Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: At the end of his life. Some years later, he was on his deathbed. He finally kicked the crack addiction, the very end stages of his life. And at one point he was dying. He looked at me and he said, everyone else in my world, every one of my friends and family, at some point tried to, quote, help me get off. Except for you. You never once tried to help me get off crack. You just accepted me as I was without trying to change a thing and loved me as I was. And he said, in hindsight, you're the person who most helped me get off track.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Welcome to Came Here to Love, a podcast hosted by me, Liz Logan, where we explore heart centered conversations with visionary leaders from around the world. This podcast is a journey into wisdom, a path to transformation, and an invitation to catch the highest vibration of all love elevating our lives and connecting us more deeply to ourselves and the world around us. Our mission is simple to live with passion, align with purpose, and spread more love. In each episode, we invite compassionate leaders to share insights, personal breakthroughs, and heart inspired ideas that impact change not only in our own lives, but also in our communities and the world beyond. Whether you're seeking new perspectives, deeper connection, or a sense of purpose, Came Here to Love offers transformative insights that inspire, enlighten and remind us all why we're here to love.
[00:01:27] Speaker C: Today on Came Here to Love, I sit down with Brian Robertson, who is best known for creating holacrasi, the most widespread framework in the world today for running self managed companies using a decentralized power structure in lieu of traditional management hierarchy. He's founded and built many organizations over the past 30 years as an entrepreneurial including Holocrossi One, which helps companies use self management to unleash creativity and empowered leadership, and the software company Glass Frog which helps both traditional and self managed companies drive organizational transparency, agility and alignment to purpose. To date, tens of thousands of companies in over 50 companies have embraced his pioneering methods and ideas and his frequent public speaking seamlessly waves between businesses, management, consciousness and love. Brian is currently focused on building Ledgeway Saga, a church that harnesses psychedelics for the development of consciousness and community. I am excited to have him on Came Here to Love. Let's get started.
One of the things that we do here on Came Here to Love is we talk immediately about things that we're loving in our life and so I would love for you to think of something that you're loving in your life right now. It can be anything. It doesn't have to be. Yeah. Is there anything that you're loving.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: It's such a difficult question for me because it's hard to pick. I'm in this phase where there's just so many of my days are spent in awe in this. Like, I can't believe I get to, you know, fill in the blank. There's just so much love and richness and awe. But if I had to, had to pick something, the thing that's just most alive is the work I'm doing right now. Building a psychedelic church and the journeys I host and the work I get to do with people in those journeys is just the most meaningful, deeply aligned thing I think I've ever done in my life. And I've done a lot of really meaningful, aligned work in my life. But there's something that every time I get to sit with somebody and be part of their transformation or some healing or something, it just lights me up like nothing ever has.
[00:03:32] Speaker C: Well, so that's. That's a pretty deep topic. So let's just dive straight in. I'm going to tell you guys in a minute what I'm loving because it actually is connected to Brian. But today we are sitting down with Brian Robertson and he's going to actually tell us his story right now, because that's what he's loving. And so tell us what you've created in Austin and how. It's a church, non church atmosphere, but just give us an overview of what Ledgway is.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: It's psychedelic church named Ledgeway Sangha. And that said, it's. When I say church, it's a very different kind of church. Not just because we do a lot of psychedelics, but it's a church with no doctrine, no dogma, there's no belief set, there's no, you know, here's to fit in. These are the beliefs. There's nothing like that. You might say it's a church designed to create mystics, not a church designed to create priests. Right.
[00:04:23] Speaker C: I love that.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Yeah. A direct experience of the word I prefer to use is actually love. I use love with a capital L for what a lot of people might call God or the divine or source or a lot of different words out there pointing to the same thing. But for me, the word I like best is love. And the journeys we host in that church are. They're very different from your typical psychedelic journeys. Very different kind of modality we work with. It's much more open and unstructured, like a typical recreational journey. But the invitation is not just to come and have fun, but to come and be of service. How can I, in the present moment, help somebody stand in love? In other words, it's practice, loving and being loved, being served, allowing people to support us through whatever it is we're. We're working through. And ultimately, it's practice, as Ram Dass might say, just being love. In other words, standing in loving acceptance of all that is in the present moment, Finding a way to release the resistances, the judgments, the. The. All the mind stuff that gets in the way. Just being completely present in the moment with our heart opened and in love. Right as love.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: So that's.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: That's kind of what I.
[00:05:38] Speaker C: Well, I love that.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a very different kind of church and environment. It's. It's got a stable community, so you see the same people again and again. So it's a. It's about building this kind of community that connects and serves each other, supports each other, standing in radical, loving acceptance of all that is.
