0:00 Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours. I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't. And I am not happy with it. Brother, look at us twinning it up with the HHB gear. Well, you know, we're going to shoot some content today. And I brought my mustache shirt. Oh, from Goody. That Gutierrez gave us. That's right.

0:40 I got mine too. I know. And I actually was thinking we could do some twinsies. You know, kind of shot in that. Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe not. It's a little too much. How is that interpreted? By the way, thanks, George. Yeah, I love that shirt. I love it too. What's it called? Anyway, it's a brand that I would have never been exposed to. It's a golf brand. Without a smart guy like him telling me about it. But I... I dig it a ton, but. Yeah, dude. So kind of an interesting direction. We were chatting it up before hitting record and where we wanted to go. We've been in a season, man, of re-evaluation. Maybe that's the term. I feel like you and I have had kind of different paths that we've been on with our own family dynamics and social spheres.

1:23 You know, people probably don't necessarily know this, but you and I have some crossover outside of, kind of work HHB, but there's a lot of not, right? Like you have an entire sphere that you're engaged in. You're a few years ahead of me in the kid game. Yeah. Yeah. I'm starting to, you know, move into grand kids stuff and all the things. But I think collectively you and I have been on this parallel path where, you know, We're just asking ourselves some deeper questions. Obviously, going through the Scaling, you know, the Science of Scaling book just drove that in. And we've talked about this. Like, there tends to be some themes that pop up. And when they do, it's like multiple different layers of our relationships or our professional endeavors begin to kind of show signs of this thing that we're currently working through or learning.

2:10 And you and I have been talking about an experience that you just went through that I think is just going to be an interesting way to get the show started, to kind of set the stage. But before you launch into that, I think collectively, we're trying to evaluate our decision making with much more scrutiny and truth, it feels like. I'll speak for me personally. It's very easy for me to get into this cycle of habitual behavior where it's patterns, patterns. I'm just, and I have a little, like I have some OCD in me, like really? And that compounds is so clean, bro. It's just, it's, Yeah, but you know what?

2:51 People have made fun of you before because there are piles that will remain piles. And somehow my mind doesn't OCD that, but it OCD. So anyways. Sure. Never seen them, but I believe you. You believe they exist. It's a myth. They're not a myth. So we've been in this zone. You've made the decision some years ago. Mm-hmm. to be really intentional. And guys, little disclaimer, we're going to go a place this morning that maybe for some of you, this is really out of bounds or outside of maybe what you have experienced professionally as an adult. And so, you know, some of this might come in and be a little shocking in terms of Chris's experience that he's going to share with us this morning.

3:33 But But I just warn you, keep an open mind. Understand, most of you that have been listening to the show for a while, Chris and I are not unthinking, partying people. We take our decisions very seriously. We understand the weight that our business puts on us in terms of being good stewards. We're not go out all night, Friday, Saturday night guys. So I just want to set the stage with that. Come into this with a professionally open mind. and be aware of the theme or the principle of what's being communicated in today's show. And don't get overly hung up on some detail that you're just not comfortable with. Yeah. And maybe I did too much disclaimer, but there we go. Oh my God, it's funny. So walk into this, Chris.

4:15 What just went down? Well, a little bit of backdrop maybe is useful. I was in a men's group. I guess it's probably going on... five or six years ago. Like church? Yeah. Well, no, no. But it was a church buddy that was in this group with me. But we both had kids that were going to this outdoor school. Yeah, man. Maybe it was six, seven years ago. The kids will love that six, seven. Those of you have teenagers, you know what I'm talking about. If you know, you know. But yeah, it might've been six, seven, eight years ago when this first conversation happened. But we had this little men's group that formed amongst the dads in that outdoor school group. So just think of it as like a PTA, but for dudes.

4:59 And so we'd have these campfire get togethers every couple of weeks. And one of these guys was a church buddy of mine. And we were talking about all things marriage and work life and struggles and anger and frustration. And just trying to find our way as dads and professionals, the whole thing, right? Yeah. And he brought up his experience with psilocybin mushrooms, magic mushrooms, commonly known as. And I've always been a curious person. Something that's important, though, for people to know is, like, I grew up in a very, very conservative Christian.

5:39 And not the kind that just shows up on Easter and Christmas. Yeah. I grew up leading worship in church. And so I have a very deep spiritual background. And so this was definitely out of the ordinary for me. But I've always been a person that's been curious and tried to cultivate some open-mindedness, right? And really judge things by the fruit that they bring and so forth. And I could just see something in his life. There was a kind of peace that I saw him do. bringing to these meetings in a kind of, I guess for lack of a better term, also just a level headedness and a sobriety, I guess that he was bringing to some of the things he was struggling with in his life. And I just thought, you know, I like how this guy is showing up.

