9/30/19 | Podcast

CC 041: Taking Wellness by Force with Josh Trent

Cured Collective CBD Podcast with Josh Trent

Josh Trent is the Founder of Wellness Force Media and host of the top-ranked iTunes podcast, Wellness Force Radio. Josh has spent the past 16 years as a researcher, trainer, and facilitator discovering the physical and emotional intelligence for humans to thrive in our modern world.

After publishing over 300 high-level interviews with some of the most respected minds in the health, wellness, and self-help industries, Josh has been spotlighted in major wellness media outlets such as Onnit, Spartan, SEALFIT, and is a speaker for the FitTech Summit CES.

In 2019 Josh became the CEO of Civilized Caveman, helping women and men live better through practical solutions in wellness, personal development, and paleo-friendly recipes.

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Read the Full Transcript

Joe: [00:01] Josh Trent. Episode 300. It’s a fucking pleasure, man. It’s an honor, I should say. Honestly. For you to say that last week and say hey, I wanna dive into this 300th episode with you and talk about my learnings and explore what Wellness Force has become, it’s an honor, man. So, thank you.

Josh: [00:24] Joe, thank you. I have this gratitude feeling and I can look back to July 2015, and here we are. So much time has passed, so many conversations have happened, and I’ve learned so much, man. This is kind of why we’re here on the planet, you know? This is special to me too, man. So, thanks.

Joe: [00:44] Dude! So, Tim Ferris started podcasting in 2014. You started podcasting a little over a year after that. Now, 5 – almost 5 years later, you’re still going strong. We look at what Tim Ferris’ platform has become, we look at how many podcasts are out there now as we were just discussing before recording this podcast – it’s an interesting space, and you’ve stuck to it and you’ve stuck true, as we said, ever since the beginning; and you gotta give yourself a pat on the back, man, because that’s a serious commitment to continue to do that. There’s a lot of things that pop up and go away, and being an entrepreneur, when you don’t get that instant gratification or see those instant metrics right away, it’s easy to let things go.

Josh: [01:33] Yeah, and I can think about how many times it’s normal in any hero’s journey, no matter who we are, that there’s moments where we just want to quit. It’s like, oh my god, is this really my path? Maybe even if somebody has a connection with higher power or not, it’s like, there’s moments that we ask, “Hey God, is this what I’m supposed to really be doing?” And the answer’s always yes if it’s coming from the right aligned fuel source. Like, if I’m doing something and it’s coming from my soul, it’s coming from a good place within me, it doesn’t matter how hard it is. It doesn’t matter if I want to quit or if I feel like quitting, this is the real source of life itself, which is determination to stay alive, determination to express yourself. That’s why we’re here, man. So, I think podcasting is a mirror of that for me.

Joe: [02:18] So, what was the idea in the beginning? Like, what were you thinking? What was going on in your head?

Josh: [02:24] You know, it’s interesting… there’s a bit of a backstory. I was in fitness for 10 years, so my background was training clients, like 10,000 hours in gyms; but I got to this point where I just did not want to hold the clipboard and count repetitions anymore. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I couldn’t stay where I was; so I let go of the fitness industry, ended up going to corporate America, wanting to go that safe route where I just had the paycheck, and committed spiritual suicide. I really started to feel an aching in my soul, because I spent 10 years creating my own schedule, being my own boss, being an entrepreneur as a trainer; and I just got used to that at a soul level, really controlling the money that was coming in, and my day. I’ll never forget this, man – after 3 years of getting MVP in sales and doing all these great things in corporate America, I got the gift of being fired one day; and I drove home after being fired, and I went to this sound healing ceremony, you know, where they put the crystal bowls on your body. I was in a relationship at the time, and all of a sudden, these crystal bowls are on my body and just I started crying, and I’m like what the hell is going on right now. There’s tears coming out of my eyes, and I realized for 3 years, I had pushed down this dream of Wellness Force. I had put it in a little box, I had checked on it occasionally to make sure it was still there, but I never really gave it the attention and, really, the energy I knew that it deserved because I was afraid. And I think a lot of us – you know, Joseph Campbell – there’s the hero’s journey where it’s the separation, initiation, and return. When I had the initiation, which was the call – and that call was are you gonna go forward with Wellness Force and do coaching, and figure out how to make money and be online, or are you going to go the safe route? Well, I’ll be honest, I answered the call and I hung it back up because I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t emotionally intelligent, I wasn’t physically and spiritually ready to truly answer the call. So, what happened was, I had to go and have a soul atrophy for 3 years, get fired, really get beat down to the bottom of knees, have crying come out in a sound healing ceremony, and then on the way home I pulled over and just had my girlfriend record me on a phone. I’ll never forget this, man; I’m getting like a chill just telling you about it – and I said, “I’m going to reach 1 million people. I’m going to have Wellness Force radio. We’re going to use technology. We’re going to help people on their wellness. I’m going to coach people online.” And all of that has happened. Literally, from that moment, we reached a million downloads last year, I’m helping people, I get people that write in all the time, we’re creating programs – like, it’s all occurred – but it happened in the universal timeline. It didn’t happen exactly when I wanted it, but it happened because I was willing to face the fear. Joseph Campbell talks about this – he says, “The cave that you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.” And that’s me. That is my archetype, that is my story, and I think that circle repeats a lot. When I first started Wellness Force, it was about technology; it was about using Fitbits and Oura rings, and all these different technology pieces to keep people accountable. But, Joe, the more I got into technology and wellness, the more that I realized it’s not about the tool. It’s about the intention, it’s about peoples’ mindsets. The tool is just like a mirror of their data. I had a gut-check moment where I changed the brand. When I changed the brand, that’s when we really started getting traction. You know, understanding the nuances of who’s Josh Trent, this is not a show anymore; this is an actually communication of truth that’s really going to help people at a soul level, at a basal-need level. That was about 2 ½ years in that we rebranded. Ever since we rebranded to this discovering process of physical and emotional-

Joe: [06:06] Fuck yeah.

Josh: [06:07] That’s made the biggest difference. That’s what’s allowed you and I to meet, and that’s what’s allowed me to speak at PaleoFX and do all these things, because, man, I’m just operating from the truth instead of seeking and finding what my true identity is.

Joe: [06:19] Fuck yeah. That’s super cool. That was one of the big things I wanted to talk about, is you start, you have your initial guest, initial podcast topics; after spending a decent amount of time in corporate America as a trainer and understanding this is how physically my body works, this is how physically I measure wellness and health… it’s really interesting because over the course, if you look back through all of your podcasts, there are some initial topics that kind of delved in plant medicine and spirituality; but if I look at the evolution of Wellness Force as a whole, it’s like there’s this physical realm, and then it’s almost like – so, you get all this biofeedback, you can measure things, numbers, we can track macros, we can do all this shit – I feel like there’s a ceiling to that stuff. I’m curious as to what that evolution has looked like for you.

