Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 777: Tero Isokauppila- The Magic of Mushrooms & the Real Story of Santa Claus

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Hey boys, you want to have a mushroom party? You want to have a party with me? That's a weirdo. You try to do the accent or whatever? No, it's like the touch my monkey.

Starting point is 00:00:28 Oh, that's right. Would you like some mushrooms? I'm giving him that, but from mushrooms. Dude, so the president of Four Sigmatic, Tero, I'm gonna fuck up his last name. He's so cu- Kwapila. I don't know if I said that.

Starting point is 00:00:41 Love this guy. Anyway, you love the guy. He hung out with him. He's super cool. And we partied within the next day at doses. Yeah, he's a super cool guy. Very, very smart. He's one of those people that you meet where they're so smart that you're like dang.

Starting point is 00:00:54 That's a little too smart. Do you know what I mean? He, he, he, he, he, especially with, I think it's important to let people know that if you are not interested in mushrooms, this is not the episode for you. But if you are at all interested in the science and in mushrooms, I think this is a medicinal application. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:01:15 Lots of information. I mean, it's an information overload. It makes you interested in mushrooms, even if you aren't, I'll be honest. You know, I mean, because I wasn't that interested before, you guys know that I'm probably the least fan of all the mushrooms, because I wasn't that interested before. You guys know that I'm probably the least fan of all the mushrooms, but I had not gonna lie after listening to him for this episode. I'm on the mushroom train. Yeah, and I was drinking it last night. So because of that, I think that you,

Starting point is 00:01:36 it's important that you listen to this if you're at all interested in the science behind it, because I think sound him dive really deep and drop some really good knowledge in here. I remember meeting him for the first time, it was at PaleoFX a couple of years ago and we're walking around and I see four sigmatic and I told the boys that I really wanted to work with four somatic because I had dive deep

Starting point is 00:01:57 into the science of mushrooms and their application and how they've been used for thousands of years and many, many cultures and their unique properties. I mean, they for thousands of years in many, many cultures. And they're unique properties. I mean, they have some unique effects in the body. I say unique because fungi is a whole different class of organisms. Different than plants, different than animals or whatever. And most of us don't get enough fungi in our diet.

Starting point is 00:02:19 And I know the oldest living organism on earth is a mushroom. We talk about this in this episode. But I was very fascinated with it, but also, you can buy mushroom supplements, how they're grown, where they're grown, how the mushrooms, the ingredients are extracted, how they're stored, like all these things are important things to know.

Starting point is 00:02:38 And I knew that forsegmatic understood all this and basically catered to it, right? So when I saw for sigmatic the booth I ran over there little did I know the president it was tarot he was the one running the booth I thought he was just some dude run the booth so I shake his hand I'm like hey what's going on man love your product I really know I host mine pump all of and then that's how we got you know kind of hooked up and so to my surprise when we sat down to do an interview with tarot I had no idea what what he looked like. He walks in the room and I'm like, you're the fucking

Starting point is 00:03:07 dude that I talked about. Yeah. You know, when we first got this, you know, this whole thing set up, so he dives deep into mushrooms and their effects in the body and how they work. And of course, four sigmatic is one of our sponsors, one of my favorite sponsors, one of my favorite products. If you go to four, spell it out, FOURsigmatic, S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C dot com, forward slash mind pump,

Starting point is 00:03:31 and enter the code, mind pump, you get a discount, you can find Tero on Instagram at I Am Tero, so you can see more information on him, but. Tero is T-E-R-O, just to me. T-E-R-O, but I mean, he's also a cool guy.

Starting point is 00:03:45 So somebody I would hang out with. Oh, we're gonna go foraging with him. That's not part of him. I can't wait for that. That's right. He said that Tink is 40. Already say up in big base scenarios, like one of the best places to go.

Starting point is 00:03:54 Yeah, yeah. So that's our backyard. So we don't find those. Ma'am, mashoom pati. All of us. That's scary with you. But anyway, yeah, that's it. So without any further ado, here we are.

Starting point is 00:04:04 Oh, wait, second, dude. So without any further ado, here we are. Wait a second, dude, one of the things I definitely want to do before we get into this interview is a huge thank you to Tom and Lisa, Bill, you for opening their home to us. Wow. Amazing that they did that for us. Right. You know, I testament to how important it is to build relationships in business, especially because here's someone who is, you know, we met two, about two and a half years ago, and since then, you know, him and I have maintained a really good relationship and communication with each other, and it was something I didn't ask for.

Starting point is 00:04:36 He totally offered it up to us. We were coming on the health theory show anyways, and we normally when we come down to LA, we do multiple shows, why we're down here, it makes sense if we're going to fly the whole crew. And for Tom to open up his home and say, dude, you guys can record here all day. And I mean, it was so dope. We're here. And he's got, you know, a whole table full of, you know, quest bars and snacks and water and drinking. And he's got his team that is setting us all up. There's a super generous people. I, I fucking love Tom and Lisa.

Starting point is 00:05:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good people, big shout out to you guys. Thank you very, very much for letting us use your home. Yeah. So without further ado, here we are interviewing Tero, the president of Four Sigmatic. I think we should start from the, from the beginning, Tero, what got you into this?

Starting point is 00:05:22 Did you found Four Sigmatic? Are you the founder of that company? Yeah. What's your background? What what got you into this? Did you found, forsegmatic, are you the founder of that company? Yeah. What's your background? What made you get into mushrooms? I'm a 13th generation family farmer and forger out of Finland. Oh, wow. So, I guess there is lineage and plus some dumb enough to do that.

Starting point is 00:05:39 So, a combination of those. And just went forging for mushrooms growing up with my mom. And then my great grandfather started this environmental school, which is like a mix of Steiner school. I don't know if you're familiar, but the guy who invented basically organic food, organic agriculture and biodynamic farming. And then like, Waldof style schooling,

Starting point is 00:06:01 something like, basically like a hippie school with an actual curriculum. And this is in Finland? Yeah, this is in Finland and I went through that and then studied chemistry and nutrition and randomly discovered a rare mushroom about 13 years ago. That was only thought to grow in one island in Japan

Starting point is 00:06:17 and I found it in Finland and won this innovation award. And it's kind of like, with anything, there's not just one tipping point, but there's multiple steps that you take. Now, when you were doing this, when you were forging, when you were kid, with your mom and stuff, are you really into it then, or is this...

Starting point is 00:06:34 I was more into berries, because they were sweet and the taste of better. So wild strawberries, raspberries, I don't know if the guys ever had wild raspberries, but they're like the bomb. Some shoot leaves, nettles, stuff like that. But I did like mushrooms and sauces. I was in mushroom soups I like, but it was like mushrooms to me

Starting point is 00:06:54 were like a mystical group. It was not something that as a kid, I was like as excited as I was to find wild strawberries in the forest. Now you said 13 generations, was this just you're growing them, we're foraging for them for use in culinary purposes, or was this medicinal? What, what, how did you guys farm all the,

Starting point is 00:07:13 because you said there's 13 generations? Yeah, 13 at least that we know, Finland has only been independent 100 years. So we were like part of Russia and Sweden for a long time, and a lot of the records were burned, so we don't actually really know at least 13 on both of my parents side. And you know, it's for survival. Like the time when you're in the 17th century, life is very different than on the 21st century.

Starting point is 00:07:33 So the farm has gone through civil wars, multiple under Russian ruling. And so like things have changed multiple times. But survival, dude, it's just like that's that's the core of it. You could sell stuff, you know, that's also, but there is also a psychedelic mushroom that is less known. A lot of people here are focused on a still-siping psychedelic mushroom, but there's another even more well-known, but nobody really knows what it is and are to use it. Is the mushroom on your phone, like the moji, the red mushroom with white dots, it's called

Starting point is 00:08:04 Aminita Muscaria, and the whole story of basically like Santa Claus and Christmas is based around that mushroom. And it's from Finland, from my indigenous people, like Sami people that inherited that land for about 5,000 years, at least, so much longer than Vikings, which is also my heritage.

Starting point is 00:08:21 But Vikings came after the Sami people. So you get what you're gonna tell me how to make it. Yeah, tell me that story. Yeah, tell me how a mushroom making Santa Claus. I really just make things up, but I want to know where the origin comes from. Yeah. It's a long ass story, but I'll try to like, the cliff notes. Yeah, sure.

