EXPERIENCE 210 | Alex Raymond - Serial Entrepreneur, Techstars Alum and Mentor, Founder of the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit and Host of the Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast - The LoCo Experience

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Alex Raymond is a three timetech startup founder and

(00:02):
entrepreneur who made thejourney up from Boulder to the
Loco Experience Studio to sharehis journey and some wisdom he's
learned along the way.
He was an early client ofTechstars and has been a long
term mentor in the program, andhe shares how listeners can
expand their business brains andmindfulness.
At the Conscious EntrepreneurSummit, upcoming May 28th and
29th in Boulder.
Alex is also the host of theConscious Entrepreneur Podcast,

(00:25):
which has hosted many dozens ofconscious leaders on topics as
diverse as building teams forscaling, developing a personal
brand, or redefining happinessin your life.
He's a generous guy and gave ourlisteners the opportunity to
save 100 off your summit ticketsby March 31st.
Use code LOCO and one luckylistener will win 50 percent off

(00:45):
tickets, but you'll have tolisten to win that.
As always, Alex and I enjoyed awide ranging conversation
dialing in on crucial businessand life principles and chasing
lots of squirrels.
So please enjoy, as I did, myconversation with Alex Raymond.

(01:37):
And welcome back to the localexperience podcast.
My guest today is Alex Raymondand Alex is the founder of the
conscious entrepreneur summit.
Coming up in May, we'll talkmore about that.
He's the host of the ConsciousEntrepreneur podcast, as well as
the founder of a business calledAmplify, and he's been involved
with Techstars, mostly in theBoulder area for a long time in

(01:59):
various capacities.
So, uh, Uh, long list of titlesand accomplishments there, Mr.
Raymond, thanks for being here.
Awesome.
Uh, thanks for, thanks forhaving me, Kurt.
Great to see you.
So, um, I guess let's start withthe Conscious Entrepreneur
Summit.
Like, uh, when is it?
Who should go?
What's it cost?
Who will they see there?

(02:20):
Um, how long you've been doingit?
All the, all the, all the Yeah,let's start, let's start with,
with Conscious Entrepreneur.
And, and actually what I'll dois Link it back to something you
just mentioned in theintroduction, which is, which is
tech stars.
So I've been an entrepreneur fora long time, primarily in the
software space.
And when I say a long time, Imean it like 15 years.
I just turned 49 last month.

(02:41):
And so probably 15, 16, 17years, I've been an
entrepreneur, uh, which.
As you know, it has pros andcons.
Uh, many years ago, I started acompany called CAPTA and we got
into the tech stars program inBoulder, um, back when tech
stars was really cool right now.
It's kind of cool, but it usedto be really cool.
Well, it's coming back.
It seems like it's gettingcooler.

(03:01):
Correct.
It's a resurrecting brand.
So, so we went through that, wewere going through the program
and you know, just, just so thatyour listeners know.
Uh, Techstars is one of thesestartup accelerators and it's
one of the original ones hasbeen around for a while, but
really well established, reallywell known, very, very, uh, uh,
beneficial program, like tons,really valuable.

(03:22):
And it's a big deal to get into.
Did they bring capital to theequation as well?
They do.
So they get into the program,like we'll pick the cool kids
and maybe we'll even invest inyou if we think you get cool
enough and smart enough, fastenough.
Totally.
So, so there's an applicationprocess.
pretty lengthy and prettyinvolved.
Uh, they select very smallpercentage of whoever applies.
And then when you apply, youget, uh, funding.

(03:44):
So you get kind of this equitygrant in exchange for part of
your company.
So, uh, when we did it, it wassomething like a hundred
thousand dollars for 6 percentof the company.
That's their business model,right?
I would make that trade rightnow.
So they take, they take equityin your company and return for.
Uh, for you going through theprogram and they invest a small
amount as well.
So that you have capital, but ontop of that, then they open up

(04:07):
other funding facilities so youcan have access to convertible
debt notes and stuff like that.
And so it's a great program.
A lot of people are excited tobe in it.
Uh, it's a big deal.
Uh, it's, it's, it's prestigiousif you will.
And so.
I was going through this programand just like maybe 12 other
companies or 11 other companiesin the program itself, uh,

(04:29):
everyone at various stages ofhow far along they are from like
very, very little to, you know,at that point, my company, I
think we were probably one ofthe farther along we were doing
like maybe a quarter milliondollars a year in revenue or
something like that in softwareas a service.
Yeah, right.
So, so, so this company I waswith at the time was software as
a service and.
A lot of companies are sort oftech in one form or another.

(04:50):
So it could be apps or FinTechor software, the tech stars,
hence the name.
Yeah.
And so I was going through theprogram and it's a very, it's
structured.
There's a lot of mentors.
There's a lot of support.
There's a lot of people outthere kind of.
Designed to be, to be helpingyou.
And one day I'm back at home inthe evening and I'm sitting on a

(05:14):
couch, kind of, kind of likethis one.
And, uh, I've got this look onmy face that my wife calls my
fish face.
Fish face, meaning like, it'skind of droopy.
I'm not looking very excited.
You know, like I got somethingon my mind.
Uh, and she looks over me andshe's like, why do you have that
fish face?

(05:35):
Like she, and then she followedup with like.
Why are you so miserable?
And I was like, wait a minute.
She goes, you're supposed to beyours.
She's like, you're supposed tobe at the height of your
entrepreneurial career.
You just got into textiles.
You've all these peoplesupporting you.
You just raised some money.
Uh, all these things arehappening in your life.
Why are you so fuckingmiserable?

(05:56):
Like fair question.
Right.
And, uh, and it was kind of likea whack on the head.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
And after I got over my initialdefensiveness, once I got over
my initial defensiveness, um,And I, and I started to think,
you know, what is going on?
Like, yes.
Why am I, why am I unhappy?

(06:17):
Why do I feel unsatisfied?
Why am I miserable?
What I realized Kurt was I wasspending all this time that I
was in the program, comparingmyself to everybody else.
Hey, this guy's farther alongbecause of this.
This person's farther alongbecause, Oh, these people have
more money.
They've, they raised more moneythan we did.
Oh, they, they have a sexierapp.

(06:39):
They have a, this, they have a,that they have a bigger team.
They have a marquee.
Mentor, whatever it is.
Right.
And I was like, giving away allmy energy into this like, doom
loop spiral.
I don't belong here.
Uh, I feel like an imposter.
I just snuck in.
When are they going to find outthat I don't really belong?
You know, all these sorts ofstories in my head.

(07:00):
Yeah.
And entrepreneurs have beenthere.
So a lot of entrepreneurs havebeen there.
And so, so here's, here's what,how this kind of.
Evolved for me was, you know,went on with building the
business, but I had this thoughtin my head that, Hey, you know,
I can do better here.
Like it doesn't have to be thisway.
It doesn't have to feel thisway.
And so as we built thatbusiness, you know, went through
a number of different stages andwe raised money and hired a team

(07:23):
and then.
Shifted and fired a bunch ofpeople who had revenue and lost
them and customer, you know, upand down and sideways and so on,
you know, but along the way, Ikept on this journey to say, to
really understand and explorewhat was going on inside of me,
what was going on in my, whatwas going on in my head was
going on in my heart, what wasgoing on in my body as it
relates to being anentrepreneur.
And I know we just talked about,we're going to, you know, come

(07:44):
to our faith family, uh, uh,politics segment later, but
like, what was your faithperspective?
Were you also like.
learning about meditation, orBuddhism, or Taoism, or
something at the same time,like, or was that the instigator
to that for you?
I basically did everything.
Right, threw everything on thewall.
Everything there was to do, Idid.

(08:05):
Went to church, said a dog.
I mean, you know, uh, at thispoint I had done, you know, the
meditation programs.
And I had done the retreats, andread the books, and watched the
videos.
I even spent months at an ashramin India.
Uh, so my wife had gone toAnantara in India a long time
ago, she went for six months, Iwent and joined her for three
months.

(08:26):
So, uh, that was a big part ofit, is like, how can I use the
tools I already know to quiet mymind, or to still my mind, or to
understand what's going on.
Yeah, so that was definitely athing.
I'm starting to jump in, but Ijust felt like it was part of
that exploratory, for you atleast.
It was, it was a thing.
And, uh, I also then tried totap into local resources.
So I joined entrepreneur groupsand a men's group and 1 million

(08:48):
cups or all this sort of stuff.
So, so like, um, it was EOAccelerator at the time.
Cause we were sub a milliondollars with EO Accelerator.
And I went to, and I joined amen's group and then I had my
own sort of like gaggle ofentrepreneurs and we would get
together every couple of weeksand talk about stuff.
And, uh, and so this was allpart of me tapping into whatever

(09:10):
was out there trying to help getsupport for myself.
Then I became.
A mentor in the tech starsprogram.
Okay.
So one of the things they do isthey have all these measure of
success through this.
So you weren't rich yet, but youwere figuring it out.
And it's basically people whocould, who can be helpful to
entrepreneurs at some point intheir journey.
So since I'd gone through and.

(09:32):
Survived the program and raisedmoney, and we started a
business.
It was like, great.
I could be of help to people whowere a year or two behind.
Okay, great.
And I would go to all thesementor meetings and you know,
people would be with, come to methinking that they wanted to
talk about their pricingstrategy or their go to market
strawberry strategy, of Youknow, how to build the website

(09:54):
or, you know, how to, how to doa sales deck or enterprise sale,
whatever, something like this.
Right.
Totally.
And, uh, so everyone's like,what do you really want to do?
Well, everyone's very serious,right?
They're all very serious andthey want to talk about their go
to market strategy.
But what I realized was they alljust wanted to say, they want an
answer to the question of whenam I going to start feeling
better inside?

(10:16):
Yeah.
And a lot of entrepreneurs justdidn't have.
The vocabulary, they didn't havethe awareness.
They didn't have permission totalk about stuff like that.
Because think about it, likeyou're building a business.
There's a very, there's a veryspecific playbook.
You find a problem, youinvestigate the problem, you
have a solution, you raisemoney, you, you staff up, you go
solve it.
You scale up and then everyone'sa gajillionaire and happy ever

(10:38):
after.
Right.
Except, except it doesn't reallylook like that for most people,
right?
For most people, it looks likethis, blah, blah, blah, like
kind of bouncing around.
And there's a lot of stuff.
Uh, that's driving you.
So fears and limiting beliefsand whatever you got left over
from your childhood and all thistime and stuff.
So I'm still answering the firstquestion on, on why conscious

(10:59):
entrepreneur.
So.
Here's, here's how it, here'show it emerged.
I realized, Oh, everyone elsewants to talk about this stuff
too.
Uh, and none of the things thatI found around me were
particularly suited in the waythat I wanted, but it was
important to realize I'm notalone.
Yeah.
And all these people are alsolooking for some type of
community.

(11:20):
So, in the summer of 2021,during mid pandemic, Yeah, yeah.
I was out walking my, I was outwalking my dog.
Just getting ready to come backinto lockdown again.
Quite.
We didn't know that yet.
Or maskies or whatever.
We didn't know that yet.
Yeah, it seemed like we weredone with it finally.
Mm hmm.
Uh, I have a, I have a miniatureschnauzer.
Her name is Dash.
Oh, I've got a schnauzer cocker.
A schnauzer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nice.

(11:40):
Uh, so I was out walking Dash.
And just as we're rounding thecorner on 26th street, coming
back toward my house, uh, in, inBoulder, um, I had one of these,
you know, kind of likeepiphanies in my mind and the
epiphany in my mind went, boy, Ireally like being an
entrepreneur.
I really like all this personalgrowth stuff that I've been

(12:02):
working on and doing.
And even though I'm anintrovert, I actually really
like.
Putting on conferences.
Yeah, it's a thing.
Yeah.
And so basically it was likethis Venn diagram of these three
things like boom, boom, boom,all coming together and
Literally, you know sometimes asan entrepreneur, there's
something that you can't not doPodcasting for me is one of

(12:25):
those so this this is what itwas for me.
It was okay.
This is gonna happen There'sgonna be an event for
entrepreneurs who are dedicatedto their personal growth And
somehow this is going to come tolife, and I guess I'm the one
who's going to be doing this.
So What do we got to do?
Off we go, right?
Like, what's next?
And, and that was the, that wasthe origin of it.

(12:45):
So that was in the, that was inthe summer of 2021.
The first event took place inMay of 2022.
Okay.
So I had like nine or ten monthsto, to put it together.
Um, but the thesis So this willbe a third year event?
This is year four.
Oh, yeah.
22, 23, 24, 25 already.
Dang.
Yeah, so, so, the, the thesis ofthe event is That growth starts

(13:08):
from within and that there areways to build a business and to
scale a business withoutsacrificing yourself.
Hmm.
Yeah.
I, uh, I resonate in part.
I'm actually reflecting to ournext level summit last summer.
Uh, and part of the, the talkfrom our, uh, one of our
facilitators was kind of thisconcentric circle of, you know,

(13:30):
kind of focus on yourself.
First and be thoughtful aboutwhere that growth is happening.
And then now your business.
And then now let's take it outto the community.
And where are you engaging inthe community and in what
capacities, where are yourspecial powers and things like
that?
Totally.
When you talk about working onyourself, like it sounds like so
many different things, you know,right?

