#44: Microdosing Psilocybin to Improve Your Life with MindfulMeds Founder Keegan Downer

[00:00:00] Keegan: When people think of psychedelics, they think of this like inter universe travel where micro-dosing is so different. I mean, it's so sub perceptual to the point where, like I said, the nine to fives, the people with children, the people that with, careers, the lawyers, the doctors, the dentist, we could all use these substances very safely. And, uh, so changing that narrative of people's mind frames, when they think about magic mushrooms to think about that we can use these in the microdosing capacity and still get extraordinary results. 

[00:00:29] Josh: All right. Well, Keegan, welcome to Mind Meld, man. I'm so excited to have you here and finally get to do this podcast with you.

[00:00:40] Keegan: Thanks for having me. I, uh, I love being a guest and, uh, I'm excited for this as 

[00:00:45] Josh: Yeah, man, I I'm just so humbled that we got this opportunity to connect through mark Metree after he was on this podcast, he's been just connecting me with some amazing people in the space. And all it took for me was to tell him, like once I was into psychedelics and he's like, Hey, I know the perfect guy you need to chat with. So I'm so excited. We get to have this conversation.

[00:01:03] Keegan: Yeah, me too, man. And, uh, you know, mark, just kinda, you know, it's interesting with mark, I, I first saw his material way back in 2016 when he was just like becoming, um, you know, who he is today, online, I suppose. And, um, yeah, but a month ago, maybe two months ago we connected and, uh, we've connected many times since, and I've actually just signed up and doing his coursework, uh, with him.

[00:01:27] And I just had my first session with him yesterday. So shout out to Mark Metry. 

[00:01:31] Josh: Mark, if you're listening, thanks so much for connecting us, man. Like this is going to be history on Mind Meld. This is going to be the first psychedelic focused episode. I brought it up so many times on other episodes, but dude, I'm so excited. We get to go deep on this topic here today.

[00:01:45] And I think like, where I want this to kind of flow is even you yourself, you said you went from a knowledge of about zero out of 10 to like maybe six or seven out of 10. Now when it comes to the psychedelic space. So I'm hoping this conversation and through your knowledge, we can get our listeners from a zero to a six, get them to understand kind of what this is.

[00:02:03] Some of the cool stuff, the crazy stuff. And some of the more recent updates I've been happening in the space. And especially with your company, a mindful meds and what you guys have been doing to pioneer this work.

[00:02:14] Before we even get into that, I think it's really important for people to understand your journey and how you got to here and how you decided to start the company and the story, this magnificent story that you've told me on a previous call that I just think everyone needs to hear to kind of like understand where you're coming from and what you're actually doing with this company.

[00:02:32] So I'll leave that to you, um, to kind of explain the story. Cause it's absolutely amazing man.

[00:02:37] Keegan: yeah, I got into entrepreneurship and kind of startups fairly young in my early twenties.

[00:02:42] I was just thrilled by business. I, I loved everything about it. I, took a two year business diploma and I gotta tell you, you know, my favorite class out of that whole diploma was the entrepreneurship class where you got to kind of put your creative hat on.

[00:02:56] But during that same era, I actually did kind of suffered from my first bout of really severe depression. And I got transferred from the college into the university. And in my third year, I suppose I showed up and I was a really different human being. 

[00:03:14] Um, I went through a pretty, you know, through a breakup, um, like many of us do. And honestly, at that time I just wasn't really prepared for it. I didn't really have the support pillars in my life, um, anymore. And one of the things that I started to lean into was, was alcohol. And so I just remember being so, so depressed and showing up in my first semester of university and sitting in some of these classrooms where I literally knew some of the people in there for almost a decade before, because a lot of the people from my high school and junior, I actually went to school out in last bridge.

[00:03:54] And I just, I just remember for the first time of my life, just this, like this massive void inside of me and just not really understanding what it was. And what's, what's, really kind of interesting about it is honestly I had no mental health problems up until this point in time and actually consider myself incredibly blessed, had an amazing set of friends, amazing set of family.

[00:04:17] And, um, and the reality is, is all of a sudden I was, I was depressed for the first time. And like I said, I started to really lean into booze. Um, so this happened quick and I would say within, you know, four months, I really developed this taste for alcohol and I had this like real ability just to, just to kind of run from the root cause of what was, what was causing that pain.

[00:04:43] I, I didn't want to access it. I F I was definitely running away from those feelings with alcohol. And, you know, it's kinda sad because like, man, my, my trajectory is a 22 year old. If I looked back in my life, I was going exactly where I wanted to go. And all of a sudden it just hit this brick wall. I was stunted and pretty much overnight, I felt like my life had completely not really changed.

[00:05:11] Um, and so, yeah. man, I remember actually taking a job in New York city in 2008, the summer of 2008. And on the lead up to that job was, I was, I was in that summer, that winter semester. So in January I dropped out in February and that entire month of February, I think I drank every single day, all March, all April.

[00:05:36] My new job started on May 1st. And for the first time in my lifetime, I was on a bender. I was on a pure tear, not every button, a very few people knew kind of the, the level of, of the drinking at that time. But I showed up in New York city.

[00:05:54] I completely different version of myself, just an absolute shell of a human being. You could see it in my eyes. You could see it in my face. I wasn't sleeping well. I wasn't taking care of myself mentally, physically, spiritually. And honestly, man, what ended up happening, and this is, uh, you know, again, this is a bit of a story, but the reality is, is, um, I remember showing up in New York and for the first time in my life, not wanting it to be alive and you know, nobody, I still have this ability to be like, you know, the, the joker in the room.

[00:06:27] And when alcohol was in my system, I could really hide things super well. Nobody really ever knew how much booze was inside my system, but me and I had this like unique ability to completely camouflage the drinking and act like a normal person. But really I had, you know, a four out of 10 buzz level going honestly from noon.

[00:06:48] And so at the time I went to bed, but here's what happened. I was sort depressed that I was, I was for the first time starting to think about suicide and, and like, everything that we were doing was supposed to be super exciting, but everything that I was feeling was numb. And I'll tell you, man, I, I ended up actually going up there one night when no one else was around and standing on this rooftop and kind of looking down at the ground and really just making this commitment to killing myself.

[00:07:20] And the only thing that stopped me at that moment was my parents who worked incredibly hard, their entire career saved every single penny they ever earned. Um, they were actually on a trip around the world. They had retired in 2008 and so they had this dream trip around the world. And so as I was drinking and on this bender, my parents were out and had no idea that any of this was even happening. And I just kept thinking, like, I just can't do this to my mom and dad. I just, I can't have them come in and have to scrape me off the ground. 

[00:07:52] I ended up leaving New York at the end of August, flying into Calgary, walking through the Calgary airport and no drinks on the plane. And I just remember I was shaking walking through the Calgary airport and I was like trembling and I was sweating and I was going through withdrawal. And I just, I just remember me, being, that was the first time for me knowing that I had an alcohol addiction and I just, I was able to hide it from everybody else for a very long time after this.

[00:08:21] But I personally knew I had a serious, serious problem in that moment when I was walking through the airport in Calgary, and it just kept on going on and every year just kind of get, was continuously getting a little bit worse and worse. 

[00:08:35] And, you know, leading up into, when I went into rehab in 2016, um, the six months leading up, I had a seizure, I was trying to dry out from booze and I actually had a seizure. For the first time in my life, I smoked my head. I was in the passenger seat. Thank God. Um, ended up just smoking the bridge of my nose on the, uh, the front of the vehicle, blood splattered everywhere. I ended up going in. I had a seizure. Um, I had had pancreatitis a few times over that decade. And for anybody that doesn't know anything about that, it's just like your pancreas is incredibly inflamed and swollen. It said to be one of the most painful things that a human can can endure. And I can really attest to that. 

[00:09:20] It was incredibly painful, but I had all these morning shots. Like my body was breaking down and, and I got to tell you, man, I'm like during that process, like I wanted it to break down. I wanted it to kill me. I was drinking with the intention that I was going to kill myself. And, you know, if it wasn't suicide, the boos were literally gonna wipe me off this earth. And you know, the six months leading up to rehab, I was literally the first person in the liquor store at nine o'clock in the morning. I was the last person in the liquor store at 11 o'clock at night.

[00:09:53] And, and I gotta tell you, man, what ended up happening. I started to lose the feeling in my left arm. I couldn't even look at a clock anymore. My eyes were so blurry and that I couldn't even look at like an electric clock that was on, on the shelf without my eyes, you know, going super blurry. I couldn't watch TV anymore.

[00:10:13] My heart rate was going through the roof. And finally I was on the cusp of death and, um, I got wheeled into a hospital. I'm not joking. I was in a wheelchair wheeled. I couldn't walk anymore wheeled Dan. And, um, and I honestly thought that, you know, I was going to get, they were going to come back and tell me that I had something that was going to kill me. So something cancerous. 

[00:10:37] And what ended up happening is I went into the hospital, um, and the doctor had come into our little room. My fiance, Lisa was there. My business partner at the time was there and she goes, well, gee, I got some really, really bad news to share. And, um, of course I knew that there was bad news coming.

[00:10:57] Like I was in such bad shape that I, I wasn't even afraid of it. I was, I was ready to confront. And, um, she goes, um, you've got type one diabetes and I didn't know what that meant, but I had literally dragged myself into oblivion to the sense that I, I just joined my pancreas, my Oregon that was producing the insulin no longer produce the insulin. But then she says your blood sugar is a 28, which to many people that doesn't mean much, but a healthy human is between five and seven. And she goes, you were literally hours away from slipping into a coma. 

[00:11:33] And so there I was in the hospital, confronted with this news, knowing that now the entire world is going to find out about this. My family is going to find out about this. There's no more hiding. There's no more running. And I was, I was addicted to running from the pain man, and I never wanted to confront things. And this is really going to lead into this conversation about psychedelics and psilocybin. But the reality is, is I had this really unique experience where I was in the hospital and lying on the hospital bed.

[00:12:06] And after she had told me how close I wasn't to going into a coma. I literally started to replay my funeral and I started to look at my life and I realized, oh my God, I was going to die. And it has left literally zero impact on the world. 

[00:12:24] All, you know, all of the amazingness that I felt as a kid and not as an adolescent, as a teenager and as a young adult, until I was 22, literally that trajectory that I felt like I was going on, it had collapsed on me. And now I'm starting to think about who's even going to attend my funeral and what is going to be said about my life at this funeral. 

[00:12:44] And, you know, my parents came to the hospital and for the first time, you know, the, it was like hitting the panic button. Like, like, like there was no, there was no getting, you know, I basically had to go and accept some, some help and I was ready for at that point in size.

[00:13:03] So I was ready to go into a rehab facility. I was ready to try to get my life back and try to rewrite that narrative. And, um, and so I was blessed. You know, one of the things that I'm very passionate about is, is this rehabilitation model here in Canada and, and some of the, the roadblocks to access some of this treatments.

[00:13:23] I mean, it's incredibly challenging. I mean, to go into a private rehab facility in Canada, It's somewhere between 25 and 50 grand, depends where you go. Most of these places don't have a payment plan, so you're not able to, you know, just put five grand down and attend. You've got to pay for this entire thing up front.

[00:13:42] And I'm going to tell you, man, when you're an addict and you're, you've got the level of addiction that I had, the level of addiction in the sense that, um, you, you don't, you don't care if you live or you die, you know, and no one's banking any money, right? Like no one is literally thinking about their future.

[00:13:59] So like, I didn't come from this place of privilege, but I'll tell you the best gift my parents ever gave me in the world was this ability to go into rehab. And so I accepted, I went into rehab and I found a rehab that is very unique. It was totally based around mindfulness techniques. It wasn't this like godly a kind of model because at that time I didn't think there was a God, because like, you know, if there was a God, how the hell did I end up like this?

[00:14:27] You know what I mean? I was just in this negative, negative feedback loop in my brain. And so I went in and I decided that I was going to take this thing more seriously than anybody else in that whole program. And so the entire month that I was in there was me digging as deep as I possibly could into the wounds that I had.

[00:14:48] And there were many because man, when you run for nine years, dude, they just start piling on. It's just start packing on. And so I was just, I was just an open book. I threw every single thing out that I could speak about that I could possibly think of every opportunity I had to share. I shared, and by the end of it, I literally felt like there was a hundred pound weight, but just came off my heart.

[00:15:14] And this is interesting because it's going to lead into how this started. 

