**Transcripts are auto-generated.

Erwin  

Greetings, my fellow real estate investors.

Today’s show we have someone who’s built a $100 million commercial real estate portfolio in Calgary, Alberta. But he’s now since pivoted to microdosing His name is Greg capstreet. And this is the truth about real estate real estate investing show for Canadians and I hope you’ve had a wonderful summer. So before we get to Greg, judging by how slow the markets been, well, I know I can tell many of you took time off. I know so many of my clients to take time off to enjoy the weather travel. Summer hard as it’s called. My name is Erwin Seto or I’m in real estate the four time Realtors Of The Year Two investors and host of this over the top successful podcast right at the top in the space ranked number 81 In all business in iTunes across the world. But yeah, the good times still continue to roll for investors. It’s not easy though I’m an investor myself. These elevator rates they certainly are a pain for everyone. But long term investor has still fared exceptionally well. I had this one I once one collected retired earlier this year from her day job. So she wanted to take some profits off the table on her student rental property in Welland Ontario to enjoy herself travel and strategically pay less tax tax via capital gains because she’s no longer earning a job income. 10 years ago, we helped her buy a turnkey student rental directly from the builder. The house was designed with the future in mind as a design the basement to meet the building and fire code for basement apartment, which in that included the Ruffins for a future kitchen. There is no kitchen in the basement kitchens or you know your classic fire hazard. It’s your it’s where a lot of fires can originate. And there was no kitchen in the basement.

And also just for at the time based on apartments were not legal. But again, this was 10 years ago in the city had all my clients I have several clients about same property. Several they all signed an affidavit to prepare by the city that they would not create separation between the downstairs and upstairs by adding locked locking doors. 10 years later, these turnkey student rentals were are still in high demand as the location is just about 40 minutes from campus. The house is on the newer side and more modern and finished than its competition. Hence, our clients have always been successful renting them out. And even though we’re currently in a tough market for tenant properties, tenant two properties are not selling so much these days. But because of property cash flows,our client was able to successfully sell this house for more than two times, but she paid for it. So the return on average assuming a 20% down payment is it’s it’s it’s it’s good. It’s a 500% or an average of 50% per year straight average. The great thing about renting to students is that they graduate school and they move out then allows which allows us landlords to rent the house at market rates. And with the tick the numbers actually, over 100,000 I think we’ve had about 800,000 new international students in Canada over the last two years, rents have just skyrocketed near colleges and universities. My client, of course, is ecstatic to walk away with over $300,000 in profits in just 10 years. She’s had a professional property manager as well. So the investment was as passive as it gets. If you follow the market as closely as I do, like I mentioned, tenant properties are not selling in this market right now, unless they’re priced a lesser price the best. And then the more negative the cash flow the property, or if the tenant or the rents the rents are low. From you know, just like some of my properties. I’ve had rent property, I’ve had tenants for like, you know, eight, nine years. So those rents are low. Those properties are harder to sell at the same time on so that’s on the macro level on the macro level. Our economy shrank, hopefully saw the news just last week they came out our economy shrank by point 2% in the second quarter of this year. At the same time, the expectation was to grow 1.5% So we’re not technically in a recession yet, but it’s pretty much inevitable provincial economists believe that we’re going to be in a recession for q3.

I look around I know people are feeling the pinch spending is way down the Conference Board of Canada released that Ontarians are spending like 8% less compared to last year. So many homeowners believe including myself, the Bank of Canada is done raising rates. And last time, the Bank of Canada paused and raising rates that was an early spring in the buyers went gangbusters for at least two months.

That it really didn’t that okay, sorry, but before they did another increase, so maybe we see the same action this time, because the long term economic fundamentals still screaming housing shortage, builders aren’t building. Immigration is talking to us at a fast tilt. Colleges and Universities need those international students to make budget. So I don’t see how any of this changes. But we’ll see. We’ll see. And while sales and rental properties have been slow, on the flip side, tenant showings even in August, even in August, when tenant showings are typically slow. Tenant showings were a big demand as vacant units, were they would they would they would have about 10 or 20. Something showings in a week or two. And rents continue to decline. So rents Klein, yes, because who can blame housing providers as all the operating risks in operating costs and interest rates have gone up, property taxes are going up insurance going up?

To my properties, insurance is renewed with my my broker switch to provider? I don’t think that’s under control. But under the new provider, each of those properties is $500 higher per year per year. Yeah, so that’s yeah, that’s that’s a that’s close to 20% increase on my insurance, you better believe it became these recorded. If you’ve a great insurance person out there, please send them my way. In the end, it’s the tenants all suffer the worst from this from this, honestly, probably excessive immigration, inflation. And in general Canada’s economic condition. This is one of my worst fears realized. Hence, you know, I put my money where where I thought it needed to go, which was to buy each each of my kids a house, so that they would be able to afford to be able to get into the housing market when they were old enough. Of course, these conditions are really, really sad. Prices accelerated way faster than I ever would have expected. But that’s the situation that we’re in. So but if you have kids or worried about your own retirement, I think that’s pretty much everyone, one or the other, or both. I can’t recommend enough owning a quality income property, probably a few more than that. And if you’re interested in learning how my clients, like my client just made 500% return in 10 years, how my clients do it, how my wife and I, and my wife, Sherry, and I invest, and you want to join our monthly Iowan meeting.

This one, they’re online only. And on Tuesday, September 19, my team and I will be there to share the latest in the market at both a high level and on the street level, including sale prices, renovation budgets, rents, what is the best neighborhoods to invest in, where our which is actually where our clients are investing in. Plus, we’ll have a special guest in gray Brook who in they happen to be one of the larger developers in Ontario, Karina invest in their projects, I believe cherries invested our money in about two or three projects just this year, as past does not predict the future. But my returns have been exceptional, and even better than the passive. All we do is just transfer money in right in Science Center exciting contracts. So if you want to learn how to invest like a developer, or at least understand how developers make money, so that you can, you know, evaluate your own development projects going forward, then you will want to be at this meeting.

And then the following Saturday on September 23. We will be we will be hosting the RMS renter in the Niagara region in averaging in my opinion still has been upside thanks to the now recent correction where prices have come down significantly, plus new investment via the new hospital. And the government is not in friendly investor friendly yet. So you want to learn about how to invest in these areas before the floodgates open and all investors rushing. So fingers crossed. Fingers crossed for my clients. One of my most successful clients who has been a pet guest of the show, hope fingers crossed that we were able to see his triplex conversion. So if you’re a real estate geek like me, you know, our friend, our friend and client has converted a single family home into three units under one roof within the same building envelope. So no edition, no garden suite, anything like that. Now Matt, my opinion is maximizing one’s investment, while tripling the housing on a single lot. I love it when our clients or money learn, learned earn a world class return and are also part of the solution in creating more housing that can Canadians desperately need. Make Money do social good. You really ticked up my opinion. Even the angry mortgage guy Ron Butler agrees. I’ve gotten many DMS texts comments on YouTube, about everyone’s appreciation for Ron telling it like it is you

As the guest of last week’s episode, I do share many of his opinions. Some I don’t. I’m just not nearly as vocal about it. I wonder if more people would infer that it was instead of often walking the line and being bit more political and not trying to offend anyone, but yeah, I agree. Anything’s Brent. Sorry, Ron says, but yes, our governments have screwed this up royally at all levels. It’s a sad state of affairs that buying houses rental property is a better investment than most businesses. Right? You. I remember, I went to business school, businesses generate more economic benefit than a rental property does. So the way things are going right now, that’s the sad state of affairs. But there’s two more years until our next federal election. By the end our interest rates should be much lower than they are today. There will be past the recession is my guess, and the lack of housing will still be a problem.

Oh, I’m such a bummer onto this week’s show. As always, I look forward to bring you a variety of guests to share their unique experiences and journeys. Today, we have an old friend Greg captured back on the show to share what he’s up to. After dominating the influencer scene. He’s helped. He’s hosted conferences over multiple days with like massive, massive speakers, like the Dalai Lama.

And he’s owned a is owned a while at the time it was worth $100 billion of commercial real estate, largely in Calgary, Alberta. But that was a while ago, and he’s since gone through dark times, both economically and personally.

That he invest in Calgary, Alberta, of course, you’re gonna go through dark times,to Now, fast forward today, he’s sharing about his current personal interest in finally aligning with his personal passion, which is curing mental health via medical psychedelics. Yeah, this topic is a little bit different than the usual note, Greg and I are not medical doctors. So none of this should be taken as medical advice. So please speak to your own health professional. Greg does share about it his own out of body experience, it’s flashing back to his childhood trauma, allowing him to understand his adult his own current adult insecurities so we can actually address them. This episode is not for everyone. But again, understand Greg is really bright. And he’s made a lot of money. Unifor. So I always like to listen to these folks what they’re up to. We have, we’ve had many hardcore real estate guests. On the show. Greg, again, has been a guest on the show before. So if you want to hear more hardcore things around real estate investing, and you know, when he did, he spoke more about hosting a three day conference with folks like Brendon Burchard and the owner of virgin

Richard Branson, like ease and making millions of dollars as an influencer. Go back to the previous episode, Greg, or one of the other 300 episodes I’ve had with hardcore real estate investors in conversations. But if you’re interested in being on the bleeding edge of where medicine is going, where we think medicine is going, or you want to better understand how you’re how you’re better understand yourself, or your own childhood trauma shaped who you are today. And again, this is going to likely be the next best thing after cannabis. Then you will enjoy this episode. Again. Greg is a smart dude. His website is a light mint.com That’s a play on the word alignment. Enlightenment, alightment.com. Please enjoy the show

Erwin  0:40 

Greg, how are you?

