Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #235 James Schmachtenberger

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome back. Welcome back, everybody. I just got off a Zencaster interview with somebody I've been tracking for quite a while now, James Schmachtenberger. I've been following him from the Neurohacker Collective, as well as Daniel Schmachtenberger, and really their whole crew. Jamie wheel is a part of that. He's been on the podcast, Dr. Dan Stickler, who has become just an amazing friend, him and his wife, Micah Hamilton are in Dr. Micah, I should say, to just fucking incredible people. So their whole crew, I mean, it just blew my mind. You know, getting to hang and know Dr. Dan Stickler and Dr. Micra seeing what they were a part of and I was like, oh shit, y'all are part of the NeuroHacker Collective and I remember when I was first speaking at PaleoFX year after year, even though I was working

Starting point is 00:00:55 on it and obviously on its flagship was AlphaBrain the main talk of the town was around a product called Qualia from NeuroHacker and I was like what is this? And I neurohacker. And I was like, Oh, what is this? And I remember reading the ingredients and I was like, this, this is the kitchen sink. Like this isn't just nootropics, it's nutrition. It's a, the micronutrients necessary. And it's a whole host of other things,

Starting point is 00:01:16 but, um, supplements aside, which we'll dive into on the podcast, um, to say James and Daniel see the world differently and are able to articulate the world differently than most people is a complete understatement. They are truly, it's very few times that I'll say on the podcast that people have genius about them. Everyone has genius according to Einstein. It's just a matter of that being explored. But I can see very clearly between James and Daniel that they have genius. And James, like his brother, you know, they had homeschooling.

Starting point is 00:01:55 They had a lot of things. I think their parents did a fucking phenomenal job. There's so much of this, you know, his life that I could see, hopefully, as light at the end of the tunnel for my kids, where we are doing things differently from an education standpoint. And just seeing how it's panned out for James and Daniel is a really, it's an awesome thing. It's an awesome thing. You always question the experiment you're running, or at least I do. Anywho, we dive into his education growing up.

Starting point is 00:02:23 How many, the fact that he dropped out of damn near every school, I think actually not damn near, he did drop out of every school he ever went to, including three different colleges. He took over a college, you know, we dive into that, we dive into his stint with cannabis, which is remarkable. He really is somebody who helped move the needle for that entire field, medical industry, as well as just use in general. And really, really cool. And then, you know, what was the impetus for starting Neurohacker? And the fact that these guys have really formed a squad akin to Voltron. And if you're not young enough for Voltron, Mighty Morphing Power Rangers or Captain Planet. Something akin to that where, you know, the sum is greater than any of the parts added up together. And it's really cool to finally get James on the podcast. Yeah, they're doing really amazing work.

Starting point is 00:03:22 We dive into his life growing up and beyond and much more. I know you guys are going to dig this podcast. It was truly one of my favorites of the year, even though we've, uh, we're still in January here. It's one of my favorites in the last two years. I'll say that, um, James is somebody that if you're not familiar with a neurohacker collective as well, they have, I think, um, they, I know they have more than one podcast. Jamie heads up one. Um, I just did a podcast with Dr. Dan Stickler. I am going to have him on. The question is, do I have Dr. Dan Stickler on by himself and then Dr. Micah Hamilton on by herself or do I have them both on at the same time? I think I'll leave that to say, they have a wealth of resources from their podcast. They have a wealth of knowledge from the science they back, not only with the ingredients that they put into their products, but just in general for optimizing life and getting the most out of it and really coming to a place

Starting point is 00:04:16 of personal empowerment, which is so freaking huge in today's world. I was just thrilled to get to know James and I know you guys are going to absolutely love it too. This podcast is really supported through its sponsors. So when you purchase a product from one of our sponsors, you are supporting me directly. You are supporting this podcast staying alive. And, you know, I handpick every single one of the sponsors that comes onto their, that comes onto the show show. And I do it because it matters. I was talking with Paul Cech and he said, if you can't stand behind the companies you're supporting, then what are you doing? You're a used car salesman. And that's really stuck with me.

Starting point is 00:04:55 Not that I ever used to be, but that has been a continuing guiding force in my selection process in how I screen for different sponsors. So just trust that if they have made it their way onto an ad read, I absolutely love their product and absolutely love the products that I'm about to read to you today about. This show in particular is brought to you by InsideTracker.com. InsideTracker is a website and it's also an app that is about to change the game. They do a whole host of things that are phenomenal, but two of the majors are they take your genetics from a swab that you get a home kit. You do a little swab in your mouth, you send it back in,

Starting point is 00:05:35 and they do a blood draw, which also came to my house. I think that's available for everyone. I don't think it's just because I'm Mr. Special Kyle Kingsbury. I think they do do a home visit for your blood draw, which makes it incredibly convenient. They combine that then with your goals. So you get the overarching picture of your genetics and you get the snapshot of what's going on right now

Starting point is 00:05:54 with your blood report. And then they look at, with machine learning and different algorithms, what your goals are. And then from there, you get guidance via the app or the website on how it is that you're actually going to accomplish your goals. This is phenomenal. There's very few people in the game that I don't think there's anyone else in the game. There might be.

Starting point is 00:06:12 If there is, there's only a few. Their app is extremely usable. It's extremely easy to use. You can continue to go in and change things. If you're like, you know what? Fuck it. I don't care about getting in better shape or I don't care about X, Y, and Z. And you could focus on the things and they usually give you a number of different ways to go about it. So for instance, if you are trying to lower LDL,

Starting point is 00:06:34 which some would argue, like Paul Celedino, I would argue that that's a misnomer. You could increase cardio. You could increase certain types of fat, like omega-3 fatty acids. You could change some things around dietary style, lifestyle-wise that would help you achieve that. That's just one of a thousand examples of how you can actually take your own personal data and understand it better and then get real-world advice on what's going to move the needle the fastest and then track that. InsideTracker.com slash KKP is going to give you a fat discount. InsideTracker is going to give you 25% off everything in the store. So check it out. InsideTracker.com backslash KKP. Use code KKP at checkout and you're going to get 25% off everything

Starting point is 00:07:17 in the store. I think it's a phenomenal way to actually get to the nitty gritty because there is no one size fits all approach to anything, whether it's how you work out, how you eat, how you do any of that. And you're going to find out so much about yourself and working with them. We're also brought to you by Organifi.com. Organifi is phenomenal. I had Drew Canole on the podcast. I recently was on his podcast and I'm not sure if it was the content of what we were talking about, but perhaps the deep state shut it down. I don't know, man. We had technical issues that I've never had in my life before occur during that podcast. And we had to cut it short at 45 minutes.

