From $100M CEO to Psilocybin Guide: David Kahl on Leadership, Healing & Transformation

with David Kahl

Mar 14, 2025 · 00:46:09

Today's guest is David Kahl. David is a psilocybin facilitator, entrepreneur, and executive coach with a deep commitment to creating safe, compassionate spaces for healing and personal growth. As the founder and former CEO of Fully, David built the company into a $100 million-plus e-commerce enterprise while fostering a culture of inclusivity, social responsibility, and purpose. Fully became the largest B Corp furniture company in the world and was acquired by Herman Miller Knoll. After selling the business, David's life took an unexpected turn following a macrodose psilocybin journey. This transformative experience revealed a clear path forward to help others navigate their own journeys of healing and self-discovery. Combining over 25 years of meditation practice with extensive experience in leadership and executive coaching, David now facilitates psilocybin journeys for leaders and entrepreneurs. He brings a unique blend of compassion, insight, and professionalism to every session, empowering clients to connect with their inner wisdom, embrace authenticity, and live more purposeful, fulfilling lives. Welcome to The Total Entrepreneur Mind Body Spirit, where we turn cutting-edge science into practical strategies for entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Dr. John Torrance, Entrepreneur Inc. 5000 honoree and professor of entrepreneurial practice at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management. Each episode, we dive into mental, physical, and spiritual health with expert guests offering actionable insights to help you thrive and perform at your highest level. Let's get started. David, welcome. It's really great to have you here, and I'm really excited to talk about psilocybin journeys and your background. So welcome.

Thanks, John. It's awesome to be here.

So before you got into this, you were a successful entrepreneur. So tell us a little bit more about Fully, that journey, and I'm especially interested in how you kept yourself centered and balanced while scaling a company of that magnitude.

Yeah, so I started Fully back in right after 9/11. I was living in New York at the time, and after 9/11, which was kind of, I think, a wake-up call for many people for many reasons. For me, it was A wake-up call to do something that was more aligned with my values and more aligned with things that were actually important to me. Because I was in that corporate world for so long that I think I just kind of forgot who I was and became this other person. And so after 9/11, I said I wanted to open my own business, start my own business. I wasn't really sure what to do, but one thing for me that was really clear was that I was I was sitting in bad furniture for long hours, and I was— it was taking a toll on my body. You know, one, one day I was walking in my apartment and looked in the mirror kind of out of the corner of my eye, and I thought, what is my dad doing here? But it was me. Like, my posture was so bad from sitting in bad chairs and at fixed-height desks.

Wow.

So I thought, you know, there's something about potentially bringing movement more to the office. So we created ergonomic chairs and height-adjustable tables and funny-looking lean-to-stand device things that encourage you to move around more, be in more upright positions. And my theory was when we feel better, when our blood is really pumping the way it should as a human that's doing what humans have been doing for the past thousands of years, we perform better. And so my, my theory was true. I created this company and over the next 10 to 12 years grew it, scaled it. When we exited, we were about a $55 million top line. The next year it went to $100 million, but it was an amazing journey and it was something that was very hard. As I'm sure anybody who listens to this podcast can attest, growing and scaling a company is difficult. And one of the hardest things to do is to take care of yourself during that process. Because if you don't put your oxygen mask on yourself first, it's really difficult for your employees and for your customers and for your business plan in general. So for me, I focused a lot on meditation in terms of self-care. I was one of those unusual people who, when it came time to do a vacation, I would go on a silent meditation retreat for a long weekend. You know, I'd do a 4-day, 5-day, one day I did a 7-day, up to a 14-day retreat. And I would come back from those just feeling really balanced, recharged, and awake. And those kinds of retreats for me, along with my daily meditation practice, I think kept me in a place of curiosity, of presence that helped me navigate what was happening at my company. And, you know, I think that focus on my own Mental wellness is really one of the many foundations that have helped me in what I do now in terms of these expanded states of consciousness. Because, you know, I would sit on that cushion for 45 minutes every morning and going to meditation retreats, I could get into these somewhat expanded states of awareness where I felt so in touch with my body. I felt so in touch with the environment around me that it, it gave me this sort of feeling that, um, I was inextricably connected to everything.

