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EP 219: Biohacking - Entrepreneurs perspective with Bijou Finney

Bijou Finney is a Brand Stylist™, and holistic guide specializing in visionary life design for conscious entrepreneurs. Her cutting-edge therapeutic process teaches business owners how to use psychedelics and healing practices, retrain their nervous systems and clear limiting mental blocks.

In our conversation we talk about how she helps entrepreneurs remove mental blocks, the benefit of microdosing and the holistic approach of biohacking.

Guest Links:

Bijou on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bijoulea-finney-47543767/

Website: https://www.storyxstyle.com/

Bijou on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mushroommamasita/

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Transcript:

(This Transcript is AI generated)

Bijou Finney

Hello and welcome to the Human Innovation Podcast, the podcast for innovative leaders. I'm your host Jens Heitland, and today my guest is Bijou Finney. Bijou is a brand stylist and a holistic guide specializing in visionary life design for conscious entrepreneurs. Her cutting edge therapeutic

process teaches business owners how to use psychedelics and healing practices, retain their nervous systems and clear limiting mental blocks. In our conversation, we talk about how she helps entrepreneurs remove mental blocks, the benefit of micro dosing and the holistic approach of bio hacking. Please welcome to the show Bijou Finney.

Hello Bijou, welcome to the show. Great to have you. 

Thank you for having me. 

I'm eager to learn from you about a couple of things connected to entrepreneurship, but as well biohacking.

But before we go into that, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get to where you are today? 

Mm. Yeah. So, um, I think it started way, way back when I was little and I saw both of my parents, um, being entrepreneurs and I feel like at times it's easier to imagine yourself owning your own company when you witnessed.

Both of your parents doing that. And so, um, I only had one job right out of college, which I really appreciated. It was in a big corporate office and I had an incredible boss who really refined me and polished me down. And, um, and then right out of that gate I started my own business and I've been an entrepreneur ever since.

And, um, I was kind of obsessed with like, what, what all has to come together to make someone successful and happy in their lives? And so I got really into asking people and getting mentors and, and reading books and really understanding what self-help would mean, uh, to support myself. Um, I really got into biohacking cuz I understood that if your body is and your mind are tip top condition and healthy, then it's easier for you to handle the stress of entrepreneurship.

So I kind of was really, I would say definitely obsessed with like, what does it look like for me to be my own coach or for me to work through some of my mental blocks? What does it look like for me to support my, my body and my mind? I guess that's what I was doing as a hobby. Um, on top of, um, opening a couple of businesses.

And then I realized when I had my video production company that a lot of times I was coaching my clients, um, through big blocks. Like they didn't wanna show up for their company on video or they were too afraid to use. Um, budgets to market or certain things like that. So I had to, um, really sharpen that tool of what does it look like for me to coach people through some of these mental blocks.

And that's when I started doing, um, some certifications on coaching business owners. Um, and then I realized that there are some. Uncomfortable conversations that people are not having with their coaches or with their mentors or with their therapists even, that are really at the root of their blocks, whether it be imposter syndrome or worthiness or whatever it might be.

And so that's when I started understanding, well, if I can't even touch my own at times, how am I expecting these people to bring this to the surface with me? So that's when I started getting really into. How I can support people with different modalities that included some pretty therapeutic and healing aspects.

Um, I also am a huge follower of what the Silicone Valley guys do, especially at that time just because they were pretty innovative about the tech that they would wear to support themselves in biohacking or, uh, maybe. Software that they would use for their businesses and just like they're all around lifestyle.

Um, so that's when psychedelics kind of bubbled up to the surface. That's when the Silicone Valley guys were kind of spouting in their praises. And, um, I started getting, I guess, a little bit curious and. Went down my own rabbit holes for a little bit and then realized whenever I was actually able to touch my own, uh, deeply seated issues and wounds and blocks with that modality, I decided, wow, like this I think is the future.

I think this is the only thing that I've seen really work this fast and this well. And so that's when I started going into what does it look like to be a facilitator? Um, so. Mashed a bunch of like my past and, um, current trainings together and came up with what I utilize as my modality to specifically help entrepreneurs understand what's holding them back and how we can reframe some narratives that they might have about themselves and their lives.

