After watching the movie Rocky, a 10-year-old Khalil Rafati made his first smoothie, based on Rocky’s breakfast in the movie. He blended up a raw egg, protein powder and milk. He had no idea that this concoction was foreshadowing a life of abundance he would experience further down the road—a life of dedication to wellness that would eventually grow into SunLife Organics.
A day after the Austin Lifestyle team joined Khalil for a cover shoot at his new home majestically set on Lake Austin, I sat down with Khalil in front of his Austin location of SunLife Organics. Khalil greeted me with a bright smile on his face and a citrine crystal around his neck. He is known today as an author, philanthropist, wellness entrepreneur, self-made millionaire and a success story of a man who transformed his life, in spite of a deeply traumatic beginning.
THE DARK BEGINNING
Khalil’s childhood was blurred by an inescapable narrative that he was not good enough. The messaging he was getting at home was being reinforced by the messaging he was getting from school and from his peers. When he doodled or wrote poetry in class, Khalil said his teachers would shame him, making him write, “I will not talk in class” on the chalkboard 100 times. His peers made him feel shamed and excluded, too.
“As a kid, I felt worthless because I was told that I was worthless,” he says. “There was a lot of neglect and a lot of abuse, and a lot of bad [things] happened to me that shouldn't have happened to me. The trauma was dark and deep and overwhelming. The trauma was blunt and gross. And seemed to stay with me for many, many years.”
To cope with the pain as a young adult, Khalil self-medicated, building a reality of his own-a reality of addiction, junk food, shoplifting and codependent habits.
"Those were my coping skills as a child because I didn't know any better," he says. "As a young adult, substances and seeking validation from others in a very unhealthy manner. The foundation of my ridding myself, exorcising myself, of all of that darkness had to begin with the foundation of abstinence."
OUT OF THE DARKNESS, THE LIGHT SHINES IN
He spent 17 years abstinent from any drugs and alcohol before he started to really dive into other modalities of healing—including plant medicine ceremonies, Byron Katie’s “Loving What Is,” and the exploration of different forms of God and various philosophies on life.
“I began chipping away and excavating that trauma,” he says. “And then yes, ultimately, much later, I began to transmute that darkness, that lead into gold. I began to transmute my lead into gold as an alchemist and ultimately found what you can only find if you go through the entire process. The treasure I was always seeking is within me.”
Khalil said that going to a 12-step program was the foundation of his healing, and that for many people, that would be a sufficient end to the healing journey.
“That wasn't good enough for me,” he says. “I needed to go further. I needed to dive deeper. Once I stopped all of that nonsense, and began the arduous journey towards recovery, I reached out to an old friend that was one of those hippie types that drove a Volkswagen bus—you know, vegan, yoga teacher, masseuse. His name's Sean.”
THE START OF SUNLIFE IN AUSTIN
Like a walking cornucopia possessing bountiful nutrients in every hue, Sean brought Khalil mason jars of carrot juice, celery juice, burdock juice and ginger juice. He brought him Pure Synergy greens powder and goji berries, macadamia nuts and avocados.
Khalil put in his time working various minimum wage jobs and then finally opened the first location of SunLife Organics in 2011 in Malibu. The story of how he ended up opening the location in Austin is so reminiscent of a movie plot, he said he still can't wrap his head around it.
While having brunch at Soho House in Malibu, John Paul DeJoria walked up to Khalil with a special request.
“And he said, ‘I want to get that one shake that my wife gets, and when I go in to SunLife Organics, they won't make it for me,’” Khalil recalled John Paul’s ask. “And I said, ‘oh, yes, yes, Mr. DeJoria.’ He said, ‘JP.’ I said, ‘yes, JP, they won't make it for you. It's not on the menu.’”
“And he said, ‘But my wife goes in and they make it for her.’ And I said, ‘yeah, well, look at her.’ And he started cracking up laughing. He thought it was so funny. I said, ‘Yeah, she's special. She gets preferential treatment based on just looks alone.’ He goes, ‘Oh my God, you're a crack-up! That's amazing!’ And I said, ‘I'm not joking,’ and he laughed even harder, and then he walked away.”
When John Paul returned to the table a few minutes later, he told Khalil he wanted a SunLife in Austin. Khalil told John Paul there was no way he was going to do that as a self-funded business owner.
“Well, what about if I give you $1 million?” John Paul asked Khalil.
At this point, John Paul also suggested he donate his own portion of the profits to charity. The two agreed to be partners, and upon walking away and returning again, John Paul brought Khalil a piece of paper and said “This is good, this is our contract. This is legally binding.” John Paul signed the paper and has proceeded to donate his percentage of the profits to services for the homeless.
