A note on safety and legality: This article discusses microdosing, which involves psychedelic substances that are illegal in many countries. The following information is purely educational and isn't advocating for any illegal activities.
Hi, it’s Rachel here.
My twenty plus years in marketing and innovation have taught me one fundamental truth: change is hard. Really hard. Whether we're trying to shift consumer behaviour or transform organisations, we keep bumping up against the same stubborn reality - humans resist change.
My fascination with why we fight change so hard has led me down some pretty unexpected paths. Beyond strategic consultancy, I now work as a coach specialising in personal transformation during the “messy middle" of life - that threshold where we often start questioning everything we've built, and wondering what the hell lies beneath our carefully constructed identities.
Most intriguingly, this work has led me to explore how microdosing - taking tiny amounts of psychedelic substances - can support deep personal change.
The worlds of marketing and psychedelics might seem worlds apart. Yet Silicon Valley has long known their value - Steve Jobs famously attributed Apple's creative breakthroughs to his early psychedelic experiences. Today, tech innovators will routinely pop a microdose along with their AG1 smoothie before meditating every morning, seeking the edge that's always separated visionaries from the rest: the ability to spot opportunities that others miss and build the future before anyone else can imagine it.
The latest neuroscience reveals why. Our neural pathways become more fixed with age, our habits more deeply entrenched. This creates a growing challenge for us as marketers as we try to connect with an aging population, and as organisations as we attempt to maintain genuinely innovative thinking.
Psychedelics promote new and unexpected neural connections, linking brain regions that rarely communicate. They enhance divergent thinking - our capacity to make novel connections and see fresh perspectives. In one early study, academics who'd been stuck on complex problems for months found breakthrough solutions after a single supervised session with LSD.
Over the years I’ve discovered 3 key principles about getting the most out of microdosing that are directly applicable to marketing and behaviour change:
- Emotion beats logic. With microdosing, you need to actually feel your intention and why it matters in your body, not just think it. Les Binet and Peter Field are right, as always: in an age of data-driven everything, lasting behaviour change still starts with emotion, not functional propositions.
- Movement accelerates transformation. Microdosing works best with tiny physical practices supporting your intention. The same applies in marketing - every click, like, swipe, or smile creates stronger neural pathways than passive consumption. In a world of endless content, physical engagement matters more than ever.
- Creativity requires pattern disruption. Microdosing shows us that experiencing the world differently requires us to break from our normal routines. Just as those academics found breakthrough solutions through shifted perspectives, innovation emerges when we disrupt our patterns and let different parts of the brain start talking. In an age of AI and automation, this human capacity for unexpected connections becomes even more valuable.
But these insights only scratch the surface. The most profound pattern that psychedelics disrupt isn't in how we think or create - it's in how we see ourselves in relation to the world.
Clinical research reveals something remarkable: people who experience the most profound benefits from higher doses of psychedelics are those who have an experience that dissolves their feeling of being one distinct individual, separate from everyone and everything else.
In these moments, people moved beyond their sense of being an isolated individual to experience deep interconnection - with other people and the natural world. That’s more than a shift in perspective; it’s a direct experience of what indigenous cultures have long known: we’re not separate observers of life, but intrinsically part of its web.
This strikes at the heart of what we do as marketers and innovators. We've built our industry on seeing ourselves as creators and others as consumers. We extract value from attention, from engagement, from resources both human and planetary. This positions us as puppet masters pulling strings from above the system, rather than as participants within it.
But what if instead of extracting value, we reimagined our role as creating it?
Not just making and selling things - we already do that - but building tangible positive change for people and planet through our work. This means stepping down from behind the puppet master's curtain, recognising ourselves as part of the living world, and rethinking our personal and collective responsibility from that place.
For me, this is psychedelics' most valuable lesson: when we shift from seeing ourselves as separate to recognising our place within the system, we can think beyond our narrow role as marketers and start playing a more meaningful part in creating the kind of world we want our great-grandchildren to inherit.
The real pattern disrupt isn't about what marketing can do differently - it's about each of us setting a personal intention about what we’re going to do differently, and allowing ourselves to feel exactly why that matters so much.
Rachel Lawlan
Strategy Consultant and Transformational Coach
Further reading:
Magic Mushrooms. LSD. Ketamine. The Drugs That Power Silicon Valley.
Psychedelic Agents in Creative Problem-Solving: A Pilot Study
In Conversation with Peter Field and Les Binet: Brand building through emotion