#28 - The Architecture of Human Connection

Explore how intentional gatherings around food and shared experiences can restore human connection, with insights from Brady Lowe, a visionary hospitality entrepreneur. Discover the power of food as a technology for trust, the importance of relationship networks, and innovative approaches to sustainability and AI in event design.

This is a fun, engaging and incredibly insightful conversation about the ancient technology of breaking bread, and how the answer to deeper social connections in your world are literally on your front porch and your backyard. 


Key Topics
🥘The role of food and shared experiences in building trust
🫶Brady Lowe's journey and innovations in hospitality
🥘The concept of the 'red thread' in event design
🫶Relationship equity and network building in the food ecosystem
🥘Sustainable practices and the future of experiential marketing


Quotes
“Food tastes better when you know where it’s from.”
“The event begins when someone accepts your invitation, not when they walk through the door.”
“Take someone from trust to telling someone else - that’s how you build real connection.”
“We’ve reduced the center of the table to ‘put your phone down and eat.’ That’s not enough anymore.”
“The best experiences have a red thread—from the moment you arrive to the moment you leave.”
“If you’re not growing food in your yard, at least grow relationships there.”
“People don’t want to be sold they want to be seen.”
“We didn’t build a business - we built relationship equity.”
“It stopped being the ‘me show’ and became the ‘we show.’ That’s when everything scaled.”
“It takes a lifetime to build a brand and minutes to unravel it.”

Chapters
00:00 The Power of Connection Through Food
02:21 Brady Lowe: A Visionary in Hospitality
04:47 The Evolution of Culinary Experiences
06:28 Psychology of Gathering: The Red Thread
10:21 Designing Memorable Events
13:22 Scaling Culinary Experiences
16:24 Passion Behind the Culinary Mission
18:34 The Dynamics of Leadership at the Table
20:06 Building Relationships in Culinary Networks
25:06 Nourish: A Sustainable Culinary Experience
32:06 Creating Community Through Simple Gatherings
34:01 Leveraging AI for Enhanced Engagement
36:48 NEWCHAPTER


Check out Brady’s work here!
Taste Network - https://tastenetwork.com/
Global Fire - https://globalfire.com/
Piggy Bank - https://piggybank.org/
Peach Fest - https://peachfest.com/
Nourish Project - https://nourish.com/
Brady Lowe - https://bradylowe.com/

#flourish #wealth #wealthmanagement #investing #advisor #KnowThyWealthKnowThyself 

Connect with Gillian: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gillian-stovel-rivers-ma-cfp%C2%AE-cea-997094124/?originalSubdomain=ca   
https://x.com/GillianStovelR 
https://www.instagram.com/gillianstov... 
https://flourishfamilywealth.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

The Flourish Feed Podcast, a series of curiosity-driven deep dives into the nature of flourishing through wealth. I'm your host, Gillian Stoville Rivers, M A C F P C E A, Senior Wealth Advisor at CIA Sante Wealth Management.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

It always comes back like to put yourself in someone else's shoes and to think about where they're coming from, right? Now, that's one of the most unique. So you have to leave your environment and go to them. And I think a lot of people think about like, I'm going to cook this and they're going to have a great time. And whatever their worries were before they got in the door is going to wash away because I'm so great. And this is the way it works. And it's not. It's that when you throw in an event, that event begins when that person accepts your invite. And everything along that path or along that red thread to the moment that they go home and rest their head down next to their spouse and gets that question, how was it? It should pour out of them what and how great that was. And if you don't think about it from all the way from the start of the thread to the end of the thread, that you're missing those points.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

