0:00

Welcome , Marcus , to Leadershipedelics .

0:03

Marcus Druen and

0:05

we were just talking about your last name beforehand

0:08

and how to say it properly , and

0:10

I think why don't you enlighten

0:12

me on the history you were just sharing with me

0:14

? I think it's fantastic .

0:16

Yeah , so in German we pronounce it Druen

0:19

, and it has a French

0:21

origin , goes all the way back to the Huguenots

0:23

, and the Huguenots were slaughtered

0:25

, I think , by the Catholic Church

0:27

some six , seven hundred years ago

0:29

, and the people that survived

0:32

they actually fled , and a lot of them

0:34

fled to the part of Germany where I grew up , and

0:36

a lot of them are called Druen . So

0:39

wherever I go in the world and there is

0:41

another Druen , it's actually

0:43

a far-flung cousin in some shape or form

0:45

, including people in Kansas and

0:47

Texas I've come across , believe it or not .

0:50

Druen , I like that . I like

0:52

how you say it . It's just , ah

0:54

, it's beautiful . Well

0:57

, thanks for being here with us today .

0:59

My absolute pleasure . And

1:01

where are you calling from ? So

1:04

I'm calling from my

1:06

. I call it my forest

1:08

. It's not my forest , but I live in

1:10

a forest . I'm very

1:12

lucky . It's in the Surrey

1:15

Hills in the south of England , Europe

1:17

. And yeah , I

1:20

have just been out in the forest . I've

1:23

seen our fox

1:25

, and this all sounds like I own

1:27

this place . No , it's just , I have a relationship

1:29

with this fox . Do you know why ? The

1:32

fox , we think , gets

1:34

drunk on the apples

1:36

that are falling down , not

1:39

in autumn , but

1:41

actually in springtime , when

1:43

everything warms up and the apples are fermented

1:46

. The fox comes and eats the apples

1:48

and gets drunk and basically

1:50

just lies in our garden . All do lulley , Wow

1:54

, Because this happens every year . So

1:56

the first year around I thought , oh

1:58

my God , this poor fox , Maybe

2:00

he got hit by a car because it was really , really

2:02

limping and they're lying really weird . It's

2:05

like , oh gosh , hopefully it's going to

2:07

die quick . And then haven't seen

2:09

him for a year . Next year , same thing

2:11

this year . It's like , hang

2:13

on a second . The chances that

2:15

this is another , yet another fox that gets

2:17

some kind of injury is actually quite

2:19

low . So I sniffed it

2:22

out a little bit . I should actually observed

2:24

it for like 15 , 20 minutes . And then I

2:26

saw it coming back from the back of

2:28

the garden with a big brown

2:30

round thing , almost like when dogs have tennis

2:32

balls , like tennis balls . I was

2:34

like it's an apple from our

2:37

apple tree . And this brings us right

2:39

into psychedelics . Animals love

2:42

anything that's mind-altering

2:45

, and it's the stone ape

2:47

theory .

2:48

Oh , I love it . Now

2:51

I do have a follow up question on that in

2:54

psychedelics , which is I thought dogs

2:56

didn't like to eat mushrooms . Yeah

3:01

, because I've tried . This

3:04

is going to sound terrible , I might get in trouble , but

3:06

I wouldn't say I tried to give my

3:09

dog psychedelic mushrooms . I've just tried to give

3:11

my dog normal mushrooms and

3:13

he really wasn't into it . But

3:16

now that you're telling me about the fox getting

3:18

drunk on

3:21

apples , I'm like , wow

3:23

, like , yeah , they like to

3:25

explore , but today

3:27

you met the fox while

3:29

the fox was sober , right .

3:32

That's the fox was sober . It was

3:34

in its hunting ground in the forest

3:36

where there's also a few

3:39

birds of prey I met . We've

3:42

got the dragonfly season , so we've got lots

3:44

of different dragonflies here the blue

3:46

ones , the green ones , some big brown ones . I

3:48

mean they're up to this big , they're like

3:50

whoa .

3:52

Wow , wow . Now it's beautiful

3:54

. So that's how you spent most of your day exploring

3:56

the forest .

4:00

Some parts of the day Because

4:02

I'm like hey , I want some of that yeah

4:05

. So one reason why we live here . This goes

4:07

all the way back , I think three years

4:09

ago and it was catalyzed

4:12

by a psychedelic experience I had with

4:14

San Pedro , with the psychoactive

4:16

compound mescaline . I

4:18

had a conversation with a tree for probably two

4:20

, three hours which felt as real as this conversation

4:23

and I made a promise

4:26

to that tree . I said I will take more

4:28

care of the environment . I don't know how , I don't

4:30

know when , but there will be something that

4:32

I will do right . And then

4:34

, sooner than later , we basically

4:36

got kicked out by our then landlady to

4:39

solve this property out of her portfolio

4:42

because it didn't suit anymore , and

4:44

we got this opportunity to move into this house

4:46

, which is in the forest , and

4:48

I thought that's exactly the signal that

4:50

I was receiving back then , because

4:53

only when I live in the forest I

4:55

will be surrounded by nature , I

4:58

will go with the seasons , I will understand the seasons

5:00

, I will pay attention to what's happening

5:02

and that means I will care more . And

5:04

also it means I will stop driving

5:07

to go for a walk . That

5:09

feels really bizarre , actually , when you drive

5:12

to then go for a walk . So we love

5:14

walking . We walk either in the morning

5:16

or in the evening , and whether it's nice

5:18

, we walk twice .

5:20

Yeah , beautiful . Well , I just walked back

5:22

home before I called dropping our

5:24

daughter to school and

5:27

we walked through a forest to get there . We've

5:29

got a little forest and I

5:32

can relate to that . This is just

5:34

, I mean just breathing

5:36

the air . My wife was telling me how

5:38

healing it is , just the

5:41

energy from the tree and the science

5:43

behind it , which I don't know . But

5:45

I don't know if you've dug

5:47

more into that , but the healing

5:49

energy that

5:52

you get from just walking in there

5:54

, from breathing the air , from

5:56

being with the tree , it's beautiful

5:58

.

5:59

Yeah , good for you and good on you to

6:01

do that and to

6:04

make it a habit , right ? So it's . All these things

6:06

are choices . I'm sure you could have taken

6:08

another path or another modality

6:10

, but you chose to walk your daughter

6:13

through a forest .

6:14

Oh yeah , I mean , there's so much goodness

6:16

into that . I've done . I've got

6:18

two older boys and I used to

6:20

do that with them and you

6:22

know , walking to school with them

6:24

. There's just something special about

6:27

it taking them to school and being able to

6:29

walk there rather than have them take

6:31

the school bus , spending

6:33

that time together . Any

6:36

season , too , when it's raining , we'll

6:39

walk to school . I think the only

6:41

time we don't walk to school is when

6:44

things are icy on the ground and we

6:47

could hurt ourselves , and there's a lot

6:49

of that in the Northwest here in

6:51

the winter . Yeah , I was going to say

6:54

enough about me . Let's

6:57

go back to you

6:59

, your background . So you know , I think

7:01

when we talked a few months ago

7:04

, we realized

7:06

you know , we both you

7:08

worked with Microsoft not directly at Microsoft

7:11

, but with Microsoft

7:14

. So we have some stories there and

7:16

you spend 20 years as

7:19

a was it as a consultant or

7:21

what did you do for 20 years ? Because

7:24

you know , when I looked at it , it said you

7:26

played the success game for 20

7:28

years , and I feel like you

7:30

know , I've got a little bit of understanding of that

7:33

as well , and it can be tiring

7:35

after a while . So curious about your background

7:37

and how you met with psychedelics

7:40

eventually .

7:41

Yeah , so I've

7:43

been working at the intersection of personal

7:45

development , leadership , organization

7:48

design change for the last

7:50

20 years and in that capacity

7:52

, I draw on

7:54

skills or capabilities

7:57

that you call coaching and consulting

7:59

, facilitation , mentoring

8:02

, challenging space , holding very

8:05

, very different things . And it's

8:07

really interesting that you hit on a question

8:09

that is actually a big development

8:11

question for me that I have not . I

8:14

think I'm getting very close to a

8:16

more definitive answer . So if you

8:18

ask me today right , it's

8:20

the first of June 2023

8:22

, marcus , I'm a client

8:25

and I want to buy you , but

8:27

you got to tell me are you a coach or are you a consultant

8:29

? But you , this binary , you have

8:32

to fit in one of the boxes . Yeah , and you

8:34

know what big corporates are like . You often do need

8:36

to fit in a box .

8:37

That's my biggest challenge . Yeah , I don't

8:39

like boxes .

8:40

Oh no . So I would

8:42

say today I'm a coach . Yeah

8:44

, Now , had you asked me a few years ago , I

8:47

would have said I'm a consultant .

8:49

You know it's a big journey to get from

8:53

there to here or here to there . I've

8:55

talked about that with several other people and

8:58

there's a big internal journey . I think

9:00

that happens when you go from

9:02

calling yourself a consultant

9:05

to a coach . What

9:07

went through you and like , why

9:09

was that title of coach something

9:12

that you had to come to and

9:15

kind of unfold to ?

