Transformation & Leaving the Industry
You stepped away from bartending and spent time in rainforests, working with indigenous communities. What led you to that decision?
“I think it burns my sense of truth
To hear me shouting at my youth
I need a way to sort it out.
After I die, I’ll re-awake,
Redefine what was at stake
From the hindsight of a god.
I’ll see the people that I use,
See the substance I abuse,
The ugly places that I lived.
Did I make money? Was I proud?
Did I play my songs too loud?
Did I leave my life to chance
Or did I make you fucking dance?”
The first lines of ‘Global Concepts’ by Robert Delong described how I felt perfectly.
Honestly, I was going to take my life. After all that had happened, I wanted to die.
Also, something to note—it was the hospitality industry that I left four years ago, not bartending, as at this time, I was a consultant. I had stopped bartending day-to-day back in 2013.
But at the time I left, it was because of all the heartache I had experienced, and the world was different after the pandemic.
Plus, I had been canceled. I had no friends anymore, no business. No one would talk to me. I could go months without a phone call from anyone from my past life—only indigenous folks asking for money. And I gave it to them.
But at the time I wanted to kill myself, I also had a lot of money.
I had made some good investments and sold my companies/projects that I had built, and this is what kept me alive—as the same week I was arrested and about to end it all, all this money was dumped on my lap by the universe.
So instead of killing myself immediately, I made the decision that I was going to spend three years giving away everything I had earned in service to the indigenous and ancestral ways under the prophecy of the Eagle and Condor.
Not a little, but a lot of money. And myself.
I had planned to take my life on my birthday, during the eclipse, in a ritual that was the same as my Toltec/Aztec ancestors. But I was only going to do it after I had corrected the legacy of what I wanted to leave behind and how I wanted to be remembered.
I even collected the ancient obsidian blade I was going to use.
But over the years, I would discover the universe had other plans for me, and I only needed to feel these ways so that the universe could humble me once again through the multiple deaths of my own ego, which I will describe later.
So for three years, I lived my life on the edge, putting myself at risk to protect, secure, and fight against things others wouldn’t understand—giving away everything of myself I had in the process.
It was my cleansing.
As well, there are many secrets in the jungles and remote places where I work. And over the years, I had seen and knew too much.
I mean, it was right during the beginning of my downfall that John McAfee, of McAfee antivirus fame, was challenging me to cocktail competitions in the jungles of Kathmandu over Twitter.
This was when I was deep into my studies of poisons and venoms.
“Two men walk in, one man walks out,” he would say.
He knew I knew some secrets, and we talked many times on the phone before his suspicious “suicide.”
And it was during this time that I was not only providing aid to the indigenous communities and securing ancient things, but also encountering deeply troubling forces—some criminal, some spiritual, and some that defy explanation.
On my last investigation, I came across people connected to fringe esoteric circles and belief systems, including those who claimed transformation through ancient rites.
While this may sound unbelievable to many, these realities are acknowledged by the communities I serve.
And it was my mission to fight all the bad in the world before I took my life.
This is how I earned the respect of the indigenous leaders.
Sacrifice.
I was ready to sacrifice everything for them and for the good of the world.
But as I said before, the universe had other plans.
By the way, I think it is important to say that with all the things I mention—that may sound too crazy, mystical, or impossible—I learned years ago to do the due diligence of securing and keeping proof of everything.
And I either have proof, witnesses, or both to everything I present.
So stay with me here.
This article is not only an interview, but also my big reveal and evolution.
What were the biggest lessons you learned during your time living outside of the industry?
Magic is real in the universe, and I can be a powerful force of light for it. It’s just a quantum science we don’t know how to understand or explain yet. That is the first thing.
So, for the past ten years, I have been traversing the globe studying ancient, obscure, international, and indigenous drinking culture, recipes, rituals, and ingredients—trying to catalog them before they were lost.
Of the three main human necessities—to breathe, to sleep, and to consume—the first two come naturally. But consumption has to be aided and taught.
And the first consumption is drinking a beverage.
So, there are more secrets in the connections of cultures in the study of beverages than I believe anything else.
