Episode #61

My name is Laura Dawn, and welcome to season 3 of the Psychedelic Leadership Podcast.

These are extraordinary times.

We are standing on the precipice of arguably the most significant turning point in human history. Are you present and paying attention?

There is a revolution unfurling, but because it’s unfolding so fast and taking place in the digital dimension of reality, it’s difficult to perceive, let alone fully comprehend.

Whether we like it or not, Artificial Intelligence is fundamentally changing the way we live and work – the way we create, communicate, and connect with each other.

Similar to the discovery of electricity, and fire, and the rollout of the internet, this technology will bring magnitudes of change we can’t even fathom.

And this isn’t about whether disruptive is good or bad, it’s simply change, and it will bring a lot of it, and it’s about how we choose to navigate it.

AI is *already* forcing millions upon millions of people, including creative professionals and knowledge workers to rethink how they work and create.

And AI will be forcing hundreds of millions of people to reinvent themselves in the workforce, in the years to come.

In a 60 minutes interview, James Manyika, the Senior Vice President for Technology at Google says that about 2/3rds of existing jobs will drastically change, and look different because of AI, and we will have to learn to adapt with these changes.

And in that same interview, when Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO was asked what jobs would be disrupted, he said, knowledge workers. He said AI is going to impact every product across every company.

According to The World Economic Forum:

The speed, breadth, and depth of this revolution is forcing us to rethink how countries develop, how organizations create value and even what it means to be human.”

None of us are immune to the tech-driven changes already underway.

So in this era of artificial intelligence, we are being called to level up, and upgrade our human cognition, step into the full expression of our innate intelligence, unlock a deeper sense of wisdom and leverage the aspects that make us uniquely human, by expanding our capacity to vision, to perceive possibility, to imagine and dream the impossible, and then make those visions a reality.

In a 60 minutes interview, James Manyika, the Senior Vice President for Technology at Google says that about 2/3rds of existing jobs will drastically change, and look different because of AI, and we will have to learn to adapt with these changes.

And I believe that my work at the forefront of psychedelics and creative cognition is more relevant than ever before, and I genuinely feel compelled, inspired and a deep sense of responsibility to share this knowledge with you, so that we can meet our growth edge together.

Because, from my perspective, sacred plant medicines and psychedelics are arguably the most powerful bio-technologies available to us, that we can learn to work with to support this kind of mind expansion and neural upgrade and teach us the crucial skillsets and mindsets to successfully navigate these times of accelerating change.

Ironically, I also think we can learn to leverage technology like AI to support our cognitive expansion. AI is inviting us to level up and we can use it to level up.

There are actually so many fascinating parallels between AI and psychedelics – as they are both tools for augmenting our cognition.

As the AI revolution is unfolding, the revolution of inner transformation is spreading like wildfire as millions of people are exploring altered states of consciousness and opening their minds to new possibility for the first time in their lives.

From a neuroscience perspective, psychedelics help us adapt in the face of adversity, that is truly the essence of their therapeutic potential. Psychedelics have this remarkable ability to open up critical periods, where we are more malleable in the face of deeply entrenched habits of both body and mind. In those windows of hieightend cognitive flexibility we can make a new choice for our lives. You’ve heard me speak about this before, in season 2 particularly episode #48 if you want a refresher.

So we can continue to apply this understanding towards treating mental illness, like through psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, for example, AND psychedelics carry so much potential beyond this, we can *also* apply this understanding and run with it in the other direction, by supporting the optimization of human cognition and human flourishing.

These medicines are directly teaching us how to strengthen our emotional, mental, and physical resilience and connect to a deep source of wisdom and innate intelligence within us so we can fully show up and meet these times of change with inner fortitude and grace…so that we can continue to inspire, create, innovate and elevate.

If you rely on your mind and your capacity to think in order to succeed professionally, whether you are an entrepreneur, content creator, coach, creative or thought leader…If you are interested in understanding the science and wisdom of how psychedelics and sacred plant medicines can help optimize your capacity to:

– think more creatively
– vision more clearly
– strengthen your mental resilience,
– stay more focused and hone your awareness and attention
– make better decisions
– I earn more quickly,
– generate better ideas…
– Ask better questions…
– this season of the psychedelic leadership is for you.

And all that I just named, does not just happen from the neck up – cognition, including creative cognition, is an integrated mind-body process. Intelligence, wisdom and creativity is generated and felt and lives in the body as much as the mind; they are not separate, but I’ll be talking more about that this season.

And learning how to stay adaptable, flexible, fluid, and resilient in the face of change is also a somatic experience and requires cultivating our emotional awareness and emotional intelligence, and it’s worth emphasizing that it’s incredibly important that are adapting and acting in alignment with our deeply held values and what we care about.

And I’ll be talking about managing stress, preventing burnout, mitigating overwhelm, which are huge topics for so many of us, myself included, which all have a significant impact on our cognitive capacities.

And to be clear, this is not *just* about adapting to stay relevant and ensuring we become future proof, which many people are talking about right now, and is a totally valid intention.

And this is not about moving and acting from a place of fear, fear of being left behind, or becoming irrelavant in a tech-driven world.

This is about elevating ourselves for the joy of discovering what we each find meaningful and choosing to spend the very precious days of our lives engaging in the deeply fulfilling process of expanding our minds, and expanding what we believe is possible to create and contribute to humanity.

Because what is the point of changing your mind, if you’re not going to contribute to changing the world.

Some AI researchers are calling this the most significant crossroads humanity has ever faced.

To me this is about stepping up to the crossroads we are facing in our own individual lives and choosing who we want to become, and how we want to carry ourselves into this next chapter of human history.

And as I wrap up this introduction to season 3 of the psychedelic leadership podcast, I want to share on a very personal note, that a lot has changed in my own life over the past few years. I started this podcast living outside in Hawaii and now I’m living outside in Costa Rica on 90 acres of land that I am honored to be stewarding. once again I’m recording this without any walls or sound barriers, so I hope you enjoy the sound of the birds and wildlife surrounding me.

And even though I’m so incredibly grateful to be here, its been a lot of transition.

And I want to say a huge thank you to Chase Hudson the CEO of Hemp Lucid who so generously supported me with his incredible CBD products, which honestly played a huge role in supporting my rest and recovery and focus, which has contributed to bringing this season of the show to life.

And because I loved their products so much, I am so thrilled to share that Hemp Lucid is sponsoring a handful of episodes for this season.

So I will be including a link to check out their products in the show notes. Their website is hemplucid.com, they are also working on functional mushroom products, which I’m super stoked about.
And you can follow them on Instagram @hemplucid.

And if you don’t yet follow me on Instagram, you can find me @livefreelaurad where I share exclusive content in my IG stories that I don’t share anywhere else.

And you can also sign up for my psychedelic leadership newsletter, where I also share exclusive content with just under 10,000 other subscribers.

Once again, my name is Laura Dawn, and I am thrilled to invite you to join me on this journey as we lean into the expansion of what we believe is possible, together.