(13:51):
It's like your relationships,your, your gym, your physical
health, your food intake, allthe stuff.
Is that, or is it more businessy focused on that entrepreneur
role?
Who, who is coming for, forthis?
So it's, College EntrepreneurSummit, well the answer's in the
name.
Uh, it's for the, it's for the,Person on the website.

(14:15):
It's for the founder.
It's for the person in thearena, right?
That's who we're, that's whatwe're focusing on.
We don't, we, while we, whilewe, we welcome other people like
maybe the COO or the, so on,like for the most part, these
are founders, CEOs, the, theperson who is the entrepreneur
and.
You know, we all have thisperception that being an

(14:35):
entrepreneur is just nonstophustle, nonstop success.
Everything is up and to theright, uh, and so on.
And when you get into it, andyou know, a lot of entrepreneurs
here in Colorado, like when youget into it, so many people.
They may not be open to tellingyou about this, but maybe
they're having issues with theirhealth or their marriage or
their, their, their, theirunhappy for all, for multiple

(14:57):
reasons, or, you know, theinternalizing so much stress,
anxiety, fear, et cetera.
And we need a place to releasethat.
We can't, we as entrepreneurs.
Often can't go to our spousesand have the same level of
conversation.
Yeah.
We can't go to our team and havethat same level of conversation
because it sets the team off,right?

(15:18):
Like, well, and plus they don'twant to know you're going to
have trouble making payroll.
They don't, they don't, theydon't want to know it doesn't
land very well.
Um, and by, by the way, it'salso not that helpful if you're
the CEO to go to your teammembers and say, Oh, I'm having
all these doubts about X, Y, Z.
Right.
Totally.
So you have to be that.
Frankly, I, I mean, I justwanted to share some resonance,

(15:39):
I guess.
Yeah.
Um, loco think tank is localcommunity think tank, but it's
also make you crazy if you don'ttalk to somebody about your
challenges.
And creating this business thatyou're building, um, and, or
make your spouse crazy if youbring them all your challenges
that you can't talk to with yourteam about.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so because of that, a lot ofpeople just clam up and they

(16:00):
don't yeah, yeah.
They just work harder at theproblem without any perspective.
And so that's like, we're doing.
The same thing in differentways, I guess, is some ways how
I would say it.
Yeah.
And that's why, that's why I'mhere to share these stories.
Fair enough.
So people, people get, you know,like the pressure just builds
internally.
And you know, there's a lot of,unfortunately, there's a lot of

(16:21):
stories.
I recruited my marriagecounselor to my second Loco
Think Tank chapter, actually.
Nice.
He became a member.
He was scaling his counselingpractice at the time.
And so it was kind of like, Icould keep going to counseling
because I couldn't really affordit.
But as long as he was a member,I was like, well, he's kind of
paying me to.
Go see him, you know, that'sgood.
Uh, and, and so, so So, yes, Iunderstand is what I mean to say
by that.
Well, you, you, you understand,like, you get it.

(16:43):
And if we don't have a place to,to share, if we don't have
community, if we don't havepeople, we can talk to about
this stuff, the pressure buildsup and then lo and behold,
you've got an illness or you'vegot some issue in your, with
your health or with your familyor with your whatever, or you're
exploding, your temper orstress, whatever.
And these things can, can, cankill.

(17:03):
And unfortunately, there's alsostories about entrepreneurs who
take their own lives, forexample.
Right.
And.
Probably at a much higher levelthan the general public, I'm
sure.
Well, there's a lot of, there'sa lot of data on this, right?
So, so So, uh, Dr.
Michael Freeman has done a lotof research on, uh,
entrepreneurial mental health,on entrepreneur resilience.
And entrepreneurs have a lot ofvery pro, uh, growth capacities,

(17:28):
right?
Like we're creative and we'reindustrious and, uh, we fix, fix
problems and we're social, etcetera.
Meritocracy generally and stufflike that.
And we have a lot of, you know,negative orientation as well.
Depression, uh, stress.
You're never where you want tobe by now.
All of these things, right?
And so it's a real, it's a realthing.

(17:49):
And, and what, what we've donewith conscious entrepreneur
summit is create a place wherepeople can, can not only connect
with one another, but then learntools and ideas and resources.
Okay.
So we bring it, it's a very,very high quality event.
This is, uh, we bring inincredible speakers.
We've had people like GayHendricks, the guy who wrote,

(18:09):
uh, all about zone of genius.
We invited his own genius.
Uh, Keith Farrazi, the guy whowrote Never Eat Alone, Ryan
Holliday, uh, who wrote allthose books on, on Stoics, uh,
Liz Foslein, who does all thiswork on, um, uh, emotional, uh,
like emotions at work, KayleeKlemp, one of the coauthors of
the 15 Commitments of ConsciousLeadership.

(18:29):
So we have really, really Youtalk about people you actually
pay to come.
Serious people.
Correct?
Yes.
Big money.
Big time.
Uh, and, and this year we'rebringing in Dr.
Benjamin Hardy, who is thecoauthor of a book, well, many
books, but The one that reallyattracted me was, uh, this book
called 10 X is easier than twoX.
Have you read it?
I've heard about it, but Ihaven't read it yet.
A super book.

(18:50):
And it's, it's really about the,it's not about the, Hey, if you
want to grow 10 X, you need toraise your price or sell more
products or go enterprise orwhatever.
It's not that it's here's thepsychology of what it takes to
think.
And become the person who'sgoing to grow like this, as
opposed to the person who'sgoing to grow like that.
So really, really interestingmindset shift is all the mindset

(19:13):
shift allow for that, which thencan allow you to explore the
systems, the processes, thesales literature, whatever that
is for your business.
Yeah.
And so, you know, really great,really great gang.
It's coming up May 28th and 29thin Boulder, Colorado.
We'll have a couple hundredpeople there.
Right after the Memorial Dayweekend.

(19:33):
Yep.
So what is that a Thursday,Friday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Wednesday, Thursday.
Okay.
All right.
So sign up through like, uh,everything you want, everything
you want.
And more is on the website atconscious entrepreneur dot U S I
realized that those are two verydifficult words to spell
conscious and entrepreneur.
You put them together.
It's even harder to spell and wedon't even have the.

(19:55):
com it's a dot U S.
But if you Google any sort ofapproximation, it will find us.
So, um, How has the ConsciousEntrepreneur Summit evolved over
now it's coming into its fourthyear, easier to get cool
speakers probably because you'vehad cool speakers before.
Yeah.

(20:15):
So the evolution has been, um,so several things are going on.
Uh, we have consistently beenable to attract.
Good speakers because we pay forthe ones that we, we want.
Um, but I've also learned abouthow to create a really great
event.
So in the past, my, you know, mybias on this Kurt was, I'm just

(20:38):
going to get as many coolspeakers and we're going to fill
the day.
And it's going to be like a firehose of information from the
stage.
And everyone's going to say rah,rah, and then be done.
Uh, and what, what I realizedover time, like the feedback I
was getting from people waslike, Hey, this is really great.
And we would like a lot morespace in the day to connect with
one another.
And then, so great.
So then we created more space inthe day to connect with one

(20:58):
another.
Guess what they said after that?
Oh, we'd like more space toconnect with one another during
the day.
Uh, and so, so we're, we'rebuilding in the way I think
about it is, is a hierarchy andthe hierarchy that I use to run
the summit is connection at thetop.
Event.
So let her experience and then,uh, and then content at the

(21:20):
bottom.
Oh, interesting.
So in the past I would havesaid, let's put content on at
the top and like blast thecontent.
Now I've realized that whatentrepreneurs value most is
connecting with others who, andsharing their journey.
So if we can build inexperiences, like we do
connection dinners.
So, so community, communityorganized connection dinners
around a specific theme, we do aconnection hike where everyone

(21:42):
gets out in nature.
Yeah, and walks around andconnects that way.
Um, and those things, and plus,you know, whatever, whatever
workshops or things we'reorganizing during the summit
itself, they allow people toopen up, to be, to be
vulnerable, to createconnection, to meet new people,
to network a little bit, and soon.
So, we do a lot more of thatthan we have in the past.
What's your venue?

(22:02):
Um, The venue, we're at theUniversity of Colorado in the,
in the, the Glenn MillerBallroom at the UMC, so it's,
It's one big room?
It's one big, so it's one bigroom.
So, my other philosophy on thisis, I like to guide, I like
groupism and I like everyonetogether for the entire thing.
So we don't break up.
We don't have, we don't split upinto speakers over here and
speakers over there and chooseyour journey.

(22:24):
No, we were doing it.
So I'm a little bit of a controlfreak in that regard.
Uh, but we do it, we do it alltogether.
Cause that way we can reallybuild a fantastic experience and
arc for everybody as opposed to,Oh, I went to this one.
I went to that one.
I didn't meet you yet.
I haven't seen you before.
You know, where it gets reallydiluted.
I try to keep everything.
Everything together.

(22:45):
That sounds like a prettyinteresting, and, like, you can
literally, like, hike out theback door and go for a cruise.
Yeah.
So it's like the most amazingscenery in the world right
outside the door.
Who's your demographic?
Are you, like, half BoulderDenver region and then half
people from around the country?
Or is it way different thanthat?
We typically get about, uh, 75percent of our audience from

(23:07):
Colorado.
Okay.
And, uh, 25 percent from not.
So, so we've already, we'vealready had some international
visitors, people flew in from,uh, London and Mexico and, uh,
Spain.
So we've had, we've had some,some amount of, uh, non U.
S.
folks, Canada, of course, uh,but, um, mostly Colorado.
And then people who are likereally interested in these

(23:28):
topics come from other, otherparts of the U S yeah.
And when it, within Colorado,you know, it's going to be
mostly, mostly Denver andBoulder.
Right.
And is, is it mostly also kindof that tech oriented software,
banky stuff?
Well, that's where, that's whereit's interesting.
Also now, like manufacturers ofwindows or sign company.

(23:52):
It's exceedingly diverse.
And, and, and that's an awesome,awesome thing about it.
Yeah.
So what I mean is you're goingto find everything from, uh, you
know, software or FinTech, youknow, kind of thing, which you
might think it's moretraditional entrepreneurs, but
that's kind of what comes tomind, uh, to people who are
doing funded entrepreneurs.
Yeah, but, but we also havepeople who are doing, uh,

(24:14):
consulting companies, people whoare doing manufacturing, people
doing healthcare, people, uh,there was one year, some people
came who run a franchise of likeswim clubs for kids.
Uh, we have people from theconstruction business, so it's
pretty broad and, and here's whyit's broad because there's so
many commonalities forentrepreneurs in their

(24:34):
experience, no matter whatindustry they're in.
So as, as a founder.
In tech, I have more in commonwith a founder in healthcare
than I do with someone else intech.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah, yeah.
Who's not a founder.
And so, that's the bond.
Like, that's the glue.
Okay.
So, it's especially founders.

(24:54):
Like, Correct.
Not necessarily secondgeneration, not necessarily, I
mean, that's, that's, because,because that is Like if you were
handed the keys to something,you just got to drive it in a
way, but being the founder comeswith its own special set of
challenges.
Correct.
Yeah.
So it's, it's very much, it'svery much the founders.
Uh, and that allows us to reallytalk to them.

(25:16):
Right.
So, so it's highly, highly.
Um, should we shift to theconscious entrepreneur podcast?
We can talk about the podcast.
The, the, the podcast is aneffort to broaden the
conversation.
So when did you start?
Uh, about a year and a half ago,I think I'm 75, 76.

(25:37):
You're crushing them out.
So you're about one a week.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a, it's a bit of a slog.
It's a lot of work.
Do you love it?
It's a lot of work.
There are parts that I love andthere are parts that I'm like,
Ugh, let me tell you.
I mean, so you do podcast, youknow all about this.
Uh, the parts that I love arethe interviews and learning
something new and finding reallycool people to talk to.

(25:58):
Uh, the parts that I don't likeas much, actually the one part I
really don't like, which iswriting the intro and then
recording the intro.
For some reason it drives menuts.
I'm always, I'm always puttingit off.
I put, I shrunk mine way downthis year.
I'm like, I'm just going to dolike, uh, uh, eight line, two

(26:19):
paragraph introduction.
And if people want to listen tothis person, they should listen.
But I don't want to like, try tothink back to three weeks ago
when I interviewed this person.
Cause you got, you got it.
And plus you got to geteverything in one take and it's
got to be perfect.
And you got to have the rightenergy and inflections and
intonations.
Anyway, that part, I'm alwaysjust like, Oh, who else could do
this?
Yeah, but I do, I do have agreat partner, uh, with, uh,

(26:41):
with the podcast, uh, which isSarah Lockwood at Hivecast.
She does.
company, a production company,her company does all this stuff
for me, which I'm, which I'msuper glad for.
So they take a lot of it out.
Hey, Sarah, what's up?
She does a lot of great stufffor us.
Awesome.
Um, so like, what are you tryingto achieve?
Is it really just a voice forthat conscious entrepreneur

(27:03):
summit?
Are you trying to just.
Take your voice farther awaythan people that would come to
the organizing.
So it actually serves multiplepurposes, the podcast.
So the podcast serves onepurpose of just broadening the
message around consciousentrepreneurship.
So broadly it's because peoplehear it and they make a lot of
assumptions.
I'll tell you the one assumptionthey make is if it's got the

(27:25):
word conscious in it, it's for abunch of barefoot hippie people
who are not serious.
I forgot to offer.
We always have a, I got a joint.
A homegrown joint right there,if you want.
And there's also a mushroom inthe bottom of that little can.
Thank you.
Cause you're hippie, right?
Like you're a consciousentrepreneur.
Thank you for that.
I'm a conscious entrepreneur andI drove here.
So I think I will pass.
I thought you would.
But being Colorado, I think it'swell played.

