Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #470 Tony from Born Primitive

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

This podcast we dive into Tony's life as an athlete, fucking up in youth, plant medicine, and the way forward. Tony is now the President of Born Primitive. My wife and I recently had the pleasure to work with out in Ft Lauderdale, FL. Tony and I hit it off big time and I knew he had a lot to share. Share this with friends and check out everything they're up to at bornprimitive.com    Brain Supreme is the best microdosing company on Earth- the Genius and the Athlete are my favorite products but all of them work incredibly well for a variety of purposes. Get 15% off everything in the store by using code "KKP" at checkout.  https://brainsupreme.co/collections/all I just launched my new community The Kingdom Within on Skool- sign up now for a free 7 day trial. This community is for people who are dedicated to learning and making positive changes in their lives. Read here for more... https://www.skool.com/the-kingdom-within-5541/about

Welcome to the podcast. Today we have Tony from Born Primitive. If you guys have been following me online, you saw my wife and I were out in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with our coach Connor Milstein, his amazing wife, and their beautiful daughter, and our kids as well. And we had such a blast getting to meet Tony and the Born Primitive Team.

They are making some phenomenal shoes amongst other things. You know, they've been in the clothing game, they've been in an athletic wear game as well as shoes. and they've made a phenomenal barefoot zero drop shoe for athletes that is my absolute favorite that my wife and I get to help launch in that in the downtime talking with Tony. We got to talk plant medicines and the military and all sorts of cool shit. So it has been a real treat getting to know Tony. I've been super excited to podcast with him and I'm so excited to share this with you guys

because he's a fucking rad dude with a really cool background. We break that down, you know, as athletes who found plant medicines and found different things that have helped move the needle. And of course, you know, this guy is very business-oriented. He has done a lot of work to build his company to where it is and to put himself in the position that he's in. And all the while, raising three amazing little girls and having an amazing wife. So Tony's doing it.

He's a guy I look up to, and I'm so blessed to have him on the podcast. We will do it again. Look to the show notes here for Born Primitive Gear, and you can see the shoes that we just launched. They're incredible. I've been doing all kinds of shit in it from running a 5K. to deadlifting, to box jumps, you name it. You can do anything in them.

And that's it. Share this with friends. Check out the website. Check out my boys at brainsopreme.com. And check out my new digital community, the kingdom within for a free one-week trial. All right, guys, without further ado, Tony, from Born Primitive. Tony, welcome to the podcast, brother.

Kyle, thanks for having me. This is awesome, man. I've known you for a short while, but I feel like I've gotten to know you pretty well. And I was like, man, everything that I've learned about, you and what you guys are doing in the world just excites the hell out of me. I feel like you're a soul brother and I'm stoked to have you on and get a chance to deep dive with you because when we were hanging, you know, like anytime I get to hang out with somebody and the families around, it's awesome because they get to meet my family. And there's also, you know, nonstop shit

happening. So, and we were quite busy, you know, doing the work we were doing, which we'll dive into. But tell me what was your life like growing up and what led you to the passions that you're into today? So we, I grew up with two brothers, one older, one one younger, and we grew up in the northern tip of the Appalachian Mountains, so southwest Pennsylvania. Sports were our everything, and we also grew up, we grew up on a 200-acre farm. So it wasn't, don't think like this huge industrial farm, we usually had somewhere between five and eight cattle, and those were ones that we would raise, raise up and then eventually just slaughter.

So just to kind of set some context as to where we were at, middle of nowhere, old kind of mining country, not much going on at all. But sports became our thing. My older brother and I, especially, we're only a year apart. And we grew up with a really interesting dynamic too in the sense that our father was really hard on us. Never cross boundaries, but that was just his style. Like we were, there's pictures of us. My older brother and I carrying hay bales out.

I was five. He was six and we'd have to get one string each and kind of carry it up at 6.30 in the morning. And I don't want to frame it either. Like we were these farm boys that worked six hours a day on the farm. But that was his mentality. It was like, you're going to work your ass off. You're going to do things the right way. And if you don't, you're going to hear about it.

So for my brother and I both, that created this, insane drive. And I think I told a little bit about him when we were down in Florida as well, is that he he's been an extremely high performer. His whole career, he's in the military and the spec ops, has since kind of moved on to even more what I would call tip of the spear things. And for me, though, like that dynamic with a father like that,

and then a mother that was very, very loving, but also as with any couple, they had their things going on. my brother, my older brother's coping mechanism was if I can control the outcome, I'm safe. My coping mechanism was if I can mediate everyone. If everyone else is okay, I'm safe. Which is great as far as you being kind of an integral glue between people. And especially now in my role that you know a little bit about as a leader of an organization, is that you are really, really good at mediating.

However, you can lose your sense of self a little in that of like, what do I actually want? What's good for me versus just making sure everyone is okay? So of course could go really deep on the dynamics of my family, how that, like the shadow of that, the beauty of that, but I wouldn't trade an ounce of it. There was definitely an 18 year old version of Tony that had a little bit of resentment for my area because it's, it's hillbilly country. Like there, there's not a lot going on. So like there, I knew, I knew by the age of 12. I was like, I'm getting out of here and I'm never coming back. Whereas now my wife and I with three kids,

like I actually were considering it now. Like I would love to build like a little log cabin on our property because you realize like, man, the values, the principles, the pace, the rhythms that existed in my childhood. Like now raising three daughters, it's like I want them exposed to that. I want them to be able to just run around.

We were hunting at the age of seven. So like just to be able to like go out, go out in the woods and stay there. for four or five hours, I wouldn't trade that for the world. But there was definitely an exploration and an exploration of like both ambition, but also just wanting to see the world that definitely my older brother, I mean, he left for the military when he was 17. He graduated high school early.

We both had that. And my best friend who has now went on, he went on to play college football. We just knew we're like, we got to get out of here. So that mentality has shifted a lot. But it's a rough area. Like there are, I think from my graduating class of only about 100 people, I think there's probably around 10 to 15 percent that have overdosed from either heroin. Of course, now fentanyl is a huge thing.

Methamphetamine. So the area, just with it being old coal and steel town, there's just not a lot of infrastructure to support kind of like people progressing through a career and maybe having a level of abundance. So as with any place, there's things I wouldn't change. my childhood wouldn't change a single thing. However, I knew at a young age that I needed to get out and explore the world a little bit. Yeah, I'm picturing in my mind, and I don't know if I haven't spent much time in Pennsylvania, but just like northern tip of Appalachian Mountains, I'm thinking of,

you know, kind of the same issues that happen in West Virginia. You know, just the education is like, it's a bonus if you get to, not necessarily. And honestly, like at this point, at this stage of my life, I'm still a senior in college at ASU. Like I never graduated there. I've got a two-year degree from junior college. I don't really use it for anything. I wouldn't use it if I finished. And I don't expect my kids to go to college unless they want to play college sports.

So like I get like the becoming a tradesman or journeyman, you know, getting into something blue collar. I think all those jobs we're going to see a resurgence and importance as AI takes a lot of, you know, the white color jobs. But, you know, without those things, without without that driving motivation, you see, you know, just, tons, tons of addiction. And those guys got hit hardest from Purdue's, you know, fake news saying that the bikin does not cause, you know, opiates do not cause addiction. They got hit the hardest, right? And then enter in things like meth, you know, the counter to that.

You got a downer, you got an upper, and it's something for everyone. And I think that it's such a, it's really sad to see how many people get taken from that. Like three of my best, I parted all the time at ASU. for whatever reason, God's grace, you know, never got hooked on opiates. And three friends and a cousin all died from opiate overdose, you know. And these are guys that had partied with since I was like 18, 19 years old. And then like, oh, do you hear so-and-so died? And you're like, oh, yeah, he was hooked on X, Y, and Z.