Josh: [07:27] You know, below me, back here with all these books, there’s probably like 15 different quantified-self devices, and I’ll be honest, I don’t use any of them anymore. The only device I use is the Oura ring. But here’s why: it’s because as I started to go into this world of quantification, tracking numbers and data, what I had to take a hard look at, and what really made me feel a little sick because I’d built my whole brand on it, was – if you get down to the bottom of why these companies are actually producing these products, half of them are in it because they have a moral imperative, the other half just want to sell products. And that’s just me being real. It’s not me fabricating, making up stories. I was backstage – I used to host consumer electronics fit-tech summit with like 1,000 people in a room, and I would interview people on a stage – and I would be talking to them backstage, and these people were extremely unhealthy, and they didn’t live their brand. They weren’t an embodiment of the intelligence they were speaking. And on a soul level, I started to feel conflict, where I was like I can’t be representing something that I don’t believe in anymore; but I built my whole brand on it. What am I going to do? Oh my god, fear. I don’t want people to think I was lying. So, then I went to an intensive coaching in Vegas on a weekend – I’ll never forget this, man – I was sitting in his kitchen, this guy, this coach, and he goes, “What are you most afraid of sharing?” And I was like I’m most of afraid of sharing that I’m still kind of discovering what it is to have wellness myself. You know, I don’t have it all figured out, I’m not the ultimate expert, and I’m, like, afraid to talk about it. And he’s like, start doing that. Start doing exactly what you’re afraid of and your show will grow, and people will resonate with you. And he’s like, so what are you really doing? And I said, “Well, I’m learning. I’m studying, I’m discovering all these books and leaders and everyone in our space, like the top minds in our space,” and he’s like, “Oh, you’re discovering; you’re discovering intelligence. You’re discovering physical and emotional intelligence.” Right when he said that, it was like lightning bolt – that was it. I knew from that moment forward that was going to be my whole life. Whether it’s with Wellness Force or whether it’s anything else, that is just who I am; I’m just interested in discovering physical and emotional intelligence so I can live my life well, and sharing it with other people. And that’s the whole point of any podcast, even your Collective podcast – the Collective is the field that we all operate from; we are all in the Collective. Yet, it’s this illusion of separation where I think I’m Josh Trent, the ego, with this black shirt and this studio. There’s moments where you think I’m Joe, I’m the Founder of Cured, I have this certain way of living.

Joe: [10:08] I think!

Josh: [10:11] That’s true; like, the ego is seasoning for the soup, but the real reality that we’re all starting to wake up to – and this is a bit metaphysical – but what I’ve understood through breath work and plans and emotional intelligence trainings and conversations and conscious relating and all these shows, is that there’s no separation other than the separation my ego chooses. Like, I’m no different than you. We’re here of service. We’re here serving people with conversation, with products, with things that are actually going to up-level consciousness; and really, below that is just awareness. You know, this awareness process has been my biggest evolution from the rebrand in Vegas, having this moment with the coach in the kitchen, and just really going towards the fear. The more that I go towards the fear – and it ain’t sexy by the way – I’m not sitting here being like, the more you go towards the fear the better you’ll be. That’s true, but it’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be this sexy process that you’re always going to want to share and talk about; but man, the more we can just get closer to the truth at all times, the more that we can actually be what intelligence actually is. Intelligence is information. Some information is false, some information is true. We all kind of have a barometer for bullshit in our nervous system, and we feel when [inaudible]

Joe: [11:25] Yeah. 100%. I’m curious about episodes, interviews, podcasts that you’ve gone into with a certain idea, then you’ve had that idea questioned by the guest and – because this whole… I love your statement the body is a mirror of the subconscious mind – so, you come in and you have these preconceived truths and understandings, and as you learn from more and more people, and as you do your own studying, these truths build and build and build. Have you had times where you’ve come into an episode with a guest where you’re like, well, fuck, I didn’t expect that, and that’s changing everything for me.

Josh: [12:07] Yep.

Joe: [12:08] Yeah!

Josh: [12:10] Hopefully it happens every show. One that came up for me is I was interviewing Melissa Hartwig, the founder of the Whole30, and I was asking her, you know, when you first started doing this Whole30 movement, didn’t make you angry, like didn’t it make you upset that you had to go and sit in boardrooms with Coca-Cola, and Kraft, and all these companies that are knowingly poisoning people? And she said, “Yeah, that’s true; I could choose to focus on the anger, or I could just choose to take a deep breath and focus on the solution.” When she said that, I was like, wow. I really allowed my own anger to ask that question; because if I check in, my work is still from my childhood where my mother and father did the absolute best they could, and I have nothing but love and appreciation for them, but they didn’t have the intelligence, they didn’t have the tools to know what to feed their kids; and I was raised on welfare, so those companies – you know, Kraft and General Mills, and all those things – that’s the food that we got. That was evidence that my subconscious mind collected as to what caused me pain. From an awareness perspective, going back to the illusion of separation, when I’m looking at the world and I’m here with you, we’re all seeing everything as connected unified love. Sometimes though, connected unified love shows up as people suffering so they can learn a lesson. There’s a lot of soul contracts that we learn here on planet Earth. But that moment with Melissa, it brought me to this awareness that I can reflect on right now, or I chose to allow my childhood experience that built up a basement of anger, basement of resentment, towards these companies, to come out right there on the podcast. So, I’m always open to reframes – reframes of language, reframes of why I’m asking the question, like why am I even asking a question in the first place. Am I asking it from a place of empowerment, or frustration or anger? Then, on top of that, there’s another nuance: I also give myself forgiveness and the space to feel my feelings at the same time and be imperfect. So, that was a big moment for me.

Joe: [14:13] Yeah, I can imagine.

Josh: [14:14] And there’s been a lot of moments like that, specifically with Paul Chek. I’m sure you’re familiar with Paul Chek; you know, going through the first episode we had with Paul was a 3 hour podcast; it was a 3 part series. There were so many moments with Paul where I really questioned – wait a minute, my next question doesn’t even relate to the answer of the question I asked you before – so my line of thinking got so deviated in the show that it’s really about having a conversation that’s always open to the unfolding of the next moment. Even today, we might have a framework of what we might want to explore, but it’s going to do what it does. And that’s a big part of podcasting in general is just allowing it; going in with intention, but allowing it to unfold, man. So, that moment with Melissa was probably one of the first that really, really struck me and [inaudible] what’s my intention in asking questions.

Joe: [15:05] Yeah, and becoming more of a listener. That’s kind of what I’m hearing here is like, you have learned – I have 3 pages in front of me of things I want to talk about – and every time I listen to somebody talking about podcasting with you, without fail, more than anybody, they say that you prepare for a podcast more than anybody that they’ve ever been interviewed by. So, you come in, you have a lot of questions, you’ve kind of got a flow set up, you have – ok, I want to hit this, this, and that. You can really ruin a podcast if you don’t listen to the full answer and you’re off on the next question. So, your evolution of a listener, I’m sure, and as a communicator in whole has probably been massive, I would assume.

Josh: [16:00] Yeah, and it’s shown up in my communication to myself, and most recently, this beautiful soul, this woman that I have in my life – Carrie Michelle – where it’s really a mirror. Relationships with a podcast guest or relationship with a significant other in our lives, they’ll shine a mirror about how we’re being real bright. I don’t know a brighter mirror in our lives than intimate relationship. And when it comes to podcasting, the way that we connect in a podcast is either topical, where the guest maybe is a little nervous or the host is a little nervous, or if there’s enough rapport built and the guest feels safe with the host, and the host is really emotionally intelligent and they’re mindful about the questions that they’re asking, and honestly man, they’re present – they’re fully present – they’re not worried about the next question, they’re not worried about all the notes, they’re just there… those are magic. And this is why we’re here on the planet. We all know when we leave a conversation and feel lighter and more energized than when we got there, that’s the goal of every podcast. There was a time, man, probably – gosh – maybe even the first two and half years, three years of the show, where I wanted it to be so great that I would overprepare. I really would. I would overprepare. And these guests, they would say thank you for preparing and all these things, and in my mind, I’m like well, there was 15 things I didn’t even get to ask you. I didn’t even get to ask you! But that’s the process of surrendering to the current moment, and this has been the ultimate evolution from technology, quantification, logical left-mind thinking, fitness mindedness, macros, pdfs, downloads, deliverables to presence, current moment awareness, what’s really happening, what’s my truth, what do I feel in my body, what’s my somatic awareness, what are the products that I’m consuming on a macro and micro level that are actually shifting my nervous system, and how do those products that I consume allow me to show up more present or disconnect me. That’s the conversation now, because we live in a world of information and the only way we’re going to able to live our life well is if we trust ourselves, our innate intelligence, to gather the right information that actually aligns with our soul. If we’re not doing that, then we’re just going to be consumers; we’re just going to be consumers instead of people that are actually doing something here that is going to raise the consciousness.

Joe: [18:21] Yeah. 100%. So – we got a little lag here –

Josh: [18:26] That’s why you and I are here, man. That’s what we’re doing.

