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Welcome to Live Free Ride Free, where we talk to people who have lived self-actualized lives on their own terms, and find out how they got there, what they do, how we can get there, what we can learn from them. How to live our best lives, find our own definition of success, and most importantly, find joy.
Your Host is New York Times bestselling author Rupert Isaacson. Long time human rights activist, Rupert helped a group of Bushmen in the Kalahari fight for their ancestral lands. He's probably best known for his autism advocacy work following the publication of his bestselling book "The Horse Boy" and "The Long Ride Home" where he tells the story of finding healing for his autistic son. Subsequently he founded New Trails Learning Systems an approach for addressing neuro-psychiatric conditions through horses, movement and nature. The methods are now used around the world in therapeutic riding program, therapy offices and schools for special needs and neuro-typical children.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on www.RupertIsaacson.com
Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Live Free
Ride Free, where we talk to people who
have lived self-actualized lives on
their own terms, and find out how they
got there, what they do, how we can
get there, what we can learn from them.
How to live our best lives, find
our own definition of success,
and most importantly, find joy.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
New York Times bestselling
author of the Horse Boy.
Founder of New Trails Learning
Systems and long ride home.com.
You can find details of all our programs
and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
On this, podcast for live free,
ride free, I have a legend.
I have Warwick Shiller, um, for those
of you who know him, , he doesn't need
much introduction, but for those of
you who don't yet know him, where you
should and you will now Warwick, , with
his attuned horsemanship, , Started
an online library after video library
after, , enormous success, , as a
Rainer and trainer, including going
to the world, equestrian games.
He's Australian and so on.
His video library on, , on horse
training has a bazillion people
constantly downloading it and so on.
However, that's really in some
ways the least of his talents.
, not to denigrate that at all.
, warwick's an extraordinary human,
and you're gonna see this as we go,
, through, and our conversation, I warn
you, is gonna go quite far from horses.
it might circle back to horses from
time to time, but, Warwick, I think
like many people who have achieved a
sort of, a certain level of success,
within the horse training world, has
arrived at that point where he has
to ask himself, well, well, what now?
, is that it?
And what he's done with that
question is highly, highly, highly
unusual and basically helping to
make the world a better place.
so Warwick Schiller, the man, the
legend, the explorer of Human
consciousness and other consciousnesses.
Hello and thank you for coming on.
Warwick Schiller: Hey, it's an
honor to be here with you, Rupert.
Rupert Isaacson: Those, those of you
who might have listened to Warwick
Shiller's amazing podcast called Journey.
, which again has about a bazillion
people listening to it every minute.
, might recall that he, , interviewed
me, , a couple of years ago.
And, , in the first time we
tried it, the conversation went
to shamanism rather quickly.
And, , the equipment shut down,
which is, and works like, ah, I
can't understand what's going on.
And I'm like, yeah, actually
this is not atypical.
, so I warn you guys, , something like
that could happen if there's silence.
, suddenly we'll have to , restart
because sometimes when you go into the
shamanic, electronic equipment, tends to
malfunction shut down, do funny things.
anyone who has worked in the indigenous
world around, healing ceremonies has
had and tried to record them or or
film them, has had this experience.
Just before we jump in with Warwick, I
mean, remember that the main theme of live
free, ride free is self-actualization,
is people who have, manage to live
life on their terms, in a way that helps
humanity move forward in some sort of way.
And as you know, on this show, we
don't really care whether you do
that with horses, balloons, bicycles,
elephants, or playing armpit orchestra.
The important thing.
Is that you do it.
So, Warwick has come in through horses.
He's still with horses.
But his life story and where
he's going with it now is, is
really quite extraordinary.
So Warwick, tell us about you.
Who is
Warwick Schiller: Warwick schiller
. . I'm very deep in trying to figure
that out right now for myself.
I, I had an idea of who I
thought I was for quite a long
time and now I'm not so sure.
Who were you?
well, short version was I grew
up on a farm in Australia.
Rode horses a lot as a kid.
got, we, we, we showed quarter horses,
you know, so we showed Western stuff.
And I was a kid.
I grew up riding in Pony Club.
I started riding in pony club
and, always had a fascination
about the western lifestyle.
You know, the, the horses, you
know, the way the horses were in the
western part of the United States.
And, , I actually, when I was a
teenager, I used to have this as the
Australian Quarter Horse Association.
Used to have this youth World Cup team
and they would, every year there would
be America, Canada, Germany, Italy, Hmm.
New Zealand, Australia, and maybe
one other European, oh, England
would have this youth World Cup team.
And , that's something I wanted
to do because the year I was gonna
try out for it, it was gonna be in
the United States and I was just
fascinated by the United States.
And so I went to the qualifying show.
Speed everybody there and still
didn't get picked on the team and
was a little bit bitter about that.
But I always, you know, wanted
to go to America and learn
about the horse stuff here.
And so eventually I end up, when
I left school, I worked in a bank,
but at the time they could, they
would give you, they would give
you a, a year's leave without pay.
So you still have a
job when you come back.
But if you were young and wanted to travel
or whatever, they would, you know, it
was a nationwide banking company bank.
And so I took a years leave without
pay, came to the US in the end of 1990.
So I was here for most in 91.
And , when I was leaving to go
back to Australia, sorry, I got
a job working for horse trainer.
And , when I was leaving to go back
to Australia, after about a year,
we shook hands on the veranda and
he said, , you know, if you wanna
come back, I'll give you a job.
He said, , you could do this
for a living if you wanted to.
And I'd never had any
self-confidence at all.
Like, pretty much none whatsoever.
And so for him, you know, the only
reason I actually came back was
because he told me you could do
this for a living if you wanted to.
I never would have told myself you could
do this for a living if you wanted to.
, so it was, it was meeting,
it was him saying that.
And I'd met my wife Robin, who,
you know, , I had met her in the
meantime and I'd chased her all years.
She ran like a scolded cat.
And, , when I moved back to
Australia, you know, Her, we didn't
have the internet at the time.
So when we moved back, I
moved back to Australia.
Her letters to me became a lot nicer.
She actually missed me chasing her.
And so there was that and
the offer of a, a job.
So I ended up, I was spent,
I was home for six months and
then came back six months later.
Rupert Isaacson: I've got
a couple of questions.
So you grew up in a farm in
Australia and to a lot of people
that wouldn't be so very different
to the lifestyle of the western.
USA given that Australia's a a big
place, lots of land, lots of freedom, a
fairly expansive, optimistic worldview,
, very much a horse based culture
ranching, you know, working horses are
very much part of the culture there.
Why not stay within the Australian motif?
Why
Warwick Schiller: the western motif?
You know?
Well, that's a really good question.
, my father, my father was a rodeo
writer, so he wrote in rodeos, , did
all the events, and we were
always around that west and stuff.
We weren't, you know, we weren't
around a bunch of show jumpers
or dressage people or whatever.
So I think that was, you know, something
that got ingrained in me early on, the
fascination for that sort of thing.
So it was an idea
Rupert Isaacson: to go to thesource of
the style of horsemanship that you were
Warwick Schiller: immersed?
Yeah, and I think so.
And, and, and, you know, all the crucial
monster come along with it, you know, the
how they dress and all that sort of stuff.
I,
Rupert Isaacson: I But that's, you've got
that and you've got that with the aie.
Fascinating.
You guys have the Crocodile Dundee hats
and you've got the accent and you've
got the swagger and you've got the, so I
mean, you could, to the outside eye, you
could sort of exchange one for the other.
So what made, the Australian one
not so cool just because it was known
to you and therefore not exotic?
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, I, I, it
could be that I, I really have no
idea and I've never really given
that much thought, why it was that.
But I, I was always fascinated,
maybe it was watching Western
movies on tv, you know, as a kid.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: I could see that.
, and then my second question there
is, you talked about having almost
no self-confidence, but you said that
very quickly after talking about an
initial, quite a lot of show success.
So if you'd add all this show success
with horses, quite early in your
life, why the lack of self-confidence?
Where did that come from?
Warwick Schiller: I didn't, well,
as a, you know, we showed horses
as, as kids, and I had my older
brother, he had all the show success.
He won everything.
You know, he was the, the whoop to
do and yeah, I wasn't, I mean, I
wasn't, wasn't Did you kill him?
He's still around.
He's still, he's still around you.
He's still around.
Yeah, no.
And you know, I don't think I was,
I'm, I, yeah, I did say that I won
all the stuff at the qualify show or
whatever, and I was okay, but not, no,
I I wasn't a standout by any means,
you know, I had a good horse that
year, which is really, really helpful.
But, you know, yeah, hadn't, didn't
really have much self, self-confidence
about myself in any way, shape or form.
Sir, would you say that deep
Rupert Isaacson: down on some intuitive
level that you did, because after
all, you, you didn't stay working
in the bank, you took a chance to
go to the US to give it a, a go.
, so there was a, a must have been
a part of you that believed in
yourself there, would you say or not?
Warwick Schiller: You know what,
there, there must be, but I think,
you know, my parts were pretty
fragmented to where, you know, I used
to think I didn't have any intuition.
you know, I spent a lot of time in my
head, not so much in my body, but I,
but I, yeah, there all, all the, yeah,
there's, there's, I, I think that's
what must have been there was, I had
some intuition I wasn't even aware of.
Right.
Or e either that or, you know,
my give a shit was busted.
Like, I just wanted to
do what I wanted to do.
Were there even too much thought as
to the, as to the outcome of where is
this gonna be in 20 years or whatever,
Rupert Isaacson: you know?
Indeed.
But that takes a certain,
, that takes a certain.
Not just courage, but also it does, I
think, take a certain innate intuition.
And one of the things I liked that you
just said were perhaps you were intuitive
without knowing you were intuitive.
And I, cuz I, I feel that describes
actually a lot of people, you
know, a lot of people say, oh,
I, I, you know, I'm in my hair.
I don't have intuition and
I don't know if I buy that.
I think everybody has intuition, but
they're not necessarily trained to
recognize it or value it perhaps.
Would you?
What do you think
Warwick Schiller: to that?
Yeah, not trained to recognize it, value
it or even be aware of it, you know,
how to listen to it, how to tap into it.
and I'm only just, I think,
get into that point these days.
But I, I do, you know, I, I
was very dissociated as a kid.
I spent a lot of time all my life,
spent a lot of time in my head.
And so I think, you know, you said
something about courage there minute
ago, and I've always thought that I
wasn't, I wasn't courageous at all.
And you know, you've just been,
um, doing some things with Jane
Pike and Jane was at our house.
This is interesting.
Jane was at our house, oh, possibly,
I think it was, she came out for
the Walter Question games, but I
think it was the year after that.
So it must have been 2019.
And she was at our house and I
had asked her, I said, have you
ever seen that movie Free Solo?
Have you seen a movie Free solo?
Rupert Isaacson: I have not
seen it, but I've heard much.
Warwick Schiller: Okay, so you
know, Alex hon, one of the world's
best rock climbers, and he free
solos, , El Capita in Yosemite, which
is a 3000 foot shear granite cliff.
And he climbs it with no ropes.
And, , we were talking about that and
Jane said to me, you know, the thing
about Alex is he is fully aware that he
could die any moment and he still does it.
And I said, yeah, well,
yeah, but it's not just him.
I mean, there's a lot of
people that free solo.
She goes, yes.
But I think what they do is they
dissociate from the fact they could
die, and that's how they can do it.
Whereas Alex is fully aware and fully
buys into, Hey, I could die doing this.
He, it's not, he doesn't dissociate.
I mean, he's fully aware
of it and still does it.
And that statement there to not
be thinking for a number of years.
And I think when you said, oh yeah,
you were courageous, giving up your
job, going to America, whatever,
I think I was dissociated from the
fact, what if this doesn't work?
I think I've always been quite
dissociated from the fact of what
if this doesn't work, which has
allowed me to do things with no, no
idea if it's gonna work or not.
And still doing it.
It might, and it might seem like bravery
to some people, and maybe this is just my
self-judgment of myself, but it might seem
like bravery to some people, but it's not
like I'm like, okay, I'm gonna try this.
and I might be destitute living
on the, on the street or it might
work and I'm gonna do it anyway.
I think I have dissociated from negative
outcomes from things and that's how I've
been able to kind of, you know, go with
the flow of the universe and go, Hey, I'm,
I'm gonna do whatever you present to me.
But I do think it's, I've, I've, been
pretty good at dissociating from the
possibility of things going wrong and I,
I'm, and I'm not sure if that's a, I'm
not sure if that's a good thing or a bad
thing, but I think that's what it is.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, maybe, you
know, I, I'm sure a lot of listeners
will be pondering this right now.
I mean, I think one of the things which,
we are all, I think more impressed
with each other than we are with
ourselves, cuz we all know ourselves
and we all know what, you know, idiots.
We are cuz we remember ourselves,
our younger versions, and we still
see ourselves doing the same silly
stuff and thinking the same silly
stuff we always did and felt.
However, I think that, , we often
don't value our own forms of courage.
I think we, we take those for granted.
So you saying this to me, I'm
sitting here, you know, listening
to it and thinking, well,
yeah, but is that a bad thing?
I mean, if that, that just sounds
to me like a different courage
style rather than lack of courage.
and
Warwick Schiller: yes, but you
are not the voice in my head.
Ah, yes.
Voice in my head tells
me Totally different.
That
Rupert Isaacson: voice.
Okay.
So, , do you still have that voice?
Warwick Schiller: Oh yeah, yeah.
I'm, I'm, . Yeah.
I'm coming to grips with
that, with that voice.
And I just recently had a, um, bit of a,
not an out body journey, but a bit of a
journey, you know, where I came to realize
that that voice is not the real me.
Yeah.
And he's the, he's the, I dunno if I'm
gonna call him the bad guy, but Yeah.
It's like that guy's not the real me and
the real, and, and you know, I've had
for quite a long time, I've had these,
you know, as I've been down this path
of self-discovery or whatever, I keep
on getting into deep places, I can't,
I keep getting this feeling of, well,
I've had this with like plant medicine.
Uh, as well, I keep getting this feeling
of, there's these others that I'm gonna
have to answer to for all my, you know,
failings and yada, and it's these others.
And I, and I just occurred to me
recently that these others, I've been
scared of their, of the, the judgment
or what they're gonna tell me or
whatever, because there's gonna be a
lot of scorn, whatever involved in it.
I just occurred to me the
other day, I believe that
others is actually the true me.
That is the.
So it's not, it's, it
kind of dawned on me.
It's not something to be afraid
of, like the opinions of whoever
these others are going to be to
tell me how I'm screwing shit up.
I realized here recently that that's, I
think that's actually the real me trying
to get rid of all the, the shadow me
you might say, or help get rid of him.
Rupert Isaacson: Is the real
you a critical voice or is the
real you an encouraging voice?
Warwick Schiller: Oh, I think it's gonna,
I think it's gonna be an encouraging
voice, but I think first it's gotta call
me to task for a lot of different things.
But it's, it's different than if I, I,
for me at least, it's, I'm looking at
it differently now then I just had this
epiphany that I shouldn't be worried about
these, these, this guy, this whatever
this entity is, this knowledge, this
energy, whatever it is that's gonna tell
me all the things I'm doing wrong because
that is me and, and, and, and this, you
know, all the negative voices I have in
my head these days is not actually me.
It's gonna be trying
to banish that I think.
Rupert Isaacson: So let's just return
to, you've gone back to America.
, the good news is that, , Robin has.
Run away completely.
, there's a job now.
Warwick Schiller: She slowed down when
I got back , she allowed me to, she
allowed me to catch her when I got back.
Rupert Isaacson: Just, or at least,
at least get one hand on the, on, on
the, on, on the material of the sleeve?
Yes.
, yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Before being required to chase
over the next mountain range.
but tell us what happens then?
You, you arrive here, you
set up a life, then what?
,
Warwick Schiller: well, I went, I, I
came back and I went back to work for
that guy for another couple of years.
And then Robin and I were gonna get
married and I couldn't work for this
guy and be married at the same time.
Rupert Isaacson: So why not?
He, , he wanted to marry you?
Warwick Schiller: No, he didn't
wanna marry me, but he, , yeah.
Rather imposing figure and you,
you know, you're basically on
call 24 hours a day sort of thing.
So I was living there
on the, on the place.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That would not be a good, what,
Rupert Isaacson: what state
was that out of interest?
Fear, , the state of fear.
Right.
Um, is that, is that the fear in
the upper 40 above the lower 48 or
Warwick Schiller: That's the fear
over on the left, next to the, next
to the pacification, California.
Yeah.
I've only ever lived here in California
Rupert Isaacson: Pacific.
Fear.
Got it.
Mm-hmm.
. Um, okay.
So you realize that with this particular
trainer, you have to be all in.
There's no other way.
So you have to, you have to, to go.
So what do you do?
Warwick Schiller: Uh, I got a job working
for some, some people who had, they
had stallion and they were raising some
horses and, and so I got a job working for
them, , which means we were gonna move.
So Robin had to get a new job.
And, you know, the thing is, Robin
has always been the breadwinner
in our family as far as having the
real job with the health insurance.
As you know, health insurance in
America is ridiculously expensive,
you know, self-employed, you can't get
health, health insurance very good.
And, but, you know, Robin was into
horses and so if you think about
the business of training horses,
Rupert Isaacson: not without its dangers.
Yeah,
Warwick Schiller: yeah.
Not without its dangers, but, but, but
because we're in business doing that.
Think, think about, if you, let's say
she, so Robin was in human resources.
Let's say she's just a person who's
in your human resources, but she wants
to go to horse shows on the weekend.
She's gonna buy horses and she's gotta
buy a truck and she's gotta buy a trailer,
she's gotta buy a s she's gotta buy some
boots, she's gotta buy some brushes.
All of that stuff comes out
of your income after tax.
Whereas I'm a horse trainer and,
you know, she wants a truck and
she wants a trailer and she wants
a horse and she wants to sell.
We can write all that stuff off.
So it, it,
it, you know, she was the main, she
was the main breadwinner for a long
time, but I, you know, her being that
breadwinner kind of allowed me to follow.
No sort of thing.
Follow my interests sort of thing
with no, , having to worry about
the, the negative outcomes of that.
Rupert Isaacson: And so,
no, you, you say very gli.
Well, I left and I got a job somewhere
else, but I, , also lived, , in
North America for many years.
So, I know that just showing up in
North America to work horses is not
the same as having a work permit and
a green card and that sort of thing.
It took me quite a while
to, get all that sorted.
, did you get married right away or
were you having to go under the table?
Like many
Warwick Schiller: of us, so, oh no,
it's, I'd been under the table for,
you know, the first three years.
So then I was, , but we were
married, so we got a, well, I had
a green card by this point in time.
And what's really interesting is if you
ever seen that movie, green Card, anybody
listening has seen that movie Green Card
with, the French guy with the big nose.
What's his name?
Er wait.
, it is just like that when you go, we
used to be back then, at least when
you go in for the interview, they
want, you know, they separate you.
They wanna know how does he have
his coffee in the morning, what
colors his toothbrush, which
side of the bed did he sleep on?
They're trying to really make
sure that you're not marrying
for, , the wrong reason.
Just for the gr Yeah,
just for the green card.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I went through all that.
I remember.
, and I, I, like you did many years, , under
the table as a horse trainer, which
of course is an immensely physically
dangerous thing to do because if you
take a wreck, , well, you, there is no.
Care.
And it's interesting, I'm sure you
have this, I look back at the risks
I took, , you know, I was doing
jumping horses and I've, and I was
falling off them, , as you do gravity.
And, , it didn't occur to me, , perhaps
cuz I grew up in England with the
national health, perhaps because I
like you, I disassociated or whatever.
It didn't occur to me what could happen
if I took a wreck beyond a certain point.
Did you ever have that worry?
Or did again, did you just push
Warwick Schiller: that out of your mind?
No, I don't think I
ever, ever considered it.
You know, I've always been healthy,
never go to doctors, whatever.
So it wasn't like, you know,
that was something I really,
really concerned about actually.
When horses
Rupert Isaacson: jump on, you smash
you against walls, stomp you.
Yeah.
And otherwise
Warwick Schiller: send you to the doctor
Yeah.
Or you just kind of soldier on whatever.
Indeed.
Rupert Isaacson: Alright, so you're
soldiering on, you're a horse
trainer now, you're married to Robin.
, you're, both of you showing,
you're, you're both competing.
Mm-hmm.
, you've got a horse training business.
Okay.
She's got a quote unquote real job.
But you're clearly doing this together.
You're clearly building an
equestrian endeavor together.
How does this plan out?
What, what happens next?
, Warwick Schiller: well, I was really
interested in the raining at the, you
know, that's where I came to America,
wanted to learn about raining horses.
and so we, and initially I had
to take whatever, oh, sorry.
I worked for those people for a
year, and then we decided to move
down to where her parents live,
where we are right now, actually.
And so then I went out on my own, like
I'm training for the public and I wasn't,
I wasn't ready to, you're out my own
training for the public, but I did anyway.
And the, you know, the thing is
when I, the trainer I worked for,
he only competed at the highest
levels of say the, the reigning.
And so that's all I knew.
And so when I first started training,
I started training outta this, this
public boarding facility thing.
And there was a trainer there
and I was thinking, oh my
goodness, there's a trainer.
I'm gonna learn so much watching this
guy ride and just being around him, I'll
be out asking questions and whatever.
And when I saw this guy who's a trainer,
he's a, he's a professional trainer.
And when I saw how he was with
horses, I'm like, this guy's useless.
And then what I realized what was there
is old sorts of levels of trainers
because there's no regulation of it.
You can hang your shingle out and say, I'm
a horse trainer, and I'd only ever been
exposed to the ones at the upper levels.
I thought that was the
only level there was.
I didn't realize there
was all these levels and.
You know, people can spend all their life
being a horse trainer in an area, and
they go to the little local show that's
on once every two weeks or a month or
whatever, and they take their clients
there and they never get any better.
They don't want to get any better.
I, I didn't realize that, that that was
an actual, that was an actual thing.
So that was a, you know, that
was a bit of a, an eye-opener.
But anyway, so I open it.
But anyway, so I, my, , in-laws gave
me a wheeling or a yearling, that
they got from a friend of theirs
for my, sorry, our wedding present.
Rupert Isaacson: Robin's
family were also horsey.
Warwick Schiller: Yes, yes.
Mom, mum's, Robin's,
mum's family were horsey.
Yeah.
and so we got this, I think it's a wining
or yearling, but end up, you know, as he
was, when he was old enough, I trained
him and showed him in the reigning.
And he was, he was the first raining
horse I had to where I could go to
horse shows with a, with a horse.
And so people started seeing me compete
on this horse and like, do good.
So then I slowly started getting
clients from the area who wanted to
get into the raining or have a horse
trained a certain way or whatever.
And, and it built up from there.
And by the, we got married in
94 and by about 99 I was, , I
just had raining horses.
That's all I had.
So that's, you know, I was,
Rupert Isaacson: I'm just gonna interject
for people who are listening who do not
know what raining is, and there may be
some raining, is, you could say the, the
dressage of Western riding to some degree.
Um, it's the finer riding of, of
patterns rather than roping cows
or, riding the rodeo events.
Would you, would you say that
that's more or less accurate?
Warwick, just for those listeners
who might not be f fully
familiar with what raining is.
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
It's, I mean, one other way
that I describe it is like
ice skating on horseback.
Okay.
but yeah, cross between
dress ice and ice skating
Rupert Isaacson: and horseback the horse.
And, and the horse has no
problem keeping the skates on.
they don't wobble through the anchor.
Warwick Schiller: Oh, we've
gotta strap, strap the skates on.
Pretty tight.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Horses on ice.
, okay.
So now you're doing quite well.
You've got a, a decent horse.
You're attracting clients and you're
away, you're, you're, you're good.
why not just stop there?
Why not just be a horse trainer?
Warwick Schiller: Well, my son was,
, so the, when my, you've met my son
Tyler, , when Tyler was in kindergarten,
we homeschooled him and we were
traveling all over the United States.
We drove from this coast to the
west, the east coast, showing horses.
And, but then we thought, no, he's not
getting socialized the way he should.
So he, you know, he needs
to go to a, a real school.
, but, and then we got thinking, you
know what, the better you get at this
horse training camper, especially
with horse shows and stuff, the more
you're gone, and I'm not sure that
is, is, something we want for Tyler.
And so we actually, during,
this is during 2003, this is,
this is how the universe works.
During 2003, we actually flew back
to Australia to my hometown, looking
at opening a subway sandwich shop.
I know nothing about retail or subway
sandwiches or whatever, but we thought
that's a franchise we could get into.
We could just have a regular
lifestyle, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, we, we flew back there and it,
you know, I contacted Subway and it turns
out that the town that I grew up in,
that my family lives in, didn't have a
subway, salmon shop, hadn't ever had one.
And then the day before I called
Subway, someone had got the
franchise for that particular town.
Okay?
So we TRAs we come back to America.
So I had this client who, , was.
Silicon Valley headhunt.
He was at one point in time, he was the
biggest headhunter in Silicon Valley.
So he was an IT executive recruiter, okay.
And he would like, he's, he's the
guy that introduced Tim Cook to
Steve Jobs to take over Apple.
Okay, guy's name's Rick
Devine, really cool guy.
And his wife was a client of mine,
wife and daughter to a clients of mine.
And so about, October that year,
so I think it was in about July
that we went back to Australia,
about October that year.
Rick calls me one day and I knew they
were building this big fancy facility
over on the coast near Santa Cruz.
Rick calls me one day and he said, , Hey
Vicky, so his wife's name is Vicky.
He said, Vicky's looking for, do you
know of any old, you know, horse trainers
who are retired now, who are older, who,
you know, don't really want to compete
anymore, but they, they want a job.
What, what Vicky would like to
have as a private horse trainer.
and you know, but they've gotta
be of a certain level and a
certain mindset and stuff.
And I said to Rick, you know what?
I don't know anybody that worked for
that because anyone who's qualified
for the job is not looking for
the job and anybody who wants that
job is not qualified for the job.
Cuz he had said an older guy
who's, you know, towards the
end of his career or whatever.
And I said, but I'll keep an eye out
for you, sw it off the phone with Rick.
And all of a sudden it hit me like, hang
on, that could be an opportunity for.
Because Vicky is a very, very particular
about how horses are trained and
treated and all that sort of stuff.
And not, not a lot of
people would fit that job.
I'm like, that, that might work for me.
And Robin was actually in Columbus, Ohio.
So for you guys not from America,
that's on the other side of
the country from where we live.
She was at a horse show there.
And I, I called her and I
told her and I said, well, you
thinking, she says, call him back.
So I called Rick back and I said, Hey,
I actually, I'd be interested in that.
And so we ended up, I went
to work for Rick and Vicky for
three years, 2004, 2005, 2006.
So I, I'd had, I had a, a barn
with like 20 regular clients,
you know, 20 horses in training.
Cuz over here with like, say
with the rainy a horse stays
in training with the trainer.
It's not like you send a horse for
30 days and it goes home or whatever.
They, they stay with
the trainer, you know.
So I had these, I had about 20 horses
in training full-time and I'd had a
young fellow work for me for five years.
And, and I'd got to the point
where I said to him, you know what?
I can, I've taught you what I know,
but you need to go to Texas and with
one of the big raining trainers, you
know, what I am good at is getting
the best out of average horses.
But those guys don't
deal with average horses.
They only deal with the best horses.
And there's a whole different
way of going about things.
Doing that.
So I'd sent him off.
Well anyway, I had to call
him and say, Hey, do you wanna
come back and take over here?
Because what I didn't wanna do was leave
all these, a lot of the people that
I had as clients weren't interested
in the ranching in the first place.
They just started coming for lessons.
And then they saw the horses,
like, I'd like to try that.
And said to all these clients,
I feel felt like I couldn't
leave him to hang out to drive.
So I had this young fellow come back and
took over and we went over to, and we
worked for the Divines for three years.
And it was great because I could, I could
drop Tyler off at school in the morning.
You know, I had basically, I was my own
boss, you know, I had a eight stall barn
that cost a million dollars to build,
had copper gutters and downspouts,
and was, was designed by an architect.
And, you know, I was all beautiful.
So I dropped Tyler off, right horses,
and then I'd go and pick him up from
school, bring him out to the ranch,
and he'd ride the quad around or shoot
the BB gun or whatever he would do.
So we spent lots of time together.
But what was funny was, uh, couple of
years after working for him, we having
dinner one night, having a few drinks.
And Rick said to me, remember
that day I called you?
And, and uh, I said, yeah.
And he said, soon as I got off
the phone, I turned to Vicky
and I said, yeah, I got him.
I didn't even know you were, I didn't even
know you were, were, were head hunting.
Me.
He's that good.
Like he, he didn't ask me.
He asked if I knew of anybody who might
be, and somehow his intuition let him
know that I might be available to that.
So,
Rupert Isaacson: interesting.
Did you, she worked for the,
did you ever, um, go to him for
masterclass in intuition at that?
Warwick Schiller: No, he wouldn't have
known, I wouldn't known what intuition was
if you've bitten him the ass back then.
Mm-hmm.
. Um, so after three years of working
for them, then Vicki decided, no,
I might, I might wanna move to
Colorado and live in the snow.
And so I was gonna have
to do something different.
And we weren't very far from, you know,
we're probably half an hour drive from
more, it had been training horses.
And I kind of felt like it wasn't
fair for me to move back to the area
that I was in before and then steal
all my old clients back off the guard
that had given these clients to.
And so we decided, and this is another
one of those things, I didn't think
the, the negative possibilities, but I
said, why don't we move to Australia?
Why don't we move back to Australia?
You know?
Um, we'd done okay a little bit in the
real estate market here, like, come on.
We moved back to Australia, you know,
Australia's cheap place to live, and
we bought two quarter horse stallions.
We thought I'll go the breeding business.
And we moved back to Australia
and we were there for four years.
After three and a half years
Rob and said, you know what?
I wanna move home.
And so she moved back, like in the
middle of 2010 and Tyler and I stayed
on to sell whatever horses and cars
and houses and whatever house we had.
Tyler is how old by now?
Tyler was 14 when we moved back.
So we was like, he was
there from 10 to 14.
Uh, so we moved there with a
40 foot container, two horses,
two dogs, and came back with a
20 foot container and two dogs.
Okay.
And sold the horses while we're there.
And then, and this is
where life takes a turn.
I was, when we were there, uh, we
were both on the board of the, the
Reigning Association in Australia.
It's called Raining Australia.
And we were at a board meeting
and in about 2000 and maybe
seven, eight, something like that.
And they said, E so Equator is the
biggest horse expo in Australia.
It's a different company than the Ecut in
Germany, but still it's called Equator.
It's the biggest horse expo in Australia.
And, and we were at a board
meeting and they read out some
correspondence that Equator had asked,
could somebody come down and do a
raining demonstration at Equator?
And I said, yeah, well,
I'm probably the closest.
I was only about eight
hours away from there.
You know, some of the people on the board
were 24 hours drive from where Equator is.
It's in Melbourne at
the bottom of Australia.
And so I said, yeah, I'll,
I'll go to do a bit of a demo.
And then Equian contacted you.
They have one of those, you know, those
cult starting competitions like one in
America that's called Road to the Horse.
This one's called Way the Horse.
And they wanted to know, would I,
seeing I was coming down, would I
be the inner arena commentator, like
the color commentator for this col
starting competition, like say Sure.
And so that's the one of
the main attractions there.
The stadium there is full of people,
so there's like three or 4,000 people
in there every day watching this thing.
And I get to stand and talk on the
microphone for a couple of hours
in front of a crowd of big crowd of
people for like three days in a row.
and I was just helping it out.
You know, they asked me to do it.
There was no, um, plan
to do anything with that.
Anyway, after that, I had people
start call me up saying, Hey, we
like the way you, um, we like the
way you explained things at, at Ecut.
Would you like to come up
and do a clinic for us?
I'm like, well, I hadn't
ever really thought of doing
clinics, but yeah, why not?
And so I started doing clinics and so
I did clinics, quite a lot of clinics.
The last few years I was in Australia.
So when we moved back to the us, Robin
got her old job in HR back, uh, we
moved back to the US and I've gotta
start all over again, all over again.
And I, um, you know, I started
getting in problem, horses,
problem, warm bloods, whatever.
And I started videoing them and making
these little videos on YouTube, because
what I had seen from the clinics was that,
oh, there's some very basic premises about
horses that people don't understand and
it causes them all sorts of problems.
And if they understood these basic
things that have a lot less trouble.
So I started making these little
videos, putting 'em on Facebook.
Facebook had just really started
a couple of years before that and
YouTube, and they, people were
liking them and people wanted, they
said, can you do longer videos?
Like show us more stuff?
Well, at the time, YouTube would
only allow you to put a 10 minute
clip on unless you had a certain
number of views on your channel.
And so I couldn't put
longer videos on YouTube.
And so I found a video hosting site
that would host my videos, but they
wanted to charge me 300 bucks a
month to put the videos on there.
And so then I had to start charging
for the videos just because otherwise
I was gonna be losing money doing it.
And that took off.
And that's my main business these days is,
you know, this online video library I had.
But it all started out that
there was no plan to monetize it.
There was no plan to monetize
going to Ecut and talking in
front of all those people.
There was no plan to
turn that into clinics.
There was no plan to
monetize the, the videos.
And I was listening to a Tony Robbins
podcast a few years ago where he was
talking about, he's like, there's seven
things you've gotta, you know what Tony
Robbins like, he's pretty out there.
There's seven things you have to do in
life that makes life perfect or whatever.
And there was, he said, there's the first
five things and once you get through
those, then the next one, there's two
left, and then the next one, the sixth
one, this is the hard one for most people.
And that is giving with no thought
of anything coming back from that.
And if you can do that, you will be given
more than you've ever could have imagined.
And it's kind of like, that's kind
of what's happened here is, um,
you know, there was no plan to
monetize anything, any of those two
givings, the going to e equitana and
helping people understand things.
And then putting these videos on YouTube.
I was just putting videos on
YouTube because I thought there was.
You know, it's some misunderstandings
about horses that people were having
that I'd like to help them with, so
they're not having as much problems.
But there was no plan
to monetize that at all.
And then, you know, the, that thing
after a few years took off to where I was
spending, you know, I was doing clinics, I
was flying around the road doing clinics,
had horses and training, had to go working
for me, helping those, keeping those going
while I was away, had the video thing.
And one time I came back from a trip
and I'm thinking when I get back from a
trip, I'm at the barn seven days a week,
uh, six days a week, training horses,
and that's making about 10% of my money.
Why am I spending 90% of my
time making 10% of my money?
Tyler wants to go to college.
You have to pay for college, you know,
and so then I made the decision to not
train horses anymore and just focus on
the, the clinics and the, uh, the videos.
And then a few years, I don't know how
many years after that, but not many years
after that, Robin said, you need, you need
help with running this thing that's came.
So she quit HR and then, so
she's, you know, she came
in, no, me, and here we are.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, this
isn't quite where we are.
, this is where I think we were.
, this is where we were
Warwick Schiller: at
this point in the story.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
, so for those of you again, who
are just gonna fill in a couple
of gaps here, if you're not
horsey, , Warwick made it sound.
Relatively straightforward to
become very, very, very successful
in the horse training business.
Let me assure you, listeners, it is not,
, it is possibly, I would say, the hardest
skill that you can possibly try to learn.
And the reason is, is that most skills,
let's say you want to learn a language
or an art or something, it's you and your
body and brain and your nervous system.
When you add a horse, it's a whole
other body, brain, and nervous
system that has its own ideas.
The weighs what a truck weighs that
solves its problems by violently
running away that isn't designed
to carry weight on its back.
Regards you as a predator cuz you
are, your weight is not designed
to sit on a moving barrel.
You have these hands, you try to solve
things with your hands and grabbing
because that's what we do as, as apes.
Well, you can't do that on the horse
and without upsetting it greatly, if
you, , go into your, , fight, flight,
freeze position in that sort of crouch
where you protect your organs and
hunch, which of course you want to do on
horses because it's often quite scary.
particularly with young horses,
guess what's gonna happen?
You're gonna fall off and you're
gonna fall off quite badly cuz
your, your weight will be wrong.
So just those things alone.
Mean that it's sort of a miracle that
the thing can even happen at all.
But to take it to the level that Warwick
took it, is no easy, feat at all.
So, I just want you to know that
he's not being falsely modest here.
He's just a, a fairly modest dude.
so I know him, but take it from me.
this was not an easy road.
This was not an easy road at all.
Alright, so you are, you are,
you are there and you are now,
you've got this online video
library, and this is doing well.
, Robin's left her job.
You're basically in media at this point.
You're, you are, you are, you may
not know it, but you're creating
media admittedly, in service.
Admittedly, you know, the content
is about what you know, you're
not at this point making content
about, foreign wars or, , Netflix.
, right.
I'm not a journalist Game of
Thrones, series or anything.
But you're, nonetheless, you are producing
very effective, documentary television.
, even if you don't know it.
and you've created a family
business out of this.
So your, your son is involved.
Your, your, your wife is involved now.
Now you're going for it again.
Why not just stay there?
Where did you go?
Where have you gone?
When I said, you said, this is where
we are, I said, this is where we were.
I know that you've.
out from this.
And this is where I really do, suggest
that you start to listen a bit more
deeply, listeners, cuz everything
up to this point has been preamble.
Warwick Schiller: yeah, this
is all that, all that's just
Rupert Isaacson: lead up, but it's,
we need the, we need the context.
So, okay, I'll stop talking now.
What happens next?
Warwick Schiller: So, Robin wants to buy
another raining horse and we have this
modest budget to buy this raining horse.
And she's looking at two different horses.
And one is a big old steady
Eddie, sort of a gilding.
And the other one is this little tiny
little, not tiny, but little very
athletic feely, can do all the hard stuff.
And they're both the same price.
We're actually gonna look at
'em from the same trainer.
, they're both the same price, but
one's average and one is exceptional.
But the exceptional one, the trainer
that has him, he, they can't what we
would call him the business get him
shown, meaning the talent he can show
you at home doesn't, you can't com put a
complete run together in the show ring.
Something always goes wrong, like,
and with this particular horse,
he would spook at the judge's
chairs or something like that.
And the guy that trained the
horse is a friend of mine.
I know he's very, very good
at training raining horses.
But as far as problem solving,
you know, he's not the best at
that sort, those sorts of things.
And so I'm like, you know, I.
I've got this online video library.
I go around travel around the
world doing clinics, and all the
horses leave better than they came.
I know what I'm talking about.
I can fix that horse, buy that horse.
And actually, interesting story.
We actually bought him from
Michael Schumacher's wife Karina.
So the Formula One driver, okay,
Karina's really into the raining.
And, both horses.
Karina owned both horses.
A friend of mine was training
horses for them at the time.
So I ended up buying this horse, his
named Sherlock, and we get him home
and I wanna fix this, fix this horse.
And some of the, some of the issues
he had were easily solvable, but
there was one that I wasn't aware
of that was a lot more subtle.
Sherlock was very obedient, did whatever
you want, but he carried this level
of tension that would interfere with
him in the show ring to where, so
in the reigning you, you get given
a, you, you start with a score of
70, and then you, for each movement,
you ha add and subtract from there.
It's either, you know, if it's, if
it's a good movement, you might get
a 71, you know, you might get one
point added, or if it's bad, you
get one point taken away, you know?
and you know, for a, a rain, there's
either seven or eight maneuvers in
a raining pattern, and a really good
raining score might be like a 74.
Okay?
But, Apart from getting scored
on each maneuver, there are
also penalties incurred.
You know, it'd be like in jumping time,
faults sort of thing, or knocking a rail
would be, you know, that sort of thing.
So if you jump clear your time is a
certain thing in, in the jumping, but
if you knock a rail, it's this much off.
You knock two Rs too
much, that sort of thing.
Yeah.
And so Sherlock could go in there and
mark like, you know, Rob was showing him,
he could go in there and mark earn a 74,
but he would have a number of penalties
that would bring him back down to a 70.
And those penalties were
the simplest of things.
So in the reigning of horse
needs to be on the correct lead.
Of course,
Rupert Isaacson: again, for the non horsey
people, that means when you are countering
or in the slow Gallup, the four leg
needs to be on the inside of the curve.
This might sound very esoteric,
but it basically, it's, it can
be the difference between a horse
Warwick Schiller: falling over and not.
Yeah.
So if you think about skipping,
you're gonna skip with one leg
skips in front of the other one.
Both of the legs, the front legs and the
back legs need to be doing that thing.
Like the inside Hein leg goes
further forward in the outside hen
leg and the front leg, same thing.
Well, what Sherlock would do, because
he had this level of tension when
he was running fast circles in the
reigning, he would bounce his hin
feet together every once in a while.
So he's not on the wrong lead.
His outside hen leg does not reach further
forward than his inside home league.
He's not on the wrong lead.
He would just bounce
his home feet together.
Well, that's a one point penalty
that is not on the correct.
Okay.
For that split second, but
it's still the same penalty.
Yeah.
And so he would do that, like, and
I could not train that out of him.
I couldn't Yeah.
Do exercises to, to fix that.
And trying to do things
actually made him seem worse.
Right.
And that brought stress attention.
Right.
Yeah.
And what, what I came to realize
about Sherlock, he was just
very, very shut down, very, very
robotic shut down in his head.
And he, he led me down a rabbit
hole of figuring out that I was
exactly the same way Sherlock was me.
And how I came to discover that I was
at a horse expo in Madison, Wisconsin.
And at those horse expos, most times
I'm working with the horse in an arena.
Right.
You know, I don't bring a horse.
I have problem horses that show up
and I help them, but every once in a
while, the horse expo will have you do
a standup talk in like a lecture hall.
And so I've, and you know, quite a,
quite often the horse ex expos have that.
So I just have this title
that I have that I will spit.
You know, they want titles for the
sessions three months ahead of time.
And I'll just give 'em this one title.
And it's called Everything
I Learned in Life.
I Learned From Horses, and
I've done it over the years.
And I just talk about life
lessons I've learned from horses.
And each one's a bit different,
but by about this time, I'd
started looking at things.
I dunno quite a bit differently, but
I stood up in front of a couple of
hundred people and did this talk.
And that was, the talk was
different than I'd done before.
And I was probably a little more
vulnerable about things than I had before.
And when I got done with that
talk, I went back to my booth and I
went past Barbara Schulte's booth.
So you met Barb at the, the
Genuine Podcast Summit last year.
Barb's a question mindset coach.
And she said, how'd the talk go?
And I said, oh my god,
Barb, I'm exhausted.
I feel like I've been run over by a truck.
She goes, what do you mean?
And I said, ah, I was, there
was 200 strangers in that room.
And I, I told him some stuff I've
probably never even told myself before.
I've never admitted to somebody or
probably never knew it to myself before.
And she goes, oh, well you know
what Brene Brown says, you know,
vulnerability's a ultimate badass.
And I'm like, Brene, who?
She says, Brene Brown.
So I came home and I looked up this Brene
Brown and I got a couple of her audiobook.
So I was outside on the tractor moving
piles of horse manure or whatever
with my earphones on listening.
And Brett, a Brown says in
there, if you, you, you can't
selectively suppress emotions.
If you suppress the low emotions,
fear, grief, those sorts of
things, you automatically
suppress the higher emotions.
And I'm like, well, I know, you
know, in my family of origin, well
my culture I grew up in, you know,
boys don't cry, boys don't show fear.
And in my family, I don't show grief.
Like I can remember going to a
funeral and my parents would go,
well, he's dead, and off you go.
You know?
And so I knew I had some suppressed
emotions on the lower side, but I
never thought about the higher side,
like, could I experience more joy
or more happiness or, or whatever.
And so that kind of led me down a rabbit
hole of therapy and looking at, looking
at for different ways of resolving that.
And you know, it's, that's been
four year, that was 2017, so maybe
that's been about six years now
Rupert Isaacson: before we
join you down the rabbit hole.
Why on that particular occasion
were you vulnerable talking to those
people where you hadn't been before?
What changed?
What was different?
Warwick Schiller: well, sh you know,
Sherlock had got me, Sherlock had kind
of got me to where I thought I knew
what I was doing and w I know what
to do and I know how to solve things.
And when I couldn't solve things the
way I was looking at solving them
the way I had been solving all sorts
of things in the past, it kind of,
that's a little confronting to where
you're like, you know, it's kind of
like your view of the world changes.
Like, I thought it was this way.
I thought there were
absolutely, and this works.
. And when that doesn't work, it kind
of gets you looking outside that.
So I started, what I had started
doing was reading articles online by
people that I would've horse people.
Then in the past I would've considered
crazy cat ladies , you know, like,
and a lot of it had to do with
relationship type work with horses and
not technique type stuff with horses.
And I, and then I'd started, I'd started
fiddling with horses at clinics actually.
And I, I had a,
I had a horse at a clinic
in Texas around this time.
And it was before this, it was before
this horse expo where I gave this
talk and this, this was the thing that
probably changed everything for me.
So this horse came to a
clinic, he's a Mustang.
He's been outta the wild
for nine, for six years.
He's nine years old.
Been outta the wild since he was three.
They've been riding him and, you know,
he does everything well, except every
once in a while he will bolt out of
nowhere and they dunno what causes it.
Okay.
And the trainer of the horse was
at the clinic as well as the owner.
, you would've met them probably
at the podcast summit last
year cuz they were there.
But the owner's name's Hannah
and, and this horse, no.
So I said to the, I said to the
trainer, so what triggers the bolting?
Cuz you don't sew the bolting issues?
Boltings.
A bolting is a.
is a symptom of something else.
If you can figure out what the something
else is, the bolting will go away.
And I said, what causes it?
Like, what's the trigger?
She goes, the, and the trainer said,
I don't know what the trigger is.
Like it could be something that
yesterday he was fine with.
And you know, the time before it
could have been something he was
fine with the day before that.
And I'm like, well, that's interesting.
I'm not sure I can help you because
I've gotta know what the trigger
is in order to solve the problem.
The problem is not the problem, you know?
And so Hannah was on the ground
doing some groundwork with him, and
she was asking him to disengage.
So he is just gonna walk down his
side and just ask him to step over
behind maybes, cross his hi legs.
And she said to me, Hey,
he keeps blocking me out.
Like when I go to walk down beside
him, I'm in, like she's in front
of him facing him, and she wants
to walk down his left side and ask
him to move his hand end over, but
he turns his head and blocks her.
And in the past I probably would
have taken that as you know, not
necessarily disobedience, but
what I would've done in the past.
It just reached my hand under his
jaw and moved his head back to the
middle and walked down the side.
I said, let me try.
And I went over and I went to
walk down his side and he turned
his head and blocked me with
his head to not get in his side.
Instead of saying, excuse
me, I'm going down your side.
I stepped back to my original
position and said, I saw your concern.
It was basically what I was
communicating from that.
Like, I'm not sure why you did that.
, but I saw you did that and I,
you're telling me you don't
want me to go down there.
And I said to Hannah, you've probably
just overdone the disengaging.
Like if you drill stuff like this,
they probably just get sick of it.
I think that's what he's doing.
Let me try again.
So I tried again.
He turned his head.
I stepped back and said,
I see your concern.
I did it.
I need that for about 10 minutes.
And after about 10 minutes of not
correcting him, not training him, but just
telling him I'm listening, I go to walk
down that side and he lets me, doesn't
turn his head in the slightest bit.
I'm like, okay, he's been ridden for six
years, so obviously I could touch him.
And so I reached my hand up to put on
his wither just to put my hand there.
But I'm watching his head and his eye
and his ear and his nose and his muzzle.
And as I go to touch him, his head
raises just about half an inch.
He just stiffens up very slightly.
So I took my hand away and I
waited till he showed me some
sign of being less concerned,
like his head lowers or whatever.
And I tried it again.
I did that for about 10 minutes.
And so I spent 10 minutes
trying to walk down the side of
him, which he finally lets me.
And then after about 10 minutes
of this, doing this with my hand,
I can now put my hand on him.
And there's no change in him.
Like he's not concerned at all.
And I said to Hannah, so now what I'm
gonna do, I'm asking to disengage.
And I ask him to disengage
and he does it perfectly.
And I said to Hannah, okay, what I'm
gonna do now is I'm gonna go back to the
front of him and come down this side.
And I bet he blocks me again.
He's gonna tell me I'm
sick of disengaging.
You know, I walk back to the.
I go to walk down the side, he
lets me ask him to disengage.
So I go back to the front, I
walk down the side and disengage.
And I did it over and over and over.
And I couldn't get him to say no.
And I said to Hannah, I have no
idea why he was saying no before,
because he's fine with it now.
So I hand the lead, wrote back to her and
I, she said, what do you want me to do?
And I said, just hang on to him.
Just hang there with him, you know,
let him think about that for a minute.
So I go and help somebody else and about
10 minutes later there is a collective
gasp from everybody at the clinic,
like, and I turn and I look, and this
little Mustang, his name's Cody, has
buckled at the knees, dropped through
his belly and just started snoring.
Little dust, clouds in the
dirt, like his head's vertical.
And he's, and then all of a sudden he has
a roll, gets up, has a big old shake, and
then just buckles at the knees and goes
back down and falls immediately asleep.
And I said to Hannah, has
that ever happened before?
Is that normal?
And she said, I've had him for six
years and I've seen him lay down once.
And so, right then I knew
something had happened.
I wasn't sure what happened or why
it happened, but I knew something had
happened and he slept to lunchtime.
So, you know, at the time when I do a
clinic, I was having a morning group
and an afternoon group, and they were in
the morning group and he slept for about
an hour and a half with the loudspeaker
going and other horses riding around.
And she had actually gave
Rupert Isaacson: the non horsey people.
That's just, that doesn't happen.
Horses, it doesn't happen.
They don't sleep like that.
No.
Warwick Schiller: They little So.
She put him away and the next day
for the clinic, she brings him in
first thing in the morning, you
know, eight o'clock in the morning.
And she said, what do you want me to do?
And I said, just hang with
him and see what he does.
So she stands there about
20 minutes later, boom.
And he goes, passes out flat on his
side, sleeps for four hours till
lunchtime, like doesn't get up.
He's unconscious.
Rupert Isaacson: And again, for
listeners, horses, a, the reason
they don't lie down for that long
is because they're vulnerable to
predators in the wild when they do that.
And b, usually their internal
organs, , can compress on it on
themselves, when a horse is lying
like that for an awful long time.
So horses just generally will not do that.
So this is, let's just say this
is highly unusual behavior, okay?
Warwick Schiller: Highly
unusual behavior for any horse.
But this horse, she hasn't
seen him lay down in six years.
She said, actually, I seen him
lay down once, but when I appeared
on the horizon, he jumped up.
Yeah.
And so I knew something had happened and
I came home from that clinic and I looked
up sleeping habits of horses online.
You know, you, I know horses
can sleep standing up and I know
horses will sleep laying down.
But what I didn't know was
when horses sleep standing
up, it is a very light sleep.
It's dozing.
They're just dozing in an order.
So what they need to do in order to
get enough r e m sleep, they need
to lay prone, they need to lay flat.
And in order to lay flat,
they need to feel safe.
And if a horse does not get enough,
R e RM sleep, now we can't ask
the horse what they do, but with
humans, if they don't get enough r
e m sleep, they're either irritable.
Anxious.
So anyway, she went home from the clinic.
He slept for about a week.
Like he spent more time sleeping
than anything else for about a week.
That was six or seven years ago.
He has not bolted once since.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I mean it makes one thing, you know,
lack of sleep in a human if it's
that chronic needs a psychosis.
Warwick Schiller: Um, well this was,
yeah, what he, he just wasn't relaxed.
So his nervous system was on
high alert and so it didn't, it
wasn't about what set him off.
It was the fact he, you know, his nervous
system was stuck in flight mode basically.
Yeah.
But anyway, the big thing about that
was I didn't do anything except listen.
I only thing I did with him was
communicate the fact I was listening
and when he said, you notice that
you noticed that little thing, you
noticed my head raised half an inch.
If you noticed that, then you
could probably notice a save two
tiger on the horizon, which means
you are one of my herd mates.
Like, I trust your judgment, which
means I could lay down around you.
And it was the biggest change
I've ever seen with a horse
that I didn't do anything with.
Well, even, it's probably as big
a change as I've ever seen in a
horse and I didn't do anything.
And up to that point in time, I'd all been
about training horses, training, learning
better training techniques, learning more
about more empathetic training techniques.
But they were all training techniques.
And that was got me thinking about,
well, what can we get done by listening?
Quick
Rupert Isaacson: question
before we go there.
Was this post Sherlock or pre-show?
Warwick Schiller: This was after I got
Sherlock and I, I, what I had done with
Sherlock was I had stepped away from
trying to make Sherlock any different
because I didn't have the answer.
And I'm not just gonna try and
put a square peg in a round
hole like I Sherlock is the
Rupert Isaacson: bouncing
of the two hind legs.
You, you didn't fix it?
Warwick Schiller: No, I didn't
fix it and I couldn't fix it.
And it made him more concerned
when I was trying to fix it.
So I said to Robin, okay, you
can, you can go to a show and
you can mark a 74 but lose four
penalty points and still be a 70.
And the person who won it was
a 71 and you can be second, so
I'm not gonna do anything to it.
Cuz he could do all the hard stuff
like he could, the spinning and the
stopping and all the hard stuff he could
do, that was not a problem for him.
So she could still compete and
be quite good without that.
But I, I wasn't gonna try to fix it
cause I didn't know how to fix it.
But I got looking at other things and, and
some of the articles I'd read and things
like that is what made me experiment the
way I did with this horse at this clinic.
And that basically changed everything
about how I approach horses is nowadays
my whole approach is about telling
them how much I'm listening first.
And so, you know, you create
connections through attunement, then
the training comes on top of it.
And it's amazing how easy
horses are to train when, when
you get all that stuff done.
But that, that was the horse that
really changed things for me.
And it was after that, that
clinic that I did the talk at the
horse expo and I told that story.
Got it.
And I probably.
A few other stories about some things.
I'm not sure what they were, but, so
that's what led me down the rabbit hole
of starting to look into my own stuff.
And you know, after about a year of
that, I was thinking, yeah, I'm getting
somewhere, but here, seven years
later, just recently, I'm like, oh
no, I'm just, I've just got to another
level right now to where, and I'm
not talking about going upper level,
I'm going down a level like, oh no,
this is deeper than I thought it was.
There's, there's more to
this self-reflection stuff
than I thought there was,
Rupert Isaacson: you know, for,
again, listeners, , I, , two years
ago, , found myself sitting in a sweat
lodge with Warwick and, , a great
friend of ours, Joel Dunley, who works
in amazing therapeutic riding in,
, in, , California, , with a medicine
man from the Native American church.
And, , that was the first time
I, I was myself struggling.
, I was in a major punk and the,
, medicine man said to me, , I think
you need to take some medicine.
And by that he meant peyote.
And I'm not a recreational drug user.
There had.
A chapter of that way back 500 years ago
in my past, back in the police do scene
when mastered on still bar bellow to
mastered on across the prime evil swamp.
But you know, I don't, I don't
like alter state of consciousness,
, that are induced that much.
, because like everybody, I'm
a bit of a control freak.
So I was, I had all sorts of worries
and then I gave up and I surrendered,
and it turned out to be, life-changing
and helped me an awful lot.
And has to this day, Warwick
was in that sweat lodge with me.
So you've gone Warwick from, beginning
to listen to horses now, beginning
to look a little bit at yourself.
Where does it go and why?
Warwick Schiller: Can you
reframe that question?
Like what, what's your actual question?
Okay.
Where does it go next?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
You, you, you've started listening
to horses and now listening to horses
in this particular way has led you
to some degree to listen to yourself.
, you have this fight flight freeze.
You have this shut down.
You're beginning to realize this.
You're beginning to see, you
know, it's a terrible cliche to
say the horse is your mirror.
And it's, it's a somewhat abused
cliche, but it's not that like
all cliches, there's truth in it.
, so you are seeing this and now you are
feeling for some reason, You can't ignore
your own shutdown downness anymore.
Why a lot of people would, a lot
of people would just keep going.
Warwick Schiller: I think because
I was aware, aware of it, really.
, yeah, I, I just became aware of it
and I was, what, what I, you know,
what I ca you said some people
would ignore their own shutdown.
What I had come to realize is that the
way I had been showing up in the world,
there was a different way to be, you know,
I thought my lot in life was my lot life.
Like how I, and you know what, when you,
when you spend a lot of time shut down,
you know, a minor state of depression,
you don't know you're depressed.
Yeah.
Because it's your normal, you don't know
there's any other way you live and Right.
And
Rupert Isaacson: you're basically
functional on a superficial
Warwick Schiller: level.
Right.
So, yeah.
And, but that's all, you know, if that's
all, you know, that's, that's normal.
And I spent a year doing a type of therapy
called Dialectic Behavior Therapy, which
was, I think originally designed for,
um, created for highly suicidal adults.
But they found it's good for people
with any emotional regulation or
dysregulation, you know, emotional
regulation issues or dys regul.
But I spent a year doing both
individual and group therapy.
Why that?
Rupert Isaacson: Out of interest?
With
Warwick Schiller: all the I asked,
I asked someone I knew, , through
horses, who's a therapist, you know,
what sort of therapy I should try,
and, and she suggested that one.
But I did, individual and group therapy.
And the reason I did the group
therapy is because when I first
went and saw the therapist, I
told her what I wanted to work on.
She goes, oh yeah, this
would be pretty easy.
And after about three months of not,
and she said, we have group therapy,
but you won't need to do that.
And after about three months of doing
the individual therapy not getting
anywhere, she goes, you really
should start doing the group therapy.
So I did the group and the individual
therapy for a better part of your
year and didn't get anywhere.
Rupert Isaacson: What
happened in those sessions?
Why did you not get anywhere
and what's the nuts and bolts
of that type of therapy?
Warwick Schiller: the nuts and bolts
of that type of therapy, it's about
developing, skills to use when
you have emotional dysregulation.
But what I found after 12 months
and that didn't work, was you
actually have to have some emotions
for that particular method to work
upon you when you have no emotions.
Like we'd have homework every week
from the, the group therapy, you
know, you are gonna do this homework
and then when you ha and, and then
you're going to use that skill.
It's the same as training horses.
You, you know, you don't tr use the
skill before you teach the skill.
You teach the skill separately,
and then when you have a situation
to use it, you use the skill.
And so our homework was to use the skill
after we'd worked on it during the week
and we'd come back like, do your homework.
I'm like, no.
Why not?
Well, I didn't have any emotional
regulation issues, did I?
that didn't work.
So, and this is where you just
mentioned PE a minute ago.
So after that, I was January after
that, I was January probably 2019 maybe.
I am driving around in Australia
doing some clinics, and I'm
listening to an audio book by
Tim Ferris.
I think it might be, might be
Tim Ferriss or Dave Asprin.
Now it was Dave Asbury, the
Bulletproof Coffee Guide.
I don't know if you
know who Dave Esper is.
No, I, I, I should.
Dave Ry was a Aspery as Asper.
Yeah.
Dave Asprey was a, some sort of a Silicon
Valley wonder guy and, and had, some sort
of a startup company, which he sold in his
early maybe thirties for a lot of money.
And he had all this money and
like, what am I gonna do with it?
Well, he had been morbidly obese all
his life and has tried every diet,
every exercise planned, never couldn't
lose weight, and you know, like didn't
cut down on one bag of chips a day
like he did the work, did like all
sorts of workouts, weightlifting.
Anyway, he had a lot of sports
injuries from weightlifting, and he
wrote this book called Game Changer.
and he has a, he has a podcast.
So on his podcast he interviewed like
300 people on his podcast and they're
all game changers in their walk of life.
And at the end of the podcast, he said,
so what three things would you, what three
bits of advice would you give people?
And then he took all three bits of
advice from 300 people and figured
out what are the common denominators.
And he wrote a book about
it called Game Changers.
And one of the first chapter
was on a meditation practice.
Everybody had a meditation practice.
And as you go through the
chapters goes down and things.
Well, one of the things he was talking
about in one of these chapters was,
um, he said he'd been to a doctor in
Silicon Valley who will draw fat out
of you and spin off your stem cells and
inject them into sports injuries like,
so he said, I've had every joint in my
body injected with my own stem cells.
And he said, I feel like I'm, you
know, I've had, my shoulders were
jacked up from weight lifting and my
knees were done from weight lifting.
And he says, I feel great.
I feel like I'm 18 again.
He said, but there's something else
this guy will do is he will pull fat
out of you, spin off your stem cells
and inject them into your vagus nerve
and give you a complete emotional
reset back to factory settings
before whatever happened happened.
And I'm like, Jimmy, I've been driving
an hour each way twice a week to go to
therapy for a year and I can just get an
injection . And so I came home from that
trip and I looked the guy up and he's
just, you know, he's 45 minutes from.
I made an appointment to have
a phone consult with him.
We talked for an hour on the phone and
I told him what I wanted to do and he
said, so we call that a St ganglion
block, but we're not gonna do that with
you cuz based on what you've told me,
I'm gonna do something else with you.
I'm like, okay.
So we make an appointment for me to go
in, uh, Rob and I go in, we spend probably
an hour in his office chatting with him.
Fascinating guy.
Uh, then they take me into a room and
hook me up to an IV of something called N
A D, you know what N ad What's the name?
What's
the
Rupert Isaacson: name of
this guy who's doing the stem
Warwick Schiller: cell injection?
, his name is, I'll think of it in a minute.
I'll look him up
Rupert Isaacson: please.
We'd all like to know.
Warwick Schiller: It's in Dave Asbury's
book about halfway through the book, but
I'll think of his name here in a minute.
And so they hooked me up to an
IV of something called n A D.
So n a d is a, if you dunno what
n a d is, n a d is a co-factor.
If you dunno what a co-factor is,
neither do I, but it's something
you were born with a certain amount
of it, and as you age, it depletes
drinking, depletes it quicker.
And I used to drink three beers a day.
and it has something to do with
your gut brain neural pathway.
Okay?
And this n a d is supposed to help that.
But, so I do four and a
half hours of this n A d.
And so they, it hurts when it goes in.
What's interesting, like they put
it in your arm, but it doesn't
hurt where it goes in, it hurts
in that part of your body that.
. Interesting.
And they get the drip towards, which in
your case was where, where did it hurt?
Gut.
Okay.
In my gut.
And I had a, I had a messed up shoulder
over here, and that shoulder hurt too.
It was so fascinating.
But they turn the drip to where you're
about a five on the pain scale, five
outta 10 on the pain scale any less.
And that's gonna take too long
anymore than, that's too much.
But I felt physically sick to my
stomach while this stuff was going in.
Okay.
Uh, anyway, they get done with that
after about four and a half hours.
Then he brings an, uh, gig energy healer
in the room, and she sits down and they
hook me up to an infusion of ketamine.
And I had my first psychedelic experience.
Why,
Rupert Isaacson: why that?
Why, why a cheong person to give
you ketamine and why Ketamine.
And why ke She didn't gimme
the, after this n a d What,
what was the logic process
Warwick Schiller: there?
You would have to ask the
doctor, but it had to do with
the, the being shut down stuff.
That's his protocol for that.
And the cheong energy
healer didn't gimme the iv.
She just sat with me in case
I started to freak it out.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: So what happened?
You, you, you take the
Warwick Schiller: ketamine and take
the ketamine and you just lay back
in this recliner and it's like,
it's a psychedelic, you know, it's
a, it's a kaleidoscopic vision, the
brightest colors you've ever seen.
It's like it being in a kaleidoscopic
rollercoaster is what it was like.
And I'd never done anything
to do with psychedelics, so I
had no idea what I was in for.
Rupert Isaacson: Were you distressed?
Were you
Warwick Schiller: uh, no, no.
It was a very, like, they had this
big smile on my face and it was
like a very pleasant experience.
, anyway, so then I get done with
that go last for about 20 minutes.
Robin's sitting over to the side
of me watching me, and she said,
I just lay there in the chair.
And they said, okay, so your b your,
your emotions should go offline
for about eight hours, and in eight
hours from now, they'll all kick in.
And that was about four
o'clock one afternoon.
So we go home, , wake up, then
the next morning, which is, you
know, that's probably 14, 15 hours
after I'd had it no different.
And I said to Robin, oh, well
that was a bust that didn't work.
And I had to fly to Washington
State that afternoon to d present
at a horse expo on that weekend.
And I was in San Jose airport sitting
down about three o'clock in the afternoon.
So almost 24 hours after I'd
had this ketamine infusion.
And all of a sudden I got
this feeling in my abdomen.
So think about this, the only emotions
I'd experienced pretty much in my life
that I can remember up to that point
was heartbreak and being in love in my.
Right.
You feared dread in the pit of my stomach.
That was the only, because I was,
Rupert Isaacson: that was what I
was gonna ask you is like, it's not
that you had, didn't have emotions.
You were obviously in love with, Robin,
you pursued her, you chased her, you, you,
you to some degree went back to America
for, so I mean, it's not that you were
emotionless, it's didn't have, you were
emotion poor or so, is that what you said?
Yes.
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
Yeah.
So heartbreak, being in love
in my chest and fear and dread
and the pit in my stomach.
That's about it.
Okay.
That's about the extent of it.
And so I'm sitting in this You mean
airport ? You mean There's more sitting
in San Jose airport the next afternoon
and I get this feeling like there's
an alien inside me and this energy
and it moves around and it's in my,
it's in my solar plexus, which I've
never felt anything in there before.
And it moves and it goes up and down.
And as I'm walking around the airport,
when I look at people, it changes
and it goes here and it goes there.
I'm like, what is this thing?
And the strangest thing, I
went to that horse expo and I
had a booth at the horse expo.
I did some demos.
You know, I had a booth at the horse
expo and that particular county in
Washington, everybody takes their dogs
everywhere, including the horse expo.
So it was great.
When I go away to a horse expo, I
miss out dogs, so I don't see dogs.
But there were dogs everywhere,
people leading dogs around
outside to say hi to all the dogs.
But there was a lady there, had a cat
on a leash, on a harness, and she's
walked around with this cat and I was
sitting at my booth in a chair behind
the desk, the lady walks past with a cat.
And this cat makes a beeline for me,
jumps up on the disc and jumps in
my lap and sucks up against my ab.
And stays there for half an hour
while I talk to the lady and the
cat is just sucked up against me.
And she said, the cat's
never done this before.
That cat sucked up against my abdomen.
And in the end, you know, she talks
for half an hour and she's gotta leave.
She's actually gotta pick the cat
up by the scruff of the neck, like
a kitten to get the cat off my lap.
but that was the first time I'd felt
emotions, felt energy in my, in my body.
Rupert Isaacson: And what
were the emotions would you
say that you were feeling?
Warwick Schiller: Well,
that's a good question.
If you've never had, see how
do you know what an emotion is?
You have something happen, you
have an energy inside you, and it's
connected to, oh, we're at there, I
was happy or at there I was sad or
at, I've never had those, so what
they meant to me, I had no idea.
Rupert Isaacson: But were they were,
did you feel they were positive or?
Warwick Schiller: Positive.
Okay.
They were positive.
Yes, they were positive.
They weren't, they
definitely weren't negative.
but you know, if you gave me the
whole scale of emotions and the
positive emotions, it said, which one
of these wasn't like, I got no idea.
It was just, it
Rupert Isaacson: was right.
But you weren't suddenly beset with
negative emotions, for example.
No, no, no.
It was, it was in the direction of joy.
Warwick Schiller: No, I think
I had a pretty good handle
on the negative emotions.
Right.
Uh, but it was, for
me, it was fascinating.
Like, I've never felt
this in my entire life.
And I don't remember that class at school
where the teacher said, okay, if you're
a fully functioning human being, you
will have these energies in your abdomen.
They'll move up and down and here
and there, and sometimes they'll feel
good and sometimes they'll feel bad.
Do you remember that class at school?
No, because we don't have it.
So,
Rupert Isaacson: no.
English schools when I was a boy, no.
they, so,
Warwick Schiller: you know what I mean?
I remember that.
But yeah.
Yeah.
I didn't know.
I, I always thought
emotions were thoughts.
Like if, you know, if someone
said, oh, someone ran over my dog,
I'd go, oh, I feel sorry for you.
I didn't feel sorry for them.
I thought, sorry for them.
In my head, I was like, oh,
yes, that would not be good.
But I didn't get a visceral sensation from
someone saying, A truck went over my dog.
I didn't, oh, I didn't feel it.
Even though I would say,
oh, I feel sorry for you.
I didn't feel, and so it was
fascinating for me to be, I
was 50 years old at the time.
Fascinating for me.
At 50 years old have
sensations in my body.
I've never had, or at least
I haven't had since before.
Memory, you know, my earliest memories
were about five, so before that, but
things were pretty shut and, and stuck.
And what was interesting was it was a
psychedelic that got it working, which
gave me an interest in psychedelics.
I, you know, I had never thought it,
Rupert Isaacson: was it psychedelic
or was it the n a d do you think?
Or the, the converter?
It was the
Warwick Schiller: psychedelic, probably
the combo of the two, but yeah.
And so my next, so after that
I'm like, I'd heard a lot
about this ayahuasca thing.
And so the next thing I did
was went to Florida to a, a
three day ayahuasca ceremony.
And that dipped away a bit.
And I've, you know, I've tried, a
number of different psychedelics
Rupert Isaacson: since then.
All Let's, let's go to the aas.
What happens to you with the Ayahuasca?
And again, explain.
We, we tend to assume that
people know what ayahuasca is.
Let's assume that people dunno
what ayahuasca is, what is it?
And then
Warwick Schiller: Aya Ayahuasca's
a, a psychedelic from, I think it's
from the Amazon Basin originally.
And it's made from, it's made from
two plants that grow in the Amazon.
You think about it, there's a million
different species of plants in the
Amazon, and they take a vine and they
take a leaf from a different plant.
So there's a, one's a vine, one's a leaf,
they put 'em in a pot, boil 'em together,
and they take the vine, I think, and
they bid it with a stick until it kind of
goes into a mashy, puy sort of a thing.
The most powerful psychedelic
in the world is something
called D m t Dimethyltryptamine.
Yeah.
And the combination of these two things.
So one of the plants has the
dimethyltryptamine in it, but you,
your body can't access it until
it's unlocked by this other plant.
But what's interesting is, so the shamans
in the Amazon would use this stuff
to, to journey and things like that.
But what's interesting is if they, you
asked the, the shamans in the Amazon,
how did you guys figure out how to,
which two plants out of a million
plant species to put together, how
did you figure out how to do that?
And they said, oh, that's easy.
The plants told us.
Yeah.
and so you drink it, it's a
black, dark, brown thick liquid
that has the most bitter taste.
It's foul.
Um, you, you drink, you drink this
liquid, and then probably an hour or
so later you, you sit somewhere or lay
somewhere and about an hour or so later,
you start having this inward journey.
And really, what the ayahuasca, at least
for me, what it did was it peels you
opened where you look into all the dark
places that, and this was for me at least,
all the dark places and all the shame and
the self-loathing and stuff that you have,
that you've never, that you've avoided.
Looking at, for me, it took me there
and I think all the psychedelics
have done, have taken me there.
Um, with the, with the
exception of the ketamine.
Yeah, the ketamine,
there was none of that.
There was, there was none of that.
All it was was just this kaleidoscopic.
But there was no self-judgment.
There was no, yeah, there
was none of that in that.
But anyway, so the Ayahuasca, it
was three separate ceremonies.
One Friday night, one Saturday
lunchtime, one Saturday night.
And, , yeah, that was part of the
start of my healing journey, I think.
Rupert Isaacson: Now, when it took you,
when it took you down into self-loathing
and shame, did that bring, why did
that not bring you into despair?
why did that not make you wanna
harm yourself in some way?
Punish yourself in some way?
What, how was
Warwick Schiller: that positive?
Well, what the ayahuasca does, so when
you, even before you take the Ayahuasca,
they give you a small waste paper
bin, plastic waste paper bin a hold.
And they said, don't go
anywhere without that.
And what happens with
the ayahuasca is stuck.
Emotions come up in your,
like in your abdomen.
, and you, they, they come up as
emotions and then you purge them.
So you, there's a lot of
puking with ayahuasca.
and, you know, so you'd be, you
know, fear, self-loathing, shame,
whatever it is, will come up in your
mind and then you feel it in your.
And then you purge that and
it, and it, yeah, it is working
through stuff, you know,
Rupert Isaacson: and when you
purge it, does that feel cathartic?
Yes.
Is there a joy?
Warwick Schiller: Yes.
Yes.
It's like, I've finally got
that thing outta me, but then,
then the next one comes up.
All right.
Okay.
You know, some people, some people with
ayahuasca just have, they have experiences
to where they have interactions
with other beings, other entities,
the universe, the divine, whatever.
I have not ever had that.
All mine has been, all of my
experiences have been like, fear,
shame, wording, all that sort of stuff.
You've gone
Rupert Isaacson: back
and done ayahuasca since
Warwick Schiller: this first time?
No, I haven't.
No I haven't.
But I have done some
other, , plant medicines
Rupert Isaacson: and those plant, those
same plant med, the other plant medicines
have also taken you to, to shame and self.
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
Dark, dark places, but,
but worked through them.
last year I did a, they call a God
dose of mushrooms, of psilocybin
mushrooms, like five and a half
grams, which is a big dose.
And yeah, there was a
lot of similar stuff.
And what I, what being emotionally
stuck, I've always thought that what
was gonna happen with any of these
plant medicines with me is I was gonna
have this big cathartic released where
I was gonna cry and ball my eyes out.
Like really sobbing.
And that has not happened.
And I keep kind of judging these
experiences cuz they haven't happened.
But with the, the,
psilocybin was last year.
So I had, I had two guides
with me, a husband and wife.
you know, so this was this, you know,
with psychedelics they talk about set
and setting and, and this was, you
know, we had the intention of healing.
This is what we're gonna do.
I was actually on a camp stretcher in
the middle of a pasture under a tree.
And we had a play, a playlist of music.
I took the medicine as a tea
and then it started to hit.
Come in, I lay on the thing and
the, the lady she sat beside, first
Rupert Isaacson: time you'd ever done
mushrooms and you take the God ducks.
Yeah.
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
Okay.
And she talks me through a,
like a, like a, a breath work.
Cuz when the start of the, the psilocybin
kicks in, it can be kind of scary.
And so she kind of had led me through
this breath work till I got through the,
well, supposedly through the scary part.
But, Gary than a.
I'd say different.
I wouldn't, I think fear is fear.
No.
Not more scary.
Not less scary.
Yeah.
Probably, actually, probably more scary
cuz the, I was, the scary part was
just the looking at my own fear and
loathing and all that sort of stuff.
Whereas this was actually
a scary situation.
But, so she sat there with me
and if I needed her to hold
my hand, she'd hold my hand.
At one point in time, I had a, like,
I had a blanket over me and I had her
hopping beside me and like, spoon me.
And, you know, I felt I needed that
feminine energy there, but I kept telling
her, it's not happening, it's not coming.
It's not coming.
I'm not, I'm, I, I feel like I
should be crying and I'm not.
but anyway, so the next day I was
somewhere and I took a breath, took
a big, deep breath in, and, you
know, all my life I've been able to
take a certain depth of breath in.
And that's my breath, you know?
Well this, the next day I took this
breath in and in and in and in.
It's like something had let go in my
abdomen that had been clamping, that
had that not allowed me to take a
full breath ever in my entire life.
And I breathed in and
in and in and in and in.
And it was almost twice as big
a breath as I've ever taken.
And when I let that breath
out, I completely relaxed.
Like.
And that relaxed feeling was
like, I dunno if I've ever felt
that relaxed in my entire life.
So something during that journey, let go.
somewhere in there.
Rupert Isaacson: This was how long ago?
Mm, last July, I think.
Okay.
When we worked together in the sweat
lodge, with the pay ot, did you
feel shame and self-loathing then?
Warwick Schiller: No, I
didn't journey at all there.
I didn't, it
Rupert Isaacson: didn't
seem to me that you did.
Warwick Schiller: No, I didn't,
I didn't journey at all then.
I was, you know, I was probably a bit
too in my head there, you know, like we,
I've never done a sweat lodge before.
I have no idea how they, how they
work and, you know, and the, the
shaman guy says, okay, so you've,
you know, we're gonna sing a
song, you know, what's your song?
And you sing a song.
And Joel sang a song.
And I'm like, I'm s sitting there
thinking, uh, what should I sing?
No, no, I don't have a
song and I can't sing.
I, I suck at singing anyway,
you know, but what if I sing?
I could sing a song, but no, but
it might not be the right song
and they might think I'm stupid.
You know, all of that.
So I was really in my head in that,
that, in that whole, experience.
Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
Because for me what happened there
was, first it felt like a small little
infrared tracking device, like you'd get
in a PowerPoint going through my body.
. and it stopped at every point
where there was physical pain.
Mm-hmm.
of injuries and stiffnesses
and that sort of thing.
And we're just gonna go, beep,
beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
And then that pain would go
and then it would move on.
And when it had, gone through my
obvious spots, my mostly on my right
side, it went up into my brain and it
went to every area of my brain that, I
was feeling difficulty in blockage.
And we go, beep, beep, beep
gone, and then we'll move on.
And, I remember thinking, well, this
is, this is wonderful, but it won't last.
It totally lasted.
so it's interesting the different
experiences I have not done, D M
T except possibly the natural D M T
that gets produced in the human brain.
Those of you who don't know,
you don't have to take a plant.
although it's very difficult to induce
enough D M T in your brain to have those
religious experiences, what people would
call them, but your pineal gland, which
produces your melatonin, the melatonin
can under certain conditions if it gets
enough squeezing with ceal spinal fluid.
Transduce energy can transduce,
into the, the crystals that
are inside the pineal ground.
It'll salt crystals and they'll throw
up a, a high electric charge that
will change the melatonin into D M T.
And then that transduction of
energy can make people see things
or hear things or whatever.
And some people say, oh, well that's
not real then it's just the D M T.
Or one could say, ah, is the
D M T allowing you to see
and hear what is coming in?
The answer is, we don't know.
But, that seems to be a process
with, well, we, we know it's a
process within the human body.
What's interesting to me is that when
you've gone down this road with D M
T, which for those who haven't, it's
extreme, without a doubt, it's extreme.
and despite the fact that it's
taken you to some dark places,
why do you think that it hasn't
taken you to the point of despair?
Why has it not taken you to, bad
trip psychosis, that sort of thing?
Warwick Schiller: That's a great question.
I, I, I don't, I dunno that, I have
no idea about that, but I do wanna,
I didn wanna talk about d m T.
You were talking about Indigo.
Have you ever read a book called
D m t The Spirit Molecule?
I have not By a document,
by Rick Straussman.
Rick Straussman, and he's
a, you know, PhD, Dr.
Dude.
And so back in the eighties, he
eighties and nineties, he got
government approval to do high dose,
experiments on people with dmt.
Okay.
And so, and that was a bit of, a bit
of a circle jerk to where the DEA would
give approval if the F FDA gave approval.
The F FDA A would only give approval
that he could find someone who could
synthesize, human quality D M T, but
he couldn't find anybody who would
human who synthesize human quality D M
T until he got approval from the F fda.
And it was this big old circle joke.
But anyway, he ends up getting it.
and he does all these experiments
with people and, you know, it
was like a double blind study.
So sometimes you got a placebo
dose, sometimes you got a low dose
and sometimes you got a high dose.
And what was interesting was the
experiences of pretty much everybody who
had the high dose were all very much the
same reported experience that people have
when they say they're abducted by aliens.
And it's funny, most alien abductions,
happen about two or three o'clock
in the morning, usually two people
who have been under a lot of stress.
And apparently your pineal gland
is most active at about two or
three o'clock in the morning.
And stress does cause more of that.
The end of the book, he gets the point
to where he says, you know, you can give
someone an anti narcotic so they can't
experience any feelings, anything from
a narcotic, or you can give someone
an anti psychedelic and if you give
someone an anti psychedelic, so what
he's saying is, we have a certain amount
of D M T in our bodies at all times.
Right?
If you give someone an anti
psychedelic, that means that the d m
t that is in your body at the moment
you are, it's not affecting you.
You give someone an anti psychedelic, they
go immediately into severe depression.
The world is just blah.
Okay?
So that, that's no D M T.
Then the world that we currently
live in and we can see is the
amount of DMT our brain puts out.
Okay?
But then, and, and thinking about if you
had an FM radio in the room right there
with you, you could turn it on and it
could pick up those radio waves that are
going between you and me that you can't
see, but they're there, right As the
bald sort, the music playing isn't there.
So then, so at the end of the book, he
said, and so what happens is like if
you give someone the anti psychedelic,
they have, they're depressed.
There is no, there's nothing
coming in from the outside world.
What we are currently having right now is
the amount of D M T in our brain, which
allows us to view this level of the world.
If you have huge amounts of D
M T and you, you get to, you
get the ability to be aware.
Other stuff that's going on here right
now that you can't detect with the amount
of D m t we have in our bodies, but
like radio waves, like there's all these
radio, there's all this stuff going on.
Unless you've got an FM receiver or a TV
with rabbit ears, whatever, you can't pick
it up, but it doesn't mean it's not there.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: no, absolutely.
It makes perfect sense.
I mean, and we know there's more,
colors on the light spectrum.
We know that infrared exists.
We know that blue light exists
and we know that there are others.
and we've created devices that can pick
them up, but there are only some of them.
We know that elephants, communicate
long distance with, frequency so low
that we can't hear them, but we have
created devices that can detect it.
We know that all, we suspect that the
other dimensions are microscopic and could
be so small that they're undetectable.
We know now that there are things, other
types of matter like neutrinos that are
passing through our body, through trillion
neutrinos are passing through our bodies
and through the house at any moment that
part of the, what they call the weak
force in physics, there's a strong force
that binds things together, protons
and electrons and that sort of thing.
And then there's the weak force
that allows things to move fluidly.
We don't quite yet understand
the dance between them, but we
know that there are, these things
exist, but we can't see neutrinos.
We just now know that they're there,
through, the physics of the last
20 years and that sort of thing.
So yes, without a doubt.
We are aware of so much more.
And it is interesting, those, those
we're, we're aware of so much more
when we can become aware of it.
What's interesting to me is, as you
know, as some of the listeners might know,
I lived with, , hunting and gathering
tribes, in the Kalahari of Southern
Africa, Bushman, sun Bushman, and was
at, and the recipient of, you know,
many healings and then subsequently with
my artistic sun and so on and so on.
And, what's interesting about when
those cultures, when they're going
into an altered state of consciousness,
it's not that it's not an amazing
thing, and it's not that they don't
regard it as an amazing thing.
And it's not that they
don't regard the frankly un
inexplicable healings that happen.
And they do happen.
People get sick and get better from
really quite extreme things, and
have done for hundreds of thousands
of years using these techniques.
ias would also be one, but for them,
they are also part of the ordinary, or
let's say the ordinary is extraordinary
and the extraordinary is ordinary.
And one of the things which I think
all of us who've ever gone down to
those areas notices pretty much right
away is that unless some bastards
are coming in there and stealing
your land and raping your women and
cutting down your forest, Life is good.
And it's not just good because
you have enough resources.
It's good because there's a certain
level of joy, in this original human
lifestyle, which seems completely taken
up with viewing the world in this way
and seeing it through the D m T lens.
we of course, post agriculture shut all
that down, because it gets in the way.
If I want to be the patriarch of the
church and I want people to pay taxes
to me, and I want people to go and
fight my battles and my wars, or I want
to be king, or I want to be the Duke
of, you know, Lord Puff buttock over
there, and I want to go to war with,
you know, Lord, big nose over there.
And I got to persuade my surfs to
go fight for me who are already
effectively enslaved and so on.
I've got to reduce them to a sense
of depression where their only
outlet for passion is violence.
And this, of course is how
we've run our societies.
And I think when we go back to
horse training, to some degree,
that's what we all grew up with.
I mean, we, you know, we, we, we,
in fact, we inherited our horse
training from the military, and we
went through school systems that were
inherited from the military and so on.
So it's very interesting.
Is it, you know, the God gene
or the God molecule as you said,
is it, is it a joy in molecule?
Is, is.
Is the emotion that you
were not feeling joy?
Warwick Schiller: Well, I think it
was all the higher emotions, but
I just wanna talk a bit more about
that book d into the spirit molecule.
So the pioneer gland is
the only part of the brain.
So it's, it's the, it's
above the roof of the mouth.
It's the only part of the brain
that's not made up of brain tissue,
but, and it forms on day 49.
Okay?
The pineal gland forms on day 49, and
apparently that's the day, whether it
says you're gonna be a boy or girl,
your chromosomes do your things.
Okay, got that.
Now I'm gonna jump ship on dmt
the spirit molecule and go to the
way the Buddhist look at things.
So you know what the bardo is?
No.
So in the Buddhist tradition, the
bardo is the 49 days that you spend
without, uh, as a soul, without a
body before you come back again.
Okay?
Okay.
So once you die,
Rupert Isaacson: in
which Buddhist tradition?
In in Tibetan,
Warwick Schiller: no idea.
Okay.
No idea.
I've just read this.
I'm the scholar on this stuff.
Sounds too bad.
This 49 day thing, okay.
49 days after that fetus is
conceived, it decides if it's
gonna become a boy or girl.
The pineal gland starts
developing then, and.
The Budds say that 49 days after
you die, you, you, your soul lives
in the bardo, which is this place
without a soul, without a human
form, without a physical form.
And then on day 49, you get
given your next physical form.
So you know, a little bit
of something to think about.
Something else about D M T.
Have you ever read a book
called The Cosmic Serpent?
Rupert Isaacson: Nope.
I'm writing these down and at the
end, so the cosmic serpent tell
us about all these books in order
Warwick Schiller: this anthropologist
guy goes to the Peru to study the tribes
there, and while he is there, they end up
talking to him to doing, uh, ayahuasca.
Is this Way Dead?
Oh, sounds familiar.
Rupert Isaacson: Anyway, keep, keep going.
Yeah, we can look it up as we talk.
Warwick Schiller: no.
All right.
Jeremy Nay is
Rupert Isaacson: who the book Jeremy Nay.
Cosmic Serpent because, , the
Serpent and the Rainbow by, , Wayback
is worth, is worth a look at.
Okay, but go on
Warwick Schiller: Jeremy.
Yeah, so the cosmic serpent and, and
so he, he has this AO Oscar experience
and he sees snakes, intertwined
snakes in this vision that he has
very colorful, intertwined snakes.
And then he sees these ladders as well.
And then he, you know, Over the
years, he starts researching.
He gets this idea about altered
states of consciousness, whether
it was from ayahuasca or meditation
or chanting or whatever it is.
But in all of the, the shamanic
traditions, there is always
these intertwined snakes.
Yeah.
Even in Siberia.
Okay.
Where snakes don't exist, the, they've
the, you know, the people of Siberia
had never seen a snake, but part of
their tradition of, from the shamans
is there's this intertwined snakes.
And so then he takes a bit of a turn
and he basically says that when they
decipher d n A, you know, and the two
guys that figured out that decoded
the D, the d n a, what he's, what he's
trying to say in his book is that, We
had to see it under a microscope, whereas
the, all the shamans for centuries
back for eon, you know, millenniums
back had seen that in their visions.
So basically that, that they had decoded
d n a way before we ever had microscopes.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, absolutely.
You know, you, you are familiar with
the caduceus, the, uh, entwined snakes
Warwick Schiller: as the,
of, of the veterinarian.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And it, that seems to come from the
Hindu, which seems to come from, you
know, it, it comes to the Greeks.
To the Egyptians, but before that it
seems to come from, Babylon, Sumeria,
and then it goes to the Hindu as well.
And it seems that that's an allegory
for the, two points of the cerebral
spinal fluid coming up into the middle
ventricle of the brain, which of
course is where the pineal gland sits.
and interestingly, when one looks at
the sacred art of Sumaria Babylon, or
the Mesopotamia down into Egypt, Egypt,
and then you get a little bit going into
Greece, and so you see two, motifs,
a pine cone, Pineland is called that.
Mm-hmm.
, you know, because looks like
shaped like a pine cone and
a bag, a little bag of tools.
And it seems that this could
be, we don't know, an allegory
for the gift of consciousness.
To specifically create megalithic
civilizations, agriculture, and so forth.
Then you can get into very strange
stuff of people saying, well, this comes
down from aliens and because mm-hmm.
guess what the sums
actually said that it did.
So the earliest, historical writings
we've got, be they historical or
mythological or some mixture of the two
come from Sumaria and they were discovered
in the 1840s, translated in the 1890s.
They're still sitting in Oxford
University, about 30,000 of them.
They chip away at them.
Some of them are boring things like,
you know, lists of 12 handbags,
you know, 26 bushels of this,
or a contract for an apartment.
Others are epic poems.
That's where we've got
Gilgamesh from and the rest.
And another bit is this gift, list of
kings who they say came from the sky,
Anki, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, be
all this as it may, whether these were
D m t induced, visions or actually
happened or something to do with the two.
It seems that, that, it's very
interesting to me that that motif
gets repeated over so many cultures
in so many parts of the world.
As you say, there they are in Siberia
with no snakes yet there they are with
the entwined serpent to the middle of
ventricle of the brain and the pine cone.
you have activated your d m.
I would say on numerous occasions
by now, would, would you say so?
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
Well, I don't think I've talked to
you since, but I've started having, so
there's a, there's a, there is a, oh,
let me finish, about cosmic serpent.
So at the end of the book, basically
he, his thing is that human form
came to this planet from outer space
and it was some sort of reptile,
Rupert Isaacson: right?
This is the whole Anki thing.
And he, that's, that's what he's getting
Warwick Schiller: at
Rupert Isaacson: Serpent Yeah.
As wisdom and blah, blah, blah.
Yeah.
Warwick Schiller: Uh, so the, I have
had these experiences in the last six
months to where, so there's a place
when you are on a, in psychedelics
where you're going to this world.
That's not this world, it's
like a world of energy.
It is, if this is 3d, it feels 4d
and it feels more real in this place.
So I've had some spontaneous non
psychedelic assisted experiences with this
to where I, first time was in the middle.
I, I'd had Covid.
I got Covid.
I was in traveling last year,
got Covid, spent six days in
the hotel room and flew home.
And it was past the day I should
be shedding it, but I was still,
the PO test was still positive.
So Robin had me sleeping
in the horse trailer.
So I'm just outside confined
at the horse trailer.
And I was laying on the bed in there
at about three o'clock one afternoon.
and suddenly the right side of
my body went into that space.
So I'm, look, I'm, I'm laying there
and I can see the two realities.
There's the one on my left, which is
this one we're in right now, and then
this other side, the right side of my
body is just vibrating and it, I can
see it right there and I get the feeling
that they've come for me and this is it.
And if I let myself go into it,
this will disappear forever and
it scares the shit outta me.
And I pull back and it disappears.
So I call a friend of mine who is
a, psychedelic assisted therapist
and I'm like, dude, what's going on?
And he goes, oh, that
scared the hell outta me.
And I call him and he
goes, oh, that's great.
Some people can go into those places,
on their own without any assistance.
He said, but it's very scary
to do when you are alone.
And he said, you know, it's often
better if there's someone there
to hold your hand or whatever.
Anyways, so when I got done with
the horse trailer and I was allowed
back in the house, I said to Robin,
my wife, I told her about it.
And I said, if we are sitting
around sometime and I feel it coming
on, if I just hold your hand and.
I'm going there, can I go and
you wanna say, yes, all I want
you to do is just hold my hand.
She's like, okay.
So it was about four days later, we
were sitting, we're actually having
a deeper, meaningful conversation.
She was sitting on the couch facing me.
I was sitting on our coffee table
facing her, our little dog, Holden
was on the couch beside Robin.
And all of a sudden I felt it coming on a
little bit and I said, Hey, it's coming.
Can I go there?
And she said, sure.
So I relaxed instead of drawing back, I
kind of relaxed into it, and this might
sound crazy to some people or maybe all
people, but Robin and Holden and the couch
turned into a hologram to where I could
see through them, they were still there,
but I could see through them everything
else in the room was, was this reality.
But they were glowing golden.
She was still talking to me.
She's, she was who she was, but
she, oh, she would see through
when she was glowing, golden so
was the dog, and so was the couch.
And I'm just chatting to her and I'm,
and then all of a sudden it went away.
But I've had a number of
experiences, like that, that were
not induced with, with psychedelics.
And I'm, I'm, I'm unsure what it means,
but they, it's getting, it's getting,
easier to allow myself to go that way.
I feel it coming on instead of
going, oh shit, that's a scary place.
I kind of, kind of go.
And I had one here a while ago to
where, when I came back from that, I
was like, oh, I'm, I'm good with it now.
These, these two realities exist at
the same time, and I don't, I, I didn't
feel scared going there, and I know why.
I didn't feel scared going there.
I haven't told you this bit.
So I, the person I mentioned
before who's a psychedelic assisted
psychotherapist, he hooked me up with
an underground M D M A therapist.
And so last, just after Christmas last
year, just before New Year, I went and
did a, a underground couple of days
with this underground M D M A therapist.
And basically the fear left me and s I've
only, I think I've only had one of those
crazy journeys since then, but when it
came, I was like, oh, yeah, I'm good.
I can just, I can just let
go and, and flow into it.
But it's, it is more real than
this, more real than this reality.
Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
you know, a cynic, not a skeptic, a cynic
would say, oh, that's, you've just now
taken so many psychedelics that you've
now, you're now, having flashbacks.
What would you say to that?
Warwick Schiller: No, they're not
flashbacks because it's not, it
is a, it is a, when you go, when
you go there, you are energy.
So you are vibrating a bazillion
miles an hour like your.
Like you, what's what's
interesting is I'm still in my,
I can still be aware of my body.
I can still aware of my body
buzzing, but I'm not, I don't
have a body in that space, but I
can feel my body buzzing, now.
Yeah.
Well, asy can say whatever
they want, I mean, right.
If I had to talk to me five years
ago and said some of this stuff
always, you are a whack job.
But I've ex I've
experienced it and, yeah.
I mean, well, and well, if a, an extent
you've done so many psychedelics.
I would say I've done five exactly.
Once each.
I've done, I've done, I've done five, yes.
I've done five one time each.
And some people do 'em,
you know, every weekend.
You know, like MDMA
gone, a RAVs or whatever.
I, I've only ever done 'em in healing
situations with a lot of intention.
and I, but if a cynic said that to
me, I wouldn't even argue with 'em.
I wouldn't try to make my
point because they've got no
frame of reference to my point.
But I do have a frame of reference to
their point, because six or seven years
ago, I would've had the same thoughts.
So I, I, I get where they're coming from.
Rupert Isaacson: What I find interesting.
Well, obviously the whole
thing is interesting.
Again, going back to experiences living
with hunting and gathering peoples for
whom this is part of normality, albeit
a very joyful, intense normality.
I've in, not spontaneously
outside of rituals.
I mean, I've had the odd out body
experience, so that's something,
but that's not so unusual.
but I have had experiences
where I've fell into what they
would call the spirit world.
and then was aware of myself sitting
in the room or sitting in the heart
or wherever, while also looking at a
completely different reality, almost
superimposed upon that reality.
Mm-hmm.
. And, both times the sham and the
healer noticed, reached in and pulled
me out and just said, don't go there
without training, because you are
gonna encounter, things from the human
psyche that you're not ready for yet.
and that's why we have a
training process for this.
but it's quite natural to fall into it.
But of course, when a hunter is, going
after Kudu, they must become kudu.
when you said, how did these
Amazonian tribes know which plant?
Well, the plants told them?
I've been told very similar things.
For example, I remember in
my first weeks with the bush.
Observing how they could determine
where animals were at a distance
from their camps and asking them how.
And they said, oh, well, you know,
we, we dance, the healers dance.
And then we ask, go to, then they go
ask the animals where they are and the
animals sail or we're over here or, and
I, and I also said, how, how's it, you
don't run into lion so often cuz we're
in lion country, central Kalahari game
reserve, very aggressive lions there.
And they said, oh, again, yeah,
no, we dance and we, we make
contact with the lions and we
ask 'em where they're gonna be.
We go the other way.
And they would say this sort of thing
in a very matter of fact, sort of a
way, and then sort of immediately talk
about the fact that their toe hurt or
the roof needed mending or whatever.
Warwick Schiller: Right.
It was like they, I put it
in my GP p s in my phone.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Which it came out like that would
be pretty, magical if we were
looking at it from even an early
20th century, perspective, a
gp s in a phone or the phone.
So one of the things which I love about
conversations like this is it reminds
us that miracle is an everyday thing.
and going back to horses, I,
I feel that it's miraculous
that we can even ride horses.
I feel that it is a shamanic
experience because we had to
get over, we have to shape.
, we have to come out of ourselves as
something that wants to eat the horse.
and now we are getting to a point
in horsemanship where we have to
come out of ourselves as someone
who simply wants to use the horse.
This is something quite new in our
consciousness, even as horse people.
It is really the last tw 30 years or
so, that it's not just a practical use
thing, it's to do with more than that.
It's getting back to more towards
the hunter-gatherer thing, where
you don't just hunt and kill.
You have a, a, a full-on
relationship with the animals.
or the healing dancers of the Bushman
are using certain animal energies,
shapeshifting into animals, not just
for hunting, also for healing or for
all sorts of things because of course
we're organisms, tied up with the
other organisms in a world of organisms.
and to feel that we're separated from
them, of course, is a great illusion.
But nonetheless, it's the
illusion we've been, trained into.
and when I've been with, really,
you talked about being, seeing
the hologram or the energy of
Robin and the dog on the couch.
the really good senior healers can
exist in the trance, the deep healing
trance where they're talking to
ancestor spirits and pulling cancers
out of people's bodies and doing
that sort of thing while at the same.
Having a, a cigarette and sort of
chatting to someone else over there,
and you can see in flickering of the eye
muscles and this sort of thing as they're
going between one and the other and
beginning to handle it very gracefully.
you, you made the, an analogy of ice
skating with horses almost like an ice
skater, sort of psychic ice skater going
effortlessly between these realities.
it seems that you have through this horse
who bounces back legs, , taken somewhat of
an interesting journey into the world of
organisms and what's beyond organisms and
what we can perceive and what we can't.
How has this affected your horsemanship?
Have you had, these experiences now
in the dual realities or seeing the
real realities around or on horses?
Warwick Schiller: No, no, no.
Not . Not yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Yeah.
I did when I did the, psilocybin
journey, , last year was that a was
actually at a horse place in Oregon.
And,
,
I, most of it was a inward journey.
Like I was, my eyes were closed, you
know, I was laying under, under a blanket.
But later on when I kind of
came outta that and, I said,
I wanna go see the horses.
And so we go out in the past for the
horses, so I was wearing shorts and
socks and hiking boots, and I had these,
I had these socks on that I bought.
I was in Montana last year
and I did a clinic there.
And, and, I went into this, the
next day I went into this, you
know, trading post sort of a thing.
And I had these really cool
Native American design socks,
Rupert Isaacson: special Montana socks.
Warwick Schiller: Yes.
And these socks were
ridiculously expensive.
Like they were 30 bucks a pair for
socks or something that might be, not be
ridiculously expensive, but for me it is.
And I'd buy six pack of
socks for three bottles.
You know what I mean?
So these are, these are
basically the, these are fu money
socks, you know what I mean?
Like, no one needs to spend 30 bucks
on a pair of socks, even though some
people with lots of money might spend
a hundred bucks on a pair of socks.
But for me, lot of money, a
pair spent on a pair of socks.
So I've got these fu money socks, I've
spent 30 bucks on a pair of socks,
and I hadn't be wearing them this day.
I did the psilocybin journey
and you know, like I said, I was
with the lady for quite a while.
Then I needed a masculine energy.
So I ended up, laying, sitting down,
or actually laying with my head in
the, the man's lap, holding his hand,
talking to him for about two hours.
But then at some point in time I'm
like, I need to go see the horses.
And so I was pretty much mostly
through the, the, any of the.
Hallucinogenic effects, you
know, the visual effects you
might get from, from Psilocin.
And I didn't get many visual effects cuz
for the most part my eyes were closed.
But by this point in time, I'm
not really getting any visuals,
but I wanna go see the horses.
So we walk out this pasture to the
horses and on the way out there, I, as
I get up to the horses, I realize I got
an itchy foot and I look down and one
of my socks, I've got an inside out.
So all the little threads that make up
all this Native American design that's
on the outside have all caught all these
stickers, these seeds from the grass.
And so one of the horses walks up
to me and he's standing right there.
And instead of me talking to him,
I pull my boot off and I pull this
sock off and I start to pull these
grass seeds out of this sock cuz
I've got, this is important to me.
These are my, this is my
eff u money socks, isn't it?
And I start to pick these grasses outta
this sock and this horse just saddles
up to me and just bumps me with his
shoulder and knocks me off balance.
Cause I'm standing on one foot, knocks
me off balance and I look at him
and all of a sudden I realize he's
basically forget the fucking socks.
It's not about the socks.
And so I just put that sock in my
pocket and put my shoe back on.
And then I was present there with
the horses, but it was, he was
like, forget your you money socks.
You don't need to worry
about the socks right now.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you anticipate that
some of these experiences are now going
to come to you w while with horses?
I mean, why, why wouldn't they?
Horses are still a
large part of your life.
Don't.
And so what, what do you, what
do you anticipate that bringing
Warwick Schiller: you to?
I don't anticipate it, but I'm open to it.
Okay.
And I, I think anticipation is there's
a certain level of expectation,
and I, I just think the energy's
completely different when you are
open to things versus when you are
hoping that will happen or Sure.
That will happen or whatever.
And I, I, I, all my life, I've been
a, you know, I've got this far with
just being open to, possibilities.
What, so what do I
think will come from it?
I think so a lot of people when they
go into those spaces with, with plant
medicines or whatever, they have
conversations with the divine, with
other beings, other entities, other
energies that give them information.
In my experiences, I have not
had any of that at all yet.
but I know people who regularly
have sessions with their
horses, with, with, psilocybin.
They'll, on a Sunday, they'll
go and take some psilocybin
and go sit with the horses.
I get messages from several friends of
mine all the time, like, you wouldn't
believe what the horses told me today.
Had a, had a afternoon Sunday afternoon
mushroom session with the horses and
they said this and this and this.
And what generally
Rupert Isaacson: are the horses saying?
Are they saying banal things like,
could we have better pasture please?
Or are they saying there's
a message from the outer
Warwick Schiller: gods?
What are they saying?
It's, no, it's, it's, it's
the big, it's the big message.
Like, you know, the wor we, we
have to start getting along.
We ha we're all connected.
We have to start, we're all, we need
to start to heal the system type thing.
is that the general thrust of the thing,
the general thrust of the, of the, of
the whole thing is run, tell the others.
Rupert Isaacson: our horses.
Our horses try to tell
us this fairly routinely.
In fact.
Warwick Schiller: I think so.
I think, I think Sherlock showed up to,
to give me a little, like, that horse
knocked me off balance with that foot.
Like forget about the sock.
Yeah.
Okay.
I think Sherlock showed me to say,
Hey, forget about, forget about
the way you're looking at things.
There's another way to look at things.
And that leads you, you know, it is a,
yeah, I believe it is a, an evolution and
you can't skip steps, you know, so your
levels of, your levels of consciousness
or your levels of consciousness and
there's lots of levels of consciousness.
And you know, I think I'm very, very,
very early on in the journey, but.
You know, you, I, I think they're
just, for me, the horses are kind of
pointing us in the, in the direction of,
Rupert Isaacson: given that we have
relationships with so many different
species, you know, we, we have all
the domesticated animals and then
of course we have wild animals.
Why the horse?
What's, what's the special thing that
the horse has to tell us in this?
Or is it what all animals would tell us?
, what do you think?
Warwick Schiller: I'm thinking
it's what all animals would tell
us, but we don't wanna ride the
lions, you know what I mean?
And so
Rupert Isaacson: lions
don't carry us anywhere.
It's true.
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
You know, it's, yeah, I think,
I think, and like a dog will
wanna be around you all the time.
You don't have to, you don't necessarily
have to change how you go about things
to get the dog to wanna hang with you.
But horse, you know, like you
said before, we're predators.
They're prey animals.
And I think if we want, we, we
we're passionate about horses.
We love horses.
We love to be around them.
we love to do things with them, but they,
I think they present us with challenges
in.
Ambitions with horses.
They present us with challenges.
And those challenges are overcome
by going up levels of consciousness,
seeing things differently.
You know, it seems like if, if you
are, you know, you talked about
school, you know, like this kind of
school system you grew up in and the
church and the state, and we wanna,
we wanna make you adversarial so that
you can fight wars for us or whatever.
You know, if you want to be
adversarial with a horse, you'll
have all sorts of difficulties.
But if you, if you are passionate about
getting things done with a horse, after
a while the adversarial thing doesn't
work and you start to look at things a
bit differently, then you realize, oh, I
didn't ha he was only being adversarial
because I was being adversarial.
And I think, I think as we go
along, I'm, yeah, these days I'm
trying to see how much I can do with,
without doing anything , so to speak.
And I'm not talking about animal
communication that's, that comes later,
but just do you think that Mustang
just letting, let, letting that Mustang
know how much I noticed made all of a
difference in the world than if I had a
tried to, to train him to do something
or, you know, that sort of thing.
You know, there's an old saying with
horses, they don't care how much you
know until they know how much you care.
I actually think that's kind of bunk.
They don't know how much you
care until they know how.
Much you notice how present you can be.
They, you know, you see a lot of
people who care a lot about their
horses and they run up and they pat
'em and they feed 'em and they do this,
and I love my horse, but they're not
communicating any awareness of things.
And I, I have just found that with
horses, the more you can be communicate
your awareness to it, it gets down
to the point to where it ends up.
Where it's all about communicating
Your awareness of their awareness.
Of your awareness of their
awareness, of your awareness.
Of their awareness.
If you wanna keep going like that.
But that's, you know, you
were talking about, elephants
of Indigos and about animals.
there's a book I've been reading called
Beyond Words, what Animals Think and
Feel by a fellow named Carl Sina.
I dunno if you've ever heard
of, how do you spell Sina ssa?
F i n a
Rupert Isaacson: s a f i n A, Sina Carl.
Carl with a c or, or, or with a city
Warwick Schiller: with a c Carl Safina.
Beyond Words, what Animals Think
and Feel, his name of the book.
But in there he's talking about how, you
know, we've all scientists, like in the
scientific world, anthropomorphizing is
a good way to get yourself laughed at.
Like we've been taught.
Do not anthropomorphizing, do
not anthropomorphizing, you know,
animals don't have feelings.
And in that book, at the, we're at the
very end of one of the chapters, he was
talking with someone and they said to
him, well, what you have to remember
is, I think it was, there's a, there's
a chapter in elephants, there's a
chapter in Wales and there's a chapter.
What the other animal is.
But anyway, this person said, you
know, you have to remember that
they're not animal, they're not humans.
And his reply was, yes, but you have
to remember, the humans are animals.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: No, I agree.
And I've often wondered, you know, we
have the, we have a particular love
affair with the horse in our culture.
It's what we built our
military civilizations on.
Ever since the bur nomads came out of
the step into Europe on those horses,
the Yamaya, as they seem to refer to
them in the Neolithic era, the first
Hs to sweep across Europe and bring
death and the sword to everybody on
a horse, goes back into pre-history.
And it seems that we have used
the horse to project our ambitions
and our egos as well as ourselves.
I'm projecting myself from here in Germany
to Hungary because I can get there on
a horse quicker than I can on foot.
so it's a real projection
and it's a emotional and
metaphorical projection as well.
They make us bigger, faster, stronger,
more beautiful until we get off.
And then we just go back
to being monkeys again.
that said, the time I spent in Mongo.
Where, okay, the le the
horsemanship is quite, quite brutal.
but their relationship with
the horse is on every level.
They, they live it, they wear
it, they drink it, they eat it.
They absolutely do love it and revere it.
And they built the civilization
well, the, the, the herding culture
that again, brought by to the sword.
We kill everybody now from the
Pacific to the Mediterranean.
And then somewhere in the 17th century,
some Tibetan monks wandered over the Altai
plateau and started talking about this
thing called Buddhism to the Mongols.
And in one generation, basically
they stopped no more cub, no
more Ja k, no more TA alone.
No more they'll fight a defensive
war, put, put bastards a sandwich
between Russia and China, which
is an uncomfortable squeeze.
But the nicest people, and I want an,
a strong humanity tradition and so on.
Obviously I took my son there for healing.
I wonder if we, these, we western post
conquest colonial people who inherited.
, the horses as a means of conquest are now
going through that same education that
the Mongols went through 400 years ago.
For us, it all seems very new.
This thing of, well, to have a
relationship with the horse, to not just
want the horse to do this thing for you
in order to win this ribbon or whatever.
because competition is a form of
conquest, form of battle, form of
competition, adversarial exercise.
what are your thoughts on this?
Do, do you feel that therefore
the horse because of this?
Because we've used the horse probably more
than any other animal that you can ride.
We have used elephants in war.
We have used camels in war.
Okay, fine.
We've used doggies and mules in more,
but not like the horse because of the
speed, the, the maneuverability, the da.
So we've really committed some
sins on the backs of these things.
And they've given this sort of,
they're any, they, they're neutral.
It's like they've given
us, okay, here I am.
I'm a horse.
You want to use me for this?
okay.
You know, I'd rather you
didn't perhaps, but Okay.
and now we're coming to this other thing.
Here you are.
Maybe you'll have these experiences
on horses or with horses where you're
beginning to see these parallel realities.
Where's it all going?
Warwick Schiller: I think it's all lead.
It's leading us all to
consciousness, really.
Uh, I, you know, I think, you
know, as much bad as that's come
outta the internet, you know, as
far as social media or whatever
better, better statement there.
But yeah,
I think these days there's no
reason to listen to the dogma of
your parents or your government
or your church or whatever.
Like in the middle Ages, you
know, you, that's what you got.
Oh, that's what you got.
There's, there's no reason to, there's
no reason to be ignorant these days.
And so ideas can spread so much easier.
And I, I just find it in the, in the
horse community in the last five years or
so, just in the last five years, people
being just so more aware of, of the
benefits of connection and empathy and,
you know, non-confrontational.
Means of communicating.
And I don't, I don't know.
I think, I think the horses are leading
us to, you know, help more people, just
be more aware of consciousness, I think.
I think that's where they're going.
And
Rupert Isaacson: is that
where you want to go?
What's next for you?
You, you've, you, you are
still a successful trainer.
You haven't stopped
doing clinics and shows.
You, you do still travel
around doing that?
Warwick Schiller: no, I don't haven't,
I haven't done any shows since, since
2018, since the world of question games.
This is the last time I completed.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
Not compe.
Well, shows in the com competition sense.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
You, you're giving clinics, you're
helping people, you know, also,
you're still helping people with
the techniques as well as, because
obviously there's these two sides.
Rational, irrational, must exist,
you know, parallel simultaneously,
you've self-actualized.
You know, if you look at you
from the outside, when I met
you, you know, I could say yes.
This is somebody who, whether you
knew you were following your gut
or not, did, whether you knew you
were following your passions or not,
did had a passion for the horse.
He had a passion for this western thing.
You followed it, you followed
your love for a woman as well.
You followed love really the whole way.
And whether you knew it or not, you did.
You loved the horse.
You loved this motif and this lifestyle.
You love this woman.
You love this.
and now you're moving
deeper into California.
I know you've bought this new facility,
you've become financially independent
through the training videos to the point
where you can now pick and choose what you
do and what you're doing is interesting.
You have this podcast is
sharing of information.
It's fascinating.
You have started the summit bringing
all these very interesting people
from the horse world together.
When I was there last year, it was
my first, experience of being in
a non-ad adversarial horse event.
I'd, I'd, I'd never
experienced that before.
Mind blowing.
now you ha are exploring consciousness
and I know that you bought
this new place in Paso Robles.
What's gonna happen there?
What's going on with that?
Warwick Schiller: What we wanna start, you
know, a lot of times at clinics helping
people get along with their horses better,
they have a transformational experience.
They have to, they have a,
a change in perspective.
you know, a lot of times, like I
said, they'll have a transformational
experience, but they don't come
to the clinic signing up for
a transformational experience.
A lot of times it'll just
happen because of it.
But, so there's a lot of places you can't
go in front of, a bunch of spectators.
with people because they didn't sign up
for that sort of thing in that situation.
And so what we are starting to
do now is we want to have more
transformational type experiences.
Like after the, after the podcast summit
last year, Robin and I looked at each
other and like, we want more of that.
We want more of that type of energy.
And so what we're gonna start
doing is having, I'm still doing,
we're starting out, wanna kinda
jump right into something new.
We're gonna start at doing what we
used to do, which is the clinics,
but we have 'em at our place.
And the, what we're doing
now is three day clinics.
The second and third day are basically
the same clinic they've been before, but
the first day is more mindset stuff, more
transformational stuff with no spectators.
You know, the clinic's not open
for, for spectators until the clinic
starts on the Saturday morning.
That's the beginning.
But then we've also booked, we
released a, , what are we calling it?
A what are you sure,
what are we calling it?
What are we calling it?
We are having a, I can't think of
the name of the thing we're having.
We're having a weekend retreat.
Thank you.
We're having a retreat at our place.
, the first one is in, I think
it's in May, and it's sold out in
three hours when we released it.
And it's, it's, people
don't bring the horses.
We're gonna have these retreats
that people will in from wherever.
we will do some horse stuff,
but we will be with our horses.
But it's more about mindset.
you know, Robin wants to lead
people through ice barss.
We wanna have meditation,
we wanna have some yoga.
We wanna have, all that sort of
stuff with, with the mind, with the
idea that this is gonna help people
when they go home with their horses.
This is usually, you know, usually
people are having problems with
their horses because of their
perception of what's going on.
Not the problem's, not a, you know,
it's like Captain Jack Sparrow says,
the problem is not the problem.
It's your, it's your
attitude about the problem.
It's a problem.
So, yeah, we wanna start having more
things like that, and then we're gonna
have weekends to where we will have,
one of the podcast guests come, and
Robin and I and the podcast guests
will work with the people a weekend.
But, you know, and I guess if
you think about it, it's all
about expanding consciousness.
But all, all of this is about, it's
trying to help people get along
with their horses better, but it's,
it's getting to the real reason.
They're not a lot not getting
along with their horses.
Very well.
And a lot of times it is
their perception of things.
It's their, it might be their negative
self-talk, it might be how they view
the world, those, those sorts of things.
But we really want to get more
into the, transformational space.
And, and as it goes along, it'll
obviously, it'll morph into
something that it's not yet.
But we, you know, we have a 42 acre place.
We, you know, it's got, it's got
a creek run through the middle of,
it's gotta be old forest on it.
It's got a huge, it's got two arenas.
It's, it's got a lot of
places to do a lot of things.
So we're pretty excited about it.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you think
you're gonna do non horse stuff too?
Just, stuff about consciousness, period?
Warwick Schiller: Yes.
We'll I imagine we'll definitely
end up getting into that.
I mean, I think initially I will
have other people come there to
do that and I will be the student.
cuz I'm a long way from
teaching that stuff.
But I, you know, I think my, my,
looks like my purpose here is to
help people look in that direction.
I'm not sure I'm, I'm the guy that's
supposed to lead them to the end
of that rabbit hole, but I think
I'm the guy that's supposed to
kind of go, Hey, look down here.
It's kind of interesting.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, you said something
very interesting at the beginning of this
conversation, which was that when you
began doing these things, you weren't.
Doing them with an idea of monetizing.
I mean obviously you wanted to make
a living, but you weren't, you didn't
do the equa thing to monetize it.
You didn't do even the, online
stuff at first to monetize it,
even though now that's actually
how you've become independent.
You did it really to be of service
and , then it took on its own energy.
Is that what you're going
to do with this new place?
Warwick Schiller: Oh, I'd certainly
like it to pay for itself . That does.
So, um, you know what, yes.
It's, I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's
not, we didn't buy this new place cuz
because we're gonna do this
thing to, you know, it, it's
the same as everything else.
It's just like where my, my gut was going.
Like, like I said, after the, the
podcast summit last year said to Robin,
that's the space we need to occupy.
That's what I want to do more of.
I want to, I want to have more of
those transformational experiences like
that, both myself and other people.
Because I don't think anybody, whether
you are a presenter or you're one of
the spectators there, that was at that
thing that was not completely moved by.
That everything that happened there, I
Rupert Isaacson: would agree.
So people will be listening to this.
We're coming towards the end now.
They'll have some questions.
one thing I want to say to the
listeners is if you've got questions
and you must have questions after
listening to this, email them to us.
Write them, write them down.
We'll give you the, the email
at the end of the, of the show.
and we will ask, Warwick to answer them.
If he will.
Will he actually ask him to
come back on and answer them?
Cuz it would be nice to
hear it's direct from him.
But in the, closing minutes of
this conversation, people will be
listening to this with dilemmas.
And the dilemmas will
be, you're a horsey guy.
So some of them will have horse
dilemmas, some of it will be
life and consciousness dilemmas.
Some of it will be how can I learn
to trust my gut or get in touch
with my emotions dilemmas, but I
don't want to go and activate D M T.
I'm terrified.
It's not legal where I am, blah blah.
That's just not part of my thing.
Blah, blah, blah.
And of course we know that there's
many roads to these things.
Let's say that every dilemma is
really one dilemma, and it's,
I'm unhappy, I'm suffering.
What's your advice?
Warwick Schiller: Well, I think
I'm, I'm unhappy in suffering too.
So , what would my advice Well, after
all that work, after all that work, yeah.
I get your money back.
No, I'm, yeah.
I'm, I'm really with this whole
self-development journey, I, I've,
I've, I've just start, you know, I've,
I've just started through another
door to where, oh, you know, I've just
topped the mountain, and I'm like,
oh, now I can see another mountain.
I thought I was getting to
the top of this mountain.
I can see another mountain.
what would I say?
I, you know, I, I love how in our
conversations, Rupert, you're always
talking about the hunter gatherers
and how that's how we evolve to live.
And the, it seems like all the problems
we have these days have to do with
a lack of connection, you know, lack
of, and, and a lot of that's the way
we were, you know, the way we were
parented, the way society had us be.
And I, I, I just think that finding ways.
To connect to the rest of the world
is kind of the answer to the thing.
And I, we talked about horses before.
I think that is one of the ways that we
can start to connect with, you know, for
me, I'm still not the best with people.
The horses, I'm, I'm getting
so much better with the, with
the connection with them.
I don't, I don't need to have walls up.
I don't need to present anything
other than the true me around horses.
And I'm still working on that
with the, with, with people.
But I do think that, you know, as
the Beatles said, all need is love.
Basically.
It's that connection I think is,
and whatever way you can start
to work on, on connection, I
think that is the way forward.
Rupert Isaacson: Look for
connection and take it from there.
Words to live by.
Alright, Warwick, this has been amazing.
I want to continue this conversation.
So would you consent to coming on
again so that we Oh, I'd love to.
In the meantime, I'm gonna go back over
these books, which I've been writing down.
So let's just, cuz I'm sure people
will want to, to, know them.
So it started with, is it Dave Asprey?
Dave Espree.
Is it a S b u r y p.
Warwick Schiller: Pri asi.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: A s p e r y.
And that's the cosmic
Warwick Schiller: serpent.
No, no.
, Dave Asprey's, the guy that
wrote that book called Game
Rupert Isaacson: Changers.
Game Changers, Dave Asprey,
game Changers, and then str.
Warwick Schiller: Dave Asprey
has, Dave Asprey has a podcast.
He's very into, Dave Asprey's,
very into, the health and wellness
sphere sort of thing, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Straussman Rick Straussman
wrote Rickman Into The Spirit,
the Spirit Molecule, D m T, the
Warwick Schiller: Spirit Molecule.
Molecule, uh,
Rupert Isaacson: Karl Sfi,
Warwick Schiller: S S A F I N A
Rupert Isaacson: S A F I N A,
Carl Safina title of the book.
Warwick Schiller: It's called Beyond
Words, what Animals Think and Feel.
You know, it was interesting, I was gonna
mention, I had a guy on the podcast in
Australian guy that lives in Spain named
Lockey Phillips, and he is very big into
the emotions of animals, and he said,
they say that animals don't feel emotions.
He said they do feel emotions.
They just don't have the same
thoughts about them that we do,
which I thought was very interesting.
Rupert Isaacson: What thoughts does he
say animals have about their emotions?
Warwick Schiller: He says they don't.
Okay.
You know, it's kinda like, I've
seen it, you know, in Australia,
like, like growing up on the
farm, like there might be a sheep.
It's got a broken leg, and so
it's out there hitting the grass.
I've got a broken leg.
You know, if you, if you, you know, I
don't know if what you've got planned
for next week, but let's say you
were driving somewhere and had a car
accident, broke your leg, you would have
a broken leg, but you'd also have all
this other anguish about your broken
leg because Oh, I was gonna go to,
and I was going to, and now I can't.
And, and, and, and you know, all
these things about that broken leg,
whereas an animal, okay, a broken leg,
here's some grass, I'm gonna eat it.
Rupert Isaacson: Some people
would say that's being shut down.
If a human were to do that,
Warwick Schiller: if the human
were to do what the animal does.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
If the human were to say, well, I'm not
going to attach any emotion, therefore
I'm shut down from my emotions, given
that we're emotional animals, humans,
Warwick Schiller: yeah.
And that, that, that could be, but.
, you know, you've gotta
think about shutdown.
And our friend, mutual friend Jane Pike is
the one that really helped me with this.
You know, once I learned that
I was, I figured out that I'd
been shut down in my life.
Then I had a lot of judgment
about being shut down.
And then I realized, then I
figured out why I was shut down.
And, and, and what Jane made
me realize is she said you had
a good reason to shut down.
And she said that, shut down.
You've judged it poorly all your life, but
when it happened, it was your best friend.
It was your body taking care of you,
your body's, that's supposed to happen.
Your body is supposed to do that at
that time, but you've hung onto it
to where you don't need it anymore.
But, and that's, that's what trauma is.
Trauma's not what happened to you.
Trauma is getting stuck in a certain
place and not working through the thing.
I mean, you know, if any animal
gets, you know, I don't know, baby
Gazelle gets grabbed by a lion.
Okay, he's gonna go limp, he's gonna
go into that flop thing and then
Lion takes him back to his cubs.
And if that line sits him down
for two seconds cuz he thinks
he's dead, that little baby, cuz
I was gonna jump up and run off.
And that, that's the completion
of that trauma cycle.
Whereas we not get eaten alive by lions
and we can get stuck in that, that place
to where I'm just gonna go in the freeze
or the flop state right now because it's
gonna help me if I get a chance to escape.
Or escape.
But then we don't, we don't actually.
We don't actually haven't
been captured by a line.
But yeah, so Jane was the one that made
me forgive, I dunno if it's myself,
but, but, but come to terms with, Hey,
that was a good thing when it happened.
All emotions are supposed to happen.
Yeah, sure.
But they're supposed to have a beginning
and an end and I think we get stuck
in cycles of not working through.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
I guess, I guess that in the wild state,
let's say a deer gets hunted by, a wolf
gets away, doesn't then need to have 10
years of therapy about it, goes back to
its, original behavior pretty quick.
What it might do is go through a
shuttering phase where it, it shutters
off the adrenaline shutters off
the cortisol before it does that.
And of course it's got to look
around and make sure that there
are no other walls, et cetera, but
Warwick Schiller: it's not gonna carry it.
Yeah.
There's a book.
Yeah.
There's a really good book
called Why Zebras Don't Have
Ulcers, which is about Okay.
Which
Rupert Isaacson: is a, about that by
who I don't, why is S don't have ulcer.
Warwick Schiller: That's good.
Yeah.
Why is S don't have alt ulcers?
I can't remember who that was by.
Rupert Isaacson: no, of course they
might cuz horses have ulcer, but Yeah.
But probably cause of
what humans do to them.
Yeah.
Warwick Schiller: Yes.
Because of our, yeah.
The way we're keeping in captivity.
we've been talking about different
things today and I said, I'm, I'm
now down the next level of my rabbit
hole and I'm gonna give you guys a.
That I'm currently listening
to that is so amazing.
It's called healing the Shame that
binds you, healing The shame, the
shame that binds you, that binds
you by a fellow name John Bradshaw.
John with an H Brad.
Yes, John with an H Bradshaw.
Yeah.
and another one, I'll tell you what,
I've been down the rabbit hole of
learning about all this stuff for a
number of years now, but I listened
to one book last year that basically
covered all the stuff I've been
reading about for the last five years.
And it's the Myth of Normal by Gaul
Matte, the Myth of Normal, normal
by Gabel Matte, M a t g a b o R, and
then Matt, g a b o r, matte as in mate
Rupert Isaacson: matte
with an accent on the end.
Yes.
M a t e with a yes.
Acute
Warwick Schiller: accent on the end.
And, and that and that book basically, it,
it's, you would, you would love it because
he's all about, you know, what's become
normal is not normal for how we evolve.
Like he's, it's almost like
Hunter gatherers had it sorted
out and we've screwed it up.
Yeah.
Ever since it's a, it's a, yeah.
Very, very good book.
Rupert Isaacson: By the way, you also,
the cosmic serpent, that was Jeremy
Warwick Schiller: Nabi, N a n y,
Rupert Isaacson: Jeremy
Naby, the Cosmic sert.
Yeah.
Back to the, back to the
hunter gatherer thing.
I mean, of course we talked.
A prey animal shuttering and shaking
off the trauma of the, of getting
away or going into a collapse mode
where it might spring up and run away,
but also if it finds itself getting
eaten alive, going into that state
of supreme endorphin, overload where
it then doesn't, it's, it's sort of
anesthetized, doesn't really feel pain.
And there are these mechanisms and it
goes into a very peaceful sort of estate.
We've seen this in wildlife documentaries.
I've seen it happen in Africa.
Yeah.
And I
Warwick Schiller: think
that's the shutdown state.
Rupert Isaacson: What's interesting about,
of course, if you're the hunter gatherer,
the humans with our consciousness
of our different seeming different
consciousness is in our wild state.
We have the shaman in our state.
We have somebody within the, the
community whose job is to wash our psychic
dirty laundry every 10 days or so like
that, often about every 10 days or so.
We of course, haven't had
that for an awful long time.
So now we have inherited generations
of psychic dirty laundry where that
whole mechanism for quality of life
really beyond survival or thriving.
Has gone.
It seems to me that this
conversation happens to have happened
through horses, but has led to
a series of washings of the psychic
dirty laundry in the hunter-gatherer
style that has now deepened not only
your way of going about the horse, but
of course the way of going about life.
Meaning that you, through this,
found a way of producing that
connection, which again is part
of the hunter gatherer thing.
The, the clan, the extended family.
We, we work for each other's benefit.
We do not work against each
other in that situation because
we just simply will not survive.
It's not practical, but with
agriculture it becomes competi.
It became competitive.
And one of the things which I was so
impressed about with the Jo first, the
Journey on podcast, your podcast and
then the summit was you have produced
one of those connected communities out
of the post hunter gatherer estate.
I would be interested to see if,
where Journey on goes and where
your new place goes and whatever
new media you put out there, which
of course you're going to, cuz.
You're not gonna stop.
It'll be part of that
opus of bringing us all back
towards that connectivity.
it's important work.
It's important work that you're doing.
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
And I, yeah, I, that's, yeah, I think
you got it where we're heading to.
I just, you know, it's kinda
like how I've got to this point.
There's been no plan to get to this
point and so the, I really don't have
any plans to get to the, the next point.
I'm just kind of open to whatever
the universe points me out.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Which will probably be ever greater
degrees of connectivity because
it seems to have gone that way.
It started with service.
What greater service could there
be than helping with connectivity?
Alright.
Amazing.
Thank you.
I think if it's all right, we
leave it there for this time.
I'm gonna go away and Stew and Mal come
back with a bunch of questions please.
, can we
Warwick Schiller: resume?
I'd love to.
I'd love to resume.
Alright then.
Rupert Isaacson: I look forward to it.
It's booked.
Warwick.
Thank you.
An honor as always.
, for the listeners, you've been listening
to the Live Free Ride Free podcast.
, I will have all warwick's, , contacts.
, you can go and live in his house
and eat his food and , make
bad smells in his toilet.
And he will not mind the next
three months, but his wife might.
, but I will tell you how
to be in contact with him.
The Journey on podcast.
You need to check it out.
The Journey on Summit,
you need to check it out.
, and attune horsemanship,
you need to check it out.
But I will be giving all the
web and other links as well.
Anything last that you wanna
add before we sign out?
, Warwick Schiller: no.
It's just that it's been a, an
absolute honor and a pleasure
chatting with you again.
As it as it is always.
Well, thank you.
Rupert Isaacson: Alright, , I'm
gonna do the click off thing
and I guess we will reconvene.
Thank you for joining us.
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