00:00
You're listening to the Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it.

00:13
Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey, guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. We say if it's radical, we cover it. I don't think there's anything more radical than my guest today. He's become a good friend trying to help one another in life and business. Cesar Marin, founder of Cultivating Wisdom, ex CN producer for 25 years and a good friend of Ryan Alford. What's up, Cesar?

00:40
How are you, Ryan? Good to be with you, man. Thank you so much for inviting me to this incredible podcast that you have. Like you said, we've created this bond that's become a wonderful part of my life and this new journey that I'm on. And, and I appreciate you and I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, man. I've it's been great getting to know you and meet people digitally. And then once you start having real conversations, it's been.

01:00
I don't know, enlightening. I've learned a lot from you. I hope you've in, in at least learned a few nuggets for me and I, and it's fun watching your journey. It's a really fascinating discussion. We're going to be going down lots of paths today. Some surprising I'm sure for our listeners. I think there's a, there's stigmas, there's misinformation. There's a lot of things out there with alternative medicines and alternative natural sources of

01:29
good that can come from things that are out there, but have historically been taboo. And I think it's fascinating for our listeners, especially knowing that our listeners are business executives and hard driving people trying to get ahead. And there might be alternative ways to enhance what they're doing. It's always great to hear new perspectives and I couldn't think of a better person to have, Caesar. So I do wanna open it up for you, Caesar. It's a really fascinating story. Sometimes we have people on it, it's just a question to answer, but I think your journey.

01:57
But I do want you to touch on the CNN and everything, but let's give, let's set the table, Caesar for, for your journey, man. Perfect. I appreciate that, Ryan. It's been a whirlwind of the last six months. So about seven months ago, I'm in a very comfortable situation in my life. 25 years at CNN. It's a wonderful journey. Everything's going perfect. I have a great job, a great salary. And then.

02:25
CNN is taken over, it's bought by another corporation. And obviously when that happens, these are business decisions. Businesses say, okay, where can we cut costs? What can we do? And I'd seen the writing on the wall a bit and since I've been here for 25 years, I make a good salary. I'm one of those persons that potentially could be on a spreadsheet in a boardroom meeting. How much does number 25 make? How long has he been here? And then we just cut some of that.

02:52
So that sort of all happened in a time in my life where my curiosity had been opened up to psychedelics. Not so much psychedelic medicine, but my psychedelics themselves. And this curiosity came out of someone who had a journey with psilocybin mushrooms and they said they felt like a child when they had the mushrooms.

03:14
And that piqued my interest. A couple of weeks later, someone else that I was with talked to me about mushrooms. And I was like, wait a minute, why am I getting this call? And what is it that I'm finding mushroom around every corner that I turn? And I take my first journey and it really opens up my perceptions. It was, for those who don't know, unlike other substances, what you get the effects out of psilocybin, out of mushrooms, depends on how much you take, right? There's...

03:43
things called microdosing, which is what I do and what my journey has become. There's medium dosage and there's macrodoses. So depending on what you do or how much you do, it depends on what type of experience you have. But the first real experience I have is a bit of a medium dose and perceptions open up like I'd never felt before from the feelings of what my hands felt like or...

04:10
to what the air sensed, to what the trees looked like, to what colors were. And it really opened something up where, as a journalist, I said, what just happened? What would happen to me with this substance that this is something I had never felt before? And as I start to study and I start to research, I come across the fact that psychedelic preusing are being used as medicine.

04:36
They're being used to help depression, they're being used to help anxiety, they're being used to help PTSD, and they're also being helped to help people manage addictions. At the time, I was battling a bit of a cannabis addiction. Like most humans, I'm very vulnerable. I think vulnerability, accepting our vulnerability helps us to overcome what we're dealing with. And I said, maybe this is a way for me to crush that addiction that I have to cannabis.

05:06
and I researched a little bit more and I come across this thing called microdosti. And what microdosing is for those who don't know is using a psychedelic substance in a very small amount where you don't get high, it's very subperceptual. And I start using this microdosing practice to overcome my addiction. And at the same time, it opens up my neural pathways to this potential of opening up a business and having a way for...

05:35
people to manifest the fact that they're microdosing using psychedelics as performance enhancers. And that's how this whole journey of cultivating wisdom starts. In all of this, I then do end up losing my job at CNN. I end up losing my job. I laid off. It's part of a business decision. And that just opens up the possibility to, okay, let's take this to this next level. Let's take this business that we've envisioned and thought up and now run with it. And it's helped.