[00:05:54] Speaker C: I just want to thank you for doing that and for hosting such sacred space, because this, the premise of this podcast, is exactly what you just described. It's about that awareness that we all are love, and how do we actually be in the essence of love as a vibrational frequency. So came here to love, for me, is the whole point of life. It's the whole purpose of what we're here for and to overcome all of our things that we have to shed away in order to get to that purity and that example. And really, it is the highest vibrational frequency that there is for us to stand and choose every single day. So thank you for having a physical place where people can endure that unconditional, radical love with open heart. I so am excited that we're connected. I definitely look forward to coming and visiting. I actually, funny enough, I started doing ayahuasca journeys with people in Peru 20 years ago. Before ayahuasca was trendy, I was really interested in sacred medicine and especially from the indigenous elders. I really believe, and I strongly, deeply believe this still, that there's wisdom teachings that are being lost from our indigenous communities, that they hold the keys to these messages that we need to keep going in our lives. And so, for me, the ayahuasca and Peru journeys were really about how can we tap into our own innate wisdom that we all have that is this source that you're calling love, that I refer to as love as it is source, divine intelligence, God, whatever else you want to call it. And how can we actually connect that back to our ancient wisdom technologies that we have inside of Us as well, through the indigenous communities and the indigenous elders and wise teachers of the world. And this is one of my. It's one of my passion missions to make sure that we don't forget that connection. And so, yeah, yeah, it feels like that's what you're doing as well, which is amazing. So when you're doing these. Is it group sessions that you're offering there?
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, it is. And it's. It's interesting. You talk about the indigenous kind of roots and path. I think in some ways you can look at some of what we're doing as a translation. If you look at the way we did these medicines a thousand years ago as a human species, it was quite different than the way we currently do them in the West. Even when we go fly to Peru and we do something there, we're still leaving our village, our context, and we're going and we're doing this thing with a group of people that often we just met. And I'm not knocking. I do that too. It's beautiful. I get a ton out of it. And what I long for and now have or longed for is what about integrating that into now? Right. Where the beauty of that is partly because you're doing it with your tribe, you're doing it with people that know you and love you. Right. You're doing it with people. You're. You're that are. It's integrated into your life.
[00:08:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Right now in the psychedelic world, there's this huge challenge of how do we deal with integration? Major topic, psychedelic conference, you know, and especially because.
[00:09:05] Speaker C: Just to pause there, especially because I do. I feel like psychedelics are an amazing tool, but they leave you out on this ledge if you don't have that integration because you get so much knowledge or so much awakening and awareness that comes through a ceremony that then you're kind of like, holy crap, what do I do with all of this? Right. And so that integration is really important.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And part of that, though, I think is a symptom of. Of the way we. We do these, where there are no longer integrated into our tribe, our community and our lives.
[00:09:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: With the journey style that we use here, it's integrated. It's. We do. We host three of these a month, and it's a stable community. So people are seeing each other again and again. And your integration is really your next journey.
Later you're going to be integrating with the same people or you're going to be hanging out with these people often throughout the week.
[00:10:00] Speaker C: And this, this is what the indigenous communities did. They did it.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Yeah, it was more integrated.
[00:10:05] Speaker C: Yes. And it was, it wasn't that you were a lone man out on an island. It was very much that this is medicine. And we, you know, I've been, I've been actually sitting with indigenous elders in the sacred mountains of Mexico, outside of Mexico City. And we do these once a month. You should actually come down for one of these. I would love to invite you. So it's once a month, very, very old indigenous tribe that comes down from the mountains and we literally sit around the fire for a 20 hour journey. And it's, it's so communal based because you're not really doing psychedelics by any means. You're just really putting prayer and intention into the world. And they have some sacred medicine that you take just to open up your pineal gland and your third eye. But, but it's, it's incredible to sit in that kind of community. And that's what this. I. It's all designed for that.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: So there's magic that happens when people who know you already and love you get to see you in some degree of suffering from some resistance or some judgment or self or other, whatever, and help you access your pathway back to loving acceptance by feeling it themselves in their body and loving you in it, where you are, until you can kind of attune to their nervous system and find that frequency and release back into love. You know, that's hard to do at a journey where you're flying with a group of strangers and your blindfolds on and you're. It's much easier to do that when you are journeying with community, you know, in an open where that we can talk, we can support each other in a container that allows, that invites that.
[00:11:44] Speaker C: You know, question and, and, and you know, equal to the integration and the journey is the actual setup of sacred ceremony. And this is again this very interesting delicate dance that I think, you know, a lot of people are starting to dabble in doing psychedelics on their own, as you're saying, like not, not in a very well formatted way. And what I love about what you've created is you're creating a container. You know, I've led retreats all over the world for many, many, many years with very, very highly in tune humans. And it's been a gift. But the whole role I played and the role that you're playing is how do we hold sacred space for us to all be able to feel safe, to feel love, to feel like we have permission to release and Let go and also evolve into this next version waiting for us to be. And I think that's what I love about the fact that you've actually made a container space as a quote, church. It's really beautiful because you're, you're not just saying, look, we're just going to dabble in this. You're saying, look, this is it, this is what we're doing here. And I really want to just honor that and really gracefully. Thank you again for, for having that foresight because that's, that's a huge part of it.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: It wasn't foresight that was stumbled into, but I recognized what was emerging.
