ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the true life podcast hope everybody's having a beautiful day hope the sun is shining hope the birds singing and I hope the wind is at your back ladies and gentlemen wanderers and weirdos pixelated prophets and frequency freaks today the veil parts and we welcome a sonic spellcaster, a cybernetic druid, a reality bender broadcasting from the other side of the firewall. He's not here to market. He's here to melt constructs. This man has toured the world selling soul with Jack Johnson, and now he's weaving ritual code into the circuitry of corporate America, transforming screens into shrines and feedback loops into fractal spirals. Jacob Tell is a media mystic, a brand bard, a chaos conductor at the intersection of commerce and cosmic consciousness. He builds platforms like ayahuasca brews, thick with intention, humming with serpents of data and rhythm, asking not for your clicks, but for your initiation. The man doesn't just disrupt, he dismembers the mundane. His new platform, StoryWalled, is less tech and more techno-shamanic mirror, a dance floor for your digital twin where memory morphs in real time and each interaction is a prayer. In an era ruled by dopamine loops and doom scroll death cults, Jacob builds holy interfaces, spaces that remind us of the mystic that connect the neural networks to community with the blood-wired nodes of the human spirit. Jacob Tell, thank you so much for being here today. Wow, that was by far the most creative and badass intro yet. So let's just, you know, camp on that for a minute. Unbelievable, you really synthesized. Well, first off, thank you for that. Like I, part of what I want to happen in the podcast is for people to see the person I'm talking to in a way that I see them. And when I looked at two, we're going to get into it today. You're next level, Jacob. And I, that's synthesis as well. So it's sort of like game recognized game on a level. Like you're, you're crushing man. And I mean, let's just, yeah, man, let's just open it up, man. Like what is district two, man? Tell my listeners. Yeah. Yeah. We call it a psychedelic social club. We're here in Santa Barbara, California. We started with in-person events. We were filming those in-person events to intentionally build a library of content. And so a few months into the operation, we rolled out our online offerings. So we also have memberships for folks around the world, you know, internationally that are English speaking and into consciousness and healing and psychedelics. And we've just been continuing to actively listen to our audience, be they members or be they guests, because they're telling us what they want. For example, we didn't have a roundtable format until we had some members say, hey, I like learning and I like the interviews, but I want to interact more with other people. We have stories that we want to share. We have things we want to run by people. There's value in that. And so we created a monthly series within the Wednesday night events that we call Conscious Connections that bring people together in a circle format. So kind of like an AA meeting, but we're talking about the substance use. And we've also run integration circles as a result of that demand and conversation. For us, it's been an evolving sort of ball of clay that everybody that's been part of this community has had the ability to have their fingerprints on if what they have to contribute makes sense for the greater good. at the end of the day we're all about you know health and wellness we're about healing consciousness expansion and of course education um and advocacy for all of these um plants and fungi and animals that uh we should have safe legal access to it's it's really well said and for my uh everyone listening out there or watching Go and check out the website. It's up above. You can check out Jacob Teller, District two sixteen. And what you're going to see, it's I think you coined this term like it's a what is it's a neologism. It's edutainment. So it's like this merger of education and entertainment, man. And I love the neologisms. It gives people a real way to have a linguistic pathway to see what's happening. How did you come up with that? Maybe you could define what that is. Sure. Yeah, I don't know if it may, it came into the ether and I'm sure it's been said and used by many folks. I don't want to like ever claim anything, but it definitely fits the model here. I mean, from my background, District two-sixteen is a culmination of kind of everything that I've done. You mentioned, you know, the touring with Jack Johnson internationally running, you know, his merchandise in a very sustainable eco-friendly manner, by the way. Um, you know, that comes from my, my marketing company and, and. Twenty some, twenty-four years now, uh, with the foot of the music industry in the first ten to twelve years, we were a hundred percent hyper-focused on music, working with record labels, working with management groups, working directly with artists. And our whole thing then was directly connecting the fan to the artist by taking out the middleman and creating, you know, keeping technology seamless. These user experiences that the fans didn't necessarily need to have a peek into how it was working. It was just, did it work? And did it connect me more closely with... The artist, am I able to, you know, get tickets and merchandise more seamlessly and engage with them in meaningful ways? So, I mean, we saw this big shift from analog to digital happen first in music, then, of course, in film and TV and all these other media platforms. platforms but in the music space uh really what that sort of removal the middleman and technology creating a direct-to-fan experience taught me so much about audiences and listening to those audiences and delivering what they need we would always say you need to super super serve your super fan that was kind of our mantra ethos was like the ones that were really dedicated and hardcore listen to what they want and need and over deliver to them on that so really like the members of district or like that you want to super serve those super fans um and then also being in santa barbara and working in the entrepreneurial community for so long all uh we put on you know me and my business partners and my team we put on like you know discussion panel type events we were involved in hackathons we were involved in startup weekends so I had this uh in my dna as well uh from working with uc santa barbara's technology management program and some of these educational institutions um there were fun ways of doing that where it you know we could bring the education and the fun together and in those kinds of events And then if you fast forward a little bit further into my marketing agency, which, by the way, it's called Oniricom. And that word Oniricom means communicating dreams. Oniric is like based on a dream-like space and time. It's a Greek term that I learned in film school when I was at UC Santa Barbara. And