156. Psychedelics, Ego & Success Hangover with Kelsey Kitsch

Canada's top female entrepreneur two years running, flying between magazine covers and global stages and privately rocking on the floor with the door locked. Kelsey Kitsch, former CEO of Mind Cure and author of Success Hangover, sits down with Dwayne to unpack the ego that built her empire, the psychedelic experience that dismantled it, and what she found once the striving finally stopped.

Content Warning: This episode discusses psychedelics from personal experience. Dwayne and Kelsey explicitly state they are not promoting psychedelics. If you choose to explore this topic, please do thorough research, consult a medical professional, and ensure proper facilitation and integration support.This content is for informational purposes only.

This episode also touches on mental health and suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — available 24/7 in both the US and Canada.

In this episode:

The three conditions Kelsey uses to unlock curiosity and better ideas, novelty, motion, and high emotion, drawn from researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang's workWhy Kelsey builds weekly goals instead of long-term SMART goals, and how her brother Trent Kitch's annual "goal card" shaped that thinkingThe battle between her "ego self" and "soul self" that played out over four hours in her first guided psychedelic experience and what was waiting on the other sideA breakdown of psychedelic experience levels, from psilocybin and MDMA to ayahuasca, San Pedro, mescaline, and 5-MeO-DMT, and what "set, setting, and sacrament" actually meanWhy Dwayne points listeners toward Dr. Dispenza's breathwork program as a non-psychedelic starting point, and the Othership app Kelsey usesThe reframe that closes the episode: "We can only feel loved in proportion to how much we're seen, and we can only be seen in proportion to how much we show people of ourselves."

Time Stamps:

00:00 Psychedelic Safety Disclaimer

00:42 Mett Kelsey Kitsch

03:30 Reinvention in a Changing World

05:13 Curiosity as a Career Compass

08:23 Play Framework for Creativity

16:34 Pattern Interrupts and Choice