In an increasingly digital and distracted world, the rarest and most valuable experiences are moments where humans feel deeply seen, connected, and alive together. People like Brady Lowe have spent decades learning how to engineer environments where connection naturally emerges, often around food, story, and shared experience. Food, hospitality, and shared experiences are among the oldest technologies humans have for creating trust and belonging. Regular doses of time spent with other people around a table or next to a fire, working at a shared craft, these are moments that can rejuvenate and inspire in small numbers and en masse. Through Taste Network, Brady has spent more than two decades designing events and networks that bring chefs, farmers, artisans, brands, and consumers into the same room to build relationships that last. This episode is going to explore how intentional gathering might be one of the most powerful tools we have to restore human connection. But first, let's get to know Brady a little bit. Brady Lowe is a visionary hospitality entrepreneur and the founder of Taste Network, a strategic agency launched in 2002 to elevate culinary branding and experiential marketing. He is best known as the creator of Cauchant Sinc Sync, the prestigious 20-city nose-to-tail competition and heritage fire, an expansive showcase of open fire cooking. Following a successful exit from both these franchises, he launched Global Fire to further champion ethical food systems. He's deeply committed to sustainable agriculture. He founded Piggy Bank, a nonprofit genetic sanctuary providing family farms with heritage, breed, livestock, and business blueprints. He also produces Peach Fest, an Atlanta-based celebration of local stone fruits. And today, through his Next Ten Accelerator, he serves as a high-level business coach, which is where I got to know him, helping hospitality founders and global brands like Rivera A. Rueda transition from high-effort hustle to scalable system-driven revenue. His work bridges the gap between elite culinary artistry and rigorous data-driven business growth. Brady Lowe, welcome to the Flourish Feet Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Thank you. That was such a lovely intro.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Well, you have a lot of lovely things that ought to be said about you. And you've spent your career bringing people together around food and experience, which is obviously like one of the most favorite things for most people. But what did you see early on that made you realize gatherings could be so powerful? What drew you to this business?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

I felt like it was a circus of calories. And I think anytime that you have like this energy ball of people gathering around exciting moments of food and theater, it's like going to the circus. But when you have, you know, popcorn upgraded to foie gras and you know, candy bars upgraded to whole pegs and sodos turned into boutique wines and you know, spirited cocktails, like you start to see a different look in people. And I think that was kind of the you know, the drive for me was just seeing people learn from somebody that wasn't like hard to learn from. It's kind of like fun, you know, like you know, and I think that was kind of like the one point. Like, so I started my business with just doing wine and cheese like events.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Okay, I was gonna ask, where did it start?

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Like a wine and cheese educator, a box of wine, a box of cheese, someone's home, someone's wine gallery, art gallery. And I just realized that people just want to learn from people that are not stuffy and you know, and like you can connect with. Like, I think it's you know, if you sit at a dinner table and someone talks about themselves the whole time and how great their food is, and you're like kind of tune out. But if they tell you about the history and where it's from and they make the meal as enriching or the experience as enriching an education that is the food is entertainment, then you've kind of close the gap in for them. And they literally learn and you know, food tastes better when you know where it's from.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

You're absolutely right. And that's brilliant. And it's not only disarming, but it sounds like you very quickly started to become a massive creative in the way that you approached what you were bringing. And was that because you yourself needed the novelty? Or did you read that the more novel that these substances were and these foods were, that that would cause people to become more engaged? Like, what where's the novelty part? How did how quickly did that accelerate for you?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

It accelerated out of necessity. Like I needed to create a business, right? Like I loved what I was doing. And, you know, people were like, hey, we love you doing this wine and cheese thing. Great. Will you stay and cook us dinner? And I'm like, okay, I can do that. And how many people? 14. So we went like we were doing like seven, you know, seven, eight wine and cheese courses. And next thing you know, I had another seven or eight courses of food. And I'm like, just pay me like the cost of food. I'd love doing it. But then after 14 people, I started to make a mess in their kitchen. So I had to hire chefs. And I think that was the point where it wasn't the me show, it was the we show. And then I had to involve, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And, you know, I would say, Hey, what chef do you want to have come cook at your house? And they would point out one of the celebrity chefs in town. I'm like, well, he's expensive. They're like, Oh, we can't afford that. I'm like, what about a CDC? What about a chef cuisine? What about a sous chef? He's great, doesn't mean like he cooks all the food regardless. Yeah, we love that. Like, so then I started working with the up-and-coming chefs, not the head chefs, right? The ones who got the work done. And that was out of necessity. So, because people couldn't afford what they wanted, they got what they could afford. What they could afford.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

But it was still better than whatever they were going to make themselves or take out, or presumably, it was still a massive experience. And you were curating it. So when people would come together at a table, I mean, what what do you think has is happening psychologically? You you talked about it a moment ago about, you know, they they really love to know where the food is from. They want to know the story of the food. What's happening there? Like in your experience, why does that work?

