Seasoned Business Growth Strategist Trinity Rose sits down with Eve Gaines—founder of Ritual Retreats, for a heartfelt conversation about purpose, place, and building something sacred from the ground up. Together, they trace the nonlinear evolution of Eve’s path—from early explorations in anthropology and cultural influence, to creative partnership, parenthood, and the founding vision behind a wellness sanctuary nestled in the Topanga mountains. They explore how love, intuition, and resilience have shaped the Ritual Retreats story—and what it really means to hold vision through uncertainty, especially when building a values-aligned business rooted in trust, healing, and home.
Time Stamps
00:00 The Journey Begins: Listening to the Universe
03:01 Building Ritual Retreats: A Creative Collaboration
06:02 Love and Partnership: The Story of Eve and Glenn
12:08 Cultural Influences: The Path to Anthropology
17:59 Finding Home: The Move to California
23:58 Creating a Life Together: Parenthood and New Beginnings
30:01 The Magic of Topanga Canyon: A New Chapter
31:50 Finding a New Home and Redefining Possibilities
33:53 Exploring the Vision for Wellness
38:04 The Journey to Purchasing Land
46:04 Navigating Challenges in Home Ownership
53:58 The Decision to Keep the Property
Guest Info
Eve Gaines — is the founder of Rituel Retreats, a wellness space rooted in healing, collaboration, and connection to land.
Website: rituelretreats.com
Instagram: @rituellife
Host Notes:
Trinity Rose - Integrative Strategist + Creative Director
Website: illumeconsultingstudio.com
Instagram: @illumeconsultingstudio
Course: illumeconsultingstudio.com/embodied-branding
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Really listening in a way that Ifeel like I was allowing myself
that openness and freedom of asking the question of what
would, what would light me up, what would really be my dream,
But then really also listening to the universe at large.
Welcome to The Alchemy of Success, a space dedicated to
(00:24):
exploring the non linear and intuitive paths of purpose
driven creators, practitioners and entrepreneurs.
Join me to listen to their oftenbrave and inspiring stories of
transformation and resilience. I'm Trinity Rose, a seasoned
brand builder and integrative business strategist.
(00:47):
Hello and welcome back to The Alchemy of Success.
First, thank you to everyone who's been listening, following,
rating, and reviewing. It means so much to me.
I have to say, I was honestly shocked and thrilled to see that
we charted on Apple in the top 3% of the entrepreneur category
(01:11):
just a few days after launching,which is very exciting.
So of course, I had to dig into the analytics because yes, I'm
that person. And my take away is if you're
thinking of starting a podcast, SEO optimization really matters.
(01:32):
I saw that a lot of listeners have already been finding the
show through search on all of the different platforms that I
have the podcasts on and anyways, which is just exciting
to see that function work so well.
But I'm going to save my analytic deep dive for another
time because today's episode is all about my guest, Eve Gaines.
(01:56):
Eve is the founder of Ritual Retreats.
It's a luxurious and private immersive retreat space tucked
high in the Santa Monica Mountains.
It's also where I serve as creative director.
Eve and I have been working together since.
The ritual was just really a seed of an idea.
(02:16):
And honestly, Eve is such a joy to work with.
Her flowy, intuitive approach perfectly complements my Virgo
rising, structured strategy loving brain and we are also
very aligned in our love of beauty and design detail.
(02:40):
Essentially, she's a true creative collaborator and some
might call her my work wife. That's sad, and we sat down to
record this. It was no surprise that we
talked for over 3 hours and so I've decided to split our
conversation in two. Parts because there was.
Just no way I wanted to cut it all down into one hour.
(03:03):
I would have to leave out very important pieces of Eve's story,
which is full of surprises and risk and that beautiful non
linear path I love to talk aboutso much on this show.
So in Part 1 we explore her early years, her love story with
her husband, and the wild circumstances and continuous
(03:25):
leaps of faith that led them to buying the 20 acres of land
where Ritual now resides. But before we dive in, I wanted
to say one of the things I love most about Eve is her laugh.
And we laugh a lot together and I don't know, maybe even
especially when things get hard,which again, is just something
(03:48):
that I love so much. I think it's a really special
dynamic. Building Ritual has brought huge
wins and been a amazing project to to work on, but also real
challenges like the recent wildfires that heartbreakingly
tore through the retreat. I'll never forget sitting with
(04:10):
Eve post fires trying to figure out next steps, strategizing and
at some point her looking at me and comparing us and the
business to a whack A mole game and we literally lost it.
The kind of like crying laughter, full body, can't
breathe, tears running down yourcheeks, laughter.
(04:32):
And it's those kind of moments that working with Eve was just
so special. And I'm sure that laughter was a
much needed stress relief. And as I was reflecting on that
memory, it was a reminder to me of how healing laughter can
really be. And I was also recalling how I
think my first experience of that happened when I was a
(04:56):
child. And I was really.
Sick for a stretch? Of time I didn't grow up with a
TV. My mom was pro reading and books
and getting outside and playing.But she finally let me have a
TV, a small TV in my room just for that period.
And I spent a lot of those days watching a lot of comedy.
And honestly, I think it really helped me heal or at the very
(05:18):
least helped me get through a darn hard time.
And I've been thinking how now more than ever, with everything
going on in the world, we all could use more laughter and more
joy. So this is your invitation and
reminder to really go seek out whatever brings you that kind of
(05:39):
lightness, whether it's a silly animal video, it's dancing in
your living room to your favorite song or a good old
fashioned ROM com. And with that, let's get into
it. Heidi, Heidi, I'm happy to have
you here. It's.
(06:00):
So special to be here. I want to start with what I
think and tell me if I'm correct, was a catalyst kind of
in the direction that your life has taken, which is when you met
Glenn, your husband. This is a big year actually in
the arc of Glenn and my relationship because this is 25
(06:23):
years of marriage this year in December.
I have now actually been with Glenn for as long as I've not
been with Glenn, which feels. Crazy and substantial.
So I was 25 just to set the stage, 24 actually.
So now I've actually been with Glenn longer than I've not been
(06:43):
with Glenn. That's such a finding marker in
my life. I I met him when I was 24.
We got married when I was 25. My life trajectory of living
different places had taken me a little bit, not quite around the
world, but it had taken me far afield.
And then interestingly, I came back to Toronto, which.
Is. The place that I was born and
lived the first seven years of my life.
(07:04):
Glenn was hired to be on a moviethat was filming in a very
remote part of Eastern. Canada, but not many Canadians
even go and visit. And I had dear friends who were
also in the film industry at that time.
And my friend Pete invited Glennback to Toronto for his
Halloween party because as he said, he was like, I can't have
(07:26):
him leave Canada and think that this very part of New Brunswick
is really all that Canada's about.
South Glenn decided to come to Toronto for Halloween.
Our first actual meeting was in the house that I was living in
at the time with three roommates.
And so I was at the top of the stairs in the bathroom, had just
(07:49):
gone thrifting with friends for my Halloween costume, opened the
bathroom door just a little bit to stick my head out and yell
down the stairs, Can anybody please pass me my Peach bell
bottom pants? This man that I'd never seen
before him around the corner from the bottom of the stairs
holding them up and said to you,me knees.
Which ironically just feels likesuch a husband and wife type of
(08:12):
interaction. So that was really the first
time that we laid eyes on each other.
That was our first conversation.Then it was not who I was
expecting to be at the bottom ofmy shares.
So at that morning, at that moment, I have to say that I
really was just surprised more than anything.
I didn't think it was very charming and gracious that he
(08:34):
looked for my Peach bell bottom pants and was willing to pass
them to me. So that was that felt lovely.
But I, I, I think I was more sort of startled than anything
else. But then just to kind of
complicate or like add a little layer when we when we saw each
other following night Pete's Halloween party, Glenn was
dressed up like an urban vampire.
(08:54):
He tends to go all out with his Halloween costume.
So it meant he was wearing a long black wig.
He was wearing Fang. He had fake blood.
He had this really cheesy that actually it's still in his in
his closet, alarmingly, this shirt that is kind of like a
Paisley mesh, black and red buttoned down with velvet.
(09:17):
He was bizarre looking to say the least.
So, you know, I knew I had that one interaction.
That was sort of disarming. And then we actually ended up
talking to each other the whole night of the Halloween party.
And I remember going home that night and saying to my roommate,
like, I've met one of my best friends because there was this
sense of me. Meeting somebody who just
(09:40):
understood, we've had a very philosophical conversation.
So it was really about like whatwe believed life to be all
about. And so as much as I was not, you
know, thinking like, Oh my goodness, this is my life
partner and I'm so attracted to him.
I was thinking, this is somebodywho I could talk to forever.
Interesting. Which is an incredible
(10:01):
foundation to build, to build a marriage on.
So you guys, I get my my teenageyoung adult daughters now.
In fact, really like just reminds me when my partner and I
were first dating and I don't remember why I said it to him.
I remember saying why do you like so much?
What is it? And he said, well, there's all
(10:24):
the obvious things, You're beautiful and smart, but mostly
you just really feel like home. And that really took me back.
And I was like impacting me. And I were, most importantly
feeling the same way. That's it.
And that's the foundation that in my mind, that's what
partnership is. Glenn, at that point also, he
wasn't, he wasn't looking for a partner.
He wasn't looking for a wife, which I love even more.
(10:47):
He was very content to be solo. And I what you were saying about
finding home in somebody, though, it was that sense of
instant feeling of connection and a real soul connection of
this deeper layer of somebody whose orientation is the same as
mine, which I feel like is closeto what Brad was saying.
(11:08):
You know, it's like there's, there's an inexplicable part of
like, oh, this fits and this matches.
I was not following. The trajectory that was sort of
like a prescribed trajectory, and I remember a lot of what we
were connecting on was really that sense of how life guides
and how it does show you these sort of beacon points that are
(11:29):
for you. And that it's important that in
following those, the next chapter reveals itself.
Where were you? What trajectory of the path you
were taking that? Was an interesting moment for
me, actually, because, yeah, so I'd gone to college.
I had, I didn't my, my family. I like to reminisce now and
(11:52):
think about the extent to which I wasn't divided in choosing a
career path. So I, I joke that I kind of just
opened the course catalog to A and got so excited about what
was happening there that I, thatI got stuck.
And I mean, just just to, to give the, to give the framing,
(12:12):
my degree is in anthropology. It's in medical and
psychological anthropology. I also did a minor in art
history. So that's where I'm joking about
just covering the A's. I didn't even make it to the
B's. But in truth, I didn't know
about anthropology. You know, until I got to
(12:33):
college, it was really in takinga one-on-one class that I was
like, Oh my gosh, this is how I see the world.
Already. Having lived other places, this
is a lens that really makes sense to me about looking at,
you know, looking at cultures, looking at differentiators and.
Because you. Just to give people.
Context. You lived in Canada, New York
(12:55):
and. Europe, so I was born in.
In Toronto and Canada. Then when I was about 7, we
moved to Vienna, to Austria, andthen at 12 I had the profound
culture shock of moving to Manhattan and it was from there
that I went full circle back to Toronto.
So not that many places, but places that gave me enough
(13:18):
variety and when we were in Europe.
We did a. Lot of traveling as well, you
know, went to other continents. We definitely had that sense of,
you know, life isn't, life is very different in different
places. And I had a real appreciation
already of how culture defined one's life and.
So it was very. Exciting to find out the
apology. And then within that, I sort of
(13:41):
quickly toggled over to medical anthropology.
So it was looking at health and Wellness and looking across
cultures, so looking at different systems of medicine.
But what really fascinate fascinated me too, was looking
at this idea of what Wellness and what being healthy meant in
(14:03):
different cultural contexts. Learning what the indicators
were for, for people's sense of being well.
