Hello friends, welcome back to another episode.
Our guest today is Alex Oxford.
He is a three times cancer survivor and an entrepreneur.
What would you do differently if you knew you only had one year left to live?
This is the question Alex wrestled with after getting his first cancer diagnosis.
Today, we'll discuss how Alex first reacted to his cancer diagnosis.
How things feel less risky when you have a year left to live.
How Alex thinks about death.
How his outlook on life changed after recovering from cancer.
The impact on his personal relationships.
And much more.
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Thank you for listening.
Thanks for coming on Alex. It's a pleasure to have you.
Whenever you're ready.
Pleasure having you on.
I know that you have, you're an entrepreneur, you've built a company that is very all remote.
And you also have an interesting story about how you kind of got to where you are now.
And so I want to break into that.
I want to hear about your story and have the audience kind of learn from it.
See what there is to take there, maybe be inspired by it, maybe use it on their own life path.
And I'm sure you would love that to share that story as well.
I would love to. Yeah.
I've definitely had an interesting life, a life that I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity to live.
And if there's any aspects of my story that others can learn or use and walk away,
like being able to live a more impactful, intentional, authentic life, like I would love that.
Yeah. So let's break into it then.
Tax Valley, what is it? Can you tell me a little bit about it?
Yeah. So tax valley is kind of a new concept.
We deal with like super boring tax stuff, you know.
So I don't want to like spend too much time on that because it's probably less interesting than watching paint dry.
But we are a fractional sales tax department for small and mid-sized businesses.
So sales tax is really complex in the United States.
Every single state is actually harder and more complex than dealing with different countries outside of the United States.
Like every state has its own rules, requirements.
And if you're a small mid-sized business staying on top of it, you really need some help.
And so rather than going and hiring a whole bunch of tax professionals, having your own internal department,
you hire Tax Valley and we are effectively a fractional sales tax department.
So you get all these specialists that are handling all aspects of the sales tax equation for you.
Okay. And can you share a little bit more about how this became the thing you were working on?
Because before then you've been working with Sovos, with Cleverpet.
Yeah.
And how did that kind of transition come about into getting into tax?
Yeah. I mean, it's a great question.
I think for many people in their careers, like they don't exactly know where they are going to end up.
Right. And so much of our lives, just in so much of my life in particular,
is just due to circumstance and chance and good luck and good fortune and bad luck and bad fortune.
I never in my wildest dreams sort of sat down and said, I really want a career in this really specific,
nuanced type of taxation. I had no idea.
I landed in the industry of regulatory compliance when I was an intern in college, actually.
And so looking back, it's really easy to connect the pieces and see how everything sort of flows together.
But it's really hard to design and engineer what your life's going to look like when you're in college,
10, 15, 20 years from now.
So I was an intern for this really cool startup here in Boulder, Colorado called Ship Compliant.
It was tax compliance software for the beverage alcohol industry.
So direct to consumer wine shipping, breweries, distilleries, they have really complex excise tax requirements.
So I was working in product marketing there.
We tapped out of that market. We had like 95% market share. It was crazy.
And we were like, what other product can we launch?
And we launched using all the same sort of like foundational technology, a sales tax platform for e-commerce businesses.
So that was Ship Compliant and then that was Taxify.
Both of these companies were acquired by Sobo's Compliance.
So when I started, we were like 20 employees.
And when we were acquired, we grew to like 50 or 60.
And then overnight, we went to 500.
And then by the time I left Sobo's Compliance, it was about 2000.
So going from like 20 to 2000, a lot of culture changes, a lot of shifts.
And then there was just a lot going on for me personally.
And so I was ready for the next big thing.
But Sobo's is how I got into the regulatory tax compliance space and where the idea for taxify really came from
and how I sort of got into it all.
It was just kind of like luck.
I got into this really cool program called Startup Summer Colorado.
I actually had my eye on working for a very specific company in Boulder called Rally Software.
I did like so much, like everything I possibly could to try to get an internship there.
I did not.
It got to the point where I was like harassing their HR team so much.
When I was in college, they were like, we have received your application.
We are not going to hire you as an intern.
It was like enough to where they were shutting me down.
I was like, fuck.
Okay, well, I guess that's not it.
But then I came across this really amazing company with this really amazing culture.
Everyone just seems so happy to work there.
And it was in the tax compliance space.
And I was like, I don't know anything about tax compliance, but these people look like they have some spirit and energy and enthusiasm going on.
And I want to be there.
And I didn't realize how much that was going to change my life.
We never know what little thing, what little introduction or life event.
All of these things weave together.
And what seems small like not getting an internship for a company's senior year college, all the ways that it can transform your life.
Yeah. No, I really like what you said there with kind of it's you when you're taking a look at it from now all the way back.
It's like easy to see the path. You're like, oh, yeah, I went here.
I got into tax compliance. This became tax valet.
And everyone's like, oh, you can just follow the path.
You know what he was doing. But in reality, it was you kind of just zigzagging going left and right, thinking you want to go this way, going a different way and then ending up where you are now.
And I think that's something I struggle with a lot personally is kind of trying to plan out too much what I want my life to look like and not kind of letting these these small changes go where they will go and allowing those to kind of lead my life as opposed to, oh, I want to be here in 10 years.
I'm just going to go towards that.
Totally. Yeah.
It's I mean, it's a hard thing, right?
Like, how do we have long term focus?
How do we think about what it is we really want out of our lives?
But for me, not getting so caught up in the minutiae, like, how does it have to look is different than how do I want it to feel?
What is the impact that I want to have? What's the legacy that I want to leave?
It doesn't matter to me.
Like if I'm working in sales tax or I'm working in income tax or I'm working in cleaning up dog poop, right?
Like fundamentally, the person that I am, the impact that I want to have, the legacy, it's really industry agnostic.
Right. And I think that that opportunity is available for all of us.
How do we relate to our work?
How do we find meaning in our work?
And how do we have it be more than just a paycheck, but an opportunity for us to make the world a better place, to be of service to other humans?
Right. And make some money along the way.
Because like we all deserve, like there's enough wealth, opulence, good things in the world for everyone to have a life of richness.
And when I say like a life of richness, I'm not even just talking about monetary richness.
I just mean like a life worth living.
Right. And we can do that through our work and through our relationships by investing in ourselves and learning new skills.
Like there's so much there.
And what kind of advice we have for someone who's maybe kind of working, they've gotten out of college and they don't really like their jobs.
They're kind of just going about it.
They're making some money.
They don't really enjoy it.
Because I personally have a lot of friends.
I recently graduated college.
That's kind of the reality, right?
It's like you get your first job.
It's not really something you really care about.
You want to have a better life, a life worth living, but you're not really sure how to get there.
And it kind of seems a little bit depressing to you.
Like, oh, this is the rest of my life now.
Yeah.
I mean, I personally would be very careful like giving anyone advice because like everyone's life journey is so unique.
Right. The path that they're on.
Maybe they're meant to be confused.
