The Army Ranger Who Found Magic Mushrooms Save Lives — Neil Markey (Beckley Retreats)

What if the same symptoms we see in combat veterans — the broken sleep, the irritability, the brain fog — were already quietly spreading through the healthiest, highest-performing people you know?

In this episode of Health Longevity Secrets, Robert Lufkin MD sits down with Neil Markey — a former US Army Special Operations captain from the 75th Ranger Regiment turned McKinsey consultant, now the co-founder and CEO of Beckley Retreats and a Harvard Chan School student researching psychedelic-assisted integrated health. Neil walks us through his own journey out of post-combat trauma, the neuroscience of why psilocybin opens a rare window of neuroplasticity in the adult brain, and why he believes this work belongs upstream as preventative medicine for the well.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 — Introduction
02:34 — From Mathlete to 75th Ranger Regiment
02:50 — Iraq, WMDs, and the Pretense of War
03:16 — Two Afghanistan Tours as a Ranger Captain
07:14 — How Meditation Reached Him First
11:49 — The Peer Group Where Everyone Was Secretly Breaking
12:25 — Why the Environment Always Wins
15:15 — The Neuroplasticity Window Psychedelics Open
17:18 — Amanda Feilding and the Beckley Foundation
18:20 — Why Set and Setting Decide the Outcome
20:58 — The Fresh Snowfall Metaphor for the Brain
24:09 — Preventative Medicine for the Well, Not Just the Broken
32:18 — The Real Safety Profile of Psilocybin
33:27 — Beckley as a Public Benefit Corporation
39:38 — Bringing Rigor at Harvard Chan
40:12 — Jamaica, the Netherlands, and the US Legal Path
45:04 — A Green Beret's Son Finally Came to Him
46:34 — Why Awe Beats Burnout

KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Psilocybin opens a measurable window of neuroplasticity in the adult brain
• Set, setting, and integration determine outcomes far more than the compound itself
• Psilocybin is non-toxic with low incident rates when used in controlled environments
• The "betterment of the well" use case may be as transformative as clinical treatment
• Oregon and Colorado have legalized supervised use; New Mexico and Massachusetts are next
• Chronic stress in high-performers replicates many PTSD-like symptoms
• Awe, empathy, and connection are measurable outcomes — and they beat burnout

STUDIES & SOURCES MENTIONED:

• Neil Markey — Beckley Retreats (use code LUFKIN for 10% off)
• Beckley Foundation — Amanda Feilding's psychedelic research institute
• Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris — UCSF Psychedelics Division
• Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research
• Oregon Psilocybin Services — first US regulated program
• JAMA Psychiatry meta-analysis on psilocybin for depression (2023)
• Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

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Transcript

PTSD Symptoms Beyond The Military

SPEAKER_02 0:00

A lot of my symptoms were coming back that I had worked so hard to get rid of from the service. So, like the sleeplessness, you know, your relationships are a little bit more rocky, a little bit more irritable. Um, you know, your thinking's not as crisp. Um, and you know, I remember looking around at a lot of my peers, and they were exhibiting similar symptoms too. And these were all, you know, highly educated, successful people. And I was like, oh, this is everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

You know, it's a Welcome back to the Health Longevity Secrets Show, where we push the limits of human potential and unlock the secrets to our health and longevity with your host, Dr. Robert Lovkin.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

What if the same symptoms of PTSD we see in combat veterans, you know, the broken sleep, the irritability, the brain fog, were already quietly spreading through the healthiest, highest performing people you know. Today's guest is Neil Markey, a former U.S. Army Special Operations Captain from the 75th Ranger Regiment, turned McKinsey consultant, who is now the co-founder and CEO of Beckley Retreats and a Harvard Chan School public health student researching psychedelic-assisted integrative health. Neil walks us through his own journey out of post-combat trauma using meditation and professionally facilitated psilocybin. The neuroscience of why these experiences open a rare window of neuroplasticity in the adult brain and why he believes this work belongs not just in clinics for the broken, but upstream as preventative medicine for the well. You really don't want to miss this one.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

And now, please enjoy this week's episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Hey Neil, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me, Rob. It's an honor to be on. I've been following you for years. So this is special.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

So excited today to speak with you about the amazing work you're doing uh in psychedelic research and all the all the possibilities and things that are going on there. But but before we do that, let's let's step back and um maybe let's let the audience learn a little bit about you. Your story is is so multifaceted from from special operations to McKinsey to Harvard to to Beckley retreats. And maybe maybe you could walk us through kind of the major pivot points in your life and what the you know, maybe what the internal signals were telling you to make those those transitions.

