The Mushroom Entrepreneur with Mason Taylor

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot. Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Side Hustle Pro. Today, we're breaking down the mushroom entrepreneur. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Mason Taylor and the EO Fire Studios. Mason is the CEO and founder of Superfeast and renowned tonic herbalist and has helped thousands globally discover medicinal mushrooms and adaptogenetic herbs and shares his healing philosophy through workshops, podcasts, in evolutionary business leadership.

0:38And today, Far Nation, we'll talk about the ancient lineage of mushrooms. We'll also talk about the true role of a CEO. We'll talk about adaptogens for entrepreneurs, and then the pros and the cons of medicinal mushrooms, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Mason and our sponsors. The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more.

1:11One of my favorite recent episodes is titled, How I've Built an Unmatched Team Culture, an insanely important topic for all business owners to dive into. Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts. Mason, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hello, Fire Nation from down in cold, chilly Australia. Look, I honestly, when we get into it, like especially in product-based businesses and ones that work with herbs or health things that come from the old world, I think the one thing I've realized people say that they agree with, but they don't really agree with, that you are melding with an ancient lineage, millions of people that have dedicated their lives to that lineage, and you can't just commodify a product.

2:12You can't just commodify and take something and take a scalpel to it. You've got an obligation to go and, I guess it's breathe life into the flames of that old lineage. And it just means you're going to be on a path and you've got to practice and it's going to hold you accountable whether you like it or not. And the best thing about that is that business then becomes a living entity and a living muse, not just a synthetic business. And that's something that then you're going to have to have a relationship with. So it's probably that entrepreneurs are artists. And if you can go and realize that you have a muse and part of you have your own muse, and then you have your business is its own muse and has its own spirit, you have to be working with that.

2:53That's probably the thing I think that people don't understand and don't actually agree with, even though they probably say they do. Well, Fire Nation, mushrooms do have quite the ancient lineage. And we are talking to the mushroom entrepreneur today, and they've been around for a long time, these mushrooms. So I do want to talk, Mason, about this ancient lineage in a modern business. We're all hearing about medicinal mushrooms now. Where it came from is an ancient Chinese lineage from called Taoism. And the Taoists had tonic herbs that they would use to cultivate life. And so what I'm, yeah, this is what I'm looking, this is what I want to pretty much bring to the world is not just like taking a scalpel to mushrooms and adaptogens and then bringing them to the world and commodifying them.

3:44But I'm bringing, not only bringing the medicinal mushrooms and these adaptogens, but I'm also bringing the context of the lineage and the path that they came from. And that comes with its own terminology. And I think that's what I've done at Superfeast, which has been a little bit more unique, is I've gone as far back as I can to an ancient text, the first Materia Medica that we've ever had described where these herbs sit within a lifestyle and within a health cultivation context. And I've brought that education along with me and I've layered it into the constitution of my business. And I feel like that's the only way that really the mushrooms and all the other herbs and these adaptogenic herbs are really going to sing for you and your business if you don't commodify them.

4:30But you bring the context in which humans spent thousands of years trying to figure out how these medicinal mushrooms were going to be healthy. And it wasn't just like what we see today is just an entry level. I like the fact that people want more energy, they want more brain gains, and they want more immunity, so on and so forth. But that's just really you're skimming on the surface and you're in a context of herbalism there where you're trying to just uh you're kind of working on a symptom you've got like or you or you're looking for something like deep down you know what you want you know you want to be a badass 80 or 90 year old you know you want to not be going down the path of your life crossing your fingers hoping that you're not going to degenerate early and get disease hoping that you're you know you're going to have the capacity to integrate whatever you need to do to go on a new adventure rather than been stuck in a psychological like swamp within yourself and and then you become more and more resigned to become an asshole this is what and then i know we're going like really deep into like um we're not really talking about mushrooms in the way that people normally talk about mushrooms but when you go back this is why mushrooms existed because daoism was and and this is just 2000 years ago when this text comes about and goes you know hey if you want to not degenerate and you want to go come into your elder years with strong foundations and you don't want to be like physically degenerating if you want to remain light and vital so that you can continue to when when I say vital is animate you want to be able to animate yourself animate your thoughts animate your emotions animate the many initiations you're going to have to go through life so you can go the many through the many transmutations this path the entrepreneurial path you know, quite often you get put through the ringer, you get put through initiations and you come out the other side and it's like you get new superpowers, so on and so forth.

6:15That takes a lot to go through that dark night of the soul. That's what we mean by vitality and staying vital through your life. And also they said, these are the herbs that you take if you spiritually want to cultivate a sense of who you really are essentially and be happy. And that's where I call saying not So a lot of people here in Fire Nation, they are interested in nature-based business models. Let's just get that straight. That's something that's very interesting to a lot of our listeners. And over the past 10 years, we've really seen this large increase in the amount of nature-based business models that have taken off.

