Transcript

(0:00) [Intro]

(2:06) Brett Jackson: One of the ways I started to discover my worth in a world that didn't make a lot of sense to me, always, was through my athletic ability. And it was a place where I... things made sense. And I wasn't overwhelmed by the collective emotional body and the, you know, the the stress of my world.

(2:28) Brett Jackson: Inside the lines of sports, things were clear, the rules were set, and I could go there. And it was this place of, this, this, this... this home for me. And I was, I found, I discovered pretty quickly that people valued me for my athletic ability as well.

(2:47) Justin McMillen: You're such an amazing ballplayer, so... But we'll, we'll talk about that. But I want to... What you're saying is, I think it's really important. And I want to know what you think about this. And I haven't quite worked this idea out completely, so maybe we could do it together. There's something about children when they're born that they're...

(3:08) Justin McMillen: We seem to know. All humans seem to know that, that they're... They have infinite value. They have this... It's just, it's like... Like you don't measure them based on anything they've done because they haven't done anything. You know, they only got born, right? And so now they're just this... there's something that we know in our hearts where it's like they're perfect.

(3:31) Justin McMillen: And then at some point along the way, we either forget or they forget. And then suddenly now the scorecard becomes external. Does that make sense?

(3:40) Brett Jackson: Yeah, I think, yes.

(3:42) Justin McMillen: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know what... Why? Why do you think that happens? Why? Why can't we just hold on to the idea that someone's a miracle and stay there? Why do we have to be like, oh, well, he can throw a really amazing fastball? Like, why does it go to that place? Is it because it's painful to know? I don't know, sorry. I'm talking too much. Go. What do you think about that?

(4:06) Brett Jackson: I think it's the human journey. Is one of forgetting to just remember again.

(4:12) Justin McMillen: Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right.

(4:15) Brett Jackson: It's... I think when we're young, we remember. And then we forget for a really long time. And if we're lucky, we remember again. And if we're really lucky, we remember again before we get too damn old.

(4:34) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(4:35) Brett Jackson: You know. And, and what jars you enough to start to wake up? You know, is, a way I've been blessed with, being able to perceive my journey at this point, because for a long time, I was blaming myself for the pain I caused myself and then in turn, blaming others. Which were just aspects of being in the forgetting.

(5:00) Justin McMillen: Yeah, right. And what is the forgetting?

(5:03) Brett Jackson: The forgetting is... You know, look, those who know don't speak and those who speak don't know. As you know, the Tao, the Daodejing has been a guide for me. And so it's one of those things, you know, the eternal Tao cannot be put into words. The truth is one that comes in many names, and there are many people saying they, they know the way.

(5:39) Brett Jackson: So before I just speak things as absolutes, I want to acknowledge that I don't know necessarily, or claim to have all the answers. But, but my experience is that the forgetting is a belief that's built in separation, one of separation. We start to believe that we are separate. And before separation, before this kind of like individuation journey, there's the knowing, the knowingness that we're all connected, we're all one, we all come from the same source.

(6:21) Brett Jackson: We are the same source. And for whatever reason, you know, this world is created and we all walk these journeys of belief in separation just to walk each other back to the remembrance that we never actually were separated in the first place.

(6:45) Justin McMillen: So I, yeah, I was so fascinated by what you're saying. There's, can I share something about, like, a neuroscience thing around this with you?

(6:52) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(6:53) Justin McMillen: So, and you're probably familiar with some of this, but... And you're going to see it with Ron, and I've seen it with all my kids. It's fascinating to watch. So if they scan the brains of kids, they see that the brain is like, the activity is like a lightning storm across all sections of the brain.

(7:15) Justin McMillen: All the parietal lobes, the occipital lobe, frontal lobe, lots of activity. And then as we get closer and closer to around age six, all the activity moves to the medial prefrontal cortex, which is where we have sense of self. And so what you just said around we know we're connected.

(7:36) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(7:36) Justin McMillen: And then suddenly we, we feel separate. It's almost like you can see that happening. You can, you can measure that over time. And you can see that at a certain age, it all comes into this sort of front and center. And then what's interesting about this too, and where psychedelic research has gone, kind of fascinating.

(7:59) Justin McMillen: I don't want to get into psychedelics right now. I want to hear about baseball and some of that stuff. But what we know is that, I think psilocybin specifically produces the similar brain activity as at six, an earlier time, which may be why people experience a sense of connectedness and loss of ego. So just cool, because what you're saying mirrors science in a really beautiful way, but keep going. So...

(8:27) Brett Jackson: Yeah, that, that's... I think what you just said, that that mirrors science. I, you know, I, I might flip that and say science mirrors...

(8:37) Justin McMillen: Of course you do. Yeah.

(8:38) Brett Jackson: What... Science is just measuring what's happening.

(8:42) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(8:42) Brett Jackson: And I think what comes to mind, as you said, is, is that then the natural progression of, of the way it is, that at six or around that age, the, you know, the sense of self starts to happen. Is that what... is that... I mean, it's what's happening. So it's what was intended to happen.

(9:08) Brett Jackson: And yet, could it also be the outcome of the reality we've collectively created that's asking children to move into separation around that time, which coincides with when traditional education is beginning to pull children away from the family unit in a certain way and start to educate children on facts and more dense thought forms. Right? Which I'm not saying is inherently bad, right? I don't have a bone to pick with that.

(9:43) Justin McMillen: Sure.

(9:44) Brett Jackson: But could that be what's actually, you know, steering us into the forgetting, and is potentially part of our evolution as a collective, as a species? Actually, just to see what we're doing to ourselves, and to growing our awareness of how we're, we're actually the ones that are creating the belief in separation in the first place.

(10:11) Brett Jackson: It's like it wasn't, it wasn't God's intention for us to forget, but that we for some reason decided to forget. And can we take that accountability for what we've created and just start to forgive it, and realize that, that salvation is actually in our own hands? So I'm fascinated by that. My son, we've educated through the Waldorf system.

(10:40) Brett Jackson: Which, you know, it just has resonated as a way for my son. I mean, you know my son, he's highly imaginative. He's highly imaginative. He's a, he's...

(10:53) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(10:54) Brett Jackson: That's a story maybe for the podcast. And, you know, I don't claim to be someone who knows the ins and outs of Waldorf and Rudolf Steiner and his principles and every... and all that. I couldn't regurgitate it. I'm not someone who's very good at all at regurgitating.

(11:19) Justin McMillen: You don't need to be, man.

(11:21) Brett Jackson: But my sense of, of it is it keeps the, the connection intact, through, in a very intentional and thoughtful way. And, and look, we have an incredible privilege to have this option for our son. And we've worked really hard to, to be in a place where we can give this to our son.

(11:42) Brett Jackson: So, and I give my wife Darby a lot of credit for what she's done to fight for this type of education for, for her son. But that isn't to rule out all education. And I fundamentally believe at once that all is as it should be. And that... God's plan for salvation will work.

(12:04) Brett Jackson: And any plans that I have, so many things I think are wrong with the way humans are doing this, is so, it's, is, is fundamentally in disagreement with the, the truth I spoke.

(12:18) Justin McMillen: So I love what you said about, you know, is this the natural way of things, and it is happening that way as far as the kids' brains and activity changing, or is it the school system? And, and this subject I think is really important in general for us as a, as a people globally, to look at that kind of thing, because, and this may be where the spiritual teachers of the world can start to help shape how we evolve from children, like how our education system evolves.

(12:58) Justin McMillen: And because you may be correct, I mean, there's other evidence too. Again, science is a way to measure things that are happening in nature, right? People, when they travel, also experience a change in their brain activity. So if you go to a new environment, the brain goes crazy. Again, similar, very similar to when we're children.

(13:23) Justin McMillen: And so, yeah, maybe we built a system that creates that change. Like, it would be so interesting to look at whether or not that happens with people in tribal communities or...

(13:38) Brett Jackson: Well, I mean, I've experienced those children firsthand. And it's like, it's, it's apparent that that hasn't happened. And so, you know, my experience was, I don't forsake it. It's, it's been critical in my, my journey of awakening and self-realization to have the experiences of, of, of what we're talking about. I've got... I went to public school as a kid, which is a...

(14:04) Brett Jackson: I went to a great public and a, you know, by all standards high, highly valued education system. I grew up in Orinda, California, which is east, the east side of the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area. I grew up in the woods. I grew up with friends around me, and I grew up with the opportunity to play sports, and, and the education that I stepped into at age five, kindergarten, it was, it was a struggle for me.

(14:37) Brett Jackson: You know, speaking on this, it was a struggle to sit in a classroom at a desk with fluorescent lights, asked to pay attention to a teacher when I had the energy to run and move. And I got, you know, you get two recesses or whatever throughout the course of a day. That was a very difficult experience for me.

(15:02) Brett Jackson: On top of what I shared at the beginning of the podcast, this, like, sensitivity to other people and children and a deep sense of wanting to connect and, and belong. It was, it was, it was a thing to navigate. But, you know, I made my way through it. I think in that process, I don't blame it for my forgetting, but it played a part in choosing to start to create an idea of self, which, which for me was, I struggle to belong in this environment.

(15:39) Brett Jackson: There must be something wrong with me. And with other children, it became a difficult thing for me to fit into the social circles of that, of that environment. And so that emphasized this belief that, oh, I don't necessarily belong here. Something might be wrong with me. And, and that was a difficult experience as a child.

(16:03) Brett Jackson: At the same time, like, the signs of that may have been little, I was able to handle it, so to speak. I think maybe my mother would talk about the way she sat with me in my coming home from school crying, but I also did make friends and make my way through. And part of that, making friends and making my way through, was adapting to the environment.

(16:31) Brett Jackson: Because I realized really early that you need friends to survive, and the human heart needs connection. And so it was better to connect in the ways that maybe didn't feel real to me than it was to be alone on the outside of the playground. And so part of that process, and I'm jumping over a lot, was the discovery that I fit really well into the realm of athletics.

(17:00) Brett Jackson: And, and that may have been the thing that really kept my connection alive, in truth, because while the ego was using sports and whatever it could, it could, to fit in and belong, to find self-worth, my soul was still able to connect to this feeling of emptiness and flow that I got in sports that I didn't feel anywhere else.

(17:26) Brett Jackson: And I think because of that, I became... I had this link to something beyond myself. And so baseball became this thing that was kind of both, right? There was a connection to self, true self, capital S Self, which was moments of flow, right? Divine being. It was the way I experienced it. And, like, mom and dad and crowd and kids being very pleased and adoring of my ability, abilities, at a young age.

(17:57) Justin McMillen: Was it always baseball or was it all sports?

(18:04) Brett Jackson: It was all sports.

(18:05) Justin McMillen: Okay.

(18:06) Brett Jackson: But it was baseball primarily. I think I fell in love with it because my dad was just a huge baseball fan. So he grew up with the Giants on TV, and the irony is, my dad was a soccer player and played collegiate soccer at Cal. And I, you know, I idolized my dad for his athletic ability.

(18:29) Brett Jackson: And I can get into his character, too. It's, it's worth mentioning all the people that have shaped me. That doesn't [...] me. I'm the product of many beautiful beings.

(18:41) Justin McMillen: Sure.

(18:42) Brett Jackson: And I've stood on the shoulders of many beautiful beings.

(18:45) Justin McMillen: Sure.

(18:46) Brett Jackson: My father and mother being two of them. But they really loved that I... My dad loved baseball. And I loved that my dad loved baseball. And I loved baseball. I was good at it. I liked the, the raw elements of the dirt and the grass and the leather ball. And, you know, there was something beyond cognition that I recognized there.

(19:16) Brett Jackson: And I think it became this kind of... this kind of archetypal hero's journey environment for me to explore what it was like to be an individual amidst other individuals, trying to make his way, trying to do the impossible, which, baseball is kind of like that, right? Hitting a fastball is a very difficult thing. To get to first base, or ultimately to get back home. Right. There's all this symbolism in baseball.

(19:52) Justin McMillen: I was going to say... just go on.

(19:54) Brett Jackson: And so I think my soul was choosing it on that level. This is a place where I can really find my... look for myself in the mirror of this game. Long answer, short question. But I also was well-rounded at the time. We were lucky, right? Like, kids didn't play club sports year-round, travel ball, when they were eight years old.

(20:17) Brett Jackson: I was lucky to play soccer and basketball and, you know, swim team and the whole thing. So, but, but ultimately, as high school approached, my, my abilities as a baseball player were becoming really clear. And the path to playing college and all that started to be... you know, people were like, hey, man, like, you know, you got a chance here.

(20:42) Brett Jackson: I started, I started to focus in on baseball. I played football my freshman year of high school. And, and then I quit after my freshman year. So it was all baseball.

(20:54) Justin McMillen: Got it. So, so you, you, you fell in love with baseball. I think it's interesting to talk about your, your father loving baseball on you. And, and I think it's a thing, right? Like, with, with children, they're modeling and they're, they're looking at their parents and it's like, what is... you know, I want to do good.

(21:16) Justin McMillen: There's also this other layer, I think about this all the time, where we have this organic world, right? Where all the, the, the different species, like, I'm talking about humans, like, they're... we have this hardware in us that produces striving, and it, it, it's, it's how all living beings actually have moved forward.

(21:37) Justin McMillen: It's how, you know, what works survives, and what doesn't dies off, and it continues. And so as we become part of this system, you begin to develop a sense of... there's, like, hierarchies, and it's, it exists everywhere. It's part of the natural order. You can look around and it's, it's all over. It's not just in humans.

(21:59) Justin McMillen: But so there's, there's this war that happens, I think, between the biological us... just this idea of being the best is actually hardwired into biology, and it's not... You can remove the spiritual side. It seems to be the antithesis of a lot of spiritual stuff. But there's this drive to succeed, succeed and be the best and to win and outperform.

(22:23) Justin McMillen: And had that not happened through human history, this vessel that you were born into, this body, wouldn't even be here, because that's how it got... that's how we got here. So there's something about living on this earth in these bodies that, that's part of the dance. It's like it's how all of the, the organic world is sort of moving forward. So anyways, you got me thinking, we're way out there, so we should do that too.

(22:53) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(22:53) Justin McMillen: Anyways, I love talking to you, man. We always get into some really fun stuff. I feel like I get you completely, that a lot of other people... I assume, I'm assuming the audience is going to be... Everybody seems to be totally, like, locked in on you. So I think they'll, they'll get it.

(23:11) Justin McMillen: But I feel like I understand you. I have a really strong sense of your heart, so I think I do. It's a, it's something I experience. So you, you're playing baseball. You get... Did you have this aspiration where, like, you're in high school and you're thinking, I'm gonna go to college for this?

(23:29) Justin McMillen: Like, did you start thinking, I'm going to play pro ball or be a professional athlete? Was that like a dream envisioned for you at ninth grade, kind of thing?

(23:39) Brett Jackson: I don't, I don't fully remember, to be honest.

(23:42) Justin McMillen: Okay.

(23:42) Brett Jackson: I think there was a... there's, there were multiple experiences happening at once. I think maybe that was partially part of my experience. I think mainly in high school, I was thinking about girls and, like, my buddies.

(23:58) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(23:59) Brett Jackson: And playing ball, and, and, like, being a part of the team. That was important to me because of this, again, this, like, deep wanting to, like, wanting, yearning to belong to a team. And it was, it's almost woven into my being. I'm someone that really thrives in small groups and teams. And then my life mirrored that.

(24:21) Brett Jackson: I had experiences that... I've had experiences like that all the way through, but really it was about connection. Like, baseball is about connection. And then there was this more subconscious experience of seeking myself, asking the deeper question of, who am I? What is this? That was happening for me when I was 14 and earlier.

(24:42) Brett Jackson: Is anybody else wondering what's going on here? Like, that was like, I'd have buddies over and be like, hey, dude, like, you ever think about... and they're like, no, no, bro, no, dude, like, pass the J, you know? And, yeah. So that was happening on some level, somewhat conscious, but mostly, like, there was this exploration of self happening through sports and belonging and all that.

(25:08) Brett Jackson: And there was that part of my soul and part of my ego that were, that were believing that I could be the best in the world. I had that belief, and it was almost potentially prescient. Like, I could see my future ahead of me with it. And at the same time, I struggled with self-doubt, and, and that, that followed me all the way down my journey and, and ultimately led to the culmination of that career.

(25:37) Brett Jackson: So, yeah, college... kind of playing college ball kind of a little bit came out of nowhere. I, I kind of... I was small. Like, when I started high school, I was really short. I was five-four as a freshman. I was, I was kind of one of those younger-in-my-grade kids. August birthday. So I was always, like, you know, six months behind, for the most part, the other guys.

(26:04) Brett Jackson: And then, you know, high school. But I made the varsity team my sophomore year. So I was this younger... I was smaller, and so I was a small little infielder. But then middle of high school I shot up.

(26:19) Justin McMillen: What grade?

(26:20) Brett Jackson: Sophomore year I came back maybe 5'10".

(26:22) Justin McMillen: Wow.

(26:23) Brett Jackson: It was like over the summer. And then [...] the girls were really looking at me.

(26:28) Justin McMillen: Yeah. You got to tell Finley that. He's obsessed with getting taller. And I think he's five, almost five-eight now.

(26:32) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(26:33) Justin McMillen: And he's waiting. He's like, I need to be six foot.

(26:35) Brett Jackson: I needed... because of growing, you know, this, it was one of the reasons I quit football. Because I was smaller, you know. I was, like, I was quarterback material, you know. I, like, I had this freaky athleticism, I was fast, and I saw the field, had it. But I was small, you know.

(26:53) Brett Jackson: So I think in playing time, really, they stuck me at cornerback on the freshman team. And I would try to tackle these dudes playing for, you know, our [...] rival, and, like, get run over, you know, trying to ankle tackle everybody. So yeah, so, so, so quick story. Like, I quit football. The football coach...

(27:11) Brett Jackson: And then I grew up, right, over the summer. So I came back in August, I came to the head coach, I was like, hey, I changed my mind. Like, I want to come back. I want to play football. And he's like, you missed all the summer ball. You know, all your, all your buddies have been training all summer.

(27:31) Brett Jackson: You were playing baseball. Whatever. And that was that. Like, he said no, basically. So, actually that happened before I shot up. I'm forgetting, and... okay. And then I shot up, maybe in the middle of sophomore year, when it happened. And then the coach, I was gonna say, [...] me down the hallway. Said we really need a tight end on the varsity team.

(27:52) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(27:53) Brett Jackson: You know, I was huge. I grew up, I got to my, my six-two height at that point. So I was big, and, and then, and then I went to a good D4 public high school, small high school, where it's like scouts were showing up to the games. It wasn't travel ball times, really.

(28:12) Brett Jackson: Like, my dad started to work hard to get me into some showcase, showcases, you know, and some travel ball started to happen in the fall. So then I started to, like, be witnessed by collegiate coaches.

(28:25) Justin McMillen: And what was sort of your magic?

(28:26) Brett Jackson: My magic?

(28:27) Justin McMillen: Yeah. Like, what was the thing? Like, if people described you as a player when you were that age, would they just be like, this guy can hit a ball like nobody's business? Or is it just you're always in the right place at the right time on the field? Or is it you're just well-rounded? And, like, how would they have described you?

