When Success Feels Like Pressure Instead of Purpose. I Chose To Break The Cycle

What happens when success, family expectations and the life you were given don’t feel like yours?

Mindset coach Scott Simons shares how family history,  growing up under pressure, feeling “not enough” and disconnected from himself led to years of escapism, drugs and depression.

He explains:

• How growing up with pressure and expectations can shape who you become

• Why feeling lost, angry or “not enough” often starts much earlier than you think

• How drugs, escapism and depression can be a response to deeper pain

• Why misalignment leads to self-sabotage in life and relationships

• What it takes to break away and rebuild a life that actually feels like yours

Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Very proud of what the lineage has given me in terms of entrepreneur spirit. So I'm very, very proud of what they've done. Now I'm I'm just going in a very different direction.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

What was the emotional and love atmosphere at home as you were a young child?

SPEAKER_05 0:13

Boy. You know, I don't know if my parents are gonna listen to this and I hope they don't take it personally. It was a very cold environment. And then there was that whole kind of front of being a Simons, you have to be perfect. I was dressed, you know, in cashmere and whatever, and I'd go to school like with a bow tie on, and it just so uncomfortable, so not me. My mom was very proud of being a Simons. Some people see Simons as the royal family of Quebec. There is pressure there.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

Do you feel that the when you went to that first experience of LSD, were you running away from something?

SPEAKER_05 0:44

Then I think I started to smoke weed to forget these emotions. It took me about 10 years after that to really get, let's say, sober and a different relationship with drugs. Oh my god. And and the philosophy was instead of stopping the drugs and alcohol, start health. Health is not a belief, health is an experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

You mentioned that you had a few major depressions over the past decade, and were there common triggers that got you into it every time?

SPEAKER_05 1:10

Not trusting my gut and my mind taking over. So I made a lot of decisions around that are very irrational. Now it's the first time in the history of humanity that the next generation may not have a life expectancy as much as their parents. So that's what we're leaving as a legacy for the first time in humanity. What an opportunity to switch that around. And you think we can change that? I know we can. Will we do it?

Growing Up With Privilege, Pressure & Identity

SPEAKER_01 1:34

We have so many exciting topics to get into. So uh we're gonna dive right in. Scott, you were born into the Simons family. Which, for anyone that may not be familiar with its history, Le Magasin Simons or Simons for Short is a pretty popular and successful by many measures uh Canadian retail store chain. So being born into a legacy name like yours probably comes with its own set of privilege and also pressure. So my first question to you is can you talk to us a little bit about some of the challenges that you faced early on on how the outside world perceived you and how that may have affected your identity?

SPEAKER_05 2:20

It's a good place to start. It's rare that I start there, and it's really the source, I guess. So it's good that we can start there. Born into the Simons family, especially in Quebec City, which is a very French city, so already you're an English um and you're English successful, and there is a resistance or there was a resistance to successful business people in in Quebec. I think they you know they they felt they were more victimized by the English wealthy. So I think I got that, and I definitely felt I got that. Um so judged from the outside in um Les Cris d'Angler, uh, and I only learned French when I was thirteen in in French high school. So I did all my schooling in English, so struggling with the language, struggling with school, and um really judged for something that I felt I wasn't truly resonating with. I mean, I was a Simons, I am a Simons. However, I'm I'm not part of that lineage anymore in terms of the the stores, so I'm not a you know multimillionaire at the moment yet. You know, I'm still hustling to build my own businesses and get in that direction and show we can make conscious uh money and conscious profit at the service of the planet and people. Uh, there was definitely pressure, there was definitely privilege as well, too. Um, you know, wherever I went as a kid, it was always I'd be introduced as you know, be Jean-Francois, Marc, Scott Simons, and then Asse toi Scott Simons, and then it's okay, what what's the story behind it? What's there? Is it okay I'm rich, or did they hear something that I didn't know about? So a lot of stories, and very popular as well, too. So there's some great sides. And then leaving Quebec City at age 19 was a real relief. When I came to Montreal, I was Scott, and now it's shifted still a bit because Simons is very present in Montreal and across Canada. It's a huge brand in Canada. Very proud of what uh the lineage has given me in terms of entrepreneur spirit. Very proud of what my dad did and Donald, who were the president and vice president. My dad was vice president for maybe 30 years, and very proud of what um Peter and Ricky did. Uh, I was definitely not the guy that was going to take over the reins of the business. Uh, you know, at at 19 I was coming out of drug rehab. I was awful in school. I had no real potential to be the president of a mini empire, and now I'd say it's an empire.

The Simons Family Legacy

SPEAKER_01 4:44

So it's been around for since 1840. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 4:48

So I'm sixth generation. So my great-great-great-grandfather came across the Atlantic in 1814 and then started the but the business in 1840. And uh and then my dad and Donald brought it to China, so that really shifted the business where we started to make our own brands and our own lines. And now we went from three stores when I was a kid, and now I think there are 17 or 18 stores. So I'm very, very proud of what they've done. And I'm proud of the name, and now I'm I'm just going in a very different direction.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

At what age did you really feel that judgment? Because I can only imagine walking out of the house and you never know what people are thinking or what they read or heard about. So at what age did you f start feeling that, or did you feel like it was you never felt protected even at a young age?

SPEAKER_05 5:32

My first memory of being judged, I don't know if it was necessarily for being a Simons, but I I remember it's it's it's probably my earliest memory, and I was explaining to somebody, and it was, I think it was a very traumatic experience for me. I was walking down the the driveway as a kid with my mom. I was holding my mom's hand, and there was this brown bus at the end of the driveway. I didn't know, but I was I was going to uh preschool at that point, but I didn't know what was going on, like I was four, I think.

SPEAKER_04 5:57

Right.

SPEAKER_05 5:57

And I walk into the bus, and I must have said something in English. All the kids started to laugh, and I and I was okay, what is this context? I didn't know that I was probably English and there was French, and even at that point, then I turn and my mom's walking away. I imagine she was crying. I know my mom, she was probably it's probably tough for her to put me into this system, you know, that I find is an archaic system called the education system. That's a whole other podcast, probably. And then the doors closed, and I I felt I was stuck in in the bus and stuck in preschool. I remember crying the whole entire day, not really knowing what was going on. And Seth Godin, one of my heroes, says school's a scam. And I didn't know at that point, but I think inside it just felt like a scam. Like, why am I not? I should be with my mom at the moment. Why am I in this context? You know. So that was the first time I think I felt judgment for being English. And then definitely going to French high school is when I really, really felt it. Uh Fiz de Rish, I was really good at basketball, and uh like pushing me down. It wasn't whereas in elementary school, it was cool to be the best basketball player in French high school, it was played against me, so I must have to play my game down a bit, or else I was judged too much. And then the whole entire thing of oh, and oh my god, just all that stuff. It was that cool, it was that, yeah. It was well, it was just that. I don't know if they were thinking they're being cruel, but and then you know, going to people's homes, ah, c'est toi, Simons, okay, j'adore ce magasin là, and you know, so I hear it constantly. I'd go to a depanard, and my card would have Scott Simons on it, c'est toi Scott Simons, c'est toi la famille Simons. So I that's why coming out of Quebec City and going to Montreal was a real relief. It was it was getting too much for me.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

For you, okay. And what was the emotional and love atmosphere at home as you were a young child?

SPEAKER_05 7:46

Boy. You know, I don't know if my parents are gonna listen to this, and uh I hope they don't take it personally. It was a very cold environment. Um my dad was a very old school um businessman. He traveled maybe 150 to 200 days a year, so I had no real connection to him. When he was in town, he worked, you know, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week, you know. So he'd go in to work at seven, come home at eight. My parents would often fight because he was home late, and then we'd eat as a family in that context. You know, um, he'd go in on Saturday mornings. Often I'd go in with him on Saturday mornings, which was fun. I'd just go to the uh the drawing table way back. This is you know, gonna date me, but they used to draw the the clothes and stuff and put it in Le Soleil in the Le Journal de Quebec, let's say. So I'd draw at the drawing table I used to love, and there was all kinds of colors and stuff, so that was cool. But there was no connection to my dad, and and and it's not really my dad's fault. A good father at in in that generation would work hard and the mother would stay home, let's say, and we had the privilege to be able to do that. And then my mom really did the best she could with it with a dad that wasn't present. I mean, there was a lot of money coming to the table, that was that was cool. And then there was that whole kind of front of being a Simons, you have to be perfect. You have to we were wearing, I was dressed, you know, in cashmere and whatever, and I go to school like with a bow tie on. It was just like so uncomfortable, so not me. Um, like I'm definitely not a fashionista. See what I wear every single day.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Um more coming from your mom or from your dad or both. It was just a family because of the lineage of the name.

SPEAKER_05 9:21

Yeah, the lit more my mom. My mom was very proud of being a Simons, and you know, she was coming from a family that was very very proud as well, too. And there's nothing wrong with that. No, it's just it's pressure, you know. And she didn't want to do, you know, I I love my mom, and I really, you know, mom, don't take this personally. I love you, you know. Uh, it just was the context that she was brought up in as well, too. And you know, it's it's some people see Simons as the royal family of Quebec. There is pressure there. And and I I think she she enjoyed that as well, too. And who who wouldn't, you know, the the money, the privilege, the the respect, you know, just like that.

School, Learning & Feeling Different

SPEAKER_01 9:53

And it gets automatically almost passed on, but you just you don't know any better sometimes, and you will also not push that onto your kids, but I feel that way, so you need to also feel that way because did you have siblings or was just you and the family?

SPEAKER_05 10:08

Older sister, older sister, and um schooling was much more it was easier for her, sports was easier for me. So schooling was from the get-go, even from that first experience I talked to you guys about. Um I just is bilingual, like, but I I I never I never understood the system. I really it's weird, but I never understood why learning was really important. You know, it sounds weird. I I met my mentor at age 19 and he gave me the love of learning. And once I figured that out, now I'm an avid learner. I love it. But in school, I just didn't feel it was around learning, it was more around by heart, get to the exams. Yes, you know, and from I just didn't get, I didn't understand it.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

And you know, you say something, uh the love of learning. I know because from the earlier conversations we had, you love learning, you are a constantly evolving human. But this idea of I'm telling you what you should be learning versus what would you like to learn? And again, that could be a whole podcast episode on the education system.