Joe: [18:27] We back? I want to talk about your preparation for a podcast from a product standpoint. You just talked about what you’re consuming, how you’re preparing for a podcast, how you show up in your best self. Obviously, through preparation, but how do you show up physically at your top level of performance?

Josh: [19:04] The top level of performance for me has changed a lot, man, because now I’m in this space of – I used to judge my performance based on how hard I could go in the gym, or how intense my workouts were, or how far I could hike – for me now, it’s what is my manageable energy state throughout my day. That is the biggest piece, that is the biggest barometer for me to have performance is how is my energy the entire day? From the time I wake up to the time that I go to sleep. And with me modulating my energy properly, I use that as an indicator of what is going to be my exercise and my output for the day. A good example might be I wake up, I check the HRV, I see what my readiness score is, and instead of my ego saying it doesn’t matter if you’re tired, just push hard anyways, I just trust myself and I use the data on the ring a little bit, time to time, as a mirror of mindfulness. But for me, the biggest, I guess you could say, measurement point of how I’m doing physically, like my most high level of performance, is my ability to manage my energy throughout the day. We’re all looking for more energy. I don’t necessarily think that we’re looking for more energy, I just think we’re looking for sustained energy. Because we all have enough energy, it’s just where is that energy being blocked. What things can we consumer, and what ways can we move that will bring that energy out of us, because it’s all in there. It’s stuck in our energy systems, it’s stuck our [inaudible] system. For me, [inaudible].

Joe: [20:37] So, that’s a completely different answer than I expected. I thought what you were saying was the products that I consume as far as supplements, as far as nootropics, as far as anything performance related. Has that – and I’ll reflect back my evolution, and I’m curious as to what yours has been like – I came from the bodybuilding world, man. I took every powder under the sun because that’s what I was reading on bodybuilding.com, and that’s what I was reading through social media.

Josh: [21:11] Right.

Joe: [21:12] And I didn’t have the intelligence to ask questions. If it was the person that had the physique, the façade that was “health”, which I was so stuck in for so long, then I took those products. As someone who has a platform that is geared toward education and downloading information from your guests, I’m sure, as you’ve said, product after product has popped up. Are there things that you take for a focus and cognitive enhancement when you are podcasting? Then, when we look at this plethora of things that people use, and the nootropics and mental performance world, how is that evolved?

Josh: [21:52] Yeah. I think for a while I was just using caffeine, and caffeine has a pretty long half-life for certain people like me. I did a 23andme test, so I learned that I’m very sensitive to caffeine, and I can kind of feel it anyways from just being adrenally kind of blasted from coffee. So, I went from coffee to looking at the piracetams, and just kind of playing around with my buddy Mansal Denton, he’s been on the show a couple of times. He was the previous owner of Nutripedia. So, I started taking some nootropics and playing with different supplement levels of the piracetams, and then I learned about Jesse Lawler, who hosts Smart Drugs Smarts podcast, and I tried some of his products – this was about 3 years ago. Then, I found Neurohacker, and Neurohacker has been a great company. I take the Mind caffeine-free version. I get to be really mindful about how much caffeine I take in because I don’t like how I feel when I’m jittery. I’m sure you can relate to this – too much caffeine, it removes us from the present moment. We think we’re more connected, but I can tell when I’m on a show if I’m caffeine-jacked and I’m leading the conversation too fast, it’s because I’ve taken maybe too much of piracetam or too much of the blend with the caffeine. So, now I like to do the caffeine-free nootropics. And honestly, actually – I’ll be honest – what I really like is I like doing some high-quality chocolate. I’ll just eat some high-quality chocolate right before a show – not the whole thing – maybe like a strip of it, and it’s got the theobromine, it’s got all these other beautiful things for the nervous system, and so, I really love just doing a little bit of chocolate before I talk to people. That way I’m not so blasted. And I really have been enjoying CBD as well. Like, some of the stuff that you gave to me and that I tried – loved it – especially the dropper. With the dropper, it’s different than the capsules for me; if I’m feeling like I’m a little stressed out and I’m a little nervous, I’ll do some drops under the tongue and I’ll just hold it there, and I’ll just say, you’re supported, you’re loved, you’re on the right path, you’re exactly where you need to be, and then I’ll do 6 deep breaths. So, CBD under the tongue with 6 deep breaths, combined with some dark chocolate, that’s going to be a good interview. I’m going to be fully present for that interview, rather than the old mindset of me being in control. I promise this answers your question. Too much coffee and having a bunch of stimulants, it’s a way that the ego likes to be in control, because I know my ego’s happy when it doesn’t have to feel how tired my body is, or when it didn’t have to be responsible and sleep well last night, or when I’m not eating a healthy breakfast, or when I didn’t do my movement, or when I haven’t done my breath work. When I haven’t done all the lifestyle factors, [inaudible]

Joe: [24:41] It’s another form of – it’s another form of numbing. I think we have this idea in our head that numbing is escaping through alcohol, through getting high with marijuana, THC, through whatever it may be; but you can number through caffeine, through stimulants, through work, through control. It’s… the list goes on and on and on and on.

Josh: [25:08] Yep. You’re so right, and this element of control is something that’s come through in my personal training, my emotional training, my spiritual training lately, especially in this relationship, is do I want to be in control or do I want to be present to what is? You know, it relates to your supplement question because think about the even definition of a supplement; if I’m supplementing, that means I’m taking care of the base building blocks of life first. I’m taking care of my behaviors first that are healthy. Then, because of the demands of the modern world, then I’m supplementing on top of the already healthy activities from a building block perspective that I’ve promised myself that I’ll do and that I’ve done. So, if I’m sleeping well, if I’m moving, if I’m stretching, if I’m breathing, if I’m hydrating, if I eat a healthy breakfast, if I have social connection, then I’m showing up, and then when I supplement, it just helps me even more. It supplements my lifestyle that I already have. So, that’s what I really think helps the most. [rest inaudible]

Joe: [26:10] Fuck yeah, man. I want to talk about that social connection piece, because the world of an entrepreneur, especially the world of a podcaster, somebody that’s doing a coaching business, it could be a very lonely world. You’re like, ehh, I have these questions, I have these doubts, I have nobody to ask besides myself, and I’m… it’s true though, man. Because I fall into it all the time.

Josh: [26:35] I’m laughing because it’s so true. It’s so true.

Joe: [26:36] But that aspect of social connection and what podcasting actually does, and I’m not anywhere to the level that you are as far as podcasting and the amount of podcasts that I’ve done, but what I’ve noticed over the years is sitting down, spending an hour with somebody, spending two hours with somebody, there’s always going to be some time on either end of it as well… you could two, three weeks down the road, a couple months down the road most likely – I would say 99% of the time – hit that person up, because they are now your friend. You developed a connection because you sat down, and you got vulnerable, and you had an hour long conversation where you just saw each other, and I want to talk about what the fruits of your labor around network and social interaction and connection, what that’s evolved into just through this, through the podcast, through the face to face, across the screen – here we are now – but that interaction and how far that’s gone for you.

Josh: [27:47] I had no idea that my life would be this rewarding and also this challenging. And I say I’m both because if you look at any relationship with friends, or with a significant other, it’s when we go through the challenges of travel and connection and schedules, and work, and getting the podcast to actually be out there, or just going to a new town and meeting new people, there’s always going to be a bitter before there’s the sweet. So, the sweet is I get to text Jade Teta or email Dave Asprey or connect with some of these people I had idolized when I was a personal trainer, but I’ve only done that because I did the work brick by brick, day by day, year by year to let these people know that when it was time for us to have a conversation that I really cared, and that I was really adamant about letting them know how much I respect them; and whether or not I get anything from them besides a conversation, just the joy of the conversation was the gift, and that is a great way to build friendship. Beyond us doing business or getting anything from each other, do I just like you as a human? Do I like your vibe? Do I respect what you do in the world? Can I tell based on your interactions with me and watching you online and in public that your heart and your soul are connected to the way that you make your money? Like, for me, that’s a barometer for friendship. There’s many different – I guess I’ve used that word a few times, barometer – it’s just a great word because I think when I look at the trajectory of this podcast, the best relationships came when I was finally just letting go and surrendering to just being myself, to being my most authentic self, and not being in a mindset of scarcity, of oh my god, if I get this person, I can get more downloads; oh my god, and then when I get more downloads, I’ll get bigger sponsors. And that’s just not what it’s about. That’s projecting fear and insecurity onto a situation that people can subtly feel. We can all subtly feel when we’re a little pressured from someone, it’s like, it just doesn’t feel good. It’s like going on a first date and giving the woman or the man a thousand compliments. At some point they’re like, does this person just want to fuck me? Like, what’s really going on here, you know? So, the answer to your question is the way that I formulated these friendships – even with the Onnit crew, Kyle or Aubrey from Onnit – I just took my time, I let them know how much I cared, and the friendships came naturally when I just showed up without expectation. That’s really it. [inaudible]

Joe: [30:39] Yeah. 100% I heard you – I was trying to figure it out because I wasn’t sure if Luke was interviewing you or you were interviewing Luke – but your podcast on Luke Storey’s platform; I think you were just interviewing him but he released it on his podcast. But he basically said, this has been kind of a 4 year journey for me, for me to sit down and have a podcast with you; to sit down and have this conversation with you that I’ve been wanting to have for a very long time. And you two rift back and forth for a little while on this… these interactions that we have where you can tell somebody’s just really asking for something from you more than having this conversation. Of course, we’re all playing this game as entrepreneurs and brands and doing marketing, and there’s pieces of that that you kind of just have… you have to do?

Josh: [31:36] Well, it is. It really is. It’s like a Monopoly game. It really is! Can we just laugh and accept that, you know?

Joe: [31:40] Yeah. It’s true, man! I think the piece of that is for everybody to remember… kind of a remembrance to myself is, ok, you’re going to have an “ask,” and maybe it won’t be right away where that person is seeing it in return, but how do you continue to show up and say that I’m in it for the long run with every single one of these relationships? Like, I had a podcast with you, I texted you a week later, and then we didn’t talk for a long time, but I know that this is going to come for a full circle or vice versa regardless of what the first ask really is. And that’s showing up as a true friend and as a true member of a tribe of people that are trying to just show up in this world for the betterment of all; because not a single one of us have all the answers, and that’s why we sit down and we podcast, is because we want to ask these questions. Like, what do you think? I don’t know, what do you think? You know, let’s open it up.

Josh: [32:53] You know, I’m getting the same flashback, because you asked me about the trajectory of the show; when I was in that kitchen – his name was Rocco, by the way. Like a hardcore East coaster, really brilliant business guy – and he goes, “I want you to write 15 things, 15 qualities about your future wife, what your future wife’s qualities will be.” And I was like how does this relate to business? I thought it was busy work, like what the fuck is this guy having me do. So, I wrote down all 15 qualities and he’s like, “Great.” He came back an hour later and he’s like, “Remove the ones that deal with physical intimacy, and those are the EXACT qualities that you should have with all your business partners.” And I was like, oh that makes so much sense. Trust, integrity, common goals, common threads, ways of communication, ways of being, integrity around doing and being. All these different things that I thought were just in a significant other or in a friendship, but it’s the same thing in business. So, when it comes to podcasting and conversations, if I’m showing up as a friend to my business partner, or as a friend to my virtual assistant, or as a friend to a consultant, or employee, people can feel that. So, when I’m building a business relationship from the get-go, I’m just interested in being someone’s friend. I’m not interested in boasting and telling them my numbers and, you know, having some kind of veil that I cloak over them where I get them all excited about working with me. It’s more just like, do I enjoy this person’s company, do I believe in what they believe, and can we move forward with that because that’s how friendships in business and friendships in life, and even romantic, intimate partnerships are built. It’s coming from this place where there’s no show. There’s no show anymore, man. It’s not – even this podcast with you – this isn’t a show; it’s a conversation about truth and consciousness. So, how are we adding to that, or how are we subtracting to that, and that’s all of our work. So, kind of a long-winded answer, but no answer seems to be really simple when it comes to the world we live in now. It seems like there’s so many ways that people show up because of wanting something that there needs to be a larger explanation of [inaudible]

Joe: [35:05] It’s all in good exploration of understanding what we’re trying to do here. Because that’s what I’m trying to do, man. I’m trying to figure this out. Like, I have a brand that’s named Cured, right? That’s a pretty bold name.

Josh: [35:21] Yeah.

Joe: [35:22] And when we talk about – ok, well, you sell a product. You sell CBD products, you sell some mushroom products. I have an inherent just drive to push products and to sell products, right? That’s how we make money. These products are supplements, you could call them. They are supplements to what Cured is. What Cured is is a brand that questions why we do the things we do and why we do them in the way that we do them. So, we’ve taken this idea from a couple years ago of, well, I don’t know what CBD is; is it marijuana, is it weed, am I going to get high; ok, we’re going to break the stigma, we’re going to teach people what it is, we’re going to educate around it. And now it’s everywhere, man. And I can get really frustrated about it, but does that serve me? No. What serves me is understanding what’s next, what makes Cured thrive, how do we build community, how do we take care of our bodies. And when we do all of that, we’ve put all those pillars in line and we’ve checked the boxes on how we take care of ourself – ok, well then, we’re still going to need some type of a supplementation – because as human beings, we want to be able to focus, we want to be able to calm ourselves down, we want to be able to come into that present moment, we want to be able to sleep. So, that’s what we do as a company to sell products, and that’s why Cured is named Cured; it’s not because of the products that we do, it’s because of the brand and the lifestyle that comes together, and then it’s supplemented with products on the side. It’s been an evolution since the very beginning, and I’ll say right now, I’m still figuring it out every single day. Who knows what’s going to come in tomorrow? It’s like, I don’t know; and I try to show up and act like I do have the answers, but that doesn’t serve me, that doesn’t serve my employees when we’re all trying to figure this out together.

Josh: [37:14] That’s honest, man. I love, I LOVE the explanation. And honestly, think about the words heal and cured. They’re very similar, right? Even if you look at the etymology, I’m sure Miriam & Webster would be like they’re fairly the same. Because if someone is cured of something, then there’s something else that they’re still going to heal or be cured from. I will never forget this, man. I’m got back from Rythmia this year – we did an episode with the founder of Rythmia – it’s a plant medicine and breath work facility in Costa Rica, and they partner with Wellness Force. I was down there with my friend Jay from HeartMath, and we went down there with Beyonce’s tour manager – like THE Beyonce – and we’re doing this podcast, and he goes, “I’ll never be healed.” And I was like, what? He said, “I’ll never be healed. Healing is an end game. If I’m healed, then it means that I’m dead.” I thought about that for a moment, and it took a while for me to understand what he meant, but then I got it – boom – if I’m always in the process of being my best self, then it means that I’m always being healed or cured or evolving into whatever the new version of me has let go of. In other words, did I let go of stress, did I let go of physical trauma, did I let go emotional trauma? Every single day what am I being cured from? What am I being healed from? What am I stepping towards? And the question and answer that you and I have in common is why are we doing this, and does this really serve our highest good? And can we constantly evolve that? The things I said a year ago, I might not say are truth now; but I believed them then from the child’s mind and heart, from a place of innocence and me just sharing exactly what I studied and what I knew. So, if I can just show up in conversations like that, man, then I can be healed, I can be cured every single day because that’s the whole point of this life. Look at our parents, look at our grandparents. Look at the way that societal evolution has played out. Women used to be owned like property, African Americans were beaten and killed, the Holocaust, just incredible tragedies that are still happening across the world. If we don’t constantly look at how we can heal and cure this spiritual malady that we have as a society, as a human race, we’re not going to make it. So, I believe that we’ll make it, but only if we look at this life through this healing and cured lens.

Joe: [39:27] Fuck yeah, dude. That was fucking dope. How do you stay in that childlike curiosity?