so I had to, of course... create a very complicated four syllable name for our branding company. But I digress. I was in my early twenties at the time. I probably wouldn't have done a four syllable name now, but that's okay. So you fast forward into maybe like, twenty fifteen, when Colorado and Oregon were first legalizing recreational cannabis in California was right around the bend. We were also saying, hey, let's bring people together into almost like a symposium format into our office space, put on these events, have conversations about what cannabis is going to be eventually once cannabis rolled out and became recreational. Then we started having events with actual product, tasting events, bud tender events, industry, cannabis industry type events. And so if you kind of take these markers throughout my twenty four years of, you know, branding, marketing, media productions, events, the educational stuff, the cannabis stuff, put it all into a blender and wrap around this, you know, membership model outcomes district to sixteen. Man, there's so much there. And it speaks volumes of someone who's traveled with people like Jack Johnson, who's traveled around the world, who's been part of communities that have helped. And I love the attention to the fans. I love the direct connection between the artwork, whether it's an artist or a product or a service, and the people. Like cutting out the middleman, it just alleviates so much of the – real relationship there. And it sounds to me like that's what you're talking quite a bit about. What's up, Kat Kerner? She says, hi, Jacob. You know, it sounds to me. Say what's up to Kat. Yeah. Kat's amazing, by the way. I saw it said live like twice on the screen, but I didn't know we were actually live. That's awesome. Hey, Kat. Kat Kerner's got a big speaking event coming up at Iboga Saves in Denver. I can't wait to see what she says. And she's going to be on the podcast in a day or two. And shout out, Kat's going to be on our Death and Psychedelics panel in Santa Barbara on September. So just plugging a shameless plug for the two of us to co-create our future Death and Psychedelics event. Man, let's talk about that. Death and psychedelics, man. Like you get the, you take a big enough dose, something and you might not come back. And so many people right now are using psychedelics for the end of life, man. Tell me about this event that you got coming up. You literally nailed both in one sentence. That was amazing. We are creating this event around both of those things. End of life treatment. So Kat being a death doula is perfectly positioned to be part of our event. as well as ego death experiences and what can happen um on a large dose or a moderate dose really depending on the compound depending on the person and we're hoping to explore those edges one thing that I know a lot of folks have talked to me about is like how do I create an entry point for my baby boomer aging parent or you know family member um to try a psychedelic compound when they've had fear around that their whole lives how do we actually you know my dad um unfortunately died of cancer and through that journey this was like I brought cannabis to the picture um in terms of helping alleviate some of his pain and suffering and it was only always kind of a last resort for him it wasn't really that integrated into his his strategy, his health strategy. You know, the doctors weren't opposed to it, but they also weren't super embracing of it. So this attitude of like, well, okay, if it's this last resort thing, I guess I'll try some. And by that point, you know, again, it wasn't that integrated. So it wasn't that effective. So how do we get this, you know, front loaded into the conversations earlier before we're at, you know, final days, final weeks? Man, that's going to be an epic event. And it's so timely, you know, with such a large, like the boomers are, they're getting up there in age, you know, and all of us have, whether it's our parents or our grandparents, you know, and it's, it's, it's interesting because so many of the boomers came out of that sixties generation where we saw like a real explosion in psychedelics, but then it was like another thirty-five years of just say no, art link letter, you know, like all these things that are just so huge, man. Nixon, war on drugs, Reagan, just say no, DARE. Yeah. all of that. I bring it up often when I speak and that is what we're chiseling and chipping away at bit by bit, you know? Yeah, without a doubt. And I think it's making a real impact. You know, when you start seeing events like two sixteen and these different marquee events that you guys are having, where you're talking about all kinds of incredible things and more back to the idea of relationships, you got psychedelic science coming up and there's so many cool events. The psychedelic playoffs has an awesome event coming up and It's really chipping away. How do you see it unfolding? Do you think that we're able to continue this momentum with psychedelics into the decrim or the legalization or whatever route we take? How do you see it unfolding? Yeah. I mean, I wish I had a crystal ball. I think that there's a lot more momentum on our side, bipartisan momentum, when we bring the veterans angle into focus that really helps on a congressional, federal level. Have some bills attempted to be going through. We'll see what happens. More research happening. The VA is putting dollars behind psychedelic research. We have Ibogaine research happening. Obviously, Kentucky, I think, kind of fell through, but Texas is picking up the Ibogaine research torch and running with that. So I think that all signs point towards normalization. like that um of the fact that these compounds have so much to offer so much value to bring our our society so much healing and so many different uh sort of viewpoints of it and when it comes to actual you know de-scheduling I I think the new dea pick is pretty anti that so I'm not holding my breath in the next you know three plus almost four years that anything's gonna change in terms of scheduling these compounds without some kind of drastic, you know, FDA finding. But I don't see any of those on the horizon right now either after what happened last year with MDMA and the FDA. But that doesn't mean that locally we don't have a tremendous amount of efforts. In fact, you know, we have Decriminalize Nature up in Oakland that's doing a fantastic job. I think there are over twenty cities now decrimmed for plants, entheogenic plants and fungi. They usually do carve out peyote to keep that, you know, separate as it's endangered and sacred. But, you know, a lot of these other plants and fungi are now, you know, lowest priority for local law enforcement in multiple states and in dozens of cities now. And so those efforts we can continue locally. Yeah, it's really well said. And I come back to the word community. You know, it seems like we spoke about an aging population. And, you know, as much as there's an aging population, there's