Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

Paul has more information on his organization’s website:  https://thethirdwave.co.  Their integrative training website is https://psychedeliccoaching.institute.  Paul’s book, Mastering Microdosing, is on Amazon in paperback at https://amzn.to/3w0tLdc, and on Kindle at https://amzn.to/49KVdcH.

Here are the websites for the two corporate benefits organizations for psychedelics in employee benefit plans: Enthea (https://www.enthea.com) and TARA Mind (https://taramind.com).

Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI; the Kindle version is available at https://amzn.to/44buVz8. Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

• Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better Together, the African Way by Mungi Ngomane. Hardback (https://amzn.to/48Doh6j) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/48YCRF4)
• Nerve: Lessons on Leadership from Two Women Who Went First by Martha Piper & Indira Samarasekera. Paperback (https://amzn.to/3tOtzg4) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/41OYdT5)
• Jilly Truit murder mysteries by Beverley McLachlin:
  • Full Disclosure – https://amzn.to/46TxW6Q (paperback) https://amzn.to/46VDL3Q (audiobook)
  • Denial – https://amzn.to/46YCbhs (paperback) https://amzn.to/3GJc0AA (audiobook)
• Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity by Sherylle J. Tan & Lisa DeFrank-Cole

NOTE: As an Amazon partner, we may make a small commission from books you buy through these links.

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

Paul F. Austin is one of the most prominent voices in the world of psychedelics, and is the author of Mastering Microdosing: How to Use Sub-Perceptual Psychedelics to Heal Trauma, Improve Performance, and Transform Your Life.

As the founder of Third Wave and Psychedelic Coaching Institute, he has educated millions on the importance of safe and effective psychedelic experiences. A pioneer at the intersection of microdosing, personal transformation, and professional success, he has been featured in Forbes, Rolling Stone, and the BBC’s Worklife.

Paul helps others use microdosing as a tool for professional development and increased self-awareness by treating the use of psychedelics as a skill refined through mentorship and courageous exploration.

Transcript
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
Stress only touches the surface of what leaders endure. Leaders are no exception to the rise in physical and mental health issues we’re seeing increase in the workplace. So how do you stay healthy and retain your competitive edge? Yoga, mindfulness, distance running, all manner of efforts can help, but one is on the rise that was taboo just a few decades ago, psychedelics, they’ve been gaining popularity in executive suites across corporate sectors. Why our guest, Paul Austin, CEO of third wave, shares some answers, along with important guidelines looking at the unexpected and latest research is ongoing at the innovative leadership institute, outmoded models go out the door. Learn how our leading edge leadership programs keep you future ready@innovativeleadership.com.

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You

Unknown Speaker 1:00
Hi.

