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THE FRONTIER LINE
Hosts Wayne Aston and David Murray explore the critical global pillars of infrastructure development and energy production, from traditional methods to future-forward advancements. The Frontier Line covers the latest industry news, energy innovations, and sustainability trends that are shaping the future. Through expert interviews with industry leaders in renewable energy, utility-scale battery storage, and waste-to-energy technologies, the podcast provides insights into the evolving landscape of energy efficiency and sustainable infrastructure. By focusing on the intersection of innovation and the politics of energy, The Frontier Line highlights transformative ideas and technologies poised to deliver cost-efficient, resilient, and sustainable solutions for global industries.
THE FRONTIER LINE
Invictus Sovereign- Chief Executive Officer, Wayne M. Aston
Drawing from my own experiences as a Marine Corps reservist and an Army National Guard member, we dive into how military life has been a crucible for resilience and growth. The conversation explores the emotional challenges veterans face and the indomitable pride of serving one's country. From surviving the 2008 financial crisis to maintaining mental well-being, we underscore perseverance as a key theme, sharing lessons learned from overcoming adversity one step at a time.
Addressing personal setbacks and recovery, we open an honest dialogue about the power of gratitude and authentic relationships. Through stories of financial hardship, addiction, and personal reinvention, we emphasize the importance of surrounding oneself with genuine connections and maintaining a vision beyond immediate needs. By focusing on forgiveness and letting go of ego, our reflections reveal how small acts of gratitude and camaraderie transform suffering into strength. Tune in to discover how these experiences foster resilience and inspire growth.
Hello everyone, welcome to the Frontier Line.
Speaker 1:Today I've got the great opportunity we're going to turn the tables a little bit and I am going to interview Wayne and obviously I interview Wayne, I put him on the spot, he puts me on the spot about certain things, about what we talk about on a on a, on a episode, every episode basis.
Speaker 1:But, um, I think you know we've done this with members of our team and, uh, I want everyone to get an opportunity to see into the man and to the soul of the person that I've come to, uh, who's become my brother, one of my best friends, somebody who I have just so admired now for quite a while. And as I've gotten to know Wayne, I've gotten to know you, wayne I continue to be impressed and blown away, and I just want people to get a taste for who you are and why, because I think your story is impressive. You've been through so many things and so many challenges that I think would have probably soul crushed almost anybody, not to say they didn't you, but you found a way to to, to work through them. So I want to, I want people to get to know you and so we get to have a conversation. That sounds fun.
Speaker 2:I know you're so excited. I appreciate you convincing me into letting you do this. I do feel like I arm, wrestle him in B. I feel like you kind of interview, like you said, on almost every episode you know, and so it's been good. So I'm interested to, I'm excited at the opportunity to dive in with you.
Speaker 1:Well, I look forward to the conversation. So, this conversation, I've been actually looking forward to it for since we talked, because we had a great conversation when Wayne was interviewing me, and so much so that I think we wanted to keep the conversation going, cause we were just there's two guys having a, having a, having a chat. But yeah, and I hope, you know, the hope would be is that people can listen to this and, you know, kind of gain perspective into your own lives, because you get to hear, you know, from the heart from us about all the stuff right, that this is not a, that life is. Life is full of challenges and we are still facing them. You know personally, it's not, we're not, we're not sitting in the. You know some some on high, we are in the trenches still doing these things and hopefully some, you know you can relate, and so so, wayne, where do we start?
Speaker 1:I think give people a little I think you've touched on it. I mean to start out kind of an overview of some of your early experiences as an entrepreneur, because I think you've you said in one of the episodes you know, your, your, your entrepreneur hat is pretty much glued to your head, like you, you know, I think it's it's, it's every much, it's every bit your essence. Where did that come from? When did when did that start? What did you? What did you venture into life with, like when you were, was it a teenager that you got to do these things? Were you the kid doing? And you know, hustling as you were as a kid? Where did this all come from?
Speaker 2:Man, that's a great question. You know I worked the typical job as a lifeguard, you know, for almost every summer in between, you know, years in high school, so that was pretty normal, that was kind of lazy and fun. And you know, I high school, so that was pretty normal, it was kind of lazy and fun. And you know, I got to work at the excalibur hotel in las vegas as a lifeguard my before my senior year, so that was a lot of fun. But, um, where did the entrepreneurship come from? Man? I? It's tough to say. You know, I, I around 21 years old.
Speaker 2:Um, my then father-in-law convinced me to build my own house. Wow, and I had no experience building anything. And he had built, built a few things, and I leaned into it and almost immediately regretted that decision. But we built this house out there in South Jordan, in fact bought a lot on what is now the edge of Daybreak. Locals here in Utah know where Daybreak is. That's a massive project.
Speaker 2:But I built this home at the age of 21 and messed a lot of things up. I mean, we were fixing things in that house for 10 years after we built it because, you know, I it just, it just wasn't done right. But I think that his convincing me to do that inspired me to this idea that I could do things I didn't think I could do. And that was pretty fun, you know, short of you know, nailing my hand to the wall at three in the morning up on a ladder one night. I was that's one of the funner stories building that house. I was putting some crown molding up and it was a vaulted ceiling in the dining room up and it was a vaulted ceiling in the dining room but I was up on this ladder, you know, 18 feet up there, and holding this crown with a finish nailer and nailed my finger to in between the crown mold and the thing Three in the morning.
Speaker 2:So, uh, sweetheart, help, I was alone. Yeah, my wife at the time was was home. Um, this house wasn't finished and I was stuck there and I just had to. I was like man, I'm either gonna stay here until everyone comes in the morning or we're just gonna mat up and just yank the damn thing off and I did and I yanked it off and it was my index finger. Oh, and that was excruciating. Went to the doctor. I duct taped it Went home, as you do.
