Hello, ladies and gents Robert Sykes keto, Savage.com.
And today I've got special guest sod who is the co-founder of
hone Health which is all about hormonal health for guys and we
talked about it's funny. We talk all about hormonal
Health, blood markers, how they go about these testing how they
can go about treatment. But then we totally took a
tangent and Dove deep into mindset stoicism, gratitude,
mentality business, entrepreneurial, you know,
endeavors. You know, having a good company
culture. So we just we talked about it.
All I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.
I learned a ton and have a lot of desire to keep in touch with
this guy because I feel like he and I are quite aligned when it
comes to our views towards business and life.
So I have no doubt that you enjoy this conversation.
So that further Ado, sit back, relax and enjoy the podcast with
sod And we are live. Sod, how are you brother good?
I'm good man, I appreciate you having me on hey man I
appreciate you taking the time. So I have had several women
experts on the podcast that dive deep into, you know, the
different menopausal phases, the different progesterone, Esther
own estrogen, everything related to female A hormonal health.
I haven't, honestly had too many guys, on the podcast, which is
funny because I'm a guy talking about proper male hormonal
health. And I'm not sure how we even
connected, but I think Chase, I think sent me Chase tuning.
I think got me in touch with you, but I read your bio read a
little bit about your business home health.
And it's all about male testosterone and just male
Vitality. So I kind of love to pull the
curtain back on that and dive deeper into the science and
research around that. But before we do that, man, what
even You interested in that, you know, trajectory that, that path
anyways. So, you know what I've been
building technology companies now from of the past 15 years
and I only build companies based upon problems.
I've actually been through personally, because frankly with
the amount of time and effort that goes into this thing, you
don't care about it about the problem.
And if you're not obsessed about solving the problem, you just
don't have the energy to go through all the ups and downs.
So, maybe some background on myself and I'll tell you the
problem that I had, that inspired me, but I probably been
like you, I've been, I've been, I've been in Fleet since I was
as young as I could remember, it really was the way that helped
me as an immigrant right fit into the fit into the country.
On top of it to I've been working out right I don't know
six days a week for the past 25 years of my life I eat
perfectly. I meditate twice a day.
I track my sleep with three different devices.
I have blood drawn every month. I've got it really a hyperbaric
oxygen chamber. My office right next to me and
infrared sauna behind me. And so when I say like I'm
obsessed, like I'm all in on it. I absolutely love.
Everything about optimization learning how to push my body.
And so when I turned 35, which was five years ago, a bunch of
things started happening. First thing that started to
happen was, I started to lose my energy over the course of about
a year, and I've started waking up a little bit later that
turned into wake sleeping, until noon, some days that turned into
taking a nap every now and then in the, in the afternoon, which
is completely the opposite of my personality.
The sudden that my mental focus, my Acuity started to decrease
pretty dramatically. I was having trouble recalling,
simple Concepts, I would having trouble doing simple math,
equations in my head and then the weight gain started, and no
matter what I did, and no matter how much I changed my diet, I
started to get those dreaded. Love handles around my stomach,
and then, last but not least, it was actually probably the straw
that broke the camel's back. If I'm being honest, my libido
is gone. I mean, so much.
So that forget about the desire not being There.
But the plumbing just wouldn't even more.
And that right makes for some really scary conversations
between between me and my girlfriend at the time.
And, you know, I probably laugh it off now, especially
considering I've decided to dedicate my whole life to this,
but I mean men, it's scary. It's so scary when that happens,
you know, here I was 35. Finally, had some coin in my
pocket should have been on top of the world.
And here I am pushing myself as a man.
All of a sudden, don't know if I'll be able to pray thrive.
My family take care of my aging parents.
And so I went to my primary care physician and I said, look,
something is dramatically wrong. And right, this is like a pretty
high-end concierge Doc and he should have, he did what any doc
would have done. He said, let me go, take your
blood brought me back and you know my testosterone level was
187 NG or does DL poof. You do anything?
It means that you're incredibly low and because it was in range
for the lab that he used, he actually looked at All my lab
values and said side, you're like a shining example of house
and he says, you know what Middle Eastern men start to age
a little bit early, so this could just be the beginning of
old age and frankly, like you just have to deal with it and
you seem like the kind that has a lot of millennial expensive
existential angst. So you should learn how to get
get a hold of that too. Wow, that's pretty pretty harsh.
It's so harsh and I said I said that's bullshit man.
Absolutely not. That's not what top Quality
Healthcare in this country gets you And that's what started this
kind of Journey I went on and took six months, right?
I went to I went to multiple Physicians.
They sent me two labs, they brought me back to their offices
because that was part of protocol told me nothing was
wrong. And I finally met a group of
hormone optimization and regenerative Physicians, they
took a look at that same blood work.
And they literally said, the problem is really easy.
You've got the testosterone levels of an 80 year old man,
and, and the thing that gave me So much comfort and solace.
In this entire thing was they said a large majority of our
customers are younger guys. Like you said that's, that's
bizarre. Why would that even be
happening? And they said, you know, it's
odd, Our Generation. Keep in mind, they're 30 years
old and I am, we had testosterone levels that are 25%
higher. We had 50% more sperm, and I
said this is sounds conspiratorial like, wow, that's
crazy. Why would that even be
happening? Why don't people even talk about
it? And, you know, that's, they
didn't have a really great answer other than the fact that
a lot of their customers or their patients were younger.
But I served to do a lot of a lot of research and the
scientific Community while very nascent is now beginning to
really gravitate Words, the fact that they're all these
environmental contaminants, but they're these Plastics fall
AIDS, pcbs in our food and our drinking water.
And for men, they get into our body and they resemble these
estrogenic compounds. And they tell the hormone
regulating centers in our brain to essentially shut down natural
or endogenous production. And when I heard that, I was
like, oh my God, this is like the handmaid's tale.
And if you ever see that seen that show and I said, this is
really scary because These also cause what they call epigenetic
changes. So not true changes to your DNA
but changes that are expressed which can be passed on to your
Offspring. And so basically, if you were to
follow this thing down and it sounds conspiratorial again,
your children could actually theoretically have lower
testosterone levels and you do which right has all kinds of
problems associated with it. And so that's really what
inspired me once I figured once I went to once, I got some help,
For myself. I mean, man, it fundamentally
changing my life in the most real ways and that was the thing
that made me say, Okay I want I want to spend the rest of my
life building this company to help men have confidence as they
age. Not loving man.
I feel like I feel like people don't even realize how their
environmental factors are affecting their health from like
a whole model standpoint. Are you familiar with dr.
Anthony J. Like if you ever heard of him,
Say that again, his name is dr. Anthony J.
Know he's a really good friend of mine.
I go hunting with him every year.
He like this is his area of expertise like he's done.
He's a geneticist or used to be a geneticist so he knows all
about, you know, the epigenetic effect, he wrote the book estro
Generations. Talking about how Plastics and
phalates and all these environmental factors have a
pretty profound impact on one's hormonal Health.
