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EP45: Longevity Won't Save You. The Soil Might | Amy McDonald
19 Plays3 hours ago
"We can't live longer and better without the planet being healthy."
The longevity industry has spent a decade and a fortune chasing biohacks, diagnostics and supplements. Amy McDonald has watched all of it from inside the wellness world — and her argument is not that longevity is wrong, but that it has been looking in the wrong direction. The real answer, she suggests, was always in the soil.
McDonald is the founder of Under a Tree, a regenerative wellness consultancy now in its twenty-first year, and her story is the throughline. A permaculture garden on the Baja coast in the early 1990s that moved guests to tears. A formative stretch at Miraval, where mindfulness — not architecture — built the brand. And a cautionary chapter at El Monte Sagrado in Taos: one of the most visionary sustainable properties ever built, lost not for lack of money or vision but for lack of market research and a working airport. From that heartbreak came the principle she now lives by — build the business model before you build the building.
It's a conversation about doing good and doing well at the same time. McDonald is refreshingly clear that regenerative places have to be profitable, that sustainability alone is no longer enough, and that the market is finally arcing back toward land connection and agritourism. She and Matthieu also find the place where their work overlaps: both begin not with a drawing but by observing the land itself and asking what it most wants to become.
Learn more & connect:
Amy McDonald — Under a Tree (regenerative wellness consulting): https://www.underatree.com
Email: amy@underatree.com
Resources mentioned:
Under a Tree — Amy McDonald's regenerative wellness consultancy — https://www.underatree.com
Miraval (Life in Balance) — the mindfulness-led wellness resort that shaped her methodology
El Monte Sagrado, Taos — the visionary sustainable property whose collapse taught the business-model-first lesson
Regenesis — the regenerative development group (Pamela and Robert Mang) behind El Monte Sagrado
Rancho La Puerta, Tecate — the long-running wellness ranch she came to see as a kindred model
Discover more about regenerative design at Paulownia Landscape Architects: https://www.paulownia-la.com
Dive into the 12 Universal Laws of Nature: https://www.12lawsofnature.com
Build the garden of your dreams: https://www.gardenofyourdreams.com
Book a free 30-minute session with Matthieu: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams
Recommended
Transcript
Emotional Connection to Nature
00:00:00
Speaker
I saw the transformation of people get emotional about picking a cherry tomato off the vine or had never seen a cauliflower growing in the ground. And I remember thinking, here they are with the Sea of Cortez in the Sonoran Desert, and it's just stunningly beautiful.
00:00:17
Speaker
And what's really bringing them into their hearts is this garden. so that stayed with me, is still with me.
Introduction to Regenerative Design Podcast
00:00:24
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Regenerative Design Podcast. I'm your host Mathieu Mehuys and in this show I interview the leading authorities in the world of regenerative practices. People who do good and do well.
00:00:38
Speaker
Are you a person that cares about your environment and our planet? That wants to lead the planet to our children to be something that we can be truly proud of? To enjoy for many generations to come?
00:00:49
Speaker
But are you also a person that believes we can do all of this and do good in business? I have really good news for you. You're here listening to the podcast that is all about making our planet a better place and making your business more successful.
00:01:03
Speaker
Enjoy the show.
Meet Amy McDonald and Her Journey
00:01:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Regenerative Design Podcast with your host, Mathieu Mahuis. And today we have an amazing guest again. Once again, we have Amy McDonald on the show. And Amy is an amazing entrepreneur. She's been in in business for many years and she's the founder and CEO of Under a Tree. Under a Tree, what a cool company name. I'm i'm very ja jealous about that name.
00:01:32
Speaker
And she has a the business that she has is focused on regenerative wellness consulting. And she's worked with some of the biggest companies in the world. It's a very long list, but I wrote down some of the biggest ones. You've worked with Four Seasons, Six Senses, Marriott and Hilton. So I'm super excited to learn more about regenerative wellness and learn more about your journey. So Amy, welcome. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?
00:02:00
Speaker
Very well. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Yeah. Yeah. I'm super excited about this conversation. So I want to, I'd love to, you already told me this offline and I think this story is very inspiring, but I want to share with the listeners. I'd love to hear hear again, like your backstory. How did you get into this and and how did your company um get started?
00:02:23
Speaker
Well,
Creating a Wellness Center in Baja
00:02:24
Speaker
I would say without any kind of strategy and really having any plan for you know my career and for my life work, when I look back, like probably many of us, when I look back and see how you know how I got to where I am today, there's sort of this beautiful flow to it. um But I think there's two main components that really got me here. The first one was I had a crazy idea while I was living in Canada to move to Mexico.
00:02:52
Speaker
um i went on a sea kayak trip um around a deserted island. And it was one of those things that was unexpected. um a friend called at the last minute and her friend had canceled. And so I said yes. and It was March. It was in Toronto. It was cold. ah you know, the the economy wasn't, it was just like not a great time.
00:03:12
Speaker
and um And so all of a sudden, I i i was in Baja in this beautiful Sonoran Desert with the Sea of Cortez. And this is before cell phones. This is going back to 91. And when I did that week-long trip, when I finished, I knew that my life was going to completely change.
00:03:31
Speaker
And we've all those moments. So I went to the owner and I said to him, um I really want to move here. he said, ah, everyone says that. Go home. And I was like, no, really, I am. And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:44
Speaker
So I stayed an extra week and walked around. didn't speak a word of Spanish, but I worked i walked around a small Mexican city, not a tourist city, um called La Paz. And I just fell in love. I just like with all of my being. So ah went back to Toronto and packed my bags and left my job, left the boyfriend, um everything. and um And everyone thought that you know I'd fallen in love with someone and and I had fallen in love with the place.
Technology-Free Community Experiences
00:04:15
Speaker
Energetically, I mean, just on every level. This podcast is brought to you by the Garden of Your Dreams Masterclass. Are you struggling with finding the right tools and tricks for your garden? Are you lacking the confidence to be a self-sufficient gardener?
00:04:28
Speaker
Do you sometimes get overwhelmed by the lack of knowledge and time you have to actually do gardening? Then the Garden of Your Dreams Masterclass is for you. So anyway, I moved there and um did a bunch of different things, to you know, to obviously to to make money and to get a visa.