And you're like, fuck, man. And that's before fentanyl came along, you know, guys just running out of Oxycontinent and decided to use heroin. So it's one that can grab people. Same with meth. I never even tried it. but I saw a couple of people really get grabbed, you know, by the collar and taken down the road with that. And that's one that just turns people into, you know, skeletor, like a shell of themselves.

You can look into their eyes and see like, damn, it looks like their souls just being eaten away. For sure. Well, I like talking drugs because I want to talk plant medicines and things like that with you as well, you know. But keep me on your trajectory. You decided not to go in the military, even though your brother's there. Talk about that decision and, you know, what was driving you at this point. Yeah. So I was fortunate enough.

I had Division I offers for both baseball and football. So I ended up actually, you just mentioned West Virginia, I ended up playing baseball at West Virginia University. So it's only, because where I live is only an hour from the southern border of Pennsylvania. So Morgantown, West Virginia is in the northern tip of West Virginia. So it's only two hours from my house. So had the opportunity to play baseball there. Was considering, so my brother was a quarterback, I was a wife.

receiver. And we had we had a decent amount of offers to go play football, but when he made the decision to go to the military instead, that's when I decided, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to go play baseball. And baseball was my lead passion. I was obsessed from the age of like four years old. There's pictures of me. I used to carry around a little baseball bat. So that was like, my first love was baseball. So yeah, decided to go play at Morgantown, West Virginia. And I'm sure you can relate to this on some degree. Like I, I had all the intangibles, like explosiveness, speed. I was one of the fastest players on the team. Strength, I love the weight room in high school. That was like a sanctuary. However, from a technical skill standpoint and from just a life balance standpoint,

rated real poor. And that caught up to me very quickly. And we were in the big 12. So you got to figure, we're flying to Texas University. I have court, like, in a pretty ego. way was a pre-med bio major more just because I wanted to prove like I can do this I can I really had no I had considered med school like that is something I had tossed around but I would be lying if I said it was ever like a really serious thing that I had like sat down and mapped out so you're flying to you're flying to you're flying to TCU Baylor Kansas State and trying to do this degree while still playing and I had actually I had struggled with back pain and that that can kind of be a good segue eventually into the plant medicine space and just the exploration of both pain and consciousness

was I, from the age of 15, and I'm 6.7, and I was 6.5 when I was 13 years old. So it had always just been told to me like, oh, it's because you're tall that you're in back pain. And of course, you can build a story around that. And there may be some truth to that. But things, it's like everything, everything kind of finally, I would feel like surfaced to a, surface to a degree. My junior year of college where I actually stopped. My last year, I went through fall ball and then was like, I have to be done. I was taking a thousand milligrams of ibuprofen to make it through practice. There were practices where a teammate would have a prescription for Adderall. And I'd take one just to like get through practice because the weight of both the schoolwork, of not managing my time well,

of partying too much, of playing baseball, of lifting hard of and even in hindsight now, things like, I mean, you're waking up, you have a lift at six. You're taking. You're taking a a pre-workout at 5 a.m. Then going right through school all day. Then you have practice four to eight. Then you're drinking and then you're just doing that. You're doing that on repeat. So I was burnt toast.

I looked good on the outside. I called myself, I was gilded gold at the time where I looked good on the outside, but the internal systems and structures were just a mess. So stepped away from baseball. And of course there, and I'm sure you've went through similar phases of this, you kind of convince yourself like, man, if I just had time, If I could just have some breathing space, I'd feel better. This depression, this anxiety, this just like insane pressure.

If I just had some space, so it's time. Like, I wasn't going to start that year anyway. I was performing probably worse my junior year of college than I was my senior year of high school, which is a perfect representation of just like just being out of whack, being so in my head. However, that's when the real kind of dark night set in is like this whole identity around baseball, around being an athlete. And of course, you're at the Division I level. You get, there's a little prestige with that.

People, people interact with you differently. That fell apart. And when that scaffolding fell apart, it was, there was two years where I was lost. I lost 35 pounds. And you know me. I'm a skinny guy to begin with, but was in a deep, deep depression. And reflecting on that, like I still, I hold a lot of kind of appreciation for the fact that like still finished my degree, which was not an easy degree, and kind of drugged myself.

At that point, I started washing dishes at a local brewery. And that, like, once again, in hindsight, like, that was my dad coming through of like, hey, you're not playing a sport now. It's like, you need some money. So I literally was just washing dishes. And very quickly, the manager came to me after two weeks and was like, hey, do you want to be a busser? Like, I think you could be a busser, like, right away.

And then eventually actually ended up being the manager of the restaurant. within like 18 months, but was a dark time, like a very, I was struggling deeply and really hadn't learned how to had absolutely zero kind of tools to address that, talk about it. I did try, my coach actually connected me with like a sports psychologist, but eventually led me to mushrooms. Like that was like this, this period of like just seeking answers, being miserable and not understanding it all and of course using the typical coping mechanisms of of of alcohol of partying of just anything to fill the void um eventually landed through just and it's it's such there's

so many like little synchronicities here that eventually led me Kyle to a girl I knew and she was just a a friend she I think it was a Snapchat she snapped me and said like hey have mushrooms if if you'd ever want any and I had never I had I had had, actually, I'd take that back. We had, I had done a tab of LSD in high school. So, like, it wasn't foreign to me. And of course, I was around every drug from the age of 15 on. But just on a whim, I think I was in, like, I was in like some biology class at 11 a.m. and said, hey, I'll, I'll, I'll take, like, what, what portions do you sell it in, I think is what I said. And she said, it doesn't matter. But she, we, we follow through. I go and meet her and I get a bag of

mushrooms. And here's where the interesting part is, is that, like, I approach it with such, such intent and so much, or so much intention now that, like, I actually did that my first time. Like, I wrote, I kind of set up a little, I was calling it, like, just the, I set the space up and actually wrote little letters and had my headphones, had a binaural beats playlist that I found that I still used to this day. But I, I ate the whole bag. And in hindsight, it was, it was around six grams. So, thank God, and it was like 3 p.m. on a Wednesday. So this was not, it was such a random time. And I would say the first hour was kind of like, and you've seen this now, and now having been a part of about a hundred ceremonies, I kind of laugh at this. It's like, there was that

like neurotic franticness of like trying to like, I was in my, my little apartment, kind of like, I would fill up the bath, sit in the bath for 10 minutes and be like, no, I need to get in the bed. And then I would get back in the bath and then get in the bed. And things started to escalate, escalate, escalate, escalate to where it felt like my head was just about to cave in. And then at some point, the last piece or not, I shouldn't say that I was conscious for because I was aware the whole time. However, at one point I said, I surrender. That was all I said. And it was like I fell through this kaleidoscope down, down, down.

And I went through my bed. And when I hit the bottom, actually I shouldn't say it because there was a lot of time to pass in between here. but in my awareness at the time, it was like I was tort, there were colors and I was getting wrapped and just spun, spun, spun, spun, spun. And then when I hit the bottom, I opened my eyes and it was the most profound.

