Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. Hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. I got an incredible panel for everyone here today. This is the Shark Tank Aftershock. And before there was a stage, before there were judges, pitches, or even a name, there was a web of conversations, ideas colliding, visions clashing, values aligning. What most people saw as a single event was actually the visible layer of an invisible architecture. Today I want to rewind the tape because laying a foundation isn't just about logistics, it's about intention, intention and trust. The five architects here today didn't just host an event, they cultivated an ecosystem, one that will feed innovators, dreamers and pioneers long after the stage lights down. So I have with me today, Soon, Jacob Tell from District Two Sixteen, Christian Gray, Atlas Consulting, Henry Winslow, Tricycle Day, Kyle Rosner, Reality Sandwich, and Matt Ritchie, Inner Circle. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here today. I want to jump right into this. this whole podcast that we have today, and it's about the Shark Tank. So let me just throw this one to the crowd out here. When you guys think back to the first conversations that seeded Psych Tank, not the logistics, but the why, what were the core tensions, dreams, or even disagreements that shaped the foundation? Yeah, I'll jump in right away. You know, psychedelic funding in this ecosystem is very tough right now. There are a lot of good people who don't get the opportunity to share their entrepreneurial vision, have the right game plan to be able to approach VC investors and get money. And we really wanted to curate a space where people could feel comfortable and pitch their business ideas into a really vetted group of panelists and people really embedded in the space. They could really present their ideas in a nice, intimate setting and, again, get the time that they deserve and get real feedback. A lot of people kind of shot their business idea into the ether and nobody gets back to them or people are pretty harsh. So I wanted to curate that, that really inclusive environment and get the right people in front of the right audience and make sure again, it's a tough ecosystem for this emerging industry and make sure the right folks were able to get the time they deserved. Yeah, I'll add from my perspective. I mean, I agree with everything that Kyle said, for sure. And My opinion, sort of one of my guiding philosophies in life is like, if something is worth doing, it's also worth making it fun. You know, so when Kyle pitched this idea to me, sounded like a blast you know there's there's always a way to bring entertainment into something even when it's impact driven and so you know that's probably the underlying invisible piece that you're talking about george is yeah what's the purpose of even doing this but how can we wrap it in a layer that's like entertaining and can get people excited and I think that we definitely did that you know there was there was energy in that room and I have to say that you know for me I was like this is going to be something that will be a little bit funny maybe a little bit silly But once we were in there and it was happening, like it was legit, like the panelists, the judges all came from like really impressive backgrounds. And the three companies that ended up pitching were also like very impressive and different in their own ways. Yeah, two thoughts. One, I think it's important in the actual naming of the event, which was the psych tank, not the shark tank, because shark tanks have a connotation. And when people see the shark tank show, I think they think of sharks, right? And there's also a connotation in a term that's been going around for a while about venture capital being vulture capital. Right. So the whole idea that there's a predatory dynamic of the investors and the mentors like taking advantage of entrepreneurs is just like a bad box to begin with. So I think that there's some really smart folks involved in this that came up with PsychTank as a brand name for the event that really was on point. Another piece was I think the first kind of fast pitch shark tank I participated in was around nineteen ninety six. I'm dating myself a little bit. That's the hairline to prove it. And it was actually like a live stream Internet show, which that was pretty early days. And I was one of three judges evaluating dot com companies. And the model holds true, right? Getting smart people in a room that care to talk about interesting new ideas is always going to be a good time. I think entertaining to Henry's point. And then to Kyle's point, access to capital, like, you know, companies need resources and whether they get it from customers or they get it from friends and family or they get it from traditional venture capitalists is part of the game. um the other piece for me was I knew this was going to be are we allowed to swear on this thing yeah go for it a ton of work like these things are not easy to manage or produce the most recent one I was heavily involved in we actually had a full-time guy mike reed helped put on the hemp innovation challenge at the world ag expo and that was like a full-time job for three months So I know the level of effort and time and energy and sweat that Kyle and Henry and Matt and others put into this thing. And so I just want to thank him for the effort and the outcome. Yeah. You know, there was like, it was like standing room only. And when a lot of people, a few, all of us got to see kind of behind the curtain and see how it kind of came together. But it seems to me that like most events are built for visibility. This one felt like it was built for relationships. How intentional was that from the beginning? That was very intentional. In fact, that was the whole point. We had a very intimate setting. We only wanted to curate so many people who got up there to pitch. And we really, again, there were a lot of behind the scenes people doing vetting who even applied to get into this. We wanted to make sure there were real founders behind the scenes, no fly by night, people looking for money, real mission and intention behind people starting their business or looking to raise funding for the right reasons. again yes standing room only we we had a pretty intimate space but the seats were packed and you know crowded crowded room you know we had to we had to turn people away at the at the door there you know there was just would have been a fire hazard otherwise Yeah, I'd say another piece to the intimacy and the curation was really systemic to the psychedelic playhouse, right? Because the playhouse was like this bigger platform and the psych tank was one of the stars in the constellation that we were putting together. And there was a lot of thought and a lot of energy put into curating the panels, the artists, the DJs, the speakers. So I think it was all about relationships and all about, you know, I think there's a part of the conversation where we're going to talk a little bit about trust and these human endeavors, these community driven grassroots style events are really built on trust first and foremost. Yeah, it's a great point. Is this new to psychedelics? Henry, like when you think about the ecosystem that people are building here, and like you have a tremendous newsletter with Tricycle Day, is this like something that's new to psychedelics? Is this something intentional that we're kind of building out here, this ecosystem that Christian and Kyle are talking about? Is what new? Like the intentional building around relationships? Yes. I would say definitely not. Yeah, definitely not. It depends on what you're even looking at in terms of timeline for newness, but you can go way back and indigenous use is all built around community. But if we're looking at the modern era, even this so-called industry or ecosystem that's being built in real time, it feels very small if you've been working in it for any amount of time. You start to see the same people, you know, pitching in on different projects that aren't their own. Like it's not very much like you can sense that it's not ego driven. People are picking up slack and helping each other out because there's a common mission, you know, which is generally to increase access to medicines and reduce the stigma that's holding that access back. So to me, I mean, I think relationship is at the core of all of that. Yeah, so when I put up, I took some of the footage and I put it to my Discord, and there was a few kind of questions that came up. And I want to put these on the screen right here to get your guys' opinion. There's three different questions that came up, so we'll go through them one by one. I think we kind of answered that question in the beginning. You know, we really wanted to curate an inclusive ecosystem here. And that's something I think question we all struggle with in this industry ecosystem is we're balancing the capitalistic nature of the society we live in versus these indigenous medicines that are supposed to be healing us and us living in a more communal living situation away from the greed of capitalism. So definitely a wire balancing act. We're all walking on. We want to respect indigenous culture and do right by the community versus, hey, I need to pay my bills, unfortunately, and eat every day too. So, you know, I need to be making some money here and, you know, serve my family. So I think we did that the right way. Again, you know, these weren't greedy sharks looking to take advantage. We had a really curated panel of judges and behind the scenes folks who provided real intentional feedback and advice and they weren't looking to take advantage. We were giving value to these people. So yeah, I think we walked the nice fine line there. I think it's a really thoughtful question. And to Kyle's point, there's dynamic tension between over commercialization and the drive for succeeding with a new business. And there's folks that really only see plant medicine and psychedelics and serving the community and healing the healing nature of these plants. So I think it can be pretty polarizing, right? Like if this is sacred medicine, and it's a worldview, and it's treated as your belief system in a religion that's being honored, then it might be really profane to take those sacred things and sell them and commercialize them and monetize them. So I think there's some northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere dynamics going on. And I think there's some eastern and western dynamics going on. And frankly, capitalism and commercialization, right? But I know a lot of folks that are active and have been for decades in the underground. And they still have to feed their family, right? And pay rent. And so, you know, how folks choose to monetize this and what's appropriate. And I think, you know, it doesn't hurt to bring up the Netagoya protocol and right relationship with sacred medicine and plant medicine. and reciprocation which I hope all of these companies if they're successful bake into their business plan right and you see a lot I think there's a greater ratio of b corps or public benefit corporations in the psychedelic and plant medicine space than you see in other sectors so it's not as black and white as people want to frame it I think it's a continuum right and there's a third option which is you can do well while doing good yeah it's not an either or but I think there is a real conversation and in some cases debate about the sacred nature of these medicines and practices. Yeah. Henry, where would you weigh in on that? Yeah. I mean, I think these are all good points and I agree that the question is worth constantly asking ourselves, right? You gotta, you gotta recalibrate and make sure that you're not falling out of alignment with where you stand on these issues. Um, a couple of things I would point out are one, That aside from the question of like, you know, we have to take care of ourselves in order to continue this work. You know, the, the fundamental idea of capitalism is that it takes capital to actually make these ideas built, you know, they need to get bigger and reach more people. So it's not just about paying the founders, you know, it's about allowing their, their products, their services to reach more people. And then the other thing I would point out is that. you know, while these questions of, you know, extraction and cultural appropriation do loom and they're worth asking, you