53. Psychedelics Treating PTSD with Jesse Gould

Brock Briggs  0:00  

Hello and welcome to the Scuttlebutt podcast, the podcast for current and former service members looking to do the hard thing. I'm your host, Brock Briggs. Thanks for tuning in today to my conversation with Jesse Gould. But before we begin, I have an exciting announcement. Last week, I mentioned it was the 52nd episode marking one year of the podcast. I'll be releasing an episode next week to talk about that specifically, but for now I'm doing a giveaway to celebrate the one year and honor some of the fantastic guests I've had on the show. 

For the giveaway, two winners will receive a gift box valued at over $1,000. Each gift box will contain a bunch of books, swag, coaching. I gotta list through some of this stuff like it's a crazy lineup that we've got on this. A copy of From CO to CEO by Bill Toti, Connected Soldiers by John Spencer, Fight Like a Girl by Kate Germano, Always Faithful by Tom Schueman, Karmic Purgatory by Keith Dow, Third Shift Entrepreneur by Todd Connor, Women of the Military and A Girl's Guide to Military Service both by Amanda Huffman, The War Makes Everyone Lonely by Graham Barnhart, and A Military Career Transition by Bill Kieffer. 

That's just the books though. It will also include four bags of specialty coffee, an hour of business coaching, three executive coachings, the Figure It Out pilot stickers and swag, a year subscription to seven investing stock market research and a ticket to the Military Influencer Conference in 2023. It is a huge lineup. Like I said, the box is valued at over $1,000 each and we're giving away two of them. The only thing that's required for entry, leaving a rating for the podcast. That's it. So if you haven't left a rating yet, now's the time to do it because you're getting entered into a huge giveaway just for something that'll take under a minute of your time. 

Once you've left a rating for the show, you need to take a screenshot of the rating and upload it to the forum that's gonna be in the show notes for this episode. So a quick form name, email and the photo. That's it. Like I said, you can do the whole thing in under two minutes. The rating helps ensure this show stays going and gets you lined up to earn some serious swag. If you have already left a rating, that's okay. I just need you to go through the process of doing it again and screenshotting it. The rating only counts once but it's just for the screenshot. And that's all we need. If you're not mobile friendly for screenshotting on your device, you can send the screenshot via email to scuttlebuttpod1@gmail.com That email address is also in the shownotes. 

One of the most important things I wanna emphasize about this, is this is not just for veterans. This is not just for active duty, anybody can enter. Like I said, the only thing required for entry is leaving a rating for the show. So you can benefit from this box and a variety of ways. If you're a non vet, surely you have a friend or family member that has served. The books will maybe mean more than them, you keep the coffee for yourself. You can cut this a million different ways. Anybody can win. I wanna take a second to thank everyone who pitched in to make this giveaway possible. All of my authors were kind enough to pitch in a copy of the book. I already read their names. Thank you guys so much. 

On the coffee front, we've got Matt Bishop over at Iron Mule coffee and Michael Madrid at Project Buna. You guys are awesome. Evocati, Barrett Bogue and Kate Germano both for offering the coaching sessions. I really appreciate you guys. Tim Kirkpatrick, Dave Armstrong from the Moments in Leadership podcast. You guys helped make this happen. Thank you. I also want to give a special shout out to the two biggest contributors to this giveaway. First off, Matt Cochrane over at 7investing and his boss, Simon Erickson. I've known Matt and Simon both for a couple of years now. And I actually worked with 7investing on their podcast. 

7investing is a stock market research service where you get seven stock picks per month with deep dive research and analysis from true financial analysts. What does that mean for you? Well, honestly, investing is one of those things that we all know we should be doing. But sometimes, easier said than done. What 7Investing does is help educate and teach you in a sensible way. So they do the hard work of looking at the stock market, doing individual company research and then make their best recommendations on where you can be investing your money in the market each month. 

One of the things I love about Matt and Simon and the rest of the team: transparency. They provide an ongoing record of their recommendation so that they're publicly accountable for all of their picks. The financial industry is full of people trying to tell you to give them your money so they can go behind closed doors and do who knows what with it. The 7investing principles hinge around educating you to make the decisions with industry level knowledge and expertise with great research. They also have a podcast if you're interested in listening to stock market talk and research on individual companies audibly. You can check that out. You can also find them at seveninvesting.com. 

Simon and Matt, I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for helping make this happen. My second shout out for contributors is to Mark Harper over at We Are The Mighty. I had Mark on episode 44. And we talked about his jump from Combat Camera and Air Force to working in Hollywood. During the show, we talked about the Military Influencer Conference, which is a big group of folks in the military affiliated space, getting together to network, talk business and resources, and have a great time. I first found out about it a couple of weeks before this year's event and was unable to make it but I already had the dates blocked off for this next year. Honestly, I’m missing those personal connections that I had in the service and looking for MIC as a place to go and find that. Tickets this last year were 250 bucks. 

So that makes this giveaway even much more valuable. Mark, I wanna say thank you for your contribution and helping make this happen. I appreciate and respect what you and We Are The Mighty are doing and look forward to seeing you and everybody else at the Military Influencer Conference in 2023 in Las Vegas. So that's the giveaway to sum up $1,000 in value books, swag coaching, and more. No cost to enter, only requirement is leaving a rating for the podcast which helps the show grow, gets to the eyes and the ears that it needs to. Click the link to the form in the show notes for more details. And I'll also be emailing out the full details of this in the newsletter. If you're not signed up for that, you can check that out @scuttlebutt.substack.com. 

And now for today's episode, Jesse Gould. Jesse's background has it all. He worked in finance, specifically investment banking, and then went on to be an Army Ranger, worked at a nonprofit and is now the CEO of his own nonprofit. In this discussion, we talked through some heavier topics. We discussed how after service he struggled with alcohol and with PTSD, and the culminating point of him refusing to accept a lifelong diagnosis and going to do something about it. Jesse today is the CEO of Heroic Hearts, a nonprofit that helps veterans cope with trauma by providing coached and supervised psychedelic treatment, coaching and support. 

In an effort to confront his own struggles, Jesse went to Peru to experience ayahuasca and it was such a transformative experience for him. He's taking that to others. And the success stories are honestly like something I've never heard before. We've talked through some of the science behind psychedelics, the current state of the laws around them, and how Heroic Hearts is helping to fuel the scientific studies that are pushing this treatment method forward as a viable alternative to PTSD treatment. 

I'm certainly no scientist and I've never experienced it, but the people I speak with who have like Jesse and earlier in the show on Episode 10, Josh Duntz, both speak to its transformative experience and helping them work through some of the issues that were brought on by service. I'll let you learn more from the expert though. Please enjoy this conversation with Jesse Gould.

Brock Briggs

One of the things that I like to talk and ask people because I think that it really gets to things that people really care about, is what is something that you're really proud of? But you maybe don't get to talk about very often or don't get to tell people about.

Jesse Gould  8:34  

I don't know, it's kind of come more recently for people who've never worked in like nonprofit or startup. It can be sort of a whirlwind, all the positives and a lot of negatives still, as well. Sometimes you're just trying to catch up to what's going on. And so especially the past few years, with everything else, COVID just been like, run, run, run, run, run. I think we're finally getting into a spot where we've established something in a few countries. And we're starting to see the ripple effects of that. Whether directly associated with us or not. And so I think it's just kind of more of the macro of, I just mentioned to you I was at a conference. 

And you know, seeing more veterans at this psychedelic specific conference and seeing people who we've helped directly or indirectly or who knew what we're working on, like a stranger who's heard of our nonprofit that, you know. That makes me proud because that's like, you know, anything you've worked so hard to build up and then when you actually see the early avenues of success. And I think for a lot of us, too, you know, it's hard for you to admit when you get there because you're just like, ah we're not there yet. And still, I don't think we're there but a little glimmer of, you know, establishing something and having its positive effects on a big basis is kind of what makes me happy, makes me proud of the work not only myself, but the people in our team have accomplished.

Brock Briggs  10:17  

Knowing that you're not there yet is a good way to help keep your foot on the gas, you know, and keep kind of charging forward and fighting through some of that, those growing pains.