SPEAKER_00 7:05

There's the real answer, which I'm going to kind of like, you know, try to throw the arm around the limb and try to hang on with this one. But I think like when we get together as a group, we're looking for someone to take lead. And it's very ancestral for somebody to take charge of the dinner, the chef, the cook, the mother, the maternity feel, right? And we're so used to just like put the food out and then conversation. And when we add that new layer of engagement and experience and education, entertainment, then I think it makes the meal feel more cohesive, what I call like the red thread, right? The red thread that runs from the moment you walk into someone's house to the moment you leave. It all feels like everything was intentional and orchestrated. And you get those around holidays, right? Where, you know, my mom would be like the hustler. She would just like, she'd be on pins and needles, like Thanksgiving, you know, like, guys, I just worked so hard. And this was like, help me out here, you know. But it was so intentional and everyone felt so special because there's so much care that goes into it. And I think we have walked away from that as a part of the center of the table. The center of the table it now resorts to like put your phone down and just eat together.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Seriously, table stakes, and I hate to use the pun, but it is that is that's about where we're at, right? Put the phone down.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Yeah. And I think that kind of sucks for human history right now, you know. Like, okay, so you've mentioned something in the very beginning, right? So here's the exciting of part where we are. The first time in human history, right, that AI is in the world, right? Now, AI teaches you something and teaches you unlike any other technology innovation that we've ever had. And I think here's what's different about our dinner tables that ties this all together. First, it was fire, it was the first innovation of human history, right? Then you had like, well, you had the wheel, and then well, you had fire, and then the wheel, and then you had cell phone and computers and internet and all these things. But everybody always had some kind of like, like, when everyone's sitting around fire, they're like, oh my gosh, this is the coolest thing ever. But you needed an expert to teach you how to do fire, or you're gonna burn yourself. You know, for a computer, you need a computer tech. To the internet, you need to know how to set it up. Now AI actually tells you all about it and it's freaking people out. So now you've got this, it's either politics or AI sitting at the dinner table every time. And this is the first time in human history that we've ever been in this really awkward place.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Right. Where the things, yeah, the things that we have to talk about are not necessarily conducive to having a great meal. I mean, like they're kind of a a little bit upsetting. I want to come back to the red thread idea, though. I love that term. And I think when you bring it into the ancestral terminology and the family terminology, and you say that the red thread is about creating an experience for the person from very beginning to very end, that speaks so much around this idea of the meal as a technology for trust, right? Like breaking bread with somebody is a way of really getting to know them. So when you're when you're designing an event or a gathering, what are some of the elements that, I mean, you probably have your own primary and secondary colors of how it is you design a space and how it is you design the red thread of time through an event like that. But what are the elements that matter the most in shaping the energy of a room? For those of us who want to go home and and just like up the level of our game of how we serve dinner, what are some of your best tools?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