9:18

Yeah , so I'm

9:21

an extrovert , I'm quite forceful

9:23

and when you look at all the

9:25

other big five traits , I'm

9:29

not a coach on paper . I'm

9:31

the opposite of a coach on paper , however

9:34

, I'm an expert . I'm someone that

9:36

can talk , I can , someone that can really

9:41

entice people , advocate

9:43

things , promote things . So

9:46

when it comes to , let's say , organizational

9:48

change , there's you got to have a vision . There

9:51

is a pain point . You need to define the problem really well , because

9:53

the problem well defined

9:55

is a problem half solved . I'm

9:58

very analytical as well and I'm also very creative . I

10:00

can talk big picture until the counts come

10:02

home . So that's good . As

10:05

a consultant , when you in particular

10:07

in the beginning of an engagement

10:09

, when it's all about the energy , the motivation

10:11

, right , do you have some fuel

10:14

in this , in this joint tank and

10:17

coach , oh wow , it's

10:19

about listening and patience

10:21

and diligence and sticking

10:23

to processes and asking really good

10:25

questions , but good questions in

10:28

a very plain way , not in

10:30

a oh look at me , I'm super clever kind of way . That's

10:32

more like a consulting type question . So

10:34

yeah , I've been in a journey for the last 20 years

10:36

and I would say

10:38

only in the last year really

10:41

, I've made a decisive move

10:43

to that self identity of

10:45

I am a coach and I'm actually

10:47

a good coach because I learned it for the last

10:49

20 years . I've done I don't know how many thousand

10:52

sessions , so eventually I got the gist of

10:54

what it actually means . That being said

10:56

, I'm not an ICF

10:58

accredited coach and I don't want to be

11:00

one , because I think what

11:03

my clients do value in me is that I

11:06

can play quite

11:08

a broad spectrum

11:10

of modalities that

11:12

are needed in the moment . So , zooming

11:15

out from the different practices , one

11:17

of the things that defines

11:20

me as a practitioner and that also excites

11:22

me in terms of moving

11:24

things forward , whether that's at an

11:26

individual level , in relationships and organizations

11:28

and for the whole systemic

11:30

change , is the agile

11:33

meme sense and response . So

11:35

what is here , what's needed ? Right , and

11:38

then how do you respond to that ? And

11:42

this is not just always a one-size-fits-all approach

11:44

. So

11:46

, even though I do a lot of coaching these

11:48

days , I might just pull

11:50

up a nice , neat little model , let's

11:53

say the Hawkins scale , which I love , dr David Hawkins

11:55

, it's all about energy levels , it

11:58

comes from kinesiology and

12:01

, believe it ? or not , a lot of my corporate clients love it because they

12:03

find it so difficult to talk about their emotions

12:05

. And when I sense that there's maybe something

12:08

like they're sitting on and they can't really

12:10

quite vocalize it , I pull up the Hawkins scale

12:13

and say , just name me a few

12:15

of these words that really represent

12:17

how you have felt today , last week

12:19

, the last month , since we spoke last time . And

12:22

they say , oh God , it's this , there's anger

12:24

, there's guilt . I say , okay , good

12:26

, let's talk about emotions then . So I use these things

12:28

almost like as a micro

12:31

catalyst . It's almost like a micro

12:33

training within a coaching session , because I will

12:35

explain what it is afterwards , once

12:37

they've made their place , their place

12:40

, their words . And then they say , well , what is this , where's this coming

12:42

from ? Well , why does love , why does

12:44

love and enlightenment stand on top ? That feels a

12:46

bit isoteric . I said , well

12:49

, let's talk about move

12:51

.

12:53

It's beautiful we

12:55

have you . Your

12:57

clients have been mostly

12:59

in England or all over the world . I'm

13:02

interested in the cultural differences

13:04

you've encountered as

13:07

you're doing your work and

13:10

also how people are perceiving

13:12

your role when you come in like a

13:14

company . Because

13:17

I know I've got a friend in organizational

13:20

development . He did

13:22

, he wrote a book and

13:24

he's been trying to . He's very knowledgeable

13:26

but it's really

13:28

hard to break into that market working

13:30

with corporations in the US because

13:32

of their budgets and maybe

13:34

how they see that fitting in the role of

13:36

the company and

13:39

kind of with all the other priorities

13:41

they have . So really curious how

13:43

that journey has been for you , because it sounds

13:45

like you're very successful at

13:48

it and breaking into that market .

13:51

So I live in the UK for 20 years

13:54

as a German and I

13:56

work mostly in Germany . If I

13:58

travel , most of the work is remote these

14:00

days , but when I do travel , it's usually Munich

14:02

, berlin or Düsseldorf , which is a smaller

14:05

town in the western parts of Germany

14:07

. Why do I say that

14:09

? For me it's the right way

14:11

around . I wouldn't want to live in Germany

14:13

and work mostly in the UK . And

14:16

why is that ? I

14:18

do like the precision that is often

14:21

associated with German culture and work

14:23

culture , and I

14:25

do also like the muddling through

14:27

, being a bit more ambiguous , being

14:29

creative in the British culture

14:32

. So for me as a person

14:34

living here in the UK , this is awesome

14:36

, because it would freak me out

14:39

in Germany that I have to stick to the T

14:41

and cross every dot as

14:43

a person , like doing my administration

14:47

and going to government bodies and

14:49

stuff like that . That's a lot easier here , I find . Conversely

14:52

, I find the British

14:55

or the Anglo-American work culture

14:57

quite difficult when

14:59

it comes to not saying what

15:01

they really mean . So I'm

15:04

very direct , I'm very transparent , I'm

15:06

radically honest , and that is

15:09

more compatible with how

15:11

Germans conduct business , because

15:13

in the first few years in the UK I

15:16

heard things like , oh , I

15:18

don't disagree with you . I thought

15:21

great , she's agreeing with me . No , or

15:24

, with all due respect , oh great , the

15:26

person's really respecting me . No

15:29

, they think what I just said is utter nonsense

15:31

. So

15:33

there is this thing in the British

15:36

work in the culture that

15:38

I find it a bit difficult . That being all said , zooming

15:41

out from it , I've done a lot of global

15:43

work . So you mentioned Microsoft earlier

15:45

. That was interestingly

15:47

. I think it was a three or four

15:49

continents , except

15:52

two countries . One was the US

15:54

and the other one was Germany

15:56

. The Germans

15:58

insisted to do it in German

16:00

and the client . This

16:02

was originally with Nokia and when Nokia

16:04

got acquired by Microsoft , it became a

16:06

Microsoft program . The client said no

16:09

, effingway , we're doing this in English . This is

16:11

you're not going to get your German

16:14

. We call it extra sausage , like extra

16:16

wurst , it's like you're going

16:18

to fall in line or you're not going to get

16:20

the program and off . So that was the

16:22

reason why I actually didn't get to do this

16:25

in Germany and the

16:27

US had their own program and

16:30

my experience so far with the

16:32

US is that because

16:34

so much of my work , even

16:36

though the outer change

16:39

might be about a merger or

16:41

a restructuring or a growth spurt

16:43

or a carve out from a big corporate

16:45

into a small company . The

16:49

essence of my work is actually inner work

16:51

, so it always starts with who am

16:53

I ? How do I show up ? What does leadership

16:55

mean for me ? Like really , really quite

16:58

what we call inner work , inner growth

17:00

, including shadow work , and

17:02

I have not cracked

17:04

that American culture

17:06

to get in . They find it way

17:09

too much . They

17:11

keep telling me that I

17:13

should become an independent coach

17:16

, as in like find individuals

17:18

because they will invest in this . But

17:20

for companies , what we

17:23

do my partner and I is often just

17:25

too much .

17:27

Yeah , no , that's what I've

17:29

seen as well , and

17:31

it's a shame . It's a shame I

17:34

have seen companies that are fairly

17:37

successful at it in the US . There's a company

17:39

locally here called Pathwise that

17:42

has been coaching a lot of the

17:44

leaders at Microsoft

17:46

and they use a lot of psychology

17:49

and their woo-woo

17:51

is woven

17:54

in psychological

17:56

accuracy and research

17:58

data to

18:00

make it more digestible . But

18:04

a lot of the people that I've encountered here doing

18:06

that job it's the same thing . It's

18:08

really hard to break in that market and

18:11

bring that more subtle

18:13

approach and subtle work . I

18:16

mean it's not necessarily subtle when you're

18:18

looking at your shadows and doing deep inner work , but

18:20

it looks , I think

18:22

, different . It's not as concrete , or maybe

18:25

black and white . I mean it's very concrete the

18:27

results . But I've

18:29

been trying to figure out why , Like why is

18:31

it so hard in the US ? Because we

18:33

all need that here . Yeah

18:35

.

18:36

And this is really a bigger problem

18:38

or bigger , let's say , phenomenon . Do

18:42

you know the term new work ? No

18:44

, you

18:47

see , that's fascinating

18:49

in itself . New work

18:51

, I think , actually

18:53

originates from the US . There

18:56

is one famous company , a consultancy called

18:59

the Ready , and

19:01

one was called August , and

19:04

then two , three other ones , and I think

19:06

about 10 , 15 years ago they

19:08

coined the term new work . It

19:10

caught on in Germany like a wildfire

19:13

Because

19:16

I think , as far as

19:18

I can see it , there

19:20

was the book by Frédéric Lalloux , reinventing

19:23

Organizations , which is a global

19:25

book . I'm not quite sure . I

19:27

think he's a French from a

19:29

French origin . It sounds like it , but

19:31

a lot of the companies were actually that

19:34

he referenced . They're actually based in

19:36

the EU , in Europe . So there

19:39

is quite some interesting structure

19:42

historically in Europe . So we got a

19:44

lot more co-ops cooperatives , I

19:46

think than we have in America . So

19:48

a cooperative , by design , is

19:51

less top down , less focused

19:54

on shareholder . There is devolved

19:57

responsibility

19:59

, accountability and so

20:01

forth , because it's very much tied

20:03

into the union , into the history of unions , which

20:05

you take Germany , france , big

20:07

deal like 100 years ago . And

20:10

then also we have different

20:12

democratic processes here . So

20:14

the US and the UK have

20:17

voting systems that are called

20:19

first pass the

20:21

post . That means you only need one

20:23

single vote more than your

20:25

rival opponent and

20:27

you get all of the seats in

20:29

that jurisdiction . And

20:32

this is why in the UK we got prime ministers who

20:34

actually win the election with

20:36

something like 22 , 25%

20:38

of the popular vote , which is ridiculous

20:40

, whereas in most European

20:42

countries that I'm aware of , in particular

20:45

in Germany , the Netherlands and I grew up

20:48

quite closely to the Dutch border we

20:51

only know coalitions . I don't think there

20:53

has ever been a government where there was

20:56

just one party calling the shots . The

20:59

question then becomes how many parties in

21:01

a coalition can you actually handle ? I

21:04

would say probably three is the

21:06

maximum , whereas you get to Italy and you get

21:08

like eight or 10 parties and then it

21:10

becomes basically unrenovable .

21:12

I think France also

21:14

. It's share of parties . It's

21:17

similar .

21:18

We had sociocracy . We have

21:21

sociocracy 3.0 , which is all fancy

21:23

and is the open source sibling to holacracy

21:25

. It's actually 100 something years old

21:28

, so we have this fertile

21:31

ground , I think , when it comes to new

21:34

work , which is about wholeness

21:36

, it's about having an evolutionary

21:38

purpose , it's about distributed

21:40

authority , like all the things that

21:42

humans want to feel better at

21:44

work , I

21:47

think there is just more of a breeding ground in

21:49

Europe , whereas in the US it has always been

21:51

libertarian , self-made

21:53

millionaire I can do this , I'm the boss

21:56

which then breeds a lot of the top-down

21:58

shareholder optimized

22:00

type of business structure .

22:03

Yeah , yeah , it's interesting

22:05

because I've also seen the top-down

22:07

in Europe as well , where hierarchy

22:09

is really important , like I was working

22:12

with Accenture in Paris back

22:14

in 2007 and

22:17

you will not question

22:19

the boss , you will not question

22:21

their boss , and

22:24

in the US it's a lot easier for

22:26

us to break that hierarchy

22:28

. So

22:30

, yeah

22:32

, there's a strange mix happening

22:35

and at the same time , you

22:37

even mentioned the importance

22:39

of the language , which

22:42

I think it's getting a sidetrack

22:45

. But doing your courses in

22:47

German rather than English , I

22:49

mean that's huge . I think

22:52

Americans sometimes we forget

22:54

Everybody

22:57

speaks English , but it makes them

22:59

tired to speak English for all day

23:01

. This is not necessarily the

23:03

way they want to receive information . So

23:05

a lot of times I was working with

23:07

customers in Europe and the fact

23:09

that I could speak French to them about

23:12

my work at Microsoft and how

23:14

we could help them , I mean that was huge

23:16

for them . And I think a lot of people

23:18

forget that it's like just because people

23:21

understand a language doesn't mean that it's

23:23

easy to just make

23:26

it the same for everyone . So

23:29

the podcast is about leadership and

23:32

manifesting leadership and deep spiritual

23:34

experiences and psychedelics

23:36

, and you touch

23:38

on the big question leadership . What

23:41

does leadership mean for you . So I'll start with that

23:43

. What does

23:45

that mean for you ? How did that evolve through

23:48

the years , and what were some of those

23:50

defining moments that changed

23:52

your definition of leadership ?

