The Podolskiy Method: Parenting an athlete

From the Ice to Innovation: Daniel Carcillo's Journey Through NHL Triumphs and Mental Health Advocacy

Coach Ilya Season 1 Episode 54

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Imagine lacing up your skates for the very last time, knowing that the sport you love is slipping away due to the invisible injuries plaguing your brain. That's the reality Daniel Carcillo faced, but from the ashes of his NHL career, he's emerged as a beacon of hope for those grappling with mental health challenges. This episode takes you on a ride from the chilly rinks of  Ontario to the hallowed grounds of the Stanley Cup, and into the boardroom where Carcillo now leads with a mission to innovate mental health treatment. We share the ice with Daniel as he recounts the thrills of playing with legends and the pivotal moments that forced him to hang up his jersey and tackle life's next chapter.

Transitioning from the rush of professional sports to the calm of parenting isn't a path tread by many, but it's one that Daniel Carcillo skates with grace. We uncover the profound impact a coach can have on the development of young minds, both on the ice and in life's daily shuffle. The episode isn't just about hockey; it's a heartfelt exploration into the strategies and emotional investments of raising a family, where every day is game day, and every moment with your children is a chance to coach for life's biggest wins.

Hear first-hand how Daniel faced the darkness of post-concussion symptoms and discovered a light in the form of psilocybin therapy—a journey that not only transformed his health but inspired a movement. We traverse the landscape of natural medicine and the promising horizon of psychedelic treatments, detailing Carcillo's role with Healing Realty Trust and the push to bring these therapies into the mainstream. It's a story of resilience, innovation, and the pursuit of healing that can change the game for concussion survivors and beyond. Join us as we celebrate the victories, both with the Stanley Cup and in the ongoing battle for a healthier mind.


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Speaker 1:

Good evening everybody and welcome back to the Podolsky Method podcast. I'm your creator and host, coach Ilya level five USA hockey, a master coach, lead hockey instructor for the New York Junior Rangers, and I run and operate Skate Shopping Shop and called Sharp Skate New York. And, of course, I'm a certified public accountant by trade. Um, just wanted to mention a couple of sponsors before we jump into our show. Uh, print only with us a full printing shop here in new york city for t-shirts or anything you need, signs, they can do it all. Uh, wargate hockey.

Speaker 1:

Uh, protection for your teeth, for those guys that love their visors and play hockey, you can get 10% off with Wargate with 10 P O D O L S K I Y. That's the code. How is hockey, oh, dear friends, with 10% off with them, with the code P O D O L S K I Y 1 0 for your tape or any other needs that you may have. And, of course, last but not least, check out the New York Rangers youth hockey community. As you are thinking to put your kids into youth sports, definitely give us a try. Under 300 bucks you get 10 lessons and full gear. So it's a great way to enter the game and tonight I have a wonderful guest with me, daniel carcillo.

Speaker 1:

For those of you guys that don't know who daniel is probably everybody does, but if you don't in the nhl player over a decade in the league, two-time standing cup champion and also now founder and CEO of Visana Health. So he's converted from NHL to business. But, dan, maybe you could tell folks a little bit about yourself. What was it like growing up and how you ended up in the NHL?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks for having me, man, and thanks for all you do with the youth around New York and coaching, and always need those skates sharpened. So a little edge work I um yeah. So I grew up in king city, ontario, which is a small town just outside of toronto, um, about 40 minutes north, and everything revolved around the hockey rink. So as soon as you could walk, you put skates on in canada and I wasved around the hockey rink. So as soon as you could walk, you put skates on in Canada and I was drawn to the game immediately, just for the simple fact that there were different rules and everything else seemed to fade away. When you're at the rink and then you're pulling on a rope with you know, a bunch of other guys that had one shared mission and I was really drawn to the physicality of the sport, the fact that you could hit people you know with when they were touching a rubber puck, the fact that you could test their will to play, test their um work ethic, and I just it was drawn to it immediately.

Speaker 2:

At a young age and at 15, I had a decision to make in Canada, you know, single A, double A, triple A, triple A being the best and I decided to make a jump to triple A. I grew up with two brothers. My parents, just you know we were all in hockey so they couldn't put all three of us in triple A the whole time, all three of us in AAA the whole time. And within three years I was drafted to the OHL and then moved away at home at 16, drafted to the NHL while I was in high school 72nd or 73rd overall I should probably know that to the Penguins. And I graduated high school at 19 and I was in the nhl well, the ahl for a year and a half, the minor league system and then the nhl. When I got traded to the phoenix coyotes, um and wayne gretzky was my first coach in the nhl, which is pretty cool, grant fuhrer, cool grant fuhrer off samuelson and it's a nice little boys club and I, you know, fast forward.

Speaker 2:

I fought 164 times in in 10 years in the league and, you know, had four cracks at the stanley cup with three different teams. I went to the stanley cup finals four times my last five years in the league and won twice with the Chicago Blackhawks and retired early due to concussions and I was being told that I had mild dementia or this brain disease called CTE that comes on with repetitive head trauma repetitive head trauma and doctors are telling me that. You know, I had a new normal to live and I didn't listen to them and I fought for my health and I found medicines that are emerging now that are four times better than what doctors are prescribing right now, and I have fully immersed myself in this emerging medicine space because it saved my life in 2019. And I've seen it save a lot of veterans' lives and athletes and people suffering from depression and anxiety.