[00:15:18] So at the end of this 28 days, you've got this group of people. There was 30 people in there and we're all sitting in this circle and the director of the facility comes out and she literally just starts talking about like the next steps of this.

[00:15:33] And for the first time ever, I realized, holy shit, the odds of somebody actually getting sober from one of these facilities is extremely low. And I'll tell you why. So in this circle they go, you know, look to the person. Because they're dead in 365 days and look to the person to your left. And they're back in here in 365 days.

[00:15:55] And I just kind of thought to myself like, whoa, I don't like these odds. Here's a group of 30 people that collectively just paid a million dollars to be in this facility for a month. And you're telling me that we're all half of us are going to die. And almost none of us have a chance of getting sober. I can see your face light up there. 

[00:16:15] And, and here's what dude, he, so here's what happened. I got out. I realized, okay, I got to transfer all my entrepreneurial skills. And by the way, even as a drinker, I have this ability to hide, right? Like I still have this ability to earn money secretly, but I was showing up to meetings like, you know, with tons of booze in my system and just have this ability to hide it.

[00:16:38] And the reality is, is, um, I decided, okay, you know what? This industry saved my life, the addiction and the trauma, the PTSD, the depression, the, you know, all the things that I had become a part of those communities that I can relate to so much, my life had fumbled to. Dustmen just absolutely crumbled to dust.

[00:16:58] And so I can relate to anybody that's going through these types of issues, but I'll tell you, I, I immediately made the decision, like how can I convert my entire life and career to help other people? And my first idea was that I was going to get out of rehab, and I was going to find a way to send one person a year into a rehab facility and try to get them sober. And I had no idea what that looked like, but that was my goal in the beginning. 

[00:17:25] And so I got out, I started rebuilding a business that I had neglected. I turned this thing into a profitable business within 365 days again, but halfway through that year, I got a call from somebody in the rehab facility and they went Keegs, are you sitting down?

[00:17:42] And I'm just, I'm just like, well, what's going on, what's going on? And, and you kind of lose touch with people that were in there. You know, you, you create these amazing bonds, but everybody kind of goes their separate ways. And to be honest, but by separate ways is most people go back into active addiction within weeks of getting out of these facilities.

[00:17:59] And so on this phone call, this person had announced that six people from my, from my group were dead and I just thought, holy shit, man. They were absolutely right. And, and so there was a murder, there was a suicide and there was four overdoses. And I just thought I was floored after this phone call. 

[00:18:21] And so I immediately thought, okay, so like this idea of sending someone into rehab, this isn't going to be a great way to impact the world. Like it's just simply not going to work. If I do this until I die, you know, maybe I'll be able to put 40 people in there, 50 people, if I'm really like. And, um, but only, but only 10% are going to find sobriety and lasting sobriety. And 10%, by the way, is literally the highest percentile number that you're going to ever find in any of the research. I think it's actually far less than that. Um, so it's not effective. 

[00:18:54] And so, you know, it took a long time for me to figure out how I was going to impact, you know, this community and how I could really help and use my skillset to help people. 

[00:19:05] Uh, it took another few years because immediately I kind of jumped into, you know, this old habit of mine where it was just like, you know, how quickly can I make the money? How quickly can I get it out? And it was never this way of thinking of it, just like, how can I be of service to the world? How can I make an impact on the world? It was always this like egotistical kind of way of thinking of how can I get rich and as quickly as humanly possible. And for me at that time, I certainly felt like I was left behind.

[00:19:35] And so it was definitely in the beginning, it was like, how can I make this comeback financially really quickly. And that way of thinking, uh, really got me toilet into some really bad business relationships with some people that honestly I never, ever should have worked with. Um, my CEO for those three years was, was a prolific narcissist and we started, uh, and, and so honestly I had been at that stage, uh, off the alcohol for about three years.

[00:20:04] This is 2019, but I was starting to crave booze again. I was starting to want, I was, I was hurt again. I, my, either I was wounded and I was really trying to figure out how does, how does it stay sober? 

[00:20:20] And I remember being on this same day trip to Vancouver in the summer of 2019 as a business trip, I was going to do a presentation. And I remember coming actually landing there. I had to take a taxi to Surrey. I had my first ever panic attack in the taxi on the way to this presentation, gasping for air, literally gasping for air. And it was the first time of my life that I can remember falling into this panic attack. And so I certainly relate to people that, that, that do have high anxiety, panic attacks I've been there, and I know exactly how they feel, and I know how scary they are.

[00:20:55] I had to leave this other business and I had to find something else. 

[00:20:59] And I'll tell you, man, this whole idea of, you know, me not being religious and things started to really shift as I got a little bit more sober, not from a religious standpoint, but just more from like a spirituality standpoint and. I'll tell you, man, like one of the most remarkable things ever happened because within two weeks of leaving this business, I get introduced to one of the top mycologists in British Columbia, out of nowhere, literally out of thin air.

[00:21:25] This guy came into my life and I'm not joking. When I say this, it was a knock on the door, this guy, a carpenter, uh, during the day. And, um, he showed up to, to a rental property that we had and he was there to fix the kitchen. And I happened to be standing in, the kitchen as he entered and he showed up and, and I, I needed, I was broken, like, as, as I said, I was looking for more tools.

[00:21:51] I had tried to get into this AA stuff. It just really didn't fit my mold. It didn't feel right to me. And this guy, this carpenter man, as I learned more about him throughout this week, he, he had nothing to his name, man. He went through a big divorce. He lost a business that was worth, I mean, close to a million dollars, but you know, three or four years before this, then he got a divorce, lost everything, moved into a mobile home with his dog.

[00:22:23] And, but yet this guy was coming to my place was so much energy and so much happiness and such. I was so intrigued by this human being. It was one of the first times in my life that I was like, what, what can I learn from this situation? 

[00:22:38] And as it turned out, he was the conduit for me to, to experience my, my very first, um, microdose, because when I got back to Calgary, uh, he had sent me some products. I went and bought a pill press. And, um, but the bought the gel caps, bought a grinder, brought a, bought a scale, but all the things to, to make microdosing product for myself. 

[00:23:02] And this is in September, 2019. So you got to remember, this is at least a full year before really the rest of Canada is speaking about microdosing. Mainstream media didn't start talking about this, so kind of middle of the 2020, but here's, here's what it was for me. 

[00:23:19] So I was, I was still had all these loose ends to tie up with my ex to business partners. And, um, I had just gotten on the microdosing product, but really just not knowing what to expect, no kind of baseline to, to kind of evaluate my feelings or anything. 

[00:23:34] So, but what something remarkable happened because on the ninth day on these micro doses, I end up writing a three page comprehensive letter. Um, that was a phone call to my ex-business partners. And why this is unique is because I've spent my entire career in sales. I've been in some very high pressure situations. I have never in my entire lifetime ever picked up a journal and written a phone call. So to me, these like these alarm bells are going off going Keegan. You're thinking differently. 

[00:24:09] There's something in these medicines that are making you respond differently and think differently. And I'll tell you, man, it was fascinating to me because even in the most, one of the most expensive rehab facilities in Canada that was based around mindfulness with the best doctors. Um, I never picked up a journal dude. 

[00:24:27] And here I am on day nine of microdosing, journaling this call. Here's what happened. As soon as I finished writing this, I picked up the phone. I executed that, that conversation completely to a T I got the exit I needed from the business. And all of a sudden here I am.

[00:24:44] And I'm just like, there's something here that got lit up. I don't know if you've ever experienced this before Josh, or people listening, where your heart just starts to glow your soul. And your spirit are touched in a way that you've never felt before. This was, this is what I feel. 

[00:25:01] And so I started to go as deep as I possibly could at the time with the research that was available to, to understand these medicines. And because I had just left a business for the first time in my adult life, I had time on my hands. I didn't have somebody to report to or somewhere to go. And I had all of this time and I got to tell you, man, time for me is awkward. I like to go, go, go. I like to move. I'm all about action. And so when I'm sitting still often, I'm uncomfortable.

[00:25:32] And so I like to fill my time and where most people would have taken, you know, two or three months and hit the reset button. I started diving deep on psilocybin and I wanted to learn everything I possibly could. I still want to learn everything I possibly can. And what ended up happening for me was I started looking at the John Hopkins university study on end of, end of end of life cancer, patient anxiety.

[00:25:57] And I'll tell you, man, when I started reading this research, this is the most compelling research ever about these end of life cancer patient anxiety cases. And after doing literally one to two doses of macro dose between one and three grams, 85% of the participants came back in this study.

[00:26:16] And said it was the most meaningful experience of their entire lives. And so I was, again, that, that feeling in the heart, like I was just pushed and I was just so pushed to, to pursue. And, and so, but I didn't know anything about it, right? Like how do you start a business when you literally don't know enough about anything? So like the business was still a ways away from me. 

[00:26:39] What I want is just what I wanted to figure it out is this experience that I had, this insane experience that I had, where I was thinking differently, acting differently, responding differently. Um, can I, is this going to work for other people? And so I had this idea of doing this kind of self guided, um, I guess you can call it a focus group.

[00:27:02] It certainly wouldn't be considered a study. But what I did was I decided to throw this up into the wind. I was going to learn everything I possibly could about suicide, but for the next four months, and then I was going to host a focus group and invite 40 people to attend. I was going to provide the medicines to every single person that attended.

[00:27:21] And, but there was. Before anybody started on these meds, they had to fill out a 13 question, multiple choice questionnaire to really evaluate their mental health. And so this is what I did. I spent four months in my life. I teamed up with somebody with a psychology background in Calgary. We put this questionnaire together.

[00:27:42] I spent so much time trying to get ready for this. And of course, the day I go to present is the data hall country locked down on that, on that Friday was when, uh, w it was when everything locked down. So we moved this to an online study. And honestly, dude, Um, what I was looking for was I was looking for the ammo to move something like this forward.

[00:28:06] I don't have a criminal background. I'm not a drug dealer. I've never done anything like this in my entire fucking life. And, but I needed the ammunition to move something that, that was scary to me forward. And I'll tell you, the results of this study were enough to literally make your jaw hit the floor. And at the end of this, we had two people out of the 40 come forward and say, I was on the cusp of suicide, I've tried absolutely everything I possibly could, and I have been to counseling since the age of 14. I'm now 36 years old. And if this study wouldn't have happened, I was exiting this world. Okay. So right away, I just thought, holy shit. we, we saved a life right in the beginning and I just thought to myself, how is something that is so simple, so simple, something that I put together myself. So just so bloody effective. And why is this not available for people? It didn't make any sense to me. 

[00:29:06] And so that was it. That was the ammo I needed. And I had literally 40 testimonials that came back where their lives have been moved at a capacity that they had never really seen before that the study and the results are actually available on our website for anybody that wants to check it out.

[00:29:23] Um, but that's how this whole thing started. So sorry that took me a long time to get here, but I mean, dude, that's, that's how it began. 

[00:29:33] Josh: Dude, that is just such a powerful story. Like there's a few things there. I would love to dive deep on, but I really want to keep moving forward because there are some questions here that I know are going to bring us back. So I just want to bring it to you. Like, just like just the tenacity and like just, you know, you coming back from like, basically like rock bottom from like the depths of hell.

[00:29:52] It seems everyone has the depths of hell in their own mind. So I'm just happy to see you, like you're living life now and like you're living your true purpose. And I think you finally, maybe it took all that maybe that was part of your journey. That was part of your story. Like that was, it had to happen for you to get there, to now save so many lives and help so many people.

[00:30:11] And I want to get into this man. There's so much here when it comes to the actual medicine itself. Um, because it really is medicine, right? People are calling it drugs and stuff, but you know, even if you, you talk to like, uh, Native Americans, they have their payoti, which is another psychedelic. They get offended if you call it a drug. It's not a drug, its medicine. Its spiritual medicine for the Mind. 

[00:30:32] So first of all, Mind meds was just the perfect name for it. I'd love to hear like the story about how you came up with the name, got all the branding together because like, like you said, that something that was new for you and it's something that's very scary for a lot of people, they see it as like drugs, but now you're building like this consumer brand around it. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. 

[00:30:50] Keegan: the name was just one of those things. Like we, we had a list going and I had, again, I had just been to the mindfulness. Uh, we're not just there, but I had gone to a mindfulness rehab facility and mindfulness techniques were starting to become kind of a part of my life and my routine, you know, I just, a dynasty started to get into some of the breath work.