Greg  0:42 

I’m good. Let me I’m just trying to get my air pods connected here.

Erwin  0:47 

Sound okay. Sure the army can be all right. All right. Yeah. Are you doing all right, what’s up? What’s going on? What’s gone down? Summer. My kids are at camp overnight camp this week. So Jerry and I are empty nesters for a week. Nice. weird feeling. Are you taking advantage? Yeah, we’re golfing tonight. We got on Sunday. Just us to watch the watching. Just half a King Richard gets a really long movie last night. Haven’t seen it. Was it good? Yeah, I think so. We had this long because I was really unhappy with the whole Will Smith slapping Chris Rock thing? Yeah. Yeah. So I just felt the backburner than just like, like going through Netflix. There’s nothing else that was interested in me. Yeah, that was a whole weird situation. But talking about anyway, yeah. People that are injured, right. People are getting over trauma. What the hell happened?

Greg  2:12 

Yeah, well, actually, yeah. The whole Smith family is an interesting. Yeah. In the world of topic of psychedelics and stuff. Will Jada Smith or? Yeah, there’s a cheetah. Yeah, not the wife. But the to remember who was somebody so there’s a huge psychedelic conference that happens put on by maps, which is like the sort of grandfather of sort of legitimate science behind psychedelics. They did a conference in Denver, and last month and 13,000 people, the biggest conference ever, and one of the kids was there, and I remember which one it was. But anyway, they basically were on stage being interviewed, talking about psychedelics and how Jada, the mom introduced the family to psychedelics. And

Erwin  3:06 

that’s

Greg  3:08 

how it’s all sort of like, psychedelics have been big in sort of all their journeys here last few years, so I

Erwin  3:15 

wonder if it’s helped their healing process for for that very public. Event? I would. Yeah, that was just so bizarre. Anyways, yeah, she cheated on I went with a younger rap artist, right. So I’m guessing that was part of the underlying issue.

Greg  3:35 

Yeah. And I, I don’t follow the stuff that happens like or what? You know, it’s like the Kardashians. I can’t I can’t name the Kardashians and Kim Kardashian. I don’t know who they are. It’s just such nonsense, but you know, but at the end of the day, they’re just human beings trying to have a human experience. Yeah. Made a lot harder by being in the spotlight, I guess. But yeah,

Erwin  4:01 

we all got shit. We all got shit. That’s to say to my friends on the weekend, you know? I think it says I always say it partly is just being the self deprecating and being humble. As I say I am crazy. My clients are crazy. My friends. My form buddies are crazy. We’re all crazy. Which actually leads me to the point that we’re actually crazy is that normal is crazy. Yeah, everyone it was crazy. There is no normal so very, very very true. That’s I don’t like the name psychedelics I think needs to be needs to be more health based. Yeah, like it sounds like like narcotic and recreational to me again, I don’t have enough context, you know, just just like just like I don’t like the term cryptocurrency like, yeah, like it’s like I think of it as hard asset. There’s a triptych about it. Hey, when are you doing too far into it? Anyway? So I loved your email. Let me just bring it up. I closed everything else. Yeah, I loved your email. So what do you love about it? It’s It’s so true. That, I guess that like I see it in forum. I see it in yo, like, we’re all damaged. We’re all we’re all. You know, I’ve seen it in like, like Steve Jobs is a biography. Right? Yeah. So chip on his shoulder, you know, Tiger Woods, massive chip on his shoulder and living up to his parents expectations, all sorts of things right. Now watching Tim Richard, you can see how what his daughter’s had to deal with. Right? Yeah. How have you seen it? No. He saw the

Greg  5:50 

trailer. It looked it looked interesting. I mean, if it’s if it’s true to life, that’s the that’s the question I always have is like, how much of this is characterized to make a better movie and stuff, but you got to think to have to have you know, both of your daughters come out to be two of the top athletes in the category in the world. Now, there’s definitely there’s got to be something different going on in that family.

Erwin  6:15 

The doctors approved the movie as well. Yeah, yeah, they had, they had to watch it and approve it before it’d be released. But just, it seems consistent with what I’ve read about how superstars are raised. I really enjoyed. I’m a sports fan. So I really enjoyed Andre Agassi’s book as well. Have you read that one? No. Do you like sports?

Greg  6:38 

I like sports, but not like you. I mean, I’m not super into sports. Yeah, I watch them. But I like I don’t Yeah, I don’t really follow them really, really intently.

Erwin  6:52 

What I what I find fascinating is how they were raised by their parents. I’m trying to find a book on Walter Gretzky and Wayne, but it seems pretty consistent. Like the parents are just over the top. Right in the Richard he had he had Child Services called on him, which I’m not surprised.

Greg  7:13 

I’d be curious about the Walter Gretzky because I mean, everything you see, you just you never hear a story that Walter Gretzky was overbearing or difficult or noxious or you driven by ego, like it just so I’d be super curious to really know what the behind the scenes that I became, I think a lot of it has to do with Gretzky was given a gift that was just unreal. And, you know, it’s possible to nurture that and in a more positive, supportive environment, as opposed to kind of the driving relentless environment that I think most sports stars grew up in. But yeah, but yeah, I think you’re right, that would be an interesting one to read. Yeah, that’d

Erwin  7:56 

be interesting. Because that Tiger Woods information only got it because of, because it was such a big story. And so you know, there was enough money in it for folks to go do a proper interviews of people surrounding it. In the tire in the woods fairly pissed off enough people that people would talk. Yeah. Versus Gretzky’s like, you know, high up on a pedestal, you know, squeaky clean didn’t pass off anyone? Yeah. Love the email, because, you know, I see it. Yeah, we all do for freedom. It’s tough these days, too, with high interest rates. So people are being squeezed, they don’t really have the freedom that they expected. Oh, I’ll preface that by saying my clients are doing fine. Seriously, because my clients, you know, they can take profits. And they can be extremely comfortable. And they still have all their freedom. Right? Versus I speak to people who are who are limited now in what they can do because of they’re saddled with negative cash flow properties. Right? Yep. I’m sure you’ve heard that before.

Greg  9:02 

Never. I don’t know anything about that.

Erwin  9:07 

The fear. You know, like I said, like jobs. I think you have a massive chip on his shoulder being adopted. Right, just the way he treated his his biological father when he met him like this. Is this Yeah, odd. And that he himself had like an orphan daughter. Like that was messed up. Yeah, you can’t say these people are healthy. Jobs.

Greg  9:33 

You look at a lot of people in the very top echelons in almost any category. And there’s a there’s a huge shadow cast and, you know, in each of their lives, typically, I mean, there’s a lot of, you know, healthy, fully aware people that are super successful, because it’s coming from the right place, but I would say that, more often than not, that’s not the case. So, so yeah, I mean, we can be talking about whatever you want. How long will it be before this comes out? Like, when would this actually hit? I have

Erwin  10:05 

some leeway Do you want so quickly? Or we’re probably around seven weeks right now.

Greg  10:11 

Okay, I’m probably not that far. But I mean, so what I’m doing right now as I’m working on, like a site brand, like a kind of what I’m what I’m going to be focusing on, and the site’s not ready and all that, but it should be, you know, I’ll get it together in the next couple few weeks. So

Erwin  10:33 

I can release it. Just let me let me know we can release it then.

Greg  10:37 

Yeah. Okay. So we’ll talk about stuff. And I’ll, you know, I can mention stuff and website and that if they go like, if you went there right now, it’s like, placeholder, but

Erwin  10:47 

yeah, totally fine. We can just, this is

Greg  10:50 

good, because it puts a fire under my ass to actually get things done.

Erwin  10:54 

You have? You have 10 days, Greg. That’s right.

Greg  10:59 

So we can Yeah, we can take it wherever you want. I mean, we can talk about real estate. I can talk a little bit about Calgary. I mean, it’s, you know, I saw that I haven’t listened to it yet. And I wanted to get to it. I just didn’t. The one with with Calvert. This just

Erwin  11:17 

because just released. Yeah, I

Greg  11:19 

know. I saw it, I saw it come out and I was gonna listen to it, I didn’t get a chance. Because it would have been good to hear a little bit more, because they would have gotten a lot more deeper than what I’m typically looking at. Would have been just give me a quick update. But I mean, it’s, you know, anecdotally, it’s, you know, it’s it’s interesting. I mean, Calgary is definitely doing a lot better right now. It’s just it’s, it seems we’re in a position where we seem to last, like the

Erwin  11:42 

residential market. Yeah, for sure.

