---

What happens when life forces you to stop completely?

In this episode, we sit down with Krista Clive-Smith: entrepreneur, author, and personal branding expert, to explore how a sudden and severe health crisis transformed her life and work.

After being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and multiple autoimmune conditions, Krista went from peak performance to being completely immobilized for months. In that time, she faced intense physical pain, mental challenges, and a moment where she nearly gave up.

But through that experience, something shifted.

By reframing her mindset and surrendering control, Krista began to see her situation not as something happening to her, but for her, and ultimately through her. What followed was a renewed sense of purpose and a drive to build solutions rooted in her own experience, including new technology to help others facing similar challenges.

This is a conversation about resilience, perspective, and what becomes possible when you stop resisting, and start listening.

Topics We Explore:

• Living through extreme illness and loss of control
• The mental shift from “why me” to “what for”
• Surrendering and allowing life to work through you
• Turning adversity into purpose and creation
• Building tools from lived experience (Crohn’s app)
• Finding clarity when everything is stripped away

Connect with Krista Clive-Smith: https://www.kristaclivesmith.com/ 

Learn More about The Viking Academy: https://www.vikingacademy.com

---

---

Episode Transcript: 

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Viking Academy podcast. This episode I have Krista Clive-Smith again back on. Um

This time I've had Krista on multiple times uh talking about uh personal branding and her businesses. Um this one

Is a different podcast. Krista's gone through some major major health issues.

Um severe severe Crohn's disease and two other uh uh immune deficiencies that uh she'll talk about in the podcast.

There's three of them. Debilitating to the point of where she couldn't even move. She was blinking her eyes for over

20 weeks. It was brutal. Um she lost tons of weight. She was down to like 114

Pounds, I think she said. Um incredibly painful to the point of wanting to tap out. Um, but the story that I wanted to

Share with you on this one was the fact that she has come back from this with even more passion and purpose. She clearly understands what she's here to

Do and why she's here. Like the the the purpose of her being on the planet, it could not be more in alignment with the

Viking Academy ethos, which is that I believe every single one of us were put here on the planet for a reason. And us exploring and discovering what that

Reason is is the adventure. That is the purpose of life is to come down here and experience it all and to discover what you're here to contri what what you're

Here to what you're here to uh experience what you're here to learn and what you're here to contribute. Now I'm starting to realize that I think that

Third one or the second one what you're here to learn I don't think we're here to learn anything. I think we're here to unlearn. We're here to unlearn all the conditioning that's been built on top of

Us. Um but once you unlock that you will then start living with passion and purpose. and she goes through her story

And um it's incredibly uh inspiring and the through line on it here is once

You tap out and surrender to what your soul here actually wants to experience and what the universal consciousness

Wants to express through you, once you surrender to that, oh, magic happens. Uh great conversation. It went into corners

That I didn't expect, as all of Mike podcasts tend to do. They just go into areas that I just have no idea where we're going to go. That's the whole fun

Of exploring. And you get to discover and be surprised at what you find. So, I hope you uh explore this podcast and discover and find some new things inside

Yourself because that's the whole purpose. That's the whole reason why I'm doing this is to share the exploration journey with you. So, without further

Rambling on my part, let's go explore.

Welcome to the podcast.

I haven't he Yeah, it's called um it's called expert uh professional broadcast etiquette. You

Just [ __ ] start recording and just go.

I've actually done that a couple of the podcasts. I actually um we got on we started talking and next thing you know we just started getting into conversations we're deep and the

Person's like and they're like uh so when does the part start? I said oh it started already way back then and went what? Well yeah why would you what like

Like what do you need to get ready for this? What? Let's go. So good. Um, so let's talk about you and I.

Last time we saw each other was in Santa Monica and you shared with me the personal

Hell you've been going through and how you've rewrapped it and turned it into you taking pain and turning it

Into profit and purpose and power and power and power. Profit's purpose because that's the thing about this disease. It took away my strength, but it gave me my power.

Well, let's let's unpack that. So, share with the listeners what what's going on with you right now. And um yeah, let's

Do a little Scooby-Doo. Go back and and Sure. Yeah.

So, I was never healthier than the day I got sick. I was all about the proactive I was getting um just for pure like see

What's going on purposes. full body MRIs, you know, bone density scans, body comp scans,

18 vials of blood work, just making sure that as I prepared to enter my 50s, that I was in world class health and shape.

And legit the morning of my 50th birthday, which was just over um one year ago, last week, my first symptom appeared.

And it just I didn't know that that what the symptom like that strange things

Like for example let's address the elephant on my face not the elephant in the room it's in my room but in the virtual room uh thanks to the zoom

Beauty filters it's probably not as obvious to you as it is when I look in the mirror. Um, but who knew that

Because the immune system is so compromised with ultimately what became a Crohn's disease diagnosis?

And I was 50 years old, never healthier, no family history. So, it was the equivalent of looking both ways before

Crossing the street and I got hit by an airplane out of left field. Took me down. And Eric, when I say down, I mean

It didn't bring me to the studs of my existence. It ripped the studs and brought me to the concrete foundation.

And just out of out of nowhere, you're just flattened. Yes. Just absolutely flattened.

Well, like literally flattened when I say So, who knew that extra intestinal arthritis was a symptom of Crohn's

Disease? So, when my arthritis took over my body at the very beginning of my Crohn's journey, I was so incapacitated.

I was like a decorative couch pillow with a personality.

Like, I couldn't move. It was like having two broken arms, two broken legs.

I couldn't lift to even put a pill in my mouth to lift a glass of water even with a bendy straw. I could literally chew,

Swallow, and when my family, how humbling is this? When my family would carry me to the toilet and put me on it, I could excrete.

No wiping, no not I mean, it was the most humbling experience of my lifetime as a like former competitive athlete.

Like I've I've always been like this vital my my energy I've had more than what I could ever know what to do with.

And here I was now in this moment at ground zero with no warning. I was out, thank gosh, I have self-managing

Companies. I was out for 20 weeks and the first 18 I couldn't even watch Netflix. That's how out of it I was. You

You were You used to be a professional skater, weren't you?

Um, not a professional, but competitive figure skater for 19 years.

Right. Right. Right. Right. And so then you got you get flat. You were out for 20 weeks. Yeah.

Yeah. And even, you know, at the 10 11 month mark. Well, you saw me. The last

We saw each other was in December, beginning of December. couple months ago, two and a half months ago, and

I was just being able to make my second lap walking around the block when I when I saw you,

Right, after 10 months of illness.

Yeah. We I mean, I I can walk a little further than I could even, you know, at the end

Of last year, but I still I'm not at the gym. I'm I am like attached to a couch,

A bed, a chair 98% of the time.