[00:31:12] I hadn't gotten into yoga at that time, but I was, I was, you know, I was journaling again and I, I just thought something with the name mindful, and you nailed it, man. Like these, these are not drugs. What, what classifies a drug is when there is no medicinal value. And I got to tell you, man, that is proven to be wrong.

[00:31:32] Every single study that's come out has proved that, that the idea that these are drugs completely wrong. So I love the word meds. Um, and I mean, there's, there's not much more to that story. I kind of the second that we, that, that I had thought about those two words combined, I knew it was the one, um, everything off the list didn't even compare to it.

[00:31:55] yeah, That's that's really how it began.

[00:31:57] Josh: I would just say that's the perfect name. Like that's exactly what it is like even, so I mentioned this to you before on the call, I'm going to talk to people now, like listening to this. 

[00:32:05] Full disclosure, I've been taking my meds for the last, like 26 days now. This is day 26, not every single day. And we can talk about that. Like. How often you should be taking this and stuff like that. I'd love to get into that and let people understand sort of like these different schedules. But, you know, I started calling it like med something. I'm taking the meds today.

[00:32:22] And like, I don't know if that's something I would do every single day for like a long period of time. But I just knew like for me, it was just, something was calling me to do it for at least 30 days. Like there's just something before. And it was so funny cause it was maybe a week or two before you and I got connected.

[00:32:38] I was like, yeah, I wanna, I wanna microdose, like I really want to do it. And I was going to do exactly what you did. I was going to go and like, you know, source my own materials, find the psilocybin mushrooms. And I was going to grind it up and just like take it. 

[00:32:49] But like, you don't really know how much you're gonna be taking. There's a bunch of other stuff. And then when we got connected, I was like, okay, like, this is like perfect timing. And then you mentioned, Hey, why don't you try this out? So when we chat, we can actually talk about your experience. Now we both had experience with them. 

[00:33:03] the other thing that really, really blew my mind is the way that you guys have mixed different materials. It's not just pure psilocybin. In fact, one of the blends that I got was your performed blend. And that one is, you know, it's not just psilocybins, but it has like quadriceps that it has a Gingko biloba and all these other nootropics. So it's also a nootropic. 

[00:33:24] And we talked about this before, maybe this is a good time to get into this where it's like, it's not just for people who are like experiencing anxiety and depression, but it's also for people who want to explore the outer reaches of their mind and they want to actually, you know, maybe do something a little bit more and kind of like break out of the everyday modality, which we're really experiencing nowadays in this kind of like COVID era.

[00:33:47] But I kind of want to get into that because it was like two things for me. It's like maybe I didn't realize whatever kind of depression or whatever happens during this time of year, especially in Canada where we're experiencing like, you know, lot less sunlight, we're spending a lot more time indoors. And then you start feeling a little bit down. Like for me, I always get like seasonal depression, but it's not like real depression, how other people experienced it. But I've noticed by taking this over the last 20 days, it's really helped my mood like extremely well. 

[00:34:14] And then there's the other side of it. Like I mentioned, it was like more of this, like, uh, I want to call it new tropics, which is exactly what it is. And it's really helping you kind of like gain an edge. It's almost like it was replacing my daily coffee, which is, that's a whole other thing with addiction and stuff like that. So I want to get into that.

[00:34:29] I want to know how you decided to like start building out these little concoctions where it wasn't just purely the, the mushroom, but you want to start blending it with other things. I want to know how that kind of started and where that came from.

[00:34:45] Keegan: Yeah. So we, we actually spent, unlike almost everybody else in the industry, not only did we do the study, but we spent a ton of time working with natural pathic doctors, her biologists, Chinese medicine, doctors, physicians, psychiatrists, um, counselors, therapists, I, any single person that I could potentially gain an edge from or learn, you know, learn from, we went and took those footsteps.

[00:35:12] And then what we did was before we brought anything to the marketplace. So like all this conversation previously that we're having kind of started in September, 2019, we didn't ended up launching anything into the market until January, uh, January of 20, 20, no January of this year. So it took us literally a year and a half before 

[00:35:33] we even brought anything into the marketplace.

[00:35:36] Like there was so much behind the scenes work that we were doing to try to bring the very best product for that we possibly could. And so that's how it all started. Like, I, it was, it was conversations with my, her biologist, my natural path. And we started looking at nootropic. Um, through conversations that happened with real professionals.

[00:35:56] So this wasn't just like key hands or mindful meds ideas. Like we were really drawn into a lot of the research and a lot of the, um, the professionals in that that we could tap into to, to really create the best formulas that we could create. 

[00:36:10] Josh: I find that so fascinating, you know, especially with a podcast like this Mind Meld, um, I'm always interested in those kinds of things that you can do to kind of upgrade your mind. We do it with software and what I've found really interesting through taking this, the medicine and the way that I've been kind of describing to people.

[00:36:30] I'm like, you know what, it feels like I'm installing a software. Do, do you feel that too? Like, it's almost like it's a little software, cause I always view the brain as almost a computer that is running all these programs all the time. You had obviously a really interesting pro program running when it came to alcoholism.

[00:36:47] People have programs all the time when it comes to addiction, right. It's just running on loop, running on loop. That's sort of what, um, and he kind of anxiety or depression to Sue, right? Again, I'm not a doctor, but it's just kind of like the way I view it. It's a kind of a little connection I find there and what I found with the psilocybin, it, especially with the micro dosing, we'll get into macro dosing too.

[00:37:05] That's a whole other thing. But with the microdosing is like, it's like software. It's like you're installing a software and just changes the way your computer is running. It's almost like for me, when I mix that with a mindfulness meditation. And mix it with doing a really strenuous workout, or I mix it with journaling, as you had mentioned earlier, that's where I found the most, the most impact.

[00:37:26] So we haven't even really talked about it too much, um, from the time that I started until now. So that's kind of the thing, cause you mentioned that to me in a chat, like, you know what, honestly, man, it's not a magic pill now for anyone listening. It's not what it is. It's not what I'm trying to say either.

[00:37:40] I don't think that's what you're trying to get at either. But it's like when you mix that with other activities is when it gets really interesting for me, I journaled, like I created like, I, I'm huge into notion this like tool to create like little workflows and I created my own little trip journal. So I'm like, I'm going to just journal every time I do this.

[00:37:57] I want to know what is the experience like? What, uh, how intense was it? What insights did I gain? How did I feel? So this became a tool that really helped me bring those things to the forefront. Otherwise I don't usually journal that much. I don't go that deep, but there's something about this. I just kind of opened my mind up to talk about it. So it's been incredible.

[00:38:17] Keegan: Well, you know, there's actual raw science, but what you're trying to explain, so what's what mushrooms have been proven to do now is what's called neuroplasticity or the ability to repair neurons in the brain that have been damaged. And so you can actually start creating these new neural pathways, which is why we start to develop these these other ways of thinking.

[00:38:39] And when you combine them with the other nootropics, when you actually combine them with things like organic lines, man, which we do there, they work very differently. It's still a sovereign on its own and lion's mane on their own are extraordinarily. But when they combine the synergy between them actually elevates their capacity to, to help you in these ways.

[00:39:00] And so that's neuroplasticity, just that ability to reconnect neurons in the brain and, and, um, and just start creating new neural pathways and new ways of thinking. And I mean, if you'd like, I can give you a real brief analysis as to what's actually happening 

[00:39:15] within the brain. and so there, there's a, there's a doctor called Robin Carhart Harris.

[00:39:20] Who's based out of the Imperial college of London. And a few years ago, they started to really try. And, and he's one of the pioneers at this space, by the way, he's literally listed as I think if he's not the number one most influential player in this globally psychedelics, I mean, he's definitely in the top five, but what their research center tried to do was they were really interested to figure out what exactly is happening within the brain.

[00:39:44] When, when, when psilocybin is, is, is involved in what the originally thought was going to happen was they thought all these fireworks were going off in the brain and things were, things were exploding and happening so quickly. And what they actually ultimately found was that what's happening is the cerebral blood flow in the brain is actually starts to get shortcutted as it goes to this.

[00:40:08] What, what, you know, neuroscience calls the grand central station of your brain, which is called the default mode network. And the default mode network is essentially. When you're doing nothing right. When you're lying on the couch and you've got no control on your hand, you don't have your phone in your hand, you don't have anything like that.

[00:40:26] You go into this default mode and for people that have anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, uh, eating disorders, these people that are very egocentric, this is where they live their lives. They live in this little part of their brain. That is, that is overacting. And it's firing at all times. And it's confusing you, but all of a sudden siliciden comes along and it starts to slow that blood flow.

[00:40:52] And what ends up happening is the others free portions of your brain are forced to start communicating with one another. And that's, you know, that's the most fascinating part of this research is like they found out that psilocybin, actually, it doesn't explode things in the brain. It slows things down.

[00:41:09] It quiets this portion of your brain down. And because you're quieting that portion of your brain down the rest of your brain is communicating with, with, with, with itself, really it, and, and there's other effective ways to calm down the default mode network. Meditation is one breath work is another, but the most effective of them all and the quickest silicide 

[00:41:30] Josh: Yeah. I've had a friend who actually has a, an app I'm gonna connect you with them. He has an app where you can basically track your, uh, micro doses. It's called Houston. And, um, he was one of the inspirations why I created my own little journal, cause I just wanted to have it in my own little system, but he calls it, um, meditation in a pill. Is it? Cause not so different from meditation. 

[00:41:54] Keegan: So I was just going to mention to you about the default mode network. So if you have anxiety or you have depression, your default mode network is firing at a whole different level than people without. And so what often happens is we get into these negative feedback loops, and I can tell you, I was in a negative feedback loop in my own brain for almost nine years.

[00:42:16] I could not snap out and think about a positive future for my life. And, you know, I think if these tools were around in 2016, which they were, but they weren't, they weren't studied at this capacity. You know, I honestly, I think there would have been, uh, you know, some hope in exploring mushrooms potentially before I went into rehab or at least using mushrooms within the rehabilitation capacity while you're in one of these facility.

[00:42:44] And I really truly think that that's the future of rehab. Um, that's certainly my end goal with this entire project. It's never been about to create a supplement company. It's always been about this ability to, to build a community where we can talk and we can share, and we can explore ideas together and we can help one another by being vulnerable.

[00:43:03] But my end goal for this entire project is, is to start building out, uh, rehabilitation facilities that actually use these medicines with, in conjunction with psychotherapy. 

[00:43:15] Josh: yes. And I think that's where all of the, the real, real positive outcomes come from, right? Like you can have a recreational experience and take like as much mushrooms as you want. You're gonna have a crazy insight. You can even shake hands with God, as people say. Um, but doesn't exactly mean you can get the same outcome that you want. 

[00:43:32] And from what I've read. Um, so the main book that I've read, um, around all this is how to change your mind. I'm not sure if you've read that. 

[00:43:39] Keegan: yeah. dude, that was, that was a staple when I started, that was the, one of the first tools that I ran. Brilliant, 

[00:43:45] Josh: Brilliant, right. And it talks about all these things. So I think anyone listening, if they want to dive deeper as a great book to get started, cause talks to be like the history and then also like the prohibition area and how it's come back full circle and then his own experiences, Michael Poland's experiences with it.

[00:43:59] But it was exactly that, man. It was really interesting how he talks about the psychedelic therapy, psychedelic assisted therapy model. It's, you know, it's cyclic psychedelics assisting therapy. So a lot of times people, um, from what I've heard, I haven't done this yet. Although I did it with the, uh, the Mind meds a bit, which is like, you know, putting on, um, something to cover your eyes, anything to cover your eyes, you know, some kind of eye shades and putting on music and like having that as part of therapy then after coming out of that, speaking about, um, some of the experiences that you felt, so have you done anything like that?

[00:44:32] Have you done any kind of like psychedelic assisted therapy? Have you done these kind of macro doses? Had you had any experience with this too?

[00:44:39] Keegan: I certainly do, man. And you know, really what, what I find and what the S what the research has found is that very dissimilar to your traditional SSRI or antidepressants, um, which, which are suppressants. So they, they literally, these assets arise, which by the way, there's 38 to 40 of them on the market.

[00:45:02] Very, very, very little evidence that scientific evidence that any of these are truly effective for actually healing the root cause of what is actually making you have the anxiety, the depression, the PTSD. 