Mm-hmm.

But until I did psychedelics, which was after I actually sold my company, I didn't realize the kinds of even incredibly expanded states of consciousness I could get in, which would've taken me probably decades to get to on the, on the cushion. And I don't, I don't even think I could have gotten to the kind of places you can get with What psilocybin can do for our brains and our nervous systems and our bodies in those very short periods of time when we're, we're on these journeys. Wow.

So I want to back up to a few things before we get into the journeys, because your, your background is really interesting and I think it's, uh, yeah, it's relevant to, to a lot of people who listen. So one thing is, so, so you had a pretty successful career in, in corporate America before you started fully. So talk a little bit about that. And, and I know 9/11 was the, I guess, the, the incident that, that caused you to want to go off on your own, but that, that leap, that episode in somebody's life, in an entrepreneur's life where they leave their corporate job and venture off on their own, that's of high interest to a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs. So can, can you talk about that period a little bit? Like, what was that like? How did you decide to take the leap? What did it take? That sort of thing.

Yeah. Whew. That's a great question. And I think that with any big decision like that, John, I think it's the culmination of a lot of little things that happen. You know, I studied accounting in college. I got my CPA license, worked in public accounting for several years. And then my path sort of led me through operational finance roles. I was in internal audit for a while for large companies and then ultimately toward corporate finance. And by the time 9/11 happened, I was working for a big conglomerate company in their mergers and acquisitions team, like helping them identify and do the due diligence on potential acquisition targets. And it was a really demanding job. All-nighters were not uncommon when we were doing big deals. And as I said earlier, it was certainly taking a toll on my body, but I think several things sort of started happening of me realizing that what I was doing probably wasn't not only aligned with my values, but good for me in general, my physical or emotional state. And then when 9/11 happened, I was in New York and, you know, September 12th, the day after, you know, we all had to walk home. I lived in uptown Manhattan and our offices were in Midtown. And when I walked back, when I was walking back to work the next day on September 12th, because the subways still weren't running, we didn't know if there were more attacks coming. I mean, there was very little information still at that time. You know, something really interesting happened to me on that walk back to work on September 12th. As a New Yorker, you, you're sort of trained not to look at people in the eye. You sort of look straight ahead and you're, you're focused and you're doing your thing. But there was something really different that morning. People were actually— I was not only looking at people in the eye, but as I passed them, but maybe even connecting with them in a way I had never allowed myself to do before. Like I was— we shared something as New Yorkers, as Americans that day. It was awful what we shared, but we had something in common and we saw that in each other. And, and, and I, And I think probably more importantly, not only did I see other people in the eye and see them, but I let them see me. I let them see like my sorrow, my grief about what was going on. And, you know, by the time I had gotten to the office about 30 blocks later, I was crying. Like, and I can't remember like the last time I had let myself really get vulnerable like that. And I was doing this with complete— I mean, I wasn't crying and with complete strangers, but those connections I was having with people who I didn't even know were causing me to remember that there's something deeper inside of me that hasn't been touched in a really long time. And so when I got to my, to my job that day, I just, I walked in and I I looked around and I smelled the environment and all of a sudden all of those emotions went away and I started pulling back in and realizing that, hey, being in this office is causing me to be somebody who I'm not. I'm playing a role for a position that is not who I am. So I quit my job that day.

That day on September 12th? Wow.

It's just, you know, I, I felt it so strongly, John. I, I knew what was happening and I just, I just didn't want to be there. Like I, I, I'd come off the street with complete strangers feeling a deep connection and I got into this workspace and I was like, this isn't my environment. This isn't where I should be. I didn't know what I was going to do next. I didn't know where I was going to go, but I had this undeniable realization that this was not for me. And I left, you know, and, and the lady in HR, the, the HR VP was like, why don't you sit on this for a few days? You know, there's a lot going on right now. But I knew that this was, this was what I needed to do. And, and, and I couldn't show up the way I was in those offices. And, and interestingly, that's what the name of my new company was, was Fully. So you can show up fully, be who you are. In your workplace, in your, uh, in your office, whether that's a home office or in a corporate office. So that's kind of the, the sort of, I guess, the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was—

It wasn't so much that you were thinking up this idea and trying to solve a problem and then, you know, had enough momentum to leave your job. You, you just said, I'm, I'm, I can't be here. And then you figured out what was next.

Exactly. My, I think my order of operations was probably a little different than most entrepreneurs.

Yeah. Wow. Now, had you, Had you been, um, meditating a lot before that? Because what I'm wondering is, you know, because you tapped into some sort of intuitive sense that just told you that that was not the environment for you. And, you know, I could imagine a lot of people might get there and say, hey, you know, I probably shouldn't be here, but it's my job. It's what people do. I'm just gonna stick it out. So were you, were you practicing meditation before that? Do you think that helped you? come to that realization?

You would think that that would be the case, John, but actually my meditation really started after that.

Okay.

Like exploring like what was deep inside there because I had never really been able to touch it before. And so for the next 2 years after I quit that job, I, I did a lot of inner exploration. I went to Asia, I did some backpacking. I went on longer meditation retreats. And started to listen to what's inside. So my meditation practice really didn't start until 2001, 2002. And that's what helped me become curious enough to what's next, have a larger range of vision on perspective of what might be next for me. But yeah, not only was I not meditating, I felt somewhat like that metal ball in the pinball machine, just kind of going over the place, having no control. himself over what was happening, but just responding to the flippers and the bumpers on the machine.

So let's talk a little bit about what it was like for you when you exited fully. So I know it was from a lot of the research on exits, sometimes founder CEOs who exit, they go through a really difficult time. So did you experience that or what did you have any sort of crisis at your exit or were you ready for that? How did that work for you?

You know, I built and grew that company, John, for, I mean, it wasn't that long. I guess it was about 14 years, which now that I say it out loud, that's kind of a long time. But, you know, over those 14 years, I don't think I realized how connected I became to my identity as the founder of this company. I think without me realizing it, the company had, had kind of become like an extension of who I was, like my values. And like, I go back and I read like our employee manual and other things and I'm like, it reminds me how immersed I was in every part of what the business was. And so it was an incredible time growing and scaling that company. It was some of the best years of my life working with smart people, creating amazing things, disrupting markets completely. And toward the end of it, when it got to be really, really difficult in terms of the workload, once you get to a certain point of, you know, you, you, you can double sales for so long and then you can increase by 50% for a while, but the increases in sales get harder and harder and harder as you get bigger. And so it was getting like a lot, just taking a lot out of me. And, and I think that As I got toward the end, I was really looking forward to an exit. Like, I was like imagining how amazing it was going to be to not have to do all the things I do, like get up the first thing and grab my phone as soon as I, before I'd even gotten out of bed, grabbing my phone and seeing what emails I had to attack immediately. Like, I just, I couldn't wait to let all that go. And so, we went through the process. During that process, we actually were just trying to raise some growth capital during that round, but a strategic came along and wanted to buy the company and we ultimately decided to sell. And after a little bit of time staying on afterward, I was looking forward to that time of, hey, it's going to be so great now. I'm going to get up in the morning and I'm going to have all the spaciousness and I can think about what's going to be next for me.

And then—

After it happened, it was probably the most difficult period of my life. I mean, even more difficult than growing and scaling the company because like, as I said, when you're like, when you're in it, Jon, you don't realize how much you're in it and how much of your every living drop of energy is going into it. I mean, Your spouse will probably tell you that, and maybe some of your friends, your parents or whatever, but you don't really think about it just because you're so in it and it's all you do. So for those weeks after, I mean, at first it was great. The first few days, maybe the first week, hey, this is awesome. I'm going to go walk, take a hike with the dog up on Mount Hood today or whatever. And then after a while, I just, really started struggling, questioning who I was, my identity around, like, hey, if I'm not the founder and CEO of Fully, who am I? What do I stand for? And I was so looking forward to the spaciousness, but I'd get up in the morning, I'm like, okay, this is great, but what am I actually going to do today?

