Ari Katz. Exited Founder: Why Psychedelics as My New Venture

Mar 21

Episode - 19

Ari Katz, he teamed up with his celebrity doctor wife to create and sell one of the largest dermatology chains in the US. The exit afforded him the time and resources to explore his longstanding obsession with mental health. Ari’s new purpose? To revolutionize mental health care by advancing the psychedelic medicine movement. In this inspirational episode, Ari opens up about his journey from business exit to a life filled with meaning and fulfillment, driven by a powerful new purpose.

What We Discussed:

00:00:00: Introduction to Psychedelics and Mental Health

00:00:07: Ari Katz's Beginnings and Dermatology Business

00:01:17: A Warm Welcome to Ari

00:01:36: Shifting careers from Dermatology to Psychedelics

00:01:49: Challenges of Running a Successful Dermatology Business

00:02:51: Balancing Personal and Professional life

00:07:40: Handling Liquidity Events Post-Pandemic

00:13:56: Passing of Roots to Forefront

00:14:33: Ari's Departure from Forefront

00:16:43: Introduction to Ari's New Mental Health Focused Business

00:17:39: Ari's Personal Reflection Journey

00:18:31: A Down Moment Leading to Inspiration of New Path.

00:20:17: Struggling with Mental Health

00:21:26: Seeking Therapy and Medication

00:22:55: Diagnosed with Adult ADHD

00:23:16: Search for Natural Alternatives

00:24:04: Discovering and Using Nootropics

00:24:59: Self Realization and Improvement

00:26:36: Starting New Business "Roar"

00:27:33: Offering of Psychedelics in Mental Health

00:27:50: Psychedelics as a Catalyst

00:30:51: Psychedelics Experience and Spiritual Connection

00:33:00: Ketamine as an Entry Point

00:35:26: Ketamine and Neuroplasticity

00:38:50: Achieving Neuroplasticity Through Psychedelic Medication

00:40:54: Ketamine therapy compared to other psychedelics

00:42:15: Journey of psychedelic experiences

00:49:17: Impact of global crises on mental health

00:51:41: Shift to focusing on mental health solutions

00:56:39: Redefining personal success

00:58:05: Concept of success today

00:58:27: Changing perceptions of success

01:00:29: Definition of daily success

01:01:53: Introduction to his new business venture

01:03:03: Discussion on his continued medication and therapy

01:06:23: Shifts in social interaction after parting ways with his company

01:11:23: Choosing the right people to surround oneself with

01:15:14: Making decisions about the people you spend time with

01:16:19: Ari's purpose and meaning in life.

01:17:24: Acknowledging individual gifts and skills

01:18:12: Reflections on personal fulfillment

01:18:48: Insights on personal satisfaction and success beyond financial accomplishments

01:23:14: How material success does not guarantee happiness

01:26:49: Fulfillment from spending time with loved ones

01:27:23: Reflections on personal lessons since selling a company

01:33:43: The importance of living a life of purpose.

01:36:21: Acknowledging Anastasia's Contribution to Entrepreneurs

01:37:35: The Role of Luck and Hard Work in Entrepreneurial Success

01:39:01: Closing Conversation and Future Plans

Ari Katz: [00:00:00 - 00:00:07]
So many different psychedelics are being studied right now, and they are all moving swiftly through the approval process.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:00:07 - 00:00:37]
Ari Katz. He teamed up with his celebrity to Dr. Wife to create and sell one of the largest dermatology chains in the US. The exit afforded him the time and resources to explore his long standing obsession with mental health. Ari's new purpose, to revolutionize mental health care by advancing the psychedelic medicine movement. In this inspirational episode, Ari opens up about his journey from business exit to a life filled with meaning and fulfillment, driven by a powerful new purpose.

Ari Katz: [00:00:38 - 00:01:16]
We're in the worst mental health crisis of all time, and it ain't getting any better. None of us were born depressed or angry. You don't come out of your mother's womb crying because you're angry or depressed. You're crying because you missed what you left behind. It's not great to have to rely on all these pharmaceutical drugs. That's what ultimately led me to discover psychedelic medicine as an alternative in the mental health space. It's scary. It's like jumping out of a freaking airplane. I was rewired and reset like a computer that after 40 years, unplugged, reboot. And all of a sudden, it works well again.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:17 - 00:01:19]
Hi, Ari.

Ari Katz: [00:01:19 - 00:01:21]
Hi there, Anastasia. How are you?

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:21 - 00:01:36]
I'm very well. Extremely excited about having you in the studio today because you are my favorite expert in psychedelics, and that's a very hot topic in the post exit community, as you know very well.

Ari Katz: [00:01:36 - 00:01:49]
I would hardly call myself an expert in psychedelics, but I'm happy to share my story with you. And it is. It's an industry right now, and there's a space and a movement there that's happening that's, I think, really exciting. So I'm just happy to be a part of it.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:49 - 00:02:34]
So you and your celebrity dermatologist wife created this amazing business, which was one of the largest dermatology networks in the country. You guys got every award I think you possibly could. And obviously, your wife is a highly respected doctor. So I can only imagine that selling something like this would have a huge impact on you, on your relationship, on your family. And today I really want to dig deeper into how you dealt with all these challenges, how you face them, what you've learned, and if there are any tools that you can share with us that would be helpful for people going through similar challenge, that would be absolutely amazing, and I know you have them.

Ari Katz: [00:02:34 - 00:02:51]
First of all, I appreciate you saying it. And I will say my wife deserves all of the credit for starting this business. She's the founder and without her, there was no spurling dermatology. And I simply tried to latch on and lean into what I felt was my lane of expertise to support her business. And we were very fortunate with the outcome.

Ari Katz: [00:02:51 - 00:07:40]
So I guess I could get right into the story, if you want, of what it was like kind of working with my wife. I think it's a tale as old as time, right? Working with family, especially to a husband and a wife working together, there's a lot of challenges that exist, especially when you're also, at the same time, you're starting a business, you're raising a family. We have three small children. We're very blessed.And starting a business together meant that you kind of had to compartmentalize the way you work together. And so on the one hand, you're talking about who's making dinner tonight, who's taking the kids to school tomorrow and who's booking the doctor's appointment. And in most of those cases, it was my wife. My wife, my wife because she's amazing and she's multitalented and all that. But I still try to do my part.
I take out the garbage. But I will say that at the same time that you're trying to manage a household and a family and the general duties that come along with raising young children, you're also trying to build a business together. And I think that presents a lot of challenges because when you have colleagues at work, you generally can keep those colleagues at work. And the exchanges you have can be focused exclusively on the professional kind of decisions you need to make around the business. But when that person that you're making those decisions with is also the person you come down and have dinner with every night and get into bed with every night and wake up with every morning, there's a lot more ramifications. And so trying to find the balance between, as my wife likes to talk about it, like, we try to be partners in life and we try to be partners in raising our kids and building our family and also in building the business. And it was always a balancing act of how to do that, both kind of on a personal level, respectfully and in a supportive fashion. But also when it came to the business, there were many times that we kind of disagreed with what the right move was. And in some cases, we went with kind of what she was leaning towards, and we played it out. And in some cases, we went with what I was leaning towards. And I think what I found was that at the end of the day, when you have a great relationship with your spouse, and with your business partner, too. In our case, it was all about trust, and that trust needs to be earned. That's not trust. That just happens on day one. It's trust that over time, you're able to establish, based on proving that the decisions that you're making and the things that you're kind of leaning into end up panning out. And in our case, you're talking about my wife, who's a very conventional, traditional doctor. She's a board certified dermatologist. But like with most doctors, she doesn't have a background in business. She was never trained on kind of the business side of running a medical practice. She was trained on how to treat skincare issues and dermatological issues, and that's what she's an expert in. So when I came into the business and started talking about marketing and sales, it was very foreign to her in a lot of ways. And I think in a lot of ways, it made her slightly uncomfortable, because all of a sudden, you had this kind of sales guy in the room who was talking about, well, how can we get more money out of our patients? Right? And that sounds really raw, and it sounds dirty from a doctor standpoint, but for me, it was like, well, we have all these great treatments, we have all these great services, and if our patients want them, why would we let them go anywhere else, let them come to us? And it was kind of with that mindset that we started expanding her practice from being a traditional dermatology practice to becoming what ultimately became the number one body sculpting provider in the country that's not normally associated with dermatology. We were focused on fat reduction treatments and muscle toning treatments and skin tightening. And those were things that prior to this new wave of aesthetics, used to really only happen at the plastic surgery office. And so when we introduced that into the derm world, it created a little bit of an uncomfortable situation, because, again, here was someone who spent the last ten years of her life focused on very traditional dermatology services, skincare, aesthetics, Botox and filler. And here I was saying, well, this is great opportunity in fat reduction. And she's like, well, what the heck does fat reduction have to do with dermatology? And so it was about earning her trust. It was about walking before we would run. And I think that with Sherry and I, it was always about recognizing, because we were aimed to be partners. It was never about forcing anything down the other person's throat in terms of, we're going to do it my way or we're going to do it your way. It was about doing it together and getting comfortable on both ends. Me being comfortable kind of working with a doctor in a traditional setting, and her being comfortable, allowing me to implement some kind of creative sales tactics to help grow the business. And to her credit, she was totally supportive the whole way. And I think, to the credit of God, we were able to be very successful at it.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:07:40 - 00:07:54]
Fantastic. So how did you together handle your liquidity events? How did you react? How did you find your common ground?

