A Billionaire’s Guide To Healing Your Mind And Extending Your Life - Christian Angermayer

My guest this week is Christian Angermayer. Christian is a friend and definitely the most interesting person I know. He has founded and invested in businesses in some of the most fascinating and mind-blowing areas from space tech to fintech to biotech, crypto - you name it he’s in there. He has become one of the largest investors in the psychedelic space and is on a mission to cure mental health disorders and addiction. Christian is the founder of Apeiron Investment Group (www.apeiron-investments.com). Apeiron focuses on BioTech, FinTech & Crypto and DeepTech investments. Christian has (executive) produced more than 20 feature films including critically acclaimed movies like Filth, Aspern Papers and Hector and the Search for Happiness. He is the largest shareholder of DEAG, one of the largest live entertainment companies in Europe, producing over 4.500 shows per year. Christian has created, co-founded and invested in numerous successful companies, has raised approx. USD 2.5bn for his portfolio companies and has been involved in more than 50 successful IPO- and M&A-transactions either as an entrepreneur, investor or banker/advisor. Christian reported to be among the 1,000 richest people living in the United Kingdom with an estimated net worth of more than 1 bUSD. With his biotech company ATAI Life Sciences (www.atai.life), Christian has the ambitious goal to enable people to live healthier and happier lives. ATAI’s focus is on developing solutions for the hundreds of million people who suffer from depression, anxiety, and addiction, especially by bringing back formerly vilified drugs like psychedelics into the legal realm. Follow Christian: LinkedIn - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/christian-angermayer Twitter - https://twitter.com/C_Angermayer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  But I do personally think it's the best thing I've ever done in my whole life, full stop. And I was like, look, you're clearly insane. Like, I've never drank alcohol, da, da, da, and I'm not gonna touch an illegal drug. But the biggest interference is death. It's not my, I don't choose the time, I don't choose like, and we need to change that.

• 0:25Steven Bartlett?

  My guest today is a friend, but he's also most definitely the most interesting human being I have ever encountered in my life. He's an entrepreneur, he's an investor, but he's also just a really nice guy. And he's invested and started companies in some of the most fascinating industries from psychedelics to space tech, to artificial intelligence, to cryptocurrencies, to fintech, you name it, he's in there. In fact, he's the single biggest investor slash driving force behind the whole psychedelics industry, which is currently trying to cure mental health disorders. This is undoubtedly the most interesting person I know. And I think this is the type of podcast where you're going to demand a part two.

• 1:08Steven Bartlett?

  Because we spoke for two hours and even I was left feeling that I was only scratching the surface and that I wanted to know more. The man I'm talking about is Christian Angermayer. And I genuinely believe he's going to become, if he isn't already, one of Europe's most important investors and entrepreneurs. In the same way that people praise Elon Musk for all the work he's done in the US, I think he's Europe's answer to Elon Musk. Without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 1:46Steven Bartlett?

  Christian, I, I know so much about you and the work you do. I, I know you're, you know, I've observed your behavior in person over the last, you know, six, six to 12 months. Deeply, deeply fascinating, but the part of you that I know very, very little about is your early years, your upbringing, your childhood. Cute child. Really?

• 2:07Steven Bartlett?

  I've been fascinated by that. I think I was a cute child. I've only had slithers of that part of your life. So could you tell me a little bit more about? The childhood that made the man.

• 2:16Speaker 00

  The the main point I'm always making, which I'm really sort of literally happy about is that I was a very, very happy child, meaning I'm still a very happy person. But I think the reason why I'm groundedly happy is because I had a great like, how you say, um, childlike upbringing, like I was growing up in a ninety people village. Um, so.

• 2:36Steven Bartlett?

  Bavaria.

• 2:37Speaker 00

  In Bavaria, I literally knew everybody. Then there were a lot of other children, so I'm an only child, but like I had a lot of children, sort of same age, plus minus four years to to grow up with. Um, and we were literally like in a TV series, we were out all day, like in summer and winter, like it was very much like you would picture, like, what is this American TV series where they, my day on a farm or whatever, like it was like that, like sort of, um.

• 3:02Steven Bartlett?

  Idyllic childhood.

• 3:04Speaker 00

  Yes, really idyllic, like, yeah, no crime, like no risk, like I was literally, my mom sent me out in the morning, uh, in summer and winter, and I came back in the evening since I'm like five, like I was, because there was no risk for anything like. Um, yeah, so that was sort of the very, very, this was till I'm nine and then we moved to a town, many Conce City town with like two thousand people. So it's nearby, like kilometer apart. Um, so it was all very, very rural, very, which I liked. So I'm actually was thinking about if I have children or when I have children, then how to recreate that, which I think won't work. So but like, I think it's great to have nature,

• 3:45Speaker 00

  which is also, by the way, many already jumping, but like, yeah, because you know that they would, I do a lot in in psych, in mental health work, like, and one thing which is really healthy, very, very simple for your mental health is nature. Like, there is even in Japan, they prescribe like a walk, a walk in the forest as a, as a treatment for depression. So anyway, so I grew up in this super nice childhood, like I always was funnily, um, very entrepreneurial, yeah, and nobody else is, so not in my family, not in this village, like, so that was always literally like with six, my mom still has the. So the first thing which I did when I learned writing was writing invoices, like

• 4:29Speaker 00

  some tiny bills, like where they're all give me five, give me five cents for, for salads. So I was actually had a very flourishing gardening business.

• 4:40Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, really?

• 4:40Speaker 00

  So since I'm four, like five.

• 4:42Steven Bartlett?

  How's it going?

• 4:44Speaker 00

  Sorry, wrong English term.

• 4:45Steven Bartlett?

  You're a psychiatrist.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  No, I stopped it later on when I was twelve. Like, no, but this is how I started my first business. But my mom still remembers that the first thing I did with my writing skills was writing her an invoice for salad and everything. And then I was literally like in a movie, it's very stereotype, but I was selling lemonade to neighbors. Then I was selling lollipops in school. I was selling literally everything, like I made a business out of everything. So I, I remember when I went to my first cinema ever, I think I was like seven.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  Then I was so fascinated that people are buying for something which is apparently also on TV, they didn't get the difference. So then I started charging my parents at home when they wanted to switch on the TV because I was pretending I was running a cinema. So, uh, yeah, so every, literally everything I was doing, I saw through the lens of a business.

• 5:42Steven Bartlett?

  And, and when you look at your childhood.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  My parents were deeply worried, in a nice way, but they were worried.

• 5:46Steven Bartlett?

  They always tend to be with, with kids that are slightly different.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Well, but they, they, exactly. I, yeah, so I look like them. So the discussion, if they maybe not my parents was early off the table. Yeah, but like sort of from the way how I see the world and I'm very different.

• 6:03Steven Bartlett?

  What were the factors, the sort of macro factors at play that were making you into this entrepreneur at that age, but also the entrepreneur you came to become?

• 6:10Speaker 00

  Like, it was always there, like I.

• 6:12Steven Bartlett?

  Sometimes I think for myself, I think, because my parents were never around, they create this big sort of void of freedom and independence, which I thought made this connection in my mind that if I was going to get something, it came from my behavior. I'm thinking about those factors. That, you know, freedom, you said, you know, I've heard you say that your parents were very keen for you just to be happy.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Like, they were always like, I can be whatever I want. So, but it was not that, I don't, I don't know if that automatically leads to entrepreneurship. It could also have led to me being an artist or whatever. Like, I don't think there is a connection between freedom. It's actually the freedom to be whatever you want. And then I think maybe you, maybe it's genetic, maybe it's like, I don't know, like, uh. I really, this is still the point, meaning it was always there. There is not, there is not a moment I can think of where I sort of changed. But it was literally since I can think, since I'm four, five, six, like very, very early, was always there to make a business out of everything, in a nice way, hopefully.

• 7:09Steven Bartlett?

  That coupled with some kind of innate curiosity, which is, Pete Thiel said, when he did a quote about you in Sifted, he said, that curiosity is one of your real sort of.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I don't know, just thinking if that was that early visible. I loved school, which I think I was a very nerdy child as well. So I, yeah, I, um, I loved. Actually, I did love school for, and even now more talking than later, high school for the one reason. And even if I look back now, I really miss it a bit because it was the only time in life where you do something for the pure reason of learning something. With no material sort of, meaning I turned that then also in a business because I started my, my, this was my first real business was when I started a tutoring business when I was 14. Um, and then I, um.

• 7:58Steven Bartlett?

  What was that business? Tell me.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  Tutoring, like, like giving sort of other kids, yeah. Because I was extremely good in school. So I was always the best one in my school. But I was practically always the best one in like the Bavaria, whatever, like top 10, yeah. And that was always, I like to explain stuff. So, so I think, I think that still helps me now. Because it's part of fundraising to explain complex sort of things to people. Anyway, so I liked, I, I did like to explain stuff and I did like to, um, and I was good in the matter. So, so I started tutoring. Then there was this tiny thing, I, I think a bit that because the teachers very much liked me because I was always like, uh, the good child.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  Like, everybody who came to me automatically became a little bit better because teachers were treating these children more nicer because they were coming to me. So it became this sort of, um. Positive virtue circle that more and more parents were like, oh God, we have to send our children to Christian because it really works. And I think.

• 8:56Steven Bartlett?

  And what were you doing for these kids?

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Well tutoring, like how you.

• 8:58Steven Bartlett?

  Teaching them the same thing.

• 9:00Speaker 00

  The same thing because they were, these were the ones who didn't perform well. How you call it in English tutoring, right?

• 9:04Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah tutoring. And they were your peers? They were the same age?

• 9:07Speaker 00

  The same age or younger? No, all younger. Like it was mainly like a little bit younger, like one or two years, but not a lot younger. So anyway, and then I was like, after half a year, I was so like full, like I think I worked like ten fifteen hours a week. Practically all the time, like I was tutoring, like, and then I was like, how do I really scale that up? And it sounds not very, um, I don't know, very banal, yeah, but for me, this was like the first time I really thought about business, like in an entrepreneurial way. How do you scale it up? And practically I realized I have the brand because parents wanna send their children to me. Um, so I was employing other, uh, other pupils, my same age or even a little bit older.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  And said, you can teach under my brand and you get half of it and I get half of it. So fifty percent margin. And I started employing and I continuously till my final grade had like ten people, like always employed. Yeah, who were tutoring other children. Yeah. So it was a very lucrative business, um, meaning for, for a child, like.

• 10:11Steven Bartlett?

  It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. Yeah. And then so you get to sixteen, you get to eighteen. In that period of your life, I hear that in Bavaria, they have this like public service you've got to do for a year.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, I just was thinking like, how compliant do I have to be? Because then it's all, I think, what is it called when it's out of time is back like.

• 10:27Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, different times, yeah.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  Nobody can claw it back like, because what happened is like, I was always extremely libertarian. And in, we had back then, it changed in Germany, but we had back then, like the Israelis have still, you had to go to the military for a year. And I think in generally, this is wrong, not because I'm against the military, but I think you can employ people. This is a job, like people should want to be a soldier or should want to be something else. But I, I think as a government, meaning in generally, I think the, the less government, the better. So I, I was thinking, hopefully this comes across charming. But because I was thinking all the time how to avoid it. Unfortunately, I was not daring enough back then. There were tricks to do it like. You could have had said you're sort of mentally ill or whatever like I was not brave enough to go on with that.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  So I I decided to do.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  You can you could also opt to do civil servant. I saw it in civil servant, like go to a hospital or whatever. So. And I tried to be really nice. So I picked a job. Which I knew is it didn't really really require me. It was more like, okay. You had to put these children who didn't wanna go to the military. You could say you're a pacifist. You had to put them somewhere. It was not that somebody was dependent on me. So I was sitting in that hospital and my only job was. To bring stuff from A to B, like whatever. So then I made an, I remember that I made a. How to say a proposal? That if we reorganize everything in the hospital, I could do my job in an hour and then go home. Yeah.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  So this was I was eighteen and then they were like, okay, this is crazy. Like it's not really, really popular. So and then I made the decision that I'm not really gonna show up anymore.

