[00:00:01] Luke: So I'm really excited, Megan, to have this conversation with you for a number of reasons, one being this is the first podcast I've ever done in almost nine years with a cocktail in my hand.

[00:00:13] Megan: Oh, nice. Cheers.

[00:00:15] Luke: Yeah, cheers. Don't be alarmed, listeners, that know my story, that I'm banned from alcohol for life. This is a non-alcoholic cocktail, but what is so freaking awesome is that, I won't say I miss the drama and the negative effects of alcohol, but over the years, sometimes I do miss the taste and the ritual of it, of a margarita, a mezcal, a shot of vodka, whatever.

[00:00:43] And I just wrote it off. That's just off the menu for me. I took a few turns on the ride. I got kicked off the bride. It's over. Let everyone else enjoy it. But when we met a couple months ago and you're like, oh, I have a really awesome non-alcoholic drink brand, I was like, "Yes." So here we go. It's really nice to enjoy it with no chance of ending up in handcuffs or a morgue afterward.

[00:01:09] Megan: That's good. I'm glad I can help that.

[00:01:10] Luke: Yeah. So thank you for doing what you did. So for those listening, we met in December as participants in Holon, the Holon Experience, an intensive out in California. And I think your episode that we're doing today comes out a couple of weeks before the Holon one. So stay tuned, folks. That'll be coming soon. You'll learn about that.

[00:01:33] But we met in a Uber on the way from the Sacramento Airport. Both going to the same place, so they send a car. And we immediately started talking about ayahuasca. And I was like, "Oh, this girl's cool. She gets it."

[00:01:49] We've had a lot of the same experiences and then there's only three of us cohorts in that intensive and it really isn't intensive for, what, four or five days?

[00:01:58] Megan: Yeah, four days.

[00:01:59] Luke: Yeah, four full on days. And so I feel like we really got to know each other well there. And I'm excited to allow the audience to get to know you too.

[00:02:08] Megan: Great.

[00:02:09] Luke: Yeah, it's cool. We have a brief but deep history.

[00:02:13] Megan: I know. Those four days, you're like, you know everything about someone real quick.

[00:02:18] Luke: 100%. Tell us a little bit about how you found the folks at Holon and what your experience has been.

[00:02:26] Megan: I was at a psychedelics conference. I was at Wonderland in Miami in November, 2023. And Amy and I were at a party, this really wild party on the water, and we just ran into each other and started talking, and we super locked eyes. It was almost like we were doing an activation. And then she was like, "Do you know you're clairvoyant?" Just real quick. And we both looked like normal people too.

[00:02:55] And I was like, "Yeah, I think so." And then we just super dropped in. And then she told me what they do and I was super interested in it because we talked about, like, I've practiced with psychedelics a lot. It's part of my practice and I love it. But I was feeling like I was just hitting a ceiling and getting stuck and not really making any progress. And Amy was telling me about the neurofeedback and the work they did and I was like, "Sign me up."

[00:03:21] I didn't know anything, and they ended up having an opening less than a month later or about a month later. And I was like, "All right, I'm totally in." And then I sign up, I pay the money, and all my friends like, "You're doing what? Someone's going to map your brain? They're going to rewire your brain? You don't even know these people."

[00:03:37] And I was like, "Oh, no, it's totally going to be fine. This is exactly what I need to do." And that's how I met Amy and Drew. And then when we met this year, or in December, was the second time I had done it. So I've done the whole Holon intensive twice.

[00:03:51] Luke: That was one thing that was also reassuring to me, is you're like, "Oh dude, it changed my life. It was so awesome. That's why I am back." I was like, "Okay, cool. I had the right intuition to go do that too. That was definitely affirming. Tell me a little bit about that feeling of hitting a ceiling with psychedelic work.

[00:04:13] Megan: So I felt like the same things were coming up over and over again, the same self-worth themes, the same control themes, the same addiction to suffering themes. And my friends have a retreat center outside of Tulum called Kumankaya. I love them. They're the best teachers. And then I'll go to the maloca and stay on their property for seven days, and I'll feel really good.

[00:04:54] Everything is great there. And then I would go home and it would be like, go on the retreat and then go home and go a little bit like this. And then go on the retreat and then go home and go a little bit like this. And I just thought it was like, oh, is this my ego getting in the way, or is it my patterning?

[00:05:10] It just felt like my patterns were stronger than what I could work with the medicine to really fix. And so Amy was like, "With just neurofeedback, no medicine, you can rewire your brain and we can help you." And that really resonated with me because I was like, "Sometimes I just felt like I needed a little bit more help."

[00:05:38] Luke: Yeah, that makes sense. Talking to Drew and Amy yesterday, she mentioned something about the law of diminishing returns with psychedelics.

[00:05:47] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:47] Luke: Which I identified with. I don't know diminishing in a negative sense, but I feel like in my first couple years of that kind of work, there was just such massive transformation and healing. My entire life changed in so many positive ways and also in measurable ways in the external-- career, relationships, finances, creativity, all the things.

[00:06:14] So I think I misinterpreted that as this is the way it's always going to go, so I'll just keep doing this forever. And in the past couple years, I've had some nice experiences, but none of them have really had those just paradigm shifting massive insights and downloads where my life takes a completely different trajectory or afterward I just feel completely different.

[00:06:42] And so I really took notice of that and like, huh, interesting. I guess there's seasons for everything too. Maybe if I take a break, in five years I might go sit and be like, "Boom. Oh my God." I just unlocked this whole new avenue.

[00:06:56] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:56] Luke: But it has seemed like over time, I don't know, the efficacy or just the impact, I guess would be the good word, of this experience has seemed to slow down or become diminished to the point where I feel less drawn versus Holon, which is like you wake up feeling great every day.

[00:07:17] There's no deficit to that work either. I think that's what's cool about it. I was like, "Wow, this is very much like a medicine retreat, but you actually feel physically awesome the whole time."

[00:07:28] Megan: Oh, and you eat the best food.

[00:07:29] Luke: Yeah.

[00:07:30] Megan: You know what's interesting for me after a psychedelic retreat? Oh, and I went back to Kumankaya after I did the first Holon, and it was even more amazing. It was like I had opened up my brain more, like I had so much more space there, and so I still did some clearing and some cleaning. But I wasn't reworking my same problems.

[00:07:54] Luke: Oh, interesting.

[00:07:54] Megan: After I had done the clearing of my first ceremony or two of the week, I was like, "Ugh, I have to clear all this stuff. And then the second too, I didn't go back to the same problems. I was doing cool shit. I was out there in the ether and I was talking to my guides, and I was like, "Whoa, do I not have to go on that hamster wheel again during ceremony?"

[00:08:16] But what I found was with Holon, they say it's cumulative right after you feel good and then you keep-- I don't know how you feel, but like I feel my brain continually opens more and more where three months after Holon, I think I feel even better because the work seems to be cumulative.

[00:08:36] Whereas with psychedelics, I did feel in the past I would feel great after the retreat, and then I would come home and then life would hit me. And maybe three months in, if life was hitting me, I'd be like, "Oh my gosh, I need to go back and do psychedelics." I didn't feel like I could get there on my own. And now that I have more space because of Holon, I don't have that same feeling. I'm like, "Oh, I kind of have the tools now in my brain."

[00:09:03] Luke: That's awesome. Yeah. That's cool that you got the experience of doing that n of one testing on yourself, the before and after kind of thing. I guess I did too. I just got back from a Wachuma pilgrimage as I was telling you about in Peru, but I think because we did Holon in December and then in January my dad died and then I guess it was March--yeah, March when I went down to Peru, it's like a couple big things happened.

[00:09:35] So it's tough to tell what was what there to be able to delineate some of those peak experiences, whether they were difficult or beautiful, but that's cool. You had a more isolated testing period to see what's what.

[00:09:54] One thing that was super cool yesterday was seeing the before and after though of my brain map and just seeing how much improvement there was. It's so awesome. Which makes sense in correlation to what I've noticed subjectively of just being less reactive and just super chill when things go haywire.

[00:10:16] I've been pretty grounded. Is that one of the first things you notice from your first neurofeedback training? Did you have a sense that like, wow, I'm not really as easily shaken as I was before?

[00:10:29] Megan: I did. I remember when they mapped my brain, there was a place right here and they were like, "This is where your overthinking is happening." And I felt like I was a prisoner to those overthinking thoughts. And right away I remember getting home, and I meditate every morning, but a lot of that pre-Holon was like, here's the hamster wheel. I'm going to stop it.

[00:10:51] And I just was like, "Oh, wow. It's not there all the time." It's not like I was totally cured, but there were patches of time where it was clear. And so that's what I noticed right away. And then I noticed at work that I was less reactive and actually hilariously-- oh my gosh, when we got back from Holon, Little Saints, we were-- I haven't raised any venture capital, and we've only raised from angels, and we've been really scrappy.

[00:11:22] And I remember Katie, my business partner and I, we were looking at my phone and I literally had something crazy, $20 in my bank account. And Little Saints bank account wasn't doing that well then. We're fine now. And I was just laughing.

[00:11:36] I was like, oh my God. In no way before Holon would I have been able, have the space to laugh at this. Maybe it wasn't funny, but I was just light enough to be like, "Oh, I'm going to be okay." Rather than going straight to the doom and gloom, which I found I used to have a little bit of a break where I could feel more personally light. But work, especially finances for work were very heavy. And of course I have a responsibility and it's a real thing, but somehow all of the heaviness for work felt a little lighter.

[00:12:06] Luke: That's awesome. Yeah. I love doing things that work. And you can quantify like, oh, a month ago I would've been this way and now I'm this way. What did I do differently? What was the input there that moved the needle? As crazy as the world is, we live in such an awesome time that things like that are available.

[00:12:28] Today you don't just have to be stuck in these freaking patterns your whole life. That's just awesome. Tell me about being an environmental lawyer. You're such a fun and bubbly person. When I think of a lawyer, they seem very serious.

[00:12:42] Megan: I was a lawyer for a long time.

[00:12:44] Luke: How long?

[00:12:46] Megan: Well, seven years practicing as a lawyer. And then the way I got into being an entrepreneur was I was a lawyer. I was like, "I don't have any business skills because I've only been a paralegal and a lawyer." So that's how I got in there. There was a hydroponic basil farm in Chicago that I was obsessed with.