Jesse Gould  10:28  

Which can be trauma inducing. And you know, there's a lot of overachievers or high performers that kind of get caught in that loop, where if they're not constantly in that sort of stress state, then they're not comfortable. But then after so many years of that or, you know, also having to dedicate time to family and personal health. And that's not always a good occasion. But I think there's an inevitability to it with any sort of startup because you have to kind of be full on into it. Just because you're the person asked to wear the many hats, you have to like, keep that sort of thing. And you know, a lot of non nonprofits and startups don't succeed just because it is so intense.

Brock Briggs  11:14  

I'd love to hear what you think about that hyper productivity loop. And like, how “high performing people” kind of incentivize themselves, and maybe the pros and cons of that. You have an investment banking background and then were an Army Ranger, both careers that aren't known for like low stress levels and are very synonymous with kind of those ”high performing people". So I would love to hear what your thoughts were like, was that something that you've always had? And then maybe, how has that changed to today?

Jesse Gould  11:54  

Yeah, it's kind of interesting. You know, our nonprofit focuses on veterans, bringing veterans to psychedelics, but we've also occasionally had other similar sorts of people. So we've had professional athletes just kind of mix in with our veteran groups or very professional or very successful, like finance, people like venture capital and all that kind of stuff. And the reason it works is because they're all kind of that same sort of high performing. And so you can see the good and bad of like, they've had very successful careers, but a lot of them get to the time when they've done well financially, but then they're just like, what do I do now? They lacked like a purpose, they just been kind of in that sort of state. 

So for a lot of people that can be trauma induced, a lot of people are running from something or towards something. You know, the fear of poverty, the fear of not being good enough, all that kind of stuff. So you do wanna kind of figure that out for the person. For myself, I think one of my skill sets or one of the things that I've always been happy with is I wouldn't say it was ever, you know, the smartest or the most athletic or the most talented, but I did always bring a lot of determination. And so even, I was able to, in the long run, do really well in school and in sort of the physical side of Ranger and all this other kind of stuff. That was just, I mean, there's a baseline, but that was also just because I knew what I wanted and I was willing to put in the hours. 

So for instance, academics, I might have had to study twice as long and more on something, but I was willing to do that and just knuckle down. So I mean, it is good. I've found more with this nonprofit where even those other dynamics, this has been one of the most challenging things I've had to do for a variety of reasons. And so within that there's a lot of truth bombs coming into that challenge and self reckoning and balance. And so that's kind of been especially the past year to balance has been sort of a bigger focus in mind where, I remember it was I think in 2019. I was just getting to the end of the year and just the closest I've ever been burnt out in my life. And I thought I could just keep piling on stuff piling on. But then I realized like, nobody's immune from that. 

And I was just that spot or you know, a lot of anxiety coming up into that. Fortunately, it's been a long stage and difficult but trying to figure out like, okay, I don't wanna get here. What steps can I make to balance out this equation? And what I found too is having that balance in my life makes me a better leader too. Because if you are just sort of so myopic and focused then you tend to one you're not healthy but you tend to miss certain things. So I've really tried to do that sometimes unsuccessfully, but that's kind of been the trajectory of just seeing where that loop that, you know, if I'm not in this state that I'm failing, but that's not true at all.

Brock Briggs  15:17  

Well, and it seems like too just culture generally incentivizes, you know, like, you gotta do the work. Like, you know, you've got an IB background like those guys were crazy hours like that just as part of the gig. And it's kind of generally accepted that that's what it requires. And if you're new to that space, like you can't compete working 40 hours with somebody that's working 60 hours. I don't care how effective you are, like, that's a different level of competition. I think for me, personally, one thing that I have really struggled with is joining the military a little bit later. I think it was 21, 22. 

And so after getting out, I have chronically felt very behind in life. And so now that I've kind of tried to adopt this mindset of achievement and just piling on more and more and more, I'm doing it in pursuit of a goal. But a lot of times that goal, you get there, and then it's like, oh, that wasn't enough. That actually wasn't at the I'm looking more so for personal fulfillment, not like achievement based stuff. And I'm curious if you were in the same mindset during those kinds of periods? Was it goal based and like you get there, and then?

Jesse Gould  16:42  

Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. It's tricky. We get into these mindsets of like we're behind or not doing or if we did this or this or this. But like I said, like, I've met so many different people in the room of super successful hedge fund or VC. And you know, they get to 40 years old and they feel like they missed out on a lot of stuff or they feel like they haven't had a purpose. And so they have to go through. So I mean, like, none of us are immune. And I think the quicker we figured out why we're so achievement based or why we're, like I said, either running away or running towards something that's not purpose driven or that not actually making us happy. 

I think if we figure that out, then we can kind of find that, like more present sort of situation of you don't have to be the Elon Musk to live a good life, you know, be financially set, all that kind of stuff. And I think the longer term game has always like I think in the short term, like I said, like, it wasn't the fastest, the smartest, and so people would outrun me then but because of the determination, you know, the slow and steady got me there. For me, I don't know. I think there's definitely been that dynamic of it in terms of the goals or the achievements. But for me, I always just kind of explored it and more of, if I'm going to do something, I'm gonna try to like maximize. I'm gonna like go full board into it, right? 

But it's kind of been more of the experiential side, you know. Like, my story is after college, I went to investment banking, like you mentioned. But that was also like during the financial crash, and so, you know, I could have easily. I was there. I could have easily grinded it out, and like, kept that and done successful in the banking world. I don't have a doubt about that. But also, I was like, okay, well, I have this Wall Street's burning right now. And that was purely a factor of greed. I've always had this sense of, I wanna be a part of something bigger or give back to something bigger. I felt very privileged to have gotten to that spot. 

And so you know, pretty much taking that career and going into the military was not be sort of goal oriented, is kind of more of that experiential of like, what else is out there? Like I've kind of seen the dynamic of what this system is. So I think and I think for me, that's always been just curiosity, I guess, which is sort of that saving grace of not getting caught up in that system. But for me, that was also its own dynamic where I've chosen to restart my life and career path so many times that I've also gotten to that state of like, I feel super behind just because when I started the nonprofit, I was already what? Like, near 29 or 30. 

And I was just so tired of starting from scratch over and over again. And so that added some sort of fear based reactions to me of like, this doesn't work. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna be, you know, 35 and starting all over again. So I mean, we all have different pathways and they can all bring different issues we have to get over.

Brock Briggs  20:11  

I think it's so cool how I thought the same thing looking kind of going through your background and experience. I was like, man, this guy has been all over the board. Like, he just is really figuring out which game he wants to play and I respect the hell out of somebody that doesn't feel the concept or maybe not that you don't feel it. But like, doesn't act as if you're dealing with the concept of sunk costs. You're like, oh, I've done this thing. And so now I need to continue that just because I have this amount of time invested in it. It's like you haven't been afraid to start over and been able to try a lot of different things. And I think that that's cool and really speaks to how sometimes it takes a couple of tries to figure out what maybe your thing is.

Jesse Gould  21:03  

Yeah, absolutely. And I think also, it's the way we frame it, too. It's not necessarily, there's some costs, it's just, for me, what I learned in different spots and then eventually, it got to a point where it just wasn't the right fit anymore or I remember this in a few different things. Now remember this in the military, where after getting to something, it's a challenge, it's a challenge. You're still trying to figure out how it works. You're still trying to establish who you are. Eventually, you get to these plateaus, where the amount you're going to learn from it is lesser and lesser, and then you kind of get more into this routine state where you're gonna be a subject matter expert. You're gonna be much better, but you're also not being challenged as much or you might not have the same sort of purpose. 

And I think I've always been, well is chosen, I'd rather be knowledgeable of many things and a subject matter expert have one specific thing, at least leading up to now. And so that's kind of always like, once I got to that sort of plateau of like, okay, I understand how this works enough. But then it's also been a composite, you know, none of those are some costs. The only reason I'm successful, I think and what I'm doing here is because of all those sorts of traits, you know. Having some sort of financial understanding and discipline from that and understanding how those systems work, and the people within those systems, especially for a nonprofit of you know, who's interested in where having the leadership and discipline from the military. 

Other things that I've learned from other sorts of jobs like, this is such an interesting, not like, even on the nonprofit side, it's not only has that, but it's also interesting in the nonprofit side, because we're really dealing with a lack of infrastructure. And it's so novel in a lot of the ways we're approaching it, it's taken that creativity is taking those different lessons. And that's one of those things that I've kind of come to learn recently because I had this period where I was always looking for mentors because a lot of my friends who were doing while were like, oh, I have this mentor. You should get a mentor. I was like, oh, that sounds great. Somebody can help me out. 

And I really struggled with that because I would find people who were very capable and doing a lot of great stuff who want or open to being mentors. But what we were doing was, again, so novel or outside the traditional perspective. They're just like, seems like you're doing well. Good luck with that. And so I really struggled on that side. But again, it's the composite. And I think anybody that's listening, you do have to find your own path. And there are responsible decisions to make, right? Like, you do have to, if you're going to sort of risk your financial ability, you have to know that you're able to really live in an affordable way. Like I knew from the military that I was able to live on very little. 

And so I was more comfortable taking that risk. And I also didn't have kids or anything like that. So different equation if you already have a family and you have a mortgage and all this kind of stuff. You can't just abandon ship, right? So there's responsible paths, but it's also knowing yourself and knowing what you're capable of. But if you do have a little bit of freedom and you feel like you're unhappy and you feel like something's you wanna explore, I encourage people to do it. They can kind of plot out that course but it does sort of take planning and faith itself in a lot of ways.

Brock Briggs  24:53  

Yeah, I think that that what you call the responsible decisions that's like, kind of almost there’s two different decision paths where there's like what you need to do to like, ensure that you're healthy and safe. And like you have a roof over your head. And then you kind of have your personal dreams and ambitions kind of path. And I ideally like want to get those where they're aligned, right? That's much more difficult to do than I think we would like. 

But I think endgame that it's good to try and align those as much as possible. A few minutes ago, I mentioned something about the sunk costs. I didn't mean that in a way of like that it was not worthwhile. But you were approaching it from a place of like the financial concept of sunk costs, like you didn't write that as like overcommitment. Like you were able to say, hey, I've invested that, that's fine. I'm making a new decision based on that. So yeah, that wasn't negative.

Jesse Gould  25:58  

No, I think it's good because I think that is a prominent perspective. And it also depends on who you are. Like one, that's why we have to find our own path. There are some people that for them, it's more worthwhile of like, hey, I'm gonna work at this company or similar companies. And I'm just, you know, it's not great, but it helps me afford this lifestyle and helps me afford my family. And I get much more satisfaction, joy out of the outside work, right? And so they're willing to kind of knuckle down and do it and then hopefully get good pension, good retirement or build up to a spot that's potentially something they wanna do. 

There's other people who, like, I think I fall into this category where if I spend so much time doing something at work, then I needed to have a little bit more purpose or engagement. Like, it's such a time commitment on a day to day basis like, that's just as much part of my life as the outside. And so for me, I can just kind of get stuck into this like corporate routine, which I've been in. I kind of need to have more of that creativity on the day to day basis for me to feel in a good spot, like I'm doing something and so again, there's no better way you have to kind of just figure it out. 

And I'm sure there's many other things and ways and I just mentioned. But one thing I have found that's very common with a lot of veterans that has not discussed is, you know, whatever way they choose it of just grinding, a lot of them come from the military and a dynamic that generally makes if they do have trauma makes it worse is their lack of purpose. They're coming from this job, this profession in the military, where they're pretty much on the cutting edge of current events and doing something and sort of this, you know, never ending good versus evil kind of dynamic. And then they come out of it and then they go to, you know, a corporate job and just grinding away on the computer or whatever. 

And a lot of them really lack that purpose or that they're doing something of value. And I think that kind of gets them into that, you know, makes their trauma worse or just gets them into more depressive state. And so I do often recommend for veterans to don't discount that. Like, just because you have this job or what have you, try to find a way to have purpose in your life as well. And it can come in many forms, but for many it's volunteering, working with other veterans that need help, finding some sort of nonprofit to spend some time to. I've seen that a lot of vets that heal then just realize and they want to give back to others and use some of their free time so that's always one of those considerations of can't just be like financial goals driven like we have to do this sort of mind-body-spirit balance.

Brock Briggs  29:01  

I think too most people join the service in very formative years where they're not in a place where they have maybe that like higher mission or calling like established in their life already. And the military has a way of like, giving you that, you know. Even if you're not everybody complains it's funny, everybody bitches about being in and like how hard it is and all this stuff and then they get out and I'm speaking to myself too here, like 100%.

You get out and you're like, I'm so proud to be a veteran like this is great and it kind of changes things a little bit but that kind of vision and purpose is pushed on you in a way that I think not a lot of people expect and then there is a feeling that it's taken away, when even though it doesn't negate what you did but that like day to day serving of that higher purpose, whatever it is. It doesn't necessarily have to be the country or whatever. But that being taken away for an active everyday action perspective, I think it is hurtful. 

Jesse Gould  30:15  

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's, like you said, I mean, that's a big part of it, too. It's formative years. And so, you know, I remember being in and it was a weird dynamic because a lot of the guys I served with, you know, they'd come through high school or whatever and be very mature in certain ways, right? 

Like, they'd have to be team leader squad leaders still very young and have this, you know, very unique geopolitical sort of understanding of how the world works and the military sort of way, and be professional. But at the same time, still be a dopey kid, and, you know, like, do stupid things downtown and in relationships, and all this other kind of stuff. And so it was, it's a weird sort of maturity. You know, like if on a video game, you ramp up skill sets on one thing and, you know, leave the other ones down on another thing.

Brock Briggs  31:08  

Right. Yeah, it's got a very, they're bringing all of these people in from all these different backgrounds and kind of forcing everybody on the same scale, which definitely leads to some imbalances in some areas. 

Jesse Gould  

Yeah

Brock Briggs 

You did three deployments to Afghanistan, if I've got that right. Was that kind of the birthplace for Heroic Hearts? Love to hear kind of just what were the formation of that kind of came to you?

Jesse Gould  31:37  

No. Yes, I did three combat deployments, Afghanistan, did sort of a stint of the military. Like when I was getting out. Again, this was kind of the transitioning universe, it was 2014. So I've done some deployments. At that point, I was a mortar section leader and just, you know, for various reasons, I duty position wise, ranked up pretty quick, was an E-5, E-7 duty position, which would normally have taken me another, you know, like, 7 to 10 years to get there. And so then it was also the initial withdrawal from Afghanistan. So this combination of one, I was already at this spot that there wasn't a lot of upward mobility at least for the next 10 years because it was already at like that part. 

And two, we're getting into this peacetime sort of dynamic, especially back at home in terms of like, how they're kind of doing it. And you know, I don't know how a lot of other military units are working. But during peacetime is starting, there's a lot more annoying and stupid things that we're starting to come out of, you know, there's still people deploying, but then they're just you know, the training cycle is always super stressful. And they're just talking about making it more stressful even when you're home, less time at home, all this kind of stuff. 

And it was one of those dynamics of like, again, I got to the spot, like okay, well, I've done a lot, I've learned a lot. These next few years seemed like it's just going to get progressively stupid and less beneficial for me. And it's peacetime, so it was just sort of a lot of alignment of like, alright, well seems like a good time to get out. And so at that time, I thought I was gonna hit the ground running. You know, I had my degree, my experience, my military and I was like, alright, well what can stop me, you know? And so I was ready to hit it, like a lot of us. You know, I knew the military changing some dynamics, but I didn't think I was in trauma state or I didn't think about PTSD or any of this kind of stuff, you know.

It's just and so when I got out and traveled for a little bit, did some work here and there trying to figure out what was next for me, whether start a company or go back into finance or something. Eventually ended up in finance in Tampa, Florida. And you know, it was doing well on the outside but that's when a lot of the bad habits brought on by trauma really started to be highlighted. I think I had been doing some of these things for a while but that's kind of when it started to not mesh well with the corporate world. So for instance, you know, in the military or in Ranger anyway, it's work hard, play hard. So as long as you can, you know, go downtown and get trashed as long as you wake up and complete the five mile on Monday and do your job and all this kind of stuff. It's just that kind of thing. 

You know, straight off the bird from Afghanistan or we go downtown and just be wild and all that kind of but you're also young and all this kind of stuff. But then on the outside, if you continue that, and I think a lot of people, myself included, continue that sort of relationship, especially with like alcohol, just because then you're having some of these issues. And that's your way of self medicating, not your way of preserving it. So I found myself in the spot where again, like, I was high performing at the job, but on the outside, those just experienced a lot more depression, lack of purpose, like what we just mentioned, and really self medicating with alcohol, where, you know, just because I think of the depression, anxiety would just, you know, drink far too much to where you have to feel it. 