Speaker 2:

And so grateful for the game, had a really nice run with the Rangers and I'll never forget it. It was a pretty amazing team and it was a pretty amazing year, and I imagine you know most people watching your show or watching the game right now, but, uh, you know I'm here in Florida now and and so me and my son are kind of conflicted, but the only Jersey I have to the right of me is my Ranger jersey framed. It was a really amazing time to be in MSG and playing in front of fans that are so passionate.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I've had a very, very, very blessed life for sure yeah, I'm pretty sure that all the guys I play hockey with, when I told them that you were going to be on my show, they were convinced that you would have won the Stanley Cup that year with the Rangers if the refs didn't get that call wrong. And you know, with the game misconduct.

Speaker 2:

Oh man, I don't know if they got it wrong, but that was a tough one, you know, going out, luckily I got another crack at it, but going out like that was difficult. And then, you know, I was playing really good hockey and I just remember Coach kind of coming up to me. He's like we want to put you in, but we don't know if we do, if it's going to hurt the team. And so I completely understood like the last thing that I would ever want is to affect, you know, the team or how the refs were going to call a game because I was in it and because I just made contact with a ref, even though he deserved it, um, you know so, uh, but yeah, it was, you know, pretty, pretty amazing run great guys on that team, like they, immediately as soon as I got to the team, midway through the year I think it was in january when dorset got hurt, who's an awesome guy too.

Speaker 2:

Um, they just brought me in and it's funny because all samuelson was the coach, uh, one of the assistant coaches and so, and he was so different than when I remember him in phoenix because his job was to try to get me to listen, you know, uh, off the ice and on the ice, which was a tall order back then, but it was cool to kind of be reunited towards the end of my career and and be surrounded by just a great organization. You know the Dolans, they know how to, they know how to treat their players and they get the most out of their players, as you're seeing with this run now you know?

Speaker 1:

yeah, no, absolutely so. Speaking of coaches, I wanted to ask you who was you know in your career? Who do you think is your was your favorite to play for, and why?

Speaker 2:

uh.

Speaker 2:

So quinville was my favorite, for sure, because he was a man's man, you know he loved the stogies and and he he didn't lie to you, he didn't beat around the bush as a coach. He told you why you were out of the lineup and he told you how you could get back in it. And he was very straightforward and he was energetic and brash and rough. But he was also a guy that you knew. He wanted the best for you and the team and there was this trust factor with him that we could go to his office and we could, you know, you could talk to him.

Speaker 2:

He had an open door policy and love joking around and he loved the game of hockey, super passionate about the game, really smart, really smart tactician, and his views about the game never changed as far as, like you know, defenseman, I would always laugh, he would. If anybody took a snapshot from the blue line. He would lose his mind, and he would. He said you know, defenseman, I would always laugh, he would. If anybody took a snapshot from the blue line. He would lose his mind, and he would. He said you know, I don't care. If you don't think you're going to get it through, then try to break an ankle, but little stuff, uh, little details always would always have.

Speaker 2:

You know, knew when to when to press the button, to do a tough practice, when to pull back, to give us rest was really attuned to the little and finer details of the game about how to get the momentum, especially in a playoff series. It's all about momentum. And then if you have the momentum, how do you keep it? And if you lose the momentum, how do you get it back quickly, back quickly.

Speaker 2:

And so you know a real tapped into type of guy when it came to the, the finer details of the game that not many people know about or talk about, and you know his resume speaks for himself and you know, regardless, I don't think anybody really knows what happened with that situation, but he's taken the bullet for it in Chicago and as a person, as a man, in all of my interactions, he was amazing to be around and I I hope he gets another crack at getting back in there and and teaching men, you know, and and gets another crack at winning, because I know, I know how much he loves the game, I know how much he cares about it. I also know how much he cares about people, you know, and I have to believe that, regardless of the situation he's, he's always thinking of the person first.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I think those are such important qualities in a coach that even at the youth level we always try to think about how do we impact these young minds not at the professional level, but it kind of goes all the way down to coaching mites and babies. And I always tell parents that they are smarter than they think they are, or give them credit for it, and a lot of times you talk to them like adults and they'll completely understand, they'll listen and internalize a lot of the lessons that you just talked about.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I have four kids from nine to a year old and I talk to them like adults. I've talked to them like adults since they started talking around three, four years old. And no baby talk in our household, for sure. Baby talk in our in our household, for sure.