Starting point is 00:07:56 And every time we went to rerun the podcast to finish it off, the exact same thing happened. No issues now, though. No issues recording with James or anyone else. But in going on Drew Canole's podcast, that was the case. Thankfully, when I had him on my podcast, no issues there. These guys started out really, you know, in their giving of information of what it actually means to be healthy,

Starting point is 00:08:18 how to empower people through food choices and cleanses and doing things that actually mattered in, you know, healing and living through a sick world. And really what they put together was a giant community based on high quality nutrition and education. And I think they're a one-of-a-kind superfood company. Really, I've met everyone that I've met from Organifi

Starting point is 00:08:41 and I've met quite a few at Paul Cech's events, his mandala workshop. I think he has another one coming up here. You can probably look it up at the czechinstitute.com. But everyone that I've met from Organifi is phenomenal. And there's not, I can't say that about many companies. Dry Farm Wines, I could say that about. Everyone I've met from there is phenomenal. Organifi has an air about them of quality and they, and that goes to the individual of who they've brought in. They have fucking awesome people working there. And I, and I truly mean that. I had a coaching call with their whole team

Starting point is 00:09:16 not long ago when I was going on Drew's podcast and some of the questions they had were just phenomenal. I mean, these are, these are some of the most innovative and free-thinking, beautiful people that I've ever had the opportunity to meet. And their mission is to unite the world through health and happiness by providing access to high-quality nutrition, education, and community. I stand with that mission. I stand with Organifi.

Starting point is 00:09:38 These guys make it incredibly convenient to get super-dense, nutrient-rich foods into your body, on the go, at home, whenever. It is a daily habit to have Organifi greens for me and pretty much my entire family. Anytime Bear wants a green drink, I throw it in a shaker, whip it up, hand it over to him, and he downs it. Our one-and-a-half-year-old wolf absolutely loves the Organifi greens. And slowly but surely, she's getting addicted to the gold just like we are. As a nightcap, the Organifi gold, I like to call it the Organifi greens. And slowly but surely, she's getting addicted to the gold, just like we are. As a nightcap, the Organifi gold, I like to call it the fatty gold drink,

Starting point is 00:10:10 is something where my wife and I will warm up a can or two of full fat heavy cream from coconut. And from there, we'll mix in the Organifi gold, which is anti-inflammatory. It's got a whole host of adaptogens that help you sleep and relax at night. It's one of the easiest organic ways for me to gently ask my mind to shut the fuck up, relax. It's nighttime and slip into my slumber. And I love it. I mean, I've made it a part of the night routine. I've been really diving into Dune at night. I fucking love the Dune audibles. If you liked the movie, Dune on Audible will blow your mind.

Starting point is 00:10:55 And there are spiritual gems just laid throughout every book. And kind of like psychedelics, I know I'm going off topic here again, but kind of like psychedelics, you know, I follow the same thread as Dennis McKenna. I'll stop doing them when I stop learning something new I'll stop listening to Dune when it stops being interesting but it has me hook line and sinker and so I love it you know I go to bed typically right when Bear goes to bed which is after Tosh and Wolf would say our good nights we have We have our snuggles. And unless I'm having a happy time with Tosh downstairs, or even with that, I'll come back upstairs. I'll throw on my headphones and I'll listen to Dune with a little Organifi Gold in me and maybe a little Kratom as well. And it's just awesome. I'll lay in bed with my eyes closed for two hours,

Starting point is 00:11:41 not stimulating the brain via reading with a light on, even if it's got blue blockers and all that jazz. It's just one of my favorite treats. I mean, I wish I could gift that to the world. And I'm like, oh shit, that's legal. I can gift that to the world. So there you go. There's a hack. Fatty gold drink with Dune on Audible, laying in bed with your eyes closed, just soaking in the gems. It's so good. I'm on book three right now, Children of Dune. And I'm just impressed, just as impressed with Frank Herbert through three books as I was with the first book and with the movie, which they did an incredible job with. Check these guys out. Organifi is,

Starting point is 00:12:16 these guys are about it. They understand the mission at hand. Drew Canole understands the mission at hand, and they are delivering it, absolutely delivering it. And they're bringing in ingredients that you're really not going to find at a supermarket. I'm not cooking with ashwagandha. So if I don't take that as a supplement, you know, then I'm not going to get it in my body. And there's so many of these superfoods that they throw in there to take them all as individual supplements is not only a completely, you know, it's a pain in the ass. it's also not as cost effective. These guys make incredibly high quality organic ingredients and they throw in the kitchen sink into their formulas and they taste great. My kids love it. Organifi.com slash KKP. Use code KKP for 20% off everything in the store. We are also brought to you today by K-Energize. That's K-E-N-E-R-G-I-Z-E dot com forward slash Kingsboo.

Starting point is 00:13:10 K-I-N-G-S-B-U. And that's going to give you 10% off any package of K-Apex with the coupon code Kingsboo10. All one word, Kingsboo10. So K-Energize.com slash Kingsboo. K-Apex. Oh, there we go. They're regarding the pronunciation. I said it wrong. K-Apex. K-Apex. Oh, there we go. They're regarding the pronunciation. I said it wrong. K-pex. K-pex. There we go. That makes more sense. It's a product that I've absolutely loved

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Starting point is 00:17:48 James Schmachtenberger. Am I saying that right? You know, amazingly, you got it right on the first try. That's a rarity. I'm used to hearing from, uh, from your brother, Daniel and, and, uh, his podcast with Aubrey. I don't know, but I didn't know if he was saying it right either. So I wanted to make sure I got it right. Yeah, you did. It was perfect. Very good. You guys are both, you know, two, two of the, the, the most interesting people on the planet, in my opinion. And you've created, you, you've really have created something special with Neurohacker Collective. I remember when I was speaking at Paleo FX years ago, right when Qualia had come out and a lot of these other things,

Starting point is 00:18:28 and I was just like, wow, this is like the kitchen sink. And I want to dive into nootropics with you. But I love your background. I was reading one of your bios and just it blew me away to see, you know, just how many times you had dropped out, you know, and rethinking that. Just talk about, you know, just how many times you had dropped out, you know, and rethinking that. Just talk about, you know, what was life growing up for you when you started making decisions like that? Like, no, this isn't for me. Because I felt a lot of that, but I never had the balls to follow

Starting point is 00:18:57 through with it. I did drop out of college eventually. So we do share that in common. But, you know, even from grade school on and things of that nature, where was your head at when you were really not resonating with what was on the program? Yeah, you know, I think conventional life just never really fit me well. And I had a pretty unique upbringing that gave me the opportunity to actually explore what really was a right fit. You know, my parents, when they first became parents, they, you know, had these like deep philosophical conversations and they said, hey, you know, when we look around, what we see of how people are doing parenting seems very, very broken. And, you know, there's so much resentment between parent and children. There's so much control over children as opposed to really understanding and honoring who they are. Like, you know, we don't know what a good model is, but we know that most of what we see doesn't

Starting point is 00:19:57 seem to work. So we are just going to essentially treat childhood like an experiment and test out a bunch of different things and see what sticks. And so, you know, with any kind of experimentation, there was always some things that went poorly. But the kind of core nature of that approach ended up largely being really beautiful, where, you know, one of the things that I think my parents understood brilliantly was that, you know, children are not necessarily this like creature in which to fill it with information. They're unique, brilliant, and, you know, have so much of their own soul and personality coming in and that the job of

Starting point is 00:20:47 education and the job of parenting is largely to understand and identify what are the unique aspects of a child and to support that as opposed to trying to make them conform into something. And so, you know, like with that, I ended up being homeschooled off and on throughout my childhood. I did do, I think, four or five years of conventional school, but not in a row. And then had other years that were homeschooling. And particularly during the homeschooling period, there wasn't really any kind of set curriculum. There wasn't a, you know, predefined set of things we needed to learn like math and English. And it was sort of like, what is, what is it that lights us up?