[00:13:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Well, you followed the path, you listed the signs.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: I, I never would have imagined myself leading a church five years ago. This was not the life path that I, I had set out.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: Okay, so let's talk about that. How, how does one go from five thinking this would have been your path to now? So take us on that journey.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: So I'm best known right now in the world for developing a management framework called Holacracy. It's a self management framework. It's all over the world. It's basically a very different way of running a business without the traditional top down hierarchy of managers. There's structure, a lot of it, but a very different kind and a more emergent evolutionary structure. Yeah, I've been doing that for decades and you know, there's something beautiful about it. I'll share a little story just to get a taste of. Early on, the 20 some years ago in the journey that was this creating this management framework and spreading it, I went to a talk and the speaker shared a story about a conference he spoke at. And it was one of these big business conferences that had Bill Gates speaking and Jack Welch of CEO of ge, you know, all these famous speakers. But the speaker that was rated actually best by the participants afterwards was not intended to be speaking there. The conference organizers just found out she was speaking down the street and said, wow, we got to get her here. So they invited her. And that speaker was Mother Teresa keynoted this business conference and her talk was very brief. She listened for a while to the other, other speakers and said, I don't know much about business, but there's a lot of talk of how to, how to get people to do something different, how to change people, how to whatever. And she just said, I don't know a lot about business, but I know this. You want to change people? Well, do you know them and do you love them? Because if you don't know them and you don't love them, you're not going to change them. And before you can do that, do you know yourself what a beautiful.
[00:14:56] Speaker C: Like, let's just pause for Mother Teresa because.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:59] Speaker C: I mean, that's such a beautiful. I love. She, she said something that I actually met her in India when I was in college and I loved her whole vantage point of, you know, invite me to an anti war rally and I won't come, but if it's a peace rally, I'll be front and center. And it's just that reframe, you know, it's like, wow. It's the same concept in theory, if you really think about it, where we're all still going with the intention to, you know, have something shift and change, but when you do it from a place of love versus a place of fear and anger and all the things that come out of fear, that the result isn't the same. And I think this is a really important thing to remember. I love that she said that.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: So what I ended up creating this. This created an interesting challenge. I really, really resonated with that quote. It spoke, it haunted me in some ways. And yeah, I'm sure as a, as a CEO and a founder, you know, building companies, there's stuff to get done and if I need to drive change, I need to, you know, how do you do that while standing in loving acceptance of everyone as they are and still take care of results? And the answer I came up with was you change the system around them. You can change the system. You can clarify rules and expectations and process and policy. You can architect the system without trying to, you know, push individual people. And it, in my experience, actually works better.
And that set me on a path of accessing a kind of love that was in many ways a surprise to me. It was, oh, wow, there's something profoundly peaceful. Profoundly. It feels so good to be able to be in a radical, loving acceptance of somebody while still driving change that I need to drive by using the power I do have to change the system. That led me to, through many, many, many years of work, spreading the system and also still realizing it's really only a piece of the equation. The other piece is my own inner work of how do I stand in resistance, in judgment, in charge. Right. And these go hand in hand because I'm not owning my power, my boundaries, my ability to take total full responsibility for myself. If I am not standing in sovereignty, then of course I'm going to sometimes go to victim and then try to solve something. By demonizing, judging and rejecting and changing other or something else in the world.
So in my first part of my quest with holacracy was really, how do I stand in sovereignty? And the system really enables that, but it's a piece of the equation. And then I found myself more and more in this inquiry of now, how do I. How do I open my heart? How do I really stand in just this loving acceptance? And there was also a formative moment many, many years ago when I was young with my father, who's been dead many, many years now. But I found out when I was, I don't know, a teenager somewhere in my teenage years. My father was at that point addicted to crack. And he wasn't highly involved in raising me. Right. I had a relationship with him, I'd spent time with him, but it was. I was mostly raised by my mother. And this kind of explained somewhat why. But it was an interesting experience in that I was totally beyond my world and my mind at the time of, like, how do I even make sense of this when I do that? It was just. I was in new territory and it was so, like, out there that I didn't have any choice, really. I didn't know how to change or do anything. So what happened was I found my way to just be in total loving acceptance of him as he was and not try to change him. And I. That required so much of me standing in my boundaries and my sovereignty. Right. For example, one of the transformative moments for me was one day he came to me. I must have been 19 at the time, and I had a decent income at 19.
And he asked to borrow some money, and he said, there's a drug dealer I borrowed money from, coming after me. He's going to break both my legs with a baseball bat if I come back today.
[00:18:59] Speaker C: And you're 19 hearing this.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:03] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Or 20 somewhere in there. I remember looking at him with nothing but loving acceptance in my heart. I don't know how I got there with him, but I did. I realized from past experience, I've been through this before. And I realized if I loaned him the money, he would pay off the drug dealer, but then immediately borrow more to smoke some crack. And I didn't want to be complicit in that. So I looked at him and I said, no, I'm not going to loan you the money, but I will be there next to your bed in the hospital. I will help nurse you back to health. I'll give you a place to stay. I'll be Part of that healing journey. And I'll love you through the whole thing, but it won't give you the money. That's my boundary. And there was so much love in that. There was total acceptance. I didn't need him any different because I was taking care of myself.
[00:19:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Love.
[00:19:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: And at the end of his life, some years later, he was on his deathbed. He finally kicked the crack addiction, the very end stages of his life. And at one point, you know, he was dying, he looked at me and he said, you know, everyone else in my world, every one of my friends and family, at some point tried to, quote, help me get off. Except for you. You never once tried to help me get off crack. You just accepted me as I was without trying to change a thing. Loved me as I was. And he said, in hindsight, you're the person who most helped me get off crack.
