Joe Quattrone 00:34
JM, we just got off with Willie McKenzie, who’s a owner operator proprietor in the space up in Michigan in the cannabis industry, you know, longtime recovering drug addict? And, you know, just overall good guy, what did you have to think about this episode?

JM Guthrie 00:54
You know, honestly, I can’t think of guests that we’ve had that sort of encompasses all aspects of what we want to talk about on this show, as directly as, as Willie does, you know, to have a story, like his particular to addiction and drugs and alcohol in rehab and failed rehab and even Carter rehab to come out and ultimately be as successful as he’s been for 12 year, you know, says February 25, will be 12 years, or we’re recording this on February 23 is two days away from that is just super impressive. And the reality is he embodies his life. His conviction is built around a really similar idea to Army total mantra. And that’s showing up and being the best version of himself on a daily basis and doing all the things that he can. And then as an aside, he also is a sugar junkie like me, and gave me some ideas around how I can kick my sugar addiction as well. So I’m looking forward to trying to put that in practice. But I would be really surprised if that’s the only time that we have him on this show. And I’d be even more surprised if we are not working really closely with him on the various things that we have in flight specific to the other business, fuzzy water as the year you know, as the months and years had pursued.

Joe Quattrone 02:16
Yeah, I really enjoyed how he talked about, you know, living for his family and some of the issues that he had, you know, pre losing a bunch of weight, I think, you know, that’s another thing that we get into sometimes we don’t talk about it as much. But we typically talk about substance abuse, recovery, stuff like that. But you know, I’ve battled weight issues my whole life and I’ve gone in and out of heavier phases and thinner phases and stuff like that. And more recently, you know, my decision to quit drinking alcohol was related to doctor’s advice and doctor’s orders and stuff like that. So really impressive to see him do what he’s done transforming his body and getting down 100 plus pounds over the course of the last few years. So kudos to Willie, pleasure to have them on. Willie McKenzie is a husband, father and serial entrepreneur. He currently serves as CEO of Left Coast holdings, a vertically integrated cannabis company based in Michigan. He’s also the founder of the elite cannabis operators mastermind in the men of purpose group. Willie is an addict in recovery coming up on 12 years clean on Sunday, and has lost 100 pounds in recovery. Welcome back to the fuzzy ish podcast. I’m your host for today. Joe Quattrone and with me, as always is my partner, Jay M. G. And we have a special special guest today. We have Willie McKenzie of Left Coast holdings and elite cannabis operators. Willie says hi to everybody.

Willie McKenzie 03:44
What’s up, guys? How are we doing today?

Joe Quattrone 03:48
Very good. Very good. And so Willie, me and you have been connected for a while on LinkedIn and I’ve consumed a lot of your content. And you’ve really gone pretty deep. You’ve had a pretty miraculous story of addiction recovery. So why don’t we just start there? I mean, my audience doesn’t really know a ton about you, except for what I already read in the bio, but I believe you started as a farmer if I’m not if I’m not correct, and eventually moved your way into the cannabis industry. How does one go from an agricultural major in college living in NorCal to living in Michigan and running cannabis companies?

Willie McKenzie 04:26
Yeah, so um, you know, I did, I did have a background in agribusiness from Cal Poly. I’ve never actually used that. Well, I never finished that degree because I became a drug addict and I left school. Just a few units shy of actually getting my piece of paper. So you know, I have a background in construction. I’ve built you know, a couple of large construction companies in the Bay Area. And, you know, kind of the kindred spirit to being a contractor is being a dope grower. And so I started growing cannabis like 2006 And I’ve always been involved in the industry since then. I got sober 2012, February 25 2012. So I’m coming up on 12 years

JM Guthrie 05:10
on Sunday, actually two days away. Congrats. That’s awesome. Thank

Willie McKenzie 05:14
you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And yeah, and I have been involved in cannabis cultivation pretty much the entire time I took, you know, a couple years off when I got sober and tried to, you know, determine what was my relationship going to be with the plant, but ultimately decided that I felt comfortable getting back into it, and I’ve been going hard ever since.

JM Guthrie 05:33
Alright, so let’s take a 22nd Before we go, let’s let’s because our show really does focus on wellness and addiction and finding a better way, which clearly you have for almost 12 years. And like I said, Congratulations, do you feel comfortable to share that kind of process? So what got you to the point where you felt like you needed to get sober and, you know, we that’s the impetus of our show, we’d love to hear more about that to help people to really learn that there’s a way out and obviously 12 years of sobriety is pretty awesome. And, and really, for some of us, like myself, a miracle man, so congrats. Yeah,

Willie McKenzie 06:11
thank you, I’m, I’m really an open book about it. You know, I’ve gotten to a point in my life and career where I’m comfortable, you know, I don’t, I don’t have a boss, I don’t have you know, I did actually check with my investors before I started speaking openly about this stuff. But so I have always been a party animal. You know, drugs and alcohol were the thing that, you know, when I was 14 years old, made me fit in and join kind of that cool crowd. And so I became, you know, I was in high school, I was Mr. Saturday night, and the senior yearbook. That was my title, I was the guy who always had booze and drugs. I sold weed through high school and college. And that was my identity, you know, and, unfortunately, you know, the weed and alcohol, I was a heavy heavy drinker, you know, led to coke eventually led to pills and pills, were really, you know, my downfall. I was taking students up 25 Norco at a time, that progressed to Oxy, you know, to a $500 day oxy habit to doing whatever you have to do to support a $500 day oxy habit. You know, I had a successful business, lost it because of my drug addiction, lost all my relationships, because the drug addiction, basically lost everything. And, you know, I wound up people who loved me, stepped in and did an intervention and went to rehab a couple of times. The second time I went to rehab, it was a six month stint at a therapeutic community, where they, you know, it’s a hard line place. And that was where I really gave in and got it and started on my path to recovery. But you know, I had to start over my life in my 30s. You know, 100 grand in debt, no real prospects for how to make money, people around me, you know, people my age are becoming really successful buying houses. Sure. And so that was a challenging, challenging time for me. And I’m very fortunate that I figured my way through it.