And how to move forward with vision. So yeah, long story short, now I'm here, uh, and three years into, almost three years into that business. 

Great. Yeah, and it's, I, I want to highlight it's, it's not just. Hey, you, you stepped out of university and now you're doing this and, and you are a coach, kind of like a lot of other people who have never done a business.

You have had several business, one was a brick and mortar store, and as well a, a quite successful video business. Mm-hmm. Even if I, uh, if I have researched that ride with a Netflix documentary, Mm-hmm. 

Yeah. The net Netflix documentary was, was me having this hunger for conversations with really successful business owners.

And so the documentary is essentially about. Very, very powerful and, uh, successful businessmen who kind of moonlight as, um, race car drivers. And so it was just very interesting to me, um, and the ability to be able to interview them. Just really got me excited. So yeah, it's, it's me, uh, asking all those questions.

You don't see me in the documentary, but I'm the one interviewing them and following them around the world. And that was an incredible experience and very enlightening because even at their level in business, they're still struggling with imposter syndrome and worthiness and, and burnout. And so I was like, okay, I'm not gonna outrun this.

That's always. What, what I always, um, find super interesting as well because I get a little bit feedback, Hey, you're working 24 7, but nobody, like the things you see for me public is maybe 2% of what I do. So I guess it was the same for you being around this entrepreneurs and maybe now today for you as well.

Nobody sees really what's going on because it's, you just see the survey, which is a website, which maybe social media posts, podcast videos, what. Exactly. Yeah. So I would love to understand, I have looked at your website and I, I love the setup of your website and you have had a couple of goals, but one stand out, which fits to this podcast.

One of your goals is helping entrepreneurs with mental blocks. Let's start high level, what, what are mental blocks you can help entrepreneurs with? And then we go into how, how you can help them. 

Yeah. So, um, Entrepreneurs or business owners, people trying to even move up in their corporate jobs come to me because they feel like they've plateaued or they might feel stagnant, or they have a block around asking for what they want or going after what they want.

So if they want a raise or. They wanna move up in the company or they have this dream of starting this, this side hustle, or they wanna expand their business, but they have a bunch of fear around it, or imposter syndrome, or um, their perfectionism or procrastination. All of these are blocks that really make people just.

Stands still. And so really supporting them and understanding why do you have that block, that narrative, that wound, something that might have happened to you in your past that we need to get over to get you confident enough and to have enough vision to move forward. Because it's kind of like the, I know what I want and I see it down there.

But then there's just something this wall in the way, like I can't see myself getting through it. And that's why I really love utilizing psychedelics because one of the aspects of them is the shift in perspective is the looking at your problem from a completely new angle. Um, that'll allow you to kind of innovate and design your life or your trajectory in a different way.

Yeah, fo for. The 2 0 3 on this podcast who have never heard about psychedelics or say, ah, these are all drugs that you, you should never take this. How would you counter that? 

So Mark my words. It's the future and uh, there are a lot of very reputable, um, organizations working to really free the stigma around, especially like the two that I'm very passionate about, and that is M D M A and psilocybin.

So yes, there are a lot of like hard drugs out there that are very addictive. They can ruin your. life that you can really hurt yourself with. Whereas psilocybin is like, they're finding safer than table salt. As long as you're with someone that understands how to utilize it and dose you. But in my opinion, it's true medicine and I think in in short order we're gonna see that even at a federal level, people are going to be agreeing with that.

And I even work with a few therapists right now that say that. Talk therapy can only get someone so far that the somatic aspect of moving something out of your body is the missing piece that allows someone to really move through something. And so I believe that eventually it's just gonna be such commonplace that people might be just throwing it in their smoothie in the morning.

Um, the fact that something like crao or even cannabis and alcohol and nicotine who are so much more d dangerous and addictive are are. just readily available to anyone. Seems a little bit absurd to me. But yeah, in my opinion, psilocybin is, is not addictive and it can't really hurt anybody if they're prepared and have done the prep work to take it.