And so it was through that lens that a really started to deepen
my understanding of ritual, of rites of passage of these
ceremonies that are created to mark different stages of life
(14:25):
and the place of ritual within aculture.
To allow for people to feel likethey're, they are oriented and
they are supported by community and they sort of have this
relationship to their own cosmology, but a relationship
that allows them to grow and evolve three different stages of
their life and to be supported through challenges and through
(14:47):
transitions. And so I recognize the extent to
which that was really missing from our culture.
And I did something when it cametime to write my thesis, I was
working with an advisor in psychological anthropology and I
did something that she really was advising me not to do, which
was flip the lens and look at Western culture.
(15:09):
And she's like, you know, that'sgoing to be really hard.
Why don't you look somewhere else?
And I was. Like, no, I really want to look
at, I want to look at adolescents in our culture.
And this came from, you know, myexperience of being a teenager
in Manhattan, seeing how many young women were really
struggling specifically with theissue of eating disorders, with
(15:30):
anorexia, with bulimia, seeing the health crisis that that was
in that particular community andrecognizing and wanting to
understand whether it could be correlated to a lack, lack of
life cycle ritual to a lack of support.
And so she was like, that's going to be very hard to.
Prove. And I ended up doing hundreds of
(15:51):
interviews and doing a lot of investigation because not much
is written about our culture through that lens.
It turned out to be a bit more of a project than anticipated.
And so I really vividly remember, I think my brother was
up at Columbia at the time, and I was back in New York and I was
working and his dorm room at Columbia to finish up my thesis
(16:14):
by the end of summer because that was the final deadline that
I'd given myself. So then, yeah, so I finished it,
got my honors degree, and then kind of went, holy shit, what
does one do with this degree? So is that?
The. Time.
So when you met finished school,was that right then or was there
(16:35):
what else was going? On finished school.
And I was figuring out how what I was.
Going to do. Next.
And so I was looking, I was interviewing at medical schools
and thinking about naturopathic college, but I knew I was going
to have to make my way financially.
So I had gone and come out California actually to study
(16:57):
yoga because I figured that if Iwas a yoga instructor, at least
I had a transferable skill and something that I could do
evenings, weekends when I was going to go back to school
because I I. Couldn't see a future where I
wouldn't have to go back to school.
To do something that would actually.
Translate. Into a career.
Like so now when am I going to actually do what?
(17:17):
Am I going to do with my life? So I think at the time I met
Glenn, actually I was doing two things.
I was teaching yoga and I was managing really special
beautiful design boutique. So it was kind of I was doing
those two things which interestingly kind of.
All of these things. Links.
Really play into where you're atnow.
It's fascinating to kind of here, I knew that a little bit,
(17:39):
but to really like here, but step by step.
Yeah, life is wild that way. So.
You have this deep connection with Glenn.
He's going to be your new best friend.
Yes, he came to visit me at the Design Boutique the following
day, which is when I saw him outof asked him and realized.
That maybe there could be something romantic yeah yeah,
(17:59):
very different experience very different experience and we.
Dated, he came back to California, saw each other.
I think he came back to Toronto for my birthday.
He came to New York to meet me for New Year's.
But basically we had like. I think maybe 12 in person days
before he proposed over the phone.
(18:20):
He proposed marriage over the. Phone.
He proposed marriage over the phone.
He did go down on one knee. His his roommate.
Yeah, caught him down in his room.
He was like, what are you doing?Even more.
It was very. Very like young romantic.
It was very young romantic and Ihave to, I don't know if I've
told you this story, but my father, both my parents are
(18:42):
therapists and my dad, even though he was not very involved
with my decision making when I did say I was moving to
California to get married to this person who he met once, he
had basically an intervention for me where he told me I was
not making a logical choice. But again, I was not about to
listen to my dad. I was like, you'll you'll
understand now. They love each other, they're
(19:03):
guests, they adore each other. He realizes that Mary and Glenn
was probably the best choice I've made in my life, but at
that point he was really trying to talk me out of it.
And that's what like parents do when it seems like their child
is making some irresponsible, irrational decision.
But it makes sense knowing you now because I see how you
navigate the world. I mean, but you didn't knock
(19:25):
that. I did.
I feel like I'm one of those people who kind of came in and
didn't have much choice. Other than to do things way for
whatever reason, I don't know ifeverybody feels that, but there
definitely were a lot of pressures.
But I also do feel like living different places kind of
informed that sense for me to know if that makes sense.
I was. Very similar, yeah.
(19:46):
So you had a strong sense of whoyou are and what moved you and
what choices you were going to make and where you were going to
go. I was very clear what life was
about for me. Yeah, yeah.
So it's I connected that and I. Think that's why the two of us
get each other. It's been so actually really
affirming to to work together with someone who also.
(20:09):
Sees. Life and understands and trusts.
That's been such a beautiful thing about our working
relationship. I can tell you like I can't.
Explain to you why this makes sense for me and for the
business. But I know that this is what we
need to do now, and you're not trying to talk me out of it.
You're trying to understand why you feel that.
Yeah. And you know, you or someone who
(20:30):
really has access to your intuition and it's interesting
because then in branding and marketing, one of the things
that you do in a business and with business strategy is
research, which is ultimately listening, right, Listening to
what the customer wants, listening to where the world's
at with what's going on and how that influences business
(20:50):
decisions and purchasing decisions.
That strategic thinking, of course, plays a part in the
decisions we make around the business.
And there's a way that you listen that's a very intuitive,
very quickly I saw how accurate that would be with you or you
anticipate certain things based on that.
(21:10):
And so here's all the other kindof markers that we need to look
at strategically within the business and then what do we do?
So I really like admire that about you.
Thank you. And I love that about the way
that you work too. And just to get everybody a
little recap, we've worked together for a very long time,
since the inception of ritual. And when it was just this little
(21:32):
tiny seed of an idea. And I can't tell you the amount
of safety that I felt in workingwith somebody who was willing to
be with my little seed, I draw out the ideas and allow me to
work in my own way. But with such skill and such.
Yeah, such like command of you knew your stuff.
(21:56):
It was so clear to me from the beginning, from the moment that
we started working together, howmuch you knew what you were
doing. And within that you were letting
me do things my own way so that the brand could genuinely become
what it really wanted to be. Have the privilege of doing that
when your idea is really this like little tiny nascent look,
(22:18):
Sprout is so incredible. I learned so much from just the
process of being asked the questions that you are asking me
having to do that, the investigation deepening into
like, OK, well, I need to distill this and I need to
expand that. And it just, it was it was a
process of discovery and it was a process of creation that we
(22:39):
were in very much with what I thought I was doing.
And where we came to, I feel like did lay the foundation for
what ritual has become and stillcan become because we did the
full like sweep of OK. And where is this little idea
going? Yeah.
And it's an ongoing process, theway that I approach helping
people build a business and the brand that goes along with that
(23:02):
is really pulling out their essence.
Yeah. Like, what is it that they're
bringing more of them that's authentic?
Because people will feel that and connect to it.
Completely. So long my job has been helping
pull that out of you and really like bringing that to life.
It's been such a beautiful, supportive experience I can't
(23:24):
even explain. But we've jumped.
Ahead. Yeah, we've jumped a bit.
So I just want to go back to, soyou met Glenn, He proposed to
you on the phone. I met Glenn, decision proposed
to me on the phone. I made the decision.
Well, at that point, it was a decision to come out to
California for at least six months on a fiance visa because,
you know, that's what they give you.
(23:44):
That's what immigration. Gives you, so I had.
Six months we had six months waswhat we figured to just to
figure out if this relationship.Was to use one of our.
Work, no, none whatsoever. But interestingly, it's sort of
like alleviated the pressure because there was this natural
endpoint. I think once I was in
California, I had the sense I want to make this work.
(24:05):
So but yes, we had to get married within six months and
and I couldn't really work during that time.
So I think I was doing like a little.
I was searching. I was doing a lot of soul
searching. I think I was.
I was, I think I was working like under the table teaching
yoga because it's something thatyou can don't tell the IRS.
But yeah, I think I was. I think I was, yeah.
So I was teaching a little. Bit of yoga, but I was mainly
(24:26):
soul searching. I was mainly really figuring out
like where to next. Now I've landed here and for me,
California was a place where life made more sense.
It really felt like there was something well.
Actually, you know what? California in general, the
specific place fun was living atthe time?
Not so much. It felt.
It's a little bit strange and bizarre to me.
(24:48):
He was living in a in an area ofLA that I moved here.
I should say I moved here without my driver's license.
So I moved. I was biking around this area
that was very, you know, nobody,nobody.
Bikes or walks in LA? Especially in there are I'm on
Santa Monica in. Santa Monica.
I was not in Santa Monica or Venice.
(25:09):
And so I was like, what is this city?
It makes no sense to me and. Very shortly, actually, after we
got married up, convincing Glennto move up.
To Northern California so that Icould go to back to school.
We moved to Northern California so I could get into because I
found one master's program in because I was like, OK, this
(25:33):
health thing. I'm don't know that I'm going to
be following that trajectory. My other passion?
Is design and is that I was toldby my she comes into the story
again by my college advisor thatI could not be in our.
Because I was not a brilliant math mind, but I really had this
dying, this desire to be an architect.
And I had a love of I had a loveof the planet.
(25:56):
And so I found a program in organic architecture and
ecological design, which was notbeing taught many other places I
had to go to. It was the Institute for
Institute of Architecture. That was the classes were held.
It was it was it. Was It's a program that was
developed by some of Frank LloydWright's students.
(26:16):
And it was held in the basement of a church in San Francisco.
In the evenings. Because people were not studying
it as a regular career path. This was not believed to be
something, you know, this was there again, again, Mary, like,
yes, now, you know, there's actually a whole department
devoted to organic architecture and ecological design, but, you
(26:36):
know, not that so. Ahead of the curve and again
this plays into the business. Now it all makes sense, right?
But then it was like, OK, I'm just throwing all this stuff
out. I'm not ironically back in the
same neighborhood even where I had done my done my yoga teacher
training, but now I'm studying something completely different.
So I must have made a mistake. Then I'm doing the right thing
(26:58):
now, you know, committed to working at an at an architecture
bookstore, living the life of like a young designer thinking
that was where I was going. And then got pregnant.
Wow. So then got pregnant, realized
that I did not want to have the type of marriage where, you
know, at that time we moved Northern California.
But for Glenn, his work was still in LA, so he was coming up
(27:20):
on weekends, doing that horrendous Dr. of the five every
weekend to come visit. It's so sweet.
And we had honestly like, yeah, no, we lived in Berkeley.
And I went to school in the city, and our little house in
Berkeley was the first home thatwe really made that felt like
home, which was pretty. Significant for us.
Because when I moved here he wasliving with his brother and a
(27:42):
couple of other roommates in thebasement of this like condo as
well. The only way I can describe it,
and he had no sense of what he was missing out on in terms of
having a home that felt like home.
He was like, I don't know what you're talking about, and I
didn't realize until we made a home of our own that he just
didn't have that reference pointat all.
And then you. Mentioned beautiful and we
(28:03):
created our little beautiful home in Berkeley and so he was
coming up on weekends as we werelooking ahead to becoming
parents you know neither of us really wanted a life where he
was only. Only in family mode on the
weekends. So it very quickly it came clear
that we weren't going to be staying up there because now we
(28:23):
were going to have to fund a small.
Family and his job could do thatand I was not anywhere near
being a qualified anything. It was time to come back to to
Southern California, and that was the moment when I think I
told you like I hadn't really made.
Sense of this city. Enough to it.
It felt like, Oh my goodness, OK, I'm going to have to go back
to LA. And so we knew.
(28:45):
That we're we were going to haveto do LA differently, which
fortunately, I adore LA now. I absolutely love it.