[00:45:16] What it does, and it's really good at is putting this, this lid on it. So you just kind of blocked the shit out. But what the difference is with mushrooms is they actually go to that root cause they go to that trauma, they make it so much more accessible that that veil kind of drops and you're able to access. These are, you know, the root cause of what is going on. And so when you combined funding that root cause with the mushrooms and speaking it out with an actual therapist, I 

[00:45:47] I'm going to tell you right now, I've got six therapists that I know personally, all actively exploring this within their own practices. All six of them have told me that this is the biggest breakthrough in mental health history. 

[00:45:59] And so I want to make something very clear. Like I told you, when we were kind of just speaking about this, this isn't the magic bullet. This is not the magic pill that is going to change your life. But when you combine this medicine with other mindfulness techniques, which is, you know, which is the therapy, 

[00:46:17] which by the way, man, like my, I had to get back into therapy because of this, this narcissistic abuse that I was experiencing with my last colleague, I had to go right back in there because like, dude, I felt like I was worthless.

[00:46:29] This person made me feel just absolutely insignificant. And um, and so I was lost again. And so what I found was when I went into these therapy sessions in the beginning with no mushrooms, I was, you know, my, my, my guy would hit, hit the button and you know, I got one, one hour in this session with him, he literally hits it's some type of clock and it goes off at the end, but I just remember being at like minute 40, and only just starting to like tippy toe my way into some of the things that I really needed to fit in, you know, to address. 

[00:47:04] And, but then, you know, months later after I discovered the, the microdosing. Dude, I was getting into things in minute three. Like I wasn't wasting any time. I was diving straight into the things that I needed to address while I was in that seat while I was paying my $200 a session.

[00:47:22] And so, listen, this isn't a magic bullet, but this is a tool that can truly help you heal that deep wounded trauma that many of us have this ability to run from. This is going to highlight that the, you know, those, those those traumas. 

[00:47:39] And so you asked about macro dosing. do you want to get into that now?

[00:47:43] So microdosing, just so everybody's aware is, is generally completely sub- perceptual. So just like what you're talking about, Josh, and by the way, none of this, we haven't talked about your experience whatsoever on these medicines. Since I sent you a package, you know, five weeks ago, I was excited to explore this with you on this call. And I wanted to leave it to keep it completely authentic so that the world could hear this at the same time I was hearing the results. So I'm excited to talk about. Um, in a moment. 

[00:48:13] But you know, the macro dosing trips are something that are not so perceptual. So this, so this is, is really, you know, this is going to take you to a place where you're going to have, what's considered a true psychedelic experience.

[00:48:26] And, you know, like you said, some people say that they talk with God, they can, they can find the answers of the universe through these things. And sometimes the macro dosing experiences can be extraordinarily challenging for people. And that's what people kind of categorize or label as being a bad trip.

[00:48:45] So one of the most important parts of the new psychedelic research and really the major difference between using these substances in the sixties is that now we're starting to put way more intention behind using these substances. And, you know, you talk about the seven S's, you know, set and setting, being the first to what your, what the first, what they mean by set as your mindset.

[00:49:09] And you, you know, how physically capable are you at that point in time to go in and, and, and explore the deep rooted traumas of. That are going to come up within these, within these macro dosing experiences. So are you physically capable, mentally healthy enough to, to explore these things? That's something that you're going to have to figure out for yourself because the mushrooms aren't going to let you run like the alcohol, right?

[00:49:39] The alcohol lets you run and hide and camouflage and suppress. Whereas the mushrooms are actually going to take you to that place that you actually really need to go to, to find significant healing. 

[00:49:50] Josh: Yeah. And, you know, you just brought up the two of the seven S's set and setting. And I think like, traditionally, like I know. From like my, my research and like even those books and just from my own personal experience set and setting is a kind of a staple in psychedelic culture. And that makes sense.

[00:50:06] I'm glad that we have that. And we have like these kinds of rules around here. I didn't know that there were seven until I came across the blog post and sort of the set of seven SS, a page on the mindful meds site. So maybe you can kind of like give us a little, um, a little tidbit on those seven S's cause I've only ever been aware of the first two.

[00:50:25] Keegan: Yeah. So setting set and setting are the, the two biggest, without a question. I mean, what there's, as I said, set is really your mindset. 

[00:50:32] And so are you mentally prepared to go into these traumas zones? And if you're not mentally prepared, that's okay. It's, you know, it's, you want to make sure that you're finding these mushrooms at the right time for you as an individual.

[00:50:47] There's no race for this. The mushrooms are always going to be there. So don't feel like you need to just hop into a macro dose. One of the things that I love about microdosing is that what we find is that most people that get into microdosing start to kind of bridge that gap between microdosing and macro dosing.

[00:51:06] So they get, they get their feet wet, they get an understanding as to what's to come. They start to get a little bit more ready and prepared, but I'll tell you there is an enormous, um, there's I mean, there's so much research that suggests that finding a psychedelic coach or a therapist to help you work through this is a really, really good idea.

[00:51:28] And your coach or therapist can really help you get into the right mindset to before you even take the substance. You know, you can team up with a coach that is gonna just make sure that you get yourself mentally prepared for what's to come. And I'll tell you. What's interesting. And this is all antidote, all kind of research that I have seen is that in almost every case that someone has one of these bad trips, it's not a bad trip.

[00:51:55] When the mushrooms are trying to do is they're trying to teach you. And if you take the lessons that are learned in these, these bad trips, you team up with a psychotherapist, you team up with a coach, they can actually help you take the lessons that are learned in the bad trip, and they can help you try to repurpose that and integrate into your life.

[00:52:17] So to me, there's really no such thing as a bad trip, because even the bad trips are going to teach us what we need to know. And so, um, but also they can be extraordinarily frightening. And so, you know, many people have, you know, have experienced a bad trip. I just, I don't know what the odds are, but they're very, they're very low to be honest, to experience a bad trip.

[00:52:39] I would suggest that it's probably a one in 10, if not even less. But the reality is, is, like I said, I mean, you, you can avoid these bad trips by making sure that your mindset is in a place that you're prepared to Trump, you, you you're prepared. So the second one is setting and setting is very important.

[00:52:58] So like w what I mean by setting is making sure that you've got your environment. In a situation where you're comfortable. And so if you're a parent, um, you don't want your kids racing in after school, flying through the door and, and those thoughts racing into your head, as, you know, as you're having a trip, um, you want to be prepared and you want your settings to be, um, you know, for me personally, I, I like a really clean, cozy environment.

[00:53:29] I like to light candles. I like to Sage myself and, and, and my environment before I do any of this, I like to bring in crystals, believe it or not never thought I'd ever say this ever, but, but the reality is, is, yeah, crystals can be very effective to creating that spiritual elements that can really help guide your trip.

[00:53:50] So that's set and setting, and if anybody wants to learn more, please head over to our website because we do go deep on this. And we're actually just about to launch. We've just recorded. Um, I don't want to call it a masterclass because, but it, but it's just a very, it's a one and a half hour. It's with one of the, what, what is, not a therapist, but a coach that I know very, very well personally. And, um, she can help walk you through this and we're going to have that on the website within the next week or two. So that's said and said any questions there at all. 

[00:54:21] Josh: No, that's a really great Roundup of those two. That's perfect.

[00:54:24] Keegan: Okay. Um, and then the third S is substance. And so you, you know, and this goes for any psychedelic. So whether it's LSD, you mentioned payoti, um, whether this is, you know, mushrooms or siliciden, um, you want to know what substance you're using. And so I think it's very beneficial to have a scale it's very beneficial to make sure that you are, you know, for, for many people, you just kind of want to tip you, tilt your way to some of these larger doses.

[00:54:53] Um, the, the, you know, it's considered to be a heroic dose if you do more than five grams. To me, that's, that's where I find lots of my own growth. So I, I do what I do when I do this. Maybe once a quarter, it's always at that kind of heroic dose level, but no need to get there right away. Um, generally speaking, if you want a psychedelic trip you're going to have to do between one and one and a half grams at the very least.

[00:55:19] Um, but there's all sorts of ways that you can consume this. You could, you could grind it up and put it into a tea. You can take it in a pill format. Some people, just, some people put it into a smoothie. So that's what the that's that essence, the substance itself. 

[00:55:34] Um, the next one is sitter and men, there's a real place in the world for, you know, having what they call a trip center or somebody that can just literally. Keep their eyes on you. Keep you calm just in case that bad trip was to happen. Um, I personally think that being, being asked to be a trip center is literally one of the highest forms of service that you can provide for somebody just as a support pillar, to make sure that if anything happens or something kind of gets out of hand, somebody there just to bring you back to your breathing, bring you back to reality.

[00:56:10] And one of the fastest fascinating thing about mushrooms is you actually have the ability many times to snap out of it and to step back into it. And so, um, yeah, that's, that's what that is. It's just having that support pillar that, that sitter and, um, there's lots of courses out there. 

[00:56:28] If you want to become a trip sitter, if you want to help support somebody, please go in and take one of the courses. There's a company called field trip that offers this. Um, and we've got lots of support stuff on our website that can speak to some of this or watch their macro dosing. I'm just going to label it as a masterclass, but I hate that word. Can't think of anything else to use in this situation. 

[00:56:48] Um, and then the next one is session. And so, you know, these, these mushroom trips can literally last anywhere from two and a half hours to six hours. So you want to make sure that you've got a large pocket of time. Where you're in a safe environment, you're surrounded by people that love you, or just even just, just in a good mental phrase, lots of people do this on their own.

[00:57:12] As you mentioned with music and, and, um, and putting, putting, something over your eyes, it can be very effective. That's kind of where I'm at with this now. Like, I, I feel very comfortable doing that, but 

[00:57:24] the next S and this is a, this, is kind of one of them forgotten SS and it's, it actually might be one that we actually just added. Um, but it's spirituality. And I'll tell you, the mushrooms literally have the ability to read your vibrational frequency. And so you humans actually have the ability to block out the effects of silk sobbing. So there's been many times, especially in the beginning, when I, when I started to explore this, I have ADHD, which we'll talk about as well, but I had, I actually over-stored it to the capacity that I, I was able to actually block the, the, mushroom experience itself.

[00:58:05] So while everybody else was having a mushroom trip, somehow I was able to block this. And what I came to understand was that because I was afraid of the mushrooms and I was, I've always been just kind of a scared guy when it comes to drugs. Like, I, I never like many people, you know, losing, losing full control with something that I was always working.

[00:58:29] And, but what I started to really respect the mushrooms and I stopped being scared and absolutely spent my time with the journal setting my intentions and creating a mantra, um, is when the mushrooms actually started to, to work for me. And so spirituality is one that I, I, you know, I like to add to this list.

[00:58:52] And then lastly, it's just your situation. Kind of similar to, to your setting. You know, you just want to make sure you're doing this at the right time when you're feeling super cozy and, and you're not forced, you're not rushed. There's no, there's never a rush when it comes to mushrooms. This isn't something that everybody should race out and explore.

[00:59:11] I think this is something that everybody should race out and research because this has the ability to completely change your life. But I also think that everybody has a responsibility to go out and get educated, know what's common and make sure that you put your right foot forward, um, to have the best experience possible.

[00:59:31] So those are the S's.

[00:59:33] Josh: I love that. And I love that expanded. Um, just list more than just setting, setting. Cause it really is only a tip of the iceberg and I love that you included spirituality and it really seems like it was the mushrooms or at least this experience and this journey that has brought you back into your spirituality.

[00:59:49] I love that you even mentioned like bring in crystals. A lot of people think it's like, oh woo, woo. And all that stuff. But like when you go down this rabbit hole, you start realizing other things, things start really opening up. Um, so I love that you brought in the spiritual aspect of it. Cause that is a big part for me.

[01:00:02] I, I don't do this stuff too recreationally, especially if it's going to be a macro dose, it's always a spiritual setting. So I love that. You've added that into the list. And, and what would you say for people who are not spiritual at all? I mean, they may still get something out of it, but do you think this could like rekindle that flame for people who are not spiritual at all?

[01:00:20] Keegan: I think there's a very, very strong . Likelihood I and, and you got to remember, like, even just looking at the research from John Hopkins, you've got the end of life cancer patients that are literally on the cusp of passing away. And I can tell you many of, you know, even from my own situation where I'm talking about my cousin, Ryan, I don't think he had this full connection to the other side, the spirituality, the religious side to him.

