2_7 Mycopreneur: Bridging Worlds with Humor, Humility, and Cultural Immersion

Join us as we dive into an engaging conversation with Dennis, a true global ambassador who grew up in an international household hosting exchange students from around the world. We explore how humor serves as a bridge between diverse cultures, creating connections that transcend language and socioeconomic differences. Dennis shares insights gained from his immersive experiences, from witnessing the power dynamics of different societies to finding common ground through laughter. Discover how his upbringing led to a deep appreciation for laughs and balanced perspectives.

Show Notes:

• Dennis's upbringing in an international household hosting exchange students from various countries.
• The role of satire in critiquing power structures and offering social commentary, particularly focused on "punching up."
• How humor transcends language barriers and fosters connections between different cultures.
• Dennis's experiences in various countries, including Saudi Arabia, and the importance of authentic relating.
• Humor's ability to create authentic connections and build bridges between cultures and backgrounds.
• Dennis's observations about socioeconomic disparities and the genuine happiness he found in communities with less material wealth.
• The significance of family and multigenerational connections in cultures around the world.
• Dennis's journey of self-discovery and his exploration of psychedelics, which expanded his perspective on spirituality and personal growth.
• The value of embracing humility, laughing at oneself, and recognizing the interconnectedness of humanity.

You can find Mycopreneur at:
https://instagram.com/mycopreneurpodcast
https://x.com/mycopreneur
https://www.tiktok.com/@mycopreneurpodcast

Transcript

[00:00:22] raadseraj: Today my guest is Dennis Walker, otherwise known as the viral sensation Mycropreneur. Dennis has been a multimedia professional for over a decade and is currently a satirist and journalist. He was named the Psychedelic Influencer of the Year at the 2022 Entheo Awards and has been featured in Rolling Stone and Forbes. Mycropreneur has been published in several publications including Psychedelic Alpha, Psychedelics Today, Honeysuckle Mag, Global Cannabis Times, Psychedelic Spotlight, and NAMA Quarterly. He's the chief puppeteer at the Psychedelic Puppet Show and has traveled to 75 countries. 

[00:00:51] raadseraj: Dennis, thank you so much for joining us. 

[00:00:53] mycopreneur: It's an honor to be here.

[00:00:55] mycopreneur: Thanks for the invitation. Hello, everybody. Bing bong boomers. Let's go. 

[00:00:59] raadseraj: Awesome. Okay. So my first and obvious question is why a Speedo? What are you trying to say about the Speedo? I feel like a Speedo evokes very strong feelings in people, especially for me. I find Speedos to be extremely uncomfortable and evocative of a certain personality type.

[00:01:15] raadseraj: So why did you put a Speedo on? 

[00:01:17] mycopreneur: It's a hilarious story and it stems from me visiting Rio de Janeiro. And of course in Rio, they have very different socio cultural codes and personal space bubbles and people wear Speedos and Brazilian women are known for wearing, very different styles of attire, let's say, than what you might see in somewhere like the Middle East or other parts of the world.

[00:01:39] mycopreneur: And I was there on the beach in Rio, didn't have a swimsuit. I went to buy one and there were speedos and there's something that was very cosmopolitan and international and just freeing about being there and I come from a conservative background where I would have been laughed at and, I still am laughed at and I'm okay wearing a speedo, but there was something very freeing and liberalizing about that, that Oh, this is me in another part of the world.

[00:02:03] mycopreneur: And I get to do this and fully express myself. And then that's what it comes down to too. It's about finding a way to fully authentically express yourself. And for me, that happens to come in the form of wearing a Speedo and running around executing on a bunch of crazy antics. 

[00:02:18] raadseraj: I love that. I knew that it would have an interesting response every time.

[00:02:21] raadseraj: We'll come back to the Speedo in a second. I want to know, you describe yourself as a satirist. Now, I think different people, depending on how they experience humor, I think a lot of us experience humor nowadays in stand up comedy and so forth, in the form of being funny or having funny friends around them.

[00:02:35] raadseraj: But I think satire is a particular kind of art form. It has a long history. But it's also maybe misunderstood. To me, at least, satire is that jester who gets to stand in court, poke fun at the king, and not get executed. Because the king thinks he's making fun or he or she is making fun of not them, but someone else, but really they are being like the true renegade in the public public square.

[00:02:59] raadseraj: What is a satire to you and how do you think it's different from other kinds of, let's say, comic or comedy or humor or whatever? 

[00:03:08] mycopreneur: Great question. There's a moral component to it, is what I like to say. I think that satire inherently has, A moral component to it where you're offering a critique or an analysis and some social commentary typically targeted at power structures and punching up.

[00:03:24] mycopreneur: I think that there's a element of punching up, if you will, that good satire is often targeted at ignorance, at abuses of power, things like that. And I look at characters like Ali G and of course, Sasha Baron Cohen. I'm a huge fan of his. And the last Borat movie where he absolutely satirizes Rudy Giuliani, in the most incredible way.

[00:03:46] mycopreneur: And probably some people are familiar with that. But that's what I think distinguishes satire is that it's punching up and it's offering some kind of social commentary that is essentially a morality tale. And I come from a very Christian background. And that's actually, as where I started my puppeteering career years ago.

[00:04:04] mycopreneur: And those were little morality tales. And it's the same. If you look at the Christian faith, if you look at the Jewish faith and you look at Islam and both of us have lived in Saudi Arabia, there's usually pair of parables, right? There's these little stories that are essentially a way of offering a moral compass to how the society should be guided.

[00:04:22] mycopreneur: I think at its best, that's what religion can do is it can offer parables that can help to frame and guide a society through all of the challenging situations that arise. 

[00:04:32] mycopreneur: I think that part about punching up is really important, right? Often I think comedy, at least again, in the mainstream side of things, in terms of how we experience comedy as stand up comedians and so on, and then, they get in comedians get in trouble, right?

[00:04:46] mycopreneur: Because they're like, oh, you're poking fun, you're dehumanizing, or you're minimizing others and so on. I think that is an interesting and very astute observation in terms of what sets apart good satire and good comedy in my mind from bad comedy, which is I find in a way maybe lazy, it could be funny, and honestly I have laughed at these things.

[00:05:06] mycopreneur: Is the fact that good comedy and satire punches up versus punching down. Can you talk a little bit more about why that's important and what does that mean? One being practiced. 

[00:05:15] mycopreneur: Yeah. I think that there are a lot of skewed power dynamics in the world. This goes without saying, but we see that mapped onto everything now, and we see a lot of issues with people having communication between different sociocultural groups and ethnic groups and classes, social classes.