(27:47):
If we were in your backyardinstead of my backyard, then you
would perhaps indulge.
Correct.
Correct.
Um, so anyway, I digress.
I think it's just kind of afunny thing to.
Offer the community.
Sure.
Uh, and you never know, usuallygo about nine weeks.
By the way, help you helpyourself.
No, no, I'm okay.
I'm okay.
You polished off your drink.

(28:08):
Do you need a second drink?
Not yet, because I had a littlesplash before you got here.
Got it.
Otherwise your voice will startto slur a little bit.
I hear myself.
Like, do you hear yourself slurwhen you've been drinking?
I drink very little, but I do,yes.
So, you have, and you do.
I think there's like, I do too,and I'm even, I'm a, I'm a like

(28:33):
a 4 percent slur right now.
Um, just cause I've had twowhiskeys and, you know, not big
whiskeys, but small whiskeys inthe last hour and I can, I can
hear it.
Um, and so whenever I hear it,I'm like, nope, I'm good.
Have some water instead.
And it, and it doesn't takemuch, like, like nobody would

(28:54):
notice my slur.
You think?
I think.
Um, but a lot of people wouldn'tnotice their own slurs, is the
thing.
Right.
Right.
Like, and those are, that's thedangerous thing.
If you can notice your own slur,I think you're not quite I used
to drink, I used to drink, youknow, like any, whatever, in my
20s and whatever, I just used todrink like anybody else.

(29:18):
Uh, and I, essentially because Istarted doing a lot of, uh,
meditating and I told you I wasin the ashram in India, um,
there was a time during theashram in India, uh, well first
there was no alcohol but we werethere, fine, but then when we
were doing other programs kindof around it, there were all
these rules and one of the rulesA decent amount of time, I think

(29:40):
it was a hundred days, was nomeat and no alcohol.
Oh, wow.
And, and at first I was like,Which one?
Which one bothers you more?
Both.
And then once I did it, I waslike, oh, that was easy.
And by the way, day 101 is a loteasier to tack on after you've
done it for a hundred days.
So that led to me being, like,not eating meat for probably

(30:02):
another two years or three yearsafter that.
And then alcohol, uh, Probablyalso and then, you know, it came
back a bit, but it is notplaying a significant role at
all in my life anymore So Iprobably now drink three to four
units Yeah.
A month.
Okay.

(30:23):
So.
Like a glass of wine with dinneronce in a while.
Like, actually, what I, what I,what I most like is, uh, tequila
and mezcal.
Oh.
Yeah.
My wife's from Mexico, so wespend a ton of time in Mexico,
and, uh, that's like, I love it.
I do have the Anejo of the, theBoulder Base brand of tequila,
if you'd like just a little tinysipper.
Um, so no, that's an opportunitybecause we are on the Local

(30:45):
Experience Podcast.
Indeed, yes, well, I, I, Isupport local businesses as
well.
And it's, what is that brand?
It's called Suerte.
Suerte, yeah.
Um, actually, one of ourchapters launched with Suerte,
like, sponsored, I guess?
An event we had, and we, we, itwas, what was it?

(31:05):
It was called, um, Tips, Tacos,and Tequila.
And so we had business tips fromyours truly.
We had tacos from the Hooli andJuan who were on my podcast a
few months ago.
Um, and we had tequila fromSwarte and Melissa with an

(31:25):
unusual spelling.
was our sponsor for that and shedid a really nice talk about how
Suerte was like smoking their Ohcool.
their agave hearts before theyturned it into tequila and that
was why it tasted that muchbetter.
Right.
So, anyway, that's like sixyears ago in May.
It was a while ago.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anyway, I digress.

(31:46):
Sorry to change.
Uh, that's what we do.
here.
Uh, we chase squirrels.
We chase squirrels.
We chase squirrels.
Um, talk to me about, uh, whilewe're still on the topic of, uh,
self destructive behaviors orenlightening behaviors, perhaps.
Sure.
Uh, talk to me about yourrelationship with, uh, both
mushrooms and marijuana.

(32:06):
In light of that.
Yeah, I, you know, I'm, I'mlucky in, in so far as, uh, I
never, I didn't do very muchmarijuana in college.
Okay.
And I consider myself lucky forthat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's better for people.
Yeah, it's better for people.
Like, people that startedsmoking marijuana before 15, 16
especially.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Not so great.
Not usually.
Uh, but, but I, I did, I did.

(32:27):
After 20, better.
I did smoke in my, in my 20s.
Um, and it got to the pointwhere like, I realized that this
just wasn't fun, it wasn't goodfor me, it wasn't a thing that I
was enjoying, but I still foundmyself, it was like a default
behavior.
Yeah.
And, uh.
Plus you were hanging out withhippies.
Well, plus just like, uh, no,I've not given you my, my whole

(32:52):
history.
We'll come back to it.
We'll come back to that.
But there was a time rightbefore my 30th birthday.
Where I essentially was likethis is not an appropriate thing
for me to be continuing.
I don't like it I don't know whyI'm doing this all the time And
so I literally did theproverbial take my stash flush
it down the toilet.
Really?
Yeah, and not to say I've nevergone back I have but Every time

(33:13):
I do anything, edibles orwhatever, I'm like, I'm like,
yeah, it doesn't make me feelgreat.
Mushrooms, psychedelics, on theother hand, I'm a huge fan.
Uh, I, I, like, I think theseare incredible, powerful tools,
powerful tools.
I don't, I don't do these thingsin social recreational settings.
I just don't, like, I'm notinterested.
It's more of a guidedintrospective.

(33:33):
I do it in a ceremonial setting.
I do it.
Internally laying on a couch,eye folds on, boom, like that
whole thing, you know, much moresignificant dosage as opposed to
like go part, you know, goconcert or whatever.
That part I've got zero interestin.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, thanks.
I like, I find that that's partof why I put those there in my

(33:56):
little dinosaurs, because Ithink it's really interesting.
Well, Colorado obviously beinglike the first state to really
rock it.
Uh, and in, in the mushroomstoo.
Yeah.
But I haven't had mushrooms onthe podcast for two years.
Nobody's taken me up on it.
Well, I mean, look, they're areally, really powerful tool.

(34:17):
They are.
And for me, any time I've done amicro I get all agitated and
irritated.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, so, Oh, so you're like bigor nothing.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
Some people really like themicrodose.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what mostly I've donelike since those early twenties
days when I would like seestreaks and colors and stuff,

(34:38):
but to mine, Hmm.
In.
inspection.
Um, like a little bit is like,you know, the green is just a
little bit greener.
The sun's just a little bitwarmer and you don't actually
have a change to your behaviorquotient.
Um, but for you, it's likeannoying because you're not far

(35:00):
enough or it's just, it's justlike, it's just, I'm slightly
heightened and I'm slightly likeaware and I'm slightly irritated
and yeah, I was like, I've doneit.
I did it several times and I wasjust like, ah, I'm done.
I don't need to do this.
So you're like, I'll just herodose and talk on the couch to
somebody.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(35:20):
Fascinating.
Yeah.
Uh, in fact, um, uh, Many of myexperiences for this happened in
Arvada at Ceremonial.
Have you been there?
No.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I dunno.
Anything about it?
Uh, it's a psychedelic church.
Oh.
Uh, and, and uh, I bought somemushrooms at a psychedelic
church in Oakland.
Okay.
So it's a psychedelic ago, justdown, just down the street in,
in Arvada, Colorado.
Uh, run by Austin Mao.

(35:41):
He's actually been on mypodcast, podcast's.
I've heard of that.
Been a speaker.
He's been a speaker at my, at myevents.
Super, super great guy andsomeone dedicated to helping
people.
Transform their lives by seeingand learning things that you get
on a psychedelic experience.
One thing I've noticed from bothmy own observation as well as
podcasts and stuff is that It'sone of the real things that can

(36:08):
bust you out of a rut.
Totally.
Like whether it's PTSD ordepression because you think you
suck as an entrepreneur ordifferent things.
Like a lot of people have usedit as that kind of lever that
gets them out of a stuck spot.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, you know theexpressions about like ski
grooves in the mind, right?
Yeah.
We're always chasing these samethoughts.

(36:28):
We wear those tracks.
We have 60 thoughts a day.
90 to 95 percent of them are theexact same thought as yesterday.
Most of them are not positivebecause we tend to be negatively
oriented because that's whatkeeps us alive.
Therefore, I'm thinking 40, 000negative thoughts a day and
they're the same thoughts everysingle day.
That creates a lot of superpowerful connections in my brain

(36:48):
and what the psilocybin does isit disorganizes my brain.
All sorts of new information tostart flowing around.
It's like fresh pow pow.
It's exactly like fresh powder.
And it allows me to thenreconsider.
And it doesn't mean that, youknow, I'm never going to have
some type of fear or anxiety orworry.
But I can then see stuff andsay, well, is this thought
really true?
Yeah.

(37:09):
Right?
And that's incredibly powerfulbecause then I can interrogate
my own mind and say, Based onthis information, how do I want
to show up in the world?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, so we're going to chase thesquirrel back onto the tree.
Sure.
Um, what is Amplify?
Oh.
Uh, you have another operatingbusiness right now.
I have, I have a business calledAmplify.

(37:30):
Uh, we just started it inOctober, so like four months
ago.
All right.
Uh, uh, Amplify is aprofessional development
community for a very specificset of people.
Okay.
So, so the very specific set ofpeople is, uh, B2B post sales.
Account managers.
So let's say I'm, uh, whateverI'm IBM, right?

(37:53):
I probably have, CSU is probablya client of IBM or they're a
client of Google or AWS orwhatever, right?
And, uh, AWS or Google or IBMwill have a whole team of post
sales people whose job it is tomake sure that CSU is happy that
they stay that way.
They keep buying their stuff.
They're aware of the newreleases.
They buy new things when it'sappropriate.
They're not looking at thecompetitors.

(38:14):
You know, and so on.
So there's a whole world outthere, people called account
managers.
Uh, this happens to be a worldthat I've been working in for a
long time and I.
Realize that there's basicallynowhere for them to go get
support, get, get training.
Uh, if you're a CFO or a CEO,you've got lots of resources,
you got a lot of resources,account manager, right?
And so within a typical company,who's getting training, the

(38:37):
sales team is getting trained inthe marketing teams, getting
training and the, and the, theaccount managers are literally
like sitting at the back row,like, and they're being told,
well, this one's get paid good.
They get very valuable job.
They're very, really importantto their company.
So.
Here's a stat for you.
In a typical year, 71 percent ofyour revenue comes from existing
customers.
Wow, yeah.

(38:58):
So therefore, why don't we domore to help these people do
their job well?
Yeah, even in a high growthcompany.
Correct.
So why don't we help them dotheir job well?
So Amplify is Tools, resources,courses, and community for
account managers so that theycan get really, really good at
their job.
Wow, that's cool.
Yeah.
Um, subscription type service?

(39:18):
Like you become an Amplifymember?
It's a member, it's an annualmembership.
For their people based on howmany member, employees they have
and whatever.
It's an annual membership.
Uh, people are signing up ontheir own.
Oh.
So they're, because they want togrow.
Because they want to connect andnetwork and improve their
skills.
Nice.
We have corporate members?

(39:39):
We do have some core members,but core members, the engagement
tends to be lower because like,you know, Oh, my boss told me to
do this final, go do this versusI'm like super psyched to go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Different story.
Really cool.
Yeah.
Um, how's that working?
Are you, it's going great.
Are you costing it by your focuson the podcast and the conscious
entrepreneur summit or is itsuper fun?
It's super fun.
It works great.

(40:00):
Uh, there's no reason that thisbusiness won't work.
I don't yet have a sense of whatthe scale of that business is
going to be.
Yeah.
But like the economics are good.
The delivering value, we'redelivering value.
The funnel is, you know, I mean,I'm still trying to figure out
lots of stuff about thebusiness, but generally
speaking, it looks like it'sgoing to work.
And then, uh, I just don't know.

(40:21):
Um, you know how it evolves andchanges over time, but so far
I'm super excited about it.
Um, we already kind of coveredthe lots of stuff with
Techstars, I think.
Yeah.
Um, and so now our norm is tojump in the time machine and uh,
go find little Alex.
Sure.
At like five years old or sevenyears old or something like

(40:42):
that.
Um, where would we find you?
So, like let me, let me justthink about how, how I want to
start.
Um, the answer is, the answer isI grew up in Europe.
Okay.
And most people, most peopledon't, they don't know that
about me.

(41:03):
As an American?
Yeah.
Like, it's not quite like, it'snot immediately obvious that
that would have happened.
No.
But let me tell you, I'll tellyou how it did come about and
then what it's done for my lifephilosophy.
Please.
So, uh, I was born in theStates.
My parents are both fromMassachusetts.
They met at the University ofMassachusetts in the late 1960s.
Uh, they met on a blind dateand, uh, uh, and then my dad

(41:26):
finished one year before my momand he took a job at Union
Carbide, Union Carbide ChemicalCompany, which is now part of
Dow Chemical.
And he moved to a bunch ofplaces doing different roles,
rose fairly quickly, likethrough their, through their,
um, bureaucracy.
And when he was in.
I guess he was 35 and we wereliving in Connecticut somewhere
outside of, you know, suburbs ofNew York city type of thing.