I have not. You know, I've lived here for
good long time, 20 some years. I am not tired of it, but it is
one of those cities that you cando in so many different ways, so
true, completely different experiences.
Based on where you are, who you're with, I remember feeling
(29:08):
that just visiting LA over the years, like when I lived up
north, but my grandparents livedhere.
So that was one experience. And then as I got older and
lived in New York, I had a lot of friends in LA.
And so I would visit them and belike, this almost feels like a
totally different and where I amand what I'm doing.
No, I, I called it a choose yourown adventure city because it
(29:29):
really is that it just depends on what neighborhood you're in,
who you're with. It's almost like there are these
doors that magically open that like you had no idea.
Even those, those little, you know, you go, then you go
downtown and they're like all these worlds of you get
interested in something. You can go so deep.
Here but yes, so it was that moment of like we need to come
(29:50):
back to LA and we need to find away of living in LA that felt as
good to is living in in in Northern California where Glenn
was so mountain biking and. He loved it too.
I bet he. Loved it, too.
He really did. If there had been work up there,
I think that's probably where wewould have stayed.
But that wasn't the reality. Yeah, he had this idea when we
(30:12):
moved back. He was like, you know, there's
this place that I go, used to gomountain biking with some
friends. I don't know if.
People live there. This was again quite a quite a
long time ago, but it was like. It's called Topanga.
Canyon and I was like, Oh my God, we did that drive once.
I could never do that drive. And really your first.
Response was like. My first response was, yeah, my
(30:36):
first response driving up there,I was sort of like white
knuckling in the passenger seat thinking how would I do this?
But once we got up there, it washonestly so magical.
Just to give people contacts whoare not familiar with Topanga
Canyon, it's a Canyon that runs from the valley up into the
Canyon and then goes down to thePCH and it's incredible.
(30:58):
But it is a very windy Canyon Road and people drive fast.
And if you're not, it's. Somebody, not a seasoned driver.
Yes, I'm a city person who wouldtake the bus and take the
subway. And that is not a real form of
transportation here in Southern California.
I have to say now, I adore our windy mountain roads.
(31:20):
Now that I, you know, it's my meditative practice, yes, I have
no problem with you know, where the where, where we're building
our house, where the retreat is,is even further up the.
Mounting wounding might. Can't speak windy mountain roads
and I absolutely love it. But no, back then it was
definitely like how am I going to live up here?
And Oh yeah, and I was 8 months pregnant so it was sort of like,
(31:43):
how am I going to live up here and get myself down if I need to
take care of anything for my child?
Groceries. Doctors.
But that didn't. Stop us.
That is ultimately where we movebecause it all very
synchronistically opened up for us to to live in a very.
Special, which is I think how ithas to.
Happen. It's.
How it has to happen? It's not a place that's easy to
(32:06):
find. There's a lot of real estate
there. No.
And back then even less on what we ended up finding had just
been built, which is so rare up there.
So we moved into this little beautiful new guest house with
huge windows on a beautiful piece of property that the land
around it hadn't been developed.Living up there redefined my
(32:27):
sense of what was possible. You know, I hadn't been somebody
who had a lot of means nor was glad.
And there was something about living in this place that for
both of us, felt very idyllic ina way where, you know, we'd
taken a bit of leap, of a leap of faith and kind of we're
spending a little more than we had anticipated that we would.
(32:49):
But we're really realizing, OK, then life kind of meets you.
It was working for us. And in that equation, and Get
Gun has been a big teacher for me too, in terms of, you know,
these exploring possibilities inbrave ways.
And that was definitely a phase of our life that that paved the
way for us to make other choicesthat would require.
(33:11):
Resources we didn't quite have yet and.
A lot of trust. A lot of trust, A lot of trust.
Which one of those is when you bought the refute property,
which is a story. But one quick thing before
before we chat about that. I think this was, yeah, it was
definitely before you bought theproperty.
(33:31):
You and Glenn were newlyweds. You were in Hawaii for some
reason. Probably on a set.
You're in deep self exploration.I was, I was OK and what what
happened and the reason? Just give a little context.
This moment that Eve is about toshare with you deeply plays into
what Ritual is and has. Yeah.
(33:54):
So it was probably one of the times that I was most open and
receptive. And I remember I was saying a
lot of I am ready and I'm ready to know where to next.
And I was asking myself if I could.
It's a very privileged position to be in and in a way but also
(34:15):
kind of a daunting 1. Where I was, I was asking myself
if I could do anything under thesun, what would I do?
What would I choose? What would I create or where
would I work? What would be my career?
Path, it was very much well, yes, I had this degree that I
thought would. Not come to much of anything.
(34:38):
And so it was like, OK, what would what would I what would I
create? Interestingly, the degree did
play a little bit into what my brainchild was, which was I
thought what the world really needs our places is a place and
sinking in the singular because I was imagining creating it and
what would it what would what itwould feel like would be there.
(35:00):
All of the, you know, heightenedsensorial aspects that we know
now really plays into that process of manifestation and.
Of. Creation.
So I was really imagining like, OK, what would this place be?
And in my mind, it was a place where people came for deeply
attuned and customized Wellness experiences.
(35:21):
And it was before Wellness became Wellness jargon.
So I was really thinking in terms of what would people need
to address their specific healthchallenges, be they physical,
emotional, psycho, spiritual, ina way where there would be
support. And I was imagining this support
(35:42):
being, you know, probably because of my background and
education, I was like, well, it needs to have telepathic
medicine, but it also needs to involve Eastern medicine.
There need to be practitioners of Ayurveda, there need to,
there needs to be body work, there needs to be beautiful
food. There needs to be all of these
pieces that we're playing in. And it needs to be a place where
(36:03):
people feel there's a sense of beauty, there's a sense of
personal exploration so that people could really be met and
supported. And I was imagining they would
stay there and then they would be supported in creating a plan
and a program so they could go back to their lives and feel
like change had happened and feel actually like the needle
(36:24):
had moved. Which is what ritual has
becoming. It's becoming.
A. Piece of people saying on the
property isn't we're not. We're not quite there yet, yeah.
But I feel like so often our best ideas come when you're in a
place that's where you can get really Hyatt and just allow
yourself to tap in. And then also what I love about
(36:45):
that moment is that from my perspective, and it was clearly
was influenced by everything youhad studied right about.
What's really missing and how toreally change the paradigm?
How to offer people something different?
And then the next. Phase.
Wasn't creating that. No, that was an ultimate dream.
(37:07):
That was a goal. That was something that like I
could see, but that was in the far off future.
I I, in my mind, I had so much work to do before I got to that
point. Yeah.
And no. And then I also sort of wrote it
off as like, well. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a
health professional in this way.I did not go just Business
(37:28):
School to create this. So I'll just go and follow my
path. Isn't it so funny to it of
insights and then our brain is like.
And no, no, no, no. Totally, which now I tell my
clients is our brains are conditioned to keep us safe and
in the. Familiars.
But yeah, no, I quickly, I talked myself out of that idea
and just really dismissed it. Well, I dismissed it, but I also
(37:50):
allowed it to be there because. You dismissed it.
The next logical step? It was a North Star.
It was definitely a North Star because it was, there was a
sense of, you know, it was like the tingles, full body tingles
of Oh my goodness, if I ever could do that.
So I want to segue into when youpurchased.
(38:13):
The land that has now become theretreat.
Yeah. Yeah, it's not a moment of it
doesn't make sense at the time. Fast forward a little ways,
we've been living in Topanga in our lovely guest house that when
we moved into it seemed like a beautiful vast space.
But we were pregnant when we moved there.
(38:35):
And so it was now four years later, we had a four year old
and I was pregnant again and nowwe already built an additional
bedroom onto this little unit. And paid to do that out of
pocket and we were busting at the scenes.
And we needed a house. So I was tasked with, while
Glenn was working madly to be able to, you know, afford to
(38:57):
live in LA, another child and growing family.
It was supposed to just be goingout with our friend who was a
realtor. I'm to look at reasonable houses
in the Canyon. We knew we wanted to stay in the
Canyon, but because I had been working toward this master's
degree in organic architecture and ecological design.
(39:17):
And because this was still a moment when there was still land
available in the. Santa Monica Mountains.
So whenever Glenn and I would talk about it, it was a house or
land that we could easily build on, and at that point had a four
year old who's a brilliant humanbut chock full of spritey energy
since the moment she came into the world.
(39:38):
So I had taken to doing these massive drives to get her to go
to sleep. For her naps, you know, we'd do
the morning and then I was like,OK, now I pause and knew that
wouldn't happen at home, so I'd start driving in Topanga and
when you. Start driving in Tobank and you
can either just go down or you couldn't keep going up.
And so I kind of taken to going up and exploring these like kind
(40:01):
of edge regions of Malibu and Topanga high up in the Santa
Monica Mountains and I'd fallen in love with this little area
and in particular with the street.
My caveat to our real estate agent at the time was, you know,
please show me anything that's in our price range and show me
anything that's available on this particular.
(40:22):
Particular. Street.
So this street, if you wind all the way up.
In Topanga, you're basically going to the top Crest of the
Santa Monica Mountain. So there's no higher to.
Climb and you go along the Ridgeand you're at 30s these
profoundly beautiful sweeping views of the ocean.
And our little St. drops off toward the ocean.
(40:44):
So as you're coming down the street, you really have this
sense of just being suspended inthe mountains overlooking the
ocean. And I've never seen anything
like it. And this unwanted mountains is
is this chaparral ecosystem, which is kind of one step away
from a desert ecosystem. It's kind of a hybrid, but
(41:05):
because it's close to the ocean,this particular area gets a lot
of the mist that comes in off the ocean.
It's beautiful and it keeps things lush and green it.
Almost feels like you're in another country.
It does. It feels that very
Mediterranean, like you're perched on dramatic, mountainy,
(41:26):
rough hills overlooking, Yeah, an expansive.
Southern Italy, someone. Exactly.
There's a lot of Italy references for people.
There's a lot of like even, you know, some areas of Greece.
So I fell in love with that street.
And then I'm not sure if I've told you this ever either.
It may not have come up but I was taken to see a property down
(41:47):
the road because we had a budget.
Obviously it wasn't a huge budget.
We were making ends meet. Like.
Do the things we needed to do. And we were trying to be
sensible. Yeah, we were totally crazy at
this point, but he had taken me to.
See a one acre property on the street which was.
Within our budget and would havemade sense.
(42:08):
And I will never forget driving up the hill and.
My realtor friend pulled over atthis.
This sort of like chain link gate thing that was to another
property and he was like, but I have to show you this one.
He took me to drive the property, which is not 20 acres,
(42:30):
and it's bordered by Conservancyland.
And before we left the property,I was in tears because it was so
special. And I just fell in love with the
land. It was this gem, this dream.
And once I'd seen it, I couldn'tUnsee it.
Yeah. And so I don't know if you want
me to go into the next chapter of probably what would have,
(42:51):
what could have created serious pack peril and other marriages.
Oh. Yes, yes, absolutely.
So I went home. I waited till Glenn came home
with his, you know, from from set, probably super late.
I don't remember, but I basically tell told him we had
to at least put a bit in on thisproperty and.
(43:12):
Glenn was, I was describing it to him and he's like, Oh my God.
And it's the same prices. And I was like, well, no, it's
not, but they're really motivated to sell.
So basically it was twice, pretty much twice as much as we
were looking at spending on house in Japan was what they
were asking for this property. Way out of our budget, so.
(43:32):
Not only were wrong, just get land and you were still going to
then need to find need. To build, we were still going to
need to build, yeah, need to build, need to find a bigger
place in in terms. So this is not solving any
problems. In the short term.
Yeah, so I was so excited about this though, and I keep on
mentioning this, but I was nine months pregnant.