[00:05:32] mycopreneur: At the end of the day, there's a lot of skewed power dynamics, and I think that satire offers a way. to point some of these things out and make ironic statements. That's the very definition of satire is that it's an intentional. egregious exaggeration of the truth. And in doing that you are essentially holding up a microscope or holding up a lens to whatever you're examining and scrutinizing.

[00:05:59] mycopreneur: And I happen to find there's a lot of issues with Ultra wealthy sort of power concentrations and I don't have a problem at all with somebody having money. I think that's great I think it's this idea of like Really drastic class inequality and I find myself One of the underdogs.

[00:06:16] mycopreneur: I am in a very fortunate position, but I feel a great sense of affinity and have grown up around a lot of underdogs. I grew up with a lot of foreign exchange students, which I think set the setting for a lot of this. I had exchange students from Venezuela, from Ghana, many from the former Soviet Union, and some of my closest friends have described Yeah, we grew up and never knew when we were going to have running water and we didn't have power.

[00:06:38] mycopreneur: And then our whole civilization just collapsed around us. I was 13 years old and the Soviet Union fell and all of a sudden I couldn't get money from my bank anymore. And there was a line around the block just to try to get a loaf of bread. And like in the 90s in the United States growing up in a really middle class suburban enclave.

[00:06:54] mycopreneur: It was just fascinating to build these rapport and kinships with these people who came from drastically different backgrounds. And I think that factored into a sense of wanting to see a more equitable and a fairer world. And I've taught high school before, which was an equity project. It was at high tech high, meaning that I want to say 80% of the students came from socioeconomically disempowered and disenfranchised.

[00:07:18] mycopreneur: Households, low income, et cetera. So I was around a lot of these people who would be like, yeah, we got 12 people in a one bedroom apartment and it's really powerful and humbling to hear that stuff when you're like, man, I have a pretty good life. Like I've never had to think about these things. So I think that some of those perspectives and my experience growing up around a lot of these communities and being active in a church community that did a lot of outreach, a lot of projects in Mexico, a lot of partnerships with orphanages and things like that.

[00:07:44] mycopreneur: That makes me have an inherent mistrust and skepticism about concentrations of power and wealth and say, okay, if you're in it, great, but don't pretend like you're born on third base. And you hit a home run, right? As they say. 

[00:07:59] raadseraj: No, I love that. And I definitely want to come back to this framing of the world and having a constant reminder of how fortunate we are.

[00:08:08] raadseraj: Not only that, but then these power structures are everywhere. particularly in concentration of wealth. And now I think that wealth concentration and inequality is something that all human civilizations through time have probably experienced. I don't think this is one, yes, Western Europeans colonized and white people still have the upper hand, but also, slavery and colonization is an ongoing process, in my mind.

[00:08:32] raadseraj: It never stops. So if we are to actually change the future, we have to acknowledge the past. There's a lot to say about that, but I think let's put a pin on that for one second because I do want to first understand your upbringing. Now you said you grew up Christian and you mentioned going to church.

[00:08:47] raadseraj: This is a part of Dennis Walker that I think a lot of people in our community does, do not know yet. And I have the privilege of hosting you on my podcast and now I get to interrogate you for a change. Tell us a little bit about the set and setting of young Dennis Walker. What was your family like?

[00:09:03] raadseraj: What set and setting did you grow up? I think you grew up in the Bay Area. Is that right? 

[00:09:07] mycopreneur: So I grew up in San Diego, California, and then moved to the Bay Area to San Francisco for college. And I was deeply and still am deeply connected to the Christian faith and the church. It wasn't just a, we go to church.

[00:09:20] mycopreneur: My mother's father was a pastor and planted churches as they call it. And that was his whole career. And he had robust relationships all around the world. And in many ways, I think my gift of gab and my showman element comes from that growing up, seeing him on stage. building communities. And he was widely respected and would do church swaps where he'd go over to Japan or to Scotland or different places.

[00:09:44] mycopreneur: So that's, again, I think that there's a tendency for people to think that Christians have a closed mindset, but I would argue that, that's a blanket statement. I've met plenty of people, my grandfather included, who were raised in the Christian faith, but it was very open to other religions.

[00:09:57] mycopreneur: He was very open to visiting. The Middle East and, learning about other cultures. And I think that's something that has transferred on to me as well. That like we have our little wheelhouse, we have our understanding of the world and the values that we cherish, but that doesn't mean that we have to shut other people down.

[00:10:12] mycopreneur: We can listen, we can foster empathy. So there's a sense of diplomacy there. So yeah, grew up in the church. We'd host Bible splashes at my house where the youth group and the church services. would essentially come over and jump in the pool and do a Bible study. And that was like a huge part of my upbringing, being very entrenched.

[00:10:32] mycopreneur: And, Sundays at church, but also when day Wednesdays, but also my mom would volunteer with the homeless shelter. And that's what it's always been called. You could call it the people without houses shelter, but it's always been referred to in my world as the homeless shelter. People would come and stay and it was an interfaith network, which means that they would stay at a Christian church and then they might go stay at a synagogue that was part of it.

[00:10:52] mycopreneur: So again, it's this idea of. Putting aside whatever cultural and ecumenical differences you have and looking at the bigger picture of how can we be of service to people? How can we tangibly impact in a meaningful and positive way someone's life even if they can never repay us? And I think that's another super important thing that I learned and that I think differentiates like People who wear their religion on their sleeve and this idea of the Bible belt, close minded Baptist Christian or whatever versus people who are truly of service to others.

[00:11:21] mycopreneur: And you say, okay, maybe you can never repay me. Maybe you will never convert to my faith or whatever, but I can still be a good person to you and I can help you when you need a hand. And I think we've Unfortunately lost that in a lot of ways and a lot of these narratives about what makes us different are amplified and there's a lot of siloing off right and a lot of like disagreement but it really just to me that comes down to a lot of semantics it's like how can and again we can get into this but I lived in Saudi Arabia and I saw both of that from the other side I saw Muslims who very forcibly wanted to convert me and you know were unabashed and saying that I would go to hell unless I was a Muslim And then I saw other Muslims who were just really kind and nice people.

[00:12:00] mycopreneur: And I would pray with them, and I'd even go to mosque with them sometimes. And I felt that's who I want to be as a person. And that transfers over to like, how I try to approach psychedelics. Because I don't want to try to be an evangelist and say everybody needs to do these right now. How can I live my life in a way that touches other people, that they're excited, and maybe they want to learn, and maybe it's a good fit for them to explore these things.

[00:12:21] raadseraj: You sound very much at peace now, but I'm wondering growing up and seeing perhaps the other side, did you ever feel a sense of tension between what other people were saying or how they were practicing, and of course, I mean that in a way that like, teen years, especially as men, there's a lot of confusion about how do you impose yourself on the world? versus what you learned. A lot of it is conditioning and so on. It's a lot of misdirected anger. Did you ever feel a sense of tension or conflict between your version of God or experiencing religion growing up versus what what you're experiencing at that time being a teenager?