These studies would quickly turn into providing help, service, and aid to various indigenous communities around the world, because I could not just study the knowledge and not reciprocate help where it was needed to the people I was taking the knowledge from.
What started small—such as delivering food, supplies, or medicine—turned into helping build schools, fixing community centers, sending leaders to important international activist gatherings or peace conferences, or rebuilding farms destroyed by storms, etc.
I did these types of things for five years in service to a prophecy I was introduced to during that time (and various leaders said I was important to) called the Eagle and Condor.
The Eagle and Condor Prophecy is an ancient teaching shared by indigenous cultures of the Americas, foretelling a time when the Eagle (representing the mind, science, and the North) and the Condor (representing the heart, spirit, and the South) will reunite after a long separation.
This reunion symbolizes a coming era where humanity balances technology with wisdom, logic with intuition, and material progress with spiritual harmony.
The prophecy speaks of unification, healing, and the need for collaboration between different peoples and ways of life to restore balance to the world.
This spoke to me. Loud and clear.
At the same time I was being introduced to the prophecy, indigenous people were showing me secret things and places that no other white man had seen before—things that defied history.
I was also starting to have mysterious things happen, and mystical abilities start to develop.
Things I will not go into too much depth with here.
But, I still felt… stagnant. Felt like I was on the outside looking in on the truth.
But three years ago, everything changed. All my service under various leaders and councils added up and mattered to some of the most influential indigenous leaders in the world, including someone I now call my close friend and brother, Mindahi Bastida, ceremonial master of the Otomi Toltec and Director of the Council of Earth Elders of the Eagle and Condor Prophecy.
If you have never heard of Mindahi, not only is he an amazing spiritual leader, warrior, and defender of Mother Earth, but he is also the man who delivered the letter to the Pope, which convinced the church to formally renounce the Doctrine of Discovery. He is currently featured in a film called A Condor Over Shambala, which documented his and the Council of Earth Elders’ prophetic meeting with the Dalai Lama in the Himalayas for the Eagle and Condor.
It was under him that I would serve as Ambassador and Special Advisor for the Grand Council of Earth Elders of the Eagle and Condor. Part of my volunteer job was to advise the leaders in business matters of the Western world, act as an ambassador speaking for the council at gatherings the leaders couldn’t attend, and help to balance, restore energy, or lead expeditions to recover ancient, secret archaeological sacred sites of knowledge, along with the artifacts from these places. These artifacts were to be placed in the anciently mandated Houses of Original Thought, which are being built by indigenous leaders around the world—essentially, the new temples of a unified humanity.
For the new dawn.
We were completing the last mandates of Moctezuma, uncovering the things he had hidden away for this moment, in order to heal the world with the truth.
Mindahi and I spent much time together, and he taught me many things as a student and guardian of the Great Mystery, a very important concept in spirituality. He helped to have me cleansed in ancient ways and unlock much of my mystical and ancient abilities.
Two years ago, he told me that there is a powerful temple in Michoacán, and we need to go make offerings to it and balance the energy. He said that it is an ancestral temperature gauge of the health of the world and that it is very sick and needs honoring.
So, during the Día de los Muertos festivities, he and I, along with a documentarian, traveled to the ancient site in the Ihuatzio Archaeological Zone to honor the sacred place—one that is at least over a thousand years old—with offerings, blessings, rituals, and prayers.
A few months later, this temple, which had stood the test of time for over 1,000 years, collapsed on its own—an apocalyptic sign to the Purépecha people.
How does that happen?
During this time, I am leading expeditions and excavations under Mindahi’s direction to help recover an ancient, secret site in the mountains of Lerma near Toluca, not far from Mexico City. This is an ancient place with unexplainable sites, artifacts, and phenomena that defy history and sometimes science.
By the way, we had a press conference when we began uncovering the site, and it was in the news and media in Mexico and Latin America, but most people in the English-speaking world have no idea what I was doing and how big it was. Our discovery is huge. Because it isn’t just one site—it’s a giant kingdom.
As I am dealing with ancient things and beginning to feel dark forces looming around me during this work, Mindahi takes me to a secret curandero known for his exorcisms using shamanic tobacco medicine on the site of the now-destroyed original pyramid of Teotihuacán.