Greg  11:46 

Because I don’t want to have to. Yeah, I mean, I don’t I don’t, I can’t quote you a bunch of numbers and stuff like that. But that’s okay. But But it’s interesting. Yeah. So we can take this wherever you want. We talk about real estate, we talk about business, we can talk about coaching, trauma, psychedelics, whatever you want.

Erwin  12:05 

That’s another name for psychedelics. health industry. What more specific than that?

Greg  12:14 

Well, do you want to make this episode about the what? Second name of psychedelics? And like, do you want that to be sort of like part of the

Erwin  12:24 

was part of him? is largely Dr. Right. Yeah. And they’ll always throwing questions in which I’m curious.

Greg  12:33 

Yeah, I think I mean, what we can talk about is maybe, you know, around what the email was, and just how, over the years, I mean, I’ve been through a lot of different things, had businesses and built a big portfolio and scaled it down and learned a bunch of painful lessons along the way, and that, you know, a different a bunch of different things that I’ve done over the years, have sort of brought me back to being a little bit more connected with myself and being a little more authentic and being driven less by the wrong things, I guess. Okay. And for a lot of people that I mean, psychedelics is obviously a hot topic these days are so many people interested in it. We’re edging towards legalization, you know, so what does that actually mean? And for people that are curious about it, you know, we can talk a little bit about that. And because I find it doesn’t matter where I am, or who I’m talking to, if, if I mentioned psychedelics there, they start to lean in and they start asking questions like, well, what is it really? What’s it about? And then it’s, it’s a lot about trying to unlearn sort of, like the myths and the things that

Erwin  13:44 

yes, if the show, I think will work that in in terms of when we talk about your journey, for example, because you speak incredibly ambitious, yeah. driven. So we can talk about like the journey and then talking about your reasoning for like, What drove you then? Yeah. And then you can analyze it like, Was that right? Wrong? Good, bad. Yeah. And talk about your coaching in the truck now and then actually, laterally into psychedelics.

Greg  14:07 

Yeah, because what I really want to do is, is, you know, add value to the show, not just have like, an hour conversation about me, but

Erwin  14:15 

but people will take your journey for themselves. Yeah, okay. Let me because especially, I always have new listeners. So they’re like, Yeah, I went on 100 doors like I was there before to actually speaking for myself. I went on 100 doors kicked in into their, their homes and like, raise your hands. Yeah, and we don’t lose money. Seriously, when people are talking about the shit all the time, it’s like, it’s one of the things I love about yo, is because entrepreneurs I find her on much more. Their mission is very different. I want change the world add value to microphone, my customers, my employees, real estate, to find a much more capitalist. Yeah, tendency to raise rents. Or just oh, they don’t have rent control. I’m just gonna raise rents and make all this money increase like Then increase my cap rate and all that sort of shit and then take all this money. Great. What did you help? The society?

Greg  15:09 

There’s a huge there’s a human equation in there. People forget

Erwin  15:14 

a spreadsheet and like, yeah, seven cafe, I seem to raise everyone’s rents by 20% and I make this much money. Yeah. We’re human human component completely skipped.

Unknown Speaker  15:28 

Yeah. So how much? How much time? Do

Erwin  15:30 

we have an hour to get your book filled till one to 18? Okay, already? Yeah. Very Hi Greg, what’s keeping you busy these days?

Greg  15:44 

What’s keeping me busy? My family. Actually, we just got married in May. And so I’ve been with with my wife now for four years. We got married out in Tofino on the West Coast, Vancouver Island, it was spectacular. It was both of our second times around, so we kind of did it the way that we want it to, as opposed to, you know, all the pressure of like, what’s what a wedding is supposed to look like? So it’s a very small gathering, you know, like 2022 or 24 people, family and send just a bunch of really close friends. And it was it was fabulous. It was I mean, if anybody that hasn’t been in Tofino, it’s a very, it’s a very magical place. And it was very meaningful, because we actually, the officiant of our ceremony was a dear friend of mine of ours, his name’s Dr. Dan angle. And he’s the very first person that ever introduced me to the world of plant medicines, psychedelics, and he’s become a really good friend of mine. So we had a very, it was right on the beach, everybody in bare feet, it was sort of a, I would call it a bit of a modern hippie wedding. It was, it was amazing. But it was nice to be in a space and like, be grounded in what, you know, what makes us happy, and who we are, as opposed to trying to do it for, you know, the cameras and the video and all that kind of stuff. So, anyway, so that’s, and so we’ve got my son Cooper’s 15. And then we’ve got two daughters, that are eight and five, ln Anna, and so it’s summertime. So busy. Lots going on. And, you know, for me personally, like I’ve, I would say that over the last several years, I’ve been going through what you could call an initiation. And just going through a lot of retrospective thoughts and building sort of the next stage for me. And so yeah, so we can talk a little bit about that today.

Erwin  17:55 

Oh, interesting. Because as we’re catching up before we’re recording, like your wedding is almost kind of like your second wedding. Because you said how you how you described it as being the way you want it much smaller than the original than then but the majority of people do on their first weddings. And with current day meetings, it seems kind of like a an analogy for your career. Right? Because when I think Derek had Yeah, absolutely. I think of you know, best selling author. With your with your book about RSP investing because base everyone, everyone from my generation investing knows I read your book or hones in your book, right. And, you know, you hosted enormous conferences, you spoke on you spoke on stage where there are hundreds and 1000s of people in the audience and like your, your further for the real estate space. Like you’re one of the biggest folks, especially if like for young Canadians, like even on the North American stage. You are one of the most successful folks were you know,

Greg  18:57 

if you say so. I don’t know. I mean, we we had a we had a big training business. I mean, if we go back, I don’t know, 10 years, maybe a little bit more than that. I mean, I started in the mid 2000s, early, early 2000s, I sold my business that I had. I built up a business over my 20s and sold that in 2000. The year that I turned 30 and turned my attention to real estate and that was in 2001 and just focused hard on real estate, acquiring the Alberta real estate market was was pretty quiet back then. And then over the course of the next few years, you know two or three that kind of thing. I started just acquiring tons of property. And people started asking me how are you doing this? Like, can you teach this and one of the things about me is when I go into something that I’m I’m really a student of whatever I go into, so I go deep into the rabbit hole. I really tried to understand it and learn it. And so I just started teaching friends and people that had heard about me at little tiny You know, I’d get 20 people together and teach them about real estate and started building a business around training, got put on a few couple of couple of big stages in 2004 and five. And at the time, of course, Alberta was the economic Tiger. And so I’ve kind of got lucky with that, that I owned all this property. And the market absolutely just took off. I mean, I remember in 2006, the stat in Canada or in Calgary, sorry, was the average sale price in Calgary increased in 2006. By by 52%. So if you so if you owned a house that was 200,000, you the next year, you owned a house that was worth 300,000. So you can imagine what that did to like balance sheets. And you know, and rents were like, basically, effectively zero commercial rates, Calgary had the lowest commercial real estate, they can see in North America, like Office rates were 0%, you could not rent an office space and Cat and Cat Calgary. And so you know, it was a rocket and oh, 708 continued to drive, of course, our training company expanded. We were doing, you know, big events, the big event that we are sort of known for that I did was with Richard Branson, the Dalai Lama, Stephen Covey, Matt Mullenweg. I mean, the list goes on it was. And it was interesting, because that event, and oh nine was kind of the start for a lot of the big guys you see out there today. So for example, a vision from Mindvalley, if you’re familiar with Vishen, Lakhiani, that was one of the visions first talks was on my stage, or Brendon Burchard. Nobody knew who Brendan was before that event. And then that sort of started him on his trajectory. And so I was working with a lot of really amazing people. And then, of course, oh, wait, oh nine happened. And at the time, you know, we had a portfolio of $100 million in real estate. And when something like a wait, oh nine comes, having a big portfolio is not anything to brag about at all. Because it just turns into a headache management company. And so that’s what happened. And so we got, we got hit pretty hard, it was very painful. Had to divest of a bunch of properties, and like, we were into raw land, and we were international and, you know, expanded probably too quickly. And I think believed the belief and PR of Alberta is going to be the greatest place ever forever. And in hindsight now, we know that’s not the case. And but it’s funny, because like the conversations that you and I could have about Alberta today, you couldn’t conceive those in 2007, you know, that, that Alberta would basically be lagging most of the real estate market. So. So yeah, so we built a big company, we had to downsize that divest some properties, but the training company was supported the operating of the of the real estate. So that’s the one thing that I would say is, had it not been for my training company, we would have probably had a really big, you know, it would have been a dumpster fire. On the real estate side. I mean, it was hard enough, but the operating income from the training company actually support the real estate. And I think that’s where a lot of real estate investors get in trouble is they start to believe their own PR, their properties are cash flowing. You know, you see it all the time that, you know, equity, you know, why would you leave equity in your property, it’s just dead. It’s just like, Why would you leave that money there, like, borrow it out and buy another one? And that all works when things are going well, but I mean, you know, we’re seeing another iteration, it’s a different version, and much less painful. But we’re seeing yet another iteration right now in the market of what happens when you assume that a certain set of assumptions are going to remain true forever. And so for a lot of people that obviously is interest rates, right? We, anybody who just started in real estate in the last 10 years has come to believe that typical interest rates are two and 3%. And that’s not how it works. And so what we’re seeing right now, I mean, this is we’re at what 22 year highs now, for the Bank of Canada rate. But that’s only 22 years. I mean, that’s not you know, that’s not the entire history of of money. And so, it’s been interesting to watch. And for me, I mean, the training company, one of the things that the flip side of the training company, for me, the the frustration was that I was coaching, I mean, I was coaching, you know, hundreds of entrepreneurs and investors. And there was only a small portion of them that actually really took action and followed through and did what they needed to do. And it got for me frustrated to the point where I didn’t feel right coaching someone and having to come back to me every three months and basically report back and nothing had changed since the last time we talked. And I took that very personally, because they felt accountable for their outcomes, which, you know, in some ways is not really healthy for a coach. I mean, I can only do so much, right. And so I just decided, you know, this is a lot of a lot of stress, I’m dealing with a lot of things with real estate. And so I shut the training company down, basically retired in 2013, because I wanted to get back into running real businesses. And so at the time, I was winding that down. And I started a veterinary company, and decided that I wanted to get back into service business dealing with, you know, like consumer clients. And so we started a veterinary company, a mobile veterinary company, and that went really well. We built that up over the course four years and sold that in 2017.