Josh: [39:43] I constantly go down to what’s true, even if it sucks. Look at kids. I just spent a couple of weeks – my mom’s 70th birthday week – we got a place in Mission Beach and I was hanging out with my 15 year old nephew, my 4 year old niece, and my 6 year old niece. They were running around the house and one of them got sad because she couldn’t eat a cupcake. You know what she did? She cried. She cried for like 5 minutes. And you know what she did when she was done? She shook it off, just like wild animals do, and then the next thing you knew, she was playing and laughing and smiling. As adults, we have forgotten how to have this in and out flow of emotion, of charge. What happens is we get so caught up and stuck with physical charge that we forget what it’s like to let it go. We forget that it’s our choice to let go of these charges that we feel. We think those charges are us, and it’s complete bullshit. You are not your thoughts, you are not the charge that you feel. We just identify with it because it validates a belief from childhood – and this is a little bit of a steer away from where we were going, but course correct me if you need to.

Joe: [40:36] No, keep going.

Josh: [40:48] I think that when we talk about our childhood and we reflect about our stories, Joe, it’s all a big story, man; of everything that we’re doing here on the planet. You and I are creating a story right now. So, whatever my beliefs are about the things that have happened to me or for me – if I believe that I’m a victim, if I believe that life is working against me, if I believe that I’m a scarcity, if I believe, if I believe, if I believe – that’s the narration of separation, and the narration of separation is the one that says you won’t make it, you’re not enough, you don’t love yourself, you’re not attractive, you’ll never be successful in business. This is a universal human problem, universal human consciousness evolution issue where all of us at some point in our lives have had these moments where it’s like, god, I really don’t know if I’m worthy. All of us feel that way from time to time, I don’t care who you are. And it’s that exploration of what Carl Jung calls the shadow; if we can go into the shadow and we can take an honest look – and I’m not saying we have to stay there forever – but if we can train ourselves over time – Jordan Peterson calls it systematic desensitization – go to the things that scare us the most in a logical way, you know, 5 minutes one day, 10 minutes the next day, 15 the next day. If we can go to that shadow, and if we can go down in there and convince our nervous system, our physical body, that we are safe, and that the beliefs that we have about us not being worthy and not being safe, we can let go of those things. Then, we can be like my little niece, and we can cry over a cupcake, let it go, and then not give ourselves shame for holding onto it for so long. Because the building blocks of emotional intelligence is self-love and forgiveness. Those two things, man, is what separates the really top players [inaudible]

Joe: [42:34] Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s true though, man. It’s true. When you’re stuck down in shame, when you’re in that shame-bind, a lot of people cover that up with success. And that’s really what you were just saying is, ok, achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve, because that is my numbing and it’s too scary to go down into the depths of the shadow. I’m curious, when you started learning and doing that regression type work into your childhood self and into your childhood beliefs, is that a piece of your learning through Wellness Force and people that you’ve had on the show? What does that process look like, because that’s work that I’ve been doing, I’ll be straight, over the last year and with my fiancée who, we share very openly, went to treatment for her eating disorder and realized and woke up to the childhood wounds, the infrastructure instability that she had that didn’t allow herself to survive in trauma later in life. It was because the resources and that foundation in her childhood self weren’t built. We get these beliefs as a child and we stay in them forever unless we go back and we actually look at it and we say, hey, ok, now I can understand why I do that. Whether it be through plant medicine or honestly, just a lot of people can do it through, just like my fiancée did, through a lot of intense therapy around, ok, this is how I show up in my world, this is why I’m avoidant, this is why I do this, this is why I do that. What’s that been like for you, man? Because that’s where the nuggets are.

Josh: [44:38] I – you noticed I took a deep breath in, because that is actually the first thing that I’ve done that I realized I’ve always done, and that is to take a deep breath first. That’s the number 1 tool that we all have, and we forget it because we become a slave to belief, which is then attached to the thought, which is ten attached to the feeling, which then produces the action; so, it’s the BTFA loop, as I call it, and we have this in our breathe program. The BTFA loop is about people being a slave to a belief system, and that believe system is what energetically – or even if you look at a circuit board, there’s pathways of electronics on a circuit board – it’s the same thing in our body. We have a belief that’s stored in the subconscious mind that connects to another thought, and that thought means I’m not good enough, I’m not safe; it’s really about I’m not good enough and I’m not safe. Those are the two core beliefs that are expressed in a fractal of different stories from people’s childhood. Then, after that, it’s a feeling. Then, that feeling is sadness, frustration, betrayal, anger, desperation, depression, all these things. And, of course, what’s after the feeling is the action, and the action is playing small, not doing a podcast, not leading a company, not being yourself, not being yourself. So, when I think about my evolution, gosh man, the whole reason, the entire reason I started Wellness Force is because my soul knew that it had to heal. Like, I knew; I was like, I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t just shotgun these beers at night anymore; there’s more to life than this. I felt that again when I was 21. We didn’t talk about this, but it’s very contextual now; when I was raised, I was raised in an environment where my dad left home super early, my mom was manic-bipolar, the first 20 years of my life were chaotic, we’ll just leave it at that. I was wired, even coming out of my mother’s womb if you look at some of the science now, I was wired for fight or flight. This is in the literature and the research if you search on PubMed for stress response in mothers, when children are in the womb, in utero, and their mothers are experiencing high levels of adrenaline, high levels of cortisol, the child’s DNA is epigenetically encoded with that fight or flight stress response. So, think of a middle, the child’s kicked over into sympathetic right when they come out the womb. That was me. Now, notice I said that was me. That’s not my current story now. My belief now is all that happened for me to show up with you on a podcast and just to be honest about it, because my evolution about my own healing and my own being cured, as we say, is if I can just be honest about how I’m feeling and I’m expressing myself, well then, myself, a coach, whoever I’m working with, maybe it’s a podcast guest or a friend, if I can just be honest about who I am, then that’s actually what takes the charge away. And what takes the charge away is me just telling the truth. Truth is medicine, Joe, so if we can just be truthful about where we are, by speaking truth out into existence, then we can actually figure out with a therapist, with a coach, with a guide, with a shaman, whoever it is. As we speak the truth out, what actually comes back to us is the real truth, and the real truth is whatever I’m feeling is the truth might not always be the truth. Just because I say it’s the truth doesn’t mean it actually is. Somewhere in my nervous system there is still the overweight kid that needs more love and attention from his mother and father. He’s still in there, and you know what? I parent that kid so hard because I LOVE that kid. I love Josh Trent. I love Josh Trent, I forgive Josh Trent for all the things that he’s done, and this forgiveness and self-love process is always going to occur in my life, because guess what guys? We’re going to fuck up in the future, ok? It’s going to happen, we’re going to make mistakes in the future. So, when I think about the evolution of my healing, the evolution of my healing comes through this podcast, comes through Wellness Force. It’s what I want people to feel from me every episode, where I’m doing this work, we’re doing this work together, so that when we’re out of the spaces of doing the work, we can actually show up and live our life well. We can actually show up and have loving relationships and full joy and full expression, and full connection with our friends, with our partners. Like, that’s what it’s all about. That’s what it’s all about, but people get so afraid, and I fell prey this victim of men don’t cry and men don’t speak about emotions, men don’t talk about their feelings, never show weakness, rah, rah, rah. And that’s fine; there’s a time and a place for that. There’s a time and a place for us to not explore emotion. But, I would say, if you look at life, it’s about 80/20; about 80% of the time – man or woman – we have just the ability to not compartmentalize, and 80% of the time, feel our feelings, listen to what our feelings are trying to tell us; you know, the BTFA loop is alive and well in all of us. The, 20% of the time, when there’s true danger or situations of safety, or maybe in business, we just need to push our emotions to the side and let someone go, or whatever it is. I’d say it’s 80/20, and I think that rule applies to a lot of things in life because what happens is we flip it, man; and a lot of, especially men – I’ll speak for myself – will do 80% of the time where we’re constantly in go-mode, and then we’ll only allow ourselves to feel when our nervous system is exhausted. So, the 80/20 is flipped the other way around. If we can just choose to pull back and just take a big, deep breath – even 6 of them – science shows 6 deep breaths can give us that introspective. If we can go 80/20 of allowing ourselves to explore our emotions – and I would even say that people would argue 100% of the time, you could explore your emotions – then I think that’s really a life well lived. A lot of these concepts I’m just thinking about right now on this podcast because they’re top of mind for me in my current evolution, in this relationship with Josh Trent, and with Carrie Michelle, of, gosh man, the healing that we’ve done, the amount of [inaudible].

