March 26, 2024 • 42 mins
In this stimulating episode of the Founders Odyssey podcast, we embark on an enlightening journey with Dalton Locke, the driving force behind Pono AI and co-founder of MIT45, one of the globe's leading Kratom companies. With a unique entrepreneurial perspective shaped by personal hardships and challenges, Dalton offers invaluable insights into the world of entrepreneurship.
Delving into his own trials and tribulations, Dalton shares his non-traditional learning journey studded with overcoming learning disabilities and cultivating self-reliance through diverse professional experiences. This episode brings to light the essence of persisting during adversities, maintaining composure during tumult, and the significance of personal development for entrepreneurs. It’s a MUST LISTEN for those aspiring to scale the heights of success.
Our conversation escorts you through his beliefs on leadership development and effective team building. Dalton emphasizes the importance of understanding team dynamics to guide them towards a shared vision. He firmly believes that a strong team is formed when everyone's roles are aligned with their strengths and they are given autonomy to execute those roles.
Lastly, we delve into Dalton’s AI-driven vision - Pono AI. He reveals the thought process behind its creation as a solution against the classic disorder that businesses face. Dalton takes us down the rabbit hole explaining the seamless integration of AI to streamline business operations and the crucial role it plays in reconnecting us with nature and personal wellness.
This thrilling episode of the Founders Odyssey podcast is too good to miss. Join us as we unmask the exhilarating communion of AI, human existence, business, and life as we navigate it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Founders Odyssey podcast where we interview founders that have
bought companies, sold companies, and taken companies public and are creating
innovative products or services for the world.
Today we are joined with Dalton Locke, founder of Pono AI and also the co-founder
of one of the world's largest Kratom companies, MIT45.
(00:20):
So Dalton, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited to get to
know you better personally and then also ask you some amazing questions hear
about your past, present, and future.
So let's dive into it. What does entrepreneurship mean to you?
Entrepreneurship means to me, it's about taking that dream that's inside of
you and being able to get it out to the world. It's also about solving major problems.
(00:44):
And while really it's the largest, it's one of the biggest entrepreneur.
How do I want to say? It's one of the business or the one is it's one of the
biggest personal development journeys. I think any human being can ever go on.
I love that answer because, you know, everyone is on a journey, right? Absolutely.
And we have a lot of ups and downs, right?
(01:05):
And when you put yourself in a pressure situation, right, pressure cooker, then you have diamonds.
Absolutely. So let's talk about, you know, even from the very beginning,
let's talk about how you found yourself wanting to solve problems and wanting
to hop into the entrepreneurial journey.
Yeah. Share with us that. Yeah. So when I was younger,
(01:28):
I would sit around the table at my grandfather's house and my grandfather would
have stacks of magazines from different, different business magazines and trade magazines.
And when I say trade magazines, I'm talking about trading stocks.
He loved trading stocks.
And when I was a kid, he would, we'd get in the car and we would sometimes drive
(01:49):
down to like local companies and we would go to where they were doing all their shipping and whatever.
And he would literally sit there and count the semis going in and out and trying
to figure out like how much growth this business is having.
And so I watched him do that. I watched him do a lot of section eight housing.
Really, when I was younger, my family were all pretty much, for the most part, blue-collar workers.
(02:14):
I saw a lot of chaos inside of my family, inside of my home at the time.
My parents, they were always threatening to get divorced and always had to do
with one major thing, money.
I knew I was never the smartest guy in the world. I didn't plan on going to
college, but I always thought for some reason I was going to do things my own
way. and I would end up working in companies for a little bit and I'd find out
(02:37):
how much money someone was making, like the guy at the top.
And all of a sudden I would say, nope, that's not for me. And I would remove myself.
So over periods of time, I got to learn a lot because I would put myself in
situations one after the other, after the other, trying to continue to learn
and get the information.
And I always knew that there was something more. I always knew that.
I mean, I sold everything from a mobile ice cream business.
(03:00):
Mobile, like mobile DJs, you know, spray painting numbers, You know,
the, the journey that I think a lot of entrepreneurs have where they're always
trying to solve problems,
or they're also always trying to figure out how to have a couple more bucks
because they want nicer things or they want to do something different.
And for me, the main thing for me was I didn't learn very well in school.
(03:22):
I had a lot of different learning disabilities and I still kind of do ADD,
dyslexia, you know, those types of things.
And during that period of time, I remember thinking that the education systems
that I was in were broken, they were messed up, and I had a hard time learning.
And so what I always said to myself, how cool would it be one day if I want
(03:44):
to learn something, I could just go learn it. I could go somewhere. I could pay an expert.
I could do those things. And now at this point in time, I've done that.
I've been all over the world.
I've paid a lot of experts to teach me things specifically in the way I want
to learn so that I can learn.
And I think for me, like that was one of the biggest things is that I've,
Being an entrepreneur kind of taught me, you know, that we, that we're in charge
(04:08):
or being a founder, we're in charge of our own destiny.
And that's always what I wanted. You said something that I believe resonates with everyone.
We all go through chaos, right? Everyone has a different definition.
But share with me a little bit about how you remained calm or how you go through
a systematic approach to almost remain calm during the chaos because that is
(04:29):
a personality trait that we see in a lot of entrepreneurs being able to take
a lot of stress on but also remain calm and make good decisions.
Can you share with me a little bit about something you've gone
through and how you remain calm sure yeah i
mean there's there's been many of those things that happen i
think as a an entrepreneur we were always constantly putting
(04:51):
out fires and it almost becomes part of the nature of what we do is putting
out fires right and so if something comes up and all of a sudden i start to
react and then all that's going to do is cause more reaction inside of me internally
within my system it's going to cause more reaction inside of everybody else
around me and nobody's thinking And so for me personally,
it's about in the morning, doing my meditation work and starting there,
(05:13):
like starting there in that calmness, in that peace, sitting in that place.
And I, because of a lot of the personal development work I've done,
everything from, you know, there's a place called impact training here.
I'm drinking a lot of ayahuasca at this point in time. I've done men's trainings.
I've done, I mean, so much personal development. it puts you in this pressure
cooker, as you called it, that you remove all of these emotions,
(05:36):
all these feelings, all of this stuff coming out.
And I went over periods of time of going through so much of that,
so much of times having to react. And I did react.
And when I learned about that reaction, it's very expensive.
In 2016, the FDA came out with a, with a company that we are part of which is
mint 45 and they said that kratom itself was going to be considered a schedule
(06:00):
one now let that sit in for a second we had,
a million dollars worth of product in our facility and we had to light it all on fire.
And we reacted because what ended up happening afterwards and in December is
the FDA decided that they were going to leave it up to public opinion, right?
So they're going to start doing more research on this, which had never been done before.
(06:22):
But in that moment, that reaction, that stress level, it put me in the hospital.
It literally almost killed me physically, almost killed me.
And in that moment in time, I remember saying like, if, if I'm able to continue
my journey, If I'm going to continue to work, I'm not going to continue to react
like this, and I'm not going to continue to work like this, because it's literally going to kill me.
(06:44):
Many people have definitions of success, but they have to work their way through
these different trials that you have outlined, and I think we all go through.
I think it's really important that we have that vision for the end,
but also welcome the adversity that's going to come. Can you share with me the
(07:08):
continued adversity that you were facing, though?
But now, how did you jump over that hurdle and then continue to implement specific
habits that would not allow you to react in ways that you would have in the past?
So my partner, right, my founder that worked with me and does work with me inside
(07:31):
of Met45, amazing man. His name is Sean Brady.
And he taught me something, and it's something I have taught many times to many people.
And he does a lot better job of explaining this, but I will do my best.
Basically what he explains is like,
you know, sometimes in the night you wake up and you're sitting there next to
your partner and all of a sudden you hear a noise and your wife or girlfriend
(07:53):
or whatever it is in the moment might say, there's someone downstairs.
We got to, you got to go down, you got to go handle this. And so you get the
courage to get up out of bed and you slowly go down the stairs,
maybe maybe grab a bat on the way just in case or whatever you have.
And you go around the corner and you hear another noise and your heart is beating
really fast and you're starting to breathe deep and you're trying to keep composure,
(08:16):
but also a lot of us are jumping into anxiety and going into these emotions.
And all of a sudden we turn around and it's a cat. So the question I ask myself
constantly because of that metaphor, because I have been through many situations
in in the business that I'm in over the years, that it's just a cat.
And in the moment, everybody around us wants to make it a burglar and they're
(08:39):
screaming and they're yelling and they're pushing more and more chaos, more and more noise.
And they want to feed it because drama is really fun for a lot of people. They really like drama.
They really like to amp things up, get people excited because one,
it parts people with their money.
It causes people to do things that are irrational.