23:55

Yeah . So

23:57

, building on to what we just talked about

23:59

, that still most companies are quite hierarchical

24:02

. Leadership historically

24:04

has been having power

24:06

over other people . It's

24:09

you and a hierarchy . You've got budget control

24:11

, you've got the span of control . How many people you've

24:13

got underneath you . So

24:16

it's really having power over other people

24:18

and still , in most you could argue

24:20

Fortune 500 type structures , that's

24:23

still the prevailing leadership . Let's

24:26

say philosophy , irrespective of styles

24:28

, but just the overarching philosophy

24:30

, and I've learned through

24:32

engaging with things like

24:34

self-organization . Integral

24:37

theory was a huge influence on me . I've

24:40

got some wonderful friends and peers and people

24:42

that really inspire me , like my friend , christiana

24:45

Christiana Zalschella . She

24:48

kept talking about no , no , no , no , no . It's

24:50

not about having power over people , it's

24:52

having power with and having

24:55

power as . Yeah , I

24:57

thought , wow , okay , well , I need to ponder on that

24:59

. So having power , as

25:01

however you define in your

25:03

identity , if it has

25:05

a good intention , if it wants

25:08

to be in service of something else

25:10

, it's a fantastic thing . You want

25:12

to have more power , you want to maximize your power

25:14

. If

25:17

you step into that , we've got the meats of space , we've

25:19

got the mind , we've got the heart , we've got the soul , we've got all

25:22

these different energies . If you

25:24

want to make the world a better place , please have power

25:26

. So power

25:28

then became a really , really big word for

25:31

me to really think about . Okay , so we

25:33

got power in governments , we got power in

25:35

the military , we got power in

25:37

these corporate organizations , but we also

25:39

got power as individual

25:42

agents , as autonomous

25:44

catalysts , co-creating this

25:46

reality moment by moment . And

25:48

in the word co-creating lies

25:50

the other power , let's

25:52

say dimension to have power with other

25:55

people together . And this is what French

25:57

Revolution was all about . Right , give the power

25:59

to the people . So that's

26:02

the first response to what

26:04

does leadership mean for me ? And

26:06

then , on my

26:08

journey , I started to

26:10

actually realize

26:12

that leadership

26:15

in terms of leading

26:17

others , like I used to work at Telefonica's

26:19

Corporate University , which is really brilliant , and

26:22

they have this very fixed corporate

26:24

curriculum leading serve , leading others

26:26

, leading innovation , leading the organization

26:28

, leading change . My course was called

26:31

Leadership for Change and

26:33

I thought like , oh , I'm going to sing , I

26:36

can't lead anyone . It's just

26:38

actually not , technically

26:41

speaking , working . It's just

26:43

I can only lead myself , in

26:45

that pure sense

26:47

of the word . Because

26:51

when I look at it from a change perspective

26:53

and we all know the mantra change

26:55

starts with you in the here and now and ends

26:58

with you , in the here and now there's nothing else

27:00

. Right ? If you talk

27:02

about , hey , we think we need to change , we need to have this strategy

27:04

, well , that's talking about change . You

27:06

reflect on something and , let's say , you do a retrospective

27:09

, and if something is in the past , well then you do

27:11

that , but you're not changing . The actual

27:13

act of changing happens

27:16

in the moment and it is usually

27:18

a thought , a self-limiting

27:20

belief , something in our mind

27:23

, in our nervous system , that's just slightly shifting

27:25

. And then , because it's shifting , it catalyzes

27:28

the shift in the people around us . So

27:30

if that is true , I said , then

27:32

I can't lead anyone except for myself

27:34

, because everyone else is doing

27:36

their thing to change themselves

27:39

by leading themselves . And

27:42

then the third lens I looked at it and this is very much

27:44

corporate speak . We need to

27:46

empower our employees . Empowerment

27:50

is super important . And then there's , of course

27:52

, the whole DEI fraction

27:55

that for them , it's their lifeblood . But

27:58

again , you can't empower people . It's

28:00

the same patronizing behavior that

28:03

we've inherited from previous generations

28:05

. Because if I am going to empower

28:07

you , but what if I don't want to be empowered

28:09

? What if I have so much trauma that I can't be

28:11

empowered ? So then for

28:14

me , zooming out from this , if

28:16

you really want to be a leader , if you

28:18

say I want to be in service of something bigger

28:20

than just me , I want to take more responsibility

28:23

for more people , because I have the capacity

28:25

, I have the luck and the talent and the will to

28:28

do that great . Create

28:30

the condition in which people

28:32

can empower themselves , lead

28:35

themselves with a name

28:37

, with a purpose that is

28:39

ideally , hopefully , aligned

28:41

with the purpose of the organization , beyond

28:43

the profit maximization . That's

28:46

as good as it gets in my simplistic

28:49

view , right .

28:51

No , it's great . I'd love to see more

28:53

of that . How

28:55

did your spiritual

28:57

journey evolve

29:02

with the definition of leadership and

29:04

parallel ? I'm just really curious about how

29:06

those two if you were always

29:08

, because I'm assuming you consider yourself

29:11

spiritual now based on our previous

29:13

conversations , but

29:15

some people sometimes they

29:18

don't always consider themselves spiritual

29:20

and I'm curious how that evolved

29:22

in parallel with your definition

29:24

of leadership and the inner work and shadow

29:26

work you're doing .

29:29

Yeah . So it's really interesting . It brings us

29:31

back to labels

29:33

or identities around coach , consultant

29:35

, stuff like that . I've never

29:37

self-identified as a leader until last

29:40

year , and this

29:42

was quite a late coming , I would say , and that's

29:44

okay , because I never was ready for

29:51

it . And talking about shadow and ego and

29:53

, let's say , my narcissistic upbringing

29:55

, there was something in me that

29:57

knew this is not going to be good for you and

29:59

the world if you now become a leader . And

30:01

this is really important because I see so many

30:03

people that at

30:05

such a young age , get so much

30:07

or take so much , assume

30:10

so much responsibility and power that

30:13

, quite frankly , they're fucked things up . I

30:15

would have fucked it up as well . There was something

30:17

in me that knew this is not my path

30:19

. I need to do a lot of learning , a

30:22

lot of healing , a lot of reinventing

30:24

, reimagination and so forth . And

30:26

then last year I had two really

30:29

profound cyber

30:31

and experiences One

30:33

, and they were basically defined by

30:35

two

30:37

words each . Really yeah

30:42

, sometimes the journey can be quite heavy

30:44

, quite shadow work , crying , converging

30:46

, all the rest of it . These two words were very different

30:48

. In

30:50

the first one , in Costa Rica , I had a beautiful

30:53

place called Brava Earth . Out

30:56

of the sudden , there was this source voice

30:59

which I'd never heard before

31:01

, and it says

31:03

let it go . I'm like

31:06

what ? Yeah , yeah

31:08

, let it go . It starts saying I'm

31:11

like no , come

31:13

on , it's not that simple .

31:14

No , no , no , no , no , no it is .