Speaker 2:Next morning went and got an x-ray. I still have the x-ray. Finished nail Went right through the bone, nice little hole in the bone. So that was an interesting thing, but that was my only major injury. Building the house, that was lucky with all the power saws, power tools, you know, framing nail guns you still have all of your fingers so many ways that could go wrong, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean I hear about guys falling off of roofs and, yeah, getting impaled. I mean there's all kinds of things in construction that could happen. So I guess I was lucky that that that was the only thing and built the house and that gave me the taste of being able to do something big and at least having the guts to like take it on, even if I wasn't adequately prepared for it. You know cause I got through it and I think that was probably the first real formative moment of I think I could do this. I want to be an entrepreneur. And then within a year of that I had started my own stone and tile company and started hiring guys, and that went on for a decade. So my first decade in business was stone and tile. We got very good at that.
Speaker 1:So where the military, your military experience, where did that fall in line of all these things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my dad was a US Marine Corps fighter jet pilot and he was an officer you have to be an officer to be a pilot and he loved the Corps and hated the Corps. He loved the Corps and hated the Corps and he was really adamant that none of his children should go and follow in his footsteps and do that.
Speaker 2:So, of course, being the young, arrogant 17-year-old that I was, I decided I'd join the Marine Corps, just to kind of spite him. And so I enlisted. I approached a recruiter at school and enlisted I. You know, I uh approached a recruiter at school and enlisted when I was 17 and and uh ended up. You know, the recruiter was like look, if you and I had a football scholarship, by the way, because I did pretty well in football, junior, senior years and and I was excited to go play football. And the recruiter, he kind of sold me the story. He's like look, if you hurry and you get to boot camp three days after you graduate, we can hurry and get you back for fall camp. And he failed to tell me anything about School of Infantry afterwards. So I hurry up, I graduate, I'm in bootcamp.
Speaker 2:Three days later I turn 18 in bootcamp and somewhere in that second month of bootcamp, talking to a drill instructor and mentioned football camp, and he's like oh hell, no, son, you're. You got a school of infantry, ait at camp Pendleton. You get, you're going to go home for two weeks and you come right back. And so I got to call my dad and I was just crushed, you know I did. The recruiter had lied to me and canceled I had paid for my apartment. I call and canceled. That canceled my classes. You know there goes the scholarship and that was it changed the course of of life classes. You know there goes the scholarship and that was it changed the course of of life, as you know. And once you sign that contract with the military, you're in, you know and you don't, you don't just change your mind. So, um, hindsight being, 2020 yeah are you?
Speaker 1:are you glad, that happened?
Speaker 2:it's so hard to say I. What I can say is I'm glad that I'm here right now and I'm exactly who I am and, for good or bad, all of the experiences have culminated to being right here Now. I was a reservist, so I don't hold myself out there as some war hero. I mean, I was just a reservist for the Marine Corps machine gunner.
Speaker 2:Yeah it was tough training, it was formative. That was a fast growing up opportunity to go through bootcamp and school of infantry and then be assigned to an infantry unit and kind of do that even with the reserves. But I did that for five years, took a break to do a church mission in Russia and then came home After five years of the Marine Corps reserves. I had an uncle, great guy, who was a pretty high-ranking guy in the Utah Army National Guard, 145th Field Artillery Battalion in Manti, and he convinced me to switch gears and leave the Marine Corps and transfer into the Army National Guard, which I did and ended up serving five more years there. And you know the reserves were nice because I got GI Bill so that helped pay for college. That's mainly, I think, one of my main things I was doing it for I didn't think In the Marine Corps, you know we were just getting into Desert Storm and I think every infantryman in the Marine Corps is hoping they get to go and they get to do their duty.
Speaker 2:You know, and I certainly was their duty, you know, and I certainly was. And even during bootcamp we got, we got put on you know, the, the, the red, ready, alert training and you know, get ready for deployment training, and we did that and then, and then he didn't, they didn't deploy us. So I also think of my military services, maybe divinely guided, lucky, you know, to serve over a decade and never be deployed. Because I have friends that were deployed and had friends that were deployed and didn't come home. And you know, I've really taken on this commitment for veterans and dealing with, you know, the PTSD and depression and the things that we you know that we part of our why and why we're doing things and it comes from that, even though I didn't.
Speaker 1:You know the PTSD and depression and the things that we you know that we part of our why and why we're doing things and that it comes from that, even though I didn't, you know, get deployed and have to go through some of the things they have. That military opportunity, that experience led you into maybe your experience building a house where you had the attitude of like I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I have some background now to know that I can figure out a way through this. I just got to, I've got to jump into this. Did that kind of play into some of that which led you to say I'm going to tackle a challenge that just seems insurmountable?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, bootcamp was that it was going in there at 17 and realizing immediately this was this was felt insurmountable. Um, and then coming out the back end of it and saying, holy shit, I actually made it. Not only did I make it, I came out with rank back end of it saying, holy shit, I actually made it. Not only did I make it, I came out with rank, you know, as an eagle scout. So I got automatic promotion.
Speaker 2:I was, you know, platoon leader during boot camp and ait and did really well in physical fitness. So I, you know, I got an award for the iron man you know, they have an iron man kind of physical fitness, you know know, challenge and bootcamp and won that and, um, it did prove I was able to prove to myself I can do really hard things, particularly things that I have no idea how I'm going to accomplish when I start it. But I, I think, I think it did build or establish that just take the first step and you figure the second step out after you're done with the first step. Don't worry about the whole staircase today, just go one day at a time. And that has been foundational for me as an entrepreneur because most of the days, if I compound the 28 years in my entrepreneurial career, most of those days have been out of only. I can only focus on today. I just gotta, I gotta win today so I can get up and reassess and focus on tomorrow. I can't even focus on tomorrow today.