JM Guthrie 08:17
Yeah, interesting. So we always talk about there’s not a single path to sobriety, there’s also very different stories, right, we always kind of joke on our show, we have another partner on our show that we call the heavyweight that probably went almost as far as you did, whereas Joe’s more of the light featherweight in regards to his consumption of any phantom oil and other Yeah. And then I’m somewhere in the middle, you know, I didn’t quite get the pills, but I certainly could. I kept up with you on your story through the drinking and drugs and just continuing to progress. And for me, it was taking bets and not selling weed, but it was, you know, similar sort of, wild world of, of craziness that sort of all compounded. We talked about, and you hear about me totally, which is this idea that it’s different for everyone. It’s not a one in zero thing. You know, there are different paths to getting to a place of sobriety, or at least clarity of living a better life that doesn’t include substance. We talk about, you know, AAES for some people, and for some, it doesn’t work at all, obviously, rehabs for some people, it doesn’t work . I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about a six month rehab stint. And so when you say hard line, I’d be awesome to kind of understand that better, just as the sort of what goes into a six month stint and what when you say hard line? What does that mean? So this is to give our audience a better understanding of what can be the heavyweight solution for addiction. Yeah.

Willie McKenzie 09:46
Right. So they say some are sicker than others, right. And I went to a 28 day program. And when I got there and shared my story, that counselor said, you know, this probably isn’t the program for you. There is a longer term solution that you should probably be involved in. And I’d said, Do you don’t know me, man, like, I’m a fucking, I’m an entrepreneur, I’m the man dude, like, I don’t need to be at some fucking, that place is full of homeless people and drug addicts, like I’m good. And I relapsed one day out of that 20 a day program. So there are, you know, 28 day programs that are kind of cushy and nice, and they baby you. And then, you know, this therapeutic community started off as an 18 month long program for heroin addicts in the 70s. And it has since been scaled back to, it’s now only three months. But when I was there, it was six months. And when you show up, you sit down on a red chair on timeout, they take you upstairs, they make you shave your beard, your facial hair, you have to go down to their donation bin, put on a suit and tie, and you work and you live there and you work in part of this community and you follow these very hardline rules that they have set. And if you step out of line, you stand in a mirror and stare yourself in the eye for increments of 15 minutes, you might stand there for two hours. There’s, they don’t pull any punches, they crush your ego and crush you down to nothing, and then they build you back up. And for me, that’s exactly what I needed. That doesn’t work for everybody. Some people, you know, don’t don’t like that kind of intense stuff. But like I was a really, you know, drug being addicted to drugs, like I was is not a pretty thing. I was in the fucking ghetto, you know what I mean? Every day freebasing oxy. And so for me to go to some, like the powderpuff 28 Day program just wasn’t going to do the trick I had to be, I had to be at a place that would combat my level of addiction, with that same level of recovery. It’s

Joe Quattrone 11:47
It’s interesting that you mentioned that that same facility is down for three months now. We had a gentleman on our program named Mike Harden Brook, who studies neuroscience and was talking about the neural pathways that form habits. And one thing he was talking about was this idea of 66 days, if you can make anything happen 66 days in a row, chances are, it’s going to be a habit, whether it’s a good habit or a bad habit. After 66 days, it’s a habit. So, talk to me a little bit about the second half of your stint when you’re in the six month facility, do you feel like you were recovered, but you still needed like an extra three months to kind of live in that recovery? And have a safe landing? You know, or what were you feeling kind of like after that, like the three month mark? Yeah. So

Willie McKenzie 12:33
I mean, it’s interesting, right? You have no contact with the outside world, you don’t see the news, you don’t have a phone, you get one five minute phone call a week, call your family, if you fuck up, you don’t get to call your family. You are engrossed in this bubble, right, you live in a bubble, and it becomes your entire life. And for me, it was amazing. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. This is the first time in my life where I didn’t have anything, there was nothing to hide behind, there was no story to tell, there was no stove to put on. I didn’t have drugs to give people to make them friends with me. I didn’t have alcohol to provide to people to be the life of the party. It was the people who were there like to me, for me that was so it became very comfortable being there, I could have stayed there, you know, like, I look back on those times very fondly in the fact that it’s so long. You know, I started doing drugs when I was 14 years old. So I stopped emotionally maturing at that point. And so when I got sober, I really didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know what I like to do. Because everything that I like to do up until then involve getting fucked up, you know? And so it was a process of figuring out who I was, who is willing McKenzie, what is Willie McKenzie like to do, and then, you know, a lot of planning for reentry, because, you know, my, the way I left the, you know, the world, my professional life was not graceful. And I had to figure out what I was going to do on the backside of this to ensure that I didn’t go back out. And so actually after that six months, I went into their halfway house facility and spent another three months there. So in total, I was with that program for nine months and then, you know, aftercare for almost a year after that. So it’s, you stay close to the program. And for me, you know, when I went the first time, and they gave me advice, this is what you should do to stay sober. And I said not I don’t need to do that. I got this. And I fucked up you know, and so when I went the second time I was so broken. I said, God, if you can help me get through this, I will do whatever you say. I will listen to these people. I will do every single thing that they tell me to do. I will do it to the tee. And so I did. I followed all Other advice. And so whenever people, I help a lot of people go to rehab, like I’m, I’m the guy in my familial circle and my friends circle who has gotten sober and stayed sober for a long time. So when somebody has a family member or a friend who’s fucked up, I usually get the call. And it’s hard for me to deal with, you know, to see people going through what I’ve been through and to see them not turning it over. But I understand because it was hard for me to do. So I always recommend it to people, it’s like, you have to surrender to this process. Like, there are people who have been through what you’re going through, who have made it through, you have to listen to them. Do