And now I have the words to put to it at the time. I did not at all. But I had a notebook that I'd set beside my bed and I just frantically wrote over and over, it's all love, it's all love, it's all love. And I could not. And then I would try to write like, I would write like I am and I would just start dying laughing. And once again, now I have such an

appreciation for that moment because it was the ultimate like I am. There was just a deep divine sense of being. Whereas at the time, I thought it was so funny and I still have this note. I wrote, I am Tony and it was the funniest thing in the world to me. It was like, no, you're not. And you know this. In those very clairvoyant states, just a deep sense of knowing that there is something deeper than this identity. And in that moment, like, that is, now, I would be a liar too if I said, I had this, this divine kind of mystical moment and then everything got better, things kind of got worse than for a while. Like there was the afterglow of three or four days, but that deep knowing, that deep shedding of that identity, which that notebook is still the representation of, like,

it is all love. And when I say that, and you're, I'm sure your audience knows this. I don't mean, like, love the emotion that you feel when you see your dog. It was. was this deep nose, like deep, deep with every cell of my body, I understood that the fabric behind all of this is there's an unconditional force. And in that moment, the thought of identifying with Tony was the funniest thing in the world. But also what came through next is that like, hey, this isn't about, and I'm literally referencing kind of my notebook from them, like, this isn't about detaching from that identity. You're here. You choose to come here for a very specific reason. So you see, and here's, it's actually a red flag for me when I see people start to get involved in the psychedelic space.

and there's like a detachment. They start to remove themselves from life. And my guidance is always like, hey, as much work as you're doing on the internal, if you can do that with the external, and there we could segue that into my journey with business. It's like if you can be chopping wood at both ends of that, that's the magic because the magic that happens within a ceremonial space is only as good as you're able to embody and integrate that into life then.

So in that moment, I still wasn't ready for that. like I had this mystical experience that I will forever, I say I'm still integrating that experience because the profoundness of it is just unbelievable. However, there was there was the patterns then that needed to die after that. And that's where, man, it's easy to talk about integration and yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready to commit to that. However, in those months and honestly years following that, it was, it was, that was still, there was like a 10, or seven year period. I would put from kind of the two years of or a year baseball's done, identity kind of crumbling, having this experience to then six more years to where I finally felt like, and I, and

I Waska is a part of that journey as well, where I felt like, once again, we're always figuring this out. There's no end state to it. However, where it felt like a season shifted. And I found that with like seven year periods, it's interesting. There tends to be from at least myself. And of course, I know this is a broader rhythm or pattern as well. There's kind of these seven-year themes that come through. But yeah, that was very long-winded there. But that was kind of my journey through a college athletic, losing that identity. And then kind of the segue into the plant medicine space,

which has been just an absolute integral and beautiful part of the last, I mean, gosh, that would have been, yeah, 13 or 13 years ago now. All right, guys, quick break to tell you about brain supreme.com. Brain Supreme is the very best mushroom company ever. If you've read about microdosing or heard about it on this podcast, there is no better route than trying Brain Supreme. It is absolutely incredible. They have a series of products designed with many functional mushrooms as well as the good

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podcast in the past, but it is a fantastic way to learn new skills, to acquire new neuroplasticity and just to get in the zone. Like it's really in a league of its own. It's a category of one. go to brainsupreme.co slash KKP, and remember to use the code KKP for 15% off everything in the store, including subscriptions. Also, try the Mac stack. That one is magic free, but it is a phenomenal product. You can throw it in your coffee like I do every morning or mix it with tea if you're going caffeine-free. And it is exceptional.

It just potentiates all of the neurochemistry and turns all the firing and wiring on blasts. So you can have an absolute phenomenal day. They also have Sheila Jeet pearls, which are oddly incredible and probably the most convenient way to take in Sheelagee. Check it all out at brainsopreme.co slash KKP. And now back to the podcast. Yeah, that's incredible, brother. I too had a very, my first mystical experience wasn't even planned. Like I was just trying to party.

And we went to Sedona and I had some Coke. I had a freaking gang of beers like natural light, you know, the basic typical crap college beer. I had a few tabs of ecstasy, and then I had a bag of, you know, just whatever mushrooms I could get golden teacher, you know. And I remember we stayed up not super late because you're camping, but probably until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. drinking beers eaten by the fire. And then the next morning I got up when the sun came up and I just felt called to make an omelette. So I'm doing a little bacon. I set the bacon aside. And then I'm like, these mushrooms would go good in that omelette. So I put all the mushrooms into the bacon grease.

I know not to, you know, I'm keeping the heat load and not hurt them. I start cracking eggs in there. And then I tell all my boys, I'm like, hey, dude, we're having a mushroom omelet. Otherwise, you know, don't eat the omelet if you don't want to have mushrooms. And everybody's like, fuck it, let's do it. And so we all split that up. And, you know, now knowing, obviously I've never cooked mushrooms and I certainly wouldn't have them with eggs and bacon.

But at the time, there was no intention. There was no nothing set. There was no, you know, I mean, I literally was partying the night before. There was no space given to the medicine. None of that. And I just remember being floored. Like, holy shit. Don't as like the container. It's a great container to unlock. But that was my first like truly

mystical experience. And it was years since I would touch that again and actually have respect, reverence and a guide that actually walked me through, you know, the how to behind those things. Yeah. But man, that's a seed that's planted. That like it just, I, that original seed, it's always there, you know, such a, such an important one. Yeah. And I have, um, a hundred percent. And there's a, there's a funny story. And you're actually, you're in this story. And I, I, I, I was, I was, when I got back from Florida, my wife knows this story and she was like, oh, did you talk to Kyle about it? And I was like, no, and it wasn't intentional.

It just didn't come up. I had mentioned that following this experience, that it certainly wasn't like rainbows and butterflies after it. Like, it was gnarly then. And then I graduated and then even more gnarly, kind of what did I want to do with my life, which that's, regardless of kind of your journey for, especially for guys, I feel like, 23 is a funky age, man. 22, 23 is a funky age.

And so I moved down to four. Florida, I actually was doing, it's called neurosomatic therapy. I was training, I was like, screw it. I'm not going to med school. And like I said, it was never, that was kind of more just an idea I had rather than a reality. But I was doing neurosomatic school or massage therapy, which is massage therapy with a deep understanding of anatomy in the different systems of the body. Paul St. John is actually somebody, Paul Chek studied under for a while. So I know he's a, he's a mentor of yours. So, but kind of felt... where you come into it is that I had probably, God, I wish, probably $280 in my bank account.

I think I had paid rent kind of like a couple weeks before. So I had $280. My girlfriend at the time, she is, she's still a professional soccer player actually, but she was playing soccer at West Virginia. She had a little break. She was going to fly down to see me. And still not like, let's keep the context that not in a good mental state. And when I mean that, like if you met me on the day to day, you would have been like,

oh, this guy's pretty squared away. Seems like a fun guy, but internally, just an absolute mess. And so I decide, because I have $280 in my bank account, my girlfriend's coming down, I need new bed sheets. And I'm like, am I going to spend the $60 to get new bed sheets? I'm like, screw it. I'll just steal them. Which like, in hindsight now, I'm like, what a fucking dumb decision.

But here's the beauty of it. And here's where this has come up in ceremony from like the ultimate laugh. I've literally laughed deeply at like, ha ha, we got you here. So I go into Target with a like a typical reusable grocery bag. And I, there was actually already a cliff bar in the bag. And I'll bring up why I bring that up later. So I go to the bedding section. I put a set of a $100 bed sheets in my reusable grocery bag,

which at the time, like I said, would be about 40% of my net worth. And I walk out. And I'm thinking, there's no, like, I'm just bebopping out. And a guy stops me. And the guy says, the guy says, hey, let me look in your bag. And I said, yeah, of course. And I opened the bag.

And the second I opened the bag, I take off. I'm like, I just sprint. And it was comical. This guy tried to chase me for about 10 yards. And then it wasn't even remotely close. However, however, I have, probably about $220 worth of meat in my vehicle. I had bought some bulk like beef not long ago, and I was moving apartments or moving from one apartment to another literally that day.

