E:0 Pt.2 FOREST FLOOR™ Mycelial Network™ - Why? 

26-Aug-2024

Episode Zero, pt. II: Why launch Forest Floor's Mycelium Network Podcast? 

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E0,pt.2: Summary  

Matthew Flansburg discusses the complex relationship between mental health and personal choice in drug use for mental health purposes, highlighting the need for a more nuanced approach. He shares his personal experiences with psychedelic mushrooms and advocates for their responsible use and normalization under guided circumstances. Flansburg also critiques the pharmaceutical industry's focus on profits over curing diseases and emphasizes the importance of aligning company values with customer needs. Additionally, he shares stories about his friends' gambling adventures in Las Vegas 1997 where the ghost of his dad was controlling the roulette table.

E0,pt.2: Timeline  

00:00:00 Mental health, personal choice, and the intersection of capitalism and psychedelics. 

• Matthew Flansburg reflects on personal growth and legacy, urging listeners to let go of material possessions and unfulfilled dreams.
• Flansburg shares his experiences with psychedelics, emphasizing the importance of scientific data.

00:03:50 Psychedelics, environment, and perspective. 

• Matthew Flansburg discusses limitations of clinical trials for psilocybin and other drugs. 
• Flansburg suggests a safe, natural environment for psychedelic experiences, such as a forest or mountain with a campfire and fishing nearby.
• A vegan in a butcher shop would be a terrible place for someone to try mushrooms for the first time, according to Flansburg, due to the contrast between the drugs and the environment.
• Flansburg discusses the benefits of mushrooms, which allow him to see things from other people's perspectives.
• He believes that gaining perspective can be a form of expanded consciousness, helping us understand others and ourselves better.

00:11:59 Societal pressure and rule-breaking. 

• Flansburg emphasizes the importance of understanding pharma's true intentions.
• Flansburg explores societal pressure and rebellion in absurd situations. 
• Flansburg reflects on societal pressures and the legality of marijuana.

00:17:08 Nancy Reagan was full of shit. 

0019:12 Drug use, mental health, and friendship in the 1990s. 

• Matthew Flansburg and others discuss creating a grow environment for mushrooms.
• Flansburg recounts struggles with addiction and mental health after father's death.
• Flansburg and friends share stories of their youth, including a friend named El Jefe who passed away and another friend Dougie who is tall, dark and attracts women at bars. 

00:21:19 October 9th 1997, the worst day of my life. 

00:26:05 Vegas gambling adventure with friends, winning $17,000. 

• Matthew Flansburg lost $200 in 15 minutes at a Las Vegas casino.
• Flansburg's gambling streak continues at multiple casinos, with him giving black chips to friends and constantly winning.
• Flansburg's wins become increasingly absurd, with him being patted down by casino security and laughing uncontrollably.
• Flansburg recounts an absurd Vegas gambling run with a $17,000 win.

00:33:42 Using psychedelic mushrooms for emotional healing.

• Matthew finds solace in mushroom cultivation during a difficult time.
• Flansburg found life-changing benefits from meditating with psychedelic mushrooms despite societal pressure. 
• Flansburg ponders if he's found his meaning in life by advocating for drugs that could save lives.

00:40:48 Grief, regret, and memories of a deceased father and friend. 

• Matthew Flansburg dedicates episode to his late father, wishing he could trade what he's learned for time with him.
• Matthew reflects on his friendship with a deceased friend, David, and their adventures together.
• Matthew dedicates this chapter to his late father, hoping to help others through their grief.

00:47:56 Life experiences and tech industry career paths.

• Flansburg shares his transformative experience with psychedelics, seeking help and safe passage for others.
• Matthew and Daniel have worked together on multiple projects, including the Jolly Roger, AOL/Netscape, Canon, and other ventures. 

00:53:58 Company values and product development through different perspectives. 

• Flansburg appreciates Daniels' balance and contributions to the emerging mushroom market.
• Flansburg suggests using the chakra filter to analyze company values for balance and alignment.
• Perspectives on product development vary depending on the customer's viewpoint and lens. 

01:00:35 Product development and the importance of understanding customer needs. 

• Matthew Flansburg emphasizes importance of understanding customer voice in product development.
• Flansburg prioritizes small group feedback for iterative product improvement.
• Flansburg: Seeks to normalize psychedelic use under guided circumstances.
• Flansburg: Believes responsibility and wisdom come with power, should be treated with respect.