Um, and in fact it's, it's quite mild and small doses, which is why I love microdosing so much. 

Yeah. Let's go deeper into, Let's take me as Gua Pig. I'm, I'm an entrepreneur. I work a lot, most, probably a little bit too much. If you ask my wife at least, I have a mental block.

How would you help me if I say, Hey, Bijou, can you help me? I, I don't know how I overcome this. I have no idea. I need help. How would you get started with me as your client. 

So I have to ask a lot of questions to understand your past and then your current environment because it's really important that we don't like open you up and soften you up enough to kind of play around with your psyche while you're in a very high stress environment.

So we need to understand what a good time of year is or what you're trying to accomplish, but really it's. It's interesting, and this is why I love working with entrepreneurs so much. Is that the thing that potentially made you a good entrepreneur? It's like that wound, it's like that, that thing that happened to you as a child that made you an over like doer, an over producer.

Right? And, and it's, it's okay. We don't wanna change that. But it's not sustainable. You will burn out. It will affect your relationships. Uh, you will plateau, right? And so there is an easier way of going about it, which I found to be mind blowing for me because I was burned out. I was overdoing it. I was letting all of my relationships suffer drastically.

And it's kind of this like, what is this thing that needs to be adjusted or skewed in a slightly different direction? So if it's just like overdoing it, Exaggerated, let's bring it back more to the middle, or let's give you a different perspective. And so, yeah, it takes a lot of questions, honestly. Um, I typically do an entire hour, sometimes hour and a half phone call with someone to understand what happened to you in the past, what are you currently dealing with now, and what does it.

Like for you to be thriving in the future. And you would be surprised with like how high functioning some of the people I work with are that they might have specific like monetary goals, but whenever I ask them, what does it look like for you to be thriving? It's hard for them to answer. And I think it's because the holistic approach is missing.

They're not always thinking about what needs to happen, my relationships in my health and in my business, for me to be all around thriving. So it's, 

it's starting with us getting to know each other. You asking me a lot of questions? Of course. There they're, the people out there is like, where's the biohacking?

Where's the, where, where's the microdosing come into this. So it, let's start high level again. So we getting to know each other. You asking me questions? You try to get a perspective of who I am and what are the blockages you can feel and see? How does it then go toward. Let's find out a plan that you helped me unlocking this.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So biohacking to me is, uh, what do we need to do to your biology, right? So what, where is your brain strained? Where is your sleep strained? Uh, where is your hydration strained? Um, I think the fact that I got so into biohacking helps me then to suggest things to people because when you start microdosing, it's called.

Stacking in some ways of like, you can take multiple supplements to support, um, the medicine getting deeper into your system or the, maybe let's say like, Lions main, that really helps. It's a type of mushroom that really helps with your brain on top of the psilocybin, right? So there's obviously the supplemental stacks, but how can we have it stack in your life?

What are the biohacks that we need to do in your life? To really support you, because a lot of times we'll talk about issues with focus and clarity and mood, and a lot of those could be addressed by proper hydration and sleep, but that needs to be kind of coupled with this new catalyst that's going to allow you to be easier to pick up new habits, right?

And so it's kind of like a holistic approach of what needs to change in your environment currently. To really support you in feeling a sh a shift within your body and not just within your mind. 

Yeah. That's interesting. So environmental change, do you mean then as well, maybe you should move somewhere? Or is it more about, hey, move yourself in a different way so that you have changes in your environment which trigger you?

Mm-hmm. 

Yeah. So, um, there's something as, I mean, there's all kinds of things that I don't typically suggest people move right out of the gate when we start working with each other. But things like, um, asking your wife to. One day a week, just totally take the kids or asking your husband whatever it is, right?

Like what needs to happen in your environment? What, what are the things that you've been dealing with that are really making your nervous system raw? What are the things that boundaries that you can ask for? Is it telling your boss that you're not gonna come in on Fridays? Or like really adjusting your environment, your schedule, what?

Like day-to-day looks like is really, really helpful because just that coupled with the right support systems, like moving your body and hydrating properly, plus this new medicine that really allows for a massive shift forward that they can see and feel. And then the placebo effect of seeing all of that change and even so.