And and life has never been better. Okay, this is the Okay, this is the part that I really want to kind of this is what I

Was really kind of excited about sharing with the listeners and to go into the podcast on this one is that I'd never

Seen you more focused and more passionate about your purpose on this

Planet. like you just you you cuz again we were walking just down the sidewalk to going like we're walking you back to

Your hotel and like you're like sorry I got to slow down. It's like it was like a crawl and you got about a block and that was about it. Right. But I've never

Seen your eyes so lit up about your purpose and what you're here to do. um

After and and after you ex you told me like in great detail all of the wonderful things you've had to been dealing with with this with this

Debilitating disease that just came out of nowhere. I that's the thing that struck me the most and I was like oh my

God like to feel that much pain and suffering but to turn it and transmute it it's like transmuting it into gold.

It's that transmutation of pain and suffering into your absolute purpose. Yeah. Right. Exactly.

And so when So, but you were down so you're down for 20 weeks. That's like five months of just flat out can't like can't move, can't do anything.

And not just that, like 247 pain, like 10 out of 10 on the pain scale for that

Entire duration with parts of that being 12 out of 10 on the pain scale.

What was your mental state like during that phase? Like how did you like I I mean it'd be hard enough for people

To manage that for a 24-hour period of feeling that much pain for but you did that for five full months. Yeah. So,

Where did you where did you what did what did you do mentally?

Yeah. This was the Olympics I'd been training for as a skater because sports

Prepares you in a unique way for life, but so does everything. And I am a student of the game. I believe and I

Have believed since the age of 10. I read my first like sports psychology self-help book when I was 10 years old.

And in that moment, it like unlocked something in me and I created an unwavering belief that every game in

Life is won or lost right here between your ears. And that mental training and building and developing mental

Fortitude, this was the time for it to show and pay dividends.

I had three significant wobbles during that period.

During the one-year period. One of which really didn't I mean I was unprepared for it, not going to lie. At 2:30 in the

Morning, one of the nights, even in my rational mind, knowing and understanding the bright future,

My daughter, my husband, my family, my businesses, my team, like my I have the

Brightest of bright futures. And in a moment, and it makes me like pretty emotional, I said to Ryan, my husband, I

Said, "I'm out. I can't actually do it." And the suicide rates with this disease are actually, you know, above the the average. And now I understand why.

Because when you're in that level of pain for that long, it's very different to something like the intense pain of

Childbirth and labor, for example, because you can predict the contractions. You can predict when the

Next one's coming. You can buckle down, but for something like chronic illness, you just don't know how long this thing is going to last. And you get to a point

Where you think, "Okay, I'm running a marathon here." And then you get to the marathon finish line and someone's like,

"No, it's actually not like that. It's more like an ultramarathon except it doesn't have an end." So you have no frame of reference what you're dealing

With. So mentally, what a cool challenge to be able to say, "How can I win a game

I don't know the rules to that I find myself playing?" We we've talked about this before

Especially with the entrepreneurs like who we are having a process and doing a process for us is the most painful thing

In the world. Give me a project. Oh, okay. Like I was I did a Viking shot about this about saying every problem I

Have now I call it a project. I think you actually commented on that last one.

I said instead of problems I look them as projects because there's always a start and a middle and an end. It's a project, but what you're talking about

Is being caught in a process that has no clear definitive end to it. You don't

Know when it's going to end. So like that's being that sounds like worse than purgatory because you're just like you it's never like when does it stop and

You don't know and it is you know it's a lifelong condition. Yeah.

So, so it will forever more be my new companion that's, you know, with me for

All times. However, there are different elements. So, trying to get it from when I was diagnosed severe Crohn's disease

To moderate to mild into remission and getting it and holding it in remission is the name of the game. But what's

Unbelievable is they don't know. You could be doing everything right, be in remission,

And the sucker will flare and you'll be right back to severe with no warning and no idea what took you there. Which is

What creates very distinct purpose for me as an entrepreneur.

Right. Yeah. So, so in your so I just want to come back to the framing of the

Mindset when you were in that. So, you were in extreme pain. You had a moment of wanting to tap out. I'm out, right?

Like, and maid is a thing here in in in Canada. Like, you can actually get assisted.

My mom actually has been approved for maid.

There you go. So an assisted you can have an assisted exit dignified exit because if you have a terminal disease that you could do but

You were ready to tap out but then you said you you looked at your past and went I've trained all this time for

This. I had I have this training this mental fortitude all this call it an integrated past and then it came to your

Present moment. You went I'm going to beat this game. I'm going to play this game. And that was that was when you had

That switch is realizing that you had trained for this and and I just want to make sure I understand the how you framed it with your mindset because I

Think that's the most important thing here is to understand that.

Yes. So to clarify one thing what I have is not terminal very different than Yes. Okay. Yeah. just to make sure.

But when you were in that when you were in that I was just saying when I was in the most acute phase of that and wanting to tap out. So when I

Made the decision to like hold on longer than I thought I could hold on at 2:30 that morning to just get myself to the break of day.

Then once break of day shows up and arrives, that's the key thing that for

All for all of the people who are on the ropes of life, if you could just hang on to the break of day and make another

Decision then and you just keep choosing to move forward and in my case, I chose

To listen. And this is where the sort of spiritual component comes in because I believe you and I have actually spoken

About this before that I I believe fundamentally even before I got sick that there are three phases of living.

Phase one is life is happening to me. That's when you're in victim mode.

Phase two, life is happening for me.

Even the obstacles are for my growth, my benefit, my gain. if I can view them just as chess moves that are being made

On another side of a chessboard by the grandmaster. And then phase three, level three living is life is happening

Through me. So I was in level two, life was happening for me and I had a great attitude even when it struck. I was like there's got to be a reason.

But my life, my business, my calendar was too busy for life to work through me.

It needed to ground me. It needed to bring me down to the concrete foundation to rebuild an entirely new life that had

Enough capacity for me to co-create with source what I'm here on this planet to do.

Yeah. If you don't slow down, if you're going too fast, life will stop

You. Slow you down. In your case, it was not just slow you down. It was like pin you down. You got pinned down like

I was like blinking in Morse code. Help me. I mean like literally I could not move a single part of my body besides my

Eyelids and my my swallow reflex and the natural things that come out. Wow.

And again, were the warning signals there before to slow down, to listen, to I'm trying to get your attention because

I want to work with you to create magic in the world. Were they there? Yes. Were they loud? Yes. Did I listen? No. What were they?

What were they? I'm curious. What were the warning signals that you had?