[00:13:04] It was called FarmedHere. I was like, "Vertical farming is the future. I'm going to get into this. I have no business skills, but I love your business, and I'm going to give you free legal work." So I worked for equity for this farm for like 9, 10 months.

[00:12:46] Luke: Really?

[00:12:46] Megan: Yeah, yeah. And that's how I got into being an entrepreneur. I was just like, "I will make myself helpful. I love what you're doing." So I used my skills. I helped him raise money. I helped him get out of some legal trouble. Yeah, that's how I got into being an entrepreneur. But the environmental lawyer part was my last law firm job, second to last law firm job. But towards the end.

[00:13:40] And I worked for Earthjustice. I was an associate for Earthjustice. The Earth needs a good lawyer, the Sierra Club. They were originally the legal defense fund for the Sierra Club. And I was just really passionate. I still am, but it showing it in a different way.

[00:13:57] I was like, "What we are doing to our earth is horrible. Coal plants are horrible. Earthjustice is fighting all this stuff, and I'm going to go fight the good fight." And so I got this job and I did it for two years. And so we fought TVA, which is a coal plant in Tennessee that does horrible emissions.

[00:14:16] So we were doing coal plant emissions work. And then I helped start the factory farm practice with one of the senior attorneys at Earthjustice. So we would fight the really horrible chicken farms in Maryland and the hog farms that just emit horrible gases in the air and also pollute the waterway.

[00:14:35] So I did that work. And I worked on fracking chemicals. We also were part of the team that stopped fracking from getting into New York state when fracking was really--

[00:14:46] Luke: Really?

[00:14:47] Megan: Yeah. Was really irresponsibly done.

[00:14:49] Luke: Yeah. I remember seeing a documentary-- well, two documentaries. One was about factory farms called Earthlings. This was back in early 2000. I immediately became a vegetarian the next day I watched that. Saw this hidden camera footage of just animal abuse. It was just horrific.

[00:15:08] But at the time I didn't know that you could raise animals in a more humane way. But another one, I forget the name of it, was on fracking. And they'd show how people that lived on these rural areas where the fracking was taking place would turn their kitchen sink and they could light their water on fire. It was so full of chemicals. I was like, Holy shit."

[00:15:28] Megan: That was in Pennsylvania. I don't remember what the name of that film was, but we would go there. So we would go to the communities, and that was for real. It was before they instituted these casing and cementing rules so that the fracking pipes had to be really safe.

[00:15:44] And now from what I understand, it is possible to do fracking safer. I don't know if safely, but safer. But at the time they were just throwing shit in the ground and gas was everywhere. It was crazy. Yeah, it was cool. My boss there was a badass. We stopped it from getting into New York and put a bunch of laws in place.

[00:16:03] So I love Earthjustice. I realized that I was a total psycho during that period. I was like a militant with my friends and family, and I noticed that I was actually turning off everyone in my close circle. I think I was making them want to be less friendly to the environment because I was such a militant.

[00:16:25] And then I was like, okay, well that's not my intention. And so many people want to work for Earthjustice, so it's not like they're going to be hurting if I don't work there anymore. And I don't think I was like even the best lawyer for them. So I was like, "Okay, I want to do something that's going to help people love nature more in a more positive way."

[00:16:43] And that's how I got into FarmedHere. And then my next company was a plant-based foods company, and then Little Saints. So the theme is always subtly inspiring people to love nature, even though in a wonky way.

[00:16:56] Luke: What happened to the basil company?

[00:16:59] Megan: The basil company went out of business.

[00:17:02] Luke: Was it because they only grew basil? How much of a market is there for pesto or whatever?

[00:17:06] Megan: Before people were talking about ugly produce, we would take our ugly basil and freeze it and make it into salad dressing. So the farm, the leaves were dying. The farm was dying. So we put the farm out of business, but then we started a salad dressing and juice and dip brand to make stuff out of basil. And then we started sourcing from other local farms. We did our own manufacturing too. So it's a really great company. It's still alive.

[00:17:33] Luke: Oh good.

[00:17:34] Megan: Yeah, I left, but it's still alive and they're doing good work.

[00:17:36] Luke: I'm glad they made it. With Little Saints, did you start out making a CBD drink or something at first? What was that like?

[00:17:44] Megan: Yeah. So I come from Wisconsin where we like to drink a lot. Everyone I know just drinks a ton of alcohol. And I never wanted to stop drinking. But during COVID, I was living by myself alone and I was like, "All right." I did dry January for the first time in 2021. I'd failed it 15 times before.

[00:18:07] And I got everything that was non-alc. Still brands that are still alive today that're beautiful, but everything was full of sugar. Nothing had a nose to it. You want to smell something if it's a nighttime cocktail.

[00:18:20] And then nothing had a really good functional ingredient like mushrooms in Little Saints. And so I was like, "Okay, that's like where I can actually be really helpful to this industry." And that's when I started Little Saints. But my goal was always to evolve the future of imbibing because the way I grew up and the way I thought of things, it was like, oh, either you're drinking alcohol or you're drinking water, or juice, or whatever.

[00:18:48] There's no in between. And I saw the world as more of a rainbow of fuels. You can pick whatever you want. So my solution to that was I did-- I actually had microdosed THC edibles too. So it was CBD, mushroom mocktails, and microdose THC mushroom gummies.

[00:19:09] And so it was like I was selling it as a solution, like Little Saints Gummies and Little Saints CBD mocktails. And then we dropped the CBD. And then THC was a great way to light cash on fire because I was a sole founder and I was funding it at the time. And I was living in Detroit and I was selling these low potency.

[00:19:28] There were two milligrams of THC in this really great reishi mushroom. They were shaped like mushrooms. They were like pink champagne and they were really expensive for a low amount of milligrams of THC. And no one really wanted to buy them except for a couple of people.

[00:19:41] It was like, no, I can just buy a gummy and bite a little piece over it. I don't really need to spend 20 bucks on this one gummy. It wasn't really one gummy, but what happened was I had this little mint green vending trailer and I was taking it. I was towing the damn thing by myself off my Jeep.

[00:19:57] And I would take it to events all throughout Detroit and Michigan, and I would tell people about the gummies. Obviously, I wasn't selling the gummies, and then I would sell the drinks. And no one really gave a shit about the gummies actually. They were like, "Yeah, I know about cannabis. I can go get that for five bucks down the street."

[00:20:11] But everyone had a similar story where they were like, yeah, I drank too much during the pandemic and I need to figure something out. No one really wanted to quit, but no one else knew what to do. And so that's when I was like, "Oh, this non-alc thing is actually like a problem to solve. The gummies, other people have solved.

[00:20:30] So I just got rid of the gummies in two months and then we had CBD in the drinks. We called the mocktails, which now we know is not a good word because that makes it feel like it's less than. You and I are having a cocktail that just happens to not be powered by alcohol. It's powered by lion's mane mushroom. And so in the beginning we called ourselves CBD mushroom mocktails and now they're just non-alcoholic cocktails powered by mushrooms.

[00:20:55] Luke: Amazing. You found a need. I just wish you would've been around 28 years ago. Remember when I quit drinking, I was playing in bands and stuff, so I was in bars and nightclubs all the time for years. At first it was getting over the embarrassment of being the guy who's holding a Perrier or something. And then I was like, "Ah, this is awkward."

[00:21:15] So then I would get my drink of choice turned into basically cranberry and soda. But then I started getting really into health and realized I'm drinking tap water in the soda water. That sucks. I don't want to drink tap water. And then, I don't know, maybe I just stopped going to bars eventually.

[00:21:33] But it's like when other people are drinking and you don't want to drink, you already feel kind of different because of the wavelength you're on. But you want to be able to participate in the ritual. I think that's something that you tapped into that's super cool.

[00:21:50] But not only just like, oh, something that tastes nice, but something that also has an effect on your mood without you getting intoxicated at all. So tell me about how you started to get the ideas of infusing the mushrooms and sourcing them to make sure they actually do something and so on.

[00:22:11] Which is top of mind because I just interviewed a guy a couple of days ago who makes mushroom tinctures and he did this demonstration where he showed two unnamed but very popular mushroom brands that sell like powders and capsules.

[00:22:25] Megan: Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:26] Luke: And you can pour drops of iodine on it, and iodine turns starch a deep black or purple. And he's done all this testing on other brands and they're like 40 to 75% starch. There's very little actual mushroom in there. And I was like, "Oh shit."

[00:22:43] Megan: Oh, in the powders?

[00:22:44] Luke: Yeah, in the powders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think a lot of brands out there are like, "Oh, yeah. We have mushrooms in our thing." And it's like, do you really?

[00:22:52] Megan: You know how you know this is cloudy, and in the beginning, people were like, "Looks kind of weird. You should put some coloring in there. I'm like, "No way. That means that there's mushrooms in there because that is what the mushroom powder looks like."

[00:23:04] I'm a total psycho about ingredients, and just for my own, I started taking mushroom coffee supplements like everyone else did, and I could tell what was helping and what wasn't. And so the beta glucan is the part of the mushroom. It's a fiber, and that's where the health effects are going to be found.

[00:23:26] And so we found a mushroom supplier. We dropped CBD for a bunch of reasons, including that a lot of people don't like it. Some people think it's drugs. And then in the end, I wasn't totally confident that our CBD supplier wasn't putting weird solvents and shit in there.

[00:23:41] So I was just like, "No, we got to make sure we know what's in there." So we found this mushroom supplier and they give us COAs on every batch, a certificate of authenticity, just like a lab report showing that it's 70% beta glucan. So if we were to go in your kitchen and fry up lion's mane in a pan, it would probably less than 5% beta glucan. Probably 1% beta glucan.

[00:24:06] But the mushroom extracts in here are a 70% beta glucan. And our supplier sells, not exclusively, but mostly to supplement. It's a really high-end supplement. And it's extracted with ultrasound instead of a solvent. So there's nothing weird in there. So it's just this precision extracted, really potent.

[00:24:29] And it's a really fine powder. It's really cool to see in the factory because it's like, you know those powders that are like air? I wouldn't put my whole hand through there, but it's the tiniest particles. So our supplier, I haven't done any tests on this, but it's really bioavailable when it's in that potent and in liquid.