(43:53):
And if you've been around someone who's nine months
pregnant, I tend to be feel likeI've gotten a bit better, but
this is unaged. But I used to be, you know, my
hormonal fluctuations were were they were considerable.
They were real. I had a husband who loved me
dearly but also knew that I could be a bit of a whirling
dervish. And so, you know, as he told me
(44:14):
years later, he contacted our realtor.
He appeased me by putting in a bid, but built everything into
this bid so that there would be no way that the sellers would
actually accept this bid. And when he took the bid, when
he took the proposal to our realtor, our realtor was
(44:36):
mortified and said there's no way I can bring this to the
seller. I can't do this.
And Glenn was like, well, you'relegally obligated to, so you're
going to have to break because Ineed to at least be able to tell
you that we tried and that they said no.
So I didn't find out until yoursmany, many years later.
Thank, Ellie, for the sake of our marriage, that Glenn had
absolutely no intention and really did not want to.
(45:00):
Like, didn't see how this was possible, didn't think it was a
good idea and was purposely trying to thwart the process.
But at this point, I had. Yeah.
I was so clear that this was ournext step, even though it made
absolutely no sense. But it kind of had my little
conference with the forces that be in the universe that this is,
it's going to happen. Needless to say, there was like
(45:22):
a tiny bit of back and forth negotiation and then they were.
Satisfied with the bid and they accepted it and Glenn told me
later that he had just such a holy shit, what now?
That this is going to be our reality and that this is where
I'm putting all of our pennies we'd save.
It's not like either of us come from greatly resourced wealthy
(45:44):
family. There was no there was no safety
net. Now we owned 20 acres of raw
land and there were years when we would go up to the land and
with our sorry, go ahead. But then it gets.
Worse it gets. Worse, yes, it gets worse, but
it's, you know, OK, So yeah, what was happening on the world
stage or on the. This is 2008.
(46:05):
This is 2007. It was October of 2007, which I
can never forget because it was the same week that my younger
daughter Chloe was born, so October 2007, which so we never
would have banks. Would have looked at and said
you are high and out of your mind to think that you can.
Afford 20 acres of land in in the Santa Monica.
(46:26):
No way like there would have been no way for us to qualify
for this type of loan that we would have needed, which at that
point was a building loan, you know, because that was that was
the other qualifiers that we would have had to qualify.
So even when the when the sellers accepted the bid, Glenn
still had the provision in therethat we had to qualify for a
loan before we actually owned the property.
(46:49):
So he said that little piece, he.
Thought he'd built in every caveat that was.
Going to save him and save our marriage and we were going to
get our little house and it was going to be fine and we were
going to do the reasonable thing.
But yes, it was October of 2007.The Benny King system was about
to collapse. And we're convinced that the
person who granted us our loan probably knew that she was about
(47:11):
to lose her job and was basically giving money away.
The company that we had our loanwith, I think it was two months
after we got approved for the loan that.
Bank was gone. It no longer.
Existed for about a year, we hadto track down our loan and try
to find it at different banking institutions because things were
(47:32):
in such crisis. But that was really, yeah, that
was the piece of how it came to be in that moment, that
something completely feasible and unattainable aligned in this
wild way to make it so that we now were.
The owners of 20 acres of property which believe me, at
that point, you know, there was not a massive celebration.
(47:56):
At least for Glenn, he didn't see it.
Let's just put it that way. This poor man, for so many
years, he would go up with his, like, little machete and he
would, you know, make a pass so that our tiny family with these,
like, young kids who were out inthe brush and getting stuck by,
you know, all kinds of birds. We'd go have a little picnic.
(48:17):
Everyone would end up crying, gohome.
And because the bang suit collapsed and because the person
who we were working with as our architect had completely given
us this insanely naive estimate for what we could build our
house for that anytime we took astep toward it ended up costing
us between 5 or 6 times more than you'd estimated.
So we honestly, yeah, this the feeling was.
(48:41):
Like. We've we've done something.
It made no sense. It made no sense and it made no
sense. For a really long time, and the
one thing we had going for us isthat our friend who owned the
property we were living on was going through a challenging
time. She moved, we moved into her
home. To make help her make ends meet.
It was a wonderful place for us to live.
(49:02):
So we were not feeling pressure.We were not feeling pressure and
and we were preoccupied with raising our kids, earning the
money we needed to earn, to afford rent, to afford the
mortgage on this place to make. So there were about 10 years
where we were just kind of ignoring the fact that we had
this piece of land. And it wasn't like and then did
(49:25):
you Oh my gosh, we have to sell it because that some people
would do that. It's.
Really interesting to me that that doesn't.
Happen. Well for me, I wouldn't let us
go there. There were about three junctures
where one very early on when 1 was like OK.
We can get out of this without losing money.
It's all you know, real estate market and tanked at this point.
(49:45):
So it went from being an incredible deal to like, land
was basically completely worthless for a moment, and it
made no sense. Then things started to creep
back up and that was his. I think he got so excited.
He was like, we can, you know, make our money back.
We can do the right thing and yeah, we're OK.
We're OK. We're going to be OK.
And at that point, I was, I was a hard no.
(50:07):
Then about three years later, when we.
Knew what happens like and that's.
True, like when I'm a hard now Ijust like OK I might be 5 too
and he's 64 but I guess I can bepretty fierce and convincing I.
I was like, not yet. He's.
Not pushover. Oh, he's not at all pushover.
(50:28):
No. And this is not the usual
dynamic of our relationship either.
And I'm not the person, you know, I don't wear the pants in
the relationship. It's very much a partnership.
I'm not like a dictator. But on this property there has
been a sense. And it's interesting because I
feel like the property's actually grown.
Our marriage. This is this is a project.
That I've had to take the lead on in this really powerful way
(50:50):
that's felt who I am and that's fortified who I am, and that's
edge. Pushed me and who I.
Am as a as as a leader within myfamily, yeah.
So it's interesting that that sort of started very early on
but yes, now I was basically saying no, not yet we're not
considering that yet. Then I remember there being one
other threshold where it was very, very challenging to get
(51:14):
permits and we went through thiswhole permitting process and
then basically kind of had to goback to the beginning anyway.
It was very, it was very frustrating.
And so there was this moment where we were actually, you
know, if we sold and I think we may even have had an offer
brought to us. It seemed to be the logical
thing to do. And I remember at that point, I
think my kids were probably a little older because I went up
(51:36):
by myself and I walked the land.And when I walked the land, I
just to fill you in a little bit, I sent a number of years
studying with a Chumash medicinewoman.
I just was going to ask you if at that point you had studied
with her. Yeah.
So I had studied with her. I studied with her very early on
when I moved to Topanga. And just so for people who don't
(51:59):
know a Chumash medicine. Chumash is the tribe that
they're actually a little bit further up the coast than the
Tongva are the tribe that is placed in the LA basin.
The LA, the area and then Shumash are the tribe that are.
They are the tribe they do and they did and greater numbers
live in the coastal regions and on the Channel Islands of
(52:23):
California. And so I was connected with
brilliant and really like kind of force of nature woman named
Cecilia Garcia, who was incredibly generous with her
knowledge. And she would come to the house
that we were renting. And at that point, most of my
friends were healing arts practitioners.
And we would spend at least one day a month with her.
(52:45):
And she would teach us and she'dtake us out on these walks,
nature walks. And we, we learned from her.
We were basically apprenticing with her for a number of years.
And at this point, she just passed away.
So she died a really. Yeah.
She, she died pretty young and it was really sudden and I'd but
I'd done, I'd been working with her for years in our work
together. We would go on these hikes and
(53:05):
we'd we'd harvest and there was a plant that we found that she
hadn't been finding and she co-authored a book.
Which was the only. Book about native plants in the
Santa Monica Mountains. And this plant isn't in the book
because at that time she wasn't finding it.
And it's it's this variety of everlasting that is the plant
(53:26):
that women use as their prayer plant.
So it's the plant that they would use to create prayer ties.
And it was sort of the equivalent of what tobacco is
for other. And it smells.
So. Good.
Like nothing else. And yeah, it's such a special,
special plant. You.
Walk and. The property, yes.
This juncture I walk the property and we had at this.
(53:49):
Point put in a well that cost. Us 6 times what we had
estimated. Cost.
And we've done a couple other tiny improvements.
We've done barely anything, but anywhere we had done anything on
the property, this plant was growing in abundance.
And so I'm walking and I'm sort of listening again, probably
(54:09):
praying, asking. Like.
What is our next move here? What do I go back and say to
Glenn? And I knew in my heart when
every single place that I came to where we'd done any of our
work and a lot of the work we were doing.
Ourselves because we didn't havea big budget to be able to do it
so any. That we'd that we'd done
anything this particular plant was growing much to.
(54:32):
Glen's chagrin. I came home and I was like.
Yeah, there's no way that we're ever, and I think that's when I
said the word ever. There's no way we're ever going
to be selling. This property so we're just
going to need to like work that into however our life is working
like that's a non negotiable. Wow.
And how did he respond? I probably have blocked some of
(54:53):
it out. Because I think I just had to
stay in my. On track with that commitment.
I think he was sort of overwhelmed.
But again, you know, there was atrust.
There's been a trust in this process, I think, for both of
us. And so for whatever reason, you
know, like, really, you know, blessed me.
What did he say? Yeah.
(55:13):
He said to me that he I'm paraphrasing, so I apologize
man, if you look. Let's bring him in and have him
correct he is still. But what I remember, it was
along the lines of I didn't see it.
I was kind of like, what are we doing?
It's crazy, but you've saw it soclearly.
I kind of translate that is thathe just kind of trusted you.
(55:37):
Yeah. I think at that point, you know,
we've been together long enough that we do share our compass in
a lot of ways and as partners do.
But we did trust each other's sense of direction and, and
there's been another level of feeling really just this sense
of gratitude and appreciation that this choice, this has led
(55:58):
to a really beautiful investment.
It's this whole process, you know, it's been, it's been an
incredible, an incredible process of education and an
incredible process to go throughwithin the context of our
marriage too. OK, so that's where we'll be
(56:20):
pausing and Eve's story and how ritual came to be.
Stay tuned for Part 2 coming outin 2 weeks.
Where we will be? Getting into how we ended up
launching during COVID and so somuch more.
I genuinely hope you enjoyed ourconversation as much as I did.
One thing I wanted to mention ismy Embodied branding course.
(56:44):
A lot of the process that you hear Eve mention when she was
talking about the work we did inthe very beginning together is a
process that I included in this course.
So it's a step by step guide on how to build an immersive and
(57:04):
sensory LED brand, one that speaks to the subconscious,
which is where 70% of purchasingdecisions are made.
This type of branding is one that is deeply conducive to
community building and connecting with your audience on
(57:25):
a deeper level. My friend Saxy, who I've
mentioned before, who is also a brilliant brand builder and
mentor, she shared the other daythat Yeti, the brand Yeti, has
five branding people on this team and something like 20
community managers. To me, that just really
underscores how they clearly understand the value of building
(57:48):
a strong brand ecosystem and investing in the team to make
that happen. I can't stress enough how
essential this kind of strategicbrand investment is.
And in the current market, I also know that can be
inaccessible sometimes to work one-on-one with a consultant or
with a branding agency or a marketing agency.
(58:10):
And that is a big part of the reason why I created this
course. I wanted to bring this type of
strategy and knowledge into an accessible course for people who
are starting a business, maybe not a huge marketing and
branding budget. Anyway, I get into all of those
types of strategies and so much more inside the course, and I
(58:34):
encourage any of you who are curious about it to check it out
on the website, which will be LinkedIn.
The show notes. That was a bit of a tangent, but
it felt important. So let's see, what else?