00:04:46
Speaker
But that's when I i found a couple of places. One was called Spa Buena Vista. It had a hot spring and I've always loved hot springs. And so I ah convinced them that I could
Media Attention and Health Benefits
00:04:58
Speaker
do massage there. And I was looking for ways like it it just sort of started there. And I don't.
00:05:02
Speaker
really know where all of that came from. Anyway, long story short, I ended up convincing an American owner of a fishing lodge that had about, i don't know, maybe 12 rooms at the time. Because it used to close in the wintertime. And this particular area of the East Cape, which is about, i don't know, an hour north um on on the Sea of Cortez side, an hour north at the Cabo Airport.
00:05:28
Speaker
But this is 91, right? So Cabo doesn't exist. And Anyway, so i convinced him that he should stay open. And he said, well, the reason that I don't stay open in the wintertime is this is known one as a world-renowned windsurfing destination.
00:05:44
Speaker
And I said, I know, but like, if you turn around and you look to the mountains, you've got towns and hot springs. And i mean, there's so much going on. So anyway, I think he thought,
00:05:57
Speaker
like that the original guy thought I was crazy, you know with the kayak trip. He said, okay, we'll stay open because I have to pay my staff anyway.
Career Path Reflections in Wellness
00:06:06
Speaker
yeah that's a good one for many hospitality businesses.
00:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, so I took down all the deep sea sport fishing photos and everything and um and basically just slow slowly, and it didn't take long, um we ended up having having it open.
00:06:23
Speaker
And um when I say open, like, you know, we offered yoga, we bought old secondhand fitness equipment and built a palapa for it. um You know, I knew an acupuncturist that came and did different types of treatments. Like it just, it just sort like, it's pulled from all kinds of different people. We used to have um herbal tincture workshops. And um anyway, we built a really beautiful hike up to the top of this flat mountain that is still there. People still go. People drive from Cabo to do this hike. It's just crazy. I know. That's cool.
00:06:59
Speaker
But the thing that was probably the most important that I did was i had met someone who has since passed away who was a renowned permaculturist. And he basically helped me put together an acre permaculture garden. yeah and This is in the 90s, amazing.
00:07:18
Speaker
yeah that Yeah. And and basically, i i I reached out to Santa Rosa, to the university there, and because I guess they have regenerative... um i kept't you know i don't even i I don't even know if that word was being used at the time. But anyway, so I had students come down who got to be in Mexico, and we gave them free room and board. And and and so that was really pivotal. Pivotal for me because it was something I didn't know anything about coming from Canada. And um and a lot of the things that we did were pretty out of the box. We taught, obviously, the local farmers um a different way to farm, which was incredible. Now that whole area on both sides of of the um ah the mountain range, right?
Mindfulness Impact and Miraval Experiences
00:08:06
Speaker
So Todos Santos, which is on the Pacific side and the East Cape, have become, you know, much, they're really more agricultural areas now than than ever before. Mm-hmm.
00:08:16
Speaker
Anyway, so what what happened was guests would come. so there were no phones because we didn't have cell phones and we didn't have regular phones. There were no TVs. It was basically community style eating. it it was a big grill and everyone would come and cook whatever they wanted. And everyone ate together. And I lived on property. They had built me a house next to the garden. And so I was there every day. And in Mexico, you work six days a week. So yeah.
00:08:42
Speaker
It was really my life. And um what happened was I saw the transformation of people get emotional about picking a cherry tomato off the vine or had had never seen a cauliflower growing in the ground. right I mean, I could go on, right? And I remember thinking, here they are with the Sea of Cortez in the Sonoran Desert, and it's just stunningly beautiful.
Founding a Consulting Firm with a Purpose
00:09:09
Speaker
and what's really bringing them into their hearts is this garden. Mm-hmm. So that stayed with me. It's still with me. ah And I didn't know that permaculture wasn't done everywhere. Like, I i just, I didn't know. um i knew All I knew was that this was fabulous, right? And people would drive from La Paz, from Todos Santos and from the town of Cabo to come because we were the only place that had, at certain times of the year, lettuce and arugula, like right fresh. So it just it guided that area of Baja. Like everyone knows Cabo, but there's just magnificent towns all the way up each side, right because the peninsula goes like this.
00:09:54
Speaker
And so for me, it like it just became a community. Wow. Wind surfers came, obviously, in the wintertime because they're more health-focused. Anyway, so that was really that was really poignant for me. And um and so we stayed open.
Lessons in Sustainable Development
00:10:13
Speaker
and And the short part of the end of this story, or this chapter anyway, is that a writer from Canada said, came down the 10-kilometer dirt road and found me and wrote a story that went into the Globe and Mail, which is one of the two big make newspapers in Canada, about this crazy, again crazy, Canadian woman.
00:10:37
Speaker
And what I told him was, People think of Mexico and they think of Montezuma revenge, right? Like this is back. They think they're it's sick. Well, we have an artesian well. We have organic food. What is an artesian well?
00:10:52
Speaker
Artesian? Well, it means it's a natural, natural well. Natural. Nice. Yeah. So it had water. a lot of water. Yeah. So people came.
00:11:04
Speaker
And I remember faxing like, you know, anyways, it's before even before email. And I mean, crazy. Anyway, that article then blew up probably the business. And your American guy would say like, oh, she's crazy. But whatever. Yeah, try it. He was probably very happy about how business turned.
00:11:22
Speaker
I don't know that he cared to be completely. I mean, i I think I'll never forget after I left, I went back, I go back quite frequently. It's just been sold recently. It's going to be something different. But um ah soon you as soon as I left, he did the same thing. He took all the pictures of all the desert and, you know, on the hot springs and like, because that's what we would do. you know, people we had, remember when we used to not have did real photographs. Yeah.
00:11:48
Speaker
I don't know how he felt about it. Yeah. But the fact that he me that opportunity was really incredible. yeah And so anyway, so that was really the first piece. so But what happened with that article is the people read it. And not only, i mean, it did two things.
00:12:04
Speaker
Canadians came because they're not afraid of wind because they're looking for warmth, right? So we did inland excursions, right? into the mountains, into Santiago, into Miraflores, all these other towns. Yeah, it was, I mean, it was great. And still today, it's interesting. um All these years later, there still aren't excursions into all those small towns.
