Making Something Out of Nothing: A New Podcast

Summary

The Ronan Levy Podcast: "Making Something Out of Nothing: A New Podcast"

Release Date: October 29, 2024

Hosts:

• Ronan Levy
• Ben Doc Askins

---

1. Introduction to the Know Nothing Podcast

Ronan Levy kicks off the episode by reflecting on his previous podcast episodes that received notable feedback, specifically mentioning collaborations with Scott Galloway and Ben Doc Askins. Transitioning from his main podcast, Ronan introduces his new endeavor with Ben: the Know Nothing Podcast.

Notable Quote:
Ronan Levy [00:00]: "We liken the show to a Seinfeld meets the Big Lebowski by two people with below average talent."

2. Launching the Know Nothing Podcast

The hosts humorously discuss the challenges of starting a new podcast, highlighting their self-deprecating humor about their talents and the nature of their show. They emphasize their desire to grow the podcast through genuine enjoyment rather than relying on its perceived quality.

Notable Quote:
Ben Doc Askins [01:14]: "Trying to trip me up? No way, man."

3. Discussing Published Works and Reviews

Ronan delves into his experiences with publishing books, particularly focusing on The Trip Journal. He shares mixed reviews, including a positive one from a prolific reader and a critical one highlighting the book's lack of practical advice.

Notable Quote:
Ronan Levy [05:53]: "We got nine reviews, nine ratings. We got 4.1 out of 5."
Ben Doc Askins [06:22]: "Send me the link. I'll get you to double digits, buddy."

4. Reflections on the Publishing Industry

The conversation shifts to the challenges of the publishing industry, including issues with platform visibility and the prevalence of misleading reviews. They discuss the difficulties independent authors face in gaining traction and credibility.

Notable Quote:
Ben Doc Askins [10:59]: "There's all this review swapping. There's all these ways that people try to hack the algorithm..."

5. Exploring Diets and Health Trends

Ronan and Ben engage in a candid discussion about various diets, including the keto and carnivore diets. They share personal experiences, challenges, and the sustainability of these eating habits, highlighting the physical and psychological impacts.

Notable Quotes:
Ben Doc Askins [23:04]: "I made it two weeks on the carnivore diet, and I was just so sick of diarrhea after two weeks..."
Ronan Levy [25:08]: "You just got like, I mean, it's got to be worth it."

6. Critique of Modern Sports Ethics

The hosts critique the commercialization of sports, arguing that the ethical foundations have been overshadowed by capitalism's drive to win at all costs. They lament the pressure placed on young athletes and the diminishing focus on enjoyment.

Notable Quote:
Ronan Levy [15:41]: "What about just enjoying things for the sake of enjoying them and not having to win?"

7. The Psychedelic Therapy Landscape

A significant portion of the discussion centers around psychedelics and their role in therapy. They examine the challenges faced by companies like Field Trip Health, including scalability issues, financial hurdles, and regulatory obstacles. The conversation touches upon the FDA's stance on substances like MDMA and the broader implications for mental health treatments.

Notable Quotes:
Ronan Levy [40:17]: "The model was challenging and for a variety of reasons."
Ben Doc Askins [28:48]: "Pump the brakes, guys. Pump, pump, pump the brakes."

8. Personal Growth and Psychedelic Journeys

Ronan shares his personal journey, attributing part of his growth to psychedelic experiences. He discusses how these journeys have helped him realize the importance of internal security over external achievements like money and fame.

Notable Quotes:
Ronan Levy [47:00]: "Psychedelics have helped me realize that what I was seeking with money was security."
Ben Doc Askins [46:52]: "I went to Mars. I saw it. Talk to God."

9. Political Commentary and Media Critique

The hosts briefly touch upon political figures and media representations, critiquing the superficiality and sensationalism prevalent in today's media landscape. They express frustration with how serious issues are often trivialized for attention.

Notable Quote:
Ronan Levy [35:10]: "Hey, what would it look like if some adults ran the show for a little while?"

10. Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions

Wrapping up, Ronan reflects on the importance of aligning one's efforts with meaningful and sustainable goals. He expresses a desire to witness genuine growth and change, both personally and within societal structures. The episode concludes with a light-hearted exchange about potentially sensitive topics, underscoring the hosts' commitment to open and honest dialogue.

Notable Quote:
Ronan Levy [53:37]: "We got the various anti heroic moments."

---

Key Takeaways:

• Know Nothing Podcast: A new venture by Ronan and Ben, blending humor with candid discussions on various topics.
• Publishing Challenges: The difficulties independent authors face with visibility and credible reviews.
• Diet Trends: Personal insights into the sustainability and impacts of keto and carnivore diets.
• Sports Ethics: Critique of the commercialization and loss of enjoyment in modern sports.
• Psychedelics in Therapy: Exploration of the hurdles faced by psychedelic therapy businesses and the personal impact on the hosts.
• Personal Growth: The role of internal security over external success in achieving true happiness.
• Media and Politics: Concerns about superficial media representations and political discourse.

Notable Themes:

• Authenticity: Both hosts emphasize genuine experiences over superficial success.
• Skepticism of Systems: Critical views on established systems like publishing, sports, and mental health therapy.
• Personal Development: Highlighting the importance of internal growth and self-awareness.

This episode offers listeners an unfiltered glimpse into Ronan and Ben's perspectives on contemporary issues, personal challenges, and their endeavors to create meaningful content amidst a saturated media landscape.

Transcript

[Ronan Levy]

Hey, everyone. Ronan here. Over the 70 or so podcast episodes I've released, there was one that garnered the most response and feedback, and that was the one called Compassion Is Not a Zero Sum Game with Scott Galloway. But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. The episode that got the second most feedback, or maybe third or fourth, was the first one I recorded with Ben Doc Askins entitled How to Think for Yourself. And the episode that garnered the third or maybe fourth or fifth amount of response was the second one that I recorded with Ben called Optimize this. Knowing a Good Thing When I See It. I tried to get Scott Galloway to start a podcast with me, but when that failed, I went for the next best thing and partnered up with Ben to start the Know Nothing podcast, a podcast that pays homage to nothing. We liken the show to a Seinfeld meets the Big Lebowski by two people with below average talent. What follows is the first episode of the Know Nothing podcast called Making Something out of Nothing. We hope you enjoy it, and if you do, please go. Go ahead and subscribe to it as whether or not it's good. We're having a lot of fun making it and would love to see it grow. Enjoy. Definitely. Say that again if you can.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Trying to trip me up? No way, man.

[Ronan Levy]

Oh, come on, man. That would be.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I live down here in Kentucky. There's different rules out here about everything.

[Ronan Levy]

Is the next 45 minutes.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, I got this.

[Ronan Levy]

Hey, I'm Ronin.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Doc. Doc.

[Ronan Levy]

I thought your name was Ben.

[Ben Doc Askins]

It is.

[Ronan Levy]

Whatever. You're listening to the. No, wait, that's the wrong podcast.

[Ben Doc Askins]

What a narcissist.

[Ronan Levy]

Hot diggity dog. We are on. And I am a producer. I finally graduated to the. No, I've always been a producer. I have to produce my own these days. What the hell?

[Ben Doc Askins]

The only way you can get a good conversation is talking to yourself. The only way you can get things done right is to do it yourself. That's a good point, dog.

[Ronan Levy]

Not much. Good to see you, man.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, likewise.

