The Rich Roll Podcast - Ryland Engelhart’s Philosophy Is Gratitude: Thoughts On Soil, Sacred Commerce & Sustainability

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

Last week we explored the world of regenerative farming, soil health and biodiversity as critical levers to improve human health. Consolidate food security. Drawdown carbon. And backpedal climate change. Today we expound on that theme with entrepreneur, restauranteur and social activist Ryland Engelhart. Ryland is the ‘Mission Fulfillment Officer' and co-owner of Café Gratitude and Gracias Madre, a family owned group of legendary plant-based restaurants. The epicenter of California vegan cuisine & culture, it's a platform he uses to not only feed people amazing food but to cultivate community — and most importantly, inspire more gratitude into our lives and culture. In addition, Ryland is a speaker and passionate advocate for sacred commerce, community building and regenerative farming principles, which he supports as co-founder of Kiss The Ground, a non-profit that provides education regarding the connection between soil, human, and planetary health. Among its board of advisors are former podcast guests Paul Hawken, Dr. Zach Bush and David Bronner. If you enjoyed those conversations, or last week's exchange with John & Molly Chester, then you're in for a treat with Ryland. This is a conversation about the importance of soil regeneration and its impact on everything from food security and climate change reversal to improving human health. We open with Ryland’s hippie upbringing. How he learned early the philosophy of using business as a force for good — something he calls sacred commerce. We discuss how doing good — adding value to people’s lives — is not only always the right thing to do, but also the best long-term path to profits. We explore the origins, trajectory and intentionality behind his family's incredible group of restaurants — Cafe Gratitude, Gracias Madre and his sister’s Sage Plant-Based Bistros — which together form the cornerstone of plant-based dining in Los Angeles and beyond. Then we dive into the principles of conscious capitalism, the importance of regenerative farming, and the reasons why soil health is such a crucial component in the holistic equation of sustainable human, animal and planetary health. Finally we discuss his various film projects, including his documentaries May I Be Frank* and Kiss The Ground — a must see you might have heard Woody Harrelson recently raving about on Marc Maron’s podcast. But more than anything, this is a conversation about love, awareness, and the power of gratitude as a living, breathing philosophy of life. You can watch it all go down on YouTube.... Enjoy! Rich

The principles of sacred commerce, or the basic message is, how can you run a business and also awaken the presence of love? And we do see the positive impact of creating a space that uses language intentionally to uplift people and to remind people of their greatness. You know, that was kind of the biggest spiritual epiphany of my life was that love is not something found in a person, place, or thing. It's something that is ever-present in our heart, and it's always available as a gift.

And it costs nothing to share it. And yes, we have lots of things that get in the way of that. But if I was to die tomorrow, what I would want people to know and what I would hope that I demonstrated to a fair amount of the interactions that I've had would be like, wow, there was love present that was being given freely from that human being. That's Ryland Englehart, this week on The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Greetings, podcast denarians. What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome. of Cafe Gratitude and Gracias Madre, which is a family-owned and operated chain of legendary vegan restaurants in California and beyond that he uses as a platform to inspire more gratitude

into our culture. In addition, Ryland is a speaker and a passionate advocate for sacred commerce, community building, and regenerative farming, which he supports as co-founder of Kiss the Ground, which is this incredible nonprofit that provides education regarding the connection between soil, human, and planetary health, and which counts former podcast guests like Paul Hawken, Dr. Zach Bush, and David Bronner amongst its board of advisors. So if you enjoyed those conversations, or if you're interested in learning about the implications of soil regeneration on food systems, climate change reversal, and improving human health, then you, my friends,

are in for a real treat with Bryland. And it's all coming up in a couple of few. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of

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I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Ryland. This is a really good one. We cover Ryland's hippie upbringing and how he learned early and often the philosophy of using business as a force for good, something he calls sacred commerce, and how doing good, adding value to people's lives is not only always the right thing to do, but also the path to profits. We discuss the origins, trajectory, and intentionality behind his incredible restaurants, Cafe Gratitude, Gracias Madre, and his sister's restaurants, which are called Sage, which together basically form the cornerstone of plant-based dining in Los Angeles. Then we dive into conscious capitalism,

of plant-based dining in Los Angeles. Then we dive into conscious capitalism, the importance of regenerative farming practices, and the reasons why soil health is such a crucial and critical component in everything from human health to sequestering carbon, to redressing climate change, and ensuring biodiversity and food security. Finally, we discuss his various film projects, including his documentaries,

May I Be Frank and Kiss the Ground, which is a must-see. You might've heard Woody Harrelson recently raving about on Mark Maron's podcast. But more than anything, this is a conversation about love. It's about awareness and the power of gratitude. So here we go.

This is Ryland and Me. I think of you as almost like the love child of David Bronner and Zach Bush. With a light dusting of the happy pair twins. Like you've got the conscious capitalism, sacred commerce thing going on. You've got the regenerative agriculture thing going on. And then you leverage these cafes, these restaurants to amplify this positive vibe

that you're putting out into the world. And they serve as kind of these ground zeros, like the locus for all the things that you care about to cultivate community and provide, you know, expansive wisdom in the world. Like, how do you think about what you do? Wow, thank you for that question. And for that, that creation story for me. You could disagree. Yeah, no. You know, it, the way that I, the way that,

The way that I've had an incredibly privileged life, just in the extraordinary parents and that I've gotten to work with my parents. And I would say that, yeah, really, the way I see it is I've had an extraordinarily lucky life and upbringing and opportunity and access to people and things and information. And really part of my struggle has been, how do I best use that privilege to serve and to contribute? And I would say that the big kind of essence of my life and the crux of my life has really been, how do I be the presence of love such that everyone I come in contact with, they're left with, that love was not something that was found, but actually is something that we embody and that we offer and we give. That was kind of the biggest spiritual epiphany of my life was that love is not

something found in a person, place, or thing. It's something that is, and we've heard many versions of this before, but it's something that is ever present in our heart and it's always available as a gift and it costs nothing to share it. And yes, we have lots of things that get in the way of that. But as, you know, I think if I was to die tomorrow, what I would want people to know and what I would hope that I demonstrated to a fair amount of the interactions that I've had would be like, wow, there was love present

that was being given freely from that human being. So difficult to hold onto that. So difficult, sliding sands in the fingertips. Oh my God. Well, your Twitter bio kind of says it all, right? Your Twitter bio is unconditional love remembering the unconditional part. That's the hard part, right? The unconditional part. Oh my God. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Thank you for that lesson that I said and thought and, you know, many, many years ago when I wrote that.

Um, yeah. Uh, so yeah, really, I would say that what Cafe Gratitude, what Kiss the Ground, everything that I'm doing really is how to connect to that brilliance and that spirit of love and then take action guided from that. Where does this come from? I mean, does this come downstream? of love and then take action guided from that. And I- Where does this come from? I mean, does this come downstream from amazing parents? Like where does that sensibility emanate from? Yeah, definitely. Where many people I think had a relationship to specific religions or spiritualities.

Really, what I remember of my upbringing was basically the communication was that we're all cells in one body. And that we're all one. So how do you take action and how do you treat each other and the earth knowing that where they are, you are there too? So how would you treat, how would you be towards them? And so that was like a foundational piece. And then, you know, I kind of rebelled and went away from my parents. I tried to become a pro snowboarder for a couple of years in Lake Tahoe and kind of had a, you know, I got to go figure

out my life on my own. And then, you know, my sister got in a situation where she was, um, facing life imprisonment, um, based around a marijuana deal gone bad. I didn't know that. And I, I basically had to, I left my life in Lake Tahoe, came to kind of be with her in LA to kind of get her through this moment. And that ended up turning into a, we ended up opening a recording studio in North Hollywood. So I had this whole career of like a hip hop, R&B recording studio. How long ago was this? I used to have like a kind of a Puerto Rican chin strap

and like wore FUBU velour jumpsuits. I have a very hard time visualizing that. And a major swagger. How long ago was that? This was in 2000, 2000, 2000. When I was 20, 20, 20, 21, 22 and 23. But at some point you found your way back to the family fold. Yeah, then that whole business fell apart

and I actually had a big moment of kind of humility and loss because we had built this recording studio. We had three recording studios in North Hollywood and we were totally hip to the scene of urban hip hop music and had a lot of artists that, the Rough Riders, like Jadakiss was in the studio, Ashanti was in the studio, B2K back in the day. So it was like this big moment. And then literally we lost everything.

We had to sell our house that we had bought. And I ended up being like the host at Follow Your Heart in Canoga Park. And I remember the first time one of the celebrities, this woman named Janae, who's a budding R&B celebrity, came in to Follow Your Heart. I was like, thank you for choosing Follow Your Heart. She knew me as this young studio entrepreneur from a year before.

Just the dying to my pride of oh my god how did what happened you just got upside down on it yeah i mean we basically took a huge we took a huge loan uh or owner financing for the building we took a huge uh loan on the equipment was like five hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment our monthly net was like $500,000 worth of equipment. Our monthly net was like $40,000. And when Napster took the internet, music sharing became a thing, budgets really went. And so you could pretty much record something in a studio at home versus needing a big live room

and this kind of thing. So that whole thing fell apart. And my sister went into a state of depression. I had to get a job and follow your heart. I was always into health food, organic food. For people that are listening, follow your heart is like super old school, like the OG, like vegan, macrobiotic restaurant

slash grocery store, like deep in the valley. It's still there. I ate there recently. I love it. It's great. I've been there since the 70s. Still has like the wood panel flooring. It looks exactly like it did back in the day. It has that aesthetic. Yeah. Like they were selling avocado and sprout sandwiches when it was 60 cents for a sandwich.

Yeah. I'm sure it was like the only vegetarian vegan restaurant in the whole area. And it's crazy. Follow Your Heart is now huge because of vegan A's and all their assorted products. Cheese, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. But yeah, where we were getting to was, and other things, the other cool, this is, I guess, full transparency.

My folks took me to a plant medicine ceremony at 19 years old at a moment in my life when I was totally in identity crisis of what I was supposed to do. I didn't go to college because I had learning disabilities as a child. I had ADHD and attention deficit disorder and dyslexia. I had read it at like a fifth grade level graduating high school. And so I was, and I didn't go to college because I didn't think I was equipped for further education.

And then the whole dot-com boom was happening in San Francisco. I was living on the West Coast and I was thinking I should get into that. And I was kind of in conflict of where I should go and what I should do. And I ended up drinking ayahuasca. With your parents? With my parents. Wow.

And yeah, I had this amazing, clear pathway, which was I saw my, you know, desire for, you know, fascination with technology or need to do that, because that was the thing that where people were making money. And I just saw visually, you know, the kind of corrosive, disconnected, more disconnected nature that going down that road would take me and take humanity. And I visually saw myself as this, my hands as roots and my shoulders as the sides of the mountains and this protector of the earth.

And in this very beautiful moment, experiencing myself as a being, as the earth, feeling that pulse of life from, you know, the earth, and then experiencing even another dimension of, you know, the view from the bird's eye view of, you know, me and the earth all experiencing itself as this, you know, one experience. And what I came away with that my life was about protecting and caring for Mother Earth and that's what you've become that was a predecessing moment

and again there was many many many years until Kiss the Ground but again the background of that I always knew that plant medicine, whether it was echinacea or golden seal or these different herbs, or I was the type of kid who someone would get a bee sting and I would go and find a plantain weed, chew it up in my mouth and make a green little lump of,

and stick that on the bee sting and knew that it would pull the poison out of the stick. So I always, there was a background of it, but it became very clear that that was what I was to, that was the master and the mother that I was supposed to serve. So growing up then, did you grow up on your parents' farm? I mean, your dad was originally like an IBM executive, right? And then like switch gears? Totally, no, no, totally wrong. My dad actually didn't go to college.

Oh, he didn't? My dad was a back to the lander. He spent three years in the Adirondack Mountains in a teepee, cooking every meal on wood fire. And then I was conceived right at the end of that phase when they were on their way to California in a little hippie van to find their TM meditation teacher,

their guru, a guy named Charlie Lutz. I got conceived on that road trip to the West Coast. I mean, like, you know, truth is stranger than fiction, right? If you scripted that or that was in a movie, you'd be like, there's no way. It's too California. It's too hippie. Totally.

Wow. So they ended up getting out there and then not being able to sustain themselves because they were pregnant and they realized, oh, I have a kid on the way. We have to go back and get ourselves sorted out. And so they ended up going back to upstate New York. My dad and his brother

married my mom and her twin sister. No way. So two brothers married sisters lived in this, we had this little farmhouse in upstate New York on 21 acres with a little pond, a little orchard. It was an old dairy barn. One pocket, but one bank account between the four. And that's where we grew up. Utopia.

Yeah, I mean it was- Grew up until how old? Till 18. Oh, wow. So I went all through high school, it was- Grew up until how old? Till 18. Oh, wow. So I went all through high school, was in- Did you go to like a local high school or were you homeschooled? We went to, I went to Waldorf School for the first

till eighth grade and then went to a alternative public school called ACS, which had courses, classes like radical American politics. And you read Howard Zinn, People's History. Wow. So how did this group of four make their way? My dad was, he calls himself, he was a piss poor carpenter, like a B grade carpenter.

And my uncle Scott, he raised dairy cows. My aunt worked at the green star co-op. My mom's first company was the Benevolent Bean, Gene the Bean. She made tempeh and tofu as the first business. It had a big soybean on the back of a van. It was their car. That was short-lived. My dad and mom started a clothing business called Flax

that was their first success. They built that from the from, you know, in the sewing room in our house to they were selling to thousands of retailers all across the country. Oh, wow. And is that where the affirmations began? The affirmations began with my parents,

different spiritual teachers. There was a woman named Jan Kinney or Jan Williams. And she was a big part of this whole idea that your life's a picture of your mind. And that we are creators of our reality through our thoughts, speech, beliefs, actions, and attitudes create our reality. And if we're just present to managing our thoughts, speech, beliefs, actions, and attitudes create our reality. And if we're just present to managing our thoughts,

speech, beliefs, actions, and attitudes, we can really have dominion in the experience of our life. And that spirit amplifies. So if I'm complaining, spirit is gonna amplify that complaint into my reality. Because spirit is neutral. It's just amplifying what we are putting our awareness on in the present moment. And that was an interesting thing because they got way deep into that work

to the point where there was affirmations all over house. My first name was Regal Relating Ryland was my affirmational name. So you're being indoctrinated into this from as far back as you can remember. Totally. It's kind of amazing that you actually didn't become like an investment banker. I suppose I would imagine that the ayahuasca ceremony probably was the wrench in that plan because usually a kid that grows up in an environment that's so loose and progressive in that way ends up going in the opposite direction to rebel.

Yeah, needing to find structure because there was no structure. Because there's chaos with that too. Totally. Right. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. So when you, but when you look back on that, do you like, what are you, what's your emotional

reaction to it? I mean, you sound, I mean, you, you come across like you're very fond of that, the way you were brought up. Yeah, I, I, I am. I, you know, I still, my relationship to both my dad and mom, even though my mom and dad have divorced, they divorced when I was 20. And I adore them.

They're some of my favorite people in the world. I work with my dad, we've done Cafe Gratitude. He's a regenerative farmer. And yeah, we're each other's biggest fans. Well, I met them, I don't know if you remember this, we went to Thanksgiving at Gracias Madre, probably two years ago. Yeah, yes.

And you guys put on this amazing experience where you had Native American singers and dancers, there was like all kinds of really cool stuff that was going on that day. And your parents were there and I had a nice conversation with your dad. Yes, then we were raising, every Thanksgiving we do a free meal for the community

and we choose a cause to have, it's like our way, Thanksgiving, cafe gratitude, gracias madre, it's all about thankfulness, being thankful, being grateful. And so our way to kind of be who we say we are Gracias Madre, it's all about thankfulness, being thankful, being grateful. And so our way to kind of be who we say we are and really emanate gratitude and generosity is we do a free day where we serve somewhere between 800 and 1,000 meals and we choose a cause to have, we don't charge people,

but we ask for donations and all those donations go to some cause. And that year was the year of the earthquake in Oaxaca. Right, right. And we ended up raising somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000 to send down there. Yeah. So, yeah, it's fun. So you're in upstate New York. The affirmations are happening.

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so my parents are, you know, at this point, they're totally like dirt poor hippies that, and my dad is practicing, literally, he has got like a, an 82, like, Renault, like a super, you know, like with, with, with, like, rot, like, you know, in on the East Coast in the winter times, you know, the rust. The floor rusts out. The floor rusts out. The floor rusts out. You can see the pavement. That's right. And literally he's got little sticky notes all over the house that say, magnificent millionaire Matthew.

And this is literally what he's programming himself. And being, how would a millionaire be? And he's being millionaire Matthew, magnificent millionaire Matthew, which also had a lot to do with, like when being generous, we demonstrate, when we're giving, we become open receptacles to receive in this idea of just always looking at how we can be generous.

And we can't out give the universe. So if we're putting our bet on generosity, then we have this and willing to stay open, the philosophy or the idea is that that generosity, because if there's oneness, then where we're giving will ultimately come back to us as well. Well, the beautiful thing is that all of that became manifest, it all became true.

Like I would think like if you're in that moment and you're in the Renault and you're like seeing the reality of the current situation, you're like, this guy is insane, right? But like, look what has blossomed out of this. Like all of that became true. And more significantly, you know, the cultural impact that you and your family, your siblings have had on the world is really remarkable. So those principles are truisms, but they're on their own timeline.

Yes. Right? Totally. So how do you end up making your way out to California then? Does the family relocate? So, yeah, so I moved before I, at 18, I got in my little Toyota stick shift, Toyota Corolla with one of my best friends. We moved to the West coast. Again, I was seeking snowboarding and trying to be part of a pro snowboarder, lived a couple of years in Lake Tahoe, then did three years in LA in the commercial recording studio business.

That all fell apart. Then a year of transition with Folly of Heart, getting back into food and healthy food. Actually, I forgot to say, when I was working in Lake Tahoe trying to be a pro snowboarder, I became the assistant kitchen manager of the Sugar Bowl Lodge ski resort. So I was always savvy with food. And that was actually because my parents, because they were building a business, they were leaving us home alone a lot as kids. And we had things like

umeboshi plums and hijiki seaweed and tofu con. So I basically got creative with ingredients and became very self-sufficient as far as producing food. I've always had a knack for putting ingredients together. Recording studio, Follow Your Heart, and then I had another moment of losing my way. Um, and basically humbled myself. Um, I was, I was, I started taking acting classes in LA. I had like that LA crisis where I like

started to drive. Yeah. Let me find my, let me see if I can find myself importance by being an actor. Um, so I, I, I did that and started taking... How did that go? Did you get any gigs? No. No? No. No, I just mostly got about a year into classes

in a small box theater next to the Guitar Center on Hollywood Boulevard. Oh, man. Okay. So then I kind of humbled myself and just literally called my dad in kind of tears, like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm kind of lost.

I'd love to come back. I knew that they were starting to develop Cafe Gratitude. And I called him up and asked him, I'd love to come back and learn the business. That was the other thing. I had a very serious relationship here with a woman. And so I was like, can I come back and learn the business. That was the other thing. I had a very serious relationship here with a woman. And so I was like, can I come back and learn the business in a year or two and come back and open Cafe Gratitude in LA?

And they said, you know, of course, the father wanting the son to come. He's been waiting for that phone call, right? But he knew you had to go on this like epic hero's journey in order to come back to the fold. That's right. So at what point did the first Cafe Gratitude in San Francisco open? That was the first one, right? First one was 20th and Harrison in the Mission District.

I'm sure you went. And it was 1,400 square feet, hand-painted signs. Over the door it said, A World of Plenty, Home of the Abounding River Board Game. Because what most people don't know is that Cafe Gratitude and all the eccentricities of the affirmations on the menu and the question of the day and the jubilant, joyful energy and attitude all comes from a board game that Matthew and Terese created.

They spent a year creating this very in-depth, transformational, spiritual board game similar to Monopoly or Life. But instead of buying and selling hotels and charging people to stay in them, you ask people about where are you feeling unworthy? And having each player share where they're feeling unworthy and then say three things that you love about yourself to the person to your left. And the original Cafe Gratitude, it was a transformational gaming parlor where we served raw vegan food. So literally it said above the front door,

home of the Abound River board game. And every table in the restaurant, there was no individual two-top tables. Everything was a community table. And every table had embedded and lacquered in was this game. And there was cards and basically the server didn't just take your order. They also encouraged you to play the game and teach was cards and basically the server didn't just take your order, they also encouraged you to play

the game and teach you how to play the game. I actually had a position for a while in the company called the Game Meister, where I was just there facilitating. The whole restaurant was really this play to just get people in and under the rubric of serving them food, but just to get them to engage

with this game and go on this kind of serving them food, but just to get them to engage with this game and go on this kind of like philosophical existential inquiry. Totally. I mean, that was literally it. That literally was, you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg? The gratitude piece. The food was literally the carrot to get people in the door.