[00:13:02] mycopreneur: It took me a while to frame all of this thinking, and the initial reaction I have is that I was just a participant. I don't think like I was ever actively trying to force my views on anyone else. I was just, that's what you did. I grew up going to church. I grew up in that environment and I went through the motions and followed along and of course had my own personal connection to the faith, but then my teenage years.

[00:13:26] mycopreneur: Of course, I started to rebel and I think a lot of people go through this if you're raised in a fundamentalist or Christian or whatever it is worldview and then you have an experience that challenges that worldview. Of course, you're going to rebel. So I definitely went through a period where I just rebelled against a lot of these things and you develop a disdain for a lot of these semantics that I discuss.

[00:13:46] mycopreneur: You develop a sort of. Disdain for the church and the rules and the dogma, that's what got to me. I was like, you see these churches that focus so much on dogma that it becomes hard to relate to them. And I think that's part of the crisis of identity that's happening with a lot of. religions today is that like the dogma gets in the way of the actual spiritual growth and the actual connection and opportunity.

[00:14:11] mycopreneur: And for example, when I moved to San Francisco, I didn't go to church at all. And then I went to a church service one day that was at a place called glide and they were the first church I'd ever seen that was openly welcoming of LGBTQ communities. And that was openly welcome, welcoming of a lot of.

[00:14:28] mycopreneur: Homeless communities and things like that. Like we had our structured programs, we had the shelter, but that was almost like a different project than like the actual church body and the members of the church. So just like that experience opened me up to saying Christianity or Islam or Judaism doesn't necessarily have to have one definition and one super strict set of values.

[00:14:47] mycopreneur: There are ways to ameliorate the humanity side of who we are and to know, like I break a lot of the, Commandments essentially like I am not a really great sterling representation of a what I would call a Christian person, but I aspire to be someone who is of service to others and who helps others.

[00:15:06] mycopreneur: So it took me a long time to frame it, but I think we're also seeing this, that people are now trying to reconnect with their roots and with their faiths because you phase out of the church or whatever it is you're doing. And then you're lost, and like you try it, you do, I think they call it the spiritual supermarket.

[00:15:22] mycopreneur: And I think honestly, that's where a lot of like Americans, United States citizens, specifically coming from backgrounds from like Christian and backgrounds of faith, they leave the church. And then you're just like a cork bobbing on the sea and you lose your roots. And that's potentially very dangerous.

[00:15:37] mycopreneur: So is there a way to go out almost like the prodigal son, if you will? And then to return and to say, okay, maybe we can change and evolve this a little bit. And obviously I'm still figuring it out. I'm still thinking I don't actively go to church, but I do think that a lot of those values and a lot of the aspirations of a body of faith and a community of faith are very noble and that in the absence of those, there's a lot more harm that's done and a lot more confusion.

[00:16:03] mycopreneur: So I think that. There is going to be more people going back to what we're seeing in like psychedelic religion, psychedelic Judaism, psychedelic Islam was a track there at psychedelic science. We went to, and there's Christianity too. There's a number of faith based communities. Alex Beiner just wrote about this in a book that came out, which the name is escaping me, but I learned a lot about like very like Hugh Hunt priest, I think is his name in the legare community.

[00:16:27] mycopreneur: And I was like, I've been a Christian and a psychonaut, not for years. And I didn't know any other. faith based communities that we're accepting of psychedelics until now. I like that. 

[00:16:38] raadseraj: I like that image quite a lot. A cork bobbing on the sea. I think the spiritual supermarket is not just a Western industrial problem.

[00:16:46] raadseraj: I think it's a global problem. I think, in our pursuit of just materialistic ways of thinking or pursuits, we've wholesale discounted the power of faith, but also there's a confusion here, right? Between religion, which is to me is the political sort of the hierarchical structural part of faith or like, how do you bring masses of people together and get them to conform in a particular practice or so?

[00:17:09] raadseraj: And the difference between, so the difference between that and faith and spirit, right? When I look at, when I think of a underprivileged or a poor farmer in Bangladesh or India, when they go to sleep, going hungry, and they pray and put their hands up to the sky and go God, just give me another meal so I can feed my family, or something like that.

[00:17:28] raadseraj: That is faith. That's not religion. That is something that is universal. That is something that, as human beings, we notice that there's, that, or we want to believe that there's something beyond us. That's something that can help us something and someone up there or out there is listening to our deepest fears, to their deepest aspirations and so on.

[00:17:47] raadseraj: That is not the same as religion. Religion can encapsulate faith, but it's not the same thing. But I think, we threw out the baby with the bathwater, right? We said no to religion and this sort of dogma, but we left this huge void in people and communities. And the danger, to your point, is that...

[00:18:04] raadseraj: Nothing can exist in a vacuum, and something else will come along and hijack that, right? All, I think, cults, all, let's say, whether it's like cults in California or terror cells or whatever, all provide some sense of security and community. That's where they form first. And so it does fill a void.

[00:18:24] raadseraj: So I think the point you're making is really... I look at the sound healers and some of the communities coming up in Saudi now on Instagram. I'm like, you guys look the same as the hipster in Brooklyn. Why is that? Islam has a lot to offer. Inner contemplation, contemplative practices are different in all parts of the world.

[00:18:43] raadseraj: And yet we've shipped this one idea and image of what a healer looks like. And usually they're, anyway, I have lots and lots to say about that, but we'll get to that. And I'm sure you can relate to that. Absolutely, same. Same. So that's really wonderful. Let's talk about a little bit about your once you went to Cali San Francisco, you moved there, you started, you went to that church, you had this experience.

[00:19:04] raadseraj: Where did that part about spending a lot of time with exchange students happen? Was that your time in San Francisco? 

[00:19:12] mycopreneur: No. So that was ever since I was six years old, we hosted foreign exchange students for six months to a year at a time and sometimes would have four of them living with us. So like it was a very international house.

[00:19:23] mycopreneur: We had students from probably around 20 countries from almost every continent and you get to build a really deep rapport and connection with them. Because this was in the 90s, like 96 was the first time and they did not have cell phones or we had a dial up internet modem. And so there was this idea of immersion.

[00:19:42] mycopreneur: And it was very different back in my day. People didn't have phones. So they would come and then fully Americanize, I guess is one term for it, or like fully become a United States student, essentially, and they would teach me things. And a lot of times unintentionally, just for example, the student from Ghana, like he, he came and I didn't know anything about the realities of life and an African mega metropolis.