SPEAKER_05 11:12

It just just the why behind it. And and Steve, my mentor, and I'll just say Steve from now on. Steve was really good at that, at explaining the the why behind it, you know, the personal development and where I can use this, and starting to see my you know, the conversation, the the my the etymology of words, like so okay, what is this word? And it just then it really ignited this nerd geek inside of me that I thought I was just an athlete, stupid kid, you know.

The Absence Of A Father Figure

SPEAKER_03 11:37

What would you say the absence uh of the presence of your father and also adding the pressure? What did that create inside of you when you look back at this age?

Conversations With His Father As An Adult

SPEAKER_05 11:49

Well, looking back now for sure, and especially when I'm seeing my friends and kind of the new father emerging, where like super present, like my my my sister and and her husband, he's like a super dad. My best buddy Simon, he's like a super bad dad was so present, and like wow, it's lucky kids in a sense. And uh, because I do feel the father definitely has a role around the table. Um, I was super scared of my dad as a kid, you know, uh just his presence, um, like his his eyes, you know, he just he didn't fool around with my dad, let's say. And then when my parents divorced at age 17, my dad came out of the closet, so my my dad's my dad's gay. I think that's one reason why he wasn't super close with me as a kid, too. I think he was struggling with his and this is gay in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, you know, and it's not like it, you know, it's almost cool now in a sense. It wasn't cool back then. It was extremely taboo, super taboo, and this is a very conservative, you know, Quebec city is very conservative, old school, still probably now, in a sense. I'm not saying they're not open to to to to gay and stuff like that, but this is way back. So when my when my dad left the house, that's when I I really took over in terms of then I started to rebel and going down drugs and alcohol. My mom could not control me. I was kind of out of control. I was I was a bigger boy at that point, too. And um, it was just hard. So in terms of the absence, it's it's really hard to say what it because I don't know what it's like to have a father that would have been present. Um I just know that when, for example, Hugh Fraser, Hugh Fraser, the drug rehab that I went to is called the Fraser Foundation. So he was my first sort of um father figure outside of my dad. Okay, he gave me a lot of confidence. I felt he's he could see me, he saw my potential. Yeah, but I didn't feel my dad saw my potential. And it's once again, this is just me, it's not my response to my dad, you know. Yeah, sorry, dad. I just didn't feel he saw me. He probably he wasn't around enough to really see me. And then he was the first one that saw my potential, said you gotta get off the drugs and alcohol because you have all this potential. And then Steve was the second one, and his potential really grew me and he planted this crazy seed inside of me because now 28 years later and still on mission, the mission that he kind of planted inside of me of that ecopreneur servant leadership, um, you know, mission-driven, purpose-driven, uh, and and giving back as much as I can to the planet and the next seven generations. Um, I mean, my dad probably taught me a lot without teaching me. He I think he taught me a lot of resilience and that warrior mindset with without having somebody, let's say, close to you, like a dad.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

Have you ever had a conversation with your dad about um that dynamic when you were young as you got older?

SPEAKER_05 14:29

Or for sure, man, many many times. And uh I didn't always do it well. I was sometimes reactive, and he he's been very good at that sitting down and saying sorry type of thing. Um and I feel we've achieved our our kind of ceiling of with the type of person he is, so that more old school, you know, and and where I'm at, uh I say we're at a good space. Um uh you know, my my dad's going down fast these days, uh so that's another process that that we're going through. Just seeing you're uh you know, a man that had so much charisma and so much intelligence, and he's like he's got dementia now, he's got Alzheimer's. So just seeing that happening is is another kind of phase that we're going through. And it's and it's um it's also changing the way I'm like my inner narrative towards him. I'm seeing I'm seeing his more vulnerable now, and I'm seeing how much he loves me, and that he he was doing his best. Yeah, um, and and I'm super accepting of that. Yeah. And now at this pace phase, anyway, in my life, it's it's it's me parenting myself. It's like we're reparenting. Yeah, they did the best they could, you know. Yeah, yeah. And you did a great job. You took on the torch from now. And yeah, and you know, and I've uh and now it's now it's up to me, you know. I just take on that responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

It takes so much awareness, I think, for people to understand themselves and the fact that their parents, which I place such, whether you want it or not, their absence or or presence will significantly impact the child. And to have the awareness to understand that they just probably not probably, they always did the best that they could, right, given their level of intelligence, experience of life, and the tools that they had in that moment.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

And their emotional literacy also at that time, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:16

And to say that you've, you know, um reached a ceiling, it's it's beautiful because sometimes that's the best that you can do. You don't have to keep making victimizing your parents or your children, you know, because sometimes it goes both ways. It's just both people hopefully reach a level of understanding. Um, and yeah, I can definitely relate to that. We all go through these little phases. You know, we say if if your parents, you know, it's an idea I've entertained for a couple of years. If your parents die tomorrow, yeah, that I say and express everything I've ever wanted to express. And that has, you know, thinking about death and all these things like that has pushed me to have certain conversations with my parents, which at the beginning, like you said, it can become very and then eventually it eases up. But it has it's it would it's nice for it to start somewhere so that eventually you get to that point where you're like, okay, we understand each other. Yeah, let's just exist with each other.

SPEAKER_05 17:22

And so with my mom, we're in a beautiful phase. I she'll always be my mom and I'll always be her little boy. Like she'll she'll protect anything. She wants me to wear a mouth guard, you know, walking down the street, you know, or something like that, and a helmet, you know, just but she loves doing that. And we've we've achieved like some this beautiful friendship as well, too. Whereas before I wouldn't talk about my anxieties and this and that, just because I didn't want to add more anxiety to her. And now actually we sit down, we have beautiful conversations, and she has beautiful wisdom as well, too, that I didn't see when I was a kid, you know. She's been through a lot as well, too. And yeah, absolutely. So when you get to that friendship phase, I feel it's it's can be beautiful. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Amazing to be open.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, I was just I don't know if this is the right time to ask this question, but there's this belief that um we as a soul, we we chose to come to this life and we choose our family, we choose our siblings, our partners. Do you believe in that or and how what what do you think why your soul chose that that family?

SPEAKER_05 18:16

Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. And I've been to see a lot of people in terms of different modalities. I'm always open to whatever. Like I won't be know this until I taste it, until I have the experience of it. So I've I've been to psychics and mediums and you know, ayahuasca, and I've done I've done so many different things. And there's one woman that I that I met, and she said what she saw when she whatever she was doing, you know. I have no idea what she was doing, but that when I came into this this world or this this body or however she explained it, they asked me, Are you ready to clean up? And she had no idea who who I was, in a sense, in terms of the lineage. She actually said exactly the si uh I think three generations or whatever it was of lineage of the on the male side of the work they haven't done. And supposedly I very enthusiastically jumped into it. You know, if I had known, maybe I wouldn't have done it because I feel I opened that door. I opened that door of of going to the darkness at age 17 when I overdosed on about 150 people at my place. We had a pretty big house. And the year before, we maybe I think we're about a hundred and about eighty of us on shrooms, and it was the best party in the world. I don't know if it's cool that I'm showing this. Of course, perfect party. So the year later, like I loved partying and stuff. The year later, a lot of things happened in that year. My parents divorced, my dad came out and stuff. Same, same party, copy paste, but I I took acid, which is which should be done with your best friends. Isn't that LSD? LSD. Okay. Yeah. So and uh like old school, probably I don't know where it was coming from, but had a triple X on it. You know, there's probably that should have been the sign of like telling you how you watch out, you know. It's like hard. The guy said maybe you should just have half of it. It was like a pet, you know. I took the whole thing, of course, because uh you know, I was uh I can do this. Let's do this. Let's do this. Dive right in, you know.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

That was your first time, right? Like you never done it as well. I've never done it before.

SPEAKER_05 20:08

I'd done like psychedelics and stuff. I did a lot of drugs, let's say, especially like weed smoking and you know, drinking, and I was a chronic, chronic, chronic weed smoker. Um, so that night I feel I dislocated my mind is kind of the image, and I opened up kind of that door to what feels like to the lineage of darkness of work that they maybe had not done. And then this mean motherfucker, this grain, this group, this dark, dark, dark soul I feel came into me. And I've I've since then I've done so much work in terms of cleaning up and going into the dark, sitting in it, dark nights of the soul, swamp lands of the soul, the hero's journey, meditations, like sitting in the shit to be able to clean that up. And now in the past year, I've kind of let that go because it's it's it's it was really, really heavy and depression and darkness and stuff. Um, so all that to say that yes, I do feel, and supposedly I jumped into it enthusiastically. And it does feel that these voices and these presences sometimes inside of me that are very, very critical, that have judged me so many times to like paralysis, you know, where um does not didn't come from me. Like I don't know where they came, and they didn't come from my parents. My parents would never do that to me, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

Do you feel that the when you went to that first experience of LSD, were you running away from something? What m brought you into wanting to experience with these drugs or going all in the way you did? That's so so right on.

SPEAKER_05 21:35

So I I love to party as a kid, and I don't have anything against partying. You know, I think it's great, and when you're kids, like I think the kids actually need to party more these days, to be honest. Like you're staying at home on your phone, like you don't want to leave and like what are you doing here? You know, you're not in a bar or something. Yeah, times have changed. Uh so exactly that in that that year from I think it was December 26, 1996, to the December 26th, 1996. Same party, but a year later, all that happened, and I think I started to smoke weed to forget these emotions, the emotional literacy that you're talking about. I did not have the tools. And as I didn't have the toolkit to go through what okay, what's it like? And I was super homophobic, which is weird. Like I'd I'd work at Simon's and I come back and Chris the Fifth, Kim's parler au jour de like fucking gay guy. Like and I had I'm not saying like now, like I'm totally different, but at that point, gay wasn't what it was when I was you know now, you know. So, like a gay guy on the basketball team or whatever, but it'd been killed, you know. Just like this didn't happen, you know. These are very different times.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Did you feel that way? Even just to make a quick parallel with your dad, did your dad coming out accentuate those feelings? Or you know, um, how did it impact or you already felt like that felt, you know?