(08:59):
But if If we can stay calm and cool and sit back and breathe,
breath is one of the most important things I would say I have in my arsenal.
If I can just breathe through it and to the uncomfortability of it and witness
it and ask, okay, what is this trying to teach me?
What is really going on here? And like, what is it that I have power over?
(09:20):
And what is, I don't have power over. And so when I'm able to,
to look at a situation and just pause, just sitting in that pause of that breath.
That's when I am able to get a little bit more information. And then I would
also say having experts or people around me that are, that I can consult into
and say, Hey, like this is what's going on.
I am feeling this way and not pushing down my feelings or emotions or my thoughts,
(09:43):
bring, bring awareness to them.
So I realized what's going on, but also not feeding into him so much that I'm
the one that's causing the reaction.
Everyone goes through these trials, right? And, and we keep,
we keep going into that, but I, I wanna.
Continue to understand in a deeper level about that because we've got aspirations, right?
(10:05):
Many of us and both of us, and no matter what level you're at out there,
you've got some goal you want to dream.
But there's going to be a lot of stress involved,
but also different people and different scenarios where people will say certain
things on your rise to quote-unquote success.
(10:27):
Success so i want to ask you how you've
been able to manage as you have continued
to quote unquote success individuals that
have said certain things you know i don't know how you could recollect but sure
you know people think you're successful right but then they start saying things
you know that may hurt or may drive you down a different path i know exactly
(10:53):
where you're going Yeah,
so share with me about that. So first, let's talk about.
Let's talk about human beings. Yes. And if we look at humans and we look at
people, they're on their path, right?
And when a lot of times when people will say things, one, they don't,
they're not really walking in your shoes.
So they don't really understand. They have their, they have their vision inward,
(11:15):
but they don't know what's going on internally.
And they're also not sure why you're making decisions. And so they're going
back to their own traumas. They're going back to their own feelings.
And so for me, I go back to the, to this little
quote and that is hurt people hurt people and so i ask
myself like what is it inside of them right now that i am a
reflection of that they have not healed because
(11:36):
we are all reflections of each other because we haven't healed and so when i
see somebody and i'm and i'm the opposite and i might be on the other side of
that right and i might be saying things about somebody else often what happens
is most people don't take the time and energy to first seek and i believe it was,
I'm trying to think the gentleman's name all of a sudden it'll come to me, but first seek to.
(12:00):
Understand then to be understood.
So I have like all these little tiny things that run in the back of my mind
constantly. That's like, oh, okay.
Like this is how people are seeing the world. This is their view of it.
My, my goals are sometimes much bigger than other people's goals.
I do things my own way, my entire life.
And so it's kind of like pay them no
(12:21):
attention to those that don't mind because those who don't mind
don't need any attention right like i'm not going to give
my energy and my time and my resources to this sometimes i
do i'm human but then i also i sit i ponder i meditate i go back to what i was
telling you before i meditate i connect him with source i connect him with you
know god and i'm just like okay hurt people hurt people and they're trying to
(12:45):
hurt me and i can either give them power and say here you go i'm I'm going to give you my power,
or I can sit and just be empathetic. I love that.
There's an exchange of power. And it's so interesting that understanding those
power dynamics, that's a whole nother conversation, but it's okay. We're here.
(13:07):
So, man, you've had so many years of experience in business.
You know, it's so interesting, just like what you said. It's not just about
business. this. Like you say, you want to be an entrepreneur.
And then what you're really saying is I want to be a better person.
It's, it's, it's about how, how it's not about making a million dollars.
(13:27):
It's about becoming the person that can be responsible for that. Yeah.
It's about, you know, it's about being a good steward, right?
Like I always go back and to say, nothing here is mine.
It's not really mine. Like, yes, I am creating this reality that I am experiencing.
I have a really amazing life. I have a really great reality that I experienced.
(13:48):
So I don't have, I'm sure there's people that are going to hate on me or whatever.
Okay. And like I was, when I was younger, I was short, I was fat.
I had crooked teeth, glasses, you know, I learning disabilities,
you name it. I've been through it. Right.
And so I also don't think that things that we own or the level of financial
(14:10):
success determines anything about us. All that means is we've solved a lot of problems.
We've done a good job out of it, but I haven't done any of this on my own.
None of this. I've got amazing team. I've got amazing amazing partners.
I've got amazing staff members. I've got amazing mentors.
I've got people that have seen me and been like, you know what,
Dalton, I really love you. How can I support you? How can I help you?
(14:32):
And it's only because those people know how much I care.
They know I want to change the world. And so they're willing to put their time
and their energy into me.
And it's a, that's a lot on my shoulders sometimes, but that's why I continually go do my shadow work.
And I continue to keep working on myself because there is
no arrival there's no perfection and if
I don't continue just to build myself how the
(14:54):
hell am I gonna build anybody else in this world share with
me about processes and systems for your personal development have you implemented
those to you know a daily practice I know you're saying something about a morning
practice so what I'd like to get at here is maybe some advice for those out
there that are wanting to know how do how can going to optimize,
(15:16):
you know, because we want to be winners in business, right?
Absolutely. Well, we want to
be winners in life, which therefore will help us be winners in business.
So share with us maybe a personal routine that you have that maybe somebody
could implement in their lives.
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think as far as personal routines, there's so many
different ones I have tried and I was listening to Alex Ramosi recently say,
(15:41):
get rid of your personal routines because entrepreneurs,
what are we, what are we looking for all the time is we're looking for the edge.
But we're putting all of our time and energy into all these different practices
instead of where it really is going to really matter, which is inside of our business.
But my personal practices is I I like to wake up, I like to do deep breath work,
(16:02):
and then I like to then turn around and read a book for like a half an hour,
get some notes in there so I can learn.
And then what I'm also doing right now in my own practices is I'm having my
team come up with an idea.
So right now, the concept that I'm working on is, is pain and suffering necessary to grow.
(16:23):
And so I've got a book that I'm reading right now. I can't think of the name
of it off the top of my head and watching podcasts and so on.
And then I'm taking all that information, recording my notes,
and I'm building like basically my, my thesis or my theory while also using meditation with it.
So I try to figure out a way, how do I take that one idea?
How do we ask the conversations constantly about that one idea?
(16:45):
So I can learn, think about it. If you take one idea and you times it over the
course of the year, I believe that's 52 weeks, you've got 52 different concepts
and ideas I've learned because I'm meditating on those ideas.
I'm listening to music about those ideas. I'm watching podcasts on those things
just in my morning. And then guess where my conversation goes all day long.
I might bring it up somehow or another, right? Like, because whatever we focus
(17:09):
on or where we put our energy in life, our life exists.
So it's important where that energy goes. And I hope that helps a little bit
because I'm not a big, I wish I could tell you I'm this guy.
It's like, Hey, six o'clock. I do this seven o'clock. It's 15 minutes. I've tried that.
I'm ADD as it gets. I've tried that many, many times. And what it ends up doing
is becoming a job. And I want to do things because I enjoy them.
(17:33):
There's a concept by William Lamb and he says, how much pleasure can you endure
in life? Not how much pain, how much pleasure.
And I think it's when we flip the script and we start to see how wonderful this
life can be, how wonderful that we can, just the things that we can experience
in this world when we start to see things from a a different perspective.
And it's not a have to, it's a get to.
(17:53):
We're going to flip the script here just a little bit and start moving forward
to business talk, which is neat.
But I really wanted to start with the personal because I mean,
that's what really life is all about. You know, it's not who,
it's not what you do, it's who you are.
And then who you are will then start to blend into what you want to accomplish,
the impact that you want to make in this world.
(18:15):
Because I feel like as entrepreneurs, as dreamers, we see a future that's so
much better than the present.
And sometimes we can get lost in the future, right? And then forget the present.
Trust me, I think you and I share that. But I want to talk about team because
(18:36):
you've now brought up team multiple times.
So let's do tactics, strategies, and ways that you have had to develop personally
as a leader, and then how you are able to relay that information to team. Yeah.
I think it's developing as a leader. I can start there. And that is who you
have to become internally.
(18:56):
A lot of people think that when we lead, we tell people what to do.
And often it's the exact opposite of that.
Often what we need to do is we need to find out what our team wants.
And when we find out what our team wants, we can get them to buy into a vision.
And when they buy into a vision, then they're going to follow us anywhere we go.
So I try to find out first and foremost, what my team wants.
(19:16):
And there's the concept is not, it's, it's the who, not the how,
which I always used to focus on the how, right?
And so the who, so it's finding that right person inside the team that is going
to be able to strategize or get the task done or the activity done.
Giving enough autonomy, right? So there's EOS, the Entrepreneur Operating System,
which basically breaks down and says, okay, you're going to handle this said task or this boulder.