Right. So that we could ask them the question, what are you grateful for? So we could play them the question what are you grateful for so we could play a uh uh an invitational role in shifting awareness to gratitude what year did it open this was 2000 uh 2003 i just remember 2004 march of 2004 i had uh i was living in San Francisco up until 90, when did I move down here? 96, yeah, like almost 1997. And then after living here for a couple of years,

I started to hear rumors about this place, Cafe Gratitude. And it almost sounded apocryphal, like there's this place and you go, and then you had the bowl, was it the community bowl? The Grateful Bowl. The Grateful Bowl, where you could just pay whatever you felt like paying. That's right. And quite often you were just giving it away.

And I was like, what is going on here? And there was almost this myth about this utopian food place that was reaching far and wide. Yeah, the Grateful Bull came in 2007 or 8 when the economy took a collapse. And it was Christmas morning and me and my dad were sitting on B-Love Farm and kind of inquiring into how can we demonstrate our doubling down on generosity

at a moment when everyone's feeling contracted and how can we step into having organic food not just be for the affluent and thinking about like the blue plate special, what can we do? And we realized out of all the affirmations on the menu, there was no, I am grateful. And we were like, oh, perfect. We're going to create the grateful bowl and it'll be a sliding scale and we'll serve, we'll communicate, look, some can pay more, some can pay less, and we'll experiment with can the community take care of each other

through those that have more will pay more and those that have less will pay less and it will balance out to where at least it covers the food cost. Is that how it played out? Well, we did it, we've done it, we continue to do it to this day. The Grateful Bowl is still available. It's now a subsidized price of $7 to go. So you can go in and get one to go at $7.

The challenge then became you had a lot of people coming in, parties of four, getting a 50-cent Grateful Bowl, and then servers were depending on their income. So the ripple effect became challenged to do it as part of a full service experience. But we've to date served over 800,000 bowls at under five bucks. Wow.

And I had the most moving, meaningful moment where I was at the seminar in Culver City and this gentleman came up to me and he had heard that I was at this seminar in Culver City and this gentleman came up to me and he had heard that I was from Cafe Gratitude and he said, I just want to thank you because I lived in Oakland, grew up raising three kids at a time in my life when I had no money. And I know how important nutrition is in the formative years of raising children. And essentially we had fast food, liquor stores, and Cafe Gratitude's Grateful Bowl. And I was able to raise my children on Grateful Bowls

and we'd go there a couple times a week. That's what it's about. He was moved and I was moved. And so at the end of the day, did it work out exactly the way that we wanted? No, not, did we ended up closing? We had a restaurant in the Oakland Whole Foods, a small little kiosk, Cafe Gratitude,

and we called it Cafe Grateful Bowl because that was pretty much what everyone got. And we did it for probably five years um and ultimately that unit per se or that restaurant didn't um you know lead uh you know wasn't successful but ultimately you know all the alchemy of of that generosity and the forward movement and development of the company leads us to where we are today so i feel feel- And today you've got what, six or seven? How many places do you have? Seven restaurants in Southern California. And then we have one kind of hippie handshake anomaly restaurant in Kansas City. There's a Cafe Gratitude in Kansas City. That's kind of more like

the original Cafe Gratitudes as far as in design, aesthetic, and menu. So it's the Santa Cruz one, right? Exactly, and then my brother, and that's actually called Grateful for Santa Cruz, so it's no longer a Cafe Gratitude. That's got to be recent. I was there maybe two years ago or something like that. It was called Cafe Gratitude. Yeah, it was just in the last eight months or maybe a year

it's been called Grateful for Santa Cruz, but they still have a lot of the same things. You still kind of feel like you're in a Cafe Gratitude there. And for those people that are listening that have never had the experience of going to a Cafe Gratitude, you may not play a board game when you eat there, but you will be greeted by your waitstaff person who will say, would you like to hear the question of the day? That question will

be presented. And then every item on the menu is- And that question is usually some version of what are you grateful for? What are you passionate about, what moves you from your head to your heart. Something that drops us into likely a more meaningful conversation. If we're willing to go there, it oftentimes can stimulate some potent and powerful conversation. And then every item on the menu is an affirmation.

I am fill in the blank. Yeah. So if you want a mint chocolate chip shake, which has been around for since day one, it's our number one seller. You say, I am cool. And then when the server brings it out to you, they say, you are cool. Or you are passionate or you are loved or you are kind. Or you are grateful. Or you are grateful and again the way we see that is we see it as playful we don't take ourselves too seriously but we do see

the positive impact of creating a space that uses language intentionally to uplift people and to remind people of their greatness. Well, it's sort of a small thing, but it's also quite profound.

Like what I see in that is, listen, when you sit down to have a meal with another human being, or even with yourself, like this is a sacred act that dates back to the beginning of humankind, obviously, or all animal kind, and we should treat it as such. So let's establish a paradigm that can be conducive to a meaningful exchange between people. And when you set it up like I am this,

or here's the question of the day, you're basically saying, here's what I, here's perhaps a subject matter that you can explore over the next hour or two rather than like the you know the surface level nonsense that we tend to talk about totally i think there was a um what are those the kids in the hall what was that british there was a good kids i think i was canadian wasn't it maybe and there's this like kind of a classic comedy thing where it was like this spoof on formal fine dining

and they basically describe what you're eating tonight and what you'll be talking about. So that was like one way to see it. It's like we're playfully inviting people to enjoy and be nourished by healthy organic plant-based food and potentially have a conversation about gratitude. Right. So talk to me about the sacred commerce aspect of all this. Beautiful, yeah. So again

we've somewhat communicated that as the way that customers come in and have this experience with the restaurant but my parents definitely were, they're revolutionaries. They're forward thinking beyond the mundane. And I just so admire and honor their efforts and their intention and their commitment and conviction. But yeah, they didn't only just, they've written a book and they've led many, many workshops on the principles of sacred commerce, which is the principles or the basic messages, how

can you run a business and also awaken the presence of love? awaken the presence of love. And that's a very, very difficult razor's edge to walk on. It's sort of like an advanced degree in conscious capitalism. It's like taking conscious capitalism an additional step. That's right. And it's exactly that because conscious capitalism is the triple bottom line, people, planet, profit. We said sacred commerce is you have to get a pass. It's an acronym, P-A-S-S. Profitability, awakening, sustainability, and social justice or service. Profitability, we see that, again, we're not a nonprofit. We're a for-profit, profitable businesses. If we want capitalism to get excited about this,

it's got to be profitable. And profitability is like the health or the immune system of a organization because life is going to have ups and downs, peaks and valleys. And if we haven't had a profitable business, we're going to have a rainy day and it's going to collapse the whole... You can't achieve any of your other goals if you're not profitable.

That's right. Essential. Awakening is the aspect of we are committed to the employee or what we call advocate experience working in our restaurants, that you are learning new language, that there's communication style, there's the way that we are managing and the way that we're coaching and the way that we're guiding our advocates or employees is a way that has them be empowered. For instance, we have 10 tools for creating a grateful community, which are part of the sacred commerce toolkit.

And those tools are tools like acknowledgement. And that acknowledgement is not just about seeing someone doing a good job and then saying, you cleaned your room, good job. saying, you cleaned your room, good job. It's about seeing the unexpressed qualities of curiosity, of courage, of wisdom, of kindness, and actually saying, all right, we want to cultivate and grow those virtuous qualities in human beings. And so we're going to acknowledge, have be a culture of acknowledgement where we're just always looking for how can we see someone, see their greatness, see their potential, and call that forth in our acknowledgement. So the way that that shows up is we have a process that we've been doing since day one called clearing, which is essentially two questions. It sounds like Scientology is not.

Yeah. Everyone's like, red alert, red alert. I'm going to start getting freaked out. But essentially, it's just two questions. One question, and over the years, the clearing process has had many iterations, but in its most pure form, it was two questions. First question could be,

what are you struggling with? Or where are you experiencing self-doubt? And again, this goes back to the game. And essentially it's allowing a person to just share what is distracting them from the present moment. them from their, the present moment, because we know that the best service and the best, you know, if we're, if we're talking about, you know, customer experience and customer service, we want our people to be present. And if they're, if we're distracted by some story of self-doubts, you know, some frustration, some irritation, and we can actually have a five-minute process before their shift such that they can shift their attention

to some aspect of something that they do have an abundance of, something that they are grateful for, and then end that process with an acknowledgement, then, you know, that ultimately is lifting them up, breathing some, you know some life into their wings. And then hopefully that kindness, that presence, that listening, we oftentimes are so starved for someone

to really give us their full listening. And so just a couple minutes of having someone be heard, not trying to fix or change them, but just reflecting back what we heard them say. And then saying the second question, which would be, what are you grateful for? And we'll just ask you, Rich, what are you grateful for today? I'm grateful to be having this experience with you right now.

Amazing. Well, I just would love to acknowledge you for the quality of your listening and the quality of your presence. It's really, it's an easy space to share into. So thank you. I appreciate that, Ryland. You're making my job very easy right now. You're doing my job for me. But is this something, so this is something you do for all of the staff? We have an aspiration to have every staff member um have a a clearing process before they start um you know it's i'm just imagining the person who's like look man i just needed a like

a dishwasher job like i'm not i'm not signing up for all this yeah woo woo crazy shit totally people lot lots of resistance and ultimately um you, what the clearing has evolved into is because we ask the question of the day, which is always the second question of the clearing, is the question that then we extend to our guests. That question becomes asked around the house. Then on a good day, people, Rich, what are you grateful for?

Awesome, I want to acknowledge you for being an amazing team member today. Thank you for coming in. Let's have a good day. Rich, what are you grateful for? Awesome, I want to acknowledge you for being an amazing team member today. Thank you for coming in. Let's have a great shift. So it used to be like five minutes per person, like sit down. And over the years, that's evolved to what we call clearing on the court

is asking each other the question of the day and then acknowledging each other for something that we appreciate about one another. And ultimately that creating a space for, or that creating a quality of human experience that creates what people have called the vibe at Cafe Gratitude, there's a vibe and that is-

It definitely is, you go in there, you feel good. Everybody who's working there looks you in the eye like they seem present. They are listening. Like it is different from your typical restaurant experience. Totally. And we've put a lot of energy

and a lot of money and time and effort. And the other things, like we have all advocate meetings, which are just meetings where we put everybody in a room together. We have translators for the back of the house, Spanish-speaking folks. And essentially it's just some nugget of inspiration, wisdom, life knowledge.