[00:24:48] Luke: Oh, yeah, yeah. Cool. And how did you even know to go that direction and not get duped and end up with another shitty, fake mushroom product? The market is-- like CBD, it's so saturated.

[00:25:06] Megan: From our own experimentation, I hate to admit this, but in the beginning, we had the CBD and the reishi mushroom and we were making the reishi extract for us. They were macerating reishi mushrooms and creating an extract.

[00:25:19] And I was like, "All right, let's just take the CBD out. But then we would take the CBD out, and not like this is intoxicating or anything, but I couldn't feel anything. And I was like, "I don't think this is really doing anything." And that was, I thought, the best thing because before we started making our own reishi mushroom extract, we had been using other powders.

[00:25:38] And I thought those did less than the macerated reishi. And so then we finally found this supplier, and I remember we were doing benchtop samples, which is just like you and your formulator in a commercial kitchen. And listen, these do not get you high, but I felt it the first sip. I was like, "Oh, I feel something here."

[00:25:57] And it's just like a little bit of a relaxation feeling and it's not as potent in these because that was just super concentrated. But then I was like, "Oh, okay. This is going to do something and we're going to replace CBD with this."

[00:26:09] Luke: What is the non-alc industry look like? Because I'm totally unaware that that even existed before I met you.

[00:26:17] Megan: Really?

[00:26:18] Luke: Yeah. Because I wrote it off. I just like, "Oh yeah, there's nothing for me. So it is what it is." I just gave up on that.

[00:26:25] Megan: It's really been growing a lot, and the statistics are all over the place. The best statistics I have are that-- it's tiny. It's a billion-dollar market, whereas alcohol is, I think, a $320 billion market in the US. So it's very--

[00:26:42] Luke: Just in the US?

[00:26:43] Megan: Yeah.

[00:26:43] Luke: Holy shit.

[00:26:44] Megan: Yeah, no, it's crazy town. And so it's very small, but it's growing anywhere from 30 to 50% year over year, where alcohol is declining anywhere from 2% to 7% every year.

[00:26:56] Luke: Really?

[00:26:56] Megan: Yeah. The stats show that, and that's just for off premise, which means grocery stores and liquor stores. So sales are for sure down significantly for alcohol and it's for sure up significantly for non-alc. And then just anecdotally, we have all of these bartenders being like, no one's drinking alcohol anymore.

[00:27:18] People that we were knocking on their door and we're trying to get in and just having no word back from a year ago, everyone's calling us now and being like, "Oh, we need a non-alcoholic menu.

[00:27:30] Luke: Wow. That's very encouraging. Imagine if the whole country's alcohol consumption went down considerably. What a better culture we would have. And no judgment against people that drink, but alcohol doesn't raise your consciousness. You know what I mean?

[00:27:51] Megan: No. So we got 1,100 survey results back, and I made, Little Saints-- I still drank alcohol when I created Little Saints for the first year and a half.

[00:28:01] Luke: Oh, you did?

[00:28:02] Megan: Yeah, yeah. I didn't intend to quit. This is a Paloma. That's a Spicy Margarita. This is meant to taste a little bit like a mezcal. It was for people who liked alcohol and just wanted to drink less. And then I ended up quitting alcohol, which we can talk about. Anyways, we just surveyed people and 94% of Little Saints customers still drink alcohol. They just know alcohol's unhealthy and they want to drink less of it.

[00:28:26] Luke: Wow.

[00:28:27] Megan: And so we don't demonize it. And that is where I see things going. It's like maybe people going from going out and always having two or three drinks every night to maybe not feeling bad about having no drinks one night and then maybe the next night they have one alcoholic cocktail and then one Little Saints.

[00:28:47] It's like you were saying before with the Perrier. If you just order this on a menu, then at least you feel like you're participating and everyone's trying to just-- I don't think we had the awareness. Maybe you probably did, but me, just of how bad it was, and now it's in everyone's face, like this urgent general warning, and they can't get away from it. But we're not going to change our habits. We're not going to stop going and meeting people for a drink.

[00:29:15] Luke: Totally. That's another thing I forgot about too, when I would be drinking my Perrier or cranberry and soda. In that kind of social environment, bars, clubs, et cetera, if you don't have a drink in your hand, it starts a lot of conversations that are really monotonous. Oh, you want to drink? Why aren't you drinking? Then it's like if you had a problem drinking like I did, then yeah, it was like, okay, how much of the story do I want to go into?

[00:29:44] I think, not anymore obviously, but in the beginning, it was embarrassing at that time to not drink when everyone else was because it's like a reason for it. And I think that reason had a little more stigma than it probably does now. I don't know because I'm not out there in that world.

[00:30:02] Megan: It's changed a lot in the past two years. So I quit drinking in September, 2022, and I remember that first holiday season, December, not having alcohol and definitely-- I love my friends from home from Wisconsin, but especially having to explain that to them and my family. It was like, why aren't you drinking? 2022 felt like a lot.

[00:30:26] 2023 felt like less and less, and now, 2024, maybe it's just me, but I feel like a lot of people know the term non-alc. It's almost getting kind of cool to order a non-alc cocktail on the menu. No one wants a juice if there's something fun. It's on trend a little bit to order it. And they're expensive. Miami, they're like 18 bucks.

[00:30:50] Luke: Really?

[00:30:50] Megan: Yeah. This costs more to make than a bottle of alcohol.

[00:30:54] Luke: Are you serious?

[00:30:56] Megan: For sure. Yeah.

[00:30:56] Luke: Oh my God, that seems backwards. It shouldn't be that way.

[00:31:00] Megan: But wouldn't you pay more to drink something that was healthy rather than--

[00:31:04] Luke: Yeah, 100%. Also that you've done it with no sugar. Because that's a problem too. If you don't want to drink and you go to your average bar, it's going to be orange juice, cranberry juice, soda, or something like that. It's like total crap. There's nothing that's even like not harmful, let alone something that's actually good for you or has a nootropic effect or something that improves your mood. You're just going to get something that's like not as bad for you as alcohol, but still not good by any stretch.

[00:31:33] Megan: Yeah, yeah.

[00:31:34] Luke: That's encouraging. It's one of those things I don't have a lot of awareness to what's going on in the world in that regard because I remember, when I quit drinking, I thought the whole world quit drinking the same day. And then I go back into the world. I was like, "What?" People are smoking weed, and they're doing coke in the bathroom. I was like, "I thought everyone hit the end of the line." No, you blew it, so you had to stop.

[00:31:57] But everyone else is still doing it. But I think I am hearing in the periphery more people, even if they don't have a dependency issue with alcohol, I think more people now than ever are aware that it's really just not good for you. It's really bad for your brain. It's terrible for sleep. Even if you're not drinking in excess, if you're drinking on a regular basis, it's deleterious to your health.

[00:32:20] Megan: Yeah. I think we used to think like one glass of wine a day was good for us. And all the stuff that's come out in the past two years is like, no, that was a lie.

[00:32:28] Luke: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:32:28] Megan: No glasses of wine are good for you.

[00:32:31] Luke: Like the Mediterranean people and whatnot. Oh, it's because of the wine. No, they're out in the sun working on a farm all day.

[00:32:36] Megan: And eating real food, not with our industrialized. We have environmental toxins and then we're eating shit and then our water and then alcohol. It just doesn't work.

[00:32:45] Luke: Yeah, exactly. So tell me about what your motivation was to eventually quit drinking. You make this great non-alc brand and alternative, and you could have presumably just kept drinking when you felt like it also. What point did you get to? Was it a drinking problem or just wanting to be healthy or what?

[00:33:07] Megan: It's funny in retro. At the time, I didn't think I had a drinking problem. I just thought I liked to socialize and I love the taste of a good, strong cocktail. And I was like, "Oh, this isn't a problem." But like many people, I have a ton of alcoholism in my family, and my dad has Parkinson's and also really likes wine.

[00:33:29] I spent a lot of time alone during COVID, and I started seeing my brain slip a little bit. I felt like I had brain fog a lot, and I really like business. I'm good at numbers, and I realized with some work stuff, I was like, "Oh, my brain doesn't feel like it's totally there."

[00:33:48] So then with Little Saints was the first time I started drinking less. So I wouldn't drink during the week, and then I would start taking a month off here and there, which I'd definitely never done.

[00:33:58] And then every time I would go back to drinking, I would be like, "Oh, that's poison for me." It would feel horrible, and I really would see my brain just go in a bad place. All of a sudden, I would start feeling clear and positive. Even if I wouldn't drink that much, I would go back-- for example, I went to a wedding in September, 2022, right before I quit.

[00:34:26] And I hadn't drank a lot for most of the summer, which was a revelation to me, but I was like, "Oh, I can drink in moderation now that I'm not doing it all the time." That was like my whole goal. And I went to this wedding and I drank a ton, not no more than any of my friends did, but I drank a bunch, and I was just a disaster.

[00:34:45] All of a sudden, I was like, "Was I like this all the time before?" I had such anxiety when I was hungover. I was markedly depressed, which I hadn't felt in a while. I felt like I wasn't really talking to my friends. I was like, "This is horrible."

[00:35:03] And then I found that after that wedding I came back to New York where I was living at the time, and then because I had drunk alcohol there, I was like, "Oh, I'm going to get back in the habit. So I would sit down to a bar or a meal with a friend and I would have this internal fight with myself.

[00:35:20] I'm like, "Are you going to drink alcohol? Yes, you are. No, you're not. Yes, you are. No, you're not." And I was like, "Wow, this alcohol decision is really there. This is taking up a lot of space." And I know it makes me feel horrible and I don't want to go down the path of my family. I didn't actually intend to quit forever.

[00:35:42] I was just like, "Okay, I am going to take off even just six weeks." It was like, there's this holiday in the non-alc industry called sober October. Have you heard of this? People do sober October. So I was like mid-September, then I quit. And I was like, I'm going to do sober October. And then actually in November, I could still feel some brain fog.

[00:36:00] And I was like, "I think the alcohol's still in there. I'm going to keep going on this." And I was meditating and taking a lot of lion's mane and just trying to clear my brain. And then December, I was like, "I never imagined a holiday season without alcohol ever." Ever, ever, ever.