00:12:27
Speaker
Everyone's focused on Cabo and San Jose and yeah but Santo, you know. But there's there's just incredible towns on the mountainside, you know, that go into where the... Yeah. Anyway. I'd love to visit.
Empowering Women and Virtual Teams
00:12:40
Speaker
i was i'm really Yeah, I would love for you to go.
00:12:43
Speaker
so that was really the the first piece. um And what I didn't know was that I had created, i don't have a word for it really, but what we would now call... I don't know, a wellness property. We ended up expanding to 30 rooms, so it was never very big. But it although it's a much smaller version, it reminds me a lot of Rancho La Puerta, which is world-renowned and more than 80 years old. It's in Tecate, so it's also in Mexico, but on the northern northern part of the peninsula. but And it's a bunch bigger scale, but the richness and the rawness and the authenticity of it is is like... And I didn't know about Rancho La Puerta at the time.
00:13:19
Speaker
um And I didn't think of i didn't think about all like none of those words, well, spa was, but, you know, that that wasn't what I created. I mean, we did have massage, obviously, and did, you massage and different things. But um anyway, was it it it's fascinating to me to look back and think about that.
00:13:39
Speaker
That's incredible. and And it was the beginning, really the beginning. beginning Yeah. And um yeah so thats the seed had sprouted from there. Yes, exactly. And then I ended up, I mean, there's more pieces to it, but the the other really main um experience that I had was immigrating to the US and ah being hired at Miraval, which at the time was called Miraval Life and Balance.
00:14:07
Speaker
um Most people know Meraval, but when I worked there, it was owned by the original owners of family. And they built Meraval because they were in the drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Like they did one of the very first 30-day or 28-day or whatever rehab centers.
00:14:26
Speaker
But they what they what they did was they created incredible programming. Like now today, the programming that they did is in spas and lots of wellness resorts, but they really started a lot of it. So anyway, he built Miraval because what he wanted to do is if if he felt like if he could create a place that was about mindfulness and teach mindfulness, like deep immersion into mindfulness, that maybe people um end up in his drug and alcohol hospital, right? Right.
00:14:56
Speaker
And so what ended up happening was people would come and stay there, but the families would come and stay at Miraval as well. So you know, it's it's evolved a lot. It's gone through four different owners. It's now owned by Hyatt.
00:15:08
Speaker
um And now there's more locations. They just opened in Saudi Arabia. But the essence of it was mindfulness. And it's still, you know, it still permeates through the DNA of the brand. It's fascinating. Anyway, for me, what happened was it it changed me, certainly spiritually, be in an environment that was very committed to being in the moment and everything that goes with that. um And then to have it a staff, a team, you know, ah from nutritionists to naturalists to um psychologists. You know, obviously there were massage therapists and we did facials and a lot of hiking and biking. We had an incredible horse program. We we had...
00:15:48
Speaker
equine therapy, because all of that was transferred from the hospital. They were already doing equine therapy, struggling, yeah, with with with addiction. yep And they had like a ah high and low ropes course and um So what what happened for me was I was overseeing the spa, which was huge. was like 32 rooms. And I was overseeing all of the outdoor, indoor, educational, spiritual programming. And we had famous authors come and like authors that we know we would know today. And um anyway, it was just an incredible time. And so it really transformed me. But the thing that was odd to me was why don't more resorts do this?
00:16:37
Speaker
Because really it's a resort, right? It's got lodging. But it was really
Shift in Company Focus and Real Estate Integration
00:16:43
Speaker
wellness. I'm going to call it wellness. But mindfulness was was immersed and integrated and infused into everything. Mm-hmm.
00:16:51
Speaker
It started with the staff, obviously. And it inspired me so much that when I left there, I knew that that was going to be a big part of my future. And it has been. I mean, we'd probably bring up call as it was then on almost every new client call to talk about, because it's so much of the the story, right? Because wellness was everywhere.
00:17:13
Speaker
It wasn't allocated to fitness or spa building, right? Yeah, just to tick a few boxes there, like, oh, let's put it in and so on. And none of those things made Miraval famous. Miraval became famous because of the extraordinary staff and the programming. Yes.
00:17:33
Speaker
Like you might go for a hike, but like you're going to, you might do it in silence or having your lunch in silence. Like simple things. Mindfulness is so powerful. And yet the whole staff is aligned on that and they kind of encourage it?
00:17:47
Speaker
oh Oh, no, all of us. in The gardeners, I mean, they made the investment in giving us the opportunity as staff to understand the depth of living in the moment.
00:17:59
Speaker
Wow. So it, I mean, I didn't know that it was unusual either. It was really the first, you know, resort that I'd been involved in other than the small one in Mexico. So that was, that was fundamental to me.
00:18:13
Speaker
So the one, at the, you know, the Rancho Leonero, the one in Baja that I talked about and Miraval. And then the next one, and then I'll, I'll finish this piece. When I lapped Miraval, it was a really hard decision because I loved it. It was just like leaving Rancho Leonero, you know, you'd fall in love with the land and the,
00:18:33
Speaker
Yeah, I moved to Taos, New Mexico, and worked at a place called El Monte Sagrado. And um it was a private owner, again, like a family owned, and he wanted to create the most, at the time, we would have said most sustainable property. leaded sort of This is just when LEED certification was coming in. There wasn't LEED certification available. um And there were probably things about LEED certification even early on that he probably might not have agreed to, but a lot of it and did. and we yeah And we worked with um a company called Regenesis, who I had met in Mexico, like Pamela and Robert Mang. Robert passed away, but I met them when I was working first in La Paz. I had Bill on the show a couple ago. I know, i i I listened, yeah. So we also worked um with a company that
Aligning Investment with Regenerative Values
00:19:32
Speaker
had a living system. So we basically had a whole water filtration, like it was just extraordinary. it wove, you know, through the entire property. And each room, it was small.
00:19:43
Speaker
Each room was handmade, like he actually went to each country. And I mean, he was just, his name was Tom Morrell, is Tom Morrell. And so the interesting thing about him was he was just debt focused on and committed and didn't make any kind of commitments. He had a lot of money and wanted to wanted to have to showcase a property that had never been done before.