Neil’s Path From 9/11 To War

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Okay. Yeah, I usually start my story in undergrad. I was a bit of a a math lead, they would call it, and I was studying math. And then uh September 11th happened, and that like flipped a switch in me. And I ended up going into the officer program and went into the military thinking I was doing the right thing. And I ended up in Iraq. Um, by the time I got to Iraq, you know, got through school and through training and um and deployed, we learned that that whole weapons of mass destruction narrative was wildly wrong. So that was you know quite challenging to come to terms with that, that we were there for false pretenses. Um, and then I came back and had a chance to go try out for a special mission unit and got selected by the Ranger Regiment and went to Afghanistan twice with them. And, you know, there I was a captain and was more on the support side of things. So I was actually quite fortunate. I was removed from like the worst of the worst, but it definitely still left some marks on me. And um, I got out in 2012 and went to grad school in New York, and it was there that I realized um I was having some issues reintegrating. Um my sleep was really bad. I was very angry. I I really bothered me that no one seemed to care that there was still wars going on. Everybody seemed to be enjoying their lives, and that really got under my skin at the time. And um, I, like many veterans, tried different traditional things like SSRIs and anti-anxiety medications and sleeping pills, and um had you know some success, but limited success. And then the thing that really started to make an impact for me was meditation. I met a guy at school that was doing his PhD that ended up kind of taking me under his wing and took me under on my first long form program. And um, I just knew that's what I needed. And then through that network of people, I had my first, you know, intentional, professionally facilitated psychedelic experience. And and it was, you know, profound for me. And it wasn't a one and done thing, but it it definitely, you know, in some ways felt like it was helping me along that path that I was trying to go down with meditation or enhancing that. And I I still really believe that that uh these awareness practices and the psychedelic experiences are are are pretty tightly interlinked and they can be complementary. And you know, we should really be teaching people these uh practices if we're gonna give them these experiences. But um that's kind of my first exposure to it. Maybe I'll pause there for a minute and see.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

Um yeah, no, that it's a it's uh that's a great story. And and um yeah, you're coming from a place of personal experience and your own personal transformation, and that's always especially powerful. Uh you know, whatever path you're on, it's it's it's great to hear that.

Meditation Plus Psilocybin For Healing

SPEAKER_03 5:23

And and we're gonna dive into this more, but just since you since you brought it up on how do you see meditation and psychedelics as being being inter intertwined there? Uh in other words, our um are is meditation sort of uh is it a path that you know, meditation then psychedelics, or is it either or? Do they do they answer different things? Or how do you how do you look at those uh those two things just generally?

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Yeah, I think they're complementary. And I think generally it'd probably be better if people developed a bit of a meditation practice or at least started doing some self-awareness exercises before they had a psychedelic experience. So there's almost kind of some foundation for this thing to sit in, if you will. Um but at like uh what they're kind of doing mechanically is in some ways meditation is helping regulate the central nervous system. And so for me, I was in an extreme state of fight or flight constantly, you know, and I could take medications and numb that, but I wasn't ultimately getting down into the depths and learning to work with what my central nervous system was trying to tell me, which is be alert, you know, constantly. Um and so you know, that takes time, that takes effort, and and I think psychedelics can in some ways enhance that so that connectivity of our the awareness of our bodies um can enhance that, and then um you know psychedelics, it looks like in some ways have some impact on the central nervous system too. And then there's this whole other uh, you know, meditation is working in this kind of other realm, if you will, and psychedelics are too in this world of your consciousness, your your awareness, right? Um, which we know uh has a tremendous impact on how we feel and our well-being, you know, the way that we think and perceive things, and meditation impacts that in a real way, and and so do psychedelics.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Yeah, I I mean I've I've heard uh on the on the nutrition side, I've heard uh people talk about um using diet to get into a you know key ketotic state, into ketosis, sort of a metabolically advantageous state. And you know, depending on what diet, you may or may not go into ketosis versus fasting. And fasting, if you take anyone and fast them long enough, you know, after about 12 or 24 hours, they will be in ketosis pretty much. There's no question. And people I've heard I've heard people say, well, meditation, you can meditate and work and work and work hard. And it, you know, not not not that it's supposed to be work and not that it's supposed to be hard, but you can apply yourself for many hours for meditation, and different people may or may not have an experience, whatever that means. But with psychedelics, every person will have an experience, you know, getting there. So I guess are we getting to the same almost everybody, yeah. True. There are a few. Are we getting to the same place, or are are there different places that we're getting to, or is it all the same spiritual realm of consciousness that we're entering?

