Leadershipedelics

This week we meet with Roel Bij De Vaate, the founder of Cosmic Truffles 🪐 A company focused on microdosing, natural psilocybin, community, and education building. We discuss Roel’s journey from his early interest in spirituality, the internal conflict from his work as a tattoo artist, his constant pain from lumbar hernia and how microdosing helped him change his relationship to that pain. Roel shares his perspective on psychedelics, science, and the importance to know you are loved and valued. 🙏❤️

💡Highlights💡

• Answers found in Hinduism and Buddhism
• Harmony and oneness
• Rebirth through psychedelics
• Meditation, breathwork, cold therapy
• Science and the ineffability of spiritual experiences
• Microdosing vs. macrodosing
• Healing from constant pain from lumbar hernia
• Leaving a creative job misaligned with the self
• Education for psychedelics and spiritual experiences
• Supporting and encouraging one another
• You are loved and you matter ❤️

🧠Memorable Quotes 🧠

“With meditation I could put these things at ease and not think about them.”

“Psychedelics can be real powerful tools for a lot of people but only used in the right circumstances. That’s something people need to think about beforehand.”

“It’s really important for every individual to understand that they matter and that they can express themselves.”

“The scientific approach can tend to box certain aspect of the psychedelic experience. But to me, the nature of the experience shows there is much more mysticism and spirituality to it than is acknowledged by the scientific method.”

How to connect with Roel

• https://www.cosmictruffles.nl/en/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/roel-bij-de-vaate-98b681223/
• https://www.instagram.com/cosmic_truffles/

About Leadershipedelics  

• Podcast: https://www.leadershipedelics.com/ 🙏
• Sébastien: https://www.fooyad.com 🕺

• Breaking out of the box and living true to your soul
• Leading with authenticity
• Challenging the war-on-drugs narrative
• What happened to GenX?
• Ketamine therapy, microdosing, and empathy
• Dancing
• Power addiction in the world
• Risks of being a people pleaser 
• Navigating an imperfect world
• Sexual empowerment and other taboos 
• Slowing down tech without being anti-tech
• Power of free thinking and not delegating it
• Importance of improv in life

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/meggen-taylor/
• IG: @meggentaylor

• Podcast: https://www.leadershipedelics.com/
• Follow Sébastien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienfouillade/

This week we meet with Renee Melodie Gagnon. Renee was born in Calgary and grew up on British Columbia’s West Coast. She achieved Canadian Federal Cannabis license number 005 and two Dealers Licenses, most recently for psychedelics. She’s an outspoken advocate for Diversity and Inclusion in Business, cover of The Advocate Magazine Women of the Year 2020, proud wife of an amazing warrior woman, dadmom, and trans person.

 Join us for a profound and insightful conversation about “being”, being human, being trans, being passionate, being inquisitive, being aware, being a couple and the tools that can help us along the way. We talk about the opportunity at hand and the consequences of being. Wow 🙏❤️

💡Highlights💡

• Cultural whiplash growing up in Alberta
• Psychedelic experiences and understanding trauma
• Growing cannabis with an Apple computer in the 80’s
• Shito Ryu’s karate and Zen Buddhism
• Letting your passions lead the way
• Educating children about drugs
• Ethical cross-conflicts between Corporate and Psychedelics
• Psychedelics to understand the mind & develop software
• Coming out, living out loud and proud, and the consequences of being
• Time, death, and the opportunity to evolve our specie
• Psychedelics and therapy for couples
• Carlos Castaneda, Star Trek, Dune and much more…

🧠Powerful Quotes 🧠 (many more but I ran out of space)

 “I wasn’t so concerned there was a path for me, but I knew I had passions and, if left alone, I would follow those.”

 “I was given a basket of odd tools, and psychedelics have allowed me to embrace them with abandon rather than fear.”

 “Your minds are slippery eels with thorns in them. They don’t want to be held, but with psychedelics if you apply the notice-but-not-apprehend it’s like grasping sand. If you hold too tight it runs out of your fingers but if you cup your hand, you can hold it.”

 “My job is to see if I can live a harmless life as best as I’m able and exit with the least sins on my soul as I can and as few dents left in others.”

 “I had to come out, I had to exist. It was like a pressure behind a wall that had been building up behind a dam for 48 years.”

 “I had to embrace not just being trans but that there were consequences for my existence that were not under my control.”    

 “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could put 1,000 years of evil behind us in three generations of focus.”