SPEAKER_05 22:50

I think unconsciously, maybe I knew my dad was gay. It's so weird that I was that homophobic. And I remember one of my buddies Loupi Louis Pierre, his that I smoked a lot of weed with, his mom, because I'd always say fifth or whatever, it's it's we like bizarre que they OC like it's weird that you're so reactive to gay people, it's like almost exaggerated. So almost I knew, and so he told me six months after he told my sister, because he was so scared of that I wouldn't accept him and my dad. And when he told me, my heart opened up because it was the first time my dad I felt was honest with me. Wow, and and then we we actually really connected, and from there we had a kind of a nice friendship. But then my dad coming out, he used to drive like a Ford Taurus, like Simon's were very not, we don't show but no, yeah, show up. No, no, no, show up. I think Peter still drives like a Rav 4, you know, he's worth like a billion dollars or something, you know. Just like that's not, I'm sure he invested somewhere in other places, but and then my dad got this like this this ambulance, um uh ambulance uh yellow Audi, it's a Scat, Woodsy Escat, and like beautiful loft in Montreal. He's partying, he's smoking weed. Now I'm like, who the fuck is this guy? And like, and then we start to party together, and I go to his parties with 150 gay guys, and I'm like, and I realize free, yeah, being free, and I realized it's it's just as cool getting hit on by a gay guy than a than a girl. I felt good after. I'm like the 22-year-old coming in, and they're like, Oh, who's this kid and stuff? So then I got super long. Well, so it was all judgment in my mind, so it's not homophobic after, and so it really opened my mind up.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

Um but you were still running away from something, so yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:30

So that's that was the source, and that's where that's what led me to drug rehab, is that I was starting to smoke the weed chronically, and and weed for me and we're smoking smoking it that chronically is for sure depression. I mean, it's wake and bake, and then the LSD, and I was getting into stronger drugs, cocaine and shit like that, drinking a lot. These are all depressants, you know. And that's what led me to the fire burning, you know, and out the fire was no longer burning inside of me. And after that exact LSD trip, that's when I called Hugh Fraser. He came to my house and he knew my parents and he saw the state of my house, and he's like, Fuck man, you're in big fucking trouble, you know? Because my mom was like Madame Scrub, like super perfect, and she didn't know the house was she never knew of the parties I cleaned up so well. And and uh, and and that's when I jumped into drug rehab and spent three months in Natsuk and came out and the fire was burning again. I did go back, it took me about 10 years after that to to really get, let's say, sober and a different relationship with with uh with drugs, and and the philosophy was instead of stopping the drugs and alcohol, start health. And I got really, really addicted to health, and that's my new positive addiction that that's transformed my life is breathing, yoga, all the the toolkit that I have now.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

Is it the rehab phase or the beginning of the rehab phase that created the space for you to sit in the dark and discover all that darkness, or was it a bit after the process of the rehab?

SPEAKER_05 25:57

What the rehab did for me, I feel I love saying health is not a belief, health is an experience. So we were three months at in Letzuk, you know, which is in the middle of of nowhere, uh on a lake, now and fishing. I'd I'd spent maybe a weekend in nature in my life. I mean, Quebec City is pretty nature, but not like this. This is deep nature, if you guys know Letzuk, let's say um, and so I'm fishing in the morning now. Uh that's during the rehab. During the rehab rehab, yes. So I'm I'm fishing, you know, sunrise. I saw my first um shooting stars. I'm seeing I'm looking at stars, I'm like, wow, there are stars. I mean, I knew there were stars, but not like this, you know. So that experience, especially when you have Mother Nature on board, like 90% of when you go into nature, 90% of the experience is Mother Nature. And I'd never really connected to, let's say, her wisdom, if we call it that. So coming out of that, that experience still to the day is one of my anchor points. I knew what it was like to feel like that. And that's what I want to all my projects want people to feel that I want you to experience health. So it's a new anchor point that will transform your life forever. You will you will not go back to what it was before. This is a new anchor point in your life. Um, and then the depressions and stuff have to happen more in my 30s.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_05 27:08

Uh, when I when I was faced with chronic ambivalence, uh, you know, starting uh a community wellness center around yoga and meditation and then tai chi and stuff. My family thought I was in a sect and a cult, uh, starting a school for the black community, you know, and it's like okay, you're starting something for the black community. We're like, what's going on? Bringing health and wellness into the workplace. This is in 2006. It was like, what's he doing? You know, so wherever I was going, I wasn't really finding grip inside of me because I didn't have that confidence because I was just I'd failed so much in schooling and stuff. I didn't have the inner confidence that I that I'm smart and I can build something. And then going to people around me, it was just like like they thought I was crazy. Like Scott's doing yoga now, and since he used to do cocaine and whatever, and now he's doing yoga, and he's well, he wants to do a teacher training and he's doing ohms and stuff like that. Okay, Scott's gone crazy. So I and then I was in relationships, a 10-year relationship. I got out of that, and so there was no point. I'm like, okay, and that's the beautiful thing is I needed to go inside and find the inner anchor points that, but I had to the journey to find those were really scary.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

Really, really scary. That's where maybe going back inside studied by sitting in the dark and seeing what's inside.

His Take On Drugs, Ayahuasca & Addiction

SPEAKER_05 28:23

I lived in it. I built a little hotel there, like in the dark, you know, and I tried to turn the light on and there was no electricity, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

There's a lot of people who's currently, you know, experimenting different drugs. And you said one side it opened you up, and then on the other side it brought you into this darkness, this world of darkness. What is your take around people experimenting it? Or what what would you say to these people who want to experiment with it?

SPEAKER_05 28:47

Wow. Because I've I've done a lot of drugs since as well, too, and I I've explored a lot of uh microdosing and a lot of like ayahuasca and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

You wanna maybe die sick, different key ones that have had pivotal impacts, maybe to help you.

SPEAKER_05 29:03

From your own experience, and then the overarching is the context is really important. Okay. Context is really important, like who you're doing it with, of course, where you're getting the the the let's say if we call that a drug or medicine, however you wanna, is super important as well. Too what's your state going into it? Like ayahuasca 30 days before, it's no meat, it's no if you smoke cigarettes or coffee or whatever. These are powerful, powerful medicines that if you if you if you fool around with them, and I've seen people in in ceremony, I've done it maybe five, six times. They're purging. It's like really, and I don't know if it's just the 30 days or something or whatever. So the the music, the ambiance, the are you in nature? Is it cold? Is it hot? Because these will bring you into altered states that if you're not equipped, you can go into psychosis, you can go, you can open something up that might bring you to schizophrenia, you know. So there are always risks, of course.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Do you think that you you you kind of were on the edge of that when you definitely took that LSD?

SPEAKER_05 30:02

Definitely, and you know what would have been the side effects. You know, I I don't think I'm bipolar for sure, but I've I'm definitely like I don't go into manic, but I definitely go into depressed. I can and I I I can slip into that quite easily, you know. I can believe things from my mind that that can paralyze me pretty easily.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Um it might stem from that dark experience from that, probably the chronic weed smoking as well, too.

SPEAKER_05 30:27

As much as I weed, once again, it's a it's it's it's a tool, like chat GPT can be used for that, or can be used for this. You know, weed can be used for that. And now what's great with when we were kids, I'm just looking at you guys, like the THC was like 35, you know, or whatever. And you had the uh what is called ice age or whatever the can't remember what it's called, then you didn't know. Now you can go to uh actually scude say and say, I want a bit of THC and I want this and that. You can play around with it, and then you can experiment. Okay, this is good for me, and I'm not gonna be able to do based on the delicate, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

I need to so it's but not use it as a crutch and as a habit, and and that is you know, there's definitely weed to me smokers in this.

SPEAKER_05 31:04

So I feel good when now you're in trouble. Like when somebody comes back from an ayahuasca trip or whatever, and they say, Oh, I I need I I can't wait till the next one. I'm like, ee, yeah, you know, if it's maybe you know, like now, now I've done it several times. I don't need I've done heroes dose on shrooms and stuff like that. Maybe, but I'm not rushing back, you know, because if it's when I'm on this, I feel good and not when then you're in trouble, then it's an addiction.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

I love the way you bring that up because we had an encounter with uh a mutual friend that we share or from uh Aquarians, where we had a conversation around these experiences because I remember back in 2019, me and Alex were supposed to go to ayahuasca and then COVID hit early 2020. 2022 actually is one, it almost went exactly, and then they had to push back the date, and when it came back, we were supposed to go, but something happened again. But they got pregnant, I think. Yeah, and later on we had the conversation a little something happened, probably good I don't know what I mean, but it's probably good. So ayahuasca was a I'm I don't know. No, absolutely not exactly and then the person was talking about, I think when we were talking about potentially doing it, I think it was like I'm I might I may be wrong on the exact number, but it was as high as like I I did it almost 12 times, you know. And then he was talking about how he kind of lost a bit of anchor into what reality means because of those different experiences that he had, and it affected him in a sense of sometimes he would question am I actually in reality as he would be awake, not in the experience of ayahuasca, right? So when you said the context matters and who are you surrounded by and what you do that precedes this, it's a huge thing because a lot of times uh there's sensational reactions towards you see a little one-minute clip of high and ayahuasca experience on Instagram, you're like, Oh my god, I want to experience what you do. You don't have the full context on how to approach it to have a positive outcome. And what are you expecting to gain out of this? Why are you desiring to change?

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Like, are you running away from something or are you going towards something because you want to expand, or are you trying to um what's that word? Uh suppressing suppress, yeah. What's the intention behind it?

