Watch the full video of our conversation on the Spread Great Ideas YouTube channel.

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Full Transcript of Our Conversation

Introduction to Allen Brouwer and His Companies

00:00:01.14 – Brian David Crane

Please welcome my friend, Alan Brower. Alan’s a father of two, an accomplished entrepreneur, a boat nature lover, and a wicked combination of both good looking and charming. If you’re only listening to this, you need to go check it out on YouTube so you can see what I’m talking about. We’re going to be chatting about an old company of his that he co-founded called Best Self Co.

00:00:19.91 – Brian David Crane

Best Self Co was the only business to ever win Shopify’s build a business and build bigger business competitions. And we’re also going to talk about his new company, which he’s also co-founded, called With Love, that offers a deceptively simple, delicious protein and gut health powder specifically made for kids. We’re going to be getting into, yeah, dietary behavior, childhood nutrition, some of those topics when it comes to With Love.

00:00:48.42 – Brian David Crane

So thanks for coming on, Alan. I appreciate you making the time.

00:00:51.63 – Allen Brouwer

Thanks, Brian. I appreciate it man. It’s Good to see you.

00:00:53.45 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, good to see you. Real quick, if you want to just give people… the boilerplate intro for what is with love?

The Story Behind Creating With Love

00:01:04.03 – Brian David Crane

Why do you care about this? Why’d you start feeding it to your kids?

00:01:09.43 – Allen Brouwer

Okay. Boiler plate intro for with love with love is a family wellness company.We primarily focus on kids nutrition. My children, and we’ll focus on parent nutrition later on later this year, but my children ended up getting sick.

00:01:29.01 – Allen Brouwer

And it was a combination of a lot of things. It was a combination of growing up in a split household. So emotional triggers, right? So co-parenting, it was a combination of a picky eating.

00:01:45.17 – Allen Brouwer

So because my children were such picky eaters, they refused to eat the good stuff. They only wanted the carbs and the sugar and this and that, which was wild because we don’t really feed that to them.

00:01:57.45 – Allen Brouwer

So it’s like, why do you even like this? And then another combination of them ended up getting sick and went on a couple rounds of antibiotics, which just stripped their gut microbiome, all the good bacteria.

00:02:11.66 – Allen Brouwer

So it was like a combination of all of these that really put stress on our family unit. And my daughter ended up refusing to eat. She started to develop ADHD type behavior, poor comprehension, insomnia,

00:02:28.37 – Allen Brouwer

Emotionally right deregulation. And I thought it was a developmental thing. So I’m like, okay, she’s growing up. How can I read parenting books on how to support her?

00:02:41.36 – Allen Brouwer

And really what it came down to was it was actually just poor nutrition, poor gut health. And then I was a mad scientist in the kitchen trying to solve this problem.

00:02:51.92 – Allen Brouwer

And I came and I created a solution just at home using grownup supplements, grownup probiotics, except like watered down for a 40 pound child. And fast forward to today, we’d now custom developed our own product that has a three-in-one protein, probiotic, and multivitamin specifically designed for kids, made from eight clean whole ingredients.

00:03:17.47 – Allen Brouwer

And it gives a solid baseline of nutrition for the child so that the parent can just take a breath knowing that like, okay, at least you have this done. Now I don’t have to beg you, bribe you, battle you for everything else.

Helping Kids Build Healthy Habits Through Smoothies

00:03:34.22 – Allen Brouwer

And it creates more harmony in the home.

00:03:36.56 – Brian David Crane

yeah Yeah, there’s a scene that you talked about in the lead up to the show. I was watching you describe it as you were standing in your kitchen making your smoothie and you were looking at some of these ingredients going like, I should feed this to my kids. How do I get it into, yeah I know all this about microbiomes.

00:03:54.42 – Brian David Crane

I know all this about my own health. How do I make it so this is something that they want to consume. And nowadays that what I remember from your video was they come into your bedroom and say, dad, can you make us a smoothie? That’s like the first way they greet you. Right.

00:04:08.68 – Allen Brouwer

First thing that they ask for in the morning, it’s wild.They don’t come into the bedroom anymore. Now they have free reign of the house. so

00:04:15.34 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:04:15.94 – Allen Brouwer

So I’ll walk downstairs. they’re They’ve already been up for maybe like 20 to 30 minutes, right? They’re hanging out playing. And before I’m like, good morning, guys. They don’t even say good morning. They’re like, daddy, can you make us a smoothie? I’m like, of course. Hi. Okay.Let me get to work. Okay.

00:04:33.49 – Brian David Crane

Really sweet.

00:04:33.81 – Allen Brouwer

But now it’s cool because now my son will come and he’ll help me. He likes joining in and scooping the powder, throwing in a banana, peeling the banana. He likes to get involved with. He actually loves cooking.

The Eight Superfood Ingredients Explained

00:04:45.82 – Brian David Crane

How old are your kids?

00:04:47.86 – Allen Brouwer

My daughter just turned seven two days ago and my son is five.

00:04:55.28 – Brian David Crane

Cool. Okay.

00:04:56.15 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

00:04:56.22 – Brian David Crane

Seven five. All right.

00:04:57.39 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

00:04:57.36 – Brian David Crane

So let’s,, the eight ingredients that are in love, we’ve got pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, MCT oil, probiotic blend, monk fruit, beef organ complex, grass fed whey isolate and vanilla extract.

00:05:12.54 – Brian David Crane

What I’d read about each one of them. Well, what, what, why is each one of them here? Let’s talk about, uh, the eight that you picked.

00:05:20.13 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Each one individually is a superfood. So like beef organs right now, people are realizing like, oh my gosh, how much vitamins and minerals are in beef organs.

00:05:31.04 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:05:31.41 – Allen Brouwer

Chia seeds, that’s a superfood. Pumpkin seeds, that’s a superfood. A high quality protein,that’s a superfood in and of itself. So we just picked the best spectrum between animal-based and plant-based and combined those two together because we believe that a holistic system is really what’s needed for the body.

00:05:55.54 – Brian David Crane

yeah And I saw a lot of the packaging where it talks about it’s actually not vegan and you intentionally say, Hey, We use grass-fed whey, or don’t know, it’s grass-fed whey. You also said something about it’s not necessarily organic whey specifically because we can’t guarantee that we can always get organic, but what we can guarantee is that the cows are treated well and that is that they’re grass-fed or something to that effect.

00:06:19.82 – Allen Brouwer

Yep. we can’t guarantee you organic on the, on our way product, right? So we are actually offering a hydrolyzed beef version, which will be a non-dairy version, which is actually really cool.

00:06:23.48 – Brian David Crane

Yep.

Why They Chose Non-Dairy Options for Sensitive Kids

00:06:30.03 – Brian David Crane

But what is hydrolyzed beef?

00:06:32.27 – Allen Brouwer

So hydrolyzed beef is a beef, uh, is a beef protein that they just, uh, dehydrate. Uh, they took all the water out of it and then put it into a powder form. So it’s essentially like powdered steak.

00:06:43.10 – Brian David Crane

OK.

00:06:46.16 – Allen Brouwer

right like that’s If I were to explain it to a five-year-old, it’s powdered steak.

00:06:52.18 – Brian David Crane

Huh.

00:06:52.83 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. um

00:06:54.02 – Brian David Crane

You use that as but use that as opposed to using whey isolate?

00:06:54.29 – Allen Brouwer

But yes.

00:06:58.51 – Allen Brouwer

Instead of the whey isolate. Because the whey isolate is derived from dairy. And a lot of our customers, their children are dairy sensitive.

00:07:03.35 – Brian David Crane

Yeah

00:07:07.93 – Allen Brouwer

So we wanted to offer something that didn’t have the whey in it.

Monk Fruit vs. Stevia: Choosing the Right Sweetener

00:07:12.64 – Brian David Crane

So let’s talk about one of the other ones, the ingredient here is monk fruit. And I think you’re using that as opposed to stevia, is that right?

00:07:19.57 – Allen Brouwer

Yes, we are.

00:07:21.36 – Brian David Crane

And why is that? Is there a benefit to monk fruit as opposed? I’m not even sure I’m saying it right. If it’s stevia or stevia. um

00:07:26.95 – Allen Brouwer

Stevia and stevia yeah um

00:07:28.55 – Brian David Crane

Stevia, yeah.

00:07:31.01 – Allen Brouwer

Why are we using monk fruit? Monk fruit is a natural sweetener. We, our philosophy is to keep it a little bit sweet, but not overly sweet. So we actually didn’t need to even use that much monk fruit and it’s just natural. It doesn’t spike your glucose, um, like sugar, sugar does.

00:07:49.37 – Allen Brouwer

And we wanted it to be “sugar free”. So that’s why we chose that.

00:07:56.94 – Brian David Crane

What was it like in your kitchen as you’re doing this? you and You and Eric, your co-founder, I don’t think he was necessarily in the kitchen with you, but you’re sitting there with your kids. You obviously have your daughter you’re worried about. how long did it like How many iterations, how long did it take you to get to this, well, formulation?

The Trial and Error Behind Developing With Love

00:08:14.47 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. It took me a minute because I started buying the kids versions of this stuff. So like else we bought, uh, which is like a powdered nutritional supplement for kids. Um, we bought, uh, I tried four Sigmatic, which is like a plant version.

00:08:31.55 – Allen Brouwer

Then I would add other different

00:08:33.59 – Brian David Crane

You got Haya on here, Ali, Healthy Heights, as well as some of your competitors.

00:08:38.80 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, so Haya didn’t have any powder back then. They just released a green powder, but that’s not a smoothie and it doesn’t have any protein in it. What I was looking for was a protein base, a fuel source for the children that could almost be like a meal replacement, right? We can’t market it as that, but that’s when I was a mad scientist in the kitchen, that was what I was looking for. How can I replace a meal that’s just packed with essential everything?

00:09:08.41 – Allen Brouwer

And what I ended up finding was all the kids stuff was trash, full of chemicals, full of fillers, full of natural flavors, full of synthetics. And I threw that all away.

00:09:21.60 – Allen Brouwer

But they liked it. They drank it. But it is just, if you read the ingredient list, it’s not good. So what I ended up doing was then going high end and buying adult stuff.

00:09:34.20 – Allen Brouwer

And then doing back, like backing into ratios for kids. So I’d buy really high quality seed probiotics, which is like $80 a month of probiotics and give that to my kids.

00:09:46.01 – Allen Brouwer

I’d buy the protein that I was using at the time was Transparent Labs, which has really high efficacy of like the quality of ingredients that they’re putting in.

00:09:57.08 – Allen Brouwer

Um, but it’s just protein. So like I was paying $60 a month just for the protein plus the probiotics plus the multivitamin. But I like mixing and incorporating all of this together.