[00:20:07] mycopreneur: And we took him to our elementary school as we always did. He was 15 at the time he would come and do a show and tell and talk to the class. And there were Kids in sixth grade who were asking him if he'd hunted a lion before or if he wore a lot, a loincloth, right? And this guy's yeah, I live in a high rise apartment.

[00:20:24] mycopreneur: My dad owns a lumber factory. It's a huge city, but it just shows at that time, like the cultural differences. So it was really jarring and radical to grow up in that environment. A number of students from Brazil. Many from the former Soviet Union for places like Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Georgia.

[00:20:40] mycopreneur: I remember so many people having to explain that Georgia was also a country, not just a state. You'd be like, here's our exchange student from Georgia. They'd be like, Oh great. I love hunting. My grandpa has a hunting ranch in Georgia or whatever. It's a former Soviet Union. I've never heard of the Soviet Union, but like obviously I think the world's quite a bit more globalized and people hopefully are more aware of what's going on.

[00:21:01] mycopreneur: But being around that energy and having their families visit at the end of the term and then in many cases being fortunate enough to go stay with them and visit them. I think that globalized my thinking at a very young age. And it also inevitably caused me to question a lot of the narratives that I was learning, right?

[00:21:17] mycopreneur: About, there was this narrative that Especially in the nineties, it was like a golden prosperous era for the United States. Like a lot of the challenges we're seeing now, at least in my community and like people I knew that wasn't really a thing. There was like, the steroid era, like Major League Baseball, home runs, McDonald's and all the exchange students reinforce that cultural conditioning.

[00:21:38] mycopreneur: When they would come from a place like Venezuela or from Malaysia or whatever, and they'd be like, this is the greatest place ever. United States is amazing. And of course that was very interesting to see and to see where we are now. We're like, that's not really the consensus opinion among a lot of people.

[00:21:55] mycopreneur: Now there's a lot of, for good reason, critique against the United States and against the way the systems are set up. But like in the nineties, I just remember having my head cracked up and being like, Everyone in my San Diego suburban community is living, very high on the hog, very comfortable and affluent lifestyles.

[00:22:12] mycopreneur: These other people are coming and telling me about how they didn't have water for three days or you know their currency got devalued and they had to take their like one student I had literally their banking manager the bank ran off with all the family money and I was like that was an Inconceivable notion to me to be like, what do you mean?

[00:22:29] mycopreneur: Like banks are they keep money safe? That's where you know Why didn't you just sell the house? It's no one was going to buy it. The whole market collapse. And like for a 10 year old or 11 year old, these are inconceivable concepts to hear about. And I've been very fortunate to travel a lot, as you mentioned and see the world.

[00:22:44] mycopreneur: And I hope to continue to do that. And I hope to function essentially as a citizen diplomat, as someone who can build bridges between people with vastly different backgrounds. I think humor is great for that. That's another thing I've learned. Communicating with people who had a language barrier. A lot of times when the exchange students would come, their English maybe wasn't that great.

[00:23:03] mycopreneur: It was like they could communicate, but I realized like a lot of body motion, body language and learning how to communicate with someone. And I realized like the humor and the stuff that I do now has a very Like bodily component to it, like running around in the speedo or like doing a funny monkey walk and the video I'm doing today and people from other cultures who don't always have great language skill or English skills will tell me, I love your videos.

[00:23:27] mycopreneur: You're hilarious. And I think that is something I internalized from learning how to communicate, including in Saudi Arabia, hanging out with people's cousins and I would get dropped off and they'd be like, Oh, my cousin's going to take you out today. They don't speak a word of English. My Arabic is.

[00:23:41] mycopreneur: Pretty bad. So how do you communicate? You find a way to be funny. You find a way. That's a Language that transcends our ability to culturally validate what each other are saying. 

[00:23:50] raadseraj: Totally. I think humor is You know, it's humor is one thing that not only transcends Language, I think it transcends class which is really Important, like I so when I came to Canada about 20 years ago now, which is crazy to even say out loud I was like this brown kid who is for Bangladesh grew up in Saudi for most of the time.

[00:24:09] raadseraj: My, my sense of North American or Western culture was all from movies. I watched and in Saudi at that time, I don't know what yours were in Saudi again, 2012 and 13. So a little, a more modern than the time I grew up in. I grew up from 1986 to 2000 And even near the late 90s, I had just gotten dial up in 98, I believe, but we still didn't have satellite TV until a lot later.

[00:24:35] raadseraj: So all the shows and everything we watched was really from just trafficking, VHS tapes from Bangladesh. There were like, bootleg videos of movies watching in the halls and so on. But what I'm trying to get at is, I didn't really grow up with the notion of how to interact with people from the West.

[00:24:53] raadseraj: And when I came here... It was a bit awkward. I won't like, because I, on one hand, I like to put myself in uncomfortable positions where I would just want to go hang out with anybody, wherever. On the other hand, I don't really have a lot of pop culture references. Everybody could quote Simpsons and Seinfeld.

[00:25:07] raadseraj: I don't like Seinfeld. I'm probably one of those rare people who fucking hate Seinfeld. I don't understand it. I don't get it. I don't know why it exists. But everybody's quoting Seinfeld and Simpsons. But, as soon as we got to humor and sort of music in particular, like I, I had this memory of being on tour with Finger Eleven and it was one night they had Cyndi Lauper playing in the tour bus and I was this awkward kid quite the whole time, but then I started belting Cyndi Lauper because I loved Cyndi Lauper and I was drunk and then I got all the entire bus to sing along with me.

[00:25:35] raadseraj: That was like a huge realization to me. It's like this is something that transcends, I grew up from a lower income, Family, but everyone knows how to be funny. Everyone knows how to laugh. Everyone knows how to everyone knows how to sing. And rejoice and find community and hang out with others and so on.

[00:25:50] raadseraj: That was a huge thing for me. So I completely agree with you. I think there's so many different ways of getting to know people and to show them who you are and to be authentic. And perhaps we rely too much on spoken language to show people who we are. I want to, before we go to the next sort of the next topic, there is one thing I want to poke into a little bit, as your sense of self, as your relationship to religion, to faith, to dogma, and as you were exposed to all these different cultures around the world, as that evolved, how did that sit with your relationship with your parents?

[00:26:27] raadseraj: Now, you're from a very Christian family, I'm not sure if your mom and dad are still around.

[00:26:31] mycopreneur: Yeah, they're still around and they're doing great and it's been a challenge because I think they don't necessarily understand, especially my preoccupation or excitement around psychedelics in particular. And so I think, with the exchange students, that was one thing, but it was very much like.