[00:20:19] Speaker C: Brian. My God, I have chills all over my body. That's such a beautiful story. That's such a beautiful story.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: It would take me 20 years to figure out how to access that with anyone else, really, in my world, in so many ways, he was my best spiritual teacher. Without meaning to me.
[00:20:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: In that, the relationship. By the time he died, we had gotten to a point where it was just pure love. There was absolutely no felt sense of needing him to be any different. And it was in both directions. There was nothing. No, nothing between us that needed anything. Just pure loving awareness.
[00:20:54] Speaker C: God, how much freedom and peace. To have that. Yeah, to have that. You know, it's funny because. Not funny, but I believe that the people closest to us are really our spiritual teachers, you know, and they do come in and, and oftentimes parents or kids are the ones that are the biggest, biggest teachers. And it's where we, we. We are able to learn the most profound lessons if we choose it, you know, But. Yeah, but I. You know, going back to what you were saying about just loving acceptance, I think this is where the difference between the love that we're talking about and the love that is known in the world, it's a very different thing. The love as a noun, as a possession, as a tangible thing that I give you and you give me back, and it's this negotiated contract. It's like, this isn't love. This is the ego's version of some desirous thing that we want to have tangibility around. And. And what you're speaking to is a much deeper, richer love. Which brings me. I don't want to go too far down this conversation without Acknowledging what I'm really loving right now. And I have to bring this in because I love so much. I'm. I'm just like you. I feel like I wake up and I am always like, oh my God, I can't wait to start the day because I. I have so many things I'm grateful for, and I have so many things that I love and cherish about the world. Even in the midst of crazy times like we're living in. It's. It's like out of the ash, you can always find that flicker, you know? And there's always something to be grateful for and something to love. But. Okay, so our. We met actually at a conference not too long ago, and I didn't really know you until you blew the whole conference away by something you read. And I just want to acknowledge this poem that you wrote called Knowing Love. And this is what I'm really loving right now. And I. And no, it dropped me to my knee. I mean, I was crying the whole time you were reading it. And so I'm happy to read it. But I'm wondering, do you have access that you could actually read it? Because I would much rather it be in your voice. But this is. This is audience for everyone listening. This is what I am loving right now. And the words that Brian has transmitted in this poem actually tell us how this poem came to be. Did this come through you? How did this come to be?
[00:23:14] Speaker A: Yeah, poetry is my favorite art form. I'm working on a book poetry right now. And a lot of my poetry is channeled on medicine, either ayahuasca or 2 CB, which is actually the main medicine I use in my church. They're my probably two favorite medicines. Some of it's written on that and other. This one was not written on the medicine, but often it gets channeled right afterwards. Like I'll have a powerful journey and then it's just. It is like a download sometimes. I don't even know what I'm saying. I'm just recording an audio recorder, whatever's flowing through, and then later type it up and edit it some. But yeah, that was one of these. Just kind of.
It just came.
[00:23:53] Speaker C: And when. When was this? Where were you set the stage of when this came through you?
[00:23:58] Speaker A: So this one was shortly after one of the journeys I hosted in my house. I have a house that's also. It's meant to. To host.
[00:24:08] Speaker C: And it's, you know, it's like the VIP host.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a beautiful, beautiful space for hosting. Like, really? Yeah, there's a lot of love in these walls.
[00:24:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm sure.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And this one came after one of my journeys. It was. They're often related to, like, something I transmitted. I do a little talk at the beginning of my journeys. It's usually related to something I've either shared or I work one on one with somebody and I help them feel something. And then later I'll often just channel a poem to capture that. That wisdom, which also gives me a beautiful gift for whoever, you know, inspired it or whatever. This One came in 2023, which was what, a few two and a half years ago, Some mid. Mid year. And it actually became. This was before I had formalized my psychedelic church. I was hosting just informal journeys, but still wasn't thinking at all I was gonna. Gonna lead a church. And now it's actually integrated into the purpose of the church itself. It literally our legal bylaws, because I need to define in the bylaws the purpose. But the problem is we are a church that creates mystics, not priests. It's ineffable. I'm going for a direct experience. So the purpose is in the form of a poem. We capture the purposes, deepen humanity further into Knowing love. Knowing Love is the title of the poem and pointing to what it's transmitting. This. This knowing, if you will, is the purpose of. Of the church. And I wrote this before the church even existed and then realized, oh my God. That that poem was exactly towards what I'm trying to build.