Starting point is 00:21:33 And how do we study that? And then how do we learn all the topics that matter to people in light of something that we're interested in? It's like, I remember one time as a kid, I had a really deep love for animals and a particular interest in the sea. And so my parents would take me to the tide pools and I'd start to get all excited about the creatures that I'd see. And then they'd use that as a learning opportunity. only would I start to learn about biology and chemistry as they teach me about the creatures, but I'd start to learn about how ocean tides worked and the gravitational force of the moon and all these different things. And it was like taking something that I was passionate about and fitting the world of education into that. And so what that ended up doing, I think for both my brother and I was, it created a real love of learning as opposed to it being something that we were kind of turned off to or

Starting point is 00:22:33 averse to. But when I then tried to experiment with the conventional world more, I was like, oh no, this, this totally doesn't work for me. Like to sit in you know traditional college and study topics that I genuinely couldn't care less about just because that's what the requirement is like it didn't pan out so I did give it a good college try but inevitably dropped out of college three times before I was like okay that's you's, you know, I think that's sufficient. It's time to do something different in my life. Yeah. We share that in common. Uh, it, it, it really, I mean, I saw, I think, I think many people have a, uh, an issue of this where in a crisis situation, we only see things as black and white. Right. And, you know, my only options were to finish school or to drop out and be some kind of degenerate.

Starting point is 00:23:32 I didn't see, you know, any of the myriad of other options within that. But that became a really depressing point in my life because I hated the coursework that I had my senior year. I couldn't stand it. And every ounce of fire inside me was burning, saying, no, no, no, no, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. And I didn't want to have a desk job. And to the point where I jokingly say I'd rather get punched in the face for a living

Starting point is 00:24:00 than sit in a cubicle. And there's a lot of truth to that. But a lot of what you that, but a lot of what you're speaking to is so resonant now, because as a dad really seeing so much that we don't want to do with our children, you know, and my wife was homeschooled up until high school, just seeing different avenues with that. And then, you know, Steiner's approach to it. And I had Dr. Thomas Cowan on the podcast and he spoke of Ivan Illich's book, Deschooling Society, which was a brilliant reframe on that, you know, and Steiner, what he was great at was really understanding that

Starting point is 00:24:35 it's not our job to stuff kids full of info, just as you mentioned, but it is, they really do and can excel if we allow them to excel in the things that they are really passionate about. So Bear at Six can tell you all about volcanoes and category of hurricanes and F5 tornadoes. You know, he's really big into natural disasters, and we've taken him out to a few tide pools and stuff. It's a little harder in Texas, but anytime we're traveling somewhere fun, like home to the Bay Area or any of the other places, you know, he's been able to explore that. I mean, he loves nature. So I think that's a big tip for any parents out there is, especially now as we see, you know, in some ways things are starting to concretize in the systems that are in play. For some of us, we can see cracks in those systems,

Starting point is 00:25:27 and then the systems themselves recognizing their own death are maybe striving to intensify some of the things they're not as good at. But yeah, the full court press into preparing people to be cogs in the wheel is ever present. So I'm super grateful for people like you and grateful to see, you know, what that actually looks like downstream, you know, to have you and Daniel as examples of that downstream is, it's a shining light for the experiment we're running with our kids. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. It's very sweet. You know, I think so much of the way that our society is structured is designed to make people, like you said, you know, like cogs in the wheel, right? They're supposed to fit into some box and be relatively similar. And there's this idea that there's like a defined version of what success in life looks like. You go to school, you get good grades, you go to a better school, you graduate, you get a solid job, you have a white picket fence. And for some people, that's totally what they want and awesome, right? Pursue that. But the way that we do education, the way that our culture is around children and just life in general, it's like there's so much pressure to

Starting point is 00:26:43 fit into a certain way of being. And it just misses so much of the beauty and the nuance of what I think life is actually intended to be. Like when I look at people, everyone's so profoundly and fundamentally unique. And to me, it's like education, health, personal development, all of it needs to be oriented around helping people actually connect more and more to who they are, what makes them uniquely special and to allow that to shine, as opposed to trying to get them to fit into some societal box. And I just feel lucky that I had more support in that direction than I think a lot of people do. It makes me think, I don't know why I keep getting this image in my head, but it may, who knows if it's true or not. It's kind of like I don't know why I keep getting this image in my head, but it may,

Starting point is 00:27:28 and who knows if it's true or not. It's kind of like how many, how many quotes are attributed to Einstein. Did he ever actually say that? But I keep thinking of the idea of when Michelangelo was interviewed about David and he said, all I needed to do, David was already in there. All I needed to do was, was reveal him. You know, he already existed. I didn't create David. David was already inside of the granite or whatever, the marble, the piece that he used. And it was just his job to simply allow David to be revealed to the world. And I think of that, the brilliance of our kids. A lot of times parents just have an idea

Starting point is 00:28:02 of their own unresolved things that they want to give to their kids. Like, hey, I never had this in life. I want to give that to you. Or I want this for you because I know, you know, this is what I was told is awesome. And this is what I was very fortunate in that way and you know there's still of course been all kinds of things that i've needed to learn and develop and grow as you know i became an adult and you know any number of childhood fuck-ups that i had to heal but kind of at the core there was this teaching and this appreciation that, you know, we were unique. There was ability to lean into that. And I think one of the other core things that I learned as a kid that was really beautiful was that change is possible. And so even the places that I have felt challenged or stuck or had difficult patterns, there's always been this kind of core part inside that said,

Starting point is 00:29:02 if I'm willing to put in the effort, I can actually progress here. And I think that's something that a lot of people don't necessarily learn and don't always get. And the idea of making the necessary changes to step progressively more into the life that you're kind of meant to be in, it feels impossible and feels daunting. And it's not to say that I've never been there because I certainly have, but there's always been this underlying recognition that it takes to move further and further in that direction, I think it just opened up a series of possibilities that I've then spent much of my life excited to pursue. Well, I wanted to talk about your time attended at Body Mind College in San Diego, because I think this is in your bio. It says at the age of 17, you attended body

Starting point is 00:30:05 mind college in San Diego. After two years, you finally learned your lesson. Your calling wasn't to be in found in books or classrooms. It was in solving problems. And, uh, you basically, you told them how they weren't living up to their potential. And instead of graduating, you convinced them to let you become, uh, the management and to run the college. Yeah, that was a pretty crazy and amazing time in my life.