SPEAKER_02 8:55

I think it's all the I think it's all the same, you know, but there's different schools of thought, and I think there's even a world where, you know, um what is true for someone else, there might be a difference between that and what is true for another individual, because this world is really complicated and there's things that are happening all the time that are beyond our ability to kind of fully appreciate and rationalize, but that doesn't mean they can't be true, you know. So um but I do think for like with meditation, you know, it maybe what it takes 10 or 20 years, like kind of to get to a certain point with meditation, you could probably shorten that timeline if you were using psychedelics in a thoughtful way. I I believe that I don't have a you know uh a bunch of data um or or or research to to show that empirically, but you know, that's my sense. And I think there's a lot of people that would share that, that there's some complimentary nature to them.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Yeah, I I I want to let's put a pin in that and I want to dive into psychedelics in a minute and start psychedelics 101, kind of to bring bring our audience up so we're all on the same page, but but before we leave your your your personal journey here, I got just a

Resilience Breaks Under Corporate Pressure

SPEAKER_03 10:10

couple of other points. I was thinking most most people think of resilience as something you like you you build, but I I've heard you reframe it through a lens of vulnerability and curiosity. So, what did you learn about resilience through through combat, then corporate life, then your own healing journey?

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Hmm. Yeah, um, well, environment matters, you know. Um, you can be super resilient, and then the your environment is still very, very real, you know, and it impacts us and we're functions of our environment. But um yeah, when I got out of the service, I kind of had this period where I wasn't doing so well, and then I learned how to take care of myself. Psychedelics were part of that process. And and but then I went into the corporate world and I was in a you know really fast-paced environments that part of me love because obviously I love um challenge and adventure. There's part of me that really lights up with that. Um but now with the benefit of hindsight, when I look back, you know, I I I lost some of that, um, I lost some of my practices. I stopped taking care of myself. Um and over the course of six years in the professional world, although I did, you know, pretty pretty well by the metrics that they gave me, at the end of that period, uh, a lot of my symptoms were coming back that I had worked so hard to get rid of from the service. So, like the sleeplessness, you know, your relationships are a little bit more rocky, a little bit more irritable. Um, you know, your thinking's not as crisp. Um, and you know, I remember looking around at a lot of my peers and they were exhibiting similar symptoms too. And these were all, you know, highly educated, successful people. And I was like, oh, this is everywhere, you know, it's uh um, and so yeah, I guess resilience takes work. It's it, you know, you you gotta, it's like daily, daily practice. Um and you can be, you know, you can be really resilient. Um, but if you stop paying attention to it and you you stop doing the the work, then you're gonna become you're it's gonna go away. Um and you can get it back, but you gotta work at it. And then, you know, the environment environment really matters. Um, if you're swimming in bad water long enough, you're probably gonna get sick. And I think the definition of bad water depends a lot on what you define as kind of who you are and your core values. And if there's a mismatch between what you're doing professionally and who you want to be in the world, then that's gonna create a lot of resistance in the body.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

Yeah, I want to I want to circle back on that uh uh a little bit later when we talk about specifically Beckley retreats and the the work you're doing there.

Psychedelics 101 Neuroplasticity And Integration

SPEAKER_03 12:59

But before we do that, let's let's pause and just talk about introduction to to psychedelics. And I mean the the the whole field of psychedelics is really exploding now in you know with with a lot of public interest, but many people still have still have a lot of misconception. So from a from a neuroscience and and maybe human performance perspective, how would how would you explain what psychedelics actually do in the brain and why they might be why we should look at them as therapeutic rather than just recreational?

