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She is sure, she is true, She is straw. She
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is straw, She is true, is true, she is praise, pray,
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she is she is you.
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Hello, everyone, welcome to today's Word of Mom Radio. Here
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on the Word of Mom Media Network. I'm your host,
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Dori Di Carlo. And you know we are here week
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after week, show after show, breaking those myths that morepreneurs
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and businesswomen, especially those of us building our businesses from home.
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Now we're just dabbling in between bake sales and getting
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her nails done or not. We are smart, we are savvy,
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and we are sharing the wisdom of women in business
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and in life. And I am thrilled to be bringing
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today's guest into our business spotlight. Aubrey Amatelli is the
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founder and CEO of Payrio, the first payment provider exclusively
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focused on cannabis and alternative medicines. Aubrey's career started at
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JP Morgan in their Merchant service group. Over a decade,
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she rose to executive director Commercial Banker, specializing in technology
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and disruptive commerce in Silicon Valley. This extensive experience in
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fine tech has made her industry expertise incredibly valuable in
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the cannabis payment spaces. Adding to her impressive professional achievements.
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Aubrey's also a single mother of three who has successfully
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led pay Rio to profitability in under a year. Her
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inspiring story serves as a testament to her resilience in
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leadership in an industry where female executive leadership and businesses
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overall have struggled to survive. And I love this story,
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so I am thrilled to be bringing you in. Aubrey,
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Welcome to Word of Mom Radio.
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Thank you Dori so much for having me. I'm excited
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to be here.
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I am thrilled to have you, and I would love
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for you to take us on your journey and how
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your experiences prepared you for founding Payrio in this cannamis
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payment space.
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Yeah, woof. I was born and raised in the Silicon Valley,
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so I've been around technology and startups my entire life,
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and I always say it's been in my blood since
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I was born. I was working at a startup in
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San Francisco that was gobbled up by JP Morgan and
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that was the beginning of my love of payments and
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I spent over a decade there lived in breathed payments.
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It's for me the most exciting industry because you're learning
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something new every day. And after my time at JP Morgan,
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I was excited to get back into the startup world.
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So became the chief revenue officer at a fintech and
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left the big bank and went into the startup world
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that I've been dreaming about for a long time. And
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that's where I found that what I had learned at
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JP Morgan was so valuable outside of a big firm.
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The education I got there, I always say, it's the
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Harvard of Education of payments, the largest payment processor in
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the world. So I got to take that knowledge and
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bring it to a startup and help that startup grow.
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And at that time, I was really itching to start
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my own company in an industry that I was excited
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about and proud of, and cannabis was that. Cannabis and
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alternative medicines. I always say, I think plant medicines can
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change the world. So it was time for me to
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just take the leap of faith, leave the startup, start
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my own and it's been an incredible journey since then.
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It really sounds it, and you know, let's face it,
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this is a first of all, a very unique space
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and one where so many businesses struggle to survive. So
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what kind of challenges did you face to not only
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get this going, but to be able to make it
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profitable and under a year.
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Yeah, So the challenges cannabis industry are there's there's many.
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It's it's you know, I'm so grateful that there's legalization,
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whether it's medical or recreational growing across the country, but
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it is still a federally illegal product. And that is
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where the challenges come in when it comes to payments.
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When Visa and MasterCard in the payment world are our
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governing body, so and they go they side with whatever
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the federal government views products, so they see cannabis as
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federally illegal. What I had to do is find a
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unique payment solution that is not like the one you
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use at a grocery store or when you're shopping, you know,
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at the mall. It has to be it was a
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unique solution that's kind of outside of the box and
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bring that into cannabis so that we didn't break any
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of the rules from Visa and MasterCard. So that was
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really how we started and that took off, and I'm
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thankful for that.
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I'm interested to know how it is different.
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So there's Actually we launched with a solution that was
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a wallet based solution, very similar to a Venmo, but
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it was connected to a physical terminal, so we utilized
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a Venmo type technology to process payments. That was in
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twenty twenty two. Since then, we've grown. We use products
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that run on the ATM rails, which are outside of
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these a MasterCard. We use token based products, so's there's
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many products now that we've brought to market, but it
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started with a wallet based technology way back when in
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twenty twenty two, which isn't that far long ago, but
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it feels like a decade. As a founder, it does.
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So as a female executive in the fintech and at
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cannabis industries, have you had to employ strategies to overcome
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I'm going to go with the gender related obstacles because
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this is definitely not a woman driven industry.
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Yeah, it's believe it or not, that has not changed
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as much as we wish it it would. Coming from
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JP Morgan gave me a little bit of clouts starting
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into these conversations, but I would jump on zooms at
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the beginning, before pay Rio had a name in the market.
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You know, when you're starting from scratch. You're calling dispensaries
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and they've never heard of you before. As you begin
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to get you know, customers and referrals, then that is
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an easier conversation to have. But I do remember at
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the very beginning many calls jumping on a zoom. I
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require a zoom so that I could look at the
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owner and talk through the product and show demos, et cetera.
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I wasn't taken seriously. There were many calls where I
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let like, I would start the call and they, you know,
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I would be talked to as if I didn't know anything,
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and then when I was finally able to speak, then
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all of a sudden, there was silence. Knows what she's
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talking about. She has the experience. So I would say
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there were a handful, if not a dozen calls where
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I would leave the call and just kind of be like, well,
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you know, it's just part of part of the world
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and part of the change that I want to make.
