The Mission After

Mike Bledsoe (00:02)
Welcome to the Mission After podcast, where we help veterans discover and execute on the most important mission of their lives. I'm your host, Mike Bledsoe. Our guest today is AJ Richards, a combat veteran, entrepreneur, and CEO and founder of From the Farm.

AJ leads an app marketplace that connects consumers directly to local food producers. With over three and a half years of experience in this innovative venture, he is redefining the food supply chain model in the US and enhancing food security for families. AJ's passion for agriculture and food quality stems from his family ranching background in southern Utah.

witnessing the challenges and inefficiencies of the centralized food system and its impact on farmers and consumers. AJ has leveraged his skills in sales, marketing, and fitness to create a platform that empowers people to source their food locally and reduce their dependence on corporate food systems.

His ultimate goal is to bring fresh, nutritious and sustainable food to tables across the U .S. while transforming the food industry and benefiting the environment. By the end of this episode, you'll discover three major takeaways. One, the journey of H .A. Richards from driving for Instacart to running a software company that aims to transform the American food supply chain. Two, the importance of self -development and recognizing one's capabilities in achieving long -term success. And three,

how building a platform that connects farmers and ranchers directly with consumers can help create a sustainable and resilient food system. But before we dive in, I want to tell you about our new resource available at themissionafter .org. It's called the 10 surprising military habits that are sabotaging your career and your life. This guide will help you identify and overcome those habits. So be sure to download it at themissionafter .org. Now let's get into the conversation with AJ Richards.

Mike Bledsoe (01:47)
excited to introduce everyone to AJ Richards today. Interesting thing that occurred to me as I sat down and looking at AJ is I am unsure if what we're doing here at the mission after would be happening without AJ. And I don't know if he actually knows why but part of the story with the mission after is

AJ brought me in on a project years ago to work with, a man named Kyle Brickwis, which I'm sure y 'all will all get to meet here on the podcast at some point. And the plan was for us to go to Costa Rica and with a group of veterans and do ayahuasca. And so it was supposed to happen basically in March of.

2020. And if everyone's memory serves them well, we know what happened in March of 2020. There was a country started locking down and we weren't able to actually execute on going down to Costa Rica to where the veterans there was a documentary to be filmed. And so fast forward a year, about a year and a couple months later,

That trip still happened. We still shot the documentary, which, that will be, and that was just a piece of a documentary. They'll be released scheduled for June. So very soon after you might be listening to this podcast or it may already be out and AJ did not get to make that trip, but he made the introduction. And the fact that I went on this trip was part of the impetus for the mission after. And it really is the.

how the, how the mission after was named because it was conversations with Kyle, which AJ introduced me to. And, we were, thinking up names for the documentary and Kyle came up. I think it may have been his wife came up with the name, the mission after, and then we're like, okay, there's documentaries coming out, but what we need some followup. And it just, it just all came together that.

Last year, I realized that I wanted to work with veterans specifically and that everything lined up with, I got on the phone with Kyle shortly thereafter and we go, yeah, we should call it the mission after, which is the same as the documentary and this all fits together. And so it was a really beautiful synergy that's occurred. And as everything unfolds here with, with our organization, AJ played.

a really pivotal part in the whole thing. So I appreciate you, brother, whether you know it or not. Yeah.

AJ Richards (04:49)
Man.

I know it, I know it. We've talked about it before and we have a kind of an inside joke in my house that all roads lead back to Mike Bledsoe somehow for me.

Mike Bledsoe (05:02)
Yeah, I, I really appreciate you coming here and and so many reasons I want you to be here so many reasons I want you to share with the veteran community. And one is you've just done such an amazing job getting out of the military and doing what you're doing now what you're doing now and I really like to highlight the stories of veterans that have not just

gone from surviving, but into thriving. Cause when you get out, it's not, it's not always easy. It's not unicorns and rainbows. And a lot of us have been able to go on and create something really great. And it wasn't, wasn't easy. So I want to hear those things from you. And if you could tell the people listening, what are you doing right now? So we know that AJ was in the military and we, I want to hear about what you're doing right now. And then we'll, we'll talk about.

how you got here.

AJ Richards (06:03)
What we're doing right now is attempting to transform the entire American food supply chain. It's a massive undertaking. What exists for us as a food supply chain has been established since post -World War II. It goes back that far. And it's starting to crumble. It's probably the fastest collapse in a food supply chain structure in human history.

thanks to the get big or get out conversation that happened after World War Two with the USDA director then was named as Earl Butts. And so yeah, we built a software that's like Airbnb, but instead of short term rentals, it's the vision is to highlight local foods so people can literally shake the hand that feeds them to hyper localize our food supply chain. That's the solution to combat famine. That's the solution to combat.

whatever your version of global warming is, like I don't believe in the mainstream discussion of global warming, but there's certainly climate impact on how we do agriculture, desertification more specifically in my view. And so by going hyper local, by going back to our roots of our neighbors are the ones we trade or barter or buy food from if we're not in the food growing space, it solves a lot of those those challenges and.

really, it was my military experience that gave me one, the intestinal fortitude to take on something that is so massive. I mean, I mean, it our goal is like literally changing the entire food structure. And there's no way that I can do that alone. So building teams, putting teams together to execute those tasks when it's such a daunting task to take on, but also.

there's a really important experience while I was in Iraq that had me move forward in what I'm doing. That frankly,

You know, I was agnostic for a while. I grew up Mormon, had a transition in faith, became agnostic for a while, but then I'm just recognizing too many miracles in my life to believe that there's not a higher power involved. So I call it the God of my understanding. It is more of a Christian foundation, but it's still maybe not directly in line with mainstream Christianity because I think that, I don't know, there's more to it than what, you know,

a book that has been translated a bunch of times throughout human history, maybe covers all of, but I was seeing the picture, the face of this man. We had a bunch of care packages sent out. The purpose was to take him into a small village outside of Ramadi. And while we were there, I have a picture where I'm playing soccer with one of the, with a couple of the kids with one of the balls that was sent out, but we had food and other things.

Mike Bledsoe (08:47)
Yeah.

AJ Richards (09:08)
And I'm in full battle rattle and there's a pic somebody captured that that moment. Well, I was 23 years old. This is almost 20 years ago. And the dad was watching us give all of this stuff to his family. And so when this vision first came up, I'm like, I don't know anything about this. I'm that's I even tried to pass it off. I found a voicemail I left with a friend is like, Hey, you just graduated full stack software development school.

you should take on this project because it's a really, it's really needed. And he's like, nope. And then I literally, I couldn't sleep for the next two weeks because when I'd lay down at night, I would see the face of this man in Iraq who I had never thought about. Even, even when I was there, I was aware of his presence because you needed to be, you know, it's a military age male sitting there. So I was aware of his presence, but that was it. And now almost 20 years later, I can't sleep because I'm seeing this man's face. And now the way I'm seeing it,

is of a father watching other men from a whole other country feed his family. And I'm watching our supply chain crumble, and I'm seeing myself as this man. And so after two weeks of just restlessness, finally, I'm like, okay, I'll go find somebody to flush this idea out so I can just bury it and move on, because I can't move on. And we flushed it out and it wasn't buried. And it was like, okay, next step. And it's been a...

Mike Bledsoe (10:12)
Mmm.

Mmm.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (10:37)
That was April, the month after what you shared. That was April of 2020. So it's been just over four years, man.

Mike Bledsoe (10:42)
Nice. Nice. Yeah. The, yeah, it's really cool. Not, not only are you thriving individually, but you're still making an impact that I imagine you hope to make when you were in the military, right? You go in there, improve national security for America, allow people to be more independent and free and, you're still doing that work.

AJ Richards (10:59)
Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (11:10)
and it just it's transformed into something different and I think that's really powerful as well. I think that veterans are especially well suited to help America regain its position in the world and allow people to be free. Yeah tell us a bit so in the last four years you've been working on this project.

AJ Richards (11:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (11:36)
and it's y 'all have raised some money, you've got an app coming out. It's, it's, it's something that's gonna really help people who first it's going to help the people who are health conscious and are aware that this is an issue. And that's what's going to make the ball move forward. And possibly this will be a necessity that that everyone's going to need. But, you know, when, how long ago did you get out of the military?

AJ Richards (12:02)
2010. So it's been a long time. And it's been like anybody else listening, it's been a hell of a journey. In some sense, some sense, literally, and then other other sides, it was just part of the journey. I mean, it always is part of the journey. But some of it was hell. And then there's but but where I am today with my family and my kids, and I mean, it was worth it. It was worth going through that hell. Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (12:04)
2010. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. What? What was the first day of getting out? Is the army? Yeah. What was the first day like?

AJ Richards (12:34)
Yeah, well, my experience is different in the sense that I was National Guard. So the challenge for getting out for me was coming home from a deployment because our my last deployment was 18 months straight.

Mike Bledsoe (12:40)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

AJ Richards (12:50)
And so, you know, we left, my kid was five months old, and we got on a bus and take off and I got to come home on R &R for like every six months. So it was pretty evenly broken up for me. So, you know, six months gone, two weeks home, six months gone, two weeks home. So, but coming home, I came home and I went into pest control cells.

Mike Bledsoe (13:06)
Wow.

AJ Richards (13:12)
door -to -door pest control cells. And I remember going from door to door after it was slammed in my face thinking, I used to be a fucking warrior and now I'm selling pest control. Like I couldn't imagine how I would ever find value in my life after what I deemed probably the most important part of my life up to that point. It is interesting being 42 and seeing how all of that kind of actually moves in different directions. Like I shouldn't have been there. My opinion, we shouldn't have been there.

