The psychedelic revolution is here. If you want to integrate your visionary experiences into your purpose, get clear on your entrepreneurial path, and help people while you do what you love, then this is for you. I will go into what is believed to be the necessary and future careers in the field of psychedelics and what you need to make this your career or your business.
(Note: this post was inspired by this podcast episode about this same topic).
I have twice interviewed Rick Doblin, the founder of MAPS.org for my Psychedelics, Sacred Medicines, Soul’s Purpose & Business summit.
I asked Rick about the future of the psychedelic space, and where this was all heading. Dr. Rick Doblin was saying that there’s going to be a need for more and more people working in this realm as psychedelic-assisted therapy becomes more popular and readily available. And, as we can tell, psychedelics and sacred plant medicines are not going anywhere, anytime soon. They are now being proven by science to have healing potentials, and so many benefits in realms that we don’t even know.
For example, I’ve heard little bits and pieces about psychedelics healing ADHD, psychedelics for children, psychedelics and autism, psychedelics . We all know about PTSD and trauma and anxiety and depression, which I don’t know about you, but pretty much everybody these days is struggling with one of these. Everyone feels an air of anxiety and uncertainty, especially in the past few years. Even if you’ve handled it quite well, it’s still an anxious time to be alive as a human.
COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT PSYCHEDELIC BUSINESSES:
Some questions I commonly get are…
-What is the future potential of psychedelics?
-What kind of psychedelic businesses are there?
-What kind of psychedelic businesses will there be?
Rick Doblin said that with the growth of psychedelic-assisted therapies, we’re going to need more integration work. We’re going to need psychedelic integration coaches, people to help people. There are so many people who are trained in different modalities to help you integrate the psychedelic experience. So there’s going to be more and more need for this – even sound healers, breathwork, practitioners, musicians, musicians to accompany the actual psychedelic sessions because there’s only so many pre-recorded things we can listen to.
If you have worked with medicines, you know that medicine is not the cure-all. It’s not just about the medicine itself. It’s so much more than that. It’s really the day-to-day and the moment-to-moment work – so meditation teachers, body movement coaches, people who understand energy and how to move the energy out of your body and really get to the root of traumas, or the anxiety or the depression, or whatever it is that your client or the patient is going through.
NICHES WITHIN PSYCHEDELIC BUSINESSES
I truly believe that there are going to be smaller and smaller niches tapping into the potential of psychedelics to help with specific areas of healing.
So I’ve mentioned this before, but I have current clients and past clients who’ve done work, or who do work around healing, coaching, and transformation. Then they’re bringing in psychedelics as part of their coaching. Meaning, maybe they’re prescribing micro-dosing to someone, or maybe even telling them to go work with someone or facilitating a one-on-one session. But I’ve seen this with health and wellness, with mindfulness, with weight loss, and getting your health and body back into order.
I had a client who’s doing work around health, weight loss and healing eating disorders with microdosing. I have a couple of clients who are doing work in the death and end of life realms. I’ve had clients who specialize in healing childhood sex abuse and trauma and sexual healing with psychedelic medicines. They are really changing the conversation around death.
How do psychedelics help with the death and the grieving process? There’s so much even in that alone, I could do a whole blog on death and grieving and psychedelics. That’s something we haven’t really tapped into yet. And I do believe this is coming. I do believe we’re going to see the conversation around death completely change.
And then there’s, of course, deep trauma healing.
A client of mine is working with sexual trauma. There’s also movement, like moving the energy getting into your body embodiment practices. I currently have many coaches that work in the embodiment field. So how can psychedelics help you get into your body? Well, this is a whole industry within itself. And actually, this is one of the areas that I believe has a lot of potential. Because psychedelics are so heady and crown chakra oriented, they’re great for expanding your mind and consciousness. This is actually going to be very important as psychedelic use grows and becomes more prevalent.
I am speaking about this from firsthand experience, I used to be the most ungrounded person ever. I’m a double fire sign, and I’m full of energy. Then, add in psychedelics and my busy lifestyle…
I used to live in New York City and work my butt off. I mean, psychedelics were the best thing that ever happened to me. But at the same time, it took me a lot to really learn how to ground my energy and get into my body. And that’s when the effects of all the psychedelic plant medicine worked, and really had a profound impact on my life and my healing and my trauma. I could go on and on, but that’s when things really started to shift. So I’m a very big believer in embodiment practices, somatic work, and somatic experiencing.