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And that's really one of the big reasons I started
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pay Rio, the startup that I worked at after JP Morgan,
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the entire c suite and board was male except for me.
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I was pushing to have an other female leadership other
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female on the board and it just wasn't a change
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they wanted to make, and so that really sparked the
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fire under me to start pay Rio so that it
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could be female led. All of our executives at pay
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Rio or female and we have over eighty percent women
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who work at the company right now.
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It's so interesting to me and here our ward of
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Mom Radio, we have been doing things for years trying
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to raise awareness. Our first though, we had Shira adleron
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who wrote the ABCS of CBD, which is kind of
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like the Bible in all of these different places. And
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we've done shows with Impact Naturals on CBD with talking
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about microdosing and what that's doing for people with depression
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and anxieties and things like this. And it's so sad because,
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as you said earlier and I believe it too, plant
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based wellness is what is going to save us, because
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if Parsley cured cancer, instead of telling you to grow Parsley,
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they'd be shoving it in a pill. You know, natural
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is always best, and you know, I've never understood the attitude,
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you know, because of all of the medicinal benefits to
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CBD and THHC, whether it's cannabis, all the alternative medicines
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that it introduces you to. There are such a push
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against it, and then you have this, you know, date
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by State is kind of rolling over because, Okay, let's
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face it. Personally, as a mom, I have adult kids,
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as I'd much rather see somebody smoke a joint than
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drink a beer, because I joke all the time. You
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get five guys drunk, they're going to start a fight.
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You get five guys stoned, they're going to start a
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band exactly. It's just a different frame of mind that
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it brings. So in this industry, how does it work? Like,
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how does it work? I'm a brand new I'm a dispensary.
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How do I now implement your product? Aubrey, I'm kind
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of interested.
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Yeah, great question. So a lot of the dispensaries, and
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when we talked about this prior to starting the show,
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are cash only, you know, because they have a hard
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time not only accepting payments, but finding a bank account
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to support their business. Imagine bringing a medicine to the
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market and be passionate about it and wanting to share
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it with your community, opening up a shop, and not
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even be able to have a bank support your business.
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It's just wild in my mind. But once they you know,
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we get a hold of them and we talk them
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through it. We are able to show them demonstrations of
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our product, which is a physical terminal where they put
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it you've probably seen them before, put them on the
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you know, the desktop, and you enter your card and
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your PIN number. A lot of what we do is
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debit pin debit, but it's very easy, like we make
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it very easy. You just plug it in, connect it
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to Wi Fi, and you're ready to go. Every time
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a new customer comes on board, it's such a feel
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good feeling for myself and my employees because we know
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that we are providing better access to the medicine from
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for the community around that dispensary. A lot of times
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they might not have cash on hand or it's hard
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to get it, and then maybe they say, oh, I'll
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just skip the dispensary today. But now they can go
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in with their debit card and even a credit card
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and be able to pay for their medicine.
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That is so awesome. And on that note, we're going
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to take a quick break. We're going to say thank
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you to our sponsors, and we'll be back here in
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just a moment on Word of Mom Radio. She is brave,
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she is bold, She is you, and we want to
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tell your story. Are you ready to share your journey
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dot com and register as a guest. We want to
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tell your story because when you win, we all win.
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In twenty seventeen, Unsilenced Voices was formed to help survivors
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of domestic abuse and gender based violence worldwide. The organization
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currently serves sierri Leone, Rwanda, Ghana, and the USA. In
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twenty twenty two, Unsilenced Voices gifted over thirty three thousand
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dollars to survivors in the USA and in sier Leone,
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there are over twenty six young girls who have been
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rescued from sex trafficking and domestic abuse and now going
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through vocational training school in order to better their lives.
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We need your help. Donations are critical in order for
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us to continue our work. We also need volunteers to
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help with research and development. Please visit Unsilenced Voices dot
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org for more information.
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And we're back here on Word of Mom Radio. We
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are talking with Aubrey Almatelli, who is the founder and
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CEO of Paleo, the first payment provider exclusively focused on
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cannabis and alternative medicines. So I have to ask you,
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what do you think the push back is with alternative medicines.
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Is the pharmaceutical industry so deep in that they just
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don't see that there's room for both.
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I think that, yes, I was going to say pharmaceuticals. Unfortunately,
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you know, pharmaceuticals incredibly large industry. And when you start
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to bring you know, cannabis into your life, then you
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have you know, for example, with cancer, you have an appetite,
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right Psilocybin is a wonderful medicine that helps, as you mentioned,
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with anxiety or you know, depression, CBD creams natural way
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to help with you know, muscle pain, et cetera. SoSE
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there's so many beautiful ways that these plant missines help.
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But if you use the plant medicines, it means you're
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using less of the pharmaceuticals. I think there is a
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correlation there, quite a big one, and so that's where
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the struggle comes in. I was just working with a
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licensed psilocybin treatment center in Oregon. They have a license
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from the state, but they cannot open their business because
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they cannot find a bank account to support the sale
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of the psilocybin, which is the medicine. So it's it's
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a one of those situations that I want to find
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the solution for and we always are helping and looking,
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but it just it's really backwards. There's a medical center
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that's helping people with anxiety and depression, yet they can't
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find a bank account. So I'm just you know, what
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we do every day is pushing that part of the world,
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that part of those medicines forward, and it's it is
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one baby step at a time, but we are moving forward,
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which is great.
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That is so crazy to me that they cannot find