Yes, I meant to be announcing the giveaway winner on this
episode. Here's the thing, because of
life and some last minute scheduling changes I needed to
(58:57):
make, I'm actually recording this outro on Tuesday and the
giveaway is still open through Thursday.
So I now I'm going to be reaching out to the winner
directly via Instagram. I just want to make sure
everyone has a fair chance to enter through Thursday as
promised. I also just want to take a quick
moment to thank my guests again from the season who all
(59:20):
contributed to the giveaway. It's such a beautiful bundle of
gifts and I'm so excited to get to give it to a lucky winner.
As always, thank you for listening, for being here, and
for supporting this pod. If you're enjoying it, Please
remember to rate, review, comment, and follow.
(59:42):
It really does make such a difference.
And with that, I'm going to leave you with this Winston
Churchill quote to reflect on. Success is the ability to move
from one failure to to another without loss of enthusiasm.
That's all for now. Until next time.
Really listening in a way that Ifeel like I was allowing myself
that openness and freedom of asking the question of what
would, what would light me up, what would really be my dream,
But then really also listening to the universe at large.
Welcome to The Alchemy of Success, a space dedicated to
(00:24):
exploring the non linear and intuitive paths of purpose
driven creators, practitioners and entrepreneurs.
Join me to listen to their oftenbrave and inspiring stories of
transformation and resilience. I'm Trinity Rose, a seasoned
brand builder and integrative business strategist.
(00:47):
Hello and welcome back to The Alchemy of Success.
First, thank you to everyone who's been listening, following,
rating, and reviewing. It means so much to me.
I have to say, I was honestly shocked and thrilled to see that
we charted on Apple in the top 3% of the entrepreneur category
(01:11):
just a few days after launching,which is very exciting.
So of course, I had to dig into the analytics because yes, I'm
that person. And my take away is if you're
thinking of starting a podcast, SEO optimization really matters.
(01:32):
I saw that a lot of listeners have already been finding the
show through search on all of the different platforms that I
have the podcasts on and anyways, which is just exciting
to see that function work so well.
But I'm going to save my analytic deep dive for another
time because today's episode is all about my guest, Eve Gaines.
(01:56):
Eve is the founder of Ritual Retreats.
It's a luxurious and private immersive retreat space tucked
high in the Santa Monica Mountains.
It's also where I serve as creative director.
Eve and I have been working together since.
The ritual was just really a seed of an idea.
(02:16):
And honestly, Eve is such a joy to work with.
Her flowy, intuitive approach perfectly complements my Virgo
rising, structured strategy loving brain and we are also
very aligned in our love of beauty and design detail.
(02:40):
Essentially, she's a true creative collaborator and some
might call her my work wife. That's sad, and we sat down to
record this. It was no surprise that we
talked for over 3 hours and so I've decided to split our
conversation in two. Parts because there was.
Just no way I wanted to cut it all down into one hour.
(03:03):
I would have to leave out very important pieces of Eve's story,
which is full of surprises and risk and that beautiful non
linear path I love to talk aboutso much on this show.
So in Part 1 we explore her early years, her love story with
her husband, and the wild circumstances and continuous
(03:25):
leaps of faith that led them to buying the 20 acres of land
where Ritual now resides. But before we dive in, I wanted
to say one of the things I love most about Eve is her laugh.
And we laugh a lot together and I don't know, maybe even
especially when things get hard,which again, is just something
(03:48):
that I love so much. I think it's a really special
dynamic. Building Ritual has brought huge
wins and been a amazing project to to work on, but also real
challenges like the recent wildfires that heartbreakingly
tore through the retreat. I'll never forget sitting with
(04:10):
Eve post fires trying to figure out next steps, strategizing and
at some point her looking at me and comparing us and the
business to a whack A mole game and we literally lost it.
The kind of like crying laughter, full body, can't
breathe, tears running down yourcheeks, laughter.
(04:32):
And it's those kind of moments that working with Eve was just
so special. And I'm sure that laughter was a
much needed stress relief. And as I was reflecting on that
memory, it was a reminder to me of how healing laughter can
really be. And I was also recalling how I
think my first experience of that happened when I was a
(04:56):
child. And I was really.
Sick for a stretch? Of time I didn't grow up with a
TV. My mom was pro reading and books
and getting outside and playing.But she finally let me have a
TV, a small TV in my room just for that period.
And I spent a lot of those days watching a lot of comedy.
And honestly, I think it really helped me heal or at the very
(05:18):
least helped me get through a darn hard time.
And I've been thinking how now more than ever, with everything
going on in the world, we all could use more laughter and more
joy. So this is your invitation and
reminder to really go seek out whatever brings you that kind of
(05:39):
lightness, whether it's a silly animal video, it's dancing in
your living room to your favorite song or a good old
fashioned ROM com. And with that, let's get into
it. Heidi, Heidi, I'm happy to have
you here. It's.
(06:00):
So special to be here. I want to start with what I
think and tell me if I'm correct, was a catalyst kind of
in the direction that your life has taken, which is when you met
Glenn, your husband. This is a big year actually in
the arc of Glenn and my relationship because this is 25
(06:23):
years of marriage this year in December.
I have now actually been with Glenn for as long as I've not
been with Glenn, which feels. Crazy and substantial.
So I was 25 just to set the stage, 24 actually.
So now I've actually been with Glenn longer than I've not been
(06:43):
with Glenn. That's such a finding marker in
my life. I I met him when I was 24.
We got married when I was 25. My life trajectory of living
different places had taken me a little bit, not quite around the
world, but it had taken me far afield.
And then interestingly, I came back to Toronto, which.
Is. The place that I was born and
lived the first seven years of my life.
(07:04):
Glenn was hired to be on a moviethat was filming in a very
remote part of Eastern. Canada, but not many Canadians
even go and visit. And I had dear friends who were
also in the film industry at that time.
And my friend Pete invited Glennback to Toronto for his
Halloween party because as he said, he was like, I can't have
(07:26):
him leave Canada and think that this very part of New Brunswick
is really all that Canada's about.
South Glenn decided to come to Toronto for Halloween.
Our first actual meeting was in the house that I was living in
at the time with three roommates.
And so I was at the top of the stairs in the bathroom, had just
(07:49):
gone thrifting with friends for my Halloween costume, opened the
bathroom door just a little bit to stick my head out and yell
down the stairs, Can anybody please pass me my Peach bell
bottom pants? This man that I'd never seen
before him around the corner from the bottom of the stairs
holding them up and said to you,me knees.
Which ironically just feels likesuch a husband and wife type of
(08:12):
interaction. So that was really the first
time that we laid eyes on each other.
That was our first conversation.Then it was not who I was
expecting to be at the bottom ofmy shares.
So at that morning, at that moment, I have to say that I
really was just surprised more than anything.
I didn't think it was very charming and gracious that he
(08:34):
looked for my Peach bell bottom pants and was willing to pass
them to me. So that was that felt lovely.
But I, I, I think I was more sort of startled than anything
else. But then just to kind of
complicate or like add a little layer when we when we saw each
other following night Pete's Halloween party, Glenn was
dressed up like an urban vampire.
(08:54):
He tends to go all out with his Halloween costume.
So it meant he was wearing a long black wig.
He was wearing Fang. He had fake blood.
He had this really cheesy that actually it's still in his in
his closet, alarmingly, this shirt that is kind of like a
Paisley mesh, black and red buttoned down with velvet.
(09:17):
He was bizarre looking to say the least.
So, you know, I knew I had that one interaction.
That was sort of disarming. And then we actually ended up
talking to each other the whole night of the Halloween party.
And I remember going home that night and saying to my roommate,
like, I've met one of my best friends because there was this
sense of me. Meeting somebody who just
(09:40):
understood, we've had a very philosophical conversation.
So it was really about like whatwe believed life to be all
about. And so as much as I was not, you
know, thinking like, Oh my goodness, this is my life
partner and I'm so attracted to him.
I was thinking, this is somebodywho I could talk to forever.
Interesting. Which is an incredible
(10:01):
foundation to build, to build a marriage on.
So you guys, I get my my teenageyoung adult daughters now.
In fact, really like just reminds me when my partner and I
were first dating and I don't remember why I said it to him.
I remember saying why do you like so much?
What is it? And he said, well, there's all
(10:24):
the obvious things, You're beautiful and smart, but mostly
you just really feel like home. And that really took me back.
And I was like impacting me. And I were, most importantly
feeling the same way. That's it.
And that's the foundation that in my mind, that's what
partnership is. Glenn, at that point also, he
wasn't, he wasn't looking for a partner.
He wasn't looking for a wife, which I love even more.
(10:47):
He was very content to be solo. And I what you were saying about
finding home in somebody, though, it was that sense of
instant feeling of connection and a real soul connection of
this deeper layer of somebody whose orientation is the same as
mine, which I feel like is closeto what Brad was saying.
(11:08):
You know, it's like there's, there's an inexplicable part of
like, oh, this fits and this matches.
I was not following. The trajectory that was sort of
like a prescribed trajectory, and I remember a lot of what we
were connecting on was really that sense of how life guides
and how it does show you these sort of beacon points that are
(11:29):
for you. And that it's important that in
following those, the next chapter reveals itself.
Where were you? What trajectory of the path you
were taking that? Was an interesting moment for
me, actually, because, yeah, so I'd gone to college.
I had, I didn't my, my family. I like to reminisce now and
(11:52):
think about the extent to which I wasn't divided in choosing a
career path. So I, I joke that I kind of just
opened the course catalog to A and got so excited about what
was happening there that I, thatI got stuck.
And I mean, just just to, to give the, to give the framing,
(12:12):
my degree is in anthropology. It's in medical and
psychological anthropology. I also did a minor in art
history. So that's where I'm joking about
just covering the A's. I didn't even make it to the
B's. But in truth, I didn't know
about anthropology. You know, until I got to
(12:33):
college, it was really in takinga one-on-one class that I was
like, Oh my gosh, this is how I see the world.
Already. Having lived other places, this
is a lens that really makes sense to me about looking at,
you know, looking at cultures, looking at differentiators and.
Because you. Just to give people.
Context. You lived in Canada, New York
(12:55):
and. Europe, so I was born in.
In Toronto and Canada. Then when I was about 7, we
moved to Vienna, to Austria, andthen at 12 I had the profound
culture shock of moving to Manhattan and it was from there
that I went full circle back to Toronto.
So not that many places, but places that gave me enough
(13:18):
variety and when we were in Europe.
We did a. Lot of traveling as well, you
know, went to other continents. We definitely had that sense of,
you know, life isn't, life is very different in different
places. And I had a real appreciation
already of how culture defined one's life and.
So it was very. Exciting to find out the
apology. And then within that, I sort of
(13:41):
quickly toggled over to medical anthropology.
So it was looking at health and Wellness and looking across
cultures, so looking at different systems of medicine.
But what really fascinate fascinated me too, was looking
at this idea of what Wellness and what being healthy meant in
(14:03):
different cultural contexts. Learning what the indicators
were for, for people's sense of being well.
And so it was through that lens that a really started to deepen
my understanding of ritual, of rites of passage of these
ceremonies that are created to mark different stages of life
(14:25):
and the place of ritual within aculture.
To allow for people to feel likethey're, they are oriented and
they are supported by community and they sort of have this
relationship to their own cosmology, but a relationship
that allows them to grow and evolve three different stages of
their life and to be supported through challenges and through
(14:47):
transitions. And so I recognize the extent to
which that was really missing from our culture.
And I did something when it cametime to write my thesis, I was
working with an advisor in psychological anthropology and I
did something that she really was advising me not to do, which
was flip the lens and look at Western culture.
(15:09):
And she's like, you know, that'sgoing to be really hard.
Why don't you look somewhere else?
And I was. Like, no, I really want to look
at, I want to look at adolescents in our culture.