00:20:09
Speaker
And that's what he did. Just extraordinary. And so what's the name of that one? That one is still in existence. um It's called El Monte Sagrado.
00:20:20
Speaker
Nice. Is that also in your presentation? Not in my presentation. Oh, yeah. We can look at some other ones later. I mean, i have I have it in my presentation, but i don't know that i sometimes I don't know if I sent it to you. I might have. I can have a look.
00:20:33
Speaker
Anyway, it was... you know El Monte Sagrado. That's it, right? In Taos? Yeah. Oh, let's share the screen for the people that watch this on YouTube so we can actually get some visuals of how it looks. it looks amazing.
00:20:47
Speaker
Is it okay that I can share that? Of course. Of course. So this is it. Wow. Amazing. And this is established in 2003. Yeah. yeah Yeah. Sorry. Keep talking about it. And this was done with Regenesis, this project?
00:21:02
Speaker
So it was Regenesis and oh my god another company um that's actually in Taos that did the living system. I'm completely blanking on um the architectural firm that we worked with. But the we ended up calling it the living spa because the spa itself, there aren't any photos here, but you would walk in. It was all um obviously Adobe, but um it was every part of the property was extraordinary. Mm-hmm.
00:21:30
Speaker
So that looks incredible. Yeah. It, you know, it got on the top, you know, 500 list quickly. And I mean, it was just, it was interesting to see how quickly, I mean, we even had certified organic products in the treatment rooms that had been locally made.
00:21:46
Speaker
um I mean, there he he spared no, oh yeah, there's a, that's a picture of the lobby on the right. Wow. That's, that looks, wow, very intentional. And there's some pictures of the spa um on the top left.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah. And then the treatment room um in the middle. That's very interesting. So very fast, you you were in the right, um let's say projects where with the right people who were willing to invest in in inner and outer regeneration, it sounded like.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah, and i um he let me do everything that I wanted to do. i mean, who gets to do that, right? So the the rest of the story um is is important, is that he he puts so much attention.
00:22:32
Speaker
like if you think about back then, we used to say sustained sustainability has three pillars, right? You know, there's the economic, I can't even, i it's funny, i now, it like, because we talk about it so differently now, but I think it was the the environment,
00:22:46
Speaker
People profit planet? Is it the three pieces or not? really Basically, yeah. And well, the financial, there was always a financial piece. And so because he had a lot of money, right he just like he did what he wanted to do and created an incredible work of art. It's still there. I can't. I think it's part of the Kessler collection, was which is part of Marriott. And they built more and put a conference like it's very different now. um But anyway, the reason for this story is mostly about what I learned and the painful lesson.
00:23:21
Speaker
So what I learned was you can have all the money in the world and the greatest and deepest of intentions and do it all and it not be successful. And the reason it wasn't successful and...
00:23:34
Speaker
I've told this story many times and if Tom hears, i hope he i hope he still loves me. um Because I had never been in the development part, right? I i was on on an operator and a creator.
00:23:46
Speaker
um I didn't know that he had never done the due diligence that's required for market research, for um ensuring that it is in the right location.
00:24:00
Speaker
And there wasn't an airport in Taos that was working. And the Santa Fe airport was not working. It was not open at the time. I mean, it opened and closed. But so people had to fly into Albuquerque, which is a secondary airport.
00:24:17
Speaker
So this is a high-end, uber luxury, right? Like everything about it is incredible. But the type of people that are going to go there didn't necessarily want to drive the drive. And, you know, we did all kinds of things to make the drive more interesting and more wonderful. um But back then, you know, an hour and a half or more drive was amazing.
00:24:37
Speaker
what people didn't want to do. And they'd have to fly to a secondary airport like Albuquerque, right? So maybe today it would be different because the consumer is different and are hungry. for like it's We've evolved. but The market's evolved, the consumer's evolved, but it's the right property in the wrong location and in the and he was too ahead of his time.
00:24:58
Speaker
He had done that maybe in Santa fe um or in a different location. But um so anyway, he ended up losing the business. and And Kessler came in and took it over. And that's when I started my company. um First out of heartbreak, but also out of realizing that there were gaps.
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah, that you have to like be involved from the very beginning so that. Yeah, if you only take care of operations, it's not it's not guaranteed. Develop it without doing all like, you know, and because he had his own money, he didn't have to go through a criteria with a bank or private investor, right? you Just throw money at it.
00:25:42
Speaker
Interesting. Oh, wow. Yeah, so when I started the company, um i had just had a baby. And um I lived in a and an RV with my husband at the time because we i I basically resigned because I knew um they wouldn't keep me.
00:26:01
Speaker
And so I resigned and just decided, okay, well, I'm going to start. My company name is Amy McDonald & Associates, LLC. And we have been busy ever since. Like it's now we're in our 21st year. Like it's just been this incredible journey that I am so grateful for. That's incredible. I love this story. And I stayed open, right? Like I just, everything that we've done, um we've we've learned and grown from.
00:26:30
Speaker
Yeah, ah what um what I love the most about this story, and it's not um it's not meant negatively, quite the contrary, it's very positively, is that because of almost your naivety as a young woman going into the world, like, oh, I can just do this and I'll i'll figure it out and I'll make it better and do this.
00:26:50
Speaker
where other people would have said, no, you need to calculate, you need to make a business plan. you mean Like you kind of just naively just like went into it and followed, obviously followed your heart and your and your intuition.
00:27:02
Speaker
and And that led you to to have this beautiful company you have today. and I spoke about my my uncle is a quite ah a successful business owner himself. And I remember going one of to one of his speeches and he said oh or someone in the audience asked, like, what is it? What is an important quality for a business owner?
00:27:23
Speaker
And he said it's a healthy amount of naivety. Ah, because. He said, if I would know all the difficult things that I had to go through, I would have never started.
00:27:36
Speaker
I was so naive. to I had a dream. I knew I wanted to contribute to something. And I just went for it. And then, like many people... who are very successful, you have to go through a lot of very difficult moments and you have to overcome them. And if you would have known, you may have never started. So I see i see that in in you and how naturally it then evolved. And and i'm I'm very curious to to learn more about what happened next. So you you started the company. i
00:28:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Could you tell a little bit more about like your vision of how you started to hire your whole team? I think that that's yeah very beautiful too. I want to um just follow up on what you said. but For me, it's been courage and curiosity.