[00:36:18] And I was planning to go back and drink and I was like, "Actually, it'd be a super flex if I could get through this thing without alcohol. And that's when I was telling you people would be like, "Wait, you're at a holiday party and not drinking?" And then after I got through that-- and also scientifically, they say after three or four months of not drinking alcohol, that's when you really start to feel better and your brain really clears.

[00:36:39] Luke: Oh, that long? Really?

[00:36:39] Megan: Yeah.

[00:36:40] Luke: Wow.

[00:36:31] Megan: Yeah. But then it was like dry January and then after January, 2023, I was like, "Wait, this is amazing." This is the magic pill that I've been looking for. It's all just not drinking alcohol ever. And so then I just didn't go back.

[00:36:54] Luke: Have you had one drink since that? Are you someone that if you--

[00:36:58] Megan: No, moderation is not my friend. I am very bad at moderation. I did unintentionally in the summer of 2023 and I was so upset about it. I was at a bar in Wisconsin with my friends and I ordered a non-alcoholic beer, and I'm sure he gave me an alcoholic beer because I drank half of it and I started to feel like hazy. And I was like, "Shit, I don't want to have this beer." So that's the only time I've actually accidentally drank alcohol. But no, all or nothing.

[00:37:25] Luke: Okay, I got it. Yeah, I relate to that. Decades now of being sober, I've always found it so weird when someone can moderate their alcohol use. I'm just like, "You're an alien to me." Remember back in the beginning, I'd be out to dinner or something. Maybe one of us would order a glass of wine or something and I'm not. And I would sit there and fixate on their glass of wine just to see how quickly they drank it.

[00:37:54] And then the dinner would end and we'd get up and walk away and there'd be like half a glass of wine. I'm like, "Dude, there's good wine still on the table. What are you doing?" They're like, "I'm done." My little brother Andy was my roommate at one point, and he'd buy a six pack of Kyron or something to put in the fridge and they would be in there for months. One six pack. Until it went bad.

[00:38:18] It turned skunky because he wouldn't drink it. And I remember asking him like, "Dude, you're not an alcoholic. Why don't you just like drink four or five beers when you get home from work? Why do you have one a month or something?"

[00:38:31] And he is like, "Oh, I just don't like that feeling." I was like, "What? That feeling is everything. That's the whole point." Some people are just wired like that. They just don't have that, I don't know. It's like a fuse that gets lit. And some people the fuse of no moderation, and it is. It's like a faucet all the way on or all the way off kind of thing. And I still find it strange when people have that take it or leave it kind of thing.

[00:39:00] Megan: I don't have that either at all. But it's funny because most people-- we've asked our customers like, well, why are you choosing Little Saints if you have no intention of quitting? Why? They're like, "Oh, I just know it's unhealthy. So I want to drink less. I like the mushrooms in it, and I just have it on my bar and I just drink it instead of alcohol." I would've never done that.

[00:39:20] Luke: Right, right. I think I was asking you yesterday, because these freaking drinks, and I'm not just saying this because you're here, your drinks taste so awesome. Because I knew you were coming to record and you sent us these two big bottles and I'm so hard not to open them because I'm plowing through the cans. And Alyson love, I think it was the ginger.

[00:39:38] Megan: Yeah, she loves the ginger. I left them. I didn't give them to you. They're hers.

[00:39:41] Luke: She is obsessed, so I know I can't touch those. I didn't want to drink these because I wanted to have them when you showed up for the podcast. I'm just like, "Dude, thank God they don't have alcohol because I drink them like they have alcohol.

[00:39:52] Megan: So I have a question for you because I'm drinking the flask and this is what's gone viral on TikTok. Is this triggering for you that I'm drinking a flask?

[00:40:00] Luke: Oh no, not at all. No. I have no problem being around alcohol. I have immunity. You know what I mean? When it got switched off for me by really a divine intervention, it's a complete non-issue. I would just never even think about it. It's never something that ever--

[00:40:17] Megan: And what about you drinking a flask though?

[00:40:20] Luke: Oh, no, I don't care.

[00:40:21] Megan: You could drink a flask?

[00:40:22] Luke: No problem.

[00:40:23] Megan: Yeah, same. That's what I think too. I definitely could not be drinking a flask of tequila, but people are so triggered by this.

[00:40:31] Luke: Oh, that's funny.

[00:40:31] Megan: We made it because it's fun because I'm sick of going to restaurants and they'll have juice mocktails. I'm like, "I don't want to drink that, so I'm just going to pour this in my soda water."

[00:40:39] Luke: No, it's cool. I used to carry a flask into the concerts and stuff, so no, I like that it fits right in your inside pocket. But what I was going to say was what I asked you yesterday, because these tastes so good, and I don't know, I guess if you're a legit mixologist, you can make alcohol cocktails taste really nice too.

[00:40:55] But I was like, "Damn, man. If you put alcohol in Little Saints, it would be a bomb ass drink." You know what I mean? And you're like, "Yeah, people do that too." They use it as a mixer or just by itself. So back in the day, I would've been making some serious, real cocktails.

[00:41:12] Megan: I think I told you my brothers are hilarious. Love you, Mike and Joy. They're like, "I'm never going to not have two or three martinis when I go out. I'm just never not drinking alcohol. But it's way better if I mix Little Saints with gin or with Hendricks. And basically, I'll still have three martinis, but I'll have health, half the alcohol." Like, dude, cool. Great.

[00:41:33] Luke: Yeah, yeah. You're like Trojan horsing healthier evening social drinks into them. Let's talk about-- speaking of the flavor, something that's really interesting that I enjoy, which is probably why I have the tendency to chug these things faster than need be. But the flavor of Juniper and these different, I don't know if they're essential oils or some kind of extracts, a couple of them have that kind of burn, that really nice throat burn that you get from alcohol drinks.

[00:42:07] Or they have a smell of terpenes. There's very potent plant essence. It's like a plant medicine kind of vibe. So tell me about that process of how you figured out what plant essences to put in what to get them to taste just right and not too strong, where you get the raw materials to make them and all that.

[00:42:31] Megan: Yeah, this is going to be fun because originally I worked with my ayahuasca shamans. This is not ayahuasca, but they know everything about plants. And so I was like, "Okay." For example, on the St. Ember, I knew I wanted it to have a woody, smoky feeling of the Palo Santo.

[00:42:51] So the long story short of it is like, yes, everything has to have a really great pure botanical that's going to be strong. So it's going to feel like a cocktail and not just like a light little flavor that you're having in an Olipop or something. So it's got to have a real, more pungent flavor to it.

[00:43:09] And that's from a botanical extract. And then a lot of the ingredients have a great story to them. So like the St. Ember that has the burn and stuff and the smokiness, this one, we source the Palo Santo from Northern Peru. We work directly with the Manga Manga Forest, and they source the dead and fallen trees.

[00:43:31] And then they create an oil out of it in their little local community processing facility. And then we ship that to the United States. We have to have a USDA timber permit. We ship it to the United States, and then we have an ingredient producer here like that makes it food safe, but they create just like a pure extract out of it. So the point, and that's just one story to tell you that--

[00:43:52] Luke: I've never heard of anyone ingesting Palo Santo. Everyone burns the little sticks.

[00:43:56] Megan: I don't think many people do. There's actually a real gin, an alcoholic gin called Condesa that does a Palo Santo extract. And there are a couple of Palo Santo beers. But to my knowledge, they age the beer in a Palo Santo wood cask.

[00:44:10] But what's so interesting about doing the Palo Santo that way-- well, you know me personally, so I'm like, I love trees and trees have great intelligence because they're in the earth for so long. And if I can help spread tree intelligence to more people through these, I will.

[00:44:29] So anyways, we are doing that because it's like the Palo Santo is in the ground for 30 to 50 years and then the trees fall down and then they harvest it and make the oil out of it. And what I learned from this process is it has this mild sweetness to it. And people will be like, "What sweetener do you use in this?" And there's no sweetener in there. And that's because Palo Santo wood is in the fennel and mint family.

[00:44:53] Luke: Wow.

[00:44:53] Megan: And you wouldn't know that when you burn it or if it's just in the wood cask. But when you're extracting the oil out of it, you get those essences out of it, which is that fun part that I love to learn about because I used to love learning those little nuances in wine and learning those new little nuances in spirits. And so especially in the spirit bottles, we're looking for ingredients that had those really great, earthy stories.

[00:45:21] Luke: That's epic. I love that. Palo Santo, I don't know, it's just such a great aroma, and there's a reason why it's in every freaking little crystal store everywhere.

[00:45:32] Megan: Yeah, yeah.

[00:45:32] Luke: But people, I've seen online, complaining about the sustainability of it because it's so trendy and people are chopping down the trees to make little freaking incense out of it. So I'm glad you found the dead fall route.

[00:45:45] Megan: Yeah. No, no, no. This forest is sanctioned. We've tried to go there once, but it was rained out. You can only get there during the season when it's not raining. But no, they have permits from the government, and I've seen the videos. It's all dead and fallen trees.

[00:46:01] And it's actually a huge, huge, sanctioned forest. And it's great. During COVID, the community was decimated because not enough people were actually buying from them because originally, they weren't doing the Palo Santo sticks. They were just doing the oil. They use it as mosquito repellent.

[00:46:20] Luke: Really?

[00:46:20] Megan: Oh, legit. I talked to the supplier and I'm like, "Oh, what negative energy clearing practices do you guys do?" And he's laughing. He's like, "Yeah, you gringos. We use it for mosquito repellent." And they make candles out of it. But then during COVID, they had all of this wood. They had excess fallen Palo Santo. And so that's when they taught the women in their community to carve sticks.

[00:46:47] Luke: Oh really?

[00:46:49] Megan: Yeah. But they weren't carving the sticks before. They were doing it certainly for essential oils and candles and then for mosquito repellent.

[00:46:57] Luke: Wow. Wild. How does the taste testing go? I'm always fascinated by, not so much-- if somebody's using synthetics, you imagine it's some factory in New Jersey that makes perfume and fake flavorings, which is less interesting.

[00:47:14] And there's probably established science on how to achieve a blueberry flavor thing or whatever. But since yours are all natural and plant-based, I'm imagining there's much more trial and error. Did you go through formulations that tasted disgusting before you got to the ones that are good?