Starting point is 00:08:39 Okay, so Santa Claus is the world's most famous person arguably. It's like crosses beyond religions and countries. We know about Santa Claus, but rarely think how did Santa Claus story come? The same way as Easter and a lot of these other traditions that actually originally pagan. So the story of Santa Claus, how we look at it today is obviously like a very Coca-Cola S story

Starting point is 00:09:02 that was brought to the US by the Dutch, the Dutch, the Dutch story from Germans and you might have heard St. Nick St. Nicholas. For sure. But it's actually not from Germany even though it's like, label as German, it's actually from Turkey. So the Germans took it from the Italians. The Italians literally stole the grave of this guy in Turkey who was St. Nicholas.

Starting point is 00:09:22 So they got to see people. Yeah. Great, St. Nicholas. Yeah. Great Robert. So, a lot of going on that, and then that point, the church really used this ancient story as a way of incorporating into their own values, and that's a whole, not a rabbit hole there. But they originally, the, the Turkish combined the story of St. Nick, who actually existed, and with an even older story of this old man Frost, who was a Russian Santa Claus, basically still today. If you go to Russia, you don't celebrate Santa Claus, you celebrate this old man Frost,

Starting point is 00:09:55 there's Morris, and they took it from these indigenous people, Sami. And so there's a whole leg how it transformed. But what originally was that where reindeer's originally grow is in this area of like flat planned, which is partly Norway, Sweden, Finland, parts of like Russia. And there these indigenous people live and they take care of reindeer.

Starting point is 00:10:17 And what they also do is they use plant medicine or in this case mushrooms, ceremonially a few times a year, like almost every indigenous. This is how they fly. I see all these all coming together. It's a long intro, but I'm going to tie a couple loops. So a few times and the two big celebrations, almost every indigenous culture is winter

Starting point is 00:10:38 solstice, summer solstice. So in, we're in lap plan, in the summer, there's 24 hours of sunlight. There's really no night. Winter, there's very, there's like an hour or two of sunlight. It's really when the days that it's long as that's when you would do magic. And how they would do it is they would use this mushroom Aminita Muscaria, that the shaman had collected during the summer. And it grows under the pineal family of trees. What's proofs, the Christmas tree that you see at Rockefeller Center, it can grow under it, where Christmas presents are sometimes kept under the tree.

Starting point is 00:11:10 And the shaman who put it on the trees, because you have to dehydrate it to remove a toxin. It's also poisonous mushroom, it's psychedelic and poisonous. So we would put it on tree branches, and to dry, it's sun dry, because especially sunlight removes this toxin, this one type of acid in it that gets removed or reduced if it's sun dried.

Starting point is 00:11:31 So when the salmon would, at one point, collect these mushrooms, it would be a tree full of red mushrooms. And if you used to go back to even the German time story of this, you can see photos with trees with not red ornaments and balls, but actually I'm going to need a mascara hanging from the tree. And the star of the top is Polaris, that was very important for the Sami people. The chimney comes from the fact that the Sami people live in these Qualtas, which is a huge teepee, is that you enter from a kind of narrow entrance, but sometimes during the night, it snows in

Starting point is 00:12:07 and the entrance is covered with snow. And there's a fire inside to keep you warm, but in order to fire the go-way, the TP kind of obviously has a hole at the top. And if it snows in, you exit and enter through the chimney or the roof. Hang comes Santa Claus here. Rainier's flying, that's a whole nother story, obviously,

Starting point is 00:12:29 on how they fly and there's a couple. Then we just knocked Jesus in there. Yeah, totally. And not to spoil the full story, but there's urine involved, drinking urine, which is supposed to. This is a dark turn. Very dark turn, but that's how one of the ways

Starting point is 00:12:43 I remove the poison and out of it, but also. My ankle's so big. There's muskimole, there's an compound there that gets emphasized if you rotate urine, and you drink urine, and that's how they say that the term get pissed was originally. Oh, shit. Wow, my childhood is almost so glad you shared that.

Starting point is 00:13:01 That's what I really wanted. Anyway, there's a lot of tendons around that, but I think we just spoiled some of the day. You guys have had such bangers lately, you've had Ben Green from the whole chain. So you needed an intermission here. Yeah, that's a great story. Yeah, that's a great story.

Starting point is 00:13:16 So what's this mushroom that you discovered that you won an award for? You said said, like a few minutes ago. So mushrooms are a kingdom or fungi or fungi. There's no right or way to say it. So there's like, a lot of people say, I don't like mushrooms because like, I don't like portable mushrooms or they have Candida

Starting point is 00:13:33 and their gut health is not aligned. But actually the kingdom of fungi is immensely like wide and there's so many different types. There's about six times more fungi types than there are plans estimated to be on the world. So for every avocado and bell pepper, there's six of each on different mushrooms type. And but very kind of like before it gets overwhelming, there's two kinds of mushrooms for humans, really like from a functional point of view, there's culinary mushrooms and then there's functional

Starting point is 00:14:01 mushrooms. So for sigmatic, my company's really focused on functional mushrooms that help support performance or reduce stress or sleep quality or sex drive or cocking function, whatever. But then there's the whole suite of culinary mushrooms, like Morels, for example, people hunt them for their flavor. And if you go to a lot of fancy Michelin-style restaurants, they're like specialized. That Shenzel is more like like a commonly known more L,

Starting point is 00:14:26 but there's also like the truffles of the world, right? And the Japanese have this one mushroom called Matsutaki, and it's like the truffle for the Japanese. It's there like really prestigious mushroom. And Taki, by the way, T-A-K-E means mushroom in Japanese. So she Taki, my Taki, just means shi mushroom, my mushroom, which all means something else, like a tree or something. And they just love this mushroom, but it's really hard to get. And basically discovered that it grows also in Finland because the

Starting point is 00:15:00 climate in this one island in Hokkaido is similar to where I grew up in one specific part of Finland. And as it almost has had d'Oq with my friend, we just answered this innovation contest that is like, wouldn't it be funny if we would sell this to the Japanese for like 5,000 bucks a kilo or something like that. But he actually became a legit thing and the university I think still runs it. So we donated it to a university for, because we didn't want to run it. But I think they still sell mushrooms to the Japanese.

Starting point is 00:15:33 Well, fascinating. So let's talk about the functional side of mushrooms. Because I know in Chinese medicine, or a Vedic medicine, Eastern European medicine mushrooms have been used for thousands of years. Western medicine just now starting to learn about some of the effects of mushrooms. Years ago I had a family member who had cancer and I was doing lots of research and I stumbled upon chaga, which in Eastern Europe has been used for a while to combat certain types of

Starting point is 00:16:02 cancer. Let's talk about some of these functional mushrooms and what they do and why they're so special and how people use them around the world. Yeah. So one of the big bummers is that because I have a company and I sell products, I'm like not really in a position

Starting point is 00:16:20 where I can give direct comments about certain functionality. I have to like like, tiptoe along the lines of FDA FTC. So, like, why is that explain that? So, basically, to protect consumers. Because they want the FDA wants to sell their drugs, and I want you to sell. Yeah. So, and this is actually the US is the Wild Wild West. So, what, FDA and FTC allows is much more than where you allow in Canada, Australia, they are Europe, they're more strict. But so basically protect consumers, companies are not allowed or who sell pharmaceuticals or sell supplements or sell food, they have to be careful on what they claim that is possible, which is in high level, a good thing.

Starting point is 00:17:03 You don't want to to come out and say, this will make your penis bigger. Right, right? Like, So it's sell, like, yeah, that's okay. So let's be honest. And so you just have to be careful

Starting point is 00:17:15 about there's all kinds of climbs and stuff. Can we talk about the studies that have been done? Yeah, so I can still a little bit about the studies, but I think what is probably more useful, I think your audience is pretty smart, and they can go go and go to putt med and do a lot bit about the studies, but I think what is probably more useful, I think your audience is pretty smart and they can go go and go to puttmed and do a lot of their own research. But understand what fungi do in biology

Starting point is 00:17:33 is also a good way to look at what they can also possibly do in life, right? So fungi is one of these five or six kingdoms with animals, bacteria, you know, plants. And what they do is they have this intelligence to help other kingdoms to operate. So fungi was the first kingdom to come from the sea to the dry land, about 2.4 billion years ago.

Starting point is 00:17:59 Okay, and they were here well, like estimated about 1.7 billion years before anything else grew on dry land. So, they had to eat rocks to survive. And what's similar about fungi and animals is that they cannot produce their own food and they breed oxygen and expel CO2. So actually, animals and fungi used to be part of the same super kingdom. So we share up to 50% of our DNA with fungi, which makes fungi very potentially by available for humans, but also very, potentially very toxic.

Starting point is 00:18:31 So molds and buildings or things that can really, we've been really sensitive to fungal badness and we can really be receptive to fungal goodness. And to the goodness point is like about 40% of all pharmaceuticals are derived from fungi, which is insane. Penicillin is the one that everybody knows, but a lot of immunosuppressants on the market, for example. A lot of immune-focused things you talked about cancer and there's immunosuppressants, but that's where a lot of the fungal studies are.

Starting point is 00:19:01 And the reason for that is that that's what they do in nature as well. They actually help plants in like trees, for example, tell where there's nutrition. They tell that here's water, here's when they exchange nutrients between trees. So the roots of the trees have this rooting system of mushrooms and they, for example, swap nutrients. Like this tree has this nutrient, this tree has this nutrient, and they swap things together. And they tell if there's danger somewhere. So if there's a hostile species or thing on the other side of the forest, they communicate underground called like the wood-wide web.

Starting point is 00:19:36 And the fungal matter is underground everywhere in this planet. So about 25% of the earth's biomass, or quarter of the earth's biomass is Is the fungal material? How do they communicate? Yeah, I've heard that even when you walk in the forest, it's already mapping all these steps. Yeah, you will know that you stepped on it basically.

Starting point is 00:19:57 How do they communicate? Is it just through chemical signals? Yeah, it's actually like one of the things that we don't fully understand, but there's interesting studies how even a slime mold can figure out the Tokyo Metro system smarter than humans can and how they can get themselves out of a maze. You drop them and they'll find a root out of that maze with some sort of intelligence. So we don't really know. We obviously know out of these functional mushrooms, some compounds that are incredibly well studied for certain functions, but the intelligence that the fungal kingdom have

Starting point is 00:20:31 is still massively not understood. Even to the point of psychedelic mushrooms or whatever, we don't really know. But a lot of people can probably justify that they do something. You know? But how do they do it? There's some evidence, there's some studies, and we can obviously talk about them, but like in an abstract, we're just figuring shit out. Can I curse by the way? Yeah, of course.

Starting point is 00:20:58 It's encouraged. They, um, it's encouraged. The thing that fascinates me about mushrooms is their symbiotic relationship that they tend to have with their hosts, where if you get other types of infections or parasites or whatever, many times they'll kill you or take you over, whereas in many cases, certain species of plants almost require that symbiotic relationship from the mushrooms. Over 90% of plants

Starting point is 00:21:26 require mushrooms to grow. And you could actually argue that every human being requires mushrooms to grow, you know, be ourselves. Cause and here's my guess for the future is that we'll discover in my lifetime discover a new kingdom that is something between bacteria and fungi. And so they have this relationship even in our gut, but also anywhere else is like they

Starting point is 00:21:49 have this yeast, especially like beer and wine and bread and kombucha and all these things require the collaboration between fungi and bacteria. Otherwise you cannot produce certain cheeses. So there is something how they collaborate that we don't fully understand, but they definitely do goodness, including in our gut and in our body and in our immune system. One thing I learned a while ago that it's obvious when you think about it, but I never occurred to me was that mushrooms are not plants. In the sense that like when people say you should eat vegetables every single day,

Starting point is 00:22:26 you should have some proteins and some fats every single day. Nobody says you should eat mushrooms every day, because they think if they eat vegetables that they're getting in, that that's part of that, but it's not, it's totally different. Totally. And I know in a lot of cultures and a lot of alternative medicines, mushrooms are considered a staple.

Starting point is 00:22:44 Like it's something you should also consume on a regular basis. Essential nutrient. Yeah, and that's very fascinating to me. How do they operate within the body when we ingest them? Or do they operate differently than other things? Yeah, so a lot of the culinary mushrooms they would find in a grocery store, they have things like fibers.

Starting point is 00:23:02 They can be prebiotics. So if you're into the gut health world, you probably tune into the importance of prebiotics that it's hard to change your gut biome by having more probiotics, unless you just went through an antibiotic, something. But using prebiotics is often a way to improve gut biome. Mushrooms are one of those sources.

Starting point is 00:23:23 They can contain proteins. Some of them actually have a pretty good protein profile. I think she talky. I'm not saying that that would be your single source of protein or that, but like you could probably replace a meal a day or a few meals a week by using a different form of a protein source. They have B vitamins pretty widely depending on the mushroom, but there's some have more B3, B6, you know, but they are a great source of B vitamins pretty widely depending on the mushroom, but there's a some have more B3, 6, but they are a great source of B vitamins and vitamin D, one of the only plant-based sources

Starting point is 00:23:51 of vitamin D. So, for example, where the Sami people live, they get a very limited amount of sunlight, so they would use mushrooms as a way of getting vitamin D throughout the winter for seasonal depression and stuff. So that's kind of like the macro and micronutrient profile mushrooms can offer a very like clean source of carbohydrates. And but then we get to the intelligence part. And one of the most studied compounds is the form of polysaccharide.

Starting point is 00:24:17 So you know, many sugars. But as you know that sugars come in many forms and these polysaccharides are the ones that release the slowest. And especially this type of paited eclugans that you can get in small amounts from, let's say oats, but they were one of the most studied compounds in human health period. And they're incredibly abundant in these type of mushrooms. And what they're studied for is certain type of immodalulation, the billeted and modulate your immune system too directionally. So when your immune system is low, you normally tend to take immunostimulants like let's say garlic or a quina or something like that.

Starting point is 00:24:53 But if you overly stimulate your immune system and your immune system is hyperactive, then you get into troubles like allergic reactions and the outer immune stuff where your body is attacking your even healthy cells because they're confused. So, then you take immunosuppressants to do that, but what mushrooms and these beta-declugans seem to be able to do is this modulation of two directionally, they're like a boot camp for the immune system. So, that's what these beta-declugans do.

Starting point is 00:25:19 There's a lot of studies, obviously, just because purely out of funding for blood sugar type of things and heart health and things like antioxidant is there certain very good antioxidant is in mushrooms from anything from clothe thion to melanin to so there's like a lot of antioxidant focused studies out there just because those are where the funding is available. And not to say that those are the only ways where you can use mushrooms for, but. Now I read that mushrooms, you probably wanna find organic ones as often as possible

Starting point is 00:25:55 because they tend to absorb pesticides or herbicides. Yeah, they're kind of, they're kind of gnarly in a way that to do your symbiotic point, actually fungi are parasites. And the word parasite is a really bad word in our society. Some of the human being is such a parasite, right? But what basically means in nature is that they will use another form of living being for their benefit. And that's what basically we all do. We eat food for our benefit, right? And just like how it helps the overall society, the whole ecosystem is like how much are

Starting point is 00:26:28 they like symbiotic, for example? So there's a scale. And what mushrooms do is that they are the cleaners of the forest and cleaners of the nature. So they have this ability that seems to be that almost nothing else has the ability in nature to break out both organic and inorganic matter. So let's talk about that. Organic matter is like if you die and they put you in the graveyard, mushrooms will come and decompose your body.

Starting point is 00:26:54 Okay. But they can also break down inorganic matter that doesn't really necessarily belong in nature in that form. So something that was organic was shapesh shape shifted into something that was inorganic and now it's in nature. Case example, oil, like diesel and oyster mushroom that is commonly available in grocery stores could potentially help clean oil from nature. And there is, there's found a mushroom three, four years ago in the Amazon that eats plastic. Whoa. Wow. Yeah. And then you can eat it actually. So you eat the plastic and you can eat it actually. So it eats the plastic and you can

Starting point is 00:27:26 eat it and you're all good. Yeah. And then there is like certain chemical warfare weapons, like the X and Soma that are potentially the most gnarly things human race has ever created. And they can just go out and munch it. They munch it. For sure. And they love like eat radiation you can find them in like a real that's a superhero good at work. Yeah, but those cases if they've cleaned in H.E. you don't want to consume those ones. So they are they accumulate and hyper accumulate toxins from the forest. So that's why you kind of have to know where mushrooms come from. And it's the same thing with like when we talk about plans a lot of plants, you don't have to always worry if they're organic or not, right?

