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In Summary
William O’Boyle the President of Medaleaf joins Chase Nobles, CEO of Kush.com on The HempList #66
William & Chase discuss the unlikely path that brought William to founding a online / retail Hemp store Medaleaf. William had his struggles with opioids after playing football and dealing with multiple injuries, but largely credits CBD and getting into the Hemp business for his recovery. Chase also asks about alternatives like Kratom, and NA meetings, then discusses opening up a retail shop during the Covid pandemic!
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Transcript (Auto-Generated)
hey everybody chase nobles here founder
over at kush.com today i’ve got william
of boyle here from medaleaf with us uh
interesting story can’t wait to jump
into it with you william how are you
today
i’m doing good man doing good just uh
got done with the trees outside had to
trim the trees in my yard
you know it’s just normal stuff for the
day and uh
we fulfilled all our orders yesterday so
today is kind of like chilling with
chase
right on no i’m glad to have you here
you know you have an interesting you
have an interesting story william and i
think it’s something that a lot of
people would love to hear um but
straight from you how did you get into
this business what was the inspiration
you know
where did you start and and how did that
happen
so it’s real interesting um
i’ve been an entrepreneur uh for a long
time
not really
by choice it was a lack of options i
couldn’t get jobs because i have a
record and i had bad credit because of
you know my back story which i’ll get
into then
you know when we when we get to that but
uh
yeah i uh i had been selling life
insurance door-to-door for almost 10
years
so i got my life insurance license when
i was 25 i’m 37 now
um and um
so so such a such a god thing happened i
i was doing really good in life
insurance but i was burning out had an
agency
um i was obviously it’s door-to-door so
it was kind of
crazy um but i got into hemp a year
before
um
covet hit
and as you know
kovid shut down the whole world meaning
that if i didn’t see the benefits of cbd
a year before that i would have been out
of uh an agency
because i couldn’t go door-to-door they
wouldn’t let you do it so i noticed the
benefits from cbd
a year before that and i had started
doing that side hustle with the flower
because flower was big when it came out
and um covet hitting by that time i was
95 hemp
so it’s just god stepping into my life
and
you know leading me to where i need to
go i mean i feel better when i’m around
the plant you know what i mean the plant
if plant is a as a living thing and
if you nurture it it’ll nurture you so
that’s kind of how i got into it
right on and you you mentioned in kind
of the
the pre-interview questions that you uh
were a pro baller tell us a little bit
about that
it sounds like you know sustained some
injuries that this plan has helped you
out with you know what yeah what
happened you know how did that
and how did you discover him being kind
of a solution for some of the challenges
you were dealing with yeah so i uh
so i’ve been playing i played ball for
quite some time um
and uh
my first injury was in high school and
uh it was a shoulder injury and
right from there when i was so that was
like when i was 15 um
in high school i started as a sophomore
and i had my first injury so
um
they put me on painkillers and i had my
first injury my first surgery that year
which was my dislocation surgery
my shoulder um it wouldn’t stay in the
socket you know you can if you have a
dislocated shoulder it only happens once
or twice and you have proper healing
time you don’t have to get the surgery
mine wouldn’t stay in the socket so i
had to get into surgery so i got that
they prescribed me vicodin i got them i
got off them that time that first time
but i also had those withdrawal
effects fast forward
to my senior year another shoulder
injury
um more now now we’re on percocets
that one was a lot harder to get off
scholarship to college
um kind of just kept on taking them
because when you have that much shoulder
injuries you start using your head
as as the as a way to hit contact so
that i just that kind of happened all
the way through college and i kind of
just fell off i started getting sloppy
my hand-eye coordination wasn’t there
when you do opiates you can’t catch the
ball because your hands are sweating
most of the time
so you can’t catch the ball so i kind of
lost it
and then uh
i had my my dark years uh i had dark
years from the time i was 20 at the time
i was 30. i mean i was i was homeless um
i’ve had a lot of dark times uh the 10
years that i was you know using uh went
from percocets all the way to injection
use and that’s the knowledge this isn’t
this isn’t an uncommon story right you
know i’m sure you met
in that time dealing with the same exact
thing you know you get a sports injury
especially when you were in high school
that was the beginning of the opioid
right right and yeah it’s uh it’s one of
those things where
it really you know i think most people
probably watching this have have a
friend or have gone through this
themselves and uh i’ve seen it you know
take that effect on people’s lives it’s
a tough place to be i can’t imagine kind
of that struggle
