January 7, 2025 • 58 mins
Matthew Stafford takes us on a compelling journey of self-discovery, revealing how mastering the "six inches between our ears" can redefine entrepreneurial success. After confronting deeply rooted emotional barriers from his childhood, Matthew shares how alternative healing modalities like hypnosis and somatic work have empowered him to navigate life's challenges with resilience and insight. His experiences underscore the significance of self-awareness and mental health in crafting a rewarding entrepreneurial path, offering invaluable lessons for anyone seeking personal growth.
Imagine unlocking hidden emotional patterns with powerful plant medicines and therapeutic practices. Matthew recounts transformative experiences at an ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica and a profound encounter with MDMA therapy, emphasizing how these journeys have led to emotional healing and a deeper self-appreciation. Through personal anecdotes, we explore how recognizing emotional triggers can serve as gateways to introspection and healing, ultimately fostering a more profound sense of calmness and self-worth.
Venture into the transformative realms of solitude and reflection, where darkness retreats offer a unique environment for mental clarity and presence. Matthew shares insights from these experiences, revealing how sensory deprivation sharpens focus and enhances self-understanding. From practical tips on managing distractions to the profound benefits for personal and professional life, this episode offers a rich exploration of how embracing solitude can lead to significant emotional release and self-improvement. Join us for an enlightening conversation on the power of introspection and alternative healing on the path to personal transformation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast.
In today's episode, matthewStafford once again joins us.
If you didn't catch it, matthewwas a guest on episode 252,
where he highlighted seven waysyou could make more money with
your Shopify store If you runyour own D2C website.
This is an episode that willhave an insanely high return on
(00:46):
your time invested in listeningto it.
Today we welcome Matthew to theshow to discuss a different
topic.
Over the past five years,matthew has gone on a journey of
self-discovery, healing anddeep work.
He has come out on the otherside a changed man, ready to
tackle any obstacles thrown hisway.
In today's episode, we are goingto dive deep into Matthew's
(01:09):
journey and how entrepreneurscan work on the six inches
between their ears, as Matthewlikes to say, and live a more
empowered and fulfilling life.
Matthew, really happy to haveyou back on the show.
Welcome, thank you.
I'm glad to be here.
Really happy to have you backon the show.
Welcome, thank you.
I'm glad to be here, absolutelyso.
I've heard you talk about thesix inches between our ears and
(01:30):
that's such a powerful metaphor.
Can you unpack what you mean bythat and how it impacts
entrepreneurs specifically?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, let me.
I'm going to start with alittle story.
It might take us four or fiveminutes, but I think it will set
us up for the context of how Iwent about this.
Because, to be completelyhonest, once I made this
discovery, I had already beenworking on websites and breaking
down data and doing things ofthat nature.
(02:01):
That's just how my brain works,and so when I was invited by a
friend that I trusted to go tothis emotional intelligence
experience and it consisted oflike three different weekends
you'd go for Thursday, you'd getthere Thursday night, go Friday
, saturday, sunday, after thesecond or third day we had this
(02:24):
experience that we had to do,where we had to act out our
mother and our father Well, mychildhood story and just spread
the details.
It was extremely rough, it wasvery violent, and so I had
developed a lot of unhealthystories.
And so I had developed a lot ofunhealthy stories, and my
(02:48):
belief was the reason why Istruggled in the feel good about
myself or feel good enough, orlike, if you achieve success,
that you'll be happy.
Struggle came from.
My parents always said theyloved us, and it was a very
religious household, but then mydad was extremely abusive, and
so I just thought like, oh, Idon't have a good understanding
(03:10):
of what love means because ofthat.
And so my whole life I lookedat that area.
Well, I'm very I would say 99%of the time I don't have a
temper, I'm very controlled,which took work because that's
not what was modeled to me.
You got to witness me yesterdayangry when we had a few minute
(03:33):
conversation, which is I'm sureI'll bring back up later because
it's such a good.
Those triggers are actuallyopportunities for us to go start
working at that, six inchesbetween our ears.
So back to the story, get intothis experience.
You have to act out our motherand father and uh.
(03:53):
First one I did is I acted outmy dad, acted angry, pretended
like to smack my you know myparticipant a couple times, uh,
and then uh.
The next part of the experiencewas act out your mother, and I
was really grateful that thislady that was sitting in front
of me she was probably close tomy mother's age, sitting in the
(04:16):
chair.
It was much easier for me tovisualize her as my mom than her
as my dad.
But what was really weird waswe were over by the wall,
probably three, four feet awayfrom it.
And when I went to um act thisexperience out with my mom, for
whatever reason, I turned aroundand walked over to the wall
(04:39):
instead of looking at her and Iwas like I remember clear as day
.
It's like a video playing in myhead.
I'm like, oh, this is reallystrange, um, and the words that
I said was my mom never hit me.
And and then I said, oh, my momnever played with me, my mom
never took us anywhere, my momand it was like this, just this,
(05:03):
like huge epiphany, oh, like mymom was checked out, like she
didn't have any connection withus at all.
And so that was like this, likeaha, wow, for 48 years, 47
(05:24):
years, I've been looking in thewrong place.
No wonder I couldn't fix thisfeeling.
And then I started going, wow,if my brain was able to hide
that from me for 40 some years.
I wanna understand my brainlike I do a website and I went
and learned how to do hypnosisand studied somatic work and a
bunch of these things, and eachtime that I did that I felt
(05:46):
better.
I felt, you know, I startedkind of pulling away the layers
of the onion that I had put overtop of it In that process.
After about a year of differentthings maybe a little over I
started telling my story.
I actually got to a point whereI felt comfortable sharing my
(06:06):
story, where before that I wasalways just very ashamed of it
and so I never shared it and Ididn't want sympathy for the
details or any of that.
So it was more of like I justdidn't say too much about it,
and most of the time everythingthat I said was very edited
because I needed to get right.
I can be wrong, and you knowthere's I had a very strong
(06:30):
sense of needing to be right andthat I was wrong as broken
bunch of this other stuff thatnever served me as I started
telling my story.
Obviously I hang out inentrepreneurial circles telling
my story.
Obviously I hang out inentrepreneurial circles, and so
99% of my friends areentrepreneurs.
Everyone else started sharingtheir story too, and all of them
(06:54):
, like I, didn't have a singleone that said oh no, I've never
dealt with that.
Oh, I don't know, my life wasperfect, and so it was really
strange to me.
I'm like why is it that allthese entrepreneurs have that?
And so again, me and myanalytical brain.
What's the anomaly?
And this is my conclusion, andI've shared this with now
(07:18):
hundreds of entrepreneurs, andthey all agree.
I'll agree there seem tosupport it.
If you think about it, thedefinition of trauma is a
feeling of loss of control.
You are out of control or youcan't control the situation.
It's scary.
You create a belief aroundwhatever happened.
Your brain stores that Its jobis to keep you safe.
(07:46):
So now, in those unsafeenvironments, you now have a
coping mechanism that you'llunconsciously use in order to
deal with that, because most ofus during that trauma, a lot of
times it's repeated when we'relittle, and so we developed this
place of a coping mechanism.
For me it was a retreat to myhead, don't feel my body, and so
(08:06):
that's very typical of men,because we're taught not to feel
our feelings.
We're taught to think ourfeelings because if we share our
feelings there, a lot of timeswe get teased or made fun of or
told to suck it up or be a manor all these different things,
and so it's very, very commonfor men to just go to their head
, feel safe.
They can think it all through,and we don't realize how
(08:31):
detrimental that really is,because what happens is every
one of those new traumas that wethen go to our head and we
think we resolved, we've neverreleased it from our body, we
have a coping mechanism and then.
So this ties me back to theentrepreneurial wing and then,
and then you can go ahead andstart asking me questions.
But why do I think it's soprevalent?
(08:54):
Because, if you think aboutbusiness in general, when are
you ever in control?
There's always things going on.
In fact, I would venture to saythat business is the ultimate
self-improvement game, becauseit is going to constantly show
you where you're not showing up,where you're not doing a good
(09:14):
job, where you need to increaseyour skill, where you need to
get better at marketing orwhatever, and it's always going
to show you where you're notgood enough.
And so, learning to deal insideof that environment, if you
don't already have a copingmechanism for trauma, it's not
(09:35):
going to be appealing to you.
And so, when you think about it, why do people choose to live
inside of an environment that isso volatile and never, you know
, stable?
And it's because they alreadyhave a method, whether it's
healthy or not, of how to copeinside of that environment,
where the employee looks at theowner and sees all that stuff
(09:58):
and they're like no way I wantto check out at 4 pm, go home,
you know, and play or dowhatever, and I don't think
anything about work.
That's just not how our brainworks.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
That's really interesting and thank you for
sharing that story.
You know, I have found, youknow, with Firing the man
podcast we've been doing we'rein our sixth year and have
interviewed a lot ofentrepreneurs and that
observation about trauma, notall of them share it, but I have
noticed that it does seem likemore entrepreneurs seem to have
(10:35):
that background thannon-entrepreneurs and I never
really formed a link between thetwo of them but I I think that
that's really interesting andyou know there's a lot of
entrepreneurs listening to thisshow that are probably relating
to to what you're saying and andand have developed those coping
(10:58):
mechanisms.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I think another caveat that makes it so
prevalent is, if you think aboutit, the overwhelming majority
of people that go through thattype of environment develop the
belief I'm not good enough.
And so you find that they tryvery hard in their business to
(11:20):
keep on making it more and moreand more successful to feel good
enough, to keep on making itmore and more and more
successful, to feel good enough.
And eventually they realizelike, wow, no matter how
successful I am, no matter howmuch money I've made, that
hasn't made me feel good enough.
And so you think that thebusiness is a vehicle to feel
better, and what you end upfinding which actually I think
(11:44):
adds to the trauma a little bitis, wow, I've done everything
that I thought I was supposed todo to feel good and it's still
not working.
Now I'm really lost, or now I'm.
I'm just unique and everybodyelse figured it out because they
share their highlight ofrealism, but I still feel shitty
inside their highlight ofrealism, but I still feel shitty
(12:07):
and tired.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, there's a quote that I heard on modern wisdom
that has stuck with me, and thatquote is you've already
achieved things that you saidwould make you happy and that
when you really digest that, Iknow for me personally that one
stings because there's so muchtruth in it.
It's so much truth in it and soyou know, for entrepreneurs
(12:28):
that are listening, what wouldbe the first step?
You know, you acknowledge thatyou have past traumas.
You're running a business.
What would be the first step in, you know, in taking this and
turning it into a positive?
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, because I actually believe that there's a
lot of positives that can comefrom it.
Our growth comes from thepainful things that we go
through.
It's not typically when thingsare going great that you are
learning.
You know the lessons that aregoing to make you wiser and and
stronger, and I would say, uh,more of a broad spectrum human
(13:14):
Sounds good what?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
what role does self-awareness play in
addressing some of theseinternal challenges and how?