There are so many different realms of somatics so there’s a lot of potential for bringing psychedelics into your work. I do realize that they’re not legal everywhere yet and that’s a whole other blog/podcast episode I’ve done about how to approach the legality (illegality) of psychedelics and how to get around all of this and put yourself out there and be able to work with them without getting in trouble.
DO YOU NEED A CERTIFICATE?
I get a lot of questions about certifications and the training needed to have a business in the psychedelic space.
-Do I need a certificate?
-Do I need to get some kind of certification to become a psychedelic integration coach?
-Do I need a certification to be a life coach who also works with micro-dosing?
-Or to be some kind of leadership coach or an embodiment coach?
So here’s the reality, no one on this planet is out there regulating this telling you to go get a certificate. And in my personal and professional opinion, it’s not about getting the certificate.
Yes, there are many psychedelic coach certification and facilitator training programs out there and they’re all very good. I’m friends with the people who run them. (FYI, I have only taken one of them myself – with my friend and mentor, Antonia Talayeh – and the program is on hold until 2024). I have worked with clients who have done them who have said nothing but great things. Some are very long and some are very short – three to four months. Some are even a few weeks, from what I understand. So I do encourage you to go check those out and constantly be learning and growing and perfecting your craft.
I, as a business coach, am constantly learning and growing. Whether I get a certificate or not is beyond the point, I’m always doing some sort of training. I’m actually entering into a training program starting this weekend that is going to go on for the next eight or nine months. I’m always doing my own inner healing work. I’m always doing my own psychedelic work as well.
But here’s the thing, if you’ve only had a little bit of experience working with psychedelics and now you want to make psychedelics your career, that’s one thing for you to be transparent about.
I recommend that you just be honest. It doesn’t matter if you’ve had 25 years of experience with psychedelics or two years, be transparent about your own journey and just know that it’s not about doing 500 Ayahuasca ceremonies. It’s not about the numbers, it’s really about the fact that you have something to give.
The way I see it is, everybody is climbing this mountain, right?
There’s this never-ending mountain that goes on and on and on. And every human on this planet is at a different point in the mountain. And maybe you’re at 2000 feet up the mountain. And there are some people in front of you at 4000 feet or 9000 feet, and then there’s some behind you at 500 feet or one foot.
Some people represent where you were a year ago, three years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And to me, those are the people you are able to help the ones (that are behind you). The ones that don’t even know how to get to where you are now. And that’s where you have clients. It’s not so much about getting 10,000 certificates and then you’re ready. It’s about jumping in starting to work on your business and constantly growing and learning.
I would never work with anyone, myself, who was not always learning and growing. Because as you do your own inner work and your own healing, your clients will also correlate with that.
Meaning, if you move up that mountain, they’ll move up with you.
So for something like psychedelic-assisted therapy, I only know about two programs and they are very hard to get into. So that’s one barrier that a lot of people are coming up against. I know there are some underground programs with therapists training people on their own. I’ve worked with some clients who’ve been in these. I do also know there are people that just train by committing, making a commitment on their life path.
So for me, I don’t give out psychedelics I don’t facilitate, I’m not being called to that. But I’ve done enough psychedelics in my life, to be able to understand this process and guide people through the integration of psychedelics into their business…which is my specialty.
My goal is to help you start and grow your business and make money doing what you love, and help transform this planet and share your medicine with the world. Because I do believe your medicine is what we need for these times. I’m one of these people that tended to go pretty deep onto the medicine path, meaning, being really committed to my own inner healing. Every single day I spent in my travels to Peru it was about integration. It wasn’t just going to Peru, it was about doing the daily practice – so daily meditation, daily self-care practices, daily chanting, working with a somatic therapist, taking care of my body, exercising, sleeping, being grounded, making sure that I enjoyed being in nature.
So those are some of my personal practices. But through that depth of experience with the actual psychedelics myself, that’s what made me call to start working with more and more medicine people (although, I always had clients that were medicine people). So that’s how I personally feel about certificates. Go get them if you want.
But, watch for the loop.
This is a loop a lot of people get caught up in is feeling the need to just go get certified over and over and over and over and get 10,000 certificates. But you haven’t started your business. So then what happens, two years ago, by four years go by eight years go by, and you’ve done a lot of training, but you’re not helping anyone. And to me, that’s a disservice to your potential clients that you are here to help.
So just understand that the world needs you and you are qualified to help people right now, even if it’s maybe not at the level that you want to be at.
Maybe you don’t do one-on-one psychedelic healing sessions until you get proper training. But maybe you’re able to help people with their journey in their life.