Mike Bledsoe (13:22)
Mmm.

AJ Richards (13:42)
You can hate me for that or not, but I've come to realize that I don't think our country has fought in a war worth serving or fighting for in many decades. Maybe World War II was the last war worth being in and having friends lose their life in. But when I came home, I just didn't know any of that. So I was like, man, I was a warrior and now I'm freaking selling pest control. Like, this sucks. Like, what am I ever going to find value in? And it's evolved a lot since then. And...

And I think that's probably the most important thing I've learned is that how I feel today and what I'm aware of today will not be the same a year from now because of continued experiences and conversations and so forth. And so it's like when you're when I was struggling or feeling like, what's the point hanging on for one more day was what mattered. And then one more day and then one more day. And then here I am.

Mike Bledsoe (14:33)
Yeah.

How long were you in pest control?

AJ Richards (14:40)
man, I did that for a couple of years. That's actually what moved me from St. George, Utah, where I'm from to Phoenix, Arizona. I sold pest control door to door. And then after the summer sales season was over, I sprayed for the same company. And then the owner came in with all the salesmen and we went and played paintball and had a good time to keep them on board for next year. And I was on the owner's team and we just cleaned house.

because I ran them like missions and I'm the only vet. So, I mean, it was just shooting fish in a barrel. It was so easy. And the owner's like, you have some really good leadership capacity. Why don't you come down to Phoenix and run my national cell center? And so I did that for a few years and then I opened a CrossFit gym. I was the first CrossFit gym in Mesa, Arizona in 2012. And by 2013, I was done with Pest Control and all in on CrossFit.

Mike Bledsoe (15:33)
Yeah, that's actually how we got connected is my, my mom, I think she, she either visited or she was living in Gilbert, Arizona for a short period of time. And she connected with an ex boyfriend from like 30 something years ago or 40 years ago. And, and he was an electrician and he had done some work on your gym. And for some reason it was like, yeah, let's just get on the phone and see what's up. Cause I was running CrossFit Memphis.

AJ Richards (15:37)
Yep.

Mike Bledsoe (16:02)
And I think I was running barbell shrugged at that time. And.

AJ Richards (16:05)
You were a freak. I mean, that's how I knew of you. And so he was like, do you know a guy named Mike Bledsoe Maul? Yeah. Who doesn't? If you're in CrossFit, who doesn't know Mike Bledsoe? So it was kind of funny.

Mike Bledsoe (16:14)
Yeah, as a really crazy, crazy connection, things become very serendipitous. So you ran a CrossFit gym for a while. I think that's really common. You know, maybe every other CrossFit gym is run by a veteran. It just attracts us for some reason. Yeah.

AJ Richards (16:24)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, for me, for me, CrossFit was the hormonal release I needed from. I had a battle buddy kill himself in 2012, and when when I got the word that that Denz had killed himself, I was floored. I mean, this is the guy we looked up to. I mean, expert marksman, physically fit, charismatic, checked all the boxes as a leader, like all of those things. And then.

that's the guy that takes himself out. And so it sent me down a path to try and understand self -development and our mental state. And I then read, I found that for myself when I went into CrossFit, that seemed to reconnect me with civilians.

And I know why now, but I didn't at the time. And then I read Simon Sinek's book, Simon Sinek's book, Leaders Eat Last. And in the book, he breaks down the hormones in the body and how they contribute to our mental state. And there was kind of a light bulb moment for me. I was like, my gosh.

that we're in combat, dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin, oxytocin, all of those things are just wide open. It's because at any moment mortars are falling and so your dopamine, adrenaline spike and then you're with your homies and you're like, shit, that was close. And so there's the serotonin, oxytocin for being in that community of struggle with other people. And so I started tying these emotional responses that I then realized were chemical responses. And...

Mike Bledsoe (17:55)
Hmm

AJ Richards (18:06)
I realized, I think, I think I realized that what was happening is you read the work out of the day and your adrenaline and serotonin, your adrenaline and dopamine just spike because you're like, shit, this is going to suck. And then I'm working out with this 60 year old grandma and she's like, come on AJ, you got this. All of a sudden there's my oxytocin and serotonin release of being in community in a shared struggled environment. I was like, holy crap. That's

Mike Bledsoe (18:19)
Yeah.

Hmm

AJ Richards (18:33)
there was something to that where it was like, okay, I'm putting myself in an environment where those same hormones, because once you come home, those faucets get turned off, just dead, because now you're back in civilian world, there's no IEDs, no whatever, it ain't happening.

And so I don't think that guys that are going out looking for that adrenaline rush are wanting to die. Like if you're going 200 miles an hour on a bullet bike on the highway, you're not trying to die. You're just trying. There's peace in that chaos because we're so familiar with operating at this really high level of alertness. And so you're going 200 miles on the bullet bike because there's some peace in that chaos. And then somebody pulls out in front of you. But.

You weren't trying to have that happen. You were just looking for an escape or a balance. And so that's what it was for me.

Mike Bledsoe (19:23)
Yeah, yeah, I've never heard that before. I never it makes sense. You're it looks different. But and you can tell yourself it's different. But hormonally, it's the same. You're you're seeking out that same that same internal experience. Fascinating. How did the how long we run the crossfit, Jim? How did that go?

AJ Richards (19:38)
Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it crashed and burned, but it was many years of struggle. My wife held down the fort. I mean, she literally was the breadwinner because there was no money coming in. And you get invested in the community there, even at your own self peril. You know, I, from a business perspective, I should have shut it down two years in and moved on.

There was a lot of personal development for me that, that I couldn't understand how to make that work. Cause other people have done really well with their CrossFit gyms or, or decently well up until certain points. But, about a year after starting the gym, I started this thing called Rush Club, which you're familiar with. It was a head to head weight class competition where we put CrossFit athletes head to head and they were competing in their weight class specifically for a title belt.

So I was looking to create a, it became a sports entertainment company. We broadcast to a quarter of a million people live every show. It was, you know, doing well, but I didn't know anything about business. And so my cap table was clear full with people that had a little bit of a skill that I didn't know how to negotiate. So I'm like, Hey, if you come in and do marketing, I'll give you 5%. If you do this, I'll give you 5%. It was like, it was so crazy. And so in the end, ultimately we went bankrupt.

I took out a loan for the show, two separate LLCs. I took out a loan for Rush Club and that show didn't work out. And so now I had a debt and it was a debt that I couldn't service. So when I got sued for that debt,

I thought I did the right thing as a business owner and I had two separate LLCs. So one was kind of compartmentalized from the other. But what I didn't know is if you sign a promissory note, sorry, if you sign a personal guarantee, one LLC is not protected because you're the common denominator between the two. And so, yep. And so they were going to liquidate my gym equipment to satisfy that debt.

Mike Bledsoe (21:33)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, all of your assets are at risk.

Hmm.

AJ Richards (21:50)
And so basically I just sold it out because I didn't want the community to lose its home. And so I just I literally sold the whole thing for 15 grand. Basically, I sold it for enough to pay off my mom and another member's mom who had donated, who had loaned money to buy more equipment. And so I did not want any of these personal relationships to be sacrificed or ruined because of

Mike Bledsoe (22:09)
Hmm.

AJ Richards (22:18)
my decisions there. So I sold it for just enough to pay off those two. And then, then we moved on and, and eventually that moved us back to St. George, Utah in like 2018, 2019.

Mike Bledsoe (22:33)
Yeah. So you got out, you did pest control for a while. You decided to open a CrossFit gym and, struggled there, opened up Rush Club. You went swinging for the fences. I remember I, I came out and, and hosted, I was the MC for one of those, me and Chris Moore, we had a blast. It was so much fun.

AJ Richards (22:46)
Yep. Yep.

Yep.

Yeah. Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, it was so fun. Looking back now, like they're in the early phases of losing it. Of course, I had to mourn the loss and go through that that process. But looking back, I'm so grateful for every experience, the ones that worked and the ones that didn't work. I learned a distinction sometime in that time period, the distinction of the success.

And the way I've learned it is the distinction of the success is the ability to move quickly. And that's the key word, quickly, from one failure to the next. So you can sit there and lick your wounds, which I did for a long time, until I learned the value of speed of transition. And now it's not nearly as hard to pivot anymore. But back then, I hung on so long that it caused a lot of personal turmoil and financial turmoil because I didn't understand that distinction.

Mike Bledsoe (23:30)
Mmm.

Yeah, what was what was happening in your family life during that time?

AJ Richards (23:52)
and

dude, my wife and I, we hated each other. I shouldn't say hate. We did not get along for 15 years. We've been married 21 now and we just didn't know how to communicate. And so the home life was a nightmare.

And we're rarely open about that. So home life was a nightmare. It was just constant arguing. We couldn't figure out how to get on the same page. She's going to work out of her feminine space. So she's having to be the masculine to work, to slay the dragon, to bring the bacon, so to say. And so her hormones were way off because I wasn't providing. And that contributed to all that.

not knowing how to communicate with her contributed to all that, not knowing love languages, you know, I'm physical touch, she's acts of kindness, so we're completely opposite ends of the spectrum. And so there was lots of arguments and so forth in those spaces. So it was not easy. My kids all are old enough to remember the time where we would scream and yell and just hate on each other.

But they've also been, because we've pulled through that, they also saw that what was isn't what always will be if you have the right leadership, the right mentors, and then you're willing to evolve as people.

Mike Bledsoe (25:17)
What were you doing during that time to learn? You're like when you open up when you open up a business, did you study business things? Were you studying communication? Were there programs that you you're a part of?

AJ Richards (25:22)
Yeah.