Ari Katz: [00:07:55 - 00:11:38]
Yeah, it was a journey, honestly. I think that for us, our particular story, and I think it's like a lot of other founders you've spoken with, you go back to COVID-19 and the pandemic. And I think that what's really interesting is thinking back to that time, how it was a fork in the road. I think for just about everyone who lived through it, it was an opportunity where you either were going to face some really big challenges because of the pandemic. And in other cases, a really big opportunity was created. And I feel very blessed that for us, it was the latter. And we were able to take advantage of the fact that for the three months where there was this big lockdown, everyone was kind of basically sitting, not a lot of cash, because the government kind of flowed some money in to the economy. People were not able to go to the gym because the gym was closed. People were eating a little bit too much. People were getting on Zoom, and they were having this thing called Zoom face where they kind of wanted to look a little better on camera. And what all of that led to was a lot of pent up demand for non invasive aesthetic services, which was exactly what we catered to. And so during the three months of the lockdown, we kind of sat tight. We sat on our hands. We actually made a major investment during COVID which was to purchase a sprinter van, which we converted to a mobile spa. And by the time we launched, coming out of the lockdown, the demand was so high that our business just started peaking. And I think from that moment on, that's when we engaged with our broker, physicians, growth partners. Ezra Simons was our lead kind of partner on the deal. And he, from that moment on, just kind of said to us, guys, there's a real opportunity here to have an exit, and there's a lot of interested parties out there. And I think for Sherry and I, it was kind of getting our heads around the fact that this is real and there's real interest, and we really need to take this opportunity seriously. And so for the next six months, we kind of buckled down. I remember I said to her on a Friday afternoon after having a call with my broker, and he, you know, there's a lot of interested parties out there, and there's people who are getting ready to put some lois in front of you. And I said to Shari, I had just had a shot of tequila, and I said, shar, like, give me six months to focus on getting this deal done. And I said, I'll take us to the promised land. Just kind of let me focus on this. And it was kind of to your point about working with a husband wife situation, I kind of said, you take the kids, you take the family. Let me just focus exclusively on getting us to the finish line. And when we realized that that was a possibility, I think it created a sense of priority that said, all right, let's see where this thing can go. So navigating down that path together was challenging. I think going back there, what I remember specifically is that for my wife, as a doctor, she had been told kind of her whole career that selling your practice was really bad. Right? Selling to private equity was bad. They were going to change the whole brand that you had built, and now you're going to be working for someone. And I think naturally, she was very hesitant around kind of that idea. And she had a lot of preconceived notions about kind of the negative side to selling. And so I had to kind of quell those concerns. And that was, again, I was a first time founder, ultimate seller, too. And so I was new to it as well. And we were just kind of trying to get advice from really smart people that we put around us. And I think in the end, we really tried to lean into a partnership that we felt would set us up for success. And I think we were very fortunate to find that with the parent company, a forefront dermatology, who ended up acquiring us in June of 21.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:11:38 - 00:11:40]
How was your exit structured?

Ari Katz: [00:11:40 - 00:13:56]
Yeah, so when we kind of went down the path of marketing our business, we ended up kind of getting under NDA with about 40 different potential buyers. And through those 40 NDAs, we sent out a deck that they were able to review about the business. And we said, anyone who wants to have a call with me as the managing partner of the business, let us know. And so out of the 40 NDAs that were signed, eight of those people ended up requesting calls with me, where I walked them through the deck and had about an hour conversation. And all eight of those calls resulted in hard offers. Seven of the offers we got were from private equity, which kind of looked like a traditional private equity offer, which was kind of a small bite of the apple up front with a big know down the road, if we were able to kind of replicate the success we know started in New Jersey and New York and take it across the country, there'd be a lot more success down the road in that end. But at the same time, we also knew that private equity was a know. It was a little bit more of a cutthroat partnership when you talk, know the way that those guys like to operate. And at the same time that we had seven offers from private equity, we had one offer from a strategic buyer, and that was forefront dermatology. And we looked at their offer and it was extremely competitive on the numbers.
And what we really asked ourselves was, who would we rather work for with? Do we want to work with a bunch of private equity guys who are really focused on the bottom line, which is not a bad thing, it's just something that they focus on, or do we want to work with forefront dermatology, that is founded by a dermatologist and is a network of 200 physician owned practices across the country. And honestly, it was not a very hard decision for us. We knew right off the bat that our style and the lifestyle we were looking to kind of have for ourselves would be a lot more achievable by partnering with a group like forefront that was going to be a lot more supportive, had a lot more experience, know growing businesses like ours, and at the end of the day, knowing that Sherry as a doctor would likely stay there for a very long time, because, again, why would she leave? I really wanted to set her up for long term success.

Ari Katz: [00:13:56 - 00:14:30]
And for me, that was partnering her with 200 other dermatologists just like her that had started their practices and exited their practices and would serve as a great supportive network for her in the next phase of her journey. So I was really thinking a lot about what would be best for her and then secondly, what would be best for me, but also knowing that, I thought I could kind of survive in either scenario, but I really wanted to focus on what would set the practice up for success and what would set her up for kind of a good, high quality life, knowing where we are in our lives.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:14:31 - 00:14:33]
So are you still involved with forefront?

Ari Katz: [00:14:33 - 00:16:43]
Good question. So I stayed on for about two years, and it was a very tough kind of macro environment that we were dealing with. When I was running the company, we were dealing with an environment that kind of the economy was in a really good place, and there was a lot of money flowing into the neighborhoods we were in, and people wanted their services, and they spent a lot of money on making themselves look good. And the business was flying and kind of post COVID while we had that great surge that kind of led to our sale. Right after that, there were some changes in the market that really changed the overall opportunity within body sculpting. One of the big changes was Ozempic came out right. So where we were in a market serving cool sculpting as a fat reduction treatment that had, I would say, not dramatic results, but really solid results. If you had good expectations, now there came to market a pill that you put on your tongue, and you would lose all this weight very quickly. And it was a lot more affordable than cool sculpting in a lot of ways. And so when that happened, kind of the whole market beneath us shifted, and that changed kind of the direction of the business. And through that process, it started to become very apparent that my skill set on the sales and marketing end of driving leads and nurturing those leads and creating this kind of sales funnel was not going to be a sustainable model for the business. And we started to kind of revert back to a more conventional style where we were really servicing medical and cosmetic derm needs. And that was a business that just didn't benefit as much from someone like me. And so through that process, I worked closely with the parent company, and it came to a point where we kind of had a mutual agreement, and the decision was made that they were going to release me from my contract and allow me to kind of pursue anything in a non competitive way to them and to their credit. I think we both realized it was time and they did what they had to do, and I felt like I did what I had to do. And I'm very, very happy that it worked out the way it did, because it allowed me to kind of start my new business that I'm running right now and couldn't be more excited about it.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:16:43 - 00:17:06]
So, Ari, I know that you were extremely interested in mental health way before you sold your company, and then it looked like you finally had the time and the financial freedom to actually focus on it. And I want to hear the story how you came to this particular business model that you're doing now, and if you can tell us a little bit more about it.

Ari Katz: [00:17:07 - 00:17:39]
Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely a story that kind of has, like, a little bit of a roller coaster, a lot of ups and downs. So when I sold my company, there was a real shift in kind of what took up space in my brain, I would say. And I think that up until I was 40 years old, when I sold my company, and up until that point, I think, like just about everyone I know, I was fully focused on. When you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I was right at that bottom level.

Ari Katz: [00:17:39 - 00:18:31]
I was like, how do I make enough money to support my family, to pay know, mortgage, to pay for private day school, for my know, to be able know, put a roof over my head, essentially? And that's kind of when I think about my friends and the people I know, it's like that's what everyone's thinking about. That's just normal. And when you sell your business and you go from a position where your entire, every decision you're making is rooted in kind of ultimately some financial interest to now you have financial freedom, and you're in a position where you no longer have to be a slave to the money, so to speak. For me, all of this room opened up in my brain, and I started having a lot more space out there to say, okay, take a step back from kind of everything I've done for the last 40 years, and let's kind of reset and reflect on what am I doing here?

Ari Katz: [00:18:31 - 00:20:17]
What's my purpose? What's my meaning? How can I be the best version of me, I think, was ultimately the question I started asking. And it was a very personal, reflective journey that I kind of set forth on from the time I sold my business. And it actually started with a very down moment for me, which was we sold the business in June of 21, and we had plans that summer to take the kids out to Lake Tahoe and to Yosemite National park, which for us, spending time in the great outdoors has been like a godsend. It's just the most incredible way to experience the beauty of this earth and kind of the amazing gifts that God has given us. The beautiful mountains, the landscapes. And you go out to nature, and you're really able to experience that. So I've been very big on taking my kids out to these beautiful spots created by God. And we were out in Lake Tahoe, which is one of the most beautiful kind of areas in the west. And I remember it was a Friday afternoon, and we were sitting outside right as sundown was coming, and it was golden hour. It was like one of the most beautiful golden hours I'd ever seen. I was 60 days out from selling my company, which I've always described like the way a young girl dreams of her wedding day. And from the time she's a little girl, she thinks about how pretty she's going to look and what a beautiful day it's going to be, and she's going to be like the queen. For me, selling my company was like the wedding day I had dreamed of since I was a kid. It was about my whole life, reading stories about tech and Silicon Valley and the excitement around building and exiting a business. And I had just done that. So here I was sitting in Lake Tahoe, the most beautiful setting in the world. I had my three kids around me. I felt like the most blessed.

Ari Katz: [00:20:17 - 00:21:26]
I felt the most grateful. I was in such a state of awe to God for putting me in this position. Yet at the same time that I was experiencing this ultimate high, I also was experiencing this ultimate low. And I felt myself falling into a deep state of depression because I started in my head to convince myself that it can't get better than this. And this must be how my story ends. Like, this is me riding off into the sunset, and it's all downhill from here. And I started having some really deep, dark thoughts about what might be next for me. And it was depressing. I don't even want to share with you the thoughts, because they were. I started, my mind started wandering down these dark paths. And I remember I was in tears. And I said to my wife, I said to Sherry, I need to do something about this. This is not healthy. Like, what's wrong with me? Why am I in this position where I have everything I could ever ask for, yet all I can think about is how nervous I am for what comes next, or things that have not occurred yet are concerning to me, like, I got to live in the moment, what is going on right now.