Yeah.

Tell me exactly what I'm going to do. I mean, it's great to have room in your life and all this bandwidth and stuff, but As an entrepreneur, we just get so fixated on outcomes and productivity. I didn't have anything to produce or compare to. I was going from doing to being, and that shift was really hard for me. So hard. You know, I got a therapist. I got a, I got an awesome therapist. And I had a friend who, who had exited a few years previously who had done psychedelics before. I had never tried any psychedelics in my life up until that point. I mean, I had, I had, I had smoked pot a couple of times, like earlier in my life, but—

Probably didn't inhale.

Exactly. I just, I didn't really, drugs never called my attention at all. And, and I always thought of mushrooms as like, those are drugs and they're going to, you know, they're, they're not good for you. But I wasn't thinking of it in the therapeutic approaches that were happening that I didn't realize because I was one of those kids in the '80s and '90s that really heard loud and clear, drugs are bad, don't do them. And I didn't. And, you know, I had that certain mindset. But so I started researching a little bit more about what psilocybin and psychedelics could do for people. You know, and I talked to my family, I talked to some other folks who had done it. And I, you know, I'd read Michael Pollan's book on how to change your mind. And I thought, wow, you know, if there's ever a time in my life where I can maybe listen to the universe about what's next for me, if this stuff is really true, it's probably right now because I am struggling and I don't know what's next for me.

Yeah.

I, I, I, at that time, psilocybin wasn't legal yet in Oregon like it is now. So I had to do, I had to find a, a guide, a facilitator underground. Found somebody that I really thought that I was comfortable with and, and, and I resonated with. He, he and I had really good conversations. I felt like this was somebody that I trusted. So after a few months of preparation and, you know, we can talk about what that means, but like preparing for a psilocybin journey is a real thing. It's not just like you show up one morning and take mushrooms and like it's a panacea and all these rainbows and butterflies come out and your path is clear. You got to get in the right mindset. And for me, that took a long time because, you know, psychedelics don't work like, like we work in the rest of the, in our normal waking hours with our default mode network, our regular mind. It's about letting go of control. You know, it's about not thinking so much and, and Trusting, and for me, I I wasn't so used to that. You know, he was talking about surrendering, and for me, surrender was like surrender. That seems like what weak people do, or that seems like something that is not going to give me a desired outcome if I surrender.

Right? We're supposed to take control, right? We're not supposed to surrender. Yeah.

So I found this person, and if I'm going to need to surrender. I need to trust who I'm with. I need to trust that that person is going to have my back and make sure that I'm okay. So anyway, I did this psychedelic journey 2019, and it, it completely flipped my life upside down, John. You know, I went in working on an intention. I've worked closely with the guide and said, my intention was, you know, may I have some insight on what's next for me in my life? May I have some insight on how I can be of service and do something that I love in these next years of my life? And, you know, in these parts we have this phrase that you don't get the journey you want, you get the journey you need. And so my journey was nothing like what was— nothing came up that gave me any indication about what was next for me. What came up for me were a lot of things from my past that I thought I had processed, but I didn't process. I sort of pushed them down. They were uncomfortable for me, so I just more or less ignored them and just figured I'm not going to deal with that stuff. Well, when I took the mushrooms, they decided it was time for me to deal with that stuff.

Hmm.

