Mariana Castillo de Ben&Frank: De Barista a Startup, Poder de Marca y Consejos al Emprender | S2E01

(upbeat music) - Hi there and welcome back to another edition of Built to Sell Radio, the podcast designed to help you punch above your weight in a negotiation to sell your business. Today on the show is Rhett Taylor, who built Ned a natural remedies company to $6 million in revenue. Now at one point the business had $32 million valuation, then a series of shocks, an Apple software update, a lender bankruptcy, a clause buried deep in an credit agreement, forced him into a distress sale while he was literally halfway up a mountain. And in this episode you're gonna hear how Rhett navigated the sale, why he's convinced the $10 million number, most founders chase is a trap. And what he learned about knowing when to stop climbing. Without further ado, here is Rhett Taylor, enjoy. (upbeat music) - Rhett Taylor, welcome to Built to Sell Radio. - Thanks for having me, John. I'd look it forward to this conversation. I'd be looking forward to it for a while. Take me back to the founding story of Ned. How did you get into this business? - Yeah, well it was actually at the end of a vision quest that I did for myself in the middle of nowhere, Southern Utah, in the Canians, along the Escalante River. I spent 55 days entirely outdoors in 2016, the summer of 2016, it was an experiment for me to see just how much I could heal, first of all, from past business experience and then begin to thrive. And the healing happened pretty fast and the thriving happened fast. And yeah, I was at the top of my game in the summer of 2016, just living outside. I sold my BMW and traded it in for a four runner and loaded it up with a sleeping bag and flyer out and mountain bike and a little table. I could put my laptop up on in a jet pack. You remember those back in the day? - Sure. - To Wi-Fi. - Yeah, I lived in the mountains of Colorado and Utah around Aspen and Telluride and I refused to go indoors. I think I might have gone in a couple of times to get some groceries or what, that was it. And at the end of that, I spent four days on my own fasting in the Escalante River Canyon and it was all about what am I doing with my life? I had a company at the time that was, I was at the top of my field in, it was very lucrative and it was an absolute widget to me. I could have cared less about what we were doing. We had offices in New York, Miami Boulder and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and it just wasn't making any sense to me. I did it for the money. I grew up with a lot of scarcity and thought money was the answer and got there and realized it wasn't. So yeah, I spent four days just sitting on this Canyon floor watching the sun go across the sky and yeah, I got to quiet the noise in that canyon and I got to really hear what matters most to me. It's amazing what a little bit of nature, some severance, some silence, some simplicity and the whole lot of solitude can do for you. And I came out of that canyon just knowing, I've got to get out of this business. And there wasn't too much to sell honestly. It was mostly my relationships, my expertise, but I was able to and I went on to start Ned, which was the answer. Ned was much more my passion, my purpose. - Which is always good. - For folks you don't know, yeah. - Yeah, just explain that kind of. - Yeah, what is it? - Yeah, thanks Sean. We created all types of different natural remedies, mostly all different types of natural alternatives to pharmaceuticals. So things for sleep and stress, inflammation, joint muscle pain. We searched the world for the best natural products and formulas to create those natural alternatives for folks who were looking for something other than ambient or zooloft or adorol. And we created those natural products. - So stuff like CBD oil, I hear that's good for sleeping. That's one of the one relaxation is one. - Yeah. CBD was one of our first products. We also had great magnesium product. Tinctures and topicals, things for immunity. Really just creating and finding, searching the world for the best ingredients. And then we worked with amazing botanists and we created these beautiful formulas that worked very well and still worked to this day. But yeah, you got the gist of it. - Got it. And so what's the distribution model? I don't know what it's like in the States. Like you can you sell that stuff at Walgreens? They're like, where do you distribute it? - Yeah, so we started direct consumer and this was 2017 and it was, you know, prime heyday DTC. And then we, you know, obviously with COVID that just, you know, 10x right there. So we started DTC. Later on we were in Amazon as well and then air wall super high end grocery chain out in Southern California. - I'm familiar with that. So when you say DTC, you're talking about people ordering from your website? - Or yes, direct consumer, straight from the website. - Yeah. - Got it. - So you had a website then how did you get people to the website? What was the business model there? - Yeah, we were storytellers, still are. And podcast was our biggest channel. - Really? - Oh yeah. Yeah, you know, we were doing something really high end high quality, high-minded, very thoughtful, working with amazing farmers, direct from the farm. You know, we had stories to tell and we were creating products that were very high quality. In an industry that's not known for regulation or even quality. And so we wanted to share that story. So we, and