Ari Katz: [00:21:26 - 00:22:55]
And that was the moment that I decided I was really going to start to seek help. And so my wife comes from a family of therapists and mental health professionals, and our whole marriage, she would always encourage me to get a therapist and consider going on medication just to kind of help level me off. And I was always resistant to it. I was always resistant to antidepressants because as a natural born sales guy, I felt like my energy was my godly gift, and I didn't want to dull my energy with an antidepressant. And in Tahoe, when I started realizing I really do have a problem, it was kind of like, you have to admit you have a problem before you're ready to seek out a solution. And I admitted I had a problem, and I made the decision. I was going to come home and start seeing a therapist, and I would be open to anything from that point on. And that's what happened. I came home in September of 21, and I got connected with a great therapist who really ended up being a lifesaver for me in terms of just navigating this newfound foundation of life and situation I found myself in. And through her, I got connected with a psychiatrist who ultimately diagnosed me with mild anxiety and depression, which is, for those of you who don't know, it's like a very basic diagnosis. It's not like, severe. Most people probably would qualify. And through that diagnosis, I got put on ssris. I got put on Prozac and wellbutrin. So these are medications that help kind of alter a little bit of the way you perceive the world and the way things affect you.

Ari Katz: [00:22:55 - 00:23:15]
It kind of dulls you a little bit. And that's not a great thing. I'm not going to sit here and say, that's awesome, but what I will say is it started me out on this journey towards finding the best version of me. And so I went from therapy, medication, ultimately, I got diagnosed with adult ADHD, which anyone who knows me is not a surprise. I got put on Adderall.

Ari Katz: [00:23:16 - 00:24:04]
And through those journeys, I started to realize, well, you know what? These medications aren't great either. It's not great to have to rely on all these pharmaceutical drugs to find your lane. So then I started to pull back and say, well, what are some natural alternatives to these things? And so for something like Adderall, that was killing me because I couldn't sleep at night. So while I was really productive during the day, I wasn't eating and I wasn't sleeping at night. So I said, there's got to be a better way. So I started researching online, and I found a company called thesis. And thesis is a company out in New York that utilizes what are called adaptogens and nootropics, which are basically natural alternatives to these brain stimulants that give you the same kind of focused attention that something like Adderall could give you, but without any of the downsides. So you can sleep at night, you can eat throughout the day.

Ari Katz: [00:24:04 - 00:24:59]
And so I immediately said, let me try these, and you can buy them online. And they have different kind of packaging. This one's for focus, this one's for logic, this one's for creativity. And I said, these things could be really great. And so I bought them and I started using them.
And it's like, damn, I don't need Adderall. Anymore. So bye bye, Adderall. And I then started thinking about my caffeine intake and how that could be affecting me. And I found a drink called magic mind, which was utilizing matcha. I thought about alcohol and how that was affecting me, and I found a drink that kind of gave you a little bit of a buzz with no alcohol and no cannabis. And I just started looking at alternatives to what I was currently doing to say there might be something better out there. I just need to look. And I felt like that is what the financial freedom gave me. It gave me the ability to focus on me, focus on my journey, focus on how could I be the best me.

Ari Katz: [00:24:59 - 00:26:36]
And I'll tell you, Anastasia, that for me, the know recognition I came to was, if I really want to be the best version of me for everyone else, I need to take care of me first. I need to create the best version of me so that if I want to be for everyone else, I need to be for me first. And one of the books that really resonated with me was called the second Mountain. And I know it's a very popular book with post exit founders, which is really just the concept that most people spend their whole life trying to climb that first mountain. And the first mountain is personal kind of security, success, financially, taking care of your family, your wife, your kids, et cetera. And most people spend their whole life climbing that mountain. And good for them and keep going, and you'll get there. For those of us fortunate enough to summit or to peak that mountain, what you have is an opportunity to, again, make a decision. One option you have is to just look back to the mountain you just climbed and admire it and say, wow, what a mountain. I can't believe I did that. And for someone who's maybe 75, 80, 80 years old during their exit, maybe that's the right thing for them, is look back and be proud of what you've built, be proud of what you've left behind, and ride off into the sunset. Good for you. For other people, and especially me being 40 years old, you look out into the distance and you say, there's another mountain, and that's way bigger. Let's go climb that mountain. And that mountain, according to the book, is generally a mountain that's more rooted in community centric and world centric and doing something bigger than just you.

Ari Katz: [00:26:36 - 00:27:32]
And for me, that was kind of a mindset that ultimately led me to take the experience that I had in my own journey of navigating this kind of personal wellness path. It allowed me to think about that and ultimately led me to start my new business now, which is really rooted in giving people the same breakthrough that I was able to experience with psychedelic medicine, bringing that to the masses, because when I went down that path, that's what ultimately led me to discover psychedelic medicine as an alternative in the mental health space. And without that two year deep dive, I never would have found it. And so the way I looked at it was if it took me two years of complete financial freedom and focused dedication to find this remedy, most people don't have that opportunity. They don't have two years. They're busy. So I said, how can I bring them to it without requiring that two year journey? And that's what my new company, Roar, is all about.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:27:33 - 00:27:50]
So let's talk a little bit more about that on the practical side of things. Like I come to you, I'm an exited founder, I'm confused, I'm depressed. What is it you would offer me from the psychedelics world, which you are sure from your experience actually works?

Ari Katz: [00:27:50 - 00:30:51]
Yeah. So I think that the key with psychedelics, and it's really the key with any type of mental health exercise, let's call it, is that it's not a magic silver bullet. It's not a pill that you're going to put on your tongue and you're going to change overnight. I look at psychedelics as a catalyst. The way I kind of like to describe it is there's a door, and behind that door is the best version of you. Let's just say that very kind of high level what psychedelics is going to do is it's going to elevate you to a level that you could see the door. And psychedelics is going to actually unlock that door, but you still have to walk all the way over to the door. You need to open it, you need to walk through it. And the way I describe a psychedelic experience, and this sounds scary, but it's not meant to be. It's really meant to be the authentic, raw experience that it really is, which is talk about that mountain example, right? You're climbing that mountain, you look back, you see everyone you love right down there, all the things you know, all the things you're comfortable with, all your safe space is down below. And you just climb that mountain and then you look out the other side of the mountain and it's like black and cloudy and scary, and you don't know what's what. And what you have to do to have the best experience and the best outcomes with psychedelic medicine is you need to jump off that mountain in the direction of the darkness, in the direction of the unknown. And when we talk about kind of the best success metrics, when it comes to psychedelic medicine, the first thing is being able to release control. And to me, from a founder standpoint or an exited founder standpoint, we're so used to being in control. We're so used to not taking our hands off the wheel. In my case, in my business, the best success actually happened when I started to release control, when I started to delegate around me and empower those around me and put them in positions to lead. And my business thrived when I started to pull back. And to me, that's not a surprise when you really think about it, the more you can only lift what you can lift. But when you have ten amazing people around you and you put them in a position to be successful and you pull back a little, now everyone can lift more. And with psychedelics, I think that's kind of what prepared me for taking that leap of faith, was recognizing I can't do this to, I want to seek. I'm a seeker. I want to see what's out there. And it was this natural curiosity that really allowed me to take that leap, which when I share that story with people, they're like, oh, my God, Ari, that's terrifying. I'm like, it's not for everyone, and I'm not trying to sell you on it. When you're ready, you'll know. But for me, it was a life changing experience. I'm a religious jew. I believe in God. I've always believed in God.

Ari Katz: [00:30:51 - 00:33:00]
But what this experience allowed me to experience was a connection to the spiritual realm in this universe that I had never, in all of my days of prayers and meditation and learning and really, like, spiritual. I'm a spiritual person, naturally, but I never experienced anything like this. And when I came back from my experience, it was as if I had just put on a brand new pair of glasses, and everything looked different, and everything felt different, and I was rewired and reset like a computer that after 40 years, unplugged, reboot, and all of a sudden, it works well again. And that's kind of how I felt. And so for a founder, and it's interesting that we're talking psychedelics, because I know in the founder space, a lot of the boom right now is happening in Silicon Valley, people like Elon Musk and Sergey Brin. And, you know, there's plenty of very successful public CEOs who have talked about how psychedelics have really changed their life. And I think some of them are speaking from a recreational standpoint and some are speaking from a mental health context. But I know that in general, what I found is that entrepreneurs are the seekers, right? They're the ones searching for more, searching for meaning. And when they have this liquidity event, if they're like me, that's where they start looking. They say, what is my purpose? What is my meaning? And once you start down that journey, you go swimming a little bit. You eventually find psychedelics, and you're like, oh, jeez, now I got to make a decision. Am I really serious about this?
Because if I'm really serious about figuring out the answers to this question, then I'm going to have to really completely let go and jump. And it really separates those who are ready for that jump from those who are not, because it's scary. It's like jumping out of a freaking airplane. Anastasia. And I think if I would have known how scary it was, it would have been harder to do. But I didn't focus on that. I said, let's see what happens. And it was the best decision I could have made.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:33:00 - 00:33:15]
Incredible. Incredible. So for somebody who hasn't tried psychedelics, what's the best one to start with, in your opinion? And I'm talking about people from our sort of universe of exited founders.

Ari Katz: [00:33:15 - 00:35:26]
Yeah. So I can be honest with you and say that, first of all, I am not a psychedelic expert. I'm happy to connect you with a few people who are. What I can tell you is that in America right now, the only legal psychedelic that you can use is ketamine. And so there are a number of ketamine clinics across the country, and there are a number of telehealth providers that will send you a lozenger version that you put under your tongue, which is what I had. And you could do that from the safety and comfort of your home. And then there's iv clinics where you can go and get this intravenously. But of course, there are a ton of other. First of all, the clinical studies that are happening right now in the space know every day there's another breakthrough, whether it's MDMA, ecstasy, psilocybin, lsd. So many different psychedelics are being studied right now, and they are all moving swiftly through the approval process. You already have psilocybin legalized in Oregon and in Colorado and a few other states are really around the corner. They say that New Jersey, where I live, will be kind of selling magic mushrooms by the end of the year. And so you have a movement right now that's happening. And I think that in order to fully recognize the power of that, there's going to be a menu of options that are going to become available. Right now, ketamine is the only one. If you want to experience some of these other psychedelics, you have to go overseas. And ayahuasca is something that a lot of people talk about as being life changing. I don't know enough about this stuff, but what I find is that ketamine was an entry point for me. It opened the door, and now I'm in this space. And now there might be 20 levels deeper. But getting to the first level, from my limited perspective might have been the hardest, because it's taking that leap of faith. Once you've done it, once, you're no longer afraid. And so ketamine is a phenomenal option for people. And the main reason why is that all psychedelics are known to kind of put your brain in a state of neuroplasticity. And what that means is that it's taking all of these neural connections that your brain has established and strengthened over the course of your life, and it's breaking them down.