• 12:13Speaker 00

  And the only way to do that was to. To get always like doctors to give me like. Letter. A letter. And so now comes but the important point because like. Till that time. I I was extremely like I loved learning. So I was actually thinking I'm gonna. If if I would have gone, and I think this is sometimes. How crazy stuff happens and then it changes sort of the whole. Course of your whole life practically. So I think if I would have gone from. High school to university. I I would would have just been in that sort of mode, like of learning being extremely good. So I guess. I would have just.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Went on with what I was doing, like meaning producing great academic outcome, so to say. So then came this one year, which I was completely bored. So I. I got these doctors writing me letters. I didn't need to show up, but in return. I started managing money for them because I was already speculating on the stock market since I was like fifteen, sixteen, and I was not bad in it. So I became friends with all of these doctors, even in the hospital I was working. And they were all like, well, we help you if you help us. Because this was the early days of the, or not, you know, like, this was nineteen ninety-eight, nineteen ninety-nine, like, this was the stock market boom, whatever. So everybody wanted to be in it. So this was sort of my trade-off for these letters.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Um, and so, and I can't be, I'm, I'm easily bored, so I always wanna do something. So practically because, so I was not the type of person who, okay, I have a free year now and I'm going just partying. Like, I was like, okay, I have a free year now, I'm gonna do more tutoring, yeah, and I'm gonna do managing money for these doctors, yeah. And sort of that completely switched my, how do you say, course, like, so I was in this, I actually wrote a book, yeah, and tried to sell that, this didn't work out. But I did a lot of entrepreneurial stuff just because I had time, yeah. And then when I practically went to uni, then a year later, I was sort of mentally not anymore in that sort of learning world.

• 14:21Speaker 00

  I was in the, okay, I wanna be an entrepreneur world. And then I was, this sort of when I met, re-met, uh, actually two guys who finally were my tutors in a scholarship I had had during high school already, like for, it sounds awkward, but for highly gifted children. Yeah, so I was sort of in summer, uh, summer, summer school, I was at university, this where I knew them from, we re-met kind of, and they were telling me about this idea, and it just sounded great. And they were like my tutors in terms of, I was like, okay, these guys are the pinnacle of biotech. Um, and then I, I was the one, let's do a company together. And, uh, we did, and this worked out really well, and then I dropped out of uni.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  So this, so I, I think this how was this sort of, I think without this one year in hospital, or sort of one year in hospital, not in hospital, yeah, I would have stayed in a completely different path.

• 15:14Steven Bartlett?

  I hear you talk a lot about you believe in like the serendipity of moments and spirituality.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:21Steven Bartlett?

  Which almost seems surprising because you're such a, like, a scientific-led person, whereas you do, you do believe that things happen at the right time.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Totally, totally. Actually, I'm actually very extreme with that. So I, everything which has happening, literally everything.

• 15:35Steven Bartlett?

  This conversation today?

• 15:37Speaker 00

  Well, this conversation happens because we planned it. Yeah, but like the fact, for example, that we met originally.

• 15:42Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, why I'm your friend, whatever. So I'm always, everything which is happening to me, which I didn't actively say, hey, I need to have a meeting. Like, which is not in my usual rhythm. Yeah, I always think, A, it's happening for a reason. And also it's happening for a good reason, even bad stuff. I believe in this power of positive thinking, but like more like people always then say, ah, this means like if you wake up in the morning, you're, if you feel great, it's gonna be a great day. I think it's more deeper. I believe in this, that there is this great book Law of Attraction, like whatever you sort of think and rather how you think, not just the, meaning sort of the essence, what you think, not like the detail partly, but more the essence. And if you expect sort of good stuff to happen, you're sort of attracting that.

• 16:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:28Steven Bartlett?

  You think there's a, do you think there's a spiritual force that attracts you? Or do you think your intention moves you in that direction?

• 16:32Speaker 00

  So, look, I'm very pragmatic, meaning I, I mean, first of all, I dare to talk about this stuff because I'm very also scientific. So I'm like, look, nobody will think I'm crazy. Yeah, uh, maybe a bit, no, no, it's okay. Like so, but the other thing is like, there are multiple explanations and I don't really care about the explanation. You can have a very spiritual explanation. Yeah, it's the force of the universe. Yeah. And then you can have a very pragmatic explanation that if you continuously expect positive stuff, then you look out for that stuff. And then it's more like a, a numbers game or like, uh, yeah, but I don't care. Like it, it works tremendously well for me since I'm sixteen. Yeah.

• 17:11Speaker 00

  And I had these, I had some very crazy things which go borderline, which you could explain like sort of with statistics or whatever. Yeah. Um, so maybe too crazy for the show, but like, but there were some, there were some things where I tend to believe in the spiritual explanation. Yeah, because they were, yeah, I think harder to explain or you can always explain them with statistics, but like, you know what I mean? Like, but I don't care. Like, it does work tremendously well for me.

• 17:45Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, so going back to this company you founded with these two, your two sort of like university mentors, this company went on to be really successful. I think you said it's worth probably about 15 billion at last check market cap.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  Today, but like I sold very early, but very early I sold when we went public for a billion. So it was, it was actually a

• 18:03Steven Bartlett?

  Do you regret selling?

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Well, there is, there is a short and long answer. No, because like the short answer is no, because like A, that money was the basis for the rest. Yeah. B, also people always mix up market cap and share price. So meaning I sold at the lower share price that it's today, but the share price is not 15x because they did capital increases. There was dilutive stuff like, so, so anyway, long story, it was an amazing start. Yeah. So, um, yeah, it was actually the quickest biotech IPO, I think in Germany ever. Uh, we IPOed three years, three and a half years later after the foundation. And for a billion, so it was, was everything. Um, and it was sort of, I dropped out of university before, but it like was the sort of

• 18:47Steven Bartlett?

  Catalyst.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Catalyst, I would say, yeah. So I don't regret that. And, uh, and since then, sort of I'm investing and being an entrepreneur, I'm somewhat in between, I would say. I actually, sorry, when I'm jumping, I had this one story again, by the way, which is completely, you can

• 19:03Steven Bartlett?

  Serendipitous.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  Serendipitous and like even a bit more. So I remember it exactly. I was 14 years old and I was, uh, with my best friends back then in Munich, which is far away. I mean, for me, this was like going, going to the big city like, um, and we spent the weekend with family members. And yeah, I really remember every single detail of the weekend, like what we did and like where, what, and we went to a bookstore, which is for Germans who listen, Huguen Doppel is a, back then was like, sort of like, I don't know, iconic bookstore, a hundred years old in Munich. I think it's still even there, although books are dying out, um, smaller. Um, so it's in the prime location of Munich.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  And so I remember it. So I go into that bookstore and there was this whole, I would say promotion show. Wall, yeah, with just one book.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  Which uh which which is uh the American Think and Grow Rich from Napoleon Hill. And do you know like when in movies like the fourteen year old boy goes in and then the light is coming down and then the hallelujah is coming. Sort of that, meaning there was no music, there was no light. I was like, that's it, Think and Grow Rich. I need to have that book. So I bought the book. And it was practically my first kind of, I mean, Napoleon Hill is not as spiritual as some others, yeah, but like that was my journey into that world of, let's say, spiritual infused success books. How do you define spiritual? Well, there is like Napoleon Hill is sort of, and I love it by the way, because they're all so old, like they're all out of the nineteen twenties.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  So they they don't have the zeitgeist, which I think in terms of success is rather negative, like, so it's sort of like raw American. Horny principles. Yes, uh exactly, like uh and Napoleon Hill has, this is why it was a great entry into that thing, because his view was, if you read meaning of the book starts that he says, he got commissioned by um Andrew Carnegie, who was the steel magnet, to find out and do interviews, which I think, by the way, you are doing in a certain way, yeah, with successful people. Um and find out if there are common traits, uh you say traits, yeah, common denominators, which make them successful.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  And he did that with all the famous people of his time, from Andrew Carnegie himself to a lot of other famous people. And then he made that into the book and he's actually saying that the question, he doesn't answer the question why these uh the rules so to say work, he's more a neutral observer. And then the next one is actually there's a guy called Dr. Joseph Murphy, who wrote similar books, but more like with the spiritual undertone, why these rules work, same rules, sort of more explanation why they work, which went more into the religious world. And then you have all the other book and Law of Attraction is nothing else, which is sort of the modern version and the key, which is a sort of a simplified version of an anyway simplified version, yeah, of this stuff like, but it's at the end, it's always the same rules.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Some which think it's they are God given, some which say, look, again, this is statistics, whatever, but they do work. I I deeply believe and they these things do work. Yeah.

• 22:21Steven Bartlett?

  Which is like visualization, the way you think.

• 22:24Speaker 00

  It's visualization is that the main thing I think is two things is visualization. So I meditate in the morning and evening, but it's not real meditation. It's more like visualization. So I, I always have a plan for the week, for the months, for the year, for my life. Yeah. And everything kind of did come true so far. So I'm always thinking, what could I add like a wish list? Yeah. And now again, you can say, if you add something and then you you focused on it, it might come through because you focused on it. There could be a very banal explanation that it's relentless execution and nothing magic. And again, I don't care. It's like, I'm like, well, like, yeah, it does work. So and the visitor, I think it's two things visualization and it's also these that you have.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  For example, I'm not, it sounds very crazy, but I'm trying to not have negative thoughts. So and then there is a number of negative thoughts you're gonna have anyway, because you have to deal with stuff when you run a business. But I, for example, I've never watched a horror movie since 20 years at least because it gives me negativity. So I, and I go the extra mile. So I told, for example, friends when they are too much complaining, when I'm, and the first one, friends can call for a problem, but then I'm like, let's go through the problem. That's the solution. That's what you're gonna do. But if they would repeatedly, because some people wanna not solve the problem, they wanna repeat the problem, then I'm like, you can't call me again on that topic because no negativity. Yeah. So I really have a rule. Yeah. So no negative movies.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  I never watch a movie if it has not a happy ending. So I have people check or I check, yeah, before, does it have a happy ending? No bad endings, nothing which makes me sad, nothing which makes me negative. Because I'm not, I'm not allowed in my own religious philosophy to have negative thoughts and feelings. Feelings are even more important than thoughts because I think they are the underlying driver. So, and it sounds now maybe cheesy and simplified, but I think if you, this is what I'm doing since I'm 14. And if you train yourself not, and again, you will always have an sort of amount because sometimes hard things happen. Yeah. And I don't wanna pretend as if my life was easy because I did have very hard times in business.

• 24:31Speaker 00

  But even in those times, I was lying in my bed, literally, and was like, okay, this is not fun, what's happening right now. But it must happen for a very, very positive reason because this is how your world works. And funnily. It always, the worst things in my life turned into the best ones. Yeah, so because I, again, and you can say loud, maybe somebody would say, well, because he was persistent and he didn't fall. Okay, then this is the explanation. Maybe there's a deeper one. Again, I don't care. I can always come to the back. So but I would tell everybody the two things emotionally is like, don't have negative thoughts. Just focus on positive sort of thoughts, visualize. These are the key things. Be happy.

• 25:15Steven Bartlett?

  So many things that, you know.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  And dare to be happy because most people are, again, don't allow themselves to be happy and even think it's a little bit negative.

• 25:22Steven Bartlett?

  Toxic. So there's this whole thing happening on Instagram that I want to come back to this point about this movies. And because I think it's very much linked to your whole thing about alcohol and stuff, this happiness equilibrium you talk about. But just quickly on that point of being really positive and unapologetically positive and saying, listen, don't call me with the same problem twice. Don't interrupt my positivity. There's this whole movement happening on Instagram at the moment where there's such a thing as being toxic positive, it's called.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  It's bullshit. Like, no, and I like, you know, this point, like, because that's one thing I think, I mean, again, maybe. So I have to, so maybe I'm sitting there, I'm already so old that there is another generation. I'm thinking about the other generation and because I'm reading a lot like very old stuff and you find Socrates complaining about the youth. So maybe that's a recurring thing. Yeah. But I really think part, part of the millennial culture of these victimization and always like, is this is so wrong. This is so wrong. Yeah. So to pre-take a question, because then normally if you say, well, you saying that because you're rich, you're white.

• 26:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I was like, okay, this is maybe a point, let's go back because I didn't talk a lot about it, but I'm happy to already like. I grew up in these ninety people village. Yeah. I'm gay, I'm actually happily gay, but I look, I mean, I know I'm gay, I'm gay since I'm eleven ish, round about. So and I was looking at sort of that world I was growing up in and I was like, that's not going to resonate here. Yeah. So seriously, like, and that's very, very, uh, very, uh, positive phrase. Yeah. So in my school, people were saying, let's beat up gay people. And I was like, that's not. Gonna end well.