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Yeah. Yeah, there's um the psychedelic field is definitely feels like it's kind of remerging. Um and it's a it's a class of drugs or compounds that includes things like magic mushrooms, LSD, ayahuasca, peyote. Some would put MDMA in there, some would put ketamine in there, some would say they're a little bit different. Um, but psychedelics at its root is is mind manifesting. So you're you're it's changing the way you perceive yourself and the world around you. You're you're you know, if you take a high enough dose, you'll have a a trip, your reality will shift. And um, if you don't do that in the right context or the right location, it can be quite scary. And I think this is where a lot of the boogeyman stuff came from is people took um these compounds without a lot of thought or planning and then ended up in situations and the reality shifting, and it can be can be scary, it can be traumatic. Um, but there is real benefit. I mean, I think it's it's overwhelmingly clear now. Um and my gosh, like how many different leading institutions in the world have some psychedelic research going on now? You know, it's John Hopkins, it's Yale, it's Harvard, it's Berkeley, it's um so uh, you know, the the research is growing. Um, and then kind of why is there this therapeutic benefit? Um I don't know that we know all the mechanics yet or if we ever really will, but part of it is it looks like it kind of creates these windows of neuroplasticity. And so from our side, you know, you know, we're real believers in kind of behavioral health. Like people need to in like, you know, things that you talk about, eat healthy diets, exercise, get sunlight, you know, these types of things. Like, how many of these ailments could be solved with just good habits? A lot of them. Um, but the problem is, is uh you know, if people didn't develop habits in their youth, you know, by the time they're adults, there's so much momentum there, it's really hard to get people to change the way they think and the change the way they act. Like we know that it's really, really, really hard. Well, if you give someone one of these experiences, it creates this window where there's this openness, right? And so there's this increased potentiality for change. Um, and that's great. Um and and for some period of time, many people will will say things like, I just feel, I just feel better. I feel more grateful, I feel more connected, I feel more at peace, I feel um more mindful. Um, and those are all things that have downstream effects, you know, if you're feeling, you know, feeling good, then your your your body can heal, you can sleep, you can rest, you know, so it's really important kind of that mind state that you're in. Um but what I think we're seeing is that if if people just have the experience, there's some benefit for sure. Like you can, you know, you can see inflammation go down, you can see sleep improve, you can, you know, people will report that they feel better. But if you don't introduce any new habits or ways of thinking, then it's likely people are going to revert back because there's so much momentum there. So that's kind of why we're really big on the behavioral health part of it, you know, and the habit, the habit formation. Um and yeah, I mean, there's I think there's lots of applications because in some ways I think it's getting us back to it's like resetting. Um and if you look at a brain, uh this is you know some of the work that Amanda had done, Amanda Fielding with the Beckley Foundation, we can talk more about that. But um if you look at a brain um with an fMRI when someone's having one of these experiences, parts of the brain that maybe have never talked before or connected before or have lost connection, it lights back up, you know. So it looks like it actually like improves cognitive function. It actually helps um the brain pass information. Um, so you know, there could be potential for learning, you know, there could be potential for all kinds of um disease related to aging, um, like we were talking about earlier, the study with mice and psilocybin. And, you know, so there's it it looks like there's a lot of different potential therapeutic benefits. Um, but I think we would say that it's important kind of how the experiences are done. That's that's the that's the thing. Because these compounds are the mind manifesting and they're working in this kind of this this consciousness realm, um, the set in the setting, how you do it, where you are, why you're doing it, all the context matters a lot. And so we don't want to just forget that and you know, just give people psilocybin pills and have them go on that with it about their day. You know, you're probably um not getting as much out of it as you could if you don't um take a thoughtful approach.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

So, so then just to iterate sort of that whole concept of set and setting, and and we're not just we're not just giving the drug, and it the benefit is not just the drug itself, but it's the integration after the drug. And that's why, you know, taking the the drug on a recreational use at a party or burning man, no judgment of burning man, I go there myself, but but still having the period afterwards for the integration, it in a therapeutic sense is really valuable. I mean, I I've heard the model where um, you know, when we're very young, the brain has a lot of connections, you know, talking about neuroplasticity and there are a lot of options, a lot of creativity. We always see it in our children, you know, they're the world is like full of you know magic. And then as we get older and we get more experience, we trim down those options, and suddenly the grooves in the record get deeper and deeper, and we the world becomes defined. And we we have fewer options, it allows us to be more efficient, but in some way it's very limiting. And people have said that one of the great uses of psychedelics is it it lifts us out of that groove for a moment, returns us to the beginner's mind. And for you know, for a few moments, for a few hours, we're suddenly like a child again. The world is beautiful, the world is open, the flower, you stare at the flower, you stare at your wife like you like you've seen her for the first time, you know, not like you've been married for 10 years, or you know, any any relationship with anything in the world, and the that having that reset is really valuable. Do you think that's a a valid way of looking at it?

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and it's um yeah, it it it kind of just uh allows people to remember how beautiful this all is, too, just like you said, you know. I mean, it is, it's it this this this what we're experiencing right now, it's it's a miracle, it's miraculous. If you look at the complexity in the body, or you know, if you look at chemistry or biology, you go deep enough, it's like it it is fascinating. And and then we're real quick to kind of take it all for grounded and get frustrated because our flight's five minutes late. And it's like, no, this is a miracle, it's an absolute miracle, and it helps you kind of live that, you know, and that that feels great, and then that improves relationships. And um, related to the ruts, there's the saying that um I don't know if it was Robin Carhart Harris that started this, but that um a psychedelic, like it's like if you're skiing down a mountain and after in the afternoon, you know, the ruts are grooved in, it's really hard to get out of the ruts. But if a fresh coat of snow comes down, this is the psychedelic experience, it gives the opportunity for you to kind of cut a new path, but you got to be thoughtful about kind of where you're going because those ruts are still kind of below, and you, you know, if you you can end up back in those ruts if you don't kind of put a little effort, but it gives you that opportunity to kind of chart a new path. Unlike, you know, I think anything else that we've seen, you know, um, psychedelics are pretty unique in that.