Unknown Speaker 1:04
This is innovating leadership co creating our future. I’m your host. Maureen Metcalf, founder and CEO of the innovative Leadership Institute, where we help leaders be future ready, helping us in that mission. Today is Paul Austin, founder and CEO of third wave, an educational platform for safe, structured and responsible psychedelic use. Paul, this is your second time on our show. First of all, welcome. It’s great to be back. We’re focusing a lot on helping people be ready to lead in the age of AI, as we’re referencing it, and so really helping leaders identify areas that they need to amplify, even if they’re already exceptional, to meet the challenges they’re facing now, obviously you’re talking about psychedelics. Can you give us a link between psychedelics and leadership? And why would we be talking about psychedelics on a leadership podcast? Even the name the third wave of psychedelic suggests there was obviously a first wave and a second wave. And so what a lot of folks don’t realize or recognize is that even in Western culture, there’s a strong lineage of psychedelic use, with folks like Marcus, Aurelius, Plato, Aristotle Cicero, some of the greatest thinkers, philosophers, even kings of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, historically, looking back 1000s of years, individuals in leadership positions, In particular in ancient Greece, participated in the elucinian mysteries, which happened every four years, were only accessible and available to, we could say, a more elite aspect of ancient Greece society. And they actually drank something called kukian, which was made from ergot, a fungus that grows on rye, the same thing that LSD is made from in the 60s when LSD was invented, or soon after LSD was invented, because that happened in the late 30s, in the 60s, when it started to become more prominent. Many of us know about the counterculture, but not as many people know about this relationship between LSD Stanford and the computer revolution, and that Stanford was the home of a lot of research on LSD, and that many of the individuals who participated in that early research went on to become the builders and creators of this computer revolution. Steve Jobs did not participate in the clinical trials, necessarily, but he’s quite well known as saying LSD dramatically impacted his consciousness and his perception. But there were dozens of others, including Douglas Engelbart, who invented the computer interface and the computer mouse. Basically provide credit to LSD for opening their mind in such a way to help them look and create the internet computers how we sort of decentralize communication? Unfortunately, these medicines, these substances, have been highly stigmatized over the last 50 years, since they were made illegal in the late 60s and early 70s. But as they’ve started to come back into mainstream consciousness, we’re now hearing stories about Elon Musk, who works with psychedelics. We’re hearing stories about Aaron Rodgers, who is one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL, who drank Ayahuasca. Tim Ferris has a quote that almost every billionaire he knows, without exception, uses psychedelics on a regular basis, and so the secret of Silicon Valley has now become much more prominent and well known. There’s a few converging patterns or themes that are leading to the widespread use of psychedelics, specifically within these leader creator and builder circles. One is alcohol is on the way out.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
Fewer and fewer people who are in these leadership positions, especially entrepreneurs and founders, are drinking much less alcohol at this point in time because of how toxic it is. We still like to alter our consciousness. And so there’s this term that’s now. We call it Kali sober, which is essentially, I don’t drink alcohol, but I may, before I go to a social event or party, I may take a small amount of mushrooms or even my own story with microdose, and as I microdose with LSD, to stop drinking alcohol, because it helps still with extraversion and social anxiety, but I didn’t have to consume this toxic substance. So I think just from a general lifestyle perspective, more and more leaders are becoming health conscious, and so they’re looking to alter their state of being in unique in different ways. And then when you go beyond that to the more we could say, ceremonial use of psilocybin mushrooms in Ayahuasca. A lot of people in leadership positions deal with stress, they deal with burnout, they deal with overwhelm, they deal with decision fatigue. And so they’re looking at modalities that can help them to press the reset button in a substantial and significant way, to sort of revitalize them, to be able to show up with purpose, with energy, with focus, with presence, and psychedelics because of what they do to the brain, also because of what they do to a sense of relationship and connection to the self, are increasingly being looked at as tools and substances to help generate new perspectives, to help to be innovative, to help to prevent burnout And to help manage stress and so more and more, there are plenty of entrepreneurs, founders, people who work in executive board rooms that are turning to psychedelics as a key modality on their process of navigating an increasingly challenged and uncertain and chaotic world. Let’s go to the burnout example. First, I am a CEO who calls and says, Hey, Paul, my senior team is going through a potential acquisition. We’re at our peak, and some people are past what they can appropriately handle, and I see some signs of fraying. So we need to help people take down the pressure. What would this look like, and how comprehensive is this reset, and for how long part of this is context dependent, right? So if you have an executive team going through an acquisition, this is a period of a very acute stress that at some point will be over. Ideally, the executive team is properly incentivized to, let’s say, see their way through understanding that at some point this will be over. So there’s acute stress. Typically, what can happen in these times of acute stress is sleep falls off the table. So the first thing to look at is, how’s your sleep? That would be the first question that I would ask is, what are your sleeping patterns and habits, and what are ways in which you can practice better sleep hygiene? So something I wear is the aura ring, for example, and that gives me very accurate data about my sleep on a day to day basis. So that would be the almost the first thing that I would look at would be sleep. And then are you still managing to move, get outside? Supplement appropriately with fish oil or vitamin D or other vitamins and minerals that may be useful. So I would first do sort of a full intake and panel about, where does this stand. Then the question is, is there a gap that can be closed, or is this just how it’s going to be for the next period of time because of how stressful the acquisition period is, right? It’s nice to be able to catch up on sleep and get a lot of sleep. But also, the fact is, if you’re at the sort of tail end of an acquisition, it just might not be feasible at this point in time, right? And so then the next step that I would go to would be to look at what are legally available treatment options. And I mentioned legally available because at this point in time, most psychedelics, like psilocybin mushrooms and LSD are illegal. They’re schedule one. Now. In Oregon, mushrooms are now legal. And in Colorado, plant medicines like mushrooms in Ayahuasca are now legal. California may pass a similar bill soon, but that’s not as relevant necessarily for an executive team. And so what I would look at is ketamine assisted psychotherapy. Ketamine, which is more commonly known as a dissociative, it’s been used in emergency rooms for dozens of years. It is medically and legally available. In fact, Elon Musk was just quoted in an interview this week talking about how he has a ketamine prescription because it helps him to deal with some of the depression that comes along as a very high performing founder and entrepreneur, ketamine is fantastic because it immediately can help to interrupt some of those very neurotic or stressed.