00:28:25
Speaker
Like curiosity, we don't talk about it. it It's so fundamentally important to our lives, all through our lives. And... um Seems to be dying these days with all social media. Yeah, well, exactly. Curating it, like really just... Yeah, and that, that i think... Because if you're curious and you have courage, maybe that's a better order for them.
00:28:50
Speaker
um and maybe And some sprinkled naivety. You can do anything. yeah with Yeah. And I love you said also that it sounds like a lot of times in your life you said an intention. is Was that correct? Did I hear that?
00:29:04
Speaker
Like the intention of of starting something or not necessarily? Yeah. i don't know that it's an in i i don't I don't think it's an intention. i mean, what I've come to realize is my life's work, the blessing of my life is to create sacred spaces for people.
00:29:25
Speaker
move And when I look back, even in my 20s, when I lived in Toronto, that's what I was doing. it was different. They need to be successful. And I mean, all of the other things, right? But at the core, I always see these like vessels of places. And it might not have a building, right? It might be more of an intention. don't so i don know that I said it. I mean, right now, and we can talk about that.
00:29:51
Speaker
and i definitely have an intention, but we'll get to that part. um No, I think you're right. It's not so much about intention. Intention may be something that follows naturally after you you've gotten clear on what your purpose is or your reason of existence. that an intention my my concern like When i heard you say that, I thought by setting an intention, you're going into the future when if you stay in the moment and kind of go with the flow, the intention unfolds. in a much more powerful way wow that's so beautiful because um i don't know why i brought up the intention but that someone told me a couple days ago and then this is a known quote or something but the road to hell is paved with a good intention have you heard that of course classic yeah
00:30:43
Speaker
So you're you're right. Being too stuck on a on an intention pulls you out of the now. You miss the other signs, right? Interesting. That's he has that's quite, I'm learning something new once again. so i mean, you could set an intention to stay in the moment. Yeah. in the Yeah, that's that's a good one. That's a hack. That's like getting around it. I think I'd love to hear more of how you then actually grew and scaled your company. Was it organically? Did you have to, well, marketing didn't seem a problem because you had a a steady flow of new people coming in.
00:31:20
Speaker
um And then your whole, the way you you build your team is a very beautiful story too. Well, again, it was, I didn't set an attention to It was really organic.
00:31:30
Speaker
I think because of the work, and this might be, is part of my personality, but but because of my experience at Miraval, I understood what it was like, that the sum of each part or this or the sum of each person, right, comes together and is lifted.
00:31:48
Speaker
And so and I've always been, you know, I've done a lot of personal growth around my strengths and weaknesses. So I knew right away when I started the company that at the time I actually started the company with my husband. You know, my daughter was six months old. And so all I knew was i i wanted to start the company because I didn't want I I was heartbroken from putting so much love and creativity into that property.
00:32:18
Speaker
And I also started the company because I saw so many gaps. like i I was like, why why is wellness, I'm calling it wellness now, not integrated into everything, into the into the DNA of a property?
00:32:30
Speaker
Why is everything, hospitality silos everything. And it's this that creates the opportunity, right, for the staff to deepen, for the for the for the spirit of the place to deepen so that guests feel it. Mm-hmm.
00:32:45
Speaker
Always about the people. I mean, Miraval was the hospital. Like he basically took the the hospital, the drug and alcohol, right? It is a hospital and and started Miraval and built a new rehab center.
00:33:00
Speaker
So there was nothing architecturally nice about it. um I mean, i used to pray... Right. That like people would come and not notice the fact that like some of the rooms leaked. I mean, it was never about the architecture when it came to Mirabai. That was one of my big lessons was it was the connection with the staff, how the people connected with themselves.
00:33:22
Speaker
And we allowed time. Right. We didn't over program. We knew that the stillness or the walk from one because it was, you know, on a big property. the walk from one thing to another was equally as important as whatever they were going to or wherever wherever they were coming from. So it just had this space.
00:33:42
Speaker
And in that space, people opened. um So anyway, i wanted i wanted the company to... I just thought, well, i mean, I have to tell everybody how awesome this is. Like, this is what everyone should be doing, all the resorts. um And...
00:33:59
Speaker
I was wrong. um But that's that was my intention. then the other intention was building a business model before you build a building.
00:34:10
Speaker
Because if Tom Morrell had done that, he would still have De Saccurado. Well, actually, he wouldn't have built it. He would have built it somewhere else. um And so those are fundamentally the two main kind of pillars of under a tree. So I basically, because I had this child, this little baby, and we weren't even moved back into our home, the home that I'm actually in now, but... um i called the I called the woman that had worked for me at El Monte Sagrado, who was also out of work.
00:34:40
Speaker
And, you know, she joined me and i mean, virtually because she had moved back to Denver. And so it started, it it worked, right? i I had two immediate clients, four seasons at the corporate level and an oil and gas company in Canada that wanted to do deep research into um integrative functional medicine.
00:35:05
Speaker
um so those were the two first first clients. Anyway, so this woman, her name is Jana, just she was very organized and very detailed. And so she help helped me like figure out how you write a proposal. And How do you do invoicing? and you know And we came up with the sustainable spa solutions, which was sort of our tagline, and it was Amy McDonald and Associates.
00:35:29
Speaker
So pretty quickly, we needed more people. And um what i what I decided to do and what I realized was that that there were quite a few women in the industry who had had children around the time that I did, who didn't want to go back to their corporate hospitality jobs.
00:35:49
Speaker
They wanted to stay home because their children weren't even in school yet. And that was the same case for me. So that's what I did. I hired incredible women who worked from home.
00:36:01
Speaker
And it didn't matter where their home was um because we worked virtually. This is just around the time that GoToMeeting, remember that? GoToMeeting? Anyway. That was before Skype.