And then, you know, I would have to wake up hungover and have a, you know, beer in the morning just to like, you know, function at work. And then there's also other stuff that got highlighted of I realized how much you know, how many risky spots I put myself in the past. All this stuff is like on the outside view, like, oh, yeah, there's clearly something wrong. You're clearly in a traumatized state. But when you're in it, you kind of like justify, like, oh, like, that's fine, nothing happened. And so it's really that struggle that was sort of the dawn of Heroic Hearts project where I was there. I was fortunate enough to see the red flags like this is not normal, this is not gonna lead you to the path that you want. 

I sought help from the VA. I sought to change a lot of dynamics in my life, you know, by that time, I was already out of the military for a little bit. And, you know, not in the shape that I wanted to be anymore, got out of shape a little bit wasn't eating healthy. Like I said, I drank too much, that was really trying to like okay, well I wanna get back to that like Ranger state, let me start exercising, let me start making better life choices. I wanna make friends that are not just barflies, went to the VA, try to get therapy. So some things helped a little bit. 

But at the end of the day, I was still, you know, relationships were working out so lonely, so depressed, so experienced anxiety in the VA was really just sort of a fast track to medication, which, you know, can help for some, but what we're seeing with a lot of evidence is that it doesn't help for a lot. So I was in that spot where those were the options, medication or nothing. And so I at that spot, wasn't interested in going on medication because I've seen a lot of the really bad sides of it. And so that's what ended up having me go to Peru and experience ayahuasca, the psychedelic. And so from there, that's what started the Heroic Hearts Project.

Brock Briggs  37:52  

It's funny, you highlight the issue with alcohol and it's such a good thing that you were able to kind of identify that that was a problem. And I'm very happy for people that can. Looking back on my experience in the military, it is a miracle to me that people can identify that because the culture celebrates it so much, that looking around, you're the odd one out, if you're not doing that. And it's just, that's all well and it's kind of like a symbol of just like being hard or whatever. It's like, you know, being able to go run five miles. And you know, you're throwing up afterwards, probably from drinking all weekend. That's like a sign of toughness. And looking back, I don't know that that actually is what that is.

Jesse Gould  38:48  

Yeah. No, I mean, absolutely not. I mean, yeah, I mean, there's definitely that sort of mentality. And me, I can kind of understand, it's just a lot of young, especially in Ranger young guys and they're the fittest in their life. And you know, you're gonna go downtown and try to find women and all that kind of just, it's all self enforcing and just the social aspects. And because it's also, like I said, it's like this work hard, play hard. 

So you're always in this hyper vigilant state and always in this like, full on concentration and I think just kind of lends itself for that sort of decompression in a way other things can't. But that doesn't mean it's safe or that it is also exacerbated by the fact that it is sort of that like, macho like culture of like, you know, how much whiskey can you drink? Or oh, you won't take a shot, you won't go out with me. Which is yeah, it's definitely a problem and then just kind of gets you in that habit of that's how you deal like life, you know? 

Brock Briggs  40:04  

Who did you go on this Peru trip with? How did that come about or like manifests itself? It sounds like you are in like a state of looking to make some drastic change. I don't know if that would be, you must have been like very open to kind of like trying some new things and experiencing new things. If somebody hands you a brochure and says, hey, come to Peru, do ayahuasca and then this is gonna help. How did that kind of manifests itself?

Jesse Gould  40:35  

Yes, I mean, I was in that spot where it was just things in my life weren't going well. And, you know, after going through the VA didn't seem like even the, I had a lot of bad experiences with the VA and more and more. And not to not the VA, you know, there's a lot of great people there. There's a lot of great hospitals, but I just had like a continuous sort of issue. And especially with this, like, I was diagnosed with PTSD, but it seems sort of this the questionnaire that I did for it was essentially like 15 to 20 minute song kind of bullshitty. And it just seemed like even the professionals didn't know, like, it didn't seem like just the first step to taking this medication. 

And even the mentality of it was oftentimes of like this might help. But also, PTSD might be something that you just have to learn to deal with through the rest of your life, right? Like that is a very common sort of theme there. And so I don't like that answer. Like I didn't, there wasn't like, this is not, I'd rather fight against this than just accept that this is the nature of my reality for the next however long I live, you know. And so I was in that spot of like that can't be the right answer. Also, more and more just listening to different podcasts just kind of realized how on ahead of the times a lot of the medical systems were, especially with veterans. 

And so, you know, just started doing research and realizing I was more of a man and so exposed to a lot of concussive force, what they show now that can cause MTBI, which can also present itself in similar symptoms in PTSD and anxiety. So, you know, similar to athletes getting physical concussions. Concussive forces from door reaches, mortars, airborne landings, all this kind of stuff that shakes and rattles your head, damages it and increases inflammation, which then throws off a lot of other things within the brain. The fact that nobody even mentioned that to me or something to look into, again, I was just kind of like, what is this system? I had to figure this out myself, you know, so I think it started with sort of the distrust of it. 

And then also, like I said, I'd rather just figure out a way to whatever was affecting me. I wanted to face it head on. I didn't want to just cover it up and hope for the best. So just there at work, not really happy. Everything, like I said, all those doing well. There was not anything there that was just really like, this is great. This is what I wanna be doing for the next level. Like I wasn't happy with the job, didn't really have a good, I had a decent social network, but it wasn't really like dating anybody consistently and have a lot of my own, like great friends. And so it was just one of those situations of like, alright, whatever I'm doing, this is not working. 

I have no idea. Fortunately, around the time, I was listening to like a Rogan podcast and had a guest talk about ayahuasca. And I kind of looked on as interesting, more of like, passing the time. But even then it didn't really intrigued me. I had no interest in psychedelics or any other like, I knew I had vices. I knew I was already struggling with another drug. It didn't seem like them, they answer, but for whatever reason, was kind of the lines crossing of has my life became more and more unhappy. 

And I realized that and this was, you know, kind of bored looking into it, hearing some stories of people having pretty big transformations or at least, like a shift. And I think that's sort of an appeal to me of like, well, at least this will like, I have no idea what this is, but at least it'll shake something up. So maybe that gives me a new perspective. Maybe it doesn't. But the one thing that was for sure is like I needed to leave whatever that bubble that I had created, because that was going to lead me to whatever some bad path downline, you know. Something, you know, it was just like, this is not a path that’s gonna end up well. 

Brock Briggs  

Not sustainable

Jesse Gould 

Exactly. And I had tried to like when I was in college, I studied abroad in Ecuador. So I think it was just sort of the puzzle pieces fitting in of like, I really liked South America. Maybe it's time to head back and at least travel for a little bit and to get my head clear. And while I'm there, let's give this a shot. So I didn't even tell people. I mean, they knew I was traveling, but nobody really knew that I was going to do this crazy psychedelic journey. And so yeah, swept by myself, essentially, keep my wits end up being a few months notice, because I was in charge of a lot of projects at work. You know, was just renting. So I can just pack up stuff that I didn't need and essentially just bought a one way ticket to go figure my shit out and went to Peru.

Brock Briggs  45:48  

That's so cool. Such a not a blind leap of faith, but like an educated leap, you know. Jumping somewhere to kind of spur up and change your life, hopefully in a positive way. From what may now may be a good time to explain what it is. I've kind of got a vague understanding, but maybe can you give us the more scientific end of what Ayahuasca is and then maybe kind of detail out what your takeaways from that trip to Peru and kind of what you've learned?

Jesse Gould  46:27  

Yeah, so Ayahuasca, it's a combination of at least two plants, sometimes more, that stems from the Amazon region and South America. So you find evidence of it throughout South America, in the Amazon region, like Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador. They'll have indigenous traditions. These traditions date back 1000s of years, where these tribes would use this substance which generally comes in a drinkable form for spiritual, mental and physical health of the tribe. So you have basically the substance itself has two plants at its core, a vine called ayahuasca and then generally a leaf called chacruna. 