[01:00:48] But I can tell you, you know, going into one of these prolific trips, these heroic doses, you do get the opportunity to, to feel more spiritual. You do have this connection to the universe that it's tough to ignore. So the answer to that I think is yes. 

[01:01:05] Josh: Yeah. Yeah, I think so, too, man, I think it's something that you don't really know to you experience. And again, I think we'll circle us back into like, you know, it might be scary to jump into that, like you said, there's no need to rush. Um, and sometimes the best time to just do it is like, after you've built up some experience, like micro-dosing, you know, just doing a little bit to the time, that's a great way to start.

[01:01:24] I personally just jumped right into the deep end. Um, I enjoyed it. Um, I had some of the moments success in those like dark turns, but you work through it and looking back on it, those are really helpful. Um, things in my life that I've really brought to, um, to my life, like my everyday life. So excited 

[01:01:40] Keegan: Let's dive into that. Just briefly, like let your listeners know, like w what did you experience? Like, when was it, how much did you do? What was your set? What was your setting? 

[01:01:49] Josh: Yeah, that's interesting. So the first time I did it was with my roommates in university. When I was downtown Toronto, I did about three and a half grams. I think, I thought it was like a sweet spot. I'm like, you know, I want to do at least a threshold amount. I don't know, but heroic for the first time, but I'm like three and a half.

[01:02:05] That sounds like a good amount to me. I don't know why had some friends tell me, like, that would be a good amount. So that's what I did. And, um, you know, w w it was supposed to be like a recreational thing. Like, we're just like, oh, let's just do it. We didn't really know much about it, but I was like getting really spiritual at the time.

[01:02:18] I was listening to a lot of, uh, Jason Silva. If you're a familiar with him, he has a, a YouTube series called, um, I think he recently changed the name of it, but it was, uh, he had this YouTube series at the time. Uh, I can't remember. I can't remember the name of it right now, but I was like watching them right before I tripped.

[01:02:37] So like, I was like watching these videos, I think it was called shots of awe that's what's called. And it literally is that, so these like three to five minute or less videos that just bring you into the state of awe. Basically they are mushroom trips without the mushrooms, but I was watching them right before we tripped.

[01:02:52] So then as this was coming on, I just remember like the feeling like, like that off feeling. That's all I can really say. Like the first thing that happened was we went to a botanical garden in Toronto called Allen gardens in the middle of a crazy snow storm. So this was the weirdest thing to me is I felt like we were literally in this geodesic dome in a different universe.

[01:03:15] Keegan: Yeah, 

[01:03:15] Josh: Just shielded by the elements. It felt like we were on Mars. And if I went outside, I'd be like outside of Mars where there's no air and I would die. So I'm like we have to be in this dome. It was super weird. It was like a crazy, crazy storm. So just going outside was like extremely, extremely insane experience.

[01:03:32] So then being in this place, as the mushrooms really started peaking, I, I went off on my own. I had like four roommates, they went off on their own. I went off to this little corner near like the cactus area. Um, and I started like freaking me out. So I was like, okay, now let's go back into this more like a natural, uh, flowy, uh, zone.

[01:03:51] It was kind of like a truck subtropical era area. And then I put on my headphones. I started listening to my iPod at the time. So this is the time of iPods. And, um, I started listening to music and I just had this amazing playlist on that I knew was like, put me in like a really good, um, like just mental framework that would allow me to just feel just like, love.

[01:04:11] I'm like, this is like a love playlist. I'll just feel really good. And then what I experienced next was so wild. It felt like I experienced from the big bang to now. Like, I just felt like this rush of like, where I am right now is like in this. Of just human existence and just like history and like, you know, there's going to be billions and trillions of years after us.

[01:04:32] And there's been billions of years before us, I just felt like right in the middle of like this crazy timeline, all from like the world coming together to like Steve jobs and his teams creating the iPod to like the artists, making the music and then that music going onto the iPod. And then that coming into my ears, I was like, whoa, this is just like a really interesting experience.

[01:04:50] I just felt like one with like human, like progress and civilization. It was the craziest experience.

[01:04:57] Keegan: that's amazing, man. I love that. And, uh, and brave as well, like going, w was this like a public setting or were you guys, 

[01:05:05] Josh: Yeah. That's another thing. It was a public. Yeah. That's not something I would usually recommend doing, but it 

[01:05:09] Keegan: Right. 

[01:05:10] Josh: it was really interesting.

[01:05:11] Keegan: You mentioned one thing that I missed that is so important to this, and it's music. And I got to tell you like that to kind of like the, the, mushrooms being able to read the vibrational frequency.

[01:05:23] They, they dance with the rights music with the right playlist. And so I would highly recommend if you are to do a macro dosing trip is to put some type of really nice playlist together because the mushrooms respond so beautifully to the right music. And they'll, they'll dip you in, in, in a flow state if you get the music.

[01:05:47] Right. And this is something that I've had to play along with around with, because, you know, there's some beautiful house music, some lighthouse music, but like when I started to like play the manifestation playlist, or like some of the John Hopkins, you can actually get the playlist that they're using in their psychedelic therapies. It changed the whole mushroom experience for me. So music is very, very important. 

[01:06:10] Josh: Yeah. Wow. I didn't know. They have it. It's like on Spotify, like they made it like a 

[01:06:13] Keegan: It is. Yeah. I mean, it's available through, just Google it, man. It's a, I'm the last one I did about a month and a half ago. It's I don't know if it was the John Hopkins playlist, but it was a psychotherapist playlist that somebody had put together and, um, it was absolutely beautiful. 

[01:06:28] Josh: That's amazing. We'll tell you right now what I've been doing. So, and this will kind of bring us back into like the microdosing experience. Now over the last couple of weeks, what I've been doing is, um, and I'd love for you to kind of like build on top of this, of like the different, um, schedules you can do.

[01:06:43] But my schedule that I did for microdosing was five days on and two days off. So I just kind of jumped into it and I'm like, I'm going to do it on Saturday Sunday. Cause I know I'm not going to be working and I can have like really free experiences. And then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, am I going to do like a smaller dose?

[01:06:59] Um, and then Thursday, Friday, I'm going to take off to kind of like reset my tolerance. And then Saturday, Sunday could do it the higher dose again. So as you know, and I'll let people know now I, I got the two, um, the two blends you have, I had got to perform and inspire. So perform is only 50 milligrams. I was very, very little from what I've mean, comparatively, compared to what most people do.

[01:07:21] And then the inspires 250, which is actually a little bit more like when I was posting on Twitter that I was doing this. And I mentioned that I was 250. Some people were like, that's like a strong microdose man, usually only to be like a hundred or like 1 25. So I'm like, it is, it is,

[01:07:34] It is sub perceptual. You can really perceive it, but it's not like a macro dose by any means. So what I've been doing on the Saturday Sunday is after about an hour of taking it, when I know it's going to really start ramping up. Um, and it's kind of except perceptual. I've just, I would have a nap. I would go on the couch. I put on a playlist.

[01:07:51] I'd do exactly what we said. I'd like cover my eyes, put on really good headphones and just vibe. And like, when I come out of that after about like half an hour, even there's something about it. You just feel like you said the vibrational frequencies, you feel like you've been cleaned almost like you feel like those bad vibrations kind of got cleaned and you're back on, on an interesting vibration.

[01:08:11] Keegan: Totally I, and so Dr. James Fadiman, he's a Harvard professor, one of the godfathers of psychedelics, just so everybody's aware, he clarifies that a, that a microdose is anywhere from 100 milligrams to 400 milligrams. So all of our products play within that threshold and all of them are considered true micro doses.

[01:08:32] Some are a little bit stronger, as you said, but important to know, you know, when you're talking about the, uh, the performed blend, which is only 50 milligrams, which is one 20th of a ground, by the way, um, this is purely self perceptual. So like, if you are a nine to five employee, if you have children, if you work in a law firm, if you work in, you know, literally you're not going to feel this it's very much like considered to be a vitamin for the brain.

[01:08:59] Um, nobody that we have ever come across during this journey of, you know, I've, I've, you know, with, with our community has ever felt any of the 50 milligrams. So if you know, we, that's why we have kind of the different dosages to work with different people's thresholds and different people's, um, ability to, to, to want to go either really low dose or, or kind of more to the higher dose.

[01:09:25] But both of them really have, uh, a place in this because I'll tell you, man, we built our business on the, on, on the modern medicine, which was, is, is the 100 milligram. That's what we did the study. Um, during the study, all of the participants did the five days on two days off. 

[01:09:43] And you mentioned something really interesting there that I think we should talk about is just that tolerance. Mushrooms, much more than any other substance in the world, are your body builds a tolerance to it extraordinarily quickly.

[01:09:57] And so this is why mushrooms are literally the exact opposite of addiction, because what ends up happening is if you have, let's just say a macro dosing experience on a Sunday and you do three and a half grams on a Sunday, and you go off in your journey and you're traveling and you try to do three and a half grams on the Monday. You are not, you, you you'll still see like, you know, flashy lights and maybe some, but you're not going to go off into this other, other realm of, of the universe. And if you do it on the third day, you will feel nothing. It will, it will be like you've actually done none. And so it's very, very important when you, whatever, whatever schedule you choose.

[01:10:41] And honestly, I don't think any of the research that's come out has suggestion that one is better than another, but I'll tell you if, if your mental health is at a place where. You know, you feel comfortable. You're not on an SSRI. You're not coming off an antidepressant. We really direct people towards that kind of five days on two days off.

[01:11:02] But it's so important to take those two days off, because if you go into that sixth day, you're not going to, there's no medicinal benefit there. You actually have to reset that tolerance. So really, really important to know it. And you know, I know one of the questions that you wanted to ask was was about addiction and, and, and are these things addictive.

[01:11:20] and and the answer to that is they're not, and it's it's for those reasons that I've just explained. But even actually, when they, when they did this in a scientific lab, when they looked at, um, uh, mice in a rat study on one of the drips in this mice study, they had cocaine. So it was like a cocaine, water, drip.

[01:11:39] And then the other one, they had a mushroom silicide and mushroom drip. And what they found was the mice that drank from the cocaine. Drip would come back time and time and time and time again until they died. And the mice that went to the psilocybin, drip would only go to it once and they would never come back again.

[01:11:59] And so mushrooms are the safest and literally mushrooms are the safest of any of these, the drugs that are available in the marketplace today. David Nutt did a study in 2015 where they looked at, um, this is a fascinating study. It can be found, Uh, in our microdosing guide, which you can be, which is free, it's available on our website.

[01:12:23] And you can actually look at this study, but they looked at, you know, a list of kind of 20 of the top narcotics in the world. And what the study was based around was it was based around the harm that this drug does to yourself, but also the harm that it does to other people. And so you do want to say a guess at what the number one drug in the world for self harm and, and, and for harm to other people is

[01:12:47] Josh: What's that.

[01:12:47] Keegan: it's not even close by the way. Alcohol. By a fucking landslide, alcohol is the worst drug known to man when it comes to a harm to yourself and harm to other people, even more so than heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Yes. And as the list goes along, you get to number 16 or so, and that's cannabis. And, and then as you, as you go down and down and down and down at the baseline, the most safe drug in the entire world for yourself and harm to others is mushrooms.

[01:13:20] And so it's only a matter of time until these are fully legalized. It's literally the safest drug in the world. Um, and I hate to use that drug word, but this is, this is how the study, um, framed it all. So yeah, it's a fascinating study. I think everybody should take a moment and check it out. 

[01:13:37] Josh: wow. Okay. That's interesting. So I want to dive deep into this man. Uh, obviously I want to get into the legalities of it and like, you know, running a business with this kind of stuff, but even just before that, you brought up the whole addiction thing and you're so right. I mean, you, you just talked about like, you've struggled for years with like actual physical dependence with, with alcohol.

[01:13:57] And if you want to talk about addictive substances, what about the one that's most used by everybody? Pretty much on planet earth. Caffeine that is insidious as fuck. I didn't realize. So I just finished this chapter from Michael Poland's newest book. This is your mind on plants. That shit is insidious.

[01:14:13] The feeling that you get in the morning of like waking up. And even before that, when you feel groggy, that's actually from your caffeine from the day before. So what it's doing is the problem that you're solving that morning is actually the problem that was caused by the exact same drug the day before.