[00:47:34] Megan: I have PTSD from this process because St. Juniper took us at least eight months that I can remember. I probably blacked out a couple of them, and we were like, "Okay, we want to do old-school gin flavor." So of course Juniper. And then I've got to have trees in there, so it has birch in there and Angelica root and it's got a little bit of-- we were trying cedar at first and then that didn't work.

00:47:59] But the birch is the tree in there. And all those together actually taste quite perfumy if you don't do it right. And so we had seven months of batches of St. Juniper where I was like, "No, we're drinking perfume again." It was undrinkable. And they'd be like, "This is the finest juniper extract."

[00:48:18] And then we would put a little more cardamom, and we would put a little bit more coriander. And then we finally used yuzu. It's a total art, and it's funny. And you need a couple of people involved because the formulator's always going to love it. Our formulator loves Hendricks gin and he's like, "No, this tastes exactly like my favorite Hendricks." I'm like, "No, tastes like perfume. We got to go back to the drawing board." So you've got to be really tough and just know what you want to get to.

[00:48:48] Luke: How do you cleanse your palate? I imagine if you're going in and doing these taste tests, it would be difficult to differentiate the different batches or versions on the same day. How do you whittle them down without them all just tasting the same? Is that why it takes eight months? Because you just have to keep going back again and again.

[00:49:10] Megan: I wish I had a better process. Yeah, no, he will give you like five different little bottle samples and then you'll just write down what you think of everyone and send the notes back and then have the team taste them. I definitely have the team taste stuff and then I'll sometimes go there and we'll do a taste thing. It's so many iterations. It would be frustrating to be a formulator with me being like, it just needs a little bit more birch. He's like, "Really?" But yeah, you got to be a stickler to it.

[00:49:45] Luke: And where do you see this particular category going? As you said, alcohol consumption's going down. The non-alc scene is growing. Do you see ever them meeting somewhere in the middle? Is that even possible, or do people just love to get wasted too much?

[00:50:03] Megan: I don't think people are going to stop drinking alcohol. I just think non-alc is going to take a major market share from it. 1 billion in non-alc and 320 billion in alcohol, there's a lot of room to go in the middle there.

[00:50:15] And I think our culture is built on music and restaurants and bars and people still want to gather at those places even though you and I know people are gathering in our homes much more. But still, I just think, and I know from a fact of people like reaching out to us and needing non-alcs for their menus, I think that this year and over the next couple of years we're going to see--

[00:50:39] Whereas sometimes now people will have a good non-alc menu, but most of the time they don't. I think they're going to have a good non-alc menu because they need to bring people in. Gen Z is not drinking.

[00:50:50] Luke: Really?

[00:50:51] Megan: Oh my God. The stats are like they spent $3 billion on alcohol last year and Gen X and millennials spent somewhere around 32 billion. So they're spending 10%, 90% less on alcohol. And so either all these places go out of business or they step up and they get a big non-alc menu.

[00:51:12] Luke: Wow. That's encouraging. I would think it would be the opposite with the level of stress and insanity in the world. I don't know how young people even are dealing with--

[00:51:287] Megan: I know they're drinking less alcohol. I think cannabis changed things a lot. People are using cannabis, maybe a little bit more drugs or something. But also Gen Z's really focused on their mental health much more. I didn't even know what mental health was.

[00:51:43] Luke: I didn't either.

[00:51:44] Megan: I was like, "Cool, I'm going to get wasted."

[00:51:45] Luke: When you're nuts, you usually don't know there's another way to be.

[00:51:47] Megan: All the time. My mental health was like, "I need a drink now. That's going to help me."

[00:51:53] Luke: Totally. I remember years ago when I first got our dog, Cookie. I wanted to take her on the airplane. So I got her like the emotional support certification or whatever, and in order to get it, you had to do an online session with a psychiatrist, like legit.

[00:52:10] And I was just doing it just to get the free pass. And I did the intake or the assessment with the psychiatrist over Zoom. And at the end she's like, "Oh yeah, you definitely qualify. You have super PTSD and mental health issues and all this stuff." I was like, "Oh, okay. I thought I was just normal.

[00:52:23] She's like, "No, you got some serious problems." But if you don't know, you don't know. If your baseline is just out there, then you just figure out that's how everyone's just kind of getting by. That was a real wake-up call for me. I was like, "Okay, I got some more work to do."

[00:52:44] Megan: Yeah. We're really curious about how nightlife shifts. Think of all the cultural things that alcohol fuels. Certainly, at concerts and stuff, non-alc, Liquid Death's already doing it. People are going to concerts and maybe being sober or maybe taking drugs and having water, and so non-alc goes in there.

[00:53:06] We're interested. It's like, does club life stay the same? Does it shift a little bit earlier? If you're not drinking as much alcohol, maybe you are prioritizing your sleep and you want to get to bed a little earlier. So I'm really interested to see how less drinking alcohol shifts culture a little bit.

[00:53:28] Luke: Yeah, me too. Here in Austin, there's a place called Kuya. It's a social club with saunas and cold plunges and float tanks and this kind of stuff, and in elixir bar. And they have a lot of events at night. I know that's not just Austin, but there seems to be, thankfully, an emergence of alcohol-free social gatherings and wellness centers and, I don't know, meditation studios and things like that, sound baths, all this kind of stuff that's taken off over the past few years.

[00:53:57] I think people that go to those social gatherings probably still want to imbibe in something. You don't just want to sit there and like, what do I do with my hands? It's totally just natural. You want to drink in your hand.

[00:54:11] So I see the potential of drinks like Little Saints really being a perfect fit for that where you have something that has a really positive effect that's really good for you, taste awesome, and also can act as a social lubricant and give you something to do. Otherwise you're just, oh, we're socializing, but there's nothing to do with yourself while you're doing it.

[00:54:35] Megan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:35] Luke: I think that's one of the reasons drinking is great for social activities. Because it's like, oh, what are you guys all doing in here? Oh, we're all just having a drink. We're not just standing here. We're drinking something. We're just wired in that way.

[00:54:48] Megan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's interesting though. I'm thinking of my friends from home. Maybe they would. They're great. But I don't know if they would go to a sound bath or cold plunges. I think there are still a lot of people that want to just do what they already do, which is go to bars and restaurants and clubs and just have a very easy one-to-one swap.

[00:55:11] Luke: Yeah, yeah.

[00:55:11] Megan: A lot of people like what their life is like now. Like me, actually. We get invited to the sound baths, I love that too. But I like to go out and dance. I want to go to space and rage. As someone that doesn't drink alcohol anymore, I want my socializing to look like I take the things that I used to like out of that.

[00:55:39] I know that a lot of people that I'll talk to, it's like they're afraid of like their whole life having to change. And that's where I think non-alc can really be helpful. Because it's like maybe some people will want to do the whole switch and start doing wellness stuff all the time. But some people are like, "No. Still want to go to that bar. I just might want to have my second drink as Little Saints.

[00:56:00] Luke: Yeah, good point. Good point. I want to let the listeners know, you can find the show notes for today's episode at lukestorey.com/megan. And if you guys want to check out Little Saints, here's what you do. You go to lukestorey.com/littlesaints. And we've got a code. I love when there's a code. The code is, of course, LUKE. You get 20% off. And we'll put all of that in the show notes. Tell me about what it's like to go on Shark Tank.

[00:56:26] Megan: It's fun.

[00:56:27] Luke: I actually want to start watching that show again because I knew nothing about business. I already owned a business for a number of years, and I guess there's a reason why I'm not a gazillionaire, because I didn't go to business school or watch Shark Tank. So I had no clue about raising money and equity and venture capitalists.

[00:56:44] Still know very little about that, but having watched that show quite a few times years ago, I was like, "Oh, this is how it works." But I would be so mortified for the contestants that didn't do well. And I'm just like, "Oh my God. I could never put myself under that kind of scrutiny."

[00:57:03] But some of them would do well and then everyone would invest and they live happily ever after, you think or hope. But I could never do something like that. I literally just don't have the testicular fortitude to put myself in that kind of vulnerable position on television. So run me through that experience.

[00:57:25] Megan: So you have to do a 90-second prepared pitch. And that was the part I was really afraid to do because I'm not good scripted. And they're like, "No." So you go on the show and you pitch in front of the five Shark Tank judges, and when you see people's pitch like that is pre-rehearsed with the ABC producer so you don't say anything that's not kosher, because it's still owned by Disney

[00:57:52] And they just want to make sure that it's going to be good. And the team was actually great and super pros. So I was super nervous about that. I was like, "I'm going to fuck this up. I don't want to look like an idiot." But somehow, I got the pitch down.

[00:58:05] And then after that it was super fun because then you're just reacting. Then the five judges are shooting questions at you. I went in knowing my numbers and I could answer the questions and I didn't really have time to think or be nervous. And actually, this sounds ridiculous, but there's no cameras in your face.

[00:58:24] The cameras are all really far away. So you're oddly at a far distance from the judges. But other than that, it does feel like a real investor negotiation. So it was actually really fun.

[00:58:36] Luke: Really?

[00:58:36] Megan: Yeah.

[00:58:36] Luke: So it feels like a meeting. There's just more lights on and--

[00:58:40] Megan: Yeah. And they're all characters. They're being maybe a little bit more character. But some venture capital people are characters too. And they're just firing numbers and they want to know real stuff. And so you're really just like, "Oh, okay. I know how to answer a business question."

[00:58:57] Luke: And where was the company at that time?

[00:58:59] Megan: So the company I filmed in June, 2024, and the company we were--

[00:59:05] Luke: Oh, so that's pretty recent.

[00:59:05] Megan: Yeah, it was pretty recent. I was just on in October.

[00:59:07] Luke: I got to watch that.

[00:59:09] Megan: Oh my God.

[00:59:09] Luke: I'm going to find your episode.

[00:59:11] Megan: It was so funny. So we had done $5 million in our trailing 12 months revenue, and I really wanted to make a deal with Mark Cuban-- legit. I was like, "You know what? I feel like he's invested in some health and wellness things. I think he would be great." And right away he was like, "Yeah, I'm not investing in your category." He was super supportive and cool on the show, and I was like, "Really?" That bummed me out.

