Chief Change Officer
#146 From Microdoses to Mega Insights: Paul Austin on Psychedelics and Personal Growth
Wed, 22 Jan 2025
We’re joined by Paul Austin, CEO of Third Wave, who believes psychedelics can be transformative—when used responsibly. While legal and medical debates continue, Paul highlights the benefits of micro-dosing for personal development, leadership, and mental clarity. As your host, my goal is to provide a platform for diverse voices and ideas that push humanity forward. This is a space to explore, question, and expand our understanding. BBC: What psychedelics legalisation and decriminalisation looks like around the world. We discuss the common misunderstandings about psychedelics, key legal and medical concerns, and, most importantly, safety considerations and responsible practices to approach this evolving tool for personal growth. Join us to challenge assumptions and rethink growth. Key Highlights of Our Interview: The Real Risks of Psychedelics: Safety First “While psychedelics promise transformation, the biggest risk isn’t just physiological—it’s legal. These substances are still illegal in most places, so getting caught can have serious consequences. Beyond that, psychedelics can create instability if not handled with the right support and a safe environment.” Mindset Matters: Intention in Psychedelic Use “The real benefits of psychedelics start with intention. Using them to learn, grow, or heal can unlock deep insights, but if it’s just to escape reality, the impact is far less meaningful. For anyone interested, working with a professional—be it a coach, therapist, or shaman—is essential. Preparation and a safe setting are crucial for a transformative experience.” The Five Elements for a Safe and Meaningful Psychedelic Journey “There are five essential elements: assessment, preparation, facilitation, integration, and microdosing. From asking the right questions to committing fully to the experience, each step helps build a safe and transformative path. Start low, go slow, and choose to step into this journey for yourself—not for anyone else.” Microdosing as a Catalyst, Not a Crutch “Microdosing isn’t about masking problems; it’s about creating neuroplasticity for real change. With commitment—two to three times a week for 30 days—you can catalyze significant shifts in mood, decision-making, and self-awareness. But this journey, like any transformation, relies on intention and responsibility. Microdosing is a tool, but you hold the reins to lasting growth.” Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guests: Paul Austin ______________________ --Chief Change Officer-- Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself. Open a World of Deep Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives, Visionary Underdogs, Transformation Gurus & Bold Hearts. 6 Million+ All-Time Downloads. Reaching 80+ Countries Daily. Global Top 3% Podcast. Top 10 US Business. Top 1 US Careers. >>>100,000+ subscribers are outgrowing. Act Today.<<< --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.18 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1.5% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>170,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: What are the transformative benefits of psychedelics?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, We are diving into a topic that's sparking both excitement and debate, psychedelics.
My guest is Paul Austin, founder and CEO of Third Wave, a leading voice advocating for the responsible use of psychedelics, especially within the realms of personal and leadership development. Let me make this clear. While there's growing support for the benefits, psychedelics remained illegal in many places, and there's still much debate around the safety, legality, and medical impact.
But pause here to educate us on the potential advantages of psychedelics, especially when approached responsibly. We'll discuss microdosing and its potential to benefit a wide range of people, not only those dealing with mental or medical conditions. As the host of the show, I'm not here to judge my guests.
I offer a forum for diverse voices to share their ideas, thoughts, and approaches aimed at advancing humanity in a positive direction. I ask questions from different perspectives allowing you, our listeners, to draw your own conclusions from these conversations.
Chapter 2: How can microdosing support personal growth?
Here, I'll ask Paul to walk us through some of the common misunderstandings about microdosing and share insights into the ongoing legal and medical debates surrounding psychedelics. We'll also explore some essential safety considerations and responsible practices for those curious about this tool for personal development and leadership growth. Let's get started. Paul. Good afternoon.
Welcome to my show. Thank you for joining us.
Thank you, Vince. It's 5.30, so the evening. Good evening to you. I know it's morning in Hong Kong. We're on opposite ends of the world at the moment, and that's why I love technology, because we can record podcasts like this while we're on totally opposite ends of the world. So it's great to be here with you.
Thank you. Yes, I'm still finishing my breakfast. But I wouldn't miss this interview for anything. Today, we are diving into a topic that is still pretty controversial, not just here in the US, but worldwide. It's one that comes with its own set of benefits and risks. Paul has been in this space long enough to call himself an expert. So I'm excited to get his insights.