SPEAKER_05 33:20

And then what I love saying when I give conferences, uh, often around nutrition or whatever it is, like what am I feeding? Like, what is this feeding? Is this feeding the best version of myself? Is it feeding some form of reaction? You know, so ayahuasca is a whole thing, but like the the weed or the drinking, you know, that's happening. The first dream I'm feeding celebration. You want a beer with the boys, let's say second, third, fourth beer. Am I still feeding celebration? Or is it now is it an addiction? Is it an old pattern? Is it stress that I want to get rid of? And that's where the traps are. And they're really everywhere in our in our society at the moment. I mean, I feel everybody's an addict, you know. I'm just showing my phone here like that, and totally addicted to my phone. I see the algorithm now, gone from social media to interest media. Yeah, and attention media should be like watching my friends a cat, or you know, I eat this today. I'm like, okay, that doesn't really interest me, but now it's like jujitsu or it's a personal development. I'm seeing like, well, okay, it's it's it's highly addictive. So, what is that when I go to the wild, wild web? You know, what if what am I doing? Wild wild web. What am I what are my fear? What do you put after the dot? You know, you can go anywhere, you know. Is it feeding my the best version of myself or some reaction or proaction, pro or amateur?

SPEAKER_01 34:28

You know, it's hard to fight against the machine.

SPEAKER_06 34:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

I think that's the best advice I've heard in my life when it comes to going in the direction of drugs. Sometimes you'll hear one glass of wine a week is you know, it's like surface level thing, but what are you feeling after the first one? After the first puff or the first attempt because you're trying to be cool with friends and have a puff of weed. The next one, what is it feeling? Yeah, like an hour.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

If you're at a party or we're hanging out and you're smoking every hour, like what is the telling someone do or not do?

SPEAKER_03 35:04

It allows you to reflect and find the answers yourself.

SPEAKER_05 35:09

Because the answer is very pretty black and white. It's like the best version of me or the worst. Let's say if you whatever your two things are there's maybe a little gray zone, like you know, lentils these days. People are like, oh, maybe it's not, you know, like there's some things that are they good or bad, but pretty much it's like, okay, my my la prochaine, the next drink I'm having, like the first one was for celebration, second, like third, are we still celebrating here, bro?

SPEAKER_02 35:33

Are you trying to please?

SPEAKER_05 35:34

Yeah, please try to please, trying to forget, you know.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

There's also some people who are doing it because they use it as like a to get more creative or to help them get into those states. And I think those are good too, but I think something to consider is at what point are you using as a crutch? So when you don't have that, can you get into that state? And is that where you want to be with something that you're feeding or how you want to feed that, right?

SPEAKER_05 35:57

Yeah, and that brings me to to Osho. Osho is super controversial. I I love his wisdom, and uh, we uh if people know him, is there's there's controversy behind him. But one thing he says is the awareness and discipline. So the the if you're too aware and not disciplined enough, you become what he says, like schizophrenic, but not uh officially, but too analysis paralysis, there are too many things, reading too much on the internet, like nutrition, carnivore, uh paleo, uh this vegan, vegetarian, no fruit, just fruit, and you get lost too much awareness. You know, if you're too disciplined and not aware enough, then it's too rigid. You have to have 15 blue blueberries every single day, or else you're gonna die, you know. These days, way too much awareness I feel on the planet, not enough discipline. So you're getting that schizophrenic. So now when I feel I'm too much in the mind, get back into the body. If I'm too much in the body and I'm injured, like I've trained too hard, bring the awareness back up. Because there's such an intelligence in the body, and if you're not connected to that through the breath or whatever it is, uh like the the mind has has beautiful wisdom as well, but connecting to the body, connecting to the heart. And the more you practice and the more you do whatever your practice is, instead of your mind running your life, it's the heart that starts to run, and you have a heart-driven life instead of a mind-driven and that presence, that present moment that you need to check in back in with yourself, that sometimes of that beer, this information, how is it made is it feeding my soul or is it feeding something else?

SPEAKER_01 37:27

And if we learn, it's the awareness is the tools again at 17 years old, you know, there's not a lot of tools, but um, I think people um would probably benefit on just being more aware of how they feel and how they're in touch with themselves because then they can make better decisions.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

I also think that like it's a like understanding why you're seeking that information as well, and like because there's just so many beliefs, opinions, and yeah, perspectives. And I my my my biggest rule is anything that I believe or follow that brings me further away from the people I love, bring me further away from society, bring further me away from the people that I want to be around, it's probably not the belief or the system or the the f like the the culture that I want to follow.

Self-Awareness, Discipline & Regulating The Nervous System

SPEAKER_01 38:13

So is it taking you towards love or away from love if love is the highest frequency and vibration?

SPEAKER_03 38:18

But you know, if we want to play the devil's advocate for our listeners, uh, because we may seem to be so advanced in the in this kind of conversation for someone who may relate to what we're saying, how do you make the balance of self-awareness and discipline? Because it sounds like, oh yes, that's the good path to try to find a balance, but how do you even get into that journey of recognizing that one is too much uh accentuated and you need to balance it out? How what would you give as an advice for that?

SPEAKER_05 38:48

I mean, in my case, it's it's quite simple, you know, 40 to 60,000 thoughts a day. If you're stuck in the past or in the future, or you're feeling inferior or superior, which is kind of the definition of ego. If you're starting to judge yourself or judge other people, you're in too much awareness. Your mind's taking over in I feel um not a way that's contributing to your growth. So, right away, right away I feel that get back into the body. And I'm not talking about a marathon, I'm talking like 25 jumping jacks. You know, the priority of the brain is to make the body move. So the second you move, you're tapped back into the body. Breath management, brain management, nervous system management, analysis, paralysis, I'm stuck in the past, the future, judgment, whatever it is. One conscious breath, that beautiful relationship between the diaphragm and the heart. You know, so now the breath is starting to cradle the heart, the heartbeat is beating differently, which is sending signals to all the systems in the body. Scott's okay, he's not stuck in the past or the future, our judgment. You don't have to go into fight, flight, freeze. Anytime you're feeling you're fighting, flighting, or freezing, you know, anything like that, get back into the body. You're in the primal circuits in the brain, and it's not the executive functioning or the heart that's running your life. So it's really biofeedback, you know, and we we have all these watches and stuff like that. I've got one on, so they're not judging the the watches. The real biofeedback, close your eyes, bro, or girl, whatever it is, and just feel the body. The body is waiting to give you signals, it's it wants you to come back to homeostasis, to to equanimity, to to be balanced. All you have to do is give it the opportunity to do so. Normally, the only opportunity we have is when we're in deep sleep, but now you can kind of, I don't like this word, but hack the brain and body to do it during the day, where you come back, you go to the gym after the gym, you're calm, the body's recharging naturally. You do the four breaths that we did before that. We took four breaths out of the 20,000, and you're like, Whoa, it feels so good. I'm like, whoa, it feels four breaths, just that realigns the chemistry in the body. So once you start to experience, as I mentioned, health isn't a belief, it's an experience. So this person that's maybe okay, what's the awareness discipline thing? Increase the discipline just a bit, start to feel what it likes, the freedom that comes from discipline, and you'll see you won't be able to go back to the old Scotty or the old version of yourself because you're starting to taste that freedom. Wow, wow, wow.

SPEAKER_03 41:05

I I feel like I almost gonna need to drop the mic.

What To Do When Your Mind Goes Into Overdrive

SPEAKER_01 41:10

I um it reminded me of something that I do sometimes. I work, we actually we all work at the same co-working space, and I have a lot of energy running through me. I can definitely get caught up in my mind. And I found something that what I can do to change that state is I will go into the bathroom and I will close the door and I will put my earbuds on and I will put music that I love, and I'm literally gonna start dancing for two to three minutes. And coming out of there, it will automatically change my state when I've been to it's a feeling. And yeah, it's weird, but as I was doing that, I'm like, man, I wish I had that in a corporate space, for example. When I was, I could just escape for a second, change my energy state. Not everybody, again, you have to know yourself, not everybody has this much energy. Some people are need something different. Some people maybe need to listen to jazz music or they just need to take a walk. To me, I need to move so I can change my state. So that's one thing that I do to short circuit when I'm too overloaded. Yeah. Do you have an example that you could share that you've often go went back to when you get okay, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is an overdrive. Mine is running an overdrive.

SPEAKER_05 42:20

I mean daily, it happens, you know. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I have all kinds of things, but the first thing to say is that you know, 18 plus, your state is your responsibility. Yeah, like you know, that's 18 years old and plus, yeah, yeah. That's an adult or whatever. And I could even start earlier. So let's say, oh, I'm watching CNN and I'm feeling stressed out or whatever. Well, that bro, that's that's your state. That's your responsibility. You know, I'm I'm feeling tired, that's your responsibility. I you know, and I get it to the kids and this and that, whatever it is, still it's your responsibility. You know, so a thousand percent like my depressions, my addictions, all that now it's a hundred percent my and that's why mom and dad, it's got nothing to do with you guys. It's really all on me, you know. So that's the first thing that I think that's the first step. Own it, yeah, accept it. This is you know, like it's not the news, it's not your parents or you're overweight, you know. And and and and I say this in front of people when I'm on stage. My struggle is mental health. Like you look at me, I'm 6'2, 205 strong, you know, but you can't take an x-ray of the mind. So so my struggle is is mental health. Sometimes I'm walking in and I'm Shaddazen Shaizulant. I'm like in a wheelchair mentally, but people can't see that, you know, because you can't see that. You know, and 33% of people in in Canada are close to depression. So 33% of people are at least on crutches, you know. So that's the first step. And then be seeing as it's your responsibility, if you're incoherent and you're reactive and you're stuck in the reptilian brain, how to get out of that. Move, breathe, dance, whatever it is. Mine can be the cold, but you know, you know, and if the cold is really good for you, some people, you know, now everybody's doing the cold thing because of Andrew Huberman or whatever, but they're probably maybe causing more harm because. They're in the cold and it's increasing that they don't know how to manage the breath. You know, the cold can be really good for myself. I go in the cold and I look like I'm in a jacuzzi. I'm so calm. Yeah. Because I'm practicing my Jediism, I'm practicing my sensei of my nervous system. But other people go in and they panic. And now just cortisol, adrenaline through the roof.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Women blame themselves for oh my god, I can't do it, and they can. What's wrong with me? Exactly. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 44:22

Women in your cycle, you know, like at some points in the cycle, the cold isn't good for you. But but that's that's your responsibility, it's your biofeedback. What I do, anything cardio, anything that's going to change my breath, because every breathing pattern has, and with AI, they're figuring that out, has an emotion. So if I'm feeling anxious, it's because my breath is breathing anxiously. So if I go for a 20-minute run, yeah, okay, there's a there's a stressful run, but after that, for sure, my breath is changing. It's like a when I'm running, my breath is changing for sure. It's much more into the sympathetic nervous system energy. So whatever I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do something that's gonna change my breathing pattern to bring it back from an incoherent state into a coherent state.