Speaker 2:

And, yeah, I don't think, I don't think we give kids enough credit with how in tune they are, because they're so innocent and un unfazed by what what disconnects adults, so many adults right, which is you, the stresses of life. And so I love being around kids, especially my own kids, and just acting like a kid, like I, I come down to their level. I, you know, I don't expect them to come up to mine. So, yeah, I love, I love being a dad and you know, it's one of the one of the one of the reasons, along with my symptoms and how bad I was suffering, of why I decided to stop. You know, I didn't want to be on the road all the time, 186 days, and miss out on what's truly important, which is, you know, recreating and, you know, fostering and hopefully creating an environment where you can grow a life. You know, it's pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

Do your kids play sports now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so my oldest, austin, he's nine. He did learn to play and then now he's in rec and he wants to go into travel. But I've got a deep year ahead of me of traveling back and forth to Oregon to get our clinic set up and and helping people, and so I I kept him out for one more year and he'll he'll play travel next year. He made the team but he couldn't commit to it. And then um Scarlett's in soccer she's my third, she's five and Layla's in gymnastics and she's my third, she's five and leila's in gymnastics and she's um she's seven.

Speaker 1:

And then edith just turned one, and she's just, she's walking.

Speaker 2:

She's up to like six steps, so that's a sport all in itself it's the best man I it's so cool to watch nine-year-olds, seven-year-olds, five-year-olds interact with a baby. It is, it's so cool, like it's just hard to have a bad day. You know, and don't get me wrong, it's tough, it's stressful. You know kids, they don't necessarily want to listen. You know kids, they don't necessarily want to listen and you know, um, but it's, you know, you're lying in bed and uh at night and reading them stories and they're just, they're just so innocent and, um, their brains are so formidable. You know, and I think working in the space that I do now right, which is helping people reshape or give them a new perspective on life, essentially returning their brain back to like a childlike state so that they can make better decisions and habits and behaviors. It's amazing how similar the dichotomies are. And you know, I just, yeah, I like to be a big kid around my kids and you know, hopefully when they grow older, they'll want to come back and take care of me, you know.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I have three boys myself. They're 13, 11, and 6. And all hockey players. Because once the first one went, you know, I put my first one on skates. He was four and my wife was holding my two-and-a-half-year-old in her hands and he was crying for an hour because he wanted to be on the ice too. He said you either take both of them or you don't take either of them. So I was like all right, we'll put them both on the ice. So I've been skating ever since Love it.

Speaker 1:

It's kind of like one of those things where they really like it and you know, we have like a hockey family situation going on where we all kind of travel together and do all these things together.

Speaker 2:

It's an amazing sport, it's the best sport. If you're willing to work it and if kids are drawn to it as a parent, you should feel lucky, because it's not easy. It's going to turn them into really hard workers. There's a lot of attention to detail and angles and creativeness and and critical thinking and creative processing and cognitive product Like. There's so much of how it develops a human being into, into owning skillsets that you can then use in life.

Speaker 2:

You know that's what I'm using in business now is, are these methods or these, uh, habits or characteristics that I picked up with hockey? You know being able to manage people, being able to lead, you know by example and, um, just, you know trying to be the healthiest version of myself in order to, you know, be able to show up every day and be in the present moment. And I think that's the reason I loved hockey so much, because once the puck dropped, everything else faded away and you had to be present in order to win. And that's very much like life and and it's very much like business. You know you're making all your decisions and gathering all your information in that moment and if you're too far stuck in the past or too far into the future with fear of what if, um, you're going to fail. So it's pretty cool how I've seen you know those skill sets transfer over into into business.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, very true. I, I, I, I, you know I have a professional day job where I'm doing compliance work and then I have, you know, my second job with coaching and everything. And you're so right in terms of the transition of those skills and just being I think that's the hardest part is finding yourself present in the moment, so easy to get caught up in what I should have done, what I could have done, right in those terms. And I love how you just said that, because I don't think we talk about that enough.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's. You know, when we talk to a lot of people that are suffering from concussion or just life stress, Talk to a lot of well people too right, who aren't sick but need help to get unstuck or to learn a lesson or to figure out where they need to put their time or sharpen up the skill set that they already have that they're proud of, you know. Or some people that are just lost, that may need to transition, athletes that need to transition into something else and rediscover who they are, away from their sport or their identity. And it's pretty amazing to see a transformation happen when you give somebody medicine that allows you to go inward and be introspective and then, in an altered state of consciousness, be able to be more connected to the things that have happened to you and the, and then be able to look into the, into the future and be able to gain insight into what you may want to do, what, what will make you fulfilled, what will make you happy, and then doing it.

Speaker 2:

You know, coming out of these ceremonies there, you know the what if brain or or that, that lizard brain that says, well, I know, I need to, I need to get up at 830 tomorrow. You know. Well, in my case, an LOI to get a property to open up a clinic. You know across the country and it's like, well, what if this happens? What if that happens? All of these fear-based thoughts that those aren't present after a mushroom ceremony, those you're, you're, you're operating off of this intuition or this gut feeling, and we've all felt it when you, when you innately know that you need to do something and so that's a it's a pretty cool space to operate your life from, uh, which is, you know, just zero fear and, although you care about the outcome, you don't necessarily have like an emotional attachment to the outcome and and your identity doesn't get caught up in it. It's just something that you know you need to do and, yeah, it's a pretty peaceful place to live I love that.

Speaker 1:

And for those folks who don't know what cte is, uh, it is a chronic, uh traumatic encephalopathy, right there's, you know, right, yeah and uh, you know, I was looking up some statistics before I show and I realized that, you know, in youngsters, in young kids ages 15 to 24, uh, the cat trauma is actually second only to car accidents it's pretty prevalent and a lot of times it goes undiagnosed because we just don't know.