(28:46) Brett Jackson: I mean, I can tell you how they describe me. I was a five-tool player, like they say in baseball, which...

(28:50) Justin McMillen: What does that mean?

(28:51) Brett Jackson: You have all five tools. You can run, you have speed, you can throw, you can hit, you can hit for power, and defense. So I was, I played shortstop in high school. I hit left-handed, I threw right-handed, so that's a plus aspect. Hand-eye coordination, you know, like, contact.

(29:12) Justin McMillen: And five... What do they say? Five what?

(29:15) Brett Jackson: Five-tool player.

(29:17) Justin McMillen: Five-tool player. I get it. Triple threat in theater. Somebody who can dance, sing and act.

(29:22) Brett Jackson: And similar, but not the same. So, when it got to college, so, the Cal... I started to get recruited by big universities all of a sudden my junior year, and it was like, oh, this is happening. Like, I'm going to get to play. And for me, it was just like, oh, this is happening.

(29:40) Brett Jackson: Like, this is, this is what... yeah, this is what's supposed to happen. But when, like, the Stanfords and UCLAs and Cals of the world were knocking on the door, I was like, oh, this is... okay, this is bigger. And so, without going into too much detail about that, I got, I got... the Cal coach went to our championship game, and I hit a home run, and things happened, like, magic happened, and I got recruited.

(30:05) Brett Jackson: And Cal was where my dad went to school. It's where my grandparents went to school. I come from a long line of blue and gold. And so when, in, you know, our, the rival is Stanford, right? It's the big rivalry, Stanford-Cal. And so when Stanford called, and I got, like, the visit to Stanford and went down there, I, I...

(30:25) Brett Jackson: everyone's like, dude, you're getting recruited to Stanford. You know, it's a big deal. And I knew it was. But I went down there and I was like, this isn't me, you know?

(30:36) Justin McMillen: Wow. How could... I mean, that must have been so exciting for you, though. And for you, was your dad just like...

(30:41) Brett Jackson: Oh, my dad was...

(30:42) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(30:42) Brett Jackson: Over the moon.

(30:43) Justin McMillen: And how was it? Was he like, you don't have to choose Cal?

(30:46) Brett Jackson: But they were so supportive in whatever I, say...

(30:50) Justin McMillen: Okay.

(30:51) Brett Jackson: Yeah. In fact, I think maybe they were pushing Stanford more.

(30:55) Justin McMillen: Sure.

(30:56) Brett Jackson: The... yeah, I could do a whole podcast on... My dad is a special guy. My mom too. They... I don't go to college and play baseball without the support of my parents, or do that. Nobody gets those experiences. So my dad was the guy that was coach, coached every team, was out there throwing me Wiffle balls every day in the backyard, my entire childhood.

(31:20) Brett Jackson: And, you know, I'm the oldest of four siblings, so it says even more to how much, how involved he was. So, so anyways, I chose, I chose Cal. Everyone's like, dude, Stanford, UCLA. Irvine was, was one of the best teams in the country at that point. At that point, they had just won the College World Series.

(31:42) Brett Jackson: I almost came down here because he was going to give me the starting job as a freshman. All that. But I went to Berkeley, and I'm doing the walk-through, and there's... if you've been to Berkeley before, it's this very bizarre place.

(31:58) Brett Jackson: You heard about it, right?

(31:59) Justin McMillen: Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

(32:01) Brett Jackson: And I grew up just over the hill from... I practically grew up in Berkeley. But, in this kind of affluent town through the tunnel, on the other side of the tunnel. Berkeley is just this wild kind of... They call it the People's Republic of Berkeley, right? There's like this hippie history, riots, whatever in the, in the 70s.

(32:22) Brett Jackson: And, there's homeless people on the streets. You're walking... I'm walking down Telegraph Ave and there's this, just like, weird people all around. And then there's students, and it just felt alive. There was like, this culture, this, like, different looking people everywhere. And I was like, this is it. This is where I want to be.

(32:41) Brett Jackson: This is where I belong. Oh, man. So that was Berkeley for me. Stanford, on the other hand, no diss on Stanford. My brother went to Stanford.

(32:51) Justin McMillen: Okay.

(32:51) Brett Jackson: I got respect for sure, but it was the opposite, right? It was, the campus is like, pristine. It was like going to a resort, and somewhat homogenous. And, that's changed.

(33:03) Justin McMillen: Well, yeah. But, anyhow, it was it for you. I mean, like, I think you probably chose a place that mirrored who you were.

(33:11) Brett Jackson: Exactly. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. So I end up at Berkeley, earned playing time as a freshman, but had a hard year. And, but ultimately, my... I was playing summer ball, and I started to be scouted for the pro thing. And, I came back after my sophomore year. I had a good sophomore year.

(33:29) Brett Jackson: I moved to the outfield and became a center fielder. And all of a sudden I was getting... it was like, you're going... the pro thing is going to happen. It's just a matter of if you're going to be a first round draft pick or not. And, wow, that was a wild thing to go through as a 19, 20 year old kid. So I was drafted in the first round by the Cubs in 2009.

(33:54) Justin McMillen: And it was that like... what was it like showing up in, like, the beginning of all of that?

(34:02) Brett Jackson: Yeah. So the Cubs... exciting, intimidating. Like, we could spend probably a lot of time on this part. And I don't know if this is... if the most juice is here, but...

(34:15) Justin McMillen: Sure.

(34:15) Brett Jackson: We could, we could, we could skip it. But, I'm happy to speak to whatever extent you want, but...

(34:20) Justin McMillen: I think you're speaking to a lot of people's dreams right now, so it's kind of cool. I mean, there's people that love baseball. I think there's a lot of young people out there that would love to become a professional athlete.

(34:33) Brett Jackson: Yeah. So it was, it was surreal. It was surreal is what it was like. My junior year, I had a monster junior year. The pressure began then, it started to become a job then, and it started to really... that's the main story here for the rest of the story, probably. There's all this beauty and surreal, you know, excitement.

(34:54) Brett Jackson: And at the same time, there was this weight of expectation starting to really dawn on me. That was kind of, you know, this pressure mounting on top of this. Like, this is where I get my worth. This is where people love me, when I play well, and, you know... and there was a well-rounded part of me too that was like, you know, a good guy for the most part.

(35:18) Brett Jackson: So I, I had a monster junior year, despite the pressure. And, you know, I got an agent, and CAA, they came and they, like, wowed me with... showing me all these celebrities on the screen that I'm going to be a part of their agency. You know, the whole sports arm. And I was like getting taken into that world, man.

(35:40) Brett Jackson: Like that's what was starting to happen. And, people are writing articles about me in the, you know, college paper. And, the draft came along. I got drafted 31st, which is the second to last pick. The first round was still the first round. And so there was this whole experience of that. And then that was like this weight, like, oh, you were a first rounder.

(36:02) Brett Jackson: You were a first rounder, you know, and... but I, you know, I made almost $1 million, like at age 20.

(36:10) Justin McMillen: That's crazy.

(36:11) Brett Jackson: And, and the big story at the time with the Cubs organization, which I'm sure many of the listeners know, was they hadn't won the World Series in 100... at that point, 101 years. So I think that's 1908. Right? I should remember this. And it was 2009. So there was this, there was this new mission, so to speak, which was like, I can be...

(36:35) Brett Jackson: I can... we can go win, we can go break the curse. And so this new story started to kind of like come into my world. And the media was mirroring it as well. Like, here's Brett Jackson, first rounder, alongside, you know... we traded for Anthony Rizzo not long after that. And it was like, these guys are the saviors of Chicago. And it was this whole thing started to...

(37:02) Justin McMillen: And Chicago fans are so hardcore.

(37:04) Brett Jackson: Yeah. Yeah.

(37:05) Justin McMillen: So you're stepping into a whole culture.

(37:08) Brett Jackson: I stepped into a whole culture which, you know, like, I was susceptible to this savior complex, which already existed in me, like, oh, I can save... you know, I can do this. I can be the hero. I'm really on the hero's journey, you know? You know, and...

(37:25) Justin McMillen: This is wild. This is so wild, I just can't even imagine. I mean, I, I knew all this stuff... I didn't, obviously didn't know these details, but what a journey. I mean, how cool is this? I mean, I, again, I know that there's a lot of, you know... I, first of all, I don't even watch sports, so it's not even like this isn't like some thing for me where you're, like, fulfilling some fantasy of my own thinking. It's not that at all. It's just fascinating to think of you moving through life in this way. And ending up in this position.

(37:54) Brett Jackson: Yeah. Very different.

(37:55) Justin McMillen: It's so crazy, right?

(37:56) Brett Jackson: Crazy different. But it was my lived reality.

(37:59) Justin McMillen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(38:00) Brett Jackson: Yeah. I think one of the hardest parts of it was I didn't share that with anybody else. But the guys going through, you know, other teammates. But all my friends back home are like graduating college, getting, you know, going into insurance and commercial real estate and whatever. And, it was just... I lived a different experience, and I'm grateful for that. I didn't have to... I didn't want to go into the, the daily grind. That was like a big mission of mine.

(38:26) Justin McMillen: Sure. Yeah.

(38:27) Brett Jackson: I saw how hard my dad worked. My dad was a tech guy, very successful tech guy, with lots of ups and downs. And that's a part of the story for sure. I didn't want that. I didn't want to go into, like, the grind of it... it didn't make sense to me that people weren't, like, living their life, you know? It was just, like, an innocent kid. I was like, I don't want to do that. I want to play ball.

(38:51) Justin McMillen: You knew that at five?

(38:52) Brett Jackson: I knew I had fun. I... you brought it up in the beginning, very tuned into my dad.

(38:56) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(38:57) Brett Jackson: Saw the way... and so much respect for him. My dad's a very self-made guy that came from very little. And so I respected his journey with that. But to get back to the fun part about baseball, and...

(39:09) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(39:09) Brett Jackson: It was, it was... Yeah. The ego loved it. Ego loved it. I was, you know, I was getting interviewed after practice and, and at the same time, they send you into the minor leagues. It's not like other sports where all of a sudden you're starting five in the NBA. Which happens for a lot of NBA guys, or NFL...

(39:32) Brett Jackson: NFL, these guys are like, you know, right at it. Right at it. For me it was like... you know, I had my first place I went to, short season, in Arizona. Mesa, Arizona was... our spring training was, is there, for two weeks. Hot, 110 degrees in the middle of summer. Then I went on to Boise, Idaho for a few weeks, and then they moved me to Peoria, Illinois, which is like the A-ball, long season A-ball.

(40:02) Brett Jackson: And, you know, you're staying in motels, lowest rate motels, and bussing 16 hours for your game the next day. And, like, that reality, it started a journey as well and, and humbled me, you know? So it was like I had that, and I had this like, oh, I'm famous now. Y'all know my name in Chicago.

(40:24) Justin McMillen: And, and you had, you had a big chunk of money too, which is an important piece of the equation. So like you're, you're... you've got resources and you're playing ball.

(40:34) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(40:35) Justin McMillen: Which is an interesting thing at that young of an age, for sure.

(40:39) Brett Jackson: Bought two cars.

(40:40) Justin McMillen: Yeah. Yeah.

(40:41) Brett Jackson: I was susceptible for sure. I bought an Audi. I bought a Land Rover Defender.

(40:46) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(40:46) Brett Jackson: You know, I, I could have been smarter with my money.

(40:49) Justin McMillen: Just... Yeah, for sure. We all could have been, man.

(40:52) Brett Jackson: But I... I was going to make it. It was going to be... I knew I was going to make it. There's no doubt in me. And three years later, I made it. It was, it was a grind to get there, and it started to wear me down to the game, because in college you're going weekend series, midweek game. Pro ball's another beast. You're playing literally every day with a day off every three weeks.

(41:17) Justin McMillen: Wow.

(41:18) Brett Jackson: And with me, they, they didn't give me a day off. I was playing every game, every inning, every inning of every game. And that was, that was, admittedly, difficult for me. I had the endurance and I had the ball, and I crushed. Still, I... my first couple seasons were impressive on a numbers basis, but I was starting to struggle with the game already.

(41:46) Brett Jackson: It was wearing me out. I was getting burnt out and, even within the first couple years, and then the pressure mounting of getting to the big leagues and getting there and, winning the World Series, like all that started to really compound. And, I... in 2012, I was, I was beginning to have, like, my first episodes of panic attacks, and I was in Triple-A, living in Des Moines, Iowa.

(42:16) Brett Jackson: You know, things improve as you go up. At Triple-A still, you know, you're still not staying... it's not the nicest everything, and what I mean is it was still pretty, like, minor league, you know? I was beginning to start to have my own, like, mental shortcomings. It was one way to put it.

(42:40) Justin McMillen: Sure.

(42:40) Brett Jackson: And, the pressure, it was just like every at bat, and coming out of spring training that year... I mentioned Anthony Rizzo before. He and I were like the, you know, we were the poster boys of the Cubs organization. Farm grown. They're going to take us to the next level. As I mentioned, the reason we didn't make the team out of spring was we, we...

(43:02) Brett Jackson: Anthony just needed to go get a few more reps before he'd get called up, and I needed to go work on my strikeouts. I started to strike out a decent amount. I was hitting for more power, and, and so what got in my head? Strikeouts. Got in my head. All I heard was strikeouts.

(43:20) Brett Jackson: Big-league strikeouts. So every time I'd get into a two-strike count, I was like, dude, just put the ball in play.

(43:27) Justin McMillen: Yeah. And... but kind of cool though, that you're just getting the reps. Like playing it every day. It's like at some point that feeling of the bat in your hands, and the whole thing, the sound, and then walking out in the field, it's like it's so second nature. I mean, I didn't know any of this about baseball, so that's how they do it? You go into the minor leagues and you sort of earn your spot. Is that how it always... mostly works?

(43:49) Brett Jackson: It's basically like five levels. You got to make your way up.

(43:52) Justin McMillen: Okay.

(43:52) Brett Jackson: Very rarely has a guy gotten up right away. You know, Ken Griffey Jr...

(43:56) Justin McMillen: Sure.

(43:56) Brett Jackson: Very rarely. But like, Bonds... I think even Bonds played in the minor leagues. Again, I'm not a facts guy.

(44:02) Justin McMillen: It makes sense though, because it's just that baseball's pretty intimate. I mean, there's not a lot of players. It's like, you know, at any point in time what's going on on the field is small, right? And so it's like, you know, if I was, if I were on the baseball team, or as a coach, it's like, I would want that. I would want people to be so comfortable. It's such second nature.

(44:22) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(44:23) Justin McMillen: Every scenario, it's like, that's training. Really?

(44:26) Brett Jackson: Yeah, yeah. The, the discrepancy between college baseball and Major League Baseball, it's a big jump. It's a big jump in talent, in, in skill set. The raw talent is there coming out of college. They see it, and then they need to cultivate it into precision. Basically, you watch Major League Baseball, like, nobody gets a base hit in the infield.

(44:47) Brett Jackson: Like, it's rare you're going to get a base hit through the infield. Infielders in the major leagues just, they don't make errors. I mean, they do, but on a relative basis. Getting a hit in the major leagues is very difficult, and the pitching... the jump from Triple-A to Major League Baseball is big, you know?

(45:07) Brett Jackson: And so I dominated Triple-A. I was dominant in Triple-A. I was striking out more. That was leading to the mental, like, f... like, I can't...

(45:16) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(45:16) Brett Jackson: You know, and this is preventing me from... But I was dominating Triple-A and I got called up in August of 2012. And it was like, I call my dad. So I was living through... to round out this story better... I was living through this pressure of getting there and making it, with all the expectations of the first round draft pick, and putting my whole life into this thing, and overcoming my strikeouts.

(45:45) Brett Jackson: And on top of, like, getting broken down, a little bit worn out by the game, and losing my passion for the game... it became my career. You know, that I had to prove myself, prove my worth. And so it wasn't happening. It wasn't happening. I was finally... I got the call. I was like...

(46:07) Brett Jackson: I'll never forget it. It was after a game, August 4th, 2012, and, we're flying you out first thing tomorrow. You hearing me? You're going to come into the big leagues, you know? And, it was like, all right.

(46:22) Justin McMillen: Did it come out of nowhere? Did you think it was going to happen?

(46:26) Brett Jackson: It... the whole, that whole season, I was like, when is this going to happen? Is it going to happen? And I... I had this thing in my head that I might be the exception to making it, you know? There's something wrong with me. You know, I don't fit here. That was, that was there for me.

(46:48) Brett Jackson: I don't fit here. And I didn't in a lot of ways. You know, I studied art at Cal. I was a different guy. I didn't fit that... the athlete mold. I could, I could put the shell on, but I didn't... I wasn't... I don't know if it was growing up the way I did with...

(47:09) Brett Jackson: I, I didn't fit... I wasn't a... I wasn't a let's go. I'll play. I'll play as many games as I need to win, you know? And that, that was... wasn't clicking for me. And some part of me knew that. But I get the call. I made it, and go into the big leagues. I call my dad crying, you know, pretty special moment.

(47:34) Justin McMillen: And, what did he say to you?

(47:37) Brett Jackson: He just said, we did it. You did it, man. We did it. We did it, dad. You know, and, he's just proud. And, you know, it was a big thing for him. Yeah. So next morning, fly out. Like, I think the first flight out, got to connect, because you're going from Des Moines. There's no direct flights, and the team is playing in LA against the Dodgers. So my parents...

(48:03) Justin McMillen: Oh, shit.

(48:04) Brett Jackson: Yeah, I know. Yeah. I'm a California raised boy.

(48:07) Justin McMillen: [...] Nobody at home asleep. And your buddies are like, whoa [...]

(48:12) Brett Jackson: I didn't sleep. Yeah. Dodgers, Giants rival growing up. It's like, you know, it was like storybook. Like, I'm playing my opener against the Dodgers, and, my family happened to be in Southern California, so all these people were like, coming in or flying down to come to the game. And it was pretty cool.

(48:29) Brett Jackson: But I started... I got to LA on the first flight at like 5 a.m. I got like two hours of sleep. It's like, delirious, you know? I'm, I, I'm going to the big leagues. What's going on? And, I get off the plane in LA and I got a text message from the manager.

(48:45) Brett Jackson: He's like, you're starting center, batting second in the lineup. I was like, all right, it's all right. You know? And, I got to the field, you know, drive up... you know, land in LAX. They got a car waiting for me. They take me to the field and the teams are already on the field. Everyone's in batting practice, and everyone's there when I arrive.

(49:06) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(49:06) Brett Jackson: Oh, yeah. Yeah. My, my, my cleats are there, they're clean. The whole thing, you know, they're laying my bats down for me, and yeah, it was cool. And I went straight out to batting practice. I was like, I can barely see right now. Little sleep. And long story short, I could spend a lot of time on the game, but, my first at bat... you know, everyone dreams, like, their first at bat being, like, a home run, right? First at bat, I hit a foul ball off my foot.

(49:35) Justin McMillen: Off your foot.

(49:36) Brett Jackson: And it went into play, and so... But I was so nervous, you know? I hit the ball, went off my foot, went straight to the first baseman, and I took a step out of the box, and then I was... I turned around. I was like, I hit my foot, and the umpire's like, no, you didn't.

(49:51) Justin McMillen: Oh no.

(49:52) Brett Jackson: That was my first at bat.