[00:25:39] Speaker C: Yes. Oh, my God. Bravo. Bravo. Okay, so this is Knowing Love by Brian Robertson.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: Let us not think that we understand love, for love will always defy mind's attempts to reduce and categorize with boundary and definition. Let us instead know love from a place before mind where we can experience that which is always and only whole. Let us not think of love as just an emotion we sometimes feel for that reduces our taste of the infinite to just a fleeting personal experience. Let us instead know love as the timeless feel of all things, Something not that temporarily arises within us, but within which we temporarily arise. Let us not think of ourselves as the source of love, nor as its container. For love is the only source, and nothing can contain the infinite. Let us instead know love as the boundless ocean that holds us all in its embrace, even when we're like fish, oblivious to the water we swim in. Let us not think we're falling in love with another, for we were already in love all the time. Let us instead know that we are simply remembering this truth in their presence and when we say we are in love, we may as well stop the sentence right there, for there is no further distinction we can make without losing the truth of love's everything. Let us not think of love as a powerful force, not even as the most powerful force in the universe, for that too is too partial. Let us instead know love as the only force in the universe, with everything else just its expression. Let us not think of love as something that has an opposite. For that which has an opposite is not infinitely whole. Let us instead know love as that which even includes its opposite. And thus the opposite of love can only be love without an opposite. Let us not think we will best express love by orienting our life around what we see as our highest values, visions, or who we want to be in the world. For these are but stories mind weaves, and mind's most glorious stories are just love's most devious lies. Let us instead orient each day by simply asking, how does love want to use me today? Knowing the grandest symphonies come when we are love's instruments, not its conductors. Let us not think of ourselves as humans experiencing love, for human identity is just love's disguise. Let us instead know ourselves as love, experiencing humanness with each individual identity just a playful mask in love's game of hide and seek. And let us dispel this silly notion that we must love ourselves before loving others, and instead remember that there are no others and we are simply love's longing for itself. Let us not think of ourselves as something separate from. From love, nor even as its parts. For just as waves are both the ocean and its expression, so too are we love and love's expression. Let us instead know ourselves as the ocean within each wave and as each wave within the ocean. And let us always remember that even a breaking wave is just the ocean rediscovering its wholeness.
[00:29:12] Speaker C: Yes. Yes, let's do that.
[00:29:15] Speaker A: Still can't read that one without tearing up, man.
[00:29:18] Speaker C: I know. It's just so profoundly beautiful. And. And there's a part in there when you said, let us not think of ourselves as humans experiencing love. But yeah, for love's identity is just. Or human identity is just love's disguise. Let us instead know ourselves as love, experiencing humanness with each individual identity just a playful mask in love's game of hide and seek. That, to me, is what came here to love. I mean, the whole thing is. Is genius. But I love it. I feel like we're running around in these human earth costumes and we're in this embodied practice of Love as the living thing that we really are. And so, anyways, thank you for writing that and for putting it out into the world and for having that just be how you choose to walk this. This earth. I really appreciate you and see you for that.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: So moving on, I wanted to talk about how hard was it to break into the psilocybin world? You know, it's.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: It's.
[00:30:18] Speaker C: It's been a little bit of a controversial, you know, situation. It's gotten a little easier over the years. But tell, tell me, tell us, was that a. Was that a hard bridge to cross?
[00:30:29] Speaker A: Well, one, I. I'm not. I don't actually use psilocybin in any of my. My journey.
[00:30:33] Speaker C: Okay, okay, okay.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: I do use psychedelics. Not that particular one.
[00:30:37] Speaker C: Got it, got it.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: And a lot of respect for that. What. That. What psilocybin can do, but for the kind of communal journey container I'm using, it's not. Not a great medicine.
[00:30:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I didn't mean. I didn't mean psilocybin. I mean psychedelics, I just was.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Often they're synonymous. And a lot of.
[00:30:53] Speaker C: Yes, I know, I know.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You know, it started, funny story, I was still doing my work with Holacracy, which.
I love it. I love what it is, but I had been doing it a lot of years at this point, and I was clearly ready for moving into something new, something next. Didn't know what it was yet, and I was in a degree of angst. I had created. This holocaust is a big thing. It's a book. It's all over the world. It's a thing, and it's kind of a hard act to follow. And I was at a friend's house at dinner once, and he hosts incredible dinners and with interesting people, and I was sharing a bit about my, like, pain of this. I don't know what to do next.
[00:31:34] Speaker C: And did you sell it? Were you, like, fully out of it when.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: No, I'm still. I'm still.
[00:31:40] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:31:40] Speaker A: I'm just not operationally managing on the board. I have a big stake. I do some public speaking. I mean, I'm still involved. I support some of our licensees who are out there, you know, spreading it in the world.
[00:31:51] Speaker C: And you're the rock star of the company now.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: Yeah, but I'm not actively running anything anymore. Right. It's a. It's a side thing.
[00:31:58] Speaker C: At this point. Right.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: At this point, though, this is many years ago, I didn't know what was next, and I was trying to figure it out. It was causing a lot of angst. And I shared this at the dinner and one of the women there came up to me afterwards to offer some advice. It turned out she was a career transition coach who'd write a number of books, and her specialty was working with people who had done something really big and we're now struggling to follow it. She's worked with ex presidents of countries, ex CEOs of Fortune 100s. Right. Like, very cool.
[00:32:27] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: It's hard act to follow. How do you go from being, you know, a president of a major country to now what? Right.
[00:32:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: And she said from all of her, her wisdom in this, she had just one main piece of advice for me. She said, I see you trying so hard to connect the dots to your next thing.
Stop it. She said, don't try to connect the dots. That's where your suffering is coming from, basically. Right. She said, instead, focus on just collecting dots. In other words, just be in your joy. Follow what feels good to you and just keep doing things that feel right and feel good and collecting these dots. The dots will connect themselves at some point. You don't need to connect them. They'll connect.
[00:33:07] Speaker C: That's such good advice. That's a really. Yes. Really, really good advice.
[00:33:12] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:33:13] Speaker C: Because I think we do think that, that life all needs to make sense and it needs to be connected somehow and it's. We get to reinvent ourselves over and over and over again.