00:10:09.21 – Allen Brouwer

Um, yeah,

Early Results: How Nutrition Changed His Daughter’s Life

00:10:11.08 – Brian David Crane

It took you a couple months to get to this point, like

00:10:14.19 – Allen Brouwer

No, I would say, I would say that that was probably about a month or two. Probably just over a month in like dialing that in, figuring out what worked, what didn’t, what tasted good.

00:10:27.58 – Allen Brouwer

Cause I found some stuff that tasted really good for me, but I would give it to my kids and they’re like, I don’t like this. So like, okay, the picky eater is still being picky. Of course, you know, so it has to taste good.

00:10:38.84 – Allen Brouwer

But then once,

00:10:41.26 – Brian David Crane

Tastes even better than what dad’ll stand, right? Like dad’s got dad’s bars here, her, her bars, or maybe his bar a little bit higher than either one of the kids.

00:10:43.35 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, totally.

00:10:49.77 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:10:50.15 – Allen Brouwer

So then, but once I cracked the code and it was clean ingredients, high quality, high efficacy, high bioavailability, and it tasted good, I swear my daughter changed within a matter of weeks.

00:11:05.39 – Allen Brouwer

Like within two weeks, she was a completely different person. ADHD tendencies went away. Insomnia went away. Her app, her palate ended up changing and she started eating the food at the dinner table.

00:11:19.48 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

00:11:19.80 – Allen Brouwer

Her sugar cravings went down. It was wild.

Challenges of Co-Parenting with Different Health Philosophies

00:11:23.26 – Brian David Crane

And what is it like, you know, you you and your your wife are divorced, and so, like, you’re feeding the kids… your special blend of with love in the mornings is your wife or your ex-wife was she also doing it you know like as you’re uh testing this and you’re seeing with your daughter that this stuff’s having a positive effect for her but you don’t have her maybe let’s say seven days a week or you don’t have her for four weeks a month or whatever the split is in terms of custody like she was also on board with it so that you two were both seeing

00:11:54.64 – Allen Brouwer

Ah no.

00:11:55.15 – Brian David Crane

You’re seeing progress together? No. Okay.

00:11:56.73 – Allen Brouwer

No.

00:11:56.59 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. That’s what I mean. Are you trying to also counterbalance some of what the kids are eating at your, at your ex-wife’s house?

00:11:58.15 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Yeah.

00:12:02.90 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, we just have different philosophies. Not that one is good or worse. We just live in different worlds, which is why we are all also separated, right? like so we just have different philosophies on what health and wellness and vitality looks like and feels like.

00:12:19.61 – Allen Brouwer

And not saying that one is wrong and one is right. It’s just this was what we were doing over here in this household. And that’s not to say that probably wasn’t the same over in the other household.

00:12:32.28 – Brian David Crane

Okay. Very polite.

00:12:33.25 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

00:12:33.49 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00:12:34.46 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah

00:12:34.37 – Brian David Crane

And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on I asked you about this is we have a daughter. The first year we had her on what’s called gaps as a diet, which is also heavy protein, a no artificial sugars at all, almost limited in terms of and natural sugars, fruits and whatnot by trying to front load fats, build gut, gut biome health,

Building a Healthy Foundation for Young Children

00:13:01.93 – Brian David Crane

And we see it in our daughter, even and compared to how she looks and acts relative to other kids in daycare. No ekezima, no skin rashes, no stuff like behavior issues, touch wood thus far, mainly because but we focus really on trying to get her gut health set up really well. Like she didn’t have any grains the first year. Now she has some, but like, yeah, I mean, are you is this something that,

00:13:30.82 – Brian David Crane

You see, if you could go back in time before the nine-year-old was born, like what would you have done from that point, like maybe maybe you and your, you know, Ash, your new partner, you two have kids together whatnot, like what would you do with a newborn now?

00:13:48.66 – Allen Brouwer

First things first is like, Breast milk, if you can do that, like just natural mother milk, that would probably be the most important.

00:14:00.43 – Allen Brouwer

Once you start introducing new foods for someone, for a young child, I would stay away from any type of formula right now that’s off the shelf.

00:14:12.83 – Allen Brouwer

Well, you’re overseas and the EU has a lot of high quality better high quality formula than the U.S.,

00:14:19.67 – Brian David Crane

Still the same premise, so yeah, I mean, breast milk is going to win.

00:14:21.59 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Breast milk’s going to win hands down. But a lot of parents like to supplement after the child’s off or off of the boob into a formula.

00:14:35.55 – Allen Brouwer

I would just say, try to stay away from that as much as possible.

00:14:35.90 – Brian David Crane

But we.

00:14:38.54 – Allen Brouwer

Right now anyway, I think there’s things changing in the future. Hopefully, again, knock on wood, it’ll have a better product in the future due to FDA regulations being removed, et cetera, et cetera.

00:14:52.85 – Allen Brouwer

But right now, just don’t, don’t go near it. Just think, think about your ancestors and what they were living on from the land.

00:15:04.60 – Allen Brouwer

If you can see it and cook it and understand where it came from just by when it’s on your plate versus something really processed, um,like a granola bar or something like a squeeze pouch type thing. I’d just be more conscious of, okay, can we determine where this came from by looking at it on our plate?

00:15:30.61 – Brian David Crane

yeah yeah I mean yeah the uh we’ve tried to stay and an Awful formula. We even still, we now get raw milk again for gut health reasons.

00:15:43.56 – Brian David Crane

And that’s what, that’s what our daughter Sophia has at night before she goes to bed. She’s almost two now.

00:15:44.39 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

00:15:50.16 – Brian David Crane

So go ahead.

00:15:51.70 – Allen Brouwer

Parents don’t realize how sensitive their children are because we’ve grown up so and started to become desensitized, desensitized, desensitized due to our environment. Children are so sensitive.

The Importance of Gut Health in Childhood Development

00:16:04.47 – Allen Brouwer

And the first thing to go is their gut health. So anything that you can do,

00:16:07.36 – Brian David Crane

And why is that?

00:16:09.72 – Allen Brouwer

ah Because it is a filtration system. It’s the second brain, right? So it has a ton of nerve endings in it. It is really in tune.

00:16:21.99 – Allen Brouwer

And when you’re born and young, you don’t have the desensitization that you’ve gone through, right?

00:16:34.30 – Allen Brouwer

So your gut is really sensitive. So making sure that you’re not, again, like you said, put synthetic sweeteners or high sugar diet, or like because all of that will just wreak havoc on the gut, which is already at a level 11 sensitivity.

00:16:52.81 – Allen Brouwer

Unsensitivity

00:16:54.72 – Brian David Crane

Is it also due to, yeah I mean, the fact that maybe our food isn’t as nutrient dense as it used to be. I mean, do you include the multivitamin in there because even if your kids ate a really good diet, they’re still not going to get as many, well, as many vitamins and nutrients as they need. vita Like, why do you why do you supplement a child?

Why Supplementation Matters: Nutrient Deficiencies Today

00:17:18.32 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. So again, yeah. So here in the U S um, our foods that land on our plate are fifth or it’s been studied that 50% it has, it has 50% less nutrients than the same exact food did 50 years ago.

00:17:38.21 – Allen Brouwer

came from the same farm though due to soil and mineral depletion in the soil, which again, then affects the cows and the animals that are eating that.

00:17:38.65 – Brian David Crane

So, soil depletion. Yeah.

00:17:49.48 – Allen Brouwer

So it’s just like a down, a slippery slope, right? It just declined over the years. So as Eric and I developed this product, I shared what I was doing. He shared what he was doing. And then we went out and got a pediatrician nutritionist,

Choosing the Right Vitamins: Methylation and Nutrient Absorption

00:18:05.63 – Allen Brouwer

One that’s a functional medicine, right? That really looks at the entire body. and said, you know, I don’t, I understand you guys want to go with eight clean whole ingredients, but adding a vitamin panel to this is just really going to take those nutrient levels and increase it.

00:18:27.27 – Allen Brouwer

So we fortify those eight ingredients with a vitamin panel, but here’s the thing, not all vitamins are made the same.

00:18:27.45 – Brian David Crane

Hmm. Hmm.

00:18:36.47 – Allen Brouwer

So,there’s a gene, the MTHFR gene. And if you take certain vitamins that are not methylated, you’re actually toxifying your body with the vitamins that you’re taking.

00:18:53.34 – Allen Brouwer

So you’re actually causing more harm than good. So the vitamins that we introduced to fortify this product are methylated vitamins, which help with this. And those, the two specific ones are folate, which needs to be a methylfolate and B vitamins to make sure that, you know, you’re not causing more harm than good.

00:19:17.18 – Brian David Crane

What is Eric’s role in this? How did you two get connected and what did he bring to the table as co-founder?

Allen’s Partnership with Eric and Their Shared Mission

00:19:24.67 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. So Eric and I met, six years ago now, five five years ago, probably six years ago now. And we actually met at a plant medicine retreat together and created such a great friendship.

00:19:43.24 – Allen Brouwer

From this retreat. And he was, we have kids around the same age. We’re both entrepreneurs. We’re both high achievers. We’re both on a spiritual path.

00:19:54.20 – Allen Brouwer

And we just developed such a good friendship. And for four years, five years, we would just call each other maybe every couple of days, once a week, just checking in. Hey, how are you doing? How’s the kids? How’s your wife?

00:20:08.44 – Allen Brouwer

What’s going on? How’s business? Oh my gosh, no way.You know, here’s, I’ll connect you to this person to help you out. And we just became champions of one another. And then, then fast forward, we shared our own trials and tribulations of being fathers.

00:20:25.78 – Allen Brouwer

Trying to heal our children. He experienced some health issues with his kids to the point where there was mold exposure in the home.His daughter ended up getting really, really sick.

00:20:38.97 – Allen Brouwer

Eczema, skin, like a lot of toxicity. And it actually got so bad that he actually had to sell his house. So I couldn’t even imagine that type of dilemma.

00:20:53.18 – Allen Brouwer

But after he sold his home… he was able to heal his daughter through different nutrition. Um, so we kind of collaborated on that. His role in the company is now co-founder.

00:21:05.34 – Allen Brouwer

He’s really good at making connections, uh, bringing the right people in place, being a really good sounding board for, to bounce ideas off of, um, and help co-develop products.

00:21:20.05 – Brian David Crane

Okay. And what are some of the products that you’re looking at?

00:21:21.02 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

00:21:23.38 – Brian David Crane

You mentioned an adult protein powder. Is that what Love will look like a year from now?

00:21:30.87 – Allen Brouwer

Okay. So, um, I mentioned an adult.