[Ronan Levy]

It's been a while.

[Ben Doc Askins]

It's kind of creepy since I shaved my head. We kind of. We're looking too much alike. I don't know, man.

[Ronan Levy]

You know the episode that's about to drop on the Ronan Levy podcast is with Chip Conley. I don't know if you know about Chip Conley. I think you would dig his style. He wrote a. Started a hospitality company called Joie de Vivre and then became one of the senior guys at Airbnb when it got Big wow. And now he started something called the Modern Elder Academy. He's in his, I don't know, early 60s kind of thing. And he realized that there's a huge amount of knowledge and wisdom that we waste with our youth focused culture and we send old people out to pasture. And he's like, screw that. You know, there's a lot of wisdom. And so, you know, they talk about the seven faces of the soul, and you hit the kind of double where you can either have a midlife crisis by your Harley Davidson. I don't know if you have a Harley Davidson or not boring or, you know, you can have the midlife awakening and do cool shit. And so it's all about how, you know, make the most of your awakening or your Harley Davidson.

[Ben Doc Askins]

But master classes with actual masters for a change, that would be impressive. Right?

[Ronan Levy]

Not in this social media world. We need people who don't know what the hell they're talking about selling you on $99 a month courses.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, that's one of more of, not.

[Ronan Levy]

Less of more of.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Definitely a glut there at this point. For sure.

[Ronan Levy]

No kidding. It's okay.

[Ben Doc Askins]

All is one.

[Ronan Levy]

Oh, yeah, exactly. Creatio ex nilio. Especially when it comes to online courses by people who don't know what they're talking about.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. Whole lot of something out of not a lot of nothing out of nothing is what it feels like right after I ask for a refund, they turn into nothing out of nothing on me every time. Like, I thought you were cool. You're. Never mind.

[Ronan Levy]

You just summed up the modern state of the world quite eloquently.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, that's my gift. That one's free.

[Ronan Levy]

That one's free.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Next one's $99 a month.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, Faith, I'll tell you the same thing over and over again. Honestly, I feel like most of the courses, if they just told you one thing over and over again, would probably add more value than what they usually do.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, that's basically new book. Like, I wrote a book that I thought was really cool, and there was like, you know, 11 and a half people that paid attention to it, you being one of them or whatever. And I was like, you know what? I'll sell if I say the same goddamn thing over and over and over again. Because I bought like, you know, these like, consciousness journals. And that's what it is. It's the same thing. It's like 90 days to change. I'm going to. You're going to ask me the same questions every day for 90 days, sure enough, I did. I changed the answers. By day 90, I was given different answers. Like this stuff. I guess it works. I don't know. Just going to get back in line. I'm going to be a non player character from now on. That's the way.

[Ronan Levy]

So much better that way. Actually, just up there you see a copy of the Trip Journal, which is basically the same thing about giving you a whole bunch of space to write about your trips after a psychedelic journey.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Is that from Field Trip Health? Is that where it was from? It was in the app before, right?

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was kind of the analog version of the app. And then I was speaking to Tucker Max, who had Scribe Media, which had its own shit show. He's like, you should turn that into a book. I'm like, all right. I was turning a book. So we turned it into a book. And you know how many copies we sold?

[Ben Doc Askins]

3, if we're lucky.

[Ronan Levy]

If we're lucky.

[Ben Doc Askins]

People like the paper. I don't know.

[Ronan Levy]

It is paper. It is really a nice book, actually. Let me see. I'm going to go on Amazon. Haven't gone on. Every once in a while I go on Amazon to check the reviews of the Ketamine breakthrough, because that's sort of a real book. But the Trip Journal, let's see if it's even on Amazon.

[Ben Doc Askins]

KDP have to say about this.

[Ronan Levy]

Oh, shit. I don't even think it's on Amazon anymore. We finally.

[Ben Doc Askins]

You get Shadow banned by Amazon.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, it seems that way. This is a new notch in the belt. No, there it is.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I didn't even know that was a thing.

[Ronan Levy]

We got nine reviews, nine ratings. We got 4.1 out of 5.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Send me the link. I'll get you to double digits, buddy.

[Ronan Levy]

All right, you got it.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Hey.

[Ronan Levy]

We got A review in May 2024 from Tanya and a prolific reader. This Journal is a tremendous tool. Journey work is nonlinear and difficult to grasp. That can make it difficult to integrate. The Trip Journal helps give a framework for meaningful integration. Helps the user parse out the elements that. That become the roots of sustainable growth. And it is beautifully made. Sweet.

[Ben Doc Askins]

So how much did you pay for that review? Like, that reviewer has a better grasp of the English language than probably the author did. That's an impressive review, man. That's awesome.

[Ronan Levy]

What are you talking about, amigo? And then there's the one honest review from a guy named Will. One star. This book is extremely. This one is from 2022. This book is extremely light on practical advice on how to make the most of your experiences. What material does cover those aspects of a trip? And not info about the author's company? Scientific research or filler pages could have fit in a small pamphlet, for example. The importance of setting intention is mentioned, but there's no advice on integrating that intention into the trip. I will spare everyone else from the.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Rest of the rundown on that. Yeah, yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

Shall we. Shall we find some one star reviews on the antihero journey?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Anti Heroes Journey. Yeah. Pull it up. I don't even know. It's been a minute since I looked at any of them.

[Ronan Levy]

Let's see. Let's just read.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I'd be nervous if I wasn't. Nothing.

[Ronan Levy]

The Hero's journey for the Anti Heroes.

[Ben Doc Askins]

That's the new one.

[Ronan Levy]

That's the new one.

[Ben Doc Askins]

There's probably zero reviews for the Zero with a thousand faces here.

[Ronan Levy]

There sure are, but it's not out yet. It comes out in two days. So everyone listening? It's October 17th. So it drops October 19th. All right, let me see. I'm having trouble finding it, actually.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. Yeah. I think I remember when you asked for a copy way back when. I was like, I had to find the link on the Amazon Canada version and send it to you because I was getting Shadow banned back then too. I probably still am.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah.

[Ben Doc Askins]

But probably deserve it.

[Ronan Levy]

But here's the best part. I'm going to share my screen. I hope this actually come through. Here we go. See if Mark got translated into whatever language this is, how did you get it translated into that language? Whatever language that is.

[Ben Doc Askins]

That's Ukrainian. I have friends over there. Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

Wow. And is this Korean or Japanese? I don't even know Japanese.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

Wow.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I have friends in low places all over the world that are. Are not even remotely interested in reading this book.

[Ronan Levy]

So, you know, I think that is actually the secret to success. Knowing if you can't sell a book.

[Ben Doc Askins]

In English, you should probably translate it into a dozen other languages just to test the markets.

[Ronan Levy]

Just to see, you know, that's how a lot of Canadian companies on the companies on the Canadian stock market actually make their go at it by paying German letter writers to write letters to people in Germany that are, I guess, legal there, but would not pass muster by the, um.

[Ben Doc Askins]

From a Nigerian prince that left them a certain amount of money. If they'll just wire a deposit, they'll send you the rest. Yeah, I get it.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah. No, it's a little bit. It's a little bit more legitimate than that, but not much. And I see your podcast, man. I Can't find your book?

