Voting With Your Dollars by Supporting Ethical Companies | Jeremy Black

Darin: You are listening to the Darin Olien Show. I’m Darin. I spent the last 15 years exploring the planet looking for healthy foods, superfoods, environmental solutions, and I’ve had my mind blown along the way by the people, the far off places I have been, and the life-altering events that have changed my life forever. My goal is to help you dive deep into some of the issues of our modern-day life, society’s fatal conveniences. The things that we do that we’re indoctrinated into thinking we have to, even though those things are negatively affecting us, and in some cases, slowly destroying us and even killing us. Every week, I have honest conversations with people that inspire me. My hope is through their knowledge and unique perspectives they’ll inspire you too. Together, we’ll explore how you can make small tweaks in your life that amount to big changes for you, the people around you and the planet, so let’s do this. This is my show, the Darin Olien Show.

First half of interview text

Darin: So dude, awesome. Thanks for joining here, coming to you from Australia, and I assume you’re in Malibu.

Jeremy: I am in Malibu. Great to see you. Excited to hear more about the journey you’ve been on.

Darin: Yeah. Well, I mean, I was just contemplating before jumping on here and we have so many connecting points. Obviously, your Sambazon journey for the last what, nearly 20 years at this point.

Jeremy: Yeah, 2000 was when we started. It’s over 20 years.

Darin: And then I’ve been running around the globe for 20 years and then obviously with our barukas, I fell in love with Brazil in a whole different way. And even back in the day before you and I really knew each other, I visited your whole facility, got the tours, met a bunch of your farmers. So I can firsthand tell everyone that I’ve seen it, I understand what you guys are doing on a personal level. And we’ll jump into Seeding Change, the film, incredible, conscious consumerism side of that, and both you and I celebrate that at a very deep level. But why don’t you, for everyone here, because it’s such a wonderful origin story and such a big party life, why don’t you just back us up here and set the tone for people that don’t know you and don’t know the story and really, the muse is acai, that kind of has led you down the path and even now producing this film and being in the film. It’s really an extraordinary story and one I personally celebrate because I know what it takes to do so many of the things you’ve done, and you’ve done it so well. So why don’t you tell people that journey a bit and which will set us up for all these other touchpoints?

Jeremy: So 1999, my brother and I met some Brazilian girls at the Rio in Vegas. I mean, if you want to go to the beginning, that is the beginning. The Rio in Vegas. I’m not even kidding.

Darin: I had no idea.

Jeremy: Yeah. And that turned into some relationships. My brother dated this girl for quite a few years. She’s an amazing woman. She took him to Brazil for the turn of the millennium. She’s like, what are you going to do for Y2k? Come to Brazil. Come spend a month with me. I wish I could have gone. I was a financial planner at the time. I couldn’t go. I couldn’t take a month off. So my brother and his best friend went. They were finishing college at Boulder, and they’re surfing, checking out Brazil, and started eating acai every day and fell in love with it. And we’re just like, why don’t we have this? It was on the last couple of days of their trip. They were on this remote island off the coast of Brazil called [00:07:55] It’s like Brazil’s Hawaii, but you can only have like 400 tourists on it per day. There are epic waves, diving, dolphins everywhere. And there’s an acai bar. There are like five restaurants, and there’s an acai bar. And they’re eating acai every day and they’re just like, I can’t believe we’re gonna have to not eat acai when we go home. And then the light bulb went off like, wait a minute, we’re on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. If you can get acai here, why can’t we get acai back to California? So the gears started turning and the pipe dream started happening. They were both in their last year of college. My brother actually was just graduating and he was about to go play football over in Europe. And while he was over there because he was a football player. He just started studying about it and trying to figure out how is this done, how do I put together a business plan. Six months later, he came back and he’s like, I gotta go to the Amazon and I got to figure out how this works. So a family friend lent them five grand. They bought a little Sony Handycam so that they could go video and even video contracts being made. So they had proof if they had made any relationships that they could solidify it for a source. And they came back and said, we have a source and we’re gonna start this company. And I looked at it and I was like, wow, I love my job but if this is what you say it is, this amazing superfood that’s helping to basically create a higher value for the standing forest for the local people than cutting it down for timber, if this works, this will change the world. And this sounds like a lot of fun, and we just went for it. And we were able to raise a little bit of money from my stepdad and we bought a container of acai, that’s a short story long. I mean, a long story short, I should say. And we just started going door to door to juice bars in California in the summer of 2001. Basically, see if they would sell a smoothie that had acai in it because nobody was interested in the bowl thing, that was just way too crazy. But selling a smoothie with acai and making it the more expensive thing on the menu seemed reasonable. And by the end of the summer, we had a couple of hundred juice bars selling it, people loved it. We started expanding, we started getting emails to our website from Hawaii and New York, and Florida. And so we started expanding to all the juice bars. And what can I say, besides Oprah and a few other things, the rest is history.

