How to Discover Your Higher Truths as a Leader

Jonathan, a massive welcome to the Life on Purpose podcast.

Thank you, James. It's a pleasure to be here.

It's so good to connect. Look, I wanted to explain to the listeners first. So for those who are listening, we've never spent a lot of time on the podcast talking about the spiritual side of life and leadership and I feel it's so important. I'm starting to really delve into that side of things myself. And Jonathan and I connected recently and he's doing some incredible things with plant medicine. And I know you might be thinking, oh yeah, plant medicine is for hippies. It's for these people that are living this free life. Guys, I can tell you Now, I know CEOs of top Fortune 500 companies who have done ayahuasca. I know people that go and do lots of plant medicine who are running companies and athletes that are experimenting with it as well. So Jonathan, I'd love to ask you, where did your passion for plant medicine begin?

Well, there James, because for me, you know, my journey began about five years ago and I was blessed to be leading, you know, reasonably large team in, you know, top tier management consulting and strategy consulting firm. And I just found that I guess I'd reached a stage there. I was, I was working in Hong Kong, working pretty long hours, you know, kind of the typical 7am to late nights, sort of five days a week, some work on the weekends, work hard, play hard, sort of a lifestyle. And after about five years in that, in that, in that hamster wheel, I guess I kind of got to a place in my career and in my life where I just wasn't feeling incremental joy from, you know, the next client, the next deal, the next promotion, the next thing. And I just remember looking myself in the mirror one day and thinking, is this it? You know, I was an atheist at the time, despite having been raised by pretty open minded and spiritual parents, like I wasn't a believer. And you could not have convinced me through any rational means that there was something greater that was out there for me or for us collectively. And so at that point in time I just looked myself in the mirror and I said, there's got to be something else. I don't know what it is, I don't know where it's going to come from. But I'm going to take a year off and I don't know how I'm going to spend the time, but I know there's going to be a vacuum. And in that vacuum the right things will come to the fore. And so I took a year off and I spent most of that year traveling through South America.

That's amazing. And when you got to South America and you left all of your work behind, all of your baggage behind, what was your first introduction to plant medicine?

Yeah, it's actually something I hadn't mentioned before, but I actually did have a bit of a spiritual opening before I got to the plant medicine retreat. So I was hiking in the south of Argentina in Patagonia, amazing mountains, beautiful crystal clear lakes and just got to, I was hiking on a suit super gray cloudy morning. I got up at 4:30 in the morning to be the first up the mountain and it was just, it was miserably cold. And about two hours into the walk like, you know, the sky opened up and there was a massive rainbow and the mountains just made themselves, you know, available and there's this beautiful river and it was just like this incredible moment. It was kind of almost like a spiritual awakening that actually preceded my attendance of a plant medicine retreat. So that was kind of a bit of an opening, but I didn't quite quite understand what was happening. It's just pretty profound and emotional experience. And then about three months later, some friends came and joined me and we participated in an ayahuasca retreat in Peru. And that was easily the most eye opening, spiritual opening and honestly speaking, quite terrifying experience of my life. You know, I wasn't well prepared for the experience. I didn't really understand what I was getting myself into. I don't think I had my intentions quite right in terms of the preparation and unfortunately I wasn't really well integrated following the retreat itself. So while I had some profound insights and some real life downloads if you will, I can't say that from the first retreat I was able to really make improvements to the quality of life, unfortunately.

Yeah, and I think that's obviously something that a lot of people I would chat about when we talk about plant medicine. We talk about, okay, if you're going to get into it, what's your biggest fear? And a lot of people would say, look, my mind is my money, so I'm running a business or I'm in the corporate world, if I lose my mind then I lose my ability to earn income. So that's probably the number one fear that I would think of personally and others might think of. So when you went into it yourself, was there any of that vernacular going on in your own head thinking, wow, what's the risk here for me?

You know, not initially, but the mind and maybe the soul on some Subconscious level. As the day crept closer and closer, you could definitely begin to feel a different sort of anxiety than I had ever felt before. So intuitively there was a, there was an understanding that something big was coming. But that being said, you know, I think, I think it's fair. I think the quote that comes to mind as you were saying that is that the mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. And the reality is that most of us in the modern paradigm have come to over identify ourselves with our mind. So we think of mind as self and that in of itself is a prison of its own making. And I was a very mind identified person. You know, probably pretty patterns in the way that I approach life just because of the complexity that I was managing. You know, in consulting there's a certain set of tools and practices and methods of communications that are pretty well rewarded in terms of, you know, what leads to success, in terms of sales, in terms of team management, client management, all of those sorts of things. And so you become, you know, a bit of a machine in relation to how you're operating in order to, you know, to grow the business, in order to deliver the projects, all of those sorts of, sorts of things. And so I was certainly very mind identified now. So losing my mind as such didn't really come to my mind. But at the same time I, I totally identify with fear that some people may have that, hey, what's, what's going to happen to my mind? Because you know, to a great extent I think most of us are blessed to be successful as a large part as a result of, you know, the way that our mind works. So we don't want to lose the beautiful function of our minds. And I don't think that that's, generally speaking we can go into the safety aspect later that doesn't happen through this work. And in fact it deepens our intuition, it deepens our sense of understanding what's right and why. You know, sometimes one of the ways that I sometime articulate this is, you know, in the past there might have been work to be done where there was, you know, detailed options analysis and discounted cash flows to try and determine what the right answer is. But if you can, you know, tap into your intuition, which is more of a felt knowledge versus a thinking knowledge, you'll be able to string together four or five sentences that will surprise you, that can subvert doing all of that hard work and all of that analysis and you just intuitively know the right answer and you'll be like, oh wow, we've Just saved weeks of work because we don't actually have to go and do that because the answer is quite clear because it's coming from a different place.

See, that's amazing. That's exactly what I want to get to. It's like as a leader, a lot of leaders in the corporate world or even in the organized team sport, they often are thinking quite linear and it's quite, you know, there's a transactional way of thinking, whereas this is actually getting them out of their head and into their heart. And nowadays when you look at the big companies, I'm here in New Zealand, so, you know, companies like Air New Zealand, wellbeing is such a huge aspect of what they're focusing on and that's obviously like the tip of the iceberg. But when the leaders, the CEOs of the leadership team can think about deepening their consciousness and understanding spirituality, obviously that's going to change the whole structure of the company, the way they interact with their employees. So when you came from corporate and you thought, okay, goodbye to that for now and you came into the plant based world, talk to me about your first couple of days, your first experience, what was going through your head?

Yes, just, just so I understand. So as I was going back into the corporate world after my, my experience.

No, the initial experience of going from corporate into like when you arrived and you're in, whether it's in the jungle or whether, you know, it's in South America, what was your first like, reaction?

Yeah, so we were in a, we were, we went to, you know, the best retreat center that we could find. And so it's a really, it was a really beautiful location outside of, outside of Cusco in Peru, in the Sacred Valley, which is, you know, it's a magical place, really magical place and great place to do some hiking in the mountains. So, you know, arrived there with two friends and we had a day to settle in and kind of get comfortable with the place. Beautiful property, you know, surrounded by fruit trees, huge mountain peaks and in both directions and you know, so it was a really good place to get grounded and get prepared. So, you know, the first night that we had ceremonies, it was as I, as I, as I shared, it was overwhelming. So around 7pm we go into the ceremonial area, do some preparatory kind of rituals and then step into the ceremony. You drink the medicine and within somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes it begins to take effect. And so for me, you know, the visuals started and it was incredibly beautiful, you know, more beautiful than anything I'd ever Seen, right. It's the first visual that I had was actually a kind of six dimensional version of Buddha that was red, orange and yellow and moving. And it was just incredible. I just could not believe what I was seeing in front of me. And then as things intensified, then it became a little bit more challenging. These medicines.