[Ben Doc Askins]

I can't find the book. There's a. There's a great review about a foam butt somewhere in there in the mix. Like, it's like the top thumbs up review that I got from a buddy of mine made the review nice. Like this, I ordered this book, or I ordered a foam, but. And this book came instead, or whatever. And then it's just a picture of him reading the book with the foam butt on, and he's like, eventually the foam butt showed up too. And the book's not bad.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, not bad if you can make any sense of it. But be wary of that because creatio x nilio. Soon as you're making sense something out of nowhere. But here's the awesome thing. So they're on the page at least as far as. Oops, hold on. As far as I get it. In Canada for Amazon.com we have the new book coming out, the Hero's Journey for Antiheroes, the Antiheroes Journey podcast, which is zero dollars and zero cents.

[Ben Doc Askins]

It's on audible. It's free.

[Ronan Levy]

Sweet Les Ante Hero Voyagette. No, it's not a real baguette, man. They're delicious. And then we have a book called beyond the Hammer by Ryan. Golly, I don't know how in Amazon's infinite wisdom that came up, but.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Is he a sex therapist? Is that what that.

[Ronan Levy]

No, he's a leadership dude. High performance team.

[Ben Doc Askins]

The Hammer. Click on my name. Like the author page. That's got to take you to the.

[Ronan Levy]

All right.

[Ben Doc Askins]

There's got to be. Yeah, see, there it is.

[Ronan Levy]

We got 23. Jesus. You have five star reviews.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, see?

[Ronan Levy]

4.9.

[Ben Doc Askins]

So someone did give me no feedback, but just three stars because they hurt their feelings. I don't know. That just goes to show that I did not pay for any of these reviews. Clearly. Yeah, well, I didn't realize that was a whole thing. Like, there's all this review swapping. There's all these ways that people try to hack the algorithm whenever you're an independent author or whatever.

[Ronan Levy]

Whatever.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I started getting all these, hey, like, if you'll write a review for me, I'll write a review for you. Or, you know, guys in, you know, Pakistan sending me offers to, like, make sure that I get a whole bunch of downloads or whatever. Like, I don't. There's just a weird market for everything at this point.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, just make sure you don't take any packages onto airplanes that they give you.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Right.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, that's. That is the key as long as.

[Ben Doc Askins]

You want to travel it first, right?

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What the. But you've got some great.

[Ben Doc Askins]

That's the best one.

[Ronan Levy]

That's my favorite one.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Somebody else called it a no self help book. I thought that was pretty insightful. Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

Love it. Short but challenging book where Doc shares his experiences and challenges of life and military service in an honest, raw but humorous manner. Really enjoyed it and I'm sure you will too. Three people found that helpful. Yeah. See, there you go.

[Ben Doc Askins]

People read my homework.

[Ronan Levy]

Thanks for nothing. That's. That's probably the most honest one.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I like that one. That's a good one too. Yeah. There was one point in the book where I'm like, no thanks necessary. And a buddy of mine was like maybe a fuck. You might be necessary at this point, but okay.

[Ronan Levy]

100%. In a world of madness, this book will drive you mad. You're in good company.

[Ben Doc Askins]

In sync with the world around you is the point. Flow states and such, right?

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, whatever those are. Because once you're in a flow state. Did you say it? Someone said it being like the nature of a flow state is that as soon as you become aware that you're in a flow state, you're no longer in a flow state.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Right. Yeah. It's sad. Self referentially incoherent like that, you know?

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah. You know what? So speaking of Peter, Peter looking down.

[Ben Doc Askins]

At the waves, drops in. But Jesus pulled him back out again, you know? Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

I've never read the Bible. Actually I started. I started reading the Old Testament once and I got through the pieces about like, you know, and Adam knew Eve and they had children and those children lived 864 years. And I'm like okay, that's the end of that.

[Ben Doc Askins]

And you were into longevity medicine man. Like that's the secrets there. We gotta get this Brian Johnson reverse engineered like you know, 3 meter long telomeres or something. That's what. That was the deal, right?

[Ronan Levy]

I think so. I think so. At least according to the Bible. And you don't have to do anything. It just happens. That's the amazing part.

[Ben Doc Askins]

You just had to have been born that far back or I don't know, on the Hindu scale of things it'd be like after Kali Yuga or something. People lived 100,000 years. There's that whole cycle of it seems like every religion has their own version of people lived for a really, really long time. And we're just a bunch of monkeys quite make it to 80 without smashing each other's brains in.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, that's about right.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, you know, I've done a bit of that along the way. I can't. Can't judge anybody else, you know.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, of course. And you have. Being in the military, I can tell you I have never smashed anyone's head in. I don't think I've ever had a. I've been in. I haven't been in a physical fight. I guess one guy tried to punch me once because I was dating a girl he liked. And that was in second year of law school. That's the closest I've been to a fight.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Not even like with a friend. Not even a friendly fight. Like, you know, punching in the ear, like a fight club in the parking lot kind of thing. Ow. In the ear.

[Ronan Levy]

It's the greatest movie. No, honestly. Hey, I was just reading Bob Parsons book actually. It's not down here, but I got Bob coming on the podcast. You know Bob from Godaddy? Yeah, yeah. And he was talking about how when he was just joined the military, some guy was giving him a hard time bullying him. And so he like went at him and beat the shit out of him. And I was like, you know what? I really. I think I feel the need to do that. I feel like I need to channel jiu jitsu class.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Punch your friends in the face week. We have like a glove week where we punch each other in the face. It's a good time.

[Ronan Levy]

That is something I need. Punch your friend in the face week. We need more. Why you got like mental health week? Why isn't there like punch yourself in the. Punch your friend.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Map out your best friend week, you know, or whatever. Yeah, it's out there. We just don't have good marketing for all of that stuff.

[Ronan Levy]

Maybe the brain damage has an impact on that.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, the revolution will not be televised.

[Ronan Levy]

It's true. That is true. Anyway, what's been going on in your world?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Ah, man, I'm. I'm pushing all the chips in on doing the ketamine assisted therapy thing at this point. I think last time we talked I was working in the emergency room a bunch. So I got enough traction where I got enough clients here that that's what I'm doing all the time professionally now. Oh, nice to be working so cool. Keeping me busy like 9 to 5. And then it's just literally games and softball games and hanging out with kids and that sort of stuff.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, Yep, yep. You've made. Yeah. Work started, you know, helped start a new company and actually it was interesting. I was just talking to a PR agency we're potentially going to engage. And I've become hyper aware of this as my kids start to enter sports. But have you ever noticed that, you know, the ethics of sports has been replaced by the ethics of capitalism? There's only one purpose of sport and that's to win and kill.

[Ben Doc Askins]

There's not even like a slaughter rule anymore. They get like 15 runs in an inning and stuff. It's crazy.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, yeah. And my buddy, I think I've mentioned it on my podcast, like, my buddy R go his kid. It was a couple years ago now, he was 11. Like, really, like, baseball was playing like on a rep team and apparently the coaches said, like, if you don't have a trainer in the off season, don't bother coming out in the spring. I'm like, he's 11 fucking years old. It's like, that's crazy. You know, I. I was playing all sports and I was mediocre at all of them, and I remain mediocre or less to this day. And so maybe I am not actually a great lesson in how people should approach sports, but it does feel like sports are taken way too fucking seriously because, like a. Like, let's just do the math. 99.99% of kids bank sports are never going to make a dollar from it. So like, let's not bank your whole entire career on it. And what about just enjoying things for the sake of enjoying them and not having to win? Like, when, when, when fun? That's a good question. I feel like we stopped having fun in this world at one point. I'm going to blame probably the late 90s. I feel like that's when fun everything too.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Seriously, why so serious? Right? Like, what about what happened to, like, versatility? Getting some experience with baseball and then try and wrestling and then try and band and then try and dance and just, you know, foreign languages, like, see what sticks. Seems to be like, that's kind of how I try to approach it anyway with our kiddos is like, just try something out for a while and then try something else out for a while. Like, you're not going to figure any of this shit out till you got a whole brain anyway. You gotta be like 25, 26, 27.

