Turning a passion into a thriving business and bringing flower power to the world

Show Transcript

Sean: 01:01 All right. Welcome everybody to the podcast. I’m your host, Sean Tierney and I am here today virtually with Katie Hess. Katie is president of Lotus Wei, a company devoted to discovering unique flowers worldwide and infusing them into flower elixirs for transformative results. Katie is host of the flower lounge podcast with listeners in over 60 countries. She’s also author of the book Flower Evolution and she was owner and founder of the SAN center, which is a massive building in North central Phoenix that had the opportunity to tour when I was there last year. And I know she has some big plans for that project. So welcome Katie to show. Definitely. And this is awesome because we caught up about a year ago when I was in Phoenix and now we get to catch up again and record it. So I was on your podcast and now you’re on our podcasts.

Katie: 01:47 It’s so nice to be on the, on the other end.

Sean: 01:49 Yeah, definitely. So I’ll just give listeners a quick context for how we know each other. So we met, I think back in like 2013, 2014 ish in the Phoenix scene. And then you actually became a client of mine at the time. We did some work on your website and helping with some marketing automation and whatnot. And then we’ve just kind of stayed in touch since then because you have like this amazing business that is just like keeps growing every time I look out at your webpage. Looks awesome. Now. but can you just tell our listeners what is Lotus way? What do you guys do? What’s it all about?

Katie: 02:19 Yeah, so we go into the wild and we look for flowers that have special healing qualities and we get them into a form essentially that you can drink or put on the body. It’s kind of close to like homeopathy in that it’s more like the life force of the plant and essentially it boils down to boosting your mood and just like helping you be at your best all the time. So like cutting, getting rid of static, like reducing the effects of EMS like boosting your natural energy so you can find your, your own natural balance.

Sean: 02:51 Cool. And I think what’s incredible like at what point, clearly you love flowers like as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been fascinated by them. It’s so cool that you’ve been able to make this your thing, like a successful business out of it. Like at what point, I’m assuming this was a hobby for a while and then it became a business. Can you just like kind of take us on the journey of how you develop this business?

Katie: 03:12 Yeah, so I graduated college and then I was like, what the heck am I going to do? I saw all the, you know, my old college friends, like getting huge mortgages and cell phone bills when cell phones first came out. And I was like, you know, I don’t want to get locked into some kind of debt and not really know what I’m up to. So I went traveling, which is something you know well about. Mostly to like search for something that I could use as a tool or method to help people realize their full potential. And so I you know, I’ve traveled to a lot of different countries, lived in a different bunch of different places. I ended up meeting a teacher from Spain who was an expert in flower essences. I was studying all different kinds of natural medicine at the time, and I was like, Whoa, this stuff is cool.

Katie: 03:57 He said, he said, one thing that really stuck out to me, he said, if if 3% of the world’s population were actively working with these flower essences, it would create enough of a ripple effect. Since we’re all in some ways connected to change the outcome of the future. I was like, Whoa, that’s kind of a massive vision. Something that I could get behind for the rest of my life. And then I looked at like all the different plants in the world and all the different flowers and every single flower had a really specific purpose for what it would do for our state of mind. It’s like fascinating. Right? And so then I moved back to the States and I could see that it was pretty much like not very many people had heard of it. I mean, geez, at the time, can you imagine like 20 years ago talking to people about, you know, flowers have healing qualities people and I was a cook nut job.

Katie: 04:47 So the first 10 years I worked with people one-on-one doing just one on one consulting. I don’t think I ever really thought that I would have a product business per se. It was really just like a practitioner, right? And it just got to a point where I was working with clients and I would see them come in like three or four weeks later and I was like, Holy shit. Like there are faces that change their body language changed, their stories, changed, like such a radical transformation. And it got to a point where I saw so many of those, I was frustrated because it was in a confidential setting and no one else could see it. I was like, this should be a reality TV show, like every much just say this. Right? But like no one had ever heard of it. It was like this weird, like I was like, how have I discovered the most powerful, natural, no side effects, like mover of the dial for people that like pulls out all of their strengths and quiet sound, all of their BS. Right? Cause we all have like some weird quirks. And like no one knows about it. It was so bizarre to me. And so that’s when I started you know, getting it into a form that I could reach more people. And then from there it led to writing a book. I’m doing a of like 20 some events around the world starting the podcast and really just focusing a lot more on education.

Sean: 06:04 Yeah. So is is what you do different from essential oils or like help me understand cause I know essential oils, but flower elixirs sounds like it might be something different than that.

Katie: 06:15 Yeah. So I typically think of, okay, so there’s like three different kinds of plant medicine. One is if you look at the whole body of the plant and you are primarily using the whole body of the plant to work on your whole body. So like let’s say teas, tinctures, roots, leaves, all the stuff right is working on our physical body. So like if someone came in to me, to my office and said I have cancer, I would never say like, Oh, just take florescence is going to be fine. Because by the time it manifests in the physical form, you need something like really earthy. We need the body of the plant. Then you move to essential oils. So that’s like the blood of a plant or the immune system of a plant, right? Super concentrated aromatic oils that come from the plant. And if you either inhale or put them into oil and put them on your skin, it will boost your immune system and your circulation.