How Breathing Changes Your State

SPEAKER_02 45:02

It's crazy he's talking about breath because we have the the the company that is at the synchor skin space at us, the the technology that they're creating is not to measure breath and to analyze the exactly.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

And I think they're even books on um there's books about how we don't know how to breathe. Like we're supposed to be breathing through our nose, but the fact that a lot of us are breathing through our mouth that it's creating a lot of health issues. Do you have any uh to take on that or any tips on that?

What His Mentor Saw In Him

SPEAKER_05 45:27

Totally. I mean, uh there's a great book called Uh Breath by James Nestor, James Clear, I think is Atomic Habits and James Nestor is uh always get them mixed up. It's a yellow book. Yes, wonderful, wonderful book. If you wanna if you're a uh mouth breather and you're open to breathing through the mouth, read this book, and urgently you'll you'll see it can change your face. I mean, there are 25 more benefits at least. One of them is nitric oxide, which is a vasodilator, it's actually an ingredient in Viagra, so it's it's good for opening up the veins. But this is the veins that bring oxygen to your brain, 20% more oxygen through the nose, much more conscious. I mean, it's breathing through the mouth is like eating through the brain, uh, through the nose. It's like weird. Unless you're in cardio or really extreme cardio, and now there are guys that are doing marathons only breathing through the nose. I mean, wow, chapeau, uh, or a breathing technique, you shouldn't be breathing through the mouth. Yeah, maybe exhaling through the mouth, but definitely inhaling through the nose. I mean, the nose was made to breathe. It's more hydrated, it's more uh not hydrated. Filters and captures and filters. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So just yeah, breathe through the nose.

SPEAKER_03 46:34

You know, you said that Stiv, your mentor, he brought you, he introduced you to holistic health, yoga meditation, and stuff. But he also said something that I think it's super important because yes, he introduced you to this, but why? What did he see in you that you couldn't see in yourself at the time?

SPEAKER_05 46:52

I think with uh with any I'll say a master or a guru, I mean Steve would he's passed on now, but he's he wouldn't we use those words. It's the namaste type of thing, you know. Uh with they you see the light in other people once you started to taste the light, like I see it in everybody in a sense. I see potential. I always start at 10 on 10 with anybody if you can lose my trust or whatever. What a privilege. But you know, but I I just see potential wherever I look. That's why I love people so much. So I think that's a it's a side effect of a side effect of the practice or something like that. And I think he has this beautiful gift inside of him. He and when he was 22, he he traveled the world, so he he'd be he was 30 years older than me. So he went to around the world Fiji and with the lepers in in India. So his heart was open really, really young. So I think that heart opened, once your heart is open, and you and and then the real discipline is making sure it doesn't close. But Steve definitely had had an open heart, so you just see, and if and I even if I told him to fuck off at times or whatever it was, he had so much empathy and so much compassion. He comes in so much love, you know. That I mean, love that that love is what would love do is a great question. What would love do is keep loving, you know. Yeah he wouldn't do the wars and the reactions and then blue against red and the vax against non-vaxx. That's so stupid. Yeah, it's so polarizing, yeah. There's no love in that.

Depression, Ambivalence & Suicidal Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Yeah, it sounds like he had a soul contract with you, like he's like meant to come here to help you. But um, you mentioned that you had a few major depressions over the past decade, and I was running, it seemed like you were able to, every time you get into it, you're able to get yourself out of it. And it sounded like you were doing you're talking about some of those practices, but were there common triggers that got you into it every time that we can, I guess, kind of be aware of or look out for?

SPEAKER_05 48:41

Yeah, in in my case, my not trusting my gut and my mind taking over. So I made a lot of decisions around that are very irrational uh from the gut, like leaving a 10-year relationship with a woman I was in love with who had asked her to marry me, and the gut was my body was saying no, you know, it was just shutting off. And this was like my the my late 20s, early 30s. So going in that opposite direction into what I felt was a real hero's journey. And a hero's journey is you go into the forest where no man has gone before. And I truly felt I did that. I didn't have a compass, I didn't have a map. I you know, I'd left Simons behind, I left so many identities that I was addicted to, masks and stuff, and I went into that forest alone, you know. Um physically or metaphorically enough. Metaphorically metaphorically, it's a good, it's a good, very good, very, very, very good question. Uh audience that which forest can be. I wonder what forest. I cannot get on him, you know. Um, I mean, I did it sometimes, but definitely metaphorically. It's a good good question. Um, and then the thing is that I go into that the forest uh metaphorically, and then I doubt my decision. I didn't go back on it. And so one thing that I can't hold on to now at age 48 is ambivalence. And ambivalence is a beautiful word, so ambi means two, you know, and valence means valar, it means your strength, you know, your value, let's say. So equivalence means you're equivalent, you're like you're you're being you know where you're going, it's clear, and yeah, that posture. You know, if you've got a posture, clear posture in your life, ambivalence is your strength is going two directions or more. Yes. When I feel that now, and it's you waste so much energy going back and forth, back and forth. I did it with relationships, I did it with organic, my company I had for 18 years. I want to go into corporations, and then no, I don't want to. It's too tough, it's too dark, and I feel too weird going into a law firm and talk, telling them to breathe consciously, and they're looking at me like, who the fuck is this guy?

SPEAKER_04 50:40

You know.

SPEAKER_05 50:41

Um, so ambivalence is what would often bring me into the depressions, and they keep me there because I'd then I get into analysis paralysis, and I wouldn't know what the truth was anymore. Is it the gut feeling? Because the ego can wear the mask of the gut feeling easy, you know, like you so the gut feeling is like it can be like what is the so the discernment was really really key. And to do solid discernment, you need solid data. But solid data can be anything. Where is it really coming from? Oh, I feel this, okay. Yeah, one sec. Did you feel it after a stay after a party, or did you feel it after a 20-minute meditation or something like that?

SPEAKER_03 51:17

Or after uh an emotional uh unbalance, exactly, you know, and I couldn't so I didn't know what to trust anymore.

SPEAKER_05 51:23

I didn't know who to trust anymore, and Steve and Steve, I didn't trust anymore, so now you're lost. And this is when the suicidal thoughts can start to come in. Where you're like, okay, my 40 to 60,000 thoughts per day, depression, they say 90% of your thoughts are the same thoughts as yesterday. And these are like I can say, like mean motherfucker thoughts, like you're a piece of shit, go kill yourself, you're not worth it, you're stupid. And this was me getting on stage sometimes that I had this motherfucker inside of my head or giving a yoga class, and I'd still show up for some reason. There was something inside of me, it's the Scottish spirit or something as the warrior of a Viking, something that kept me doing it, kept and kept me through, and I've and I'm here today. But trust me, if I was in the States with how close guns are to you, I would not be here. And it's not that I wanted to kill. I'm hopefully I'm not getting too dark, but no, it's got that I wanted to kill myself, I wanted to kill the voice inside my eyes. That's who I wanted to kill. And even to the day, if that voice walks through the door, I mean I'm jujitsu and muita and stuff like that. I I'd fucking destroy that voice. That voice, yeah, totally. It's annoying, it's it's it's constant. It's really like uh Neo and the Matrix, you know, like the the more I fought with it, the more I would multiply. And now I've turned I've realized I think you know, I'm still in it. I'm turning around, the bullets are coming at me, and they're not even bullets, it's even they're they're illusions. I can stop bullets, you know. Exactly. Are you dodging? Yeah, I was dodging them for a while, but then you get hit a bit, and then you realize, what am I dodging? It's just me with me, it's my own stories. You know, it's like, and it's not it's nobody else's responsible. This is where I come back to it's me, it's my own stories, nobody else's responsibility. Like anxiety is good, but the story you you kick all, like the the brain is Teflon for the positive and velcro for the negative. So you're anxious, but then you've it anxiety has velcro all around it, it's like a little tennis ball of Velcro, let's say, and then you've got this story that's stuck to it, but really, really good velcro, and now that story is stuck to it, and it's just multiplying the anxiety. So anxiety is beautiful, like like weather. Every weather is beautiful if you're if you've got the coat and whatever, uh cite equipe, if you're if you've got the the the equip to to deal with that, great. If not, and the stories multiplies on that. I mean, I've been stuck sometimes for months with one stupid fucking story.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

I had I would say one major depression. And what I call depression is that you cannot make sense of things. And absolutely those suicidal thoughts came in, but not because I actually wanted to die, but the pain of my thoughts was so heavy that I didn't know, you know, I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this. Is you start imagining your funeral, who would show up, right? And and if you go back to the Tony Robbins teachings of the world, is really this core question of am I enough? Am I lovable? And then that all of these different ideas and and and thoughts just spin out of that core need and belief that a lot of us all humans have. And in my case, it was similar to your case. I left a I had a series of situationships in my life, and then the first person that um right right before my current significant other, my soulmate, there's someone that played a very important role. He's sitting across the table. Absolutely. Um but I do think, and we've spoken about this many times, that the person right before my ex, who was the first official, it was a spatism Facebook relationship that the world knew about, you know, it lasted maybe about a year and a half. He opened my heart. He was the first person to show me what it means to be unconditionally loved. Also, he wasn't the person for me. We both uh acknowledge how much importance we played in each other's life. But that gut feeling kicked in of this isn't it. Oh my god, and I left the relationship. I went to it was great, and two months later. Oh my god. I questioned. It was six months of this basically everything, all the thoughts that led to who would be at my funeral if ever I could just leave this planet because I don't know, and it's existential questions almost. It's not like grief when someone dies and you can pinpoint how much you miss them or you lost a business. It's almost like but I left the relationship. I don't understand. What why what's what's happening? You cannot make sense of things, and that's what I would call you know, more of a depression. Um, because we all go through hardships, you know. You become a parent, then your life gets, but you can pinpoint to a season in your life, but when something happens, especially if you've initiated, like leaving a relationship, um sometimes I think it's just what our soul has to go through and what these people have come and uh initiated in our path, and there's a bigger purpose behind it. And you know, someone asked me, and maybe you know, in this specific case situation, how did you get through it? Maybe it's meds. I've heard people who have gone through it, but maybe you just have to take it one day at a time and put one step in front of the other. And of course, we could elaborate into that, but sometimes there's not there's one thing that needs to do. It doesn't have to be ayahuasca, it doesn't have to be um uh a psychiatrist, it can just be one day at a time.