Unknown Speaker 10:00
Stressful patterns. It helps people to sort of take a step outside of themselves. I almost talk about it as like when the pressure valve is really high ketamine, because it’s only about a 90 minute to two hour experience, can help to really reset that pressure valve, for it to feel a little bit healthier. That ability just to take a little bit of a step back to get a quote unquote breather for your mental space, can be a really helpful short term solution in periods of incredibly acute stress. And so that may even look like doing one ketamine experience a week for a period of six weeks, in conjunction with some form of coaching or therapy, and I think that could be a phenomenally helpful way to help an executive team get a little perspective and de stress in a time of chaos. Now, the other challenge within that, that of course, is the next question is, what are the ethical considerations and implications of that? So if I’m a CEO and I have an executive team, and I know personally that ketamine or psychedelics are a very useful option, how do I go about having that conversation with my team so they’re aware that it’s even a potential aspect and element. And so there are actually a few really interesting organizations now in the psychedelic space. One is called enthia, and the other is called Tara mind, T, A, R, a mind that are setting up essentially an ecosystem, so companies, organizations can provide ketamine assisted psychotherapy as a perk or as a benefit. So the ideal structure, if I were to live a sort of set out an ideal perspective, or ideal way in this let’s say it’s a series B startup that’s looking to get acquired, and the executive team from the get go is already aware of ketamine. They’re already aware of psychedelics. And when the company was initiated, ketamine assisted psychotherapy was actually offered as an employee benefit. And so that would be the ideal structure. Then, when you’re in these periods of very acute stress, that the executive team is already aware that it’s an option and that they can choose to do it if they wish. It’s not forced, it’s not obligated by any stretch of the imagination. But they’ve looked at the science, they’ve heard the stories, and they go, I think this could be a really useful way to get a little perspective and to just take a little bit of pressure off as we go into this very stressful period of time. There are clinics in Ohio, in Cleveland, because I’m working with someone on an advisory board with a university, and they may still be in the trial phase, though. I don’t know if they’re in the full access phase, but to your point, they’re legal. Ketamine is fully legally available in all 50 states. It’s been FDA approved. There’s a patented form of it called S ketamine that was FDA approved by Johnson and Johnson for treatment resistant depression. But because ketamine is also used so widely in emergency rooms, it’s prescribed off label. And so there are plenty of ketamine clinics that are in Ohio and Cleveland and Columbus and Cincinnati. And there are also organizations that provide telemedicine ketamine, because when covid hit, there were certain measures passed that made it feasible to send prescriptions to the home without having someone to go into a physical doctor’s office to get it. This was most prominent for, I believe, ADHD medications, but it also applied to ketamine. And so now there are companies that they will send ketamine to your home, and you can do it in the comfort of your own home, and they just require that you have a sitter, a friend or a guide, or someone that you trust who’s there to support you in case you need to go to the restroom, in case you need, you know, a helping hand, something like that. What’s a sitter? And why would I need someone to help me go to the bathroom well, so ketamine, because it’s highly disassociated, you are often taking it at a fairly high dose. You’re laying down on a couch or a bed with an eye mask and a playlist, and when you’re deeply in it, it can be quite difficult to move because of the disassociative properties of ketamine. So if you have to get a glass of water, or you’re thirsty, or you do need to go to the bathroom, it really helps to have someone who could support you with that. There’s also been certain emotions that may come up, sadness or grief or anger, especially in times of very acute stress, and so just having like a supportive and loving friend who can be there for you, who can listen to you, who can help you to feel seen and heard and understood. The value of another human being in the same room cannot be overstated. It creates a certain level of safety as people are going into this, especially if they’re quite new to doing psychedelic work. You also train facilitators, and I say that because I personally would not take a high dose drug that I was unfamiliar with that was going to have me not be able to go to the bathroom by myself and just invite a friend. I’d want someone who would know if I was truly in trouble, versus I’m just in it. Can you talk about facilitators? Because if my whole ability to make a living is based.