Erwin  25:45 

But medicine was a small personal interest of yours, too.

Greg  25:50 

Yeah, I loved animals. And so I saw it as the veterinary space, I saw it as an opportunity. Because if I could apply my business acumen to my love of animals, I could sort of bring together my skill set with my passion. And that’s what I did with that company. And the vet companies, or the vet vet industry is challenging. It’s it’s been consolidated. I mean, there’s one company, for example, that owns almost 2000 veterinary clinics. Now, in North America. The veterinary clinics in Calgary, more than half of them are owned by a single company. And so when that starts happening, innovation and you know, creativity just sort of go out the door, because now it’s a big corporate draw. And so we sold in 2017. And then 2018, I got separated. 12 year marriage, we got separated and divorced. And then I sold the business, of course. So I kind of went from having a very clear, solid sort of view of what my life looked like, you know, I’ve got this, you know, I’m married, and I’ve got this, and I’ve got this business. And I basically wiped all that away. And that was in 2018. And it was a scary time for me because I just became untethered to, you know, I didn’t have an identity anymore. I didn’t have a relationship, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do. And so that’s sort of like, I would say, plunged me into a significant valley of introspection on my own life, and turning inward. Finally, because I had always had this sense that there were things that were driving me that were not healthy. But I couldn’t ever put my finger on it. I wasn’t really sure why. And so I started to do a lot of research into different things. So I started to pick up breathwork, for example, meditation, I did Transcendental Meditation, which, for me, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t click, I tried all these different things. And I mean, breathwork, I really enjoyed that I became certified as a breathwork. Instructor, and started doing more of these sort of internal processes. And one of the things that happened for me was, I mentioned Dr. Dan before, I met Dan, about five or six years ago now. And Dan is one of sort of the world’s sort of leading authorities in the world of plant medicine and psychedelics. And for me, or when I, I had never touched magic mushrooms in my life, I’ve never done cocaine, I never will never done heroin or any of that kind of stuff. I mean, I did some cannabis, I probably smoked cannabis, maybe twice when I was in my teens or 20s hated it. And so I’d always been counter or against drugs of any kind. And I was like, the I was a success story of the 80s war on drugs. You know, if you’ve, you’ve seen that commercial with, you know, this is your brain and it’s an egg, and this is your brain on drugs. And they crack the egg open, that that sort of campaign turned an entire generation against. You know, this, this idea that mind altering substances are just bad for you, they’re going to rot your brain, they’re going to make you kill yourself, whatever. And so, Dan gave me a new perspective on that. And when I started doing the research, I realized that what what we call psychedelics or plant medicine has tremendous potential for really two things number one, helping us understand and go back and and, first of all, identify and process and heal some of the things that that upset us or that drive us the traumas of our past. So that’s kind of one thing is it helps us heal and become more connected back to ourselves. And then the second side of plant medicines, psychedelics is it’s tremendously mind expanding in terms of creativity and innovation and ideas and things like that. And so I started

Erwin  29:50 

just to pause you there. I want to remind a little bit because I do want to expand on this as well. But before we get into kind of like the solution, like you Yeah, coached hundreds of hundreds of successful entrepreneurs and real estate investors. Because I believe it was you that said like real estate investors are really are just entrepreneurs in the real estate industry. Right? That absolutely, yeah. So what what was driving them? And I don’t have a better term for it? Was it right or wrong the way it is driven? Because you and I have exchanged some emails about this as well, like I, I’ve had friends tell me, I have a decent understanding of myself. Yeah. I’ve looked inside myself understand, like, what what largely went drives me. And you know, any Asian, or anyone with overbearing parents knows, like we were, we were conditioned to make our parents happy. Right. So I see that in a lot of myself, like, I actually see myself competing with my parents, both on on the financial level, and as a parent, right. So I understand that about myself a lot. That’s, that’s part of what drives me maybe a lot of what drives me. So my question

Greg  30:58 

is, and that’s not just an Asian thing, by the way, I mean, maybe the stereotype, but that’s not that’s not just an Asian thing, like, parents have an extraordinary impact on not just our upbringing and stuff, but the trajectory of our life, and in in ways that most of us don’t even realize, and like, I would include myself in that category as well. And so, so yeah, so to your point, one of the frustrations that I would have is, like I was saying before, is that, like, I would lay out for someone, here’s what they need to do, they would go away, and they would come back, and they wouldn’t get it done. And I would and I couldn’t understand why. And to be honest, at that time, I would say, if you asked me that question, I would have told you well, they’re just not committed enough. They’re not serious enough. They’re there. They don’t have discipline, they don’t have willpower. And it’s, if you think about it, like, you know, like the ocean, right? Like, it’s all of these things at the very top that we explain as the reasons why we do or don’t things, you know, you know, it’s like motivation, all of these superficial things, but what’s going on? Deep beneath the surface, there’s, there’s, there’s a, there’s a force that’s going on that largely we don’t see, that pushes us so think of an iceberg, right? I mean, iceberg is a great analogy, like what you see poking out of the water. Those are the things like discipline and writing a gratitude list and an action plan, and affirmations and having a business plan all these things that we that we we focus on. But no matter how much willpower you have, or no matter how good your plan is, they’re not going to move that iceberg what’s going to move the iceberg is all of that substance and material that’s beneath the surface that very few people ever dive under to see what’s going on. And so that’s kind of how I would how I would answer the question of like, what was driving these entrepreneurs, and me, and I’m using myself as kind of like the primary example here, but I wasn’t really sure I thought I knew and like consciously, I thought I, you know, I thought I knew what it was and you ask 100 entrepreneurs, and this would be this would hold very true for real estate investors as well ask 100 entrepreneurs or real estate investors? What’s your number one core value? Like why do you really do all this stuff? What is it that gets you excited, and that you’re really trying to accomplish and achieve what’s the value you’re after? And if I ask, you know, listeners to think about that, what’s the one thing that they’re that they’re, they stand for? They’re all about 98% of them are thinking right now of freedom. It’s about freedom. And every time I did did a talk, that’s what they would always say is that’s their best what they’re really seeking. That’s what they want. And one of the things that I came to learn was that as much as entrepreneurs consciously will tell you that freedom is what they’re really after. What I’ve started to realize both of those coaching clients, and especially about myself is that when I said that freedom was my number one value. That wasn’t actually true. The reason that most people seek freedom is because they’re actually seeking control. And by having freedom. That means nobody has control over you. Right? If I have ultimate freedom I get, you know, you’ve heard it before I could do what I want, what I want, where I want with who I want, whatever I want. That’s, that’s trying to like cut the thread of control from you. And most of us as children when we’re growing up, control is one of the fundamental issues that we struggle with. And so if you look at and fast forward as somebody grows up into, you know, an adult and they start a business, they tell themselves, they’re really after freedom, but what typically they’re afraid of is they want control. They’re afraid of giving up control, because quite often they have trust issues. They have abandonment issues. Use, they were taught as children that they can’t rely on other people. So they have to only rely on themselves. And what happens is these lessons that we learned in childhood. First of all, most of us don’t realize that’s what’s happening because our brain is such a powerful force at helping create blind spots are things that our ego doesn’t want us to see, because they’re so unbearably painful. So. So an example would be in this, one of the things that I’ve said for for many years is that most business problems that you have, are just personal problems dressed up in a suit, they’re really not business problems, per se, their struggles that you’re having as an individual, but quite often, you don’t even see the struggle you’re having, because it’s a subconscious issue. So as an example, let’s say, as a child, when you were growing up, you grew up in a very chaotic household, like your parents weren’t structured, you didn’t know when dinner was going to be, you would come home and your parents weren’t there. Or another night, you might come home, and there’s 50 people in the house, and you were supposed to be going to hockey that night, and your parents forgot to take you. And so chaos and unpredictability became the way that you, you know, learned the world. As you grow up, there’s going to be a lot of manifestations of that chaos that show up in your life. And so one example might be, there’s a lot of people that continue to put themselves in financial pressure or challenges or stress or risk. And on the surface, they it’s because they’re trying to like build a big empire and take risks and be this swashbuckling entrepreneur. But the truth is underneath is that that’s the only place that they feel that they have control is when there’s chaos all around them. And I know it sounds counterproductive. But these are the sorts of challenges that I saw over and over and over another one might be, for example, growing up, if you if you learned that you can’t trust other people, and that people are eventually going to abandon you and those kinds of things. Fast forward to, you know, you’re 35 year old, 35 years old running a business and you’ve got six employees, and you go to your forum, or you go to your mastermind, what’s the problem all my employees, I mean, I just can’t, they’re, they’re terrible, you can’t find good people, people that, you know, they’re not loyal, and all these things, if you really look deeply at that challenge, typically, the problem isn’t the employees, it’s that the, it’s the employer, you have a struggle trusting other people, or you have this, this predetermined expectation that people are going to screw you. So you therefore are protecting yourself and your relationships are all built on a killer be killed mentality. So you can imagine how healthy a business you know, culture is going to be if that’s the, that’s the programming, that’s the operating system that’s running you. So these are the kinds of things that I started to see. But I, I couldn’t, I didn’t have the context or the perspective to really understand what was causing it, and more importantly, how to fix it. And nowhere was this more true than in my own life. I mean, I had a lot of these same struggles myself. And so when I started down this path of sort of self realization, and really understanding what drove me, again, I used a bunch of different tools, breathwork, cold plunge, things that would sort of bring me present, and plant medicine and psychedelics became one of the one of the tools, the technologies that I used. When I started