How can entrepreneurs take thatand cultivate it?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah, so I will tell you the quickest way.
This is the cheat code, it'sthe shortcut, which is what we
all want, and but it's the lastthing that you want to hear.
It is it is always me, it'salways me, no matter what.
Every single time it's me.
Uh, and we can go back toyesterday, our example of the
(13:52):
trigger.
We've had a client, um, we'velegitimately had a home run for
them and, uh, they came andnitpicked a typo on the contract
and it saves them 11 grand.
The issue with that is it's notthe 11 grand, um, even though
(14:13):
that's important, like,obviously we do this to make
money Um, when I thought aboutit cause, after I get over, you
know, when I get triggered, thevery first thing I do, or I try
to this particular case, I was alittle more triggered than
normal, so I didn't, but Irecognize that the trigger is
mine and that's an opportunityfor me to look in and see why
(14:36):
I'm so angry or why I'm sad orwhy I'm, whatever the emotion is
, and then that gives me anopportunity to see a part of
myself that I haven't healed yet.
So for me, when I actually satdown and did some work around
that, I recognized that I feltnot appreciated because what we
(15:00):
had done for that and we hadtaken them from less than a
hundred grand a month to seven800,000 a month in a six month
period they're crushing it.
And then I felt like, wow,that's such a lack of
appreciation for what we did.
He didn't see it that way.
He saw it as like this is whatit says and this is how I
interpret it, even if that's nothow it's meant to be.
(15:23):
I interpret it even if that'snot how it's meant to be.
And so we gave it into him andI, you know, I said, okay, cool,
how can I learn from this?
I can understand that one.
I can still appreciate the workthat we did for him, whether he
recognizes it or not, and thatinstantly allowed me to calm
down quite a bit, because now myyou know, my ego isn't agitated
(15:46):
because I gave it what itneeded.
Hey, you guys have done areally good job and cool.
Whether he realizes that or not, that's, it's not for me.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Absolutely, Absolutely.
Now, in the intro I hadmentioned that you've spent a
lot of time doing deep work andinterested what.
What all does that entail?
And out of all of thosedifferent types of practices,
what has been the highest impact?
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah.
So, yeah, I don't know whatyou're listening to audience,
how much they're open to all thedifferent modalities, so I'll
just share everything I did andgo through it that way and end
what my experience was with it.
So my very first experienceever was a friend that I had.
(16:36):
That was a client.
He had been, you know, we hadconsulted him with his
e-commerce stuff for severalyears.
He'd done really well and hesaid hey, I really think that
you would benefit from thisseven-day retreat we're going to
do down in Costa Rica.
We're going to do ayahuasca andit would be three days out of
the seven really clean food, da,da da.
(16:59):
And I had never done any like.
I grew up in a very religioushousehold.
I've never smoked, never doneanything.
I think the first time I everhad a buzz, I was like 24 years
old.
Just, I was very, you know,naive when it came to that stuff
.
If I didn't really trust themand know them for as long as I
had, I wouldn't have done it.
I went and did it.
(17:20):
First day was great.
The other two experiences werenot great, but it like cracked
me open enough to go oh okay,there's something here.
I didn't realize how um lockedup.
I was like I was pretty well, Iwas well, I'm pretty tight.
So, um, yeah, that was.
That was my first experience.
(17:41):
The next one I was at amastermind and a friend of mine
who's a Navy SEAL got up, gave apresentation, got off the stage
, him and I started talking.
I'd known him for a couple ofyears and he looked radically
different than when I had firstmet him.
When I first met him, hegenuinely looked like someone
(18:01):
that was dead but was walkingaround.
He just was dark, like.
It was hard to explain how darkhe was and when I saw him give
his speech I was like, wow, helooks really healthy and man
really, really bright.
And so we started talking andhe had been on a two-year
journey of trying all thesedifferent plant medicines and
the whole nine yards and thentook me or offered to do this
(18:25):
four day or three day experiencewith me using MDMA, and so I
signed up for that and said,yeah, let's do it.
That was the most pivotal moment.
That was, um, that was when Icould find I knew all the stuff
was messed up and I understoodthat, like my mom, um had never
(18:48):
formed a relationship that youknow felt closer, safer, connect
, all of that stuff, but Ididn't know how to like access,
how to heal.
Um, when I did the MDMA, uh, hecame there was actually five
men, we each did it and then thenext day he came back and his
gift is that he just recognizespatterns.
(19:10):
And so, from the conversationsthat we had when we were using
the MDMA, he had wrote down whatour trauma patterns were, and
then he gave us three sentencesthat each of us had to repeat
back to him, and what was reallyodd was the sentences were
super easy and I could repeatback every sentence that he gave
(19:32):
to everyone else, but the oneshe gave to me.
I couldn't do it, and so Iwatched each person struggle.
I mean, they would get mad,they would literally start
sweating, they'd start cryingfrom these really weird, like
normal sentences to us.
Until he got to us and what itwas and that was the first time
I was like, oh my God, oursubconscious is so strong we
(19:57):
literally can't even see whatour issue is Like we have.
It is so good at lying to usand so good at protecting us
that it thinks if we discoverwhat the actual problem is,
we'll change and that might killus.
So nope, you don't get to seeit.
And so that that was when Ireally was like, okay, I really
(20:18):
got to work between the sixinches between my ears because
everything's there like 100%,and hired a coach outside.
Coming out of that experience,and that was the best thing I
ever did, because he can seethings that I can't see for
myself.
And now, after spending thelast four or five years, spent
(20:48):
hundreds of thousands of dollarson trainings and learning how
to do stuff and all thesedifferent things, and now I
actually coach some people thatare really big names in the
coaching world because of I'vebeen through a lot of what
they've been through and then Ican sit with them and go through
that.
I've been through a lot of whatthey've been through and then I
can sit with them and gothrough that and but just, yeah,
it's been such a blessing tolearn that and understand where
it comes from and how it works.
(21:09):
So that was my MDMA experience.
From there I tried mushroompsilocybin.
Psilocybin um, um, five MEO DMT, which is another like a, and
(21:30):
you inhale it.
It's a poison from a frog um,that you take and it's.
That was.
That was pretty, that was apretty solid experience.
I felt like I got a lot from itand it was, and it was very
enjoyable.
So it was both Um and then, uh,about eight days ago, I just
got out of 121 hour dark retreatand I can tell you, um, I was
(21:52):
pretty much done with the plantmedicines, cause I don't, um,
I've always had the feeling, ifyou're just doing it to do drugs
, cool, that's cool, but I justnot into that.
Um, so, for me, I always had, umpretty strong intentions when
I'm going to do it, like in, in,in the environment, that I'm
going to do it, that myintention is that I'm trying to
(22:15):
heal or, you know, you know,enhance my life in some form or
another, besides just get highor, you know, have drugs.
So, um, I I kind of was at aplace where, yeah, I've tried
them, done them, had guides withall of them.
Um, I feel really happy, I'msuper healthy.
(22:35):
Um, now the next journey was,uh, learning how to like really
understand my brain as far ashow it thinks, and, uh, no
better way to do that than gointo the dark and get rid of all
distractions.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Absolutely, and and I want to dive deeper into this,
but but before I do, I want totalk about some of those
alternative modalities and thankyou for sharing your story.
I think the conversation onthese has really changed.
You hear people like TimFerriss, aubrey Marcus, andrew
Huberman.
You know there's federallyfunded research through the MAPS
(23:11):
Institute that is looking at abetter way, a better way to help
people essentially, Let me giveyou a really interesting stat.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
And then keep going Talk therapy people that need
therapy.
If they go twice a week, theyconsider it a success.
If you can drop down to once aweek in your talk therapy, they
consider talk therapy wassuccessful.
If you've been talking to yourtherapist twice a week, you drop
(23:43):
to once, that's successful andthey consider a 30 to 40% good.
So out of 100 people that do it, 30 to 40 can cut their therapy
time in half and they considerthat a successful therapy
(24:05):
therapy time in half and theyconsider that a successful
therapy.
Mdma has a documented history of80% success rate.
Success rate with MDMA therapymeans if you see your therapist
twice a week, you no longer needtherapy.
If you see your therapist oncea week, you no longer need
therapy after three sessions.
And so 80% success rate.
The only reason why it's notlegal is because the government
(24:29):
wants to, you know, regulate itor tax it or do whatever, and I
do believe with the newadministration it will happen.
It will happen.
(24:52):
But yeah, like the moment thatMDMA is allowed to be
administered by, you know,health practitioners in a safe
environment, I do believe theeconomy and really make change
and all of that.
So, understanding all thethings that we've talked about
up to this, I believe that thatwill be groundbreaking when that
(25:13):
happens.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And you feel the trend.
You really feel the trend, andpeople are.
Every year it seems like moreand more people are coming out
and talking about it and youknow, as a data person, you
can't argue with thosestatistics and so, no, I
absolutely love that andappreciate you sharing that.
So you had mentioned a darkretreat.
(25:36):
Tell me what is that?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
What is a dark retreat?
Yeah, retreat, tell me what.
What is that?
What is a darker treat?
Yeah, so, um, great question,because I tried, like I had a
friend, aubrey marcus, I'd methim and then he went and did
that afterwards and so I kind offollowed the story, watched the
video and I was like, oh okay,very cool.
And he like, over the following12, 18 months, really, you
could see the difference.
(26:00):
And what I tell people to do is,once they watch that video, go
back and watch some of hispodcasts from a couple years ago
and then watch his podcastsafter the dark retreat.
He is fundamentally differentin the amount of presence that
(26:20):
he has.
Before he was good and he askedlots of questions, great
podcast host.
Um, afterwards, like you seehim and it's literally like, um,
it's almost like he's enjoyingthe words and like he's so
present and I really do think,um, after going through that, uh
, that that's where I'm going toget to as far as like the
(26:44):
clarity and the lack ofdistraction, all those different
things.
So what the dark retreat is isyou are put in an environment no
noise and no light at all, nolight at all.
(27:05):
And so, if you think about itand the way that I describe it
to people is if I'm looking atyou right now and don't move
away, I can still see the twolights up here, my microphone,
my tea, my laptop, some stuff onmy desk, this doorway going out
into the rest of the apartmentand all that stuff.
So my brain's always processingthat, even though I'm looking
(27:25):
at you right now, when you gointo that darker tree you can't
see any light, like nothing, andso the moment all of that shut
off, your brain's no longerbeing distracted by that.
There's no noise, no sound.
So now, all of a sudden,there's no distraction there.
What is there to do other thanto literally observe your
(27:48):
thoughts?
You can see the little voicetalking in your head.
You can watch your brain likelie.
You can see your brain detoxfrom the distraction.
It's unbelievable how, when youshut off all those other senses
that distract you from beingfocused and clear uh, how clear
(28:08):
it gets.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Outstanding.
So I really want to dive intowhat your experiences was was
like in some of the keytakeaways.
But can you help me picturewhat?