[00:26:48] mycopreneur: We were teaching them how to be a part of the United States and like I would inevitably learn things. There was an exchange that happened, but it was very much like a process of acculturation where they would come. We'd take them to church and I don't want to burn my parents, but I will say that there was a sense of like American superiority of this is the pinnacle.

[00:27:07] mycopreneur: And honestly, like that's the way we were programmed. That was, I think. The way, at least where I was from, there was the sense of American exceptionalism and there still is, and there are political candidates who play into that and who draw from that fan base or that, that constituent base. So seeing that happen there, there was a sense of, yeah, we do live in the best place.

[00:27:27] mycopreneur: Like none of that stuff that happened in your country is going to happen in my country. Wow. We're starting to see a lot more social tension here, right? And a lot more awareness. I think a big part of it is just becoming more aware, right? Of what's happening. It was very easy to be ignorant of a lot of things.

[00:27:42] mycopreneur: If you were born into a certain socioeconomic status in the nineties, and to be honest, it probably still is pretty easy to remain ignorant if you choose to. But really, I think it was the psychedelics that. Open my mind, and my first psychedelic experience was actually cannabis, which is interesting, and that I had a full on vision, visionary psychoactive experience on cannabis when I was 17 or so seeing patterns dancing and seeing people in my life appear before me and, uncontrollable hysterical laughing.

[00:28:12] mycopreneur: And after that, of course, I started going down the rabbit hole, started reading a lot, started associating with more peers who are interested in these kinds of things, and started just wanting to know what else was out there. My, I like to say the roof of my imagination was blown off. I couldn't believe that my mind and my body, et cetera, were capable of this type of experience.

[00:28:33] mycopreneur: And it immediately tied into this idea of an ecstatic religious experience. I'd grown up deeply immersed, as I mentioned, in church. Hearing about things like prayer and about sacraments, going up and taking the Holy communion. But this was the first time I ever really had what I would call a transcendental experience.

[00:28:50] mycopreneur: So I started Googling, going down rabbit holes. This was around 2006 2007 reading about like appearances of the cannabis plant and the Bible and like the region of Canada and the historical uses that got me really interested. There is a very interesting corollary, or like a connection between Religion and psychedelic use or entheogen use or sacrament use.

[00:29:12] mycopreneur: We could call it right. There's a lot of scholars that are studying this increasingly. But for me, it actually ignited my interest and learning more about the sacred text. It went from being this thing I do on the weekends and it's part of my family to something that was, I was very personally connected to, to be like, wow, the taking communion, like when I dip the bread and the water, Feels like placebo, but when I eat a couple grams of mushrooms, there's something really profound and potent that happens here.

[00:29:38] mycopreneur: So I also think that's why I became very fascinated with psychedelics and mushrooms in particular at a relatively young age is I had a transcendental cathartic transformational experience that reminded me immediately of everything I had heard about in church, but I'd never honestly experienced up until that point.

[00:29:56] mycopreneur: But yeah, that made it actually a little bit different because I tried to explain that to my parents and as trying to explain this to anyone who doesn't understand it or has not experienced it, you come off like a lunatic, especially when you're 18, like I had a vision and I had this and they're like, are you okay?

[00:30:10] mycopreneur: Do you want to go see like a therapist? And you're like, no, it was the mushroom. The mushrooms gave me visions. And then I learned pretty quickly, like I probably don't need to lead with that. You're like, I'll just figure out how to do this on my own and maybe I'll explain it down the road.

[00:30:23] raadseraj: It's interesting you say that, right? So I had this very, and I want to come back to this profound experience you had. I really want to, if you are willing to share, I want to understand why it was so profound. The meaning behind these things are really always interesting from different perspectives.

[00:30:37] raadseraj: But a quick story from my end, similar to what you just said, is that I happened to be in New York a couple of weeks ago and this is a very rare case that my parents who live in Bangladesh, my sister and brother live in the Us. I happened to be in the US with my wife. And just the rarest of occassions that my entire family happened to be in New York when I was doing a panel where I was invited by psychedelics today at Athaeum this amazing location that you've heard of on Manhattan.

[00:31:04] raadseraj: And it was about psychedelics and these experiences. I spent the entire day being a little nervous. I'm like, should I tell my parents to come or not? I know they know I work with psychedelics. They don't know what psychedelics really are. They just know it's drugs, and of course, they're like, Of course, Raad, you're working with drugs.

[00:31:17] raadseraj: That's the bin they put me in. But, I'm like, I want them to know who I am as a person, and why this is so meaningful for me, and why I feel so passionate about this. I spent the entire day being very anxious. So I was meditating, and it hit me, where I'm like, I think the reason I feel so anxious is that my parents haven't really seen this side of me they haven't really seen who Raad is today, as an adult, as a soon to be 39 year old, and I'm afraid to show them what that is, and I'm like, okay, that's not a good enough reason, I have to push through this. So I did invite them, they came, ended up being a really profound experience, in the sense that I'm talking about these things openly, I'm talking about my own experience openly, without shame, without fear. And my dad sat there, and my mom who wears the hijab, they're both very devout Muslims, and for them to just be open and hear me, and you can see that they find it very challenging, but they're still there.

[00:32:10] raadseraj: So that was really beautiful for me, but it was a very long process. Tell me a little bit, before we switch gears, tell me a little bit why that one experience with psychedelics, what about it? What about the visions? What about the place you were in your life at that time made it so profound.

[00:32:24] mycopreneur: I got really lucky. I think luck is a combination of sweat equity and good luck. And I encountered mushrooms at a very pivotal time in my life where I was preparing to graduate high school and go off to college. And I had a lot of questions of course about Who am I? Like I've been living in San Diego my whole life and I'm about to go and start a whole new chapter in a whole new city.

[00:32:47] mycopreneur: I had never moved houses in my life. I traveled a lot, but nothing like that. And I had a first low dose psychedelic experience with cannabis and then with mushrooms with a small amount and had a euphoric experience. I was always attracted to the eccentric, artistic, oddball types. And those were typically the types of people who had cannabis and mushrooms and lots of other substances. And I had traveled a lot and started reading about mushrooms in different places.

[00:33:12] mycopreneur: I started reading Terrence McKenna. I found out about arrowhead and shout out earth and fire arrowhead. I just got to introduce them at psychedelic science. That was a huge full circle moment for me personally. And so I had that first really meaningful positive experience and we could talk about that.

[00:33:27] mycopreneur: But that was a half a I call it a recreational experience. I wanted to learn more about what happened and why this little. Tiny amount of paper, thin paper, dry mushrooms gave me this spiritual awakening. And that led me to Terrence McKenna, to Jonathan Ott, to Kira Salek, to a number of different writings and reading about different indigenous cultures and historically reading about the Mazatec, reading about Maria Sabina, et cetera.