And this came from, you know, myexperience of being a teenager
in Manhattan, seeing how many young women were really
struggling specifically with theissue of eating disorders, with
(15:30):
anorexia, with bulimia, seeing the health crisis that that was
in that particular community andrecognizing and wanting to
understand whether it could be correlated to a lack, lack of
life cycle ritual to a lack of support.
And so she was like, that's going to be very hard to.
Prove. And I ended up doing hundreds of
(15:51):
interviews and doing a lot of investigation because not much
is written about our culture through that lens.
It turned out to be a bit more of a project than anticipated.
And so I really vividly remember, I think my brother was
up at Columbia at the time, and I was back in New York and I was
working and his dorm room at Columbia to finish up my thesis
(16:14):
by the end of summer because that was the final deadline that
I'd given myself. So then, yeah, so I finished it,
got my honors degree, and then kind of went, holy shit, what
does one do with this degree? So is that?
The. Time.
So when you met finished school,was that right then or was there
(16:35):
what else was going? On finished school.
And I was figuring out how what I was.
Going to do. Next.
And so I was looking, I was interviewing at medical schools
and thinking about naturopathic college, but I knew I was going
to have to make my way financially.
So I had gone and come out California actually to study
(16:57):
yoga because I figured that if Iwas a yoga instructor, at least
I had a transferable skill and something that I could do
evenings, weekends when I was going to go back to school
because I I. Couldn't see a future where I
wouldn't have to go back to school.
To do something that would actually.
Translate. Into a career.
Like so now when am I going to actually do what?
(17:17):
Am I going to do with my life? So I think at the time I met
Glenn, actually I was doing two things.
I was teaching yoga and I was managing really special
beautiful design boutique. So it was kind of I was doing
those two things which interestingly kind of.
All of these things. Links.
Really play into where you're atnow.
It's fascinating to kind of here, I knew that a little bit,
(17:39):
but to really like here, but step by step.
Yeah, life is wild that way. So.
You have this deep connection with Glenn.
He's going to be your new best friend.
Yes, he came to visit me at the Design Boutique the following
day, which is when I saw him outof asked him and realized.
That maybe there could be something romantic yeah yeah,
(17:59):
very different experience very different experience and we.
Dated, he came back to California, saw each other.
I think he came back to Toronto for my birthday.
He came to New York to meet me for New Year's.
But basically we had like. I think maybe 12 in person days
before he proposed over the phone.
(18:20):
He proposed marriage over the. Phone.
He proposed marriage over the phone.
He did go down on one knee. His his roommate.
Yeah, caught him down in his room.
He was like, what are you doing?Even more.
It was very. Very like young romantic.
It was very young romantic and Ihave to, I don't know if I've
told you this story, but my father, both my parents are
(18:42):
therapists and my dad, even though he was not very involved
with my decision making when I did say I was moving to
California to get married to this person who he met once, he
had basically an intervention for me where he told me I was
not making a logical choice. But again, I was not about to
listen to my dad. I was like, you'll you'll
understand now. They love each other, they're
(19:03):
guests, they adore each other. He realizes that Mary and Glenn
was probably the best choice I've made in my life, but at
that point he was really trying to talk me out of it.
And that's what like parents do when it seems like their child
is making some irresponsible, irrational decision.
But it makes sense knowing you now because I see how you
navigate the world. I mean, but you didn't knock
(19:25):
that. I did.
I feel like I'm one of those people who kind of came in and
didn't have much choice. Other than to do things way for
whatever reason, I don't know ifeverybody feels that, but there
definitely were a lot of pressures.
But I also do feel like living different places kind of
informed that sense for me to know if that makes sense.
I was. Very similar, yeah.
(19:46):
So you had a strong sense of whoyou are and what moved you and
what choices you were going to make and where you were going to
go. I was very clear what life was
about for me. Yeah, yeah.
So it's I connected that and I. Think that's why the two of us
get each other. It's been so actually really
affirming to to work together with someone who also.
(20:09):
Sees. Life and understands and trusts.
That's been such a beautiful thing about our working
relationship. I can tell you like I can't.
Explain to you why this makes sense for me and for the
business. But I know that this is what we
need to do now, and you're not trying to talk me out of it.
You're trying to understand why you feel that.
Yeah. And you know, you or someone who
(20:30):
really has access to your intuition and it's interesting
because then in branding and marketing, one of the things
that you do in a business and with business strategy is
research, which is ultimately listening, right, Listening to
what the customer wants, listening to where the world's
at with what's going on and how that influences business
(20:50):
decisions and purchasing decisions.
That strategic thinking, of course, plays a part in the
decisions we make around the business.
And there's a way that you listen that's a very intuitive,
very quickly I saw how accurate that would be with you or you
anticipate certain things based on that.
(21:10):
And so here's all the other kindof markers that we need to look
at strategically within the business and then what do we do?
So I really like admire that about you.
Thank you. And I love that about the way
that you work too. And just to get everybody a
little recap, we've worked together for a very long time,
since the inception of ritual. And when it was just this little
(21:32):
tiny seed of an idea. And I can't tell you the amount
of safety that I felt in workingwith somebody who was willing to
be with my little seed, I draw out the ideas and allow me to
work in my own way. But with such skill and such.
Yeah, such like command of you knew your stuff.
(21:56):
It was so clear to me from the beginning, from the moment that
we started working together, howmuch you knew what you were
doing. And within that you were letting
me do things my own way so that the brand could genuinely become
what it really wanted to be. Have the privilege of doing that
when your idea is really this like little tiny nascent look,
(22:18):
Sprout is so incredible. I learned so much from just the
process of being asked the questions that you are asking me
having to do that, the investigation deepening into
like, OK, well, I need to distill this and I need to
expand that. And it just, it was it was a
process of discovery and it was a process of creation that we
(22:39):
were in very much with what I thought I was doing.
And where we came to, I feel like did lay the foundation for
what ritual has become and stillcan become because we did the
full like sweep of OK. And where is this little idea
going? Yeah.
And it's an ongoing process, theway that I approach helping
people build a business and the brand that goes along with that
(23:02):
is really pulling out their essence.
Yeah. Like, what is it that they're
bringing more of them that's authentic?
Because people will feel that and connect to it.
Completely. So long my job has been helping
pull that out of you and really like bringing that to life.
It's been such a beautiful, supportive experience I can't
(23:24):
even explain. But we've jumped.
Ahead. Yeah, we've jumped a bit.
So I just want to go back to, soyou met Glenn, He proposed to
you on the phone. I met Glenn, decision proposed
to me on the phone. I made the decision.
Well, at that point, it was a decision to come out to
California for at least six months on a fiance visa because,
you know, that's what they give you.
(23:44):
That's what immigration. Gives you, so I had.
Six months we had six months waswhat we figured to just to
figure out if this relationship.Was to use one of our.
Work, no, none whatsoever. But interestingly, it's sort of
like alleviated the pressure because there was this natural
endpoint. I think once I was in
California, I had the sense I want to make this work.
(24:05):
So but yes, we had to get married within six months and
and I couldn't really work during that time.
So I think I was doing like a little.
I was searching. I was doing a lot of soul
searching. I think I was.
I was, I think I was working like under the table teaching
yoga because it's something thatyou can don't tell the IRS.
But yeah, I think I was. I think I was, yeah.
So I was teaching a little. Bit of yoga, but I was mainly
(24:26):
soul searching. I was mainly really figuring out
like where to next. Now I've landed here and for me,
California was a place where life made more sense.
It really felt like there was something well.
Actually, you know what? California in general, the
specific place fun was living atthe time?
Not so much. It felt.
It's a little bit strange and bizarre to me.
(24:48):
He was living in a in an area ofLA that I moved here.
I should say I moved here without my driver's license.
So I moved. I was biking around this area
that was very, you know, nobody,nobody.
Bikes or walks in LA? Especially in there are I'm on
Santa Monica in. Santa Monica.
I was not in Santa Monica or Venice.
(25:09):
And so I was like, what is this city?
It makes no sense to me and. Very shortly, actually, after we
got married up, convincing Glennto move up.
To Northern California so that Icould go to back to school.
We moved to Northern California so I could get into because I
found one master's program in because I was like, OK, this
(25:33):
health thing. I'm don't know that I'm going to
be following that trajectory. My other passion?
Is design and is that I was toldby my she comes into the story
again by my college advisor thatI could not be in our.
Because I was not a brilliant math mind, but I really had this
dying, this desire to be an architect.
And I had a love of I had a loveof the planet.
(25:56):
And so I found a program in organic architecture and
ecological design, which was notbeing taught many other places I
had to go to. It was the Institute for
Institute of Architecture. That was the classes were held.
It was it was it. Was It's a program that was
developed by some of Frank LloydWright's students.
(26:16):
And it was held in the basement of a church in San Francisco.
In the evenings. Because people were not studying
it as a regular career path. This was not believed to be
something, you know, this was there again, again, Mary, like,
yes, now, you know, there's actually a whole department
devoted to organic architecture and ecological design, but, you
(26:36):
know, not that so. Ahead of the curve and again
this plays into the business. Now it all makes sense, right?
But then it was like, OK, I'm just throwing all this stuff
out. I'm not ironically back in the
same neighborhood even where I had done my done my yoga teacher
training, but now I'm studying something completely different.
So I must have made a mistake. Then I'm doing the right thing
(26:58):
now, you know, committed to working at an at an architecture
bookstore, living the life of like a young designer thinking
that was where I was going. And then got pregnant.
Wow. So then got pregnant, realized
that I did not want to have the type of marriage where, you
know, at that time we moved Northern California.
But for Glenn, his work was still in LA, so he was coming up
(27:20):
on weekends, doing that horrendous Dr. of the five every
weekend to come visit. It's so sweet.
And we had honestly like, yeah, no, we lived in Berkeley.
And I went to school in the city, and our little house in
Berkeley was the first home thatwe really made that felt like
home, which was pretty. Significant for us.
Because when I moved here he wasliving with his brother and a
(27:42):
couple of other roommates in thebasement of this like condo as
well. The only way I can describe it,
and he had no sense of what he was missing out on in terms of
having a home that felt like home.
He was like, I don't know what you're talking about, and I
didn't realize until we made a home of our own that he just
didn't have that reference pointat all.
And then you. Mentioned beautiful and we
(28:03):
created our little beautiful home in Berkeley and so he was
coming up on weekends as we werelooking ahead to becoming
parents you know neither of us really wanted a life where he
was only. Only in family mode on the
weekends. So it very quickly it came clear
that we weren't going to be staying up there because now we
(28:23):
were going to have to fund a small.
Family and his job could do thatand I was not anywhere near
being a qualified anything. It was time to come back to to
Southern California, and that was the moment when I think I
told you like I hadn't really made.
Sense of this city. Enough to it.
It felt like, Oh my goodness, OK, I'm going to have to go back
to LA. And so we knew.
(28:45):
That we're we were going to haveto do LA differently, which
fortunately, I adore LA now. I absolutely love it.
I have not. You know, I've lived here for
good long time, 20 some years. I am not tired of it, but it is
one of those cities that you cando in so many different ways, so
true, completely different experiences.
Based on where you are, who you're with, I remember feeling
(29:08):
that just visiting LA over the years, like when I lived up
north, but my grandparents livedhere.
So that was one experience. And then as I got older and
lived in New York, I had a lot of friends in LA.
And so I would visit them and belike, this almost feels like a
totally different and where I amand what I'm doing.
No, I, I called it a choose yourown adventure city because it
(29:29):
really is that it just depends on what neighborhood you're in,
who you're with. It's almost like there are these
doors that magically open that like you had no idea.
Even those, those little, you know, you go, then you go
downtown and they're like all these worlds of you get
interested in something. You can go so deep.
