You know, I think that mentally, and I think that people would agree with thi...
mentally and spiritually that it is not like there is a right path to go down. We're all one,
you know, we're all connected in some way. There's someone that you see is going through something that you don't understand.
“I think that at the end of the day you just have to buckle down and think to yourself that,”
yeah, this happened, let's get over it, and let's move on and find some happy places. Galen Bargerstock and Clinton Smith are strategic, service driven, and client-focused financial executives, and the president and CEO of GCES. Combining a deep commitment to service with comprehensive wealth management expertise, they help individuals, families, and public employees
seamlessly navigate their benefits and retirement goals, empowering them to build a foundation
of long-term economic stability, informed decision-making, and enduring peace of mind. You know, there's a lot of things that happened to us growing up Galen and I both that we didn't know how to deal with back then, so we just did the best that we could, and as adults together, we've grown and changed together through doing these things, and like, you know, a couple
“out there, and I think that you would agree with this. If you're a couple when you have a partner,”
that's the goal, like a super high school, Internet Elvis, and today Apple is going to re-invent the world. Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I am your host for today, Jason Tyler, and I am joined by Clinton Smith and Galen Bargerstock. Welcome guys to the show, How are we feeling? Feeling great? Feeling good? Yeah. Now, you guys are a unique case in our clients here at Inside Success, and that you're not just doing one episode of
Operation CEO, but you're doing two, and we're covering not only Clinton, your story, but we're Galen, we're also covering your story as well. Clinton, we just finished filming your episode. What would you say, or what is the audience going to learn about you in your episode? I think the audience will be surprised to understand that I'm going to share a lot of my childhood trauma and talk about the things that happened to me growing up that shaped me into the person
that I am today. It was a glorified therapy session in there, guys. I will let you know tears were shed, but we don't even talk about all that. And Galen, as you write when we just finished filming, you sort of added in your piece to Clinton's story, talking to me a little bit about, you know, just how you two guys met, and how GCES came to be formed. Yeah, so I mean, Clinton and I met on the internet, you know, back when before all the apps, it was dial-up almost. It was dial-up at
my dad's house actually. So we met on gait.com, and we had a couple of conversations, and I'm sure it's held. We are. Yeah. I was about to say, I was like, it was almost the times of like AOL Instant Messenger. It wasn't before that. No, we we met on gait.com, and then our relationship, and it's early early days progressed to AOL Instant Messenger. That for me, AOL Instant Messenger, I don't feel like as a society, we don't talk about that as much as we should. We were doing
outlandish shit on AOL Instant Messenger back in the day. But I want to take a second here to just
kind of highlight. GCES, what is it as a company, and who is, who are you guys helping? So GCES is, you know, we're a financial advisory firm. We're independent. So we aren't tied to a large box company that you would get most other places. We started our company working primarily with federal employees. So VA and Postal employees. So our company originally was government and civil employee
“services. That's what GCES stands for. But we're now working with anyone. Anyone that is”
interested in having a better retirement, bettering their finances, or investing in their future. And not now I want to take a step back. Let's talk about, I mean, both of you guys were you grew up in Pennsylvania. You both went into the military. There's so many, you know, narrative through lines between Galen, your story, and Clinton, your story as well. How did those narrative
Through lines come together in the form of your relationship?
boots and our episodes are going to be like that. But a little bit, a little bit more exciting,
“I will say. So you know, the cool thing is that Galen and I, you know, we built this company together”
and we have a lot of the same, you're going to see a lot of the same stuff in my episode. You're going to see a lot of the same things in his episode. But it's all trauma based off of us being gay and growing up gay and Western Pennsylvania that really has shaped us both, even through different experiences, even though we live 15 minutes away from each other or halives or have our way from each other. It was a lot of different experiences, but all because we were gay and Western
Pennsylvania. So that's a lot of our trauma that matches up the same. Interesting how that works. I was being like 30 minutes away from each other your whole lives, but not meeting until, you know, whenever, whenever the universe deems at time, you know what I mean? I find that so interesting how like the universe will kind of just time things on its own and you just get, you just get to
“deal with it as you deal with it. I think one of the, one of the really interesting parts about”
listening to your guy's story and, you know, hearing about how not only did, you went through trauma, right? And I feel like that's something that the audience out there, they're going to be
able to relate to. But it's how you guys turn that around, right? And I want to take a second here to
just kind of talk about the work that you've done to not only address that trauma, but to be able to come out better on the other side of it. So, you know, the manifestation, the meditation, doing the Iowa Oscar trips, talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah, so, I mean, meditation for me is the easiest way for me to relieve stress, you know, with working in finance, I do get hit hard with a lot of heavy-hitting questions about helping people solve their lives and they're very
hard to deal with sometimes. So, the meditation actually brings me down to where I don't have to bring that home with me. You know, even though sometimes I'm at home working from home, but I
don't want that to mix into my daily life. And, you know, the meditation definitely helps bring
me to a place where I can separate work and business and appreciate both for what they are. I dated a therapist one time and she did not have that ability to separate. So, Kudos to you guys, if you're out here, if you're out there watching, I hope that we've moved past that point. There's another part to this, though, that I want to talk about, which is, being able to go through Clinton specifically since we just finished filming your episode, being able to go through
your experience coming out of the military, which was a traumatic experience in and of itself, like battling through addiction and getting to meet Galen and having him kind of nudge you in the right direction. What does that sort of trajectory mean for where you are now? Like looking back on that, what does that trajectory mean for you now? You know, I think it's cool. We've talked about a lot of things in our episode today. You know, we started out watching the secret and that
let us into meditation and that let us into working out and that let us into going to Costa Rica and doing Ayahuasca. So, you know, I think that mentally, and I think that people would agree with this that have gone down that route of growing mentally and spiritually that it is not like there is a right path to go down. It everyone has their own path, do you know what I mean? My path has been progressing a lot over the last couple years where, you know, I turned 40, I went and did Ayahuasca
in Costa Rica. I haven't drank since then that is 355 days ago. You know, so that is, it's really
“cool to see it grow. But that's the same thing that that's why I wanted to do this episode is because”
I'm hoping that this reaches someone that is struggling because they're gay and they think that there's something wrong with them that, you know, I have a lot of tools in my tool belt now that I didn't have when I was 19 or 20 and I did a lot of things because I didn't know how to cope. Do you know what I mean? I didn't know how to deal with all of that trauma. Now is of 41 year old, I think I turned 42 soon. I turned 42 in a couple days, all right.