Giving people permission to ask for things in their environment that they never thought that they could ask for, and, and seeing how easily people will give it to them and how much it affects their lives is typically one of the most mind-blowing and, and best things. Not to mention actually taking time to dial in what the right microdose is.

And so everyone is completely different and so people will come to me and say things. I have this medicine and, uh, it's, it's precap in this amount and I can't feel it, or it's precap in this amount and it's way too strong for me. They're just assuming that microdosing isn't right for them, but they should be adjusting to a very sub perceptive amount, like a cup of coffee would feel like, so they can actually go about their day, and it's really just in the background supporting their mood and their focus, right?

Mm-hmm. And so, That's part of the environment, that's part of the structure that we need to optimize to make sure that it's very customized to the person that's taking it. 

I think that's very interesting learning for me right now because I, I, I wasn't too much into that topics cuz it, it more, the impression is when, when you're new into this and when you look at it from the outside perspective, it's drugs, but.

What, what you say now is you, if you take this holistic, it's changing your habits, looking at your sleep, looking at water, uh, hydration, and then taking everything into consideration, plus having microdose of specific things that help you to maybe be more restful, maybe, uh, other things around that. I think that's a very, very interesting point, and that's maybe as well.

I mean, coming grown up in Germany, where, where, this is definitely not a, a, a very wide spoken topic yet. Um, I guess it is maybe in the innovations sphere, but not if you talk corporate. I think that's, I'm just thinking about, like you said, maybe in the future it's, it's open and way more mainstream than it is today.

Mm-hmm. What this can unleash for people, because if you look into high stress, environ, Myself included, I know if I'm not having the right habits, if I'm not sleeping well, that I'm off. Mm-hmm. And my wife is saying it straight away to me, or when I don't do my sports, for example. So there are a lot of connections to that as well.

And then obviously as an entrepreneur or as as a person in business, you're not as good as you normally could. 

Yeah, so that's a, the very good point that you're bringing up that might tie all of this together is if someone comes to me, if you came to me and you're like, I can't sleep very well and it's affecting my ability to work out and it makes me stress and like be rude to my employees or my wife, right?

Like all of those things are very common things that people will bring to me. Yeah. And we'll say, why are you not able to sleep? Why are you so stressed? That you're living in fight or flight, that your cortisol is spiking all of the time. Right? And. That's where the medicine comes in and really regulates her nervous system.

And then all of these other things start evening out. And then you start wondering, like, and getting inquisitive about why was I in fight or flight all the time? It was it, was it just an adaptive like mechanism or do I have this. Stemming back from my childhood, like what needs to be shifted in my nervous system to then support all of these habits.

And so it has been really amazing is that witnessing all these people be able to have such major shifts in the most important foundational principles of their lives because of their nervous systems just going down a couple revs, right? Mm-hmm. And, and, and that's kind of like the root of the problem is.

In three, six months, what can we find to be the root of the problem and how can we adjust whether or not that needs to be healed or completely replaced like a computer with programming that no longer serves you. Let's upgrade your computer with this new program that states this, this, and this about yourself, and your mind will be much more open to it and so will your body with some adjustments.

So important. I'm, I'm, I'm fascinated by this because I work quite a bit with startups and, and of course, speci specifically the early phases in companies is most of the time, the, the hardest, let's say the first three, three years is the most stressful. And if you are one of the founders, then you work 24 7 and you put a lot of pressure on you.

And if you're in an age like I am with having a child, having a family, It's, that's all on top of it. And I think that's, yeah, that's something which myself included, like startup founders and so on, should be way more open to and understand. Okay, take, take the totality. Yeah. But for me, it's amazing. Yeah.

For me it's quite interesting because I'm, I'm putting myself under the pressure as well to. Because I have been extremely successful in the past, and now everything I want to do should be successful, obviously. Mm-hmm. Which, which I, and I'm, I'm just, just common. That's just a trade for entrepreneurs and to unleash these things will help everyone out there who is driving a business in.