Erwin  38:38 

doing this, I want elaborate where you are in this space, because we’re, we’re talking about like, 2018 ish around, then you’re sharing your journey. Yeah, see your life, life changes, marital changes. Just just because I wanted to provide a little more context what you sold the business, you’re sold the veterinarian business. Did you have anything else going on? Do you still have did you still have your part of your real estate portfolio? Like, oh, yeah, I

Greg  39:03 

so I’ve owned real estate the entire time. I didn’t sell it all off. You know, went from a nine figure to an eight figure portfolio. But I but I still have real estate and still do today. It’s not a huge part of my day to day. I mean, I focus on you know, I’ve got a commercial office building for example. So you know, when when we’re trying to deal with a tenant or whatever there that’s all that’s a much bigger effort than typically for a residential like for one of my houses, for example, and we’re trying to rent out you know, a basement suite you know, renting Oh 5000 square feet of office space on a five or 10 year deal, quarter million dollar, you know, that’s a much bigger focus point, but it’s, it comes in fits and starts and so all along. I’ve been doing that but it’s not a full time thing. It’s more of a it’s more of a part time. I don’t like to use the word passive but like, it’s not a it’s not I don’t focus on it every day. So at the time, I sold the veterinary business I was doing so and consulting, business coaching for a couple of different companies. And then I really started into this path for myself and created a ton of space, you know, personally, so I wasn’t, I didn’t have a business that I was running, the real estate was there to, you know, that was, you know, providing income, things like that. But I just decided I want to get, I want to get in touch with myself and what’s really driving me because I’m moving into the second half of my life. And I want to do the second half differently than I did the first and I want to be coming from an authentic place of what, you know, what drives me. And so that was in 2018 19. And then for the next several years, I did a whole series of different experiments, I would say,

Erwin  40:48 

this is like your full time gig. Now I was working on yourself. It was and

Greg  40:51 

again, I was doing some some some coaching consulting, I got involved actually be like, because psychedelics and plant medicine became such a powerful force in my life. And I saw the the healing possibilities and the power, the extraordinary abilities that could bring, I actually co founded a psychedelic company in 2020. And that became sort of a full time focus for, you know, the course of, you know, almost a year. And then I parted ways with my partners on that. And more recently with my, my wife, my wife is a trauma sensitive, she’s certified trauma, trauma sensitive yoga instructor. And so she’s opening a studio now in Calgary, to pin focused on on women, particularly coaching women. And so we’re opening a studio there and you know, I’m, I would say I’m looking at, it’s sort of like the second generation of coaching and consulting for me that I’m moving into that I’m doing now, which is taking all of the business acumen experience the stuff that I used to do in terms of coaching, but applying the knowledge of that underlying operating system, so that I can help an entrepreneur or an investor actually pinpoint what’s really going on, beyond just the superficial story that they’re telling themselves. And so that’s, you know, that’s what I’m doing now, and with my wife with the studio. You know, psychedelics and plant medicine are on the path to decriminalization and legalization, and what I see.

Erwin  42:32 

So here’s our guide. So I just get there, I think, I think the trauma thing even needs to be worked out even more because from, from my experience, like what you’re saying, like people, like I’m asking my mastermind for years. And again, those conversations are still very tip of the iceberg. Yeah, I see, I see people who are incredibly motivated by money and like scale, and like building building bigger, better, whatever, you know, my 2 million businesses to get to 10 million and then once I’m at 10 million need to be 30 million when I’m 30 million, it’d be 100 million. Yeah, I need all these clients and employees and whatnot. And again, like, like very tip of the iceberg stuff. But in my experience, for example, is with my my forum. For my listeners benefit, I belong to a private organization of entrepreneurs, minimum requirements, a million US and revenues. I get a lot of value, both in discussing business problems, but also a lot of introspection stuffs. And I should derive a significant amount of value more trying to under under an Earth. My my underlying issues to understand myself and what drives me. That’s why I think I think it’s a I see it myself, I see and others. So I want to spend some more time on elaborating more on trauma so that for the listeners benefit, so they can look into their own lives to understand what better drives them. And if they’re in mindmint, like is, are they truly in alignment? Yeah, like before, we’re just before we’re before we’re recording, I haven’t shared how there’s a whole bunch of people out there who started investing, argue that we’re speculating. And now they have assets, speculative assets that are now infringing on their on their freedom, wouldn’t want them to wish on anyone. But I think my point where I want to go is I want people to better understand who they are, what they’re doing. And if that’s in line with who they really are, like, for example, when we were trading emails I’m talking about like Dimitri Buterin, whose journey Russia is similar to yours. When he exited his third business. It’s when he went full work full time work on himself. Yeah, yeah. Do you know what?

Erwin  44:46 

Yeah, demons. Demons are very good friend of

Erwin  44:48 

mine. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So your journeys are very similar.

Greg  44:53 

Yeah, I mean, I just to be honest, I would say that I mean, that’s a huge compliment to me because Diem is such an extraordinary human being. He’s very Be wise, obviously very successful. And I didn’t, you know, give birth to a child that, you know, co invented the the cryptocurrency industry. But you know Dima is amazing. And yeah, he just decided that self realization and self actualization was his life purpose. And so if I

Erwin  45:20 

wait until, until like, I’m not sure age, but I think he’s closer to high 40s, or closer to 50, or something like that. But my point is, people shouldn’t wait that long to take action.

Greg  45:32 

If if there was one thing that I could do go back in time and talk to my 25 or 30 year old self, it would be to go back and start this journey. Back then, rather than waiting until sort of a crisis of an existential crisis happened, where, you know, I was divorced, and I sold my business wasn’t sure what I was doing next, and just felt completely lost in the world. And yeah, I think the trauma is a, it’s really interesting, because I mean, for me growing up, and even I can remember being on stage, and I would tell stories of my childhood, and you know, like, kind of the backstory and origin story and all that. And I would gloss over my child. And I would basically say, you know, I had a fantastic childhood, my parents been married, like their high school sweethearts, amazing parents would give the shirt off their back. Nobody ever hit me, I was never abused, I had a great child. In fact, it was like, you know, it was pretty boring childhood, because there’s nothing really traumatic ever happened to me. And it’s crazy, because it was so boring that I don’t even remember most of my childhood. And I remember thinking that like, I normalized that, that that was normal, that I couldn’t remember my childhood. Because it was just there was nothing to remember. And anybody that has gaps in their memory of legs, for example, you know, I mean, a lot of people now when we talk about this, and they’ll say, Yeah, I don’t remember anything before I was about 10 years old. Or I don’t remember anything like, in elementary school, I remember, like, you know, when I was four and five years old, and then I don’t remember anything in elementary school, and then Junior High starts, and then I can remember them again. And people just write that off to I guess, there was nothing to remember. And really what it is that what I’ve come to learn is that gaps in memory of experience of things like that, especially childhood, those are, that’s a classic marker of trauma. And so what’s typically happening is if you go back in time, and you look what’s going on, as a small child, something was going on that was causing you so much pain, that your ego or your protective self, I mean, egos a terrible word that we get thrown around. Because we think of ego as conceit and like being better than other people or arrogant ego really is a better way to explain it is protective. So you have this part of your psyche that is designed to keep you alive. It’s that simple. That’s your protective self. And your protective self. Its job is to keep you away from the things that it’s afraid or you’re going better, it could kill you that you can’t take. So when you’re a small child, and you go through an unbearable experience that as a small child is so painful, typically what happens is your protective self will essentially exile that memory and create a blind spot, so you can’t even remember it consciously. And I know this from personal experience, because when I started doing, you know, I did a lot of therapy, I was going to, you know, psychologists and things like that. And it was like, you know, talk therapy traditional. And it was, you know, I would start to uncover a few little things here and there. But it wasn’t until I actually started doing psychedelic assisted therapy where these huge awakenings or realizations came to be and it’s because your psyche is so brilliant at hiding them from you, because at the time, you as a small child cannot, you don’t know how to deal with the pain. It’s so unbearable. And so for example, if you’re in a situation where you’re five years old, and your your mother says something to you, that makes you feel like they don’t love you. Well, they are you’re basically their, their God in your eyes in that moment, right? And if they don’t love you, or you internalize that is there’s something wrong with you. Right, it might just be that your mum was in a bad mood in the at the moment and you were in a really vulnerable state and you reached out for compassion and for a hug and for love and your mum was on the phone and she’s in she’s just said Just shut up. Just leave me alone for a minute. I’ll be off in a minute. Just something as simple as that. that, that four or five year old child could internalize that to mean that they’re not lovable. Because their mother doesn’t love them. And that’s all it would take. And then that can start the seed of a very, very difficult journey. I mean, I know it sounds crazy, because the problem is most people think of trauma, as these big, difficult, horrible things that happened to us these overt things. So for example, being abused or molested or witnessing a horrible violence, or being in a war, or those kinds of things, right, the loss of a parent when you’re a child. And those are all, you know, obviously, very traumatic experiences. But I call those overt experiences or trauma experiences. But there’s a second part, because you can look at trauma in two ways. One is trauma is bad things that shouldn’t happen to you. So those are the things we just talked about, right? Like rape, and molestation, and abuse and violence and all of these things abandonment. But there’s a second way to look at trauma. And that is, trauma is also good things that didn’t happen to you. So there was a void of things that needed to happen in order for you to have a healthy relationship with yourself or with your parents or with the outside world. And when those things don’t happen, those traumas can be just as disastrous as being, you know, raped or going through violence or the loss of a loved one when you’re a child. And that’s hard as