Ari Katz: [00:35:26 - 00:38:50]
And so let's take a very classic example of a young girl or a young boy who remembers when they were five years old, they saw a dog, and the dog started barking at them, and boom. They were terrified. They thought they were going to get eaten. They ran to their mommy. They hid, and now for the next 50 years, they're, like, terrified of dogs. Let's take a step back. And I'm not a scientist, I'm not a doctor, but my understanding is the reason why that plays out that way is because when you're five years old, you make this connection in your brain. You make this association with a dog. The dog barks, you get scared. Your brain says, okay, dog barking equals scary. Make a connection. And every time you see a dog again, your brain says, my job is to protect you, Ari. So I'm going to build that connection even stronger. Dog scary, stay away. Dog scary, stay away. And over time, that connection gets so strengthened that by the time you're 45, 50 years old, you can't be in an elevator with a dog because you're so terrified and your brain is trying to protect you. It's like the same way when a girl breaks up with you and she says, we need to talk, and you're like, I know what that means, right? Your brain knows. You know what's next. I see a dog. I know what's next. Over time, your brain makes these really strong connections. And that's a good thing. That's good that your brain does that. It protects you. If, you know, you touch the oven when it's hot, you're going to get burned. You're not going to do it again. Your brain reminds you it knows. But sometimes the way you experience things is not an accurate portrayal of what happened, so to speak. Or there's an alternative way to look at it. And in the case of the dog, it might have been a cute little chihuahua, but you remember it as like a bloodhound because that's how you experienced it. And so what ketamine and psychedelic medicine do is they relax your brain to a state of what's called neuroplasticity, which is like this most relaxed state of mind where all of those neural pathways that have been so tightly connected for 40 years, they start to break down and you're able to build new pathways. And the way I would describe what would happen to a person like this in this psychedelic journey is you'd start with intention setting. You'd say like, what am I here for? Right? And sometimes you don't even know why you're there. But let's say you say, I'm here to figure out why I'm so scared of dogs, right? In this journey that you'd have, you would then go back to that five year old experience that you had and you would actually see it, how it actually happened, perhaps if you're lucky, right? If that comes to you, what you'd see is that was a chihuahua. He was actually just licking me and I got so freaking scared and there was no reason to get scared.

Ari Katz: [00:38:00 - 00:38:13]
And look how cute it is. And wait a second, why am I so scared? Wait, I don't have to be scared of dogs at all. And you have this whole experience, and then as the medicine wears off, you come back and you're like, what the hell have I been doing for the last 40 years? What's wrong with me?

Ari Katz: [00:38:13 - 00:38:29]
Come here, little pup. And you want to pet them. And you're like, this is not scary. And they talk about people with addiction, whether it's eating addiction, alcohol, whatever, as it's like a habit that they can't break. Every time I get depressed, I need to drink.

Ari Katz: [00:38:29 - 00:38:50]
Every time I get nervous, I need to eat. And when you go through a period of neuroplasticity where you're able to reset and reexamine these things in your life, you look at them from an outside perspective and you're like, dude, you're 300 pounds. Your doctor told you you had a 30% chance of a cardiac event in the next year. Why are you eating? You need to go on a diet.

Ari Katz: [00:38:50 - 00:40:54]
You need to get healthy, you need to exercise. And that same person heard that same message a week ago, but it didn't resonate because they're so stuck in this loop we call life. And when you have an experience with psychedelic medicine, and there's other ways to achieve neuroplasticity too, by the way. Not just through psychedelic medicine, you could get through breath work or meditation. Psychedelic medicine is just one way to get there. But when you actually reset and reconsider these aspects of yourself, you start to see it like an outsider. And in many cases you're like, I have a lot of work to do. I have a lot of work to do. And Anastasia, I'll say that someone recently asked me what was it like doing ketamine assisted therapy? And I said, you know what it was like looking in the mirror and seeing all the warts you have, seeing all the areas that you can improve. And instead of looking in the mirror like a successful founder, right, you just sold your business. You look in the mirror and you see this fucking so proud of yourself, right? And you want to cheer yourself on and you have such a big ego. When something like that happens, you go on a psychedelic journey with good intentions and a pure mindset, you are going to realize you ain't nothing. Your ego dissolves. You say, in my case, thank you to God for creating this incredible opportunity. He created the path. I just had to walk down it. And I have so much more work to do. I have so much more work to do on myself, for the community, for the world. And they talk about ego death during a psychedelic trip as like this incredible experience. Because as human beings, especially those of us who are fortunate enough to be financially successful, your ego could get very big if you're not careful. Not with psychedelics. You lose that ego real fast and you realize we have such little control. Our only control is how we act and just to do our best. So there's a lot of stories there. Anastasia and I tried to just give you a little bit of a big picture view of my perspective on psychedelics.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:40:54 - 00:41:40]
Ariane, you're doing the most amazing job because it's so entertaining, it's so compelling, it's brilliant. Thank you so much. It's exactly what I was hoping to get from you because I want you to show which tools worked for you and why and you are absolutely brilliant in doing just that. So again, going back to the most practical question. So you tried ketamine assisted therapy and that works for you and this is what you basically suggest other people do. Obviously there are all these other psychedelics which I know people often have to travel somewhere outside of the US to try. Do you mind talking about that? Did you experience that? What do you think about it comparing to ketamine?

Ari Katz: [00:41:40 - 00:42:14]
Yeah. So I have not experienced it. I am going to Costa Rica in a few months with my wife and she doesn't know this yet, but I don't know. We'll see what happens when we're there. But look, I think that the way I understand those psychedelics and those experiences, look, you have shamans, you have retreats, you have seven day retreats with ketamine, by the way, in my case, with the sublingual modality under your tongue, it's about 45 minutes of this kind of disassociative state when you do something like ayahuasca or some of these other lsd.

Ari Katz: [00:42:15 - 00:49:16]
These could be 6 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours. It's a totally different journey. And I think that the way I understand it is that those journeys you're going to get a way deeper level of intensity than what you get with something especially sublingual. Ketamine is like 30% bioavailability, meaning your body only absorbing 30% of the medication. So in my case, the intensity of my trip, while it felt incredible and out of body and amazing, it was a teeny fraction of what I would experience if I ingested a more serious psychedelic. And I think my journey will probably eventually lead me there. But it's scary. Anastasia. Look, I can tell you that there's no shortage of people out there who are touting these experiences and you can go online and you can watch video reactions and them talking about it. But I think the main key is that with psychedelic medicine for it to be effective in the context of mental health as opposed to just a recreational experience, which I do not promote. That's not my thing. I really believe God put this medicine on earth to help us and to cure us and I don't think we should be taking advantage of that by abusing this medicine. That being said, the best outcomes are going to be had when you optimize your set and your setting. And the way that works is the set is the mindset you have and that comes with the right intentions. What am I here for, what am I trying to accomplish and what am I trying to work on? Coming in with a mindset that is really pure and intentional around bettering yourself. And then setting is the setting in which you have the medicine. If you're doing it in a nice, serene environment with waterfalls and sun, and you're going to probably have a much better experience than if you do it in a dungeon of snakes. And so there are certain things that across the board apply to psychedelic medicine. And I think that a lot of people are starting to learn about that now because there's actually, I heard recently that the number one lead source for psychedelic medicine for clinics, right, like ketamine is Netflix. And you're going to say, well, how is Netflix the number one lead source? And it's because they have a show on Netflix called change your mind. And that's the show that I got introduced to a year ago. I'm going to give a shout out to a young lady I used to work with named Hannah Rose, who I sitting at lunch with, and she told me about this show and psychedelics. I was like, what the heck are you talking about? And I went home and I watched the show, and all of a sudden, now I was down the rabbit hole and watching this show, you start to learn about the fact that in the psychedelic medicine was the cutting edge new drug. It was like, oh, my God. The healing potential of this thing to treat mental illness and anxiety, depression, PTSD. I'm trying to think. It's like when Botox came out, it was like everyone went crazy. It was all over the papers. Everyone wanted to try, like, LSD. And it was a wave that kind of spurred so much scientific research, clinical research, and the studies were so powerfully positive that we were about to avoid everything that ended up happening. Because what happened next was people basically abused the drug and started utilizing it in a way that was probably more recreational focused, and let's call it mental health or wellness focused. And because of that, it created an environment where people didn't want to serve in the army. And all of a sudden, the government had to come in and, you know, we're basically creating a nation of very laid back stoners, and we can't allow that to happen. And we're going to go to war on drugs. And so they went to war on drugs, and they started basically taking this medicine that you could look and you can see the New York Times front page articles like, life changing possibilities with this medicine all of a sudden got shut down almost overnight. All of the media, all of the way that the government went to war on it, they basically created the worst stigma in history about psychedelic medicine. They did it with marijuana, too. They did it with kind of every drug that has a healing potential, but if abused, it doesn't really get there. They really went to war on drugs. And when that happened, they shut down the whole industry. And that's when a lot of the medicine kind of went underground. And if you watch the show, what you'll see is that in the last ten or 15 years, because everything's loosened up, you're seeing like, cannabis getting commercialized and a lot of more open mindedness than ever before to some of this stuff. Because of that, it has spurred a revolution in psychedelic medicine. And when you watch the show, it blows your mind. To be honest with you. You can't believe that there's medicine out there that God put here, right, that can have this type of profound experience. I watched on the show and I read in recent months people who had a stutter their whole life. A 65 year old woman stuttered her whole life. She couldn't break the stutter. One dose of, I believe it was ketamine, but it might have been a different second. One dose, no more stutter. At 65 years old, can you imagine breaking that loop of every time I say, ah, it goes, it's just natural. It's so strong. Break it down. No more stutter. People with addiction, people with depression, all of these ailments were being like, within, within days are being resolved for people. And so you watch that show, you start to think about where the world is today. You think about the fact that instead of ushering in a new era of mental clarity and health and oneism, right. Instead of that, we shut that down and we gave America opioids and we gave America drugs that we said, you have a chemical imbalance. Let's balance you out. And all of a sudden, what we've created is, I don't want to say it, Anastasia, but when Elon Musk said, we're becoming a nation of zombies, something like that, I kind of resonated. I'm like, I am kind of a zombie. I'm dull to my surroundings. And by the way, on a personal note, I am trying to get off of ssris. It's really hard. It's really hard once you're on them. And so you have this environment now where opioid crisis was devastating for our country. You have more people depressed and anxious. I think since COVID it's tripled in terms of percentage of Americans who identify as any type of depression or anxiety. And you also have an entire generation of schoolchildren who, God bless them. But let's see what happens. I think social media and the amount of screen time and the comparison that happens when you have such access to beautiful women and beautiful men and people more talented than you right in your face all the time, I think that could have a really negative effect.

