Interview on Our Experience Guiding Wealthy Clients — Part One

Q1: You've worked predominantly with wealthy clients for eight years — was that a deliberate choice, or did it just become the clientele that found you?

No, absolutely not. This was not by choice. I believe plant medicine is for everyone — my slogan is literally "your sacred right," not "your sacred privilege." That's also why I created the Healing for Heroes Fund, which provides fully guided psilocybin ceremonies to military veterans completely free of charge. That's how strongly I feel that this medicine is not reserved for any one demographic. When I created my company I simply curated the experience so that from start to finish there is this level of safety, attention to detail, and attention to comfort that makes it stand out from your regular retreat center.

I felt that there were really only two options out here in Mexico. Either someone pays thousands of dollars to participate in a retreat center and gets piled in with a group of people, or they go to the other extreme and spend a couple hundred dollars to be taken into the forest with a shaman who doesn't speak any English. The first one was not personalized enough and also very expensive. The second was disconnected from the whole experience — how are you supposed to integrate if you don't even speak the language of your facilitator? I just went about finding the middle ground, and with that middle ground I found my clientele.

What attracted a lot of wealthy clients is simply the fact that I provided this stringent set of safety measures — because everybody wants these, especially people who are used to mitigating risk in most aspects of their financial life. Everybody wants to know that the person who is going to be holding space for them in a very unknown realm is going to be providing the safest structure possible. Then I provided the comfort. We all like comfort. We don't want to be on mushrooms in the middle of a forest being bitten by mosquitoes. Some people do, some people don't. My environment was just catered to anyone who's looking for this experience but wants it to be fully thought through for them.

And not just that — my whole philosophy is that this experience is meant to be a one-on-one experience, not a group experience. I believe that is the only way for a facilitator to properly give the right amount of attention to each individual. I think that's really what resonates with a lot of wealthy people, who understand their worth — and I understand their worth — so like attracts like. They were happy to pay a little extra so that everything around them could be taken care of and individualized, so that when they come to the ceremony, the only outlying variable is the experience itself.

So to answer your question, this was just the clientele that ended up finding me through word of mouth, through friends of friends. One thing led to another and people realized they were able to have access to this experience without having to step too far out of their comfort zone. They were able to step in and let go of control. With high-functioning individuals, controlling every aspect of their everyday life is crucial for them to be in the positions they're in. It's almost like a relief when they come to a person who has done all of that work for them so they can truly let go and dive deep into what they're wanting to work with.

To this day my pricing is still affordable for the average individual. I just found that wealthy clients know exactly what they're looking for and are willing to pay for that. A lot of people can afford it, but many will default to the retreat experience because they think a group setting is better, or they'll default to the couple-hundred-dollar option because that's as much as they're willing to invest. That's fine — each person is going to get exactly what they're looking for out of that experience.

With my wealthier clients, they see that type of bill and think, "That's about the same as a couple nights of dinner. That's nothing to me." It's just a lot easier mentally for them to wrap their minds around that price and move forward and enjoy this experience like they would a fine dining meal.

Q2: What does a private one-on-one psilocybin experience look like from start to finish — what does the day actually involve?

From start to finish, the way I like to structure my ceremonies: the client would have woken up from a nice long sleep — eight to nine hours — and had a very light breakfast. Fruit, yogurt, something light, or if they prefer they can skip breakfast entirely. This has already been coached to them during our intake calls prior to the ceremony.

Around 9:00 a.m. a private luxury vehicle is outside of their accommodations, ready to pick them up. I like to provide private transportation because I feel that on the day of the ceremony you shouldn't even have to lift a finger beyond your basic necessities. I don't want you thinking about logistics. You should only be focused on your intentions and your ceremony.

Once they arrive at the ceremony location, they meet with me. We sit down and go over how they're feeling. We discuss a little bit of their past again, go over the main reasons they're here so that we can reiterate the intentions and remind them of what they set out to do before going deeper into the work. I like to spend at least one to two hours talking with them, getting them calm, because during that time they're usually a little nervous — everyone is, especially if it's their first time. It really helps to spend a couple of hours just talking, calming down, and going over the intention. It brings that motivation back up.

Then, prior to ingesting, we step outdoors into the field and ground ourselves with the earth. We do some breathwork to get fresh oxygen into the brain. We stretch the body, do some light yoga to get the blood flowing, which also helps calm the nerves.

Around 11:00 a.m. we grab a jar of the mushrooms. In front of my client I weigh out the exact amount of mushrooms on the scale and let them see what it shows. The client has a right to see exactly how many grams are going into their body. I take out whole dried mushrooms, lay them on the scale, show the client, and they confirm. Then I grind them up and sit it in front of them. As a side note I do not suggest that anyone ever consume pre-ground mushrooms that they have not visually seen weighed out in front of them or that they can confirm that it is only mushrooms in that mixture or in that tea. I think that is such a safety oversight and that the person should absolutely be a part of that process when the mushrooms are being prepared for ingestion. The ground mushrooms get mixed with some water or juice — preferably water, which usually goes down just fine — and the client ingests.

Once they've consumed the mushrooms, we step into the ceremonial room. I don't like stepping into that room any time before that, because it's designed in a way to feel like you've stepped into a completely new world. Everything prior — all the nerves, the talking, the movement — happens outside the ceremonial room so we can preserve the energy of that space. Once they enter we sit together and continue talking, but more casually, because there's going to be another half hour or so before the mushrooms start to activate. It's important not to just let the client sit with their thoughts, wondering what's going to happen, when it will occur, how it will feel. We just continue our conversation in a lighter manner.