Here but yes, so it was that moment of like we need to come
(29:50):
back to LA and we need to find away of living in LA that felt as
good to is living in in in Northern California where Glenn
was so mountain biking and. He loved it too.
I bet he. Loved it, too.
He really did. If there had been work up there,
I think that's probably where wewould have stayed.
But that wasn't the reality. Yeah, he had this idea when we
(30:12):
moved back. He was like, you know, there's
this place that I go, used to gomountain biking with some
friends. I don't know if.
People live there. This was again quite a quite a
long time ago, but it was like. It's called Topanga.
Canyon and I was like, Oh my God, we did that drive once.
I could never do that drive. And really your first.
Response was like. My first response was, yeah, my
(30:36):
first response driving up there,I was sort of like white
knuckling in the passenger seat thinking how would I do this?
But once we got up there, it washonestly so magical.
Just to give people contacts whoare not familiar with Topanga
Canyon, it's a Canyon that runs from the valley up into the
Canyon and then goes down to thePCH and it's incredible.
(30:58):
But it is a very windy Canyon Road and people drive fast.
And if you're not, it's. Somebody, not a seasoned driver.
Yes, I'm a city person who wouldtake the bus and take the
subway. And that is not a real form of
transportation here in Southern California.
I have to say now, I adore our windy mountain roads.
(31:20):
Now that I, you know, it's my meditative practice, yes, I have
no problem with you know, where the where, where we're building
our house, where the retreat is,is even further up the.
Mounting wounding might. Can't speak windy mountain roads
and I absolutely love it. But no, back then it was
definitely like how am I going to live up here?
And Oh yeah, and I was 8 months pregnant so it was sort of like,
(31:43):
how am I going to live up here and get myself down if I need to
take care of anything for my child?
Groceries. Doctors.
But that didn't. Stop us.
That is ultimately where we movebecause it all very
synchronistically opened up for us to to live in a very.
Special, which is I think how ithas to.
Happen. It's.
How it has to happen? It's not a place that's easy to
(32:06):
find. There's a lot of real estate
there. No.
And back then even less on what we ended up finding had just
been built, which is so rare up there.
So we moved into this little beautiful new guest house with
huge windows on a beautiful piece of property that the land
around it hadn't been developed.Living up there redefined my
(32:27):
sense of what was possible. You know, I hadn't been somebody
who had a lot of means nor was glad.
And there was something about living in this place that for
both of us, felt very idyllic ina way where, you know, we'd
taken a bit of leap, of a leap of faith and kind of we're
spending a little more than we had anticipated that we would.
(32:49):
But we're really realizing, OK, then life kind of meets you.
It was working for us. And in that equation, and Get
Gun has been a big teacher for me too, in terms of, you know,
these exploring possibilities inbrave ways.
And that was definitely a phase of our life that that paved the
way for us to make other choicesthat would require.
(33:11):
Resources we didn't quite have yet and.
A lot of trust. A lot of trust, A lot of trust.
Which one of those is when you bought the refute property,
which is a story. But one quick thing before
before we chat about that. I think this was, yeah, it was
definitely before you bought theproperty.
(33:31):
You and Glenn were newlyweds. You were in Hawaii for some
reason. Probably on a set.
You're in deep self exploration.I was, I was OK and what what
happened and the reason? Just give a little context.
This moment that Eve is about toshare with you deeply plays into
what Ritual is and has. Yeah.
(33:54):
So it was probably one of the times that I was most open and
receptive. And I remember I was saying a
lot of I am ready and I'm ready to know where to next.
And I was asking myself if I could.
It's a very privileged position to be in and in a way but also
(34:15):
kind of a daunting 1. Where I was, I was asking myself
if I could do anything under thesun, what would I do?
What would I choose? What would I create or where
would I work? What would be my career?
Path, it was very much well, yes, I had this degree that I
thought would. Not come to much of anything.
(34:38):
And so it was like, OK, what would what would I what would I
create? Interestingly, the degree did
play a little bit into what my brainchild was, which was I
thought what the world really needs our places is a place and
sinking in the singular because I was imagining creating it and
what would it what would what itwould feel like would be there.
(35:00):
All of the, you know, heightenedsensorial aspects that we know
now really plays into that process of manifestation and.
Of. Creation.
So I was really imagining like, OK, what would this place be?
And in my mind, it was a place where people came for deeply
attuned and customized Wellness experiences.
(35:21):
And it was before Wellness became Wellness jargon.
So I was really thinking in terms of what would people need
to address their specific healthchallenges, be they physical,
emotional, psycho, spiritual, ina way where there would be
support. And I was imagining this support
(35:42):
being, you know, probably because of my background and
education, I was like, well, it needs to have telepathic
medicine, but it also needs to involve Eastern medicine.
There need to be practitioners of Ayurveda, there need to,
there needs to be body work, there needs to be beautiful
food. There needs to be all of these
pieces that we're playing in. And it needs to be a place where
(36:03):
people feel there's a sense of beauty, there's a sense of
personal exploration so that people could really be met and
supported. And I was imagining they would
stay there and then they would be supported in creating a plan
and a program so they could go back to their lives and feel
like change had happened and feel actually like the needle
(36:24):
had moved. Which is what ritual has
becoming. It's becoming.
A. Piece of people saying on the
property isn't we're not. We're not quite there yet, yeah.
But I feel like so often our best ideas come when you're in a
place that's where you can get really Hyatt and just allow
yourself to tap in. And then also what I love about
(36:45):
that moment is that from my perspective, and it was clearly
was influenced by everything youhad studied right about.
What's really missing and how toreally change the paradigm?
How to offer people something different?
And then the next. Phase.
Wasn't creating that. No, that was an ultimate dream.
(37:07):
That was a goal. That was something that like I
could see, but that was in the far off future.
I I, in my mind, I had so much work to do before I got to that
point. Yeah.
And no. And then I also sort of wrote it
off as like, well. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a
health professional in this way.I did not go just Business
(37:28):
School to create this. So I'll just go and follow my
path. Isn't it so funny to it of
insights and then our brain is like.
And no, no, no, no. Totally, which now I tell my
clients is our brains are conditioned to keep us safe and
in the. Familiars.
But yeah, no, I quickly, I talked myself out of that idea
and just really dismissed it. Well, I dismissed it, but I also
(37:50):
allowed it to be there because. You dismissed it.
The next logical step? It was a North Star.
It was definitely a North Star because it was, there was a
sense of, you know, it was like the tingles, full body tingles
of Oh my goodness, if I ever could do that.
So I want to segue into when youpurchased.
(38:13):
The land that has now become theretreat.
Yeah. Yeah, it's not a moment of it
doesn't make sense at the time. Fast forward a little ways,
we've been living in Topanga in our lovely guest house that when
we moved into it seemed like a beautiful vast space.
But we were pregnant when we moved there.
(38:35):
And so it was now four years later, we had a four year old
and I was pregnant again and nowwe already built an additional
bedroom onto this little unit. And paid to do that out of
pocket and we were busting at the scenes.
And we needed a house. So I was tasked with, while
Glenn was working madly to be able to, you know, afford to
(38:57):
live in LA, another child and growing family.
It was supposed to just be goingout with our friend who was a
realtor. I'm to look at reasonable houses
in the Canyon. We knew we wanted to stay in the
Canyon, but because I had been working toward this master's
degree in organic architecture and ecological design.
(39:17):
And because this was still a moment when there was still land
available in the. Santa Monica Mountains.
So whenever Glenn and I would talk about it, it was a house or
land that we could easily build on, and at that point had a four
year old who's a brilliant humanbut chock full of spritey energy
since the moment she came into the world.
(39:38):
So I had taken to doing these massive drives to get her to go
to sleep. For her naps, you know, we'd do
the morning and then I was like,OK, now I pause and knew that
wouldn't happen at home, so I'd start driving in Topanga and
when you. Start driving in Tobank and you
can either just go down or you couldn't keep going up.
And so I kind of taken to going up and exploring these like kind
(40:01):
of edge regions of Malibu and Topanga high up in the Santa
Monica Mountains and I'd fallen in love with this little area
and in particular with the street.
My caveat to our real estate agent at the time was, you know,
please show me anything that's in our price range and show me
anything that's available on this particular.
(40:22):
Particular. Street.
So this street, if you wind all the way up.
In Topanga, you're basically going to the top Crest of the
Santa Monica Mountain. So there's no higher to.
Climb and you go along the Ridgeand you're at 30s these
profoundly beautiful sweeping views of the ocean.
And our little St. drops off toward the ocean.
(40:44):
So as you're coming down the street, you really have this
sense of just being suspended inthe mountains overlooking the
ocean. And I've never seen anything
like it. And this unwanted mountains is
is this chaparral ecosystem, which is kind of one step away
from a desert ecosystem. It's kind of a hybrid, but
(41:05):
because it's close to the ocean,this particular area gets a lot
of the mist that comes in off the ocean.
It's beautiful and it keeps things lush and green it.
Almost feels like you're in another country.
It does. It feels that very
Mediterranean, like you're perched on dramatic, mountainy,
(41:26):
rough hills overlooking, Yeah, an expansive.
Southern Italy, someone. Exactly.
There's a lot of Italy references for people.
There's a lot of like even, you know, some areas of Greece.
So I fell in love with that street.
And then I'm not sure if I've told you this ever either.
It may not have come up but I was taken to see a property down
(41:47):
the road because we had a budget.
Obviously it wasn't a huge budget.
We were making ends meet. Like.
Do the things we needed to do. And we were trying to be
sensible. Yeah, we were totally crazy at
this point, but he had taken me to.
See a one acre property on the street which was.
Within our budget and would havemade sense.
(42:08):
And I will never forget driving up the hill and.
My realtor friend pulled over atthis.
This sort of like chain link gate thing that was to another
property and he was like, but I have to show you this one.
He took me to drive the property, which is not 20 acres,
(42:30):
and it's bordered by Conservancyland.
And before we left the property,I was in tears because it was so
special. And I just fell in love with the
land. It was this gem, this dream.
And once I'd seen it, I couldn'tUnsee it.
Yeah. And so I don't know if you want
me to go into the next chapter of probably what would have,
(42:51):
what could have created serious pack peril and other marriages.
Oh. Yes, yes, absolutely.
So I went home. I waited till Glenn came home
with his, you know, from from set, probably super late.
I don't remember, but I basically tell told him we had
to at least put a bit in on thisproperty and.
(43:12):
Glenn was, I was describing it to him and he's like, Oh my God.
And it's the same prices. And I was like, well, no, it's
not, but they're really motivated to sell.
So basically it was twice, pretty much twice as much as we
were looking at spending on house in Japan was what they
were asking for this property. Way out of our budget, so.
(43:32):
Not only were wrong, just get land and you were still going to
then need to find need. To build, we were still going to
need to build, yeah, need to build, need to find a bigger
place in in terms. So this is not solving any
problems. In the short term.
Yeah, so I was so excited about this though, and I keep on
mentioning this, but I was nine months pregnant.
(43:53):
And if you've been around someone who's nine months
pregnant, I tend to be feel likeI've gotten a bit better, but
this is unaged. But I used to be, you know, my
hormonal fluctuations were were they were considerable.
They were real. I had a husband who loved me
dearly but also knew that I could be a bit of a whirling
dervish. And so, you know, as he told me
(44:14):
years later, he contacted our realtor.
He appeased me by putting in a bid, but built everything into
this bid so that there would be no way that the sellers would
actually accept this bid. And when he took the bid, when
he took the proposal to our realtor, our realtor was
(44:36):
mortified and said there's no way I can bring this to the
seller. I can't do this.
And Glenn was like, well, you'relegally obligated to, so you're
going to have to break because Ineed to at least be able to tell
you that we tried and that they said no.
So I didn't find out until yoursmany, many years later.
