THE SMOKE TRAIL | SEASON 2 | EPISODE 52 Build Castles Ibogaine, the Mirror, and the Sum of All the Love with Ron Perry Episode Hook At seven years old, Ron Perry decided to join the military so his own kids could brag about their dad the way he bragged about his father’s Vietnam medals. He measured West Point on a paper atlas, 986 road miles from southern Illinois, and applied without knowing what the place was. What it was nearly broke him. A ten minute phone call, a father’s hard sentence, and an empath’s vow to stop feeling set the course for the next thirty years: combat, a marriage lost mid-deployment, twins he saw four days a month, a 2009 that took his eye, his home, and his will, and then a company on the Inc. 5000 five years running while the man inside wanted only sleep. This is the conversation Smoke and Ron meant to record a month ago. Recorded on a Scottsdale rooftop, it follows Ron from that vow to Easter weekend of 2023, when a friend’s suicide sent him to Mexico for ibogaine and a ten hour waking dream unpacked his life case by case. He watched alcohol drain the color from his memories, forgave the man who first picked up the bottle, heard a voice name his purpose, and met his own reflection twice. The second time, it smiled. They close on the question at the center of his work now, the daily hygiene that keeps the walls down, and the castle each man can see in the other. In This Episode • A childhood plan hatched on a playground: medals, an atlas, and an application to a school he had never seen • The Private Pyle moment: tough love on a basic training phone call and the shell that formed around an empath • Success as byproduct: “I failed a lot” and the love deficit behind five straight Inc. 5000 years • A cannabis gummy in St. Augustine, two homeless strangers, and the first flicker of empathy in decades • Why a West Point classmate’s death in November 2022 turned skepticism into a one way ticket • Eight intentions, twenty-seven questions, and twenty-six answers: inside the ten hour waking dream • The black tar vision: what nightly bourbon was doing to his memories, and the forgiveness that ended it • Build castles: a neon sign, a beach full of family not yet born, and walls made of individual acts of love • The mirror, twice: a leper the first time, God’s creation the second, and the figure who shrugged • The Johari Window live on air: locked doors, the bottom right quadrant, and grief that waited its turn • Energetic hygiene, the 36 foot bus, the birth of Mr. Vulnerable, and a book Ron is still negotiating with Key Moments 01:32 Nine Hundred Eighty-Six Miles Southern Illinois, garden hoses, and no money. The one thing Ron could trade on at school was his father’s four and a half years in Vietnam, so at seven he resolved to give his future kids the same currency. His dad never told the stories, but he set the bar: keep your grades up and you could reach West Point. Ron found it on an atlas, liked the distance, and applied sight unseen. “this burning desire to just please my father, to have my dad be proud of me” Ron 03:20 The Private Pyle Moment An empath lands in a world built on yelling and absorbs everyone’s pain along with his own. One ten minute call home a week brought no refill, only news of a family coming apart. When Ron told his father he was done, the reply gutted him, then hardened him. He walked out of the phone room angry, sealed himself off, and carried the shell through West Point, the Army, and twenty years of business. “What are you gonna quit crying and grow up and be a man?” Ron’s father, as recalled by Ron 07:38 Everything Together on the Outside A wife gone mid-deployment, twins on the way, and a fifteen month tour in Baghdad. Then St. Louis, four days a month with his kids, and 2009: stress that took the vision in his right eye, a layoff, a default, a lost home. A headhunter put him on the road 300 days a year, a client talked him into founding his own firm, and the firm earned five consecutive Inc. 5000 appearances. Inside, Ron no longer wanted to be alive. He is plain about it, and plain that the polish hid it from everyone. “I’m running in this love deficit this whole time and not seeing it” Ron 15:37 The Road to Easter Weekend Two doors opened. First, a cannabis edible in St. Augustine dissolved the wall for an evening, and Ron talked with two homeless strangers and felt human connection for the first time in years. Second, his CEO coach described veterans coming back changed from ibogaine treatment in Mexico. Ron passed. Then a West Point friend who seemed to have it all took his own life in November 2022, and Ron booked the trip. “I’m gonna take one for the team here” Ron 18:50 Eight Intentions, Twenty-Seven Questions A month of preparation, then a mansion somewhere in Mexico: five mattresses, blindfolds, and Bwiti tribal music from Gabon. Ron wrote eight intentions and twenty-seven questions. All eight intentions were met, and twenty-six questions have now been answered, twenty-four of them that night. The medicine put him inside his own memories, starting with a couch from his childhood family room and the look on his father’s face as he watched his two year old son. “there was my life before the medicine and there was my life after the medicine.” Ron 24:55 The Black Tar on the Memory One childhood memory would not come into focus. When Ron asked why, the screen turned sideways and showed a black, oily substance pulling the color out frame by frame. The answer landed all at once: alcohol, half a bottle of bourbon or more every night for as long as he could remember. Grief became anger, and anger summoned the memory of the first drink, replayed with the original pain restored. Ron spoke to that younger man, forgave him, and chose. He has not drunk to numb since. “I love you. I forgive you.” Ron, to his past self 31:53 Build Castles When Ron asked the medicine for his purpose, a voice answered: to build castles. He did not get it, twice, so the vision escalated, first a stone wall with a neon sign, then a beach where he stood with his wife, his grown twins, their spouses, and grandchildren not yet born. A castle crowned the dune, and inside, every stone and every stick of furniture was a single act of love he had put into the world. “I saw the sum of all the love I’d ever put into the world all at once.” Ron 36:20 Recklessly Kind Ron works the chain backward: everyone wants to die fulfilled, fulfillment comes from immense joy, and the joy comes from sacrifice freely given. Money, accomplishment, and likes do not appear anywhere in the sequence. His core value now is kindness without calculating the outcom...