• 27:01Speaker 00

  But I didn't think that is anything bad, by the way. I didn't even think these people were sort of Obviously, they were wrong, but I was like, they don't know better. I'm not like, ah, these are bad people. I was just like, be pragmatic. Sometimes life is not fair. Sometimes life is not nice, but you can decide if you react on it. That's one of the other points I really believe in, that you have these tiny milliseconds in life on everything. If somebody is sort of rude to you, if somebody says something very bad, and you can decide if you hurt or not. It's your decision, by the way. Nothing's gonna hurt you if you decide you're not gonna be hurt. Yeah? So and I was like, they don't know better. And I can't, by the way, gay is not what defines me. So I was like, well, then I'm, I'm not gay for a while till I'm out of here. Yeah, I can't have, because there are other things which define me like

• 27:47Speaker 00

  friends, like, you know, like, you know what I mean? Like, it's not that I reduced myself to this one thing and was like, and now I need to shout it out to the world. And in return, would have get beaten up. Like, I was like, just like, just don't do it, like, but don't blame the others, yeah? And then move away somewhere. Also, I, I mean, it's all like, don't try to change everybody else. Work on yourself and like, and your environment, what you can change. Like, I could have started like, oh my god, my life is miserable. And I'm growing up in this village and blah, blah, blah. And actually, talking about serendipity. I'm, I'm honestly, I'm, but again, I'm trained to see the positive stuff. If I look back, if I would have been straight, I wouldn't sit here.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  For a very simple reason, because I would have dated every single three minutes I would have had, like, yeah? And would have enjoyed that, yeah? So, but I couldn't. So, so what did I do? I was working my ass off and learning all the time. So, and if I hadn't had the grades I had, I would have ended the first money I had, I would have never met these guys with whom I started a biotech company. Yeah, nothing would have happened. I would have been an ordinary, straight boy. Most likely, smart, yeah, but not uber smart, because sometimes it's smart and hard work to get grades. Yeah, it's not all false not found. So, so, so the practically, the, if you

• 29:08Speaker 00

  You say like the adversary or the negative thing being gain a very hostile environment and not talking about it and focusing on other stuff. Completely made my life, yeah, in a very positive way. I would, I mean, yeah, I I'm so happy that this was the case. Yeah. And again, and everybody should look, everybody has um limitations and negative stuff. But you should look at it and say they are there for a very positive reason and something amazing will come out of it. I just need to have this continuous sort of expectation.

• 29:43Steven Bartlett?

  And optimism and yeah, and you have a real sense of like personal responsibility that comes across like you'll take responsibility for yourself and your actions.

• 29:49Speaker 00

  But who else? But it's like, who else?

• 29:51Steven Bartlett?

  The government or, you know, someone else.

• 29:54Speaker 00

  We see that with the vaccine, give the government a little bit of responsibility and it goes totally wrong. You don't want anybody be responsible for you than yourself.

• 30:03Steven Bartlett?

  So going to this point about the horror films, which I thought was somewhat connected to what I've heard about your rule with alcohol and cigarettes. I hear you've never drunk before, ever. You've never had a drink.

• 30:12Speaker 00

  Exactly. So there were two reasons for it. They were connected. The one, again, by the way, the one reason was because I was actually thinking like, if I'm gonna be drunk fourteen, fifteen, I'm gonna spill out I'm gay and then it's over. Yeah. So so my social life of being the dying of the school. Yeah, exactly. And I was also like, I was very nerdy. So teachers loved me, but I was also, how you say, school speaker, speaker of the school, whatever. So I was socially had a great life. So I was like, no, let's not risk that. Like, no alcohol. You could say the wrong stuff. Yeah. So that was the one thing. And the other thing was that I always sort of, because you do that as a child, and in general, and I think it's a good thing, like,

• 30:51Speaker 00

  if you have one weakness, in my case, the weakness for the time was being gay, the others, you build on your strengths, which was like, okay, I think I'm kind of smart and also like smart in terms of learning smart. I learned very easy. I always had the best grades. Yeah. So I was I was sort of focusing on that. So I was also like, okay, alcohol could take that away from me. Uh, because I thought it makes me dumb, which by the way, it does, yeah, in a lot of amounts, I still wouldn't drink. But so these are my childish reasons not to drink. And then I just decided, okay, I think I have the perfect equilibrium. Like being always happy, having very good grades, everything was perfect. So I was like, I'm not gonna touch any drug ever.

• 31:32Steven Bartlett?

  And you still haven't touched alcohol cigarettes?

• 31:34Speaker 00

  So I haven't drank alcohol, I haven't smoked a cigarette ever, I haven't smoked a joint ever. I've never taken cocaine, I haven't done anything like.

• 31:40Steven Bartlett?

  No comment.

• 31:41Speaker 00

  I did, I did actually drink alcohol the first time when I was, sorry, alcohol, sorry, coffee. The first time when I was twenty eight.

• 31:48Steven Bartlett?

  So you avoided coffee as well?

• 31:49Speaker 00

  I was even avoiding coffee and tea, yeah, because it was a drug. It was almost like the very religious people, so I would have been a good Mormon. So, but then coffee I started drinking when I was twenty eight.

• 32:00Steven Bartlett?

  There's something crazy here where you think, okay, so the guy that doesn't want to upset his equilibrium goes on to be the biggest psychedelics investor in the world, which is all about.

• 32:07Speaker 00

  I think that was a very good ground because what happened is, so I had a discussion or dinner, it wasn't a discussion, it was like a dinner discussion, like where somebody sat us next to each other. With funnily the joke and said, oh, you, the guy was a very, or is a very famous drug researcher, like he's the David Nutt of Germany, like the, a drug, yeah. Advisor to the government, yeah, neuroscientist. And somebody said, oh, you should, you should sit next to each other because maybe you can loosen Christian up a bit and he could drink a little bit of alcohol. So, so this is how I met Reina, his name.

• 32:44Steven Bartlett?

  So indeptia again.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  No, but like exactly, like, again, everybody else would have said. I remember that I was like, oh my God, that's awesome. Like, and everybody else would have said, well, I, again, in every single thing happening, I see it's good for me. Yeah. So, so anyway, so we had this discussion and the short version is, he was like, look, everything you think is bad is bad. Like, so don't touch it. Exactly. He actually showed me these and whoever is watching. And maybe, I don't know if you can put it into the, the, like, yeah, so he's like, it's this very famous, but it's so to the point, meaning he's, David Nutt in the UK wrote a whole book about the misperception of drugs.

• 33:27Speaker 00

  But this one, like he had this one chart, which David Nutt made and Reina pulled it, uh, pulled it off in the internet. Where you can see sort of the harm.

• 33:37Steven Bartlett?

  Of each drug in the world.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  So how much harm, there was this harm scale and broadly a number. One is alcohol, because in a holistic approach, alcohol is the worst. And then closely followed by heroin, which by the way, the media used a little bit against David Nutt, which was highly unfair, because the headline, I remember, I think in the Sun or whatever, was like, oh, guy says heroin is better than alcohol. No, the thing is like, they're both very, very bad. Like, but alcohol is as well. We have these.

• 34:04Steven Bartlett?

  And this is the chart that says the harm to you and the harm to others.

• 34:06Speaker 00

  Both. It's in one, exactly. Yeah.

• 34:09Steven Bartlett?

  So, yeah, a chart that shows the harm that these different drugs have on you and others, and alcohol is the worst.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  Exactly. Alcohol is the worst, but closely followed by heroin, yeah, and closely followed by um crystal meth or whatever. Like, everything is bad. And I really like, if there is one positive outcome of people watching that, don't do it. But don't do alcohol, don't do heroin, don't do crystal meth, don't, nothing, no, there is no. By the way, and I'm the most, again, pragmatic person, because what I was talking with him was like, is there any drug? There could be a drug where you say, oh, it has a little bit of downside, but it has enormous upside. And then you can think for yourself, again, you are responsible, I don't think the government should be responsible, to think for myself, is there any upside of me taking that risk? Because if I go in a car, I came to you in a car, so I took a risk of dying, meaning very low,

• 34:59Speaker 00

  but there was a risk, but I was, it's worth to sit with Stephen and do their podcast. Like, no, but everything we do in life, by the way, people should look at it, is like risk return. Yeah, so maybe somebody says, oh, if I smoke a joint once in a while, it makes me so relaxed. Anyway, but you should be aware of the risks, and I think people aren't, especially not with alcohol. Yeah, and if you then still decide actively, I'm gonna enjoy my glass of wine, then I think it's great, but you should know it. Anyway, so but at the end of that scale, it said, um, um, probably at the very end is mushrooms, magic mushrooms, and before the very end, there's a second sort of easiest or second lowest risk is LSD, practically the psychedelic group of uh of drug.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  And he was like, Christian, like, I can't tell you what my host told me to tell you, that you should try alcohol. Don't, meaning I can also tell you not gonna die, but like, don't do it. Yeah, uh, but you should do actually magic mushrooms. And I was like, look, you're clearly insane, like, I'm, I've never drank alcohol, da, da, da, and I'm not gonna touch an illegal drug, yeah. And he was very, very uh. Persuasive, because he was like, look, first of all, you do biotech, you started your career in biotech. Like, I send you, um, I send you all the research I did, or I do. But also, which was very cool hindsight, I didn't even value it back then. He was like, I did my PhD with famous Hoffman, who invented LSD.

• 36:26Speaker 00

  So, so Ryan, it was really plugged into like the old guard of psychedelic luminaries. And he was like, I send you all what, what he did, like read it, because there were all these studies. It's not like a crazy idea, meaning again, actually magic mushrooms or ingredient psilocybin was used as an approved medical drug in the 50s by Sandoz, actually very, uh, at least in Germany, famous, um, um, brand, um, for, for depression. He was like, look, it was medical, it has no risk, as you can see, I tell you, I send you all the studies, at least read it. And again, I'm very curious, I was like, well, send me, I'm, so there was actually again serendipity and so.

• 37:08Speaker 00

  And now comes the biggest serendipity, because like, so for one year, I was just like, not meaning it's not that I had it on my mind every day, I was, it was there, like, I read a little bit here. And by the way, again, I know a lot, there's even a book about that, which says, what some people believe is destiny is just like, if you're aware of a theme, yeah, it's a little bit like when I tell you, don't think of the blue elephant or the white, whatever, you think of it like. So there is this one book, I can't remember the name, which again, would be fine for me, like, because again, it works. Was like, if you are aware of a thing, of a theme, then it pops up everywhere.

• 37:44Steven Bartlett?

  You'll see it, yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  So over a year, there were not a lot, because it was completely not in the public domain. But like, there were once here and there, I was like, okay, read something again, whatever. And then more or less exactly one year later, I was with my best friends who. Actually have a stake in a tie, so they're happy with my best friends in the Caribbean. Uh, so disclaimer, it was a place uh where where it's legal. Um, and they had magic mushrooms and they had it like it it looked like mushrooms like this was good because I I'm so hypochondriac and frightened of everything. So I would never have taken anything which didn't look like mushrooms. So but these were dried mushrooms like so I was like. You can see that from the ground.

• 38:27Speaker 00

  I was like, okay, that looks real like and they were like and I trust them. They're my best friends. Yeah, so big shout out to Landon and Julian. Yeah, so I trust them anyway. They were like, we grew it ourselves. So like safe, we know what we're doing. Yeah. Um, and I was like actually calling Rhino and. The guy you'd met in Germany. Yes, so I'm not mentioning his last name because I don't know if he he maybe he works still in a very famous job. Uh, and he was actually saying the sentence, look, as your doctor friend, do it. It's the best place, best people, you know, it's real. Setting setting. Uh, uh, uh, everything is perfect. Do it. So so I took all my courage I had.