And the combination of those is what makes a psychedelic chemical in the vine. There's something called MAO inhibitor and the substance in the leaf is DMT. So the DMT is the psychedelic, people may have heard of it. But if it's not for the MAO inhibitor in the vine, combined with that your body wouldn't go into that state. Like if you just ate the DMT leave, nothing would happen. It's the very fact of what the MAO inhibitor does that allows your body to sort of ingest the DMT and put you through that psychedelic state. So it tends to be one of the more intense of psychedelics and psychedelics are pretty broad based. They are found all over nature, around the world and ceremonial traditions. 

This is not a new thing. This is not, you know, just something that came out of the 70s. There's been long traditions, ancient Greece, most tribal communities that have some sort of shamanism around psychedelics. And so there's been this knowledge that hey, there's a place for this in society hasn't been more, it's been more of a sort of a Western. You know, a little bit stricter version on that kind of taken away that those dynamics. But yeah, so with Ayahuasca you ingest it. It comes in sort of this thick tea, the two plants are brewed together and distilled down, you drink it. 

And generally, the experience lasts about four to five hours, where you're just in this very intense sort of psychedelic state. You're in a ceremonial hut. The healers in Peru, they're called curanderos. Peru has kind of become one of the more popular traditions. Each tradition is a little bit different, and depending on the tribe in the country, but then they sing songs that help guide sort of the experience. And so people sit in their own and they go through this. And it can manifest itself. It can have very physical dynamics where a lot of people purge or shake or sweat. And then there's, you know, from different perspectives, a lot of people think there's a spiritual cleansing or, you know, that's why they use in the tribes, then the reason we find it so beneficial, is also the psychological side. 

And so this is what we're discovering across the board with psychedelics is that they're really unlocking a lot of new abilities on a mental health product. And so Ayahuasca is a little bit and in terms of like trials and stuff, there's been some double blind studies that show it has significant benefits and depression. But it's a little bit trickier. And people are still a little bit hesitant because it has a weird name and it comes from tribal, but things like psilocybin, like magic mushrooms are going through FDA trials are showing great results, depression, addiction, MDMA, which is not a psychedelic.

But it's kind of lumped into those, the chemical and ecstasy is likely in the next year or so going to be prescribed double for PTSD showing phenomenal results well above and beyond anything else. So yeah, a lot of these psychedelic substances are showing it. And the reason is, one, there's evidence, for instance, with psilocybin and ayahuasca that there's a physical benefit in terms of possibly helping with some brain damage and reducing inflammation in the brain. So for people with MTBI, and then the psychological side. So when done and this is all the warning. When done in the proper setting and preparation and, you know, checks, safety checks, you know, if everything. It can be very safe, if you know what you're doing and go with a good program, like there's not risk of overdose. 

These are not addictive substances. So what it does when you go into it, because it sort of alters your brain. Normally, especially for veterans, we're very good at compartmentalizing trauma, we're very good at like suppressing it down and holding it in these containers to where we don't really have to deal with it. And then generally, it comes out in bad ways. You know, we either explode on somebody or we drink to suppress the depression or what have you. But we have it in these sort of like locked boxes. We're very good at that, right? In sober talk therapy of like, you just talk no therapists, it can take years if not decades, if they can get there of just kind of like finding the keys to those boxes. 

And that's why it's not uncommon to hear people in therapy for so many years because they have to, like incrementally make it their way. Whereas the psychedelic, what happens is one, it shuts off something called the default mode network, which is the thing that kind of keeps us in these like specific patterns to kind of savor, make our reality sort of more consistent. So when it cuts that down, it allows a lot of the subconscious stored trauma to come up to where then you're in the spot where you're confronting them. And then that can kind of come in a more metaphorical spot or a more realistic spot. Because this is coming up and you're confronting it, that's allowing you to almost like refile it in your brain to where if it's a PTSD thing or a trauma thing.

And it's always there affecting you one, you're able to process it. But two, you're able to put it and understand it in a different way in your brain to where it's no longer as much of a burden. You're almost releasing the weight. And so one of the ways I can describe that to people is we've had veterans that had childhood abuse, you know, which is pretty common. And they would go into this experience. They thought like a lot of trauma is gonna be war related. When they go into the Ayahuasca experience, some of that stuff might come up. They process it, but it really wasn't the core of their story. They go back to the spot where they're abused as a kid. And this one person in particular saw sort of the instance of him being hit or what have you. 

And the whole time, he was able to see all the negative patterns that stem from that. Like because of that, like what decisions he made all this other kind of stuff. But he's also able to see that young boy and almost like, visit that young boy as the man that he became, right? And that sort of gave him that ability of like, hey, you're no longer a victim. Look, what you've been able to create. Look at the strength you've been able to do. This is not your fault, you shouldn't feel guilty. So it allowed him to see the story from different angles. 

And so, you know, the way he started before was causing all these decisions and traumas and affecting future relationships. But because he was able to go back a little bit and see it and I know that sounds scary for a lot of people. People were like, oh I've been experiencing some crazy shit and I don't, last thing I wanna do. But because it's in this like altered state, it's not the same as if you're just being re traumatized again. It's, again, almost in this weird dreamlike state where it also provides you creativity because it's connecting different spots in your brain. And so that's what it really allows you to sort of reprocess and refile a lot of these traumas. And all this is you know, been backed by a lot of increasingly rigorous science of why it might work and what we're seeing. 

And so yes, we've had a lot of veterans, I think, about 400 at this point and a huge, huge percentage go in. And this is one of the most profound experiences that they've ever had. Helps them, you know, rekindle relationships that have, you know, kind of gone awry because their trauma helps them sort of make life changes, post trauma, to change their life of the things that like the self enforcing lifestyles that we create. You know, alcohol being one of them. So yeah, that's, I mean, we've been seeing some pretty amazing results. And so that's where Heroic Hearts coming into not only connecting veterans, but then also researching this and better understanding why it works and better understanding how trauma works.

Brock Briggs  55:59  

That was a really great description of the kind of the effects and whatnot. I've often read and hear from people that the experience resembles like, looking at a problem that you have dealt with in your day to day life, but it's almost like you're looking at it from a completely different angle that you have never seen before. And there's like a connection that is made in your brain. You said those words to like these connections are happening. 

And it just seems obvious, like you've almost never seen so clear before. And that is kind of ideally sounds really good. I can see why going into one of these experiences that might be scary, though too. You know, you're going in for ideally, to kind of process some emotional things that have happened to you and to kind of get clarity and closure, maybe even confronting some of those things is gotta be a big deal, though, for a lot of people.

Jesse Gould  57:06  

Yeah. And that's why we really, especially with people with pretty intense trauma, we really highlight and we really enforce of like, this is not just a question of grabbing a handful of mushrooms and saying good luck kind of thing, you know. There's just not the infrastructure and you know, potentially for some, you might hear somebody that just does a heavy dose themselves, and they get some great experience. But there's also a lot of people that can just like open up and brings it out and you can work with those people. But it's, you're playing with very powerful substances. So always go in with caution. 

So for instance, our program, you know, we do four to six weeks of preparation just to get people in the right mind frame, answer the questions, like you said. Most people are gonna come in apprehensive and that's fine. We want them to be serious about it, there's a diet involved. And then also, the centers that we use are all in Latin America because it's legal in these countries. We vet them, we do rigorous vetting to make sure that they're aligned and safe and all this kind of stuff. So when the veterans are there, they know that they're in good hands, right? So they can have let themselves go and go deep into the experience. 

And then afterwards, it's called integration of oftentimes, a lot of this stuff comes up or you have new realizations on your life. But the hard work is in the post face, you know. If you go right back to old patterns, if you don't use the opportunity that it does, that it gives you to make new positive patterns, new habits, then a lot of the traumas are going to come back because like I said, when we're in this trauma state or these numbing states, we create infrastructures and habits that the they self fulfill, right? Like if you're so used to, anytime you're stressed out having a beer or you know smoking pot or something like that, then that's this thing that's very hard to break. And it's fine to have either of those every once in a while.

But you don't want that to be your medication, that self medication because that's just gonna get more and more. So then if you have this clarity of like, hey, I've been doing this or this too much, there's an opportunity for you to change it. And so that's what they also show is there's a window where psychedelics create new neuroplasticity. And neuroplasticity is the ability of your brain to make new connections and those new connections are what you know, really gives you the advantage of making positive habits while at the same time it loosens the old habits that might sort of entrench you. So that integration phase is so important of if you're not willing to do the work and make that, then it's gonna be far less effective. But it is a tremendous opportunity that we don't see with any other medication or way of approaching it.

