How to Scale Consciously: ION Intelligence of Nature, Super Mush, Mother’s Market & Momo’s Expert Panel w/ Alli Schaper, Mo George-Payette & Khari Walker

Show notes as a general guide below. Somewhat in order and not written in perfect grammar because we want you to actually listen to the show!

Topics Discussed:

• Conscious business importance: Prioritize body and wellness, introduce “Conscious Profits Unfiltered” podcast.
• Panelists’ introduction: Meet Mo George-Payette, Khari Walker, and Alli Schaper, who will discuss their backgrounds and brands.
• Functional mushrooms in wellness: Alli Schaper on mushroom benefits and Super Mush’s education mission.
• Culture Challenge: Staffing and culture preservation challenges.
• Conscious Culture & Leadership: How it affects daily decisions.
• Investor selection importance: Impact on company DNA and mission.
• Resilience challenges: CBD industry hurdles discussed.
• Scaling Consciously: Sebastian asks Alli about mission-driven scaling.
• Authentic Brand Messaging: Purpose washing, Ion’s genuine branding, and community stories.
• Psychedelics & education: Discuss psychedelics and education importance.
• Impact measurement & sourcing: Explore impact and organic, fair sourcing.
• Podcast & community building: Role in mushroom wellness and psychedelics awareness.
• Branding significance: How it connects with customers and attracts attention.
• Innovating consciously via listening: Customer and community feedback in innovation.
• Traits of conscious leader: Compassion, resilience, transparency, diversity, representation.
• Wealth vs. conscious capitalism: Debate on wealth and conscious principles alignment.
• Company DNA & conscious purpose: Integrating purpose, hiring mission-aligned individuals.
• Social media & conscious brand promotion: Discuss using social media and potential conflicts.

Connect with Alli Schaper on Instagram
Connect with Mo George-Payette on Instagram
Connect with Khari Walker on Instagram
Connect with Sebastian on Instagram
SebastianNaum.com

Below is a transcript of the video podcast created by Seb’s Robot buddy, Zekton. He tends to make mistakes so please forgive him if you find errors or some funky sounding sentences. For the real deal, watch the video or click on your favorite audio Podcast platform above! Enjoy!

 

Sebastian (00:00:00) – But at that point, I had to put my body and wellness at the forefront of my life. I had to make it the most important thing in my life. And I started thinking about a lot of the things that I was doing. I started changing a lot of my actions, and I started thinking about my passions. And one of those passions was already conscious business. I loved conscious business and using business as a force for good. So I thought, How can I bring this more into my life? How can I attract more of these types of clients at my agency, which was already successful? But I wanted more of that so I could help change the world for the better. And one of those things that was born out of that time was this podcast Conscious Profits Unfiltered. And I’m very grateful because I’ve already gotten to interview over 50 amazing, conscious, mission driven leaders that are using business as a force for good. And tonight is a very special night because I’m incredibly honored for episode number 50 that this is actually going to be a recording in front of a live audience, which is you guys here tonight.

Sebastian (00:00:57) – So we all set Michael, cameras and microphones about goods. We’re officially live on the podcast here tonight. So thank you all for coming here. Very excited to have all of you. And before I bring up my panelists, I would love for you guys to close your eyes for just one quick second. Just one quick second here. One quick moment. Close your eyes and place your hand in your heart and repeat after me inside your head. My name is and say your name and I am here. I commit to being open. To learning one golden nugget of information. That will cause a shift in my life. I commit to being open. To making one conscious connection by the end of tonight. That will cause a positive impact in my life or that of others. All right. And open up your eyes. And I’d like to welcome my panelists. I first panelist Mo Piet George. He worked at Mother’s Market for 30 years, became the CEO there, and she is now the founder and CEO of her own brand, Mo Mo CBD.

Sebastian (00:02:27) – Mo, welcome to the stage.

Sebastian (00:02:36) – No, we didn’t. No, again. Sensei did it.

Sebastian (00:02:41) – We also have Cary Walker. Cary Walker is the chief brand officer at Ion, which is intelligence of nature. He is also the personal brand strategist to the very well known and respected Dr. Zack Busch, who’s the owner of Iron. Please welcome to the stage Cary Walker. And finally, we have Ali Shaper. She is the founder and CEO of Super Mush and she is also the host of her own podcast Into the Multiverse. Please welcome to the stage Ali Shaper.

Sebastian (00:03:26) – But. Hey back.

Sebastian (00:03:42) – Guys. Thanks so much for being here. Very special night to talk about. Health, wellness, conscious capitalism, money, all the good things. And Mo, we’re going to start with you, Mo. You had a 30 year journey at Mother’s Market and you eventually became the CEO. Can you share a little bit about your biggest takeaways with ethical sourcing and how you guys were choosing the products that were going to be on the shelf?

Mo (00:04:09) – So hi everyone.

Mo (00:04:10) – Thank you for the Breathwork That was awesome. Way to start a panel. I wish all panels started like that. Um, so yes, rewind to the 70s. Um, Mother’s was founded by a group of yoga enthusiasts and I don’t know how many people really know that I know mothers is making a name for itself now, having a storied Hollywood. But back then it was led by a visionary guru. So to begin with, we had values. I drank the Kool-Aid. I stayed 30 years. And the values were our mantra truth, beauty and goodness. And in that truth, beauty and goodness, we put forth those values towards everything we selected, towards every product that went on the shelves. Even when I worked my way up from being a veggie chef initially to being CEO, I wanted to know every product that hit the shelf, every ingredient. I wanted to know its sourcing. Um, yes, we did listen to customers requests and quite often, you know, at that time, up until I left on five plus years ago, we wouldn’t we didn’t have any gelatin.

Mo (00:05:20) – There were, you know, no, it was all the things now that I’m so happy and it’s so refreshing to see how many people have adapted this in their approach to natural products.

Sebastian (00:05:31) – So thank you, mom. Ali Mental wellness is a crucial aspect of your brand and everything that you do. Can you share a little bit about the role of functional and also psilocybin and how that affects mental health and mental wellness?

Alli (00:05:47) – So when people ask me what I do for work, I usually just say I talk about mushrooms for a living. Does anyone here take mushrooms? Which kind?

Khari (00:05:57) – Okay, Awesome.

Alli (00:05:59) – The way that I like to describe our approach to. We were doing a few different things. You mentioned super. We have a media arm called Into the Multiverse. I genuinely believe that fungi are the biggest lever that you can pull in humanity right now to make the biggest impact across so many different layers. But mental health, physical health, the environment, there’s so much that is happening in fungi. And so our approach to bringing the world and the magical world of fungi to mainstream is through a sexy looking consumer brand called Super Mash.

Alli (00:06:31) – Has anyone tried it before? Amazing. We just launched Sex Gummies, Energy Gummies and Sleep Gummies yesterday, which I’m very excited about. I brought a few samples. I think they’re gone. But if you want one, come find me.

Sebastian (00:06:42) – After the sex gummies are gone already. Everyone’s already eating the sex gummies tonight.

Alli (00:06:48) – They are. There are best seller online right now, but it’s only been 24 hours, so who’s to say? Yeah.

Sebastian (00:06:53) – Okay.

Alli (00:06:53) – All right.

Sebastian (00:06:54) – Let us know your feedback tomorrow when you fill out the survey. How the sex gummies might Please.

