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The Dwayne Kerrigan Podcast

The Dwayne Kerrigan Podcast

By: Dwayne Kerrigan
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Welcome to The Dwayne Kerrigan Podcast. Dwayne has navigated the business world for over 35 years, owning close to 30 businesses in 12 distinct industries. Today, entrepreneurship often seems more about glitz, glamour, and a celebrity venture. On this podcast, Dwayne collaborates with overlooked but accomplished entrepreneurs, delving into their journeys of forging exceptional enterprises. Join them as they share their personal journeys, lessons learned, and strategies that keep them moving forward. Let’s celebrate the true essence of entrepreneurship and inspire the next wave of business trailblazers.Copyright 2026 Dwayne Kerrigan Career Success Economics Leadership Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • 156. Psychedelics, Ego & Success Hangover with Kelsey Kitsch

    156. Psychedelics, Ego & Success Hangover with Kelsey Kitsch
    Sep 9 2026
    Canada's top female entrepreneur two years running, flying between magazine covers and global stages and privately rocking on the floor with the door locked. Kelsey Kitsch, former CEO of Mind Cure and author of Success Hangover, sits down with Dwayne to unpack the ego that built her empire, the psychedelic experience that dismantled it, and what she found once the striving finally stopped.Content Warning: This episode discusses psychedelics from personal experience. Dwayne and Kelsey explicitly state they are not promoting psychedelics. If you choose to explore this topic, please do thorough research, consult a medical professional, and ensure proper facilitation and integration support.This content is for informational purposes only.This episode also touches on mental health and suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — available 24/7 in both the US and Canada.In this episode:The three conditions Kelsey uses to unlock curiosity and better ideas, novelty, motion, and high emotion, drawn from researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang's workWhy Kelsey builds weekly goals instead of long-term SMART goals, and how her brother Trent Kitch's annual "goal card" shaped that thinkingThe battle between her "ego self" and "soul self" that played out over four hours in her first guided psychedelic experience and what was waiting on the other sideA breakdown of psychedelic experience levels, from psilocybin and MDMA to ayahuasca, San Pedro, mescaline, and 5-MeO-DMT, and what "set, setting, and sacrament" actually meanWhy Dwayne points listeners toward Dr. Dispenza's breathwork program as a non-psychedelic starting point, and the Othership app Kelsey usesThe reframe that closes the episode: "We can only feel loved in proportion to how much we're seen, and we can only be seen in proportion to how much we show people of ourselves."Time Stamps:00:00 Psychedelic Safety Disclaimer00:42 Mett Kelsey Kitsch03:30 Reinvention in a Changing World05:13 Curiosity as a Career Compass08:23 Play Framework for Creativity16:34 Pattern Interrupts and Choice19:48 Expectations Goals and Targets30:23 Funeral Mindset and Daily Meaning33:44 Opening Up About Psychedelics35:32 Hustle Identity36:31 Success Yet Empty37:54 First Guided Journey38:52 Sufficiency After Silence41:15 Safety And Legality42:22 Psychedelic Levels44:44 Set Setting Integration48:29 Breathwork Alternative51:20 Beyond Woo Woo59:39 Curiosity Over Protocol01:03:10 Operating System Reset01:04:58 Ego Versus Soul01:10:04 Seen To Be Loved01:13:01 Closing RemarksAbout Kelsey Kitsch: Kelsey Kitsch is a Canadian entrepreneur recognized as the country's top female entrepreneur two years in a row and named to Canadian Business' Top 25 Under 35 and the Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network's Top 200 Globally. She started in construction at 15 in her father's business, later becoming President of Belvedere Place Development before founding Spark Play. She is the author of Success Hangover, delivered the TED Talk "Play Is the New PhD," and previously served as CEO of Mind Cure, a psychedelic-focused mental health company. She is now the founder of Paramont Love, focused on intimacy intelligence.Resources mentioned:Book: Success Hangover by Kelsey KitschTED Talk: "Play Is the New PhD" by Kelsey KitschConnect with Kelsey Kitsch: https://www.kelseykitsch.com/Linked InConnect: Follow The Dwayne Kerrigan Podcast for a new episode each week, and follow Kelsey Kitsch's ongoing work in intimacy intelligence at Paramont LoveConnect with Dwayne KerriganFacebookInstagramLinked InWebsiteDisclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed by guests during The Dwayne Kerrigan Podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of Dwayne Kerrigan and his affiliates. Dwayne Kerrigan or The Dwayne Kerrigan Podcast is not responsible for and does not verify the accuracy of any of the information contained in the podcast series. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. Listeners are advised to consult with a qualified professional or specialist before making any decisions based on the content of this podcast.
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • 155. Curiosity, Play & the Art of Reinvention with Kelsey Kitsch