know, none of these companies that were pitching on that day were actually selling, you know, psychedelic substances directly. There was a company that was helping therapists with like a music technology. There was a company that was creating alternative ways to scale production of psychedelic substances, you know, through biosynthesis. And then there was another company that was, you know, kind of building a system to help the emergent state regulated marketplaces connect demand. So, you know, I think all of these things are actually helping with the broader mission, you know, that I alluded to earlier, everybody's trying to increase access and it needs to be done responsibly and safely and that takes money. Yeah, it's a great point. There's also a more conventional answer So a whole different perspective coming up, a more like, hey, look, these guys got to be able to have a fine, clear-cut idea if they want to raise money. Jacob, thanks for being here, Jacob. I appreciate it. Welcome into the chat. We were just kind of going over these different questions. But what do you think about when you read that last question, Jacob? I actually cannot read any questions on my screen right now. It's in the climate. My bad. My bad. Good morning. I see... Oh, in the comments. Thank you. There we go. Let me see if I can... Let me go over to comments for you right now. There we go. I can put it right on stage here. Perfect. So... This one comes to us, he says, pitching is a discipline. If these founders can't tell their story in five minutes, how are they gonna raise five million dollars? Investors need clarity, confidence, and a path to ROI, not a philosophy class. Isn't the pitch stage the perfect training ground to sharpen these skills so they can win resources without losing their soul? Yeah, I think it's about distillation, really. Can we distill that message down into something bite-sized? Because at the end of the day, this is about storytelling, and if you can't tell your story authentically and briefly, then it's going to be harder as you go up and up and up with more detail. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Matt, Richie, thank you for being over here, man. We miss you. Stoked you're here. Let me continue just to move down some of these questions here. So we've talked a little bit about vision and scaffolding, but what you built with Psych Tank wasn't just a stage. It was an architecture of trust, not the surface level kind, like real structural trust that holds space, scales across networks, and keeps coherence without control. In most industries, trust is an afterthought. Here, it felt like the product itself, maybe even a KPI we haven't named yet. So let me jump into these questions here. How did you know that trust was in place? At what moment did you guys feel this isn't just personal chemistry, this is structural, it's holding space? Do you want me to jump in on that? I just got in here. Yeah, that's a perfect one for you, man. The format here. Well, thanks for having us, George. I apologize for being late here. I got two young kids and they're still banging on my door here. They love you. You know, creating space is something that, you know, structural space is interesting, right? Because everything's a container and we set it up from the people that the environment that we set up for the container to the agenda for the container, right? So creating these intentionally structured spaces where people have a specific experience is something that I've been doing for years in different capacities. So the site tank was a really cool way to do that in a business focused setting where we bring in the right people and have the right structure and agenda for people to feel the excitement, the intensity and or the future and the focus of how this industry is moving forward in a way that is hopefully cutting edge and bringing more people into the fold as far as different ways to consume these compounds and different safety mechanisms that people feel excited to jump in and actually have an experience with. yeah it's a great answer you know every one of you is an accomplished entrepreneur and accomplished individual and when I think about trust I'm curious how you guys build that organically like when you guys all came together for psych tank was was trust like how do you measure the trust of the people you're working with like how did you guys measure the trust between yourselves I don't know if there's a measurement like a measuring stick I think trust is critical to like all human endeavors you know I think a lot about like building bridges right and Arguably, we're trying to build bridges between entrepreneurs and the plant medicine community and traditional business or capital markets through the event We're building bridges with each other right the team that was putting this psychedelic playhouse on and I think your gut right intuition tells you who you should or shouldn't trust at times and sometimes you get it wrong You don't always get it, right? but I think It's really fundamental and systemic and organic in the plant medicine and psychedelic communities that you have trust, right? Because in the underground, you have to have trust because of law enforcement and regulatory frameworks. I think in ceremony, you have to have trust, right? You have to trust the medicine. You have to trust the space holder or the medicine people. It's all about trust. And I think that what we tried to create in Denver was an extension of that. But I'd love to hear what the other guys say. Yeah, I think for me it was like just over time with these guys and everybody on the team, it was actions over words. And for the people that were kind of new to me, you know, everybody had some kind of context, whether that was being colleagues or some kind of working relationship or, you know, doing some kind of production work together or just watching each other, you know, at events or how we communicated each other's stories. I think it really came down to like actions and just, you know, watching each other and knowing what value system that we share. So this was like there was like a whole nother dimension to this event. And like in a traditional pitch event, success is often measured by capital raised. But in this ecosystem model, what are the but in this ecosystem model, what are the deeper forms of capital we should be tracking? How do we elevate relational, reputational and even spiritual capital as legitimate outcomes? I think you kind of answered that question right there. We vetted fifteen plus people before we allowed anybody into the quote psych tank. And again, psychedelics and plant medicine is still such a small community. Stories get around and people are really intimate with each other's relationships here. So this ecosystem is still very small. Everybody knows everybody. who's been doing what. So, you know, just Jacob curating this environment, everybody who came, whether they bought a ticket or were part of the actual production was pretty vetted and was a good member of the community. Were there specific parameters you were looking for when you were vetting people? Obviously there was lots of people. So how did you decide who was a right fit for it? Yeah, that's a good question because I feel like everyone's here is putting pieces of the puzzle here together. But yeah, trust is something that is kind of built. Like you can say you trust someone, maybe you do until you work with them and then maybe trust them more or you trust them less. So that's kind of half the thing. Like, oh, I trust this person. I've seen them around or I know of them. They're doing great things. Let's see if we can build together. And then from there, you build trust along the way. It's a continual thing. You're either gaining trust or you're losing trust. And of course, this was a pretty cool experience to kind of gain trust within the core group of people who were building together but also within the community that we delivered the value we said we're going to deliver like that builds trust all around yeah it's a great point what about like relationship driven growth like we always hear about like relationship driven growth but what are the practical mechanics of scaling an ecosystem through relationships Yeah, I think relationships in general through trusted relationships, right? When you put trust in front of the word relationship, it's very different. I can say I know someone. Hey, you should talk to this person or that person. But if I say it's a trusted relationship, or often I'll use language like values aligned, If I introduce Henry to a vendor in the space whose values align, then I'll pretty much be telling Henry that these folks are acting within the letter of the law. They're not bending things that should not be bended in the current regulations in certain jurisdictions. I'll be signaling to him he might be able to trust them off the bat, that they're actually going to do what they say they're going to do when they say they're going to do it. versus just like, oh, here's someone on LinkedIn you should talk to. So I think that people gain trust, they build trust, and then they can extend that trust to others. So a lot of what I tried to do here was just support the guys doing the psych tank by introducing them to people. that are potential entrepreneurs pitching or potential judges or people that can add value to the conversation. And I hope that they trust me and they trust my judgment when I introduce them to folks, that I'm not introducing someone that's going to be a bad apple or upset or break things. And if I may, you know, I think a lot about trust because it's pretty essential to what I do in my business. So, you know, one thing that hasn't been said yet that I think is pretty important around measuring trust and how it accrues is that it takes a long time to build up trust, but for it to erode can happen in an instant. You know, one false move and you can erase a whole mountain of trust that you've built over time. And it's hard to recover that. And the reason I think about it quite a lot is because Tricycle Day's primary mechanism of driving revenue is sponsorship. so you know tricycle day is a free newsletter the the end user doesn't pay anything to get the content that I put my heart and soul into uh creating every week and over time you know that builds trust among my audience in tricycle day and so essentially when I run an ad placement for a sponsor I'm saying I trust this group so you should trust them too and that trust confers over and if i misstep there and end up recommending something that is not worthy of trust, then that reflects on me as well. So, you know, trust is a double-edged sword. Yeah. It's a great point to think about how contagious the nature of trust is. Like you're lending your credibility to everybody out there. How do you think, like, if we can go around the horn here, what what was something that each of you learned from doing this particular event like you want to start with that one christian like what was something that you that you learned that was totally new to you or that something that you really admire about this event Well, something that I learned was during there was a training session. I don't remember what, Matt, you guys called it with Delilah talking to the greater group, right? The ten or fifteen potential entrepreneur pitches and kind of tuning them up on their pitch or what's important. And during that session, I think I was surprised to hear some of the entrepreneurs talking about businesses that maybe aren't ready for public consumption or in this current framework aren't would not raise a lot of money from traditional investors because of the nature of the business itself. And I was just it felt so obvious to me that you might not go to an investor and ask for money for a business that's not yet legal. Yet there was people talking about businesses that absolutely were not legal. And I'm like, wow, that's that's surprising. But maybe I shouldn't be surprised by the space anymore. Jacob, what about you, man? What was something that you learned at this event that kind of blew you away? We're going to need a bigger boat. Man, standing room only. Can you guys believe it? I mean, here we were going, oh, this place holds a hundred and fifty people. It should be fine. I think we sold about two hundred and twenty tickets to that place and their ceremony room was filling out. I mean, there were so many people that