 Thank you so much for being here. As we all know, the Float Conference is a remarkably special place to be. The community here is unlike any other community I've been in before. People support each other. People encourage each other to actually go deeper, heal more, express their stories, be vulnerable. Some of the key ingredients to actually delving deeper into our own healing is people. I have been very fortunate over the past ten years to partake in ancient plant medicine ceremonies around the world. I have been meditating for about a decade. I have floated somewhere between 200 and 300 times. I have competed in martial arts for about the past eight years or so. There seems to be a very common thread that weaves through all of these different experiences. For me, it seems to boil down to perception. How we perceive the information that we receive, subconsciously or consciously. How able are we to really dial into the present moment, where the past, present, and future seem to blend and mold into this ever-flowing form of potential? Seeing that seems to pop up in all of these different experiences seems to be my own personal perspective on time itself. What if we were able to slow down time, legitimately slow down time? I believe floating has that potential. I believe meditation in dialing into the natural rhythm of your breathing cycle has that potential. Plant medicine for anybody who has felt the call to partake in any kind of ceremony. For my own personal opinion, I hope with proper intention and preparation and everything and please know that I am not recommending this to anybody. It's just something that has helped me discover deeply myself. A ceremony, a moment in a ceremony, whether that be meditation, plant medicine, or floating, can feel like an eternity. Explain that to somebody. How does a moment feel like an eternity? How can a 60-minute float feel like four minutes? Last year, I had the privilege and the opportunity to float 30 days in a row. And this had a profound influence on my perspective on time itself. And this series of floating day after day after day seemed to build another pillar to the puzzle of this thread that I have been referring to here. Perception, perception of our body, perception on truly what we are feeling. Not what we think we're feeling, not what we want to feel, but what we are actually feeling. My heartbeat is being felt right now. Time may be vastly different for me up here as it is for you sitting down. That is so intriguing to me. The fact that worry or adrenaline can speed up time. Make you want to leave your body, get out, move, escape from something that's being felt. Sparring in martial arts, you have this moment where you could potentially be very damaged and how do you deal with that? How do you deal with the loved one passing? Recently, a dear friend passed and I floated the day she passed. It was one of the longest floats of my entire life. It was one of the slowest floats of my entire life. What does emotion do to us? It seems to be our emotions hold the purity of where we actually are, our foundation, not where we think we are or where we really are. How do we tap into that? How do we breathe and feel that sensation? Sensation is presence. Presence is sensation, floating. We are able to go so deep and feel our heart pound and hear it in the water, move and hear that crackle shoot through the entire water. I managed the local float center in Boise, Idaho. It's called Still Water Float Center. It's been an incredible opportunity. I've watched thousands of people float, share stories, be vulnerable, open up. I've watched people be very anxious going into a float, not thinking they'll be able to last the entire 60 minutes. The first thing they say is, I can't believe how quick that went. That is remarkably beautiful, remarkably beautiful. A huge part about the float community seems to be emotional intelligence, emotional awareness. Understanding that it might be difficult for people to go internally, to go deeper inward and providing a place where that is not only acceptable, but you can manufacture their experience to suit where they are. You can float with the pod door open. You can put a towel in between for some airflow. You can play the music, have the light on the whole time. Just being in the water itself gives you benefit. I'm remarkably grateful for this entire movement. And to be involved in this in any way is an unbelievable honor. Last year was my very first float conference. I actually reference Dr. Feinstein's anxiety talk weekly. Weekly to people. This is helping people, legitimately helping people. At Stillwater, we always recommend and say to people, the third time is the charm. The first time, such a brand new experience, you don't really know what to expect. The second time, you kind of have your bearings. You've done it before. You have some frame of reference. The third time seems to be the kicker. For nine out of 10 people, there's something to that. Floating 30 days in a row, I really felt the compounded effects of everything that I have been aware of. All the little benefits. Me even saying the third time is a charm. Getting in that third float during that span of floats and diving right in. The four weeks went in phases. The first week, deep relaxation. Deep relaxation. A recharge of the battery that I didn't even know I needed. A recharge of my body that I didn't even know was there. It's as if I was recharging my battery 50%, 60%, 70% full and I thought I was maxing it out. After the first full week of continual body awareness, going deeper and deeper into the breath, it seemed to have built some form of environment for deeper things to come to the surface. The second week was a pour of things that I worry about. Things that I know I should be doing, but I'm just not doing. These things that are inside of us, no matter what we're doing where we are. We can distract and throw on Netflix. We can go for a run, healthy or not. It is interesting how we choose to potentially disassociate with our body. Even though some things connect us to our body. Physical health and internal health are one and the same but also vastly different. With this blossom of internal awareness, it was this added gear in my system that really helped allow me to look at these internal workings from a more calm and grounded place. From a place where time seems a little bit slower, able to really feel and perceive and really get a feel for what's going on without immediately reacting to something but responding to an array of information. One of the deepest lessons that I've been able to learn with plant medicine would be to perceive the full presentation of something before you respond. Before you determine what the lesson is in chapter one, watch the full scene. Watch the full movie. There's something here that might trigger something here that might trigger something here that trigger something here. It's so profoundly intriguing to me how our consciousness is threaded together so well. Medicine knows, floating knows, our bodies, our mind know how to feed and refuel us if we provide the proper space and resources and information and behavior for our system to work these magnificent workings. They're natural. How do we help fuel that natural process, those natural rhythms inside of us? Week three was a surge of energy, this recharge that was actually being felt in the physical form and in my ability to look at things respond much smoother, much cleaner, much crisper. Over and over again, over and over again. Wake up remarkably without pressing the snooze. Nothing that I do daily, unfortunately, but we do it. This is a practice, right? Can't float every day. Being able to really feel the dichotomy from that first week to that third week was substantially important for me. The yin and the yang, the balance between the blossoming that threaded the two between, interwoven within each other. Not jumping from one another, but gliding through the experience. Week four was a very, very, very busy week in my life. I have held many workshops before, but this week in particular, I was hosting one pretty much all by myself, all the tickets, all the people, make sure everything was set up, you name it, everything. The ability to feel that pressure, but stay honed in the middle of it, helped me realize what top elite athletic performance might feel like when somebody's in that flow, in that zone. Tom Brady floats, feeling all that pressure and really making something work without getting distracted with the continual noise that we experience. Doesn't matter what level you're at, if you own a business, if you have children. I don't have children, but I can't even imagine what that's like. A continual worry, everything that's sprouting in your subconscious, conscious mind that you may even knowing about it. How do we deal with that? How do we look at it? Do we look at it? Do we give it that time and that respect? Are we able to slow down time and proceed for a moment? Just be present. This was the week that I realized time is being influenced in all of these different circumstances. There was a moment where I parked outside of the float center, pressed the 20-minute marker on the meter, went inside, literally accomplished three to eight substantially important things, so honed in, so focused, so dialed, got them done, looked up, and it was still blinking green. Pivotal, absolutely pivotal. How do we hone in? How do we hone in to that moment? How do we make love with the full ability of who we are? How do we have a discussion with somebody, in person, without getting pulled away? It's not that we don't get pulled away, it's how quick do you catch it? Do you pull it right back in before it even leaves the page of where you are? These are potentials here. I've been able to feel them, experience them, and it's time under experience, time under tension with training language, time under floating, these methods work, these methods work. I felt them in myself, I've seen them with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people to leave you with this, to hopefully plan a seed here. How do you experience time? How are you within time? Do you take cold showers and you want to get out of that? How are you within those moments? I encourage you to stay just a little bit longer, breathe just a little bit deeper, feel those moments just a little bit more. Genuinely, thank you so much.