(41:48):
And, uh, he had the opportunityto nominate someone on his team
to go be the, some version oflike deputy CIO for Europe.
Think of it that way.
I don't think that was what itwas called, but that's
essentially what it was.
And he basically said.
Well, hang on, this is aslightly more junior position
than I'm in now, but I wouldreally like to go work in

(42:09):
Switzerland.
So he put his hand up, and whenI was five, we moved to Geneva.
And so, I grew up in Geneva,Switzerland, until I was 16.
Oh wow, what a hub too, right?
So my entire schooling, fromgrade, from first year, first
day of first grade, up untilhalfway through Uh, 10th grade,

(42:29):
I was at the same school, theinternational school of Geneva
and I lived there.
It's a bilingual school.
Yeah, I was going to say theytaught you English and stuff
properly, but also It used to bethe UN international school,
then it changed its name.
So it's, uh, there were twosides, there's a bilingual
English side and a French side.
I had to learn, I had to learn athird language.
I took German for several years.
Uh, and What that did for me wasit kind of showed me how small

(42:54):
the world is.
Now, the school that I went to,the school that I went to had
probably.
I think the, I think the numberwas like 60 different
nationalities represented withinthe school.
And so, you know, you go to, yougo down to the cafeteria and
there's someone from SaudiArabia and there's someone from
South Africa and there's someonefrom Canada and there's someone
from England or whatever.
And we all learned to get along.

(43:15):
We all, we all growing uptogether, right?
So you're just kind of figuringout what does it mean to be
human, right?
How many students in this wholeschool?
It was not a big school.
Not a big school.
I don't know the full number.
I would guess there might'vebeen like a hundred to 150 in my
year.
Okay.
Okay.
Right.
Divided into different littleclasses.
Yeah, sure.
So, but that's just a guess.
Yeah.

(43:35):
Um, probably like a medium,pretty big, medium sized school.
Yeah.
Not a gigantic thing, but thewhole, everything from first
grade all the way to the end,but the diversity quotient is
off the charts.
Super high, super high.
Yeah.
And, uh, so, cause a lot ofpeople are like, oh, wow, you
grew up in Europe.
What was it like?
And I'm like, it was just, forme, it was just, Right.
I mean, I did basketball andbaseball and boy scouts and, you

(43:57):
know, there's some classes Iliked, some classes I didn't
like, and right.
So, you know, sort of normalstuff.
It just happened to be in, inwhat a lot of people think of as
an exotic and interestingsetting.
Um, and, but, you know, for me,it was really suddenly
understanding or not suddenly,it was, it was really embodying
and seeing every day that.

(44:18):
The world is small, there'speople all around, everyone
basically has the same needs andchallenges and interests and,
uh, that there's nothing to fearfrom going somewhere new or
exploring something or, orworking, you know, having
colleagues or, or friends whoare, look different than you or
sound different than you orspeak a different language at
home than you do and stuff likethat.
And so it made me verycomfortable in a, in a global

(44:41):
environment.
Yeah.
And so later in life, later inmy life, like I went to, I went
to.
University at Georgetown inWashington, DC, again, super,
super international.
I was in the school of foreignservice.
Uh, after that I lived inBoston, London, Baltimore, back
in London, went to businessschool in France and Singapore.

(45:03):
Then I moved to Hong Kong.
Then I moved to Beijing and thenI moved to Boulder.
So out of all those Baltimoreseems like the one doesn't
really fit.
Totally doesn't fit.
And I was, they twisted my armto get there.
I was working for the samecompany.
And I was in London and theywere like, basically, basically
they were like, Hey, we needsomebody to go to Baltimore.
We need, we need, we need you,we need you at this office in
Baltimore or you're, or we'regoing to fire you have a future

(45:25):
in this company.
Yeah.
And I was like, fine.
And I, and I did it for about ayear and a half.
And there were pockets to like,there were things to like, but
generally speaking, it was kindof an outlier in my life and,
uh, I didn't stay there forsuper long.
Yeah, fair enough.
Um, and you landed in Boulderand you're like, okay, I'm done
moving around with this.
Yeah, I mean, in between, inbetween, in the late nineties,

(45:47):
my parents moved to Boulderfrom, from Massachusetts.
So they moved out here.
And so my wife and I were livingin, in China.
I lived, in total, I lived inAsia for like five years.
And, uh, And where did you findher at?
Um, so, in January 2006.

(46:07):
Okay.
I'd been living in Hong Kong forabout three months.
Alright.
Uh, I moved to Hong Kong forthis job, and I, just because I
was like, I want to live inAsia, it looks cool, like, bang,
let's figure it out, I made ithappen, I found a company,
awesome.
So I moved to Hong Kong, and, asyou do when you move to a new
town, you know, people are like,oh, I know such and such, and,
you know, so on.
My, one of my cousins had said,Danielle had said, Oh, a friend

(46:29):
of mine from high school worksfor the U S consulate in Hong
Kong.
You should meet her when you getthere.
I'm like, yeah, sure.
Great.
Wonderful.
And like, there's a lot of thesewhen, when you're in late
twenties, there's a lot ofpeople, there's a lot of people
who know people and you'resupposed to meet this person,
that person and whatever.
So, so I met this guy at a, at aMexican bar in Hong Kong and I
had a beer and a shot oftequila.

(46:50):
Right?
And when we met and drank ourcake, great, and we hung out a
few times, he introduced me to afriend of his, and that friend
of his, uh, had a wife, he alsoworked at the consulate, he had
a wife who was from Spain.
Okay, great.
And then you met her sister.
So, so this was, so this was in,so this was in, so I moved there
in 2005, so in early 2006,January 2006, uh, I'm at the

(47:14):
gym.
I'm in the, I'm in the lockerroom and I see there's a missed
call from my, from my friendTyler and voicemail, voicemail.
He's like, Hey, uh, I want tosee if you want to come over for
dinner tonight.
And immediately I'm like, Oh, Ijust got back from a business
trip.
I'm tired.
I don't feel like going out, youknow, whatever, like, you know,
like, no, I don't feel like it.
And then, yeah, but then heleaves the little kicker at the

(47:35):
end.
He's like, yeah, I want to seeif you want to come over for
dinner tonight.
Uh, we're, we invited a coupleof, uh, my wife's friends who,
these Mexican girls are comingover too.
Okay.
So I'm like, huh, that sounds alot more interesting.
I'm willing, I'm willing.
And, uh, and so I was like, allright, I rallied and, and, and
went out there and, uh, on myway into their apartment, they

(47:57):
lived on Kennedy Road in HongKong and I lived on McDonnell
Road, which is just above it.
So.
Walked down there and as I'mgetting to the, to his, his
house, into the lobby of theapartment building, there's two
ladies standing there, lookingat the little like door thing.
You're supposed to punch in thecode.
And I just walk up to them and Isaid, I bet you're looking for

(48:17):
14 B or whatever his apartmentnumber was.
And they're like, Oh yeah, howdid you know?
And we walk in together and oneof them.
Was my wife.
So I spent the next, uh, did ittake you a while to figure out
which one it did?
I was very clear on the onethat, that I was, uh, that I was
attracted to.
And then I spent the next likeseveral days, like chasing her

(48:37):
around home, wherever she wasgoing, I was, you know, Oh, I'm
going to be in that area too.
Let's grab a coffee.
Let's hang out.
And, uh, uh, but amazingly shelived in some of my wife's name
is Laura.
So, so she was living in Mexico,Guadalajara, uh, and I lived in
Hong And so we were like, How isthis all going to work?
And over the course of the oneyear that we were together

(49:00):
before we got married, wemanaged to see each other pretty
much once a month, somewhere.
So we met in San Francisco,Boston, Guadalajara, Bali,
India, Hong Kong, Paris,whatever it all is more.
Cause you know, like we wereboth like.
early thirties.
I think we were both 30 at thetime.
And so it's just like, you know,traveling for work.

(49:21):
And so she'd go somewhere andI'd make up some excuse to go
to, or, you know, it's also theage when friends are getting
married.
All sorts of social stuff.
Social pressures are there.
All sorts of stuff.
So we'd just meet here.
We'd meet there.
It was awesome.
And then we got married, uh, 13months after we met.
Oh, wow.
Congratulations.
Yeah, we just had our 18.
18th anniversary.

(49:42):
Laura, yeah.
So, so, I mean like.
Laura effectively for.
Laura.
Correct.
Laura with the Mexicanpronunciation.
I can't roll my R's properly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I kind of can sometimes, but.
Um, and so you picked her upalong the way and, uh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we moved, we moved toBoulder.
So now you're a team moving toBoulder.
We moved to Boulder because wedecided we, we wanted, we didn't
want to live in China anymore.

(50:02):
Yeah.
And so.
One of the things about livingin China is it's, it's very
cool.
Super interesting.
Beijing was a really, reallyneat city to live in.
I super enjoyed it.
And I super enjoyed it right upinto the minute where I was
like, we need to leave now.
So one day Laura was just like.
It's over like, we're like nowwe're, we're leaving.

(50:24):
And so instead of fight it, Iwas just like, okay.
And I think within six weeks wehad sold everything, put other
things in boxes, bake it in theapartment and boom, we were off.
But we had a dog, anotherminiature Schnauzer, Jackie, who
we adopted in Hong Kong, and itwas like, what do we do with
Jackie?
It was like, well, maybe my dadwas, yeah.
So my dad came over and waslike, Hey dad, would you mind

(50:46):
taking the dog back with you?
Uh, and so when we decided tomove.
To the states was literally whatwe thought of it as.
Like, okay, let's move to theStates.
Where, where do we go?
pick up the dog first.
Well, we'll go pick up the dogfirst and here we are 13 years
later.
Um, I jump ahead sometimes, butI could tell that's where you
were going.
Yeah.
Um, well, schnauzers shouldguide the way.

(51:06):
They're smart dogs.
Well, so Jackie, so we, weadopted Jackie from the Hong
Kong dog rescue when she was 10.
Oh, wow.
So she was this incredibly sweetdog.
She had this stare, you know,she would just like get her way
by like burrowing into yourheart and, uh, absolutely lovely
dog.
She lived until.

(51:28):
Almost 18 years old.
Yeah.
Super dog.
I hope we have the same, uh,Tucker just turned 12 this month
actually.
So, uh, so let's see.
So you find Boulder and thenlike, started company, started
company.
Shortly after you started thecompany, like what was the
impetus there?
Were you capitalized?
Did you not have a job?
You were just moving back to theStates.

(51:48):
Yeah, I'd been, I'd been, I'dbeen an entrepreneur already,
but I just moved back to theStates and was like, what do I
do?
And, and Laura was like, Oh,well, you've been having this
one idea.
So.
I had an idea.
It was in the HR software space,called up a bunch of people.
I know some of them said, yeah,sure.
I don't have anything else goingon.
Uh, my business partner, uh,moved here from South Africa,

(52:08):
uh, to, to start the business,super incredible.
Some of that you knew before.
Yeah, I knew from beforeincredible coders, super
talented, and, uh, we were ableto build a, and we had a couple
of other people who joined us.
So we had a great gang and ableto get a business off the
ground.
And that's what we went throughtech stars.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was the cap capta capta.

(52:29):
Um, like, would you, what wouldyou say were your special sauces
in terms of being anentrepreneur?
It sounds like you were the ideaperson and kind of needed to
build teams, both of skills,people, as well as investors to
make these ideas happen.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
Where, where do you like?

(52:50):
How, how did you get good atthat?
Like, you hadn't done it before,right?
Yeah.
I mean, um, or a little bit kindof, I'd, I'd done, I'd done some
of this sort of stuff before andso lemme see.
Like, what's the interesting wayto answer that?
Um, I'm not sure that I did itparticularly well.

(53:12):
Okay.
Fair.
You know, like I would say that,uh, I had some, the idea was
good enough to weather all ofthe The idea was, the idea was
good enough.
And then the spirit was there todo it.
Um, but when I look back at thatpart of my entrepreneurial
journey, I think we missed someopportunities.

(53:33):
I think I wasn't as, uh,courageous about really
examining all the differentassumptions behind the business.
Uh, I don't, I did notunderstand.
What it meant to capitalize abusiness for the future.
What I'm, what I mean by thatwas, is, is I was happy taking

(53:56):
small checks and not realizing,Oh, to get a software company
off the ground, it actuallytakes several millions of
dollars, you know?
So we, what we did is we raised.
We raised like 750 K and it waslike, Oh, cool.
Awesome.
But it doesn't last that long.
Halfway there.
Right.
And then, and it was like, Ohshit, we need to raise more.

(54:17):
So then we went back and raisemore.
And then, and then everyone waslike, yeah, but you didn't do
all the things you said you weregoing to do the first time and
So I thought it was incrediblypainful.
Yeah, yeah.
And I do remember And the marketdoesn't get any bigger in the
meantime, usually.
Things don't get any easier.
Right.
And, and I remember, I remembertwo really good pieces of advice
that I got.
Didn't, didn't do anything withthem, but they were true.

