The Alchemist Archive Podcast

What if the hunger that built your success is the same thing keeping you from freedom?

Pedro Lopes went from imagining a big life while being excluded by his childhood peers to building Foot Prime, the production and management company behind shoe brands worldwide. He and Matt trace the whole arc: the childhood exclusion that lit his drive, the scrappy turnaround that filled a failing nightclub, the burnout that followed, and the turn toward Reiki, ayahuasca, and indigenous medicine work that changed what he was building for.

They get into the difference between reacting and responding, the hidden cost of living on automatic, and why the people closest to you tend to mirror the work you still have left to do. Pedro makes the case that prosperity and spirituality were never opposites, and that growth is less about becoming more than about shedding what is in the way.

If you have ever felt driven by pressure, comparison, or the need to prove something, this one will land.

Being happy and being comfortable are not the same thing as being joyful and thriving.

Matt and Michael reconnect six years after their first conversation on this show to talk about what changes when you stop chasing the opportunity and start choosing the people. They cover why hustle culture treats people as objects, what the democratization of intelligence means for anyone whose work can now be done by a machine, and why curiosity and tenacity are about to matter more than credentials.

Michael Maynes is a revenue operations leader and hyper growth scaler who spent his career in technology sales, serving companies through IPOs and acquisitions. He now works primarily with family owned home services businesses and nonprofits.

If this one lands, follow the show and share it with someone who is comfortable but not thriving.

New episodes every two weeks.

We build the tools that run our world on a sliver of understanding, then trust them with everything.

In this episode, Matt talks with his dear friend Blake Whitcomb about the unlikely path from a rigid religious upbringing to the frontier of AI and cybersecurity. Blake shares how being cast out led to a reckoning, how he taught himself the way the internet works by writing commands out by hand in a cell, and how that focus became a clearance, a career, and eventually his own company. Along the way they get into masculinity, power, and why going into your own depths is the real work.

Blake is the CEO and co-founder of Prophetic AI, a Denver-based cybersecurity company whose platform analyzes network traffic to catch the earliest signs of an attack before data is stolen or encrypted. A largely self-taught engineer who earned a Navy secret clearance and worked on networks for the Department of Defense and McKesson before founding his company, he has spent more than a decade studying how machines communicate.

If his story moves you, follow the show and pass it to someone who needs to hear it. New episodes every two weeks.

Becoming a parent forces you to face everything you got, everything you didn't, and every pattern you swore you'd never repeat.

In this episode, Matt sits down with Kerry Stutzman, a therapist who calls herself a "parentologist," to explore how raising kids becomes some of the deepest inner work there is. They talk about tending the garden of a family instead of just mowing the weeds, living imperfectly with great delight, and the questions that help teenagers and parents alike name what wants to come more fully alive. It's a warm, practical look at healing patterns, protecting kids through hard transitions, and growing up alongside the people we raise.

Kerry is a licensed marriage and family therapist, keynote speaker, clinical supervisor, and expert witness with 25 years of teaching parents. Alongside her son Palmer, she helps families safeguard children's mental health through divorce, blending clinical expertise with hard-won personal experience.

If it speaks to you, follow the show and pass it along to a parent doing the work. New episodes every two weeks.

Dan Kasper returns to talk about Piloteer, the sensing AI he's building to make elite-team performance available to everyone. He and Matt cover why most companies run on guesswork instead of real-time signal, how AI can reflect the micro-cues that separate the best from the rest, and why the goal isn't to replace coaches but to create a new species of coach. Along the way: burnout, baselines, and why how you do anything is how you do everything.

Dan is the founder of Piloteer, a real-time performance system with patent-pending technology, a returning guest, former military team-builder across 27 countries, and ex-Airbnb machine learning. He is on a mission to bring elite-level clarity to every organization.

If it speaks to you, follow The Alchemist Archive and share it forward.

New episodes every two weeks.

Most of us don't just need to know our patterns. We need to break them.

