Chief Change Officer
#370 Paul Austin: Can Psychedelics Unlock Performance—Without Losing the Plot?
Fri, 16 May 2025
Paul Austin isn’t here to evangelize psychedelics. He’s here to demystify them.As the founder and CEO of Third Wave, Paul has spent a decade educating the public on responsible psychedelic use—from microdosing protocols to full-dose journeys. In this episode, he shares how psychedelics are being used not just to treat mental health conditions, but to enhance leadership, decision-making, and personal clarity.We explore the science of neuroplasticity, the legal gray zones, and the risks of skipping the prep work. For high-performers feeling stuck or burnt out, Paul outlines a roadmap grounded in safety, structure, and serious self-inquiry. Whether you’re curious, skeptical, or somewhere in between, this conversation is a guide—not a push—for what transformation can look like when approached with respect.Key Highlights of Our Interview:Why He Started Third Wave—and Why His Dad Tried It Too“My dad once told me he hadn’t been that disappointed since his brother died. Years later, I guided him through his first psilocybin journey.”From Microdosing to Life Design“Microdosing isn’t about escape—it’s about reprogramming. You still have to show up and do the hard stuff.”Psychedelics as a Skill, Not a Fix“Just like cooking or martial arts, this is a practice. You get better with time, feedback, and intention.”When Leaders Feel Stuck, This Is the Pattern Breaker“For many execs I work with, it’s not about trauma—it’s about lost clarity, emotional fog, or a 360 review that hit too close to home.”Start Low, Go Slow: Why That Advice Matters More Than Ever“You can always take more—you can’t take less. Begin with microdosing. Build awareness before diving deep.”The Snow Globe and the Ski Slope: Two Metaphors That Explain It All“Think of psychedelics as shaking up the snow globe. Or fresh powder on a slope—you’re no longer stuck in someone else’s ruts.”Legal Doesn’t Mean Safe. Illegal Doesn’t Mean Dangerous.“Psychedelics became illegal for political—not medical—reasons. But that doesn’t mean you can skip the legal risks.”Where It’s Legal—And What to Do If It’s Not“Colorado. Oregon. The Netherlands. Costa Rica. Go where it’s legal. Work with a guide. Respect the law.”The Five Elements of a Safe Psychedelic Journey“Assessment. Preparation. Facilitation. Integration. Microdosing. Miss one, and the whole thing can derail.”Why No One Should Be Talked Into It“Don’t do it for your friend, your spouse, or your coach. You have to want this for you.”_____________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guests: Paul Austin --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: Who is Paul Austin and what led him to Third Wave?
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.
But by the age of 15 or 16, I started to have some of those rebellious tendencies that many teenagers have. And 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 re-evaluating these substances
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Chapter 2: What are psychedelics and how have they been used historically?
And if they are to be productive tools in society, they definitely need to be used in very intentional and specific ways.
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,
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 beforehand.
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 3: What are the benefits and risks of responsible psychedelic use?
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 one 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 breakdowns, 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.
Yeah, so I look at psychedelics as a skill. So we already mentioned the tool metaphor before, but psychedelics are a skill that we can develop and cultivate. So just like we can learn to read, we can learn to write, we can learn to play an instrument, we can learn to cook, we can learn jujitsu or martial arts, we can learn to skillfully work with psychedelics.
to enhance creativity, to become better communicators, to become more courageous decision-makers. And when I look at the skill of psychedelics, typically when I work with clients, I'm first asking them, why are you interested in this? And more times than not, the response is,
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Chapter 4: How can psychedelics enhance leadership, creativity, and decision-making?
And that way you can get a lay of the land. You can get a sense for the territory. You could dip your toe in before you jump in the deep end. And then after someone starts to microdose,
they're then like oh okay this isn't as intimidating as i thought it might be this isn't as difficult or challenging as i thought it might be and then some of these people become interested in working with higher doses of psychedelics and most commonly what happens in these early experiences with higher doses of psychedelics is there's a lot of self-reflection about someone's past
about the relationship with their mom and their dad and their siblings and their family of origin. There might even be some, we all go through trauma, whether that's big T trauma or little t trauma. So even myself, I've never been clinically diagnosed. I've never been in any sort of psychiatric medication, but Like most normal humans, I've been a little depressed from time to time.
I've struggled with anxiety from time to time. And that's because there were certain things that happened to me when I was young that I didn't adjust well to. And so when we take these higher doses of psychedelics, we often have these deep reflections around, oh, okay, this is why I am the way that I am. And oftentimes in that space, there becomes then a choice.
Do you want to continue to be this way or do you want to shift and change? And so I think the most valuable part about psychedelics is they make it much easier to release dysfunctional behaviors and patterns, whether that's how we relate to our spouse, whether that's how we treat ourselves, our diet, our exercise, our sleep patterns, whether that might be how we communicate within our business.
So there's a lot of capacity then for psychedelics to facilitate change. And I think when I talk about psychedelics as a skill, that's the most important thing to focus on is those of us who are in leadership positions, who are creatives, who are change makers. We live in a world that is becoming increasingly uncertain every day. and we have to adapt to new circumstances all the time.
