Meet Cole Butler | Lionheart Wellness

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cole Butler and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cole, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
In a bout of COVID-19 around this time last year, I was sitting at home twiddling my thumbs. I could only binge-watch so much Netflix, only order so much Doordash. I had been thinking about a recent audit with the FDA that I went through in my role as a Study Coordinator conducting psychedelic-assisted therapy clinical trials. There was so much I had learned in that process that I wanted to share with others!

This prompted me to fire up LinkedIn. Previously, my LinkedIn page had remained dormant – something that I’d occasionally check to connect with coworkers. I thought it’d be a good forum to share my insights from the FDA audit – things like ‘buy lots of printer paper’, ‘everything will break’, ‘drop everything else’, etc. I fired off a post. I then realized that LinkedIn is a great platform to share my thoughts.

I have always shared content online in one way or another, however, the past few years had seen a decline as I became more involved in my career. I’d always wanted to find the right outlet to share my ideas and my passion for writing, and this process made me realize that LinkedIn was the right forum. I started connecting with everyone I could in my sector – Psychedelic Research and Therapy. Once I reached nearly 500 connections, LinkedIn offered me the opportunity to make my page a ‘Creator’ page, where I could brand myself by a collection of five hashtags, and others could follow me.

I quickly started accumulating followers! I was shocked. I had so many ideas that I’d just throw out there and people loved them. I wasn’t trying to use every playbook to generate a big follower count, I was simply posting my authentic thoughts.

I soon surmounted 1,000 followers.

Then, one night, I woke up at 3:00am with the name ‘Lionheart Wellness’ in my head. I had to write it down.

As I pondered this, I thought it was a great name. I needed a brand. I decided ‘Lionheart Wellness’ would be the brand name under which I could run all of the operations I wanted to do. My first line of thought was coaching and consulting. I have fought hard to break into the competitive world of psychedelic research and therapy, and so I thought it’d be fruitful to offer my personalized advice to others in this space. I am also in training to become a therapist, and have experience as an ADHD coach. I have recovered from a Cannabis Use Disorder, and my professional therapy training is focused on addictions. Therefore, I also wanted to offer recovery coaching! Coaching and consulting have been two base arms of my online practice.

My online presence has now generated a following of nearly 2,000 people. I have had five podcast appearances, and the connections that I’ve generated have been critical for my career development.

I have been inspired to publish my first poetry book through this process: Love, Pain, and Divinity. As a hobby poet for a couple of years, I finally produced enough poems to put together a book. I attended a webinar on publishing, and learned about the self-publishing process. I compiled a manuscript, and obtained unique cover art from my grandfather who is a renowned train-graffiti artist. I worked with a friend to transfer the cover art into something useable, and figured out the copyright process. I just now finally got the book published!

I also am working on two scientific manuscripts as first author, and have written few grants. I see writing as another fundamental arm of my practice to be uncovered. I just started a newsletter to this end entitled ‘The Psychedelic Paradigm Shift’. With the first newsletter published, I quickly gained over 500 subscribers. I want to continue to use my various writing skills to grow my brand and expand what I can offer to clients.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I have come up in the small but rapidly growing field of psychedelic-assisted therapy and research. It has not been easy at all!

After graduating from the University of Arkansas with a Bachelors in Psychology with a Minor in Mathematics, I had difficulty finding employment. I left my college job in the Whole Foods Meat Department to put all of my chips into my career. However, after graduating, I was left unemployed. After three months on the job market, I was offered three jobs at the same time! I waited tables, helped with children’s birthdays at a climbing gym, and coordinated a psychology lab. After six months of grinding, I was able to get a job with the University of Maryland as a Research Coordinator on a National Institutes of Health grant investigating medication and therapy for parent-child dyad ADHD.

When I joined the University of Maryland in September 2019, we had hoped to start enrolling within 1-2 months. There was a lot of red-tape, so we couldn’t start enrolling until… March of 2020! Right when the pandemic shut down the world. We were working with Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, and with low socioeconomic status families with children ages 3-7. All of these factors made doing our jobs incredibly difficult. We had to redesign a very complicated baseline visit and submit it to the ethics board for review, which ultimately delayed us further.

With the combination of the COVID-19 uncertainty, as well as surmounting tensions with the upcoming Biden-Trump election, things were not going well in Washington, DC! I faced immense pressure to recruit people, but there were myriad systemic issues creating barriers that I was not able to overcome. I felt unsupported and the tension lead to some unfortunate situations with my employers. I decided at that time that I wasn’t going to sign another 1-year contract. I gave a five-week notice and finished the first 1-year contract, and then returned home to Hot Springs, Arkansas.

It was not easy to get back on my feet. I was living and working on my parent’s farm, rebuilding a wooden fence, and doing roofing jobs. I got a job as a blackjack dealer working the 9pm-5am shift, which was brutal. In the mean time, I applied to 40-50 jobs in my field, but only got one interview that didn’t lead to a job offer.

Feeling like I was absolutely stuck, I started cold-emailing professors in the substance use field asking if they had jobs. I came across Drs. Bradley Conner and Mark Prince, and their Masters of Addiction Counseling program at Colorado State University (CSU) here in Fort Collins, CO. I had been on a rock-climbing trip in Arkansas just a few months prior and heard from another climber that Fort Collins is a unique and awesome place to live. So, I started asking about this program, and eventually applied and got accepted.