Maybe they're meant to struggle.
Maybe they're meant to work that job that they hate because that's actually going to get them to the realization and the insight that is uniquely powerful for them.
What I will say is that in my experience having conversations with people like this, oftentimes they don't know what they want.
They don't know what they want.
They don't know what they want out of their lives.
And because they haven't sort of like define that, they can't do anything to move towards it.
I mean, this is like pretty basic coaching stuff, right?
It's like, okay, what do you want?
What's the vision that you have for yourself?
Where are you today?
What's the gap and what's your personal relationship to that gap?
And then what sort of changes do I need to implement in myself or like behaviors do I need to implement in order to bridge that gap?
Right. But the first step is knowing where do I want to go?
What is the vision that I have for my own life?
And so many people are afraid to pick something because they believe like, oh, what if I pick something and it's the wrong thing?
But the thing is, like, I'm constantly changing what I want.
And I'm thinking like 10 years out, lifetime, 20 years.
And that can change as I learn more information.
I mean, when I was in college, it was my intention to work in very specifically in HR in like the circus field, like for Cirque du Soleil.
In circus.
Yeah. So I like I like specifically wanted to that was by the time I ended up in business school.
Yeah. Right. So I want to work for Cirque du Soleil.
I want to be in HR.
I later found out I wanted nothing to do with HR for all sorts of reasons.
But that was by the time I even got to the business school for that.
I was in industrial organizational psychology.
Before that, I was in astrophysics.
That's a huge change.
I changed my major so many times because it's like this constant process of like, who am I?
What do I like? What do I want?
Like, I don't know. And I think I have it figured out.
But it's probably going to change because we're all constantly changing and learning and growing and adapting.
So, like, I guess the advice that I would give to someone in that situation is don't feel like you have to be right.
Yeah.
And be OK with just like not knowing but like working towards a direction.
I really like the quote clarity through action. Right.
So, like, as you move forward, as you start doing things, the path is going to become more clear.
But you can't start getting that feedback from reality unless you start taking action.
You can't take action unless you have an idea where you want to go.
Yeah. And that might be completely wrong.
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
That's what was what was that experience like for you or maybe now what with what your tenure kind of life looks like.
And how do you think that's going to maybe change or how has it changed even recently?
How do I think about my tenure horizon?
Yeah. Yeah. Because you might have a vision right now of what you think you want.
Yeah. It's funny. Right. Like thinking about my tenure.
It's funny because I operate my life on different time horizons.
And so I operate under the assumption that I might or I might not be alive a decade from now.
Right. I might I will most likely be alive five years from now.
Yeah. But there's like an unknown probability that I'm going to be a lot 10 years from now.
But that doesn't get in the way of me laying down the foundation and saying like this is you know this is the life I want to have and the impact that I want to have for myself.
Like I want to start lots of businesses and help lots of people. I really love business.
I think it's super fun. You know I know what my next company is going to be.
It's going to probably be another year or two before I can go out and start that one.
I'm tying things up with tax valet.
But like thinking about my life as being limited and finite it can sound scary and dark.
But I actually think that there's so much more good that comes from it.
Right. Like if you knew that you only had so many years to live and you might be alive 10 years from now you might not.
What would you change today. Yeah. Right.
Like would you go on that trip to Vietnam again. Would you start that company.
Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean the realization that you're going to die is just an arbiter for change because I think a lot of us kind of live like that.
I think a lot of us kind of live life like we'll never die. Right.
Like I'll do that. That eventually I have more time. I'm only 20. I'm only 30. So I'm more and more time.
And then eventually you hit the wall and you are dead. Right. Absolutely. Yeah.
I think a lot of this perspective that you kind of have on this might come from your cancer diagnosis.
When you first got your cancer diagnosis that was a super impactful life changing event for you.
Yeah. And can you break down what was going on on in your head when that happened. What was that like.
Yeah. I mean it's intense. Right. So I actually I had a neck injury and I went to the emergency room and I got a CT scan my neck because they're worried about there being some damage to my neck and particularly some like arteries going to the brain.
That was fine. Thankfully I was in the emergency room for like three hours waiting for the results. Like where is it.
The radiologist like the one like like the doctor interpreting the scans comes in like the doc like the person interpreting the scans like never comes in.
And he's like hey your next fine but there's something on your brain and there's also something like going on on your on your thyroid on your neck. And I was like well what is it. He's like I am not qualified to say you know.
So I was like what does that mean. So you can imagine the next week I go and I meet with the neurosurgeon at and shoots here in Denver and he's looking at it and he's like yep you've got you know a brain tumor for sure.
And I was like well Mike what what do we like. What does that mean. Like how long do I have to live. Like what. What are the stats on this. Like what should I know. And he was just like can't really know.
I can't actually can't tell you. I can't tell you if this thing has been here your whole life. I can't tell you if it popped up two weeks ago. I can't tell you if it's like growing rapidly.
The only way to know for sure is to basically do a biopsy of it right. And then based on the biopsy well in doing a biopsy of something in your brain it's not exactly true.
You've got to like you know open the skull up and it's like a biopsy on your brain is a pretty major procedure.
And so there is a period of time there right where I knew that there is something in my brain I didn't know how fast it was growing. I didn't know how long it had been there.
And so the only thing I had was myself tormented myself right. And looking at the statistics online showing what the average survival rate is what the average time frame is for survival.
It's like two to three years on average. And this was like was that eight years ago nine years ago. So obviously I've lived past that.
But yeah there is a period there where I was convinced like I've got a year or two like maybe like I have no idea. And so that was like earth shatteringly crippling and almost too much to bear.
Right. I was in my early 20s. I was just feeling like I hadn't made it you know like.
I came from a pretty rough childhood. I had to work my ass off in college. I it seemed like I had all the cards sort of stacked against me.
Right. Yeah. And then I graduated. I made it. I've got this like really cool job like I definitely maybe a little arrogant but like feeling like I was hot stuff.
And then to have this just pop up it's like oh my god I thought that I had finally gotten through the hardest parts of my life. Yeah. And here we are. Right. So there's there's a lot of crime.
There's a lot of tears. There's just like there's a whole bunch of stuff. And things started to shift for me after I was introduced to this book called the Tibetan Book of Living Dying and my soul yell Rinpoche.
And before that I didn't really have much of an introduction to Buddhism. I didn't know much about it. And as I was reading it I was like oh my god. I started that book completely devastated. Yeah. I ended it thinking I can live a really amazing life no matter how much time I have left.
Like I'm going to make the most out of this. Right. And there are just so many tools so many just like amazing mind tools and just perspectives. And I was like where where does this stuff come from. It's like this is Buddhism.
And I just started getting into it more and more. And it's like oh my god these Buddhists have been thinking about how the mind works for like 2000 years. They're very intentional.
I don't even relate to Buddhism as a religion for myself personally. It's just a bunch of really good helpful stuff. And if it works for you great and if it doesn't then like leave it alone. You don't have to implement it. But that that's what it was like initially for sure.