Starting point is 00:30:34 So I started traditional college very young. I dropped out of the last time I ever went to school was seventh grade. And then I took a year off to watch TV and then started going to community college. And I learned quickly that that wasn't really my thing. So at 17, when I had finally left college fully, I signed up as a student at BodyMind. And BodyMind had been around for a long time and it was teaching programs in alternative psychology and functional medicine and nutrition, body work. And as I got exposed to that work, I just fell so profoundly in love with it. And it felt like, you know, not just something that I was interested in, but it actually felt

Starting point is 00:31:16 like a deep life calling where the growth that I was going through as a result of what I was learning. And then the beauty of what I got to see as I was working with people and the changes that they were making, I was like, this is, this is what I'm here for. And so right around the time that I was almost graduating, the man who had founded the school, who had become my mentor had said he wanted to semi-retire and he still wanted to teach, but he didn't want to run the business. And so you know 18 year old 18 years old like excited and naive I was like oh I can do this and I went out and raised a chunk of money and ended up buying the school and spent you know almost the next 10 years running that school and building it up and developing curriculum. And it was just, it was like an amazing, profound, life-altering experience for me to get to be

Starting point is 00:32:13 so deeply in the field of healing and to get to do so much of my own work and to get to, you know, then spend years both, you know, doing one-on-one work with people as a practitioner, getting to facilitate classes, getting to develop curriculum. And, you know, it became a deep part of the sort of thought process and insight for the rest of my life because it gave me an opportunity to really study and reflect on like what is most impactful for improving the quality of life for people, for reducing suffering, for helping people to recognize their own beauty, their own greatness, their own brilliance. And then, you know, as I was looking at that from the perspective of running a school and

Starting point is 00:32:56 teaching people, you know, I was, I sort of had this like progressively larger and larger lens. It was like, at first I was just working with people one-on-one and then I was working with groups and then I was working with teachers who were working with groups. And it was like, I just started to get to scale progressively further and further up and see like what could actually have the greatest impact on the quality of life for all people and really all sentient life. And then that process has kind of driven almost everything that I've done since then. Well, talk about your stint with cannabis. You know, I was, I'm from born and raised in the Bay area of California, Silicon Valley. And, um, I've been, I've been here in Austin for the last four years, but I was right around for the legalization of cannabis. And I remember,

Starting point is 00:33:46 you know, quite a bit of back and forth between local farmers and people who had been involved in that industry versus, you know, kind of the proposals from the government on what they were going to put through and how that was going to affect, you know, smaller farms and things of that nature. But really what was, I guess, you know, it's a kind of a loaded question, but what was your draw into cannabis and the benefits of that? And, you know, what were your thoughts on the legalization of it and how some of those things came forward in the wording and language that they were used? Right.

Starting point is 00:34:23 Yeah, you know, cannabis was a really interesting part of life for me that I genuinely did not expect. I was never like particularly anti-cannabis or any drugs, but, you know, there was a lot of addiction in my family and in kind of the world around me. And so there were things that I just sort of had a generally negative sense around. And when I started hearing people talking about cannabis as a medicine, at first I was like, oh, you're full of shit, right? Like you just want to get high and you're trying to put some fancy lens on it because I didn't know any better. But, you know, while I was running the school, a number of my teachers, particularly ones that were focused on nutrition or herbology, they started telling me more about the research in cannabis. And as I got to understand it better, it really sparked a deep interest for me. I was at the place that I was prepping to sell the college, and I was kind of looking at what was going to be next in life for me. And as I started to actually understand the medical applications and how much it could help people, I was like, okay, this, you know, like, I don't know that this is necessarily a long-term area for me,

Starting point is 00:35:33 but it's definitely something I want to put some attention on. And so in 2009, I ended up opening up my first dispensary in San Diego. And I mean, that was like very infancy of the industry. There was only maybe a couple dozen stores throughout the whole state at that point. And as I got into it, it actually ended up becoming a major part of my life and a major passion from a number of directions. I remember after I opened that store and I started working with patients, I saw so many people that were profoundly benefited by the use of cannabis. In some circumstances where it was like they probably wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for it, they had severe forms of cancer that were untreatable by traditional medicine that cannabis made a big difference for. They had severe cases of epilepsy

Starting point is 00:36:25 that were beyond the scope of what traditional pharmaceuticals could handle. And the use of CBD caused them to be able to stay alive as opposed to their nervous systems frying. And as I was seeing this, I was also seeing just how much intense stigma there was, you know, like now, even 10, 12 years later, like it's profoundly different. But at the time, you know, these patients that were coming in with like life and death kinds of scenarios were terrified to let anyone in their world know that they were using it because they thought they were going to get disowned. They thought they were going to get fired. They thought they were in prison. And as I was seeing this, I was was like this is just not okay like we can't have something that has this much therapeutic potential that is illegal and unaccessible to the very people that actually

Starting point is 00:37:12 need it and so that ended up driving me pretty heavily into initially the public education side of the space and then eventually the policy side I originally set out to make a just like short educational video on benefits of cannabis, which as I dove into that project ended up turning into a full documentary on all of the high level applications of medical cannabis. And we put that documentary out in early 2011 and ended up going viral. I think a little bit before viral was really a thing. And that started a huge conversation around the world and kind of put me in the spotlight a bit in that space. But as people started to watch that film and read some of the content we were putting out, you know, people's minds did start to change. And then I started getting thousands of emails from all over the world saying, well, hey,

Starting point is 00:38:07 I watched your film. I've been anti-cannabis. It changed my mind. I want to be able to access it for my child with epilepsy, but I live in a place where it's illegal. What do I do? And as I kept seeing that, I was like, okay, now we've had some impact on the education side.

Starting point is 00:38:24 Now it's time we actually have to change policy to be able to have people have access. And so around that same time, I ended up forming one of the first industry trade associations and a political action committee and started to pool together the resources from the industry to start to push forward better legislation. And I spent six or seven years pretty deeply involved in not only educational and lobbying efforts with different government bodies, but in many cases where governments wouldn't participate, we would work with various attorneys to actually draft legislation and then use petition processes to force them onto the ballot so that people had the choice to pass a law as opposed to waiting on a council or a Senate or something like that to do it. And so I got very deeply involved in trying to change the policy. And originally the inspiration there was around the medicinal side. It's like, how do we

Starting point is 00:39:25 help people? How do we give them access? But then as I started to understand it more, it became even more of a passion. It's like, God, this is not just about medicine. There's so much more here. If you look at the number of people that are going to prison every year as a result of cannabis and how disproportionate that is for people of color. And, you know, you start to see that the whole domain of prohibition, not just cannabis, but across all drugs, is not only destructive and useless, but it's also pretty profoundly racist at its basis. I was like, okay, so, you know, let's address that. And so spent just a number of years deeply involved in the political space there, trying to create access, trying to change the whole sort of jurisprudence around how we as a society look at and work with the ideas of prohibition. And ultimately trying to move it in direction of increasing people's sovereignty and allowing them to have access to whatever it is that they want to need

Starting point is 00:40:28 access to, but then to pair that with more empowerment, more education, so people can make better decisions. And so, yeah, it's, you know, it, cannabis ended up being this really profound part of my life in a way that was not at all something I anticipated when I first started to take a look at it. Yeah, I had a kind of a funny, funny scope of work with cannabis. You know, I've really leaned on it heavily when I first got to college just as a numbing agent and then started to use it more medicinally in my fight career, specifically for inflammation

Starting point is 00:41:06 and just being able to switch my mind off. You know, if I had a fight eight weeks out, depending on how training was going and things like that, it was one of the few things that could get me to sleep at night without just lying awake in bed, ruminating and delving into my fears of what was approaching. And, you know, from that, started working with a buddy of mine, Jim McAlpine, who did the 420 Games, which was just, you know, a 4.2 mile run, which was to raise, you know, awareness of different professional athletes and, you know, business professionals alike who used cannabis constructively and had found ways to optimize their life from it. You know, obviously all the medicinal benefits aside from epilepsy

Starting point is 00:41:53 and things like that, but just from a quality of life standpoint, and it blew me away how many people I met and doing, you know, doing events like that, you know, people from all walks of life. I ended up, I was a security guard in San Jose at a dispensary once for a buddy of mine, you know, people from all walks of life. I ended up, I was a security guard in San Jose at a dispensary once for a, for a buddy of mine, you know, I was like, yeah, man, I could sit on your couch and knock out some emails and make sure everyone's on the up and up who comes in here. But yeah, I've had, I've had a, a funny arc to that, you know, and then in working with ayahuasca, it really, I don't know if it just reset my receptors or what, but like the tiniest amount of THC will catapult me these days. So I have a very firm respect and reverence for that medicine as a medicine.