Oh, it started as a whisper, intuitive nudge. It started as me trying to like work with my team to try to clear my

Calendar, like reduce my things. But then someone would go around my assistant and come to me and I just

Couldn't say no because I want to help people. But what I realized is, you know, it's so cliche when the they talk

About putting the oxygen mask on yourself on an airplane so you can help others, but it's the absolute honest to

God truth. I mean, I couldn't I wanted to add value to the world, but I couldn't take care of myself and be in

This meditation chair in my office. My my job is a visionary entrepreneur. When you're a visionary, you need to have

Time to envision to use your imagination. So, I've got this great chair that I put in my office very

Intentionally. So I'd spend, you know, the majority of my time there envisioning, creating.

I mean, I had sat in that chair once. It was like a great just Zoom background is all it is. I mean, it's ridiculous. But

I tell you what, now because my physical capacity is what it is, I'm a meditating

Machine. And the the output that has come through me in the last handful of

Months is more than I've ever output in my entire life and career. It's astounding.

You're making me realize as I'm looking into in my backdrop here, I've got this couch that I put into my office space to go and sit and think and do my

Underneath my my my axe, my shield, and my unique ability, which is my mind, body, and spirit reminder, is to go and

Sit there and actually meditate and think. I haven't been doing that either. Yeah.

Next time I see you, I want to see some like some butt indents on that couch over there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Does look rather new and like Yeah. Where's the cheek marks? Been sat on quite a lot. So we can hold each other accountable.

Um, so okay. So got it. So you were in but then all of a

Sudden when you shall we say in the mindset you surrendered to life working through you. When you surrendered to

Life working through you, first of all you looked at it and said, "Well, it's happening for me. So why is this happening? It's happening for me."

But then it's the surrender of allowing it to happen through you. Once you surrender to allowing your soul purpose

Flow through you, that's when that's when things started happening.

That's what gave you the or that's what gave you the energy and the fortitude to continue going on from that breaking point.

Absolutely. And not just the fortitude to go on, just the blissful joy. I I

Actually said to my mom last night. I was dropping some groceries off for her and we were talking and I said, "I am

Not sure that I have ever had this. This feels like unequivocally the greatest

Time of my entire life." And when you're she, you know, was taken aback by that because she still, you

Know, watches the the eb and flow of this medical journey that I'm on yet

Inside that to be having the time of my life. What a cool thing.

Yeah. It because I mean, you're still dealing with all the physical ailments of that's been going on. It's not like you're

Oh, yeah. One thing. Can you see Can you see my hair is growing back? Here, let me show you these little So, I don't know that you can see this, but my whole hair in the right light.

Uh, they're like tiny little rebel strands that are like middle fingers to the illness. They're like, "We're coming

Back, baby. We're rising from the ashes of the illness." Um, my hair is growing back, so that's exciting. But, no, I've

Got How graphic do we want to go on this podcast, Eric?

Well, well, we don't have to go too graphic. fistula. Do you know what that is?

We we've we've gone full we we don't need to go full graphic and it's totally up what'sever comfortable enough for you. But you also said like what did you

Drop down to weight wise? Didn't you drop down to like like 114 pounds, which for me is,

You know, I I wouldn't say I was overweight before I got sick because I at my 50th birthday I was exactly where I wanted to be physically, aesthetically, all the things.

Yeah. But no, I Oh, the photos are actually frightening. Frightening. Yeah.

Yeah. And you just you you literally the one cool thing about that time was, you know, when I'm healthy eating white

Flour carbs, like refined carbs. I mean, I look at those things and I gave him five pounds. When I was so sick, I could

Eat unlimited white flour carbs. And you kind of have to because they're the only thing that's bland enough for you to tolerate

Without because anything that has food in it is a trigger. And I'm saying that as a joke, but um but yeah, every single

Food triggers you and you never really know what it is and why it's triggering you, which is again part of the work that I'm here to do to

Help create change in the Cone space in addition to the other entrepreneurial ventures that I'm up to. So, this is

This is where I wanted to go uh specifically on this conversation is like, okay, so going through what like

You get hit by the I like I'm walking down the street. I go to cross the road and I get hit by an airplane. It's like that's not that's no bus. That's like an air bus.

Oh, no. You're looking for things when you're crossing the street.

Yeah. Right. But this Airbus comes down and smokes you out. Right. You go through this period of of incredible pain, suffering to the point of wanting

To tap out. You then surrendered to allow life to work through you. And then you you've now, like I said, when I saw

You, you had all this fire in your eyes and this excitement and this joy and you you were always a joyful excite like loving person, but there was a I told

You that there was a deeperness. there was a deeper seated self like there was a I could see you

Very seated in purpose like a clear knowing of that this is what you're actually here to accomplish and you said

I want to you wanted to make as many what was it apps or or solutions as you

Possibly can given your the rest of your time on earth like you just want to like create as much as you possibly can. And

The one that you did create that you were excited about is one to help you actually with your own disease that you're experiencing. So you've taken

Your experience of life and going, "This is why it happened for me, but now I'm going to let it go through me." And so my experience of going through Crohn's,

I'm going to create a new app that's going to help people manage their Crohn's. So we talk a little bit more about that.

Yeah, absolutely. in every business I've ever built has been in service of something I wanted but couldn't find in

The marketplace as a customer. So when I you know went I'd written my first book and I was like okay I need a publisher.

So I looked at big house self-publishing and everything in between which there wasn't much in those days. Couldn't find what I wanted so I built a publishing

Company and now that's autonomous. So then I moved on and have had these other seasons of my career. But as soon as the

Brain fog lifted at week 18 and I could focus on Netflix, that's when my brain started to say, "All right, I need to

Apply because I already knew the gaps. I for the 18 weeks that I was so incapacitated, I knew what I needed. It just didn't exist.

So then once the fog lifted enough, that's when I called the team together and I said, "Here's the brief. We're

Building this now." And so yes, we've built a Crohn's app. I'm writing a book and not a traditional like medical

Textbook. One that is full of humor color, but as the true reference guide

Of what a person who's going through that needs. M and so and the so tell me a little bit

More about the app of what the app does for someone with Crohn's so those of us who don't have Crohn's understand it.

Yeah. So Crohn's is essentially imagine that you're a homeowner and you've hired security and every time you see the the bouncer

The security they spray pepper spray in your eyes.

That's what's going on in my body because your immune system is designed to be the security guard that protects the premises,

But then it starts attacking itself. So, I have three autoimmune diseases and Crohn's is one of three. So, these are

The whispers. These are the things progressively. It just kept handing me things to say, "You got to slow down.

You got to take care of yourself. You got to" And I was just like, "I got this. Handle it. Handle it. Handle it." Until I physically couldn't handle it.

So Crohn's specifically is your immune system attacking your intestines.