• 39:07Speaker 00

  Um, I was really like and it's and it sounds now I can't say how nervous I was in sort of both anxious and positive like way. It was like really not. Maybe people say, oh, he's talking about magic mushrooms all the time. It must have been an easy decision. It was not, yeah, for days. And I was like, okay, let's do it. I still know exactly the point on the beach. Yeah, uh, because we're going there every Easter and somewhere I'm gonna put the big magic mushroom statue here. Uh, I really will. I really will. Uh, I know the guys who own the island, so I, yeah, they already know of it. Actually, the guy who owns the island is now a shareholder in a tie as well, so. Everybody is, literally everybody is, so. Um, so I did it and it was the single most meaningful thing, full stop. And by the way, it confirmed everything I just said.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  So because what a lot of people report is that um that um you.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  It's a very spiritual experience and in that case it was not just a spiritual experience, but it really confirmed 100% my view in life, which is by the way interesting because if we look now at people, because a lot of people ask me, especially successful people, they are like, oh, I've read, somebody takes it and then he's wanna be a farmer in Brazil. By the way, which was my biggest fear. My biggest fear was like, I'm gonna come out of that and I'm gonna change my whole life because I realize that, I don't know, I wanna do something else. Hindsight, I tell everybody that look at me and look at others. We have both. We have people like me who come out are very, even more happy, but it, for me, it was a very big

• 40:42Speaker 00

  confirmation of what I'm doing. Yeah. Um, because, um, yeah, I don't mean not because like it was a confirmation, like, okay, you see the world in the right way. Everything, what you do, how you do, you can work on it. So I got a lot of ideas how to make it better, but like sort of the message was you're on the right path. So some other people come out and the message is, look, you have to do something completely else. What is, why is it different? It's actually the same. What it does, I think one sort of, how you say, one description of psychedelics is in general, they, you realize or you, um, you recognize yourself and all your

• 41:26Speaker 00

  sort of positive, all your dreams, all your trauma, and everybody has a bit of trauma, it's not be a real, so everything. And then, and some people, and then I was always, hindsight, I can say now I was right, like I, or I was right, I, I was good in it. I was always living a very honest life to myself. Again, doesn't mean that I say, hey, I decided, for example, not to tell anybody I'm gay, but that's not, from my point of view, this was not a lie because it's my decision. But it was not a lie to myself. Yeah, it was an active decision to just make my life a little bit. It was not suppressing it. That was just like pragmatically, yeah. Uh, by the way, this was also very simple. There was also nobody to date. I was very simple, like, no, no, exactly risk, risk return. There was no upside because there was nobody. Who would have appreciated that, yeah?

• 42:11Speaker 00

  And if there would have been a hot guy and I was like, he's gay, I'm gay, I was like, hey, immediately, like, but there was no upside, but a lot of downside. Anyway, but what I'm saying is like, I always lived a very honest life um to myself. Yeah, again, this doesn't mean you have to shout everything out. And this was confirmed. So other people who don't live an honest life to themselves and lie to themselves and maybe tell themselves that they are happy with X, Y, Z, they might realize on a magic mushroom trip that they're not like they need. And this is the other people who change, yeah, but so it's very dependent on. Yeah, but it was just one aspect of so many positive aspects. And then sort of I I immediately after the trip had sort of the idea.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  Okay, this should be actually legal. I was actually not even the first impetus was not that I should make a company because I was very sure people must work on that stuff because it's so powerful. And when I then found out, actually it took me two years, I was looking around like that there was none, then we did it ourselves.

• 43:13Steven Bartlett?

  Just to go back to that point, though, you you you categorize that moment, your first trip, as the single most meaningful experience of your life.

• 43:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:21Steven Bartlett?

  Today.

• 43:21Speaker 00

  Full stop. Nothing comes close. And maybe I would add plus the follow on trips over the last year. So it's such as this one trip, I would say as well, but I would I would I would summarize my psychedelic experience. And I still like try to do a trip once or twice a year in a country where it's legal. Yeah, I would summarize as the most meaningful sort of holistic experience I've had in my life. Full, yeah, for sure, like.

• 43:50Steven Bartlett?

  You do this trip um on the beach with your friends. You you think to yourself, you know, this must be legal. Fast forward, you get a call from one of your friends called Mike.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  No, it's way, it's way crazier. It's way crazier. Again, super serendipity. So fast forward for two years, I was very, very carefully looking around and actually not telling a lot of people about it, which was wrong. And if I would have gone on like that, I wouldn't sit here again, meaning at least not now I would sit here maybe, maybe, but like not talking about mushrooms or psychedelics. So for two years I was kind of extremely holding back. So I told my closest friends. Actually, the ones who knew me very well. Saw that a positive, like my parents were like, hey, you became an even nicer child. We have an amazing relationship, but it became even better. So my mom was very quickly saying, something happened in your holiday.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was like, yeah. So, so, uh, so the ones who knew me well, but like, I didn't shout it out. And I was actually very, very careful and shy because it's like technically, yeah. And back then, by the way, let's not forget. Like we're talking about it also now so easily because all the books came out. We have this success, like compasses listed, like now is completely different than. So anyway, so for two years I was very like low key. Yeah. And then I had, and again, this is like maybe the biggest financial serendipity. Uh, or is there like message of the universe, if you want to see it like that? Because for two years I was sort of like just telling friends, very close friends.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  And then I had one other trip within a holiday trip. The main message on that trip was Christian, this makes you so happy. You have to talk to other people about it. Don't be shy. Just good thing will come out. Things will come out if you talk about it. So I had a real mission. So I got this real mission on that trip to sort of be open about it. And then actually from that holiday, I was flying, literally the week after, I met a very close friend and business partner of mine, Mike Novogratz,

• 45:57Speaker 00

  who's big in finance, like

• 45:59Steven Bartlett?

  Huge, huge.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, but he's, he's not, what I want to say, he's not the guy who would talk about mushrooms normally. And I wouldn't have had, but he was my test case because I had the mission. The mission was, don't be afraid to talk about management because it's going to be good for you and the world. So I met Mike and he literally, Mike is always like that, what's up? Because I think I do cool stuff like from Oyster Bladder stuff. So a lot of friends are always like, hey, what's new? What's up? What are you investing in there? I was like, Mike, you won't believe it. I just had a mushroom trip and this was amazing. And I want to talk, tell you about it. And he was like this, whoa mushroom. Like I, I remember Mike said the, the sentence like he hasn't talked about it, hadn't back then for like 20 years. Because especially in the US, a lot of people, it's like a college thing like.

• 46:44Steven Bartlett?

  Party journal.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  Uh, he was like, twenty years, never heard about it. Again, since college. So I told him all of my experience on that trip. Um, and in general, or it won't. So he was like, very interested. Yeah. And so the next day, literally the next day, my phone rings. Mike is on it. Actually, he said it. Yeah, he said, look, Christian, this is the weirdest coincidence. So since twenty years, or I haven't talked about psychedelics for twenty years. Yesterday, you were in my office, talking about nothing else than psychedelics. And this morning, my sister or sister, my sister called him, said my sister called me. And she's on Bali with these crazy couple from London.

• 47:25Speaker 00

  Who told her they wanna start a company which is working on bringing magic mushrooms back in the legal realm. And they need somebody who's financing them and nobody wants to touch it. And I was like, this is, this is such a coincidence. You in London, they in London, like, yeah. And this is George and Katya, the founders of Compass. Yeah. And I was like, connect me immediately. And I remember this was January and then we met when I was back and they were back from Bali. In February, um, two thousand and seventeen. Yeah. And I, they tell me, if we talk about like, within the meeting, I was like, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna do that together. That's, that's what I've waited for since two years. And again, if I hadn't taken the decision

• 48:07Speaker 00

  to openly talk about it, um, I wouldn't have told Mike, I wouldn't have met George and Katya. We wouldn't sit here, at least not sit here, talking about this one.

• 48:15Steven Bartlett?

  And the magic mushrooms were the thing that told you to talk about it.

• 48:18Speaker 00

  The trip.

• 48:19Steven Bartlett?

  And you, you end up being, you know, the single biggest investor in the space, a space which is now really sort of main, becoming more mainstream. At an alarming rate, a sort of a category that's exploded from a financial perspective. Um, and you've, you've, you've co-founded and invested in two, the two biggest sort of companies in this area, Atai and Compass Pathways.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  Exactly. So practically I've co-founded both and Compass, I was more the seed investor because it was George's and Katya's idea. And I added actually a very close friend of mine, Lars, as the third co-founder and I was the seed investor. But sort of I was there even before the company existed. We were sitting in my, in my living room and planning it. And then when I realized how positive or it was actually easier is the wrong word, but it was sort of I had, I had expected more.

• 49:11Speaker 00

  Hurdles, yeah. And it's maybe sadly actually the time which is helping us because there are so many people suffering and it becomes sort of also financially, sometimes life is very, the world functions very pragmatic, like in the moment, something becomes a big crisis also financially, yeah, the, yeah.

• 49:29Steven Bartlett?

  And it creates opportunity.

• 49:31Speaker 00

  So anyway, whatever it was, it was the right time. So Compass quickly actually got FDA fast track designation, which was a big thing, stuff like that. So and then I actually realized, oh, there are more psychedelics out there than, meaning everybody's always almost using magic mushrooms and psychedelics as the same, but like we have the headline psychedelics, a group of drugs and psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms is one of them. So there are more of them from MDMA to LSD, ketamine, ibogaine, whatever. And Compass wanted always to focus on, on psilocybin. So I was like, okay, then I'm

• 50:11Speaker 00

  starting a tie as sort of a platform where we actually bring on more, more of these compounds to explore them for mental health issues.

• 50:21Steven Bartlett?

  Of all the compounds in a tie, and I know there's a lot of them, right? I think you've got over 13 compounds, different psychedelic compounds within a tie. We've talked a lot about magic mushrooms and that the active compound in magic mushrooms for anybody that doesn't know is psilocybin, which is what Compass Pathway does. Of all the others, and I know this is like, I've heard you say before, this is like choosing your favorite child. Which ones of the psychedelic compounds is incredibly compelling to you and really stands out is being able to have a really significant impact?

• 50:48Speaker 00

  That's really hard to say, and I really mean it because like it really, meaning because they all have, all, all compounds we work on have a sort of reason to exist or positive, like have a, have a place in treating mental health issues, hopefully.

• 51:06Steven Bartlett?

  Tell me about ibogaine then.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, so then now what I want is the question is, what is your?

• 51:13Speaker 00

  What does somebody sees as the biggest problems or name me the problem you think is the worst and then I tell you sort of which drug is the best like kind of so so I think ibogaine is this is interesting because also because ibogaine goes against addiction and there is actually almost nothing else which works for addiction so addiction we talk about here severe addiction like especially to opioids and heroin is sort of I don't know if you can say it on English podcast like you're fucked up like it's like that's one of the really severe mental stuff like where most people have a how do you call it like relapse relapse like and then

• 51:53Speaker 00

  it's also one of these sort of things if you look at I don't know families and friends where somebody is addicted sort of it's very like it's a cancer in in in the social environment so it's sort of it's it's but I would even say any mental health is like it's always affecting others as well but I think addiction sort of stands out in a certain way and ibogaine is the only drug we know which potentially I always have to say with all these drugs potentially because we are about to prove it once and for all with scientific terms or with scientific framework FDA sort of compliant but ibogaine has the potential to really cure addiction with one trip yeah and there will be a massive game changer for the whole opioid crisis but even

• 52:37Speaker 00

  alcohol addiction like it's not just opioids like yeah and yeah

• 52:42Steven Bartlett?

  You know you're trying to you're trying to make people's lives better right you're trying to get them it almost seems like you know because you've you've been gifted enough to be happy your whole life you you're doing a lot to make sure other people can be happy on one end but the other thing that you're doing which also kind of blew my mind when I met you is trying to extend life you know you've got Elon who's like trying to save life on earth but also take us to a new one and it seems like you know a prior on your investment company is trying to make the life we live more joyous and fulfilled but also trying to extend it and the work you're doing with life longevity I actually find maybe even more

• 53:19Steven Bartlett?

  Bonkers. When I first heard about psychedelics, I was like, really? And then I spent six months, nine months learning and I was like, oh my God, like, I get it. But life longevity for me is like, really? We can really, we can really extend our lives? And you've got companies which are working on that challenge. So tell me about life longevity. Is it possible?