6:22 And so I'm I asked him, I said, hey, I think I would like to try that. Can you, do you have any mushrooms that you can give me? Because again, I had no idea where to get it. I've never been, some people that are listening to this, like your disclaimer, now it seems really kooky and funny to me. But I know that for a lot of the people that I grew up with, for example, they would think, oh no, Chris has become a drug guy or something like that. Yeah. But the reality is I didn't have any connection to this type of stuff. I didn't know where to buy those things. I never have... I've never been a big drinker either. So I was never ever in a party scene in college, anything of that sort, right? And still not. And still not. Like not at all.

7:03 Like it's hard for me even to go to the cocktail receptions at our conferences because I just... I'm not into it. And love people, but just not into that. I think this is important though. And I'm sorry if it feels like I'm creating a little bit too much friction in the conversation. No, that's all right. But, you know, collectively, I think the most of our listeners are fairly conservative. Like if you just had to kind of like throw a blanket on it, right? Yeah, sure. A lot of entrepreneurs... you know, bloodlines. They're just a little bit more conservative. And I think one of the things that sometimes I've witnessed is that our, our industry in general is just a little bit more sheltered, maybe sometimes from some of the most current conversations and perspectives that are being shared kind of globally on some of these initiatives.

7:50 And this one in particular has, and what's interesting, and I think we've talked about this before is the military community, um, is actually one of the largest growing groups that is having an influence on perspectives on this stuff, like how it's being used and leveraged and how it is creating beautiful health, lasting health for people that have been absolutely... haunted by emotional traumatic experiences in warfare. And so I guess I'm just kind of last plug here is this is not, Weekend warriors fucking around and getting high.

8:32 Yeah. Yeah. There's something happening right now scientifically where they're beginning to gather a lot of information and data around the permanence of these supervised experiences where it's being done in a safe, professional environment, super intentional. Yeah. It's being stewarded well. Yeah. And the outcomes are literally saving people's lives. Yeah. Yeah. You know, saving them. Yeah. No, it's really true. And I had started... So when I heard him talk about it, and of course, part of my openness to it was, this guy was also a Christian. And so I related to him on that level, right?

9:14 Yeah. And a lot of he and I's conversations revolved around spiritual things. And so anyways, I was very intrigued. He had some material and gave that to me and I set aside some time. A couple weeks later, my parents were out of town, in fact, and so I went over to their house and I just basically sat down in their living room and I had an empty house and privacy and... And I had those mushrooms and I had a small dose experience. And it was really special. I'm not going to go into that experience so much, but it was a positive experience. Again, it was a lower dose experience. So kind of setting a little bit of a frame here just so people have some context. Just like with alcohol, well, it's not at all like alcohol.

9:57 It's difficult to make a comparison here, but in the medical community, with a lot of the medical and psychological research that's happening around psilocybin, there's a standard reference for what they would refer to as a heroic journey or a therapeutic dose of psilocybin, which is five dry grams of mushrooms. And there's a very specific way that most practitioners prepare it with some lemon juice. They grind it up and they call it a lemon tech solution. And so that's kind of the standard for a therapeutic experience under mushrooms. But of course, somebody can eat just a small cap, right? They can have one gram, two grams, and everybody has a little bit different body sensitivity.

10:37 Okay. So I had a two gram dose then and it turns out I have a pretty high tolerance for You're not a small human. No, I'm not a small human either. And so anyway, I just had a very low-key experience with the mushroom. It is woo-woo. And as this can sound to people that haven't experienced this, there's a real deep and profound sense of love that people overwhelmingly share about their experiences with higher doses. So many people listening to this call have heard about people microdosing. I think is a lot more approachable for people because it's a sub perceptible amount of psilocybin that still has a positive effect on your brain chemistry, your neuroplasticity.

11:22 Well, that's being looked at widely in productivity. Oh, big time. Like increasing output productivity. A lot of people find it helps with their ADD as an example and is a lot healthier. Research is ongoing, but supposedly a lot healthier than taking Ritalin, which is a very powerful stimulant. And my, like my doctor recommended I not take Ritalin anymore when I hit about 40 just because of the impact it has on the heart. So, so anyway, so there's those doses. And then typically for most people, when they start to get to a gram, two grams, there's a lot more of an altered state that you start to take on. You feel it in your body. And, and my experience was a very good one, very pleasant.