What does this look like?
Are you in a is?
Are you in a tank, are you in aroom or are you in a house Like
?
What does this look like?
Just to kind of set the scene.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah.
So for me, um, it was, uh, itwas, it was kind of yeah, I hate
saying this, but it was ahippie commune, Like that's what
kind of what it was, but theycall it a resort, um, and uh,
the place that I had signed upfor, uh, let me know that my
dates were coming.
So I booked all the time on mycalendar, did a whole bunch of
(28:52):
stuff and then, when I emailedthem back and said, hey, can you
give me more details so I canget my flights booked, they're
like no, no, that's for 2025,not 2024.
And I'd already waited a year.
So I was like, oh, wow, thatreally was a letdown.
So I got on, started Googling.
Third option I had already.
I paid for another one.
They said, hey, someone bookedat the exact same time here,
(29:16):
refunding your money.
I was like man, I don't know ifI'm going to make it.
I finally found one.
Boom, it was in Mexico, greatexperience.
But essentially they have abunch of outbuildings and
they're all concrete and it'sround which I'll explain why
that matters later Round andevery wall inside solid concrete
(29:39):
and the concrete floor and itis pitch black.
The only thing that you have inthere is a bed to sleep on, you
have a bench to sit on, youhave a yoga mat, and then you
have some towels and soap totake a shower and go to the
bathroom and brush your teeth,and so, yeah, that's essentially
(30:00):
it.
Uh, there is a food shoot whereyou can pass food back and
forth without any light gettingin.
And then, um, for they also hada notepad with a pen so I could
write in the dark.
I couldn't see what I waswriting, but I do the best I
could stick it in there and uh,you know, on the second day, I
said hey, I'm going to fast, uh,which I fast a lot.
(30:22):
Um, didn't think it would.
I thought it would be a goodexperience, cause he said um,
yes, you'll go deeper and it'dbe more intense.
Um, so I fasted 71 hours of the121, um, to do it over again.
I probably would change that alittle bit, because the fifth
day there was nothing tointerrupt the natural DMT that
(30:44):
your brain produces, and myfifth day was a nightmare, like
every minute felt like hours.
It was just extremely hard.
But the first four days wereamazing and if you asked me to
describe it in one word, I wouldsay, transformational.
There's a lot of things thatcreate awareness, but then you
(31:10):
have a lot of work to do inorder to follow up on that
awareness.
And I will tell you, what hasseemed to happen over the last
eight days is a lot of therealizations and a lot of the
stories that my brain had that Icould now see it naturally,
(31:31):
like, said, oh, that's notaccurate, and upgraded it to my
new, wiser version, my new,wiser version, and it feels like
every day I feel a littlelighter, a little heavier, a
little healthier, clear, lessdistracted, and so I do believe
that over you know this thiswill keep changing for the next
(32:00):
few months, because the storieshave changed, and I think the
stories is literally what is howwe create our life.
The reason why one person has adifferent resolve is because
they have a different set ofbeliefs and a story that drives
them, and once you can see thatstory, there's no unseeing that.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I really like that and I appreciate you sharing
your experiences there.
This is as I've heard you talkabout it.
It's something that seemsreally interesting to me.
It's like something that Iwould want to do.
However, as I think about itand I'm sure there's a lot of
listeners I like feel a littlenervous and scared.
Like feel a little nervous andscared, like I don't know if I
(32:43):
am comfortable being alone withmyself and, as I say that out
loud, I that doesn't like.
Why should?
Why am I uncomfortable beingwith just myself, without
distraction?
And so what was there like whenyou, when the light turned off,
like in that first 15 minutes,like what's going through your
mind and what like?
(33:04):
Take me through like that firstday as well.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Okay, I'll do that.
I want to point out somethingthat just happened that is super
noticeable to me, that youwon't realize, but it might be a
benefit to your listeners.
So, as you were describing it,you started going oh, that
sounds really weird and wantedto edit what you're feeling was
(33:28):
so the original fear is thesubconscious story.
And then, as it surfaces, it'snot matching your logic and so
you try to edit it to fit yourstory of what's okay.
So the fear of being alone withyourself, shut off from
everything, is actually a storythat's going on in the
(33:50):
background.
As you started to share it outloud, your brain heard it and
goes oh I need to edit that tomake it okay.
So it fits within my bubble ofwhat's okay.
Absolutely, that is whathappened, yeah we literally just
got to watch your subconsciouscatch it, try to share, and then
your brain stopped it andcorrected it and said, no, get
(34:12):
back in there, you shouldn't bescared yeah, yeah, you're,
you're right, that is whathappened.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
that that is what happened.
I appreciate you calling thatout.
I appreciate you calling thatout, so so, I'll give you the
first day.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah it's .
I'm just a very structured.
So I you and I are friendsoutside of this.
You understand like I break mylife into four categories my
fitness, my relationships withmyself and God, my relationship
with others and then thebusiness.
And so I'm thinking, hey, I gotfive days or full days and two
(34:47):
half days on each end.
I'm going to work on onecategory each day and I got it
all planned out in my head.
This is what's going to happen.
You know, I talked to my coachand dah dah, dah, you know, he
said the first two days wereboring really hard for him.
Then the third day, and he gaveme this whole experience.
I kind of thought that's how itwas going to be.
And Aubrey's was very similar.
(35:09):
First two days was prettyuneventful.
Third day has the natural DMTand then did the work the rest
of the days, and so that's kindof how I saw mine playing out.
It didn't play out that way atall.
The very first day I get up,actually she says and this is
where things get fuzzy and yourealize how much we make
(35:32):
assumptions without actuallyunderstanding and we just fill
it in with our own details.
And so she said typicallyyou'll fall asleep right away
and you're going to sleep a lotlonger than normal, so I'll
bring your food later in the day.
Not to me, like, oh, okay, like10 AM, cause I will wake up at
(35:54):
eight, maybe I'll wake up at 10.
Now she'll bring my food around.
Then Dada Never asked, neveranything.
I realized later that's what Ithought, and and and remind me
to tell you why that's important, Cause by the end of the fifth
day that becomes reallyimportant.
Um, go to sleep, like literallyshe's we blow out the candle.
(36:19):
She filmed it so that I couldpost it, you know, because I
wanted to document my thing.
She goes outside, closes the.
There's two doors, um, so theone's closed on the inside,
that's all sealed.
She closes on the outside,that's sealed, and then she duct
tapes it.
I can walk out at any time Iwant, she just can't walk in and
uh, so, um, that's, that's it.
(36:43):
She did that way.
She goes, no talking until youknow it's over, which is five
days later.
Uh, I, I got tired immediately.
I had left from tampa in themorning um 7 am, flew to dallas,
then from dallas down to middleof mexico and then a place
called oaka, and then a two anda half hour car drive to the, to
(37:06):
the beach, you know, to the umocean.
I had enough travel.
I was like I was tired and so,within 30 minutes of her going
out and it was probably sixo'clock their time, which is
like nine o'clock my time Um, Igo to bed nine, 30, 10 o'clock.
I'm tired.
(37:26):
I was out, like I just Iliterally laid down and I fell
asleep immediately and I hadfour of the most vivid dreams
I've ever had in my life.
Like, and she said that shegoes, you might have some real
strong dreams and she goes evenon the other days when you're
sleeping, you're still going tobe processing stuff.
So, you know, there's a goodchance.
(37:47):
You have a lot of dreams.
I'm like, all right, cool, nobig deal.
Uh, these dreams were crazy,like they were.
It was so real.
The first two, um, I had dreamtthat I had left the building,
walked out and and ruined theexperience.
I had like, uh, you know, Ididn't make it in my head like
(38:07):
that was a big deal.
And the second one I walkedback to the, to the hut, and I
looked at the door and it wasstill duct taped.
I'm like, oh, that's weird.
I didn't come out the door.
Where did I get out?
And I'm trying to think ofwhere I could have exited this
hut, because you can't, like,there's nowhere but that door.
And then I was like, oh yeah, Ihave an eye mask on and opened
(38:28):
it and oh yeah, I'm in the dark.
Okay, I'm in the dark, okay,I'm laying on the bed.
That I woke up and realized thatwas what had happened, and so I
ended up sleeping really goodand really really good, woke up
feeling amazing, super refreshed, and like within an hour she
brought my food and I was like,oh, wow, perfect timing,
(38:49):
everything's good.
I ate the food, eating in thedark for the very first time,
when you have no idea what shegave you.
There's a fork with a napkin.
I'm a little weird, so I don'twant to touch food with my hands
and get all sticky, and becauseit's hard to find stuff, and
you know, I just wasn'tacclimated to the dark yet and
(39:10):
so I just used my fork andstabbed and what I discovered
was it was pineapple and someapple chunks.
And when you eat in the dark andyou have nothing to see,
nothing to hear, and you feelthe texture of the fruit when
you like.
I could.
I knew, after a couple ofpieces, if I had stabbed a piece
(39:32):
of pineapple, if I stabbed anapple, and I could feel the
difference.
And then when I would eat it,like you could taste the flavor
was amazing, the texture,because nothing else is there to
distract you.
You're a hundred percentabsorbed in that experience.
So that was another lesson howmany things we miss every single
(39:54):
day because we're doing severalthings at once instead of just
actually paying attention towhat we're doing.
And that can apply to our workand apply to how we eat, apply
to our conversations with eachother, all of that.
So that's been a huge shift forme too.
Then I'm like all right, greatI'm, I'm well rested, I ate my
(40:18):
food, I have all day in front ofme, I'm going to, I'm going to
get into some work here, and andthat was the reason why I did
it Like I'm going to make gooduse of the time and within 10
minutes I realized, like this is, this is not going to be easy,
like this is actually gonna okay.
(40:39):
I remember actually going, andI repeated this mantra to myself
so many times no, go deep,don't go wide, because your
brain literally doesn't want togo deep on anything.
The moment that you startthinking about something with
accuracy, it'll distract you.
(41:00):
And so I spent I'll be an hourfighting with myself going wow,
this is like I literally can't,I can't stop being distracted.
And so I'm like, all right, I'mgoing to go over to the yoga
mat and I'm going to do someexercise.
And I always say, you know,like, tire out your body and
your mind will calm down.
And so I love you knowexercising really hard when my
(41:23):
mind's going crazy and it calmsme down.
So I went over, did that.
It was perfect.
It went over late on the bed andprobably were laid on the bed
and probably, yeah, I had fouror five hours of just really
good like good, solid, crystalclear thinking.
And what's amazing is you don'trealize how good your memory is
(41:47):
when you have no otherdistraction.
Your memory is actually reallyreally good.
Out here, my memory is not nearas good because I'm distracted
by a bunch of stuff.
It just it doesn't have thesame amount of focus or
leveraged thinking.
So that was another realization.
Okay, cool, the dark isactually your friend.
It's amazing, and I was like Iwant to become friends with the
(42:11):
dark because in my business Iwill think so much better.