Speaker 1:

You know, in football kids smash their helmets together. In hockey you hit the wall and we kind of shake it off. You're okay, count backwards from 10 and you're good to go. A lot of coaches don't know how to even examine a concussion or know what a concussion protocol is. So that's an issue in itself. But you know I was reading. You know an estimated 300,000 sport-related brain injuries occur every year and some studies say it's as much as 40% in kids participating in sports. And so you know, maybe you could talk a little bit more in detail about your experience. I know I've seen a lot through your posts and through the information you've put out and your journey. You know after NHL and how you ended up, you know getting cured virtually through this method as opposed to the conventional doctors and medicine, and I love that. But maybe you could talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So after my seventh diagnosed concussion, I had symptoms for three to four weeks where I couldn't be around any screens or look at my phone or be around bright lights a lot of light sensitivity. My slurred speech really was prevalent, I was experiencing some pretty bad insomnia, a lot of anxiety, I had some pretty bad headaches, brain fog, brain fatigue, head pressure, head pressure, some impulse control issues, some depression and I had some balance issues. So it was becoming pretty apparent that it was going to be hard to do my job if these things didn't go away. And when they did go away, I just wasn't confident enough in myself to try to get back in the lineup. I stayed around the team because I I still had a big role and you know, setting up the playlists and just being around the guys and a good teammate to make sure that you know some guys like one of the best things about being in a hockey room and being in a tight-knit community is like going in there and telling the boys like, kind of, you know what you did last night and just talking, and obviously you know when you're playing you're not doing much at all, right, you're just hydrating. And so there was still a big role to be played and and I, when I was able to go back to the rink, I quickly knew that this was going to be the last go around and I was only 30. And so I'd made a decision, especially after my friend's death, steve Monador's death, where he had a lot of the same symptoms and then it came out that he had stage 4 CTE, or stage 3, which is pretty progressive for a 34-year-old, and I just had my son in November. I was like man, I should probably stop. And so I made that decision.

Speaker 2:

And when I stopped, that's when I really realized how bad it was, how sick I was, because you know you pull yourself out of the environment where you're pretty much always I was, because you know you pull yourself out of the environment where you're pretty much always have a brain injury, you know. And then you put yourself into real life and which is much, much slower and different. People act differently, talk differently, move at a much slower pace, and you know, these symptoms just became overwhelming. And luckily I had means. I had all the best money in the world, or I had money to access all the best doctors in the world, and I just remember going there and just listening to a lot of them, right, and some of them were prescribing me pharmaceuticals and some of them were doing eye tests on me and balance tests and some of them were cracking my neck and others were sticking needles in my forehead and across my skull and, uh, others were talking about the glymphatic or lymphatic system or drainage, and it was pretty exhausting for four years just going to everybody trying to figure it out. Right, hyperbaric chamber, moxa, acupuncture, float, deprivation tanks, reflexology, cranial sacral hormone replacement therapy, stem cells, peptides you know everything. You name it, I tried it and I would find relief, but like I kept hearing the same thing. Where, well, this? It seems to me that I've done everything I can and you know there's a new normal that you're going to have to get used to living, and I didn't. I didn't want to accept that as an answer.

Speaker 2:

In 2017, I remember seeing a study under fMRI of two brains under fMRI, one without psilocybin, which is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, and then one with psilocybin, and what I saw? I actually just posted it today on my Instagram. I posted a lot these right and left brain hemispheres communicating under fMRI at a rate that's never been seen before, and I just thought, well, this is what the doctors were telling me that they were going to identify an area that was shut down due to trauma and then they were going to wake it back up again by. You know, our critical motor skills are held in one area of our brain. Like, so, if that part of the brain, my lower right cortex, you know creativity or language, etc. Their memory, we would work on memory tests or creativity tests to wake it back up. And here I was looking at a brain being woken up by mushrooms and I was like, well, how do I get some of those? And so it took me to that till 2019 to actually access it, because it's a schedule one substance and it's illegal. And so I waited till a state was decriminalized in Colorado, and then I went and took it and I took some diagnostics before I left and then, and then six months after and I did that because there's such a stigma with these medicines and I wanted to if it worked like. I wanted to be able to show people like data, not just obviously you can see that I'm healed in here, but I really wanted to be able to show people that this could work for them too, and words aren't enough sometimes. And so six months in, I retested my brain. I did a QEG before and after and then I did blood work. My QEG came back with no abnormalities and my blood work came back completely clear. And there's no concussion drug on the market. Or if you have depression, they prescribe you Wellbutrin or all of the antidepressants SSRIs that they don't ask about the head trauma. So that was in 2019.

Speaker 2:

Fast forward to today. I founded a drug development company. I took it through the FDA, the protocol that I used. I created a drug development team. I raised tens of millions of dollars. I took it public on the CSE. I then sold that program to a NASDAQ listed company. I owned and operated three psychiatrist led clinics, inclusive of med management, psychotherapy and ketamine in Illinois, sold that and winding that business down. And then now I'm the COO of Healing Realty Trust, which is building out the infrastructure for these medicines.

Speaker 2:

Because when you do these medicines through the FDA or if you go to Oregon, which is a legal state, you go to a clinic and you sit there for six to eight hours to experience this medicine. You don't take it at home and there's no real estate infrastructure in the healthcare market that has that right now. So we're building that. And then I have a clinic I'm opening in Oregon where you can use a full spectrum medicine, so a totally natural form of mushroom, and it's regulated. So there's licensed facilities like the one I'm opening. There's licensed facilitators experienced people that can sit with you during this experience that has healed my brain. And then there's licensed manufacturers that grow the mushrooms to a, and then there's licensed manufacturers that grow the mushrooms to a certain specification, and then there's licensed testing facilities. So, and there's 27 other states that are have active legislation for psilocybin.

Speaker 2:

It's the safest substance known to man. It's been around longer than humans and it's coming online pretty quickly and not quickly enough, in my opinion. And there's also online pretty quickly and not quickly enough, in my opinion. And there's also three companies out there going through the FDA that have something called FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation, which means that it's been identified as being impactful for an intractable indication. Indications meaning depression or anxiety or treatment-resistant depression indication indications meaning depression or anxiety, or treatment resistant depression.

Speaker 2:

So, um, I've been able to do this in five and a half years and I just feel like I'm just kind of getting started and and so I'm just really excited for the future and I was saying to myself today and I made a post about it I was thinking about how grateful I am to have my health and to have these opportunities to be with my kids alone, because I was so bad that my wife didn't trust me to be alone with my own kids.

Speaker 2:

And not to say that I was, I was just. I was just, I was really sick and I just wouldn't have been able to handle all this stimulation, you know. So I was sitting here thinking, you know I, I woke up, you know 6, 30, got them off to school, and you know I do this often. And, uh, I was just thinking of how grateful I am to have my health to be able to do that, to be able to have those opportunities and to be able to be present, you know, to like enjoy their lives and enjoy my life. Now, you know I mean it sounds really messed up to say, but I'm definitely living my best life for sure.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I love that and kudos to you for not taking no for an answer when you know a lot of folks. Do you know if they had cte or had trauma? But if they were athletes they probably did at some point, right, and they don't know. You know, I think those symptoms kind of escalate as you get older, right, and then you know, I love that you're, you're finding a real solution and it's not like another chemical.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we're going to track this right. So it's not just enough for me to open up a clinic in Oregon. We're going to partner with an academic institution. We're in talks with three of the major academic institutions and we're going to track this because obviously, most of the 5,300 people I have on this wait list are they're concussion survivors, and there's so many of them because there's nothing else out there. Or most of these people on this list have tried everything and they've been following me and and they're now starting to come around to like, all right, yeah, no, this guy's talking about the exact same thing, the exact same way. He looks even better, and it's been five years. And then now people are getting the confidence, even though they still don't understand and there's a lot of unknown. They're like, yeah, man, I want to try it, and so we'll track it, you know, and we'll make sure that we collect data so that we can then, you know, influence and help more people make that decision and be confident enough to come. And I will say I have cte. Like there is no doubt in my mind that I do not have cte. I have it for sure.

Speaker 2:

These are tau entanglements that essentially strangle dendrites and areas of our brain and if you've ever seen an alzheimer's or dementia patient or parkinson's is different types of tau entanglements, but tauanglements nonetheless which rob you of motor skills, language, all of these things depending on where it's happening in your brain. I have that. Am I going to die from it? Right? No, I'm not. Number one because of my mindset and number two because of mushrooms. Mushrooms mainly containing psililocybin, as well as lion's mane, and reishi, cordyceps, chaga, garicon, turkey tail all of the mushrooms that you can go to whole foods and buy, that all have neuro anti-inflammatory benefits that increase bdnf, lion's mane specifically, which is like food for new neuronal pathways that you're then creating with these mushrooms containing psilocybin.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, I just you know I'm completely natural. I don't put synthetics or statins in my body. I work out, I make sure that I'm very mindful of the thoughts that I think, because the thoughts I think I think become my reality, uh, which I've, I've felt and I've been tapped into that type of system. I focus on recovery and sleep. I watch my alcohol and and sugar intake, which are neurodegeneratives and alcohol mainly and I, you know, spend as much time as I can with my kids and positive people, you know I love that.

Speaker 1:

And you know, my aunt is actually in the waist weight stages of alzheimer's now and she's pretty much immobile at this point, unfortunately, and you know, um, you know so, so, and it's not. You know, she was not, I think she was a physics teacher throughout her life, but but it was. You know, that's also an aspect that, uh, I think people fear, even if you're not an athlete, but it, you know, that's something that could prolong, uh, the symptoms and possibly even, you know, stop that progression to, to a point that that's amazing absolutely so.

Speaker 2:

I've, you know, stopped and reversed. I caught it early enough 34 ish, 35 I. There was a, an individual who texted me the other day. They wanted another connection to a supply which I connected them with and, and, and I said, oh great, like you're liking them. You know these are micro doses, so sub perceptual, you don't have to hallucinate. And and he's like, no, they're for my mom. I'm like, oh, really. And he said, he said hold on, I'm going to pull it up because I don't want to, I don't want to misspeak, don't want to, I don't want to misspeak. Hold on one sec. She said my mom is benefiting from them. She has advanced dementia and is now beginning to speak again after a year of almost total silence unbelievable like, and I've seen parkinson's patients benefit from this.