I did a program with you guys that was part of some of that learning for like specifically around the gym, but self -development was the most important thing. And I come from a family of five generations of ranching and you know, cowboys don't cry and shake it off, rub dirt on it, which I think those are all really valuable lessons for young men, but also...

learning that there's a time and place for vulnerability as men so that you can clear the junk out of your head. I did a sweat lodge once and didn't know that...

Native warriors would go to war and they would come home and they wouldn't go back to their tribe. They would go off with the medicine man first to purge the demons before joining their community. We didn't get that. I mean, I was in combat and 34 hours later, I'm walking down the mall holding my wife's hand. There was no simulation. It's like, thanks, see ya. And so I met just people. This is kind of back to the whole thing I said in the beginning.

God's had his hand in so many areas of my life that I'm fully aware of now. And the people that he brought into my sphere, like you're one of them. You introduced me to plant medicine that is these, probably the most important aspect of my entire transformation.

I mean, I remember where I was standing. I remember the text message I sent you. I'm literally listen to Amber Lyons on a podcast with Joe Rogan. And I'm like, Hey, man, I'm kind of interested in this. In plant medicine, you're like, cool. I'm on my way to do to for sent to Peru for San Pedro and Ayahuasca. And I thought those were towns. I was like,

Mike Bledsoe (27:18)
Ha ha!

AJ Richards (27:20)
I'm all great dude, so tell me about this plant medicine stuff. And then I'm not kidding you, while I'm texting you, all of a sudden within five minutes, like maybe waiting for your next response, they start talking about ayahuasca. And I was like, shit, Mike just barely texted that to me. So it was like, that's what I mean by things just happen in a way that are, I know they were meant to be. And so I went to Landmark.

to this program called Landmark Forum that helped me reframe some of my awareness and my perception of the world based off of my growing up and my life experiences that led to that. So I think the answer to that is I did everything I could or everything that came my way, I was always open. Like, okay, I'll look into that. And I just, and I did, I went for it.

Mike Bledsoe (28:10)
Yeah, I went through the landmark, some of the landmark education as well. It starts with the forum. I found it to be really useful concepts that I still carry to this day. There's concepts I learned there that I bring into the mission after program. and, it, it's marketed as a leadership program. And when you get into, when you get into the foundations of leadership, it's, you first have to get into self leadership.

AJ Richards (28:18)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (28:40)
Which means you have to develop yourself. You have to look at things. You have to look at the blind spots and that program is not a walk in the park. Even if you've got, if you think you, you know, you've got this military experience, it's like, yeah, I did basic training and I did all this other stuff and I've been to combat and so on and so forth. And then you go into landmark forum and then there's a whole nother.

It's a different type of challenge that comes up, right? There's, and there's a new way of seeing the world and, it's, there's an intensity that happens there. If you're willing to dive in, I mean, you could always hide in the back of the room in a program like that. But if you're somebody who sits at the front and raises your hand and gets coached, through that program, it's incredibly powerful.

AJ Richards (29:08)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Yep.

Mike Bledsoe (29:31)
I don't think it's the end all be all. Otherwise, if I did, I would, you know, still be participating in that program, but it, I got what I needed from it and I moved on. Sounds like you did as well. Did you, did you try plant medicine prior to Landmark Forum or did you do it after?

AJ Richards (29:34)
No.

Yeah.

I tried plant medicine prior, but it wasn't in a set and setting specific for me. It was with you in Miami and it was, I mean, I was so new. It was probably a micro dose, but yet I sat there and stared at a TV screen that I don't think anything was on. It was, it was with Aaron and Orion at their house. I mean, it was a, it was a really cool experience. but, but landmark, landmark was first.

Mike Bledsoe (30:00)
Yep.

Yeah, by the way, this is this is before I really knew what I was doing as well. I was like, I was like, this stuff worked for me. I didn't really know how to set other people up with it yet because I was I was what 2014 probably 2015 something like that. Yeah. Yeah. You got something out of that experience.

AJ Richards (30:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, at least. Yep. Yeah, and so, -huh, go ahead.

Yeah, what I got was it wasn't what I was raised to believe. You know, mushrooms are gonna melt your brain or eat holes in your brain. All the bullshit that the D .A .R .E. program was designed to keep people asleep to, I think is maybe a way to put it. And so...

Mike Bledsoe (30:55)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (30:57)
That was in a way for that initial introduction, because it was a safe environment. It wasn't like, you know, you you would have never had me do anything like that in an unsafe environment. So it was safe. It would just wasn't it wasn't for personal development, which I also believe that there are certain sets and setting where you give out. I got value out of that. It wasn't a deep interpersonal value, but I got value out of that, which opened me up to like questioning it more and accepting it more in my life.

Mike Bledsoe (31:10)
Right.

Yeah.

AJ Richards (31:25)
my first real psychedelic experience was I wasca and I'd already gone through landmark. And for me, the plant medicine with landmark with talk therapy or or like, like mentorship, where you have the conversations, you develop concepts and new ideas. All of those things kind of became one whole is like, they all tie in. It's like, like,

What I learned in Landmark, I got to feel emotionally and on a different plane of existence in plant medicine. And so it was like a great way to really make it full circle and bring all those things together. So yeah, I mean, I was, we were testing and experimenting with all of that. And, you know, I had some, I had and still do have some ground rules for myself. Like, I had not done,

Mike Bledsoe (32:01)
Yes.

AJ Richards (32:22)
and I won't do things like cocaine and any hard, you know, plant medicine is really where I'm gonna stay because of the... I know, I know. The reason that I'm not into that is, yeah. And I've met too many people that were like, dude, don't get started. Like, don't try it. And I'm like, okay. And these are people I trust and the same people who would also be like...

Mike Bledsoe (32:29)
even though cocaine comes from a plant. It's not medicinal.

Yeah.

AJ Richards (32:49)
recommend the other stuff but hearing them say don't do this. I'm like, okay, got it. I won't do that. And

Mike Bledsoe (32:54)
Yeah, there's I think Joe Rogan, he heard him say this, which was there's drugs that make you feel more. There's drugs that make you feel less. And so I got cocaine is used as an anesthetic. You know, that's what it was used for back in the day. It makes you feel less. And something like mushrooms or MDMA or ayahuasca or San Pedro, the cactus.

AJ Richards (33:06)
Yeah.

Yeah. Hmm. Makes sense.

Mike Bledsoe (33:24)
These are going to definitely make you feel more. And one thing I'll note with, with Landmark and a lot of leadership development programs that are out there are highly cognitive. It's very in your head. And when you get into some of these plant medicines, especially ayahuasca, it's very body.

It's very, you're very working with your body. And, and one thing I've learned over the years is it's very hard to get your body to go along with your mind. You may be able to make some mental shifts that, that then leave room for an, an energetic shift in your body. But the most powerful way to get at it is to work at the level of energy and then, and then rewrite what's happening in the mind and the cognitive with language and.

AJ Richards (33:44)
Yes.

Mike Bledsoe (34:12)
and visuals and things like that. So it's the combination of the two that I found to be incredibly useful. And it sounds like that's what you've done is you've been exposed to the cognitive training of something like Landmark. And then you've also gone into more of the energetic field with Ayahuasca.

AJ Richards (34:33)
Yeah, yeah. And what transformed my marriage was MDMA. And I don't even say that lightly. It is responsible for the fact that I am still married to my wife and that I'm the full -time father of my kids. And I put all of that appreciation on my and my wife's experience with MDMA. And now it's part of our regular marriage practice.

Mike Bledsoe (34:39)
Hmm.

So coming from growing up Mormon and then using things like mushrooms, ayahuasca, MDMA, that what was that like from a, how did your mind have to shift around that?

AJ Richards (35:04)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, I was never, I was never very active in the Mormon faith. It was what we did because we had to. I mean, that's how I was raised. Like you went to church or you got spanked. And I remember being five years old and they were having a like Mormon and I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mormons. My family are all still LDS and I actually value a lot of the.

Mike Bledsoe (35:27)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (35:40)
the morals that I learned through that as a child. So I don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater, right? There's things about the church that I didn't agree with, but it doesn't mean I forsake all of the valuable teachings that I did gain. And many of those I'm passing on to my children. So the challenge was actually more around whether it's healthy or not or good for me. Like,

Mike Bledsoe (35:49)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (36:08)
I mean, I remember being in Vegas at the NPGL with you and a few other guys and you're like, for me, you guys were like the epitome of health and wellness and you like handed me a vape weed pen and the gears of my head kind of went, wait a minute. Here's these guys that are teaching health and fitness and all of my...

you know, again, dare training and dare teachings and everything about how this is not good for you and not healthy and all of these things. I'm like, wait a minute, these guys clearly are very fit and healthy. So something's not matching up from my programming to what's what I'm now slowly being exposed to. And so it was more around not around spirituality, but more around physical health and well -being and whether or not these things were good for me.

Mike Bledsoe (36:56)
Mmm. Yeah.

AJ Richards (36:59)
I've now come to realize I read, I can't remember his name, Brian something he wrote, The Immortality Key. And that book is fascinating. I mean, that book, like,

I believe what he found is probably true. I believe that, you know, and if you haven't heard the book, essentially he's tying in psychedelics connection to Christianity. And he goes, and this guy was a, he was a trained attorney and he, I heard of him on Joe Rogan. He was interviewed by Joe Rogan. That's when I heard about this guy and then got his book. And there's just all kinds of evidence that, that psychedelics were used to connect people with God.

Mike Bledsoe (37:21)
Mm.

Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (37:41)
You didn't need a priest to give you the approval of connecting with your higher power. And actually, here's this thing that grows right out of the earth. And I believe everything in nature is a create, natural nature is a creation of God to be used responsibly, period. And so I think there's strong evidence that...

just like the outline in the book that we were meant to participate in those ceremonies so that we had that connection with our creator. We could move all our egos and all our programming out of the way and just have a straight connection to source energy and develop from there. And so, so yeah, it was more around the physical, the physical health side that I had to overcome as indoctrination that wasn't true. And then once I got over that, I was like, okay, now what? And like you said,

My ego dies hard, man. So when I go do psychedelics, I have to really prepare, prepare because I know that initial ego death phase in the, in the come up is really, really challenging for me. I'm not somebody who enjoys plant medicine. I've got friends. They'd be like, dude, you want to drop five grams? No. And they'll just go walk around. That is not me. I'm like, bro, you don't know when I do this, this is for real. Like I'm going to another, I'm having a state change.

There's a state of mind change that's gonna last forever. I can't just go drop five grams and walk around a concert. Won't work for me.

Mike Bledsoe (39:00)
right.

Yeah, there's, I was fortunate. I think you were somewhat in a similar position where your first experiences were done more intentionally. And so that's how that's your anchor experience of it. And some people, you know, their first time with mushrooms was at a frat party mixed with beer and all this stuff. And so their impression of how it works and their anchor experience is a bit different. and, and I'll note that I was, I was a bit cavalier.

AJ Richards (39:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (39:34)
in my use around that time when we were hanging out, there was, I'd say like 2014, 2015, there was a couple of years in there where I was like, yeah, this can't hurt. This is all good. And then over some time and better training and exposure, I was like, this isn't always good all the time. And I held that belief because my, all my experiences were so positive.

AJ Richards (39:59)
Mm.

Mike Bledsoe (39:59)
But then I started recognizing that not everybody has that experience. And I've since become way more. I'm glad you're bringing this up because I get to talk about it, but at the same time, I'm like, wow. Also a little embarrassed. Like how, how, how cavalier I was. but I, I, that's part of my personality of like, kind of like, yeah, you know, whatever comes up, even if it's really scary and I'm in the wrong place, I'll figure it out.

AJ Richards (40:13)
I'm out.

Yeah

Mike Bledsoe (40:28)
But that's, that's not really how everybody operates. And that's not optimal for me either. So, like I used to, I used to, there was a few years there where I would smoke weed almost every, every evening. You know, that was, that was me winding down. If I was, if I was done working, I would smoke some weed. And over the years, I learned that that's actually not good for me. It was, I was,

I wasn't using it. I got to a place where I wasn't using it intentionally anymore. And so, and I noticed that I would, I wasn't as sharp if I was smoking every day. And so now it's a, now it's a much more, you know, maybe once a month intentional, not out in public, you know, with a few friends and we can have deep conversations and be playful on it, but it's not a, it's not something I'm using to cover anything up.

because when I first started using cannabis, I used it before I ever found like mushrooms, which I use very intentionally. And the cannabis was super useful to get me to stop drinking. Cause before I got cannabis, I was drinking sometimes every day. You know, it was my wind down at night. I'd have a drink on the weekends. I was still drinking till I got drunk.

AJ Richards (41:24)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Mike Bledsoe (41:50)
And when I found cannabis, I go, if I smoke weed before I have a drink, I'll drink way less. And I found myself not drinking every night and it would just be occasionally. And then when I got to mushrooms, I use that intentionally. The drinking stopped altogether because when I used mushrooms, I realized how silly alcohol was for me. For me, I'm like, and I.

AJ Richards (42:16)
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (42:19)
I've been drunk maybe two times since my first time with mushrooms. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so it's, I was, I was a heavy drinker from the age of like 20 to 30. There was a decade there and it, the cannabis helped me, but it was, it was a, it can be a good transition. And I noticed that with a lot of people, it's a, it's a transition, plant.

AJ Richards (42:23)
Wow, that's cool.

Mm -hmm.

yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm in the space right now where I smoke almost every night and I need to stop. And it's challenging. Like what you're just saying, like I'm like, okay, I'm recognizing like this is my escape. It's not, and the battle I'm having is I have so many profound breakthroughs when I'm high that have really contributed to what I'm doing now and even in other things where it's like,

Mike Bledsoe (43:10)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (43:16)
And so there's this internal battle I'm dealing with where it's like, no, because I'm part of me. And if I'm questioning it, then there's a reason that I'm questioning it. So I don't want to just ignore that. So part of me is like, dude, you should like not do this so much and see what happens. But then the other part of me is like, but yeah, but all of those insights, like I'm afraid to lose those. And so I'm in that space now where I'm like, OK, I've.

Mike Bledsoe (43:26)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (43:41)
I've got some that I'm finishing up and then I'm going to not buy anymore for a while, make sure I'm detoxed for in a little ways and just try to move on and use it intentionally like you're talking about and not every night.

Mike Bledsoe (43:54)
I, I, I stopped using it a daily. Well, one, you know, when I was, I probably do, I, I go on an ayahuasca retreat about once a year and you've got to cut it out for the month before and in the month after. So there's a basically two months built in where I've got to not use it at all anyway. So I was like, I started using, having ayahuasca experiences and

AJ Richards (44:12)
Hmm.

Mike Bledsoe (44:23)
2015. And that's when I actually cleaned up a lot of my, I became way more intentional with my use of all psychedelics, because that was the first time I sat with a guide up until that point. Everything, all my psychedelic use was personal experimentation. I got a lot out of it. A lot of benefits from it.

AJ Richards (44:33)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Bledsoe (44:45)
I still point to solo mushroom journeys and Memphis, Tennessee, when I had nobody else was doing it. I had no idea what I was doing. And I just was, I got lucky and I did it. I looked back and I go, I did it right. But I did it right on accident. and then when I went to Peru for ayahuasca in 2015, I saw how intentional a ceremony could be. And that, that really shifted.

AJ Richards (45:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (45:14)
everything for me. And, shortly after that, I think it was around 2017. One of my good friends, Guy Ferdman, he invited me because he has, just try to step away from weed for 12 weeks and see how you feel. And then, so I felt really sharp after coming off of her 12 weeks. And, and the difference was those insights that you're talking about. I was.

AJ Richards (45:36)
Okay.

Mike Bledsoe (45:41)
doing, having a mushroom, a strong mushroom experience about once a month. And so that's, I found that my insights through mushrooms were way more clear. And so, and without any of the negative impacts that might come with cannabis, because, like, everybody's different. Everybody is different. You know, some people cannabis agrees with them really well. With me, there's some negative effects that I don't, I'm not a big fan of.

AJ Richards (45:47)
Mm.

Hmm, makes sense.

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Mike Bledsoe (46:11)
some people, I think it's, it's great. There's a, I was just talking to somebody yesterday who, their wife is, does a lot of things around genetics and you can get genetically tested. And some people it's THC's like really agrees with them. And there's other people it doesn't agree with. So just because we're talking about something on here doesn't necessarily necessarily mean it's.

AJ Richards (46:32)
Interesting.

Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (46:38)
right for you. This is just something that's worked for us. And the way it works for me is different than the way it works for AJ. And so I after he invited me to take a break, I started taking a hard break for 12 weeks every year. I was going not. And then it just turned into, I took 12 weeks off. Now I got our Oscar coming up next. I know it's five months of the year. I'm not touching it.

AJ Richards (46:39)
Right.

Mike Bledsoe (47:04)
And then it just became very optional and I was able to be way more objective about how I was using it. and so, yeah, for me, it's, I never use anything all the time and I take breaks from any substances at all for periods of time. was it last year? I took 60 days off of anything like nothing, not a drop of alcohol, not any weed, no psychedelics.

AJ Richards (47:09)
Mm.

Mike Bledsoe (47:33)
Nothing for some people. I'm sure like, yeah, big deal. but I do find that most people are, you know, if they're not using some of these other things, they are using pharmaceutical drugs. So you may, you could be sitting here going, well, that sounds silly that you, you're, you explore so much. but you might be on an SSRI and that's also something that's changing your state. So, don't be too quick to judge and.

AJ Richards (47:36)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (48:02)
And some people are explorers. Like I'm an explorer. I like to, I like to delve into consciousness. I like to, I'm always doing some type of personal development work. And then I'll use a, an intentional psychedelic experience to see if there was anything I missed and nine times out of 10. Yeah. there was this one little thread over here. let's tie that up. That was really nice. And so that's part of using it intentionally. So I just want to point that out.

AJ Richards (48:28)
Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (48:31)
Okay, I want to get back to the MDMA with your wife. And you said that's become a regular thing. Yeah.

AJ Richards (48:33)
Yep. Mm -hmm.

Yeah, it's a regular. Yeah, we try to schedule it every three months at least. We're busy. I've got businesses to run and we got kids. Sometimes we'll do it sooner than three months, but at least every three months. It just gives us a chance to openly discuss in a very empathetic and loving environment, whatever we might be struggling with either personally.

Mike Bledsoe (48:42)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (49:07)
for ourselves and have your partner hear it from a way where they, you know, my wife's an introvert. And so as an extrovert married to an introvert, sometimes I'll share some things. And when she's not in a state of mind to, I guess, say back what she's hearing me say, it, it,

can feel like I'm on this alone, but in MDMA, she's fully receptive to hear those things, whether it's something I'm dealing with myself or an issue I was having with her or whatever that might be. You know, when I was, yeah, it's just really profound. And I try to tell people that are married when they're going through struggles and so forth that like, listen, you're trying all these other things. Why not try this?

