6 episodes

While the media is focused on using therapeutic psychedelics to treat mental health conditions, I’m here to tell you about the benefits that high-functioning business leaders are realizing today.
I’m Michael Costuros. I’m an advisor and executive coach to some of Silicon Valley’s most talented entrepreneurs, and I have a secret to share.
I’ve strategically combined guided psychedelic experiences (provided by expert guides) with my executive coaching since 2010, and I can tell you, that the results are many times more impactful than executive coaching alone. Not only do my clients achieve their professional development goals, but every other area of their life improves as well.
Having led more than 100 clients through my psychedelic-assisted executive coaching programs, I am now ready to share what I've learned. Between interviews with my clients, psychedelic experts, and how-to episodes, I will teach you the most critical best practices for leveraging therapeutic psychedelics to greatly accelerate your professional, interpersonal, and spiritual development.

On Therapeutic Psychedelics, Startup Leaders & Peak Performance - The Awake Forward Podcast with Michael Costuros Michael Costuros

    • Business
    • 5.0 • 19 Ratings

While the media is focused on using therapeutic psychedelics to treat mental health conditions, I’m here to tell you about the benefits that high-functioning business leaders are realizing today.
I’m Michael Costuros. I’m an advisor and executive coach to some of Silicon Valley’s most talented entrepreneurs, and I have a secret to share.
I’ve strategically combined guided psychedelic experiences (provided by expert guides) with my executive coaching since 2010, and I can tell you, that the results are many times more impactful than executive coaching alone. Not only do my clients achieve their professional development goals, but every other area of their life improves as well.
Having led more than 100 clients through my psychedelic-assisted executive coaching programs, I am now ready to share what I've learned. Between interviews with my clients, psychedelic experts, and how-to episodes, I will teach you the most critical best practices for leveraging therapeutic psychedelics to greatly accelerate your professional, interpersonal, and spiritual development.

    Is your company really your baby? How to avoid toxic attachment.

    Is your company really your baby? How to avoid toxic attachment.

    In this 15-minute episode, I will provide you with two tools you can use today to prevent one of the most common biases that can cause a first-time founder/CEO to fail.
    The cause? Unhealthy identity-level attachment to your company. This includes attachment to your role in the company, the company’s mission, and the public perception of the brand.
    Minutes from now, you will have a roadmap for maintaining healthy attachments at each stage of the company and a game-changing mindset that can adopt right away.

    • 14 min
    An Ayahuasca Rite of Passage Changed Founder/CEO Jesse Krieger Life ​and Business

    An Ayahuasca Rite of Passage Changed Founder/CEO Jesse Krieger Life ​and Business

    A unique ayahuasca experience becomes a rite of passage that upgrades entrepreneur Jesse Krieger's personal and professional life
    In this episode, you will learn how ayahuasca, when done in conjunction with an extended prep and integration program can help you…

    Shift from seeking external validation to internal validation. 

    Identifying what you are ashamed of and forgiving yourself completely. 

    Psychologically terminate your relationship with your father so that you can recreate it from a blank slate. 


    You will hear mind-blowing stories and actionable techniques that you can apply to your life and business right away.

    • 1 hr 11 min
    Ego Flipping - How three startup founder CEOs flipped their ego from unruly master to humble servant with ayahuasca

    Ego Flipping - How three startup founder CEOs flipped their ego from unruly master to humble servant with ayahuasca

    You are about to hear from three veteran founder/CEOs who successfully reset their relationship with their ego by undergoing an ego death and rebirth experience. 
    Khellar Crawford's ego reset was accidental. He actually died when his motorcycle was struck head-on by a van. When resuscitated his ego was reborn as a humble servant, changing his orientation to life and business forever.
    Bertram Meyer and Henrik Zillmer both experienced their ego resets through ayahuasca, an amazonian plant medicine containing psychedelic compounds. I want you to hear both their stories because their experiences couldn’t have been more different, but the results were the same. A total reorientation toward life and business. 
    In this episode, you will learn what the ego-death and rebirth experience was like for each of them, how it changed their approach to business leadership and their best practices for maintaining a healthy relationship with their ego.
    While the stories you are about to hear are emotionally rich and very entertaining, I created this episode to inspire you to consider the role you are allowing your ego to play in your life. 
    Is it your master or servant?
    Are you overdue for an ego reset?
    Let’s find out.

