TrueLife - Sebastien Fouillade - leadership, creativity, Spirituality

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/http://retreat.fooyad.com/https://www.leadershipedelics.com/fooyad.comhttps://www.youtube.com/@leadershipedelicshttp://linkedin.com/in/sebastienfouilladeSebastien is a dynamic and accomplished product leader, facilitator, coach, writer, musician, entrepreneur, and yoga teacher with a strong focus on building great customer journeys, creativity, authenticity, and teamwork. With a proven track record as a product manager, founder, and leader in startups and large companies, Sebastien possesses exceptional skills in storytelling, leading v1 projects, forming new teams, and learning new technologies and industries.During his time at Microsoft, Sebastien made significant contributions, including leading the refactoring of the SharePoint administration center, developing a new employee engagement platform, and securing funding for a new premium offering. Since then, he has worked on several creative projects, including advising a mental health company, founding a wellness retreat on creativity, starting a podcast on leadership and spirituality, and running music workshops to help people through their healing process.Passionate about building impactful experiences, transforming lives, and helping others in the process, Sebastien is always looking for new partnerships that align with his interests and experience in product and entrepreneurship, creativity, and more.Connect with him via LinkedIn, his YouTube channel, or his podcast. And, if you're interested in joining the next Sacred Creativity Retreat in Spring 2024, don't hesitate to reach out. Sebastien looks forward to hearing from you! One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fear is through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I'm so excited to get to be here speaking with you today on such a beautiful day. We are here with an incredible individual, Mr. Sabreux. Sebastian Fou Yad. He's a product leader, a host, a writer, a musician, a husband, a father. I could go on and on about all these labels that he has. But I think it's important to note that he focuses on helping others reconnect with their creativity and empowering them to build great experiences for themselves and the world and the environment around him.

Sebastian, I'm so thankful you're here. How are you today, my friend? Did I leave anything out in that particular little section that you want to add? You know, I'm a human. I'm a human being. I'm embracing the spectrum of humanity and in its nuances and all that good stuff that I think sometimes we get stuck in the black and white. So I love living in those nuances and that spectrum of humanity. So yeah, you know, you could go on in labels and maybe, you know, sometimes. times like, well, maybe I spread myself too thin with all those labels, but at the same time, it's, you know, does the rainbow spreads itself too thin? Anyway, no, this is great. I feel good today. Some days you were just talking about where you just feel like it's going to be a good day. Your balance is good, you know, you wake up, even though

you had like six hours of sleep, which, you know, I'm like, wow, this is amazing. Like, you know, I can brush my teeth and stand on one foot and no problem, which is a little ritual I do every day to work on my balance is, you know, brushing your teeth and standing on one foot. If you can do that, this is good for you. Do you use your right hand and stand on your left foot or do you use your left hand and stand on your right foot? Or right and right and I hold the toothbrushed with the right hand And then as I go through the different quadrants, I switch foot. And then I try to move at the same time because, you know, the vibration of the toothbrush, it's an electric toothbrush.

It really messes with your inner ear. So if you're able to do balancing at the same time, which, by the way, balancing is really good as you get older. And so, yeah, it's actually helped. My balancing in yoga, it's helped even like knee strength because at the same time I try to flex the knee. So, you know, here we go. Just like a little tip for people. Yeah. Do balancing.

What a great way to keep your life in balance. And even on another note, just waking up and being aware of balance is probably a pretty good way to start your day. Yeah, yeah. And it's, and I try not to criticize. too much, but it's a great way better than just jumping straight to your phone, which a lot of people do. And, you know, I actually intentionally try not to look at my phone as the first thing that I see when I get up. I do turn it on because I actually turn it off at night. But yeah. It's awesome. I think that whether people are conscious or unconscious,

Everybody has a morning ritual. Maybe it's brushing your teeth. Maybe it's turning on your phone. Maybe it is waking up and saying why you're thankful for the day. Maybe it's rolling over and kissing your partner or waking your daughter up or your son up. But if you have a ritual, be conscious of it. I can understand that you do have one, but you should notice it. And once you begin to notice it, then you can begin to understand it and understand more about yourself.

And it becomes an empowering part of your day when the first thing you do was a conscious ritual. Yeah, I love that. And I, you know, I've got a whole series of morning rituals. I mean, it's like it's just, it's, it's, it's just a long list of beautiful, simple things that just kind of are shamed together, uh, to lead to getting the kids to school and, uh, and getting here to work, which is my upstairs. Um, and, and it's funny because I, I met this guy in Hawaii. You're, you're in Hawaii. I forgot which island, but it's this old guy. He owns like a, uh, and, and it's this old guy. He owns like a, uh, and it's, a clothing store and probably old hippie and he makes like he makes shirts with like I think he calls it the the toothpaste man that it's like a guy on a surfboard and and I asked him once like what was the secret and it's like well you know at the end of each day it's I need to be able to retire from my work and the beginning of each day is like a vacation and you know and then in between I work because, you know, like I was talking about, oh, I'm going to do this when I retire or this and that. It's like, no, like I retire every day in the evening. And then when I wake up, every day,

it's like a little vacation and then I go to work. And I was like, oh, I love that. Yeah, it's beautiful. I've heard someone else put it in a similar vein, but a little bit more edgy. And what they said is that every night they get the opportunity to die and every morning they get the opportunity to be reborn. And in a way, it allows you to forgive and forget and also, you know, go through life with without the giant blanket of heaviness surrounding you or covering you. You know what I mean in a weird way? But it's a cool thing to think about. Yeah. So you know what?

I wanted to start off with, I had this idea that I've been thinking about. And the ideas, I think is, let me just know it out here and you can tell me what you think about it. In your opinion, does heightened awareness relate to differential processing capabilities? Yes, depending on how do you define your processing powers? Right. You know, it's, I was just talking with an author, Stephen Gray, who wrote the book, How Psychedelics Can Help Save the World. And we were talking about creating music and ceremonies.

And I'm talking about ceremonies with, you know, plant or fungi medicine, psychedelic ceremonies, which do give you a heightened sense of awareness. Right. And I got to say, when I play music in those, so I play harmonica, flute, math, harp, drum, a whole series of instruments that, by the way, I never played before until like eight years ago

when I started working with psychedelics. It's almost like Neo in the Matrix when I'm playing an instrument. It goes from, you know, I would say, a linear way of playing without, psychedelics, to a multidimensional way of playing, where I'm aware at any point in the music of all the different paths I can follow.

And so, yeah, I would say there's totally an increase in processing power at that point because I'm able to assimilate all the data from all my sensors at the same time as well, and then all those paths, I'm able to visualize them at the same time. time, you know, can I do something useful with that other than playing music? Like if you're talking, you know, processing and I haven't tried. Usually that's not where my mind is at then.

But, you know, like people will do microdosing, which, you know, they can be more creative, more focused. But I don't know, like if, you know, I would equal this to like, you know, Is it an increase in processing power or is it kind of cleaning up your processing pipeline? So you can be either more focused or more organized, I think in the case maybe of microdosing on how you assimilate information. I mean, there is history. Like I remember reading in the Michael Pollan book when he talks about early design of circuit boards and people using psychedelics to be able to visualize those designs in three,

dimensions because you didn't have all the CAD programs that that exist now. That was an example he had. So yeah, there was an increase in processing power there with that heightened state. That's really well said. And maybe it's not an either or. Maybe it's a both and. Maybe it's doing both of those things. Yeah. And you know, I love I love the way you describe the way in which you were able to change your relationship with music and the way you processed it. And And this gets us into what both, I think both you and I have an affinity for patterns, whether it's in music or psychedelics. And something I have seen on high doses of psilocybin and some other psychedelics are these

abstract three-dimensional geometric images. You know, sometimes you can see them on a strong dose or maybe depending on who you are or your diet or your preparation or your meditation. Sometimes on a lower dose, you can see these open eye visuals or sometimes it's closed eyes. But these particular geometric images to me seem to be, number one, something you see in a heightened state of awareness. And number two, they seem to be a pattern that is similar to a language to me. Like you would notice that when you were in a heightened state of awareness, you could play the music in a way in which you couldn't regularly. And it seems to me that these patterns, these geometrical images are over.

way for us to relate to the environment around us. And they're almost like a coding pattern, but or or some sort of a, you know, some coding pattern. Have you ever given any thought to that? Or is that just way too out there? What do you think? Oh, no, it's not way too out there. It's, uh, I mean, some of those things I've seen and experienced like, you know, if I, if I told people, they, they wouldn't believe me. Um, but, um, you know, there's a few instances where, where I can relate to, you know, really complex images, thought patterns, because you get to a point where it's not even images. It's almost like talking and experiencing your native thoughts.

If, you know, it's like it's not just one sense. It's like, it's crazy. And, you know, it's hard to explain unless, you know, you've been through that. But, you know, this situation, especially, you know, with ayahuasca, which I started with, actually, before psychedelic mushrooms, oh, yeah, I would see those patterns. I would see the most complex architecture designs possible that would, you know, morph as you look at them. I would see the fractals. I would see the patterns. I would see creatures, entities in three dimensions.

And yeah, yeah. So is that a language? I mean, you know, like maybe in symbols. For me, it was like a symbolic language. It also reminded me of as humans and going back to, you know, being a full human, the capabilities, what we're capable of in creating and manifesting, things that are much bigger. then I think we, you know, we sell a share of short, pretty short in the day-to-day life. And there's, you know, the limitations on what we can do and how we can bring about. I mean, if I want to bring the, you know, the chapel of Sacred Mirror, I need to be Alex Gray and work on that for many, many years. And that's a wonderful vision and a wonderful representations of everything we could bring forth. and maybe even a fraction of that, and he's extremely talented. But that takes a while. It takes a lot of humans to come together to really manifest that.

On mushrooms, I've experienced, I did 30 grams of dry mushrooms once through across an entire day. And it wasn't all at the same time. There's actually a whole process. So don't do that. I don't recommend it to anyone. But at that point, which was interesting, is I was listening to music. I have a playlist for my mushroom ceremonies.

And so when I don't play music, I play the playlist. And instead of hearing the sounds at that point, I just started seeing mountains. And I was like, wow, this is really cool. Let me start playing music. And so I started playing music. and the music became like river between the mountains. And so in a way, I was processing information completely differently.

And yeah, I don't know if there, I still don't know if there's a language, but like, I'm following it. I'm just, I'm going with the flow and, you know, I and the Neo in the matrix. Oh my God, you know, when he started seeing the matrix and you know, like everything turns out. into letters and everything like that. You know, on ayahuasca ceremonies, when I would play flute, I would start seeing all the energy, like moving across everything like that and how the music that I played impacted that flow of energy. So really, really stuff that might sound crazy from the outside,

but felt pretty amazing when I was experiencing them. Not only must have felt amazing, but it sounds fantastic. And I mean that in the best way possible. It sounds fantastic. And it doesn't take a whole lot of research to begin to understand that in Western thought and in the West today, we have somehow decided that verbal acuity and language processing are of a higher order than visual imagery in the world of thought. And it's not true, at least in my opinion. And what you're describing is this way of communicating with yourself, the environment, and your thought process through the world of imagery.

And it's just as powerful as verbal acuity or language. And in fact, the two together are probably the way in which we're supposed to communicate. You could probably express an idea through symbolic imagery, maybe better than language on some level. And maybe that's what memes are kind of like this merging of the time. to you. But that's what I, when I listen to you speak, I'm, I am reminded of the people who came before us and talked about the importance of visual imagery and what it can mean to translate that visual imagery into behavior. And in a weird way, what you're describing when you began working with ayahuasca speaks volumes of your journey from Microsoft to where you're at today.

Like, those things are together, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's been a long journey. Sure. I mean, it didn't even start with psychedelics. I mean, it started with 11 years ago. I was doing a yoga teacher training class, and we did something called Crea yoga, which for two hours you've got your eyes closed and you do what they call Bastrakas. And for people who are listening, it's like I'm, you know, raising my arms up and down. And the teacher is like controlling your breath.

And it reduced me to nothing after two hours. and then you do a bramory, which is kind of humming with the front of your mouth. And then when I did that the first time, first I had no idea what I'd gotten myself into. But when I did that the first time, I left my body. And I was like, oh, my God, all the spiritual stuff, that's real. And it was like five seconds. I had a few tears. And I was like, oh, my God, I need to learn more.

And so at the time I was doing startups, eventually I went back to Microsoft. and yeah, and I was growing spiritually. I was learning about, you know, I was doing float tanks meditation, TM meditation. And then eight years ago, I started working with ayahuasca and then mushrooms. And so that spiritual side that had been starving for years was like, yeah, like, you know, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. And, you know, it fought back my corporate side of, you know, building, I'd been building products for 25 years, almost. And I love building products still. And it's a fantastic thing.