Are doing two things to our neurology. There's a lot happening in mind, body, heart and spirit. It's trying to harmonize to a single vibration our mind, body, heart and spirit. But particularly within the brain. Two of the things that are taking place is that number one, it's neurogenetic, so it's actually growing new brain cells. And number two, it's increasing neuroplasticity and kind of reconnecting parts of the brain that don't normally exchange information. So taking a bit of a step back, there's great research that's been done by National Science foundation that shows that your typical person has between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day. Ton of thoughts. Most people only think about I, me, my, so that's egoic thoughts. Most people are thinking the same thoughts. So 95% of thoughts are repetitive according to this research. And 85% of those thoughts are negative. So we're thinking a lot, we're thinking only about ourselves. We're thinking the same things and mostly bad things. And that, that is so ingrained. Most people when they hear that statistic they think, oh, that's so sad for those people not recognizing that to some extent that that applies to them actually. And so, and so, you know, these medicines, they amplify our sensitivity, right? And so as the brain is being reconnected, there's often trauma, trauma, you know, traumatic experiences that have been compartmentalized away from our everyday waking consciousness. Maybe that happened in early childhood. You know, I would 90, 95% of our clients uncover early, you know, early life trauma that they didn't, they didn't know about until it was kind of, that part of the brain was reconnected as such. And so as these powerful experiences come back to the fore, then, you know, often there's a relationship between things that are manifesting in your present day life. You know, people ask, well, why would I want to go uncover that? Well, those things are manifesting in our everyday, right in our everyday life. Whether it's limiting us from living our true purpose, whether it's, you know, keeping us stuck in, in pattern thinking or patterns of behavior that are not in our highest interests. Whether it's, you know, emotional anger, frustration, never Feeling good enough, all of those sorts of things, you know, so those. Those traumas do play out in terms of how we are currently living our lives. And so as these things are just are reconnected and as we are provided this opportunity to process and release these traumas, then we can get some really deep healing and improvements to our quality of consciousness and ultimately quality of life.

That's really powerful.

I think about things that we are compartmentalizing and whether that's maybe the loss of a loved one, it's maybe a separation that was terrible, it's maybe some childhood trauma, as you're saying, and we put it away, we park it away. We're like, it's safer to park it away. And for me to park it away and kind of like myself and for me to live with myself. I'm going to drink excess amounts of alcohol, or I'm just going to have two or three quiet ones a day, or I'm going to smoke or vape or marijuana, or I'm going to work obsessively to distract myself, or I'm going to have lots of promiscuity and have lots of different relationships and they're kind of covered. All right. So it's interesting that a lot of people, and I would say that as a generalization, but I do think a lot of people normalize those activities I just described to cope. Yet when they think of, say, ayahuasca, there's like this, oh, wow, no, that's scary. I can't do that. Right. Which is kind of really crazy. So let's chat a bit about the science of how it works. So I guess, first of all, I know that there's not just one type of plant medicine. You've got ayahuasca, which a lot of people now are getting familiarized with that term, but there's a few different ones. So let's maybe start with that. What are a few of the most common plant medicines?

Yeah, sure. So. So there's actually. There's actually quite a few out there. The ones that we most commonly work with are, number one, psilocybin, which is also known as, you know, the magic mushrooms, number two, ayahuasca, which obviously we've been talking about just now, and is the combination typically of two plants. But often, you know, there's as many ayahuasca traditions as you can shake a stick at. So there's many permutations of the medicine itself. So it's not.

Similar to the mushrooms, I suppose, in that sense. It's not, you Know, one size fits all. And then the third that we also work with, which is even four to six times more powerful than ayahuasca is, is bufo, or also known as the God molecule. And that is an incredibly powerful, powerful non. Dual experience. So we could, we could talk about that one a little bit as well now.

Sorry, that, that before when. That's a toad or a frog of some description, right?

Yeah. That's also known as the toad. That's right, yeah.

Yeah. Sorry to interrupt you. So let's go back to psilocybin, because I haven't had much awareness or knowledge around that at all.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I think psilocybin, for people who, let's just say, have a higher. A higher than average amount of anxiety in relation to exploring one of these experiences, I think psilocybin is a beautiful place to start. The reason being that it's not quite so demanding upon the physical body. Ayahuasca, by contrast.

Is strong in terms of its detoxification. So anyone who's looking for physical healing, you know, often, you know, I will guide them, generally speaking, in the direction of ayahuasca because it does a lot on the physical body. For people who are, you know, perhaps not willing to dive full into a very intensive experience, psilocybin is a beautiful place to start. The ceremonies between both is similar, you know, typically between four to six hours in length. So not, Not a short experience by, by any stretch of the imagination. Psilocybin ceremonies tend to happen, you know, late afternoon at most of the retreats, whereas ayahuasca makes us quite photosensitive, so the ceremonies tend to be at night, overnight.

Now, you know, I think, you know, psilocybin, we have evidence of use virtually across every continent over time, whereas ayahuasca is mostly, you know, it's. It originates in Central and South America. And so it's got a. I would say, I guess a tribal or shamanic association. Although that is changing and there's a lot more kind of contemporary experiences that are out there these days. You know, one of our. One of our practitioners, he's been doing this work for 30 years now. He's incredible. He grows, he's an ethnobotanist, he's an author, so passionate about this work. And he's, he's. He said, look, Jonathan, you know, ayahuasca is just two plants that when they come together with the right intention, they can really help people. Anything that's above that is just human beings kind of projecting their own Ego and stuff and culture and traditions on top of it. And I really love that because I think, you know, there's, there's a lot of kind of judgment about what's right and what's wrong in relation to this ecosystem. And, and just to hear that from him, you know, from someone who's really apprenticed under the ancient traditions and you know, his, his own maestro and Mentor is 102 years old and still facilitating medicine ceremonies now. So it was a great perspective that I, that I really kind of enjoyed, so I like to share that. And then the third, which is really just, it's, this medicine is coming, is coming fast. It's, you know, the toad is really picking up in terms of its popularity and there's a few reasons I believe for that. One is I think there's a natural human tendency to gravitate towards the two more powerful experiences. Just generally speaking, you know, how many people want to climb Everest versus the local foothill.

And two, it's not as challenging from a physical perspective. So even though it is typically recognized as four to six more times times more powerful, it's actually easier in some respects because the small self, the ego itself doesn't actually have much of a chance to hold on through, through a breakthrough experience. So you're moved very rapidly. You know, you smoke the medicine, within 10 seconds, reality itself kind of breaks apart in front of you.

During a breakthrough experience. You can experience, you know, complete non duality oneness with the universe. So there is no subject object, there is no more space, there is no more time. It's just experiencing, you know, a very high state of consciousness and, and that's, that's pretty profound experience and you know, opens us up emotionally as well. The other, the other distinctions that I would make between say 5 Meo DMT and Ayahuasca and psilocybin is that with ayahuasca and psilocybin what tends to happen is that we have more experiences which relate to our story. Right. So reconciliation of the past, oh, you know, this happened and that's why that happened and releasing, you know, some of the memories that come back and all of those sorts of things. Whereas with 5 Meo DMT it doesn't tend to be so much about the story, it's just showing you that you're actually one with the universe. So it still opens up all of the lower level emotions to be able to process and release. It's just that, you know, you won't necessarily be able to tell a linear story when your friend asks you about the experience, you'd just be like, I don't know where to start.

I love it. It's so, so fascinating. And, you know, I think about.

Coaching. So obviously I'm a high performance leadership coach. So there's a process or a journey I take a client through. Right. And part of that is it starts with helping them to detach. So some clients, if they're really, you know, highly engaged, we'll try and disengage them a little bit from their thoughts, and that'll be through meditation or breath work. So with the process that you take a client through, what's the preparation like? Does the preparation start when they arrive with you or does the preparation actually begin prior?

