Does Microdosing Mushrooms Make You a Better Leader?

Sean Weisbrot: Adam Schell is the founder of Brain Supreme, a seven figure supplement brand focused on mushrooms that have psilocybin in them for the purposes of microdosing to get your mental health on track. Full disclosure, while this is not a sponsored episode, Adam did send me some of his product and I did try it, although in the episode we don't specifically mention. My experience with his product, but we do talk very heavily about his experience with microdosing and my experience with microdosing, other products, and much more related to proper protocols for microdosing, appreciating the mushrooms and understanding what they can do for you, what they can't do for you, and how to get the best from them. So if you're looking to learn more about mushrooms. And how they can help you. Then you're gonna love this episode because we go pretty deep into it. Let's get to it. Why did you want to create a product centered around psilocybin?

Adam Schell: I was a writer. I published a novel. Everything went like it, thought it was gonna be great. Everything went downhill. I needed to refigure my life. I started a soccer not-for-profit in this area. The backside of the Malibu Mountains called Calabasas. We were living, there was a lot of influential families and one of the dads on the team was like, Hey man, I like the way you operate. You got this great coach, it's not-for-profit. All these families, what are you doing? I'm like, well, he said, come to this meeting with me. So he introduced me to the California cannabis industry and at that time the bar was so low that like competent, honest was the new extraordinary. So I became a cannabis guy, but I never meant to be. The whole time I had had some formative experiences as a young person with psychedelics and the term microdosing had just come out and I was late forties. I had a lot to, you know, I spent a lot of years writing the book and that didn't, the thought was gonna work and it didn't work, and now I'm restarting my life. You 47, 48 years old and I needed a hack. I was like really looking. You know, I'm, I'm not gonna take Adderall. I'm not gonna get juiced up. You know, I didn't want to go on antidepressants, like, nothing like that. Like, I needed to find a hack to really get me motivated for the second half of my life. And so I started experimenting with microdosing. Um, some friends got me a product. I didn't find it especially effective, but I knew it could be. I had a guy in my neighborhood who we were friends with, a European guy. Um, then we started doing some work together 'cause he was also in the cannabis space. But we both had a conversation one day we used to meet in the sauna, like we were the only two in this complex where we lived that would use the sauna. And our kids were friends and you know, in the sauna. I'm like, you know, I've become a cannabis guy and I'm, thank God I'm doing really well. I'm running a statewide distribution. I got a hundred farms. Like things are going great, but like I really think I'm more interested in mushrooms. And he is like, oh that's interesting. 'cause I come from four generations of mushroom foragers. And he was a very good cannabis grower, so I said, do you think he'd grow mushrooms? And he is like, yeah. So I funded it out and literally within six months, he was one of the best mushroom growers that I've ever seen. And we just took off from there. But it was always really about. Supplementation, life optimization. Um, and, you know, biohacking in kind of the highest and purest sense.