(54:37):
Um, the, the first one wassomeone telling me, Hey,
actually to make this work, youneed millions of dollars.
And I was like, no, no, look athow far we're going to get with
750 or 500, whatever.
And he was like, nah, youactually are going to need
resources.
So I should have listened tothat one.
Um, and then the second one was.
When you're at the very, verybeginning, you can raise on the

(54:59):
idea, the energy and the vision,as soon as you start getting
revenue and customers, you onlyraise and get measured on the
metrics.
And so it's great at thebeginning, you have no idea.
And so it's okay to say.
Hey, we've got this giganticmarket and we're going to do
this and that.
And it's going to grow, butgangbusters and so on.
And, and some people will buyinto it and be willing to invest

(55:21):
in some people won't.
And that's okay.
But then as soon as you getcustomers, it's like, well,
what's your customer growthrate?
What's your retention rate?
Are they buying new stuff?
How many users do they have?
Uh, what's your NPS score?
You get all these like, likemetrics.
And then they say, well, sinceit's a business, we're going to
value this based based on yourgrowth rate and your cash flow
and so on and so forth.

(55:42):
So everything gets a lot harderand entrepreneurs don't
understand that part aboutfundraising.
So raising at the seed round to,to some extent, like you're
doing that on the dream and thefuture and the promise people
who are then raising series a,b, c, etc.
That's all the mechanics of thebusiness.
So go bigger on the seed.
If you have a chance, is that afair statement?

(56:05):
I like, if I did this again, itwould be to raise enough capital
at the beginning that we felt wecould give it a good shot,
right?
Give it a real shot.
Or don't go to the well to startwith.
Yeah.
So basically just like.
Like right now, amplify notraise money, extremely low cost
business, good dynamics.
I don't need to raise money, butif I was doing something that

(56:28):
needed resources, you've got togo find the resources.
And so, you know, one of theissues that a lot of
entrepreneurs that I know, um,are suffering with right now is
they raise money.
500 K a million dollars,something that sounded
interesting and meaningful atthe time.
And now they're like, ah, butyou know, I've got a 10 person
team and we have customers, wehave revenue, but we don't have

(56:50):
enough revenue to covereverything.
And so, you know, they're, andthe thing is An investor who
gave you money for, you know,back in the day, five, let's
say, let's say you raise amillion on a 6 million pre or
something like that.
They're like fairly excitedabout you and they're like, all
right, but I understand they'rea whole lot less willing if all
of a sudden you're down to fivepeople and you might have half a

(57:12):
million revenue.
They're like.
Uh, right.
Right.
Cause these guys are all aboutswings, right?
Like they want to see you swingand hitting it.
And so the other thing that I,you know, when I think back on
my journey here is like, Ishould have thought harder about
just shutting it down.
Really?
Yes.
So the business continued andthe business is still going now.

(57:33):
Okay.
And we pivoted the business.
We found a thing that worked, etcetera.
So I'm not saying this as a, asa knock on the business, but I'm
saying for me as a CEO, I shouldhave thought more about.
Do we stick with this or not?
Wow.
Because what I realized was theopportunity cost.
Is real, the sunk cost fallacyis real attribution bias is

(57:55):
real, right?
Attribution biases.
This is my idea.
So it must be a good idea,right?
And sunk cost is I've alreadybeen doing this for five years.
What what's one more year.
Versus am I excited about thefuture, which is the opportunity
cost.
So I actually quit the company Ifounded last summer.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.

(58:16):
Okay.
So this is the thing is I was, Ijust got to the point where I
was burned out.
I wasn't being helpful oreffective to the business.
So I was not in service, I wasnot of service to the business.
And then I was feeling guiltybecause I didn't, my head wasn't
in it.
So it made me less effectivebecause I felt guilty.
And so I was like, what the fuckam I doing?

(58:37):
Like I'm a bad, I would, I wouldsay I'm being a bad CEO is what
I was telling myself, right?
Because a good CEO would be, youknow, focused and hard charging
and doing all these things.
And well, meanwhile, you'repassionate about the conscious
entrepreneurs.
Some of it, and I'm just like,and I'm just doing things to
like distract me from this,right?
Instead of what was really goingon.
I'd run my course with thebusiness, the business deserves

(58:58):
a new home, a new, new thing, etcetera.
And it took me a long time tofully separate myself out
because I was like, oh, youknow, I was, I was like, uh,
trapped by this idea.
Oh, we just need one more X, X,literally one more customer, one
more year, one more feature, onemore, you know, whatever it is.

(59:20):
Right.
And, uh, I would have been bet Iwould have been better off
myself.
Like.
Several years earlier saying,Hey, you know what?
I got it to a certain level.
I'm, I'm, I'm ready to go on anddo something else.
I'm not as bad as I was.
And I stuck with it too long.
Yeah.
Well, thanks for confessing thatthat's actually pretty cool.
Um, oh, and I was just going tomention while I'm thinking about

(59:42):
it, that in banking, like peoplewould come to try to borrow, you
know, a hundred or 150 grandsometimes for an SBA loan.
And I was, I was really good atstartup financing.
I could see that combination oftalent and perseverance.
Yeah.
And gosh, I bet about 20 or 30percent of the time, and it
wasn't because I wanted to makea bigger loan, but borrow a

(01:00:05):
little more than you think youneed.
Like, make that case because youcan't really come back to the
well with banks either.
Correct.
Like, you can get a startuploan, but if you come back for
more because it didn't work likeyou thought it was gonna work,
nope, you fool me once.
It's not a good luck.
Yeah.
It's not a good luck.
And it's probably maybe a tinymore forgiving when you're
talking about equity.

(01:00:26):
But not that much.
Well, it's the same kind ofgame.
So, so the, the surprising thingabout the equity investor, to
your point, the surprising thingabout the equity investor is
that they are willing to let thecompany go poof.
Right.
Right.
They're just like, Oh, it didn'twork out.
Right.
Sorry.
And you're like, well, wait aminute.
You put in a million dollars.
And they're like, yeah,whatever.
Yeah.
I put a million into a bunch ofother things too.

(01:00:46):
And I'm going to go put anotherfew million.
And you're like, but this is mybaby.
Like, and they're just like, Idon't care.
Bye.
Bye.
Yeah.
Banks are always trying to gettheir money back.
Right.
And the investors are just like.
Yeah.
Well, part because their, theirmodel is they want a 25 X return
on one deal, right?
Right.
Yeah.
Versus the other, the rest ofthem are just occupying time and

(01:01:06):
space in their brain.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Understood.
Um, well, we're gonna take abreak.
Okay.
And we'll come right back.

(01:02:01):
And we are back.
Um, so now is when wetraditionally come into our
faith, family, and politicssegments.
Um, Well, do you have apreference on where we start in
that?
Lester, go ahead.
Um, I feel like we should talkabout family more'cause we kind
of met your wife along thejourney here.
Um, do you guys have children?
Uh, we don't have children.
Okay.
Even though that social pressurein your early 30 or 30 ish was

(01:02:24):
there to like start making somesmart babies and stuff.
It, it was all there.
We, we couldn't, we, we tried,uh, IVF we tried.
Uh oh.
So you did full boat?
Oh, we did.
We did everything.
But, uh, it didn't happen.
My wife and I don't.
Also don't have any children.
And, uh, but we've hosted abunch of exchange students.
Um, and so if you're looking forsomething to have periods of
adulting in your life, I highlyrecommend like a, we're, we're

(01:02:47):
finishing up our first one yearexchange right now.
Wow.
The whole school year.
Wow.
I'd recommend the semesterexchange.
Start smaller.
Like, yeah, at least startsmaller before you go big.
And even now I'm like.
You know, Lenny's awesome.
Lenny from Finland is stayingwith us, but like, I'm kind of
tired of putting my robe on whenI want to go from the shower to

(01:03:07):
my bedroom, um, and there's justthings like that, that, well, I
mean, you know, we, so, so wehave a very, uh, Laura and I
have a very quiet life comparedto all of our friends with kids.
Right.
And so occasionally there'sslaves to their children.
Well, we, you know, and we, we,we have a lot of friends that
have kids and, and when we, whenwe hang out with them, uh, I
mean, there's times when we'rejust like, holy shit, like how

(01:03:27):
do people with children getAnything done ever, like our
needs, like my, my niece, ourgoddaughter was over with, with
Laura's brother and his, hiswife in January.
And it's just like total chaosall the time.
And like the success of the dayis like having lunch.
Well, and I think there's onething that's interesting about
that is I think that people withchildren actually get like an

(01:03:52):
extra switch flipped where theycan actually work a little
harder and they have a littlebit more.
Purposeful intention to theirdays.
And, you know, probably to someextent they don't, this is going
to sound weird, but they don'tneed the conscious entrepreneurs
summit as much because they knowthat they're working to like
raise their kids and provide fortheir family and the purpose.
Yeah.

(01:04:13):
Uh, if, as long as you got that,you can kind of pedal hard even
without really knowing whereyou're trying to go.
Right.
So, uh, talk to me about, um,Your wife a little bit more.
Um, was she born and raised inEurope also, or like, what was
her circumstance in a, as aperson?
Sure.
So, so, uh, Laura's fromGuadalajara.
Well, she's, she was born inMexico city and she grew up in

(01:04:34):
Guadalajara.
All right.
Uh, so she's a full, full onMexico.
She, both of her parents havepassed away.
Uh, but she has a.
Big family, Mexico, great peoplethat live all over the country
actually.
Yeah.
Uh, and so we go down there andsee them, see them a lot.
Yeah.
Uh, and you know, it's funny,she, her, her, you're like the

(01:04:55):
tall white guy that comes tosome of the Well, so some,
sometimes, yeah.
Yeah.
In co comparison to some, someof her friends call me, um,
Blanco.
So uh, you know, yes, I'm a lot,I'm a lot fairer skinned and I
burn a lot easier than, uh, thana lot of her friends.
Um, but, uh.
You know, she, she has this veryadventurous part of her.

(01:05:17):
And so when it, when we gotmarried, when, when, when we,
when we got engaged and all thisstuff, like, um, there wasn't,
there wasn't this sense of like,Oh, you're leaving.
Right.
Like, Oh, stay in Mexico.
It was much more of the sense oflike, we always knew you were
going to.
Go travel and go find someoneover internationally and stuff

(01:05:37):
like that.
So, uh, that wasn't such a greatbig shock for her family that
she was marrying a foreigner,marrying a gringo.
Uh, and, uh, so that that'sallowed us to have a life living
in lots of places because afterwe got married, we lived in Hong
Kong and then we lived inBeijing and now we live in
Boulder.
So it's had a, uh, it's beengreat for, for us to like have
that shared.

(01:05:57):
Desire, if you will.
Sure.
Sure.
And are your, your parents werein Boulder before you were, are
they still with you guys?
Yeah, my, yeah, my, my parents,my parents are still alive.
Uh, my mom moved into a memoriescare center in Boulder in, in
August.
So she has Alzheimer's and soshe needs full time care and
attention.
My dad has been looking afterher as, as the caretaker for,

(01:06:19):
for two or three years, which ishuge, huge amount of work, uh,
really ton of, ton of work.
It's been wearing him down.
Of course it was, Pretty toughdecision to, you know, they've
been married for 55 years,everything you can to keep that
from happening.
Correct.
Correct.
You do.
But you know, in, in, in August,it was like, Hey, you know, we,
we really need to do this.
Uh, we did it.

(01:06:41):
The good thing is that theSenate that she's in is super
close to my house actually.
So like, so we're able to seeher a lot.
Uh, you know, she's on ajourney.
She's fading.
She's on, she's on a journey.
And, and unfortunately this isjust, it's a one way road.
My, my, my dad's mom had, yeah.
Dementia, Alzheimer's and, youknow, it took, gosh, for her, it
was like seven years, probably,that she was institutionalized

(01:07:05):
with, you know, just strugglesto live on her own kind of
capability and, uh, yeah, it's,I don't know.
Um, it's an interesting thing.
Like it's, uh, I don't know howto think about this right.
Like sub comedian said recently,you know, um.
You know, a lot of, uh, Downsyndrome babies are aborted and

(01:07:26):
stuff like that, and thehospital will be like, Hey, you
should do this if they figure itout.
But Down's people are like thehappiest people he's ever known.
Um, and I've kind of appliedthat in some respects almost to
the Alzheimer's dementia kind ofquadrant that Except for those
times of extreme frustration,you know, especially early on,
like to some extent, they'rekind of chilling, you know,

(01:07:49):
some, some of them, some ofthem, that's not what's
happening.
No, it's not.
Uh, you know, the, the way thatthis seems to be affecting her
is, um, it's primarily hitting,uh, like her visual perception
and her visual analysis andtherefore how she, She
experiences the world, um,confusion all the time,
inability to recognize ordinaryobjects in front of her,

(01:08:13):
doesn't, not sure what, youknow, how to, how to put, you
know, the clothing, all thatsort of stuff.
Very difficult.
She could be looking at two verydifferent objects and have no
idea what they are.
Um, you know, type of thing.
So it's, it's really, and wedon't.
You know, there's a lot thatpeople don't know about this,
and so we don't know what'sexactly going on.
We don't know how to, how totruly help, uh, and so it's like

(01:08:36):
really tough to see this, yeah.
Well, I'll, uh, maybe be blessedwith strength and, uh,
perseverance as this goes.
Thank you.
And be blessed by whateverservice you can provide.
Um, you guys have schnauzers.
Yeah.
Or you had one, now you haveanother one.
Yeah.
Um, so Well, actually, actually,I'll tell you a story.
Okay.
So, we had another one.