[01:14:27] So it's this insidious loop. It's like, it's creating the problem and giving you the solution. That's fucked up, but it makes us really productive as humans. So, you know, we get it for free at work. We get it for free at restaurants and it's just like perpetuated in our society, but it's insane. And then there's weed, right?

[01:14:42] Like we didn't even really get into that because like, people might see microdosing very similar to like, we'd like people right now are using weed for, you know, for, uh, depressing for antidepressants. Basically I have a friend that he was getting medicinal for, like, you know, kind of, cause he didn't want to use SSRI's and stuff like that.

[01:14:58] It helps with anxiety, but it can also cause anxiety. One of the things I noticed over the last couple of weeks was on the weekend. I would smoke I'd vaporize weed once in a while. It's so fucking readily available, especially in Canada, like on my block alone, I'm in queen Western Toronto. There's the most amount of dispensary sicker than I think anywhere in the world, there's more than any like Starbucks in the city.

[01:15:18] Like probably like dozens more than there are Starbucks, but it's easy to get. But what I realized is when I was on that, I would smoke even just a little bit like. I would be like anxious and like, you know, people feel that when they smoke weed, they get anxious or like they have like edibles or something. I never once felt that on the mindful meds. Not once I felt just peace and like wellbeing every single time.

[01:15:38] Keegan: Yeah. And it's, it's remarkable because cannabis has mentioned in this study. And so as so, as caffeine and, and honestly, both of those were rated much, much higher than mushrooms. I mean, Hey, listen, I love cannabis. I, cannabis is a part of my, my life. I don't smoke during the day. I smoke a little bit in the evenings because I got diagnosed with ADHD.

[01:16:00] During this process of starting this company, I was, I found myself trying to go to sleep and all of a sudden, it's two o'clock in the morning and I'm doing laps in my kitchen with my journal, try to like write notes. I could not fall asleep, dude. And it wasn't like racing thoughts of like, oh, the world's gonna end.

[01:16:19] It was like mostly exciting thoughts about the future and trying to like pencil them out. Um, and so anyways, I got diagnosed with ADHD and what I decided to do is treat the ADHD with microdosing and with a little bit of cannabis in the evenings. And for me, it's been extraordinarily effective. I'll tell you that when I had my psychiatrist appointment, which you know, what ends up happening, if you think you might have ADHD, you go to your MD, they give you this, they give you this take home test.

[01:16:49] If you score high enough on this take-home test, they set you up with an appointment with a psychiatrist and psychiatrists are the ones that actually diagnose or prescribe medication to people. And so I got actually prescribed Vyvanse and I got so lucky dude, because the day I got prescribed the Vyvanse, I was over the moon because I just thought, oh, finally, I'm going to have a solution to this.

[01:17:12] And I had been going, I've got two friends from high school that both became addicts. And, um, we started having lunch once, once a month, just to make sure, just as, you know, accountability buddies. And it was amazingly effective for me. And so the night that I actually got prescribed this, we had, we had plans to go for winks.

[01:17:31] And so I show up at this wings and they were boys. I'm so pumped. I just got diagnosed with ADHD. I'm hopping on this Vyvanse. And both of them looked at me and they go, dude, stay away. Both of us, so what they ended up doing was they both got prescribed the Vyvance. And then they ended up abusing it. And one of the, two of them who is all, like I said, an addict, by the way, 95% of addicts that go into a rehab facility have ADHD.

[01:17:59] And so I it's, but both of these guys had ended up getting this prescription from their doctors, abusing the living shit out of this getting incredibly addicted. And, um, and so I thought, oh, whoa, I'm so glad this happened because I was going to go fill out this script tomorrow. But I know, but I also know my behavior and I'm not, I'm humble enough to say that if you put something in front of me, that's addictive, I'm going to abuse it.

[01:18:26] I know who I am, man. And, uh, and so I just immediately thought, holy shit, I'm going to walk down another dark path by something prescribed. And, um, and so I just decided to say, okay, I know I've got to figure this out. And remarkably, you know, some of the most astounding research that's come out around ADHD is this can be not for all types of ADHD.

[01:18:49] There's many types of ADHD, but for some, uh, microdosing can be extraordinarily effective. Um, but there are big differences. You're right, man. And even for myself, I've been in phases of my life where I'll have an ounce of weed in my cupboard. And we it's interesting for me because I'd be on this podcast right now, dude.

[01:19:11] And I bet even if I smoked a joint before this you'd have no idea. Right. Like, so I've just ability to just like, just to function at a high level with the cannabis in me, I think that's the ADHD, but I've also had phases where I can blast through announce a weed in a week and a half. Like I can oh, totally.

[01:19:29] And so weed can be addictive. It's very different, beautiful substance. I love it to death, tons and tons of scientific data that supports that, that this is obviously very much so a medicine, so I'm not knocking it, but I am saying that it's, that it is addictive. 

[01:19:47] Josh: Yeah, it definitely is. Um, and it's dependent too, or people just become dependent on it more than anything with the crush in, I like, you know, with, with mushrooms, like you said, it, it kind of loses this edge as you take it more. So you need to have these kinds of breaks. And like, even me after, like I'm doing, doing this 30 days, even though I'm taking breaks, I'm probably going to stop for like a couple months.

[01:20:07] And like, I might even like, wait a little bit for my tolerance completely go down and then do a macro dose. And then later in the new year do micro dosing again. So what would you say is like the best way to do that for someone like me, like, um, I do it more for performance, but you know, in the, in the winters, I would definitely say it helps so much with seasonal depression.

[01:20:26] Like I've already noticed that I'm, we're just getting into winter so I can definitely see myself doing another stint in like February or something in Canada. But for you, like how often would you say is a good time to do it? Whether it's a 30 day stint LA last more than how often would you pocket those.

[01:20:41] Keegan: I, what I really think you should do is always follow your intuition. Always follow your gut. I mean, and honestly, the microdosing Institute out of the Netherlands, which actually is ran by Dr. James Fadiman, who I mentioned, what they recommend is falling a micro dosing routine, a scheduled routine, a protocol for 10 to 12 weeks.

[01:21:02] And at the end of that, 10 to 12 weeks, that's when you take the reset. So they suggest going to reset for two to six weeks at that point in time. So use it for three months, uh, reevaluate, take a little break, take a pause. And this goes for any supplement, by the way, they, I mean, any supplement that you're going to want to take, you're going to want to eventually take a break from.

[01:21:24] And, um, but that is what they suggest. And so that's kind of what, what I follow to be completely honest. And, and that's kind of what we teach, um, is really just pulling from, from their resources, from all the research that they've conducted. And so just to reiterate kind of eight to 12 weeks on a micro-dosing protocol, two to six week pause and then reevaluate from there, but always, always, always do what's best for you.

[01:21:50] One of the most fascinating things about this journey for me has been discovering. This isn't just a one size fits all. You cannot categorize, um, you know, one person's protocol 

[01:22:02] or routine or tolerance or the way they respond to this. Everybody's slightly different. And it's fascinating to me to, to have conversations with people that have, you know, these, these, different responses to these meds and certainly at the different dosages levels.

[01:22:17] Um, but I always just coming back, like coming back to do what works for you. Right. Um, the research is still so young. The industry is still so young, but the, the initial reports are coming back and saying kind of just what I just told you.

[01:22:33] Josh: Right. And again, like you said, it's so new that like a lot of this stuff had been canned for years since like the fifties and sixties, right. There was like this little dark age with like no real research. And I think it's so cool. I know you said you love cannabis, so do I like it's an awesome substance and this an amazing plant.

[01:22:48] It's incredible. Really it's as Canadians, you know, this is 

[01:22:51] part of our culture now, but like, it's, it's interesting that you kind of went into this route of something a little bit more fringe. Cause w like from the business side, it almost would have been easier to start a weed company, especially now. I mean, it's crowded the shit, but you know, you're kind of going an extra mile and you're, you're doing something that, you know, in your heart, obviously that will make a huge difference.

[01:23:11] So I want to get back into it. I want to get back into like the business side things like why you decided not to do cannabis and do something like this. And maybe, obviously there's some difficulties within there. And then after that we can get into like the legality of these things. Cause it must be tough also running a business that's so on the fringe and then something very new.

[01:23:30] Keegan: Yeah, totally man. Um, well, I did get interested in the business of weed. I absolutely was fascinated with, with marijuana for a very long time. I I'm actually coming out of rehab. I was living in Victoria. So the way that you just explain downtown Toronto, that was literally Victoria in 2016 and it was, it was the same thing, dude.

[01:23:53] This is way before legalization. This is like two years before legalization in Victoria. It was littered with gray market cannabis shops. And part of my routine was I would literally just to, you know, people go for coffee breaks, I would walk to the dispensary and get just one pre-roll 

[01:24:09] joint, maybe two.

[01:24:12] And, and it was just kind of I'd smoke them on the way back. And that was kind of part of my, it became a part of my routine. So I loved cannabis. I love cannabis for so many reasons, but I was really fascinated with cannabis and pain management. And I, you know, as my parents got a little bit older and are getting a little bit older, you know, mid sixties now my aunts and uncles started to have all sorts of ailments.

[01:24:35] You know, one of the things that kept on coming up in my family was, was pain. And I hate seeing people in pain. I really do. And I I've been in those painful situations. I talked about the pancreatitis. Um, and, and some of, you know, the, the things that I did to my body that were extraordinarily painful, I can relate to people that have that type of pain.

[01:24:55] And, um, so I was fascinated even before I came to the CA or to the to the mushrooms. I was fascinated with cannabis and I was kind of walking down that road of getting, you know, hyper educated. And actually at one point saw myself, you know, getting educated to the point where I was going to senior citizens homes and teaching them about pain management.

[01:25:14] It never got to that because I jumped into vest at the same time. Um, But.

[01:25:18] I was close. I was really close to getting into cannabis. I, I, like I said, I, I'm not knocking cannabis. I love it. It's a part of my life, but we're dealing with, you know, apples and oranges there they're 

[01:25:29] Josh: Mental pain, right. And spiritual and mental pain that you're really trying to help. And I love that, man. There's a lot of people that do it just like on like surface level. But like, you know, you know, this is kind of the reason why I asked you to share your story. Like you've told me this before, but I needed people to hear this.

[01:25:45] Like, it's, it comes from like you. Like, this is like how you actually believe this needs to be run. And this needs to like work in society. Cause still so new. Like it's not legal, right. It's not technically legal. Okay. I'd love for you to jump in that because it could be easy. It would have been easy for you to just be like, oh no, like I can't do this, but there's a reason why you're pushing through it.

[01:26:07] Keegan: I mean, honestly, man it was close. If it wasn't for the one girl that came out at the end of the study, And shared her testimonial with me and actually I have it recorded. I don't have it on the website, but one day I will, uh, we, we do this 45 minute kind of exit interview and we recorded it and she was willing to share all of it with the world.

[01:26:30] But I just realized that one, I, I saved somebody's life. And part of what I did with the study was making sure, as I mentioned, having enough ammunition so that if I was to get pulled into the courtroom, I've got an army of people that come in behind me saying my life was saved from this. And so here in Canada, siliciden is classified as a schedule, two narcotic.

[01:26:54] And so definitely scheduled in there with, with the other narcotics. And part of being a schedule two is having no business medicinal value whatsoever. And we now know, and the world now knows that this is completely and utterly wrong. It's backwards. Um, luckily things are moving quickly. So I, I don't have a timeframe.

[01:27:15] I cannot give you an idea as to when this is going to be legalized, but I can tell you it's moving quick. And there, there is something called section 56 exemptions. And so which, so your listeners understand what that is, is if you have a terminal illness, you can now apply for an exemption to legally use these substances. I think there's only been about 90 that have actually been granted, which is an atrocity to me. I mean, honestly, why, why are we withholding this back from the people that are on the cusp of death's doorstep and frightened and terrified and rightfully so, men? I mean, honestly, rightfully so put yourselves in their shoes, just for a moment here where you're a 40 year old with three kids and your life.

[01:28:00] One day you come back from a doctor's appointment and you get this diagnosis and you've got four months to live. You don't think that you're going to spend that entire four months riddled with anxiety, riddled with depression, just, you know, searching for answers. And here we have a tool that can help these people get through those moments.

[01:28:18] It's an atrocity that these aren't available readily available at this, at this point in time. Um, but things are moving and I'll tell you, what's really helping kind of move things along quickly, is that in 2016, in the city of Vancouver, they actually declared the overdose crisis a pandemic. So while before any of us ever thought of what the real pandemic was, the pandemic has started in Vancouver on the, on the east side of Vancouver, because they were losing.