also a population of coming to age that are sort of going through like a rite of passage when you start looking at some of these younger generations that are discovering these entheogens and these plant medicines for the first time. And they're starting to move into the recreational phase. You know, and then you got these gen Xers in the middle that are kind of the bridge between Like that, that seems so much like the, the edutainment that you're talking about. Like you're kind of bringing all these groups together because you talk about the members that are playing a part. Then when they leave this, something like two, sixteen, they come out and they're telling their story about what happened. Hey, I met this person. I met that person. It's such a beautiful system. I really think it's the future, man. What are your thoughts on that? Thank you. I do too. And the reason I do even more and more as I experienced last week, I'm at our ninth marquee event, Mental Wellness and Psychedelics. It was amazing. About two hundred and fifty people in our space, which is, you know, near capacity for a little venue here in Santa Barbara. But the multi-generation connection is what... what draws me in more and more every time to see you know twenty somethings to eighty somethings every single marquee event and on wednesday nights on our smaller wednesdays which we'll get into in a minute but like yeah you know we have connections to the uc santa barbara uh psychedelic club and I'm I joked with them I'm like hey I had one of those when I was at ucsb it just wasn't formalized we were just out on the cliffs you know eating mushrooms but that was our club but but really I mean in in in that joke there is truth about where we've come because they're about harm reduction risk reduction they are about education I mean we had arrowhead um and we had like the nascent versions of the internet where we could kind of see some trip reports and maybe hear from a older brother or a cousin about what their experiences were, but we were going into it. Like I didn't know anything about like proper ceremonial approaches or therapeutic approaches or the histories of, you know, a lot of these compounds in, in, you know, MDMA with therapy through the sixties and seventies until now. And so when you have this like educated group of approach that's coming to our events and like calling out some of our vendors and saying like know what's actually in that or you know you know you should talk about this type of harm reduction before you give a sample out like that like they're the ones stewarding this ecosystem in in such a positive way that I've seen um even more than say like the gen x and baby boom that had the the previous experiences of the second wave of psychedelics so it's it's pretty inspiring to see that Yeah. And the connection between those two generations, it seems like it's been something that's severed. If you talk to a lot of the boomers that I talk to or a lot of the sort of elders that I talk to sometimes are like, man, these young kids just don't get it. And you talk to the young kids, they're like, these boomers just don't get it. But it's the bringing together and understanding of, hey, these people got some things to teach. These guys did some things right. Let's learn from them. And these kids are not late. These kids are working hard. hard over here and that they're up in a whole new world that you guys may not know a whole lot about. And so if we can really bridge that gap, I think we start bringing that unit back together and that's where some real things can get done. And I, I see it, man. Like what's up on Wednesdays. I know you had the marquee events and you do some big stuff, but what are the Wednesdays, man? yeah so I think the reason that we've had the consistency of growth and success okay as this new thing a psychedelic social club in a you know a hundred thousand person community a small community hour and a half north of los angeles sort of the secondary market to los angeles if you will we have this little satellite ohio community full of consciousness uh and education leaders there but I think like the reason that this has taken off is our consistency in in meeting every single week right other than a few holiday breaks through the year every wednesday night you can come for networking and then some sort of an activity And that activity varies. We have interviews. We do screenings of documentaries. We do roundtable conversations. Like I mentioned previously, some of our members inspired us to start that. And then also interactive workshops. of all different kind of topics. And so when you're coming, it can be, you know, a different experience every single week and you're meeting new people or you're seeing some of your familiar, you know, community members that you've seen, you know, often and frequently. So it's created this momentum to have this consistent weekly meetup. Yeah. Consistency is such a huge part of life. Once you begin moving in the direction you need to, it's just taking those baby steps forward or even those big steps forward that drive the whole momentum. Jacob, I got to get into some of these questions. They're kind of stacking up over here. Okay. Let's do it. Okay. Here we go. This one comes to us from Betsy. Betsy, I love you. She says, Jacob, are you building a platform or a new way for people to experience themselves? Nice question, Betsy. Wow, that's a beautiful leading question. So let's say yes and, because that's one of my favorite phrases and philosophies. So there's sort of the what and then the why in that question. The what being... Like we do have an online platform now. We use a third-party system called Mighty Networks, which is fine. It gets the job done. We have nearly a hundred pieces of edited content in this platform that all of our members can go in and watch on demand. And these are interviews from, you know, anything from like a neuroscientist talking about an LSD microdosing study to, you know, someone from a lineage in South America that's grown up you know, holdings, ayahuasca ceremonies and everything in between. So a big variety of topics. We try to have, you know, diverse voices as much as we can. We bring people in from, you know, around the country, sometimes internationally as budgets allow. So we are kind of opportunistic on a lot being Southern California based, but that's okay. We'll keep expanding that. So yeah, there's a great place for people to go online, regardless of where you are, and not just get video content and not just find resources there. But we actually launched a secular concierge service with a third party on that platform as well called Journey Home. And they're fantastic because they actually vet the seeker and they vet the guide and they make this match between the seeker and the guide based on their true needs, based on maybe where they're geographically located, what kinds of medicines they're seeking, what kind of a ceremony container or therapeutic container they might be looking for, what kind of trauma they may be dealing with. So really incredible group that does an amazing job vetting people. And I probably sent them a dozen or more guides of different types to vet into their system as well. So that's kind of the what answer to her question. Okay. But why I think is... you know more interesting and that is yeah I do think this is a way for kind of a different operating system for humanity and I think community is by far the the answer I think coming out of the pandemic and being so isolated that was one of the big reasons for the timing of this uh maybe kind of helped kick start um some of what was already brewing into action um And we've seen it time and time again, week over week, just people that feel more safe and more comfortable because they have this community to talk about their experiences, share their experiences, ask questions of their experiences, make meaning and make sense of their lives, and maybe live a little bit more in alignment. I love it. You know, the word experience... it seems like the ultimate education. Because you can go and you can listen to lectures and you can read books and you can go to school, but it's the experience that you have that really give you the tools to move forward in life. And it does sound to me like you guys are sharing a lot of different people's experience. And it's not a one-on-one. It's not like you listen to me. It's an interactive thing. You get to participate in it. You get to become part of the ceremony, part of the ritual. And that experience is... I think it's just such a better way to educate on so many levels because you feel as if you are part of something bigger than yourself. And that seems to have been lost a little bit in education over the last thirty years, where you go in and you get this degree and you're taught, you kind of talk down to on a level. It's this authoritarian setup. I really, really admire it. And Betsy, that was a great question. Thank you for dropping that in there. OK. The great Ranga Padamanabhan. I love Ranga. You are an amazing human being, and I think I got your name right this time. He says, Jacob, you've described branding as ritual. What does that mean in a world driven by clicks and conversations? Wow, what a great question. So... actually I kind of want to back up to the concept of culture because I think I think really culture comes down to ritual and it comes down to repeated actions so we actually I was in this ceo roundtable group for years and I had this guy come in really motivational presenter who created the booklets for the ritz-carlton hotel chain And these booklets were handed to every single staff member worldwide. Didn't matter what country, what language they spoke, didn't matter what role from dishwasher to, you know, management, everybody had the same booklet. And in that booklet was a series of values. And those values had a series of paired rituals or actions that were taken on a regular basis. And so at Roots Carlton around the world, every morning, there's a huddle and the whole team comes around this booklet and they open it up and they go value by value throughout the week. And so on a Tuesday and everywhere in the world, they're on the same page talking about what this value means, what those ritualistic sort of behaviors are like. and how that actually brings their customers and their people value back. And so I think there's something to, they've built such a distinct, specific culture out of those rituals. And so when you think about something like, I don't know, like a baseball game, right? We have all these things that happen. You got the seventh inning stretch. You throw out the first pitch. You have the national anthem. You get your hot dog like these rituals, these actions, these behaviors create a broader culture. And I think when we are talking about, you know, paying homage to lineages or certain certain types of historical groups that have used psychedelics in certain ways over time. like those can be looked at ritualistically those can be looked at through the lens of these things happen time and time again to create a culture around this um and one of the interesting questions that's been posed in our in our wednesday night interviews has been you know what what about modern you know interpretations of that like what is the Is there a right and a wrong? Like if you took a certain lineage and made it resonate more for you in the context of your set and setting, in the context of how you approach a psychedelic ceremony? And so can you bring these rituals and this culture and redefine it in a more modern context? I think that's an interesting question. Yeah. What was the answer to that question? The speaker was very in favor of it. He was like, hey, just because this one tribe did something this one way, yeah, we used to behead people. We used to rip their hearts out and eat it. So rituals and culture can evolve and change over time, right? We don't have to do the same things just because. Yeah, it's a great answer. And I think it's at the top of mind of so many people and so many interesting conversations that are happening. And why wouldn't it evolve? You know, language evolves and we redefine words. So on some level, why can't you? And I kind of know the answer to that. We should be mindful of those that came before us, but we should also be mindful that sometimes the container needs to change in order for the culture and the people of today to change with it on so many levels. Ranga, beautiful question coming in. Yeah, standing on the shoulders of giants, right? Yes. Yeah, without a doubt. Without a doubt. When you say that, standing on the shoulders of giants, I'm always reminded of Huxley. and brave new world versus the island. And on some levels, I feel like we're kind of at that precipice a little bit. For me, sometimes when I think about microdosing or some of these ways, I'm like, oh gosh, it kind of seems like Soma a little bit. It kind of seems like maybe this is a way to disassociate and stay productive instead of really making these big changes. But are we on the precipice between these two things? God, I love that. I think that deserves its own podcast. Yeah. By the way, you should definitely drill down into that. I think everyone's different. I think it just depends on the purpose and the why behind these products and these brands. If they're coming out with a microdosing product paired with an integration journal, paired with how to think about your daily rituals and your daily life. To be more mindful, well, then maybe that's more of a mindfulness practice than a microdosing practice. And maybe that's got a different kind of why behind it than, say, just some kind of cash grab MLM type product. So I'll leave it at that. Yeah, it's well said, and it's a thorny area, but it's worth having the conversation, I think, and we can all come out of it in a way that makes us all better. Okay, who do we got here? Neil, I see you over here. What's the biggest