(49:54) Justin McMillen: Boo.

(49:54) Brett Jackson: It's no big deal. It's kind of funny.

(49:56) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(49:57) Brett Jackson: No, it did. It's like, I kind of felt it.

(49:59) Justin McMillen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(50:00) Brett Jackson: So my first at bat was a foul ball out. And then, I... my second at bat, I'm actually forgetting if it was my second or third at bat, but I got a base hit.

(50:11) Justin McMillen: Okay.

(50:11) Brett Jackson: And, that was a pretty cool experience. I got two hits in the game...

(50:16) Justin McMillen: In your first game?

(50:17) Brett Jackson: And, my first game, and, I remember a fly ball out to the wall. And before the game, Rizzo was with the team at that point too. He was a buddy of mine. He's like, just my one piece of advice: when you're playing on defense in a big league stadium for the first time, just, just don't look up, because you look up, the stadium's like... it looks like a skyscraper above you, you know?

(50:42) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(50:42) Brett Jackson: So I was doing... I was like, keep my head down. And I get this fly ball, and I look up and I'm like, oh my God, where is the ball? You know, it's like when I've been up into the stadium. But I tracked it down. All that pressure, like, what if I drop the...

(51:00) Brett Jackson: you know, all that's there. Made the catch to end the inning. So it was a super special experience. And then that was the last game of the series against the Dodgers. We went to San Diego and I struck out like 14 times, in like three games. I exaggerated that number.

(51:18) Justin McMillen: Okay.

(51:18) Brett Jackson: So the, the rest of my... of that season, I was like... there's spurts of greatness with, like, these droughts of not being able to make contact. And it was like, this mirrored this, like, internal battle I was in. And, and finished the season like... really my, my numbers went down. I, you know, there's so many stories I could tell in here, but I don't think they serve the podcast the most.

(51:49) Brett Jackson: But long story short, I, I was, like, very much struggling with the pressure to perform, and, and hitting a home run here and a home run there, and experiencing success. And, ultimately it was just, you know, it was kind of a tough, tough year. On the numbers.

(52:09) Justin McMillen: What was it like to be... so you're, because you're, you're now surrounded by the best of the best, I mean, in a particular field of athletics, right? Like you're, you're... So what about the other teammates? Like, were people guiding you and telling you, hey, you're new here? Like, this is how you need to do this. Whether... or was everyone just kind of...

(52:34) Brett Jackson: I'm careful here because, for a long time, I blamed the environment for my shortcomings. And pointed outward for why I was struggling, and didn't take accountability. And I felt a lot of shame because of my struggles. And this is over the course of a couple of years. But at the time, that team was one of the most losing teams in, in baseball.

(52:59) Brett Jackson: We would end up losing, I think, 100... 109 or 110 games that year, which is a lot of games to lose. Like, you know, I think we were like 40-plus games under .500. And so the environment was difficult. We were losing a lot. It was a young team. There were a couple great guys, older guys, and Alfonso Soriano was on the team.

(53:24) Brett Jackson: Legend. Prince of a guy. Dominican guy, played a lot of years for the Yankees. He was... played left field, so we were in the outfield together. That was a special experience. There's a lot of people I can give a lot of credit to, and we were a young team that was losing a lot, and I...

(53:46) Brett Jackson: I felt very young. I felt very outmatched. And I felt the pressure of needing to prove myself to keep my place. And, that was hard. It was hard to go through. So the year ended, and I got to see some of this positive play, and I...

(54:05) Justin McMillen: And I... this is totally not where you're at in life, but somebody with your... because you're talking about how blaming, blaming the surroundings, and, you know, I've been on... I had... I played sports as a kid, and I've been on teams that were not so healthy. And I've also... the work I do, we focus...

(54:26) Justin McMillen: We actually have systems to measure culture. We call them teams, like we have... After this, we're going to walk across the street. You'll actually see some of that. And when you have a team that's healthy, it just exponentially grows all members of that tribe, the community. What's crazy... And this is not going to happen, right?

(54:47) Justin McMillen: But you would be like the perfect person to go in and become like a sociocultural expert for the Cubs, or a team like that, and like, somebody with your background and your intuitive nature... could you imagine if you came in not as a coach, but just like an advisor?

(55:05) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(55:06) Justin McMillen: To like help people understand...

(55:07) Brett Jackson: It was, it was energizing. It was one of the things I considered doing for a little while after I retired. But I was so... as interesting as I feel like, maybe I...

(55:17) Justin McMillen: Go ahead. Sorry.

(55:18) Brett Jackson: Yeah. No, I'm open to talking about it. I was so bitter on the game, and, like, the world of sport at that point, that I wanted nothing to do with it. I'm jumping ahead in the story, but...

(55:29) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(55:29) Brett Jackson: Thank you. I, you know, I've been out of the game now longer than I was in it.

(55:35) Justin McMillen: Sure.

(55:35) Brett Jackson: And there's a lot more to my story now than just...

(55:38) Justin McMillen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(55:40) Brett Jackson: So, so to wrap up on this, essentially, I didn't make it back to the team with the Cubs. I, I... the next year had a good spring, but I got hurt. I hurt my shoulder, like, two weeks before we broke spring training, so I went back to Triple-A.

(55:58) Justin McMillen: And what does hurting your shoulder look like? Tore it?

(56:03) Brett Jackson: It was... No, I didn't tear it. Not yet. I, I can't remember exactly. I think I hit a wall... I hit the wall making a catch or something, and it was... I just needed some rehab on it. A couple weeks of rehab. So I didn't break with the team. And I went back to play, and I had a, I had a bad year.

(56:29) Brett Jackson: I just couldn't put it together. I knew the stakes of needing to perform, and I couldn't. And, that was the beginning of the end already for me, because I began to seek... I began to seek... Aid outside myself. At that point, I began to drink pretty heavily, and basically look for escape and alleviation of my suffering wherever I could.

(56:53) Brett Jackson: But games were incessant. It was like every day, and every day I was struggling. And maybe I'd have a good game here, a good game there, you know. All things considered, I was actually having a pretty good year. But for me it was a bad year, and I was, I was... I created this whole experience of my own collapse happening.

(57:18) Brett Jackson: It's almost like I wanted it. Just like, I, I was burnt out on the game. The expectations and the weight of needing to perform was starting to break me already. And I was ashamed of that. I was ashamed of that, of my, my mental ability to, like, endure being weaker than I thought it was.

(57:41) Brett Jackson: And at the same time I was fighting and showing up every day. But I started to really burn the candle at both ends, you know? I, I started to break some of my own code of ethics. And, you know, I, I started to tailspin a little bit, and all around just had a bad year. So, bad year performing, and as... Yeah, I had a, I had a difficult performance year as a player.

(58:11) Justin McMillen: Okay. And do you think that it was the, the drinking and the outward stuff that caused the inward, or which one... which one caused the other?

(58:25) Brett Jackson: Inward always.

(58:26) Justin McMillen: Right. Okay. Yeah.

(58:28) Brett Jackson: Yeah. And, and this is where my core wounds started to be exposed. The seeking for someone to give me what I needed. And, and the particular thing that happened was I, I, I, for the first time in my life, was unfaithful in my relationship, and that was, like... broke me. And, it all just compounded at once.

(58:58) Brett Jackson: It was like I, I was drinking and, and taking painkillers and whatever. And then I was, you know, fooling around and just being a dog, and, not... I mean, looking back, it was, you know, it was... I have a lot of forgiveness for myself now. It's difficult to talk about. It's vulnerable. But I was, I was trying to manage a fragile state...

(59:32) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(59:33) Brett Jackson: Of intense discomfort, intense suffering and pain. With wherever I can find comfort, you know? And, that then, that compounded and started leading to, like, real panic attack experiences in the middle of the night. And then I'd show up to the field half of myself. And I finally got to the point where I was, I was so underperforming, and showing up as a teammate...

(1:00:01) Brett Jackson: you know, I reached a level of self-hatred that I didn't know I could experience. And they, they called me into the office, and they were sending me down to Double-A. And, that was the worst case scenario for my fragility at the time. And I, I lost it. I completely lost it. And, and I give the Cubs a lot of credit.

(1:00:28) Brett Jackson: Actually, Theo Epstein had just taken over as GM the year before. And, he called me. I told the coaches I was having panic attacks and falling apart. And this was in an era when, like, you didn't do that in sports. There's been a lot of that in the last five, ten, 15 years...

(1:00:51) Brett Jackson: now, ten years, where athletes are exposing their mental fragility and difficulties. That, that... baseball was like a tough guy...

(1:01:00) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:01:00) Brett Jackson: You know, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, keep going kind of culture, and, breakdown wasn't okay. But I was breaking down, and Theo called me, and he said, hey, we're going to bring you to Chicago. And they actually brought me to Chicago, and they gave me some time off, and they got me help. It's like, psychologist, sports psychologist, psychiatrist. Ultimately, they put me on meds.

(1:01:27) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:01:28) Brett Jackson: And they said I was depressed, and they put me on SSRIs, which was a band-aid.

(1:01:34) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:01:34) Brett Jackson: And at the time, a really, you know, flimsy band-aid. But I got through the end of the year and, and... but it really was the beginning of the end for me. I fought back. '14, I was having an okay year. I was managing all this, and I got traded to the Diamondbacks, and that was a fresh start, a new place.

(1:02:01) Brett Jackson: Actually made it back to the big leagues with the Diamondbacks, got a September call-up, which is like, okay, like, I'm getting back on my feet. I got married that offseason.

(1:02:14) Brett Jackson: And life was starting to take direction again.

(1:02:18) Justin McMillen: So you're now playing ball professionally for how long at this point?

(1:02:24) Brett Jackson: So four years. I, I'm in my fifth year, fifth year, fifth season, and...

(1:02:31) Justin McMillen: And, this is so interesting. So you. You make it. So let me see if I can recap this and and and tell me if I frame it right. But you go to, you go to the, the big leagues. It's absolutely amazing. You make it through a great first season as well as you could.

(1:02:51) Justin McMillen: I mean, it's not... you're not like... you're you're performing well. And then you come into the second season and you get injured. And something inside of you, I think maybe it's like you knew, you had this feeling that like, whenever you get moved down to Triple-A and you're like, I'm not... I'm not coming back here.

(1:03:12) Justin McMillen: Like, I blew it. Like it seems like you had some weird thought in your head because you started self-sabotaging.

(1:03:19) Brett Jackson: Yes. Yeah, I started self-sabotaging.

(1:03:21) Justin McMillen: Yeah. So then you end up... which is cool that the manager did that for you. Makes me wonder why they don't think about doing this sort of thing really early on. Like if you got a pro ball team and all this effort, you have lifelong stretches of effort...

(1:03:35) Brett Jackson: I think they've improved on it now.

(1:03:37) Justin McMillen: Yeah, I think they have. It's like, man, I would be like get, get the the team so dialed, every inch of it, know everything about every player. It's like, how beautiful could that be?

(1:03:48) Brett Jackson: You know, I think they've made strides...

(1:03:51) Justin McMillen: I'm sure they, they... I'm sure they have.

(1:03:53) Brett Jackson: I don't know for sure. And this was for the time I was playing. That was a big experience for me.

(1:04:00) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:04:00) Brett Jackson: It was fundamental to my life experience at least. To have had, to be met, have my needs at least, you know, recognized, to some extent.

(1:04:10) Justin McMillen: So but then they put you on XYZ and, and you go back to playing while on medication.

(1:04:16) Brett Jackson: So medication, I got off that next offseason.

(1:04:19) Justin McMillen: Okay.

(1:04:20) Brett Jackson: I had to go on it for a couple months. I knew inherently I didn't... like pharmaceuticals weren't the path I wanted to take. I knew I'd started to abuse drinking and things like that, and I, I scaled back on that. But, you know, I'd get to the offseason and it was like, I'm free.

(1:04:37) Brett Jackson: I have a life, I have friends, I have a... I have a wife, I have... And I'd go back into this. All my buddies lived in San Francisco, and I'd go live in the city and I'd train, and I'd have this kind of semblance of a normal life. And then there'd be this kind of like, I'm leaving again in a couple months, you know?

(1:04:57) Brett Jackson: And that next season came. I kind of got through. The next year, I got back to the big leagues with the Diamondbacks. And then in the offseason, I get traded again.

(1:05:07) Justin McMillen: You got picked up by the Giants. So it's your home team. That's amazing.

(1:05:11) Brett Jackson: Yeah. And Sacramento is Triple-A for the Giants. So all of a sudden I'm living at home, I'm like living... Bought a house. Darby and I bought a house. I'm living in Orinda, my hometown, and I'm commuting, you know, 45 minutes to an hour to play ball every day. Which was a blessing and a curse, for sure.

(1:05:31) Brett Jackson: But, I'm having a great year. The coaches are like, dude, you're going to... All the outfielders are going down in San Francisco, and we're approaching the All-Star break, and there's starting to be a decent chance I'm going to get called up, and like a storybook ending, you know?

(1:05:49) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:05:49) Brett Jackson: And my shoulder... I'm stretching before a game and my shoulder, like, gives out on the ground. There's like a pop in my shoulder. And like, I was doing a lunge and, it turns out my labrum had gone, like it had been fraying. And, I go to the team doctor and he's like, here's the deal, man.

(1:06:12) Brett Jackson: Like, we could operate and you know, you miss the rest of the season and be back next year, you know, or I can give you a shot and, you know, it'll it'll get rid of the pain and we can go that route. And in my mind, I'm like, I'm in it toward the end.

(1:06:34) Brett Jackson: Not ready, am I? You know, I'm in my late 20s at this point. I was 27, so I mean, that's old, that's already old in sports, right?

(1:06:45) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:06:45) Brett Jackson: And, I, I knew if I got the surgery, the fight back from that would be pretty tough. And I was already burning out. So I went for the shot. And so, go back to playing and every time I... it was my right shoulder and my arm, hitting. And every time I went to make contact, the, the ball of my shoulder would roll across, it would roll across the tear, and I didn't feel it with the shot, but my whole shoulder would kind of move and the mechanics were just off.

(1:07:24) Brett Jackson: So. So I couldn't make contact. I was I was rolling over everything, hitting ground balls and popping the ball up or just not making contact at all. And, I approached... Anyways, long story short, I ended up getting released, the day before... No, no, we go to the All-Star break. I'm about to come back from the All-Star break.

(1:07:49) Brett Jackson: I get a call and I got released, and I was sitting in the kitchen with Darby, my wife, and my best childhood friend who happened to be over for breakfast that morning. And I got the call and I just knew, this is it, I'm done, I'm done. And, and that was it. I, I walked away, told my agent, and that was it.

(1:08:16) Brett Jackson: Two days later, my buddy who was sitting at breakfast with me, my buddy Ryan, he's like, I happen to have a, a spot open. Bunch of, bunch of us are going to hike Half Dome, Yosemite on Thursday. We have an extra spot. You want to come? And next thing I know, I'm hiking in the Sierras and I'm on the top of Half Dome.

(1:08:44) Brett Jackson: And I'm looking out up there, and my, my life is like a blank canvas again. And I'm like, it's like I'm free. I'm free from it. All the pressure, all the strife, all the striving. And, it was super liberating. And then as I walked back down the mountain, that canvas started to feel really open.

(1:09:08) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:09:08) Brett Jackson: What the fuck do I do?

(1:09:10) Justin McMillen: Right, right.

(1:09:12) Brett Jackson: And how do I do it? And. And that was the beginning of the identity collapse. That I had built this entire persona, my entire sense of, of me was wrapped up in this identity. And that identity was no more, so that was the... The biggest opening of my life. Turns out I started to question everything. In the subsequent years of my life and, that was a very difficult time.

(1:09:54) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:09:55) Brett Jackson: That was a very difficult time.

(1:09:58) Justin McMillen: So hard to talk about all this stuff?

(1:10:01) Brett Jackson: Yes. Yeah, I, I wasn't sure if I was going to talk about it today. It's difficult on some level and on another level it's what's happened.

(1:10:14) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:10:15) Brett Jackson: And I'm grateful for it. When I do talk about it, which is rare, I can feel the parts of me that still, I can give a little bit more love to, but yeah, it's bringing stuff up for sure. Sitting across from you, I can feel pain in different areas.

(1:10:31) Justin McMillen: And you're human.

(1:10:32) Brett Jackson: Yeah. I'm human.

(1:10:33) Justin McMillen: Yeah. You can give yourself permission to feel stuff, man. It's okay. You don't have to have the perfect scenario and have everything be in its place. I mean, man, always... What's the point of being a person if we don't get to, to feel? And that's a lot, like a lot of stuff. That's a lot.

(1:10:52) Justin McMillen: I, I've never, I've never sat with somebody and heard the story of like the professional athlete career. I've done this with military operators and, yeah, you know, it's a similar journey where you see them go to the top of their game and then it gets cut, like, very rapidly. And then they're like out in the world going, whoa, what do I do?

(1:11:14) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(1:11:14) Justin McMillen: Like how do I translate this into this world?

(1:11:18) Brett Jackson: Totally. And I've had an entirely different experience of it.

(1:11:22) Justin McMillen: You've lived in a different world.

(1:11:24) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(1:11:24) Justin McMillen: Now you're kind of like, okay, how do I be in this world over here?

(1:11:29) Brett Jackson: Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about it. Yeah, it's healing for me.

(1:11:33) Justin McMillen: I can feel that.

(1:11:34) Brett Jackson: It's healing for me to talk about it, and, and we all have parts of our past that are difficult to revisit. All of us. And it's all relative. And some of us have really, really heinous stuff to revisit. And, I'm I'm I'm I'm lucky it's not horrific. I, you know, and and relatively it's, it was the hardest chapter in my life for sure.

(1:12:01) Justin McMillen: For sure.

(1:12:02) Brett Jackson: And, and integrating into society was a journey, has been a journey, continuous journey for me.

(1:12:11) Justin McMillen: What year? What year was it that you got that call?

(1:12:15) Brett Jackson: '15.

(1:12:15) Justin McMillen: '15. So it's been about 11 years.

(1:12:17) Brett Jackson: Seven years.

(1:12:18) Justin McMillen: And when you, after Half Dome, coming back, realizing how open the canvas is, was there a, a thought around going to a person or a place or some subject, to find answers, or were you, were you kind of at the beginning of this journey where you were going to sort of deconstruct for a while?

(1:12:40) Brett Jackson: So. Initially, I looked for the stability of being a part of the world around me. And best job, best dollars, best community.

(1:12:51) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:12:52) Brett Jackson: The advice I was getting from people was, hey, I can give you a job here. I, I was, I was blessed with a safety net. I'd gone to Berkeley. I had a, I had a good education. There were connections in that world. I needed something that felt stable right away. I didn't, I wasn't conscious of this at the time.

(1:13:15) Brett Jackson: I was just, I'll do whatever it takes. And then I just wanted to have a normal life. I wanted to be away from the pressure, and I just wanted to have, like, be a kid in San Francisco and go to dinner with my wife and go to the bars with my friends and do that kind of stuff.

(1:13:37) Brett Jackson: And so I, I did that for a bit, but I could feel the hollowness of it the whole time. It, it wasn't filling it. I took a job at, a close family friend was, a broker at Aon. Big, you know, international company, behemoth insurance company, and commercial insurance. And they were going to, like, set me up to be a broker.