Betterment Of The Well As Prevention

SPEAKER_03 21:41

Yeah, and it it and it brings brings to mind the idea that um potentially these medicines aren't just for necessarily for therapeutic, uh in a pathological sense, intervention with depression or you know, other identified psychological issues. Issues that, like you say, or like you were implying, if I can put words in your mouth, that they could be beneficial to even normal, quote, normal people going through their lives as they deal with the ups and downs and the minor PTSD we all experience just from living ourselves. And it could be even valuable for regular people to go on a retreat like this as part of healthy aging and uh doing that as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Well, and I think that's what we're trying to be part of that conversation. And you know, we're obviously super supportive of um the research and the resources that are flowing towards kind of clinical applications. You know, if a doctor can have psilocybin to help someone with major depressive disorder or PTSD, that's great. You know, they're mushrooms, non-toxic, looks like they're neuroregenerative, if they're as good or better than what we have today. That that that's amazing. We're super supportive of that. And like you said, we think that there's potential benefit for what you know is called like the betterment of the well, taking people that are actually, you know, quite high functioning. That's that's what our programs are. It's mostly very um high performing white-collar professionals mostly that um are dealing with things like burnout. You know, maybe their relationships have struggled a bit, maybe their sleep isn't so great. Um, they want to find more meaning. They want to, they they want to step into kind of like some new version of themselves, you know, like they they want to um, they want to actually like have some change in their life. Um these types of experiences are great for that. The improving empathy. I mean, my gosh, the world could use could use a bit more of that, but your ability to feel others and connect with others at um a level that's not just rational thought is like really important. Um and and and then I think that what we're you know, what some of the research that we're starting to do now, um, that I'm excited about is on top of just helping people feel feel better and improve relationships and all those things, I think that there's a preventative health benefit. I think if you take people through these programs earlier when they're well, and you help them build some of these tools and they feel more connected to others and nature, um, that you'll have less incident of some of these severe clinical indications, or they'll be more resilient when you know, real crisis in their life happens because they'll have some tools and um you know another level of awareness because of these experiences. So I think there's there's lots of application.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Yeah, we we um we had uh Dr. Andrew Gallimore on the program a few episodes ago, and he's a he's a DMT researcher. Um and DMT is a different different drug than psilocybin, which um you you use at backlin' retreats, but he it was interesting that he was making the observation that you know these these psychedelic drugs, including all of them, are you have this unique ability to to change the way we think about the world and change, you know, in other words, it's not like coffee or cocaine or alcohol or you know, drugs that that make us feel differently, these change the way we think about things. It's just fascinating. And and his his idea with uh with DMT at least in that clap, that specific class of drugs is that he believes we're actually tapping into another world of you know, an other out there, some some consciousness at all uh is all just because some of the recurring visions, specifically with ayahuasca and other DMT-related things, have a certain pattern to them, and and uh you know they're maybe true with uh you know with all of these at some level, who knows? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Yeah, and I'm I'm fully humbled and open to that. I uh I mean you even hear the physicists talk about this now. It's not just um psychonauts that that it it looks like that the consciousness consciousness is kind of foundational, you know. Um and yeah, it's a it's it's a real topic in physics, you know. It's not just it's not just um philosophers that are kind of thinking about these things. And um yeah, I think that we should be humble and open to kind of um the reality that there's there's things that are kind of happening on a moment-to-moment basis right now while we're talking that are like so far beyond our ability to kind of fully appreciate and rationalize, you know, like if you go into the body and how complex it is and all the coordination and or if you go out into the stars and this the scope and the size, and it's just you know, we don't uh we don't have it all figured out, you know, there's a lot of things out there that are miraculous by far. Yeah, yeah, by far. Yeah.

Safety Screening Set Setting Ethics

SPEAKER_03 27:03

I I love your I love your approach to using these very powerful medicines in in a controlled setting, and especially your attention to risk reduction and you know, evidence-based interventions, basically. For so for those listening who are curious but maybe cautious, what does the current evidence say about safety risks and ethical safeguards for these psychedelic assisted experiences?