But I had no clue about any of this until I started diving into
his Eric had him on my podcast and then it was just like crazy,
man. Because like, I mean things that
you don't even think about, like the topical stuff you put on
your skin to take a shower, like, all these things that were
now just inundated with that, we weren't 50 years ago.
That mean that's probably the main culprit.
I'm gonna assume, it's probably one of the leading culprits as
to why Baseline testosterone levels, have just gone through
the freakin floor, that's what they say.
Nothing up granted, right. There's also if we're being
completely objective, we are as a nation far more obese.
We tend to use our phones, like, from the moment we wake up to
the moment, we go to bed and like the blue light, definitely
disturbs our REM and our deep sleep.
And so that has a bearing on your testosterone levels.
But I think the one fact that really points towards
environmental contaminants is when you look at the population
or the for the testosterone levels of populations in large
Urban or metropolitan areas, they actually tend to be far
lower than people in rural areas.
And if you say men and it's in large part, because there are
there is a much higher incidence of these environmental,
contaminants, mmm. So, what knowing that before,
before we dive into your company and what you've done, you know,
exoticness lie to help, what are some things that you've done
just with from an environmental standpoint that, you know, now
that you know what? You know what have you changed
environmentally? That was hopefully getting the
needle moving in the right direction and that regard Well,
unfortunately, I decided to stay living in a large city.
How many Yorker? And I love it.
The energy. I probably get from the city is
kind of unrivaled, but they're simple.
Things we started doing right. We start, I started using
natural deodorant I stopped using plastic when I was eating,
meaning a like I used. I do a ton of meal prep and so I
started using glass containers. I stopped drinking out of
plastic water bottles, which is really hard to do at the
beginning, but, Once you get your own kind of like glass
water bottle, put the right exterior on it.
And you then we drink a ton of filtered water on top of it to
like, I'd like to say that I changed all my shampoos and all
my my my face creams. We haven't gotten there yet per
se because it's hard to find. I would say the quality is of
some of the organic products that are really looking for but
those are like the main Environmental Ones that you can
do for me. It was I was doing a lot of the
things, right? I was sleeping, right.
I was checking my my nutrient levels.
I was eating I was eating right? I didn't have a diet that was
too high in refined carbohydrates and didn't drink
soda. I didn't drink alcohol, didn't
smoke. And so it really came down to my
hormonal system was off balance in what was probably the most
likely some of these in Our mental contaminants that had
just accumulate on my body for years, if I'm being honest.
Yeah, no, totally. So talk to me about home health,
what that is and and what that looks like for you both as the
owner and also I guess as a patient of your, of your own
Clinic. Yep.
So I would say, right that the biggest problem is that I had
when I went through my journey was actually, hold on.
Does it make sense for me to give us?
Give your give your listeners a quick science lesson.
On how testosterone works in your body, totally man, lay it
on us. Okay, cool.
Because I thought that'll actually naturally lead into
what we do and why is so differentiated.
So imagine you've got this little gland in your head.
It's called your pituitary gland, your pituitary gland.
If you kind of think about where the base of your skull is and
the middle, that's kind of sits in between there in your eyes.
And so that Glenn is kind of like the thermostat for your
entire body and it actually sits underneath what's called your
Hypothalamus and so your pituitary gland, it secretes a
hormone called LH or luteinizing hormone that luteinizing hormone
runs through your body and it tells these cells in your
testes, call your latex cells, it tells them.
Hey, I want you to produce more testosterone and so it activates
them testosterone is produced in your body.
Some of that testosterone gets bound up by sex crime, sex
hormone-binding globulin which is known as shbg or albumin.
And It's bounded can't really do a lot of useful stuff.
And so then there is some percentage of testosterone
that's what they call free testosterone or Unbound,
testosterone that can then do useful work in the cells.
Now some of that free testosterone, it turns into DHT,
DHT is actually far more anabolic but also is the the
hormone that is very much directly responsible for
increased hair loss for in men. The other thing, it turns into
is it turns into it? Turned into estrogen and
estrogen as, you know, is something normally most people
equate to a female hormone, but really important for men because
it confers bone strength on us, it decreases the chances of
dementia as we get older. And then what ends up happening
is your hypothalamus, which sits on top of your pituitary, it
senses, how much estrogen or testosterone is in your body,
and it tells that it tells it, it, I would say, almost
modulates, the amount of LH that's being secreted.
Treated, which tells your body to produce more testosterone.
So imagine this right? You all of a sudden have a lot
of estrogen in your body, well, your hypothalamus knows that and
then it'll tell your pituitary gland.
Hey, I need you to slow down the secretion of LH because we know
testosterone turns into estrogen and it's probably a little bit
higher than it needs to be. And so, when you have all these
environmental, contaminants that resemble these estrogenic
compounds, your brain is basically saying too much
testosterone or body. Let's go ahead and shut down
natural. Option.
Hmm, got you and so, that's imagine.
That's kind of like a backdrop and weíll talk about what the
company does and how we help fix that.
So, the first thing that happens, you go online.
You pay just $45 for an at-home testing kit, kit, or at the test
goes directly to your house, you prick, your finger.
You give us several drops of blood, we then send it into one
of. Our labs are Labs analyzed at
48, different hormones. We then put you on a 30-minute
video. Video call with a licensed
physician. Now the physician spends,
probably the first 10 minutes asking you about yourself.
Why you're here. What are you trying to achieve?
It's kind of like the beginning of a deep relationship building
exercise the next 10 minutes. He spends he or she spends
talking about will these are what your hormone levels.
We really do. A good job, educating the
patient. Then the next 10 minutes is,
well, here are the positives or the benefits or here are the
side. Ex of any potential treatment
plan. And this is really important, a
lot of other clinics out there will treat a man for any at any
testosterone level. We actually only treat hypo,
gonna do men or men with clinically low testosterone, we
turn away a ton of business, because guys, come in just say I
want higher testosterone levels and we say there has to be a
medical need. And then we basically, if the
patient says, yes, I want to get on testosterone or I want to get
on Clomid, which is a fertility. He drugged, we also have other
longevity drugs, drugs for disease prevention.
Then we basically ship, patient out medications from our
Pharmacy and then every 90 days, they either get another at home.
Blood tests, they can go to LabCorp, they can get a
phlebotomist, come to their house, so we can get another
reading of their biomarkers, and then they do another consult
with a physician because what ends up happening is, once you
start treatment for one particular hormone, there is a
downstream. Act on other hormones, because
we talked about how testosterone curves into estrogen or to DHT.
And basically, we have to carefully measure those every 90
days and do what we kind of call a dialing in your medications.
You either change the medications, titrate them up,
maybe titrate them down, maybe pull one off of it and you kind
of have to go through this dance for about six months to a year
to figure out what your sweet spot really is.
And so that's that's really the way the business operates catch
it, catch it. And when these, Own drugs are
shipped to the patient. How are they administering?
Those is that just through needle injection.
It's a great question. I'll actually ask you what your
thoughts are. So we have, we have three
formulations. We have these under the tongue
trophies. They're like these little
Starburst that go under your tongue bait.
They taste wonderful. We've got this cream that you
can put on your arms or your testes.