[01:28:48] I mean thousands of people, every quarter, thousands of people. And here's, what's really sad. What ended up happening is they blew the whistle on this. They created this, um, w w they blew the whistle on what was happening. They started to bring in all sorts of people in government, all sorts of people from all over the world, including people from Portugal, where Portugal was the first country in the world that legalized all drugs.

[01:29:12] And so they started to look at techniques because they were throwing serious money into this dude. And no nothing was changing. In fact, things were getting worse and here's the sad part today. Things are even worse than they weren't 2016. So after all the resources that have been put into this for years and years and years, things have actually taken it first turn.

[01:29:32] And it's because of the pandemic. So addiction rates are higher than they ever have been all over the world right now, because the pandemic, the isolation, the disconnects, the disconnection that our communities have had the disconnection of love and, and friends and family and support. What happens when you remove those things is people leading to other types of support and they start leading into other substances.

[01:29:56] And so right now we have the highest rates of anxiety, depression, PTSD that has ever been, ever been recorded. We have the highest rate of addiction that has ever been recorded. People are leaving their jobs at such a fast rate due to anxiety and depression. SSRI medication is up 32%. Since the pandemic started.

[01:30:18] And so let's see, man, I don't think we're above the law, but I gotta tell you even every major police force in the entire country, every union right now is focused on mental health, all of them. And, and, and I'll tell you, I know this because I know one of the highest ranking police officers in the country, and guess what, he's on our product and his life has changed.

[01:30:41] And, you know, I don't think that we were riding this magic carpet. We're trying to do absolutely everything we possibly can the right way. And we will be first in line to sign up when this thing becomes legal to get our legal license. But in the meantime, we got to save lives. We have to make an impact. We have to make a difference. And so that's, that's my stance on this. I hope, I hope that answered that. 

[01:31:06] Josh: Yeah. No. Totally. So have you guys come into any issues, have you like had any kind of hiccups with this? Have people tried to stop you.

[01:31:13] Keegan: I mean, we're w we're honestly small potatoes, man. Um, we, we, you know, we're not a profitable company. We've got a team of four people that work on this night and day, uh, for well, less than minimal wage. This was never about turning the lights on and try to make millions of dollars. This has been simply trying to create a project that is going to impact the world in a positive way. And if the dollars come down the line fantastic. But for the first time in my career, the money came second. I reverse engineered the whole process, put people before the profits and that's my stance on it. I mean, there's, there's really not anything to come and take. There's nothing here. So, I mean, the reality is, is we haven't had those hiccups.

[01:31:57] I am excited to work with agencies that are helping police, fire, medical, um, army. I mean, there is not a subset of workers in our business portfolio of Canada that actually need these substances more than those people. So, I mean, do you know anything about this? 

[01:32:20] Josh: No, I would love for you to kind of dive deeper in that, because I know that it is, I could imagine anyways, that that would be a huge issue for that type of work. If you're a frontline worker, like whether you're a police officer, like first responder, like I could only imagine kind of the shit that you would just come into contact and like a daily life.

[01:32:38] Keegan: Exactly. Right. And 

[01:32:41] Josh: They got solid. That's all you really need to say. Right? Like they're the people who needed the most.

[01:32:45] Keegan: There are the people that need it the most man, even the people that have been, um, you know, serving time for five years or less. Are showing up having off the scale PTSD because of the shit that they're seeing every single day. And I'll tell you what their lives got made even worse after the George, George Floyd stuff, after the public started to turn on them, you know, it's yeah.

[01:33:12] From, from my understanding, and this is coming from a clinical physician that I know, well, she had told me that police fire medical actually have the highest rates of PTSD out of any and, and army, um, out of any subset of business in, in, in all of north America. And so could you imagine not allowing these people to access these, you know, to, to heal the people that are serving us, not having access to these medicines.

[01:33:39] I just see a world very soon where this is going to be completely mainstream and it's not far away where people are putting away. These really harmful on the other side of that is not just PTSD, dude, is that when these people are leaving their careers, they have the highest rate of addiction over any subset of business in the country.

[01:34:00] So they're turning to be like, of course you are, you're running from that pain. Mushrooms are something that can truly help you get through this by healing it. And yet they don't have access to it. It doesn't make any sense. 

[01:34:13] Josh: No. And the craziest thing is like, what is most accessible? Alcohol. It's ridiculously accessible. Right? It's, also cannabis now. Like I, I would personally, I think you would probably agree just given your experience, like go towards a weed over alcohol for anybody who kind of needs something like that. But again, this is where it's really cool where you guys are stepping in now. 

[01:34:34] Now there's an alternative, here's something that can really help. It's not something that you're going to become addicted to. It's not something that you're going to lean on and become dependent on. And it's not something that's going to just mask the problem, but it can really help bring the problem to the forefront.

[01:34:46] That's another thing I noticed, even from micro-dosing a bit, it's like these things that you would normally want to just shove back to the back of your brain, you just kind of let it flow to the front. And then if you really lean into like the therapy, like you said, or even just journaling, if you want to do kind of self-help model is letting it out and, you know, writing it out and then talking about it, it can help a lot. And then 

[01:35:06] Keegan: Let's just stay there just for a moment because you nailed it here. I mean, talking about it. Let's normalize mental health a little bit here, you guys. Because two and five of us are going to experience depression, anxiety, no matter what, to a point where most of us will be educated. So, and I got to tell you the other 60% of us, maybe just don't want to admit, but mental health is, is, needs to be something that is completely normalized and spoken about.

[01:35:37] And that is something that our community is extraordinarily passionate about. This isn't, this was never, and will never be about just being a supplement company that sends supplements to people in the mail. We want to actually help provide the actual raw tools to help people heal. I've got a six part series coming out with Dr. Kevin Preston, one of, you know, just, just an amazing human being, also special spiritual healer, uh, from Vernon and he's sharing all sorts of tools that we're going to be able to provide with our community to help. 

[01:36:11] But you know, one of the things that we need to start doing is having conversations like this. Showing up. There's no company that is doing what we're doing in this space today in Canada, that is actually showing who's behind the scenes showing the real raw stories of why we're doing this and getting vulnerable. And my hope is, is that the more we start having these conversations and the more people, you know, get a chance to use these medicines, the more open we can become, the more conversations we can have, and the healing is in the collective. We can, we can help each other, get to these, get to the next level in our healing, conversation. 

[01:36:48] Josh: Oh, man. I, I can't agree more, but do you think that maybe this is the tool that the mental health industry needed. I mean, there's other psychedelics as well, but maybe specifically mushrooms, like there's so many people like putting their money and their time and all their effort into this. And why haven't they done this earlier?

[01:37:08] Why haven't they been okay? They mushrooms, this clearly works. Why are we building all these other things like SSRI and all these other random, um, pharmaceuticals that are 

[01:37:18] Keegan: Yeah. 

[01:37:18] Josh: than good. Why haven't anyone really tried to bring this out earlier?

[01:37:22] Keegan: I mean, the answer is simple. I mean, big pharma controls all the cash flow. We all know this, this isn't a secret. This isn't a conspiracy. This is why if you go and actually try to do your research on these 40 SSRIs, you're not going to find any compelling scientific data that these things actually work.

[01:37:41] And so here we have a substance that is grown naturally in the ground that is readily available to basically everybody in the world. And that actually help people truly heal themselves, for a fraction of the cost. 

[01:37:56] Um, I'll tell you, Josh dude, like I have been, you know, one of the things that I've done in this project is I've opened myself up to hundreds of people.

[01:38:05] Hundreds of conversations gotten my number out there. People can email me. It's getting to a point now where I'm, you know, it's, it's hard to, you know, get on calls with everyone. But I hear story after story of people, 24 years ago in high, you know, the year after high school, they have a baby and they experience the baby blues and, and they get on, on one of these assets arise.

[01:38:29] And 24 years later, they're still on the same substance. They haven't healed the fucking pain. And they're now addicted and have been addicted for two decades on, on on one of these assets arise. And I'll tell you, I know one of the leading psychiatrists and this entire space, um, in Canada, won't use his name or w we'll leave that out, but I've been so blessed to be on many phone calls with him and learned from him.

[01:38:52] Um, 50% of people that get on these SOS arise can experience withdraws that are, that are so significant that at some capacity they can be related to heroin withdrawal. Now, luckily the other 50% of people will actually have a much easier time getting off of these SSRI SSRS, but they're not ever meant for you to come off.

[01:39:15] You get on these things, then you're going to find yourself two decades down the line, still on these. So be very careful and ask the questions and listen, I'm not saying that this is for absolutely everybody. If you're bipolar, if you're schizophrenia, um, you should likely remain on your meds. And that those are kind of where, where you're not going to want to cross over to.

[01:39:38] Um, but lesson two days ago, one is one of the newest studies that have come out on this. And I'm glad we're doing this today because I, I got ahold of this study yesterday. Um, there there's, let me see if I can pull it up here so I can bring it. 

[01:39:54] Josh: Perfect. 

[01:39:55] Keegan: Um, I don't have it here. I had it beforehand, but, um, really it was all about SSRS and what they were looking at was can you take an SSRI and mix it with psilocybin? And the preliminary clinical data is saying that, yes, it's safe, more studies to come, but I'm telling you, this is going to open up the door for many people to, to lean themselves off of the SSRI in a safe capacity, without the withdraws, and still get a profound effect from the siliciden.

[01:40:31] Um, so very profound evidence has just come out. Um, so I'll send it to you so that you can, you can pin it for your listeners when it, when 

[01:40:40] this goes live. 

[01:40:41] Um, Yeah, that'd be, that'd be wonderful, but really compelling evidence that these, you know, we talked about an earlier in the podcast, like, dude, these are the safest of all of the drugs.

[01:40:54] And so I'm just so grateful that, you know, we are working with a medicine that is incredibly safe. There's very few caveats that, that, uh, that say you shouldn't be on. Um, and the reality is, is that there's really never been a tool for these people to, to help bridge that gap of withdrawal. And I think what, because of that, people stay stuck on these things because when they try to get off or they try to get the lower, the dose, it's complicated.

[01:41:22] And so, yeah, I think this is the answer and I got to tell you, I think mushrooms really are the future of mental health care.

[01:41:30] Josh: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think like you, you brought it up just then of like having it, uh, as a tool to help people lean off, get off of the SSRIs. And one thing I actually saw, so I was going through the site when I was first, um, kind of when I first heard about you guys, when we first got connected, I went through the site and I was looking at reviews.

[01:41:48] This is so many great reviews. And there's people, you know, talking about how it's helped them with those down days where they're trying to get off SSRS and the days that they don't take it, they've been taking these supplements instead. They've been taking these, these meds instead, and it's been helping them immensely.

[01:42:05] Then from there, I started seeing other people talking about their ADHD symptoms. And you talked about it earlier. It's like a big thing where it could really help with ADHD. Um, and you know, this is another thing where with Vyvanse people and get hooked and Vyvanse and all these really crazy pharmaceuticals where this can be another answer.

[01:42:19] Like, it really just seems like it's not, like you said, it's not just like a magic pill, but it kind of seems that way. It seems like it can solve a lot of problems or at least be a tool to solve a lot of these problems. And it's just, we're, we're in a Renaissance here, man. It feels like we're really at this crazy point in human history, in pharmaceutical history and mental health history, which is fairly new, no one really even cared about until recent years, you know, 50 sixties ain't even talk about it. It wasn't even a thing. 

[01:42:47] And now you're at the forefront, man, and it's just really awesome to see you do this. And it's like, it really warms my heart to sit there, people out there that are really like putting their necks out on the line. Like I said, like this isn't fully legal, but like, you know, you're not having any issues by any means, but you're really putting yourself out on the line, do this. And it's really noble.

[01:43:04] Keegan: thank you, man. I mean, we, we took some steps that no other company in the gray market is, is taking, um, safety precaution, building out our own farm, working with the top mycologists in the industry, working with the psychiatrist, the doctors, and, um, you know, Chinese medicine doctors, you name it, you know, this, this wasn't.