• 53:39Speaker 00

  I, well, okay, let's, so, so, so, let's phrase it correctly, like, because even I, if I wanna sort of say something very, um, pokey, I'm like, oh, we're gonna live forever. Yeah, that's not gonna happen for an accident reason. Meaning, yes, you could say maybe we'll live forever if we really upload our brain to our computer. But that, not that I think that's completely impossible, but I think then we're not human anymore. That's a different discussion, like, so, but I would say as long as we stay fairly human, meaning having a body, having sort of the human setup we have, yeah, there will always be an end. Let's start there, because the worst case, if you live hundreds of years, you're gonna have an accident somewhere.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  Somebody blows you up, you have a, by the way, it's gonna, it's a side note. I think it's gonna change, once we get older and older, it's gonna change the way how we look at risk. Because I already start avoiding crazy stuff, because I'm like, it's not worth it. Again, risk return, like, I have this one colleague, I always try to convince he's 50 and he drives a motorbike. And I'm like, you shouldn't do it, like, the sort of statistic risk is so big of driving a motorbike. And his answer is, well, because he's still thinking his life expectancy is 70. He's like, well, but I'm exchanging 20 years, if it happens, against my biggest passion. And this is a trade-off worth it. And I was like, well, A, it's already stupid. But if you, if you, it's okay, if this is your opinion, 20 years against.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  The risk of losing it. But I tell you, like, it's not twenty. You already, if you're fifty, I'm gonna get you up, or we're gonna get you up with longevity science to maybe ninety or hundred. By the way, in a good way. So would you exchange fifty? And then suddenly you see, okay, then he starts thinking because so. And now thinking a little bit further, like if you say, hey, our natural life experience someone will be two hundred. Maybe we stop doing stuff we're doing now because it could sort of, yeah. So but I know back to your question, like longevity never means immortality. Because again, as long as we stay kind of human, because there is an accident risk. Yeah. By the way, I also believe spiritually again that we don't wanna live forever. I think part of being human, again, as long as we stay that.

• 55:54Speaker 00

  And we can talk about that as well, because it's another thing I'm thinking a lot. Maybe we don't stay human in our current form. But as long, so I think two part of being human is having an end. Because that makes everything we do.

• 56:07Steven Bartlett?

  Well, yeah.

• 56:08Speaker 00

  So I just don't want it now, like I want to have more of it. But I think the sort of the lim, that there is a time limit on being human is actually which makes us thrive. Yeah, and which makes us.

• 56:19Steven Bartlett?

  Everything special.

• 56:20Speaker 00

  Everything special. So I don't think I wanna take that away. I just wanna extend the joy.

• 56:25Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. Doesn't it just become relative again then? So if you live to a hundred and fifty.

• 56:29Speaker 00

  By the way, so, so what I really believe, what we get in the next, maybe like thirty, twenty to thirty, it's come, it's, I think it's gonna come way quicker than people think. Is that we're gonna get life expectancy up to, to a time or to a, to a, to a, to a size, to a magnitude where we want to die. And I think it's even like this will be a range. And some people might already say, we found it, I had it all, I had enough birthdays, enough Christmases. And so some people wanna maybe live to three hundred. But I think we're gonna give people that optionality sooner than we think. And then I think dying will be like, this is my vision, like it's a celebration.

• 57:14Speaker 00

  I would someone say, look, guys, I had it all. I love you, love life, but I really think I'm ready for whatever comes. Maybe comes nothing, I don't know, but like I have an expectation, but like, yeah. But whatever it is, I'm gonna finish it now, throw a big party, say goodbye to everybody and then go out on my own terms, on my own time. I think that's gonna be sooner than we think.

• 57:36Steven Bartlett?

  You whispered that I have an expectation.

• 57:38Speaker 00

  Well, I think there is another life. Like, I think it's a continuous cycle. But that's now a spiritual question. Like, but like, I very much believe we have an eternal soul. Yeah, I don't even think there is a number. But first of all, again, I come back, which gives me a lot of thing. I don't believe in the Christian thing that we have anything to prove. That's already starts because it means you're not worthy and you have to prove yourself worthy. Like, it's like, you, I think everybody should be deeply happy and do exactly what he or she feels is the right thing to do now. By the way, again, this is, I think, what people realize on the psychedelics is like they. I always like to say, like, which is maybe a good way to describe a psychedelic trip. Like, since we're young, and again, maybe my parents were like better than other parents in avoiding that.

• 58:23Speaker 00

  But since we're baby, people start telling us what we should do, what we should not do, how we should be, how we should think, how we should do. And I always say, like, there is your soul somewhere. What form of your soul is like, but there is somewhere the level of you. And again, the problem is when we have this discussion, what I want to avoid, why I'm sometimes so blurry, is that if you start using religious terms, then some people might be set off, yeah, or pushed away. Because if I use the word soul or God, then a Christian person might have a different reaction than a Muslim person, than a Hindu person, yeah. Interestingly, a lot of people who went through psychedelics have sort of the same description.

• 59:07Speaker 00

  Because so, so anyways, this is why I'm trying to use as neutral words as possible. So let's call it soul or inner you or whatever. And then you have all these sort of external, sort of garbage almost, what other people put on you, yeah. And, and I think some people literally lose sight what they really are and want. So, and I actually was always very good. So what I realized under my trip that sort of, so what happens under a trip, sort of all this garbage is taken away. So you really look at you, but you and your real naked sort of.

• 59:47Speaker 00

  Form, like form, I mean, like you recognize yourself, all your fears, all your wishes, all your whatever, yeah. And interestingly, it was, for me, it was still a great experience, but it was not so different. So, which told me, okay, I did a good job before psychedelics to sort of be, again, true to myself. And I don't believe in what some faiths say that, that, oh, you have to be worthy, because you are worthy, yeah, and you are great. You just should live the life as sort of, it is fit for you. And again, this is, for everybody, it's different, but you need to know it, yeah. So, so, but to come back, so this is my belief. And then, so, and so, so there is no, okay, I have, it's not like a computer game, where

• 1:00:31Speaker 00

  you have to reach a level and do certain things and then come to the next one. I just think it's like an endless positive sort of cycle of experiences, yeah. So, and I'm definitely know that somewhere, and I'm gonna wanna go to the next, yeah, level is the wrong word, to the next experience, yeah. But for now, I wanna actually extend this one.

• 1:00:52Steven Bartlett?

  A lot of people don't get to live, and this is what I was thinking, is like, this, this idea that people will get to a point in their life where they say, do you know what, I've had enough, this has been great. I, would you, do you genuinely believe you'll get to a point where, maybe a hundred and fifty, whatever, where you think?

• 1:01:06Speaker 00

  I think someone, it's gonna happen, like, maybe it's very late, meaning I hope. But again, I think this is the ultimate, meaning I'm already pissed about the government interfering in my stuff in any way. But the biggest interference is death. It's not my, I don't choose the time, I don't choose, like, and we need to change that. So, I think the biggest sort of liberty everybody has will be choosing his or her own death.

• 1:01:30Steven Bartlett?

  But you'll always be curious, the world will always be changing.

• 1:01:33Speaker 00

  Well, great, then I go on like a long time.

• 1:01:35Steven Bartlett?

  I, I, I, I'm trying to understand if I, if I genuinely believe that Christian Angermayer will ever get to a point where he's bored, because you're such a curious...

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  That, but it's great if that is the case. I really don't know, like, meaning, but I'm just saying, I believe, like, again, I think there is a moment everybody will come to that. Maybe it's very, very great, like, I'm working on it, like...

• 1:01:54Steven Bartlett?

  And you don't think death is a, is a, especially at that age, is it like a natural... Then I hear you talking about it as a as a bug or as a disease or something.

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  Well, that that's I would say definitely aging is a disease. Something is wrong. So something is, I know how the twenty year old Christian looked and was and felt. And by the way, my DNA is the same like it was when I was born, like it was when I was twenty, like it's now. But something of the same DNA, it's like a little bit, we know how the house, it's the construction plan of the house is the same. And some why the sort of minions who who translate the construction plan into the building, yeah, change it and not to the better from age twenty on, like I get gray hair, whatever, like so.

• 1:02:48Speaker 00

  But we know still it is there, like the original source of information is there, our DNA. So we just need to find out, it's super simplified, what changes the translation of our DNA into mistakes and into what we call aging. Yeah, that's a very simplified view, but it shows you that it's not so natural. Yeah, because it's not that your DNA is, if it would be natural, maybe your DNA would change, you would say we can't change that. Yeah, but it's not like your DNA is the same until you die, like. So we just need to make sure that the translation happens like when you were twenty. So by the way, I deeply believe not just that we can slow down and stop aging, we can reverse it. Because again, I know how Stephen, many you are still obviously at your prime.

• 1:03:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I know how Christian in his primes looked like and yeah, you know what I mean? And we can bring it back. So so, yeah.

• 1:03:38Steven Bartlett?

  I was gonna say, some animals live for a couple of days, though. So I I take like, I look at, take an evolutionary perspective on this and think like, you know, there's some like flies that live for like four days, but it's enough.

• 1:03:46Speaker 00

  But maybe we are there at the moment to escape the evolutionary velocity. Maybe that's the pinnacle where we sort of start becoming. And I know, because I don't mean it like in a plausfemic way, I think we're meant to be like gods in our own way. Yeah, and we start now to go to the sort of source and construction of life ourselves. And I think that's an enormously curious thing and like. Yeah, maybe that's what we meant to be. I'm rather on the positive side. This is not blasphemy or whatever, but this is like what God set us up for, so to say. By the way, every single religion, it's a very fun, nobody ever, I don't think, I love, by the way, and you know, we can't say today that there is a big thing coming out about religion and science

• 1:04:28Speaker 00

  of religion, but I always loved that. I always was finally drawn to the mystical side and religious side and a side of what we discussed on what I call spiritual side. I was always, always very interested in the history of religions. And interestingly, a one sad, actually, happy and sad observation is that in the very core, all religions are the same. They all preach the same good stuff. Be nice, be nice to others. And then, once they become an organization, the shit starts. Yeah. So, and, and also one, what most religions have, just going through, but yeah, literally, most religions have, the big ones, is that they, at the very beginning, say that we

• 1:05:09Speaker 00

  are a part and a mirror, or is it the English term, that we are an image of God. And we don't talk about that, because now everybody's like, oh, if you, if you want to live forever, well, a lot of people, again, if you want to defy aging, and there are a lot of people that, oh, you want to play God. Yeah, this is a lot of the rebuttals.

• 1:05:28Steven Bartlett?

  The rebuttals.

• 1:05:29Speaker 00

  And I was like, but maybe that's what we meant to be, because if I go to the Bible, it says we are the image of God. So maybe we are meant to play God, because that's what we are, in a philosophical way. So I don't think it's not ethically at all. I think it's the ultimate, actually, challenge we have to solve. Yeah.

• 1:05:49Steven Bartlett?

  The other rebuttal I would, I thought the first time I heard about the possibility of extending life was that, you know, we'd have a really aging population, where we'd all be, so it's interesting you talk about reversing aging, but we'd all be 170 and slightly like, you know, slow and unproductive.

• 1:06:03Speaker 00

  It doesn't make any, it doesn't make medically or sense. We won't be 150 and super old. It doesn't make sense. You can't extend lifespan that much without rejuvenation. It comes at this, thanks God, and nobody wants to be like, because, by the way, that's what most people fear, though, why they, it's interesting how many people reject the idea of living. Very long, I've never ever like living very long. But the one of the very banal reasons is that they automatically think, okay, if Christian would succeed in making us live to one hundred fifty, they take, okay, I know a ninety year old granny from of mine and she's not in good shape and now they add another sixty years and they're like, no, that's not what I want.

• 1:06:46Speaker 00

  But that's exactly, but that's not what's gonna happen. In the moment, we can push life expectancy way further than ninety, it it goes hand in hand with rejuvenation. And then more people want it.

• 1:06:58Steven Bartlett?

  And what timeframe do you expect?

• 1:07:00Speaker 00

  I think we're gonna see step, really, really tangible steps forward the next twenty years. Yeah. And then let's say twenty to forty later, stay, by the way, which is not that far. Yeah. And um, and also, um, the um, this is gonna change society, meaning everything. And interestingly, every politician I talk to thinks like, well, that's far away. And I was like, no, it's not. It's not that so far away than you think. And like, this is gonna affect us sooner and we need to talk about it, about about social systems, about anything. Yeah. Uh, this is gonna be one of the massive black, but I, not a negative way, by the way, I think it's gonna be good, but like, I'm an eternal optimist, like, um, but like, you know,

• 1:07:44Speaker 00

  it will be a massive change for the world.

• 1:07:48Speaker 00

  Why would let me drink this delicious drink?

• 1:07:52Steven Bartlett?

  What's it called?

• 1:07:55Speaker 00

  I put it like in a commercial and we should like leave that in. It's like, hopefully it's better. Who?

