Meet Brandon Spires

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brandon Spires a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Brandon, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

How did I find my purpose? It’s a bit of a long story, but I’ll try to be concise. My journey to understanding my purpose really unfolded over time, throughout my life. Growing up, I had what I would call a typical middle-class childhood. My parents were supportive and provided for me. Like many, I was guided by them, my friends, and societal norms. My parents, in particular, directed me towards the conventional path: college, a degree, and a stable job.

However, I believe the seeds of my purpose were planted in my teenage years. In 11th grade, I started the “Insanity” program with Shaun T – it was quite intense! My friend and I did it together, and what was significant about that experience was discovering my passion for movement and health. At the time, my motivation was primarily to sculpt my body, feel good physically, and get in shape for fun. But this also involved a complete overhaul of my diet. I changed what I ate so drastically that even my parents shifted what they kept in the pantry at home, which helped them eat healthier too. This experience proved to myself that I was deeply passionate about health and well-being. While this was just an initial glimpse, it was a crucial step.

Naturally, when I went to college, I chose exercise science as my major. I then pursued a dual bachelor’s degree in exercise science and athletic training, followed by a master’s degree in kinesiology. My academic focus was entirely on the body and how to improve its function through physical activity and therapy.

After my education, I entered the world of sports medicine. I worked in physical therapy clinics, provided medical coverage for sports teams, and focused on injury rehabilitation and prevention. I even had the opportunity to work at Delta Airlines, providing physical therapy for their employees. This was a valuable period for me, offering stability and the space to further explore my purpose.

I had a strong inclination that I wanted to help people with their health, particularly in alleviating their physical pain. However, the more I worked with people, the more I began to question the root causes of chronic pain. This led me to the realization that food played a significant role. I started to understand how the way our food is grown and processed was often detrimental to our health, lacking essential nutrients and even being harmful.

This realization prompted a significant shift. I decided to leave my job in physical therapy and pursue a health coaching certification. I felt that the restrictions within the traditional healthcare system, such as insurance limitations, hindered my ability to truly help people address the fundamental issues.

This led me to delve deeper into the root causes of disease and how I could make a more profound impact. Recognizing the flaws in our food system, I embarked on a five-year journey working on various farms. I dedicated myself to understanding how to cultivate food in harmony with nature and our bodies.

Ultimately, I’ve come to understand that my purpose lies in being a guide and a teacher. Having learned about the intricacies of the human body, developed coaching skills, and honed my ability to listen and guide others, I now see my role as empowering people to reconnect with their own innate healing abilities. We don’t always need extensive medications or constant reliance on external medical interventions. Often, what’s needed is guidance, thoughtful questioning, and access to the right tools and resources to realize our capacity for self-care.

This involves returning to nature – connecting with it through the food we eat, the way we sleep and move, and how our food is grown. This reconnection is key to healing ourselves.

In fact, I received a clear understanding of my purpose as a mission during a four-day vision fast out in nature. Connecting with the spirit of nature and asking for guidance, I was charged with a mission to lead and inspire a revolution of love and nature reconnection that will positively impact the next seven generations and beyond.

My aim is to guide people back to nature, showing them how to grow their own food, live in closer connection with the land, and take care of themselves holistically through practices like mindful breathing, restorative sleep, conscious movement, deep nutrition, and nature connection. I believe this will create a ripple effect. When people are empowered to take care of their own well-being, they will have the energy and capacity to step into their own purposes and contribute to the well-being of others, moving beyond a state of constant struggle.

That, in short, is how I found my purpose, and it continues to evolve. Through my business, Route to Nature Wellness, I am beginning to offer workshops. I plan to teach centropic agroforestry, a practice I learned in Brazil and through my experiences working on fruit orchards and other farms. I’ve come to understand that originally, humans were caretakers of the forest. I want to help bring us back to being land stewards, caring for the earth. My vision for these workshops is to combine wellness practices with practical applications of growing food, connecting with trees, planting, and working in harmony with the land.

So, yes, I would say that is my purpose

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Root-2-Nature Wellness: Integrating Life and Business
So, what exactly do I do? I talk about my brand, my business, and really my life, because for me, my life is my business and my business is my life. This is a philosophy I really embraced and started integrating a couple of years ago. My main business is called Root-2-Nature Wellness.

It’s an integrative wellness coaching practice, and my primary focus is the coaching aspect. However, I’m now also moving towards offering more in-person workshops, getting people out on the land to learn about gardening, agroforestry, and ultimately, how to connect with nature and themselves. The goal is for them to develop wellness from within and tap into their own inner power to create well-being.