Starting point is 00:28:08 Because they're lower in the food chain. Same with small fish versus big fish. If you eat small fish, there's less likelihood of toxins accumulated. Versus you go to tuna, you kind of have to know where your tuna comes from, and salmon, right? Because they've eaten so much during that food chain. So mushrooms, even though they're small and seemingly

Starting point is 00:28:25 should be lower in the food chain like vegetables, we talked about the similarity with them and animals. They actually are kind of further in the food chain. So you have to be more quality conscious with fungal things than you have to be with vegetables. That's interesting. I've never heard anyone say that before. Have you ever been in a city before? Yeah, I know I was reading about how you want to get organic mushrooms for sure because

Starting point is 00:28:47 they tend to absorb whatever is around them and they can accumulate those. No, just as far as the hierarchy of how you should be more cautious about it. Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Bigger animal. Yeah, like sardines versus like swordfish. You can have way more mercury and swordfish than you would.

Starting point is 00:29:02 Correct. And also, how often you consume it, obviously, if you have a staple food that you eat every day, you wanna be more mindful of that. But as a rule of thumb, I think when you look at purity and your diet general, you wanna really focus on stuff that you consume a lot or stuff that is further in food chain or things that are concentrated goodness or badness. I think nothing is more true than fat.

Starting point is 00:29:23 Animal fat is like, you really want to know where your animal fat comes from because it's concentrated or amazing ness or concentrated of not amazing. So like so, like you really, this so but just in the case of mushrooms, they're further in the food chain, even though they seem small and tiny and little things, you know, but they have consumed something else because they had to eat to live versus plants use photosynthesis to generate energy and to grow. Animals and fungi need something to munch on. If I'm not mistaken, wasn't the largest living organism on Earth, a mushroom? Yeah, it's an organ. It's like underground.

Starting point is 00:30:01 It's underground. There's a national forest growing on top of it. So this is kind of a crazy thing. Nobody ever believes it. It's the humongous fungus. But it's between two to 4,000 years old. So it's the oldest living organism on the planet earth right now as we know it. And it's about size of 20,000 basketball courts. Holy shit.

Starting point is 00:30:23 Of one mushroom. And this is the crazy part. If you think of your skin, depending how you classify your skin, but like you have three or seven layers, I think, at least three, right? It has one layer. And it has survived two to four thousand years.

Starting point is 00:30:38 And it has been attacked by all kinds of species and whatever, and it has survived. So think of the immune system of this living being. Incredible. You have to live to, so the longevity and the immune system and the protection mechanism that this massive mushroom, one cell level thick in the honey mushroom family can survive that long. And it eats the national park a few times. I can remember the exact time period,

Starting point is 00:31:07 but it eats all through, it's just eat trees. It keeps eating trees. So now it's all underground, those, because right now I'm in using this massive mushroom like from the smurfs, but it doesn't look like that. It becomes so big, it will pop fruiting bodies, so maybe that's also a good thing to talk about. Mushrooms, we've talked now that they're underground, right?

Starting point is 00:31:24 That is like the rooting system of mushrooms, sometimes not mycelium or high-fay. It's basically those just rooting system. And that's most of mushrooms out there. But then what we actually eat is called the fruiting body. So that's the classic mushroom shape. That's the, even if you go to a grocery store, you never get mycelium, you get the cap.

Starting point is 00:31:44 The cap is part of the fruiting body. There's a stem cap, but then there's so many different types of mushrooms that don't have a stem in a cap. But generally speaking, the classic mushroom shape, and that's what mammals consume. So be reindeer's consume this poisonous psychedelic mushroom and they trip around, which just happens. You can Google BPC, reindeer's, I'm Zamanita, and you're gonna see a video. And anyway, animals love to trick on that.

Starting point is 00:32:08 That's cool, that's cool, back. And animals like to trick. Yeah, it's true. Or we don't know what's the experience of the Rain Deer. I have to just have to disclaim that. It seems like they're having a fun time. But it's hard to be the Rain Deer and know what they're actually experiencing,

Starting point is 00:32:21 but they're drawn to it. They come back for it, so it's something that they must enjoy. And so that is the fruiting body. And then there's spores, and they're in the air. So as we're speaking, we're breathing in mushroom spores, spores everywhere there in the air. And there are kind of a dormant for a while. And then 20, 30 years later, they create more mycelium that will create a fruiting body, that will create a spores. So that's kind of the cycle of life in the eyes of a fungi or fungi.

Starting point is 00:32:51 And yeah, and the most of it's underground and it's invisible, but you sometimes find these fruiting bodies also in this humongous fungus can create fruiting bodies. So, but most of the mass is underground. Do we know like a recommended dose of each type of mushroom that probably we should consume? Do you have any idea of like, do you have a regimen yourself? Like, I make sure I have this much chagra. I mean, how do you?

Starting point is 00:33:14 Yeah, that's a great question. Because like, as you guys know, and health and wellness, it's not just how much you know or how much you've consumed. It's more like, what can you boot in practice? And what can you have compliance with, right? The problem when we talk about a kingdom, there's such a diversity of things. Like, is the amount of avocado you should consume

Starting point is 00:33:33 every day the same amount as how much sweet potato can you consume versus, or we can go even stronger, how much pot you can consume. They're all plans, right? They're a amount of marijuana that you can consume versus the amount of potatoes you can consume is not the same thing. Way more pot than potatoes.

Starting point is 00:33:50 Yeah. Yeah. Potatoes upset my stomach. And veterans. Okay. So basically, it's so dependable. And the crazy part is that because they're these extra fields that grow anywhere, they build this mechanism to protect themselves.

Starting point is 00:34:06 And they especially have this chitine structure. And chitine is very hard, almost impossible for humans to break down. Chitine you would find in the shellval lobster, for example. So you can't eat the shellval lobster the same way. You can't eat mushrooms raw, so you have to cook them. So to prepare mushrooms, you need fats and heat. Most commonly mushrooms are sauteed in butter, or they put in a soup,

Starting point is 00:34:29 and that's how you unlock their nutritional powers. You can also cook them in bone broth, that's called a decoction, that's probably the most potent way of consuming mushrooms. So there's preparation. When the same way as you do bone broth, you can cook it for a couple hours, or you can cook it for days, right? So like how strong is the bone broth or how strong is anything that you extract coffee,

Starting point is 00:34:53 you extract coffee or tea, like do steep the tea for 15 seconds or multiple minutes. So that's a difference. So mushrooms are the same. Most products on the market when you talk about functional mushrooms are extracts. I wouldn't even recommend buying if you're listening to this. I wouldn't even recommend buying nothing but extracts. If you're not familiar with extraction process required. And in those extracts, there's a huge scale of quality. What I would say is first get stuff that is organic, stuff that is actual fruiting body, so grown in its natural, it's

Starting point is 00:35:27 using the right part of the mushroom. And then I recommend taking anything from 500 to 1500 milligrams a day. But again, I'm talking very general. Of course it depends. And how big you are, how sensitive you are. Some people can handle less, some can have more. Is it common in the mushroom space for people and supplement companies to pixie-dested

Starting point is 00:35:52 or like they do with other supplements? Oh yeah, okay. Oh yeah, I mean, too. It's, it's, it's happens with anything, right? Right, right. So, this is, this is why I like your company. I met you at Paleo Effects a couple of years ago. Yeah. And I saw your stand and I'm one easy one. Well, this is why I like your company. I met you at PaleoFX a couple of years ago, and I saw your stand, and I'm like,

Starting point is 00:36:09 I gotta talk to these guys, because the first time I ever heard of, or using mushrooms in four athletic performance, or for health, well, I'd heard about it before. I have an uncle who does Chinese medicine, but I forgot what year it was, but the Chinese swim team in the Olympics was killing everybody.

Starting point is 00:36:27 And then they attributed their success to using cordi-seps, which is a very interesting mushroom, by the way. It grows in caterpillars, like kills them and grows out of the body. So I had studied the cordi-seps and I had bought some products and the difference, and I remember what the brands were, but some of them did nothing. And others, I could clearly feel like, were, but some of them did nothing, and others, I could clearly feel like, oh, this is actually giving me some stamina

Starting point is 00:36:48 when I'm doing at the time I was training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And then you learn about like, okay, you need to be able to extract the, what's gonna work in your body? You can't just take it and then expect your body to unlock the nutrients or the compounds into their gonna have an effect.