Darin: Well, there’s so much there as a foundation. I mean, I can relate in terms of your kind of with the locals and kind of wherever in the world and largely, the discovery is mostly, at least to us in foreign lands, being something that the locals are doing on a consistent daily basis, either snacking or having as a meal and everything else. I think most of what I’ve found in the world has come by way of that, hey, what is that that you’re eating and what tastes so good, and all of that stuff, and that story is perfect. And it was really the genesis of then saying, hey, how do we get this incredible bowl and this incredible– even before people using the term superfood, how do we get this exotic purple deliciousness back to the country, and I love that. And very quickly, you realize what an impact that has. And by the way, I’ve personally, again, I was with one of your farmers, and let’s talk about the kind of collection system because you’re dealing with a wild food similar to us in barukas, but you’re dealing with wild food and a very elaborate collection method by way of rivers and things like that. But I talked with one of you and hung out and had lunch with one of your collectors back in the day and climbing up the tree and harvesting and going back and eating with the family. Incredible. And that’s something where, Jeremy you know that people are unaware of even where their apples are coming from, let alone their acai or anything like that. So it’s an incredible chain. So why don’t you kind of take us through like the day in the life of an acai and how that actually gets to you?

Jeremy: Yeah, we call that palm de palm. So basically, acai is a little berry. It’s the size of a marble. It’s 95% seed and you’ve got this little layer of essential fats covered by a really dark skin. And that dark skin is really rich in anthocyanins which are the purple pigments that give blueberries and pomegranates and some other dark purple fruits like their antioxidant prowess. And they and they have all kinds of health benefits. The good fats, as you know, are great for your body all around. It’s interesting because it almost has the fats like olive oil and the pigments like red wine and they call that the Mediterranean diet and that’s been studied. So anyway, you’ve got this little marble-sized berry that grows on top of a palm tree that grows along the banks of the Amazon River, like literally the water source for these trees is the Amazon River, which is one thing to stop and ponder. Like, where are the water source for most of the food I eat, is it coming out of a plastic irrigation pipe or something? This is actually being fed by the Amazon River. So it grows wild in an area that is immense. Everywhere you see the Amazon in Brazil and especially as it grows close to the Atlantic, you see acai everywhere. So there’s this huge wild-harvested acai thing going on. It doesn’t even make sense to try and make crops of it because it’s out there. And that was part of the sustainability. It was like wow, if we can just make these too valuable. No one’s gonna go farm them. It doesn’t make sense. So actually just protect them and it’ll help protect the forest very easily and that’s kind of what’s happened. So anyway, the fruit comes a season a year. And once it’s picked within about 48 hours, it’s bad, it’s rancid, it’s brown. So you have this really small window from the time it’s picked to have it harvested, which requires a guy climbing a tree like you’d see for a coconut. Sometimes it’s 30 or 40 feet. He pulls down a big, big branch that might have hundreds of the acai berries on it. He strips them off, he puts them in a basket, and then he has to get it to a place where it can be basically scraped off the seed and turned into a pulp. At first, we were working with a fruit production facility that was doing things like mango and pineapple, and we help them learn how to flash pasteurize acai because if you don’t flash pasteurize it, there are all kinds of potential issues with foodborne illnesses, E. coli, all that stuff. So it was like, if you don’t get it pasteurized, you’re not even really going to get into the US. And if somebody gets sick, it’s game over. So we knew it had to be flashed pasteurized, but we also learned that flash pasteurization was good for acai because it killed that enzyme that was degrading the antioxidant but it left the antioxidant and the good fats intact. So you have this really nice, like, hey, we can flash pasteurize it, it’ll be frozen, it’ll be clean, and then we can ship it. So this guy gets these baskets of acai to a production facility where they’re stripped. A lot of guys, if they don’t have a production facility, it’s just a backyard little thing and you can do it. It’s not food safe. You wouldn’t want to try and replicate it millions of times and hope that no one gets sick. But in 2005, we learned, as we started growing, we need to be the controller of our destiny by building our own sub facility. And we built the world’s state-of-the-art acai facility to build all the right, customize all the right equipment to do it right. And that’s been a major piece of our differences, the quality control. Two years ago, we opened our second facility. So that’s kind of what we do is we work with the farmers, we help them coordinate bringing all the acai to a place whether it’s to our plant via boats or our collection type of method. And then we quality control. We get the acai frozen, flash pasteurized, and then we ship it either as a finished product or we ship it in drums and finish the products here in the US, depending on what makes sense.