New Products Coming Soon: Supporting Parents’ Wellbeing

00:21:34.01 – Brian David Crane

What are you willing to share?

00:21:35.61 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, yeah, yeah. no I’m actually really excited about this because we, the impact that we are going to have with this company just brings me so much excitement.

00:21:47.69 – Allen Brouwer

Like I want to do it now, but like we only have so much time and bandwidth and team to, to get it done. Like, like how do we get this out now? Yeah, our parent product is actually not going to be a protein powder.

00:22:03.87 – Allen Brouwer

Our parent product is going to be a nervous system regulation product. It’s going to come in a capsule and it is going to help parents stay calm, cool, and collect without feeling drowsy or groggy or being like a zombie on the couch. Like, cool, great. I’m chill as hell, but I’m not getting anything done today. You know, like that’s not what we want.

00:22:29.36 – Allen Brouwer

So this product, which we’re going to launch in the summer is just that, it allows the parent to be calm and regulated, but be, it’s almost like it gives a tiny little bit of stimulant, almost as if you drank like one cup of coffee.

00:22:45.99 – Allen Brouwer

So I’m calm, cool and collected, but I can take action with it. It’s like, and what that does people like a lot of the harmony in a home comes from,

00:22:57.91 – Allen Brouwer

Parents regulate the child. The child is looking for the parent to regulate their nervous system. But if the parent is flooded or in a fight or flight or dysregulated, it’s just going to amplify what’s happening in the home environment.

00:23:14.45 – Allen Brouwer

So that’s our, that’s our philosophy. And I’ve,

00:23:17.72 – Brian David Crane

It’s an exciting product. Who are you but this is going to be like, it’s almost like a nootropic or what is this? Not a nootropic, I mean, you’re it’s going to be a pill that somebody takes to help regulate their nervous system, correct?

00:23:31.69 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, that a parent would take, but anybody I assume anybody could take it, but it’s going to be marketed towards parents.

00:23:32.36 – Allen Brouwer

Yes.

00:23:36.100 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Going to be marketed towards parents to begin with and then probably expand out from there. But yeah.

Using Kanna for Nervous System Regulation

00:23:43.04 – Brian David Crane

Does this come from your plant medicine journeys?

00:23:43.49 – Allen Brouwer

So. Yes, it does. So the compound that we’re using is called kanna, K-A-N-N-A. It’s a South African rhizome. It’s the main ingredient.

00:23:58.35 – Allen Brouwer

And what this does, this naturally creates harmony inside your body. And I was fortunate enough to find an R&D product back in 2019, 2020,

00:24:15.87 – Allen Brouwer

And I, because it’s like, I’m, I’m also my own little Guinea pig. Like I like to try a lot of different things and test this stuff out. And the scientist created this, this product.

00:24:29.82 – Allen Brouwer

And he was like, Hey, I’ve got this R and D product. It’s for depression and anxiety. And at that time in my life, I was going through a lot of anxiety and bouts of depression. was like, okay, let me try it.

00:24:41.11 – Allen Brouwer

And I tried it and it completely. Saved my life, actually, because there was so much chaos going on that I was able to at least have some version of myself while so much nonsense was happening around me.

00:25:00.37 – Brian David Crane

Amazing.

00:25:00.85 – Allen Brouwer

And then fast forward, I reached out to the scientist.

00:25:00.79 – Brian David Crane

OK, so yeah, please.

00:25:04.11 – Allen Brouwer

I said, what are you doing with this thing?And he’s like, I don’t know, nothing. He’s like, I’m a scientist. I just like to create things. And I was like, okay, can I license this? And he’s like, yeah. was like, great, thank you.

00:25:18.55 – Allen Brouwer

So we worked out a deal where I get to offer it to the world.

00:25:18.68 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:25:22.65 – Brian David Crane

Okay. And he’s South African or he’s American, but he kind of comes from South Africa.

00:25:23.64 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

00:25:29.24 – Allen Brouwer

Kana comes from South Africa. That’s where it’s native too.

Allen’s Philosophy on Creating Purpose-Driven Businesses

00:25:32.02 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Okay. Got it. All right.

00:25:33.83 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

00:25:34.53 – Brian David Crane

And I’m curious between Best Self Co with love, like why do you care about

00:25:41.11 – Brian David Crane

What I would call aspirational products?

00:25:45.65 – Allen Brouwer

Because it’s authentic to me. It’s, it’s, you know, I had a coach reflect this back to me and I couldn’t quite put language to it.

00:25:57.23 – Allen Brouwer

Until they shared. And I’m like, oh my gosh, you hit the nail on the head.There needs to be an authentic expression of something that I care about, something that has impacted me in a positive way in order for me to get behind it, to share it, to be an advocate for it, to want others to experience it.

00:26:09.73 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

00:26:21.47 – Allen Brouwer

And with Best Self, I created a system that helped me do more, achieve more, be more productive, be more positive, create a system to help me get out of my own way. And I wanted to share that. With Love, I created something that really brought more harmony to my home to help my daughter. And I wanted to share that.

00:26:43.86 – Allen Brouwer

Every time I tried just making money or building a business because I saw an opportunity or an arbitrage or like, oh, there’s something, there’s a good, good way and I can be at the forefront of it.

00:26:55.24 – Allen Brouwer

It just never worked because it wasn’t like coming from me.

00:27:00.41 – Brian David Crane

And is that because you feel like it didn’t have, you grew tired of it or you weren’t willing to stick with the grind? And what I mean by that is because even if you like even if you believe in the product with best self or you believe in the product with with love like there’s going to be dips in the entrepreneurial journey where you decide to stick it out right like that kind of you’re going to go through a valley of despair and I think it’s because you if i’m hearing you correctly it’s because you believed you saw the benefits in both the products yourself and said like no I know if I stick with this

00:27:36.79 – Brian David Crane

from a marketing or from a business standpoint, like I can bring it to a wider audience, right? But like you needed to get through that dip.

00:27:43.21 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, I would say yes, that is one aspect of it as well.

00:27:43.52 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:27:46.93 – Allen Brouwer

And that’s a big one.

00:27:46.83 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

00:27:48.52 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, that’s a big one.

00:27:48.43 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

00:27:50.18 – Allen Brouwer

Because we experienced a lot of dips with love already. But knowing… and And probably if it didn’t and if I didn’t know the impact that it had with me personally and the impact that it has had with our customers,pro you’re probably right. It would have been like, oh you know, the market signal’s gone, right? Like, on to the next thing. Or like, oh, the opportunity is dead. Or, oh, you know what? It didn’t work out. Yeah, probably.

00:28:16.02 – Allen Brouwer

It probably wouldn’t give me the conviction to keep going.

00:28:19.22 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Do you want to talk a bit about your best self as far as how you got involved with that?

00:28:20.31 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

The Origin Story of Best Self Co.

00:28:24.01 – Brian David Crane

Like, were you doing it? Were you journaling prior to that? And then you came across the business? Like, what was the path into that? You mentioned it briefly that you saw a lot of benefits from the practices that came into best self.

00:28:36.70 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. So Beth, best self, was a spinoff of another company that Catherine and I Catherine was my business partner back then. We had a home and kitchen goods company, um, selling products on Amazon for home and kitchen stuff.

00:28:51.33 – Allen Brouwer

And, uh, and I was also running and managing a digital marketing consultancy. So I had my consultancy. I was really good at marketing lead gen.

00:29:02.16 – Allen Brouwer

Then I had this e-comm thing with Catherine. And in order to manage all the products or projects, I created my own structure on how to manage and map out my day in a journal.

00:29:15.38 – Allen Brouwer

And I would like to create it every day. Here’s a half hour segment over here. Here’s what I’m grateful for. Here’s the big rocks that I need to tackle, you know, and here’s the goals that I want to achieve.

00:29:26.15 – Allen Brouwer

Every day I would create this and I pulled it out when I was doing a work session with Catherine and she’s like, we should create that. I was like, okay, uh, maybe.

00:29:38.25 – Allen Brouwer

And then she kept asking, we should create that. We should create that. And I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Finally, I was like, okay, if I don’t create this with Catherine, I’m never going to create it and offer it to the world.

00:29:50.59 – Allen Brouwer

So we ended up creating it, spun a brand around it, and launched a Kickstarter.That became really successful. And we ended up selling the home and kitchen company and just focusing on myself.

How Allen’s Daily Routine Has Evolved Over Time

00:30:05.51 – Brian David Crane

You shut down the agency. Sorry.

00:30:07.52 – Allen Brouwer

Yep.

00:30:07.56 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. And you rolled the agency into its best self or shut it down. One of the two. Yeah.

00:30:11.69 – Allen Brouwer

Bingo.

00:30:12.58 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. So what does, is very interesting. What does, um, what does a morning look like for you now, given what you learned with best self and prior to best self, given what you learned in terms of the power of this journaling and sketching out your day? Like when you wake up, you got this 20 to 30 minutes before you come downstairs and your kids are already playing, like,

00:30:33.82 – Brian David Crane

Are you journaling like this for 20? What does it look like?

00:30:38.14 – Allen Brouwer

Okay. So there have been so, so best self was twenty fourteen was 2014, 2015, right?

00:30:44.64 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:30:46.46 – Allen Brouwer

Like that’s when we launched. I have lived so many lives between now and then so many, it feels like hundreds and hundreds of lives today.

00:30:48.88 – Brian David Crane

We have fatherhood.

00:31:01.13 – Allen Brouwer

I don’t have journaling practice today.

00:31:04.02 – Brian David Crane

Yeah

00:31:04.56 – Allen Brouwer

I don’t have a morning routine. I switched today. Like I, I am more in flow with the harmony of the universe.

00:31:14.100 – Allen Brouwer

I am more connected to myself than I have ever been. I am more grounded and rooted into who I am and how I want to show up. Um, and just like a deep knowing.

00:31:24.86 – Brian David Crane

And you don’t feel like you need those structures.

00:31:27.13 – Allen Brouwer

I have just a deep knowing in myself. And if I look backwards, you know, the company’s best self is like, you know, Yeah, it just, it is born from potentially lack and fear and doubt and less than.

00:31:45.50 – Allen Brouwer

Today,I have very little of that in my life. If I have one practice that I do consistently without missing it is one, I make my espresso every morning.

00:31:59.95 – Allen Brouwer

So I’m a big espresso person. I don’t drink coffee, but like, man, a really high quality, just clean espresso. Ah, brings me so much joy. That and prayer. I pray every day.

Prayer and Presence: Allen’s New Morning Practice

00:32:11.53 – Allen Brouwer

And like my prayer it is probably close to a person’s meditation where I spend 15 minutes in just a prayer practice.