Speaker 1:That's all I got well and that's advice and that's a way of living for a lot of people, for a lot of different things, a lot of you know, because it's sort of like, if you start getting consumed by the days, weeks, what am I going to do? Sometimes, the best thing is to focus on just the now and what do I have to do? The tiger in front of me, what do I? What do I have to tackle today? Yeah, a hundred percent. When? When have you been most proud of your resilience? Is there a moment, or there are a couple of moments, where you went? You know what I'm proud of me for making it through that.
Speaker 2:I was very proud to you know, to get through bootcamp and and have the you know, the drill you know, and the dress blues and the blues and the parade of that, that graduation and that whole process, the precision of Marine Corps drill on a drill field is huge, huge sense of patriotism, huge sense of pride. I mean, from then on, cut me open and I'm bleeding red, white and blue. No doubt I am the consummate Patriot. I've always been and um, for me it wasn't hard to sign the line to give the oath, you know, and, and sign the check and be ready to go. I was just ready, right ready to commit, Coming through 2008.
Speaker 2:Alive was also, and I didn't even realize it, in 2009 or 10, it was like seven years after the recovery of that Great sense of pride. I survived it, Um, and there were many days I didn't think I would, and we've talked about this a few times. I mean, I'm not suicidal most of the time and that's all you could ask for is as long as most of the days you know you're not, then then you're, you're okay, but those days, man, I mean, I mean 2008 for me was a shit show, it was a full apocalypse lose everything divorce, young kids, wife was was my fourth and to experience that amount of devastation. I'm sure people you know, I'm sure people in Ukraine right now who have lost their homes in the war situation, that's probably what it feels like Homeless, no vehicles, family's gone, Like the sense of loss is so profound you could never explain it unless you've lived through something like that. Um, everyone our age, who who existed as an entrepreneur in the 2008-2009 crisis, has something similar, so I recognize it's nothing unique to me, but for me, that was my first really losing it all and having to reassess my life and reinvent myself.
Speaker 2:I was pretty good at real estate before that and all of my investment focus was real estate. Well, that was all gone. It just evaporated. So for five years I had to do something else. That was an excruciating recovery, but it finally came back around. I was able to get back into real estate later on and the lessons that I still depend on from that is even when it seems like all hope is lost, I can get through this If I just don't check myself out. That's my number one commitment. I can never check myself out because I wanted to. If I don't check myself out, then there's a chance I can survive tomorrow, Right, and.
Speaker 2:And then there's an also an interesting dichotomy around being in such a dense, low energy, negative space and listening to motivational speakers and Tony Robbins and all the things, and you don't just shift into positive mental space. No, you're dealing with soul crushing, as you put it, space. You're dealing with soul crushing, as you put it, and it felt. Soul crushing, Soul crushing depression, hopelessness, and so getting to neutral for me was the daily thing. It was like I've got to just get out of the wanting to check out and get to neutral where I don't put judgment on the circumstances and I don't put judgment on anything. I'm here and I'm open and I'm flexible, and I'm going to be flexible and open to see if I can't figure out how to shift in a positive attitude. Somehow. A positive attitude, somehow. Gratitude happens to be probably the number. Gratitude and foot outward focus happened to be maybe the two strongest things that came out of that for me.
Speaker 1:If you were talking to someone in your shoes back then, now, having come through this, knowing that it's neat to read all the daily reminders and the way you said the Tony Robbins world what would you tell them? What would you say to you? What do you think what would have helped or what did help?
Speaker 2:I mean I did everything wrong. I think in hindsight I did it wrong. I mean I developed this nasty relationship with alcohol that I just wanted to escape the pain in the alcohol.
Speaker 1:So it was a daily.
Speaker 2:It was a nightly thing for a decade and that had a serious, damaging impact on my children wanting to be with me, wanting to come and stay on the weekend, wanting to be with me, wanting to come and stay on the weekend. Because I didn't have the discipline to not behave that way and not choose out of that and be stronger for them. I didn't, you know. So I kicked myself in the butt a lot. Still it's hard to forgive myself for that decade of trying to suppress my pain with alcohol and then all of the all of the damage I caused to my relationships because of it. Um, what would I tell someone facing that right now?
Speaker 1:It feels as you said. I mean, you said I feel like put it's, you know it's. It's easy to hear all these things, but when you're in that moment, nothing sounds good. Yeah, you know what is there.
Speaker 2:It was there a thing, couple of things to think that, yeah, the two things, the two things, and that would be really focus on gratitude. And it gets super simplistic when you're that low. It's so easy to let your mind just rail against God and be angry at the world and angry at the circumstance and angry at everyone that has abandoned me. Right, but to dig deep and find gratitude for anything, such as I'm thankful that my body is mostly healthy. I'm thankful that air is free and I can breathe as much air as I want today, or one of my favorites was God, I'm thankful I'm not in boot camp or prison today. I'm broke and homeless and in a friend's basement with no vehicle, but I'm still free. I could walk out in the yard and do what I when I want. I can sleep when I want. You know what I'm saying. Like the most basic, minimalistic focus on gratitude is critical. That was critical for me, and the next one was outward focus. My suffering markedly diminished when I focused on others, because I wasn't the only one.
Speaker 2:In 2008, lose every friend I had was losing everything. I mean I. I can remember one day in my car before I lost it, sitting out in front of a friend's house while constables were evicting him and his wife and his kids, throwing their things out of the house in garbage bags, forcing, forcibly evicting them and um, that, that that's uh, that'll change you. But I was able to reach out to that friend I'm suffering, they're suffering and I found some relief, commiserating with not really commiserating but trying to help him feel better. And he was divorced soon after that too. I mean, that was the other thing. Almost everyone I knew got divorced, like the family. You know these, these there's.
