We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Reis Paluso. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Reis below.
Reis , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.
Let’s face it. We all like to be comfortable. Our lives are designed to be so. We have food when we need it, transportation to take us wherever we need to go, a house over our head with temperature-controlled rooms, entertainment galore, and so much more. Now more than any time in the history of humanity do we have a cush life. But what does all that comfort mean? We get complacent. We expect things to happen for us. We don’t push ourselves. We don’t listen to our gut for what we actually need, especially when it comes to being happy with our work life. It is easy to just show up, do your thing, and get a paycheck. But that leaves many of us feeling empty, worthless, and disconnected from purpose.
For me, I have been lucky in the fact that I am not afraid to change direction as my life, priorities, and passions change. My path had led me down many different roads but without each one, I would not be where I am today. Each road has intersected with a point where I needed to make a decision – stay on this one or take a new one. And at each fork, while it has not been easy by any stretch, I have always gone with my heart. And I have to say, it has not steered me wrong.
With my recent business, Our Breath Collective, I was deep in building a digital marketing agency that focused on social media, content, and acquisition. When I first got into it, it was because I was chasing my passions. I love being creative and after years of building websites and creating content for an award-winning surf blog called KorduroyTV, I started getting hit up by different brands to help with their social media channels. My passion for creativity took over and I began taking on clients which led me to my business partner. We both shared a similar vision and passion for marketing so we began building our agency. As time went on, I lost sight of the things that fueled my creativity. The responsibilities and demands on my time built up and led me astray. In searching for something to help me cope, I found Wim Hof. His energy and zest for life was so palpable and I wanted to feel that mojo for myself. I quickly dove into his method and found the breathwork and cold exposure practices brought me into a space that I had not ever been to. I woke up to the fact that we all have this innate power and potential that we were not in touch with due to the modern luxuries and comforts in our world.
As my practice began to grow and I started teach myself, I found myself becoming more disconnected with the marketing world and more in alignment with helping others. My classes and workshops were filling up and I understood that people really needed this. After a couple of years of teaching on my own, I was approached by two friends to start Our Breath Collective because we all could see how these practices bring together community, help people build strength and capacity, and no one else was serving people via the online space with a human touch. We started broadcasting our daily practices live online every day and quickly built a solid tribe of people who were breathing with us each day. And while things were starting to build, the pandemic hit, and my agency lost 40% of its business overnight. The dismantling of my partnership began. It was a crazy time, one that I look back on and am not sure how I, or any of us for that matter, endured. So much uncertainty and fear. But thankfully, an opportunity presented itself to exit the agency and pour all of my heart and skills that I had built over the years into OBC.
It was a big risk to leave a rapidly growing business with some massive clients that I was making a great living on for a start-up that was really at its infancy. But with help from some incredible mentors and friends, I made the leap and transitioned to taking over OBC full time. I didn’t know what was going to unfold but I just knew in my heart that I needed to our my energy into sharing my passion, a passion that could help others, especially at that time. Looking back on it, it was the greatest blessing. It took all my will and trust to do it, but I can honestly say that I have never been happier in the realm of my work life. I feel like I found what I am meant to do in this world and for that, I am so grateful.
For anyone who is looking to transition, I know it can be a big risk. One that many are not willing to take. But if you really look inward and ask your heart what it needs, I believe 100% that it will not steer you wrong.
Reis , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Plain and simple, I would consider myself as someone who is looking to help people realize their true potential. We are powerful beyond what we can imagine and I believe we all deserve to understand and embody that. My mode of doing this is by sharing my experiences of using breathing, stress, nature, and curiosity to better understand what it means to be human. I am not a big fan of the word “coach” and would prefer to call myself a mentor or an ally in your realization. In addition to that, I am an entrepreneur who loves to create, learn, and build community.
In 2019, I co-founded Our Breath Collective which is an educational platform that explodes the range of breathing through non-dogmatic principles, live experience, progressive education, and a global community. Simply put, we exist to share the power of breath to inspire the extraordinary. By using breathing as a tool, our students learn a quick and powerful way to unlock their true potential with the support of a global community for a complete life upgrade. Through a multidisciplinary, human-centric approach, we look at the principles that inevitably run through all methods, schools, and modalities of breath practice. We don’t pigeonhole or confine ourselves into a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, we empower ourselves for an authentic and creative expression of breathing, based on where we are at in the moment.
Currently, we offer live, guided daily breathing practices that are all about 15 minutes long, hosted by one of our 20 breath guides. We view this as long flossing your teeth. That daily maintenance to be able to handle life on your own terms. In addition, we host monthly workshops where we bring in experts not only from the breathing community to share their perspectives and practices but also other periphery modalities that pair well with breathwork. For those looking to get a deep dive into breathing, the science behind it, as well as build a toolkit for their own life to use in real-time, we teach in-depth courses to build a deep relationship with your breath. As our business grew, more and more people fell in love with the practice and wanted to be able to share it with their communities and beyond. So we developed a 6-month teacher training course called Breath School where we help to develop dynamic and skilled facilitators that can work with anyone. In addition to our practices, workshops, and trainings, we host in-person experiential retreats. These experiences are where so much magic happens. When you surround yourself with curious and like-minded explores of humanity, everything comes together in a different way. When you breathe together, the group energy is an amplifier. When you share and talk about your experiences, you begin to connect more dots and can see yourself in others, creating a unique connection to one another. And when you push past discomfort and your previous limiting beliefs, a whole new realm of possibility begins to open up.
