Tales from a life of battling pain—physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. I’ve faced it all. Now, my purpose is to turn my experience into a roadmap to healing for others.
The host greets viewers, mentions a favorite song, and sets a warm tone with some light, casual comments to start the session.
The presenter outlines the month's theme 'carry less, move further' and previews this week's emphasis on moving lighter and simplifying life.
The speaker describes the difficult choice to step away from an identity tied to a decade-long project, highlights accomplishments from that period, and explains a growing desire to pursue new creative and wellness-focused work.
He talks honestly about the fear of leaving steady income, his long history of running summer businesses and a brewery, and how the freedom to pursue passions feels both scary and liberating.
The host shares that a ruptured appendix and surgery prompted him to reassess priorities, adopt a more methodical approach, and create a 90-day plan to filter opportunities and simplify his routine.
He suggests small, actionable ways to simplify life—like cancelling subscriptions, letting go of jobs or friendships that no longer serve you, or prioritizing rest—to open space for meaningful pursuits.
The speaker celebrates carrying less and moving faster after simplifying his life, offers encouragement to others taking similar risks, and closes with an offer of support and a friendly sign-off.
Good morning everybody. I figured I'd start with a song from one of my favorite music groups, Who Made Who. It's just been a good morning, sun shining. Got to dance a little bit. All right, on to today. So we've got the theme of the month, carry less, move further. And specifically with this week, I'm excited to talk about just moving lighter, right? I have recently made a hard decision. I have recently ended something and I am in the process of simplifying my life. And I touched on it a little bit in previous in my 2 previous cadre live streams.
But I feel like I should touch on it a bit more because it definitely was a decision I didn't take lightly to put myself in this position where I'm at right now, which is moving on from an identity that I essentially created 10 years ago when we started the endeavor of creating my brewery. And there's been countless amazing experiences that have come over the past 10 years. Fundraisers, just meeting amazing people, establishing an identity for the west side of Lake Minnetonka that didn't necessarily exist before us.
So I'm super proud of what we've been able to accomplish over these last 10 years And, being the creator that I am, I recently got an itch over the past couple years to, continue to create. And I feel I've kind of, I haven't done all that I could with, my current role as a founder, CEO of Backchannel. But I just, I know I can There's more for me in life and alcohol does not serve the great purpose that it does for everybody, right? And I want to lean into something that can help everybody and everybody needs wellness.
Everybody needs the tools to live a super high quality life. And for me, I am, I tried to, I tried to double dip for, I mean, probably even triple dip for the last few years where, I'm running back channel, running my lake weed removal business, and then pursuing my wellness endeavors on the side. And all of my passion, well, I would say not all of it, but the majority of my passion was really geared towards the wellness activities. And that was what was filling my cup and everything Everything else just was kind of more like an energy suck.
So I had to real, I had to dig deep and really understand what's important to me. And it turns out that taking the leap of faith, taking a risk into the unknown to pursue my passions is what was right for me. And is it scary? Yeah. Nothing is guaranteed for me. I don't have. a paycheck coming in right now. So it's scary, right? But this freedom that I have now is everything that I could have hoped for. I started my lake weeder mobile business when I was 19. So that's, you know, that's 2003. It's 2026 right now.
And that's a summer focused business. So I've been, you know, essentially just grinding since I was 19 years old. I'm 42 now. And then you got Back Channel, which is a brewery on Lake Minnetonka. So needless to say, it's a summer heavy business being on the lake. So for the past 10 years, I've had two high octane operations in the summertime. So now I'm stepping into a season that I'm so excited for, so grateful for. I've never had a summer since high school where I've haven't operated a high octane business in the summertime.
And I am it's hard to say no to certain meetings when I've always been on this track of, all right, let's go, keep it going, keep it going, just trying to fit everything in as much as I can. And it clearly took a toll on me, right? My appendix ruptured. And my appendix ruptured because a combination of just stress and lifestyle, right? I didn't have as much consistency in my day-to-day because I was trying to fit it all in. And now I am very methodical with my approach. I am taking my time deciding if I should do something or not.
I've created a 90 day plan with a friend of mine and that has also created a filter system that I'm essentially sending every opportunity through to decide if I want to pursue that or if it fits into my 90 day goals or maybe it fits into my year plan and I sneak it in. I'm just realizing how many how many times I fill my day with things that aren't necessarily moving me forward. And for me personally, I experienced that just a ton in my previous role with all the hats that I had to wear. It was always just one thing to the next, move on, move on, move on, and trying to wait for the right time to elevate somebody and people into our roles.
But into my role, but it's tough to operate a business right now, especially one that's alcohol based. And so I just I knew that in order to get to elevate myself out and to elevate others into a higher position, I got to take the risk. And I'm all about risks. You know, I've been an entrepreneur my whole entire life and I know that if you put the work in and you stay focused, that good outcomes are inevitable. And it's really important to just stay focused and have a good support system around you, whether that's friends, whether that's reading books, whether that's hopping on to cadre and just listening.
Those are all great resources to keep you on track and move forward. So, I'm currently in a place where I'm redefining what my daily routine looks like while coming out of a major surgery where I had an organ removed as an adult. Everybody's always asking, what's the timeline like on that? I'm like, I don't know. Do you know how many people do you know have had an organ removed as an adult? And it's different for everybody. There's no specific timeline. But I'm doing great with that. And as I mentioned before, I'm grateful for my appendix rupturing to force me to slow down, to realign my priorities, to feed my goals better than before.
So if anybody's out there that's in a similar position where Maybe it's small beans and you're just trying to simplify your life by removing a task or something that maybe you're just not enjoying as much. Maybe there's a magazine that you have a subscription to that is just sucking 15 to 20 minutes of your day and you don't know why you do it, but you're stuck doing it and Maybe that's just a small step that you need to open up the floodgates of simplifying your life. Just cancel a magazine subscription, or maybe it's cancel a streaming subscription to free up more time in your life to balance out the risk that you might be taking.
And maybe it is a job, maybe it's a friendship. something that you've been with for a long time. You know, that's hard to move on from, but all of us as individuals are constantly evolving and it's important to recognize when something in your life has run its course. And maybe it hasn't run its course forever. Maybe it'll come back around, but it's important to recognize what is no longer serving you and put it on the back burner cancel it all together and fill that space, fill that time with something that's going to be beneficial for you.
And maybe that just ends up being pure rest because we all need rest. We all need to rejuvenate the soul after we've exhausted it for such a period of time. And if you're in a position where you're trying to carry less and move further, I'm sure you could resonate with that. So for me, I am definitely carrying less right now and I feel like I'm moving faster than I could imagine. And that's because I have simplified my life. I ended something that was no longer serving me and I am pursuing the ultimate passions that are burning inside of me and that's so exciting.
It's freeing and it's everything we should try to experience in life. So if you're out there and you're taking that risk, you can do it. I believe in you. And if you need some support, don't hesitate to reach out. All right, that's my time today and we'll see you next week. Cheers, cadre.