we were hamstrung because back in the day, CBD wasn't allowed on typical social media channels. So we turned to podcasts. I've always been a huge podcast fan and listener and there were a few in particular and reached out to a guy who your audience might know. Now he's become quite famous. Jordy Hayes, who's one of the co-hosts of TBPN, the kind of tech bro talk show that just sold to, I think, Anthropic. Anyways, Jordy was a junior at UCSB and he just had his finger on the pulse of the podcast world. And he, I asked him and he said, let me get back to you and he came back three weeks later and he said, yeah, there's this show. It's called, it's called Mind Pump. And it's these three bros who lift weights and talk about it. And they're actually really really smart and they have a huge following. And anything they say one should buy, that whole following goes out and buys it. So he said, so we, we had the opportunity to work with them. They've vetted us hard. They used our products, tried them, ran it by a doctor. And we passed all the sniff tests and they eventually allowed us to pony up, I think it was $6,500, which was about $500 short of our entire capital in our bank account. And we kind of went all in and that was our first hockey stick moment. It was about five months in and we went from doing 8,000 a month to 30, to 90, to 120 in that many months. And yeah, podcasts was always our biggest marketing channel. How did that evolve for time? Is more people started listening to podcasts but the world of podcasting became much more fragmented? How did it evolve as you went on? Yeah, Mind Pump was always our best and brightest advertising partner on podcast. We tried many, many others. We had some big whiffs. You know, big names that you think are gonna perform and just absolutely don't. And, you know, we were fortunate because we got in very early on podcast marketing and locked up exclusivity or category exclusivity with our best partners. We're always very careful too. We tested everything. If it was a big red flag for us if it had a podcast host wouldn't allow us to test the market first. And we, Jordy Hayes worked with us for two years and then went on to much bigger and much brighter things but installed his best friend Christian Bender who was just as good if not better than Jordy. And yeah, it's funny now seeing Jordy as a mainstream public figure. Just pretty cool. Isn't that wild? Yeah, I heard about that story over the weekend. pretty pretty big. time story in the whole kind of podcasting universe. So walk me through, so it's, as you're growing, you're using podcasting as a means of acquiring customers, you're sending them to the website and Amazon to some extent where they're buying the product. You're shipping it and presumably including in the box, some incentives to come back to the website and sort of creating the flywheel that way. Yeah, yeah, we were very intentional about that. We had a loyalty program called the North Star program where you were accumulating points and rewards on your second order. You were getting a pretty significant gift from us, always very thoughtful. This sort of a, we had a high criteria for our gifts. A lot of them we made in-house, you know, which was amazing, herbalists and botanists and we created all types of great little gifts for people. But yeah, we were very thoughtful about it and we put a lot of time, thought and resources into the North Star program and you know, very much like a burrito punch card, people knew when their next free order was coming and it was as simple as that and it was also you know, behind the scenes a lot more complicated and thoughtful. Well, let's get into that because this became a fairly significant, no fairly, that's the wrong choice of words, it became a significant business. I mean, at your sort of height, kind of revenue, where were we at? Yeah, we were right around six million and yeah, we had 18 people at one point, which was too many, honestly. But yeah, we were the leader in the CBD sleep category with our sleep blend and then our our mellow magnesium product was our second rocket ship. That really was a big category that we were also very early to and we did it with a lot of thought and tension and then great storytelling all around it. What makes you say that 18 was too many and you should have been a few more? There sounds like this is a story there. Yeah, you know, we were out over our skis a bit, we were, you know, 365 on the fastest growing companies list, four to five thousand. We were, we thought we were just going to continue to grow and grow. And when I think it was back in 2001 or two when iOS 14 changed, which is the Apple operating system, it went from us being able to track our interested potential customers to not being able to track them at all. We were a bootstrap business and we were always very careful with our marketing dollars and we always took a rifle approach as opposed to shotgun. All of a sudden it became a lot more difficult to acquire that target through the rifle we had to start using a shotgun and that became a lot more expensive for us and really every single direct consumer brand. It was a seismic shift at that point and we were primed to grow as if that hadn't happened and then all of a sudden we were out over our skis. What was that like having to let those people go? You know, it's never easy, of course, but we, most of those people were in the marketing side and the writing was on the wall for