wanted to kind of feel you know, the energy and the exchange between the judges and these people that were pitching. So, you know, I'm glad that there were cameras and we captured this because I think we can kind of learn how to scale this up. And we've been talking about maybe doing this in another forum coming up in another city. So we'll see. Yeah. Kyle, what about you, man? What is something that, like, as you went into there that you saw that you didn't expect? What did I see that I didn't expect? Honestly, the turnout of volunteers that we had supporting the ecosystem around the psychedelic playhouse and the psych tank just really shows the power of community in this space. And again, goes back to vetting the right people and putting trust out there. Always need more volunteers than you think you need for a big event, for sure. Whether that's somebody just making sure the vibe is flowing, making sure trash is being taken out, helping pre-set up for the event and post-breakdown. Super important. You know, always really good to make sure you plan for extra hands on deck. And we definitely felt the love at the psychedelic playhouse and psych tank with just the outpouring of volunteers and people who, you know, stayed late or came early to really help out. So always plan to definitely have more hands than you think you need for sure. Yeah. Henry, what about the venue? Like it seemed like a really like comfortable place for people to get up there and be comfortable about what they were doing. What do you think about the venue and the different venues changed the aspect of the pitch or the vibe alone? That's an interesting question. You know, that place, the plant magic cafe is kind of an iconic establishment in Denver. It was my first time ever going there, but I had heard stories, you know, so it's kind of, it's got this legendary, reputation to it and you could feel the energy was it was palpable in there it was a supportive environment to the conversations that were happening there so I could definitely see that putting people at ease I won't be able to say for sure you know what the difference is until we have an av test so we're gonna have to do another one in a different venue and see how it compares Let's do it. Yeah. Let me throw this one out there to all you guys. Like, was there something like that happened behind the scenes where things got chaotic? We're like, maybe you guys were coming together and you're like, wait a minute. I don't know about this or I'm not sure about that. Or was there something behind the scenes that maybe people didn't know about? Yeah. everyone all at once yeah right well the uh honestly we initially had two days at the same magic cafe right we're like night one night two and then we're focused on that I'm focused on the psych tanks working I'm focused on that and then jacob comes out it's like hey we're gonna get a venue that's you know three times as big or four times as big and I'm like are you sure like that seems a little bit uh you know rash at this point but he had the vision and he had the people around him to actually help him enact that hey for the record I was not sure And that's why you're a leader, because you do things that you're not sure about, but you're doing it because you know you have the supporting pieces that you can make it happen. Whether we succeed or not, whether we execute and make the end result there, you saw the vision. And I didn't see that. I was too focused on the psych tank, and I was just in the other thing. So the vision that you had for that was awesome. I didn't have that vision. I wasn't excited initially when you said that. I'm like, that's a big push. That's a lot. From a hundred or two hundred tickets to a thousand tickets is like five X. So that was my biggest thing. I was like, woof. But obviously it worked out for the best. Yeah, I know. I know we're talking about the psych tank here, but this is related. So while we were in Denver, I caught Alex and Alison Gray give a talk at the portal down. And one line that Alison said that really landed with me that feels relevant to this moment is she said one of the telltale signs or like the hallmarks of a visionary creator is that you say yes before you know how you're going to do it and then you figure it out. So it's the commitment comes first and then execution comes from that commitment. Hey, I resemble that comment. What about like, let me ask this one too. Was there a certain pitch for each of you that like really stood out? Like I know that each of you have a different lens to which you see psychedelics. And I'm just curious to maybe anyone that wants to take this. Was there a particular pitch that really resonated with you that like, oh man, this was an incredible pitch or let's just go around the horn here. Kyle, let me start over there with you, man. Was there a particular pitch that you saw that really hit home for you? And why? Yeah, this guy, this guy share his pitch for his company, Tryptogenics. He's really doing some scientific groundbreaking things. And that really blew me away. Just the science and the scale that he's going to be able to produce a lot of these substances and kind of take us into the next generation here of plant medicine. You know, he's got state of the art lab in San Diego. He's, you know, well connected and, you know, was really awesome to kind of see him take center stage there. And again, I've blown away by the science that he's doing behind the scenes on the future of plant medicine. Jacob, what about for you? When you got to be there, was there a particular part of the psych tank that like blew you away, whether it was a pitch or maybe it was a judge, but what's standing out for you? Yeah, I mean, it was the whole container, like the way these guys set it up. Honestly, you know, what I walked into, I didn't have to like zoom into all of those details. So for me to kind of see how it unfolded and walk into that space and just to know that there was like a panel of judges, you had this moderator, these guys that were had already vetted through the groups and then to have them kind of go in there with an audience was really cool to see that actually just like express itself in that moment. To hop in really quickly, what I really appreciated was the opening poem from John Zendowski, one of our panel judges, really, I think, set the right vibe and intention for the space. Yeah, the human element was pretty awesome as far as the judges. And then I just gotta give shouts to Delilah. She was the MC and I've been a part of a lot of events and she was on time. Everything was perfect as far as the timing and the, you know, we actually had extra time at the end, like a couple of minutes extra, which never happens. So like the ability for her to hold that space make everyone feel welcomed and excited, keep everyone, you know, in line and keep rolling. It's a skill, it's an art. So I just want to give her a shout out for that. But we had amazing judges, as Kyle mentioned, there were some really cool people doing, they're in the space, they're doing interesting things. So it's just a really interesting conglomerate of humans that were coming together to talk business and see who's the best. But in regards to the best pitch, we looked at them all. So, you know, we've added fourteen or fifteen different pitches. We can only get three people on stage. Honestly, at least twelve of the pitches were stage worthy. They were really good. We had really good submissions. So, you know, share one. So we got to give him his props. But we had some really, really awesome pitching. It blows my mind to think about how it all coalesces. I mean, if you look at Tricycle Day or Inner Circle or Atlas Consulting, Two Sixteen, Reality Sandwich, like every one of you has people around that want to be part of this event. Was that a major factor in like everyone reaching out to their own network to find out who might be best suited for this event? I think that everybody that contributed not only to the Psych Tank, but to the Psychedelic Playhouse added value. Like every note on the network, like every person that bought a ticket and told one friend about it, every community partner, every media partner, and folks like Kyle and frankly, Matt and Henry are wearing multiple hats, right? They're media partners doing one thing over here, but they're also running Psych Tank over here. Like there is a lot of people wearing a lot of hats. And so I just think that the accretive value of all that is very hard to measure, right? Because there's trust that we talked about, there's prior relationships, there's people are leveraging their platforms and their reach, there's, you know, people like Delilah and John showing up to be judges. I mean, those folks are world class business people, that, in some sense, I'm saying this with thought, with forethought, no business being in that room with us. Like how did we get them into that room in Denver in this little Victorian house to hang out with us? Like that's prior relationships and trust. And there was something in it for them. They wouldn't have come if there wasn't, right? There wasn't an act of altruism or just totally showing up because they care. They care and they want to know these companies. They want to get to know them. They want to see what's coming. And that's part of the fair exchange and the cool dynamics of it. you yeah go ahead it's literally like the the model built on the mycelium network I mean we we wouldn't and couldn't do this without you know the yes ending of like hey matt you know so and so let's bring them into the next zoom call and do a pre-production meeting about this and then all of a sudden it snowballs into a new component that needs support by another dozen volunteers I mean that's how it unfolded literally kind of week by week month by month so um yeah I mean I think that the trust theme is is strong with that too but um also it's like everybody's coming values driven everybody's coming with the same kind of generalized globalized intentions in mind um and we're not just there you know it's not just like a cash driven situation so I mean you know that at the end of the day like we do share that value set which is huge I would love to flip it around back at you, George. You weren't just an observer, you were a participant and contributor. Why did you get involved in it and why did you feel like it was worth sharing with others? who who is this question to for you this question yeah you didn't think you didn't think you're gonna be in the hot seat today how dare you guys turn this around on me you is that the right you know what for me like this was an incredible event to be part of like it was sort of my first foray into leveraging my platform into actual contacts And I wasn't sure what to expect. And there was times like a lot of the times I felt out of my depth, like when I'm around all these people here, I'm in awe. Like I see everybody here and so much of the volunteers in the community as teachers. And so I felt like this was an ongoing learning process for me. And the deeper I got involved, the more comfortable I got because I realized everybody was learning. Everybody there was beginning to find a hat to put on or finding a role to play. And for me, it was an incredible insight into what the psychedelic community is capable of when people come together. And it was about trust. It was about learning. And I had some really outdated ideas about righteousness and what's right or what's wrong. But what I learned in this whole community is everybody here is putting their best foot forward to build something bigger than themselves. And that, I think, is the foundation of what the psychedelic community is doing. This is a real opportunity for all of us to build something bigger than all of us. And I see it with each one of your individual platforms, your services and your products. And when we bring that out into the community, I think it resonates. I think it's contagious. whether it's Jennifer Love or Kyle or Diego or Caesar, like there's so many incredible people right now at this time in history that are fundamentally making a difference in their community. And one of the biggest things that I saw that I'm excited about is what people brought back from this event. People are still talking about this event. And it's almost like we went to this giant well and we all got a bucket of water and we brought it back to our communities. And now we're serving our communities with