E0,pt.2: Transcript

0:02
This all comes down to mental health. And this all comes down to personal choice, this all comes down to libertarian ideals operating within a shitty, capitalistic system, operating within an ideal free market kind of economy concept. Whatever that is, there's an I have no problem of capitalism, it's great. It's just, I'd say, late stage unfettered roll away capitalism where the lower are getting taxed more than the upper. It's that's absurdity. That there should be a scale, if anybody argues against that it is they're just greedy. Listen, there comes a point in everyone's life. Whether it's at the end, or at the beginning, you got to let all this stuff go. So regardless of the stuff that you have imagined, being on a deathbed, you got 100 houses in the world, which one you're going to be in, right. You can only be in one room at a time as well. And you can only be driving one car at a time. So you find yourself where you are, wherever that may be. And in the end of it, you don't want to end up like my dad with a storage unit full of junk, with unfulfilled dreams, you know, and and a broken hearted kid. And I'll be clear on that, I'm not ever you'll never hear me recorded telling anybody that they need to eat mushrooms that they need to try Hiawatha they need to try DMT it is not my place to tell you, or anybody else on this planet. What's good for them. It's not my place. However, it's my obligation to tell you my experiences. And from those and any question or conversation that you may have moving forward, I hope that you're a little better prepared, a little more knowledgeable, a little more open minded. And you move forward from there. So I'm not here to argue, in any sense of position hierarchy or anything like that, I am just here to share my experiences, the experiences I've shared with others and, and more importantly, these are all experiences, these come from the heart.

2:53
I believe in both the heart and the mind. So we've got the feelings, the the synbiotic representing sort of like how this all fits in meaning purpose, values, these things that are are definitely more right brain thinking. But the data is hyper important here. That's why I think a lot of the early episodes moving forward are going to be focused on the actual clinical studies. Stories are great, and everybody's going to have those stories, but under stories under scrutiny, and observation from professionals who have been paid to do so in environments that are repeatable. And I believe I think they can improve on technique, and set and setting those things can certainly be improved upon. But hey, listen. All things being equal testing, the pharma drugs versus let's say, psilocybin, psilocybin compounds, head to head, in the same conditions is awesome. You know, however, I think those who know would fully agree that the clinical box like most geometric places, the more geometric, the more difficult the trip can sometimes be more complicated and geometric, it can be so sometimes boxed rooms, or are super sterile, it could be the lighting as well, like, when you're in a heightened state of taking in. stimulus, you're in a heightened state of taking in stimulus you're receiving you're, you actually start transmitting and receiving kind of higher different wavelengths, right. So you're floating, you're vibrating in different kinds of frequencies. So you're transmitting, you're receiving the environment around you is super important, because you'll be hyper aware of whatever it is, you're in, right you'll be hyper aware of the existence and kind of the qualities of that room. The clinical room is just that it's devoid of any decent stimulation. So you're kind of stuck in headspace, which, listen, that's headspace is different than location, they correlate. But they can be totally different things like that. And people that can be in terrible situations in great headspace and then people in great situations and terrible headspace, right. So there's a correlation, I think, but But what we tried to do in clinical trials is get everybody in the same kind of situation, which isn't truly an ideal peak state to experience some of these drugs. And so it's kind of a muted state. So, but we understand, okay, that's why they're doing this. But it's these studies, the studies that involve the heart out of the consequence, right? The actual behavioral, and then, you know, how would you say, stories told by the experiencer, the whole the whole kind of package that formulates after in the transformation, that scene, behaviorally, but more importantly, understood internally by the person doing so? You know, that's almost a separate is the, it's the box of vocation, right? It's like, what do you get out of it? I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'll do it in like a philosophical framework, I'll give you a really shitty place. Actually, I'll give you a really good place not to give you a really shitty place. And I'll tell you, what you'll pick up on and why it's set and settings important and why that clinical study is kind of like smack dab in the middle. So if the most ideal place, in my experience, doing any type of psychedelic is somewhere where you're safe in nature so ever however, you can get to those two things, right? Safe nature. Those those two things. So for me safe in nature, to be involved some kind of Camp away from people in a space where I can see stars, trees. So I'm immersed, right, I'm immersed in the place that I'm in. I love I'm comfortable in. Safin And so, being about the backpacker and hiker and camper and car camper and just loving getting out. I honestly feel safer. Like on the side of a mountain with a campfire than I do probably anywhere. Is especially if there's fishing nearby. So that's an ideal location, I'd say probably. Yeah. Okay. philosophical arguments are like, what would be a terrible place? Okay, a terrible place for someone to try mushrooms that first time would be a vegan in literally a butcher shop. That's probably the most nightmarish kind of scenario, right? To kind of just Just imagine, like the horror involved in that experience, right? It's just same drugs, same person. One is in the, in a forest. You no one's in a forest. feeling safe. And by the way, I'm a hunter. Not a vegan myself as postulating like a nightmare scenario for someone who would be and I can see why that would be. I gave up meat for a number of years when I lived in Santa Cruz. Honestly, it didn't work for me, for reasons but hey, I know what it's like. So anyways, yeah, so same person, same setting, could have wildly different responses, just just from the stimuli in the environment, right. However, like I said, disciplined, you know, people who are disciplined in that sense, they certainly could. Honestly, that could be like a Jedi test right to begin can go okay, I can be in any environment, right? This would be like a torture test. But again, could you be in headspace? Right? So so what, what mushrooms, one layer of mushrooms allow you to see is how other people see stuff. Objectively, it's really strange. So everybody sees things from their own perspective. Sometimes with mushrooms, you can see other people's perspectives on things. And so sometimes it can open up Windows and Doors of of understanding, just by jumping out of our own heads and seeing different, different perspectives. And so I think that's what's really healthy about it. But here's the thing when you see different perspectives, sometimes you see other people, too, you see yourself through other people's eyes. And really, if you can jump into their perception of you, and sometimes that does feel uncomfortable, and you do get to understand things that You may have known under the surface, but it just comes out. And then it's like, right in your face like, Well, the reason why this person acted this way to you is because they were responding. You didn't know it, but this is how they felt. And you're like, oh, geez, wow, I'd miss read that situation, either good, positive. You know, there's some times. Yeah, I guess I'm just saying it's like anything we perspective can be gained. And I found it to it's sort of, I would say, disassociation, for sure. But that's a negative term, I think it's I think it's expanded, expanded consciousness would be a better a better term for it. And, you know, in a, in a world, such as ours, you know, I think we all need a change of perspective, just a little bit, right, it just to give us a little reality check into our own into our own perceptions, right. You know, it's easy, it's become easy to hide in our COVID holes and non interact with, with people different than ourselves. And I think what we're looking at is, it's kind of like a bunch of preschoolers, again, looking at each other with new classes, everybody's kind of reset their location. And, you know, it's like trying to get back in and everybody's just dislocated. A lot of people are scared, stretched thin. But you know, it's a kind of a new world, it's like, How does everybody interact? Again, seems like, you know, we kind of knew how to do it before COVID. And then all that kind of knowing is now turned into a lot of just isolation. And I think just perhaps, not knowing where we're supposed to go, and in many ways, but I digress. Let's summarize, just quickly, the last couple of minutes. We know that the current pharma model is not to cure problems, not to solve problems, right? And drugs that actually are effective just aren't part of their repertoire, it just doesn't make sense to them, which is totally fine. It's just you got to understand this, right? And if anybody wants from pharma, like, if you have a good pharma company, and you're like, No, dude, you're so wrong. Like, dude, please come on, and tell me how my, my model or how my perceptions of, of your company is different? And, you know, Please enlighten me, I would really enjoy for somebody to like, you know, set me straight, right. And, and really telling me how I missed the ball. And what what the true intentions of the farm industry are, I'm sure, I'll get some PR individuals if you ever were to come out, but there's no incentive. I'm just this. I got zero subscribers, bro. Do I care? No, why the message is important. The message of why we're doing what we're doing is important. It's gonna resonate. may resonate with one or mirrors and when you're 10. Overall, that one that 10 That's what's important. That's it. Like that, is it? Right?