[00:59:34] And then I did. I got an offer from Rashaun Williams, who's a guest Shark, and he gave me a $5 million valuation. And I was like, that's one times trailing revenue. Market, if I went out to the venture community, it would be three to four. So I'm like, "Wait, you want a 75% discount?

[00:59:54] And then they're like, "Oh, but we're going to bring so much value." And then Kevin O'Leary offered me a $3.5 million valuation. I was like, "What?" So these deals, it wasn't hard for me to say no. I was trying to be like, guys, why would I do that? We've got really good numbers. This is a growing category. We're taking off.

[01:00:16] If I would've taken either of those deals, that would've showed that they don't really value the company. They were only offering $500,000, which would get us six months. So I was like, "Then I would take your horrible deal and then the next investor I would go to would think I was an idiot for taking your deal." So I would be in an even worse place. So once I was getting those bad deals, it wasn't hard for me to say no because I was like, "Who would do business like that?"

[01:00:45] Luke: What was the vibe like when they're-- because they don't offer everyone deals. Some people, they're just like, "Man, not interested. You guys suck. You're not going anywhere." I don't know. Did you have any people pleaser or tendencies or anything that came up that made it difficult to say no when you in that-- that's a different pressure than walking in an investor meeting with a bunch of low ballers and you're like, "Don't waste my time. I'm out of here." I don't know. I would feel like if you're on the show, you're beholden to take the deal.

[01:01:14] Megan: So Rashaun gave me an offer, then Kevin gave me the worst offer, and then they both came in together and they gave me an offer at a $5 million valuation. And that I was-- I was like, "Oh." Rarely do two sharks go in together. But you have to make the decision right there on the spot.

[01:01:33] Luke: Can you reneg and then afterward be like, "Yeah, never mind?"

[01:01:37] Megan: No. I think they would be pissed and probably not-- and I wouldn't have wanted. I was definitely having a moment, so I just put my hand on my heart. I checked in with my intuition. I was like, "No, that is still stupid." So I just said, thank you and left.

[01:01:57] Luke: I'm assuming that was a solid decision.

[01:02:00] Megan: I'm fundraising now. I don't know how I would've explained why I took that deal. Then they would be like, so you don't value your company that highly, so I'm not going to value your company that highly.

[01:02:11] Luke: Right.

[01:02:12] Megan: Really, you're an idiot for taking that deal.

[01:02:14] Luke: Because if you took on that capital at a subpar valuation, and then down the road in six months, you pitch a higher valuation to a potential investor and like, yeah, but six months ago, you said it was only worth this. Is that how it works?

[01:02:27] Megan: Yeah, exactly. And also, what I didn't mention was four months after I filmed the show, we did close a small round at a $20 million valuation.

[01:02:34] Luke: Whoa.

[01:02:35] Megan: Yeah. And now we're raising it double that. So if I would've done that and then it would've came out on the show four months later that we'd closed at that low one, I would've just been screwed.

[01:02:46] Luke: Oh my God. That's wild. In your episode, how did the other contestants fare? Does anyone go on that show and score big and they acknowledge a legitimate valuation for their company and they invest and get some property--

[01:03:02] Megan: Totally. Poppy, which just sold to Pepsi for $2 billion, they were on Shark Tank and they took a deal when they were little. And they gave away, I think, 10% of the company. I could be wrong. But certainly, a lot of times it works out.

[01:03:18] The other people that were on the show at the same time, they were not as far along as Little Saints was in terms of revenue. So I think it can be really helpful if you're-- I'm sure it's really helpful anyways, but if you don't have much revenue and you get a shark to believe in you and then they can come on and be an advisor, I could see how that could be really helpful.

[01:03:42] Luke: So if your valuation is relatively low but they see the potential in what you're doing, they go, "Oh man, we could turn a couple levers here and crank up the value of this company."

[01:03:51] Megan: Right. And probably if you don't have any much sales yet, it's really hard. Right now I've been fundraising for 10 years. It's really hard to raise money for an idea these days just because of the economy. Whereas there used to be raising seed capital for an idea. That's not really happening much anymore, especially in the consumer space. So it'd be really great.

[01:04:11] Luke: This is cool. I'm in business school right now.

[01:04:13] Megan: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it'd be really great if you get on Shark Tank and you get one of the sharks to get excited about your idea and then they help you put that along. Yeah, no, I do like a little bit of advising for startups and I'm like, "Listen, I don't know what to tell you. A lot of investors got burned because a lot of the ideas haven't come to fruition in the past five years." So the climate out there is different and rough. We're really lucky because we're farther along. It's just hard to raise money for an earlier stage company.

[01:04:42] Luke: And for those listing that aren't interested in how business works, forgive me, but I'm just learning as we go. Is there any risk at any point, say with a company like Little Saints where you as the founder have a very specific vision and you have standards and a criteria for the quality of your product and purity and the intentionality and the spirit behind it?

[01:05:10] Is there any risk at some point of investors putting pressure on you to start cutting corners and like, ah, we don't really need the good Palo Santo from Northern Peru? We can get this synthetic one, whatever. Is there any risk of losing your grip on the integrity of a company if there's a bunch of money behind it that wants to do something different than you?

[01:05:34] Megan: Certainly. There's always a risk. There are a lot of founders who've gotten fired as a CEO and then they'll put a corporate one in. That's why I've raised money like a renegade on this one, because in my previous companies I'd raised a lot of venture capital and then there would be a board and then there'd be all these people involved in decisions. No one was ever doing anything bad in those companies.

[01:05:55] I think the majority of investors, majority of people are good. But the less control that a founder has in the company, the more chance there is to do that. So it's wild we got to until now. I just put in a board, and it's my friend who's our major investor and my brother.

[01:06:13] Luke: Oh really?

[01:06:14] Megan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we haven't raised any institutional capital. And that's how I'll just keep this thing. I just won't do it any other way unless--

[01:06:22] Luke: In that potential, let's say negative influence, is the difference between angel investors-- just a guy like me that's like, "Hey, I like Little Saints. Here's 500 grand. Give me a little equity." Versus going with an actual fund.

[01:06:41] Megan: Yeah. If you go with an actual fund and they put in real capital, they're going to want to board seat. And so on series A, I will give away a board seat happily because it'll probably be a great investor. Series A is your first big funding or maybe seed.

[01:06:56] But then if I raise a series B and a series C, then the founder has to give away more and more board seats. And the boards are what controls the company. So the less control a founder has, the more possible it is for decisions that the founder wouldn't make on their own. They don't have control over those major decisions anymore.

[01:07:17] Luke: Ah, interesting. That would explain why sometimes you'll see, like in the wellness space, a supplement or a healthy snack food or something like that. When they first launch, it's super above board and their ingredients are awesome, and then over time you see them start to degrade.

[01:07:33] I've always wondered like, what happened? You guys nailed it. They sneak seed oils in or some weird shit starts to happen. You pick up and read the ingredients. You're like, "Wait, what? I've been eating this?" Sometimes that happens too, right?

[01:07:44] Megan: No, exactly. Then what happens is the fund, whoever puts the money in, then they get their analyst in there and then they're looking at your COGS, which is your cost of goods sold. And then they're like, "That's crazy that you're spending that much money on your mushrooms. You got to get a new supplier."

[01:07:57] And if you don't have as much control of your company anymore because you have a bunch of different institutional investors, then that could get out of control. It won't with ours. I'm lucky because this isn't my first rodeo, and I'm older. But I could see how I could let things get out of control if I hadn't done this before.

[01:08:18] Luke: Do you think having your lawyer background has helped you in that way?

[01:08:23] Megan: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's why I'm grateful.

[01:08:25] Luke: Because you're super chill and easygoing Miami girl or former Wisconsin, New York. You've lived all these places, but you're like super laid back. You do plant medicines. I could see someone seeing you as a pushover or easy to dupe. I'm sure you've come into situations where they have no idea what your background is.

[01:08:42] Megan: They have no idea that there is a lion waiting and like, don't fuck with me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fun. I never really use my law degree anymore except in situations like that where I'm like, "Oh, no, I know what to do here. I know what things should look like."

[01:08:56] Luke: That's so cool. It's like, God puts us through these--

[01:08:59] Megan: I know. It's so weird.

[01:09:00] Luke: These different avenues in life where we get into something. We become proficient at it, but it's not necessarily our calling. And then at some point, some of us are lucky enough to realize like, yeah, this ain't it, even if you're successful doing it. Ah, this isn't fulfilling.

[01:09:16] It's really a gift, I think, when you can take some of the things you learned when you were on the path that wasn't your real purpose but export them into your new lane that is your purpose, which you've clearly done. I think that's probably rare. That's really a gift that you've been able to do that.

[01:09:34] Megan: Yeah, no, it feels like it's super gift, and it's fun. I can give friends some advice.

[01:09:40] Luke: I'm going to call you when I get an idea.

[01:09:42] Megan: Yeah, for sure.

[01:09:43] Luke: I see friends of mine pop up companies and I'm just like, "How do you do that?" I have no idea.

[01:09:47] Megan: Let's do it.

[01:09:48] Luke: I just keep sitting here recording podcasts month after month after month. I go, "I guess this is what I do." I don't know. But every once in a while, I get an idea and I just go, "Yeah, that's probably a good idea, but I have no idea how to do that." So it's good to--

[01:10:01] Megan: You got a friend.

[01:10:01] Luke: Yeah, it's good to have mentors. I got a couple I reach out to business advice here and there, but in terms of launching an actual company, I think for most of us it's a very daunting idea if you don't have any background in it. You don't know where to start. You might have a great idea, but how do you actually get proof of concept and put it into action and get some coin behind it to actually make it a thing.

[01:10:26] Megan: Yeah. No, it takes a lot of trial and error. I funded Little Saints on my own for the first year, then my family put money in in the second year, and I made a lot of mistakes during those years, which, thank God. I had that savings and stuff. But it's hard.

[01:10:43] There's no way you're not going to make a mistake and lose a ton of money. And I've learned so many lessons because I've beat myself up so hard. But there is no playbook, or else people would be doing it all the time.

[01:10:56] Luke: Right. Everyone would own a company.

[01:10:57] Megan: Everyone would own a company. Everyone would just sell whatever they feel like selling. And so that's what I always try to model for my team, is we are all going to fail all the time. You got to fail fast and then just go back and do it again.