And so there's a little bit of collision between the two sides there. And that led me to leaving Microsoft and doing what I do now. but I'm also at a point now where I'm like, well, this is great. But the next step is kind of coming back and blending all those together because you are the sum of all this parts. And they're not bad parts. Some of them might have been needed earlier in your life. But like I also love creating stuff, product, experiences for people.

So yeah, no, it's been a journey from yoga, meditation, Plentness, and Microsoft Corporate America, not here. And, yeah. There's an incredible book that you may like.

It's called Stairway to Healing, The Crooked Path We Travel. Oh, wait a minute, you wrote that book. Yeah, it's a fantastic book.

It's funny. Yeah, no, I wrote this. Man, writing a book, I have a lot of respect for writers.

This is such a mental exercise. Did you write a book? I have. I have. I wrote a book called The Terror Before the Sake. and I found it to be a fascinating experience. What was your experience like when you did it?

Well, first, you know, the book is based on my journal. So I went down to Peru after emotional breakdown. I mean, it was a ridiculous breakdown. I mean, it's basically, I didn't know what was going on. I mean, I was crying for no reason. I would listen to like, you know, I give the example of, in the book, I was watching a trailer with my wife for a movie called Goodbye Christopher Robin.

And the trailer, it's all about this, the author of Winnie the Pooh who welcomes his son in a world torn by war during World War II, I believe. And it's got that emotional soundtrack and everything. And I have three kids, so I can relate to all these things right away. And for some reason, I just started crying.

crying and crying. And I was like, okay, I can't finish the trailer, honey. I went to another room. Just listening to the soundtrack of the trailer, I was still crying. And, you know, it's like, okay, I got to do something about this. I got to address that. And a friend of mine had just returned from Peru from a retreat. And I was like, okay, that's a sign. I'm going to go. So I told my boss, I was like, I was at Microsoft then. I was like, listen, if I don't do something, I'm going to quit. And I need to go. in two weeks. So two weeks, I was down in Peru, and that's what the book is about. It was about what transpired in that retreat, ayahuasca ceremonies, towed ceremony, and a little bit of San Pedro, and then the people I met along the way. You know, I don't want to give a spoiler to people,

but there's no closure in the book, by the way. There's no closure because in a lot of those journeys, there's not necessarily closure. I mean, you don't necessarily get the lessons you wanted to get. You get plenty of lessons. And it's a never-ending process. It did definitely help me. But, yeah, no, it's just fun. And writing the book, because I went from my journal to the book,

was actually hard because when you write a journal, you don't think about the flow, you know, you're just recording information. It's like free flowing. The irony, you don't think about the flow, but it's free flowing. And so, you know, like it doesn't flow maybe as well as a book that's engineered to have, hey, here's the beginning, the middle of, on the end, its chapter should be about that size. And so when I wrote it, and first I, I'm not a native speaker.

I mean, I've lived in the U.S. since 1989, so I was pretty, young when I came to the US, but I still have a lot of French in me. So writing a book was like, it was a real challenge and we don't have Chad GPD then. And I had a friend of mine who wrote a book on outdoor schools, a really great guy. And he edited the book. He gave me some edits. And yeah, that was a long journey, mental journey too, because you're like, Like, you think you're done. But it's like, no, I got to do another pass through it. No.

Oh, and then there's all those edits I'm getting. I'm going to do another go at it, another read. And so one day I just sat from like 8 a.m. to think, I don't know, 9 or 10 p.m. outside. Got a little waterfall that I built. Just sat there and finished the book. And then I was like, that's it. That's good enough. It's a beautiful process. I'm always curious to speak to authors and learn about their process of doing it.

And there seems to be that sense of finality. A lot of times when I speak to people like, okay, I got to this point and I knew it was done. Or a lot of the times I'll hear people say things like, you know, there was points when I was. And often they are in their Zen zone, be it a waterfall or their desk or wherever they are. and they, I hesitate to use the word divine inspiration, but people often talk about the way in which the book was written through them. Did you ever get that feeling? Yeah, yeah, you know, you have to align the stars.

It's funny because one of the best places that I had to write the book, I was in Norway for a business trip for Microsoft, and it was in the winter. So it's almost like dark. all day. And I had basically, I was in this cozy little hotel room that's just really, really nice with a view of the frozen arbor. And it was just freaking night all day, which was, you know, I was like, what the heck am I going to do? It's night all day. And I just, I just, you know, sat there and started working on the book. And it's just, it's just very peaceful.

really nice and it's very zen too and and you got to also step back from it and it's very much like product management this is what i found is you have to figure out how to connect the right amount of dots for the reader but not too much so it's a balance on connecting the dots and also putting yourself in the mind of a reader and and how they would see the things that you're taking for granted or not see them. It was a great exercise. It is a great exercise, and it brings to the forefront of my mind two questions and debating which one to ask first.

But I think I'll go with this idea of altered, altered states of consciousness. Now, we've talked about psychedelics a little bit, and we're going to get into more of them. And those definitely put you in an altered state of consciousness. But sometimes, like what we're doing right now, like a stream of consciousness, or being in a hotel room staring out at night all day, which is funny to say. You know, like, those two are different or altered states of consciousness. And it's, I think it's interesting to talk not only about psychedelics, but altered states of consciousness like a stream of consciousness. Like you're in the now when you're streaming your consciousness. You're neither subject nor object.

You're more here. What is your take? on altered states of consciousness outside of psychedelics? I mean, you know, they're very healthy. All the studies show you that, you know, if you prevent people from being in the flow, I think it's just for a few days, they start going crazy. You know, and crazy might be a big word, but maybe their anxiety, you know, the different, you know, anxiety increases. and because being in the flow is an important state that, you know,

even companies try to reproduce that in a very synthetic way by not putting boundaries around people during like hackathons, days where people can create as much as they want. But it's an important state. It's a state where you create freely without worrying about your audience, we're about worrying where it's going and it's you. That's where a lot of the innovation comes. I get to that state, you know, exercising, like in the morning, dancing, like free form dancing, get in that state, you know, playing music, even without psychedelics.

But it's like you have to be curious on some of, you know, it's like there's a certain curiosity. And so when we, when we ran a retreat last October called the Sacred Creativity Retreat. in Peru and one of the goals was to kind of get people in the states in using psychedelics too but also without using psychedelics like in between psychedelic ceremonies so you know the psychedelics help you maybe feel what that state is like so it's easier to reconnect to it outside of those experiences so we had art workshops for example where had one person she had broken her hand and she couldn't paint with a brush, but she used her fingers. And she wasn't necessarily an artist, but she got in that flow stake. Yeah. Um, which was, of course, right after an ayahuasca ceremony, I mean, the next day, but you know, there's still, you know, an ease to get in that. And so yeah, it's, um, I love that state. I think it's essential. I love watching our daughter, um, get in that state and, and, um, it's, um, I love that state. And, and, um, it's, um, um, um, I love that state. Um,

seeing the art just comes up and it's it's an honor to be there and you know seeing her do that yeah that that is something that i have struggled with you know i'm i'm really open about my use of psychedelics and there's no shortage of people who probably look down on me for that especially having a daughter and you know but there's also people that you know are curious about it but I do think that there's something to be said about the state of art, the state of music, the state of being an artist and tapping into that flow state, whether it's through psychedelics or alternate states of consciousness. And I think it's something that can be not only embraced, but encouraged.

And I wish that we can move away from some of the stigmas that come with psychedelics that tend to be tied to mental illness. Have you noticed there being a stigma between psychedelics and mental illness? And what do you think about that? Yeah. Well, you know, I started my podcast, Leadership Adelics. You know, as one, I was trying to get away from the mental health discussion with psychedelics because I was like, you know, sure. If you want to legalize them to talk about mental health.

Right, right. But now you're creating a new stigma. It's like, wow, you're taking mushrooms? what's wrong with you? You know, it's like, no, nothing is wrong with you. I don't do it all the time, but, you know, like, it helps me as a person from a creative perspective, from being in the moment perspective. You know, there's some moments.

I got to describe this, but where you can, I would say, you know, you've got your sensors. You've got your eyes, your ears, your touch, your smell. taste, all that. And with psychedelics, you get the ability to open those sensors way, way wide, way open and led the data from those sensors flow in. And you're able to just watch that data flow without any judgment. And you're able to just be there, be present and find that stillness. And it's not an escape when that happens. It's the ultimate presence. And, you know, being able to experience that, even just once in your life, it's a human right in my mind.

And so putting that human right behind mental health stigma behind regulations, that's wrong. And sure, you could be a yogi, you could meditate on the mountain, you could do yoga every day. and it works great with psychedelics. And you could eventually, you know, get there. But the psychedelics help you kind of, you know, pull the curtains a little bit faster, a little bit more. And I know we still need to be patient and not in a hurry like everybody else. But still, being able to feel that,

being able to have it transcend you and touch you in your heart and your soul, then when you do yoga afterward, you can, you know, just go back to you. to maybe even if you go back to half of that or a quarter of that, that's pretty amazing. It is amazing. And I'm glad you brought this up because I think that this is a distinction that I see in you that I don't see in a lot of other people that I'm talking to is using psychedelics. And let's talk about your retreat too.

Like you are using psychedelics as a leadership tool. And I'm curious, is that the people that are kind of being drawn to the particular ideas that you have. Is it more of a leadership class or understanding self so that you can become a leader? What is it about leadership edelics? It's a giant circle, really. Isn't it all? It's a giant circle.

Maybe it's a snake trying to catch it stale in a circle. But it's interesting because, you know, I'll start with a podcast. But with the podcast, the more I try to get away from mental health, and the mental health discussions, the more I discovered that your foundation is in the mental health. And kind of a healthy mind and a healthy soul and creating from a healthy space really helps you manifest a better future.

Like if I play music, I've got my harmonica right here, but if I was to start playing music, I would center myself. I would center myself and approach it from a place of a center, which completely changes how the music comes out. And if I'm in a psychedelic ceremony, finding that center is a little bit easier. Like you're even more in tune with like the center of all the centers.

And so back to leadership, it's like what I'm finding out from talking to all those guests is, yes there's creativity there's authenticity there's there's everything you're creating and manifesting forward but you need to start with a healthy place with a healthy mind healthy soul you know addressing your wounds otherwise you're going to hurt the people around you and now for the retreat uh we made it about creativity the sacred creativity retreat and and the reason we made it about creativity is for my friend Kunti who's an amazing medicine woman and I creativity has always been part of our journey

as a tool to help us to help us heal and help us express ourselves and feel empowered because you know even as kids it's like with creativity you can bring to world things that you're just a little kid like you can bring otherwise you know you can't buy a car you can buy a house, you can't, you know, walk to a mountain and climb the top. But you have that creativity that you can manifest at any moment.

And so that's a secret creativity retreat. We really wanted to honor that. Now, the people that came to the retreat, all types of people, they just resonated with our narrative of like creating. And we're going to do workshops and we're going to do music and art workshops. And we're also not going to do any tourism during the time we're doing the retreat. We'll do it before and after, but not doing the type. And, you know, it attracts a certain type of people that are committed to the work,

that are interested to explore things they haven't done before because nobody had done, you know, I'm showing here on the screen, this is a Jews harp, Joe's harp, math harp. I don't know if you can't hear that, but... so you know nobody had done that you know there's the there's a harmonica nobody had done that and so they were willing to do things they hadn't done before um to expand what they can do as as humans and the result was you know truly truly amazing it is amazing it's on on some level I think everybody has a mental health issue.

I mean, the human condition demands it. You know, it's crazy to say, but I think, and in some ways, it's that suffering or it's that illness that we all have been touched by. And if it's not us, it's probably somebody we love. And it's just so strange to think that suffering, this thing that so many people are afraid of, is like the one thing that can really unite us, that we can all rally around it because we've all been touched. by it and getting in touch with wellness or illness or just a few letters off there. But I think that the psychedelic experience and the opportunity to engage in redefining yourself and wellness and being around like-minded people that are ready to take that next step,

you know, there's something to be said about the community or the social structure that happens when you invite people into that area. Yeah. I mean, people want to have. their hero's journey. That's one thing. And part of the hero's journey is the challenge and, you know, the suffering and, you know, the climbing a mountain and the going away far. And, you know, it's interesting because when I started working with plant medicine, it was actually locally here in Seattle with the Native American church here, which they're allowed to do peyote as well as ayahuasca ceremonies.

And when I started doing that, I was like, wow, there's a great community here, amazing people, and beautiful, beautiful songs that are really healing. Like, why would anyone travel all the way down to Peru or Costa Rica or, you know, anywhere else to do ceremonies? And it took me like several years to really appreciate. the space that you need to create for that journey and actually going in that journey. And so, you know, a lot of people when I was advertising and promoting, promoting the secret creativity on Facebook, which I don't recommend anyone who's running

retreats to, you know, promote them on Facebook, because you'll get a lot of opinions. And I did get many opinions there. And, you know, one of them was like, well, why would I pay all that money to go all the way down to Peru. You can just come do it in my backyard. I got some ayahuasca for you. And I'm like, you know, I responded to that. I was like, hey, if you want to go down in his backyard and do a ceremony, do your research. And if, you know, if it's safe and this is what you're looking for and being called to, do it. Like, you know, there's options for for everyone. You know, it's just, yeah. And the hardships you talk about, I mean, they're part of the journey.