• 1:08:01Steven Bartlett?

  Fuel, yeah.

• 1:08:02Speaker 00

  Human fuel.

• 1:08:03Steven Bartlett?

  Human fuel.

• 1:08:05Speaker 00

  Okay, it's a very good name.

• 1:08:06Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:07Speaker 00

  Who came up with that name?

• 1:08:08Steven Bartlett?

  Julian Hahn.

• 1:08:09Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:08:12Steven Bartlett?

  Um, so switching, because in fact, the the topic, the topics of conversation we discussed are super interesting. But personally, the things that I find most fascinating about you are you're just like ridiculous, ridiculous work ethic.

• 1:08:27Steven Bartlett?

  And I've talked to some of your friends, I spoke to Aaron, I spoke to people around you, just to confirm what I thought. And the intensity and the amount you work, I think is just like staggering. I think I'm really hardworking. I've seen you in action around the clock. Over the weekend, the fact that we're doing this on a Saturday, I don't normally record the podcast.

• 1:08:44Speaker 00

  Well, it's a hobby. It's like, it's like having fun. It's not like work, but I know it. Yeah.

• 1:08:49Steven Bartlett?

  My point is about, you know, in culture, people talk about this term work-life balance. And I think you've kind of responded to it there.

• 1:08:54Speaker 00

  Very easy. There shouldn't be a work-life balance. There should just be one continuous hobby. That's my feeling. People should love what they do in a way. Obviously, you do different things and I love more things. So, but like I always said, since I'm 16 or actually 14, since I have my tutoring, if I would call it work-life balance, then I have a shitty life because it's just work. But my work is my life and I love it and it's integrated and most of my friends I work with and like, even like friends who didn't, this is how I came to the movie business. Because just like I had friends who were actors and were in a movie business. And then I was like, maybe we should work together. Maybe we should finance a movie. Like, it's like, yeah, I don't want to see it as a

• 1:09:37Steven Bartlett?

  Separation.

• 1:09:37Speaker 00

  Separation.

• 1:09:38Steven Bartlett?

  Let's talk about more personal things. So, relationships. How does someone who works as hard as you find any, I'm presuming you value what relationships can bring you?

• 1:09:49Speaker 00

  Well, complicated topic. It's work in progress.

• 1:09:52Steven Bartlett?

  Welcome to the podcast.

• 1:09:53Speaker 00

  Exactly. Oh, no. Now it's like, no, that's work in progress. So that's like, because obviously like I'm so much in love with my work that, that it's always, it's hard, I think, for another person. Although I think I can try to be very uplifting because I would try and say the same. What I told you is like, I would tell every partner, like, you have to find, you can't expect from me to get, give you meaning. You need to give yourself meaning and then we can be happy together. Yeah, but this is unfortunately not how a lot of people work. Like, so it's very easy that sort of.

• 1:10:29Steven Bartlett?

  I have a quote on Instagram, my best performing quote ever. It says, "If we're dating, I want to be your second priority. I want your first priority to be you, your passions, your future. If we're happy alone, we'll be happier together."

• 1:10:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a lot of things. And I'm happy alone, by the way.

• 1:10:42Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:43Speaker 00

  I'm also like an introvert extrovert. So people think I'm very extrovert and I can be and I want to be like, I like to host parties and dinners and do things like that. But then I want to be alone actually a lot. So.

• 1:10:56Steven Bartlett?

  Do you value, and tell me the value of a relationship in your view of like a really good committed relationship? Do you value it?

• 1:11:06Speaker 00

  That's a complicated question. So because, because if I say no, it sounds brutal.

• 1:11:13Steven Bartlett?

  What's the truth?

• 1:11:14Speaker 00

  No, no. And I don't mean it. Like, I, I, I think it's more, the answer is more complicated. So I build myself that I, that I'm sort of very like independently. So, so I value relationships a lot. So that's the real answer. But I, I'm not in the concept that one should stand out. So I rather have groups. So I, I believe that, or believe, like, I do have like 10, but not one, like 10 very, very close friends, who most of them I have since a very long time. I actually extremely value relations.

• 1:11:54Speaker 00

  But I'm not saying, okay, there is this one relation in my life, which will completely stand out from the rest, which is maybe a complicated thing for relationships. I do think though this will change once you get children. Yeah. So which I want. So that's sort of the, yeah. And by the way, I also do think people change like, and I don't think the core of you changes. I like the core, but like you can make adjustments. So I know, for example, that when I want children or once I have children, that I have to make adjustments. Because I just want children if they have the same happy childhood that I had. So I want to be either no dad or a great dad. Yeah. So, and then I know I need to make adjustments. So, but then it's worth it.

• 1:12:39Speaker 00

  And then it's my active decision to take it.

• 1:12:43Steven Bartlett?

  How is it, you are the busiest person I know. I was just thinking then, I was thinking, is this the busiest person I know? You probably, you're the busiest person I know, I'd say. Have you struggled to have romantic relationships because of that busyness?

• 1:12:57Speaker 00

  I feel like an interrogation of Kurt.

• 1:13:01Steven Bartlett?

  What did you think was gonna happen here?

• 1:13:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:04Steven Bartlett?

  This is what it's, this is, these are the things no one talks about, right? And I sit here, single, struggling. So I'm like, I'll ask Christian, because he's way busier and I'm struggling. So is there any hope for Steve?

• 1:13:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, totally. Like, there's hope for all of us. Be positive.

• 1:13:17Steven Bartlett?

  It's funny, this feels like a bit more of an uncomfortable topic for you, for some reason.

• 1:13:22Speaker 00

  No, it's just very private. It's not uncomfortable. I would tell you my views in private easier.

• 1:13:27Steven Bartlett?

  Because there's a hundred thousand people watching.

• 1:13:29Speaker 00

  Exactly. Hundred thousand people. Now it's getting cringy. No, it is definitely a problem.

• 1:13:38Speaker 00

  Full stop. Like, yeah.

• 1:13:39Steven Bartlett?

  And you realise that you're gonna have to adjust.

• 1:13:42Speaker 00

  If I, yeah, if I want to.

• 1:13:43Steven Bartlett?

  If you want, yeah.

• 1:13:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then you always say like, okay, you do that. The issue is like, what I'm thinking a lot, how do you know when to adjust? Like, in terms of, because you would say, romantically, you would say you adjust when the right one comes. How do you know that the right one comes? If you don't have time to figure out the right, there is this a little bit, and I haven't figured that fully out.

• 1:14:03Steven Bartlett?

  You're someone looking at the past 40 years of your life that does whatever he wants to do and isn't actually very good at adjusting unwillingly. You've never been good in your life story at doing something unwillingly.

• 1:14:14Speaker 00

  Exactly. No, it's always, exactly, yeah.

• 1:14:15Steven Bartlett?

  You go the way Christian wants to go. And I just, I wonder, I'm like, when will, what will be the catalyst? You said kids may be there, but what will be the catalyst that makes Christian adjust?

• 1:14:26Speaker 00

  But maybe it's a romantic thing you really like, love at first sight. I mean, again, the good thing is that I deeply believe, that makes me very common that, coming back to what we had, that this, I deeply believe it's gonna come at the right time. And I know that I'm sort of enough open for it, because it's the same like with business ideas or the same with other stuff in my life. Again, if you're open, open heart, open mind, you're gonna see it when it comes. So it's not, it's a little bit like with anything else, that like, you don't have negative thoughts. Don't think, oh, I need it now, like, yeah, so it comes when it comes. Like, because everything in my life came at the right time. Why not this one? So I'm very. That's how I see it.

• 1:15:09Steven Bartlett?

  Well, I guess at the macro level.

• 1:15:10Speaker 00

  In the moment, things came, I can just say now business stuff, but like, again, business is my like, when psychedelics came and then the business, meaning that's sort of very, a big part of my time allocation over the last, like four or five years was into the psychedelic business, I made space for it. And so I'm always like, it's not, again, when things comes, you realize that you, you realize the message and then you make space for it.

• 1:15:39Steven Bartlett?

  But there's a chance, you said, that you might be obstructing it from coming and happening because you're so preoccupied with.

• 1:15:45Speaker 00

  No, I'm thinking about that, but then my conclusion is then usually that, or is, because again, like, because romance is maybe, but it's not maybe. It's maybe not like finding a good company. Maybe that sounds now very, very non-romantic, but I don't mean it's romantic. Because I also think finding companies very romantic or very, very emotional. Yeah. If I look, for example, at the psychedelic business, I think that, but I do actively, again, it's not that I'm ignoring. It's what I said before, my, my, my philosophy of not having negative thoughts doesn't mean that you cannot analyze sort of stuff and sort of look on the risky side. So I do think about it. Is my life, how I lead it, maybe preventing

• 1:16:30Speaker 00

  to have sort of the one and only romantic experience. Yeah. My conclusion is then mostly that I'm like, okay, no, because like it will come at the right time and then you're gonna realize it. And then you're gonna make space, like you make, like I make space for everything else.

• 1:16:46Steven Bartlett?

  It's so funny because you, because you're such an eternal optimist, I almost can't get you to.

• 1:16:51Speaker 00

  But that's how it worked. Bad things happened to me as well. Bad things are there, but my mind twists it around or twists like, this is what I'm really training since I'm 14, since I bought the book in Munich, like every, throw it to me, throw it to me a negative thing. And I'm, I'm maybe a little bit puzzled for a second or for example, yeah, even like, this is how it works. Like things, even if things in our portfolio don't go well, I'm like a little bit like shaken for a moment and then I'm like, where's the good thing? And how can I turn that in my mind? How can I see the upside? Yeah.

• 1:17:24Steven Bartlett?

  It's fascinating because I was, yeah, I'm trying to get you to, you know, the reason why I started this podcast is because I sometimes I want to highlight that for all the great things people see that, you know, there'll be people watching you thinking, I would want to be have all these companies and manage two billion of assets and all these things. But there's always a, there's always some kind of down, not downside, but sacrifice, we could say that's happening. And I'm trying to get at where that sacrifice is. And the problem is you are happy, so, and you're pursuing yourself. So it's hard to identify a sacrifice when you're that optimistic.

• 1:17:58Speaker 00

  Exactly. And I know what you mean. I just try also as a message not to see it like, I, I think people shouldn't see it because that's the negative story about success. The negative story of success is that people see people and say, oh, I want to be like them. Yeah, I would like to have the wealth. I would like to have X, Y, Z. Then they can't immediately have it because by the way, it's a long process and you need to work harder. But and then they tell it, oh, they must have gone through a lot of sacrifice. Yeah. And then this is a little bit what calms them down or they, they, they have a lot of bad stuff like coming with it. I think that's the wrong way to look at for both sides. Like, I think the right way to look at it should like, do I really want that? Is this really what makes me happy? Yeah.

• 1:18:44Speaker 00

  And then it's by the way, not that easy to, meaning everybody would say like, ah, yeah, it's like simplified. Money makes me happy. But then again, do you makes it happy? What comes with it? But I don't want to call it a sacrifice because I wouldn't do it if I would have to sacrifice stuff in order to get money. Because it's not about money anyway, by the way, money from a certain moment on is not really.

• 1:19:05Steven Bartlett?

  The driving force.

• 1:19:06Speaker 00

  There is, there is, there is a meaning. There is great research. It's not money. It's like that for from practically zero to X, money gives you happiness because it makes your life easier. So, but then somewhere you're not going to spend it because someone it becomes a figure. Yeah. And then it's about, do you love what you do? Yeah. So latest then, yeah, but like, so, so I don't, people should see not this, you can't see, I don't know, wealth or anything separated from the.

• 1:19:34Speaker 00

  The process of how you got there. Yeah. And then it's not about saying, oh, the process was hard and sacrifice. It's like, is the whole process what I love doing? Then you should throw, you should, or is it something else? What I love and then you should not though envy other people. Because that makes you miserable as well.

• 1:19:53Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:19:53Speaker 00

  You should always embrace what? The problem is people often don't know what they really want. Yeah. And then again psychedelics give you like, but like in the moment you embrace what you really want. And maybe like, like a housewife maybe really loves it. It's not something where she should say, oh, I'm just a housewife. And somebody else is a big entrepreneur. And maybe that's what she really wants in this life. She maybe wants to have children, take care of them and take care of him exactly the way. But it's about knowing that actively, not letting other people.

• 1:20:24Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:20:24Speaker 00

  Put you in that position. Or let circumstances put you in that position, but like actively know yourself is that what wakes you happy?