Katie: 07:07 And then flower essences is kind of like, I know it sounds a little bit out there, but it’s kind of like the consciousness of a plant. And so when you either ingest it or put it on your skin, it is operating on a level that’s like more mental, emotional, spiritual or energetic, you could call it, I think of it as like acupuncture without the needles because you’re the flower essences are working through your acupuncture meridians at the speed of light, like really quick, you know, they said don’t put a hairdryer and a bathtub because electricity moves really quickly through water. So our bodies are primarily water. It’s this super subtle, a form of electricity that’s admitted from flowers.

Sean: 07:48 Got it. So it does almost sound closer to homeopathy. Like you said, like it’s like very trace a trace aspects of the flower.

Katie: 07:57 Yeah, it doesn’t have a scent. And so like if, if you think of like what is, if you like closed your eyes and you were like, what does it feel like to be walking in a field of daisies and then what does it feel like to be walking in a Rose garden and what does it feel like to be in a Redwood forest? Like innately, as human beings, we know that each of those situations makes us feel completely different. We know that like we already speak the secret language of flowers, we just don’t know that we’re fluent in it. And so it is in essence, it’s like bottling that feeling that you get in a form that’s energetic. And to some people that might sound like, what are you talking about? Like, have you ever seen the movie avatar? And you see the, the, you know, like auras around plants and you can actually see in Kirlian photography what the auras look like if our eyes could perceive them. And studies have shown that bees are actually not attracted to flower based on central color. Like we thought it’s, it’s energy and they’re having a conversation. Flowers can even tell bees like, Hey, I’ve already been pollinated, or Hey, I’m ready. There’s a dynamic communication occurring there.

Sean: 09:02 That’s amazing. And so you basically stumbled into kind of this field that it doesn’t even sound like it was anything. And maybe now it’s becoming more recognized. We’re starting to understand about like energies and things that we didn’t know about. Can you talk about, like, so you said that, that you’ve seen some transformative results. Are there any like specific cases, you know, anonymously of course, but can you talk about any people who have like radically changed having gone through your program?

Katie: 09:27 I mean, countless, hundreds, thousands. Just like rattling off the top of my head, like the different things. Some like a widow who came to me, her husband had just died. She came because she had grief, but she really wanted to visit family members, but she was like definitely afraid of flying. And when her husband was around, they would just like take the RV everywhere because she just couldn’t get on a plane. Fast forward six months of working with flower essences, she was like crazy. Like she had so many frequent flyer miles accrued. She was going all over the place six months later. So like fast forward a year she had met a really lovely man in Mexico. I mean, it was just really like fast from like terrified, won’t get on to like, you know, flourishing. I worked with one gentleman who came to me and he was like, I’m in business, I’m doing awesome.

Katie: 10:21 I have no problems and great, but I just feel like there’s more. And he was working on a huge project in Costa Rica with real estate. And then he came back you know, after a couple of months of working with flower essences and he was like, Oh my God. He’s like, I’m starting to understand how this works. He said, I had this subtle level of like a fear that it wasn’t gonna work out. And I realized on the last trip that I was in Costa Rica, I turned off my cell phone. I didn’t worry about who was calling me. It just did my thing, you said. And then when I got back into the States and I got to the airport and turned back on my phone, I had like five phone calls from people wanting to get into business with me. So he was like recognizing that it was his own energetic state that was now facilitating more abundance and money for him.

Katie: 11:10 What else? Anything from like, I can’t sleep to rambunctious kids to, I can’t pay attention to old childhood issues, like pretty much any human condition that you could dream of. There is a flower for it. And when I was doing a lot of one-on-one work, the interesting thing I noticed was that any clients that came to me on psych medications for example, I can tell depressants or anxiety or that type of thing. I never said a word because it’s not my, you know, it’s not in my nature to try to like, like shift how they were making decisions about things. But it was a couple months later, every single person would come back and say, you know what? I think I want to taper off. Like, I don’t think I need this anymore. Every single client I had in a decades worth of work got off medication successfully. And so that was amazing too, just that you could use something natural and it’d be so powerful that even folks who were taking medications could be free of that. Yeah. That’s amazing.

Sean: 12:17 So many questions. So I’m just trying to think where to start. So these retreats, let’s talk about the, the event component of your business. So I’ve seen like you guys have gone to Costa Rica and you’ve gone like to a number of these tropical places and it seems like you’ve, you have an event formula. Can you talk about that component of your business and what you guys do on those retreats?

Katie: 12:37 Yeah, so there’s let’s see. So we launched a book, I wrote a book and we launched it in 2016 late fall. And it really started just from the book cause we were like, Oh shit, we have to do some events like book launch events. And so we set up stuff in New York, Phoenix, LA and Singapore. Where I was traveling to. And I remember the very first event in New York city. It was like, we just like put so many fresh flowers on the floor and Mondalez and candles and we put these huge like huge projection on the wall of TimeLapse photography of flowers blooming. We had all edible flower food. I’m just like really trying to make it special and sacred and beautiful. Like building an alternative offerings to people. And I think I did like a three minute meditation and maybe talked about the book for like 10 minutes.

Katie: 13:26 I mean it was really like a nothing, right. And people would come up to me afterwards like to get their book signed, like in tears, like you’ve no idea how much I needed this. And my team and I were certain like at first we were like, shit, what did we do? Like I don’t like what did we do for people? I didn’t, we didn’t even do anything like w. And then it was like after that moment I realized, Oh yeah, cause we’re all doing, doing, doing. Nobody gets a moment and a permission slip to say, you can just be, yeah, you don’t have to do anything and you can just revel in the amazing spaciousness of being in this rich and full present moment and reconnect with all the things that are so important to you. And from there I realized, okay, we need to do more of these.

Katie: 14:19 And so that started this, you know, huge tour of, of really just wanting to create that space for people to reconnect with what was most important to them as well as to offer them an experience of, so we would say we’d go into a city and I would just like intuitively choose the flower essences that that crowd and that collective consciousness needed the most. And we would kind of work them into different kinds of experiences and have people talk to each other and have really intimate conversations. And by the end, our intention was that people would come away feeling like they had worked with flower essences for six months, let’s just do an experiment, see if it works. And people are just like coming out of these events, like blown away and was best friends. We’d see them here later and they’d be like, yeah, these are my new best friends from a year ago. So it was like this beautiful community coming together, which was a huge part of it. And that led to like more intimate retreats. This year we’re going on another teaching tour. I mean I think, you know, obviously the power of community and so you like take community and then get together a bunch of people whose number one motivation is to evolve is to like personally grow and be better people. It’s like a fascinating kind of like it gives more juice to everything. It makes it makes it even more.

Sean: 15:42 Yeah, for sure. Like I’ve, I’ve been a part of different things like remote year and the nomad cruise experience and it tends to attract people that are like seeking and constantly, you know, wanting to improve and wanting more. And so I can imagine that the same would hold true with in the space that you’re in. It draws the same people out of the woodwork. So it’s gotta be a pretty awesome formula there. So you’ve worked probably with a lot of people now and you’ve been exposed to a lot of different situations. Do you see any patterns in like what, not afflictions, but like what, what are people grappling with right now? Like, is there any common themes in terms of what people are going through that you’ve noticed?

Katie: 16:21 That’s frickin amazing question. Yeah, it changes every year. Let me start with yarrow. Yarrow is a flower that helps her body recharge its natural energy after being on the computer, cell phone, flights, any kind of EMF situations. You probably even remember way back in the old days when we were setting up at the farmer’s markets and we would, and we would, you know, show people like lots of flower photographs and say which flower are you most attracted to? And there was a good amount of years where like nobody was attracted to Euro and including like my business partner, Lisa was like, I think this flower is kind of [inaudible]. Are you sure you want to keep using this? Like this kind of, you know, nobody is attracted to this. And when we went to Japan I realized, Oh wow, no, it is needed because it was post Fukushima.

Katie: 17:11 Every single person in Tokyo that I asked to do that quiz was attracted to Euro and S. And then I would say probably starting two years ago, many, many people are attracted to that flower because we’re just, it’s like the cumulation of being on our cell phones and computers too much. Right? So it’s actually starting to affect our bodies now I’m much less 5g and all that crazy, crazy stuff. So we ended up putting Euro into every single product we make because we felt like it was such a needed essence. And other one that’s popping up recently in the last year is a flower called self heal. The grows in a lot of places around the world. I collected it in Iceland and it a flower that helps stimulate your own body’s natural self healing abilities. So like folks who are like trying to figure out their food sensitivities and this thing makes me bloat up and you know, it’s just helping folks boost their immune systems and cell killing capacity. And then the third thing I would say that is a big thing particularly like right now is receiving is like how abundantly are you willing to receive or do you feel like you have to do everything, have to do it on your own, you have to like prove that you can or can you open up and allow and receive more abundance.

Sean: 18:30 Nice. Yeah, it’s funny, like seems like even the, the self help stuff where people feel they need something, the prescription is still to do more stuff. Like rarely do you hear that. It’s like the prescription is just to sit and receive and be present. So simple

Katie: 18:47 What a relief. You know, when we realized that there’s like nothing actually wrong with us and there’s nothing to fix or so it’s like so liberating.

Sean: 18:59 So what with this, the, the mentor that you talked to who said the 3%, like it would be this radical transformation of 3% of the world was working with flower essences. So is that kind of your, your why or your, your grand vision is you, you could you imagine some kind of threshold where enough people get into it and then it has, like you said, the ripple effect, a hive mind or whatever you wanna call it, where it kind of spreads to those people who aren’t doing it.

Katie: 19:23 I mean I think that was what initially sparked everything. Once I saw the effects that it was having on individuals, it was just like, I just want more of that. Like I don’t care about the number of, the percentage of whatever, although I did add up was like, shit, if I just stay doing consultations, I can only see 76,000 people in my lifetime if I don’t take a vacation. So like that was the impetus for like I’ve got to go, I’ve got to go worldwide. Like I’ve got to spend the rest of my life trying to reach as many people as possible. And the cool thing is thinking of ripple effect, we would find that say like I’d work with a woman and then her husband would have like really dramatic changes as well. Or her children. And then we even started finding out some trippy stuff that’s like pretty quantum physics II where like their extended family was also experiencing a similar type of growth, but they weren’t seeing each other often and they weren’t in the same geo location.

Katie: 20:22 So there’s this study that I often reference, it’s like a 10 year longitudinal study done in Europe where they actually looked at happiness and they found out that if your friend, let’s see, you said Sean, if your friend’s friend’s friend becomes wildly happy, it has more of a beneficial effect on me because I’m your then if someone put $5,000 cash in my pocket or like if my friend’s friend becomes wildly happy, it has more of a beneficial effect to, you don’t even know that person. So there’s like this definite interconnected happiness thing at play. And I don’t know. I think that just gets me excited as well as the fact of like thinking even with just one person. If I could help one person realize all of their true gifts and their strengths and their talents and be able to be more badass and more bold and more courageous and more speak their truth and more, you know, risk taking and more compassionate and kind of gentle and loving and all of the best qualities that’s really inspiring. And then to think about like a whole world of people and it’s just this like massive, everyone reaching their full potential. That’s what [inaudible].

Sean: 21:40 That’s awesome. I mean, if you, if we would have had this conversation like even three years ago, I would have been just sitting here rolling my eyes, but like we were talking before the interview, like I did the last couple of books. I’ve read courage to be disliked untethered soul. And I’m reading Sam Harris waking up right now. And so it’s like, for whatever reason, these are the things that are speaking to me and I’m like very much open to, you know, quantum entanglement and spooky action at a distance and all these things that they’re trying to explain that they can’t, they just don’t know why it works this way. But like, it’s it’s an exciting time to be alive. Like we’re going to within our lifetimes, you know, hopefully some of this stuff will actually, we’ll start to understand the mechanics of it right now. We just know it’s super interesting

Katie: 22:26 And, and you know what, like I, I welcome healthy skepticism. Like there’s a lot of snake oil shit out there too. Like you can’t just believe everything everybody says. But I also believe in, like, if you hear something and you’re kind of intrigued, you can kind of just like put it on the shelf for a while and like let it kind of percolate and see what happens later. Or you can try it for yourself and see like, eh, what is she talking about? You know? But then if you actually, you know, take a flower, like sir, and just see what happens, then you know yourself, you’re not waiting for some like outside guy in a white coat to tell you what you need and don’t need. It’s like total empowerment, you know, you know. Right. And it’s like, ah, what you said was reminding me of like, things that we already know.

Katie: 23:05 So like let’s say you really, really love someone. You’re either in love with someone or it’s your mom or it’s somebody you’re super close to and we’ve all had that experience when we think of someone and then they call us or vice versa or, or you don’t know if it was like simultaneously thinking about each other. Like we know that’s real, right? Yeah, it’s real. Like we can’t explain it, but like, okay, so just because we can’t explain it, does that mean it’s not happening? And there’s actually this CIA specialist in lie detection. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this guy, the view where he, he just like got curious one. I maybe you had no life like me. He just got curious one night and he like started hooking up his lie detector machine to his philodendron can’t from his office.

Katie: 23:54 I don’t know. What was he smoking? I don’t know. I’m not sure. But he did, he started getting fascinated and led to this whole series of studies when he actually realized that plants have a consciousness, they feel what we’re feeling. They feel our emotions. In fact when he sent his partner, his scientist partner was in Russia the plant, Oh, how do I say this? When his partner in Russia had a really stressful day, his house plant started registering stress on the lie detector machine. So it was like, you know, buy local, how do, how do, how do you explain that? Right. And then, and then they then figure, figured out that plants could even identify the murder in a room. Like if you had three people walk through and one of the three people you told them to just like rip off some leaves or destroy it or, or harm someone that you could tell if that person entered in the room. Again, the plants would like freak out on the machine. So like even though we can’t see there, we can’t see a plant stressing out freaking out. Right. But this machine could, so just cause we can’t explain it and maybe we don’t have the capacity or equipment or machines doesn’t mean it’s not happening. So I applaud you for opening your mind.

Sean: 25:11 Yeah, it makes me think of just like our understanding of food for instance. It’s like, until you know, I don’t know as recently as the last 20 years, like things like phytonutrients and like essence of food we’ve, we’ve fought, we had it, we thought it was vitamins and nutrients and minerals and like, okay, we get it, we know how food works and now all of a sudden you have just things that we just weren’t even aware of that are true assets of food. So, yeah, no, 100%. It’s like we, it’s hubris to think that we understand the mechanism of all this stuff cause we certainly don’t 100%, this just popped into my head like with the whole wild flowers or wildfires in Australia right now. Like what does it, what does that represent? Like damaged, I mean, is it wiping out species of flowers that are interesting or like what does that represent to your field I guess?

Katie: 26:02 Hmm, that’s a really interesting question. I I have a colleague in Australia and we’ve been trying to set up a podcast because I, I’m like wanting somebody who’s there on the ground, you know, to explain what’s happening. I don’t think I have a full grasp like on what’s happening. I see things on the news and it’s social media and like I’m, I’m waiting to talk to someone who’s in Australia to like find out what, what’s actually happening over there. So I can’t even speak to it. Educatedly I can say that. And I don’t know why that, I mean like I can say that over time when there are wildfires, if they truly are inspired, that can be a highly beneficial thing that there are certain species in the ground called pioneer species that will then when it gets hot enough, this seed pods will break open and all of these plants will come up to help re nourish and Marie you know, like re circulate all the good nutrients in the soil and grow new growth. But if you have like a bunch of humans lighting fires and creating the fires and,

Sean: 27:09 Or manmade climate change, that’s just tipping it to be so far out of whack. You know,

Katie: 27:15 It’s complex. Yeah. but I, I kind of, I always think of my spiritual teacher, he would say like, Oh my God, like humans, humans think that they can save the world. He’s like, humans can’t save the world. Like who do they think they are? Only trees can save the world. And I just love that perspective because it’s like, like literally it will be the trees that saved this planet. Not to say that we can’t do our part, but yeah, it’s a complex question. I don’t know. I mean I don’t, I don’t, I don’t have a good grasp on what’s happening in Australia. It looks heartbreaking, but you see all the little koalas and stuff on social media. It’s like, Oh my God. But I, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Sean: 28:07 Crazy. let’s talk about your business for a second. So in terms of the, just like the mechanics, cause I’m just curious of how it all works together. I know you have like a membership component. I know you have the physical products that you sell and you have the events and you have the podcast. Can you say how those things work together? Or like, you know, what are the revenue generators in your business and how to things like we’re just the mechanics of the business.

Katie: 29:12 Yeah, I mean, so there’s the, you know, the things that you can find online, which over the last few years we do work with essential oils as well. So when my first started out, I realized that not everybody understood what flower essences were. They didn’t all want to take something in their mouth or in their tea or water that didn’t know what they were. So we, we would combine them with essential oils so that if people were like, Oh, I just love this sentence, this, and that’s all they knew. Great. That’s fine. But over the years we’ve noticed that our market has completely transformed. And now we’re like, the main thing that we’re selling mostly is the adjustable formulas. And then from there, so then we have the like scented essential oil stuff combined. And then we have the flower evolution program, which is subscription program. We send out a new elixir every month, something that no one’s ever seen before that we’ve been out collecting that’s specifically like designed to be what folks need that month. And then from there, yeah, like you said, the events and then the retreats. And eventually this this year we’re rolling out for like practitioner training programs. We also have actually here at the [inaudible] center, we have treatments too, so we’ll do botanical treatments with eucalyptus and fresh roses and flowers and all kinds of weird stuff. And you know, like, like one-on-one services that we,

Sean: 30:33 Right. Well I wanted to talk about the sand center. Can you, what is your vision? I got the tour of the place that’s massive. Like how do you intend to fill that space?

Katie: 30:42 I mean, when we first got it, it’s 15,000 square feet. So it was like, wow, this huge jump. And last year was very different from this year. You know, as things change and we pivot. Last year we thought, Oh, it’s going to be this like massive wellness center and cafe and coworking and, and this year suddenly I feel like, Oh, this building’s too small. It’s like I need to travel, I need to go places. Like, I can’t just be like stuck to a brick and mortar here in Phoenix. And so we just completely pivoted. We still have like the wellness center and events and a store. But now we’re actually looking for folks like people like you who are like creative and interesting and growing to just like rent space and create like a dynamic workspace for folks to grow in. Well, having the freedom to travel and teach and do things.

Sean: 31:38 Cool. So practitioner training is like a, an ambassador type program where you’re going to have people in different places be able to, do you know, some of the stuff that you guys are doing there in the center?

Katie: 31:48 Yeah. So we, I mean we have like 12 main blends, which are like, imagine like a bouquet of flowers that will help you with certain thing like sleep. Sometimes you can’t sleep because you’re too tense sometimes because you’re thinking too much sometimes cause you can’t let go of things that are getting done, et cetera, et cetera. So it’s like a, a blend of flower essences and, and then we have single flowers that are much more targeted and that go deeper and we have over 120 of those. So it’s like teaching acupuncturists and psychiatrists, psychologists and coaches and folks who have like deep experience in humanity and body systems teaching them how they can incorporate flower essences into their work to help magnify the results that they get with their clients. Dope.

Sean: 32:33 That’s awesome. And so your role, that’s this year, that’s 2020 you guys are rolling out that program. Yeah. Yeah, it’s

Katie: 32:40 Exciting. I am applying for a TEDx talk here and so it’s kind of forcing me to like cinch down my message into 18 minutes just to like the broad public. And I’m just really excited about, you know, just reaching more people.

Sean: 32:55 Very cool. Can you talk about like prior to the interview before we started recording, we were talking about like cleaning your clutter in how, just like the dramatic difference that you noticed. Can you just kind of mention that it’s amazing.

Katie: 33:08 Yeah, it’s kind of strange. I just read like 10 minutes before we jumped on, I was looking at stats and Oh, tomorrow, tomorrow, no, Friday is Chinese, new year’s Eve and Saturday’s Chinese new year’s day. So I live with Asians and very immersed in Asian culture even though I’m not Asian myself. And so I celebrate Chinese new year every year and there is a tradition and Chinese cultures that the weeks or weeks leading up to Chinese new year, you’re just like clean, like Matt, organize stuff, move stuff, throw out the old staff. So I’ve been doing that in the building. And when we moved in I was in Costa Rica, so it wasn’t like I got the chance to like go through stuff and only bring in what I wanted. It was just like blah, everything. So I was like, jeez, still seem really good right now. Like what is going on?

Katie: 34:03 Like I’m, I’m not, I have not been on my computer for days. So what I noticed is that the first week or so in the first week or two in January we were up 10% which is like again when that’s not too much to be celebrating, but Hey, you’re up at least. But in the last four days that I’ve been cleaning like a mad woman, we’re up 61% like sales are just flooding and we’re not, we’re not sending out extra emails or doing extra social if anything we’re pulling back to to like sort through and clean stuff. So I think there’s something to this theory about cleaning and making space energetically for something

Sean: 34:43 That is a striking increase. 60 plus percent is pretty amazing.

Katie: 34:49 Weird, right? I’m not even on my computer,

Sean: 34:55 Slammed this thing shut and just take a vacation for the next few days and see how that works.

Katie: 35:00 But I will say, I will say to that note, I have also done experiments when we’re talking about like the doing and the being, you know, we just get like spinning our wheels too much. I have also noticed that oftentimes when I go, well I can’t say vacation because I don’t know what that kind of is, but when I go collecting flowers, it feels like a vacation to me. Yeah. Our sales also increase. Yeah. So I think there’s something to the state of mind of the founder or the folks working in the business that affects attraction as well, don’t you? What do you think about that?

Sean: 35:37 Okay, so I am very skeptical as you know, of just like the woo. But yeah, like I’m open for sure to two mechanisms that I don’t understand and I’ll just, I’ll leave it at that. I don’t.

Katie: 35:56 Okay. I mean, any reason sales go up as something to be celebrated? Right.

Sean: 35:58 Well, no. Well case in point, like I guess when I went on remote year, I was fully expecting, I was trying to just maintain my sales, right? Like I was working for page, they had been with them for a year and I was just, if anything expecting that my sales would dip because I’d be, you know, traveling and like less focused and my sales went up 70% year over year from that experience. And you know, what do you attribute that to? Like somehow I had all those experiences crammed all that in and yet still managed, you know, working less. I had better results. So yeah. Wow. But anyways, back to you. So when you’re going to a new place, like how do you choose what like do you decide what flowers you want to go collect and then go to a new place in search of those? Or do you kind of, you feel drawn to a place and then you find out what’s there? How, what does that process like?

Katie: 36:48 Both, all of the above. It depends on where I’m going. I’ve had experiences where I’ve seen like, Oh, like I just get this weird bug and my butt to go to Iceland and then I see that they have a special kind of orchid and then I go and I like hunt for it for days. So I like that kind of experience. And then I also like just just showing up because I feel drawn to the place and just like basically getting down on my knees and touching the ground and just saying like, can you please show me what it is the people I’m connected to will most benefit from? And then just kind of following the science to see what stands up. Yeah. I mean I can tell you, you want to know a trippy story. Yeah. Okay. So the trip, a trippy story is the very first time I did a flower essence collection.

Katie: 37:33 Since then, I’ve never had an experience like this before. It was in British Columbia in Canada, and I did just that. I just like, I did a meditation, I got down to my knees and was like, just show me, show me what people need. I’m like, surrender. And just I surrender, I get out of the way. I w I, so then I was like deciding which of these two paths to go into the forest and this huge black bear comes out of the, the side of the trees and stops on one of the pathways turns and looks right at me and then keeps crossing the road and lumbers off into the woods. I mean, I waited, I gave him some time, but I was like, okay, I’m going to go down that path. But he just crossed, I’ll take that as a sign. And then I kept walking and eventually this butterfly circles around my head three times and landed on a flower.

Katie: 38:24 So I thought, okay, this is really weird, but I’m just going to go with it. So I collected that flower and then I kept walking and this beautiful shiny like slither right in front of my feet and crossed the path, like a foot in front of my feet off into this patch of white flowers. So I was like, okay, I’ll collect that. And so on and so on like this. This whole trip was just like this crazy, weird, magical experience with animals. I can tell you now, because those flowers were collected over 10 years ago, those specific flowers that I found on that trip were by far the most needed by people. So the white ones that the snake went into was the Euro that revitalizes people from computer fatigue or EMS. The one that the butterfly landed on is this flower called fire weed, which I think every American, probably every person in the world needs, which is for like softening old heartbreaks or like, you know, bad memories from, from when you’re young or things you don’t even know that are kind of like stored in your heart. And so on and so on. But I mean, now I think about it, I’m like, that was so weird and I have never had like that sort of experience with animals before. And it’s strange to think at the time I was like, this is weird, but I’m going to follow it. And then fast forwarding into time that those actually turned out to be some of the most powerful remedies that people need. It isn’t that trippy.

Sean: 39:54 That’s, that’s wild. You gotta look at the ASRS I really like, I went there and it just like, I’ve never been to Hawaii, I’ve never been in New Zealand, but it’s what I imagined. Like if you were to combine those places and just like the lushness of that place I think. I think for sure.

Katie: 40:10 How did it make you feel being there?

Sean: 40:13 Oh, it’s just the freshness of it. You know, like your one minute you can go walk in volcanic rock on the beach and then go, you know, not even 10 minutes up the Hill and you’re in like a tropical rainforest. It’s just incredible place. Cool. so just one more main question and then we’ll flip into my kind of rapid-fire around travel. Like what do you do a lot of travel and I get like the practical purpose for your job that, you know, you’re, you’re there to collect these flowers, but what does travel mean to you beyond that? Is there any, does it give you anything or what does that represent to you? Cause I know you do quite a bit of travel.