Chapter 3: What are the essential elements for a safe psychedelic journey?
But first thing first, Paul, can you tell us a bit about yourself? What have you done in the past? And how has those experiences shaped who you are and what you do today?
The story starts when I'm 16 years old and I grew up in a pretty traditional Midwest family in the United States, just outside of a city called Grand Rapids. And the Christian church was very central to my upbringing. And so every Sunday we would be at church, we would go to church. I was raised in a very sheltered environment.
Chapter 4: Why is intention important in psychedelic use?
But by the age of 15 or 16, I started to have some of those rebellious tendencies that many teenagers have. But I had a friend at the time who introduced me to cannabis. marijuana. And I experimented a little bit with cannabis at the age of 16. And soon after I experimented, my parents found out that I had been smoking cannabis.
And of course, they did not like this at all because it was an illegal drug, because they had been raised in the 70s when the war on drugs and a lot of the propaganda around drugs was very prevalent. And so they sat me down one Sunday after church And my dad looked at me and said, I haven't been this disappointed since my brother passed away in a car accident 30 years prior to this experience.
And so that obviously was so hard and difficult to hear. And it just showed how impactful this experience was to my parents. And so after that point in time, I knew that. I couldn't necessarily be super open with my parents like so many teenagers about what I was up to and where I was going.
Now, fast forward a few years later, and that same friend who introduced me to cannabis then introduced me to psychedelics, which is going to be the main topic that we talk about today. And those early psychedelic experiences that I had at the age of 19 and 20 were very impactful. They helped me to recognize how much shame and guilt I had been conditioned into in my religious upbringing.
They helped me to recognize and realize that a lot of my negative self-talk and self-hatred was actually not my own, that I could choose to release it and move beyond it. But most importantly, they taught me that we as humans are just making up the rules as we go along, and that life is much more malleable
than we think it is and so when i started to work with psychedelics at a young age they really inspired me to think differently think in an unconventional manner and so at the age of 21 i moved to turkey where i taught english for a year and i soon became a digital nomad where i was traveling around the world working online building my first business which was a teaching english platform i taught a test called the toefl test
And at the age of 24, I was living in Budapest with a couple friends, experimenting with some LSD once again.
And we were talking about how psychedelics were becoming more talked about, less stigmatized, that because of some of the movement around cannabis in the United States, a lot of clinical research that was coming out of institutions like Johns Hopkins and NYU, and also because you had podcasters like Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan who were openly talking about psychedelics, culture was really reevaluating these substances.
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Chapter 5: What are the risks associated with psychedelic use?
And so in 2015, I started an educational platform called Third Wave that is focused on how can we help people understand both the benefits and risks of these misunderstood substances. And so for the last 10 years, I've now been building that out as a platform. We've reached over 25 million people with our educational materials. And for me, I believe psychedelics are a tool.
And just like a knife, they can be used in very positive ways or they can be used in very negative ways. And so a lot of my ethos and a lot of what I focus on is how can I help people use these tools with more awareness, more intention and more responsibility? And just to bring this story full circle, a few years ago, I was visiting my parents back home in Michigan.
And my dad had come a long way since that initial conversation. And he had started to experiment with microdosing. And then I actually guided my dad through a psilocybin mushroom experience himself. And it was very profound and impactful for him. So that's how psychedelics, I think, can change minds.
And if they are to be productive tools in society, they definitely need to be used in very intentional and specific ways.
Chapter 6: Who can benefit from psychedelics?
From your perspective, you're educating the world on the benefits and potential advantages of using psychedelics responsibly for personal well-being and even for the benefit of teams and communities. So first, can you share how you incorporate psychedelics in your practice and what benefits you've observed? On the flip side, what are some limitations and potential risks?
Help us understand more about the opportunities and the challenges. What should people be cautious about?
What's really fascinating about psychedelics is they have a long lineage of use. So this is where the name third wave of psychedelics comes from. That naturally suggests there was a first wave and a second wave. So the first wave of psychedelic use was what I call the ancient and indigenous use of psychedelics. So people like Plato...
and Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius in ancient Greece and ancient Rome used psychedelics. You have psychedelics talked about in the ancient Vedic scriptures and even in ancient Chinese scriptures. In South America, they have drank a tea called ayahuasca for over a thousand years. So there's a rich lineage of use of psychedelics across historical time. Now,
But the second wave was the 1950s and 60s, the counterculture, when psychedelics reentered our sort of global consciousness. And the reason they ended up becoming prohibited and banned is because a lot of people were using them irresponsibly. And so the big difference between responsible and irresponsible use comes down to something that I call intention. What is the intention behind the use?