I'm going to learn how to getgood at this.
So that was my first day.
I ended up mentally beingdrained tired.
I had worked out, did my breath, work, fell asleep pretty
(42:33):
uneventful, went to sleep thatnight night, slept really good
again, really good.
I don't remember if I dreamtthe second night.
If I did, I think I dreamtevery night, but I don't
remember the dreams like I didthe first night.
And, yeah, I woke up the nextmorning and thought like, okay,
cool, go deep, don't go wide,like the rule.
Let's.
Woke up the next morning andthought like, okay, cool, go
(42:54):
deep, don't go wide, like let'sget into the next category.
And what was weird was I wasvery distracted again, except
for this time it was my body,and I've done a lot of research
and I actually have anotherfriend that lives in Austin and
he had done a lot of work whenhe was getting rid of mold in
(43:16):
his body and just realized thelink between the chemicals that
your brain produces and theaddiction that your body has to
those chemicals, which is thereason why most people have such
a hard time changing the habitbecause mentally you can go.
Okay, this habit's not servingme, I'm going to change it.
(43:36):
I'm going to go to the gym now,five days a week.
Well, what happens is you go tothe gym, your brain stops
producing that old chemical thatyour body was addicted to and
it doesn't like it.
And so your body tries to talkyou out of going to the gym.
Oh, you don't need to go thismorning.
You went yesterday.
Oh you're sore, like stay home,because then your brain will
(43:57):
produce the old chemicals thatit wants.
And I literally could witness,with zero distraction, I could
witness my body distracting mybrain from thinking Like my leg
would hurt, then my hand feltlike it was on fire.
Then all of a sudden my sciaticnerve was bothering me and that
(44:17):
was the one that actually Irecognized it because a few
years back in my healing journeyI had issues with my sciatic
nerve and went and didacupuncture, a bunch of other
stuff, and none of that workedand it ended up it was all tied
to a particular trauma that Ihad dealt with.
When I dealt with thatparticular trauma, I never had
(44:37):
an issue with again, neverdidn't need any therapy with
like acupuncture or anything.
So I'm like, oh wow, this isthat experience.
And I just sat there andstarted observing it, instead of
trying to make it go away, orthat it was good or bad, bad,
and literally laid in bed forthree to four hours and every
single sensation that came up Ididn't make it right, I didn't
(45:00):
make it wrong, good, bad,whatever I just sat there and
observed it.
I sat with it until it went awayand every single one did and
after about four or five hours,like I can honestly say, like I
was trying to think of badexperiences and seeing if it
would bring things up and justdo that, and after several hours
(45:20):
, it's like I had went throughevery single thing I could think
of in my body, just felt likethis, like ball of energy.
It was amazing.
And had an amazing second day,worked through tons of stuff in
my relationship with God andmyself, and just the
conversations were amazing.
It was absolutely one of thecoolest days.
(45:42):
Yeah, it was the coolest day ofthe five days.
It was amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
That's awesome, that's really, really neat and
you're absolutely right on thebrain, throwing distractions
your way and not wanting to godeep and oftentimes I can say
this for myself is that I don'tnecessarily call those out all
the time and it seems like thatthe absence of light, the
(46:08):
absence of sound, gives you theability to kind of call that out
or recognize that when it'shappening.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
And so-.
The best part is now that I'veseen it, I can't unsee it, so
now I can recognize it, and sothat alone, I think, why we'll
keep on transforming who I am,is because the more I catch
myself and my brain upgrades thestory to what's accurate
instead of the eight or 10 yearold version that was scared and
(46:39):
had to protect himself to now,like nobody's trying to beat me
up, you know someone not payingus the full amount, like none of
these things are going to killme.
And so the reaction when itoutweighs the trigger, you
realize okay, there's somethingdeeper than what just happened.
(47:00):
Let's just do a little bit ofdeep dive and figure it out and
adjust it, and then your bodylets go of it.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yeah, very, very nice .
Well, I, prior to thisinterview, did not know a lot
about a darkness retreat.
I certainly heard about it, butbut not to that level, and so,
for people hearing this andinterested in exploring it on
their own, any advice for thosepeople?
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Yeah, uh, because I did do a lot of looking around
and trying to find people'sstories and there are very, very
few and I do think it's justnow becoming, um, like you said,
uh, more, more and more popularand accepted.
Um, I'm I'm actually writing adocumented journey of all five
days, um, and I'm going to shareit on my LinkedIn.
(47:50):
Um, I'll also share it on mysocial, which you guys have, um,
on my LinkedIn.
I'll also share it on my social, which you guys have in the
show notes, so it'll be veryobvious to find it and it will
be.
It'll be released in five days.
Each new day will be sent onhis own, so it'd be five
straight days and so, yeah, youcan do that or you can email me.
(48:11):
You can do that or you canemail me.
I will tell you this I have madea commitment to myself and my
business and the team that I'mgoing to go again in three to
six months and the original onethat is next November.
I'm going to do that as welland I'm going to do the
experience three times, alldifferent, different ways, and
(48:34):
try to keep optimizing it, justlike I have done everything else
, and get the most I can.
If you're interested or youwant to have a conversation
before you go, you can email meat matt at buildgrowthscalecom.
I will share anything that youwant to know.
I will tell you that there'sthree or four things instantly
(49:00):
that I would do different One Iwould probably fast going in and
then have a little bit of foodeach day.
If we tie this up to, I said,to remind me about the food, um
and the fast uh, by the fifthday, uh, when I thought I was
going to be able to really godeep, um, the naturally produced
(49:23):
DMT in my brain uh was sostrong um that I literally for
22 hours, almost 22 hours, uhhallucinated and couldn't get
out of this experience.
And it was just, it was brutal.
And so, um, after you know,after the experience and
(49:43):
debriefing it at the host andstuff, we both decided, yeah,
it'd probably be a good idea tojust have like a little bowl of
fruit or something whatever.
You know people choose each dayUm.
The other part about that is, um, I found out what time she
brought my food on the first dayuh, which she brought it at
around two o'clock and I hadwoke up an hour before that, so
(50:06):
I had slept from seven, sevenish PM till um, till almost one
1 PM, which is I've never donethat in my entire life.
Ever I slept that long.
And then the next day, when shebrought the food, she brought
it at 11 am.
So my last meal was on Fridayat 11 am.
(50:28):
But you don't have any referenceof when people are coming or
going or doing any of that,because if they're not bringing
you food, there's no inner,there's not even that pattern,
and so a whole bunch of things.
Your brain just makesassumptions and timelines and
you don't know if it's day ornight, or there's no way to know
, because there's nothing like,there's just no reference, and
(50:52):
by the end you don't know ifit's daylight or if it's dark,
or you know, you think they'recoming any minute and hours
later you're like, oh man, well,it's been hours, now it has to
be any minute, and then it feelslike hours longer and you're
like I have no concept, I haveno idea what time it is, where
I'm at, what I'm doing, and so,yeah, there's several things I
(51:13):
would do differently and I wouldbe happy to share those.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Outstanding Well.
We appreciate you coming on theshow and sharing your story and
really look forward to readingmore about your journey.
As you put pen to paper and getthat posted, We'll be sure to
share links with our audienceand also put them in the show
notes.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, I actually think it's going to make me a
lot better at my job too.
So, like uh, people's websiteswill benefit, uh, because of the
lack of distraction and theclarity and and just like it's,
it's amazing, Um, how, when youpeel back some of those um old
stories that you just don't evenrealize, like you didn't
realize this fear that you havein back of your head.
That's a subconscious storythat's running 24 seven, Um,
(51:59):
when those go away, uh, to feel,you feel transformed.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
And last thing I want tomention and I can personally
testify to this uh, matt, youand I have done some work
together and where we have wentback and looked at some of my
previous traumas.
For a decade I have been ahorrible sleeper, probably one
(52:27):
day per week.
For the last decade, I've beenawake all night, tossing and
turning, and for people thatstruggle with sleep, they know
what a miserable experience thatcan be.
I started working with youabout oh, two months ago and
have slept through the night,probably going on 60 days in a
(52:49):
row, which has had an incredibleimpact on my life, incredible
impact on my wife and mychildren's life and how I
interact with the world, andjust want to say thank you for
that.
And if people are interested insome of that type of coaching,
is that something that you're?
Are you actively taking onclients right now?
Speaker 3 (53:13):
Yeah, obviously, with BGS, there's so many that I can
do, but, um, all you gotta dois is reach out to Matt at build
grow scalecom and, uh, yeah,we'll talk about it and figure
out a time that works.
And, yeah, to be honest, um,I've never, ever, done anything
that fulfilled me as much as, uh, something like that, where it
(53:33):
was you and I worked and hadworked together less than an
hour for that initial experienceand for it to literally have a
life-changing impact.
It really is.
It really can be that simple.
I don't know if you're willingto.
I don't think you need to giveany detail, but you give a cliff
note and say that experiencewas a 10 out of 10, or it was a
(53:58):
five out of 10.
And you were able to go throughit and experience what you
needed to experience.
At what level?
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Oh, it was 10 out of 10.
And I and I don't mind goinginto detail I, we unpacked the
worst day of my life um, thathappened when I was, uh, 11
years old that I've carried withme in my body and I did not
realize the weight that it had,and how, how hard was it for you
so?
Speaker 3 (54:25):
so this is the reason why I'm asking.
I'm kind stuff that I do, umand other practitioners do.
Um, you no longer need to talkabout it.
You don't need to relive it.
Um, that is old technology andum, just like everything else
(54:48):
that evolves and gets better, um, legitimately, uh, you can say
it was the worst For you, it wasthe worst day of your life that
you're reliving, but at whatemotional level did it take you
to go through and process thatand be done with it?
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Not a lot, right, not a lot.
Not a ton of heavy lifting andincredibly outsized returns.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
I mean like and so the way I describe it to people
is uh, the trauma is a movie, uh, you know it can last your
whole life and it's alwaysplaying.
Um, then you have like atrailer, which is a two and a
half minute version of of amovie, and so you kind of get
the gist of what's going on.
(55:33):
And then you can also have likea cliff note or an ad with the
picture and some words, andreally, uh, that's the most that
I ever ask is I want the cliffnotes of the trailer, um, so
that we can basically have anaccess point, um, and then from
that point forward, it'snon-disclosure.
(55:54):
You don't have to tell me asingle detail.
It has nothing to do with thatday.
It has everything to do withthe feelings that your body has
stored, that you developedthrough that experience.
And once you feel those, yourbody will let go of them, and
now you sleep better, your bodywill let go of them and now you
sleep better, absolutely,absolutely.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
It was an incredible experience and something I did
not anticipate the amount ofreturns I would get or the
amount of benefit and it waslife-changing.
I mean, that sounds dramaticand it should, because your
sleep is.
I will live longer.
(56:35):
I was going to die youngerbecause of my poor sleep habits.
This provided a solution tothat and I will always be
grateful for that, matt.