Some of the stuff that you teach here or you share with your guests on the show, we'll have that be presented or communicated. Like I've had Marianne Williamson come in and talk to our staff before. And so yeah, so again, and then another thing, one of the benefits that we've offered people, again, in the aspect of awakening or transformation, we've paid for people to do the Landmark Forum, which is a transformational weekend course that many people have heard of,

many people probably haven't heard of, but it's essentially a three-day personal growth self-empowerment course that happens all over the world. Not that we have any official tie with them, it's just a course that we've seen in three short days provides tremendous transformation value. My parents did it many years ago, but it was very impactful in a positive way for them. I've never been myself. I know tons of people that have done it

and have benefited tremendously from that experience. But there's an aspect of that that got you guys in like a little bit of a sticky wicket back in the day with the San Francisco restaurant. Are you okay talking about that? No, cafe gratitude. I've read about this and I'm confused. I don't understand why it's such a big... Landmark Forum is pretty mainstream.

Talk about not super fringe i mean we as a company have done a lot more fringe things and you know encouraging landmark education um but yeah cafe cafe gratitude has definitely been a um you know we we've been uh kind of a hotbed for you know suspicion of coltum right um and what is this sacred commerce thing? That's right. And this game and like, what's the, what is the agenda here? Totally.

Trying to brainwash people. There was some rumor that you had to get to work at Catholic Attitude, you had to get a B-love tattoo. So for those that are just listening, you rolled up your sleeves and you have B on your left forearm and love on your right forearm.

And me and my dad went and got those together. Oh my God. Of course you did, right? Yeah, right after we went and did a men's new warrior training weekend. Where I was like, all right, you know, it was kind of like, how are you going to demonstrate masculinity in the world? And the thing that came to me was like, all right, I'm going to be love, and I'm going to have loving be a masculine thing,

that I actually, love is sourced from within me, and it can't never be taken away from me. And that actually is a beautiful masculine quality. How dare you? Yeah, so yeah. So I mean, yes, Cafe Gratitude over the years. Because we were super, there was a moment when,

I kind of feel like this is almost like talking back in the day, like in the 60s and 70s, there was a moment when Cafe Gratitude was, when business would down and we would have all employee meetings and we'd do awe meditations for abundance for the restaurant and for all of our lives. Like we'd get all of our employees together and do a meditation for the abundance of the restaurant.

And looking in the window, that could be- Yeah, you're like, what is going on there? But I mean, you're in the mission in San Francisco. It's like, you're like, what is going on there? But I mean, you're in the mission in San Francisco. It's like, you know. Totally. And you know, other things we used to take a fork to a wine glass in the middle of the dining room and have people read the mission statement out loud

or we'd have the, or we'd do a minute of laughter because one of the turns in the game. Creating a hostile work environment, Riley. Totally. Are you going to make me laugh? I do not want to laugh for a minute. This is absurd. But that is how we are as human beings, as adults.

No, I'm not. That is so no. So even in Venice, I actually one night took the whole dining room and got everybody to do a laughing yoga exercise where everyone laughed out loud for a minute. And some people were laughing at us laughing, but that was fine too. So, all right, so walk me through the Landmark thing

and the San Francisco restaurant and like kind of what happened from your perspective. Yeah, from what happened, we were super eager beaver and like Landmark, my dad met his wife at Tercey's, who was also the co-founder of Cafe Gratitude. They met at Landmark. My dad was potentially going to become a Landmark forum leader.

Tercey was leading programs at Landmark. Part of the inspiration of Cafe Gratitude and the Abounder of a Board Game was inspired from that experience. We had had such profound experiences of transformation from this work. And again, I did it when I was 18 or 19, I did it at 19, right around that same time, that transformational point in my life

in the second world trade tower, the 14th floor. And my dad actually resisted doing it for another 10 years. And then he finally did it when my mom left him for another woman and his life fell apart. And that's actually where he went to kind of put himself back together. That's where he met Teresies. And then kind of they gave birth to Cafe Gratitude

out of that experience. And again, we had just seen so many people in our lives, anyone that had become friends, you know, good friends with us, we were always encouraging it. And we were seeing people, you know, having total estranged 10, 15 year estranged relationships with family members, totally getting things complete, you know, apologizing

and getting resolution around abuse and addiction. Yeah, part of the fundamental paradigm is getting people to confront their truth, to kind of pull down the shades of denial and then forcing them to have those uncomfortable conversations with themselves and with the other people in which with whom they're in conflict or have some kind of unresolved trauma in order to create that healing so that you can become a more whole human being and fully

integrated. And I think the thing that's so profound about it and the thing that's why I still recommend it is there's, we all know that we want to be more authentic, but we also know that we're completely full of it. I mean, we're so full of it. And it's just safe and easy to stay in that place. Totally. And you just can't quite, you know it, you want to be authentic. You know that everything is good, but yet it's still safer, comfortable, and there's more mental justification for things.

And going through that program, I, you know, time and time again, I see people basically putting themselves up on the cross and acknowledging how full of it, how phony, how much, how arrogant, you know, and really owning things that three days before you couldn't have imagined they would be able to claim, acknowledge, and like point the things that were so obvious to the room, you know, watching them up there and then them just really acknowledging that and then having that conversation with people in their lives

who have become completely estranged from them because they were so in their righteousness about their perspective. So I still remember my dad calling me from a pay phone, like in the hallway outside of the, wherever this was taking place and having this incredibly profound conversation with him. I mean, this was a really long time ago,

but I still remember it because it really was transformational in our relationship. But I think there's a thing, as I understand it, the issue came about because it wasn't like, hey, we suggest you go do this. It was like, you have to do this. There's a difference. Totally.

As I said, we were kind of eager beater and kind of staunch about it. And we had people who were managers. We weren't making employees or advocates do it. We were encouraging, but we were making it mandatory for managers to go do it, seeing that it was like a communication training and people were in resistance to that.

Yeah, it was like a bridge too far. Yeah, I mean, I get it. I ho-a-po-a-pono if I went too far with it. Again, it was well intended, and I get that sometimes over-excitement can be not as perceptive to nuance and to where people are. How come you guys haven't reopened

a Cafe Gratitude in San Francisco? Well, we've been busy seven, eight years. We've been down here, opened seven restaurants. And we still have Gracias Madre there. Still doing well. And really doing business in California is challenging. Just the amount of legalities. Again, it sounds terrible.

You want workers' rights, you want benefits for employees, but it's also very... Instance like, if you're text messaging with a staff member, you then have to pay for that cell phone. Or if you're cutting someone's shifts, you have to give them two weeks notice before changing shifts where restaurants is like... Yeah, that's happening moment to moment.

California makes it hard for small business owners. Yeah, and San Francisco is even, again, better for the worker, which again, we did eight years there and we had provided 100% healthcare for all of our employees, even in Marin County or in different places, because we knew it was the right thing to do. But ultimately, there was aspects of overextending ourselves. And we oftentimes said, in the first round of Cafe Gratitude, we were really focused on the A-S-S and we forgot about the P part

and we made an ass out of ourselves. Because ultimately we were- Pass without P is just an ass. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, we have considered going back back but we just haven't gotten to it yet East Coast too man New York City, Miami

gotta step out it's happening cool I want to shift gears in a minute but I do want to acknowledge in addition to Cafe Gratitude you have Gracias Madre originally in San Francisco, you have one in West Hollywood here.

And that place is just insane. It's so freaking good. And one of the many amazing things about it is nowhere will you see any mention of the fact that it is even a plant-based restaurant, a vegan restaurant. It's just a beautifully appointed place. Like the architecture, the vibe, like everything about it is incredibly inviting. When you go in, you're like, oh man, this place is cool.

The food is amazing. And that's it. And the place is packed. And I would imagine 95, 98% of the people in there are not on a plant-based lifestyle trip they're just looking for good food at a cool place totally yeah i mean that that really has been i mean i'd say that that's been cafe gratitude and gracias madre's role coming to la was really how do we take something that's very fringe very um you know either you're into it or you're not, and making it really opening the door on plant based cuisine to everyone as a, you know, as a not a dogma,

but kind of a genre. And really like, yeah, I go and have Italian on Monday nights. And I go or no, let's say Monday, we'll go meatless on Mondays nights and I go, or no, let's say Monday, we'll go meatless on Mondays. We'll go, you know, let's go gratitude or gracias on Mondays and we'll go Thai or go, you know, Indian or whatever on the other nights of the week. But it's not like I'm only a plant-based person. So I only go to Cafe Gratitude.

I'd say even at Cafe Gratitude, it's maybe 80% of our guests are just people who know they should be eating more plants, more organic food, more healthy made from scratch, high quality food. And so they just build it in as a part of their life versus something that's a superlative, you're either in or you're out. But at Gracia Madre, I mean, when you're at Gratitude,

you're getting the bowls, like you do have the sense like, oh, this is super healthy plant food. But Gracia Madre, I think there's probably a lot of people that eat there and leave and don't even realize that there was no meat or dairy in anything that they were eating. Like it's,

because it's just not, it's delicious regardless. Totally. I mean, I think that's reflected in feedback. Like, oh, I went to, oh, your restaurant's Gracias Madre. I had the, I think these chicken. I had the carnitas.

Yeah, I had the chicken. I had the carnitas. Yeah, I had the chicken. I had the chicken totopo, or I had the chicken flautos. You know, it's like, you know, it's butternut squash. I don't think you did. Yeah. But yes, absolutely. I'd say that that restaurant even more so really just is a bridge for everyone to have a really great experience. You know, you have a margaritaita and you have chips and guac.

And then by the time the food comes, you're just in the experience and there's no like, I didn't get anything. There's no missing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think one of the, not issues, but one of the things that you see when you go to plant-based restaurants is like,

I eat a ton of food, man. Like I need a lot of food. So I need big portions. I wanna feel like full when I'm leaving. And I get that at Gracia's Madre. Like at some places I kind of have to eat before I go and then I have to eat on my way home. And I'll eat beautiful food at the restaurant,

but it's just not saving me in the way that I think a restaurant needs to if it's trying to appeal to a broader cross-section of the population. Totally, yeah. I mean, and it's by far our most successful restaurant. Right, you gotta do more of those, man. Speaking, yeah, newsflash, we're actually closing the Newport Beach Gratitude.

Oh, you are. And reopening in October. So we're closing September 3rd and reopening in October or November the second Southern California Gracias Madre. Cool, in the same location? In the same exact location. We're just doing a refresh, redesign, and reopening.