6:52So talk about the challenges and obstacles that come when working with nature-based business models around these old world philosophies. I guess the challenge and the benefit is that you can't just hire anyone off the street. Like if you go to a recruiter, they're not always going to understand just how important it is someone, you know, of course we all prioritize culture and hiring for culture first a lot of the time. But when you go through that interview process, it's often if you don't have it really downloaded into a system of how to ensure that the people coming on board are willing to transform within themselves and that they are actually on a path of bettering themselves and not just a path of, you know, just like, I don't know, they're not just there for egoic gain.

7:42The business starts, the business chews them up and spits them out. And so you want to prevent that from happening and you don't like, and that's something I've kind of learned over the years is, you know, when people come in to step into Super Feast and which is a, you know, a nature-based system. and I kind of like treating it as an ecosystem that is self-regulating. Some people walk into it and get trapped and all of a sudden their shit gets brought up. And what you need within a nature-based system is extreme communication and information sharing generously because that's what nature does.

8:19And so that's one of the number one things within a system like this is the communication becomes very generous. people are not just calling each other out people are really like listening why did you do that there's so much accountability that people have no um no ability but to just like take responsibility and accountability themselves and if they're not ready for that that's probably the biggest that's the most difficult thing but also the best thing and uh and it been self-regulating not having to have like micromanagement within a system like this is uh yeah is the best and team that know that they're coming in and i i really think like it's something that i heard recently someone was like, you know, the team is like the heart and soul of a business.

8:57And I think it's a really unfair thing to say. And I think nature-based business models are bringing that back and going, no, this business has an evolutionary purpose. And that's what I see is like the core role of the CEO is guarding that evolutionary purpose that is a feeling. That's the muse I was talking about. And the team come in and animate roles and animate that purpose and animate the body of the business so it can fulfill its purpose. And there's a distinct difference between the soul of the business and the souls that we want to be bringing in and we want them bringing like all of themselves.

9:27That's probably the biggest distinction I like to bring when we talk about nature-based business models. Now you brought up the word CEO and I want to talk more about that when we get back from thanking our sponsors. If you're anything like me, then you're looking forward to a lot of outdoor time this summer. I'm talking about hitting the pool, going on epic hikes, and maybe even getting in a few pickleball matches. But in order to do all that, you and your team need to work smarter, not harder. That's why we're so excited about HubSpot's integrated AI tech. It's helping teams automate the more tedious parts of running a business.

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10:39CEO, Chief Executive Officer. In your opinion, what's the true role of a CEO? The CEO, as far as I'm concerned, is the guardian of the evolutionary purpose of the business. And the evolutionary purpose isn't like a mission statement that gets plucked out of... It's not a mental thing. The evolutionary purpose, you need to go back, whether you're the founder or whether you know the founder, you need to talk to them about what the feeling was and what the sense was when they first got like the idea. So it's almost like the idea, like the source idea of the business, their job, the job as CEO is to guard that with their life, guard that source idea and the pattern and personality that comes off that idea rather than going out and just, you know, and being profit focused, even though profit isn't a huge part.

11:30I kind of see profit as a profit and cash is like when we're talking about endowers terms, the chi that animates the business. You need an appropriate amount. And of course, I'm hugely focused on profit. I've got my brother in here, just started as finance manager. But my job is to guard that source idea and to constantly go back to it and make sure I can feel it and make sure I can sense it. Because if that muse leaves the business, then the business is screwed. So I really like how you were talking about protecting the enterprise's essence as the role of the CEO. And if you can really embrace that, Fire Nation, powerful things can happen.

12:06And Mason, Fire Nation is a tribe of entrepreneurs. So I want to talk about adaptogens specifically for entrepreneurs. Yeah. I mean, the good thing about what my business does with these Taoist tonic herbs is it includes adaptogens. These are the herbs that you take that helps the body regulate itself and potentiate itself. And it cultivates the life and makes life a lot easier. A lot of the time people, especially entrepreneurs, are already such like, I love working with entrepreneurs because they've got so much vitality already and they're on the lookout for the extra. They're not skeptical in the sense that, you know, like a lot of people are only skeptical about adaptogens and tonic herbs because they're like, I just don't think I believe how good they can be for the body.