Yeah, so there's, there's two ways that we guide clients. The first is a seven week process, more holistic approach. The thing that I wish was there for me when I started along with this work, you know, that's ultimately the motivation behind this, behind the business, is to try to provide people high quality experiences and a smoother path than I had over the years. And we can go more into that a bit later. And the second is just doing a retreat. Right. So it was interesting because when we set ourselves up this way, I had expected that most of the people that would do the seven week approach would be first timers, and those that had kind of done it before would gravitate more towards the retreats. But actually we're finding that a majority of our clients actually want that more holistic approach. And the more holistic approach, the way that I see this work now is it's 80% mental and emotional work, which is what sets up the 20% with plant medicine to be as powerful and as transformative as it is. The reality is that we all have mental and emotional blind spots that are keeping us from our true selves from reaching a higher state of consciousness. And so if we already knew what they were and we knew how to release them, then we would have done so, you know, and so I think the combination of working with, you know, someone like yourself, like a high performance coach, a leadership coach, a therapist, depending upon where the person is at in order to help them see how their own patterns of thinking and their own patterns of behavior are helping, are keeping them from their future self. So what we really do with clients is we help them go deep on, okay, who is this future self? You know, maybe you don't have all of the pieces at your disposal at the moment because you have some questions about what's next for you in life, but you still have a pretty good idea, right? What are the things that gave you great joy earlier in life? What are the moments that you felt really aligned with your values? All of those sorts of things that we can kind of begin to piece together a picture of. Okay, when you're working at your best, what did that look like? And so we help clients get clear on that future self and then getting detailed about what life is going to be like when that future self is realized. And I genuinely believe that any one of us can be whatever it is that we want to be. And the medicine, these medicines really respond to intentionality. So if we anchor the very core of our being to that belief in that future self, then the medicine is able to show us usually the things that we need to be willing to release in order to bring that react to bear for ourselves. So, number one, we help them get clear on future self. The second piece is, as I shared before, surfacing and releasing the patterns of mind and emotions that are keeping from future self. So the patterns of mind, you know, as I shared before, these are substances, medicines that are very powerful on the brain. But if we don't know the patterns of mind that we're trying to rewire, it's very difficult to do so. So for most of us, we have patterns of mind that have been entrenched over decades. And most of us, as a result of, you know, you said it before, we live in a very linear fashion. And so as we've tried to cope with growing complexity as we've progressed through life, we've become more patterned in our thinking. We're trying to actually meet the complexity on its terms, which is just not a sustainable way to live, to be honest, particularly as we're at this juncture of our evolution. Right. I think all of us can see in the 18 months past the VUCA, the volatility, the uncertainty, the complexity and the ambiguity has just gone through the roof. And so trying to meet the complexity on its terms is just impossible these days. So we have to find a different way to cope. And so once we understand the patterns of mind that we need to release, then we, then we can begin to work with that ahead of the medicine, begin to release them, spot them more commonly. And then once we get that, that work with the medicine, then we have a much higher chance of actually being able to rewire those neural pathways. And that's what, that's the outcome that we're looking for. You know, we're trying to replace negativity of mind with positivity of mind as default, not as something that you go, oh yeah, you know, I could have done that a little bit better later. We want that to be the default. So that's the mental stuff, then the emotional stuff. So we've all got many, many patterns, sorry, many layers of shame, guilt, grief, fear, envy, anger, apathy, pride. Those are all emotions that many of us have. We all have in. Stuck in our physical body, energetic body. And so we teach the tools for emotional processing. So that as the, as we begin to work with the medicine before, but, but also, especially during the work with the medicine, as these dissonant energies are coming up to the surface, that we are actually able to release them, that we don't contract away from the experience because, you know, it's the places that we don't want to look, where all the gold is hidden. And so the medicine can help us, you know, show us where the, where that gold is. But unless we actually are ready for that emotionally and we've got the tools to let it go, then it's likely that we'll contract away from the experience and not be able to actually get the benefits available through this work. So that's, that's the process into the lead up. Then we work with the medicine, we can go deeper into that. And then, and then post retreat, it's really about anchoring. You know, okay, what's going to be different? You've got this clarity of this future self. You've got some powerful downloads, insights, guidance. Maybe you understand more about what your purpose is going to be. You've had some healing, you've dropped some emotions, you see some patterns of mind. Now bringing that all back down together and anchoring that back into reality so that we can get those improvements to quality of life and sustained elevation in consciousness. You know, one of the things I say to our clients is it's entirely possible to have years of profound psychedelic experiences where you land back at the level of consciousness where you've just bypassed your mental and emotional blind spots and oh, wow, you know, I understand universal love. And then, you know, next week you're back at work and you're flipping off the guy in traffic and you're like, which part of universal love didn't stick for you? So that's a little bit about our process. And yeah, we can take the conversation from here as you see fit.

That's brilliant. No, Jonathan, that's fantastic. Because some of the listeners here will have done events, they may have went to a Tony Robbins event or something like that and big change, big transformation during that three or four days. But then the integration, the reintegration back in the normal life. Five, six weeks later, they're back into their regular habits. And as you said, so interesting because neuroscience, I've been doing a lot of study through Dr. Joe dispense and really understanding what his approach to quantum physics and neuroscience and meditation and healing. And he said exactly the same thing. He quoted exactly the same study in that by the time you're 35 years old, 95% of what you think, do and react are all patterns, habits. You're thinking the same thing, doing the same thing. So you've only got this 5% window. And it's about trying to expand that and go, okay, I want to reprogram some of that 95%. I don't want to be thinking negative, negative. I don't want to reach for a beer on a Monday night to deal with the shitty day I had, you know? So I'm fascinated that this process can help people to get into those issues, face their fears, not shy away, as you're saying, like, prep for it and then afterwards actually reintegrate, actually be able to go, okay, I can take all of that discovery, that healing, and bring it into my life and bring it into my work. I think that's really, really powerful. So for you, we'll kind of bring it back a little bit. You got to South America, you went to your first experience. Now, you kind of alluded that, hey, my experience wasn't maybe the best experience. And let's talk a little bit about what happened in your experiences and how that's motivated you to say, I want to do this better for other people.

Yeah. And I'm going to build on something you said there and then, and then relate it to myself. And I think, you know, in essence, there's fear and there's love. Right. And for most people, when they really take the time and energy to inquire.

What'S motivating them, you'll ultimately come to a place of fear, like, oh, I'm not going to have enough, or I'm not going to be enough, or I'm not good enough. And so that's the switch, right? Operating from a place of fear to operating from a place of love. And I genuinely believe that each and every one of us on this planet has amazing gifts to give and that we're all naturally givers. We're not takers, we're givers. But when we're taking, when we're living from a Place of fear, then we need to take because we're fearful, but we're living from a place of love, then we're giving. And that's a very different paradigm. And I think, you know, that's the evolution in consciousness that I think is next for us individually and collectively. And so, yeah, for me, you know, very powerful experience, A lot of downloads, a lot of insights. I was shown.

One of the more powerful and humbling experiences that I had on that first retreat was being shown that I was the only thing that was in my own way. And I remember asking at the time, I was like, yeah, but okay, that's. That's a nice message. But, like, surely there's other things that are in my way as well. And like, it came back doubly strong. Was like, no, no, no, this is the most humbling and empowering thing at the same time. And I felt it in every cell of my body. And it was just like, no, no, no, you are the only thing in your way. And it's like, wow, that's. That's an incredible message. And so I came out of that feeling for the first few days really excited about life. And then it just kind of drifted out. It wasn't there for me. And so we really do need help to anchor that, to make it clear for ourselves what's going to be different, what's going to be better for us. And so at the end of the retreat, I remember they handed us a one piece of paper. It's like, oh, you should probably try meditation. And that was. And that was kind of the end of it. And so, you know, for me, I was like, atheist before, you know, now question mark. Like, I think the universe has been turned pretty upside down. You know, before I was, you know, probably not as.

As aware of some of the impacts that I was having upon people, both good and bad. And I was given a lot of profound, you know, insights and downloads and then this whole thing around empowerment. Whereas, you know, I think I used to be.

I was one of those people that probably externalized quite a bit in terms of like, well, this is this way because of this. And actually what we come to recognize through this work is that the problem isn't the problem or the perception of the problem isn't the problem. It's the perception that is fundamentally the problem, and that applies to all things. I know we all want to, like, look at problems on the outside and use them in order to, I guess, argue or to back the rationale for where we are, but those were the Kind of the messages that I got and yet still life returned to normal. All of the habits, all the thinking, all of that kind of came back. And so I think it's, it's super important that as and when people explore these experiences that they get some guidance for the mental and emotional work and they have someone to help them hold themselves accountable, to really, actually implement some more sustainable changes. Because, you know, just going to Peru for another plant medicine retreat, which is the pattern that I was on, you know, many, many plant medicine retreats, I was on that pattern for years and still not integrating well. And intuitively I knew this, but I didn't know what I was missing. I didn't know that mental and emotional work was requ. And I didn't know much about the energetic stuff either, which is another, another rabbit hole that we can get into a little bit as well.

That's brilliant. And as you said, I'm thinking about, so a distinction for anybody that's listening and say, micro dosing versus plant medicine, like can we talk about that? The clear distinctions between say, using, I think what do they use? Mdma and.

I don't know, is that lsd? I know I don't really know my drugs as you can probably tell, but what's the difference between microdosing and plant medicine?