I was troubled by the debt that I’d have to incur in a Master’s program. Thankfully, CSU has a scholarship program called the Native American Legacy Award whereby people with Native American ancestry can obtain the equivalent of in-state tuition. This is based on the fact that CSU is housed on native lands. This sealed the deal for me. I could keep costs down and advance my career.

When I was back in Washington, DC, I had been networking with professionals in the psychedelic research and therapy space. I was applying to countless jobs with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and Johns Hopkin’s Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. My job applications got nowhere. However, when I came to Fort Collins, I met the folks with PRATI, which quickly led to a job as Study Coordinator with a MAPS clinical trial site in Boulder! I had landed my dream job.

I quickly found out what a difficulty it is commuting to Boulder. I was drained, unsatisfied in my work, and feeling defeated. I wanted to work on getting a published paper, so I decided to leave my dream job! A couple of months later, the MAPS site team at Wholeness Center in Fort Collins reached out needing help with the Phase 3 clinical trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. I was able to take that job, which later led to my internship with Wholeness Center, and my current job as Study Coordinator on a LSD for Anxiety clinical trial with a biotechnology company called Mind Medicine, Inc.

Overall, I am most proud of my ability to stay authentic to myself. It’s easy when your stability and comfort are on the line to stay in a bad situation, but I have consistently identified when situations were not going well and made concerted effort to move out of them and into better situations. I thought that my authenticity would make the fallout easier, but that wasn’t true. It was hard. I went from having a ticket into a PhD program – my dream – to doing roofing jobs, mowing lawns, building a fence, and dealing cards. It wasn’t easy to recover from that. With enough time, though, I finally made my way into doing the work that I really want to do. Now, my career has taken off and many people consider me a leader in the psychedelic research and therapy space!

I want people to stay authentic to themselves, to question authority, and to not be afraid to ruffle feathers. I also want them to know that self-care is primary. Self-love and authenticity have been my primary guiding forces, and what I consider essential to myself and how I conduct business. I hope that others are able to practice self-care and to remain authentic, never taking the easy-way-out when you know there’s something that’s not right about your situation!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I live here in Fort Collins, and I love nature! This would guide my trip.

I would start the first morning at Mugs Old Town! My current go-to coffee shop. We could take a stroll through Old Town, exploring shops like Nature’s Own for some awesome rocks and gems. We would grab lunch at Butterfly Cafe for an excellent sandwich and smoothie. We could grab a couple of my bicycles and ride through the gorgeous paved trail system here! Later, we could go The Lyric for a Fort Collins exclusive movie night!

I’d also love to take them to The Fox Den cafe, Fort Collin’s local no-waste cafe and roastery for a morning americano and cinnamon roll. Then, I would take my friend on a hike up to the top of Arthur’s Rock for a gorgeous view of the Horsetooth Reservoir. We could go The Taco Stop for lunch – the best tacos in Fort Collins!

Living in Fort Collins, we have easy access to Boulder, Denver, and Estes Park. I’d use my National Parks Pass to go to Rocky Mountain National Park for a hiking day, taking them up to Sky Pond! On the way home, we could stop at ‘You Need Pie’, a classic mom-and-pop pie shop and cafe!

We could also go down to Boulder to hike the Flat Irons at Chautauqua Park. Blackbelly is a great spot to stop for lunch!

We could take a trip to Denver to see a show at ComedyWorks. This comedy club is well-run with an intimate atmosphere, and classic comedy-club food and drinks.

I’d also love to use our time to take a 3-hour drive out to Glenwood Springs. The Iron Mountain Hot Springs is an awesome spa-experience, with 13-river side soaking hot tubs using natural spring fed water! For an extra bit of fun, there’s the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park with tons of rides and rollercoasters, as well as cave tours!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
There are so many people and groups to which I am grateful for my personal development.

I want to thank Colorado State University and Drs. Bradley Conner and Mark Prince for admitting me into the Masters of Addiction Counseling program, as well as guiding me through that process. They have offered me countless career advice, and have guided me in putting together a first-author scientific manuscript, which we soon hope to publish.

I also want to thank Wholeness Center here in Fort Collins, Colorado for offering me the opportunity to do my internship at their site, and figuring out how to pay me. Clinical internships in the counseling field are rife for abuse – they are often unpaid. Drs. Mary Rondeau and Scott Shannon have been generous enough to offer me payment for my time and services. Through this site, I have been able to develop my skills in psychedelic research and therapy.

I want to thank the Psychedelic Research and Training Institute (PRATI) for giving me the opportunity to volunteer as a Research Coordinator. Executive Director Jamie Harvie allowed me to do my Ketamine and Psychedelic Medicine training at no-cost. Jamie also was the first person to reach out to have some of my poetry published on the PRATI website.

I want to thank my partner, Shannon Darling, for her unending support and love. She is an amazing person with a heart the size of Texas. I wouldn’t be half the man I am today without her!

Website: www.lionheartwellness.net

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lionheartwellnesscolorado?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cole-butler/

Other: colionheart@gmail.com