06:05
open up the potential of the creativity aspect of my brain to say, what can we do next? Who can we align with to take this to the next step? And that's where I am right now. Cultivating wisdom is four months old. We've made incredible connections. We've made really good inroads into the psychedelic space. And now we move forward. Now we move forward in this journey. Man, I love it. It's fascinating. It's the last.

06:33
When you and I first met and I learned about your background, I don't know that, short of, I guess it being, I don't know, like a lawyer or something, a 25 year lawyer, but you just don't, he's something you're going to hear, okay, I've been micro dosing, I was 25 years a producer at CNN, very straight laced job and all that, and then the micro dosing, I think it comes back to the, I don't know, the real.

06:59
aspect that's happening today with people opening their eyes to these things and becoming more accepting of things. But I do Caesar, I don't want to gloss over for our audience. Talk about your 25 years of CNN just for a minute. Yeah, I know that's the past but I think it helped like things you worked on. What was your passion and what was what was the Caesar Mare and the lat of the previous 25 years like up to? Ed, that's a great question because it was my life.

07:27
It's 25 years. When you're doing something for 25 years, that pretty much identifies who you are. That's what you do. That's who you are. And during these 25 years, I go into CNN as a news producer, as someone who works on news, who works. And obviously CNN is a worldwide broadcaster. So we start, news is elections, news is earthquakes, news is a lot of negative.

07:55
plenty of stuff, it's just part of news, it's part of life, it's part of the news cycle. And five years into my CNN career, I'm given the opportunity to produce sports. And I'm like, wait a minute, I'm not in this sort of, I'm gonna get paid to go to sporting events, to read about sports and to tell stories about sports, and still use the same production theory that I have and the journalistic judgment to now talk about sports.

08:24
And they're like, yes, that is a possibility. So I transitioned into this sports production world of news and it becomes amazing. It becomes an incredible journey of obviously covering Olympics, covering world cups, covering NBA finals, covering NFL Superbowls, covering Premier League, and just delving into sports. And I was never the sports person who could tell you who played.

08:53
third baser of the Cubs in 1945. But I knew that there was something about sports that really most people, that there's something about sports, especially international sports, where you see there's countries where people live and die, literally, for their local teams or their national teams, where someone's week can be...

09:17
depending on how their team did, it will depend on how their team, how their week goes. So if your team wins on Sunday, the rest of their week is awesome. Oh yeah. Sort of. Yeah. And if their team loses, then their week's- And short for fanatic for a reason, right? Correct. Correct. So I really, I really tied to that as pulling at people's emotions of how sports move them. And that's what really was fascinating about the time in sports, about producing sports, of how the result-

09:45
and how you presented that result could really change someone's perspective for the week. So that became really interesting. And the whole news factor, the whole news factor of how people consume news and how news can change your lives, right? Whether it's political, whether it's the weather, whether it's sports, there's something about news that's really incredibly interesting of how it creates and molds people's thinking.

10:15
And that's what was really interesting about the 25 years there at CNN, where I wasn't in front of the camera, which now I'm doing a lot more because I am trying to be a thought leader or becoming a thought leader for people, my generation to talk about psychedelics and also the Hispanic community to talk about psychedelics, but not being in front of the camera and being behind the camera for all this time, it was really fascinating to get a sense that

10:42
There was a huge audience out there listening to what we were doing and almost waiting for every word that was coming out of how their team did or analyzing why their team lost or why their team won. So that was really interesting. That was really incredibly interesting about the 25 years at CNN. And also 25 years at one place helps you create these friendships and these bonds that will go on for a long time. Yeah, I don't talk to these people every day.

11:12
like I did before, but there's still people that I can contact once a week. How are you doing? How's it going? And they're also reaching out to me. How are you doing? So what you did lovely or at Candidate or wherever you were. So that's 25 years molded me. That was half of my lifetime. I'm 55, you know, 25 years. Yeah. It's half a lifetime. So it really molded me. And now it's using what I've learned in the sense of production value.

11:40
keeping people's interests, keeping things short and alive. That's now transitioning into this next stage in my life. Talk to me last thing on past life before we move into the, the juicy stuff. I have story or like most exciting, like athlete or celebrity or anything. Did you get to cover anyone or meet anyone or favorite story? Like from those 25 years? I'm sure you did a lot, but is there one that sticks out?