So thank you so much.
Yeah, awesome, yeah, yeah,thank you everyone for tuning in
to the Firing the man podcast.
This has been an outstandingepisode.
Matt's a friend of the show andwe're going to continue to have
(56:57):
him on.
If you're interested in gettingin touch with Matt, we'll post
links to all of that in the shownotes and if you're an
entrepreneur with a D2C website,you've got to go back and check
out episode 252.
It was a different type ofconversation than the one that
we had today.
It was very technical in nature, very data-driven, and there
(57:20):
will be a very high ROI on yourtime spent listening to that, as
you have listened to this oneand made it to the end of the
episode.
So thank you everyone, thankyou Matt, and we'll see you next
week.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast.
In today's episode, matthewStafford once again joins us.
If you didn't catch it, matthewwas a guest on episode 252,
where he highlighted seven waysyou could make more money with
your Shopify store If you runyour own D2C website.
This is an episode that willhave an insanely high return on
(00:46):
your time invested in listeningto it.
Today we welcome Matthew to theshow to discuss a different
topic.
Over the past five years,matthew has gone on a journey of
self-discovery, healing anddeep work.
He has come out on the otherside a changed man, ready to
tackle any obstacles thrown hisway.
In today's episode, we are goingto dive deep into Matthew's
(01:09):
journey and how entrepreneurscan work on the six inches
between their ears, as Matthewlikes to say, and live a more
empowered and fulfilling life.
Matthew, really happy to haveyou back on the show.
Welcome, thank you.
I'm glad to be here.
Really happy to have you backon the show.
Welcome, thank you.
I'm glad to be here, absolutelyso.
I've heard you talk about thesix inches between our ears and
(01:30):
that's such a powerful metaphor.
Can you unpack what you mean bythat and how it impacts
entrepreneurs specifically?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, let me.
I'm going to start with alittle story.
It might take us four or fiveminutes, but I think it will set
us up for the context of how Iwent about this.
Because, to be completelyhonest, once I made this
discovery, I had already beenworking on websites and breaking
down data and doing things ofthat nature.
(02:01):
That's just how my brain works,and so when I was invited by a
friend that I trusted to go tothis emotional intelligence
experience and it consisted oflike three different weekends
you'd go for Thursday, you'd getthere Thursday night, go Friday
, saturday, sunday, after thesecond or third day we had this
(02:24):
experience that we had to do,where we had to act out our
mother and our father Well, mychildhood story and just spread
the details.
It was extremely rough, it wasvery violent, and so I had
developed a lot of unhealthystories.
And so I had developed a lot ofunhealthy stories, and my
(02:48):
belief was the reason why Istruggled in the feel good about
myself or feel good enough, orlike, if you achieve success,
that you'll be happy.
Struggle came from.
My parents always said theyloved us, and it was a very
religious household, but then mydad was extremely abusive, and
so I just thought like, oh, Idon't have a good understanding
(03:10):
of what love means because ofthat.
And so my whole life I lookedat that area.
Well, I'm very I would say 99%of the time I don't have a
temper, I'm very controlled,which took work because that's
not what was modeled to me.
You got to witness me yesterdayangry when we had a few minute
(03:33):
conversation, which is I'm sureI'll bring back up later because
it's such a good.
Those triggers are actuallyopportunities for us to go start
working at that, six inchesbetween our ears.
So back to the story, get intothis experience.
You have to act out our motherand father and uh.
(03:53):
First one I did is I acted outmy dad, acted angry, pretended
like to smack my you know myparticipant a couple times, uh,
and then uh.
The next part of the experiencewas act out your mother, and I
was really grateful that thislady that was sitting in front
of me she was probably close tomy mother's age, sitting in the
(04:16):
chair.
It was much easier for me tovisualize her as my mom than her
as my dad.
But what was really weird waswe were over by the wall,
probably three, four feet awayfrom it.
And when I went to um act thisexperience out with my mom, for
whatever reason, I turned aroundand walked over to the wall
(04:39):
instead of looking at her and Iwas like I remember clear as day
.
It's like a video playing in myhead.
I'm like, oh, this is reallystrange, um, and the words that
I said was my mom never hit me.
And and then I said, oh, my momnever played with me, my mom
never took us anywhere, my momand it was like this, just this,
(05:03):
like huge epiphany, oh, like mymom was checked out, like she
didn't have any connection withus at all.
And so that was like this, likeaha, wow, for 48 years, 47
(05:24):
years, I've been looking in thewrong place.
No wonder I couldn't fix thisfeeling.
And then I started going, wow,if my brain was able to hide
that from me for 40 some years.
I wanna understand my brainlike I do a website and I went
and learned how to do hypnosisand studied somatic work and a
bunch of these things, and eachtime that I did that I felt
(05:46):
better.
I felt, you know, I startedkind of pulling away the layers
of the onion that I had put overtop of it In that process.
After about a year of differentthings maybe a little over I
started telling my story.
I actually got to a point whereI felt comfortable sharing my
(06:06):
story, where before that I wasalways just very ashamed of it
and so I never shared it and Ididn't want sympathy for the
details or any of that.
So it was more of like I justdidn't say too much about it,
and most of the time everythingthat I said was very edited
because I needed to get right.
I can be wrong, and you knowthere's I had a very strong
(06:30):
sense of needing to be right andthat I was wrong as broken
bunch of this other stuff thatnever served me as I started
telling my story.
Obviously I hang out inentrepreneurial circles telling
my story.
Obviously I hang out inentrepreneurial circles, and so
99% of my friends areentrepreneurs.
Everyone else started sharingtheir story too, and all of them
(06:54):
, like I, didn't have a singleone that said oh no, I've never
dealt with that.
Oh, I don't know, my life wasperfect, and so it was really
strange to me.
I'm like why is it that allthese entrepreneurs have that?
And so again, me and myanalytical brain.
What's the anomaly?
And this is my conclusion, andI've shared this with now
(07:18):
hundreds of entrepreneurs, andthey all agree.
I'll agree there seem tosupport it.
If you think about it, thedefinition of trauma is a
feeling of loss of control.
You are out of control or youcan't control the situation.
It's scary.
You create a belief aroundwhatever happened.
Your brain stores that Its jobis to keep you safe.
(07:46):
So now, in those unsafeenvironments, you now have a
coping mechanism that you'llunconsciously use in order to
deal with that, because most ofus during that trauma, a lot of
times it's repeated when we'relittle, and so we developed this
place of a coping mechanism.
For me it was a retreat to myhead, don't feel my body, and so
(08:06):
that's very typical of men,because we're taught not to feel
our feelings.
We're taught to think ourfeelings because if we share our
feelings there, a lot of timeswe get teased or made fun of or
told to suck it up or be a manor all these different things,
and so it's very, very commonfor men to just go to their head
, feel safe.
They can think it all through,and we don't realize how
(08:31):
detrimental that really is,because what happens is every
one of those new traumas that wethen go to our head and we
think we resolved, we've neverreleased it from our body, we
have a coping mechanism and then.
So this ties me back to theentrepreneurial wing and then,
and then you can go ahead andstart asking me questions.
But why do I think it's soprevalent?
(08:54):
Because, if you think aboutbusiness in general, when are
you ever in control?
There's always things going on.
In fact, I would venture to saythat business is the ultimate
self-improvement game, becauseit is going to constantly show
you where you're not showing up,where you're not doing a good
(09:14):
job, where you need to increaseyour skill, where you need to
get better at marketing orwhatever, and it's always going
to show you where you're notgood enough.
And so, learning to deal insideof that environment, if you
don't already have a copingmechanism for trauma, it's not
(09:35):
going to be appealing to you.
And so, when you think about it, why do people choose to live
inside of an environment that isso volatile and never, you know
, stable?
And it's because they alreadyhave a method, whether it's
healthy or not, of how to copeinside of that environment,
where the employee looks at theowner and sees all that stuff
(09:58):
and they're like no way I wantto check out at 4 pm, go home,
you know, and play or dowhatever, and I don't think
anything about work.
That's just not how our brainworks.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
That's really interesting and thank you for
sharing that story.
You know, I have found, youknow, with Firing the man
podcast we've been doing we'rein our sixth year and have
interviewed a lot ofentrepreneurs and that
observation about trauma, notall of them share it, but I have
noticed that it does seem likemore entrepreneurs seem to have
(10:35):
that background thannon-entrepreneurs and I never
really formed a link between thetwo of them but I I think that
that's really interesting andyou know there's a lot of
entrepreneurs listening to thisshow that are probably relating
to to what you're saying and andand have developed those coping
(10:58):
mechanisms.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I think another caveat that makes it so
prevalent is, if you think aboutit, the overwhelming majority
of people that go through thattype of environment develop the
belief I'm not good enough.
And so you find that they tryvery hard in their business to
(11:20):
keep on making it more and moreand more successful to feel good
enough, to keep on making itmore and more and more
successful, to feel good enough.
And eventually they realizelike, wow, no matter how
successful I am, no matter howmuch money I've made, that
hasn't made me feel good enough.
And so you think that thebusiness is a vehicle to feel
better, and what you end upfinding which actually I think
(11:44):
adds to the trauma a little bitis, wow, I've done everything
that I thought I was supposed todo to feel good and it's still
not working.
Now I'm really lost, or now I'm.
I'm just unique and everybodyelse figured it out because they
share their highlight ofrealism, but I still feel shitty
inside their highlight ofrealism, but I still feel shitty
(12:07):
and tired.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, there's a quote that I heard on modern wisdom
that has stuck with me, and thatquote is you've already
achieved things that you saidwould make you happy and that
when you really digest that, Iknow for me personally that one
stings because there's so muchtruth in it.
It's so much truth in it and soyou know, for entrepreneurs
(12:28):
that are listening, what wouldbe the first step?
You know, you acknowledge thatyou have past traumas.
You're running a business.
What would be the first step in, you know, in taking this and
turning it into a positive?
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, because I actually believe that there's a
lot of positives that can comefrom it.
Our growth comes from thepainful things that we go
through.
It's not typically when thingsare going great that you are
learning.
You know the lessons that aregoing to make you wiser and and
stronger, and I would say, uh,more of a broad spectrum human
(13:14):
Sounds good what?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
what role does self-awareness play in
addressing some of theseinternal challenges and how?
How can entrepreneurs take thatand cultivate it?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah, so I will tell you the quickest way.
This is the cheat code, it'sthe shortcut, which is what we
all want, and but it's the lastthing that you want to hear.
It is it is always me, it'salways me, no matter what.
Every single time it's me.
Uh, and we can go back toyesterday, our example of the
(13:52):
trigger.
We've had a client, um, we'velegitimately had a home run for
them and, uh, they came andnitpicked a typo on the contract
and it saves them 11 grand.