Erwin  51:41 

parents don’t hook their kids.

Greg  51:46 

But again, to like to put a point on it, or when like, You’re laughing about it, like it’s no big deal. Like it’s a joke, right? It’s a stereotype of Asian families. There’s a lot of Asians that grow up, that are debilitated by that very thing. And you know, not to get too serious about it. But a lot of people laugh at away or joke about it, because it’s just all it’s, what’s the big deal. I mean, my mom didn’t hug me. Who cares, really, that the problem is, that’s the adult looking back and using as an adult. Today, I have the ability to know that my mom didn’t hug me it’s not because she didn’t love me, it’s just because that’s just that was her upbringing. We normalize it, we have excuses to make for it, when we’re adults. But the problem is, when you’re a child, you don’t you don’t understand any of that. And when you start peeling the layers back of these things that happen to us, and sometimes we’re aware of them, and most of the time we’re not, you start to realize the depth at which they cut, and how in how embedded they really are. And so, I mean, I can remember, as an example, I was I did a a journey with IDI died. I mean, I’ve psychedelics in plant medicine is something that I explored a lot. And I’m, you know, I’ve actually become now like, I’m certified as a psychedelic facilitator, and transformation coach. And the reason is because I’ve gone through the experiences, and I have unlocked so many parts of my life that explain why I was. So for example, I can remember, one of my experiences was I was doing, it’s called San Pedro or watch Houma. And it’s mescaline. And I can remember going through the experience. And it was the first time that I realized that as a child, I never felt safe. And I couldn’t even explain where that came from. But I got it I got in contact with that emotion, which which was in me, which was in my body. And that made me then start to ask questions. Well, why is that? I had another experience. What am I Alaska journeys, and I was taken aback, too. So this is, this will maybe give you a good example of what I’m talking about. So when I was about eight years old, a friend of mine, one of my best friends on the street, we were at his house in the basement, and we were playing this game. And I mean, it’s, it’s like the kind of stupid thing that you would see on tick tock now, and maybe they even do it, but we, we called it the pass out game. And all it was is basically hyperventilating. And so what you would do is, one friend would stand in front of the other, the friend standing in the front, and the other one would be behind them, they would start breathing in and out as fast as they could, as deep as they could. And then at one point they would breathe in and the friend behind would bear hug them from behind and hold on to them as hard as they could. And the friend in the front would pass out. Right it’s hyperventilation is really not anything. But for kids. It’s like this weird like this. And sub somehow this game had like, been passed from Kid to Kid to Kid. And like, even today, I talked to people that are like, oh, yeah, I did that when I was little too we call it this or that. Anyway, so this experience for me, I’m standing in my friend’s basement, and I pass out. He lets me go, I fall forward, because I’m literally passed out on my feet, I fall face forward, smash my face into the unfinished concrete floor in his basement. And I’ve always known this story, because of course, I ended up having to go through a whole series of dental appointments. And even today, I’ve got implants in the front leg, my bottom two of my bottom teeth, because they broke out, they snapped off halfway up. So the roots were exposed. I mean, it was a tremendously painful thing for an eight year old to go through and then going going to orthodontics and all this stuff. Now, intellectually, I’ve always known that story. I’ve always known that I did this and broke my teeth and everything, but I’ve always intellectualize the experience. I’ve never really understood what it meant to me. So now, this is a few years ago, I’m in an Ayahuasca experience. And I drink, and I go in the, you know, the medicine sort of comes on. And I’m transported back. And if you’ve never done medicine, and this maybe sounds a little bit crazy how it works, like with time, travel, everything, but I’m literally like, taken back to when I’m eight years old. And I can see myself in my iOS experience, I can see myself standing there with my friend on the ground, and I’m sort of up on this on the ceiling, like kind of a third eye watching this experience. And I watched myself as an eight year old pass out, fall forward, smash my face, I see my friend run upstairs, because he goes to get his mother as a sister, I can remember who was home. And I’m watching myself, and I’m feeling the feelings that I had an eight year old, but in my sort of adult experience, and I watched myself wake up after you know, 30 seconds, and there’s a big pool of blood around my head. And so I wake up, I’ve got blood dripping off me. I look around, I’m disoriented. I’m in excruciating pain. It’s an unfinished basement with like concrete floors, and you know, those like burgundy posts that hold up the foundation? And oh, you know, in basement suites,

Erwin  57:28 

we have them here on basements. Yeah,

Greg  57:30 

I mean, I look around, and I don’t know where I am. And it’s this, like, dark. There’s like a couple of windows with a little bit of light. And I’m all by myself. And I look around, and the pain that I experienced is just unbelievable. And in that moment, I look around, and I create two stories in my head as an eight year old. Number one is, I am not safe in this world. I’m not safe. And the second one was, I can’t trust anybody, because I look around and there’s no one there to help me. And so when this experience sort of played through my third eye, in ayahuasca, I came back out, and it was like, Oh, my God. That’s why. And then I could start to connect the dots of why all these things in my life. were true, and why I told certain stories to myself about the way the way the world was. And so trust became a huge issue for me, in my life, trusting other people. And again, I would sort of then also connect that dot. And I’m not saying that everybody has this kind of experience that leads to being an entrepreneur and wanting freedom to be their number one value. But now it becomes obvious why I didn’t want to have to rely on anybody else in my life. It’s because I couldn’t because I didn’t trust anybody. And I can’t rely on anybody else. So you can imagine the impact if you’re eight years old, if that becomes your truth. And that became my truth. In that moment, you can imagine how that informs all the decisions and the journey through the rest of your life. And so that happened to me, and I came out of it. And that took a lot of integration for me because it was like, everything that I believed about why I did things was untrue. And I always thought it was for the good things because I want to, you know, I want to build a big business and I want to do this and I want to do that I want to give back and I wanted to do that. And you know, I realized that really wasn’t what was driving me. And it was this. It was this fear. And I think at the end of the day, that’s one of the things that’s one of the mantras that I use all the time in my own mind that I’m talking to them when I’m talking to myself. The mantra is for I love not fear. Because what I find and again, we can we can apply this to almost every, you know, category, especially when you look at government, politicians, things like that. But celebrities, I mean, it doesn’t matter who you’re looking at. But most of the worlds they in most decisions that people are making, you’re coming from a place of fear, and not love. In other words, they’re afraid that they’re going to be judged, they’re afraid, they’re not going to have enough. They’re afraid that they’re irrelevant. They’re afraid that they’re not going to be seen as a success. And that sort of journey. And this was that journey was probably four years ago, that started to change the way that I saw the decisions that I made to start becoming aware of when am I coming out of fear, as opposed to love? So am I doing this because I’m trying to impress somebody? Or am I am I doing this? Because I’m actually terrified that I’m, you know, that there’s going to be some consequence if I don’t? Or is it coming from a true sense of love, love for myself love for the people in my life, and love for the community at large. And so that’s kind of that’s a really good sort of example of how these things happen in our lives, and we grow up. And we have no idea how important or how impactful that experience might have been. And so what plant medicine and psychedelics tend to do, and there’s obviously there’s research out

Erwin  1:01:28 

there, out there. Yeah. Yeah. Two questions, and they really, they are the same thing. Knowing what you know, now, what would you have done differently? Or the question to be What are you teaching Cooper about this? What are you teaching your 15 year old son about this?