12:03 Yeah. So that was my very first experience. And it was, I went back to him and I said, hey, I did a lot of research and reading, found out about the five gram heroic journey dose, watched some videos of people doing trip reports as they call them. And I went back to my friend and I said, hey, I think I'd like you to lead me in a five gram experience. So he took me out. We went to some BLM land, made a little campfire, and we just sat in the woods. And I ate the mushrooms. And I just had a very profound experience. And for me, there was a lot of connection to what I would have called like an experience with the Holy Spirit for other kind of Christian folks out there.

12:44 You know, the feelings that came over me and just in terms of feeling God's love, I guess is a way that I could put it, were so profound and deep. It absolutely reinforced my belief and my conviction in a creator God and the immensity of what God has created here and the specialness of it. I mean, it was just, it's hard to describe. So that was an experience I had with that friend. He introduced me to it. And then fast forward, like I said, that was seven, eight years ago, maybe. My, another friend, another friend from church invited me to a ceremony and it was at this retreat center. We're really fortunate here in Oregon and some of the other states where there's a legal program for this, where facilities can become certified and all this kind of stuff.

13:31 And so he invited me to this ceremony. And by ceremony, what does that mean? You know, we all arrive regularly. Everybody takes a dose of the medicine. Typically, there's music involved, which is really incredible and beautiful. So you've got these really fantastic musicians that are kind of creating the backdrop to the experience. And also these are very experienced people. And so, you know, in many cases they've done hundreds of these experiences, led people through this. So there's always two or three helpers. There's basically a helper person, somebody there just for safety and all the things for every two or three people there.

14:11 And it was just such a profoundly beneficial experience. I'm going to describe it here in a second because I just had another one of these this weekend. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where I want to hang. Yeah. Because I think it really opens up to a broader conversation that's active right now. Yeah. And so I've been planning this for, this had been planned for a couple months. And coming into it, you know, you and I've been really, like you opened up with, just really, I think, diving deeper into... what are we building floodlight for? And what do we want for our team? And what kind of life are we trying to architect here? What kind of people do we want to be? I think it's just been a fresh conversation that you and I have been wrestling with together.

14:54 And so I came into this ceremony with all of those things kind of stirring inside of me. And it was interesting. So I took just a little over five grams this time. And one of the things that I was noticing myself, the interesting thing about psilocybin is it's not at all like being drunk. I think most people listening to this have had at least one experience of drinking too much alcohol or on purpose drinking a lot of alcohol and being really silly drunk to one degree or another. And it's not at all like that. It's very unique in the experience of, And so I was very conscious of a lot of these thoughts and stuff that you and I have been wrestling with.

15:38 And one of the impressions that I got from it was just how hard it is for me to quiet my thoughts and to really be present. And also that I've been struggling for a long time to really rest during my days. I think like our ancestors, even 50 or 100 years ago, they'd come home from a hard day's work. Yeah. They'd have dinner and then they would sit around the fire and they'd read or they'd talk. Maybe they'd smoke a pipe, you know, of tobacco, but they would rest. That includes intake. I think that's, right, just a quick reminder for people is, what you just highlighted was there was a lack of options.

16:24 Yeah. So to read a book, written language on pages, or to engage in meaningful banter and conversation with loved ones and friends, That's different than what we have called rest, I think, all too often. Yeah. Which looks like going home and plugging into some kind of content machine. Yep, yep. And scrolling to death where you're getting just bombarded with all of this subliminal messaging that's very intentional. Oh, man. It's very marketing driven. Yeah. It's very divisive and aggressive and invasive. Yeah. That's not rest. It's not. But you get lost in it.

17:05 You don't even realize it. I mean, you and I work out. We eat well. We care about our families. We're intentional in many ways. And yet, as the medicine was coming on, I just found myself in this thought pattern. And one of the thought patterns I fall into is I should be doing more. I should have worked later today. I have this thing. I should go get this done. I should go work on that project. I should open up my laptop. I should, should, should, should, should. And even in the midst of this ceremony, I'm out in the middle of the woods. My cell phone is turned off. I had all these expectations of what I wanted to get from that experience. And my mind was just cycling on all the shoulds and all the things.

17:50 And I finally got to a point where I was able to later on in that... that experience just fully rest. And I told you, I actually remembered, I was thinking of you at that time I was. I was conscious. I was thinking about you specifically and some of my other friends that weren't able to be there of how badly I wish you could be next to me feeling this type of rest because I feel like it's up to this point in my life been so hard to come by And then I started to think about all the, I think one of the things, it's so funny, I still don't understand exactly how the medicine works.