And all the meat was in my car. We're in Florida, so it's 90 degrees out. So I sprint. And of course, I don't sprint to my car. I just sprint. But after about three hours of just, I think I hung out in like a Starbucks lobby or something, I'm like, if I don't get back to that meat, it's going to be spoiled. And it was cold enough that I knew I had some time. And it would probably, it wasn't three hours. It was probably about an hour 45 to two hours. I go walking back and I'm kind of like sneaking through the back end of the parking lot. I get two steps from my vehicle and I look dead. It's probably about 50 yards. And that guy in a cop are sitting out front and they turn and look directly at me. So at that point, I'm like, you know what? I can't, I can't run again. This is a

pop now. This isn't some guy like at at the store. So I just walked towards them. And here's where the, here's where like the divine kind of like joke comes in is that in my head I'm racking like, okay, it's fucking bed sheets. Like you did run from the guy, so they might be pissed off about that. But like, what can

I say to kind of make this seem like just a silly joke? And in hindsight, I should have just said like, hey, my girlfriend's coming down and I stole the $80 bedsheets. However, for some reason, I thought to say it was on my bucket list, which is not true at all, like just a dumb, silly thing. So I get up there and I say, I'm so sorry. And they're

asking like, for, of course, my ID and everything. And I'd just say, I'm sorry, sir, like this was a dumb thing on my bucket list. I feel like an idiot. I bring this all up because they arrest me. They put me in the car. And it's because I had an out of state license. And I realize in retrospect, for a petty theft like this with no background, typically they don't take you to jail. Like there's like an intermediary thing. they took me to jail. And I had said that to the cop. I bail myself out, of course, feeling like a dip shit. I could not, I'm sitting in jail for 12 hours for stealing a set of bed sheets. Like, damn. So I go to jail. I bail myself out. I'm like, I'm not fucking telling a soul. I will not tell anybody this. So I leave. Two days later, I get a call from my best friend. And it's like 9 a.m. which is just a strange, it was like a strange call or a strange time. And he's like, hey man are you okay and I'm like yeah I'm okay and I'm still worth like if once again if you looked at my life from the day today you'd be like this guy squared away eating really healthy like doing all these things and he's like dude you were just on the Pittsburgh radio news as like a story like there's a story

going like they just mentioned that this guy got arrested for stealing bed sheets and said that it was on his bucket list Kyle this story went extremely viral it got picked up because I had a Division I athlete and kind of a notable name from my area. It went super viral both locally. So all the local news stations in my area, which there, it's just like you're, it's called like the Daily American. It's just like these podunk kind of newspapers. But then some Pittsburgh like radio shows picked it up. And then Morgantown, West Virginia, where WVU is, it went viral there on a bunch of different things. The mugshot got posted, which was brutal. I'd had a hat on. It was 90 degrees, so I was sweating.

And then I looked up and as I was looking up, they're like, you're good. I'm like, they took the picture. My head is kind of like pushed down. So it looks like I am just like, my older brother still to this day is like, dude, I thought for sure you were on heroin. Like I would have bet a million dollars you were on heroin. So here's where you come into this, Kyle, is that. So this would have been two years after that experience we just talked about in my dorm room,

the one with mushrooms. I now, I go through the process. I have to tell like it this was a huge thing. You want to talk about an ego death. Like it's, it's easy to have an ego death in a ceremony to have one where you get caught stealing bed sheets in everybody, every one of your friends, every one of your, like your relatives, everybody is reaching out to you asking if you're okay, but also kind of like, what the fuck are you doing? So that happens. I, I get, eventually it ends up being like you have to do 20 hours community service. That's it. Pay a $200 fine and do 20 hours community service.

And I'm doing, I'm working at the Salvation Army stocking shelves for my community service. And I'm listening to one of your podcasts. And you mentioned you were talking about ayahuasca. And I just knew that it planted a seed for me. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to go do this. And so I think it was probably three weeks later and did not have the money, put it all on a credit card. I booked a trip to Peru.

decided I was moving from Florida up here to Virginia Beach. And so booked the trip, went down, had the ayahuasca experience, which now is like, that's where I say about that there was the chapter shift. Like at that point then, like I reflect now. I saw things, I saw things while I was down there in Peru that I have now watched come into my life. So that was like both the most, like, it was such a profound moment because there had been such a series of just like, like I said, kind of the dark night of your dark night of the soul

where like years and years of just internal struggle feeling like honestly like an alien, extreme pain, extreme, like I told you, I lost 30 pounds. My back was miserable, miserable, miserable. But it all led to that moment then where, and I never want to frame it as like, oh, you go down there, you have this eyewasca experience in its ultimate clarity. However, from there, to watch the momentum then that was built in the opposite, direction was absolutely beautiful. So I owe you, I owe you a moment of gratitude for as I'm in Salvation Army serving my 20 hours community service. I was listening to you talk about your experience and that was the catalyst that pushed me to book a trip. So talk about a full circle moment.

That's so dope. It's funny. When you were telling that story, I thought it would have been the Salvation Army was the cross. So I too went to jail. When I was a senior, I was 18 years old. and my buddy was having a house party and this guy that we didn't like showed up. He was like, how had you get the guy to leave? He was like, let's toss him in the pool.

You know, he's, we're all in clothes and shit. It's nighttime. And so we go to, we pick him up. We go to toss him in. His friends grab him.

It's a struggle back and forth. I'm like, let the guy go. This is escalating. I don't want it to escalate. And then, you know, he kind of hangs out in the corner still

and they're jibber, and I'm like, I'm getting out of here. This is the same right, but I leave. I guess he calls the cops, though and a bunch of my buddies get in trouble because we're all underage, right? So Monday comes at school, brunch time, I'm just sitting around and I see my friends, you know,

and they're like, oh yeah, we're talking to this guy. He goes this to you, they start filling me in about the cops coming and getting minors in possessions, you know, getting in trouble, all this shit. Lunt by lunchtime, I get called the principal's office and right as school is getting out as I'm walking there, they walk me right past the principal's office, handcuff me and stick me in the back of a squad car in front of the entire school. And I'm just like mortified. Like, holy shit, this could not be timed worse. Go in, they check me in.

They're trying to, you know, ladies at the front are asking me, you know, what, what happened? And I'm like, I tried to throw a guy in a swimming pool. And it's funny, she was a old black lady. She's like, well, did you get him? And I was like, no, we just set him back down. She's like, you didn't even get the guy in a pool. Hold on.

She's like, calls her friend over. It's like, say it again. And they're just dying laughing. And so I'm in there. My parents decided to let me sweat because they figure I probably, I probably have done something to deserve being in there. And long story short, I get bailed out in the middle of the night. And same thing.

I have to do 20 hours of anger management and 75 hours of community service. And so the anger management was hilarious because everybody there is like, I don't have an anger problem. And you're looking at people that like legit are fucking these guys should be in a lot longer than 20 hours. But I started doing community service at a goodwill. And dude, you want to talk about culture shock. they were treating me like ex-cons. And so like when I hear about like guys getting out of prison and like how they're treated,

I fucking lived it. I couldn't believe it. You know, she's like, you guys fuck up once. I'm calling the judge. You're going right to jail. Like,

you're not late by five minutes, nothing. You're not eating unless I tell you you can eat. I was like, damn, lady, this is a little old lady. So my buddy tells me, he's like,

hey man, fuck goodwill, come work with me at the Salvation Army. So I transfer over to finish my community service there. And that was incredible. I was just mopping floors, feeding the homeless. and, you know, really like, it was awesome.

The guy's like, hey, man, I can put you down for 12 hours today instead of the eight. And I was like, thanks. Like, they were just awesome people. Everybody I met there. But yeah, I thought you were going to mention it. I don't know if I've talked about that on a podcast before. So I thought you were going to mention the Salvation Army was the piece where the stories line up. But, dude, that's so cool.