Speaker 2:

I've, I believe and I've seen it, and this is why I believe it, or I know, I know it, believing there's there's you know there's doubts. Those are learned behaviors. I know, because I've seen it and I've experienced it myself, that this can, then this can reverse and stop the progression of neurodegenerative diseases. I'm not a doctor, but and don't take this as medical advice but I've been around so many people that have had brain injuries over 350 people that we've helped in six years that are five and a half.

Speaker 2:

It's coming up on six years this summer, which is crazy, uh, to think about. You know, in july was the first time I got better, 2019. It just works, you know, and you know some people are like well, how it's like well, there's no neuroscientist on earth that's ever going to be able to tell you how right We've got over 12 billion neurons, and you know if people want to sit there and think that they know, that's fine, but just look and either believe it or not. You know if people want to sit there and think that they know that's fine, but just look and either believe it or not.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you know. Again, I think the work that you're doing is unbelievably meaningful. I love talking to you know, listening to these stories and actually seeing and believing that there is a better way. My wife has gone through some things with autoimmune and she's still dealing with some of those issues. She's still pretty much undiagnosed. Some folks are saying she has some arthritis, some are saying it's autoimmune, some are saying something else, but it's never concrete and saying here's what you have and here's how you treat it.

Speaker 2:

I've seen a lot of people with Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, undiagnosed. Nobody knows what's going on, but they're going to call it something and they've gotten better at something, um, and they've gotten better, like after one treatment. You know, um, what I like to to call. I like to say that it's um, you know, putting your body, your mind, body and spirit back together in equilibrium, back to homeostasis, even if you don't know what is happening. That's the intelligence of the mushroom. That's why why I like to take full spectrum mushrooms, because there's different alkaloids and tryptamines in the full spectrum as opposed to just just pulling out psilocybin. There's like over a hundred other tryptamines and alkaloids and they all do something. They all take you on a trip and they take you on different trips. Some feel more heart opening, some feel more heart opening, some feel more, you know, ethereal. Some are more visual in hallucinations. So, and if you know that it's more visual, that's hitting your more of the frontal lobe, frontal cortex, and that's good for concussion, you know, because that's where we find a lot of the cte. So you can get really pretty specific. But you know, I look up, um, I'll send you some of the john hopkins studies for your wife to look up because, um, uh, I'll send you an email with the link and just tell her to go look at the publications.

Speaker 2:

You know, um and uh, the the first studies that john hopkins did was on end-of-life terminally ill cancer patients and and it was on end-of-life anxiety. And you know, a lot of these patients came back saying that that was the most meaningful experience of their life because it helped them realize and get connected to, to being comfortable enough to know that this isn't the end, you know, and so, and there's a lot of these experiences right, where people who have depression go into a ceremony, die, die, a part of them dies, but it feels very much like you're dying and that's why you have to have somebody in the room to make sure that, um, you know that they can ground you to say, no, like, go through this experience, but you're here, here and you know it's very, very safe. Nobody's actually passed away. On psilocybin, um, you have to take over 1500 grams, you can't eat that much, and um, but then you come back to this body and you have these realizations, right, you have, like, what was I stressed out about?

Speaker 1:

you know, a job.

Speaker 2:

You know, uh, you know most of the thing. You just have these realizations that most of these anxieties or some of the depression is caused by, you know, maybe, things that have happened, but you have these realizations or go through these traumas again so that it doesn't govern the rest of your life, or you let go of these anxieties because you realize that they're they haven't happened yet, you know, and it just kind of puts you back into the present moment, where it's, it's bliss. You know it's that, you know it's. That's where you know gratitude is and that's where I just like that moment that we just shared. That's like the special, special stuff you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. I actually have a little question coming in from a friend of mine, alex, here he's asking. He says history of Shaman use Salasibos as a tool for healing emotional and mental alignment. Have you experienced any shaman rituals or know anyone that has?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so a lot of the music that we use has shamanic ties, shamanic ties and rituals. I haven't experienced like taking mushrooms on native American land or anything like that. Um, I have done ayahuasca in, in the high jungle of Peru, tarapoto, peru, and that was, you know, with the caros, and that was very traditional Uh, but we have, I have experienced, you know, psilocybin to obviously heal and and fix my brain and it was the next day where we used, where we did, like these, um, indian sweat lodges, uh, and so from that sense you know, there was of, I guess, story arc that tied into the Native Americans because they would do something very similar the day after Sweat, you know all the toxins out. But you know a lot of the music is rooted in kind of tribal beats or you know kind of the same hertz that they would use.