18:35 But if I had to describe what a five gram trip is for me, what it's been for me is that psilocybin strips away all the lies that... that culture, big and small, that culture is bombarding us with via social media, via, in some cases, some of our church cultures, as a club's school culture that we're connected to with our kids, just all of the things, all the performance orientation, the lies that we tell ourselves about our present state and how we're showing up. It just breaks all of that down. And I was telling somebody, one of our actually podcast guests, I was having a chit chat with him and I brought this up and I was, the way I described it was, it's like illuminating And then breaking down all of those lies and half-truths.

19:29 But at the very same time, it's bringing this incredible, deep, you feel like you're being held in this very deep, profound sense of love. I'm not, pardon me, shitting on myself. I'm not angry with myself in that moment. I'm just able to see all those incongruencies in my life. that are really keeping me, one, from real true rest because I have so much inner conflict. from all these little various things. And one of those being is that I hold myself up, I think, and my aspirational self, like who I want to be, is somebody who is intentional with their time, somebody who's deeply connected with their children.

20:14 I have one more child left in the house full time. My others visit. Of course, one is up in Alaska, which our listeners know, but my daughter comes often by the house. But I'm somebody I want to be deeply connected to the people I love. I want to show up for them, be reliable for them. I want to be present when I'm around them. I want to do the same for my friends who I consider loved ones. And I also want to be somebody that's always learning and evolving and growing. I don't want to be somebody who just accepts that this is who I am. And yet one of the things that kept coming up for me during this trip was just how much I go to my phone now.

20:56 how much of my life force I give over to scrolling on my phone, but also more deceptively to constant watching of even educational YouTube videos. And I saw during this trip, just part of my lack of rest, of like deep rest, is because I'm constantly, when I feel uncomfortable or I feel imposter syndrome or when I feel small after an interaction with somebody or something that happened at work, I go to my phone for relief. And I know that sound, but hopefully everybody knows what I mean by that. I don't think I'm alone in this. No.

21:37 I think sometimes we have a tough time labeling this, defining it, because it's so subconscious. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was interesting, like in the medicine, I'm talking to God and I'm like, I want you to fix this in me. This is like our Western culture is, I have this problem. I do this thing. I need to stop doing it. I need to fix it. I need to figure it out. And so I'm kind of like, I'm bringing that to the medicine and I have all these thoughts that are coming through of all this stuff that needs to change about me. And I feel like the message that I was getting during this was just, and it's hard to describe this because it's not like there's some beaming message from heaven. It's just so impossible to describe. But I feel like what was coming to me in that time was just stop with all of this bullshit.

22:24 Stop it. Just stop. Just stop and just be here. Just be here. You're on the floor of this soft carpeted space in the middle of the woods. Just stop. And finally, I was able to stop. And man, the restoration, I was able to just sit in of just getting the batteries recharged. It's just hard to describe or acknowledge. And then, you know, the other thing about this ceremony experience was that I was in a room with six or seven other people.

23:04 And while in a ceremony environment, I can't speak to everybody's experience with this because everybody leads these things differently and facilitates them differently. But in our case, there's some very important rules. Like there's no talking during ceremony. At all, except to the facilitator, if you need help or, hey, I need water, whatever, you know, there's no touching amongst participants. And like, in many ways, it's an individual experience, but you're also, you have other people there with you. And so there's something really special about that, that all of us are collectively kind of doing this work internally. It's probably different in some ways for every single person around the circle, but we're all experiencing kind of this deep work and rest.

23:50 And then the ceremonies usually end with some kind of celebration, I guess. It was really beautiful. The facilitator led us in this song as we were kind of all coming down, right? The medicine just starts to dissipate. You start to become more and more, for lack of a better word, sober. And they actually picked up their guitar and we all walked out onto the patio, out in the middle of this sequoia cedar forest. And we're probably about 10 miles away from the nearest town where this is at. So there's no light pollution. And so all of us are just dancing. And I'm not a dancer. So therefore the psilocybin.

24:32 But we all just felt completely at ease. And we're all just kind of dancing quietly out on this patio together. And it was just such a beautiful experience. It may sound hippy-dippy to people and I don't really care. But it was just a really beautiful experience to share with other people. Restful. Restful. And then the way it all wraps up is, and we all have kind of a light dinner of soup. This is like two o'clock in the morning. Then we all go to bed. And then the next morning, we had an integration time where we all just kind of shared about our experience. Everybody gets to go around the circle twice and just share stuff that came up for them. And anyways, it was really powerful. But the big takeaway for me was, I continue to have these points of incongruence in my life.