And so most commonly when I'm working with leaders, I'm helping them adapt, learn, grow, develop with an understanding that psychedelics make it easier. They don't do the work for you, right? Psychedelics are not a magic pill, but they are a catalyst to new patterns, new thoughts, and new behaviors.
I know you've written a book on microdosing. If I understand correctly, please clarify if needed. Over a course of, say, 30 or 45 days, I take a very small dose, about one-tenth of a standard dose, which offers certain benefits, as you described. But would you say it works more like a band-aid?
For example, during those 30 or 45 days, I might feel better, but after stopping, could those effects wear off? It's similar to taking painkiller. I may not feel the pain for a while, but the underlying issue might still be there. So is microdosing more of a short-term fix? And if so, how can we make its benefits more sustainable, ideally without any physiological or psychological risks?
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Chapter 5: What is microdosing and how does it differ from higher-dose psychedelic experiences?
They notice as they start microdosing, they have a better mood, they have more energy, they're getting better sleep. But for some people, microdosing, it acts as like an irritant in a way. So there's a catharsis. So if someone is anxious, they're going to be more aware of their anxiety. And at times that can be uncomfortable.
And so that's why I advise someone, if you're looking to microdose or work with psychedelics, work with a coach or therapist who can help you to navigate that because When you're starting to work with these substances, even at microdoses, there may be material, emotional material that starts to come to the surface that you've repressed for a very long time.
And so what I typically advise is you have to commit to doing this two or three times a week for at least a month. So just like with meditation, you don't just sit on the cushion once. meditate for 20 minutes and expect to be enlightened, right? When you start with meditation, you commit to at least 30 days straight of meditation before you make any assumptions about, is this helpful?
Is this not helpful? Microdosing is similar. I tell people commit to it for at least 30 days, two or three times per week, work with a coach or therapist who can help you to navigate that and coming back to intention, have an intention for that experience because microdosing is not a magic pill. It catalyzes neuroplasticity. It makes it easier to change.
But part of the value in that process is to actually start to change things. And so that way, microdosing doesn't just become a crutch, like you talked about, where it's, okay, if I'm going to feel better in the long term, I have to keep taking this again and again. This is the case with SSRIs or ADHD medication or sometimes benzodiazepines, anti-anxiety medications.
If you just stop taking those randomly, you're going to have serious withdrawals and potentially a lot of these mental health issues that come back to the surface. Microdosing doesn't do that. Microdosing actually allows you to structurally change things in your life so you can actually be more content and happy with the existence you're living.
That might mean quitting a job that's making you miserable. That might mean breaking up with a spouse or partner that is toxic. That might mean cutting out junk food that's keeping you really unhealthy, right? There are choices and decisions that we all can make that will help us to become healthier, better versions of ourselves. Microdosing just facilitates that process.
And what's beautiful about microdosing is even if you just stop, let's say you've microdosed two or three times a week for a month, if you just stop, there's no physical withdrawals. Some people do notice, as you talked about, that some of these challenges and issues may start to come back up. And so typically what I advise folks is take at least two weeks off,
feel into it get a sense of what else is coming back off and then if you feel like okay microdosing was helpful i want to continue with my protocol doing it two or three times per week i totally give the thumbs up because as vince change is not always immediate in life Sometimes a healing process or a transformational process may take three months, six months, a year.
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Chapter 6: How can psychedelics help people who feel stuck or burnt out?
Chapter 7: What safety precautions and preparation are essential for psychedelic use?
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.
Yeah, so I look at psychedelics as a skill. So we already mentioned the tool metaphor before, but psychedelics are a skill that we can develop and cultivate. So just like we can learn to read, we can learn to write, we can learn to play an instrument, we can learn to cook, we can learn jujitsu or martial arts, we can learn to skillfully work with psychedelics.
to enhance creativity, to become better communicators, to become more courageous decision-makers. And when I look at the skill of psychedelics, typically when I work with clients, I'm first asking them, why are you interested in this? And more times than not, the response is,
I just feel a little stuck or it could be I got a 360 done and it's clear from my team and my colleagues that I'm not communicating as effectively as I need to communicate or I'm not as inspired as I used to be. So a lot of people come into this from a leadership position or from a creative perspective who just, they feel like they're a little stuck. They might be a little burnt out.
They just can't really get the juices flowing again. And so what working with psychedelics does is reopens a lot of these channels. Because when we're taking a psychedelic, what's happening in the brain is it's helping to support neurogenesis. And that means the activation of neuronal connections that have died down. And so it's like fertilizer for the brain.
So it's reactivating all of these channels in the brain that help someone just get re-inspired and re-energized and start to make some really impactful decisions. And so typically when I work with clients, there's a couple of ways that I might work with them. One, it could be strictly microdosing.
And I think that's also something to talk about here, that psychedelics can be used in one of two ways. They can be used in a microdosing protocol, which is when you take a very low dose of a psychedelic, about a tenth of a regular dose, and you do it two or three times per week for 30 or 60 days. And oftentimes when people do that, they notice, oh, I have a better mood. I have more energy.
I'm getting better sleep. I'm eating a little healthier. It's adding up and having these cumulative impacts. But microdoses are sub intoxicating. There's no trip. There's no journey. There's no visions. There's none of these things that we may associate with higher doses of psychedelics. Higher doses of psychedelics are much more significant. They're much more catalytic.
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