The issue with that is it's notthe 11 grand, um, even though
(14:13):
that's important, like,obviously we do this to make
money Um, when I thought aboutit cause, after I get over, you
know, when I get triggered, thevery first thing I do, or I try
to this particular case, I was alittle more triggered than
normal, so I didn't, but Irecognize that the trigger is
mine and that's an opportunityfor me to look in and see why
(14:36):
I'm so angry or why I'm sad orwhy I'm, whatever the emotion is
, and then that gives me anopportunity to see a part of
myself that I haven't healed yet.
So for me, when I actually satdown and did some work around
that, I recognized that I feltnot appreciated because what we
(15:00):
had done for that and we hadtaken them from less than a
hundred grand a month to seven800,000 a month in a six month
period they're crushing it.
And then I felt like, wow,that's such a lack of
appreciation for what we did.
He didn't see it that way.
He saw it as like this is whatit says and this is how I
interpret it, even if that's nothow it's meant to be.
(15:23):
I interpret it even if that'snot how it's meant to be.
And so we gave it into him andI, you know, I said, okay, cool,
how can I learn from this?
I can understand that one.
I can still appreciate the workthat we did for him, whether he
recognizes it or not, and thatinstantly allowed me to calm
down quite a bit, because now myyou know, my ego isn't agitated
(15:46):
because I gave it what itneeded.
Hey, you guys have done areally good job and cool.
Whether he realizes that or not, that's, it's not for me.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Absolutely, Absolutely.
Now, in the intro I hadmentioned that you've spent a
lot of time doing deep work andinterested what.
What all does that entail?
And out of all of thosedifferent types of practices,
what has been the highest impact?
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah.
So, yeah, I don't know whatyou're listening to audience,
how much they're open to all thedifferent modalities, so I'll
just share everything I did andgo through it that way and end
what my experience was with it.
So my very first experienceever was a friend that I had.
(16:36):
That was a client.
He had been, you know, we hadconsulted him with his
e-commerce stuff for severalyears.
He'd done really well and hesaid hey, I really think that
you would benefit from thisseven-day retreat we're going to
do down in Costa Rica.
We're going to do ayahuasca andit would be three days out of
the seven really clean food, da,da da.
(16:59):
And I had never done any like.
I grew up in a very religioushousehold.
I've never smoked, never doneanything.
I think the first time I everhad a buzz, I was like 24 years
old.
Just, I was very, you know,naive when it came to that stuff
.
If I didn't really trust themand know them for as long as I
had, I wouldn't have done it.
I went and did it.
(17:20):
First day was great.
The other two experiences werenot great, but it like cracked
me open enough to go oh okay,there's something here.
I didn't realize how um lockedup.
I was like I was pretty well, Iwas well, I'm pretty tight.
So, um, yeah, that was.
That was my first experience.
(17:41):
The next one I was at amastermind and a friend of mine
who's a Navy SEAL got up, gave apresentation, got off the stage
, him and I started talking.
I'd known him for a couple ofyears and he looked radically
different than when I had firstmet him.
When I first met him, hegenuinely looked like someone
(18:01):
that was dead but was walkingaround.
He just was dark, like.
It was hard to explain how darkhe was and when I saw him give
his speech I was like, wow, helooks really healthy and man
really, really bright.
And so we started talking andhe had been on a two-year
journey of trying all thesedifferent plant medicines and
the whole nine yards and thentook me or offered to do this
(18:25):
four day or three day experiencewith me using MDMA, and so I
signed up for that and said,yeah, let's do it.
That was the most pivotal moment.
That was, um, that was when Icould find I knew all the stuff
was messed up and I understoodthat, like my mom, um had never
(18:48):
formed a relationship that youknow felt closer, safer, connect
, all of that stuff, but Ididn't know how to like access,
how to heal.
Um, when I did the MDMA, uh, hecame there was actually five
men, we each did it and then thenext day he came back and his
gift is that he just recognizespatterns.
(19:10):
And so, from the conversationsthat we had when we were using
the MDMA, he had wrote down whatour trauma patterns were, and
then he gave us three sentencesthat each of us had to repeat
back to him, and what was reallyodd was the sentences were
super easy and I could repeatback every sentence that he gave
(19:32):
to everyone else, but the oneshe gave to me.
I couldn't do it, and so Iwatched each person struggle.
I mean, they would get mad,they would literally start
sweating, they'd start cryingfrom these really weird, like
normal sentences to us.
Until he got to us and what itwas and that was the first time
I was like, oh my God, oursubconscious is so strong we
(19:57):
literally can't even see whatour issue is Like we have.
It is so good at lying to usand so good at protecting us
that it thinks if we discoverwhat the actual problem is,
we'll change and that might killus.
So nope, you don't get to seeit.
And so that that was when Ireally was like, okay, I really
(20:18):
got to work between the sixinches between my ears because
everything's there like 100%,and hired a coach outside.
Coming out of that experience,and that was the best thing I
ever did, because he can seethings that I can't see for
myself.
And now, after spending thelast four or five years, spent
(20:48):
hundreds of thousands of dollarson trainings and learning how
to do stuff and all thesedifferent things, and now I
actually coach some people thatare really big names in the
coaching world because of I'vebeen through a lot of what
they've been through and then Ican sit with them and go through
that.
I've been through a lot of whatthey've been through and then I
can sit with them and gothrough that and but just, yeah,
it's been such a blessing tolearn that and understand where
it comes from and how it works.
(21:09):
So that was my MDMA experience.
From there I tried mushroompsilocybin.
Psilocybin um, um, five MEO DMT, which is another like a, and
(21:30):
you inhale it.
It's a poison from a frog um,that you take and it's.
That was.
That was pretty, that was apretty solid experience.
I felt like I got a lot from itand it was, and it was very
enjoyable.
So it was both Um and then, uh,about eight days ago, I just
got out of 121 hour dark retreatand I can tell you, um, I was
(21:52):
pretty much done with the plantmedicines, cause I don't, um,
I've always had the feeling, ifyou're just doing it to do drugs
, cool, that's cool, but I justnot into that.
Um, so, for me, I always had, umpretty strong intentions when
I'm going to do it, like in, in,in the environment, that I'm
going to do it, that myintention is that I'm trying to
(22:15):
heal or, you know, you know,enhance my life in some form or
another, besides just get highor, you know, have drugs.
So, um, I I kind of was at aplace where, yeah, I've tried
them, done them, had guides withall of them.
Um, I feel really happy, I'msuper healthy.
(22:35):
Um, now the next journey was,uh, learning how to like really
understand my brain as far ashow it thinks, and, uh, no
better way to do that than gointo the dark and get rid of all
distractions.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Absolutely, and and I want to dive deeper into this,
but but before I do, I want totalk about some of those
alternative modalities and thankyou for sharing your story.
I think the conversation onthese has really changed.
You hear people like TimFerriss, aubrey Marcus, andrew
Huberman.
You know there's federallyfunded research through the MAPS
(23:11):
Institute that is looking at abetter way, a better way to help
people essentially, Let me giveyou a really interesting stat.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
And then keep going Talk therapy people that need
therapy.
If they go twice a week, theyconsider it a success.
If you can drop down to once aweek in your talk therapy, they
consider talk therapy wassuccessful.
If you've been talking to yourtherapist twice a week, you drop
(23:43):
to once, that's successful andthey consider a 30 to 40% good.
So out of 100 people that do it, 30 to 40 can cut their therapy
time in half and they considerthat a successful therapy
(24:05):
therapy time in half and theyconsider that a successful
therapy.
Mdma has a documented history of80% success rate.
Success rate with MDMA therapymeans if you see your therapist
twice a week, you no longer needtherapy.
If you see your therapist oncea week, you no longer need
therapy after three sessions.
And so 80% success rate.
The only reason why it's notlegal is because the government
(24:29):
wants to, you know, regulate itor tax it or do whatever, and I
do believe with the newadministration it will happen.
It will happen.
(24:52):
But yeah, like the moment thatMDMA is allowed to be
administered by, you know,health practitioners in a safe
environment, I do believe theeconomy and really make change
and all of that.
So, understanding all thethings that we've talked about
up to this, I believe that thatwill be groundbreaking when that
(25:13):
happens.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And you feel the trend.
You really feel the trend, andpeople are.
Every year it seems like moreand more people are coming out
and talking about it and youknow, as a data person, you
can't argue with thosestatistics and so, no, I
absolutely love that andappreciate you sharing that.
So you had mentioned a darkretreat.
(25:36):
Tell me what is that?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
What is a dark retreat?
Yeah, retreat, tell me what.
What is that?
What is a darker treat?
Yeah, so, um, great question,because I tried, like I had a
friend, aubrey marcus, I'd methim and then he went and did
that afterwards and so I kind offollowed the story, watched the
video and I was like, oh okay,very cool.
And he like, over the following12, 18 months, really, you
could see the difference.
(26:00):
And what I tell people to do is,once they watch that video, go
back and watch some of hispodcasts from a couple years ago
and then watch his podcastsafter the dark retreat.
He is fundamentally differentin the amount of presence that
(26:20):
he has.
Before he was good and he askedlots of questions, great
podcast host.
Um, afterwards, like you seehim and it's literally like, um,
it's almost like he's enjoyingthe words and like he's so
present and I really do think,um, after going through that, uh
, that that's where I'm going toget to as far as like the
(26:44):
clarity and the lack ofdistraction, all those different
things.
So what the dark retreat is isyou are put in an environment no
noise and no light at all, nolight at all.
(27:05):
And so, if you think about itand the way that I describe it
to people is if I'm looking atyou right now and don't move
away, I can still see the twolights up here, my microphone,
my tea, my laptop, some stuff onmy desk, this doorway going out
into the rest of the apartmentand all that stuff.
So my brain's always processingthat, even though I'm looking
(27:25):
at you right now, when you gointo that darker tree you can't
see any light, like nothing, andso the moment all of that shut
off, your brain's no longerbeing distracted by that.
There's no noise, no sound.
So now, all of a sudden,there's no distraction there.
What is there to do other thanto literally observe your
(27:48):
thoughts?
You can see the little voicetalking in your head.
You can watch your brain likelie.
You can see your brain detoxfrom the distraction.
It's unbelievable how, when youshut off all those other senses
that distract you from beingfocused and clear uh, how clear
(28:08):
it gets.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Outstanding.
So I really want to dive intowhat your experiences was was
like in some of the keytakeaways.
But can you help me picturewhat?
What does this look like?
Are you in a is?
Are you in a tank, are you in aroom or are you in a house Like
?
What does this look like?
Just to kind of set the scene.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah.
So for me, um, it was, uh, itwas, it was kind of yeah, I hate
saying this, but it was ahippie commune, Like that's what
kind of what it was, but theycall it a resort, um, and uh,
the place that I had signed upfor, uh, let me know that my
dates were coming.
So I booked all the time on mycalendar, did a whole bunch of
(28:52):
stuff and then, when I emailedthem back and said, hey, can you
give me more details so I canget my flights booked, they're
like no, no, that's for 2025,not 2024.
And I'd already waited a year.