It was the quick point out. I just turned 33 like three weeks ago and I refused to tell anyone, I'm going to edit or strike that from the episode. But to your point though, you know, you go back
You look at it and you did not have those tools when you're growing up.
couple of times in the episode, but before kind of going and doing the work, you didn't even realize it was trauma or what to call it, right? We didn't realize it was all of these things. Like the
“secret is all about manifesting and transcendental meditation is a lot about like relieving of”
stress and getting rid of stress in your life. The Iowa Skatrip that we went on, we went to this place called Rhythmian Costa Rica. You can look them up. There's a ton of stuff online about this place.
I mean, they're doing some amazing things there where, you know, you go and do the Iowa Skat.
It's not just doing Iowa Skat and having a great time. You're going there to really the first step is show me who I've become. And that is a way to look at what you do as an adult because of your childhood trauma. And to in the Iowa Skat ceremony to relive that trauma and experience it all again so that now as an adult, you can deal with the things that happened to you with those tools that you now have in your tool belt. You know, there's a lot of things that happened to us growing
up Galen and I both that we didn't know how to deal with back then. So we just did the best that we could and as adults together, we've grown and changed together through doing these things and like,
“you know, a couple out there and I think that you would agree with this. If you're a couple when you have”
a partner and one of you's like, hey, I'm going to start going to the gym and the other ones like,
okay, high five, see you later. That would be a really hard relationship for me to be in and he's my best friend. He's my battle buddy. We do everything together. So like, when he said I want to watch the secret, I was like, fuck yeah, I want to watch the secret too. You know, and he's like, okay, let's meditate. I'm like, I don't want to, but I will, you know, that I think it's that willingness. Right. I think a testament to a lot of great relationships out there is willingness to do the
things that you're uncomfortable with. Um, uh, bringing up. Now we're bringing you a trauma in my own relationship. Yeah. Let's talk about it. No, I feel. No, we're not going to talk about that. Um,
but it, it does stand as a testament to like how strong the relationship that the two of you
have built is, right? That willingness, it's, it's, it's no small thing. It's the willingness to say, hey, you're my partner and you want to go do this thing and I might not share that same desire, but I'm going to do it with you so you don't have to be alone in this. At no point in, in my, in your relationship, should you feel alone in something? Yeah. It's the whole point. I can't really get him into yoga. I've tried. He doesn't really like it or breath work. I am not a very stretchable
person. I'm okay. And you know what? That's fine, too. Yeah. Um, you know, we talked a little bit about having your episode be a message out there or just a testimony to someone who might be struggling with the same things. If you could give a message to somebody right now who might be watching this podcast and thinking, wow, like I resonate with Clinton and Galen's story, what would, what message would you give to that person? I would say that you just have to really be yourself. I mean, at the
end of the day, it doesn't matter what anybody thinks about you, but how you view yourself in the reality that you live in. And it's very, very important to love yourself because it doesn't really matter if anybody else loves you because they're not getting that experience and they're not paying your bills or helping you, you know, with that car that might not be good enough for that house that you live on and that might not be good enough to you. They're not helping with that that's you. So
“I think that at the end of the day, you just have to buckle down and think to yourself that, you know,”
yeah, this happened. Let's get over it and let's move on and find some happy places to be. And what does the practice of that self-love look like? Because I feel like I hear, I'm sure plenty of people hear this in social media and online all the time. Like, oh, you got to love yourself, but there's just that one missing piece in between of like, okay, how? Yeah. I think that the biggest thing is listening to yourself in your head. Do you know what I mean? With meditation,
you learn a lot about having a conversation with yourself inside of your own head. Do you know what I mean? I'd be arguing with that motherfucker. Yeah, and that's fine. Me and him inside my own head be button heads. It doesn't make sense to me, but I've also understood that like having that conversation is the point, right, of the meditation, of understanding like who that voice is. Because once I understand that voice, now I understand deeper myself. Well, I think it's more so
To the of what you're talking to yourself about.