It always comes back like to put yourself in someone else's shoes and to think about where they're coming from, right? Now, that's one of the most unique. So you have to leave your environment and go to them. And I think a lot of people think about like, I'm gonna cook this and they're gonna have a great time. And whatever their worries were before they got in the door is gonna wash away because I'm so great. And this is the way it works. And it's not. It's that when you throw in an event, that event begins when that person accepts your invite. And everything along that path or along that red thread to the moment that they go home and rest their head down next to their spouse and gets that question, how was it? It should pour out of them what and how great that was. And if you don't think about it from all the way from the start of the thread to the end of the thread, that you're missing those points. It's not about the time and the energy. And I love it, like, meal is the technology of trust, but the event is also the technology of trust. It's from that, like eat that event bright, right? Like misspellings or whatever, wrong date. Sorry, oops, set the wrong thing. It just throws these little hiccups along the way, right? But when you have the ability to take someone from the moment they trust you to the moment they tell someone about you or about that moment, that's when you've built true trust. And I think you have to walk in their shoes in the way that things I think about. Like I think about where are they coming from? Did they just, is it in the morning or they just have toothpaste? What lunch do they have? Do they go have a burger? Do they have beer and burgers before they come to my wine event? Are they full? Are they not full? Did they have a shitty day at work? Do they have a great day at work? Is it Friday? Is it Monday? Is it Wednesday? Like every part of the week that we feel and we shape, like when you think about like, oh, I got a friend from an invite from a friend to go to a, you know, to have cocktails on Tuesday, it's middle of the week. I don't want to do that. Like, that's part of that experience. Like you have to make it so great for someone to want to come out on a Tuesday to forget about their rules, to put their trust in you, you know? And it's it follows through from anything from a$30 ticket, even a free networking event, all the way to a$5,000,$10,000 like mastermind. You know, like that red thread is just sometimes it's a red thread, sometimes it's a golden thread, you know, depending on the cost.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Traditional wealth management focuses on a few key moments: your first house, sending your kids to university, when you retire, and when you die. Will you have enough? Will you die with too much or too little? These are questions of a very finite nature. Our approach goes above and beyond, with the belief that wealth is not just money, but comes in at least four forms: time, money, energy, and attention. And that wealth is a wave that you can learn to ride to a life well lived. A life where you flourished, where you surpassed the finite game of having enough, to experiencing the infinite game of playing forever. Instead of just focusing on a few of life's moments, we focus on all of the moments between the 1440 minutes of each day, the energy to be harnessed from each and every sunrise, every meal, and every great night's sleep. The power of connection and meaning that all four forms of wealth, time, energy, money, and attention can access. This is what it means to flourish. So the question is, which wealth advisor is right for you? An advisor who helps you open the door to a few of life's moments or to all of them? Consider this. In the next 24 hours, you have 1440 minutes, and it takes just a few of them to contact me at grivers at asante.com. Doing so could be one of the best investment decisions you ever make. And so these events that you've created over the years, I'm sure there's been literally thousands of them. When you look back on some of the larger events, were there one or two that really stand out where you said, Oh, I'm onto something new here? Like there was a big aha moment with a larger event. I want to come back to smaller family-style events in a minute, but I like this kind of people at scale. How do you get their attention? How did the engagement happen? Was there something that you really felt that you stumbled upon at some point that was remarkable?

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yeah, that's an amazing question. And I think when I would jump on stage, like for 12 years, I ran stages. 500 to a thousand person room. They hand me the mic, probably the last, the last thing you should do, but they hand me the mic every single time I jump on stage, and we have an amazing culinary experience together. And I'm like this, the leader of the circus. And I'd always get up there and you know, talk about why it's important small to support small family farmers, pay for food now from your local team, or pay for hospital bills later, like just the importance of just small family-raised agriculture. Like that was the game plan. And in the first event, there was like five people, 20 people, 30 people out of 500 that knew me. And that like the other rest are like looking at me like, who's this guy? Like, what's what is he talking about? Right. And I had to break through that mindset of like, no one in the room. But by the fourth year, I looked around the room, and what was 30 people was now 470 people, and there were 30 people in that room that didn't know me. And the other 430 or 450 people were my team to get those other on board. That's when I noticed the shift. Then I noticed that what we're doing and talking about, what our gospel of for food is the truth, and that people needed it and that they wanted to share it with others. They just didn't know how to do it in a large setting. So we became one of the first 20,000-person culinary tours in 20 cities to do this at scale for a full decade. And we were playing with like Food and Wine magazine and the biggest celebrity chefs, and you know, I mean, we were doing really fun stuff and really interesting things, but people had just never seen anything with that level of detail. And when I talk about level of detail, I used to joke and say, I'm like the Martist, the Marty Stewart, like because Martha Stewart is known for her like attention to detail, right? Like, if you don't have your mise and pause together, like you're gone. And she would find so everything about us was SOPs and playbooks and standards and blueprints and blah, blah, blah. Like you had to have everything done. So we just followed that system to keep replicating what worked and what didn't. So when you find that thing, put a blueprint around it.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Memorialize it. Don't go trying to change it. Just listen to the audience and make it better and take your criticism and work on it. Mount the best parts to the criticism, you know, like someone's not happy, let's do the thing next time for them. And everyone else that was kind of right behind them in line, you know?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