Alli (00:06:59) – And so to circle back to your question, like how do we think about mental health and why is fungi applicable to that? Our brains are so out of balance. If you look at the rates of depression, anxiety globally, 1 in 8 people suffer from some sort of a mental indication of a disorder. That’s just what’s diagnosed. That article just came out the other day. Therapy all time high, mental health all time low. And so depressing statistics, however.

Alli (00:07:26) – Mushrooms are an incredible aid to that issue. It’s not a silver bullet, but both functional mushrooms, which are ancient wisdom, have been used for thousands of years, can help bring your body back into flow state. That’s actually what people want. But the substances that were marketed caffeine, alcohol, all the legal drugs on the market, we were in a like a backward society where our drugs are medicine and our medicine is drugs and that’s wild. So education around mushrooms, super important, functional or non psychedelic Chinese medicine, ancient wisdom. And then on the psychedelic side of things, incredible research happening right now with the impact of psychedelics for mental health disorders, which is a whole larger conversation that we can get into. But yeah, so that’s, that’s kind of our approach. Make functional mushrooms really sexy, cool, accessible and then educate and support all of our allies in the psychedelic space and also very passionate about the legalization front we can talk about.

Sebastian (00:08:21) – Yeah, we’re going to talk about that in a little bit.

Sebastian (00:08:22) – Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks, Ali. So, Corey, Doctor Zach Bush is a really big name in the world of health and healing. And so he’s got his own mission. And then ion Intelligence Nature, which is the brand, the company has a mission. How are those two missions connected? Is it the same thing or are they different?

Khari (00:08:43) – I would say they’re definitely the same thing. We actually Zach founded a company called Seraph Group, which is a sort of innovation hub that all share the same philosophy of bringing root cause solutions to ecological, planetary and human health and intelligence of nature, which formerly was restore, which some people got to know and restore. That was your first experience with it is the human health side of that Zach in his own brand. I would say the thing that the red line that ties everything together that we do is bringing humanity back into coherence with nature. And that’s Zach’s message. If you’ve ever heard him say that or the thing where humanity really went wrong is when it started to see itself separate from nature.

Khari (00:09:29) – And we’ve been writing ourselves out of the story of nature and seeing ourselves separate from nature for a really long time. And we’ve done a lot of damage because of that. So everything that we do, all of his messaging, all the products that we create, all the things on our public facing yet that I can’t share with you guys that we’re working on in the energy sectors and all these things, we look to natures intelligence for the root cause, solutions to these problems that we’ve created. And in all of that, it’s about looking to nature and bringing us back into coherence with it. So you’ll talk about him going out?

Sebastian (00:10:02) – Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Actually, Corey just mentioned that I was I got familiar with a brand maybe like 6 or 7 years ago. I was actually my agency was running ads for the company called Restore. It was called Restore before. And what I can tell you is that I had never seen the types of comments on the social media posts and the ads ever before, but people were talking about like, this cured my cancer, this cured this disease for me, this, this, that.

Sebastian (00:10:29) – So it was I had just never seen that type of a community around the product before. So it’s really, really impactful there. Um, Mo, as the CEO of Mothers, you oversaw a massive period of growth. So when you’re going through lots of growth like that, how are you able to keep the your mission at the base of your growth and not let that go?

Mo (00:10:49) – Um, the founder who ironically passed away two months before Mother’s was acquired, um. He he insisted on. I would go with him on store tours as I was coo and working up to CEO and just being the ding dong that I was of energy, that I just wanted to go and say hi. He wanted to take me to the store Saturday morning. Mo, come on, we’re going to go visit some of the stores. It’s like 7 a.m. Saturday morning. We’re going to go talk to the dishwasher. We built a community. No one was below. No one was above. These are the things people are striving for now in their businesses.

Mo (00:11:25) – We were a community. It was about engagement. And look, I’ll be honest, it was very surreal. We fought to have titles. We didn’t have titles initially when I started at Mothers in the 80s. So, you know, trying to get I kind of catch Bruce McGurn was his name up, catch him up to look, we really need people to be able to identify when we walk through the store. I don’t need a title, but I definitely people need to know. So it was all about the people. That’s it. It was about the people. It was about the values. And as we grew that meetings upon meetings, we had teams. I would I would have every department manager from every store come and we’d go through and select products ourselves together. I wanted to know what they’re hearing from the customers, the people on the floor. It happens on the floor. That’s where the action is. That’s where we want to know what people wanted. And we wanted to make sure we were building our team so that they could also raise themselves up.

Mo (00:12:26) – You know, I can’t count how many people who were dishwashers or maintenance people became vitamin. Our first bilingual vitamin employee who became a manager and now is. Anyway.

Sebastian (00:12:38) – That’s incredible is like really doing the work. A lot of stuff. Troops on the ground, doing the work. Do you feel that if as it scales more and more and more, how difficult does that become? Because it sounds like you’re really hands on?

Mo (00:12:51) – Yeah, I think everyone who’s been in a store knows the challenges for staffing that people are having. And so I think it’s become a huge challenge to maintain the culture. Yeah. Others. Is it 12 stores? I left when we were getting ready to open our night. So yeah, I know it’s a challenge.

Sebastian (00:13:10) – Yeah, I bet. So speaking of conscious culture, there’s two tenets of for and conscious capitalism is conscious culture and conscious leadership. Ali How do you take conscious culture and conscious leadership in terms of making decisions at work when you’re making your daily decisions?

Alli (00:13:30) – We like to say that the companies we look up to.

Alli (00:13:33) – Are the Patagonia’s and Dr. Bronner’s of the world. And yet we’re also, you know, a for profit, as are they. But the point I’m trying to make is like it’s this your constant kind of toggling between like, especially the consumer packaged goods space. There is right now if you’re you know, and if you have private investors or VC investors, there is like a path of how you build a thing to exit to right now, a Unilever, P&G. And it’s an interesting road to go down because you’re constantly in this like back and forth of making sure that all of your metrics make sense to build towards that path. Because a very specific definition of ROI, which I’m hoping changes in the future, right? Like the definition of ROI for.

Sebastian (00:14:23) – We’ll be talking about that. Yeah.

Alli (00:14:25) – I won’t go too far down the rabbit hole now, but you know, Patagonia actively makes decisions against their bottom line for the benefit of humanity. And if you’re a small startup, you don’t have the luxury of necessarily doing that.

Alli (00:14:37) – Otherwise your mission just gets completely stifled. Right? So the answer to your question is like it’s an everyday kind of question between myself and my co-founder around like how to maintain integrity of moving towards things that that feel really right. And my, you know, my kind of spiritual answer to this is like if you look at building a business like a baby, we have this. If anyone’s seen super max branding, we have like a little mushroom with legs. And we pictured this guy as our my co-founder and I had a mushroom infused psychedelic conversation around this once and it was really beautiful. We talk about it a lot with like, you know, if you’re starting a business, you’re growing a baby and just as you grow child and you come and take him through the phases of life, you start to get like crazy aunts involved. And then you have like all these family members and all that and just becomes this whole world that you build around this thing. And if the priority is protecting the baby, sometimes you got the crazy ants like ruminate over here and focus on making decisions that feel like the best for the overall mission.