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Yeah, um, so mushrooms are you know quite safe, you know, and it's actually one of the um more well-researched psychedelics. And then there's a long history of use too. So people have been using these for you know decades in modern culture, but hundreds, if not thousands of years in some of these more um traditional cultures. And um, so we actually have like a lot of information to say that the incident rate is is quite quite low for um for anything serious. They're they're non-toxic, so you you know, you can you you can't overdose on them like you can many other drugs. Um the the the risk is uh you know because of the nature of them and the fact that they kind of shift your consciousnesses, like what we talked about earlier. You you take too much in the wrong environment and then you end up scaring yourself or doing something that you didn't want to do. But you can, you know, mitigate that by doing it in a controlled environment with professionals. Um, and so I would say, you know, everybody's got to do their own risk assessment. And I think for us, we're trying to just be kind of honest brokers and put the information out there and then let adults take, you know, make adult decisions. Um, but I think that if you kind of you know look at the look at the data, that um that the risk is is is is no more than the risk of taking drugs that are prescribed or uh driving on a highway at night or you know going uh climbing a mountain or um going out in a city. Um, you know, so it's it is there some is there some risk? Yes, but is it uh significantly more than many of the things we do on a daily basis? No, it's actually like quite quite safe. Um the people that probably the people that do need to be a bit more cautious are people with um more severe psychiatric conditions. So again, when you have one of these experiences, there is some kind of destabilization that happens, it shakes shakes things up. And in that shaking things up, there's opportunities to kind of put things back in a better place. But if you're already in a destabilized state, if you have multi-personality disorder, um bipolar disorder, um there's there's just more risk there, you know, because in in and um what's interesting though is you know, I think even just a few years ago, there was very few doctors or researchers that would would touch that, that would say that there's any application that was too risky. But now there's actually professionals out there that are saying, well, there is application for these severe psychiatric conditions. It just needs to be done in a different environment, just needs to make sure that there's more wraparound care and you know it's more thoughtful. But actually, there's potential there too. Um and the safeguards um, you know, for us is proper screening. So again, our programs are for the betterment of the well. We want to make sure that everybody's kind of on a level playing field that's coming down, and we also have to manage for the group dynamic, you know. So we want to make sure it's it's a good, healthy, positive group. And we don't have people that are dealing with like extremely severe stuff and people that are looking for, you know, um spiritual enlightenment or peak experience and that type of stuff. That's a hard thing to manage. So good proper screening is really important. Um, the preparation, I think, is important. You know, so getting people to start to build some of these habits, um, start to do some introspection, um, start to um remove some of the things in their life that might be causing some of this kind of central nervous system deregulation. Um, so you know, we give guidance on that um as you come into the program and then and then set and setting is just really important. So um making sure that the group is in a place where everybody feels safe and making sure that um you have facilitators that are properly trained and um you know know how to help hold a group experience like this is is really important and um because it's it's it's it's a real it's a real skill and and sometimes people do have relatively large experiences. And so the facilitators need to be able to you know manage that, be able to regulate themselves. You should, you know, like the the teams that we have are just uh just pros. They just um they're just really good at what they do. And then on the back end, I would say, you know, the follow-up and the integration helps reduce any kind of tail risk. I mean, you obviously want to test your mushrooms, you want to know where they're coming from, you can do chemical tests to ensure that you want to make sure that they're grown in a certain way. Um yeah, and you just want to have good kind of procedures and protocols in place that you're training on and enforcing good accountability. And you know, you you you have good people that are you know doing this work for the right reasons and with some heart.

Beckley Retreats Model Research And Law

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Yeah, I want to I want to drill down on the experience at at Beckley retreats, the the company and the experience people have. You're the I I love your story. You're the founder or co-founder and CEO of this company, and you're coming from uh you know a history of combat and then maybe more combat at McKinsey and private equity, a different kind of combat. And now you've changed, you've launched a holistic well-being comp well-being uh company that's actually a public benefit corporation, right? And full disclosure, I'm proud to be an advisor for Beckley Retreats, but I only advise those companies that I I trust, I believe in that I would use for myself and for my family. But uh yeah, what is a public benefit corporation, maybe for those people who don't know?

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Yeah, it's um it's it's a relatively newer designation in the United States, which just says that a company can have a dual mission. So a normal for-profit company, their mission, their only mission is return value to shareholders. That's it. This is what you're taught in the business schools, this is how the this is legally how it is. So if you start veering off course and saying, well, we want to help the world, um, your shareholders can sue you because you're not maximizing near-term profit margins. And I think that's created some of the challenges that we see in the world today. Public benefit corporation says, hey, we're gonna be sustainable and we want to grow, and you know, we have uh we wanna we wanna do this, do this work in a big way. Um, but we have a secondary where you know, or a uh an additional mission, which is accessibility. So that means we as a management team and board can say, okay, well, we need to be sustainable, but we also really care about making this work available to people that might not otherwise be able to pay for it. So to us, it's a way of trying to find that middle path, which to me is in very much alignment with this work of trying to find middle paths. Um, and yeah, I think it's a big, you know, big part of who of who we are, and you're trying to show that um there's a different way to think about think of what think about business.

SPEAKER_03 34:57

Um yeah, you're you're pursuing a master's degree at Harvard Chan School, studying integrative health. How is how's that been influencing how you shape Beckley's programs and measure their impact?