When we first came up with the idea for this business, we didn’t have any intention of all of these things coming together. We just wanted to create a place for people to come together and practice. We didn’t spend much time on the “why” but instead focused on the doing. As humans, we get so stuck in our head, worrying about if we are doing it right, what we look like, or why we would do it. But when you just get into action, you quickly see that it all really comes together in a noticeable way. Breathing is low-effort, high impact. We don’t have to go anywhere, use any special equipment, or change our clothes. We can literally sit down and focus on our breath which inherently leads to more awareness of our mind, body, and spirit. And it doesn’t take much. As the community started to grow and people started to see how their lives were changing, they started asking for more. So we listened and then began developing the various offerings that we share today. It has been a beautiful process that continues to unfold as this lovely global community continues to grow.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
In the transition from my agency to Our Breath Collective, I figured out that I was working in a totally reactionary mode. Within an agency, you are at the mercy of your clients. The next phone call, email, text message, Slack, or other modes of communication that comes through could quickly derail your focus and attention due to the needs at the moment. This is applied exponentially when dealing with marketing, and social media in particular. Because of the nature of social media, things change and move fast. Staying up with trends, any sort of news to latch onto, or something that needs changing due to being pretty much the last piece of the puzzle to fit in, you can never really get fully ahead or have everything sorted out. I found this had an impact on me in a major way. I had to unlearn this behavior and really push myself to be more proactive within my business. Rather than focusing on other companies, I could now focus solely on my own. Yes, I still have clients and customers, but it is a totally different dynamic. I found myself with more space to focus on strategy, planning and looking ahead which was unfamiliar. I think that was part of the downfall of my partnership in the agency. My partner and I were constantly pulled in so many directions and most of them never lead us back to focusing on our business and how we were growing, individually and together. Most of our strategy time happened during walks to get coffee in the morning or in quick interactions. We didn’t spend enough time together, evaluating where we were, where we wanted to go, what was important to us as individuals, and as partners. It was a harsh look into my weaknesses and blind spots of not wanting conflict or where I needed to stretch myself. I can certainly say I am still not perfect in that realm. It is a work in progress and something I constantly have to push towards. But I can see that when I do, the benefits out weight the stress or anxiety of it.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
My current partner Luke came into my life at the perfect time. I had met him once or twice through my wife who led a yoga teacher training he was in. She always would tell me that I needed to meet him and that we would get along. We eventually did and I got a great vibe from him but I was so busy with all of my stuff – life, work, family – that we didn’t really spend much time together.
Within my journey of growth and exploring how I can take care of myself better, I heard a podcast where Wim Hof was the guest. Wim’s energy, charisma, and message really stood out to me and left me curious to learn about his method. I told my wife about him and she immediate said “I was just talking to Luke about this yesterday. You should give him a call.” I hadn’t seen Luke in quite some time from our first initial encounters but I sent him a message. His response was “Are you ready for a life upgrade?”
How could you say no to that?
He also told me that he had been practicing breathwork for over 10 years and had even done a few trainings. That was all it took. A few days later, he came over and led me through a breathing session. In 30 minutes, I went somewhere I had never and felt things that I never experienced before in my body. I was hooked. He ended up leading me through quite a few more practices and next thing I knew, I was on my own path of diving into the Wim Hof Method and more.
Over the next year or so, we would get together pretty regularly and breathe together. We ended up inviting more and more friends to join and as I got into Wim’s teacher training, it turned into a whole thing at my house on Sunday mornings that I called Ice Church. About 25 or so of us would pile into my garage, do an hour of breathing, and then head into my backyard to get in the ice bath, followed by some sharing of gratitude and hot tea.
Next thing I knew, this whole community in North County was coming together not only at my house but also at my workshops and classes at Gather in Encinitas. People were excited and hungry for more but there was not a consistent place or way they could get a guided practice at the time. As things continued to grow, eventually Luke and another friend came to me and said “we have this idea where we want to share a live daily breath practice online and we want you to be a part of it.” It is funny, because when I first got into the Wim Hof Method, I had a similar idea due to the lack of consistent support out there. But I ended up finding that support on a micro level by starting to host Ice Church at my house. Anyway, that was the start of Our Breath Collective. And the rest is history…
Contact Info:
- Website: reispaluso.com & ourbreathcollective.com
- Instagram: @ourbreathcollective & @reispaluso
- Facebook: facebook.com/reispaluso
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reispaluso/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo0IUY2ylLrR_zv_AlssKMA
- Other: Tiktok: @ourbreathcollective