(01:08:58):
Uh We, when, when, when Jackiedied, uh, it was devastating.
Like putting my dog down wasjust like the worst.
Uh, and then we finally camearound to, okay, we want to get
another, we want to get anotherdog.
Uh, and right around that time,I read this.
This great book called Tribe, Ithink the author is Sebastian

(01:09:20):
Junger.
Yeah.
Does that sound familiar?
I've seen the title, but Ihaven't read it.
Okay, so it's a great book andit's about how we all need
connection in our lives and howwe're all better together and so
on.
So I'm reading this book and I'mlike, oh, we don't need one
puppy, we need two puppies.
Okay.
So that they can keep each othercompany and they can Each other
tribe, it's gonna, they're gonnabe each other's friends and
they'll all be together.
Uh, and so my wife's like, areyou sure about this?

(01:09:42):
And I'm like, yeah, I just readit.
I read a book, but yeah, let'sdo it.
Um, and so we got our, we gotour dog in, in Mexico.
Okay.
Uh,'cause it's, because, youknow, it's, they're in the town
where Lara's aunts live and it'svery easy and whatever sch now
SNS are expensive in the, the USSN are like$200 in Mexico,
right?
So we.
So we, like, you know, FaceTimewith the guy or video, you know,

(01:10:05):
we had the, we know the dogswe're getting and we had the one
and we told him in advancebefore she was born, don't dock
the tail.
So Dash has a long tail.
So we're like, don't dock thetail.
We don't want to be, we want ourdog to be intact.
Like we, poor thing, like hertail's cut off.
So we're like, don't dock thetail.
And then we're like, Oh shit.
We don't want a second dog.
Go find a second dog.
And he's like, well, we, we'vegot one, but the tail's already

(01:10:27):
docked.
And we're like, okay, we'll keepthose two dogs.
We'll do that.
And so, uh, one night I was, Iwas drifting off to sleep.
I was literally like just aboutto get sleep and I jump up and I
look at my wife and I go.
Dot and dash, like that's thename of the dogs dot for the one
that doesn't have a tail anddash for the one that does,

(01:10:49):
that's what we're going to callthem.
And then I went back to sleepand then, and then, but I had
the names, the names justappeared.
Right.
And it was like, perfect.
So we go down, we go down toMexico one time when we're
visiting her family and it'sChristmas time, we're picking up
the dogs.
And we go to the, we go to the,the breeder thing and we get the
dogs, we bring them back to theStates and literally all hell

(01:11:09):
breaks loose once we have twodogs in the house.
Like they are just chasing eachother and barking and fighting
and they'll pay, they won't payany attention to the humans.
Yeah, you're not the boss.
And they're, they're like justtrying to establish dominance
over the other.
And they won't, you know,they're not eating.
And we, we had to split them upto take them to the humane
society for the trainingsessions and all this sort of

(01:11:31):
stuff.
And, but it's like, they'resquabbling on it.
And so Laura and I were justlike.
What did we do?
Like, this is so much work.
This is exponentially different.
This is not two times having apuppy.
This is like 25 times having apuppy.
What did we do?
Why is this so much work?
Why is this so difficult?
And as soon as we do that, Istart Googling and literally

(01:11:52):
every single page is like, don'tget two puppies at the same
time.
Don't get two, never get twopuppies.
If there's one piece of lifeadvice, it's never get two
puppies.
And I was like, uh oh.
Uh, so I guess I made a mistakehere because they're, cause they
say the dogs, they won't payattention to you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They want not to do, and, and.
They're competing for likedominance instead of just
acknowledging you as the bossman.

(01:12:14):
So therefore.
So, can I interject actually?
Cause the first thought thatcame into my mind when you said
that is.
An old truism, I guess, from myfather.
Um, and it was, gosh, I wasprobably a teenager in high
school, he's like, or maybe Iwas already in college even,
he's like, son, you know, a dogis a good thing to have, you
know, a man should have a dog,it's a good, good thing, but.

(01:12:34):
No dogs is way better than twodogs.
Uh, yeah.
And that was all he ever saidabout it.
Your dad was right about that.
Your dad was right about that.
So what, what I learned, uh, alittle bit too late was that
you, it's okay to have two dogs.
If you want your dog to have afriend, that's okay.
But wait until one dog is like ayear or two old and then get a
puppy.
Yeah, yeah.
Right?
Or whatever.
But when there are two puppies,it's a disaster.

(01:12:55):
So.
It's a nightmare.
Now on the topic of family,Laura and I are very blessed.
We have a very peaceful life.
We have a great marriage.
We love and respect each other.
We're committed to one another.
We've had a great time.
The closest we have ever gottento divorce was when I sold the

(01:13:16):
second dog.
Oh, no shit.
Yes.
So you were like, I'm, I'mtaking care of business.
We're like, I put the dog onCraig's list and, and, and, and,
uh, made a nice tidy margin.
Cause it's a snazzer after all.
So the funny, the funny thing iswe had these two dogs.
We had the one dog, Dot, who waslike, jet black, beautiful, very

(01:13:38):
good behavior, smart dog,connected to humans, total doll,
like, textbook beautiful dog.
Yeah.
And then we had the other one,which is the one we kept, which
is like, goofy, not as pretty,she's kind of like the, she's
kind of like, I don't know.
Monocode.
Yeah, she's just like.
Anyway, she's not, doesn't look,she's cute in her own way, but
like, she's different.
She's definitely not that smarteither.

(01:14:00):
But that's the one we decided tokeep, and I sold the other one.
Okay.
And, you know, basically thefamily just came over, and Laura
was like, Oh, we need to thinkabout it, this, that, and the
other, and I was like, Here'sthe dog, think about it.
And, whew, boy.
Uh.
So I felt like I was justsolving a problem, right?
And I was actually creating agigantic problem and I was

(01:14:22):
breaking trust with my wife andit caused, you guys talked with
your counselor about that.
It caused tremendous upset forher because that was her baby
for a week, for a week or two.
So that was, that was a bigproblem and I was reminded of it
many times, rightfully so.
Uh, and.

(01:14:43):
Anyway, so yeah, so, so themoral of the story is Good job,
Laura, for allowing him thatindiscretion.
Yeah, we, we survived, wesurvived, uh, it wasn't easy.
By the way, like, not having theone dog was also not very
pleasant, but, you know, like,giving away the dog was, was
great, but way better to justhave one than, than two.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you can go steal that dogback sometime.

(01:15:03):
Yeah, moral of the story.
It moved, it moved to, uh,Colorado Springs.
Yeah, you can go down there fora weekend sometime and kind of
scope out the spotting scope,you know, and see if Dash is,
uh, ready to be adopted.
Um, faith or politics would youlike to venture into?
Uh, I mean, I could talk abouteither.
My, my politics, uh, I told youI went to college at Georgetown.

(01:15:26):
Yeah.
Uh, Washington DC is a school offoreign service, cultural thing
going on right now.
I imagine.
Oh, I'm, I'm sure a lot ofmayhem going on people's
thoughts right now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so, so Georgetown is aschool that has produced a lot
of people in government andproduced a lot of politicians,
uh, and produced a presidentbill Clinton.

(01:15:47):
Sure.
So, uh, I was big, I am big fanof bill Clinton when I was, when
I just went to school that whenI was, yeah.
Basically, uh, I started in 94,so he was, he'd been president
for two years.
So it was cool because he wouldlike come back to the alma mater
and like give speeches.
Like, really cool.
Uh, so, my politics are, are,are liberal.
Uh, fan of, fan of Bill, Bill,fan of Bill Clinton, Obama.

(01:16:12):
Well, Bill Clinton would beconservative in today's world.
A lot of respects, though.
Yeah, I mean Um, although theworld has changed, not
necessarily the rankings, right?
The U.
S.
is always skewed to the right.
So even the people that weconsider liberal in the U.
S.
typically would be centrist inEurope, for example.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
And, uh, but, you know, big fanof, big fan of, uh, Bill

(01:16:33):
Clinton, I worked on his reelection campaign in 1996.
So I was like, you know, studentvolunteer on his re election
campaign in 96.
Uh, and, and that was fun.
And I had a chance to shake hishand a couple of times at events
and whatever.
Um, What do you think about thecurrent events in politics?
Um, I'm guessing that thegeneral, like Lerner County,

(01:16:55):
like in the last election, what,like 67 percent for Paris, which
is one of the few counties thatactually increased from the
Biden.
We were like 88 or somethinglike that.
So I would imagine that there'sa lot of.
Nashing of teeth andconsternation culturally going
on right now and Boulder isprobably more heavily funded
from federal Grants than FortCollins, which is pretty heavily

(01:17:17):
funded, too.
Mm hmm Have you gotten in thoseconversations or no, I don't
really have much insight intothe into the funding mechanisms
I know that like people inBoulder were pretty fucking
pissed off, right?
And it hasn't gotten a lotbetter since November and You
know, and, and, and as itrelates to Trump, uh, he is

(01:17:40):
doing what he said he was goingto do.
And so I see a lot of videos onX.
com.
Yeah.
Say that, you know, so the, the,the, the reminders are that
elections have consequences andto the victor belong the spoils.
And.
He is our vehicle of remindingof us of that right now, you

(01:18:02):
know, like he said he was whathe was gonna do He's doing it
and we shouldn't all be actingsurprised about what's what's
going on You know, I don't agreewith essentially any of what's
happening and I wish I wish itwas the outcome had been
different I wish Kamala Harriswere our president.
I wish there was some Democrator whatever but you know the

(01:18:25):
world that we live in is suchthat We have this scorched
earth, winner takes all politicsand I don't think it's setting
us up for future success at all.
So that makes me, makes me veryuncertain.
And we have a lot of friends whoare like, why are we still here?
Why bother?
Why stay in the States?
Interesting.
Um, like a lot of what's gettingthe headlines is just cutting of

(01:18:49):
unnecessary spending stuff.
Yeah.
Do you agree with some of that?
Just not the fashion by whichit's done?
Or when I, as a banker, youknow, 15 years of banker, when I
look at.
our like debt profile as acompany, the United States of
America.
I look at that, you know, 30,whatever trillion kind of thing

(01:19:09):
and look, if we don't turn thisaround, it's not going to work.
And so, and I, I, I voted forTrump for my first time,
actually.
I voted for Gary Johnson, theLibertarian and Kanye West
because I thought it was aprotest vote last time, but I
didn't like the way theDemocrats handle the primary and
I didn't like Kamala as a, as acandidate.

(01:19:29):
I thought she was Terrible.
Okay.
Um, and unelected, you know, andunprimaried.
Um, and so for the very firsttime I voted for Trump and I'm
kind of like in this mix ofnervous, but also as a, as a
more libertarian leaning kind ofguy from a, from a fiscal
perspective, I'm like, well,somebody had to stop going 2

(01:19:54):
trillion more a year into debteventually.
So, um, and so there's part ofme that's cautiously optimistic.
about some of the spendinguncoverings, we'll say.
I don't, I don't, I don't knowthe full detail on all the
numbers, but I do know thatRepublicans.
Republican administrations tendto talk a great game, and then

(01:20:18):
Well, and Trump was terriblelast time.
Like, he blew that up worse.
By the way, so was Bush.
Right, so who did all the tarp?
Well, because of wars, you know,mostly.
Well, who started the war?
Well, and Trump's the first antiwar Republican in a long time.
Which, I don't think there'sanything wrong with being anti
war.
Uh, the, but the thing that I doknow is The messaging on the

(01:20:41):
debt is one thing, the actionson the debt are something
completely different.
Right.
And it's, it's funny becauseThe, it's like one of these big
immovable blocks.
Republicans are better atspending and taxation and so on,
but as far as I'm aware, atleast, and I'm not a
professional at this, as far asI'm aware, it's not true in the

(01:21:02):
slightest.
Like, the only president, or thelast one to have anything close
to a balanced budget or asurplus was Bill Clinton.
Yeah, yeah.
Totally.
Well, and that's And he was thelast person to talk about
reducing the size of governmentin any capacity.
They had, they had that very,very famous thing with Al Gore
and they're doing this wholegovernment efficiency thing.
So I, I don't think that this isa trade off between should

(01:21:24):
government be efficiently runand effective or should it be
bloated and wasteful and stupid.
Right.
Like, yes, of course.
And at the same time, uh, I, Iunderstand the method that That
Elon Musk is going through.
Like, I understand his, Iunderstand how he operates,
right?
Super engineers it, cuts all theway down to the bone, and then

(01:21:45):
add back what we need to, butsee what we can survive without,
etc.
Okay, great.
Uh, I think there's So is itfair to say you're kind of
cautiously optimistic as well?
In that regard?
No.
No.
Here's why.
Okay.
Uh, I don't think this is aboutgovernment efficiency.
I think this is aboutbludgeoning the things that they

(01:22:06):
don't like.
Hmm.
Yeah.
And it's, I mean, there's adifference.
Yeah, for sure.
There's like an objective thingthat said, you know what, we
need to take the government downby X billions of dollars.
So let's do a review and seewhat's out there and see what we
want to keep and what we don'twant to keep.
Okay, fine.
If instead, it's.
We're going to go after thesethings that have cultural
significance, or that have somesort of, you know, meaning to

(01:22:27):
us, or that, right, kind of somesort of built in issues, we're
going to go for them, and thenwe're going to basically throw a
bomb into their office, eh.
Now if you see, um, which, Iwould not be shocked to see this
administration, like, announce abig Investment into the inner
cities of America, um, in partas a big middle finger to the,

(01:22:50):
the, the leaders of those innercities, right?
The, the, the Chicago's, theBoston's, the Detroit's, the New
York's, whatever.
And I think that that would bean amazing thing because we've
let our inner cities be rottenfor way too long in terms of
socioeconomic opportunity.
Like, is that something that youthink the more liberal caucus

(01:23:15):
would support?
Or would they not like itbecause Donald Trump said to do
it and so therefore we hate it?
Like, that's one of my concernsabout, not just that policy in
particular, but that's one thatI can imagine that you would
resonate with.
Sure.
And that I think Trump wouldresonate with, because he loves
the black vote, he loves theLatino vote, you know?
He's a populist.
That's how they do it.

