Allen Brouwer: WithLove and the Entrepreneurial Path to Meaningful Work
Watch the full video of our conversation on the Spread Great Ideas YouTube channel.
Please welcome my friend Allen Brouwer. Allen is a father of two, an accomplished entrepreneur, a boat and nature lover, and a wicked combination of both good-looking and charming.
We chat about his old company, BestSelf Co., which he co-founded. It was the only company to win both Shopify’s Build-a-Business and Build-a-Bigger-Business. And his new company, WithLove, which he also co-founded, offers a deceptively simple, delicious protein and gut health powder specifically made for kids.
(Trust me, there’s more to this than meets the eye.)
Thanks for coming on, Allen.
Allen Brouwer Quotes From the Episode

“Every time I tried just making money or building a business because I saw an opportunity or an arbitrage… it just never worked.”
– Allen Brouwer on misaligned ventures and how to find purpose.
“If I have one practice that I do consistently… It’s prayer.”
– Allen Brouwer on how prayer, like meditation, anchors him daily.
“If I didn’t know the impact that it had with me personally and the impact that it has had with our customers… it probably wouldn’t give me the conviction to keep going.”
– Allen Brouwer on how he found resilience in pursuing his purpose.
Additional Resources
Show Notes
- 02:42 – Meet Allen Brouwer and the Story Behind WithLove
- 07:27 – When a Family Health Scare Became a Founder’s Wake-Up Call
- 12:02 – The Kitchen Experiments That Turned Into a Wellness Startup
- 16:07 – The Hidden Link Between Gut Health and Childhood Behavior
- 21:05 – Why Today’s Food Has 50% Less Nutrients, and What That Means
- 25:02 – WithLove’s Product Development and Ingredient Philosophy
- 29:02 – Creating a Parent-Focused Supplement for Nervous System Health
- 33:13 – The Difference Between Profit-Driven and Purpose-Driven Ventures
- 37:42 – Personal Conviction: What Keeps Allen Going Through the Dips
- 42:31 – Allen’s Spiritual Practices, Prayer, and Morning Flow
- 48:04 – How Allen and His Partner Ash Make Life and Business Work
- 53:10 – How to Connect with Allen and Learn More About WithLove
Great ideas. Bold conversations. Be part of it, connect with us on X, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

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.