25:18 And I don't feel angry with myself about that, but I think it just created this really clear awareness of these different areas of my life where I have things I tell myself about who I am and who I want to be. I have these ways that I show up and present myself to others. And this includes the podcast. This includes when I go to conferences and my work with my clients. I have these ways that I present myself. But behind the scenes, there's varying degrees of incongruence with how I'm actually conducting myself. And only I know some of these things. Some of them are plain obvious to like you. I mean, we work really closely together. And people, my loved ones, they can see these incongruences.

25:59 And then there's some that are hidden that I'm really... that are just these small little deviations from what I say about myself and how I actually show up. Are you a business that's under 5 million in sales, and you're just now getting ready to try and scale your company up and hit some of those targets you've always wanted to hit, but now you've got to build a sales team? Or maybe you just hired your first sales rep, but you don't really know how to manage them. How do you manage, lead, train, develop a sales rep? Floodlight has a solution for you now. So we can actually assign your sales rep a turnkey VP of sales that will help them create a sales blueprint, their own personal sales plan for your market. They'll have weekly one-on-ones with that sales rep to coach, mentor them, hold them accountable to the plan.

26:44 And they'll also have a monthly owner's meeting where they'll meet with you or your general manager and review the progress of that sales rep. Their plan to actual results, what kind of performance improvement they're working on with them. Also let them know, hey, you might, they're doing really well. Maybe we should think of hiring a second sales rep. They're going to have that one-to-one advice for you as an owner or senior leader on the team as well. How great would that be to have a bolt-on sales manager for your one sales rep and it's only $2,500 a month? If you're interested in talking more about that, reach out. Let's grab some time and let's talk shop. Our floodlight clients this last year in 2024 generated over $250 million in revenue. Supported by, advised by, an industry expert who's owned and operated a business just like you.

27:27 So take action. Don't kick the can down the road. Start with our business health and value assessment, and let's unlock the next chapter of your success story. One of the things that I did, I'm just experiencing a real state of change really over the last nine months. But even in the last several weeks, one of the things I decided going to this ceremony was I was going to stop using pot. At some point, I started using cannabis to help me sleep. And it was profoundly good at that and was really, really helpful. But I also, there are some downsides to cannabis that I've experienced. And this kind of could be a whole different conversation.

28:07 One of them was, again, this incongruence piece. I really try to maintain discipline with myself in terms of you and I both exercise, we work out. I try to be really circumspect about what I eat and how I take care of my body. And I found under the cannabis, everybody's heard of the munchies. And I just found, even though I was often eating good things, there were multiple nights a week that I would have some cannabis after dinner in preparation for going to bed and And I would just go nuts on food. And some of you may say, aha, that's funny. And a lot of times I treated it that way. But I got to a point as I was approaching the ceremony and thinking about kind of my intentions around that ceremony, I just thought to myself, this feels like a real gap in my integrity that really no one else knows about except for maybe my family and The idea that, you know, when I use some cannabis, sometimes as an example, I would eat like an entire one pound bag of dried mangoes and somehow justify it as, well, it could be Snickers bars or it could be a gallon of ice cream.

29:18 And it's not that, it's mangoes, but it's still just, it's a whole bag of sugar, basically. And I know how it makes me feel. I wake up the next morning with this, you know, ball in my gut from whatever I binged on. But the more important thing was I just felt like I didn't have self-control. Yeah. And it really, really started to bother me. Yeah. And so I made a decision about two weeks before ceremony, I'm done with my daily use of cannabis. And it's a whole different story, but cannabis also has been a really powerful medicine for me and also a really great source of spiritual and emotional growth for me during a season of my life. But I just thought it's become something different and this has to change.

29:59 So for two weeks leading up to that, I didn't use any cannabis and I'm so grateful for that. When I came back from ceremony, just the last few days even, One, my sleep has taken a little while to improve because when you're using cannabis for sleep, and it's not that I don't recommend it for that. Some people really struggle with not being able to sleep. I'd say it's better to use cannabis and get some sleep than to not. But my sleep has been improving every night since I stopped. And yesterday, it was interesting. In the evening, I was having a rough day yesterday for some reason. I was really, I don't think my wife would mind me saying this because she feels the same way about me sometimes. I was kind of annoyed and irritated with some things with my wife.

30:42 And then that was extending over to I was kind of irritated and frustrated with my son. And then I was just, yeah, I was just kind of in that mode. You just felt the grind. I just felt the grind. And I'm like, okay, I could probably have some cannabis and that'll take the edge off of this, but I'm not going to. So I just sat in that for a minute and I thought, okay, what else is good for me in this moment? And so I grabbed a book I've been reading and I went and sat outside and I read. And within about 15 minutes of me reading, I just felt myself finally settle in and calm down. And the other thing, and I know this sounds goofy to some people because maybe so many other people are so much further along than I am, but I felt proud of myself.