misconception people have about storytelling in the age of AI? Nice question, Neil. Thank you. God, I'm still wrapping my head around that myself, so I'm certainly not... know as advanced I try to surround myself with a lot smarter people and I've got some amazing machine learning ai folks in my orbit so I would pose this to them and then synthesize their answers and bring it back to you but I you know I will say like you know just from a real practical standpoint in our marketing and branding company we've embraced ai tools for for quite a while um you know at the end of the day my my thinking on the process is really you know human human on the front end ai in the middle human on the back end right yeah so what what are we trying to do sort of pre-production let I help optimize your production, and then you've got your QA, your quality assurance, you've got your sort of on the back end, like making it human again. And so if we sort of like use that as a container for how we interact with AI, I like to think of it as more of like my personal assistant. Yeah, that can get things done with me, instead of for me and, you know, brainstorming that way. But every every sort of sector is going to have their own answer to that, probably. And, you know, if it wasn't for AI, I don't think our scrappy little district to sixteen marketing team would be able to pull off all the content that it does. Yeah, it's well said. Neil, I love that. I can't help but see a huge connection between psychedelics and AI. I'm working with a collective of artists to bring some artwork to psychedelic science. Shout out to psychedelic science. Oh, cool. Art challenge. We're going to be at the Bogus Saves event. Everybody come check us out. What venue is that? Give another shout out. yeah so the canyon theater june seventeenth at one o'clock we're doing an event called iboga saves and we're going to have incredible speakers like uh uh dr dr mash is going to be there gareth moxie kat kerner will be there I'll be there lakshmi will be there and it's it's really diving I know the fishlies are going to be there patrick and michelle and there's they're really diving into um what Iboga can do and has done for centuries for people and trying to get the word out there about like, hey, this is serious business here. Here's the lives that we've saved. And if you look at someone like Gareth Monk, that guy's saved hundreds of lives. And I get goosebumps when I say it because I think that guy's a hero on so many levels. And the same with the Fishleys and so many people out there that are going out there and really sacrificing maybe a life of leisure to to be in the trenches and help people that really, really need it. And I, I'm so grateful for those people out there that are doing that. I think that's the, so much of the underground sometimes doesn't get the due that it's deserved. And so I just want to shout it out. Thanks for letting me plug that one there. No, I'm glad you did. I think that's really important. And, um, even for people that can't be out at the in denver for that week like hopefully this is something that we can help as district t-sixteen share some of that content even if it's clips or whatever trailers or however that works we'd love to get behind that I would love that. Yeah, it's a free event. The theater's free. So if you find yourself at Psychedelic Science and maybe you're priced out of something or a workshop, come over to the Canyon Boulder Theater. It's a free event and there's going to be an art gallery, so many cool speakers. It's also live on Zoom. So if you can't make it in person, you can watch it. I'll put the tickets in the show notes. And there was a hundred and ninety seats when we launched it last week. I don't know how many are left. There's probably maybe half or something. Get your zoom tickets. If you guys can, I would definitely love to get some district two, sixteen love behind it. So thank you for throwing that out there. It's yeah, for sure. Okay. Who do we got over here? And by the way, these questions are good. I'm kind of nervous now. I have the best audience in the world, man. Yeah. These are high class questions, man. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry to interrupt. Yeah. No, anytime you want to tell my audience, they're awesome, man. I'll just sit back. Yep. I know. I know. Yeah. This one, I don't have a name here. So put your name in the chat if this is your question. He says, how do you balance business with beauty? Metrics with mystery? God, that is such a great question. I'll set it up with an anecdote from my life partner, Carrie. My Jersey girl, she grew up in Jersey, worked in Manhattan for twenty plus years. years in brand licensing and she was putting creative deals together between like celebrities and products and putting out stuff that you would see, you know, a Martha Stewart meets what, you know, that kind of thing. And basically she got burnt out and left. And thankfully for me, moved out to the West coast where I, where we met, but her whole thing was like, as soon as the algorithms came in, creativity went out and it was just all about your influencer numbers and it was basically a race to the bottom on like we don't want to take a risk on anything creative we want to be sure that these metrics and you know the these numbers are going to drive bottom line revenue and that's all that mattered and so I think that um your question kind of alludes to that shift that's happened in so many sectors where it's you know we've kind of lost some of that the art the beauty the the organic humanness of what what used to be and now has become more about just numbers driven metrics driven algorithm driven decision making and not not that there's anything wrong with data driven decision making that's kind of part of our value proposition at my marketing company so I'm all about data driven decision making but I think there's definitely a way to balance you know the humanness the the beauty the art of it um and at the end of the day when it comes to branding or marketing or communications or storytelling people see through that and they'll feel something authentic and they will vote with their dollars and at the end of the day they'll buy something that feels more human more more more beautiful more connected so I I don't have the best answer for that other than you know keep being beautiful and making beauty and hopefully humans will continue to seek it and demand it I love that answer. I don't think it takes too much pulling back of the curtain to see what's happening. And at least when I pull back the curtain, what I see is marketing moving away from manipulation and more into meaning. The people that I watch, there's a young kid named Rowan. I think it's Rowan. But he makes these incredible videos that are like, boom, it's a snapshot looking up. And then it's a shot from this angle. And then he just laces it with a little bit of poetry. And I'm like, that's the future right there. That is a way. it's so different than, than all of the vanilla, you know, data driven action that's out there. And like you said, there's nothing wrong with data driven, but it's in some ways it makes it so much easier for people that are talented, that enjoy art and enjoy, maybe have a, have a nonlinear way of seeing the world for them to create content because they're like, let me show you how I see it. And when people get to see something new, they gravitate towards that. It's almost like it has its own sort of, you know, pull towards it. And you're like, wow, that's different. And then you really like the product. You know, a lot of times they're aligned like that. So, I think that's how you bring the beauty back. I think the beauty has always been here. It's just a matter of people recognizing how beautiful it is to be different on so many levels. We need it more than ever, I think. I like your answer better than mine. I like all our answers, man. That's what it takes is this conversation. Thank you. It's a yes and moment. Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, it's one of your favorite things to say yes and. And we start saying that more. All of a sudden, what's possible opens up in a way that wasn't before. So I love it. Okay. This is Lisa. Lisa, what's up? Thanks for being here. She says, what role does memory play in your work? And how do you think technology is reshaping what we remember? Woo! Lisa, thank you. I forget. I know. Sorry. Wow, memory. Like, definitely the themes when we have indigenous leaders or... know folks that have worked around different lineages with plant medicines for example when they come in there is absolutely a remembrance I think that's happening there is a reconnection there is these truths that you can just feel it's visceral it's like oh my god that thing was just said and like that piece of me just like re-emerged and reconnected those neurons fired in a way that like maybe they those connections weren't there since I was a child and all of a sudden it just feels true it's like when you have that inner truth that that that your own that's your own scientific method inside that that points you so I think that psychedelics can really help us remember things um and and of course there's the the more tangible literal like they can help us you know unearth maybe traumas that we've blocked or or different different memories that can help us heal as well but I think there's more of a broader sort of human societal remembrance uh kind of in our dna that we have opportunity to to reconnect with yeah I love that thank you lisa for for dropping that in the chat right there you know i But just the word remember, and I love the way you described it as sort of reorganizing and remembering, like you're putting the member back together. And you and I were talking a little bit before the show about sometimes difficult journeys help us to remember, or sometimes it's those difficult journeys that really allow us to become who we are. And I'll put you on the spot here, Jacob. Can you tell us a story about a difficult time you had with maybe one of these medicines or one of these substances or something challenging that maybe changed you a little bit? Yeah, I mean, probably probably early. So first of all, like a district to sixteen, we're all about every type of container. Okay. As long as there's, you know, harm, we'd like to say risk reduction instead of harm reduction. As long as there's risk reduction in that container, recreational, therapeutic, ceremonial. you know live music you you name it there's there's benefits to all um we're not here saying like this is the way this is one way there's not there's your way and so I feel like back in my late teens in the sort of college years when we were you know using psychedelics to explore play expand our consciousness you know grow connect with with our with our little community there in a way we were doing We were doing the ritualistic sort of culture building ceremonial and therapeutic Mechanisms without even realizing it and so, you know, there was definitely like some trips earlier on difficult ones where You know, dosing, I'm sure dosing had a lot to do with it. I mean, when we had a bag of mushrooms, we were just totally, it was just, we didn't, we didn't know. I didn't know what the word microdose meant. I don't think many people, this was late nineties. I don't think microdosing was really a fad on the college campus scene at that time. Um, there was like, uh, you're having an eighth or you're splitting an eighth and that was pretty much it. You know, that was kind of the measurement of mushrooms back then. One person makes the piles and the other person picks. Yeah, exactly. Ooh, that one, that looks, that was mine. So definitely mushrooms was the, was the compound that provided the challenges, the challenging experiences during those times, not always, but when I had challenging experience, it was definitely mushrooms and, you know, it probably created the most formative growth out of the whole thing. Um, He doesn't know what microdosing is either. Shout out to Greg. What's up, buddy? People still don't know what microdosing is. That's fair. It's a fair point. But, you know, we do like to say there's no such thing as a bad trip. There's only challenging trips, right? Like these are things that hopefully we can integrate at some point. And maybe it'll take us a year or five years or ten years. But eventually there's going to be some insights or some connectivity that comes out of it. Yeah. I love that. I'm going to put my friend Griggs. I love you, buddy. I miss you, man. Hey, and send me your artwork, please. How many times do I have to email you before you start sending me the artwork? Okay. I love you, buddy. Thank you. Yeah. He says seven G's plus. That's my boy. I love that. I love that. The only comment put up on the screen for me to visually see was that one. That's great. Well, I got a few monitors over here, so we're working with a few channels. Yeah, I'm focused on you, man. I don't see all this chatter. Yeah. This is good. It is. It's super awesome. And so much of those exploratory times in our youth or even now, they're so therapeutic in so many ways because maybe you're at an event or maybe – I remember – I'll tell you a story about a time. I had just come back from a dead show a while back, and I had bought like a sheet of white snowmen. And it was epic. And I came back and I'm like, we're all going to Disneyland. And I had like seven friends. And I'm like, yeah, we're going to Disneyland. It's going to be awesome. Day of the trip, only four people showed up. And I'm like, well, looks like we're doing all this. Not the whole sheet. I have brought like five hits for everybody. But if only three people showed up, that left an extra fifteen hits. And so... I remember we, we, we went to Disneyland having a blast and we went on feeling really good about three hours in about four hours. And we go to splash mountain on splash mountain. And we're just throwing water