That is a brilliant story. And what I love the most, and I remember talking to you about this a couple of years ago when we first started chatting, you and I were in a small mastermind group together. It's about the authenticity of the passion at the heart of it, right? Like the story didn't begin with you wanting to make a blueprint to serve meals to thousands. The story began with you wanting to tell this, to spread this gospel, as you called it, about the importance of nutrition and the importance of the family farm and the quality of the food that we eat. And because that's at the heart of it, a blueprint makes perfect sense because you want to deliver it at scale. And I like that you went in that order. Where did the original passion come from?

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Oh, my mom and my dad. I mean, it's simple. I was a pudgy little kid who spent all his afternoons after school at home reading cookbooks. And my mom had all of the cookbooks. My dad was all the records, like he was a record guy. And they're very amazing humans in the way that they cooked. One did baking, like perfection of baking. Like, you know, like a baker needs to like make that piece of bread or that loaf of bread like a thousand times to get it, right? That was my dad. Perfection, perfection, perfection, and systematic. My mom, creative, you know, like, ah, that's the cookbook. We're gonna try that recipe, but I'm not gonna like go buy the recipe. I'm gonna tinker and do things that I have. Yeah. So I definitely am not a good baker, and I'm a really good creative guy. They uh I lean towards my mom on that, but I'm a sucker for good baked goods, you know, and sauces. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Yeah, yeah. As long as someone else is making them. So when you think about, like we don't have to talk about this, it's a bit off script, but uh, but if you're willing, when you think about meals as a child or you think about those important meals growing up, why do you think meals pull people to the present moment, aside from the fact that the story of the food, and I think that definitely pulls people out of their day into the present moment. But what happens when we slow our attention enough to really truly share a meal?

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Well, I think there's today that limb that I'm hanging on is still, I guess, just like patriarchal and matriarchal. You know, it's your parents, it's the parental, it's like you're always wanting to look at somebody at the table, right? Like, and if you would have grew up, we had our kids, like it was like me and my brother and my sister. We're like, all right, hey, like what's going on? But no matter if I was at my friend's house or whatever, I was always watching the leaders, like the owners, like the parents, right? How do they run the room? Like, what was going on? And so I think we were looking for that kind of like instinct to get back to the table and like it's it's never gonna go anywhere. It's gonna take thousands of years to erase that from our human DNA, right? We want somebody at the table to take lead and like own the conversation, right? So I think that's kind of what our desire at around the table is. And then, you know, is there good food? You know, I think that's a second one.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

A very important second, yes. Leadership and good food. Now, speaking of leadership, you your network, you are a leader by far. You're kind of at the center of a network of chefs and farmers and brands, and then the people that you all present uh the final product to. What role do the relationships between all of these other entities play in creating the value? You're the leader for sure, but there's all these other relationships that are happening between the farmers and the brands and the people. I mean, do they end up relating to each other after the fact? Is it always at this event? Is the sum the greater what is it?

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Is the sum greater than all parts?