31:25 When I finally went to bed, I just felt really proud of myself that I had kind of managed my emotions. I'd found a productive thing to focus my energy on and it calmed me down and it relaxed me. And last night I had one of the best nights of sleep I've had in a long time. No cannabis. This is what's being stirred in me is I really want to be the kind of person that is true I have these ideals and values that I've identified for myself. I know who I want to be, the kind of person I want to be. And I feel like now in my mid-40s, I'm really, really hunkered down trying to say, okay, where is there misalignment?

32:11 Where is there a gap of integrity? Right. And what needs to change about my choices in order to come into more alignment with that? Yeah. And it's like, the more I do that, the more confidence it gives me. the less I feel like I need to project myself or show up in a false way. Like I've got a conference coming up and I'm going to be speaking at it. And I can tell you, I feel a fair bit of internal pressure to show up in a particular way when I'm at professional gatherings. Yeah. I know how to show up, you know, it's like... And more and more, as I start to tighten up these misalignments and these gaps, I feel less of a...

32:54 a need to present myself in a, in a certain way and instead just can show up. Yeah. And that feels really good. And I want more of that. Yeah. It's interesting. One, thanks for sharing that. Because I know that at the end of the day, you and I both, when we've talked about the idea of hitting some of these topics in the show, we both kind of hymna-ha about it because we're worried that, you know, how some people interpret it and what kind of values then that they'll assume in place. And, you know, you made a comment in the middle of your story there where you just said, no, I just don't care. And when you said that, for those that don't know, you know, your friend for a long time, I could see in your facial expression when you really mean something.

33:41 And in that moment, when you said that, it's like that's intensity of literally in this moment, he doesn't care. And, you know, we were talking- I've spent my whole life caring. Caring about what everybody else thinks. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because before we hit record today, we were just talking about this. This is going to seem like totally out in left field, but it comes back. We were talking about this idea of how you can be in certain situations where you just kind of have all the cards in your hand. And so when it comes time to negotiate, you really don't give a shit, for lack of a better way to describe it. Meaning, Like the power is yours. Yeah. It's, it's either the value is so obvious or the, what you're bringing to the table or, you know, we've, we talked about this idea of kind of reaching sometimes a phase where you just don't give a shit.

34:30 Like you don't care. And so because you don't care, like what you're negotiating with is so much stronger because you, you just, you don't care. You're not going to compromise. And I was just thinking about that. We used the example of Rogan when he initially sold or whatever it was. He basically licensed his IP under Spotify and they paid him just an absolute boatload of money. And I remember a lot of the post-transaction conversations about the fact that at that point, Rogan's show was so enormous that... that he literally didn't have to compromise at all. He had all the leverage, all the cards. What would he lose if Spotify didn't take him?

35:11 Nothing. Because they were still going to put his shit on the air. Who would miss that marketing revenue? And so it was just this mentality of, we were going back and forth about just kind of the, where, what he, it must've felt like in the room in that moment where he had all the cards, like he wasn't nervous about the negotiation. He probably rolled in and just meant like, this is what I want to do. If you don't do it, doesn't hurt my feelings. So let me know. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting. Yeah. As I was listening to you talk through this, and I'm just thinking about you and I's sideline conversations right now as we're kind of conducting these parallel journeys and trying to determine what to do with the show, trying to determine what to do with floodlight.

35:53 And I'm just thinking to myself, gosh, what if the superpower is living life in such a way that when you show up to the table whether it be partnerships, prospecting, negotiating deals or contract information, if you were just so aligned in your decision-making, in the way that you carry yourself, the things you say yes and no to, the priorities that you have, when those things are in such alignment, that you're showing up for lack of a better way to say it with all the cards in your hand.

36:38 It changes everything. It does change everything. And I love this, you know, this phrase of no fucks to give, right? Or not caring. I think there is, there's two ways to sort of come to that posture, right? One is where you really are just purely reckless. Yeah. You don't. Sure. You don't. And listen, I mean, all of us have experienced and maybe. Kind of young and dumb. And I'm sure I've been guilty of this at different intervals in my life of showing up and not caring about the outcome. And I think ultimately it's for other people. It's like, hey, this is my deal. I don't give a rip what other people think. That sort of recklessness.