We've got these subcutaneous injections, which are like these
little insulin pens and you basically administer yourself an
injection in your stomach with what proportions of each do you
think we sell? Man, I would imagine most people
are going for the least invasive.
So he the topical or the under the tongue gummy, that's what we
thought. 98% of the men will opt for subcutaneous injections
really understand. Why is that you think?
I think there's a there's a bunch of reasons one.
I think that there is this a lot of guys that go on forums and
forums tend to talk about how you get the most stable delivery
of testosterone through through either an IM or subcutaneous
delivery. I think there's this weird
thing. Also beware, when you talk to
guys about taking testosterone there almost want to do, what
they think is going to be the most invasive.
Delivery method because they also believe it's going to be
the most efficacious, mmm, okay. Also the fewest side effects
with the subcutaneous injection as well, too.
Yeah, that makes sense. What are some side effects that
you all are typically saying so generally, right?
So this is important. Imagine I take a shot on Monday.
My the the concentration of testosterone, on my blood is
probably going to be its highest Tuesday afternoon into
Wednesday, then my Body starts to metabolize it, and that
concentration starts to decrease over time.
Now, when you inject, it goes to the, it gets the highest
concentration within about a day and a half, and that's when you
experience the most side effects.
And so that, the side effects, you can see experience, our
water retention acne. Hair loss at the doses were
prescribed, you don't really see changes in like in like temper
at all. Generally in order to get there,
you got to do 20 times more than we're prescribing.
Our positions, you work with are prescribing.
And then the other one is something called an elevated
hematocrit level. So in about fifteen percent of
all the cases, I happen to be one of those guys.
The total number of red blood cells.
You had actually increases. So you have to go get what they
call phlebotomist which is just a really fancy word for donating
a little bit of blood. Every problem, six months, and
those are like really the side effects that we see.
Now, the reason I was telling you about the day at which your
blood concentration Peaks is because what you actually find
is that if you Rather than to an injection every once a week but
you do it maybe twice a week or three times a week in a smaller
dose. The the peak that you get to is
not as high and a large number of the side effects actually
fall away. Yeah, I've heard that on
numerous occasions. Like if you're going to be
dosing this it's much better. Very little more of a hassle but
much much better from a side effect standpoint symptoms, Sam
standpoint. If you're able to just you know,
spread that over a longer period of time.
But with a much smaller dosage to kind of just keep things more
even Keel so to speak. 100% absolutely.
Yeah, and I'll tell you, you feel way different because what
ends up happening is if I inject on Monday and I'm feeling great
on Tuesday or Wednesday by the time Sunday comes around next
week. I've fallen into this trough
because my concentration level is so low that, I'm pretty
cranky and probably not moving as fast.
I'm not sleeping as well versus when you space it out to three
times a week. You don't really experience that
that large of a drop and use experience far more of a Little
concentration. Yeah.
What do you say to the people that are a little bit hesitant
to like hesitant about the accuracy of these at home?
Blood tests. Like I've companies have sent me
like at home blood, testing kits, for testing, cholesterol,
and hormones, and things of that nature.
And I mean, the ones that I've done is pretty small sample size
like where as you go into the doctor, like to a Quest
Diagnostics, enter you give a pretty hefty dose of blood.
Like, is there any any accuracy lost in transit with such a
small dose of Of blood that's not being kept under certain
temperature control or anything like that.
So that's a great question. All right.
So basically the process we use what they call dried blood
spots, right? So it's basically a fancy filthy
piece of filter paper. You drop a couple drops of blood
and what the blood actually does is it travels up the filter
paper and then, it begins to separate into serum.
And so there's this kind of like Trends Lucien yellow color that
forms where the blood stops to conceptor eight.
That's where they actually run the analysis.
Now, the technology has been around for 30 years is very well
understood. And all the labs that we use or
what they call clear cap certified which basically means
every single week, well, first even get started, they've got to
go in get certified by governing agency.
And then every week they've got to run a sample to make sure
that the sample that they are running for you is equivalent to
what they called venipuncture, which is just a fancy way of
saying actual blood that would go to something like like a
questor LabCorp. And so the, the punchline there
is, you don't need that much blood because they're using
different instruments to conduct the analysis.
And keep in mind, this is very different than like a fair knows
where it's like, hey, with a single drop of blood.
We're looking for going to be able to measure 200 different
biomarkers. This is more like four drops of
blood. We can measure a biomarkers and
that's going. You said that's so it's not like
it's being deposited into A like a vile that just has these few
drops of blood in its being deposited into a vial that has
this paper Wick. So to speak, and that's what
you're testing. And maybe a vial with the paper
Wick is the, I may have miscommunicated.
Imagine it's just like a piece of filter paper, right?
It's and I say I'm simplifying it.
It's like a fancy piece of filter, paper on a piece of
cardboard and so you, you deposit your blood on that.
Now what's interesting though? Is going back.
My comment about we are only treat hypogonadism men.
We are arguably the most conservative clinic in the
country, where we really put safety Above All Else.
And generally, if a guy wants to go on testosterone, will make
them do a confirmatory testosterone reading.
Before we're the Physicians, we work with are willing to
prescribe to them. And that particular marker is
hematocrit. Matte acrylic doesn't work on
one of these cards. So ends up being like a little
microtainer, you have to use Which to your point is like a
little vial of blood, and you basically ship that on ice and
it gets there within 24 hours. Gotcha, gotcha.
So these companies that are doing something similar in the
guards that I testing blood markers, if they're just simply
doing like a vile and you put in a few drops in there and then
you're sending it, you know, several States over and it's not
temperature-controlled. There's probably going to be
some inaccuracies and those results, right?
This is going to sound soft that I say this could be some some
some biomarkers may not need them to be refrigerated others,
definitely do. They could also use an
anticoagulant in there that maybe doesn't require that as
much. So I think it's it really is
case dependent based upon which one you're looking at.
Gotcha. Gotcha.
When it comes to the like cut off points for what a viable
candidate would be versus. What would, what about can't
would not be? I guess that's Universal.
Is that kind of Totally dependent upon the individual,
or they're like certain markers of which like, hey, your toe
testosterone is beneath this level, your free test is here.
Your sex hormone-binding globulin is here.
You're a prime candidate. Like, what are those markers?
Man, that's such a great question.
And it's, it's actually a very political answer.
I'm going to give you that, is it, maybe let me explain this to
you, right? So right there are two schools
of thoughts. When it comes to To treating
testosterone one is kind of like an optimization based school of
thought, which is, I don't care what your testosterone level is
right now. I'm just going to get it higher
and the other one which is the one we come through.
Which is you have to be clinically low in testosterone
and be experiencing symptoms of low testosterone before we can
treat you. And so the school of thought
that we come from is really kind of an outgrowth of the American
Urological association's guidelines around testosterone
treatment and so they Basically kind of have this range and that
range is between 900 and 300 nanograms per deciliter.
So it means, if you're anywhere within that range, you are
technically okay. Now the thing that's difficult
about that, it's based upon a population study and there some
percentage of people that fall into the middle of the
distribution and some chunk of people that fall on the outside
which means that there's some part of the population that
probably has a healthy testosterone level of There's
some people in the population that probably have a healthy
testosterone level of like 180, right?