Brock Briggs  1:00:05  

You talk about people using alcohol or marijuana as like habitual use to deal with daily issues or even long term issues. I'd be curious to hear what you guys have found in the studies and with people that have participated in your program. What is the recommended consumption pattern for something like this? Is it you know, I imagine you go down and you maybe have this very transformative experience. Does that type of thing like does that realization or these connections that you're making, do those wear off? Is it like a lifetime type of transformation? I wanted to kind of tie in here that how like microdosing is kind of like popular with psilocybin, where people or like other things, too. But using like very small amounts, like regularly to kind of increase that or have that kind of realization more often. I just would be curious to hear what you guys have found as helpful. 

Jesse Gould  1:01:11  

There are some health considerations. Again, that's why we do intake of like, contraindications and medications. If you have a heart issue, you have certain psychological issues, not recommended. But in terms of just drinking too much, it's not great. Or it's not gonna kill you. That being said, I mean, that doesn't mean the more, the merrier, right? Like, I have met people who have clearly taken too much acid or LSD in their life and they have a certain persona about them, right? So it's everything in the appropriate moderation, depending on what you're working with. Yeah, I mean, it's a tricky question. 

One, because we have to sort of change, we're very much in this medicalized model. We're very much in this like, the pills are gonna do the job for us, whereas the way the psychedelic model works is, the psychedelic is going to empower us to make our own life decisions. But that requires discipline requires, like I was saying, like habits and all that kind of stuff. And we were so into this entrenched like self medication model, like, don't wanna change my life. I don't wanna do anything, like, just give me the pill. You know, I know I drink too much, but just give me the Tylenol. 

And now my head doesn't hurt anymore, right? Like, it's like, what caused that. So we do need to change it and the way psychedelics work, it's not just like, I mean, there might be this window where you do feel good, but if you don't go into its preparation, you don't go and make the changes, then yeah, you're gonna keep going back into it. And then it becomes, again, this sort of self medicating model. So I have seen people who just don't take the lessons or they don't treat it that way. And then they're just going back on back, which I mean, in comparison to some of the more toxic medications, maybe that's ideal. But again, it's not what we're trying to teach, we're trying to teach people to progressively use it in a positive manner. 

So you know, what we say it's not like you shouldn't go every month. You should do this every time frame. It's having more of a relationship with it. So what it does is it kind of unpeel the layers and so the deeper we go, you know, if you have a lot of trauma, sometimes it can take a little while to get there. Or sometimes you work on something and other things come up, right? And so that's where you can use them. With Ayahuasca, each psychedelic is gonna be a little bit different protocol. Ayahuasca tends to be over the course of a week, you do three to four ceremonies, and then those sort of build upon itself. 

And then after that week, then that's the integration period. And we generally tell people not to come back. Like if they do want to re explore it, then try to wait at least like a year, but also don't make it like this is my yearly thing. Make it of okay, connect with yourself. Why are you going back? Are you going back because you're working on the same exact things you're working on before? Or do you feel like you need to go a little bit deeper? Or did just, you know, some things come back? You know, sometimes some dynamics of anxiety or what have you might come back or something might feel stuck. That's perfectly fine. 

But if the reason that you're going back is just because you didn't do any of the work and you're relying on it, then that's a problem because, again, that's a self medicating model not using this tool. And that's what these are. These are tools. If you're not using the tool effectively, then you know, you need to sort of rethink that, right? Yeah, that's generally after like a major psychedelic experience. We generally tell people to wait, minimum six months but a year. So in terms of statistics, there's some people that go to these bigger experiences. And then you know, that's all I needed. You’re done unburden them, they're good to go. They might microdose or whatever, but they don't necessarily explore it. 

I'd say the vast majority of people need to do, you know, a few of these experiences to get more and more into it. But again, spaced out and based more off of when their body intuitions telling them that they might need to go a little bit deeper and have that relationship. But yeah, so that's kind of how we approach it is a more conscientious way of doing this, of what is your body, like, instead of just saying, like, oh, it's time of the year again, I'm gonna go or I'm feeling a little anxious, like, explore where that is coming from a more mindfulness sort of set. And then if this tool can be helpful, then feel free to explore it. 

But don't just rely on it for all your ailments. Don't just, you have to do a lot of the work. So that's kind of how we've been approaching it. And if that's the case, you know, I mean, for me medical system or a mental health system, where somebody has a relationship and they do psilocybin, every couple of years based off of what they have. They feel stuck. I feel like that's far superior than somebody having to take an SSRI every single day with increasing dosages throughout their life, you know.

Brock Briggs  1:06:35  

I think that that approach that you just described, there's so much wider of an application than just with like, our personal kind of therapy and whatnot. As, you know, ultimately, we are the ones responsible for change at the end of the day. And like you highlighted there with the state of like, where our healthcare system is at, that is the incentive is to just, hey, like, here's the quick fix. Here's the thing that we can do to get you off our roster. And we're looking for that instant gratification. But this is like you said, a tool for larger, overtime change, not something that just, you come back and you know, you’re fixed all of a sudden.

Jesse Gould  1:07:22  

Yeah, it's also another way we need to switch is like the medical mental health model right now is your healing trauma. We treat it almost like a very physical ailment of you have this depression. This pill is going to get rid of that depression. But just because somebody doesn't have PTSD doesn't mean they're doing well in life, right? Just the absence of PTSD doesn't mean the person's automatically happy. Whereas with the medical model being discovered and being created around psychedelics, it's different. It's not only that this has helped, being relieved this trauma and helping you process it to where it's no longer affecting you. 

But it's also helping you explore other dynamics of your life. You know, I often get questions of like, I don't feel like I'm very traumatized, like, could this help me? Absolutely. You know, I'm not here to push it on anybody who's not interested. But you don't have to be in this heavily traumatized state for it to help you because in the same ways, we all, you know, have things we can be better at, in terms of relationships and, you know, our relationship with ourselves included. 

And these substances help us explore that and help us get past the restrictions we normally have in a day to day sort of state. And so when used in that responsible, intention based way, can also help us thrive more in life. It can definitely be a performance enhancer in terms of, oftentimes, we are the limiting factors of what we can truly achieve.

Brock Briggs  1:09:01  

Well and it sounds like it can bring to light issues that maybe you didn't even know were there. So you don't even really know how it's not like, hey, I'm struggling with this one thing. And I'm gonna go to take this to kind of like battle that may kind of bring to light things that are just either buried down so deep or, you know, something that you weren't thinking of.

Jesse Gould  1:09:25  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, I think part of the problem is, you see this working with indigenous villages. They, you know, there's pluses and benefits, I think. Many can learn from each other. You know, I'm not gonna necessarily go get surgery in the middle of nowhere in Peru, but I think they might have a better sense of like community based systems and the community supporting other people and especially in mental health state. And, yeah, I mean, that's the thing with how we need to view this. It's not just the psychedelic, we're in the western society. I think we don't train people to be mindful. 

We're very sort of logic based of even in our medical system of let's analyze our way out of the situation as opposed to having more mindfulness of where's this emotion coming from, where's this reaction coming from. We tend to just want to suppress emotions and understand that their signals of our body and have a lot of intelligence and what they're trying to signal. But then two, were very more so isolated society very, I'm in this for myself kind of thing. And you're seeing that veteran side, but also broader base community of just a lot of isolation, a lot of loneliness, a lot of lack of support, there's not a lot of community systems anymore. 

And you know, that's what we're really pushing for is for this to work. It takes the community, it takes us as veterans checking in on each other, us having places to meet up in person. And I think a lot of mental health issues and trauma can actually be resolved without substances just through people caring for each other and being able to talk and being empowered to talk to other people. And then having effective tools like psychedelics can just, I think, really get us to a much better spot than the ways we're trending right now.

Brock Briggs  1:11:36  

One of your guys's secondary missions is around research, education, and advocacy for the space. Can you maybe talk a little bit about the current state of research on psychedelics and hallucinogenics? Generally, kind of where we're at, maybe compare and contrast, like the space from when you started and to where we are today?