00:36:15
Speaker
yeah Before Skype. Anyway, so um I started to build this virtual team. There was someone in Toronto at the time that was really like a marketing person. Jana was more operations and detailed. Because the finance piece was really important, I've always had someone um who's been a CFO, typically, um or an accountant, but that has a lot of ah lot of experience with hospitality. But now, obviously, I have someone that understands wellness as well. So I just like i just basically said, okay, I need an expert that does financing. I need an expert that does research and writes and does concepts. Like, could I have done it all?
00:36:57
Speaker
No. What I knew was I needed to be surrounded by people who were really passionate, were experts in what they did. And and at the time, they were they they were all women with small children.
00:37:08
Speaker
So sometimes, you know, we get on the phone and we are the go-to meeting and we, you know, be breastfeeding or whatever. Anyway, um or or muting, right? yeah um Having to mute because the baby's crying in the back. Anyway, we made it work.
00:37:23
Speaker
Nice. um Because what I wanted to do was, oh, and and they were all 1099s. And I did that because they weren't ready to commit to being employee. 1099 means? The kind contractor. Oh, yeah. Independent contractor. They wanted the freedom...
00:37:43
Speaker
They didn't want to go back into a structured, right? So yeah the conditions for me were, here's here's the scope, here's the project. If you can't travel, let me know, right? Like all of those conditions. And you can say no, because I didn't want any of them working on something that they didn't resonate with. But also...
00:38:02
Speaker
These were women, you know, some of them with their very first child. I didn't want them to overcommit. So there was a freedom to that. And I remember that another consultant in the industry one day telling me, you don't have a real business because you don't have employees. And I was like, some of them have with me like 12 or 15 years.
00:38:20
Speaker
Like, it's a real company. Yeah. And so what it allowed me to do is bring in an expert, right? For a while, I had a functional medicine doctor on my, like I could just pull in whatever we needed.
00:38:32
Speaker
um And I didn't have the overhead. i mean, now we all, you know, work from home, but at then for them to be able to work at home and work their hours, as long as the deadline was met, I didn't care if they sent me whatever they were working on at three o'clock in the morning. There was no judgment, right? For me, it was like, you got it done.
00:38:49
Speaker
And so that it it's it just worked now. It's a much more common setup now, but but it worked. Again, of your time. But it worked. And now and and now all those now now all those children have grown up, right?
00:39:05
Speaker
so but But that was what I did, and it and it has worked very, very well. It kept a passion and a ah freshness because they sometimes also worked on other projects.
00:39:17
Speaker
and i they would continue to grow. And so instead of it looking as a competition, for me it was more, I mean, obviously sometimes, you know, we had to talk through, what if it there were not very often, but there were ah you know sometimes a few situations. of interest like but Most of the time it wasn't because they were open about it. and sure But to me, it everyone was growing and learning. And yeah, so that was that was that is the model.
00:39:48
Speaker
that's fabulous and then so what so you focused on on consulting well wellness consulting for those um resorts and hotels that were interested in it what then changed over the course of those early days to where you are today and what what the current let's say focus point of the company is and and yeah and then we can even talk about the future In the beginning, um I would say we had only a few clients.
00:40:20
Speaker
I'm talking about and quantity, but we did like full turnkey. We would come in at the beginning, do you know do the fees of bill like do all the financial due diligence, build that business model, um obviously translate the business model and the financial performance into like an area program right where then the architects could start to build it. and But we would stay all the way through until they opened.
00:40:44
Speaker
Yeah, so we had less clients, but we went deeper and we stayed with them longer. up Now, I find we come in at the very beginning and we come in earlier than we used to. um We come in really at the beginning and We do the due diligence. We do all of the like the the research we create, the concept, the business model, the area program, everything that the architects need. We stay involved and to ensure that if the architects are you know it they need to do any kind of value engineering, we're able to always go back and look at the financial piece.
00:41:20
Speaker
How does it affect us if we have to have less space or we have to get rid of this or right? um So our projects are like our engagements are shorter, they're earlier and they're shorter. And what happens typically is then when we have put that together, they go and get funding.
00:41:40
Speaker
and um Sometimes we're involved in helping them with like a SWOT analysis to determine, do they need a brand to operate it, which they often do to get the funding, which we'll we can get back to. So we'll do a SWOT analysis of like the pros and cons of them doing it themselves, or whether they get or or the brands on the market that would be best for the concept. ah And so ah so sometimes we stay involved as advisors for a while. while well you know but But if they go with a brand, then our role is over.
00:42:10
Speaker
and That's what we've gotten. yet and But that's the biggest change. um And then I think the other piece is there was a ah period of time. Well, we've always worked a little bit with the brands, but we've never.
00:42:22
Speaker
Four Seasons did hire us directly, like the first client. And that was more the corporate wanted to really understand what wellness was. And so they sent me my my my first project was to go to all of the Southeast Asian Four Seasons properties.
00:42:40
Speaker
And then see some of the ones in Europe and then come back to the U.S. and report on how how we could create a global concept, a global intention um of what Four Seasons was with wellness.
00:42:54
Speaker
And almost impossible, right? because Southeast Asia, it's like... Anyway, um but that, you know, I learned a lot. And so that's incredibleible at the at the very beginning of the of of the company, I did also a lot of work in integrative medicine.
00:43:09
Speaker
i had worked briefly in a part of the story I didn't tell you with a functional diagnostic laboratory. And i really liked the integration of of hospitality and and health. It's still, you know, kind of our tagline.
00:43:24
Speaker
So we did work a lot with, we worked with a hospital chain and we worked in senior care because this approach of weaving wellness through a business, it can be different verticals. We worked with theater companies. We worked with Cirque du Soleil. So that that has sort of stayed consistent. We worked with um Urban Outfitters on a a home and garden center that they had um in Philadelphia and they wanted they basically wanted to grow that brand into something that had a touch component to it. um
00:43:58
Speaker
So it's, I mean, it's been a wild ride that way, but we've worked a lot with integrative doctors as well. Not not in longevity and not in the aesthetic, but more in in really looking at, like we've done a lot of work in sleep, but putting programming together that is more diagnostic and ah than like typical spa stuff.
00:44:21
Speaker
So early on, we did a lot of that. we do yeah We do less of that now. I mean, well, I was just going say, and then the only other thing um that's changed is we started working more with real estate companies. And that was just before COVID. All of a sudden, real estate companies were reaching out to us saying, okay, we're working with this brand. We're reading about wellness or spa, whatever they called it then, because we were in transition time. And we'd like for you to work for us.