Katie: 40:52 So many things. I mean if I think about people, it’s about connecting. I was like thrown into Germany when I was 16 as an exchange student without speaking one word of German. And so same thing in Spain later on, like connecting with people. I remember being in Taiwan last summer and I don’t speak very much Mandarin and it was just so cool to be able to connect with people even though there was like no language happening between there’s like so much that we could share. And then I think, I mean for me personally, I tend to think of travel as like either connecting with people or feeling at home. Like for some odd reason I feel very at home in Asia much more so than in the U S and so that’s always intriguing. And then the other thing that’s really intriguing is just like nature, wherever it is, like the jungle in Costa Rica and the jungle in Taiwan and though wide open expanses in Iceland. And even just like, you know what, there is a place in Southwestern Minnesota that is like, it puts Iceland to shame. It’s so peaceful. I mean it’s like like no matter where you are in the world and what culture and what people that feeling when you just like touch, like tune into the nature. That I think when you feel the vastness of it, we feel small. But then in the smallness we feel connected with everything and I like that

Sean: 42:32 And the answer. All right, well, so we’re going to then transition to the last part of this interview, which is like a series of kind of rapid fire, very tactical questions. So what is one book that has profoundly affected you?

Katie: 42:45 Oh, geez. Does this have to be business related or can it be the first thing that pops in my mind? The life of Milarepa. It’s a Tibetan Yogi who murdered a lot of people. And despite that, managed to attain enlightenment in one lifetime and did like tons of retreating caves. Super inspiring. Wow.

Sean: 43:10 Okay. Awesome. It’s just not the typical story you hear from like a young when it’s one person you would love to have dinner with and it could be alive or dead, doesn’t matter.

Katie: 43:26 Oh, either his holiness the Dalai Lama or the karma, the 17th Karmapa.

Sean: 43:32 Yeah, it’s only, mom is pretty pretty like he’s into the quantum stuff and he’s also very articulate about that. Like it just blows me away how he’s not at all like just woo woo. He’s actually like hardcore knowledgeable as phenomenal. Very cool. Awesome. Good answer. What is one tool or hack that you use to save time or money or headaches?

Katie: 43:58 Hmm. I mean flower essences. Does that count? Geez, that is a hard question. I mean, I can’t think of anything that’s like special or interesting or beneficial for people.

Sean: 44:13 Well, I don’t know. I think I heard one, like in the way you described just closing your computer and like unplugging can actually like the insane productivity can happen when you just don’t focus on trying to be productive, which is kind of an interesting one.

Katie: 44:29 Meditation is huge. I have a daily meditation practice and it’s phenomenal. Is that a hack? I dunno.

Sean: 44:40 So I was actually going to ask you, I’m glad you brought that up. So I, I’ve been doing it for three years and I’m a huge believer in meditation. I first got into it using Headspace and then I did Sam Harris’s app and now I kind of just do my own thing. What do you recommend as a resource for someone who’s completely new to it? Like how do you start with it or what’s the best way to get started with meditation?

Katie: 45:03 I mean, apps are good. I think for me the main thing is about the teacher and like analyze the teacher. Is that someone that you want to be like, is that person laughing and joyful and free and calm? Like do you want to be like that person? Because if you’re practicing their method, you will be like them. That’s really important and simpler. The better, you know, like their, their meditation can be about being bored, being tired, being sleepy. It’s like you’re becoming your own best friends. So there aren’t like flashing lights and Kundalini and like there’s nothing new, you know the simpler the better. And even if it’s like being aware of your breath or like taking a moment to like listen to the sounds around you or feel if there’s any tension in your belly or is there any tension in your shoulders or is there a part of my body that wants attention or what am I smelling in the air?

Katie: 46:10 What’s the temperature, the air. Like I, I often will go to the senses just to sort of give my monkey mind a little job to do so that I can rest in the spaciousness of the present moment. A lot of people will just say like, we’ll just be in the present moment. Right. but like how, so you definitely do need a method and there’s there are so many different things that people call meditation, you know, like visualization and like, I’m not a huge fan of like, okay, now visualize that you’re in a field of flowers and horses come through. And like for me meditation is not about going somewhere else. It’s about working with what’s right here. It’s about work is about like looking at when I’m irritated and when I’m angry and when I’m jealous and when I’m unhappy and when I’m happy and like using all of that as compost to better understand myself and see the wisdom on the other side of the coin of all of those things. So anything that allows for you to have more self awareness is a good practice, I would say.

Sean: 47:19 Good deal. What is one piece of music that speaks to you lately or a musical artist?

Katie: 47:26 I am obsessed with it’s an instrument called Gucci [inaudible] ever since I was in Asia last summer. It’s like a, how should I say? It has like really long strings. It’s something like if you put your hands out to the side, it’s like, I don’t know, maybe a meter long. It’s a traditional Chinese instrument and it’s just like I could just listen to it on repeat for hours and hours and hours. It is so relaxing.

Sean: 47:56 Cool. How do you spell it? I’ll try to find a link and put it in the show notes.