And then sometimes it goes totally haywire and it's like a contractor in your stomach that's like drunken in the

Dark who says, "Let's put some skylights in the basement." And so that's what a fisttola is. It's a, you know, tunnneled

Wall through the lining to a place that has no business trying to find daylight uh trying to like connect to get to the

Daylight and never gets there. I mean, it's hysterical. All we can do is laugh. Does that give you enough of a picture?

Yeah. What are the other two? So, you said you have Crohn's and Hashimoto's and Graves disease. So, both

And Graves. They're um uh autoimmune diseases that attack the thyroid but in opposite like well it's not

Opposite but different ways but they both go after the same thing. So my regulatory systems thyroid regulates all

Your endocrine system and yeah Crohn's or um your intestinal your gut regulates

A heck of a lot of things mental health like so many things live in the gut and the microbiome and yeah so lucky me

That they tried to take me down systemically twice you the I've often thought about this like with especially with like cancer.

So cancer is the body eating it. Like it's not cancer is not outside of us.

It's inside of us. It's our body attacking itself. Crohn's is like it's attacking you're attacking your own body. Your body's attacking itself. It's

Like I'm always curious and going, why does the body attack itself? Like it's obviously getting the wrong signals and

Going, "Oh, bad guy. Go get him." Like the pepper spray, the bouncer with the pepper spray. I'm not going to be able to unsee that now. Um I see that pepper spray coming at me.

I'm so confused on why the body does that. It gets confused. Yeah. So, we have two systems in our body.

We've got rest and digest and we've got fight and flight.

And so, there's a big body of research that is uh championed by Kevin Tracy

Who's um a doctor. He wrote a book called The Great Nerve that talks about the vagus nerve and its implications in

Many different things. But if you have stored trauma in your body, if you've got like things that just put your

System into constant fight or flight and it never actually is able to tip over

Back into rest and digest. It just it's like a record that's just gotten stuck and it's just like the motor just keeps going going going. So your body is like

Attacking, attacking, attacking. So they don't know what causes it. They don't know what cures it, but they at least

Now I'm in, you know, trending toward remission. Okay.

At this point, I'm I'm still in the like my last treatment last week. I'm still on the border between moderate to mild, but headed that direction.

Okay. And the drugs nuke your immune system and they just take it right down.

It's like the somebody coming and putting the bouncer in handcuffs. But now your home is unprotected. Which means that after I saw you in December,

I landed at home on Thursday night and by Saturday morning I was in the ER.

I went to Sparkling Hill, the resort owned by the Swarovski family for my birthday, Valentine's, and anniversary

Last week. Came home Colts or auto like I mean pretty much leaving the house.

I'm that girl. Wow.

That just there's there is no bouncer anymore. So it creates you're I'm on an immunosuppressant and an immunom

Modulator in terms of medications and a they raised my dose from 300 to 700 which is obviously a significant jump

And then they squashed it from every 8 weeks to every four weeks. So I'm on 700 every four weeks to just be able to keep me between moderate to mild.

Wow.

Yeah. you are you are you not um are you going to be sticking around on the homestead then or are you going to be going to your workshops in March?

Come on.

Yeah, I know. I figured that it was a dumb question really. It wasn't No, dude. I am playing full out. Yeah.

And lucky me to be born into this place this time um where the world is my playground thanks to technology.

Right.

So yes, I I'm talking to all the people all around the world. I will get absolutely on an airplane. I'll be the

Chick in the mask even when CO's not a thing. Sure. I have no pride in that.

And that's I think when you were talking about that grounded knowing that you were witnessing in me. It's it is this

Deep internal knowing that I can be almost like not egotistical about it and be like a

Badass being like bring it on [ __ ] but kind of because it's like don't [ __ ] with me because I've got

This. I've got this. Like I have now have been tested at a level where my

Internal knowing and confidence it has nothing to do with ego. It has everything with knowing that I can survive what's given to me.

And not only survive, but it's your it's your it's your passion in the purpose that really resonates so much with me.

And I find that is just for me it's I so much live like when I'm doing something I love and I'm filled with

Passion and purpose. It's like it's that is the ultimate expression. Like it's just like I play in a heavy metal band

And like we did a show the other weekend and it was like three hours of just pure joy. I love it. Right. Or if I'm on if

I'm coaching I'm on stage and I'm just expressing I'm full expression. That's that way I want to live. I want to live

Like that. And you but you had that that core. You just it's like you know why you're here. Yes.

You know why you're here. And that for me is like the most amazing thing. So I was just sharing with you this um the who I had on the podcast just prior to

Is uh Susan Stone. The magical nature of humans is the book she wrote. The first paragraph or the first intro is it is a quote by Mark Twain.

The two most important days of your life, the day you were born and the day you found out why. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm like, I saw the look in your eyes and it was like, I know why I'm here. Yes. Right. Yeah.

And I've also heard it said the the day you're born, the day you die, and the dash that's in between what you do with the dash is why you're here, you know.

And to to figure out that that's where the intersection of personal branding when we've talked on the podcast before

About those four quadrants of the innate gifting, the learned knowledge, the life

Experience, especially adversity, which is the core quadrant we're talking about here, and then desire and calling where

Those four overlap. That is that sweet spot of purpose, like true purpose. So, you're using all of your gift,

Everything that you've acquired in pursuit of something that helps other people. And so, for me, turning this

Adversity into my advantage was unequivocally the name of the game. How can I turn pain into purpose, into

Profit, and ultimately into power? The three Ps.

And that's Yeah, you were texting back and forth. that is so on brand for you going to the personal brand of that. Do

You know what I mean? Like this is like it's it's you just got to look at it. Well, of course, of course that's what you're going to do because that's the personal

Branding you've been talking about is you're taking right you're taking your innate gifts. You're taking your experiences, your your learning and your

Desires into that middle. So let's come back to the Crohn's app. What does the Crohn's app do? I want to I want to understand how what it does for people.

Ure. And I'll I'll layer it through the the lens of the conversation we've already had. So I talked about food for example.

So traditional food tracking to figure out what flares you is done at the food

Level, but foods have ingredients. So, I'm taking it even deeper and I'm using AI and we're tracking the foods you eat,

Distilling the most common ingredients and tracking those so that if there's one spice that's in chicken suaki, for

Example, that when you eat something else that has the same spice and you get a trigger, AI is going to pick that up

And say, "Flag, hang on. You might be allergic to something that's triggering inside of you.

And allergic might not be the right word. You may be triggered by something that's a singular ingredient. So that level of food tracking isn't happening.