(19:42):
And once that boulder is done, at the end of the quarter, you're going to be able to,
if you receive 60% of your boulders, we're going to bonus you from that and
that's the way our team operates within within our companies,
because i want them to be focusing on
the bigger activities but i also need to make sure they do the small things
as well but it's about having the autonomy and i thought for a long time it
(20:05):
was about micromanagement and i've learned it's the exact opposite because my
team knows they can count on me and i can count on them and the mission is bigger
than anything right now with the company I'm currently working in,
I always go back to, we're changing lives.
This is changing the world. This is going to help people like,
and if you don't want that, if you don't want to help people,
(20:26):
if you don't want to change lives, if you're not about this mission, then.
In a nice way this company's not for you yeah i like that you
know i always go back to this story about the
brick layer like there's one brick layer that
all he sees is just one more brick on top
of another it's an it's a mundane task he
hates what he's doing and somebody asks him well what are
(20:48):
you doing sir he's like i'm just i'm just laying
bricks you know and then you have the other brick layer and somebody asked that
brick layer he's like i'm building the world's tallest building in right you
know when you would you know that vision inside like it's vision mission passion
right purpose or i would say it's i would say it's vision mission purpose when those things align.
(21:10):
You're unstoppable because there's nothing that's going to get in your way like
i don't consider myself a ceo a founder a nothing i consider myself a vision
holder what does that mean by being a vision holder it means that the vision
is inside of me i know where we're going i know what we're we're building,
I need help getting it out sometimes.
You know what I mean? I need people like you. You're a very strategist guy.
(21:31):
You're like, okay, tell me tactics. Tell me these things.
I very much focus on big creative thoughts and very differently.
But when you combine those people together, you take that vision.
And so when someone says, ah, we're not going to go this way,
you're like, no, we are going this way. This is where we're headed to.
And I think that's the deal is like you as a vision holder is the one that's
(21:51):
pushing the vision forward.
Word there's an exercise i always like to do and i literally do this i'll just lay on the floor,
and i'll think about everything that i
ever dream of and and will
accomplish in life and i speak like that too right it's like i will it's there
it's already it's happened and i want to do an exercise right here right now
(22:13):
and just say let's create a scenario where those that are listening right now
where we are now going to empower them to become unstoppable.
So let's empower them now. Dalton, share with me, how would somebody become
completely unstoppable?
To me, the first thing is doing your shadow work. It's going internally.
(22:37):
It's finding all the ugly sides of you that are telling you you're not enough, that you're broken.
That just all those things inside, all those ugly places, and finding a way to love them.
Because until the self is empowered, until you look in the mirror and you love
yourself, there is no way humanly possible to accomplish your mission unless
(23:01):
you're just doing it straight from ego.
Most entrepreneurs, most of
the things they're building, they're building them from a place of pain.
They're building them from suffering. They're building them from hurt.
They're going back. No different. When I said before, why did I want to get to where I was going?
Because I didn't want to experience what I experienced as a kid,
plain and simple, easy as that.
But now my mission has nothing to do with that.
(23:22):
It's so different. I don't, you know, it's like that.
There's a concept that says, you know, success will be your best revenge or
something like that, you know? And that's from a place of pain.
It's from a place of look at me, look who I am, look what I have.
Like, and you get to a point in time to where you do have the things and the
stuff and the, you know, and the things that you thought would bring you happiness and joy.
(23:44):
And all of a sudden you recognize they're just things. They're great things. They're beautiful.
It's nice life. It's, but if you're not happy inside, I know plenty of billionaires
and billionaires that are miserable human beings. And so the first place to start is is internally.
Once you do the internal work, all right, now you got some job field behind you.
I like this visual, basically, when if we have not cleaned, you know,
(24:09):
cleansed ourself of the subconscious.
From past traumas, we are not able to move on to the next level.
It's true. So it's like a video game, right? Like, if you want to look at it as that.
There's levels in life, and if we do not clean out the trauma,
(24:31):
which then creates identity within ourselves,
that we're not able to reach the next level in confidence, knowing that we love
ourselves, and we're not doing things in life.
So there's a way where, for example, I'll use fuel, I'll use words from others,
I'll use my own determination to achieve.
(24:56):
But when I feel as if I can have sustainable achievement, it is truly when I
do love myself and say, say, you know, I'm going to work, work out today.
I'm going to drink good water. I'm going to eat good food.
And then everything starts to bleed in. But then, so what I'm saying is within
business, when we say, well, we're going to be successful because,
(25:19):
you know, such and such told us that we couldn't be. So now I'm going to use that as fuel.
It's not a, it's not a sustainable fuel. No. It could spark it.
Sure. But then it's a very, it's very important to get back.
Back, you know, to that homeostasis. You got to get back to that center because
if we, I love what you just said, and I, and I would add just a little bit to
(25:43):
it. That's called motivation.
Like what you're talking about is called motivation, but motivation is, is a short, like.
Bark, right? And so what I use personally is I try to do everything I can to
clean out the vessel, meaning clean out my ears, not listen to a bunch of crazy
messages, news, media, music, all that stuff.
(26:03):
I want to put in good things into my ears, positive things.
I try to do the same thing with my eyes. That means I'm not watching a bunch of violent shows.
I'm not watching like all the horrors going on in the world.
I'm not paying attention to pornography and all these things.
And I'm also trying to make sure that I'm cleaning out my mouth.
I'm eating quality foods. Now, do I always eat quality foods?
(26:24):
No. Do I always do these things perfect? No.
But for the most part, I try to do that. Now, why do I do that?
It's so I can listen. I don't mean listen to you and I.
It means so I can listen to a higher source, source, God, whatever you want
to call it, the inner voice that's inside that tells us, go this way, do this, do that.
(26:45):
My whole entire life, and I would say, If I could attribute any of my success
to one thing only, it's that. It's the listening.
And it's like, okay, because now that I don't need motivation for.
And I'm not blindly following anything, but I'm using that energy.
I'm using that internal chi. I'm using that internal life force to go forward.
(27:10):
I look at it like, how long can you do something that you love to do?
You can do that forever. Yeah. How long can you do something that isn't in alignment with purpose? Yes.
You can't, this is, I love that you just said that because one of the things
(27:30):
I want to add here is if you're building a business right now,
I've done, I've done, I've ran many different businesses. And by the way, I have failed.
I can't even count how many times I have failed. I have only succeeded.
And when I say succeeded, I mean, to the magnitude that we've succeeded with
MIT 45 once only once it was because of my team behind me.
(27:51):
And it's because I was damn passionate about what we were doing.
The mission was mission critical. It was important.
So as a founder, as an entrepreneur, if you're listening to this podcast right
now, the one thing I would say to you right now, if the business that you are
creating, the thing that you are doing right now does not like that fire,
that you will continue to do it for years without making a dollar stop,
(28:15):
find out what that is and put your life force into that because that's something you can get behind.
That's something that you can bring the masses to.
That's something you would stand on top of a pulpit and tell the world,
this is what I'm doing because it means something to me and the money will follow.
It's not the other way around. Build that first, then see what happens. This has been fun.
(28:37):
There's a lot of here and I hope you guys are really understanding the magnitude
of this conversation and how it can really impact your life.
It's not just business that we go through on this podcast.
It's life and the ability for you to integrate success and have balance and
(28:59):
to achieve what it is you want in life.
And that, my friends, is how you become unstoppable.
We've got to move into this current project that you're building.
We're talking about all of what it takes in order to get to where you are today.
And personally, like I said, I'm excited to hop on as a big supporter of this
(29:23):
industry that we're seeing that is spanning the globe,
has been talked about time and time again now recently,
and is going to be extremely, extremely popular.
Vital, and it's going to shake up the entire world. And that is artificial intelligence.
So let's dive into this project, the mission behind your company,
(29:47):
and you can share with us the name and also what it is, the problems you're
seeing, and how your solution is going to go very well. Yeah, thank you so much.
So I want to take things just back just a little bit. I taught you guys about
how I was laying in the hospital in 2016.
I had vowed at that point in in time to remove myself eventually from my business,
(30:09):
which was MIT 45 and to sit on the board and create a whole different kind of
reality for myself. It took a while to get there. Now I'm finally there.
Now I bring that all up because of two years ago, I was in the jungle in Maui
and I was meditating and I was launching a project out and I needed some ad copy.
And it just so happened. One of the gentlemen that was in a,
(30:30):
like a bungalow next to me, I find out he's involved with this industry called
artificial intelligence and he's an ad copy guy.
And he shows me what he's doing. And I'm like, well, this is pretty incredible.
So for two days, I couldn't sleep. I was looking for anything that could help
me figure out how to do this.
There was nothing about prompting that you'll hear a lot right now about prompting.