at each other. Woo. Come off the ride. And I'm just soaked. And I'm like, I got all these hits in my pocket. Uh-oh. You know, so I just, I ripped them out of my pocket. Like everybody go boom, boom, boom, boom. And so we all ate the rest of them. But then it got heavy, man. It got to the point where, for those who know, you know, like I couldn't talk after a while. And I was like, blah, blah, blah. You know what I was like? I had to sit down for a while. And like, it just got to a heavy moment. Like, what am I doing? I'm out here at this public place. I can't talk. I can't even do anything. But luckily I was at the happiest place on earth and everything worked out. Setting, setting there. So be careful. SLC punk. Did you ever see SLC punk that movie from the nineties where the guy had a sheet of acid in his pocket and he was running through sprinklers and Yeah, absorbed into him, and he wasn't quite the same after that. Yeah, and I should put that out with a disclaimer, kids. Be responsible. Anybody, whether you're a kid or an adult. Know your dose. Know your dose. Yes, yes. And sentence setting is quite important. Absolutely. Have a great time. Be careful and have a good support group with you to go out there and do that. But, you know, it's, it's those stories that, you know, when I, I can't wait, I'm going to come down and see you at some point in time. And I can't wait to sit down and you, and so many of these conversations are so cool when you're sitting amongst a group of friends and everyone's sharing a story and, Oh, let me share this one with you. So, and there's some real therapy in that too, talking about these moments happening right there. What, maybe you can talk about that a little bit. yeah so when we do these conscious connections monthly roundtables um in our space sometimes people bringing a story like that and it might start off funny or they might like have that humor guard up just to make it easier to share but ultimately something therapeutic can come out of that sharing and the feedback loop in the circle and it can become quite powerful um we've had you know people release things in those circles we've had people you know make connections and and realizations and and do real-time integration therapy uh in the community I mean we've witnessed this it's very a lot of time people are just kind of holding things and their bodies are holding things and they don't know what to do or what it, but intuitively they know need, they need to share it or that it needs to come out. And so then it can be the power of that community, the power of that circle to hold them and to help them, you know, through that, that process is quite powerful. Yeah. I love that. Jen, I see you over here. She says, I agree, George. AI is so much like psychedelics in terms of using it as a powerful tool wisely. So much education is needed on how to successfully merge these two since it's definitely inevitable. Jen, shout out to you. I can't wait to talk to you in a couple of days. Um, I think it's, I think it's a very beautiful point. And if I, if I were to come back to that a moment and really think about the merger of them, you know, when I use, I use a lot of large language models and I use a lot of image models and I can't help but shake the idea that there's something there. And that's what I mean. Like, it's so similar when on a high dose trip on a psychedelic trip, you're, in my opinion, you are. in the presence of an intelligence. And I feel that so much with the AI that I'm using. Maybe it's the lens I look through it, but if you're conscious about it, you're speaking to something bigger than you. And maybe AI is the collective experience of all of us. And same too might be for psychedelics. Maybe that's where that merger is. It does seem like the collective intelligence. What are your thoughts? That's exactly it. That is it, I think. I think A, psychedelics gives humans an edge that we can explore in very profound ways that I don't know that AI is quite there yet. We'll see. But what you just said about it is spot on. I mean, that is the collective, the oneness. And I think the more that we are contributing to these large language models in positive ways, and from our psychedelic community especially, the more that we're engaging with these AI models and tools, the more we can help craft and shape this collective consciousness in a way that hopefully has a positive outcome for humanity. Yeah, I love it. You know, if you have a tool and you don't use it the right way, it can still work, but it's not doing what it's designed to do. Like if I have a three fifty seven magnum, I could use the I could turn it around and use it as a hammer. But that's the wrong way to use it, you know. And I think a lot of people when they're beginning to use AI, you know, it's like, OK, I'll just put this in and then I'll ask for something back. But I think if you develop a relationship with whatever AI you're using. you really start to bring out more of yourself and it becomes more of a co-creation instead of just asking for something. So that would be my tip for people that are using it in a way. The incredible Clint Kyle psychedelic Christian podcast. If you haven't heard Clint Kyle's, he just put out a brand new episode and I really love the, he's got such an incredible delivery. Clint, thank you so much for being here. He says, do you have any advice for those considering starting a local psychedelic meetup group? Yes. So a couple practical notes for you, actually. I had no idea that there was a group, amazingly volunteer-run, called the Global Psychedelic Society. GPS. They're going to be at the MAPS conference in Denver. They're at all sorts of events, significant events around the country throughout the year. They're incredible people. I got to hang out with them at the Remind Psychedelic Business Forum in Vegas the last couple years. um amazing amazing people and they are a container for all the psychedelic societies globally I mean there's groups from lisbon and from germany and you know obviously u.s canada mexico but um it's amazing to see that they've they've kind of coalesced resources so if you have a specific question about like I think I might want to make my group a five oh one c three non-profit like where should i what do I need to know? This is the place to go for those resources or like, Hey, does anyone have a best practice on how to run an event out of a church? So you're to what you're doing, where they, you know, have these different requirements or how do we play nicely with partners in the community or whatever? They've got a great, you know, not just like written resources, but people you can talk to. So there's like a, a whole um they use the same system we do mighty networks they have a whole online community you can go in there and talk to people and find then they put out like a weekly zoom on different topics on wednesdays which is really cool same day that we do our evening events so that's first and foremost and then for more