Unknown Speaker 15:00
On me being mentally competent, I’m not sure I want to disassociate from that, right? Why would I be willing to take the risk to continue to focus on ketamine? Although it’s a disassociative it has a 60 or 70 years of safe clinical use, so there’s been a ton of research that’s been done on ketamine, so we know it’s incredibly safe. Anyone who prescribes ketamine will also do the necessary intake forms, so you’ll talk with a medical professional before you even prescribe ketamine, who will do an intake to get a sense of your mental stability, and then to get a little bit deeper into your point, to do it within the context of a coaching container provides a certain level of safety to really surrender into that experience. And so a lot of the facilitators that we train are executive coaches who they’ve been an executive coach for 510, 1520, 2530, years. So they already have a rapport established with the clients that they’re working with, and they’re just looking for a modality that they could weave into that coaching container that could be very useful. And so we train them on how do you assess if clients are ready for this part of which is, are they in a stable enough space that they could go into a ketamine experience or a general psychedelic experience, and it could be beneficial for them. How do you prepare them for that experience? So what questions are you asking? How are they reflecting on their intention coming into the experience? What physical environment are you setting up or helping them to set up for that experience? So much of safe and effective psychedelic work happens before you ever take the psychedelic right? And so the safer that you can feel going into that experience, the more likely it is to be a very powerful and effective experience. And you know, so many executives, founders, entrepreneurs, creators, builders, people of ambition. You know, we’re not used to letting go of control. And I use the word we because I’m very much the same. And so there’s also, I think, a curiosity that’s required, as long as there’s a rooting in this is totally and completely safe, which I think is important to know, because when you actually take a high dose of a psychedelic, it’s very different than normal waking consciousness. And so the capacity for us to surrender, for us to let go, for us to release is, in and of itself, a skill that can be valuable for those in leadership positions, because many times, people who are coming into psychedelic work from a leadership position, they’ve reached a plateau, they’ve hit a ceiling. They’ve recognized that something is not working in their leadership style, and it’s more times than not, has to do with being over, controlling and overbearing. What psychedelics can often teach is the process of trust, the importance of trust, especially as we’re looking at emerging leadership in the age of AI. So much of really great leadership is actually more about stewardship. It’s about listening. It’s about facilitation. It’s about inviting various and diverse perspectives and viewpoints, rather than sort of benevolent dictator approach which most companies have been run. And so I think as we step into AI, a world of AI, as we step into a more uncertain landscape, resilience is cultivated through diversity of perspective and opinion, and the greater capacity we have as leaders to facilitate discussion and still focus that on an outcome or objective execution is still incredibly important. The healthier we are, the healthier we become as an individual, because we don’t feel like all of the pressure rests on our shoulders. Being able to release that and let go of that is an essential part of the leadership path. It sounds like not only is it helping me do a reset, but it’s also helping me travel a path of resetting how I make sense of myself as a leader, that I can have a fundamental shift in meaning making, and that likely happens over time. I’m not going to do a one dose and come out different. I would say yes, and that there can be profound changes after a single experience, and that those profound insights and downloads are nothing if there’s not adequate energy provided to the integration process, which is where coaching comes in. In particular, that a lot of people have an incredible perspective shift when they work with high doses of psychedelics, a lot of it has to do with how they relate to other humans. Is what I find time and time again. It’s one thing to have those downloads or that awareness, and it’s another thing to actually put it into practice. And so like you said, it is a journey where, and this is why I love assessments like the leader.