Long story short, in the middle of the ceremony, I am burned in my chest by a cigar to scare the demons out. Burned pretty good. And by the end of the ceremony—30 minutes later—the burn was gone.
By the next week, I am hanging by a rope off the side of a mountain, being the first man lowered onto an ancient site in hundreds of years.
A site that is a secret entrance along the side of a beyond gigantic carving of a face and hand of the ancestors on the cliffside—exuding a magnetic energy that throws the electronics of the drones off so that they can’t fly too close to get a good view of what I am about to be dropped into.
As I am doing this, Mindahi is on the cliffside above in prayer, sending blessings protecting me and my mission, while I clench an amethyst amulet in my hand as an offering to the ancestors of the entrance I am about to find. (Don’t worry, I haven’t given the entrance away. It’s not where you think it is.)
Three years before that moment, I was training people to make Old Fashioneds.
These are but a few examples of experiences I have had—not even the craziest.
So, you can’t tell me magic doesn’t exist.
And the second most important lesson I learned while living outside the industry is this: personal growth happens the most when the ego dies.
My journey has been marked by a series of metaphorical and literal deaths—each one stripping away a different layer of ego, forcing me to let go of who I thought I was, to rebuild who I needed to become.
Changing my own personal alchemy.
The first “death” was when I hit rock bottom during the pandemic, a slow decline between 2019-2021 after being hacked, doxxed, falsely accused, and arrested.
I was publicly crucified, my career in ruins, and my personal life shattered.
And I couldn’t comprehend it—as I may not have done everything right, but I hadn’t done anything wrong, I felt.
It broke me down to the point where I didn’t want to live anymore, like I said before, and I began experimenting, teetering on the edge between life and death.
Hanging myself the way my hero Anthony Bourdain had done.
The only thing that made me wait was the money I had.
This was the first ego death—the loss of reputation, success, and the persona I had built.
Then, in 2022, I tested myself in a very literal, ancient way: swallowing a rosary pea, one of the most poisonous seeds on Earth, used traditionally in initiation rites.
In Central America, it is handed to you when you do something good or as a sign of good luck.
But inside is a dangerous poison, and in many cultures, they would say if you swallowed and survived, you could withstand anything.
The science is: if the shell doesn’t crack in your body, you live, but if it does crack, you die.
A game of chance.
And one day, at the end of my rope, it was a conscious confrontation with mortality, a symbolic death, knowing the risk.
I looked at my BriBri friend in the eyes and swallowed one right in front of him.
A commitment and hope to my importance to the universe.
This is not something anyone should attempt!
But it’s where my mind was.
Then I encountered an unexplained physical sickness I endured through 2022-2023—left my body covered in sores from recurring swollen lymph nodes that would burst, painful bruises that could blister, and enlarged organs, like something was trying to purge itself out of me.
Even though doctors were scaring me with ideas of plague and cancer, and none of the initial tests could figure anything out, I refused to continue seeing them and receive a Western diagnosis because, as I was taught by the elders, I should not give that sickness power or a name—it was not mine.
I accepted it as part of the transformation, another death.
And I leaned on natural ancestral medicine to heal.
Slowly, all the problems began melting away.
It has not come back since.
And in 2024, while crossing a street at night, I was in the middle of the road and heard ancient words I recognized from hearing on sacred sites—
I turned in the middle of the road to look in the direction where the words came from—
and am immediately struck by a motorcycle with no lights.
I woke up bleeding in the street, surrounded by people who thought I was dead.
Even though I could barely walk, I didn’t go to the hospital—I went back to my healers.
It took time to walk properly again, but it was the final blow I needed to wake up fully.
And it is what kept me from finally taking my life in the ritual I had planned for three years.
It happened the same week.
Each of these events—suicidal ideation, the rosary pea test, the sickness, the accident—was another burial of my ego.
It felt like the universe was systematically stripping me down, forcing me to surrender everything I clung to: identity, pride, control.
What remained was something much more powerful, humble, and real.
It wasn’t until all these versions of myself “died” that I could truly step into the role I was meant for:
To help others transcend their own ego and pain.