31:16

Just let it go and I knew

31:18

in that moment that this is a

31:21

big deal and I'm still integrating

31:23

. That's really interesting . It's like peeling the

31:25

onion . There's so many things now that I've

31:27

encountered in the last 18 months that

31:30

I know , oh yeah , that's another letting go opportunity

31:32

for me . So why do

31:34

I bring this up ? This was

31:36

the nail in the coffin of

31:39

my dying atheist inside

31:41

me . They had already been

31:43

quite weak in his voice , on my inner

31:45

family system , on the stage . But

31:47

that experience , where it was

31:49

clearly absolutely

31:52

in my felt , experience not

31:54

authored by anything that I would self

31:56

identify as me Okay

31:59

, that's what people

32:01

call God , that's what people call source , whatever

32:04

you want to call it I'm

32:06

in , I'm

32:09

dropping the labor . I'm

32:11

even dropping the sort of like

32:13

that tentative secular

32:15

spirituality was like no

32:17

, no , no , I'm spiritual . There is something

32:20

out there . I don't know what it is

32:22

. It could be dark matter

32:24

, it could be dark energy . It could be something

32:26

there that I

32:29

actually think that maybe

32:31

not us , but with the help

32:33

of AI and some other tech , maybe

32:35

10 , 20 , 50

32:37

generations after us . So in the larger schemes

32:39

of things , not long actually , I actually

32:42

think we will find out what it is . There's

32:44

something in me that feels that , that

32:46

maybe it's my ego that wants to believe

32:48

it . But it's just something . Keep people asking

32:50

myself why are you so interested about the cosmos ? I

32:53

said it's a cosmic game . All

32:55

I know is there is a game . We don't

32:57

know the rules . We are probably on level 17

32:59

. Probably at some point someone will tell

33:01

us . But then 50,000 levels

33:04

, right , and we are like whoa we got to level 17

33:06

. Awesome . So

33:08

that's the spirituality answer . Now

33:10

, how does this link to my , let's

33:14

say , embodiment of leadership ? Then

33:17

the other psilocybin experience

33:20

, that was really big . There

33:22

was again just one word , because

33:25

I was . I noticed , okay

33:27

, peaked . And it's been quite long that

33:29

the music changes . It's getting a little bit more

33:31

vibrant . People starting to eat

33:33

some nuts and fruits and

33:36

sitting there thinking like , oh okay , well

33:38

, that wasn't , it was just nice this time

33:40

. Well , that's okay , you know , it doesn't always have

33:42

to be this profound and that it

33:44

just hit leader

33:46

. I'm like what

33:48

do you mean ? I said , yeah , leader , you

33:51

need to become a leader now we

33:53

haven't and this was interesting we haven't

33:55

put you back on

33:58

the shore when you nearly drowned 10 years ago

34:00

to not be a leader . So you need

34:02

to become a leader now . I thought , okay

34:04

, that's something that I will explore

34:06

. I don't know how , I don't know when , but I

34:09

will take a look

34:11

at it . And now fast forward about

34:13

a year . It's a

34:15

label or an identity

34:18

that I do . It

34:20

resonates with me . So , for example

34:22

, I've been at

34:24

a spectacularly warm

34:27

like emotionally , spiritually warm

34:29

event in Brussels last week called

34:31

Regions Unite . I have a

34:33

massive passion for Web3

34:36

, the technology underpinning Web3

34:38

, not necessarily the crypto degenerative

34:41

part of which I'm also part of , and

34:44

I said a few things at the end

34:46

in the circle around

34:49

psychedelics and the safe and

34:51

intentional use of psychedelics

34:53

, and quite a few people

34:55

came afterwards and wanted to speak to me . And

34:58

this might be 30

35:00

years yeah , this is my daily bread markers

35:03

, but for me it's new because I've

35:05

always been the expert

35:08

, the consultant or the person that you

35:10

pay money for to hold space . But

35:12

this is much more organic . This is natural . You

35:14

didn't know what I do for a living . Probably they

35:16

just saw me for who I was in

35:19

that moment . And

35:21

, yeah , one definition of leadership is

35:24

that you have people that say I

35:26

feel intrigued , I feel pulled , I

35:28

want to work with you , I want to learn from you

35:30

, and

35:32

then again it gets into different labels and identities

35:34

. But there was someone that actually said

35:36

afterwards , when you stood

35:39

up and you shared what you shared , I knew

35:41

you are my man or my guy

35:43

my guy , I think . He said , and we were talking

35:45

about potentially holding space for

35:47

a psychedelic

35:50

journey . And that

35:52

was really deeply touching

35:54

for me because , as I said , being

35:59

pretty much a middle-aged man

36:02

or human

36:04

. This is new for me and it

36:06

feels nice and it

36:09

feels safe . I feel safe in

36:12

putting myself out there because I feel

36:14

safe inside now and

36:16

let's say , 10 , 15 , 20 years ago I

36:18

did not feel safe inside myself .

36:21

No , that's a big deal . And the term leader

36:23

we define leadership , but I think

36:25

the leader

36:28

wearing that label is

36:30

a big deal . And

36:34

I'm curious your definition

36:36

of the term leader . It

36:39

sounds like it's

36:41

almost similar to the definition

36:43

of guru that I've heard before , but

36:46

it's like being able to pull

36:49

or inspire , maybe . Or

36:51

inspire someone and

36:53

bring them from one place to another

36:55

. How would you define that term

36:58

later ? No-transcript

37:02

the way you're wearing it .

37:04

The way I'm wearing it is that of

37:06

a guide , a Sherpa , I

37:09

don't know , that's not cultural appropriation , but

37:11

the reason why this resonates with me is when

37:14

you have been on an 8,000 peak

37:16

and you've seen shit and

37:19

storms and nearly died five

37:21

times and you survived well

37:24

, you probably now have earned the merits

37:26

to take Western clients

37:28

up for $100,000 that don't know what they're doing

37:30

, but

37:32

they actually don't know what they're doing . And I've

37:34

been in some quite

37:36

extreme adventure spots as a bodyboarder

37:38

, which is a lay down version of surfing

37:41

, and also I have climbed 4K

37:43

peaks at

37:45

least once in a life-threatening situation and I

37:47

was absolutely glad to have a guide

37:49

that knows what they're doing . So the leader

37:52

sometimes have to make the

37:54

tough chords . It's like the captain

37:56

of a ship right and or the captain

37:58

in an aircraft when ship hits the

38:01

fan for creation

38:03

can be overvalued as in

38:05

like it just don't work . So sometimes in a

38:07

crisis mode , this is a beautiful work

38:09

of the sonnading

38:11

matrix . Sometimes , when

38:13

it's crisis mode , you've got to have one

38:16

or two people that actually make the decision

38:18

very , very quick , based on

38:20

, I would say , a triangulation

38:22

of sensing like what's

38:24

here , for which mindfulness

38:26

and all that kind of stuff . Presencing is really helpful . Second

38:29

thing is your experience

38:32

. I was going to say we've done an experience

38:34

. Have I seen this before ? Right

38:36

. And then , when it comes to that

38:39

one moment where you go either left or

38:41

right , I would say it's intuition , it's

38:43

trust your gut , because it's so much faster

38:46

than any analytical decision-making

38:48

framework that you can now apply . You just have

38:50

to now jump . There's no more . There's just no

38:53

time , right , yeah

38:55

.

38:55

It's interesting because the question of

38:58

can AI replace

39:00

leaders in

39:03

those situations there's always something

39:05

I kind of tinker with

39:07

is like well , one

39:10

of my guests said we're going from the age of

39:12

knowledge to the age of wisdom , and

39:15

I've been thinking about that a lot , because

39:18

AI has a lot of knowledge , it's

39:20

assimilated all that knowledge , but

39:22

I wouldn't necessarily say it has wisdom

39:25

. It doesn't have the wisdom of the years

39:28

, it doesn't necessarily have the intuition , and

39:31

so I think

39:33

maybe a result of AI

39:35

is we'll

39:38

start putting more value on

39:40

the wisdom , on the wisdom of people

39:42

who actually have climbed

39:44

those 10,000 feet peaks

39:47

, who have gone through all that , who are

39:49

able to look at something

39:51

, take the input , use their

39:54

experience , combine with their intuition

39:56

and make a decision . I'm

39:59

hopeful that it will become more important

40:02

. We might have

40:04

to go through a dip first with

40:06

all the buzz around AI where we try

40:09

to replace everything , but I'm hopeful

40:11

that the reverence for wisdom

40:14

and I think also

40:16

leader , rhymes with elder and

40:21

especially if you're

40:23

in the middle of your life , there's

40:27

accepting becoming that

40:30

elder , being in that position

40:32

where you're actually helping people who

40:34

don't necessarily have the experience , I

40:37

mean if you're leading a psychedelic

40:39

ceremony , for example , like

40:42

you sure hope , the leader has

40:44

a lot of experience with psychedelics

40:47

and has gone through the storms , through

40:49

all that stuff . Just

40:52

like in a company , you're expecting that

40:54

the leader has quite a bit

40:56

of experience , so

40:59

I like that .

41:00

Yeah , and I'm learning from exactly those type

41:03

of elders , people

41:06

with wisdom . I'm

41:09

an intern in Third Wave's

41:11

coaching program , where I got my own coaching

41:13

training about one one and a half years

41:15

ago , and I'm learning from

41:17

particularly an amazing woman , but

41:20

Marie , Dr Marie Mbuny , originating

41:23

from Cameroon . So , and

41:26

then there's another one of

41:28

the lead facilitators , Jen from Alaska

41:30

, like an indigenous woman from Alaska . And

41:32

it brings us back to the conversation about

41:34

the forest and why I wanted to live in a forest

41:36

. Because I haven't got a fucking clue what

41:39

the land actually is , because I'm

41:41

a Western , I'm a product of

41:43

this globalized , capitalist

41:46

, knowledge worker type

41:48

society and I thrive quite well in

41:50

it , in this narrow view . And

41:53

then , through the help of psychedelics

41:55

, I started to realize , gosh , there's so much

41:57

else out there , so many different

42:00

types of knowing . Mindfulness

42:03

, meditation , a particular Zocan

42:05

meditation , gave me proper non-dual

42:07

experiences , that mind blowing experience

42:09

. So I thought like , wow , what are we optimizing

42:11

for ? What's the success game all good

42:13

for if you die

42:15

and you've never had a non-dual experience

42:18

? I know it might sound a bit judgmental

42:20

, but for me it was like my God , I'm so glad I

42:22

didn't . Do you know what my first non-dual

42:24

experience was ? My near death experience . I

42:27

had to get this close to actually

42:30

like , oh , this is what my yoga

42:32

teacher and my meditation teacher I

42:34

was talking about , and I just keep busy , you

42:37

know , being quite like high

42:39

performing in it rather than just

42:41

letting it happen . So

42:45

, yeah , what I really find

42:47

helpful with the , let's

42:49

say , the emergence of the bigger

42:51

psychedelic field is

42:54

the bridge between the

42:56

West and the Elders and the wise people from

42:59

indigenous tribes , because they carry

43:01

a completely different type of not

43:03

just knowledge but wisdom than I could

43:06

and I learned so much

43:08

from it . Like Maurice says , let me just

43:10

I hope I get this right , he said so

43:12

the shamanic check-in this is

43:14

so relevant to coaching , by the way . The

43:16

shamanic check-in is am

43:19

I clear from ? Do I have anything

43:21

to prove , anything to protect

43:23

, anything to hide

43:25

and anything to

43:28

? I forgot the fourth one

43:30

, but you get the gist right . So

43:32

are you actually pure ? Are you clear ? Like

43:36

, what are you serving here right now

43:38

? Who are you serving ? How are you serving a person

43:40

? And I mean , when

43:42

I did this for the first time , I was like

43:44

, oh my God , something

43:47

to prove ? Yep , Absolutely

43:49

. You know , this is part of my shadow . Not

43:51

necessarily something to hide , I'm quite honest , and

43:54

not something to protect either , but something to prove

43:56

. That was absolutely what

43:59

I realized . Gosh , just

44:02

be careful with that .

44:04

Yeah , that's a wonderful check

44:06

. It just takes me back . Last

44:09

year we did our Sacred Creativity Retreat

44:11

in Peru , in the Sacred Valley of Peru

44:13

, and I was helping the

44:15

Shippebo Healer with

44:18

the . We had

44:20

five guests and I

44:22

was helping him . While he was singing to each guest

44:24

, I was taking their purge

44:26

buckets and saying

44:30

a little prayer and being there for them

44:32

and I just

44:34

realized it's like wow , being of pure

44:37

service , where it's not about the ego

44:39

and it's just you're

44:41

just doing it like with no judgment

44:44

and you're not even thinking it's not

44:46

serving you in any

44:48

way , it's serving them

44:50

. And when this was like the first

44:52

time , it really hit me just

44:55

how wonderful it is . But also how other

44:57

things can get in the way , like you talked about

44:59

, like your shadows , your ego and

45:02

trying to prove something you know or

45:04

distracting you from something that maybe

45:06

you're trying not to think about

45:09

. Yeah , that's

45:12

a wonderful reflection . I'll definitely turn that

45:14

into a short because

45:17

I want to share that message . Another

45:19

thing you've been talking

45:21

about is creation and

45:23

creativity and co-creating . That's

45:26

another big thing that

45:29

I really love talking about is . I

45:31

mean , the retreat we have is called the Sacred

45:33

Creativity Retreat , right ? So it's

45:35

a big deal for me and for the

45:38

partner I do this with . What

45:41

does creativity mean for you and

45:44

what do you think is its place in the

45:46

world today , and why

45:48

do you think it's missing in the world today

45:50

?