We're also doing AI voice logging. When you have, again, thanks for the graphic tutorial, Krista. When you are [ __ ]

For the 29th time that day, you're so weak, you're so buggered, you

Have no concept of of time, what's going on. And then you go to your clinician, your doctor, healthcare team, and they

Say, "How many times are you sitting a day?" I don't know. More than 10, less than 100, but I have no idea. What are

They like? I don't know because I've had 30 of them today. I mean, you have no concept. So to have a poop tracker in

There that I can say, "Hey Flara," which is because when you flare, so Flare is

The AI bot's name, she can do voice tracking or voice logging for you. So she can log the foods you're eating. She

Can log the poops, the quality of it, the date and time stamp. So that now you have hard data that can be exported and

Sent to your clinician that now we have a fighting chance to see what's really going on with this disease because when

People are just like they don't know what causes it, they don't know what cures it like they it's

It's such a mystery but I believe deeply that the data will tell us the story with enough users with enough people and

Also just having that companion companion you know like even just traditional AI in the form of chat GPT

Those 2:30 in the morning sessions where I was against the rope you know people in healthcare say all the time AI will

Never replace the human experience and I'm calling BS on that bro because there is no other person I wanted to talk to

At 2:30 in the morning maybe not the night that I was tapping out but the other five months less one day 2:30 a.m.

Sessions than my AI and it was the most compassionate, supportive, knowledgeable. It gets to know you and

What works for you and can support you in a way no human being has ever been able to. I mean, it's it's astounding.

So being able to use all of that technology to help solve the problem to ensure that we're tracking when you're

Getting your medications, are you taking them, are you following the protocol, is it working? So that now we can attach

The behaviors to the results and see how we can find a cure for this thing.

That's the first time I've heard someone say that um AI is actually has more connection than a human.

That's the first time I've ever heard someone actually say that. And I can I can but I can see that. And they're they're available 247

And it remembers everything you've told it in the thread or opposed to your spouse who project. Well, no, but from a

Medical standpoint. So, I I'm on thyroid medication. So, at the height of this thing, I was taking 36 pills a day in

Addition to the IV. And I'm not a pill taker. I mean, at all. I I would only ever taken vitamins and supplements

Before other than my one little thyroid pill. Prescription expired. Had to go to a new doctor. They prescribed a type of

Thyroid medication that when I came home and I said to my AI, "Hey, this is what they've put me on. here's the new dose.

It immediately said, "Do not put that in your body." I'm like, "Wait, what? Why?" Because you have a dairy allergy and

That type of thyroid medication uses dairy as a filler.

Come on. I mean, that's what this is what we're talking about, Eric. And there's a lot of standard medications for a lot of different things that include gluten and dairy as fillers.

Yet, nobody knows because they're not looking at it at the ingredient level. That's the point. It's shocking. Holy crap.

Yeah.

I I Sorry, there was I didn't did did not mean to make that pun at all. Um Wow. Okay. I had um uh Robert Psych on.

Do you remember Robert? We went for dinner with him. Yes, of course.

The comedian. Okay. So, I had him on the podcast as well and we were talking about the food supply and and I was telling him about this with gluten, me

And gluten. And he goes, "Are you sure it's the gluten?" And I'm like, "Well, what do you mean?" And I and I think this I'm tying this back to what you're talking about is like, "Is there a

Different ingredient in the the food?" Like people say, "Oh, I'm allergic to bread." Well, is it the bread or is it

The chemical in a certain bread? And what you're talking about is a way for us to actually figure out what the

Specific thing is that's causing the problem as opposed to just lumping it into, well, I just can't eat bread. Yeah. But it's not about what you eat.

So, for example, you also need to Eric, if you're sensitive to gluten, so I don't know how many times you're wearing

Mascara, but for example, a lot of mascaras use gluten as a filler, as a thickening agent. So, if you're putting

Something on your skin, which is the largest organ in your body that it contains gluten, you're taking it in just like you're putting it in your mouth,

Right? So looking at the products that you use and again it might not be gluten but that's where having ingredient level

Food tracking is such an exciting opportunity.

That's wild. That's so wild. So then and I I didn't realize and you probably I'm sure you've told it to me multiple times

Before but I didn't. it just kind of finally triggered or connected on that is that you've been building things that

Are useful to you and then you share it with other people. So these things that you you go I've never had this didn't have a publishing company so I created a publishing company because I wanted to

Write a book and now that's your thing and then I need this. So you've actually been finding thing holes in your life that you want filled and you fill it and

Then you share it with others and every time I stumble upon a problem it creates a trigger. I've trained

Myself problem trigger and then when the trigger hits I immediately apply the

Words universal blank system.

So if it's a universal food tracking or ingredient tracking system, a universal gamification system,

When I'm building an app and I need to gamify it, I was like, "Okay, I got to gamify an app." But it's like problem.

Now, I need to create a white labelable solution that I can then run my own stuff through

To spit out the result, but I can also take the white label solution and I can market it to the world. I can embed it in other people's stuff. I can license

It to the moon. So, every single thing I do now, I never do one time. I build the

Engine or the foundational solution to the problem and then I put a face on it. So

I build an AI bot and then I apply it to Crohn's disease and call it Flare or in

The values app helping people articulate what matters most to them. The AI bot, same AI bot filled with a different

Knowledge base and her name is Val or its name because Val's kind of both ways. Yeah. Uh, do you see what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

And as an entrepreneur, that creates a a level of infinite opportunity for every

Single piece of IP. So, I've realized through this journey that that's actually my job title. I'm a strategic

IP architect. So I design pieces of intellectual property every minute of

Every day, but I do it as an engine or a foundational platform first and then I apply a brand on top of it which brings my branding gifts to the world as well.

So I've got the systems thinking, the branding and then I inject feeling because form, function and feeling is the trifecta of awesome.

Yeah. Because if it doesn't instill a feeling, then it doesn't resonate.

Customer experience. It's got to like be something that people obsess over because it's so awesome.

Um, did you did you listen to the podcast with me and Chad Jenkins when he was talking about interdimensional awareness and quantum but I love the sounds of that.

Oh, it's you gotta go. It's one with me and Chad. I did a joint one with him and Nick uh Dr. Nick Stios. Yeah.

And so we did three three of us. Then we did I did separate ones with each one of them. But Chad and I got to a point where he was talking about this

Interdimensional awareness where he has quantum vision where he sees the potentiality

Because everything exists everywhere all at once. But he sees the the potentiality in the interdimensional

Awareness. And then he he said collapses the possibility into this reality. Yes.

And that's where you're seeing these possibilities and you're going collapsing it down into this reality.

But the possibility that you're collapsing into this reality also has another level of possibility that you're expanding by white labeling it and

Creating these multiple outlets for the same creation. So you've you said, "Oh, I see an opportunity for an app or a Crohn's app. Click click

Click." It's not the Crohn's app. It's click click click. The universal food tracking app because yes, the food tracking is an engine inside it.