(30:50):
There was none of those things out there. And so I was like,
okay, this is what I'm going to go into.
And the reason I went into it is because we go back a little bit to the learning
disabilities I was talking about.
It was a way that I could get out my thoughts, my ideas, my dreams,
and it could be articulated.
It was a way that I could also empower myself and business owners,
because one of the things that most business owners face the most is chaos.
(31:13):
Chaos is drama. Chaos is bad business plans. Chaos is employees going rogue.
I mean, there's so many different things that chaos represents,
but the system that, and the platform that we created was to end chaos.
Like that's the, that's our enemy is chaos because when we end chaos,
now we can get back to what matters.
So this platform, a lot of people will say, well, what you're building right
(31:35):
now is a business platform, which is true.
And what this really is at the heart of everything for me is to allow people
to figure out a smarter, more efficient way to work, a way to be able to get things done,
at a faster rate so that they can get back to what matters.
Now, some would say what matters the most is to work.
(31:58):
On your business and not in your business. And that's part of our marketing.
But to me, truly what matters the most is I know what's going to happen with
AI is many people are going to be displaced. The world is going to change and shift.
What matters to me the most is to get people back to what really matters,
the shadow work, what really matters, their family, what really matters,
(32:18):
their passions, what really matters, connecting soulfully heart to heart and
and getting to a point in time to where we can stop hurting people,
because again, hurt people hurt people.
But if we get to a point in time to where healed people heal people, now what happens?
Because so many people are taking AI, they're sitting in front of it,
and they're just producing tons of stuff, more and more stuff,
(32:42):
more and more things, and they're not doing a lot with it.
And because of that, what I saw the most is like, look, you're going to be able
to get done with artificial intelligence and specifically our platform as a
business owner, which would have taken you months in literally minutes.
Okay, so now you've got something done, let's say that took you an hour.
Normally would have taken you seven hours, let's say. What do you do with that?
(33:05):
My thought process instead of working another seven hours, which most people
would probably do, is to work another hour.
Now you've doubled your time and spend the rest of that time going out into the world.
Because a lot of people think that, and I thought this too,
and I did this man if you saw what I used
to have on my phone it said relentless it said no weekends it
said hustle it said the grind it's all this stuff
(33:27):
and what it what I forgot the most
there's a gentleman in in in Colombia his name was I believe it was Maurice
and he taught me this one thing and it was that inspiration and spirit and your
business and creativity and everything thing that matters for your business
to move forward is not done in the boardroom. It's done in nature.
(33:49):
It's done in connecting back with what really matters.
It was very life impactful to me. I love what you said. Just get your time back.
Get your family back. Get what matters back.
Solving chaos within your business and life.
That's Pono AI. It is. Yep. It sounds like a commercial, but it probably is.
(34:10):
I mean, it's about being able to work, obviously, on your business instead of in your business.
Yes. We call it your chief AI officer.
Yes. Right? That's what it is, so that you can build, which is what you need
to do as a business owner, so that you can manage and you can grow.
If you take those three components and you put them into your business and you
(34:33):
do them efficiently, well, now you're just going to continue to scale.
And so Pono's main job, if you'll think of it that way, is to end the chaos.
And now how does Pono do that? it helps you with your business
plans your marketing plans all the
documents you need in your business it also will take and
automate all of your projects and it
(34:56):
will help you with your team management and also becomes a coach and
so a lot of people they don't understand how to use ai
it's very complicated a lot of times how do you prompt how do you do this well
we built all that in i mean this has taken me two years like we're not this
isn't something we just thought about because we saw the fancy word ai come
out in the last while i i'm literally dedicated to this mission yeah like we
(35:17):
talked about mission it's the mission to get people back to what matters,
and that's putting our our feet in the grass
yes getting back to our ancestors getting back into that
shadow work because the world is going to change and if we don't pay attention
if we don't listen to what's going on around us we're going to get stuck in
some weird like ultimate like like virtual reality kind of experience because
(35:43):
people are going to be seeking one thing and that's going to be dopamine.
They're going to be seeking a way to be able to be heard and felt and seen and
because they're going to be operating from their traumas.
Sharpening an ax longer will allow for you to just strike a tree once and,
As opposed to all the rat race people out there in the world just going after it with a dull axe.
(36:12):
It's just constant. It's like the shotgun approach or the sniper approach.
I mean, that's what you've got here with your software. You know,
you're just sharpening the heck out of an ax.
You're allowing for others to have that as a tool, you know, in their quiver.
But also, you're helping to provide education within artificial intelligence.
(36:32):
I feel like we have the tools now, but we need to understand how to use them
and then understand how it's a symbiotic relationship between us humans,
you know, and technology.
Technology i think you know that's really important but then
i'll also like you said get back to grass and it's
it's funny because i i grew up on a farm right you
(36:53):
could sure i mean it's like that's all i i mean i grew up at a farm but then
i was heavily immersed in technology because i really love you know i love technology
advancements i loved video that was all i ever cared about was the creation
of video content and capturing of stories right hence the podcast right Right.
But, but it's, yeah, that's what we've got to get to within our corporations
(37:18):
and understanding how to live, you know, symbiotically and to leverage AI.
I mean, I know personally, I've leveraged AI.
Even with this podcast, there's AI tools that will allow for it to sound amazing,
to auto dictate the words that we're saying that cut down on production time significantly, right?
(37:38):
So, but I had to research how to use the tools. So I like your approach here.
Yeah, I mean, that's why recently I went and got, so I wanted to say,
like, hey, listen, I've been doing this for two years, but when I got certified
in AI, now we're gonna be starting to teach AI.
So we'll have a three-day course. It'll be done in Utah. I think we're gonna have one in May.
But it's so we can show different tools, right? So Pono is not the only tool.
(38:02):
It's a very powerful tool and it's not, a lot of people would go,
oh, well, so this must be ChatGPT or something like that.
But the thing is, is we have had to program this thing on the backend.
This is not a no code type software. This literally is something we've built from the ground up.
That's why it's taken so long to do it. But I believe that the results will speak for themselves.
(38:24):
I believe that our, I believe that business owners are going to get a lot more
done because one of the things I saw from running, you know,
and, and working as a founder inside of 45 is that when you would give a team
member a project, what do they do?
They all go to Google. They all go get the information. They come back,
they bring it to two weeks later and they say, this is it. And you're like,
that's not what I wanted.
(38:45):
And so now what we can do is we can literally tell the project, this is what we want.
It builds it out. We assign it to our team. We push a couple more buttons.
We have more information.
And so we're able to get a lot more data and data is valuable.
And most business owners also don't have business plans. You know what I mean?
Business owners I've talked to, they're like, I put on the back of a napkin or did this.
(39:05):
But the problem with that is then how do you know where you're going?
And if you're also a wannabe entrepreneur, meaning you're trying to like,
is this the direction I'm going to go?
You don't really know what's entailed until you're in the trenches.
And I think if you had a treasure map to find the treasure, you'd much rather
take a map versus like walking around blind, you know, in the jungle with no flashlight.
(39:26):
You're so right. Pwn Away Eyes coming out real, real soon.
Worldwide release. Super, super excited for that once again.
Share with us a little bit about the model here.
Is it a direct-to-consumer? Is there a licensing model?
Can I have an SDK, you know, API into that bad boy?
So right now we don't have any APIs into it. we are integrating in with a handful
(39:49):
of different pieces of software that we're going to API into.
And it's really going to be determined on what the customer wants.
I've realized by now doing software that this is new to me. It's brand new.
I've never built software.
I've been getting a lesson in two years now that it's been, you know,
sometimes how we get our college degree.
And what I've realized is that what I think people will want is not what they want.
So we want to do a soft launch first before we start to do that.
(40:12):
But we're, our model will start off around about about $300 a month.
And then our next focus is to start to get into the audit, like the full automation
of things to where some of the personas that are being built,
meaning think of it as employees in your company that are automated,
that they can automatically start to do tasks and things to where you become
the individual that's being told like, Hey, can you please go to the internet
(40:32):
and grab this thing for me?
Even though our technology can access the internet and it's using up-to-date
information and so on, we thought it would be a lot, a lot smarter for for us
to make sure that we still include.
The prompt. The human, the human. You know, the human in between all of these things.
That's good. Well, how do we as a listener group here support you?
(40:55):
And then two, how do we get a hold of you? Or how do we look at what you're doing?
Yeah, so you can go to pono.ai and sign up for our beta pre-test.
When this comes out, it definitely will be a much higher version of beta than
what I think you've seen in the past.
But you can also find us at your event. We're going to do a soft launch at your
event, which we're really excited about. We are pushing diligently.