(1:14:00) Brett Jackson: I probably would have made tons of money doing that. And I'd been there a couple of months, and I wanted to kill myself there. No offense, Mike Rickson. Lovely man. But this is back to being six, sitting in a classroom going, this isn't me.

(1:14:17) Justin McMillen: Yeah, yeah.

(1:14:18) Brett Jackson: And, it was jarring to be again in, like, a building with fluorescent lights and computers and, like, wait, what am I... What am I doing? What just happened? And something came and kind of, like, saved me a little bit, which was kind of a cool little segue in my journey. A friend, actually, from Laguna Beach, was doing some stunt acting at the time.

(1:14:39) Brett Jackson: He's like a surfer, skater, and he was... I forget the name of the show. He was doing it on... Young, younger than me. But he's like, hey, I just got a, call for this show, a baseball show that's coming out. Fox is doing it, called Pitch. And they need baseball players, ex-baseball players to come audition.

(1:14:58) Brett Jackson: Kind of perfect. I was, you know, I was 27 or 28 or wherever, and I was like, cool. I went to audition. They're like, you played in the major leagues? And I got a role on this TV show. Ended up doing that for, a couple years. I was, you know, like, couple speaking lines in it.

(1:15:17) Justin McMillen: No, I had no idea about that. What are you thinking? Okay, I'm going to do the Hollywood thing now. Was that in your...

(1:15:23) Brett Jackson: You know, so that's the interesting part of this whole thing, was my dad was so psyched about that for me. I used to be a baseball player. Now I just play one on TV.

(1:15:35) Justin McMillen: It's the same thing, right?

(1:15:37) Brett Jackson: Yeah. I looked at it and it was the same game. Albeit just a slightly different world. But no, I got in there and I was like, I don't, I don't want to try to do this. I could maybe, but I was looking at the... going through the gauntlet of trying to be an actor and all that at the same time. And, no thanks, but I was having fun. Mark-Paul Gosselaar was the lead actor on it.

(1:16:01) Justin McMillen: Saved by the Bell.

(1:16:02) Brett Jackson: As a kid, I'm like... playing catch with Mark-Paul Gosselaar. What is happening right now?

(1:16:08) Justin McMillen: That's crazy.

(1:16:09) Brett Jackson: What is this? You know, it was kind of, I think, mirroring the, the play of life, that it was like the whole baseball thing was this kind of drama that I was in. And I was... So then at the same time, I was beginning to have my first experiences of expanded awareness and, presence happening in my life, where I was looking at myself and seeing the illusions that I had created, that I talked about at the beginning of [...], that was all happening around me, because the identity collapse had brought the world with it, and everything I had set up as my organized, inside-the-lines reality was, was now fragmented.

(1:16:51) Justin McMillen: This is so crazy. I mean, if you really think about this, like you said, you almost could write this as, like a, like a, like a fictional book of like, especially as you're trying to teach a spiritual lesson, because you're actually doing it and then now you're pretending to do it on TV and they're funny. It's, oh, it's trippy, right?

(1:17:12) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(1:17:12) Justin McMillen: So it's like, now you, you really are in this illusion. It's like the illusion is even more real.

(1:17:17) Brett Jackson: Yeah, yeah, it, it definitely is, because it is an illusion and it's...

(1:17:21) Justin McMillen: Yeah. Keep going though. So. So you do that for a couple of years. You make a couple... Did you make money doing it?

(1:17:27) Brett Jackson: It was a no. I don't know, I mean, like, basically I was an extra and that doesn't pay well.

(1:17:34) Justin McMillen: Okay. Okay.

(1:17:35) Brett Jackson: I think everybody knows. But then I started to get speaking lines, and then I got the SAG card and the money got a little bit better, but it was not enough to pay... You know, I still had money from baseball, that I was kind of burning through fast, but living off of, and, so, so that ended, and man, these years are actually kind of hard to remember.

(1:18:04) Brett Jackson: But at the same time... So my dad, I mentioned, was an entrepreneurial guy. In my last couple seasons of playing, he was doing this, starting this little company that did weather data for sports, was the thesis. And he teamed up with this meteorologist, Bill Martin from the Bay Area. And, and they started this little company in the sort of tech roots.

(1:18:31) Brett Jackson: And I was kind of advising and basically became a co-founder with them. So I was doing this thing off on the side and starting to build this company. And then I was working wherever I could just to make some money. I got a sales job here. I was looking for myself and doing whatever I could just to kind of find it.

(1:18:58) Justin McMillen: Was there any aim that you had? Like, I'm going to get here, in your head, or were you just sort of reacting?

(1:19:05) Brett Jackson: I think I was at that point just trying to stabilize. Still trying to find myself.

(1:19:11) Justin McMillen: Were you still depressed? Did you have panic attacks still? Did you...

(1:19:16) Brett Jackson: Or again, I was still self-medicating.

(1:19:19) Justin McMillen: Okay.

(1:19:19) Brett Jackson: That way, I think. Yes. Probably there... Yeah, there was, with, with illusion being exposed, there's pain and confusion, and my world was just reorganizing around me. And so I don't know if I'd call that depression, but confusion was present, and a deep feeling of feeling misunderstood. And again, out of place in the, in a world that didn't fully make sense to me anymore.

(1:19:56) Brett Jackson: And so I was doing what I could just, like, to remain in a reality that I had really subscribed to. That was kind of pretty much falling apart around me.

(1:20:13) Justin McMillen: I see.

(1:20:13) Brett Jackson: And so that reached a kind of fever pitch a couple years later. I was doing the company stuff and working and just trying to find who I was in the world outside of baseball. But I had found a role that was still dealing with sports. I was working a sales job that was doing, performance-based, this force plate technology for athletes.

(1:20:42) Brett Jackson: I was still in that world, and I wanted to get free of it and felt stuck. And so the frustration mounted and, anyways, I reached a point where I reached a fever pitch where, I couldn't handle it anymore. And, and my awareness could see it. But my lived experience, I was still kind of in it at the same time.

(1:21:10) Brett Jackson: And I didn't have guidance at this point to work through it. I was trying to work through it on my own. But this, that's where I started to explore the psychedelic realm. Because I had a, I had a friend who was like, you should try some mushrooms, man. And I, at that point, I was willing to try anything.

(1:21:38) Brett Jackson: And we're sitting out in the desert together, as a kind of a stereotypical first experience. He and I, you know, he took me out and he's like... And I, I, I had a massive healing experience just on my own in the desert with a friend, which kind of helped me start to put the pieces together...

(1:22:05) Brett Jackson: The pieces. And I had those, that kind of first experience of the interconnectivity of everything, like, that gave me something. And then I was like, oh, okay, there's something more. And I should say also, all the while throughout my whole career, through my young adult life and even teenage years, I was interested in reading about spirituality.

(1:22:32) Brett Jackson: You know, consciousness. I was asking those questions, so I was exploring that already, and this gave me the first embodied, lived experience of, of that. And, but still, I would have these... I started to explore that and I would have these experiences. And it was giving me, helping me see myself, the truth of myself, in, in bite sizes.

(1:23:00) Brett Jackson: But then I'd still go back into the world of illusions. You were talking about the, the opportunity to go perform, in essence, to do an audition without the pressure and, yeah, need to perform.

(1:23:16) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:23:17) Brett Jackson: And how fun that would be.

(1:23:19) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:23:20) Brett Jackson: It just, it, it invited me to think about... a big part of my life's work has been to discover that ability to perform under pressure without the pressure.

(1:23:36) Justin McMillen: Yeah, I know. You get in the flow.

(1:23:39) Brett Jackson: And, and ultimately, you gave me a great compliment before we took a break. I think it was before we took the break. About sharing depth and authenticity, and I think what I've discovered is that's the only way to go, is authentic. And it's the only solve for me, the only solve for me is the truth.

(1:24:07) Brett Jackson: And sharing it and not trying to perform. And that's the tricky thing about auditions, right? And trying to make it somewhere and striving to be something more than we are.

(1:24:22) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:24:22) Brett Jackson: As my identity started to collapse after baseball, and trying to try on this thing and try on this thing and do this over here, it started to become apparent to me that, I... I was... looking outward for myself in, in various roles and, And not looking in the only direction I really needed to look.

(1:24:56) Brett Jackson: And so that began the next leg of my journey. The inward look, that I had for so long avoided.

(1:25:08) Justin McMillen: But there were so many times where it was calling you.

(1:25:13) Brett Jackson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was obvious.

(1:25:15) Justin McMillen: I think you said it through most of your story so far, which is even from a young age... You felt this thing and it seems like the forgetting... You mentioned the forgetting, right? And then the outward, but then even through all of it, being quite different from others, like you still had this, you still had these interests, sitting with your friends and saying, you know, is anyone else thinking about...

(1:25:39) Justin McMillen: And it's like, no, shut up, man. Let's, we're not doing that right now. And then, like, even in your pro ball career, I think it was there. And it seems like you ended up in a place with that empty canvas, and, and like you just said, you're still looking outward. Well, I know how to do this.

(1:25:59) Justin McMillen: I got to get a... find a place where I can win, and people will love me, and I'll love myself for that. And then that would try and stuff. But then you have this psychedelic experience that brings you inward and starts to remind you of what you forgot. Does that sound right?

(1:26:16) Brett Jackson: Yeah. So that began to happen. And then I began to have experiences of that outside of, you know, taking, eating some mushrooms. Which, you know, initially for me, it was, I was, I... there was a level of intentionality with it where I was curious about who I really was, but I also was just trying to have a good time.

(1:26:43) Brett Jackson: And, you know, take some mushrooms with some friends and drink beers and, you know, have like a trip-out experience. What I came to find was even if I went to do that, I was, I was having experiences of, of self-awareness that were expanding each time I would enter that domain, and I was beginning to see parts of myself for the truth of who I really was, but not able to fully grasp it.

(1:27:15) Brett Jackson: And I, before we took the break, I started talking about how I'd go back into life and kind of forget again, and be back in the looking outward for love and looking outward for, you know, me, just to kind of come back and maybe remember slightly again on a weekend before I go back.

(1:27:39) Brett Jackson: And I started to notice I was in this kind of like holding pattern there, not going necessarily to the next level of my awareness. And on the inside, there still was a great deal of pain and, shame, guilt, you know, these low-frequency emotions that were kind of keeping me in that self-loathing energy.

(1:28:03) Brett Jackson: Under the surface. And so, that, that was driving me. There was this fear of having to feel that, under the, under the hood, that I didn't want to feel, and, at some point, I began, I started to become aware that I couldn't live like that anymore and needed to do something about it.

(1:28:26) Brett Jackson: Part of that was that I could feel that I wasn't living in alignment with myself. I wasn't living authentically. That was showing up in my behavior, that was showing up in the way I was partying and doing drugs on the weekends. And, you know, I was, I also... and this is a huge and difficult thing for me typically to talk about, but I was holding this lie of being unfaithful to my wife.

(1:28:58) Brett Jackson: I was ashamed of myself for that, for the drugs, alcohol. There was all this just deep shame. And I knew it wasn't who I was, but I was, I was experiencing that as who I was. And so I mentioned it reached kind of a fever pitch where I just couldn't tolerate it anymore.

(1:29:22) Brett Jackson: And around that time, for whatever reason, ayahuasca started to be like something that was coming into my world. Into my awareness. Maybe part of that was seeing it online, people talking about, talking about healing experiences with being in the jungle. And some part of me began to connect to the need for that experience, or that it was lining up to be something that could benefit me.

(1:29:51) Brett Jackson: It sounded gnarly, it sounded scary, and I discovered a part of myself that was willing to face that fear. And, so that...

(1:30:01) Justin McMillen: What year was this?

(1:30:02) Brett Jackson: This was in '19.

(1:30:03) Justin McMillen: Okay. So right before Covid.

(1:30:05) Brett Jackson: Right before Covid. In fact, Darby and I had planned this whole trip to go down to Peru. We're looking into it. And that's like a whole beast of a thing to figure out. We found... because there's all these different centers, there's all these different healers, getting down there, flights, and all of a sudden you're...

(1:30:29) Brett Jackson: it's this whole strange world that you've never been in, and it's expensive. And we weren't rolling in dough at this point anymore. We had sold our house to get by, and, so we were like, I don't know, can we do it? Can we make it work financially? And I had this very synchronistic...

(1:30:51) Brett Jackson: you know, pardon my woo on some of this stuff. But the rest of my journey becomes very, trippy. And I'm willing to share some of that if you want to hear the whole thing.

(1:31:05) Justin McMillen: I'm locked in right now.

(1:31:07) Brett Jackson: Okay. Cool.

(1:31:08) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:31:08) Brett Jackson: I run into a friend who I hadn't seen in about five years, and the last time I'd seen her, she was... She's a beautiful human. But she... There was a weight to her experience. There was... She was tired. There was this, like, density to her. Despite being beautiful. I could feel it there.

(1:31:30) Brett Jackson: You know, I had that gift and I could feel it. And I ran into her, and she was glowing, like I could... The light was just pouring out of her, and I, I was like, Emma. What? What happened? What's going on with you? I have to ask you, just, you know, you're radiant.

(1:31:51) Brett Jackson: You're glowing. And she's like, I got to tell you, I just had this most incredible experience, drinking ayahuasca. And then at that time, it was, it wasn't... At least in my world, it wasn't like it is now, where it's everywhere.

(1:32:07) Brett Jackson: People talk about it in... For me, at least in 2019, it was still an obscure thing. I think a lot of people maybe didn't, hadn't heard of that before. And so for that to happen was like, oh, interesting. I'm listening, and she told me about her whole experience, this healing she experienced. And she, and I'm like, where'd you, where'd you go? How'd you see? She's like, I saw these healers in Berkeley. And I was like, in Berkeley? Like, you know, the town I was born in.

(1:32:34) Justin McMillen: Right off the street. Across the bridge.

(1:32:37) Brett Jackson: Yeah. And she's like, yeah, they're the most angelic beings I've ever met. And I knew in that moment I was... This was a path. A door was opening. And the next day I called the number she gave me. I met my teacher, who is one of the most angelic beings I will ever know, and her partner, and, we set up time to go meet them in person, and it was for me, my experience, I won't speak for Darby, it was...

(1:33:15) Brett Jackson: Have you ever met someone where, you know, you're supposed to meet them? There was that experience, and it was, like, layered with this, what's happening? What is this? I'm about to sign up to do something that I know is going to change everything. And we committed to doing it, and they were going to do it private for just the two of us.

(1:33:45) Brett Jackson: And, but the next part of it is we, the week before, there are all these diet restrictions and things you're, you know, you're supposed to really take seriously. Cut, cut out all this food you're used to eating. You don't eat salt, no oil. And it was the week leading up to New Year.

(1:34:10) Brett Jackson: It was like New Year's week. And Darby and I just like, we went off the grid. We turned off all technology and we just like, sat in it and we did this diet. You don't eat, no, no meat. It's like a very bland diet. And and we started to like... for the first time since I was a kid, I started to feel that feeling of like, oh, I'm starting to open again.

(1:34:44) Brett Jackson: And I could at the same time feel the the ceremony starting to work. And I didn't have these words then, and it was the first time I'd experienced something like this. And I remember walking in to the ceremony and, being like, the courage it took for me to walk in was akin to the willingness to allow myself to see the most fear...

(1:35:13) Brett Jackson: frightening thing I might see. I was willing to do that, and, it was not very much short from terror, you know, but I knew I needed, I knew it was right. And, we had massive experiences. We had nothing short of miraculous experiences. And I'm, asking for clarity on what to share with it.

(1:35:38) Brett Jackson: Because there's a lot of stories about people's medicine journeys and all that, that I think it's put out. And I want to share what's really valuable here. But I had, I had, a very real experience of being visited by, by Jesus Christ. It was as clear, he was as clear to me as you are right now in the room.

(1:36:07) Brett Jackson: And for the entirety of the experience, I was taught the, I was taught his teachings of forgiveness and compassion, and it systematically was being taken through my life and looking in all the places of darkness and all the places of pain. And he, I've come to know more now, like to integrate more, what he was showing me was, was the power of just bringing light to places within myself.

(1:36:39) Brett Jackson: And and, and looking within for the truth. It's hard to put into words what that was for me, but, it radically changed everything.

(1:36:50) Justin McMillen: Did you... I think you put it into words beautifully. I think it's not just what you said. It's how you said it. Did you have any real exposure prior to that to Christianity?

(1:37:05) Brett Jackson: Yeah. So there's a story to that, and there's, so there's there's a couple of things I want to say. First, you know, the mushrooms had started opening me up to the possibility that, that things like mushrooms and plants could have intelligence. But I grew up in a reality that I'm sure most people would agree, doesn't really, like, give that more than, like, oh, yeah, plants have intelligence.

(1:37:38) Brett Jackson: Maybe. Right. But in our universe that we create, like, it doesn't really go that far. Belief that beings from another dimension or outside of my visual perception could visit me was something I definitely, had a difficult time accepting. But I was having the experience of plants talking to me, in the most clear, simple, truthful way I had ever experienced.

(1:38:07) Brett Jackson: And being visited by, by a being that I had projected a lot of, just, not disdain... As I struggled, I'll put it simply, I struggled with my relationship with Christianity growing up. To answer your question...

(1:38:24) Justin McMillen: Did you go to church as a kid?

(1:38:26) Brett Jackson: Kind of. I went to church. I was baptized Episcopal, Episcopalian. I remember having the experience in the church of feeling spirit, like feeling God, as a kid. Like, I have that memory, and I have the memory of this being fucking bullshit. What's this? This isn't... this is fucked up. And, out of that experience, grew up, not because anyone imposed on me, but I grew up with the belief that, I grew up a God fearing person far more than a God loving person. And I created a God that was judgmental.

(1:39:02) Justin McMillen: So you, just so the audience understands this, I understand. So so some people grew up in a house where it's like everybody reads the Bible together. They pray every night. You go to church every week and they talk about God all the time. Other people, it's like we're Christians, but you don't really go to church and no one really talks about it. Is that you? Is that, is it part B?

(1:39:32) Brett Jackson: No, it's my, I think my parents were trying to reconcile their lack of religion in their upbringings by taking us to church. I think my mom genuinely wanted us to have... I think she genuinely wanted the experience of having faith. And she, and I think that's something...

(1:39:48) Justin McMillen: I love your mom.

(1:39:49) Brett Jackson: I think something she's struggled with. I think I would say that to her and she, she would, accept that, but there was, there was difficulty, for my parents in the organization aspect of church, I think. Well, I don't know if that's true to say, but either way, my mom was trying to give us something as kids.

(1:40:10) Brett Jackson: Sundays would roll around, wouldn't make it to church. It was more that, sure, we went. We went sporadically. We tried one year to go regularly. It was like that. And then I think it kind of got away and and I know my mom talks about feeling, disappointed that we didn't have that as more of a regular...

(1:40:30) Brett Jackson: Regardless, I perceived it as the organization, kind of dogmatic form of Christianity doesn't feel good to me. Like there's something here that feels like it's, it's forcing me into a way of seeing things that I don't necessarily agree with. And I think that was happening on a, that was happening underneath conscious thought.

(1:40:50) Brett Jackson: There was something I disagreed with with the church. And Jesus started to represent this kind of like, I don't know, I don't know about that guy, or... not even into it.