Joe Quattrone 15:39
you stay in contact with any of the people that you were in the facility with like that? Not necessarily the people that were teaching the facility, but any of your people that were in there at the same time going through the same stuff? Is there any kind of like reunion type aspect to that, you

Willie McKenzie 15:51
I know, there isn’t, there isn’t a reunion, I’m always welcome there. So I can like when I go home, I live in northern Michigan. Now when I go home to California, I do swing by the house and see the people and unfortunately, I see people sometimes who were in there and when I was there, retreads or, you know, some of the people who were in there with me did not work there. But I do have friends who I went through there with who I still keep in contact with. And then my original counselor, there was my sponsor up until a few months ago,

JM Guthrie 16:24
and not to keep going on this topic that I’m fascinated by breaking you down standing in front of a mirror suiting you up working? Is it that most of these places have either a sort of science or religion? Sort of foundation to them? Was it one or the other? At this place? And then sort of what was the work that they were having to do? Was it specific to sort of maintaining the house? Or did you have to go and teach something to others? Or try to be kind to missionaries for the cause? What was the work aspect of that? Like?

Willie McKenzie 16:59
Yeah, so there was no, no real religion? I mean, it is a 12 step based program. So there are, you know, regular AAA meetings. In the work you do. I mean, it’s a, it’s a facility that basically is run by the people who are patients there, right. I worked in the kitchen for a long time. I made breakfast every day at 5am for the family, because there could be 100 people there. And so it’s a county funded program. When I left there, I owed them $1,200. You know, I didn’t, I went in as a homeless person. Essentially, I didn’t have a bank account, I had nothing. And so in order for them to run the program, the residents take care of the place. And so, you know, somebody runs the house, there’s all these positions within, you know, the structure there and you kind of cycle through them. And so, it’s really just about maintaining the facility and keeping the order

JM Guthrie 18:02
that exists there. Today. At least let you switch out of the suit to like the lunch lady costume to slap the eggs. Are you wearing a suit? Are you suited up for that?

Willie McKenzie 18:12
I was allowed to wear a t- shirt in the kitchen. Because they don’t want, you know, food? Yeah, I

JM Guthrie 18:17
don’t want to screw up your threads. Yeah, exactly. Gotta get that gotta get that like that always brings back the Adam Sandler Lunch Lady skit on Saturday Night Live when you start thinking about sloppy joes and what we can get out of Pattern Lab A Joe slaps. Exactly that. That’s right. I’m with my sloppy joe right now. I’m the slowest. Yeah, exactly.

Joe Quattrone 18:38
But you’ve got to switch gears a little bit, you know, on your LinkedIn profile. There’s something in there. And the headline that really resonates with me, and I know it probably will jam as well. It reads balancing professional drive with family values. And so obviously, that sounds like a far cry from this story up until this point. Did you meet a man and wife before you went into rehab? Or did you meet her afterwards?

Willie McKenzie 19:03
I met her afterwards. The women I met before I went to rehab. They wouldn’t want to get married to me. I was not a safe bet at that point.

JM Guthrie 19:13
They weren’t there. They weren’t probably where the baby mamas were. You want it either. So there’s probably two sides to that, right? Yeah, no, I cut you off kind of right at the transition into the life that you’ve lived for the last almost 12 years. So it’d be cool. Let’s keep going. Let’s just say let’s hear what

Joe Quattrone 19:29
happened when you got out of the facility. How did you go from rehab to you know, getting into construction? When did you meet your wife and all that kind of stuff? Yeah, so

Willie McKenzie 19:39
I um, you know, I had this decision when I was leaving there. They started letting you out for a couple hours to go to a local computer lab where you can go look for a job, and I had to make a decision. You know, I had built a business, a painting company, construction and painting company in this kind of niche. industry for homeowners associations. And it’s kind of a small community of, you know, contractors and property managers in the Bay Area who do this work for, like condo complexes, homeowners associations, large apartment complexes, things like that. And so I had in my head, this story that I’m ruined here, you know, everybody knows I’m a drug addict, I got kicked out of my own company, you know, I’m too embarrassed to go back. And so I was like, entertaining the idea of going to work at Trader Joe’s because Trader Joe’s hired a lot of people from our program. And ultimately, some guys who used to work for me, as painters, heard that I was getting out from my mom, and they thought they saw an opportunity to pick me up, pick me up on the cheap, you know, and help them build their business. So they were like, you know, they had a $500,000 a year painting company, they were still themselves up on ladders every day. And they wanted to build the business. And I had built this business before, you know, I think when I left, we were doing $7 million a year. So I would take the bus every day from the rehab facility to this guy’s house in North Oakland. And I would sit at his kitchen table on his computer, and I would write marketing material to go after, you know, this kind of larger work. And then I would borrow his wife’s car, and I would go out, and I would mark it. And I wound up, you know, building that business over the next like two years to $4 million a year. And kind of landed myself a partnership there because people from the industry started seeing like, Okay, well, he’s back, he’s good. I got a couple of VP of sales opportunities thrown at me. And so these guys gave me a third of the company to stay with them. So I still own that company to this day. That was kind of the basis for turning my financial life around. And it allowed me to get back into cannabis cultivation, because I had a way to earn, you know, every year I would get, you know, significant distribution, and then I could make investments. So

JM Guthrie 22:07
that when you mentioned, like having this moment of pause before you got into the cult to back into cannabis can I handle this? What was that thought process? Like? What were the things that really sort of were top of mind specific to that explicit decision, knowing that this could be an enormous opportunity, and clearly has been? And what were the sorts of things you had to sort through for yourself to know that that is something that you felt comfortable to go forward with.