“I stood up, and I hugged him, and I felt like I was in a movie or something,” Khalil says. “I'm like, ‘yeah, I guess I'm opening SunLife Organics in Austin, Texas.’”
Every six months Khalil hand-delivers a check to John Paul—usually around $80,000, he says. The entirety of the check goes to feeding, housing and drug testing the homeless, and sending them to vocational training. Khalil says he loves delivering the checks because it usually includes dinner with John Paul, his wife Eloise DeJoria and Khalil’s girlfriend, Taylor.
“I met Taylor in a yoga class 12 years ago,” he says. “We became friends, and about six months into our friendship, we felt like there was an attraction there. After about a year, I said, ‘You know what, I'm in love with you. Will you please move in with me?’ And she said sure.”
THE DREAM HOME
With the help of his realtor, Jenn Salladay, and then with help from a man named Greg Turner, Khalil just built his dream home on Lake Austin, centered around what his girlfriend, Taylor, would want, he says.
“It's right on the water, and she loves outdoor showers, so there's a huge outdoor shower,” he says. “And we're redoing the boat dock now with electric surfboards, because she loves riding electric surfboards. And I built her her own giant bathroom made all out of Taj Mahal stone, which is this beautiful stone. I built the whole thing in honor of her.”
In true Khalil fashion, the story of his home also felt like a plot from a movie. Khalil’s dream was to live on the water, and after reaching out to his realtor twice a week for two years, one day she found him what would become his dream home. With the landscaping not having been done in 20 years and several other major issues, but a prime location and good bones, the deal was made. Khalil just needed to find one more piece of the puzzle to achieve his dream home.
He ended up asking Greg Turner, who made a different house in Westlake that he liked, if he would share the name of his cabinet maker.
“In LA, people gatekeep,” Khalil says, “They don't want to share their resources. But, Greg said, 'Of course, I'll share my subcontractors, I'll share everything with you why not?’ Then he said he'd build the whole thing."
(Not so) Rapid Fire Q&A:
If you were to personify Austin, what is Austin to you?
Austin feels like a hug. I've never felt more embraced. I've never been in a place where nobody cares who you vote for or what your sexual orientation is or what you think about whatever. People just care if you're a good person or not, and then they want to be friends. I've never felt more safe, more seen, more accepted than I have in Austin.
What do SunLife and Austin have in common?
SunLife and Austin have all of that in common. We don't care who you vote for. We don't care what your sexual orientation is. We don't care what your beliefs are or your lack of beliefs. We just want to feed you. We just want to nourish you. We just want to give you the energy to face your challenges, and we want you to come here and feel welcome and be a part of our amazing community that we are blessed to serve.
What is your go-to order at SunLife Organics right now?
My go-to order currently is the mint chocolate chip. I substitute Noble Protein for the plant protein, and I add colostrum and creatine, and then I substitute whole milk for the almond milk.
Can you walk us through your wellness routine?
It has a lot to do with what I don't put in my body. Obviously getting rid of drugs and alcohol, quitting smoking. I smoked for 20 years. I was a horrible drug addict for many, many years, but eliminating putting poison into my body was step one. Step two is going to be eliminating any wheat products, anything with gluten in it because of the way that we process our wheat and we spray it with glyphosate, which destroys our microbiome. Then we can't absorb our food. So eliminating all wheat products was paramount to my wellness routine. After that, eliminating any processed sugar, anything.
I was a five-Coca-Colas-a-day guy. I was a Häagen-Dazs ice cream guy at night. I was a Jolly Rancher, Sour Patch Kid, gummy bear guy. Getting rid of all of that stuff fundamentally changed how I looked and how I functioned and how I feel.
Getting rid of things that were fried in oil or cooked in oil—which, once you heat up oils, especially the industrial oils like rapeseed oil, or as we call it, canola oil, that [stuff] is poison. It was wreaking havoc on my system. And I didn't even know that.
What are some overrated wellness trends?
It's all overrated. Everybody's looking for a pill. Everybody's looking for a shot. Everybody's looking for a supplement, a powder that's going to make them look and feel at their highest potential and make them glow and shine and be strong and have amazing cognitive abilities and all that. There are things that you can take, that you can add into your system if you're fueling it with high-octane fuel, meaning vegetables, animals, fruits but nothing processed. Nothing processed should ever go into somebody's body.
To keep up with Khalil, you can check out his two books, for purchase in his South Congress location of SunLife Organics or online: “I Forgot to Die” and “Remembering to Live.”
"I began to transmute my lead into gold as an alchemist. The treasure I was always seeking is within me.”