Sean Weisbrot: So I got into microdosing a number of years ago when I was living in Vietnam because my mother was going through. Dementia and she was on antidepressants and they were not helping her, and she was miserable. And because she, she's aware of the changes she's going through and it, it's terrifying for her because she can see herself, you know, changing and she can't explain why. And we, we can't explain why. And I thought maybe the mushrooms, at least, maybe the mushrooms can help her to. Feel more comfortable with accepting the change that's happening, and maybe it will alleviate the need for the antidepressants because mushrooms are a natural serotonin uptake inhibitor. Just like these, um, you know, these antidepressants, however, they don't have the awful, uh, withdrawal symptoms. You know, you don't, it doesn't, it doesn't take months to get off of. You can start it and stop it whenever you want, so it's a lot easier on your body. And before I could have her try them, I needed to do more research on them. I needed to figure out for myself, do they work and, and all of that. So I. I spent about six months when I was in Vietnam doing research, and then I went back to the us. Uh, I had, I'D left Vietnam. This was during COVID, so I was now living in the US for a a year. Um, while I was figuring out what to do next, which I ended up in Portugal. But during that time, I got my mother off of the antidepressants. I got her onto Microdosing mushrooms after I had spent a few months testing it on myself, and she saw a huge change. In a positive, not in her, uh, not in her, her mental situation. Right. Obviously, nothing's really gonna change that, unfortunately. But in just the overall daily ability to function, she felt better. She felt lighter, she felt happier, and it's been a few years now and she's actually lost 30 something pounds, which is great. She, she looks a lot healthier now because the damn antidepressants. One of them makes you addicted to salt and one of them makes you addicted to sugar. And one of them, you know, just, they all have different things, right? And so the one that she was on, it caused her to be insatiably addicted to sugar. And when she got off of it, the sugar addiction dissipated and she stopped eating sugar and she lost a bunch of weight. And, and just doing that is, you know, she's less likely to have heart issues. She's less likely to have diabetes and sugar is a huge com uh, proponent of. Uh, developing like Alzheimer's and, and dementia. So just the, you know, limited amount of sugar in our diet is now hopefully making these things take longer to change in her brain instead of, and, and so I. Not only did it help her, but in the process of me learning about it and testing it on myself, I realized that it's the only thing I've come across as a person with a D. D rather, a DHD, that has made the noise in my brain completely stop. My entire, my entire existence is just noise all day long. Every day I need these headphones on almost all day long, just to avoid the noise from the outside that messes with my brain of like focusing on the inside and the mushrooms make the noise stop. And nothing else I've ever experienced in my life has done anything like that. And just that was life changing for me. And, and on top of that, I had developed a lot of anxiety and, and panic attacks for years from my previous tech company because it was extremely stressful for me. And the, the mushrooms helped me after the company died to kind of deal with the anxiety and the panic attacks. And it made them stop it. It allowed me to heal my brain in a way that those things stopped. And so. Having microdosed almost daily for two years. I, I stopped a few months ago, but during that time I feel like I healed significantly from a lot of the things that I went through in my life that had negatively impacted me and I feel a lot lighter on my feed and I feel a lot happier and more. Uh, sociable and, and just a better person, uh, a happier, more engaged, more enthusiastic human being. And I, I don't think I would've had these benefits if I didn't microdose mushroom.

Adam Schell: Oh, that's terrific. What kind of, um, dosage were you at? I. What was your sweet spot?

Sean Weisbrot: 50 to 60 milligrams, which is very, very, very small. I'm extremely sensitive to things that alter the chemicals of your brain because of the A DHD. So where my mom needs half a gram a day, I. I need a 10th of a, you know, not a 10th. I need a 20% of a gram, whatever it is, or a 20th.

Adam Schell: Do you know the type of mushroom you were using?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. A golden teacher.

Adam Schell: You know, thankfully a lot of stories like that and they're quite wonderful. Yeah. What was your protocol every day? You didn't stop, no days off.

Sean Weisbrot: Not usually just because it's such a small dose.

Adam Schell: And since you've stopped. Is the neurological benefits the neuroplasticity set in or did did it reverse a little bit or It really mitigated in seemingly permanently the. DHD,

Sean Weisbrot: the noise did come back, but it's diminished in a way that it doesn't bother me so much anymore.

Adam Schell: Well, that's terrific.

Sean Weisbrot: The anxiety doesn't really come so much anymore either.

Adam Schell: Wow. Oh, real microdosing success story.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, and my mother's still doing it. My brother and my dad macro dose once in a while. Like once a year. Once every two year. Oh, sorry. Once or twice a year. Because they want more of a

Adam Schell: reset,

Sean Weisbrot: an enlightening experience. Yeah, and microdosing is expensive,

Adam Schell: essentially. Microdosing is a slightly expensive supplement that you should notice. You know, I take a lot of supplements. I'm very into health and fitness and all that stuff. Like, I've never taken a vitamin C or a multivitamin, or I'm like, oh my God. Like that multivitamin. You know, it's usually you notice it in the reduction of negative affect. You know, like, Hey, for my age I'm doing pretty good. Everybody else got sick. I didn't get sick. But you sprinkle a little psilocybin in your vitamin C or your multivitamin, you're like, oh, wow. I know what I'm paying for. Like, I'm. I'm 10% better. I'm 15, I'm five. I'm 20% better. Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: I think it requires a person to be self-aware, to be able to notice those changes, because if you don't know why you would be going for it, it, it's like. Mushrooms are supposed to be your teacher and your guide. And often they give you what you need, not what you want, but you have to be self-aware of what you need to be able to start that journey and try it out.