00:32:24.03 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

00:32:25.82 – Brian David Crane

In which you’re silencing your mind or what does that yeah prayer for me is i’m actually let’s say speaking something to god or or like i’m in a conversation it’s and is it or are you what is it what what what does that 15 minutes look like

00:32:47.26 – Allen Brouwer

So the 15 minutes is kind of a, a um

00:32:52.59 – Allen Brouwer

It’s a centering.

00:32:54.71 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

00:32:55.21 – Allen Brouwer

It’s a clear distraction. It’s getting in communication with the creator, with God, and then cultivating just a deep sense of gratitude for what has been, for what is, and for what will come.

00:33:14.49 – Allen Brouwer

And then it’s also sharing blessings with the people and the world that I care about or the people that I care about in the world.

00:33:25.61 – Brian David Crane

Verbally, like telling them that you could, or, or, or, or taking your energy for the day and putting it towards things that you view as a blessing to the world, which way do you mean it or both?

00:33:34.80 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. I think it’s both. I think it’s, I literally verbally say, please send love and blessings to, and then I like have a laundry list of people that I,

00:33:46.15 – Allen Brouwer

Put it on there. I even like people who wish me ill will, please send them love and blessings, you know, like, like just, just be a conduit to just bless other people. Um, so yeah.

00:34:00.02 – Allen Brouwer

And, but I think as I share it, as I speak it out my mouth, it’s also like this channeling of life force energy as well.

00:34:00.42 – Brian David Crane

Yeah

00:34:10.00 – Brian David Crane

Beautiful. And where does that land during your morning with respect to your kids?

00:34:11.20 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

00:34:15.93 – Brian David Crane

I’m asking this as one father to the next. Like, how do you, what, what does this look like? Are you doing this? When do you do this? Yeah. Are you doing it as you’re making your espresso or what?

00:34:26.58 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Yeah.

00:34:28.29 – Allen Brouwer

Normally after my espresso, nothing comes before the espresso.

00:34:30.35 – Brian David Crane

Okay. Okay. Okay.

00:34:35.96 – Allen Brouwer

It’s like It’s a good morning. Make the kids a smoothie and then have my espresso.yeah it is kind It comes later in the morning. Sometimes the kids will already be at school when I do it.

00:34:47.75 – Allen Brouwer

If it’s the weekend, the kids will be playing in the next room as I’m doing it. It’s in the morning, probably before 10 a.m. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:34:57.68 – Brian David Crane

Okay cool

00:34:59.29 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

00:35:00.34 – Brian David Crane

And tell us, tell us what

00:35:01.12 – Allen Brouwer

What’s really cool though, is that I’ve that ash, like I’ll be, so we have altars in our house, both our homes. I’ve got an altar that I’ve created in my office in my South Carolina house. And then we have an altar in our rec room.

00:35:18.06 – Allen Brouwer

Which is like our bonus room here in New Jersey.But it’s, we’ve had like a little open floor plan, but the altar, if I’m at the altar down downstairs here, it’s,

00:35:32.43 – Allen Brouwer

And the kids like to start coming into their room. It’s really cool to see like Ash, like, Nope, daddy’s praying. Like let’s, let’s, and she’ll like scoop them up and like, bring them, bring them out and like put them over in the other room to play and this and that.

00:35:46.36 – Allen Brouwer

So like, there’s no distraction, which is really nice. Yeah.

00:35:49.63 – Brian David Crane

Sweet of her. Yeah. Try to protect that space of yours.

00:35:51.45 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Yeah. yeah

00:35:54.55 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Yeah. You want to share the story of how you two, how you two met and what she’s meant to you because she’s been a huge part of the transition from best self into love. Right. Right.

Meeting His Partner Ash: A Story of Trust and Safety

00:36:07.14 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, yeah, I mean, she’s been a part of a lot of transitions. um

00:36:13.43 – Brian David Crane

What are those?

00:36:14.84 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. How did we meet? So Ash and I met at a retreat. It was a ceremony weekend. andAnd we actually just started out as friends.

00:36:29.16 – Allen Brouwer

I was going through a divorce. She was going through a divorce. But there was like a connection there that was like, oh my gosh, I want to like…

00:36:42.08 – Allen Brouwer

I share my support with you. You could share your support with me and we can, we can, I don’t know, just like being there for one another.

00:36:54.05 – Allen Brouwer

We lived in completely different States, completely across the globe. She lived in Colorado. I lived in New Jersey and I was like, Hey, I want to see you again.

00:37:06.67 – Allen Brouwer

She’s like, okay, well, when’s the next time you’re coming to Colorado? It’s like, well,you know, I’ve got kids and like, I’ve got a couple of weeks off here and there, but, um, what if you came out to New Jersey? She’s like, okay. Uh, I said, here’s what I want you to do. Send me some dates, send me a picture of your driver’s license.

00:37:26.55 – Allen Brouwer

That would work for you. So send me the dates I would work for you. Send me a picture of your driver’s license. And then the next thing she got was an email notification of like, your flight’s been booked.

00:37:38.21 – Allen Brouwer

And this shook her entire world. She’s like, what? No one’s ever bought me a flight. No one’s ever bought me dinner. You know, like what the hell is going on?

00:37:51.86 – Allen Brouwer

So she’s like, okay.So I bought her a flight to New Jersey and we ended up just cultivating a really beautiful connection, a friendship that was built on like respect.

00:37:54.11 – Brian David Crane

Chivalrous.

00:38:06.98 – Allen Brouwer

And there was a lot of safety and trust in our relationship early on. which was foreign to me. And it just felt like I wanted to keep exploring the safety and trust that I felt with Ash.

00:38:22.39 – Allen Brouwer

And if that meant doing long distance, cool. I’m god. I’m open to doing long distance as long as we can, as long as I can keep tugging on this thread of safety and trust.

00:38:35.11 – Allen Brouwer

Now, the universe conspired in our favor because shortly after we met, like a couple months after, COVID happened, the world shut down, and no one was going anywhere. So we ended up just actually living together,quote unquote, right? Like we lived together for like two to three months early on in our relationship. So even though we were long distance, there was like nothing she was missing back In Colorado, there was, so it was actually perfect.

00:39:07.10 – Allen Brouwer

And we ended up spending a lot of time just like going on walks and spending time in nature and just being with one another. And it was really beautiful. We actually joke like, man, I miss the COVID days. so

00:39:19.15 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:39:19.34 – Allen Brouwer

How slow life was, how peaceful, you know, yeah it’s funny. Yeah.

00:39:26.13 – Brian David Crane

I think first, I know several people who COVID was one of their best years ever in a weird way. Yeah. It sounds like you might be in that camp.

00:39:37.40 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, there were aspects of my life.

00:39:38.99 – Brian David Crane

I don’t know if that’s true. Yeah.

00:39:40.20 – Allen Brouwer

Brian, you know my story. How you COVID love-hate.

00:39:51.30 – Allen Brouwer

I love some aspects, like Ash loved it.

00:39:53.66 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Yeah.

00:39:54.56 – Allen Brouwer

Other aspects, not so much. Yeah.

00:39:57.92 – Brian David Crane

I get it. Okay.

00:39:58.89 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

00:39:58.95 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. And then, but but like the relationship between the two of you in terms of then she’s come in now, she’s been a very loving stepmother.

Building a Blended Family and Navigating Co-Parenting

00:40:10.91 – Brian David Crane

You two split time between South Carolina and New Jersey. What did it look like for you two as far as, yeah, coming into partnership so that you felt really safe and seen with her as what I heard you describe. Like, how did she feel coming in as a step-mom and well, like she’s she’s she’s since moved her, I think moved her life out of Colorado, right?

00:40:37.85 – Allen Brouwer

Oh yeah. Yeah.

00:40:38.32 – Brian David Crane

but in her business And her business was based in Colorado, I think at the time, or she was, yeah, I mean, her family’s there, so

00:40:38.52 – Allen Brouwer

We live together now.

00:40:45.36 – Allen Brouwer

Oh my God. and so it was her birthday yesterday and she was FaceTiming all the people from Colorado and her family and this and that. And the, the, the feeling that I had was, Oh my gosh, she’s so loved.

00:40:59.84 – Allen Brouwer

But the other feeling that I had was like, Oh my gosh, I am so blessed that this woman chose me over all of these people who love her so much. Like, oh my gosh, I just feel so honored, right? She did leave them for me.

00:41:18.12 – Allen Brouwer

And it’s just, yeah, there was a ton of gratitude and appreciation yesterday specifically for that.

00:41:25.60 – Brian David Crane

Beautiful.

00:41:26.78 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, I forgot the question that you asked.

00:41:28.90 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, it’s more about like, how have you two made the partnership work? You’re both entrepreneurs. Let me give some context because you’re both entrepreneurs.

00:41:33.78 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

00:41:35.10 – Brian David Crane

You have your own separate businesses, as I understood, right?

00:41:35.57 – Allen Brouwer

Yes.

00:41:37.93 – Allen Brouwer

Yep.

00:41:38.52 – Brian David Crane

And you come together. I think you both have some degree of time, freedom, time and location freedom. Like she was able to make the move.

00:41:48.31 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

00:41:48.52 – Brian David Crane

You were able to pick a date in her calendar that worked for both of you. Like there’s a lot of, you know, let’s say self-imposed constraints. It’s not like you guys have a job. It’s not like you have a certain, like you need to be in New Jersey for your kids.

00:42:01.77 – Allen Brouwer

Yes.

00:42:02.46 – Brian David Crane

You love the South. It’s one of the things you and I bonded on when we first met.

00:42:04.04 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

00:42:05.86 – Brian David Crane

I think

00:42:06.08 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:42:08.62 – Brian David Crane

But like, how have you two made that partnership work? Like made it made made made made it work with between two entrepreneurs

00:42:14.31 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, it’s been a lot of give and take.There was a time in my career when we were,when we were, dating. but I don’t think we are married yet.

00:42:25.88 – Allen Brouwer

But like I was without work and it was Ash who was the breadwinner, you know? So what I had to do then was make concessions like, okay, you’re actually providing for our family right now and I need to take the back seat and that’s okay. It was very uncomfortable for me because it was a new position.

00:42:49.94 – Allen Brouwer

And now today things have transitioned where now I’m in the driver’s seat and she can kind of take the backseat and I can lead and she can follow.

00:43:01.52 – Allen Brouwer

And a lot of that has been born on or born through a lot of communication, uncomfortable conversations.

00:43:10.69 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:43:13.48 – Allen Brouwer

I think one of the things that I get still squirmy about is when we sit down with the calendar in front of us. Because I know it means adding those constraints that you’re saying like, okay, we’re going to travel this day. We’re going to come back here. We have the kids here. The kids don’t have school. Okay.