45:51

Yeah . So for me , creativity

45:53

has a lot to do with qualities

45:56

and habits and practices that

45:58

we were mostly

46:00

most of us absolutely

46:03

world-class , excellent as a

46:05

kid . It's childlike

46:07

. It's when you are , when there's no preconception

46:09

of what to do , when you just express

46:12

yourself in a way that is very

46:14

authentic . So

46:16

when you look at artists when they go to

46:18

art school , they

46:21

often have to break down completely

46:24

and go back to just

46:27

drawing or painting or whatever , like a kid

46:29

, like they did as a kid , because

46:31

by that time they just have been so convoluted

46:33

with . You should do this and look at Picasso and look at the

46:36

impressionist , and there's all this kind of structure

46:38

wearing them down . And then there

46:40

might be , for some , there is that moment

46:42

where there is just that why , how

46:45

does this work ? This is how it works

46:47

. And then , eight days later , and

46:49

no food , just some water and some bare

46:51

sleep , and they produced 50 pieces

46:53

and this is basically now . They are now

46:55

there , right , this is now

46:57

their art , this is their ductus

46:59

, and you

47:01

can see it in the , in the obsession

47:04

again with artists like and I

47:06

do some some bits not in the

47:08

last few years , but I've done some some

47:10

macro photography you just lose track of time

47:12

, and that's what kids do . You know , you're never bored

47:15

, you're never distracted by anything if you are absolutely

47:17

in the flow of doing something creative . So

47:20

that's the first response . And

47:22

how does it fit into the word right now

47:25

? And where where is it missing ? Well

47:27

, it's missing catastrophically

47:29

in business , because in business it's not incentivized

47:32

. Anything that sounds

47:34

like we need to be more creative

47:37

, more innovative , and that this , just it's

47:41

a , it's a call to

47:44

use creativity

47:46

to an end that

47:49

is actually in conflict with

47:51

creativity . It's just , it's just sort of like

47:53

a it's , it's , it's

47:55

, it's the opposite of psychedelic

47:57

, it's . It's quite bland

48:00

, blunt , maybe even

48:02

as well . It's more 2D , like

48:04

not even 3D or or technical law

48:06

, and

48:08

at the same time and this is

48:11

a fascinating paradox

48:13

that I encounter a lot , and

48:15

this brings us back to new work and in

48:18

in , in the you must know this as a

48:20

, as an engineer , in agility , right

48:22

, when you , when you are agile , everyone

48:25

wants to be a co-creator , sebastian , everyone

48:28

talks about co creation , and

48:31

what does it actually mean ? What does it

48:33

require ? At

48:35

the , at the , at the nub of

48:37

of the issue , right , what's the essence

48:39

of co-creation Is that you

48:42

trust the process and that you let

48:44

go of your need for control

48:46

and because corporations

48:48

are embedded

48:51

in incentive structures , in power

48:53

structures , in whatever structure , it

48:56

actually kills and stifles the

48:58

very thing that everyone wants to be creative

49:00

.

49:01

Yeah , yeah it's

49:04

, it's funny . I read a few books on

49:06

creativity because I I forgot

49:08

them , but it all kind of stuck in there as

49:11

a mush of wisdom . But

49:13

, like you know , one of the big things I remember

49:15

from the books is is the more you're trying to

49:18

hold on and control the creativity , the

49:20

less people can be creative . And

49:23

and they've had studies where you know

49:25

they they try to create the

49:27

best incentive plans for creativity

49:29

and it's really hard because as soon as you start

49:31

paying somebody for being creative

49:34

, you start hurting their creativity

49:36

. Yeah , and so I'll

49:38

. I'll use myself as an example

49:41

, but over the last year and a half , I

49:43

haven't been paid to be creative . I've

49:46

been creative to be creative

49:48

, to be myself , and I've been more

49:51

creative in the last year and a half

49:53

by by creating , you know , pilot

49:55

shows for animated

49:58

animated shows , creating

50:00

AI stuff , creating art , but

50:04

I'm not paid for it , so I can go anywhere

50:06

and I can experiment and explore . And

50:09

then on the other end , you'll see you

50:11

know companies like with

50:13

Tesla , with Elon Musk , who's like

50:16

, hey , I need some butts in the seat , I need you

50:18

, like 60 hours a week and

50:21

you need to innovate because we're like the best

50:23

car company in the world .

50:24

Now , innovate now .

50:27

I'm just like dude

50:30

. Like how do you do that ? Like , how

50:32

do you innovate if people have no life

50:34

? They don't forget what's like to be

50:37

human ? Like you're

50:39

just going to innovate , like

50:41

you know , move the needle a little bit because

50:43

people will innovate following like Cartesian

50:46

processes . It's not

50:48

going to be a natural human innovation

50:51

on a wide spectrum

50:53

of possibilities . It's going to be a very

50:55

structured , limited innovation

50:58

which we see , and we see

51:00

companies following each other and

51:02

I feel like companies . Now I'm answering

51:04

the question for you . Sorry , I

51:07

feel like companies now and you answered as

51:09

well . I'm just building on it . I'm so excited about creativity

51:11

. Companies now

51:13

, just , they've

51:16

just forgotten they need that

51:18

innovation that authentic

51:20

creativity brings right , but

51:22

they can't get it because

51:25

the more they can they try to grab onto

51:27

it , the more they try to control it , they

51:29

can't . So I don't know , have you worked

51:31

with clients that are struggling

51:33

with creating creative

51:36

environments ?

51:37

Yeah , and then they create creative

51:39

environments hey , let's have some fun play

51:41

and you can get in from nine

51:43

to nine to three or something . Now I don't

51:45

want to be facetious . About 20

51:48

years ago , when I came to London and

51:50

I had my first role and I

51:52

was a board assistant , like an executive assistant

51:54

, to some really really cool

51:56

managers , like leaders and actually really

51:59

disruptive leaders . One went to become

52:01

the big commercial officer at

52:03

Google just after the founders , and

52:05

there was one , let's say

52:07

, middle manager he

52:09

said to me . He said , marcus , you're

52:12

a good guy , you're really good in this

52:14

, you can really do good meeting all

52:17

the kind of stuff . You're really smart . You even

52:19

challenged McKinsey . I really like you . But you have

52:21

to learn one thing you got to leave this

52:23

emotion of stuff out here . Emotions in the

52:25

workplace no , that's absolutely not

52:27

a good match . So very quickly

52:29

after that I actually quit my career , so

52:31

to speak , and I embarked on this journey

52:34

to become who I eventually became , which

52:36

is a transformation leadership coach

52:38

. And the reason why I bring the story

52:41

up is it brings us back to the

52:43

artists . Many

52:45

artists , if not most artists , do their

52:47

best work when it comes from

52:49

the depth of their shadow . That's

52:52

just the way it is . It's not happy

52:55

clappy . Everything is jolly . It

52:57

is when it is also painful . And

52:59

so how can you be creative

53:02

and innovative at work if you are

53:04

told you have to leave a massive

53:06

part of yourself at

53:08

the door ? This is the big

53:10

mismatch . So how can we solve

53:12

it ? I mentioned earlier the book

53:15

by Frédéric Lalloux , re-inventing Organizations

53:17

. I don't think he coined the term

53:19

wholeness , but he made it quite popular in the business world

53:22

in Europe , and it's really

53:24

something that resonates now with clients

53:26

, and a very , very simple

53:29

intervention that you can do in every meeting

53:31

is to do a check-in , and

53:33

the check-in is not what am I'm up

53:35

to , what am I working ? No , no , no , it's not that verbal

53:37

reporting , looking good in front of everyone else when

53:39

you report to the boss ? No , no , no . How

53:42

do you land in this meeting

53:44

right now ? How do you feel

53:46

? Are you tired , are

53:48

you happy , are you sad ? Like

53:52

a proper human to human check-in

53:54

, that just increases

53:57

the temperature , the emotional

53:59

, human temperature in a room by 10 degrees

54:01

and I bet you my

54:03

money on it that whatever you do afterwards

54:05

has the chance to

54:08

be more creative and more innovative .

54:11

Yeah , now I can see that it

54:14

makes it more human as well , which

54:18

we're taught to leave that home right . And

54:20

I had that same conversation in

54:22

2008 with a manager

54:26

at Microsoft and

54:28

she's like , yeah

54:30

, just your home stuff , keep it at home . Basically just

54:34

be that person at home , but when you're at work

54:36

, be that other person . And I was like , huh

54:40

, that's not going to work

54:42

. I never

54:45

followed that recommendation and she

54:47

was my manager for a

54:49

couple of years . But yeah

54:52

, no , I get it and it's . I think there's an

54:55

opportunity to do that now , like

54:57

companies are looking for that authenticity

55:00

, but

55:03

at the same time , I don't know if they're fully ready

55:05

for it . So

55:08

it's , you know , be authentic as

55:10

long as you still think like

55:12

everybody else . And I'm going to take

55:14

a stab at Amazon They've

55:18

got like 16 leadership principles

55:20

. I'm like be

55:23

authentic .

55:24

I need a PhD for that .

55:26

Yeah , be authentic as long as you follow

55:28

the 16 leadership principle . That

55:31

basically help us program

55:33

the entire organization . And

55:35

you know , if you look at the way Amazon works

55:38

, is they're basically programming

55:42

their whole system and how

55:44

people work and behave . It's all structured , the

55:46

compensation is very manipulative

55:48

and how the

55:50

structure stuck distribution

55:52

over the years after you start , and

55:55

there's a lot of that going on . So

55:58

you know , when you think about creativity , I

56:00

don't know . You know Amazon is a lot of good thing

56:02

and they're efficient and they deliver packages on time

56:04

, and so maybe

56:07

the way they approach creativity is they

56:09

have different needs for creativity and that

56:11

works to build a machine

56:13

. But , like you know , there's a book

56:15

on Pixar Creativity Inc . There's

56:19

a fascinating read that talks

56:21

about how they create the

56:24

amazing movies they've created and

56:26

a lot of it . There's a much bigger

56:28

human factor that they need to bring there and

56:32

I just find it really sad that

56:36

this seems to be reserved to entertainment

56:38

companies .