Katie: 47:59 G-U-Q-I-N. And if you want I’ll send you a YouTube video of this woman playing. It’s like my favorite song ever. I can share it with you.

Sean: 48:10 Perfect. Yeah, please send it. I’ll link it so I can listen to it. All right, two questions left. So what important truth, do very few people agree with you on?

Katie: 48:20 I mean the first thing that comes to mind is kind of what I was alluded to before about like all the, the intense emotions I would say. And, and it’s not like I’ve had somebody like openly say, not true, but I think culturally we tend to run away even if we don’t know we’re doing it. We run away from the things that are hard and we run away from the things that trouble us. And if we don’t run away, we harden. And so one of the things I firmly believe is the ability to like sit with whatever arises and to be compassionate and to turn towards yourself and to be able to alchemize all of that stuff arising in that your anger and your rage and your bitchiness and your whatever, all of that stuff is actually really beneficial. That it’s actually, you know, what makes you beautiful if you work with it. Does that make sense?

Sean: 49:17 So the, the thing that people don’t necessarily agree with you on is these negative States that are arising that you can work with them and then ultimately that is kind of what makes you, you and so you kind of, those become teachers in a way almost it sounds like.

Katie: 49:31 Yeah. It’s like the compost. Like no one wants to look at like the stinky gross egg shell, like yuck mold. So there are parts of us that were like, ah, I don’t like it. I don’t want everyone else to see it. This is just bad. Like I’ve got to get it out or stop it. When actually like the compost is, is what?

Sean: 49:51 It’s a fertile ground,

Katie: 49:53 Flowers to bloom and all the good stuff. It’s just a matter of being your own best friend.

Sean: 50:01 Awesome. All right, one last question. If you had a time machine to go visit your 20 year old self and give yourself any bit of advice, what would you say? Sorry, I should have prepped you.

Katie: 50:13 Oh, 20 years old. I would have been in, I would have told myself that you don’t know why you’re here yet and yes it is that what you thought at seven years old is true. You do have a big job to do and you are just about on the brink of discovering what that is. So hang tight, be patient, you will get there. You don’t have to be so afraid of not finding it because it will find you.

Sean: 50:46 Cool. This is like interestingly like this theme is almost through all the guests that I ask that is like this common theme that it’s like it’s okay, you’re gonna, it’s an angsty time. You’ll get through it and you will. It will all make sense later. So it’s like pretty consistent.

Katie: 51:05 I don’t think anyone wants to go back to their twenties

Sean: 51:10 That’s an odd time.

Katie: 51:11 I had an amazing body but I wouldn’t give up my wisdom now for that.

Sean: 51:20 Katie, I think we’ll probably break here. What a, if people want to check out your stuff, like what’s the best place to send them? It’s low Lotus. Way down.

Katie: 51:28 Yeah. Let us say that. Come in the way it’s spelled w E [inaudible] dot com and then we’re on, you know, social and everywhere too.

Sean: 51:34 Cool. What about you personally? If they want to like follow your travels and stuff. Are you public on social media or private or,

Katie: 51:40 I do, yeah. I’m always like, should I be doing this? I have this little Instagram account. I am Katie Hess. So if you want like an update on like the top 10 insights that I’m having every day or where’s mundane useless stuff you can find me there. I’ve been doing this practice, this is pretty cool. Side note, it’s called 10 things. And so basically you write at the end of the day, you just like write down 10 things about your day, like your coffee and your croissant or you’re like, you went to go have Thai coffee or whatever. It’s so interesting to see reflect back like what your peak moments were and what are like the top 10 things that stick out to you about your day. It’s kind of interesting.

Sean: 52:25 Yeah, it is. I’ve been doing the morning gratitude journal of practice, but I haven’t I I I have heard it’s awesome. Yeah, I’ve been doing it. I actually interviewed a lady, Danielle Thompson, who you would love by the way. I would love to connect you with her. But yeah, she got me into it. Just it’s a simple like five minute practice in the morning and you write down like three to seven things that you’re thankful for and it just puts you in the right frame of mind. I dunno, like it’s in like here in Thailand it’s like pretty easy to just look around and just, it’s an amazing mango that I had yesterday or like just the smile for the people here. Like there’s a lot you can just simple things that you can find to be thankful for.

Katie: 53:09 Oh, it seems like such a great time to do it too. When you’re starting your day, what a great way to start your day.

Sean: 53:14 Yeah. It kind of primes you for the rest of the day I think. But I would, I am interested. I know people would say like recapping at the end is useful as well, so that’s cool. Well Katie has been so good catching up. Thank you for being on the show. If you make it to Azores, please let me know. I will meet you out there. It’s one of my favorite places and yeah, it’s really great

Katie: 53:36 Yeah. Thank you for asking such great questions. Really, really nice.

Sean: 53:40 For sure. All. All right. Take care. Cheers.

Link(s) Mentioned

• https://www.lotuswei.com/
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-flowerlounge-with-katie-hess/id1299973199
• https://books.google.mk/books/about/Flowerevolution.html?id=pPpgDQAAQBAJ&source=kp_cover&redir_esc=y
• https://sancenterphx.com/

Books

• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/781448.The_Life_of_Milarepa

Music

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0AAFhx3RmA&feature=youtu.be