Ari Katz: [00:49:17 - 00:51:41]
So I believe you're going to have a generation of kids that are going to have challenges. And then lastly, you layer on top what's going on in the world right now in Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Gaza, you have war, you have fighting, you have hate being spewed everywhere. That's another mental health crisis. So when you look at all of that and you say, okay, in the 60s, they had this medicine that was so promising, they shut it down. Now we're in 2024, we're in the worst mental health crisis of all time, and it ain't getting any better, right? We didn't even talk about american politics and the divisiveness that that has created. When you look at all that and you say, okay, what do we say works? What does America, what does the world tell us works? Well, it's called talk therapy and ssris, and you have a chemical imbalance. Well, guess what? We've done that for the last 30 years and look where we are. It's not working. Okay. On the other hand, you have psychedelic medicine. That again, I say it over and over, medicine put here by God. Mushrooms were created by God. Why did he put them here? Everything is here for a reason. God was not trying to plant landmines for us when he gave us this world. He was setting us up to be as great as we chose to be. He was setting us up where if we just followed our heart and did the best we could, the sky's the limit. So he put this medicine here, and what they were proven with this medicine was that it can break your bad habits really freaking fast and it could relax you and it could take hate out of your vocabulary. And instead of giving the world this medicine, we shut it down. And so now we're in an environment where the studies are picking back up almost every single day. I mean, go set up a Google alert for ketamine. I dare you, set up a Google alert for ketamine. And every single day you're going to get ten articles that talk about this incredible medicine that's changed lives. Okay? At the same time, you're going to get an article about Matthew Perry, who overdosed on ketamine and how it killed him because he took it irresponsibly. And God bless Matthew Perry. I'm a huge fan, but at the end of the day, these medicines do have risk when they're not used properly. And so while this medicine has profound clinical efficacy, it also has a stigma that, again, people in the generation above me will probably never get over. I don't expect my mom ever to try ketamine. Maybe my dad. We'll see.

Ari Katz: [00:51:41 - 00:56:39]
But you have a stigma that is further amplified by the media who loves to cover a bad trip. Right. But at the same time, you have clinical efficacy and scientific data that supports the fact that this medicine could be the cure we're all waiting for. Where is the bridge? How are we going to take this current state that is really not pretty?How are we going to build the bridge to this really beautiful state, which is powered by natural plant medicines that can help everyone relax a little bit, reset, and rediscover the best versions of themselves? That's what this medicine does. None of us were born depressed or angry. You don't come out of your mother's womb crying because you're angry or depressed. You're crying because you missed what you left behind. Right? And I want to just hit on that metaphor for 1 second because I often say when there's a baby in the womb, and my rabbi told this to me and he gets the credit. Imagine if you approach that baby. I have a colleague right now who's pregnant, and I was talking to her about this yesterday. I said, if you go ask your baby right now, how are you doing, baby? The baby is going to say, I'm doing great. What do you mean life is good. I get fed through this tube. I always am satiated. My mom takes care me. I'm so cozy and cuddly and I never want to leave. And then you say to that baby, baby, you're living in a tiny little bubble right now. There's a whole world out there. Baby's like, you're crazy, man. There's nothing out there. What do you mean? I got everything here. This is all I know. And then they're born into this world and they realize that was a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of their life experience. And what I believe, anastasia, is that we are living in that same womb right now. It's called Earth. It's called a physical world. And what psychedelic medicine did for me was it opened the door to this whole other world. And if you're not someone who's ever experienced it, you can sit here and look at me and be like, oh, man, Ari's lost it. He's a kook. He's talking about seeing God. And you know what? I'm okay if you say that. I've learned not to let what other people think about me define me or affect me, but at the same time, what I can tell you is if you think you know everything, if you think that you really know everything, you're not like, good luck to you. But that's not someone who I'm going to talk about this. I'm not going to try and convince you when you are someone who realizes, we have so much to learn as a human species, as human beings, there's so much we don't know. And God put us here with a physical. Like, everything we experience is physical. Think about your five senses. They're all physical. There's no spiritual sense. People talk about the third eye, but it's not commonly, widely accepted, at least in western culture. And so we're told that every experience we have starts with a physical experience. And to me, that's living in the womb of a physical universe. There's a whole spiritual world out there. And once you utilize whatever catalyst it might be for you, to get you there, breath work, meditation, psychedelic medicine, you realize there's a whole world out there. And now you can go exploring. And for me, man, oh, man, I am so happy that I had the guts to do it, because I don't think I ever, ever could have become the person that I'm trying to become now without that medicine. And I'll say this, I listen to a lot of talks from spiritual leaders. I have a lot of rabbis I listen to podcasts on. And one of the rabbis was talking about, his name is Yy Jacobson. He talks about when you go to know, a lot of people say, know heaven or hell, I guess, but hopefully heaven. God's going to show you a video of your life, and you're going to have to sit there right next to God watching that video, and you're going to have to sit there through all the uncomfortable moments, right? It ain't going to be fun. Let's be honest. Some parts you'll be very proud of yourself. When you gave charity and you helped the old lady across the street, other times you're going to say, did I really do that? A lot of people know that story, and they say, that's a really nice way to think about why you want to do the best down here. He said something different. He said, you're going to see two videos actually, the first video is going to be the life you lived, right? And you're going to have that experience. The next video is going to be the life that God saw you living. The potential you had, what you could have been, what you could have been, had you made better choices, had you committed to change earlier in your life, had you done better, here's what you could have been. So here's the re who ends up making $20 million and becomes the king of cool sculpting and is remembered for being this unbelievable sales guy who bought nice cars and a whole bunch of sneakers. That's one version. Yay, Ari. So proud of you. Here's this other version who ended up doing all that, but then decided to commit himself to something way bigger. And that was trying to be a part of the solution for mental illness in this country. And let's see where that re goes.

Ari Katz: [00:56:39 - 00:58:05]
Let's see how high he can go. Let's see where I can land with that version. And for me, that was the emphasis of me shifting my whole vision and perspective on life to how can I be the best version of me? How can I live out my potential in the best way? What is my highest ceiling? There is no ceiling. Re higher and higher and push higher. And to me, that is what I'm so proud of now because it forces me to constantly demand more of myself. And I'm the same way with my kids. I don't talk to them about, did you get a 90 or an 80 on your test? I say, did you try your hardest? Could you have done better? And if they say, no, I said, well, congratulations. Sounds like you did incredible. You did the best you can. And if they say, yeah, I could have done better, I say, all right, then there's opportunity to do better next time and focus more. It's not about the result, it's about the effort. And I think that's a big part of recognizing that we as physical beings have only limited ways and we can impact other people and other events around us. At the end of the day, we're at the mercy of God and chance and luck and all that stuff. So the real circle of influence we have is on ourselves, and all we can do is the best that we can do. And surround yourself with people who are trying to do the best that they can do. And together, maybe you can be a force multiplier of good in the universe.

Anastasia Koroleva: [00:58:05 - 00:58:26]
Brilliant. So inspiring. So, Ari, this takes me to my next topic I wanted to discuss with you is how your thinking changed over time about success. And you kind of answered that question already. But if you don't mind, I'd like you to kind of summarize it and tell me what success is for you today.

Ari Katz: [00:58:27 - 01:00:29]
Yeah, I think that how it's changed over time is kind of like, again, thinking about that first and second mountain analogy, which is success for most people starts and ends with, can I take care of my family? Now? What does that mean? Well, it means something different for everyone. Maybe if you're living in a place where just putting a hut over your family, that's taking care of them, then good for you. Check you're doing your part. If you're living in a place like where I'm living, there's a lot more to it. You have to make a lot of money, you have to provide in a lot of different ways. And that is, as a father, I think a lot of people would define success as, am I taking care of my family? Am I setting my children up to live a better life than I did? Am I treating my wife the best that I can so that I can be a role model for my own children? That's what success looks like for many, many people, and I'm no exception. I had to take care of my family. I had to set my children up to be successful. And again, I'll say this. Not every, like, bad stuff happens. People have bad luck. So just because I did it doesn't mean I'm better than the guy who couldn't do it. He might have just. I always joke, not joke, but I say, during the pandemic, we happened to be in the body sculpting business, which everyone wanted. We could have been a restaurant that went under. I have friends who run restaurants, runners. So a lot of it is luck. But if you're lucky enough to be able to create a financial state of stability and a foundation of comfort for your family, that generally is the first layer of what I would call success in my case, having a liquidity event at such a young age, which to me was the ultimate differentiator. I said, what's the difference between me and a guy who sells his derm practice? Well, normally, that guy is 75 years old, and he's been practicing for 30 years. I started this business, like, I don't know, 36 months ago. Like, how the heck is this happening so fast? And I'm so young. And so for me, success now changed from providing food on the table for my family to that question of, what am I going to see when I get upstairs?