Darin: So for years, maybe most of my life, people have been asking me, “What kind of foods do you eat? What kind of exercises do you do? What kind of water should I drink?” All of these things and so much more we put into a 21-day program so that can take you through a theme every day of knowledge, action, and then eating these delicious meals, working out, getting support, anchoring in these new habits so you can do what? So that you can kick ass. So you have the energy, the vitality to live the kind of life that you really want. That’s what it’s all about. So all in this app, we have grocery lists, we have education about real hydration and what greater oxygenation and the balance of alkalinization. All of these things we are diving into as you’re heading down this hero’s journey of implementation into a new life to give you the kind of life that you actually want. So join my Tribe. All you have to do is go 121tribe.com. Sign up, and you get three free days. Join me on this hero’s journey. Join the Tribe.

Darin: Segwaying into that then got a win-win for whoever’s consuming, you have a win-win for the environment because they have less trees because people don’t realize there’s clear-cutting that happens for sure. But people don’t understand in the Amazon that people like that where they just cut one tree at a time over a consistent period of time when you’ve got millions of people like that, that leads to a massive deforestation and you’re ultimately solving that in a big way with your production there. Then tell me about the genesis of, obviously, you and I celebrate the consumerism as it relates to creating business in a foundational way that everyone wins. And so for you and you guys, talk to me about the moment where that became it’s not just about getting acai in front of me and eating it when it really became about kind of the multi-layered ethnobotany exposure of like, oh, wow, we can create massive change, and this economic model can create change in every way. Tell me about that genesis when that was really clicking in for you guys.

Jeremy: I mean, early on as we were doing our research about the health benefits, my brother stumbled across a quote from Greenpeace saying that acai as a non-timber forest product had massive potential to help protect the Amazon. And we kind of took that and we’re like if this is true and we can help prove this model that it will help make the forest more valuable standing then cut down as a renewable resource, and it can help enrich the lives of the local people to keep them from this thing called rural Exodus, where farmers leave and go to the city and create more poverty and leave the land barren so that people can come and just do with what they may because the main reason deforestation happens is because no one’s there to watch it happen. But if you have a lot of local people that live there and it’s their land, they’re going to protect it, they’re going to call the authorities when there are poachers or people that are illegally harvesting. But if they’ve all left to go to the city because there’s no value, there’s no work, it’s a big problem. So when we saw the environmental and the social impact acai could have, then we realized if we could build a sustainable business, which is the third bottom line, and I’m speaking about something that’s in the film is the triple bottom line, we realized, wow, this is a model that could prove that the triple bottom line works, one of many models, obviously out there. We are an example of this and it’s like here’s our opportunity to do business differently and have this idea of conscious commerce work. Our story kind of from the beginning was to raise awareness because there was also a part of us that was like, if we can prove this works, we can share this story with the buyers at Whole Foods and the buyers at Safeway, and Walmart and Costco. And if they buy into this, we’re going to influence how anyone else that wants to bring acai to the market will have to do it because we could be first, we could almost set the bar of like, hey, if your acai isn’t organic, if it’s not fair trade, you shouldn’t be buying it. And start with the buyers because we don’t have the resources to teach all the consumers that early. But if you teach that to the buyers, you can actually help them make it more available for the consumers. And then pretty soon, all your competitors are going to follow and I’ve watched it like everyone else that’s starting to sell acai, it’s organic, now it’s getting fair trade, and that’s great. We don’t have to be 100% on the market, we don’t want to be 100% on the market. But if we can influence any competition to be organic and fair trade, we did a big thing for us acai.