it was it was tough you know what made
it harder is um
i we lost on on my mom’s side of the
family we were really close to everybody
it was just it was a closer side than my
dad’s side but we lost like five people
in five years
people were passing away dying from
overdoses i mean that the crack epidemic
and the opioid epidemic decimated
americans several different ways
um my uncle was part of that crack
epidemic and he actually was the one of
the men that helped help raise me he
passed away from that
my our generation was opiates so he went
from crack to opiates now i’m i was i
kind of you know obviously got into that
but
even even the opiates aside you know
even if i was able to kick the opiates i
wasn’t able to kick the emotional side
of what was happening in my personal
life and the opiates helped like they
numb that down
so it’s a it’s a dual diagnosis thing
you have to tackle both things at the
same time
and um cbd is kind of what filled
that void
to get me i got sober on my own
but cbd i had a lot of brain trauma from
you know football
cbd is what kind of helped my neural
pathways get to where they are today
consistent use
right that’s um i mean that’s
an unlikely story to get clean on your
own uh yeah
did you start using cbd before then had
you tried other things you know i hear a
lot about freedom things like that what
are your what’s your opinion on you know
kind of the
if anybody’s listening to this that’s
dealing with this or in that place right
now what would you tell them
uh what i would say is don’t try kratom
because it’ll lead you back to your
opiate because it is an opioid
antagonist and you will have the same
effects i can’t tell you how many people
come to my retail store they ask me if i
sell kratom and i say no when i ask him
why and he’s like that’s good because
i’m trying to get off of it
you know and i’m actually withdrawn
right now and i get them on the right
stuff because i know that it’ll help
but um
i’ve tried everything chase i mean
i did the meetings i did the halfway
houses
i was on probation
um you know i tried all of that stuff
but it didn’t work because it’s like
so it’s people places and things you
gotta change your people’s places and
things um i you know the one thing that
did work was working the steps in n a
because it’s kind of like the ten
commandments for n a
you know but the ten commandments in the
bible and the ten commandments for
um
n a are they intertwined together
they’re pretty much the same thing in
different wording
so that worked but the people around the
meetings didn’t work because they were
just so fixated on their addiction like
you got to stop talking about it at some
point you got to move on you know i just
keep it in my rear view you know like
that’s where i came from
but um
i wouldn’t recommend kratom
i would recommend getting yourself into
meetings and and working the steps but
there’s a natural progression out of it
um it took me 10 years to get clean i’m
seven years clean now
this time i had already worked those
steps and i already had that base of
people that
were sober around me from the rooms i
didn’t i haven’t gone to a meeting or
worked the steps
at all this time because i had already
done it in my past recovery but what
happened for me this time is cbd
god
and a whole lot of weights i work out a
lot because it’s an endorphin thing
you’ve got to pick up something that
that
pops your endorphins the way that other
stuff did you have to replace it
you know so that’s that’s the most
important thing replacing your addiction
with the healthy addiction or several of
them
right it’s hard to replace from from
very hard to replace and so you know
kind of you got to overcompensate
oh i think i lost your video there
there we go i’m gonna be good yeah i’m
on my cell phone oh no no worries no
worries either way i’m glad to have you
here now you have started a business in
the hemp of cannabis industry
and that business is it has seen some
success and fortunately he did it right
before covid because you you know you
did have a job that
was dependent on shaky hands and meeting
people door to door which also sounds
brutal but i imagine when you get that
sale it’s a it’s a little bit of a same
like you’re talking about that endorphin
rush right
you can do you can do anything in this
world if you could sell something
door-to-door
right right
and it’s that’s a pretty cool place to
be it takes a lot of you know guts to be
able to go walk up and knock on the door
and pitch what you got getting into be
on that timeline you know seems like
kind of the perfect transition
what have you done with the business
where are you at where are you looking
to go and you know for everybody
listening what have some of the
challenges been that you’ve faced
yeah so the the hemp industry was such a
brand new it was a brand new industry
and everybody rushed into it and it has
evolved so much and and you have to be
able to pivot
um
so
that some of that we’ll start with some
of the challenges in the industry
you’ve got to be able to recognize the
trend on where it’s going and you have
to be
you have to have no ego and ego and be
willing to make those healthy
transitions like say for instance the
challenges were okay so two years ago i
was selling 500 to a thousand pounds a
hemp a month okay
um a year ago i was selling 250 to 500.