Yeah. That's that seems really really hard. Your early 20s you're sitting there kind of have a really good life ahead of you. Right. Like you've kind of set up the deck to be good. You're like oh I've got so much potential. I've got all this future. And so maybe you were thinking of your 10 year vision.
You're like this is going to be real. And that thing just broke all of it all of the planning. Yeah. Everything that you thought you were going to do. Yeah. My life's all apart.
And how did you take that into your personal professional life to live that greater life that you're talking about. You read this book and you got some sort of maybe metamorphosis or like you some insight that helped you understand what you were going through. Yeah.
How did that go out into your life and how did that change it. Well I wish I could point to like one simple thing right or be able to like clearly articulate the mechanics of it. But a lot of it came from just contemplation of death.
And when we look at Tibetan Buddhism and a lot of Buddhism but particularly Tibetan Buddhism there's a lot of meditations on death and a lot of consideration of death and like knowing that my life is finite.
How would I change things. And I was grappling with that every single day not not knowing how long I had left to live and then saying like OK well what kind of life do I want to have. Right. I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur.
Oh like my entire like my entire life. I've always wanted to build and create and all of a sudden it doesn't sound so scary or so risky to go start a company when you think you have two or three years left to live.
Yeah. If you think you have two or three years left to live there's nothing really that's going to get in your way. So it just sort of helped tone down a lot of the fear or the anxiety that I had around like things working out a particular way.
What if I was successful. What if I wasn't. What would that mean. It's like I want to have this experience as a human being. And if I'm letting my fear anxieties whatever get in the way of that.
Is that something that I want for myself. Or do I want to go and live an amazing kick ass life. We were just talking about like why I'm moving to South Africa. It's like well really why not.
You know like if you if you didn't know how long you have left to live. What would you change about your life. And the reality is none of us actually know.
You could walk out and get hit by a bus you know like Putin could go do some crazy stuff and nuke the western half of the United States. Yeah we have no idea. But that message right of like your life's finite and what would you change if you knew you were going to die soon.
You don't have to get diagnosed with brain cancer. You don't have to get diagnosed with thyroid cancer and then skin cancer like multiple forms of cancer. You don't have to wait to see a family member go through that for you to embody it.
That is available to you right here right now. Just considering it. That's powerful dude. That's really powerful. I mean that's not. I like to think I contemplate death a decent amount but even then I probably don't think about it often enough.
To the point where I often find myself doing things that I don't want to do that maybe aren't meant for me and I'm like oh but I have all this time. I'll just do it for a year. I'll just do this for a little bit and then I'll do the thing I want to do.
And yeah bringing it back to that I think maybe it would be nice to have some sort of practice of contemplating death maybe weekly maybe monthly maybe something like that to kind of get that same effect from getting a cancer diagnosis because we all don't want to get a cancer diagnosis.
But it has a harsh way of making that real well harsh maybe I mean it just depends on how you relate to it could also be very sweet. You know do it as often as it's helpful for you and I can tell you that my overwhelming life objective is to die.
Well right and there's so much wrapped up into that because I believe that when I die I will be with my thoughts and it will be with me and my integrity and how do I ensure that my dying process is going to be a really fantastic one right.
And I'm not a particularly religious person. I don't believe in the concept of hell but I know that the end of my life that those final moments are going to be really special.
And so how do I live my life in a way now so that it's going to be the best possible dying experience. People don't think about that.
You know you go and you hurt people you have like a guy you harm a bunch of people in your life your dying experience is probably not going to be very positive right.
You help a whole bunch of people you feel like you've made significant contributions to society.
You don't have a ton of regrets. You're probably gonna have a great dying experience. You know I have these like I call them flash forwards, but they're not something I control.
It just happens I'll be driving and then I'll be like it's almost like a flashback but it's a flash forward and I'm at my funeral.
I'll be watching and hearing like what people are saying about me. What are they saying about the impact that I had on them.
The legacy the kind of person I was and it's always a reflection of like my life today and then I'll hear what they have to say and I'll say is what would I do differently.
Did I like that and then I'll use that as fuel to go out and do things differently.
That's a cool way to visualize it thinking about what are people going to say at your funeral.
Exactly. I've never thought about it that way. That'd be a good practice for my next journaling session.
Could be when you got that cancer diagnosis you went out and left the job you were working and then started a company.
Well I mean that makes it sound a little bit simpler. What was the process like?
Yeah what was the process like? Well so I had my first brain surgery.
They did the biopsy and then they looked at the pathology inside the operating room and they're like yep cancerous.
So they're like well wow we've got your brain open let's just like get some of this out.
So they got it out two weeks later so I'm recovering from that first brain surgery.
I'm like I should probably get this thing like on my neck checked out. Get a scan.
They biopsy that one a lot easier to biopsy that comes back as cancerous and they're like we got to we got to pull this out.
So I think it was like three weeks after my first brain surgery I'm having surgery on my neck to remove my thyroid.
I had just such an amazing wonderful experience with my company SHIP compliant at the time.
They just took really good care of me. They were bringing meals every single day.
During recovery like just super super supportive and this was just before the SOVOS acquisition.
So I took some time off went back to work and then I was that I was working at SOVOS and that's around the same time that I was starting to get sort of disillusioned with the corporate life seeing how the culture was changing.
And so I started moonlighting and I was moonlighting for this startup out in San Diego that was in the pet technology space called Clever Pet.
And I was running their marketing and then during the first surgery they didn't get all of the brain cancer out.
So we scheduled about a year later it was almost exactly a year later a second surgery to get the rest of it out.
So leading up to that second surgery I told my friend Leo who is the CEO of Clever Pet like hey look I'm going to be recovering from the second surgery.
I can work for you or I can work for my employer but you're not paying me money.
So let's talk about you getting some like real marketing support.
And so that way I can just like recover and focus on my day job because it's going to be hard for me to do both recovering from brain surgery.
I've had some experience with that. Well I was in the recovery room and he calls me and he's like what if we just hired you.
Like would you just work for us instead. And I was like I thought about it and I was like oh yeah I want to come work for you I want to work for this startup.
I like really love the team and the project they're working on.
So it was four weeks after my second brain surgery I packed all my stuff I moved to San Diego from Colorado to work with this small scrappy startup of seven employees running the marketing.
And it was through that experience that I realized I had what it took and I want to be careful in case anyone from that team's listening love all that team.
But they were mostly PhDs. There is no one there that went to business school and I'm showing up with like more business knowledge and experience than anyone else there and I was effectively running the operations for this entire company.
And so about a year later that startup crash and burned we sold out of all of our inventory.
We couldn't finance our next batch of units to be made. It was a it was a whole thing.
Sorry I think we've got the dog over there. It was a whole thing.
And I actually help wind the company down. Then I was out of a job.
We moved back to Colorado. And so I really got the confidence from that experience to say I know I know I have what it takes to run a company. Yeah, I didn't have that confidence before.