(1:41:01) Justin McMillen: You're not into it.

(1:41:02) Brett Jackson: I just at some point was like, I'm not into that, but I'm, I'm open to spirituality, but I...

(1:41:06) Justin McMillen: So that's the reason I'm asking this, because it's so fascinating that in your ayahuasca experience that the vision was that.

(1:41:15) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(1:41:16) Justin McMillen: Yeah. Because I think for people... So you grew up in a Christian church and you, you believed, even if you didn't practice well, but you really believe that Jesus was the one. And then you do ayahuasca, you might expect that Jesus is going to be sitting there. But in your scenario, where it's like touch and go religion and you don't really have a relationship, and that is what you land on. It isn't like you're sitting under a tree next to Buddha. You, you...

(1:41:40) Brett Jackson: In fact, I had been more drawn to Buddhism.

(1:41:44) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:41:44) Brett Jackson: And had explored other pathways in the East and started to read more Daoist texts and things like that.

(1:41:51) Justin McMillen: Yeah. So Jesus shows up. So it's so much [...], like, Jesus, what are you doing here? And you're like, you're supposed to be Buddha. Like, what's good? Isn't it supposed to be like some great snake serpent from, like, Hinduism, and, like, I should be hanging out with Shiva?

(1:42:08) Brett Jackson: Exactly. Yeah. Right. And, and and so there was a healing happening for me on my relationship to him, and, and a recognition of how much he actually did mean to me in my lived experience that I hadn't given attention to or credit to. So he shows up, right, like he's the avatar that shows up to teach me what I needed to hear and, and know, and but in an embodied way.

(1:42:38) Brett Jackson: And how does that begin to happen? I begin to experience self-forgiveness happening in my own body and things starting to be let go of. And then I'm able to start turning that forgiveness outward to people in my life. And I begin to receive this transmission, that forgiveness is my only function, in my human body. And that was a lot.

(1:43:02) Justin McMillen: Yeah. To, to kind of digest this, there's a word I'm hung up on, and I needed to say it so that we can...

(1:43:09) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(1:43:10) Justin McMillen: I want to keep listening to you. He was the avatar. Do you really... Do you think of it that way? Was it Jesus, or was it, truth...

(1:43:20) Brett Jackson: So the next thing that happened for...

(1:43:22) Justin McMillen: Wrapped in a Jesus cloak that needed to happen so that you could put a label to it?

(1:43:28) Brett Jackson: It was him. And, there are many faces of God and many expressions, and this is the way I see it. And so both are true. Yeah. He is the avatar, and he is his expression of the divine.

(1:43:51) Justin McMillen: Okay. Thank you for the clarity. I wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying.

(1:43:56) Brett Jackson: Yeah. I mean, his transmission was Christ consciousness. And, I think it's another way that God has, come into this world, and there's many ways he has. So, and it turns out that... you know, he becomes a very profound teacher in my life after all that. And one of the ways I start to really learn about his teachings after this experience was, through the, the teachings of, Paramahansa Yogananda.

(1:44:40) Justin McMillen: So that's different right there. And it sounds like a Christian...

(1:44:44) Brett Jackson: Yeah. So...

(1:44:45) Justin McMillen: An Indian guy.

(1:44:46) Brett Jackson: Yeah. I started, I got introduced by, by one of my teachers to, to Yogananda. And I started to read his, I started to look into his teachings because he had a, he had two giant volume books called The Second Coming of Christ. And I was, it was fervent in my exploration at this point that I needed to understand things I didn't understand, from the Gospels and from the Old Testament, New Testament.

(1:45:17) Brett Jackson: And he was talking about Christ's teachings in a way that I had just experienced. And I opened the book that was handed to me. And on the front inside cover was Jesus Christ, Bhagavan Krishna, 3 or 4 other Indian guys, and Yogananda. And it said, this is a lineage of gurus. And that was the first time I'd ever seen Jesus Christ next to some, an Indian guy.

(1:45:46) Justin McMillen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(1:45:48) Brett Jackson: And that was profound for me. And going further into it, I started to realize that, you know, I read these books that were resonating with what I had just experienced firsthand. I began to read Eastern texts, the Bhagavad Gita, and so on. And I was realizing they were saying the same thing, and I was realizing that they were saying the same thing in different ways, and that the truth is one, but comes in many names.

(1:46:24) Brett Jackson: That's a line in one of my favorite Trevor Hall songs, and, and that was radical for me. I grew up in a world where religions were disagreeing with each other.

(1:46:38) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:46:39) Brett Jackson: So all of a sudden, like, the truth was becoming more accessible and more there. And in the mirror of that, I was starting to see myself for that same truth that lived in me. So, but, and, life called me back into it. And then remembering faded a little bit again, and I'd keep practicing and it would come and go and, I still had work to do as a human, and still do, but integrating that experience into, like, my lived life has been, it was the journey of the coming years.

(1:47:24) Brett Jackson: At the same time, the profundity of the experience was like coming home to myself and coming home to a technology that I, that saved my life, that on some level of my being there was like an ancient knowing of, of the experience of the technology itself, of the plant realm, of, you know, of this lineage that I was blessed to have the experience of receiving, this tradition I was blessed to have the experience of receiving in ceremony.

(1:48:02) Brett Jackson: The other interesting part of this is, they're both American. My, my, the ceremony leaders of this first ceremony we go to. And that was interesting for me on multiple levels. But, I'm actually... maybe this, that wasn't relevant. That's not relevant. Let's scratch that. Okay. Let me get back in the flow.

(1:48:27) Justin McMillen: Hold on. How long have they been doing it? I imagine that they're going back. Like, I could see it almost being like something that's happening since the 60s. Like, how old? How old are these guys? Like, you don't have to say who they are, so that we can talk about it.

(1:48:41) Brett Jackson: And so one of the interesting things about, my teachers, they're, they're, they're both American. The woman was in her mid 30s.

(1:48:48) Justin McMillen: Okay.

(1:48:48) Brett Jackson: And the man was a little bit older, half Korean and, why is that relevant? They were, they were like down to earth, real people. Definitely different. But they have been training in this lineage for, over a decade, multiple decades, you know, long initiatory periods to be able to, to serve in this way, time spent in the jungle, and, and there was just this, the feeling that I alluded to before with myself, about like, an ancientness to them, that they've been doing this quite longer.

(1:49:34) Brett Jackson: Perhaps, you know, if you humor me, like many lifetimes, and there was something in me that recognized that as well. Particularly with... so I mentioned Christ and like, you know, Krishna, and like that exploration of that. And at the same time there's like this opening to the realization that plants, a plant can give me an experience, a healing experience, or I'm, experiencing things that are beyond my, my prior...

(1:50:12) Brett Jackson: conception of the world. And taking me deeper into my understanding of myself and reality. Okay. Big things happening now at this point. I also, in this journey, meet and connect with this very familiar light, coming from what I see as a tree, and, and it's very compatible with the Christ kind of consciousness teaching I'm getting.

(1:50:42) Brett Jackson: And this tree is, is like primary for me. It's like in the middle of the room and it's, it was, the experience is like... The experience was this, there's this incredibly deep sense of, I know this, and I know this more than I know anything else. What is this thing that I know?

(1:51:10) Brett Jackson: And, it turns out in, in this lineage, their lineage comes from the Shipibo lineage, which is, a pretty, pretty, large subset of, it's a pretty large tribe. Expanse, expansive in the jungle. But there's these little small, you know, for lack of a better word, smaller tribes that work with it in certain ways, and this particular lineage, derives from, the [...] lineage, which works with a tree called Noya Rao.

(1:51:48) Brett Jackson: And just hearing and even speaking those words now, it's like my whole being lights up. So I come to discover that this is their master teacher.

(1:52:02) Justin McMillen: Did you have a vision of this tree? Is that what you're talking about?

(1:52:06) Brett Jackson: So I have a vision of this tree. And then after ceremony, I come to learn that, the... There's this tree called Noya Rao that's part of the lineage. It's their master teacher.

(1:52:15) Justin McMillen: Were you told about it at all before you knew that? Whoa.

(1:52:20) Brett Jackson: And so, this is the first time that someone's told me their teacher is a tree, and I like it, you know, like, I like this.

(1:52:27) Justin McMillen: Well, you said something like that to me before, and I was like, whoa, when I first met you. And you're like, I, we kind of learn from this tree. And I was like, okay.

(1:52:40) Brett Jackson: I told you the second half of this podcast... trippy.

(1:52:43) Justin McMillen: That's okay. So, people like trippy. So I like that, though.

(1:52:46) Brett Jackson: There's something about it. I have this healing with my relationship with, with Christ. Jesus the man, Christ the consciousness, expanded awareness. And now I'm having this relationship with, a plant that, feels extremely real. And the energy of it, the essence of it is the pure light, pure light, pure truth. And there's something in me that ignited, that, that has to know more, like, has to go deeper into it, and, it's, and, and the words I can give to it, what, what it was, I want the truth above all else.

(1:53:28) Brett Jackson: And I'm willing to go wherever I need to go to have it, to know it, to be it. That was like a, this deep part of myself that existed. Like, I must know the truth. And, and this tree represents that to me. And so I'm, like, making sense of all this, like, Jesus Christ is a glowing tree of light.

(1:53:55) Justin McMillen: Which, by the way, really is a violet bioluminescent tree that glows in the dark. It's like the Avatar tree is real. There's only five, some people say six of them that have been discovered on the earth. I read about this after you told me about it.

(1:54:11) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(1:54:12) Justin McMillen: After you told me about it, I looked it up and...

(1:54:15) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(1:54:16) Justin McMillen: And it's like, even finding one is like a super rare thing. There's only certain people that have seen them. There's only...

(1:54:24) Brett Jackson: Yeah, I, yeah, I've... It's a real thing. It's a real thing.

(1:54:30) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(1:54:31) Brett Jackson: And it's not a psychoactive tree. It doesn't provide hallucinate... hallucinations or psychedelic experiences. It's kind of just this pure frequency, energy, light that has its own teachings. So in the plant, shamanic world of plant medicine, plant based shamanism, there's like a, like, hierarchy of intelligence in the plant kingdom. And some plants have darkness and light in a certain balance, and then all the way up to master plants like, you know, Noya Rao, that are just pure light and have like a very specific teaching. And this is part of the, this tribe.

(1:55:18) Justin McMillen: So when you're talking about all of these different... you're talking about tribes in South America, and you're talking about their relationship to plant medicine, or how they practice these sorts of rituals, or they engage with these medicinal plants. And then you're, you know, I think what you're saying is that there's one subsection that has this tree as a focal point of that.

(1:55:38) Brett Jackson: Correct.

(1:55:39) Justin McMillen: And your teachers that you're going to see, which are these sort of mythological characters in Berkeley, that, that are... I love it because I think, that, that Berkeley has always been the hub for these sorts of things. Right. Like a lot of spiritual things have grown out of this place. The 60s did that.

(1:55:57) Justin McMillen: So I imagine that these people are working to attempt to enlighten people in some capacity with these plants, and then they are part of a lineage that is connected to this tree. And then from what you're saying, you're in an experience, another experience after the one with Jesus Christ, and you have this moment where you see a tree, and you didn't know that that was part of Noya Rao, it's right out of that. And you learn afterwards, which obviously has got to just sort of melt your brain a little bit.

(1:56:29) Brett Jackson: And at the same time, it made total sense in the, in that, experience.

(1:56:34) Justin McMillen: So now you're telling me you're a tree worshiping hippie guy and [...].

(1:56:38) Brett Jackson: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's pretty cliche at this point.

(1:56:40) Justin McMillen: I really, it's, it's just, it's out there, but it's awesome, and I, I want... I think it's, it's not out there. So if it didn't... You didn't... Keep going, man.

(1:56:48) Brett Jackson: Okay. I'll keep going. Yeah. So it made perfect sense to me. At the same time, there was a, an understanding, an inner knowing that, was there, and... So. So Noya Rao begins this exploration of, a different reality altogether, one where trees and resurrected beings, like Jesus Christ, actually exist. And, fundamentally, I, I start to have experiences of understanding a multi-dimensional reality that I didn't even remotely have room for before. So this, this was really reality altering for me. And the only way forward was to keep going.

(1:58:01) Justin McMillen: Yeah. Yeah. And so where did you go?

(1:58:04) Brett Jackson: So. And now we're like 2022, 2021.

(1:58:07) Justin McMillen: Yep.

(1:58:08) Brett Jackson: So over the course of the next...

(1:58:10) Justin McMillen: Well, until Rowan comes along somewhere in here.

(1:58:13) Brett Jackson: Okay. You're right. Let's back up. Thank you for reminding me I had a child.

(1:58:18) Justin McMillen: Yes.

(1:58:18) Brett Jackson: Part of that first experience... And Darby does a better job at telling this story than me. While I'm hanging out with Jesus, and seeing a tree, the tree of light, and totally blissed out and feeling the love that I had forgotten, Darby's reliving her birth vividly. Reliving her birth, which was a traumatic birth, where she experienced being, having the, the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.

(1:58:54) Justin McMillen: Wait, this is her... This is her ayahuasca experience. Got it.

(1:58:59) Brett Jackson: So this is... So she's reliving that, and, there's a whole healing to reliving that, and I can... That's when you can, you can have her on the podcast to tell you about that. But she relives her birth. And in the aftermath of that, she meets, she is holding a baby boy in the ceremony.

(1:59:25) Brett Jackson: That's our child to come. One of the shamans sees the boy and tells us, and Darby's fully holding him and knowing him. And this is beyond me at this point, I'm elsewhere. But then after the ceremony, and we're talking about it, like, yeah, we met, we met your son. Darby's like, yeah, held him and I could feel him and who he was.

(1:59:56) Brett Jackson: And as they talked about it, like, I got pulled in and I saw him, and I started to see him, and I could see, like, where he was at, the lineage of people he was coming from. And I, in that moment, like, I knew my son was coming. And... 60 days later, Darby is pregnant, give or take.

(2:00:24) Brett Jackson: And, that was trippy. And, at the same time, I'm like a fanboy. I gotta be in every ceremony. I gotta keep going. There's deeper work to do. I start to go in, and it's not all rainbows now. And I'm going in and I'm having experiences of, ancestral pain. And I'm starting to work on the lineage pain that is carried in my body.

(2:00:54) Brett Jackson: And I'm starting to, go into the places of, you know, my past, in my childhood, that are connected to those places, and really starting to see what created Brett. And, for the first time, starting to acknowledge that I was the amalgamation of many previous beings, and reconcile, reconciling that personality, ego of mine, with the soul that has been walking many lifetimes, and having awarenesses of that.

(2:01:27) Brett Jackson: And so I keep going down the rabbit hole, and, Noya Rao and Jesus Christ are being these guides that are at my left and right, these, teachers of truth, and how to walk through life. And at the same time, Darby's becoming more and more pregnant. I'm still holding this lie. And I'm, like, pursuing truth, but I haven't exposed myself to her.

(2:01:57) Brett Jackson: And I'm justifying it as, something, I don't want to hurt her. And I'm walking like I can, I can become better without having to do that. I can, I can become more than myself. I can become... So that pursuit of being the best in the league all of a sudden starts to infiltrate my spiritual pursuit. And I'm using it.

(2:02:26) Brett Jackson: I'm enlightened. Yes. I start using it to justify some things and to build up a new character for myself to like and be liked. And it's subtle. There's both, right? There's the pursuit of truth authentically there. And I'm also experiencing myself looking still for the recognition from others at this point in the journey.

(2:02:55) Brett Jackson: And so at the same time, I start to... about a year goes by, Darby's pregnant. I'm asked if I'd like to apprentice and learn to hold space in these settings. Which is something I really became clear that I wanted, and what that looks like is being a helper in the space and kind of just, like, learning how to hold space energetically, spiritually.

(2:03:28) Brett Jackson: Bring in the medicine of Noya Rao and the guides and teachers, which in our tradition looks like singing, chanting. We chant the frequencies into the room, and, and then, you know, being like a support system to the room if people need help, which happens, and so I start this apprenticeship. Darby's having a baby.

(2:03:57) Brett Jackson: It's crazy time. It's just all the time I'm in ceremony, like, sometimes multiple times a month. I'm just kind of in that world now, so I've... on the outside, still participating as someone trying to start a business, like, I was, started a business and is working as a copywriter for a creative agency, doing whatever I can to pay the bills.

(2:04:29) Brett Jackson: And on the weekends I'm like, in another realm entirely doing that. And then Darby has a baby. It's hard. So Rowan gives us a lot of challenge in the first days, weeks, months of his life. And, and I'm holding this lie still, and I'm, I'm confronted finally, jumping across time in this story, with the core teaching I'm pursuing, being truthfulness.

(2:05:02) Brett Jackson: And, and one day it just hits me and I, I can't, I can't not tell the truth anymore. I can't be this person that doesn't tell the truth anymore. And I'm faced with losing, you know, all the stories of what's going to happen when I expose myself. And, you know, we just had a son.

(2:05:31) Brett Jackson: What do you do? You know, and, I have to. It's at fever pitch, it breaks, and... where I'm leaving out a minor detail that we're in the middle of moving to Colorado. At the same time, we're in Colorado looking for a home together with our teachers because we're starting a church. You know, to go full legit into it, right?

(2:06:03) Brett Jackson: And we're all staying in a house together, and it just reaches a... And I'm like shaking, it was the scariest, by far, experience in my life. And I just knew, I anchored to who... I anchored to the truth. And the truth of my teaching, the truth shall set you free. And laid it out.

(2:06:32) Brett Jackson: Did it. And, and I was met with a hug and forgiveness in turn by her. Which was maybe more life changing than meeting Jesus Christ. There's a mess after, you know, it's... years of work happen from that point forward. Almost don't make it a lot of times. But we're in truth now. And I was free because of it.

(2:07:03) Brett Jackson: Pain was still there. Shame was still there. Guilt was still there. But I started to see that those things were for me to forgive.

(2:07:16) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:07:17) Brett Jackson: And through that, our relationship strengthens, only becomes stronger. We only grow closer, fast forwarding through a lot of time and space. But the thing I thought was going to destroy us ends up making me who I am, or reminding me who I am, and fortifying a relationship based in truth, based in a dedication to something more than getting love from each other, but devotion to something higher, and so...

(2:07:53) Brett Jackson: so that sets me on a new trajectory, a new life. And so when I talk about baseball, you're asking, you know, in between takes, like, it's, it's hard to talk about. It's like that, that life, that part of my past is important and part of who I am. But it, it, it, it's like it doesn't...

(2:08:22) Brett Jackson: it's not there. It's not a... it's, it's another life. It feels like another... like this life happened over here. This little interim liminal period happened. And then this truth speaking started, healing began, and I entered a different timeline. And, and that timeline continues to be far more fun than the, the previous one. And so...

(2:08:51) Justin McMillen: Have you read Siddhartha? Do you know this book?

(2:08:55) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(2:08:55) Justin McMillen: Yeah, it's, the... I love it so much because he goes through these chapters in his life, and rather than at the end, it's like, rather than being, oh, well, this period I was a merchant, and so I was all about money. And the whole picture becomes, it's the story that the whole journey is the thing.