Starting point is 00:42:36 From a legal standpoint, it's hard not to look at that, you know, like what's happening in that industry on a federal level and not just scratch your head and say like, this really looks nefarious. The fact that this is still illegal, it seems pretty nefarious, you know? And you know, I mean, the easy point is to say, just follow the money. It's not something that most people can patent. And if you can't patent it, then you can't, you know, produce income from a pharmaceutical standpoint. But just looking at all the hoops that one has to jump through to actually start to do testing on cannabis and the fact that it has to be used through a government federally grown cannabis, so that way it's used, you know, there's a standard to what's being grown and what's being tested and just all sorts of shit.

Starting point is 00:43:24 You know, it's like it's a head scratcher. It's one where it's pretty eyeopening to the fact that, that we've got some gaping holes in the way that we're, we're running our society, um, you know, in the first world. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, you know, what you're speaking to is a large part of why so much of my, so much of my focus in my career and in my life has been about helping to increase individual empowerment and sovereignty, because we can't actually rely

Starting point is 00:43:53 on our institutions to be able to move the world forward in a way that is supportive for the majority of life. In theory, that would be lovely, right? Because a lot of the institutions have the most power, the most resources. But there is so much brokenness in those systems on top of the corruption that's there. Even if you wipe away the corruption and you just look at how poorly a lot of the systems run, institutions are not going to be able to make a lot of the relevant changes. And it's going to be something that largely has to come from both an individual level and the collective organizing of a series of empowered individuals. But yeah, I mean, like just on the cannabis front specifically, you know, you mentioned that, you know, something's not patentable, then it's probably not going to get support. And it's like, and that's totally true, right? The, to take a drug through the drug discovery process is generally at least a quarter of a billion dollars. It's often more than that.

Starting point is 00:44:55 It's years. And so, you know, pharmaceutical companies not going to look at something if they don't think that they can patent and own it because the amount of money and effort it takes to get something approved, they need to be able to market that thing in a huge way for years to recoup the R&D costs and then make a profit. And so there's just not the incentive. And then when you look at how powerful

Starting point is 00:45:20 of a lobbying force that group is, there's something like 11 full-time lobbyists per member of Congress just for the pharmaceutical industry, not even factoring other industries. And so, you know, even if a lot of the people who are our elected representatives aren't making decisions from a corrupt or nefarious place, they just don't have access to the right information, right? The lobbyists that are the main people that they talk to are constantly spinning narratives

Starting point is 00:45:49 to push their belief systems in a certain direction. And when you've got that much influence, unless someone is a profound critical thinker, like it's really hard to not be influenced by the information that you're constantly being presented with. And so, you know, like things just don't evolve and change. You know, and that's, that's just like without even the corruption side. And then you layer in the corruption side and there's all kinds of bigger problems. Like one of the things I ran

Starting point is 00:46:20 into a lot with my political work was, I think it's changed somewhat now, but at the time that I started a lot of my stuff, like 85% of the DEA's budget came in related to cannabis enforcement. And so even though, you know, as an agency, they're designed to regulate and enforce all kinds of things, the vast majority of the money that's provided to them was related to cannabis. So as laws started to change, it was a huge threat to that organization and other associated ones. And like, it was something I always found really interesting because, you know, I ran a bunch of different cannabis companies and I never really had legal

Starting point is 00:46:57 troubles from doing something that was technically federally illegal. But I had all kinds of legal troubles associated with my political work. As I was working on changing regulations and advancing laws, I got sued by different governments probably at least a half a dozen times. Wow. Likely more. I think I blocked some of it out at this point. But, was like the work we were doing was threatening the power structures. And so that wasn't something that could stand. And luckily, there was enough of us working on it. There was enough tenacity that over time, it kind of progressively broke down. And there's been a huge amount of advancement, but there's still a long ways to go. Like the fact that cannabis is still illegal at a federal level is just absurd and doesn't actually follow a reasonable logical

Starting point is 00:47:52 path. And not just cannabis, you know, it's like now we're in this renaissance of psychedelics, which I couldn't be more excited about. And, you know, there it's like, for me, being someone who's worked a lot on prohibition, it's actually extremely exciting to see how quickly things are evolving there. But still, I think they should be evolving even faster. And, you know, I don't think these things should be illegal. I think they should be made accessible for proper research and studies to be done and intelligent and thoughtful kinds of experimentation because the therapeutic potential of these different kinds of medicines is so extraordinary. Yeah. I mean, they have, my life shifted incredibly and that's, that's, you know, a gross understatement of the potential when used correctly, you know, with respect and reverence and access to medicine, but also access to wise care

Starting point is 00:48:52 and supervision in those experiences. I think, you know, with the right people and the right guidance, that can be something that does shift the collective. And there is some hope there. I mean, I'm seeing more science pretty regularly come out on psilocybin and ayahuasca and all sorts of different things and all of the science from DMT that Strassman did

Starting point is 00:49:18 and wants to continue to do, I think is fantastic. There's a lot there, but cannabis seems to be like the low-hanging fruit. Like even if you had an addiction to any one drug on the planet, you'd say like, well, this is probably the least harmful to you out of any of them, far less harmful than alcohol, far less harmful than cigarettes. And yeah, it just, it's just, it's still mind blowing that we're this, this far into the future. You know, I'm turning 40 this year and, and you know, having a 20 year relationship with cannabis and seeing how far psychedelics have come. It's like, well, what, you know, I moved to Texas and it was like, oh, damn near impossible to get a medical

Starting point is 00:50:00 card here. So seeing kind of the hoops that are still set up in place here in Texas for medicinal marijuana are just, just mind blowing. It absolutely mind blowing to see that that's still an issue in many places. And to think like of Texas agriculture, like this would be perfect, perfect place to grow cannabis and could be done on a massive scale. But, you know, it's just a weird deal. Yeah. No, I mean, there's still a lot of room for improvement and policy changes and accessibility there. But I think the, you know, the thing that excites me within that is just having been

Starting point is 00:50:42 in the space for a long time and watched it unfolding, it's clear that we've reached a point of momentum that there isn't really a turning back. It may still take longer than it should for things to become progressively more legal, for there to be more resources put into research and support. But at this point, I would say it's inevitable. And it's just a question of how long does it take for that unfolding to continue? And so like, that's something that I'm excited about and gives me some, some hope for the future. And not just with cannabis, like, you know, I, I obviously have a very deep appreciation for the medicinal properties of cannabis and the consciousness enhancing properties and all the different ways that it can be used.