Speaker 2:The wives at the time were like how are you not smart enough to avoid this? Well, honey, 500 banks went out of business. How the fuck do I? How am I smarter than Mira Lynch? No understanding, and that's what caused a lot of divorce. You have women, by and large, relying on husbands to provide and the rug got taken out from under us. There was no excuses, there was no way to talk our way Like. I don't know. I don't know what I could have done different, but showing up in little ways for other people who I knew were also suffering with me was very, very cathartic to me, and also establishing and underscoring repeatedly over years of time that I'm not alone. And so I would, if anyone was finding themselves, would find themselves in those types of circumstances. Those are the two things I would say On a daily basis. Your whole routine changes and it's gratitude and outward focus. That's what kept me alive.
Speaker 1:How did you? Well, and I'm thank you for sharing that, because it's you know, I don't know. I've heard a phrase that way, because I think we we talk about it societally a lot like, hey, you need to reach out and talk, but it's never okay. What's the conversation, though? What do you say? Yeah, how do you talk to somebody? Or how, if you were in that spot, how? How do you talk to somebody? How do you ask for help? How do you just interact?
Speaker 1:Well that's something I haven't heard before. I mean just by showing up in gratitude, and maybe it's a commiseration, just that alone, just that very thing.
Speaker 2:If that's enough. That's enough. So many interesting conversations you couldn't even imagine, simplistic. I can remember, and he'll know if he's listening, he'll know who this is Sitting together, both of us crying, both of us dealing with utter chaos, and one of us said, hey, why don't we walk over to Taco Bell and get a taco? I've got like 85 cents in my pocket. He's like shit, I've got like 55 cents, let's go get, you know, some tacos.
Speaker 2:And we walked over, you know, and got some tacos, and I don't remember what we talked about, necessarily, because everything was on fire, right, but but, but I'll never forget that right, being able to just go get a taco with a brother and recognize we were in that together. I mean, he had an empire that was, I think, more advanced than mine and it all collapsed, right, mortgage company. So that was, you know, right onway of the of the storm to be destroyed, and very quickly. So, um, just very simplistic, human conversations caring about one another. I imagine if you're in a hurricane situation, you're dealing with that now. You've lost your home, transportation, all the things are gone, and and it will bring out a new, elevated, focused on being human with one another and trying to help each other figure out what to do next. I have no idea what to do next. Let's just it's as a taco.
Speaker 1:It's something about have a taco let's talk about it, have a taco, that's it. Yeah. How do you go from there? I mean, how do you? Because I don't know, my, my gut reaction is that you go through that and it's like, okay, I just need to almost play it safe, like I need to have something that's just sort of reliable, yeah.
Speaker 1:But what I know about you, yeah, is that you have this massive vision. You have the ability to imagine possibility on a scale that I've rarely experienced when we talk about projects. You go, well, why not? Why don't you do the bigger? What's the bigger part? Well, let's just do the big thing. You're like, well, I don't know. Well, yeah, I guess we could, but you're already thinking that way. How do you go from there at the lowest of lows, make it through on a day-to-day basis to reimagining big and possible? How does that even happen? Because I think most people would be like, look, I just need to get back to being able to cover my bills, do my thing. Oof, I'm alive, I made it through it. I'm not Boy, I don't. But no, no, you kind of doubled down and said let's go again and let's go big and let's try these things again, because that's just who I am try these things again because that's just who I am. How did you go from that to where you?
Speaker 2:your next evolution man. It's so complicated because there's so much time that goes by in like days and days, weeks, months. I think naive optimism is a huge gift of mine.
Speaker 1:Just naive, that's good, naive optimism.
Speaker 2:I like that I can recover in a year. I mean, if you would have given me a crystal ball in 2008 and told me it was going to take seven years to recover, I'd have probably shot myself. I don't think I would have had the fortitude to go seven years of the hell that I went through. I didn't have it in me, but what I did have in me was, by next year, six months, six months. We'll be there. We'll get this new thing. You know what I'm saying? There's always the new thing. Yeah, I, I even I'm losing track on the amount of time. Repeat that question.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I'm lost in thought.
Speaker 1:No, I, I, it's totally okay, Cause it was, it's a big question and it's a big thought, which is, you know, you were at your lowest of lows. You were found pure joy, with a friend going through the same thing, Just having a taco, yeah, just having, like, oh, I've got enough change in my pocket to what I know it was your next very big, this thinking, this thinking, big mentality.
Speaker 1:It is a thinking, big mentality yeah, like you go from the low slows but then also not just stopping and saying I just need to get back to being content and just playing it safe or whatever. I think that would be the inclination.
Speaker 1:Once you've been smacked and beaten down, you'd be like okay, I just need to get back to. That's not who you are. How do you transit that? How does Wayne get from sharing a taco to doing a multi-million-dollar development a number of years later and building that back up and rebuilding what you had? How?
Speaker 2:I mean that's where you're saying naive optimism that's the mentality, the programming for the, the long-term programming of mentality is an advantage because it doesn't happen overnight, it's it's a decade down, 28 years of concerted effort on my my own thinking and programming. I learned pretty fast that if I focus on just covering the bills, I'll always be able to just cover the bills and nothing more than that, and that was a major deterrent for me to go get a job. Now, many days, I go, weeks on end with no food, no money. So I go, we go, and we go for the Catholic food bank or the LDS food bankers. We'd get some scraps for food and we'd get by, you know, for a few days.