Joe: [50:48] Yeah. Talk about cycles of recommitment more, because I hear you mention this a lot and I want you to explain it a little bit more the process.

Josh: [50:52] (continued from previous section) If we can just embrace it. If you can just embrace your process without judgment, forgiving ourselves, and being in a place of self-love, our cycles of recommitment are going to shorten so much that that’s when the quality of our life increases.

[51:13] Ok, if you can conceptualize a child riding a bike. A child, they ride a bike, and maybe they fall right away, and they might try 50 times. Each time they try, their ride vs. fall shortens. So, maybe the first 10 tries, they fell every time; maybe on the 11th try they got it. It’s the same thing with anything else we do in our lives, whether it’s addiction, or keeping promises, or having work/life balance, or our health practices. No matter what the behavior is, the behavior, the action on the BTFA loop, it’s all tied to the belief. So, if that child has a belief inside of him or her that says I’m going to ride this bike, it’s going to be amazing, I’m going to do it on the first time – if we can solidify the belief that whatever it is we’re going to do is going to be from a place of self-trust, self-love, curiosity, then the cycles of recommitment, the cycles of us falling down, breaking our promises, versus keeping our promises and standing up, they’re going to shorten over time. You know what gets in the middle of cycles of recommitment shortening though? It’s lack of forgiveness. Because what happens is – and this could be a gamut of health behaviors: food, nutrition, exercise, sleep, communications – what happens is [inaudible]

Joe: [52:33] Dude, I fuckin’ say that all the time. Imagine if we talked to ourselves the way that we talk to ourselves – sorry, what did I say – imagine if we talk to others the way that we talk to ourselves. I’d have no fucking friends!

Josh: [52:50] (continued from previous) We would never talk to a friend like that. Absolutely. Let that land. Would you talk to your wife or your husband the way that you just talked to yourself when you didn’t do a perfect work meeting, when you ate a brownie, when you stepped off the treadmill 5 minutes early, when you went out and public and maybe you tripped and fell, and you looked around to see if people are seeing you? Dude, the action happens whenever it’s supposed to happen. Most, if not all, actually, all of these events are neutral; they’re there to teach us something. Everything is a teacher, whether it’s pain or pleasure, it’s all teachers. So, if we can just be in the mentality and the awareness of – that really hurt, I’m upset with myself that I ate the doughnut, I really feel bad about not going to gym, I feel really stressed out, whatever it is – if we can just let that feeling be there, and this is the key, if we can just allow – this is a big word – allow it to be there for 5 minutes, for 10 minutes, for a day, whatever, the cycles of recommitment to you keeping your promise to whatever it is that you were mad about, it’s going to be so much shorter than if you let the monkey mind and the ego take over and say you’re a pussy, you’re weak, you’re nothing, you can’t be trusted, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that is our work, man. That is our work, is to chip away at these old beliefs for our whole life, to be healed and cured, so that when it does come to us, really showing up radically and saying like, wow, I’m a leader of a business, I’m a leader of a family, I’m a leader of this body, I trust myself, I got this, watch how much more emotionally resilient you become [inaudible] when we stop shitting and stop shaming all over ourselves. When the thing is already difficult enough, we don’t need to have [inaudible]

Joe: [54:44] Did you ever think you would spend so much time in this emotional world? So, we’re talking about 80/20, but dude, like the wellness industry, like what is the wellness industry? When you look at it on a whole, a lot of it has to do with the next hot product. It’s so funny because I talk about this all the time, I own a fucking CBD company. It is the trendiest of trendy thing that I’ve seen in my lifetime, for sure. Saying that that’s part of the wellness industry is all well, fine and dandy, but man, what we’re talking about here, you could use every single product out there, every single biohacking technique under the sun, but if you’re not tapping into this emotional piece, you’re never going to make it to that next level. And the piece that I really like, that I hear a lot of people talking about more and more, and yourself, is spirituality. Because we can spend all the time in the world trying to intellectualize everything, but there’s a limit to intellectualization, and I think we all need to understand that. Whether – it doesn’t matter what type of religion or what your spirituality looks like, there is a limit to this physical existence. I really am curious what your spirituality looks like and how that is such a piece of what you call wellness, and who Josh Trent is.

Josh: [56:43] This is such an awesome question, because in 2015, if you would’ve asked me that, I would’ve said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” This is like the true mirror of the lens of evolution here. For a long time, when I was young, I was just angry at God, man. I talked about this on the episode with Paul Chek when I was on his show. There were moments when I was a kid where I would literally say like there is no god. If there’s so much suffering, if my mom is sick, if people are hurting in the world, then, nah, there isn’t an all-encompassing, all-loving being that unites us; it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist. Because that was a way for me to be right. And this is the paradox, man; this is really, really the undercurrent of the answer to your question. With what I’m about to share, I want people to feel… man, do I want to be right, do I want to feel righteousness, do I want to be right – or do I just want to take a deep breath and love and connect? Like, which one do I actually want, because the being right and the self-righteousness is really just the ego with a veil in front of it that’s a broken heart behind it. That’s really what it is. So, when I was a kid, I was so angry at God, I went my whole adolescence, even a lot of my 20s, just being so angry at God. And you know what happened? I had multiple moments where I was beat down so much, man. I was on a mountain last year, I had pulled my calf muscle, I didn’t train properly on Mt. Whitney, I ended up getting acute altitude sickness at 12,000ft, a friend of mine had to pull me down the mountain; I literally thought I was going to die. Hallucinating, hyperventilating, and I just sat in the truck last year, in my friend’s truck, at 8,000ft, and I said, “God, if you let me live, I promise you I will spend the rest of my life truly being in service and doing the best work I can do. I don’t want to die.” I was losing my mind. I was literally losing my mind. This is not a planned [inaudible], this is me getting altitude sickness. And I got to this point where I said… if you let me live through this, and I’m going to do everything I can to honor this human existence, to just be grateful, and thank you for my life, thank you for my lessons. I mean, I was literally just looking at the moon and just shouting all these things; not out of my mouth, just out of my heart, just sitting there in the truck. I got back home, and my life was forever changed because I ended up going to Thailand and doing breath work later on, I started learning about the power of breath; then, I spent this entire year understanding who is Josh Trent, why did he subconsciously block himself from intimate partnership and calling in this beautiful woman, who’s been a radical mirror for me. And I look back to that event on the mountain, like almost dying on the mountain – if I would’ve pushed through it and I would’ve tried to have summited Whitney, I would’ve died. No doubt, I wouldn’t be here. And my connection to spirituality, the reason I tell you that backstory is because I never really felt God before; I never really felt what God was. God is not a bearded dude in the sky. God is not a man or a woman. God, universe, source intelligence, infinite intelligence, however you want to describe it, it’s an all-knowing, encompassing, omnipresent energy being that controls all things. It’s the thing that allows you and I to breathe; it breathes us. It allows the trees outside my studio to grow, it allows the sun to shine. It’s something that science can’t logically explain. And it’s this duality that we all feel, where on one side of the coin, we can talk about electricity and voltage potential and gravity and all these things, but there’s just some things we can’t explain. We can’t explain why the assay note in the heart actually beats. We can explain that it beats, but we don’t know why it beats, we don’t know what beats it. So, my evolution of spirituality, and the way that I’ve been called up the mountain, has been through radical challenge. And there’s been other things that I’ve been through this year in plant medicine ceremonies that I actually have been healed from with the help of Paul Chek, going to his home, getting healed; things that came up during ceremonies that were so visceral and so fear-based and so ego-based, that this is the true call of anyone who’s going to be a force of wellness in this world, is you are going to get beat down, my friend. It’s going to happen. Don’t be fearful of it; like, let yourself go through it, and at the same time, know that no matter how hard it sucks, or no matter how much pain in the world there is or how much tragedy there is in the world, that there is also grace, there is also love, there’s also this energy that is supporting all of us, and the whole magic and mystery of this life is that we don’t get to know. We don’t get to know why everything happens, and that is the ultimate beacon of how if we can choose to love, if we can choose to recognize that there is a higher intelligence, that we are supported and we are guided, well, then that’s the energy that we’re putting out to the universe. You know, if we believe our business, if we believe our relationship, if we believe our physical health is going to be successful – even if it’s not and we recommit to it being successful, eventually it will be. And that’s God. That’s God coming through us, that’s spirit coming through us. So, my spiritual level [inaudible] came from anger, [inaudible], betrayal, [inaudible]