Speaker 1:

Hopefully that answers your question. Yeah, and I mean, I've had very limited experience with mushrooms myself, but to understand in terms of when it comes to um, using it on a long-term basis, I know you mentioned microdosing, but so you also go through these, I guess, events where it's you could do like major dosing right and you could do more, but controlled. So how does that work in tandem?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So some people like to microdose over longer periods of time, where they're introducing this medicine at low doses so they're not hallucinating but they're still getting the neuronal benefits. You know the neuronal benefits and other one of those back um big doses are good because they help to reset the system and they help individuals who may be suffering from, you know, depression or anxiety or PTSD reliveive this trauma so it doesn't govern the rest of their life or see the things that are holding them back or kill off parts of them that no longer serve them. You know these types of ego deaths and so in large doses you're in an altered state of consciousness and you are very much facing the, the issues that are holding you back, whether you want to call that depression or anxiety or stress, the death of a loved one, making sense of this life. You know, for any real particular reason you can, you can bring pretty much anything to the ceremony and you'll likely get the answer. That's the inherent intelligence of this technology that some people call it. With the microdosing I just knew, and people know, like nothing gets fixed in five hours. So you know, from a neuronal standpoint, I've been hitting kids since I was four, so for 26 years. So I just knew that I needed a little extra and I wanted to, you know, little extra. And I wanted to, you know, continually and habitually take this medicine. Now, that being said, I take 60 days off every year. I also take weekends off because you don't want to build up a tolerance to anything and currently, right now, I'm not microdosing. I haven't been microdosing for the last like four months and I'm feeling, you know, feeling really good with just the bigger doses. I did a large dose two weeks ago where, um, we're doing a follow-up to with a documentary, to the HBO special I did with Brian Gumbel, and so, and then there's different ways to experience the larger doses too.

Speaker 2:

Right Not to confuse anybody, but you can do it with your eyes open. You can do it with your eyes closed, which is much more inward. You can do it with music. You can do it without music. You can do it with your eyes closed, which is much more inward. You can do it with music. You can do it without music. You can do it in pure darkness. You can do it in groups. You can do it one-on-one. There's many, many ways, but if people are interested in this, then there's lots of information out there.

Speaker 2:

The number one thing that people have to understand is this isn't a miracle drug, it's not a panacea, and once you do the medicine and you have the realizations, then it's your responsibility, with the group or community of people that you've done this with, or the person that's taking you through it, to guide you and to implement those realizations into that you had in an altered state of consciousness, into your life. It's time to take action, because if you don't take the action, then why did you take the medicine right? So the miracle comes when you start to make the decision to get up, when you don't reach for the bottle even though you might crave it, when you feel like yelling or snapping on somebody that you know maybe cuts you off in traffic but you don't. When you break destructive thought patterns and turn your negative self-talk into maybe some positive self-talk, when you create new habits, when you start to exercise, when you start to eat better, when you start to really create this relationship with yourself and change. These are like catalysts that can help you do that, because after a big dose, your brain and your heart are open for new possibilities for the first three weeks and you can really change your habits and and your thought patterns and your behaviors. That's the miracle of this medicine.

Speaker 2:

In a big dose, the smaller doses after that three-week period can help maybe remind you, and then they can also obviously help flush out you know, neuroinflammation. That's been proven. And if you have Alzheimer's my grandmother also died of Alzheimer's, so I have that. That runs in my family as well on top of the head hits, um, if you have that, you know, it's a good idea to to take some of these, some of these mushrooms, and, if people are interested, go to Johns Hopkins Um, they've done a lot of studies and then also go to Johns Hopkins They've done a lot of studies. And then also go to mushroomreferencescom where there's all clinical trials that are associated with things like lion's mane, reishi, cordyceps, chaga, garrican.

Speaker 1:

These are different mushrooms that are legal and go to Whole Foods and, you know, start to implement them, you know, um, and you'll see a benefit yeah, I love it, and so these, um, I guess, events that you go to, you guys hold them, uh, that people could sign up for, or how does that work?

Speaker 2:

yeah. So if people are interested in learning more, they can go to my website, danielcarcillocom, or just hit me on Instagram or even toss me an email. I put them up on socials pretty often on my posts and get on the webinar. We do a free webinar every week at 7 pm on Thursdays. Time pending, we may switch that up. I'm going to kind of re-ask, because now there's 900 people.

Speaker 2:

We just started doing this, probably like a little less. I think we're up to six or six weeks ago, six or seven weeks ago. So the response has been great and people are very interested and I just freely talk and give people information. Bring on some people that have done some of these retreats, they give their testimonials and then I answer questions and then if people want more information, then I send them the decks and until our clinics open in the next 30 or 45 days, then we partner with a clinic and I bring small groups, four people with me to Oregon and everything is, you know, paid for accommodations, food, airbnb and, you know, create this kind of community. You're entering into a community and you're entering into a space to be able to grow and, you know, people have had some really transformative experiences.

Speaker 2:

Um, thank you oh my gosh, I love you, um, people have had some really, really life-saving experiences already and it's only going to continue. It'll get easier on me personally when you know the facility's open just because scheduling, et cetera, but you know, I'm willing to take time away from my family and I'm willing to to take the flights over there in order to, to influence lives and to show people, you know, what this can, what this can do for for them. Um, so it's been going really well and there's so many signs or God winks, I call them that I should continue doing this, because people keep coming into my life asking about it and then committing to it, which is really important. And, yeah, you know, it's my life's work. So we just, you know, we got to keep charging ahead.