00:43:30.33 – Allen Brouwer

Who’s going to, that means that like, okay, who’s not going to work so they can watch, we can watch the kids who are going to work. And, there’s resistance that I still notice in my system of actually having that conversation.

00:43:45.32 – Allen Brouwer

But as soon as we get through it, I feel so much better.

00:43:45.60 – Brian David Crane

Yep.

00:43:48.73 – Allen Brouwer

So it’s almost like they’re just getting through the resistance and having the conversation of like the logistics of life and things, it just creates more peace, even though it’s uncomfortable.

00:43:57.55 – Brian David Crane

Yeah

00:44:00.19 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, because then you can then you go back and so in a way to kind of love one another because you’re like, yeah, we got this difficult thing out of the way. Now we know what to expect. The structure’s set. And yeah, there’s time and space for us to flow into now subsequent to that.

00:44:16.43 – Allen Brouwer

Yep, absolutely. And it makes things, it just makes things easier, especially most of it’s around the kids, right? If it were just her and I, we probably wouldn’t have that much of a structure because we are so, we say, we can, we dance very well together.

00:44:37.16 – Allen Brouwer

But because of the kids, it adds another element because of the kids that we’re raising with a co-raising with another household. Like it does actually require more thoughtful intention around it.

00:44:48.85 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, you’re in a position as well where you need to be a very good communicator times two, right? Not only with Ash, but also with your ex.

00:44:57.50 – Allen Brouwer

Yes.

00:44:57.34 – Brian David Crane

And

00:44:58.53 – Allen Brouwer

Yes.

00:44:59.03 – Brian David Crane

And so like, cool, I got the calendar set up over here with Ash. no Now I’m going to go over here to my ex-wife and like get this squared away. And you need to be the bridge between the two.

00:45:09.19 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:45:09.87 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

00:45:10.51 – Brian David Crane

And then also triple check it with the kids and their calendars, right?

00:45:11.03 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

00:45:14.31 – Allen Brouwer

Yes. Yeah. Yes.

00:45:15.94 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:45:16.85 – Allen Brouwer

You know, you hit the nail on the head.

00:45:17.24 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:45:18.33 – Allen Brouwer

It’s like, okay, you have a vacation and a holiday and a family thing over there. Okay. How does that coincide with our schedule over here? and Yeah. It, it’sit, a, it’s a lot and you know, it, it just comes with the territory.

Allen’s Perspective on Plant Medicine and Healing

00:45:36.29 – Brian David Crane

Do you wish that everyone in the world would go on a plant medicine journey?

00:45:45.26 – Allen Brouwer

Mmm.

00:45:47.19 – Brian David Crane

Or do you wish, not everyone in the world, like but like, is there a certain… it’s kind of out of the left field, but like, as a, like a, like a rite of passage in a way that, I mean, a lot of, I think the transition that you’ve gone through in the past five years has been one of inner work that is then reflected in your outer work.

00:46:04.88 – Brian David Crane

And some of what you’re doing with love is designed to set people up for success for those who are not in a position where they’re feeling very good. Would you recommend plant medicine? Like what, what, what do you tell people?

00:46:24.15 – Brian David Crane

I’ve talked a lot about plant medicine. What do you tell people that, um, um, yeah, that they’re hurting, let’s say, right? Like, uh, um, yeah, mean, you, what do you, what like is, where, where does plant medicine fit into the,

00:46:31.31 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

00:46:39.84 – Brian David Crane

the medicine cabinet in Alan, Alan’s mind?

00:46:44.30 – Allen Brouwer

I love that question. I love how you phrase that.

00:46:46.88 – Brian David Crane

It just took me a while to get there.

00:46:48.48 – Allen Brouwer

No, I love it.Okay. So, man, we could have a whole show on this. um

00:46:57.19 – Allen Brouwer

Let me try to distill it down.

00:47:00.02 – Allen Brouwer

I don’t, the short answer is I don’t think everyone should participate in a ceremony. I just don’t. There are prerequisites.

00:47:16.50 – Allen Brouwer

Beforehand? Like, do you have, do you just talk to a coach? Do you go to therapy? Do you journal? Do you like, are you inquisitive about yourself? Right.

00:47:27.05 – Allen Brouwer

Or are you taking SSRIs because you’re uncomfortable? And like, that’s, that’s your way to deal with the things that are happening in your life to numb out.

00:47:37.94 – Allen Brouwer

Are you an addict? I don’t recommend you going to a plant ceremony if you’re a head addict, right? Like the, Let’s go downstream a little bit to see, okay, what sort of foundational pieces do you have in place?

00:47:47.02 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

00:47:52.93 – Allen Brouwer

Are you comfortable exploring your inner psyche? But so that’s the short answer. The long answer is I see plant medicine as a spectrum.

Preparation and Caution Around Plant Medicine Use

00:48:09.37 – Allen Brouwer

A lot of people can talk about ayahuasca, which is very spiritual. I do not recommend people to jump into spirit right out the gate.

00:48:23.31 – Allen Brouwer

If anything, they actually need to be more embodied and understand who what it feels like to be inside their heart, inside of their body, before continuing to escape

00:48:33.09 – Brian David Crane

Well said.

00:48:35.54 – Allen Brouwer

Right? Because you are blasted off. So there’s other modalities that will actually help you and other types of ceremonies that will bring you into your body that are softer, that are gentler.

00:48:39.36 – Brian David Crane

But

00:48:47.57 – Allen Brouwer

Heart openers,assisted MDMA typetherapies.There’s ketamine, which most ketamine, now this is again, nuance, right?

00:49:01.98 – Allen Brouwer

Most ketamine will blast you off. If you do a certain protocol with ketamine, it’ll actually help embody you. But people don’t know this. They just think they just lump ketamine into a subgroup and just say, okay, well, a doctor is going to do this.

00:49:19.54 – Allen Brouwer

I’m just now going to get an IV 400 milligrams of ketamine. And like,now I’m fixed. It’s like, uh, okay. Where’s your integration practice? Who’s supporting you? How often are you talking?

00:49:32.86 – Allen Brouwer

Like, cause it’s going to bring up stuff, but how are you going to put Humpty Dumpty back together again? Right.

00:49:37.31 – Brian David Crane

Amen.

00:49:37.75 – Allen Brouwer

So, um, it’s yes, it’s helpful for the people who are ready and willing,

00:49:37.74 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Yeah.

00:49:45.61 – Allen Brouwer

Not helpful for those who want to stay asleep. It can actually be, it can actually be pretty damaging for people if they’re not ready for it.

00:49:52.10 – Brian David Crane

And what was your…

00:49:56.100 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. I Yeah. Yeah. What was your journey into that world like? Was this something that you were into, I don’t know, playing ceremonies prior to self?

00:50:10.51 – Brian David Crane

Was this something that you got into as you were leaving your best self, as your marriage was, and you know, as we were going through a divorce? Like what, how did you wind up on that path?

00:50:22.55 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, I have always been a seeker. I’ve always been curious.

00:50:27.62 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

Allen’s Spiritual Journey from Catholicism to Taoism

00:50:30.07 – Allen Brouwer

And I’ve always been spiritually curious as well. Brought up Catholic, went to Catholic school, knew that something just wasn’t fitting right with me at an early age, like fourth, fifth, sixth grade. I’m like, I don’t know about this, man.

00:50:46.89 – Allen Brouwer

Um, then I beat, then I started studying Buddhists and Shaolin monks and then I got into Rastafarianism. Um, and I would consider myself like a Rastafari.

00:51:00.77 – Allen Brouwer

And then I got into it seriously.

00:51:02.63 – Brian David Crane

Sorry, I just can’t see it with you.

00:51:13.01 – Allen Brouwer

Brian, I used to have dreadlocks.

00:51:12.98 – Brian David Crane

Go ahead. Yeah, you can consider yourself a Rastafari for a second. I didn’t even know that was a word. But yeah, thank you. You asked me what to call a Rastafarian. I guess you call him Rastafari. It’s singular.

00:51:21.66 – Allen Brouwer

Vasafari, yeah.

00:51:22.61 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:51:22.96 – Allen Brouwer

I had full-on dreadlocks.

00:51:26.21 – Brian David Crane

Did you?

00:51:27.16 – Allen Brouwer

Yes.

00:51:32.11 – Allen Brouwer

And then I would consider myself today to be a Taoist. Someone who is part of the universe and the universe simultaneously. And I think that’s the best philosophy that I’ve found and modality that feels in harmony with who I am today.

00:51:51.43 – Allen Brouwer

But through…

00:51:54.26 – Brian David Crane

And how do you handle that with your kids?

00:51:57.22 – Allen Brouwer

We…

00:51:57.40 – Brian David Crane

Have they gotten to the tricky questions?

00:51:57.85 – Allen Brouwer

Oh no no we Uh, tricky questions. We talk about God. We talk about, um, we talk about the universe. We talk about the stars. We talk about the planet.

00:52:11.57 – Allen Brouwer

We talk about nature. We just kind of bring it up in conversation, but that’s all, I would say it’s based around presence. How can you be as present as possible, um, with the kids?

00:52:23.19 – Allen Brouwer

And that’s been my big Um, my biggest gift that the children have given me is true presence where you can bring your full self to it.

00:52:34.11 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

00:52:37.41 – Allen Brouwer

Not that you’re there and then like your brain’s thinking about something else and you’re like half engaged, right? Or you’re distracted. Or you get a squirrel brain, right?

00:52:47.93 – Allen Brouwer

Like, no, I am here, right? Bringing your full self to it. That’s been the biggest gift. And then on my journey, I was actually scared of plant medicine.When I was running Best Self, I started hearing about it. I just started hearing about journeys and ayahuasca and this and that. and I was scared, to be honest. I actually hated living in Peru for a little bit, was able to like it, and was offered to sit. And I was like, nope, too scared. I don’t know. I don’t know about that.

00:53:16.82 – Allen Brouwer

And

First Plant Medicine Experiences and Their Impact

00:53:17.61 – Brian David Crane

Well, you might’ve been skeptical. I mean, there’s a fair amount of people who, as you’re talking about, go to Peru that don’t have the container and are ready for it let’s say, right?

00:53:24.98 – Allen Brouwer

And now I haven’t come back a little fractured.

00:53:26.50 – Brian David Crane

And you see them you’re like, whoa, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:53:31.65 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

00:53:31.98 – Brian David Crane

You’re like, it’s not something I necessarily want to put myself through, yeah.

00:53:35.08 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, no. um

00:53:36.95 – Brian David Crane

But you’re living in Peru.

00:53:38.54 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. So then if you know, I actually had a business partner, who tended to attend a ceremony and I, again, I was big into personal development. I hired coaches and went to seminars and masterminds and journaled a ton and like helped me ahead and had therapists and was on like fringe stuff, right? Like tapping and stuff like that.