Starting point is 00:37:06 And I know with four-sigmatic, you guys have this dual extraction process, which is trying to maximize the effects of whatever's in there. How does that work? Yeah, so, let's take first the step back in general, and any supplement, food product, whatever market. There's definitely multiple factors, points of supplement, food product, whatever market, there's definitely like multiple factors, points of differentiation, points of quality. So first of all, obviously, what genus are you taking?

Starting point is 00:37:33 Are you taking? So genus is like, what exact type of like, let's say there's many types of tomatoes or there's many types of potato, like, or even and many breeds of dogs or something like that. So, so not all of them are the same. So if you think of, okay, actually dogs, that's a horrible example. They all have the same Latin name, but let's forget what I just said. But let's assume that you look at a dog that is like a husky versus a chihuahua. They're different, right?

Starting point is 00:38:07 They're built differently. So, same can be applied to mushrooms. Some varieties are stronger than others. Then how it's grown is it grown in wild and Siberia or in a laboratory in Eastside of LA or something? I don't know. That's a difference. And then how it was harvested and collected. Was it harvested at a peak period? Was it harvested when it was too young or

Starting point is 00:38:28 too old? How was tried and processed? The extraction is what really is the mushroom, in the case of with mushrooms, a huge differentiator because that's where you unlock its bioavailability. Because you could have a great starting point, but you can eff it up totally by not extracting it or extracting incorrectly. And mushrooms, I mentioned that they love heat and fats or lipids. They have two kinds of really groups of active compounds, water soluble and non-water soluble. Water soluble compounds are the things that help with your immune system and gut health. So most, almost all top mushrooms are good for your gut health and your immunity. And they are anti-biro

Starting point is 00:39:06 and type bacterial, yada, yada, yada. But then the other part is these non-votersoluble, often fat soluble compounds that are more dapteogenic, which is very buzzy word right now. But helps your body deal with stress. Correct. In different ways. So in case of quarter-steps, there is like very specific compounds that can help with, for example, ATP production in a cellular level, or VO2 max was improved in the case of the Chinese endurance athletes, their ability to take oxygen in the lungs improved. These are very quantifiable things. Other things could happen in your body, but VO2 max we can measure pretty easily.

Starting point is 00:39:41 And it works. I mean, I always can tell a difference when I take cordyceps before, now if I'm doing a heavy strength training, you know, one to three reps, long rest, I don't know, it's a huge difference, but while my workouts speed up and I need more stamina or they're longer, for sure I notice a difference. And I notice a difference when I did jujitsu, in fact, half my, the class I used to take would take cordyceps because they would notice a difference. Well, yeah, definitely if you have any Arabic exercise, I would take quarter-steps is probably

Starting point is 00:40:11 the best of the functional mushrooms because it really helps with the ability to move oxygen in your body and that's huge. For if you are more in the Arabic type of exercise, I would really look into mushroom called lion's mane that protects. It's usually used as a new tropic, like a smart drug. I was just going to exercise, I would really look into mushroom called lion's mane that protects. It's usually used as a new tropic, like a smart drug. I was just going to say, I didn't know that. Okay. But you have to understand is like a lot of anarbic exercise, actually the nervous system

Starting point is 00:40:34 recovery is huge. Oh, let's take the K-acemple of runners. Like if you're not a sprinter and you go at the track and you do high intensity exercises or something like that. And you do, let's say, like people think like 100 meter dash or 60 meter dash is like an easy workout. Like you go and if you're not used to it and you don't know what you're doing, you could be for two, three weeks, your sore because you over stimulate your nervous system. And nervous system recovery takes a lot more longer than recovery or for example muscle tissue. We talk about this all the time. Like, DOM's like, that's not really a problem.

Starting point is 00:41:08 Like that's not your problem. So like, how in one single exercise in one of those, if you really push your nervous system, you can achieve a lot of damage. Well, most people don't realize like, if you want to be really, really strong, you get strong muscles, but have a powerful CNS like if you want to be really, really strong, you get strong muscles, but have a powerful CNS. That's gonna give you, this is why Olympic lifters,

Starting point is 00:41:29 150 pound Olympic lifters can lift more than a 230 pound bodybuilder. So CNS, that's able to generate tremendous amounts of force. And for people listening right now, you've experienced this, if you've ever drank coffee or had caffeine before a workout. That extra strength you get from the caffeine caffeine isn't because your muscles got bigger, it was because your CNS was able to fire more effectively.

Starting point is 00:41:50 Totally. And then, in generally, what mushrooms I mentioned that they're good for immune system, which is one of the least sexy topics in health. I think it's probably the third, least, the third most underrated part about health. I think number one is eye health, totally, total tension, by the way, apologies. But like how much we stare computers and phones like nobody's really focused on eye health. I think it's just going to blow up in the next 20, 30 years, a different antioxidants and color pigments than protect your eyes of the

Starting point is 00:42:21 damage that we're putting in. It's a totally new front here that we'd have no cool what's gonna happen. When you grow up as a kid staring at iPads, and how will that impact your- What do you think of that? Second, I think that is beyond underrated, I think is basically like your sleep quality, which sounds so fundamental,

Starting point is 00:42:40 but like most people react to poor sleep with more energy products. And we see that all the time. And whenever we make a, that forcibly, if we make a product that like tries to lower stress or sleep deeper, like people don't like get that. If you make something for the brain and energy, people want that usually. But the immune system is so related to like our skin quality and our ability to recover and our gut health.

Starting point is 00:43:03 And when you've finished the workout, your immune system is actually kind of fucked. It's like, temporarily, you could get sick really easily. If you ever run a marathon, or you do like a big crossfit tournament, whatever you do, and you push you to the next level, it's very easy to get sick, like very easy. So I think a lot of like really smart post workout stuff,

Starting point is 00:43:28 recovery stuff would include something that helps the immune system rebuild. You're going to achieve that in easy ways like with really nutrient and berries, but you'd also use things like these functional mushrooms and a small amount in your post workout shake to kind of rebuild your immune system and speed up the recovery there as well. It is part of the immune system's job, along with the central nervous system. In fact, I just read an article that the central nervous system

Starting point is 00:43:52 and parts of your body fat even react to inflammation to help manage it. And inflammation is necessary. If it goes out of control, of course, we know what that's like. And if it's too low, then you can start to deteriorate and cause problems. You just literally described how the immune system works basically to do inflammation. Yeah, you need that.

Starting point is 00:44:14 And so having a healthy immune system for athletes, it's not just about not getting sick. It's also about how well you recover and how well your body adapts, which is what you want. You want to build muscle, you want to burn body fat, you want to get faster, strong, or whatever. The immune system plays a major role in that. But back to lion's mane, so lion's mane helps strengthen the central nervous system, or does it stimulate the central nervous system?

Starting point is 00:44:36 Well, there's a specific part of the nervous system, or actually part is the nerve growth factors. Like, you guys have your BDNF and. No, it's actually NGF. Okay. But basically, one of the compounds in Lyons made has the ability to penetrate the blood brain barrier, which is kind of rare, only like usually like glycos

Starting point is 00:44:56 and certain like essential nutrients can penetrate. Basically, you're a body from your brain. And. We need to talk about that for a second, just for the listeners. So the blood brain barrier exists to protect your brain from your brain. We need to talk about that for a second just for the listeners. So the blood brain barrier exists to protect your brain from potential toxins and pathogens. Correct. And one of the problems with, and that's great, but then getting things to the brain if

Starting point is 00:45:15 you want to take a medication, very, very challenging. Very hard. Very hard. I mean, it's just a handful of things that can do that. It's literally, and it's a good thing, again, like, because it's a way to protect our body, even if we're super, super, super sick, like that's another way of like how we can maintain

Starting point is 00:45:32 the brain to the final hour in a way. But what Lionsman does have the ability is to penetrate that. And there's another compound there that can help rejuvenate these nerve growth factors. A nerve growth factor kind of became big by this Italian female scientist. And she was actually, I think, the oldest person to ever win the Nobel Prize on science. And she served in the Italian government until the day she died, which was like 103 years

Starting point is 00:46:00 old. But basically, the synapses that fire in our brain. So like how the nervous systems basically connect with each other, those nerve growth factors are a central part of how well that nervous system nervous system is firing and this lion's main seems to have ability to help with that. So obviously more research is needed. So I do I do Lions main with caffeine. And now it makes perfect sense as to why that would, because when I take Lions main with caffeine, I'm fire. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:46:33 I'm literally on fire. And sometimes I'll do it before podcasting. These guys can't get me to shut up. But no, it's an excellent combination. What about some of the other products? Like we talked a little bit about cortiseps. Chaga. Chaga from my experience,

Starting point is 00:46:48 Immunomodulator, it's an adapted gym. I know it's got some anti-cancer properties. What are some of the traditional uses of Chaga in medicine? Well, the traditional uses, the name Chaga comes from Russian language and that's who made it popular. It grows anywhere in the Northern hemisphere. So it grows in the US, Canada, coal climates, the emperors trees, but it became famous to

Starting point is 00:47:12 Alexander Sultrynitskyn, which is a noble winning law author. Talked a lot about like cool locks and the concentration camps in Russia. Didn't you write the glue? Was it the glue like Archipelago? Or the... Yeah, I have his book actually. I'm about to read it. Yeah. So the... And...