Willie McKenzie 22:35
I was worried about how my parents would take it, you know, I put my parents through a lot. And, you know, the idea of letting them down again was really scary to me. I didn’t tell them that I was doing it at first and then eventually got to a point where I was like, Okay, I have to tell them because they’re a they’re gonna hear about it from somebody else, or they’re gonna know that I’m, you know, every week and going up to the mountains, you know, to this property that I own all of a sudden, and so I did tell them and kind of explain to them hey, I feel comfortable with this. And they trusted me to do it, you know, and ultimately, it’s my decision anyways, but I really wanted their sign off. You know, they were supportive of it and they’ve been supportive of that ever since.

Joe Quattrone 23:23
Just to clarify though. Are you completely cannabis free in terms of consumption? Or do you consume cannabis? Just not other things like where are you standing on that stuff?

Willie McKenzie 23:33
So I’m not against cannabis consumption in recovery. You know, there’s kind of like a hard line in AAA where people have a problem that I certainly do not. I have pretty bad anxiety and so I have tried cannabis in recovery and had panic attacks and so unfortunately it really just doesn’t work for me. I have like we produce a beverage or we did until recently produce a beverage here in Michigan called wink it’s a low dose

JM Guthrie 24:03
THC so I know we know we know that you guys were the you were the you were the coalmine for that got it. Okay. So,

Willie McKenzie 24:11
you know, I can take a wink Seltzer, it’s like two and a half milligrams of THC and two and a half CBD. You know, I did it before the REO Speedwagon concert last year, but on a regular basis not in not imbibing and not taking THC.

JM Guthrie 24:28
So is the first step back into cannabis cultivation after legalization in California? Are you still like right before that when you started this new business legalization? pre lit Yes. Talk about that. So you get in pre legalization, you probably get back into some of the old patterns of what you were doing on the distro side before recovery. And then how does it move from pre legalization into now this new world of legal to now being in Michigan As the coming of a brand we’ve heard of love to hear just sort of that path. Yeah,

Willie McKenzie 25:07
yeah. So 2014 was my first outdoor season; prior to that I had only grown indoors starting off in 2006 with a single light in my garage then to a 12 liter and a bigger garage then to actually, you know, a 7000 foot warehouse double stacked. And so 2014 was my first outdoor season. I bought a property up on Jupiter mountain in Northern California. And we went out there and set up and then I wound up every year after that, buying more property and expanding. So come 2017 I had four farms. My wife and I were living on one of the farms in northern Sonoma County, right on the Mendocino border, outside of Sea Ranch, a town called Annapolis up in the coastal redwoods and growing and you know, California was going adult use. And you know, that one of the counties where I had property was not going to adult use, Stanislaw and then Sonoma County, where I had my property, the irrigation district, wasn’t allowing cannabis licensees to use their own groundwater. So I was gonna have to capture enough rainwater to grow cannabis. And it just wasn’t possible. We didn’t get enough rain. So I was in a position where I had four pieces of property that I own that I had built infrastructure for cannabis cultivation, and I wasn’t going to be able to use them in the legal market. And we had the big fire in 2017, and Santa Rosa fire, I smoked my whole crop out, everything was covered with ash smelled like smoke. And so I lost like a million dollars that year, and had to liquidate the properties, moved to my wife and I moved out to Calaveras County Valley springs, and settled down to just do construction that would take a year. And then the opportunity came to MIT to come to Michigan. A friend of mine was from here. He had some connections to get licenses locally. And so I kind of thought about it for a minute. And I, you know, said I have so much experience doing this. It would be a shame to walk away from it right now. So I jumped back in and yeah, we’ve like I had the licensing deal for Steezy here in Michigan for two years. We launched them in the state and got them up to a quarter million units a month. And then obviously, we had the licensing deal for wink. And we’ve manufactured for some other large brands here too.

Joe Quattrone 27:36
It’s pretty impressive. So yeah, so one thing that me and you probably have in common that JM might have to sit on the sidelines for is that we’ve both lost 100 pounds in our lifetime. And I noticed you’re wearing a medium t- shirt right now. What was the what got you into the health kick, you know, we’re gonna

JM Guthrie 28:00
go at this top button button man, Professor guy jokes today

Joe Quattrone 28:08
into focusing on your health and wanting to lose weight.

Willie McKenzie 28:12
This is actually a large T-shirt. But big do you know, when I went to rehab, I weighed 300 pounds. And I remember walking up the stairs. You know, it was an old kind of an old mansion. Julia Morgan mansion in Berkeley, and I couldn’t walk up the stairs, I’ll be winded, and I had been overweight my entire life. And so, you know, there were a bunch of dudes who were released from federal prison there. And so we started doing prison workouts upstairs, push ups and dips and pull ups and and so just by getting sober or going through rehab and kind of like I you know, they feed you like, the food is great there. I cut carbs and I lost like 50 pounds, you know, pretty quickly. And when I got out, I kept doing it. I kept working out and a couple guys from rehab lifted weights. I never got control of my diet though. So I’ve been training hard for like 10 years 1012 years now. But only within the last year did I finally get control of my diet and have some discipline around eating. And so then the results came you know, relatively quickly once I dropped the fat I have, you know the muscle underneath. And I’m, you know, kind of bulking back up a little bit right now. But you know, I’ve also had some health scares, I had early stage heart disease and I’ve had some AFib so taking care of my health is of utmost importance to me. Because you know, I have a two-year -old son and I gotta make sure I’m here for a long time. So