00:54:00.30 – Allen Brouwer

Doing breath work and that sort of thing. And,

00:54:05.94 – Brian David Crane

All stuff I’ve gone down the path of too,

00:54:08.33 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. And finally a business partner was like, Hey, I found a thing. It’s not like ayahuasca. It’s super gentle. It’s really great. It’s like, co it is like the fastest personal development tool in the world.

00:54:22.06 – Allen Brouwer

And, the next one has a bunch of people that you know who are attending it. It was like, okay, no stranger danger. Right. For me, it’s like I’m safe in numbers and it’s, yeah it’s soft, it’s gentle.

00:54:36.11 – Allen Brouwer

And you’re also telling me that it’s like the, rocket fuel for personal development okay like it just had to be the time the way that it was phrased who was involved like the planets just had to align for it yeah and it was a heart opener ceremony yes so

00:54:41.59 – Brian David Crane

Sign me up.

00:54:49.29 – Brian David Crane

That was a heart opener ceremony.

00:54:53.12 – Brian David Crane

What does that mean for people who don’t know that phrase?

00:54:56.21 – Allen Brouwer

It is a way to tap into your feelings that might have been elusive to you.

What Heart-Opening Ceremonies Really Mean

00:55:08.87 – Allen Brouwer

And I would say the word that describes it is psychosomatic. So it is not psychedelic, right?

00:55:14.52 – Brian David Crane

Okay. But are is this

00:55:18.86 – Allen Brouwer

But it is a mind altering somatic body and feeling state that And it is altering, but it is soft and gentle. You have all of your faculties. It’s like choosing your own adventure. You’re there, you’re engaged, you’re an active participant and you’re not just along for a ride.

00:55:42.80 – Brian David Crane

but are you is this facilitated through breath work or is this facilitated through are if I showed up to a heart opener ceremony am I going take a certain substance like what is it what am I going to do I going to shake around like is it like you know I’m going to get into my body I’m going to move around ecstatic dance you know like shake it out dragon’s breath like what we

00:55:58.72 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, so the…

00:56:12.64 – Allen Brouwer

I mean, you could do that if you want. If that felt good to you, I like, all right, if I was facilitating someone who likes to breathe like that, I’d be like, great, go and breathe like that.

00:56:14.75 – Brian David Crane

Bingo.

00:56:18.50 – Brian David Crane

Fifty

00:56:21.15 – Allen Brouwer

Like, cool. That’s what you want. Like, it truly is a choose your own adventure depending on the facilitator.But one, if you’re interested in this, like, do your research on your facilitator. How long have they been around? Um,

00:56:35.02 – Allen Brouwer

What sort of safety protocols do they put in place? Like, what is their intake process?Do they check?

00:56:40.52 – Brian David Crane

Like

00:56:41.57 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Do they check, like,if you’re on contraindicating supplements or medication? Like, do they… Where… where, how high do they prioritize safety?

00:56:55.50 – Allen Brouwer

Right. And like, that’s the key.

00:56:57.31 – Allen Brouwer

Like, let’s keep everyone safe first and foremost. Um, and then,for like a heart ceremony, I don’t know what, like you could shake around, you could move, you could be in your body. Like, like it, you’re not like a lunatic, right. But like, Oh my God, just like being in your body and shaking, like, oh my, like, Oh my gosh. Like just to feel your, your body and your heart. And like, Oh my gosh, I,

00:57:21.30 – Allen Brouwer

There you are. I’ve missed you. Like, oh it’s been here the whole time. Like, right. It’s just, ah, there it is. You know, like that’s the, that’s the experience that I would like akin to it.

00:57:33.13 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. but One of the things that you said, it ties in with the heart opener ceremony. It also ties in with some of the personal development work you’d done prior to this prior to this call of this interview.

00:57:48.89 – Brian David Crane

You had made a comment. I don’t have the screen in front of me exactly, so I’m going to paraphrase, but it was about using ChatGPT as a therapist, right? So now given all that you’ve learned, all that you’ve done,

00:57:55.96 – Allen Brouwer

Oh. Mm-hmm.

00:58:00.88 – Brian David Crane

You know both externally and internally, are you using ChatGPT, or some other LLM, giving it a lot of information about yourself, giving it things like your human design profile, telling it about your, I don’t know, like your notes from your past coaching or from your past psychotherapy work.

00:58:23.58 – Brian David Crane

What are you using now? are you Because I think you had talked about you using AI for some of this Ongoing therapy work, is that right?

00:58:33.33 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, I am.

00:58:33.96 – Brian David Crane

Or personal development, I don’t wanna call it therapy work, it’s just like insights about yourself in a weird way, like a mirror back.

00:58:40.66 – Allen Brouwer

I would say it’s more personal development than it is therapy. It’s more a… 

00:58:45.55 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

00:58:50.73 – Allen Brouwer

It’s more like a, uh, like a coach. That’s the best way to describe it. Um, So how am I using it? I mostly use ChatGPT.

00:59:02.49 – Allen Brouwer

There’s some other tools that I’ll use depending on what I’m using it for, but mostly ChatGPT. And so today, I’ll give you a real life example of what I’m using right now.

00:59:15.24 – Allen Brouwer

I have a coach. His name is Heath. He works on likeblind spots and patterns and likes shaking out stagnant energy as it relates to an owner operator of a company.

00:59:27.67 – Allen Brouwer

As it relates to the business. So essentially like clearing all the debris so you can move fast and take action in a way that’s in alignment and authentic to you.

00:59:35.57 – Brian David Crane

No screens.

00:59:38.27 – Allen Brouwer

And like with your full energy being right. Heath helps.He provides homework after every call.

00:59:49.12 – Allen Brouwer

To answer the questions, to journal on. And what I will do is I’ll take his homework and I will literally pen and paper, write it out. I still find that to be the best way to like a channel, get out of your head, to have a stream of consciousness is still pen and paper.

01:00:03.86 – Brian David Crane

No screen

01:00:04.08 – Allen Brouwer

But then what I’ll do, yeah. and But then what I’ll do is I’ll take a picture of it. I’ll upload Heath’s homework. I’ll upload my answers. And then ChatGPT will be like, yeah it’ll synthesize it.

01:00:16.23 – Allen Brouwer

And be like, wow, this is great work. Do you want me to create a worksheet for you to go deeper? Do you want me to ask you questions on certain topics?

01:00:21.13 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

01:00:24.41 – Allen Brouwer

Do you want to explore something? And you could say like, it bebe a coach and help me like uncover a little bit more or give me some prompts that I’m not thinking about or help me dig a little bit deeper or what are some action steps that I can take based on what I just gave you that’ll help me like break through quote unquote block right so that’s

01:00:48.34 – Brian David Crane

Are you doing this sorry and Are you doing this inside of a private GPT or a custom GPT, a project inside of your own chat GPT instance? And what I mean by that is that, let’s say you take the homework from Heath, you plug it into a private GPT.

01:01:08.74 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm. Yep.

01:01:09.28 – Brian David Crane

Now it might have seen that over the past, let’s say you’ve been using ChatGPT for the past year, you’re asking certain questions or certain follow-ons to other questions, and it has learned a bit about you. And then based on your homework with Heath, it’s bringing in some of what it’s learned about you from the past year in order to say, hey, Alan, I think that and it doesn’t come out necessarily and say this, but it’s like, it’ll be like eight months ago, you were asking about this thing related related to your business or related to blind spots.

01:01:40.73 – Brian David Crane

Are you then, like, is it, are you asking it to also go back and look at everything it knows about you? Or is it limited just strictly what’s in that PDF or what Heath has covered in his coaching?

01:01:57.28 – Allen Brouwer

What I appreciate about ChatGPT is the fact that it can go back into the database. itI use it as a way to retrieve as well.

01:02:09.96 – Allen Brouwer

So it can kind of be an external brain.

01:02:10.20 – Brian David Crane

Go

01:02:13.41 – Allen Brouwer

That’s the way that I use it. I try not to keep it in a silo because then…like only focus on this prompt, only focus on this homework, only focus on this. I feel like, yeah, I feel like, see, but that’s my own philosophy on why I like to use it is because, oh my God, chat GPT knows me so well.

01:02:28.31 – Brian David Crane

Project, let’s say. Yeah.

01:02:38.46 – Allen Brouwer

Like it’s going to be the thing that I go to, to like, either get answers or uncover some stuff or work on the business or, you know, whatever, whatever it is, because it has this breadth of data already.

01:02:51.54 – Allen Brouwer

And I hate you know, how we live in a world of privacy and like, yeah you have like DuckDuckGo and VPNs and like this and that.

01:02:54.97 – Brian David Crane

But

01:02:59.91 – Allen Brouwer

I’m the opposite. I’m like, I want the algorithm to feed me the things that I like. Like, I don’t want the algorithm to show me stuff that I don’t like. Like, actually learn me. Please teach me so I can get the most out of this. Don’t waste my time.

01:03:14.11 – Allen Brouwer

Just figure out what I like. Feed it back to me. It’s great that you just did your job. I know. Yeah. yeah

01:03:22.07 – Brian David Crane

I get it. Yeah. What is it ? So then to go a step further on that, are you then going to take to ChatGPT, let’s say, voice notes or notes that you’ve kept for yourself, let’s say your old journals, right? And scanned those and got them into ChatGPT for something like, I don’t know, six, seven years ago, or you know you started my Best Self in 2014. So we’re talking about 11 years ago.

01:03:49.09 – Brian David Crane

10 or 11 years ago, excuse me, I might be wrong on the dates, but like you go back all the way and be like, hey, I have these journals, like physical journals, they’re in your, you know, they’re in your handwriting.

01:03:50.58 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

01:03:55.05 – Allen Brouwer

And I do have all of them. Mm-hmm.

01:03:57.53 – Brian David Crane

I don’t know if it’s legible and can be scanned in, but like you take that stuff and feed it into chat GPT as well. Like, I don’t, are you doing something like that?

01:04:06.27 – Allen Brouwer

I am not doing that. I actually have all of my paper journals in a tub in my basement on a shelf. So like I do have the data.

01:04:15.39 – Brian David Crane

Okay, don’t look at them.

01:04:17.77 – Allen Brouwer

I don’t look at them, but they’re there.You know, I don’t think I have the use case yet of like why I should do that.Unless someone tells me, like unless someone gives me like, hey, I’m using it for X, Y, and Z, and here’s how you go and scan everything else in, and then you’ll get this outcome.

01:04:40.93 – Allen Brouwer

Right now, I don’t see the benefit of doing that.