I know a lot of people don’t like hearing that, but the reality is some of these certificate programs are just made by people like me. It’s not like there’s one authority at the top governing this whole entire industry (except I would maybe say Rick Doblin but, you know, even then he would probably agree with me saying the ability to help people doesn’t really come through getting a piece of paper). It comes through experiential learning.
TRAININGS & CERTIFICATIONS TO BE A TRANSFORMATIONAL PSYCHEDELIC ENTREPRENEUR
Okay, so what kind of other training or classes do you need to become a psychedelic entrepreneur?
I always recommend learning how to start and grow your business because the one thing I see out there is a lot of people spinning their wheels, and getting lost not knowing what to do first.
They’re trying all these different strategies…
Throwing money into a website and winging it…
Posting on Instagram…
Starting a podcast…
…and a year goes by, or two or three years go by, and they’re not really making money and they’re not helping people.
So that’s one thing if you want to start a business in this transformational realm, go start it and the best thing you can do is learn the steps the right way to get it off the ground.
You have to really feel into what it is that you want to learn, that you see your ideal clients need or want from you and also look into your own healing. The training that I’m starting now is a training but really it was for myself. It’s going to help my clients because I’m going to learn a whole new level of helping people. But it’s also for my own inner healing. And that’s how it goes.
So what is it that you want to learn? For yourself is there something you’re being called to?
I would really recommend just feeling into what it is that really lights you up and what you want to work on for yourself. That will help you better serve your potential clients because your clients are here on this mountain, they are you where you were in the past. Very rarely have I seen anyone ever coach or help heal someone without going through the journey themselves. That is the whole point of this, you eventually get to the point where your own transformational path has been so impactful. And it will always continue.
By the way, there is no such thing as healing at all first and then going on. It’s a constant journey.
So that journey you had, it eventually brings you to a point where you want to be of service to others and give back. And that’s how this works. Your clients are a mirror of who you were in your past.
THE LEGALITIES OF RUNNING A PSYCHEDELIC BUSINESS
Another question I get a lot is ”is this legal”?
I’ve spoken about psychedelics and legality, even though I do not give legal advice. So please, consult your attorney and legal professional because I am not an attorney. I don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to the law.
If you are feeling called to bring psychedelics into your healing or transformational practice in some manner, the one thing you have to know is if you want to take the risk to do something that’s actually illegal, like, give someone something, or, grow it or sell it, that’s you taking a risk. And that’s up to you. There are many other ways to get around this. And this is what I do with most of my clients. Most of my clients do not give their clients psychedelics, some of them do some healing work, but I don’t get involved in how that happens, and who gives it to them, and in what manner. That’s not what I’m here to do.
But I always say that having a legal aspect of your business, it’s the best thing you can always do.
The reality is, these medicines are everywhere. (Please do not contact me, asking me where they’re located). But they are everywhere. So if you set the intention to find them, or you tell your client to set the intention to come across some medicine, they will probably find it. And that’s the reality of the world we’re in today. So this is one way to go about doing it legally.
SO I WANT TO GIVE MY CLIENTS PSYCHEDELICS. HOW DO I DO THIS?
So again, I’m not here to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do, but I have had clients come to me say, “I really want to open up a psychedelic healing clinic”, or “I want to help people quit drinking alcohol because psychedelics helped me to quit drinking alcohol, how do I do this?”
This is where I say, you have to really feel your body to feel what’s right to you.
Are you willing to risk potentially getting in some kind of trouble?
Maybe you move to a place where it’s a little more allowed or decriminalized. Or maybe you partner with someone. This is something I usually recommend – go partner with someone or take your clients to a place where it actually is legal. Or, recommend a particular retreat center, or a particular country, where then you’re allowed to work with it without getting in trouble.
So there’s always a way as an entrepreneur. In general, entrepreneurs tend to have some risk.
That’s the whole nature of being an entrepreneur. We’re not just working for the man, collecting a paycheck, and praying that our stable job doesn’t go away. We are taking a risk by working for ourselves. That’s what entrepreneurship is. If you learn the right steps, the risk becomes lower because then you just aren’t given the right steps to grow a successful business. But generally, that’s something you have to really feel into.
Are you willing to just take a risk? Or are you going to wait it out and see how the laws change?
The world is moving very fast right now if you haven’t noticed. I mean, look at our digital currencies that are everywhere. Who knows what will happen with psychedelics? They could be completely decriminalized and legalized within the next couple of years.