JM Guthrie 29:47
As a quick question before we talk about your family because I know we definitely want to hear you mention your wife a couple of times on the good side of everything. So don’t want to hear that origin story that you mentioned. You’re finally got your diet in order. I’m a huge ice cream fan that I can’t seem to shake. There’s like you know, ice cream and chocolate and candy even like sour candy and stuff that are my vices and still are. And I feel like I have 15 more pounds I could lose if I could just drop your swollen, your he can call each medium. But clearly you’re pretty jacked on what were the diet choices on your side that you’ve gotten under control over the vices that you were struggling with, with losing.

Willie McKenzie 30:28
I mean, I eat everything like an addict. So like, you know, ice creams like I’m not eating anything less than a pint is sitting, you know, or cookies, I’m eating the whole box. If I go by King size Snickers I’m not thinking about eating that kind of king sized Snickers. I’m thinking about the fact that I’m gonna want another one when I’m done with that one. And so I’m buying three or four at a time and eating three or four in a day. And so serious, serious sugar junkie, you know, and that was really the hardest thing for me to kick was like that serious sugar addiction. And it’s harder than dope. You know, they say that sugar is more addictive than cocaine, and I believe it.

JM Guthrie 31:09
So what have you done? So now that you’ve kicked it, or at least feel like you have it in better control? What are some of the things that you’ve done in order to get that under control? Because I agree with you on the

Willie McKenzie 31:21
so sugar. Yeah, so I have every night I eat a big bowl of oitavos, triple zero yogurt. And I mix in either some protein powder if I need more protein for the day, or some dark chocolate cocoa powder, and it makes it like mousse. And I might throw some berries in there. And that for me kind of checks that sweet, that sweet tooth box that I have. And it also puts me to bed full because I’ll wake up at two o’clock in the morning and I’ll invent desserts in my pantry that you’ve never heard of.

JM Guthrie 32:04
That I can find two years old. I’ll help you wake up for that too. I’m sure.

Willie McKenzie 32:07
Yeah, I mean, I was literally I woke up on my own and just demolished my wife and was like, where’s all like everything that we just bought yesterday? I can tell you there was like, what happened? Like I don’t know I woke up in the middle of night and ate everything.

Joe Quattrone 32:22
A bit working out so much has something to do with the eating patterns and behaviors. Have you ever tried? I’ve been on an intermittent fasting kick. Have you ever tried full elimination diets or any kind of diets like that?

Willie McKenzie 32:33
Yeah, so I did the intermittent fasting thing. The problem was they’re like, Oh, if you intermittently fast, there’s no way that you can possibly eat so many calories in a six hour window. It’s like watching me bullshit. All the calories in six hours.

JM Guthrie 32:51
The question is, does he know? Joe? He does his fasting while also I don’t know if you know about JAWS or sizing. Where’s the play, you might have noticed how I got the same size. They’re gonna grab your child like he’s got like he’s got his child like they both got a job

Joe Quattrone 33:17
let’s go. This is Oh, I gotta get like. We’re making a sister podcast here. I love it. Somebody call up the guys at Jazzercise and get this podcast sponsor. Yes,

JM Guthrie 33:28
seriously. That is awesome. That just made my day. I’m like, so let’s talk about the wife. Let’s hear How’d you meet the wife? Let’s hear about that family story. Because I know Joe and I are family guys and like you said that really resonates with us.

Willie McKenzie 33:42
Yeah, so she was a property manager. She managed homeowners associations. And Soda, her mom and her mom were clients of mine. And I was at a trade show one day and she walked by and I was like, Holy shit, who is that? And I turned to the guy who was working with me and I was like I said she will be mine. Oh, yes. And I pursued her for a year and she rebuffed me. She was dating somebody there and her work wouldn’t let her take, you know, gifts from vendors. I couldn’t take her out to lunch. So I went after her mom and I butter mom up. I took her mom golfing. I took her mom to a warrior’s game and I really laid it on thick. And so her and I told her mom, like yeah, really, I want to date your daughter. And so her mom hooked me up, you know and kind of set it up. We rent it out. We rented it out like a go kart racing facility for an event and her mom brought her with and that was kind of you know, we started dating after that. And she has been incredibly supportive of this wild journey that I’ve been on. You know, we’ve moved every two years. She moved to me. She moved with me up to the you know Redwood for Essen live, you know this crazy, you know, deep in the woods life, it was a beautiful house, but you know, we’re an hour and a half from civilization. And so like it was once once we were up there, I was like, Alright, shut down for the cause I’m gonna marry this woman and I came back one day with a ring and a new turbine generator. And I told her to come outside and look at this generator I just bought and, and I got down on my knees and gave her a ring. Nice. Yeah.

Joe Quattrone 35:30
And so you have the one kid? Is there any? Are there any future kids on the way you guys plan it out? Anything else? Are you gonna stick with this one for now? I’ve got for me. I might be the bantamweight when it comes to drugs and alcohol. But I am the heavyweight when it comes to rearing children. And

JM Guthrie 35:46
he still hasn’t said he’s done. And he’s got four. So let’s just lay it out there.

Joe Quattrone 35:51
We might be done. We’re not sure yet. But yeah, it’s good.