00:44:51
Speaker
So that was that was new. um We worked with the investment or the development company. and And basically, we were in the middle, right? The brand had their standards, and this is what they did. So we had to understand all of that. And then we obviously, but we were representing the owner.
00:45:09
Speaker
And so that started you know after, i don't know, i probably ah I probably had the company 13 or 14 years. And now we do that quite a lot. Wow, amazing. That's super interesting. So you you get involved very very early on now. i that's And that's, I think, where you can make the the most impact. I see it in in my work, too, that when the earlier we get involved, the the less problems get created. Because if we get involved when the architects or the master plan is already done and it's it's done by...
00:45:41
Speaker
someone who has a civil engineering degree who might be very good with stability and all that things. And we look at the planets like it's all squares in a landscape that's organic that just asks for problems.
00:45:54
Speaker
And then they might have already started building that. And then they say, oh, can you do the landscaping? it was like, well, yeah, we can fix it. We can always do it. But you you wasted a lot of money already just by how you designed it.
00:46:07
Speaker
And that's what I see. I mean, we come in and still, it's less so. that that That has changed. But we come in and we're handed something. and like, this is what it is. And it's got x amount of treatment rooms. And, you know, like they already have it. It's often already, in you know, in the master plan.
00:46:26
Speaker
And it just, they leave they leave a lot of money on the table because we look at it. and say, okay, well, if you've done this and that, and there's this trend, so like you actually should have this, and the margins are better on this. Like we look at at not only the guest experience, how it's been impacted, but the financial return and the performance really impacted. I worked on a project, this was during COVID, where I came in, i won't mention the names of the brands, but very traditional brand and the owners were they were like we're going to do whatever you tell us to do and I said well you're I'm going to need your backing because I'm going to I'm going to really upset this brand but I looked at their space and the brand hadn't given us what we really needed for the entire project so I built this at the time this water like ah an incredible outdoor water garden And, you know, and and the brand said, well, we don't do that. Like, we don't want that. mean We don't do it. and but but the but the owners came back to me and said, well, how much is it going to cost? And what's the return? And it was a lot of money being left on the table. And it it was just before every property started doing it. Now it's very common, right? We have thermal experiences everywhere. But but they really supported me. And and when the property opened, the first thing that was talked about was this incredible you know water garden um several years later, right? So we play that role a lot. It's complicated because we sit in the middle.
00:47:55
Speaker
And even though we sit in the middle, we represent the owner. yeah But that's that's fairly new. That's in the last you know six years or so. That's a big change. And then the other really big change, which I think is important, is most of the projects we work on are family-owned. our Peru project, Croatia, Thailand, I mean, Israel, they're they're owned by families that have a legacy. ah And so we come in really early and it's such a privilege to be able to do that because we have the opportunity to say to them, maybe you shouldn't go through a traditional development process.
00:48:36
Speaker
There is another way. And there are gaps in that, right? It's harder to get funding, less us investors, right? But that's that's changing because it comes down to who is going to who who is the investor because the only way for them to get funding is to go with a brand.
00:48:52
Speaker
It's the easy way, right? It's what we've always done. And i have found that that's a lot of what I do now is talk them through the higher risk or the higher perceived risk of potentially going with a brand that they might not know, if there's a brand that meets their values, which there aren't very many, or doing it themselves.
00:49:15
Speaker
And then if they're open to that or or what that looks like, right, then i now have investors that I can call and say, Are you interested in this project? So now I feel more like a matchmaker, like, ah you know, this project in order to move forward needs this type of investor that wants to invest in a regenerative property, wants to whatever, like the values meet. Yeah. So that's really how the business my business has really changed is i want them to get the funding so that they don't have to make the compromises to the to the to the land and to their legacy. Wow. And that's where you have your regenerative impact on ah on a wider scale. So that's very exciting.
00:49:59
Speaker
And then ah feel like I have so much more questions, but we're slowly running out of time. But what is your biggest challenge when it comes down to you are involved early on, you kind of together with the clients that the set the vision, create the concept, and then you have to hand it over to the planners, such as myself, architects.
00:50:22
Speaker
What's usually a friction point there or a challenge in getting that translation happening? There's always a friction um and and the tension can it sometimes can be very creative. I'm going to use the word intention. Our intention, our responsibility to our client is to ensure what we're recommending is future, and I don't like the word trend, but it's going to meet where wellness is evolving to. Which is?
00:50:51
Speaker
husband I mean, that's a whole other kind of warmth, maybe. um that like so we're looking at guest experience. We are looking at functionality. So we come up with a roadmap for the architects of all of that yeah beforehand, typically, right?
00:51:09
Speaker
But what we see is A lot of architects a lot you know um are not looking at the financial performance um and they're not considering because they don't understand because wellness has evolved so quickly.
00:51:23
Speaker
and functionality. And so that's where the tension is. We want to do this because for them, traditionally, we focused that architecture is the most important part. That's why most people that start, to you know, have a vision, they hire an architect right away. And that is my biggest frustration, yeah biggest frustration, biggest challenge. And as I know it is for for many of us, this is not a negative on architects.
00:51:50
Speaker
Right. We all, there's ah a much more natural and in a regenerative development, there's a much more, there's a different process. The architects come come in later, still play an important role. But for me, the owners are, if they're hiring architects or hiring architects, because we've proven out the business model.
00:52:09
Speaker
Well, can you repeat that again? Before they hire architects and sometimes they need renderings, right? there I mean, there's something like these or something, the business model they need. Like, that's probably the greatest thing that we offer, because sometimes we say no. We've had clients where no matter what we do, we can't make it perform the way that it should for the investment, right, for the risk that the. that the owner um is making. That's our role is to be honest, right? But once through that due diligence, and it's not as fun as architecture, but then we're able to really give the architects what they need. But if the business model isn't viable,
00:52:48
Speaker
They should not be hiring architects and continue. I mean, unless they want to, right? It's always up to, it's always, but at least they're informed at the risk before they move forward with much, because, you know, the cost to bring us in is like so minimal in comparison to, you know, an architectural firm. Nice. Yeah, I love that. It's very, it's, it actually makes the process, the process and the project way more resourceful.
