BUSINESS TRIPPING
’Shrooms a risky new tool touted by some exec coaches
Helping businesspeople try to optimize their performance by using hallucinogenic drugs is an eccentric and growing offshoot of the unregulated $5 billion field of executive and life coaching.
“Adderall, caffeine and stimulants helped with getting things done, but with the advent of AI, productivity is becoming less valuable. Psychedelics can help with the kind of divergent, creative thinking that’s more required now,” says Paul Austin, a lanky, bearded 33year-old “microdosing coach” and founder of Third Wave, which offers courses costing as much as $14,000 to certify psychedelic guides.
There are new concerns about the credibility of scientific research on psychedelics, and about the effects of daytime dosing in the workplace. Still, drugs like psilocybin, or magic mushrooms, and MDMA, or ecstasy, are stirring widespread optimism in some quarters. They’re believed to open people up to new ideas or change, a big draw for coaches.
Some coaches work openly at resorts in countries like Jamaica that haven’t outlawed the drugs, while others operate quietly out of private homes or Airbnbs in the U.S.. They cater to a rise in popular interest, and often the particular yearnings of ambitious hedge fund principals, entrepreneurs or executives.
“I believe psilocybin helps me be a better me, and therefore helps me be a better leader,” says Jim MacPhee, a 66-year-old leadership consultant who retired as chief operating officer of Walt Disney Co.’s Walt Disney World in 2021. He doesn’t encourage his clients to use drugs, or endorse illegal or recreational use, but says his own two experiences during retirement at an overseas retreat have helped him be more “dialed in” to his consulting work.
The reported drug use of Elon Musk, Sergey Brin and the murdered Cash App executive Bob Lee has brought fresh attention to how the business world is affected by rising use of psychedelics. Common concerns like hyper-suggestibility and changes to the brain’s executive function are amplified when it comes to those in positions of power.
“They make you more vulnerable and suggestible to others,” says Sandra Dreisbach, a co-founder of Ethical Psychedelic International Community, which encourages integrity among people who work with the drugs.
Even in traditional financial circles, coaches are finding eager clients. At a “ketitation” circle that combined ketamine and meditation in New York last fall, a 56-year-old cofounder of a hedge fund who would only give his name as Joseph listened to session leader Zappy Zapolin. Mr. Zapolin touted his past roles at Drexel Burnham Lambert and Bear Stearns before he became a psychedelic “concierge.”
“This is all about peak performance,” Mr. Zapolin told Joseph and a couple of dozen other people, before a light session of Qi Gong movement exercises, acupuncture and ketamine lozenges — plus a spit cup for the heavy salivation they induce.
Joseph said he first tried intravenous-dripketamine at a clinic in early 2023, when his fund’s performance was weak. “It helped me to change my mindset and realize that my life isn’t tied to my P&L,” he said, referring to profit-and-loss statements.