About twenty five minutes later some of the effects start to show. The client is now laid down in an ergonomic cradle designed specifically to support the back and alleviate pressure, because they'll be lying there for multiple hours. The cradle is manufactured to support the body so that they are not uncomfortable at any point and don't experience muscle or back issues afterward. They lay down, the blindfold goes on, and I turn on the personally curated music. This music has been created specifically for that individual — each client has a unique playlist because each person has a different personality and a different musical rhythm and tone that aligns with them. Their playlist plays, their eyes are closed, and they go into the experience. This lasts for about six to eight hours depending on sensitivity to the medicine and receptivity.

After the experience has completed, there's some time to rest and reflect, but usually almost immediately the client is ready to start talking about what happened. This part is very important. We audio record them speaking about the experience right after, because that reflection is critical for them to revisit later. Rather than writing in a journal in that moment, it's much easier for them to just speak out loud. We record the conversation for them to keep — it's completely confidential, an audio file only for them, not to be shared anywhere.

Once they feel they've said enough, we take a moment to eat something if they're hungry and allow the medicine to continue working through their body. That first conversation is the first integrative session which we like to revisit during the 3 week post ceremonial integration session — It may be all over the place, but it's recorded and saved.

After the meal, they have time to unwind. Some clients prefer to stay at the ceremony location where they can rest, reflect, and journal. Others, once they've eaten and feel completely in their right mind, prefer to return to their own accommodations for the rest of the night, and that's completely fine. We accommodate for that — the same private luxury transportation takes them back to their staying accommodations, where they can continue to reflect and sleep on their experience.

Q3: You've been doing this long enough to see patterns. What do wealthy clients tend to bring into the room — what are they actually carrying when they arrive?

The thing is, from where I'm sitting, I think that in the regular realm of the world wealthy clients are seen as almost alien to the rest of us. We see them as a little bit non-human because they are so disciplined or high achieving or able to do things that the average person can't wrap their minds around. We put them in this category of individuals who are special, who must be dealing with completely foreign experiences that we can't even fathom. Or perhaps they're dealing with problems that are just "rich people problems" — not really real problems at all. Because if you have all the money in the world, what could you possibly be upset about?

What I'd like to do with this question is humanize the wealthy people in our society. As much as it would be a sexier answer to say, "These people are predominantly dealing with this issue and that issue or it's so interesting that their high-achieving career caused this and that" — in reality, it's more nuanced than that. There are some clients who do indeed come due to the pressures of their work environment, and there are some who don't. Not all of them are here for that.

When you've seen as many wealthy clients as I have, you start to realize they're just like you and me. They get stressed. They have relational issues. They have substance use issues. They have times of lack of motivation. They have depression, anxiety — all the same things that regular people are carrying. They carry it too. They are not built any different. They just happened to take a different path in life, but that doesn't make them any less susceptible to feeling the wear and tear of life the same way that we do.

What I can add is that wealthy people are not all one type of person. They're all very unique. There are some who come into the ceremony with a more stereotypical demeanor — a little bit skeptical, but they've been left with no choice, so this is what they've turned to. They want to ask a lot of questions before going in. Then there are the ones who are completely down for the experience. They don't want to overstep or bring their controlling behavior into the space, so they're very open and submissive to the whole experience.

There is a range. That's the best way I can answer that question. A wide range in the reasons they come, and it's all usually the same things we struggle with. It's surprisingly not ever about finances or money. It's usually about things like meaning and purpose, finding ways to re-establish relationships, finding ways to be okay with the place they're at in life. Because — surprise, surprise — money doesn't solve all your problems. And they know that better than any one of us.

Q4: Does money change how someone moves through the experience? Are there patterns you see specifically in very wealthy clients that you don't see elsewhere?

I believe that psilocybin is the great equalizer. Whether you're extremely wealthy, a billionaire, a multi-millionaire, or just getting by — I've worked with all brackets of income. In the realm of psilocybin, money is not even a factor. It really is a realm that we cannot touch with our preconceived notions. At the end of the day we're all human, and the way psilocybin interacts with our brain is always going to be unique to each client. There isn't a one-size-fits-all experience. It's not like for wealthy people psilocybin does this, and for poor people it does that. It doesn't work like that. Psilocybin is a very individualized medicine — not only for that person, but for that same person. If they did it again, it would be a completely different experience.

Money doesn't change how someone moves through the actual experience, but money does change how someone may approach the experience or how they choose to continue the work after the ceremony. That definitely has some weight to it.

What do I mean by that? When it comes to higher net worth individuals, they're already used to self-care and putting time and energy back into themselves. The ceremony doesn't end on the day of the ceremony — not with me, at least. You are continuing to unfold for the next couple of weeks to months afterward. The people I find are most dedicated to their post-ceremonial work are usually the wealthy clients, because they already have practiced mechanisms of taking care of themselves, their business, their families, in a more dedicated, disciplined fashion. They're usually the ones eager to follow up with me, asking questions about what to do next and how to internalize the experience, because they already are go-getters. They treat the post-ceremonial process with that same go-getter mindset of "I want to do this the best way possible."

Whereas some people who are newer to the idea of structured self-work may need a little bit more encouragement — reminders like, "Let's keep up with the journaling. Let's keep up with the integration calls. Let's make sure you're reminding yourself of your intentions from the beginning." That's the only disparity I really see.

Cover photo: Bentley Stock photos by Vecteezy