Adam Schell: I would, I would a little bit disagree with that. So, um, the science of psilocybin essentially works like this. Um, you could listen to a very good three hour Huberman podcast or you could distill it down to these 45 seconds. Psilocybin at both the macro and microdosing level moves the brain in a beneficial direction, whether you're cognizant of it or not. But if you're cognizant of it, it will move the brain in a beneficial direction even more rapidly. So I have a lot of like oblivious people who are not particularly self-aware who will come back to me after a week or two. They're like, you know what? I'm like I'm doing better. Like my wife says I'm a nicer person. There's still like a little bit of a distracted a DD. You know, stockbroker, lunatic, but they're like, you know, everybody else is telling me I'm so much nicer and like, I like working out more. Like I, I have this weird thing where like I, I kind of disassociate and I'm watching my emotions and I'm like, I don't need to get that angry, that crazy. So I, I, I find, I find that you might think that's the case, but over the, I've sold 10,000 of these units. I've had 3,500 conversations. Um, there's much better brain people in the world and there's much better mushroom people in the world. I say this with humility, but I don't think anybody has had more one-on-one conversations about how to microdose in the world than I have. I've had 3,500 conversations on how to microdose, long short coaching, everything in between and. It's, it works for about 95% of the people. The only people who it doesn't work for are those that have a bias that like, want to prove me wrong or prove microdosing wrong. Um, and you and I say it to them sometimes, I'm like, you know what? Your attitude like sucks. Like you seem like you gotta chip on your shoulder and you don't want this to work. And you're so entrenched in your victim consciousness and your unhappiness that this is just gonna be another thing to check off the list that you tried and didn't work. So. I don't think you should waste a hundred bucks. Like why bother?

Sean Weisbrot: Those are the people that actually need it.

Adam Schell: Yeah, but what can you do? You know, you have sometimes reverse psychology is the, is the best method of them. But, um, so just slightly disagreeing with what you said, like I find I've gotten a lot of feedback from people who are not particularly self-aware, not the journal or self inquisitive type. And they even notice. Yeah. Like, dude, I don't know what it is, but I'm better. I'm feeling better.

Sean Weisbrot: Uh, you were talking about, uh, one of the people telling you that they felt like less angry or they they became a little bit introspective and when my brother did a macro dose, he, uh, he realized not at that moment, but the day after the macro dose experience that he was getting angry in his car. 'cause he, he has a short temper. And he never, not vi like the violent kind of person, but just like, just a short temper kind of person. So he'll, he'll raise his voice and so that, that next day he was driving in the car and he, you know, did his normal reactionary thing. And then in the middle of it stopped himself and said to himself, why am I doing this? Why am I getting angry at these people? Why am I honking my horn? It's not gonna change anything and all it's doing is wasting my energy.

