This is giving business trips a whole new meaning.
People are turning to psilocybin to help them climb the career ladder — and making a vacation of it by attending cushy retreats, sometimes dropping magic mushrooms with coworkers or their bosses in the hopes of doing “conscious business.”
“What people are looking for is to advance their own understanding of self so they can have a greater impact in their business,” Rob Grover, the 45-year-old co-founder of Canadian luxury magic mushroom retreat The Journeymen Collective, told The Post.
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“They’re more passionately and purposefully engaged in their business and as a function of that, profits take care of themselves,” explained Grover, who facilitates mushroom journeys with his husband and co-founder Gary Logan.
And Journeymen’s business is booming — they’ve seen a 183% increase in bookings this year. They hold mushroom journeys for around one to four people at their “boutique luxury resort” in Kelowna for four days or more.
‘Conscious business’
Grover said people leave their retreat “more loving” and are more attuned to how they can help coworkers grow or support them when they are struggling.
“A big part of what we’re called to do is bring people from business to conscious business,” he explained.
Around 60% of their clientele are from the US, 30% are from Canada and 10% are international. Grover said that after leaving their retreat, people can better recognize the genius in themselves and others and “empower individuals in their businesses.”
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Brandon, a Canadian business development director for a commercial construction company who didn’t share his last name, told The Post that before his trip to the Journeymen Collective, he felt “stuck on the corporate treadmill.” Ever since going on a mushroom journey, he gained a newfound appreciation for his work.
“I started seeing my role in business as something I was grateful for, instead of being like, oh I gotta do this to make money,” he said.
In fact, Grover said a lot of his clients are drawn to the retreat because they feel disconnected from their personal life and their work. “People had businesses, but they just didn’t feel fulfilled.”
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Now, Brandon said he interacts with his colleagues in a new way. “I just feel like I’m so much more present with people, and I just see them as a miracle now … it allows me to be of service to them in a different way.”
Mush-Boom
Journeymen isn’t the only psilocybin retreat catering their services to people in the corporate world. MycoMeditations, a Jamaica-based psilocybin retreat, is creating a program just for business leaders, and Costa Rica-based ayahuasca retreat called 1heart, geared toward entrepreneurs and leaders, has reportedly welcomed over 500 professionals for trips, according to Fortune.
Mushrooms have shown promising results as a treatment for depression, anxiety and PTSD and are legal or decriminalized in parts of Canada and the US.
And as psilocybin becomes more accessible, it will become less hush-hush, and fancy retreats may not be the only place people in business can work with psilocybin.
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InnerTrek, Oregon’s state-licensed Center for Psilocybin Services with services starting at $1,000, may introduce an initial group of executives next year in Portland.
“The world of career development for professional and personal development and the intersection of Oregon’s psilocybin therapy program is ready to go,” InnerTrek’s Director of Operations, Nate Howard, 34, told The Post. “There’s a lot of interest.”
Journeyman also hosts psychologists and psychiatrists who want to learn more about the mental health benefits of psychedelics.
An exotic escape
The whole experience at Journeymen resembles a luxury retreat with carefully curated strangers and professionals who participate in their psilocybin journeys can expect greater clarity, empathy, introspection, decisiveness and creativity and innovation.
Grover said on one such trip, a CEO brought his CFO and CMO along and afterward, their “passion and their purpose for their work deepened and as a result, their business expanded,” Grover said.
Beyond ‘shrooms, guests enjoy a menu of mostly vegetarian and organic food designed specifically for those taking part in the journey. Clients also enjoy hikes or a swim in the saltwater pool, hot tub and plunge pool.
“Even something as simple as the beds were designed by us,” Grover told CEO Magazine.
These retreats attract high-level professionals — and they aren’t cheap.
The base rate for the “four-month offering” starts at around $15,000 and includes 4 weeks of prep, 4 weeks of integration and weekly calls.
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‘Investment to the self’
While the thought of dishing out thousands may have you feeling like a spore person, the couple believes it’s “no-cost” because it’s a “return on investment to the self.”
Ask Peggy Van de Plassche, a former venture capitalist and fintech director, who said mushrooms inspired her to ditch her career in finance and create the Microdose Diet and write a book about it.
“The pandemic put a strain on my business … I was suffering from mental health issues, I was always running so fast,” she said. “Low self-worth was preventing me from being successful in my career.”
After she visited the Journeymen Collective, she wrote a blog post about microdosing that turned heads.
“I got loads of people from my world, finance and tech, asking me where to find microdosing products,” she said.
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Many people in the professional world are taking psychedelics, but talking about it publicly, like Van de Plassche did, is still relatively taboo.
“I wouldn’t walk down the halls at work and advertise that I did this,” Brandon said, but he eventually connected with a colleague more deeply after noticing “subtle” clues that she had also done mushrooms.
“She was just getting really introspective … it just seemed like maybe she was familiar with psychedelics,” he said. He asked her if she was. “She falls back in her chair and she’s like, ‘Oh my God. yes, I have, and I’m so glad you asked.'”