• 1:20:33Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I've written about this at length in the book, this idea that like, um. But obviously the huge force in our lives at the moment, which whispers in our ear that we want to be something else is like social media and so society. It's like, you've got to be a doctor, your mom might say, or Instagram will say, you've got to be a billionaire. And really you just want to be an artist that dances in Croatia. You know what I mean?

• 1:20:50Speaker 00

  Exactly. Embrace it. But again, you need to know it like, by the way, I think as much as I love tech, that's one of the other topics which, which really like sort of how you say, keep me away. Yeah, but keep me away at night is something in the world we live in. Or actually something in the world we are building. Because we, we reconstructing the world in any form. And people I think have no, no real glimpse yet how crazy this will be. Yeah. We're going now, people think we were in like a 20 year of tech boom, which is true on the one side. But if we really honest, and there is this famous quote, which I love to use from Peter Thiel, who said,

• 1:21:33Speaker 00

  we wanted flying cars and we got 140 characters on Twitter. Yeah. Which says practically, if you look at the last 20 years, yes, we had a tech boom. But more or less, I'm simplifying. Yeah. The, what changed is the distribution of goods. Amazon, now we're not shopping anymore. We're getting it delivered, but it's still the same goods. Yeah. Um, and, um, social media changed, communication changed, but we didn't go to the fabric.

• 1:22:03Speaker 00

  Of society, industry and ourselves. So now we're starting going to reformulate and re-change the fabric of ourselves. Longevity, we're going to really make not just five years, again, maybe with a hundred, which change everything, we change. And this is all interdependent, and in a moment we change the fabric of our body, or then we change the fabric of society, because society is very much linked to an eighty year life expectancy. Yeah, flying cars are now really coming, literally, we have fly, yeah, we have flying cars now, yeah, we're gonna go to Mars somewhere, and it's gonna happen, maybe twenty, maybe it's gonna happen. So the world is gonna change like we have never seen it before. So, and I love it, yeah, and you love it, yeah, and maybe even the people who watch

• 1:22:48Speaker 00

  that love it, because otherwise they maybe wouldn't watch it, but like, the majority of people doesn't. Yeah, so, and I think that's one of the underlying reasons which makes the society more and more depressive or mental health, because like, I think there is this enormous fear, um, and people often have like, I think, it's a, another word for gut feeling, like you have, you can't really explain it, what makes you nervous, but it makes you nervous. And I think that's what's happening. So I think the, sort of the world as a whole, except of some eternal optimists and some techies, yeah, are like, yeah, maybe I like a single piece, I like my iPhone, I like that, but as an entirety, that makes me deeply uncomfortable. The rates of change around you. Exactly, yeah.

• 1:23:33Speaker 00

  So, and even if they don't know it, the bus driver maybe can't fully explain how a self-driving bus will work, but somewhere he feels that in ten years, it's not gonna be his job anymore, yeah. And I think that creates a lot of risk, because the last time that happened, that was when we changed from the agricultural society to the, um, to the industrial society. Yeah, and you can say now, we changed from the industrial society to, let's call it data society, we need a word for it, but we're changing, and changing in a massive way. So, and then, so there are a lot of parallels.

• 1:24:11Speaker 00

  Of the time between eighteen seventy five and nineteen twenty, the people were, there was this elite technically who said everything is possible. You had, um, it was, I think it was in eighteen seventy, but I don't know. Somewhere when the Eiffel Tower was built, there was this, uh, what is it called, World Exhibition, like? And people were like, oh my God, I mean, there was Jules Verne, but it was also around the time. And hopefully I spell him right in English, like he wrote all these books, yeah, like the sci fi books, yeah. So the world was already there once. Unfortunately, we had then two world wars. Yeah. And you can look at a lot of reasons why world were wanting to happen. And there is a lot of different layers of, um, of, of reasons, but I believe that the main reason is this sort of disenfranchisement

• 1:24:54Speaker 00

  of the agricultural society who were deeply panicky, like what's happening to the world? Because the world, the farmer, yeah, in the nineteenth century, knew was disappearing in, in, in front of his eyes, yeah. And it's exactly happening the same again. So.

• 1:25:11Steven Bartlett?

  Couldn't there, could there not be another reason linked to that? Why people are becoming depressed in the technological evolution? Because, you know, at the start of this podcast, you said about the importance of nature. And I've read studies about, you know, prisoners who, who face, who face nature versus a brick wall are thirty percent less likely to be depressed. And the, the hu, the sort of very human prehistoric origin of the human being is one that's in nature. It's one that's in a tribe, it has meaningful connections. And the technological revolution is really, you know, I now live between four white walls alone in a big gray city. Could that also not be part of the reason why people are, we're getting less human than ever? And in fact, uh, what I, what I like about, you know, when I read about some of the social reasons why people are getting more depressed, it's because we're getting further and further away from being human.

• 1:25:54Steven Bartlett?

  This is maybe a little bit more philosophical, but like, if you look at like the things that help with mental health, some typically it's, it's meaningful connection. It's nature, it's good diet, no more junk. And these are all things that humans did ten thousand years ago. It's like, we, we have to go back to find ourselves again.

• 1:26:10Speaker 00

  Or we have to find our human place in a world which is changing. So yes, so I, I do, I do think a lot, how can we stay human? In a world which is changing that crazily as it does.

• 1:26:24Steven Bartlett?

  Which wants robots. It's like this world now would appreciate if I was a robot, more productive.

• 1:26:29Speaker 00

  No, I think we can adjust. And by the way, and I know what it's like, and I'm saying that with all the disclaimers, it's not legal right now, and I'm always coming back to that. But I do think some when psychedelics will be, will be the medication for that. Because it keeps us in a certain way very human, but at the same time, makes us very adaptive in our environment. So that's a, I give you, is it more or less the same what you said? So how I see what do humans need to be happy? I think it's three things. It's some form of faith, and I explain it in a second. So it's faith, it's purpose, and it's love. It's super cheesy what I'm saying now, but like, these are the three things which I, I think make us,

• 1:27:16Speaker 00

  as a, as, as, as a, the combination of these three things make, make us happily. Then I think, let's go through it. So faith means any form of higher meaning. Or the other way around, I think being atheist or believing literally in a materialistic world where if you die, you're dead and then you rot, yeah, makes people very unhappy. This is not a, again, many I made, I think, the case that I believe in, in more, but like, let's, it's not even a case, it's just like saying like factually, I think people need that. We need, this is why every society ever developed a religion. Like, I think we need it. Why? Because we terrorized of dying. We don't admit it.

• 1:27:58Speaker 00

  I admit it. I don't want to age. Aging sucks. Dying sucks. And even worse, by the way, dying of people I love sucks. So, and we don't talk about it. We completely pushed it away from us, yeah? And I believe religion always gave people that sort of calmness or a little bit of a. Calmness that as death is not the end, you wanna see people again, people you love, whatever. So and I think it's important because otherwise you have this permanent terror of death in your head and you might not have been it, but you have. Second point is purpose. What I said with the bus driver, people need a purpose. Yeah. And they need to know why they wake up in the morning and and what they're doing.

• 1:28:40Speaker 00

  So having said that, uh, in front of our very eyes at the moment, like these, these things are dissolving that the purpose is. So we need to find new ones. And the most important is we need love. And in a cheesy way, it must not be a one on one relationship, but it could be, could be a one on one relationship, it could be a family, it could be a close friend, it could be a community. Yeah. So love on various levels. So and actually, the bad thing is, if you look at where the world is going at the moment, all these three things are dissolved. So faith is on a super decline. Yeah. Um, then purpose is on a decline because we're changing the world and most people don't find their purpose immediately there. And then unfortunately, also communities are on decline. Traditional family structures, but also communities.

• 1:29:23Speaker 00

  I mean, if I remember, if I grew up, I had like, what do you call it in English? When you go to like a theater group and I had ten groups, like it was all like, it was, it was the sort of the pinnacle of a community. We were so, and it was great. Yeah. And I don't think if you have that anymore in that way. Yeah. Or at least it's sort of vanishing. Yeah.

• 1:29:39Steven Bartlett?

  Statistically accurate. There's a study in the U S which says, um, fifteen years ago, people would respond to the question, how many people can you turn to in time of crisis? The medium answer was three, it's now zero.

• 1:29:49Speaker 00

  Crazy, like I had ten when I was young. And psychedelics are giving you that, all of that. They're giving you faith, spirituality, they're giving you purpose because you, you, you realize that the purpose lies within you and you can reinvent yourself. And they're giving you love because you realize the value of connections, whatever.

• 1:30:08Steven Bartlett?

  I read tons of things and this is a bit of a sideways, but I read a

• 1:30:11Speaker 00

  Great. It's really great. Like

• 1:30:13Steven Bartlett?

  What is great?

• 1:30:14Speaker 00

  I love it.

• 1:30:15Steven Bartlett?

  He's talking about the fuel he's drinking. It's good. I will send you a big box of it. There's different flavors. This one's berry. So we'll send you this flavor as well, but it's also really good. It's the reason I'm in the best shape of my life. I read something really interesting, which again goes against a couple of narratives I would expect from you. You said you have 42 pills a day.

• 1:30:32Speaker 00

  Roundabout.

• 1:30:34Steven Bartlett?

  This is someone that doesn't want to mess with their equilibrium. It's having 42 different pills a day.

• 1:30:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it's not a

• 1:30:40Steven Bartlett?

  Cocaine, no, checking.

• 1:30:42Speaker 00

  No, no, it's like, I'm someone gonna put it online because so many people ask like, so I, first of all, I think everything we take, we eat is an active decision. So I like, so if you remember like before the, the

• 1:30:57Steven Bartlett?

  The podcast.

• 1:30:58Speaker 00

  The podcast, I was looking at it because I wanted to know what is in it. Like, and there is seems to be a lot of good stuff in it. Yeah. So, so I don't, I'm not in a camp where people say, oh, vitamins or any form of, of added stuff is bad because I like, everything I eat is something external going in my body. Yeah. So, and then my view on, on aging at the moment is at the moment, there is unfortunately, we're working on it hard. Yeah. But there is nothing which really slows down aging dramatically. Yeah. Dramatically or, and or even reverses it. However, there are things which give you a little bit of an edge. Yeah. And the edge is not big. Yeah. But unfortunately, I'm not 20 anymore. If I would be 20, which then I would say, hey, no, then, then the optionality would be super easy.

• 1:31:43Speaker 00

  If I would be 20 now and I tell that my godchildren, I don't believe it, they're 10. I'm like, you're gonna live for hundreds of years. Yeah. So I'm unfortunately, fortunately, because I still have the opportunity. And again, my decision was like, I want to work on it because I think I do it better than others. Yeah. And I rather trust myself than waiting than others doing it. Seriously. Like, well, like, I'm like, okay, but I'm, I'm at the borderline, like, because I need to hurry up. So, so even if I do something now at the moment, which gives me statistically two more years, that's two more years. Like, yeah, in a, in a race. Yeah.

• 1:32:20Steven Bartlett?

  Tell me what these things are.

• 1:32:21Speaker 00

  Well, I think the

• 1:32:22Steven Bartlett?

  Cause I'm 20, so I'd like to.

• 1:32:24Speaker 00

  Yes. So I think there are some, some easy things to do, like, um, the, for example, sleep is super important. Yeah. Then, um,

• 1:32:34Steven Bartlett?

  Why? Why is sleep important?

• 1:32:36Speaker 00

  We could talk, we could be, you should do, I told you that you should do a podcast just about sleep.

• 1:32:41Steven Bartlett?

  I had sleep act span, last two weeks ago.

• 1:32:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh, you had, so it's perfect. There's so many reasons, but sleep is one of the core things. We don't fully understand it yet, but like, who has practically, if you, I don't know the exact number, but read Why We Sleep from Matthew Walker. Like, I think if you, if you, if you sleep two, three hours less than you should, for some days, your immune system is collapsing. If your immune system collapsing, that your probability of cancer goes up. And I mean, sleep has so many, good sleep is so good for you and too little sleep has so many negative consequences that. So sleep is super important. So I try to sleep enough. For example, I try, that's one of the luxury things, uh, which I can do because I work for myself. That I don't have early morning meetings. So, and I have always something to do, like emails, whatever.

• 1:33:27Speaker 00

  But I try that I can wake up naturally. So I never wake up with an alarm clock as, unless I need to fly or whatever. Yeah. So, um, so that's one thing. Then obviously no alcohol. Alcohol is a, is a, is a, is toxic, like full stop. Cigarettes, all, all drugs except of psychedelics are toxic. Yeah. So don't do them. Yeah. Very bad for aging. Yeah. You see that by the way, when people like, yeah, um, I don't wanna say now that I aged well, but like if I go to a class reunion or whatever. Like some people who drank very a lot of alcohol and eat shit, yeah, they look older. Like, yeah, it's like, so. So they say is your food, like intake, be healthy, don't carbs, like sugar is super bad. Like, I think so.

• 1:34:09Speaker 00

  So I don't wanna go, yes, I do forty two pills or whatever it is. Yeah. And meaning it's, I mean, the list would be long and maybe again, maybe I put it somewhere online. But I think the message is because if people jump from zero to forty two pills, they won't do it anyway. So whoever listens now, I would say, if you do the three, four, five things, which sort of, it's these eighty twenty rules. I'm trying to carve out the last twenty percent, but go for the, sort of the easy, hard and easy first, sleep. Healthy food, exercise is super important. Must not be super hard exercise, but like every day, like twenty, thirty minutes of miles to medium exercise. As I said, no drugs, no alcohol, whatever. Um, these are the main ones. You're gonna be significantly healthier.

• 1:34:54Steven Bartlett?

  I heard you talk about intermittent fasting.

• 1:34:55Speaker 00

  Yes, oh, sorry, intermittent fasting is one, yes. So I try not to eat for sixteen, eighteen hours a day, every day. And once you start doing it, you, you sort of.

• 1:35:04Steven Bartlett?

  Why, why do you do that? Why do you intermittently fast? I've always been curious about it. I've never done it.

• 1:35:09Speaker 00

  Uh, because it's very healthy. I mean, there are enough, a lot of health benefits. Your, your blood sugar level sort of normalizes with chest and sort of a lot of, um, follow on effects, yeah. It's also, you, you lose weight, it's very simple, like, yeah, um.

• 1:35:25Steven Bartlett?

  I am, I actually only have one other thing that I wanted to ask you about. I mean, I, I don't, I have a million things, but in the interest of time, it was about Bitcoin.

• 1:35:33Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:35:33Steven Bartlett?

  You, you've, you've been a big investor in Bitcoin and the future of Bitcoin, you're bullish?

• 1:35:38Speaker 00

  Super bullish, because what I think is like, all politicians from left and right, from, from any part of the spectrum, and by the way, I think about it a lot. I think maybe it's not even a stupid decision what they took, but like all politicians decided that money printing is the thing to go, yeah? So we're gonna see this massive devaluation of fiat money. And never before, again, I, I really love history and normally this happened to one currency or one country or whatever. At the moment, it happens, it's, it's happening to all the major currencies in the world. Euro, uh, renminbi, like, uh, US dollar, everything is sort of devaluated at the same time. So, and because everything is relative to each other, obviously, by the way, it's not

• 1:36:23Speaker 00

  just Bitcoin, but assets go up. This is why I'm on a ten year horizon, I'm extremely bullish on, in general, quality assets, stocks, Bitcoin, anything which is not cash. I think the most dangerous asset class for ten years is cash. Doesn't mean, by the way, there can't be stock market crash, whatever, in between where you wanna have cash to buy. Yeah, so you should have like, how you say in English, tactically cash, but not like strategically cash, yeah? Um, so, but Bitcoin, and so, and Bitcoin is one of these assets first, and then second. The world always needs a store of value. So for thousands of years, gold was the store of value of choice. I mean, you think about it, how many currencies were there?

• 1:37:08Speaker 00

  I mean, thousands, because by the way, always politicians mess it up, always. Like politicians can't be entrusted with currencies, full stop. It's always a bad idea, yeah, always, hundred percent. And so people always say gold, yeah. So but gold is also people then say, oh, Bitcoin has no value. Gold has no value, you can't eat it. It's actually one of these things that you can't eat it. It's maybe nice to look at, but like it's just a convention. It's just an agreement humanity has. And I would go further, it's embedded in our cultural system. There are so many fairy tales and things about gold. But if you ask a 10 year old, for him, it's Bitcoin. Bitcoin is his pop culture store of value. And it's exactly gold.

• 1:37:52Speaker 00

  So and I think that shift has happened or is about to happen. That Bitcoin is at least additionally to gold and someone will completely make gold redundant. Yeah, is the new store of value. And it's just, you can argue now, what's the value of Bitcoin? Because it's a, it's a convention, it's a deal society made that we accept that. That's the value. Yeah, there is no, nothing more. I mean, you can add then and say, oh, maybe Bitcoin is disrupting the financial system. But it's all secondary. The main thing is, is it a store of value or not? And for me, it is a store of value. Yeah, that's sort of the main driver of Bitcoin is the new gold. That's enough, by the way, to make it still go up dramatically compared to gold.

• 1:38:30Steven Bartlett?

  You could talk about this forever, but um. My last question, and this is definitely my last question is, as you think forward, you know, in your future. You said at the start of this podcast about visualizing every morning. You visualize and you think about the things that you want your future to hold. I know if I said to you like, what's the end? There is no end. I get that because I understand your thinking. This is a continuous pursuit of your own hobbies and interests. But when you visualize what you want Christians' future to look like, say in, you know, a couple of decades from now, what are the like? The principles of that future, what are the characteristics of it?

• 1:39:03Speaker 00

  Still wanna look like today.

• 1:39:04Steven Bartlett?

  You wanna look super sexy and young?

• 1:39:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:39:05Steven Bartlett?

  You wanna look twenty years old?

• 1:39:07Speaker 00

  We're gonna make that.

• 1:39:07Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, we can do that on Photoshop.

• 1:39:09Speaker 00

  No, not on Photoshop, we're gonna make that in real life. Because I value human connection, Photoshop doesn't work because you wanna meet people.

• 1:39:16Steven Bartlett?

  We're gonna be cyborgs anyway, so, in virtual world, so.

• 1:39:19Speaker 00

  Well, I think we're gonna be cyborgs, I think we're gonna, that's one of the drivers which I think is still human, we're gonna merge with technology. We already are, many, uh, what is it called, like what you put on your heart, like a stent or like whatever, yeah, yeah. It's already like a cyborg, it's just like very early, exactly, it's very, so. But that's the whole point, I, there is no end game, because that would be kind of sad. It's this, well, it's the same like with work-life balance to say, if I would just work. Because then you're back at these famous sort of, what was it, a novel from, who was it, like, or these old tale where the fisher is on the, the guy is on the beach and meets the guy.

• 1:39:55Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, I know the story.

• 1:39:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a, you know which one, I mean, like, yeah, so. Where then it comes out, oh, he works his ass off just to lie on the beach, and then the poor guy is saying, why you could lie on the beach now? Yeah, that's the whole point, it's about the journey, it's not about an end point. So I don't have an end point, and I never had, I just like, try to keep my, again, it's all about keeping my life exciting. Because if it wouldn't, then I would wanna die. So keep my life cool. And this, by the way, this can change, when maybe in forty years, it's not, I'm not a robot, like, this is not gonna, I'm not gonna be. I'm, I'm maturing, like, or maturing, like, I'm, I'm changing in a positive way, like, uh, maybe in forty years, I decide.

• 1:40:37Speaker 00

  That, I don't think so, but I don't know, like, and it's like, the good thing is that I'm open for, I wanna be already, maybe in forty years, I look, I had now everything I had on a, in entrepreneurship, maybe I wanna.

• 1:40:47Steven Bartlett?

  You, you feel yourself changing and maturing, and you're.

• 1:40:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, but maturing is, I wanna, you don't, yeah, changing, but in a, in a good way, that, again, I'm trying to continuously analyze. What, now we're back at the word soul, or whatever you would call it, your inner voice is telling you, what is good for me now? And it might be that this is changing over time. So, for example, I decided, decided is the wrong word, like, I feel. That it's getting time somewhere, not urgently, to getting children. Like, if you would have asked me twenty years ago, I would have said, no, I don't want children. Like, yeah, so but it's like open, being open for that. And maybe in forty years, I'm just making it up now as an example, not that I feel you're like, maybe I say, look, I wanna be a singer now. God beware, and the world is like, no, no, no, because I really got.

• 1:41:34Speaker 00

  But like, maybe I have some new ideas, which really like are different what I'm doing now. But like, it's important to stay open for that inner voice, because it might change. And just because, again, so far, continuously, I love doing what I do and exploring that. But like, you know what I mean?

• 1:41:50Steven Bartlett?

  I can get you.

• 1:41:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, so don't put an endpoint. There is not this one thing, because that would be sad, like if a.

• 1:41:56Steven Bartlett?

  Most depressive day ever, isn't it?

• 1:41:58Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:41:58Steven Bartlett?

  Like, the day you lose all meaning, see what you mean?

• 1:42:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:42:02Steven Bartlett?

  Well, listen, thank you so much for agreeing to do this. You are honestly one of the most fascinating people I've ever met. And I'm not just saying.

• 1:42:09Speaker 00

  I wanna win an Oscar.

• 1:42:10Steven Bartlett?

  I'm sure you do.

• 1:42:11Speaker 00

  No, no, there was one, I wanna be doing something creative, like I.

• 1:42:15Steven Bartlett?

  Something artistic.

• 1:42:16Speaker 00

  Artistic, yeah, so.

• 1:42:17Steven Bartlett?

  I've gone through the same thing since leaving social chain. I was like, I'm gonna DJ, I'm a big.

• 1:42:22Speaker 00

  That, by the way, I thought was very cool when you told me that. I was like, that's a cool thing.

• 1:42:27Steven Bartlett?

  I've got, I've directed a theatrical show with the associate director of Hamilton. It's theatre, it's called The Diary of a CEO Live. It's the theatrical version of my life. There's a fifty person choir, sold out already. And I said to myself that I didn't want to be a label, so I don't wanna be a social media CEO. I'm a guy that has a bunch of perspective, and that perspective can be applied to art, my book, which I wrote myself, the show, creating music. I've got my first DJ performance at a festival this year. And I just thought, what if you detached yourself from your labels? What kind of person would you become? You'd become artistic, you'd become health centric, you'd start businesses, you know?

• 1:43:02Speaker 00

  For example, I always think I should write the script, because I can't act when I'm not good at it. Like, also, you should be always self-aware, which is not worth pursuing. But like, I always thought, maybe you should write a script. That was like, because I love movies, I produce movies, so, so I, so I was like, maybe I should. But again, it's always listening to yourself, what your soul, inner voice, however you wanna call it.

• 1:43:23Steven Bartlett?

  Not society.

• 1:43:25Speaker 00

  Exactly, and not outside world is telling you.

• 1:43:28Steven Bartlett?

  You are the, probably the most interesting person I know, in a really compelling way. Sometimes I know people and they're like successful and I think, oh God, I hate to be that person. But you are in like a really compelling, unique way because of your work you do, but because of your philosophy for life, because of this sort of, this, I guess, like almost, I don't know what, how do they, they refer to it, but this like, how your, how your scientific view can, can merge with a spiritual one and a religious one. I find super fascinating. I think it's those sort of intersections that create really interesting ideas. You're also the most hardworking person I know, but you're also a really nice guy. Oh, thank you. You know, really like nice guy behind the scenes as well. And so, thank you for coming on the podcast. I think, you know, I, I think your future is gonna be staggering.

• 1:44:13Steven Bartlett?

  I talk about you all the time to my team, all the time. I'm like, you know, because you are very, very compelling in a number of really positive ways. Uh, I think, I think the work you're doing with Atai Compass and all of your other companies are staggering. And I think you're actually gonna be one of the most important entrepreneurs, creators of our time. I think the world is. Right. Now it's like. No, no, I genuinely. I don't care. These like. I genuinely was like, I know Christian coming on my podcast now. I know in 10 years' time, this is probably gonna be one of my most viewed podcasts ever because of the trajectory you're on and the way you think. It's my, my prediction. I'm very rarely wrong. But thank you. You don't have to be like, oh, you're so right. John is done know what to say and that we don't have. I mean it. I do mean it. Um, and it's been a privilege to work with you over the last couple of months and understand that because it's been inspiring for me.

• 1:44:59Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you for doing this today. I hope you've enjoyed it. Yeah, I did. I did very much. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you.