Adam Schell: Yeah. And Buddhism is referred to as witness consciousness. And I've had literally dozens of dozens and dozens of clients, customers who don't know a thing about Buddhism, but they say this thing to me, they're like, God, you know, it's the weirdest thing. Like I start to get swept up my emotions and this little thing just pops out and I'm like, do I really wanna do this? Maybe I'll get a little angry at my kids for a minute. So it kind of moves the needle and then I'll come right back to myself. Like it's very, very common that this, um. Like a, like a beneficial disassociation or classic Buddhism witness consciousness is one of the benefits of both the macro and the microdose for, let me just, can I make a clarification for the sake of your audience so they understand microdosing versus macro dosing. So. Macro dosing tends to happen these days. Mushrooms are stronger. Historically, it happens at five grams or 5,000 milligrams to down to 3.5 grams or 3,500 milligrams. Microdosing happens at the sub 10% level of that, so you're on the lower side, but. Microdosing kind of breaks down between 100 to 400 milligrams. So the idea with micro, with with microdosing is it's perceptible, but non hallucinatory, um, non intoxicating. But you do notice some uptick. I. Overall performance and efficacy. Um, and both the macro and the microdosing are very, very beneficial in, uh, independently or even in combination, especially in combination. What the macro dose does is it turns the cosmic lights on, so to speak, so you've entered a room of total darkness. Your understanding of mythology, cosmology, your own personal psychological anatomy, how you make up and the lights get flipped on, and suddenly you understand the world, the universe, nature, yourself, your historic behavioral patterns. You, you see where the furniture in the room is now laying. So when you walk and then after the macro experience ends. The lights dim and the darkness returns, but the pattern of the room is now in your mind. It's like you've entered a dark room. You flip the lights and you see, oh, the bed's there. The couch is there. You know, there's a, there's a table here. You can make it to the bathroom without breaking your shins. I. That's what the, that's what the micro, uh, macro dose does, is it turns the proverbial lights on for your own psychology and cosmology. And then the microdose, whether you had the macro experience or not, just continues to walk you little bit each day back towards that light. I. So they're independently, they're both very powerful, um, forms of kind of wellness and like deeper psychological understanding. Um, used in conjunction is probably the most powerful, but that's kind of how you would delineate the, the two one turns the lights on the other, just gently walks you towards the light. Every day.

Sean Weisbrot: Hey, just gimme 10 seconds of your time. I really appreciate you listening to the episode so far, and I hope you're loving it. And if you are, I would love to ask you to subscribe to the channel because what we do is a lot of we're, and every week we bring you a new guest and a new story, and what we do requires so much love. So that we can bring you something amazing and every week we're trying really hard to get better guests that have better stories and improve our ability to tell their stories. So your subscription lets the algorithm know that what we're doing is fantastic and no commitment. It's free to do. And if you don't like what we're doing later on, you can always unsubscribe. And either way, we would love a, like if you don't feel like subscribing at this time. Yeah, I've, I've never done a macro dose because. I feel like I would struggle with the idea of letting go so that I can experience that. And I don't wanna put myself in a situation where I will have a negative experience as a result of not being able to let go.

Adam Schell: How much of your life are you inhibiting by the aversion to having a negative experience like your, you have to walk through the darkness of your own psychology and soul to kind of embrace the light, like. You're gonna, you're gonna live a 50% life with that kind of attitude, like you, and, and there's techniques. And a good coach will coach you through that. You know, allow, allow, allow surrender, surrender. Teach me, teach me. And you'll have a compression and it'll be terrifying momentarily. And then you're gonna burst through and there will be a spontaneously spontaneous rewiring of your brain where that issue that. Aversion to the darkness will change forever, and you'll, you'll come out of that experience a more courageous and open person. Like it's, it's 100%. That's the way it works. And if you're telling me now what your issue is, like it's 200% gonna work, it's gonna go right there. And that's your ego. That's your ego binding you saying, I've got you safe. You might not be entirely happy, or you might be leaving a 50% life, but at least you know this 50% and you can orchestrate it and manage it.

Sean Weisbrot: I would say of the people that I know, I am probably one of the most open-minded, forward thinking people that that I know and I am generally. Really good at being self-aware and understanding what my strengths are, what my weaknesses are. Uh, I've been meditating for 20 years, so I, I have a lot of experience in looking inside of myself. Um, I meditate every day for 40 minutes. You know, my eyes are closed. I, I see nothing, just blackness, uh, you know, when I, so I, I'm able to really let myself go in those experiences, and the mushrooms have been very helpful in all of that as well. So I, I don't feel like I am unhappy or living 50% of my life or anything like that. You know, I, I, I live this kind of life where a lot of people are like, I wish I could live like that. You know, the ability to get up and just get on a plane and fly wherever I want, whenever I want. So, I, I feel like I, I live pretty freely, obviously, uh, responsibly, but you know, I'm not sitting there drinking. Alcohol every day and putting needles somewhere, like I'm not doing silly, stupid shit. Um, but I think my aversion to the mushrooms is that I have, I, I know people that have had negative experiences that from during the, the hallucinatory experience, not the after effect, uh, the after effect. And so I guess my concern is more on the, along the lines of, you know, it's like one of my friends, he, he hallucinated and he saw the devil in front of him and the devil was harassing him for like several hours and it was one of the worst things he's ever experienced. And it, it impacted him for six months after that day. Um, he's never. Touched mushrooms again, but he's one of the chillest guys that I know. He's one of the, the people I know that generally like don't give a damn about anything. He's super easygoing and yet he still had this horrific experience that hurt him for a very long time.