Connecting with Renee

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reneemgagnon

About Leadershipedelics  

• Podcast: https://www.leadershipedelics.com/
• Follow Sébastien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienfouillade/

This week we meet with Deb Helfrich. Deb is a degreed Philosopher, performance artist of Socratic monologues, and a Mental Fitness Mentor whose work focuses on anti-racism, human functioning, and destigmatizing altered states of consciousness. She is also an outspoken #AutisticAF advocate for the value of neurodivergent capacities to create world-evolving change.

We cover Deb’s journey from not knowing if she would make it to 51, being overweight, struggling to walk & talk, to what led to her Kundalini awakening and beyond. We talk about the tools she used and the framework she built, from her diet to African trance dance experiences, to the power of tuning forks, cannabis and the endocannabinoid system.

💡Highlights💡

• Bringing back philosophy to the conversation
• From philosopher to software consultant
• The importance of touch in human development
• Autism and sensory overload
• Experiencing altered states of consciousness without substances
• The impact of unintentional childhood neglect
• Tuning forks and biofields
• African trance dance
• Cannabutter taken medicinally 
• Trusting ourselves and reclaiming our humanity
• And much more...

🧠Memorable Quotes 🧠

“There was this wonderfulness inside me but I felt scared to let it out.”

“We have put our entire mind and body in cubical captivity.”

“Tune within, there is so much data in the human body brain.”

“We have to start trusting ourselves. Be enthusiastic about yourself. And then take the opportunity”

“You can’t get to real human potential when you’re stuck in human neglect and trauma.”

“Until I started that (African trance) dance I was a brain without a body.”
❤️ Seb's favorite quote 🙏

More About Deb And How to connect

Deb is also a proud member of The Octopus Movement, a global aquarium of non-linear thinkers.   

• For Mental Fitness Mentoring: https://www.pickmybrain.world/profiles/deb-helfrich/bookings/new?service_id=7690 
• Personal site: debhelfrich.squarespace.com
• YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgkyQ8aSzwXvmt9ftcLXbJg
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debhelfrich/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/InsightsOccur 

About Leadershipedelics  

• Podcast: https://www.leadershipedelics.com/
• Follow Sébastien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienfouillade/

We're starting season 2 with an awesome interview with Aleana Kali. Aleana came to the US when she was 17 and was forced to take over family finances soon after. This sent her on a path of serial entrepreneurship and achievement which eventually came to a head and forced her to face her humanity, her wounds, and learn to love herself. She gained deep insights from her travels to India, Asia, breathwork, and working with psychedelics (Ayahuasca, Bufo Alvarius). She is now a mentor and consultant helping people, companies and brands find the genius within themselves and build a better, more human future.

💡Highlights💡

• From hating everything about spirituality to finding spirituality
• Her first Ayahuasca experience
• Growing beyond achievement
• Psychedelics as a tool but not a substitute
• Meditation, mindfulness, and breathwork
• Impact of personal wounds on leadership
• Reconnecting with ourselves

🧠Memorable Quotes 🧠

“Just because I got a message during a ceremony doesn’t mean I have to take it in the literal sense”

“If you have wounds you don’t tend to, you may try to keep it together but whether you realize it or not it’s going to affect other people. Unintentionally, often.”

“I really don’t think there is separation between what you create and who you are and what happens on the inside, your psyche. They’re so intertwined.”

“As long as you are present and you’re aware  "I’m here" and you allow yourself to experience life, whatever life throws at you, good or bad, and live it and feel it fully, and let it be, there is no right or wrong way to live life.”

Learning to love your mistakes: “The problem isn’t that when you went through it the first time you didn’t fix it BUT can you love it? Can you love it no matter how shitty life is? When your heart is shattered in pieces, can you love it?” ❤️ Seb's favorite quote 🙏

How to connect with Aleana

• Subscribe to Aleana's emails: https://www.brandsarealive.com/request-a-call
• Website: https://www.brandsarealive.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandsarealive/
• YT videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRpV9hgrT4Nsyy-QBCK2IzA/videos

About Leadershipedelics  

• Podcast: https://www.leadershipedelics.com/
• Follow Sébastien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienfouillade/

In this episode I share some of the insights gained from my discussions with the guests of Leadershipedelics Season 1. This episode is a great place to start if you're new to Leadershipedelics, if you want to get caught up or just want to find which episode to dig more into. It's a short and can be even shorter if you speed it up 🕺👇

Season 1 Guests

• Episode 1: Luc Van Poelje
• Episode 2: Marik Hazan
• Episode 3: Rob Kalwarowsky
• Episode 4: Carlos Tanner
• Episode 5: Ryan McMinn
• Episode 6: David Drapkin
• Episode 7: Lyle Maxson 
• Episode 8: Jason Crawford

And if you know anyone who might be interested in sharing their experience with psychedelics and how that's helped them manifest a better future for themselves and the world around them, please send them my way.