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Yeah, I think uh it brings me back to this concept of relationship again. It brings me back to relationship equity. And I never really like understood what relationship equity was until I started to see that I didn't care about money anymore because it was the relationships in the network that were building a place that I felt like I had suspension. And as I went around the country, I mean, I again like paint the picture, 20 cities. No one had ever gone as aggressive across the country to do a culinary tour with five chefs, five winemakers, and five farmers. So we did that, you know, 10 to 15 times a year, plus these big live fire culinary events where we tied everyone with no competition. And it was Getting people to start to travel to these different locations to meet each other because they knew the quality of the people that were in the room. And once I was part of the system and not the leader of the system, then things became became different to me. And that's when I started to really see like the relationship equity fabric that we were creating by just putting people together in the same room. And I'd be like, I'm like, oh my gosh, how do you wait? You guys are like friends. Yes. How'd you guys meet you two years ago? And I'm like, oh my gosh. Like I thought, and then I would go to another city and I'm like, you guys don't know each other. I'm like, you're both like best friends to me. And like, I can't believe you don't know. Because I would just be like, I wouldn't even like introduce them, you know, because I would just be like, hey, like, I thought you guys are totally friends. And they're like, no, we've never met. Like, I was like, all right, cool, let me do that. So we started building these frameworks of like, you know, and then we would start putting systems together where there was like dinners that were just focused on and modifying or supplementing those relationship groups. Like, for example, we would do this dinner, right? And the dinner was we would invite 12 people and I would split it up into 25% of each group. And we would have like a tech group, media, farmers, and culinary. And those four bodies would represent a unit. And then I would come in with a menu of five dishes, and the chef would come present and say, Hey, the first dish is called the problem. The second dish is called let's chat. The third dish tonight is called brainstorm together. And the last dish is called the solution. And each one had like its description, but I we just cleverly renamed them. And I just said, Hey, farmer, tell us the biggest problem you're dealing with today. Tell it to the tech people. Tech people, listen to the farmer. We're gonna find a solution. If we had an app for that, what would this app be? And I want you all to come up with an app tonight to solve this one farmer's problem. And I would just get out of the way. And those people all still talk to this day.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Genius.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Because we just put together a framework, like, you know, here's how you do this one message, and here's how you get this out of you while you're at dinner. And I think we all want that at a dinner. Totally. Right? We do. But somehow we took the games out of dinner.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

We don't want to talk about the bottom feeding issues. We want to be operating at that level of higher level thinking and problem solving and adding value to the world. And you're using food and beverage as like a as a glue or as a like a social energizer to get people talking and solving these things. I think that's brilliant. And now when before we started recording today, you were telling me about Nourish, and I think this is a great place to drop it in because this seems like the next level of that kind of experiential evolution. Can you tell us like what what first what led to Nourish and then what is it and tell us more about it?

SPEAKER_00 24:52

So I love this question. And it's it's of course really long-winded, right? Because but I the red thread for me has been since I started my company in 2002, that I've had a red thread that follows me all the way I go, right? I'm like that little ball of yarn all the way across my history, and I never cut it. And it's so hard to cut it if I'm trying to dismantle myself and my reputation or my identity. So I have to like, and sustainability is that one, right? Like it happened one day at a dinner in Atlanta when I was telling you a box of wine, box of cheese. The group would be like, Oh, can you stay and cook me dinner? I would make a mess. So I hired a chef. Chef comes, chef shows up to dinner, goes right to the thing, and he says, All right, hey, everyone's like, Oh my gosh, this cheese is amazing. This wine's amazing. Brady, storytelling, storytelling, everything's beautiful. And then all of a sudden they're like, Hey, where's this fish from? And the chef looks around, he's like, Oh, it's from Kroger, which is like our grocery store. And I'm just like, Okay, never again. It was my fault. Never again will this ever happen. Everything has to be so that's followed me every and then the the next one was like in the middle of a 500, 600 person event was why are you using plastic? Like everything should be biodegradable. Like that next standard, biodegradable, that was like 2008. I haven't used anything but since like biodegradable stuff. And if anything I see on my event site comes up, it's like that. So it just keeps growing, right? And anybody in their business and their brand and identity, it takes a lifetime to build a brand and an identity. It takes minutes to unravel, minutes to undo it.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