[Ronan Levy]

So just by that point, swing for.

[Ben Doc Askins]

The fences and screw it up.

[Ronan Levy]

Professional athletes, right? Like, by the time you're 27, you're like, your career is long past, man.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, Tom Brady. Yeah, he's never right. Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

Anyway, yes, he went on. He went on for a long time. That isn't actually an impressive Achievement. You know, it's. It's. It is interesting, though, because I went to Cirque du Soleil, and the performers there, just exquisite. Right. Like, the physical feats of what they do is just remarkable. And so on one hand, I do have an appreciation. Appreciation for the people who dedicate themselves to their craft so much, to, in some ways, advance the human condition. Right. What they can do, probably people 50 years couldn't do. And you see that across all sports. So I do have an appreciation that, like, that level of commitment and drive has value, but I just feel like it's too saturated, you know, it's just. It's too everywhere. And it's like, either you're serious or don't bother doing it at all.

[Ben Doc Askins]

And we need some more dimmer switches. That's all or nothing stuff.

[Ronan Levy]

I've done my best to dimming into the world.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Try to be the gray man. Try to bring as much gray to situations as I can as literally and as metaphorically as possible. Yeah. Have you. Have you thought at all about trying to just copy the marketing from Bronx from Idiocracy for Quench at all, like, quench shots, what plants craves or something like that in any of the marketing for that? I think that'd be fucking hilarious.

[Ronan Levy]

I think that'd be amazing. You know, I. Honestly, Idiocracy was probably one of the most uncomfortable movies I've ever watched. Not like Schindler's List or like Born on the Fourth of July. No, no, no. Idiocracy. Because that one cut a little too close to home.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, yeah. Cletus and the trailer park taking over and the triple PhDs are like, yeah, we're not prepared to raise another human being. What is the ethics of child rearing at this point? Yeah, that kind of hurt. The first 10 minutes of that was like, wow, how did these guys get a time machine? And still we haven't been able to do anything about it. We got all. We got all the plays ahead of time, and we're still losing the game, man.

[Ronan Levy]

That's a good point.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I hadn't done that when Fuddruckers became butt. I literally fell on the ground and started laughing. I couldn't. I couldn't breathe anymore. Whenever they just put the sign up there like that, it's only a matter of time. It's only a matter of time.

[Ronan Levy]

That is very true. What took us down that line of inquiry? Oh, yeah, Quench. No, you know, we're trying to. We're trying to do, like, good stuff, like the the, the vision I'm trying to push forward is like, we, we put enough shit into our bodies and you know, we can thank General Mills and Coca Cola for. I mean, there's a de. Personal responsibility that needs to be imbued in there. Absolutely. But, but like, let's be honest, like the marketing and the ease and the convenience of shoveling a whole bunch of sugary, fatty, fatty shit in your mouth makes it really easy. And, and so could we create a company that creates. It's primarily going to be kids focused food products, you know, that actually has stuff that's healthier, you know, if it grows out of. I remember my doctor said, here's a simple rule for how to eat. If it grows out of the ground, if it walks, if it swims, it fly. If it flies, you can eat it. Otherwise, if it comes out, crinkly bag, don't. And it's like, it's a pretty simple rule. I get that's hard, but yeah, you.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Had Dr. Drew Ramsey on your podcast previously talking about like nutritional psychiatry and all of the details of like healthy eating for mental health and some of that sort of stuff. And like, I'm, I'm reading all the same papers, but what I wind up turning around and telling my patients is eat plants and animals. There's all these multi million dollar studies about like the Mediterranean diet and the ketogenic diet. At the end of the day, it's like, like it's just plants and animals, guys. Like, there's a whole industry around educating you about how you should or shouldn't eat. And it's like if it comes in a box or a bag or if it's just corn, if it's 99 prepackaged corn from one way or another, it's ultra processed or whatever. Just, it's cardboard. It's not for, it's not for you. It's not for you. Stop messing with it or whatever. Oh, okay. But I can't, I can't make recurring revenue on like eat plants and animals. If everybody starts doing that, like, well, what are you going to do?

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, you could, you could do one of those food shipment packages thing being like, here's your box of plants and animals. Actually, you should just called it that. Let's start like a food ship and like one of those like organic delivery services being like plants and animals.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Here you go. Plants and animals, right? The ugly fruits, the leftovers or whatever. There's a whole, you know, niche for that. There's just niches, niches for everything.

[Ronan Levy]

There's niches. If. Yeah, if there's. If there's an idea of it, there's porn of it on the Internet.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I know nothing about this. What is this porn to which you refer?

[Ronan Levy]

It's. It's just as healthy as all the things that Coca Cola feeds us.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, no joke. It all hurts. Pick your pain. Which one do you want?

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, that's exactly right.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Do you want your foot cut off from type 2 diabetes or do you want to eat this salad and everybody's voting with their feet, but.

[Ronan Levy]

Jesus. It's really interesting watching the people advocating the carnivore diet. There's an aspect of that that appeals to me for sure. Um, but have you ever.

[Ben Doc Askins]

What is the aspect that appeals to you?

[Ronan Levy]

Um, like, I guess there's a. There's part of my brain that is. Understands the concept that plants built poisons in themselves to not be eaten. And here we are eating all those plants, whereas the defenses that animals got were horns and claws and teeth. You know, and so as soon as you get past those horns and claws and teeth, there's probably not a whole lot in there that's too, Too bad for. Um. And. And so, you know, there's a logic to the carnivore diet being like, yeah, we probably should. Maybe too much plants is actually bad for us as well. I don't know if I subscribe to that, but there's like. I can see the logical steps to say, like, oh, yeah, that's not totally an unreasonable thing to. To believe in terms of what we should be putting in our bodies. But then, like, try going a day without eating vegetables if you're a person who regularly eats fruits and it's fucking hard. Like, you're like, I need roughage right now.

[Ben Doc Askins]

It's real.

[Ronan Levy]

Like, I. I don't know how people do it. Like, they eat eggs and meat, and if I just ate eggs and meat, I would feel gross pretty quickly.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I've tried them all because, like, you know, I've had patients that are in like, the biohacker range for a long time. That was some of what I was drawing anyway was and was like, to understand it from the inside. I tried a whole bunch of these different things. I was keto for three years while I was in PA school and stuff. And I actually kind of liked the keto diet. But I tried. I could. I made it two weeks on the carnivore diet, and I was just so sick of diarrhea after two weeks of container. I just could. I don't know. It's not for me. It's not for me. I'm not that guy. Apparently. Like, I just couldn't push all the way through. I'm, like, calling in sick because of the diet that I have chosen to force the amount of beef tallow that I was slurping down and stuff. I just. Still, I couldn't get through. I couldn't crawl through the mile of shit to get out of Shawshank, to be a carnivore on the other side of that or whatever. Just stuck in prison. I couldn't do it. It's not for me.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, fair. Uh, so you like the keto diet? You're not keto anymore, though.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, I did. I felt like. Like, you know, I've got. I played high school sports, contact sports, a bunch military. Just got my bell ring.