(41:18):
My team is very well aware of of what's going on and you know some of these
things take a lot longer than what a lot longer time than what we expected but
i just appreciate the opportunity to be able to come on and to be able to talk
about business yes without talking about business because business is just truly,
solving problems helping human beings providing quality and i believe that the
(41:40):
product that we are that we are going to be providing as a team is something
that nobody has seen before I think it's going to revolutionize the way that
we do business and I think it's going to give people back what they want which
is their time and their money and their energy.
Well this has been Dalton Locke and Nathan Bird on the Founders Odyssey podcast
I hope you guys thoroughly enjoyed our conversation today and if you have feel
(42:04):
free to subscribe and also share it with your friends it's found on YouTube
every streaming platform,
and also thefoundersodyssey.com thank you so much Dalton for joining us today
and guys out there make sure to share this with your friends.
Music.
Welcome to the Founders Odyssey podcast where we interview founders that have
bought companies, sold companies, and taken companies public and are creating
innovative products or services for the world.
Today we are joined with Dalton Locke, founder of Pono AI and also the co-founder
of one of the world's largest Kratom companies, MIT45.
(00:20):
So Dalton, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited to get to
know you better personally and then also ask you some amazing questions hear
about your past, present, and future.
So let's dive into it. What does entrepreneurship mean to you?
Entrepreneurship means to me, it's about taking that dream that's inside of
you and being able to get it out to the world. It's also about solving major problems.
(00:44):
And while really it's the largest, it's one of the biggest entrepreneur.
How do I want to say? It's one of the business or the one is it's one of the
biggest personal development journeys. I think any human being can ever go on.
I love that answer because, you know, everyone is on a journey, right? Absolutely.
And we have a lot of ups and downs, right?
(01:05):
And when you put yourself in a pressure situation, right, pressure cooker, then you have diamonds.
Absolutely. So let's talk about, you know, even from the very beginning,
let's talk about how you found yourself wanting to solve problems and wanting
to hop into the entrepreneurial journey.
Yeah. Share with us that. Yeah. So when I was younger,
(01:28):
I would sit around the table at my grandfather's house and my grandfather would
have stacks of magazines from different, different business magazines and trade magazines.
And when I say trade magazines, I'm talking about trading stocks.
He loved trading stocks.
And when I was a kid, he would, we'd get in the car and we would sometimes drive
(01:49):
down to like local companies and we would go to where they were doing all their shipping and whatever.
And he would literally sit there and count the semis going in and out and trying
to figure out like how much growth this business is having.
And so I watched him do that. I watched him do a lot of section eight housing.
Really, when I was younger, my family were all pretty much, for the most part, blue-collar workers.
(02:14):
I saw a lot of chaos inside of my family, inside of my home at the time.
My parents, they were always threatening to get divorced and always had to do
with one major thing, money.
I knew I was never the smartest guy in the world. I didn't plan on going to
college, but I always thought for some reason I was going to do things my own
way. and I would end up working in companies for a little bit and I'd find out
(02:37):
how much money someone was making, like the guy at the top.
And all of a sudden I would say, nope, that's not for me. And I would remove myself.
So over periods of time, I got to learn a lot because I would put myself in
situations one after the other, after the other, trying to continue to learn
and get the information.
And I always knew that there was something more. I always knew that.
I mean, I sold everything from a mobile ice cream business.
(03:00):
Mobile, like mobile DJs, you know, spray painting numbers, You know,
the, the journey that I think a lot of entrepreneurs have where they're always
trying to solve problems,
or they're also always trying to figure out how to have a couple more bucks
because they want nicer things or they want to do something different.
And for me, the main thing for me was I didn't learn very well in school.
(03:22):
I had a lot of different learning disabilities and I still kind of do ADD,
dyslexia, you know, those types of things.
And during that period of time, I remember thinking that the education systems
that I was in were broken, they were messed up, and I had a hard time learning.
And so what I always said to myself, how cool would it be one day if I want
(03:44):
to learn something, I could just go learn it. I could go somewhere. I could pay an expert.
I could do those things. And now at this point in time, I've done that.
I've been all over the world.
I've paid a lot of experts to teach me things specifically in the way I want
to learn so that I can learn.
And I think for me, like that was one of the biggest things is that I've,
Being an entrepreneur kind of taught me, you know, that we, that we're in charge
(04:08):
or being a founder, we're in charge of our own destiny.
And that's always what I wanted. You said something that I believe resonates with everyone.
We all go through chaos, right? Everyone has a different definition.
But share with me a little bit about how you remained calm or how you go through
a systematic approach to almost remain calm during the chaos because that is
(04:29):
a personality trait that we see in a lot of entrepreneurs being able to take
a lot of stress on but also remain calm and make good decisions.
Can you share with me a little bit about something you've gone
through and how you remain calm sure yeah i
mean there's there's been many of those things that happen i
think as a an entrepreneur we were always constantly putting
(04:51):
out fires and it almost becomes part of the nature of what we do is putting
out fires right and so if something comes up and all of a sudden i start to
react and then all that's going to do is cause more reaction inside of me internally
within my system it's going to cause more reaction inside of everybody else
around me and nobody's thinking And so for me personally,
it's about in the morning, doing my meditation work and starting there,
(05:13):
like starting there in that calmness, in that peace, sitting in that place.
And I, because of a lot of the personal development work I've done,
everything from, you know, there's a place called impact training here.
I'm drinking a lot of ayahuasca at this point in time. I've done men's trainings.
I've done, I mean, so much personal development. it puts you in this pressure
cooker, as you called it, that you remove all of these emotions,
(05:36):
all these feelings, all of this stuff coming out.
And I went over periods of time of going through so much of that,
so much of times having to react. And I did react.
And when I learned about that reaction, it's very expensive.
In 2016, the FDA came out with a, with a company that we are part of which is
mint 45 and they said that kratom itself was going to be considered a schedule
(06:00):
one now let that sit in for a second we had,
a million dollars worth of product in our facility and we had to light it all on fire.
And we reacted because what ended up happening afterwards and in December is
the FDA decided that they were going to leave it up to public opinion, right?
So they're going to start doing more research on this, which had never been done before.
(06:22):
But in that moment, that reaction, that stress level, it put me in the hospital.
It literally almost killed me physically, almost killed me.
And in that moment in time, I remember saying like, if, if I'm able to continue
my journey, If I'm going to continue to work, I'm not going to continue to react
like this, and I'm not going to continue to work like this, because it's literally going to kill me.
(06:44):
Many people have definitions of success, but they have to work their way through
these different trials that you have outlined, and I think we all go through.
I think it's really important that we have that vision for the end,
but also welcome the adversity that's going to come. Can you share with me the
(07:08):
continued adversity that you were facing, though?
But now, how did you jump over that hurdle and then continue to implement specific
habits that would not allow you to react in ways that you would have in the past?
So my partner, right, my founder that worked with me and does work with me inside
(07:31):
of Met45, amazing man. His name is Sean Brady.
And he taught me something, and it's something I have taught many times to many people.
And he does a lot better job of explaining this, but I will do my best.
Basically what he explains is like,
you know, sometimes in the night you wake up and you're sitting there next to
your partner and all of a sudden you hear a noise and your wife or girlfriend
(07:53):
or whatever it is in the moment might say, there's someone downstairs.
We got to, you got to go down, you got to go handle this. And so you get the
courage to get up out of bed and you slowly go down the stairs,
maybe maybe grab a bat on the way just in case or whatever you have.
And you go around the corner and you hear another noise and your heart is beating
really fast and you're starting to breathe deep and you're trying to keep composure,
(08:16):
but also a lot of us are jumping into anxiety and going into these emotions.
And all of a sudden we turn around and it's a cat. So the question I ask myself
constantly because of that metaphor, because I have been through many situations
in in the business that I'm in over the years, that it's just a cat.
And in the moment, everybody around us wants to make it a burglar and they're
(08:39):
screaming and they're yelling and they're pushing more and more chaos, more and more noise.
And they want to feed it because drama is really fun for a lot of people. They really like drama.
They really like to amp things up, get people excited because one,
it parts people with their money.
It causes people to do things that are irrational.
(08:59):
But if If we can stay calm and cool and sit back and breathe,
breath is one of the most important things I would say I have in my arsenal.
If I can just breathe through it and to the uncomfortability of it and witness
it and ask, okay, what is this trying to teach me?
What is really going on here? And like, what is it that I have power over?
(09:20):
And what is, I don't have power over. And so when I'm able to,
to look at a situation and just pause, just sitting in that pause of that breath.
That's when I am able to get a little bit more information. And then I would
also say having experts or people around me that are, that I can consult into
and say, Hey, like this is what's going on.
I am feeling this way and not pushing down my feelings or emotions or my thoughts,
(09:43):
bring, bring awareness to them.
So I realized what's going on, but also not feeding into him so much that I'm
the one that's causing the reaction.