(2:09:16) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(2:09:17) Justin McMillen: You know, so maybe, maybe it is a different path. Maybe it's just the path. I don't know. I don't want to make your, your perception of how you see your life...

(2:09:29) Brett Jackson: No...

(2:09:29) Justin McMillen: It's not mine to...

(2:09:31) Brett Jackson: I receive that, I receive that reframe actually, and, and actually, and maybe that truth has dawned or is still dawning, because I think perhaps one of the ways I've reconciled the difficulty of the past is to make it another life and not a part of me. But ultimately, healing is integration of all parts of ourselves.

(2:09:53) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:09:54) Brett Jackson: It happens through acceptance. It doesn't happen through extraction.

(2:09:58) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:09:58) Brett Jackson: So you're right.

(2:09:59) Justin McMillen: Maybe.

(2:10:00) Brett Jackson: No, no, no, definitely. And it's something I'm actually quite passionate about, because I think healing oftentimes is looked at through an extractive lens.

(2:10:11) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:10:12) Brett Jackson: Like, how can we get rid of the problem, versus how do we work with the problem, and what is, what is the problem? What truly is at the core of disease and mental illness and addiction? What is truly there?

(2:10:38) Justin McMillen: Yeah. Well, what I think is interesting is... there's a, like, this idea that there's a right way or a wrong way to live, and now I'm living the right way, before it was the wrong way. It makes it really hard to heal when we think back on the wrong way. Instead it could be that this is the path, and that, you know, for you, this idea of Christ consciousness, and I don't know if that's fair to say, that's part of what you're, what you're coming to understand for yourself. Is that all right? We're starting to be with...

(2:11:17) Brett Jackson: Yeah. What's coming through is of that.

(2:11:19) Justin McMillen: Okay, so. So maybe it was there when you were born. It's never not been there. And part of the journey was for you to be that man playing baseball, fighting, finding the medicine. Maybe it'll shift again, but the whole thing could be the, the spiritual. Like, the whole thing. The whole thing. It's the picture of that consciousness, not just the time when you're the most spiritually, like, able to label it as such. Maybe the whole thing is the journey.

(2:11:55) Brett Jackson: I agree, I'm agreeing with what you're saying.

(2:11:58) Justin McMillen: I don't know if what I'm saying is true. Be careful about this. I'm just exploring ideas because you're sitting here... hearing a whole man's story is fascinating. Keep going. You go.

(2:12:11) Brett Jackson: From the onset, we said we don't, we don't claim to know everything.

(2:12:14) Justin McMillen: No, no.

(2:12:15) Brett Jackson: We don't claim to have all the answers, but there are inherent truths that we speak, and there may be things that we claim to know that there's still more to learn about. [...] for sure, I have the humility to recognize that. And to respond to what you just said, I think, I think what I, what I want, what I wanted to say, or maybe what I truly meant, was that I don't recognize that version of myself so much anymore because of where I've come from, that I see.

(2:12:55) Brett Jackson: And so it feels like... it feels distant, and it doesn't feel extracted. And maybe that's one way my ego has worked with it. But I do feel I'm coming to integrate the experience, and I'd say that this podcast is part of that continued integration. It takes continuous work. But I truly, at this point, I'm grateful for all of it.

(2:13:22) Brett Jackson: But I don't think that... I think that the things that happen in our, in our lived experience, they're, they're these experiences that make up the idea of being somebody and having memories.

(2:13:37) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:13:38) Brett Jackson: And having purpose and a role to play. These are, these are masks. These aren't the truth of who we are. The lived experience doesn't get thrown out the window.

(2:13:53) Justin McMillen: Right.

(2:13:54) Brett Jackson: Wisdom comes through experience, but it doesn't make the... life doesn't make the soul. Life doesn't make the man. It exposes the man. Eventually it exposes the soul.

(2:14:10) Justin McMillen: Right.

(2:14:11) Brett Jackson: And that has only come... that has come more from the moments of collapse and perceived failure in my life than it has come through the exhilaration of hitting a home run in the major leagues. You know, Ram Dass has been another big teacher in my life. And he, you know, he talks about the journey of becoming somebody just to return to becoming nobody.

(2:14:39) Brett Jackson: And so the next, the next kind of... season of my life from that point was like, how do I become nobody? Because I can see all the ways I've been trying to become somebody, and the ways I'm using my somebodyness to get what my ego wants, which is to feel connected and have love.

(2:15:04) Brett Jackson: And it turns out this medicine is really good for helping with that process. And it turns out that ego can hijack that whole plan, too.

(2:15:15) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:15:16) Brett Jackson: And so I go through this whole kind of season of, like, I want to become nobody, because there's a big part of me that wants to hide from the world and doesn't want to face the pressure and expectations of being in life. And so, you know, a part of me starts to make life this, this whole play of duality that isn't real.

(2:15:42) Brett Jackson: So, and part of that is because I'm having a lot of experiences of non-duality. And so I go through that for a while, all the while trying to, like, pay the bills and have a job, and that turns out to be, like, a really difficult season. I'm like having expanded awareness, but then life becomes this kind of, like, unreal thing. And now I've thrown out the journey and thrown out life so I can become nobody.

(2:16:14) Justin McMillen: So you're diving so far into one pole that you're, like, forgetting...

(2:16:17) Brett Jackson: I'm really making, I'm really making plant medicine seem like a good idea.

(2:16:21) Justin McMillen: No, no, no, no.

(2:16:22) Brett Jackson: I, I mean, I just mean that to be funny.

(2:16:25) Justin McMillen: No, I know, I'm just saying it's like the... you can dive so far into the "Look at me, I'm special, important, I'm a professional baseball player, everyone should love me" that you don't do your housekeeping spiritually.

(2:16:38) Brett Jackson: Nice.

(2:16:38) Justin McMillen: You can dive so far into spiritual work that you don't do your housekeeping.

(2:16:42) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(2:16:43) Justin McMillen: To, to exist here, you still gotta hunt antelope, my friend. Like, we all have to kill antelope. I need to eat, and we have to care for people, right? So...

(2:16:53) Brett Jackson: I get it, I get it.

(2:16:55) Justin McMillen: But I think you, you were swinging both, in both directions like that. You did it in baseball. You swung so far away from the spiritual side, or at least being in touch with it. Although, my take is that the whole thing is the, the experience. I think the whole thing... We have moments where we're aware of how spiritual everything is.

(2:17:13) Justin McMillen: But I think all of it... I mean, and I deal with people who, and I deal with people around me, to put it... but I work with people who have taken themselves into some very, very dark places. And part of being able to love oneself today is to have peace with everything we've done up to that point.

(2:17:31) Justin McMillen: Like, if you say anything in your past should not have happened, you sort of piss on exactly where you are today. And so how do you have all of this be perfect? Well, that'll be this big interesting idea, right? And if we're all spiritual beings, and maybe the whole thing, like, maybe, maybe before we got here on this planet, we were hanging out and we're like, okay, I'm going to, I'm just going to be this big Christ experience for Brett.

(2:17:55) Justin McMillen: Part of it's going to be Christ playing baseball, and he has no idea at all. Part of it's going to be Christ in school, and Christ... And, you know, I'm not calling you Christ.

(2:18:06) Brett Jackson: I don't want... I don't care if... Don't inflate me too much.

(2:18:09) Justin McMillen: But, but you understand the idea is like... and then it could be awareness of that, and that could be the season now, and it could shift to another season where you're not even being aware, but you're still in this place. And maybe the whole picture is that. I don't know, maybe that's how I understand it for myself right now. And that's not... well, I learn from you every time we talk. So I'm not trying to say...

(2:18:30) Brett Jackson: What was the, what came through, what came through for me through that experience was like, yes, okay. So this experience of non-duality, the world isn't real, was like happening on one level, but on another level there was the, okay, I need to integrate this into being alive, because if God created this...

(2:18:50) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:18:51) Brett Jackson: He didn't, he didn't create it to, to escape it. And to, to, to not actually participate in it.

(2:19:01) Justin McMillen: Right.

(2:19:02) Brett Jackson: So, and I have these, I have these very real-to-me guides, teachers, showing me the way.

(2:19:08) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:19:09) Brett Jackson: And, and the power of, of this unbecoming is happening in tandem with this self-realization of who I really am. And it's being... I have the blessing of being guided by, to me, the real experience of, like, higher consciousness beings. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

(2:19:34) Justin McMillen: And I've had, I've talked to a lot of people about psychedelics, and I won't say anyone specific, but the way you come off is, there's zero question for the people listening to this or watching that you, or at the very least, you, you know for yourself that this is true. It reads completely. So I don't know...

(2:19:56) Brett Jackson: Yeah, that makes sense.

(2:19:57) Justin McMillen: I think anybody listening to you will believe what you're saying, even if they don't necessarily believe in anything outside of what they can see. It's like, oh, this guy clearly believes it. So it comes off. I think there needs to... or I'm just, just letting you know.

(2:20:13) Brett Jackson: I appreciate the reflection. I, I, I... I have no agenda here. It's, you know, one of the things coming into the podcast is, like I told you before we started recording, what is it that I'm doing to prepare for this? What am I going to share? I don't know, I just have to show up and see what wants to come through.

(2:20:36) Brett Jackson: And I'm willing to share these things because I'm willing to be seen. And for a long time in that period, I wasn't willing to be seen anymore. I was in small ways, and within my community that I was beginning to serve. And so I began... So the journey continues. So I begin to, you know, I'm like, I'm apprentice now, and I'm serving. And there's all these experiences, very rich.

(2:21:02) Justin McMillen: Yeah. We should make sure we're clear to the audience, like, we're talking about about four years.

(2:21:08) Brett Jackson: Yeah, we're talking about, like... so there's literally, there's still this... what's happening after this.

(2:21:14) Justin McMillen: Yeah. I mean, we keep diving.

(2:21:16) Brett Jackson: I mean, it was a seven-year apprenticeship in this ministry, which is devoted to awakening, and, and the alleviation of the perception of suffering in, in individuals. So this is happening over the course of the years, and I'm starting to, I'm starting to learn the power of service, and, and not just me...

(2:21:43) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:21:44) Brett Jackson: Trying to make the team, to all of a sudden learning the importance of giving myself to spaces and turning myself over to higher intelligence to come through me, and I begin to have experiences of things coming through me that I'm not creating. That I'm not the creator of. And it turns out that my only...

(2:22:05) Brett Jackson: my practice, my role to play is to be one of presence so that that can come through. This is very different, but I recognize it. It's like the moment when I hit the home run, where I, I hit it and I'm running to first base and I'm like, how did that happen? What just happened?

(2:22:27) Brett Jackson: I wasn't thinking that thing, just... that thing just happened, where that something else took over, which to me felt very much like a divine experience. And I think the thing I got addicted to sports in the first place for, like I said at the beginning of the podcast... now it's in service to other people that this is happening, not me hitting a home run, you know.

(2:22:53) Brett Jackson: Maybe at the time it was like, I'm in service to the Cubs winning the World Series and the fans, you know, let's be real. I was in service to number one, for the most part, during that chapter. Now it's like, okay, you're high, and I was, okay, which is an experience that can be very disorienting.

(2:23:15) Brett Jackson: There's a lot happening in the room. You're hypersensitive to each participant's experience. It can become even visual. You know, for me, I feel it mostly on, like, a sense basis. I can sense what's going on, and then I can, like, my vision will start to open and I'll see into where the person is and what they're working through.

(2:23:38) Brett Jackson: So now imagine there's ten people in the room going through that. And, you know, here I'm, I'm a rookie again in a new setting, trying to make sense of having this extrasensory ability online.

(2:23:52) Justin McMillen: And this is in Colorado?

(2:23:54) Brett Jackson: Yeah, we all moved to Colorado together and we're starting the ministry. We're going to do the whole, like, buy land thing. That's all starting.

(2:24:04) Justin McMillen: Okay.

(2:24:04) Brett Jackson: Thanks for bringing me back to the earth on that. And I'm having this experience of, like, I'm learning about service. Meanwhile, there's, like, my ego still going through that thing, right? Like, who am I in this? And how do I do this? And how am I being perceived? And it's multi... there's a, there's a set of skills I'm learning on the job that's pretty intense, rivaling any intensity I've ever felt before.

(2:24:32) Brett Jackson: But, like, the, the, the core of... the thing anchoring me into continuing, in, like, finding my way, is this commitment to service and truth.

(2:24:41) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:24:42) Brett Jackson: Love. And I'm learning at the same time how healing happens. I'm learning about what I mentioned earlier. Like, it's not my job to go into this person and extract anything. The way this technology seems to be working, which I've now seen is the way all healing technology works, truly works, is bringing nothing but presence and light to somebody's experience.

(2:25:07) Brett Jackson: That's it, you know. And maybe there are many healers that can get on here and debate me. There are other ways of healing, but the truest way that I've experienced is one of spaciousness and acceptance, forgiveness. So I'm just, like, learning all this about healing. And we're, like, starting the church, or, like, building the, the whole retreat center, or going to buy land.

(2:25:34) Brett Jackson: And then we come out to California. I'm out in California for a trip doing healing work on the coast. And I stop in Laguna Beach to stay with some friends on our way back to Colorado. And I grew up going to Laguna with some really close family friends there, so I visited a lot growing up.

(2:25:58) Brett Jackson: I stayed there with these same friends the whole time I was doing the LA stuff for the TV show, and Darby grew up... she grew up in Mission Viejo, Coto de Caza, and so Laguna was always where she wanted to live. And I always was like, Orange County? Nah, not for me, man.

(2:26:20) Brett Jackson: I'm a mountain guy. So we just settled in Colorado. We've been out there maybe a year, year and a half, and I'm sitting on the beach, Diver's Cove, which, you know, which is one beach south of where I met Justin, where I met you. And everybody.

(2:26:40) Justin McMillen: Which will not be spoken on here, which beach that is.

(2:26:45) Brett Jackson: Yeah. So I kind of just gave it away. And I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden... and I'm, I'm... and, you know, there's no psychedelic anything, but I start... I go into, like, a meditative state that's beyond what I can explain, and I start receiving a transmission, and the transmission is telling me to move here to Laguna Beach and be a part of the propagation of the light of Noya Rao and the lineage.

(2:27:14) Brett Jackson: And I come out of it and I'm like, what? Like, I just settled in Colorado. My son's not even two years old... two years old at this point, probably about, almost three. And I take that back, and I call Darby and I'm like, I just got this transmission, babe. And she's like, fuck you.

(2:27:36) Brett Jackson: We just settled in Colorado, you know? And, but I knew it to be direction. I know direction when I receive it. And I knew it was meant to happen. And that was another disorienting experience in my life, because I had built, again, this whole trajectory of moving to Colorado and doing this whole thing, and being a part of the building of that from the inside out, to all of a sudden being moved three states back over to California on the coast, where I didn't actually really know anyone, save family friends who, you know...

(2:28:14) Brett Jackson: And at the same time, I get a call from the board members of that company that I had been a co-founder in, and just continued to participate as an advisor in the company. And, because we didn't have money for the first eight years of the company, and we'd started to make money, we closed the deal...

(2:28:36) Brett Jackson: I helped close the deal with Major League Baseball. So we're... sorry, I'm jumping all over the place a little bit. This is the integration of the lived life and the etheric. We closed a league-wide deal with Major League Baseball to put our technology in all their stadiums. So we're getting paid, and, so...

(2:28:57) Brett Jackson: And I've been, I've been the founder, basically co-founder alongside everybody, but I've been working other jobs and doing all this on the side. And they call me and they want me... at the same time I get this transmission, they call me and they want me to be the CEO, to step in and be the CEO of the company.

(2:29:20) Brett Jackson: They can pay me now, and go full time, and it's all happened concurrently. And every part of me at the time was like, no way. I'm not going into the tech. I'm not going back into sports. I'm not going back into tech. I don't want to be a CEO. That's not who I want to be.

(2:29:43) Brett Jackson: And so I prayed about it. But, but because some part of me was like, what? But this is, this is an invitation right now. It's like, it's what's unfolding. This is what's unfolding, which would provide a lot of this... is this a test? Or is it just exactly... Is it a test? Is this what I'm being asked?

(2:30:06) Brett Jackson: So I prayed on it, and it became clear that I was actually being asked to do this. So I accepted it. We move to Laguna. I don't know anybody here. I realize, like, I'm being asked to face something from my past through the sports perspective of it all. Like, doing deals with... like, now I'm in the room with Major League Baseball, which is super interesting.

(2:30:32) Brett Jackson: As well as, you know, I'm like, okay, I can write this off as spiritual because I'm learning how to be a leader and run a company and grow a team, and I'm good at all these things. So I really dive into it, and I take a big step back from the ceremony work, and still doing that several times a year, but nothing like before.

(2:30:57) Brett Jackson: And, it's stabilizing the family ship a little bit, that was becoming a little rocky. Like, dad's doing ayahuasca all the time. It starts to become a little bit...

(2:31:09) Justin McMillen: Weird. You're in your shaman shit.

(2:31:12) Brett Jackson: And, like, this, which is not bad. I got all these costumes, you know.

(2:31:15) Justin McMillen: I had a guy on here, and he brought a... what the hell was it? Look, it was like a headdress or something. He says he's practicing shamanism. Okay, 30 years, he goes down to Peru, does all this stuff. I keep telling you about him. The two of you need to...

(2:31:33) Brett Jackson: Okay.

(2:31:34) Justin McMillen: But he brought a whole shaman...

(2:31:35) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(2:31:36) Justin McMillen: ...mask thing, that cool medicine or... I don't know, this was crazy.

(2:31:40) Brett Jackson: Okay. Yeah. So...

(2:31:42) Justin McMillen: No, that's not weird. I mean, you know, weird for this show. I'm just fascinated by all of it.

(2:31:47) Brett Jackson: And I'm just a student, you know? I'm a student of all. I'm a student of life. I'm a student of the mystery, and I'm a student of, and servant of, God. That's it. I've come to that knowing. That's truth. That's my truth. I was, I am a Son of God. And my continuous learning is to see that that's who we all are. And to truly see that, and to try to balance, like, you got to know...

(2:32:12) Justin McMillen: Okay. So yeah, you're like, so... a balancing.

(2:32:14) Brett Jackson: I can't do ayahuasca... I'm balancing singing three songs that are coming through me.

(2:32:17) Brett Jackson: Right. To tie up that kind of loose end. Like the tree starts to teach melodies and the melodies start just coming through, and then you're singing a melody. But the plants teach these melodies. That's the whole, like the lineage, the basis, the lineage, and that the melodies are called the icaros and the icaros are prayers, essentially with healing technology embedded in them.

(2:32:37) Brett Jackson: And then you sing and then it goes into the room, and it's like going in and bringing light in the places. That's... you're learning this. I'm learning this on the side as I'm running a tech company that's doing the majority of its work with Major League Baseball, making efforts to move into the NFL and tennis and golf and all these things.

(2:32:56) Justin McMillen: This is probably about when I first met you.

(2:32:59) Brett Jackson: Yeah, I was full time doing that when I first met you.

(2:33:02) Justin McMillen: Okay. Got it.

(2:33:03) Brett Jackson: Okay. So then I'm like, okay, now I'm going, this is a full time gig. You know what being a CEO is like? This is full time. Take a big step back from medicine. And I just go, okay, no, you're, you're asking me to go headfirst into this lived experience now. And, at the same time, our second child starts to circle and we know she's coming in.