I've, that's something I've always, I first heard Aubrey talking about it, you know, when I was first getting into it on Rogans. And I was just like, damn, no one's talking about this. And then I started reading all the books, you know, Jeremy Narvey, DNA, the Cosmic Serpent, and having more experiences. But I love that. I feel incredibly blessed that my first experiences with psilocid and ayahuasca were with my boxing coach, who was a Native American and, you know, Aztec and Mexican sweat lodges for years.

And then, like, he really taught me the respect and reverence. And, you know, when I think about it, that set my trajectory so much higher because I was taught how to work with it right from the jump. And minus the ASU. experience. And, you know, seeing a lot of people now, it's like, you want to be able to say like, hey, this place is vetted, this place isn't, that kind of stuff, because there's a lot of people have had bad experiences. But the truth is, a lot of people aren't ready for it, you know, and they never will be. I used to laugh when people would talk about, you know, the caveats.

And they're like, enough with the disclaimer. Tell me the fucking juicy part. You know, like fast forward to the action. And, but I've seen, you know, having coached people, thousands of people over the last eight years, I've watched people peel off the fucking rails on cannabis alone. You know, and I'm like, damn, dude, like some people, it's just not right. And some people don't have the tools. So, but all that said, like, it's so rad. Like, when you talk to somebody who's had that kind of experience, that's like myself, like my first ayahuasca was just, holy shit.

I remember wanting to beat the drum on the top of a mountain. Like, this shit exists. The world is magic. You know, like, it's all the things they fucking say. This is crazy that no one's talking about this. That's awesome. that you had a powerful experience and that I was able to weave in with you, brother. That's cool.

Yeah, I was, I was, I was kind of relating to what you said about understanding that it wasn't for everyone. Like, I am grateful that that recognition for me, I was closeted for, I say for eight years when it came to this. Like, I didn't talk about it. These experiences were so profound to me that I actually didn't have words. Like, that one in, the one in my dorm room, the first one, that first, that first, experience. I remember trying to tell like a dear friend about it. And I was like, oh my God,

you sound ridiculous. So there, it took, it took me a long time, even doing something like this. Like, I just didn't do it for a really long time. And I still hold this reverence of like certain experiences. Like, and I advise when I advise people, especially with a platform, like, hey, if you go down and have this experience, be careful hopping on a podcast 30 days later. Like let it digest a little bit. Let it sit in your system, integrate it. Because as soon as you start to build stories and put words to it, this is a, it's a, you're, you're operating on a different plane then. You're mixing the mind into an experience that's, that can be very heartfelt and doesn't need words to describe it. So yeah, for me, that was an interesting. And I'm proud of the evolution

because for a while, yeah, I didn't, I didn't talk to anyone about it. And I would do four a year in, by myself, in my room with no one else. I had, I had a playlist I used. I had sense I used. I had a journaling practice I used. I would do it at the same time every single time. I would swim in the ocean every single time. And I did this for years and years and years just exploring. And I I kind of label that the cowboy years where like I and I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I wouldn't do it again. Because as you said, I used to be the same. It was like, shut the fuck up about all the like all the disclaimers. Like no. And then I had a couple experiences myself where, and now as somebody who sits and actually helps guide people at times,

it was kind of my boundary pushers where I wouldn't trade them for the world. But like I said, I wouldn't expose even myself to that again without having somebody else in the room. And I know for you, I don't even need to describe that further as far as, man, you go really deep without somebody else to help hold that space. And it can get gnarly quick. So I find I find myself sounding more like a grandpa in the space. more than ever. Never, never, never, of course, in a way that pushes people away from it, but just being very clear about the reality of like the power of these, these plants, but also the things you need to be ready for and kind of relating to my original story,

the things you better be willing to let go of. Because there's no, you're, you're pulling that filter back and what bubbles up. If you're not ready to digest that, man, it can just be something that like you said, you've had friends just, just kind of unwinds you. So yeah, I definitely can relate to that to or kind of relate to you in the sense that I, yeah, I find myself being a little more of a grandpa on, on being per, or like speaking on it. and it's still a very passionate way, but it's much more grounded and much more slow moving than

say eight years ago when I was like, man, this shit is the best thing ever. Yeah, 100%. Well, I mean, so you get, obviously, you're finding purpose. that's a hell of a way to have. I love the parallel of the, you know, the ego death and ceremony versus like the literal

3D ego death and how, you know, that's just a different, a different level. But talk about, you know, you said that this is what bridged the gap into business.

Tell us about how this led to, you know, you diving into business and, you know, just becoming the creator that you are right now. Yeah. So post that experience, um,

was the first time where I felt like my internal, journey in my outward journey started to have like parallels in a lot of way. Whereas up until then, it was like outward was kind of a mess. I didn't know what I wanted to do inward. I was exploring, but it was kind of in a beginning stages. Post my trip to Peru and once again, I'm going to condense it just for the sake of not telling a 30 minute story, things started to align where there was momentum. There was momentum on my internal journey of feeling like a level of groundedness and a level of let go of that prior season of let's call it like tony the athlete um that season and

in the outward world outward world and here's where it's funny like i i started um with born primitive the company i'm at now at the absolute i was an hourly warehouse worker um and at the time the company was it was still a successful company it was doing about 17 million in revenue um but there were seven people running it. I was the seventh. I think there were only three people that were technically like salaried. And then the rest of us were just hourly workers. And I felt just this extreme in hindsight now.

Like I look back to the shit I did working 70 hour weeks like just manually literally lifting 70 pound boxes for 10 hours a day. Like there were several, there were several months on end where I did that. But it was like I finally felt like I had somewhere to grow. Like there was purpose there. And what I'm extremely grateful for that version of myself is that I just ran towards complex problems. Like if there was, and at first that was just hard work. It was like, my whole mentality is I will do everything that everyone else doesn't want to do. And not just because like it gets assigned to me, I will seek it out.

And I did that. And there's where I give such a compliment to my, like how we were raised is like, I don't think you can access that unless you were raised the way we were. like just kind of that mentality. And so I did that for a year or two. And I was promoted twice to nothing crazy, but to like a supervisor. So I was now kind of overseeing a team of people. And the problems just kept getting more and more complex.

And at the equal and same time, I was deeply exploring kind of like I said, I was doing four ceremonies a year, really developing a practice around it. It was very intentional. There was the cowboyness of it started to fade. And there was a very clear kind of takeaways. ways like I would have major themes that I would then try to integrate into my daily life that would come out of these ceremonies. But the workpiece just continued to build momentum and the company continued to grow. So there was so many opportunities, so many problems that needed solve, so much

hard work to be had that in a three-year period, so fast-forwarding a little bit, I was managing our international accounts with no prior business experience, but continued to do. do that. And then at the five-year mark, I was the vice president of the company. Then at the six-year mark, I was the president of the company. So now we have, I mean, the company has 150 employees and things have scaled unbelievably fast, almost too fast at times. And that is like, that is this season of life that I can already, even though it's not, it's certainly not closed yet of like, we're going to see how much responsibility you can handle. Because that was one of my prayers. When I was in a dark place, it was like, just give me responsibility.

I will respond. Please. I just want to have a sense of like that I'm contributing to something. Because on a sports team, you kind of naturally get that, I feel like. There's a sense of like you know your role. You know how you're contributing. There's a lot of measurables and objective data to show that like you're either producing or you're not.