Speaker 2:And it was very tempting to go get a job at 7-Eleven or something. Very tempting um spouse at the time because I divorced in 2008 in the aftermath of that 13 year. Marriage ended in 2008,. Four kids, one on the way, three, one on the way. I find myself, you know, later in 2009 in a new relationship with a gal who was also losing everything and there's a lot of common commonality there and I owe a lot to her for not letting me give in and and to the temptation to go to 7-eleven and get a job. She's like no, you're too smart, you're too for that, just keep grinding. So I can't say I do it, my, I did that on my own, um, leaning on god this whole time, for the focus was, there, was always, there was a compounding knowledge that if I focus up here but I only hit here, you know the cliche aim for the stars and hit whatever hit you know you're going to, you're going to come out way further ahead by focusing on the impossible and landing somewhere just short of impossible than focusing on just covering the bills. And and so I would say in the first decade of entrepreneurship I learned that and it was clear and um, and that has grown. That's compounded in my terms of thinking, um, and that's that's enabled me to to be, have a creative mindset and just think really big and recognize I'm not doing this by myself. God's on my side, there's a partnership with God and he could do anything. And if I'm really good at surrounding myself with more capable people, that I could pull some big shit off that I'm not capable of per se individually, anyways for sure. That I'm not capable of per se individually, anyways for sure. And that was the case of how I pulled out of the, the five to seven years of just utter, utter hurt, utter hell into developing Sage Grigamoma, you know, a hundred million dollar condo resort it was. It came down to me cultivating relationships with some people who had better circumstances than I did to be able to contribute this. That or the other put me in the driver's seat to unleash my creativity on it.
Speaker 2:My able to use my architecture background as heavily use my real estate background. I was able to use my architecture background. I was able to use my real estate background. I was able to use my intuition on the markets, my understanding of the markets, and enroll enough people to believe in that vision that we pulled it off and we proved it. We broke all the records and proved everyone wrong.
Speaker 2:So a strong divergence away from my own ego played a huge piece in that whole recovery. Because 2008, driving the Aston Martin, I had the Porsche, I had the cars, living in a 10,000 square foot beautiful home that I couldn't afford. Ego, really driven by ego, getting knocked down, losing everything, literally, literally everything. Donating plasma every week for 20 bucks, 25 bucks, doesn't strip the ego in a year. The ego won't die in a year, but three years in of that same shit every day, five years in contemplating suicide, like maybe I'm better off, maybe I'm hurting my family, maybe I'm not supposed to be here. That'll strip the ego and it broke my ego all the way down in a great, great, great, beautiful way for me to reinvent myself with a much smaller ego.
Speaker 2:I can't say that ego's totally dead, but there was definitely the death of that ego, a reinvention, replacing with confidence and certainty and more healthy proclivities and and depending on people, you know, depending on relationships, that that big shift we talk about that a lot on the show, like the, the, the relationships of that are focused on money on one side and relationships on the other. And and most of the people I was dealing with in those early years were driven by the money, because I was cause that's the frequency I was operating on was chasing money and having that ego death and enough years of it consistently and no breaks and no relief, caused me to, and I think that's God, I think that's God's way of molding me in the refiner's fire, because I could have easily checked out, I could have easily stayed angry and resentful to God and become an atheist or whatever, because I'd been justified and become an atheist or whatever, because I'd been justified. You know all the suffering I mean. You go through winter when the gas is out and your little girl, who's four or five years old, has the goldfish freeze in the fishbowl. That's fucked up, you know it. It changes you. And being a man and a provider and a father um, when you can do nothing about it, is what it felt like.
Speaker 2:And you know what listeners are going to say oh bullshit, you could have gone work seven, 11. Why, why would you put your family through that when you could just go get a job? Oh, it wasn't that easy. I mean, I actually applied for 7-Eleven and they wouldn't hire me. To be fair, I think I was certifiably unemployable. I'm sure I could have gone and worked at the garbage company. I'm sure I could have done something. I dropped out of college and I had five years of experience in architecture and business, but I didn't. I didn't, I just chose to just stay in architecture and business. But I didn't, I didn't. I just chose to just stay in it and suffer through it and try and grow through it and grow out of it.
Speaker 1:It's an amazing belief in self when everybody might just say why don't you? And to understand and recognize the abilities that you have and going you know what. It's not where I can serve best. It's not that I can't do any of these things. It would be a waste of my talents because of what I'm good at, and other people, myself included, can benefit from this If I keep on on that pathway. That, how, how, how do you, how do you fight that? How do you listen to yourself over everybody else? How do you, how do you invest in yourself and say I'm, I'm doubling down again on me. I'm doubling down again on me. Yep, I lost it again. Yep, I lost it again Over those years where it's like I should probably I. That's when I mean how, how, what was it again? Was it this wonderful optimism, this, you know, this just innocent optimism? Or was it? Was it something? Somebody said I would be white? Was it just like look, screw it. This is what I'm doing and ultimately, it was just I'm investing in me.
Speaker 2:I could honestly say that I believed in myself enough. I had a vision for who I could be and I wasn't. I could never let that go Like. I knew I was destined to do something bigger and I felt like if I didn't stick to that long game, I'd be failing my family anyways and I would let them all down. I felt like I would let myself down. I'd let them all down.
Speaker 2:If I just gave up and just went and worked at 7-Eleven or some other job, I would be stuck in that. I think I would have become a slave to the paycheck and the consistency and I would have never had the discipline to walk away from it again and try again. So that haunted me. So it was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I'm like man, if I give up, then I go take a paycheck right now. And people came along over the years. I mean there was one instance where a friend and I've got some interesting tattoos. There's one on my forearm here. It's a graveyard with tombstones. I don't think I've ever told you about this.
Speaker 1:No, and it was going to be one of my questions, so I'm glad you went there. I, tombstones, I don't think I've ever told you about this.
Speaker 2:No, and it was going to be one of my questions. So I'm glad you went there. I was going to ask you to explain some of your tattoos. This graveyard with tombstones on it represents people who called themselves friends and I thought they were brothers to me at the time, who totally abandoned me in the loss. When I couldn't provide money for them or tickets to UFC or a flight here. They didn't need me anymore. So it thinned out my whole circle down to just almost zero. There's a few of them that remain through that and I found out who the true friends were. And the rest of them were in these tombs. There they're, in the graveyard of so-called friends.