In a way that was kind of scary. And, um, in ways that I, I just wasn't expecting at all. And so I had this journey that at the end of it caused me to really question my belief system around a lot of things, my relationship with trust, my relationship with intimacy, my relationship with power. And I wish I had done this earlier, like when I was running the company, because I think that I could have done it from a place that was a lot more calm and resilient. Even though I think I did the best I could at the time, I feel like I could have had a lot more tools to do this in ways that would have made my life a lot easier and those around me probably would have had a more fun time being around me. So anyway, without getting into too many details, it was an eye-opening journey that Really set me on this path of like, as soon as it was done, like I was like, what the heck just happened right there? Like, how did that stuff actually happen? Like, how, how was it that I ate these mushrooms and all of a sudden these memories came up from my childhood and, and like, I wasn't just remembering them, like I was reliving them, but with like, like a different set of tools in my toolbox. Like back then when I was a kid. I didn't know what— I didn't have the kinds of skills to manage these things. But when you're older and when you have these expanded states of consciousness, your toolbox grows by a matter of X and you've got all these new, deeper abilities to be present and insightful and creative. And it was, it was amazing that I was able to work through so much like childhood trauma. and bullying that had affected me in ways that I would've never imagined. So anyway, I did that and that sort of set me on the course of, you know, when I, when I learned something that I'm really interested in, I go all in and I just dive in and learn as much as I can. Like I went to conferences, like I read books, listened to a boatload of podcasts on this stuff. And, and then several months later did another journey, which was nothing like the first journey, but equally as insightful and useful. Along that same timeframe, I was, I had started doing a consulting practice where I would coach purpose-driven CEOs and leaders on how to align with their values because Fully was a very active B Corp in the world. And so I, I was able to be around a lot of purpose-driven people in the B Corp world. And so bringing all the things that I had learned as a leader was something that I had already started to do in the consulting business. And then after my journeys, I realized, gosh, you know, these mushrooms are such a catalyst for our own growth, self-awareness, creativity, perspective shifting, that it works so beautifully alongside the CEO coaching business that I'm doing. And so I started to investigate. And serendipitously, mushrooms became legal in Oregon in 2020. And the voters said, hey, this is something that we should look at as an alternative form of care for our citizens. And so it was overwhelmingly passed by voters. And so I, I said, what the heck, I'm going to just, I'm going to do this course to essentially learn more about how mushrooms work. At the end of the course, you could become a psilocybin facilitator. And it was, I wasn't sure I wanted to be a facilitator or not, but I wanted to continue learning what the heck was happening with mushrooms. And then I took the course and with this second intensive that we did, I mean, I knew this was for me. I knew this was the right thing for me. So fast forward to what I'm doing now is, you know, I'm able to work with leaders, entrepreneurs, business people, preparing them for psychedelic journeys, facilitating those journeys, and helping them integrate those journeys into what version 2.0 of their lives is going to be. It's awesome work. I do it both in private session, one-on-one with clients, and in groups. We do cohorts of leaders that come together on retreats where we get together for 5 days, 4 nights, and do multiple sessions, 2 or 3 sessions of psychedelics along with integrations of that work. And it's just fantastic.

Wow. So, so as you were learning to do all this, right? Because I know sometimes in your, like in the, in the practicum aspect of, of learning to do something or learning to apply a skill, you learn certain things and you have a certain set of expectations of what it's gonna look like when you start practicing. So was there a difference between what you learned and what it looked like during the real journeys that you're facilitating? Or were you not that surprised? Or I guess in general, like, you know, maybe walk us through what an actual journey might look like.

Yeah. Well, being on one side of the mushroom is different than being on the other side of the mushroom. That's for sure.

Yeah.

So just because I knew how powerful and the potential of what these mushrooms could be, that didn't know, didn't mean that I would be a good facilitator necessarily. So This, this practicum that you're referring to was really my first chance to see, like, what's it like to be on the other side of the mushroom? What's it like to hold space and support someone who is in these really expanded states of consciousness where they feel vulnerable, where they feel really raw, and they're experiencing things that could be incredibly difficult? And so I was really nervous, like, the first couple of times that I was practicing.

Yeah.

doing the practice, because that's part of this, the training is you get to practice with a whole bunch of other really experienced facilitators who are overseeing it. You get to practice holding space, facilitating for another person. And immediately I just felt like it was, it was a space that was, that felt really comfortable for me. I'm used to holding big emotions. I'm used to being in situations I'm usually that guy that folks come to when something's going wrong. Something's going wrong in their life with a relationship, with a business problem, whatever. They come to me and they've had the confidence to, that, that I can be there for them without giving them advice and, you know, without telling them what to do, but just hearing them out, repeating back what I hear to them and helping them solve their own problems, which is really what coaching is all about. It's really—

Yeah.