Alli (00:15:36) – So it’s constantly like, what’s what’s not positive?

Sebastian (00:15:39) – Yeah, I love that. You know, it’s actually this is something that’s come up a lot over the course of me interviewing tons of different conscious leaders and business leaders. It’s like, you want to do every single thing perfectly. You want to do all the conscious things. And it’s almost it’s actually kind of impossible, especially when you’re starting now, to do it all right? To be like carbon neutral and fully sustainable and paying the highest salaries and like doing all the conscious things, right? Ultimately, if there is no profits at all, then that mission and that North Star, you can’t even go towards it and feel like that’s a little bit of what you’re saying to is at some point you’re like, okay, let’s get back to our mission. We still have to make money in order to, you know, hit our North Star, right? I don’t know if any of you guys can sort of relate to that in terms of I think when when you have a massive company and it’s got tons of profits, I think it’s different and you can change that up.

Sebastian (00:16:32) – But I think when you’re growing, it’s good to keep that in mind as you’re starting a company and say, Hey, don’t try to do it all, you know.

Khari (00:16:41) – Uh, for for us. We’re unique in the sense where we’ve been able to grow to a relatively good sized company in the wellness space without any funding, outside funding. So we had a very small investment when we first started. Wight Way before my time. I’ve only been in the organization for about four and a half years, but Zach tells this story all the time. But what that’s allowed us to do is to be super authentic and organic in our growth, which means that it’s a lot slower than some people might want to see. And if we had investors looking at our bottom line every every quarter and pushing us to grow, we probably on a different path. But we’ve accepted this path, maybe taking the long Larner way around. But we’ve been on this journey and been able to do it our way.

Sebastian (00:17:26) – It sounds amazing not to have that pressure.

Khari (00:17:28) – Yeah. And I mean, the people that we answer to are our customers and the people that run our organization. So it’s a choice that was made. But now we’re getting to this point in the scale where we are beginning to entertain what that might look like, but still we’re always like, or we could just continue down this path of growing in and doing it our way. And maybe that’s just enough. I mean, maybe sometimes it’s is it reaching every single, you know, the 7 billion people in the world or is it, you know, reaching your authentic community that are vibrating with your message and your mission and what you’re doing? And maybe that’s enough sometimes. Maybe it doesn’t have to be what is success and what is and what does that really look like? And I think you define that for yourself. And we’ve allowed the company to, which is its own vibration or organization of things in itself. It is an entity that is on its own mission and we are supporting that and we recognize that.

Khari (00:18:17) – So I don’t know if that adds.

Sebastian (00:18:19) – Yeah, no, I love that. That definitely, you know, when I think about you guys as growth, I think that a lot of the conscious aspects of iron are part of the drivers of its growth, but they’re not the reasons that they’re there. They just seem that that they’re just part of the DNA. And but as a byproduct, it is the reason that you guys are have had so much growth right? Yeah, go ahead.

Alli (00:18:44) – On the flip side of that, we have like 100 investors and, you know, relatively still early on the journey we launched a year and a half ago. And a lot of people, when I say that, they’re like, Oh my God, that sounds really stressful. It’s been a really beautiful process because we’ve really focused on mission driven and investors. And it’s funny because like, you know, some people really want to be a mission driven investor, but at the end of the day, like they’re still looking at different metrics because we have a different definition of ROI than hopefully we have in the future.

Alli (00:19:13) – But everyone that gets involved in your business does affect the DNA of it in a you know, whether it’s subtle or in a profound way. And that creates a lot of momentum and excitement. But the importance of just being really specific on who you invite into your family and the energy of what you’re creating is has been really important. And for us, it’s been a really beautiful process.

Sebastian (00:19:36) – Yeah. Let me ask you about that right now, because as a conscious capitalist, actually in a dream world, you have impact as an ROI metric. So it’s like, how can we have impact as an ROI metric? Like can we create new metrics that we can measure return based on different aspects of impact? Is that something that you guys have pitched to your investors as you’re looking at impact investors or something like that? And you guys can feel free to talk about this in general.

Alli (00:20:03) – I mean, my short answer to this is we talked to everyone. You know, I love fundraising. We’re finishing our fundraise right now.

Alli (00:20:11) – And when I talked to everyone, I’m like, you know, if the whole world’s on is on mushrooms, both functional and psychedelic, I say that more for comedic effect because it is definitely not a one size fits all solution. So take that with a grain of salt. But if this spreads out to everyone in the way that we hope it does and stays core to the mission of what we are trying to achieve, then the mental health of the planet gets better. And that is like an incredible metric to be working towards. So, you know, a lot of people ask us. For your competitors. It’s kind of a funny question because we collaborate with anyone. In theory, that would be our competitor. And so again, it’s like a different mindset. We’ve tried to build a competition.

Sebastian (00:20:52) – I mean.

Alli (00:20:53) – Collaborative competition, but or, you know, like building, we like to say building our business, like the Mycelium Network for Mushroom Company. So the analogies are super cute, but like truly mycelium.

Alli (00:21:01) – You know how it works underground. If anyone’s familiar, you know, transmit nutrients to diverse species that have no benefit to your own, but you’re doing it for the betterment of the whole thing. Because Mycelium know more than anything else that we are not separate from nature. We’re all part of the same thing. But like you said, we’ve forgotten that. It’s funny to bring those spiritual conversations when people are asking about your cat, but like it’s it’s important to to make sure you do both.

Khari (00:21:27) – I don’t think there’s anything that connects you back to nature better than mushroom. I mean, that is the Cilium network. That is the connection. Super powered highway of of information is in the mushroom. So I think I think anyone who’s had any form of mushroom where the functional or psychedelic one of the first things you want to do is go out and be in nature and be connected to it and feel nature. And you see nature, you feel nature, you hear nature differently. And it kind of reminds you that you are part of the same thing.

Khari (00:21:55) – So if you haven’t had a psychedelic mushroom, maybe try that. But one way to connect back. But, but I think functional mushrooms do the same thing. But I love that you were here on the panel because I think that is we talk about the mycelium network all the time in our work and what we do as well.

Sebastian (00:22:14) – We’re just going to talk about mushrooms.

Alli (00:22:16) – And I just.

Mo (00:22:17) – I just want to interject. The whole fundraising thing is a whole different story if you’re in the CBD space. So I have a whole different spin on that because the legislation that’s lacking, because of regulation that’s lacking. I have a beautiful product that I just want people to know, Hey, this is food is medicine. We all know this. We know the good food, ethically sourced Peruvian cacao. You add CBD and now I’m not going to get any funding. I’m self-funded, so it’s a whole different world. So I just want to put that out there for any of y’all is inspiring to play with CBD.

Mo (00:22:50) – Join me.

Sebastian (00:22:52) – Hey guys, I just want to remind you that you could get more content like this. It’s a bastion that’s a bastion enemy. And you can also get a ton of other marketing resources from myself and my agencies, ranging from SEO to social media, influencer marketing, branding, animation, web development and more. Again, that’s Sebastian Norm, Thank you and enjoy the rest of the show. Yeah. Mo So you go from a well-established, larger company to your own emerging venture, right? So now you’re in nearly 100 stores. What do you think that you took from that previous experience that you’re really taking now and what did you not take?