Yeah, so the key difference is in dosage, right? So is, you know, generally speaking, when people are talking about microdosing, it's usually either psilocybin or lsd. Other people are microdosing other things as well, but those are the two, I think, that are, that are most common. Some people report great results, other people not so much. Personally speaking, I haven't had much results from, from micro dosing. But with, when you kind of going on a plant medicine retreat, we're talking more about macro dosing, right? We're talking about, you know, a larger amount of, of the medicine for the experience. So yeah, I've certainly seen some science, there's some, some kind of conflicting science out there at the moment, but there's a lot more research which is, which is obviously being done. You know, the psychedelic science is just exploded in the last three years in particular in terms of the quantum of research that's being done. And it's super exciting. You know, they're, they're proving you, you want to, you won't believe the, the vast variety of, of things that they're doing. Right. So some of this to do with the microdosing, which again, some conflicting research, they're looking at autoimmune disorders for, you know, larger dosage. They're looking at obviously all the, you know, the, the ailments of, shall I say, lower levels of consciousness, depression, anxiety, ocd, anxiety, depression, all of those sorts of things. They're looking at stroke, believe it or not, acute stroke victims, as they're being loaded into the, as they're being loaded into the ambulance to actually give them a sub perceptual dose to increase neuroplasticity. So to improve their chances of staying alive. We've now got some recent science that shows, if you're a fan of, of Joe Dispenza, very similar benefits in terms of epigenetic expression. So plant medicine can really accelerate the process of improving our individual genetic expression. We've only had the first paper there, so it's the first understanding of the relationship between plant medicine and epigenetics. And I think the research there is going to yield a ton of results because, I don't know, you may have heard there's something called the stone ape theory which says that it's not that these medicines do interesting things to our brains, it's that our brains are as interesting as they are in no small part as a result of plant medicine. So that we may have actually co evolved alongside with these plants. And, you know, that was considered a crazy theory 50 years ago. Now it's reached general acceptance within the academic, you know, the psychedelic research community. So I've gone a little bit off track. But coming back to microdosing and macrodosing, that's kind of fundamentally the distinction. Microdosing tends to be at home, although some people do go on microdosing retail retreats or get guidance from that. And macro dosing or retreat settings tends to be higher amounts of medicine.

And that's probably something to talk about as well because there might be some people going, oh, I can't go to the retreat or it's not legal in my country, I'm just going to try it at home. But let's just chat about what the experience is going to be. If you do it at home with a few Google searches and you don't do the prep work, what's the experience and the potential risk going to be?

Yeah, so.

For anyone who is considering that path, I would still encourage them to first speak to a qualified therapist in order to go through some sort of a safety screening.

Right.

These, these medicines do have contraindication physical as well as with, with prescription medications. So it's very important that people go through a high quality safety screening ahead of Exploring these medicines now in terms of, you know, doing it at home, you know, casually.

The thing that I encourage people to think about, you know, recognizing my conflict of interest, I'm a retreats guy, of course, but is unpredictability of experience. You know, we really do benefit from having someone there who is there for us mentally, emotionally, energetically in order to facilitate us through one of these experiences. So, you know, there are more kind of underground practices, practitioners there these days. But most of our clients are people, you know, like I imagine your clients are, are people who'd rather, you know, travel to a place where it's legal and work with people who really know what they're doing. Because again, the mind is what's on the line here. Right. And so as powerful things are coming to the surface, we really do benefit from some contextualization and people who have preferably worked for this, in this field for decades to be able to help us make sense of some of the things that we're experiencing. Because these can be pretty reality shattering in terms of things that we see. Feel, experience. You can have experiences where time and space crunches into itself and you begin to question reality itself.

Guidance is helpful.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. If I ever get to the point where I'm going to do it, I, I would want to be doing it with someone who's done it a thousand times and has overseen it and is really well respected in the industry. I think that's really important when it comes to any type of medicine. I'm glad you brought up as well about the prescription drugs. So if someone's on, let's say antidepressants or something like that, they would need to be coming off that kind of stuff before they go to a retreat, I imagine.

Yeah, that's exactly right. So these medicines don't play nice with most of the prescription medications. And so typically three weeks, sometimes longer. Longer is better. People need to be completely off any prescription medications because these, it's almost like the two worlds coming together. You know, there's, there's, there's a lot of actually convergence in relation to this work. Whether we talk about, you know, the science and the spirituality, you know, the, the strongest predictor of a positive outcome from the psychedelic science is whether or not the individual has had a full blown mystical experience. Right. So that's the out of mind, out of body experience. We also see the, you know, the more holistic world, the kind of alternative new age healing coming together with, with the psychedelic science. So that's another Kind of point of convergence. And then we see, you know, mind, body, heart and spirit being harmonized within, within the physical or our, our being, if you will. And so I think this, this, this work and this research really, really represents a point of convergence. And, and it seems like there are things like, like now I can't even have a single drink, to be honest. I'm just too sensitive. And it will, it will, you know, knock me out of whack for two or three days even if I have a single drink. Like I used to go and have 10 and not think much about it the next day at 7 o' clock at work, you know, I love it.

And that's quite interesting personally. A year and a half ago, I committed as a bit of a personal challenge to one year no beer. And it's essentially one year no alcohol. And for an Irish guy, it's pretty big. Commitment, commitment. So I did it for fun, did it for a personal challenge, got to the end of the year, felt amazing. And I have no desire to go back and I just haven't. It's been great. So I imagine once you have an experience that's spiritual and as deep as what people have when they're at the retreat, yet going back to those old, you know, fixes of alcohol, it must have a profound impact at a cellular level.

Yeah. And you know what, what tends to happen for a lot of people is that their ongoing spiritual development becomes a priority for them. Right. And it's not to say that you need, you know, more and more and more plant medicine in order to facilitate that, but, but the work fundamentally is about further attuning ourselves and further developing our sensitivities in order to be able to further attune ourselves. And so something like alcohol, while it was a helpful solution for me in the past, is now it's, it's not, it's disconnecting me from my intuition, it's disconnecting me from my empathy, it's disconnect from my self, ultimately. And so, you know, the, the way that I kind of look at this in many regards is that our brain is actually an antenna. Right. And so the quality of the calibration of the antenna is a reflection of our thoughts. So over time, as we continue this work, the quantum of thoughts really reduces. Like, you know, I don't really get thought unless I'm asking for them actively. And the quality of thoughts over time is going up. And so that's a, you know, you can use like the TV channel analogy, right? The, it's you know, on one channel is Mickey Mouse. We understand that Mickey Mouse isn't actually there in the TV screen. It's, it's being. The signals being modulated and then projected onto the screen. That's how I believe consciousness to work. And, you know, there's a lot of science now that's coming out. And there's a great CIA paper, actually, that articulates exactly, exactly this. So it's that the thoughts that we're having is a reflection of our consciousness. It's a reflection of the calibration of our antenna. And so the pineal gland, which is the seed of the soul, for many of us, it's calcified as a result of bad diet, as a result of fluoride in the water. I know that sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory, but it's on WebMD. Like, if you want to deepen your spiritual connection, first thing you need to do is decalcify your pineal gland. And so there's very practical steps that we can make in order to calibrate our antenna. Whether it's meditation, breathwork, plant medicine, improving diet, exercise, all of those sorts of things are going to return the brain to a more harmonious and natural state. That's going to be what allows you to deepen your connection with the collective consciousness. And then you're going to be able to further attune your understanding. You know, every minute, every microsecond, the universe is sending us messages about opportunities for the elevation of consciousness. Now, whether or not we recognize those, whether or not we see those, is entirely up to us, right? So when you see friends or when you've had periods in your life where, you know, you've just. You're just encountering the same challenge over and over and over again, the universe is trying to help you see something. And whether or not you see it is ultimately up to you. And, you know, but it's. It can be one of the worst. You know, I've had periods in my life where it's like, like I'm. I feel like I'm on loop here because I'm just getting the same punch in the face from the universe over and over again. And at the time, you know, wasn't able to see what the message was, what I needed to abstract away from and see differently so that I could re. Kind of rise above that challenge and move on to the next one that the universe might have in store for me.

I can relate, like 100%, Jonathan. Like, not so long ago, I felt this tension in My solar plexus. I was like, I just can't find the answer. I want to find the answer to this. Like, where am I headed? What am I doing? Who am I? I just. I couldn't figure it out. I was getting so much, like, so tense about it, I thought, I need to remove myself. So it's interesting, we talk about the pineal gland or the pineal gland. So my understanding is that it helps in the production of serotonin and melatonin. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's right.

And it's connected to the optic nerve.

Yes, indeed. And it's also the precursor. Those are the two precursors, we believe, for dmt, dimethyltryptamine, which is the underlying molecule within Ayahuasca. So we naturally, we produce endogenous dmt, so we can produce it ourselves. So if you go into a darkness retreat, for example, that's what's happening. It's turning because we're cut off from the light. Then I don't know the exact science behind it, but basically the serotonin or the melatonin is turned into dmt and we can have very powerful, powerful, visionary experiences even in the absence of outside influence.

Yeah, it's quite powerful. I just was watching someone demonstrate how to stimulate or reactivate the pineal gland, and it's through this incredible diaphragmatic breathing. It's phenomenal. So that's definitely. That's interesting that you brought that up and how that connects in as well. That's phenomenal.

Yeah. And.

I've done some of those exercises before as well. And what I found in my friend group was that those who had, who had done some plant medicine, which I think can. Trying to find the right analogy. It's like blow out the cobwebs a little bit on the system. Right. And kind of get everything mostly moving in some of the right ways. Those that had done some of that work or had a strong meditation practice were able to get a lot out of that. That exercise that you're describing in terms of stimulating endogenous dmt, whereas those that were kind of just, you know, coming at it from. From a low base, you know, no meditation practice, no previous plant medicine experience, they couldn't quite get the pieces humming together, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting that the meditation, when you look at studies around leaders, the meditation is becoming more of a commonplace thing for top leaders. So on a meditation front, do you have any practices that you do that you would like to share? Anything that you works for? You from like a regular meditation meditative practice?

Yeah, yeah.

My experience with my journey with meditation and it's still evolving.

Has been an interesting one. I think one of the things that I've seen and learned from mentors and people who've guided me is that meditation can become a little bit of a trap in of itself. Because I think some people, when they're well guided by people who have attained really high states of consciousness, I think meditation can be, can be a great path. There's a sort of harmonization that's taking place here, which I think is important, which is when you've got someone who is, you know, a self realized teacher, that people who are learning from that person are actually harmonizing up to their higher vibration, up to their higher level of consciousness. And so, you know, when you hear about these people going to seek a guru or a teacher, you know, spiritual mentor, etc. That's a little bit of what's happening. There's, you know, two frequencies. The lower frequency always harmonizes up to the higher frequency. And I think that's a bit of a physics analogy for what's happening on the planet at the moment. There's a lot of harmonization that's needing to take place. And so the meditation, I think can often keep people a little bit stuck, if I'm to be honest. And I think that's where some other modalities, whether it's breath work or could be even something like sprinting or plant medicine work, can actually help to kind of of break out of some of the patterns because there's certainly, I know there's some people out there who've meditated seriously for 20 or 30 years and are actually still stuck, you know, waiting for that big breakthrough, that big mystical experiences, despite 20 or 30 years of like super dedicated practice. And this is where I think some of the magic of the plants comes in because it just, it removes the barriers, right? It relaxes and releases parts of the brain that are, are the ego in particular that are so tightly held that it can just, it can be challenging to get there without plant medicine. So, you know, for me I. There's a few different ways that I meditate. Sometimes it's.

Just, you know, typical silent meditation, 20 or 30 minutes, typically in the morning. Other times I find it helpful to try to embody more advanced spiritual teachings. Right. So there's plenty of great spiritual teachings out there. So you actually focus your meditation into bringing down those spiritual teachings and embodying them. You know, a lot of this work is really about bringing down the wisdom into your energetic and physical body so that it becomes part of your being versus something that you academically understand. Right. I would almost make the distinction between wisdom and intelligence. Wisdom is embodied intelligence is some stuff that you've stuck in your mind, if that, if that makes sense. And so that's that that for me tends to be more productive for me than the silent meditation. These. And then there's also, you know, the other one is manifestation meditations. Those can be very powerful as well. And you know that, that is, that I think relates well to what we were talking about before in terms of attunement. Right. So the better attuned we are, the better able we are to manifest those things into our experience that we're looking to do to, you know, give more, love more, and improve, you know, our quality of individual experience. There's always some ego there, you know, 100%.

And, and when you think of ego, let's think whether it's a leader of a company or the leader of a family, like a parent. What is ego and how can it either hinder us or help us?

It's a great question. I think it's worth regarding the ego.

For the many benefits that it has. I guess starting all the way back, we. I mentioned before that I believe that we're all kind of a. An individualization, a potentialized individualization of a single collective consciousness. Now, as consciousness was, is expanding itself, there was or is a desire to experience individual existence, if that makes sense. So to break away from the whole in order to experience the illusion of the separate self. And so this work is fundamentally about, you know, relaxing that illusion, removing the barrier between the inner world and the outer world. The analogy I sometimes give is like, you know those balloons that kids play with at the fair and you twist off a little piece. So the universe is the whole balloon. We've twisted off a little piece and now we think of that as ourselves, as our ego. And so this work is about human, you know, is about untwisting that, that piece so that we can rejoin the whole. Now that takes time and energy. And so plant medicine is powerful. You know, for example, 5 Meo DMT, the toad, as I mentioned before, that's a very quick path to understanding that you're actually part of the whole. But then the real work starts after the experience where we've, we've had a light shone on the possibility of consciousness and what we truly are. But then it's our work to begin to walk the path that we've been shown, shown to actually be able to approach and ultimately realize that state and that understanding without the support of plant medicine. And so when we talk about ego.

That desire for separate existence is I think, where it all started. And then there's also self preservation playing a fundamental role. Right. As we're born into this world, we're ignorant. We need to compete for resources, for attention, for love. And so the ego comes online, you know, something like 18 months.

Is that right? Maybe it's earlier than that. But I think that I can't remember if it's two or three months or 18 months. It's one of those two. The ego comes online and begins to make itself known and have very specific demands of this world. So it's self preserving preservation. Without, without ego, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be surviving, that's for sure. So it's necessary. And I think the, the game of life, the opportunity that each of us has is to come out of that ignorance that we're born in to, you know, to face the challenges that we ultimately face in, in through childhood, through adolescence, through early adulthood, and to begin to discover ourselves, the inner world, not just the outer world, but to discover our inner world, overcome, grow and ultimately begin to, you know, first build our ego and then hopefully, if we're lucky, get to a place in life where we can actually begin to reduce our ego. And you know, I think one of the ways that I think this is more the ego is most evident is when you pair grandchild with grandparent, right? Where the grandchild is existing predominantly for themselves, entirely for themselves. And the grandparent is also living, living for the grandchild entirely. And so it's the perfect match.

I've never thought of that, but it's so true.

It's like, I exist for me and you exist for me. This is perfect. And parents are like, well, I exist for me too.

Let's get a bit of balance here. I love it. So you talk about consciousness and oneness. So for someone, and I put my hand up, you know, I'm just starting to really think about. It's been the last three or four years thinking about spirituality and, and connecting with a higher source. For someone who's very linear thinking and isn't connected to any of that kind of thinking, what is consciousness or what is oneness?

Yeah, so I guess when we think of consciousness, the way that I think of consciousness now is that everything in the universe is consciousness. And you know, at an atomic level, we understand that even a lump of steel is Vital, vibrating, right. And so consciousness is, is, is the, is the core element of everything. And the quantum physics is beginning to point in this direction. You know, the unified theory. We've had mystics telling us this for ages. There's the CIA paper that I will share with you after because I think it's worth linking to. It's a great read, it's fascinating read. So we've got, you know, sources converging that tells us that consciousness is kind of the, the unified thing theory, if you will. And so this is experientially possible, you know, not on your first retreat, but it's experience experientially possible for each of us to kind of get there for ourselves and understand the nature of reality. And so when we speak about consciousness, it's. It's a vibration, right? Vibration is the core of, of what the material world is made of. And then, you know, this consciousness is being split into light, into matter, into ourselves and everything that is in existence. And it continues to expand endlessly in all direct directions. So it's not like there's good or bad, there's just polarity. And consciousness wants to continue to expand itself in all directions. And so that's why, you know, we see a lot of things that we like, we see a lot of things that perhaps we don't like. But, but just recognizing that it's consciousness expanding itself allows for a different perspective on those things that perhaps we might not be so in tune with if, if that makes sense. So that's one of the ways that I think about consciousness. The other way that I think about it is the relationship. Sorry, I'll start by saying the degree to which we know ourselves is another way to look at consciousness, right? And so when we talk about the layers of emotions, when we talk about the trauma, when we talk about over identification with the mind, when we talk about our own identity, when we talk about the societal programming, these are all things that have kind of crept into our being, but they're not actually who and what we are. And so as we peel away those, those layers of those things, then we can see what we truly are. And it's much more exc. Than, you know, the meat skeleton, as it were. And so that's another way to think about consciousness. The third way that I, that I like to think about consciousness is the relationship between the inner world and the outer world and the degree to which we understand that those things are actually one and the same. And so, you know, I think we live in a paradigm where most of us are prioritizing the things in the outside world because that's what we believe to be reality. But actually we can see that that's not reality. Reality is much deeper than that. But we're not going to see that through looking out. We're only going to see that through looking in. And so once we understand that time and space aren't real, then we can engage in the game of life under very different terms with much more joy, much more patience, much more empathy, courage. These are all leadership skills. And so when we talk about who doesn't want to have a higher view of things, knowledge is powerful power in the most beautiful way. And so when we have a higher view of things and we're able to see, you know, trauma that's playing out in one of our team members in relation to something that may not be as beautiful as we might like, then we can actually approach that from a loving perspective as opposed to, hey, you're being unreasonable and angry. And so that allows for a much different dynamic. So, you know, we're always excited to guide leaders because we know that the, the elevation of consciousness, I don't believe is going to follow any sort of linear trajectory. As we get to more leaders, as people recogn and improve themselves, then they're bringing that into their daily lives with their families, they're bringing that into their professional networks, they're bringing that into their team. And so that elevation of consciousness is happening at a rapid tick at the moment. And I think plant medicine is, as far as I know, it's the most powerful tool to accelerate that process, which is what I think makes it so exciting.

Yeah, it's incredible. It's seriously incredible. I think the more I listen to what you're saying, it is.

Plant medicine is like the vehicle. It's the vehicle and it helps you get to that point so we can all get to that point. And some of us may or may not get there, but this is a vehicle that can actually, you could jump aboard and let's go and access it. It's interesting. I've got a friend in LA and he's a film producer and also has an Inc. 5000 company. Like, he's an incredible guy. And he said, james, I went and did I ayahuasca? I was like, how did it go, man? It was mind blowing. It changed my whole view in the world. And this guy, like from a corporate standpoint or a business standpoint, he's incredibly successful. He rubs shoulders with superstars, celebrities, but he is so grounded. He is so in love with the world, with people, with society. It's quite amazing. And I firmly believe that ayahuasca and plant medicine has helped someone like him to really connect with consciousness. And for someone like that, who I really look up to and aspire to, like, wow, you know, if he's walking the walk and he's doing great in all aspects of his life, plus he's embraced this plant medicine, that there's something there. You know, it's intriguing.

It really is. And I think, you know, the, the shift individual and collective is from 4D, which is the identification with the mind, to the 5D, which is returning the mind its rightful place in the hierarchy of self and being able to connect with the higher self in a much deeper way. And there's no end to that. You know, people talk about spiritual attainment or enlightenment or something like that. It's an endless process. You know, I'm blessed to be guided by healers and spiritual mentors that are so much further down this rabbit hole in terms of their understanding of the universe and what is. And they've, you know, many of them have run out of teachers and they're still learning. So there just seems to be this endless opportunity to just deepen our self understanding and as a result of that, our contributions. And so it's exciting when we, when, when, when we hear stories like that where people have had, you know, significant improvements to quality of life. You know, again, coming back to my story, I didn't know what I was missing. I didn't believe in spirituality. I didn't think that there was something there for me. And the moment that I recognized that it was, it was like, ah, okay, this is, this, this is what we are here for. We are here to spiritually evolve. And so, you know, when we hear about, you know, the wisdom traditions, talking about reincarnation and karma, I believe in that stuff 100% now. And you could not have convinced me before, you know, I was very much down the Richard Dawkins, the selfish gene, all of those sorts of kind of, you know, more atheistic and deterministic styles of thinking. And now it's like, oh, wow, we're here for spiritual evolution. And so, you know, we can all connect to our true purpose. We're, we're not a random permutation of evolution, not a single one of us. We're here with, with divine purpose. We can connect with that and then we can bring that with our unique strengths and skills and love and courage and empathy and make that, you know, bring that out into the world in a way that is giving as opposed to taking. And that's. That's a shift that I think we can all get pretty excited about.

Oh, incredibly, yeah, absolutely. When you look at what's going on in the world and the divisiveness that we see when we choose to watch media or whatever, this is incredible, an opportunity for us to bring. Bring it back together.

Now, thinking about plant medicine, its origins, you know, the tribal people who originated with this plant medicine, is there respect and acknowledgement from those ancient tribes and the people that are still, say, in South America, do they feel that it's good that, say, Caucasians and the Western world are embracing it and commercializing it? Is there a respect and it's all good in that regard?

Yeah. This is opening Pandora's box. Now.

I'm glad you asked. I'm glad you asked. It's an important question. I think it's worth framing this in a couple different ways before diving in. And I think the first thing to say is that I think clearly there was a sustained effort to wipe out plant medicine traditions across the world by colonialist forces. And so it's not a coincidence that these ancient wisdom traditions have reemerged from places high in the Andes or deep in the Amazon that were more difficult to reach. The second dynamic that I think is important to share is that even within these indigenous communities, there are very different views on this subject. And there are hundreds, if not thousands of medicine traditions and many, many different ways to practice these medicines. And I think at the moment, you know, most people who are doing this work from the Western world have apprenticed under indigenous traditions, whether that's in the Amazon or in the Andes, you know, Central America, Central South America. So there. There is kind of.

A lot of, you know, if we take maybe some of the Gaelic traditions, there's very strong evidence, some of the Viking traditions, you know, very strong evidence, Buddhist traditions even as well, in terms of plant medicine traditions that have been discovered, you know, evidence that has been discovered, but the understanding on a. On a more fundamental level is missing. And so a lot of, you know, these. These people have traveled from around the world to go spend time with the people who still have the ancient wisdom to develop their own understanding. And now they're traveling back to their places of origin and trying to connect back with their own medicines of their lands and bring those medicine, you know, bring back to life those medicine traditions that have been wiped out during the witch trials or, you know, whatever local version of that took place. Across the globe. And so, you know, I think it is a sensitive. It's a very. This is a super sensitive subject. And you will meet as many opinions and judgments and probably more than there are people that are working in this. In this ecosystem. But I think, you know, I don't think there's a right way and a wrong way, quote, unquote, in relation to how this work is performed. I think, I believe in evolution and in the evolution of consciousness and that the things that work good will continue to come to the fore and the things that are not as beneficial to mankind will continue to kind of reduce in their. In their prevalence, I suppose. And I think the other dynamic to recognize is that there are people who have moved out of their own indigenous tribes in order to participate in this market, if you may describe it as such. And there are those who have chosen to stay with their tribes and to continue to contribute first and foremost and predominantly to their own communities. And so there's, you know, to oversimplify, there's those who have stayed with their communities. There's those who. Who have, you know, indigenous peoples who have decided to perhaps, you know, leave their communities and. Or serve medicine outside of their community context or even travel the world in order to facilitate medicine experiences. And then there are those who are, you know, from the west and are trying to pick up their skills and develop their skills. And so you'll find that there's very many different ways of facilitating medicine and pros and cons that exist across the vast variety of experiences. You know, immersed with local tribes, traveling with the kind of traveling shamans, if you may describe them as such, or in a more contemporary setting that may or may not have a grounding within a particular tradition, you know, whether that's from the Amazon or the Andes. So I don't know if that even begins to answer your question, but a few of the ways that I like to think about it, yeah, it's really.

Helpful because it's such a. It's such a new realm for me. And I'm just trying to think, you know, where it started and how they feel about it. It's really interesting and it makes sense what you just said. It really does. So let's get down to your brand as well and talk about what it is you do. And so behold, retreats. And where are you guys based?

We've got a global team. Most of our retreats take place in Costa Rica, Mexico, Netherlands and Portugal, and we'll be reopening in Peru shortly. So we've got A global team in terms of a management team. And then obviously we have individual, you know, facilitators, practitioners, shamans, healers within each of those, each of those locations.