We have to go through those hardships. And the mental health, it's an ongoing journey. And I was talking about that with somebody else yesterday. It's an ongoing metamorphosis. We're always, you know, transforming ourselves. It's interesting. Let me touch on some issues that I've been reading about that kind of divide the community a little bit. And there's no, I don't think that there's any right or wrong answer, but I'm curious to get your opinion.

It seems to me that in the world of psychedelic today, they are focusing a lot on mental illness. And there's a lot of attention on different retreats. But a lot of these retreats and a lot of these, you know, places that are beginning to do wellness therapies are extremely expensive. You know, sometimes they can be upwards of five, ten, even, you know, maybe 20 grand if you want, looking for a long-term. sort of a resort-filled retreat or but the point is there's really expensive and it seems to me that there are people that may not be a there may be alternatives to a guy in his backyard and you know isn't doesn't it seem that the people who may need a lot of this therapy are the people that don't have the money or the ability to really research it like these people we push

away people with bipolar. We push away these people that are under the bridges that have PTSD. Aren't these some of the people that need the medicine the most? Yes. But, you know, it's, it's, it's, there's, there's options. I believe there's, there's options for, for everyone. And, you know, like the, the retreats where people fly somewhere to that retreat, um, I mean, running our retreats are costs are really high. Yes. And this is one of the things that it's actually really challenging to do a retreat. So you've got to watch for a few things.

If the retreat is cheap, that usually means they're accepting 20 guests at the same time, 20 to 30 guests. Now, if they're expensive and they're doing 20 to 30 guests at the same time, you really need to ask yourself some questions of like, what's their motivation to run that? And so in our example, we're keeping it small, like eight people maximum, which creates a lot of problems because we don't really have an economy of scale with eight people. And our break-given point is, you know, might be like at six people. And so it's not simple math because you've got to pay for the healers. And you've got to pay the healers well because they've trained for, you know, we use local healers. and they've trained for for many, many years.

And they need the money because they're not running retreats all the time. And if they run retreats all the time, they would be overworked, exhausted, and they wouldn't do their work as well. So running a retreat. And then if you're doing it in the Sacred Valley, for example, versus the jungle, your costs are going to be much higher because, you know, but your comfort for your guests will be much better. So, like, you know, that's a tough nut to crack.

And I've seen retreat centers that will do also retreats regularly, like every month, every, you know, or every other month. That's pretty regular. But then they have to rotate through their staff, which increases the risks because now you've got, you know, important quality control of, you know, how you hire the staff. So retreats offshore, offshore retreats that are not at home are really hard. to manage and to make money from unless you increase the guest, which increases the complexity and the risks for your own guests, as great as your facilitators might be, you can have guests

that suck the energy of other guests. You can have guests that have really poor behaviors during a ceremony that just ruins everybody else's ceremonies. And as much as people would like to think they can predict all that, that you can't always predict it. That's the big lesson from ceremonies. They're all different. Now, people that can't afford going there, you know, I think there's not enough, but there's local options. There's underground options.

There's guides. I think as this becomes more and more talked about, people will realize they have guides right down the street from them and they don't need to travel, kind of like the autobiography of a yogi. You don't need to go all to the top of a mountain. Your yogi is right there. But you know, like you have to do a lot of research there because then there's, you know, there's safety, potential safety concerns because you're in a very vulnerable state when you're in psychedelics. And then you're not talking above grounds.

And above grounds, you've got people who've taken like certifications maybe for like a year. And before that, they've never done any work with psychedelics. So you also got to watch for that. And then you've got all the regulation that the government is putting in place, which is going to make it really challenging. But I think there will be more options for people in the future, because there's so many people that need it. It might be that what I call pharma 2.0 will be the default option,

where it might be a more sterile experience. maybe with a more focused a substance which might not necessarily have all the spiritual connection that that you know I enjoy but it's it's it might still help like it might still have like some good efficacy in helping people but I see a future where there will be lots lots and lots of options but it's a hard one like retreats are are a bad example of something to make accessible to a broad our community because the people who run it unless they have some donations and raise money as a non-profit like i want to pay the people who do the work i want to pay the healers i want to pay the

local staff at the retreat center and and that forces us i mean our retreat you know when we did it last year i think the average price was 33 maybe 3 300 and and we're going to have to raise them because we lost money at $3,300 and we had five guests. And we were going to have seven guests, but two of them canceled at the last minute. So that made the difference between, you know, like breaking even or not. So it's an interesting conversation, like for people who run retreats. And then there's the marketing of it, which is usually the best people at the work of healing are the worst marketers. So just a hint there.

Yeah. It's fascinating to me because it's this thing that is evolving in real time and you can see it changing. You know, whether it's through the sacrament or the people there or the angles in which people take, whether it's starting up their own church or, you know, having a direct lineage to a,

a shaman who has been a shaman for quite a long time. And I'm curious, as I've been thinking about different retreats and different ways in which people are being healed, I'm reminded of like the Elyucinian mysteries. And wouldn't it be an interesting thought experiment? Like, let's just do this. Like, if you and I were to recreate the Elyucinian mysteries, how would that look today? I don't know. I'm not familiar with a Lyssinian mystery.

history. So, you know, tell me. Okay. So in mid, in a, I believe it started off as like a, even before the times of, of the Romans and the Greeks, there was like this ceremony that people did. And it was people from all walks of life, be it wealthy noblemen or slaves. Everyone had the right to attend this three day festival. And you would go into the festival your first day. And you would go into the festival your first day. you would sit at like an amphitheater from what I've read. And people listening to this don't crucify me if I get this completely wrong. It's just what I read a little bit. And so imagine what this might be like.

Imagine going into an amphitheater like setting where there's a live stage being, being out. And the actors come out and everyone has like a cup of say mushroom tea or something, not a huge dose, but maybe somewhere between two, maybe one to three and a half grams, somewhere along that lines. And you're sitting in this amphitheater. And as the medicine begins to kick in and you feel yourself, you know, becoming really aware of everything around you, the play begins. And the play is a tragedy.

It's something like the idea of Persephone and Demeter where the daughter dies and the whole crowd sees it and takes part in it. And they become part of this thing that's bigger than them. And it transcends language because now you're watching a daughter disappear. And the mother just frantically searching. And it's like this death and rebirth. And towards the end of the play, they find the daughter. And everyone is kind of reunited.

But it's this shedding of the detritus. It's the shedding of the human condition. For a moment, we can all experience this thing together. And then it's a beautiful thing that can happen. And it takes everyone away from the world of judgment of each other. And, you know, it's the death and rebirth, the sun up and the sun down. It's a beginning. And then there's another day or two of festivals. But it just seemed to me that, you know, it's the birthright of people to have this psychedelic experience, this new connection. When I see retreats, I'm often reminded about the stories of Alusus and how healthy it was for people to go. And, you know, there wasn't a whole, obviously it's not today where everyone has to have liability, protection and things like that. But, you know, it's, I love it. I love it. I. I love it. I. I love it. I. I. I think that there's a way to return to that in a weird sort of way.

Yeah, this brings up a few things, but I love this reflection. First, it took me right to Burning Man, which I've never been to, but I'm like, I'm like, I can see that in Burning Man. The sense of community in retreats is really important. That group of people there for each other, the bones you're forming there is really important. But it also brings me to another reflection I've had recently, which you know, we're always talking about the mental health pandemic and how everybody has mental health issues and could benefit from psychedelics. But the thing is, you know, if you look at, you know,

I put my product hat and you look at the customer journey, you know, if you take one person that, you know, or a hundred people who have a mental health problem, and, you know, how many of those will actually understand that they're having a mental health problem? How many of those will, actually go seek help for that mental health problem. How many of those will actually end up in an environment that helps them find a solution? Because if they don't even know they have a mental health problem, it's just become their baseline of living, which a lot of people I think are in this situation and I'm like, my life sucks. I'm alone. I'm angry. Do I have a problem? Do I have a problem?

problem no everybody else does but I don't like they're never going to seek help and so I've been wondering about this recently because you know every time you get a startup and psychedelics that's pitching you know it's like hey we're going to help all those people I'm like well you're going to help the people actually come to your door but you know like there's probably a whole lot more that could benefit from from your help and And I was coming to the conclusion that entertainment and community is the way to actually help people who don't see that they have a problem. And to kind of lead them to maybe that door. And they might never call it a problem, but they might find healing in the process.

Healing through like what you talked about through that yeah that music that art that connection that community And then and then I came like full circle and changed my mind where it's like well decriminalization that's the way because when you're decriminalizing a substance you don't go into a cannabis store well some people do like saying well i've got anxiety i need to bring my anxiety now down and some people have that awareness and horrible to do that. But a lot of people will go in there and I'll go, you know, I just want to go relax, have a good time. And it might lead to some breakthrough that cannabis can lead to. But imagine if you had, you know, like, I'm actually going for the first time to a Grateful Dead concert in the summer. And, you know, like those mushrooms everywhere there.

But, you know, and it's like, imagine if you go, you get your mushrooms, you go to that concert, and you get that sense of community, you find that healing. And also, like, I think there's a lot of cleansing that happens through, you know, beautiful, through beauty, through, like, beautiful music, through a beautiful sense of community. And that helps with your mental health. And you never at any point said, well, you know, I've got some issues. here and you never had to deal with the stigma or anything you never had to go you know like like fill out a form or you know it's like you found healing um yeah it's beautiful i uh it's in some ways it's so

beautiful that it's it's almost like i think going to a grateful dead concert is a lot like having an acid trip like sometimes it's so beautiful like you don't want to leave So you just keep taking more. You know what I mean? I'll see. I don't know. I know you will. You will.

In the 90s, I was lucky. My friend and I, I had a, back in another lifetime when I was in my, I must have been 18, somewhere around there. And I just graduated. We drove my bus. He's still in California. We drove up to Oregon. It took like three days. We saw the Grateful Dead up in an awesome stadium in Eugene.

And I'll never forget. I drove up there and we were a couple days early. And I parked my bus in this field. And when I woke up the next day, boom. just cars and buses everywhere. I'm like, wow, it was so magical in so many ways. And I think you'll experience the same thing. It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful festival of creativity and artistry and weirdos.

And even like there's a lot of violence in a way. Not so much a fist fighting kind of violence, but like a violent sort of, a violent behavior. It's hard to explain. Like there's a violence in the way. people are fighting the world around them. And you can see it in some people out there. It's kind of hard to describe, but I'm stoked for you. You can have an awesome time.

Yeah, you know, sometimes I get really sad. I don't look at the news anymore. You know, talking about the violence and people fighting the world around them too is I think COVID and the pandemic. it just lit up a fuse like I think we're already like you know a tinderbox just waiting to explode and and just people on lockdown that just lights up the fuse there's an invisible enemy and the virus and that's a really hard situation dealing with something you can see when all your life you know all the advertising everything is about giving you something you can see and then for the

first time most people had that invisible enemy that you can see with rules from the government and mostly, you know, middle-aged white dudes, you know, giving them, giving them some rules. It was terrible, terrible. It was like the perfect storm. And, you know, that anger hasn't stopped. I just keep seeing it. You know, even in the street, like I walk, we walk our daughter to school, which is really nice. My wife and I do that in the morning. But even the way people drive and behave with each other, it's like there's so much just intensity and just anger that you can feel in the world today.

And I was like, yeah, you need those psychedelics. You need that medicine. You need the music. You need to be in the moment. And I'm back to talking about being in the moment. You need that flow state. like so many people need to flow state. But it's hard to get to the flow state

when the solution to surviving now is packing more things into your life. Like, you know, I love your podcast, true life. You know, it's like, you know, truly living life. And slow down. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's difficult for a lot of people because we weren't given the foundation

to interpret the world around us when we were younger. And a lot of what I see with psychedelics, whether it's a trip to Peru, whether it's perusing an old book on psychedelics or, you know, different or national geographic magazine, I think we need to embrace what McKenna called

the archaic revival. Because a lot of these things, these invisible enemies, whether it's communism or a virus or the military industrial, like it's all paper masks and rattles, right? It's like, ooh, wow, look it is. You know, and like,

people get really scared. with these masks and rattles. And it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination. Like just for kicks, people listen to just turn on the news and watch the paper masks and rattles. And then close your eyes and imagine being at a campfire and an older guy with a scary mask and horn just dancing around and got some fire. It's the same thing.