Darin: That is where the trends happening and it’s certainly exciting and you see it even now more than ever. Some of these bigger companies are seeing the writing on the wall. And they’re seeing that consumers want more. And so I’m curious if you guys ever kind of tried to unpack all of the impacts that you’ve had, and kind of give numbers to it or give like, how many less trees were cut down? I’m just making stuff up, but how many less trees, how many families? I’m curious because it’s such a powerful capital. Largely, I’ve seen a lot of NGOs not to be very effective. Not that there’s anything wrong with NGOs, some work. But this kind of model, I think, when the end consumer is getting something absolutely beneficial to them from a health perspective, and they’re and they understand and then they’re willing to purchase that over and over and over again, which creates the engine to then support all of the infrastructures and continue, I really think that that is– I think that is the future. And so What are some of those things that you’ve kind of now being nearly 20 years and sitting back and reflecting going, wow, look at all these different kinds of impacts we’ve had on the people, the Amazon itself, etc. And you know, offices you’ve built for them, the jobs, you’ve given them, all of that stuff? What are some of the things that you can highlight that maybe people don’t know about orr that people aren’t aware of that by purchasing acai, they can actually support some of this stuff even more?

Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, that’s some of the beauty of the triple bottom line model is just by buying the product, the end product, you’re actually supporting all these things, whether you know it or not. We’ve built schools. I recently came across some data. We’ve done some studies and stuff still in the works, but 300,000 people in the Para State, which is one of the biggest states in the Amazon, work with acai. 300,000 people, and it’s helping people raise from poverty, and we have some data that speaks to that. They’re making more than harvesting timber, a figure that I was given was like, over $1.2 billion of acai is contributing to the Amazon economy. And that acai is actually, this was a number I recently saw, was 4 to 10 times more profitable than cattle for most of these farmers. So the word’s getting out, and they’re starting to realize, hey, the cattle thing is a flash in the pan, you make money, and then you’re done. Your kids aren’t going to get that, but if you can grow and harvest acai, if there’s demand for acai into the future, you’re going to be taking care of your family for years to come. The interesting number to share with that is 4.5 billion is what beef contributes to the Amazon economy. So acai is going to be almost half of that in the next year too and growing. So it’s actually really working as far as turning the tides of this whole cattle slash and burn thing. Now that’s in the area in the Amazon we work, that’s up by the river. That’s not the case at all in other areas of the Amazon, especially the South, but it’s a model and there’s the potential for that model to be replicated with other things like nuts. There are other things and that’s part of what we wanted to share was this is possible. It can start with you and a friend or two or none in an apartment somewhere, identifying something, maybe you experienced something when you were traveling that you love that you knew people would love. Maybe you can build a business that actually can solve a major problem. And 20 years later, we’re not tech, it’s not going to happen in two years, foods a little slower, but 20 years later, you might have a business that has a major impact. I mean, we had a major impact in 10 years. So we we’re pretty proud of it. It was a lot, but it wasn’t like a couple of us. We started with three and pretty soon, we had 10 and it was a lot of people working together. We brought a Brazilian team into the mix pretty early and now we have more probably more Brazilian employees than American, and they’re the backbone of our operation. Without them, we would not have supply, not to mention 20,000 harvesters that are harvesting acai.

Darin: Many of you who follow me know I’ve spent most of my life searching for the healthiest foods on the planet from the Amazon jungle to the Andes of Peru, to the Himalayas and Bhutan, to the deserts of Africa, and everything in between discovering hundreds of plants and herbs and superfoods like this is my passion. Things like sacha inch, an Incan treasure, wild [unintelligible 00:31:41] mushrooms, things like Maya nuts, another Aztec superfood, wild cocoa moringa, many adaptogenic herbs and on and on and on. If you look hard enough, there are a few unknown extraordinary foods around the world that people still don’t know about. And a few years ago, I came across my favorite superfood discovery of all time, barukas nuts. Why is that my favorite? Well, when I first tasted them, my eyes lit up. I was blown away. They’re so delicious with notes of popcorn and cocoa and chocolate with peanut butter, and with this amazing crunch, so the taste alone just absolutely blew me away. But after sending them to the lab, which I do, and getting all the tests, I realized they’re the healthiest nuts on the planet. No other nut even compares. They have an unusually high amount of fiber, which is critical for healthy digestion. We’re all getting way too low of fiber in our diet and it’s good for the healthy bacteria and microbiome. And they’re off the charts in super high antioxidants, and have few calories than any other nut. It’s jam-packed with micronutrients. And what they don’t have is just as important as what they do have because they’re found in the forest in the savanna what’s called the Cerrado biome of Brazil, not grown on a plantation or a farm. They’re untouched by industrial pesticides, larvicides, fertilizers. They’re truly a wild food. But they’re not just good for you, they’re really good for the planet. Most other nuts require millions of gallons of irrigated water, not to mention, using bees and shipping them across the United States and just horrible sustainable practices just to grow certain nuts annually, but Baruka trees require no artificial irrigation. At one time, the Cerrado’s forest were made up of millions of these trees. These trees are incredible. They’re nitrogen fixers. They give back to the other plants in the forest. Their grandfather of sacred trees, but most of them were chopped down to make way for cattle, soy, and corn production. When you’re down in Brazil, it can be absolutely shocking. And actually, I’ve cried several times with miles and miles of deforested land filled with soy farms. This beautiful Savanna filled with soy farms and cattle grazing. Our mission is to reverse that. And the long term goal is to plant 20 million new baruzeiro trees throughout the Cerrado. And if that wasn’t enough, we are also providing highly beneficial and fair jobs for thousands of indigenous people so they can stay on their land and they can thrive with this consistent income every year forging and working with Barukas. Barukas are truly good for you, good for the planet, and good for the world community. It’s a win all the way around. I really think you’ll love them, so I’m giving all of my listeners 15% off by going to barukas.com/darin. That’s B-A-R-U-K-A-S dot com backslash Darin, D-A-R-I-N and using the code “Darin” at the checkout. I know you will enjoy.