Everyone goes through these trials, right? And, and we keep,
we keep going into that, but I, I wanna.
Continue to understand in a deeper level about that because we've got aspirations, right?
(10:05):
Many of us and both of us, and no matter what level you're at out there,
you've got some goal you want to dream.
But there's going to be a lot of stress involved,
but also different people and different scenarios where people will say certain
things on your rise to quote-unquote success.
(10:27):
Success so i want to ask you how you've
been able to manage as you have continued
to quote unquote success individuals that
have said certain things you know i don't know how you could recollect but sure
you know people think you're successful right but then they start saying things
you know that may hurt or may drive you down a different path i know exactly
(10:53):
where you're going Yeah,
so share with me about that. So first, let's talk about.
Let's talk about human beings. Yes. And if we look at humans and we look at
people, they're on their path, right?
And when a lot of times when people will say things, one, they don't,
they're not really walking in your shoes.
So they don't really understand. They have their, they have their vision inward,
(11:15):
but they don't know what's going on internally.
And they're also not sure why you're making decisions. And so they're going
back to their own traumas. They're going back to their own feelings.
And so for me, I go back to the, to this little
quote and that is hurt people hurt people and so i ask
myself like what is it inside of them right now that i am a
reflection of that they have not healed because
(11:36):
we are all reflections of each other because we haven't healed and so when i
see somebody and i'm and i'm the opposite and i might be on the other side of
that right and i might be saying things about somebody else often what happens
is most people don't take the time and energy to first seek and i believe it was,
I'm trying to think the gentleman's name all of a sudden it'll come to me, but first seek to.
(12:00):
Understand then to be understood.
So I have like all these little tiny things that run in the back of my mind
constantly. That's like, oh, okay.
Like this is how people are seeing the world. This is their view of it.
My, my goals are sometimes much bigger than other people's goals.
I do things my own way, my entire life.
And so it's kind of like pay them no
(12:21):
attention to those that don't mind because those who don't mind
don't need any attention right like i'm not going to give
my energy and my time and my resources to this sometimes i
do i'm human but then i also i sit i ponder i meditate i go back to what i was
telling you before i meditate i connect him with source i connect him with you
know god and i'm just like okay hurt people hurt people and they're trying to
(12:45):
hurt me and i can either give them power and say here you go i'm I'm going to give you my power,
or I can sit and just be empathetic. I love that.
There's an exchange of power. And it's so interesting that understanding those
power dynamics, that's a whole nother conversation, but it's okay. We're here.
(13:07):
So, man, you've had so many years of experience in business.
You know, it's so interesting, just like what you said. It's not just about
business. this. Like you say, you want to be an entrepreneur.
And then what you're really saying is I want to be a better person.
It's, it's, it's about how, how it's not about making a million dollars.
(13:27):
It's about becoming the person that can be responsible for that. Yeah.
It's about, you know, it's about being a good steward, right?
Like I always go back and to say, nothing here is mine.
It's not really mine. Like, yes, I am creating this reality that I am experiencing.
I have a really amazing life. I have a really great reality that I experienced.
(13:48):
So I don't have, I'm sure there's people that are going to hate on me or whatever.
Okay. And like I was, when I was younger, I was short, I was fat.
I had crooked teeth, glasses, you know, I learning disabilities,
you name it. I've been through it. Right.
And so I also don't think that things that we own or the level of financial
(14:10):
success determines anything about us. All that means is we've solved a lot of problems.
We've done a good job out of it, but I haven't done any of this on my own.
None of this. I've got amazing team. I've got amazing amazing partners.
I've got amazing staff members. I've got amazing mentors.
I've got people that have seen me and been like, you know what,
Dalton, I really love you. How can I support you? How can I help you?
(14:32):
And it's only because those people know how much I care.
They know I want to change the world. And so they're willing to put their time
and their energy into me.
And it's a, that's a lot on my shoulders sometimes, but that's why I continually go do my shadow work.
And I continue to keep working on myself because there is
no arrival there's no perfection and if
I don't continue just to build myself how the
(14:54):
hell am I gonna build anybody else in this world share with
me about processes and systems for your personal development have you implemented
those to you know a daily practice I know you're saying something about a morning
practice so what I'd like to get at here is maybe some advice for those out
there that are wanting to know how do how can going to optimize,
(15:16):
you know, because we want to be winners in business, right?
Absolutely. Well, we want to
be winners in life, which therefore will help us be winners in business.
So share with us maybe a personal routine that you have that maybe somebody
could implement in their lives.
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think as far as personal routines, there's so many
different ones I have tried and I was listening to Alex Ramosi recently say,
(15:41):
get rid of your personal routines because entrepreneurs,
what are we, what are we looking for all the time is we're looking for the edge.
But we're putting all of our time and energy into all these different practices
instead of where it really is going to really matter, which is inside of our business.
But my personal practices is I I like to wake up, I like to do deep breath work,
(16:02):
and then I like to then turn around and read a book for like a half an hour,
get some notes in there so I can learn.
And then what I'm also doing right now in my own practices is I'm having my
team come up with an idea.
So right now, the concept that I'm working on is, is pain and suffering necessary to grow.
(16:23):
And so I've got a book that I'm reading right now. I can't think of the name
of it off the top of my head and watching podcasts and so on.
And then I'm taking all that information, recording my notes,
and I'm building like basically my, my thesis or my theory while also using meditation with it.
So I try to figure out a way, how do I take that one idea?
How do we ask the conversations constantly about that one idea?
(16:45):
So I can learn, think about it. If you take one idea and you times it over the
course of the year, I believe that's 52 weeks, you've got 52 different concepts
and ideas I've learned because I'm meditating on those ideas.
I'm listening to music about those ideas. I'm watching podcasts on those things
just in my morning. And then guess where my conversation goes all day long.
I might bring it up somehow or another, right? Like, because whatever we focus
(17:09):
on or where we put our energy in life, our life exists.
So it's important where that energy goes. And I hope that helps a little bit
because I'm not a big, I wish I could tell you I'm this guy.
It's like, Hey, six o'clock. I do this seven o'clock. It's 15 minutes. I've tried that.
I'm ADD as it gets. I've tried that many, many times. And what it ends up doing
is becoming a job. And I want to do things because I enjoy them.
(17:33):
There's a concept by William Lamb and he says, how much pleasure can you endure
in life? Not how much pain, how much pleasure.
And I think it's when we flip the script and we start to see how wonderful this
life can be, how wonderful that we can, just the things that we can experience
in this world when we start to see things from a a different perspective.
And it's not a have to, it's a get to.
(17:53):
We're going to flip the script here just a little bit and start moving forward
to business talk, which is neat.
But I really wanted to start with the personal because I mean,
that's what really life is all about. You know, it's not who,
it's not what you do, it's who you are.
And then who you are will then start to blend into what you want to accomplish,
the impact that you want to make in this world.
(18:15):
Because I feel like as entrepreneurs, as dreamers, we see a future that's so
much better than the present.
And sometimes we can get lost in the future, right? And then forget the present.
Trust me, I think you and I share that. But I want to talk about team because
(18:36):
you've now brought up team multiple times.
So let's do tactics, strategies, and ways that you have had to develop personally
as a leader, and then how you are able to relay that information to team. Yeah.
I think it's developing as a leader. I can start there. And that is who you
have to become internally.
(18:56):
A lot of people think that when we lead, we tell people what to do.
And often it's the exact opposite of that.
Often what we need to do is we need to find out what our team wants.
And when we find out what our team wants, we can get them to buy into a vision.
And when they buy into a vision, then they're going to follow us anywhere we go.
So I try to find out first and foremost, what my team wants.
(19:16):
And there's the concept is not, it's, it's the who, not the how,
which I always used to focus on the how, right?
And so the who, so it's finding that right person inside the team that is going
to be able to strategize or get the task done or the activity done.
Giving enough autonomy, right? So there's EOS, the Entrepreneur Operating System,
which basically breaks down and says, okay, you're going to handle this said task or this boulder.
(19:42):
And once that boulder is done, at the end of the quarter, you're going to be able to,
if you receive 60% of your boulders, we're going to bonus you from that and
that's the way our team operates within within our companies,
because i want them to be focusing on
the bigger activities but i also need to make sure they do the small things
as well but it's about having the autonomy and i thought for a long time it
(20:05):
was about micromanagement and i've learned it's the exact opposite because my
team knows they can count on me and i can count on them and the mission is bigger
than anything right now with the company I'm currently working in,
I always go back to, we're changing lives.
This is changing the world. This is going to help people like,
and if you don't want that, if you don't want to help people,
(20:26):
if you don't want to change lives, if you're not about this mission, then.