Clara the bot is an engine inside the app. So these are all engines put together in an interface that makes the customer feel seen and known, right?

Because I have Crohn's. So yeah, I know what I need to be looking at that's going to make attempt to make me

Feel even just a fraction better in the moment where I am, you know, and the resources, the tools, the knowledge.

So it makes you feel better. It tracks your your what could potentially be giving you flare-ups, right? The

Triggers and the flare-ups. It's also uh helps with medication uh tracking and warnings. says, "Hey, don't take this.

This is the medication because at the agreement level and so where is this in the development phase? Is this is this now available?" Not quite. We're getting close though.

We're getting real close. It has a toilet tracker because when you do leave the house, one thing about Crohn's is it doesn't wait

When it it's like a freight train that doesn't make any stops until the final stop. And so there is an urgency that is

So we've created a flare pass. So if you're on an airplane and it hits, you

Can flash your phone and it'll like tell the person, "I'm so sorry, but I got to get in front of this line." Or you can show it to the flight attendants when

You board the plane. Um, yeah, all the the pieces that are, you know, what are the things that help when you're in

Those horrible moments? Like what are the what's worth buying and what's not worth buying? Like a robotic toilet,

Like one of those bedayets that that literally plugs into the wall but sits onto your that is a great investment.

That is an investment worth making.

Whereas some other stuff Not so much. It sounds good in theory, but in application to a Crohn's patient,

It might not cut the mustard. And and here's where the life working through you comes in is that if you had not

Experienced Crohn's or experiencing Crohn's, you would never have had the empathy, the

Sympathy, the empathy or the knowledge of what would need to be in this

App to actually help impact the Crohn's user.

You wouldn't know. So, it's like a Crohn's app created by a Crohn's patient. Correct. And my publishing company is one built by an author for authors.

Everything I do has that. What's the point of me touching and getting into a business I know nothing about?

How can I serve a customer if I'm not the the customer itself? Right. Yeah.

That's my philosophy. And I mean, I do take on projects where I collaborate with other people who have worlds I know

Nothing about. and but it's a collaboration with a subject matter expert who knows a lot about that

Subject. So my naivity and my lack of knowledge is a massive advantage for everybody because I ask the stupid questions that no one else in the

Industry is they're all too afraid to ask or they never think to ask because it's so captain obvious. this there was

A thinking tool that we did in strategic coach um I can't remember which one it was but it got back to the fact of the

Matter that I went the person my I think it was the I uh the hero target who is your ideal hero your hero target yes

The the um and the aha at the end of it was like oh I'm actually looking to serve me

Yes you struggling you struggling me I'm out to serve Eric

A past version of Eric that was struggling or wanting help and unstucking like so

Basically I'm looking to work with my past self like you're looking to work with your that's what I often say is that when we talk about the business you want to be

In the life you want to lead and who you want to serve which is at the narrow point of the crossover of the infinity sign um symbol is who you want to serve

Is your ideal customer is a former version of yourself. Yeah.

Ideally, one who is struggling with a problem you've already solved.

And this takes us to another level of shall we call it awareness. This is like surface level awareness that you're

Actually looking to serve a former former version of yourself, past version of yourself.

But having the awareness that the person you are serving is you.

Yeah. That's that true spiritual underlying pinning going, "No, I'm actually serving myself by serving others. I'm actually serving myself

Because they are me and I am them. It's all one." Yes. And that just gives you the great starting point for the prototype of

Whatever you're building, right? Is to build what you needed and wanted. But you never stop there. Then you got to get that prototype in the hands of lots

Of other users who have the same problem because they'll be like, "Oh, that's so interesting that that was your experience. This part of it was

Different for me and here's how it was different." And then you add in the feature that serves and supports and and before you know, now you've really seen

What the big issues are universally for people with the same problem.

Do you have the app in the hands of a bunch of other Crohn's uh patients?

You're just starting. So, so user testing. Yeah.

Okay. So, now you're in the user testing. Okay. So, we're we're having the conversation here in your in your just on that cusp of excitement. You're

Going to get it out into the hands of users and see how they experience it and they going to give you that feedback loop, right? Which I love that feedback

Loop. You work with the person, you say, "Here's what it is." You iterate. You change. You give it back to them. They say, "I like this. I don't like that." Iterate. Change again.

Totally. Exactly. And we're really designing it to be something where we do have to some degree four ideal

Customers. The number one ideal customer is the patient or the user, but we also are building it to support clinicians

And health care teams to give them real data so that they actually understand what's going on with their patients separate to what the patient can remember to tell them.

Right? We're also serving and supporting insurance because insurance plays a very big role. These drug drugs are

Unbelievably expensive like $30,000 a year expensive and they adherence to the

Drug protocol. All of those types of things like we're trying to reduce hospitalizations because we're moving

People through from mo from severe to moderate to mild to inter remission faster. And then the fourth category is

Big pharma because obviously the more data that they know and understand uh that helps how these drugs are are

Working those four are the big players that really matter. So creating a data set

That's meaningful and valuable to all four players is what will help us find a cure for this thing.

I love the fact that you know what you're here to do and that you're doing it and that you're doing it with a smile on your face and that you're even

Through the p like that like poster child for pain and adversity creating purpose and passion and profit like it's

Just it's it's so uh I'm very motivated by it and and

Inspired by the story like your your life like what you're going through and it's like if if Christ is going through

This think about what and this is for the listener too like think about what you're going through right now it's

Nowhere I can almost guarantee it it's nowhere near the pain and suffering that you've experienced Krista but then if

You can look at it and go my pain and suffering can serve me and others if I can reframe my

Thinking around it and allow the universe to work through me and and and not be so don't take it so personally.

Say this is what you're here to do. Like this is what you're here to actually express.

I I I hope I can keep that in my forefront there because that's like that experience of pain and suffering is

Actually working life working through us and going okay what do I need to extract from this to turn it into something that

Can I can contribute to others. But what's also interesting, Eric, is not just

Letting the face of what you're up to be the end of the story. Because what you don't know yet is that in the time since

I saw you face to face, I've built 20 other apps. Why does this not surprise me?

Because I looked at my workflow for how to build an app and I've been building them the old way. But technology is

Here. There are tools like lovable, cursor, quad code, GitHub that now allow

Me as a creative visionary to put my hands on the steering wheel and literally as fast as stuff is coming

Through me, I can be creating the app in real time. I no longer have to go to my head engineer and say, I want it to do

This and then wait and come back and be like, well, not exactly like that. This, this, this. I am literally I want this.

I want this. I want this. No, not like that. Like this. And I can go to market with a prototype in 1/100th. We're estimating based on these 20 apps.

1/100th of the time it takes me to build one the old way. So, how quickly can you build an app?