Mo (00:23:29) – Oh, well, I took my passions. I was obsessed with really good cacao. I thrust myself into visiting as many farms around the world as I could, fell in love with Peru. And so that’s why my cacao was sourced from there, direct farm trade. So I took the connection to the products because it’s not just a product on the shelf.

Mo (00:23:50) – And then I took packaging that was going to pop and I took my art and things that I loved. And then when CBD hit the industry, it wasn’t that long ago and we thought when the farm bill passed in 2018, all the derivatives of CBD and hemp extract, it was all going to be smooth sailing and here we are. And I’ve gone from full spectrum to broad spectrum because the state of Washington now has banned full spectrum CBD products. So it’s a constant dance. I’m not giving up because I love to dance, but it’s I took, I guess, the drive in resilience knowing that I have a beautiful product with minimal ingredients and a vegan line that speaks so much and mushrooms are coming to my chocolate next.

Sebastian (00:24:37) – I love that you got to love the dance if you’re in business for Carlos, right? Ali How do you scale consciously now that you guys are starting to experience a lot of growth?

Alli (00:24:50) – So what feels actually most relevant to say on this point? I read this recently. A friend of mine wrote this this article and the title of it’s called We will call It Paulo, and it’s a story about the psychedelic space.

Alli (00:25:02) – So we’ll try to like wrap it up concisely, but I actually think it’s highly relevant, this entire conversation. I just thought of it. Tim Ferriss credited this piece as one of his top favorite things that he read, I believe, in 2023 or 2022. So that validates that. It’s that it’s cool. I love Tamara’s. It basically talks about someone who had a life changing, psychedelic experience. And wanted to help share the magic of that experience, create a business around it and scale that offering and the process of going through, for lack of a better word, like the rat race that tends to like not only demoralise you, but also completely takes the thing that you create from a very mission driven point and distorts it and you end up it ends up becoming something that’s unrecognizable and like that whole process and it’s a super touching story. I have a lot of founder friends that started something because they’re so deeply passionate because it changed their lives like mushrooms changed my life. That’s why I’m doing this. And then you get kind of lost in the source of the whole thing and forget your passion.

Alli (00:26:10) – So short answer, the long winded way of saying is the way for me personally right now and my co-founder to like scale consciously is like, really remember why we’re why we’re doing it. And you know, obviously there’s stresses and business that are unavoidable and to be welcomed, but nothing works if you don’t. And so if we’re in a mental health business and I’m not like actively prioritizing taking care of my own mental health, you know, I’m literally when I talk to investors, I’m like, you’re just investing in my ability to still care about this in five years. And I promise I will because of these practices that I do that are totally unrelated to, yeah, work stuff.

Sebastian (00:26:50) – Constant daily reminders like having that love, that carry. So as Chief Brand Officer, part of your job as you guys are scaling consciously is to deliver the right message to your audience. And there’s a lot of purpose washing out there. And so if some of you guys have never heard of that term purpose washing, it’s basically companies and brands, a lot of them probably that you know very well.

Sebastian (00:27:13) – Or you can zoom from, they put some some sort of purpose out there, but they don’t really back it up with action or they have some sort of a campaign that’s built around purpose. But it’s really it’s just done to cover something else up. Right? So there’s a lot of purpose washing out there. So so right now, being chief brand officer, you’re you know, the messaging is very important what you guys put out there. So what platform do you guys focus on and how do you stand out from purpose washing?

Khari (00:27:42) – Um, well, our purpose, like I said, and mission is really to. Connect people back to bring humanity back into coherence with nature, but also to untap people’s innate inherent ability to heal themselves. And so our products are very simple in in their formulation and how they derive their derive. The intelligence of nature product is all a soil derived product that this at this moment for all the products that are out there now in our sinus and gut and skin products. So our mission and purpose come through in our product actually by ingesting it or putting on your skin or in taking our product.

Khari (00:28:27) – So that kind of makes it. Uh, easy in a way to stay on on, on purpose, if you will. We don’t do a lot of sexy branding. We went through two rebranding, rebranding when we came over from Restore. And when I took over the branding organization, we were at Eye on Biome, which was a kind of took a different route. It looked very clinical because we leaned heavily into the science and when looking at it, I was like, Wait a minute, we product name is intelligent of nature. We need to have representation of nature. And when our product is in our branding and everything we do. So if you’ve been on the journey with us, you’ve seen that come through in our packaging and in our messaging, we’re really telling the story of, of, of the evolution of our product and, and the, the, the importance of bringing that intelligent nature back into everything that we do. And it’s in our, you see it in our in our. In the testimonials that we bring were telling people’s real stories.

Khari (00:29:30) – We we share these things called connection stories. So a lot of our marketing and branding is actually people who are taking our product and we’re sharing those stories We tell you in those stories, we go to people’s homes, we share those stories, we film them. We put them up on our on our website. We use them through social, but our social platforms and, you know, performance marketing, what you’ve been what you did for us is, is one of the platforms that we use to do that. But again, it’s staying authentic to our product, our mission and sharing the stories of our community. We don’t there’s no sexy ness to it, really.

Sebastian (00:30:01) – Well, there’s nothing more powerful than being able to tell it through the community, through the consumers of the brand. So that’s amazing. So let’s talk a little bit about community and impact. So there’s also farmer’s footprint and intrinsic health are part of the umbrella of this traffic group. Can you talk a little bit about those and how that’s helping heal in communities?

Khari (00:30:22) – What pharmaceutical brands are.

Khari (00:30:24) – Is the 501. I don’t know if people are familiar with that, but their mission was telling the bringing awareness to regenerative farming and telling the stories of farmers and bringing empowering farmers with not only sharing their stories. That was originally how they started and we built a lot of interest and community around that. But then we didn’t stop there. We actually launched something this year called The Nest, where we’re actually supporting farmers with marketing services, web services, different ways to empower these species to take their business back in control because we realized it wasn’t enough to just share these beautiful stories with all to their farm. We feel their film, their story, tell it, put it up on a website and. And then what? Right. And so we’ve gone back in and actually supporting us. So a lot of the donations that you see are not only just bringing awareness to a cause, but also helping these farmers actually get their products out into the market and get and get them sold, which is ultimately the only way they’re going to stay in business.

Sebastian (00:31:20) – Absolutely. Absolutely. What about intrinsic.

Khari (00:31:23) – Health, the intrinsic health series that is under Zach’s brand? That is our educational course. It’s actually how I started with the organization. I started as just a as a contractor to come in and help rebrand that program. It was called Intrinsic Health Series originally. But then I when I rebranded, I rebranded it to a journey of intrinsic health, which is basically Zach’s protocol for tapping into your inherent ability to heal yourself and empowering people to heal. He was in the medical field for many years and realizing that wasn’t part of the solution, part of the problem. And so he developed this protocol that we were that he was teaching in our clinic in Charlottesville, Virginia, and we realized that you could only service a very small number of people in a physical clinic. So we took this eight point journey, these eight points of intrinsic health reshot. And it’s a course that you can take online either in a group setting or in an individual course setting. But it’s also not just giving you information.