Starting point is 00:51:28 But I would say at this point, I'm even more excited about the psychedelics here. I don't know, 15 years now. And, you know, have supported some of the most profound, cathartic, like life transformative types of experiences that I've had. And, you know, beyond the scope of like my own experiences with it, having had the opportunity to actually study the space relatively well and become friends with a lot of the researchers, I'm firmly under the belief that the psychedelic renaissance will fundamentally change what we understand and how we approach the whole world of psychiatry over the next probably 10 to 15 years.

Starting point is 00:52:20 And that's such a powerful thing because so much of the way that we think about and address mental challenges and mental health issues and it's just so broken. wrong with them when in fact, almost everyone is struggling with some kind of mental challenge and, you know, being able to create more openness and more permission there. And then to layer in these really profound, powerful tools like psychedelics that can give us insight into aspects of ourselves that are very difficult to be able to tap into in non-altered states and to be able to increase neuroplasticity and all these things like it's just it's an area i stay up thinking about well into the evening on regular occasion of what are all the different approaches and applications for how this can improve the quality of life for pretty much the entirety of human civilization.

Starting point is 00:53:28 Yeah, I love that. We could rabbit hole that for the rest of the conversation for sure. But I do want to talk about Neurohacker Collective. Talk about the formation of Neurohacker Collective. What is it that you're trying to give birth to when bringing this to the world? You guys have several podcasts that dive into many different topics.

Starting point is 00:53:44 I just joined one of your shows with Dr. Dan Stickler, when bringing this to the world. You guys have several podcasts that dive into many different topics. I just joined one of your shows with Dr. Dan Stickler, who's a great friend who I want to have, you know, him and his wife, Micra, on my podcast for sure this year. Absolutely love them. Love Jamie Will. He's been on the podcast. You know, you guys have really put something special together.

Starting point is 00:54:04 Let's dive into Neurohacker. Let's dive into nootropics and let's, let's tie it all together with psychedelics and how we heal the world. Because I, I've, I certainly want to get your opinion and need a boost of fresh air, you know, in the darkness that I see right now. Right. Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, that, that thing you just said about like in the darkness, right. I think, I think so many of us have this like deep existential angst about where the world is at and where we see it headed. one was just like a lot of my own self-experimentation in my healing process and in my sort of self-optimization process and realizing how much incredible technology exists that people

Starting point is 00:54:52 don't have access to you know i had access to things that others didn't because i worked in the field and i had enough resources to be able to try expensive weird cutting edge things and i was willing to fly all over the world to do things. But like, I realized that most of what I was getting to experience that was beneficial, the world didn't have access to. And so part of it was like, just how do we bring the very best research and the very best technology into something that is easy to use and accessible to a broad audience. But even deeper than that was that, you know, kind of early on in my career, I'd started getting heavily involved in a number

Starting point is 00:55:33 of different nonprofit ventures, which drove me to starting to study existential risk and, you know, really looking at like, what are all of the major things happening in the world that have the potential of ending life on the planet or at least making it dramatically less pleasant? And as I looked at that, it's a very terrifying, alarming domain to research into because a lot of the problems are much more real and much more near term than we want to give them credit for. And as I was looking at that, I was like, what can I do about it? And I'm a pretty capable person. There was a lot that I thought that I could do. But as I started to assess it, I was like, okay, what if I devote my life to reversing ocean acidification or addressing hunger and homelessness at scale or any of these things?

Starting point is 00:56:21 I was like, fuck, it's not sufficient. No matter what project I could take on, no matter how big it is, it's just not sufficient to actually move the needle in changing the direction that humanity is going. And part of that was that there's so many challenges that we're faced as a society. And part of it is that a lot of the ways in which we exist and the ways that our economy work continually incentivize the very behavior that

Starting point is 00:56:49 creates problems. And so as I really looked at this and I sat back, what became more and more clear to me was that if we were going to make a profound change in the world, it was something that was sustainable, that was sufficient to addressing the hard problems and was oriented around creating a life that actually worked for all people. It was like, what we need to be able to do is to increase intelligence at scale. We need to have millions more people who are dramatically more intelligent and not just more intelligent, but more motivated, more powerful, more competent. And then, you know, in addition to the sense of like wanting people to be more intelligent, more powerful, I was like, if they're just more intelligent, more powerful, but they have the wrong motivations that could actually go in the wrong way. So then it was like, well, how do we then look at increasing consciousness?

Starting point is 00:57:42 And so I kind of refined that to something tangible, which is to say, how do we increase look at increasing consciousness? And so I kind of refined that to something tangible, which is to say, how do we increase empathy and compassion? And so really the original inspiration for founding Neurohacker was to look at, could we use the right application of science and technology to make things that would make people significantly more intelligent, significantly more competent, more capable, and to stimulate the parts of their brain and nervous system responsible for things like empathy and compassion so that they have an intrinsic motivation to use that increased intelligence and capacity, not only for personal gain, but to support their

Starting point is 00:58:27 families, their communities, their countries, and ultimately the world at large. And I saw this as like a tool to be able to bring the kinds of resources needed to actually addressing all the hard problems while being able to support quality of life for the individuals that we were directly touching. And so that was really the concept and the vision that eventually became Neurohacker. But then with that vision, I started talking to the science and research community, and I was telling them about what I wanted to accomplish. And everyone was like, yeah, that's beautiful, but way too hard. Like the science doesn't exist for it. And so inevitably what happened was we actually had to create a fundamentally new approach to

Starting point is 00:59:15 how we did research and development that was different than anything I could find out there. And that's where largely my brother came in initially. His background has been in complex system science, which has, for the most part, never really been applied to human physiology. And so we took a complex systems framework and started to apply that to how we studied physiological systems. And with that, the approach was not to override any natural system, not to try to increase a particular biomarker because there was some study that said it does a good thing, but to recognize the inherent beauty and brilliance in human physiology and to take the time that was actually necessary to understand how a system works and how that system interfaces with other systems and all of the different nuance of how something functions. And then to create formulas and products that were designed to optimize natural function. So rather than trying to override and just create

Starting point is 01:00:26 a bunch of dopamine or whatever, the whole goal and the way that we designed our scientific process was how do we understand the brilliance of a system and enhance it and ultimately create greater capacity for self-regulation so that you don't need to take something all of the time to wake yourself up or to calm your mind to go to bed or whatever it is, but that you're actually getting the base nutrition that is needed for your body to optimize on a continual basis. And so that's really the kind of inspiration for Neurohacker and then the approach that we've taken that has allowed us to, I think,

Starting point is 01:01:11 do something really special. And we're still a relatively young organization, but even where we are today, we've had the opportunity to help well over 100,000 people and just are constantly seeing these brilliant, beautiful testimonials of how people's lives are upgrading as a result of the products that I find most beautiful is the testimonials we get about how when people are taking the products, they're becoming more present. They're finding that they're more resilient to stress. And as a result, they're becoming better in their relationships and

Starting point is 01:01:58 they're becoming better wives and husbands and parents and lovers and friends. And, you know, for me, that really excites me. It's like, I love being able to help improve quality of life at the individual level. But then when it expands into the relational level, and you get to see how the growth in one person's life supports the growth in the lives of all the people around them. To me, that's where so much of the juice comes from. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. It's making me think of like, you know, I was the office guinea pig here at Onnit for a few years and really tried everything under the sun

Starting point is 01:02:37 and from microdosing to modafinil and Adderall and just the whole gamut of other other nootropics and one of the things that i've noticed is a contrast between uh qualia mind and modafinil is that modafinil almost has like a push at the expense of compassion yes like it was like i was gonna get shit done no matter what and i didn't give a fuck what stood in my way, even if it was my son, you know? And then, whereas, so that that's a double-edged sword in my opinion. And it's one of the reasons I haven't, you know, it's been years since I've had it. I don't want double-edged swords in my life. You know, I want things that the, whether it's a drug or a supplement, one of the rules of thumbs that I have in grading that

Starting point is 01:03:25 is, is will this leave me more holding when I started? And that's, that's a good drug or a good supplement. Others like cocaine and some of the things that I was getting down with at Arizona state, it's like, uh, you pay for a good time on credit. Eventually you got to pay that back, you know? And I felt that way about Modafinil.il. I noticed with qualia mind that there is a greater degree of presence than that there with that there's more emotional intelligence. And like, oh, hey, my six-year-old's being a six-year-old and that's okay. I don't need to change that, nor can I change that. I need to be a dad here and not come to his level and engage in an argument. I just need to be a mountain for him, you know, and then let him cry and yell and do whatever he needs to do to exhaust those emotions and hold them through that, you know, and actually feel more capable, um, using your supplements, doing that, which is fucking mind blowing. I mean, that's my

Starting point is 01:04:31 testimonial to you guys. I think that's, that's, uh, when you brought that up, it really set that in as a contrast to Modafinil. Um, and I, you know, I, uh, in my coaching and in fit for service, we run across quite a few type A's, you know,getters, the guys running startups and people that work with Gary Vee and shit like that and hedge fund managers. get shit done at all costs, but that's not a sustainable practice. And so much of my work is in reteaching the understanding that everything we do must be sustainable. It has to be sustainable from within in order for your output to exist long-term. You can't go at this pace for a hundred years, nor would you want to, but that will fail. You know, and the trajectory of humanity will fail if kept on the same course as well. What do you see, you know, especially, you know, with listening to a lot of the conversations your brothers had with Jamie Wheel and Jordan,

Starting point is 01:05:37 what do you see as some of the clear risks of where we're headed and what are some of the clear things that are in front of us? I always circle back to the serenity prayer and I'm not going to butcher it like I normally do, but look up the serenity prayer if you need a hand with it. If you remember the gist of it, then you can follow. But basically what I'm asking is with the threats that we have existentially and with the course of where humanity appears to be heading, what are some of the action steps that we have to take step by step that lead us through a different path? It's a great question.

Starting point is 01:06:18 It's not an easy answer, but it's a great question. You know, I think there's a number of different ways to look at that, but the way that I tend to look at it mostly is through the individual lens of how, as an individual, how do I become more empowered, more sovereign, and more alive. And to really look at what is it that creates aliveness in me and to recognize that as Dharma. Dharma, if people aren't familiar with the word is it's a word from Sanskrit, which roughly translated essentially means your life's work or being on purpose. Right. And I think the way that I look at it

Starting point is 01:07:08 is there's so many different challenges that are facing humanity that all need addressed. And even beyond the scope of just the challenges facing the humanity, there's so much room for innovation to make a better world, one that's more functioning, one that's more compassionate,

Starting point is 01:07:22 one that's more supportive. And so there isn't like a thing that everyone needs to do. There's so many things that need addressed. And to me, what makes sense and what works for most people is become progressively more aware of who you are. Spend time really studying yourself, studying your psyche, your inner landscape, your strengths, your weaknesses, and particularly looking at what lights you up. What's the thing that you would do even if there was no money in it, there was no reward in it, and it was really, really hard? What is it that you just feel called to in life? And then devote to that.

Starting point is 01:08:04 Because we all have something that lights us up. And, you know, for one person, it might be, you know, that they light up helping someone with disabilities. For someone else, it might be environmental activism. For someone else, it might be animal rights support. And the thing is, they're all needed. And so it's not about like, do this one thing, right? Like you talked about my brother and, you know, Jamie wheel and Jordan, and like, they all have a particular type of intelligence and a particular type of competency that moves them in a certain direction. Right. And for them, the thing to work on is actually the meta problem, right? It's how do we understand all of the problems? How do we understand the societal and psychological drivers behind those problems? And how do we redesign that? And that's their passion and their purpose and

Starting point is 01:08:55 what fits their unique competency. And so it's brilliant that they're doing that. But I think sometimes people see the work of these kinds of people and they get into this trap of like, oh, I can't do that. So therefore, I can't do anything. And that isn't actually true. Everyone has something beautiful that they can contribute. And it's a matter of really learning who we are, tapping into that, and then being willing to pursue it. And then beyond the scope of being willing to pursue it, bringing in the

Starting point is 01:09:25 support and the resources to make us progressively more capable of pursuing it. And that's where things like quality of mind or the use of psychedelics or therapists or whatever come into play is these are all tools to make us more attuned to who we are, to make us more competent, more powerful, and more able to live our dharma in the world. I absolutely love that. I absolutely love it. What are some of your favorite go-tos? We talk psychedelics. Obviously, qualia a is it is a game changer if somebody hasn't had it yet I imagine most of my listeners have already but um what are some of your go-tos on a daily basis some of the habits that you've baked into the equation and and maybe not even habits like obviously you know

Starting point is 01:10:16 you could be on a microdosing protocol which would be more of a daily habit but for the most part I mean for me at this point of the game, I'm probably down to like four big journeys a year. So that's not a consistent thing. And it's not timed like Tim Ferriss or some of the other folks, you know, have a schedule or a hedonic calendar. That's not how I do things. I wait until there's a big desire and then seek what's calling to me.

Starting point is 01:10:41 And both are correct. There's no, I'm not saying like, I don't do like these guys. I mean, they're both correct as far as approach is concerned. But from, maybe from the micro, you know, the small daily habits that you include to put yourself in the best possible place to be of service.

Starting point is 01:11:00 And then some of the macro, some of the bigger scale things that you might only do a couple of times a year that really move the needle in your life and create that aliveness that you're speaking of. Yeah. Well, you know, without trying to do too much of a plug for my company, I will say like the products that we create at Neurohacker are actually a really meaningful and significant part of my daily practices and have had a massive impact on my abilities, my thinking, my health, my sleep. You know, like originally we started off with creating products in cognition.

Starting point is 01:12:00 And, you know, those have been things that have benefited me tremendously and allowed me to do way more in the world than I otherwise could have, as well as allowing me to become more, more present, more compassionate, more attuned to myself and the world around me. But then like as a serial entrepreneur, I think I've launched something like 25 companies in my life. That meant sleep was a huge issue for me, right? Turning your brain off when you've got that many things going on is really hard. And so like when we created our sleep product, that actually changed the quality of my life in a huge way. And I saw drastic improvements. So I would say, you know, a number of the quality of products that we create are a consistent part of my practice, as well as a number of other supplements that we don't produce that I've just found wildly beneficial. But then outside of that, one of the things that I wouldn't say I get it on a daily basis, but very consistently, I try to have a connection to nature.

Starting point is 01:12:46 For me, that's one of the things that makes me feel most in tune with the world around me, most connected to myself and have the most presence. And so, you know, I'm fortunate to have a really beautiful backyard with a lot of, you know, plants and trees. And so sometimes that's just, you know, sitting out in the backyard and taking in the beauty of the trees around me. Oftentimes that's, you know, going out on a hike and, you know, there it's like, it's both the exercise and, you know, movement as part of a practice, as well as just connecting to the nature around me. I would say, you know, one of the practices that I've been really focused on recently

Starting point is 01:13:33 has been a gratitude practice. So, you know, every morning when I wake up, before I start to think about what I need to do that day or start my morning routines. It's like I write down a list of everything that I'm feeling grateful for. And each day I try to lean into that a little bit more and not just write the things, but actually feel the gratitude progressively more. And that's something that I've seen has improved quality of life quite a bit. Yeah, I think it's largely, it's like it's having some consistency of exercise being in my body.

Starting point is 01:14:11 And for me, that takes a different form almost every day. Like sometimes it's working out. Sometimes it's dancing. Sometimes it's stretching. I'm borderline obsessed with paintball. So like that's more of a weekly practice than a daily one, but you know, it's like an amazing way to get into my body to be able to get into sort of like a primal energy and have that come through into my world.

Starting point is 01:14:37 And then there are these periodic things that I do. So like I said, psychedelics have been a big part of my journey. And with that I go through waves. Like there have been times where I'll not do a journey for maybe two or three years. And then there are times where I'll do some kind of journey, you know, maybe even as much as two or three times a month. And it sort of depends on what I'm working on, what's alive, what I'm trying to evolve, but psychedelic journeys and visioning have been a very big part of my evolution. And then just pretty much all forms of personal development. You know, like I know a lot of people still have sort of like fears or stigma around

Starting point is 01:15:24 seeing a therapist. And to me, it's like one of the most exciting things you can do. And it's no matter how evolved we are, no matter how much healing we've gone through, like we all have traumas, we all have broken parts. And beyond that, like we all just have places to be able to evolve and become even more of who we are. And being able to work with therapists, coaches, is like such a powerful opportunity within that. Being able to go do retreats. It's like those have always been a big part of my life. You know,

Starting point is 01:16:01 pretty consistently worked with some type of coach or therapist for probably 20 years at this point. And then, you know, wherever I have the time and my schedule and the opportunity, I'll go do different kinds of personal development retreats, medicine retreats, nature retreats. But, you know, there's definitely a significant amount of energy, time, money put into sort of a constant evolution, both because my quality of life gets better and I enjoy life more, but also because as I do that, I feel like I have more and more capacity to contribute and more insightfulness around the right ways to contribute. Yeah. One of the things that I'm, that I'm gathering from what you're saying is that even though the cost and the time can be high, it's the going through one of those experiences that allows you to restore

Starting point is 01:16:57 all of the aliveness that is the funding for all of the work that you do in the world. That's the things that allow you to sustain the drive to do the work, the great work that you're a part of. At least that's certainly been the case for myself. I think a lot of people can come up with different reasons why they can or can't do certain things, but once they do that, it's like Wim Hof said, you know, feeling is believing and it doesn't take a lot of intellectual power to grasp the concept when it changes the way you think and the way you feel and the way you operate in the world. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, to me,

Starting point is 01:17:40 it's like there's nothing more worthwhile to invest in than our own happiness, our own competency, our own sense of self, because that's where everything is going to come from, right? What we do in the world, our ability to create, our ability to earn are all going to be driven by who are we and how developed is that? And actually I was having a conversation with my girlfriend a while back. Um, cause I was noticing in myself, like there was all of these different experiences I wanted to have. Um, you know, these different practitioners I wanted to work with, these different retreats I wanted to go on. And I was like selecting, you know, just a few, because I didn't want to spend too much money on it. And I started like realizing what I was saying. I was like, this is insane. I was like, you know, I, I've built enough companies in my life to know, like, I have a really extraordinary earning capacity and the more capable I am, the more empowered I am, the more

Starting point is 01:18:40 on point I am, the more that that's driven. And almost no matter how much money I spend on personal development, it's going to be eclipsed by how much more I'm able to earn as a result of the benefits of that. And so I just sort of like released the purse strings and was like, no, I'm just going to dive in all the way. And like, whatever it is that I think is going to create more empowerment, more aliveness, and allow me to do more positive impact in the world, I'm going to figure out a way to do that and recognize that I don't actually have to be in a place of scarcity around it. Ultimately, as I put more into myself and into my own development, I have more resources, both financially, spiritually, emotionally,

Starting point is 01:19:26 psychologically, and those additional resources allow me to live a better life and have a more powerful contribution. So yeah, I mean, to me, it's like one of the core things that I always want people to learn is like investing in yourself is like the best possible place to put time, energy, money, and attention. And obviously depend on where someone's at, they may or may not have as much resource. So it's like do it to whatever level is doable, but, but continue in that direction, right? If right now there, you know, only certain things that are accessible, then do those.

Starting point is 01:20:06 And then as that unlocks more opportunity than do those. But, you know, I think there's just so much beauty that comes from having this continual desire and willingness to pursue our own growth. Yeah. I love that. And that's, that truly is where the reward lies. You know, every, everything is a little brighter. Everything's a little bit better. Uh, the better we take care of ourselves. Absolutely. Well, James, it's been excellent, excellent having you on. Um, you guys have a number of podcasts at Neurohacker Collective. Mention any or all of those if you want here and where people can find you and where people can purchase some of these amazing products from you guys. Absolutely.

Starting point is 01:20:56 Yeah. So, I mean, to learn more about Neurohacker, go to neurohacker.com. You'll be able to see all the different products. We've got products across most of the more significant domains of health at this point. We're constantly developing new things. Beyond that, we focus a lot on education. So there's a tremendous amount of articles on the website to be able to take people as deep into the sciences they'd want to go. And then, you know, podcast has been big for us. We have a podcast called Collective Insights, which essentially has two arms to it. We have the sort of cutting edge medicine arm, which we actually have a couple

Starting point is 01:21:37 of different doctors that are part of the organization that will take turns hosting. And, you know, there we have all kinds of brilliant experts in health and psychology that come on and we get to do these real beautiful deep dives. And then we also have the other arm that's hosted by Jamie Weill, which is more like the future of civilization. How do we become more sovereign how do we evolve ourselves

Starting point is 01:22:07 to be of service to the world in a progressively greater way right and so it's like we've got both of these different arms depending on what people are more connected to and more interested in but yeah definitely worth checking out we're we're fortunate that what we've created has attracted a lot of brilliant, talented people and has given us the opportunity to not only create phenomenal products, but to create really exceptional educational opportunities and to be able to put that out into the world in a big way. So, yeah, excited for people to come explore. Absolutely. I'm excited for people to explore it as well. We'll link to all that in the show notes. It's, um, it's been excellent having you on and we got to do it again for sure. Thank you so much, James. I'd love that. Yeah. Thank you. Totally enjoyed the conversation today. Thank you.

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Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #235 James Schmachtenberger

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