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Yeah, um so I just started last fall. So I'm it's it's a part-time grad program here in in Boston at the Chan School, and I'm really excited about it. And well, this is kind of what I'm hoping to do there is bring some rigor to the research and then look at the application of these experiences for preventative health. Because I think in some ways the system is broken because all we're doing now is just doing late stage intervention. I mean, that I know that's a generalization, but generally that that's that's true what's going on. And so I just really believe that these experiences could help people avoid some of the problems that we have in the world. Um, and so yeah, we um my academic advisor is a formal advisor for us now. And so we'll be doing a lot of our research in partnership with with Jan and showing to trying to show the efficacy, um, gather the safety data, but then also show the cost and be able to kind of do the math on can this approach maybe save the system some money? Um, and could we have these centers all throughout the United States and have them run by communities and get the cost down pretty low and improve public health?

SPEAKER_03 36:25

Yeah, I I love that you're doing this in, I mean, because there are there are many psychedelic experience centers that are proliferating, you know, both you know, legally and illegally in different jurisdictions. But I love you're doing this in a clinical controlled manner with attention to outcomes and measuring and making sure that people have the best experience. And and to be clear, the Beckley retreats operate in legal settings like Jamaica and the Netherlands. And so, how how do you ensure that safe that that safety and legality while you still are able to create like a deeply transformative experience? So, what are the you know regulatory challenges and opportunities for this?

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Yeah, well, in Jamaica and the Netherlands, it's fully legal. Um you know, but we are not providing medical services. So we can't, we're not diagnosing or treating anything. And that's you know the work that we're doing. Um, and that's also kind of the legal framework in which we're we're operating. Um, we're hopeful that there'll be some change in both of those countries, um, like what's happening in the United States, where you can have programs for the well, and you can also have programs for clinically indicated individuals and get insurance reimbursement. That I think that's coming. Um and then in the United States, yeah, it's coming. So two states have um two plus New Mexico or Oregon and Colorado have passed legislation to make these types of experiences legal at the state level, and New Mexico is right behind them, and then Massachusetts is coming. You know, there's a lot of there's maybe a dozen states that kind of have it in the legislative process and it's gonna get voted on. Um, so that's exciting. Um, but the the federal law uh you know it's still illegal federally, and so there's this it, you know, it's this gray area. Um, but we're very uh excited and optimistic that we'll be able to operate in the United States here in the next couple years. Um and also working on some projects with some people that are very close to the um veterans' affairs. Um and I'm hopeful that we could have um, you know, an entire piece of business that's just treating veterans, you know. Like I don't think these group programs are right for every veteran, um, because again, if it's someone's kind of in crisis, the one-on-one approach is probably better. It just they just need they need more. But there's a lot of veterans that are that are doing okay, um, but they're probably going in they're they're going in the wrong direction. And if we got them while they were still okay, um, and and did this type of program with them, we could probably get them pointed in a better direction. And these people, uh the veterans too, they sometimes I'm gonna frustrated because it's like, ah, the poor veterans. And yes, there are, you know, there's some real tragedies out there, but it's more about let's like unlock this potential of the veterans. Like these guys are gals are leaders, and they can, if they're they're best selves and they're feeling good, they're gonna go enact change in their communities. Like these are these are leaders, these are people that that want to go serve. Um, and so for me, it's just like the investment makes investment make makes sense, you know. Um, we need to figure out like the critical stuff and the suicides is terrible and um and and and frankly unacceptable. And there's a huge amount of veterans that if we just like gave them some love and gave them the opportunity to learn some new tools, could go do great things. Um, and so that's that's where we're putting a lot of effort.

SPEAKER_03 40:08

So Beckley Retreats is is is now operating in Jamaica and the Netherlands, as we said, and there's a growing experience of more and more patients, uh patients, not patients, but more and more uh people who are using using these experiences, these

A Transformation Story That Stuck

SPEAKER_03 40:24

retreats. Can you can you share a story or maybe an example of transformation that that surprised you, something that maybe stuck with you long after the retreat ended?