[00:33:51] mycopreneur: I said, I'm going to go for a full send. I am transitioning out of high school. I feel very comfortable. I did a half eighth, which is 1. 7 grams. And then six or seven months later did an eighth. I didn't go right back to it. And then I said, okay, I want to see what this is all about. I feel very comfortable in this altered state and my few experiences.

[00:34:09] mycopreneur: And I did a macro does solo macro dose and silent darkness and about 30 minutes in 40 minutes and I started seeing translucent hieroglyphics scrolling down the wall of my room. And that was a pivotal moment for me just to say, what the hell is this? This is clearly something I've never seen before and it was intelligent and I think that's what really.

[00:34:33] mycopreneur: Drew me in is the fact that it didn't feel like I was doing a drug, right? Or and I think a lot of people who have had a powerful psychedelic experience can attest to this. Like it felt like I was in the presence of divinity, whatever you want to call that. And I don't try to make too many guesses about exactly how it works or what it was, but the very real fact is I saw a lot of translucent hieroglyphics.

[00:34:54] mycopreneur: that were very real and that were, I was very personally connected to. I couldn't decipher them, but just the fact that I was having this sort of seance that was induced by the consumption of a natural substance, a little handful of mushrooms that was enough to blow the roof off my imagination. That was quite a night because I went to high school the next morning and I remember going to astronomy class and it was like there was me before that experience and me after that experience.

[00:35:19] mycopreneur: There was no discussion of integration. There was no one I could talk to, I tried to share it with people and they would immediately, my peer group would be like, Oh, you were tripping and just, they make fun of you because there's no frame of reference or standard for that kind of experience, especially at that time. And in that community, when I went to San Francisco, I found out there is a big legacy. There's a lot of people who have worked with these that did not exist in my communities in San Diego. And for the longest time, I felt like this raving lunatic where I'd try to share the experience, but I realized So people will come to them when it's their time.

[00:35:49] mycopreneur: Like you can't force someone to have a spiritual awakening. That's a kind of a bad idea. So that's essentially what happened. A whole bunch of other stuff happened that night, but I'm safe to say, I'm happy to say I was safe. I was able to integrate it to the best of my ability. And it really just served to pique my curiosity and my devotion to learning more about mushrooms, more about ancestral cultures who use them and to take it seriously for the first time, right?

[00:36:13] mycopreneur: To be like, Hey, there's really something here. This isn't. It's not necessarily just a party drug that I take, I had friends eat mushrooms and playing beer pong and I'm not against recreational use in safe settings and personal use, but there is obviously a much deeper well that you can draw from and especially as someone who grew up in a community of faith and read the Bible, et cetera, that seemed to all click and all of a sudden it was all aligned for me and I'm still learning what that experience meant.

[00:36:38] raadseraj: Dennis, the more you're sharing your background and experiences in your life, I just. To me, knowing you now, and I discovered you through your work with Mycropreneur, right? Through your persona. The constant thread in your life has become just it's just so obvious to me. I don't believe in fate, but I do feel that there is an arc to all our lives. And we eventually, if your heart and mind is open, It's funny, this is something I would never say out loud, even 10 years ago, but I feel like it is the truth now.

[00:37:05] raadseraj: If your heart and mind is open, you do end up doing what you're supposed to do. At least for the time being, and who knows, life is an adventure and what comes next. 

[00:37:13] raadseraj: I want to switch gears to the person you are now. And the work you're doing through Mycropreneur and everything else.

[00:37:20] raadseraj: Give us a sense of where Mycropreneur started. Why did that happen? I think there was this one video which I think you just decided to do on a whim. And that kind of blew up and you're thrust into the world of psychedelics. And now of course you're like one of the mainstays of this ecosystem. You have a unique lens on this whole space. Give us a little sense of where did Mycropreneur start. 

[00:37:40] mycopreneur: Dude, thanks for asking and thank you for the kind affirmations.

[00:37:43] mycopreneur: It means a lot to me, Raad. I think it's become successful because this is who I've always been, but I was never able to share this. It's really just, it was about deciding to quote, come out of the psychedelic closet. I have a lot of experience I have with psychedelics. I have a degree in media studies as well.

[00:37:59] mycopreneur: And a company that my wife and I have been running for seven years who have worked with major clients. So like it was this perfect nexus of my areas of interest of media, storytelling, production, chops that I've honed over years, a network, a professional network that I've built. And then the missing component was the willingness to speak publicly about psychedelics.

[00:38:18] mycopreneur: And you can attest. I'm still scared of speaking publicly in front of my parents, like I'll go and talk to an auditorium full of people, but that vulnerability is something I think an authenticity that is really key that once I started talking about it and really it came down to one of my Former foreign exchange students, who's a highly respected tenured professor at a major university and academic and award winning author and also someone I turned on to psychedelics years ago that they've played a large transformative role in his life.

[00:38:49] mycopreneur: And we've always kept in touch about, of course, our mutual background, living together and traveling, but then the psychedelic sort of experience that both of us dove into. And he started telling me how he was investing in different shroom stocks, if you will, or psychedelic stocks. And I honestly had no idea about this quote industry as some people call it, you call it an ecosystem until he started telling me and he was saying, look at this company, look at this company, look at this one.

[00:39:15] mycopreneur: He's Hey, I think now would be a really good time if you ever want to start talking about it or like jumping into this space. And this was around 2020 like mid pandemic. So I still consider him on the unofficial board of advisors and someone, I just had breakfast with him in London after breaking convention.

[00:39:31] mycopreneur: And like he has been a huge instrumental presence in this micropreneurial venture. Just that sent that vote of confidence is what it comes down to. If you take a leap of faith, especially something where you go, there's no going back. I'm going to speak publicly about my relationship with psychedelics or whatever it is.

[00:39:48] mycopreneur: There were very real concerns I had about what happens if I apply for a job in the future and all this stuff comes up and like it makes me somehow less worthy. Like I was teaching high school before this, the idea I could speak publicly about psychedelics in 2017 when I had a freshman high school class, impossible.

[00:40:03] mycopreneur: Like I would have definitely run into all kinds of red tape and issues in the community. I was working as a youth pastor in a youth group, a Christian church for a while. And like all the while a fully closeted psychonaut who had just figured out how to live a fairly normal life. But then moonlighting as someone who's taking macro doses and, putting on good headphones and exploring these dissolving of consciousness and whatnot.

[00:40:26] mycopreneur: So that was a huge one. And I had produced podcasts for other people. I just never honestly considered doing my own podcast. But once the seed was planted, it was like, why don't I do that? And I think the pandemic played a huge role in it for so many people too, where a lot of us were. Living these lives and these narratives and psychedelics were part of that.