everybody. It was seismic and things needed to shift. Yeah, but it's never easy. Although it got easier, honestly, when you have began thinking about what's best for the business, which is best for the people who remain, which is best for their families and my family and my business partner, co-founders families. Obviously you like to keep growing, but sometimes you can't. Yeah. So 6,018 employees, iOS changes, just flash forward 12 months from there. Where were you at a year later in terms of? Yeah, we had plateaued and we had plateaued, just shy of 6 and we were looking for how to continue to grow and we were looking at new products and my business partner, Adrian, who was in charge of marketing, was looking at all different types of channels and platforms and efficiencies and yeah, it was kind of scrambling a little bit and not knowing exactly where the growth was going to come from. And I would say for me, personally, it marked a shift. I have since learned that I am a visionary founder and once it gets out of the startup phase and it more into the growth phase, my genius isn't as useful and I can drop from that zone of genius into right past zone of excellence and down into zone of competence and maybe even in competence. Got it. Yeah. And when it's there? Yeah. You know, I love the first three, right? The first three years, the first three employees, the first three million, you know, that is, that's where I really shine and it's about the visionary side of it all. When it then got into operations and just keep an eye on spreadsheets and KPIs, it just didn't hold my interest like it did and I didn't bring it up. So you're six. So you're six million revenue profitable? Give me a sense of the profitable. Yeah, we're always profitable. We're profitable from month six, I believe. Kind of margin would you make on six million? Yeah. Well, it got less and less and less as advertising marketing became more and more expensive. You know, we went from a very, very healthy, you know, 35% to more like six, seven percent at a certain point. And this is mostly driven by the iOS change, not allowing you to kind of do is, yeah, precise a job as targeting customers anymore. Exactly. Exactly. Got it. Got it. Okay. So that makes sense. So you're at this point where you're not feeling fulfilled anymore. They can't, the growth is stalling and it's becoming much less fun for a founder personality. Was there some sort of triggering event that caused you to want to sell? Was there something that kind of straw that broke the camel's back or was it just a confluence of things? Like, what happened? Yeah. It was, it was a straw that broke the camel's back. There were a few things. So in 20, 2024, our, we had had a line of credit with a company called Ampla. And it was always very healthy. We always had a very healthy debt to debt ratio. And it was four years. And we would use that money to finance our inventory, particularly on the magnesium side. And then Ampla went under. And our line of credit went away. And then Ampla said, Hey, you guys owe us a chunk of money. We want that yesterday. And we, at 6% margin, we weren't cash flush. And so we all of a sudden found ourselves in a debt crunch. And that became difficult. And we went from concerned to terrified. The same time us, I had been planning on climbing Denali for almost a year, training for it, walking around the hills of Boulder, you know, carrying a 60 pound backpack and wearing mountaineering boots in August. That's what it does. Yeah, these are negative 40 degree boots. So, trade, trade, traipsing around the hills of Boulder. I almost didn't go on this trip. And my business partner, Adrian, he said, dude, you, you got to go. I got it. And I went. And the first, you know, Denali is typically a two and a half to three week climb. And the first 11 days, we had amazing weather. It just couldn't have been better. Conditions were fantastic. It was cold as you could ever imagine, but it was just excellent weather for climbing. And we got up above the head wall, which is kind of the crux of the climb. We got up to 18,000 feet high camp, which is only 2,000 feet short of the summit. But we were tracking two massive Arctic storms coming our way. And our guides that night said, listen guys, we're going to be stuck up here for anywhere from like six to 15 days if we, if we stick it out, and we'll be at 18,000 feet, you know, negative 40, 50 degrees, 100 mile per hour winds. So, we can do that, but do we want to. And you guys tonight need to make a decision. Let us know in the morning so that we've got a window still where we can get out of here. And I laid in my tent that night and my first instinct was, let's stick it out. It'll, that's what I do. I do hard shit. Like, I have made a entire identity around doing really, really hard things. That started when I was 10 years old and I decided I was, I wanted to live better, live more abundantly. And I created an identity around doing hard things. And so my first instinct was, that's what I do. If anybody can do it, I can do it. And I'll make for a better story. And I can tell myself that I am worthy and capable and I am enough. And I lay to my tent. And then I started thinking about Ned, back in Boulder, the business. You know, we were at a point where we were going to have to retool, probably even go all the way back to the garage. It was going to take years. We could do it. We could bring it back. We could get to that big exit that we were hoping for. But