Mike Bledsoe (49:40)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

AJ Richards (49:54)
And, you know, it the history of the medicine and how it was designed for couples therapy and now in the 80s and now it's no longer talked about like that anymore. But yet we've got talk therapy and divorce rates over 50 percent. I'm like, listen, if the other stuff was working, it shouldn't be that high. So maybe try this. Like, I think if especially if you have kids, you. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (50:18)
even higher amongst veterans.

AJ Richards (50:22)
Exactly. And I'm like, if you have kids, I owed it to my kids to lift every stone, to turn over every stone to see if mom and I could find a way to be connected in a way that they got to have both parents in the same home. And so we took it on and...

Dude, it was like, it was a miracle. I mean, really, I don't use that word loosely. It was a miracle. Like that first session for us, we mended so many bridges and knocked down so many walls that it was like, after the session was over, the next day we were like, holy crap. And it was really a miracle in the sense that we had our issues going into it. And then the next day they were gone. Not just like...

not just like buried, but handled. And then six...

Mike Bledsoe (51:16)
were talking about openly and they were able to be received. One of the things that's great about MDMA as a couple is not only I find two things. Sometimes I'll speak for myself. I'll realize something that about that I need to share that I didn't wasn't even aware of. It's like, I've got a new awareness and I want to share it. And then for the person who's on the other side,

AJ Richards (51:19)
Yeah.

Yes.

Mike Bledsoe (51:44)
when you're in that state, you're way more receptive, you're more accepting, and you're ready to hear anything and everything. And when you're both in that state, you know that the other person is in a place of acceptance. So it makes it just so much easier to share.

AJ Richards (51:57)
Yeah, you're not afraid to say what you feel like you need to say. And even if in the regular state of mind, you're afraid that what you say might turn into an argument. But on MDMA, it's like you can't argue because the other person's like, I'm so sorry. I made you feel that way.

And like, but when you hear that, it's like, they're not just saying it to get through the argument or to appease you. It's like they actually feel the emotions that you feel in whatever discussion you're having. And that's why I think that's why it accelerates healing so quickly.

Mike Bledsoe (52:31)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (52:32)
So yeah, it's special for us. We are open about this with every couple, even if it's unsolicited, they'll talk and we'll say, you guys should try MDMA. Like we're just, we're flat about it, right? There's all these perceptions that the mainstream pharmaceutical has trained everybody to talk about, but we're just gonna be completely open and be like, no, that's bullshit. You should try it because they're wrong.

Mike Bledsoe (52:58)
Yeah. What? If I remember correctly, your wife was apprehensive about about you using any mushrooms or MDMA or ayahuasca or whatever. And then, yeah, how what was that process like with her being on board to the degree where she was willing to try MDMA with you?

AJ Richards (53:05)
Yeah, yeah, my...

We were both just done. We were over it. We were like, something's gotta give. And so at that point, and the person who had suggested it was somebody that we both had some, you know, had respect for. And then he shared that and I was like, And so when I'm like, hey,

Mike Bledsoe (53:22)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (53:38)
This person we both respect is suggesting this. So then that made it easier to my wife's a rule follower. Like if I, if I make a left -hand turn when the sign says don't turn left, she's over there like gripping the seat. And I'm like, and I saw sometimes I do it just for fun, you know, cause she's an absolute rule follower. And, and so, but we, but we were just kind of at our wits end. So we're like, fine, whatever. Cause the alternative isn't going to be fun either. And so.

Mike Bledsoe (53:56)
Yeah.

AJ Richards (54:07)
That's where we got in. And then that opened her up to psilocybin for herself, which was probably one of like, I've guided people. So after the CrossFit gym and kind of during towards the end, I got into self -development because of my own journey and what the healing had done. And anybody that's ever been in a gym environment where you're the leader, you find out.

people come to you for far more than learning how to back squat. And that was a surprise. You know, it's like you're in the office talking about personal marriage things. And I'm like, dude, I'm 25. I don't know why you're talking to me about this, but also understanding that if they feel comfortable, then there's a level of respect that they're have for me that I'm going to go ahead and take seriously. And so we did. And, and.

Mike Bledsoe (54:41)
Yeah.

AJ Richards (54:55)
It just, it made a big difference. And so as I was guiding people, I got to guide my wife on her first psilocybin experience. And I'm telling you, when her ego was dying, so was mine. Like I was so nervous because I was willing, I had to put myself in the state of mind that I was serving her like I would anybody else. And whatever came up for her, I was willing to be there for her, not for her, for me. Because this is...

Mike Bledsoe (55:21)
Right.

AJ Richards (55:23)
her journey, what she's going to come up with. If I'm going to do this the right way as her guide, I need to have my personal wants and needs set aside. And so I prepared myself to guide her from that mentality. And so that even meant like, if she goes through this and is like, you know what, you're not right for me. I'm being like, shit. But I was willing to be in that space for her because I also recognize if that came up for her, whatever we're fighting for is going to be.

maybe it doesn't make sense. That certainly isn't what came up, of course, but I was as her ego was dying, even at one point while she's going through the ego death, she goes, is this hard for you? I was like, I'm like, I'm good. Like just trying to keep her in her own space. But what was neat was she had her experience. And then we were sitting in the back of our on our back porch by by a fire. And we were having some comments. This was like two months, three months later.

Mike Bledsoe (56:07)
Hahaha. Yeah.

AJ Richards (56:22)
And so she'd gone through the experience and then the medicine was working its way through her conscious and through her life. And then we were having this conversation and I don't remember exactly what she said, but when she said it, we both looked at each other and we went, holy cow.

because that was her intention going into medicine. And three months later, we're having that conversation and it was clear as day that she just received what she went into that for. And it was like completely open. She's like, that's what happened. And so it was neat. It was super, especially because I care for her so much and we have such a commitment to each other that when you see that unfolding for them, it's like, it's really special. It was cool.

Mike Bledsoe (57:02)
Yeah. Yeah. So to go from, I don't think we're going to make it to feeling sounds like you're, you're connected more than ever. And how many years you've been married? 21 years.

AJ Richards (57:13)
yeah, yeah. 21 now. Yep. 21. And yeah, I mean, just like you said, to go from like, I mean, literally 14 years of misery, 14 or 15. And then when we got to year 16, I look back that one year made all 15 worth it because we had covered so much ground.

that we created a relationship that we never thought possible, that we always wanted. And in one year's time, it was like all 15 of those years were worth it. And now it's been another five or six since that time, and they just get better. I mean, it really does. And now, especially if you're a veteran and you're an entrepreneur, like...

or even if you're just an entrepreneur, it can be really challenging to be married to somebody like us because it's not stable in the way society would say. And if your partner is looking for stability, like my wife's life would have been much easier if my interest was the pursuit of money. I would have made money a long time ago. I'm really good at sales, but I suck at sales if I don't believe in what I'm selling. And so I was...

Mike Bledsoe (58:29)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (58:33)
I've never provided up until recently, but even in the last five years, she started because of the empathy and the understanding. She started recognizing like, okay, AJ is on a different journey that isn't by the book. And so I'm just, I'm going to support him and be here for him. And as she became a more solid partner for me,

my speed of growth accelerated, my speed of understanding what my strengths are and my weaknesses are and not judging myself for my weaknesses, but just seeing them as an awareness so that I can build on them or build on them or mitigate them in ones. Like my company is built with people where I can stay at 50 ,000 feet. I don't have to get in the weeds. And because of that, we're accelerating, but I had to learn.

those things about me so that I could build a team with the things that I'm not and won't be and don't make myself wrong for like, I don't feel bad that I don't know numbers. I just tell people on my team, you got to know the numbers and you're going to digest them for me and just give me the top view so I can move forward. And I don't feel guilty anymore about not being that guy, not, you know, not wearing the S on my chest and doing it all and being the being everything.

that I should be. And because my wife and I got on the same page on that and she was like, okay, I know you're working. I know you're trying like, you know, keep going. And now it's, it's paying off.

Mike Bledsoe (1:00:03)
Sounds like your marriage became really solid and simultaneously around the same time, business became way more clear.

AJ Richards (1:00:13)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And again, it all just goes to internal because what's the one common denominator of everywhere I am? It's me. Wherever I'm standing, whether it's in my personal relationship or business or this business or that business or just in relationships, I'm the common denominator. And so as I continue to develop this being myself, the distinction of self is something else that I took away from, I think, the advanced course, which is

you know, my, yeah, yeah. And so myself is not this, it's not the physical being. Myself is the idea of me. So wherever my name is spoken or I'm thought of, I exist. And that travels the globe far faster than the physical being ever will. And so that gives me, that awareness gave me the ability like, okay.

Mike Bledsoe (1:00:43)
That's the Landmark Advanced course.

AJ Richards (1:01:06)
who do I want to be so that anybody's experience of me as it passes on and all of a sudden, I'm five years down the road and I meet somebody and they're like, I've heard your name. It's not like, you know, fuck that guy. It's like, yeah, I've heard of you and yeah. And so anyway, yeah, it's all the same. And so that was why self -development, I try to, you know, as you know, it's if you...

There's nothing wrong with transformation. Like what we protect, we don't really, it's like the ego and the identity, their role is to protect what it knows, because whatever it doesn't know is scary. Even if what it knows isn't working. Like your relationship's not working, your physical health's not working, your business isn't working. But my identity's purpose, my ego's purpose is to protect my identity.

the one it knows. That's why the ego death is so powerful because the ego gets out of the way and then it's like, wait a minute, that was stupid that that's what I was protecting. And so it's like, let me just move that out of the way. And then you come back into reality and you, you integrate and you're like, okay, there's, you know, cause it's not as transformative as our experience in ayahuasca and MDMA was not all of those experiences were that easy, you know,

you still had to become what you became aware of over the next few weeks or months or whatever it was once you had that awareness. And that takes work. I mean, because your natural state of being is to be, to play video games for five hours at night after work, if that's what your thing is, or to have a few beers or whatever, like whatever doesn't matter, fill in the blank, that had to transform because I looked around, I'm like, that is not working.