[00:40:46] mycopreneur: And then the pandemic happened and the whole world got up ended, right? It's like all of a sudden everything changed. And like the way that we lived our normal lives changed. And of course, mental health was severely impacted for a lot of people. I think there is a definite connection between the pandemic and more people wanting to talk about and explore psychedelics.

[00:41:05] mycopreneur: And that became a now or never moment for me where I was like, look, I don't even know what's going on anymore. I was living in Malibu at the time in the, L. A. area and the National Guard was on the streets. It was the Black Lives Matter, the height of that. And we had a pandemic. I was getting phone calls from the L.

[00:41:22] mycopreneur: A. sheriffs about quarantine and, stay inside after 8 p. m. And there just came a moment where I was like, what is going on? Like this world as I knew it has been completely flipped upside down. And people are starting to talk about psychedelics. This is my chance, gotta do it. And I feel like with anything, I would advise people like, come from that place of authenticity.

[00:41:42] mycopreneur: And a lot of times you'll be afraid of what other people are going to think. You'll be afraid of how people are going to judge you. It's it's actually been a really beneficial, cathartic, powerful experience in my own life. To own these experiences and to speak publicly about them, regardless of whatever judgment comes my way from anybody.

[00:41:58] raadseraj: I think it's really well said even for myself during the pandemic is really what prompted me. And of course, like for me, always experiencing growing up at least despite the substances, like first of all, growing up in Saudi where you do not talk about drugs, you get your head chopped off for that, right?

[00:42:15] raadseraj: And then in Bangladesh, my family had a long history, still has a long history of substance abuse, poverty related challenges and so on. And then to talk about psychedelics, which has been deeply meaningful in my life, but to talk about it openly, like you're saying, I'm an immigrant, okay what's that going to play out like? And now doing a podcast, talking about it very openly, choosing to do that... I think it's the fear and having something at stake that makes our vantage points much more valuable.

[00:42:40] raadseraj: If you had nothing to lose, then you have nothing to offer. Is my perspective, right? There's got to be something to lose, which makes conviction really powerful because you have to have a certain strength in your opinion and your position.

[00:42:55] raadseraj: I think satire is really powerful when it comes from the outside. It's an outside view of the inside. You know what I mean? Having one foot out is always a very powerful thing because you don't really buy wholesale anything or any one perspective.

[00:43:07] raadseraj: This particular this ecosystem which has such a wild set of characters, like myself included, nobody really knows what the actual truth is, where it's all going, but we, there's a sense that we're all building it together. All to say, give me a sense of what you think, and, given all your experiences, all your travels in all the countries that you've been to, what role does humor, satire, play in the world of psychedelics right now?

[00:43:36] raadseraj: And I don't call it industry either because I think at best it's a loose association of people doing cool shit. It is not an industry yet. It might be in the future, but right now nobody has an upper hand. 

[00:43:47] mycopreneur: It comes down to being able to build authentic connections with people and this idea of authentic relating.

[00:43:53] mycopreneur: And there's something with humor that's very authentic. That's it's almost ceding your control over the situation. Think of how often you are so frightened or scared or anxious and nervous. And of course, these are all conditions and states. psychedelics are being marketed to help mitigate like psychedelics for anxiety or psychedelics for addiction.

[00:44:13] mycopreneur: But like humor has a very real immediate physiological and psychological benefit. And there's been times when I've just been so frustrated about whatever it is. You can't help but laugh at it. And it's, and I say, it's like having an invincible shield from the sky. If you cultivate a robust sense of humor.

[00:44:30] mycopreneur: Also having met a lot of Pretty socioeconomically disenfranchised people who have great senses of humor and they're happy. And you're like, why is it that these high net worth individuals they may have met or kids born into with trust funds have this high degree of ennui of they constantly trying to fill some hole or some void.

[00:44:49] mycopreneur: And I went to school at university of San Francisco, which I actually played baseball there. So got in the back door and got some hookups financial aid. But I was there with a lot of very wealthy kids. Who had a lot of substance use issues. Okay. And I think this is a hot bun subject about how you frame substance use, but like when a kid with hundreds of thousands of dollars in their account is moving into a shitty little apartment and shooting up heroin, I think that's an issue, and and just not answering phone calls.

[00:45:16] mycopreneur: And I was seeing this kind of behavior and being like, What is wrong with people? Like you have everything, you have cars, houses, hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in the bank account and you're drinking yourself into a blackout state or you're doing so much cocaine, you're getting pulled out of the dorms on a stretcher.

[00:45:31] mycopreneur: And that shit was happening. So when I meet other people who are like, they've got, 12 people in a one bedroom apartment and they're eating rice and beans. But they're hilarious and they're all laughing. There's something really powerful there to be like, wow, it's saying Hey, I don't have a control over a lot of things.

[00:45:49] mycopreneur: I didn't control where I was born, but I can control how I respond to situations. And I also think there's a heavy tie in there with psychedelics too. I think there's a sense. for people to suffer their own suffering as a saying or like to almost romanticize the sense of trauma where it's great, we should focus on that.

[00:46:06] mycopreneur: Like we can, I do believe psychedelics can be used as a very therapeutic tool, but maybe there are other protocols or things that you can develop that can also be really beneficial. And I've encountered that a lot where I don't use psychedelics necessarily for explicitly like to address an indication.

[00:46:23] mycopreneur: Like I use them for other purposes. And a lot of times. I've gotten a sense of humor out of it, a sense of wow, that was a hilarious experience. Like that thing that was such a huge deal at the time that was so frustrating and maybe I held onto it for years. Like now I'm able to laugh about it. I have power over that.

[00:46:40] mycopreneur: It's powerless against me, whatever that trauma is. 

[00:46:43] raadseraj: As you're talking, I was thinking like people take you seriously and I take you seriously because of the very fact that you don't take yourself seriously. All we have is control over how we react and how we respond to things. But beyond that, what really can we control? Nothing, really. I feel like being able to laugh at yourself and having humility is almost like a sort of religious experience in itself, in the sense that you recognize how small you are, how insignificant you are.

[00:47:08] raadseraj: And we all need that, particularly in psychedelics, I think, in this space where there's so much grandiosity and, these crazy claims. I have two more questions for you. But before I ask you the last question... You said humor binds people, and I do agree with you. What else do you think ties us together? 

[00:47:24] mycopreneur: I think a sense of family is really important. Like you can see no matter where you're from, like in most cases, family is super, super important. And I wish we had more of that culture in the United States.

[00:47:37] mycopreneur: There's this sense of you're 18, you move out, you start your own life in a new city. And then I spent a lot of time in other cultures where the families are multi generational and they're living around each other and everyone's. Like I went to a standup comedy show and performed in Singapore and there were some Indian comics and they were like, you white people, they're like you'd never get to understand what it's like to have Indian cousins.

[00:47:59] mycopreneur: Like we go everywhere with our cousins. They know everything we do. You white people, call your cousins and see them on Christmas. And I was like, that's true. I've hung out with my one cousin. I have. Maybe 20 times in my life and so I think it's really refreshing to see these like really connected and entrenched families that are all part of working towards the same systems.

[00:48:18] mycopreneur: And so that's one thing I immediately noticed is like family binds us and you can also choose to connect your family. Like maybe you're not born by blood, but there's plenty of people where you go and they say, you're family now. And I think that's one of the best things my family ever did was to bring in the exchange and say, You're a family now.

[00:48:35] mycopreneur: And like to my parents credit, like they are tremendously helpful to a lot of people when they need help. And Hey, our friend over here, our son, they'll even call him. And then those people will reciprocate and say, you're my mother. Like I've got people in Cape Verde, like a little Island off the coast of Africa and they call and go, how are you doing mom?

[00:48:53] mycopreneur: That's such a special thing. It's something I'm very proud of. To be my parents, took in a lot of people and it's reciprocated. And now when I go over to wherever it is, I can call them like Ukraine. I went to Ukraine in 2012 and stayed with people and they rolled out the red carpet. They were, they picked me up at the train station and took me out and didn't speak a lick of English.

[00:49:12] mycopreneur: These were extended family of the exchange students we had, but your family. So I think that's super important. And I just, one of my parting shots before we get to the last question is I wish that people would extend more empathy to other people and to assume benevolence. Of course there's bad actors.

[00:49:29] mycopreneur: Of course people should be called out. But I think there's this sense we've been conditioned to mistrust people and to say like that ethnic group or that person or whatever. I don't trust them. Why? Like why not? Because you've been conditioned that way. So I just think that. Assume benevolence.

[00:49:44] mycopreneur: And if so, and I also say fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, and when you approach the world from that perspective, like I've made great friends from somebody I just said hello to at dinner, just Hey, you start chatting with them. Next thing lifelong friends.

[00:49:57] mycopreneur: And if you can approach the world from that lens that like, These other people are not your enemy. They're not hostile. And maybe it's a misunderstanding if you do have some kind of problem. And I'm speaking obviously from my own experience here, but that's how I approach and I've gotten better at reading that.

[00:50:11] mycopreneur: And it's helped me navigate whatever psychedelic ecosystem we're into and dealing with companies. It's just okay, I want to work with you and best interests and let's go forward, but it should be a two way street, there should be some reciprocity and that you value me and I value you and we trust each other because I think you had said it.

[00:50:28] mycopreneur: Someone else said it. Trust is currency in this ecosystem. Trust is currency, right? If you're building something like I know Michael Purnoor is going to pop off indefinitely because I extend that courtesy and grace to everybody I meet and last thought I'll offer here. I think her name is Paula Kahn and she runs plural productions and does a lot of harm reduction education.

[00:50:48] mycopreneur: We were at South by Southwest this year and I saw her walking and talking with the janitor that everybody had walked past. Everybody had walked past this person with the trash can who clearly wasn't a member of the tech elite or whatever without saying anything. And I saw Paula go up and talk to this person, ask them how their day was going.

[00:51:05] mycopreneur: And I was like, I want to work with you. I want to build with you because that's how I want to treat people. I love that. 

[00:51:09] raadseraj: The true test of character is how you treat others, and particularly those who have less than you, those who have less stature than you, and so on. I think that's really important.

[00:51:17] raadseraj: I'm glad you mentioned that. Assuming benevolence, that's a great segue to my last question, which is, you're deeply embedded in the world of psychedelics, this ecosystem, industry, call it whatever you want. What are your fears about this space? But conversely, what gives you hope?

[00:51:34] mycopreneur: Whoo! Ending on a tough one right there. I don't think I have too many fears about where things are headed because I do believe that a lot of it is out of our control. As you say, no, it's another friend who says it, life is what happens when you're busy making plans. I think there's a whole bunch of people making a whole bunch of plans around psychedelics right now.

[00:51:52] mycopreneur: And I think that's where the humility comes in. It's just I don't know what's gonna happen. I know I can control today. I know I can make someone laugh today and contribute that. That's great. And that's why I like to stack my chips. That sense of, we do not know what tomorrow brings. No matter how many quarters ahead you plan for and projections, it's totally up in the air.

[00:52:10] mycopreneur: You can do certain things to streamline your plans or whatever, have a good strategy and team and all that. But, life is what happens while you're making plans. I don't really spend too much time thinking about the future. I spend time... Thinking about how I can be of service to people. And whenever I get off track and something feels burdensome, it's usually because I've neglected being of service to someone else.

[00:52:29] mycopreneur: And to that point, I think building one on one relationships is where it's at, especially with content and like me making content and having a social influence, there's this tendency to be like, I need to get a million views. I need to get this. I need to get that. It's that is not what I'm doing.

[00:52:43] mycopreneur: I'm in this to build connections with people, to be of service to people. And as long as you take it from those optics, like you're going to do just fine. So that's what gives me hope. There are a lot of really valuable contributions to the space. There are a lot of amazing people doing independent work.

[00:52:58] mycopreneur: And that's the last part I guess I'll end on as I emphasize the importance of try to take as much control as you can over your project. I have come from a place where I've been let go from my teaching positions or my wife had cancer and we lost our health insurance and like what a rocky road, those kinds of times.

[00:53:15] mycopreneur: So now that I do have a platform that is largely under my control, like that is a really special place to be. And it's also what emboldens me to quote, speak truth to power or say things other people don't want to say. Cause I understand a lot of people are afraid of how their sponsors or their, corporate boss or whatever are going to react.

[00:53:33] mycopreneur: If they have a certain opinion, we need more people who are willing to speak authentically and speak their mind. And we need less people walking on eggshells. And I think due diligence is important. Having good awareness is important and having open lines of communication are important. And I'd like to think I have all those three.

[00:53:51] mycopreneur: So am I doing everything right? Definitely not. But I also know it's an ongoing iterative process and that I'm fully invested in it and that I'm fully open to criticism and critique and for people laughing at me. 

[00:54:03] raadseraj: Dennis, I think you're that rare individual who is willing to point the fingers at yourself as often as others, but always with love.

[00:54:11] raadseraj: And I really appreciate that about you. Thank you for all the work you're doing. I thoroughly enjoy what you've built and I think the future is very bright for where you're heading. Thank you for being on the podcast. And I appreciate it. Good luck with everything. 

[00:54:22] mycopreneur: Dude, huge honor. And thanks to everybody for listening. I really appreciate all of you. 

[00:54:26] 

[00:54:51]