Darin: Now you have stats for 20 years, hell, we need to start utilizing that as well to help policy change as well. And to understand that the value, I mean, you know, the Brazilian government is absolutely behind pushing cattle as much as possible when anyone purchases land or has land. So when you can start saying like, hey, look at the value in this natural food, then there’s less opportunity to just decimate the land, and that’s incredible. I mean, that’s huge. And so in the film, Jeremy, what are you hoping people walk away from? The obvious is we need to be aware of our food. We need to be aware of our impact with every dollar we spend, we’re supporting a big box store that has no infrastructure at all about what we’re talking about and largely toxic food. So they have no real interest in the health of the person and the health of the planet, but it is starting to change. And so I hope from the film, and I want to get your thoughts that this wave of consumers realizing that the power of numbers, and we actually as individuals create the change by being aware of this stuff, being aware of the journey of our food, being aware of where the foods from, being aware of the farming methods that are affecting the people, affecting the planet, and affecting these systems. What are you hoping? Talk to me a little bit about the film itself, what that was like for you to jump into doing a film and maybe some of what people don’t know about the journey of that? I’d love to hear it myself.

Jeremy: Seeding change actually started out as just a project to document and share the story of our supply chain because you do it a little bit in the early days and then you try and do it a little better. And then we went down in 2000, I think it was 16 and did it again. And I wasn’t really involved, to be honest. At the time, I was focused on some other projects. And then I got involved and I looked at, I said, you know, this is awesome but let’s try something different this time. Let’s actually share some stories about not just us, but other companies that are doing something similar to us with other things like tea, with soap and with clothing even. And let’s share that it can be done differently. And that’s this idea of this triple bottom line where a company is not just beholden to this financial results because if it’s just a financial result, you’re not gonna pay fair trade wages, you’re not gonna buy organic because you’ll make more money if you do it the other way. And if you talk to the people in the companies that aren’t selling those things, well, they’ll be like, well, the consumer doesn’t want that, they want cheaper things. And so then this concept that we’ve always thrown around the table and wish would take off is this idea that we all vote with our dollar. And I wanted that to become a major part of the film because in the end of the day, if we look back on this film, had we done it just a Sambazon on film, it would have been like, oh, cool, I learned about Sambazon, that’s great. But if we make a film that’s about a whole different way of doing business and the fact that you, the consumer, the person that’s buying all these things have the ability to make the change right now in your life and that impact will ripple. It will be a butterfly effect whether you choose to buy that organic or non-organic banana today in the grocery store because it’s cheaper, will have a major impact on the people that are harvesting that banana in Costa Rica. And if it’s not organic, there’s a chance that the people that live there are going to suffer from the pesticides that are sprayed on it. If it’s not fair trade, they’re probably suffering in poverty because they’re not getting a fair wage. And it’s this idea of like, the change is not going to come from the government, the change starts with us. And it really starts with you doing an audit of where does my money go? What companies am I supporting? What products do I buy? And what is the chain of command of how those products get to me? Is the company that’s behind that product that I buy every day, whether it be a cup of coffee or a gallon of gas, what’s behind that, what am I supporting? We have the transparency these days to start to really understand that way more than we ever did. And we actually are starting to have the choices to make better choices every day. So you can decide I want to buy an organic banana instead of a conventional right now, every day, even at the conventional grocery store that might not be the case at 7/11 but hopefully soon. And you also have a choice of whether you want to buy an electric vehicle or a gas-consuming vehicle and the ramifications of that. You have the choice to decide do I want to get my energy from solar or do I want to get it from coal, in some cases with your power provider? And to take it even one step further, and this is something a lot of people don’t think about is, your investments actually have a major impact on the planet? Are you in that blue-chip s&p 500 stock index that probably got massive profits because companies that like Exxon, or Halliburton or companies that you might even line up in March in the streets against what they do are in your investment portfolio. So that’s a thing that that gets people sometimes too because people don’t think about it like, oh, I want to make money on this company because its stock is going up. But it’s like, wait a minute, do you realize why the stock’s going up? It’s because they’re probably making a ton of money, not caring about the people or the environment. Luckily, there’s starting to be choices with investments too. You can choose socially responsible funds, and there are indexes that are popping up. So as a consumer, we have a massive amount of power to dictate what those companies are going to do by starting to show up and choosing this or that instead. So if you choose, I’m going to buy those recycled materials and clothing, I’m going to buy those organic and fairtrade materials and food, you’re sending a major message to the companies that make them saying I support you, keep doing it. Or you’re sending a message to the other big ones when they do their research, and they say, woah, why aren’t people buying from us anymore? Oh, because we’re not fair trade. Okay, well, maybe we need to fix that. Because at the end of the day, everything follows the money. So they’ll follow the money if the money moves over to sustainable, they’ll go sustainable.