So I was like, oh, wow, thatreally was a letdown.
So I got on, started Googling.
Third option I had already.
I paid for another one.
They said, hey, someone bookedat the exact same time here,
(29:16):
refunding your money.
I was like man, I don't know ifI'm going to make it.
I finally found one.
Boom, it was in Mexico, greatexperience.
But essentially they have abunch of outbuildings and
they're all concrete and it'sround which I'll explain why
that matters later Round andevery wall inside solid concrete
(29:39):
and the concrete floor and itis pitch black.
The only thing that you have inthere is a bed to sleep on, you
have a bench to sit on, youhave a yoga mat, and then you
have some towels and soap totake a shower and go to the
bathroom and brush your teeth,and so, yeah, that's essentially
(30:00):
it.
Uh, there is a food shoot whereyou can pass food back and
forth without any light gettingin.
And then, um, for they also hada notepad with a pen so I could
write in the dark.
I couldn't see what I waswriting, but I do the best I
could stick it in there and uh,you know, on the second day, I
said hey, I'm going to fast, uh,which I fast a lot.
(30:22):
Um, didn't think it would.
I thought it would be a goodexperience, cause he said um,
yes, you'll go deeper and it'dbe more intense.
Um, so I fasted 71 hours of the121, um, to do it over again.
I probably would change that alittle bit, because the fifth
day there was nothing tointerrupt the natural DMT that
(30:44):
your brain produces, and myfifth day was a nightmare, like
every minute felt like hours.
It was just extremely hard.
But the first four days wereamazing and if you asked me to
describe it in one word, I wouldsay, transformational.
There's a lot of things thatcreate awareness, but then you
(31:10):
have a lot of work to do inorder to follow up on that
awareness.
And I will tell you, what hasseemed to happen over the last
eight days is a lot of therealizations and a lot of the
stories that my brain had that Icould now see it naturally,
(31:31):
like, said, oh, that's notaccurate, and upgraded it to my
new, wiser version, my new,wiser version, and it feels like
every day I feel a littlelighter, a little heavier, a
little healthier, clear, lessdistracted, and so I do believe
that over you know this thiswill keep changing for the next
(32:00):
few months, because the storieshave changed, and I think the
stories is literally what is howwe create our life.
The reason why one person has adifferent resolve is because
they have a different set ofbeliefs and a story that drives
them, and once you can see thatstory, there's no unseeing that.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I really like that and I appreciate you sharing
your experiences there.
This is as I've heard you talkabout it.
It's something that seemsreally interesting to me.
It's like something that Iwould want to do.
However, as I think about itand I'm sure there's a lot of
listeners I like feel a littlenervous and scared.
Like feel a little nervous andscared, like I don't know if I
(32:43):
am comfortable being alone withmyself and, as I say that out
loud, I that doesn't like.
Why should?
Why am I uncomfortable beingwith just myself, without
distraction?
And so what was there like whenyou, when the light turned off,
like in that first 15 minutes,like what's going through your
mind and what like?
(33:04):
Take me through like that firstday as well.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Okay, I'll do that.
I want to point out somethingthat just happened that is super
noticeable to me, that youwon't realize, but it might be a
benefit to your listeners.
So, as you were describing it,you started going oh, that
sounds really weird and wantedto edit what you're feeling was
(33:28):
so the original fear is thesubconscious story.
And then, as it surfaces, it'snot matching your logic and so
you try to edit it to fit yourstory of what's okay.
So the fear of being alone withyourself, shut off from
everything, is actually a storythat's going on in the
(33:50):
background.
As you started to share it outloud, your brain heard it and
goes oh I need to edit that tomake it okay.
So it fits within my bubble ofwhat's okay.
Absolutely, that is whathappened, yeah we literally just
got to watch your subconsciouscatch it, try to share, and then
your brain stopped it andcorrected it and said, no, get
(34:12):
back in there, you shouldn't bescared yeah, yeah, you're,
you're right, that is whathappened.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
that that is what happened.
I appreciate you calling thatout.
I appreciate you calling thatout, so so, I'll give you the
first day.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah it's .
I'm just a very structured.
So I you and I are friendsoutside of this.
You understand like I break mylife into four categories my
fitness, my relationships withmyself and God, my relationship
with others and then thebusiness.
And so I'm thinking, hey, I gotfive days or full days and two
(34:47):
half days on each end.
I'm going to work on onecategory each day and I got it
all planned out in my head.
This is what's going to happen.
You know, I talked to my coachand dah dah, dah, you know, he
said the first two days wereboring really hard for him.
Then the third day, and he gaveme this whole experience.
I kind of thought that's how itwas going to be.
And Aubrey's was very similar.
(35:09):
First two days was prettyuneventful.
Third day has the natural DMTand then did the work the rest
of the days, and so that's kindof how I saw mine playing out.
It didn't play out that way atall.
The very first day I get up,actually she says and this is
where things get fuzzy and yourealize how much we make
(35:32):
assumptions without actuallyunderstanding and we just fill
it in with our own details.
And so she said typicallyyou'll fall asleep right away
and you're going to sleep a lotlonger than normal, so I'll
bring your food later in the day.
Not to me, like, oh, okay, like10 AM, cause I will wake up at
(35:54):
eight, maybe I'll wake up at 10.
Now she'll bring my food around.
Then Dada Never asked, neveranything.
I realized later that's what Ithought, and and and remind me
to tell you why that's important, Cause by the end of the fifth
day that becomes reallyimportant.
Um, go to sleep, like literallyshe's we blow out the candle.
(36:19):
She filmed it so that I couldpost it, you know, because I
wanted to document my thing.
She goes outside, closes the.
There's two doors, um, so theone's closed on the inside,
that's all sealed.
She closes on the outside,that's sealed, and then she duct
tapes it.
I can walk out at any time Iwant, she just can't walk in and
uh, so, um, that's, that's it.
(36:43):
She did that way.
She goes, no talking until youknow it's over, which is five
days later.
Uh, I, I got tired immediately.
I had left from tampa in themorning um 7 am, flew to dallas,
then from dallas down to middleof mexico and then a place
called oaka, and then a two anda half hour car drive to the, to
(37:06):
the beach, you know, to the umocean.
I had enough travel.
I was like I was tired and so,within 30 minutes of her going
out and it was probably sixo'clock their time, which is
like nine o'clock my time Um, Igo to bed nine, 30, 10 o'clock.
I'm tired.
(37:26):
I was out, like I just Iliterally laid down and I fell
asleep immediately and I hadfour of the most vivid dreams
I've ever had in my life.
Like, and she said that shegoes, you might have some real
strong dreams and she goes evenon the other days when you're
sleeping, you're still going tobe processing stuff.
So, you know, there's a goodchance.
(37:47):
You have a lot of dreams.
I'm like, all right, cool, nobig deal.
Uh, these dreams were crazy,like they were.
It was so real.
The first two, um, I had dreamtthat I had left the building,
walked out and and ruined theexperience.
I had like, uh, you know, Ididn't make it in my head like
(38:07):
that was a big deal.
And the second one I walkedback to the, to the hut, and I
looked at the door and it wasstill duct taped.
I'm like, oh, that's weird.
I didn't come out the door.
Where did I get out?
And I'm trying to think ofwhere I could have exited this
hut, because you can't, like,there's nowhere but that door.
And then I was like, oh yeah, Ihave an eye mask on and opened
(38:28):
it and oh yeah, I'm in the dark.
Okay, I'm in the dark, okay,I'm laying on the bed.
That I woke up and realized thatwas what had happened, and so I
ended up sleeping really goodand really really good, woke up
feeling amazing, super refreshed, and like within an hour she
brought my food and I was like,oh, wow, perfect timing,
(38:49):
everything's good.
I ate the food, eating in thedark for the very first time,
when you have no idea what shegave you.
There's a fork with a napkin.
I'm a little weird, so I don'twant to touch food with my hands
and get all sticky, and becauseit's hard to find stuff, and
you know, I just wasn'tacclimated to the dark yet and
(39:10):
so I just used my fork andstabbed and what I discovered
was it was pineapple and someapple chunks.
And when you eat in the dark andyou have nothing to see,
nothing to hear, and you feelthe texture of the fruit when
you like.
I could.
I knew, after a couple ofpieces, if I had stabbed a piece
(39:32):
of pineapple, if I stabbed anapple, and I could feel the
difference.
And then when I would eat it,like you could taste the flavor
was amazing, the texture,because nothing else is there to
distract you.
You're a hundred percentabsorbed in that experience.
So that was another lesson howmany things we miss every single
(39:54):
day because we're doing severalthings at once instead of just
actually paying attention towhat we're doing.
And that can apply to our workand apply to how we eat, apply
to our conversations with eachother, all of that.
So that's been a huge shift forme too.
Then I'm like all right, greatI'm, I'm well rested, I ate my
(40:18):
food, I have all day in front ofme, I'm going to, I'm going to
get into some work here, and andthat was the reason why I did
it Like I'm going to make gooduse of the time and within 10
minutes I realized, like this is, this is not going to be easy,
like this is actually gonna okay.
(40:39):
I remember actually going, andI repeated this mantra to myself
so many times no, go deep,don't go wide, because your
brain literally doesn't want togo deep on anything.
The moment that you startthinking about something with
accuracy, it'll distract you.
(41:00):
And so I spent I'll be an hourfighting with myself going wow,
this is like I literally can't,I can't stop being distracted.
And so I'm like, all right, I'mgoing to go over to the yoga
mat and I'm going to do someexercise.
And I always say, you know,like, tire out your body and
your mind will calm down.
And so I love you knowexercising really hard when my
(41:23):
mind's going crazy and it calmsme down.
So I went over, did that.
It was perfect.
It went over late on the bed andprobably were laid on the bed
and probably, yeah, I had fouror five hours of just really
good like good, solid, crystalclear thinking.
And what's amazing is you don'trealize how good your memory is
(41:47):
when you have no otherdistraction.
Your memory is actually reallyreally good.
Out here, my memory is not nearas good because I'm distracted
by a bunch of stuff.
It just it doesn't have thesame amount of focus or
leveraged thinking.
So that was another realization.
Okay, cool, the dark isactually your friend.
It's amazing, and I was like Iwant to become friends with the
(42:11):
dark because in my business Iwill think so much better.
I'm going to learn how to getgood at this.
So that was my first day.
I ended up mentally beingdrained tired.
I had worked out, did my breath, work, fell asleep pretty
(42:33):
uneventful, went to sleep thatnight night, slept really good
again, really good.
I don't remember if I dreamtthe second night.
If I did, I think I dreamtevery night, but I don't
remember the dreams like I didthe first night.
And, yeah, I woke up the nextmorning and thought like, okay,
cool, go deep, don't go wide,like the rule.
Let's.
Woke up the next morning andthought like, okay, cool, go
(42:54):
deep, don't go wide, like let'sget into the next category.