Khari (00:32:31) – You’re paired with an actual coach who’s trained in the protocols, changing the method, and you actually go through this content with an actual code to help you integrate the teachings into it. And what happened during Covid is we had this idea while a people were at home. A lot of people wanted access to the course and we came up with a new model of group coaching, which something that we were resistant to doing in the first because we thought, who’s going to want to go into these health journeys, very personal health journeys in a group setting. But we launched it during Covid and we were able to offer it at a at a lower price because you’re going through it in the group. And we realized it’s now become our most popular option because people actually really appreciate going through healing journeys in community. And that is the power of community when you’re seeing people who are sharing your not only your interest, but can relate to what you’re going through, the power of that, that healing and community is just amazing.

Khari (00:33:28) – And a lot of what’s happening now is that these communities are self-organizing outside of that. So you have satellite, little pop up in intrinsic health communities throughout the country popping up and being self-organized as well. So that’s amazing.

Sebastian (00:33:45) – No, I mean, I love the work that’s happening with the community and the healing that’s happening. And you mentioned something that triggered a thought about integration and actually wanted to bring that to you, Ali, because there’s so much with plant medicine and psychedelics in general. And so there’s they sort of have this marketing that, you know, you can do plan medicine or you can do psychedelics and everything is going to be fixed, right? It’s like you’re going to do this, you’re going to have an experience and you’re going to learn about all the things you’re doing right, wrong and figuring out how to do them all right. But in reality, what ends up happening is I sort of see it as this like 9010 rule, right? It’s like like 10% is like doing it and sort of getting these like an awareness.

Sebastian (00:34:22) – And then there’s like 90% of it is integration, right? So what do you feel how do you feel about that 9010 integration rule right there, Ali?

Alli (00:34:32) – An integration is is like the sexy buzzword in the the psychedelics space. And you know, the caveat is like I’m not a therapist or in the medical profession at all. However, I talk about this topic a lot. In general, what feels relevant to share about it is that, like with anything, psychedelics are one of the tools that you can pull to impact your consciousness. Humans have been taking things to alter their consciousness since the beginning of time. We’ve recently made that illegal. People have been doing it with no supervision for thousands of years. People have been doing with supervision for thousands of years. I’m a big fan of freedom over your own consciousness. Being able to take whatever you want, whenever you want, as long as you are meeting your citizen duties of society. There’s a really great book on this called Drug Use for Grown-Ups by by Dr. Carl Hart, who I love.

Alli (00:35:22) – I love his research. So, you know. Yeah. You know, I’ll kind of I’ll kind of end it there. I just think that this conversation around psychedelics is like a super sexy one. And even in the functional mushroom space, like a lot of people think, Super Mashes is psychedelic. We’ve really, really leaned into the psychedelic branding because we’re inspired by that era and. I think that it’s an education issue. And any time you take anything, whether it be functional mushrooms or psychedelics, you should do a good amount of education before. So an integration is a part of that process.

Sebastian (00:35:57) – Absolutely. Absolutely. Mot Going back to the community theme. How do you guys measure impact with the communities and the ecosystems from which you source? Are you able to measure some form of impact the families that you’re working with? How does that work for you guys?

Mo (00:36:13) – Yeah, we’re fortunate that the the cacao is sourced from the collective in the San Martin region of Peru. So we know directly that they’re beyond fairly compensated.

Mo (00:36:26) – And we also know that every single ingredient we use is organic. We try to understand where each sourcing comes from. And as far as the CBD, we use always from a vertically integrated farm as well. So seed to whale.

Sebastian (00:36:43) – Beautiful. Ali, you have your own podcast as well into the multiverse. And we were just talking, Corey was just mentioning about the importance of education and all these programs and how much all of that connects community, right? And so as you guys, whether you have your own brand or your own business or you’re an entrepreneur, these are things that are really important more than ever, I feel like. Right. So how is the podcast in that media arm? How is that helping build community and expand awareness about mushroom wellness?

Alli (00:37:14) – A holistic education on fungi. So, you know, prior to a few years ago, you were either a functional mushroom company or you were a psychedelic company. So they were like separated. They weren’t necessarily playing with each other. And right now, you’re seeing that shift.

Alli (00:37:32) – People are talking about like Rolling Stone just had an article the other day and it was like the shroom boom isn’t just all about psychedelics, and it was all about the power of functional mushrooms. So whatever author wrote that article, I’m like, Thank you. That’s really speaks to our business model. But. We started the podcast part because I love I love a microphone, I love to talk, and I learned a lot from these conversations. We brought on doctors and therapists and artists and people that are driving culture to talk about their experiences with psychedelics, but do so in an elevated way that actually brings that conversation to light in a way that feels reflective of their actual experience rather than just like a soundbite. And so it’s grown, you know, fairly well in the psychedelics space. But our approach to everything is as holistic. So, you know, can I mention our nonprofit a little bit just to kind of close the lap? So a lot of people don’t fully understand the progress and like what’s happening in psychedelic legalization.

Alli (00:38:29) – And so we actually started the podcast and as a part of really looking at to the how are we going to support policy change in the psychedelics world. I started actually reading the policy bills because we originally were pitching investors. Being like Super Smash is going to be one of the first and consumer product companies in the microdosing space. And the reality is, like a lot of people have no idea what they’re talking about, myself included at the time. Because if you actually go and read the policy bills, the way that we’re shaping policy in the United States and Canada is around microdosing at service centers. So the future business model of all the consumer brands like does anyone here ever had a chocolate mushroom bar in Venice? You don’t raise your hand, but 90% of you have if you’re in this room. So the actual future business model of a commercial world where those are legal and available for sale. Microdosing as a wellness supplement, something I’m very passionate about. So we started a nonprofit a few years ago called Microdosing Collective, and we’re doing research policy and community building around Microdosing to actually help influence the future of that policy change.

Alli (00:39:33) – It’s a super fascinating conversation, really interesting stuff happening. California is very close to passing a statewide crime bill, so. Lots of exciting momentum in that space. Again, all education. We really want people to understand what’s happening in this space and how they can get involved.

Sebastian (00:39:50) – Yeah, I love that you guys are doing that. You were just at Burning Man. Why are you guys laughing? Did you guys assume that? So you were just the Burning man. Do you have any, like, super juicy, fun stories from Burning Man or like, psychedelic experiences that have actually affected your work culture that you take, taken from the experience and change the way that you’re doing business?

Alli (00:40:17) – For sure. Um, my biggest lesson from. From Burning Man, if anyone you know. Wasn’t watching The news is that it’s very, very parallel to start up life. Like whenever you think you know exactly what’s going to happen, you’re like ramping up for a big moment. You just all of a sudden get like stuck in the mud for an elongated period of time.

Alli (00:40:42) – So that was a funny parallel. But honestly, Burning Man and festivals are just like any form of like, artistic creativity. Does it matter if it’s Bernie Madoff or anything else like. Human creativity. Is so important. It’s one of the biggest values in our business. It’s one of the biggest things that I’ve learned from mushrooms. And we’re in a world where creativity is a luxury. It’s not sustenance. And there’s a really beautiful quote that I read recently around that where. My biggest takeaway from Burning Man is just like when humans have full ability to create on a mass scale, like the amount of that inspiration that you can then take back into your day to day life, into the mundane and to everything. Like we’re all just trapped artist. If anyone’s never read The Artist’s Way, it’s an amazing book. Yeah. So that’s my that’s my big takeaway this year.