Unknown Speaker 20:00
Circle profile from mastering leadership and Bob Anderson, because you can actually do an assessment. This is even how we train some of the executive coaches that come through utilizing something like the leadership circle profile, do it before the client that you’re working with ever has a psychedelic experience, get a sense of what are their gaps, what are their weaknesses as a result of this leadership circle profile, have them, if they’re open, go through a high dose psychedelic experience, and then, instead of immediately after the psychedelic experience retesting, wait three to six months actually do the necessary coaching work for them to make the changes that they became aware of as a result of working with high doses of psychedelics, and then six months down the road, after they’ve done that initial assessment, do another assessment and see how things have changed. And of course, as part of the leadership circle profile, it’s not just I, as an individual, as the leader, fill out a bunch of stuff. It’s my entire executive team fills things out. Mentors of mine fills things out. It’s a full 360 it’s one thing to go, oh yeah, I’ve changed. It’s a whole nother thing to actually have that reflected by the team that you work with. And this is the really challenging work, even with these executive coaches that we train, like I said, the assessment and the prep and the experience, it’s important that that’s dialed in. It’s important that there are certain parameters that are paid attention to. It’s important that the client is prepared adequately for that experience, but the vast majority of it is okay. Not only how am I changing as an individual, but how are my individual shifts actually being reflected in the way that I choose to run my organization? And that takes time, commitment, devotion, perseverance. Because if you’re running an organization with 50 employees, or 100 employees or 150 employees, that can’t just happen overnight, those changes have to be intentional, and they also have to be gradual for them to stabilize in a way that is beneficial for everyone in the organization. I haven’t been through third wave through your program, but I do coach executives. So let me test my understanding. So I use the leadership circle say we’re talking about the age of AI, and one of the things we believe is AI will do some things, but human leaders need to lead human people, and one of the skills I need that’s on the leadership circle, is relating. If I can’t relate to humans, especially in this time where they’re going to be upended by technology being inserted into their lives, I need to empathize, be able to relate to them. So say I take a leadership assessment, and I’m scoring middle of the road on this relating stuff. So I come to a coach. We create a development plan. And one of the tactics in the development plan is, you may want to do a psychedelic journey. Go to Paul. Paul will facilitate. I’ll participate in the process. We co set the intentions. We co do the integration, and then I go on with them in their development process. Is that accurate? The way we frame them is accelerants. We frame them as catalysts. We frame them as these tools of a volcanic level of intensity that require professional support if you’re to make the most out of it, and to go a little bit deeper into your example, then the big question would be, if someone’s core intention is around how they’re relating to others, let’s say, just for this case, a professional work environment. Let’s say they have an in person team for the most part, which is becoming increasingly rarer these days, but let’s say they have an office. They’re in New York. They meet people in person. Prior to working with psychedelics, people found them to be, let’s say, overbearing, bossy, maybe not kind in how they communicated, demanding. We could even say too masculine, in a way, without really an awareness of how their actions and how their words were impacting us to achievement oriented correct, right, which is commonplace in many ways in today’s business environment. And so typically, what I would say would be most useful for someone in that role, especially if they’re brand new to psychedelics and never worked with psychedelics before, it would be something like MDMA, because MDMA is not a classic psychedelic. And I think my concern is, if I were to throw a leader like that immediately into a high dose of psilocybin mushrooms, the ego personality would fight back. And there may be a very difficult experience, there may be a lot of paranoia in the experience that may not be as productive as one at Hope. So I think to soften the heart a little bit, to open them up a little bit more, I would do either just strictly MDMA as part of that experience, or a combination of MDMA with psilocybin, because the MDMA often softens the psilocybin experience, and then that experience, even as part of the experience, there could be.

Unknown Speaker 25:00
Certain questions that are asked for the individual to inquire about. For example, put yourself in the position of one of your employees who you’ve decimated in the past. What do you think that felt like for them to be on the receiving end of a lot of hate and anger because a certain task wasn’t done to your liking or the way that it needed to be? So really, setting up specific cases and scenarios, both potentially in the actual experience, but most importantly, coming out of the experience.