Willie McKenzie 35:53
I mean, so we both would like to have more kids. It has been, you know, like the cannabis industry is super challenging. And you know, we’re here in northern Michigan, we don’t have family here. So it’s been like, you know, just us with no support. And me dealing with this, this real monster of a business. And so we haven’t jumped back in yet. But I think long term, we do not want our son to be an only child. So how old is he said

JM Guthrie 36:24
to

Willie McKenzie 36:26
a turn two lays two weeks ago.

Joe Quattrone 36:28
Oh, I know. I know the feeling of being on that island. Me and my wife are in Southern California for like three and a half years with three kids and no family within 6000 miles of us. It’s kind of daunting. We’re now outside of Nashville. We’re still kind of on an island without any family, but our families are just one state away. So North Carolina, Virginia. So feels a little bit better be a couple of a couple of dads that

Willie McKenzie 36:51
I was there last weekend in Tennessee. Looking at property, Fairview and Hendersonville. Oh

Joe Quattrone 37:01
man, hit me up next time you come through, you can come. I live south of Franklin off 840 On route 37. So, College Grove is kind of between Franklin and Murphysboro.

Willie McKenzie 37:10
Nice, very cool. He’s got we might be Neighbors one day.

JM Guthrie 37:14
There you go. I love it. Get your DS and maybe Jazzercise to go to. That’d be really nice. Especially elite Jazzercise influence, yeah, that’d be special. So a couple of dad tips for you, Willie. Not, you know, an unsolicited one is unfortunate for you terrible twos continue through three. So it’s actually probably not very bad yet. And you might think this is the terrible twos, but towards the end of the third year, and as they get closer to four, the terrible twos start to go away. So that’s number one. Number two is, and I’ve told this to a lot of folks that I work with on my day job today, when they had their first kid, it’s like, congratulations, your life just changed with one kid, you know, you’ve mentioned your job being tough and challenging. Now you have this other thing that you have to keep track of. So you can’t belly up to the bar whenever you want. And you can’t just do all the things you’re used to. And that’s hard, but you get over it, too when life is over. So just as you’re planning towards the next one, like anybody that says it’s zone defense with three, they’re full of shit until life is over, as you knew it starts again. And then three, I’ve got three is when it’s just life’s constant state of anarchy, where you’re just not in control anymore. So that’s my natural birth control. And

Joe Quattrone 38:33
four is when you just turn into a cyborg. So I wake up at two o’clock every morning, and I do a full time job before my full time job starts. So yeah, right.

JM Guthrie 38:42
We are done in my house at three, I can say very explicitly and with conviction. And but I will say and this is the thing that Joe mentioned, there’s not a job in the world that I would rather have than be the dad of these three kids. So I say all that but it is the greatest, most fulfilling and joyful thing that I have in my life and it keeps the heartbeat to everything that I do both personally and professionally. It’s the connection with Joe even you know, it’s an additional level of our relationship. Because we really subscribe to this. This idea that life is just a bunch of relationships and keeping in cultivating those the best you can and trying to keep his money that bridges at least intact or if they’re not intact, try to build them back a little bit so you can get over what it’s all about and the life that you end up learning. Being a dad is like nothing else, man. So I love the spirit of what you’re saying and I wish you all the best and make the next decision whether you have another one or not. But enjoy the ride man. It’s pretty special.

Joe Quattrone 39:46
So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. As you’re out there adapting and you know how to reconstruct the world of cannabis. I’ve noticed you Jaws resizing while doing arm curls to straws or sizing in the arm curls. I’ve noticed your social presence in your area of celebration has grown quite a bit. But you’ve also got elite cannabis operators mastermind. I’ve been around a few masterminds. I used to run Gary V’s mastermind for him when I was there. Tell us a little bit more about some of those things you’re doing to build up the will and McKenzie brand and, and how, how is the mastermind stuff been going? Are you meeting a lot of cool operators out there?

Willie McKenzie 40:19
Yeah, absolutely. You know, we’ve we actually, the reason I started bugging you was because I did one of the Sasha group things. Yeah. And so yeah, I’ve been a longtime follower of Gary Vee, and a bunch of other people who I respect. And, you know, after doing other people’s mastermind groups, I saw an opportunity to do one in the cannabis industry, something that’s really needed, because so many people are struggling and there are people who are doing well. And so the sharing of information is really important. Collaboration is really important. So it’s been good. You know, we have grown it in the last, you know, four or five months up to 42. Members. You know, we’ve kind of split it off now into two cohorts. And it’s been growing and just living relationships, like the feedback I get from the people who are in the group has been really awesome. It’s like really improving people’s experience. People are getting a ton from it. And at the end of the day, like that really feels good to me. A

Joe Quattrone 41:29
buddy of mine, Mike Ross patella. He was a guy I worked with on ABN Bev, I don’t know if you know Mike, he’s got a property 93 acres up in Parma, Michigan, a little bit more southern in Michigan, but he’s pursuing the whole cannabis event space licensing stuff and working with corporations to come in and do cannabis retreats and stuff like that, but he might be somebody you want to hit up and talk to you a little bit because I think it’d be kind of fun to see east or elite cannabis operators mastermind in person thing at one of his places.

Willie McKenzie 42:01
Yeah, no, actually, I had a call with Mike on Monday and he asked me to help them advise him there so I’m gonna see what I can do to help him get that thing going. He’s a sharp guy. I like him a lot.

Joe Quattrone 42:18
He is yeah, he used to do a lot of the digital measurement stuff for ABN Bev. So he was always around point of sale doing sampling events, like all that kind of stuff, really masterminding what was in the digital toolbelt for the beer companies and stuff like that. But it’s interesting. There’s so many people from that space from the beer space that have gotten into cannabis. He probably has a huge portfolio of or not, like Rolodex of people that he can introduce you to that are trying to become operators in cannabis.