13:14
So listen, I want to give people the permission. Right? Like I This is bizarre. I've been a rule breaker my entire life. Like when I say rule breaker, you know, some things just don't make sense in this world. Right? Some rules just don't make sense. Sometimes the rules don't make sense. I'll give you a perfect example. You're driving in a desert. And literally, there's no roads. And you you're driving, there's no roads, and you come across a stop sign in the middle of the desert. Do you stop? The answer is actually really important. Most people will stop. Even if it's absurd, right. I mean, literally, I mean, you were listening to this. You had an answer. A lot of you said you'd stop. I guarantee it. Maybe you still stop? Maybe you kind of but I guess the thing is, is Deonar the symbol in an absurd situation. Right? Because it's there. And so, this is the same fundamental problem that Jesus had with the Pharisee said you follow all the rules. You just don't know what they mean. Right. And so followers of the rules, let's just say that some guy in a ghillie suits hidden looks like a bush, you can't tell he is there. But he is there to witness if you stop or not right? Like, would that change your mind? Like, you're not in danger of hitting him or anything? Let's say he's just hidden in the rocks the binoculars, right? So if you knew there was a witness of that change, but that change the question if you'd stop or not if you knew there were people watching. And is that relevant? In reality, right. So, again, there's more societal pressure on you. Now, somebody's watching you. Right? You don't know it. This first one you don't know. But the second one, you do know, second one, you have a guy in a uniform in the middle of nowhere. Right? And as you approach, you see this guy standing next to a stop sign? And do you stop then? Now that there's an authority figure next to a command, right? So the more people that are watching, the more witnesses, the more people that are there, the more pressure now, eventually, there's buildings, and there's roads and stuff like that. Rebellion makes no sense. Right? Because now it makes sense, right? So now you get to a uniformed guy next to a stop sign with a cross, you know, in a cross section, you're on a road at this point. Now, all of these things, all these societal pressures. Now, it makes sense, right? Now, I think we all have a point and that kind of decision tree on when it's either absurd to stop, or it makes sense, right. And I think we all have those lines, right. And we all crossed those lines every day on what is acceptable to cross the line and what's not.

17:08
Right. And so, you know, some people that I know which I respect highly, they would have never tried marijuana, if it was off, if it was illegal, why? They just, they have such a respect for the law, that they don't cross those lines. They respect the institution, they they believe in the system, right? They believe that it's it's a thing that they believe that the reasons that got them to those decisions are good enough, and they shouldn't be questioned. And that's the law. That's the rules, right? I think there's others that, especially in my generation, when, you know, we had the Nancy Reagan message, when we discovered that she was full of shit on a number of products. Both system fell apart, right? Like when you say everything's bad, and you find out things aren't bad, then you have to question all of the things. Right? You're responsible for questioning all the things because, you know, alcohol is fully acceptable in that time frame and underage drinking certainly wasn't frowned upon beyond you know, do you have a fake ID or not? Truthfully, so alcohol was widely regarded as safe and acceptable. I've done that safe is acceptable. Safe both consume when I was a kid, no joke. numerous occasions, friends of mine and myself got pulled over after drinking at a CAGR it shady lane, South a Chandler, and the cops would drive us home. Now try that on. Today, that just doesn't work. Right. But that was that was more normal than a DUI. And it happened numerous occasions. It was a different time period. Now the police, I mean, seriously feel like an army, you know, which is absurd. I mean, these are all Americans citizens. Blah, blah, blah. We're not going to dip into that. Not dipping into that. Or we're going to dip into the good stuff. So this whole story comes back full circle to the nose twins. And Dave dick. So we all wanted to obfuscate our identity they are renting this place. They found no issue with a Dave takedown they had a fake name. We had some sort of payment, and it couldn't have been spar works. We did work we did stuff with spar works later. But I looked at their website they opened up in 98 October. So this was a year before so we obtained spores from some other company who knows what can I couldn't even tell you the species I would if I was a betting man. GTS bro you Yeah, I mean just I just have my gut telling me like one of those intuitions so so date so yeah, today Dec figured out how to go visit the cute nose twins every day and we get our package and got the package and at that point we had already engineered our, our basically our first grow grow tub so to speak, which was sufficient not fancy, it was a big cooler, we had inverted two liter bottles of soda that were on a loop system which allowed us to drain them through the cap just pushed by a thermal you know, Humidifier with a pretty gnarly duct tape job. But we had to you know, we had our we had our environment, right. And we did basically vermiculite, brown rice flour mix, inoculated jars, let those sit and then put the kind of the jars themselves and put those into the environment.

21:15
And so it was around Christmas time that we started getting, like serious flushes. And I'll get to that because October is when my nightmare started. During this whole grow process, I was dealing with storage units. It just I was dealing with junk and stuff that you had to deal with when you're the only child. All right back to the story. Let's get honest. October. Yeah, that Thursday in October 1997 was the worst day of my life. And it didn't get it didn't get any better. With the amount of booze I was punching through my system. So I mentioned McCaskey and a bunch of these other crazies, you know, sometimes, I don't know, there was a romanticism involved with that type of booze and drink and Dragon, and we all might crew be all bought into it. We all kind of subscribed so to speak. But it's really not the healthy way of dealing with things like drowning yourself and booze and playing the blues and wallowing in that dropping out of school. It just, it sucked. And you know, my dad struggled. I would he didn't leave me with anything per se. But he didn't leave me from a psychological perspective, as Tony was having these nightmares, where he'd show up and it just it it got like, downright brutal and appropriate, just felt so unreal. And that being bruised up like that wasn't good. So two of my really great friends at the time. And I want to start going with nicknames because I'm going to tell a lot of stories about some people and I don't want those stories of our youth to get confused at the people that these guys are today. So I gotta come up with some nicknames here. And I'll keep it there nicknames. So I have two good friends. One of them's name nickname is LFA. Now that face no longer with us. LFA and I are great friends in high school. And I probably laughed with him more than almost anybody on the planet that I've lived with. So he and I grew up high school together, had a lot of experiences a lot of really dangerous moments. But he was just, he is he's a character example of an b&m? You know, when I was in college, I didn't have any money, really. And so every once in a while, on a Friday, he just show up at my house or wherever I was, I was renting from and he'd show up in a limo. He'd come up to my door, I wouldn't expect him and he'd give me 100 bucks and say, we're going out and we'd go out and he'd pay for everything but at least I had 100 bucks case I pay for whatever it was just I was kind of going to him and so him and Dougie the Croatian. This is October 31. Is Allah Wien so Dougie is equally amazing friend. He is super tall. When he was younger he was a Massimo model II just he's a gorgeous dude. He's like six foot six or something six foot five. Maybe even taller than that. played volleyball in high school. Fluent in Croatian. Good luck. And dude, when when I would go out with LFA and Dougie. Girls would come to us. They weren't there for me. They were there. I mean, Doug would attract women and drinks. EVOC is the only guy that ever consistently been to the bar with that within five minutes of entering the bar women are buying him drinks. Like he's, he's like looking at it. So we never had problems attracting female talents around us with this. These two guys around is ridiculous. It was absolutely. It was comical. So these guys Rescue me, this is this is a weekend near October 31. And they're like, We gotta get you out of town. And, you know, I think I setting up my dad's estate sale and stuff like we gotta get you out of town. We're going to take you to Vegas, like, Okay, so 240 bucks or 230 bucks. And we take off. And this is pick up, pick up Jeff from his place in Scottsdale. And we had to Las Vegas this is must be a Thursday or probably a Friday night. We get into Vegas, pretty late. It was definitely dark before we left. And so, you know, we probably got to Vegas around eight or nine, maybe a little bit later get checked into our hotel. And yeah, I only had to earn 30 bucks. These guys had quite a bit more. But we're like, okay, let's and the truth. Like, yeah, we were doing a lot of fun stuff. At the time. I don't recommend everybody to do it anytime. But we're partying. And we decided it's time to go gambling. So we go down into our hotel, and the first 15 minutes in I had to have been playing 21 playing blackjack. I lost 200 bucks. Like immediately, like, so I'm down to 30 bucks. And we were walking house pet stuff like this sucks. I've been here for 20 minutes, I just lost 200 bucks. I'm like, Alright, whatever. We're just gonna, we're gonna skip to like, we're just gonna do this. And so we're walking out and there's when we were walking out, there's this like, spin wheel thing. And it's like 20 bucks you put in, you spin the thing. And I'm like, Well, I have 2020 $10 $20 Bill said spin it. So given the given the $20 bill spins, hits 100. I'm like, Okay, I take the 100 bucks. I walk over to roulette. Never played with that. And I decided okay, I asked the guys what I do. So I I take the money, I put it all on black hits. And this started a process that didn't stop until at least eight hours later. I mean, I didn't stop winning i i stopped losing altogether. It was absurd. What was what began to unfold at the at the roulette table. I started putting money on random numbers. And then I started doing this weird dance and and LFA and Dougie are like, What the fuck are you doing? And I'm like not did I do 15 and 19. I'm just like doing I'm doing this weird stuff. And I'm just like, I'm laughing and I'm stacking up chips. And then the thing spins, and all of a sudden it hits on a corner or it hits my number and I'm sitting there going what fuck is going on? It doesn't stop. Within an hour. I'm up like three grand. And I'm like, Okay, this is interesting. So I start giving Dougie and Jeff black chips, like here, here, here here, right? So I've given these guys black chips like telling them go go get drinks or like, go do this go do that. They're coming back and Yeah, after about an hour or two at this first place. We're just like, alright, we're up, we're up big time. And it just, it never stopped. We went to all the big casinos, and the same scenario. It got it gets so absurd. at the, at the end. It was, it was like so absurd what was happening, we'd go in, and it says at six in the morning, we'd go into a new casino. And I'm just like, filled. I mean, at this point, we're just filled with black chips and cash, right? Like, it's just absolutely amazing. And so I literally got patted down. By that they asked me like, can we please pat you down? I'm like, Sure, man, you could do whatever you want. And they just they couldn't figure it out. They couldn't figure out where I was winning. It was. It was just, it was just absolutely amazing. And so I think at the end of the run it like eight or nine in the morning. $17,000 from that 20. So it was just, it was absolutely absurd and the blessing on this. And in truth. They swear, Doug and Jeff who loved my dad played golf with them. They thought my dad was manipulating the tables. And honestly, you my dad wanted so much for me and wasn't able to do it. I, I I can't not think he wasn't there. And the beautiful thing was is I invested I think $7,000 into a stock in 1997 called VGENX. Vanguard Energy Fund. And if you look at the I invested seven grand in in 1997. And in 2008, I was able to take out a huge downpayment on my first house so in my heart, I feel like and I think Doug would tell you today and I'd love to have him on the show. But if Jeff were here, I know for certain he he loved telling the story says Roger was there and yeah, it was it was an absurd Vegas story. absolutely absurd. And I don't gamble anymore. I won. I literally I am one of the only people I've really met other than one hit one or the other. You know, I guess it but I've been to Vegas like dozens of times, right? Like I usually won a little bit. I lost. I lost some Yeah. But this this this run is this experience. There was like over the top. I really I gotta go. There's no reason I'm ever gonna try this again. It was I don't know. It was a perfect run. It was hilarious. And I I believe my dad was there. And I think he was laughing his ass off. Those Those pit bosses certainly weren't laughing so this is the time period so we get back from Vegas that lessen the blow right.

33:45
So to speak. But, you know, I still was struggling just with the loss of my dad, right? I mean, I just put your skis I'm ever helping me out during that time? Yeah, billows my friend. Now, that was a difficult time to say the least. But the miracle of it was really the mushrooms during that finally, during that Christmas time, so I had to drop out of school that semester. And most of my classes had to wait the following year. But in that gap, I was able to harvest and grow mushrooms successfully for the first time. And it was that Christmas and my grandma had also died. Well, longer story but it was that that Christmas break over New Year's past Christmas because my grandmother died. Christmas Day. Chris Last night, same year, bad year. But what what I went through really changed when I had my mushroom crop. And this may sound insane to some people, but I mushrooms every day for two weeks straight and I wasn't driving, I was, you know, lived on right off campus. And so everything around me was there, I could walk to everything, friends with cars and stuff like that. But I fully function I broke up beat mushrooms, I ate a lot of mushrooms at night went out. And I interacted with everyone. And it was the first sense of peace and calm that I had had.

36:09
And from an emotional standpoint, it's the only thing that got me through. It's hard to explain, mushrooms are extremely powerful. But when you allow yourself and you have safety, when you have enough buffer or peace, whatever that means or time and you know, you're you're safe in the short term, you know, you have six months, you're fine, whatever, if you if you're safe, in a certain sense, you can give yourself the space to allow yourself to have these experiences, right, in a in an open way where there's not time pressure, you have to be somewhere like this is, you know, when you give yourself the time to fully embrace whatever it is you're going through and not have to perform for other people or, you know, you have to deal with your things head on and you don't have any barriers, right, that's what I'm getting at. I found myself in that space. And I was able to truly learn how to medicate myself with the use of these psychedelic mushrooms. That's what I learned. Now, there are rules against that right? There, there are rules against that. Right statue limitations, may or may not have done these things, right, whatever. These are the things that I experienced, and how I experienced them. They weren't necessarily the path that the system at that time said is cool, right? Certain elements like you can buy spores totally legally anywhere. However, there's like lines that are crossed. So it puts you know, these type of ideas, experiences under context of societal pressure get pushed off, right, they, my experience was life changing. Life changing in a beneficial way.

38:27
When you come full circle, and you come to Colorado to involve yourself in some capacity in this arena. And he find the Colorado is is currently open to the big experiment. You find yourself asking the question have I found my meaning if I if I could give the resultant benefit of what I experienced to other people. And they understand and they end up resonating with this understanding. That's exactly what this is. And I asked you what would you do? If you believed that you had found something that could significantly improve the lives of other people? Perhaps it perhaps even saved their lives? Would you advocate for that? And I asked you what lines would you need to cross that you would be comfortable with in order to feel as if you're invited that you have permission that you're allowed to make these choices based on your own freewill and your own interest in healing or in the possibilities that could exist with these classes of drugs, these classes of products that's where we are. That is where we are right now. And the epicenter is in Colorado, specifically Denver mushroom Mountain Baby Episode Zero took a couple twists but in truth I'd like to dedicate this episode to two people in particularfirst one is to my dad truly Wish You Were Here I truly wish you're here in person I'm about a year younger than you were the day you died I wouldn't trade what I've learned if I were given the trolley problem of bringing you back and had you for 25 years I would have traded it. I would have traded anything. However, I'm not allowed to trade. It's not my it's not my place. It's it's beyond the reality in which I can control. So I would never trade what I've learned. I just received a text message from a mutual friend of El Heffe's of mine, David, who I also intend on having on the show he and I traveled across the United States of America. I think we hit 30 Plus states in 1996 The summer on an 1976 Buick Skylark. He just texted me and reminded me today is is El Heffe's birthday, or would have been would have been 50 years old today. May 17 2024. Maybe that's why I've been thinking about you bro there's so many stories that you and I experienced that no one will ever get to know about some of them for sure. But yeah, so it's so frickin bizarre. I don't think people believe us. But I missed your laughter man. I really truly missed your friendship. Ah, in the end, the world gets this bro. In the world that in the end the world gets us in no way shape or form around it. But it was a pleasure, for sure. And I hope we can interact again someday, bro. So happy birthday would have been 50. And just like my dad died at 51 died too young. And maybe those maybe from the few stories I've already told, maybe figure it out. Yeah, there was some hard fast living in this circle of experience that I grew up in. There's definitely no shortage of stories and excitement. And longevity. That's just something that I didn't think I really had in me to be truthful. But as I get older, less I value those dangerous things. And the more I do value, the the quieter things that I avoided and perhaps wasn't exposed to as a kid. Funny how we gravitate to work towards what we really need right. Back to the dedication to main people for this dedication, there's, there's so many people I'd like to mention, but I think with zero expectation, and just the ability to craft a zero chapter, like to dedicate this chapter to two people. First, my dad, that first unit, nicknamed the Jolly Roger for the past 25 years, 30 years now nearly 30 years I would have done anything to get you back, traded anything. But what we've created in the last 11 months is the first thing that makes any sense. And if this can help other people if what we're doing can help just one more person that I won't look back in and curse, the reality that I wish you were around during all this time. But these are the circumstances of this world, right? The separation of people we love that we get to learn down here but we already get separated from everything else we came from. So we get attached, and then we get separated here and it's just it is the game the quality of this world. Now, I wouldn't wish what I experienced on anyone but since I've experienced it I'm here to make sense of it. And the only thing that makes sense is what I experienced and the peace and serenity that I got from those weeks of mushroom. Overload really just is you know if you're gonna swim, jump on the water. You know, if you want to learn how to swim, jumping or jump in an ocean, you'll find out if you can do it or not. You get to shore you can swim. But what what if you find out you're jumping in the water and you're meant to be in the water What if you finally found it where you make sense. And you are immersed in swimming for weeks. And then you make it to shore. And you say to yourself I don't need to swim anymore. But I can walk now and you can move forward with your life so These experiences that we have as humans, the ones that really lock us up the ones that are really life changing and tragic and stressful. That's where we need the most help. We need people guides, we need Safe Passages, we need the permission to allow these experiences to happen. And it makes sense. And at this point I've already got the one everything else is just bonus. But that's why I'm sharing. Second dedication is Daniel, my business partner, the lead tech engineer for the company, it would be the equivalent of a CTO, we're playing, playing with titles. Neither of us like the moniker or history of C suite, in its current manifestation. So while he would be a CTO, and 150 plus person company, we're coming up with the identity that he does correlates with and so from a tech side, he's he's got he's, he's got everything handled. And I Dan and I started this would be our first project together would be the, the Jolly Roger. Later, he would go on, in 98, to get hired as an intern for a company called at web at Web was acquired by Netscape, which was then acquired by AOL. And in 99, I was interviewing, and I got hired by Netscape division of AOL in 2000. And then moved out to to Mountain View and worked with him on AOL groups, very me to product but the most brilliant hands down highest quality intelligence level highest concentration of talent of any building or group I had ever come across. Till then, and since then, top talent from around the world from different countries, all working together, all of them Ivy League equivalent education's and then there's me. But we're talking extremely intelligent, high output, shining stars in the tech world at the time, and it was electrifying. So Daniel and I have have worked together at that capacity and then really like five or six different times in our history. We've worked on smaller projects up to big companies like Canon, Osei canon together. But anyways, he and I think we're naturally meant to build something together. We found ourselves doing it all too many times. And it comes naturally. And so really, from the standpoint of manifesting reality, I'm really glad that he and I have been working together on this last 11 months. And what it is will disclose that will disclose that at the right time, right now, truly the important stuff is outlining why we're doing these things and you know, what the reasons were pushing us toward into this you know, we want to call it segments or this cross section or this demographic, I don't know what you this genre, market segment, but however you want to describe the emerging mushroom market Notice from bottom my heart, I really appreciate Daniels Daniels position, his ability to balance out and get the things done that we need to get doing. And I am 100% appreciative his his family's patients and contributions to, to the cause. With that, I think episode zero may be coming to a close

55:40
Episode One, I'm really going to focus on company values. They don't, well, it's an entire episode. And it borders learn the most esoteric only in the sense that I want people to look at things through different facets. When they approach their company values. I want people to look at company values through the lens of a spiritual spiritual lens or a a filter of sorts, to see if it's balanced. And one way to do that is to look at the individual values within a company and find out where they align in the chakra filter. The chakra filter perspective, because it's interesting in that, from that filter perspective, you can discover where those values come from, through that lens. And I'll give you an idea. The concept if you have a concept of let's say love. If you were to do some research, you'd find that that concept that value comes from the heart chakra. And that's really probably one of the easiest ones to correlate, right? Pretty simple to see that love comes from the heart chakra. That's kind of the label and you know, this is where research or even just going to charge GPT. And asking them asking that, you know, big library of automation, like where does love fit in the spectrum of the filter through the chakra system, it'll punch out love. So you can take these company values that you think you have are the concepts and actually can just look at them through the lens of that. You can also look at your values through other lenses. And each time you do so what you're doing is you're creating a diamond, where each perspective you look at gives you a pretty view, you know, so a balanced kind of outcome. So that when you look at something, eventually, you're seeing it for all that it could be and can be because you're looking at it through all the different perspectives, right. So when we talk about product development, in general, we can always look at things through different perspectives. And the most important perspective is through the customer's viewpoint. But that can further be broken down into what type of customer that they are. So some customers may resonate with the appearance of something like an object may have an artistic perspective or a design element to it. That is from the lens of design. very refined, very beautiful, very attractive, in terms of appearance, superficial kind of evaluation, right? So that's one lens, another lens, somebody may not care about what a product actually looks like, as long as the product of that object is what they desire. So they don't care if it's got pretty paint. In the car scenario. There's people out there that build these crazy vehicles that look like garbage, but that will outperform some of the highest performing Commercial cars out there, right. So some kids, sleeper vehicles is a good example like the desired out performance takes is the front seat. And some of these cars don't even have seats, right? Literally, sleeper or even just the opposite like junkyard phantom cars with Toyota super engines, right like my old neighbor used to build. So it depends on what lens people view things, products. And really, to really build anything good in this world. The more perspective you get from your true target audience, the people that you are trying to understand you're trying to build for, the more input you get from them on what they want, and what is important to them. Your demographic is going to crystallize, and you're going to able to produce better products for your target, right? True product development. And that's what I love. I truly love about software, if done stipulation. I love software, if it's done in a coherent way, if it's done in an organized, predictable way, that's coherent, that is hearing the customer's voice. And the decisions for the product are driven for the benefit of the customer. And there are systems in place in which the customer, their voice is loud and clear. Even if it's aggregated threw out hundreds 1000s 10s of 1000s millions of customers, even though it's aggregated, you are capturing the voice of your customer that improves the product for that customer, there's a way to do this software taught me and all the all the systems and all the things we experimented with over the last 25 years, we have come up with some really good ways to develop great products in the most efficient way possible. That is ultimately my Super Training. And it really is fun, honestly, when you have when you have a great product, and you're able to listen to your customers and you're able to build a better product for them very quickly, especially in like prototype. prototype to production capacities, right? Like there's, there's where the greatest like learning can occur is where you have either a small group of people that represent the larger group that are influential, that do represent cross sections that you can have regular and updated interactions with that allow you to listen, create change in a short term, show them that change and a prototype or some kind of capacity, that doesn't require a lot of production, manufacturing Time, money or energy. And can can continue to improve the product in such a way that by the time you're ready to go to production, whatever that means, you know, that the product that you're delivering has been filtered 100 200 times iteratively, to a group of people that have already, you've already determined represent the bigger groups, right, because every company has niches and every company that uses things has a different way of using them. There's like groups, nodes so to speak. So you'll be able to identify what the important things are for all of those nodes. And then through a prioritization system, be able to identify the important stuff, high value important stuff, and the stuff that can be done quickly. That stuff goes always first, right? So anyways, we will go into depth on that stuff later. But really, truly, thank you, if you've listened to this, I am totally surprised. This is truly a treat for me to like kind of remember and to really document the things that are important to me, and why we're doing the things that we're doing. It lets me establish my voice tests, my equipment, all that stuff. So if you actually listen to episode zero, thank you. I appreciate that. I am so green to this. Any type of input is going to be good input. So yeah, please, if I cannot do anything better I that's what I'm here for. To improve. We're starting audio only. And just to get that nailed down. I think eventually, when we get to product, we start launching products. We'll probably go to video, too. because, you know, there's only so much you can show in an audio program, but this program really is intended to, to begin the mycelium network with our close, close associates, and then identifying really outstanding people in the field that can give us more detailed information so that people tuning in, can understand the real data, not just the emotional kind of experience, experiences that other people have, I think both of these things in combination, are what we should be looking at as a society, right. Like, again, I'm not advocating for any type of usage or, and that's not from a legal standpoint, I just personally, I'm not telling anybody what to do. It's really important that that everybody understands that, that I'm not a Timothy Leary equivalent, when it comes to telling people what to do. Right? I'm not telling you to drop out, I'm not telling you to drop in, I'm not telling you to follow me or any other people other from other than from a curiosity standpoint, and possibly as a nexus of information, so that you can make the best quality decisions as a human being that you can make under the laws and the rules of wherever you're coming from. So that's the framework of where we're operating. I wish you the best in this journey. And I'm hoping, and I know that over the next few cycles, we're going to be burning some valuable information so that you can make good quality decisions. You know, one demographic for me is truly the demographic of people who had no nothing who are starting from a space of, I've heard about mushrooms, I've heard about psychedelics I've heard about the benefits these good things. And that's it. I think I would like to have, I'd like to break the barriers, so that this type of option is normalized under guided circumstances. You know, I'm a responsible human, I believe, I may not have been most of my life. However, you know, responsibility and wisdom come and you realize that things are powerful. They should be treated with respect. So other than that with this, thank you for staying tuned. My name is Matthew Flansburg. And this has been Forest Floor Episode Zero. Thanks for tuning in.

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