Starting point is 00:47:33 But he wrote a book called Cancer Award and talks about in that book using Chaga and that kind of gave it popularity in the West a little bit as well. But Chaga, traditional uses for gut health and cancer that I cannot say our product helps with those things. But that's the tradition. That's what they use it for.

Starting point is 00:47:52 Yeah, well we know about it. Yeah, that we know about it is incredibly high amounts of antioxidants. And I mean, God, the internet loves to debate, which is the number one source of antioxidants. But Chaga is definitely somewhere out there, like a cup of dual extracted wild choggle equal to like 30 pounds of carrots in antioxidants. Not all antioxidants do the same thing, though.

Starting point is 00:48:15 But one of the things that is very hot, two things that are very high in and Chogas, the super oxase, dismit taste, the SOD. And that's for an athlete something definitely. If you are an athlete, you wanna work out due to a days or be more active, I would really look into the research of SOD. The other one is melanin. And we know how that kind of creates the colopigment on our skin.

Starting point is 00:48:39 Melan is an antioxidant, so if you wanna protect your skin, if you're a lot exposed to a lot of sun or something skin related out Look into maybe supplementing your lifestyle and diet with jog or a natural source of melanin. Yeah, one thing I also found fascinating about some of these mushrooms is and because again, I'm in the in the fitness industry which is Tends to be geared around fat loss and muscle building. Yeah, was of the, I've seen studies that show that some of these mushrooms will raise testosterone levels in men who have depressed testosterone levels. Doesn't seem to do that with normal testosterone.

Starting point is 00:49:14 So people who are healthy, but when people tend to have depressed or hormones that seem to be at a balance, some literature shows that it may be one of those things that helps balance it out. And I think that's kind of a hallmark and an adaptogen. Yes, so technically in order to, now adaptogens, everything is adaptogens. Right.

Starting point is 00:49:32 But in theory, the original research on adaptogens kind of you need three things to qualify as a real adaptogen. One is that it's first of all safe and non-habit forming. So if you can form you an addiction or habit or if it has toxic capabilities, technically you cannot be. I mean, anything is toxic at a bigger amount, but you should have to be safe and non-habit forming.

Starting point is 00:49:57 The second is that it needs to be non-specific, which is always hard to research and study because it's non-specific, But basically means that it has multiple functions or this modulation ability to modulate something. So it's too directional. But it can work multiple body parts. So you can maybe the effects are on the endocrine system and maybe they're in the central nervous system. Maybe they're in the blood circulation or the ability to produce like ATP production. Like there's multiple touch points where adaptogens could, you know, land. And that's obviously like heart from a scientific point of view, the really,

Starting point is 00:50:34 you know, narrow down, but that's kind of how they work. And in this case, for example, I think it's really important to not fully buy into the hype of adaptogens, but acknowledge that they are and there are things that can do that. And you can use them in a certain way. And we don't fully know how they work. But if you use the right quality, I think you believe that you should feel the effects. So I feel like you should just trust that. The feeling. The feeling more than the fact of like we're still,

Starting point is 00:51:08 for example, in the case of testosterone is obviously that's a marker you can measure. But I feel like sometimes hormones get misunderstood. Like we think that like, oh, our testosterone is low and the problem is testosterone, but like, maybe testosterone is low in the body because the body's trying to buffer something else. Right, you're stressed out and sleep well.

Starting point is 00:51:26 Correct. So it's like it's a safe buffer and it's actually there to protect you and you should figure out why as it been pushed down, sure you can elevate it. And but if you use something synthetic, but it seems to be that these mushrooms have this intelligence of modulating but not stimulating

Starting point is 00:51:45 or suppressing, but they modulate. So because this is your field of expertise, do you study all mushrooms? You know, like you're the psychedelic ones? I mean, psychedelics, yeah, but no, it's impossible. Unfortunately, even if you are a myecologist, you would choose few types of mushroom families that you would focus on, and probably even there you would focus on specific, like for example, enzymes that, you know, in the protein family, but a lot of them are derived from certain like fungi, and you would just focus on few types of enzymes that can be used in a laundry

Starting point is 00:52:20 detergent. And your whole life is dedicated to this family of certain lipase that can remove oil stains from your shirt when you wash it, because stuff like that, right? And so now washing machines are more energy efficient so they use different types when you do enzymes and you could dedicate your whole life on it. I can do that. Like I'm just really focused on.

Starting point is 00:52:44 What made you do for for cinematic. What made you start a company like that? I mean, I just struggle answering that question because it's a lifestyle. You know what I mean? It's like, it's not like one day I woke up and an apple fell in my head and I was like, it's like something that is within me, you know? It's like trying to explain God to someone, you just feel it kind of like it's kind of hard. Did you, I mean, did you see the writing on the wall? I mean, you've already, a couple of times said some things

Starting point is 00:53:17 about what you think is gonna happen in the future. Oh yeah, that was like, my passion for mushrooms, adaptogens, optimal human performances just within me. For me to put, my focus on building a company, I have to see that something was about to change. And that was basically what we're doing now is like, information sharing with blogs initially and then social media and now podcasts, enabled information that was unpopular or odd to spread

Starting point is 00:53:41 easily without use of external funding. So like, my company is like, is not run on VC money, right? So you have to figure out like, how do you get your message out in a cost efficient way, or ideally for free, just by sharing what you do and doing good stuff, right? That was not possible, for example, when I discovered the firm, I should 13 years ago, there was no way. You need a tons of dough, or you need to have like a small tweak to an existing belief. So now you have protein, but you have more protein. 13% more protein.

Starting point is 00:54:12 You have potato chips with 12% less fat, or something like that. So you couldn't build, like if you come out and say, is like, hey, I wanna wake the whole world drink mushrooms, which basically I'm trying to do. Get the whole world drinking mushrooms. It's so out there. It's so insane. Is that like people are not going to bind that that lens there's a way of how you can tell the story at long form like we're doing now, right? So that block two point, the Web 2.0 whole that world was like, okay, that's

Starting point is 00:54:42 that stuff there. Me believing in their ability to lower stress is more relevant now than ever. Their adaptogens help with like stress. We have more stress than ever. Their ability to help with your cognitive function. We have more need for brain power than we've ever had. Or natural beauty industries is blowing up and people are consuming these BS stuff all the time to look themselves pretty. And actually, it's just hurting their skin quality

Starting point is 00:55:06 when there's like natural ways of actually making it. So I saw that happening, but it really like, how can you do it without pouring millions of some bankers' money into it? Right. And you guys, I mean, early on, because podcasting now is getting popular. It's getting mainstream.

Starting point is 00:55:23 But even three years ago when we started our show, it wasn't, I would go up to people and ask them, you know, if they listen to podcasts, they say, well, what's a podcast? And that was just three years ago. But you guys have been on podcasts, or sponsoring, advertising on podcasts, like pretty early on.

Starting point is 00:55:38 Was it, what made you decide to go that route? Was it that you saw that, okay, new media is the way to go? We just love education. Like my mother is a teacher. She taught physiologian anatomy, I just love education, you know, and I think podcasts is like a revolutionary way of educating people.

Starting point is 00:55:56 So you listen to them way before you even? Yeah, and it's, I think the magic of podcasts is the fact that you can do it in a car. I think especially for America, that is the jam. I would use them to audiobooks before that, and audiobooks are good, but I feel like podcasts are better. Oh, yeah. Way more interactive, and if you can learn the same stuff.

Starting point is 00:56:19 But both of them have this magic of the stuff that if you go for a run or walk, if you're in a car, if you're in a car, if you're whatever, you can do it as a background. And so that's why I love them. And the second thing is that the curation process is completely different than let's say radio or TV or like there's a editor in a magazine telling what is allowed to be told.