Speaker 2:Some even worse so-called friends took advantage of me. Knowing what my circumstances were, knowing I was going to go to jail if I didn't pay child support, lent me money with ridiculous terms, took me to court and took advantage, like a predator would, to lend me 10 grand to do this and get out of that with these huge, these huge predatory implications, put me deeper, deeper in servitude to some of them. So, beyond not even just being a friend, ghosting me, becoming predators of my circumstance, seeing me down and kicking me while I'm down. So again, that all really underscored me valuing relationships, true, authentic friendship, the kind that I can rely on, friendship, the kind that I can rely on, the kind that I would do anything for. And so, over all of those years and all these experiences, this is where I find myself today, 2024, where relationships mean everything, literally everything.
Speaker 2:Without my relationships, nothing matters. We can build an empire and have billions of dollars. It doesn't matter, because it can all go away. Tomorrow, if the market changes its mind, it's all gone. But relationships aren't that way. They're real relationships. So I learned if I could build that, then I could get back up and recover. So that's another one of the tattoos on my arm is inside of my bicep. That's me standing in front of the city burning to the ground, because I realized through 2008, the whole empire could burn to the ground and I could stand there and know I could rebuild it. Most people don't have that oh and I would
Speaker 2:rare and I wouldn't have it if it were for 2008 and the five to seven years recovering and all that pain. So I know now. So that makes me more dangerous, because there's not much you can do to me to convince me I can't succeed, because I can survive anything. You could kill me, but I believe in an afterlife. I believe I'm eternal. So I believe I'm just going to go, move on to the next phase. I'm going to build something there, so you can't even you can't even fully kill me. I'm not even afraid of that, right.
Speaker 2:So it's, it's a powerful opportunity to reach an understanding about what, what you can withstand and what causes growth. You know we talk about civilizations like people having it too easy and then being overtaken by some other. You know, more dominant, hungrier, hungrier, more motivated, more ambitious civilization, yeah, and so I think there's a lot of advantages for an entrepreneur to be a little hungry all the time. Keep that ambition really hot and keep that struggle fairly real. What, but what's crazy is I know so many listeners are going to be so polarized about this, like you're just so stuck in these cliches you want it to be harder. That's not what I'm saying. I don't want it to be harder. Actually, I do want it to be easier. I do want $10 million in the bank for a cushion so I can just fucking pay for my gas and and and go to the gym and have my gym membership and do the things I love to do, because we live in a 3d world that's driven by money. So you, we don't escape that and I certainly don't want my children to to feel the pains of that, right. But at the same time I don't regret. I regret all of that alcoholism that I introduced into their lives and all the trauma that created. I don't regret that giving, not giving in and kind of sticking to my guns and like pushing through, because I do.
Speaker 2:Now we're on a. We're on a path that I could see all the all that time back then. We're on a path to actually achieve what I've always envisioned and that's really important for my kids to be able to see that and experience that. Yeah, yeah, it sucked for them growing up being broke. Yeah, it sucked for them growing up being broke, getting a card or a note for their birthday and no gift or whatever. That really sucked for them. But I think there's a lot of value there for them and recognizing what it's taken for me to build something. Recognizing we can do hard things. Recognizing that many of their friends who have wealthy parents who just buy them new cars and all this shit are disempowering them. And I think my kids recognize that they've got a strong sense of the value of a gallon of gas right. It actually takes work to produce that. There's no entitlement. My kids are not entitled, so that's a blessing.
Speaker 1:There's no entitlement, my kids are not entitled, so that's a blessing. Through all of that, I mean and you've kind of touched on this, um and thank you for, of course, as I'm continuing on to share that I'm I'm learning things as we go I didn't know. I'm so glad you shared the story about your lower tattoo. I didn't know that and I mean that that's that resonates and it makes perfect sense. Do you think, like, when no one's watching, what are your? What are the core values? What drives you when you're like? That's not not for anybody else and I think I think you've touched on it, but do you that that really drive you? Now that today, the Wayne, today you know what, what is what? What are those when it doesn't matter? Well, all he matters to you.
Speaker 2:Well, those are the character building things. You know what? What do we do when no one's watching, no one cares, and, uh, the advantages that come from years of no one caring. Your parents are always going to care, but they're not going to be able to do much for you. Mine couldn't financially. They're like geez. I hope you can figure this out, wayne. We love you. I hope you can figure this out. That was it.
Speaker 2:But from a friends and support and all that perspective, what became important to me was my physicality. Like I, I can't control all the things around me, but I can. I can control me being strong. I can control, you know, getting into the gym. I can control whether I'm willing to go rob a bank or stay in integrity, integrity always, and whether I'm willing to go rob a bank or stay in integrity, integrity always, and not taking a bad deal and dealing with bad people. And I've had dealt with plenty of bad people and I thought were good and then turned out not good. I'm still in litigation with people that I thought were good, that were not good. They were stealing from me.
Speaker 2:But I think my own discipline I can control. I can wake up in the morning. I can control the discipline for the day and my integrity for the day, and those became sacrosanct, those two things and also my reliance on God, recognizing there's no way I'm getting out of this without him, without some divine intervention. I mean, I've got to have help because I'm definitely not big enough for this and you know, focusing on big projects and things, you know, I that many instances where I can see the hand of God just reach in and just move something or put someone on my path and make things happen in the 11th hour. Like you know, there's so many cliches. My life is like a giant cliche man, you know, you talk about.