Joe: [01:01:51] Yeah. I mean, the statement… it’s a piece that passes all understanding. That surpasses all understanding. In thinking about that, like what God is, of [inaudible] coming from the Bible, right? But a piece that surpasses all understanding. Are we ever going to fully comprehend it? Like, everything that you said – check, check, check, check – I 100% am in agreement with; but there’s this next level of understanding, and what it really comes down to is a surrendering to the fact that, well, we’re not ever really going to know, but what we do know is everything that we feel. The connection, the… what fills us up. What brings you into this present moment, and what fills you up, and how am I going to surrender to that second after second after day after day after day? And how am I going to stay in that childlike curiosity? That’s fucking – I have complicated so many things my entire life, man. It’s like… I’m really good at that!

Josh: [01:03:26] Haven’t we – everyone listening is like, yep, me too. Oh, it’s so true, man. And it brings us back to this point that you mentioned so well, and it’s the surrender. One of my favorite books that every single [inaudible] right now, [inaudible] required to get this book.

Joe: [01:03:43] Oh, you were posting something from that this morning. I saw that, yeah.

Josh: [01:03:47] It is a book by David Hawkins. This book, like, it changed the game for me. I think – who turned me on to it? It was either Kyle Kingsbury, or maybe it was even Paul Chek – and it’s Letting Go; it’s a book called Letting Go, by David Hawkins. Yes, Letting Go from David Hawkins. It is the most magnificent wisdom whether you’re spiritual or logical, it gets to some of these concepts that we’re talking about and allows men and women to reflect on those lessons for themselves. Because how you described it is beautiful, how I described it is beautiful. But it’s up to somebody who’s with us and listening and being with us, it’s up to them to describe their relationship to themselves, their relationship to God. That’s the real quandary I think about, or right now, Joe, is, man, what does it really mean to you to be intelligent? You know, like what is intelligence? For a long time, I used to think intelligence was how smart you were, how much knowledge you could build up, and that’s part of it; but what we’re really shifting into now with Wellness Force, and what I’m really excited about, is what are the real tangible courses and products and things that are out there in our world right now that are the best that will allow us to gather the right information for us to then apply that information; you know, try the products, try the courses, try the training modalities, whatever it is. Then, lastly, what we are all working towards, like the most important thing, why we even take breaths in the morning anyway, is to embody those applied lessons. That’s what we’re all looking for. The gathering and the application is part of the intelligence process, and if you even look at the definition of intelligence, it’s somebody’s ability to gather and apply. But what they’re missing in science is they’re missing the embodiment. What you and I know both believe in is, we’re around people and we can kind of sense if they’re honest or not, we can kind of sense if they’re embodying the qualities that I talk about, and you can’t fake embodiment. You just can’t. There’s no such thing as faking it until you make it when it comes to true intelligence and true embodiment, because over time, people just get that feeling that they can either trust someone or not. So, this is why I really brought up the Letting Go piece, is because, man, if we can let go, like truly let go of what doesn’t serve us, that’s the life’s work that get us -the quality, the relationships, the wealth, like everything – and I’m a student. I am first and foremost a student. I have not wired this, man. I’m just further along the path than [inaudible]

Joe: [01:06:22] Yeah. Man, where did your interest in plant medicine come from? And has your idea of what it is and what it can do for people? I mean, it has evolved; I would assume you’re going to say yes. That’s – I think we live in a very interesting world right now where a lot of people are waking up and – AND – we all are also in the middle of a mental health crisis; and we can employ all of these modalities and there still may be people that have treatment resistant depression. That’s where I have so much excitement in plant medicine and mental health. I’m curious what turned you on to all of that.

Josh: [01:07:33] Plant medicine came to me through a beautiful woman. Her name was Amy Dalton. She was a relationship that I had in 2014, 2015, before I started the show actually. She was called to it and I went with her, and it was a tremendously terrible experience. I hated it; I mean, I absolutely hated it. Then, I got this 1 minute glimpse in the restroom where I felt these vines wrap around my legs, and I couldn’t move, and I was forced to feel what true peace was for a moment. Like, really just forced to feel what peace was. It was this energy, like it was a… it was like having my mom, my grandma, and every woman in the world hold me all at the same time. It was so peaceful and so healing just for a moment that I was called to it again a year later. It took me a year to go back, and I did the next one by myself. That’s when I was really shown my work, and my work has been about being truthful even if I’m ashamed of something, and a lot of it’s come out recently in my relationship; you know, my struggles and my issues with pornography. You know, a lot of men talk about this. We have Connor Beaton from ManTalks doing a whole series right now on pornography and its addictive properties to the limbic brain, and I fell prey to it. When I was 20+ years of pornography use, is… something that kept me safe, and it came up during plant medicine; and it’s something that I let go of by loving it. And this is a little crazy, but bear with me, I promise it will all make sense. Plant medicine showed me that the things I’m most afraid of, the things that I’ve been doing that I haven’t been being honest with myself about – forget about being honest with other people – but the things that I haven’t been honest with myself about, that is the number one reason why suffering exists. The number one reason why suffering exists, and this is what the plant medicine showed me – and breath work as well – if something in me isn’t being honest to me, it’s going to come up, my friends. So, if you’re looking for honesty, and you want to find peace, you’re going to find it through a multitude of healing tools. Plant medicine and breath is… they’re both very powerful, but I will also say there’s a caveat that they’re not for everyone, and there needs to be an element of safety and a space holding of trust as well because they’re very powerful tools, just like a hammer. You can like build a house with a hammer; you can also kill someone. Plant medicine’s the same way. It’s not to be fucked with. At all. So, what I’ve learned from plant medicine, and my interest in plant medicine, has been through this partnership with Rythmia, where I received a lot of bitter medicine; but that bitter medicine led me to the sweet. It’s the same, I guess, metaphor that we talked about earlier in relationships, you know, building friendships – if I’m going to be my own best friend, if I have Josh’s safety and security, and Josh’s back, and I’m parenting Josh, or you’re parenting Joe, or any of us our parenting ourselves, we’re going to be honest and hold ourselves in accountable truth, where in plant medicine, there’s nowhere to hide. You’re not hiding anywhere. Your deepest fears, your darkest thoughts, the things that happened for you, all this stuff is going to come up, and you are going to shit it out, you’re going to throw it up, you’re going to yawn it out, you’re going to sweat it out. A lot of people that go to plant medicine, they’re not ready to see those things, and that’s when people have “bad trips.” For me, I’ve seen things that were so terrible, like I can’t even talk about them right now because they were just so jarring. And what plant medicine does is it brings up a lot of different fractals of truth. It’ll challenge you based on your biggest fear. Not that you are that fear, but like, for example, maybe in your Ayahuasca ceremony – for me, I’ve had people that I care about die; my biggest fear is them dying – it doesn’t mean that that’s happening in that moment, it’s just giving me more peace of how I can show up for gratitude that they’re still in my life. There was one moment specifically with my mom that just took me to the bottom of the ocean where, for a long time in my life, because of my mom’s illness, it’s what drove me to be a trainer. It’s what drives a lot of health pros, is like I wanted to coach her and make her better. And so, the little kid in me wanted to make my mom better. What came up in this plant medicine ceremony last year was I was a little kid; oh sorry, I was a little baby, and I’d fallen off the bed and my mom’s holding me in her arms, and I’m looking at my mom through my baby’s eyes, and I’m seeing how sad she was and right then, I got it – boom. This is a woman who moved 30 times, her dad was in the military, and she was super stressed out, she was dealing with an illness, she had a brand new baby. I just had so much compassion and love and connection with her that all my judgments, all my stress just literally evaporated in that moment. And my life was never the same since I got home.