i’d say monthly now i sell about 5 to
10.
now i that was like that all of like
half of 2021 i’m thinking to myself is
this am i gonna have to pivot out of
this industry
um into straight retail because we do
have a retail store i’ll get into that
as well
but um
i had to figure out figure out how to
continue to make money continue to help
people and continue to work with hemp
all three
um
so meadowleaf was born
basically in my kitchen while we were um
making products you know like that’s
that’s kind of how we’re we’re making
products um and then uh
and that that what funded metal leaf and
got we got it where it is today is bulk
bulk sales
unfortunately the bulk sales in the
industry
um
it’s not as enjoyable as the retail the
bulk sales you have to learn how to
pivot so it went from bulk flour to bulk
extracts we were able to make that so
now meadow leaf has a division called
canna hemp labs can hemp labs sells all
the bulk extracts to some of the biggest
names in the industry
but metaleaf is where my passion is
because
that cutthroat part of the industry it’s
cutthroat it’s cutthroat and there’s a
lot of people there that have their best
interests in mind and are willing to
screw you to get there
um now meadowleaf the retail and the
website and all that stuff in the retail
store
it’s a labor of love because you you
come in there now obviously for reasons
you can’t say it will help but you can
say it may help or can help
so that’s all you do is you you sit down
with these people that are on so many
different things that we don’t really we
can’t even pronounce these names and we
know where they come from
um and you just say like you know this
may help this may help why don’t you try
this you know and you you see people
we’ve had the store open for a year now
you see people come in and they’re
better they’re better after 30 days
they’re better after two weeks their
anxiety’s gone they’re talking normal
um
they’ve been able to justify taking
their mask off for the first time in two
years which is huge
you know what i mean just stuff like
that
um that’s where i see metal leaf going i
want to have
a way to get to people on a one-on-one
basis like i did in life insurance
and consult
and aid them to getting better naturally
with this medicine
i think that’s a great mission it sounds
like you’re delivering on it um for
everybody listening where’s your retail
locations at how can they find out more
about metal leaf and what you got going
on and uh
you know the growing community
yeah so meadowleaf uh it’s one and only
retail store right now is in lago vista
texas
which is right outside of austin which
is
you know i don’t want you guys to move
here but i want you to know it’s really
nice because i don’t want the city too
congested i’m just kidding
it’s already happening i mean you know
you look at what’s happening in seattle
and portland and san francisco you can
understand why but yeah yeah so we’re in
lago vista
our next location is going to be in
taylor texas um samsung just dropped a
whole lot of money in the in taylor
texas so we’re going to have a store on
main street our website doesn’t have a
ton of seo around it because i don’t
know anything about computers i’m 37
years old i can barely type um but we
just put a little a little bit of
investment money in the seo with a great
company
um that we’re working with so
um your search results if you’re in the
hill country of texas or you’re in the
austin area or in the states around it
you’ll be able to search us and find it
but uh website is meadowleafrx.com
it is under construction so it’s a
little choppy right now but we’re
getting there
right on well congrats on everything
that you’ve been able to do congrats on
getting clean and living a healthier
lifestyle i i think everybody should
have a lot of respect for that
you know for the low odds of you know
making that transition and great job on
the business it’s a pleasure to have you
in the community and excited interview
thank you so much appreciate chase man i
appreciate you william have a good one
and we’ll talk soon all right buddy talk
to you soon