And I knew that there is this opportunity within the sales tax base because my job was to study the market. I was running product marketing and I knew that there was an opportunity.
So I told my partner at the time. Hey, I'm going to look for a job. But I'm also going to try to start this company. If I get a client before I get a job, we're just going to go with it.
And it was a combination of luck and mostly luck actually. But I ended up getting a client on day two day two. Yeah.
And it was just it was timing. It was the right idea at the right time. The right everything. And it took off. I was going to pause for a second.
Do you want me to put him downstairs? I just don't want him to. He's not making noise.
But you got your first client day two first client day two and it was from you know relationships that I had previously and it was just I want to say luck.
But luck is like luck is a funny word. I think luck like good luck and bad luck is just a way of us talking about the extremely complex web interdependent web of cause and effect.
And sometimes that interdependent web works out in our favor and sometimes it doesn't. And we can't specifically pinpoint why.
So we call that good luck or bad luck. You can also call it karma. Right. Like we just it happened. Yeah. Yeah. Happen.
And I guess you wouldn't have been open to that luck if you weren't willing to take that risk and start your own company. Right.
Oh yeah. Had the preparation you knew about the market and you were also willing to be open to the opportunity. Yeah.
And having my newfound perspective on life from the cancer diagnosis and all of the ayahuasca that I was doing I mean it was around this time I was drinking ayahuasca three times three or four times a month for over a year.
There's a lot of ayahuasca. There's a lot of introspective work. And it was when I was leaving San Diego that I asked the question during an ayahuasca ceremony what's next for me. And it was like completely clear.
You need to go start a company. And I remember it was this golden armor you know with these lions that were on the pauldrons that came in and it wrapped me in this golden armor of light. And the message I got was this is the armor that you need to go and start your own company and to feel protected.
Go do it. Damn. That's super cool. How did the ayahuasca kind of play in with the rest of it. Like what impact did the ayahuasca have on you. I've never personally done any. Yeah. I've been a little bit curious.
I've had another guy on the podcast who also talked about the impact that ayahuasca had on his life and his ego death that he went through. Yeah. I'm curious to hear about that.
Yeah. I mean gosh I feel like we could talk for a very long time. At this point I've drink an ayahuasca. I've lost count probably 150 times. So it's a pretty core foundational aspect of my way of being.
I consider it a sacrament. I consider it a spiritual tool for introspection and growth. And everyone's ayahuasca experience is going to be very personal and unique to them. And I was provided a lot of opportunities to see who I was who I am and given the opportunity to change.
I'm a very different person. I'm always I mean we're all changing moment to moment but I'm very different than I was a decade ago. A little bit softer a lot lighter. And so what did ayahuasca do for me shook me up. Yeah.
What was that like. Like what is that shaking up feel like.
It depends on the night. But trying to hold it all together having your complete ego and identity ripped away from you.
And I remember confronting you know aspects of myself that I hated like I remember something that a mentor friend of mine said you know you don't have to like all aspects of yourself but you do have to learn how to love them and loving all parts of yourself is different than liking them.
I'm learning how to be friendly with myself less aggressive. You know self-aggression is the root of a lot of terrible things on planet Earth.
Where wars come from.
What were some of those things that you kind of didn't like about yourself when you were younger.
Well I mean I was very I was very short I would say aggressive. Well aggression is you can act with aggression in a very clear helpful way.
Aggression is like an energy. But how do you how do you act with anger not in a confused state. Right.
So aggression was coming from protecting rather than trying to help. How do you how do you move with anger to help others rather than moving to anger to protect yourself. Right.
So I was I was a much more angry person. I had a lot of grudges a lot of pent up resentment against my parents. You know my super psychologically abusive stepfather my codependent and enabling mother.
Right. And it took a lot of work to even get to the place of being able to see how screwed up my entire situation was.
And therapy was so instrumental in all of this as well. But then being able to get to the place of being able to forgive them forgive aspects of like how I showed up as a kid.
But then also knowing that like I was just a kid and not not a whole lot was actually expected of me at that time.
The rabbit hole just goes so deep. You know like we're all born perfect and then life and our parents and society and culture and climate change it all screws us up.
Right. Yeah. Like we're born perfect and then we spend the rest of our lives trying to figure ourselves out to figure out who we are and how we relate to everything else on planet Earth. Yeah.
And did you start taking ayahuasca after cancer diagnosis or before after. OK. And that in the ayahuasca was really pivotal for me to be able to come to terms with my death.
Right. And I'm not going to sit here and pretend and say like I don't fear death. I you know like bring it like it's like I just don't believe that.
Like all of the emotions that are wrapped up in life and death like they're all there and sometimes they're hard and sometimes they're easier than other days and sometimes they're great.
And it's all OK. Like I don't have an expectation on myself that I'm going to I'm going to relate to my death my cancer my whatever any particular way.
I have a brain scan every year. I get terrified. I probably will have a nicotine relapse next year just like I did this year and I'm going to feel bad about it.
But you know what every year for the past decade it's gotten a little bit better you know and so it's it's OK to not be OK.
It's OK to be in a state of needing help not feeling like you have everything put together. If I added the stress the pressure on myself that oh yeah I need to have all this going on you know all this emotional stress the pain of again not knowing how long I have left to live.
It's a lot to hold but if I also put on top of that and I've got to be totally stoic and just like totally cool with whatever happens.
Exactly. Yeah I'd be setting myself up for failure. Yeah it's a it's a hard thing to do. It's unreasonable. Yeah.
Why like would I talk would I have that expectation of her a good friend of mine.
The answer is no. And if I would treat my friend better than I would treat myself like why is that thinking about the way we talk to ourselves where it's very difficult to actually see the way like you see the thoughts in your head and you're like telling yourself like oh I'm stupid.
Oh I'm not being emotionally stoic enough. And if you were actually to say those out loud and anybody heard those like you know like what's going on there like are you are you OK. You're not treating yourself very well right.
If you said that to anyone else everyone would be like taking a back right. Yeah I really like what Jordan Peterson has to say about this and just like FYI I think Jordan Peterson says a lot of crazy stuff to us but he does say some things occasionally
around like he's got a point. He said most people treat themselves worse than they would treat their dog. Yeah. Don't you think you deserve to like live a life at least as good as your dog.
Like if your dog had a medical problem wouldn't you like be at the vet like first thing the next day. But most people don't even take care of their physical bodies. Yeah.
And like you'd be treating the dog well you'd be giving it food good food you'd be doing all these things. Exactly. And what are you doing for yourself. Exactly. And that's just so much of my focus day to day is my own physical health care.
I mean I have a spreadsheet with all of my providers I've got I think somewhere between 20 and 30 you know my full time assistant she's easily spending between five and 10 hours a week just on medical related stuff for me.
You know because I have to. Yeah I have several chronic conditions now side effects of the cancer surgery is just one of my chronic conditions about 70 percent are fully disabled.