Ari Katz: [01:00:29 - 01:01:53]
How close can I get to that video on the right. How close can I get to living out my potential? And that's what success looks like. Anastasia. It's doing your best every day and feeling like you're making progress and you're just trying harder and harder and harder, never being satisfied, never giving up, honestly, never getting frustrated either, because frustration doesn't help. Just keep trying your hardest. If I try my hardest every day to be the best version of me, I feel like on my deathbed, I'll say I feel pretty successful. It's not about the money. It's not about the number of sneakers or cars. It's about feeling like you did the best you could with your opportunity. And a big part of that is obviously the people around you knowing how much you love them, how much you care about them, how much you appreciate them. I would say psychedelic medicine for me, and not to go back to psychedelics, but what it really brought out of me was the best version of me as a father, a husband, a son, a brother, a friend. That's ultimately how you want to be measured is what would other people say about you? And I think when I think about success, it's are what these people would say about me matched up with what I think represents the best me. If those match up, I think you're pretty successful.

Ari Katz: [01:01:53 - 01:03:02]
And again, always striving for more and more and more, never being satisfied, because as Jim Collins says, good of the enemy are great. Never stop striving for even better. And little hint, I'll drop this here. For the first time publicly. My new business is going to be launching a consumer brand that's going to be attracting people to learn more about psychedelic medicine. And the brand we're trademarking is called betterness. And the concept of betterness is we're not coming at people from a deficiency and saying, you're depressed, you're anxious. Let us fix you and let us heal you. We're coming and saying, you might be great the way you are, but can you be better? Is there a level above where you are now that we can aspire to? And I think that's putting people in a position to strive for more and aspire to more, as opposed to saying, I'm sick, you need to fix me. It's, I'm trying my best. I want to try more. I want to get higher. If this medicine can help me get there, let's see what it's all about. And so I think betterness is a great way to kind of define success. It's, are you always striving for betterness. And if you are, and it's an honest effort, then I think you should be very, very proud of yourself.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:03:03 - 01:03:07]
So, Ali, whatever happened to all those drugs you took after you did therapy?

Ari Katz: [01:03:07 - 01:04:00]
Great question. So the ones that I'm still kind of on, on a regular basis. So there's a couple of things, and maybe you can look at this as a little bit of a shout out to a few different brands that I believe have the potential to really help people feel a little better in both physical and mental sense. So a couple of things thesis still on every single day, it looks something like this. It's. What does this say? Logic. Right. This is my favorite one because for me, I was never the biggest book smart guy. I was street smart. My sister always had that. She was more of an academic intellectual. So I take logic to get a little bit smarter and I feel like it helps. I take magic mind every morning. That's the green drink, the big one. Anastasia is a company called Ten X Health, which you probably have heard of. Grant Cardone and Gary Breca. Have you heard of ten X?

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:04:01 - 01:04:02]
I heard of it. I never tried.

Ari Katz: [01:04:02 - 01:06:23]
Ten X was life changing for me. Ever since COVID I had major kind of gut issues. Ten X basically sends you a swab at home. They swab and they look at your DNA, what's called a methylation cycle, which is basically your ability to take what you put in your body and convert it into usable energy for your body. And if you can't make that conversion efficiently, then you have a deficiency, and the deficiency is genetic. So what this test shows is what specific, let's say vitamins. Your body's missing to have a perfect methylation cycle. And then it supplements you with vitamins to create and fill those gaps. And for me, everything about my life got better when I got on these vitamins, because everything about that methylation cycle translates to your energy, your mental state, how your stomach feels. I mean, everything is better when you give your body the right resources. And so I'm on ten X Health, and then there's a few other remedies I found. There's a little company called 19 six, which is a company that offers kind of daily micro dosing of a level of cannabis THC, or CBD. And again, I don't do that every day, but it's definitely something that helps kind of set my day off in a very relaxed state. So it's really about finding what works for you, I would say for me, there was very little that I discovered. I'd say Adderall is probably the biggest example of something I discovered that I really wish I had never discovered because it really was not the right solution. The SSris I'm on. I'm still taking every day, but I literally just had a conversation with my doctor this week about how do I get off of them, because what I'm really trying to get to Anastasia is the most natural version of me. I want my wife to be with the most natural version of me. I want my community to experience the most natural version of me, because God is perfect and God creates perfection. God doesn't make mistakes. And so the way we all are is perfect by nature of the fact that God created us. And you might say, well, then why are you taking all these supplements? Well, you know what? Sometimes your body needs a little bit of plugs.

Ari Katz: [01:06:23 - 01:06:44]
And again, that's about doing your part. God gave you access to some of this stuff. If he gave you access to it, there's a reason. And for me, it's about trying to kind of match that level of perfection with the person I portray in the world and feeling that way as well. And so for me, I have found a good kind of remedy, but it's going to change over time. I don't think anything's permanent.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:06:44 - 01:07:25]
So, ADHD that you mentioned that you have adult ADHD seems to be the most common thing I hear from people in the exited founder community, generally entrepreneurs. I think there are lots and lots of people with ADHD, but I started believing that it's truly a superpower when I realized that those who exited seem to have it even more often. But I'm curious how psychedelics affected that, because most of us who have ADHD or think they have ADHD don't actually want to be numbed into exactly as you described, into zombies. What are you doing about your ADHD?

Ari Katz: [01:07:25 - 01:11:14]
Good question. So I think you have to also kind of think about the generation today versus the generation that I'm 43 years old, like my generation growing up in the nobody, ADHD, ADD, learning disabilities. This stuff was not diagnosed the way it is today. Nowadays, it's very quick. People are very quick to give a diagnosis. And the truth is that they could say almost every kid has a level of ADHD or ADD. It's like, it's hard to pay attention. For me, I always knew. Well, let me actually take you back a step, Anastasia. Growing up in an era where mental illness and learning disabilities were not as front and center as they are today meant growing up in an era where the only way you were judged was on your results, on your grades in school. And for someone like me, I never got great grades in school. And so what does that do to a young kid? It says to you, there's something wrong with you, Ari. There must be something wrong with your brain. Maybe you're stupid. Why can't you remember? I remember at one point my parents came home, and this is not a knock on them because this was the era, but they had shared with me that they went to one of my parent teacher nights, and the teacher said to them, I just don't understand. And I don't know if they shared this with me directly or they said it to someone. And I heard it, but the teacher basically said, like, I looked right at re. I said something like, look, Ari, whatever it is, ten plus ten is 20. What's ten plus ten? I was like, looked at him like. And what was not recognized was that there's auditory processing issues. And you see those all the time now. But back then, if you weren't able to diagnose that, you're like, this kid has real, like, I don't understand what's wrong with this kid. And you get frustrated as a parent, as a teacher. And so that set me off for a lifelong belief that I was stupid. And when you talk about my founder story with Spurling, I never thought I was good enough to lead a company because I always had this chip on my shoulder of, like, you're not smart enough. You never got straight a's. You were happy if you got an 80. And by never having a proper diagnosis, and someone say to you, yeah, Ari, like, it's normal what you're going through, half the people in your class are dealing with the same stuff. That would have been a lot easier to hear back then. Nowadays, though, getting that diagnosis, recognizing that there's a medication to help you see that there are so many people out there. And you said it. It's interesting, my dad always, and I'm sure you've heard this before, right? You go in high school, A's, B's, and C's. You get out of high school, you write, the C's are working for the B's. Excuse me? The A's are working for the B's accompanied companies owned by the C's, right? And it's like this whole inverse effect of everything we thought mattered in school in terms of how you got good grades and that was going to lead to success. So many people are the polar opposite. And that's not to say one way is right or one way is wrong. It's like there's so many different paths, and I think that's what was missing when I was growing up. And so recognizing today that there are so many paths to success, I do think that is one thing that we've gotten better about, is recognizing mental illness, recognizing learning disabilities, and ADHD is definitely something that people should not feel embarrassed by or that it's holding them back. It's something that there are a lot of ways to kind of combat that, and there's ways to battle through it that you can come out the other side in a way better spot. Did I answer your question there? I'm not sure if I fully answered your question.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:11:14 - 01:11:23]
You answered my next ten questions already, so I'm very happy. Can we talk about how you choose the people you spend time with?

Ari Katz: [01:11:23 - 01:15:14]
That's a great. I'm glad you asked that. And that's something that's definitely changed over the last six months. Going back to psychedelics. And again, I want to be clear, like, my whole life is not about psychedelics. It just was this massive, pivotal moment where everything, my perspective shifted so much in a more positive way, I believe. And that also shifts the way you look at the people you surround yourself with. And of all people to kind of get inspirational wisdom from. Snoop Dogg posted something on Instagram a few weeks ago that really resonated with me. They were showing an interview he did, and he was talking about how when he grew up, he wasn't anyone famous. He started from the bottom, right? And he talks about his rise to fame, and he talks about how when you get to a certain point, you are getting somewhere that is an elevated sense of awareness and being and wellness. You're trying to be a better version of yourself. And it's not about looking down on those people. It's about saying, are you coming with me, or are you just going to stay down there? It's not about I'm better than you. It's about, I want to be around people who inspire me. I want to be around people who imbue positive energy into a situation. And those are the decisions I started to make post exit, and in the last few years is who am I surrounding myself with? An analogy I hear a lot is you could go hang out with the garbage men, and at the end of the day, whether or not you're a garbage man, if you're hanging out with them all day, you know what you're going to smell like, right? Kind of like walking into a perfume store, right? Even if you're not buying perfume, you're going to walking out smelling like it. The people you surround yourself with becomes the energy you give off. And so for me, I think that one of the things I really looked at was who in my life is bringing me joy? Who in my life is making me feel better? Who in my life is bringing me down? Who in my life creates a negative energy and vibe every time I'm with them? And you start to say, why the heck would I ever spend time with someone who's bringing me down? And all of this, Anastasia, is you pull back to, what's my mission? What's my goal? What's my purpose? I believe my purpose is to ultimately to glorify God and be a light amongst the nations and be the best version of me. And anything that is diverting me from that course is something that's hurting me. And so when I get pulled into a conversation that's all negative, it's gossip, it's talking about stuff that I don't really believe is the right. Let's just leave it at that. There's a lot of divide in this country right now. There's a lot of hate. There's a lot of people who are very angry. That doesn't serve me very well. When I'm around angry people, I feel like shit. I don't want to be around angry people. I want to be around people who are trying to be the best them who are committed to being a part of the solution. Because I firmly believe if you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem. There is no middle ground. We have a lot of problems right now. I'm a solution seeker. And if you want to be a solution seeker and you want to be someone who is committed to being a part of the answer, jump on board. Let's hang. That's what I'm finding. It's not about age. I hang out with guys who are 18 and 20 and I hang out with men who are in their seventy s. And again, women, men, all of everything in between. And I find inspiration from every one of them. You and I met through a peer group, I think Tiger 21, where we talk about people who have had experiences that are similar, how they can share those experiences together to better each other. Like, to me, those are the type of people you want to hang out with.