56:40

Yeah , and so

56:43

one of the things that absolutely

56:45

, I

56:47

guess , changed the path of my life really

56:49

, but it's also really something

56:52

that I fundamentally believe in . As I said earlier , when

56:54

I dove into the Web3 rabbit

56:56

hole , one of the first things

56:58

because I'm a very visual person that

57:01

absolutely struck me was

57:03

this Cambrian explosion of

57:05

creative logos like

57:07

a DAO or whatever . A project

57:10

, a protocol , a DAO these are companies

57:12

, right , this is potentially the next evolutionary

57:14

stage of companies , corporations , C-Corp

57:17

, b-corp , whatever . Now , if you

57:19

take the classic KPMG , microsoft

57:21

, adobe , what have you ? No

57:24

matter what color it is , what shape it is , it

57:26

is meant to convey one thing we

57:29

are serious . We are so

57:31

serious and so professional that you can

57:33

really really trust us . But the problem is we don't trust them anymore

57:35

, and it's not because

57:37

the people are assholes , it's because the incentive

57:39

structures turns those

57:42

people into these roles to

57:45

do things that are detrimental to the health of

57:47

the planet , to the mental

57:49

health of the employees , of the customers , of everyone

57:51

, over indexing on the wealth

57:53

of the shareholders . We all know that Now , when

57:55

you now look at almost I

57:57

would say almost any logo , but I could now

57:59

point out to things like Uniswap

58:02

and Sushi Swap and they

58:04

are fun . They look like

58:06

kids' icons . This is something

58:09

that my 14-year-old son would come up

58:11

with if he had a project in school . Hey

58:14

, how do you want to call your idea ? Oh

58:17

, I'm going to call it Uniswap , as a universal oh

58:20

, and because unicorns are quite cool

58:22

and it's pink and it includes the

58:24

girls . This is fucking

58:27

cool . I was

58:29

like where has this come

58:31

from ? What have I not been

58:33

noticing ? Because I came to Bitcoin

58:36

, ethereum and called quite late . So

58:39

there is the next generation , the Gen Zs

58:41

, the digital natives that bring

58:44

that

58:47

raw creativity , that raw

58:49

energy Again where

58:51

it was last week , the Regency Unite . This

58:53

was almost anti-polished and I loved

58:55

it . There was nothing that said this

58:57

is a polished event . It was crafty , it

59:00

was makeshift and it was creative

59:03

. There were lots of actually

59:05

tactile materials

59:08

in place rather than laminated

59:11

posters . So it's coming . I

59:13

have hope .

59:14

Yeah , no , it's wonderful . I

59:16

feel like big companies are also stuck in their brand

59:19

. They've created

59:21

a system they can't escape from

59:23

. Microsoft

59:28

has a certain perception of their brand and

59:32

changing

59:34

that is a huge risk that

59:36

most companies aren't willing

59:38

to take because it's a big

59:40

unknown for shareholders . So

59:43

it's easier to stay

59:45

the course and

59:49

I think there's a place for everyone . There's going

59:51

to be a place for that . But

59:53

those new companies need

59:55

to come and kind of freshen

59:58

things up , like you're saying . I

1:00:00

wish I'd been at that event . That

1:00:03

sounds like a great event . It is

1:00:05

awesome .

1:00:06

It really is and it's growing . I

1:00:08

mean I'm sure it will come to

1:00:11

America or Canada . It's

1:00:13

been in Brussels and Berlin we

1:00:16

can put the link in the show notes

1:00:18

and I'm working with a

1:00:20

29-year-old chap from

1:00:22

Berlin and we have this project

1:00:25

. No one does business

1:00:27

these days . We're having a project and

1:00:30

it's called Inner First and

1:00:33

it's helping people to do their inner work in the

1:00:35

web . Free space , like regeneration , has to start

1:00:37

from within and within

1:00:40

. I think within about one or two nights he

1:00:42

just whacked up this website

1:00:44

, which looks absolutely beautiful and

1:00:46

it looks decidedly not like a business . It

1:00:49

looks like a fantasy word with AI-generated

1:00:52

angel-wing type creatures

1:00:54

. And I love it because

1:00:56

, yeah , this is different . I don't want

1:00:58

to have another business . I've already got my coaching

1:01:00

business . I want something fun that

1:01:03

inspires people to

1:01:08

really co-create . For me , one

1:01:10

of the things I really learned in the last few years we

1:01:13

can only co-create ourselves out

1:01:15

of this mess . There's no other way . You

1:01:20

are part of the solution , I'm part of the solution , and

1:01:22

so is everyone else , and

1:01:24

that's what we now learn to harness

1:01:26

. How can we make , how

1:01:29

can we , how can we have

1:01:31

as many people as possible to

1:01:34

really find out why they exist ? Like

1:01:36

? I fundamentally believe that every human

1:01:38

being has an evolutionary purpose , just like

1:01:40

every bee , every dolphin , every fox has

1:01:42

an evolutionary purpose . And then , zooming

1:01:44

out at a human societal level

1:01:47

, the question now emerging is what

1:01:49

kind of ancestor do we want to be Like ? We

1:01:51

want to be better than what we're currently doing

1:01:53

, and then maybe even bolder

1:01:56

. What is actually the evolutionary

1:01:58

purpose of humans in the context

1:02:00

that we collectively now reach

1:02:03

the planetary boundaries because of our overreach

1:02:05

? So when you get to these type of levels

1:02:07

, we need every human on deck

1:02:09

, not just a few leaders

1:02:12

and a few billionaires .

1:02:13

I mean scaling that . That's

1:02:15

always the question I have how do you scale

1:02:18

this up ? I mean , I do my

1:02:20

work , we have

1:02:22

minimal impact and I'm

1:02:25

actually okay with that having small impact

1:02:27

. I'm actually because

1:02:30

I feel like sometimes with businesses you're

1:02:32

over focused and scaling up

1:02:34

and that focus

1:02:36

sometimes hurts the

1:02:38

experience you give people . So I'm curious in

1:02:40

your vision of helping everyone

1:02:42

, what do you think is the right approach

1:02:45

to help people , like find their evolutionary

1:02:47

purpose and

1:02:51

kind of just help each

1:02:53

other and grow and make that vision happen

1:02:55

?

1:02:56

I don't know what the right approach is . I

1:03:00

have an approach that either resonates

1:03:02

with someone or not . So

1:03:04

when it resonates , I think

1:03:06

it looks like this that the common pattern

1:03:09

is as follows the

1:03:11

pain needs to be big enough . Sad

1:03:14

but sure . We don't move unless there's

1:03:16

pain , but we're hardwired to move away from pain . So

1:03:19

if the pain is big enough and there

1:03:21

is that faint spark

1:03:24

, that sort of like light at the end of the

1:03:26

tunnel , there's something out . There

1:03:28

must be some kind of fantasy . Or

1:03:30

, as Jordan Peterson says , you got to have an aim . You

1:03:33

don't need objectives and KPRs and that stuff , but you need

1:03:35

to have a broad aim , because if

1:03:37

you actually want to go there and

1:03:40

maybe this is your part then you're doing something fundamentally

1:03:42

wrong , and then you need to be roughly clear on what

1:03:44

kind of direction you want to go . And

1:03:47

then for me it

1:03:49

all starts with really

1:03:52

understanding what

1:03:54

story you're telling yourself , because

1:03:57

you mentioned the word a few times . We are all

1:03:59

programmed . We're programmed by not just corporations , by religion

1:04:01

, by parents , by teachers . This

1:04:05

is just humanity . I'm not even judging it . We are

1:04:07

being programmed because we are absolutely helpless

1:04:09

for at least for

1:04:11

three , four years , and we are actually only

1:04:14

really fully functioning , or the expectation

1:04:16

is to fully function by the time we are 18

1:04:18

, 20 or something .

1:04:20

So we have to be programmed . I'd say we're

1:04:22

probably hardwired from evolution

1:04:25

to be programmed and

1:04:27

then we take data in right

1:04:30

, so we get programmed with

1:04:32

whatever comes in .

1:04:34

So now taking you back and

1:04:36

the listeners into yourself , into

1:04:38

your meat soup . So you got that interception

1:04:41

. So , what feels good , what doesn't feel good , start

1:04:44

to listen to your body , which is something I came

1:04:46

very later to this game . And

1:04:49

then , when something feels really

1:04:52

really good , coming back to power , right , when

1:04:54

you feel power as okay , I feel

1:04:56

power as a coach , I feel power as a gardener , I

1:04:58

feel power as a parent . That's

1:05:00

your authenticity and

1:05:03

that now may

1:05:05

or may not resonate

1:05:07

with another fundamental human

1:05:09

need that we all have and that is your need for attachment

1:05:11

. And if you find that bridge

1:05:13

, that link that you say I can be

1:05:15

myself and I can say and do things that

1:05:17

way I feel good about , and

1:05:20

if you then sense and the people around

1:05:22

you say , yeah , I like that

1:05:24

, Then you're onto something , because

1:05:26

then you are , then you actually can

1:05:28

, can transcend that paradox

1:05:31

, that often that competing commitment between

1:05:33

authenticity and attachment . And that brings

1:05:35

us right back to the corporate C-suite . Right

1:05:37

, it's not that they don't want to be authentic , they

1:05:39

can't , because if they were too authentic , they

1:05:42

would lose the attachment of their boss , of

1:05:44

their shareholder , of maybe even their spouse

1:05:46

, who said hey , honey , I like you as

1:05:48

a vice president with a big company car . Now

1:05:50

you are like a lead in

1:05:53

an agile context . I don't like

1:05:55

leads right . So that

1:05:57

, I would say , is the

1:05:59

way I work

1:06:02

with most people , whether they're

1:06:04

clients , or my partner , my son , anyone

1:06:06

like that . Just , we all have

1:06:08

that authentic voice and we all

1:06:10

need to be to

1:06:12

belong to something .

1:06:13

Yeah , authenticity . Yeah

1:06:16

, authenticity is a big deal . I

1:06:18

went through my own journey there . I

1:06:21

just call it multi-dimensional authenticity

1:06:24

because

1:06:26

I think a lot

1:06:28

of us , if they're put in an environment

1:06:31

that is extreme

1:06:33

, like an extreme corporate environment or

1:06:35

maybe some other environment that really demands

1:06:37

a certain part of you , we

1:06:40

might picture our authenticity

1:06:42

to be maybe the opposite of that

1:06:44

, to be something very specific

1:06:47

that is starving as a

1:06:49

result of that environment . And

1:06:53

my journey over the last year and a half is realizing

1:06:55

it's like okay , yeah , there's

1:06:57

definitely a part of you that

1:07:01

is that authentic part

1:07:04

that needs to talk about , but there's all

1:07:06

those parts that are

1:07:09

within you and IFS

1:07:11

talks a lot about that and

1:07:14

so your authenticity

1:07:17

can change too over

1:07:19

time and those different parts

1:07:21

that you need can change . So it's

1:07:23

interesting of , like , what is authenticity

1:07:25

in your mind and

1:07:27

how do you , how

1:07:30

do , how can people bring that force

1:07:33

and trust in

1:07:35

that authenticity ? And I think it's the other

1:07:37

big thing , for people is like , well

1:07:40

, I'm going to be authentic , but is

1:07:43

it really me ?