[01:11:12] That's the only reason this thing still exists. It all almost went out of business a couple of times in the first couple of years, and I just keep like, okay, reps. I keep going and then every time I'll just learn a new lesson and I won't make the mistake twice. And I feel like, yeah, just takes a bunch of reps.

[01:11:32] Luke: How much does your spiritual and meditation practice help with your ability to be flexible with those ups and downs?

[01:11:43] Megan: Oh my gosh, so much. I feel like if I didn't have my morning practice and my spiritual practice, Little Saints would for sure be out of business.

[01:11:52] Luke: Really?

[01:11:52] Megan: Oh my God, there's so many big swings and so many times when we've had no money in the bank. I got canceled.

[01:12:02] Luke: You did?

[01:12:02] Megan: Yeah.

[01:12:03] Luke: Oh, during the whole pandemic censorship.

[01:12:05] Megan: No, we did a stupid thing. We fucked up. St. Ember, we called it St. Mezcal when we launched. And mezcal is a protected denomination of origin, and we had no bad intentions, but that's a Paloma. That's a margarita. And we were trying to show people what it would taste like. And we made it clear it wasn't a mezcal, but for one day, my face was all over the internet.

[01:12:30] Luke: Really?

[01:12:30] Megan: Yeah.

[01:12:31] Luke: Does someone have a trademark on mezcal?

[01:12:33] Megan: No, they called me out for cultural appropriation.

[01:12:37] Luke: Oh my God. Because you're not Mexican and you--

[01:12:40] Megan: Yeah, no. So listen, we fucked up. It was not our intention.

[01:12:46] Luke: I don't know. That would be debatable to me. It's like, what? I'm a white. I can't make a tortilla company or something?

[01:12:53] Megan: It's not made with agave from Mexico, and we were just trying to evoke the flavor.

[01:12:57] Luke: Okay, okay, okay.

[01:12:59] Megan: And so we changed the name right away. We did the right thing. We changed the name right away. We donated to Sacred, which is this non-profit that donates to indigenous people who harvest agave for mezcal. We did a bunch of right things.

[01:13:17] We said sorry, but during that time period, Little Saints would've for sure, absolutely went out of business if I didn't have my spiritual practice. Granted, I wasn't perfect. I was still freaking out. I was self-funding it at that time. But I really just went in deep and I was like, "Okay, my intention here is really pure." I know this is doing good for people, this liquid, and the intention, we pray to the tanks.

[01:13:43] Luke: Really?

[01:13:44] Megan: Yeah, yeah. There's a joy prayer put in these and a joy prayer put in those. The first batch of every run, I put my hands on the tank and I put a prayer in there. But the point is like, yeah, if I wouldn't have had my spiritual practice during that time, we would've absolutely gone out of business because I knew enough to take all the blame myself.

[01:14:06] I didn't want to make anyone on my team feel like they were responsible because I want them to be able to take risks and stuff. And so I just took a lot of self-love. I was getting horrible DMs for a while and it just was like, all right.

[01:14:23] Luke: I think that's the case. People have too much time on their hands. There's such way bigger humanitarian issues in the world, but hey, I don't know. I don't come from a agave farming family. I won't pretend to admit my lack of understanding in that area. But I don't know, man. To me, sometimes this shit just gets like, wow, you can't win. It's like, what do you--

[01:14:48] Megan: Yeah. I worked through that in an ayahuasca ceremony.

[01:14:50] Luke: You did? Did you go through like a whole shame portal?

[01:14:54] Megan: So much shame. And I think if I had not already just been able to identify shame and I knew how to work with it, with medicine and meditation and then I had my practices, I think that would've derailed us in not a good way. And then also, I keep the vibe.

[01:15:11] I definitely didn't keep the vibe perfectly during that time period at all. God bless Katie, my business partner. I definitely made a lot of mistakes, but I couldn't go downhill. I still had to show up and show everyone that I love this company and I know we're doing well and like, yeah, we made a mistake, but we're going to fix it.

[01:15:30] I had to keep the vibe high. And that was the craziest ceremony really, because every day I would wake up with this horrible anxiety feeling. And then just like, no, you're going to work through this and you're going to show up and show everyone why they want to come to work.

[01:15:46] Luke: I think the social phenomenon of cancellation is a type of ego death. It hasn't happened to me in any meaningful way, but a couple of trolls here and there and it's like, it really challenges your false sense of self. If you have a social or public persona and you're a personal brand or in your case you're the face of a brand and you're forging ahead with an idea, when you're under attack, it's very difficult to stay in your knowing that who's being attacked is not actually you. You know what I mean?

[01:16:31] It's like a projection that you put out in the world or projections that people are putting on you. But meanwhile, if you didn't look at your phone and see those angry posts, you would be totally fine. It's actually a false construct of an attack on something that's not even actually who you are in a way.

[01:16:46] Megan: No, completely. And I really leaned into the paradigm of the creator versus the critic. You can't be a creator and a critic at the same time. Creators, we're in the joy and open in the love space, and like any creation that we do comes through that space. The people that were attacking me were critics.

[01:17:07] I don't know what their personal energy is like, but when you're in the critic, you are acting out of fear and anger and shame. You're trying to shame someone. You're trying to make them feel fearful. You're showing your anger. And so the team and I just leaned into that.

[01:17:24] And I'm like, "Listen, we are creators. We are not critics. We are not getting stuck in this shame loop. We're not going to give too much energy to that because we need to keep on creating. And yeah, this one did not go well, and we're going to fix it. But I think really leaning into that creator space.

[01:17:44] And that was a good thing for our brand because we could lean into that. And everyone on the team that's joined recently, they know that that happened. And it's like, listen, we are creators and you guys can take big swings and risks, not culturally anymore, but we're done with that.

[01:18:06] We're always like, if we come from good intentions and then we're creating-- I think that's why our brand does so well, because we're really intentionally making sure our team is not in that fear, anger, shame space.

[01:18:20] Luke: You, in the position you're in, I'm assuming you're the one that really sets the tone for the culture of your company too. That's like a whole other responsibility. It's not only financial success and keeping everyone's paychecks coming in. I think that's one of the reasons I've never really liked having employees, because I don't know if I'm together enough to set the culture.

[01:18:40] It's like people are going to follow your lead. You're the leader. So it's like, even you can say one thing, but what you model in your energy and your behavior is what's going to either make your company thrive or it's going to infect your company with some neurosis and dysfunction. And then you're sitting there with a screwed-up team that's supposed to support you and you feel like it's their fault. I'm not saying you, but this has been my experience--

[01:19:04] Megan: No, it's all--

[01:19:05] Luke: Tracing it back. Where did this toxic office environment come from? It's like, oh yeah, I come in every day totally pissed off and frustrated or scared or whatever. And then it seems to spread like wildfire, and next thing you know, you have a bunch of really unhappy people trying to fulfill a mission.

[01:19:22] Megan: Oh, for sure. And by the way, I am not perfect at all. During Shark Tank time, right around the time we were airing, I was stressed, and then I could see it in my team, that there was a subtle like, yeah, this isn't so fun when Megan's being a bitch, like that a bit. But just like not as fun as I usually am.

[01:19:38] And then in January, my sister has terminal cancer and I was just going through some shit with my family, and I was showing up to work not my general good energy self and I can see that right away in the team. And so it's like, man, having a team and being a founder like that is a constant spiritual practice because you could see your energy affecting other people, and then you're like, "I can't have this happen. I need to get it together."

[01:20:10] Luke: You don't have kids, do you?

[01:20:10] Megan: No.

[01:20:11] Luke: Yeah. So we're not parents yet, at least. It's probably very similar to having a few kids. It's like no matter what you say to them, they're just going to model your behavior. It's like the mere neuron thing. When you walk in a room and if everyone's looking to you from a position of leadership, it doesn't really matter what you say or what your fucking company mission on the wall is.

[01:20:34] Megan: What did my agenda say today? It's like, am I like a little bit snappy? Am I really like looking people in the eye and thanking them for their ideas? Or am I just in a closed off space that [Inaudible].

[01:20:48] Luke: By the way, thank you, Jarrod. Thank you for doing such a great job every day, buddy. Don't let me forget that. I was actually meant to tell him that today because I was thinking about it. I was like, Man, it's so nice. I don't have to worry about anything." Dude just comes in and makes sure the podcast happens. And I used to do everything myself back in the day. So, no joke. Jarrod, thank you so much.

[01:21:05] Megan: Nice, nice.

[01:21:07] Luke: Pretty soon we're going to get you a mic so I can be like, Jarrod, look that thing up. Like they do on some podcast.

[01:21:12] Megan: Oh yeah, totally.

[01:21:13] Luke: Go fact check shit for me. Actually, don't fact check me because I'm probably wrong a lot of the time. What else was I going to ask you? Oh yeah, I know what it was. You have a really funny and interesting social media marketing, I don't know, persona. You guys make these super wacky, very fun--

[01:21:36] Megan: They're like wack jobs.

[01:21:36] Luke: Yeah. You guys are nuts in a great way.

[01:21:41] Megan: That's the vibe.

[01:21:42] Luke: And you guys, again, go to the show notes at lukestorey.com/megan, and we'll link to your Instagram and your TikTok and stuff.

[01:21:49] Megan: Our Instagram is @littlesaintsco, C-O. And then our TikTok is littlesaintsco too. So I think what you're referring to is the character videos.

[01:21:57] Luke: Yeah. You guys have costumes. I don't know. It's ridiculous, but for some reason not annoying. You want to keep watching because it's just funny. Your branding is very elevated, and if I had never met you and just went to your website and not social media, I'd just be like, "Ooh, this is like a very highbrow, non-alc elevated brand."

[01:22:21] And then when I saw your social, I was like, "Dude, these guys are so goofy." You're just totally screwing around all the time. How do you get anything done? Was there a point rather than, oh, let's get like this really expensive marketing agency to come in--

[01:22:36] Megan: Oh my God, we've made so many mistakes.

[01:22:36] Luke: Really curate everything and try to create a manufactured persona. Was there a point that you did that and went, this feels fake? We're just going to keep it real. Or did you just come in and go like, "We're just going to be ourselves and just cut this?"