Is the intention to learn, to grow, to heal, to explore? Or is the intention just to disassociate? Is it to forget about our problems? Is it to get just high and intoxicated for no specific reason? And so I think a lot of the benefits come from that intentional use. And if someone is interested or curious about psychedelics, what I always tell them is make sure you do this with a professional.
It could be a coach. It could be a therapist. It could be a medical doctor. It could be even a shaman or an indigenous healer. So make sure that you have a human who is supporting you through this experience. Make sure you prepare beforehand. So it's really important to prepare your mindset
to maybe do some meditation, to do some breath work, to do some yoga, start to practice some contemplative practices to help you drop in to a little bit of a deeper state. And then when you're having your experience, the setting matters a lot. You have to make sure that the setting you're in is very safe. It's very comfortable. It feels like home to you.
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Chapter 7: How can psychedelics enhance creativity and decision-making?
And so these are the most important aspects. Set, which stands for mindset, and setting must be honored and paid attention to if someone wants to experience some of the benefits from meditation. Now, the benefits could be broken up into, I would say, two main areas.
One is clinical research shows that these are very effective at treating clinical conditions, things like depression, addiction, PTSD, anxiety, that there's a lot of clinical research about how efficacious psychedelics can be for clinical indications. But I know your audience is much more interested in creativity and leadership and making changes.
And so the second main group that often benefits from this are those in leadership positions, those who are creatives, those who are decision makers. And the reason for that is because psychedelics support something called neuroplasticity or neurogenesis. So neuroplasticity is the capacity for the brain to adapt and change. Meditation is very similar.
If you meditate every day for a period of, let's say, 30 to 60 days, you're going to notice that you're a a little bit more present. You can learn a little bit faster. And they've even shown this with brain scans that cortical plasticity develops. The gray matter of the brain develops when we consistently meditate. Psychedelics have a very similar impact. They help us to think new thoughts.
Chapter 8: What are the proper protocols for microdosing?
They help us to make new choices. And so a lot of the benefits that leaders and creatives and change makers experience from working with psychedelics often come down to, I feel more creative. I feel like my mood and my energy is better. And most importantly, I feel like I can make courageous and difficult decisions.
And that's something that I think is so key for anyone in a leadership position because leadership often requires courage and bravery. You have to be willing to have difficult conversations, to make difficult decisions every single day.
And people notice that when they start to work with psychedelics as a practice, it really helps them to have more courage in facing some of these difficult aspects themselves. of existence, of business, of communication, of relationships. Now, for the risks, I would say that the riskiest thing about psychedelics is that these are still largely illegal everywhere, right?
They are a Schedule I substance in the United States. In many other countries, they are highly illegal. So that's actually the biggest risk when it comes to psychedelics is you may end up getting arrested for their use. When it comes to the actual physiological risks of psychedelics, the biggest risk is what I would call introducing instability.
That part of the beautiful aspect about psychedelics is they shake things up. They shake the snow globe up. But if someone doesn't have proper support before, during, and after an experience, that instability can lead to poor decisions.
So some of the horror stories that maybe we've heard about psychedelics, like people jumping out of windows or jumping out of cars or having psychotic breakdown, these are almost always because the set and setting is not safe. The professional facilitation is not provided. So almost all of the risks can be mitigated by ensuring that this is done with a trained and qualified professional.
The other main risk to speak about is anyone who has a predisposition to psychosis or schizophrenia or maybe a personality disorder should not be working with psychedelics. They are contraindicated for people who have certain personality disorders. And so that's also a really important thing to keep in mind if someone is curious and interested about weeding psychedelics into their life.
Paul, you mentioned there are at least two types of people who can benefit from psychedelics. Those dealing with medical or mental health challenges, like PTSD, and then another group, creative leaders, entrepreneurs, and others whose roles demand a high level of focused mental power. Can you dive a bit deeper into these applications, especially for regular people in high-performance roles?
Perhaps you could share a few stories or examples? no names needed, of course, to help us understand how psychedelics can work in this context. I'd love to hear more about how your approach compares and what it offers for those looking to enhance focus and creativity.
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