Like there's a threat there. But do you really need to be afraid of that threat? If you're sitting in your house, you're watching TV, just turn over and look at the other box, that thing called a window. and look out there because those things ain't happening through that window, only through this window. And which one are you going to pay attention to? There's an experiment.

I'm trying to do with my kids' school that I read in one of Joseph Campbell's books. And it's this idea of masks. And it's based on a tradition, I think, in Sri Lanka. And in Sri Lanka, whenever he was writing about this story at a time in Sri Lanka, he was talking about this tribe. And what they would do is, you know, the kids from the age, of like two to eight.

They would have their own areas where they would play. And from time to time, someone in a mask would walk by. And sometimes it would, and it was always, someone would be in a mask. They had a scary mask, like a devil mask,

and he would scare the kids. And then someone, you know, later in the day or two days later, would walk by in like a crying mask. And they'd be crying. They'd cry to the kids. And then another person would walk by

and they would have a comic mask on. And they'd be joking with them. And the kids were conditioned to these people walking around in masks, you know, for years. And they came to their little schools where they were. And then there was a ceremony, like at the age of 11, you know, when, and all the kind of kids would hear whispers as they got older. And at the age of 11, the people in those masks would break into the kids home. And the parents are totally in on it.

You know, like the kid would be like, like in the middle of the night, like nine o'clock, the doors open and it has the shuddering. And the kids knew it was kind of coming. And the people with the mask come in and they grab the kid and the mom, oh, tries to put up a a fight, but let's the kid go. And they take him out into the street. And the kid is there just shivering like, ah! And the guy with the devil mask comes out and they circle around him and the first mask comes out and he gets in the kid's face and he does whatever the mask is, whether it's comic or crying. And for this one, it's a devil mask. He goes, ah, he scares him. And the kid's freaking out. But then the guy takes the mask off. And he shows him, it's me. I'm your uncle. And he takes

the mask and he puts it on the kid. And then the next guy comes up with the crying mask. Oh, and the kid's like, ah, and takes off the mask. And it's me. It's your auntie. And they take that mask and they put it on the kid. And the kid learns, hey, all these scary and happy and funny and sad things, they're all of us. And they're just masks that you wear. And I thought it was just a tremendous way to begin to build a foundation for a child to navigate the world around him.

Right. Like, what a better foundation you have when you're taught that as a kid. Like, oh, I remember that. That guy's got a mask on. Oh, I have that same mask, you know. And I think if we can return to some of these things. then we can change the world we live in. And it's happening. I see this sort of acceleration of war and all these things as old ideas dying. And the evidence I give for that is both you and I

have spent 26 years in the corporate world before finding whether it's the courage in ourselves, whether it was something we were called to do, to leave behind, at least for a while, this world that we swam in, this world that was everything to us and try something new. And that's happening, whether it's you and Kesha or me and other people in my area. It's happening to people in all socio-demographic areas. It's happening to all of us at the same time. It's almost like we are this butterfly emerging from the detritus of a cocoon as a new form. So when I see what you're doing with your retreat and how it has a different form,

and it underscores leadership and beauty the same way other ones do, but in a different way. I know I kind of went on a rant there, but what do you think about this idea of a foundation, changing it for kids? Well, I don't know if I'd go this way about it. Because, I don't know, it could create trauma, possibly. I mean, we did have our home burglarized, and I can see the impact of, you know,

people violating your secret space that you don't know. And I don't know how he, it is to, I know if you do it quickly and show the face afterward, it might not make the trauma stick. But, you know, it's a nice story and it drives across the, you know, like the point. Right. I just don't know if I'd experiment that. I think, you know, having experienced a, you know, a burger in our home, I'm like, yeah, especially, even for the parent, even though they were in on it on your story, like for me is like, oh shit, like somebody breaking your home, that's a big deal. But I love the building of emotional intelligence.

Yes, yes. What you're doing here. I do it differently with our daughter. You know, when she's drawing or when I'm drawing, we really try to focus on expressions and kind of understanding that language of facial expressions. there's a great artist there's a book called canoffal bunny by i think the author is called william i mean our daughter is like five years old so but like the facial expressions of the characters every time we go through that i'm like okay what expression is easy going through

but in your story at the same time it's understanding that we can you know go through those expressions but still retain I guess our ourselves I mean that sure the being the uncle that sometimes is angry or sometimes yeah totally that's happy that's an important message it touches on rites of passage too which yes is another great thing that is it's kind of missing in our society and there's there's a lot of people who talk about better than I but let's like you need those rites of passage. It's like, you know, going from those different stages and acknowledging the shift is important. I don't know. And I like that you see, you know, what we're trying to achieve with the retreat. That's really important. That just that leadership, that creativity, that experience

to actually really broaden our humanity, you know, and that's why, you know, when we're talking labels at the beginning and who I am. It's like, you know, I feel that as humans, we've built that cave with the shadows on the walls. Yes. Yes. We can see so much more. We can be so much more. But sometimes, I think, for a lot of us, we find comfort in simplifying the, you know, the vastness of humanity. And there's a lot of comfort in staying in that cave. There's a lot of comfort in watching the news and getting the information in a certain way. But being able to break away from that, it's also important. Like, you know, I've left corporate several times before and I came back to it.

But the fact that I left it really allowed me to appreciate, give me some perspective. I appreciate what I have there. I appreciate the outside. And I might go back to corporate. it. I don't know. If they want me after this interview and, you know, all the other podcast episodes and me playing fluid, I think it'd be a great thing. And all the guests on the show have had, I was actually reflecting on that. Like, everybody's gone through that journey, that corporate grind, that, you know, grinding at a job that somehow early in your life, you thought, wow, you know,

this is the top of a mountain if I make it there. And then you make it there. You make it to the top. And you're like, really? That's it. That's it. I've got everything I wanted.

But, you know, I don't feel happy. And, you know, and then people step back, look for that happiness. And I think that's healthy. Like, people should be ready to do this hero's journey and not necessarily wait for their middle life crisis, which, you know, by the way, like, Middle life crisis isn't a bad thing just because it says crisis in there. You know, it's one of those important journeys. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a great point. You know, when people talk about the allegory of the cave, like we all talk about the shadows on the wall. But if you dig down deeper and read further into there, you see that the guy leaves the cave, but then he comes back. And in a weird way, you know, maybe that is the metaphor for going back to the world you lived in like you know the the same motif is everywhere it's the prodigal son who leaves his family and returns it's the allegory of the cave it is the hero's journey and it's it's written in our

dna somewhere like you know i'm not the mandolorean but this is the way love it this is the way yeah i've actually not started watching the last season because i've heard so many actually i did watch the first episode of last season and i was like oh man, they're just like bubbleheads now. In so many ways. Sorry, it's just like, if we've got to talk about the Mandalorian, I, you know, I love the first season. Like, there's a nice story.

I forgot the second season. It was okay. And now I'm like, wow, you guys, like he's going to go on a whole journey because he took his mask off. So you're spoiling it for everybody, but it's like, oh, and then afterward, it's like, in order to get there, he's got to do another mini-quest and another mini-quest. And I'm like, I like, dude, don't be so hard on yourself. You just took your mask off, like, chill.

Like, I like her face. And, you know, my wife and I were reflecting on this and we're like, you know, maybe the end of the whole series, he's finally at peace with not wearing his mask. And we can actually enjoy this actor's face. And I'm just like, yeah, just imagining being this actor. So like, okay, this is good for one season. It's good for two seasons. But then there's the armor, which, you know,

it's just like a badass woman. But like you want to see her face. And it's like there's no facial expression other than this metallic thing. Maybe like tilting a little bit like. you're Canadian and going A. And, you know, so I don't know that. The Mendelorian, we're also trying to stop watching TV. So, you know, every show like that that just misses the mark is another great reason for

us to not watch anymore. Well, I think it speaks volumes of the world we live in today. In some ways, the message of that show is don't ever take your mask off. Don't ever be yourself. Just be this robotic idea that you want the world to do. And like, that's, that's it. You know, they say art imitates life. And if that is like one of the biggest shows and that's the message behind it, like everyone should turn off television.

But, you know, Ed, the world we live in is symbolized everywhere. But speaking of, speaking of stories, let's bring this back to the idea of literature and psychedelic. There's a, there's this idea from breaking. new world where Huxley talks about Soma and Soma being something that people take in order to alleviate their problems, but then get back to work, get back to life. Do you see that maybe psychedelics or I think sometimes ketamine may lean more towards Soma because it seems the idea of a disassociative, maybe has a negative connotation sometimes where it allows you to disassociate and then come back and deal with the problems without dealing with them, if that makes sense.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I think there's a tendency of us humans looking for solutions to our problems. And one of them is taking pills. One of them is taking substances. And one of them is then using these as a crutch, you know, that in order to operate, like in corporate, I might need to take that pill every day. In order to do this, I might need that pill. You know, and, and, uh, And then it becomes the new baseline. And I can't, you know, I mean, we're not going to change as the human race overnight. I mean, I don't see us changing that behavior over the next, you know, 50 years with some magical enlightenment. I mean, we're still going to be looking for the solutions. We're still going to be pushing ourselves. Because I think a lot of that, sometimes it's people pushing themselves. It's people pushing themselves to say, I can do this job.

can do this, you know, like, hey, it's, it's okay if I, if I microdose. It's okay if I go do ketamine once a month. I can do it. As, as a race, I don't think we're going to change, but what I'm hoping is like, you know, maybe people will, will grow through the stages faster as, as those messages are shared and we start sharing our experiences there because I went through that. I mean, I went through that with, you know, and it wasn't just substances. at the beginning is I did yoga because I was doing startups. And I was like, I'm doing startups. It's intense.

I heard about this thing called yoga. Maybe I should try it. And then I did yoga and meditation. And you had that tool and that tool. And then you add, you know, substances. Well, cannabis is good with meditation. And then you add this and you add that and you add this. And eventually you stack up so, so much, but you're able to operate so high.

But you've also lost yourself in the process because it was like, who was where was that baseline? And yeah, I mean, it's going to happen and it's funny. Like ketamine, I could get very controversial about that. I was like, I totally hate calling this a psychedelic, even though the effects might be very similar. But it's like people love calling it a psychedelic because it's great for the VCs that have invested in psychedelic companies

that end up just opening ketamine clinics that are, you know, effective. some of like you know I've heard effective stories but like I'm not calling it a psychedelic other and you know I haven't experienced it myself so I'm not going to bash it either I've had several guests that I've experienced it I've had great results with ketamine therapy I had one that had a terrible experience because the people that were administering were weren't coach properly but yeah no this is going to continue happening I don't think we're going to get some enlightenment magical enlightenment on the human race. Microdosing is a good safe way, I think, you know, for you can start small.

You know, it can help you find what I would call serenity in your day and, you know, have maybe a hint of inner peace for some people that they're seeking. And then, you know, even with microdosing, it's like, what substance are you going to use? Because it resonates differently with. with different people, like Wachuma, LSD, Siloszibin. It's like which one. So yeah, it's going to continue happening. Yeah, it's, you know, I'd spoken a little bit earlier about how art can imitate life. And I've always liked Huxley as a writer.

And I'm a big fan of, I'm a big fan of the dystopians, whether it's 1984, brave new world. But it wasn't until recently that I read The Island, which was another book by Huxley. So it's interesting because in Brave New World, at the end of Brave New World, like a couple of the people are banished to an island. You know, and so I've always wondered if maybe this island was like a play on his thoughts, but the story of the island is a way in which they use psilocybin mushrooms in a way that's beneficial to the community. I'm not condoning what they do in the book, but in the book, they have the children of the island go through sort of like a, the same. way a woman from South America would go through a quinceaniera, the young kids in this particular island go through this ceremony where they climb this rock face and then they take a small

amount of mushrooms or some sort of sacrament at this church on top right there, you know? And it's, it just makes me wonder like, wow, what an amazing way to, to integrate, you know, being and understanding into a community and not have all. these, you know, war on drugs or all these exterior stimulus that can cause people to have anxiety or depression. What's your take on that? Well, one is, it's a, it's a fantastic way to honor our humanity, what you describe, you know, like take them to the top of a mountain and have them experience the, I'm hoping there's some guardrails there. Absolutely. Have them experienced the full range of humanity and what they could be.

You know, I had a conversation with a guy who's a coach. His name is O'Divier. I forgot his last name. Really nice guy earlier this week. And he's all about storytelling. Nice. And how you own your own story. And the importance of owning your own narrative.