Annabel Wilson joins Matt for a conversation on the inner architecture of conscious leadership: why the root of misalignment lives in the subconscious, how a "science meets soul" approach reaches it, and what changes when you stop managing symptoms and start recalibrating at the source. Along the way they get into stress as the hidden root of dis-ease, the difference between comfort and growth, and what it takes to lead from overflow instead of scarcity.

Annabel is the founder of Boundless Living Academy, an AI-powered transformational well-being platform for purpose-driven leaders, and an ICF PCC, psychology-based, Master Life and NLP-certified coach with 19 years of inner work and 25 years in global business.

If it speaks to you, follow The Alchemist Archive and share it forward. New episodes every two weeks.

In this candid, grown-up conversation, Matt sits down with embodiment guide Elis Avellan to explore eros as life force — and how trauma, the nervous system, and the body hold the real keys to transformation. A former Hollywood actress turned relationship and embodiment coach, born in Caracas and trained in somatic experiencing, polyvagal theory, attachment, and tantra, Elis shares how she learned to heal through the body rather than think her way out of pain. Together they go deep on energetic sovereignty, unshaming our humanity, masculine and feminine, and the difference between performing your life and truly inhabiting it. A frank, mature conversation about sexuality, energy, and coming home to yourself.

If Elis's work resonated with you, you can learn more or connect with her at DeepIntimacyGuide.com

Follow the show and share it with someone ready to do the inner work. New episodes every two weeks.

The Industry Alchemist is now The Alchemist Archive — and this is the story behind the change. In this quick personal episode, Matt Brower shares how 25 years of disrupting commercial real estate led him here, why he's bringing his decade of work in transformational leadership to the forefront, and what alchemy means in this next chapter. Same passion, deeper mission: real conversations with innovators who've done the inner work to create powerfully in the outer world. Hit follow so you don't miss what's coming. New episodes every two weeks.

Matt Brower sits down with Dr. Erin Holston Singh, founder of Options Naturopathic, for a profound exploration of what healing truly means. Together, they examine the limitations of symptom-based medicine and illuminate a deeper, more integrative approach—one that honors the inseparable relationship between mind, body, biology, and consciousness.

Dr. Singh shares her terrain-based model of health, the power of witnessing and self-awareness, and her groundbreaking “Genesis” process—helping patients uncover the emotional, developmental, and ancestral roots of illness. From homeopathy and morphogenetic fields to microbiome intelligence and symbolic disease expression, this conversation reframes medicine as a remembering of wholeness rather than a fight against pathology.

This is an invitation into Source Medicine—a vision for healing that reconnects us to ourselves, to nature, and to a new collective future of conscious care.

The rise of artificial intelligence and quantum computing has drastically accelerated our ability to complete tasks, solve complex equations, develop innovative solutions, and cure diseases—all in a fraction of the time and effort than it recently used to take. But with every technological leap comes the risk of misuse. In this episode, Matt sits down with Marcos Allende López to explore how AI and quantum computing are increasingly being used to steal highly sensitive online data. 

To counter this growing risk, Blerify—a company co-founded by Marcos—leverages blockchain technology, a powerful form of cryptography, to protect digital information. Private companies, universities, and government agencies around the world are now turning to this technology to safeguard the personal data of their customers, students, employees, and citizens alike. Although it sounds complicated, Blerify’s tools are user-friendly and empowers individuals to retain control over their own private information.

Peek behind the curtain, so-to-speak, to catch a glimpse of how blockchain cryptography is revolutionizing the way we keep records, share sensitive data, and verify digital identities. And for more information about Marcos Allende López and Blerify, click the links herein.

Links to items mentioned in the interview:

Check out his book: Self-Sovereign Identity: The Future of Identity: Self-Sovereignity, Digital Wallets, and Blockchain

Podcast: ⁠Lex Fridman Podcast

NOTICE: The information and opinions in this podcast are for entertainment purposes and are not intended to replace a listeners’ further due diligence on any topics mentioned.  Some discussions may contradict the information and opinions of other professionals.  All listeners should consult their own healthcare professionals, industry professionals, and/or financial advisors before committing to any major decisions regarding, but not limited to, their health, career, and/or finances.