The Hero’s Journey Through Darkness

SPEAKER_03 56:56

You know what's crazy is uh I want to share something about the hero's journey because you said something that I resonate with so much because I went through that journey at a po at a pivotal point in my life, which is I had a knee injury that turned into a four years of darkness of being in crotches and cane, being uh on stuck on meds before I used to say the doctors because they were prescribing morphines for four years, the dose increasing all the time. But today I own up to the responsibility of the addiction that got created, and I could say my mind was uh uh increasing and also that desire of wanting home, but also the body, because you know those drugs could be addictive. But at some point where I couldn't take it anymore, I went into this existential crisis of who am I beneath the skin behind the physical experience, and I completely disconnected from the world for an entire year, going through that hero's journey, that forest, that darkness inside. Listen, I disconnected from sex, from everything that would tie me to the life that I had to be able to see what's really hiding. I remember I would come out of work and getting home before going on the floor and training at home. I would stand in front of the bathroom mirror and look at myself for five, ten, fifteen minutes and starting pouring, cry, talking to seeing the being within moving and swearing back and talking to it, and it created what you would call this dark space inside where I would be able to retrieve, seat, get comfortable, but get humble into accepting who I truly am, what I'm truly doing, and being aware, and it's crazy how I feel that this hero's journey revealed a version of myself that I am today where I think I got connected with my guides because the way I see myself today, there's a new soul that emerged, and there's this idea of there's a certainty that I live life with today, but there's also this constant battle between okay, like you said, when you're too much into the mind overthinking, going back to sit inside of the darkness and re question wait, what are you doing? Who are you? And I think there's a when you can go through this hero's journey, there's a beautiful space that exists there that creates so much humbleness and so much feeling of being grateful for different things because it helps you not only think in a different way, but also not take life for granted.

SPEAKER_05 59:44

But just just on that, just quick, quick the hero's journey. I feel collectively we I don't know if we're on a hero's journey or or we're resisting it, but there's such an opportunity at the moment to go into it collectively and and accept the darkness that that's there. Yeah, I think maybe we're in it or something, like or for sure something's going on. You feel it, right? Yeah, yeah, there's yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's and it is healthy when people say, Oh, we're going to a recession, this and that, I'm like, we're in a depression, you know. I mean, it's it's it's way beyond recession for me. You know, it's uh so but what an opportunity to embrace the dark, to find the light, and to come together and and find solutions that because this is the first time in humanity that we're facing these things, so there's no map, there's no that's the hero's journey. If there was a map, you wouldn't be on it. Absolutely. And the thing with the hero's journey is you go into the to the forest and you find something that no man has found before, some like a gem or a teaching, and that and and then the responsibility kicks in. Now you have to go back to the through the forest into the marketplace or into your community where you won't be accepted, and now you have to be humble enough, as you said, to wait and to get oh, being judged and this and that until they wake up and now they're ready for your teaching. So, so what we're going through now is is such a beautiful opportunity to get that teaching and then come back to these next generations or whatever it is, because now it's the first time in the history of humanity that the next generation may not have a life expectancy as as as much as their parents. So that's what we're leaving as a legacy for the first time in humanity. What an opportunity to switch that around.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:18

And you think we can change that?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:20

I know we can. Will we do it? Yeah, it's the awareness and the discipline.

Why Life Expectancy Is Falling & What’s Happening To Society

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

You know, can we talk about that? Like, what is uh uh adding to that shorter life expectancy, like what's happening right now for those who are not aware?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:32

Um I mean for sure AI and and drugs and medicine could could come into the game, but I think it's the the microplastics, it's the stress, it's the anxiety. You're looking at these next generations that are getting burnt out at age 11, you know, and anxiety attacks at age 12. And you know, so that that's gonna that's gonna affect our system. For sure it's gonna affect your life expectancy. Um we're going right at it, like a thousand miles an hour, and the brakes are there and everything's there. It's a will we do it. That's you know, the will we match the awareness with the discipline. What I'm loving about these next generations, like I went into corporations for 18 years, and at the beginning, you could see the corporate cultures were very old school, and health wasn't when I see this, these new generations. I was gonna point to you, but you I realized uh how old you are, you know, like 30, I'll still point at you. Much more conscious and much more fuck it. I'm not going down the 35-year-old career that's feeding an old system. You know, I'm not going to feed, I'm not gonna buy stuff from a company that's cutting down trees, you know. So that awareness and they're matching with the discipline. It's not that we just need that next generation. We are it's more of a psychographic than a demographic. It's what are we waking up between our brains? And anybody can have that wake up, you know. Baby boom is starting to wake up a bit more. Like that's a lot. If they wake up and say, okay, we're changing things, they have so much power, so much money, they're leaving so much legacy and this and that. What are they gonna do with that? Will they conspire, which is a beautiful word, which means breathe together? Conspiracy means breathe together. It's not a bad word. Will we all conspire with these new generations and come together and put all this experience together to build these new things that could happen really, really fast? You saw the the the rise of commute communism and how how fast it fell. It fell, you know, with the Reagan era and this and that. Yeah, you know, so things can change just how much people were smoking cigarettes, you know. They used to be and now it's gone, you know. I mean, I think it's coming back. It can happen really, really fast. And people are more powerful than profit, people are more powerful than politics. It's all about the people coming together, and it's it's not eight billion, it's probably like a tipping point, would be it's probably like 500,000 or a million of people, but really I'm not I'm not gonna feed the system anymore. I'm not going to work. The banks would probably crumble. You say the people that are running it, they know a few days of people not working, the whole thing's gonna crumble.

What He Saw In Northern Communities

SPEAKER_01 1:03:50

It's like now I think we're in a this is my feeling, and based on my own experience, right? Um, there is a level of awareness that is slowly but surely spreading, and then the discipline will have to come in so that we can rebuild this world. Maybe not our generation, maybe our kids' generation. You know, we we we're the ones who are sort of setting the the playground, and then they will come and rebuild. But we're doing a lot of the fucking hard work because we're holding the light, you know. And at first, that you mentioned it in our previous conversations, you know, you went into so many different systems with your little light. And I want to honor you for that as a human. My headlamp. And there's a lot of people like us out there. And I think the one most important thing that we can do is to just hold on to that light, you know, the light workers of the world as we, you know, we just work with the light, we don't work with the darkness. It's not easy, but how rewarding and beautiful it is to just shed some light. And you can do that on a big level where you build a business and you do like what you've done, Desta and going up north with the Inuit.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:03

Can we talk about that? Actually, I would love to hear your experiences about that. So, what did you when you went into those? Can you talk about those communities and what did you see? And what did you experience?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:12

That was at the beginning of my my journey into health and wellness. Uh, I think it was my first, let's say, clinical depression, and it was amplified when I went up there. Um, just seeing the what I it's strong words, but a modern day genocide in a sense, almost, you know, that we raped them physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, culturally. We forced them from a nomadic lifestyle into sedentary. In big cities, you don't see really the side effects as much of this neo capitalistic model that's you know it's really point one percent dominating, you know, the rest. Um unless you go to like Saint Arain, Ontario, you'll see people picking up, you know, like taking drugs and stuff. When it's a village of three hundred people and there are maybe 50 jobs. So there are 250 people that don't have jobs. And then the government's just giving them money because they feel guilty for what they did to them. And they're taking that money and putting into drugs that you know the white man's bringing up, unfortunately. And we forced our religion onto them. So I really um I was going out there to bring yoga. So I'm a white guy bringing another religion up north. So it was really, really rough. It wasn't easy. I'd love to go back now. It would be such it would be much more of a co-creation. Um uh so the north I think amplified the darkness that I was seeing. It probably brought me deeper into depression, unfortunately. Uh, because now I was really getting discouraged about humanity. Um, and the next one was going into corporations, and that's where in terms of a lot for the soul to bear. Yeah, it was it was a lot. And I was I was uh the ambivalence with my girlfriend at that point was going on as well, too. So once again, when I'm talking about grips, I just didn't know where to find them. That was the first time that you Yeah, that was real darkness was starting to come in. Um, and I didn't know how and where to find the light. And at the moment, when I'm looking at the landscape of the hero's journey opportunity that we have collectively and individually, and when I look at the stats and when I coach people and I and I see it's probably a strong word, but how lazy we are. You know, 95% of us don't do 30 minutes of movement per day, that's 2% of your day. 50% do zero minutes of movement every single day. And then we wonder why we have this pandemic of of stress, anxiety, fear, disconnection, and this and that. And I know that the side effect of individual lack of taking responsibility is is what's creating the collective. And I say, like, if 95% of the people aren't taking responsibility, that's where I wonder. Like, but that opportunity, it's simple, it's not easy. Simple does not mean easy, but that's why my mission is to inspire these people, you know, 1% a day, 2% a day, and and even it's and it's not to get dark again. But one of the suicidal moments that I had, I wanted it to almost be um a statement, like Scotty, that's done so much for the planet almost makes me emotional, but it's just like, and he's taken his life. Let's practice for him, let's do it for him, type of thing. I knew that ripple effect because I know so many people. And if I had if I had taken my life, you know, in terms of I've gone so far in the darkness, maybe that would have been a wake up, and the legacy out of that action might have been okay, maybe I'm I'm gonna wake up those 500,000 people, a million people to finally take the action needed so we get out of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:32

But you know what? Your soul is probably here on earth to do something that requires your presence, which is and what saved me was my was my sister.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:42

Like I I still and this always makes me emotional, but in terms of knocking on the door and her getting that call, I I can't do that to my sister, you know. It's like so thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:51

When you say knocking on the door, getting that call, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:54

Like that your brother's killed himself.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:56

I hear yeah, yeah, that's what it's like.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:57

Like, I I wouldn't have been able to live with that, you know. Um doing doing that to my my mom, my mom, okay, because you know, but my sister, because she has more life left, yeah. We love each other so much, or so and her kids and stuff like that. It would it I just wouldn't have been able to do that.