12:10
With all these sports I cover, my favorite sport, my niche sports is cycling. Okay. Because as a Colombian, I grew up playing soccer, right? That was just as a Colombian, as a Latin American, soccer is part of your life. Football. But as a child, I loved playing goalkeeper and play goalkeeper as a youth. And when I get to high school, I'm hoping to play goalkeeper on the high school team and the coach says, guy, you're five five.

12:41
Can you touch the crossbar without jumping? And I was like, no, but I'm really good. I'm a really good goalkeeper and I dive and I'm communicate. And he's like, it's not gonna happen, guy. The other two dudes that are trying out are like a foot taller than you are. It's just, don't waste your time, don't waste my time. And it was funny because I was like, I'm not gonna play then. And at that time, the Colombian cyclist started going over to Europe and started doing well. Long story short.

13:10
Cycling became my passion, cycling became my thing. And last year, a couple of people were covering the Tour de France, and it was the last year of the Tour de France, and the producer that was there actually has one of my lifetime favorite heroes actually call me, FaceTime, and I'm like, who is this? And I answer it, and it's Robbie McEwen, one of the best sprinters, cycling sprinters has ever had from Australia, and I'm like, oh my.

13:39
And he's there the tour de France. It's the last day they're on the Champs-Élysées and this guy's talking to me Because the other producer had talked to him about myself and it was just one of those One of those moments of holy cow. Wow. This guy's calling me. This is my childhood hero Or my sports here and now he's calling me. So that was definitely one moment that that That lived up to its hype of living in sports the rest were again this Deadline Sanders that

14:08
getting it right, that making sure you're on top of stuff that's always that exhilarating on an everyday basis and live TV, which made everyday awesome. But that moment in particular of meeting, we're having a childhood hero call me, was like, okay, that was too much. That's great, man. I love hearing those stories and even you being around athletes, being stars, having that childlike reaction. And it's back to what you said, sports being such a, I don't know, a moving thing for all people.

14:38
I think it's also like just the escape from all the other bullshit and Yeah, you're right. And it's funny though, talking about sports stars again, where once you're in this a bit, you realize that they're everyday people. Most of them were normal, just people with wives and homes and families and everything else. They're just, yeah, they're portrayed as these incredible, these superstars or superheroes, but they're normal everyday people. And it was, I think,

15:06
once you work in news and you break that veil of that fanhood of, oh, this is an NBA star or it's an NFL star, that they're just everyday people. And I'm doing a job to cover their story that then you put them, not on this pedestal that some fans have, but then on this level of, okay, they're everyday people. That's right. And I'm, it's funny you say that. I interview a lot of celebrities and entertainers. I have my wall here to my right. And it's,

15:35
I feel that same way having to get to know a lot of them and in my career doing marketing with NFL teams and stuff. It is like we're all human and we often put them on pedestals, but, and they may have advantages. We all have to live life. And speaking of living life psychedelics, man, when we, when you and I first met, I'll be transparent. I did some mushrooms in college. Like once I experimented like all kids do in some way. And I remember it being, it was fun and all that, but like I've

16:04
Kind of left that life in the past, but it's been fascinating hearing about the microdosing and talk to me about that first time you did a medium dose or something like that. Would you classify that as high or was it just, Oh yeah, no, I was high. I was definitely high. I was there. It was definitely high. There was visuals. There was perceptions of senses that weren't there before. It definitely wasn't a macro dose, which I've done to micro dose since I started using psychedelics, which is a totally different experience.

16:35
but going back to the microdosing, which is...

16:39
now getting much more mainstream media attention as more people are using microdosing to enhance their lives and talking about it that people's perceptions have changed, right? Psychedelics before until about 10 years ago, again, had this incredible stigma of it was people for just tripping out and tripping balls and losing their minds or just going to raves or just people going crazy.

17:09
And as studies start to grow and studies start to use psychedelics to treat different human conditions that we have, more people start to open up their minds and people's childhood curiosities are poked out of. Wait a minute. Hold on a second. Let me go back and read that again. Psychedelics are being used to help with depression and they're being used to help with anxiety and PTSD.

17:40
And to me what microdosing has done was it's helped me be centered. The fact that it's subperceptual, the fact that it's a very small amount, so just so people understand. A medium dose, which is a dose where you're going to feel some sensual perceptuals, you'll get some visuals. That medium dose is about gram and a half to two and a half grams of psilocybin.