(01:23:35):
Uh, he claims to be a populist.
And the I think the, the, theproof of the pudding is in the
eating, right?
So, so it depends on what'sgoing to happen.
And it depends on what theseguys are doing, what the
outcomes are.
Yeah.
Like it, it all depends.
Um, if let me put it this way,if I felt like I didn't agree
with this guy.

(01:23:56):
I didn't vote for him, but he'sclearly working in the interest
of solving big, complicatedproblems for the benefit of the
entire country, if not theentire world.
And we're all going to put ourheads together and see what the
outcomes are.
Maybe he has a differentapproach or wants to run
different experiments than Imight want.
Then I'd be like, okay, I getthat.
But that's not how I feel.

(01:24:18):
How I feel is Uh, this is alunatic with a vendetta who has
brought his own set of peoplein, uh, and are bullying the
entire country and basicallylike a mindfuck on the entire
country.
Which makes me less receptive towhat everybody else might be out

(01:24:38):
there.
Well, I like to say, uh, youknow, ask me to do something
nicely and I'm probably onboard, but tell me and I'm
raising both of these, you know?
And so that perception, like tome, that first scenario you
described of doing interestingthings to try to modernize and
efficiencize the government,that's me.

(01:24:59):
Been my heart tone so far,although very much a skeptic,
um, and I can see how you couldthink what you think, if that
makes sense.
Um, we haven't touched on faithyet, uh, not properly anyway.
Okay.

(01:25:57):
tell me about your, your faithbackground and your wife for
that matter, because I thinkthat's interesting when you're
talking about internationalcommunities and growing up in
Switzerland, which ishistorically, like, is
Switzerland still a Christiannation?
Well, uh, uh, Geneva is, I don'tknow if it's the birthplace, but
certainly the home of JohnCalvin.
Okay, so Calvinism.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:26:18):
So very serious people, theSwiss.
But, uh, not, not, that has notnecessarily Is Calvinism kind of
the predestination kind ofthing?
Uh, it's the Like, oh, I felldown the stairs, but that was
bound to happen because I thinkso, maybe, maybe.
Anyway, I digress.
But they're very, they're verylike serious and rigid, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So there's a reason the Swisshave the reputation that they
do.
Right, right.
Yeah, because it's true.

(01:26:40):
Uh, but, uh, so, but, uh, I'll,I'll share about Lara first.
So Lara is, uh, uh, culturallyand historically Catholic.
Mexico is a very Catholiccountry.
Yep, yep.
Um, and So she went to Catholicschools and, you know, went to
church all the time and, and allthis sort of stuff.
It's not been a guiding force inher life, in her life as an

(01:27:00):
adult, but it's something that'spervasive, it's pervasive in
Mexican culture.
It's just like what you do, it'sjust like how things are.
Uh, and so, you know, we gotmarried in a church.
Scandal.
It was a negotiation.
Uh, when she told me we weregetting married in church, I was
like, what?
And then But less disruptivethan you selling off Well, yeah,

(01:27:21):
it was less of a big dealbecause we We were still excited
about the potential.
About the future.
But my, so let me, I'll tellthat story in a second, but, uh,
so my, my, my mom's IrishCatholic.
Okay.
Right?
Uh, which comes with all theIrish Catholic guilt.
Yeah, yeah.
And all that sort of stuff.
And that kind of, that's whyyour beard is nice and white.

(01:27:42):
That's my beard, and that's whyI look up.
Your head is nice and bald.
That's how I look, I look like Ido because I'm Irish, and so
she's from, Springfield,Massachusetts, uh, Irish, Irish
Catholic family, uh, grew up.
So my mom also went to Catholicschools until she got to
university.
And so my dad, uh, probably gotdragged to church as a kid, but

(01:28:03):
like, it wasn't such a big dealfor him.
It wasn't really a part of hislife.
Uh, but when we were, when I wasa kid, we, I did get dragged to
church and.
You know, it was drag is theword, right?
It was like, ah, really?
And my mom, my mom will now saythat, uh, that she would have to
start warning us like onTuesday, right?
That we're going to church onSunday and just hear all the
bitching and moaning until itwas time Sunday and, uh, you

(01:28:26):
know, we wouldn't go off, but wewould go like Maybe every other
week or once a month.
Yeah, like, you know, sort ofthing.
It wasn't just Christmas andEaster, but it was like
occasional.
And we went to the Americanchurch in Geneva, not the, not
the Catholic church in Geneva.
And so we went there and, youknow, Which was basically what,
like a kind of a blandProtestant kind of church?
Episcopalian.

(01:28:47):
Okay.
So as close to Catholic as youcan get.
And everything was in English.
Pope was that cool.
And the, and the, there was awhole community there and like,
you know, friends went there andit's where we had like our boy
scout ceremonies were in thischurch.
So like, it was like a part ofthe community if you will.
Um, and I got, uh, but I hadgotten baptized Catholic when I

(01:29:07):
was born.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So, so this is going to be, thisis going to feature in our story
in our story in a second.
Okay.
Um, and then I was draggedkicking and screaming through a
confirmation process in theEpiscopalian church when I was
13 or 14.
And I was like, Oh, this is, youknow, but you memorize the books
of the Bible.
So they were going to withholdmy allowance or not give me a

(01:29:29):
skateboard or whatever it wasthat, you know, I went and I
went and I did this.
Uh, And then, and then I wentto, so Georgetown is a Jesuit
school.
Oh, it is.
Yeah.
That's right.
So I actually had a littleflirtation with Catholicism my
freshman year.
Yeah, the Jesuits are like thesuper conservative, no, they're
the super liberal part of theCatholic Church.

(01:29:49):
But they're a serious bunch.
They're a serious bunch.
They're serious, but they'repretty liberal.
Serious bunch.
And so I, I went, I went to massa couple of times.
Uh, probably like six or seventimes my first semester of
freshman year.
And cause I was like curious andwanted to explore and learn
about it.
But you know, it didn't really,didn't really stick if you will.
Um, and so organized religionhas never played much of a part

(01:30:11):
in my life, but never reallystuck, never really stuck.
But let me come back to thisgetting married in a church
thing.
So after we get engaged, uh.
You know, we had thisconversation about getting
married in a church, and I waslike, I had never even
considered getting married.
I was like, why bother?
We'll just go get married on thebeach in Mexico.
It's gonna be great.
Right.
And I was like, no, for myfamily, blah, blah, blah,
whatever, we're getting marriedin a church.

(01:30:32):
Okay, fine.
I exceed, I, I, I will allowthat.
I will call, I will compromise,and then I submit basically, and
then, and then she's like, okay,I need like some paperwork
because the priests are askingabout this, that, and the other.
Here's the problem, because Ihad been baptized, I accept the
Catholic this and this because Ihad been baptized Catholic.

(01:30:53):
Oh, but not confirmed Catholic.
I didn't quite count, but Icounted enough, like I could
have been a.
Total heathen, right?
Like, let's say that I wasJewish, or I was not Catholic,
or whatever.
The Catholics would have beenfine, he can still get married
in the church, he just has to,you know, sign here, or
whatever.
But because I had some Catholichistory and background But it

(01:31:13):
seemed like to them that you hadrejected the faith.
I had By going to Episcopalia.
I had to go have meetings withthis priest in Hong Kong, and
like, I got lectured like threeor four times, I had to go find
a buddy of mine.
To come and like be my sponsorfor the Catholicism thingy
majiggy.
And I was like, God, and I was,you know, I was, I had this job.

(01:31:37):
I was traveling all over thetraveling all over the world.
I was super busy and I wantednothing to do with this.
And it was like part of what Ihad to go through just to get
the stupid piece of paper sothat we, so that this.
Yeah, this guy would marry us atthis church in in Mexico.
So anyway, so all that just toget the piece of paper Largely
your faith journey is yeahReluctant Yes.

(01:32:01):
Acceptance.
Yes.
Ish.
Yes.
Of the cultural relevance.
So have you, have youinvestigated, like, like do you
think that a God spun this wholething up?
Like the God?
Like the one God?
Or do you think this is like ahappy accident and, and what do
you do with Jesus or Mohammed orlike the, the Jewish Talmud or

(01:32:27):
the Hindu book of Proverbs orwhatever they have?
I think there have always been.
Charismatic people in the worldwho find followers with messages
of hope and upliftment andimprovement.
And so you're one of those withthe conscious entrepreneur, I
mean, to, to like a 0.
000 fraction of it, but I thinkthere've always been these kinds

(01:32:49):
of people.
And then I think people hearwhat they want to hear and I
think stories and rituals, uh,emerge as a result of those.
And I think for the most part,they're well intentioned.
And I think that these thingshave been purveyors of death and
destruction for pretty much aslong as they've been around.
Yeah.
Uh, and so.
I don't spend a lot of time onorganized religion, and when it

(01:33:11):
comes to the bigger picturestuff, um, you know, my personal
experiences are that I, I spenda lot more time just connecting
with myself, and trying tounderstand who I am, and I spend
less time on big cosmologicalquestions.

(01:33:35):
Um, like where do you thinkethics come from?
If it's not from a creator typething or these old texts or
these old things like that's oneof the phrases or we call it a
meme almost sure that if if Godisn't God then the state is God
is something I've heard thegovernment is God whoever tells

(01:33:56):
me what to do because I've seena lot of evidence https: otter.
ai Told what to do.
Sure.
Um, in the world and whetherthat's by some kind of an
organized religion or some otherstuff, like people cling to
that.
So talking about like, what isthe right thing to do?
What is the ethical thing to do?
And how do you know that?

(01:34:18):
Uh, You know, my personal viewon this is that ethics is
primarily a social construct andthat we've all agreed over time
to behave in a certain way ornot behave in a certain way to
thou shalt not murder was tomaximize happiness and potential
in everyone and we've realizedthat it's not a good idea to
race to the bottom if we canlift each other up or agree to a
certain amount of rules.

(01:34:39):
I do think You That there are alot of people who want to be
told what to do.
There are people who are morecomfortable in the passenger
seat than the driver's seat.
I'm not one of them.
Uh, and I think that, that likemy journey in my journey in the
world.
So my spiritual journey isfiguring out who, who am I and

(01:35:02):
the vehicle that I've chosen todo that is a physical form and
it's running a business and it'sbeing married and all that
stuff.
Like these are all ways throughwhich I test my spirituality and
understand who I am.
Uh, I am one of the people whowants to understand, like I'm an
Enneagram five, which is one ofthe people who.
Wants to learn, right?
So I want to connect the dots.

(01:35:22):
I want to figure out what'sreally going on.
But a lot of my focus is justinternal, right?
Like what's going on for me?
What's going on inside of me?
Who am I, who am I showing upas?
What, what do I have to learn?
And so, so that's the aspect forme of when I, when I think of
faith, you know, I don't so muchlook outside to say, Oh, give me
an answer, right?

(01:35:42):
Whoever you are, like, I justneed a sign, right?
That's not really my, my, myexperience.
My experience is, no, it's notmy jam.
My experience is, what'shappening inside me and what can
I learn from that?
Yeah.
Because I'm the product ofthousands of generations of
humans, and there's a lot ofwisdom inside me.
And there's a lot of stuff thatI'm experiencing today on a day

(01:36:04):
to day basis where I can figureout why am I here, what am I
doing here, simply in thisphysical experience.
So, you're almost, I would say,in the space of kind of material
post modern ish kind of thoughtprocess.
Humanism.
Yeah, humanism.
Yeah, yeah.

(01:36:25):
So, like, from your perspective,there isn't really, like, a, a
more powerful force that createdthis thing, or even a, a
necessarily a universalconsciousness that, like, you
know, if you pray, or if you dothis or do that, you can kind of
move the consciousness to yourthing, or, I don't know, like,
talk to me about that.

(01:36:47):
I think Like, is there, is therea more powerful, like, a creator
force out there in yourUnderstanding.
Actually, I, I, I have no ideahow we got to be where we are.
Fair, right?
Yeah.
How we got to be on this rock.
Doesn't matter how we got to beon this.
We're here on this rockspinning, spinning around in the
middle of nothing and have wateron it.
And we have people and like, I,I have no idea how we got there.