12:50Whereas like the entrepreneurial tribe is and your tribe, Fire Nation is going to be like, they're on the hunt for the one percenters. And so when we look at the number one thing we're going to be looking at is that the mind, the body isn't going to be able to keep up with the mind. So we need to protect the essence of the physical body. And so that's where we go to the adaptogens, what are called the Jing herbs, J-I-N-G. They're the major ones to make sure that you are not kind of like Jing is the Jing and the adaptogenic herbs that we use. That's like the bank account. So it's kind of like, I kind of, you know, imagine the balance sheet.

13:31You want to be increasing the assets. You don't want to be going into deficit. But that's what people do with the physical body. And that's what the kidney essence is, the Jing. And that's what controls your brain function, your marrow, your bones, your lower back, your knees, your sexual drive, but your baseline energy, your capacity to go, go, go, go, go and have endurance. They're the Jing herbs. So they're the first ones that I'd like to see all entrepreneurs get onto, especially because if you can cultivate your Jing and not leak it, you're going to prevent the rapid degeneration, which we're seeing happen all around the world.

14:06The other ones, of course, the nootropics, they're my favorites. And, you know, it's been thousands and thousands of years that the nootropics have been used, like lion's mane, like ginkgo biloba. I put a formula together years ago, and it was actually for my mom because she'd had an aneurysm. And so she'd had a traumatic brain injury and I was looking to prevent her degenerating. So I created a formula called neural nectar with all my favorite nootropics, but I wasn't even focused on the nootropics. And then I started taking it when I was testing it. And I was like, oh my God, I'm on. Like my brain is firing.

14:38And that's because it's got good blood tonics and chi tonics. And you're going to start just getting really great circulation, like, you know, herbs like macuna in there, bringing you that, like bringing L-dopa so you get a nice kick of dopamine, so on and so forth. and all the other herbs that, you know, cultivating organ essence and health so that now what we relate to as brain health can thrive. And I was just like, oh my God, I've just accidentally created like one of the best nootropic formulas ever. And so that's always something that's probably the two, the Jing herbs and the nootropic herbs.

15:06They're the ones I think the entrepreneurs are going to, and then, and be mindful of where you get your adaptogens. Well, that's what I want to talk about next, because there's a lot of pros of medicinal mushrooms. But I also want people to be aware of some cons that can come with things along these lines. Because of course, you've got to do your own research, Fire Nation. Nothing that we're sharing here is like specific advice on what you should or should not do because everybody's in a different situation in health and life and wellness, et cetera. But what are some of those potential cons when it comes to medicinal mushrooms?

15:39So there's the first bit like where we just want to avoid the shit. And the stuff when it comes to medicinal mushrooms is obviously the stuff that is going to be grown on like GMO grain and the stuff that is using what's called the mycelium, which is the body of the mushroom. So when people grow mushrooms in labs, on grain, on oats, so on and so forth, what they're often doing is they're wanting to get to the cheap biomass. So they'll move away all the grains or the oats or the rice or whatever they're using. And then that'll become the bulk of the product. And so when you're taking medicinal mushrooms, you want the flavor to be popping.

16:12You don't want it to be white. You don't want it to be grainy. So just ask what you want is wood grown. So then after you go to wood grown, you then can start looking at like, you know, you're in, you're in, you're fine then pretty, pretty much just like, make sure you're taking a bit of some mushroom that's wood grown. But then after that, you want to be looking for the absolute best. And either the best is going to be something that's wild foraged. And if it's not wild foraged, you want something which is called what's called DDAO. So DDAO is an ancient sourcing philosophy that comes from the 2000 year old text that shows us where to grow and how to grow the herbs and mushrooms so that it's replicating the wild environment to the extent that we have the benefits that made these herbs famous to begin with.

16:59the difference there is going to be something that's lab grown and grown en masse that isn't going to be exposed to the wild it's not going to be exposed to extreme weather events so that it becomes highly adaptogenic and robust as a herb itself so that is the pinnacle when it comes to medicinal mushrooms it's called d-dow it's very hard source sourcing kind of style to do um and that's what i would that's what i'd recommend everyone to get to um and get into yeah that's and the medicinal mushrooms, let's just go back there. Like the reason why we want to be growing on wood is because when you get a mushroom eating its natural food source, which is wood and dead wood, it's going to be have higher, um, higher levels of these compounds, these immunological modulating compounds, like such as beta glucans.

17:44And that's when you start, actually, you're going to notice a difference and maybe you need to do that for yourself. Like these herbs are so spectacular at cultivating health. And the other thing about adaptogens and tonic herbs is the longer you take them over time, and not saying just more is better, but the longer you take them, they're a part of your life and they become like a lifestyle piece. It's the same way everyone approaches breath work or their exercise. Tonic herbs and medicinal mushroom kind of start falling into that category to generally keep you topped up, generally keep your, you know, within your lifestyle, generally keep you healthy and protected.