18:07
I'm gonna get mushrooms. I'm not a big fan of the word magic mushrooms, because I'm a big believer that the magic doesn't come from the mushroom. I could sit here and eat all the mushrooms in the world and sit here and go, okay, where is the magic? The magic comes from the human, right? So it's, yeah, it's using the medicine, using the psilocybin to then open up those perceptive neural pathways to opening up your heart, to then move forward. And what microdosing

18:37
does at least for myself, because again, I can only talk about my personal experience. I mean, sort of everyone's experience can be different. Everyone's what they can get out of it can be different. So it's microdosing to me is that practice of using a very small amount of psilocybin. So I do 200 milligrams to 250 milligrams on a protocol that calls for it to be one day on two days off. So today's a dosage day.

19:06
What do you feel? I'm going through the day and all of a sudden I go, man, my life is really good. I have a good life. I have a good life. I have a wonderful wife. My kids are healthy. I have my own job. I have friends. I've made these connections. Life is good. Life is really good. I'm not high. I'm not feeling dizzy. I'm not feeling out of the world. No, I'm feeling fine. Then that second day, what they call the transition day, is the medicines. The medicines now...

19:36
leaving your body and how do I, yesterday I had that anxiety, how do I deal with it? How do I deal with it yesterday, how do I deal with it today? And then that third day is what they call an integration day, which is you integrate what you learned the last two days into your normal day life without having the medicine. So that's when you're in the car and someone cuts you off in the highway, you know, you're gonna sit there and blow on the horn and shoot in the bird, or you're gonna say, wait a minute.

20:05
I wouldn't have done that yesterday or the day before. Why am I gonna do that today? That person's not gonna feel the poison that I'm feeling in my body, that rage. I'm feeling it. They're not feeling it, so what? Let me just, let me take a deep breath. I don't know what they're going through. Maybe they need to go at home. Their kids are sick. Their boss needs them to get back to home. I don't know, so just go ahead. Go ahead. In other words, unless you hit my car, then we're gonna have to stop. But if not, then why am I gonna get to let these peripheral things?

20:34
ruin my day when they're not feeling what I'm feeling. So it's awesome to see that a lot of walks of life and more people are talking about psychedelic medicine and microdosing. I'm sure that five years ago, if you were to look in LinkedIn and did a search on the hashtag psychedelics or microdosing, not much would come up. Now go to your LinkedIn.

21:03
and search in microdosing and see how much comes up and see the advances in psychedelic medicine. And part of what I wanna do, part of my mission is to show people that, hey, here's a business owner who's a father, who's a husband, who's a son, who's a member of his community, who volunteers, who votes, he's a normal everyday human being and he's using psychedelics, yes.

21:29
He's using it as a life performance enhancer. He's using it as a life hack. He's not using it irresponsibly. He's not going off to get high. He's not drowning his problems in it. No, he's using it to be a better person, to be more creative, to be more alert, to be more present, to be more awakened of what's happening. And it's funny that I was listening to this podcast yesterday and someone said, they used to tell us, don't use psychedelics because they're gonna change your mind. That's the whole purpose.

21:57
The purpose is to change your mind and not live in that rut of that constant DMT, that default mode network that the brain is in. They were programming us not to be awake. Yeah. That's what, that's the problem of everything though is everybody thinks things happen to them rather than for them or that they're in control. And so funny hearing the, oh no, I'll change. And it's, have you looked in the mirror buddy? It's like.

22:27
you need to change. And I've had those talks with myself. Like, we all, if we're not changing, if we're not evolving, we're not growing. And that's the point of this is I have kids and I'm sensitive to marijuana and mushrooms and all that. Not because I'm really frowned down at it, but I just don't want it easily in their hands. But at this time, I'm like, these things, somehow we've made it okay for pharmaceutical drugs that are chemically based.

22:57
If anything, it's abused, of course. Yeah. You get hired, do whatever, but we've created these categories that are just so arbitrary, it seems, for certain classifications. Why aren't we just figuring out? We have so many issues with mental health and everything else. Why aren't we exhausting every avenue of things available to us? Yeah, definitely. And here's the thing. It's sort of not to knock on modern medicine because modern medicine is incredible. Modern medicine is amazing. But.

23:27
Pharmaceuticals have gotten to the point where they've gotten into so many doctors' pockets that there's people potentially go to a doctor and the doctor could tell you, you know what, I don't know what you have, but I have a pill that might work. Okay, but what is, okay, and if that one doesn't work, then maybe there's this other one that might work. Okay, doctor, but let me ask you a question. Are they habit forming? Potentially. Okay.