And so, and there's also what it doesn't differentiate on.
Is it assumes that the testosterone level of a 30 year
old man is the same as it's a softer, own level for a 70 year
old man. And so would you really have to
do is dive in a little bit further to look at Age-related
testosterone levels. So generally for a 30 year old
man based on population data. It's like a 704 a 60 or year old
man. It's like 400 450 and I guess
the way we say it is generally your testosterone level has to
be below 300 nanograms per deciliter which is generally
where the AUA calls its guidelines.
Now, the reason there's a little bit of a gray area is because Is
let's assume you were meeting with a 30 year old guy that had
a testosterone level of 350. Plus, you have all the symptoms
and so there's a validated questionnaire, called a cue Adam
that we in most other clinics are up across the country will
use and the really good Physicians.
They won't just treat a number. They will treat a combination of
the number and the symptoms. And this is really where the art
comes in where the experience comes in.
And they can tell where someone is hypo ganado versus someone,
is just trying to get themselves.
A mad. Education and they will look at
the combination of the two of those things and things like
when you run out of energy during the day, they're things.
Like how often you have a full-blown direction.
It'll talk about the satisfaction in your life and
the combination of those two things, really give the
physician enough insight into where they should where they
should, how they should pull that lever of kind of like the
three hundred Nano grams per deciliter, cut off versus the
symptoms. Gotcha, gotcha.
Because I feel like there's so many people, like and so much of
it with with hormones is, is acute versus chronic a lot of.
It is obviously chronic but I feel like there's some like, for
instance, I went through, I didn't one of these hormonal
panels, but it was I was stupid when I did it.
I did it right after I had had a baby hadn't slept for a week and
a half. I had a whole bunch of chaos
going on with the business. So like I literally hadn't slept
but, you know, one hour for the past, you know, several Light
switch is going to tank your testosterone and a very acute
fashion but not so much from a chronic standpoint.
So it'd be interesting to see. Like if people are registering
these low markers over a significant enough period of
time to Warrant that being their actual Baseline testosterone
level. Hmm, it's a great, it's a great
question, right? And it's to your point, they can
be acute and episodic meaning, like, it could be for some
period of your life. While you're, maybe your child
is less than six months old, or Or it could be a cute and really
the focus of like a single day in your life because you went
out and drank and partied. So hard for two days that that
day, you're feeling like absolute trash.
And, and I think that kind of the way to that, we look at it
is we try removing that out of the equation in that, if you
want. There's what the first test,
which is measure testosterone level.
Then, there is some period of time later.
Generally, you send in your kit, you talk to your After you do
another testosterone kit, it's probably two to three weeks
apart and if you get two independent readings that are in
that kind of like hypogonadism area then you actually get
prescribed medication. Now does it take advantage of
the fact that maybe it's like a six-month long period of your
life? Probably not but then once again
you're going to be having that conversation with your physician
and your Physicians going to help decide.
Whether this is something that's just it's going to come and go
or if it's something that is a little bit more chronic in
nature. Gotcha and you said you're
testing these patients every 90 days.
So like if for whatever reason they're there level started
elevating you know pretty good north of 1000 then you can start
scaling that back as necessary. Absolutely.
I feel like a lot of these clinics man.
They just it's like the wild west that there was some of this
stuff. Like their people are going in
with, you know, pretty healthy testosterone ranges, but they're
there. Will the top these docks and
prescribing testosterone basically so they can kind of be
you know bodybuilders on one level but not really do things
the right way. So it's good to hear that you're
on the more conservative in and like they do you do all this
follow-up and you're actually looking into the, you know
details? Yeah.
You know what? It's kind of like And you're
right there, we always look at clinics that we may potentially
acquire especially brick-and-mortar ones as we're
starting to get really interested in that world.
And when you look at the book of their patients, 80% of them are
in that optimization based category, right?
And right, as a venture back technology business, some would
say you should take every single person that comes in that door
because that's how you build a bigger company and grow as fast
as possible. And we said, look, there's some
there's some real safety. Is that you got to take
advantage of and do what's best for the patient and while you
may lose out on a bunch of Revenue, at the end of the day,
you're doing, what's best for the patient?
Now, the other thing that's really interesting, right?
We started in testosterone because that was the immediate
problem that I went through. But now, we are starting to
think about longevity. We're starting to think about
disease, prevention. We're starting to think about
energy management and what I mean by that is most people
think that when a guy comes in to us and they say, I need
testosterone, they I want bigger muscles and they want to have
better sex, which by the way, are two things that do improve
generally when you take testosterone, but what they
generally say to us is, I can't get on the ground and play with
my kids anymore. They say, I can't have a part,
have a conversation with my partner, or my my wife and and
really kind of be present in the moment because I don't have the
patience or I maybe I blow up or maybe they say, I can't go to
work and earn more money because I don't have the ability to
focus and I can't take care of the people.
I Of. And so they make the statement
and it sounds like it's very just scratching the surface, but
it's really deep and they say I just want to feel like myself
again. I want the energy to feel like I
did when I was in my late 20s or early 30s because that's when I
was the most productive. And so, we've begun to
understand is that very often, that might not be a testosterone
problem, that might be a mitochondrial problem.
That could be your body is has a tremendous amount of
inflammation. Nation.
It could be because you're not eating, right?
It could be because you're not sleeping, right?
And so, we begun, kind of introducing, a lot of coaching
lifestyle coaching around her around our protocols, but also
to introducing more products. So, we just introduced NAD or
are you familiar with NAD? You have never use it but it's a
pretty popular like the, you know, nootropic category.
Yeah. So, so interestingly, right?
As you get older, the, the mitochondria are like the end.
The powerhouses of your cell, they start to kind of
deteriorate and you can get NAD at a lot of different kind of
like over the over-the-counter stores.
But we sell, an injectable form that has to be prescribed and
people pay upwards of a thousand dollars for an IV for this stuff
and we sell it for like $150, right?
And that's really good to kind of use on a daily basis.
We started selling glutathione which is kind of like the mother
of all antioxidants also injectable that needs to be
prescribed we started selling injectable B12 as well too.
And We just started selling metformin, which is a type 2
diabetes medication, but the research has begun showing.
It is an incredible longevity drug because it activates
multiple Pathways. And so now we are kind of
shifting from what is just solely a testosterone clinic, or
was into something that is far more longevity, based, I like
that, man. I feel like there's from a
longevity standpoint. There's so much that people can
do, you know, internally and externally.
Only with supplements to take Foods.
They consume the environmental factors and I feel like, that's
almost like, I feel like that's where people's mind needs to be.
Go needs to go. I mean, I'm all about optimizing
performance, you know, competing, you know, being a
bodybuilder. But I feel like that's why I
stay in a natural bodybuilding category because you see so many
is bottom. And just these past two years,
man, I don't know if you follow bodybuilding and all.
But so many of them have died these past two years, there's a
lot of, you know, guesstimation as to what the primary driver is
there. But I feel like people need to
have this focus on. Jeopardy?