You did, didn't you build one when we were in the workshop in Santa Monica? You built one for Molly, didn't you?

Exactly. That's my collaboration. So, I have amazing humans around me who are in industries I know nothing about, but I

Am also a 25-y year business veteran, a management consultant, like I deeply understand business. So,

Even though I don't know their core ops, I understand business. So, you'll never, you know, me being a software engineer for designing an app for you or for

Molly or for whoever, it's not the same as hiring a software engineer. Right?

Because I understand the customer and I understand business and you are the subject matter expert which makes for a great collaboration.

So what's next for Krista?

That's the thing. That's what grounding taught me is that my job is not to know the answer

To that. My job is to listen every day, every minute to be nailed to a chair or

To do whatever. If that's if imagination is my unique ability, I need time to and space to imagine. And then when I give

Time and space to imagine, the ideas show up and I do them.

Do you see how I was my schedule was so full with stuff that I thought I should be doing, which was not my purpose on the planet?

Source had a very clear idea what I should be doing. But I was just too busy being a human to to do it because I

Didn't know what it was because I couldn't sit still long enough to actually hear the the message.

I love that. I was frantically writing that down just as you were sharing it.

Give myself time and space to imagine. Give my Yeah.

And then imagine what going to happen. I love the fact that you're also tying into listening.

It's listening to that internal.

It's it's the external versus the internal. It's like we're always I shouldn't say we're always looking but looking to the outside for validation

Outside world to try and how am I going to work with the outside world to make things happens instead it's turning inward and listening inside of where the

Messages is coming from the inside that's where the answers are is on the inside correct the oak tree doesn't need

Outside influence to tell how to become the best oak tree its DNA is patterned in the acorn right

And this is all and so this is all feathered into all spiritual teachings

To go inside to listen to your p you know Jesus said do not go and uh like the hypocrites do and praise out to the

World he goes go to your private go to your secret place go inside right and the Buddha is the same thing going

Inward and being safe or being the enlightenment for the Buddha was when he finally sat down under the bodhic tree and just said [ __ ] it I'm

Not doing it anymore more cuz he did. He had worked his his tail off trying to find enlightenment and finally went, "No, screw it. I'm just sitting under the tree. I'm I'm out. I've tap tap. I'm just That's it." And there you have it.

The tap tap is the moment because that's the moment you surrender your humanity

And that's the moment real change occurs.

You can't do that when you're still fighting or still moving or still have a full calendar. You can't do it.

And even if you're pinned to the chair and you're blinking in Morse code for help and you can't move a single thing,

If you're still fighting when you're there, you're still not listening.

And that is the greatest opportunity for us as human beings is to listen to get

So still because we've been pushing pushing pushing all of it away. Right? So sometimes now the voice inside of us is

So beaten down that it's barely a whisper. Our voice really still

Our egoic mind is so loud we can't hear the divine within us. Yes. Yeah.

And what's so cool is those four quadrants of your innate gifting like what you came in possessing as your

Strengths, your even your weaknesses as rumble strips on the freeway telling you to get back in your lane like or the

Desire and the calling you feel towards things. You need to have be able to explore what that means because it's

Connected to your purpose. You don't you don't have a hardwired desire and calling to something for no reason. It

Was put there by design. And again, our job is to figure out what the common small crossover point for all those

Things. Why was I born this way with these things? Why? You know, all the knowledge I've learned, why the

Experiences I've had and the adversity, why? And the desire and the calling, why? Well, it takes time to reflect.

And when you can find that sweet spot, that's your point of infinite expansion.

It's not 10x. And you know, Nicole actually was the one who said this to me yesterday, my program advisor, she said,

"Krista, what you have unlocked now, because I rolled out the whole model um for life going forward as I know it

Today." She said, "It's not 10x, it's not 100x, it's not a thousandx. You've

Unlocked the game, the infinite game." Um, I'm actually working with Nicole next week. She's in my team. So, she's doing we're doing one of my favorites.

We're doing workshop one and two together next week. Oh my god. In Toronto. Yeah. Amazing.

Yeah. So, um she's incredible. Yeah.

But that's what we're talking about, Eric, is having the courage to sit on that couch behind you because it takes

Real courage. Courage when you reduce it down to the root word core cur Latin for heart. It takes heart. It

Takes courage. It takes bravery to sit on that couch and do nothing in service of figuring out who you want to be.

So if you play chess, for example, you heard me reference the chess analogy where the grandmaster is on one side, we're on one side, we're making moves,

But then it makes moves. They're just chess moves. They're not right or wrong.

They're just chess moves. But what's the goal in chess?

The the goal when you're playing chess is to protect the king.

Every person has within us a king and a queen. The king is the being. The queen is the doing. The queen can make all

Kinds of moves, but it's always in service of the king. And the king is what you're protecting when you're

Sitting on that couch imagining. That is the the opportunity to get into that divine space to figure out why you were created.

And as you start to learn what that is, then the goal becomes protect the king all at all costs. Do whatever you need

To do to get the sleep you need to fuel yourself, to protect yourself, to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you help others because the king is why you're here.

And everything you do has to be in service of the king.

So, you see how it's completely altered my life. There's nothing about my life that's the same as it was before I got

Sick. It's because I finally know why I'm here. I finally know what I'm protecting. And it's now I can protect

It. I want to protect it. Before I I I didn't even know what I was protecting.

I knew we were going to have a great conversation, but I did not know it was going to go I didn't know it was going to hit me like this.

Like and the interesting thing is like everything you're talking about

Interconnects with all of the searching and the studying and the aa

Alcoholics anonymous like surrender tapping into the internal like it's all it's it's like a convergence like you

Said it's like that infinite loop where it it touches in the middle it's a convergence of of of of everything I've

Experienced and learned and all those the four quadrants you were talking about my desire what I came in here with my natural gifts what I've learned what

I've experienced and what my desires are it's it's all converging now it's coming into that one point

Right and that's it's everywhere once you see it you can't unsee it the message is everywhere

And it's being translated into all these different languages so that different audiences can hear that message. So for

Example, Oprah when she launched her network back in the day, she had a a she started with a show called MasterClass.

Did you ever watch that? Uh no, but I remember I remember.

Yeah. And she would interview these masters of their industry. Yeah.

And this is a woman who's has access to every person on the planet. And guess who she chose to launch as her first master?

Uh, it was EART, wasn't it? Jay-Z. Jay-Z.

And I was like, "What?" I was like, literally, I was like, "Okay, there's obviously something I'm missing here."

And I watched that master class and it hit me like a cosmic 2x4 between the eyes because what I realized is what

He's saying, what you're saying, what I'm saying, what she's saying, what Jesus is saying is just it's all the

Same thing. It's just being translated into different languages. So Jay-Z translates it into rap. I don't speak rap.