23:52
Are there side effects? Here, let me get you this sort of whole list of side effects. I've got a scroll in the back room. Exactly. OK, so wait a minute. How about if I let Mother Nature try to heal me first? Mother Nature put these wonderful plant medicines on the Earth. Let me at least explore that. Let me see how that might work before I go ahead and start pumping some pharmaceutical stuff.

24:21
into my body, then my work might not work. They might actually en masse, it might en masse the problem, but not address the problem. And I think that's sometimes a problem, which sort of, we need to address the mental health crisis that we're going through. And yet you hit upon it, Ryan, and it's incredibly important that we have these discussions, that we have these discussions in our own families, in our own communities, that we're able to talk and say, hey, look, we're humans.

24:51
Depression is a human condition. Anxiety is a human condition. PTSD, obviously, that's something different because that comes from past experiences. But they were able to talk about this. They were, did we set these busway tables so that people come and can talk about their issues openly and not hide them. Because what happens is when we don't, when we hide them, that's when we have these issues. That's when we have these situations of people

25:21
going off the bed, Jay, it's incredible. The mental health crisis that we're going through, and some of it, like I said, is that lack of communication, that lack of being vulnerable, right? We're all taught that we have to be an alpha male, and we have to be an alpha female, and we have to be above everything, and don't cry, and don't be vulnerable, and don't show weakness. Why? That's the sort of, that's part of humanism.

25:50
And if I show my weakness and express my weakness, maybe someone can help me so that it's not a weakness anymore. So then maybe I can use that weakness to make myself better, to strengthen myself, to understand what that weakness is and where it comes from and address it instead of just masking it. Because we are going down a road that the mental health crisis that we're going through could expand. With the way things are, with the economy.

26:20
which is to division this that exists in the world, that we have this potential of just people suffering much more mental health crisis. And if we can address the issues by talking about them, and then also poking at people's childhood curiosity, that look, wait, hold on a second. Mother nature gave me this medicine that could help me center, that could help me be a little more focused, that could help me be more creative, then let me see if that might help. Let me see if that might help.

26:50
close that door of thinking too much of the past. And because, Ryan, let's be honest. Depression comes from thinking too much in the past, right? If I would have done this, if I would have done that, if I would have bought this house instead of that, if I would have made this business deal instead of that business deal, if that's the past, it's gone. There's nothing we can do. We're not gonna bring it back. So if you sit there and just think about the past, where that brings on depression, the ability to close that.

27:18
door a bit. It's not going to be that it's a human condition or that human condition of thinking too much in the future. Is this really going to happen? Is this, am I going to lose my job in a year? My friend got cancer, am I going to get cancer? No, that's just, you can't live five weeks from now. You have to live the present moment. And when you're able to do that, when you're able to live in what we have right now, which is the only thing that really...

27:46
Exist that's where the beautiful moments happen. The past is the past can't really that the future you don't you mean that's not guaranteed so the only thing that's guaranteed is this exact moment that we have right now and If there's something if there's a sub if there's a substance that the mother nature is given us They could help us be more present. They could help us be more in the now more in this moment and more Open to what's going on around this

28:14
that might help with this mental health crisis that we're going through. Talk to me, I think the million dollar question, if I'm a listener and even myself. So we're talking about a substance that's illegal, not currently, openly. Two part question, one, do you worry about that today? I would think they have better things to do than to be busting micro-dosers, but that's A. B is.

28:43
Are we closer, it seems medical marijuana and certain things are further down the road than, than the mushrooms, but talk to me about like where that's headed and just the current situation. Yeah. So one, like you said, psychedelics are still a class one scheduled narcotic, right? Yeah. This was a government who said it was in the sixties. We can't crush the protests against the war and we can't crush everything.

29:12
that's trying to hold the government accountable, so let's ban the substances that some people are using to become more aware, to become more aware. Yeah, like you said, this is still illegal substance. I grow my own medicine. You can buy grow kits nowadays, personal grow kits, that you can grow your own medicine at home. I think that's the most beneficial way to use psychedelic meth, especially psilocybin.

29:40
I know that there's a whole bunch of other psychedelics out there that people are using, whether it's LSD, whether it's ayahuasca, whether it's D and T. I only talk about psilocybin because that's the only experience that I had. So I have my own medicine at home. Like you said, I think the police have too many other things to worry about, deal with, to come door to door and say, hey, I heard you have a couple of mushrooms in there. And I mean, we have a search warrant.