Joe: [01:12:29] Yeah.

Josh: [01:12:30] I got home, I apologized to my mom – this is last year – and I’ve never had a charge around my mom since. There’s never been one ounce of me that’s angry at her, or upset with her, or tried to change her, because I was brought by plant medicine in that moment to see what was really true, and the only thing that was true is that she was doing the best she could; just like all of our parents. All of our parents are doing the best they can, even if it’s not enough. And that’s our work as grown men and women. It’s not… it’s not our fault that stuff happened. Like, it happened for us to grow stronger. Abuse, neglect, anger, [inaudible]. It’s not our fault, but when we’re adults, it is our [inaudible], it is our responsibility to heal, to cure ourselves, because that is the whole point of this life. Otherwise, we’re just walking around like robots. That’s what I get from plant medicine.

Joe: [01:13:04] Dude. Thank you for sharing all that. So, there’s this book my fiancée’s reading – or just finished – it’s called It Didn’t Start with You. Dude, you’ve said so many things in the last… you said so many things in this podcast where I’m like, oh, you’re saying course correct me if I get off, and I’m like the course that you’re taking is exactly where my next question was going, so this has been awesome, man. But yeah, it’s true. It didn’t start with you, and you’re waking up to – you have experience, you’ve come to an understanding that that is truth, and you can show up in your day to day with compassion and love.

Josh: [01:13:44] I have that book right here in my computer bag! Mark Wolynn. I’m going to interview him on the show.

[01:14:07] It really doesn’t, yeah. And also too, Joe, not only did it not start with us, it might not have even started with our parents. And it might not have started with our great great grandparents. We’re talking about an epigenetic – if you look at some of the work that Dr. Daniel Stickler is doing, he’s been on the show – epigenetics can turn off and on based on the current stress of the environment. For example, if somebody’s predisposed for alcoholism or obesity, it doesn’t mean that those switches have to flip, it just means that it’s the conscious choice of the human if they flip or not based on their choices in the current environment. But, however, there’s also a lot of science around holodynamics and Dr. Vernon Woolf; if you look at these things he calls holodynes, or if you look at past life regression, if you look at any of this stuff, it’s is my thought that I’m overweight, that I’m not good enough, that I’m poor, that I’m destined to be this way, that I’m cursed – I don’t know if you ever saw the movie Friday Night Lights – you remember that movie? Did you ever see it, when he was in the room and he’s like, “Do you ever feel cursed? I feel like I’m cursed, Coach.” That is an example of him seeing his mother sick. That’s an example of his mother seeing maybe her parents sick. These chains are shackles. These chains of beliefs are shackles for generation to generation to generation, and science is showing that they can be epigenetically expressed in our physiology. If we don’t break these by doing our work, they’ll continue to our kids. Mark Groves just had an amazing podcast with Dr. Kelly Brogan on this exact subject, where she’s talked about in her work that a lot of the science and research is showing that you can trace back behavioral patterns 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 generations. Ten generations. So, we have to ask ourselves, in this discovery process of emotional intelligence, of who we actually are, is that thought true? Is that thought actually mine or is it my dad’s? Or is it his dad’s? Or is it that my grandpa came to Ellis Island and that poverty consciousness is still within me? And can I love that? Can I love that my grandpa went through that struggle? [inaudible]

Joe: [01:16:28] Did you think you’d ever learn this version of Josh Trent in 2015, when Wellness Force started…

Josh: [01:16:35] (continued from previous) …to give me the life that I have now, to give my brother the life he has, to give all of us that are from all over the world [inaudible]. That’s the real truth, man, is seeing life for what it really is.

[01:16:58] No, because I came from La Mesa, California, which is flat-bill hats, pickup trucks, and geriatrics, right? And so, we’re talking country, where I came from a very small-minded town, where homosexuals were ridiculed, and people that had thoughts outside the norm were ridiculed. You know, it’s like, how many girls did you sleep with, did you party enough, and how’s your car look. That’s where I came from, dude. That’s my background. Seeing that for what it is now is such a blessing because, damn, did I transcend; and I’m going to transcend to something else too. It’s not going to stop. The healing and the curing doesn’t stop. So, I’m really excited about the direction of my life. I’m also, at the same time, I feel like I’ve never done such harder work, such challenging work, and I can also see how rewarding this thing is, because I know, man, that somebody listening to this has felt so many beats of their own heart in our conversation that they can’t not know is true. This is like a good podcast, sticks to your soul.

Joe: [01:17:58] Yeah, and understanding that we’re not alone. You’re not alone. Anybody that’s out there listening to this, you’re not alone.

Josh: [01:18:09] I think that’s why people are really listening to shows now, because… because they’re not shows. This hasn’t been a show. This has been a conversation about the universal human truths and challenges that we all go through.

Joe: [01:18:24] Yeah.

Josh: [01:18:26] We’re never alone, but the ego’s going to tell you you are. Especially for men, you can choose to not isolate. We’re entrepreneurs, we work a lot in silence, and so, I’m excited to connect with people because it gets me out of [inaudible]

Joe: [01:18:39] Yeah, 100%. Josh Trent, episode 300 Wellness Force Radio. Dude, thank you man. That was fucking dope. I really appreciate you.

Josh: [01:18:50] (continued from previous) This is what all of us are doing, whether we’re in a cubicle, or we’re at home, or we’re a forest ranger, like it’s just coming back to what’s real on a consistent basis over and over again.

[01:19:11] Thank you so much! This was really special; like you – the questions that you asked and the areas that we explored. Like, this is what’s real for me, man. This is what every single episode of Wellness Force will be from now on. Not that in the past I wasn’t being real, ‘cause I was just being the most real that I could be, but my definition of me being real, my embodiment of me being real is always going to up-level the more that I gather and apply. So, if I’m committed to gathering and applying – and I’m just really grateful for you too. I’m grateful for your presence, the way you ask questions and like, this was so cool, so fun to have you be a part of this, and also just really excited about what you’re doing with Cured. Cured, for me, I took a long time trying to find a CBD company to partner with and to really look at; and knowing what you guys are up to, and just even in this conversation with you, I’m too [inaudible] excited about sharing what I believe your brand to really be [inaudible]

Joe: [01:20:09] Yeah, man. I’m super excited for everything that we’re going to be exploring together. You listeners to this podcast, stay tuned for lots of cool stuff that we’ve got going on. This is the beginning of a long-term relationship that we will see come fruitful through this platform, but just in so many other avenues, and I’m super stoked about it. When I first got to meet you at PaleoFX, I was like damn, like dope! I was in San Diego walking the beach, listening to Dr. Dan Engle on your platform, and I was like, man, I hope one day I get to meet that guy. And it was 5 months later, ran into you at PaleoFX, and look at where we are now! So, dude, it’s like, we are manifesters, and the woo – I love the woo. And the thing is is that it’s been kind of interesting because the masculine and male and everything that we’re trying to work through, that has been shunned so much more than the female waking up to all that. What you’re doing is an amazing thing, man. I’m super stoked to be exploring this life with you and everything that we’re going to do together.

Josh: [01:21:33] Yep.

Joe: [01:21:37] Hell yeah, man. Thank you. Thank you, brother.

Josh: [01:21:41] Joe, thank you, man. True pleasure. I just want to tell everyone, if you’ve been around since episode 1, or if you’re listening on the Cured Collective, my commitment and promise is that we just keep doing the exact same discovery process the most authentically as possible every single time. That’s my promise.

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