Brilliant. And for someone to become part of your team, say on the spiritual or the shamanic side, how do they pass your like, test or how do they meet your standards of what the experience you want to give your client?

Yeah, it's a great question. So there's kind of, there's the rational response and then there's the spiritual response. So from a rational perspective, there's simply no replacement for experience. Right. We really want to be working with people with a decade plus, preferably decades of experience in terms of facilitating and guiding medicine work. Because there's just, there's no replacement for that. You know, one of our facilitators in Costa Rica, he's been doing this work for 30 years and he, he, you know, knock on wood. He's never had something go wrong with any of his clients. And I think a large part of that is because he's seen it all at this point. So he instinctively and intuitively knows if this person's going to have a really bad experience, he's able to tap into that even ahead of the experience itself. And so that's a large part of what we're looking for. We're looking for, how long have they been doing this work? How seriously did they take safety screening even before we turn up? So we've kind of standardized. One of the things that we think we bring to the table is high quality safety screening and a standardization of that safety screening. Because a lot of these individual retreat centers, you know, they're really heartfelt people. But this is a bit of a wild west in relation to how this work is being done. So anyone can do whatever it is that they want to do. So if they don't want to do a safety screening, they don't have to. Right. And so there's no standardization as such. And actually one of our therapists, as she was developing our protocols, she actually identified that most of the retreat centers had two made up medicines on their, on their contraindicated medicine list. So someone had clearly just made up two individual medicines and stuck them on their own safety screening. And somehow that had propagated out across all the other medicine retreat centers. Because she says these, she had checked all of, you know, Harvard's literature, et cetera, et cetera. She's super well connected and she was like, these medicines don't exist. The only two places these medicines exist is in an ayahuasca retreat, safety screening.

So I thought that was hilarious.

And look, and look, it's understandable, right? These are kind of mom and pop retreat centers that are, that are doing the work from the heart and they don't have the time and the energy to do to keep up with the latest list of contraindicated medicines with ayahuasca. Right. So there's certainly a requirement there to keep a high quality of safety screening. So that's something else that we look for before we came along. You know, what were they doing in terms of safety, in terms of protocols, all of those sorts of, of things. Their philosophy of the work is also important. You know, whether or not they. Yeah, whether or not they're doing the work to a high standard ultimately. So we have a pretty structured approach in terms of what we're looking for in relation to that. And then the spiritual aspect is level of consciousness. So, you know, what is, what is the level of consciousness that the practitioner themselves have reached? And so we're blessed to have, you know, very in tune spiritual people that are able to tap into the energetic field of others and to see where they're at. And that's not something that I can do, but I'm very happy to know that that's a tool that is available because as we spoke about before, ultimately what's taking place is that harmonization. And so the higher the level of consciousness a practitioner has reached, the more likely, the more quickly that someone is going to raise over say, the course of a seven day or ten day retreat while they're there on location.

Brilliant. And if you think of some of your clients that have came through, do you have a client in mind where you're like, hey, this is a pretty cool experience that they had. Is there some, like an example or a case study? You could say that they came, they were from this background they went through and this is what they come out and realized at the end.

Yeah, two that immediately come to mind. The first is cybersecurity IT tech CEO. And you know, he, the message I got back from him once he was back from retreat is this has been more amazing than I ever could have possibly imagined. I've cleared 50 years worth of shit in 10 days. And it was just like I was like, oh, you know, you know, often we spoke about this a little bit before. You know, often people who are the most successful are the most traumatized. And you know, in Malcolm Gladwell's book we talked about this quickly. You know, in Outliers, he Talks about how people who make it to the ending were all born within a three month window because they, because they were just more physically developed at age 5 when they started playing hockey relative to the people who were four and a half or four. And so that, that belief in themselves that was so firmly established at age 5 has just propagated over time. And I believe this to also be true in relation to people who are seeking success or seeking power. You know, the people who, if you think about what's sitting behind someone who wants to have power over others, it's not necessarily such a pretty thing, like why would you want to have power over someone else? Like I look at that now, I'm like, well, that's kind of weird energy. And so we're being led, I think collectively we're being led by the people who've been most traumatized, the people who are most disconnected from themselves. And so as a result of that, the, they need external validation because it's not felt to be, it's, there's the harmony within is missing. And so they're looking for the external signals in order to be made to feel whole, to be made to feel good enough. And that's, that's, that's an endless hamster wheel. You cannot win that game. I don't think. You know, when Elon Musk has his, you know, empire on Mars, I don't think he'll be happy. I think he'll be looking for the next thing.

Yeah. Never ends, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's the first story. The second one that came to mind is senior director from one of the big tech company platforms that we all know and love and spend too much time sometimes desk scrolling on, on rare occasion and, and you know, pretty spiritual guy, you know, strong meditation practice and he went on retreat and just had ceremony after ceremony was just the most profound experience. And so we spent hours on the phone afterwards just talking about the nature of the universe and consciousness. And he had gone so incredibly far. Just in one week. I was blown away how far he had been able to go. And that was because he had, I think, a foundation in meditation. And you know, he was, you know, your typical, actually your kind of typical Indian success story. You know, immigrated into the US as part of a consulting firm, you know, rose up the ranks of the ladder in the consulting firm and then was invited across into the tech company at quite a high level and you know, had really just an amazing, incredible success story. And then now he was just fascinated by consciousness and spirituality. And just dedicating much more of his time and energy. And he was just in the midst of a transition from a U.S. role to a global role. So it's beautiful and exciting to know that we're, you know, we're getting to those types of people and then they're going back into these environments that are high stress, you know, maybe reflecting honestly a lower level of consciousness at times and being able to bring that energy into, into these environments, into these platforms. Because it's not like, you know, people say, oh, you got to unplug from the Matrix, man. It's like, no, we're all in this together. Like, we all want to evolve this beautifully together in a way that's going to be to everyone's benefit, not just, you know, for the few.

That's so powerful. I feel that that's so important that you brought that to the table because I feel like, you know, a lot of leaders in the corporate and even in the sporting world, they kind of push back on this stuff. They push back on. That's all crazy stuff. Like the science doesn't back it up. It's too scary. I don't know. But when you hear of people who are truly leading at a global level in say a tech, for example, a tech company, and they're opening up to it and they're getting great results, to me that's like they're leading the way for everyone else to consider as something we should put on our agenda.

Yeah, it is. You know, it's funny because that's exactly it. And we get, sometimes we get the odd, you know, 20 page email from someone judging us for targeting because it's like, oh, well, you are just targeting them because they pay money. You know, it's like, well, actually, no, that's not it. The motivation is exactly what you said. You know, the leaders represent a point of leverage just as coaches do, just as plant medicine does. Right. So people who are in leadership positions have incredible opportunity to influence the world. Coaches have an incredible opportunity to influence leaders in their influence in the world. And mental medicine is connecting us to our inherent divinity. It's removing all the nonsense out of the way so that we can see for ourselves, for what we truly are and rise above what can often feel like just overwhelming complexity and chaos and recognize divine order is at play here and that we can all just take a little bit of a step back, a deep breath, smile, and live with a little bit more love, peace and joy as the evolution of consciousness continues to unfold.

That's so Important leaders need to hear that. And the leaders that are listening to this right now, I want you to think about that. You know, you as a leader have such an opportunity to inspire people, to lead people to influence the future for your communities, for your companies. And this is an opportunity to me, this is truly an opportunity for them to explore a whole other side of their life and of consciousness itself. So it's, I can think of some of my clients already. I'm like, well, this is an interesting topic. They, they're going to be forwarded this episode and I'm going encourage them to listen to it because I think there's a few that could really benefit from considering plant medicine.

You know, there's, there's two other dynamics that I think that, that, that relate to what you've, you've just said, which is the midlife crisis, which is, you know, it's a thing and it's the, often the point in time at which we need to re. Baseline. We need meaning, right? It's often it's the, the trauma that's coming back up to the surface that requires resolution. And sometimes it's, it's the point in time at which people take up, you know, cycling 200 kilometers a day and step into four different, you know, new board positions and.