00:53:13
Speaker
Because a lot of people, yeah, they think, oh I'm going to do project. Well, I want to build something on the land. Well, um I'll talk to an architect. Architect says, yeah, great. Let's make some designs. and they make designs and then they may then go to permitting, spend lots of money. And then, well, if they're lucky, they will talk to you and you'll say, well, this is not going to work.
00:53:34
Speaker
um If they're unlucky, they will build the whole thing and then see that there's no business model. And then, yeah, so so that's super, super valuable that you can come in so early in that in that chain.
00:53:45
Speaker
and And like it's almost yeah like what you do and what I do comes before. right Because i don't do I don't do what you do, but i in some ways, you coming in first so that we understand more about the land would be, or at the same time. but Yeah, I think that's where it gets really, really interesting because our our first step in ah in all of our projects is is analysis, we call it, but it's really observation, is to understand the current state of the land. We get the drawing data, we walk the land,
00:54:20
Speaker
And we almost like asked the land, like, what what is it what is its highest potential? What it does it want to become? and then And that's what do too. We could do that together. yeah Totally. And then it's much easier to, once you've got that, the concept just comes, like, I usually then put my hand to the paper and it's almost like as if I'm not doing it and it just comes all together. Because we've understood what the land is today, then the the logical consequences of roads,
00:54:51
Speaker
buildings, forests, um gardens, how everything is organized, it just becomes a logical consequence. Yeah, that's super interesting to see where that overlaps between your and my work. And yeah, I'm excited to to talk more about that offline and and keep that ball rolling.
00:55:10
Speaker
But we're nearing the end of the the conversation. And I still want to ask you, what are you most excited about for the next five years in your business slash hospitality or regenerative hospitality?
00:55:24
Speaker
That's what I'm excited about. I see us moving away and understanding that sustainability is not enough. Like I hear and see and feel that. And i think the consumer is really changing what they want and what they're looking for. And i feel like the pendulum swung so strongly in this idea of like longevity, which has its place, but as i mean it's just like the perfect storm um of our lives being overtaken by a i i mean, it's just like it yeah the pendulum now is swinging back to basics. I love that. It's part of why we see regenerative agritourism, right? like
00:56:02
Speaker
It's opening the door for everything else. So that's what I'm excited about. I love that. and And that all comes together even with the longevity aspect because People are so focused on longevity. I want to live long and all that.
00:56:19
Speaker
But that the logical thing is like, oh, I'm going to get an Apple Watch. It's going to tell me how I should sleep and I'll get some supplements. And i'm gonna and they will also have their place.
00:56:29
Speaker
But end of the day, you need to be connected to nature to live long. We need to be able to feel ourselves. If we're listening to devices telling us about like that we've lost the connection of actually hearing ourselves, feeling ourselves, right?
00:56:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the longevity piece has been really challenging for me because so much money got poured into it. yeah And it overshadowed, you know, everything else. And it um no one was talking about the planet. We can't longer and better without the planet being healthy.
00:57:01
Speaker
So that's what I think. The cool thing is that I think we talked about it. That's the the spiral. Like when you talk to someone, who is so focused on their longevity, it's really hard for them to say, but we have to care of the take care of the planet because that's more important than we're like, well, whatever, um I just want to live long.
00:57:21
Speaker
And that's nothing wrong with that. I think you, me, some people are waking up like okay, we have to think bigger. But the beauty of this is once people will understand like taking care of the planet and creating those sacred spaces that you refer to, which is your mission or your your purpose in this life.
00:57:40
Speaker
And for me, it's to create healthy environments where people and nature can thrive very similar environments. the same thing. Same thing. They have to be profitable too, by the way. That's like, yeah, of course. That's that's a very, very, very, very good point. Very important point. Otherwise, you're you're just an not i idealist.
00:57:57
Speaker
But the point I was trying to make is that once we bring that all together, the aspect of longevity is it's fully covered in that. We're not going to compromise. It's not like, oh, because we care of the planet, you have to compromise that you're not going to live long. No, it's quite the opposite.
00:58:13
Speaker
If we get those places where people put their hands in the soil, the microorganisms get into their bodies, they'll they'll come home like, I need to start gardening. I need to connect with the soil. And that's the real longevity rather than the supplements and oh whatever they're coming up now, even blood transfusions and all kinds of crazy things.
00:58:33
Speaker
I know. um it's It's much easier. Nature supports us. Well, that's the answer to your question about what I'm excited about is exactly that. What's happening right now. I'm very I've never been more excited than I am right now.
00:58:48
Speaker
That's awesome. And so you're really in the you you talk to the industry leaders, you you're in it and you feel there's a momentum. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. That's very exciting. So i'm I'm ready for that and excited about that, too. So to be continuous. Yeah, I'll be more than happy and excited to have you back on the show till we can update on what's happened and market insights.
00:59:13
Speaker
But ah yeah, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart to come on the show and to bring all this knowledge and inspire people to to go out into the world and and do the same and and start that business in regenerative whatever you want to do to support the world.
00:59:31
Speaker
So, yeah. And just a final question ah to really wrap it up. Like, where can people reach out to you if they say, I want to start an and a resort or I want to work for Amy or anything? how How can they get in touch with you in the best way? For me, the best way is email.
00:59:49
Speaker
So it's under a tree dot com um or or I mean, a text or WhatsApp is fine, too. Perfect. You want to know my phone? Are you asking me for my phone number?
00:59:59
Speaker
I don't know. I think I already have your phone number. But if you want to say it, you can. We can add it to the show notes. um So up to you. It's plus one, five, two, zero, four, zero, zero, five, seven, nine, nine.
01:00:15
Speaker
Nice. So the fast action takers dial the number and give Amy a call. And I'm super excited for that. Hopefully you're not. adds To that number or or WhatsApp message is probably better than a call.
01:00:29
Speaker
Yeah. So email AE at underatree.com, right? Yes. We're going to add that in the show notes. Well, thank you very much, Amy. Have a great day. Such a pleasure. Thank you.
01:00:39
Speaker
Bye-bye.