Therapy is all about. And it's really what facilitation for mushroom journeys is all about too. It's not about going in and guiding someone through. It's not about telling them what to do, how to do it. It's about supporting them and being there for them when they're going through these hard times and helping them help themselves make their own decisions. So the best practices approach with any kind of facilitation of mushrooms is to take a non-directive but supportive role with the client, which I was really comfortable in doing. That's how I led fully. And that's really how I've been the last several decades of my life with my friends and my family and colleagues. So I felt that the space of being in that facilitator role was natural for me. And so after a couple of the practicums, it felt really natural. And then as soon as I got my license, the next week I was already facilitating journeys.

Mm-hmm.

I started with the easy ones, just like, just like anybody would do, you know, clients that didn't necessarily have any big red flags. And when I say red flags, things like complicated childhood trauma or grief, like really heavy grief things or sexual abuse in there. It was more of the easy, the easier clients, people who had—

Sure.

More textbook beautiful childhoods where they were very supported by their parents and had a healthy ecosystem of siblings and intergenerational families to help them get where they are. And then just getting it, getting a little bit more difficult, a little bit more difficult. People with addictions came next, you know, people, LGBTQ people with, uh, who have had disorders like alcohol use disorder.

Wow.

Other things as well. And so now I feel really comfortable with any client that comes my way, as long as they're not, as long as there aren't any conditions that would make psilocybin dangerous, like history of schizophrenia or interactions with certain drugs that are contraindications to psilocybin. I feel like I can handle most folks that come my way. And, you know, CEOs and entrepreneurs are difficult clients in the sense that they've typically had some big events happen in their life. And I think more often than not, there's some kind of underbelly that makes them so motivated. There's something in their past that sort of gets them so competitive. And so it's the preparation process is so important for entrepreneurs and CEOs because, you know, letting go of control and getting out of your head is one of the most important keys to a successful journey. And we as entrepreneurs and leaders, that's what gets us where We are, is, is we think we, we have this energy above our neck most of the time. We're comparing, we're contrasting, we're judging, doing all the things that, that make our companies better, that make us better. And so I have to coach them to let go of that and to relax and be vulnerable and release expectations because we don't know what's gonna happen. is evidenced by my own journey. And that's, that's part of it, you know, um, it's shifting from doing to being and just being present in the journey rather than controlling it or wanting it to be a certain way.

Yeah. So it's a quick technical question for you. So you mentioned licensure. So what are the requirements for somebody in Oregon to become a, a guide or facilitator?

Yeah, you have to go through a course and there are several organizations out there that have been— have— are accredited by the Oregon Health Authority to teach you, you know, how to be a facilitator. So it's anywhere between 8 and 12 months of training that would include a practicum. Then you must take a test from the Oregon Health Authority as well. And there's so many hours of practicum, sort of on-the-job work that needs to be done before you're, you actually get your license. So in Oregon, we've been legal since January 1st, 2024. Psilocybin journeys have been going. I take that back. January 1st, 2023, John. But the, that's when they started certifying licensees who are both facilitators. They started licensing service centers because you can't just like go to like a dispensary to get Psilocybin. The framework of how to do mushrooms in Oregon is very, very different than what you would do for cannabis. I mean, you can't just go buy it. You need to have a licensed facilitator be with you when you take the mushrooms, and it needs to be done at a licensed service center that has been certified by the state of Oregon. So Oregon, it's been legal since 2023. After the process of certifying folks, the first journeys didn't start happening until like the middle of 2023. And Colorado has now made psilocybin-assisted therapy legal as well. And just January 1st, 2025, they've started issuing licenses for folks to be facilitators and for service centers and manufacturers of psilocybin, which are essentially growers of psilocybin as well.

Yeah. And I think that's really important for people who are looking to do something like this, right? Not just to call your college buddy who liked to do mushrooms and help you out, right? But to get somebody who who has been credentialed and trained and has some practice and experience is super important.