Yeah. And I think that was the thing that I started realizing my, for myself, but definitely now, especially working with men, um, and at some points is you have so much on your shoulders and you're not talking to anyone about your stress. Yeah, exactly. And it's kind of like, do you really think that that's a good idea?

It's, it's, Yes, it's not. And, uh, but yeah, at the same time people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't wanna sit on a couch and tell a therapist my feelings because like, what has that ever done? Right? And so I do like this approach that it's like, uh, it's an optimizer when I tell people, especially men and very high functioning women, uh, that it's like, let's, let's coach you through.

Changes that need to happen in your life, that's much more approachable than the whole, like let's talk about your feelings for a minute. The feelings are gonna come up. Yeah. And we're gonna work through them, but it's kind of like going in with the mindset, okay, I need to really shift this in my life because I know this isn't sustainable.

Or I know that I could bring so much more to the table, or. This is just too much. I can't, I can't move forward. Right. And, and so I have people at all different stages and like your, to your point, I've been at all three or four of those stages before and I can sympathize and empathize because I'm just like, oh yeah, I, I redlined myself like that before I know what you're going through.

What, what are a couple of topics we, you, you could say for, for the benefit of the listeners what are. Every stressful entrepreneur who is running a startup could do. 

Yeah. So I think why my passion is working with entrepreneurs is that. They feel so alone. I know. I felt alone. Most of my friends were working for other people and they would complain about their bosses and I would, I would side with their bosses and I don't know why it was hard for me to find other entrepreneurs to be friends with probably cuz we were all so busy.

I definitely joined a lot of. Entrepreneur organizations, but everyone is so focused and moving so fast that like the camaraderie sometimes isn't there. And so I, um, I would say that like finding someone, like a coach, a mentor, um, a therapist, a a group of other entrepreneurs have some kind of support system for sure, that you can really bring a lot to the table, even your feelings about.

Your relationships and, and how you're feeling about certain things. Right. So that's definitely something. And then health being a very important aspect because that's always the easy thing that we could put off to the side. It's like, I can't put my kids off to the side. I can't put this meeting off to the side.

My wife will kill me if I put her off to the side again. Right. So it's just gonna be me working out that's gonna go out out the window. Right. And. Those are the things is like look at your life from a holistic perspective and what are the aspects that need your support? And I will say that when I was deep in my entrepreneurial phase, spirituality or some type of just alone time, breath work, meditation definitely was not a factor in my life.

And ever since really bringing that in has been game changing in so many ways. And so I. That's another big reason why Microdosing works so well for people is that that's one of the biggest things that they witnessed. That changes for them, that that becomes easier for them. And just that alone time with breath with yourself, that's when incredible ideas for your business can come up, or real stress relief can.

Can take place. And so yeah, I would say it's like taking a step back from your life and be like, what are the aspects that need to be optimized and need my attention? 

Yeah. What I like about that we are all in this high pace all the time, all every entrepreneur I know at least is like, let's get things moving.

Let's, and this slowing down. Will enable you to be faster, but you need to slow down first, and that's the hard thing from a mind shift. Like, yes, I need to step back. I've seen it, so I did, when was it last year in November. I haven't really done meditation properly, so then I said I need to get back in into it because I get angry.

Like, why? Why am I angry? And I said, okay, I'm not spending enough time for myself because every waking minute is working, or family or other duties. It's not about even, even sport or gym. Workouts was more stressed than me time. And then I started just getting up earlier and spending an hour just for myself, writing things down, starting to journal.

And just sitting there and, and first I used like an app, which helped me to, to get back into it, but it's such a different world now. It's huge. Yeah. And it's, I'm, I'm way faster, way more productive and always when I feel that the anger comes up or some like more that I feel the stress, I like, oh. What did, did I not do the last days?

Oh, yeah. Then I know what it is. At least that's, that's for me a big aha moment. And I always go back to trying to understand what is the trigger, and then goes like, okay, I haven't done any meditation now. I haven't had a alone time. I see this as well when I, I'm traveling quite a bit. When, when, because when you travel, at least for me, it's always, I'm.

