thank you welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn De Guzman with investing News Network Our Guest this episode is Mike Arnold founder and CEO of Silo Wellness hello Mike hi good to see you good to see you too let's start a conversation with just an overview of Silo wellness and some of the important highlights that the investor Community should know about your company well Silo Wellness was founded in 2018 with the goal of getting psychedelic medicine into the hand of people the people's hands as quickly inexpensively


as possible and what that meant for me was not going the pharmaceutical route but going through the adult use route here in the United States that was being signaled here in my home state of Oregon that is now rolling out as well as in Jamaica where it's uh legal right now so for those unfamiliar with um psychedelic healing can you provide a high level explanation of what that is and what that entails you know I think psychedelic healing can be a little bit of a misnomer yeah it puts too much power in the hands of a


molecule that's more of the pharmaceutical route I think this has to do with unlocking your own personal inner healer to go on your own personal Journey not with a guide or a shaman or a guru but someone that's they're just there to hold space for you to help keep the the set and setting a a safe container so you can go put in the hard work that is required for an introspective personal Journey so what we like to do with the silo Wellness Retreat system in Jamaica is to present the clients with an affordable holistic


option that is an alternative to traditional healing modalities but could also accentuate those traditional modalities by putting sort of the power in the hand of the client to work through the process in in a group form or through an individual program do you currently offer what can one expect when participating in these Retreats and what your approaches are our approach with the silo wellness retreats is to put the healing into the hands of the client by presenting them with an affordable and safe option where


we rely upon the expertise of our practitioners we have a PhD pharmacologist that works on intake we have a a person with a doctorate in nursing that is on site assisting with facilitation and we have um an all-around tried and true program that we've been using for uh since Inception that allows people to um have a safe place in order to to do and to put in the work and I understand that in these Retreats your approaches to put them in smaller group settings so what's the rationale for that and what are the benefits for


that so there's a couple ways to go about the quote-unquote Psychedelic helium there's the clinical model with the white walled office and and um you know more of a traditional physician modality and then there's the retreat model and that can be an individual personal Retreat it can be customized for individuals or couples but we like to keep the group Retreats small but still keep them as groups for a couple of reasons one it drops the price point down to make it more affordable for


people but also a lot of people are lacking community and in this world having a group of like-minded people with the intention to uh to connect with one another and to attempt to to heal is a very important part of the of the retreat process so by keeping the group small it allows relationships to build and allows people to be heard and it's a it's a comfortable atmosphere of course there are some some modalities are to do very large groups um we we tend to shy away from that you know I'm a this this company was founded


by a lawyer and we're a publicly traded company so we put a safety above all else um uh it's all about the people in the process as opposed to you know High margins due to high volume practices and so we prefer to stay in the in the 5 to 12 person range per tree so who would be um who would be participating in these Retreats like who are your target who's your target market our target market for the the silent longest Retreats is anybody looking for introspection and and for self-healing


uh the clientele can range from folks that are going through you know Troublesome anxiety or depression Up episodes as soon as this isn't you know a prescribed modality for that but it's just it's just an opportunity for people to get outside their normal mindset their normal setting to really focus on themselves as opposed to going through the daily grinds um um a normal life they can actually take the time out and and get to know themselves so we tend to have a lot of clients from more


culturally traditional backgrounds that um you know people come to my state here of Oregon I'm from Kansas City originally but people come to Oregon and they drive around Portland OR Eugene and if they're from the Midwest um or from more rural areas they you know they sometimes are are are sort of put off by what is considered sort of the West Coast culture so we tend to cater to a more spiritually agnostic uh curriculum where um we allow people to sort of guide themselves through that props process


without introducing you know Dogma or acting like some pseudo Guru so we like to meet people where they are and we like to work with them to create a a certain setting that is most conducive for them and you mentioned you work with Healthcare professionals can you talk a little bit more about that like what their role is during these retreats the role of healthcare Professionals in our Retreat really starts at the beginning so when we're doing the intake process we're getting to know the


clients um their their diagnoses their um their Farmers pharmaceutical regimens and that are working in concert with our pharmacologists through the intake process can often lead to Communications and open dialogue with the the practitioners that are involved in a client's current care to make sure that everybody's on the same page for this particular opportunity for for their patient for our client and that process continues through preparation and on-site as well we have an on-call physician we have someone who's a doctor


in nursing and we have an integration program following the retreat that keeps everything grounded and everything um sort of out in the open so people can work through their intentions together as a group but also on their own by keeping you know attuned with the best practices so it's not a clinical model it's um sort of the the nature immersed compromise that is centered not on a particular uh programming or sort of a dogmatic regimen but is centered on on love like the self-love um working with others and


interconnectedness and just looking at the the person from um sort of the whole person as opposed to them just being a a collection of symptoms and these are real individuals with uh with long complicated stories and and Trauma and uh everybody is their particular lives have brought them this to this particular moment of time at this particular location at this beautiful ocean front setting where they're all intent on looking inward while at the same time looking outward at just the the beauty of Nature and the


beauty of their of their fellow man around them uh through this this group process I'm curious to know you're a lawyer when you founded this company so what was the driving Factor what led you to fi to found this company the reason I thought of solid Wellness is because I had a profile and experience with psilocybin mushrooms um working with a physician and I thought that was just a wonderful eye-opening introspect introspective experience that that changed my life changed my outlook and modified sort of