these lessons that we have learned. And that's why I wanted all of you guys here. I don't think this is a one off, you guys. I think that this is something that is contagious. I think it's something that can go back out into the community. I think you're seeing a real brand being born in real time. with real communities and each person has their own community. So like that is just part of what I've learned. It's so exciting to me to think about the future of what this can be and what it can spin off. If you look at each person that gave a pitch and you look at their own businesses, you get a real deep look into people's dreams. And that is the contagious nature of psychedelics to me. What are your guys' thoughts on that? That was a mic drop. That was a mic drop moment. What do you mean, what do we think of that? That's how you're going to start the show when you promo this. Come on. Clip it. Clip it. Yeah, I think, George, so much of what we're talking about, and thank you for hosting this conversation. bringing the puzzle pieces together, right? Because I think so many folks have either sat in the audience and attended or were a judge. They have the corners of the puzzle, but they don't see all the pieces. And arguably, the team that produced it sees all the pieces and what it takes to bring it together. So if you only know the edge pieces or if you only saw this corner, you really don't know what's going on. I, you know, we've talked a lot about trust. I don't think we can talk enough about it because when people, entrepreneurs specifically, even apply to participate in something like this, they're putting themselves out there and it takes courage. And then to understand they're going to be competing against other entrepreneurs. Well, now is that, is my dream more important than that guy's dream? Is my solution going to heal more people than that guy's solution? Like that gets nutty. And then the really trusting people the psych tank and the people producing it to be fair arbiters of what's valuable, right? There's a lot of subjective evaluations going on. You're only putting three people on stage. I think when the Hemp Innovation Challenge happened, there was like, three hundred submissions. And there was only twelve people, right? So you get a lot of pressure, downward pressure on selecting. And For an entrepreneur to trust strangers, arguably with their dreams and hopes, and know that it's going to be taken care of and that they're going to get value out of it, whether they win or not, whether they get a check, whether they find an investor, just the promotional value, having people beyond themselves and their close friends learn about their business for the first time, it's a huge value. And let alone people like John Sandowski or Delilah being aware of their business and their vision. There's so much good that can come out of it, but it really does start with trust. I mean, I think back to that value system that we all share, like what we did without being conscious or not conscious of it was we held the space so that these guys and everybody involved could be heard and seen. And at the end of the day, that's what most of us in this human condition will do something for beyond some monetary exchange. It's like being in this community, being heard and seen, being part of something bigger. and that's what this platform did yeah I couldn't agree more what is it so if we look at this is like sort of the the first initial run of it what is it like moving forward I mean are there going to be continued events like I'm hopeful that maybe there's something that happens at mj bizcon or other events along the way but how does this thing look moving forward like what what are the next steps to move it forward and can it be moved up where there are you know three or four hundred submissions or five hundred submissions? Like, what does that sort of framework begin to look like when you look out forward for anybody? As a media professional, you should know what an embargo is. News gets released on certain dates. I'm still learning. It's the exclusive scoop. We are looking at MJ Biz. That is the next potential here. But I mean, why not? Why not get the band back together, man? Come on. Yeah, I love what you said there about having like potential three hundred submissions, because we did have a lot of great in the twelve we had. And I can just imagine if we extrapolate that out to, you know, three hundred great submissions and we had a room where we could hold three hundred people as opposed to fifty. That feels exciting and that feels like the next evolution of this, at least with the site take portion. So, yeah. Well, I also think the model itself could be extended. Right. So there's the event, the day of and all the pre-work and a bunch of work that goes into it, you know. Capital is changing, access to capital is changing from cryptocurrencies to what's happening off a token platform. George, you might imagine somebody creating a psych tank token and you could buy a token and maybe invest those tokens in a startup. I don't know, but even without getting that kind of wacky, you know, crowdfunding has been around for a while. The regulators approved it. And you have things like Crowdfunder and Kickstart, right, that have really changed access to capital. And they allow the little guys to get in investments earlier than they used to. And it's changed the game for investment banking, for private equity, for venture capital. And so there's several investments I've been able to access in the last couple of years that I wouldn't have ever had a chance to invest in, say, ten years ago for a similar company at the similar level of maturation. So depending on what happens to the same site tank and psychedelic playhouse in the future, I think you can see more of these conversations and potentially some scale to it. Man, I love that. You know, on some level, and I don't want to get too far out in the weeds, but it almost seems like what you guys have built and what everybody in the psychedelic community is building is like a parallel economy. When you start bringing in people with dreams and ideas and having them pitch to investors, like you're almost building this parallel economy, one of trust, one of maybe if you threw a crypto in there, but more of trust and respect, especially with something like psychedelics. It's kind of in between above and below ground. Henry, what do you think about this whole idea of like parallel economy and what psychedelics is bringing through Shark Tank and Tricycle Day and all the events that you're doing? Yeah, it's an interesting framing for it. I don't know if I would have put it that way exactly, but I do think about this idea a lot, like operating in this space in particular, and what that adds, like the nuances and not so nuanced, you know, layers that that adds to the already overwhelming sometimes challenge of entrepreneurship. And, you know, actually, I've already stayed longer than I said it was, so I'll just do my final thing and then I'll drop off here. We've talked a lot about trust on this call with good reason. And there's the one thing that I think we have not touched on that I think is a really big, important component of that is trust in oneself. To be an entrepreneur in psychedelics or otherwise requires almost a certain level of delusion. Like you have to believe in yourself so much, even when everybody, it feels like sometimes it's telling you like, that's a bad idea. Don't do it. You're risking too much, et cetera. Um, and so to any, you know, entrepreneur who's listening to this, maybe you submitted for the psych tank or you're thinking about submitting for the next one, like remember that. And if you're questioning yourself, like that's a normal part of the experience and try to find ways to connect to trust in yourself. And then as that, with that as a foundation, when you come to an event like this, it feels like such, you know, weight off of your shoulders and a relief. to be in an environment where you get that trust from others who see what you're doing and believe in the greater mission. Because to Jacob's point, a lot of us are working on, from an abstracted enough view, the same mission. And so that feels really good. And I think that's one of the best things about this event and what I want to see carry forward in future iterations of it. So with that being said, my trust in all of you guys has continued to build as we've done this together. Matt said it's something that continues to build, and I definitely feel that. And George, you're more of a new relationship with me, but I'm building that trust with you too. So I want to thank you for hosting this conversation. It's been a pleasure to share with you guys. until the next one I'll see you guys thank you so much for being here everybody go check out tricycle day in the show notes an incredible newsletter and one of the most beautiful things about it is that it's consistently great every week it's consistently great thank you for putting in the hard work I really appreciate it thank you the true pioneer henry thank you so much see you guys thank you man so stoked to have him here and talk to him And then there were five and then there were five. What about, let me, let me throw this one out here to the group. Like when you're architecting something this fluid, how do you balance intention design with allowing for the unexpected? We talked about trust. We talked about coming together, but are there other dimensions that you could bring up when expecting the unexpected? I mean, that's what Christian hated about working with me, I think. Right. The fact that we had. There's so many things I hated. This framework that, that, you know, was an organism, this ebb and flow of, but to that point, I mean, how many of those, you know, brilliant ideas did you throw at, at it last minute that that framework allowed for? I think the best idea was a parking lot that we rented that no one used. That was awesome. That's some behind the scenes magic right there for sure. You got to be able to roll with the punches for sure and just go with the flow and let things evolve. Like, you know, we had a little freak out trying to set up for the psych tank. Like, oh, is there enough power outlets or extension cords to make sure we can get the projector working and make sure everybody can even present their thing. Like, you just got to, you know, we see this every day. You just got to roll with the punches and breathe and just, you know, manifest that everything is going to work out fine. That's a good point, Kyle. Never stop breathing. Never stop breathing. There's always things as a leader, as someone who's creating something, there's always going to be things that you have a frame of what your vision of what you're creating. And then there's always things that take you off of that, sometimes in good ways. Like we just mentioned, we had a frame for the smaller venue, vision expanded and Jacob stepped into that. I think the continual evolution of ideas and the sharpening of swords between great leaders, great players together, that's where we all have our own sort of unique vision for it. And then we come together and how does that form an even bigger, better vision than either of us had individually? And that's kind of the power of a collective of leaders who are not ego driven in a sense like it has to be my way. And this is the vision. You guys are all in my space. How are we co-creating this vision together in a way that is bigger than we all could have expected? I think one of the points you're hitting on with the question, George, I've learned it from my own personal experience, but I think I've seen even more of it with my wife's work as an executive producer of large scale events with thousands and tens of thousands of attendees and multimillion dollar budgets is that you have to be okay with things just happening. You can plan all day long and have all the contingencies and You know, Jacob knows I might be a bit anal retentive with my spreadsheets. But, you know, he's got his own spreadsheets. We have spreadsheet wars. And then shit happens, right? Day up, right? You know, this door gets locked or that person, like, someone no-shows or there's a speaker missing. That's just the nature of events. Live events are very, very, very different than almost anything else in this God's green earth. And you have to be, I think... mindful that stuff's going to happen. And by not freaking out, you don't freak out everyone else, right? If Jacob had a meltdown because we didn't have enough power outlets or there wasn't enough space for this or that, then everyone else is going to freak out. He's got to stay calm and know that people are losing their heads. Same for Kyle, same for Matt, same for anyone that was in the leadership role. And then I think without getting too metaphysical or spiritual, like the word grace, right? Like giving each other grace when shit doesn't go as expected and not blaming or judging. Like everyone's doing their best. We're all running around like chickens at some point. Like just give each other grace when stuff doesn't work or give yourself grace when it doesn't turn out like you hoped because you're doing your best. Yeah. I want to argue too that these tension points might actually be an unsung highlight because it is those tension points. It's those small disasters that happen that actually bring people together, whether it's having a vendor out in the back area that doesn't want to be out there because it's too hot for their product, or it's those little things that come up that actually make the team coalesce around each other and solve the problems. And then you look back at how you solve those problems and you gain the confidence of working with people. so I think that some of those tensions some of those small disasters might be the glue that holds everything together for the next show it's like you begin to build confidence and problem solving so like it's it's cool to talk about those tensions it's great to think about those events as like oh yeah we've seen this before and I think that's what actually makes the next event even better is that growing confidence in one another to realize that you can solve whatever problem comes your way I mean, you guys were all, George and Matt and Kyle, you guys were all on Wednesday carrying tables and chairs before and after the event, you know, till God knows what time. wouldn't have been able to to to get that stuff down there without you all that wasn't part of the job description that wasn't you know we had volunteers for that supposedly but you know it's like the friction point and me telling you george we got to do a walk through now we're about to open doors let's go and that's actually to your point probably when I got to know you best yeah probably when we had some of our best connection yeah it was kind of in that flurry of like okay we have to do Let's do this. Let's do this walkthrough and get doors open and start letting bodies in this building right now. You know, that wasn't in the run of show. Yeah, I think the big point you're all connecting here is that when things get challenging, that's when we know if we can trust someone. That's when we know we feel people's energy. They either step up or they retract. And everyone here has been stepping up. So that's the good sign of a leader that you can trust. What is there anything that you would like if you looking forward into it or maybe even just looking at this event? Is there something that you wish would have happened that may happen in the next show that could have happened in this show? Like I wouldn't what did you learn and like what can you make better for the next event? I think widely we can make everything better. Like that's part of the process is it's continuous improvement, right? It's more planning, it's more contingencies, it's more volunteer. Like there was a very thoughtful and you guys participated. I did in a different way, kind of post-mortem on what went well and what could be improved. I think we should probably have a whole nother show, George, just on the psychedelic playhouse because when we think about the psych tank, I think the best people to ask what could be improved would be Matt and Kyle and Henry. But then you could also ask the participants and you could also ask the judges and get feedback from those different stakeholders. I think it would be very easy to see three or four things we could do to improve the psych tank, even though it knocked the cover off the ball. But whether it was the venue space, or pre-work, or post-work, like promotions for these guys. I'm going to drop the Hemp Innovation Challenge website into the chat, because I think please do you know the whole idea that you put all this time and energy and effort into the singular moment or hour and then it doesn't have the ripple or the echo that it could like how do you amplify that echo how do you get more people to be aware of these companies how do you get more folks to be potential investors so having a website that's dedicated to the psych tank if there's different editions of it over time is an artifact that will live on beyond that one day and beyond frankly social media which is kind of perishable and other things so at least a website would be really helpful to help tell the story of psych tank and the same you know psych tank founders um but I'm sure the guys have a lot of other ideas too yeah What do you say about that, Matt? That's a good piece of it, Christian. You and I have talked about that at least at a high level. Yeah, you're right. I think that's probably where I've dropped the ball the most as far as posts. I guess other things going on, whatever posts like Tank, I don't have a website where that can live on. I agree. I think there'd be some sort of, you know, social media is not a good place for things to live long term. So I think somewhere we could have a one pager or at least a website or something where people can go to and then continue to you know see the people involving their business and you know everyone that we that pitched is obviously still in business and still still building um and hopefully will be for years to come so I think they're having some sort of continued exposure with the no not only for the the people pitching but of course people from the outside another thing I took away as well people are really excited about the business aspect like we've been talking about tripping and all the different ways to do it and that's great Everyone was really excited about like, who's doing business around this? How can we, what is the next model? And how are people actually getting these products to people? A lot of people don't know. Like I said, we had that information call before this, I think we had for, for, uh, the questions were kind of eyeopening to me. Like I say, there's a lot of people who didn't, didn't know they didn't know around. certain gray markets or legality or what people would think for investment. I think that's just the big piece that I think that more people need education around the merging of business and psychedelics, because right now that's a very nascent idea to have a business industry around these compounds. I think that's the continual push we can do is bring more awareness around just educating people around what is it what does businesses look like in the space and how can people if you actually want to start a business what does that look like and how can we actually get involved in a way that is you know tractionable and making some impact Yeah, there was an event. There's a group called Ventec here in Santa Barbara in California that puts on these monthly mixers and brings the business and entrepreneurial community together along with a lot of folks out of the UC Santa Barbara ecosystem. And I think their most well-attended event, and shameless plug, they had me as one of the participants for this panel, but it was about business and psychedelics. And people that had no clue about the psychedelics ecosystem showed up in spades and were sort of ready to go, okay, We think that there's something here. We don't know what it is. We have no clue what the roadmap or the playbook looks like. And they showed up for it. And so I think that was kind of my precursor. And this was probably maybe ten months to a year before we did, you know, Sight Tank. And it's something that Christian and I have talked about from the very beginning of Launching District two sixteen is like doing speed dating and in with for businesses in the space and doing these sorts of events where, you know, there was the ability for people to take these wild ideas and actually have a roadmap to go with. So, you know, I think something's been brewing here for quite a while. Yeah, it speaks to me of novelty. You know what I mean by that? Like when something is new, like there's this great quote that says, being really early looks a lot like being really wrong. And like when I see the event, like Psych Tank or Psychedelic Playhouse, it's so beautiful to me. It's just this mixing of business. and products and service and media and like they're all intertwined in this one space and when that sort of energy comes together what comes out of it is is novelty what comes out of it is a new service a new product and it seems to me Like the event stage is changing form. And when I look at Psych Tank, like I see that as a changing form. It's not quite the same sort of pitch as it would be for an app. And it's not quite a ceremony, but it's something in between. Kyle, what do you think about when we see the evolution of this pitch stage? What are your thoughts on that? Look, sometimes you're right and everybody else is wrong. You got to go swim against the current sometimes and just believe in yourself, trust yourself and know like what you're doing is right and going to benefit everybody. So again, it's really great to, you're right. You know, people will look at you and say, that's not a good business idea or you're too early or you're not doing this or that right. You got to trust yourself and know that I'm surrounding myself with good people and building something really powerful and meaningful here. So again, just everybody chipping in, wearing these multiple hats, putting their best foot forward. It's just really great to see everybody's mission and doing what they believe is right and doing right by everybody around them. Pioneers, baby. Look at all these pioneers here. It's unbelievable. you know what just to speak about before we move on the you know like in business you know I come from other business and you know pioneering doesn't pay right pioneering everyone here is early I tell you that it looks a lot like being wrong in a sense of like no one else is on board we're kind of creating the vision we're kind of creating the foundation we're literally trying to create the industry of psychedelics and or business right so it's it's very, it's a big push, but with the right people and the right, you know, ecosystems, I think we can, you know, we can create something here that's foundational and sustainable for everyone else to kind of build on. Yeah. I love that. Christian, can anything beat an old school street team? Yes. What a loaded question. A younger, much, uh, more, uh, lively street team. You should never have an old school street team. More attractive, perhaps? You should have twenty-year-olds that have a full head of hair handing out flyers and soliciting participation, not fifty-some-year-olds. What about spray paint? What about, like, Banksy? Yeah, there was a little graffiti going on, but I did not hold the paint can. I might have been involved in some of that action. and and I think some of that graffiti is living on that line item did not end up in the spreadsheet or maybe it did you never know oh that's so funny to me it's so funny jacob what do you think about novelty like this this whole event like you have been in with district two one six like you have been pioneering so much incredible like edutainment coming out there was that how did that roll into psych tank was psych tank just a natural evolution of the edutainment or what was the relationship there yeah it's been in my dna I mean I've I've done a lot of one-off um events throughout my career from the entrepreneurial side I have worked a lot with uc santa barbara I mean, we were doing like startup weekends and hackathons and things like this ten, fifteen years back, you know, when when the Internet was kind of going through its development and on the media side, put on festivals and small, small entertainment events. And then also in the cannabis space, the kind of the the third leg of the tripod there had been doing bud tasting and private tasting events and private events with brands and and that sort of thing and so you know district t-sixteen was really one of my one of my purposes there was like a consistent community something that was ongoing in a consistent way where these events could build upon each other this community could build upon itself people could show back up again and again and so it's funny because playhouse is back to a one-off but building upon this community has already had a foundation now for me for years. So it was a very organic unfolding and I'm just so grateful that all these guys were crazy enough to say yes. Yeah. Does anybody else want, does anybody else got something to cover there? Let me throw this one back to you, Matt. What do you think about like, the continued ecosystem of psych tank like is it is it worthwhile to maybe bring on people that pitched as judges like is there an ecosystem there where like you're rotating people coming through it and like that way it continues to evolve and that some of the same players get to play different positions That's an interesting take. Maybe. I mean, you know, I think that in order to be a judge, I would want to see someone have a successful, maybe a successful raise, successful exit or something. Right. I'm not going to judge just because you were a participant or because you were an application. Right. So I think that's the right fit. But the idea that we continue to evolve and bring people from different parts of the ecosphere or different parts of the ecosystem. the business side of things. I love that because it brings different perspective. I thought we did a great job with that even by default because we had someone, literally one of our four judges canceled two or three days before they had to have some surgery and they couldn't even fly. So anyway, we had to replace them with someone who's actually equally as amazing. Chris Denson stepped in and he had such a unique view around community building and just his whole perspective around how do you, the culture of a business and the culture of a brand and how that gets into the space. So he had such a unique view. We had such unique people. All that to say is that we're always looking for unique people who have wisdom and value to share, whether that be a participant that comes through, raises money, exits the company and is like, hey, I'd love to sit on the thing. That feels exciting to me to have that evolution and have someone kind of come through that that cycle of, you know, from participant to judge or whatever that looks like. But that's a unique flow that doesn't happen in a month or six months or maybe even a year, right? That's probably a longer journey that, you know, as people come into the space, they can evolve through if that's what they're looking to do. Is it weighted? Is it better to have like, and this goes out to the entire group here, is it weighted? Is it better to have someone pitching a product or a service or does it matter? Or are there plus and minuses for each? Or like from your perspective as an architect of it, does it seem like more services or more products are being pitched? It's both, but the products seem to have a harder challenge right now just because there's less legality for them, right? So Sher, the guy who won, he's a DEA funded lab, so he's got to create these things, but also he's working in a very specific niche novel thing. So it's like a very unique product. It's not just a mushroom bar, it's not just a specific microdose or it's not just something like that. It's like literally they're growing these compounds out of yeast. So they have a very unique business model where they're creating product. Most products are not creative in that sense or not that novel in that sense. So I'd say mostly ancillary businesses have a chance of getting funding sooner right now just because there's less red tape and there's more space for real money to come in and actually have a degree away from plant touching. Right now, most of these money people don't want to be connected to the plant or connected to the compounds just because there's so much risk and so much liability there. So a lot of these ancillary businesses seem to be getting a little more traction, like Nico with his pitch, with everything that he's doing. I think that has maybe some stronger legs than some of the product pitches. I'm curious to hear what you guys say. A couple of years ago when we were at Remind Psychedelic Business Format, part of MJBiz, I remember this one statement that stuck with me around this, which was that someone was asking about investment in psychedelics and sort of coming out of the cannabis investment space. And there was a participant that said, you know what, like the big difference here is that cannabis is a commodity and psychedelics is a service. And something about that really stuck with me in terms of not even necessarily saying like, know product versus service but more that wrapping service around being good stewards of this space and actually using even if it is a product or a compound you know there's a service involved in responsibly holding and using these products even um in this way that just doesn't exist in cannabis necessarily yeah I don't think I'm being a contrarian but it really depends Right? And what I mean by that is cannabis is absolutely a commodity for some people. And for other people, it's life-saving medicine. And you can compare MJBizCon and what happens in Vegas. And I won't make judgments. I'll just observe certain folks with certain agendas in Las Vegas versus going to I forget the name of the island or key, but there's a resort in Florida. And if you go to the CanMed conference, it's all lab coats and scientists and researchers and medical professionals exploring the hundreds of compounds inside cannabis for medical use, not for a good time or not necessarily for raising consciousness or whatever. So I think cannabis is a as a comparison that was invested that was an investment room people talking specific about investments but yes I I agree so there's investment conversations both at fj bizcon with commoditized packaged cpg products right and there's also investment at canmed because there's investors investing in plant medicine or derivatives of plant medicine for health and wellness or for medicalized applications. Same thing in the psychedelics and plant medicine space, right? There's people that are trying to make gummies and sell a million dollars worth this year before the regulated market catches up. And then there's other people who've been working with the FDA and with the DEA license to create compounds for the biotech and pharmaceutical space. Now, whether you think that's right or wrong, Both are going to happen with these compounds and molecules. And that's kind of I think that's reality. Yeah, it's an interesting and I think it speaks to the sort of coming together with with these products and all of them can be great for psych tank. I mean it would be a different pitch and it would be a different stage to have someone come on there and it would be a whole different crowd like it seems like if you wanted to pitch some a compound for. You know RSO. That's a whole different pitch in a whole different audience. Maybe then someone that's looking to stack it with psychedelics for a good time. It isn't interesting to think about how those audience might coalesce at these different events. I think you know psychedelics and cannabis all these compounds can be used you know very medically and or somewhat recreationally right so I think really depends on the business and the you know the intentions of the the vision of what they're creating but I think you know we see more medicalized um intentional businesses getting funding I think as to christian's point you know potentially I think there's more people who are going the uh uh you know medical slash you know patenting compounds and trying to try and get a moat around their business and their offering, just because that's where the traditional money sees the ROI in their investment, right? They're not going to put in a million dollars just to get that money back in a couple of years. They want to make a hundred million dollars, right? So they see the opportunity in certain parts of the potential ecosphere, what we're creating here that has bigger upside than others. You know, as an investor, I can totally understand that completely. You know, you do what you want to do with your money. But as a, you know, a builder of the space, it's like, well, that's only one portion of what we're building here. That's like one. We want that. We need that. But we also need the underground and the gummies and need other people to, you know, come in with their ancillary businesses to support all of this. It sounds like you have two different psych take events, like you have one at like a conference for like the medical industry and then you have one at more like a consciousness raising. I feel like it maybe is three segments. And yes, Andrew, what you just said. So one could be consumer packaged goods, right? It's really in general recreation, broad brushstrokes here. I think about, I don't know, maybe if I went to my first fish concert ever, I might want to have some mood-altering substances for that experience, which would be very different than me taking psychedelics to increase neuroplasticity because my family has a history of early onset dementia and I'm trying to almost as a prophylactic prepare myself not to have that experience or to you know potentially avoid that as a medicalized application and then to be honest the one I think that gets the least amount of attention from my perspective is raising consciousness. And I'm not talking about optimizing for work or life hacking. I'm talking about just the basic of individual cognitive sovereignty in my relationship with myself and my relationship with the universe. And to be honest, there's businesses around that, right? There's training and education companies, there's people that will coach you. So those are the three legs on the stool. I'm sure we could come up with five or six legs, but those three feel pretty solid. And I would put in the consciousness raising and the spiritual journey, a lot of the indigenous and wisdom holder practices, right? Like that whole conversation is more about your relationship with yourself and the planet and the universe and whatever you choose to call God than it is about a good time or a medical solution, even though it could overlap with both of those, right? This is a big, messy Venn diagram, so we're talking about it. And in all three of those, back to what I was saying about this being a service, I have this community and I have people that come in for all three of those all the time. And my point is that there needs to be a service wrapped around these conversations. A lot of these people don't know what they don't know. They could be going into it for one, two, or all three of those reasons, and they need guides, they need facilitators, they need conversations, they need peers. They need a service wrapped around their experience before, during and after. And so, you know, again, to zoom out. Yeah, I agree. I agree with all of those application uses. And and, you know, this isn't just like I'm going to go get a gummy for sleep and my dispensary, you know, very, very much a Tylenol type model. I mean, this is something that requires a little bit more information and holding space together. Yeah, there's so many. Again, this is what makes this whole event so beautiful. It's like all these different offshoots. There's all these different branches coming off the tree. And I think that you can see the seedling or the plant being at this event. There's so much possibilities that can come from these events right here, from any walk of life or any industry or any service. it really seems to me that that's sort of what psych tank psychedelic playhouse is bringing together the plant magic cafe or whether it was the jonas brothers building like the model seems so beautiful to be exported and grown in different parts of the world man what what do you guys think about moving forward are there like obviously denver was really friendly to psychedelics so that seemed to be like a no-brainer maps was there but moving forward how do you target different locations for a psych take event or a psychedelic playhouse event They've been targeting me. Of course. I've got three real conversations happening right now in totally different communities and geographies that I wasn't necessarily looking for. Actually, Austin, Texas has come up and the Bay Area, California and in Vegas as well. So I don't know if that's the right answer or approach. There's a lot of vetting and a lot of trust building that needs to happen still. but um you know the same kind of spirit that allowed the psychedelic playhouse in denver to be organically yes anding and unfolding into what it became I think is a similar philosophy that it will take into future events Yeah, and I think we did feel pretty comfortable in Denver, at least I did. I didn't really feel any outside threats. Going into it, I never even thought of it. And I'm doing the business stuff. Of course, we're not doing a ceremony. There's no medicine to be taken, per se. But still, just the idea that anything could happen. So the idea that we would go to Missouri or Arkansas at this point and do that is probably not going to happen. At least I'm not going to sign up for that, Jacob, sorry. But when we have offers from other places that are somewhat friendly, like Austin, potentially like South Florida or the Bay Area here in California, you know, I think we're at a point now, especially when, you know, if we talk about psych tank, it's a business focused event, you know, we're not here to bring people together to party, we're not here to get people, you know, the medicine directly, it's more about, hey, like, we're talking about legitimate businesses and people who are trying to create, you know, things in the space. So I feel very shielded in that sense, as far as like, I don't feel any, you know, reliability or responsibility to any, you know, anything that's going to come down on us from a responsibility standpoint, from a legal standpoint. So But there's certain physical geographical locations where that wouldn't be the case. So we'll probably steer clear of those as time goes. We'll move into the friendly atmospheres, as we're called. So once again, I don't want to be a contrarian, but I think it's interesting to talk about markets where it might not be as friendly for psychedelic and plant medicine, because arguably a year ago, if we talked about Texas, it wouldn't feel very friendly, but they just passed fifty million dollars in research funding. Right. So I don't think it hurts for psych tank to be early. And I think making a huge distinction between the psychedelic playhouse as a format and platform versus the psych tank. so I think you'll find entrepreneurs everywhere you know and if you expect them to all come to psych tank in a given market because it's friendly I think we'll miss conversations and opportunities I think it'd be really interesting to bring psych tank to markets that aren't super friendly and see which entrepreneurs show up obviously being thoughtful about regulations and legality Another piece is, I think site tank and the playhouse to some degree can work where there's a critical mass, right? So there's dynamic tension between being too early to a market and when they're friendly enough. But in my mind, there's thousands of convention centers around these great United States of ours, right? And every one of those convention centers has a pretty full calendar. So if we all just looked up the LA Convention Center or the Denver Convention Center, there's a bunch of other events that are going to be held there where PsychTank could thrive. It might be an investment conference. It might be a consciousness health and wellness conference. It could be a consumer conference. I said biohacking. Yeah, longevity. Like, yeah, there's a long, long list of places where a site tank could thrive and kind of piggyback off existing programs. Yeah, I love that, Christian. I had a conversation with a guy yesterday, and they do a cannabis tasting thing. It's called Best in Grass. I've heard it called Best in Grass. Anyway, basically, they don't even work in California because it's such a mature market, such whatever. They're going to these up and coming markets. They need, these people want education. They want access to the people in their state. They don't know what they don't know. And you bring people, we show up to these places like in Ohio or places that are just kind of coming online. they get excited to your point christian there's definitely excitement even in arkansas and alabama and all these other places so it's like how do we get those people into the game how do we you know meet them where they're at geographically and or you know as a business so I love that idea um you know as a business and as a you know father first we got to make sure that I'm you know not crossing too many lines and not putting ourselves in danger that's all I think there might be an avenue to like, if we look at some of these places, like you mentioned Missouri, like, aren't these the place that need this the most? Like on some level, I think that there's a, there's an avenue to explore for education, like you talked about, Matt, like, but some of these places that seem so far off, off the radar, like those might be the place that need this the most. And sometimes it is that fertile ground of, Like where nothing's happening, where you can get new minds involved and you can get change makers in there or the young entrepreneur that's like, I never thought about this is perfect. And that can create a whole new sort of offspring or a well for people to start participating and becoming part of something they didn't know about. Is that too far fetched, man? No, I don't think so. I think you're right on. I was looking out for myself first when I said I don't want to go to certain places to bring this, but I get it. And there's definitely people that need and or want this. Maybe they don't even know they want or need this. Yes. Yes. Oh, that's an opportunity. I can actually work in plant medicine. I can actually do something with these compounds. You know, I think that's amazing. I think, you know, education minimally, you know, getting around... and educating and um you know psychedelic players could do that obviously with site tank being the business education and all that stuff we could do it in a way that would make sense I don't know if there's any big events going on in missouri or any of these things going on jacob so I don't think we can piggyback on anything going on currently every every community every place every geography I should say needs more outlets to heal in communities so if we can provide that I think we've got places like denver that have a leg up on have been doing this for a little bit longer, but if we can open up more ways that people can heal in community, then I think that's gonna bring a little more peace to everybody in this crazy world of ours. You know, I think demographics is something to be thought about, too. When you look at sort of like this aging demographics that we have in the U.S., you know, it would be cool to see a psych tank where people are talking about end of life. And I think that that also brings together the youth and the older communities, especially in some of these parts of the country that need it the most, like some of like the Rust Belt or something like that. If you could go in and talk about psychedelics, end of life. Like, that kind of brings together this generational gap of these young people that maybe there's not a whole lot of opportunity for them. Like, there's a lot of farming out there where these people are great with the land. Like, in some ways, they're already primed to start growing the next level of these plant medicines that can help out their aging parents or their aging grandparents. It's an interesting thought. Are you giving us a plug? Are you plugging death and psychedelics on September? I heard there's an amazing event coming up with death and psychedelics and there's going to be amazing people like, like, um, like cat kerner and the new death insight tell us about that jacob what's going on with that well I mean I mean the point of that though you're right is the multi-generation piece there there's been a huge amount of push um from this just this little one event in this small community towards those senior living facilities um and and also number one question I've I've been serving a lot of folks that are going to be coming to this event of my demo my demographic and my generation is what do we do for our aging families what do we do for aging parents what do we do how do we get someone who's not pro psychedelics or even it's not even on their radar to be open to a modality of healing that seems so scary and unaccessible and unattainable so I'm excited to hear what the answers might be and we'll make sure to film it so we can send it out to missouri and all the other spots that are you know psychedelic deserts across this country yeah that's an interesting topic um you know I spoke on a panel a couple months ago and I'd moderate again I'm sorry and you know the one woman was a death doula and she uses these medicines for you know helping transition it's definitely an under um educated and underutilized area of psychedelics. And you're right. I think it could bring together the youth and their parents. Right. How many baby boomers are currently now retired? My father's one of the youngest baby boomers. He just turned sixty six. So I feel like there's a whole generation that, you know, because that could be a thing that brings families back together. Right. You know, the twenty five year old son. the sixty five year old father, whatever. Like, you know, how could we, you know, bring that together in an educational way that, you know, brings them closer for the last push of their life, the last fifteen, twenty years. And then, you know, knowing that they have that, you know, that kind of medicine to segue is beautiful. And I'd say that could change the both the, you know, of course, the dynamic within that relationship and changes the younger person's life as well. Maybe they start microdosing or they have, you know, different compounds introduced to them that they didn't even know about. Are you talking about Jess, Matt? Jess Ingle? I forget that. Yes, she was the one on my panel, correct. Yeah, so Jess and her partner were visiting Tara and I in Medellin last week. And she was invited to have a conversation with some folks at a place called Mountains of Hope, Montana de Esperanza, outside Medellin. And I got to go to that retreat with her. And it's a retreat unlike any other one I've been to because they focus on cancer recovery and cancer transition. Yeah, exactly, George. I met the founder and CEO, Mike Murphy. Mike has a powerful and profound story about his twenty nine year old wife at the time years ago that he lost at age thirty six. And then he went on to create a foundation to help the underserved have access to alternative treatments, right? And then he saw that fail because all the treatments ended up bringing an early demise to these patients. And then he went and he bought a retreat outside the United States so they could use killer T cells and blood doping and peptides and red light therapy and stem cell therapy, like all these different modalities, including organic food. Start with food as nutrition. They have an organic farm on site. They teach people how to cook with raw and organic foods. It was really powerful. So yes, and to the transition question. And when we talk about mass awareness about the value of psychedelics, I think there isn't anything more powerful than end of life and so much fear in the West versus other cultures around death and dying. And the value of these plant medicines and psychedelics to help people transition or help their families accept the transition in a way that is really hard to capture in a podcast or articulate. because you're healing generational trauma you're healing families that are not connected anymore because of whatever issues happen between father and son or mother and daughter or grandparents and I think if you give them a chance to say their peace be accepted be heard before they leave the world's a better place This hits home for me and it makes me think about is there room for partnership with someone like the American Cancer Society or some of these giant industries or giant non-profits or whatever it is that could partner with end of life it seems like a no-brainer to me like there's so much good that can be done and especially not just bringing psychedelics into the mainstream but for the people at end of life when we all know that there's this cancer epidemic and it's happened to people younger and younger and younger like it just I'm gonna have to research that more but I think that there's some real partnerships that could be had with mainstream people I mean, Amy Slonaker is going to be on one of our fireside chats, and she runs the Survivorship Collective. She's a board member and cancer survivor, and she's going to be interviewing a woman who lost her husband to cancer that I personally knew. We're going to be honoring him at the event. And he used psychedelics for end of life just to have a new relationship with death and dying and kind of to replace fearful attitude in that process. So there are people doing this work and whether we can connect in more and more of the larger groups to them, I'm sure over time with consistency and more exposure, then that will happen. Hey guys, I got to jump in. I apologize. But I love the conversation. Appreciate everybody showing up and more to come. See you, Christian. Appreciate you. Christian, thank you, my friend. Gentlemen, This is an amazing conversation. I love all you guys. I'm so stoked to see, to get to work alongside you guys and to see the vision you guys are creating. And it's, it just feels like home to me. And I, as we're landing the plane, man, I just want to kick it back to each of you for a moment to talk about what you guys got going on, what you see coming up. And let me start over here with you, Matt. Like if people are listening to this and they're like, this guy, Matt, Richie's amazing, man. I want to get ahold of this guy. What's he doing? Where can I find him? How can I hang out with them? What do you, what do you tell them? uh well I am somewhat particular in who I hang out just because I don't have much limited time these days but you know I got two young kids and businesses but we uh we have a business community so if you're in you're an entrepreneur if you're an operator we have a business community of entrepreneurs and operators um mainly here in southern california but kind of all over um I'm hosting events all the time I actually have an event today I'm driving to la hosting a mastermind tonight and then um tomorrow I'm doing a little more uh business and pleasure together where we rented a yacht in marina del rey so we got a bunch of entrepreneurs that are going to go out and connect, have a little fun on the yacht, celebrate some wins and make some strategic connections. So for me, it's all about how do we make the bridge between the traditional business space and the business money, all that, and the emerging plant medicine space. So CBD, cannabis, psychedelics, all these other plant medicines. How do we be that bridge? That's essentially what I'm attempting to do. Inner Circle is a business community of entrepreneurs that does just that. it's it's a it's a beautiful thing to bring great people together to you know create strategic partnerships to you know say what we talked about earlier building trust working together and then you know everyone has their own network right like you know I have some amazing people that are in my network but those people have their own network so it's like I have this conglomerate you know we've got a hundred members but we have you know a conglomerate probably a thousand people of awesome you know, in doing different things from Jacob to doing, you know, media and, and, you know, community and partnerships to, you know, Kyle with reality sandwich doing similar things as well to Christian, you know, the fire star, he's the connector, he's the networker. Right. So anyway, um, if you're, are an entrepreneur, if you're an operator, uh, wanting to be connected to a more vetted community of people who are building together and in a trusted space, you know, look me up, uh, LinkedIn is probably the easiest, my most active platform. I don't really get on the other socials too much, but we do do things on LinkedIn. Yeah. If you're in Southern California, connect with me. Matt at InnerCircle.biz is my email. You can email it directly, but just come out. And I host psychedelic salons here once a month here in San Diego as a community builder, just to build education and bring community together and connect different people. So I'm always doing stuff here in the community to try and do just that, connect people, bring the right people together. And I always do intimate events. That's why I love Jacob and his big vision for doing a thousand person event, because I don't host events that are more than twenty five people just because I love the intimacy. I love the connection it brings. And I just not that it's less effort, but it's just it's just a different type of effort to create a container and a small group like that, as opposed to creating a larger container with different people, different amounts of people. Thank you for the question, George. Appreciate you. Love all the work you're doing in the space. Thank you for setting this up. Thank you. It was really great to meet you in person in Denver as well. That was. Just the camaraderie in the community. I've been connecting and communicating with people for years that I have never met in person. Denver was an amazing space to actually make the physical connection. That's why I do what I do because it's one thing to have these Zooms and you can learn and you can educate, but there's nothing like looking someone in the eye. It's nothing like connecting with someone in the flesh and having that energetic exchange. And I just love that in the sense that that builds that trust and that builds that connection and builds that desire to actually work together or to do something greater together. It's just build friendships and build fun experiences. So I love bringing people together in these intimate experiences. And I just want to thank you for doing the same. Yeah, man. Everyone, check out Matt. He does incredible work. He's got an incredible intentional community that not only is a great part to be part of, but it's always producing results. And you're one of the best in the business, Matt. Like ever since we met, like I have always seen all the events you're doing and the incredible people you're hanging out with, man. Everyone go down to the show notes. Check out Matt Ritchie incredible human being Jacob incredible human being to sixteen psychedelic playhouse The marquee event coming up talk about an incredible community just like Matt man Give us people a background about like what it is You got going on and where people can find you what you're excited about and and how much you love life man The same way that we had rebranded marijuana to cannabis I just wanna take a little moment to rebrand plant medicine to earth medicine, because we're gonna leave out the toads and the fungi and all these amazing natural medicines, right? Anyways, that's all I got for that. That's my rebrand for the ecosystem. Let's use earth medicines instead of plant medicines. There's so much weight around plant medicines too. um I digress thank you for creating the space george I really appreciate you having me here um anyone that's still watching after an hour and a half my goodness I guess we're you're into the uh land the plane on the shameless plugs moment so I'll continue with district to sixteen. If you can't come to Southern California to Santa Barbara to one of our events, we, we meet every single Wednesday night here in Santa Barbara more along the lines of what Matt was describing as a smaller twenty, thirty. person-sized event. We'd love to have you. We do roundtables once a month. We have documentary screenings here and there. We do interactive workshops and many, many interviews with interesting folks. And then a couple of times a year, we're putting on the marquee events. Those are a little bit bigger, a couple hundred people here in Santa Barbara. Death and Psychedelics is our next one, September um and then for those of you who aren't in and around the space or in california please check us out for online memberships all of the interviews and discussion panels get filmed and edited and put into a platform that people can come uh spend twenty bucks a month and also there are a bunch of resources there member to member chat and we have a psychedelic concierge service that helps pair seekers and guides and practitioners in a vetted format. So people that are kind of novice and new to the space or looking for a particular practitioner of a certain compound in a certain geography, this is a great way to have a trusted vetted way into that conversation. um and then in terms of the psychedelic playhouse like I said we've got a few things cooking for next year potentially um you know mj bizcon in in vegas here matt ritchie and kyle rosner and I uh and christian gray have been talking a little bit offline about what that might look like the first week of december on if we can pull out another um psych tank uh along with some edgy some uh entertainment later in the evening with some music and whatnot I would love for that to manifest. So let's see what we can do. And, um, maybe next year I've got those other two, um, cooking of the area and potentially Austin. So see what happens. Nice. And real quick here. I know, uh, Kyle Rosner, he dropped off and he looked like he was in the chat here. Wanted to get back on and say, say his piece. Is he, let me see him. Oh, there he is. I didn't even see him come back. Kyle, Kyle, I had you. I'm sorry, man. Got left in the lurch there. I saw you drop off for a minute. I'm like, oh, he left. All good. Yeah, George, again, thank you for holding space here. Always wonderful to mind share with all the talented people you curated here in this space. Can't wait for the next psych tank and manifestation of psychedelic playhouse. You know, again, not to We're saying yes now before anything happens, right, Jacob? So MJBiz, early December, keep an eye out. It's happening. We're saying it live here. Kyle, I wanted to give you some time. We were just talking about all the incredible work people are doing and stuff. And I know people that are listening to the show right now, they're probably like, Reality Sandwich, that is a badass site. I want to see what's going on. Super humble and gracious, again, to be a curator of some of these OG media platforms. My team at FourTwenty Interactive, we operate as an incubator, an accelerator for brands in the cannabis and psychedelic space we're lucky to be curating the community at reality sandwich and again consciously uplifting you know the content and storytelling we do there um not to tease too much but yes you know bringing back another og high times magazine and playing a key role there as well so eager to see these awesome communities kind of be brought back and re-engaged with the cannabis and plant medicine community so if you've got a Plant Medicine story to tell. We'd love to host you at Reality Sandwich and subscribe to our email list and read our content there. Happy to be media partners with Jacob and District two sixteen and support everything he is doing. Vouch for Matt Ritchie and Inner Circle. I'm a current member. They're awesome, curated, high level community of business owners and entrepreneurs that he's curated. And, you know, you're speaking of trust. If you're looking for trusted people to work with and connect with, you know, hit up Matt and see if Inner Circle is right for you. It's brilliant. It's really medicines, Kyle. Did you not get the memo? Medicines, you know, I had a pretty powerful experience with San Pedro. You know, what these medicines really teach us is we got to do the homework. You know, these medicines are just a tool. You still got to do the work after and be present and, you know, take everything day by day. So these are great, but you still got to put in some effort. They're not going to instantly heal you. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's really well said. And for everybody out there out now, promo code TRUELIFE at District two sixteen. If you go to the website and you put in promo code TRUELIFE, I promise you, you're going to be super excited at what you see. Go check it out. Check out Kyle. Check out Matt. Check out Jacob. And thank you so much to everybody that participated today. I'm humbled and grateful to be hanging out with so many people. Thank you to Christian and Henry. And that's all we got. Hang on briefly afterwards, gentlemen. But to everybody else, I hope you have a beautiful day. And we've rebranded it to Earth Medicine. So I don't want to hear anybody talk about plant medicine anymore. It's Earth Medicines, ladies and gentlemen. Aloha.