of like a um on boots on the ground answer I would say um you know your most passionate volunteers are going to be your gold I mean they're the ones that are going to make it happen so try to you know delegate and not do it all yourself try to have a a good solid core team and a secondary team of volunteers that can come in and really help you know, with logistics, if you're doing the events in person and you're, maybe you have, you know, food and whatever else, like try to have a good team around you. Those are my two tips. Yeah, those are excellent. Thank you for putting them out there. And I know Clint Kyle's will put them to put them to the test. He's an amazing individual. Yeah. It's so, this is one of the reasons I love the podcast. It's so cool to get to have people come on with experience and then have other people that are like, Hey, I'm thinking about this. And then to get that feedback in real time. So Jacob, thank you for doing that. I really appreciate it. Thanks for putting this platform together. This is amazing. I'm sorry that it took us so long to connect. Like our mycelium network was kind of like over here. And then finally. Yeah. Well, you know what? It's like you said, it's the mycelium. Like we had to make that connection, but now that we've connected, I can see fruits already growing out of it. You know, I'd love to talk to some more of the people that you know, and maybe some of the speakers I can play a bigger role in district two, I would be honored. You should come back on and do a panel with me and we'll just need you to grow it, man. And let's get more people out here that are learning and having fun doing it. Right. Like that's a huge part of it. Yep. Okay, here we go. Who is this one? Zanis. Zanis from South Africa. He says, at the end of the day, what kind of impact are you really trying to make on people, on culture, on consciousness? yes yes and yes great question um you know we say that it's uh you know connection education healing and consciousness expansion those are kind of like the four values or the four purposes or whys of of this um but you know you know when we started our mission was really around like normalizing psychedelics use in our daily lives worldwide You know, and that's anything from advocacy, policy changes, decriminalization initiatives, rescheduling initiatives, legalization initiatives. I know there's a lot of actually pushback on legalization versus decriminalization, another conversation, but you know, all those efforts to help normalize and create safe access. And back to that question about remembering, remembering where we came from and remembering the relationships that we used to have with these entheogens and with these psychedelic compounds um whether they're you know from the natural world or synthesized in a lab you know both a yes and to that as well and um you know looking at how these things can be um well, you know, the education around it can be well communicated out. Then people, again, have that safe access and are knowledgeable and approach it with respect and reverence. So that's the goal. Yeah, I love that. I think all three of those things are so connected in so many ways on people and culture and consciousness. It's so beautiful to get to see them all coming together. Then we're right back to relationships. What is the relationship between people and culture? What is the relationship between culture and consciousness? Can you have one without the other? Probably not. You need all those three things. They're like ingredients in a cake. The more you can get the right ratio on there, the more you see a better product at the end of it on so many levels. Jacob, this conversation felt like it took five minutes, man. And we're already coming up to this hour mark right here. Amazing. Same here. Yeah. It's amazing. I knew I should have done two hours on it, but don't worry. We'll be back. I'm glad I took a pee break before the hour. Yeah. As we're coming down to land in the plane, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Yeah. So district two sixteen dot com is a great place. Please subscribe to our weekly newsletter. We send out a newsletter every week that talks about what's coming up on Wednesday nights, but it also has other items in there beyond, you know, just our Santa Barbara physical events. We have partner content in there. And right now we're really promoting what is coming up next, which is Denver, June seventeen, June eighteenth. You have the little piece of artwork up there by my head for the psychedelic playhouse I appreciate you doing that um this is a two-night off-campus and when we say off-campus meeting psychedelic science the conference we're not you know in the convention center although it was nice enough for them to feature us as official You know side third party side events recordings off campus nights Tuesdays more of like a B to B business to business kind of mixer. Where we're having like a shark tank pitch component we're going to be doing some more like business workshopping networking workshopping stuff like that we're going to have. you know, some art and music and food, uh, both, both of the nights. And then Wednesday is more of the large thousand person. We're doing this at the Jonas brothers building in Denver. And, um, we expect it to be pretty spectacular. Some discussion panels, some comedy, DJs, dancing vendors, food, all the things. So, uh, come get a taste of district two fits teen out in Denver. If you plan to go to the maps conference, or if you're just a local resident and you want to come hang out, Yeah, that's a great point right there. I think it's going to be tremendous, man. And there's so many talented people that are going to be there, not just to do some networking, which everyone will be, but just to meet people out there and really get a feel for where the psychedelic movement is at. So if you're in Denver and maybe you're not going to the conference, definitely check out this psychedelic playhouse at the Jonas Brothers. It's going to be amazing out there. And we have amazing partners on this. I'm not alone. This is not an only District It's a joint venture, if you will. We've got some, a studio Delic has been amazing working with and Atlas consulting and Caesar and, and, and Diego all day and also Matt Ritchie and Rosner and cat Walsh. And we have, they're just an amazing team. Yeah, there's so many incredible people out there. Shout out to Christian and Diego and Cesar, everybody that you mentioned, man. They're all incredible people doing incredible things out there. And I'll put their links in the show notes as well. So, well, Jacob, I really had a great time. And to everybody in the comments, Ranga, Lisa, Betsy, Neil, Kat Kerner, Clint Kyles, Griggs four twenty. I love you, man. To everybody that joined in, if I missed your name, I apologize. Thank you so much for everybody being here. That's all we got for today. Hang on briefly afterwards, Jacob, to everybody else. We'll talk to you soon. Aloha.