[01:22:51] Megan: We made a lot of mistakes. We've had two different social media agencies. Listen, if you want to have an authentic brand and then you hire a social media agency, I'm sure there are some out there that are great, but then they're just going to have some young person on their team create something and they're not infusing any authenticity into the thing.

[01:23:17] So yes, we've made a ton of mistakes. Katie is my business partner. She's our Chief Creative Officer, and her and I are like totally ridiculous. And we were like, "All right, agencies, we just keep burning money on this." And so in the summer of 2023, Katie took over our Instagram and we just started posting and it was like, "Oh, we can do this ourselves."

[01:23:39] I think a lot of times when you start a company and you have some imposter syndrome for sure and you have some self-worth issues, you're like, I've never run a social media account before. I don't know how to do this. I have to hire someone to do this. But then you hire someone to do it.

[01:23:53] And what we found was we were spending more time managing the agency and telling them what we wanted to do and then we were like, let's just do this ourselves. So then Katie and I started being in the videos and then we started doing better than ever. And I think it's because it was people were feeling something authentic to it.

[01:24:12] And then the character video, what Luke's talking about, what you're talking about is we-- so you know, because you're in the space, it's like when people go to describe lion's mane or reishi or so many different supplements, everyone's using the same words. And I feel like sometimes I was just hearing like words, words, words.

[01:24:31] Luke: It's an adaptogen

[01:24:32] Megan: It's an adaptogen, and it's a stress reliever, get into your flow, and all that stuff. And we were like, "All right." One of the thing we say all the time is like show not tell. And we didn't want to just be like [Inaudible], talking words. So we were like, "Okay, each of our main functional ingredients, which are lion's mane, reishi, terpenes, and damiana, if each of those had a personality, what would the personality be?"

[01:24:57] So Katie and I just made it up, and then I love doing weird craft shit, so I like made up the costumes. And so Katie is reishi and lion's mane. They're just ridiculous. So reishi is a wellness girl from LA, and she's really chill. Nothing really bothers her. She's totally highbrow and just chilled out.

[01:25:21] And then lion's mane is a biohacker, more like nerdy dude. He's got a bow tie and he is always lifting weights and cold plunging and focus, just optimization. And then damiana, which is in some of our cans in the St. Juniper, it's a hard opener. It's a little bit of aphrodisiac.

[01:25:41] So then I dress up like damiana and I'm basically a sex coach and just being ridiculous. And then people think like, oh, damiana loves sex. And then terpene queen needs a little bit of a better character for development, but she looks like an herb plant thing, and she's always smelling. And she's just pretty light and bubbly. So we're trying to show what the ingredients feel like through these wacky characters. I don't know.

[01:26:08] Luke: And it's working.

[01:26:08] Megan: It's working.

[01:26:10] Luke: People get it.

[01:26:11] Megan: Yeah, I think--

[01:26:11] Luke: It's all communication. That's the thing. I think we think about marketing, and to your point of this really contrived, like, oh, what's trending right now? What's going to go viral? It's like, dude, you could never keep up with that. It's like you were showing me your viral TikTok video. It was a couple million views, and it's--

[01:26:30] Megan: It's 2.2 million views. That's me having not showered for a week. I'm wearing my brother's hat from 1999 at a basketball game with my nephew, and I have two nasty looking hot dogs on my plate, and I'm pouring this flask of St. Ember into soda water.

[01:26:46] And my nephew's being like, "What's that?" Oh, yeah, you made Little Saints. 2.2 million views. Social media makes no sense. But I think the reason that that one went viral is because it's just organic and authentic. My brother just happened to grab the phone and film us.

[01:27:02] And then the second is, unfortunately, what we were talking about in the kitchen before, is there's the good side of it. We're showing our authenticity. We're not rehearsing any of this shit. It's just out there on the Internet. And then the second thing is, unfortunately, the negative comments. We got a lot of positive comments, but a lot of people didn't realize this was non-alcoholic. And they're like, "You're teaching children to be an alcoholic."

[01:27:23] Luke: Oh, you got Karen'd?

[01:27:24] Megan: Yeah. So we got a lot of Karens on the comments too.

[01:27:27] Luke: There's billions of them out there.

[01:27:28] Megan: There's a lot of them.

[01:27:29] Luke: But hey, I'd be fine with that. Thanks for so much engagement. You made my post go viral.

[01:27:35] Megan: Yeah, yeah. And then there's people who's good. There were people fighting them back and they'll be like, "It's non alcoholics." Yes.

[01:27:41] Luke: Yeah, yeah. I think it's awesome, and I love what you're up to. You have great energy, great ideas. Really good combination of skills to bring a really cool product into the mainstream because of your background. You have the business savvy part of you. You got the goofy, give zero shits about whatever part. Working with plant medicines. You got your shaman blessing, the tanks of product. I don't know, it's just cool. I love what you're doing.

[01:28:10] Megan: Thank you.

[01:28:11] Luke: Yeah, it's epic. And I'm so glad we had a chance to meet. I knew when we jumped in the car, I was like, "Oh, this girl's cool." You go to a retreat or intensive probably even more so when there's only three cohorts, then you're like, "I hope I get along with them." Because there's no other choices.

[01:28:28] If you go to something, there's 25 people, you're going to vibe with two or three people. You don't have to worry about it. But we got in the car. I was like, "This girl's cool man. She's got her own company, making cool shit, working on herself, doing the deal, man." That's the kind of people I like to hang out with.

[01:28:41] Megan: Yeah. Cool. No, we got so lucky. I felt the same way. I was like, "All right, cool." And then we had Peter too.

[01:28:47] Luke: Yeah. Peter is freaking awesome. I haven't talked to him, I think since our last integration call, but he was on fire, man. That dude is making massive changes in life.

[01:28:57] Megan: Seriously.

[01:28:57] Luke: Yeah, it's really cool to see. All right, so last question for you. Who have been three teachers or teachings in general that have influenced your life and made you who you are?

[01:29:08] Megan: One of them, the teaching is just a practice that I do. It's the Hawaiian thing that's like, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. So I do that all the time. And then my friend Lindsay taught me to say like, "I'm listening." So I'll do like, thank you. I love you. I'm listening. Because I meditate and do yoga in the morning.

[01:29:31] And then I was like, "Oh gosh." But then I get derailed during the day. I need just a quick little practice. So I do like, thank you. I love you. I'm listening I think a couple times an hour.

[01:29:41] Luke: Really?

[01:29:42] Megan: Yeah. Just in my head.

[01:29:43] Luke: That's cool.

[01:29:44] Megan: I did it a couple of times while we were on the pod. If I felt like I just like lost my focus for something. Yeah.

[01:29:51] Luke: So it's like a little anchor practice to bring you back into your center.

[01:29:55] Megan: Yeah, yeah. And the, I'm listening, just remembering that I'm not this robot and I'm not in control of everything. I'm listening to the divine.

[01:30:04] Luke: I like that.

[01:30:06] Megan: I'm part of something bigger.

[01:30:08] Luke: Yeah. So it's like putting up your satellite dish, going like, "Okay, ready to receive."

[01:30:15] Megan: Yeah. And just remembering that it's not me pulling every lever here, and I can't control every situation. It's like, okay, I am part of a web and a hive and like, okay, what else is up there? So that's one of them. Another one is just my practice with trees. I ground all the time. I put my head on a couple trees every day, and however weird that sounds, I just--

[01:30:40] Luke: Doesn't sound weird to me. It would've a few years ago until I saw trees talking to me. I was like, "Okay." Dude, I had Zach Bush on, and he was telling me about this study they did where-- I'm going to screw it up, but it was something to this effect. I'm sure you've heard the thing where they did these studies where your dog knows you're coming home when you're still 50 miles away and your dog goes to the door and expects you.

[01:31:06] It was something like that, but it was with plants where when you walk in the house, your plants have a certain response when you talk to them, when you water them, when you caress them or clean their leaves. They're sentient beings to some degree.

[01:31:18] Now I think it's interesting because there's legitimate science that's starting to back up some of the more woo woo ideas that would've sounded nuts a few years ago. And now we find that a lot of the woo woo is actually woo true.

[01:31:32] Megan: Oh yeah. Anytime we need grounding, there's just trees everywhere. I put my forehead on them and just resets and just remember that I'm part of nature and a whole big other thing. And then the third thing, my biggest teacher is my sister who has terminal cancer, but she's doing great right now.

[01:31:50] She literally just came back from the dead. After we did Holon, I went straight to my sisters in Salt Lake City. We literally had a conversation where we said goodbye to each other. She was in horrible shape with chemo, and now she just went to Mexico with her husband last weekend, just bald and rocking it.

[01:32:11] And I have learned so much from her because we are opposite. As woo and out there as I am, she is not, and I have just learned so much from her about loving people the way that they want to be loved and just trusting that each of us bring our own super unique, divine essence, and just trusting that-- because we went through an awkward phase for a second where I was like, "Oh, you got to do this alternative thing and that alternative thing.

[01:32:42] And she's like, "No, I'm going to do what my intuition tells me to do." And I've just watched her lean into that and make medical miracles happen. And it's just been such a great teaching for me just watching her and just a big reminder that everyone is on their own path and there's not only one way to do things. It's helped me be a better leader with business. And it's like amazing to watch.

[01:33:08] Luke: Wow. Epic. I'm so glad to hear that because I remember the--

[01:33:13] Megan: Yeah, we haven't even caught up with that.

[01:33:15] Luke: Yeah, the diagnosis. I was like, "Wow, you're going home to a challenging situation."

[01:33:19] Megan: Yeah.

[01:33:20] Luke: Wow. Beautiful. Thank you so much for going to Holon at the same time I did and allowing us to connect, and thank you for making awesome freaking drinks.

[01:33:29] I feel like the luckiest guy in the world because, I won't say I miss drinking, but it was a huge part of my life for a really long time. And I just was like, "Okay, we're done." And that's gone for this incarnation. And now I have a way that I can do it without ending up in trouble.

[01:33:46] Megan: Oh, this is so fun.

[01:33:47] Luke: Yeah.

[01:33:47] Megan: All right, cool.

[01:33:49] Luke: I'll see you soon.

[01:33:49] Megan: Thank you.