You mentioned studying ancient drinking rituals, ingredients, and hospitality traditions—what insights did you gain from those experiences?
Soooo much. Let’s talk about each one, one by one.
Ancient Drinking Rituals:
One of the most eye-opening realizations for me was how drinking rituals, across cultures and throughout time, share similar structures and purposes.
They’re not random—there’s a scientific and spiritual function behind each step.
The smoke may be there to keep away pests, the songs to aid in fermentation, etc.
It blew my mind when I once participated in an ancient indigenous ceremony and recognized elements that mirrored a social fraternity initiation I went through back in college.
It made me understand that the way we gather, share drinks, initiate people, celebrate, and even mourn is woven into human nature—and these rituals are there to bond us, align energy, and transfer wisdom.
There’s a reason these ceremonies exist, and they’re far older and more intentional than we tend to acknowledge.
And by studying them, we may even find elements of our unified cultural origins.
Ingredients:
Another powerful lesson I learned is that everything—every ingredient, every element—has a purpose, and we can control that purpose.
Indigenous teachings showed me that our mind plays a key role in how we interact with ingredients.
Intention transforms them.
Take this nut in Costa Rica that I do not remember the name of, but it has tiny hairs on the shell.
When the elders grow old and start losing their hair, the men cook it and wash their scalp with it, and then their hair grows back.
After studying this, you will find out that there is no scientific explanation why, besides this:
The nut has hair, so the indigenous believe it will make them grow hair—and their mind, body, and spirit are so aligned that it actually works.
The mind is a very powerful thing.
As well, you can use something to heal or harm; too much of anything becomes a poison.
It’s all about balance and purpose.
The plants, the elements—they’re not just flavors or tools.
They carry energy, medicine, and memory.
That changed how I approach ingredients behind the bar and in life.
Hospitality Traditions:
As for hospitality traditions, I discovered there are far more secrets connecting our unified global traditions than most people realize.
Whether you’re in a rainforest, a small bar in Sicily, or a tea house in Asia, there’s an underlying blueprint guiding how we serve, connect, and honor each other.
It’s almost like a hidden language, passed down ancestrally, that still whispers beneath all of our modern practices.
The deeper I dive, the more I realize hospitality is one of the oldest and most sacred forms of human connection—and it’s far more mystical and universal than we give it credit for.
Many bartenders struggle with the lifestyle—long hours, heavy drinking, burnout. Was that part of your reason for leaving?
No. But I did fall victim to some of these issues at points within my career.
Don’t get me wrong, in my younger years, I was a WILD, WILD man.
And some of these things had definitely caused me problems in the past, but by 2018, when my personal Pandora’s box of problems began to open, I had worked myself into a personal balance that I found very accommodating—although I was never happy.
When I pressed the lawsuit, I hadn’t drank in almost a year, was sleeping regularly, and gaining traction in my career.
Everything that happened made me feel like I was a victim of outrageous fortune and unpredictable circumstances.
That the universe was choosing to test me.
But towards the end of going through all these things, I definitely did start abusing myself and self-medicating.
I wasn’t handling all the weirdness well.
Everything seemed so un-understandable and bizarre.
I couldn’t compartmentalize.
So, by the time I left the industry and went into the jungles, rainforests, and deserts to be of service, I was in a very, very, very dark place—so lost, unhealthy, strung out and fat.
But these things were the aftermath, not the reasons for leaving at the time.
It’s funny too.
I was never trying to heal.
I wanted to die, like I said before.
But it was during this time of my life in service and after ceremonies of natural ancestral healing, that something in me finally clicked.
I got very sick, did a very powerful ayahuasca ceremony in preparation for an ancient site recovery expedition, and then something in me changed.
Like the universe and ancestors had granted me the permission to do my work as long as I walked in the light.
I will discuss this experience further below when I discuss the Tekmar Healing Journeys that I am hosting in Peru.
I still drink from time to time, but it’s not often at all.
Almost never.
And it’s for pleasure now, not pain.
That being said, these dangers plague the hospitality industry and must be approached with wisdom, purpose, and nobility.