The Root-2-Nature Wellness brand, as it currently exists online, doesn’t yet fully reflect these in-person workshops. I’m actively working on integrating that aspect, particularly within the community where I live. I reside at a community living project on 60 acres of land, where I’m building a food forest and establishing gardens. I serve as a land steward, caring for the property, and we are progressing towards hosting in-person workshops here. But more on that later.

The online component is where my business initially took root. I have a website where individuals can book one-on-one coaching sessions with me and access my online courses. I also have a Telegram community where people can ask questions and engage with each other and my content. Ultimately, what I do involves coaching people, primarily one-on-one, and leading workshops.

Currently, for example, I’m running a monthly workshop series that extends until June. Each month, I host a 1.5-hour session focusing on one of my core pillars of wellness. In my coaching and teachings, I emphasize these core pillars as the foundation for building overall well-being, enabling individuals to create the life they desire and fully step into their purpose. I particularly focus on people who already have a sense of their purpose but need help developing the energy and foundation to authentically pursue it. It’s about removing the obstacles and providing them with the vitality that comes from a solid wellness foundation, allowing them to cultivate a deeper relationship with their inner power, intuition, inner knowing, and connection with spirit. It’s a beautiful practice.

These core pillars of wellness include nature connection, deep breathing, deep nutrition, deep sleep, and playful movement. By developing practices within these areas, individuals can build a strong foundation upon which anything is possible. This is a central part of my one-on-one coaching, and I also offer an online one-week course called “Tapping into Your Power” that introduces these core pillars, providing the basics to help people start developing beneficial habits and practices to feel better in their lives.

Additionally, I have another week-long online course called “The Golden Path to Freedom.” I named it this because it focuses intensely on clarifying what individuals truly want – their vision of health for themselves in the short-term (one month), mid-term (six months), and long-term (three years and beyond). The course helps them identify the steps to get there and determine the most impactful areas to focus on right now to maximize their efforts. We explore where they might be losing energy in their lives, helping them gain clarity on their goals and how to achieve them. Furthermore, we delve into the inner work required – exploring the subconscious, identifying limiting beliefs, and understanding who they need to become to create their desired life. This involves working with what I call the results pyramid. An introduction to getting into the subconscious is available as a free training for anyone who signs up for my newsletter.

However, what I’m most excited about is the move towards in-person workshops. My overarching vision has always been to live on the land, grow my own food, be part of a community, and have people come to me to learn about agroforestry, gardening, breathing techniques, healthy eating, and to actually experience it firsthand with me. This includes preparing and sharing food sourced directly from the land where I live – local, organic, and regeneratively grown with love. I’ve had experience with this before in Brazil, where I studied agroforestry and lived on farms. I hosted a workshop where people shared food from the land, walked through the food forest, connected with nature, and participated in playful movement, breathing exercises, and learned about nature connection and the results pyramid. The idea is to integrate all aspects of my work into these in-person experiences. We can also create a hybrid model where participants can continue to connect with me online after the workshop to further develop their practices and integrate these experiences into their daily lives.

This is what I’m most passionate about right now, and I’ll be partnering with Haven Community Living, where I currently reside and which is the community we are building here. The goal is to collaborate and invite individuals who are connected with Haven and interested in our land to come out and participate in these experiences.

So, yes, I would say that’s what’s currently the most exciting for me. And yes, I think that covers it

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

All right, so let’s talk skills – the quality skills and areas of knowledge that have been really impactful on my journey.

I guess one key skill is listening. Early on in my life, people often felt comfortable talking to me, and I’ve always been a good listener. It’s a skill that has become even more powerful for me over time, developing the ability to truly hear what people are saying, not just the surface-level words. I have a natural inclination to perceive beyond people’s energy and outward presentation, to sense the underlying emotions and intentions. I can then reflect that understanding back to them. I further honed this skill through my coaching training and, interestingly, through my experience with Aflac training. In that role, I had to ask detailed questions to understand how people injured themselves, what they were actually doing, and their lifestyle. This taught me how to really diagnose situations and delve deeper. For those who want to improve their listening skills, I encourage you to practice. When someone is speaking, simply focus on your breath. This helps you remain present without feeling anxious to respond or talk about yourself. You genuinely tune in to the other person, making them feel heard. This allows for deeper and more meaningful conversations.