(2:33:23) Justin McMillen: [...]

(2:33:26) Brett Jackson: Thank you. Yeah. She's a... She's the love of my life.

(2:33:31) Justin McMillen: [...] and I were laughing from, like, you know, 25 yards away. She's just like, pointing.

(2:33:37) Brett Jackson: She's the love of my life.

(2:33:39) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:33:39) Brett Jackson: You have daughters. You know what that's like. So the second one's coming. Second one's circling. Not, not in yet. But we know that the move... I can see that the move is associated with that as well. And I'm like, I'm doing the so-called math of like, life and what my, what God is asking me to do to like, anchor family and grow into myself as his son in this life, as a father, as a leader in my community, like how do I need to grow into these positions?

(2:34:12) Brett Jackson: These take, these take going headlong, headfirst into everything, you know, that's being asked. So I do that. And the company's kind of moving along. I bring on a really close friend of mine, and I don't need to go into the details of all that, but I'm like, the way I run companies and I, I've, I have a, I have, let's just say I have a different way of running companies than the status quo.

(2:34:39) Brett Jackson: But I've, I learned that I can run the company spiritually. I learned that the whole thing was a spiritual pursuit, not just for me, but for everybody involved. And, you know, the way Matt and I run our business now is completely through spiritual principles. The Tao is one of our handbooks, you know, for our business.

(2:34:59) Brett Jackson: I could talk about that more later, but I, I was running it through this very spiritual place of like letting things happen and watching the way things are moving with the business. At the same time, we close a round of funding, we bring in new board members, and all of a sudden I'm in a boardroom with people that don't see...

(2:35:21) Brett Jackson: I can't, I can't speak to that, I couldn't before, but I was trying to speak my truth or be my truth in that setting. But it was dissonant with this new board that was being put together. And, and I took accountability for some of that. I wasn't... as I was learning how to be myself in those rooms.

(2:35:42) Brett Jackson: But the company starts to destabilize a little bit. The new investors, it's not like... the alignment of the group starts to be off, and my desire to run this company starts to wane, kind of similarly to how it did with baseball. Like, I'm like, this isn't... I'm not doing what I... God didn't put me on the earth to do this.

(2:36:04) Brett Jackson: And no, this is a lesson for me, but I'm not sharing myself with the world doing this. This isn't it. And I've completed this chapter. I'm ready to be outside of tech and sports. It's just, I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in what's helping the world and helping people heal. That's like, I know that, but this is what was presented.

(2:36:27) Brett Jackson: So I'm going through with it. A couple years go by and still in it, but it's stable. And now the family's stabilizing, you know, paycheck, the whole thing. I'm growing in myself. I get a board call out of nowhere, middle of the summer, this summer, last year. And they call it like a surprise board meeting.

(2:36:47) Brett Jackson: And they asked me to resign, or they're going to terminate me. They're going to have the board terminate my position. I'm sitting there and I'm like, I wrote my resignation letter two weeks ago. Two weeks before, I'd written my resignation letter. There's no way I'm handing it in. Like the pay is too good.

(2:37:07) Brett Jackson: I got a baby coming in four months, on the way. You know, we live in Laguna Beach. You know, it's not cheap.

(2:37:15) Justin McMillen: It's not cheap.

(2:37:16) Brett Jackson: And the Master, as I like to say, it was like, he's not going to be able to leave this one on his own. And the Master took it from me. And I was standing without that stability all of a sudden, again.

(2:37:30) Justin McMillen: You're on the cap table there, though? Like, can you sell out your shares?

(2:37:34) Brett Jackson: Yeah, there are options for me and stuff. So... hope I didn't just break the chair.

(2:37:39) Justin McMillen: You already broke two. I don't know what it is about this show that breaks chairs, but don't worry.

(2:37:46) Brett Jackson: I was, like, the feeling of wanting to crack my spine.

(2:37:49) Justin McMillen: I mean, there's... this is only like, this is round one of the studio. We're going to do another redo. Upgrade soon. Look, I want to do some cool stuff. It needs to be more cozy in here anyways. Sorry.

(2:38:03) Brett Jackson: That's okay.

(2:38:04) Justin McMillen: So go.

(2:38:05) Brett Jackson: So this thing I've gone headlong into kind of disappears. It's just not there anymore.

(2:38:10) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:38:11) Brett Jackson: There's options and I'm not totally out and there's some runway and things like that, but baby's coming, and, I'm just sitting there and I know. And in my core, of course. And I'm just, I'm meant to listen. And that there's a lesson coming through about it, about letting go and not going to pursue something else right away.

(2:38:34) Brett Jackson: And so I commit to it. I'm like, I'm giving this all over to God. This is the only way that this can go forward. I cannot, I can no longer be the one that's in charge of my life. And, and in essence, I'm actually giving myself the greatest authority by doing so. Okay, that's not embodied yet. That's like a message I have, but it's not embodied yet, right?

(2:39:01) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:39:02) Brett Jackson: Okay. So the subsequent... Oh, you might want to ask a question.

(2:39:06) Justin McMillen: No, I'm just, I'm, I'm listening. I think, I think I... so you knew that the job was... So what I got out of what you said is just like with baseball. But I think you did something really special this time. As with baseball, you knew things were changing and you started to hide and self-medicate and self-sabotage.

(2:39:25) Justin McMillen: In this scenario, you knew things were changing and you were ready to make the move, but you were like, I'm going to stick this out. You didn't do the same thing. Could have blown it up.

(2:39:37) Brett Jackson: Yeah, yeah. Thank you.

(2:39:38) Justin McMillen: You didn't. I mean, so there's like a... there's something beautiful about that. And I imagine it's difficult too, because that was part of starting this...

(2:39:46) Brett Jackson: For sure.

(2:39:47) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:39:47) Brett Jackson: For sure.

(2:39:48) Justin McMillen: Yeah. And then I also imagine that hearing the "we want you to resign" is like a hard thing. But also what's beautiful about what comes next... I know what's next in the story is that... and this is where it's fascinating with your partner, because he's the first person that I've met that manages to run, and, you know, and has been doing this for some time, like he's, he's applying all these, like, very spiritual principles to work.

(2:40:14) Justin McMillen: And so you already knew that was the direction you needed to go. And then you found yourself standing next to somebody who has an understanding of that.

(2:40:23) Brett Jackson: That's right.

(2:40:24) Justin McMillen: Does that sound right?

(2:40:25) Brett Jackson: Yeah. I mean, one door closes, another one opens.

(2:40:29) Justin McMillen: Was it scary, though?

(2:40:31) Brett Jackson: For sure.

(2:40:32) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:40:32) Brett Jackson: For sure. I mean, I was... Darby, like...

(2:40:35) Justin McMillen: I don't think I'm allowed to ask you that.

(2:40:38) Brett Jackson: You are allowed to...

(2:40:44) Brett Jackson: The experience I have of being a man of faith is that the faith is stronger than the fear that's coming up. That fear becomes, has become smaller and smaller the further I go with faith and live on faith. But fear still comes up.

(2:41:01) Justin McMillen: Yeah, yeah.

(2:41:02) Brett Jackson: It's still in the, it's still, it still has its moments and, so there was fear present and there was fear present for Darby, and there was an opportunity for us to deepen our trust in God, in each other, for her to deepen her trust in me. It actually becomes like the most poetic thing because, she ultimately is giving faith to me.

(2:41:29) Brett Jackson: Even after I'd broken her faith in our relationship. And she's giving me faith to do things the way I know they're meant to be done, because I'm receiving guidance on them that don't make any fucking sense to anybody. In fact, it makes the opposite of sense to most everybody, because the decision I made was, I'm not doing anything right now.

(2:41:56) Brett Jackson: I'm going to go pray and listen, and I know we have... we're not going to be able to make rent at the end of October. But this is the path, I know it is. And she gives me that, and it gets tested a lot over the course... of course, over a course of time.

(2:42:19) Brett Jackson: And yes, Matt, at the time, Matt and I began to relate to each other a lot in how we were running our businesses. And helping each other deepen into those ways, and learning from each other and sharing what we were going through. And in that experience, we were beginning to work towards... Like one of the things that happens with me is, I can see a person's like, I see the person's like higher octave, you know, like potential.

(2:42:54) Brett Jackson: I see the, like, trapped energy and like where something is playing out. It's like karmic energy playing out, if that makes sense. Like there's something that needs to be fulfilled. You know, awareness needs to be brought to this. I see it, I can see it in the body. I can see usually where it is.

(2:43:18) Brett Jackson: And then, you know, it's really a... there's a thought form in the mind that's... I see it as like the [...] where we are of God's mind. We are... So we are these little like... okay, we won't go too far into that, but the mind produces the physical experience.

(2:43:39) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:43:40) Brett Jackson: So then it's like it's showing me a way into a belief system that is there, that needs to be worked out. But then beyond it, I see this like higher octave of possibility of what's being asked of the person in their highest expression, you know. And so I'm like seeing that with him and like...

(2:44:05) Brett Jackson: it's like we're working together and then it's starting to expose this like higher calling in him. Which, as we talk about it, and it starts to come forward and take shape, and there's like a mission attached to it. I'm like, I know this, too. And then he's like, yeah. Like we're, like, sitting together.

(2:44:30) Brett Jackson: So it started as like we're exploring and helping each other with our businesses, and it culminates in this, like, awareness that something wants to be birthed through us. And, you know, you've interviewed Matt, you know him closely as a friend, and brother in the community. And, you know, his brilliance, his business prowess and brilliance is, like, unmatched.

(2:44:56) Brett Jackson: I regard him so highly, and he's been someone who's been in a deep spiritual practice himself for a couple decades or more.

(2:45:07) Justin McMillen: Very different than you, though.

(2:45:09) Brett Jackson: Different journeys, a lot of crossover similarities. Incredible mirror.

(2:45:12) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:45:12) Brett Jackson: You know, for, for each other.

(2:45:15) Justin McMillen: You guys are like a perfect sort of yin yang. Honestly, I did... I get it now more as I'm talking to you, because I think Matt is like somebody who is very like... I, I don't think he... I think he knows this. I think he's a Type-A personality, very like structured, found, like, the let go.

(2:45:33) Brett Jackson: I'm very fluid.

(2:45:34) Justin McMillen: Yeah. You've been that way since young, like you. And but then you found the system you worked in, and it was always there. And then, and then I think you went and played in business and you're like, how do I do this? And the two of you kind of coming together, I think it's like, this is beautiful, and I... So you, you tell everyone about... Okay, Sonship, and, like, what you're doing.

(2:46:01) Brett Jackson: Sure. Well, so I guess, like, the story into it might be the easier access point, but, so...

(2:46:09) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(2:46:10) Brett Jackson: And it's also coming through as we're both recognizing the importance of asking God for what wants to come through. So we're like, exercising that together. And then this thing is coming through. So the access point to it all is devotional. It's like, how can we be of service to God? How can we be of service to humanity?

(2:46:36) Brett Jackson: What wants to come through us? Like we're pursuing these questions together. And that's kind of the genesis of Sonship. Sonship. There's a whole story to, to our name, but, so, you know, Matt has a different entry to this because he comes from the world of, you know, commodity markets, trading, hedge fund, like he was...

(2:47:01) Brett Jackson: He was deep in that world for decades. And I think he shared on the podcast with you about that, trading, you know, all the... a lot of things that aren't necessarily helpful to planet Earth and to humanity. And not that it's just a cliche, like another guy that invested in things like petrochemicals and, you know, things that are hurting the earth, and now he wants to do good.

(2:47:32) Brett Jackson: There's like a deep and rich richness to it, that lived experience, to understanding, like in detail, what is happening in the process of trading these types of things. And that was like coming to life for him, or like understanding, wait, there's a whole different paradigm that we could be investing in that actually has positive results for our species, for the Earth, you know?

(2:48:01) Brett Jackson: And so he's deeply passionate about that. And I'm coming into it like, all I want to do is bring healing to the world and create. And I think this whole idea of regenerative, regeneration, restoration is coming through me on the healing front. And I'm also seeing how to apply it to business and teams and people.

(2:48:26) Brett Jackson: And so like I start to enter into, like, him sharing about the world of investing capital, and, and how investing in regenerative and restorative, sustainable businesses is actually a massive industry and massive opportunity, and somewhere where we can start to devote ourselves to, to giving, to being of service with our skill sets.

(2:48:50) Brett Jackson: So Sonship is born with the premise, and really only premise, that we invest in regenerative businesses. And we leave, we've left that pretty loose and open. But, you know, we, we're excited to invest across an array of different industries.

(2:49:08) Justin McMillen: But this is global. Like, that's the idea, is...

(2:49:12) Brett Jackson: Yeah.

(2:49:13) Justin McMillen: Eventually, like, major infrastructure projects in third world countries, or...

(2:49:18) Brett Jackson: I mean, could be all kinds of different... Yeah. Like really there's no, there's no shortage of opportunity. And we'll go anywhere that we feel aligns with our company's mission. So, and in part of this, you know, and part of where we're starting is, Matt, the last five years, moved into power gen, and particularly in the solar, the solar world.

(2:49:46) Brett Jackson: And so there's this, this experience that he's bringing from, you know, that renewable energy, regenerative, you know, consciousness that's starting to like take a... put down greater roots into the earth.

(2:50:01) Justin McMillen: Now, you know, you know, it might be valuable, valuable for you guys to play with here. This just popped into my head. But, regenerative farming. Yeah. I mean, like, there's actually... I'm almost certain that there's, there's grants and funding available for farms to transition. And, you know, to give you an idea of how you guys could be positioned within that, there's, you know, Deloitte, right?

(2:50:26) Justin McMillen: The big... so there's something called Small Business Innovation Research grants, SBIR, and they... Deloitte has like... they'll, every, every cycle they'll submit, like... and they're supposed to be submitted by businesses. But every cycle they'll submit, you know, hundreds of them, some a thousand of them, where they're, they're submitting these proposals and they're bringing in, you know, millions of, millions and millions of dollars.

(2:50:51) Justin McMillen: And then that money, they take a piece of that, and then they're, they're, they're submitting on behalf of these companies. So what you could do that could be incredible is you guys could hyper-supercharge the American farmer to move to regenerative agriculture by, like, finding out how to be the central hub that pulls the money from the government, and then distribution.

(2:51:15) Brett Jackson: Cool. We should definitely talk more about that.

(2:51:17) Justin McMillen: I know a guy we should talk to about it. I mean, he's a, he's like a strategist, but at the very least you could, you could sit down with him and just see what and/or who he knows. He's a friend.

(2:51:28) Brett Jackson: Okay.

(2:51:29) Justin McMillen: He's a really cool... He's a Buddhist who is a really cool guy. He lives off the grid and...

(2:51:34) Brett Jackson: Well, the way we've...

(2:51:35) Justin McMillen: Interesting character. For the sake of the podcast, like, sorry.

(2:51:39) Brett Jackson: No, no, no, no, no, no, not to, like, say that you shouldn't, whatever. But my, my point is like, I don't want to make this too much of a promotion of Sonship. Not that it was that, but the way we've approached everything, and to tie it into my story, or try to, is, it's this continuation of, of, okay, where this thing is coming through.

(2:52:08) Brett Jackson: It's very big. It feels very big. We're getting direction. We're not going to... we're not pursuing it. It's, it's... it has a life of its own. And we're going to listen and allow this thing to come through and introduce us to all the right people. And we've taken that approach and we've stuck to our guns on it.

(2:52:35) Brett Jackson: And yeah, it's been nothing short of a remarkable experience. Without going into too much business detail and all that, things have happened over the course of the last year that were not foreseeable. New lines of business that have opened, opportunities, connections, people that we didn't attempt to network or find or discover on our own.

(2:53:00) Brett Jackson: And so one of the ways that's happened is by taking us fully to the brink of being able to make it to the start of Sonship. Sonship Capital is the name of the business, and that took us on a wild ride. I'll speak for myself. You know, Matt's not here. And without going into too much personal detail about him, but, you know, you know, business is...

(2:53:30) Brett Jackson: it, for, for... I just always say it's taken longer than we expected. The way we thought it was going to go isn't the way it went. How we've gotten there has taken a lot of determination, and ultimately it's all rested on faith. I personally was not sure, within the last couple of months, like, not sure if we were going to be able to continue doing it because of personal needs, personal financial needs.

(2:54:04) Brett Jackson: And like the most magical, you know, wild things have happened to, to change the course of what seemed to be my impending doom. But with that was the opportunity for me to deepen my faith, and deepen my... Darby and I had to deepen our faith in the way things unfold, and higher intelligence playing its role in that.

(2:54:30) Brett Jackson: Because I don't know what's in my own best interest. I know that to be a truth. And, despite every part of me thinking I need to go out and figure something out or strive to make it happen, I stuck to the guidance I was receiving, which was like, no. Be still and know that I am God. There's another translation of that that is, cease striving and know that I am God.

(2:55:03) Justin McMillen: Cease striving.

(2:55:04) Brett Jackson: Yeah. I wish Matt was here to tell me which version of which Bible that's from. But me, I'm not the fact guy. And so instead of seeking motion and movement to figure it out, thought forms to, to, to figure it out, to fix it into being, to fix the problem, I chose to sit in it and allow it to unfold.

(2:55:40) Brett Jackson: And this isn't a prideful thing. It's just, it showed me something that I can't unsee. The power of letting go. The power of giving my will over. The power of... the power of faith. That I was blessed to have the opportunity to experience. And I wouldn't have experienced it unless I was up against it.

(2:56:13) Brett Jackson: And being up against it, it was there. And then the doors opened, and then it's a lived experience now. It's an embodied knowing I have that I'm not the one making the calls. And I'm not the one with the brilliant ideas, and I'm not the one that's going to do anything. And so at once it's like I've been the most humbled I've ever been. And my faith has been deepened. And I feel like a whole new paradigm has opened in my life.

(2:57:03) Brett Jackson: I, I cannot wait to see where it goes. Jesus, take the wheel, you know?

(2:57:08) Justin McMillen: Yeah, it's funny you say that, because I, I think some people... you made a very deliberate choice to say, I'm not going to do anything. Most of the time, people are so tired, they say, I surrender. I can't do it.

(2:57:23) Brett Jackson: Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was, there was some of that too.

(2:57:28) Justin McMillen: Yeah, well, it's beautiful both ways. I'll tell you this. I'm somebody... I literally, I literally... there's nine companies, right, that, they're all connected in some way. They're complicated companies because this field that I work in is very complicated. You... at least the, my experience has been that there is no way that is like... well, there might be a way where you just get to have everything unfold perfectly.

(2:57:58) Brett Jackson: It does anyway.

(2:57:59) Justin McMillen: Yeah, but I guess unfold without pain and struggle and strife.

(2:58:04) Brett Jackson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(2:58:06) Justin McMillen: It's like, like I feel like I get tested all the time. And I find my testing... I feel like it's... it's... my brother and I talk about this a lot. I feel like it's, it's faith testing. But it's also... what I've come to know recently, for me, this is super personal for me, but it's like a test of my relationship to God.