Because of the end of the day, when you're like, 60 years old,
you're not competing on stage anymore, like you got to be able
to still function at a high level and enjoy your day today.
Wait. So let's let's even talk about
this, right? Do you want me asking how old
are you? I'm 34 30.
Okay. So I just turned 40, let's
imagine right that you, and I will live until we're 120 and I
almost think it's a foregone conclusion.
I think about the fact that great my father, who's a A
kidney patient and dialysis should have probably died, 20
years ago and has been kept Alive by the medical advances
and by the time we're even at that stage they'll be far.
They will far superseded what's around right now.
And so right it fundamentally changes the Arc of your
definition of what life is and so you when you're 60 you got to
go run around in the world you and I will live in when we're 60
that'll actually be middle-aged. Yeah.
Great minute we age. Like I'm 40 and I would argue
that. I feel like I'm in my early 20s
and I probably run just like that in terms of like my thirst
for life and what I can accomplish in a day and if you
think about you're 30, you're gonna have even have 80 good
years of life. Ahead of you forget about the 10
at the end where it's crappy. So when you're 60 I mean you're
just getting into like your third life.
I don't think a man, I was talking to people this weekend
about. They just retired, they're six
years old, they just retired. I was talking them and I'm like,
I just like, I think Of 60 as you know not even not even
crusting middle-aged. So like I have no desire to
retire because I'm My Own Boss. I do my own thing, I love what I
do but like I can't imagine having 40 50 60 years after you
quit your day job, so to speak and you have nothing really
driving you because you don't have you don't have this this
thing because you just assume that you're over the hill and
you're on the the regressing side of things which just is
totally demoralizing than my opinion.
It is and it There's such a mindset shift, right?
I'll tell you. So, I was, I was turning 35 and
I was kind of, like, I'm turning 35, and I don't know why
mentally, but, in my head, I was like, you know, and in a couple
years I'll be 40 and then I'll be 50 and once you're 50 or as
good as like, hanging it up and you're kind of like old and one
of my friends who's 50 calls me up and he's like, hey look, I'm
going to Vegas for my 50th birthday.
Why don't you come with? And so I go with him and it's
like 2:00 in the morning and I'm like, hey Craig, I'm going to go
to sleep, he's like What he's like, why is it?
Well, I got to get up in the morning.
I want to make sure you know I'm not too tired.
He's like sod. I'm 50 years old.
And I am going to literally go all night long because I love
life that much and he was like, well, why are you acting like
such like why are you acting so down?
I was like, well, you know, I just turned 35, give it just
hope Kim the whole species. Like, dude, you have no idea
what life is about. He goes, I'm just turning 50 and
luckily he you know, he's built a couple of successful
businesses. So You can focus on different
parts of his life and he's like, I'm going to live until I'm 100
and he goes, I'm just getting started in life and it's
interesting because in that moment, I mentally understood
that at 35, if I think I'm going to live until I'm in my
hundreds, that all of a sudden, it's like being 18 years old
with the experience in the bank account of a 35 year old.
And I was just given a gift and it's almost like you have that
moment in your life where you say, holy crap, he's completely
right? Like I'm Just getting started.
And I think once I made that shift in my mind, it transformed
the way, I live my life and I think there are a lot of young
people in general, that are beginning to think that way and
they're not enough, right? But we're at the beginning of
this. This real transformation or
shift in the way we live our lives and it takes more people
like you and me talking about it.
So people can kind of like get their arms around the concept
that hey, the world is changing and I would actually argue I
ended up doing this research before I started the company and
I interviewed 150 guys that were anywhere from 30 to 70 years
old. And the most interesting thing
that I found was the guys that felt like they were young in
their mind and they didn't look at age as a limiting factor,
looked 15 years younger and like and literally, like I would meet
a 50 year old guy that felt like he was seven years old because
he gained a bunch of weight. He No, he had a really hard time
at home with his wife, his kids didn't like them.
And he looked 20 years older than he was versus.
I'd meet a 70 year old. That was like, man, my life is
so great. I'm so excited about everything.
It has to offer. I'm grateful and he was
optimistic about the future of his life.
He'd look, 20 years younger and so, so much of this is really
rooted in the mindset that we bring to life every single day.
And I think that in large, part of what we think about ourselves
as is, we're kind of rolling out this blueprint for the next
Generation to start thinking about life differently, 1000%
agreement, and I feel like, I don't know how to put this
eloquently, like I don't know. I'm sure there is science
behind. I don't know what the science is
but I'm a big believer in that. You think things into existence
and it sounds really woo. But like that's just been my
experience with life like I never.
I've been sick twice in my entire life and I never get sick
because I identify someone who never freaking get sick.
You know, I'm passionate about life.
I'm excited about my future. There's literally Not a single
moment in my time where I think that the best is behind me.
So many people, man, like it's exhausting listening to people
who are constantly just reliving their Glory Days of when they
were playing football in high school, yet there 73 years old.
Like, I don't understand that mentality.
Like every single year that passes for me, is more exciting
than the last, with that type of mentality.
How can I possibly think that I'm over the hill?
Like when you believe that your future is more exciting than
your present, then your by definition likely, going to live
longer. Because You have something to
live for a hundred percent. There's a there's a book right?
It's called Think and Grow Rich. Have you ever given area?
And so like the way that that book talks is is it's like and
when you and you manifest your thoughts and they will collide
with the particles of the world and your deepest wishes and
desires will turn into reality and you're like, what the hell
is this? There's a guy, his name is
Doctor. Joe dispenza and he wrote a man.
He's the one that did the Spartan Race.
Yeah, and so his basic story is right.
He had, he had a biking accident.
His doctor said you'd never walk again, he sat around and
visualized his spine growing back and in some incredibly
short period of time he's up and riding his bike again.
And so he wrote this book, that talks about what I'll call the
scientific or mechanical description, is how
manifestation works and keep in And there are parts of this
book. That feel really woo if I'm
going to be perfectly honest but and it's a difficult read
because you've got to go back and think through the chapters
is not like a fast rate per se, but it definitely walks you
through how that entire process works.
And you're right, like all of it does start though at the
beginning of the day with you having a thought or a belief in
your mind and following it through like a lot of people
like they laugh at what Tony Robbins does and the Melody is
for a lot of people. It is complete bullshit, but for
the few that undergo to his seminars and understand how to
unlock that, the that level of manifestation in their life, it
works it really important but you have to believe in.
You got out of eat the dog food, you better drink the Kool-Aid
and you've got to go all the way in, right?
It's kind of like are you familiar with the science of
gratitude exercises? I'm not hundred phrase that way.
No. So right when you wake up in the
morning, by the way, do you do gratitude gratitude exercises or
like journaling in the morning? I don't, I don't journal in the
sense of like, you know, riding on a physical piece of paper,
but I definitely do mindset where a gratitude work.
You know, take time to be reflective and think about what
I'm grateful for, for sure. There's a there's a really good
app. It's called 5-minute journal and
so what it does, is you wake up in the morning, you write three
things, you're grateful for you, right?
What are three things you want to accomplish?