Starting point is 00:56:41 And now there's a platform that like anybody can boot out any content. And if it's a platform that like anybody can boot out any content and if it's good content, somebody will consume it, right? So, you know, just super supportive of like odd people and different thinkers putting their word out. But as you guys know, is like in theory, making a podcast is free, right?

Starting point is 00:57:00 In theory, right? You just need your phone or whatever. But it actually takes a lot of time and money to put out there. So supporting that is actually like, it's almost better than supporting a charity is like supporting education for free. And in thin, then I was happy enough to brought up for free educational system. So all universities and colleges and everything is free. And you actually get almost like a salary allowance to go to school But here it's that's not the case. So Podcast is one of the answers for a lot of I think for a lot of people for anybody wherever you live

Starting point is 00:57:33 You have access to free education How long have how long ago did you guys start how long this did form a cinematic start? 60 years ago and three years now in the US was it was it was it where did you start then was it in Finland? I was living in Switzerland and it was launched in Hong Kong and then years now in the US. Was it, where did you start then? Was it in Finland? I was living in Switzerland and it was launched in Hong Kong and then I moved to the Philippines. So it's like the craze is like the world. It's all over the place man.

Starting point is 00:57:52 It's all over the place. Yeah, why did you go there? Philippines? No, Hong Kong. And then Philippines, yeah. I mean, I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna sugar-coded. There was no really little taxes there.

Starting point is 00:58:02 The Hong Kong is very business. Very business, right? There was other downsides to it. But like when you had no money, you couldn't really, I couldn't pay myself a salary for the first two years. Yeah, tell the business story. I would love to hear, you know, starting in with your own money like that, I find that fascinating.

Starting point is 00:58:19 And where are you at now? Whatever you can't show. And it's easier now guys. Like it's getting easier. It's still in certain ways it's harder because like everybody's like flocking on Instagram ads and Facebook and stuff, but still like in two days world, it's certain infrastructural parts of it,

Starting point is 00:58:33 running a business gets easier, like accounting and fulfillment for physical products and all that stuff gets easier and easier. But yeah, I mean, starting a business with limited capital or no capital requires really that you have something else of value, right? Because like, you are not going to win anybody by outbiting them on ads or sponsorships or hiring the top talent who can get you into GNC Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, whatever. Like, in my case, it was just like my knowledge and passion

Starting point is 00:59:07 for whatever I do. So ability to source better than anyone else, but ability to formulate better than anyone else. Like, so another way to say, which is not true, but like that marketing is a tax you pay for a bad product. And if you just like believe, especially in today's world that you have the best product, not just believe, but it actually is true,

Starting point is 00:59:29 that is a way of entry. So if you're listening to this and you wanna do something, is it a service business, a product business, whatever? Because of internet, it's hard to be the fourth best product on the market and your category. It's really, really hard,

Starting point is 00:59:43 because why would anybody buy your product? You don't have to be... That's a good point. The best is a white definition, because someone person who might be best means the cheapest. If you are always the cheapest product in your category, there's a market for you, right? Then you have the best product,

Starting point is 01:00:00 like who has the best product? Yeah, quality. And then there's the best customer experience. So you offer something else that others can offer. So you're fucked if you're the fourth company. You, I think you, that's, I'm cheap. I'm probably some, I'm not a super business mind for a way to solve this guy.

Starting point is 01:00:16 They're like waving their fingers like, that is not how Tracy and Veressor momented in 1997 when they drew the Valley disciplines, fuck that. I think if I'm a consumer and I want headphones, I want headphones. Why would I buy your head, do I want, I want the amazing headphones. I want the best overall experience.

Starting point is 01:00:41 And overall experience can mean branding and design and all the kind of other customer service like sabbos with shoes and stuff like can mean a lot of stuff. But why would I buy your product? I think a lot of that's dying. I think we're in this, I mean, I know just in my time of shopping for something online is completely evolved and changed in the last 10 years. In the past, we would search for a brand that we recognize, but now you search and you look for what's cut the five star reviews.

Starting point is 01:01:08 Five star reviews. And so. So, like, Agile question, like, which protein to use? Like, why would he use an average way protein? Like, why, like, who would use that? Like, because you kind of give a shit. Yeah. Just a little bit.

Starting point is 01:01:23 Yeah. So either you choose a product that is like, especially in today's world, you choose the product you think is like, absolute cleanest, best, whatever. Sure. Or the flavor is on point. So you're going to throw up. It's going to be best in one category.

Starting point is 01:01:35 You have to like somehow, yeah, I think a lot of like, me two products is just going to die out because of internet. Mm-hmm. Because they just can. I can see that. Like, because even if you find them and you're there sold, you're going to Google them and of internet. Because they just can't. I can see that. Like, because even if you find them near their soul, you're going to Google them and say, like, oh, actually, this product is better.

Starting point is 01:01:50 Like, this has better reviews. So this one, these guys are not as nearly as good as these guys. Right. That's a good point. So you start in Hong Kong and you launch your product online? No, actually, we launched it in Europe and Europe, the language difference is different. So we started making basically mushroom tea in Europe and sold it in retail and education and all that stuff community was done online. But the sales channel was still like conventional

Starting point is 01:02:18 at that point also because of language barriers or easier to sell to stores. And then like a few years in we started getting requests from the US and I came here before we moved the business, just to kind of like talk. And I interviewed hundreds of people and it's just like if you would do this and ask them questions before making the decision and the decision was pretty clear

Starting point is 01:02:37 is that if you come here, you're all in. You don't come here to half-ass. So if this is the NHL, the NBA, and you come from the Euroleague, you got to be all in. There's so much competition here and the best of the best from around the world out here, you got to be fun. So move the business here and quickly realize a couple things. One was the fact that buyers of whole foods or whatever. I don't want to pick on whole foods,

Starting point is 01:03:08 but whatever store they were like, nobody drinks mushrooms here, first of all. So I'm not gonna buy this. As our first product cost it, 38 bucks. It's like, why would anybody buy this product? Plus, we came from Europe, so we didn't make any health claims. So our competitors would say, it's like, this would anybody buy this product? Plus, we came from Europe, so we didn't make any health claims. Our competitors would say, you know, this does make you a penis bigger. No kidding. But like, it was easier for them to sell with, with basically telling

Starting point is 01:03:34 you, like, this is it. So we try to like actually deep, educate, like, how does mushrooms thing, whatever. And yeah, it was like quite a barrier of entry. Then second thing we realized that was like, people here don't drink tea. If they drink tea, they don't know what's the difference between good tea and bad tea. You can have air-plane tea and you think, oh, it's tea, you know, it's the look-lipton. But every person, even if you're not quality conscious at all,

Starting point is 01:03:59 and you're Jim or Susan in Kentucky, you've had a bad cup of coffee. Right? Everyone has had a bad cup of coffee. Even if you think, Fulgers is the bomb, you have had a bad cup of coffee. So you know that there is an importance and value

Starting point is 01:04:20 to upgrade your coffee. Like you've had hardburn, you've had jitters, you know that there if somebody can offer you a coffee without the jitters or the coffee without the hard burn, a lot of people would be like, got it. Secondly, the problem with anything health when introducing new things is compliance. So you know, you can have this great workout program, but then people quit after a week or something. It doesn't really help you, right? So mushrooms are no different. Like if you don't consume them, they don't help you, right? So ritual, like how do you repeat the habit is really hard.

Starting point is 01:04:54 One of the built-in repeat mechanisms is coffee. Like people rarely forget to have their coffee. So if you can make a healthy coffee, the sap sapently also has these immune and gut supporting mushrooms, but doesn't give you the jitters or whatever, people are like, I'll have that every day. So, we had to like move from making mushroom tea into mushroom coffee, and instead of selling the mushroom thought, just like,

Starting point is 01:05:18 hey, do you want coffee without the jitters? People are like, yeah, fuck yeah, just sign me up. I'll try anything. And then second is like, because no buyers will want our product, people are like, yeah, fuck you out, just sign me up all the time. I'll try anything. And then second is because no buyers will want our product. We're like, okay, if this will just just going to sell it online. And both of those ended up being like, I can't take credit for that, but like brilliant. They were ahead of the curve. And then like podcast and like being online.