(2:58:28) Justin McMillen: That's, that's it. It's not the business. It's not... It's always like between me and this other thing. And that's the only relationship that actually matters. And then the belief... it's not even the belief. I feel, I feel like there's like a, like, almost like, I need to know... I being God or some divine whatever...

(2:58:47) Justin McMillen: I need to know you're capable of receiving what it is that I want you to do next. And so I'm going to test you. I'm going to, I'm going to try to break you a little bit. And I'm going to make sure that the inside matches the outside. Like this idea of truth.

(2:59:06) Justin McMillen: I want to make sure that your heart is like, is true. Because these responsibilities are great. And if I'm going to carry them through you, like, you have to be capable. And so the tests are not like the test of me against myself. It's like, it's like this constant thing of like... I say, I have to wake up and earn this every day.

(2:59:28) Justin McMillen: Like people say, oh, you deserve it. You've worked so hard. And it's like, no, I don't. And, and it's just earning, earning, earning. And it's like, what are you earning? It's not earning... it's not earning God's love or something like that, we have that, but it's earning the... we're playing in a game.

(2:59:46) Justin McMillen: This is a game. This world, that's like a... we're here. And so earning, earning the ability to take on all these different things, especially if they're important. I'm trying to change the entire field of addiction medicine, and it's a big task. And if I don't have the right things in order in my house, like, I won't accomplish that.

(3:00:07) Justin McMillen: That's... And then, so then it will happen. I will be given the opportunities. So there's a, like, level of superstition or whatever I have. But you see me walking around our neighborhood and I'm like, kind of in my head, that's the stuff I'm thinking about, is what do I need to do to clear up inside of me and to be ready to receive the next thing? Now people think I'm crazy, and see what happens when I bring crazy people on the show.

(3:00:36) Brett Jackson: Yeah, no, no...

(3:00:38) Justin McMillen: I'm interviewing you, just as crazy.

(3:00:41) Brett Jackson: There's only one problem, and there's only one solution. The only problem is our perceived separation, is the belief in our perceived separation. That's the only problem if you really look into it. That's your only problem. And the only solution lies in the recognition of that problem. A Course in Miracles has become one of the most profound...

(3:01:19) Brett Jackson: It's more than a practice. It's, it's a... it's technically a text and a workbook. I won't go into crazy detail about A Course in Miracles, but in A Course in Miracles, there are teachings to undo the perception, or our misperception, to correct our perception, and, and come into the knowing of who we really are.

(3:01:56) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:01:57) Brett Jackson: A Course in Miracles is just, like, channeled text.

(3:02:01) Brett Jackson: I don't know if you're familiar with it.

(3:02:03) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:02:04) Brett Jackson: Okay. From, I think it was the 70s when it came through. And, it's been profound in my journey.

(3:02:10) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:02:10) Brett Jackson: So I'll say that about it, but it's, it speaks clearly to that.

(3:02:14) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:02:15) Brett Jackson: The, there's only one problem, but, you know, we're, we're creating all these... These, like, we're the ones creating multitude and all problems that we would need to solve. And we're trying to solve them from within the perception of separation, which problems. So we end up just creating more and more problem-solution Band-Aids.

(3:02:46) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:02:47) Brett Jackson: We're, so to really look for the truth, we have to go to the source of... That's like the source problem.

(3:02:55) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:02:55) Brett Jackson: So it's the only one and it's the only one. And then, I don't know how elegant it was, what I just said, but for me that's like, it's not bypassing my suffering or bypassing the perception of different problems in my life, but it puts them all into one perspective and it puts the, the, the only thing that truly matters at the core, which is my relationship to God, as you mentioned, that's it.

(3:03:28) Brett Jackson: Your relationship to existence and God is it. And so that's what I'm interested in. Like really, that's what I'm interested in, is where's a person with that? And if you're suffering, and your experience, experiences of suffering are very real.

(3:03:46) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:03:47) Brett Jackson: If you are there, the real healing is in that question.

(3:03:51) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:03:52) Brett Jackson: And the only healing is in that, is, is reaching to that question and reaching to that exploration. And Jesus said it and, he gave us very clear directions, actually. Seek first the kingdom of heaven. Where is the kingdom of heaven, you ask? The kingdom of heaven is within you. The directions are clear.

(3:04:22) Brett Jackson: Okay, how do I do that? Sit with yourself. Be with yourself. Our world isn't doing that quite enough. Most of my healing has just come from sitting with myself. And I have more healing to do, and much more to learn. But at the core, sitting with yourself, cease striving, be still and know, that's the doorway.

(3:04:54) Brett Jackson: That's the doorway that you're really looking for. The doors that are outside of you are just reflections of the one door you're looking to open. So. So open it, or start knocking. At the least. Turn the gaze within. And for me, that experience has put everything into... It's like, it's like my life went from being a shitstorm of chaos, of trying to make sense of everything outside of me, to recognizing that everything outside of me is a reflection of what's inside of me.

(3:05:42) Brett Jackson: And then I can learn to, like, look in the places in myself for healing and for what I'm really looking for, which is connection. And all of a sudden the external reality shapes around a new internal reality. That's a... But, but, you know, everybody's looking out. And admittedly, I have to, I'm not, I'm, I don't, I have nothing, and that's why I have no blame for, for anyone doing that, because I've done it. I have nothing but compassion for that. And I still fall victim to my own ego.

(3:06:34) Justin McMillen: Sure, we all do.

(3:06:35) Brett Jackson: But that's why our only function, my only function as a son of God, is forgiveness. Because who's to blame in the first place that we've created this misperception that we're separate? Who's to blame? Are we really pointing fingers? We shouldn't. Isn't it truly forgivable? All the, all the shit that humanity has done just looking for themself, for the truth, to be, just to find connection.

(3:07:07) Brett Jackson: We've created a whole... We've created whole dimensions of hell out of not looking inward. And so I don't know if I came on here with a message or if a message is coming through, but to maybe tie it together, it's like, I didn't do nothing when I sat in the heat of, how is this going to come together?

(3:07:36) Brett Jackson: And when and how am I going to pay the bills? I sat still and all the answers started to come, because I started asking the right questions, and I started being willing to sit in the fire of my own self. And I, I can't take credit for that. I've been given teachers, I've been given teachers who are teaching.

(3:08:05) Brett Jackson: I've been given my needs being met, food, shelter, water. I have those things met, and I've been given practices in thousand-year-old traditions to, to hold me and allow me to move through my experience. Oh, where did that come from? I didn't seek it out. It found me. So, yeah, I just... It's like the, the higher I go, the more I see, the more I see, the less I know [...] The less I know, the more I see, the more I... I butchered it, I think, but... people know, people can put it in the comments. But yeah.

(3:08:53) Justin McMillen: You just painted a beautiful picture of a, of a story that's still unfolding, evolving. And I think a lot of people are in, in points in their life where faith and the relationship to God is like the, probably the most, the, the clearest pathway towards them finding some sort of peace or resolution with whatever suffering they're going through.

(3:09:15) Justin McMillen: And, I'm super grateful to you for sharing that, because I think it's going to help other people understand how to do the same thing, and probably have the courage to give it a try. So you're a pretty extraordinary human, Brett Jackson. Not that that's what you're looking for, but I love you, brother.

(3:09:36) Brett Jackson: Thank you.

(3:09:37) Justin McMillen: I gotta get across the microphone here.

(3:09:40) Brett Jackson: Well, you brought up peace, and I know we're wrapping up, but, A Course, A Course in Miracles, I think, I know we, you know, I don't want to go too deep into, like, that whole thing, but to give it a nod, because it's been a powerful ally in my experience, and teacher. It says at the beginning of that book, nothing real can be threatened.

(3:10:14) Brett Jackson: Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. And I think it's apt because, we're so afraid of losing something or... Yeah. And maybe the gist of it is just, whenever I've lost anything, I've only gained.

(3:10:33) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:10:34) Justin McMillen: It's, it's, it's, it's, the balance of life between being connected to something higher and then going through life, or being connected to the divine parts of who we are, and then, and then playing in this game of life, or going through life. It's the, it's those two domains that are, and they're, they're all...

(3:10:57) Justin McMillen: I really believe they're all part of the same thing. That's what I'm saying. It's like, but playing baseball, it's the same, as you said, but it's understanding how to work in those two domains. For me, that's a big challenge.

(3:11:14) Brett Jackson: Yeah, yeah. Integrating.

(3:11:16) Justin McMillen: Yeah, yeah.

(3:11:17) Brett Jackson: And that's surprisingly one of the, like, the ways my life has started to just go, was for a long time I was like, okay, spirituality over here, business over here, community over here, you know, family over here. And despite my best efforts to keep it that way, and despite my best efforts to, like, remain in control as the one being the author of my own life, like, all of that is being brought together.

(3:11:46) Brett Jackson: And you've seen firsthand some of the ways that has happened. I mean, I've, I mean, it's a story almost worth telling, like how I ended up living where we live within the Cove, down, like, the way that that's integrated, me living within the community, the way my family is living there, the way business is operating there, the way, like, and what is the through line through it?

(3:12:12) Brett Jackson: Like, there is no separation in these areas of our life. It's, like you said, it's like, it's, we're, it's all spiritual. The spirituality gets this, like, this whole term that people get to... It's about, you know, like, oh, spirituality is this separate way of seeing life. Oh, what are we looking at? We're looking at the essence of our lives. Well, of course it's going to show up in every domain.

(3:12:40) Justin McMillen: Yeah, yeah.

(3:12:41) Brett Jackson: And anyways, like, that's all coming together for me. Now I serve on the board of a church. I'm running a business with a very spiritual mission and pursuit. My soul brother is my business partner in that. Our families, you know, basically live together, in a very beautiful place where our entire community comes, basically on a daily basis. I can't make this shit up, dude. I can't make it up. I can't, I can't make it up.

(3:13:13) Justin McMillen: You can't.

(3:13:14) Brett Jackson: So. And it's, it's so perfect. So, yeah. And that's, that's why it's like, okay. God's plan for salvation is, is, it's the plan that's going to work, you know?

(3:13:27) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:13:28) Brett Jackson: I have all these ideas about how things ought to be going, and how consciousness and how school systems should be. And yeah, yeah, maybe collectively we're working towards improving all these things. But, but there's, there's something guiding all of this. I said this with Matt, it's, it's a little bit redundant to bring it up to you too, but I'll say it maybe in a different way, which is, it's like, it's not really about how it ought to be.

(3:13:58) Brett Jackson: It's like, like you surf in the Cove. It's just what wave is here. And how can I best ride this wave?

(3:14:07) Justin McMillen: The wave? You don't choose the waves, man. They come and you choose whether you're going to ride it or not. And you get it, you get to play on it. You get to choose which direction you go. But it's a dance between these things, and you got to be good enough to notice them when they're there, and you got to be strong enough to paddle in, and you got to be disciplined enough to, to know how to do all of it.

(3:14:31) Justin McMillen: But you're still riding the cosmic waves of life, and so you're just giving yourself enough... You paddle out into the water to wait for the waves, and you are still enough to notice them, to understand which ones to ride. And that was painful, because you wanted to sit on the beach and go, damn it, the waves are going to come and I'm going to do it like this, and it's going to go like that, and I'm going to get this crazy ride.

(3:14:57) Justin McMillen: I'm going to do this. You didn't. You just paddled out and you sat there and you said, please let me see it on the horizon as it's coming, so I know where to, to go.

(3:15:07) Brett Jackson: Yeah, yeah. There's like this inherent trust in life that, is a way of living. It's a way. It's hard. It's, it's the resistance to it is strong. The resistance to it is strong. Especially if we've had experiences of, of life being proved distrustful, or people in our lives being proved distrustful.

(3:15:33) Justin McMillen: You know, what's crazy too is like... Are we still recording, Luke? Yeah. Okay. What's crazy too, is, is, I've been working really hard for a long time and forcing a lot of stuff and not... But part of it is all because of, you know, I didn't, I definitely didn't choose what I'm doing.

(3:15:52) Justin McMillen: It chose me, for sure, in my family. And through that, over time, there's always been this, what's next? What are we supposed to do next? And then things unfold. And because the mission became so big, it's like it's serving something so much greater. And it's so easy to understand that, it's like, I...

(3:16:12) Justin McMillen: People are killing themselves all around me, right? Like, they're trying to... Not around me, but in this world, like, we are a species that's fighting so heavily to understand how to interact with all this abundance. And it's making people sick, like, the animal part of who we are. And the spiritual part... the animal part is so overtly expressed.

(3:16:33) Justin McMillen: This indulgence in hoarding and greed and gluttony, the overt, the extreme overexpression of that as addiction. And so, so I see our mission as like, it's not about addiction. It's bigger than that. It's helping people understand how to manage this, like, deep yearning and want, this need for more, which is how our species got here in the first place.

(3:16:55) Justin McMillen: And it's spiritual too, because it's really sort of like the beast in the flesh and, like, the spirit. Because I work on that level, like, in my head, I, it feels like I cannot go wrong, because I think about things in that regard. And I'm like, this is, this is, I know that this message, this thing I'm trying to convey, I know it's real, I know it's true.

(3:17:20) Justin McMillen: So with Sonship, if you're doing something, once you guys really lock in on what it is that you're doing, and, you know, I mean, you know what you're doing, you know the principles of it. But when you start to, these things start to unfold, and it's like, we are, like, healing this thing.

(3:17:39) Justin McMillen: We are correcting this wrong, or making this thing right. It's like, you cannot fail. It's like you're serving this mission that's so big. And, and it could be, it could be that the people that, the, maybe the people that are giving you their money to invest, maybe it's like you're actually correcting something very important for them, which is, I'm a multi-billionaire and I have all of this money, and I, the reason I got here is because I invest in winning businesses, you know, and I'm kind of, like, at the point now where I want to do something of value before I...

(3:18:16) Brett Jackson: That's who we're looking for, if anyone's out there.

(3:18:19) Justin McMillen: Yeah. How do you give people that, that experience? And if that's the case, that it's like, right, what does God want you to do, Brett? God wants me to take people who have tremendous amounts of resources and give them the opportunity to make this world a better place, and that's a really big job. And so when I walk into every room and I'm talking to people, they have to know this is fucking real.

(3:18:48) Brett Jackson: Yeah. Which, I mean, crazy idea, in any endeavor, I've, I've come to find that this is a true statement, because I can feel it. Any endeavor based in truth, any endeavor focused on truth, focused on love, cannot fail. Because it's, in essence, it's devotional. At its core, it's a devotional thing that's being given life. Therefore all of God's force comes to support it.

(3:19:19) Justin McMillen: Yeah, I believe that wholeheartedly to be true. You just said it so much better than me. But that's, to, to get, to get there is a journey, to fully be there. So is it embodied in that way, as a different thing?

(3:19:36) Brett Jackson: It requires, creating space for that to be true. So I think I've been, what I, what I'm seeing is I've been hollowed out. So you talked about this, like, God testing you, like, earning the ability, you know, through integrity and all that. And I kind of see it as, like, that not being wrong, but, like, a different language for that.

(3:20:07) Brett Jackson: For me to put words to it from my experience, is like allowing myself to be hollowed out, or purified, so that I can be host to what will be, through me. And these tests and life experiences that come up, that challenge me, that confront me, that tempt me to look outward, to condemn outward, to blame outward, are really opportunities for me to purify and become more hollowed.

(3:20:42) Brett Jackson: There in becoming a vessel that can be more authentic and can allow truth to move through. And then, so our businesses are just reflections of that. And they're, so they're the reflection of every leader that's running the company. And then the people that come to work for that leader are reflections of that leader and each other.

(3:21:11) Brett Jackson: And so it has to be that way. It's so easy for the ego to utilize that for its own, like, perceived problems that it wants to solve through being a CEO, through building a successful company.

(3:21:29) Justin McMillen: Right.

(3:21:30) Brett Jackson: Like, I, I could, that's an easy trap. The whole, like, regenerative space could be an easy trap for this, like, savior complex aspect of our shared ego.

(3:21:43) Justin McMillen: Sure.

(3:21:44) Brett Jackson: Like, oh, I'm gonna go... Now I have earned God's love. Now I'm investing in, in regenerative agriculture, renewable solar projects. And I don't do anything that, you know, like, and whatever. We're all doing our best. But... I guess the point I'm trying to make is, without the inward gaze, without the sitting still, that all of our creations will be creations of, that are just, just mere...

(3:22:22) Brett Jackson: what we haven't hollowed yet. What we haven't integrated yet. And so where are we collectively, as humanity? We're just like... Can't you, you can see it, right? We've created a reality, realities, illusions of lived experience that mirror our inability to work through the pains of the past. Which, by the way, aren't even there anymore. Those are the illusions themself. They're ghosts.

(3:22:57) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:22:58) Brett Jackson: The past is gone, but we're still living it. We're still projecting it into our reality, and we're creating suffering for each other, because we're creating it. Like, the world isn't creating it, and your mom and dad aren't creating it. You're creating it. I've created it for myself. The Cubs didn't create it for me.

(3:23:17) Brett Jackson: The fan that told me I fucking sucked [...] I created that. There's the solution. The solution is in recognition of taking accountability for my own problem that I created. I created the problem. There's only one of them, that I think I'm separate from God. By the way, that's fucking insane, to think, like, all of this was created...

(3:23:38) Brett Jackson: I think, like, no offense, I know a lot of people struggle with their faith, but it's fucking insane to believe that this was all just, like, an experiment in biology.

(3:23:49) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:23:50) Brett Jackson: You know, I'm sorry. Like, it's fucking insane.

(3:23:52) Justin McMillen: No, I agree, and I have some atheist friends who are gonna laugh when they hear me say I agree, but yeah, I, I agree. But I see it everywhere, and I see miracles everywhere, everywhere I look. And some days it's more than others, where I'm just overwhelmed with... It's like, how is this all possible? I start to chuckle, even.

(3:24:16) Brett Jackson: I mean, that's it, right? Like, you're believing in something. At the end of the day, you're believing in something. You get to choose. Faith is a different thing than belief, but, if God is a source, and God, you're... It's hard for people. Source, higher intelligence, the universe, the divine. Okay, that's all, that whole thing is said on podcasts a lot.

(3:24:39) Brett Jackson: I think, like, that there's only one possibility in my mind, if we're doing the questioning thing. Like, everything is light, we know that now. We know that now, science has actually proven that, yeah, like, all matter is just light moving at different rates of movement.

(3:24:57) Justin McMillen: Yeah. Waves.

(3:24:58) Brett Jackson: I think waves, [...] physicist, okay. But yeah, it's not my way of talking. So it sounds foreign to me.

(3:25:05) Justin McMillen: Yeah.

(3:25:05) Brett Jackson: Okay. So, so God created the light of the world, and you and I are in it. Therefore we are the light of the world. I am the light of the world. And what was Jesus saying that we all misperceived? It's like, he's the Son of God, right? I am the truth and the way and the light.

(3:25:28) Justin McMillen: The way and the truth. The way, the truth and the life.

(3:25:31) Brett Jackson: Yeah, but that's the message, right? We are all the light of the world. That's it. It's the truth. Everything is. Therein lies the peace of God. Therein lies the reality that we haven't been truly seeing. We've been seeing unreality. To get there, look within. See it clearly. There's only one problem. You have one problem, and the solution is right there, in recognizing the problem. That's it. You don't have to solve it. You just have to see it for what it is.