I have my own database where I keep track of all my blood work. I have over 1800 blood test results from the past decade that are in there like that shows you how often I have to get blood work for all my crazy stuff you know if I can deal with these chronic conditions
that doesn't mean that it's easy but if I can deal with that and I can live an active life one where I'm working out I'm able to have energy you know at work then that's available to everyone else who isn't dealing with that stuff you know.
Yeah but I like to think it's not in spite of the adversity all the BS that I've had to deal with that I'm living this life that I personally think is pretty incredible like I love the life that I have but I don't think it's in spite of it I think it's because of it.
Yeah and I don't wish that on to anyone I don't wish that anyone else would have to suffer in the way that I suffered but I also recognize that if it weren't for all of those things I wouldn't have learned the lessons that I needed to learn in this lifetime and I wouldn't be where I am today.
So you have to be grateful for all of the bad that's happened to you.
Yeah I mean it's complex right like something like I think in general like high level like yeah recognize that Lotus is grow Lotus flowers grow out of mud and that doesn't mean that I love smearing mud all over my body but it's a recognition of respect for the fact that.
Lotus flowers grow out of mud and brain cancer was my mud and I got some pretty cool flowers that grew out of it and maybe you would never choose the mud but it was the only way through exactly no I wouldn't I wouldn't well.
I would never be presented that choice so it's hard to it's hard to think about it.
The crosses that we bear right correct you know I was raised Catholic sorry for the reference.
That's okay yeah I'm not Catholic anymore for various reasons but there's a lot of that they have that philosophy around suffering that's very very helpful for a lot of people when when it comes to these things totally and just like the idea of like taking up your cross and accepting it.
Yes something that's very very helpful yeah yeah the more most of most suffering comes from resisting suffering yeah we should make it worse yeah it's like this already sucks let me be mad at it yeah stressed about it and just make all these emotions come out even more in my head.
Exactly make it 10 times worse how did the this perspective that you gain so this is a whole journey that you went through one cancer diagnosis two cancer diagnosis three cancer diagnosis yeah and this entire time you're also taking ayahuasca you're learning about yourself you're forgiving people how did this impact your personal life and your personal relationships because we've talked about how this helped you in your career.
Yeah it's funny I feel like I get so many questions about like personal versus professional.
Yeah so I I feel like I get asked a lot about like personal relationships or personal whatever and professional whatever and it's so hard for me to separate these two things out the separate out the personal and the professional yeah they're all relationships they're all people and
I love therapy my partner is a psychotherapist you know we I have my own therapist we got a couple's therapy we do a lot of that and there is an interesting question that our therapist posted me he said do you treat do you think that there's some way that you treat some of your personal relationships like how you treat some of your professional relationships and I was like really struck by that and I was thinking about it like a lot I said well you know if anything I treat most of my business relationships like my personal relationships but they're all.
They're all people to me they're all human and so like what is excellence look like in terms of connecting with people interpersonal relationships.
It's all like it's all the same I feel like I didn't answer your question though at all that's fine we can continue along this path yeah I wasn't trying to like dodge it sorry no it's okay yeah.
So you don't think that there's a separation between personal professional relationships humans yeah yeah we're all people so maybe what the quick better question I was trying to get at was how did this impact maybe your friendships your family relationships some of those things that you had to dig back into the cancer.
Yeah, to you and you had to dig back into these relationships to kind of solve things about yourself figured things out about yourself well one of the things that I learned pretty quickly was that everyone around me was going to have their own experience in.
One confronting my mortality and to confronting their own mortality because that was something that I actually had to get pretty skilled at talking about with others knowing what impact it would have on them.
It's a hard thing to find out that like your friend or your son or whoever like has this going on and then you think about all the things that are going on for you like oh my god like what if this happened to me and so I quickly started to realize that just sharing and talking about.
This with people is almost like a little bomb going off in their lives and I didn't really like that I didn't I didn't like being the cause of that it didn't feel it didn't feel good to me.
And so at this point I don't really like hide my cancer diagnosis and I'm happy to talk about it to people who want to listen but but I was really struck by what an effect and what an impact it had on others and everyone's relationship to it is deeply personal right like.
Just try to imagine that your best friend is that like just diagnosed with cancer it's going to be a totally different experience for every single relationship you know I had to go to therapy with my mom for a long time for both of our sakes.
Because of this diagnosis I'm glad that we did for sure my romantic relationship that was its own whole journey and exploration.
But I mean life throws stuff at us and we can't control that so how can we just deal with whatever comes up whatever is in our way with as much grace as possible.
And hopefully not a lot of resistance so again I feel like I don't have like a real specific answer.
Because otherwise I feel like I could talk like an hour about each relationship and what that was like yeah I mean yeah it seems like you're very much people centric you really like connecting with people and look at the individuality of everyone and that probably also bleeds into your company as well.
Totally which you talk a lot about how your company is emotion centric totally really attacks company totally and what do you really mean by that and how does this philosophy bleed in into there.
Yeah I mean well I take this perspective that like fundamentally all business and especially in the age of AI all of this is just going to keep accelerating accelerating but like fundamentally business is about emotional transformation.
You know you go and you buy something or you engage in a service or you want consume some sort of media because we're trying to work with energy states right.
I'm happy I want to feel happier I'm tired I want to feel energetic I'm sad I want to feel glad you know and so like business is fundamentally about transforming emotions and so my company tax la our core purpose like what's behind it all I say is to transform negative emotions into something positive.
For clients partners and employees right and for the business to be a vehicle for all of this good stuff to be able to come about in life and when we think about that lotus flower growing out of mud.
That's pretty fundamentally what the lotus flower is doing it's transforming the fish poop and the debris and the old leaves it's turning it into something beautiful for the world to enjoy that is alchemy that spiritual transformation right.
How do we have business be the source of transformation for everyone who comes in the contact with all the clients and partners all the employees so that by coming in the contact with the business services whatever they're walking away better right so like how does that show up.
How does how does that show up in the business like oh my gosh I feel like I could talk a great deal like how do we recruit how do we hire an onboard and train how do we run our weekly meetings how do we provide feedback to employees how do we work with difficulty clients when we know a client is about to.
Oh like 100 K and past due tax they didn't collect how do we structure that conversation recognizing that like we are in the business of emotions and that this is going to land in a hard way like and on and on and on but then also thinking about some of these like softer things like.
Tax file I'm very proud to say is now a certified B corporation certified by the B lab and so this is basically a third party body that comes in and they look at so many different aspects of the business and by becoming a certified B corporation you are verifiably by doing business by growing and being profitable you're verifiably having a positive impact on the world on the planet on the local communities on the employees on on all of these various stakeholders.
And so I'm really proud that the tax lays a certified B Corp but we also allocate a certain percentage of our time for nonprofits so like we give away free services to nonprofits we allocate a percentage of our profits to go to nonprofits also every employee gets several days off per year to go and volunteer at nonprofits right.
So like it's just like these little things that we can do that are that's accessible to everyone in business that's not just focused on the bottom line right.