Unknown Speaker 25:33
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Unknown Speaker 25:36
with lots to

Unknown Speaker 25:39
do, give me the sunshine all I need. True.

Unknown Speaker 25:51
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Unknown Speaker 25:58
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Unknown Speaker 26:27
for details, and then especially taking advantage of that window, I would say, about a month after the experience, to encourage them to communicate differently, to encourage them to maybe be more kind, to ask more questions, to phrase things differently as they communicate, maybe even micro dosing as a way to continue to soften them that a lot of folks that I know who are interested in psychedelic work, who go through this high dose experience, it’s fantastic, but oftentimes micro dosing a little bit in the integration period just helps them to remember some of those feelings that came up as part of that MDMA or MDMA and psilocybin experience, which can help them to soften, just continue to soften when they’re in situation and context where normally they would get aggravated, or normally they would be agitated, or normally they would be aggressive. That capacity to choose differently in the moment, I think, is where psychedelics can really help someone to shift their capacity to be a great leader. Micro dosing. What does that mean? And does that mean I’m going to be stoned all day. A micro dose is about a 10th of a regular dose, almost always done with psilocybin mushrooms or LSD. Do not microdose with MDMA, and be very careful about microdosing with ketamine. LSD and psilocybin mushrooms are the two most common. It’s a 10th of a regular dose, and microdosing is typically done two or three times per week for a period of, let’s say, 30 to 60 days, and so you’re really looking at keeping that window of neuroplasticity open for even longer. That’s the real intention behind microdosing. The dose level that’s taken is what we would call a sub intoxicating dose level, meaning you’re not stoned, you’re not high, you’re not intoxicated in any way, what people notice is that they’re a little bit more patient. Their cognition and cognitive performance is more elevated. They can think quicker. Their memory is better. They may be a little bit more creative. They may be a little bit more extroverted. From my perspective, it’s best done in the integration period after a high dose. And I do have a book called Mastering microdosing. So if folks want to deep dive into microdosing, that’s a really great book, but I find that it’s another great modality. And a lot of people even microdose instead of taking adderall or ritalin. A lot of people will microdose instead of taking certain antidepressant medications, like SSRIs. Of course, if someone is to do that, to do so under the guidance of a medical professional is obligatory. But these micro doses are and have become quite prominent, I would say, in entrepreneurial circles, both for their impact on stress and burnout and also for their impact on creativity and productivity. So if it helps increase my neuroplasticity. I’m smarter and I’m kinder. All I need is prettier and I will become

Unknown Speaker 29:28
Why wouldn’t I? That’s where all the exercise and sauna and cold plunge and, you know, get your nine hours of sleep a night and you’ll be beautiful in no time.

Unknown Speaker 29:39
It doesn’t regress age. Unfortunately, not yet with that as the value proposition, why would I stop after the integration phase? Isn’t this something, if it’s safe, that I would want to do forever? The most level headed response to that question is micro dosing is still a recent phenomenon.

Unknown Speaker 30:00
Just in the last 12 or 13 years, as microdosing become more of a thing, we have a lot of historical data and research, both in modern but also in indigenous and ancient times, about the safety and efficacy of high doses of psychedelics, but we just don’t know a lot about low doses of psychedelics done consistently over a long period of time. So typically, what I tell folks is we’re all guinea pigs at this point in time. There’s some early research that indicates its efficacy for depression, for productivity, for mental clarity, for mood, even for sleep, improving sleep quality and the amount of sleep, but we still don’t know, in terms of if you’re doing this twice a week for 20 or 30 years, what impact could that have? Now, what I would also say is we didn’t really know for SSRIs either when we approved SSRIs in the 80s, but the initial safety data looked good enough, and so it was approved, and people have been on SSRIs now for many, many years, I would argue that a lot of the negative implications of SSRIs are only recently coming to light in the last 10 years, maybe 10 to 15 years. That’s why I often go back to first principles when looking at, let’s say, micro dosing versus SSRIs. And one of my key first principles is something called the Lindy effect, which is the longer we’ve been utilizing an idea or technology. And in this case, I would consider psilocybin mushrooms to be a technology. The longer we’ve been using them as a human species, the more likely it is to be safe, to be effective and to be useful. And so we’ve been using psilocybin mushrooms, for some people would say 10s of 1000s of years that we’ve had a symbiotic relationship with them, whereas SSRIs were invented in a lab in the 1970s

Unknown Speaker 31:54
as a response to the efficacy of penicillin as an antibiotic in the gut when we as humans attempt to invent things, especially when we’re messing with our brain chemistry, there can be downstream effects that we’re just not aware of, second and third order consequences that we’re just not aware of. The reason psilocybin has been used for so long is because we are aware of the second and third order consequences at this point in time, and almost all of them look to be incredibly beneficial for us as a species. And so for that reason, I feel a level of confidence in recommending micro dosing, in spite of the fact that some of the more modern and clinical research is lacking now, with all of that said, psychological dependency is still possible. Physiological dependency is not present with low doses of psychedelics. If you microdose twice a week for six months and you’re just like, I want to stop, there will be no physical drills. You could just stop. It’s no problem at all. But what people do know at times is, if they’ve been microdosing and they have a history of depression and they stop micro dosing, that depression may come back. So a lot of people take these low doses of psychedelics as a prophylactic against that depression. And so it helps to cycle right. Do it two or three times a week. Do it for a month, two months, three months. And then what we recommend is take two or three weeks off. Take four weeks off. See how your baseline has changed, see what has shifted for you. And then, if you’re like, This is something I want to continue to engage in, then continue to engage in it. And just like any other supplement, you know, I take fish oil, I take Lion’s Mane, I take Cordyceps, I take creatine, I drink coffee. I also cycle off supplements and coffee. Every so often I’ll go a week or two weeks or three weeks without anything, and it just helps my system to reset. And I think a similar logic need apply to microdose. So if I were to engage with a facilitator, I would want to know that that facilitator is well trained. If you can, for our listeners, share a little bit about your program. And what I want to get to is people didn’t send in three Box Tops go to a two hour online workshop, and now you’re safe to administer something that is dissociative. The number one thing is, if you’re looking to work with a coach or practitioner, ask them about their own psychedelic use. How long have you been working with psychedelic substances? What psychedelic substances have you worked with at? What dose levels have you worked with them? What have you noticed? What have you observed? If someone is positioning themselves as a coach or practitioner and they’ve been working with psychedelics less than three years themselves, that’s a red flag in my book. So there needs to be at least a minimum of three years of personal experience. For any coach or practitioner who wants to professionally work with psychedelics, they need to have walked the path themselves. Ideally, I’ve had at least one challenging experience themselves, so they know how to navigate that. And what comes up in that after asking them about their own experience, then I would go into the five key elements. And this is what we really focus our training program around, or what I call the five key elements assessment. How do you assess?

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Clients to know if they have a history of trauma, to know if they have a history of psychiatric conditions or psychiatric medication, to know about their previous history with psychedelics or any other contemplative practices. So there always needs to be an assessment that’s done. There always needs to be adequate time given to preparation, I would say, a minimum of two one hour calls that are set aside and dedicated to preparation before a high dose experience. Then the third aspect is an experience. So the practitioner or coach that you work with should know, how is psilocybin different than ayahuasca, and how is psilocybin different than ketamine, and which experience might be ideal for me based on my context and situation. The fourth thing is integration. So after someone has a high dose experience, how are they supported to integrate that insight or those downloads to become a more whole, present, compassionate, loving person. And then the fifth aspect is micro dosing. How can micro dosing support someone in that integration process? So anyone who is interviewing. And I always encourage this if you’re listening to this and you potentially want to work with psychedelics, you want to work with a coach or a practitioner. First of all, we have a directory on third wave of practitioners who have graduated from our training program, and also clinicians and therapists and doctors retreats clinics. But you always want to interview the people that you’re going to work with and you want to interview them on those two key things that I mentioned. One, what’s their own experience with psychedelics? Do they have a minimum of three years of personal experience with it? And then, are they aware of these five key elements, assessment, preparation, experience integration and micro dosing? Every coach or practitioner who works with psychedelics should know how to guide someone through that full trajectory. Of those five key elements, the one that really stands out to me is their personal experience. I want a friend who’s done this so if they see something that’s a red flag, and having the tools to navigate it. So a psychotherapist, if I’m under the treatment of a therapist, especially if I’m also navigating depression or drug and alcohol use. The big things to look out for are vomiting, if I’m honest, vomiting seizure, and if there’s, let’s say, some sort of like psychosis, usually it could be very temporary. If it’s one of those three things, there needs to be either an ambulance called or a medical professional that’s brought in. That happens so rarely, though, that the vast majority of time, someone just needs to be reminded to breathe through their nose and out through their nose for five or 10 minutes. Some practitioners have benzodiazepine on hand, like Xanax, so someone is getting very activated and overwhelmed. Sometimes that can help to bring an individual down, and then to have a garden or a park nearby, that someone can just be in nature, because that presence of even just as hippie as it sounds, hugging a tree, is so grounding for someone who may be over activated and so in the vast majority of cases, one in 1000 you’ll have something very extreme happen that will require a medical professional. But the vast majority of cases is just someone needs to calm down, to breathe, to maybe have a Xanax, to bring them fully down. And that’s pretty I would say, fundamental to know how to navigate that it doesn’t require any specific medical skills to navigate most of the challenging things that can come up in a psychedelic experience. So for overachievers, this is not the place to overshoot Correct. Start slow, start slow, start low and go slow. That’s always, that’s always what I come back to is start low and go slow, you can always take more. You can’t necessarily take less. And as we talked about before, there’s no rush that this is a path that’s now unfolding for you. And if it takes six months a year for you to work up the courage to really go for that high dose, there is nothing to be ashamed of whatsoever in that can I get the same impact by doing more frequent experiences at a lower dose. And so a lot of people looked at this. There’s actually a term for this. Is called psycholytic dosing, where you do a low dose, even lower than that, let’s say like a high dose is four grams of dried mushrooms, but a low dose more than a micro dose, but a low dose could be 400 milligrams, so a 10th of that, and people will do it in conjunction with their talk therapy once a week, or somatic therapy once a week, or coaching once a week. So I think there’s also utility in doing this type of work at lower doses in conjunction with therapy, coaching, breath work, yoga, meditation. There’s a lot more synergistic possibilities at these lower doses compared to if you’re doing a high dose of mushrooms, you know, you’re pretty much eye mask on playlist on on a couch. You’re not going anywhere, really, for four or five, six hours, which can be useful, for sure, but it’s certainly not what I would consider to be the best or the only way to work with these medicines. So I can do it before yoga at a low dose.

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A lot of people take low doses and take micro dosing. We’ll go do yoga because it just helps them to get out of their head a little bit more and drop more into the flow. Good to know Paul, thank you so much. We really appreciate you sharing your wisdom. How would our listeners learn more about third wave? Learn more about either if we’ve got coaches who want to become certified, if we’ve got listeners who are interested in working with a trained facilitator or coach, where would they reach you? The psychedelic Coaching Institute is our training program for coaches and practitioners. So if you’re a coach, or know of a coach who may be interested in this, that psychedelic coaching dot Institute, and then on the psychedelic Coaching Institute. We also have a one to one coaching program where our certified practitioners and certified coaches, we’ve taken the best of the best, and we offer essentially like a two month coaching program where we coach you through a prep experience and integration process. And that’s called Personalized psychedelic coaching. And folks can find out more about that on the psychedelic Coaching Institute, and then, generally, you know, I’m on Instagram and Twitter, quite a bit for social. Paul Austin, 3w I’m also on LinkedIn. So if any individuals listening to this just want to reach out. They have questions, they’re curious, just go ahead and ping me on those platforms, and I’m quite responsible. Thank you for sharing such an important accelerant with our audience. Thank you. Maureen, this was blast. I had a great time coming back on the show. I really appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker 41:42
Jimmy,

Unknown Speaker 41:49
yes,

Unknown Speaker 42:01
grab some friends and an Ice Cold Mountain Dew today. Mountain Dew

Unknown Speaker 42:08
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