Really become manic in their, in their attempt to suppress the emotions that are, that are rising to the surface. And the other aspect which I think is, is a helpful thought exercise and you know, that, that article, I think we talked about this before, the top five regrets of the dying. You know, what is it that when people get to the end of their life, what is it they really. What is it they wish they did different? And it's the same messages over and over again. And I go back to that article, I must go back to it every quarter or something like that because there's always something new for us to see there. And it's the same things, you know, it's. I wish I was true to myself. I wish I didn't work so hard. I wish I was able to feel my feel and express my emotions. And I wish I didn't lose touch with my friends. And I think most leaders, they read that and they go, oh man, there's something here for me. Because often we're just so focused on, you know, looking down the tunnel and all the responsibility that leaders have and to be able to anchor back to that and say, hey, let's make sure that I'm not on a path here that is going to lead me to have these regrets towards the end of my life because that would be sad.

100%. And so many corporates who are in their 60s and 70s do have those regrets. And that book, for anyone that's listening, the book is the top five regrets of the dying by the authors. Bronnie Ware, W A R E. She's an amazing author. It's a fantastic book. And you know, for us to know what the top regrets of the dying are, that to me that's valuable wisdom right there because we're all going to be there at one point and it'd be nice to know how we could ship our decisions today so that we live with less regret.

100%. 100%. And it's, you know, it's an evolution that I think just keeps on giving, right? As we further attune to the things that bring us joy. That I think it's Joseph, Joseph Murphy, Joseph Campbell, perhaps he's got follow your bliss is kind of his tagline. I think there's such beauty and power in that because, you know, there's things that bring us energy in this life and there's things that drain our energy. And those things are different for each and every one of us. And so the more that we tune into those things that truly bring us energy and bring us bliss are the things that's going to be the thing that leads to the biggest contribution in life. And so it doesn't have to be this struggle and toil where, you know, you, you hit the, hit the snooze button on your alarm a couple times before you drag yourself into the next, the next corporate, the next corporate meeting, but just following the bliss. And it's not to say that it has to be a revolution, right? You're going to go to the jungle and, you know, have some profound experience and now you need to quit everything. I don't think that's what it's about. I think it's about bringing those lessons, embodying them, and then further attuning yourself. And that could be, you know, back at Goldman Sachs and bringing the evolution of consciousness back into that, that environment. Or it could be, you know, deciding that actually there's other things in your life that bring you greater bliss and there's no, there's no right or wrong. I think clients often come, what is this going to do to me? Is this, you know, because I've got a pretty good life, so is this going to shake me up? And I always say, hey, we don't, we don't know what's coming for you. But we know that if you're feeling ready and if you're feeling called and you've got a really deeply held why for exploring this space, then. Then let's do it.

That's brilliant. Yeah, there's no expectations going in. That's fantastic. So let's talk about going in. So for anybody that's listening, where can they start their journey with you?

Yeah, so we do things a little bit differently. So our experiences, our transformations, our retreats are by invitation only. So there's no book now button on our website. You got to come through and speak to one of our team. So if anyone who's listening would like to have a chat and see whether we're are a good fit, then can come to our website on behold-retreats.com and hit the apply button. You know, you can check out a few of the retreats and the private experiences that we do. That's another thing I should mention is like for me personally, after three and a half years of attending all these five star group retreats, I made 90% more progress, 100% more progress in a private retreat where two healers were looking only after me. So most people, you know, they start in the group experience is kind of safety and number numbers thing going on and you're like, well, I'll just, you know, start with something that's a bit more economic. But for those people who are, I would say a little bit more discerning and recognize the power of these experiences, I would recommend always going private. But again, there's no right and wrong here. It's just, you know, individual preference. So that's where you can find us. For those people that this resonates with, let's, let's have a chat.

That's brilliant. And are you on Instagram as well?

Yes. Beholdretreats. Not as active there at the moment as we probably should be, but finding that like, at the moment we're just.

We'Re doing pretty well in terms of attracting the right clientele. So blessed in that regard, that's great.

And hey, referrals are obviously always the best thing. So when people have a good experience there and they're telling their friends, it's great, you don't have to be pumping out the marketing.

Yeah, yeah. A question for you, James. So what do you think would need to be true for you to explore something like this?

You know what, I've been thinking about it more and more and I think looking at plant medicine is something that does interest me and I think if you had to talk to me a year ago or longer, I would have been a definite no. Not doing it, not risking it, that's dangerous. I can't do that. I've got too much to lose. But actually, the more I explore spirituality, the more on my coaching journey, when I'm coaching clients, part of my, I feel my personal obligation is to discover different insights about life and spirituality and of course leadership and impart as much as I can with them. So yeah, there's definitely an interest and an inkling for me to start looking at plant medicine and yeah, it's not a definite no anymore.

Very interesting, very interesting. Yeah. And I think, I think there's a lot of people like yourself who are, you know, dedicated to the path of personal development. And you know, I could not have, like you, I could not have envisaged myself embarking on, on such a journey five years ago, to be perfectly honest. But it's, you know, I think as there's more science, as there's more evidence, as we understand more, you know, it's, you know, in speaking to some of the psychedelic scientists, it's been interesting to hear them, I will say they're still taking a deterministic approach to what is non deterministic work. So they're hoping that, you know, if you take one depression, you know, one person with depression, you take 20 of those, you apply X amount of Y medicine and sit with them, you know, with two therapy sessions before and two after that, you're going to get Z result. And this, this work doesn't work that way. Like it's, it's, it's energetic work and it's so deep and, and so I think there's a lot to be gained by bringing together the ancient wisdom traditions, the energetic work and the western scientific understanding where you know more the mental and the emotional and the therapeutic work. And so it's nice to see, see those begin to converge. And I think we're at a super exciting juncture because as more and more of the science comes out then we are going to be able to get better at triangulating what actually works versus what doesn't. And some great science that came out recently from I think it was 2700 ayahuasca ceremonies. And what it showed is, number one, these medicines help us improve our joy for life. Amazing, fantastic. Number two, they help us deepen our spirituality. But number three, and this is the piece of that's overlooked. They do not remove feelings of negativity and toxicity. So that's Our self determination in the evolution of consciousness. This is not a silver bullet. You still got to do the work. You can't heal what you won't feel. And so we all got to get down there and deep with, deal with that deep dark stuff to be able to reach those higher states. And, and that's where, that's where we need help to, to help us see that stuff and to help us release that stuff.

100%. That makes total sense. And just. Jonathan, I've got one last question I'd like to ask you. So if you had a child or even if you were talking to a younger version of yourself, you were talking to like a 9 or 10 year old version of yourself, what advice would you give that person to lead a life of purpose?

There's two things that immediately come to mind. The first would be to give primacy to the inner world rather than the outer outer world. You know, we have, we have all these senses, we've got this amazing beautiful world around us. Food, family, friends, relationships, all these things that lend us to give primacy to the outer world. And so I think number one would be giving primacy to the inner world as the opportunity to harmonize mind, body, heart and spirit and then manifest things in the outer world as a reflection of what's going on in our inner world. I truly believe that we retract, we attract what we are, not what we want. So it's fine, it's beautiful to want things, but then as we want something, we then need to, we need to embody the character that can attract that thing. You know, I think Jim, Jim's roan, Jim Rohn, I think has that beautiful quote, you know, make a million dollars, not for the million dollars, but who you need to become in order to make the million dollars. And I think that's, that's so beautiful. So that's the first thing is giving primacy to the inner world. The second thing that I would say is I'm going to steal from Campbell and say just follow your bliss. And so the things that give you energy, the things that give you strength are going to be the areas where you will be able to contribute so much more than anyone else on the planet. And that is unique to you. So don't be shy to follow that because that's going to be what brings you passion, what brings you purpose, what brings you abundance. And I think just like we're all here for a particular reason, there's abundance tied to that for each and every one of us.

That's incredible. You guys heard it here first. Follow your bliss. Like, what a great reminder. And it's such a beautiful concept. I love it. Jonathan, I just want to say a heartfelt thank you for taking the time to shed a light on this amazing side of consciousness. And the work that you do is truly incredible. So I want to say thank you for what you do for the people that get the opportunity to come and work with you and with all of your staff. So, hey, in the near future, I may be venturing over there and connecting with you. Who knows?

Beautiful. Well, thank you so much, James. You've asked great questions. I really enjoyed our conversation. So thank you and aloha.

Mahalo. Thank you so much. Hey, guys, if you enjoyed the content today, please smash that subscribe button below. And if you want to become part of my my community, I've got an amazing free Facebook group. Please come and join us. The link is in the description below. And also, if you've got any questions about today's session, I'd love to know. Just comment below and I'll be sure to get back to you guys. Have the most amazing day.