Another impactful quality in my journey is my inherent calmness. I’m a very calm and grounded person. I possess this quality of grounded energy, which is particularly interesting given my purpose of reconnecting people with nature. Nature itself is a grounding force. Think about the feeling of standing barefoot on the earth – it’s literally grounding, an exchange of energy. Like the oak tree, which is my medicine name, Father Oak, I have a strong presence, and I feel like I truly see people. Individuals often feel held and safe in my presence. I became aware of this about five years ago when people, including women, would tell me they felt safe with me. This was particularly meaningful because many women don’t readily feel safe with men, especially upon first meeting. This sense of safety, combined with my listening abilities, naturally led me to coaching. I realized, “I’m really good at this,” and then I actively developed those natural talents through coaching training. For those wanting to cultivate this grounded presence, I recommend actively grounding yourself by spending physical time in nature, ideally barefoot. Furthermore, the more you work on your own inner self and clear out stagnant energy – emotional traumas, etc. – the safer your energy will feel to others. Learning to breathe deeply is also crucial, as it calms your nervous system and heart rate, energies that are palpable to those around you.

In terms of areas of knowledge, my foundational knowledge from college in human anatomy, biology, and kinesiology was incredibly valuable and enjoyable for me. Understanding the physical human being and how it’s structured has been essential. I’ve continued to build upon this knowledge even after graduation, learning from thousands of patients and athletes, recognizing the unique differences in each individual’s body. My ongoing study of fascia – how it literally holds everything together, supports upright posture and movement, houses much of the nervous system, and impacts overall function – is a key area of my expertise.

Lastly, the area of knowledge surrounding spiritual concepts is vital. Learning how everything in nature is alive and possesses an energy or resonance has been profound. Recently, I’ve been exploring the Earth’s resonance and its energy field and how it interacts with humans, as well as the energy of rocks, crystals, trees, and other animals, and how everything influences its surroundings. This understanding is incredibly important. The best way to develop this knowledge is to get out into nature and feel it. Why do you feel better in a forest? It’s partly due to the resonance of the trees and what they draw from the atmosphere into the Earth. When you hug a tree, you can sense it drawing negative electrons from the air and grounding them, a benefit you receive through touch or by having your bare feet on the ground near its roots.

So, yes, I would say those are the three most important quality skills and areas of knowledge that have significantly impacted my journey.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

All right. So, who has been the most helpful in helping me overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities, or knowledge to be successful today? This is a really interesting question. It’s not particularly one individual, but it is one person who started a significant movement for me. I’m part of a men’s organization called The Rising Man Movement, and I joined about five years ago at the end of a relationship. I was really trying to understand what it truly means to step into and embody manhood. What does that actually entail, and how do I effectively utilize my masculine energy within myself?

I discovered The Rising Man Movement through their podcast, and the founder, Jetty Azuma, has become a mentor, a good friend, and someone I now work alongside within the organization. I’ve progressed to become one of the leaders, helping other men develop their own skills. What The Rising Man Movement really facilitated for me was the development of what I call my “masculine skills.” This involves being able to commit and follow through on my word, gaining clarity on my core values, establishing a clear vision for my life, and then taking consistent action, committing to those actions, and steadily moving towards my vision and purpose.

Through The Rising Man organization, I also learned how to cultivate my purpose and gain a deeper understanding of what it is. This was directly connected to the four-day vision fast I undertook, where I intentionally called upon Spirit to reveal my path. This practice was part of Rising Man’s “Compass” program, which involves taking men through an initiation process. It addresses a significant gap in our modern society – the lack of clear rites of passage for both men and women. Traditionally, in many societies, young men would undergo such experiences, like fasting for days or spending nights alone in nature without food or water. These weren’t just tests of endurance to prove self-reliance; they were also crucial for calling in and clarifying one’s purpose before returning to the community to offer that gift.

The Rising Man has truly helped me develop the skills necessary to fulfill my purpose and be of service to my community and broader society. We learn the true meaning of service and what it means to be a healthy man who supports his family, knows himself, understands his purpose, and has a clear direction in life. When people are in the presence of that kind of energy, it fosters a sense of safety, and it empowers them to help others. This positive influence then extends to our children. All the skills I’ve gained within The Rising Man have been instrumental in my success today because they’ve helped me align with my purpose and understand how to consistently move towards it, while also developing myself along the way to embody more fully the mission that Spirit has revealed to me.

The more I develop myself, the more Spirit seems to entrust me with, allowing me to hold more responsibility and impact more people. It’s a reciprocal relationship. So, yes, The Rising Man organization has been the most impactful influence on my journey. And from there, I am literally rising up. It’s fitting that it’s called Rising Man because it truly empowers men to rise within their communities, their families, and within themselves, to claim their potential, be of service to the world, and create a ripple effect. This, in turn, empowers me through my coaching, workshops, and in-person interactions to help others do the same – to rise up. It creates a positive ripple effect that I believe will impact the next seven generations and beyond. It’s going to be amazing. So, yes, that’s my answer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://root2naturewellness.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bspiresliving/