Ari Katz: [01:15:14 - 01:16:18]
You want to hang out with people who are going to bring out the best in you. And for me, that's how my social circles changed. I really started to focus on people who I enjoyed being around, who made me feel better. And I know that sounds so simple and so obvious, but I guarantee you, if your audience really asks themselves seriously, think about the people you spend 95% of the time with. And then of those people, are there certain people who really don't contribute towards your ultimate purpose, don't contribute towards you being the best you? Are there people in that circle that fit that? And I guarantee you, you'll find that there very likely are. And those are the times you need to make a decision. Is do I really want to continue to associate with someone who's pulling me off course constantly? And the hardest part, Anastasia, is if that's a family member or a close loved one. And I'm not saying anything that everyone should try and work out their issues, but it's easier said than done. And at the end of the day, if someone's constantly holding on to you, how can you ever really fly?

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:16:19 - 01:16:34]
So I'm very happy you started talking about a sense of purpose and meaning, and you're very comfortable and passionate talking about that. What is a perfectly fulfilling life for you? What does it look like idealistically?

Ari Katz: [01:16:35 - 01:17:24]
I think a perfectly fulfilling life is a life where, I mean, kind of talked about it earlier, where not only you're doing your best, but you are a positive reflection on those around you. I have a great life coach right now. And again, it's like champagne problems life coach. But he talks to me a lot. About the ultimate sense of meaning for someone like me is not about me. It's about everyone around me. It's how I can use the God given skills I have to inspire others. And the ideal state for me is being in an environment where we're all lifting each other up. And people remember you for how you made them feel, and they feel uplifted. I was very fortunate that God gave me the gift of eloquent speech.

Ari Katz: [01:17:24 - 01:18:12]
And every on the jewish holiday season, when you thank God for all the incredible blessings, when it comes to that one eloquent speech, I'm really focused and I'm like, I am the luckiest guy that God gave me. And some people, they're really good at freaking football, and they go make millions and they give a ton to charity and, like, great, God gave you that skill. Other people are really good at math, and they go solve hard equations. Good for you. God gave me eloquent speech. I didn't give myself this. My grandfather passed it down to my dad, who passed it down to me. But ultimately, it's from God. And when you're able to be grateful for what you have and not focused on what you don't have, that's when you start to lean into your best you, and you start to be a giver instead of a taker. And so, for me, success is about what you can bring to the equation, not what you can get out of it.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:18:12 - 01:18:17]
So if you had to rate your own level of fulfillment from zero to ten, what would it be?

Ari Katz: [01:18:17 - 01:18:48]
Now, that's a really good question. I was asked that question recently by my coach, and I'll be honest with you, and it's embarrassing to say I said ten. And he's like, ari, if you think you're at a ten, you have so much to learn. And as soon as I said it, I was like, how did I make such a stupid mistake? Like, you're so right. What the heck? If I ever think I'm done learning, I'm screwed. So it was, like, eye opening, because here I am thinking, I feel great. I feel like the best version of me. I'm like, I get it now.

Ari Katz: [01:18:48 - 01:20:08]
And then as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I could see him. He's like, dude, we have so much work to do. So when I talk about spiritual fulfillment or kind of meaningful, purposeful fulfillment, I think it's just the bar is constantly raising. So on the one hand, I feel great that I truly feel connected with my purpose and my meaning and kind of my life and my life path and the choices I've made. Like, I feel great about everything that has happened thus far. And by the way, it's not because of the financial success. And I have this conversation with myself often. It's because I've learned to accept that everything from God is a gift, and our job is to receive it. And as soon as he's done giving us that gift and he takes it away, our job is to receive that as well. And now it's a challenge you need to face. And it's easier when the money's large, because that just makes, as a physical person, it's easier. But ultimately, our job is to just do the best we can in our situation. And so I think, for me, thinking about the best version of me and what that looks like, it's just about finding that lane and leaning into it and inspiring others. And I forget. What was the core question you asked?

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:20:08 - 01:20:11]
How you rate your fulfillment from zero to ten?

Ari Katz: [01:20:11 - 01:20:26]
How I rate my fulfillment? Yeah. I think it's a moving target. I think it's a moving target. Anastasia. And the moment you start thinking you're there, that's when you know you have more work to do. So it's a moving target, and I'm just trying get as close as possible to it.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:20:26 - 01:20:27]
Fantastic.

Ari Katz: [01:20:27 - 01:20:28]
Does that make sense?

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:20:29 - 01:20:40]
Absolutely. Great answer. Thank you so much. So, talking about wealth, what does it mean for you today comparing to what you thought it would mean for you before you actually acquired it?

Ari Katz: [01:20:40 - 01:23:14]
Another good question. I think that the easiest answer there is that what most people believe, right, which is that if I only had money, I'd be happy, right? If I just give me a million bucks, put it in my bank account, and it will all be good and all of my pain will go away and all of my anxiety will go away and all of my challenges and troubles in my life just put a million bucks in my bank account. I bet you friggin 98% of the country would say, yes, please. And what you realize when you actually have money is, I mean, Puff daddy said it in the 80s or the 90s, more money, more problems. Again, champagne problems. Yes. Taylor Swift. But at the same time, you realize that money is. It solves one of your problems, right?
It solves your need for financial security, but it doesn't solve anything else. And in a lot of ways, it actually creates problems because there's more pressure on you when you have money. People want to come to you for charitable causes. People want to know how you're going to give back, how you're going to make impact with that money. It's pressures and it's things you've never thought about before. So I think the difference between having money and not having money is when you have money, the best part about it is that you're not a slave to chasing money. Now, some people are. By the way, I've met people who have a ton more money than me, and they can't stop. And to be honest with you, I kind of feel bad for them. I was at a meeting a few weeks ago, and someone shared. It was a meeting where someone was sharing a little bit about their wealth and their situation, and they have just more money than you could ever imagine. But they also said that their wife and their kids have been, like, begging them to retire. This 65 year old guy begging them to retire, and he can't do it. He just can't stop. And he's just nonstop and he doesn't need any more money. But they went around the room and everyone was kind of giving him this feedback. Like he said, am I doing a good job? Am I living my best life. And everyone around the room is like, yeah, you are good for you. Keep working. It makes you happy. And they got to me and I just met the guy and I look at him and I say, honestly, forgive me, but I think if you have to ask the question, are you living your best life? You're not. Because if you were, you would know it. And what you sound like, as you kind of have this conversation, it sounds like someone who doesn't really know what their meaning or their purpose is, is not fully convinced that they've made the best life choices.

Ari Katz: [01:23:14 - 01:23:54]
Because all of a sudden, money has become everything. And you're coming from a real place of insecurity because you're asking yourself like, am I living my best life? What should I be doing? You're a 65 year old guy who's more successful than most people will ever be in a financial sense, yet you don't seem very happy. You don't seem very fulfilled. And I think that when you think about money, and again, I think when you think about what is going to ultimately bring you satisfaction, money is part of it, but there's so much more that you need. And if you never get the money, you can absolutely be happy and fulfilled and satisfied. Money just makes it a little bit easier. I'm not going to lie.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:23:54 - 01:24:00]
Okay. So that's what it is for you. It makes things easier to achieve things.

Ari Katz: [01:24:00 - 01:26:47]
That it makes it easier to focus on, to focus on being the best you. In my case, what money allowed me to do was it allowed me to go get a trainer at the gym a few days a week so I could get into good shape. It allowed me to play with a company like Ten X help where I could spend a little money to get my DNA swabbed and get these vitamins. It opens the door to certain opportunities that you wouldn't have. But at the end of the day, it's your choice what you're going to do. You could go out and buy cars and football teams if you want, or you can go out and try and invest in you so that you ultimately are making an investment in those around you. Because by being the better you, you are elevating those around you. And if that's your goal, then money is a great means to get there. But money is here today and gone tomorrow. And that's another thing you very quickly learn to accept. When you get as lucky as I did, and you feel that God was really just showering blessing after blessing upon you, you also recognize that God could just as quickly take it away. And so you learn that money is not the foundation of your happiness or satisfaction. It's a driving force of it. It's one of the driving forces of it, because without it, you have to shift your entire focus and priorities to making money. But at the same time, it's not at the root of any real happiness or satisfaction or purpose of life, in my opinion. A great quote I heard was, from what was the guy who founded Walmart, Walton, I think might have been his name, founded the biggest company in the world. To this day, Walmart is one of the largest revenue generators of any business in the world. And he spent his whole life building that company. And on his deathbed, the New York Times reported his obituary. His last words were, I screwed up. This guy was a malt. I think he had like $50 billion. By any measure of success, this guy was like a legend. And his last dying words were, I screwed up. And it was in reference to the fact that he spent way more time focused on making money than with his family. And that is a huge missed opportunity. And it just reminds you constantly think about what's going to be important to you when you know you have 1 hour left to live. Is it the amount of likes you got on Instagram? Is it the fact that you're the coolest dude driving the coolest car? Or is it the fact that I did everything I could to spend time with my loved ones, to share with them how much I appreciate them, to share with them how much I love them, to imbue them with confidence, to be the best. If you look back and you're able to feel like you spent your time wisely here, then you're doing the right stuff. And that, to me, is the ultimate happiness you could have on this earth, is knowing that you have a limited time here, but you're doing the best you can to make the most out of it.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:26:47 - 01:26:49]
What keeps you up at night?