We think it's going to be a more appropriate fit for the Newport Beach, Orange County crowd. I mean, our most popular things there are margaritas and nachos. And so clearly they're telling us what they want. And so, yeah, that's actually some big news company-wide that we're very excited about. And you're working on the Agora Hills Cafe Gratitude too.

Is that not public? No, that's actually Sage. That's my sister. Oh, Sage, okay. That was the one I, yeah. My sister is, yeah, Sage Vegan Bistro, which she has three organic plant-based restaurants in LA. And people have referred to us as the vegan mafia.

Yeah. But the, yeah, so she's opening her fourth in Granada, or no, in Agora. Agora, yeah, right down the street from here. Yeah, I'm investing. I invited you to invest. Yeah, I know, I know. I'm thinking about it. Okay, good.

I'm thinking about it. Exciting, man. Well man I want to switch gears I wanted to complete the thought sacred commerce is the past profitability, awakening we got way down the awakening tunnel and went into cults and stuff but then sustainability

we're an organic, 100% organic plant-based restaurant that serves, most of everything we do is from scratch. We've put a ton of time and energy into sourcing the best ingredients where many restaurants have two or three vendors. We have 40, 50, I think the most we had 70 vendors getting one or two ingredients from a different vendor because we had an emotional attachment or an ethical attachment

to where something was coming from. That's been what we've been doing since day one. We were some of the first people to do cold press juice on the west coast um when cold press juice wasn't even in the lexicon of understanding uh you know cold processed coffee we we actually sold a blue bottle coffee their first espresso machine that was from our we took it out of our place because we were going to only do cold processed coffee uh and sold it to Blue Bottle for their first espresso machine in San Francisco back in the day. And so we've always had a commitment to food is medicine, no amount of pesticide, herbicide, fungicide should be in our food and just have gone to great lengths to

and just have gone to great lengths to protect the ingredients that we're putting in the food. And it's down to the salt, it's down to the cumin, it's down to every legume, every nut seed and really putting energy into finding where those foods can come from. I would imagine along the way people would have said to you, listen, man, you're gonna to have to compromise here and there because you're never going to be able to scale what you're doing or reach your profitability goals when you have so many vendors and you're so choosy and picky about where this stuff is coming from.

No one's going to know the difference. Come on. Yeah, and to be honest, I think we have had to make compromises. Not to say we haven't made any compromises, but those compromises don't include us going outside of bringing in organic produce, organic ingredients. I think there's a few items, like's a beer at one of the on tap that's not a certified organic product.

And we do work with some small organic farmers who are not certified, but we understand their practice, understand what they're doing. And we are happy to serve and sell their produce. So when you're trying to vet these farmers or these sources, do you go to the farms? Are you trying to make them as local as possible? Like what is the process or the criteria? Yeah, over the years it's been different things,

but definitely visiting, having our chef visit farms. I've gone and visited farms, working with distributors who are only distributing organic produce such that we know that there's not going to be a bait and switch and some kind of hustle there of re-stickering things and saying this is conventional. Is there a lot of that going on?

Yeah. So yeah, over the years, obviously we're always trying to focus on California-based. Obviously there's some stuff that's coming from Mexico, avocados, depending on the season. But it's mostly Southern California, some Northern California. And then there's nuts and seeds

and specialty products like coffee or cacao that's obviously coming from South America and other places. But again, we're working with companies who are sourcing and we trust that they're doing their due diligence on their end to know where those ingredients are coming from. I think that's a natural segue into the next thing that I want to talk to you about, which is regenerative agriculture and how you got interested in this and kind of where your head's at right now with it.

So walk me through this. Totally. Yeah, the most exciting thing happening on planet Earth, regenerative agriculture. So we're segueing from the David Bronner part of you into the Zach Bush part of you. Totally. So yeah, again, I've been serving, selling, a proponent of organic agriculture, organic food, local food,

plant-based food for my whole life. I'm 39 years old, but professionally been selling organic food for my whole life. I'm 39 years old, but professionally been selling organic food for 15 years in the restaurants. And then even before that with Follow Your Heart. And I kind of thought I knew every, not everything, but I thought I had a basic understanding

of organic agriculture, environmentalism, sustainability, you know, and I went to New Zealand back in 2013 on a trip to where I was gonna show a film that I had made called May I Be Frank, which was a transformational documentary about the guy having- It's like Italian American dude, Frank,

who's like overweight, you bring him into the restaurant and what's cool about that, I don't wanna- Direl us, but yeah. Yeah, too much, but what was cool about that is you would expect, okay, you're gonna feed him this great food and he's gonna lose some weight and all of that. But really it's about his spiritual transformation,

like how he has to reckon with his past emotionally and his family that I think is the real heart and beauty of that piece. Yeah, and I'll just say that the aspect and the intention of sacred commerce really is that at a high level and a deep level of commitment that that spiritual transformation is the intention that we um are committed to and have had um a desire to fulfill in you know small micro doses to our guests to our guests, to our employees, advocates, and ultimately to the business world

and to the world watching. But yeah, so may I be frank, I went to New Zealand to show the film and do a screening and Frank went with me and went with my wife and I led a little workshop on sacred commerce. And then I ended up in, and just to say, I kind of went there a little bit like an arrogant Californian

who thought his shit didn't stink and he knew everything about plant-based and vegan and I have compostable this and my packaging is this and I had a complete state change moment where I learned new information that changed everything. And I was sitting in a panel discussion,

sitting in the audience, just watching a panel discussion of six expert scientists talking about the title of the panel was called, Can Human Beings Sustain Themselves on Planet Earth? And basically five out of six said no and that the dire state of things is far further than we're mostly led to believe and that it was like people were crying in the room,

people on stage were crying. It was like an emotional. And then the last guy spoke with this guy was by the name of his name was by Graham Sate. And he is a agricultural consultant and kind of soil site not really a scientist, but in-depth knowledge study of soil science and plant life and trains agronomists and basically said, they're all telling the truth,

but there's a blind spot in the conversation. And that blind spot is soil and its unique ability to sequester and hold all the excess carbon that's in the atmosphere having us up over 410 parts per million we can actually draw that carbon down through our food choices and create a benefit of that carbon being in our soil versus a villain in our atmosphere causing global warming. And I had, and again, I had knew that, I think we all knew that photosynthesis

takes carbon out of the atmosphere, makes oxygen for us to breathe. But the part that I don't think I didn't get was that the way that carbon is transferred from the atmosphere and has been since the beginning of time to cycle on planet Earth is that photosynthesis is the driver of that transference of carbon and that trees, plants, grasses, every day when the sun's's out they're pulling carbon in and they're sharing somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of that carbon carbon dioxide they're adding water hydrogen

and turning it into a carbohydrate and they build their selves with that carbon and then they pump 40 to 60 percent of that carbon into the soil and feed microorganisms. And as those microorganisms eat that carbon sugar, that becomes stable carbon in the soil. So I just basically got, for the first time, every living plant is on our side helping us balance this global challenge that I haven't heard any real solutions to. There's like this kicking the can down the road to technology saving us one day in the future. But really, and we have to reduce emissions,

we have to decarbonize our energy sector, but we're also over 415 parts per million. I don't really see, and that carbon is not going anywhere. What is the real plan for the pullback plan? And at that moment, I saw, oh my God, I could see the living skin of the earth and humans tending to that living skin of the earth, sequestering that carbon and balancing, reversing global warming. And it was like, I just didn't get that functionality. I didn't see how that bigger

cycle circle worked. And I got it for the first time. And it was like, you know, it's like these spiritual moments of like a thousand suns going off in my mind and my heart. And I literally was like, this is true, real, impossible. And for some reason, I have a role in being a catalyst and a missionary and a messenger for this new understanding of soils role, regenerative agriculture's role as a pathway forward for humanity. Yeah. This idea that the solution literally resides, but underneath our feet, it's right there. And yet humanity has just gotten in the way and interfered with this very natural process.

And if there's a way for us to revert or get out of the way and start practicing these things that can enhance this cycle's ability to do what it already knows how to do, we are then in the solution and not in the problem. That's right. And I would even say there's sort of a conservation and a sustainability mindset, which is, you know, let nature do its thing without us, which I think even the next conscious shift is how do we participate in this catalyzing what they call a trophic cascade in an ecosystem.

There's this beautiful video that really demonstrates regeneration, which is when human beings re-released wolves into Yellowstone National Forest or park. And essentially because there hadn't been any predators in that system, it basically, the deer started to just hang out in the valleys and kind of eat away the grasses

and things started to erode. But when they reintroduced the wolves, it kind of kicked the whole ecosystem into gear and where everybody was kind of on each other's toes and everybody was playing a role and people weren't getting kind of lazy, fat and happy and ultimately costing degradation on the overall system. And within six years after they released the wolves

into Yellowstone National, it's called How Wolves Change Rivers. If you look it up on YouTube. Yeah, I've heard of this. 40 million people have watched it. But I mean, it's this unbelievable phenomenon of how this trophic cascade happens all through the ecosystem of,

you know, there becomes more rodents, there becomes more owls, there becomes more owls, there becomes more hawks, there becomes more growth in the trees, there becomes more grasslands, the roots strengthen and hold the river going in one direction versus kind of starting to erode and having the banks kind of eroding away because the deer had kind of had no predators, no one moving

them around their kind of domain. And in turn, the system started to what we call desertify. And so, yeah, so this, you know, shift of consciousness of kind of doing less harm to how our land management practices actually enhance ecosystem function and the carrying capacity of the land and um and just really seeing for the first time like wow something to proactively do that actually doesn't just sustain or slow damage down it actually restores regenerates and renews which in the definition of sustainability which is kind of like our north star around like all right we're destroying the planet let's be sustainable it's like to sustain something that's already broken is sustaining something that's broken, it's broken. Or just holding onto something so that it doesn't break,

right, as opposed to being reparative. That's right, that's right. Yeah, I think, in a macro sense, we need to telescope up from our kind of view of the landscape and take a much broader view We need to telescope up from our kind of view of the landscape and take a much broader view of the macro system. Like you can say, okay, I'm vegan, I'm plant-based. So, you know, I'm reducing harm by not eating animals.