37:19 Yeah. But then I think there's this other, like the other end of the spectrum is I actually care so much about what I care about that there's no amount of money. Because I think that's the currency in our Western culture is, you know, I think we present, we posture oftentimes for the sake of financial security, wealth accumulation, status, all these things. And I think what it is for me is, is you don't have to have FU money. to move out of your convictions. You don't need to be Rogan and have a $200 million deal in front of you and already maybe have a hundred million in the bank to be like, no, I'm going to stand by my convictions.

38:03 I think you can come to that even if somebody's in a deficit financially, they can show up with that kind of conviction. And that's what I'm learning. I wish somehow I had pondered this more when I was younger. Because I think maybe I would have been even more successful or I would have, I don't know. I don't know what the outcome would have been. But I certainly believe that I would have been more connected, more grounded and anchored in my values, in my relationships sooner in my life. Yeah. And now moving forward, and I think those are people who have listened to the show for a long time. A big switch that flipped for me was losing my father, you know, now three years ago.

38:48 It comes for different reasons. You know, I think some people, they go through a divorce and it really rocks their world. Other people, they lose a loved one. they have a big injury or an illness or something like that. And for me, it was my dad. It was just, you know what? My days are numbered just like everybody else's and I'd never connected with it until then. And now it's like, okay, I want many of the things that everybody else listening to this wants. Yeah. I want the nice things in life. I want to have all the experiences. And what I want more than any of that is I think to find the edges of who I was created to be and, And to be connected with my family and my loved ones, which includes my friends.

39:31 I want to have the kind of friendships around me where I consider them loved ones, right? That it's more than just cutting loose, partying, or having adventures together. Like, there's deep connection. And so... You know, it's interesting. This got me thinking about an experience I just had, actually, is... This last weekend, we went out with my kids. My daughter wasn't able to make it. She was working, but my son was there with his wife and their kid, their daughter, Bebe, my granddaughter. And, you know, what was really interesting is sitting on the shore. And we also had our godson with us. Super fun. So I'm just blessed. We're very fortunate with some of the families and friends that we've had.

40:12 You know, my godson, Will, he's... The son of our friends that we've had for, I think we talked about it last, was like 20 plus years, 20, 25 years. And it's just amazing, right? My wife was there the second that little guy came into the world. Anyway, so we're all hanging out at the river. And out in the river, I'm sitting lawn chair next to Jana in the water, just chilling. I was drinking a beer. It was fantastic. Little IPA in the river. And it's like 90 degrees outside. And I'm looking out on the river and I'm watching my son. He's got both Will and Bebe connected to his paddleboard. And he's just putzing around and I can hear him like he's teaching him different things.

40:55 You know, like my son just can't help but teach. He's like natural born. And I'm watching this happen out in the river. I'm watching my son be a dad. And what was crazy is I was actually watching my son at his age being far greater of a dad than I was. And that in and of itself is like a whole nother episode of Amazing. But as I was watching that, what it made me reflect on was how awesome my relationship has become with my son and how thankful I am. And that's like a 18-month, 180-degree turn. And if he and I were in the same room, we both are very clear right now that there's a lot of reasons on both parties why we've had struggles in our relationship.

41:39 But, and, coming back to like what you're talking about, one of the things that I've recognized my son doing over the last 18 months is becoming so convicted and his priorities, that his decisions and behaviors are actually beginning to align behind it. And so he and I have had lots of talks about profession. My son happens and his wife, they happen to work in an industry that normally has a lot of government support and funding. I've got opinions about all that kind of thing. He's in social work right now. He's essentially in social work. Very specifically, what he does is he's a program manager. So he designs the treatment and plans for individuals that can't live independently.

42:25 They have mental challenges that vary everything from it came on from... drug using parents to born with genetics, you name it. But there's mental disorders. And these individuals need a ton of support in order for them to have an everyday life. And he builds these programs and helps manage these homes. My point is, is that like, I'm just going to line up some examples of him making a conscientious decision that this value is the priority and the other things are going to have to work themselves out. He's determined for now. And now he's young in his journey, so these are going to take shape in different ways. These paths are going to open up different ways.

43:05 But he finds it missional. He senses a ton of value from working in an environment that he could list. Like my son and I are very united in terms of worldviews and politics. Like he gets frustrated by the things I do. And you can imagine him being in a kind of quasi-government agency. He has lots of frustrations, but the mission is more important. And so he's like an example of watching my son being so convicted by the mission that that's driving his decision-making priority. And he's going to allow some of the other variables to work themselves out because that is the mission first. Okay. And for a young man to watch that being done and then him being willing to live with the consequences of those decisions, okay.