Unknown Speaker  1:01:46 

So two questions. So what would I? What would I have done about that experience?

Erwin  1:01:52 

There’s no knowing what you know. Now, having gone through that four years ago, like well discovered that four years ago, how would that change your 25 year old, your 3030 year old self?

Greg  1:02:03 

I think for one thing I would have uncovered, I hopefully would have uncovered that truth, much earlier in my life. Like, for example, if you when you’re eight years old, and you learn the lesson that whatever lesson, it could be that somebody learns, right? That

Erwin  1:02:25 

that’d be mortified. That was my son. Like, that’s what the world was?

Greg  1:02:30 

Well, let’s see. And to put a point on that, too, is none of this was my parents fault. No, it wasn’t right. And so I don’t blame my parents. But at the same time, most of us want to be Allegiant and loyal to our parents. So we don’t want to look at it and say, What did our parents do that contributed to where I am today? Right. And that’s, that’s a big sort of entanglement that people get in this work. But if I went back, like, if you let’s say that, like, you’re, you’re a woman, and you watch your mother get get separated and divorced, and then she starts dating a series of violent men. Terrible, you, you could quite easily develop the truth that men are bad, right? Well, if you go through the rest of your life as a woman, believing in your heart, that men are bad, but you don’t know that that’s the story that you’re telling yourself, you can imagine that you know how that’s going to impact your life. But if that woman waits until they’re 50, or 60, and then uncovers that truth, well, they can then start to change the path they take going forward. But if they would have done the work when they were 25. And were able to uncover and unwind some of these truths that they learned, well imagine how much different their life would look. So that’s I’m sort of answering the question that if I was 25, and I was doing this work, I probably would have uncovered a lot of these stories much earlier, which would have allowed me to make much more authentic decisions to who I truly am, as opposed to being driven in fear. So in terms of what I tell my son, Cooper, he’s aware of everything that I do. He knows, like, if I go to an Ayahuasca ceremony, he knows where I’m going. We have very open conversations. I mean, Cooper, and I have a very good relationship, I believe. And there’s not much that he won’t talk to me about. And we’ve had the conversation about, you know, drugs and medicine and psychedelics and plant medicine, all that. And he knows that if he ever has any questions, he can come to me and I’ll be honest with him, I’m never going to prohibit anything. I’m never going to tell him don’t you do that? Because, you know, you tell a teenager that all that does is fuels their interest in curiosity, and, and my goal with him is to try to educate them as he wants to be educated. You know, I don’t sit him down and like run lectures on plant medicine and psychedelics and stuff but what I have taught him, I think the most important thing that I’ve taught him has it as a child growing up is of how important it is to just be yourself. And it’s going to be difficult to do that, especially as you get into your teen years is to is to basically just walk your own path. Don’t do it for other people. But Cooper’s, that’s what he does. And he struggles sometimes with that, because sometimes friends turn away from him because he’s not willing to cave in to peer pressure and things like that. But I’m super proud of him for doing that. And, you know, years ago there i another vision that I had was kind of this parable of the difference between an owl and a fox, and we don’t have time to go into it. I’ll tell it told that to another day. But really what it comes down to is, are we all have an inner owl? And the owl like, what, what question does the owl ask? Right? Yeah. And this is, I mean, it’s a kid story. But the owl is always asking who? And so it’s a way of thinking that your inner owl is always asking yourself, Who are you going to be? Are you going to be yourself? Or are you going to be accepted? Because that’s the fundamental decision that children start to learn, they have to make from very small in childhood, because they start having to do with their parents as well. They want to be accepted. So they say things or do things they don’t really feel like are who they are, but they do it to be accepted, rather than to be themselves. And as a parent, the more that you can give your child, the container and the space to be themselves as opposed to doing the thing that gets them accepted. You’re putting that child on a very healthy path as they grow up. Because in this in today’s society, it’s very difficult to be who you truly are, and not worry about being accepted. And most of us go through 2030 4050 years of life, working to be accepted, only to come to a point where I realized what the hell am I doing. And that’s typically called a midlife crisis, or an awakening, or whatever you want to call. And it’s crazy, because we spent 40 years going through our life. And then we spend the next 40 years trying to like, unwind all the things we’ve been doing for the first 40 years. And so, you know, that’s what I would do is go back to my 25 year old self and try to, and try to instill the lessons in the work to be who you are, as opposed to doing it for external reasons. And that’s, that’s kind of like one of the paradoxes of life is that most of us are doing things, the purpose for which is outside of us, you know, as much as we tell ourselves a story, oh, I’m doing this for me. And it’s really what I want. Nobody’s building a 30 or 50, or 100 million dollar business for themselves. Like that’s, I mean, that’s just ridiculous. You don’t need a $50 million business to be, you know, to be at peace with yourself. So anytime you’re looking outside of yourself, for something that’s in itself, an indicator that, you know, there’s some work to be done there.

Erwin  1:08:08 

This is fascinating shit. The listeners enjoying this as much as so let’s get into let’s get into the medicine. Now, one thing I want folks to understand is that, like, for example, I follow them Tim Ferriss stuff, and he’s been talking about this stuff for a long time, but also, the, but you always talked about micro dosing, because there’s a difference between abuse of substances and micro dosing, probably a fraction of a small usage for actual medicinal purposes. Can you elaborate on that just again, so we can educate the audience?

Greg  1:08:42 

Yeah. So very, very briefly. So first of all, you’ll hear me you won’t hear me talk about these as drugs, I will only refer to them as medicine because that’s just the language. That’s my, that’s my perspective of it. Really, the difference to me, between drugs and medicine is intention. Intention is a very important part of anytime you start to go down this path, looking at whether it’s micro dosing or macro dosing, whether it’s psychedelics, or whatever it is, it’s all about intention. And when you look back in the history, back then it goes back into the 50s and 60s of research going into using MDMA, LSD, magic mushrooms, for therapeutic, beneficial reasons. So for example, in the 50s, in Saskatchewan, they were doing research on curing alcoholism, using psychedelics in the 50s. And the 60s came and everybody knows what the 60s was all about, right? Like free love and make love not war. And it was all like the it was the renaissance of the hippies and psychedelics were became a huge component of society, and the government at the time realized they were losing control of society because Nixon tried to send a whole bunch of young kids to Vietnam. And a lot of them basically said no. And they didn’t like that. So that was one of the reasons that Nixon declared war on drugs. And it’s been a horrific experiment, failed experiment. I mean, the War on Drugs has created a massive incarceration problem, disproportionately against minorities, and indigenous people. I mean, that’s a whole nother conversation. But the point is, they shut down all the research that was going on with these medicines. And only recently has the government started to open the door here in there with possibility. And there’s now a ton of real like, it’s a boatload of research now that shows that these medicines when they’re used with proper intention, in the right container, and with the right integration after that, the results that they have for anxiety, PTSD, depression, pain management, even OCD, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, these medicines are having not just incrementally better results, but like multiples. So for example, one of the most recent studies that PTSD study with MDMA that maps is working on right now clinical trial, long story short, they did these, these were treatment resistant PTSD, victims, they basically tried everything else, and they could not get away from PTSD, they, you know, suicidal ideation, everything else, they went through the clinical trial. And a year later, 69% of them were cured. Now, they don’t like using the word cured. But basically, they had no markers for PTSD 69% of them a year later. Now, you look at this positional treatments, the traditional treatments, or are going to be in the 10 to 20 30% range, maybe. Meanwhile, a whole bunch of those people would have sadly, committed suicide, but you know, within a year later, so the point is, I’m trying to draw attention to the fact that this, this isn’t just about taking drugs and feeling good and having fun, right, there’s this is going to be I think, this 10 years from now we’re going to look back, psychedelics are going to become one of the staples in the mental health fight to all of the conditions that we’ve got, you know, the second, this, this, the psychological world hasn’t really changed in 40 or 50 years. And how many people do you know that are on SSRIs, and antidepressants, it really doesn’t help for the most part, it might make make life a little more manageable. But there’s so many side effects. Now we’re seeing case after case now where somebody does psychedelics in the right context and setting and they have one or two treatments, and their depression is gone. And science is having a hard time explaining it. So in terms of like, psychedelics, for the rest of us, psychedelics, the word itself, is it comes from it was the name, the name comes from it, what it what it means is manifesting the mind. And really what it means is starting to uncover what’s unseen, in your, in your mind or in your psyche. So back to your question about psychedelics and micro dosing and stuff like that. Micro dosing, the theory is taking a very, very small dose, which is typically between 1/10 and 1/20. Of what would be called a macro dose. So a macro dose would be like, if you were to take mushrooms, for example, a macro dose means that you’re taking enough that your vision is affected, your thoughts are like it’s you perceive like things are different.

Erwin  1:13:48 

You’re high.

