness people behind it. And then you're a heartbeat away from making it live, doing the launch, whatever it is. And there's something inside of you that just says, not right action. You know, there's just, and it's like, and even there's something that says it will probably work. Yes. You know, like if you're measuring it by money and impact and reach and all this stuff, sure,

it'll probably work, but it's not right. And that I found is like the hardest thing to make. But if you don't make those decisions, I feel like you always end up paying for it. You always end up suffering. One hundred percent. And causing harm. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like you can't undo that. And I just really, also I'm very fast, so I have to watch myself because I'm very quick with ideas and execution. And I have my practice is to slow down and go, hold on, how does that really feel?

Yeah, it would be a successful campaign. Do we really want to put that out into the world? And then now the team has come up with even better ideas. You know, they're super excited. So that also always happens. Yeah. It's like you create the space for it. Yeah, you create the space.

Do you have, outside of ceremony, do you have any sort of sustained daily practice that helps inform you? Yeah. I've done transcendental meditation for quite a few years, maybe like, I don't know, 13 years. What do you feel from that? It's the point where, again, I get back to that center place within my being. I can, you know, I tap into nothingness or into everythingness, which are both the same. And that to me is like in a spinning top, it's that solid point from which I can launch my day. Yeah. I like that visual actually. Yeah. It's like that. If I don't meditate, which I think this year I didn't meditate one morning when I, before I left the house and I hit it, hit the curb with my tire.

I mean, I almost got in a wreck. Like my world is so wobbly because I'm so, you know, it's just such a part of me. It's a fine tuning of where it's, it's a, it's a, it's a non-negotiable. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like so much of your approach to life is being intentionally groundless. To stay in the space of opportunity, of possibility. That you need those practices to kind of like touch stone, to just have enough of an anchor where you're like, okay, so I'm going to be okay. You know, and that lets you sort of be untethered. It lets you go to that space where you don't know how it's going to end or what's going to happen when it's your job to go there because that's where the magic happens. Gosh, that was so well said.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. So that, and then, you know, I work out, you know, I do either yoga or or a HIIT training every other day. My mentor is Gay Hendricks. I've never met anyone with more integrity. So he's my integrity check. So I do have people in place in my life that keep those checkpoints for me. Because like I said, I am fast.

I mean, hello, I've done all these ayahuasca ceremonies. I'm like a wild explorer. So I do need to have those touch points, like you said, to kind of go, hold on, is what I'm experiencing, is this right? So I have those check-in points. So when you think about the company that you built now, when you think about Pooh Hurry, do you look forward and say, these are concrete plans or projections that this is where I want to go with it? Or do you more just look forward and say, whatever will be, you know, will be. We'll see. I say, this will be interesting to see how this turns out.

And I guess part of what allows you to do that, from what I understand, tell me if this is accurate, you've also made the decision not to take outside investment, which gives you complete control. What was, because I would imagine with the size that you're at and the success you've had at numerous points along the journey, I'm sure people came to you and said, hey, listen, we either want the whole thing or we want in on some level. Yeah. I remember the first time I, well, my first Christmas, I called a friend. I call him my financial angel, even though he's never gave me money. He is an investment. I don't know what he

does. He, I don't know, consults people about investment, invests a lot of people's money. And I called him. I said, I need money. I said, I need help. And he said, figure it out. And I ended up working a deal with my manufacturer and, you know, I got 90 day terms and then they, I guess, sent them raw goods. And so I ended up working these deals with my manufacturer, my vendors to sort of like fund myself, you know, and partnered with them and without, you know, giving them anything other than business. And I always found my way out. I call him my angel because he could have very easily swept in and, you know, had a piece of my company.

But now, you know, I remember the first time I turned down, I remember I got an offer for like $14 million. This was, you know, quite a few years ago. And I remember my husband at the time was like, that's a lot of money. You know, like, you know, we can retire with that. You think you can, right? It's not that much money now, it seems like. And I remember checking into my body and I said, everything inside of me says no.