18:17The longer you do it, the longer you're going to benefit. But when you do start taking a lower grade product like a mushroom grown on grain or even like an adaptogenic herb that's just grown on mass in a farm and just kind of like got a little monoculture scenario going on, you're going to hit a glass ceiling very quickly. Whereas if you start taking a herb that's wild or grown what we call D-Dow, you're going to start feeling like after a month, after two months, not only you're not only going to hit like a glass ceiling you're going to take glass ceilings off yourself and off your potential because when you grow these herbs either collect them in the wild which is impossible sustainably that's why we moved to the ancient sourcing philosophy of d down that's where we work with independent farmers um so that they can you know so like it's hard you can't work with a big business that owns all the land you need to work with independent farmers that are creating the creme de la creme herbs and you need to pay them a premium which is what we do and we do that on mass and we're very proud of that when you work with these herbs you uh that are that are grown d dow that's when honestly man like you you go beyond the whole idea of like i just want more energy these herbs are there's a reason they've been famous for thousands of years and it's why you know the emperors and and the the affluent like were the ones that were like given all of the reishi and all of the schizandra and all of the astragalas it was it was like they didn't want everyone to have it or there just wasn't enough they didn't have the capacity to do it but there's a reason they've been so treasured and it's because when you do start taking them over time when they're sourced in this way you can feel the regulatory capacity their ability to bring your body back into harmony but it's almost like they are a friend and they can help teach your body how to bring itself back into harmony more and more and more.

20:11The Jing herbs like that we were talking about, cordyceps is a key Jing herb and medicinal mushroom that everyone knows about. If you get a premium cordyceps, it doesn't have to be the wild one, you can feel what it does to upgrading your kidney system to help it not only balance itself in the yin yang chi sense, which we talk about in Taoism, but just your endurance and your physical capacity. When you take it over time and you pair it up with all the other good lifestyle things, you start accessing one, two, three, four, 5 % extra output, recovery, so on and so forth. Why? Is it the herb doing it?

20:48Yeah, in the beginning it is, but then this is where I want everyone listening to realize that there is another world where this stops becoming just a product that you take, that you start engaging with tonic herbalism and taking these herbs long-term, like I know you have been with medicinal mushrooms, you start affecting the constitution. These mushrooms and these herbs are so incredible at fortifying the constitution, fortifying your capacity to regulate your nervous system, your hormonal system, your immune system massively. Like all those last few years when everyone, when they were putting out, you know, when they were putting out lots of types of different medicines into the world, we should have had mushrooms en masse to protect everyone immunologically.

21:28And that's what's going to happen in the future. 100 % because the research coming in is just and the amount of like, I had the best business with the kind of and you know what it's like when you work in a business where you're like, what's a technical term net promoter score, when your people are like, frothing on the results that they're getting, and you just get to live in just like this awesome feedback coming in. That's the best feedback I would get it all the time. We're in winter at the moment, nonstop, I've been doing it for 12 years is just especially like moms and dads during this busy time of life when they've got a couple of kids and they're like, oh my God, everyone used to get sick and go down hard and take a few weeks.

22:02They start getting onto medicinal mushrooms. They don't just take them in to have immunity. It becomes a part of their life, becomes a part of their lifestyle. They start putting the mushrooms in like smoothies or moms. The best one is moms putting them in like spaghetti bolognese and soups and things. That's what we call Trojan horsing them into the family. Mason, your passion is undeniable for mushrooms. This is why you are the mushroom entrepreneur. You will literally talk all day nonstop without even taking a breath. And it's awesome to see because Fire Nation, when you're this passionate about something, you will also talk nonstop without taking a breath because you just can't say enough about what you love, what you're passionate about.

22:39So for those people that are listening and they're like, I want to hear Mason talk nonstop without taking a breath for the rest of the day, week, month, and year. Where can Fire Nation go, Mason, to consume more content from you, to connect with you? Where do they go? What is your call to action for Fire Nation? Yeah, head over to superfeast.com. We've got lots of videos, links to our Super Feast podcast there. And yeah, you've probably got a year's worth of me talking at this pace over there. That's so cool. Fire Nation, you're the average of those five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with MT and JLD today.

23:18So let's keep up that heat and head over to eofire.com. Type Mason in the search bar. The show notes page will pop up with everything we talked about. And Mason, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, and passion with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation. A huge thank you to our sponsors and Mason for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation. Successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days, step by step. Visit thefreedomjournal.com and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side.

24:01The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more. One of my favorite recent episodes is titled How I've Built an Unmatched Team Culture, an insanely important topic for all business owners to dive into. Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts.