episode 047: Steve Rio

To boil down the beautiful essence and spirit of Steve Rio down to a few adjectives is next to impossible. The musician, investor, former founder & CEO of social impact agency Briteweb and current co-founder of Enfold Institute & Nature of Work has a calm, centered inner compass that feels rare in our frenzied world. He was made in Hong Kong, born and raised in Vancouver. His entrepreneurial parents gave him space to do the things he wanted to do—this made him resourceful and independent, but that parental support was not always emotional in nature. A longtime musician, he spent many years in a band before moving fully into the digital, branding & communications agency space, splitting his time between Vancouver and New York. After a transformative experience with 5-MeO-DMT (often called the world’s strongest psychedelic or the ‘god molecule’), he began the next chapter of his life’s work in the psychedelic space. In this vast conversation, we explore his dynamic with his parents; how music saved him; the major chapter of his life in a band and his current reflections on that time; starting Briteweb and what it taught him about himself; how to create spaciousness for yourself and for others; the adolescent hunt for spiritual transcendence and how psychedelics opened him up to that early in life; the natural path that led him and his wife Austin to co-founding Enfold Institute and facilitating 5-MeO medicine ceremonies; my recent and deeply profound ceremony experience with them and some personal insights since then; their continued involvement in psychedelics and what’s coming next within the year; his mini love letter to Austin; and much more.