Darin: It is happening. And I think that that’s what’s exciting. So our friends at Footprint, they’re doing a bunch of plastic alternative, plant-based plastics alternative. And I didn’t realize some of these biggest companies on the planet realize that consumers are caring about not using plastic so much, certainly, single-use. And so now, Cargill, McDonald’s, Pepsi, all of these people are doing things. There are all kinds of things that once we become aware of, it’s why I started the fatal conveniences and my podcast so that people who aren’t aware, right, because we assume, Jeremy, that everything on our shelves in some weird way is safe. Like the USDA, the FDA, they have all got our backs. The FCC, whatever those organizations, the EPA, it’s fine. It’s all good. Even [00:39:41] you just name the organizations that we believe is some umbrella that’s creating safety for us. When you peel back the layers and you realize like, holy cow, Teflon is on my dental floss causing hormone disruption and cancer and neutering of my hormonal system and contributing to cancer, endometriosis, holy shit. It’s like one thing after the other, and that’s where the awareness first, which is why I love your film. I finally got through it in all of my craziness. Awareness first, and that’s where the beautiful thing of people seeing this stuff. And think about extrapolating that to every product that people are consuming. Do you really know what this is and where this is? And do you trust this company to provide health for you? So yeah, dude, obviously, I’m passionate about this stuff, too. And just think about that and just using the Amazon as an example. A couple of guys went surfing, they had acai, they’re enjoying it, it felt good. They told you, you jumped in. And next thing you know, a few people created a business that’s having billions of dollars a year in impact, or throughout the lifetime of it. So literally, people have to realize that if your family changes its buying habits, that’s change. And then that mom is going to tell that other mom. Tell me that doesn’t exist, right? So the moms coming together, change the fabric of our worlds. I mean, what’s going on in the home is run by moms. And so I was just talking to a couple of other moms the other day that we’re just like as soon as those kids are born, and you see the fragility of those children, for some reason that kicks in the reptilian brain and that protection comes on full-on and now that whole household is different. And that’s where I think really that this sits in the pocket of I hope every mom hears about this film and listens to it, and then starts taking that extrapolation into everything. So what are the plans for the film? Maybe just break that open a little bit? We talked earlier, it’s going around with some film festivals, it’s getting some awards? Like what are your hopes now for the film? And how can people tune into it, watch it, get themselves exposed to it?