SPEAKER_02 40:34

Um yeah. Yeah, um, one of my favorites is actually a friend of mine. Um he was a Green Beret officer, and he's a bit of a legend. Um, and you know, he kind of went to a a really good grad school and then went and did um, you know, like top-tier consulting and then some other stuff. So like very uh successful guy. And you know, he was a skeptic for sure for years at the beginning when I was doing this, and then um, you know, it's something finally changed, and he ended up coming on a program in the Netherlands, um, and I went on it, and then another one of our buddies came, and these are like tough, tough guys, and they went through the sessions together. And I I don't join the sessions, but I usually join the meals, and then I'll come, you know, check out, check, check on people after the sessions. And I mean, you could just see it, you know, he's just like letting stuff go. He's he was crying through a huge chunk of one of the sessions, and um, you could just you could feel him lighting um lightening up like through the the days that we were together, and then um, you know, we we said goodbye and uh and he went back home and and then he called me that that week he was home, and uh and I was like, how you know how are you doing, man? You're you're back home with the kids and uh and the and and your wife, and and he was he was choking up on the phone. He was you know, he was he was emotional with me, and he's like, I just can't believe it. But he he didn't he hadn't told me this, but he said that one thing and he hadn't planned on this, he didn't, this wasn't like an intention of his or anything, but he had a young son, and he said it would drive him nuts because at night um his son would not come to him to go to bed, he always went to mom, and it drove him crazy. He would bribe him and all these things, and his son wouldn't come to him. That week he got home, his son was just coming to him, and so we don't understand exactly what's going on, but something shifted in his central nervous system. Like kids pick up on this stuff, they could sense him being in this, like, you know, wanting to fight mode because he that's where he was, and that he snapped out of it, and uh, so he was just so appreciative of of that. Like, how beautiful is that? How what a gift, what a gift is that? Um, so that's that's one of my favorites, you know. That's one of my favorites close to my heart. But I got a bunch for real.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

Whoa,

Global Expansion Veterans And What’s Next

SPEAKER_03 43:01

that's that's beautiful. I well, well, in our last few moments, well, look looking forward, maybe what do you see as the next big frontier for for psychedelic assisted well-being? Maybe both both in mainstream medicine, but out and outside of clinical settings, like like you're doing as well.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Yeah, I mean, well, you and I talked about this. I mean, we we're gonna open another center in the Middle East. Um, I'm hopeful that I can share more about that publicly, the detail in the next few months, but it's extraordinary. It's been years in the making and it's historic in some ways. So um, you know, the signals that I see are that the whole world's opening up. You know, we do these programs in the Netherlands. Four years ago, it was almost all Europeans, mostly people from the UK. Now we do a program, it's Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and South Korea. And six or eight other countries represented. So you know, it's unprecedented. Um, the openness. And I think it's I think it's good. You know, I mean it's gonna there's gonna be some bad outcomes and there's bad actors just like any other thing in the world. Well, you know, this this industry or movement, whatever we call it, it's not not immune from humanness. Um, but I think generally it's really good, you know, and these experiences can be very positive for individuals and how they relate to others and how they relate to the earth. Um and yeah, I'm I'm I'm optimistic. I'm I'm I'm very optimistic.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

Well, in the in the last in the remaining moments here, is there is there anything we haven't covered that you want to want to bring up or any final thoughts you want to leave our audience with before we uh before we close the episode here?

SPEAKER_02 44:53

Um

How To Learn More And Closing

SPEAKER_02 44:54

yeah, I would just say that you know you don't you don't you don't need to be kind of broken to get a lot out of these experiences, you know. You can develop more creativity, more empathy, more presence, um, more appreciation, more all. The research on all is so fascinating. Um and yeah, and I would say that uh you know we are um if people have more questions, um, because you know it in some ways it's a big decision, they could leave the country and go to do this, you know, it's kind of a it's an adventure. Um but we're very easy to get in touch with and happy to have phone calls, and it's not uncommon for us to do three or four or five, and and then they bring their wife on and their kids, and then they'd go talk to their doctor and then all this, and that's fine. Like we're we're here for it, we're up for it.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Oh, that's that's great. Well, this is this has been wonderful, Neil. It's so so great uh talking to you today and and sharing more about Beckley retreats. Uh maybe you could put the website on uh just we're gonna have all the all this in the show notes, and you've graciously indicated that people can get a 10% discount if they use the code Lufkin to sign up for one of the retreats. Uh, and we'll put that in the show notes too. But maybe you could just tell them um the uh the website as well for those who are listening.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

Yes, it's just BeckleyRetreats.com. If you Google Beckley Retreats, we'll come up. So great.

SPEAKER_03 46:21

Yeah. I guess in this day and age, I know with everyone Googles everything. So well, again, thanks, thanks so much, Neil. I want to have you back again and talk about this some more.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Yeah, we'll have some good research, some burnout research that I'm excited to share.

SPEAKER_03 46:36

Um, so yeah, there's so much progress in the field, and and I I I know we're gonna we're gonna be talking more about this, but thanks, thanks again. Yeah, thank you so much for the work you're doing, and um we'll hope to see you see you next time.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

That sounds great. Good to see you. Take care.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

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SPEAKER_04 47:10

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SPEAKER_03 48:04

You like it? You want to do it one more time or check it? I think that was good.