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Each episode of the podcast Personal Kosmology traces one seeker's journey: the beliefs they inherited, the experiences that broke them open, and the questions they're still living.
I'm drawn to people who didn't just change their minds, but rebuilt their lives around what they found.
In their stories, you may recognize your own.
00:00:00:20 - 00:00:34:02
Devin
Welcome to the personal cosmology of Allie Schaeper. I'm your host, Devin Martin. And the job I've given myself here is to collect seekers origin stories. So I'm obsessed with people whose curiosity and life experience have forced them to challenge their beliefs about reality, and then have actually done something about it, like dedicated their lives. And the reason why I was immediately intrigued to have you on is because I look at super mush.
00:00:34:03 - 00:01:05:03
Devin
You're you're the CEO and founder of Superfood Mushroom Company, makes amazing gummies and other products, and you're also the co-founder of the Microdosing Collective, which is working on education towards changing legislature for microdosing psychedelics. Correct? Yeah. Yes. And what I love about that is I know for a fact that if I met five year old you, ten year old you probably 15, 20 year old you, you never would have said that's what you want to do with your life.
00:01:05:05 - 00:01:25:06
Devin
And I was just saying, I had Ryan Graves on yesterday, and because he's working with UFOs, I realized what I'd like to do here is humanize alien perspectives. So, like, pretty much everybody I'm having on is doing something with their life that when I was younger, I would have said, that's ridiculous or crazy or stupid or unbelievable. And now I've come to believe it.
00:01:25:06 - 00:01:47:04
Devin
And I think the way we get to understand other people that feel foreign is by getting to know them personally. And so I'm interested in like, life's biggest questions, like, who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here? What happens when we die? But through the most personal lens possible. So my ask of you is to take us through your journey in three stages.
00:01:47:06 - 00:02:05:10
Devin
The world you were born into. Kind of like literally where were you born? The family, the community, science, religion, career? Like what it all mean? What were you led to believe a life was meant to be? Then the moments that challenged that and started to reconfigure your beliefs about reality. And then just I want to explore, like, what are you doing now?
00:02:05:10 - 00:02:08:05
Devin
And what are the edges of your thinking now? Makes sense.
00:02:08:07 - 00:02:09:05
Alli
I love it.
00:02:09:09 - 00:02:13:17
Devin
Cool. All right, so take us back. Literally. Where were you born?
00:02:13:19 - 00:02:38:16
Alli
So I was born in Columbia, Missouri, and I actually think relevant to start before I was born and how I and how I was conceived because it informed a lot of my life, the process of my conception. So my mother is an amazing woman, and she had a long, winding journey with her fertility, and she struggled for seven years to get pregnant.
00:02:38:16 - 00:02:40:02
Alli
She had six miscarriages.
00:02:40:03 - 00:02:44:09
Devin
And this is before IVF as we now think of it today, this is.
00:02:44:09 - 00:03:06:03
Alli
A yes. It was around, but they hadn't explored it so she had no. Actually a few of those pregnancies were IVF, but she struggled to get pregnant naturally and then got pregnant through IVF and then had the series of miscarriages and all she wanted her whole life was to be a mom. And so my aunt, who is 13 months younger than my mother, her name is Barb.
00:03:06:04 - 00:03:29:04
Alli
I, aunt Barb, came to my mom and had just had two kids of her own, and she came to my mom and said, I, you know, I had this dream and God spoke to me something along those lines, and I'm supposed to have a baby for you and my mom, you know, after much resistance and it's too much, you know, you're literally giving me you're offering your body to carry my child.
00:03:29:04 - 00:03:48:14
Alli
And they were going to do an IVF process until my aunt was suggesting. And my aunt finally convinced my parents and her her. She was so solid in her decision because she felt that if my mom, after everything she had been through, like a lot of traumatic, like I think she had 3 or 4 surgeries as a part of trying to get pregnant.
00:03:48:14 - 00:04:10:15
Alli
So she had just had this crazy process and had been very resilient through it. But my aunt felt that if she did IVF with my mom that they would both get pregnant. That was her vision. And my mom, after trying to get pregnant for seven years, was like very unlikely. But they found a doctor that would do a simultaneous in vitro implantation.
00:04:10:15 - 00:04:12:09
Devin
So two eggs from your mother.
00:04:12:10 - 00:04:13:08
Alli
So six embryos.
00:04:13:09 - 00:04:13:21
Devin
Six embryos.
00:04:13:23 - 00:04:31:04
Alli
I made six embryos and one little petri dish with my parents DNA. My my mother and my father's DNA and one little petri dish. And then on the same day, they put three in my aunt and then three in my mother. And my dad is like, running back and forth between the two waiting rooms. All the nurses are super confused.
00:04:31:04 - 00:04:53:20
Alli
And then on that day, my, my brother and sister and I were all conceived. So were triplets. But we were born in different mothers. So my mom got pregnant with my brother and sister, Maddie and Jack, and then my aunt got pregnant with me, and they were born in Christmas Day of 1993. I was born on January 25th, exactly a month later of 1994, and my aunt birthed me.
00:04:53:20 - 00:05:08:15
Alli
And so I had a very unique coming into the world. And I feel very grateful, I think, to be here because so much was I people worked so hard to get me here. Yeah. And that story was always told to me growing up. So that's how I that's how it started.
00:05:08:15 - 00:05:22:18
Devin
And what does that say about the belief system of your family? Is your aunt a psychic? Does she speak to God and get messages all the time? Was this like a totally unique thing? Because her conviction sounds like it was incredibly strong?
00:05:22:20 - 00:05:45:11
Alli
Yeah. You know, she I just interviewed her and my mom about it 30 years later and, you know, learned so much more. I recorded a podcast with them on my podcast, and their story is so beautiful, and she just describes it as feeling guided. And, you know, I don't I can't speak to like, really like fully what her internal experience was.
00:05:45:15 - 00:06:09:06
Alli
Besides like, what a selfless gift of seeing, you know, the pain and then also the joy of having a family and wanting to give that to someone else and feeling really guided that. She knew she could give this gift to her, her sister and did. And it's just a beautiful thing, you know, because if they would have stopped, like my parents and I just think about, you know, they tried to adopt for whatever reason, got denied from adoption.
00:06:09:08 - 00:06:19:09
Alli
They tried all these times to get pregnant. And then my aunt came to her. So like, so much had to go into getting us here. Yeah. It was just a beautiful way to start to start my life.
00:06:19:11 - 00:06:27:02
Devin
You know? I mean, it's magical. It feels like a storybook. And. So tell me about the household. And I know you're Jewish.
00:06:27:05 - 00:06:29:06
Alli
I'm actually not Jewish. But everyone thinks.
00:06:29:08 - 00:06:32:03
Devin
I could have sworn you told me you were Jewish at one point. Really? Yeah.
00:06:32:04 - 00:06:34:04
Alli
I don't I'm definitely not. Are you sure?
00:06:34:06 - 00:06:34:20
Devin
Holidays. At one.
00:06:34:20 - 00:06:37:22
Alli
Point, I celebrate the Jewish holidays because all my friends are Jewish.
00:06:37:23 - 00:07:00:06
Alli
Yeah. Mike is. Mike is Jewish, but now he's Christian. You know. No, I'm not Jewish. I grew up, I grew up Lutheran, so I grew up Christian, and my family was very. Schaper Schaefer. German were German. German, yeah. But where we grew up, Lutheran. And that was my upbringing. You know, I went to a Christian church. I, you know, eventually, later in life, rebelled and left the church and then.
00:07:00:08 - 00:07:08:07
Devin
And was it like a Christmas family or like a real religious ritualized? We were taught to pray.
00:07:08:12 - 00:07:23:10
Alli
We went to church. We were taught to pray. I went to Jesus camp, which is like a whole story, you know, we but we were we were brought up. Yeah, very much believing in in God. And I think a, I think.
00:07:23:11 - 00:07:25:16
Devin
A biblical god, a bearded man in the sky.
00:07:25:17 - 00:07:42:11
Alli
Kind of God. We went to Bible school. We learned about, you know, it's interesting because I'm actually really into a lot of these, you know, understanding the Bible way more now in my life. And it's just kind of when you watch a movie that you watch when you're as a kid, as an adult, you're consuming the same information, but it's like a completely.
00:07:42:11 - 00:08:00:06
Alli
Different layers message. Yeah. So we grew up. Yeah, with the structure and understanding of of Christianity and religion and God and that and that construct. We weren't super, super intense around it, but we went to church and we did, you know, Bible, Bible study as a family. And that was our that was our foundation.
00:08:00:10 - 00:08:06:13
Devin
Did you think deeply about it? Would you have considered yourself religious or spiritually inclined? Growing up.
00:08:06:13 - 00:08:08:07
Alli
I went to Jesus camp.
00:08:08:09 - 00:08:10:05
Devin
Yeah, but I don't know if you were forced to go there if you were.
00:08:10:06 - 00:08:16:01
Alli
Yeah. So I was forced to go. It was like a summer camp thing. And so my, my.
00:08:16:03 - 00:08:41:01
Alli
My experience of religion was that was more based out of fear. If you don't do X, Y and Z, then you're going to go to hell. And so when people were getting up and doing their testimonies and confessing their, you know, devotion for God and Jesus, I just felt like super scared and obligated. And so obviously, if you're starting from like an inauthentic place, that kind of crumbles very quickly.
00:08:41:02 - 00:09:01:12
Alli
Yeah. But that was my and also just from a desire to fit, you know, if I look at the patterns of my life, which serve me a lot now later in life, but like the just the desire for everyone to like me and desire to fit in if everyone's going up and confessing their love for Jesus, you like best believe I'm going up right after them to make sure that I fit in to the mold.