[00:33:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So I took this to heart, the challenge here. It took some self work to accept this. Because in my past, I mean, I built multiple businesses and I was, I mean, I was a pretty damn good, I think, business leader. I built a lot and my energy was like, I'm productive, I make things happen, I drive things, I get a ton of work done, you know, and when I was really honest with myself of where is my joy, what do I really love right now? I jokingly said to myself, and then realized that's actually true right now, that the thing I, you know, if I just collect the dots based on what feels right, I, I said, you know, the thing that most feels alive for me right now is just doing a bunch of drugs with my friends all the time.
[00:34:07] Speaker C: You know, joking intentionally.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's still, but still, like I had at this point been hosting just casual journeys with friends. I wasn't thinking of it as anything I was building. I was just noticing there's something I love about that and. But I went with it. I said, you know what? I have no idea how doing a bunch of drugs with my friends is going to connect some dots for me to something next. But it feels so right and good. I'm just going to keep doing it and do it more. And then I had, it started being so powerful for the people involved. Like the relationships formed were incredibly loving, deep, intimate, rich. And then the support I'd watch friends have and myself have these breakthroughs as we support each other through all sorts of life challenges and, and then we, it took on a life of its own and friends would ask to bring other friends and people hear about it and want to come. And so we started expanding and sure enough, one day on my own, I was doing my own solo journey work and suddenly it just hit me like a download of this is your next thing for the world. Like you're building a different kind of journey container from anything that is typical in the psychedelic world. And it is so deeply of service right now. And it's where my passion is. And I suddenly saw the path and the dots connected themselves just like she said they would. And one thing led to another and now here I am building.
[00:35:31] Speaker C: I love it. I love it.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: It was hard to get into, but only because of the inner work it took. Right. Once I was aligned with myself and clear on I'm doing this as, and here's what it is and it's working. It just showed up.
Try to get into the psychedelic world.
[00:35:48] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, I, I, I love that you just reminded us of that especially because you are such a powerful and successful businessman, which I want to talk about in a second. But I love that you said the inner work because what I think so oftentimes we miss when life isn't in alignment. It's not the alignment in the external reality, it's the alignment in the internal reality. And when you can get in harmony with your internal world to have it then reflect what you want in the external world. Answers start to shift and change and become very, very, very clear. And the universe works in a mysterious way in terms of just abundance starting to flow in a really great deep, deep way. So thank you for reminding us of that. I do believe that most things in life when they're so stuck, it's only the internal that we have to really focus on and shift and so getting quiet and really re examining and, and taking a, a different turning point with yourself is, is a really great place to, to start. But you're, you're, I mean hugely successful. You were, you were in business your whole life. Is this your, is this your Background.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: My first business I started when I was 13. Early online business, pre Internet. And I started my first like sizable scaling company when I was I think 20, my software company. And yeah, I've, I've been.
[00:37:15] Speaker C: So you've always had that entrepreneurial mind of like, okay, I can create and I can manage and I can lead. What would you tell? Because I've been in the world of entrepreneurial for gosh, 25 years and I coach a lot of business leaders and, and entrepreneurs trying to make their mark and really trying to, you know, do the hustle of what this, this world, what it takes to be an entrepreneur. What would you, what's your advice that that kind of, you can give us some shedding light of someone that's actually made it. You're on the other side of success and, and freedom in your life and you're doing things now in, in more passion project ways. So what would you tell, what would you tell us?
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Oh man. I mean there's.
[00:37:59] Speaker C: I know just one nugget. You don't have to tell us the whole playbook.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: I have to pick something. Yeah, it's very similar to what you were, you were just saying. Actually it's every major stuck point I've, I've hit in business that I managed to get through a transcend was first and foremost by looking inward, by figuring out where I was that was either contributing to this or missing something. It was all my own inner work to come back to loving acceptance of all that is from resistance. So that the best business skill I've ever learned is how to notice in myself when I am in judgment or resistance in the moment right when I'm, I'm realizing I'm in some degree of suffering which is the clue to those things. And I'm. Every judgment is a confession of our own disempowerment. Right. We judge others and we resist and reject. When we're not able to handle something internally it might be we're not able to fully feel our emotion. So we project it out and we judge somebody else and you know, or we're not able to fully handle what it means to my identity that something is true. So we resist it being true and we don't float with, with that reality.
[00:39:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Every major business challenge I think I've overcome has come first and foremost with me doing the inner work to, to release the places where I am resisting judging, rejecting something in self or other system and then from there figuring out how to change, change the system around people instead of, you know, just trying To. To kind of push and manage people, so to speak.
[00:39:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: Right. Instead, how can I. Yeah. How can I are where they are and change the system around them, which might at times mean, you know, firing somebody or whatever, but. But never from anything but love.
[00:39:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:48] Speaker A: If I'm not in utter loving acceptance of somebody, I'm not ready to fire them.
[00:39:52] Speaker C: Wow. Okay. That within itself, for all of you beautiful humans out there that are leading the charge with companies or teams and you actually manage people. What you just said is, wow. Like, if you could actually. Wait, say that it one more time. You don't fire anyone.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: If I'm not in a loving acceptance of somebody, I'm not ready to fire them because there's still something of mine and the decision isn't trustworthy.
[00:40:18] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: If I'm in judgment and frustration, there's something I'm resisting. There's some disempowerment in me. And so even if I make that decision, which of course I've made that decision in my younger career.
[00:40:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:31] Speaker A: That's. Those are the ones that I either regret or at least have a question mark that plagues me or the problem just repeats. Because it really wasn't a performance problem. It was a system problem that I couldn't see because I was too blinded by my own frustration and judgment.
[00:40:45] Speaker C: You know, I feel like we could use that, that, that measurement across the board in terms of relationships as well. Like, how many times have you let go of a relationship prior to being in loving acceptance?
[00:40:57] Speaker A: And, you know, it's like also my rule for that. It's applied this. It's also my role for relationships, intimate partnerships. I. I will not break up with somebody until I've done enough work to stand in loving acceptance. Because once I'm there now, if in loving acceptance, I'm in my full power, my full sovereignty, I'm accepting them as they are, and I'm accepting myself, including. There's something in this dynamic that's just.
[00:41:20] Speaker C: Not right for me.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: There's a compatibility misalignment here. Right. I'm not up for this. And ultimately I may need to hold the boundary of this is not the right partnership for me or whatever.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: Right.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: But until I've done the work to get to loving acceptance. Right. There's. I am likely to just recreate the pattern in another relationship.
[00:41:38] Speaker C: Of course it follows you. That's the work.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:41] Speaker C: So, yeah, it's just gonna keep going until you actually get to that point. So. Wow. Profound, profound lessons we're having with with Brian today. And. And what Would you say if you could go back and tell your younger self one thing, what would you go back and say? Is there anything?
[00:41:56] Speaker A: Absolutely nothing.
The reason why I, I mean, the journey that got me here was absolutely perfect as all of our journeys are. It's when I'm standing in my full power and sovereignty, how could I regret, resist anything to be different? It, it created me, who I am. And when I'm standing in the divine perfection of the present moment and everything in it, including me as I am right, and everything that's gotten us to this moment must also be divinely perfect into that. There's no desire to change anything in the past. In fact, there's no desire to change anything in the present. There's an openness to allowing an impulse that does change things to flow through me. But it's not from a sense of, oh, I want to change this. It's play, you know, when I, when I try to change something now, it's not a, I want to change it. It's not a, oh, I wish I could go back and change this in the past. It's yeah, oh, this is beautiful. Let me play. Look at this impulse to do this, play in it.
[00:42:54] Speaker C: And that, yeah, when you're in the, in the presence, you're actually in your heart. You're not in your mind anymore. You're not in your, in your ego, personality, you're in your heart. And so it's place, it's not a place where you desire anything except for just what is. Because that's the beauty of the heart space when you can truly be. It's radical acceptance. It really is that loving acceptance that you're talking about. And it is love. Love is in the present moment. The true essence and act of love is the present moment and it's available there.
And I think that's a part of the lesson that, that we've forgotten. You know, we're constantly here and there and in the past and in the future and even with our planning, you know, I, I think back to some of my relationships and I'm like, God, I never even, we never even enjoy the present moment because we are always planning the future. And it was like, wow, you know, what a, what a sad reality that is to look back on, you know, so, so just taking a moment to, to find the present moment with somebody in tandem, I think is one of the most beaut to express love. Active listening, all of it. It's available and it's all free to us. And so I think that's that's so amazing. What do you think the world needs more of?
[00:44:15] Speaker A: It's another one of those questions.
If I am standing in a place of like, oh, the world needs more of this, and it's coming from any angst, any charge or whatever, there's more work to do on myself. And I do go there at times, of course, you know, just being human, standing in my highest expression. There's not a sense that the world needs more of anything. There's no need. It's perfect. And I recognize there's this beautiful impulse to evolve and change that works through me and flows through me, but not from any sense of needy, not from any sense of something being off or wrong. Right. When I'm standing in love, everything is perfect.
[00:44:56] Speaker C: And yeah, yeah, I would. I would say just based on your answer in this conversation, that the world needs more loving acceptance.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: Because even that, even that has a pitfall which.
But even that tends to be in resistance then of the lack of loving acceptance in the world.
[00:45:13] Speaker C: Yeah, that's true.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: One of the mantras I found so powerful in my journey is whenever I'm feeling something like, ah, it needs more, more love. Thus, you know, the current level, it doesn't feel good. I ask myself, whatever the thing I'm resisting, can I love that too? Which is, it's not a should. It's not, I should love that, which is just more resisting the lack of it.
[00:45:32] Speaker C: Right?
[00:45:32] Speaker A: It's how can I find my love? In this case, how can I find my love for the lack of loving acceptance in the world?
[00:45:38] Speaker C: Right? Right.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: Can I let my heart break and feel the pain of the world even more without any need to change it, but just be with it, hold it, and can I find the love, the bittersweet love of where we are because it's perfect. And ironically, when we love something so completely that we don't need to change it anymore, that's when it's most open to being changed by us. Because it's no longer coming from resistance and stuckness. It's. It's coming from grace. It's coming from. From just acceptance and love. So even that one is a trap, right? Even that. Like, you know, and I, that's true this myself, sometimes I'm like, man, I wish there was more. More communal psychedelics in the world, more whatever. And I have to go back to can I love that too? Can I love where we are? And if I can't, that's okay, but then can I love that? I need to reject that for now. Because if I Keep following that thread back. Eventually I get to something I can say, okay, I can love that. And now I release into loving acceptance, right?