Speaker 2:Like you know that cliche about stopping three feet away from gold. You know mining gold. Cliche about stopping three feet away from gold. You know mining gold. God, that is so relevant. It's so so relevant because people just you can't calculate what it actually takes, like you can't calculate casualties and you can't calculate sacrifice. Until you're in it and you're making sacrifice, you're actually doing things. Everyone wants to be the gangster. Until you're in it and you're making sacrifice, you're actually doing things. Everyone wants to be the gangster. Until you start doing gangster shit and it really hurts and there's real casualties and losses. And then there's a crossroads. There's like a daily crossroads, right.
Speaker 1:So on that I mean, how do you think this with you, I mean, and everything you're doing currently we're doing, we're all involved in. But more importantly, you success stories. I've personally gotten to know, know you and like to go from the literally the highest of highs having everything, losing everything, rebuilding that, dealing with bad people, still finding a way forward Like it's just. It's just and and maintaining this beautiful vision of what it can be and what I've experienced in bringing others into this and trusting them and saying how do we get there? But when you think of impact and leaving legacy and those sorts of things, what is the impact? If we're telling the Wayne story here, you know, in 15, 20, 30 years we're saying this is what Wayne did. What do you hope is said at this point, knowing what you know?
Speaker 2:I mean there are obvious big goals that I've talked about around jobs and the environment and business. There's obviously that, but I think more important, for me, the most important thing maybe, is influencing those around me about abundance. What does abundance actually look like? What is it actually? It does include money and wealth. For sure it has to, by definition.
Speaker 2:I know God wants us to be successful, but our attitudes about abundance? It would be I could call it success if everyone around me embraced a strong attitude of abundance, and that, to me, is like recognizing we can breathe an unlimited amount of air. We think of air as energy. Right, when I breathe it in, it feels great, and when I let it go, it feels just as great. That's the same with money, it's the same with energy. So, bringing it in and letting it go and letting it flow through me, letting abundance flow through me, that means I'm having an impact on other people. Flow through me, that means I'm having an impact on other people.
Speaker 2:I'm not holding my breath when I take it in. If I hold my breath, my body wants to let it go. That's like rain. The earth is very abundant. It rains effortlessly. It fills up the oceans and ponds and lakes and all the rivers and things, and it evaporates and does the cycle all over again effortlessly. It doesn't have to hold on to that abundance of water because the earth knows it can create it again.
Speaker 2:If we could all develop and cultivate this strong sense of knowing of what abundance really is and that it flows through us and it's not something we hoard, and that is designed by God to flow through us so that we can have it come through us as stewards and impact other people, then our whole way we walk about the earth changes, like the whole mentality changes. That the whole focus shifts Right. And that would be, I think, the biggest impact I could have on my children for sure, my partners, my friends. If I could be an example of that of true abundance and have them actually come to know it the way I know it, that'd be a success.
Speaker 1:I hadn't thought about it in those terms, and that's a beautiful way to put things, about flowing in and out of, and compare it to breathing, comparing it to breathing the thing. That's obviously natural and inherent in all of our life, obviously, but how it represents much of how, how we deal with these things and what happens when. I guess, when you start to hoard things and what comes from, that can be detrimental. I mean, you, it's holding your breath. Well, you can only do that for so long, and so the goal of us is to continue that going on, and then that that's a really, really terrific insight. Yeah, that's a terrific insight. Wow, caught me. So I, I, you know, probably one, I guess. One last question, you know, I think, um, just personally, as I've, as as I've become, I've come into your world and gotten to experience who Wayne is, and your heart and your soul and your commitment and your word to friends and to business partners, and that I know unequivocally that I could call you at any time and ask anything and you would be there in whatever capacity you could. How you show up abundantly into other people's lives has had a. It's had an impact on me, I've seen it have an impact on others. So, under underscoring that, do you do you think that you know? How? How do you take that? Do you do it through activity and business? How do you? What's the best way to for you? Do you feel like you need to share that and show that with people? What's the best way to carry that forward? Is it through other people? Do you feel like you, or is it what you build or like how? How are you looking at the future now? Like, how, when you see your kids, how do you explain that to them? Do you show that to them? Do they see it like, hey, you know, dad, I see it in your friends. Do they get to experience it? Because kids are finding me? How do you today's Wayne, all the shit that you've experienced? Do you just kind of do that and then let it happen?
Speaker 1:Or understanding what you just said to me, because it's powerful, it's palpable and it's something I know me, I'd want to share with my kids. How do you? How do you? How do you continue to do that and share abundantly with people? What do you mean? Do you think about that? Have you been? I just want to know more like, how do you? Do you actively think about, like how, how can I do this differently today, Because maybe in the past I had a knee jerk reaction to something.
Speaker 1:Like I'll just do it this way, like thinking, okay, I've had a conversation today and I can show up into this conversation as this person or this person and I can. Maybe it was a bad conversation and I can take in oh you know what they said. No, they didn't like this, they don't like this idea. How do I take this information in, deal with it abundantly and push it back out? How out? How do you do that when shit comes Maybe it's not the good stuff, it's more the bad how do you just continue to do that? Take it in for what it is, recognize it for what it is and let it move through you.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love the question. First off, for me, perspective determines behavior. So our perspectives are always framed by or, excuse me, the behavior is always framed by the perspective we hold, the lens we see it through. It's going to dictate how we respond, considering all the things that I've grown through and anger that I've harbored and fracturing my soul, because I can sit here and tell you my soul is fractured, I still have cracks in it, I still have trauma and I've had a lot of anger, a lot of anger and resentment toward a lot of people over a lot of years.
Speaker 2:There have been days when I haven't had my shit together, where I'm driving and I'm just daydreaming of just harming someone violently, who I might be in litigation with, or different circumstances, and how I've had to overcome my own anger. Because what I recognize in those moments number one, it doesn't feel good. That's hurt. My own anger and harboring all this negative, toxic anger and rage is hurting me more than them, way more than them. And if I want to get to where I'm going and I want to be that highest version of myself, forgiveness for myself. It's required. You know, christ teaches us the commandment right. There are the commandments, and there's the commandment Love one another. There's the commandment love one another. He says it is up to me to be judging, but it's up to you to forgive all men You're required to forgive.