But if all the food that you're eating is non-organic or it's being shipped from far away locations, which obviously has a huge environmental impact, or it's the result of monocropping, you're not really in the solution in the way that you might be deluding yourself that you are, right? Like that is not a proactive,

yeah, it's less harmful than doing other things, but it's not as far down along the road as I think a lot of people think it is. Yes. Yeah. And I was kind of shouting from the rooftops. Was that your understanding before going to New Zealand? Yeah. I mean, I thought that the most sustainable and the best way to preserve the planet was an organic plant-based diet. Where I still think that's a really righteous path because it's saying no to the 95% of what is a total desecration

and a total destruction to so many things, including animal welfare, destruction to so many things, including, you know, animal welfare, including, you know, the immense amount of methane that CAFO feedlot operations put off. But again, it was still, I still didn't, if I, if I look in like my heart of like, how are we going to get there? Like it just, it was, it was still just like a, a reactive not participating versus what is the macro living system of Gaia, this living, breathing organism called planet Earth. And what are the bigger cycles of that? And how do we support those cycles to be most abundant and most fertile. And I think, you know,

it's beautifully articulated in the distinction between, you know, a lot of organic agriculture can be seen as, you know, it's a list of practices that you can't use. Like you can't use these chemicals, you can't use these fungicides, you can't use the synthetic nitrogen. Whereas something like biodynamic, which would be kind of an early expression and articulation of a regenerative agriculture, really saw the whole farm as a living organism. And that the pollinators, the microorganisms in the soil,

the earthworms, the owls, the whole thing is a living system. And how do we support that living system to continue to stay vital? And what are the things that actually enhance soil life or enhance biodiversity versus just, I don't do these things. And really that's regenerative agriculture is this kind of,

and again, I just want to acknowledge that, what I discovered and what became Kiss the Ground with the co-founders Finian and Lauren was knowledge that has been kept and understood from many indigenous cultures around the world, many pioneering farmers and permaculturists. And this is wisdom that's been in little pockets for a long time coming from many places.

We're standing on the shoulders of that wisdom. And we saw being that we live in Los Angeles and the communications capital of the world, the trend setting capital of the world, we said, all right, this is the most exciting, important idea, inspiration, pathway. We're going to tell the story. We want this to be a paradigm shift

that we can actually go beyond sustainability. We can actually regenerate and restore our soils. We can restore our biodiversity. We can, you know, have healthy food for, you know, the idea that we can't feed the world on small ish or even medium-sized farms is absurd. You know, 40% of the food gets wasted. 80% of the food feeding the total population comes from small farms. So walk me through that because that's the thing

that I have difficulty wrapping my head around. I mean, the conventional wisdom is, look, if CAFOs do one thing, it's that they know how to drive economies of scale. Like they take a super concentrated number of animals and they try to blow them up into food using the least amount of time and resources possible. And they've kind of perfected this, right?

This is having a huge deleterious impact on the planet, untold suffering, all kinds of terrible issues with that. Nobody's a fan of this. But when I look at how many people are on the planet and the forecast for the 10 billion that are soon to come, and then I look at biodynamic farming, my first instinct is we don't have enough land. Like you need more space for these cattle.

Like certainly we're gonna have to reduce our addiction to animal foods on some level. Not everyone's gonna get struck vegan, but how can we scale up this wonderful practice that is sequestering carbon and regenerating the earth and all of that and do it in a way that actually is gonna function in the modern world? Totally. and regenerating the earth and all of that and do it in a way that actually is gonna function

in the modern world. Totally. I'd say, my view is that the big billboard is we need to eat more plants, eat less meat as like the biggest billboard that as far as where we are, because 95% of the meat that we're eating is just a total train wreck. But if we wanna get interested in the more nuts and bolts

of how to grow food in a way that actually restores, heals, and not just the aspect of animals and eating animals and animals' role on grasslands and keeping grasslands healthy. And ultimately, when we'relands and keeping grasslands healthy. And ultimately when we're talking about keeping grasslands healthy, we're talking about keeping land that we're growing grains for eating.

When we decoupled animals from land, we just put animals in barns and then we put chemicals to boost the nitrogen, the NPK, nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus as like the quick fix to grow grains and crops. Essentially, the chemicals obviously started to degrade the farmland. In the last 40 years, we've lost 30% of the farmland

being grown to desertification. Right. So destroyed. So the United Nations said we have 60 years left under the current system of harvest, 60 seasons left. under the current system of harvest, 60 seasons left. So we have to scale way back. I mean, right now, most meat that we're eating is coming from a total destruction system.

So we need to cut way back on that. We need to be eating more plant rich diet. And then if we're really serious about how we can actually restore and heal land and restore the broken soil, animals grazing on grasslands has an amazing restorative effect. And that is a solution for those that are going to continue to eat meat. And that can be a, um, something that has a total full environmental win for the planet. And, you know, it's showed that, you know, a CAFO situation has total methane, um, a lot of

greenhouse gases going up and a grazing situation where you have managed grazing of animals on grassland, you have a net sequestration of carbon going, even the cows still produce methane, but within that overall system, there is a net sequestration of carbon and a significant net sequestration of carbon going into that land that's being managed that way.

So the, you know, and a lot of the land that across the country is not fit for agriculture. We don't want to be tilling it. We want to put in annual crow crops. So there's actually, and we've killed all the natural bison or, you know, grazing animals oftentimes that were on that land.

And so, you know, there's this real live opportunity of, you know, putting grazing animals back to a good life and having a net beneficial, you know, impact on that soil, on that grassland, on that environment. And we're obviously encouraging less meat consumption, but for the people that are gonna eat meat, this is an opportunity for that to have a beneficial impact. And again, I get the morality aspect of people not wanting to kill animals and I love and respect that perspective.

But for those that are choosing to eat meat, here is a really a win-win situation that can have a benefit for many stakeholders, including, you know, the thing, the biggest thing that we don't have a solution for, which is how are we gonna sequester enough carbon such that we don't go into climate chaos? Yeah. Including the thing, the biggest thing that we don't have a solution for, which is how are we gonna sequester enough carbon such that we don't go into climate chaos? Yeah, we need some emergency actions right now.

We really are running out of time and things like the farm bill and these subsidies are really preventing us from embracing a solution that's right in front of us. Like, it seems to me that if we could stop subsidizing the growing of all these crops that go to feed and we can start emphasizing biodynamic farming,

the price of meat's gonna go way up and that's gonna call the herd literally in terms of like the number of humans that can afford these meat products. It's gonna drive down meat consumption and make that possibility more realistic. But there doesn't seem to be any political will for this. That's the problem.

There's not, but I'll tell you, since we started Kiss the Ground seven years ago and we launched the soil story, which was the first piece of media that I had seen that was a three-minute short synopsis of regenerative agriculture and the potential of it. The amount of attention and people using the terminology and the amount of investment going into that space

is still a drop in the bucket, but the fact that General Mills making a public declaration, people could say, oh, that's still a drop in the bucket, but the fact that General Mills making a public declaration, people could say, oh, that's total greenwash, a million acres by 2030. Another startup called Indigo just committed to, I think, 10 million acres under regenerative management

and they're wanting to pay farmers to sequester carbon um you know the the momentum that when we first started talking about this it was very fringe and and again i didn't know it you know people like um you know my understanding is al gore people were very experts on you know climate people um you know bill m Bill McGibbon, had understanding of this, but they weren't standing like this was a solution. It was still too fringe. But now there's an article every week that's coming out talking about

how farmers can be a solution to climate change. And the great thing about it is that it embraces the farming community. I think one of the problems with this movement in some regards is that it embitters the farming community because they feel like they've been positioned as the enemy, right? Whereas this is saying, let's embrace our farmers and help them create a better, more profitable life for themselves with greater yields. Like the big lie in all of this is that we've had to make this transition

into factory farming because that's the only way to get the yields. And as all of your work shows in the documentaries and the advocacy and all of that, it's just not true. Like when they make this switch to a biodynamic approach, the yields go up. We're calling it regenerative agriculture, but biodynamic is another form of regenerative agriculture. So yeah, so the things I'd love to share,

because the kind of the work that we've been doing over seven years, as you said, it's been a lot of, we've kind of been looking at how do we shift critical mass to understand this such that people start adopting actions, business start taking this on, this becomes the way that we're growing food fiber and fuel is through a regenerative perspective

and how can we have our ecosystems being restored while we're producing the goods that we need for humanity. And the good news is that farmers can make a lot more money. We're not talking about, it's not a get rich by no means, but there's a lot of evidence and a lot of examples of where farmers have gone down this path and made the successful transition. And they're not going from an altruism

or like save the planet or even if they even believe in climate change. But they're going from a place of, I'm watching my family farm degrade degrade i'm watching people get sick i'm watching um i'm watching i need to get more equipment bigger pieces of land you know i think um you know a fact that the same amount of nitrogen fertilizer to grow one bushel of wheat in 1970 has now tripled. So you have to use three times the amount of nitrogen to get the same bushel of corn in present day. So the number one profession that has high suicide rates is farmers. And essentially the opportunity here is that in the next,

because the average age of the farmer, especially in this country, is between 65, 68 years old, in the next 10 years there's going to be one of the biggest land transfers since we can remember. And in that transition, we have the precedent of regenerative agriculture is the way and people in the way that young people are excited to get into business

and entrepreneurship and businesses that have a purpose, which is a lot of young people don't want to just be part of the status quo business corporation, blah, blah, blah. Just like kids don't want to be a part of the farming system, which is just chemicals, blah, blah, blah. They wanna be just like kids don't wanna be a part of the farming system, which is just chemicals, corn, soy, and sending it to China or ethanol or to make ethanol or whatever. There's an opportunity to have the farmer be the hero

that we can actually restore our landscapes and restore our food system, restore our climate and farmers can make a little more coin on it. Yeah, it's cool. And you're seeing that. I mean, you are seeing lots of young people who are excited about this. Like when I was in college, like no one was interested in this. And now all these young people getting graduate degrees and in this field and, you know, going to work on these farms. It's pretty cool.

Like it is happening. It's happening. I'll just tell you some of the two programs that we've really landed on that we're really thrilled about is, the first is we have an advocacy training program because we saw, wow, I learned some new information and I became a catalyst for so much.

So how do we grow this army of messengers? Because right now the environmentalist, there's not really an exciting path. There's not a pathway for an environmentalist to feel lit up. You're still just kind of fighting against a system that's beyond winning. You're still just kind of fighting against a system that's beyond winning. Whereas the context of regeneration, the North Star of regeneration, is like you can actually see the active participation. You can see the way forward from it.

And so we've trained over the last year, 1,400 people have paid us to come and do a six-week course on Tuesdays. And you can do it in person in LA or online, really beautifully well set up online from 25 countries. And now we have advocates taking on projects all over the world that are lit up about this possibility, the possibility of regeneration, regenerative agriculture. And things like the Rodale Institute, which is one of the longest standing kind of organic,

it's actually, they coined the term regenerative many, many years ago. We got a call from the executive director, Jeff Foyer saying, we've been doing this for 50 years and I kept on hearing kiss the ground advocacy. The way you're communicating is working. People are getting it.