So this has been part of it. And we got here and I've had the big events. I sold and exited, I built another one and built another event and have P chest around 15 years. And then I was like, where do I want to be? What hotel group do I want to be around for the rest of my life? And I was like, all right, the most sustainable hotel group in the world is one hotel. So let me build an event all around being the most sustainable event in the world. So I work with the teams at the hotel. The chef says afterwards, he's like, I got a ball of plastic this big. This is all the trash we produced from all the incoming for a 400-person event. A ball of trash this big. Everything else was weighed, scaled, measured, and scored so we could get like a full carbon offset. So when you look at like putting that type of energy, it's just, it's just making the right decision. And that was the part of deciding way back that everything was going to lead me to this point. If I would have disconnected from that thread, I would not have nourished today. But it's just been 1% compounding interest to get to this word nourish.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

You're using my language. Yeah, that's right. That's brilliant. And staying connected to that past, you are so a cool combination of your mother and your father, that's for sure. I've never met them, don't get me wrong. But the way you describe them with the music and the food and but having so much integrity to stay connected to that red thread of where you came from and who you are and what made you. That's like a level of artistry that is it's rare. I mean, it's very, very special. And also you've mentioned it's kind of, I won't say it's a burden, but it's heavy, right? You it it's a lot to carry, but it definitely helped inform this journey to working with the pinnacle, right? The the one hotel group. So now is the nourishment it's a project, it's a series of events, it's it's annual, it's multi-times a year. Tell us a little bit more about how it works.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

So one of the projects we're launching right now is called Inner Circle. Inner Circle is lifting off with the FIFA World Cup craziness that's gonna happen across North America. And in that, we have an event called Nourish, which we're going to have be taking place at one hotel. We're gonna do one in Seattle during the USA Australia game. We're gonna do one in New York City at Central Park right before the finals, the night before the finals in July. And we always have an annual down in Formula or at F1 in Miami. So the goal is to kind of trail along and behind like properties like one hotel and be part of like openings or F1 events, like tent pole events. So that's where we find most of our stake is with large tent pole events like F1, World Cup, Masters, Super Bowl. We do a lot around that. So inner circle is now like everything that I've learned, and all these amazing event producers across like the universe who produce things in Europe and US, and they're all super bespoke and expensive. And it's our opportunity to take all of our clients and invite them through a private, like curated-only membership marketplace. There's no membership, it's just like invite-only marketplace. But like, like, where are you gonna get access to like Blake Shelton for you know a stopby and a dinner?

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Incredible.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

So, like, we're hoping for stuff like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Do they all have the same mandate of the plastic ball of garbage at the end that's this big? Is that part of the goal of the is that something you're taking forward as a sustainability goal? Or that was just uh that's at something we're aspiring towards in the future?

SPEAKER_00 29:51

So one, you have to get to know me. Two, you have to be in the inner circle. We're highly curated. So I'm only working with restaurants and partners that tend to stay at that level. But I can't tell that I can't say, hey, you have to be 100% sustainable because sometimes the level of sustainability is different with different producers, different owners, different restaurants, right? And we just make sure that we put our filters on and keep them tight. And, you know, we basically we protect the audience with making sure that all the experiences are, you know, executable at the level that they're expecting.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Brilliant. I want to shift gears to maybe I often do this during an episode as like the darker side of things. So we live in a we live in a time of increasing isolation, increasing loneliness, increasing people, maybe not so much eating on TV trays, but kind of eating on TV trays, as far as that's what the meal has become about. You being such a person of gathering and a person of creating community, what are some natural places in the universe or in a city or in a town that you look to as alternatives for people who maybe don't go to gatherings like the ones you create, but they also might not have a full dinner table at home? Like what are some of the coffee houses? Like what are some of the places that you look to as social gathering places for nourishment that are readily accessible for people?