You know, I remember those moments of just being like, I know there's a lot of money. I remember building the business and the financial crisis and then having an offer, you know, and then still saying no, you know, going, I know that everything seems to be crashing. That was like, what, 2008, 2009. Yet my, it was the beginning of my business and what offered me a few million dollars out the gate. And I said, my reality is I'm abundant. Like that's the truth.

So I just kept these blinders on and it's allowed me a freedom because I can come back and have conversations. I don't have to go to a board and go, I was in an ayahuasca ceremony and we've been selling shame. Can you imagine that? Yeah, that would be different. Yeah. So I still can't believe where we are and we're still self-funded. I still think sometimes like, oh, we're going to have to get a line of credit or we're going to have to get a loan. And we just seem to be able to pull it off. It's amazing. It's a miracle.

It's not a miracle. I mean, it's a lot of strategy. There's a lot of work. But I mean, what stands out so much to me is, you know, you've chosen ceremony and medicine as sort of like the path to open your mind and sort of like create the expansiveness to inform your life and your business. People choose therapy, people choose all sorts of different things, whatever it is that works for them. But you've got something. You've got something that allows you to go inside and advise you and keep you integrity. And that's just that that's something that I find a lot of people don't have these days. I wonder if you see it because you interact with so many people, too.

Do you feel like there is that people do have these things that they can turn to that sort of like serve as an inner compass that they can keep revisiting? No. You know, I was just at a festival of a bunch of, you know, young people and I was just shocked at just some of the talk that's going around. And I really, like you hear the words intention, yet when you look at the business practices, I'm constantly shocked and like, wow. And what I also know is that it will be what it is and people will learn your lessons. You know, I had to have my lessons and whatever, you know. But I also know those business practices aren't sustainable.

You know, we can't, it's like robbing Peter to pay Paul. You know what I'm saying? Like, you can't cut those out of integrity. You can't do those out. I can't, I don't have the liberty or freedom to do those out of integrity moves without really feeling it. And I do believe that what we put out comes back either right now or sometime later. I try to stay as on path as I can. So I have as little repercussion as, you know, because I know I've got a pretty strong like whip. I think, have you noticed that like the more clear, like it's like, bam. It's like you will come back into the right direction.

Yeah. So that keeps me on compass. And I, you know, I really hope that people find that inside. And I know at some point you will, you know, it's this, the path, right? And people are waking up sooner and sooner. I feel like that's true, actually. Funny. I had a friend of mine, his wife was on the podcast, Julie Payette. She was sharing the story of how her and her husband went, you know, they were sort of riding this really amazing high. And they went through this really, really deep, dark financial crisis with parents, with four kids and a beautiful home. And she used the phrase, something like, you know, I had the blessing of being brought to my knees. And you've used similar language.

And so many people I know have used that. And it was like, well, that's the moment where I found my compass. That's the moment where I had nothing to lose. So I started trying to just do what I'm here to do and not satisfy any other expectations about how I should be or what I should do. I've often wondered whether it's possible to come to that place without having that experience. I'm curious what you think.

Gosh, I don't know. You know, I would love to tell you, you don't have to. And this is not my, all I can tell you is my own experience is, and this happens to me daily, you know, I'll be like, oh, I knew not to do, you know, it's like, it's, it's used to last decades and now it's much faster. But I think, you know, when you look at, you know, Joseph Campbell's, you know, the hero's journey, like we're on a journey every single day. And if you look at your life as a journey or even, you know, like your soul's journey, if you start looking out beyond and this isn't so, no, it's not important. It's

just a piece of the journey. So I try to look at that and I don't know, I think you, you know what? I think some people need a really loud alarm clock. Some people need a smash on the head like I did. Maybe some people need to tickle. That's my hope. I kind of hope that's right also. I mean, I really do. I know that I want the truth to be crystal clear on that. Yeah. I need to stay tampered. I don't choose anymore.