43:51 Whether you're in agreement or that's your priority, it's not the fucking point. The point is I'm watching a young man live in his conviction and it's making him a better person. Then on top of that, you know, my son chose to marry a woman who we love dearly, who had a daughter from a prior relationship. And so BB's eight, eight or nine years old. Yeah. That's a lot of parenting overnight. So my son went from being a young man, no exposure to what it would be like to have a child to he and Jamie made a commitment to each other. He made a commitment to be an engaged, caring, and very evolved father to our granddaughter, to Bibi.

44:36 Conviction made, behaviors now aligning behind that conviction. It's making my son a better man. point, tying it back to your story, is stepping outside of myself and my own kind of mental processing and challenging and all the things, I'm watching a young man through a window. where I am emotionally connected to his decision making. I mean, we've certainly rode the train with this kid, but I'm on the outside watching a young person become more aligned across his prioritizations, his decision making, and the confidence that it's creating in him is so obvious that it's making he and I's relationship more powerful, more unified, more consistent.

45:24 Now, am I doing some behavior changing over the last few years, of course, 100%. But I just want to give credit where credit is due. I'm watching a man become more aligned and it is changing the way he acts, behaves, and comes across and it's making a guy like me like, I'm no fucking slouch. I've had a ton of successes. I'm willing to work as hard as the next guy. I have high levels of expectations for myself, my kids, and my sphere and I am absolutely admiring my son. Because of that. And so it's like this whole thing comes full circle of, listen, how you get there, some of the mechanisms that you choose to use, some of the communities or spheres that you choose to participate in to help find this alignment or this reprioritization of what you're committed to and allowing that to shape who you are and how you make decisions is so powerful.

46:21 Yeah. And to watch somebody like my son as an example, and I've been watching it in you, where you start to give less fucks about people's opinions that don't fucking matter. And it sounds mean. You start to care a lot more about what do I think about myself? Bingo. Yeah. Bingo. Yeah. And guys, like, it's not guys. I'm actually saying this to you. Like, this is a real transparent conversation happening between you and me. like our show. I'm feeling a lot of conviction to continue to lean in with head, heart, and boots in a way that we've not done before. Because we've been fucking afraid. Let's call a spade a spade. Sure.

47:02 We've been afraid that somebody in the insurance restoration industry won't like what I said or how I was wearing my shirt or how I coined the term or do they agree based on some experience that they had with me at some point over time. And I think The example of what you're walking through, this stop it, just stop, is that stop acting, deciding, prioritizing, and leaning into things that aren't yours. that aren't your priorities, that aren't your drivers, your passions, your love, your heart.

47:43 Stop acting the way other people are projecting on you to act and be committed to yourself. That's for me. And I think floodlight, to be bold, I think floodlight, I think HHB, is about to experience some things over the next handful of years, it wouldn't. If we don't make this commitment, if we, you and I individually, don't decide right now, there's certain things that we're going to prioritize that lots of parts of the world just aren't, and I don't fucking care. Mm-hmm. then don't. And if the message that we're sharing that day, that show, that meeting isn't for you, then don't put the fucking shirt on, man.

48:30 Yeah. Yeah. Don't put the shirt on. Yeah. But I'm not going to re-engineer my life to try to get you to put that shirt on. Yeah. Spinning out a little bit. But it's like, this is... Dude, there's something powerful. There's something powerful in what you're willing to share. And man, dude, I'm watching you become... more and more. Not just a guy that I like, that I feel like we've got some shared perspective and worldviews on. It's moving well beyond that. Another show, people don't even understand some of the things that have transpired over the last year in regard to URI's partnership and relationship, but a lot's happened.

49:14 And... just watching you lean in on this stuff, prioritize, and working through that. And sometimes working through it publicly and just understanding some people are going to misinterpret. They're going to create a story in their head. Some people are going to judge you because they had some experience wherever. Man, I'm just really proud of you watching you lean in and do the work and be willing to stand out and look weird and... rub people that are afraid to be themselves the wrong way. And it's awesome. And then just to get this chance, kind of parallel timeframe to watch my son doing it and watching the net benefit of him becoming so much better of a man.

49:55 like the level of how proud I am of him is climbing by the week. Not necessarily because of the thing. It's this congruence. It's this him saying, Dad, this is important to me. This is what I want to be. This is what I have to prioritize. And he's doing it. He's doing it. He's checking those boxes. He's making those commitments. And it's changing him, dude. This is work worth doing. Thanks, dude. Okay, guys. Thanks for hanging out with us. We'll see you next time. All right, everybody. Heath, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend.

50:40 Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.