30:09
to come into your house, I don't think that's gonna happen. Now, if I was growing mushrooms and I'm driving around with two, three pounds of mushrooms, delivering them or whatever, and that becomes more drug dealing instead of drug, no, and again, anything's a drug. It was funny, I was hearing a podcast that someone was doing the other day, and they were interviewing someone who has a wine vineyard, and he said, you're a drug dealer.

30:40
You're did wine is a drug. It's a, it's just a substance that puts you in a different state, but it's, you're not in, you're not your total self. You're a drug dealer because you grow drugs. So yes. So psychedelics, Doritos makers are pretty good. At least right at the beginning when I have a few Doritos or Oreos, but maybe not later. And afterwards, yeah. And I was like, Whoa, wait a minute. What is that? So yeah, no, definitely.

31:09
The audience needs to know that yes, this is still a illegal substance. So you... But there's a lot of things that are illegal that people do. If you're using it to better yourself, if you're using it with intent, if you're using it responsibly, then I personally don't see an issue in it. But it's a risk you're willing to take for the benefits that you get knowing that the likelihood is very small. Exactly.

31:38
But do you see the legislation? Give me your, give me your, your, you're so close to this now. Give me your crystal ball with when let's say a micro dosage of mushrooms might be legal. Are we talking five years? Are we still talking 10 plus? I'd say 10 plus. I think there's still, because let's go, let's follow the money. Yeah. Let's follow the money. So until psilocybin is able to make money for.

32:08
big corporations. You think Big Pharma wants substances out there that's gonna get people to get off of their SSR-ons? Of course not. So, and those people have big pockets. Those people have the ears of congressional lobbyists. So, we're on the see-saw right now, the psychedelic world. We're on this side of companies like

32:37
Compass Pathways who have patents already filed for synthetic psilocybin, who are in stage three trials of psychedelic medicine. But these people have money. These people have the money to also then talk to lobbyists, to also open doors to Congress. And then on this side, we have the holistic...

33:02
I hate to use this sort of, we, we use, you, we've talked, you and I have talked about this in discussions we've had the hippie community, the hippie trippy community, exactly the long hair, long beard, burger size. So we're saying, wait a minute. Are you serious? The earth grows this. Why do I need to go to a doctor to get a prescription to then be able to microdose? Why? So on the seesaw.

33:28
but there's more people standing in the middle of the seesaw. And that's how we're getting legislations passed, like it did in Oregon, like they have in Utah. I think there's 16 states that have bills on the docket this year to either decriminalize or make the metalic use of psilocybin and other psychedelics legal. So we're going down the right pathway.

33:57
It's just, I don't know what it takes to get it over that hump. I don't know. Like the medical marijuana seems on its way. It's already there, but the. It's already there. Yeah. It's already there. I think it's the more people that stand in the middle of the seesaw and could help it not go totally one way or the other way that's going to help it little by little more. And again, it's a perception. It's more studies that come out. The more mass media that talks about it.

34:27
the more we can get across this hurdle like you talked about it. Because let's be honest, there's still a huge stigma that exists. There's still a huge, there's half the population, if you say psychedelics, they're gonna go, oh, wait a minute, hold on a second. That's not, that's way beyond, I don't know about that. There's people losing their mind. That's people. No, and that's, that's the reason why I created the apparel brand, right? Someone says, oh, it's not trippy. It's not psychedelic-ish. It's not.

34:56
In other words, someone sees me in this as opposed to me wearing something tie-dye because I want to manifest the fact that I'm using mushrooms that are helping my life. Someone sees me with someone wearing something like that, what are they going to say? Oh, he's a hippie. He's a stoner. He's out in the woods. He's out going to Grateful Dead concerts. I love the Grateful Dead, so don't get me wrong. And not that there's anything wrong with that sort of, but that's not going to help the movement get to the next step. And that's sort of...

35:25
It's these people in the middle of the seesaw again, that can wear something like this, and someone can come up to them and say, oh, you microdose? I've heard about that, I've read about that. Cultivate me with your wisdom so that maybe I can smile like you're smiling. Maybe I can find this balance in my life that I'm looking for, this mental health and emotional balance that's missing in my life. And that's what it's gonna take, in other words. And it's little by little.

35:53
It's poking people's childhood curiosity. It's people being more open to it. It's out there, more studies. It's still in diapers. Now it's still psychedelic medicine is still in diapers. And again, it's still that stigma that still exists. But when I think about it and I go, okay, I've gotten to the point that I've been able to convince my 80 year old mother that psychedelics have transformed my life.