Sebastian (00:41:30) – I love that. I love that. I actually I had to do a lot of personal work around that concept of being an artist or it was actually it was the concept of being a creative, right? So I used to be like, I’m not I’m not creative because I don’t like paint on canvas.

Sebastian (00:41:45) – I’m not a creative right. And I had to do a lot of work around that. And basically, like you said, we are all creators, right? I mean, we’re creating we’re creating content right now. We are just basically everything we’re doing is we’re creating. And like you said, like, what did you say that what did you call it? We’re trapped artists. You said we’re all trapped. Trapped artists? Yeah, we’re all trapped artists. I like that. So think about that, you guys is kind of you go into that tonight or tomorrow? Like, in what ways? Amaya Trapped artist, right? Like, how can I unleash that, you know, so so going back into so lessons learned. Corey You guys had to do multiple rebrands that’s like no joke, right?

Khari (00:42:21) – So like I sit here like, why did I bring that up?

Sebastian (00:42:25) – So what were your biggest takeaways with, you know, going through doing multiple rebrands with a product and a company that was already established and crushing it?

Khari (00:42:35) – Well, the first thing you learn in any marketing class or branding classes don’t change your brand and don’t don’t change your logo, don’t change your name.

Khari (00:42:43) – And we did all of those things twice in the course of two years. I’m glad that most of you, don’t you? Most people only know about from restorative intelligence nature because we able to do that really well. But we did it out of necessity. We we had to as we were expanding globally, we had to have a name that we could trademark in multiple countries and different things. And we were not able to do that with the previous branding. So we knew that it was inevitable that we had to do it. Um, and we leaned on support of a really talented branding agency to come in and help us rebrand. And it got us to a place and there were some really good things that happened for that. But in that we felt that the, um, the vibration of the branding wasn’t aligned to our mission, our purpose and who we were. And it wasn’t aligned to the vibration of the company and to the product. And so we had to we sat I remember sitting in that meeting with Zach and the rest of the founders and stuff like, I really want to do this again.

Khari (00:43:53) – I’m like, I think we have to. Um, but again, it was just was when I think sometimes you get it right and you hit a home run and that’s great. But sometimes when you don’t, you have to own that as well. And because we were writing our own story and we don’t have investors in things to answer to, we were able to do some of those things and pivots because we knew they were the right thing to do. Even though they were the hard thing to do, they were the right thing to do. And yeah, so yeah, it’s not something I would suggest to anyone, but it was an amazing learning experience for our team and we feel really great about where we landed with. It tells us from nature and we have some really awesome things coming to market in this next year that are only going to expand our reach and what we do and our offering. And we feel like this is, yeah, we’re positioned in a really great place. And you know, to be honest, our customers were the things that got us do that.

Khari (00:44:56) – The customers didn’t really care what it was called, the way it looked like they knew that it was working and it was helping their their health and their well-being. So they were like, We don’t care what you call it, please just stop changing it so we know how to buy it. Yeah. And keep making it. And please don’t change the formulation or anything like that. So our customers are very vocal and very opinionated because people take their health very seriously and their products and supplements they choose to, to, to, to, to buy. And so we do a lot of listening as well.

Sebastian (00:45:27) – Listening is huge. You don’t suggest it. But at the same time, though, you would suggest it, right. If it doesn’t feel like if it’s not vibrating like you said. Right. And you’re not really communicating what it’s really all about, it is important.

Khari (00:45:41) – That was it, right? We you know, we they the agency that did it did great work. And it was a great journey for us to go through to land and really find the identity and vibration.

Khari (00:45:52) – It just was in a different key or something than what we really wanted. So we had to rewrite that a little bit. And but yeah, if it’s not vibin, you know, if it’s not feeling right, there’s a feeling to it. And then you have to make that change. You have to do that.

Sebastian (00:46:10) – Absolutely, Absolutely. So branding and marketing, you know, is something that I’m passionate about. Obviously, at our company Go Global Agency, we have a lot of branding and marketing campaigns for many mission driven brands. I look at the marketing and branding that super much and CBD has and they’re both very playful brands and they’re very fun and in my opinion, I’m sure that they appeal a lot to Gen Z and Gen Z is actually a very conscious generation in a sense, right? I feel like the Gen Z is really generation that demands mission driven brands and products. Is that something that you guys that both you, Ali and Mo, do you guys keep that in mind? Do you think about Gen Z when you’re branding in that matter?

Mo (00:46:53) – You know, this has been my my whole life and I’m Yellow Submarine.

Mo (00:47:00) – I’m being Peter Max that I’m old high. I’ve been around a long time and it’s okay that it’s all come full circle and I love it and I love Gen Z and I love XYZ. I love them all.

Mo (00:47:12) – And I think.

Mo (00:47:13) – Everyone needs a everyone needs to feel good. And I think that if you look at my packaging and you hold on to it and it makes you smile and I saw your groovy mushrooms as well, we should do a giveaway. I think that. Sorry.

Khari (00:47:26) – You know, we don’t have any. It could be a Well, I get it.

Mo (00:47:28) – I said it’s not well this giveaway. Yeah.

Mo (00:47:32) – But I think that, you know, the, the the coolest form of flattery is your customer is giving a damn about your changes or what you do. And I think that my this is one thing I have gone for me is my freaking branding. Let’s just see if we can get some legislation going and try to, you know, break some barriers so I can stay in business.

Mo (00:47:50) – It’d be great.

Alli (00:47:52) – If you do.

Alli (00:47:52) – Another rebrand.

Mo (00:47:55) – Then we can.

Alli (00:47:55) – Do a giveaway.

Mo (00:47:56) – And I do want to.

Khari (00:47:57) – Say something cause my team, if they hear this, would kill me. Saying that our branding is not sexy. I know I said that a couple of times. I think.

Sebastian (00:48:02) – It’s sexy.

Khari (00:48:03) – I it’s not. It’s. It’s beautiful. I think it’s beautiful. But the supplement space a look is a very interesting space to look at where we are in the space. We’re not in the we’re more in the functional sort of supplement space of, you know, people addressing chronic illnesses and things that people have. And so that space isn’t very sexy. But we were able to, I think, create a beautiful emotional connection to our customers with our product. But we had to find that fine line because there’s a lot of science in our product. And so to be taken seriously in that space, you have to play into a little bit of that. But at the same time we were like, We got three ingredients in our products, like, so we’re not, you know, it’s nature in a bottle.

Khari (00:48:49) – How do we how do we tell that story is contemporary.

Mo (00:48:53) – The clean lines that it speaks to it?

Khari (00:48:55) – Absolutely. And I’m seeing some other brands take some cues from it. So that makes us feel good.

Sebastian (00:49:00) – That’s nice. Ali, Gen Z.

Alli (00:49:03) – Yeah. So our, you know, we’re very, very gen-z focused in large part, you know, to bring it back to the mental health angle. Gen-z is 42% of Gen Z in the United States has a mental health disorder. It’s like they’re the worst generation above any other because of the social media problem, because of systemic problems, which, you know, your guys’s work is super tapped into. And the way that you shift culture and get people’s attention especially. And we’re we’re in this like crazy attention economy is for us. Our approach is really fun, psychedelic, forward branding that pulls on the inspiration of, you know, the Jerry Bears and the Grateful Dead and. A lot of the iconic songs and lyrics and artists of the 60s and 70s, but like spinning it and making it fun and we put it in supplements, like if I really fully explain what we do, but we have a supplement line and we make mushroom mouth sprays.