Thank, Ellie, for the sake of our marriage, that Glenn had
absolutely no intention and really did not want to.
(45:00):
Like, didn't see how this was possible, didn't think it was a
good idea and was purposely trying to thwart the process.
But at this point, I had. Yeah.
I was so clear that this was ournext step, even though it made
absolutely no sense. But it kind of had my little
conference with the forces that be in the universe that this is,
it's going to happen. Needless to say, there was like
(45:22):
a tiny bit of back and forth negotiation and then they were.
Satisfied with the bid and they accepted it and Glenn told me
later that he had just such a holy shit, what now?
That this is going to be our reality and that this is where
I'm putting all of our pennies we'd save.
It's not like either of us come from greatly resourced wealthy
(45:44):
family. There was no there was no safety
net. Now we owned 20 acres of raw
land and there were years when we would go up to the land and
with our sorry, go ahead. But then it gets.
Worse it gets. Worse, yes, it gets worse, but
it's, you know, OK, So yeah, what was happening on the world
stage or on the. This is 2008.
(46:05):
This is 2007. It was October of 2007, which I
can never forget because it was the same week that my younger
daughter Chloe was born, so October 2007, which so we never
would have banks. Would have looked at and said
you are high and out of your mind to think that you can.
Afford 20 acres of land in in the Santa Monica.
(46:26):
No way like there would have been no way for us to qualify
for this type of loan that we would have needed, which at that
point was a building loan, you know, because that was that was
the other qualifiers that we would have had to qualify.
So even when the when the sellers accepted the bid, Glenn
still had the provision in therethat we had to qualify for a
loan before we actually owned the property.
(46:49):
So he said that little piece, he.
Thought he'd built in every caveat that was.
Going to save him and save our marriage and we were going to
get our little house and it was going to be fine and we were
going to do the reasonable thing.
But yes, it was October of 2007.The Benny King system was about
to collapse. And we're convinced that the
person who granted us our loan probably knew that she was about
(47:11):
to lose her job and was basically giving money away.
The company that we had our loanwith, I think it was two months
after we got approved for the loan that.
Bank was gone. It no longer.
Existed for about a year, we hadto track down our loan and try
to find it at different banking institutions because things were
(47:32):
in such crisis. But that was really, yeah, that
was the piece of how it came to be in that moment, that
something completely feasible and unattainable aligned in this
wild way to make it so that we now were.
The owners of 20 acres of property which believe me, at
that point, you know, there was not a massive celebration.
(47:56):
At least for Glenn, he didn't see it.
Let's just put it that way. This poor man, for so many
years, he would go up with his, like, little machete and he
would, you know, make a pass so that our tiny family with these,
like, young kids who were out inthe brush and getting stuck by,
you know, all kinds of birds. We'd go have a little picnic.
(48:17):
Everyone would end up crying, gohome.
And because the bang suit collapsed and because the person
who we were working with as our architect had completely given
us this insanely naive estimate for what we could build our
house for that anytime we took astep toward it ended up costing
us between 5 or 6 times more than you'd estimated.
So we honestly, yeah, this the feeling was.
(48:41):
Like. We've we've done something.
It made no sense. It made no sense and it made no
sense. For a really long time, and the
one thing we had going for us isthat our friend who owned the
property we were living on was going through a challenging
time. She moved, we moved into her
home. To make help her make ends meet.
It was a wonderful place for us to live.
(49:02):
So we were not feeling pressure.We were not feeling pressure and
and we were preoccupied with raising our kids, earning the
money we needed to earn, to afford rent, to afford the
mortgage on this place to make. So there were about 10 years
where we were just kind of ignoring the fact that we had
this piece of land. And it wasn't like and then did
(49:25):
you Oh my gosh, we have to sell it because that some people
would do that. It's.
Really interesting to me that that doesn't.
Happen. Well for me, I wouldn't let us
go there. There were about three junctures
where one very early on when 1 was like OK.
We can get out of this without losing money.
It's all you know, real estate market and tanked at this point.
(49:45):
So it went from being an incredible deal to like, land
was basically completely worthless for a moment, and it
made no sense. Then things started to creep
back up and that was his. I think he got so excited.
He was like, we can, you know, make our money back.
We can do the right thing and yeah, we're OK.
We're OK. We're going to be OK.
And at that point, I was, I was a hard no.
(50:07):
Then about three years later, when we.
Knew what happens like and that's.
True, like when I'm a hard now Ijust like OK I might be 5 too
and he's 64 but I guess I can bepretty fierce and convincing I.
I was like, not yet. He's.
Not pushover. Oh, he's not at all pushover.
(50:28):
No. And this is not the usual
dynamic of our relationship either.
And I'm not the person, you know, I don't wear the pants in
the relationship. It's very much a partnership.
I'm not like a dictator. But on this property there has
been a sense. And it's interesting because I
feel like the property's actually grown.
Our marriage. This is this is a project.
That I've had to take the lead on in this really powerful way
(50:50):
that's felt who I am and that's fortified who I am, and that's
edge. Pushed me and who I.
Am as a as as a leader within myfamily, yeah.
So it's interesting that that sort of started very early on
but yes, now I was basically saying no, not yet we're not
considering that yet. Then I remember there being one
other threshold where it was very, very challenging to get
(51:14):
permits and we went through thiswhole permitting process and
then basically kind of had to goback to the beginning anyway.
It was very, it was very frustrating.
And so there was this moment where we were actually, you
know, if we sold and I think we may even have had an offer
brought to us. It seemed to be the logical
thing to do. And I remember at that point, I
think my kids were probably a little older because I went up
(51:36):
by myself and I walked the land.And when I walked the land, I
just to fill you in a little bit, I sent a number of years
studying with a Chumash medicinewoman.
I just was going to ask you if at that point you had studied
with her. Yeah.
So I had studied with her. I studied with her very early on
when I moved to Topanga. And just so for people who don't
(51:59):
know a Chumash medicine. Chumash is the tribe that
they're actually a little bit further up the coast than the
Tongva are the tribe that is placed in the LA basin.
The LA, the area and then Shumash are the tribe that are.
They are the tribe they do and they did and greater numbers
live in the coastal regions and on the Channel Islands of
(52:23):
California. And so I was connected with
brilliant and really like kind of force of nature woman named
Cecilia Garcia, who was incredibly generous with her
knowledge. And she would come to the house
that we were renting. And at that point, most of my
friends were healing arts practitioners.
And we would spend at least one day a month with her.
(52:45):
And she would teach us and she'dtake us out on these walks,
nature walks. And we, we learned from her.
We were basically apprenticing with her for a number of years.
And at this point, she just passed away.
So she died a really. Yeah.
She, she died pretty young and it was really sudden and I'd but
I'd done, I'd been working with her for years in our work
together. We would go on these hikes and
(53:05):
we'd we'd harvest and there was a plant that we found that she
hadn't been finding and she co-authored a book.
Which was the only. Book about native plants in the
Santa Monica Mountains. And this plant isn't in the book
because at that time she wasn't finding it.
And it's it's this variety of everlasting that is the plant
(53:26):
that women use as their prayer plant.
So it's the plant that they would use to create prayer ties.
And it was sort of the equivalent of what tobacco is
for other. And it smells.
So. Good.
Like nothing else. And yeah, it's such a special,
special plant. You.
Walk and. The property, yes.
This juncture I walk the property and we had at this.
(53:49):
Point put in a well that cost. Us 6 times what we had
estimated. Cost.
And we've done a couple other tiny improvements.
We've done barely anything, but anywhere we had done anything on
the property, this plant was growing in abundance.
And so I'm walking and I'm sort of listening again, probably
(54:09):
praying, asking. Like.
What is our next move here? What do I go back and say to
Glenn? And I knew in my heart when
every single place that I came to where we'd done any of our
work and a lot of the work we were doing.
Ourselves because we didn't havea big budget to be able to do it
so any. That we'd that we'd done
anything this particular plant was growing much to.
(54:32):
Glen's chagrin. I came home and I was like.
Yeah, there's no way that we're ever, and I think that's when I
said the word ever. There's no way we're ever going
to be selling. This property so we're just
going to need to like work that into however our life is working
like that's a non negotiable. Wow.
And how did he respond? I probably have blocked some of
(54:53):
it out. Because I think I just had to
stay in my. On track with that commitment.
I think he was sort of overwhelmed.
But again, you know, there was atrust.
There's been a trust in this process, I think, for both of
us. And so for whatever reason, you
know, like, really, you know, blessed me.
What did he say? Yeah.
(55:13):
He said to me that he I'm paraphrasing, so I apologize
man, if you look. Let's bring him in and have him
correct he is still. But what I remember, it was
along the lines of I didn't see it.
I was kind of like, what are we doing?
It's crazy, but you've saw it soclearly.
I kind of translate that is thathe just kind of trusted you.
(55:37):
Yeah. I think at that point, you know,
we've been together long enough that we do share our compass in
a lot of ways and as partners do.
But we did trust each other's sense of direction and, and
there's been another level of feeling really just this sense
of gratitude and appreciation that this choice, this has led
(55:58):
to a really beautiful investment.
It's this whole process, you know, it's been, it's been an
incredible, an incredible process of education and an
incredible process to go throughwithin the context of our
marriage too. OK, so that's where we'll be
(56:20):
pausing and Eve's story and how ritual came to be.
Stay tuned for Part 2 coming outin 2 weeks.
Where we will be? Getting into how we ended up
launching during COVID and so somuch more.
I genuinely hope you enjoyed ourconversation as much as I did.
One thing I wanted to mention ismy Embodied branding course.
(56:44):
A lot of the process that you hear Eve mention when she was
talking about the work we did inthe very beginning together is a
process that I included in this course.
So it's a step by step guide on how to build an immersive and
(57:04):
sensory LED brand, one that speaks to the subconscious,
which is where 70% of purchasingdecisions are made.
This type of branding is one that is deeply conducive to
community building and connecting with your audience on
(57:25):
a deeper level. My friend Saxy, who I've
mentioned before, who is also a brilliant brand builder and
mentor, she shared the other daythat Yeti, the brand Yeti, has
five branding people on this team and something like 20
community managers. To me, that just really
underscores how they clearly understand the value of building
(57:48):
a strong brand ecosystem and investing in the team to make
that happen. I can't stress enough how
essential this kind of strategicbrand investment is.
And in the current market, I also know that can be
inaccessible sometimes to work one-on-one with a consultant or
with a branding agency or a marketing agency.
(58:10):
And that is a big part of the reason why I created this
course. I wanted to bring this type of
strategy and knowledge into an accessible course for people who
are starting a business, maybe not a huge marketing and
branding budget. Anyway, I get into all of those
types of strategies and so much more inside the course, and I
(58:34):
encourage any of you who are curious about it to check it out
on the website, which will be LinkedIn.
The show notes. That was a bit of a tangent, but
it felt important. So let's see, what else?
Yes, I meant to be announcing the giveaway winner on this
episode. Here's the thing, because of
life and some last minute scheduling changes I needed to
(58:57):
make, I'm actually recording this outro on Tuesday and the
giveaway is still open through Thursday.
So I now I'm going to be reaching out to the winner
directly via Instagram. I just want to make sure
everyone has a fair chance to enter through Thursday as
promised. I also just want to take a quick
moment to thank my guests again from the season who all
(59:20):
contributed to the giveaway. It's such a beautiful bundle of
gifts and I'm so excited to get to give it to a lucky winner.
As always, thank you for listening, for being here, and
for supporting this pod. If you're enjoying it, Please
remember to rate, review, comment, and follow.
(59:42):
It really does make such a difference.
And with that, I'm going to leave you with this Winston
Churchill quote to reflect on. Success is the ability to move
from one failure to to another without loss of enthusiasm.
That's all for now. Until next time.
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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.