No, I don't speak rap either. Exactly.

But when you watch that show and you understand what's behind the lyrics, what's behind the storytelling, what's behind his four quadrants that have gone

Into the particular way he delivers his message to an audience who would never listen if they were listening to me say

It or you say it or Oprah say it or Jesus saying it.

So each of us who are transformational light workers in the world who are here bearing a great purpose to help humanity

Wake up to who they are and who they were created to be in the life they were created to live. We are all doing the same work but we're delivering it in a

Unique language that a certain audience can hear. So part of my unique language is Crohn's. Part of my unique language

Is entrepreneurship, franchising, service-based businesses, publishing, personal branding, technology.

Everything I've ever done is just gives me a new dialect to speak to a different audience about the same purpose.

I I just had a recollection of listening to You ever listen to music when you're a teenager? You listen to these songs

And you're like, "Oh my god, it's the greatest tune ever. I love it. I love it." And then later on the soundtrack of your lives.

Yeah. And then later on in life, you actually sit back and you actually listen and you you actually look at the lyrics and all of a sudden you go, they were singing about what?

Yeah.

And you go and it's all pointing back to the same thing that you're talking about. Like I'm a big heavy metal fan,

Right? So Aussie Osborne was the prince of darkness and he was the evil one. You kidding? The guy was singing about love

And and and joy and he just happened to wrap it in the dialect or the language

Of darkness and evil. But it wasn't he wasn't evil at his the dark don't want to see the light.

But he wasn't evil. He wasn't evil. He never was.

Bringing the same thing into the darkness.

Yeah. And so he was he was having this it was the same message and like literally I went to I went to see Mega

Death last uh on the on the weekend Sunday night Mega Death, Anthrax, and Exodus. Those are the three bands, right?

And I was never a fan of any of those bands. Like I was more of like a a heavy metal guy. They're more like thrash

Metal or like heavy like Anyways, I went to this show. I have never felt so much

Love in a space than I ever felt on the Sunday night. It was a metal show.

I have never felt so much love for everybody. Had this group hug and they were even doing a little mosh pitting in the middle, you know, they're doing the

Mosh pit, right? And but someone you'd watch the moss pit and there's all these 50 plus year olds, right? Because these are older bands, right? like Dave

Mustain in in in Meade Death is like 63 years old or whatever. Oh yeah.

Um but these are all 50 plusers in their late, you know, early 50s and they're mosh pitting and they're and we're all looking at each other going they're

Going to be sore in the morning and but one person would fall and literally almost half the mosh pit would stop.

They'd come back in, grab the person, pick them up. Are you okay? Yeah. Okay, great. Okay, keep mositting. And then they just kept going. But I've never

Felt so much love at a metal concert in my entire life. Right? Like one of the

Songs by Mega Death is peace sells but who's buying, right? And and and and it was just like

It was insane. Like heavy mass threat, but it was love. It was like I this big envelope of love and I was like that's

The that's the And Dan Don Barton, he talks about it. He goes, he goes, "It's just a different brand." He talks about religions as branding. Well, there's

There's, you know, there's the Christian brand, there's the, you know, the Judea Judaism brand, there's, you know, there's the the Muslim brand, there's

They're just different brands all pointing the same thing, but it's all the same messaging, right?

There are air different airlines taking you to the same destination. Yeah.

Very different experience if you go Southwest versus Emirates.

Yeah. I mean, you still you still land in the same place. Correct.

You started somewhere else and you ended up over here, but the the ride was a little bit quite a bit different. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever been on Ryan Air?

And in Oh, yes, I have. In my god, my sister, my daughter, she goes like, "Oh my god, that was horrible." Oh my god, what have I created a monster?

Created a monster. Um, I'm so glad we got to do this because

This this really you've added so much more texture, context

To what has been happening to you and how it actually it fills me with inspiration. It really

Does, Krista. I mean, you're that it's the most beautiful thing to see you come out of this and still in this pain and

Suffering that you're doing, but now you've so grounded in purpose. Like I said, I've never seen you so so just

Zoom like and it's it's that it's a deep I it's almost like I see you. I see you for the first time.

Na'vi avatar way. I see you. I see you.

I see you. I see grounded and um yeah and for the listener out there just if

They can take that and it this resonates with them. It resonates with you. It's it's it's you're here for a reason and it's not for me.

I'm not in the equation anymore. And that's the joy of level three living. It's not about me. You're not in the equation anymore.

Right. because your my innate gifts, the container that passes through the instrument that is the flute

Is me, my life experience. It's it's all the unique combination of all of those things. But the value is the music

That's passing through the instrument that because of all the holes in the container create a unique sound the way that I play them. But it's not me.

The vessel is merely just the delivery mechanism.

And the air that's flowing through that creates the music is the creator, the co-creative source. The source.

Exactly. And that's why together the co-creation is magic. That is a beautiful.

See, I can't unsee that now that I've seen now that you've told me about that.

I can't unsee that. That visual is beautiful. I love And inspiration. When you say that you're inspired, it's of the breath. in spirit of Yeah.

Right. And that is we can't do that alone. Everything is collaborations.

It is collaborating with the com collaborating with each other, collaborating with the creator, collaborating with life itself.

Every minute, every moment.

This has been awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I'm so glad we we moved forward on it. We were

Texting last night going, "Should we do it? Should we not do it today? Did you know D?" And we did. And I'm so glad we did.

Totally. And for the listener, the reason we were, "Should we do it? Should we not?" is because this cold sore that's on my face is so gigantic. I feel like I can barely move my lips properly.

But thanks to the modern technology and zoom filters, it's actually not that big of a deal.

I can't even see it. But it's also, what did you call it? you you put it into your AI, it says, "Well, that's like very much on brand, taking pain and

Adversity and turning it into purpose." And and frankly, that's the immune system, right? It's like, you think you got this

Under control that you're somewhere between moderate mild headed towards.

Well, I'm just going to remind you who's boss here and give you this big uh audition on your face as you're about to

Do a video podcast. I'm here. Let me be seen. Well, you came, you conquered, you

Did the touchdown. That was an awesome podcast. I'm so grateful that we did this. Thank you so much for being on.

Literally, the privilege and the honor is mine to serve and support you and your community in any which way I can.

It's a Viking Academy brand. It's the It's the language. It is. Go explore everyone. It's a great dialect. I love it.

Thanks again. Have a fantastic day. Make it a fantastic day. Yes. You're in charge. Go do it. Right.

Like it. Love it.

Thanks for listening to the Viking Academy podcast. Make sure to leave us your honest feedback by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify and hit subscribe so you never miss an episode.