Ari Katz: [01:26:49 - 01:27:23]
What keeps me up at night? Well, right now, starting a business, it's hard. And it's funny because you think that when you reach a certain level of financial success, you're not going to have concerns about money, but you get more concerns about money. I hate to break it to you, I've been bootstrapping this business now for almost nine months. I joke that it's kind of the closest I've ever come to have a baby because from where it started as a ketamine clinic concept, to where it's going to be, which is ultimately an educational platform to inform people about the power and healing capabilities of psychedelic medicine.

Ari Katz: [01:27:23 - 01:29:37]
It's been an evolution of nine months. And I think at night I'm thinking about the business, I'm thinking about my baby. I'm thinking about how am I going to do this right, raising money right now, you're going through a lot of kind of whole new challenges. I never raised money before. I was never the founder of a company before. Even though this is the founder's paradox, it was more so I joined my wife after she had founded. So for me, I am doing something I've never really done before. So that stuff kind of keeps me up at night because it's what I'm thinking about the next day. What is always in the back of my mind, to be totally honest with you, Anastasia, is when I think about what's going on in the world right now, and I think about the wars that are happening across the globe, I think about what's happening in Israel. And I am so heartbroken over the loss of lives on both sides of this equation, from the people who were really innocent bystanders of this war. And my heart goes out to everyone who's been affected on both sides at the same time. We have, I think, about 150 hostages right now still being held hostage since October 7. And for me, since October 7, there's been a black cloud over everything in my life. So you talk about going to sleep, you talk about waking up. Nothing is great right now when I know that 150 of my brothers and sisters are being held hostage with no end in sight and they haven't seen their loved ones in six months. And how could I ever fully be relaxed and happy knowing that that's going on? And you could say the same thing in Ukraine and Russia. When there's not peace in the world, you want that. You want that for the world. And you realize your individual peace and success is so limited. And really, it's like a quick hit of dopamine versus the feeling you get when you could look across the world and see people doing kind deeds for each other. That level of elevation is a whole nother level. And so seeing what's going on in the world right now really has me down. But again, I focus on what I can do and where I can be a part of the solution in that equation.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:29:38 - 01:29:39]
What gives you joy?

Ari Katz: [01:29:39 - 01:32:08]
What gives me joy is time with loved ones, time with family members especially. I just had a weekend this past weekend where my whole family was together. My brother and his wife welcomed in a baby boy, and we spent the whole weekend together with the family, the grandparents, the grandkids, the aunts, the uncles. I mean, what better joy than spending time with loved ones? It's to me, like the ultimate joy is time with others and time with loved ones. And look, everyone knows you're going to die eventually. Everyone you know is going to die. All your loved ones, like, these are depressing thoughts. Let's not go there. But let's also realize that if we know that, what are we doing right now to make the most of the time we do have? And to me, time with family is the ultimate, ultimate, ultimate currency. And so that's joy with my kids, with my wife, with my family. I would say probably the purest joy I have is when I am either praising God or teaching my kids about spirituality or their connection with God. Because for me, that level of joy is such a higher level. And hearing my kids talk about their belief in God and their belief that there is a divine presence that is there for us at all times. I talked with my daughter and my little seven year old. She says, I say to her, why do you never have to be afraid? And she goes, you never have to be afraid because God's always with you. Even in the dark, even when you're alone, God's always with you. And I think those moments, for me, of realizing that I am passing the torch down to the next generation is something that I hold so dearly. Because at the end of the day, that's all we have, is our traditions, our beliefs, and in my case, my religion. And I think that those are the happiest moments of my life, are when I'm able to glorify God by sharing his stories with my children and hoping to imbue in them the same love and connection with God that I have. There's nothing that brings me more joy than that. And every weekend we celebrate Sabbath, which is a 24 hours period of just commitment to God. We stop working, we turn our phones off, we pray, we eat together, we socialize with our community. And to me, that's elevating God in our world. And that's what gives me the ultimate joy.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:32:09 - 01:32:36]
What a beautiful answer. Thank you so much, Ari. You gave me so know wisdom and food for thought in this. I'm really, really grateful. I wonder if we could summarize, and if you can think about the biggest, the most important lessons you've learned since you sold your company during that journey when you already had both time and money and the luxury to think about yourself and the world.

Ari Katz: [01:32:36 - 01:33:43]
I would say that the biggest lesson I've learned since selling my company, I think, is twofold. I think, number one, you need to recognize that when you're at that top of the first mountain and you're looking back at everything you did. Again, some people just choose to make that their scenery for the rest of their life. That's fine. But if you really want to climb the second mountain, if one mountain is not enough, then the question is, are you in the best position to climb that mountain? And when I say that so physically, right, like you think about climb, you need to be in shape. But to build a business or to continue on to further success in your life, you need to be in shape, physically, mentally, spiritually, et cetera. And to me, that starts with working on yourself. And so one of the biggest lessons I learned since selling my company was, you can't be the best father, son, husband until you're the best you. And so, number one, you need to invest in yourself, whether that's going to the gym and eating right, and you need to solve your problems before you can solve the world's problems.

Ari Katz: [01:33:43 - 01:36:21]
And so recognition of that was a big kind of learning point for me since selling the company. And I think the second one is recognition that while your first exit may have been about putting enough money in your bank account that you can really be a source of comfort for your family and hopefully generations to come, the second focus is not, in my case, right. It wasn't about how do I make more money. It was how do I make a difference? How do I leave behind a legacy that I'm proud of? And that was a major turning point for me when I realized, hey, God has given me the incredible opportunity to do something way more meaningful than anything I've ever done before. And it's my choice whether I want to lean into that. And that was the choice I made, standing at the top of the mountain saying I could just enjoy the fruits of my labor. And again, what, psychedelics or not, you look out and you say, there's more to do, and when there's more to do, you got to get to it. And so, as an exited founder at 40 years old, there was never a question in my mind. My life is not playing pickleball and driving around with the top down in the sun like, that's fun. That's not a life. A life is about building. It's about purpose. It's about contribution. You talk about problems and solutions. I ain't solving anyone's problems. Playing pickleball. Where I can solve problems is investing myself, my resources, my energy into problems that I see. And the problem I see is a lot of people are really not the best versions of themselves. They're not living perfect ten lives. And that's a problem I'm trying to solve. And so leaning into that is something that I think I'm very fortunate to have the opportunity to do. And for people who find themselves in a similar situation, I mean, I listen to all your podcasts. Founders, exited founders, they go through the stages of what's next. And I sat in a room with a bunch of exited founders a few months ago in New York City, and literally everyone is like, what do I do next? And I felt so fortunate that I found my calling, and I was like, damn, I'm really lucky. But I think for an exited founder, it's recognizing, first you need to invest in yourself before you can invest in humanity, so to speak. And number two, what are you going to lean into? And if you're going to really lean into it, is it something that is about ultimately making more money, or is it something that you feel like is going to be a value add to the world? And for me, there was never a question. It was never going to like, nothing I'm doing right now is about making money. The money will come. I know that. My investors know that.

Ari Katz: [01:36:21 - 01:37:34]
But it's about doing something I could be really proud of. And that was a beautiful opportunity that selling your company, really, it became front and center. I had a path forward that could solve for both financial and for purpose and meaning. And I'm really blessed, and I'm really grateful for this opportunity. And, Anastasia, I want to say to you, thank you for this opportunity to speak with you. I think what you're doing for entrepreneurs across the country is amazing. Every time I go on LinkedIn and I see one of your videos pop up or I read your summaries, it's inspiring. I think it's also creating an element of relatability. Right? An inspiration for young entrepreneurs who look and say, yeah, we all know Mark Zuckerberg's story or Elon Musk's story, but what about the hundreds and thousands of other entrepreneurs who didn't sell their company for 100 million? Maybe they sold it for 1 million. Maybe they sold it for stock options. Maybe they did it at 22 years old or 42. Everyone is striving for that level of kind of peak perfection in the financial business world and seeing other people's journeys. And by the way, almost every story that's been told on your podcast has similar elements, which is there's a lot of luck involved.

Ari Katz: [01:37:35 - 01:38:50]
This ain't a bunch of people who were set up from success for the beginning and didn't have to do much. They had to work their ass off, and they got a little bit lucky. And I think that for other people to hear those stories, they realize, just do the best you can, and hopefully good things will happen. And so the platform that you give to entrepreneurs to share their stories, not only does it inspire future founder and future people who will have exits, but for people like me who have had that exit, being exposed to others who have, and the challenges they've encountered and the pits and valleys of that life, recognizing I'm not alone, it's been really, really helpful to hear other stories and how they've overcome the same challenges that I faced. And so I want to thank you on behalf of entrepreneurs really, around the country, Anastasia, for really what feels like devoting your life right now towards sharing our stories.
And you're so active on the WhatsApp chat, you're so active on the community boards, and you reached right out to me when I got in, and I was like, oh, my God, I feel like a celebrity. Anastasia wants to welcome me and say how impressed she is of me. I'm like, holy crap, you make me feel so good. So thank you for what you're doing for entrepreneur so much. Not an easy lifestyle, but it's wonderful to have people like you to glorify us a little bit once in a while. It's nice to have conversations like this.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:38:50 - 01:39:01]
Ari, thank you so much. I have goosebumps now. You really touched my heart. Thank you so much. You know how much it means to me. Thank you. It was an amazing conversation. I very much enjoyed it.

Ari Katz: [01:39:01 - 01:39:09]
Thank you very much. And I hope your listeners enjoyed it, too. And I hope to see you soon. It sounds like we'll be hanging out in a few weeks, maybe in Vegas.

Anastasia Koroleva: [01:39:09 - 01:39:10]
Think so, too. I'll see.

Anastasia Koroleva

Ari Katz. Exited Founder: Why Psychedelics as My New Venture

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