Jeremy: Yeah, it’s gonna launch on Earth Day. So we’re coming up on it launching. It’ll be available on iTunes, Google Play, anything like that. And we’ve got a distributor who’s taken it to the big streaming channels, hopefully, it’ll end up on some of those. But you can always find it by going to seedingchangefirlm.com and there’ll be a way to go see it. One of our key strategy is actually getting it on to this paltform for colleges in universities to actually be able to use it as a learning tool for professors. And we actually created a lecture that goes with the film in case the professor does not know enough about sustainability to feel like doing it. And this day of Zoom classes, it’s like, hey, here’s a great learning tool and a lecture that you can learn. We even have quizes and stuff like that. And the Seeding Change film will also have some resources to learn more about how you can learn to vote with your dollar. The other thing I wanted to make sure I shared was there’s a lot of gloom and doom when you talk about the evironment and what’s going on but we really wanted to make this filr that actually talks about solutions and the fact that the solution’s in your hands, it’s you. And it’s not gonna happen overnight but as the word spreads, as we all get better at understanding what we’re supporting, the tide will shift. And I really believe there’ll be a lot of innovation, a lot of people that are learning right now about these models and how to do this, or gonna go start companies that are donna solve some of these problems, a lot of easy gloom and doom problems we have, and come up with better dental floss or better, you know, you name it, diapers. We need all those choices. I remember when we started Sambazon, there was a couple of hundred whole foods in a few natural food sotres but that was it. And now it’s like the choices are way more out there right now. There’s organic foods in every grocery store. There are recycled texttiles, clothings that’s made from stuff that’s already been used so you don’t have to do fast fashion. There are so many things out there that we have an option to choose right now. I just hope people get educated. I hope 20 more films get made about voting with your dollars. So people just keep hearing it and learning it. So that’s what’s up with those, man. We just hope the word gets out there and we’re excited about what’s happening right now in the world, actually.

Darin: I support that message a million percent. Solutions are in our hands and solutions are gonna come by way of our commitment to ourselves, to our family, to the world aligning our values. And I love it, dude. I’m proud of you. I’m stoked.

Jeremy: Thanks, man.

Darin: Yeah, it’s like getting to know you more and more over the years. And now we’re both rebuilding our– we both lost our homes, so we share that bond now.

Jeremy: Climate change is real, man. For us, it’s bad.

Darin: It wacked us pretty good. We have to look at our lives and at the environment, of course, and at the systems and challenge the systems to have the systems be better for us, our families, the community and the global humanity, and that’s where I celebrate with you too because the more I push, you know we’re filming right now but man, even in a week of filming, my mind’s blown at the people I’ve met, the people committed to doing things differently. And it’s just a very, very exciting time. And at the same time, what are you focused on? So everyone listening here right now, you can focus on mainstream, all of that stuff. You can set your mind to get inundated with everyone else’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, about all these things. Or you can go, what do I believe in, what do I want for my life, what are the solutions for me in creating a better world and go watch this film, be inspired, take action. I love the fact that you created a curriculum for it because people are gonna want it. I know from our Season 1, number 1 thing that people were inspired to do was do something. They were inspired. They want to do something. Where do I go, what do I do because I don’t understand, I don’t trust necessarily the same systems? So you were ahead of us in that sense. So you’ve already created some pillars and steps for people to take and no better time than for that film to come out and to shout this message in the world in a greater way. So dude, just stoked and I can’t wait to see you again and hopefully we can have an acai bowl in your new house soon.

Jeremy: Yeas, for sure. There are some good acai down there in Australia. Check out the Acai Brothers. They got some sambazon in the mix.

Darin: I actually, and this is even a plug, I was in quarantine for 2 weeks, what do you think I had every morning, for sure? 

Jeremy: A bowl with barukas on it.

Darin: I had a handful of stuff.

Jeremy: Baruka peanutbutter or butter on it.

Darin: I was full Brazilian every morning for sure with barukas and acai.

Jeremy: Yeah, I want to get some of that butter. Give me some of that butter.

Darin: I’ll text the team right now and send you that butter. You’re gonna lose your mind. That stuff is ridiculously good.

Jeremy: Awesome.

Darin: Alright my man. Thanks brother.

Darin: That was a fantastic episode. What was the one thing that you got out of today’s conversation? If today’s episode struck a chord with you, and you want to dive a little deeper on a variety of topics, check out my live deep dives on darinolien.com/deepdive. More episodes are available on darinolien.com as well. Keep diving my friends, keep diving.

Darin: This episode is produced by my team at Must Amplify, an audio marketing company that specializes in giving a voice to a brand and making sure the right people hear it. If you would like or are thinking about doing a podcast or even would like a strategy session to add your voice to your brand in a powerful way, go to www.mustamplify.com/darin. That’s www.mustamplify.com/darin.