Starting point is 01:05:40 And you know, and we sell pretty well, for example, in Amazon. And when we're there, nobody really did that stuff on Amazon. So you have first mover advantage and stuff. How long did it take for the business to really start to take off? It's a classic overnight story that takes five years. Yeah, I think four or five years.

Starting point is 01:06:05 But we were a big shit within a certain community. So I have like certain. Big shit, small bowl. Yeah, very small bowl. But we had, we've earned vogue before we launched here or something like, or we had celebrities using the products, I don't know, even how they found it,

Starting point is 01:06:23 because it was not sold anywhere. So that's what I mean, with the marketing, the marketing's it be the product. I don't know how they found it because it was not sold anywhere. So that's why I mean with the marketing, the marketing is a tax for bad product. Like if you do something amazing, people will find it. People will look for it and they'll talk about it and you don't have to make a viral video with an ad agency.

Starting point is 01:06:41 Like if you just make good shit. You don't have to say yourself on fire and jump rope. Yeah, no, we can help though. We just, very strategically. No, we just spoke at a mastermind group and then we were talking, everyone was so surprised that we didn't have this huge marketing budget.

Starting point is 01:06:56 We hadn't spent a lot of money on that. And we were like, no, we, you know, we believed we had a good message and there was a need for it in our space. And 100% of businesses grow grown organic up until just now, I mean, we just hired a marketing team three, three, four months ago. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I'm the intermission after,

Starting point is 01:07:14 after putting like Ben and Paul and like, good stuff like that, like it will spread. Like people will share those episodes five years from now. Yeah. Like people like, hey, have you heard this? Because it's going to live there. And it's accessible at any time.

Starting point is 01:07:28 So are you, so you're headquartered now here in Southern California? Yeah, LA, we're based in, but we have a fully distributed team. So at the same time, like when we did this, you had to figure out how to reinvent everything because we wouldn't have access to the resources. So one of the things we decided is like, why do we need, why do we need an office? Like what's the point? Technically, we have an office in LA, New York, and Helsinki, but nobody ever goes to them. So a team can be anywhere.

Starting point is 01:07:54 And there's clear benefits to it. And it's not always easy, but like there are benefits of like, you can choose the time when you're most effective. Like you are a morning person or evening person, right? You can also, I take a nap every effective. I give you a morning person or evening person, right? You can also, I take a nap every day. Like, that's important for me. And then some people wanna, like, we can hire better talent because we don't have to relocate them.

Starting point is 01:08:16 Or, as a company, because people can live in a cheaper place. Like, the first few years, because I couldn't pay myself, I would live in low-cost countries around the world because I could have a solid quality of life, drinking and coconut by the beach, but still only spend a few hundred bucks a month, you know?

Starting point is 01:08:35 That's what was that, the Philippines right there, right? Yeah, the Philippines. Philippines is one of those destinations, but. Are you married or are you single? I'm single, I'm ready to mingle. Oh, I could be in the States. Yeah, hey. But are you are you married or you single? I'm single right or mingle So what's what's your favorite country so far because you've you've operated business in Europe Hong Kong Philippines here. Yeah, this is my vastly different markets. Yeah, this is my 10th country I'm living in oh really I mean the other ones

Starting point is 01:09:03 US Canada France France, Italy, UK, Switzerland, Australia. I think that's it. I think that's it. Okay. Yeah, I stopped picking favorites when I was like a teenager, but no, they're all good in different ways. I think actually that's kind of you set yourself up for failure is expectations. Like somebody said that happiness is like when reality meets expectations and you have two controls to levers

Starting point is 01:09:31 You can control the reality and you can control the expectations and with those two levers you can control your happiness, right? So if I go to the Philippines and I expect the infrastructure to work and people to be on time, it'd be pretty unhappy. If I live in Switzerland and I'm there, I paid $8 for a bottle of water. You know, I'm pretty bummed right. But then you can look at it. It's like, hey, the most incredible nature is available for me for free at any time. Within an hour, I'll be in Zermato, Sosphae, or I'll be here climbing, and it's free, like, or close to free.

Starting point is 01:10:10 And then I have to overpay here, or in the Philippines, I had other things that I could access. Like a massage was three bucks, so you could have massage every day. You know, it's like it's not really break the bank. So like the same with living in L.A. or in California, you are literally exposed to some of the greatest nature

Starting point is 01:10:28 on the planet Earth. Like California, national park, state parks, like gorgeous. Insane, like people just don't appreciate them. But then you have traffic and the cost of living. And like what we're doing now, like the community and the people who are here, like right after this, I'm going to get lunch with my friend Max, who apparently you know as well.

Starting point is 01:10:45 Oh, look at here. So like, if you live in Finland, there's great people, but it's harder there than it is here. Or, you know, it's like, so obviously, technology's bridging a lot of those gaps, but at the same time, like every place had its pros and cons.

Starting point is 01:10:58 Now, what's the, what's the store for the future of a four-stigmatic? It seems to be growing. Can we talk about these chocolates? Pretty, yeah, what did you give us here, dude? Is that still on the wrap? Mushroom chocolate. And one of the things when you do what you want to do is

Starting point is 01:11:14 we give that out for free. So we donate free mushroom chocolates to people, so we don't sell those. Except for Valentine's Day, we sell them. And these are different than the mushroom chocolates that I had in Hawaii with my girlfriend where I started seeing funny things. Yeah, this is exactly that.

Starting point is 01:11:28 That one is everyday magic. Yeah. What you had there was, one's a year magic. Or something like that. It's a magic. Exactly. So yeah, so the future, what are you guys, what are you gonna be doing in the future?

Starting point is 01:11:43 What's ahead? Well, I just hate the question like people ask, where are you gonna grow? I often give this anecdote of like a push up as a trainer, you're like, okay, let's do 10 reps. Why the fuck nobody ever says nine reps? Or 11? It's gonna be even, I don't know.

Starting point is 01:12:02 It's like 10, 12, 15, okay. So now you're a trainer, you, 15. Like, yeah. Okay. So now you're a trainer and you're looking at a person you're training and they're doing, let's do 10 reps. After four, the four, the form gets all shitty. Now you have a risk of injury or that you're working the wrong muscle or whatever, but you're like, 10, it's got to be fucking 10. Four stone.

Starting point is 01:12:21 What if you can do 52? Right? The muscle doesn't know the weight you're pushing and knows the resistance. So same with business, why do all these numbers, you have to do this, you have to do that. So I consider the form being a much bigger thing. What can you do with good form? What is the level? But you still have to challenge yourself beyond your capabilities

Starting point is 01:12:45 so to give that Hormase is that a Hormetic stressor like so you grow if you don't push yourself you don't grow But you can push yourself too much right? What's that sweet spot? The other thing I like to say is that everybody fucking says is like want to be like where us not them But like I really try to live that so every every year try to do something outlandish like I just we just bought a school bus and that we name Mori and we're going to convert it into a mushroom mobile that will travel around the country giving people free mushrooms. We opened a Shroom Room on Apakini which is one of the trendiest streets in America. It's in Venice Beach with all these gentr these like all these crazy fashion stores coming up.

Starting point is 01:13:26 We have a little showroom on the corner that gives free mushrooms to people. And we just we are a make for mushroom academy that like every online marketer would have said we should have charged people to do that. It's for free online. So you can go to free mushroom academy, you learning course. And just making like dope products like trying to figure out different ways how you can sneak to a free mushroom academy, you learning course, and just making dope products, like trying to figure out in different ways,

Starting point is 01:13:46 how you can sneak people, like mushrooms, adaptogens, and other top superfoods, they're diet without them really noticing. Like that's the kind of the ultimate ninja move is, is when you can incorporate to your mom and dad's life, a mushroom coffee, or something else that we're working on right now, that you can just put it into your body, and you're not life, a mushroom coffee, or something else that we're working on right now that you can just put it into your body,

Starting point is 01:14:08 and you're not gonna, you're like, oh, that was good. That's a dope attitude. Yeah, that's true. Are you living your dream? Yeah, I mean, that's also like, at the funny, it's like, are you living your dream? Like, what does that actually mean? I always like meditate on that.

Starting point is 01:14:23 I'll just like, is that me? I'm adding fun most of the time. Yeah, most of the time. That's cool, man. Well, shit, excellent, man. You definitely leave your brand. I mean, I'm glad we work with you guys. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:14:35 Excellent. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for listening to Mindpunk. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy,

Starting point is 01:14:46 and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at Mind Pump Media.com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps on a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exerciseming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout nutrients in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a 430-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources

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