Greg  1:13:50 

You’re high. Yeah, that’s that’s how you you’re in an altered state. A micro dose is taking a substantially like an infinitely small amount of that. So like, let’s say, if you’re taking three grams of mushrooms as a macro dose, then that would be 150 milligrams of four micro dose. And the idea of of microdose is that you shouldn’t actually perceive that you’re that it’s there. Like, they call it sub perceptual. But, but what they’re finding is, and again, there’s various studies on this, and there’s some people are saying microdose is placebo. But I know personally, and from my experience, and a lot of people that I know that micro dosing, certain medicine, certain medicines, can help alleviate things like anxiety, depression, negative thoughts, sleep problems, you know, sleep issues, things like that. So there’s micro dosing, and then there’s macro dosing, and there are two very different sort of things. And you can do it with different kinds of medicines. Most people like I think that become curious about psychedelics, they start with micro dosing because it’s, it’s, it’s a lot more accessible so quickly. sample, when you’re microdosing, you can drive a vehicle you can go to work, you can do interviews, you can go on sales calls, like nobody’s gonna really notice that you’re it because you’re not high. There’s, it’s it doesn’t affect, it doesn’t impair your judgment or your abilities. But what’s interesting is during the day of it, you won’t really notice anything. But the next day, this is where the power is, if you look back at the day before, and you look at some of the interactions and things you did, you can start to realize that wow, you know, I ran into that neighbor of mine, who I can’t stand, they always drive me crazy. And somehow, like, they didn’t bug me yesterday. That’s really weird. And when you start to realize it, you notice that the micro dosing is having an influence on you. But it’s not a perceptual one. But But what typically happens with the medicines is they make you more compassionate, they make you more aware, they make you more grounded. And so they have these positive implications. And again, it’s different for everybody. Some people will try micro dosing with, let’s say mushrooms, and they don’t really feel anything, they don’t notice any changes. And you can, you can play with the dosage in that you took the most common things to microdose are mushrooms and LSD. Some people might microdose other things like some people microdose, Ayahuasca or mescaline or other things as well. But mushrooms and LSD are the two most common ones. I know a lot of people, for example, that use LSD, and they’ll use it in very small doses. There are studies now showing that if you use a small dose of LSD, and we’re talking about, you know, maybe 20 3040 micrograms, which is, which is very, very, very small amount of medicine, that it can really expand your creativity and innovation. So I’m working on a project right now with an associate of mine, of offering a program to executives, at high level companies, that are a bit that’s based on creativity, innovation. And this is one of the tools that we’re looking at utilizing, because what it does is it opens up the channels in your mind, it tends to break the patterns that you have the way you think. And it connects new synapses in your mind. And neuroplasticity is a real thing, right? And they’ve shown that when you when you undertake, let’s say like a, like a full journey of of mushrooms. There’s rewiring that actually happens inside your brain and like different different threads are now being connected that weren’t otherwise connected. So you can see things differently. You can think of things differently. So I don’t know if that answered your question. But I mean, this in itself could be a, you know, another conversation. But what I would say the fundamental is psychedelics are becoming now mainstream. It’s why you’re reading about them all the time. It’s why we’re on the cusp of legalization in the US we’re expecting next year, MDMA and LSD, MDMA and psilocybin are going to be decriminalized and legalized to the point that psychiatrists and psychologists will be able to start implementing them into therapy. And that’s why we’re seeing this massive wave is because the science is saying and proving how powerful these things are. And so to bring it back to entrepreneurs, and investors and things like that, the fact that entrepreneurs tend to have my thesis and again, this is something that I observed in a lot of my clients. My thesis is that entrepreneurs have a disproportionate amount of trauma in their past than the average person. And in part, for reasons we talked about before, that’s why they became an entrepreneur. And that’s one of the reasons is because they wanted to break away from feeling like they were under control, or that they had to rely on other people. That’s why people that become entrepreneurs typically get stuck. They can’t get past that point of being the technician in their business. But they are more comforted by the fact that at least that way, they’re not relying on other people. And so, for entrepreneurs and investors, if that’s true, that there’s trauma, there’s things that are holding them back, or that are causing them to make decisions that may not be the healthy decisions. That’s why looking at understanding psychedelics, and plant medicine, as maybe a tool to consider can be a very, very powerful thought. And again, I’m not I also want to put it make it clear, I don’t see psychedelics as a magic pill. Like it’s not like you take the pill, it fixes your problems and you move on. But what it does is it it sort of pulls the veil back and allows you to see the stuff that you’ve never been able to consciously see before. And then the work starts, that’s when you can decide, okay, well, I’m going to investigate this belief that I have, figure out where it came from. See if it’s true, and maybe I can install a new thought or a new belief and And that’s been the story of the last five years of my life is doing these very things. And all I can tell you is is I mean, a lot of people that know me from 510 years ago, and I sit down with them, I haven’t seen them. And they’re like, man, you’re so different. Now what happened? It’s like, well, I don’t really anything different. I’m just more of who I am now. That’s, that’s how I feel.

Erwin  1:20:20 

Greg, I think that’s a great place to leave it. Over time, thank you so much for being generous with your time. Now, I’m not a doctor. I don’t know if if you if you, you can, you know, I always feel like I have disclaimer, everything. But I’m not a doctor. This is not medical advice from me. Where can people learn more about this?

Greg  1:20:40 

Yeah, and I’m not a doctor, either. I mean, I’ve done a lot of work I’ve done I’ve done a lot of training and things like that. But at the end of the day, you know, medical, and this is something you know, that I’ll mentioned very briefly, like if somebody is on antidepressants, or they have, you know, a family history of psychosis and things, there’s, there’s a lot of counter indications that mean, you should not pursue this. But becoming educated, educated is really the first first start. So, I mean, if anybody is interested in learning more, I mean, I’ve got a couple of things, I wrote an overview of micro dosing and like, what is it? Why would you do it? What are the benefits? What are the risks, that kind of thing. It’s just a free download, if somebody wants to learn about micro dosing, and then I also wrote a PDF, and it’s called psychedelics for the rest of us. And this isn’t for people that want to be journeying to Peru, every two months, and going on a on a, you know, 14 day deatta in the jungle, but it’s for the people that were trying to live actualized fun, healthy, productive lives. Is there a place for psychedelics in that world, and I know, I believe for some people there are. So that’s another download, it’s a little bit more generalized, it talks about psychedelics, a bit of the history, the different kinds of medicines, some of the risks and all that but it’s basically it’s intended to be a primer of is psychedelics, something that I should start paying a little more attention to. And, you know, people can download that from my website, the website is the company is the name is alignment.com. So it’s kind of a combination of alignment, and light. And really, what it comes down to, is, when you become aligned with who you truly are, that’s when you can allow your brilliance to really shine from within. And so that’s what my coaching consulting company does now. So it’s called a light mint. So a li ght m en t.com. And you can start start the journey there. There’s resources there. And I’m gonna be starting, I’m gonna be doing a podcast, this fall sort of on some of these topics, because I get so many questions about I’ll get you on there. And then we can talk about your

Erwin  1:22:59 

baby, I can do a Laker dose journey before I before I come on. And for my listeners benefit understand, I think there’s about three at least 300 companies that are pursuing this all in just Canada alone. The yeah, there’s just no one no one really talks about no one hears about it, but I have friends in the industry. And there’s a ton of investment going into this. Just again, you know, just because of the times now, not a lot of people talking about it with the, with the way the economy is, but yeah, they’re there as well.

Greg  1:23:26 

In 2020, and 21, there was an explosion of money that went into psychedelics, partly because people saw it as cannabis 2.0. And if you missed cannabis, this is your second chance. It doesn’t work out that way. So it’s been a tough place for the capital markets for psychedelic companies, a lot of psychedelic companies have gone broke, because they’re having a harder time figuring out how are we going to monetize this thing. And I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing, because I don’t really see, you know, these medicines, largely, especially if you look at like iOS, or mushrooms or or peyote, mescaline, these have been used by indigenous cultures for hundreds or 1000s of years. And some of these companies are trying to figure out, well, how do we extract this molecule, that molecule to make a better molecule, and then we can patent it and sell it? I’m not sure that that’s the right path for this space for the medicine because, you know, my belief is we don’t need to improve on the medicine. That’s just a typical human Western civilization construct of how do we take something magical, and make it better?

Erwin  1:24:29 

And then capitalize on? Yeah,

Greg  1:24:32 

1. But yeah, and I was involved in that space, because, you know, we founded a company we got we got some financing from a public company. And so I went down that path and learned a lot about it. But yeah, I mean, anybody that’s interested in hearing more about my story, or whatever, or learning more about what we’re talking about microdosing just go to the site and get on the list and, you know, I’ll send you sort of education every now and then I don’t sell a lot of stuff. That’s not my thinking. More so I just love talking about this because it’s it’s changed who I am. It’s allowed me to live a lot more healthy, aligned whole life, and I’ve watched it do the same for so many people that I love. And so I just love kind of spreading the message.

Erwin  1:25:17 

I like mint.com Greg Simon, thank you so much for doing this. I thought this was Thank you. I hope the listeners enjoy

 

 

To Listen:

 

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/truth-about-real-estate-investing…/id1100488294

On Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=87335&refid=stpr

On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Z8yd37AQfQI5DK0J0Xwzz

On Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy50cnV0aGFib3V0cmVhbGVzdGF0ZWludmVzdGluZy5jYS9mZWVkLw

Youtube: https://youtu.be/C46FdLaXrwc