the steps I was taking and and meant a whole lot to me uh it also saddened me that you know that other people don't have that opportunity that they don't have the opportunity of being with the with just by dumb block or come across a physician in the medicine so what I wanted to do is to create an environment that would be comfortable for me I wanted to create something that um you know people like me that normally would be quite frightened of of psychedelic substances can feel that they are are


welcome that they're safe and and they're um they're not a danger of having practitioners um you know take advantage of them so that allows us to create a system with with vetted operators with vetted practitioners in an environment that I think me personally um you know this is a peer-reviewed science or anything it's just that you know you you would it would I would have a real big discomfort being a white-walled room or an office in the middle of an urban environment uh doing a psychedelic session and so I


wanted to create an environment that may not be like a walk in the wilderness alone which a lot of people aren't comfortable comfortable doing but would be an occasion for them to um be at a beachfront oceanfront property to be able to go snorkeling in their in their off time to be able to connect with with the the Sun the moon the stars the the ocean breeze and connect with themselves and their and their and their fellow participants do you think the sort of the market for these types of um offering you know and


then the whole emergence on psychedelics as a as a you know Wellness treatment what's the market like now is like is the public you know getting more informed about this are their interests are there more interested now like what are you seeing in the market for these things well if you just look at the the conversations out in public or on social media and compare that to uh news articles about this particular space about psychedelic healing and you'll see an exponential increase since uh 2018.


and you have more and more people being exposed which yet means more and more people are feeling something they haven't felt for a really long time or maybe ever and that's a sense of hope it's a promise that things can be better a promise that that um that little bit of a piece in their corner of the world that they've been searching for um may not be as far away as as they think I mean they may think it's as far as away as here in Oregon where it's we go or as far away as Jamaica but really


it's no farther than than where you are no matter where you go there you are and what we're seeing is um people need to be taken out out of their element like for instance if you have ever known or someone or have ever gone traveling and then you're next thing you know you want to buy a Timeshare whatever location you're at because it was the best place ever well it's not so much that your vacation was you know the best place ever it's because you were in the best State of


Mind ever because you were outside of your your own particular circumstances and you were you were free from you know worrying about the future and being afraid about what's next or being ashamed by the past you were living in the moment they're right here now that that never-ending moment and time where we are always existing and allows people to to focus on themselves and by doing that and putting the hard work it allows us to have better relationships with those that we love and care about it allows people to


um be less reactive to be be more intentional and then when they aren't intentional and they aren't um being less reactive they notice it quickly so there's a high demand for people to change direction in their lives people want to feel different we call it happiness we call it diversions but that's that's a misnomer like that's that's our dopamine um that's our our quest for the thrill what we're looking for I think is is peace and satisfaction with our predicament and to come to terms with


our own struggles our own sufferings and I think as long as um Society is chasing materialism and and chasing the the what's next there's going to be a high demand for services like this and I pray for a day when it was decriminalization and there's and the peace in the world but until then uh we're trying to create an opportunity for for people to step outside their comfort zone to challenge themselves and to have a real eye-opening and sometimes very fun um and enlightening experience


so what's next for the company what can the investor investor Community expect from Silo Wellness this year we're working hard to increase bookings for the the Jamaica Retreat system we're seeing an increase in inquiries in demand I think that's coming out of out of the Oregon launch um so there's there was a company that announced Oregon offerings in an urban area in Oregon at something the neighborhood of a USD 3 000 price point for up to 50 milligrams of psilocybins for the quote-unquote heroes dose and um


we're an alternative to that uh in Jamaica people can increase their dosage um they're not confined by the Oregon regimen if they want to boost their dose because they're enjoying the experience they can get that in Jamaica instead of paying that much for a single session you get to have the four or five nights in Jamaica you get to have preparation integration great ital meals healthy natural meals and so going forward we're working hard on on lead development to increase revenue and ultimately we're


also working on securing our Partnerships and potential licenses here in Oregon so we can eventually expand to Oregon we made an announcement in in January regarding a potential partnership long term with the Fairly large retreat-like property and we're just working hard on developing this essentially it's a legal problem to be solved and we're working through the land use motions right now and it'll hope that that'll be successful but in the meantime we hope to present a a an


affordable um and fun alternative to the Oregon system with our our um our current Retreat system in Jamaica so what's the typical price range for a retreat um well it depends on what people are looking for it can if they're looking for a group Retreat you know you're you're in the the upper 3000s to five thousand dollar range depending if you're doing single double occupancy depending on length of stay and and you know you can go as long as you want to stay as long as you want and


you have more services and whatnot or if someone's looking for a um a specialized encounter and perhaps a a Couple's Retreat uh we've had people inquire about sort of a last-ditch efforts prior to a divorce for instance and that and that that can be accommodated we're very flexible in working with people due to our Network in Jamaica and the and the service providers we have we do have available and the the oceanfront location is just conducive to working through whatever is on the agenda for


you personally right well thanks for coming on and um sharing your insights from your company well thanks for having me and for viewers who are interested to know more about Silo Wellness click on the link in the description below and join us again next time for another engaging conversation on CEO insights foreign foreign