I choose to learn through wisdom rather than experience. That's my mantra now. I hear you. So as we sit here now, when you showed up, you brought some really fun new stuff. While you're still, you know, like Poo-Pourri is still going strong. You're still like running that company. Clearly the maker Jones and You is extending out beyond that current venture and you're starting to look at different things. Tell me more about sort of your focus moving forward and other projects. Yeah, I just really, again, do what turns me on.

I started looking, my mom died of MDS about four years ago, and that's caused mostly by chemicals, benzene. And she was a housewife and that turns into leukemia, you know, and it was a pretty not fun experience going through chemo with her. And I've always been into natural product, not always, but you know, probably 20 years into natural products. And I just started looking at cleaning products and I was like, what is not right? Well, number one, nobody's done concentrates really well. And most of the products, even the big brands aren't a hundred percent natural. They

use synthetic fragrance and I'm an essential oil person. So I just, I had a hippie chemist and I started playing. And I really said, can we create a line of cleaning products that are just incredible, you know, that are 100% natural? And then I told the team, I'm like, and can we have the lowest carbon footprint? So we want everything either recycled, it's made out of recycled material, you know, like our boxes, we plant two trees for every tree that's used for our bottles are 50% recycled and it's all recyclable or sprayers even recyclable. And so it was just, it has the most intention of anything. And really to me, it's just, I call her my love child because she was birthed on the side. And again, I don't know how it's going to go.

It seems to be going well. But I honestly, I'd had a million dollars in two years put into it, and I still didn't know if I wanted to launch it. So I went to bed with her one night, not joking, with the box. And I said, in the morning, I'm going to wake up, and it's going to be crystal clear whether I'm going to bring you into the world, right? Because this has just been my little side gestation project. And I woke up the next morning and I really just had tears. And I looked at the product and I said, how can I not?

You know, it's like, how can you, you know, not deliver this child into the world? So here she is. And her name is Supernatural and supernatural.com. And I think you're going to love the products. Like you're going to, I can tell you're going to resonate. Yeah. People that like, they just feel good in your being. Like it's, you know, we've been working with words. Like I hate calling it cleaning. It's like sage or Palo Santo. You know, it's like you're literally transformed by just the sense alone.

Yeah. Yeah. alone. Yeah. Do you get more lit up by going from idea to, oh, this is real, or going from this is real to let's make this big? Oh, from idea to let's make this real. Yeah. Yeah. I still don't know. And, you know, I did want to backtrack a little bit. For example, like with Poo-Pourri, like I know that's not what this is about.

So to me, Poo-Pourri is a side game because my prayer has always been show me what this is for. Because within the context of my soul and my life, Poo-Pourri is just like a little, and she's amazing. She's a big part, but it's just an act. It's not everything. And like tomorrow I'm giving a talk to entrepreneurs. I have this message that's alive inside of me and I'm starting to see that the trajectory of my story is what I want to be sharing to inspire people. So Poo-Pourri is just a part of that amazing story. Yeah.

So what is the bigger idea? What's the bigger story? What's the bigger share? Yeah. So a few years ago, I started wondering if ideas were alive. Because what I started realizing, like with Poo-Pourri, I told you, like, I felt alive. Like, I felt lit up and happy when I was working on it. So I called Dr. Bruce Lipton, and I asked him, are ideas alive?

And he said, why do you ask? And I said, I have this theory that the alive ideas I have seem to work out better. There's more resiliency. And when I do something with my logical mind and very strategic, it seems a little harder and harder to pull off. And I said, I have a theory that those 75% of businesses that fail or whatever that number is, those weren't alive ideas, probably. They were probably just super strategized. And, you know, it just seemed like a good idea.

And he actually said, everything's alive, everything's energetic vibration. And he told me about how, he taught me about resonance and dissonance. And resonance is when two things come together and they're traveling at the same speed and the same wavelength. And they come together and they create a bigger wave together than they did apart. So for me, with Poo-Pourri, that idea and me created more energy together than we did apart at that time. So that's what I look at and that's what I teach people is go towards what turns you on, because there's actually not saying that physics explains it, but there is something in physics that could be very similar to what you're experiencing. So for me, having been

lived a life mostly in dissonance, because I didn't go towards, it didn't matter what felt alive in me. This was the right thing to do. I was always asking outside people outside advice, right? I would do what they told me to do because that's what you're supposed to do. So zero happening inside my body. Now what I teach people is just follow what's alive inside and see how that goes because it's going to go a lot better, I can guarantee you, than anything that you, to strategize it, it's like a math proof. You have to get it exact.