Tax file A could be way more profitable way more profitable than it is today if I decided I wanted to squeeze the employees dry maximize efficiency maximize profitability and I want to make money but that I want to make money so that the company can continue to survive and grow because money is kind of like oxygen.
You don't have it you're going to die in the world of business you can't invest in growth can't survive unless you're profitable.
Yeah there's only so much money that anyone really needs to have.
Yeah like you can't do anything without it but you don't have a billion dollars.
Yeah like okay you need like you know half a gallon of water per day to survive you have 20 million gallons like you're not going to survive any better.
Yeah maybe you can buy a yacht.
Yeah yeah exactly you can do that.
That's that's about the only difference.
Yeah yeah that's cool.
Do you think there's many other companies that do that.
I've never really heard of a company that takes away from their own profit.
Yeah yeah I know this is a whole bunch yeah so this is called the give 1% movement.
Salesforce is the one who started it.
Okay.
Whole bunch of companies that have taken the give 1% pledge.
The B lab has certified I want to say it's like three or four thousand B corporations in the world.
I've got great great companies by my side like Patagonia like seventh generation.
I think Ben & Jerry's was a B Corp at 1.2.
So there's a ton of really big companies and a ton of really small companies that are B Corp's.
Yeah that's super cool.
Yeah a lot of people really don't like to talk about money or business because it sounds like evil
and you're going to squeeze everyone out of just the most amount of work and then you profit right.
And yeah I like your perspective on kind of no there's another way to do this that's maybe less profit.
But we all still make money.
You're doing well for yourself.
You're living a good life making money making profit but you're not really putting people down while doing it.
And that's the hardest thing for me you know in modern society there's a lot of people like say on the left for example.
And I consider myself being on the left.
It's really really easy to have this fixed view this fixed state of mind that corporations bad business bad you know.
Capitalism bad.
Capitalism bad if you're employing people you are fundamentally exploiting labor.
And it really hurts when I come across people who just sort of like take that view and they have this fixed view on reality
and on business owners and entrepreneurs because that's not how I relate to it because I see those CEOs.
I see like the inequality gap gaps that we have in our society and how much the CEO is being paid relative to like the the lowest skilled labor.
And it's like a five bajillion times difference like and I get angry and I get upset about that too.
But there is a growing movement of entrepreneurs and of business owners who are out there who are leading with heart in the best way that they can.
I don't pretend that I have it all figured out or that I'm like the most gracious or I have like the biggest heart or I have you know or I'm the most awakened enlightened entrepreneur.
I'm on my journey just like everyone else is but I'm in pursuit of it.
I have my eye on something that I think a lot of people don't but many people do and it is a growing movement and it's available to all entrepreneurs.
Anyone who is interested in going and having an impact I hope that the generations that come after me have a bigger impact that I am able to.
Yeah I mean even with probably 95% of businesses are very small businesses and they're led by like mom pop or maybe someone who just started a business it got a little bit bigger got 200, 300, 400 employees.
And most of these businesses are quite like fine to work at like people like them people enjoy them they get taken care of they're not being exploited like the only time we're really seeing that is like these small 5% of like mega corporations.
And then everyone wants to focus on those ones and not talk about all these amazing business owners that are doing great things.
I mean we talked a few weeks or four weeks ago with Sarah Marguliesi with Native Earth Landscaping who started out doing just horticulture.
She was really interested in it just because her family had a long history of it and so she quits her job and starts doing landscaping.
Yeah.
It's like her thing her side hustle so she can do music full time and then she does well there.
She starts getting employees company starts growing the entire time. She's like oh I just want this to be a fun place to work at want this people to enjoy just coming into work doing some labor making like these gardens beautiful.
And eventually now it's like a large amount of people I want to say like 200 plus people work at that company and they all like love it.
She's like everything we do is for the employees like yeah we'll get rid of clients because we want the employees to feel safe.
We've done the same thing.
Yeah.
So it's possible.
The client is not always right.
Yeah.
The clients can be really wrong.
But yeah I mean business can be done well.
A lot of business owners I mean most business owners I've met are like great people and they want to do something cool change the world a little bit in their own bubble and then just make some money while they're at it.
Yeah.
Entrepreneurs get a bad rap politicians get a bad rap you know.
What do you mean by politicians get a bad rap?
I've never heard this one before.
Are you kidding like so many people think that like all politicians are bad you know that they're all just liars they're all just cheats and they're all just trying to take advantage of people.
I mean my next foray I know what my next company is going to be.
And once I get that going my next foray is going to be in the world of politics.
You know at that point I will have had two companies established generating income.
I won't need to go out and raise money as a politician.
I could self finance and I could won't say I'd be independent but I'd be independently financed and going out there and just engaging in politics in a way that I felt like was really to benefit everyone and not needing to rely on corporate donations.
What a really cool amazing life that would be.
Yeah.
That's what I've got my eye on.
Okay.
That's really cool.
Yeah.
I mean I've thought about politics a little bit but I'd have to be a lot older have done a lot more things.
I think one of the hard things is like building credibility as a politician.
Yeah.
Right.
I think building two companies that have done a lot of great things would really help with that and maybe bring people towards your cause a bit more.
I don't know.
Don't sell yourself short.
We've got Lauren Boebert and some crazy folks.
Who's that?
Who's Lauren Boebert?
I have no idea.
I don't follow politics very much.
Oh you don't.
She is a representative for used to be the district that Durengo's in but she just moved.
But yeah we've got some scary politicians who don't have a great track record and are they're the chaos candidates.
And they're very effective at being chaos candidates.
And I would say that maybe you haven't done something that you feel like is worthy.
but it's more about your intentions and your heart
and the impact that you wanna have
and why wait till you're older.
You wanna run for office,
you wanna get involved in politics,
start at the city level.
Doesn't have to go be federal right away.
Do you know how many offices go uncontested
at the state level?
You just go and submit the paperwork
like you could be in office pretty easily.
People don't think about that.
I've never thought,
I didn't know that they were uncontested.
Interesting.
I will look into that further.
Yeah.
So how has this attitude of kind of living
by helping people, taking risks, accepting your death,
how has this not bled into your life?
I think I'm more curious about
how you kind of forget maybe sometimes, right?
Sometimes you are afraid.
So maybe sometimes you are still
uncomfortable with something
and you don't remember the lesson
that you've learned over and over again maybe.
That's a good question.
Well, it's like,
how do I relate to the glasses that I see the world through?
Right?
I forget it's there until there's some real intense emotion
that comes up.
And it's like the intense emotion that comes up
is a reminder that I have glasses.
I have these glasses that I can put on
that will give me a different perspective on things.
So I feel all the same emotions as everyone else.
Sometimes like huge, very hard to hold amounts of fear,
anger, confusion, sadness, I mean like whatever.
But feeling those emotions is what triggers and prompts me
to reconsider and say like,
is this as big a deal as I thought?