    • 58 min
    How to Find, Interview & Vet an Expert Psychedelic Guide for Professional Development

    How to Find, Interview & Vet an Expert Psychedelic Guide for Professional Development

    Finding and vetting a psychedelic guide is difficult. Especially if you are looking for one who knows how to work with entrepreneurial founders and CEOs who want to go from good to great at work. In this episode, Michael interviews a guide with 40 years of experience to share the most important how-tos and don’ts when it comes to working with psychedelics for professional development. By the end of this episode, you will know if you're interested in pursuing therapeutic psychedelics as a tool for professional development, and if so, how to interview a professional guide.

    • 49 min
    How Therapeutic Psychedelics are Helping Entrepreneurs Win - With Michael Costuros

    How Therapeutic Psychedelics are Helping Entrepreneurs Win - With Michael Costuros

    In this episode, you will learn how business leaders are using psychedelic therapy in combination with executive coaching to accelerate their professional, interpersonal, and spiritual development. By the end, you will know if you want to pursue psychedelics as a tool for professional development, or not. 
    Highlights include: Why therapeutic psychedelics in conjunction with executive coaching are so effective. How to determine if it's medically safe for you to use psychedelics. What's the best approach to using psychedelics if professional development is your goal? How to distinguish between a novice and an expert psychedelic service provider. The typical career-limiting bad habits plaguing CEOs that this method often resolves. An overview of my six months psychedelic-assisted executive coaching program. Last but not least enough about me to decide if you can trust my opinions on these topics! By the end of this episode, you will know if you're interested in pursuing therapeutic psychedelics as a tool for professional development, and if so, what questions you need to answer in order to take the next step.

    • 52 min
    Season 1 trailer: Introducing Season 1 of the Awake Forward Podcast with Michael Costuros

    Season 1 trailer: Introducing Season 1 of the Awake Forward Podcast with Michael Costuros

    While the media is focused on using therapeutic psychedelics to treat mental health conditions, I’m here to tell you about the benefits that high-functioning business leaders are realizing today.
    I’m Michael Costuros. I’m an advisor and executive coach to some of Silicon Valley’s most talented entrepreneurs, and I have a secret to share.
    I’ve strategically combined guided psychedelic experiences with my executive coaching since 2010, and I can tell you, that the results are many times more impactful than executive coaching alone. Not only do my clients achieve their professional development goals, but every other area of their life also improves as well.
    Having led more than 100 clients through my psychedelic-assisted executive coaching programs, I am now ready to share what I've learned. Between interviews with my clients, psychedelic experts, and how-to episodes, I will teach you the most critical best practices for leveraging therapeutic psychedelics to greatly accelerate your professional, interpersonal, and spiritual development.

    • 2 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
19 Ratings

19 Ratings

Changeline ,

Excellent, concise and packed with valuable insights!

Really fantastically well put together, seamless, concise and most importantly packed with many valuable insights. I really love how this podcast weaves in topics from entrepreneurship, executive coaching, psychedelics and spirituality, while still provides insights that anyone can learn from. I really appreciated in one of the episodes that there are three different people and hence diverse perspectives brought to the show, as that really helps with triangulating essence and real signal from the rest. I can only imagine how much harder that is for the facilitator working with more than one interviewee, and Michael makes it seem effortless. And it’s so worth the value it compounds - as it doesn't seem to be three times as much value, but rather feels like the value your are getting is cubed. Also, I loved how this work overlaps with Internal Family Systems (IFS) – the way the participants and Michael describe their experiences with separating from their egos (similar to “unblending from parts” in IFS) then to build the relationship to it where the True Self is in driving seat collaborating with the ego as its advisor. It makes me think how things that truly work can be found across different modalities, these common threads that resonate true, just like here Michael bringing diverse voices to distill the true pattern. Beautiful. I'm a big fan and looking forward to the next episodes!

birdge ,

Very informative

This podcast does a great job explaining in very straightforward language the benefits and challenges of using psychedelics to enhance executive leadership.

CaitSilva ,

Amazing insights, executive or not

Found this podcast to be extremely insightful and interesting as someone who supports executives!! Michaels deep knowledge and expertise in this realm shined through and instantly intrigued me.

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