we were going to have to do the really hard thing, and bring it all the way back. And I laid there in my tent and I realized that I have been fighting uphill, rowing upstream since I was 10 years old, and made that vow to get out of the scarcity that I grew up in. And since then, I had been pointing toward the rocks and the rapids. I've been rowing upstream, facing forward, efforting everything success. Effort was my strategy. I will be successful because I will effort and work harder than anybody else. And I was starting to see on the mountain, the mountain didn't care how hard I climbed. It was going to bring to back-to-back Arctic storms, right, when I got close. I didn't care. It was going to send us market conditions and iOS 14 and regulations and our bank collapsed. Who's bank collapsed? You can't plan for that. So I started realizing that effort was not the right strategy. And I was laying in my tent and I realized that my fists were clenched inside my sleeping bag. And I realized that I'd been white-nuckling my way through life. And I had been gripping those ores so tight. And I started to try to open my fists. And I literally couldn't do it. It took me minutes to open up my fists. And it was this release, this somatic release. And when they got open enough, I could feel the ores slip from my grasp. And I could feel myself in that boat pause and then begin to drift backwards. The way the boat was always meant to go with the current. And I was still facing forward. And I was there in full trust and faith that as long as I go with the flow and surrender I was trying to do everything that's so hard. That current would carry me exactly where I meant to go. And that was my answer for the guides that next morning. I'm ready to go with the flow, stop trying to do everything that's so damn hard. And I cast my vote to head down. And that's what we all did. And I came back and I talked with Adrian and I said, I'm ready to go do the thing that I've always wanted to do, the thing that comes most easy to me. The thing I never gave myself permission to do. And I want to sell the company and I want to go become a coach and I want to take people outdoors, which is what I've always done. And I want to have deep meaningful conversations with people who are in the same position and who could use it. And I've stopped climbing that first mountain, that first mountain of pure, purely out of safety and paths on the back and money in the bank. I no longer need to climb that. I was off to the second mountain. I want to get to the second mountain the second before we do though. Let's talk about what you did next because the business was not in great shape. You had this cash crunch, you were flat, revenue-wise. First of all, what was Adrian's reaction when you came home to say, okay, let's sell this thing. Yeah, he was all for it. He was ready as well. It had been seven years. Actually, it had been six and a half years. And we built the business to sell, like you podcast. And we said five to seven years and we'll exit. And he was ready as well. But this is like the world's worst time to exit. Yeah, we were not doing great. And we didn't even know if we could exit. In fact, when I got back from Denali after about two weeks, you know, we had to lay off more people. We had the debt collector from Ampla banging down our door. And it was the worst time of my entrepreneurial career. I spent five weeks extremely worried. I felt like I was going to go back to being the poor kid I grew up as after all that hard work. What was the risk, correct? Like, did you have a personal guarantee on the debt? Like, what was the worst case scenario that was going through your money? Yeah, there was a bad actor clause, which they said had been invoked. It was on page, you know, 197, you know, whatever, whatever. We had to be, you know, we didn't understand that that was it then transferred into a personal guarantee. What is a bad actor clause that I've never heard that before? Well, it's a bad, I think it's called a bad boy clause. I'm glad I've forgotten the name of that. It consumed for me for so long. Yeah. They said that when we stopped sending direct payments, I mean, this is all complicated long story stuff. But when they, when Ampla told us that they could no longer finance us and that they were going under, we stopped directing, routing, automatic payments through them so that they could then take their cut and send it to us. By stopping that, they said that we breached the contract. Hence, the non-personal guarantee turned into a personal guarantee. Wow. And okay, that's interesting. I've never heard that before. How much, how much was on the line? Like, how much did you owe them? 260, 260 grand. And it was Adrian also on the hook personally or was it just you? It was just me. But Adrian stepped up and said, you know, this is, this is our debt. So yeah, quarter million bucks on the line. And wow. Okay. So this is getting more interesting. So where does it go from here? So what will that be? So I spent five weeks just, you know, not sleeping, trying to figure it out. Here I had just made this vow to stop, you know, using effort as a strategy. And it was severely tested at that point. And I think that's what it was. circling the blood in the water. And I realized, and they were going to chop up the business. They even wanted to do this article, article nine for closure, where we would essentially default on all our debts and screw everybody, our vendors and