Willie McKenzie 42:47
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I really enjoyed that you actually connected me on LinkedIn and we jumped on a call. So I appreciate that. He’s stoked to know Him. And it’s a cool project that they got going on there. I

JM Guthrie 42:57
was ready to say Joe’s daily dollar was short on the connection, but he made the connection. So I guess my joke is, it’s flat. I got nothing.

Joe Quattrone 43:05
I’m always one step ahead of myself. Half the time I make these connections just have you know, kind of just hey, this connection, that connection then I forget about them. I’m like, oh shit, I introduced you to raspy. Cool. Alright, let’s

Willie McKenzie 43:16
go. Yo, you threw it. You just throw it in a LinkedIn comment. It was very, you know, like, it wasn’t even it wasn’t a big email or anything. But we took the ball and ran with it.

Joe Quattrone 43:26
It’s so odd. I mean, you just don’t I mean, I’m sure you hear a lot more about it than I do. But like I don’t see Michigan and cannabis in the same conversation all that often. But then I know raspistill I know you and I’m like, that’s a DOT that should be connected.

Willie McKenzie 43:40
It’s definitely the second biggest market in the United States.

Joe Quattrone 43:43
Yeah. We’ve been working on this. I’ve been working a little bit in Missouri, which seems to be a pretty emergent market. What have you noticed about Michigan in some of these kinds of Midwestern ish states? Like they seem to be very progressive when it comes to getting you know, laws on the books and doing things in a very aggressive manner. What have you noticed about Michigan that’s different from, say, California.

Willie McKenzie 44:09
Like per capita, people in Michigan smoke far more weed than people in California, you know, a much smaller state. But I think per capita consumption is like double what it is, you know, the dollar spent per person. So that’s pretty wild. Michigan, as good growers, for a long time it was the second biggest medical market to you know that a decade of guys growing here. So there are, you know, og legacy brands that are very popular. Michigan has a ton of brands overall like all the big brands have come from California from Colorado from the West Coast and set up here so I mean for and then the prices here are incredibly low the retail prices, you can get high for a little bit of nothing. In Michigan, and it’s unfortunate for the producers. But for a consumer, I don’t think there’s a better place that you could be in Michigan, if you’re a consumer of cannabis. What’s driving

JM Guthrie 45:12
that? Is that the tax? Like what ends up making the retail of that so different from other places? Is it the way that it’s regulated or governs taxes? Is it the market what what is driving there’s

Willie McKenzie 45:24
a so there’s an there’s a group here that comes from the liquor store industry, that was the dominant force in the medical cannabis space. And so they were kind of entrenched here. And they pretty much treated the you know, Michigan cannabis retail business, like the liquor store business, and it was a race to the bottom. And they pushed it far further than, you know, Michigan retail prices, like everybody claims complains about how tough California is, but you can buy 15 vape carts for $100 in Michigan, you can buy ounces for $25 $50 You can buy you know, just incredible amounts of you know, I don’t know if it’s all super quality at those prices, but you know, you can buy incredible amounts of legal cannabis in Michigan for nothing. And the thing that frustrates me is that the consumers weren’t asking for it. That was , you know, the operator led you know, pushing you know, race to the bottom. And it really fucked the market here. Hmm.

Joe Quattrone 46:36
They don’t know what they call the dispensaries up there? It’s not always dispensaries; they have another name for it. I

Willie McKenzie 46:42
forget the name provisioning centers,

Joe Quattrone 46:43
provisioning provisioning centers sounds kind of dope though I

JM Guthrie 46:46
kind of like they get provisioned real great quick

Joe Quattrone 46:49
Do you guys have a pleasant Do you guys have a pleasant trees up there near where you’re at up in north of the Upper Peninsula area Northern Michigan

Willie McKenzie 46:57
Yeah, so like well, there’s a pleasant one. She’s about an hour and a half away from here. We supply pleasantries with our branded products. So hi, I do know the pleasant change, guys.

JM Guthrie 47:08
What is your major focus of your company now in Michigan? What is it that you guys, I mean that you mentioned you come into a couple of different brands that we’ve heard of? What’s sort of the mandate of your business today?

Willie McKenzie 47:23
Well, we kind of specialize in Sun Sun Grown flower. You know, that’s really my background. It was something that people cultivate in Michigan, we’re not growing outside for smokable flowers you know, the legacy market all grew indoors. And you know, people growing in the regulated market. We’re brewing for biomass and so we set out here to grow Cali style outdoors, so we grow, you know, 50,000 plants, full, full sun, native soil, and you know, it’s like, we’re row cropping, big cannabis plants. And hang drying it, treating it nice. And then selling it as branded smokeable flower, and it’s going well, it’s

JM Guthrie 48:10
awesome. Yeah, it’s awesome. What a cool story, man. That’s great. Thanks.

Joe Quattrone 48:14
Well, so we’ll start wrapping up here in a little bit. But is there anything you’re in the process of trying to plug? Is there anything you want us to draw the attention of our audience to anything, you know, obviously, the Jazzercise or the mastermind. But is there any kind of social media you want to plug here?

Willie McKenzie 48:30
Um, yeah, I mean, my, my, my Instagram is Willie McKenzie official. You know, there, I’m kind of focused on, you know, men’s issues would be more so than, like the cannabis stuff. Just because Instagram doesn’t like cannabis. So I am trying to build a separate side to my personal brand there. But yeah, Willie, McKenzie, CEO on LinkedIn, and Willie McKenzie on YouTube.