They're getting inspired. We got another call from another woman who's in the course right now saying, I used to be an environmentalist raising millions of dollars and just gave up. Now with this paradigm shift and understanding of regeneration that we can actually reverse the

damage done. And it's actually, you know, we're already in manipulation and management of the skin of the earth, the majority of the skin through agriculture. And we can actually, I can see how that healing can actually be a solution for, you know, the crisis that we're in. And so we're basically training people to be advocates. We're also, you know Jeff from Commune, Jeff Krasnow, Wunderlust. We did a free course on Commune that's coming out. I can look up the date. Did you shoot it up in Topanga we shot it up in Topanga

super super cool and so that is that's happening it's a free 10 day course September 9th on onecommune.com so yeah we're basically we have two programs

we're training advocates to be professional, spokespeople on behalf of soil regenerative agriculture, and then giving people pathways to participate in their own communities and how they can take action. And then the other big project that we're doing is a farmland training program where we're basically sponsoring farmers, a three-year program.

So for 8,000 bucks, we can take a farmer with 10 acres to 5,000 acres and basically put them through a three-year training program that has an in-person course and then consulting through the three years and a soil test to know their baseline, where they're at with their soil health and then at three years and a soil test to know their baseline, you know, where they're at with their soil health and then at three years.

And so, you know, people, you can fund, you can fund a farmer through our work and that basically facilitates a farmer to go through that transition process. That's super cool. So yeah, those are our main two programs is training farmers and training advocates to really be, you be, because we understand

that to shift a paradigm, you have to have early adopters. And then when you get like 14%, then you can kind of get this bigger. So we're seeing, again, even speaking here on your show is kind of like, how do I connect to influential people, get this to become their narrative and a story that they're carrying, um, where they speak and they communicate as well as training, you know, any individual in a more longterm. Right. Um, and then the final thing is

we've been, uh, co-producing a feature length film, um, with Josh and Rebecca to Cal filmmakers who made the film fuel, uh, that won at Sundance about 10 years ago. And the film is called Kiss the Ground. And it's showing some of the best examples nationally in this country of regenerative agriculture being done at scale and showing the incredible results of what people are experiencing

from ecosystem restoration as well as from the economic opportunity. Yeah, the interesting thing is how quickly it turns around, right? Like how rapid you, when done right, how rapid you can regenerate the soil and create biodiversity in the ground and the impact that that has on water absorption

and a whole litany of things that have downstream impact on improving our environmental health. Yeah, I mean, when you heal the soil, you heal the ability for water to recharge our aquifers. Right now it just runs off, goes into our tributaries and into our waterways, creates these algal blooms. It's terrible.

Terrible. So you're recharging aquifers. You're putting nutrient-dense food on people's plates. You're getting rid of all the chemical inputs that are ultimately going downstream, as you just described. And you're creating a regeneration of an economic system for farmers who are essentially dying. I mean, they're literally struggling massively.

So it's such a win-win situation. And that's why, when I saw it and I just got it, it was just like, wow, this is what my life is for. Who was the one farmer who was saying he was getting 0.5% to 1%? Allen Williams. Yeah, I mean, remarkable. In three-year period on a 5,000-acre ranch,

he was able to triple his forage. So basically he was able to bring grassland that was very spotty and almost kind of desertifying, basically tripled the amount of grasses and basically through his adaptive rotational grazing of animals, of cows, he was able to basically regenerate the forage, which is the food for the cows three times

such that he could have three times more cattle on that one piece of land. So ultimately, the neighbors is like spotty, almost completely desertified growing corn and soy. And he's taken a land that's been that over so many years. And then every year putting somewhere between four to 10 tons of carbon sequestered in the ground, able to produce more food per acre

because he's basically tripled his forage on that land. And so he's totally, the ecosystem services have been regenerated, his economic opportunity has been regenerated his his the economic opportunity has been regenerated um and essentially you know the the we're just in an orthodoxy that is you know we need chemicals we need big ag we need uh these to feed the planet to feed the world and you know as we as we you know train farmers and create communities of farmers, because to have multiple farmers in an area together

having a success, then that becomes a very powerful symbol and reputation for people to maybe make that transition. Because as are all people, we're all stubborn in our own ways. We think we've been doing things the right way and it's hard to change. Right.

Speaking of stubborn, like how do you square philosophically this work that you're doing with Kiss the Ground with the fact that you're like an impresario of the plant-based lifestyle and this vegan restaurant empire? Like, you know, part of me feels like I get it, but also like, let's move away from the cows.

You know what I mean? Like, and I'm sure you're on the receiving end of criticism, like, hey, you're supposed to be this vegan guy, but you're talking about sequestering carbon in these farms by virtue of grazing, right? So how do you think about that or respond to that? Yeah, I mean, that's been a big, that's been a big dilemma.

And I don't know if you remember, there was this whole kind of- There was a big controversy. Big controversy. We had six weeks of protests and people saying, my family are murderers and it was intense. And yeah, I mean, I think the thing that we as human beings, the thing that we most dislike is when people know new information but continue to lie to your face based on, you know, it's good for business to do that.

This was not good for business to tell the story of, hey, we went to open Beloved Farm as raw food vegans. as raw food vegans. And we were figuring out how to grow vegetables for our vegan restaurant, realizing, wow, to grow vegan vegetables, we need remnants of animals, nitrogen, manure either coming from a CAFO situation of a really terrible situation or blood meal, bone meal, fish emulsion

and reckoning like, wow, a lot of these vegetables that were making up our vegan diet are coming from the fertilization of the decomposition of dead animals. And so that was like a big kind of shocker um and there's no way to grow those vegetables otherwise in a scalable way i mean there's there's there's there's there's agriculture called veganic agriculture which you know i think it's a beautiful, I think people have made that their edge and they're doing it. But if you look to biodynamics and all the organic pioneers of agriculture that really were thinking in holism and whole cycle systems

and really seeing how do we make agriculture mimic nature? Because most monoculture or grain or vegetable production is tilled monoculture, vegetables, grains, legumes. And essentially the way you fertilize that is you work in partnership with animals to graze over that and re-fertilize um but again inside of you know everything has to bring something to the table and you know people are farmers they're you know they're they're cultivating food to have it be a way that they can cultivate food as well as an economic opportunity you know for us it was like all right we we saw we'd rather steward cows and have them be able to eat our grass

and fertilize our soil versus getting um CAFO manure from down the road or fish emulsion from Lake Superior. And some people eat meat on the farm, some people, and just felt like, all right, we're humbly learning how to grow organic food in the most sustainable or regenerative way, looking to the forefathers of that wisdom and what we're understanding and what makes sense.

Oh, wow, there is this architecture of life and death that's always been in nature that has cycling nutrients. And while there is life and death in that system, there's overall a proliferation of more life and life continues not like there's not individuals that die, but the overall system remains healthy and continues to rejuvenate itself. And so as we walk through that process ourselves

and my dad been 40 year vegetarian, I had been vegetarian for 35 years and I'm still mostly, I live mostly 90% a plant-based lifestyle and eat plant-based diet because it's what I've eaten for my life and I feel good on it. But I hope people would honor that we went to learn how to do it

and do it ourselves and growing food and what we came to create this 21 acres and to have this continual regenerative effect. It was going to require the grazing of animals and the fertilization of those animals and to pay for the cost of that, whether it's they bring milk to the table as an income opportunity or meat or bone.

Everything has to, you know, every in a farming system, we're harvesting crops to sell it. And it's kind of the, the, the system. So, you know, I, I get what felt like a really hard, almost betrayal from like, Hey, you guys were the vegan family. And, and, vegan family. And I get that there's like this disappointment when you feel like someone embodies something or you think they embody something and this is what they represent for you. And then they say, hey, I changed my mind

or I'm doing something different. But again, I would just hope that people would have to respect that we're just telling the truth of what we're learning and we're in our process of understanding what is the best way to care for this living planet and have it be continuously alive and vital and in that system, death has always been a part of that.

Yeah, I mean, certainly I'm no expert on agriculture and farming and these issues, but I think as humans, we have this impulse to be reductive in our reasoning. And the vegan community obviously didn't, there was a portion of it that didn't embrace this fact as welcoming as I would think that you would have wished. And it's hard, I think life and issues like this

are more complicated and nuanced. And again, it goes back to telescoping out and trying to look at these things from 10,000 feet and grappling with what the best possible solution is. I mean, you can be the most ardent, hardcore, militant vegan of all time, but if you're consuming a ridiculous amount of single useuse plastics.

I mean, I just saw a news article, I think it was yesterday, that it was snowing plastic in the Arctic. Then are you really in the solution? There's always more things that we can do. We all have blind spots. And sometimes the truth of these matters is a little bit more nuanced and complicated than we would wish it to be. Totally. Totally.

Yeah. You know, I mean, this was terrible for business to like, you know, share this story. We were like boycotted and there were all kinds of articles about this when it happened. Yeah. Yeah, it was.

But then, you know, telescoping out, like you're the guys who are serving up more plant-based meals than almost anybody on the planet., like you're the guys who are, who are serving up more plant-based meals than almost anybody on the planet. So are you in the solution? Are you in the problem? You know, these, these answers are, are not there. You know, there's a lot of gray. It's not, everything's black and white. Totally. Right. And again, we, you know, five, 10 years from now, you know, I, I hope there'll be an evolution in the story that I'm telling and what we've continued to learn

as we've explored down this path and understanding the process of regeneration and the importance of animals in that system. And it's just what we understand at this point. And I hope that I continue to be able to tell the truth about the process of learning. There's certainly plenty that we can all agree on. And that is that we are running out of time,

that we are definitely in the midst of a insane cataclysmic environmental crisis that actions need to be taken. They need to be taken swiftly and intelligently. We do need to reduce our meat consumption, our plastic consumption. We need to live more sustainably and we need to live more in rhythm with nature's gestalt. And we've moved so far away from that. And I'm heartened by the younger generations desire to live more purpose-driven lives

and the care that people younger than myself tend to take for the planet that my generation has failed to do so. And so I remain hopeful and optimistic, but also tentative because so much work remains to be done. Do you know Charles Eisenstein? Has he ever been on your show? Uh-uh.