Speaker 2:That's been one of the hardest things of my life is forgiving, because what I realized is my anger over all the years is really deep, deep pain from being hurt by the people who I loved the most Closest to me.
Speaker 2:The people in that graveyard were people that I loved the most, that hurt me and that manifests as anger. And the way to eliminate that or transmute that is through forgiveness forgiving them so I can move on with my own life and I could have peace. That having my conveying that to my children might be more valuable than everything else we've talked about, because I see my kids having also justifiable reasons for anger and holding resentment, and they've shown a lot of anger and resentment toward me for divorce and alcoholism and being a bad dad and doing things that that I shouldn't have done. And so if I could lead them to forgiveness right and have them understand how much peace and joy can come from truly forgiving someone that you really, really loathe and resent, that's a magical thing. So I don't know if I answered the question squarely, but that's what comes to mind as to how I, what daily. What can I do is promoting forgiveness. And so when I have a bad phone call and I'm like fuck you.
Speaker 2:I might have that moment I might throw that bird, but then I got to come back quickly to forgiveness and benefit the doubt and like just letting it go. Sometimes, look, I can't make everyone happy. I got plenty of people that that hate me. They want to say all kinds of shit about me, write things about me. There's plenty of haters and I recognize that's always going to be the case. But if anyone takes enough time to get to know me, like you have, that I want them to understand. These key things we're talking about is going to be the case. But if anyone takes enough time to get to know me, like you have, then I want them to understand these key things we're talking about how I feel about abundance, how I feel about you or them, my commitment to this forgiveness concept following Christ in that example.
Speaker 2:That's real. That's actually real, executable daily knowledge and skill that you have to get to get. We get to cultivate, we get to choose. We choose to cultivate it or not. And it's easy to walk around with the grudges, but it hurts it, it does, and I think it's men it's, it's ego it's.
Speaker 1:Do you think like learning to kind of step aside or get past or put ego aside and look at things and say I'm going to do my best to take ego out of this, because ego is really hard? You think that the core it's I think guys in particular tend to, we tend to probably have outsized egos and you know, or right sides or whatever, they're just egos, that they're there and they can lead to lots of things, I think, good things, bad things. Do you think that's exactly the thing? You know ego is part of that whole thing is being able to just put it aside and say, yeah, that sucks, that person's saying that about me. I could be pissed off about it, you know. Or I can put this you know, do this side, because I know my ego, I'm going to be better served for being able to set these, I mean how do you?
Speaker 2:is that true power? Let's go of the ego. Ego is a slave master. If I feed my ego, it controls me all day and I'll be driving and I'll be thinking about the things I'm going to do to that guy when we, when I run into him on the corner next time. You know the ego and it, and there's actually a voice in my head to talk. It talks with that ego and I have to shut that down and I have to physically make myself put the ego in a box because it's still strong.
Speaker 2:You'd think after all these years it'd be dead and I'd be just this, as all the experiences right? Yeah, yeah, you'd think I'd be just this humble kind of docile person who's just been kicked in the teeth, but but I still have a high level of confidence in myself and I have to fight ego. It was because the daily thing I don't think ego ever fully dies. I think we have to full every single day. It's choosing ego and and being enslaved by ego, or being empowered and and choosing to be powerful by being. You know, the more that the bigger person, the another cliche, right, another cliche.
Speaker 1:Okay, there's a reason. They are Well, uh well, thank you for a great conversation. Um, it's, it's been, and I hopefully for everybody. You know you get to, you've had you get the pleasure of seeing what I get to see behind the scenes and the person I get to see in Wayne, and you know it's just it's exciting to be able to come together with you. For us it's been this kind of fun thing that we've I don't know that either of us saw it coming where we get together once a week and get to shoot the shit.
Speaker 1:Really, we're calling it a podcast yeah, yeah, that's fair uh but it's, it's we can just and I think you know, truly just as people just wanting to come to talk, and so I I'm I'm glad you got to share some of that. It's very powerful. It's been powerful for me to as I, you know, I mentioned earlier. It's been powerful for me to, as I mentioned earlier, it's been powerful for me to experience, to be part of and it's exciting, it's exhilarating, because I get to be around people who are also, I believe, big thinkers and we really do want to solve some big things and we think we have the capabilities to do that. And also, I would like to think, the humbleness to know that there is no way in hell that we're doing this alone, that it's going to take a massive effort. It's going to take a lot of people, a lot of you know a lot of people enlisting a lot of help, absolutely so final thoughts, mr Aston, to you. You close it. What would you like? How would you like to end this today?
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate all your questions. I'm glad we didn't try and script this. I'd love to just freestyle with you Every day. Every day we're in the studio just shooting the shit and free flowing is so fun. It is, it's so fun and you and I man, I mean we just jive so well. So thank you for doing this.
Speaker 2:Final thought is just I express gratitude for having a platform and having people who will actually listen, who care to listen in the first place and not be so focused on themselves, and recognize the true narrative, the truth behind what we're doing in business and personally, and what we want to do for humanity and our communities and our families. It's really important to me that people get this right, that people understand the correct narrative and the facts of our lives and our businesses, and I think that's why we've taken it upon ourselves to do the show. It's certainly why we allow ourselves to be examined vulnerably is to be able to share what's really on my heart, what's on your heart. That's important and I hope that our listeners value that the way I do, because I think if they do, then we have some commonality together. Right, we begin to valueality. Together, right, we, we, we begin to value each other, right, and that's that's. Keep listening, guys. We got more. There's more where this came from.
Speaker 1:We'll keep it raw. Well, thank you, great final words. Well, until next time on the frontier line. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Dave, thanks.