I do believe that if you are a psychedelic entrepreneur, an aspiring psychedelic entrepreneur, a spiritual entrepreneur, or a coach or healer, you are a pioneer who is helping usher into a whole new realm of healing. So you have to really, really own it.
MY OWN JOURNEY WITH PSYCHEDELICS
I’ve been a business coach for a while.
I was always on a deep spiritual path. I’ve been working with psychedelics since I was quite young. For the last 10 years, I got really deep into more of the personal development, spiritual, and healing benefits of psychedelics versus when I was in my teens and 20s, where it was more of the recreational side.
As soon as I had these really profound healing and spiritual experiences with psychedelics, my business started shifting.
I realized that these had such a profound effect on my life and that there was a part of me that was being hidden because of the fear of coming out of the psychedelic closet.
I know a lot of people get scared to talk about it, but as we are seeing more and more, it’s becoming a lot more normalized now….especially since Michael Pollan published a best-selling book about it. It’s on the mainstream media every day. Colorado just passed proposition 122 legalizing psilocybin and some other sacred medicines. But when I first started getting the “downloads” to speak about psychedelics and purpose, it came actually through the medicine.
I had already had a lot of clients who were on the medicine path. And I really enjoyed working with them because I loved that we were able to speak about their experiences, integrate their psychedelic journeys into their business and their purpose, into their heart path. And I loved it.
I just kept thinking to myself, how do I find and attract in more client like this?
I actually had a vision that showed me that I was here to help medicine people. I started feeling this desire to speak about this more publicly in order to see if some people felt the way I did. And I knew that if people were working with psychedelics, and they were in a misaligned career, a misaligned business, or doing work that they didn’t love, I knew that something was going to wake them up so much that they actually had to go make the change.
That’s when I knew it was actually doing a disservice to not talk about it. Because I knew there were people out there suffering with jobs that they hated, or in a career path that felt totally misaligned.
And I knew I was here to help them.
So when you just really connect deep down into your heart into what your mission is, what your purpose is, what you are here for, and you connect to that every time you make a decision…
That’s your guiding light, that’s where the golden nuggets will come in.
So for me, I started feeling like I really need to talk about this, but I was actually really scared. I was scared of getting my communities in trouble. I do work with medicines in the US sometimes, and I was scared that someone was gonna follow me and show up at my door and spy on me, and then shut it down. Or, you know, like the worst-case scenario…
I was afraid of what people would think about me who didn’t even know I did psychedelics.
But then I knew my mission, and what was living inside of my soul was much more important than my ego. My fear-based monkey mind was telling me all these stories about the cops showing up at the door, pissing off my friends, or having my neighbors shove me out of the neighborhood. I could go on and on.
So this is what I teach to my clients. One of the very first things I teach is really connecting deeply to what’s living inside of you. Your Divine Self, this part of you that is beyond what you can even understand. People call it many different things. It’s your soul, it’s something living inside of you. That’s what to pay attention to. And if something that’s coming through sounds really damn scary, or really damn risky, sit on it.
I have a client who works with people with addiction, addiction recovery, and alcoholic recovery. And she mentioned that she knew that psychedelics helped through this, and it helped me and this was my path. I want to help others, but I’m afraid.
So, you really have to connect to which is more powerful to you…
Helping others and creating change that potentially saves lives?
Or that little piece of you that feels really scared?
I’m not totally delusional about the reality of legality, but you have to really feel into which feels more guided by your deeper heart. Is it what you know you’re here to do? Or is it that part of you that’s like, okay, maybe I’ll just stay at my job and not ever do this business?
CHOOSE MISSION OVER EGO
And this is where I say connect to your mission over your ego. The more you can make decisions from that. It will guide you in the right direction. All you have to do is follow the little golden nuggets that it drops on the path.
And I’m telling you, the heart path leads you to Divine abundance.
Because when you wake up out of the morning feeling so inspired to go to work, you feel inspired to get on a video and make a podcast, go talk to your potential clients, go talk to the world, post on social media, write an email to your list, go collaborate with someone, tell your own deep story. That’s what gets you out of bed in the morning is connecting to that inspiration. Knowing that you’re here to help others who are going through where you’ve already been.
That’s the core of all of this.
My deeper mission is to get you and your medicine out to the world so we can create a happier, more love-based, heart-centered world and create massive transformation on this planet to help all of humanity and help Mother Earth herself.
If you have any questions, please reach out or feel free to check out my various spiritual and psychedelic business coaching offerings here.