You know his name or no? It sounds familiar. He wrote two beautiful books, one called, The Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible and then one called Climate, A New Story. But a really beautiful philosopher, thinker, like a modern day brilliant mind of our time. And he quotes Thich Nhat Hanh's term of interbeing, which really I think to, as far as how do we live in reverence

and appreciation and understanding that we are all part of a life and death cycle and how can we be grateful and appreciative, you know, whether it's plants or animals that, you know, die and we consume to create our life, how can we live in reverence and appreciation of that process of life and death is the architecture of this universe. And every time we do have a meal, whether it is plants or animals, and, you know, even the best vegan meal required a system of cropping that ultimately killed lots of beings.

And can we be in reverence of that we engage and are participating in this universe with that architecture and can we be grateful and do our best to make sure that we're caring for um those things that we um require along the way and that those that require um you know that we require to consume and to to you know sustain our lives and i think there's a beautiful quote by a guy named wendell berry who's's kind of a godfather of natural farming. And he's also a poet. And he said, every day, we break the body and spill the blood of creation. If we do it knowingly, carefully and reverently, it is a sacrament. If we do it with greed, gluttony, and carelessness, it is a desecration. And yeah, I mean, to me, the big wake up is,

it's not just one thing. It's our relationship to all things. And how do we live more in an awareness of interconnection and awareness of gratitude for everything that supports our life. And then when we are grateful for it, you know, the inclination is to care for it and want it to have its best expression of life

that it can have. Hence, kiss the ground, which comes from Rumi. That's right. The name of your child. The name of my child, yeah. What is the full quote? The full quote is, "'Let the beauty you love be all that you do.

"'There's hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.'" Beautiful. I think that's a good place to round this out. Awesome. Thank you for the work that you do and that you continue to do. It's been inspiring being in your orbit over the years. I can't remember when we first met, it was many years ago.

We just continued to cross paths and our friend circle definitely overlaps. And I can always count on a hug from you when I walk into the restaurant. You're not always there, but you're there quite, you're there more than I would suspect, right? Totally, yes. And with everything that you're doing with Kiss the Ground.

So if people are listening and they wanna learn more and get involved with Kiss the Ground, what's the best way to do that? We'd love everyone to become a soil advocate. It's the new environmental movement. Be the regeneration generation Be the regeneration generation. The regeneration generation. So yeah, our soil advocacy training,

you can find that on kisstheground.com. Follow us on IG, Instagram, kisstheground, at kisstheground. And then fund a farmer if you're inspired by this story. And we just got, you know, someone just, we just got an anonymous fund a farmer $8,000 arrived this morning

from someone who just said, wow, I want to fund a farmer towards regeneration. So for 8,000 bucks, we can have a farmer be on the path to regenerating their land. And it's very, very exciting. It's similar to Farmer's Footprint a little bit. Yeah, we're actually their fiscal sponsor. Oh, you are? Okay, cool. So we're very connected and tied in with Zach Bush

and their whole team and stuff. Yeah, nice, man. And what's coming up on the horizon? What's coming up on the horizon? Let's see. Kiss the Ground, Wise, the feature-length film narrated by Woody Harrelson. When's that coming out?

Last quarter of this year. We're still working on what's the distribution plan for it. The film is done. Very, very excited about that. We have a couple more soil advocacy

trainings this year, so jump in that. As I said, so jump in that. And as I said, fund a farmer. And then on the Cafe Gratitude front, we have a Meatless Mondays, which is kind of like, why are you guys Meatless Mondays? You're meatless every day.

But we're basically encouraging omnivores and carnivores to come and have a great plant-based experience, and we'll pick up half the tab. So basically every week at all of our restaurants, we have two or three items or two items that are 50% off as a way to encourage... For everybody or only if you declare yourself to be an omnivore? No, no, no, for everybody.

But you have to join our loyalty program. But basically, yeah, every Monday. And I've encouraged Tokai to take it on and they might jump on. Sage might take it on as a way to, yeah, I mean, Meatless Mondays is a, you know, it's a, it's a cool way to shift the collective consciousness to have, you know, one day a week where we say, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to take care of my body and I'm going to take care of the planet by not consuming, you know, what is oftentimes the most destructive food on the planet. And then another cool thing, we're doing a partnership with Jaden Smith.

It's kind of an upgrade to the Gratitude Bowl. It's called the I Love You Bowl, and it's going to be a dish that will be kind of his favorite meal in a bowl, a pink bowl, which is kind of his color. And it will say, I love you on the bottom of the bowl. And for every bowl that you buy in the restaurant, we'll feed one homeless meal that same bowl off of his truck. Because he has a truck called I Love You Bowl.

He calls, he's got the I Love You truck. I Love You. I was wondering whether you guys might be behind that. So yeah, he said there was parts of it that were inspired by Cafe Gratitude but when I saw him do it I called him and he was like let's do this and so we're now in the development

we're aiming to launch it the last quarter of the year and hopefully serve 10,000 bowls so we can give away 10,000 bowls that's amazing how cool is that kid unbelievable what a bright heart centered human being present, that whole family, yeah, beautiful. So that's happening and yeah, I love you

and thanks for listening and thanks Rich for this amazing opportunity to share. I love you too, Ryland. Thank you for sharing. You are amazingly grounded and centered and present and calm amidst all the amazing things that you're doing, which is a whole other podcast conversation that we could have about how you comport yourself in the world. But I respect you so much. I'm in awe of what you've created and it's an honor to talk to you today. So thanks, man. I'm in awe of what you've created and it's an honor to talk to you today. So thanks, man. Cool.

So websites, all that kind of stuff, Kiss the Ground. Send it to you or we're right now. No, just tell me where people can go directly. So Love Being Ryland is my, that's actually my first Abounding River board game name, Love Being Ryland. So it's an abundance word, a spirit word in my name, and I chose it as my Instagram handle because I'm a love being.

Love Being Ryland is my personal Instagram, and at Cafe Gratitude, at Gracias Madre, at Gratitude Kitchen and Bar, which are our third restaurant. Actually, that's another cool thing that's happening is we just hired a brand new chef for the Gratitude in Beverly Hills and are going to kind of totally revolutionize that menu. It'll be foundationally gratitude quality ingredients but on the next level culinary expression.

A guy named Jason Wood. Really excited about that. Then as far as Instagram, it's at kTheGround. KissTheGround.com is the website there. And then I said CafeGratitude.com, GraciasMadre.com, and GratitudeKitchenandBar.com. And I think that is it.

I think that's it. I think we did it. We did it. How do you feel? I feel great. You feel good? I feel great. We did good, right?

Yeah, I thought it was really, yeah. I was concerned how the whole meat conversation was gonna come up. It's tricky. Yeah. But we had it. The only way out is through, my friend. Totally.

And we walked through it. Totally. No, it felt honoring and responsible and truthful. And yeah. All right, cool. We'll come back and talk to me again sometime. Amazing. All right.

I just figured I'd tell you this news. I was just in Orcas Island this past weekend. Yeah. For the first time. Beautiful place, by the way. I talked to Mike Posner while I was there. Oh, you did? Get it on the mic. I've got to hear this.

Keep going. You talked to Mike before or after the rattlesnake bite? After the rattlesnake. After the rattlesnake bite, he told me play by play the whole story. It's a miraculous story. He is hurting, dude.

I mean, you see the video of him and you're like, this is no joke. This could be a month plus of recovery. And yeah, just he's in an amazing space about it. he's in an amazing space about it. He sees the opportunity to, he sees it as the perfect temptation for giving up or stopping or having total justification. But the positivity with which he's walking through this

is so impactful for everybody that loves and follows him. Because they're like, look at this guy, like, look what happened to him. And still he checks in every single day and he's like happy and forward looking and all of that. And it's like, I aspire to that. Yeah, he is a beautiful being and he's doing great and he's gonna walk it out and I'm gonna meet him in Venice for his final stretch.

Are you? I'll join you. I was thinking of flying out and joining him for part of the walk. Oh, awesome, yeah. I hadn't thought about it. Even up before the bike though, I'm like, this dude is taking his time.

He's still like in the middle of the country. How long is this gonna go on for? He could be out there for like an entire year at this point. I think he's what, 30 days, 30 or 60 days from after he comes back from two months, one or two months, I think. But I know NQ, NQ the poet, he's a good friend of his and he's gonna meet him on Lincoln or something to do the final stretch.

Oh, well, I'm definitely there for that. I'm going to, I'd love to do that final stretch with him. Yeah, absolutely. All right, cool. Yeah, but it came up because the last podcast I listened to of your show was his episode with you, which is awesome. He's the best. Yeah. Amazing.

Cool. All right. All right, man is awesome. He's the best. Yeah. Amazing. Cool. All right. All right, man. Talk soon. Peace, plants. Good stuff. I love that, dude. I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.

Please do me a favor, hit Ryland up on the socials, show him some love. You can find him on Instagram and Twitter at lovebeingryland. And you can even learn more info about all of his amazing work at kisstheground.com or at cafegratitude.com. Plus, I'll put links up to everything

that we talked about in the show notes at richroll.com, as I always do. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the podcast, subscribe, rate, and comment on the show on Apple Podcasts. That really helps new people discover what we're doing here. Tell your friends about your favorite episodes, share the show on social media, subscribe to my YouTube channel, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. I want to take a minute to appreciate the people, my team that helped put on the show today,

Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, and interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for videoing and editing the podcast and the short clips. Jessica Miranda for graphics, Allie Rogers for portraits, DK for advertiser relationships and theme music by Annalama. Appreciate the love you guys. I will see you back here next week with American Marathon runner, Scott Falbel. You might remember him from last year's Boston Marathon when he ran an incredible 209. Here's a clip to take you out. But until then, why don't we take a minute

to remember what Ryland told us today? Love is not something found in a person, place, or thing. It's something that is ever-present in our hearts and always available as a gift, and it costs nothing to share it. Peace, plants, namaste. The sport is a lot simpler when you just don't worry about all this stuff.

It's just running, realistically. Everyone wants to make it this big, complicated thing, but it's a pretty simple thing. Everyone can go for a run, and you don't have to think about all these tactics all the time, and you don't have to worry about the courses or the hills or the turns or the weather. It's just running. Just get out of your own way. One of the buzzwords in sports and business right now is process process oriented. And for me, what that means, being process oriented means like a focusing on day by day and be not judging my performances down the line against other people. Um, they're based on what I feel like I can do and whether

or not I got the most out of myself. And so for me, I don't need to worry about anyone else. I just want to do the best that I can do. And the more I get sucked into what other people are doing, the worse the end result ends up being, I think. Really, I'm free to take big chances. I'm free to go out there and just run as hard as I can, and whatever those results are will be fine because the things that are really important,

the people that I care about will still be there. Thank you.