In a nice way this company's not for you yeah i like that you
know i always go back to this story about the
brick layer like there's one brick layer that
all he sees is just one more brick on top
of another it's an it's a mundane task he
hates what he's doing and somebody asks him well what are
(20:48):
you doing sir he's like i'm just i'm just laying
bricks you know and then you have the other brick layer and somebody asked that
brick layer he's like i'm building the world's tallest building in right you
know when you would you know that vision inside like it's vision mission passion
right purpose or i would say it's i would say it's vision mission purpose when those things align.
(21:10):
You're unstoppable because there's nothing that's going to get in your way like
i don't consider myself a ceo a founder a nothing i consider myself a vision
holder what does that mean by being a vision holder it means that the vision
is inside of me i know where we're going i know what we're we're building,
I need help getting it out sometimes.
You know what I mean? I need people like you. You're a very strategist guy.
(21:31):
You're like, okay, tell me tactics. Tell me these things.
I very much focus on big creative thoughts and very differently.
But when you combine those people together, you take that vision.
And so when someone says, ah, we're not going to go this way,
you're like, no, we are going this way. This is where we're headed to.
And I think that's the deal is like you as a vision holder is the one that's
(21:51):
pushing the vision forward.
Word there's an exercise i always like to do and i literally do this i'll just lay on the floor,
and i'll think about everything that i
ever dream of and and will
accomplish in life and i speak like that too right it's like i will it's there
it's already it's happened and i want to do an exercise right here right now
(22:13):
and just say let's create a scenario where those that are listening right now
where we are now going to empower them to become unstoppable.
So let's empower them now. Dalton, share with me, how would somebody become
completely unstoppable?
To me, the first thing is doing your shadow work. It's going internally.
(22:37):
It's finding all the ugly sides of you that are telling you you're not enough, that you're broken.
That just all those things inside, all those ugly places, and finding a way to love them.
Because until the self is empowered, until you look in the mirror and you love
yourself, there is no way humanly possible to accomplish your mission unless
(23:01):
you're just doing it straight from ego.
Most entrepreneurs, most of
the things they're building, they're building them from a place of pain.
They're building them from suffering. They're building them from hurt.
They're going back. No different. When I said before, why did I want to get to where I was going?
Because I didn't want to experience what I experienced as a kid,
plain and simple, easy as that.
But now my mission has nothing to do with that.
(23:22):
It's so different. I don't, you know, it's like that.
There's a concept that says, you know, success will be your best revenge or
something like that, you know? And that's from a place of pain.
It's from a place of look at me, look who I am, look what I have.
Like, and you get to a point in time to where you do have the things and the
stuff and the, you know, and the things that you thought would bring you happiness and joy.
(23:44):
And all of a sudden you recognize they're just things. They're great things. They're beautiful.
It's nice life. It's, but if you're not happy inside, I know plenty of billionaires
and billionaires that are miserable human beings. And so the first place to start is is internally.
Once you do the internal work, all right, now you got some job field behind you.
I like this visual, basically, when if we have not cleaned, you know,
(24:09):
cleansed ourself of the subconscious.
From past traumas, we are not able to move on to the next level.
It's true. So it's like a video game, right? Like, if you want to look at it as that.
There's levels in life, and if we do not clean out the trauma,
(24:31):
which then creates identity within ourselves,
that we're not able to reach the next level in confidence, knowing that we love
ourselves, and we're not doing things in life.
So there's a way where, for example, I'll use fuel, I'll use words from others,
I'll use my own determination to achieve.
(24:56):
But when I feel as if I can have sustainable achievement, it is truly when I
do love myself and say, say, you know, I'm going to work, work out today.
I'm going to drink good water. I'm going to eat good food.
And then everything starts to bleed in. But then, so what I'm saying is within
business, when we say, well, we're going to be successful because,
(25:19):
you know, such and such told us that we couldn't be. So now I'm going to use that as fuel.
It's not a, it's not a sustainable fuel. No. It could spark it.
Sure. But then it's a very, it's very important to get back.
Back, you know, to that homeostasis. You got to get back to that center because
if we, I love what you just said, and I, and I would add just a little bit to
(25:43):
it. That's called motivation.
Like what you're talking about is called motivation, but motivation is, is a short, like.
Bark, right? And so what I use personally is I try to do everything I can to
clean out the vessel, meaning clean out my ears, not listen to a bunch of crazy
messages, news, media, music, all that stuff.
(26:03):
I want to put in good things into my ears, positive things.
I try to do the same thing with my eyes. That means I'm not watching a bunch of violent shows.
I'm not watching like all the horrors going on in the world.
I'm not paying attention to pornography and all these things.
And I'm also trying to make sure that I'm cleaning out my mouth.
I'm eating quality foods. Now, do I always eat quality foods?
(26:24):
No. Do I always do these things perfect? No.
But for the most part, I try to do that. Now, why do I do that?
It's so I can listen. I don't mean listen to you and I.
It means so I can listen to a higher source, source, God, whatever you want
to call it, the inner voice that's inside that tells us, go this way, do this, do that.
(26:45):
My whole entire life, and I would say, If I could attribute any of my success
to one thing only, it's that. It's the listening.
And it's like, okay, because now that I don't need motivation for.
And I'm not blindly following anything, but I'm using that energy.
I'm using that internal chi. I'm using that internal life force to go forward.
(27:10):
I look at it like, how long can you do something that you love to do?
You can do that forever. Yeah. How long can you do something that isn't in alignment with purpose? Yes.
You can't, this is, I love that you just said that because one of the things
(27:30):
I want to add here is if you're building a business right now,
I've done, I've done, I've ran many different businesses. And by the way, I have failed.
I can't even count how many times I have failed. I have only succeeded.
And when I say succeeded, I mean, to the magnitude that we've succeeded with
MIT 45 once only once it was because of my team behind me.
(27:51):
And it's because I was damn passionate about what we were doing.
The mission was mission critical. It was important.
So as a founder, as an entrepreneur, if you're listening to this podcast right
now, the one thing I would say to you right now, if the business that you are
creating, the thing that you are doing right now does not like that fire,
that you will continue to do it for years without making a dollar stop,
(28:15):
find out what that is and put your life force into that because that's something you can get behind.
That's something that you can bring the masses to.
That's something you would stand on top of a pulpit and tell the world,
this is what I'm doing because it means something to me and the money will follow.
It's not the other way around. Build that first, then see what happens. This has been fun.
(28:37):
There's a lot of here and I hope you guys are really understanding the magnitude
of this conversation and how it can really impact your life.
It's not just business that we go through on this podcast.
It's life and the ability for you to integrate success and have balance and
(28:59):
to achieve what it is you want in life.
And that, my friends, is how you become unstoppable.
We've got to move into this current project that you're building.
We're talking about all of what it takes in order to get to where you are today.
And personally, like I said, I'm excited to hop on as a big supporter of this
(29:23):
industry that we're seeing that is spanning the globe,
has been talked about time and time again now recently,
and is going to be extremely, extremely popular.
Vital, and it's going to shake up the entire world. And that is artificial intelligence.
So let's dive into this project, the mission behind your company,
(29:47):
and you can share with us the name and also what it is, the problems you're
seeing, and how your solution is going to go very well. Yeah, thank you so much.
So I want to take things just back just a little bit. I taught you guys about
how I was laying in the hospital in 2016.
I had vowed at that point in in time to remove myself eventually from my business,
(30:09):
which was MIT 45 and to sit on the board and create a whole different kind of
reality for myself. It took a while to get there. Now I'm finally there.
Now I bring that all up because of two years ago, I was in the jungle in Maui
and I was meditating and I was launching a project out and I needed some ad copy.
And it just so happened. One of the gentlemen that was in a,
(30:30):
like a bungalow next to me, I find out he's involved with this industry called
artificial intelligence and he's an ad copy guy.
And he shows me what he's doing. And I'm like, well, this is pretty incredible.
So for two days, I couldn't sleep. I was looking for anything that could help
me figure out how to do this.
There was nothing about prompting that you'll hear a lot right now about prompting.
(30:50):
There was none of those things out there. And so I was like,
okay, this is what I'm going to go into.
And the reason I went into it is because we go back a little bit to the learning
disabilities I was talking about.
It was a way that I could get out my thoughts, my ideas, my dreams,
and it could be articulated.
It was a way that I could also empower myself and business owners,
because one of the things that most business owners face the most is chaos.
(31:13):
Chaos is drama. Chaos is bad business plans. Chaos is employees going rogue.
I mean, there's so many different things that chaos represents,
but the system that, and the platform that we created was to end chaos.
Like that's the, that's our enemy is chaos because when we end chaos,
now we can get back to what matters.
So this platform, a lot of people will say, well, what you're building right
(31:35):
now is a business platform, which is true.