And, you know, when I think about everything that happens in the world today. A lot of it is what I would call weaponize narratives. And it's all about trying to catch you in their currents and make you feel like their narratives is your narrative. Similar to the way a movie director, if you were watching a movie, would use the camera angle, the sound, the music,

to take you in a different state of mind. mind. And yes, all those things are happening. All those things will always happen. They've always happened. I mean, before it wasn't as efficient, but it was, you know, like you talk about Rome. I'm sure there was plenty of, you know, propaganda there and control of population. But at the end of the day, like this is, I tell people, this is like your story. And that's what my friend Olivier, coach, I can give you his information, a great guy, great. energy but reminder it used to make advertising so he was a movie ad director so he's he's got all the skills but right he teaches and i tell people it's like you own your own story what what soundtrack do you

want to play in the back of your mind what camera angle do you want to use i mean do you want you know like is it something like lord of the lord of the rings and inspiring or is it like you know like like the Fox News camera angle or you know CNN or whatever you know it's like they're they all have their their own choices of a flavor like pick your flavor pick what's what's yours like the world is always going to happen there's always going to be dark and controversial things and things that you know you can be a victim of and it's never going to end but you have the power like as you humans. Like you're talking back to that kid going to the top of the mountain. It's like, wow, you have the power to go to the top of a mountain and experience the amazing world that we're in.

I just, everybody should feel that once in their life. This brings us back to the idea of creativity that, you know, the, that you spoke about earlier in the podcast. And it seems to be something that you're drawing out of people when they contact you, whether it's to talk or read your book or go to the retreats. What do you think is the relationship between narratives and psychedelics? Do you think that people who begin to understand the environment of psychedelics have more of a toolkit to tell themselves a better story? Yeah, I feel it increases the size of palate, the paint you're working with. it's even the brushes and

I mean it's it's it's like you grew up and all you had was maybe that you know I don't know what those things were where where you're shit it's a sketch it's like you grew up you know with a with a hatchet sketch

and then all of a sudden that's all you could use to you know to make things and some people are actually really impressive with exoskeaches. You really were. But it's like all of a sudden, somebody gives you like a set of color pencils and, you know, different types of paper with different grains

and said, hey, go have it. And it really opens your world. And then you can use that moving forward. Like I never played music before, before working with psychedelics. And now I play flute every Friday. I've got my Flute Fridays videos on LinkedIn and YouTube. I play in ceremonies and I play to my kids.

And so it's thanks to that that really opened the gate, like in my case. And so the people come to the retreat. We open that gate for them. We give them more tools they can use in their growth. And yeah, it just reminds us what it's like to use this, I. I call it a temple because you have to treat it like a temple. But like this body and it's the gift, the gift of it, the gift of the sight, the gift of the hearing, the gift of touch, the gift of eating.

I talked about that. That podcast is not out yet, but one of our guests, Lana Shea is her name. She's fantastic. But we end up geeking out about like tasting a, bite after a mushroom ceremony and just holding that bite in your mouth and just fully appreciating like all the flavors of that experience because we're always rushing, rushing, rushing. And then sometimes like, wow, this is what it's like being human. This is what the, this is what the French people are talking about, the French people on the

countryside that slow down and, you know, they're in their cafe and just spend hours there. I don't know. I've never experienced that as a French person, but that's the image a lot of people have of French people. I was like, there's probably some truth there. Yeah, probably a lot of it. It's a great metaphor because it, that can be the same moment you have biting into a tropical fruit after a psychedelic trip.

You know, it can be the same way you savor life, whether. whether it's in a relationship or watching your child, you know, do something for the first time or, you know, watching, getting to have a conversation with your loved one that you, maybe some people who don't even know their loved one's favorite color or something, but there's all these little things that you can do with people you love for the first time that you may not be aware of. And I think that psychedelics, at least for me, has opened that door of like, there's so many different dimensions that I never even thought about or had even, taken time to really contemplate. And when I think about dimensions, I think about cultural dimensions. Have you found that, and you spoke on this a little bit, have you found that

the ceremony in Peru may be difficult to translate culturally from someone who's born in California? Like maybe taking something out of that with the Ikaro's and like, it's a different culture, so it may be difficult to absorb. Have you noticed that?

Yeah, I mean, it's, sometimes it's difficult to absorb for me. And I've had experiences with them. I mean, the, you know, if anyone has listened to, to Ekeros before, it's kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's something, you know, it's like this is, you know, I don't want to insult anybody who does great Ekeros, but like sometimes that's how it comes across to me. I mean, it's a completely different mindset.

And I think there's, there's a little bit of a. surrender that needs to happen, that psychedelics are good at teaching you. And because, you know, even when I would play music, like if I play math harp, like some people really don't like math harp. I mean, it's like, like, if I start playing, my mom hates it. She thinks it sounds like a mosquito. So there is, there's, um, You know, yes, there's cultural differences. There's some things that are hard. I think psychedelics help maybe get through those,

kind of stepping back and seeing it with different eyes, different perspectives, which also helps us connect together. But if I, yeah, you know, you could see some morphing or adaptation or metamorphosis or maybe even those ceremonies. through the years to kind of adapt to the different cultures. I mean, I've seen that with Native Americans running a Waska ceremony. They would blend their culture with what they call the songs from the medicine of the north with the songs from the medicine of the South.

And the blend and the harmony that they bring is beautiful. And there's definitely an art and an evolution that I think is going to happen over the years. And then there's a whole other controversial subjects of like, you know, if you talk about mushrooms, like who owns the mushrooms? Everybody can grow mushroom. Like what tradition do you actually follow when you run a mushroom ceremony? I mean, there's some very strong traditions that you have to honor and are important to honor and give credit to the indigenous people that have actually helped bring forth that understanding. but you know if there's plants that are freely available and you can connect with that plant how is that develop who owns it knowing that each of us is like a trillion ancestors more we each have more

ancestors than then there's people alive on earth today like who do you tap into what do you tap into like we're all we're all connected like it's it's and so part of me believes that people should also be empowered to work with their medicine in a way that's maybe aligned with them with them. But if they want to follow a tradition, follow the tradition, but it's important to honor it and not steal blatantly from that tradition, too. There's a lot of controversy around that as well. That makes sense.

This makes total sense, and it brings up a fascinating point. So previously you had you had mentioned that you had done a lot of work with startups. And in a way, leadership deluxe is kind of a startup, right? And you're talking about retreats and we're talking about startups in the, in the world of tech. Or it could be the world of anything. But I'm curious to what you're learning about being a leader. Like there's two, it seems to me there's a dichotomy here. Who owns the mushroom? Nobody. Who owns all the patents? Microsoft. I think that there's something there. And maybe that is about your leaving and coming back into the cave or the prodigal son, whatever metaphor you want to use. Maybe the idea of leadership is changing. And I'm wondering with what you're doing now, what you've seen and what you're doing now, has your idea of leadership changed?

Yeah, I think I've come to see, I used to be really hard on leaders, especially leaders and companies. Because I always thought it's like, well, we can do better. You can really stand up and treat your people better. And, you know, I'm not saying what's happening from a leadership perspective in the corporate world is the right thing. but now I'm seeing them more as people, human, that are in a system and they're trying to survive and they've got the same mental health problems that we have and those mental health problem that they're not even aware of trying to bring it to our conversation. So being a leader in our society right now is really, really hard. But I'm seeing like glimmers of hopes, you know, like people. There's a show called the Leadership Lunchpad that talks about Leadership 2.0 by my friend Rob Kalvarovsky, I believe.

And he talks about, you know, that more heart-led leadership. And I think that's really the big thing for me is I always had some doubts before about the validity of heart-led leadership because I didn't see that around me. because that's not what I saw in the people that succeeded. And I didn't have role models that are hard-led leader. And in fact, if I can point to a problem in the society, is we don't necessarily have heart-led leaders, enough of them anyway, that we put on pedestals. The people we put on pedestals are, you know, the Jeff Bezos.

Satya tries to be heart-led, you know, head of Microsoft and show that. but like not not all of them like try to show that heart led leadership you know like what's the the chicken and and and in the egg is like it's the society that's honoring that so we put that or you know do we construct a society where then somehow we artificially honor that and then people become that i don't know but like i i want to see more heartled leader and what i've realized to my show is no there's this heart led heart led leadership is very valid in fact you know you develop better better teams better products more healthy relationship this way people stay longer which right now it's it's kind of an issue where you know the younger

generations switch jobs all the time make it more about people like there's there's so many benefits to to that and also you know the other aspect and leadership that I found out I don't really found out, but it was more like a gut filling that, you know, reading books and all that. Like in tech companies, we're always like, you know, how can we create? How can we innovate? You've got examples with Elon Musk that, you know, yeah, he innovated with Tesla. You know, they have a lot of innovations. But I'm not looking closely, but I haven't seen a lot of innovations from Tesla in the last 10 years. But then at the same time, he loves to say, you know, work 60 hours a week or here's the door. The thing is if you can't let people be humans

and live and enjoy life, you're going to stammer their innovation. You're, you know, at work. And so, you know, as a leader, it's really important to be able to help your people grow as humans as well, because that's when you get innovation. So the secret creativity retreat for me is also really important from a leadership perspective because it's it's reconnecting us with that authentic creativity the one where we're a little naive there's there's no boundaries and we explore like crazy things and we explore crazy things that could lead to the transporter could lead to you know the the the communicator from star trek yeah that inspired the phone like you know and and we need to bring that back because the stuff that's happening now you know i i i love working with all

the AI stuff right now and filling the boundaries of it. But a lot of it is just a natural evolution and it's a lot of people kind of following each other in lockstep and doing a little bit of an arms race with AI. Is it innovation or is it a natural evolution? Sometimes people want to leapfog things and move faster with innovation. And I don't think you can do that if you're treating people like, like machines, if they have no life outside of work, if the solution to everything is packing more into your day,

if you can't get into those flow states with your kids and your family, you're not gonna be able to innovate. You're just gonna be able to have a bunch of stuff that's evolving naturally that probably just lacks that human warmth. There you go. Yeah, that was beautiful.

You know, it's almost like, I forgot that, I can't think of this word. There's almost like a symbiosis that we're leaving out. You know, when you think about like the small fish that lives by the sea an enemy, and he's allowed to stay there because he brings in other stuff and the enemy can eat it. You could take that small fish away from that enemy and put him in a tank. Finding Nemo. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. But what happens when you take him from that environment that's symbiotic? Like he gets, he loses weight. Like, he's still alive, but he loses weight. and he becomes less active, and he probably lives a shorter lifespan. And it seems to me, like we as society, have gotten away from the very things

that make our life worthwhile. And those things that make worthwhile is like family and exploration and curiosity. And without those things, we don't have innovation. And Peter Thiel brought up a really good point that said, we haven't had any innovation for a long time. You know, he's famous for that quote that says, We were promised flying cars and we got 120 characters, right?

And I think we're getting back to that. When I see what you're doing with leader delics and when you speak on the way in which you think leadership was changing, well, it was awesome. Thanks for sharing that. I think that's what we need. We're not going to go anywhere. We're stagnating. And you can see it in the economy. You can see it with the authoritarianism.

You can see it with all these things. Like people don't have any ideas to. It seems that the people. don't have a whole lot of ideas to move us forward. Yeah, well, the scary thing is that it's moving even faster. It's, you know, so in the 90s, that's when I did my first startup in 95, when the internet was like really starting to boom and it was moving fast then. I felt like it was moving fast.

You had new companies all the time, new tech all the time. And, you know, you could still absorb it, though. You could still absorb it. Maybe it was my age, but I could still absorb it then. I'm looking at what's happening with AI now and following that closely. Because from a creator perspective, there's huge opportunity and there's also huge threat. And it's impossible to absorb everything. happening right now it's moving so fast it's incredible I was looking at some of the

announcements from Nvidia last week Adobe so Nvidia is like they've got like sticks to video Adobe is like all kinds of fancy add-ons that they're gonna start bring into their tools that are really high quality like and and I use I mean I started using Chad Gypity as an assistant. But it's still, it's moving too fast. And, you know, I always said that when I build products and we were like thinking, how often should we release things is there's a certain level that people can absorb things.

And if you release it too fast, they get into a state where they can't really absorb the depth of the great product that you've released. So you have to find what's that sweet spot where, you know, I'm releasing often. I'm really seeing something great. But it also gives time for people who are using the product, who are using the technology to absorb it and realize how they world change as a result.

So it's really crazy. I would say, you know, people, you know, slow the fuck down in general. You know, it's just another, you know, I'm holding my cup of tea here that actually this, I made in pottery class. but I had this insight once doing a psychedelic ceremony is like even when you drink a cup of tea, you know, and you pull it from the table, you've got a journey that goes from the table to your mouth. And so you want to bring it straight from the table to your mouth.

But what if you just stop in the middle? What if you just stop there and feel? Just feel how that cup feels in your hand. You know, just appreciate the moment. Feel where you're at right now when you're drinking this cup of tea. Feel how it smells. But just stop there. And then just, you know, resume your shit after that.