Why He Created DESTA Black

SPEAKER_03 1:09:12

And speaking of again that journey, uh, how did you create Desta Black and why?

What Be Human Club Is Really About

SPEAKER_05 1:09:19

So so Desta, so Steve and I started the community, it was called the Padua Community Center, was this old church that was to be transformed into the what they called the new church. That was the mandate. I'm so I'm really not a church guy, and it's funny, I've done a lot of things in church, so maybe there's a message to do. Um so the yeah, the mandate was new church, and this is when you brought in meditation and uh all kinds of different modalities, uh religions and this and that and practices. And Little Burgundy at the time was the highest concentration of low-income housing in North America, very, very black, a lot of gangs, a lot of drugs, a lot of prostitution. And I knew I wanted to give back because now I was in my maybe 24, 24, 25, 26, I can't remember exactly, but I wanted to give that authentic experience that I got in drug rehab back to the community in Little Burgundy. So I walked around Little Burgundy and I met this wonderful woman, Frances Waith, Rastafarian, sat down with her and said, How can I give back? And she said, There's so many services for zero to 17, but nothing 18 plus. So we wrote this grant, got$250,000 from Human Resource Canada, and started that's the Black Youth Network with entrepreneurship, employability, and and I'm so humbled to the because coming from Quebec City, there are like 1.6 black people, and when I was a kid, and by now that I know this culture so well, the talent, the creativity, the smile, like when when I when I feel I just see the black community smiling, it's just it's the food, the this and that. And I'm just so humbled and honored and privileged to know this community so well and to have helped them indirectly or directly directly. It's one of the most beautiful projects I've ever worked on. And you know, I to the day Desta is is continuing to help out the community, and and and it's and it's a wonderful project.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:07

Is would you say Desta is a precursor to what be what became Be Human Club? Can you tell us a bit about Be Human Club? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What it is, what you're working on today, because like you said, you talked so many points. You're someone who's so focused on helping, but today you chose a very specific name, B B. I want to let it sit for a second for people, and human. Yeah, tell us about that.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:31

So be human, I think, is kind of um a popori, let's say, of of all of that corporate a good melting pot, melting pot, yeah, inuid population, my experience with the black community, my own depressions, this and that, and and looking around and seeing so much inhumanity going on. And this was 2018 when I started it, and I I was I also had finished Al Gore's climate leadership training. So I was looking at the planet as well, too, whether you believe in it or not. But I'm like, whoa, this is we're destroying the planet, and we can do so much better. I felt that the Onitari Shek, we are failing as humanity individually and collectively. Once again, the systems are just not at the service of people purpose planet. Ecopreneur is profit at the service of people purpose planet, not people purpose planet at the service of profit, you know, and that's what we've been doing. We've been serving profit, which is an illusion and a growth, and what's my shares and shareholders and this and that, and this this infinite supposedly model on a finite planet. It just doesn't make sense, you know. So I wanted to start Be Human Club, which is around when you introduce often people say, I'm an engineer, I'm this, or LGBTQ, and all these letters and this and that. Great, it's all good. I'm nothing against that, but let's have this human-to-human conversation. Well, like, and what does it mean to be human? Does it mean war? Does it mean serving the archaic systems? Does it mean building a business that will destroy the planet? Or does it mean conscious business, proactive, purpose-driven, human-driven? Does it mean seeking first to understand before being understood in a conversation? Okay, that's your experience. You're black, I'm white. Okay, that's your experience. Oh, you like basketball too, or whatever it is. We realize that we have so much more in common other than our skin color. You know, I'm I'm looking forward to the day where skin color is gonna be like hair color and we don't really care about it. It doesn't matter at all, you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:21

Um, so that's the Behuman Club, and now it's a community of you know, it's a community of human beings that are on mission on purpose. It doesn't yell like you don't have to have a yeah, you don't have to operate from love. It doesn't have to have a non-profit or whatever it is. It's kind of like, you know, run clubs these days are taking off and it's the new Tinder and whatever, you know, and you don't have to, it's all it's 5K, you know, which is kind of the minimum run, you know. So yeah, you have to go there and then after they're having coffee and this and that. So our minimum 5k of the of the Behuman Club is your leading with love or your purpose-driven, or whatever it is, that's how you get through the door, you know. If you're if you're not at that 5K and you're reactive and fuck the world and you want to talk about conspiracies and this and that or whatever, it's not gonna happen here. It's just not gonna, it's a that there's dissonance there, it's low frequency. If you're coming here in fear, you want to show off, you want to sell us something, this is not the space for it. It's another context, you know, and that's all good, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:17

And I think what I've noticed because we are all so heart and purpose driven, there's sometimes I wonder, okay, am I crazy for pushing this forward? You know, then at the same time, I see I don't want to say the competition. Everybody around us, whether it's through a podcast or you know, a be human club, there seems we seem to be pushing the same message, you know, even famous people now, everybody has a podcast, but they're really talking often about vulnerability and about their experience and about how to grow, whether it's on a conscious level or on heart level or on a community level. So um part of me feels like, okay, well, you know, this business, and you know, you as an entrepreneur, you start thinking like, should I be doing this? Should I be yeah, everybody else is doing it? But actually, that's the reason why you should be doing it, is because there is a pull from humanity, which is why I think that we are we you you need the dark to, like you said, it's an opportunity, you need the dark to grow the light, and from darkness will come light. So that's my view on the world. And I think a lot of us hope for that and feel this need and desire to move it forward. But it seems to be a palpable, common, um, although it's maybe scattered, but more and more it feels like people are coming together and exponentially in the last couple of years of um pushing this, but we're still figuring things out because we're fighting against these big, well-oiled machines of corporations and systems and archaic systems from the banking and but I think we're all moving forward, at least it's so nice to find each other.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:55

Yeah, what's coming up is that uh like in the when you're in depression, the darkness, the stories are almost an illusion. When I walk around the streets and I've traveled the world quite a bit, I don't see the dark, I just see beautiful human beings in India and Southeast Asia, and like that we're all smiling now, like the the universal language. I think there are maybe two places in the world where a smile is not a good thing, but or else it's just that universal language, you just smile. So I think you know, is it an illusion that there's that much darkness? You know, there probably is, but it's just magnified by social media. And I think that's the reminder. And when you talked about so the two words that you know, conspiracy, they just I want to share them because there's con means with inspirare, inspire, expire, conspire. So the true conspiracy that we need is people coming together to breathe together, and then competition you met you you mentioned as well too. Petere means to strive, and cum means together. So, true competition we need is strive together. My mind competition was destroy the other team, you know. So I think in the name of real etymology of words, we need authentic, beautiful competition and beautiful conspiracy where human beings come together to breathe, to manage their nervous system and find solutions that transcend the reactive mind and that will actually so we can reclaim higher ground and serve, as I mentioned, the next generations, which is very First Nations. Every decision they make, not every single one, but a lot of them, will this serve the next generations? Imagine if politics did that, imagine if school did that.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:21

Imagine if you know you know what I like about I like you the way you break down the etymology of words, and often I tell people words carry so much weight, much more weight than we sometimes give them credit for. I have a tattoo here that says, because because of music, I used to be a writer. Music is the essence of my life. Every word and every rhyme stays like a scar from a knife. And when you break down a lot of words, you see the other day I shared this video where the girl was breaking down different world words like television, television, the programming, you know, that meant to govern the mind. But when you break down the words that sometimes we use, we don't understand how much energy it carries and how much impact and deeper meanings behind some words that we may lightly use. So I like the way in your approach you break down some because sometimes people are using. I'm like, do you know the meaning of that you just said? Like radical, radical comes from radish.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:19

So you're rooted. Yeah. So when you're radical, like really radical, it's got it, you're rooted down, you know. Yeah, and from that root you can go forward, you know. So, like radical honesty, radical love is a rooted love, like a radish, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:35

Pay attention to the words that you carry, and sometimes be more curious about the meaning behind the words and see if you use them properly or you understand because conspiracy, I'm pretty sure a lot of us, including us, didn't know necessarily that it meant that, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:49

So curious is that I I used to have a t-shirt, be curious. Curiosity is such a beautiful we that's what we need at the moment. Curious about the reds and the blues and all this and whatever, all these polarizations of curiosity to bring back that conversation instead of the model, that dialogue, you know, too, and the conversation, another converse, you know. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I'll stop with all the etymology.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:12

So now with uh the work that you've been doing with Behuman Club, would you see that for the first time in your life you feel more aligned?