    155. Curiosity, Play & the Art of Reinvention with Kelsey Kitsch
    Sep 2 2026
    Kelsey Kitsch was Canada's number one female entrepreneur two years in a row. She was on the cover of magazines, speaking at global economic forums, and building multimillion-dollar companies. She was also sitting on the floor of her locked office, in the darkest period of her life, wondering why none of it felt like anything. In Part 1 of this conversation, she and Dwayne explore what happens when the life you built no longer fits — and what it takes to build a new one from the inside out.In this episode:The three-factor brain state that produces your best ideas — novelty, motion, and high emotion — drawn from Mary Helen Imordino-Yang's research, and why Kelsey's most creative moments happen driving fast with the windows down in a place she doesn't knowWhy most people set goals wrong: Kelsey's case for short-term weekly goals anchored to a long-term direction, and why the deeper question isn't "what do I want to achieve?" but "who do I want to be when I get there?"Kelsey's experience with guided psychedelic therapy — the four-hour ego vs. soul battle she audio-taped during her first journey, and what it felt like to experience sufficiency for the first time: just being, without striving or driving or winningWhy woo-woo is a category problem, not an evidence problem — and how Kelsey frames breathwork and psychedelics the same way: repeatable patterns that produce consistent results, regardless of whether the mechanism is fully explained yetThe Othership breathwork app and Dr. Joe Dispenza's Marco Island program as non-invasive entry points for anyone curious about expanded states but not ready for psychedelicsThe single most important insight Kelsey has learned about love and being human: we can only feel loved in proportion to how much we're seen, and we can only be seen in proportion to how much we show of ourselves.Content Warning: This episode discusses psychedelics from personal experience. Dwayne and Kelsey explicitly state they are not promoting psychedelics. If you choose to explore this topic, please do thorough research, consult a medical professional, and ensure proper facilitation and integration support.This content is for informational purposes only.This episode also touches on mental health and suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — available 24/7 in both the US and Canada.Episode Highlights (audio):00:00 - Psychedelic Safety Disclaimer00:42 - Podcast Intro01:13 - Meet Kelsey Kitsch03:28 - Reinvention in a Changing World05:13 - Staying Curious to Pivot08:23 - Creativity Formula - Three Factors16:34 - Pattern Interrupts and Choice19:48 - Expectations Goals and the Golf Metaphor25:16 - Identity Driven Targets and Daily Intentions30:23 - Mortality Mindset and Showing Up Fully33:43 - Opening the Psychedelics Conversation34:32 - Driven to Deliver36:31 - Success Yet In Crisis37:54 - First Guided Journey38:52 - Quiet Mind Breakthrough41:15 - Safety and Legality42:22 - Psychedelic Levels 10144:44 - Set Setting Integration48:29 - Breathwork Alternative51:20 - Debunking Woo Woo57:15 - Curiosity Beyond Protocols and Unknowns01:04:58 - Ego vs Soul Battle01:10:04 - Seen Known Loved01:13:01 - Closing and DisclaimersResources mentioned: Success Hangover — Kelsey Kitsch’s bookTED Talk: Play Is the New PhD — Kelsey KitschMINDCURE — psychedelic drug research company Kelsey co-foundedOvercoming Adversity: A Journey to Self-Alignment and Impactful Entrepreneurship with Sophia PlankPart 2: Finding Balance: The Intersection of Self-Reflection and Business Growth with Sophia PlankAbout Kelsey Kitsch:Kelsey Kitsch is a Canadian entrepreneur, author, and founder who was twice named Canada's top female entrepreneur by PROFIT and Chatelaine. She built and led multiple multimillion-dollar companies including Belvedere Place Development, co-founded MINDCURE (a psychedelic drug research company), and is now the founder of Paramount Love (https://paramountlove.com/), focused on intimacy intelligence. She is the author of Success Hangover (published as Kelsey Ramsden) and has given a TED Talk titled Play Is the New PhD.Connect with Kelsey Kitsch: https://www.kelseykitsch.com/Linked InConnect with Dwayne KerriganFacebookInstagramLinked InWebsiteDisclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed by guests during The Dwayne Kerrigan Podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of Dwayne Kerrigan and his affiliates. Dwayne Kerrigan or The Dwayne Kerrigan Podcast is not responsible for and does not verify the accuracy of any of the information contained in the podcast series. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. Listeners are advised to consult with a qualified professional or specialist before making any decisions based on the content of this podcast.
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    1 hr and 15 mins
  • 154. Sound, Trust & Starting Again with Kate Bradley Chernis

    154. Sound, Trust & Starting Again with Kate Bradley Chernis
    Aug 26 2026
    Kate Bradley Chernis spent over a decade figuring out how to use sound to make strangers feel like friends. At Sirius/XM, she was building 200-layer audio files for 30-second commercials. Next, she was infusing radio theory into a generative AI platform before most people knew what generative AI was. Now at Backline EQ, she's using the same instinct, that sound tells you things a transcript never could, to engineer human connection at scale. This conversation covers all of it: the neuroscience, the pivots, and the parts of the journey she rarely shares out loud.In this episode:The theater of the mind and why it's the foundation of trust: when your brain constructs the story rather than receiving it passively, it taps into nostalgia, memory, and emotion — the three keystones of why we buy, connect, and believeWhy your eyes lie but your ears don't — Kate's case that sound is the most honest and hardest-to-trick human sense, and what that means for AI tools that rely entirely on transcriptsThe "rules of radio" Kate embedded into Lately's AI — word choices like "remember" versus "don't forget" that trigger different emotional responses, drawn from her training in the neuroscience of music and parasocial connectionHow Backline EQ outperformed the Microsoft/IBM/Google industry-standard language model (MFCC) by 70% in measuring team fit — using voice patterns alone, without transcriptionKate's vulnerable disclosure about a difficult period in her life after eleven years building a company and how her mother's reminder that she was a prodigy at six became the unexpected anchor that helped her begin againThe investor who finally told her to stop inventing something new and just make existing technology better and how that single pivot made everything easier for the first time in over a decadeContent Warning: This episode includes a brief discussion of suicidal ideation. The conversation is handled with care and context, but we want our listeners to be prepared.If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — available 24/7 in both the US and Canada.Episode Highlights:00:00 - Podcast Welcome and Content Warning00:17 - Sound Design Obsession01:20 - Meet Kate Bradley Chernis03:32 - Kinder Egg Smuggling Story04:13 - From Radio to AI05:56 - Theater of the Mind10:23 - Why Sound Builds Trust12:36 - Building Lately Secret Sauce15:23 - Voice Control and Trust21:18 - Staying Human in AI28:58 - Leaving XM and Starting Up34:27 - Early Genius, Confidence and Reinvention36:26 - Self Love and Authenticity38:38 - Imposter Syndrome Scale39:15 - Resume Exercise for Confidence42:29 - Trusting Your Gut44:10 - Loneliness and Standing Up47:05 - Entrepreneurship Lessons52:05 - Rebuilding The Village56:19 - Backline EQ Pivot01:01:37 - Patterns and the Bridge01:06:49 - Collecting Data the Hard Way01:09:56 - Sound As A Force01:11:22 - Return on Collisions01:13:20 - Saying No and Self Care01:16:57 - Closing Thanks and OutroResources mentioned:This Is Your Brain on Music — Daniel LevitinThe Art of the Start — Guy KawasakiBackline EQ Live Conversations — Kate's audio salons, every other Thursday at 2:00 PM EasternMFCC (Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients) — industry language model standard Kate's technology was benchmarked againstQuotes:“Your eyes lie. They can lie to you, but sound doesn't.” - Kate Bradley Chernis“Often people will focus so much on their life condition rather than, "No, I'm here for a reason. I just need to maybe alter the blueprint." That doesn't mean lower your expectations, it just may mean shift your standards. Shift the way you're gonna get there, timeline, trajectory.” - Dwayne Kerrigan“You have to start measuring. You have to start collecting data.” - Kate Bradley Chernis“I can make people I can't see feel like they belong. It's more than that. I can make you feel like with a conversation that is either as powerful or more powerful than if we were eye to eye in real life. That's how transcendent sound is. There's a magic there that is, well, it's magical. It's fantastical.” - Kate Bradley Chernis“Entrepreneurship's f***ing hard. This is a gladiator sport. And there is no substitute for the constant and never-ending courage that you need to have inside this, this arena.” - Dwayne KerriganAbout Kate Bradley Chernis:Kate Bradley Chernis is an early Generative AI visionary who co-founded the first closed-data, proprietary machine learning and natural language processing platform in 2014. She is the co-founder and CEO of the Backline Network, which uses curated audio-only salons to capture real-time conversational dynamics and convert them into AI that predicts and engineers group chemistry at scale. Before her career in AI, Kate spent over a decade as a rock 'n' roll radio DJ, serving 20 million listeners daily as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. An early prototype of her technology delivered Walmart a 130% ROI ...
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    1 hr and 19 mins
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