(01:37:10):
What I believe is that we've gota certain amount of time to
experience our lives here.
Yeah.
Uh, a thing that I really lovedwas.
This expression, make the dashdance.
So here's what that means in mycase, in my case, it starts with

(01:37:30):
1976.
The year I was born dash someyear, I'm going to die.
I don't know what year that is,but there's a dash in between
when I was born, when I'm goingto die, make the dash dance
means to me, have fun, have thefull experience, order the
entire, all you can eat buffet,do the things that bring me

(01:37:51):
life.
The wiggle.
The Dash with the Wiggle islike, who knows where that end
time is, but live there.
Correct.
That's fair.
So, is it fair to say youresonate more with like,
Buddhism type notions of theexpression in the world?
Or humanism and Buddhism?
I mean, look, I've been to, I'vedone meditation programs, uh, in

(01:38:13):
India.
Sure, I'm sure you'veexperienced a ton of stuff.
I've done, I've done, I've donewhole things on, on Hinduism and
Hindu gods.
I think these are, I think theseare nice representations to try
to understand the world, right?
So Buddhism, I'm not a Buddhist,but it's probably the one that
I'm comfortable with becauseBuddhism basically just says

(01:38:37):
experience yourself and see whatyou learn.
And see how you can become abetter person.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Well, it doesn't necessarilyhave a creator force in it.
It's just like, hey, you'rehere.
Yeah.
Make the best of it, dude.
So I don't, I don't know what,you know, what it is, but I
typically don't have These likebig philosophical questions.

(01:38:58):
Yeah.
Yeah, you're more much a centeron me.
I sent her on me instead.
Yeah I I definitely would sayI'm not quite opposite But it's
interesting how we came to somany similar places like earlier
in our conversation, but from adifferent Psychosomatic context.
So this is our grab bag.
Yeah, let's do it.
It's a Numbers on them.

(01:39:20):
So I pick one pick three OkayOne.
Number one.
Okay.
Um, do you want to give me allthree numbers and I'll decide
what order?
Twenty nine.
Okay.
And five.
One, twenty nine, and five.
So one is what's your favoritechildhood memory?

(01:39:42):
Five is what's the mostimportant lesson you've learned
from failure?
And 29 is what's been the mostsurprising thing about running
your business.
And I would say in this context,it's probably the, either the
summit or the podcast.
Um, so I'm going to start withthat last one.

(01:40:04):
Okay.
What's been the most surprisingthing about running your
business?
Whether it be CAPTA, whether itbe your current recent
enterprise or the summit, thepodcast.
Like, what's surprising aboutthat to you that you wouldn't
have imagined before you becamea Um, the thing that surprised

(01:40:32):
me most, we talked about this alittle bit earlier, but the
thing that surprised me mostabout running the conscious
entrepreneur summit is theemotional context and emotional
meaning that people put on theword conscious.
Um, uh, so I assume you're goingto smoke a joint with me.
Yeah, quite, quite.
So people make all theseassumptions.
It's like, Oh, it's.
It's, uh, you know, it's allhippies or it's all totally out

(01:40:52):
there or, oh, it's all for like,you know, people who, these
aren't real businesses.
Right.
Right.
These are, these are fake, thisis a bunch of, you know, small,
small potatoes businesses kindof thing.
Right.
And that's not how I think ofthe word at all.
I think of the word as, uh,intention and meaning and, Yep.
Uh, purpose and manifesting andawareness, like all that goes

(01:41:14):
into creativity to me, all thatgoes into conscious.
And so when I get that responsefrom people, I'm always like,
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's fair.
And I I'm like the most openconservative born and raised in
North Dakota.
Can I go, you're going to meet.
And so for me, conscious doesn'tmean that at all, but I
recognize the truth of thatstatement, if you will.

(01:41:36):
Okay.
Um.
Well, good job starting to breakthat barrier.
I'm trying.
Um, what did we say, number one,favorite childhood memory or the
most, no we already said thatone.
And number five, the mostimportant lesson you've learned
from failure.
Let's go there next.

(01:41:56):
So, I'm going to talk aboutfailure in the context of what I
was talking about earlier withmy journey with CAPTA.
Yeah.
The business is still around.
Right.
So it's difficult to say itfailed.
But I can say that.
There were multiple places whereI could have been stricter with

(01:42:16):
myself.
Mm-hmm I could have held myselfto certain standards and I could
have followed through more onthe things that I knew I wanted
to do.
And so to, to a certain extentwith that experience, uh, I
wasn't being courageous.
I wasn't being as brave as Icould have been.
And.

(01:42:36):
What that meant like so what thefit how the failure manifested
it was a failure of me Fullyexpress my needs and wants and
desires Yeah and to implementthose instead of being on the On
the train and swept along or inthe passenger seat of the entire
thing So you feel like maybe ifyou could have Advocated a

(01:42:57):
little bit better, you'd stillbe there pointing toward what
you were focusing on,potentially?
The way, the way I think of itis I probably would have made, I
would have made a decision formyself to leave sooner.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah.
Um, alright, last question.
Your favorite childhood memory?
Oh yeah.
And one of these questions we'regonna give a gift away to a

(01:43:19):
lucky listener, but they have tolisten to the whole darn podcast
to get here.
Favorite, let's see, favoriteYeah, favorite childhood memory.
There's a really amazingfireworks show that takes place

(01:43:39):
in, uh, in Geneva during afestival called the Fête de
Genève.
It's the, it's like the towncelebration of itself.
You know, the town, the town,the towns all across North
Dakota where I grew up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's like, right.
So, so it's a, it's a, it's agreat thing.
And it's, you know, Geneva is avery well off town, so the
fireworks are impressive.
And they're synchronized tomusic.

(01:44:01):
And even when I lived there inthe eighties, they were
synchronized to me.
It was like, it was like bigdeal.
Uh, but I will say that the, youknow, very, very fond memories
that I have is.
Being with my dad and my youngerbrother, Sean, uh, up on a
mountain.
There's a, there's a mountainjust outside of Geneva called
the Salève and we would gocamping up there in the

(01:44:21):
summertime.
And I just remember being upthere and being able to watch
the fireworks that were, so it'sprobably, you know, from above
them 15 miles or 20 miles orwhatever, but being able to see
the fireworks from up there,it's all dark over the mountain.
We're camping out, we, you know,go outside with the tent and
watch the fireworks in thedistance with my dad and
brother.

(01:44:41):
Let's jump to the final segment.
Oh, um, and for our listeners, Ithink we're going to choose,
what was the second topic thatwe talked about?
Uh, the failure kind of thing?
Yeah, five.
Um, is that the topic?
Or is it the fireworks?
Maybe it's fireworks in Geneva.
Alright, for listeners, um, PMus the fireworks in Geneva, and

(01:45:05):
that'll be your winning answer.
Nice.
Um, the Loco Experience is yourcraziest experience of your
lifetime.
Alright.
That you're willing to sharewith our listeners.
In 1995, I was a freshman incollege and between my freshman

(01:45:30):
year and sophomore year incollege, the summer in between.
All right.
And, uh, you know, as I alreadytold you, I, I, you know, you
can tell I have a bit of anadventurous streak in me, right?
For sure.
So I like to go, I like to goplaces and do things.
And so I recruited two of myfriends, one from college and
one of a friend of mine fromhigh school.
And we were going to drive frommy house in Massachusetts all

(01:45:50):
the way to.
Uh, Yellowstone National Parkand back to start the summer.
Like for spring break?
Oh, for summer.
For summer, because I, I didn'thave a job lined up yet.
And, uh, we all had like acouple of weeks, we could do
this.
And we were 19 years old.
It was like, Oh, totally, uh,let's go do this.
And, uh, so there was three ofus, me, Mark and Sean, and we
all get in this car.
It was a, it was a red 1991 FordTaurus.

(01:46:14):
Very nice.
Yeah, totally.
Classy.
Only four years old though.
Yeah.
Great, great car, new car.
And, uh, so we drove that.
You know, through, you know,whatever, Massachusetts to
Connecticut, uh, Pennsylvaniathrough Chicago, through
Illinois.
And, you know, we kind of,everyone's taking turns driving
and we stopped in, uh, SouthDakota and, uh, and, and had

(01:46:36):
some adventures and camped orwhatever it was.
And then we went to the nextplace, went to Wyoming.
Uh, we went to Yellowstone.
It was amazing.
We went to the Badlands.
We went to devil's thumb ordevil's tower.
Oh, it's like super cool.
Uh, and then plus you were likeall born and raised.
Well, you were in Switzerland,so you knew mountains and stuff,
but everybody else was probablylike It was beautiful.
It was super fun.
It was super, super fun.
And we had a great time, and wewere just like goofing off and,

(01:46:58):
uh, you know, being 19 year oldsand having a great time.
And we stayed in Yellowstone,and then we drove down into
Jackson Jackson Hole.
Jackson, Wyoming.
Grand Teton National Park, wehad this incredible adventure,
like out there paddling on thelakes and all this, all this
sort of fun stuff.
So super, super fun.
And then we're going to turnaround from there.
We're going to go and drop myone friend off to see his

(01:47:19):
girlfriend in like NorthCarolina and then go back up to
Massachusetts.
Okay.
And I, I didn't have a job linedup for the summer yet.
Right.
So I was like, I'll figure itout when I get home.
Yep.
And we get to Jackson.
Early June and there's help,help wanted cowboy signs.
The Cowboy Boy Saloon is like,is like Help Wanted signs all
over the place.
Yeah.

(01:47:39):
Right.
It's like, oh, you know, help,wanted, help, wanted help
wanted.
And I was like, Hmm, it's prettynice out here, right?
I'm help.
I could be helpful, I could bewild.
I could figure this out.
And so the craziest thing I'dever done in my life to that
point, which is still up there,is I called my parents, I said.

(01:48:01):
I'm not coming home, I'm gonnamiss my brother's high school
graduation, I'm gonna stay inJackson, I'm gonna find a job,
and my friends are driving yourcar home.
I love it.
And so I stayed there, I found ajob at the Jackson Hole Lodge,
where I was in charge of Noteven the housekeeping.
I wasn't, I was the guy who wasfilling the closets and the

(01:48:24):
carts for the housekeepers sothat they could do their jobs.
And I also worked at the pool onoccasion and I had a second job
at the Jackson Hole PublicLibrary restocking books.
And I stayed there for eightweeks and that was my entire
summer.
Yeah.
And then I got back, I returnedfrom Jackson.
To Massachusetts to Boston on aGreyhound bus.

(01:48:48):
Nice.
It took 60 hours and the onlybook I had with me, the only
book I had with me is probably abook that you appreciate.
Yeah.
I read about a quarter of it andI thought, this sucks.
Why does everybody like it?
It's not zen in the art ofmotorcycle maintenance, is it?
It's worse.
It's Atlas Shrugged I love thatbook.

(01:49:09):
I know I could read that bookthree times, six hours.
Everybody was like, everybodywas like, this book is so great
and I'm reading this book and Iwas like, oh my.
God, what a bunch of nonsense.
And, and I'd like, I justcouldn't do it.
I couldn't keep reading thebook.
So I was like, I would ratherstare out of the window for 40
hours than read this book.
Anyway, take that Ayn Rand.
So it goes.

(01:49:29):
So Ayn Rand, I love you.
I think you're awesome.
Despite some of your fallacies.
And, um, so what'd you think ofthat story?
I think that was awesome.
I think that was a great story.
And, um.
Alex, why don't you talk to ourlisteners about like, where to
go register for the consciousentrepreneur summit, your

(01:49:50):
LinkedIn profile, whatever likethat you want to do wrapping,
wrapping up, wrapping it up.
Yeah.
You know, anyone who'sinterested in, in the conscious
entrepreneur summit.
So first of all, you're anentrepreneur of some form or
fashion.
You're building a business,you're in the trenches, you got
blood on your knuckles, you'reout there doing things and you,
and you know, there's got to bea better way, you know, there's
got to be a better way.

(01:50:11):
Okay.
Right.
It doesn't have to be this hard.
Uh, I want you to come and checkout the Conscious Entrepreneur
Summit.
It's a, an incredible community.
It's an incredible experience.
Uh, the website isconsciousentrepreneur.
us.
On top of that, we have thepodcast.
We've got a YouTube channel.
I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.

(01:50:31):
Uh, so there's a lot ofmaterials there.
It's very easy to tap into usand super rewarding.
Do you want to do somethingcool?
Like.
Half off your registration forthe Conscious Entrepreneur
Summit for like the first personthat responds with a DM to our
Instapage or something.
So the first, let's, let's givefor the first person who does
the fireworks in Geneva.
Let's give them, in addition towhatever you're going to give

(01:50:52):
them, a half off discount code.
All right.
And I'll one up you.
I'll see you in one up you andwe'll offer a hundred dollar
code off.
The code is loco L O C O is thecode for anyone who signs up for
the conscious entrepreneursummit before the end of March,
we'll get a hundred dollars offeither the one day or the two

(01:51:12):
day.
Thank you.
That's very generous of you.
I hit you out of the blue withthat.
We didn't talk about it before.
Let's do it.
Um, did I cover all your socialhandles and stuff like that?
Um, LinkedIn, LinkedIn is thebest place to find me.
All right.
Yeah.
Uh, hit him with the chat bot.
Yeah.
Hey, uh, thanks for being here.
Uh, drive safe back to Boulderand I've enjoyed this

(01:51:33):
conversation very much and thankyou.
Thanks for having me.

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EXPERIENCE 210 | Alex Raymond - Serial Entrepreneur, Techstars Alum and Mentor, Founder of the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit and Host of the Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast

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