1:07:47

Well , so IFS internal

1:07:49

family system fascinating

1:07:51

and I'm

1:07:54

very lucky to live with not

1:07:56

just the love of my life but also with a compassionate

1:07:58

inquirer . She trained with Gabba

1:08:00

Marte and she understands quite a bit

1:08:02

about this word . I'm

1:08:05

called Marcus Antonio's Drune and

1:08:08

I always hated my middle name

1:08:10

until last year when

1:08:12

I started to self identify

1:08:14

as a leader . So in my

1:08:17

internal family system the person

1:08:19

that is the leader , not the coach , but

1:08:21

when I get out and put a team together

1:08:23

for , let's say , an innovative breathwork course

1:08:25

, that's Antonio's . I

1:08:27

also have in my internal family system Arrelius

1:08:30

, who I was giving birth

1:08:32

in a San Pedro psychedelic

1:08:36

experience because I never

1:08:38

had a dad . My biological

1:08:40

dad's f'd off and left my teenage

1:08:43

mom alone and she

1:08:45

was 17 and after 10 months the social

1:08:48

services took me literally away from

1:08:50

her and my dad , the

1:08:52

one that raised me and

1:08:54

who's a real role model for me as an entrepreneur

1:08:56

and in some shape or in some really important

1:08:59

domains in life . But the one thing that he was not

1:09:01

there for me was emotionally available

1:09:03

in terms of like it's going to be

1:09:05

a riot . You made a mistake , it's fine , blah , blah

1:09:07

, blah that kind of like caring , but also

1:09:10

the strong , solid , like

1:09:13

masculine energy . I just didn't have that

1:09:15

. So I gave birth to Arrelius

1:09:17

, right , and that's my inner father . And

1:09:20

then Marcus is just

1:09:22

the block that runs around . And I

1:09:24

also have Axel , which is the name that

1:09:26

I actually was called by for the first 10

1:09:28

months , and that's really the , the hurt

1:09:30

child , the wounded child , the traumatized

1:09:32

child . So now I'm coming

1:09:35

back to who's talking . Well

1:09:37

, that's for you to figure out , because

1:09:39

every single one of these voices is

1:09:41

authentic . And when

1:09:43

is it actually helpful for Axel

1:09:45

to be all scared and

1:09:49

do you know ? Transactional analysis . No

1:09:52

Parent child , parent , child relationships

1:09:55

, adult-to-dial relationships . So

1:09:57

this is mind blowing , right . This is what I got trained

1:09:59

like 20 years ago when I did my

1:10:01

first leadership development . It's almost

1:10:04

like an apprenticeship In

1:10:06

business . We think that

1:10:08

we are adult-to-dial , but

1:10:11

when someone gets angry , they

1:10:13

get triggered , their values get hurt , something

1:10:15

gets some , some overreach of some other person

1:10:17

. So someone triggers you and your

1:10:19

ammunition blows up . This is your

1:10:21

inner child , this is your wounded child . And

1:10:24

then the other person , or your boss or HR

1:10:27

they want to come at that child as an

1:10:29

adult . It's not happening . The

1:10:31

child will look up to a parent type figure

1:10:34

and the parent can either be

1:10:36

very compassionate , very caring

1:10:38

, or maybe sometimes the parent also needs

1:10:40

to be . Here's the boundary mate , no

1:10:42

further . Otherwise there's going to be some kind

1:10:45

of repercussion or consequence . So

1:10:47

that's why it's so important to

1:10:49

understand who's talking in myself and

1:10:51

other people with clients in business , because

1:10:54

if there is a child that's wounded

1:10:56

Donald Trump , right , he's

1:10:58

a narcissistic wounded children . You

1:11:01

ain't going to get through to them with

1:11:03

this clear , rational , mr Spock

1:11:05

type rationality . You might need to

1:11:07

invoke the parent , and that's why it's so helpful

1:11:09

for me at least to have an inner parent , because

1:11:12

I can sometimes really see

1:11:14

what someone might now need , and then I

1:11:16

can invoke that energy . I can even invoke

1:11:19

a motherly type . I can

1:11:21

be very feminine , sebastian , if the

1:11:24

situation calls for it . So yeah

1:11:26

, all of these voices are authentic . The

1:11:28

question is what's needed , what's

1:11:31

helpful now ?

1:11:32

Yeah , I love

1:11:34

it because I think it's

1:11:36

a double-edged sword when

1:11:38

people throw the oh , we need some

1:11:40

authenticity at work . If

1:11:43

people don't really understand all

1:11:45

those voices they have within

1:11:48

and the

1:11:50

context in which they are or they've put themselves

1:11:52

in and they

1:11:55

might not really understand themselves

1:11:57

what authenticity is coming out and

1:11:59

that maybe it's not who they

1:12:01

are going to be in

1:12:03

a year from now , or

1:12:05

you know that's what it requires now . So

1:12:08

it's an interesting journey I've

1:12:10

had and just sharing that reflection with

1:12:12

you and I love your

1:12:14

insights there because that's

1:12:17

very helpful Just thinking about that relationship

1:12:19

at work the

1:12:22

parent , the child and

1:12:24

then mapping that to some previous experiences I've had

1:12:26

, I was like , oh yeah , I see , that's

1:12:29

why that wasn't working . That's why that was

1:12:31

working . Good

1:12:33

, good , well

1:12:35

, we're almost at time

1:12:37

. We've talked quite a bit . I

1:12:40

do want to touch on psychedelics one last

1:12:42

time because

1:12:45

I think they're one very useful

1:12:47

tool to help people in their journeys

1:12:49

. You know , like identifying those different parts

1:12:51

. A great tool to work with IFS

1:12:53

. It's got a

1:12:55

lot of benefits . What

1:12:58

is , in your mind , the right approach

1:13:00

for people

1:13:03

to gain access to psychedelics

1:13:05

and to be able to help

1:13:08

people in their journeys ? And

1:13:11

that's a there's no right answer

1:13:13

, I think , but I'm really curious about your

1:13:15

perspective on this .

1:13:17

Yeah , so I

1:13:19

focus on non-clinical outcomes . I'm

1:13:22

not a therapist . That means I

1:13:25

work with people that , at least from

1:13:27

a clinical perspective , are considered healthy

1:13:30

, quote unquote . That being said

1:13:32

, we all have our trauma , we all have our stuff

1:13:34

, our shadow and so forth . So even

1:13:36

within this non-clinical container , there

1:13:38

is quite a bit of work that goes deep in

1:13:40

and , at the same time , we talked

1:13:42

a lot about creativity . It

1:13:45

can really help to form a

1:13:47

different worldview , whether that's just about

1:13:50

yourself , about relationships or even about the cosmos

1:13:52

. It helps us to reconnect

1:13:55

because we're so often so disconnected

1:13:58

from ourselves , from another and from nature

1:14:00

and I

1:14:03

work in that field , at

1:14:05

the same time distancing

1:14:08

myself from recreational use , which I've

1:14:10

had my fair share , and

1:14:12

I don't dismiss

1:14:15

anyone who does that , but it's not my

1:14:17

work . I don't go

1:14:19

to retreats as a facilitator to

1:14:21

just have fun , which is fine

1:14:23

if that's what you want to have . So

1:14:26

, as you said , there is no right or wrong approach . There

1:14:29

are safe approaches , there's

1:14:31

a continuum , and then there are approaches

1:14:33

that become less and less and less safe . And

1:14:36

because we are in the third wave , I

1:14:38

love that brand that Paul Austin created

1:14:41

, because this is the third wave . Brian

1:14:43

Mororesco wrote extensively

1:14:45

about the first wave in his book the Immortality

1:14:48

Key . How did it end ? It ended

1:14:50

with mass murder and , in particular

1:14:52

, of the shame of women because they were

1:14:54

activating the

1:14:56

divinity within everyone

1:14:58

who was invited

1:15:01

to the illusory mysteries . And then the second

1:15:03

wave , famously or infamously , got killed

1:15:05

by Nixon with a war on drugs in 1971

1:15:08

. So , no

1:15:11

matter what your intention is , whether it's you want

1:15:13

to change the world or heal

1:15:15

yourself , be more creative , be

1:15:17

more connected to your spouse . I

1:15:21

would encourage and invite you to

1:15:23

be really , really clear with your intention

1:15:25

, like why do you want to do it ? To

1:15:28

then , actually , almost as a secondary

1:15:30

thought , not as the first part of call

1:15:32

, to think about the medicine and

1:15:34

the dosage and the set and

1:15:37

setting , as in like , where do you want to do it ? Is it a group

1:15:39

setting ? Do you want to fly to Costa Rica ? Do

1:15:41

you want to do it at home ? The really

1:15:43

like why do you do this ? What do

1:15:45

you want to get out of it ? Because I know so many

1:15:47

people that say , oh , I

1:15:49

got invited to this ayahuasca retreat in Costa

1:15:52

Rica . I said have you done psychedelics before ? No

1:15:54

, I invite you to

1:15:56

have a conversation and I consider it a success

1:15:59

of me , let's say , being a psychedelic

1:16:02

concierge that helps people navigate

1:16:04

the space , to then someone to come

1:16:06

back and say , actually , I had another thought . I

1:16:09

actually think I will in host art with two

1:16:11

and a half three grams of psilocybin mushrooms in

1:16:13

a one to one setting with someone that has

1:16:15

a lot of experience with somatic

1:16:17

trauma release , because , yeah , there's probably quite

1:16:19

something there . So it's

1:16:21

really horses for courses and that's just

1:16:24

the preparation side of things before

1:16:26

an actual journey . And then

1:16:28

it's all about . Not all about , but it's

1:16:30

. You know , there's a saying that the journey

1:16:32

is 10% and integration is 90%

1:16:35

, and I would absolutely subscribe

1:16:37

to that . Without integration

1:16:39

, it will become

1:16:42

a memory of something

1:16:44

cool , different , exceptional

1:16:47

, but it ain't going to change anything

1:16:49

. So that's why I reframed

1:16:51

the right and wrong into helpful , as

1:16:53

in . Well , if you take ayahuasca

1:16:56

or something else that makes you purge for hours

1:16:58

and go through incredible pain

1:17:00

where you feel like your heart is blasted open

1:17:02

by white light to you know

1:17:04

, birth your own father , if

1:17:06

you don't do something with that

1:17:09

afterwards , then better

1:17:11

have a joint . That's maybe my fault

1:17:13

of you , it's

1:17:16

not . It can be super blissful for

1:17:18

those . Maybe only any listeners

1:17:20

that haven't had psychedelic said it can be an

1:17:22

absolute cosmic blissful experience

1:17:25

and it can be the worst

1:17:27

night of your life . Oh yeah

1:17:29

, right . So then do something

1:17:31

with that pain . That would be my advice .