But, you know, stop for a moment. It's like just get that moment. And I think people need more moments like that. You have got plenty in the morning. It's part of my rituals. But there's those moments where you just slow down. And I think it will help. the whole world. It will actually help the world move in a better direction and probably innovate

even faster with bigger things by slowing down. Okay, I'm going to push back. I disagree. I think that we should accelerate it. I think we should move faster. Like I think they both lead to the same area, though. Like there's too many like, how do you want to move faster though? There's too many people controlling ideas. There's too many people that are gatekeepers and chat GP. and AI circumvents that. And it allows people that have never had access to really powerful tools to use them. And there's going to be tons of people that don't use them. There's going to be tons of people that get pushed out of the way. But that's a necessity. Like, we need that to grow. And the reason I think we're here is because we've had this stagnation. And I can,

what do you think are some of the problems with with accelerating? I don't understand. Oh, no, when I'm saying slow down, I, well, there's a few things I'm saying slow down too is you're you're still going to end up in the same well no you're not going to end up in the same place I say be more mindful right it's and chaotic times I guess are necessary but I would say slow down as individuals to make better decision on the whole and and yes if I look at chat GPD what I know of tech is those things tend to get released before they're ready. And they tend to use people as guinea pigs to test things out.

And so, you know, when I talk about slowing down, rather than having 100 years of evolution in six months, which, you know, it's great. But at the same time, you know, like I've been banging my head on the stable diffusion wall trying to do some storytelling with it. And a lot of people are going to be angry at me and telling me I don't know what to do. But, you know, it's a little bit unstable. And it's got a lot of issues.

And sure, you can play with it and fuck around and have a glimpse of the future and feel very powerful and all that. This is great. But I also like quality. I also like quality of craftsmanship. And I think quality of craftsmanship demands. that, you know, people slow down sometimes. And so it's a balance. I don't think there's a right solution.

It's going to accelerate however way, you know, I think on an individual basis, you can slow down, spend more time in craftsmanship. I just would hope that the products that come out are high quality. I'm going to try to use Chad GPD today yesterday and the day before. and they have a prompt them there. Oh, we noticed there's some issues with our accuracy with chat GPD4. We're investigating.

That's been there for the last three days. I'm like, okay. I mean, I know you're in a hurry to release all that stuff, but maybe if you just wait another few months, oh, no, no, marketing is ready to like push this. I'm sorry. I just know how those things work. And a lot of times we have total control over the timelines and way more control than we think we have in a corporation or in a company.

And always, if I had to choose between going faster and slowing down, I would say slow a little bit and release something better quality because we do have control over this. This is our product. And we've built it from the ground up. And so that's where I strike the balance between the two. And you can probably assimilate all the changes that are happening. And many of the people that are really excited about these changes can. But the mass of the population can't. And to your point, it's also very empowering.

I also love how empowering those changes are because it's allowing me to do things I would need a team to do before. what does that mean for that team I didn't hire well I wouldn't have hired it anyway because I don't have the money to hire them so but then the flip side to all this I talked about the threats the extension and a threat as a creator which is also a really important point I love having an assistant that I can iterate with really quickly on creative projects it's almost like being a creative art director and you go back and forth using either mid-journey or stable diffusion, and you can even train it with your own art. And so as an artist, you're still able to influence that

and not just be the guy and Wally on a wheelchair that says, hey, you know, give me this perfect thing, and I've got it, and I really don't do any work. So, you know, it's still, it's so working. The threat is it puts us in a state, which I can project in the future with the mix of, you know, VR headset, reading the brain waves. All the technology is there. Like, it just needs to be integrated.

It's like you have a VR headset. You can read your brainwave. And I can basically build a world for you that is exactly what you want for your demographics for, you know, based on your brainwave. And you can just live in that. And it's. it's that ultimate feedback loop. And at that point, I'm a little bit worried, but I also have no idea what's going to happen.

I'm just like, I can project things one another. I was like, well, this is great. You're basically creating everything you want to be as a human and you're able to see the breadth of what you can create. But then who's the director who's controlling that story that you're creating? Like back to that story example. Are you really writing your own story? And who has control over that?

To your point of who has control over the power? Yeah, that's an interesting future. But that technology of reading EEG brainwaves plus VR headset plus manufacturing 3D worlds, it's happening. I mean, NVDA announced like a text to 3D already. The brainwave reading, you've got open B2. DCI that has a lot of EEG headsets that you can get and basically use as a brain computer interface. That's happening already.

And the headsets, I mean, they've been there for a while. They're just going to get smaller. And so now we just need somebody to do the work. And maybe we'll even have chat Gipiti to the work because now you have people programming chat GPD to write like the latest thing. I saw a guy programming chat GPD to write flappy birds. and it's like anyway it's it's it is it's amazing um you had spoken to me briefly are you okay on time because i'm a i'm okay if you keep talking that's a good i mean i'll keep talking too if you

yeah i know me too so we had recently spoken a little bit about um the idea of psychedelics and brain mapping you know i've spoken to some people that that are sort of life hackers in a way. Like they're trying to find a way in order to find optimum levels of functioning. And they're using psychedelics to do it. And you can see it in athletics a little bit. Like you see people coming out and they'll go on a retreat and they'll visualize the game and they'll watch film and then they'll go through the motions or some people like to practice

martial arts on a lower dose. And there's this other avenue that I think it kind of branches off leadership in a way. way, this use of psychedelics and brain mapping. We could get into the health of it too, but what do you think about psychedelics, brain mapping, leadership, and performance? Well, so brain mapping is the process in which people do a EEG rating of their brain waves, and this can be like really high resolution. So we did this in Peru, and we had like medical grade EEG machines,

And we did it before the ceremonies and then we did it after the ceremonies and the workshops. So we had a baseline and we could clear to the baseline. It was fantastic. And I kept them also really clearly separate because I don't like to, I'll get to that, but I didn't want to mix electronics in like ceremony rooms or, you know, getting in the way of the natural explorations of things. So we kept that separate. And, you know, like so people would put a headset with like 19 electrodes.

on and for 45 minutes they would get their brain waves recorded in a calm state with eyes open, eyes closed, and then they would answer psychological questionnaire. And this was using software from a company named New Mind Software and working with a friend who's an ex-marine in Peru who basically started a company called Neuro Enlightenment that works with retreat centers to provide this service. Really great guy. He was on the podcast. His name is Luke Jensen.

And so we read, we got this analysis, read the brain waves, and it was fantastic because with the psychological questioning of the results I got that we got, that each guest got, was very unique to each person, which is obvious, but, you know,

seeing that uniqueness in the brain wave rating was fantastic. Like you could see when they had parts of their brain that was overworking to compensate for other areas of their brains. And I'm not I'm not the professional here. Like I wish I could have my own machine to do this and all that. But, you know, like you could see things that that were due to imbalances, due to unhealthy patterns. Like one guest, she had had some brain trauma earlier in her life. So part of her brain was compensating for that.

And then we actually shared that information with the healer, the Shepibo healer. And during his ceremony, he went behind her, ayahuasca ceremony, and he kind of put his hand there, I think. That's what she said. And he kind of, I don't know, blew or did something or a song or something. He did his magic, his healing. And then she was like, wow, I kind of felt some pressure being released. And a lot of times in those experiences, you don't necessarily know if you imagine something or if it really happened.

It was like, well, did I make that up? And then we did the follow-up brain map. And we could see like an improvement in her brainwave patterns, more of a normalization around that area. So that, you know, one area of her brain was compensating for that. area where she'd had some earlier trauma and and across all our guests we could measure brain wave normalization so like a more healthy patterns in the brain wave and then brain plasticity and which I don't know exactly how they measured that but they did and and for for all of them we saw 30 to 50 percent improvement in both of those areas which is huge

Now, what's interesting is a few months later, there was an article that came out, a scientific article that actually explained how neuroplasticity improves with DMT, which is, I won't go into detail, but if people look up neuroplasticity and DMT, you can find this article everywhere, I think, now, because everybody in the psychedelic industry was like, hey, told you so. and so you know that that's great now for the the biohacking part like for us the big question is before I get to biohiking the big question is is it sustainable and it's really hard for us to measure that because everybody goes back to their places you know their country and and you know we don't send them home with a seven thousand dollars brain mapping machine so so we don't we don't know I mean I see them through integration. We keep doing some integration together and they're all doing well, a lot more kind of level-headed, calm and actually good things are happening in their lives. And so I like I'd like to think some of that remained.

And then the biohiking, I always had like, I don't know, not love, hate, but I always had fun with the biohiking because the word hacking for me was always a struggle. It's like, you know, I would hack my computers. I would overclock my computers to go beyond what they were designed to do. I would add a cooling system to my computers to go beyond what they were designed to do. And for a lot of people, and I don't think that's the biohiking community, but for a lot of people, just reaching the level that which they should operate at, I don't even call that biohacking. It's like get some good sleep, eat healthy,

and that's probably the most important thing. Those kind of get mixed up together sometimes. But then you've got the people who are really trying to tweak things, kind of like the gamers who are trying to get the best machine. I mean, I've done it, you know, and I enjoy it. I don't do it often because I don't like to be dependent on outside things. And one of my best friends who was my coach, Sean McCormick, who runs the optimum performance podcast.

I mean, it's all about biohacking, and, you know, he would tell me about all those hacks and everything. Yeah, it's not always for me. Sometimes it's just like simple life, you know, just give me a walk in the forest and how many things do I want to learn? But you brought martial arts. I did a yoga class the day after I did, I didn't teach it. I took it.

The day after I did an ayahuasca ceremony. It was one of my best yoga classes ever. I was in the flow. I just could connect to everything. So I can see the draw there. But again, I would say, you know, like, what's your intention? You know, and there's a lot of philosophical and even the spiritual journey as a biohacker within yourself. Like, what are you trying to achieve that you don't hide?

is it a state you want to have all the time i think about that for music for example i feel like i play awesome music when i'm on psychedelics but do i want to rely on psychedelics to play awesome music all the time i don't know no probably not that'd be exhausting i kind of get tired uh after playing six hours on mushrooms you're like okay a little old for this but yeah you're still there Yeah, I'm here. I had a mute my mic because I had a guy mowing the lawn out here. Oh, me too. I've got Thursdays, the air blower guys. I'm like, we could talk about having to record and noise pollution. There's a few blooper reels I have where I'll go out in nature and I'll try to record something. Oh my God. It's like airplanes, airplanes, airplanes, airplanes. And when it's not airplanes,

planes, I've got crazy squirrels, and then when it's not the crazy squirrels, I've got crows and gardening and garbage trucks. Noise pollution is another big thing. It is. And in some ways, I've had that exact same thing happen. I think anybody who's creating content has come along this avenue and seen these, this pollution or these sort of things that happen. And it always makes me realize, wow, I really notice all these things now.

normally not notice all those things? Like, that's a lot of things happen. And what are the chances? And I'm like, chance are probably pretty good. It happens all the time. Oh, yeah. It's another thing we've become desensitized to. I tried to explain it to my wife. She's like, well, it really seems to trigger you, honey. And I'm like, I'm just trying to get my message across. And I've just noticed that every, you know, every 20 seconds, there's an airplane that flies above my head or you know that there's this truck or we can hear this highway or this you don't pay attention to it and maybe silence is unsettling for some people that's that's another thing silence is the ultimate truth i think yeah but there's an interesting corollary about having an interruption whether

it's a squirrel or a plane or a garbage truck you know a lot of the times when you're thinking at least for me, I find what I used to, what I used to deem as task irrelevant thoughts when I'm focusing. And that's kind of similar to an interruption, even though it's not. Do you know what I mean by that? Like, you'll be trying to do, I'll be doing my dishes. And then I'll think like, man, I should get rid of my cat over here. He's wasting all the food. And that has nothing to do with doing the dishes.

I thought. But in reality, the more you pan back, and this is something I thought about on one of the later trips that I had is like what about these these task irrelevant thoughts when you're focusing and then I came to the conclusion like there's no such thing like every thought is the next thought in the process of getting the thing done yeah yeah I think Buddhism is a lot to say about that too is kind of just watching without judging the the flow of thoughts because there's there's a lot of judgment that we tend to put on that. I mean, I put a lot of judgment on the plane going overhead

because I'm just trying to do a recording and I'd like it to be good quality. But if that didn't happen, there's actually an interesting example about noise as we were doing a team building. So last June, we were doing team building in Peru. I went down because we hadn't worked together since the beginning of the pandemic.

And I wanted my friend Kunti and our healer, my friend Jose and Luke, who does the brain mapping, I wanted us to do ceremonies together. So we did an ayahuasca ceremony and then we did a mushroom ceremony the next day. And this is a lot to say there. But the mushroom ceremony, what happened is we were in a private home. Like we didn't have a full-blown retreat center. It was only, you know, four of us. So we were in a private home in the Sacred Valley, in the countryside.

And that home was right next to a family. They're probably like a farming family. We have the dad, the mom. I think they had like three kids, some chickens and all that. Like we were right next to them. And so we start the ceremony. And usually when you do a ceremony like that, you want everything to be quiet.

Like, you know, you're focused on kind of your thoughts on the inside, and then the guide plays some music or sings, medicine, songs. And we could hear everything. As the whole family was going through all the phases of an evening as a family. As a family. And I was leading the ceremony, the mushroom ceremony. And at first, I was like, wow, how am I going to deal with this? Like, you know, I'm trying to play some music and I hear, you know, like kids screaming at each other.

I've got the parents screaming at the kids. And I was like, you know what? There's as much part of the ceremony as we all are here. And how do you bring harmony to that? How do you embrace it? How do you embrace their movement? along with what we had. And it ended up being one of the most beautiful ceremonies,

you know, and the highlight was when after, you know, all the infighting before dinner, fighting during dinner that the family had, like we heard the kids giggling together in the middle of, you know, our, you know, deep mushroom experience. And I was playing harmonica and really just, I was playing for them, just as much as the people in the room.

And so I think, you know, a lot of times it's like, how do you, you know, embrace those noises? Like, when I do my recordings, I really can't embrace the planes, maybe the squirrels, maybe the crows, and maybe the natural things, but the planes is just really hard. But like that, with that family,

it was all about embracing this. And I think, you know, whether it's thoughts, too, thoughts that get in your mind. It's like, how do you remember you? embrace that. How do you watch it and find harmony in it? Yeah, that that is something I've noticed on psychedelics too. For me, it changes the nature of relationships. And it seems to me, most of my life, and maybe it's the schools I went to or the family that I grew up in, or the way in which the Western world embraces linguistics that we're surrounded by the

subject-object relationship, right? And it, it seems to be a dynamic that is lacking. And when on psychedelics, you're given the opportunity to be the observer, whether it's the observer of your thoughts, whether it's the observer of how you used to be, whether it's the observer how things could be. You know, and it's like this gift. And when you explain to me while leading the ceremony,

you were trying to understand how you were going to incorporate this, the way that you explained it to me was like a bird's eye view. So I got the idea that you were the observer. And I think you can take that lesson back. That's one of those ones you get to bring back from the mountaintop. It's great for parenting. Totally. It's funny because I have like two boys and a girl.

And when my boys were younger, they would fight together, like little bear cubs. You know, it's part of the natural growth of boys. But I would kind of get trapped in that as a dad because, you know, like Steve Jobs used to describe as kids as like little pieces of your heart that are running around, I think. But it's like when you have little pieces of your heart that are fighting with each other, like it's really hard. You kind of get pulled in emotionally and sometimes it's, you know, it's hard not to get caught up. And like with psychedelics, it's like, no, like I can watch this and step back and watch it like I'm watching a TV show in a way and not get pulled in.

and make maybe more rational decisions this way. And they tried to teach you that. I remember I went through yoga training, and we had a really good teacher, guest teacher. His name was Chevedo. And he lives in the forests next to Seattle. Great guy.

It's all about connecting with nature. And he had us kind of hold an ice cube in our hands. And it's like, you know, as you're holding an ice cube in your hand, it's cold. Like you're feeling the cold. And you give us this exercise of like, okay, can you step back? And instead of just feeling it, like watching it, like being able to take that bird's eye view of like what's going on right now.

I wasn't really good at it then because I didn't really know, I think, what it should feel like. But with the psychedelic experience, like I felt. I felt it. And then I could take that back with me afterwards. A lot of times it's about, it's in those experiences, like, what can you take back? There's always something. Sometimes there's too much for you to remember. Like with ayahuasca journeys, I mean, you get full downloads. It's so much. I mean, I came to a point was like, just remember three things. Like, what are those three things I want to take it, take away from the journey? And then sometimes it was just like one thing where it's like, you know, You know, like one day, it was like, I went to a friend, right after the ceremony, I was like, oh, my God, it's bigger on the inside. That's so true, man.

And it just gave me a whole new perspective on Doctor Who. And, but, you know, there's so many things there, but it's like it's the one thing I decided to carry forward. So are some of these things, whether it's holding an ice cube, or whether it is other types of storytelling interactive activities. Are these things that you do when you lead ceremonies? Yeah, yeah. I mean, the storytelling, it's a big part of ceremonies.

I mean, I learned this from attending Native American ceremonies. Like, storytelling for them is huge. I mean, that's been a huge part of how they've transferred history and knowledge. Right. And so always love that aspect. I try to bring it, you know, whenever I have a ceremony at the beginning and at the end. They're holding an ice cube.

I don't make anybody hold ice cubes, but I do try to have them, as I said, learn with their heart and not their mind and like how things feel. So like, you know, if you take the harmonica, for example, you could go on YouTube and you could watch tons of videos that will tell you how to play harmonica, how to hold the harmonica, how to blow in the harmonica, how to do all those things with the harmonica. And then you'll go through all that and then maybe after that you'll become a really good harmonica player. Or you can come to my workshop and come to the retreat and I'll be to screw all this. you know take your harmonica hold it however you want

stay in one spot just stay there just don't go anywhere and just start blowing in it just but be familiar with the breath just study the breath as you go in it take your time take you know and it's like i don't know if this comes across but i've got my harmonica here and it's like and this was just like i'm not holding it right i'm not you know putting my lips on it the right the way I'm not doing anything right. What I'm doing right is I'm just like feeling the breath going through it and and just letting it unfold. And so I tell people I was like just just start there. And you know, once you actually add the psychedelic ingredient on top of that and you've just started there, it's just like everything. Just like, oh wow, I have all those, you know, parts between my lungs and my mouth that. I can actually reshape and change how things sound. And then you can go crazy. I go crazy.

It's like, wow, I can change the reality around me with the harmonica. But yeah, no, learn with your heart. That's what I try to tell people. I don't do the ice cube thing, but I do a lot of learning with your heart and the psychedelics help amplify that experience of learning with the heart.

and seeing things with a different perspective too. It's a fascinating way to introduce breathwork into someone's, right? I'm like, wow, that is a great way to do that. Yeah, I feel like Mr. Miyagi. It's like, yeah, wax on, walks off, you know. It actually came through a really hard lesson. It was early just before COVID, actually February. of 2020, I think, is when COVID started.

Went down to Peru and there was five of us. We, in a temple, we were going to do an ayahuasca ceremony. We were all experienced, maybe four of us. We were all experienced. And we decided to do a massive amount of ayahuasca, which, you know, like for most people, it'd be like, you know, a shot glass, but, you know, like, it's just the size of my cup of tea here.

And that was a mistake. And there was many other mistakes that led to that. I mean, we kind of got up and got caught up in. And people who were with me or listening probably would argue, well, it wasn't a mistake. It was just you. But, you know, I got caught up in this. And I should have pushed back. And I didn't push back.

And, you know, I went ahead and I had that huge. cup of ayahuasca. But it was excruciating. It was a terrible, terrible experience. I had to actually leave the ceremony room and go into the storage closet, which was right next to the ceremony room where they store all the mattresses, suck earplugs on. And I just felt like this my brain being grounded in darkness. And it was very painful.

And I was swearing like a French sailor. And I really don't like the A caros then. But, you know, it was all me. And, you know, like it taught me how to be responsible along the way for all the decisions I make. But, like, all I had with me was the harmonica. And I just started, all I could do is I had the breath. I had my breath. This was just me and my breath.

And I didn't even have enough thought to form a musical notes chained together. It was me, my breath and the harmonica. So I just stuck the harmonica in my mouth and started breathing through it. And it just started calming my breathing. I just started long inhale, long exhale, long inhale. And that help. It formed that lifeline in the darkness, that white line that they could, you know, hold on to. And I was like, you know, this is my medicine.

This is what I'm going to teach people. This is what I'm going to help them with. is just finding that serenity in the breath. And it's not even like advanced breathwork. Like, yeah, I don't even have any advanced techniques. It's like just feel it, feel it. And, you know, going in and out of your body and feel how you can create with it too. Like a lot of people are afraid to sing.

And so using something like a harmonica gives them the ability to create. to create with their breath without actually putting themselves out there with their voice, which for a lot of people, it's been pushed down. And so the harmonica is also a good stepstone. And so part of the workshop is to help them find their voice. And so the harmonica is a good stepstone to reconnecting with your ability to create and to reconnect with the power of your breath and to eventually sing. That's awesome. That's a great story. I think about breath a lot. Maybe it's because I'm a big fan of psychedelics and alter states of consciousness and thinking. And I'm curious when you said it helps people find their voice. It kind of speaks to me in that people are afraid to seem. People are afraid of their voice. And then it leads me to the idea of I think a lot of people are afraid of their thoughts. Do you think people are afraid of their thoughts?

You know, I think we're we easily judge our thoughts. We judge a lot and we easily judge our thoughts. So maybe we develop some some fear of our thoughts. And there's also, I would say a lot of thoughts that maybe aren't even ours because we, we grab so much from our environment. And especially if you're watching the news. there's just a lot of just negative imagery that gets shown and it's it's you it's to tap into your instinct as your survival instinct because if you see that negative imagery you're like oh shit what's

going to happen to me i need to watch the news tomorrow again because it's like and there studies that show that this is how the news get you addicted to the news is is and but then it creates those thoughts pattern the those patterns and we talk patterns but you you have those patterns that then stay in your mind, that yeah, you should probably be afraid of it. Like, I'm going to use Fox News as an example again. But if you watch Fox News every day, you know, like two hours a day, and how do you feel at the end of watching each episode?

Do you feel angry? Do you feel like, how do you feel? And you could probably all the news outlets to an extent, you could probably have, you know, they have their own flavor of feeling. But like, how do you feel? Because that is a thought pattern that is getting created in your mind. Like, if you watch a violent movie, like we're very mindful about what we watch, my wife and I, because it's like empathy.

Like you suck in so much. And, you know, we're waiting for the scientists to tell us all that stuff is bad for us. But I'm like, I know it's bad. And there's some thoughts I could be afraid of. Like, you know, it's like we watch the second season of The Witcher. There's a scene where I think a woman like paralyzes everyone and she sticks a pen in somebody's eye. I mean, how fucked up is that? Sorry for everybody who listen and now is this image in their brain.

But please be glad you didn't watch the show. Yeah. Because you could actually see it. And I'm like, how in the world do you get from being a kid who draws happy faces and, you know, he sees the best in the world and can create all those amazing things to end up spending millions of dollars to creating a show that this is the one thing that you want to show? When we can do all those things as human. Like should you be afraid of some thoughts afterward that pop up when you remember this thing? Yeah, probably.

You should probably do some cleansing work and, you know, you know. know, read some, I don't know, Lord of the Rings or, you know, or, you know, maybe something a little more subdued. Yeah. Do you think that that is, like, there's all kinds of movies like that. And people build franchises around movies like that. You know, it's, it's sinister in a way. And it's the low-hanging fruit of dopamine or adrenaline that people are, are chasing

after it but it almost seems like that that's the new economy is this economy of dopamine it's and it doesn't have to be bad ones but it seems like we're moving in that way it's funny like this this other recent reflection i i had was and even for like social media we're all falling into that trap i call us the the willie won't cow willy won't cows of digital sugar uh but it's all about how much sugar can I stick in my post and I constantly need to increase it because everybody's palate taste buds get used to the sugar you had in the last post

so you know TikTok has the most obnoxious level of sugar you know then you've got Instagram and then you've got I would say Facebook and then you've got LinkedIn but then you know within each of those channels you've got the Willie Moncas and you know Mr. Beast is

the ultimate Willy Wonkaa there. He actually had, I found out he had a show where he built the whole Willie Wonka thing. And I'm like, there's a reason for that, you know, because you're the, you're the Willy Wonka of digital sugar. And in the movies, it's the same thing. I mean, it's like after Game of Thrones, which had some rape scenes in there that I never watched for that reason. It's all about like, what are those like really intense emotions we can.

Oh, almost drop this dark. What are those really intense emotions we can tap into? And even like the algorithms on social media, it's really interesting because if you want to do well, find something controversial to say that's tied to one of the weaponized narratives. Then you get a lot of people arguing with each other on the thread and your post bubbles up. And I'm not playing that game. and I will never play that game. And this is probably why I'm not as successful as I'd like to be on social media. But like people have to be aware of those things.

They're happening. Everybody's trying to outdo each other. But it's not sending us in the right direction. I think it's really unhealthy. And when we talk about mental health, it's not me being a conservative, you know, stuck up person. it's like if you see a thought that you never had before, you cannot unsee that thought.

It is now in your brain. And if you imagine all the thoughts that could be placed in your brain, which type of thoughts would you like to be put in there? You know, like you have to be mindful. This is a sacred, like your brain is the most sacred thing, but somehow you've got the Netflix pipe hooked up to it. And with all those thoughts that are created by people that don't necessarily share your values

or your way of telling your story, but they're very skilled in their art. Like they're really, really skilled. And the Mandalorian first season was, oh, God, that's so well done. The music, the scenes. It did so much. It was inspired.

The keyword was. It was inspired. Like most things, you know, the first, the sequel is rarely equal to the original. And that is almost in anything. Yeah. Yeah. You know, every now and then I'll go back and I'll reread the book by Edward Bernays called Propaganda. And I think it's interesting to think that.

I think I could be getting this wrong, but I think on some level, I don't know, I'm not going to say it. I think that in some levels, Netflix media has just piggybacked from the world of propaganda. And you spoke recently about, when you spoke earlier about your friend that was in the advertising business. And it's almost perverse to me. Some of the greatest artists and thinkers have found their ways into the world, probably through incentives, into this world of advertising, where they find ways to, you know, connect imagery about a product to your emotions. And it's so powerful and people that are really, really good at it. You could probably make the argument that some of the best artists of the last,

since the 80s were people that weren't advertising. It's interesting to think about it. It's sad. The thing is, there's great, great powers, great responsibility. But as an artist, you have really great. power it's one of the things I actually really enjoy with real art that's been made and I do paintings as well in fact if people go on my Instagram you'll find a rambling deep in there of me doing a painting during a mushroom ceremony and just talking about

connecting with art and painting is about connecting with connecting is about connecting with somebody else connecting with their soul. And so, you know, when Alex Gray creates an amazing painting, you're connecting with the amazing being and that he is, that we are. Every breath that he puts in the painting, every thoughts, every moment, the inspiration, his whole journey, you're connecting with that. And that's really special. And as an artist, when you're, you're painting and you're creating and each brush stroke and you know if you I love aligning that with my breath too so as you know I paint I align all with the breath and but it's it's that journey and and you're sharing that journey with people talking about journey if you were to use mid-journey

which was one of those AI generating program you can argue what are you connecting with Are you connecting with the whole of the consciousness that generated this based on your prompt? Or are you connecting into like a real person? What's more important to you? I don't know. Like it might depend on your situation. But I think like each have their place. Like we have to honor, I think that creativity.

But as an artist, you can take people to really dark places. And there's some artists that do that. They're known for like dark painting, dark imagery. and there's people who adore that. And, you know, but there's people who bring you, you know, like fresh, beautiful, maybe a little too positive. But sometimes you need that. Yeah, yeah. So, I don't know.

I love, I love artists. I love creativity. I think it's a huge tool. And I honor that. And that's what the retreats we put together is for them. I'd love to be able to have own a retreat. Treat Center. That's basically a home for all the creators that are looking for healing. But what I mean creators is like it's not just the Alex Gray's or the painted or the Chris Dyer or

the Android Jones or, you know, those visionary artists. It's like you and me. It's people who just picked up a harmonica for the first time or like reconnecting with that. So, you know, maybe it will happen. I'm not also married to the idea and I'm just going to go with the flow, so we'll see. It's a possible vision. Yeah, that's usually the best method of beginning a journey is not, you know, high expectations make pretty poor travel companions, is what I found. I'm curious. We talked a little bit about being at the height of a psychedelic experience or moving through the environment of a psychedelic experience or beginning to understand the space and you would mention that on on instagram somewhere there's a picture of you painting

while while in the midst of an experience i've i've often found i've experimented with different ways to bring things back because i do think that's where the gold is is getting to a level where you're comfortable and you can you found that right dose or that right time or the right diet whatever it was that got you there you're able to grab hold of something and bring it back with you, you know, and whether it's through painting or sometimes I'll have my phone and I'll try to record my thoughts, you know, and do whatever I can. And there's times where it just comes back as garbled nonsense, but then there's times where you bring back an idea. One of the ones I've, I've tried to do it is by recording myself. Is there tools that you use or do you have any techniques

that you have found where you can like grab a net and bring stuff back with you? Yeah, that's funny. when you say that, that always reminds me about, you know, when I don't know if that ever happened to you, but when you're a little kid and you're first kind of acknowledging your dreams or and, and I had those dreams, I don't know if it was money or something, there's something I really enjoyed in my dream. And I was like, oh, I'm going to hold on to it because I know I'm going to wake up and I want to have it with me when I wake up. Yeah. And it's like, I love those dreams. Yeah.

And every time I was disappointed when I got up, of course. When I look at my closet, is it in there? Ah, dang it. So what do I need to do to bring it back? Yes. It felt so real. And so, you know, what's nice with psychedelic journeys is you can actually do things while you're having those experiences. Yeah, agree.

Painting is one of the things that I enjoy doing. and usually in kind of the second half of a journey because the first half, usually it's a little bit too intense, but the second half. And depending on when you do it in the journey, you've got different results. And, you know, I've done some experiments where it was me and another person.

On the second half, we had a huge canvas and we would rotate the canvas every five minutes. And because we had no ego associated with, with what we were doing and we were in the moment, we just went with the flow, whichever side we got. And the painting we ended up with, I've got it behind me in the stairway. It's just fantastic.

I mean, it's like, I look at it all the time, and it just takes me right back there. And I was like, oh, my God. You know, that other painting, that, you hear me ramble for like two hours on Instagram, It's like painting with Seb. But it's fantastic too. And I didn't do the entire painting there, but I just said the tone and the story.

And it ended up being a phoenix. And I'd like to think it's nice. And I've shown it to other people and they think it's nice. The other thing is sketching. So I always have a sketchbook with me. and I recently tried that because I didn't know if I could actually do it during an ayahuasca ceremony because in the ayahuasca ceremonies we have the lights are always dimmed but somehow I opened my book I took a pen out and I just kind of let my hand

try to capture the music I heard or a vision I just had and it turned out pretty good I mean, the next day, I did that for one of our guests, something I saw when I looked at him. It was like a mushrooms with vines coming out of it and some circuit boards on top and just all glowing. And I did that for him. And he loved it. And I actually took this. And I actually then I gave that to Mid Journey. And I said, can you please give me a 3D rendering of that?

And it did. It was fantastic. So taking notes in a journal right after a ceremony is also like another big thing. Like during, I don't, it's like my handwriting isn't that good. But after a ceremony is great. I mean, the first time I did that, I think I was trying LSD. I haven't done a lot of LSD, but I was trying LSD for the first time because I wanted to know what's the big deal. And I had my sketchbook right next to me.

And I started just watching my hand just move on its own and just start drawing stuff. And I was like, this is incredible. So yeah, I mean, there's ways to bring things back. I think songs, another one, if you're like playing music, you can record yourself. Usually you don't sound as good as you thought you did. afterward but it doesn't matter like you've recorded something there's also something to say about impermanence and knowing that something just you can't take with you you know what what your experience there was something unique which in a way that makes you honor it even more because

you can't take it with you so I think it's a balance and people should experiment so with, you know, what, what helps them in their journey. Sometimes you need that impermanence and that teaching. You can't take everything forward. Other times you need to take like a big lesson forward. And that's why, you know, like when you boil it down to three words or three, you know, what are those three essential things? It's really hard to remember things sometimes during those journeys.

Yeah, it is. Because you can live a whole lifetime in a series. ceremony. And when you go through a whole lifetime of lessons in one ceremony, it's like, you know, your brain is rewired, but like, what do you take forward? Yeah. It's so fascinating to me to have these moments of crystal clarity, profoundness. And in the next minute, not remember a thing about it. Just desperately trying to recall it. Like, this is the one thing I'm taken back.

yeah so figure it out and then you're like oh was it again yeah but then you know that it's a balance because if it's in there if you use the mind that's the tricky thing is like the mind that's being used to recall is the one that kind of gets in the way of the experience too so yeah so if if if you're trying to recall too hard you're getting in the way of your your rest of your experiences my yoga teacher used to say in meditation which is true for psychedelic experiences, it's just like don't try to analyze it now. Don't try, you know, and that's what's for analyzing, but like remembering is a little bit similar.

It's like you're engaging a different part of your brain that I think if you write it down, it might actually be better and you can let it go and say, okay, now I've written it down. I can move on. I don't have to try to remember that because I've been in situations where, you know, I obsessed about trying to remember and kind of I think I missed on some of the, you know, other things I could have seen on the side of the road. Yeah, I know the feeling. It's interesting. You would mention that, you know, there are experiences where you can live a lifetime.

And there is this whole, you know, I think that the psychedelic experience has a way of wiping away this idea of time that we've been conditioned to. You can live, you know, there's been times where I've got to relive not only the decisions that I've made, but a life going forward based on alternate decisions, you know, and like, wow, that's what would have happened. Or let me pause it there and go from here. Like, yeah. And it's, it's so rewarding and interesting and scary a little bit to, to be collapsed back into yourself once that happens. But what, what is it about this construct of time? and psychedelics deconstructing. What do you think it's a relationship between psychedelics and time?

Oh, the illusion of time? Yeah, right? It breaks down the illusion of time, right? It does. You know, I talk about that with my dad. He hasn't done psychedelics, but he really believes in that illusion of time. It's an illusion and it's not. I mean, I think the reason we have the illusion is we have things like seasons.

We have things like day and night. We have things like birth and death. I mean, there's moments, this point. And then at the same time, it can stretch, it can compress. And, you know, some people can think about the next year in a completely different way than you can think about the next year. Like, the next year for me might look like a month for you. And so, like, it depends. And it stretches all that and challenges all that.

Yeah, I mean, I love it. It's funny because one of the harmonica songs I play, goes through an entire lifetime of a couple. It's a little bit like the beginning of Up, the movie Up. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I cried in the beginning of that movie. Yeah, me too. And so the song starts as a courting song

where you have both side of the harmonicas courting each other. Like, you know, you've got the male that comes in the picture, the female that's there, they're flirting and they come together, and they're dancing and then they have a child and it becomes joyful and then you know as age arrives they become a little slower and and then eventually it's just one of the sounds that stays and and then eventually it's it's quiet and so I love taking people through those cycles so that we can really appreciate, you know, the phases we go through and the fact that it's also finite, that, you know, we are finite and, you know, finite and infinite at the same time because, you know,

you can believe in afterlife for incarnation and all that, but our current life in this body is finite. So I like to honor that as well. Yeah, I love the idea of the music as a story and being able to take people through it. And sometimes I think that's one of many of the beautiful aspects of psychedelic experience and bringing something back. You know, it's this ability of storytelling through different modalities or different insights. And time is one of them. You know, it's funny, the language of time and the illusion of time.

I was speaking with my daughter whose birthday is in October. And I'm asking her, you know, how many sides are on a stop sign, eight, right? It's called an octagon. Well, you're born in October. Why is that the 10th month? You know, why is December deca? Why is that 12? That doesn't seem right.

Like, there's all these little, you know, there's all these little illusions around us that like tell us, hey, time is just a construct. It's this thing. But it's fascinating. Sebastian, I cannot tell you. Yeah, like I, I want to say that this conversation has exceeded all my expectations. I'm really thankful for your time. I don't know what that says about your expectations. Usually, I have like eight pages of notes.

You can't see my thing right here, but it's awesome. I was really looking forward to it. Conversations are really fun for me. When I get to speak with somebody about psychedelics like this, it's fun. I hope the audience enjoyed it. Before I let you go, though, you said you may have some dates coming up for you, would you be so kind just to maybe tell people what you got coming up where they can find you? Yeah, yeah.

actually hold on this is yeah I haven't announced that anywhere else yet so right true life first right here yeah it's a it's a true first here in fact I might get some pushback on the people who signed up for a newsletter because they don't even know it yet hopefully those two circles will not meet but there's the the the retreat dates for next year so our next sacred creativity retreat, we're actually finalizing the dates this week, but I'm pretty sure they're going to be the dates. It's going to be April 9th of 2024 to April 17th of 2024. So it's it's quite a ways away, but there's this big reason for that. One is we like to take our time to put those retreats

together. We don't do them too often. We don't have too many guests either. And the retreat center we used is really good. So it gets booked a year ahead of schedule. And we like using that good retreat center. So yeah, and it's a journey. It's a journey for people to decide, oh, wow, I just heard about this guy who does those retreats. And, you know, you have to let it simmer in your brain there because people might not be ready yet. and then something is going to happen in their life.

Oh, yeah, that Sebastian guy on true life. Hey, George, who was that guy? And then eventually they reach out to me, and I'm like, we still have spots for you. This is great. You came to the right place. Yeah. And I would encourage everybody to go down into the show notes

and check out more of what Sebastian has going on. Check out his podcast. He's got a great podcast with a lot of great guests. And as everybody who's been paying attention knows, he's really fun to talk to and cares a lot about people. And if you listen to the words he's using and check out some of the podcast, you'll see that when he does a retreat, that he is 100% there with the people. And some of the things that I've heard, you're constantly helping people. You're being on the journey with them while simultaneously helping them through things. I think you have a unique perspective when it comes to retreats.

you have the idea of leadership and everything combined with it. So ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. Check out Sebastian. Check out his podcast. Check out the links. And that's all we got for today. Ladies and gentlemen,

Aloha. Aloha. Thank you, George. Yeah, absolutely. All right.