00:09:01:12 - 00:09:28:09
Alli
So it was it wasn't much deeper than that for me. I would say I had a lot of, you know, my my spiritual experiences, my actual like felt, embodied experience of what God is and what, you know, source and consciousness is came later. And it's it's more through that lens later in my life that I'm able to go back and look at that template and kind of reinterpret it for a different level of consciousness, because I was just following the rules, basically.
00:09:28:11 - 00:09:47:10
Devin
And if we think about like the major transition points leading you out of the home, for most people it's like, okay, I'm leaving high school. This is the first time I have to consider what am I going to do with my life? Were you pushed in certain directions? Were you led to believe certain careers or being a housewife or anything like that was correct?
00:09:47:16 - 00:10:13:07
Alli
Well, we grew up in Taipei. I forgot to mention that part. So we moved there when I was nine month old. So we lived there from when I was nine months old till around like eight years old. So the schooling system is very different over there. So like our early education, first of all, it's it's much quicker. You know, we came back when we came back to the US when we were around seven and a half, eight years old, you know, we were like far advanced in mathematics and we kind of, you know, evened out as we as we got back into the US school system.
00:10:13:08 - 00:10:15:08
Alli
Unfortunately, you know, we were like.
00:10:15:09 - 00:10:17:11
Devin
We didn't have to work so hard when we got here. So you didn't.
00:10:17:12 - 00:10:36:13
Alli
Didn't have to work so hard. Yeah, exactly. And so that was very influential I would say, you know, interestingly, I didn't think about this until after I started a mushroom company, but I grew up surrounded by Chinese medicine. You know, I grew up surrounded by eastern medicine and, you know, mushrooms at the farmers. Just all of that was a big part of my upbringing.
00:10:36:13 - 00:10:38:12
Devin
And an unconscious seed was planted.
00:10:38:13 - 00:10:43:20
Alli
Yeah, I think potentially I think so, yeah. And then I would say.
00:10:43:21 - 00:10:45:20
Devin
I'm guessing you didn't grow up around psychedelics.
00:10:45:21 - 00:11:08:17
Alli
No. Yeah. So no, that was you know, when I guess what I'll share inflection point. You know, my, my, my mother and my and my father were no drugs people. You know, we grew up with the Dare program we grew up with just say no to drugs and all of the education that has now become such a big part of my of my work, ironically, on the other, on the other side of it.
00:11:08:17 - 00:11:16:18
Alli
But, you know, I thought that psychedelics fried your brain chemistry, and that was my upbringing. I thought that, you know, alcohol.
00:11:16:18 - 00:11:19:15
Devin
This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs commercial with the Friday, the.
00:11:19:15 - 00:11:44:14
Alli
Friday classic. Yeah. So that was a lot of I still I thought that up until I was 18 or 19 years old and my, you know, my upbringing was okay. Alcohol is okay. Marijuana is okay. And or at least most acceptable. And so those I became, I started drinking when I was really young, so I started drinking when I was probably 14 years old.
00:11:44:16 - 00:11:46:09
Devin
Like going out with friends, getting drunk.
00:11:46:10 - 00:11:59:05
Alli
Yeah. You know, I grew up in Missouri, so I grew up in Saint Louis. We went back from Taiwan to Missouri. There's nothing to do but basement parties. And so my high school years, it was it was that like pretty much by the time I was 21, I was done with alcohol. So.
00:11:59:07 - 00:12:02:23
Devin
And your school was not experimenting with other substances that much.
00:12:03:01 - 00:12:21:20
Alli
It's a little bit behind closed doors. There's like waves of it. And a lot of the waves of more popular drug use with harder drugs was a little bit after after our time. So it was really just alcohol and marijuana that was more prevalent in Saint Louis, where I was from in that time. Yeah.
00:12:21:22 - 00:12:29:18
Devin
And then so, yeah, you decided to go to college. What was the decision there? Like, what were you thinking College was for?
00:12:29:20 - 00:12:42:00
Alli
So I was with my sister, one of my triplets, Maddy, and we got on YouTube and I googled number one party school in America, and that was the entirety of the decision making process.
00:12:42:02 - 00:12:45:09
Devin
So that was like, we're going to go get drunk party.
00:12:45:11 - 00:13:09:12
Alli
Yeah, I was and still am a social butterfly. I love, I love people, I love hosting parties. It's been a big part of my life since I was very young, since I was in high school, and so my interest in college was the social experiment of college. And so I wanted to go and meet as many people as I possibly could, and just widened my aperture on the world through that lens.
00:13:09:13 - 00:13:15:02
Devin
Which is funny, because I think of you as like an extremely hard working, diligent, disciplined person.
00:13:15:02 - 00:13:25:15
Alli
Yeah, the pendulum swings really far after, so I'll show you, you know, that's that's like a little bit after. But yeah, I mean, I, I always did really well in school. I was really well. So I tested out a lot of the classes.
00:13:25:16 - 00:13:29:13
Devin
By working hard or by. By working.
00:13:29:15 - 00:13:49:22
Alli
By working hard. I always, you know, it's funny, I just recently did a program that has us analyze our child patterns and belief systems, and I really just wanted to be noticed and validated my younger years. So I was like first hand up, always asking questions, wanting the teachers to say I was doing a good job, just like really wanting that attention.
00:13:50:02 - 00:13:52:12
Devin
Not somebody who's breaking the rules and getting in trouble.
00:13:52:16 - 00:14:13:04
Alli
Well, it's start. So it started perfectionism. And I was like president of all the clubs in middle school. And then I discovered it's like way cooler to be popular and be in social life. And and then I went way hard the other direction where I was a really rebel teenager, constantly getting in trouble and love to party. Really fun.
00:14:13:05 - 00:14:32:10
Alli
Like, really like lover of life. But I went from hardcore by the books, by the rules, and then like swung so far the other direction. And then when I went to college, I was a bartender. So I started bartending when I was 18 and I bartending, you know, multiple times a week for four years. And I met so many people, I met so many people.
00:14:32:10 - 00:14:53:02
Alli
I had this incredible experience and humans. And just like, you know, I would be working for 12 hour shifts. So I just learned to talk for, you know, 12, 15 hours at a time. And I met, I was just like, oh, this, this, this thing called connecting with other people, like, what is this? And I really got to, like, harness that skill of loving humans and connecting with them.
00:14:53:02 - 00:14:55:22
Alli
And then at the end of college.
00:14:56:01 - 00:14:58:06
Devin
And is that why you chose marketing?
00:14:58:12 - 00:15:00:09
Alli
Well, I went to I did marketing and accounting.
00:15:00:10 - 00:15:03:02
Devin
And accounting. I explained how accounting accounting.
00:15:03:04 - 00:15:14:01
Alli
Lived in there. I actually I started with human sexuality. So I went into college thinking I wanted to be a sex therapist. That was my original major. And then they took it away the year that I was in school. So I was taking all the human sexuality classes.
00:15:14:04 - 00:15:15:16
Devin
And so accounting was the next obvious.
00:15:15:17 - 00:15:34:10
Alli
Yeah, it was like just the appropriate next step. You know, you just you just see, okay, well what's after this and I okay. So basically I had I had declared a marketing major and then I went to accounting partially influenced by my by my boyfriend at the time who was also doing accounting. And then he came to Austin, to UT.
00:15:34:12 - 00:15:49:06
Alli
And then I decided I was also going to do accounting as my major and my decision making, at least at the time, as I saw this opportunity where I was like, I'm either going to take where I'm at right now graduating, I go into I had gotten like a Goldman Sachs banking job.
00:15:49:06 - 00:15:50:12
Devin
Or something.
00:15:50:14 - 00:16:08:04
Alli
Yeah, something like that. And then it's a, you know, sliding doors moment. I accidentally had told them that I got an internship with Ernst and Young. Funny, I haven't talked about this in so long, but I told them I had gotten internship there, and then they they didn't accept me because you're not allowed to have, like, competitive offers at the same time.
00:16:08:07 - 00:16:14:11
Alli
And so it's like, okay, I'm going to go to grad school. And that year in grad school, coming to Austin completely changed my life.
00:16:14:13 - 00:16:18:21
Devin
At that point, did you have a sense of where your career was going? You still just partying and taking that?
00:16:18:21 - 00:16:24:16
Alli
I went to I went hardcore, so I went to I was getting my master's in accounting. Okay. So that was my next step.
00:16:24:22 - 00:16:26:17
Devin
So you were full on going to be an accountant.
00:16:26:17 - 00:16:48:14
Alli
I got my CPA and master's in accounting from UT. Wow. And it was a really interesting year, Mike, because I was I had a lot of chronic health issues growing up, like chronic gut issues. I was basically like chronically constipated since I was a young kid and I didn't really know it yet. We didn't really have enough body awareness, and I was in and out of doctors constantly trying to figure out my health problems.
00:16:48:14 - 00:16:53:14
Alli
This was like consistent throughout. Probably didn't help that I was drinking all.
00:16:53:14 - 00:16:54:19
Devin
The time. It can loosen things up.
00:16:54:20 - 00:17:17:15
Alli
Yeah. And so, you know, my my health journey, like I was aware of health and wellness, but my health journey like really, really started when I came to Austin. And so I, I started studying accounting and taking the CPA and then simultaneously went on this like incredible journey with functional medicine and food is medicine. And I changed my the entire course of my health.
00:17:17:15 - 00:17:23:03
Alli
I got off all of my pharmaceutical drugs. I was on 12 different pharmaceuticals.
00:17:23:03 - 00:17:23:18
Devin
Really.
00:17:23:19 - 00:17:29:15
Alli
You know, acid blockers, different just medications I had been prescribed over the years that just the symptoms.
00:17:29:15 - 00:17:32:09
Devin
Side effects, another one to treat the side effect and that.
00:17:32:10 - 00:17:53:08
Alli
Yeah, you know that you know the drill and it I never really questioned because I was constantly outsourcing my wisdom. So it's kind of all leads into like it's a part of my if I look back and connect the dots backwards, like the second I started to take ownership of my own health and not just blindly believe everything that was told to me from someone who talked me for 30 minutes about my entire life, right?
00:17:53:09 - 00:18:13:18
Alli
Sometimes less than that and take ownership of my own health. It just started to change the frequency of my system, and it was during that time that I started using functional mushrooms. So I started using lion's mane and cordyceps and turkey tail and chaga, and it was like a tuning fork was taken to my nervous system, and I just felt incredible.
00:18:13:22 - 00:18:27:19
Alli
So I was able to, you know, getting off of all the pharmaceuticals I was I just felt I felt high on life. I was like, why would I ever drink alcohol? That was felt confusing to me. You know, I was just like, sobriety is where it's at.
00:18:27:21 - 00:18:30:19
Devin
And at this point, we're just talking about the type of mushrooms you can sell at target.
00:18:30:20 - 00:18:36:11
Alli
Yes, we're just talking about functional, legal superfood mushrooms. Yeah.
00:18:36:13 - 00:18:38:14
Devin
So when did that change?
00:18:38:16 - 00:18:53:04
Alli
So my introduction to psychedelics I had done them in college. I remember I had taken mushrooms in college with a group of friends, and it was like a heaven on earth day. It was so beautiful and so enlightening. And I was like, what a bummer that this.
00:18:53:05 - 00:18:54:15
Devin
But like fun and social.
00:18:54:15 - 00:19:10:23
Alli
And it was socialist. We were at the beach. It wasn't a crazy party setting. It was just like friends hanging out. And it was a beautiful moment. It was a really beautiful moment. And I just remember thinking like, oh, I wish I could think like this all the time without having to do the mushrooms, because I know how bad they are for me.
00:19:11:00 - 00:19:27:20
Alli
And I was like, oh, it's a bummer that this fries your brain and the egg and the frying pan. But what insights and what beautiful experiences are coming from this moment? I felt so grateful for it, but kind of tucked it away because of its I was on this health journey. I was like, well, why would I mess with my consciousness and my brain?
00:19:27:20 - 00:20:00:19
Alli
And I was feeling myself get way smarter just through eating the right foods and taking incredible supplements and moving right and all the things. And then I was listening to a podcast when I was walking. I was walking down the street in grad school listening to Tim Ferriss podcast. And because I still love his podcast for optimization and human performance and all the things, and he was talking about psychedelics, and this doctor that he was talking to was talking about the profound impact of psilocybin mushrooms on your brain chemistry and how it can make you a healthier, happier, smarter human being.
00:20:00:19 - 00:20:06:22
Alli
And, you know, the neuroplasticity. And I'm like, this is so interesting. And so I studied psychedelics for multiple years.
00:20:06:23 - 00:20:18:14
Devin
And did you believe it? Did you have to did you have to pause and like wonder why you believed what you believed? I mean, was that difficult or is that easy for you to just like, let go of an old belief system?
00:20:18:16 - 00:20:46:23
Alli
I, I, I think it's pretty easy not not from the sense of I just didn't know. I just didn't know. I didn't know what I know. Right. And so when I was listening to that, you know, my, my expertise in that area was pretty zero, right. Besides, just like this, this their commercial and the training I had from people that didn't really seem to be living, that fulfilled, you know, non fear based lives, if I'm being honest.
00:20:47:00 - 00:20:54:08
Alli
And so from when I was hearing the energy, it was like the frequency of people. You can tell when you're listening to someone and something's compelling. Yeah.
00:20:54:09 - 00:21:06:16
Devin
And so this is a lot of what you do now is you you know, for us psychedelics are pretty normal. But for most of America it's still quite foreign. Right. And you say this is good for your brain. And people I think still have dare mentality a lot. Right.
00:21:06:17 - 00:21:32:10
Alli
It's shifting you know some some statistics around that that are really interesting is 11 million people in 2025 useless and then 10 million people microdosing MDMA or LSD. Wow. And then two thirds of people that used a psychedelic were microdosing. So the numbers, you know, it's like 3.7% of America. Yeah. And it doubled over the course of the last few years.
00:21:32:10 - 00:22:01:10
Alli
So the mainstream ness, it's not fully there. But I would say most people that I talk to now have a semblance of the fact that psychedelics are being used in these clinical trials, especially around, you know, people will recognize it for the work. It's it's work being done with veterans. And so the aperture is widened a lot. The conversations I was having when we started Super Mash, you know, in 4 or 5 years ago, it's a completely different landscape.
00:22:01:16 - 00:22:21:06
Alli
The amount of people that recognize you mean even understanding that lion's mane is not psychedelic and it's a functional mushroom. So I would say people people are really shifting. When I was first starting to get into psychedelics and I took that conversation back to my parents, it was a very different world. It was.
00:22:21:09 - 00:22:23:10
Devin
Yeah. Were they scared for you?
00:22:23:12 - 00:22:31:21
Alli
They they were. I actually, I interviewed my mom on my podcast about her experience with psychedelics because I was able to introduce psychedelics to my parents.
00:22:31:22 - 00:22:32:17
Devin
More recently.
00:22:32:18 - 00:22:52:19
Alli
Yeah. More recently. And one of the biggest gifts, it's truly one of the biggest gifts of my life that I was born, that I was able to do so because my my dad passed away three and a half years ago. Yeah. And the first thing I thought of when when he passed away was, I'm so grateful I got to do mushrooms with my parents.
00:22:52:21 - 00:23:21:14
Alli
And the echoes of how impactful that experience has been for my experience of his death, from my mother's experience of his passing, and for our family's experience of healing, is so is so profound. So my, my, my, the depth in which I view my work in mushrooms just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper. And, you know, the the experiences I've had, like when I first got into functional mushrooms, I'm like, great there for your health.
00:23:21:17 - 00:23:40:02
Alli
And I started to understand fungi, and I started to understand the whole kingdom of fungi and how magical it is and how profound. And so the depth of my understanding of the of the world of mushrooms, I mean, they can just you can talk about life through all of the elements of mushrooms, which I really love. You know, the functional, the psychedelic mycelium network.
00:23:40:03 - 00:23:51:11
Alli
And through my experience of death and looking at mushrooms, wisdom around death. So it just keeps getting deeper and deeper for me the more years I get, you know, working in this space.
00:23:51:12 - 00:24:08:13
Devin
And I love that. It seems to me like when I've been in South America doing psychedelics with people who have had it as part of their culture for a long time, it's always a multi-generational experience. Like I've been in ceremony with grandmother, child and infant.
00:24:08:17 - 00:24:09:04
Alli
Yeah.
00:24:09:04 - 00:24:26:18
Devin
And there's something so healthy and about that to me that it's just like embraced as healthy and shared. And you get to witness something before you do it. Or maybe ask some of these people, the infants are doing it, but it's just to have it integrated into your life. It's not something you run off and do and hide from your family.
00:24:26:20 - 00:24:36:15
Devin
So it's amazing you got to do that to your with your parents. I mean, that's such a gift. So. So go back. So you were studying mushrooms now. You were like, okay, I did it.
00:24:36:19 - 00:24:37:08
Alli
I was into it.
00:24:37:09 - 00:24:43:10
Devin
Yeah. I've been told actually, maybe it's not bad for me. Did this start a fire? Is this like it's sort of session?
00:24:43:11 - 00:25:05:05
Alli
It started a fire, but I was just studying it. I was just, you know, I wasn't actively seeking out ceremonies. I was just super interested in the topic. And and so I was consuming, you know, every podcast and just being a student of psychedelics. And then it was about, I think, a year later where I went and had a beautiful ceremony experience in New York and like a, in a very.
00:25:05:07 - 00:25:20:23
Alli
Just intentional setting. And that was was a huge shift. And my, you know, my, my career, I've done so many different things over the course of you can tell is a lot based on like the little tendrils here. But I basically went from Austin to New York, and I was working in corporate consulting.
00:25:21:01 - 00:25:22:14
Devin
And you did end up doing that?
00:25:22:15 - 00:25:39:03
Alli
Yeah, I did end up doing that. And I did, you know, a lot of health care work inside of Ernst and Young was where I worked. So I worked in in New York, and I was traveling all the time. And then I started a wellness brand on the side. So I started this wellness, kind of like Birchbox for Wellness Company.
00:25:39:05 - 00:25:57:08
Alli
And I would send all these, like, really cool packages to travel and consultants and companies and hotels. And it was like cool wellness gifts while you were traveling. But it was like during that process, and I was still using all the functional mushrooms so that I was using them in those boxes. That was like the first the first step of it.
00:25:57:08 - 00:26:18:03
Alli
And then I quit my corporate job and I started modeling in New York, really, because I was in this community of of women where they were a few of them were models. And I was like, I could do this, I could make money from doing this. And I wanted the range of that experience. So at one point I had like these three things going where I was working at Ernst and Young, and then I would take vacation to go do like Paris Fashion Week.
00:26:18:03 - 00:26:33:18
Alli
And I had this like triple life, but no one really knew. I wasn't on Instagram at the time. So I was just having and I and I think for me like that, it kind of, I think gets to the I say it because I think it gets to the core of your question around the podcast, where I was living this life, where my day job, I was like regarded.
00:26:33:19 - 00:26:51:18
Alli
I was like interface with for my intellect and my brain. And then I was working in fashion where it was all about your body. It was all about how you looked. And the way people interact with me is very different. And then I was in this like, startup entrepreneur ecosystem where I was starting my first company, and that's a whole different energy.
00:26:51:18 - 00:27:14:08
Alli
And so I kind of felt like I was able to get this, like stretched range of society and really experience humans in a different way. And I learned so much during that period, the people that I met and the insights that came from my first year in New York, really. That was the Sliding Doors moment for the rest of my life.
00:27:14:08 - 00:27:36:03
Devin
At some point, did that start to become uncomfortable? Like for me, I've often kind of frank inside my lifestyle, like I'm working, you know, security job. I'm running a philosophy of session group, I'm running a music studio and doing psychedelics. And at some point I realized, like, I need to make a living doing something that is my whole self shows up in.
00:27:36:04 - 00:27:52:23
Alli
Yeah, well, my first that that first psychedelic journey. I quit my modeling job the next day. You did? It's a whole story. But basically, yeah, I quit. I quit that job because that it illuminated to me that that's not I wasn't going anywhere. And that in that direction.
00:27:53:00 - 00:27:54:04
Devin
Was not your soul's calling.
00:27:54:06 - 00:28:13:21
Alli
Wasn't my soul's calling. And I learned a lot about amazing people through that process. And I also learned, you know, in both of those areas, like my, my, my takeaway from that year, I feel like there's like chapter themes of our life where like, what was that year about for me? And that year I was, I was I have so much energy during that time in my life.
00:28:13:21 - 00:28:27:22
Alli
I still do, but I was obsessively meeting people because I just wanted to meet as many people I met. I went on the story of my friends, make fun of me when I tell this, but I went on 360 coffee dates in one year. And so I wrote. I started tracking all.
00:28:27:22 - 00:28:29:20
Devin
The people. You said a goal and said, I'm going to.
00:28:29:22 - 00:28:30:22
Speaker 4
I was like, I want to.
00:28:30:23 - 00:28:41:09
Alli
Yeah. I was like, I think I said I wanted to meet 350 people in one year and just look at, you know, as a PhD in humans. I and I wanted to meet people in the startup world and business owners and founders.
00:28:41:10 - 00:28:47:06
Devin
And did you assume there was some magic in it and you didn't know what it be or like, this will make me a successful founder.
00:28:47:08 - 00:29:09:02
Alli
That's what I thought. So I thought, this will make me a successful founder. And then my number one take away from that year, after writing down all my notes and meeting all the people, was that if you don't prioritize community on the way to build your empire of whatever you are building, that you will end up alone on the yacht, so to speak.
00:29:09:02 - 00:29:13:01
Alli
And I think a lot of the.
00:29:13:03 - 00:29:33:23
Alli
I was shocked. And this isn't this isn't a panacea. But in general, if you climb the first mountain of success and you're not surrounded with fulfilling relationships, you end up spiritually bankrupt and very isolated and then people want something from you. So it was interesting for me to just, you know, people were opening up to me or take them to coffee or whatever it is.
00:29:34:00 - 00:29:55:02
Alli
And, and I just learned a lot about success. And I thought, oh, wow, it's what a I mean, it was just it would be different if it was a few people because you kind of brush it to the side. Yeah. You know, but for me, I was like, wow, person after person after person that I'm meeting that's rich and successful and well known and well-regarded in their industry.
00:29:55:04 - 00:30:15:23
Alli
Doesn't seem very happy. And then the people that were really happy were just surrounded by beautiful relationships and that you could tell they had their priorities straight. And so for me, it was just a real redirect. It was a shift where it wasn't. It wasn't like I was so far off of that then. But I could see how, you know, the allure of success and money can take you away from the things that really matter.
00:30:15:23 - 00:30:19:03
Alli
So that for me, that was a really important, really important year.
00:30:19:03 - 00:30:31:06
Devin
And does that. I'm fascinated. I'm assuming you're one of those people who has a brain where you can. You remember an insane number of people, like if you see them randomly in a street five years later. Do you have that capacity?
00:30:31:08 - 00:30:41:13
Alli
It's probably dwindled over the years, but I wrote everyone down. You did. That was the first. That's like my I still do. I still have this list. Like you're on the list. I know when we met, I know like I know I track every.
00:30:41:14 - 00:30:42:11
Devin
You have your own CRM.
00:30:42:12 - 00:30:43:09
Alli
I have my own CRM.
00:30:43:09 - 00:30:55:08
Alli
And it's the best thing because if I host a lot of events, as you know, you've come to some of them and I, I look and I'm like, okay, who do I want to invite to this event? And I see what cities and all the things. And it just it makes that part of my life a lot easier.
00:30:55:08 - 00:31:15:06
Alli
But it also for me, staying in touch with people and staying connected. And, you know, a lot of my best friends throughout the years have lived all over the world. And I it's thank God for the phone. You know, I it's a love hate relationship. And I'm like, the fact that I can pick up this thing and call someone I love and have that sense of connection is incredible.
00:31:15:08 - 00:31:21:22
Devin
Because I'm also asking you because I'm wondering, like, as you think about what makes you happy, like what makes people happy, having community.
00:31:21:23 - 00:31:22:14
Alli
Yeah.
00:31:22:19 - 00:31:39:16
Devin
How do you balance quantity and quality? Like, it seems like I could be overwhelmed by that many people and it would be hard to have true intimacy. Have you, have you? I'm assuming you're not doing 360 coffees anymore, but you are putting on dinners and you are creating these incredibly intimate experiences.
00:31:39:17 - 00:31:42:10
Alli
Yeah, that so that was phase one.
00:31:42:11 - 00:31:42:19
Devin
Okay.
00:31:42:20 - 00:32:04:11
Alli
That was phase one. I'm in a very different phase now than I was then. And the blessing of that page, I got to meet all these incredible people. And, you know, a lot of those people end up being investors and super margin, like they kind of came back into the fold and amazing ways. But at this point in my life, I want to go deeper with fewer people.
00:32:04:13 - 00:32:21:19
Alli
And the, you know, the depth of my relationships is more important in this season. You know, like, we want my fiance and I want to start a family next year. And we're just we're in a little bit more of the nurturing of like the more.
00:32:21:21 - 00:32:36:10
Alli
The more local and the more intimate parts of our lives, I guess. And so that's the season that I'm in now. And it doesn't mean that I won't go out in a season. I'm like, I want to collect more people. But I feel so blessed with the people that are in my in my life.
00:32:36:11 - 00:32:45:03
Devin
And we met at a dinner you put on which the first dinner I forget it was consciousness and psychedelics and I don't know, maybe there was a third topic.
00:32:45:04 - 00:32:47:03
Alli
It ended up being kind of like a UAP dinner, but.
00:32:47:06 - 00:33:01:13
Devin
It was kind of a you. Yeah, I think Jason may have steered it towards a UAP dinner, but it was it was an amazing group of people and it really like planted the seed of me moving to Austin. And I made a commitment on that trip here that if somebody invited me to event in Austin, I was just going to fly in from New York no matter what.
00:33:01:13 - 00:33:24:18
Devin
And then you invited me to a death dinner? Yep. Which I loved, because it's, you know, it's so easy to meet new people and slip into small talk. And there was just zero room. It was clear that, like, you're gathering people who just want to go deep quickly. And so like, yeah, tell me about that transition. Like, how did you start hosting things like death dinners and like, is there a psychedelic origin to that interest?
00:33:24:19 - 00:33:31:07
Devin
Like, I'm still like, I think of you as a highly spiritual person. Where did that start to come online? This this depth?
00:33:31:09 - 00:33:54:17
Alli
I mean, I really found okay, so two points on this. Like one is my connection, reconnection to God. I very much left the church. I was like, what was that? That was not it for me. And then my connection to God and source, whatever, whatever flavor of ice cream you want to call your version of God that came back online for me through psychedelics.
00:33:54:17 - 00:33:57:10
Devin
Is there an experience where it was like crystal clear?
00:33:57:12 - 00:34:18:08
Alli
It was it was compounding and it still is. You know, I think the psychedelics, the psilocybin literally opens your visual cortex. You're letting in more light and you're letting in more and your brain chemistry is shifting. And for me, it was just this opening of like, oh, you know, God is everywhere. We are the the oneness feeling that is so ineffable.
00:34:18:10 - 00:34:36:09
Alli
That is the most common statement that you find in clinical trials. When you look at it and you audit the clinical trials and you say, what was the most common thing that people said? It's something to the court of we are all one thing, we are all one. And before psychedelics, when you had told me that, I was like, that sounds really stupid.
00:34:36:11 - 00:35:03:19
Alli
You are over there and I'm over here and we're in the same building, but we are not this, you know, connected consciousness of humanity. So my experience of life was limited to more to my, my skin line, and I believed in community and all these things, but it was from a more egocentric place. And I think my experience of psychedelics just started that, just started that journey of loosening the valve, of really understanding, like what is going on here, like it's all so ridiculous.
00:35:03:19 - 00:35:16:06
Alli
And so that was my that was a start for me of rediscovery. And I've done so many different things and programs, and I love personal development stuff. So I've constantly and collecting tools.
00:35:16:07 - 00:35:26:02
Devin
And did this shift your focus from like, okay, I can heal physically, but now we're getting subtler. We're getting into thoughts and emotions and inner realms.
00:35:26:03 - 00:35:48:00
Alli
Well, the, the, the, the health issues that I was having. I realized through my, you know, I went on many a psychedelic journeys during those first few years and the issues that I was having, I realized in large part were psychosomatic. So the, you know, for example, the physical symptoms and I think this is fairly common knowledge, probably from the people that are listening to your podcast.
00:35:48:00 - 00:36:08:13
Alli
But the physical symptoms show up from, you know, often emotional suppression or where we're holding on. And it's it's kind of obvious if you really think about it. Like I'm like constipated and I'm like holding on to life too tightly. And so for me, I was able to like, really unwind and understand where these came from and repressed memories from childhood, things that weren't even perceivable, traumatic.
00:36:08:13 - 00:36:19:10
Alli
I wouldn't have looked back at that memory, but like how that created an emotional response that then locked in my body. That's patterning that played out into my life. You know, the first time I was embarrassed as a child, just these things were I was like, wow.
00:36:19:12 - 00:36:24:00
Devin
You can just get a little bit of a reflex, makes you a little more tense, a little changes your posture slightly.
00:36:24:01 - 00:36:47:22
Alli
Totally. And it wasn't, you know, for me, it wasn't like the silver bullet. One journey and I'm done. It was like, okay, wow, there's a lot here. And I, you know, I, I, you know, I do intentional ceremonies a few times a year. Like, not usually more than that, where I get to relook at my life and I get to look at my how I'm showing up in my life, like what's new, what's what's gotten added.
00:36:47:22 - 00:36:55:16
Alli
And it kind of allows me to go through where there might be psychosomatic symptoms showing up. So for me, that was like the beginning of my connection.
00:36:55:18 - 00:37:22:15
Devin
And I know we share some experiences. We haven't done them together yet, but we've both done sound meditations, which for people who don't know, like a lot of journeys. Now you're laying on the floor, you're wearing an eye mask and someone is playing instruments in the room or music otherwise. And it really is an introspective journey. It's which, honestly, I was a huge shift in my experience of psychedelics, and I'm very grateful for like, the sacred container and the ability to do inner work.
00:37:22:15 - 00:37:36:23
Devin
And I kind of lament sometimes not having the extroverted journeys, like like your first one. Yeah, we're friends, ran around in the woods and, like, experience nature in a different way and experience each other in a different way. Right. Were you having all different types of psychedelic journeys?
00:37:37:04 - 00:38:01:02
Alli
I've had, yeah, I've had lots of different types of and flavors of experiences. And I don't think there's like the right way to, to do it. That's a lot of the working in the psychedelic industry, because I do a lot of policy stuff and education in this space. And it's really interesting because there's a lot of argument and conversation around like, what is the right way to have someone embark on this experience?
00:38:01:02 - 00:38:22:18
Alli
And it's an it's an interesting question. I think that there are general guidepost and frameworks that can help people with the right set and the setting to have, like, the most positive experience. But in general, I believe people should be able to, you know, change their consciousness at any time as long as they're not doing something that would harm themselves or others.
00:38:23:00 - 00:38:46:04
Alli
And when you think about, you know, I often talk about psychedelics versus pharmaceuticals and, you know, SSRIs and alcohol and caffeine even, for that matter. Like if we're actually like looking what's already going on. And then we look at psychedelics over here, we are so protective and so intense around the psychedelic. And it's it's rightfully so because they can people can have really dangerous experiences.
00:38:46:06 - 00:39:05:11
Alli
You know, people can have people can die if it's depending on the psychedelic and it's not for everyone. So a lot of the I think when you first do psychedelics, you're like, the world needs mushrooms and everyone needs to experience this, and I don't I don't think that anymore. I'm actually really more into the microdosing conversation, as you know, came in later.
00:39:05:11 - 00:39:11:04
Alli
And I'm so passionate about that because it's very accessible.
00:39:11:05 - 00:39:30:14
Alli
But, you know, I just everyone's different and there's, there's this, you know, movement of people that are having these spiritual awakenings at raves doing. And I'm like, great. You know, I'm not I'm not the police of what people should or should not do. I have a format that I love similar, you know, probably similar to you is the sound meditation.
00:39:30:14 - 00:39:46:07
Alli
And I got trained in that process. And I'm such a believer in that format. And I think that, you know, these containers can be so wildly transformation for people when done correctly. But we're all such like individual beings, you know.
00:39:46:09 - 00:39:51:05
Devin
All right. So when did this start to become part of the professional conversation for you?
00:39:51:07 - 00:40:12:15
Alli
I started looking at policy and I started because I was so passionate about psychedelics. They had changed my life. I was starting Super Mosh, I was in the mushroom world, and I started reading the Policy frameworks, and I, and I was looking at the fact that all of the conversation was around these macro doses, that service centers. Yet everyone I was talking to was microdosing and having these incredible experiences.
00:40:12:15 - 00:40:34:15
Alli
And I had started microdosing psilocybin. And it was it was such a radical change in my perception of myself in such a subtle way, if that makes sense. It was like radical and big, but it was soft and simple. It wasn't. You know, if you go and you have an experience with a high dose of psychedelics, it's you are you are out there.
00:40:34:17 - 00:40:56:21
Alli
You cannot drive. You are not in. You are not. I could not be sitting across from you and having this conversation. But the microdosing was so subtle. It was allowing me to be slightly neuro plastic while I was in my life, and I was noticing myself having this live pattern interruption with with people or things that I had previously had had difficulty breaking through.
00:40:56:21 - 00:40:58:13
Devin
And you mean like a degree of mindfulness?
00:40:58:14 - 00:41:12:11
Alli
Like a degree of mindfulness, like the way I like is, you know, the scene in The Matrix where all the bullets are flying at neo, so they're all like flying at him. And he pauses them, and then he looks at a bullet and he picks it up and he kind of turns it, and then he decides he's going to make a different decision.
00:41:12:12 - 00:41:15:01
Alli
Yeah, so I think microdosing can do that for your thoughts.
00:41:15:06 - 00:41:28:22
Devin
Yeah. I often liken it to I mean it works really well hand in hand with meditation, but it also kind of meditates you like, gives you a more meditative stance in life a lot of the time. And I also find it opens the heart like some people just become more empathic.
00:41:29:03 - 00:41:49:06
Alli
Yeah. And softer. And I think a lot of what, you know, there's this huge movement of moms microdosing, like a lot of the demographic people that are exclusively microdosing or older, they're in their 40s to 60s. Is that right? And there's this huge movement of moms that are microdosing. I just did like a conference where it was exclusively for moms using microdosing for perimenopause and menopause.
00:41:49:06 - 00:41:53:16
Alli
It's like this whole community of people that are finding profound benefits.
00:41:53:16 - 00:41:58:01
Devin
For everything from like their own physical health experience to also like being with their kids.
00:41:58:01 - 00:42:25:01
Alli
Hormonal, showing up differently, not wanting to have a glass of wine at the end of the day, and instead using, you know, a micro dose to just feel more connected to their experience versus dissociating from it. So there's so many flavors of why this can be so impactful. And it gives it gives people slightly more open mindedness. And there's all these physical benefits to like, you know, a lot of athletes I know and work with, like they are just adamant that microdosing improves their performance in the gym and like these acute ways.
00:42:25:01 - 00:42:48:22
Alli
So, you know, better sleep, better sex, like the list goes on and on. But microdosing used with functional mushrooms. It's like there's adaptogens force. It's pulling your body into homeostasis together. So it's really subtle. A lot of people I know where it's like they've tried all of the things, but the core stack of their, you know, like their most precious supplement stack is often like a few functional mushrooms, like now creating obviously have to have that.
00:42:49:00 - 00:42:53:23
Alli
And then, you know, a micro dose of psychedelics.
00:42:54:01 - 00:42:59:23
Devin
And so I think we skipped over super mushin like the origin story there. Yeah. Tell me how that happened.
00:43:00:00 - 00:43:25:05
Alli
Yeah. And then we'll circle back on the death dinner because I realize I didn't answer your question so super much. I was started because I met my co-founder at a retreat, and he wasn't my co-founder of the time. He had just sold a tech company, and I was going to all these really cool events. It was during that season of my life in New York, and my now best friend Josephine, who, you know, had invited me to a retreat upstate in the Hamptons.
00:43:25:05 - 00:43:37:22
Alli
And I went, I met my co-founder. You weren't allowed to talk about what you did for work. So we just talked about mushrooms basically the whole time. And then he had written a book. I read his book, and then I stalked him into starting a mushroom brand with me.
00:43:37:23 - 00:43:39:12
Devin
Was his book related?
00:43:39:13 - 00:43:41:14
Alli
It was. It was a book about his.
00:43:41:14 - 00:43:59:17
Alli
First tech startup. So he built and sold a tech startup when he started when he was 19 and sold it and was a super successful entrepreneur. And the way that he thought about culture and community and marketing and lifestyle design and all the things I was like, he's he's on the back of this packaging, Brian, right there. He's the perfect co-founder for me.
00:43:59:17 - 00:44:19:00
Alli
So he originally started this marketplace for mushrooms and then incubated super much. And then we raised a lot of money. We've now raised like $7 million from 130 people. There's been this whole journey that just keeps unfolding and keeps unfolding. So I took my same strategy of coffee dating, but then applied that to fundraising world.
00:44:19:00 - 00:44:25:09
Devin
And was the idea to make mushrooms more palatable to like, help people relate to them in a different way?
00:44:25:10 - 00:44:39:06
Alli
Yeah, it started as a mouth spray, so we started as like a tincture based mouth spray and it's really good for you. Buccal absorption. It's like how you absorb the most because it goes through your cheek mucosal layer. And it's it's the best.
00:44:39:07 - 00:44:41:08
Devin
Is that even more than sinuses.
00:44:41:10 - 00:45:02:04
Alli
So there's tinctures are like technically the second best way if you order the the way to take supplements like sprays are really good because you spray it and it goes through your cheek mucosal layer and it coats your tongue and all the things. And then we launched mints. And then I was very reluctant to launch gummies because most gummies have the first two ingredients of vegetable oil and cane sugar.
00:45:02:06 - 00:45:18:06
Alli
So this doesn't feel like a very viable product. I wouldn't take it. And then we spent a long time making a healthy gummy that had no sugar, just a tiny bit of sugar alcohol, and you can pack a lot of the functional mushroom into the gummy. And the reality of like mainstream America, like where most people are at is they want gummies.
00:45:18:06 - 00:45:37:21
Alli
It's a huge market, and we wanted to make the healthiest, most delicious gummy. So that's been the whole journey over the last few years. But I mean, if I'm honest, the origin story of supernatural, like build the community, build the lifestyle, build the partnerships, like build this kind of ecosystem and brand and then figure out what the product is going to be inside of that.
00:45:38:03 - 00:45:56:22
Alli
You know, the stuff I'm really passionate about, we started doing right away hosting parties, hosting community events, giant bike rides through Venice Beach and paint parties and comedy shows, and just bringing people together around the world of mushrooms, because mushrooms are very community centric beings. So we wanted to kind of bring them to life through physical brand.
00:45:56:23 - 00:45:58:19
Devin
I mean, they are the connection layer of the forest.
00:45:58:23 - 00:46:01:06
Alli
They are mycelium. Yeah.
00:46:01:07 - 00:46:14:07
Devin
And so I think, do you do the accounting for the brand? No, I was gonna say it feels like potentially you actually pulled all the marketing, accounting, networking. Yeah. Consulting. It feels like it's all actually showing up. Like maybe there was a plan.
00:46:14:08 - 00:46:14:16
Alli
There's.
00:46:14:17 - 00:46:14:19
Alli
You.
00:46:14:19 - 00:46:17:11
Devin
Know, you're on Instagram a lot. You're modeling.
00:46:17:12 - 00:46:19:08
Alli
Yeah. It's it's a good point. You know, I.
00:46:19:08 - 00:46:21:10
Alli
Do think that you pick that you pick the best.
00:46:21:10 - 00:46:39:13
Alli
Pieces of every chapter of your life and pull them in. So I definitely I definitely feel that with our brand and my, my connection to it gets deeper, like after, you know, and maybe it's a good segue, right, to talking about the death dinner ironically. But, you know, after my after my dad passed away, my connection to the brand got so much deeper.
00:46:39:13 - 00:46:57:19
Alli
He's he's one of our first investors. And like, such a believer and everything that we're doing and, you know, as I think about brands and CPG and this, this whole world and it's, you know, I love conscious capitalism and that conversation. And unfortunately, it doesn't exist in the way that I think a lot of people that talk about it would want it to.
00:46:57:20 - 00:47:21:21
Alli
Right? It's like why it's a conversation. But I really believe our brand needs to exist in the world, because physical product is such a way to shift people because you're it's in your hands. And so I think the education piece is so important in media, but if you have a physical product that's made by conscious people and it's something that's really good for you, it's an easy way to open up this whole world for people of like, okay, here's this package.
00:47:22:00 - 00:47:37:06
Alli
And inside of it are these gummies. But like, what is what is the whole world that's built behind that, that brand. So that's the stuff I really am interested in. It's like, okay, how do you give something to people and then have it be the entry point, like top of the funnel of like the whole world of mushrooms?
00:47:37:07 - 00:47:48:06
Devin
And do Americans know what mushrooms are for? Like, how foreign is this to people who are seeing it? Because I know it wasn't that long ago you actually did it on the shelves of places like target. And yeah, so that's a pretty mainstream audience.
00:47:48:07 - 00:47:57:05
Alli
Yeah, we're I mean, we're target sprouts. There's mushroom products at Walmart, Costco. It's getting there. It's a it's about a $50 billion industry functional mushroom. So it's big.
00:47:57:07 - 00:47:59:16
Devin
I mean Paul Stamets made a big dent. Yeah.
00:47:59:17 - 00:48:01:06
Alli
Before you. Totally.
00:48:01:06 - 00:48:04:11
Devin
But he had mostly powders and pills. Right. It wasn't as.
00:48:04:12 - 00:48:20:02
Alli
There's a ton of brands. I mean, we launched this marketplace before we launched the brand and we launched 100 mushroom brands. I think there's I mean, there's got to be thousands now. Yeah. So it was just it was just kind of starting there was like the early days of Four Sigma and Mud water and these brands that are still around or amazing.
00:48:20:02 - 00:48:37:07
Alli
And I was, you know, consumers of I love those brands. And and then now there's this whole other kind of second wave, third wave, I guess of functional mushroom products that are coming in. And what I see in this world, because I'm really I have my pulse on the functional mushroom industry and then the psychedelic industry, and they're both kind of rising together.
00:48:37:07 - 00:49:03:01
Alli
So like the more mainstream media you see about Lion's Mane being a potential, you know, protective, neuroprotective agent for Alzheimer's. And then you have psilocybin and this clinical trial that produced, you know, an incredible result for OCD or anorexia. It's like, okay, there's these are both mushrooms. What's happening here. And so people are starting to know about mushrooms through both of these, you know, functional and psychedelic worlds kind of moving together.
00:49:03:02 - 00:49:08:00
Devin
Do people think you're trying to get them to move towards psychedelics with the functional mushrooms?
00:49:08:00 - 00:49:11:13
Alli
We're actually rebranding because most people think our brand is psychedelic.
00:49:11:14 - 00:49:18:15
Devin
Because, I mean, you are starting to see not quite legally, but online. You're starting to see actual psychedelic mushrooms in packaging like this. Now. It's strange.
00:49:18:16 - 00:49:38:05
Alli
Yeah. Well, the underground market of psychedelics is really interesting because I'm, I'm very aware of that space because of the worlds that I work in. And it's super sketchy. I mean, it's there used to be just a handful of brands that we're doing this, but it is alive and well. People are shipping all over the world. There's some brands that are even, you know, on Shopify.
00:49:38:05 - 00:49:41:04
Alli
It's crazy, like it's in don't.
00:49:41:07 - 00:49:43:06
Devin
And there's just no appetite to prosecute people.
00:49:43:06 - 00:50:00:15
Alli
So there and there is like people are you know, it's one of the first projects we did as a nonprofit was work to get this woman who was a nurse out of jail because she had gone to jail. Someone at her hospital had turned her in for making her own micro dose capsules because she was trying to get off her benzos.
00:50:00:15 - 00:50:17:07
Alli
And so I think for you and I and maybe like some of the communities that we run around with, it feels like, oh, free agent to talk about these things, but it's still all illegal unless you're in Oregon, Colorado or New Mexico, which are the three states that have passed a legal therapeutic bill like a legal medical bill.
00:50:17:09 - 00:50:45:19
Alli
And then there's like a little more progressive bills in Colorado statewide for deGrom of psychedelics. And there's Oregon's a little a little bit more strict. Like, it's not legal to have psychedelic, you know, mushrooms and especially sell them and have a commercial exchange. And so the stuff that I'm really passionate about, you know, that statistic I shared earlier, it's it's like, you know, 11 million people using psilocybin and 10 million people microdosing.
00:50:45:19 - 00:51:04:23
Alli
Where are they getting it right? And is it safe and tested products. And most of the time it's it's going to be a no right because there's no way to regulate this industry. And so, you know, my friend, I was joking with her about this. But you know, the statistic on the war on drugs is something like $4 trillion was spent on the war on drugs.
00:51:04:23 - 00:51:05:16
Alli
It's something crazy.
00:51:05:16 - 00:51:06:16
Devin
Like absurd.
00:51:06:17 - 00:51:08:20
Alli
And do you know how much it decreased drug use.
00:51:08:20 - 00:51:09:23
Devin
It increased right.
00:51:10:04 - 00:51:31:09
Alli
Yeah. Decreased 0%. And so there's no amount of capital and funding and government, they they tried to get people to stop using substances. But we can make it safer and more accessible. And so that's that's a lot of the mission is like how can we give people the right education, the right access? I love the microdosing conversation. There's a bill in New York that we are working on, right?
00:51:31:12 - 00:51:38:09
Alli
That we it's exciting and kind of under wraps, but like potentially going to be passed next year if things go correctly.
00:51:38:14 - 00:51:41:14
Devin
Delors makers actually look at micro doses differently.
00:51:41:15 - 00:52:05:08
Alli
They're starting to we started this community that was kind of like the central point of microdosing, like house of microdosing, education, community and policy. And over the last four years, people are starting to take it more seriously, in part by the influence of other organizations, in part by ours. Because, you know, there's stories like this, and the research around microdosing is like pretty subpar.
00:52:05:10 - 00:52:28:11
Alli
There's some great surveys, studies. It was like 9000 people showing adults wanting to be healthier, happier humans and like incredible results from like survey observational studies. But there's not great clinical studies on microdosing outside of an SD sleep study. That was pretty. It was pretty good. Like showed deep sleep scores increased by 20%, something like that. So there's some good research.
00:52:28:11 - 00:52:45:13
Alli
But the study design behind microdosing is inherently difficult to do because if I take a microdosing, sit here and look at you, that's not the impact of the micro dose. It's me showing up in my life and studying it in that way. So it's different from being in a journey setting and having a high dose. So the study design is pretty poor.
00:52:45:13 - 00:53:12:18
Alli
But what I love is over the last, you know, 6 or 7 years, I've collected thousands of stories about people that have had these life changing experiences through microdosing. Psychedelics is one that I love to tell. Is this guy James Hall we got connected with. He was going 60 miles an hour and a snowmobile, and he flipped over the snowmobile and went into a tree, and he had three tree branches go through his brain.
00:53:12:19 - 00:53:30:02
Alli
Oh my God. And then he was taken to the doctor and he was thought he could never walk, talk, speak normally again. And I think it was within six weeks he made a pretty close to full recovery after having like an open school surgery school replacement, and he swears it was because he was microdosing eight months before the accident and six months after.
00:53:30:02 - 00:53:45:10
Alli
And he said he felt all of his neurons reconnecting in the in his brain and this expedited way. And, you know, the doctors are scanning his brain and like, this is a medical miracle. There's no way that it should be repairing this quickly. There's so many athlete stories, traumatic brain injury stories.
00:53:45:10 - 00:53:47:08
Devin
People using quite a few.
00:53:47:10 - 00:53:58:07
Alli
Cluster headaches is a crazy one. That's the one that's really getting the media attention. So I just love I love people's stories. And so for me, like hearing that is more powerful.
00:53:58:07 - 00:54:16:02
Devin
And it matters sometimes when you can't have the double blind, placebo controlled trials, you have to listen to people. I also know, like I do a lot of psychedelic integration work with people, and at first people have a big experience and they feel amazing. And then they have this afterglow period, which we know there's like a neuro plastic window, right?
00:54:16:03 - 00:54:34:16
Devin
And then they go, wait a minute, how do I extend that? How do I because if you don't change your behavior, you can kind of just slip back into old grooves. If you don't, you know, it's easy, but if you micro dose, you can kind of keep that window open and you get this kind of mindfulness benefit. We were talking about where it is a little easier to change your habits and your lifestyle, and people drink less alcohol.
00:54:34:16 - 00:54:50:02
Devin
Generally, they want to eat healthier food. They seem to be having more open conversations. And then I think they go back for these big journeys less often, which I think can be better to just keep trying to go back and get another mind blowing insight. But to actually, like, show up in your life a little bit differently.
00:54:50:03 - 00:55:07:04
Alli
Yeah, and there's interesting early, early research showing that the microdosing before and after the bigger journeys can extend the critical window. So every psychedelic has a different critical period. Yeah two weeks. So it's showing that it can extend that in a gate. That period where you're the most neuro plastic and most open.
00:55:07:06 - 00:55:10:19
Devin
Or I wonder why there before. Is it just that your systems potentiated with it?
00:55:11:00 - 00:55:31:01
Alli
Yeah. I mean I think in general it's if you write the idea of like diet or like, you know, dieting something like you're taking little bits of it every day. And the idea with microdosing is it's in your system 3 to 4 days a week, and I'm a little bit less specific on the exact protocol of things, even though I have one that I follow and and work with people on.
00:55:31:01 - 00:56:01:02
Alli
But the idea that your brain is consistently neuro plastic, right? It's the same idea of taking creatine every day versus versus, not like you're going to get versus this one time of taking this this supplement, it's you might have a nice experience, but the, you know, the stuff I talked about earlier where a lot of what I realized as I've gone through my health journey and gotten to know my body better and become more in touch with myself and in tune with myself is, you know, the body having experience of anxiety.
00:56:01:03 - 00:56:18:18
Alli
Like, if you sit across from me and I make you super anxious, that's your body telling you something like, what is it about? About you, about me, that the body is trying to send this signal and we know we're constantly like through our sweat glands, like sending signals out to the world of, like what? Of what's in front of us and what we're receiving.
00:56:18:18 - 00:56:27:16
Alli
And so a lot of times when people will micro dose, they'll experience heightened anxiety for the first week or two weeks.
00:56:27:16 - 00:56:28:22
Devin
Because they're more sensitive.
00:56:28:23 - 00:56:47:16
Alli
Because they're more sensitive, but their bodies also detoxing that emotion. It's like the same as getting into a sauna or going through any sort of cleanse process. Like, you know, I've talked about cleansing before. The body is a detox that so has to go up and out and through you. And 95% of the time, if you just stay the course, your body's actually moving the emotion up and out and through you.
00:56:47:16 - 00:57:11:05
Alli
And so it's something to be listened to and process and just like, felt often. Yeah. And again, not for everyone. It doesn't mean that's like a one size fits all solution. But more often than not. So there's been periods of time where I haven't micro dose for a long period of time. And the first few days I'm like, oh, I'm super anxious because my I'm feeling something that it's really easy for me to repress because I can, I can put my mind on to stay focused.
00:57:11:07 - 00:57:17:16
Devin
How do you help people think about the idea of it being sub perceptual? Because to me, that's a it's a really hard thing to define.
00:57:17:19 - 00:57:24:10
Alli
The technical definition that people are, you know, preferring to use in the field is sub hallucinogenic.
00:57:24:12 - 00:57:25:12
Devin
So it makes way more sense.
00:57:25:13 - 00:57:36:23
Alli
Yeah. So sub synergetic meaning so because perceptual is is ideally you are perceiving differences whether it's I feel lighter or things feel you know.
00:57:37:00 - 00:57:40:10
Devin
I feel having slightly more energy than your thinking changes.
00:57:40:12 - 00:58:02:12
Alli
Connected present whatever it might be. And the intention really matters. You know you're taking a small dose of a of a psychedelic compound. You shouldn't at least my opinion. You know, when you swallow it like you're swallowing a vitamin D pill, it's like, okay, we're we're kind of missing the point, like an opportunity for reverence and intention. And in taking that pill and, you know, or however you're taking it.
00:58:02:14 - 00:58:21:12
Alli
But yeah, sub hallucinogenic is is a better way to describe it. Sometimes I kind of slip up and I'll still say sub perceptual, but ideally you are perceiving changes but it's not above the hallucinogenic threshold. So you're not having any visual distortion. And the technical dosing range for each psychedelic is a little bit different. But for psilocybin it's like 0.1 to two grams.
00:58:21:14 - 00:58:45:21
Devin
Yeah yeah yeah. How much has this changed your views on reality in terms of things? I mean, you were saying you're kind of coming back to the Bible, maybe to religion. I know a lot of people start noticing synchronicities, having maybe psychic experiences. People talk about angels and, you know, all kinds of things that they previously would have just dismissed.
00:58:45:22 - 00:58:50:03
Devin
Have you found yourself being more open minded and actually having more experiences?
00:58:50:05 - 00:59:12:09
Alli
Yeah, I mean, my my experience of God gets deeper and deeper. You know, I pray a lot. I'm really I don't have a specific box that I would say I fit into. I, you know, I love a lot of different things, like I've got, you know, I've studied a lot of different areas and topics as far as religion and spirituality.
00:59:12:11 - 00:59:33:13
Alli
But the thing I guess that makes me feel the most alive and connected is like when my, my body and my channel is really clear and I just feel like I'm in this open dialog with whatever, whatever is, you know, with, with the universe. And so I pray every day, but I pray out loud, I just, I talked to myself and I'm like, hey, what's what's going on?
00:59:33:13 - 00:59:37:16
Alli
And I feel like sometimes I get messages back, you know, when I'm.
00:59:37:18 - 00:59:42:17
Devin
Does it matter to you the sense of the other, what is or isn't there or is it to the universe?
00:59:42:19 - 01:00:02:15
Alli
Yeah, I would say, you know, my my experience of God is that it's everything and it's not isolated, which is a little bit more feminine way to look at it. You know, it doesn't need to be so isolated. So the idea is God is the tree and God is you. And we are all these like individual fractals of this, like one larger source point of consciousness.
01:00:02:17 - 01:00:26:08
Alli
Yeah. And it's in comprehensible to me how exactly that could look. But I've also, you know, I've gone to places like the Monroe Institute and done consciousness training stuff there where it's okay, that's a different interesting framework of the dimensions that we exist in and where we could go and when we pass away. And I've had, you know, after my, my dad passed away, my experience of God changed.
01:00:26:08 - 01:00:53:18
Alli
And it got it got really interesting because I'm like, well, where does that soul go? Are we still able to commune with some sort of personality, or are they absorbed back into the oneness? Like how what is my actual belief system? And the question that we asked at that death dinner I thought was so interesting because so much of life can be, so much of the problems, I guess, that we have with one another be like reduced down from the core question of what do we think happens when we die?
01:00:53:19 - 01:01:14:03
Alli
Yeah. And if you look at that question on a global scale, a lot of the wars that are being fought are downstream of that question. Because what you think happens when you die is that Jesus is there to save you, and that what you think happens when you die is that it's lights out and completely black. Yeah. And I just think that's such an interesting question.
01:01:14:03 - 01:01:32:12
Alli
And then when you look at how that's what kind of started my, my passion for the death dinners and bringing people together around the conversation around death, because my experience of my father's passing was so profound and so significant for me.
01:01:32:13 - 01:01:54:14
Devin
And we had quite a few people there who did seem to be having experiences with people who had passed. Yeah, they were incredibly meaningful. Yeah. And really hard to dismiss. Yeah. And so I don't know what survives and what they're communing with. But there does seem to be something there. Yeah. That like to me or or mystery or wonder is the best approach.
01:01:54:16 - 01:02:11:16
Alli
Yeah. And I think, you know, there's no way, there's no way to know. It's up for I think that looking at near-death, I think that looking at near-death experiences is such an interesting thing. Yeah. And so that I became really passionate about that. So, you know, because the question was like, oh, we can never really know what happens when you die.
01:02:11:16 - 01:02:16:02
Alli
It's like, talk to people that have died and then come back and see what their take is and what the pattern.
01:02:16:03 - 01:02:17:17
Devin
And it's really consistent in.
01:02:17:17 - 01:02:44:14
Alli
Certain super consistent, you know, to do a degree. Yeah. But there's patterns. And so you know, one of the patterns like there's there's a lot to be said about that. But one of the patterns for example is people that that have a near-death experience will go to a place and be greeted with angels or one specific guide from their past that appears to them in their most prime age.
01:02:44:14 - 01:03:00:13
Alli
That's like one of the patterns that I looked at. And then, so I don't know if it's because of knowing that pattern. It's a chicken before the egg thing, or if I'm like, wow, I'm also tracking this. Like when I have dreams about my dad or he's come to me, he's showing up in a younger version of himself a little bit.
01:03:00:14 - 01:03:19:21
Alli
So, you know, it's so complex and I can't pretend to wrap my mind around it. But the conversation is so interesting to me around death and dying, and it's also what pulls me closest into my heart. Like when I realize I'm going to die or, you know, my mom's going to pass away, or I have friends that are going to pass away.
01:03:19:22 - 01:03:27:21
Alli
It's just like pulls me right into my heart and right away from my ego. And so I love bringing it as close to me as possible.
01:03:27:22 - 01:03:49:01
Devin
I'm fascinated that so many people seem to have this experience, that there is something that continues after the body dies, and it seems to bump up against the Judeo-Christian tradition, which does, but doesn't have what the Hindus have, which is reincarnation. There's something that comes back. Yeah. And I feel like that is such a fascinating, like, global conversation.
01:03:49:01 - 01:04:20:07
Devin
And I, I don't know if we need resolution, but I find it fascinating that, like, reincarnation seems to be a theme that people get into, that I'm around, like in the West who were raised Christian, and then they have to grapple with like, what does this mean? Because they resonate with so much of their faith? And then this weird outlier thing, which seems to be, you know, in a lot of these near-death experiences, like people, your soul family, you go and spend time with them, kind of debrief on this lifetime and maybe get ready to come back.
01:04:20:11 - 01:04:37:15
Devin
Yeah, but I just don't know what's what comes back. Like, it's not this body, is it this ego? Are we kind of turned into the soil and something new grows out of it. And it's all one thing. I don't know, but I think that's a fascinating thing that we're kind of stuck grappling with.
01:04:37:17 - 01:04:55:22
Alli
Well, I think what a contemplation I have. I have no right. I have no idea. I like to pretend that I have any idea what happens when we die would be ridiculous. I like to ponder about it and like, muse with people around it, but. And I'll be super excited for whatever happens. Like, no matter what I'm like, I will be.
01:04:55:23 - 01:05:22:07
Alli
But my my fear of it has, as you know, again, circumstantial. Let's see how I actually feel when I'm in the moment of that experience. But my excitement and and, you know, a lack of fear around death has been largely influenced through feeling than ego death through psychedelic experience. As we're witnessing my my dad's death and the tragic ness and the beauty of that experience.
01:05:22:09 - 01:05:29:22
Alli
But.
01:05:30:00 - 01:05:52:22
Alli
I just I just believe that the way, the way that you die is often the way that you live and more just the, you know, the if you're holding on, if you're if you're scared of death, you're often scared of life, right? When you meet someone and they're just like, I'm here. Whatever happens, I am surrendered to often they're that way in in their, in their life.
01:05:53:00 - 01:06:11:09
Alli
And I think the conversation around death, like what got me really interested in how it connects to mushrooms is fungi, you know, or this kingdom, right? There's the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom and the fungal kingdom. Yeah. And us and humans as as in the animal kingdom, are more closely connected to fungi with our DNA than we are to plant.
01:06:11:09 - 01:06:30:05
Alli
So we share 49% of our DNA with mushrooms. And mushrooms are one of the best teachers ever of death, because what they do is something dies. On the forest floor is mushrooms, fungi, fungi, through special enzymes that they produce, will come out of the forest floor and decompose the dead dying matter and then return its nutrients to the soil.
01:06:30:06 - 01:06:50:12
Alli
Yeah. And so they decompose death and they turn it into something beautiful. And so I wrote the story about my dad, and it was called Mushrooms Eat Death for breakfast. And it was about the process of mushrooms eating death and the beautiful lessons that mushrooms exhibit, that fungi exhibit, and how they process death and how we can learn from them.
01:06:50:14 - 01:06:53:11
Alli
And.
01:06:53:13 - 01:07:08:00
Alli
I just think that that conversation and that, you know, that unknown, that lack of knowing creates so much trauma, especially in the Western world, because we don't know how to process death. You know, this beautiful I have the.
01:07:08:00 - 01:07:09:20
Devin
Whole and we don't we don't witness death.
01:07:09:22 - 01:07:21:20
Alli
Yeah. We don't witness it. Well, the process actually do we take bodies and, you know, depending on your religious beliefs, I'll just say we take we take bodies and we freeze them. So we freeze them.
01:07:21:20 - 01:07:22:12
Devin
And paint.
01:07:22:12 - 01:07:27:07
Alli
Them, and then we put them in the ground so that mushrooms can't eat them. So we're actually interrupting the death cycle.
01:07:27:09 - 01:07:42:18
Devin
I was gonna say, before we even do that, we paint them and give them makeup and clothing to make them look alive. So for the last time we see them, they look alive. Which is it? Which is an interesting kind of refusal to acknowledge what's really happening. And then, yeah, we try to preserve them in the ground so the mushrooms can't eat them.
01:07:42:20 - 01:07:49:17
Devin
Yeah. I looked into it for a while. What it takes to get buried naked underground just to, like, throw me in a ditch. Yeah. And it's not legal, as far as I can tell.
01:07:49:18 - 01:07:52:19
Alli
They're making. They're making mushroom fungi. Fungi.
01:07:52:20 - 01:07:54:09
Devin
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:07:54:10 - 01:08:13:11
Alli
So there's cool innovation in the death space. I think that people, as more entrepreneurs are looking at that space. I have a few friends that are looking to innovate in the death space, because the way that we die and the centers and how we do so at large in the United States are not fantastic. Yeah. And so I think there's a lot that needs to be done in that space.
01:08:13:11 - 01:08:27:20
Alli
We've made a whole business out of it, you know, like when my when my when my dad passed away, it was super sudden and like extremely tragic for our family. And we go into the funeral home and they're like upselling us.
01:08:27:21 - 01:08:29:13
Devin
I'm just going to say the words upsell.
01:08:29:18 - 01:08:51:17
Alli
They're upselling us on a casket. They have these urns. I remember. It's like a very clear memory. I'm writing something about it right now because it was. So it's there's this urn that says Gone Fishing. And the guys like this would be a really good one, just completely disconnected from the humanity. But it was so absurd that you, you have to laugh at like, this is what we have made of this experience.
01:08:51:17 - 01:09:17:16
Alli
And so I was really I was really inspired because I just had this really beautiful spiritual experience with my with my dad's death, because I found out he was he was I found out he had passed away while I was taking off on a plane. And I lost service right as the plane was taking off. And so I had, you know, five hours by myself with no wifi in the plane, just like to experience and feel what that was for my life.
01:09:17:18 - 01:09:26:02
Alli
And it's kind of a longer story, but that's like one snippet from it. And then I was shoved into the Western funeral system and I was like, whoa.
01:09:26:04 - 01:09:28:07
Alli
This is really interesting.
01:09:28:07 - 01:09:53:23
Alli
And so that gave me that. That became a lot of my, you know, I've done a lot of that's what started my passion for the death space and wanting to bring people together to talk about it. And I have an incredible friend, my friend Ali, who's a poet, and she loves writing poetry about death. Like, how can we make it this topic that's inviting and beautiful and preparatory and get people to vision around it is the only thing we all have in common is that we're all going to die.
01:09:53:23 - 01:09:54:13
Alli
We have a lot of things.
01:09:54:13 - 01:09:56:02
Devin
In common with in taxes, they say, but you can get out of.
01:09:56:02 - 01:10:00:21
Alli
Taxes, death and taxes. Yeah.
01:10:00:23 - 01:10:05:15
Devin
And so what's next for you? Tell me what's what's on the horizon. What are you what are you excited about doing?
01:10:05:19 - 01:10:07:01
Alli
I'm getting married.
01:10:07:05 - 01:10:07:19
Devin
Oh, yeah.
01:10:07:21 - 01:10:38:02
Alli
I'm really excited about that. I'm really in love. And so that feels. That feels really beautiful. And, yeah, we're getting married next year, and then we're gonna, like, do the whole babies thing and all of that. So that feels really exciting. And I love my work. I'm really I'm really inspired about the moment we're in. Working in CPG is is difficult and uncertain and all the things, but I have a really great community of people that are that are working with me and supporting us.
01:10:38:03 - 01:10:44:20
Alli
We're raising more money for super and growing it and making it bigger and rebranding it. And like all that stuff that comes along with.
01:10:44:21 - 01:10:48:12
Devin
Oh yeah, tell me what you were saying. You're going to rebrand because it's a little too psychedelic.
01:10:48:13 - 01:10:49:01
Alli
Yeah.
01:10:49:03 - 01:10:50:13
Devin
Are you getting rid of the little mushroom person?
01:10:50:14 - 01:11:09:10
Alli
The little mushroom person's got to go. He screams a little too Grateful Dead for apparently the mainstream target consumer. But we're yeah, we're going to use him on other things, but the packaging is going to we're gonna make it a little bit more because we're one of the most efficacious supplements in the gummies space, and we want that to come front and center more playful.
01:11:09:12 - 01:11:27:05
Alli
You know, we'll still keep the fun and the cool factor, because that's very important to me. But part of what the goal is, is like, how do we get mushrooms to the masses and how do you get mushrooms to the masses is be really clear with the fact that it's not psychedelic. So that's part of what we're in process of right now and then.
01:11:27:07 - 01:11:40:03
Alli
So I'm really excited about that. And then with with our nonprofit, we're just working on a ton of stuff. We have a few state policy stuff that we're working on. We're hosting a micro dosing summit in the fall. Where's that in Austin? Oh yes. Please come.
01:11:40:04 - 01:11:40:17
Devin
Definitely.
01:11:40:21 - 01:11:45:07
Alli
October 21st in Austin. And then.
01:11:45:08 - 01:11:47:02
Devin
You know, is that in connection with UT at all?
01:11:47:05 - 01:12:04:15
Alli
No, no, but I should get them involved. That would be good. That would be cool. So I'm just working on all things, like, you know, I'm working on just getting the message of mushrooms out there more. I'm doing more content, more education, and more intentional gatherings like the ones that you've been to, because that brings me a lot of joy.
01:12:04:21 - 01:12:10:20
Devin
I love that. All right. Tell us, where should people connect with you, support you?
01:12:10:22 - 01:12:30:14
Alli
Everything you, everything I do you can find on my Instagram. So I'm on Instagram at Ally Shaper okay. And so everything super magical dosing collective, my podcast which is called Into the multiverse, it's all linked on my Instagram and then our our gummies. You can find it super com amazing.
01:12:30:16 - 01:12:34:21
Devin
Yeah. Thank you for coming. I hope we can do this again sometime. This was fun.
01:12:34:21 - 01:12:36:11
Alli
It's so fun. Thank you for having me.
01:12:36:12 - 01:12:37:11
Devin
My pleasure.