And what this really is at the heart of everything for me is to allow people
to figure out a smarter, more efficient way to work, a way to be able to get things done,
at a faster rate so that they can get back to what matters.
Now, some would say what matters the most is to work.
(31:58):
On your business and not in your business. And that's part of our marketing.
But to me, truly what matters the most is I know what's going to happen with
AI is many people are going to be displaced. The world is going to change and shift.
What matters to me the most is to get people back to what really matters,
the shadow work, what really matters, their family, what really matters,
(32:18):
their passions, what really matters, connecting soulfully heart to heart and
and getting to a point in time to where we can stop hurting people,
because again, hurt people hurt people.
But if we get to a point in time to where healed people heal people, now what happens?
Because so many people are taking AI, they're sitting in front of it,
and they're just producing tons of stuff, more and more stuff,
(32:42):
more and more things, and they're not doing a lot with it.
And because of that, what I saw the most is like, look, you're going to be able
to get done with artificial intelligence and specifically our platform as a
business owner, which would have taken you months in literally minutes.
Okay, so now you've got something done, let's say that took you an hour.
Normally would have taken you seven hours, let's say. What do you do with that?
(33:05):
My thought process instead of working another seven hours, which most people
would probably do, is to work another hour.
Now you've doubled your time and spend the rest of that time going out into the world.
Because a lot of people think that, and I thought this too,
and I did this man if you saw what I used
to have on my phone it said relentless it said no weekends it
said hustle it said the grind it's all this stuff
(33:27):
and what it what I forgot the most
there's a gentleman in in in Colombia his name was I believe it was Maurice
and he taught me this one thing and it was that inspiration and spirit and your
business and creativity and everything thing that matters for your business
to move forward is not done in the boardroom. It's done in nature.
(33:49):
It's done in connecting back with what really matters.
It was very life impactful to me. I love what you said. Just get your time back.
Get your family back. Get what matters back.
Solving chaos within your business and life.
That's Pono AI. It is. Yep. It sounds like a commercial, but it probably is.
(34:10):
I mean, it's about being able to work, obviously, on your business instead of in your business.
Yes. We call it your chief AI officer.
Yes. Right? That's what it is, so that you can build, which is what you need
to do as a business owner, so that you can manage and you can grow.
If you take those three components and you put them into your business and you
(34:33):
do them efficiently, well, now you're just going to continue to scale.
And so Pono's main job, if you'll think of it that way, is to end the chaos.
And now how does Pono do that? it helps you with your business
plans your marketing plans all the
documents you need in your business it also will take and
automate all of your projects and it
(34:56):
will help you with your team management and also becomes a coach and
so a lot of people they don't understand how to use ai
it's very complicated a lot of times how do you prompt how do you do this well
we built all that in i mean this has taken me two years like we're not this
isn't something we just thought about because we saw the fancy word ai come
out in the last while i i'm literally dedicated to this mission yeah like we
(35:17):
talked about mission it's the mission to get people back to what matters,
and that's putting our our feet in the grass
yes getting back to our ancestors getting back into that
shadow work because the world is going to change and if we don't pay attention
if we don't listen to what's going on around us we're going to get stuck in
some weird like ultimate like like virtual reality kind of experience because
(35:43):
people are going to be seeking one thing and that's going to be dopamine.
They're going to be seeking a way to be able to be heard and felt and seen and
because they're going to be operating from their traumas.
Sharpening an ax longer will allow for you to just strike a tree once and,
As opposed to all the rat race people out there in the world just going after it with a dull axe.
(36:12):
It's just constant. It's like the shotgun approach or the sniper approach.
I mean, that's what you've got here with your software. You know,
you're just sharpening the heck out of an ax.
You're allowing for others to have that as a tool, you know, in their quiver.
But also, you're helping to provide education within artificial intelligence.
(36:32):
I feel like we have the tools now, but we need to understand how to use them
and then understand how it's a symbiotic relationship between us humans,
you know, and technology.
Technology i think you know that's really important but then
i'll also like you said get back to grass and it's
it's funny because i i grew up on a farm right you
(36:53):
could sure i mean it's like that's all i i mean i grew up at a farm but then
i was heavily immersed in technology because i really love you know i love technology
advancements i loved video that was all i ever cared about was the creation
of video content and capturing of stories right hence the podcast right Right.
But, but it's, yeah, that's what we've got to get to within our corporations
(37:18):
and understanding how to live, you know, symbiotically and to leverage AI.
I mean, I know personally, I've leveraged AI.
Even with this podcast, there's AI tools that will allow for it to sound amazing,
to auto dictate the words that we're saying that cut down on production time significantly, right?
(37:38):
So, but I had to research how to use the tools. So I like your approach here.
Yeah, I mean, that's why recently I went and got, so I wanted to say,
like, hey, listen, I've been doing this for two years, but when I got certified
in AI, now we're gonna be starting to teach AI.
So we'll have a three-day course. It'll be done in Utah. I think we're gonna have one in May.
But it's so we can show different tools, right? So Pono is not the only tool.
(38:02):
It's a very powerful tool and it's not, a lot of people would go,
oh, well, so this must be ChatGPT or something like that.
But the thing is, is we have had to program this thing on the backend.
This is not a no code type software. This literally is something we've built from the ground up.
That's why it's taken so long to do it. But I believe that the results will speak for themselves.
(38:24):
I believe that our, I believe that business owners are going to get a lot more
done because one of the things I saw from running, you know,
and, and working as a founder inside of 45 is that when you would give a team
member a project, what do they do?
They all go to Google. They all go get the information. They come back,
they bring it to two weeks later and they say, this is it. And you're like,
that's not what I wanted.
(38:45):
And so now what we can do is we can literally tell the project, this is what we want.
It builds it out. We assign it to our team. We push a couple more buttons.
We have more information.
And so we're able to get a lot more data and data is valuable.
And most business owners also don't have business plans. You know what I mean?
Business owners I've talked to, they're like, I put on the back of a napkin or did this.
(39:05):
But the problem with that is then how do you know where you're going?
And if you're also a wannabe entrepreneur, meaning you're trying to like,
is this the direction I'm going to go?
You don't really know what's entailed until you're in the trenches.
And I think if you had a treasure map to find the treasure, you'd much rather
take a map versus like walking around blind, you know, in the jungle with no flashlight.
(39:26):
You're so right. Pwn Away Eyes coming out real, real soon.
Worldwide release. Super, super excited for that once again.
Share with us a little bit about the model here.
Is it a direct-to-consumer? Is there a licensing model?
Can I have an SDK, you know, API into that bad boy?
So right now we don't have any APIs into it. we are integrating in with a handful
(39:49):
of different pieces of software that we're going to API into.
And it's really going to be determined on what the customer wants.
I've realized by now doing software that this is new to me. It's brand new.
I've never built software.
I've been getting a lesson in two years now that it's been, you know,
sometimes how we get our college degree.
And what I've realized is that what I think people will want is not what they want.
So we want to do a soft launch first before we start to do that.
(40:12):
But we're, our model will start off around about about $300 a month.
And then our next focus is to start to get into the audit, like the full automation
of things to where some of the personas that are being built,
meaning think of it as employees in your company that are automated,
that they can automatically start to do tasks and things to where you become
the individual that's being told like, Hey, can you please go to the internet
(40:32):
and grab this thing for me?
Even though our technology can access the internet and it's using up-to-date
information and so on, we thought it would be a lot, a lot smarter for for us
to make sure that we still include.
The prompt. The human, the human. You know, the human in between all of these things.
That's good. Well, how do we as a listener group here support you?
(40:55):
And then two, how do we get a hold of you? Or how do we look at what you're doing?
Yeah, so you can go to pono.ai and sign up for our beta pre-test.
When this comes out, it definitely will be a much higher version of beta than
what I think you've seen in the past.
But you can also find us at your event. We're going to do a soft launch at your
event, which we're really excited about. We are pushing diligently.
(41:18):
My team is very well aware of of what's going on and you know some of these
things take a lot longer than what a lot longer time than what we expected but
i just appreciate the opportunity to be able to come on and to be able to talk
about business yes without talking about business because business is just truly,
solving problems helping human beings providing quality and i believe that the
(41:40):
product that we are that we are going to be providing as a team is something
that nobody has seen before I think it's going to revolutionize the way that
we do business and I think it's going to give people back what they want which
is their time and their money and their energy.
Well this has been Dalton Locke and Nathan Bird on the Founders Odyssey podcast
I hope you guys thoroughly enjoyed our conversation today and if you have feel
(42:04):
free to subscribe and also share it with your friends it's found on YouTube
every streaming platform,
and also thefoundersodyssey.com thank you so much Dalton for joining us today
and guys out there make sure to share this with your friends.
Music.
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