SPEAKER_00 31:17

I think the the cleanest table right now, and I love this concept because a lot of people don't do it, and I think it's the easiest one is your front yard or your back porch. Oh, yeah. And I think it's just like a six-foot or two six-foot white tables and some chairs. And just invite your neighbors over. Like, who cares what happens? It's gonna be entertainment. Like, you know, just do it at like a certain time on this on the weekend, like give it like three hours on a Sunday. And I just love this concept of like cooking for your for your family or friends, right? And that's the way to open the doors to so I think that's one gathering place that I think is super unutilized. And, you know, I think if you're not using your front yard or backyard for growing food, then at least you can be using it for growing relationships.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

And building a community.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

I love that so much. I've been doing a little bit of work on this with an upcoming guest on the podcast about the home being the center for human potential, the home being such an important part of that energy that we have to be able to go out in the world and have the confidence to try new things and take risks and have purpose. I love how you've turned the lens back on the home as the place where, if you're not going to grow your food, you can also be looking to grow your relationships. I think that's so brilliant. I did not expect that answer. It was such an off-the-cuff question. It was such a brilliant answer. Thank you so much for that. I have one closing question. I asked this of every guest on the podcast this season. It has to do with AI. We've intimated uh briefly uh some points about AI on this so far, but looking ahead, what's the most meaningful way you're using or you planned or imagine using AI to create more time or clarity or impact in what you do? Let's just back it up. Are you using AI right now?

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Yeah, tons of it. Yeah, it's just like it's just how I when I think yeah, when I think of AI, it's I have a folder on my Instagram, which is basically like AI to build, and it just keeps growing and growing. Like the moment you had to just pick a folder and start saving stuff in there, being like, and now I gotta hire someone just to build the stuff because I don't have time for it, right? And I've got other things that I need to do, but you hire someone, you know, at$10 an hour that can do it and they do a great job, and it saves you like hours and hours of time. So, like for example, I'll give you like a clean like clean example, something we just built this week, right? So I am super sensitive to engagement. I think the digital concierge and Instagram has gone far, far away from where it's supposed to be in any service-based or hospitality-based brands. And I think everybody who talks to clients and expects a smile and a warm shake, and they expect to exchange money in a transaction, you are a hospitality customer service-based brand. And I think we are just now starting to see the beginnings of what does it feel like to have DM communications? What does it feel like to be in the social selling setter situation? And then people are always trying to like get money out of you. But you know what? I just want to be seen. I want somebody to look at me and I'll be like, hey, like you have like imagine, like, I love like I saw your Instagram or I saw your LinkedIn. What a great post! Like the thoughtful people who really take that extra energy and time. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. And that's such a huge missing link. So every day I am hunting and hunting on AI to figure out what is and who is going to solve that one problem. And we're building things, right? So that my teams can actually spend more time on engagement than they are doing the stuff that's not fun. I agree. And I think you're like the captain of like compliments. You're like, I have teams that are running on this thing called compliment ladders, and I can't find AI that can go out and look at an Instagram account and the grid and come up with a real compliment. Like, hey, I saw you guys, you know, we're on a beautiful trip in Peru. How was it? Like, that's amazing. You guys looked like you had a great time. How fun. And then two weeks later, oh my gosh, like that by grace, congrats. Well won. Keep keep keep killing it. But the AI can't do that. Anything.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

No, it can't.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

No, I couldn't agree with you more. There is definitely a gap there. And I actually don't know if we want to give it up. I think the place for the AI, as you're intimating and I would agree, is on background processes that don't necessarily face the other human. Because if you can get those background processes taken care of by an AI, then the human-facing stuff, we have even more capital to be able to devote to that. And I'm totally there with you in my space as well as yours. That's brilliant. That's genius. Brady Lowe, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for sharing all of your beautiful, well-considered insights about food and gathering as the most wonderful ancient technology. And I look forward to continuing to stay in touch and following your journey.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Absolutely. Thank you so much for the time today. That was really that was really a great talk.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Right on. Have a good one. Cheers. Cheers. Join me next week on the Flourished Feed Podcast to keep exploring the infinite game. In the meantime, remember to stay curious, turn your passions into purpose, and play hard. I'm rooting for you. This program was prepared by Gillian Stovell Rivers, who is a senior wealth advisor with CI Asante Wealth Management. This is not an official program of CI Asante Wealth Management, and the statements and opinions expressed during this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of CI Asante Wealth Management. This show is intended for general information only and may not apply to all listeners or investors. Please obtain professional financial advice or contact Gillian to discuss your particular circumstances prior to acting on the information presented.