Under The Influencer

“Let’s take a bite and see what happens” I confidently remark to my straight and narrow, fellow cannabis lightweight wife while unwrapping a 500 mg hash oil ‘Terp Rope’ pulled from a package of 20 or so that were sent to me by a cannabis entrepreneur.

Six hours later, I'd listened to the entire Cage The Elephant discography on high end Bose headphones while immobilized in our Airbnb bed, unable to formulate intelligible sentences or make eye contact with anyone. It’s not that I was too anxious or nervous about how stoned I was; it’s that I literally couldn’t open my eyes.

I’ve only been this stoned twice before - once was the first time I ate an edible, which was a giant weed pancake that I ordered off the menu at a cliffside restaurant in China’s Leaping Tiger Gorge back in 2006 - and the other time was when I had my first brush with Bhang in Udaipur, India in the Fall of 2017.

(Read my first article with Lucid News,“Spiraling Down Wonderland’s Corporate Psychedelic Rabbit Hole”, pictured above.)

Two days later as I’m writing this, I’m grateful to have my verbal acuity and extroverted nature back.

After two years of building up the Mycopreneur Platform, I’ve assembled a rolodex of connections with fungi entrepreneurs the world over - which has led to a stockpile of mushroom (and now cannabis, cacti, coffee, tea, ketamine, etc.) products sent to me by friends and vetted followers of the podcast.

I have a very limited bandwidth for what types of products and entrepreneurs I choose to associate with and promote on this platform. Typically, the backstory, integrity, and mission statement of the entrepreneur plays a huge role in my willingness to promote them and their product.

One mycopreneur that I’m extremely bullish on and willing to promote all day is MycTyson, the myco wizard behind Performance Fungi (formerly Hericium Labs). Every tincture and capsule I’ve tried from Performance Fungi has had tangible and noticeable cognitive and physiological benefits for me. In fact, I’m literally going to go take a dropper full of Performance Fungi Lion’s Mane tincture & double down with a Lion’s Mane extract capsule at this very moment.

*I’m Back now*

I’ve tried so many functional mushroom products over the last few years, and Performance Fungi are in a class of their own. The only competition I’ve observed in terms of quality and effectiveness comes from Mueller’s Mushrooms, a humble mushroom farmer and hometown friend of mine who has been quietly cultivating mushrooms professionally for over 20 years.

The behind the scenes work that Myc Tyson does with women fungi entrepreneurs in Uganda is something that will always speak louder to me than any amount of social media posting and targeted ads.

A recent product that I’ve fully integrated into my daily routine is Everyday Dose mushroom coffee. I’ve been an absolute coffee fiend for around seven years now; I first picked up the habit while working 12 hour days in a green shell mussel factory on the South Island of New Zealand in 2014. Our 5:30 am call time meant that I needed a caffeine fix to kickstart the intense manual labor required on the factory line - mostly bagging and boxing mussels all day, every day for 3 months - and once I picked up the habit, it’s dogged me ever since.

I’m now a founding member of a philanthropic coffee company called Broken Rib Coffee , and have historically consumed 3-5 cups + of strong black coffee on any given day. While I will continue to enjoy Broken Rib Coffee on a regular basis, the idea of cutting back or swapping out my morning caffeine fix for something less acidic and jitter-inducing has been on my mind for a while.

Everyday Dose mushroom coffee has been an absolute game changer for me in the short amount of time since I’ve started integrating it into my morning routine. The company uses fruiting body mushroom extract and still has actual coffee in the mix - each dose contains 39 mg of caffeine in the form of fair trade organic coffee, in addition to organic Lion’s Mane and Chaga mushroom fruiting body extracts and grass-fed collagen.

I’ve tried a number of mushroom coffee supplements and the aforementioned product is hands down the one I’m sticking with during this exceptionally busy and fruitful period of my life.

As far as psilocybin mushroom products go, I’ve been extremely impressed with the products I’ve sampled from Bat Country Cultures - the Enigma strain they gifted to me a few months ago absolutely *sent me* on a minidose I took to accentuate an elegant wedding I attended. When I scaled up the dose on the subsequent experience in a solo experience at a beachfront Airbnb, I broke through to realms that typically require 10+ grams for me, though I ingested considerably less (I eyeballed the dose and estimate that it was around 5 grams).

I also have to shout out my homie Mycoblast (@mycoblast on IG) — I cannot overstate how much they’ve helped me and selflessly given their time, energy, and cultures to help my business partner and I get our mushroom chocolate venture off the ground. (No I won’t promote that here).

I’ve tried numerous other branded psilocybin mushroom products in the form of professionally manufactured and packaged chocolates ranging from 2 - 4 grams psilocybin mushrooms per bar, psilocybin-infused Rice Krispy Treats measuring 2 grams and 3.5 grams respectively, sour gummy microdoses that add up to 4 grams total per container, microdose capsules, professionally packaged water soluble psilocybin extract, and even a ‘psilocybin vape pen’ that I sampled at a conference after party.

Given the grey to black market that a lot of these products are currently trading in, I don’t know how much public recognition I can give the people and brands referenced above - but I will say that it’s critically important to know and trust your source. I’ve personally met the individuals behind each of the aforementioned products, and only accept magic mushroom products from vetted sources in decriminalized cities - I travel a lot, as many of you can attest to.

Listen to Mycopreneur Podcast

I’m also going to use this space to advise newcomers to the ‘psychedelic product landscape’ to start low and go slow - just because everyone’s pushing their products and normalizing the psychedelic experience doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to charge in full steam ahead.

I’ve been quite alarmed at the cavalierness that I’ve witnessed from a lot of newly blossoming psychonauts now that psychedelics are an ‘in thing’ - mindless substance mixing, unwise set and setting, live-streaming psychedelic experiences, opening up to strangers while in extremely vulnerable states, etc. If you feel called to have a psychedelic experience, just know that misuse of these substances can do far more damage than healing - and that the preparation, container, and aftermath of the experience are essential components of a safe and effective experience, especially if you’re engaging in recreational use of psychoactive substances. I’m an advocate of recreational psychedelic use, and personally do so in social settings - but I stick to minidoses of substances that I have substantial experience with previously in an intentional, solo setting - and I pick and choose my times, places, and exit strategies beforehand. There are numerous headlines emerging about psychedelic experiences gone horribly awry, such as this recent incident in which a young man tripping on mushrooms on a plane ended up assaulting the flight crew. I have a good friend who got naked and punched a cop in the face his first time on mushrooms - true story.

Just because the products look like candy doesn’t mean they should be treated like candy. End Rant.

I’m looking forward to trying out more functional and exotic mushroom and cannabis products, and am open to reviewing an expanded range of substances and ‘picks and shovels’ type products in the fungi and psychedelic space.

To all of the mycopreneurs and cannapreneurs that have sent me your products to try - thank you for helping to guide the Mycopreneur workflow - and to the team behind Terp Ropes - I typically only consume 5 mg of cannabis at a time, so thank you for the lifetime supply.