01:04:41.05 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:04:43.12 – Allen Brouwer

But until someone tells me like, oh my gosh, this is going to happen, then they’re probably just going to sit on the shelf.

01:04:47.13 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:04:48.80 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

01:04:49.57 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. So that, but that, that’s what I think what you touched on there, which is that as long as they’re going to sit on the shelf until you’re willing to do the effort of like scanning them in or do the, somebody has to convince you that like to go in from analog to digital is worth it.

01:05:05.63 – Brian David Crane

Right.

01:05:06.26 – Allen Brouwer

Yes.

01:05:06.38 – Brian David Crane

That there’s some insight that they got from it.

01:05:06.98 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

01:05:08.66 – Brian David Crane

Because I think that in my experience, in this particular area, I will put in there PDFs or things that are easy to just kind of dump in. But if I have to go dig around in analog stuff, I’m not going to do it.

01:05:17.54 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

01:05:21.36 – Brian David Crane

I’m going to basically go off my own memory and say, here’s my quick summary of what happened in 2014. And rather than let the damn thing read it, right? Like I would rather have it read it and get the whole, you know, use its infinite memory to actually understand all of what my paragraph explanation is trying to encapsulate.

01:05:39.55 – Brian David Crane

But I don’t want to go, scan it all in right now. You know, like, or I don’t, I don’t even know how to go do it. Like, I wouldn’t know who to find who’s going to sit there with the scanner and like take every page out of your journal and try to, you know, is that a T or an I And like, they don’t even know what your handwriting looks like, let’s say. Right.

01:05:54.26 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

01:05:54.82 – Brian David Crane

So yeah, sorry.

01:05:55.86 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

01:05:55.92 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Yeah.

01:05:56.58 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. I think I’m not, but I think I’m with you.

01:05:56.100 – Brian David Crane

Bingo.

01:05:59.97 – Allen Brouwer

I think I’d rather just summarize this thing real quick because it’s also like opportunity cost.

01:06:03.05 – Brian David Crane

Yeah yeah

01:06:07.86 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. I

01:06:08.81 – Brian David Crane

And you

01:06:09.85 – Allen Brouwer

I don’t want to, that’s not really how I want to spend my life right now. Are they going through all that, actually?

01:06:14.33 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, but that’s but that’s the thing. Exactly. It’s an opportunity class the same way that you’re talking about. like you’re not doing any You don’t have a fixed morning routine beyond the espresso in the 15 minutes of prayer and sitting with yourself in meditation because you don’t necessarily need it.

01:06:24.90 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

01:06:28.78 – Brian David Crane

like you did. You got what you needed out of it the same way you do. Whether it’s breath work or some other modality, and then you learn what you need to, and then you’re ready to move on and you don’t need to keep cycling back to it all the time.

01:06:35.26 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

01:06:38.73 – Brian David Crane

Right.

01:06:39.32 – Allen Brouwer

Correct. Yeah. Bingo.

01:06:40.04 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. So, yeah. Okay. Uh, this has been super interesting. What if people, you know, they want to buy some, they want to buy some supplements.

01:06:51.24 – Allen Brouwer

Can I share one, one other thing before we jump to this?

01:06:52.57 – Brian David Crane

Please go ahead. Please. Yeah.

01:06:54.80 – Allen Brouwer

Do we have a set? Cause I do use chat GPT for something actually really cool.

01:06:56.33 – Brian David Crane

We’re good. Time.

01:07:00.26 – Brian David Crane

Tell me.

01:07:01.28 – Allen Brouwer

Which is, and I just started it this year, and it’s and it’s kind of like bridging the gap between manifestation, visual visualization, and meditation.

01:07:16.46 – Allen Brouwer

I ended up writing out everything that I wanted to do in three years. So January 1st, 2028, and I did like health, family, philanthropy, a lot of its actual philanthropy, work, business, friendships,relationship, you know, I listed it all out, just bullet points in an Apple note.

01:07:39.88 – Allen Brouwer

And then I uploaded that to ChatGPT and I said, create a narrative, a story based on everything that I just gave you and make it as detailed as possible.

01:07:51.63 – Allen Brouwer

And it created this beautiful narrative of the life of Alan Kennedy Brower, January 1st, 2028. And it was just like, whoa, this beautiful picture between the relationship that I have with Ash and my kids and the way that we’re giving back to the world and the things that we’re building and the communities that we’re building.

01:08:12.61 – Allen Brouwer

And it was just beautifully woven and written. And like it talked about the landscape and birds flying overhead in the ocean and like, What I took that, I took that story and then I uploaded it into 11 labs to give me a British woman now narrating it.

01:08:31.02 – Allen Brouwer

And it’s just, and I like to plug that into my headphones or while I’m driving every once in a while, or while I’m stretching at the gym. And I’m just immersed into this beautiful world of the future self that I desire to create.

01:08:45.84 – Allen Brouwer

And that’s been a really cool play with AI. ai

01:08:50.67 – Brian David Crane

Do you, it’s pretty amazing. I do remember you sharing this prior to the podcast. Are you,

01:08:57.93 – Brian David Crane

Are you listening to this and you’re actually seeing it come true in your life? Are you, but mean by that is like, is it a bit of, we all love narratives, right? Like we’re drawn to narratives as humans.

01:09:10.90 – Brian David Crane

So you have this narrative, you love the narrative, you’re listening to it. Do you find that you’re actually manifesting it as a result of listening to it? Like you go back, like let’s say like you listen to it in April and now in September later on, and you go, wow, in the past four or five months, I made more of this story come true or something.

01:09:34.21 – Brian David Crane

Like, I don’t know like, do you go back and listen to and go, it’s been, if it was January when you first had the British woman read this to you, although it’s an AI voice, but like, you know, read this to you.

01:09:41.89 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

01:09:44.71 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

01:09:44.56 – Brian David Crane

And now it’s April and you’re like, wow, I already, like 20% of this already,I’m already 20% there whatever, whatever. I don’t know how you measure it, but like you think about, yeah, do you is it, um,

01:09:56.82 – Allen Brouwer

It’s, uh, it’s, it’s anchoring in the feeling state of that future version and the feeling state creates it in the now moment.

01:10:13.15 – Allen Brouwer

So then I’m able to see the places where I actually already have everything that is being shared with me from a future place.

01:10:24.50 – Brian David Crane

That’s badass. Okay.

01:10:25.64 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

01:10:27.68 – Brian David Crane

What is it? Is Ash doing some of this as well?

01:10:31.39 – Allen Brouwer

She created one for Ash. I think she listened to it twice. Yeah.

01:10:35.53 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. And she’s like, that’s cool.

01:10:36.45 – Allen Brouwer

Ah

01:10:36.96 – Brian David Crane

I’m like, hey, I’m glad this is. I’m glad.

01:10:38.61 – Allen Brouwer

It

01:10:39.45 – Brian David Crane

Because she strikes me, those who don’t listen and don’t know her, but she strikes me as much more embodied and basically going to basically go on how it feels.

01:10:49.29 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah

01:10:49.40 – Brian David Crane

She’s going to be like, why do you need this? Like, why do you need this machine? Like, oh, you got this AI contraption that hooks up to another AI that reads this thing back to you in a British voice because you say, You know, and they were like, yeah, but don’t you see, like, it makes me feel this particular way. And she’s like, yeah, I understand what you’re trying to get to.

01:11:06.49 – Brian David Crane

My wife says stuff like this to me. She’s like, he’s like, he’s like so into this.

01:11:09.71 – Allen Brouwer

Just do it.

01:11:10.64 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:11:11.50 – Allen Brouwer

If

01:11:11.32 – Brian David Crane

She’s like, what did you, he’s like, you’re just chasing this feeling. I’m like, I know, but don’t you understand? I had like 16 steps to get there and it’s amazing. And I really liked the steps. Yeah. Yeah.

01:11:22.77 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. I yeah

01:11:22.97 – Brian David Crane

Yeah

01:11:25.88 – Allen Brouwer

Yes. We created it. We’re funny creatures, aren’t we?

01:11:31.85 – Brian David Crane

I think it also is like, there’s something in the, like the male psyche or the entrepreneur is like, dude, I want to like, it’s gotta be this elaborate kind of, not elaborate, but it needs to be so nuanced and complex. And the woman’s sometimes just like, yeah, I just feel, I can just sit with it and identify and say in a beautiful way.

01:11:44.96 – Allen Brouwer

In

01:11:47.38 – Brian David Crane

It doesn’t need, you know, all the scaffolding that I can put around it. That sounds like you can as well.

01:11:55.100 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, I think the beauty between Ash and my relationship, she taught me how to be present and I taught her how to dream.

01:12:03.77 – Brian David Crane

Mmm. It’s beautiful.

01:12:04.63 – Allen Brouwer

And both were scary places for us.

01:12:05.75 – Brian David Crane

Beautiful

01:12:09.40 – Allen Brouwer

So the present moment was actually really scary for me. for a lot of my life. So I escaped by dreaming. And dreaming for her was a scary place for her.

01:12:20.86 – Allen Brouwer

And so she just anchored and rooted into the present moment because it was here and now and she would like to be with it. So we actually created a lot of safety in each other for us to explore those other areas.

01:12:35.21 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

01:12:35.99 – Brian David Crane

Super nice. Yeah. And like a polarity too, right? Like you’re bringing each other.

01:12:40.29 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

01:12:40.47 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Did you do strategic coaching?

01:12:44.63 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, I did.

01:12:45.64 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. So you know the Dan Sullivan question that, if you and I were sitting here three years from now, what needs to have happened in your life for you to feel complete or satisfied with your progress? And because that sounds a bit like the question that you were posing to Chad GPT, although it’s not written in such a way.

01:13:04.66 – Brian David Crane

Is it similar?

01:13:06.63 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, I would say, I would say it’s similar, even though it’s not written exactly like that. I would say it’s, um,

01:13:15.37 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah Okay. This is, this is really interesting because the strategic coach question is like, in order to feel satisfied, I would actually challenge that of like, I actually feel satisfied right now.

01:13:23.83 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

01:13:28.94 – Allen Brouwer

I actually feel super blessed. I feel like I have everything that I, uh, that I could ever imagine and dream of.Health, vitality, children, wealth, a beautiful divine union with my wife, like peer groups.

01:13:44.53 – Allen Brouwer

Like I’m so blessed. A lot of what I want to do and experience in the world is just to actually give more of that back.

01:13:55.72 – Allen Brouwer

Give what I’ve experienced as a way to have other people experience it. Um, and actually a lot of it is a lot of my narrative in the future is that it’s not coming from a place of, I need to be satisfied because, I only, I will only be satisfied.

01:14:11.30 – Brian David Crane

In order to…

01:14:12.54 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Because of this, I feel so satisfied now, like I imagine the more, the even more satisfied, satisfied, satisfied. What is it?