banks. And we just said, hell no. I've come to learn that that's a common practice in, in, in their world. But it was a hard no for Adrian and I, even though would have banned that parachute. But yeah, as soon as I stopped worrying, I realized, I had met the man who would buy our company. I met him three months before it, a networking event. And he said, he said, how much he loved the business and how well it fit together. We were planning on perhaps doing a, a collab. And I called him up. So John, the businesses for sale, he said, that's, that's amazing. We just engaged a company to help us find a, a business to acquire. Yeah. John came over, we talked, he was one of those ones, it's supposed to be an hour long and turned into three or four hours long. And I saw him get goose bumps when we talked about the products that we make, the way we make them, the way we package them and make them ourselves, the farmers that we worked with, the good people we supported, the environmental causes we supported, I saw him get goose bumps. And then three and a half months later, we had sold the business. So what was John's company at the time when you met him three months before? Yeah, it's an amazing company called Foria. And Foria, what do they do? They make all types of amazing products similar to the way we made them with high integrity, high intentionality, amazing ingredients, good sourcing, and their focus was sexual wellness. So they make very high end, very high quality organic lubes and massage oils and various products for the bedroom. And John said, hey, you guys own the sleep category. We own the sex category. Why don't we own the bedroom together? And here we are. Peter better chocolate. Got him. Okay. So so you're you're into a conversation with John, who was the first one to raise the specter of valuation? How did that come about? Yeah, well, they had engaged this company to help them acquire the business. And so we worked mostly through their that the individual at that company. And yeah, we they gave it, you know, they went through our books and our our data room and they gave us the valuation. We went back and forth a bit and we landed on a figure that we could all be pretty happy with. And it was a yeah, go ahead. It was a far cry from what I thought we would sell the business for. And what we honestly could have a few years prior. But it was it was a number that made a lot of sense for Adrian and I. What did you think he could have been worth during those earlier years? Like what did you have a sense? Yeah, you know, we had a what's it called a 498 plan for our employees. So we would get a valuation every year. And you know, the valuation was up to 32 million at one point. You know, when CBD was in its heyday and things were trading on I think anywhere from six to nine times revenue. And that was that was also when DTC was, you know, crazy. And there was no talk of EBITDA. Everything shifted. I want to say after COVID. And it went from just growth and revenue to EBITDA. And a multiple of EBITDA. Yes, a multiple of EBITDA. I think we've, yeah, I think we've avoided talking about what your EBITDA was. Are you able to share roughly what multiple EBITDA you ultimately got? You know, I can't even really, I'd really remember, but it was pretty pretty low, pretty low. Again, I was ready to go do the thing that I've always wanted to do. Adrian was ready as well. And our alternative was going back to the garage and taking another five years to figure this thing out. And that was not what either of us wanted to do. A lot of I think our listeners are probably in a similar situation with you that you were in at that time where, you know, business maybe hasn't gone as they had hoped it might. And they, they might be really kind of feeling a lot of the same feelings that you felt, right? Do I, do I pick up the pieces and start again, you know, figuratively speaking, do it, do I sell for maybe less than I thought it was worth? Do I still have it in me? We can tell you and I'm just so happy I sold the company. I am so happy. I truly feel blessed. I mean, there were days when, there were days when we would talk to an acquaint, a potential acquireer and then get off the phone and get on the phone with our bankruptcy attorney. I mean, it was that close and I feel very blessed that we were able to sell that company and it was, it was an amazing exit in so many regards. It taught me so much about myself. It gave me the ability to relate to the founders that I work with. It showed me, you know, those five weeks where I was, I literally wasn't sleeping. I was so worried. That was the dark night of my soul. I'm so grateful for it. It all happened for me. And, um, did it, you know, are that the bank collapsing? Like again, that just, you can't plan for that. And do you ever find yourself in a scarcity mindset? I know you've worked hard and you work hard to every day to make sure you, you live an abundant life mindset. But I wonder if you've ever catch yourself falling into that. I could have would have should have, you know, 32 million. Does that, that, that audio track run through your mind at times? And if so, how do you kind of turn it off? Yeah. You know, it, it did often. Um, you know, I had lots, I'm 47 years old almost, and I've been an entrepreneur since 2006. And I've had, you know, two other businesses in addition to Ned. Um, and I've had a lot of opportunities to, to make a lot of money. And I did, I did make good money. But it's, it's, it's