Like all of these lessons that I've had throughout life,
it's really just given me an angle to know like what
for myself, what really matters and what's important.
So when I get sucked into something,
having that sort of like ultimate measure
to hold it up against and say like,
is this really as big a deal as I think it is?
And usually it's not.
Yeah.
I like that idea that having glasses that you
have available to you.
Well, we all see the world in a very particular way.
And most of us are not even aware of the fact
that we're wearing glasses and we see the world
in a particular way and that these glasses
were glued to our face by our parents
and they were glued to their face by their parents
and then society and culture, country, everything,
like influences it.
And once when we can start realizing like,
oh, I am seeing the world in a very particular way
and that's very different from how you see the world.
That's what creates the foundation for connection,
human connection.
Both have different glasses.
Everyone does.
It's how aware of it are we.
And how aware are you of the shape of the glasses?
Well, how are they morphing the world view, right?
Yeah.
What are the deep meanings, values, context, beliefs
that sort of like underpin how you see the world?
What is important to you?
Why?
Where'd it come from?
It's a lot wrapped up in that.
Yeah.
I mean, these glasses are the stories
that we tell ourselves every day about the person we are,
why we do the things we do, the way we label ourselves,
all of these different things.
Recently, not become a big fan of labels,
like anything where it's like, I am this type of person,
like, oh, I'm an angry person or I'm a whatever.
I'm just like labeling yourself with a descriptor
kind of feels like it puts you in a box
where you can't change.
I think it's hard to deal with self labeling.
It's also hard to deal with others labeling.
As well.
You know, like, ah, you're such a whatever.
And I have the same strategy for dealing with that.
When someone is labeling me, putting me in a box,
or I'm doing it to myself, which I also do,
I try to remember to respond with, that's partly true.
There's nothing in life that is part,
that is 100% black or white, 100% yes or no,
all a bunch of gray.
And if there's something that I'm really resisting
about someone labeling me a particular way,
that means that there's something inside of me
that I haven't come to terms with.
So, you know, if someone were to say like,
you're an arrogant asshole, I'd say it's partly true.
There are times for sure.
I think that's a nice reframe is, yeah, sometimes.
Like I'm, because that takes away the globalness of it,
right? Yeah.
It's like, you're an arrogant asshole.
No, no, no.
Sometimes I act-
It's partly true.
Yeah, sometimes I act arrogantly
and I act like an asshole.
Yeah, it's partly true.
Yeah.
I'm just not always, right?
Yeah.
Don't want it to be.
Hopefully not.
I mean, I can say you're not an arrogant asshole.
I've been able to talk to you for a good amount of time
without feeling like you're an arrogant asshole.
Oh, good.
I love to hear that.
Yeah, you're very kind.
Thank you.
I really appreciate your energy.
Oh, yeah.
What is it about the energy?
I think it's very, I think it's soothing.
It's like you have a very soothing energy that's calm
and it feels present, like it's there with you.
Yeah.
Thanks for sharing that reflection.
I love that I have that effect on you.
Yeah.
It's great.
Yeah, it's a great feeling.
But I was wondering if you could share some examples
of times where you kind of still run into the fear
of taking a risk, of going out of your comfort zone,
of maybe not forgiving people,
all of these things that you've learned.
Is there examples of when you run into these things again?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I still run into fear just like everyone else,
but I feel like the reasons why they bubble up
are different now.
Like the reasons why I maybe get fearful,
it's just different than what it would have been
like a decade ago.
So like now this stuff, I mean, fear's a,
fear's an interesting word for it,
but when I think about the success
or the failure of the business and competitive entrance
and strategy and what happens if we end up in a lawsuit,
I'm mostly concerned about the families and the employees
and all the clients.
What impact is this going to have on them?
Realizing that we've got like 60 employees now
and like 20 of them have had kids in the past three years.
There's families that are dependent and reliant
on our ability to do business.
And not just that, but there's all like all these careers
and hopes and dreams and wishes.
And I don't wanna let those people down.
And so something that could get in the way of that
is something that I find stressful because I don't,
if there's a way for me to prevent harm, damage, suffering,
I see it as an obligation that I have
while I am in this body.
Yeah.
Right, and so that's different than a lot of the fears
that I had before the cancer diagnosis.
So there's this emphasis on others and I count too.
Yeah.
I still count, I'm still here.
I count just as much as everyone else.
Maybe it's a little bit less self-focused.
Yeah, well, I think that,
especially with a lot of the work I've done with Buddhism
and Ayahuasca, like coming into contact
with the fundamental nature of reality,
which is that there's really no separation between you and I.
The relative truth is that there's,
we're sitting here, you're in your body, I'm in mine.
You zoom into the atoms far enough.
You can't actually separate
between what is like a wiggling vibration of energy
and then what's the space around it.
And so if you really think about it,
like there's no actual separation,
we just have this skin here.
And if that's true, like how does that change
how I relate to other people?
You know?
Like if they're also me, I am also them.
Yeah, and don't get me wrong,
like relative truth is also very much a thing.
I am Alex, right?
You're not Alex.
Yeah.
And so like, how do we hold that complexity?
Yeah, hold two contradictory ideas
or seemingly contradictory ideas at the same time.
Like thinking about Donald Trump,
like so many people have very strong emotional reactions
about Donald Trump.
And it's like, well, you know,
the same stuff that made Donald Trump,
the same stuff that he's made up of
is the same stuff that you're made up of.
And the same, and that's the same stuff
that Jesus Christ and Gandhi and MLK and Hitler
were all made up of.
We all have this like incredible power
to do good and to do harm.
And it's all coming from the same stuff.
And there's really no separation between any of us.
It's all just in our minds.
And that's real.
But the fundamental nature of reality
is that there is no separation.
Yeah.
And when you have a super strong reaction
to someone like Donald Trump,
or maybe someone that you really don't like,
it might also be telling you something about yourself.
If they're made of the same stuff,
then they act this way.
Why is that affecting you so much?
Exactly.
Like, what is it about Donald Trump
that I have difficulty loving within myself?
Can I look at the people who have done tons of harm
in the world, a pedophile,
and can I actually view this person
from a position of compassion and love and care, right?
Like, that is the work of being a human being.
And I'm not gonna say that I am perfect at it
by any stretch of the imagination,
but like, this is my work.
Yeah.
Sometimes as I struggle with holding that idea,
as well as, let's say, we think that like,
some things are wrong and some things are good.
And then being able to say, okay, yeah,
we should probably not support this behavior,
but also at the same time, we should love them.
Yeah.
And I think that's really, really difficult
because I've studied philosophy in college
and in high school.
And so I was really big into like morality,
what is good, what is bad?
How do we create an ethical code and metaethics?
And then got super deep into that.
So part of me is super into like, okay,
we want to be analytical about behaviors
and the way we act and the way we do,
the way others do.
But then also there's all this emotional side
where it's, we wanna be loving to these other people.
What is my reaction that I'm saying about me?
And then how do I hold these two ideas at once?