[Ronan Levy]

You clearly did not dedicate yourself enough to it and get a trainer dietitian in the off season. That is clear.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, I didn't. I definitely just ate whatever the hell somebody threw in front of me. And still, you know, we. We won a couple, you know, championships. I could have thrown a football over them mountains over there.

[Ronan Levy]

Three touchdowns, one game.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Exactly. Back in the back of the glory days, back when the men were men and the grass was real. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I felt good. Like, I felt like the brain metabolism thing definitely felt like everybody else was going 65 and I was going 100 miles per hour in the passing lane the whole time that I was in PA school anyway. Like, I needed less speed.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah.

[Ben Doc Askins]

It was also the modafinil.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah. Amphetamines. Like. Yeah, snorting that. Okay.

[Ben Doc Askins]

But you did.

[Ronan Levy]

You did actually feel like.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. This is what Peter Attia must feel like all the time. I'm so smart right now, passing all these exams. I'm going to be a PA someday when I grow up. Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

Uh, you know, I find when I fast, like, my head is much clearer. Right. So there's aspects of it too, for. For sure. Uh, but I find, like, even when I try to go keto, it's like my body, I. I don't think I can get enough calories. Like, I'm not. I'm 145 pounds at the best of times. Right. Um, maybe 145.01 with my hair wet. Um. Exactly. And I just, like, after, like, a little while of eating, like, I just need other forms of glucose in my system. Like, I just can't. I'm not full enough. I don't. I just can't do it. Yeah.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. It definitely was an adjustment. Like there's the, you know, kind of the induction phase of it or whatever, where you got to push through both physiologically and psychologically. But once it was kind of the routine and I knew what the foods were and it was just kind of. It was one less piece of like a cognitive load to deal with. It was like, this is the way that I eat and it makes me feel good and I'm going to stick with it. And I was also training for like a START and ultra marathon at the same time that I was doing the BA school thing. So it was like. It was a ridiculous level of attempted biohacking going on all at the same time under all this stress into some stupid military medical school and whatever. I felt like it helped anyway for that period of time. But now they got the esters, the ketone ester supplements or whatever. So you can cheat. Yeah. You can spiritually bypass. You can ketogenically bypass as well. And you know, get some ketones into your brain without having to cut carbs. And I think they work. I think they help a bunch. They feel good. It tastes like rocket fuel and they feel like rocket fuel. So go send it.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, yeah, they do taste like shit. Like, I. I had a hard time swallowing it down.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

Um, I know there's a. That company. I forgot what it's called that was making like ketone alcohol because with beta hydroxybutyrate, you know, it's. It's. It, I guess chemically is similar to gamma hydroxybutyrate, which can make you feel drunk, you know, but is also. Yeah, I've never tried it. I actually want to try it. I'm. I'm very inclined. Cause I've heard it's like you feel drunk for an hour and then it's gone. And there's no linger, lingering effects. I'm like, it's pretty cool. Like, I would love to feel that.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. I tried the ketone ester alcohol drink. I can't remember the name of that company right now either.

[Ronan Levy]

Hard Ketone. Ketone. Ketone.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had the snake oil too. The snake oil drink was a really good one for if I was going out on a real long ruck or a real long run. It had like slow release carbs. It was a, you know, it was fun little drink to have. Like, the hard ketones didn't do anything for me. It was a big nothing burger. But I got a lot of blood, so I don't know if that's part of the problem. I got like A hundred pounds on you. So, yeah, fair. You know, I drink a couple of those and be like, well, guess I'll go get some whiskey. I don't. That did nothing for me.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, that's exactly, exactly right.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

Like, first time I tried it, I was like, I think I feel something. And the second time I'm like, nope, nope, total placebo. There's nothing wrong with placebo.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Optimize for it. Right? Like if you know it's there. That's the funny thing about it. Like we've used it as like a problem in clinical trials. How do we eliminate this? How do we. Wait, wait, we give people the water pill and they get better too. How do we turn that up to 11? No shame where all the money's getting thrown, right?

[Ronan Levy]

It's fucking remarkable. I've bitched about that on my podcast before. Being like, how is it not that people are like, why don't we over index on trying to create placebo effect? I mean, all of life is in some ways a placebo effect, but let's do more of that. Let's try to control for it and eliminate it to prove that our chemical does the work.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Decreases depression by two points on this scale so that it separates from the.

[Ronan Levy]

And makes you fat and ugly and your wiener soft. Sounds like a good trade. A good trade. So it gives me an improvement on a made up scale that no one believes is actually an approximation for depression. And it comes at all these consequences. Speaking of which, what are your thoughts on the whole FDA fucking up the MDMA thing?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Oh, dear lord. Yeah. I should have known you were going to ask that. Oh, yeah. A part of me is not surprised for one. Right. Like there is this. What. How does the saying go? Like the way that a paradigm shift happens in the way that anybody approaches a particular area is dependent on the old generation dying off and the new generation taking place. And we're at that sort of a transition point where it's almost like a generation's got to kind of retire before this is going to make its way into being more normalized and mainstream. So I think a bunch of this, if I could try to put like a real fine point on it, is just that we're in this, the middle of a cunian paradigm shift and that is going to require a whole bunch of boomers to retire, die off.

[Ronan Levy]

What did you call me?

[Ben Doc Askins]

K. Paradigm shift. Thomas Toon Structure Scientific revolutions. Google it.

[Ronan Levy]

I'm going to have ChatGPT explain that to me because Googling it sounds like a little bit Too much work. Can you tell which of us is well read and which one is a lawyer?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Which one of us is living paycheck to paycheck and which one is.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, I think that's true.

[Ben Doc Askins]

We do look a lot alike, though.

[Ronan Levy]

We do. We definitely rock. Rock the look. And I think I started the conversation, but we got off it. But, like, Chip Conley was on the podcast and he's bald as well. So, like, my intro is like, solar.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Panel for a sex machine.

[Ronan Levy]

I need that shirt or that hat or whatever it is, along with my damn seagulls hat.

[Ben Doc Askins]

That's the one. So Chip Conley, did you ask him about mdma? Is that why you were coming back?

[Ronan Levy]

No, no, I was just coming back to the bald part. But we started off with. My intro is like, this is a conversation between two bald dudes talking about psychedelics, life and death, finding purpose and meaning. And I'm like, and this may be a conversation of me talking to myself, but it actually wasn't. It was me talking to Chip Conley. And in many ways, this is another conversation that probably in some ways, but for the fact that you're way more articulate and way more well read than I am, it could be a conversation of talking to myself.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Let me be your Tyler Durden, Please.

[Ronan Levy]

Please, please throw some lie on my hand and let it burn.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Shoot yourself in the mouth when you want me gone. Am I allowed to say that? Anyway, mdma. Mdma.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Doc Askins]

The, you know, this revolution, I think, has just been paused to some degree. But, yeah, I like the advisory panel being just kind of shocked, like, oh, my goodness, they tied this to therapy. Like, there's. There's just so much wrong with how all of that went off the rails. It just boggles my mind.