36:20
that she is now, okay, wait a minute, she's seeing it in a different way, she's seeing it in a different light, she's looking, people are using this responsibly, people are using it to better themselves, then I get it, I understand now. And that's what we need. And that's, but that happens like one person at a time. That happens with people like myself, where people say, oh wait, look at him, yeah, he's a normal everyday human being, he's using psychedelics, really? Okay, that's interesting, and it's helped him.

36:49
overcome his anxiety of losing his job and what's gonna happen next and it's helped him overcome his depression of yeah I could have sat there and been depressed who loves my job at 25 years at the age of 55 what do I do next what do I could have sat in a

37:08
puddle of depression tears. But no, psychedelics helped me to say, okay, wait a minute, and that's fine. Let's take everything into account. Right, use the 25 years that you had at CNN to open doors. Right, because a 25 year career at CNN opens up people's eyes. Oh, wait a minute, okay, wait a minute. This guy, this isn't just some guy that had been tripping for 25 years and now all of a sudden talking about psychedelics. This is someone who had a career.

37:35
who is now using psychedelics to better himself, to using them as a performance and answer, to move forward in his new chapter in his life, and he's using this in a responsible way. This is interesting. So the question was, when do we get there? We're getting there. We're getting there, but it's the responsible use of psychedelics. It's the more people talking about it, everyday people, that then we get there, that sort of business owners, look.

38:04
People in Silicon Valley were using microdosing to be more creative. So the more we have these stories, the more people talk about it, the more people are all thinking about what they're using and not hiding it because I'm a big believer, Ryan, that if you heal and you heal in silence, then you're missing part of the purpose. Yep. Now, obviously, I'm not gonna sit here and stand at the top of the mountain and say, everybody, you psychedelics, you're gonna change your life.

38:33
because it might not be for everybody. But if I can talk to people and share my story of how it's changed me and how it's helped me open up and be a better person and poke at one or two people's childhood curiosity, that's amazing. Because I've had more than one person reach out to me and go, wow, Caesar, I had no clue. Thank you. Thank you for opening up that possibility because now I'm microdosing.

39:02
And I see it. I see what you were talking about. I see what you were manifesting, this sort of sense of being present and being aware and saying, you know what, that before I had that issue or that underlying, whether addiction or condition that I had, then now I can look at it in a different way. I can look at it from the outside world of saying, oh, wait a minute, do I really need that in my life anymore? Oh, that depression, how did I, how can I?

39:31
instead of living in that depression, being in on the outside and say, okay, what is it that's making me feel depressed? What is it that's making me feel anxious? And that's to me, that's what psychedelic medicine has done to me. It's helped me open up that consciousness, that consciousness of why am I feeling this way? Why am I feeling that anxiety? And instead of continuing that I'm anxious and then what's gonna happen? And then this is gonna happen. And then it's not gonna, I'm gonna say you all,

40:01
and it's gonna be horrible, instead of going, okay, wait a minute, why am I feeling this way? Let me figure this out. I'm not the first person that's feeling this. I'm not the first person to start a business. I'm not the first person to be an entrepreneur at 55. Let me take a deep breath. Let me take accountability for what I have and let me go from there. And that's, I'm hoping that psychedelic medicine can do that to other people and then that other people can say,

40:31
This is why I am, this is how it's transformed me. And this is why potentially might be something that you should look at. I love it, man. I think we could talk for two hours about this. I have other questions. I think maybe we'll have to have a part two about, I think it's a positioning issue. Obviously it's illegal, but mind at mind goes out in marketing ingredient marketing works when the ingredient isn't polarizing. So it needs to be about the benefits and not the ingredient or even.

40:59
I might even go down that road with the word microdosing, even though that's what it is. It helps you take control of the voice in your head. I would be marketing that. And creativity increase, mood increase, and taking control of that voice.

41:22
those need to lead the discussion. And then what if I told you, what if I could told you, you could take control of the voice in your head? What if I told you you could boost your mood? What if I told you it was a hundred percent natural? What if I told you that it's illegal? Would that make any sense to you? So see the commercial. Like. Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. And you're absolutely correct. And I got a lot of that from discussions you and I had, where we talked about

41:52
The moment, if psychedelics is the first word that comes out of your mouth, you're gonna get a lot, you're gonna turn a lot of people off, a lot of people gonna change the channel, a lot of people gonna go, that's not for me, a lot of people, and that came to me from a lot of discussions you and I had, that it was like, okay, the first word then needs to be transformation. Yeah, because you're playing defense. If you start with psychedelics, you're playing defense from the get-go.