It's not creating the life I wanna create. And so being committed to not, being committed to just knowing that, okay, maybe what I believe isn't real. Not that it's wrong, so my ego doesn't have to get all defensive, just being open to question and then the ego's like, okay, well, we're just questioning. It was just, yeah, it's been a long journey, but also...

a recent mentor was saying that, you know, the things that we're up against are we go through these experiences so that we become the people we want to become through those experiences. And so I'm an accumulation of all of my life experiences. And because I'm committed to improving how I see myself and how I navigate, because I'm committed to those things, I do evolve. And, you know, so now it's like,

That's like I was saying a minute ago, the distinction of the success, your ability to move quickly from one failure to the next. Dude, we're take this stuff we're doing now, like we launched, we're live, transactions are happening and we are learning and pivoting constantly things I was sure I understood. Something questions it. And I'm like, okay. So it's like that whole flow, like water is like the water's going to flow this way down the creek and it's going to hit a rock, but it doesn't stop. It just bounces and rolls around it.

and finds the next opening and keeps going. So whenever I'm up against something, I'm like, okay, take a breath back up and flow the next direction and be okay to try, be okay to try, be okay to try and not feel like each one of those trials and errors is a trial and failure. It's a trial and learning. And then that accelerates. And that's been very helpful.

Mike Bledsoe (1:04:36)
Yeah. Well, take us through the point where you had the idea for what you're doing now. Like what was the impetus? Cause I remember, I remember around March, 2020 there, you and I had a conversation about food supply chain and how, how did you get from that to now? Because you were, you were growing a bunch of plants at your house. And so there was some,

AJ Richards (1:04:49)
Yep.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I had the tower guard. Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (1:05:06)
It's just interesting to me like how something can start small, you know, I heard about this tower garden thing. I've got these tower gardens and then it's, and then you just keep expanding, expanding, expanding.

AJ Richards (1:05:18)
Yeah. So it was around wanting to make sure I was taking care of my family, you know, which means providing and providing it the most basic sense, which is food, like food, shelter, safety. Those are the three human basic human needs and food being primary, right? Food and water, same thing, but those that being primary. So I'm like, okay.

supply chains are failing. And COVID really highlighted that I was not aware like the rest of the world how vulnerable we were as a nation and how consolidated our food supply chain has become until COVID hit and store shelves were empty. And so I'm driving down the road. I mean, I was doing whatever I could to rub two nickels together.

AJ Richards (1:05:58)
So yeah, you know, I was doing kind of anything I could to make ends meet. So I was even driving for Instacart, just trying to keep things going. And I was driving down the road and I'm listening to the news talk about empty store shelves. And yeah, I'm seeing fat cattle standing in all the fields. And I'm like, okay, well, it's not as bad as it is right now as it seems to be, but...

consumers don't know how to connect with producers and producers don't know how to connect with consumers. Because like I said, I come from five generations of ranching. My family are the Bundy ranchers. So if you go Google Bundy ranchers, you'll kind of get a quick history on their notoriety, I guess, in standing up for their rights and their freedoms. They went head to head with the Bureau of Land Management in 2014 and then again, 2016. So I grew up in that space.

And now I'm living in Phoenix for 12 years. So I understand both urban and rural, which is a unique perspective that not many have, right? Cause only 1 % of our population even grows food anymore. So I'm hearing the news talk about empty store shelves and yet I'm seeing all these animals in the field. And I'm like, these cows could go right to consumers that are worried if they knew how to get ahold of the producers and farmers and ranchers.

The last thing they want to do is get on electronic devices and try to figure out how to do marketing and sales and all of these other things. And I was actually doing that for my cousin's ranch in 2019, early 2020 selling beef direct to consumer. So I under, I started understanding some of the dynamics of going direct to consumer and the challenges that face both sides. And so the idea, I was just, the idea just said, why don't somebody build a...

a platform like Airbnb, but instead it's focal point instead of short -term rentals is local food. And like I could see, and I just had this really strong feeling like this needs to happen, right? And so I, like I shared a minute ago, I didn't think I was the guy for it. I don't know anything about software development, nothing. I'm.

slinging concrete, driving for Instacart, doing whatever I could to make ends meet. And here's this massive idea that no way I can handle this. So anyway, fast forward, I go and start asking around town and I get connected to this gentleman named Isaac Barlow, who was running a software as a service at the time. And I go talk to him and I share the idea and he goes, that's a pretty good idea. You got a lot of research to do. And I'm like, okay. And so,

He kind of validated the idea as a software developer, but now it's on me if you're going to go, if I'm going to go figure out if this even needs to be done. And dude, I'm telling you, it's been four years and it's been four years of just nonstop self -development. We'd be live six months ago if it wasn't for the personal growth that I had to go through to even recognize that I was capable. Like that's probably the biggest lesson for me is like,

Mike Bledsoe (1:08:58)
Mmm.

AJ Richards (1:09:02)
And now that's accelerating. My ability to be okay with not having all the answers is accelerating. But back then it was like crap. And so I remember I was just starting to have these conversations after that one. And next thing I know, I'm living in Cody, Wyoming, running a USDA slaughterhouse. Like, what the hell? If you would have told me that when I first had the idea that that was part of the necessary part of my journey, I would have quit.

So I think God doesn't tell us everything we're gonna be up against on purpose, because some of us would choose not to even be born. Be like, now, send it to the next guy, you know what I mean? And yet, here I am four years later, running a very capable team with absolutely the opportunity to succeed at everything we set out to do. Not that it's gonna be easy and it's not gonna happen overnight, but the guy that started this four years ago is not the guy talking to you right now, at all.

And some of that journey and the speed of the journey was just around my own awareness of that I'm capable. I remember seeing a documentary on the Think and Grow Rich documentary and Barbara Corcoran. People might know her from Shark Tank, but she said, I was terrible with numbers. I was never successful. I did one deal and I brought in a numbers expert and it exploded.

And that taught me that I don't have to know it all. In fact, I can go into any business in any industry I ever choose if I find the right people to do good at what I'm not so good at in that industry. And there's nothing that going to keep me out of it. And so I really kind of leaned on that and went and had those meetings and those conversations just to learn more, to become more of the person that I needed to be to be able to execute this. And so I called Isaac after I'd been gone and I was like, listen, I'm now running a slaughterhouse in Cody, Wyoming.

Mike Bledsoe (1:10:32)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (1:10:51)
I've done the market research, it's time to do this. And he goes, wait, you're doing what where? And I was like, you told me to go do market research and I have been and this is where it's taken me. He's like, okay, now I need a wire frame. And I'm like, what the hell is it? It was just one more thing. Like what's a wire frame? He goes, well, it's like blueprints for building a house, but it's how they're going to build your software. And so I wasted a month of sitting there going like, I don't know how to do that. How am I going to do that? I don't know anything about that. And then finally,

Mike Bledsoe (1:11:06)
Like what is a wireframe?

AJ Richards (1:11:21)
things in my life were uncomfortable and I'm like, shit, keep going. And so I get on Fiverr and I hire some kid from Pakistan for 600 bucks to build me a wire frame. I called Isaac back up, it'd been like a month and a half and I'm like, I'm ready. And he goes, you're what? And I'm like, I'm ready. My wire frame's ready to show you. And by the way, this kid in Pakistan, he goes, I know exactly what you want. I've built these for other industries before. You need.

40 frames, not 10 frames. So it's, you know, my initial quote, cause I didn't know what I was looking for was 10 frames or 10 slides. And it was X number of dollars. And he's like, I can really paint the picture with 40 frames. So hired him to do it. I demo it to Isaac. And mind you, he's running a multimillion dollar software company. And so I get done presenting and he starts laughing. I'm like, what's funny? And he goes, how much was that? And I'm like,

Mike Bledsoe (1:11:53)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (1:12:15)
told him like 640 bucks and he's like, how long did it take? And I'm like, well, frankly, I wasted three or four weeks wondering if I could even do it. And then the kid I hired got it done in three weeks. And he's like, AJ, when I built the wireframe for my company in 2011, it cost me $25 ,000 and 12 months of development just for the wireframe. He goes, I'm actually envious that you're building now.

not when I did because technologies come so far they've we can accelerate this process you know so

Mike Bledsoe (1:12:39)
Ha!

yeah, we're all connected. There's people all over the world that will do the work for a lot less. I mean, there's AI tools that have definitely sped things up for me and, and getting things going. I can take an idea and flesh it out with AI. And then I can hand a lot of things to a virtual assistant in the Philippines that's working for five to $10 an hour that would.

AJ Richards (1:12:51)
Yes.

Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (1:13:16)
cost 20 to 25 bucks an hour in the US, but, and also wouldn't be as good. These people and some of these people in these other countries are really committed and talented.

AJ Richards (1:13:24)
Yeah.

Yeah. And, and, and, you know, part of that too, is I think they're hungry, right? And so they, it's like the hard times build strong men, strong men build a strong, hard times build strong men, strong men build good times, that whole quote. Well, some of these other countries, they've been in hard times for a long time and their cultures are coming out of those cycles into building better times for their cultures.

Mike Bledsoe (1:13:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

AJ Richards (1:13:52)
or their communities. And so, yeah, I agree 100%. So this guy, I mean, Pakistan was flooding. He had his first kid and yet he still knocked it out in three weeks. How many people here would have given me excuses, excuses, excuses and drug it out for months, which I'm dealing with in other parts of my business that I'm just like, what the hell, man? I'm just asking for some shirts to be loaded on a website. Like, why is this taking two months? And so...

Mike Bledsoe (1:14:14)
Right.

AJ Richards (1:14:17)
Anyway, so I presented to him and he's like, okay, I want to bring the rest of my team in that I'm working with on this software to have them poke holes in it. And I've been having dozens of conversations with producers and consumers, like flushing out the idea, like, is there even, will this actually help make a difference? Cause I don't want to go into it if it's not going to help. And I want to make sure that whatever we build does truly serve. And so,

He brought his team in, they poked holes, and then it's just been, that's really what it is, man. It's like, it's been four years of looking for the problems, not looking for validation. Don't tell me how cool you think it is. Tell me why you don't think it's gonna work so that I can go then have the necessary conversations on that so that I can fill the gap. Or maybe it's just your own concern and I don't even need to worry about it. But that's.

you know, that's what it's been. And so I showed the wire for me. He's like, great. Now you need to raise money to build it. And I'm like, okay, next step, you know, and my business partner, Brooke Ents, who you're very familiar with, she's the first one. She's a local girl from my hometown. So we've got a lot of family heritage together and, and, and similar beliefs. And so, you know, I pitched this to people with millions of dollars and they weren't interested in, and I don't know Brooks financial state, but it was enough for her to say I'm in.

and I'll fund the entire MVP. And so the MVP cost us $100 ,000. I raised $130K, $30 ,000 went into...

our financial model to make sure that the numbers match the vision. So we invested really heavily on the financial model to just make sure that it was solid. And then 100K in the software. We just had the software analyzed the other day and the people that analyzed it said, we would be floored if this cost you less than $300 ,000 and took less than 18 months to build. It costs us $100 ,000 and was done in six months from the time we got funded.

and it works really well. Doesn't mean there's not bugs, that software has bugs and even software been around forever gets bugs. But it blew everybody's mind and now it's functioning really well. And we're experiencing a, I'm personally experiencing this really special moment in my life where that four years of foundation building,

the time is starting to collapse. Like we're having conversation. I've been invited to have conversations with RFK's VP nominee. I've been invited to have conversations with strategists for the Trump campaign. I mean, it's like, I never thought I would see myself in this position, although I knew it was coming. Like a few months ago, I'm like, I need to start getting connected with.

good senators or good congressmen who want to fight for our sovereignty because that will be our biggest fight because Big Food and Big Pharma, they're the two most corrupt organizations in human history because of volume and reach. Never in the history of the world have they been able to affect the globe. And now these two major organizations can or the people involved with them and we're taking them on. That is literally who our number one enemy is or target. We are going to disrupt that market and they will not...

They don't, they're not gonna want that because even if there's no evil Mr. Burns in the top of a tower trying to take me on, the algorithm of doing business at that size and maximizing profit, as soon as they see a blip on the radar, they're gonna throw everything they have at it to stop that blip because they have to. They are required by their fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit. So, you know, I'm not saying that there's one person or one group of people that,

are coming after me. It's just the state of the world and how we've created the financial system, right, to be big versus sustainable. That's just the world we live in. So I'm not going to take it personally, but I'm definitely going to take it seriously. And so anyway, so we're just seeing so many cool things happening, but dude, it was four years of just not knowing and grinding. When we raised the capital, we did.

I'm not looking for money. I'm looking for strong people that are going to go to war with me. And so when I pitched them, I didn't even show them the financial model. I pitched them the vision. And then I tried to sell them on not getting involved. I said, we will never sell. So there is no exit. So your investment will only return on dividends, meaning you believe what we're doing is so valuable.

that you're going to be in it for the long run because you're not going to, we're not just going to build this and flip it to some company for a billion dollars.

Mike Bledsoe (1:19:16)
What you're saying is you're not going to sell it to a public company or go public yourself.

AJ Richards (1:19:21)
No, we're building a legacy. If we have an opportunity to change our food supply chain in America, it cannot be for the love of money or for the pursuit of money. It has to be out of service. Otherwise, we'll just duplicate what already exists digitally. And...

Mike Bledsoe (1:19:34)
And the financials still have to work so that it's sustainable. Yeah.

AJ Richards (1:19:37)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And the financial model actually is really great, but I don't want anybody joining my team that is looking at that because then the decisions will be made from that perspective, not from what, how do we be the most service? And then just know that the byproduct of being of service is plenty of revenue, but we're never going to surround ourselves. So I told him, I said, this is the battle. And by the way,

Mike Bledsoe (1:19:47)
Right.

Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (1:20:04)
these giant conglomerates are gonna throw everything they have at us to stop us. Are you in? And they're like, we're in. And I was like, awesome. So we raised the capital we needed to go to keep scaling. We...

You know, we just contracted with this company called Harmon Brothers Marketing. They did Squatty Potty and Purple Bed. They did the crowdfunding for The Chosen and Sound of Freedom. And they participated in No Farms, No Food. They have been in my vision from day one that when we're ready, that's who's going to tell our story because they do such a good job morally, ethically, spiritually, we're in alignment. And when I pitched it to them, they're like, they're like, wow.

we are so grateful that you brought such a world -changing idea to us to help participate in. And I was like, you know, as the guy who's been struggling for four years to hear that from people who are involved in such big projects, that was a really special moment for me, you know, because I've been working so hard. And so, yeah, it's just, so that's kind of the genesis of where the idea came from and then just the sheer work and commitment it took. Now,

If you were to watch me as a fly on the wall for the last four years, it wasn't all work. Like I said, there was a roller coaster because there were moments where I gave up because who am I? And then there were moments where I was like, OK, I would have these like.

Dude, you gotta keep going. Like this has to have, like, that's the thing, like, I'm really trying to get people to understand in our nation that we are on the precipice of famine. So I don't have a choice. I mean, I have a choice, but the alternative is I watch my kids starve to death. And I wanna be on my deathbed, God willing, as an old man and look at my grandkids and know they have small family farms still run by families to buy food from because...

History repeats itself, we all know that. And what we're seeing happening in our country right now is textbook communism for collectivization of farms. But instead of at the end of the barrel of a gun in communist countries, they're doing it with the whip of a pen in Congress. You know, and so I just don't feel like the reason that I feel so so

appreciative of what you're doing, what others like you are doing is I know there are so many good men and women that are veterans that have developed unique sets of skills that our country needs.

We need those warriors in the garden. We need the people that can execute without being emotional about it and just take care of what business needs to be taken care of, but still be personally connected to who they are and their spirit and their source energy and however you want to call it. But we need that. The Trojan horse is in the kingdom. The southern border has 17 million people in our country. There's mountains of evidence that they've been paid for by the UN to cross from

South America to get here for why we don't know yet, but it isn't gonna be Friendly and we just don't know when or what that's gonna look like or how big it or be or whatever It's gonna take off. But you know, I just saw a video this morning that that somebody shared of a woman having some dude in a headlock because he was taking pictures in the woman's restroom because now it's Multigender restroom and dudes are watching and filming her while she's headlocking the dude. Well, come on, man

Like we've, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a wild time. And it's also like, how do you find peace in that so that you can just, like I said, the peace for me comes to the point where it's like, okay, I just do what I got to do. And I go back to being peaceful. Like what kind of power that must be to be like execute back to balance, execute back to balance. And it's possible, but you have to develop those skillsets to be able to be that person to be able to,

Mike Bledsoe (1:23:38)
while.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (1:24:07)
to just to kind of be able to dance with what comes your way, you know? And dude, I'll be honest with you, part of, the mortal side of me says what I'm doing is too little, too late. It's not gonna matter. Like the sympathetic, is it the sympathetic, is it the fight or flight? The sympathetic nervous side of me says it doesn't matter.

Mike Bledsoe (1:24:24)
Yes.

AJ Richards (1:24:29)
What you're building isn't going to matter. Like something's going to happen. It's going to fall apart globally, nationally. So what you're doing isn't going to matter. And I felt that way almost the entire time.

And so how do you keep pursuing something that's so difficult and so big when that's what happens on the sympathetic nervous side? Well, it's because I've also learned how to be in the parasympathetic, to be at peace, to analyze like, that was coming from a place of scarcity, a place of fear. And then also my faith says, God asked you to do this. Where's your faith?

Mike Bledsoe (1:25:05)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (1:25:05)
even if it falls completely on its face. I had faith in what I was asked to do and I went for it and I did it anyway, even if that's what I've been asked to do. You know, it's like, so that's kind of just how I wake up every morning, most mornings, I'm human. I wake up most mornings and I read my Bible and I pray and I say, where am I supposed to be today? Because...

I'm such a small person to try to take this size of a project on that it is not going to, I'm just a tool. And I really, and let me just tell you the amount of peace that I get with the challenges that we face, knowing that I'm just following, essentially following orders from my source energy. The stress level is a fraction of what it was with rush club.

Rush Club was all about me and how I'm seen and how I get perceived and how I can be this guy that did it. I didn't I wasn't aware of those back then by the way, but looking back Dude Yeah

Mike Bledsoe (1:26:02)
It's easy to look back and go, that was all ego. I had the same thing with some of my previous companies. And now, now it's, yeah, there's a level of humility that is, is, very peaceful.

AJ Richards (1:26:15)
Yeah, yeah. And so by having that humility and just being of service, it's like, okay, well, I'll just, I'll just roll with it. Like this comes up, what do we do? I'll just bring my team together and say, what do you think? Here's what I think. What do you guys think? And then we just keep moving. So yeah, it's been, it's been awesome, dude. Like looking back, like that's the thing. Like when, when, if, if, if you're listening to this and you're just wondering one more day.

just what's the next day look like. And then, and it's not, but also I'd say don't get complacent to, you know, like they say that the book, Think and Grow Rich, I'll bring that up one more time. They say the biggest mistake of that book was the title. Think and Grow Rich. It should have been Act and Grow Rich. Because give it one more day, but you better have a.

Mike Bledsoe (1:27:03)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (1:27:07)
do a little bit more the next day, a little bit more action the next day, even if it's just going for a walk to clear your mind, or even if it's doing some exercise or one less beer. When I worked for a guy named Chris Powell, he had a TV show called Extreme Makeover Weight Loss. And so I had 40 something clients that were all 20 pounds to 100 plus pounds to lose. And we didn't ever approach the training or the coaching from diet and exercise, because that doesn't matter.

It's their relationship to their self that mattered. So we approached it from how you see yourself. If I see myself as an athlete, I'm not driving through McDonald's. If I see myself as a fat person, I'm stopping at McDonald's. Because that's my perception of myself. And so Chris had these things he called power promises, behavioral change science. If you drink 10 beers, try drinking seven. Can you get away with just doing seven? Now you're not like cold turkey and freaking out and then do seven for a week and okay, now I'm gonna do five.

Okay, now I'm going to do four and it may take time, but at least you're developing those, that ability to slowly transition from what was holding you back into something that's more meaningful for you. And so, all the mentors I've ever had, not one of them went through life and made it easy. They all went through some form of this understanding and Greg. And when I say people successful, I'm talking, look at their whole life. I've got friends that make a ton of money and their home life is wrecked.

I don't give a shit about that. And I've got friends who's got really great home lives and yet they can't rub two nickels together and their kids are all wearing barefoot and holy pants because they haven't developed a different part of their psyche or their strength or their awareness. So I'm talking about, I want somebody to, I mean, I don't care what people see. I wanna look at my own life and see that my kids love me and they respect me.

my wife loves me and respects me and supports me. And that the people I get to work with every day around me also care about my leadership and what I'm offering and where we're going. And then, yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (1:29:15)
Yeah, it's, it sounds like you've surrounded your people with similar values, like, and that that's, that makes a huge difference.

AJ Richards (1:29:19)
Yes.

That's why when I get on calls with new potential partners or people that want to work with us, because again, we're accelerating, so this happening more frequently, I talk about God right away. That first and foremost, I want those values around me. Now, I don't care what God that is to an extent, as long as you have an attachment to some higher power, because...

If you believe in a higher power, for me, this is just, again, like you said earlier, everybody can operate differently. And I'm not here to judge that at all. But there's a level of humility when you know it's not all you, when you are connected to a higher power, at least in my experience. And then I know that if we travel as a community, because work is going to require that, I'm not going to find myself in environments that I don't want to be in. Because we've built a team that's like, no, we just don't do that.

Mike Bledsoe (1:30:06)
Mm -hmm.

AJ Richards (1:30:21)
And so, because one of my favorite quotes that I heard a long time ago that really was kind of put me on the path of making sure my family was right. And it was during Rush Club. And it came from one of my dear mentors, Steve Hardison, the ultimate coach. He shared it, but it actually didn't come from him. I don't know the original source, but no amount of success will ever make up for failure in the home. Dude, I'm like, okay, like.

Mike Bledsoe (1:30:47)
Mm.

AJ Richards (1:30:51)
And that's so true. I don't want to be some wealthy old man that has no wife, no kids. Everybody hates me. And I've got all this stuff. Cause I know at the end of the day, it is not going to matter. That is not what I'm going to care about. So surrounding myself with people who, who feel and act and believe those things, make sure that we can move faster because we're not fixing things as we're going. It's like, everybody's just marching to the same beat and we all know. And.

Mike Bledsoe (1:31:03)
Yeah.

AJ Richards (1:31:19)
The other thing I think has made it really easy to build that team is making the open declaration that we're not selling because then it weeds out anybody who's focused on profit first. They're just like, especially when I'm talking to VCs and I don't fault them, there's great places where venture capital makes sense. But what we're doing is a mission and a purpose. But when I'm on the phone with a VC because they're like, ooh, this is gonna make a lot of money. I was like, yeah, we're never selling. They're like,

Mike Bledsoe (1:31:26)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

AJ Richards (1:31:47)
So there's nowhere for us to participate here. I'm like, nope.

Mike Bledsoe (1:31:52)
Yeah, there's some VC. There's some VCs that are out there that are, not as focused on, I mean, they, they profits necessary, but it's not the primary thing they're looking at. It's okay. We need to have profits and are we also creating something good for the world? Yeah.

AJ Richards (1:32:04)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, right. Exactly.

So yeah, that's kind of been the journey. So we launched two and a half months ago. We did a soft launch so that we could test the bugs out. We've done little over $10 ,000 in transactions, which was done between multiple farmers and ranchers that are on our platform from multiple people in different states all across the country. So we've now proven that this model works and it makes sense and that people want that. And so now it's just a matter of iterating.

and then like I said, our marketing campaign.

It's a crowdfunding. So we're going to raise our next series, three to five million dollars through crowdfunding. That way we can avoid adding anybody to our board. Right now, it's the same three people that started this is on the board. And that's our main goal, because then we can always make decisions from why we set out to do this in the beginning. So that'll launch in July, which will also, of course, drive traffic to the platform for sales. And so my primary focus is meeting producers. I.

I get to teach a lot of abundance over scarcity with producers because epigenetics is really strong in the community that for the last multiple generations, it's been manipulated to not help them. That's why we've had this massive decline in farms and ranches. And so here I come and I'm like, you know, they're like, we've heard this all before. And I'm like, yeah, but

not from somebody like me and not from me and not somebody who has all these personal connections. So it's these are fun conversations because I get to lean into abundance mentality with a community that isn't familiar with that. I mean, so yeah, it's cool. It's been great.

Mike Bledsoe (1:33:48)
Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Where's this gonna be in three to five years?

AJ Richards (1:34:04)
My goal for this in three, in three years, three to five years is that we have producers in every state across the entire country, farmers and ranchers, sell and direct in every state across the country. And I think we're going to see a miracle in the sense that we will, we will evolve as fast as some of the other industry disruptors like Airbnb and Uber. And so,

you look at the rate of their growth and they were impressive. Like five years, they were household names. Uber did not scale slowly. And there's enough awareness that people know that we need something different. And so, yeah, three to five years from the farm will be a household name. And we'll also see a...

Like our primary goal is to build something so easy to use that people can leave the city and go get a small piece of ground and grow food and sell it and make money because we created the platform for them to do that. And we handled all of the marketing to bring those customers.

We do we are in a position in our country now we need to see an agrarian movement, or we will have famine, it's, you know, I don't say that to be like scary or to be intimidating. It's just what it is. If we don't make those changes in the next few years. There's this book, this book right here is called Red Famine. If you're listening and not not watching, get it on audio. It's a it's a blueprint for what's coming.

And so I think we can effectively change that if we can simplify the marketplace, just like Airbnb, I can go park a camper on the side of my house and make a living by renting it out all summer through, you know, because I'm just outside of Yellowstone. If I can simplify the selling through direct process and build a platform that millions of customers are going to, somebody listening right now might be sitting in a cubicle going, gosh, dang, I'm dying on the vine here. I would love to farm.

I would love to grow food, but I don't know how to do all the things that are part of that to make money. In five years, we're going to need food growers. You just got to show up and there's people waiting. So that's what we see. Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (1:36:21)
Right? Right? Nice. Or can people, anything else you want to leave the veterans who are listening?

AJ Richards (1:36:29)
No, I think we covered it all. Just work on your, and like, listen, if you're feeling, I think that, yeah, this is what I'll say. If you're feeling hopeless, look for the places that you haven't, look for the stones you haven't turned over yet. Mike and I had some good conversations on here about plant medicine, and sometimes that has stigma to it that you maybe didn't consider, but.

I'm telling you, my family is a walking miracle of what those things can do. And so consider it. Find people that you can trust to help guide you through that. Straight up, you're going to be probably living in somewhere where it's not allowed, but they're even talking in Congress right now. MDMA surpassed psilocybin for veteran therapy, veteran therapy for PTSD.

There's a reason for that because it works. And the only people it doesn't work for is pharmaceutical companies who want you hooked on SSRIs the rest of your life and not actually getting better. So don't be afraid to consider things outside of what you have thought about before because it could make all the difference in the world.

Mike Bledsoe (1:37:37)
Awesome, thank you. Where can people find you? Where can they get some food? And your Instagram account has blown up in the last year. You put out really great information. Tell us where we can find you.

AJ Richards (1:37:41)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, so Yeah, thank you So our website is from the farm .io and my Instagram is a period J underscore Richards You can also find me on exit at AJ Richards, and I apologize for all the banging on going on

Mike Bledsoe (1:38:05)
Well, thanks for joining us, even though you had a little construction in the background. I think the content was rich enough that people were able to deal with it. So appreciate it, brother. Love you.

AJ Richards (1:38:14)
Good. Thank you, man. Love you too, man. Appreciate

Mike Bledsoe (1:38:17)
Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Mission After. Before we wrap up, I want to remind you about our free resource, the 10 surprising military habits that are sabotaging your career and your life. This guide is packed with valuable insights to help you overcome common challenges faced by veterans transitioning to civilian life. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take control of your career and life. Head over to the missionafter .org to download your copy now. It's completely free and could be the game changer you're looking for.

If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your fellow veterans and friends. Your support helps us reach more people and make a bigger impact. Until next time, stay curious, stay intentional and remember your mission after service is just beginning.