[00:46:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. It really is. Like, when you can get to that place, I love how you're positioning it for us to think about is when you can get to that place where you're really in. It's really loving acceptance. When you're really in that place, no matter what the topic, what the person, what this situation, then you get to actually just release it into what is. And yes, and I feel like that is the position that I will boldly say that I think psychedelics position themselves for is for us to actually step into that place of the letting go, of actually getting to loving acceptance, to acknowledge it and then to release it as is. I think that's the whole point.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: I've had several people now tell me in the journey space after either I or a group or others hold them through something I've had several times now where somebody just breaks down into tears and says, honestly, I think this is the first time in my entire life where I felt just genuine, pure, loving acceptance. There's no sense of any part of me that was rejected, resisted, and where they can let it in. Because that is as much of a challenge sometimes as finding it. It's. Allow it to. To be let in and felt when it's there that the right container with the right medicines, really, people feel that.
[00:48:08] Speaker C: Right facilitators.
[00:48:09] Speaker A: Yeah, all of it. Of course.
[00:48:11] Speaker C: It's the right recipe. It's like a beautiful restaurant you go to when it's. When it's just that perfect expression of all of it. It really. It really translates correctly.
Okay, so fill in these blanks. I am.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: That's right. To the core of the most difficult thing to respond to. Right.
[00:48:33] Speaker C: I mean, you know, just. Just a statement. I am.
[00:48:36] Speaker A: Here's what comes. I'll just.
[00:48:38] Speaker C: I just kind of grabbed one out of the air for you to chew on.
[00:48:41] Speaker A: I am an illusion. Because any. Any thought I might have to finish that sentence of I am is not me, it's my illusion of what I am. It's. It's language, which is separating, which is an act of dividing. This, not that. So anything I say to find something that I am not, right? And it's this mental construct. It's an idea, an identity of what I am. Anything I can respond to that with can only be an illusion.
[00:49:08] Speaker C: Okay, I love that. And then I have one more for you. Love is.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: Also one of those really difficult, attempted to just put a period on that one.
[00:49:21] Speaker C: That's a perfect. That would be the perfect expression.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: You know, it's. I go back to that, you know, poem.
Love is that which has no opposite, which nothing is excluded from, including the idea of exclusion itself, which. Love is that which has no opposite. If the concepts of opposite didn't even exist. You know, I don't know. It's. Yeah, but I think of. Of love. I just think I. I go to just oneness, the sense of just oneness and perfect flow and. Because what else is there, you know, without the opposite of that even existing? I don't know. It's really difficult to use.
[00:50:00] Speaker C: I love those answers, though. This is why I asked, because I think that's a really profound way to answer the question. So I'll take it. I. I'll take it. I would love to open this up, this invitation up, but I would love to bring some of our audience members to come do a journey at your church and, and dabble in this space. I don't know. How would you feel about that?
[00:50:24] Speaker A: Yeah, let's figure it out. There's some stuff to figure out there. We have some right now. It's kind of a by invite, people invite friends, network effect.
[00:50:33] Speaker C: Right. Of course.
[00:50:34] Speaker A: Keep a certain screening. But. But there is some way we can figure out how to do this. And anyone listening to this podcast, even the title of it alone, is likely a great fit. So let's figure this out. I. I would love this. Let's. Let's figure out how it works.
[00:50:49] Speaker C: We'll work on it behind the scenes, everyone. And then if you're on my email list, which most of you are at this point, just make sure you follow the podcast and get on my email list so that you can find out when Brian and I will join forces in a psychedelic journey and just to open us up to all the possibilities for life. I so love and appreciate who you are as a human and what you're transmitting in the world for all of us to really. It's profound. I love that you went from this genius business zone and, and really worked your magic there and, and was hugely successful. I think you're such a role model to so many men, especially out there, and. And also to do it in a heartfelt, really filtering with the heart as your. As your measurement tool, as your. Kind of. As your. Yeah. As your true north. I. I so admire that. So thank you for all the lessons you've given us here today. And. And yeah, I look forward to connecting in the flesh.
[00:51:51] Speaker A: Me as well. And the meantime as well. If you go to ledgeway.org your audience, you can sign up for our mailing list and when we do have something that we can do an open invite on to that that mailing list. 100 and I would love to find a way. Let's do it.
[00:52:05] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
[00:52:06] Speaker A: Of course Conversation.
[00:52:08] Speaker C: Of course all of Ryan's information, including what he's up to, will be below the episode. So make sure you look for the show notes there. And thank you again Brian for your time and energy and wisdom.
[00:52:20] Speaker A: Delightful. Thank you.
[00:52:22] Speaker B: Thank you for joining us on Came Here to Love. I hope today's conversation has inspired you to live more fully, align with your soul and spread more love in the world. Remember, love is the highest vibration and when we lead with it, we elevate not just our own lives, but the lives of those around us. If today's episode resonated with you, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who could use a little more love in their life. And as always, keep tuning in for more heart centered conversations that remind us all why we are here to love. Until next time, keep living your light and loving with your whole heart.