Joe Quattrone 49:02
So we have a segment that we like to call products and practices here. And it’s usually aimed at like, what do you use to kind of keep yourself away from drugs and alcohol, but like, given that you’ve done this for so long, and you actually went through a hardcore rehab process, we’ll kind of switch it up a little bit. And I think the question I want to ask you is like, what, what fuels Willie McKenzie, what’s your purpose is, and I think I have an idea, but I want to draw it out of you. And I have you tell me about what fuels your purpose.

Willie McKenzie 49:33
Um, I’ll be honest, I got a pretty big chip on my shoulder. You know, there are a lot of people who gave up on me when I was really sick. A business partner who was my best friend since five years old, you know, a girl that I loved. And so I had been on a quest to prove everybody wrong ever since then. And it’s like, I proved them wrong a long time ago, but I still like now I guess I’m true. saying to myself that I’m as good as I’ve always thought that I was, if that makes sense. And, you know, being a good provider is my ultimate goal. That’s awesome.

JM Guthrie 50:12
I love that. I mean, we had. So we’ve touched on this, and you said that maybe in the mirror is where you found this, but we talk a lot about different people that motivate people through different ways. And one that usually folks have listened to or heard is Goggins. And he talks about the fight, he found this place that he can’t really describe that ultimately allowed him to basically go even deeper into these different places. And, and I mean, I subscribe to that fully, right, depending on whether it’s eating, or addiction, or porn or any of these things, you know, you got to find the place in you that allows you to really reflect on that and find the solution, right. And that’s where this whole idea for us, of me totally came from. And it was this first we started talking about tea totalism, and the people that abstained from alcohol during pre prohibition era. And then they also were more like the 12 steps, they didn’t consume any, they were straight edges. And for us, we’re not here to tell you similar to what you said that you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t maybe consume or drink low dose beverages or have a little nibble of gummy, if that helps you in your recovery. We’re not here to tell you the right path, but you do have to find that place. And it really starts with it starts with us, right? It starts with yourself. And that’s where the meat came from. And so we’ve kind of gone with this mantra of me total, and what you just said, aligned so closely to that, because the reality of the situation, it’s all about becoming the best version of ourselves, right? And it doesn’t matter how hard the process was to get here, or how crazy of a story somebody like yourself has specific to the result or and could have been could and maybe should have been so different. And here you are standing on the mountain and saying, Let’s fucking go. And it’s so dude, it’s so impressive. I feel such inspiration coming from your story. And I’m mostly excited to maybe join the mastermind and learn from you about this space, because we are, you know, really desperate to find the right time to push what we think is going to be a pretty meaningful brand with a bunch of really good people around around cannabis and this sort of micro infused beverage, because ultimately, it’s going to be the thing right? As soon as the stigma goes away, people understand how they can buy it as soon as people are not asking. The fuck is this delta nine thing like, why can I buy this? Should I lock in? Am I allowed to have this in my house? Like, do I really want to go to that store? Soon as that goes away. And people realize the health benefit in comparison to the poison that alcohol is? Who knows where it goes, and I would love for you. I hope that you’ll stay in touch with us or even you know, potentially come along for this ride with us. Because I would love to have you as part of it if there’s a way to make that happen. So thanks for the time. Yeah, man killed it.

Joe Quattrone 53:02
I love what you said, when you were talking about being in rehab, how there’s, you know, you can’t lie to anybody. You can’t tell any stories, you can’t weasel out of anything. It’s just this is who you are, and you got people based on you, you know, like, so super powerful. I’m pretty excited that you get to live your life that authentically and get, you know, all the accolades that you have. Well, well worth it. And congratulations, that everything you’ve got going for you right now.

Willie McKenzie 53:29
Thank you, man, I appreciate it. This was a lot of fun, enjoyed Chuck, topping it up with you guys. We’d love to chat about, you know, your entry into the beverage space. Actually, one of the guys in the group is the founder of Uncle Arneis, which is the number one beverage in California. And he is a wealth of knowledge launched in five states, and certainly willing to, you know, lend his expertise on the subject to you guys is amazing character.

JM Guthrie 54:00
Awesome, we have a lot of cool things happening both on king of the platform side of cannabis that we want to start potentially growing kind of a multi state operation that that a couple of other partners and investors on that we see fuzzy ultimately being a component of and some ideas particular to how best to do that sounds like you’re somebody that could be a wealth of knowledge to help us on that. And we’re always looking for friends and partners in that aspect of the business. And then, you know, to be able to think of you as a me total ambassador to that really, truly is embodying what we want this to be if there’s a way to sort of include that in the way that in the way that we work and function together and kind of build this better world and a place with a bunch more people living their best version. We’re succeeding right and, and I’m, I’m super, I’m confident we can find some really cool stuff to do together. I’m so glad that our paths crossed today. Right.

Joe Quattrone 54:57
All right, well, we’re gonna we’re gonna let you go. didn’t get going, me and Jim have to step back. And we’re going to do a little bit of a precursor for this show to our audience and we’ll do a wrap up and stuff like that. But Willie, we’ll be in touch and I made it next time you’re in Tennessee, come holler at me. I’ll take you around. I’ll introduce you to my realtors. And you can get cozy with a nice piece of land down here.

Willie McKenzie 55:16
I will be on the phone with realtors like left and right. So, yeah. Okay, we’ll be down there. Cool. Thank you guys. Thank you.

JM Guthrie 55:24
Yeah, nice to meet you, man. Thank you.

Joe Quattrone 55:28
Thanks for joining us on the FUZZEE’-ish podcast. You know where to find all of our episodes, fuzzeeishpodcast.com where you can find Willie’s episode and many, many more. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on YouTube. Follow us on all of our social media including Instagram. We love providing this podcast to all of you to be a beacon of support in the community. And any feedback you have for us. You know where to reach us. I’m Joe with JM signing off.