Mm-hmm. Client relationships ha having interaction with different people from early morning to late evening, and then the time you should be spending for yourself. You're just sleeping. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or have a beer that you can sleep or whatever. Mm-hmm. Vicious cycle. Yeah. 

Absolutely. I've been there. 

No, no.

I love this. Is psychedelics just a different name for this or is this a, a additional topics? 

So psychedelics, um, are, are a class, I guess, so you would say like L s D or, uh, ibogaine or ayahuasca or, um, bufo or psilocybin. All of those come from different aspects.

So some of 'em are lab made, some of 'em are naturally occurring and essentially, Doing is it's giving your mind the chance to expand. So psycho, not is like psychedelic is the idea of you. Kind of breaking apart a little bit of your reality, the thing that we become so safe in is to go, what, what is a different way that I can see things?

So, for instance, many of, and this is another documentary idea that I've been working on, is talking to some of the, the major change makers, the disruptors in our, in our world like Uber or Amazon or whatever. Um, a lot of those ideas came from, Psychedelic experiences where they were able to break apart what is normal and innovate it in a.

That at first sounded crazy, right? When we first heard about Uber, we were like, no, I'm not getting in a stranger's car. That's not like a real driver. And now it's just like such commonplace, right? Mm-hmm. And so that's a thing is that there's a lot about our society, even dating back to the beginning of religion and time and, and civilization, that psychedelics were a big part of civilization evolving and moving forward.

Okay. That's fascinating. We, we need to talk about the documentary offline there. Yeah, I have an idea. Uh, okay. Let's, let's get into the last part of the podcast, um, where asked you a couple of questions that are connected and or not connected to what we have talked until now. Mm-hmm. If you could work with a project that is impacting every human being on.

What project would you decide to work with and why?

I am doing that. I think that, uh, people actually getting more support than they actually have and talking about, um, their feelings like it, it's. It's shocking to me how many times people come to me and say, I don't work with a therapist.

I don't work with a coach. I don't have anyone that I can talk to, and they never have. And so I figured since I grew up with like a. Pretty extensive amount of therapy that I thought that this was commonplace, right? But even people that can afford it and have the time for it, just have a block around doing that.

So yeah, I would say, um, it's a thing that everyone's saying that, ugh, everyone's becoming a coach. And I'm kind of like, Maybe that's a good thing. I think people need more coaching. They need someone that's a cheerleader for them. They need someone that's going to see past some of their, their safe places and past some of their blocks.

And so, um, yeah, I would say initiative on making sure that you're not just. Following the path that is, in my opinion, broken. So like you're just going down the path, the way that you've seen everyone else go down the path. Even if it feels unhealthy and it doesn't resonate with your soul, you're just gonna keep going down it, right?

So have someone that questions you, um, and helps you question yourself. And so, yeah, I would say the biggest project. That is going to support our evolution and support potentially conscious entrepreneurship, which I believe is what is your business doing to the world? What is, uh, your practices doing to the environment?

What is your practices doing to your employees? What is. Like how you show up in the world affecting the people that are gonna be inspired by you. And so, yeah, I would say entrepreneurs getting help is a huge project and initiative that I think is one of the most important things in the world since entrepreneurs make so many waves in this world.

Great 

one. What advice would you give to a young innovator?

Be prepared to fail. Um, and that's okay. And, uh, the more you fail, Especially if you stay in the same vein, the more like juicy and yummy, that thing at the end is gonna be, um, and get a mentor, like get, get support. But also at the same time, just because your mentor has done it a certain way doesn't mean that you can't innovate that.

And so get a supportive mentor that will be there and teach you the things that they struggled with, but will also celebrate you and cheerlead you into doing it potentially different than they did. 

Where can people find you and how can people reach out? 

So I'm pretty active on Instagram. I get a lot of questions, uh, people messaging me, asking me, um, just education and harm reduction.

Um, and so I, I love talking to people on there. Um, people also will book a call with me to kind of ask me more questions about what's right for them and what it would look like for them to potentially. This type of modality in their lives. Um, and they do that through my Insta Link bio or Biolink and my website.

Yeah. Awesome. Thank you very much for being on the show. Was a pleasure having you.