Jesse Gould  1:12:01  

Absolutely. So I mean, for people who are not familiar with psychedelics, you know, one of the points that we bring up is pretty much every respectable major university has started looking into psychedelics in one way, shape, or form. A lot of this current trend was led by Johns Hopkins, which is the top medical school in the world by a lot of statistics. But I mean, even a lot of the Ivy League's here in the US, a lot of the prestigious universities and other countries, like the UK, they're all looking into this because of the efficacy. And so there's various psychedelics at various stages. 

FDA is kind of the gold standard here in the US for it's become medicalized for to be prescribable, which is a very costly and very long experience, which is prevented it because it's kind of built more towards getting the next Viagra, which will bring in billions of dollars versus approving something that you can't really patent like a plant, right? So it's very tricky in that sort of landscape. But it's happening just because there's been a lot of great grassroots movements. We're currently working with the University of Texas, Austin. We're doing a gold star wives study. So gold star wives, who are experiencing depression because of the loss of their spouse through psilocybin. 

Another study with them ayahuasca for combat related trauma and then final study Ibogaine for head trauma, as well as PTSD and Special Ops. So we're doing that. We're working with the University of or Imperial College of London to do a study on psilocybin and head trauma for veterans. And we've done some studies at University of Georgia and Colorado. In terms of the other side of it, as I mentioned before, MDMA is third stage trials of the FDA and has had the last phase. They had 67% success rate in getting rid of PTSD in candidates, and these were the candidates that were deemed treatment resistant PTSD. 

So these were the candidates at the hardest cases, nothing else worked and they're still able to benefit over 67%, which is great. So that's likely to come through psilocybin I think second stage trials for depression. I think they're trying to do some other studies. So this is all pushing. So I mean, realistically. Ketamine assisted psychotherapy is somewhat accepted today. The clinic systems a little bit wild west, but there are some great people building some good models for veterans and otherwise. MDMA probably in the year, psilocybin probably in the next three to four years and then a lot of it's gonna be affected by policy. 

So, for instance, Oregon passed a measure a couple of years ago where you'll actually be able to go to a doctor and get psilocybin therapy. So that's likely to start mid next year. Colorado were working on a bill that the same sort of thing. You'll have access to psychedelics through a little bit more medicalized system, but still working with community based systems as well. So it's changing. And fortunately, all the research has just been kind of backing up what we're saying. And so that's the great thing you mentioned, you already asked about the change in dynamics. So we started in 2017. 

And so there's like a few generations of this. So there's an organization called MAPS that's doing the MDMA study, the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies. So Rick Doblin who runs ads has been pushing for the MDMA since the 80s, since the mid 80s, which shows you how long that process can get. So they've been sort of the biggest player, the most well known, like really created the space. There's other people who pushed in like Johns Hopkins and all this kind of stuff at the turn. When we started, it was, I think, just starting to kind of like catch on. But the landscape was still vastly different. There really wasn't a lot of, you know, veteran voices in the space. The research was starting to come out, but just didn't have as much backing as it does now. 

And so it's just really been night and day transformation, even when I have just personal conversations of, I was just at the Military Influencer Conference and the conversations I was able to have and the presentation probably just wouldn't be possible just because it would have been too offensive for a lot of people. But now that people are listening and have heard about it, you know, Michael Pollan's book, How To Change Your Mind played a big factor in that, a lot of other dynamics. So even in the five years time, it's changed very drastically. 

Brock Briggs  1:17:14  

What are the biggest headwinds to the descheduling of this? And I'm curious, why now of all time? I'm imagining a world where we rewind the clock and let's say we're back in the mid 1980s. And all of a sudden, like, let's just say we snap our fingers and we have all of the research and the studies are done about the positive effects of these drugs for the use of PTSD and therapy and whatnot. I don't know that they would have been descheduled at that time. So obviously, time is kind of an issue. And then the studies maybe but what do you think is the bigger thing?

Jesse Gould  1:18:05  

I think there's a few factors in play. One, there's the quote that I always misquote, but it's essentially, you know, like true change for researchers or something happens a generation at a time. Like the previous generation kind of has to die before the new insights happen. And you see that on the academic level where people get so entrenched in their views. And then there's new generations but because those older generations have, you know, the heads of the universities, all this kind of stuff, innovation takes a generational shift. And I think that's the same kind of thing of, it's changing a lot now. 

But I mean, a lot of the headwinds we have are people that had experiences in the 60s and 70s. You know, they saw, they were either, you know, experiencing it themselves or they saw sort of the bad sides. What they saw was, you know, societal degradation going there. And so if they saw that and they saw what they viewed to be the bad side of psychedelics, which, you know, there was a lot of recreational abuse, and then, you know, they're gonna have entrenched views. Whereas this modern generation doesn't have that stigma. And so they're just seeing the results, right? 

So a lot of veterans my age are very open to this and kind of been trained in the like, you have the tools at hand and they're effective, and why not? I mean, also in the 80s, it was like, right during the ramp up of the war on drugs, it was right after this whole 60s, 70s when there is the societal backlash, so sort of the pendulum swing. So that's sort of the time thing is just too close to that and the government has been very effective on the war on drugs. You know, you had the DARE program just say no, all this propaganda that was not necessarily the rescheduling of certain substances. None of this was based off scientific evidence. It was all based off of fear and controlling certain certain groups as well, as you know, there's the industrial complex around the war on drugs as well as the control of certain countries. 

So there's a lot of that geopolitical side of it, that was just too, that was just taking off right then. I think we've seen now, with the time we've seen the backlash, the war on drugs didn't work, right? It's just caused a lot of havoc and disruption and money and drugs are still as present as ever, if not more, so. So we have a clear case of that not working that generational side. Our generation is just getting off 20 years of war and the PTSD and suicide rates are at all time levels. And, again, the government has just shown that they don't have an effective tool for that. You know, they've pumped in possibly hundreds of billions of dollars. You know, Reno's statistics by a factor of 10 at the very least more veterans have taken their lives and died in combat. 

So one of the most heavily medicated veteran populations. But I think all of these are kind of coming to a head right now. And then a big shift that happened a couple of years ago was people figured out that there's ways to make money in this space as well. Like I said before, the substances are mostly plants and stuff. So it's very hard to patent and make money. And our drug system works off the ability to make money. And so some people through some clever arrangements, some somewhat controversial, but clever, same sense, found ways to make money. 

And so that started this industry. So now there's more money pushing into it more attention. So all these things have kind of, you know, hit at the same time. And so, you know, we're fortunate that it's happening now, the biggest headwinds going forward. With policy, you know, we're working on like statewide kind of stuff, similar to cannabis that's always has its restrictions until federal policy changes just because of like, you know, it's cannabis is not gonna even be discussed by the VA until it's no longer schedule one, the same with psychedelics. So that sort of needs to change. And as we know, the political landscape is very divided right now. Fortunately, veterans are kind of making it a bipartisan issue, but it's still tricky and still not priority. 

So that's kind of the biggest headwind. Obviously, negative news stories can set things back. I don't think we're ever going back to complete blackout of this. But you know, you don't wanna hear bad stories about things that have so much promise. Then, you know, lastly, what I've noticed with politicians and the veteran landscape is, you know, they always say they support the troops, but they tend to do the lowest common denominator of what they can to show that, right? So the least amount of actual change and effort generally goes into these. So for me, that's kind of the biggest headwind of like, they finally pay attention. But then the bills that pass are just like half measures, which is somewhat likely.

Brock Briggs  1:23:30  

Wanna draw from a couple of things you said there, and what you said before. You were talking about the war on drugs and you also made some predictions about the use of psilocybin, MDMA for treating PTSD. Going forward, looking at maybe the next five years, what do you think this landscape looks like? You also mentioned Oregon earlier and I think it was earlier this year, they basically just open the floodgates on everything. And it's kind of like turned at least some of the major cities into like war zones. Literally, do you have any feelings about whether or not that was the right decision? And maybe what the next couple of years holds for the US in terms of these drugs?

Jesse Gould  1:24:22  

Yes. Yeah. So Oregon is interesting, because it's actually, it was two different measures. So we don't wanna confuse the two different measures with whatever people are seeing the news. So one was measure 109 and the other one was measure 110. So the 109 was specifically just providing access for people seeking psilocybin care. So finding training criteria, finding the infrastructure, sourcing for people to go to a therapist, trained practitioner, and receive psilocybin for you know, whatever they're seeking. So that you know it's been hard to rule out, it's just because it's in contrast to our current medical system. 