Well, I, I think so. I mean, hey, there's the recreational use of, of mushrooms has been around for a really long time and, and I am certainly not judging that. There's, there's a time and a place for, for doing that. I mean, if you're going to a concert, doing a, going to a hike, wanna connect with the world, that's amazing. But I mean, imagine doing a micro, I'm, I'm sorry, a macro dose of Psilocybin and in Oregon with the folks I work with in terms of grams, that's anywhere between like 3 and 8 grams of mushrooms.

Yeah.

And then using these best practices approach that Johns Hopkins and all of the biggest facilities have honed in their clinical trials, using an eye mask, bringing all of that expanded awareness back inside of you, you can get some incredibly different results. than being out with other people where you, you're using a lot of that expanded state of consciousness outside of your body. We're inviting all of that awareness back inside for you to notice how you are, what's your emotional state, what are your beliefs, what's going on inside of you, because that's really where the growth is.

It's really fascinating to me. I've never done a guided journey before, and it's, it's certainly on my, my list. 2 questions. Is there a typical profile for an entrepreneur, like founder CEO that comes to do these? And then on the other side of that, is there a, like a, a list of common feedback items you get or common outcomes that somebody might experience?

Yeah. I mean, in terms of the, the profile of someone coming to this work, it varies. Some folks come to the work because they want more balance in their life. They just feel like they're spinning out of control and need some grounding and a foundation of who they are. Some people want to get back in touch with like their purpose. They feel like, like for example, for me, when I was in that corporate job for so long, I was so disconnected with who I was. I didn't remember or even maybe even know at all who I was deep down inside. Some people wanted to get more in touch with their creativity, which is super important in the business world as well. And also some folks just don't know, like they feel stuck in some way. They just can't put their finger on it. Like they know that they should be doing better than they're doing now for whatever reason, but they don't know what's holding them back. So I think that this is an opportunity that psilocybin can present to them for getting into that, that unknown spot of what's holding us back. You know, this is, I don't know if y'all are familiar with like the Johari window, but there's these 4 quadrants. There's these things we know that we know, things we know that we don't know. Things that we don't know that we know. And then this other really scary quadrant, which is the things that we don't know that we don't know. And that's really where psychedelics play their magic, is we start to get into things that we didn't know that we didn't know. And that opens up other things that we didn't know that we didn't know. And in there are a lot of the areas of growth that we just had no idea. were holding us back or were limiting our beliefs or were causing us to carry ourselves in certain ways. But because, because these things happen to us in our lives or whatever. So these things can help us really get unstuck because we don't know what's holding us back. So I think that the profile in general, John, kind of falls into those buckets of people coming to this work. And, you know, some people also are just like, hey, I, I, I want to, I want to be a better me. You know, I want to, I want to feel like I'm a good husband. I want to, I want to be a good dad. I feel like I can show up better for my kids or for my spouse or for myself. And so I think psychedelics can be a wonderful reminder of who we really are deep inside there, because we can, in this world, just put so many layers on ourselves of identity of who we think we are. I'm a Democrat, I'm a Republican, I'm all of these things, which, yeah, they're labels we put on ourselves. But what is that core essence of who we are deep down in there? That part of us that is uniquely us, but is also an inextricable part of the rest of the world. So those kinds of things, I think, are what bring people to the work and what bring, get people coming back time and again, several years after they do a journey, they feel maybe they feel stuck again about something different, or they want to be reminded about that. Because, you know, if you don't do the integration work on the other side of this, you tend to fall back into your own patterns of your old belief systems. It's easy to do. You've been doing it for decades. It's your default network. It's your operating system.

Programming. Yeah.

It is. And what psychedelics can do is they can give you a glimpse into these other pathways that maybe you didn't know you had before. And so just like any other habit on the other side, it's, it's about forming that habit of noticing when these behaviors might come up again and you can think differently because just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean you need to continue doing it that way. And psychedelics can shine a light on other pathways that can be healthier for us and bring us more joy and connection.

That's, I mean, and who doesn't want that, right? So do you have maybe one specific example of a client or an outcome that was either especially interesting or transformative or profound that you could share?