[01:43:25] And I want people to realize this is like this, wasn't the shortcut to just try and, you know, get rich. And that's what people have seen in the cannabis space, is people operating without a code of ethics and without the morals and just putting a cannabis company together and going out there and just, you know, spreading it all through the market without actually without that really important factor, which is like thinking about the end user and truly caring about the outcome, uh, Yeah, So I, I hope that shows, I can tell you we've worked extraordinarily hard as, as a company and as a group to, to, bring the safest program that we can possibly bring to the country, that the highest quality product that you can possibly get your hands on, even just sourcing some of our functional mushrooms. I mean, we spent nine months finding the best mushrooms in north America. And, um, and I think that shows in our product. 

[01:44:20] I can tell you, Josh, uh, we have never, as an organization ever one single time, zero times ever had to refund a customer's money. So I'm not saying that every customer has this 10/10 experience, but I'll tell you, I've never woken up to an email where somebody said, Hey, I spent my 70 bucks and I'm not feeling shit. This didn't work. I have never, ever one single time heard that ever. 

[01:44:44] So I know what we have here. It's special. It's this, you know, behind the scenes, this group of people is absolutely amazing. And we deeply care about making an impact and helping people.

[01:44:57] Josh: Yeah, it shows, it shows man, in everything. Like anyone listening to you, I highly recommend at least following you guys on like Instagram and all these things where you guys are posting a lot of really great things. Um, you guys have a lot of great blog posts, a lot of good like resources, education. So go, go onto to the website.

[01:45:13] I'm going to link everything in the show notes and the description of this podcast. So people will be able to find all this stuff I'd love for you to send me that study too. I think that would 

[01:45:20] be really interesting for people since it's new. And then I guess like, kind of like while we're in this talk of like the business of things is really is like an e-commerce company.

[01:45:29] And I know with cannabis, it's hard to advertise or there's like implications of advertising. So how has that been for you guys as an e-commerce company? I'm sure people have lots of questions and you know, it's hard to get the word out there. So how has that been going for you guys?

[01:45:46] Keegan: Yeah. I mean really good question. I don't look at this as an e-commerce company. I look at, I look at what we're doing as a community and, you know, when you focus on a community as opposed to building a company or, or, or getting rich, um, it's, it's hard to shut that down, Right. Because no matter what happens here, we're going to have built a community.

[01:46:06] And, And um, but yeah, I know we don't have the luxury of, of what the, the everyday companies have to go and spin up advertising. That's just going to land in your face. If you're someone that's been Googling, you know, micro-dosing, you know, I would love for our company to be the first company that pops up, you know, we just you know, you can't really get past the algorithms with, with Facebook and with Instagram.

[01:46:30] And honestly, we got to just be very careful with the way that we dance. And, um, so, you know, to answer your question, I don't consider ourself an e-commerce business. I just, we're just an online community, man.

[01:46:41] Josh: Right. And you just happened to be able to take payment online and being able to send to people that way. So it makes sense, honestly, it'd be interesting to see you guys eventually build up some kind of center or something to build out the community where people can have more of these profound experiences. I could definitely see that in the near future, if not a, 

[01:47:00] Keegan: Yeah, man. 

[01:47:01] Josh: future. I'm sure that's um, somewhere 

[01:47:03] on the line. 

[01:47:03] Keegan: back here in 24 months and we're having a conversation about phase two 

[01:47:08] that's for sure. 

[01:47:09] Josh: What is the plans for phase two? If you were able to talk.

[01:47:12] Keegan: Well, yeah, I mean, there's really just four phases. Like we, we've kind of reverse engineered the end game and, you know, throughout phase two and three, we really hope to start participating in opening up clinics and partnering with, with, you know, top, um, top people in their medical fields to, to help us reinvision and repurpose this idea of rehabilitation.

[01:47:34] Because you know, when the odds are only one in 10, which dude I'm giving so much credit to that one in 10, I think it's far less, but the reality is, is like, it's just not effective enough for people. And so, uh, my hope is that over the years, as we begin to study these things and combine that psychotherapy with the medicines and proper integration and, and and that's something that the rehab model today doesn't really have, like the second you leave a rehab facility, most of the time you're fucking addicted partners come in to pick you up in the car or the parents that abused you or neglected you are the ones coming to grab you.

[01:48:13] And you're just Slingshot and right back into the same situation you were in the day before you even got into rehab. And so, yeah, I mean, That's really the end goal for this entire project this year is to build out some facilities that, that we, we can start producing some better numbers and, um, and help more people in a way that they're, they're not relapsing within six months or dying within six months.

[01:48:36] And I think the way that we can do that is use these medicinal tools really, really, get to the heart of the trauma zones. And again, like lots of people come into these rehab facilities and they don't want to share, they don't want to talk. They don't want to go there. Well, as you mentioned, and, and as we now know, microdosing helps you get there.

[01:48:56] It's just a tool that can really help you get access to those emotions and those feelings. And, um, so I really see a future in, rehabilitation using these medicines.

[01:49:06] Josh: That's incredible. And I'm very excited for that. I know you'll get there. Like I can definitely see it in your eyes, like the fire's there. And it just seems like any kind of roadblock there would be, it's just like, it just seems like the university to open that up for you, because this is something that needs to be done and it needs to be done by people like you, it can't just be done by people who haven't experienced it firsthand, or kind of know very little about it.

[01:49:28] Or you just seem like the perfect person to do this. So I'm very thankful you're doing this because although I'm not personally experiencing this kind of thing, right now, there's always someone, you know, that has or are, or maybe will. 

[01:49:40] So to know that these kinds of tools and these kinds of support systems will be there, it just makes things way, way more reassuring and more optimistic. I like to think about, you know, the optimistic lens of our future, and you're definitely helping build that optimistic future.

[01:49:55] Keegan: Thank you brother. Really appreciate that. It's it's been a really enjoyable couple hours. 

[01:50:00] Josh: Absolutely man. 

[01:50:02] Keegan: else at me or should we, um, should we maybe wrap this up? 

[01:50:05] Josh: Yeah, man. Well, you've been very, very kind and very, very generous with your time today, man. I've really enjoyed this conversation. There's some really great, uh, outcomes, um, that I know that I brought. So I'm sure there's anybody listening. I'm sure there's a lot of really great aha moments there. There's a lot of insights that I already picked out. So I really appreciate you taking the time for this man. 

[01:50:25] I do have a few final questions for you. Um, before we wrap things up, just to kind of keep everything nicely tied up in a bow here. 

[01:50:32] So for you as a founder, is it kind of like rapid fire questions. You as a founder, are there any challenges that you're currently facing right now?

[01:50:44] Keegan: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, breaking that mold of, you know, when people think of psychedelics, they think of this like inter universe travel where micro-dosing is so different. I mean, it's so sub perceptual to the point where, like I said, the nine to fives the people with children, the people that with, with careers, the lawyers, the doctors, the dentist, we could all use these substances very safely. And, uh, so changing that narrative of people's mind frames, when they think about magic mushrooms to think about that we can use these in the microdosing capacity and still get extraordinary results. 

[01:51:22] Josh: Absolutely. I think it could help you out there. Uh, I took the mindful meds perform blend about an hour. Before this conversation, which means it would have kicked in just as we were chatting. And I don't think anyone, until I just told you, would have known maybe so maybe I have, maybe people noticed I'm more open.

[01:51:39] I don't know, but it's been great. And, uh, again, with the perform thing, we've talked about it a little bit before. It wasn't so much about, um, bringing me back up to baseline, it's actually kind of like helped me perform more than nootropics. So maybe we have a whole other conversation on nootropics in the future.

[01:51:53] Um, cause you talked about, I think this is more about the, how it can really help real problems. This is something that can really help you go to the next level. And we spoke about it before about, you know, just really helping you up your game. But I think 

[01:52:05] what's more important is these deeper problems that you were solving, which is really incredible. So that, hopefully that helps. 

[01:52:13] Um, 

[01:52:13] another question for you too, man, is what, where do you see the psychedelic industry in the next two to five years? So say in the near future?

[01:52:21] Keegan: I think that almost every single household in the next five years is going to have a microdosing product on their shelves. I think it's going to happen super quickly. I think the world is ready for this. The world needs. The stigma, hopefully by then, it's completely reduced to the point where this is so mainstream that everybody in their neighbors are, are using a microdosing product because right now, man, everybody in their neighbors are on these SSRIs. They're everywhere. There's a pandemic on its own with these things, dude. 

[01:52:51] So my hope is that Yeah. th th we're starting to combine psychotherapy and these medicines together, we're starting to see rehabilitation, uh, like rehab itself, like for addiction combining these medicines. And, um, I'm just hoping that the stigma is gone by then. 

[01:53:09] Josh: Yeah, I think, I think we're getting there. Um, okay. Second to last question. 

[01:53:14] If you had a $1 billion advertising budget and you had nothing in your way, and you can send a message out to every single device, every single computer, every single social media user around the planet, what would you tell them?

[01:53:29] Keegan: Here's the thing, man. Once people experience the actual products for themselves, I'm telling you, man, the odds of you having a bad experience are so low that I would actually say, forget the billion dollar marketing campaign. Let's spit up 50 million bottles or however much the cost was. And let's get these into everybody's hands for free.

[01:53:53] And I truly think that they're going to come back as customers right after this. I would scrap the marketing campaign and just literally get product into as many people's hands as I possibly could, because these products are literally, the efficacy rate is so high that, um, that I think that would be the most effective way to spend that billion dollars. 

[01:54:14] Josh: Let the mushrooms do the talking, I totally agree. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay. man, and last question again, I like this to be optimistic. What's something that you're excited about and looking forward to?

[01:54:25] Keegan: Um, well, I'm excited. I'm I'm I'm engaged for the first 

[01:54:31] time. So I got engaged in July. We've been together for a decade. And so Lisa has been there through some of those really hard times. So I'm really excited to, to get married and to move that next phase of my life, um, forward to be honest, because there was a lot of time that I didn't think we'd ever get married.

[01:54:49] So we bought a house in July and, uh, there's some beautiful things are happening in my life now that I've been able to get control of the, the alcohol. And so I'd say That's the most exciting things for me is just thinking about what that looks like and what we're going to do and what type of celebration we're going to have. And, um, and again, you know, we talked about me thinking about my funeral and now the beautiful thing is we're thinking about my wedding. So I love that.

[01:55:13] Josh: That's amazing. I'm so happy for you, man. That's incredible. 

[01:55:15] Keegan: Thank you brother. 

[01:55:16] Josh: And, uh, is there anything else you want to tell listeners anybody can listen to this right now or watching this on YouTube, any last 

[01:55:23] kind of like messages that you want to send out to the world before we, uh,

[01:55:26] Keegan: Yeah. I mean, honestly, my, our goal here was never to sell products and, and get onto podcasts and start speaking about how good our products was. I just want to be the conduit to the information. So if you know, please give us a follow mindful meds, underscore CA uh, on Instagram, mindful meds.io on the website. 

[01:55:46] And all the only thing I'm going to ask if you, if you spent the time listening to this podcast, please get yourself educated on these medicines. They're fascinating. They're going to change lives and don't get left behind. And if you're a therapist and you're not thinking about bringing these things into your, into your practices, bringing these medicines into your practices, I think you're honestly going to get left behind.

[01:56:09] So I, um, yeah, I'll just leave it off on that. I mean, I was excited to be here today. Thank you Josh. Um, two hours, two hours just cooked by, uh, that was a lot of fun, man. Thank you so much for having me. 

[01:56:21] Josh: Thank you so much Keegan, man. This was an absolute blast and I really appreciate all your wisdom and sharing your story. And I'm glad to see that you're kind of on your path now, your true path, and I wish you so much success. And for everyone listening, I will post all of the links in the description of this podcast.

[01:56:37] There'll be a lot of resources, a lot of resources directly on mine meds. Um, and as we 

[01:56:43] mentioned, I'm going to set up a mindfulness. 

[01:56:44] Keegan: Really important. You throw the full on there. 

[01:56:47] Josh: We have to, yeah, we won't, we don't, we won't explain why that doesn't matter. 

[01:56:51] Keegan: thank you! 

[01:56:52] Josh: Uh, so go to mindful meds.io, and you can use the code Mind Meld to get 10% off if you want to try this out.

[01:56:58] So I'm going to be posting that in the link and you guys can try it out. I highly recommend it again. I'm almost at my 30 days stint and it's only been good. I only have good things to say. So Keegan, thank you so much for bringing us to the world, man.

[01:57:11] Keegan: my pleasure brother. It's great to connect with you. Thanks everybody. Appreciate this! 

[01:57:15] Bye Josh.

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