And when that was gone, I just felt this void of like feeling like I wasn't enough. And of course, that's a whole journey towards exploring where that stem from. But my prayer was like, give me it. I'll handle it. Like give me as much responsibility as possible. So in these seven and a half years, I went from that hourly worker just working my dick off to now overseeing a team of 150 people and had three daughters in a new marriage happen right in the middle of that. So it is like my prayer has been answered in a way that I couldn't ever imagine. And I feel it's a very paradoxical state I find myself in today because it's beautiful and it has created freedom for myself and freedom into the future.

that I wouldn't trade for the world. However, it can be extremely heavy at times. And that's where the season now is like, can you hold this responsibility without identifying with the responsibility? Because I will be honest and just 100% transparent that as my role has scaled, it's the issue, you are the complex issue solver in a lot of ways. Like anything that anyone, anything that very smart people below you can't solve or not, not even can't solve, just, know it's a huge decision funnels up to you. So on every, every single day, it's like there's five, eight big decisions that have millions of dollars of implications that you're solving. And that isn't a burden. Like that's a privilege. I really do view it that way. But I would also be

lying if I said, yeah, I just solve these problems and then go home and I'm the perfect father. And everything's like honky dory. It is, I feel like my head is caving in at times. However, ironically still doing the ceremonial work sometimes as a participant still of course but also as a guide as well what comes through every single time in the last two years is hold it hold it you'd think it's the opposite you'd think you go do a psychedelic experience you're going to be like fuck work you you don't need to work so hard like you should you should take a step back and it's been the opposite it's been hey find balance you still like there needs to be balance within this just in the sense of like my family that's a non-negotiable like my girls are going to get the same amount of time

every day with that, regardless of how hard I'm going to work here. It's more the complexity behind it, the human problems, because we're not, we're still a scrappy organization. As much as we scaled, we're not some big corporation that just has like super defined process and you know exactly the playbook. It's kind of the Wild West. And candidly, we push ourselves, I'm guilty of this. That's actually a lesson that I'm rolling out for 2027 through the organization is like, let's do more with less. Like we are, we are, we like to bite off more than we can shoe. And in some ways, I'm proud of that in myself and in others, but you will reach burnout. And you know that. Like, that's you coach people on that. So this season, yeah, with the girls,

like, and sorry, relating it back to what comes through in ceremony is always like, no, no. Like, this is, you are exactly where you're supposed to be. Sinking, sink in, sink in, can you find balance within this? Because the capacity you're building now and your ability to influence outcomes, influence people. and build bridges, and you and I kind of riffed on that a little bit when I was down, when we were down together in Florida, is this is setting you up for your next season. And of course, I think every, that's the beauty of this journey we call life, is that when you can attune to it, it's not about it being this rainbows and butterfly thing.

If you can attune to it and trust life, like that's, I'm available, I trust life. Every morning, I have a little wand, I mix my water with, and it's, I'm available, I trust life. if that's your mantra, when things get hard, if you just backpedal and try to hit the evac button, like I would be that you're not living by that mantra then. So this season right now, it's the pressure cooker season for me.

But when you juxtapose that against that prior season, it's like I wouldn't trade it for the world because that was like the limbo, like the liminal space season before. And then this one was like, you want capacity? Let's give you some fucking capacity. Let's see what you can handle.

All right, y'all, quick break to tell you about my brand new community, The Kingdom Within. It is launched on school right now. If you join, you get a free one-week trial. You'll have access to any videos we've recorded in the past. We call them days at school. So first day of school, second day of school, all this stuff is available. Like I said, we just launched. The community is small, which is absolutely great because if you join now, you will have all your questions answered.

I mean, there's just no competition. So the community is about body. It's about mind. It's about connection. It's about family, nature, psychedelics. Everything is on the table. And right now I'm just walking people through some of the most important things, I think, in the key takeaways from the books that I've read and the people I've befriended and learned under guys like Paul Check, Mark Sisson, and so many others.

And I've broken it down into very easy to use practical steps on how to optimize the body. And with that, lay the foundations for a successful life for better productivity. for better emotional intelligence with your kids, with your wife, with your girlfriend, for better connection, which is really what it's all about. And then how do I connect to myself? What does that internal relationship look like? How do I connect to nature? I get it.

Not all you're going to have a farm. Most people listening this don't. That's fine. How do I reconnect to nature? How do I build out my eco field in my own little backyard? If I got an apartment, what are the plants that I bring in? How do I respect nature and make communion with it? And then how do I do that with God?

There are so many paths that lead us up the mountain. And I've spent, you know, the last 20 years of my life, really researching, digesting, and breaking this down. So I am so excited to be able to share this with you guys. I love the back and forth. It's something I just don't get on the podcast. I don't get to hear from you guys and get to go back and forth with you and learn about what's going on in your lives.

I do in the community on school. It's called The Kingdom Within. And you can go click on it in the show notes and it'll take you right to the about page. And like I said, we cover all the basis. So it's really hard to kind of say like, this is my niche. This is what we're doing. Optimization, all this other. You're like, just join, join us for one of the school days and see what it's like.

I guarantee you it will change your life for the better. All right, guys, back to the podcast. You had so many great points in there. One that I think is really important is that a lot of people in the plant medicine space, you know, will tell you like, if you talk business with ayahuasco or if you think about your job or your work in a plant medicine journey, you're missing the entirety of it. It's like, no, that's not true at all. Like, what we do in the world, if you really think, like, there's a difference between a job

and a vocation. Let's just iron that out right now. Like, what lets you up to be here in the world, what you're contributing to the world. That is it. I mean, that's the legacy you leave aside from the legacy you have a family, which, in my opinion, is obviously the whole, that's the most important part. But you've got, you know, the legacy of work and the legacy of family all rolled into one. The other piece that I think is important is like,

so many people learn surrender from ayahuasca. Personally, I learned. There's like, if you think of core threads that kind of everybody gets to touch on if you do enough ceremonies, surrender will be one of them with any plant medicine journey that's deep enough, but specifically with ayahuasca. I think that she has a unique method of getting people to surrender. And, you know, this last journey I did was probably three years ago now. We went to Dennis Sultaro, was me, Aubrey, Ergadzzi, Aaron Rogers was there with a bunch

of his old teammates. It was awesome. And, you know, I'm sitting with Dr. Dan Engel and Sean Chester, just so many great guys. It was all dudes. And, you know, we did three nights. First two nights were lovely. Third night, I can feel it in me. I'm like, this is going to be fucking work. And it was brutal.

But the message I got in that was like, it just felt like surrenders the wrong answer. Like it feels like surrenders not the answer. And one word came up. It was indoor. And I was like, whoa. you know, like I parallel everything from the, you know, the inner experience to the outer experience for sure now. And so thinking about, you know, the world at large, where are we going? What is the future hold? You know, the medicine for me at the time was endure. Like it's not,

it's not anything else other than that. And sure enough, God's the very next morning, he comes out and his partner got on this super dope shirt of Atlas, you know, and he's in a statue form and he's holding the fucking the world on his back. And it's got one word. It says, endure across it. And I was like, dude, that was my fucking journey last night. You know, we were talking all about it in the same, you know, very similar thing there. I think when we try to box what ayahuasca is or what the medicine is, that's number one, that's a problem. That's like you can talk about God, but saying what God is or is not misses, it's beyond mind, right? It's beyond comprehension. And it's beyond language. That's why it's ineffable. And yes,

we should describe these things so other people have, you know, something to understand about it, no doubt. but people saying like, you know, don't think of business, don't think, you know, don't think about it. It's like, that's just, you're missing the point. You can talk to Ayahuasca or God about anything. And, and that, if that's something that you're, if that's the most pressing thing in your life, it should be the thing you're talking about, you know? It shouldn't be the thing you think to talk about. Like, oh, I, I know I shouldn't be talking about work right now.

I should be talking about my husband. Well, no, if your marriage is great, like, talk about the thing you need to work with, right? What are the things you need help with? And I think that's such a beautiful piece about that is that when you let go of what you shouldn't, shouldn't do, like all of it's available. And sometimes the medicine is to buckle up and endure. It's not to surrender and let go. It's not to say, hey, none of that's important.

Let's look over here. Like, no, it is important. That's why it's what you're doing right now. Right. It's in this chapter of your life. It's how you're providing for your family. It's how you're working towards financial freedom. And it's what you're giving to society, right?

It's not just, hey, this is how I make money. Like, all of that comes there. So I've been super excited, you know, that Connor introduced this. I love Connor. Connor Milstein, you know, I've been training with him for a year and a half. He's been such a godsend. I just had David Weck on the podcast. I was saying beforehand, Connor studied under David Weck for some time.

And then, of course, taking a lot from other people as well. But Connor got me out of pain. Like I always had back pain, neck pain from every kind of accident, motorcycle accident, swan diving in the asphalt at 45 miles an hour. And now I don't have pain. I don't have pain when I lift. I'm deadlifting heavy. I can run.

Nothing. I don't have pain when I'm sitting here. So it's a beautiful thing to be into. I just feel like, you know, I love the fact that Connor brought us together. We got to spend time in Florida. Obviously, you know, we did the born primitive shoot for the release of the new shoes, which is fucking super cool because you guys are doing things that matter to me. You know, like when you get into into, I've always been an athlete, but as you begin to

unpack what it means to be functional, you start to realize like, oh, our feet. are in prisons. They're cramming our toes together. David Weck, you know, in his new book that's going to come out October 17th. He talks about rollerblading everywhere in New York City for six years. And now he'd spend 10, 12 hours a day in rollerblades. And now he's basically like ski boots, you know, his toes got crammed together, his feet stopped being able to feel the ground. His ankles didn't have any stress on them whatsoever. As Achilles stopped working and how that just totally fucked his balance. And that's cool because that's the accelerator path that he was able to get that messed up in six years.

But we really do the same. Even without rollerblading, it just takes longer to experience that. So, you know, the fact that you guys are developing shoes with that understanding of our toes need to spread, right, and need to be barefoot or have my feet on the ground, full contact. I think it's a really cool thing. You also have a ton of plans for bringing in natural fibers on things like that. So I'd love to talk with you about, you know, where the company's been and in the new direction

you want to take it going forward because I think the world, the world, this is awesome. And it's right up by Iwaska's alley. You know, every hippie would be proud of where you want to take the company. Yeah, and that's in the two, so the two founders, Baron Mowin, I'm sure if you, if you've heard of Born Primitive, you would have seen Bears more brand facing. And he's still, still our CEO. And then I'm the president underneath him. So we, I've been extremely grateful in this season at the company for like, they truly,

the level of trust they put in me for certain areas is like, That's what keeps me here is like to be able to create, although stressful and running the company, very stressful. It is, I can't tell you the satisfaction. You get, it feels like a child. Like that shoe, you spend two years building this, building this, building this, then telling a story with it, like, as far as engaging and living or being able to see something, not only that you built, and of course, there's, I don't want to frame it at all. Like, I'm the only one to build it. We have an incredible shoe engineer. We have a whole team that's behind this. but it's extremely engaging and extremely satisfying.

So yes, like the footwear piece, this was our first zero drop shoe, but already, and so side note is like I am fucking obsessed with pickleball right now, which if you had told me that six months ago, I'd have laughed. But honestly, working with Connor, like I feel like my desire to do athletic movement is so much higher now than it was three years ago where it was like I did my lift. I'd run once every two weeks and feel like shit. And like, whereas now it's like, okay, I actually, my desire to like lift is not high right now. And as you know, Kyle, you're like the pinnacle of this.

It goes through seasons. Sometimes it feels great to like lift and put on 10 pounds. Other times it's like, that's just not what I want right now. And my body is screaming right now that it wants to play. Like, and I think that's actually why the pickleball piece is so much fun is because it's fun. Like I've spent the last six, seven years in this chapter of responsibility. just grinding. And not grinding, like I said earlier,

I'm not somebody that works 12 hours a day, but you're always working. If you're working in your mind, you're working. And that was me. Like, I may go home at 5 p.m., but I'm still just, I'm planning. I'm organizing. Okay, how can we achieve this outcome?

So in this recent chapter, just playing has been, and of course, Paul Chek is like, Dr. Fun, like, what is your fun? And I realize with kids, and this is, I think this is kind of baked into having kids that you're going to lose that a little bit. And then you and your partner,

you do that dance of both advocating for yourself, but then for each other too to say like, no, get the fuck out of the house and go for three hours and do whatever you want. Like go on a really long walk, but that's a challenge. And especially for us, because we had three and a two and a half year time frame.

And with no, we don't have any family down here. So it was gnarling. We're just, I mean, our oldest or our youngest is going to be two here in a couple months. So it's not as if we're out of that season. But we're not even on diapers yet. Yeah. Well, she actually is, which is crazy. She's a quick developer. Yeah, she's a, she's a brute in the most, like, awesome way. She's a freak, honestly. But we, on the on the born primitive front, which has been so fun is that like, okay, this shoe, that was a passion of mine. I've worn Vivo's. I've worn every kind of minimalist barefoot shoe. So to be able to create one that I was passionate

about was an extremely engaging process. And already, like, already I have ideas for a 2.0, which that will come down the road. But the pickleball piece comes in because there are gaps within this market right now where let's say there are some court shoes that are good. But like, there, if you're playing high level tennis or pickleball, like you need some protection, but the principles of still having a zero drop, still being able to like articulate, because my toes are the same. I used to wear cleats that were a size. small because I wanted my foot to be as squeezed as possible. It's just like how I felt comfortable. So my toes can be my toes aren't the best either. So like I find so much engagement in this

season of Born Primitive from like, okay, how can we, what is the white space in in these different industries? How can we build it though that still has the end use in mind? Because you've seen it. You can get and this is a guy. I mean, I wear my vibrams. Anytime I'm doing yard work, I'm wearing a five-finger shoe. Like I've all, I've had them for eight years now. However, you wear five fingers while you play pickleball on concrete and like, you're going to fuck your feet up. So that feels engaging to me in this season as to like be solving an end use that there are people here.

I don't want to claim like I'm some huge innovator, but there aren't a lot of big players. And even the ones I test because, of course, that's my kickoff to the process is seeing what's on the market. I'm like, we could do this better. So the freedom that I have to do that at Born Primitive, and of course, that's only a fraction of my time, but it's honestly, it's what energizes me most. And especially you brought up the natural fibers. Like that is one with Born Primitives history, that takes a lot of intentionality because you can't whiplash the organization either. Like we were, you and I were talking,

we were in the CrossFit space. And that was kind of like, we're grateful at the organizational level because that was our, that boomed us. Like back in 2014, CrossFit was popping. So the Athleteisure market, the leggings, they're of course were the big players, the Lulus, the guys like that, but it wasn't saturated like it is now. So you mix those two things into a pot, CrossFit, Athesia, not popping yet. That was kind of Born Primitives catalyst towards building a base that has set us up for where we're at now. So I bring that up because we have a, and you'll start this fall will be the first introduction of like a full Marino boxer that, but there too, like there's so many shitty ones on the market.

You wash it once and it's like it's not even the same thing anymore. So putting a ton of intention behind, we want this to be your go-to, not just because of the fiber, but also because you look at it and you're like, these are as nice as my other ones. Now, there's the reality to that those fibers do react differently and aren't always like when you look at performance and things, maybe can't get to the level that a synthetic was. However, that industry in the innovation is exploding as well. So all of a sudden, there's, of course, bamboo's been used for a while, but there's these different fabrics being used that you almost can't tell the difference now, but they're non-synthetic.

So I building that bridge, and once again, you and I talked about this down in Florida, is extremely engaging because you do have to keep, you can't lose the DNA of the company either. If we all of a sudden in a year, we're just, we're 100% organic cotton. Our base customer would be like, what the fuck? Like, if I have a hard workout, I still want to wear a t-shirt that is sweat-wicking. So building that bridge and storytelling around that in a way that you don't lose your base, but you also start to level up and build bridge. Create the opportunity for expanded awareness is actually how I frame it a lot.

It's like, hey, guys, we're not letting go completely of our old self, but we're growing into a new version and in that new version. And I see it with my wife worked at Lulu Lemon for 13 years. And I've watched over the last couple of years, like, just slowly her. And she has style too. She's not one that's just like, I'm just buying organic stuff to buy organic stuff. Like, it's got to look good too. But I've watched her and her friend group just slowly shift.

So like that's where all of a sudden, because I'm passionate about it as well. And of course, my mentors, somebody like Paul Check, of course yourself is like, man, this underbelly is coming. And that's a beautiful thing. So how can we, how can we? And of course, I'd be disingenuous if I said we won't benefit from it. But how can we also be a player in this market that people start to look at and say like, damn, this is the best 100% organic cotton t-shirt on the market. This is the best short. So that's been a newer but very exciting part of my job is mapping towards what that looks like.

And then I told you, too, we have an outdoor segment of the business and some of the zero drop barefoot, but with still protection on that outsole that we're coming out as far as like you could wear this boot at 14,000 feet hunting a ram or hunting elk out. West, like that project has been extremely exciting as well because those are like, you can't fuck that up. If you fuck that up, you're going to get called out instantly because these dudes are putting them through the ringer in the backcountry. So yeah, we still have our base. We still have the athletic side of things and that will stay. But there's an evolution happening. And there's where there's where the inner and the outer start to mirror each other is like, you realize like, well, hey, we're not fixed here at the organizational level. And the skill set comes

in of building those bridges is how can you hold, how can you hold in, to use your own word, and I have to send you, we have a t-shirt that has Atlas with that on his back, and it literally says endure. When you were saying that, I got goosebumps because I was like, this is a shirt I designed. This was a shirt we designed a year ago. So, yeah, the struggle, though, and the day-to-day becomes building that bridge and not just you just building the bridge. Like how can you get the team aligned that everyone's building the bridge together to a new reality?

Because you're, and this is a, this is a, this is a struggle, at least I've found in leadership is like, if you're just dragging people by the ear to build a bridge or you're the emperor and you're just like harping on people to build the bridge, man, it's exhausting for you. It's exhausting for them and it's unsustainable. So, yeah, really, really using that analogy of, okay, what is current reality? What is the three to five year reality we are aligned on both from an ownership? and then, of course, employees in what the market wants and then building that bridge. Like, that has been, that is my job and it has been a kind of beautiful journey these last couple years.

That's incredible, brother. Yeah, that's so cool in the shirt. But, you know, the, I think more and more, you know, it's, it becomes less of a hippie or, you know, like a certain niche, like being here in Austin and in the groups that I've been in, it's like a bubble within a bubble within a bubble, right? But traveling around, I think more and more. Sciences come out. They had a funny test. I think if you, if you search cats and pants study, you know, you'll see that they put cats in pants and they put them in synthetics and they

literally stopped being able to get birth overnight. Like they just, it actually had that big of a physical impact on their sex organs. And I'm an athlete. Like I, you know, trying out the Spanish, the new Spanish you guys have. I was like, oh, I got to get these for bear for football. I'm not going to wear flax, you know, as an underarmor thing beneath football pads or when I'm doing jiu-jitsu. There's a certain time and a space for these things. But what I'm in in my day-to-day, when I'm hanging out, you know, there is, there are gaps in the market. I try to order some shorts on Quincy and they look like a 1990s basketball player. You know, like they were all flax. They're just fucking down to my knees. I'm like, who wears shit like this anymore? It's like

a 13-inch inseam. You know, like I'm trying to find five-inch shorts. Like, I want to show off my legs. I train them hard. You know. So I feel like there is, you guys are right on time and there is a space for that. And there's always going to be a space for athletes that still want, you know, the synthetics that you can, it just perform better. You know, if I'm performing, I want to wear performance stuff. But I think in the day to day, it is going to make a big difference. And I think as, you know, more of this science becomes more well known and you get, you know,

less and less of just the bubble within a bubble speaking to it, a more mainstream people speaking to it. Not that, you know, I need to hear anybody from the fucking mainstream, tell me what to do. but in terms of the general population, you know, there's a big movement towards that. And I think you guys are going to be right in alignment with it. 100%. Yeah, we're excited. And it's to have a team that has the capability level that we have here too is really exciting because four years ago, it would have been me trying to run this with like a couple other

people and a manufacturer overseas. And it would have gotten done. But we have a team now. And that's what's exciting to me is I'm watching what I'm watching the level like them. not only seeing the vision, but then taking it even a step further and being like, hey, here's how we can integrate this. Here's a piece you didn't think about. So it's really, yeah, a really exciting chapter for us. And can be scary at times because the reality is, it's like change is tricky, both internally and of course in the market. So that's where I keep

using the term like not giving your customer or your organization whiplash because you do you do it too quick and everyone's kind of jolted by it, but you move too slow, you become obsolete. So it's a it's i always i reference the middle path with a lot of things and it's kind of that middle path is like how can we move as quickly and efficiently as possible while not losing the the foundation that got us here i love that brother well tell people where they can find you online that people want to connect with you personally and then where can people get their hands on born primitive gear yeah so i have zero online presence which is a kind of an intentional decision um i used to do bear and i the founder and i did a hundred episodes of a born primitive podcast which

It was an amazing exercise and started to get some decent traction. We just found in both of our day-to-day, it just didn't, it wasn't fitting kind of our rhythms anymore. So we stopped doing that. I do, I mean, the one, the one platform I do have is LinkedIn. So if you, if you want to get to me, you can get to me through there. I have a burner social account that I use just to check on business affairs. And that's something I wrestle with. And you and I had a different offline time we could talk about is I just, yeah, there's, there's a sense in me of like, I like being kind of the background person. So even with doing like putting myself out there on podcast, I told you I didn't talk about my plant medicine experiences for

almost a decade. There's been whispers though to like, hey, you've got to, you got to be willing to not, you don't have to, but like allow yourself to put yourself out there a little bit. I guess is the best way to frame it. So yeah, don't don't really have a social presence. However, would love for you to trial anything born primitive. Of course, the new primitive one shoe is the the one Kyle and I are talking about as far as the minimalist, we called it the athlete's barefoot shoe because it still has some stabilizing features and is meant to be kind of our first step into that space. And then there will be more to follow. As I said, I'm already working on that. So I would love for you to check out any of our products. And yeah, just really appreciate you

having me on, Kyle. And I'm sure we'll do this again. Yeah, 100% will do it again. Yeah, I didn't even realize that you guys had, you know, a tactical section as well as a, you know, an outback hunting section. I was like, like, oh, baby, let's go. I got to, I'm always, that's one place where when I've got extra money, I got to be careful and just pay, go slowly because it's like, fuck it, let's get a thousand dollars worth of winter gear. Let's get some sunner gear. Let's get some new stuff. I need a new backpack. So that'll be a great place to shop, brother. You know a guy now. So I can get you a little, get you a little fall winter care package here.

I love that. Well, thank you so much, brother. It's been beautiful. We definitely will do this again. And I hope to see you again as well, working or otherwise, brother. Of course, man. Let me know if you need anything.