Alli (00:50:00) – So we built the beginning part of the business by just spraying mushrooms into people’s mouths, which is still relatively niche, believe it or not. And we also have mushroom mints, so we have sprays for energy immunity and chill, and then we have creativity and flow mints. And we just came out with sex, energy and sleep gummies yesterday, which we are thrilled about. And our entire approach to the brand is community streetwear like we have a whole streetwear line that’s kind of like Aviator Nation meets Mad Happy. So we have a supplement brand that people want to wear on their shirt. That’s really focused on that younger demographic. So it’s definitely guys.

Sebastian (00:50:35) – Are killing that game. Absolutely. So as we wrap up here, guys, I want to ask you one more question. Kyrie. No matter what brands have to innovate, right? You worked at brands like Apple, Mulberry and innovation is key, right? So how do you innovate consciously?

Sebastian (00:50:51) – Mm.

Khari (00:50:52) – I think by listening. I’m. I being able to have a direct connection to the customers and communities that support your products and listening to them and have that conversation? I think branding is a conversation with your customer and you’re giving and receiving and there’s that exchange.

Khari (00:51:11) – If you’re not listening to that, then. There’s no there’s no consciousness to it because you’re just sort of projecting out into the world. And I think it’s an exchange. It’s a conversation. So we continue to listen. We continue to invite our customers in along with us on our journeys. We communicate a lot with them. We tell their stories, we share their stories. Um, and yeah, and I think not only listening to that, but listen to, like I said, what is, what is this entity, this brand, this thing that you’re doing, What is it asking for? What is it? How is it asking to be expressed? And you know, if you’re a founder or someone working on a branding and marketing team, doesn’t matter. But are you tapped into that? And I think that’s key in that. And we also one thing that I get to touch on, but I want to say it here, is part of that consciousness is also we everything we do, we start with our people and we look at our people as whole human beings having their own human journey coming in to do this thing that we call the work.

Khari (00:52:18) – But they’re individuals and they’re human beings and we support them in their human journey, not only as the title that they wear, that they have on their business card, and there’s a consciousness into that, into the decisions that we make and the people we invite onto that journey. And we we see that. And so that really, really is a part of that vibration that I talk about that that, that energy and that the force behind it all but giving people a place not only for them to work, but for them to be on their human journeys and individuals. Same way we share the stories of our customers, we share the stories and lean into the stories of our employees as well. So it’s all connected to my.

Sebastian (00:52:55) – Yeah, listening. That’s really amazing. I love that any of you ladies like to chime in. In terms of innovating consciously.

Mo (00:53:02) – I’m definitely listening to what your customers are looking for. Um, it was, it was a surprise to me to find out not everyone likes chocolate.

Mo (00:53:13) – Um, I’m like.

Sebastian (00:53:14) – That’s crazy.

Mo (00:53:15) – So I made a gummy. I was not going to do a gummy. There are gummies, everyone, Gaia, herbs, you name it, or you name a person, you name a brand that we help. Nature’s Way, by the way, developed their gummies. There was a live gummy. Anyway, um. So I decided, okay, I’m going to add my lines vegan. So it’s going to be a vegan gummy, which took about 500 trial and errors. We got it down and then my manufacturer went out. So I think persistence, resilience, listening to your people. And then I added magnesium glycine because if you’re going to do a gummy, let’s add to it. And then someone wanted milk. Chocolate was doing 70% Peruvian dark chocolate. I’m like, okay, I’m going to give you milk chocolate. It’s going to be vegan milk. Chocolate peanut butter tastes like a peanut butter cup, but I use powdered almonds instead of a milk. So I think that they help your your your consumer base helps you innovate.

Mo (00:54:09) – And I think that they feel proud. I love the engagement. I love the criticism. I love every little bit. No one’s think they love that.

Alli (00:54:23) – How do you innovate consciously?

Mo (00:54:25) – Isn’t that the question?

Alli (00:54:28) – I loved your answer. I want to try your products.

Sebastian (00:54:31) – Great answers.

Alli (00:54:31) – Yeah. The short answer is just don’t take advice from people you wouldn’t trade places with. That’s kind of been rule of thumb for us.

Sebastian (00:54:40) – Love that. Love that. Before I open it up, some some questions I want to ask you guys, final question. What are two traits that are conscious leader most embodied today?

Khari (00:54:52) – I’ll give one because this is the one that popped in my head and maybe I’ll let and then we’ll I’ll go to the second one. But compassion again, it goes back to what I was saying before. If you’re not seeing your team as human beings, having a human experience and a journey that are choosing to sign up, to show up, to do your thing every day, and you’re not bringing that compassion through to that and seeing them as a whole person.

Khari (00:55:18) – I’m not sure how you can even begin to. To me, that’s everything in leadership is people. Every role that I’ve been in, every company, my success has been because I value my people more than anything else. So I’m compassion would be the first thing.

Sebastian (00:55:34) – Two traits that are conscious leader must embody. Just embody as a conscious leader.

Mo (00:55:41) – Resilience and transparency.

Alli (00:55:46) – I’ll bring it full circle since we started with a meditation breathwork on the masculine and feminine side. So something I’ve been thinking about recently. So I’ll just give I’ll give one answer to this is I think we’re at a really unique time where leaders are actually able to lead with what is typically called more feminine qualities, and women are able to actually do that. Where that wasn’t always the case. We were in a privileged point to be able to lead with softer, more empathetic, compassionate qualities. And it’s a really cool thing to see. You see it way more in the wellness space than you do in any other industry. But I think in general, consciousness is changing.

Alli (00:56:26) – Covid changes things. The mental health crisis is changing things and we’re shifting the way that we’re living and working. So.

Sebastian (00:56:34) – You could do like a whole podcast on that, just that subject. I love that subject. Corey.

Khari (00:56:39) – Yeah, I was going to say the second one would be really the understanding, the import. I love what you said about that, the balance of that. We go through that in our organization all the time. We’re constantly evolving that. But diversity of experience in every level, whether that’s life experience, work experience. I love when companies hire people who are not from their industry but have transformed my career. I’ve hopped from industry, from fashion to retail to wellness to to real estate tech in some ways now. So diversity of experience and seeing that and understanding that of value in that and representation I think are key in that.

Sebastian (00:57:22) – I love that. Well, thank you guys for those traits. All of you are truly conscious leaders, so please keep doing you. Before I open it up to a couple of questions, I do want to give a special thanks again to the kin this beautiful space.

Sebastian (00:57:34) – They are one of the sponsors of the Conscious Profits Unfiltered show, and they are a membership network for conscious entrepreneurs. So really epic stuff. Raise again, Raise your hand again if you’re with the kin. If you guys want to find out a little bit more or Yeah, or you can come ask me and then I’ll point you to them and we’re going to open it up to a few questions. Just, I’m just going to do three questions because you guys can afterwards you guys can come and connect with us individually if you want to keep asking us questions. And that we used to have a little bit of time to connect with each other. You we still have more drinks, you can eat some mushrooms and just, you know, have a good night. So any questions out there? Go ahead. You can be. Okay, You can if you can be loud, please. So we’re.