Adam Schell: Yeah. But he, did he do this with coaching and did he have some coaching beforehand and some integration?

Sean Weisbrot: We were 23 years old, live in Laos in the middle of nowhere.

Adam Schell: So you use mushrooms as a youthful person, irresponsibly. With somebody who had some trauma in their life, obviously, and some unresolved trauma, and they're presented with that unresolved trauma and they had no psychological or emotional preparation for how to deal with it. Like textbook worst case scenario to use mushrooms, traumatized person on psilocybin, on psychedelics without any coaching or supervision. Not aware of set and setting and so many things. So you know, if he went back there with some coaching, you would sit with that darkness and you'd say, okay. Teach me. I'm not afraid of you. I choose God. I love God. I've, I've seen the darkness. I've dealt with it. I just had a psychedelic experience about a month ago with my psychedelic coach and like I. An entity came to me, a demon came to me. You know, look, I face plan in the cannabis industry really badly. I lost millions of dollars. I'm still bereft with, I lost my money. I hurt my wife, my children, I lost investors'. Money farms, pharma, like dude, it was Netflix bad. And I still wake up at 4:00 AM with sometimes cold sweats and, and guilt and so forth. And so prosperity building this business, you know, want to clear all debts and, and. You know, and I'm 55, you know, I gotta get going, you know, so I, I experienced the anxiety and it came to me and an entity came to me and it basically said, you know, come this way and I'll give you everything you want. But I knew it was wrong. I knew it was wrong. So I just said, you know, what do you have to teach me? And it said nothing. And then I said, I reject you outright. I stay with God, I reject you outright. And it sizzled and it went away. So like your friend now could probably have with coaching in the right environment, could have a very profound healing experience. Look, these things, I use this thing so when people, when people ask me about, I'm a microdose coach and I've had a dozen macro experiences over the course of my life, not a lot, you know, dad, kids going. I don't have retreat time or even eight hours very often, you know. But when people ask me, you know, can I do this on my own? And I'm like, well, look, you gotta, you gotta be very aware of set and setting, you know, download a playlist, the headphones, you know, explore the playlist a little bit to make sure you're comfortable with it. There's this guy on Spotify called East Forest. He's got five and six hour playlists, music for mushrooms. It's amazing. But then most importantly, when I say to people, you gotta be really honest with yourself. Like, are there some bends along the way? You know, like you're an adult, you've had some losses and some heartaches, you got some bends, or you're dealing with some real broken shit. Like you've gotta be brutally honest with yourself emotionally and psychologically. If you got some real darkness, some trauma, some abuse, physical, emotional, violence, sexual, whatever it may be, you wanna put yourself in a supportive environment with a psychedelic therapeutic coach practitioner. If you've just had some bends along the way, maybe like your brother and your dad, and you want to do a reset. You can do this on your own mindfully and responsibly, but you gotta be really honest with yourself. And unfortunately because of your youth, it sounds like your 23-year-old buddy at the time didn't realize that he had some darkness and some skeletons in the closet, and he had no emotional training on how to deal with that when you perceived the darkness. If he had training, his whole life could have been differently, possibly, or at least that experience would've been nothing but beneficial.

Sean Weisbrot: Me and him were together in Laos with another person who was traveling with us, who also had. Easily as much trauma as him, if not more. And she had a wonderful experience. I didn't do it. I was just, I was sitting for them. I was making sure that they were okay. Now I've actually, I've done trip sitting for my dad and my brother as well a number of times. So, uh, I, I've watched over a number of people, but I've never done it myself. What haven't we talked about that you feel the audience should know or be aware of?