have self-doubt. You know, a lot of gay people out there have grown up and been conditioned
to think bad about themselves, to think that something's wrong with themselves. So, you know, for me, I have this like every once in a while, I will just be like this debilitating like thing in my head where I'm thinking to myself, I'm stupid. No one likes me. I'm not worthy of not a good person. You know, and I have to remind myself and bring myself back. And it's those little thoughts that happen inside of your head that you're planting seeds of self-doubt and your
reiterating those things by thinking that in your head. For me, my biggest thing is making that switch where, you know, I don't give a shit with anybody thinks. Like, I don't care. I know the deep down,
I'm a good person, and that I would help anyone that I possibly can and give them the shirt off
my back if I could. Do you know what it means? So, give yourself some grace and some kindness.
“I think that people are too hard on themselves. And I think that you have to have a positive”
mindset and you have to think about yourself positively in your head. That is my biggest thing to impress upon people. And you have the same thing that you're saying. It's just give yourself some credit and love yourself. Yeah, give yourself some grace. Yeah. You know, I mean, I, this might be a smaller scale version of the I/O Oscar experience, but I had a mushroom trip recently. And like, in that I was going back and forth with my inner voice and my inner voice was saying some stuff
that was like, oh, it's, you know, the typical brain response of you're not good enough,
you're not worthy, you're not this, you're not that, just kind of having an identity crisis. And I literally, my, my response back balls on this mushroom trip was, who gives a shit? Yeah, who cares? Who cares about any of that? Who cares what car I drive? Who cares what house I live in? Who cares what status I've achieved or what accomplishments I've made? I'm the only one that really cares about that stuff. And if it's on me, how I feel about it,
then I choose to feel great about it. Cool. Yeah. And then like, I just came to that resolution and then I went to sleep. Yeah. And that was pretty much the whole trip. I will say, if you're a bad person,
“though, you should think negatively. So like bad people like if you, there are people that are”
apparently bad. Do you know to me, if you're a bad person, I don't want you to get that inner peace. Do you know to me, you can sit there and someone who you don't deserve the inner peace. Yeah, bad people. No, they still need love. But I think that for those people, they need to really embrace their bad, you know, and realize the bad things that they do and what it does to other people, you know, everybody deserves the life. So I can't agree with that.
There's a, I think we're all one, honestly. Like that, we talked about this too. This all goes into the whole ayahuasca journey thing that we went on. You know, we're all one, you know, we're all connected in some way. There's someone that you see is going through something that you don't understand. A lot of times. You know, it's funny. It brings up, there's a school of thought that I somewhat
“subscribe to that you mentioned we're all one. Right. Have you guys ever heard of Cosmic Egg Theory?”
So Cosmic Egg Theory posits that there is only one soul in the universe and that that soul is going to be in it's going to inhabit everybody across all time. Yes, I have heard. And then the theory is that the universe is an egg and when that soul has gone through every variable of experience possible, the egg will hatch and that soul will become what we know as a quote unquote god and that the god that created this egg created it because they were lonely and they wanted another to experience
and be next to them. That's kind of the whole thing. But I kind of live my life under the assumption that like I'm speaking to a version of myself that I will one day later be inhabiting. So like if I'm talking to you eventually one of these days I'm going to come back and I'm going to be sitting in your seat talking to me. Yeah. And so how would I want for me to be talking to me? Yeah. So and every conversation that I have, I try to approach it from that vantage point if that
makes sense. Yeah. We all come from the same source, no matter how anybody wants to think about it, you know us being gay, people being straight, you know child trauma, things like that, we're all from the same place. And with that ladies and gentlemen, if you guys are still tuned in at this point in the episode, I want to make sure that you guys keep a lookout for Clinton and Galen's episodes of Operation CEO which will be coming out shortly after this podcast episode
drops. Make sure you guys stay tuned for that to get a more in-depth version of their story so you
Can know the ins and outs of how GCES was created, how they've achieved the l...
they've been able to achieve. Fellas has been an immense pleasure having you guys on the show.
“Any final messages for the viewers out there? Don't forget to tune in. You're going to laugh.”
You're going to cry. You're going to laugh again. And then you might cry again. We were, we were
having a ball in studio. We were cracking up. Yeah. All right, guys. Thank you so much, ma'am. Of course.
“Thank you. Thanks, ma'am. It has been a pleasure. Thank you. Well, well, you guys will be right back”
with me here tomorrow. It's a film game. It's episode. It's not like we're going anywhere. But for you
guys out there, thank you for tuning in. Where can people find you on social media? Where can they find
“your business on the World Wide Web? So our website is GCES.us. You can find me on Instagram,”
Claytonk.smith. I'm just on Facebook. I don't work in Instagram. And you know what? You are justified in that. All right, guys. This has been another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. Again, I've been your host, Jason Tyler. I will catch you guys in the next one.