mostly gone. I went into Ned and, um, and yeah, I'm not sitting on a pile of the money right now. And I'm, in many ways, pretty grateful. Um, because I'm doing exactly what I would be doing if I was. Um, and letting go of those ores that night on Denali. That was an act of surrender. And I surrendered that need to go and prove myself by making more. And you know what, when I talk to founders about money, I think, um, yes, I'm want to go buy a Ferrari for whatever reason. But that's actually not what I hear most often. What I hear most often is, is that I get a sense of freedom from the money. I feel that sense of that, that yearning that I've always had in my life is, is I want freedom. And, and now that I've got enough money in the bank that work is an option, not a requirement. I feel free or that's the aspiration. I'd be curious to know what your reaction to that way of thinking is. Yeah. I mean, that is my way of thinking. I see dollar bills as freedom chits. And it allows me to go do the things that I want to do. And for the most part, it's, it's travel and give my family a, a life rich in experiences. Um, it's not travel first class. It's just travel and experience. And, you know, I grew up like when it came time for shorts, whether it was go cut off your jeans. And so I like to be able to buy a pair of shorts when I need a pair of shorts. And, you know, um, but I'm not looking to, you know, I'm not, I'm not, I don't have Ferrari aspirations. But some people listening to this rat would say, but I need, I'm just going to make a number up. I need $10 million in the bank because 4% of that is 400 grand. And I can fund my lifestyle on 400 grand a year. And so I need, I need the big pile. You're saying as if I'm interpreting you correctly and tell me if I'm not that you don't necessarily need the big pile to, to feel that sense of freedom that you're experiencing. Am I getting interpreting your, I don't. Yeah, I don't. And I used to, I, I used to, and my number was 30 million. And then I'll be happy, safe, have all that I need. And then it turned into 10 million, and then it turned into 6 million. And, um, and then I went and I surrendered on that mountain. And I chose to go do what I always wanted to do. And, like I said, I'm, I'm 47, but I can do this for 30 more years. And I know how to make money. I'm not afraid. And I feel like I feel faith for the first time in my life, like true faith. What what faith really feels like, which is as long as I don't grab those ores again, as long as I continue doing what I'm here to do, which is supporting other founders and and other people and other leaders, then the abundance will come and it already is. I'm already making more than I was with net, you know, I mean, that happened pretty quickly. And yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with money. I'm all for it. It's freedom, chits, and but I don't have this need any longer to hit some big number. I'm happy in the work that I'm doing. I'd love to talk about it's called reconnect and rise. You take people outdoors and in part get them to experience what I've read as a vision quest of sorts, which you're going to do a much better job of explaining it that I will. What exactly do you do with founders after they've sold or during the process of working with them? I do a number of things, but the vision quest is the thing that's closest to my heart. It's what I've always gone and done when I've want to deeper clarity when I've wanted to really hear what's underneath all the noise. And, you know, we have a lot of noise. We have a lot of noise. We have all of the roles and responsibilities that we slot ourselves into and have voice to depend us. We have all the limiting beliefs and childhood beliefs and trauma. We have all the shoots one of my teachers, boy, Varty talks about all the should and those are the you know, should be better. I should be further along. I should have six back abs like you name it. We we have it. And so the vision quest is it's an ancient technology. It's and I it is a technology because it it works and it's it comes from our ancestors around the globe across cultures. And essentially every culture had the same architecture of it and it was go be in solitude in nature, typically fasting, spend three or four days and sever yourself from those beliefs, roles, responsibilities and shoots. Put those on the shelf, take those off, peel back the layers, put those on the shelf to examine, see what parts of those you want to throw in the bin, maybe bring back small pieces of and others get to get burned and mother fucking fire. Leave it out there and that's what I've been doing throughout my adult life with with reverence toward mostly our Native American ancestors. And it is just the most powerful fastest way of figuring out what's truly important to you and really hearing your truth so that you can come back from that experience and share it with others. This isn't something you go and do for yourself so you can get richer. This is something you go and do so that you can bring it back to your people, your family, your employees, your community, your nation. And it's it's just a tried and true true method of of quieting the boys and hearing what most of you know on this show we talk mostly to founders like you who sold a company. We also have this series we do periodically we've maybe done a dozen or so called after the deal which is basically trying to decode best practices for how entrepreneurs can recreate their lives after selling their company. And so for a lot of founders you know they have this this life defining business which is kind of who they are as a person it's their social network it's their meaning and their ego is all tied up in this company they sell it. And what is very typical is an immediate high inhalation followed by a tremendous fall where they feel lost and without purpose and and I guess a lot of our listeners are about to go through that journey. You know selling for a truckload of money maybe more than they ever thought they'd ever have and then what will eventually I think hit most of you know us as we go through this journey is a sense of loss and and a sense of trying to figure out what's next what advice given all of the work you do would you have for someone who's kind of looking down the barrel of that journey. Yeah yeah you know my advice which is what I've done is to go and find people to talk to people who've been there coaches have people you can talk to and then go and make it an internal dialogue and again the best place I know to do that is in nature in solitude in silence with reverence. With reverence and ceremony that's what the vision quest brings to it it brings that reverence and ceremony and intentionality around severing ourselves from these limiting beliefs and stories and really going and being with yourself and that is very scary for some people. It's even scarier for the pre exit founder because the fear there is I'm going to uncover something that's going to make me want to come down off this mountain and tell my business partner reselling which a lot of people don't want to hear but but for that that post exit founder yeah talk with people get out nature go go be out there you know. The vision quest is powerful on your own but it's it's my attitudes more powerful when you do it with a group so I take groups of founders into the desert and into the mountains they all you know there's six to eight people they go out and they have their own space on the land and it's it's all highly highly curated but also highly their own and then for me the best part of the week is is when everybody comes back. And we break the fast and we start sharing. What those visions were and it is just so powerful to sit around a fire and hear another person's story of what came up for them. And to be able to reflect that back and help them make meaning of their story is is the greatest gift I think we can give each other which is presents and meaning and by telling our stories were making meaning and even now today I. Thank you for asking me to tell my story helps me make meaning of it you know storytelling is meaning making for the listener but also for the teller and that's the other thing is tell your story often. It helps you make meaning of it and share it share it vulnerability. You are not the only one I promise you you are not the only one I obviously know we can't talk specifically about any examples from your work because those would be confidential but what are the themes that you hear most commonly. Yeah, yeah sure some thematic was them absolutely the biggest theme for the post exit founder is service I now want to be of service. That is the biggest thing once you hit that mark of safety security okay I've got 10 million I'm making that at least 4% that's 400,000 that feels safe. It begins to shift to how do I serve I do I serve even in you know for profit businesses it's yeah how do I make this experience better for people how do I help people. It's not it's not necessarily about just going and volunteering somewhere it's it's how do I create a company that's actually going to do so good. And that is that is the biggest theme I hear that another theme is yeah I want it to be easy I want it to be joyful I'm sick of you know stressing and worrying I want I want to work in my zone of genius and I want it to be fun and if it's not going to be fun then I'm not going to do it. And there's a that's that I believe is what we should all be doing I think I share to quote this morning that said down it's Howard Thurman he says ask not what you can do for the world ask what makes you come most alive because what the world needs is people who are alive. And that is it it all boils down to that great place to end it red where can people find you on social media. Instagram or or people find you other than roaming around a a boulder you know mountaintop yeah well for the next few months they can't find me unless they're out looking in the middle of the desert on the mountains. But online you can find me at rettaylor underscore that's Instagram my website. is rettaler.com and then I'm on LinkedIn, same thing, rettaler. It's not too many of us. It's RET, rettaler. I will put all of RET's contact information and links in the show notes at builttocell.com. RET, thanks for doing this. Thank you, John. And there you have it for today's episode between RET and John. For show notes, including links, everything referenced in today's podcast, you can visit RET's episode page over at builttocell.com. If you know of someone who would be a great fit to be a guest right here in the podcast, I'd encourage you to nominate them. You can head over to builttocell.com/nominate where they're going to have a chance to nominate yourself or someone else to be a guest right here on the show with John. I want to thank you for listening to today's episode. We'll be back next week with another one. Until then, chat then.