Finding Founders

For Paul Austin, psychedelics are a tool or skill to be used to courageously explore and create. His own psychedelic journey began at the age of 19, and through those journeys, they allowed him to release some of the shame and guilt he’d been raised in within a fundamentalist religious family. Now, with Third Wave and Psychedelic Coaching Institute, he works to expand knowledge and guide others through similar experiences, transforming people’s lives through microdosing.

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Raul Baltazar wields the power of painting, video, visual art performances, and much more to examine the experiences of the Mestizo Los Angeles Communities, including responses to trauma and post-colonialism. Baltazar has exhibited his community-focused art in LA and internationally, including Mexico, Taiwan, Vienna, and Australia. Baltazar has earned international acclaim and received fellowships to continue his work as an activist artist, working to preserve indigenous cultures. His unique talent for finding common ground between the old and the new is how he expresses pride in his culture and questions the nature of changing identities, bringing to the forefront of conversation groups that have long been overlooked. Raul Baltazar knows art is power and healing and is willing to share his special gifts with the world.

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After growing up in Ireland, Patrick McAndrew moved to New York City to work in business. But after feeling called to quit his job to start his first business, he became interested in exploring human attention, particularly how we relate to technology. With that question in mind, he founded HARA, an inner circle for exceptional entrepreneurs and leaders trying to reach their highest potential in business. But before we get into his company for the 1%, let’s go back to his childhood when he was just another boy growing up in Ireland…

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Growing up in a city with no wilderness at close proximity, Joe Robinet found his love for nature through television shows such as Little House on the Prairie. With over a million subscribers on YouTube, Joe has been sharing his outdoors experiences since 2007. Joe goes on 1 - 2 week camping adventures. However, a dirt bike incident has resulted in Joe getting lots of nerve and ligament damage. The dirt bike incident has forced Joe into a hiatus on going on camping trips. 

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 Have you ever wished you could capture a memory forever? Heather Maio-Smith and her team have made this reality through thousands of recorded interviews with Holocaust survivors. After working with them to create interactive testimony exhibits, Heather was inspired to develop new technology that not only captures a memory, but allows for the most unlikely of conversations to occur, crossing the boundaries of both time and consequence. Heather’s natural curiosity and love of learning have led her and her team to work with the USC Shoah Foundation and Institute of Creative Technologies and thus, StoryFile launched in 2017 with the goal of bringing this technology to everyone with a device, some good lighting, and a story to tell. Heather has come a long way from growing up in a family-owned business to her own company being named the CES 2023 Innovation Awards Honoree. Likewise, StoryFile has evolved as quickly as technology itself has in the past decade, changing the way we communicate with businesses, future generations, and even our past selves!

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Janel Hawkins was just scrolling on Craigslist looking at jobs when she noticed one hiring sand sculptors, no experience necessary. She worked there through college, but as she was going into her senior year, she decided to blow her life up. In one month she cut her lease, left a bad relationship, dropped out of college, quit her job, and moved back home to start her own sand castle sculpting business, Sand Castle University. Today Janel has a team of instructors, 335K subscribers on Youtube, and 871K on TikTok, all watching her as she builds, and destroys, her sand art. But before that, let’s begin with the first sand sculpture that shaped her path.

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Jamie Goulding has been an entrepreneur & leader since the age of 14. He has led two start-up sales teams to success and been a top salesman wherever his career has taken him, closing more than $2 million in sales. Jamie has now turned his passion for mentoring into a new mentoring platform, BeenThere, which connects mentees with mentors around the world who have already “been there.”

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The Vietnam War put many people in the position to flee Vietnam. Marina Tran-Vu’s parents were one of the millions of people put into the position. Marina’s parents fled to Canada where Marina was born. As a refugee, it was hard to make a living as Marina’s mother worked hard to get their family from a basement to the back of a store to a house in a nice neighborhood in Toronto Canada. Nonetheless, her parents’ hard work paid off as Marina went to study marketing at the University of British Columbia. When Marina’s father got sick due to late stage lung cancer Marina made the choice to move from Canada to Vietnam to be with her family. Marina saw her nephew stepping on trash everywhere they went in Vietnam which led to the idea of EQUO. Now Marina is the CEO of a successful company that offers 100% plastic free straws, utensils, dishwash, and drinkware made of materials like sugarcane, coffee, coconut, and rice.

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This author holds the title for having written the most shoplifted novel in British publishing history. Meet Irvine Welsh, the author of the critically acclaimed novel “Trainspotting”. Famous for his harrowing depictions of heroin addicts and imbuing them with humanity, it may be no surprise that Welsh had a similar tract in life to his characters with a troubled childhood– one that caused him to move constantly throughout different places, having difficulty feeling permanent security and a sense of belonging wherever he went. But thinking back to his childhood hometown, Welsh dwelled on the high drug usage and HIV rates which left Leith in decline and wrote his first novel as a thoughtful (and sobering) response. The book was an instant success, earning a cult following with those who recognized the harshness as a part of life while incurring mixed reactions from critics who did not. Despite the polarized reviews, Irvine has continued to write with ferocity since his first publication: publishing books, movies, and short story collections such as The Acid House, Filth, Porno, Glue, Skagboys, etc to shed light on the underrepresented side of fictional literature– the one most people are afraid to tell.

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Start-up millionaire nephew of former ABC chair Ita Buttrose, Andrew Spira has not had an easy life. But between the heavy drug use, childhood PTSD, and brushes with the law, he has managed to build several businesses, including a highly successful small loan business, Pineapple Funding, and a $10 million dollar real estate portfolio. But before diving into his success, let’s look at the mistakes and lessons he’s learned along the way…

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