In that day and you have one kind of what I'll call like
mantra for that day and you attach a picture to it.
And so one would say like that. Oh, that's a cute thing to get
started, but the science of it is actually really interesting.
Because when you first wake up, and your mind is still in what
we'll call like in a contemplative State and you
start forcing yourself to think about what are things I'm
grateful for and not think about it only, but to write it down to
look at it, and then take a moment.
To actually see what it feels like inside of you.
And you do that every single day, for some prolonged period
of time. You're basically conditioning
your mind, and your subconscious to start this process of
thinking about the things in your life that are exciting and
that make you feel happy. And then it'll be like a member.
The first time it happened. I was at a random lunch and it
was like 1:00 and normally because it's a little bit late.
I'd be like, what the hell is going on?
And I was with someone that was probably complaining actually,
remember exactly where I was, but instead of me being like,
why the fuck are you complaining?
I was like, man, I just feel so grateful to be here with this
person and being able to hear about what's making them upset.
And I was like, whoa, what happened, what happened?
And then all of a sudden you start to find yourself in the
most random places going God, life is so great, no matter how
bad the surrounding situation is.
And so they I say that people that consistently practice
gratitude and they're always acting from a place of abundance
generally, end up being happy because they don't feel like
they're afraid in this world. And when you're at a place of
comfort, you can actually do far more, take on far, more risk in
your life, from a much smarter place.
And so, like, it actually, like is fascinating how it works.
And then, once you practice it all of a sudden, you're like,
holy shit like This really isn't Woo.
Which just sounds. Whoa, no, I totally agree, man.
I feel like I've dug really deep into stoicism.
I'm a big. I just love stoic, you know,
philosophers. I love thinking through a stoic
lens and I feel like once you gain that level of
self-awareness, where you can, you know, arms to look at
yourself in the mirror and figure out what your what your
strengths are, what your, what Your Grace attributes are what
your greatest weaknesses are, and then view the world and all
of your environmental factors the lens of Just reality as
opposed to these manufactured things that you know pessimism
are overly optimistic creation, you know entails.
Then you just allow yourself to think very clearly and then
you're able to act very clearly and I feel like so many people
have have lost touch with who they are what they're capable of
and then with that they just have zero confidence and very
little ability and that to me would be like that.
That is the definition of hell right there.
R. But if you are able to look
through the world through a very stoic glands and just simply act
upon what your reality is in an emotionless State almost, but
then in an effective State, like your ability to perform at a
high level and just create progress in your life is going
to be exponentially. Amplified You know, it's so hard
for people to do to separate themselves from who they believe
they are emotionally because they've built this armor around
themselves. That is based upon a narrative,
right? I do it, you do it.
And I think it takes a and to your point, like, I am a
die-hard follower of stoicism, and frankly, like as an
entrepreneur, like you have to adopt that mindset if you're
going to be successful in this particular world because it
Nothing but a series of problems and setbacks that anticipate
they're coming. You get emotionless when they're
here. You can activate yourself and
figure out how to get through them because you already knew it
was going to be nothing but a set of problems and you move on
to through your day with 12 problems on your shoulders that
are just completely normal to you versus someone would crumble
with two or three. And I think the exercise that
really helped me get through, it was when I sold my first
company. I ended up going to Thailand
with my girlfriend for like a for like two or three weeks.
And what I did is every day I woke up and I said to myself,
like, What do I do? Well and I wrote everything I
did well and I really didn't care about that because I think
I know what those things are. But the more importantly I said,
what are the things? I think I do bad and then I
basically went to everyone. I worked with and I said, you
tell me about how I'm not good and they said, are you sure?
I said, I want you to just hold no bars.
I want you to tell me how I can improve and then you go through
a period where you look at it and you're like god, dammit like
fuck you. No, no I'm not that way.
And then you kind of like sit back objectively and real.
Sighs those things. I'm not good at don't Define me.
They are just a bunch of behaviors that I decided not to
improve on. And if I want to improve on
them, I can improve. And that eventually turned into,
like a hundred page manual on myself, literally, and I say to
myself and basically, every month I go through and I say,
which one of these habits do I care to improve some of them.
I never do because frankly like I'm just going to go find
someone that's better and some of them I actually work on and I
think through that process, it helps Helped me understand that
I shouldn't be emotional with feedback but actually I do
nothing but welcome it and there's you know, Ray dalio is.
What has he written for me? With that name?
He's author, right? Yeah, well he did write a book
called principles but imagine he is one of the most successful
money managers of history. I mean history period And I can
get into like the specifics of what he's done, but maybe like
the The way to a kind of characterize it.
As he has, he runs a firm called Bridgewater.
It's the most powerful Financial firm in the in the world.
And so what he actually did is he created a system of these
principles, any one of them is radical Candor.
And so, what that basically means is you are supposed to be
incredibly transparent with the next person.
But do it from a place of being constructive and the
manifestation of that is in his meetings, they have a system
where let's say, it's him the CEO, right?
The most sick, one of the most successful CEOs ever in history
period and then there is an entry-level associate that comes
in and let's say there's three people in meeting each person
grades each other and each person gets to grade each other
irrespective of their position and if Ray came in and did a
crappy job that day that person's allowed to say where
you did a shitty job and raise supposed to go, you know what,
you're right, let me think about that and try to improve on it.
And if you imagine, it's the most difficult thing to do for
most people. But it's really hard for really
smart people to do because we always want to believe their
light, right? And so, if you can, think about
the cultural challenges of bringing in the single, most
smart aggressive people in the fucking world, and basically
saying, I want you to learn how to adopt this principle and I
want you to be comfortable with it and not only be comfortable
with it, but I want you to embrace it because it's going to
make you better, right? And that that's the the ultimate
for the penultimate like manifestation of how this thing
actually turns into into practice and I think that if we
tried doing it at our company, sometimes you succeed but really
at the end of the day, become so difficult because we all have
these these armors we hold on us.
That if someone hits it a little bit too hard You're Gonna Want
to Break and it all goes towards the comment you made around
stoic philosophy which is you've got to learn how to be
unemotional about it, right? So you oh, go ahead.
I feel I feel like so many people because I love that kind
of stuff. Like I love, like I'll ask
people all the time. What do I do?
Good where do I, you know, go awry, not because I want them to
tell me how great I am. Like, I would much rather prefer
they tell me all the bad things are going to focus on them
because I want to improve on that.
But I don't really come in contact with me people that do
that and maybe it's because that's a fault.
Mm. Oh maybe I need to just surround
myself with different people but I think that type of honest
transparent, Aunt, feedback is how we grow.
And in fact, a lot of people aren't willing to get that
honest, brutal feedback because they lack confidence in who they
are. I mean, I can confidently say
that I'm not the greatest at many different things, but I'm
confident who I am, you know, as a being.
So if I'm not good at certain things, I can take that negative
feedback and then actually work to improve it as a pot, as
opposed to just letting my identity crumble because I was
built out of a house of cards so to speak. 100%.
And it's I'll tell you, it's really hard for people that
aren't open to thinking Differently to to really hope to
really grab onto. Because they tend to think that
it is a salt on their personal identity.