What It Means To Live On Purpose

SPEAKER_05 1:19:21

It's funny you say that. I was I was talking to Dunya, the co-lead. It's the first time, I think, since I played basketball, because basketball was my life and Michael Jordan was my god and this and that. We definitely don't open that question. How many questions do we have a sports podcast? It's it's the first time in a long time that I've that I'm feeling inspired. I'm getting up in the morning and I'm looking forward to it, even if it's like um uh bookkeeping or whatever, or you know, the database and putting in an order. It's like so if I'm inspired by that, that's because I'm so not the organized guy and whatever. Um, I think because I'm feeling it inside, but I'm also feeling it from the community. Like we did an event last week, 125 beautiful people showed up on purpose, on mission, heart open, ready to converse and this and that. So I'm starting to see it outside, I'm starting to see it inside, I'm starting to see that people are ready, you know, and not ready for me, let's say ready for, but they're ready to ask those questions and they're ready to go back to being human and asking what does it mean to be human in 2025? Whereas in 2018, it was kind of weird to say what does it mean to be human? They're like, Well, I don't put that so much so that the first t-shirts I didn't put on, I put B yoga, I put B love. I wanted to but be human, but some people from my family were like, I don't think you what does that mean? So I kind of second guessed myself, but now it's coming back with a vengeance, and I'm proud to put it be human, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:45

Because you said they're there, they're ready, they're on purpose. What is your definition of being on purpose?

SPEAKER_05 1:20:52

My personal purpose is is uh to inspire health, you know. So that means inspire. I breathe it in, and by breathing it in, I inspire other people to do it. So that's my simple mission. Purpose for me, if you're coming back to that word, really good word resonance, uh, coherency, service. You know, if uh if you're on purpose, I feel you're serving some form of solution driven, you know. I mean, I hope so. You know, I mean I think there's so many other people. Yeah, yeah. So I it's once again, it's a free it's a feeling. It's uh it's um feeling on purpose. Yeah, and it's something that resonates deep to your core. It's it comes from the gut. It's something that doesn't make sense because uh when you're on purpose, you you the hours get out of the way and the hustle and the grind and the frictions and the doubts.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:45

And not to say that when you're on purpose, you don't have friction or challenge. That's what I mean. Yeah, but when you're on purpose, you get through them. You get through them.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:51

You know, if you're if you're not on purpose, the doubt then then you'll you'll stop, you know. Right. When you're on purpose, something that transcends your own self, you know, that's really it's uh serving humanity, then those doubts don't get in the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:02

I think it's also getting curious, like you said before, because like I think the magic is gone when you feel like you know life already. When you say you know, as soon as you say that, magic is not there anymore. So as long as you get curious about something or find something to get curious about, it's gonna guide you eventually to that next step or that next mission to feeling on purpose, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:22

I'm gonna bring us somewhere that will show us how we are all on purpose on this table. What's your definition of being on purpose, Loan? Oh I'm gonna help you with that. What are you doing today? Okay, yeah. In terms of work. Good point, actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:39

Yeah, so I I love my work basically. I help people to discover their spiritual gifts, what their gifts are.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:44

Before you what are the first words? I help people. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. So you are on purpose.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:53

Exactly. And each and every one of us are born gifted, right? And there's a reason why we have these set of gifts. There's a path that you're meant to to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:02

Uh sacred or spiritual? Because you said it's interesting. You said spiritual gifts. Okay, so interchangeable.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:08

I mean, they're names, they're given, they definitely need to be a good thing. Sacred, can I jump in there?

SPEAKER_05 1:23:11

So sacred comes from sacrifice. So when something's sacred, there's a sacrifice that has to happen. That's you have to give something up to to get there, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:22

Because they're only considered gifts when you're using it to help other people. Because we all have abilities, but when you're using it for yourself, it's great. But they become sacred gifts when you're using it to help others. So you sacrifice yourself to help others.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:36

However, the sacrifice is also to your benefit you're enjoying when you're in your gift, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:41

Just to clarify that about exactly. It's the experience that you have, the lived experience you have when you're sharing your gifts. That's the benefit that you get.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:48

I don't have kids, you you have kids. Yeah, we do. I mean, I can imagine that's the ultimate sacrifice. Yeah. Sacrificing yourself for that, but then you're seeing it, you know, getting that talk about feedback. You know, I mean, once again, I can only imagine, but that seems like the ultimate entrepreneurship in a way is an ultimate kids. I think is it's an ultimate sacrifice. Absolutely. It's just like it's like sacred as well. Like, whoa, this beautiful being that is the growing and it's its own thing. I thought it would be like me, but I don't know. It's it's its own thing. But no, you just have to help make sure it's safe and absolutely. So, yeah, shampoo would ensue. That's like that's sacred, yeah, really sacred ground.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:27

Yeah, so through the process, I help them to discover their gifts and then help them find a way where they can share these gifts in the world. It's finding that vehicle, right? We each have you have your vehicles, we have ours, and what is that vehicle that allows you to share your gifts with the world?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:42

Absolutely beautifully said. And how about you, Alexandra? What is your definition of purpose? Living on purpose, living on purpose is what is the work that you do, and what is the different approach yet that you bring into the work that you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:00

I love that. So, my um financial vehicle right now, my day-to-day, is I'm a real estate agent. And I've been doing that for eight years, and slowly but surely my spirituality has been growing, and um, you know, passion projects emerge from there. But what I realize is that they all bleed into each other. And especially again, everything's been accelerated lately. Um, my experience with being human and my interactions with my clients and my colleagues and my partners, right? So, you know, if we want to get technical, uh, you have clients, you have inspectors, you have mortgage brokers, you have uh real estate agents. I've noticed how every interaction is a pleasure. And that is so important because nowadays you can't all be a coach or a yoga teacher. It doesn't have to be that, you know, once you become sort of enlightened, you still serve a purpose in the world in this I don't want to say corporate machine, but more practical, technical jobs, and you can bring that, you can develop your spiritual experience, but it can also stay very grounded in your day-to-day. So I realize that in real estate, I really bring that experience to all of my interactions and my transactions, and holy shit, it becomes magic. So I think that is something that we can all try. Whether you're an accountant or a coffee baker, it goes back to that. How is your interaction? What do you bring to the table in your experience? Of course, you have to have the skill. If you don't have the skills, okay, maybe look for something different. But regardless of what you do, whether you're cleaning floors and brooming, you can, you know, at our co-working space, that that person that comes in every day when we stay late at 8 p.m. I'm like, he's so he's he's he's brushing the floors and brooming and vacuuming and cleaning all these surfaces, and he's doing it on purpose, right? And that's okay too. So you can bring um being on purpose to every aspect of your life, regardless of what it is that you do, and that's a maybe big concept, but you can start small. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:08

I think yeah, no matter what vehicle it is, as long as you do it with heart, then that's where the practice with this, I wasn't like this before.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:19

It's an evolution.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:20

Me, despite everything that I do when it comes to marketing and AI, and when I look at my background from a musical background, my business, when I had the modeling agency, the production company, once I ask myself, what is the common denominator between all of those doing experiences that I've built, and I ask myself the question what brings me joy? What energizes me? It's sharing knowledge that can serve. And shift the direction and the impact of someone's life in the professional or even in the personal. And the greatest joy and the greatest paycheck that I've had in my life so far is by sharing knowledge. I remember once there was a videographer, a friend of mine, he's a fitness coach, but he was also a videographer. And he he was the first interaction where I had where I was because I have this business mindset. When I saw, okay, you're great at this, but there's a lot of coaches, there's a lot of videographers. But rare are those that combine the two and create a purpose with it, right? And I built a whole model for him on how to expand the business in that direction. And it changed completely his life to the point that now he has an online uh fitness platform as a coach where he can actually live on purpose. And every time that he meets me or in front of people, he tells people out loud how much I changed and impacted his life. Just him saying that, and other people often tells me how much I impacted their life with the knowledge that I share, is the greatest paycheck that I have. So being at that service and seeing the knowledge and the experience that I bring, I share it to help serve. And is the reason why today one of my greatest gifts that I want to bring to the humanity is this platform that we're creating right now, the space to have these conversations and help share what we have, share what we know, and bring amazing people like Scott to share their information, and collectively we can impact people so we are again on purpose, all of us, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:53

That's a beautiful way to um wrap it up, yeah, to wrap things up.

Final Message: Take Responsibility For Your Health & Life

SPEAKER_03 1:29:58

Honestly, Scott, uh I'm looking at the questions as so much that I would love to ask, and that's why I think when we connected so much, it was beautiful. We connected so much in that intro call even deeper today, and we're so grateful to have you today. We're so grateful for all the wisdom that you shared and the words that you broken down. And and if you would want to share one last word with the audience, uh parting parting wisdom. Um if you would want to leave one last thing that could impact them, what would you want to teach, share to the world?

SPEAKER_05 1:30:38

I think it's as I mentioned earlier, it's urgent and important that people take responsibility for their health, their nervous system, their reactions. And it's it's not easy, it's super simple. Um, it starts with the breath, a breath practice, you know, breath management, brain management. So, whatever form that is, 20,000 breaths per day, so 20,000 opportunities per day to practice. And then from there, some form of movement practice um and then you know, eating well and this and that, and then feeding your mission, whatever it is, helping, serving, but it starts with those conscious breaths. It starts with truly saying, Okay, I want to contribute, I want to be part of the solution, and it starts with taking responsibility for my health daily for the rest of my life. It's really it's like an inner fire, and you need to put a piece of wood. Sometimes it's 10 pieces of wood, sometimes it's a bit of kindling, but every single day, one minute or more, some form of practice, so you're contributing. Like it's urgent and important that everybody does it, and we will be able to shift this. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:44

And if ever people want to get in touch with you and be a part of your journey, contribute. How can contribute? How can they reach out to you? Which platform should they go on?

SPEAKER_05 1:31:56

They can they could write to me, Scott at Behuman.club. I love getting questions. They can go to behuman.club, the website. We have a newsletter there. Our website is it needs a lot of love, but it's we're getting in that direction. They can buy the merch and wear it, and just you know, when I think when you wear behuman, it brings your game up a bit. You know, like okay, I'm taking there's a bit of responsibility there. You know, will they cut somebody off or will they, you know, something, you know, hopefully at least it brings their game up. Um, and um yeah, feel free to connect with me any any time. And if I don't know the answer, I have a great network around me of wellness specialists, so I'll find the answer. And um, at the moment, I'm giving a practice Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 to 6:30 in the morning, or defiscadi. It's in the morning. It's breathe, move, meditate. They can jump into that, and you know, I'm I'm at the service, I'm here to serve their health as well, too. So any anything they need, I'm I'm here at this as a health servant. Absolutely.