Adam Schell: Well, you know, at Brain Supreme we have like a real coaching protocol. On how to go about microdosing. I try to be very transparent and honest for me as a CEO, you know, transparency and honesty is a superpower. People trust you. They'll give you product a try. You know, we have a 66% of our one-time purchasers become subscribers, which in the supplement space is amazing. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's um, you know. You might get 10, 15% subscription capture as a really good supplement company. So the proof's in the pudding with us. The one thing that'd be beneficial is if you kind of go over the coaching protocols on really how to go about microdosing. So like what I said, from like the holistic standpoint, microdosing tends to just walk you towards the light of your higher state of being. Love, health, happiness, wellness, whether you're cognizant or not, it just moves the brain in a beneficial direction. Um, psilocybin mushrooms are neurogenerative, so they make new neuroplastic, neuroplasticity wiring, and they're neuro regenerative, and so they'll regenerate damaged areas of the brain. Um, they're also neuro deconstructive, so they will unwire unhappiness and they will then wire you for happiness and if they're parts of your brain that were happy at one point, but went dormant, that's the newer regenerative standpoint. So I've got a lot of guys in the NFL, a lot of mixed martial artists do it just from the CTE, from the, from the neurogenesis standpoint of areas of your brain that have damaged. I was a big 10 linebacker. Um. At Northwestern. A lot of hits on my body, but dude, at 55, I feel fucking amazing. You know, I train, I lift weights all the time. I do yoga. I mountain bike. So the health and fitness are there. My neurocognitive abilities seem all there too. No neurocognitive decline, no evidence of CTE. So, you know, for me personally, the proof's been in the pudding. I think what I'd like to mention is to go over the protocols of. You know of microdosing. So what you're going for with microdosing, somewhere between a five to maybe 20% bump in your life if you're more or less well adjusted, functioning adults. That's the kind of range that we hear from our customers. They're 5, 10, 15, 20% better. But if you put that on aggregate, you know, if you go through a week where you are 5% better every day and you microdose for five days, that's 25 or 35%, you know, beneficial. And then you combine that over the months, like highly more productive. It's hard to quantify these things, but people tend to be healthier and happier and. And just a little bit more enjoyable and, and emotionally stable and, uh, well adjusted life. I tell people to start with our supplement protocol, um, which is five days on, two days off. Microdosing is best done in the morning. It's best done on an empty stomach, and it's best done with a glass of lemon water. Uh, and if you really wanna go for it, lemon water with quality sea salts or Celtic salt or Baja gold. Um, 'cause you eat psilocybin and hits your liver, it converts to sine and then your brain absorbs sine. And that conversion process is facilitated with minerals, uh, you know, salts, good minerals, and vitamin C. Citric acid. Um, start with the five day on, two day off protocol for at least the first two weeks. 'cause we have a, in the, my coaching protocol, demystify familiarize and personalize. That's your, especially if you're newer to microdosing or newer to mushroom. So first thing you wanna do is you just wanna demystify the practice. You know, start with half a capsule, start with one capsule, set a realistic set of expectations that you kind of, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20% better. And just kind of see what happens and sit with that. And then once you've familiarize yourself with the process, then you can really adjust your protocols. Psilocybin and microdosing is a really good indication of biological, neurological health. It will point out the areas that you need to kind of work on. And the only, uh, side effects or um, negative reactions that we get are occasional sleepiness. People on their first, like one to three days of microdosing, they'll get sleepy and. I have a hundred percent success ratio with this. It's an indication of dehydration and brain dehydration. Your brain needs more fluids and liquids than any other part of your body and it needs proper minerals 'cause the brain operates with on fats and minerals. So I tell people to drink more water, add some quality electrolytes, LMNT, or we use at the house of a company called Zeal, like some good electrolytes in your water. Get really good salt, Celtic salt or Baja Gold, um, and increase your water dose, increase the amount of water you're taking. Then a little bit of magnesium. Um, I use a product called Bio Optimizers. It's got seven different forms of magnesium before bed. Take a nice dose of magnesium and almost always like, oh God, yeah, microdose is totally working. Now I'm not sleepy. That'll kind of go away.