Like I'll give you you know, to interesting examples my
girlfriend and I when we first started dating, you know I'm an
entrepreneur, she became an entrepreneur probably like two
years in and I having these conversations with her like
being really Frank and honest and if you've been in a
relationship, it's the worst thing you can do.
Figure. Like, let me tell you why,
you're why you're wrong and I don't want you to be emotional.
And God, that is like the biggest recipe for disaster.
And what I realized after having enough conversations is that she
felt threatened that I was coming after her and pointing my
finger and what we ended up doing is we ended up having a
conversation about the purpose of the conversation and then we
get on a whiteboard now, hmm. So every month or so we get on a
whiteboard we talk about how we're feeling.
What do we want to improve? What do we do?
What Could be doing better as partners and that was actually
like a huge transformational shift and I realize that was the
tool for her that that made it acceptable.
And in like, another example is, I got an executive at my company
and I did an interview with someone and, you know, one of
the questions I ask is Are you? How bad do you want this?
And if someone says, they don't want this job so bad or they're,
you know, they're going to give it them salt, their entire
selves to it. I say it's not the right fit
because frankly like with these kind of companies, if you're not
all in because that's what the culture is, Everyone knows it's
a bad decision for us to bad decision for you.
And so this, this particular person said, you know what, I
don't want the job because you made me feel uncomfortable.
I said, I that's wonderful. God bless you.
Thank you so much for that. And this executive came to me.
He said, you can't talk to any more of my people anymore and I
said, are you crazy? I said let me tell you the way
the world works, the way the world works is you come and tell
me what you think I did. That could have turned this
person off and one of the very I can open conversation about it
and then I'll tell you, if I want to change your not and he
said, wait, you want, you're willing to have that
conversation would be. I said, absolutely.
He said, I've never had never had someone.
I've worked with that. Wants to be told how to improve
themselves. That's it.
That's the only way you figure out how to get better.
Yeah, I really think it it starts and it's going to start
from you to the next person. You know, you can't have you
just say I'm going to surround myself only with people that are
acceptable. That think that way.
I mean that list a small and really it's taking the kind of
like the gift that you have and trying to give it to other
people that I think is going to be more effective.
Yeah, I mean, you have to lead, by example, like that's it's
used so much that has become cliche at this point, but it's
so true. I mean, I don't ask anything of
any of my employees that I would not be willing to do as well.
And that includes receiving constructive criticism and
feedback. Because I feel like if you If
you Foster a relationship in which that is okay, that is the
president. That is the standard, then
communication and information can free flow at such a better
more, you know, more efficient, right?
If you don't have that and things fester, and then things,
you know, manifest into this negativity.
Like this, this, this hush-hush tone in the workplace that just
is a Cancer and that is going to be what cripples any company.
Oh, I could not agree more. I could not agree more.
You've gotta you gotta come at something, once you feel it, you
gotta break the ice or break some glass.
So to speak, they say that the success of someone can be
measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations,
they're willing to have because when you break that glass and
have that uncomfortable conversation either falls apart,
it's good because it means you're on to the next thing
that's better for you. Or you can kind of say, let's Ed
over our differences. Let's have a very open and
transparent conversation about how we can make this thing work
and let's move on. Yeah, now this is totally
maggots. Not topic based off the
conversation we're having now, but when it comes to kind of
example were given about having these hard conversations and
bringing out people's honesty with you know, whether or not
they were a good fit for the company culture.
What I've found to be a challenge is when it comes to
hiring a really, really good people.
The me is the business owner, I'm sure you can live with this
as well. Like you can't really expect
anybody to be as passionate as you are because it's not your
thing. But at the same time you want
people to have this go you know get her mentality and just be
freaking Killers. But oftentimes those people with
that type of mentality are better suited and want to
become, you know, owners of their own companies.
So how do you find people like that that are wanting to be, you
know, like the not the CEO, not the head but rather one of the
Remember the team and not their own their own boss.
So to speak. I actually tell you when I built
my first company. I spent a lot of time doing and
what I mean by that is I executed really hard and I was
probably the smartest person in the room which is a horrible
thing because it means because I'm not that intelligent.
It means I was probably in the wrong room and I know it sounds
cliche but the biggest learning I took away from that is I need
to work with people that are far smarter and more intelligent
than me.. That if I when I meet someone
and I'm intimidated by their intelligence, And I think that
we fit together and share a similar set of values.
I will beg them to come work for us.
Yeah. And, and so, would that
generally means is right now, I'll even tell you like my
co-founders. One of them took her last
company from 0 to 50 million dollars in two years, right?
She's arguably the best paid marketer.
That I've ever met and the way that I got to know where was
she's? An Albanian immigrant that came
to this country and her name is album or tear out when she was.
18. Didn't speak any English but
somehow taught herself, English figured out how to bring her
parents here and then got herself a full ride to NYU
within a year. And after I met her and
understood kind of who works with her tenacity level, it look
like and we're huge both of us on family.
I was like our values align and I have to respect you for what
you're good at and I want you to come work with me and help me.
Help me build this company, right?
And it's the same way I've another co-founder Stewart and
other co-founder matte ones named Seth and Zach and we all
share a very similar kind of passion and desire to want to be
really good and want to build something that's incredibly
impactful in people's lives. And then what I do is The
biggest learning one of the biggest learnings I had is I
probably spend 30% of my time. Recruiting, what that means is,
I speak to a lot of people and there are a lot of people that
feel like they're great candidates and they say that
they would work really hard and they care about the business.
But they, there's this intangible component of who they
are. That just doesn't line up with
ourselves is like a mission-driven company.
And so we spent a lot of time understanding what their values
are. We also put together Either a
really dense case and the case has no right?
Or wrong answer, it's actually very complicated.
Probably takes 12 hours to do 13 hours to do.
And when an executive completes it based upon how they present,
based upon how detailed they get, we have a pretty good
understanding whether they're willing to go all the way in.
But I guess like more importantly, the thing that my
co-founders and I and a lot of the people in the business all
have in common is we love playing in the dirt.
What that means is, we are all executors by nature and no
matter how big the company gets and argue, like, we're pretty
big at this point in time. We always get worked on
ourselves alongside with the rest of the employees to show
them, were all in because it makes sure that we understand
the problems really well. And there's actually, you know,
the moment you have executive that's like, hey I I'll just
we'll go hire someone to do that.
You're like, no, literally roll up your damn sleeves.
Go figure out the problem and go fix it yourself.
We know, they're the wrong fit immediately and granted right to
your first point. There are going to be very few
people that are willing to push as hard as you and that's the
reality of it. But there are people that are
willing to push really hard because they know this could
make their career. They know that they're doing
this because they have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder.
And I think it's it's finding those people that are really
hungry and have the same set of values and want legitimately get
joy from doing the work that we generally look to hire.
And when we find them, I mean, I'm telling you we go all Yeah,
whatever Park to give them whatever they want to get paid
because we know that one really true Mission driven person.
That's intelligent that you can trust.