[Ronan Levy]

It really is mind numbing how so many smart people could come to such a dumb conclusion. It's kind of like, you know, creating an artificial knee and then being like, but if you have to do surgery to put this in, sorry, guys. That knee has to place itself in your body and remove the other one. Otherwise, go fuck yourself. You're. You're out of luck.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. Oh, you were talking about, like, putting this in a human being. Oh, well, we're going to need some more information on whether or not that's a safe thing to do or not. Was basically like. Like, the answer was, well, we need more safety data around this. Where, like, there was transient hypertension was a side effect, like, also of elevated liver enzymes without any consequence. Right? Yeah. Like, meanwhile, I can prescribe Accutane for acne, but that's going to crush all of your internal organs and maybe give you a psychotic episode. And there'll be, you know, a whole lot of things that blood work ongoing to be able to prescribe that med for this and indications. But ptsd, we haven't developed anything for in a really long time. A whole lot of people are dying of it. Pump the brakes, guys. Pump, pump, pump the brakes. What does this do to male pattern baldness? I need to understand a bit better what the interactions are between this so called miracle cure and all the other meds that we've already got out there that we're going to put people on for all the years that you're going to have to go back to the drawing board on running some clinical trials. The jokes aside, it's pretty, it's pretty sad story, honestly.

[Ronan Levy]

It really is. It's, you know, I haven't listened to it, but I saw Bessel van der. Bessel Vanderko. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. You know, he was on Rungen Chatterjee's podcast talking about. And I haven't listened to it, but basically why The FDA was entirely wrong and I think David Nutt released a paper basically on the same thing. Right?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, just recently. It was a great paper for sure.

[Ronan Levy]

I haven't read it yet, but I'm glad that you have because one of us is well read and the other one is a lawyer.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I tried the Carnivore diet and I just spend a lot more time with the toilet. So I got all this time to read on my phone, trying to make the most of it, living my best life now, pushing through, crawling out of that mile of Someday I'll get out of Shawshank, man, and I'll see you on the other side.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, yeah. Speaking of, I think, I think I saw a post where you were like somewhat supportive of RFK in the US election, and. No, he's not. But what's your take on what's going on with him? I can't, I just, I can't. I can't take him. Like, he's, he's like, he says all the right things for all the right people. And I'm like, you just don't know what the fuck you're talking about. It's like, I'm not a scientist or an epidemiologist, but in listening to him talk, I'm like, but I see 17,000 things wrong with exactly what you're saying. As much as it sounds persuasive, it's.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Important to have like the right comparators in mind. Right. Like I'm down here in the US Man. We're like, what am I comparing here? It's, it's kind of like the ibogaine controversy by analogy. Right? Like the comparator is not a healthy functioning society full of awesome political candidates that you just have the pick of the litter. Look at all these geniuses. How do I decide which genius to vote for? That's not what I got going on down here, man. Like it's not great comparison. So, yes, a 70 something year old guy who can do 15 pull ups right there. That's all it takes. I'll vote for him, sure, why not? It's an idiocracy. This is where if it's the end of an empire and I'm just, you know, watching from my farm outside of Louisville.

[Ronan Levy]

That is impressive. But then like the story of the bear came out. It's like, what the, what the. What are you talking about? I don't know. In this attention economy, like striving for attention. It really is. I appreciated and I think we talked about this before was like an attention economy. Like there's just a natural gravitation to the more extreme and the more stupid because that's attention grabbing and truth. In fact.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Shiny.

[Ronan Levy]

Very boring. Very boring. Doesn't move very fast.

[Ben Doc Askins]

It's the seven deadly sins. Which one of them are we going to put in the first five seconds of this video to make you pay attention for a little bit? Just appeal to either your mouth or your. Downstairs is all that we wind up doing over and over again. Hey, what would it look like if some adults ran the show for a little while? I don't know. Maybe I'm just a dreamer.

[Ronan Levy]

You're not the only one. The guy who said that died because he got shot.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

Never mind.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I'm not scared. Send it.

[Ronan Levy]

Bring it.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Come to my house. That's where all the guns are, right? Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah. That is entirely fair. Yeah. I was trying to watch the Kamala on Fox yesterday with what was the guy's name? Bill Brer. Is that his name? Chris Breyer. What is wrong with that guy's face?

[Ben Doc Askins]

I haven't seen that one.

[Ronan Levy]

Oh my God. Should I pull it up and show you? Because I was just like, really? That is. Okay. Hold on, Fox.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I get all my news from the 1440. Have you heard of the 1440?

[Ronan Levy]

No.

[Ben Doc Askins]

It's an email once a day. That's just a rundown. And it's amazing. It's so Minimal biased. It's just, hey, this shit happened in this place at this time. If you want to know more, click here. I love it. So I don't watch any of the talking heads or the TV newses or tend to think for myself or not at all.

[Ronan Levy]

I can't. You can either play it or it gets small, but. All right, hold on, let me share my screen again.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Send it.

[Ronan Levy]

I'm sending a screen. You telling me that's someone's real face?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, I mean, like, you know what.

[Ronan Levy]

Has been injected into that face?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Filler. It's full. His face is full.

[Ronan Levy]

Like his forehead doesn't move. Like Botox, man.

[Ben Doc Askins]

You never heard of Botox?

[Ronan Levy]

I know it's Botox, but like it looks like plastic.

[Ben Doc Askins]

The simulators behind this whole thing are sick of us not paying attention to the fact that it's a simulation. They're just going to keep throwing puppets up there over and over again until we figure it out.

[Ronan Levy]

That's true. Let's see if Kamala's face moves. Oh, her eyebrows move. That's good. Oh, she's got lines in her forehead.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I grew up in a middle class family.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, of course you did. We all did. If we're running for politics.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Except Donald Trump.

[Ronan Levy]

It is one of the most confounding things, like not, not to shit on Donald Trump. So might as well be him, right?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Like he doesn't seem to mind self immolating at all. So, you know, there's that. I got to respect that. Right?

[Ronan Levy]

You got to respect that level of.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Fearlessness, a certain level of just, you know, staying zero about a whole bunch of things that everybody else cares a great deal about. Whole lot of lying. Not in a paradoxical way either. But what are you going to do? That seems to be the currency in D.C. at this point.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of issues with him and there's a whole bunch of him issues with his policy, but I guess maybe being a little bit teleological, like just using the FDA as a system, it's like that system's got to go. If it can't maneuver enough to say, hey, what if we pair some therapy with this particular mind altering substance to see if it can get safer and work better, then that system has got to go. That's a very rigid, antiquated system that needs to, you know, put on some big boy pants or big girl pants and actually like get a job and move out of the house. Right? Yeah, make your bed. Yeah, make your bed like in the military and it's like if the, if, if that's the system, if that's the best that we got right now, and I'd argue the FDA probably works better than most government institutions. Yeah, then we kind of need to tear the whole thing down. And I don't know if you can do it step by step. I think maybe you have to do it in one catastrophic cluster fuck. But I don't know, you know, maybe, maybe I'm just talking up here from up here in Canada where we have universal health, health care and although crime's getting worse in Toronto, it's pretty safe to walk around the streets and most people don't have guns and like to say sorry. So.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, it's a, it's a different way of life for sure. I, I slept on the streets in Toronto. Really? Spring break up there one time for a whole week in college. I was like, hey, you know what? I'm gonna go sleep on Church street for a week and see what it's like being homeless. Just homeless. Tourism, that's what Toronto is good for in my mind anyway. And, and everybody was nice. You know, if I needed a toonie, they'd give me a toonie and I'd go get a hot dog somewhere. I didn, everybody was real nice. I didn't get mugged or anything.

[Ronan Levy]

There you go. On Church street too. That's, that's a particular destination.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, for sure.

[Ronan Levy]

Weren't too far. There's a, there is a place called Hooker Harvey's on Jarvis, which is just a block over from Church street, which is where all the hookers used to hang out. It was fun to drive home along Jarvis in the evenings to witness the action.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, that's the spot. If you don't. Hey, I had a question I wanted to ask, like if you. Did you ever do like a post mortem on field trip? Like if you had a do over?

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah.

[Ben Doc Askins]

What would you do?

[Ronan Levy]

Truthfully, I wouldn't open the clinics. They were just. You can't make money doing that. Like it.

[Ben Doc Askins]

With the overhead, the model itself is bankrupt.

[Ronan Levy]

Well, it's, it was. There was a number of things that were challenging about it. One is, I mean we had. No one had scaled this before and no one really had, you know, tried to do psychology, psychedelic assisted therapy. Like it's, you know, really at all. Like most ketamine places at that time were just ketamine infusions. Here's a needle in your arm. Guts feed you well.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. There's a dividing curtain between these nine beds and there's an Anesthesiologist, just hooking everybody up and sending them to space and back and then sending them home.

[Ronan Levy]

Enjoy your visit to God.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Talk to your therapist about it. What therapist? I don't understand what just happened.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, you had a priest somewhere. So, yeah, it was. What I realized is like, you can divide the population into three segments. People who are comfortable with psychedelics, people who will never do psychedelics, and that very thin margin in the middle of people who are open to it but haven't done it and would feel much safer doing ketamine with a doctor as opposed to doing an mdma, you know, with a guide. And there aren't a lot of those people. And you know, when we were, for the fees we were charging, which was like 5, $6,000 for a course of treatment, you know, you narrow that band of people even less and then if they have to have, you know, in most places, we required it to be like just from a medical guidance perspect of treatment resistant depression or anxiety, which means you shrink it even more. And lo and behold, the people who have severe treatment resistant depression and anxiety, who haven't found relief elsewhere, often don't have jobs to pay five or six thousand dollars to come into the clinic. So like, you start drinking and drinking and drinking and it just, it becomes really hard to find an audience. And then I think rightfully at the start, we had a very robust screening process and, you know, wanted people to meet their therapist and feel comfortable with them. And then best practices, you have the same therapist for your session every single time, but that creates scheduling nightmare. And so, yeah, so the model was challenging and for a variety of reasons. We announced our existence in April of 2019, opened our first clinic like a week before the pandemic hit. And when the pandemic hit, financial markets were off 40%, whatever. And so we're like, shit, how are we going to get to our next capital raise? But then there were two psychedelic stocks that were bucking the trend up 200%. One was Champignon Brands, which became, became, I can't remember what it's called now. And the other one I think was Mindmed. And so we had all these banks calling us, being like, you guys want to go public? We can raise a whole bunch of money for you if you want to go public. And we're like, no, we don't want to go public, but we do want to raise capital. You know, take while the taking is good. Because, you know, this was now April or May of 2020, and we didn't know that there'd be even a world left in September. Right. Like, we had no idea what was happening. We were still in the midst of the world falling apart. So we're like, all right, let's take all the taking is good. But that came with the strengths of having to go public. So we had to try and, you know, catch up to that, and we could just never make it work.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. So you don't think there's any way to, like, do a do over on that? That would have been different had you not gone public sooner. You think it would have been different or.

[Ronan Levy]

I think if we didn't go public sooner, we could have sort of scaled our growth and, like, had a good assessment as to how to make these clinics work.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you doing the rundown on some of that. I was always curious, kind of, you know, trying to read the tea leaves from the outside. Like, man, these guys went so big so fast. What the hell going to happen?

[Ronan Levy]

I would love to get back into the psychedelic space. I just don't know how. Like, I really don't. You know, Alex En, who is a friend and, you know, involved in the space, you know, said one time, like, maybe psychedelics aren't meant to scale. And I think that may be true.

[Ben Doc Askins]

You know, I think maybe they decide. Maybe the psychedelics decide when they scale. And otherwise you are working against nature or God or both. Both. Neither.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah. You just got like, I mean, it's got to be worth it. I remember I've kind of shifted and this come up in the podcast a bunch of times. Like, my views of, like, scaling and growth and all that kind of stuff. It's like, just have fun with it. Like, if you're making money, if you're not making enough money to get by, have fun with it. Yeah, but at the same token, it's like running a business, running a hotel is fucking hard work. Like, it's. It's not, you know, the. I don't know if anyone thinks running a hotel is sexy, but, like, if you think there's sexy aspects of it, you know, that's 3% of it. And the other 97% is accounting and making people show up and paying bills, and it's like, not the fun stuff. So it's like, if you're going to have to do the drudgery, it's got to be worth it. And either you've got to be, like, feeling the internal rewards and validation of doing something really, really awesome and meaningful for people, or you got to be making money. It's got to be one of the two, otherwise, why are you doing it? And so when I look at most options in terms of what a psychedelic business could be, the fundamentals are the.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Same as any other business, except now it's a mushroom at the center of it or whatever. Right. Like, and if you don't want it and it's got its own sort of wly nature. Right.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, that's exactly it. So, I don't know, I'll keep my eye on it and see if opportunities emerged. But the other thing I see is that, like, I always talked about Field Trip as a lifestyle company. Everyone wanted to position us as a mental health company because that's what investors could wrap their heads around. But it's like, it's not. It's not. It's not mental health. It's a lifestyle. You have to make the decision to change, you know, and doing ketamine and opening up or psilocybin or whatever, to open up your perspectives and see the world from a different lens and make change is a great part of it. But you have to choose to change and stick with those changes. Otherwise, you just go back to mostly normal again, which can be fine. But if you actually want a different outcome from where you were, it means doing change. And to do change means doing it daily, which means it's a lifestyle business. Right. It means you got to keep coming back to the wow and keep working at it. And so that's why we kind of had the app, like, again, like, all that. Well, the app makes no money. And I'm like, yes, but the app grows the audience of people, and there's ways to make money off in the future. It's like, but we can't do that now. Let's focus on. And so, you know, we end up being like, a transactional treatment company. And, yeah, just, you know, again, could that work? I don't know. Maybe. But we didn't make it work. And it doesn't really deliver the promise of effective change for people. You know, people got to keep doing the work.

[Ben Doc Askins]

That durability of efficacy as the, say, in the clinical trial data or whatever is tough to come by honestly. Right. Change is hard.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, change is hard.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Want the easy button? Of course Cheerios could lower your cholesterol. I'd rather just eat Cheerios. Right. It could. What the hell? The box says it could. There had to be a bunch of lawyers said it was okay to say that. Right? It doesn't lower your cholesterol. Absolute horseshit. Anyway, what are some of the big changes that you've gone through, you'd say that you'd attribute to psychedelic journey spaces.

[Ronan Levy]

That I attribute to psychedelic journey spaces. What do you mean by that?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, well, you said like, change. Change is hard to come by. We're talking about trying to help people change. That's a piece of the lifestyle commitments. What's been your own experience in that regard? Like big changes that you've made because of some kind of psychedelic journey?

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, truthfully, the psychedelics have probably been like waystation and psychedelic journeys, and they haven't been. They're kind of like a catalyst, but the work is outside of the psychedelic journey, to be quite honest. Right.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Just sitting on a couch all day. What'd you get done, bro?

[Ronan Levy]

Exactly.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I went to Mars. I saw it. Talk to God. Yeah. Did you? Yeah. What are you going to do about it now? You know? Yeah. What's he done for you lately?

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah. See here in the room right now.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Can I talk some puzzles like this asshole?

[Ronan Levy]

Koonian. Koonian.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Tom. It's just Thomas Kuhn K U H N. And, you know, what'd you call me?

[Ronan Levy]

So the things like the growth I've gone through, and I don't know if I can attribute to psychedelics, but it feels like they were somewhat meaningful, is like softening my harshness on myself, becoming a little bit more secure. And a lot of the fights that I have had over the years have been just like stupid triggers. Right. Like, who loads the dishwasher and how it gets done. And now it's kind of like she saw how that might impact me and her reasons for it, doing it. And I saw how, you know, I was reacting to it and. Okay, I don't, I don't need to get upset about that. My, my ambition, like, actually, I, I, I hadn't shared this with you, but I got, it's going to become a podcast on its own. But I got invited to do a TEDx Bermuda talk, and they invited me to talk about psychedelics. And so, you know, they called me to say, like, hey, we want you to do a talk on psychedelics. But two things to keep in mind. One is the audience in Bermuda is very conservative and, and fairly religious. And B, you have to have an idea worth spreading that hasn't been done on psychedelics. And I'm like, I don't know, I.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Guess I better go. Mega dose of psychedelics.

[Ronan Levy]

Exactly.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Find one of the teach me plants. What hasn't? What haven't you taught anyone else? I need to know your secrets.

[Ronan Levy]

Exactly. So I was going to talk about, like my journey, which was, you know, being fairly straight edge kids, not being into drinking, drugs or anything along those lines. Getting into cannabis purely as an entrepreneur, changing my perspectives on plant medicine through that experience and seeing what it can actually do for people. Getting into psychedelics, having like the moonshot with field trip and being on sea NBC on the COVID of New York Times, being invited to all these cool things and cool events to speak, you know, and. And then like the fallout from the other side of that and just like the relentless pursuit of money, wealth, fame, you know, attention, influence, kicked my ass. And so the last 18 months I've gone through, you know, fortunately, not terribly severe health issues, but various kind of psychosomatically driven ibs, brain fog, all this kind of stuff that the good Jewish hypochondriac in me freaked out about.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Some whiplash.

[Ronan Levy]

Some whiplash, exactly. And so now I'm on the other side, and psychedelics have helped me realize that what I was seeking with money was security. But the only thing that can make you feel secure is yourself. You can have the biggest bank account in the world and not feel secure. In fact, after we sold Canadian cannabis clinics, I had multiples more money than I ever had before and I felt more financially anxious. How does that make. Makes sense, Right?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Right.

[Ronan Levy]

You know, you look at the illusion of money and like Elon Musk, I don't know if he's number one or number two right now, but like, if work is inherently an economic bad, that the less you have to work, the less you will work kind of thing, is a rational outcome, then why is it that the richest people in the world are also the busiest people in the world? Right. Tells you that money doesn't actually provide you with whatever you think it will in terms terms of cushy, relaxed life. Right?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

So security, freedom, it's like all of these things come from within, nothing external. And, you know, all the, all the philosophers, all the gurus have told you this, but I had to realize it on my own, and psychedelics were part of that. So it's kind of like the talk was going to be called how psychedelics made me a success and how they can make you a success too. And it's about realizing that the things I wanted from quote unquote, conventional definitions of success wouldn't come from the way that I was pursuing it.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Sounds like some kind of hero's journey bullshit to me.

[Ronan Levy]

It does.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Oh, but, but which a conservative crowd is going to love, man, it's going to be the best TED Talk ever.

[Ronan Levy]

Here's the best part. So my buddy Jordan Shallow, who's a great guy actually, it's like I was talking with staff about like who would I pick to do an ayahuasca journey with. You're on that list. Jordan Shallow is on that list. And eventually we'll make that come together the star line.

[Ben Doc Askins]

And we'll go visit a dragon.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah. Fuck yeah, we're gonna ride that dragon. And anyway, he introduced me to Gabrielle Lyon. Dr. Gabrielle. You may have seen her like she's like a muscle centered doc kind of thing.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

And she's like, I told her the rough idea. She's like, you gotta be wary with psychedelics and ted. They're, they're very particular. Talk to this guy Tucker. So I went to talk to this guy Tucker and I said, here's my talk. He's like, here's what you need to do. The organizers of the local TED don't know what's kosher for the TED website. So email the TED Central organizers and say here's my proposed talk. Want to make it's okay if not give me guidance. So I did that. Never heard back. And then three days ago I heard back from the Bermuda organizer saying yeah, we heard from the TED central office and they told us you reached out to them and they basically said you can't do this talk. So I got uninvited. So my hero's journey is still midway and it's a good anti heroic to me now. Yes it does. I made nothing out of something once.

[Ben Doc Askins]

They should have called it nootropic technology or something like that.

[Ronan Levy]

Right?

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. So dirt man, how are you going to hate on it? It grows in the dirt.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah. So my TEDx talk has now been revoked because it's just an X talk. God forbid someone should say something true that isn't validated by so called science.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. If it wasn't checked off on by a bunch of lawyers. Oh no, wait a second, hang on. You should have been fine. You should have used the secret handshake and gotten through all of that stuff. 33rd level Mason that you are. Are.

[Ronan Levy]

That'd be cool. Is there 33 levels of Mason? I feel like you actually know that.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Allegedly. Yeah. That's the highest level in the Masons. That's where you learn how to transport to other dimensions and I don't know, eat other people's children or something. I don't know, I don't know what that.

[Ronan Levy]

I thought that's what Dust Jews are for now. Drinking children's blood. That's what nuts Jews are for.

[Ben Doc Askins]

That's a Hollywood thing now. They took it from you?

[Ronan Levy]

Fuck yeah. Geez. That's one thing we had left.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Thousand bottles of baby oil.

[Ronan Levy]

This conversation has been weird. I don't know if we should ever publish this, but it's been fun.

[Ben Doc Askins]

I leave it up to the lawyers like everything else.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah, that's a bad idea.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yeah. That's what got us in this in the first place, huh? Yeah, to some extent, anyway. Yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

Yeah. All right, well, anything else we want to talk about right now, or should we wind this one up?

[Ben Doc Askins]

That's pretty good, man. All right. I feel good. You feel good.

[Ronan Levy]

It's a great conversation.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Got idiocracy in there. We got mdma.

[Ronan Levy]

We got drinking baby's blood.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Drinking baby's blood. Hookers on Church street or Harvey street or Harvey Hooker or whatever it was. You're Harvey. Is that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ronan Levy]

We got. We got. And we got. We got the various anti heroic moments.

[Ben Doc Askins]

Yep. Slid as many. Slid as many notes under the door as I possibly could for anybody that's listening and for all 11 people that have read the book and will listen to this podcast.