About Leadershipedelics  

• Podcast: https://www.leadershipedelics.com/
• Follow Sébastien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienfouillade/

This week, meet Jason Crawford. Jason is a serial entrepreneur, dad and husband who found enormous help in life from his work with psychedelics. He is the founder of Sovereignty a supplement company focused on positively impacting the trajectory of people’s lives.

I connected with Jason after trying their supplements and being super impressed. I could feel psychedelic might have had an influence on the way they show up as a company and build their product.

 We talk about how his journey with psychedelics and how that’s helped him as a human being, as a father and as a husband. 

💡Highlights💡

• Heart-based leadership
• Psychedelics as heart openers
• Psychedelics to help couples face challenges together
• How Jason’s glaucoma healed after Ayahuasca
• Importance of preparation and integration
• Intuition that comes from working with psychedelics
• Positively impacting your employees and their lives
• And more…

🧠Memorable Quote 🧠

“I was so left brained in my 20’s and my early 30’s and really just had that hamster wheel in my head, being very closed-minded and narrow-minded. As a result both of the spiritual openness that I’ve been exposed to and the physical changes that occurred each time you do this [plant medicine] work, I operate at a different level now.”

How to connect with Jason

• Sovereignty.co: http://www.sovereignty.co

About Leadershipedelics  

• Podcast: https://www.leadershipedelics.com/
• Follow Sébastien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienfouillade/

On today’s show we meet with Lyle Maxson, a pioneer in transformative entertainment, who started his career as a creative director for some of the world’s largest music festivals, impacting thousands of people. Lyle is now involved with several projects, including GeniusX, a VR education platform, and Entheo Digital, a digital therapeutics company pursuing FDA clearance. 

Lyle joins us from his biohacking dojo to talk creativity, daily routine, psychedelics, leadership, humility, cold plunge, reaching altered states without psychedelics, ketamine therapy, new earth architects, tech for good, and the future of humanity. Wow!

💡Highlights💡

• What does a new earth architect do?
• Technodelics
• Reaching an altered state without the psychedelics
• Creating spaces for yourself and others
•  Using technology for the good of humanity
• Taking the time to integrate psychedelics experiences
• Collaborative creativity
• Finding discomfort
• Ketamine therapy with Nue.Life
• Kyle’s daily routine (which isn’t loaded with tech)
• Humility in leadership
• Dear future…

🧠Memorable Quotes 🧠 

“A big entrepreneurial trap is trying to figure out how to do everything yourself and be the CEO and run everything right off the bat.”

“If you have to ask if you’re too comfortable then you probably are.” 

“It’s just living the purpose and living the mission and being able to exemplify that, not brag about it, just radiate it. Not even tell I spent five minutes in the cold plunge at 32 degrees to start my day but clearly emanating that experience throughout the day with the passion and motivation.”

“Ultimately it’s down to what’s the little mundane day to day task you continue to build on that then create how you show up in the world at such a higher level.”

How to connect with Lyle

• Entheo Digital: http://entheo.io
• GeniusX: http://geniusx.com
• Personal site: http://lylemaxson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luminouslyle/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lylemaxson/

About Leadershipedelics  

• Podcast: https://www.leadershipedelics.com/
• Follow Sébastien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienfouillade/

Today we meet with David Drapkin 🕺

David is the director of operations and strategic growth at Psychedelics Today. He is a licensed clinical social worker and seasoned mental health and addiction practitioner with over 15 years in front-line clinical and leadership roles within healthcare. David is a fierce advocate for evidence-based, equitable and accessible behavioral health services. He envisions a future where psychedelics play a central role in redefining true wellness.

In this episode David comes out of the psychedelic closet and shares his whole self and spiritual journey, from his early days in England to his travels around the world, from his vision quest in the desert of Israel to magic mushrooms in New Zealand, from a life-changing electrocution to being a father of two, from a Buddhist monastery to leadership insights. And if that wasn’t enough, we end the discussion talking about the new 12-month psychedelic therapy and integration certification program offered by Psychedelics Today.