It doesn't mean it can't work. It's just somehow not as, you know. Yeah, no, I get it. I mean, it's funny. The visual when you're saying that to me is, remember when you were a little kid and you had that like toy where it was a couple of stacks of sort of like hollow blocks. And when you line them up all right, like the pole goes right through it really easy. Yes. But if they're even a little bit off, you can kind of jam it through, but it's really not going to work.

It's sort of like when you get everything lined up, it's then, you know, like the conduit that moves through them just becomes completely clear in whatever is meant to emerge. All the resistance is gone. The resistance is gone. And you're in flow.

And I have four signs that I've determined that for me, tell me something's resonant. And it is number one, I get some sort of body sensation. I'm a chill. I either get chills or like goosebumps, you know, like, like you hear people say that all the time. And I get a heightened sense of energy. I noticed like, I feel like with you talking to you, like I feel excited, right? I don't think I'm tired. The idea keeps coming back around. Like it doesn't leave me alone in synchronicity. You know, the right person is at the right time. I mean, it really is. It's like a Mr. Magoo cartoon every time, you know, and people used to call it Susie's world. They'd say, oh, this always happens in Susie's world. But what I've decided is like, that's what I want to tell people.

Like you can trust what goes on inside you way more than you can really trust the outside world. And if you had to bet, bet on that instead of the other. Yeah. So that seems like that's the through line here. And that's sort of where you're headed with what you want to bring to the world is the idea and then somehow getting people to believe it. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and it's funny because I thought, well, people are going to like not go

to dinner tonight, right? Because I teach people these principles. I had one guy that has a multimillion dollar, I spoke at Conscious Capitalism a couple of years ago. The guy has a multimillion dollar consulting firm. He fired his biggest client that was 50% of his business because he said, I knew they're killing my company. So what I teach people is when you say this job's killing me, this marriage is killing me, that's actually true. You actually have less life force energy than you would if you weren't in it to begin with. And people are leaving their marriages, they're leaving their husbands.

I'm like, hold on. I thought you weren't going to go to dinner tonight with that person you don't like. So yeah, I'm excited to see what's happening. Yeah, that's amazing. And women really resonate with it. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting too, that you bring that up. You described the ventures that you have developed using feminine pronoun. So it seems, are the creations that you bring to the world, do you feel like your creations are innately feminine in energy? Or do you feel like just the process, the act of creation of ideation is feminine in energy? Wow, your questions are really good. I think the process is feminine and therefore the result is feminine.

Yeah, I know the process is very feminine. I talked to you about birthing. I birth an idea. And I'm a woman. I birth things. I think men also can birth things, but they're not probably as close to that word as you are a woman. I don't know. I haven't been a man in this life. Enough ceremony. There's time. There's time. That might be the next one. I'll get to take a walk through that. But I did operate from more masculine, you know, push through, you know, get it done. And now I'm in a more feminine approach. And I have both. You know, I have my masculine tendencies where I can work a spreadsheet like nobody's business, you know, or that real strategic part, but also allow the room for that feminine flow.

And I believe that in business right now, we don't allow enough of that. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I think in business and life and everything. Yeah. So what I'm hoping to do, what I want to do is have people start trusting a little more inside themselves. That's my wish.

Yeah. It feels like a good place for themselves. That's my wish. Yeah. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle also. So as we sit here, Good Life Project, if I offer out the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? Trust yourself. Yeah. Thank you. Over anything else.

The asterisk there. Yes. Over anything else because you got it going there. Yes. Over anything else, because you, you, you got it going on. Awesome. Thank you.

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Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

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