They're all beautiful questions.
Yeah.
And we don't know, right?
It's just a very hard thing to wrestle with.
Well, everyone has their own answers.
The Catholics have their answers,
the Buddhists have their answers.
Yeah.
What would you recommend to someone
who's maybe wanting to learn more about
the things that you're talking about,
about these emotions, the Buddhism you were talking about,
these ideas about death?
Like, where would you start?
I'd start by staying curious.
I wanna be careful not to overly influence
someone's life path.
Trust yourself.
If there's something that you wanna learn,
something you want, trust that you keep your eye
on what it is you're looking for.
The wonderful human condition will help you get there.
Just trust yourself along the path,
whatever path you're on.
And as you come up against roadblocks and obstacles,
the fact that you are relating to something as an obstacle
is an indication that you are on the right path
because it wouldn't be an obstacle if you were wandering.
There'd only be an obstacle
if you're trying to get somewhere, right?
So these obstacles are opportunities for growth
and to keep going.
You said you were getting a little bit into mentorship
and stuff like that, helping out entrepreneurs.
How do you, what's your philosophy around giving advice
to these people, mentoring them?
How do you go about it?
Well, I feel like a lot of my mentees
get really annoyed with me
because they really just wanna know what I would do.
They wanna know the answer.
They just wanna know the answer.
And so sometimes I'll give it to them.
But my focus and emphasis is on exploring
how they relate to things,
them coming up with their own answers
and them trusting the inherent wisdom
that's already within them.
That is what we're trying to cultivate within ourselves,
right, is this wisdom and this great relationship
with our own internal sense of knowing.
How do I build up my own intuition, right?
How can I do this on my own?
And just like with my employees, right, I tell them,
I'm gonna make sure you don't run the car off the cliff,
okay, but whether that is a smooth ride or a crazy ride,
it's up to you because you're in the driver's seat
and you need to learn how to drive, right?
And I'm still figuring out all my own stuff
and I'm not gonna pretend that I've figured out
or answered anything that's gonna be relevant
to someone else.
Everyone's life path is totally unique.
I've learned some things along the way.
Yeah, that's a perspective on advice I heard,
I think at some point within the past month was
everyone will try to give you
their own winning lottery sequence.
You can never use the same winning lottery sequence twice.
Totally.
I think you're trying to build the entrepreneur,
trying to have them learn how to make those hard decisions,
which way are you gonna go?
I'm not gonna tell you I would do this,
then you're just the entrepreneur
that's making the decisions.
Totally.
That was how one of my mentors
when I was running my own company would help me
and my co-founder was, he would tell us,
this is all the stuff you just told me,
these are all the options, simplified,
now what do you think?
Exactly.
And he would never give us answers.
So frustrating.
It was so frustrating.
Damn it.
But it was really good at learning to trust your intuition,
what your experience is, like what do you know?
And how will that lead you to where you wanna go?
The whole podcast is centered around
living more courageously, taking more risks.
So at the end of the episode,
we have a tradition where we ask the guests
to give themselves a carrot,
which a carrot is a small one to two week challenge,
which challenges them to live
a little bit more courageously,
take a risk maybe they've been avoiding,
or it could be as simple as focusing on being more aware
of how mean they are to themselves,
but something that would make their life a little bit better.
And that's the carrot.
And then the stick comes in
and it's something that you don't wanna happen
if you don't do the challenge that you give yourself.
And then you do, you might say,
oh, I need to do a really hard workout.
You go for a 10 mile run,
something that you don't wanna do.
And so the question to you is,
what would you set as your carrot
for the next one week, two weeks?
That is a way you can live a little bit more courageously
and make your life a little bit better.
Oh, live my life more courageously,
make my life better.
Hmm, now let's sink into this one for a second.
There's members of my team
that have been struggling with burnout.
And as the owner of the business,
it's actually a really hard thing for me to see
and a really hard thing for me to realize
that the environment that they're in
is creating the causes and conditions
for them to not be living
in a way that I feel like is conducive with my core purpose.
Yeah. Right.
And so what I wanna do over the next few weeks
is spend more time with these employees
who are feeling burned out.
It's not a ton of them, but a few of them.
And has really come into a good relationship
and understanding with what it is that's going on for them.
Even though I have my own ego wrapped up in it
because I feel bad.
Yeah.
And what's the stick if I don't do that?
I'm just gonna continue holding onto the pain and guilt
of knowing that I'm not doing anything about it.
It's already something I'm holding.
Yeah. You have the built-in stick.
Yeah.
You're already getting sticked.
I'm already getting sticked.
Yep, exactly.
That's a great challenge.
What is that gonna look like?
What is it gonna look like?
Well, I already scheduled meetings with one.
I'm gonna be scheduling meetings with the rest of that team
and just trying to figure out
what is it that's going on for them?
How are they relating to it?
And really trying to figure out
not only the technicalities of,
okay, what could we change
that we haven't already been trying?
But also seeing if I can help them relate
to their situation a little bit differently than they have.
Because a lot of this is just perspective.
How we relate to our suffering.
And so, is there something there
and exploring that with them?
That's awesome.
Yeah. Love that.
So, what's next for you?
Is there anything big you're working on that you want
people to know about, be on the lookout for?
Well, my job right now is,
it's funny, being an entrepreneur is all about
doing as little work as possible.
To be as lazy as possible.
Well, I wouldn't say to be lazy,
but you come in, you start this company
and you're doing everything.
And then your whole job for the rest of forever
until you get out of the business
is trying to get other people to do things
so that you can do less.
And then you start doing less
and then you start seeing all these other opportunities.
So then you start doing that stuff
and then you have to get it off your plate.
So it's this constant cycle
of getting stuff off your plate.
My journey right now is getting the last apartment
off my plate for TaxFallet, which is the marketing team.
And that's what you manage right now.
That's what I manage right now.
And so, getting that off my plate entirely
is the job that I have for the next one to three years.
And then I'm gonna go start my next company,
which is in a totally different space.
And that's its own whole conversation.
That'll be exciting for everyone to see.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
It's gonna be a lot of fun.
You'll be located in South Africa as well.
It will, well, we'll be remote.
Just like my current company.
Okay.
But you're gonna be making a big move, I meant.
I am, yeah, I'm moving to South Africa.
Exciting.
Yeah, it's gonna be fun.
All right, well, where can people find you
if you want them to find you?
You can find me on LinkedIn.
I, that's really the social network
that I am the most involved in.
My website is taxfallet.com, T-A-X-V-A-L-E-T.
And then my email address is alexattaxfallet.com.
So, awesome.
Thank you for coming on.
Yeah.
For the conversation.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
You asked like really interesting questions.
Questions that I don't feel like other people ask too often.
And it was a lot of fun exploring it, yeah.
Oh, thanks.
And I'm wishing for you and I'm wishing to the listener
that there is something here that they're walking away with
that they can use to have a better life, you know?
And if not, that's okay, but I hope so.
And I'll see you next time.