💡Highlights💡

• Yoga, chocolate, and dancing.
• David’s experiences with psychedelics and other spiritual experiences.
• Reconnecting with ancestors and their trauma.
•  The schoolteacher that changed David’s life.
• A spiritual electrocution that lead to a new road.
• The importance of walking in nature for personal wellness.
• Fasting in New Zealand, vision quest in the desert of Israel.
• The lost art of storytelling.
• Being a dad as the most transformational experience.
• Authentic and caring leadership.
• Opportunities for healthcare system + mental health + psychedelics.
• Psychedelics Today’s new 12-month certification program: https://www.vitalpsychedelictraining.com/

🧠Memorable Quotes 🧠 

• “I had assumed a personality almost like a character.”
• “For about 15 seconds it electrocuted me, I could feel my heart and my veins, just kind of pumping up with electricity, and about to explode and a little voice said you’re going to die and then it said stop fighting it you’re dead and as soon as that part of me allowed that to be true and accept it, the heater exploded between flames and sparks and flung itself 180 deg opposite and made a dent in the wall. I was standing there, and I was alive, and it was the best experience I ever had.”
•  During his vision quest in desert of Israel: “I felt my ancestors flow through me and come back to me”
• About parenting: “Being a father is a mirror every day.”
• As a dad, what are some of the things to help you kids blossom?
  “Saying I love you a stupid amount of time every day and give hugs and cuddle as much as I can.”
•  ­­“The concept of leadership is being able to meet with people in an authentic way and how to encourage other people to be authentic.”
•  “I believe whatever business you’re in, if you’re leader, you have responsibility for your employees, your team’s mental health, for their wellness, to really know them and what’s going on.”

How to connect with David

• On Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daviddrapkin/
• Psychedelics Today Certification Program: https://www.vitalpsychedelictraining.com/

About Leadershipedelics  

• Podcast: https://www.leadershipedelics.com/
• Follow Sébastien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienfouillade/

What do you get when two ex-Microsoft guys get together (in-person, not zoom) to talk about psychedelics, building products, and the corporate world? You get this awesome episode with Ryan McMinn! 🕺

Up until the end of last year, Ryan was the head of product for Microsoft OneNote. He started his career in the music business during the first dot com boom. Then as bankruptcy hit that startup, he started another one and was eventually recruited by Microsoft. He spent time on Microsoft Access, Xbox, Skype, and eventually found his way to OneNote where he spent the last 5 years as its head of product.

 We discuss insights gained from his early use of psychedelics and how he applies them to helping others, building products, and making sense of it all. We cover the importance of belonging, creating a space for yourself and your team, and knowing when you are in a place that doesn’t nourish your soul. We exchange notes about our experiences at Microsoft and we don’t hold back.

This one is not to be missed whether you’re interested in psychedelics, building products, or Microsoft. You can also watch the in-person interview on our new YouTube channel.

💡Highlights💡

•  Seeing through social dynamics
• Belonging in the workplace and the fear of being cast out
• Creativity and technology
• Coming to terms with spaces that don’t nourish your soul
• Teaching the concept of multiple truths
• The culture of not enough in public companies
• Insights from going from an individual contributor to a lead
• Helping people create a space for themselves
• Supporting initiatives that benefit in non-measurable ways
• The religion of OKR’s (Objective Key Results)
• The illusion of bottom-up vs. the reality of running a business
• Teaming up with people you’ve met in previous lives

🧠Memorable Quotes 🧠 

 “We’re always playing this game of trying to understand what the right projection is within this group and how we get closer to that.”

 “You can’t cling to either world but what I see at work is a lot of people clinging to this world.”

 “What’s next, what’s more. And you realize that it doesn’t matter what milestone you hit, it’s a culture, and the culture is more is better and that’s an endless culture. There is no Enough.” 

 “The gift this role has given me is it allowed me into a room that I previously wasn’t able to go into. And when I went in that room, I found people who were very upset they weren’t in control of anything, and they worked for people who weren’t in control of anything, and it just went all the way up.” 

“We are at this moment in time, where groups of company are completely unaware to the extent at which their tools affect people because we’re moving faster than our brains and people can keep up.”

 “There are two heads of product inside a company, there are some with a vision, and there are some with a backlog.”

How to connect with Ryan

• www.linkedin.com/in/ryanmcminn/ 
• ryanmcminn.com

About Leadershipedelics  

• Podcast: https://www.leadershipedelics.com/
• Follow Sébastien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienfouillade/