Dave Kashen reflects on mood swings as an entrepreneur and how a mushroom experience with close friends shifted his perspective on turning personal weaknesses into strengths. He explores the difficulty of sustaining happiness in adulthood and the possibility of self-acceptance through confronting what feels broken.
Why is it so hard to be happy as an adult human being was really central and look what I do now. So again, right, like the hero's journey of like your kryptonite becomes your strength. But it's important because I think it partly fueled me because I would, and it was hard especially as an entrepreneur because I would like not know which version of me was gonna show up on the day I had like a pitch or something, right? Am I gonna be my like charismatic or am I gonna be depressed and have to fake it? And it was really hard. So I was pretty motivated to like transcend that, right? Like, you know, that experience. And I was coaching and I was wanting to serve others. And I had a bunch of friends who I really deeply trusted and respected do medicine journeys, take drugs, do psychedelics, and report back to me these like utterly profound experiences. They're like, oh my God, I've seen these truths that like I can't believe I didn't know before. And so I felt, and to be clear, I've been prudish most of my life. Like, I remember the like, this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs commercials. Like, no, I barely drank alcohol, like barely smoked pot. So like, it was a big leap for me, but I felt called, I guess. I felt intrigued enough that like, okay, I really respect these people. They're not doing it recreationally in a way that like wouldn't feel right for me. They're doing it in these like sacred ways. So I ended up, to try to make a long story shorter, I tried mushrooms, ate some mushroom chocolates, had a lovely, probably a relatively light dose. It was my first time doing anything like that. Had like a, I'd say a lovely experience, a lot of like self-acceptance, which I think I really needed at the time. I remember like laughing uncontrollably for like an hour and a half straight, which was fun. I couldn't talk. I was just like laughing. And I was with like 5 of my like dear beloved male friends, like really nourishing, nurturing group of guys. So it was like a beautiful experience.