There's so many of them, but you know, I think that what's so interesting about these journeys is we're shown things sometimes in somewhat abstract or indirect ways. That cause us to react a certain way. And I, and I can, I'll, I'll tell you one story of, um, a guy who came on a retreat whose dog was just about to pass away. Like he's, he's, he's had an old dog, was sort of near the end of his life. And he called up and he said, before the retreat, he called me and said, hey, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to come. And like, my, my dog's 12 years old. I don't wanna leave him with my wife here. I feel like he's gonna die any moment and I, and I wanna be there. And I'm like, hey, I get it. Yeah. Do what you think is best. He ended up coming on the retreat, sort of said his goodbyes to his dog before, just in case he wasn't gonna be around. Came on the retreat and on his first journey, you know, I noticed that he was just really emotional and I was, you know, supporting him through that. In the integration, he was sharing that in that journey, an image of his dog came to him and he thought, oh, I Maybe he's passing away right now. Maybe this is his way of telling me goodbye. But he was describing how he shared this moment with the dog, like looking into his eyes and they were connecting and understanding one another in a way. And, and he realized that he had had this dog before. He had a dog before this dog that was like his, his right-hand man, like the dog to which all other dogs would be compared. It was like almost like an extension of who he was. And he even described it by saying, like, if this dog could talk, he'd probably complete my sentences and I would complete his sentences. They just knew each other so well. And he realized in his journey when he was looking at his current dog that he had always been comparing that dog to his previous dog and not appreciating the most recent dog. For all of the gifts that he had, rather than comparing him and thinking about all the shortcomings, like, why can't you be like that other dog? Why weren't you like that? And, and he's, and he's, and he had this moment with the dog and then started to realize in, in this sort of concentric circle fashion that that was the theme to all his relationships in his life. With his wife. With his kids. He's like, why can't I let them love me the way they love rather than me have expectations about what love and relationships mean to me? And he came out of that journey just crying and, and very in touch with this realization that he needs to let go more and let people be who they are because they're all, they all have their own ways of expressing love and affection and respect and get out of his own way of how he thought he should be happy. And that affected him in his office as well.

Yeah.

Because, you know, we as leaders, we have these ideas of how things should be done. How should the marketing plan be done? How should we express our financial statements? What should it look like on this product rollout? And he saw the shifts happen in his integration of the way he was leading his team just was turned upside down. And it was not only super empowering for his team, but it took so much pressure off of him.

Yeah.

To be able to lead in ways that he hadn't done before. And he became less of a micromanager and more of a cheerleader. And the rest of his life, and I'm still in very close contact with him because he's a coaching client as well, has just now brought— there's so much more room in there for fun and joy. And it's played on itself and he's become just a much happier person.

That is a great example, right? And it, you know, just, you get at just the foundational and core aspects of who you are and it affects so many other things. Like you started just with the dog example. And I can imagine some people thinking about, or listening to this, thinking about, okay, well, what does this guy's dog have to do with me and my company? Right. But, you know, in fact, it has almost everything to do with it. So yeah, really, really interesting and insightful. Thank you for that. Well, this was a, I think a really important and enlightening conversation. I appreciate it very much. If people are interested in learning more about you and your work, where could they find you?

Um, website. My name is David Kahle. David, and then it's kahle.co, not .com. Another David Kahle has the .com, not me. Um, but on there it talks about my approach to the work. You know, I do call it work because, you know, I don't want people to expect just coming in here and taking mushrooms and it's all going to be better. Just like anything that's worth it. It's about how much you put into it. So I talk about the psilocybin work and my executive coaching work and conflict resolution work and all this stuff in there. But I do both, as I said before, both the one-on-one work and the retreat work, which I think are, can be really powerful depending on where you are in your life. Doing it in a group is something really special. I think it also helps us heal some interpersonal wounds sometimes. And there's something super special about witnessing other people's processes as well. as having other people validate your own healing. So yeah, that's where you can find me. And I, I love this work. And if you wanna reach out and talk about psychedelics or anything else or dogs, please feel free to do so.

Amazing. Thank you so much, David.

All right, John. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to the Total Entrepreneur Mind Body Spirit Podcast. If you liked what you heard or heard something interesting today, Please give us a like, share a comment, or better yet, subscribe to the podcast. Thank you.