And has Integrity is probably worth 56, kind of like mediocre
employees. Totally, totally agree with
that. I feel like, I feel like there
is a certain element of tenacity that comes with people.
That have lived, a life that they do not want to continue.
Like when you live a very Be comfortable life and you have
from the get-go, you almost not exclusively.
But I found that when you live a really comfortable life from the
right at the gates, your level of tenacity, towards escaping,
where you're at, to get to. The next level is just
diminished and I'd be curious to get your thoughts on that being
an immigrant and talking of her. Who's also an immigrant, like,
do you feel like, you know, going through this incredible
adversity Yield some intangible sense of just hustle That You
Don't See and people that seem to have it pretty easy, right
out the gate. I don't know if it's just an
immigrant thing per say, and I'll say this, I've got five
co-founders from my business, all of them work equally as
hard. Two of us are immigrants.
Two of us are from what I'll call or I'll call the three of
us or from what I'll call low income families.
And one of us is from what I'll call, like probably Ultra
high-net-worth. Hmm, everyone works just as hard
with the chip on their shoulder. So I don't know, I think your
statement is probably correct in that many immigrants because
they've had to struggle. Probably, our feel like struggle
is more normal and because they want to prove themselves in this
new world or willing to go in harder as a Shin of the
population is probably higher. Think it's probably a very true
statement, but I wouldn't want to generalize it because I know
people that work that not work is the wrong way.
They want it, just as bad, and they're willing to put
themselves on the line that are there's actually one of one of
the co-founders I have. He's an amazing guy.
You never know it is. Parents are like incredibly well
healed and when he when he came in and wanted to start the
company, he said, look, I'm going to be executive and I
said, Hey look, I don't think your I said, I don't think you
have it honestly, and he said, no, I'm going to prove it to you
and I said, I'm telling you man, like probably one of my
strongest qualities is like assessing talent and I think
that this might be a little bit outside of your reach right now
and I was brutally honest with him and for since the moment I
said that he has had a chip on his shoulder and that kid has
crushed it and worked, and is one of the single most reliable
people we have. And, I mean, I like I'm lucky to
call my brother and so, I just don't think it's either or I
think you can definitely be both, but I wouldn't say that.
The Immigrant mentality. We definitely grew up on the
Poor Side and my father, he was a, he was a particle physicist.
And so when we were younger, he was a student and eventually he
became a full tenured position. And we were very fortunate to
kind of like move to nicer neighborhoods every probably
five years growing up and my blessing.
And honestly, it was really a blessing and I just won the won.
The lottery, is it had a mom that love the hell out of me?
And I had a fight and it was really smart.
Had a father. That was brilliant.
Actually. Yeah.
And I think, I think a lot of it has to do with kind of with who
you have around you and kind of what they pre-program your into
your head at an early age as well.
You know, I totally gave that man, like we've got a 8 week old
kiddo now and I've, I'm really thinking a lot about parenting
strategies and how I want. Like the type of values that I
want to instill in him because there's so many ways to do it
and there's not any, you know, parenting guide book out there,
you know, that you get handed it their birth.
So you kind of have to just go through life and you take that
and you do with it as you may, but it really like, have you
have kids? I don't, we're trying right now,
but I can I can I guess empathize with what you're
talking about because I've given it a lot of thought ourselves.
Yeah. And it's weird because a lot of
people use kids as a A scapegoat and it disgusts me honestly.
But for me, I look at having him as an opportunity to just
really, really be reflective and just gained a greater sense of
clarity in my own life, you know, selfishly.
But then also more clarity for him talk, hopefully to his
betterment where I can just figure out the person that I
want to be the person that I want him to see me as how I want
to raise him. How I want to present myself as
a father husband business owner leader.
And I feel like when you have a kid you're just forced to be
brutally honest with the man in the mirror and you can no longer
take shortcuts, you can no longer, you know, you can no
longer leave anything to chance because your actions are
directly impacting. Some of that is relying 100%
solely on you. So, it's a pretty great
opportunity. If you're willing to do the work
that accompanies that I feel, And you know what, your I
haven't had that forcing function per se quite yet.
I think it's very different that, you know, when you've been
been a leader in your, the people that you're working with
or looking towards you for guidance, versus this is your
child and they're going to probably pick up everything you
do in a far more visceral level because they're around you 24
hours a day. Yeah, I can say when I see the
biggest shifts in the guys that I With is when they have kids
we've had we've had 6 home babies last year and all of them
are to what I'll call late 20-something early.
Something super like manly men, that were former athletes that
went, that went to good schools that are really hungry and the
moment they have their children, they changed and for the better,
right? They calm down a little bit.
They find so much. We the number of babies we see
on our stand ups on a daily basis is actually pretty amazing
when they're they're literally taking a call and they have
their babies in their arms but day of understood that it is
their Journey actually like their journey is not this
company their journey and their mission in life is to make sure
they raise a one hell of a child, right?
And it's, it's a very real thing.
Yeah. And ideally that parallels, you
know, nicely with what they're doing in your company.
I mean like you as the, you know, company founder
co-founder. You're one of your jobs is to
create an environment that causes growth at an extreme
level for everyone involved for the better.
So I mean it should be like a pretty symbiotic relationship.
Yeah. I mean I hope so.
I hope I hope I get to do a good job and set up set a great
example for them but I'll tell you, I learn from them, probably
as much as I learn from myself because they're going through
this experience before I am. And I know I'll be asking them
for advice. I've got if I've, you know, at
the end. No.
Ali man will shoot, brother. We're over an hour in our, we
have probably got to join other hormonal questions, but then we
took this tangent off on, you know, business in mindset.
Which I'm glad we did because I can talk about this stuff all
day long. Yeah, this is perfect.
I actually got to got to make a run here myself so this is like
perfect timing and like I really appreciate the tangent.
I think it's great that. I love meeting guys that think
the same way and kind of Live their life in accordance to
those values because the reality is like I hate to say this.
Having an adopting, this mindset really is better than the one
that I think most people kind of like just grow up and accepting
the one that school teaches us. Yeah.
And it's not that we want to put ourselves on a pedestal but we
see people that go through that stereotypical mindset and they
just seem unhappy. I don't want unhappiness for
anybody. That's that's really well said
and it's not, I think the other point is that it's not putting
the mind set on a pedestal and it's just one way to think it
is, at least for me personally, based upon what I'm trying to
get out of life. One, that's taken 40 years to
really carefully, think about, and cultivate and put the wraps
in in order to get there. And I think that once everyone
identifies, what that mindset is for them, it really is just
going through the work. Yeah, 100% man.
Real quick, brother, where people go to find out more about
you your company and just a little deeper.
So company is called hone. Its honey2 site is hone
health.com, they can find me at Salam, it's sa L am at home
health.com, or you can find me on Instagram that's MSI.
Dalam MSA Ada L. Am on Instagram.
Awesome man. Well, let's definitely keep in
touch if we get Kindred Spirits for sure.
There's everything I could do for you man.
Definitely don't hesitate to reach out and let me know for
sure man. Thanks so much and thanks to
everyone for listening to us. Take care bud.
I've been later.