42:20
And you can't have, it's not that you're being deceptive, but you don't, if you're on defense the entire time, then we're not having a productive conversation about it. And like you said, you're, you're already turning people off. People are either rolling their eyes or they go, you know what, let me check something else on my phone. But once you say, Hey, how about if I could tell you that you could turn off the voice in your head? How about if I could tell you that you can help close.

42:49
those doors to anxiety and depression. How about if I could talk to you about overcoming an addiction that was controlling my life and how I did it. If you use those as your entry point and then your selling point, and then you say, this is how I did it. Yeah. People are like, oh, wait, hold on a second. Because once, the moment that you say, oh, I use psychedelics, people go, that's not me. Yeah. The moment you say,

43:17
I suffered depression, people go, so do I. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I've dealt with anxiety. Oh wow, I've dealt with anxiety. I had an addiction that was crippling me. Wow, I sometimes feel that way. Once people have that sense that he's like me, he feels what I'm feeling, he's going through what I'm going, how did he change? Oh, wait a minute, he did it through psychedelic medicine?

43:47
Wow, how does that work? How does she tell me more? Tell me more. I did it. So you're right Ryan. It's it's Especially with this subject, especially with this subject. It has to be Openness it has to be showing vulnerability But it but it has to be I suffer what you suffer Yeah, I deal with what you deal with and this is how I was able to overcome that or this is how I was able to keep that in check

44:14
So you're right, it's very smart. It's a smart way to look at this and to sell this. And if psychedelic medicine is to move forward, that's the way it has to be presented. It has to be presented as the potential change stuff that you haven't been able to change in your life. And then this is how it was done. Caesar, where can everybody keep up with you and Cultivating Wisdom? What are the channels? Yeah, Instagram is the biggest platform that I run on, Cultivating.Wisdom.

44:43
What I try to do is share my practice, share some of the wisdom that I've gained in psychedelic medicine. So cultivating.wisdom on Instagram is a great place. There's from there, you can find a link tree that has the LinkedIn if you want to have me speak at one of your events to talk about mental health balance and there's other places where it's sort of, again, because nowadays everyone can have

45:13
five of their own channels, right? So we're on TikTok with a little bit more, the HIPAA audience. We have a YouTube channel that has some other stuff that we do and more in depth things that we're doing. But definitely cultivating.wisdom on Instagram is a good place to start because you can find a link tree in there in the bio to find other stuff. Like I said, cultivatingwisdom.net is the apparel store, which is the apparel branch of cultivating wisdom.

45:42
So that the idea is that if you're microdosing that you wear something like this and you open up these conversations, you poke at people's childhood curiosities. And again, it's about these discussions. It's about having these discussions. It's about being open. It's about if you're microdosing, share with other people, share that, you know, have a dinner, invite people over and say, hey, come on over and let's chat. It's these open conversations that then people can say, you know what, I sometimes I'm depressed.

46:12
I sometimes I'm anxious. I'm sometimes have this mental imbalance that I'm dealing with. That maybe this might be able to help. So it's these conversation openers that I think that that are going to be important for us moving forward to deal with this mental health and balance that we're all suffering. Caesar really appreciated, man. Everybody needs to go check you out. Follow you. You're very approachable. I know once they get to know you, they'll love you and appreciate your perspective. So thanks so much for coming on the show, man.

46:41
No, Ryan again, I appreciate you incredibly. You opened up my eyes to a lot of things in the business world. So I'm incredibly grateful for you. I'm very honored that you're in my circle and humbled that you're in my circle because again, I look up to you for what you've done with your personal brand. I've looked up to you at how you're like me. You're a father who your most important title in life is not CEO. It's not entrepreneur.

47:10
It's not I have all these businesses, it's father. That is the most important label that you have. And I feel the same way. So I'm glad that we're both on that pathway. And again, I appreciate you. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me on your podcast. Thank you for the audience to listening all the way through. And again, like Ryan said, I'm there. If anyone has questions or anything, please reach out. I'm more than happy to answer questions. Hey guys, you can find us the Radcast.com. Search for microdosing. You'll actually find all the highlight clips and the full episode from today.

47:40
You know where to find me at Ryan Allford on all the platforms. We'll see you next time. On the Radcast. To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, v.rad.cast or at Ryan Allford. Stay radical.