And so it's, I think it's very valuable because we have to figure this out. This stuff's coming. And we have to figure out how it's gonna go. It's going to pass FDA trials, it's going to be accessible. Even if the medical model is dragging its feet, it's just too accessible. And if people are hearing that it can help them with depression or PTSD, they're going to do instead of just slowly dying. And so for the sake of people suffering, we need to figure out this infrastructure. We need to have the training and we're just not doing that fast enough just because people are still dragging their feet and all this kind of stuff. 

The measure 110 was a broad base decriminalization and that's kind of a different discussion because that like added other like hard substances and stuff. I think there's some value. You know, drug addiction tends to be a mental health thing and we treat it as more of a criminal issue and the longer we treat it as a criminal issue, we're not gonna change anything. We treat it like a mental health issue, then can actually do it. The problem is the US doesn't have a great mental health structure or insurance structure or healthcare structure. 

And so that's kind of, in my opinion, sort of the trickiness of countries like Portugal, which did a broad based decriminalization or Uruguay, it's actually been pretty successful just because it's reduced usage rates or reduced od rates. It hasn't caused their society to burn, but they also tend to have health care systems. So for people that are suffering from mental health or chronic pain or what have you, they have other resources to go to. So I mean, it's tricky. I mean, I think we've been doing the domestic war on drugs pretty stupidly. And I think all the results do that. 

So I think we just need to figure out what it looks like in the US. So hopefully, we learn from what's going on in Oregon. Maybe it's just an initial sort of pop off and maybe it averages out, we'll have to see. But I think it's, you know, we do need to figure out a better system and then what we have. What it looks like, I mean, it can go a lot of different ways. Again, depending on how people drag their feet, what our main goal is what I was kind of mentioning before these community based systems is what we currently do, we connect people to other countries in Latin America to where they can do this legally. 

But that's not a scalable system. You know, we have 1000s of people reach out to us. So we can't, and there's, you know, hundreds of 1000s of veterans that are been diagnosed with PTSD and are not having the best results with the current mental health system. So this is a huge problem only going to increase. And it's not feasible for us to send hundreds of 1000s of veterans to Peru, right? And like I said, no matter what this is coming to the US in some shape or form. And so we need to figure out how that looks, what does this look like but the training we need. From what I talked about earlier, what we want to create and what we are actually creating is these community based systems with group therapy with training people, still with respect to sort of indigenous ways of doing it. 

And bringing in old elders, bringing in new practitioners, and having these group based localized systems to where if you're just really filling out and about and you wanna, like you said you had your own experience. But if you wanted to do it with the veteran group that's trustworthy, you should have that access in that, right? Like you can go to the spot that is comfortable catered, you know who is the facilitator, you know how much experience they have, you know where they're sourcing it from, there's other veterans that are there that you trust, you all can go there, maybe a couple 100 bucks, you know, it's gonna cost some money, but keep it cheap. 

You can go have an amazing experience, how they're responding, meet up with these people afterwards for integration, and have that community that's checking in on each other. From my perspective, rebuilding those systems are key, you know, old generations of veterans had like, VFW, American Legion. We really don't have that anymore. And so isolation is just a huge issue in the veteran community. I think this sort of new mental health 3.0 can help us understand what we're missing around psychedelics, but beyond that as well.

Brock Briggs  1:29:44  

I appreciate and respect your guys's approach to this space. This is notoriously a difficult place to be playing in. And like you've mentioned a couple of times there's not really the infrastructure that set up for something like this. And I think you guys are trying to bring some legitimacy to the space that takes it seriously, and are doing it in a way that it's clear. A lot of people are wanting to work with you because you guys are the name in the space. I'm curious, what have been your personal and or Heroic Hearts guiding principles on getting up to this point? You know, you're talking about bringing people together in this community. How are you guys measuring success when it comes to the impact that you're having on the community both up to now and going forward?

Jesse Gould  1:30:41  

So I mean, that's part of where the research comes in, right? We got to speak the language of the system. We're also, you know, adding on our own platform to have not only like the accepted, like the validated and surveys, but also some other measures, kind of what I was saying before, it's not just about getting out of the traumatized state, but how much are you thriving in life. So having that as metrics, you know, just seeing the dialogue change, especially in the veteran community, how many veterans have heard about this and now experienced it like that's, you know, whether directly or indirectly, that's a measure of our success from where it was five years ago. 

Yeah and then the guiding principle, I mean, there's a lot of mixed players out there in the nonprofit space, especially in the veteran nonprofit space. And so for us, it's always kind of been, like our decisions of does this help the veteran or not, right? And it's not about me, it's not about anybody else, we got to get ego out of the game. You know, I'm not here to get rich. I'm a nonprofit or anything else. Our pure goal and everything of the organization are our actions, helping veterans or not, right? And if this stuff didn't work, I wouldn't be in this because that's just a waste of my time. 

So really doing that and then we're just trying to lead by example within the space. We want it to be safe. We want it to be respectful. We want it to be intention based. This is not just about the more psychedelics for the more people, it's about actually changing the mental health system in a much more responsible way. And so that's kind of how we always been leading, but also not being entrenched by how we do it, like the humility of learning, like I said, from these indigenous tribes and we're these knowledge holders of where it came from. And not just having this sort of egotistical that the Western model knows everything. 

So you know, respect for the elders, that comes from the environments that it comes from, and just really trying to push for, hey, this, there's a huge opportunity here. And I think we can really change things for the better. It's gonna take a little bit of growing pains because it's going to be new. We're gonna have to figure out on the way, but you know, slow and steady and figuring out as we go with respect for those that we work with around in the space.

Brock Briggs  1:33:19  

What is the best way that I and or anybody listening can help you? I know you guys are a nonprofit and likely run on donations. You do this full time and you need to have a place to stay and whatnot. Is it money that you guys need? Is it working with more researchers? What is it that you guys need?

Jesse Gould  1:33:42  

Yeah, generally speaking, at this point, we are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. So it's really the what pushes the envelope forward right now is donations and connections to people. You know, even if you can’t, if you know people that are interested in space or supporters in some sort of way. And then just, you know, outreach, like what this podcast is about or people that have connections to people that can help broadcast this message. Because that's one of the keys of, you know, I do think we try to be leaders in terms of the responsible use and progression of this. 

And so I think that voice really needs to get out there because as this gets more popular and all that kind of stuff. You know, the last thing I want is somebody to just trying to save their life and like kind of a last ditch effort and then just have a bad experience, you know. And so I think even the sort of baseline things that we can recommend to people can make it much safer and provide much more support to the community in general. So those are sort of the things you know, funding and just further outreach.

Brock Briggs  1:34:54  

I've got one final question for you. What is something that we can learn from you that we can implement today?

Jesse Gould  1:35:05  

I think it's sort of the lesson around the psychedelic is, you know, one, it's the mindful, like, check into yourself. Like everybody has a very strong internal healer and psychedelics tend to unlock that. But there's a lot of steps you can do in the meantime to kind of figure out what's coming up while you're feeling it, all that kind of stuff. But then at the end of the day, also understanding that there's no magic pill or free pass, you know, this takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of hard work. 

And so if you are going into the space, just understand that there's a lot of personal responsibility. You know, we can help. We can get people past sort of the humps that just seem so overwhelming. But that's the biggest message around as much excitement as there is with psychedelics, you know, some people kind of want everybody have it. Some people think it's like panacea, but the biggest message is, it's just another tool. At the end of the day, we have to also be responsible to make those changes in our life. 

Brock Briggs  1:36:14  

Awesome. Jesse, this has been a really, really fun conversation. I am super grateful you met with me and wanted to chat. Where can people go to connect with you, find out more about Heroic Hearts, anything you wanna put out?

Jesse Gould  1:36:27  

Yeah. So the website heroicheartsproject.org. We're on all the social medias. The main one we use is Instagram, @heroicheartsproject. But yeah, if you're a veteran, we have an application there. There will actually be a new application that's coming out in a week. So you can sign up there. We work with combat veterans and veterans experienced military sexual trauma. And then for those that are interested in supporting or just reaching out, you can email us through the website or Instagram. And there's the donation ability there as well. 

Brock Briggs  1:37:02  

Awesome! Jesse, thank you so much.

Jesse Gould  1:37:06  

Yeah, thank you. It's been a pleasure.