01:14:25.97 – Allen Brouwer

I don’t know. Yeah. Even more.

01:14:28.38 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:14:29.09 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. How much more of a gift, right?

01:14:31.09 – Brian David Crane

But even more satisfying, yeah.

01:14:33.23 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Even more satisfying. Yeah.Yeah. So it’s not coming from a place of lack. Actually, the come from is not from a place of needing to, or filling a hole or filling a void.

01:14:44.06 – Allen Brouwer

It’s coming from, it’s a different come from.

01:14:47.32 – Brian David Crane

Do you think it’s also partially your age? And what I mean by that is an age or seasonal life where you’re now a father, you’ve taken some lumps, like up and down, and you’ve got, like through this personal, you know, you’re but you’re remarried, like you’re you’re not really you’re not really questioning who you are in the world like maybe you were in your twenty s or or or early 30s or whatnot right like do you think it’s a season of life

01:15:23.01 – Allen Brouwer

I think so. I think it is.

01:15:24.15 – Brian David Crane

Yeah yeah I didn’t phrase that that well but what I was trying to get at is like the there’s often these charts I think of that like contentment with one’s life just tends to like go up even if it does this trending up

01:15:25.32 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Um,

01:15:40.76 – Brian David Crane

Even if your life hasn’t turned out as you would have imagined or desired in your 20s? And I’ve often looked at that thought, yeah, is that basically like, you know, let’s call it survivorship bias, like where you’re just like, well, I’ve made it through.

01:15:54.08 – Brian David Crane

Like this, I don’t know. that I don’t know. I’m down a rabbit hole.

01:15:58.82 – Allen Brouwer

Ah

01:15:58.87 – Brian David Crane

Not making sense can you can you make so Can you make some of this word salad, Alan, please?

01:15:59.69 – Allen Brouwer

No.

01:16:02.89 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. It just sounds to me like there’s maturity there. You know, that’s what I hear when you share that. It just feels like that there’s maturity that comes with age.

01:16:11.75 – Brian David Crane

I get it.

01:16:13.87 – Allen Brouwer

And through that maturity comes just aah slowing down or like an okay with beingness. right like I’m okay with just being. like I don’t have to go and go. There can be less of that and more just being with what is.

01:16:33.50 – Allen Brouwer

But I think I think the through line is maturity.

01:16:35.44 – Brian David Crane

Ah get it

01:16:38.65 – Brian David Crane

Well, I do want to ask one more question about doing, even though I think it’s lovely what you just said. So I’m going to counteract what you just said, which is on the doing side, what does philanthropy look like for you in 2028? Oh, yeah?

01:16:56.46 – Allen Brouwer

This is probably my favorite question in the whole show. So thank you for asking.

01:16:59.03 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, what is it?

01:17:00.11 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

01:17:00.86 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:17:01.81 – Allen Brouwer

You know, cause I think that’s, if I aspire to be anything, it would be a philanthropist. um

01:17:08.57 – Brian David Crane

Who is somebody that you think is doing philanthropy well? Like, I don’t know.

01:17:12.65 – Allen Brouwer

You know what? The best philanthropists are the ones that don’t get any recognition from it. Right.

01:17:18.87 – Brian David Crane

ah your So your name is not gonna be on the side of Rutgers University on the gym?

01:17:19.43 – Allen Brouwer

That’s not,

01:17:23.72 – Allen Brouwer

That’s not what I want. That’s not the desire. No, definitely not.

01:17:27.12 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

01:17:29.06 – Allen Brouwer

Definitely not. No, I, okay.

01:17:32.47 – Brian David Crane

No, what does philanthropy look like for you 2028 though?

01:17:35.23 – Allen Brouwer

It would be,

01:17:38.53 – Allen Brouwer

There would be a lot of community involvement. There would be retreat centers. Um, around the globe that focus on health and wellness,

01:17:50.54 – Allen Brouwer

Spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally. There would be schools dedicated to kids for emotional,

01:18:01.87 – Allen Brouwer

More emotional rather than like knowledge. Teaching, teaching how to be a human, right? I think we’ve lost how to be a human.

01:18:15.47 – Allen Brouwer

And if we remember, if we could just remember how powerful we are and how magical we are, and that like, and how much in tune with nature and how sensitive we actually are.

01:18:28.11 – Allen Brouwer

If we give the children an opportunity to explore that or a platform or a place to have freedom with boundaries.

01:18:39.36 – Allen Brouwer

Right.

01:18:39.54 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:18:40.37 – Allen Brouwer

Oh man, imagine the, the, just like the impact and the ripple that that could have. And then, um,

01:18:48.47 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Pseudo churches, right? Church church is a weird word because there’s a lot of context to it, but like just a place, I say pseudo church because it’s just a place where people can gather to have a common connection to God, word spirit or the universe or whoever they want. It’s kind of agnostic, but just like a place for connection.

01:19:14.97 – Brian David Crane

Whether you’re a Rastafarian or a Daoist

01:19:18.54 – Allen Brouwer

We’re both.

01:19:19.41 – Brian David Crane

Or both.

01:19:21.89 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, I do remember something you posted on Facebook about that you were very happy with conscious parenting and some of the families you had come across through the conscious parenting movement.

01:19:32.11 – Brian David Crane

What does it look like for your kids now? are you

01:19:38.09 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, where are you finding these other parents that are into the conscious parenting movement? Are they in New Jersey, like nearby, or is this kind of, yeah, watching your face.

01:19:44.09 – Allen Brouwer

Mm-hmm.

01:19:48.33 – Brian David Crane

Like, where, how do you come across them or where do you find them?

01:19:49.38 – Allen Brouwer

And Yeah. So there’s a reason that Ash and I bought a home in Charleston, South Carolina, because it felt more family focused there.

01:20:04.26 – Allen Brouwer

There’s also nature, warmer weather. You can spend time outside. It feels very more communal. New Jersey is not that. New Jersey feels very isolated and sheltered. And unless you have like a family, a big family that you go to and congregate with,

01:20:22.09 – Allen Brouwer

Every two times a week or every Sunday for dinner, you know, like if you don’t have that, there’s not really a place for us to go, which is the reason why I’m like, how do we build family centers and community centers?

01:20:23.74 – Brian David Crane

Sunday.

01:20:34.65 – Allen Brouwer

And like people are starving for it. I can feel it, but they don’t know how to build it. Right. They don’t know where to start or where to go. Yeah, How can we build a place for them?

01:20:47.14 – Allen Brouwer

What I found is that through different groups and different communities, that we either built or became a part of, mostly in like the spiritual world we found like-minded individuals who are in touch with like, Hey, here’s how I want to raise my kids.

01:21:09.42 – Allen Brouwer

I want them to be emotionally resilient. I want them to be comfortable in their body. I want them to be, you know, using their imagination more than,

01:21:21.47 – Allen Brouwer

than being stuck in front of a screen, right? But you find some parents or communities that have alignment with who you are and more times than not, they’ll have kids and then you can bring them together, right?

01:21:38.18 – Allen Brouwer

And that’s how you find those types of communities.

01:21:41.04 – Brian David Crane

And are you doing that in person and in Charleston more so than you’re doing it in New Jersey?

01:21:47.97 – Allen Brouwer

We actually do both. I find, so we’ve built communities kind of all over the place. um

01:21:55.74 – Brian David Crane

Yeah

01:21:57.55 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah, it’s both. I find that South Carolina right now, I just feel better being down there.

01:22:08.65 – Allen Brouwer

And I think because I feel better being down there, it just makes it a lot easier. Right. Mm-hmm.

01:22:14.03 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, it’s your emotional regulation, let’s say.

01:22:17.97 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

01:22:18.77 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, South Carolina is a big bill.

01:22:21.25 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

01:22:21.11 – Brian David Crane

Charleston is at least. Yeah. It’s a bad analogy, but I think you got where I was going with it. Yeah, thanks.

01:22:26.68 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. No. It’s like my tie on the beach, right? Like that’s like, I step off the plane and walk out the doors of the airport. I’m like, this is heaven on earth.

01:22:40.21 – Allen Brouwer

I love it here.

01:22:40.81 – Brian David Crane

Meadow State. I’m back.

01:22:42.09 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

01:22:44.65 – Brian David Crane

Carolina. Yeah.

01:22:45.88 – Allen Brouwer

Mm hmm.

01:22:47.18 – Brian David Crane

All right, let’s end on that note.

01:22:49.62 – Allen Brouwer

Cool. Yeah.

01:22:50.35 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. um

01:22:51.24 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah

01:22:53.33 – Brian David Crane

People who want to learn more about you, learn more about love, what should they do? Where should they go? Who should they follow? Tell me.

01:22:59.97 – Allen Brouwer

I think if you want to learn more about With Love, which is like parenting and kids health and family nutrition, follow us on Instagram at startwithlove.us.

01:23:14.25 – Allen Brouwer

And if you want to see my journey of building the company and raising kids and being a conscious parent,you can follow me on Instagram.

01:23:25.61 – Allen Brouwer

And it’s Alan K. Brower.

01:23:28.40 – Brian David Crane

Kennedy as is what the K stands for.

01:23:31.18 – Allen Brouwer

Yes.

01:23:31.99 – Brian David Crane

Love that. And you’re Alan Brower the fourth.

01:23:34.50 – Allen Brouwer

I am. Yeah, I am.

01:23:35.49 – Brian David Crane

Yes. Love that as well. You’re one of few people I know who’s like, yeah, has a, well, there’s a lot of people in the South I knew, but they’re not the fourth, you know, like that’s like three generations committed to keeping it going.

01:23:49.71 – Allen Brouwer

Totally.

01:23:49.60 – Brian David Crane

Is your son the fifth?

01:23:51.30 – Allen Brouwer

My son is not the fifth. My son is not the fifth. But if Ash and I have our own child, Alan will be sprinkled in there somewhere. Because Ash found out that the fifth is actually the greatest.

01:24:07.19 – Allen Brouwer

So Alexander the Great was actually Alexander the fifth. And like that, like okay we’d made it to four.

01:24:14.40 – Brian David Crane

Ah give Gotta give him the shot.

01:24:15.29 – Allen Brouwer

Like, let’s keep going.

01:24:15.76 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:24:16.89 – Allen Brouwer

Let’s be scared. So maybe the middle name will be Alan.

01:24:23.61 – Brian David Crane

I love it. That’s cool.

01:24:24.50 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah.

01:24:24.77 – Brian David Crane

Cool. Thank you for coming on. I appreciate it.

01:24:27.41 – Allen Brouwer

Yeah. Thank you for having me. I enjoy the combo.