And what was weird was I wasvery distracted again, except
for this time it was my body,and I've done a lot of research
and I actually have anotherfriend that lives in Austin and
he had done a lot of work whenhe was getting rid of mold in
(43:16):
his body and just realized thelink between the chemicals that
your brain produces and theaddiction that your body has to
those chemicals, which is thereason why most people have such
a hard time changing the habitbecause mentally you can go.
Okay, this habit's not servingme, I'm going to change it.
(43:36):
I'm going to go to the gym now,five days a week.
Well, what happens is you go tothe gym, your brain stops
producing that old chemical thatyour body was addicted to and
it doesn't like it.
And so your body tries to talkyou out of going to the gym.
Oh, you don't need to go thismorning.
You went yesterday.
Oh you're sore, like stay home,because then your brain will
(43:57):
produce the old chemicals thatit wants.
And I literally could witness,with zero distraction, I could
witness my body distracting mybrain from thinking Like my leg
would hurt, then my hand feltlike it was on fire.
Then all of a sudden my sciaticnerve was bothering me and that
(44:17):
was the one that actually Irecognized it because a few
years back in my healing journeyI had issues with my sciatic
nerve and went and didacupuncture, a bunch of other
stuff, and none of that workedand it ended up it was all tied
to a particular trauma that Ihad dealt with.
When I dealt with thatparticular trauma, I never had
(44:37):
an issue with again, neverdidn't need any therapy with
like acupuncture or anything.
So I'm like, oh wow, this isthat experience.
And I just sat there andstarted observing it, instead of
trying to make it go away, orthat it was good or bad, bad,
and literally laid in bed forthree to four hours and every
single sensation that came up Ididn't make it right, I didn't
(45:00):
make it wrong, good, bad,whatever I just sat there and
observed it.
I sat with it until it went awayand every single one did and
after about four or five hours,like I can honestly say, like I
was trying to think of badexperiences and seeing if it
would bring things up and justdo that, and after several hours
(45:20):
, it's like I had went throughevery single thing I could think
of in my body, just felt likethis, like ball of energy.
It was amazing.
And had an amazing second day,worked through tons of stuff in
my relationship with God andmyself, and just the
conversations were amazing.
It was absolutely one of thecoolest days.
(45:42):
Yeah, it was the coolest day ofthe five days.
It was amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
That's awesome, that's really, really neat and
you're absolutely right on thebrain, throwing distractions
your way and not wanting to godeep and oftentimes I can say
this for myself is that I don'tnecessarily call those out all
the time and it seems like thatthe absence of light, the
(46:08):
absence of sound, gives you theability to kind of call that out
or recognize that when it'shappening.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
And so-.
The best part is now that I'veseen it, I can't unsee it, so
now I can recognize it, and sothat alone, I think, why we'll
keep on transforming who I am,is because the more I catch
myself and my brain upgrades thestory to what's accurate
instead of the eight or 10 yearold version that was scared and
(46:39):
had to protect himself to now,like nobody's trying to beat me
up, you know someone not payingus the full amount, like none of
these things are going to killme.
And so the reaction when itoutweighs the trigger, you
realize okay, there's somethingdeeper than what just happened.
(47:00):
Let's just do a little bit ofdeep dive and figure it out and
adjust it, and then your bodylets go of it.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yeah, very, very nice .
Well, I, prior to thisinterview, did not know a lot
about a darkness retreat.
I certainly heard about it, butbut not to that level, and so,
for people hearing this andinterested in exploring it on
their own, any advice for thosepeople?
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Yeah, uh, because I did do a lot of looking around
and trying to find people'sstories and there are very, very
few and I do think it's justnow becoming, um, like you said,
uh, more, more and more popularand accepted.
Um, I'm I'm actually writing adocumented journey of all five
days, um, and I'm going to shareit on my LinkedIn.
(47:50):
Um, I'll also share it on mysocial, which you guys have, um,
on my LinkedIn.
I'll also share it on my social, which you guys have in the
show notes, so it'll be veryobvious to find it and it will
be.
It'll be released in five days.
Each new day will be sent onhis own, so it'd be five
straight days and so, yeah, youcan do that or you can email me.
(48:11):
You can do that or you canemail me.
I will tell you this I have madea commitment to myself and my
business and the team that I'mgoing to go again in three to
six months and the original onethat is next November.
I'm going to do that as welland I'm going to do the
experience three times, alldifferent, different ways, and
(48:34):
try to keep optimizing it, justlike I have done everything else
, and get the most I can.
If you're interested or youwant to have a conversation
before you go, you can email meat matt at buildgrowthscalecom.
I will share anything that youwant to know.
I will tell you that there'sthree or four things instantly
(49:00):
that I would do different One Iwould probably fast going in and
then have a little bit of foodeach day.
If we tie this up to, I said,to remind me about the food, um
and the fast uh, by the fifthday, uh, when I thought I was
going to be able to really godeep, um, the naturally produced
(49:23):
DMT in my brain uh was sostrong um that I literally for
22 hours, almost 22 hours, uhhallucinated and couldn't get
out of this experience.
And it was just, it was brutal.
And so, um, after you know,after the experience and
(49:43):
debriefing it at the host andstuff, we both decided, yeah,
it'd probably be a good idea tojust have like a little bowl of
fruit or something whatever.
You know people choose each dayUm.
The other part about that is, um, I found out what time she
brought my food on the first dayuh, which she brought it at
around two o'clock and I hadwoke up an hour before that, so
(50:06):
I had slept from seven, sevenish PM till um, till almost one
1 PM, which is I've never donethat in my entire life.
Ever I slept that long.
And then the next day, when shebrought the food, she brought
it at 11 am.
So my last meal was on Fridayat 11 am.
(50:28):
But you don't have any referenceof when people are coming or
going or doing any of that,because if they're not bringing
you food, there's no inner,there's not even that pattern,
and so a whole bunch of things.
Your brain just makesassumptions and timelines and
you don't know if it's day ornight, or there's no way to know
, because there's nothing like,there's just no reference, and
(50:52):
by the end you don't know ifit's daylight or if it's dark,
or you know, you think they'recoming any minute and hours
later you're like, oh man, well,it's been hours, now it has to
be any minute, and then it feelslike hours longer and you're
like I have no concept, I haveno idea what time it is, where
I'm at, what I'm doing, and so,yeah, there's several things I
(51:13):
would do differently and I wouldbe happy to share those.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Outstanding Well.
We appreciate you coming on theshow and sharing your story and
really look forward to readingmore about your journey.
As you put pen to paper and getthat posted, We'll be sure to
share links with our audienceand also put them in the show
notes.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, I actually think it's going to make me a
lot better at my job too.
So, like uh, people's websiteswill benefit, uh, because of the
lack of distraction and theclarity and and just like it's,
it's amazing, Um, how, when youpeel back some of those um old
stories that you just don't evenrealize, like you didn't
realize this fear that you havein back of your head.
That's a subconscious storythat's running 24 seven, Um,
(51:59):
when those go away, uh, to feel,you feel transformed.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
And last thing I want tomention and I can personally
testify to this uh, matt, youand I have done some work
together and where we have wentback and looked at some of my
previous traumas.
For a decade I have been ahorrible sleeper, probably one
(52:27):
day per week.
For the last decade, I've beenawake all night, tossing and
turning, and for people thatstruggle with sleep, they know
what a miserable experience thatcan be.
I started working with youabout oh, two months ago and
have slept through the night,probably going on 60 days in a
(52:49):
row, which has had an incredibleimpact on my life, incredible
impact on my wife and mychildren's life and how I
interact with the world, andjust want to say thank you for
that.
And if people are interested insome of that type of coaching,
is that something that you're?
Are you actively taking onclients right now?
Speaker 3 (53:13):
Yeah, obviously, with BGS, there's so many that I can
do, but, um, all you gotta dois is reach out to Matt at build
grow scalecom and, uh, yeah,we'll talk about it and figure
out a time that works.
And, yeah, to be honest, um,I've never, ever, done anything
that fulfilled me as much as, uh, something like that, where it
(53:33):
was you and I worked and hadworked together less than an
hour for that initial experienceand for it to literally have a
life-changing impact.
It really is.
It really can be that simple.
I don't know if you're willingto.
I don't think you need to giveany detail, but you give a cliff
note and say that experiencewas a 10 out of 10, or it was a
(53:58):
five out of 10.
And you were able to go throughit and experience what you
needed to experience.
At what level?
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Oh, it was 10 out of 10.
And I and I don't mind goinginto detail I, we unpacked the
worst day of my life um, thathappened when I was, uh, 11
years old that I've carried withme in my body and I did not
realize the weight that it had,and how, how hard was it for you
so?
Speaker 3 (54:25):
so this is the reason why I'm asking.
I'm kind stuff that I do, umand other practitioners do.
Um, you no longer need to talkabout it.
You don't need to relive it.
Um, that is old technology andum, just like everything else
(54:48):
that evolves and gets better, um, legitimately, uh, you can say
it was the worst For you, it wasthe worst day of your life that
you're reliving, but at whatemotional level did it take you
to go through and process thatand be done with it?
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Not a lot, right, not a lot.
Not a ton of heavy lifting andincredibly outsized returns.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
I mean like and so the way I describe it to people
is uh, the trauma is a movie, uh, you know it can last your
whole life and it's alwaysplaying.
Um, then you have like atrailer, which is a two and a
half minute version of of amovie, and so you kind of get
the gist of what's going on.
(55:33):
And then you can also have likea cliff note or an ad with the
picture and some words, andreally, uh, that's the most that
I ever ask is I want the cliffnotes of the trailer, um, so
that we can basically have anaccess point, um, and then from
that point forward, it'snon-disclosure.
(55:54):
You don't have to tell me asingle detail.
It has nothing to do with thatday.
It has everything to do withthe feelings that your body has
stored, that you developedthrough that experience.
And once you feel those, yourbody will let go of them, and
now you sleep better, your bodywill let go of them and now you
sleep better, absolutely,absolutely.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
It was an incredible experience and something I did
not anticipate the amount ofreturns I would get or the
amount of benefit and it waslife-changing.
I mean, that sounds dramaticand it should, because your
sleep is.
I will live longer.
(56:35):
I was going to die youngerbecause of my poor sleep habits.
This provided a solution tothat and I will always be
grateful for that, matt.
So thank you so much.
Yeah, awesome, yeah, yeah,thank you everyone for tuning in
to the Firing the man podcast.
This has been an outstandingepisode.
Matt's a friend of the show andwe're going to continue to have
(56:57):
him on.
If you're interested in gettingin touch with Matt, we'll post
links to all of that in the shownotes and if you're an
entrepreneur with a D2C website,you've got to go back and check
out episode 252.
It was a different type ofconversation than the one that
we had today.
It was very technical in nature, very data-driven, and there
(57:20):
will be a very high ROI on yourtime spent listening to that, as
you have listened to this oneand made it to the end of the
episode.
So thank you everyone, thankyou Matt, and we'll see you next
week.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
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