Person in the crowd (00:58:24) – Living in one.

Sebastian (00:58:25) – Of us that equal lives.

Person in the crowd (00:58:27) – And history. So a lot people are street poverty.

Person in the crowd (00:58:34) – How how incongruity is extreme wealth, the wealth to conscious capitalism. And if it is, how is it Because, you know, here you could take all this money that’s sitting in trust spot and they’re out so redistributed to Albany that actually can do very positive thing. So is that one of the principles of capitalism in terms of redistribution? Well, there anything about that with noxious capital?

Sebastian (00:59:11) – Okay, so I’ll answer that, at least in my opinion. So the way I see it is that a lot of the times companies will try to solve a problem by just taking something and then just giving a part back, which I think is definitely a step. It’s something that it’s a great starting point. In my opinion, the best approach to what you’re talking about is being able to actually build the the conscious, purpose driven aspects of the mission into the DNA of the company and then also help employ, right. So to teach a lot of these people that there is a huge incongruence, like you said. So if we can actually teach and work with a lot of those people that are having so much trouble and bring them into the system so that they can learn and have skills that they can provide value with.

Sebastian (01:00:00) – And then in turn, that feeds that conscious or mission driven brand. I don’t know if anybody would like to add to that. Okay, go ahead.

Alli (01:00:13) – You all said.

Sebastian0 (01:00:14) – That I’m listening to your cutesy word for the day, Your pops. So I’m just wondering what the most effective queries you found for that feedback.

Mo (01:00:27) – For me, it’s about either through my website or direct messaging on Instagram. Facebook hates me, they censor me, so I only have Instagram or website.

Khari (01:00:38) – Uh, we have many different ways. You actually, if you go on our website, you when you actually call the number, you speak to a real person. And we’ve worked really hard to make sure that’s always the case. But our customers seem to just be really opinionated and have a lot to say because a lot of them have listen to Zach and follow his work. And there’s there’s just this I don’t know. Our community is unique in that I’ve never experienced that any of the brands that I’ve ever worked for, which is how forthcoming the community is to just share their opinion.

Khari (01:01:12) – Even sometimes where you’re like, okay, that’s, that’s so we don’t have to really struggle much with that. But we, we hear it through social, we definitely hear it through our website and direct feedback. And then we reach out a lot through surveys and things as well, asking for feedback from directly from the consumer.

Alli (01:01:37) – Event’s Instagram. Well, you guys said, Yeah.

Khari (01:01:41) – Events are amazing. You guys show up in a lot of cool events that I’ve been to, so.

Sebastian (01:01:46) – All right. We’ll do one final question, John.

Sebastian (01:01:51) – Well well, hey, especially for how thoughtful you are. So my question, which is the elite challenge for media, especially children. I’m so worried about all three of your brand. You got social media, the effort to get it to your customers. It’s right. It’s a bit of bloody. How do you reconcile the idea that you sit thoughtful about health, wellness, stakeholders, consciousness? But the way to get your message out is social media. So validate goes against so much of what you’re trying to do.

Khari (01:02:42) – I just think that everything has its place in our story. And and there’s a, there’s a clarity to social media. Um, in one way, it’s a very cost effective way to have access to people. But we know that that comes with at a, at a cost. Um, and so I think. Everyone has choices that they make in how they consume social media. And we are not we don’t market our product for to to children who are maybe don’t have the the ability to make those choices for themselves. So I’m going to focus on the segment that we are in which our our audience screws a little bit much older. I feel like I social media can be a place where you can learn a lot and have a lot of positive interactions with. But also on the other side of that, it can be a place that is buying for your time and attention. We use it, but we do it again in a very organic way. It’s it’s it’s not our only tool that we use, but it’s one that is highly effective in some ways.

Khari (01:03:53) – But we see we’re seeing that change. I think that you have to be where the people are and where the customers are and where people’s attention is. What do you do with that intention once you have it, I think is what matters. And so I try not to demonize social media or any of the things that are out there, our competitors or glass versus plastic, whatever those things it might be. I think we demonize things a little bit too much because there’s dark and light and good and bad in everything. It’s it’s what are you doing with that attention once you have it? And what message are you sending out there? And if you’re sending out a message of light and hope and health and wellness and empowerment, then that’s needed in that space as well. So and oftentimes our if you look at our our messaging and stuff in in our advertising, it’s not a hard sell. It’s literally storytelling. So.

Alli (01:04:46) – You mean my quick $0.02 on this is. Realities. You’ll never know the downstream effects of anything that you’re doing, including marketing on the Internet, which is it’s such a double edged sword, exactly like you’re saying.

Alli (01:04:58) – If you have something that you believe is going to make people’s brains and bodies and lives better, I think you have an obligation to market it and meet people where they’re at. I just gave a talk at Burning Man to bring it full circle about AI and fungi and how we can actually use the the learnings of how mycelium operates, how psychedelics work to make AI more conscious. So all of these tools can be used for good and for evil. I’m sure everyone here has had depressing thoughts after they look at their Instagram and also it’s been a beautiful tool of connection at some point or another. So both are true. And the reality is like we don’t know, but we feel obligated to market this thing that we know has the potential to help people.

Sebastian (01:05:39) – Of those answers. I hope you guys.

Mo (01:05:42) – Yeah, of course.

Mo (01:05:44) – I was just going to say the other the other side to that is engaging. I totally agree with what both folks have said. But I think that engaging at a store level, if you’re so lucky to be in an over a retailers, that’s where you know you’re can I can’t stay out of stores because I’ve been in them for so long that I think that that that’s where the energy is and that’s where you really get the most feedback.

Mo (01:06:07) – For me, social media really is sharing the beauty of cacao. I don’t really you know, it’s that. So it really depends and it’s about wellness and focusing on that. Otherwise I’m going to get shut down. So I.

Mo (01:06:19) – Love.

Sebastian (01:06:19) – That. So many nuggets. So I hope that you guys got that one golden nugget that will hopefully cause a shift in your life or you still have time to make that conscious connection that can generate that impact. We started the night talking about health and money and hopefully we all make the most conscious decisions with both of those categories. And you know, whether you are an entrepreneur or an entrepreneur or a founder or maybe you’re already enjoying retirement, we’re all fundamentally consumers, right? So every single day you’re voting with your dollars. So when you make a choice to be a conscious consumer, every time you make a purchase that is a voice. It is a statement that demands business, have a purpose beyond profit and business with a purpose beyond profit is conscious capitalism. And conscious capitalism is the path to creating a better world and causing positive impact at scale.

Sebastian (01:07:14) – So thank you guys all so much for being here tonight. Please stick around. Thank you so much to our panel. Hey, guys. I really hope you enjoyed that episode. You know, it takes a lot to put these things together, but I truly love doing it. If you enjoyed this episode or the show in general, please actually hit, subscribe and take literally 30s to write me a review. It would mean the world to me. Please share it with a friend to screenshot it. Tag me on your story on Instagram. I’d love to see that and share it. You know, all that stuff really helps and it would mean a lot to me and it also helps keep the show alive. Visit Sebastian Nam for more content like this and follow me on Instagram at CB. That’s CB. Nah. Um, thanks again for spending your time with me. I know it is valuable. I hope you have a great rest of the day and week. Till next time.