Speaker 1:

I love that man. That's such an amazing story and I really appreciate all the information that you're giving here, because I think, uh, you know, even the guys that I play with now just adults recreationally, you know, man, grown man struggling with some of these things. So I love to bring some more awareness about this topic to the folks and you know it's playing hockey. You know I'm always worried about you. Know what happens next. You know it's great to know that there is something out there that can help, whatever the journey takes them Right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah for sure. Yeah, it's um it is. It's a really amazing tool to be able to make you a better person. You know, like that's pretty much it, like it doesn't get much more complicated, you know, than that. It can really improve your life.

Speaker 1:

So absolutely, and I know we're coming up on the hour here, but I did want to bring you back a little bit to your hockey days and ask you what it felt like winning those Stanley cups.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean it's, you know, the culmination of a of a very long career that you give up your youngest years for. You know, I mean you move away from everything that you know family, friends at young ages to go and pursue this thing. You're a boy, dressed up like a man and you're on top of the world. You know, you're the best hockey team in the world. Nobody can touch you after that test and it's a test game in the world. Nobody can touch you after that test. And it's a test, uh.

Speaker 2:

Sailing cup playoffs and regular season and playing 82 games over 186 games, traveling, and it's a grind and it's uh, it's, it's worth it. It was. It was amazing to be able to commit my life to that and to be able to come out on top. It was pretty magical. Hold on, I'm almost done, baby, please, please, please. Austin's calling Anna. Okay, that's fine, I'll be out in five minutes. That's okay, I'll be out in five minutes, okay. You guys gotta get ready for bed. Um, my nine-year-old's got uh, he's got an apple watch and he uh, he's got a girlfriend.

Speaker 1:

So that's some serious business.

Speaker 2:

Nine, I don't know. I think we were passing notes at nine, right, I don't think I was calling anybody. But yeah, it was cool. The first Stanley Cup that I won, I was single and didn't have a kid and all that stuff. And then the second one our son was born so he sat in it, stuff. And then second one, our son was born so he sat in it. So those it was cool to to, you know, win twice and different points of my life and share that with with my wife and with my son and then my parents like seeing my parents, my brothers, my hometown, everybody coming out, that was uh, it was pretty, pretty special that's amazing and and and you know to your point.

Speaker 1:

I think that from my, from personal experience, I know that you know I've experienced things before kids and then with kids it's almost amplified right, like if you go talk medieval times, for example, and you watch it and you're like, oh, it's cool.

Speaker 2:

And then you go with kids and you see the way they watch it and it's like you just unfolded that experience. Yeah, oh yeah, it's. It's much, much different. You know, I, I with kids, I just um, I think you know the innocence of it all and, like you know, the the wonder is just, it's great, you know, and I mean he was so young he doesn't remember sitting in the cup or anything like that. But, um, you know, I would always look at guys that had, like older, older kids. Oh yeah, fuck me, I don't know how you guys do it. I never really wanted a wife or girlfriend or kids while I was playing, cause it was it's hard enough to keep this thing in line, you know, rather than try to um, um, take care of a family, but uh, no coincidences in this life you know it all.

Speaker 1:

It all comes when you're ready, right? Um, so I know we're on top of the hour. I always like to close out the show with a couple rapid fire questions. Cool, you ready for it? Uh, just a couple questions. First one is what motivates athletes? Glory, love that. Second one if there's three traits, character traits that you notice in successful athletes, what are they?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So attention to detail, work ethic and then a sort of blind faith that you're going to get it done Awesome.

Speaker 1:

And then if you could name three things that can hold an athlete back. Overthinking, not being prepared mentally, physically, spiritually, and overconfidence did you have a pre-game routine that you always did to get yourself?

Speaker 2:

no, well, yeah, I mean like, yeah, like in the nhl, for sure, rolling out, etc. Like there was always the same. Every guy's routine is always the same stretches. Uh, I had the agility ladder with just music and I would do it on my own.

Speaker 2:

Uh a bunch of guys would do like, you know, kick the ball around that sort of stuff. I was more. I was always very internal. We're just kind of visualizing as I'm doing the warmups and stretching like first shift, second shift, fourth shift, fifth shift, if this happens, that happens, and just like getting in, getting in, being ready. You know, guys are always looking at me like Jesus, like it looks like you just played a period, but I had to be like ready to, you know, tear somebody's head off and get the crowd into it and get the boys into it. So, so yeah, my, my warm-up routine was pretty involved, but it was also just a nice time to visualize and, you know, attract, you know what you want to happen to come to you, you know.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, I know you got to go get your kids ready for bed.

Speaker 2:

I'm yelling right now, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for coming on the show. Again, guys, if you want to follow Dan at danielcarcillo13 on Instagram and then his website is danielcarcillocom for those that want to learn more about everything we talked about today and potential cures to CTE, and if you want to get more information from Dan, please do reach out and you could always message the show and I'll be happy to pass on your questions or comments. Again, thank you so much for taking the time. This was absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, buddy, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Thank you everybody and have a wonderful night. Let's go Rangers let's start.