1:17:34

Yeah , that's a great advice . Yeah

1:17:36

, the integration is so key

1:17:38

and it's often challenging because

1:17:40

there's so many high peaks

1:17:42

or even valleys or lows in

1:17:45

the psychedelic experience

1:17:47

that sometimes you put all

1:17:49

your emphasis there thinking , oh wow

1:17:51

, that's going to solve everything . But it's like now

1:17:54

you've got all the work to do

1:17:56

and get you get back home and back to what

1:17:58

you said at the beginning . Sometimes it takes a long

1:18:00

time to fully

1:18:02

do that work . You know it might take months

1:18:04

, a year to do that

1:18:06

integration work . Now , the

1:18:08

thing that I think is interesting

1:18:11

that you touched on is

1:18:13

you're dealing with people

1:18:16

. There's a space for people who are

1:18:18

clinically , mentally

1:18:20

healthy and

1:18:23

it's not a recreational space to

1:18:25

work with psychedelics , and

1:18:28

that's really important because they tend to be left

1:18:30

out . And when

1:18:32

people talk about policies these

1:18:34

days , it's either you know

1:18:37

you're not going to have legalization in a medical

1:18:40

way , medical settings , and you need

1:18:42

to have some type of mental

1:18:44

health issue , or

1:18:47

it's decriminalization

1:18:49

, which is you know it's available for everybody

1:18:52

, and

1:18:54

I think we're going to struggle with this for a

1:18:56

while , especially in the US , since every state

1:18:58

can make their own rules and

1:19:01

it's going to be a complete nightmare

1:19:03

to enforce . But

1:19:06

yeah , it's tricky . I mean , I've come to the

1:19:08

realization that decriminalization is probably

1:19:10

the right way to go , because

1:19:14

recreational

1:19:16

use , I'm hopeful , will allow

1:19:19

to actually scale the

1:19:21

impact that it can have like meaning

1:19:23

, if you've got 100 people that take

1:19:26

mushrooms at a grateful dead concert , I'm

1:19:28

hopeful that out of those 100 people

1:19:30

you know , maybe 10 or 20

1:19:32

of them will be like oh wow

1:19:36

, this profoundly changed my life , even

1:19:38

though I got through it in a recreational

1:19:41

way . Because I think the big problem

1:19:43

we have today in the dialogue about

1:19:46

using psychedelics to change things is that

1:19:49

we assume people know what's

1:19:51

wrong with them and

1:19:53

we assume they're going to take the first step

1:19:55

to take

1:19:57

the mushroom or have the ayahuasca

1:20:00

ceremony . And the problem is , I think we

1:20:02

don't have enough indication about mental

1:20:05

health and what it means to

1:20:08

be mentally healthy that

1:20:10

a lot of people don't even know they have problems

1:20:12

. They're so off their baseline

1:20:14

that the only way

1:20:16

they might actually see the light is to come across

1:20:18

a mushroom accidentally as

1:20:21

part of a recreational use . And then

1:20:23

I'd be like oh

1:20:25

yeah , I didn't know that

1:20:27

thing was there inside of me all these years

1:20:29

. So that's kind of what I've done

1:20:32

A lot of circles around this

1:20:34

over the last few years and I don't know what the right

1:20:36

answer is , but I'm going

1:20:39

to .

1:20:39

It's a wicked Go ahead . Sorry

1:20:42

to interrupt , I think this is a British

1:20:44

thing . The Brits call it a wicked problem . You

1:20:47

can't solve it , yeah , so

1:20:51

I started with psilocybin

1:20:53

, definitely in a recreational setting and I actually

1:20:55

didn't like it . Maybe when I started to go

1:20:58

in I didn't realize oh okay

1:21:00

, well , this feels a lot better , just a

1:21:02

bit more , I

1:21:04

guess , what it is meant for me

1:21:06

personally to do the healing , and

1:21:08

the same with MDMA . At

1:21:12

the same time , we

1:21:14

do know that if there are enough

1:21:17

negative stories being surfaced

1:21:19

by the mass media , the mainstream media

1:21:21

, then the government

1:21:24

, the people in power , can claw back on it , just like

1:21:26

they've done before . So that's why it's a wicked

1:21:28

problem . I fully agree with you . I

1:21:31

find it intellectually dishonest when

1:21:33

famous CEOs I

1:21:36

won't name the name of the big

1:21:38

psychedelic companies claim

1:21:41

that only through medicalization

1:21:43

, fda approval should this be allowed

1:21:45

, but they had their first fucking

1:21:48

experience in a recreational setting . That

1:21:50

is so unbelievably dishonest . So

1:21:52

that's why I'm saying everyone

1:21:54

should have access to it and

1:21:57

at the same time we need a lot of education

1:21:59

to just minimize the damage

1:22:01

, to minimize the negative stories that

1:22:03

will just be welcome fodder for the people

1:22:06

that want to keep us on boosts , on

1:22:08

sugar , on Netflix , on Instagram

1:22:11

, whatever right . So

1:22:13

, coming back to

1:22:15

the program , we have to be really

1:22:17

smart with this to

1:22:20

gain enough proof sorry

1:22:23

, to generate enough . You mentioned

1:22:25

this earlier , that they I don't know what the exact

1:22:27

figure is , but there's something like six , seven

1:22:29

, eight percent of any population need

1:22:32

to be the new , and then they become

1:22:34

the change catalyst for others wanting to follow

1:22:36

them . So we need to get to that critical

1:22:38

mass for enough people , no

1:22:41

matter how they get to it , but to actually

1:22:43

change something in their life , so

1:22:45

that someone at work , if you're a leader

1:22:47

, says , oh wow , you've

1:22:49

got a bit more than the last six months

1:22:51

. How did you do that ? Well

1:22:54

, let's have a conversation .

1:22:56

I went in the field and there were cows and I

1:22:58

looked down and there were mushrooms growing out

1:23:00

of there and

1:23:04

then the rest is history . Exactly

1:23:06

, yeah , now I

1:23:09

totally agree with you . I

1:23:11

think that's a beautiful vision . I hope

1:23:14

it manifests itself . I've never tried mushrooms

1:23:16

in the recreational setting , but

1:23:19

I am going to a Grateful Dead concert

1:23:21

for the first time in my life later

1:23:24

this year . It's their last tour

1:23:26

, and so

1:23:28

that will be an event where

1:23:30

I'll be doing a lot of research to

1:23:34

see how that happens

1:23:36

. But yeah , no

1:23:38

, I think we need that . We

1:23:40

need it accessible to everyone , we need

1:23:42

the education , which is a big

1:23:44

deal , and I love how you call out the CEOs

1:23:47

who've had the start of their journeys

1:23:49

recreationally

1:23:51

, exploring on their own . And

1:23:56

maybe it wasn't all recreational . I mean , ram

1:23:58

Dass did some exploration

1:24:01

, but it was very structured

1:24:03

exploration , very extreme , very

1:24:06

structured , and I'm assuming a

1:24:08

lot of the leaders now it was the same

1:24:10

way . It's not all recreational

1:24:13

use , I think , but

1:24:15

it needs to be available to more

1:24:17

people and that's not the only way . It's not for everyone

1:24:19

. I mean , breathwork would be another thing that

1:24:22

everybody could benefit from , and you can

1:24:24

teach that at school , right , and

1:24:27

it's legal . So it makes

1:24:29

you wonder . It's like there's already

1:24:32

good things that are available

1:24:34

that we're not leveraging , so

1:24:38

why add something even

1:24:40

more complex ? Do we think that we're

1:24:42

going to get there ? It's going to take time . I

1:24:44

think it's going to maybe take 30 years

1:24:46

to change the culture , to

1:24:49

really be more

1:24:51

comfortable with working with those plants

1:24:53

and fungus .

1:24:55

Yeah , and maybe to just round this

1:24:57

part off , In Europe

1:24:59

we have the saying all parts

1:25:01

lead to Rome , right , and

1:25:04

co-creation means let go of your

1:25:06

need for control . So if you're in the medicalization

1:25:09

camp , accept that there is the decriminalization

1:25:11

camp . If you come from the shamanic

1:25:13

underground , accept that there

1:25:16

are some Westerners who now use

1:25:18

LSD microdosing for more

1:25:20

creativity to understand Bitcoin . Right

1:25:23

, it's OK , we

1:25:25

all want the same thing . I have

1:25:27

never met anyone taking psychedelics saying

1:25:30

I want to create World War III Never

1:25:32

.

1:25:33

Yeah , no , beautiful

1:25:35

, I don't have any other

1:25:37

questions . This is a great way to end it , but

1:25:39

if you want to talk about anything else , let

1:25:42

me know . Do you have anything else

1:25:44

you want to touch on ?

1:25:50

Maybe because I mentioned this earlier , the integral

1:25:53

theory approach which

1:25:55

can't worry about , but

1:25:57

it's many , many other people had a profound

1:26:00

impact on my life and whether

1:26:02

you take psychedelics , whether you do breath

1:26:04

work , whether you do ice baths , swim

1:26:06

half , whatever , like , there are so many modalities

1:26:08

to go in there , to be

1:26:10

so much more present in the here

1:26:12

and now . The mantra

1:26:15

I like to finish with is we all have

1:26:17

our work to do . It never stops

1:26:19

and , depending

1:26:21

on where you are right now , you

1:26:24

can still do more . Waking up , right

1:26:27

, wake up , grow up , show up . This

1:26:30

is a never-ending iteration

1:26:32

that once you do some of the heavy

1:26:34

lifting , it just gets

1:26:36

fun , like some people ask me oh

1:26:39

dude , all this self-improvement and self-development

1:26:41

at war , you're even doing this in the bathtub

1:26:43

with your partner at 10 o'clock in the evening . Can

1:26:45

you not just have fun , drink some alcohol

1:26:47

and what Netflix does like ? No , this

1:26:50

is the most fun I've ever had in my life because

1:26:53

with a

1:26:55

little bit well , with intention

1:26:57

, and then a little bit of practice and discipline

1:27:00

and just keeping at it , you

1:27:02

just become really good at becoming

1:27:05

you right . And that's when you say

1:27:07

, when you talk about purpose and authentic . This

1:27:09

is what it's all about to just become the used you

1:27:11

that you can ever be and

1:27:13

wake up , grow up , show up really is

1:27:15

helping me every day on that journey .

1:27:19

That's beautiful , thank

1:27:22

you , and thank you for your time today , for

1:27:25

your insights , for all your wisdom

1:27:28

Really appreciated . I'm more

1:27:31

than an hour of wisdom

1:27:33

to share here , so

1:27:36

thank you , thank you for your day . I'll put

1:27:38

all your information in the show notes where

1:27:40

people can find you . Do

1:27:44

you have a website that people , that's easy

1:27:46

to remember , that easy

1:27:49

to spell , that people

1:27:51

can go to ?

1:27:53

Psychedelicmapforchangecom . Okay

1:27:55

, but

1:27:57

we'll put it in the show notes . It's quite long . There

1:28:00

you go Well there are a few other of

1:28:02

these projects and

1:28:05

also there's my coaching profile on the third wave

1:28:07

directory . We'll put it all in the show

1:28:09

notes .

1:28:10

All right Awesome .

1:28:12

Well , I have to say thank you so much for

1:28:14

this super , super

1:28:16

in the moment flowy conversation

1:28:19

where I felt in myself

1:28:21

the creative spark . I think there

1:28:23

must be some kind of mirror neurons going

1:28:25

on in the way your shirt looks

1:28:27

, the decoration looks , the stuff

1:28:29

that you have in the background . It

1:28:32

was just an absolute joy

1:28:34

to converse with you about leadership , authenticity

1:28:36

and creativity .

1:28:38

Really , well held space

1:28:40

Sebastian Thank you very much . I

1:28:42

really enjoyed it as well . Thank you , Marcus

1:28:45

.