FROM IDEA TO IMPACT: THE BUSINESS OF WELLNESS WITH JOSH CARR | THE WELLZEST PODCAST

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:04] Speaker B: And welcome back to the Wells S podcast. You are in for an absolute delight today because I have Josh Carr, who is a CEO of Echo and he is just literally an innovator in the industry and pioneering the industry. So I'm so excited to have Josh with us. Josh, welcome to the podcast. [00:00:23] Speaker A: Thank you. Thanks for having me. [00:00:25] Speaker B: Of course, of course. Josh is literally a maverick. I'm going to read your bio, Josh, because I don't want to miss a beat of all the incredible things that you've done, so. Josh Carr is the chief executive officer of Echo, a pioneering company at the forefront of hydrogen enriched hydration technology. Under his leadership, ecowater has experienced remarkable growth, expanding its reach to major US Retailers such as Walmart, Shields, the Swell Score, Erewhon and Health. Josh's journey into the wellness industry began with a personal health transformation. Diagnosed with a genetic arthritis condition, he was introduced to hydrogen enriched water in late 2022. After experiencing significant relief from his symptoms. Within a week, he became a staunch advocate for hydrogen health technology. At Echo, Josh emphasizes a single science driven approach to wellness, focusing on transparency, innovation and customer trust. His leadership has been instrumental in positioning Echo Water as the category leader in the rapidly expanding hydrogen water health and wellness industry. Wow, wow, wow, Josh, Incredible. Incredible. And congratulations. I mean, seeing Echo Water honestly crush the market and, you know, be in Walmart and be in Erewhon and all of these stores as a, as a fellow founder, I know how hard that is, so just congratulations and hats off to you. That's huge. [00:01:51] Speaker A: It's been fun. Yeah, it's been fun to be a part of that. [00:01:54] Speaker B: Cool, cool, cool. Now, I've researched your background. I heard a little bit about your personal health journey. Walk us through what drew you to hydrogen based wellness in the first place. Walk us through where you were before Echo. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm naturally a skeptic and I look at most of the stuff as kind of quackery. That's my first instinct, right? [00:02:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm raising my hand. That's why I started this podcast, honestly, because I, I'm the same way. [00:02:24] Speaker A: I mean, there's some people that are believers, right? They just naturally accept things and they're triers and they're, you know, that's just not my makeup. And so Paul Baratero, who is the original founder of Echo way back when, he's like a real pioneer in the hydrogen water space. And I had owned an office building and Paul had purchased the building from me and we had very limited interaction during that process. And there were some really kind of technical features of the building, like a really kind of fancy AV system that was hard to use. And Paul had had me train some of his employees on it in the past. And so it'd been five years since I sold him the building. I hadn't talked to him, but he called me one day and he was like, can you come by and help me with something? I was like, that's random. But he. I figured it was like an AV problem or something with the building. And so I went over there to talk to him. And I didn't really know what he did before that. I would never really paid attention. But leading up to this moment, I had been in like a three year health crisis with an autoimmune disease like arthritis. I have ankylosing spondylitis. So if you've ever. My doctor said it's Latin for like stone spine or spine that turns to stone. But do you remember, you don't see it much anymore because the drugs have improved, but people would get very hunched over, bent over, like as they got older. [00:03:50] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:51] Speaker A: So often that was ankylosing spondylitis. There's some crazy videos online of like, there's a guy in China who didn't ever get any treatment and he's. His face is stuck to his knees and he can't sit up. And they bring him to America and the doctors are giving him surgeries and doing various things to unlock his spine so he can sit upright. But that's what it'll start fusing the major joint group. So it usually starts in your hips. And then like rheumatoid or other arthritis may start in your fingers, the small joints. Ankylosing spondylitis will often start in the bigger joints, like hips and back, and then knees, shoulders, and eventually go to the smaller joints. [00:04:28] Speaker B: Okay. [00:04:28] Speaker A: So for most people, it would express as like persistent back pain. You know, the way that they diagnosed me, which is funny enough, is it was very hard to get diagnosed. I was too young for it anyway. And because it's genetic, it was expressing. But I remember sitting with my arthritis doctor. It took months and months to get into an arthritis doctor. But I had this guy, he was almost 90 years old and he hadn't retired. He would only practice one day a month. But he was just, you know, he's retired now, but he might even be alive anymore. That was like 10 years ago. [00:05:00] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:05:01] Speaker A: He was awesome, though. At 90, he was like riding his bike to work, you know, so he was awesome. [00:05:05] Speaker B: I want to Be like that. [00:05:06] Speaker A: I know. So. But he'd only go to the office like one day a month. He was basically retired and we couldn't figure out what I had. We'd done all these tests, done all these things, been to all sorts of doctors and it was looking like an arthritis, but they couldn't figure out which one. And I sat in his office, we talked for hours, just about all sorts of things. He's asking me questions and I didn't know it was this way of diagnosing, Right. He was learning things about me as he went along. And then like two and a half or three hours in, asked me, can you touch your hands above your head? I was like, of course. Of course I can touch my hands above my head. And you know, I can now, but I went to do it and my hands were like this. I was like. And I was like, I can't touch my hands above my head. And he's like, I know what you have. And so they did the genetic test to verify it and they got me on some biologics. And those are great, those, those typically work really well. But I was going through a period where nothing was working like constant flare ups. I've been using tons of steroids. I'd gained a whole bunch of weight because I wasn't moving and I was on steroids all the time. It's just really, really unhealthy. In fact, I tell people I hadn't gone upstairs in my house in three years because going up the stairs was too difficult. So, you know, the kids bedrooms are upstairs and I'd be like, good night, see ya. Hopefully you make it up there, you know, so it was just a really, really rough time. And then I'd had a, like a health crisis where I almost died with an infection when I was in the remote desert of Utah. And so this is the condition that I'm in when I meet up with Paul, right. I went to his office about two months after I got out of the hospital and I had sepsis. And so I was in the ICU for like a week or something. [00:06:52] Speaker B: You had se sepsis? What? [00:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:55] Speaker B: If you don't mind me just, I want to just understand, how old were you during this time and were you healthy before this or was this just all of a sudden your health just took a dip. [00:07:06] Speaker A: So autoimmune disease, the drugs they give you are immune suppressant and so you're more prone to things like infection. But it was three years ago. [00:07:18] Speaker B: Three years ago, yeah. [00:07:21] Speaker A: Oh, August will be three years When? From the time I went to the hospital. So I'm. I was 43 and too young for that tap, right? [00:07:29] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:07:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Because it probably wouldn't have been as bad if I wasn't so far from a hospital, but I was like, basically, you know, 12 to 15 hours from a hospital where we were. And so when I got the infection and getting back and making it to an ICU took a long time, and so it was just gradually getting worse and worse. Had I gotten there earlier, they probably could have intervened faster and gun me on antibiotics or something. So I was still recovering from that. It was like, very difficult to do, you know, basic things, walking for a long way, you know, just. It really wipes you out. So I was talking with Paul, and Paul was saying, you know, I'm in this bad spot with my business and it's not going like I want it to go, and I don't know what to do. And, you know, he's like, been advocating for hydrogen water for, like 15 years and trying to get people to pay attention to it. And, you know, sometimes, like, when you're the first one over the wall, when you're the pioneer, like you. You take all the arrows, right? And it was wearing on him. And so we talked business for a while. And then he gave me this bottle, actually, it's the original Echogo plus. [00:08:45] Speaker B: Okay. [00:08:46] Speaker A: And he gave me this. And he was like, take this. It'll really help you drink this hydrogen water. It's really going to help you. And I was like, whatever. But we were supposed to get back together in a week. And so because of the obligation of getting back with Paul, I had to tell him I'd been drinking the water. And so I started doing it. I was doing three bottles a day, and within a couple days I was like, this is actually doing something. And within a week, when getting back to Paul. Now, keep in mind, most people aren't. Their health isn't in such a severe state as mine. And I was very tuned into pain, very well acquainted with pain. And so these early indications, I was noticing right away the improvement came for over a longer time. It kept improving and improving, but within a week I was like, this is definitely working. And so when I got back together with Paul, I was like, can you believe that this did this? And he's like, yeah, that's what it does, you know, like, of course I believe he's like. And so then he started pointing me to the research and all the studies and the science behind it. And I thought it went from oh, this is just wacky stuff to. This is really legit and I had no idea it even existed. How do people not know this exists? So I got really passionate about it and things came to a point where Paul was in that mode where he was ready to take a step back and not be every day in the business. We partnered up and I became CEO and Paul's kind of our chief evangelist and he's out giving speeches and teaching and training people on hydrogen and doing the stuff he's most passionate about, which is like getting the message out there. And so it's been a great partnership. February was two years since we relaunched the business. [00:10:23] Speaker B: Congratulations. [00:10:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And we just found a few veins that resonate with people. It's good market timing and good messaging and, and it's, yeah, it's really hit a sweet spot in the market. And so it's been a lot of fun. [00:10:40] Speaker B: Now when you were first drinking the water and you know, you, you said you're a self claim skeptic, what were some of the, what did you notice in your body? How did you feel when first starting to drink the water three times a day? [00:10:51] Speaker A: It's hard to remember specifically for me, but what I will say that what most people notice is the easiest thing for people to notice, probably because it happens so quickly, is mental clarity, brain fog and energy. And so I always tell people, try it instead of a cup of coffee at 2:30 in the afternoon because that's going to interrupt your sleep later because the caffeine's still in your system. Substitute that one cup of coffee with a bottle of hydrogen water. Now you might still get a headache because your coffee withdrawal, the energy boost that you get and the mental clarity boost that you get will be better than anything you could get from the coffee. And it's not like a energy drink, which is what people think energy is. Is this like frantic. It's almost like a stressful energy. Is that right? Like, I don't know how else to describe it, but it's just like the best hour of your day, right? You're all of a sudden your willpower goes up, you're super productive, you're ready to go. And before you know it, you know, like it's 2:30 and you're watching the clock, but before you know it, it's six o' clock and you're like, I gotta stop answering emails, I gotta stop working. You know, I gotta get home or go do whatever. Because it's like it just gets you so focused so quickly and that's where people will notice. And that's, that's the easiest one and the fastest one. Some of the other benefits take longer. The inflammation and, you know, the antioxidant properties of it are a lifetime thing. It's a battle you're constantly fighting. But inflammation and other things can take, you know, up to six weeks before you really start to notice. But energy is a quick one and mental clarity is a quick one. And then all the other things, improvements in your skin and all those other things come across time. [00:12:30] Speaker B: Wow. Walk me through how does hydrogen water even work and what makes it different than other hydration techniques? [00:12:36] Speaker A: That's a great question. So most people don't know, but 63% of your body is hydrogen. And we try to talk about it as bonded hydrogen and unbonded hydrogen. So we say 63%. You're like, how could it be 63% hydrogen and 70% water? But you're the bonded hydrogen. It's bonded with an oxygen molecule and so it makes up a big portion of that. Then hydrogen is in your proteins, your fats, your carbohydrates. Hydrogen bonds are used throughout the body, like holding your DNA together. And then hydrogen ions are used to move things across membranes for the mitochondria to create ATP. There's a million different things. Now, hydrogen gas, gas specifically is a signaling molecule. So the other bonded hydrogens are doing their job and they're going to stay that way. But hydrogen gas is an unbonded hydrogen. So it can go anywhere in your body and it works as a powerful antioxidant. But most importantly, it's a signaling molecule to tell your cells to go back to homeostasis, go back to your best state and hit reset. So it's very similar to. Have you tried intermittent fasting or have you tried. Yeah, have you tried a really intense fast? [00:13:46] Speaker B: I have, I have. I actually do an intense fast once a month and I do intermittent fasting till 11. Like, I do like an 11 to 5. [00:13:54] Speaker A: So how, when you, your monthly fast, how long do you go? [00:13:58] Speaker B: I do 24 hours, typically. That's the most I can do. [00:14:01] Speaker A: And then I'm like, that's great though. I do it. I do that every month too. So, yeah, the, that 24 hour fast, you stress your body, right? [00:14:10] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:14:11] Speaker A: And so it sends a signal to your body to start healing. So oftentimes people will say, especially when they try it for the first time, when you've been doing it for a long time, you, you've grown accustomed to how you feel. But when people try it for the first time, they'll be like, that few next few days after I fasted, I felt amazing. [00:14:26] Speaker B: It's true. [00:14:27] Speaker A: And because your body's gone back to homeostasis, hit reset, and now it's healing and it's doing those things. So hydrogen is a signaling molecule that mimics the effect of very intense exercise or fast without doing those things. It stresses your body in a similar way to get it to go back to homeostasis and hit the reset button, if you will. And so you can, rather than waiting for once a month, I mean, you can do it four or five times a day, right? Just these quick resets. [00:14:53] Speaker B: How interesting. I didn't know that. I've actually heard people who will go for prolonged fasts, like, specifically writers in the industry, they will go for prolonged fast and they'll knock out a show because they're like, hey, the mental clarity I get is unparalleled. I'm like, I've never done that. It sounds really interesting. But, yeah, I hear people actually do that. [00:15:15] Speaker A: I've done it. It's your body's fight or flight response, right? It goes into survival mode. And so it gets highly focused on and highly tuned into surviving. So if you imagine you're on the, you know, Serengeti, and you're in the famine, like, your body's like, okay, we gotta survive. How do we do this? And you get dialed in really quick. And I think the longest I've gone is four or five days. [00:15:38] Speaker B: Four or five days. Wow, that's amazing. [00:15:40] Speaker A: And it was. It gets easy, though. It gets really easy. Like you're hungry the first day. By the third day, you're not hungry at all. And you're just on your way because your body's like, okay, now I know what to do. I'm going to burn this other stuff. I'm going to switch gears. And now, you know, right. I used to work with a guy who would do 40 days every year. [00:15:59] Speaker B: I've heard of that, too. [00:16:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought he was crazy, but he loved it. He loved it. [00:16:05] Speaker B: What I've always wondered, I wonder, not to get too off topic, but I'm super curious about fasting because I have wanted to do a prolonged fast. What always made me nervous was the comeback after the fast. Like making sure that you have a plan to reintegrate food. You know, start with juices. How was that for you when you did your prolonged fast? [00:16:22] Speaker A: You know what, it's funny. I've done it a few times. I did one for three Days once that I had this plan of I was going to go, you know, reintroduce here and do this and that. And I was so hungry and I'd already made up my mind, but I got to it so late that the only thing open was the Taco Bell and I went and ate Taco Bell and I thought I was going to die. This is the negative experience. I've never been so torn up in my life. I thought I was going to die. It was a disaster. So my advice is don't break your fast with Taco Bell. [00:16:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Nope, nope. [00:16:58] Speaker A: It doesn't need to be said, but I'm saying it. So you know what this my friend would do is after the 40 days, he would reintroduce with broth first. So you do a couple days on broth and then he'd start building back. I don't typically have a really sensitive gut, but you don't really crave heavy, crazy foods. Your body kind of craves what it needs. And so, you know, when I do my 24 hour fast, I don't do water either, which is just to really stress, like really stress the body. I don't know if that's great advice or not, but when I do longer, when I do water. So after 24 hours I'm just desperately thirsty. [00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:17:38] Speaker A: But when it's longer, it's like fruit or trying to think what I would crave. Almost always fruit for me. [00:17:45] Speaker B: Fruit? [00:17:46] Speaker A: Yeah. You know you're not ready for like a beef stew or something. [00:17:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Even with intermittent fasting for me, like in the morning, it's like, you know, you don't crave. I used to eat heavier breakfast and now like just something, something light is more the vibe. And then move through the day with, you know, more macronutrients and heavier, heavier meals for lunch. And then by dinner I'm kind of like, you know, so, yeah, very interesting. The whole fasting game is so interesting. But really cool that with hydrogen, you know, you kind of can mimic some of that, some of the bodily, some of the function, some of the what's happening within your body by drinking the hydrogen. [00:18:21] Speaker A: Yeah, like micro stress, right? Like it's good stress on the body and the hydrogen gives you like a micro stress and you do it at a more higher interval than you would the bigger stresses that you go through. [00:18:33] Speaker B: Exactly. I'm just so curious. What was your family? Your family, your friends, the people around you, what was their reaction when you're like, hey, I'm drinking this hydrogen water now. I'm going to go run this company. How did they react? [00:18:46] Speaker A: Well, I'm an entrepreneur. I've done lots of different companies and so my kids don't even know what I do ever. [00:18:52] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:18:52] Speaker A: They're like, dad, they're like, wait, wait, I thought you worked at this place. I'm like, no, that's gone, it's done. I'm doing this now. So, you know, from my family standpoint, they just, it's normal for them. But they, what made them curious was the benefits. Hydrogen isn't a weight loss drug. Right. But because I was not suffering from so much inflammation then I was moving more and I was more active and I was able to, you know, I started losing weight and just looking and feeling healthier. And so those are the things they notice. And I'm like, they'd say, well, what are you doing? And it's just the hydrogen water. I'm just moving now, you know, getting my steps in because I can finally do steps. Because I was down to, you know, I always wear my Apple watch and I was down to like 1200 steps a day at my low part when I was, when I was just in the, in crazy pain all the time. And now, you know, 10,000 is kind of a minimum in a normal day for me. And so just doing that, it's going to burn a lot of calories. [00:19:52] Speaker B: Huge difference. [00:19:53] Speaker A: And so, yeah, and your body switches from, you know, store everything mode to use what you've put in. So I got up to 2:15. I'm not a big guy. And so 215, that's the fattest I've ever been. That was crazy. And luckily I didn't throw all my clothes away because I could fit into them again. But like my normal weight is like 165 to 175. That's where I'm very. Like, I'm one. When I weighed myself this morning, I think I was 170 or something. So like my normal fluctuation zone. And so just getting back to that, being able to move again and be active again and do the things we love. Like we were talking about snowboarding before. [00:20:31] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. [00:20:33] Speaker A: I never went a season without a pass, but I did go because I always held out hope. But I did go a couple seasons where I never went one time even though I bought the pass. So, you know, just like the freedom that you get from good health is pretty amazing, you know, Priceless. Yeah, yeah. [00:20:48] Speaker B: It's absolutely. I think that, that people don't real, you know, I think Especially we talk about all the things in life, money and, you know, achievements and success, but without health, those things, you know, kind of can't help you. You know, you can have all the money, you can have all the success, but if you don't have the health or longevity to actually enjoy those things, you know, it just. It creates difficulty in your life. [00:21:13] Speaker A: We're here in Utah and the former owner of the Utah Jazz was a guy named Larry H. Miller. And great guy, built this empire, you know, multi billionaire. Everyone loved the guy, but he. It was diabetic and he just wouldn't do what he was supposed to do. And so he died way too early. And he. Leading up to it, he lost his feet, then his legs then, and he just wouldn't take care of himself. And so I can't remember. I think he was 60 when he died. Something like that. And so young. Right. And it's a good, like, negative example of, like, that guy had everything. I remember going to a museum of cars. He had a major car collection. Remember going to this museum that he had of his cars. And you know that movie Ford versus Ferrari, where the. [00:22:00] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. [00:22:01] Speaker A: The GT cars, they finished 1, 2, 3. He had all three of those cars at one time. And this huge picture of them finishing the race with each car parked under itself in the picture. And they said that those cars were like $15 million each. Right. And he's got this unbelievable car collection of the coolest things you've ever seen. And now someone else owns all of those cars. Someone else has all of that stuff. And, you know, all those things he loved and just like, take care of yourself. Yeah. So he had. It's like he had everything but health. And to me, it's a really good negative example of like. Yeah, agree. [00:22:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:37] Speaker A: I think as well, you get to the very end and you're like, what would you have traded to live longer to feel better? Right. He probably would have traded at all. [00:22:45] Speaker B: Agree, agree. And I think feel better is a really important point because it's also the longevity part. Like, I love watching Peter Tia's videos and talking about longevity. So not only just having health. Health, you know, when you're, you know, young, but as you become 80 and 90, like, you know, it's really hard. [00:23:03] Speaker A: To communicate the benefit of that, though, Right. Because until you're old, you don't realize what old feels like and why longevity matters. [00:23:09] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:23:10] Speaker A: And people, you know, like, trying to get people to save for retirement is hard to do. And paying attention. Longevity is hard to do. And you know, we're. We can't think much beyond the moment that we're in. [00:23:20] Speaker B: So true. [00:23:23] Speaker A: But, you know, you don't have to be that old to realize that things aren't quite the same as they used to be. Once you're 35 or 40, you're like, Yup, yup. Didn't think I'd feel like this, you know? Yep. [00:23:35] Speaker B: We were talking before the show about we both snowboard and I was talking about I just turned 40 and I was talking about how, like, now I'm going to the bench to strap into my board. [00:23:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:47] Speaker B: Shameless, you know, like honesty. [00:23:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And you're like, why don't they have a strap in service? Like a valet. [00:23:53] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. I would totally pay for that service at the top of the mountain. Someone help. It's so true. Things are different, you know, I feel my knees are different, you know, than they were when I was 25. [00:24:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And when you're 25, you're like, I'm going till they close the lift. [00:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. [00:24:11] Speaker A: And when you're 40, you're like, man, they're going to close in an hour. We might as well go now. [00:24:15] Speaker B: I think we're good. We've done enough. [00:24:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:20] Speaker B: So true. Yeah. Health is in longevity. Health and longevity, as well as. I really do believe that's so, so important. You know, you talked about some of the benefits you're going through, you know, and I think that these things are so important to longevity, like reducing inflammation, you know, having sharp mental clarity and acuity, you know, getting rid of that brain frog. What are some of the other benefits that people may not know about hydrogen water? [00:24:45] Speaker A: You know, the thing that's amazing about hydrogen water is because the hydrogen gas is used by every Sarah who works for us, and she's kind of a researcher for us. She talks about how there's these ancient biological systems that use the same elements. They all use oxygen, they all use hydrogen, they all use carbon. And all of your ancient systems depend on these things. Right. And so when you go look at the study literature for hydrogen, because it's a fairly new topic, like the first major study came out in 2008 in nature. It's been kind of a gold rush for researchers to publish something because, like, who, if someone studied hydrogen's benefits on your eyes, has someone studied its benefits on your lungs? And because every organ group uses hydrogen as you supplement with it, they can measure benefit in almost every system. And so there's lots and lots of studies that are getting published all the time where someone's like, I'm. No one studied hydrogen on your whatever yet. Let's try that. And then they study that. And almost always it shows a benefit because your body needs it is just the same way that if you were oxygen deprived, your struggle would be system wide. If you're hydrogen deficient, your struggle is going to be system wide. And so inflammation, of course, is a huge one. Inflammation is kind of the key to all disease. And hydrogen's really, really great at reducing inflammation. So that one's always important. And that's one of those basic things that everyone can get behind is like reducing inflammation. It's a selective antioxidant, so it's really good at taking out the trash. And, you know, oxidation. Is this the same process that when you see rusty metal, that metal has oxidized? Right. So I like to. That metaphor is really powerful because it's like you're. Imagine your body's rusting. It's not really how it works. But imagine your body's rusting, it's corroding, it's breaking down, and an antioxidant can remove that rust. It takes the rust away, and so it's really powerful that way. So system wide. I mean, you'll have benefits. Inflammation is one of the biggest ones, though, because it kind of leads to all the other stuff. [00:26:49] Speaker B: And so many people, especially in the United States, I feel like an inflammation epidemic. So many people have chronic. [00:26:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I think our baseline standard for inflammation is probably higher than historically it would have been because everyone is full of inflammation. [00:27:04] Speaker B: Totally. Absolutely. And you see so many chronic conditions, people who don't know what's going on, and inflammation is the root cause of it. Also curious, I know that, you know, people talk about hydrogen therapy, you know, drinking hydrogen water. I continue to see it on TikTok and, you know, it feels like there's this huge, huge, huge, you know, interest as you're talking about in research. But what are some of the misconceptions that need to be cleared up about hydrogen water and hydrogen therapy? [00:27:32] Speaker A: So there's a couple things I would hit on with that in the base of our. This is our new bottle, by the way. This is the Echo flask. We're gonna get you one of these. [00:27:41] Speaker B: Who does your design? Your design is so sleek. I love it. It's beautiful. [00:27:45] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I do it all myself. No, just kidding. I was like, we have the most amazing and talented designer. His name's Devin Stevens, and he's done work all over the place. He used to Work for DC Shoes, some. A company you might know, or Fox Racing. A number of companies that you would know a lot in the action sports industry, actually. [00:28:06] Speaker B: Okay. Oh, cool. [00:28:07] Speaker A: And he's just kind of a genius designer. So he's. We worked together on developing the flask. I had some requirements that I wanted to hit and some ideas that I wanted to hit, and he made it a beautiful and functional thing. This is a big. A really tough project, actually getting, like, from a manufacturing standpoint, it's very, very complex because it has to hold 90 pounds of pressure in order to generate or for the hydrogen to build up to eight parts per million. And so getting a rectangle bottle to hold 90 pounds of pressure without exploding like a car tire, is 35 pounds of pressure. Right. So it's a basketball, I think, is 10 pounds of pressure. So it's. There's a lot of pressure in there. In fact, I think this one's. Have I run this already? Let me run this. See if you can hear the. No, I haven't run it. So when you run it, you can hear the air come out when you push this button on the top to bleed the pressure out. If you didn't do that, the pressure's too tight for you to even take the lid off. [00:29:05] Speaker B: Wow. Wow. [00:29:06] Speaker A: Yeah, we've had some users that didn't quite put the lid on all the way. And as the pressure builds, it'll shoot off. So I'll build the pressure in this. You can see the. Maybe you can see bubbles in there. Kind of hard to see with the reflection, but maybe. [00:29:23] Speaker B: A little bit. We'll have to zoom in so that people can see it. [00:29:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Actually, I might be able to zoom in on this camera if it'll focus. Focus. [00:29:32] Speaker B: Yep, I see it. Yep, we see the bubbles. How cool. That's how it works. So interesting. [00:29:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's using electricity to separate the oxygen from the hydrogen. [00:29:43] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. [00:29:44] Speaker A: And then we send the oxygen out a port on the bottom. There's a little hole where the oxygen comes out and the hydrogen goes up into the water. And that's actually maybe my first misconception, going back to your question, is with our older bottle, there was a lot of knockoffs of this bottle. This bottle was. We sold this for $49, so you can still get it on Amazon. Alongside it, you'll see bottles that are, you know, $50, $100, that sort of thing. There's a proton exchange membrane in the base of the bottle that keeps the oxygen and the hydrogen separated. If you don't do that. Those things can recombine as all sorts of different components. The water becomes acidic, it'll have chlorine in it. In fact, when people buy the cheaper bottles, they'll open it and it'll smell like chlorine. And then they drink it because they think it's a healthy hydrogen bottle, but it's a cheap Chinese knockoff. So the first misconception would be, don't think you're getting a good deal, you're just going to be drinking poison. And we're doing some things to try and get that reg. Hydrogen's just so new, there's no infrastructure in place to regulate it. We're trying to get Amazon to create a category for hydrogen bottles and then some rules around it and then some other steps we're trying to take to make sure that people know this one has a proton exchange membrane and it's generating pure hydrogen, not some weird concoction. And the other things we hear all the time, doesn't water already have hydrogen in it? [00:31:14] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:31:16] Speaker A: And that's true, it does. And that's how we get the hydrogen out is using the water that's in the bottle. You know, people ask, do you have to refill it with hydrogen? Is there a cartridge you put in or something? But no, it's using the water that's in the bottle and using electrical current to separate them. But water already has hydrogen in it. And your body can extract hydrogen from food and water that you bring in. Fermentation in the gut, the water that you drink, it can extract that. But what happens is as you age, the demand you have for hydrogen increases just in the same way that your gut health is decreasing and your ability to produce and absorb the hydrogen is decreasing. [00:31:52] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:31:53] Speaker A: And so it's just like a lot of things as you get older. I mean, a six year old drinking hydrogen water, it's not going to hurt them, but they probably won't feel anything because their body's creating all the hydrogen it needs. Like, just like everything else, when you get 35, 40, you're like, maybe a little supplement of this would make me feel a little bit better. And so that's a really common misconception. Another that we hear all the time is, isn't hydrogen flammable? And people get really nervous about that. And I say, yes. And so is oxygen. So don't forget. Right. If you were to light a pure oxygen bottle on fire, you'd be in trouble. You know those oxygen tanks, you don't smoke while you're Doing oxygen therapy. Right. So same thing. It's counterintuitive. Fire is dangerous, whatever. But we use oxygen and hydrogen in the body even though we take them out of the body and light those things on fire. So yeah, it's, that's, that's often a concern. What else? Have you heard anything else that misconceptions. [00:32:52] Speaker B: You'Ve been thinking about some in the trend section that I'm going to go with, I'm going to run through. We actually scanned TikTok and Reddit, so there's a few that I'm going to save for this section. [00:33:00] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. [00:33:02] Speaker B: You know, but it actually brings me to a question. I think about this all the time because there's a lot of nuance in explaining your product and making sure that few people understand, you know, how it works and what it's for and so on and so forth. Do you feel like consumers are ready for science backed wellness? Have you had any issues with educating consumers on more technical products? [00:33:25] Speaker A: It's really hard. Yeah, yeah, we're not. In the end, we make decisions with emotion and we use science and logic to justify a decision we already made. [00:33:35] Speaker B: Right, exactly. [00:33:36] Speaker A: And we should do it the other way, but we don't. And so we make emotional decisions and then justification using logic and just how we work. And it's, it's really, really difficult. Hydrogen is so new that a large part of what we do is education and just trying to get the word out there. And you know, when something is established in the market and you know about it, it's just a matter of choosing the best one. [00:34:00] Speaker B: So true. [00:34:00] Speaker A: Like, you know, Nike, maybe this isn't true, but we'll go with it. But Nike invented the running shoe. Right before the running shoe. Ex people ran in all sorts of things. [00:34:09] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:34:09] Speaker A: And now you say, oh, I need a running shoe. It's a thing, you know, that you need and you go look for which one is the best for you. Right. And you know, some people like Mizuno, some people like New Balance, some people like Nike, and you just choose the one that fits you the best and your style of running the best and all those kinds of things. So we're not in that mode yet with hydrogen. People don't know it's something they need. They don't, they're not aware of it most of the time when you talk about it, it's the first time they've ever heard of it. And so it's the two factor thing where you have to learn about it first and then choose which One's the best. We're in a unique position because we're by far the market leader and have the most advanced products. So typically, when people spend some time learning about it, they are. They're brought to us as the solution in the market. So we've got quite a few competitors now, but they're like kind of copycat competitors. They're trying to compete on a lower price point, or they're trying to compete on some other factor, but we've got that position as the market leader, and so that's beneficial for us. But education is just absolutely huge, I think, and this is hard to do. Hopefully. I haven't gone into too much jargon and whatever, but it's hard to communicate things on a level that people will understand generally. [00:35:22] Speaker B: Agreed. [00:35:25] Speaker A: In order for you to really learn something, you have to be able to repeat it to someone else. Right. And so anytime I learn something new, I try to teach someone else. So that goes into deep in. And so if you can give someone a story they can repeat that's very, very simple, then it helps educate them, and it helps them educate others. And so we're trying to get to that point with our hydrogen story that it's very simple to understand and very simple to teach someone else about it. You know, when you were at the barbecue, someone says, oh, my knees are killing me. And you're like, have you tried hydrogen water? [00:35:55] Speaker B: Right, right, right, right. [00:35:57] Speaker A: That conversation isn't happening yet. [00:35:59] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:59] Speaker A: And, well, that's when we know we've got to win is when that conversation's happening, even if they're not saying it'd be tried Echo. But just if you've tried hydrogen water. [00:36:06] Speaker B: Right. As I'm a marketer by trade, like, that's my first business. And, yeah. To get them to the place where they're saying, have you tried Echo would be, you know, that's the, like, golden. Yep, that's the golden. [00:36:19] Speaker A: I always joke around that we'll know we made it when in five years. My mom comes up to me and says, have you heard of hydrogen water before? You should really try this for your arthritis. And I'll be like, mom, I gave you a bottle five years ago, and you've been drinking out of it, so you should pay attention. [00:36:35] Speaker B: I love it. The mom test. I agree. Whenever my mom is like, you know, talking about the things I'm working on, I'm like, yay, we did it. Yeah, mission accomplished. You know, there's so much happening, I feel like, in the hydrogen product space, I mean, what do you feel like is the next frontier and what are you excited about? [00:36:53] Speaker A: So we've launched three products this year. We have a whole bunch more that we're working on. Some of the things that are very interesting. We had a pretty big breakthrough where we were able to take. Traditionally, any hydrogen supplement you would take was in a tablet form, so it could dissolve like an Alka Seltzer in the water. [00:37:08] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. [00:37:09] Speaker A: There's some challenges with that because you can't pair it with anything. It's just hydrogen, and they taste horrible. Like, just never tried one. And it's a constraint of the form factor. If you added any other ingredients, the tablet would be as big as the bottle. Right. So it's like, it'd have to get huge. And so. But they do just taste awful, awful, awful. And the science behind how you generate hydrogen with a supplement is really quite simple, actually. I have a. Let me grab this. This is elemental magnesium. These are magnesium crystals. [00:37:42] Speaker B: Cool. [00:37:43] Speaker A: I don't know if you can see. Yeah, I guess I can do this trick again. [00:37:45] Speaker B: That's cool. [00:37:47] Speaker A: It's really cool. [00:37:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's beautiful. [00:37:50] Speaker A: Almost like feathers, huh? [00:37:51] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:37:53] Speaker A: And so you use magnesium and an acid. And as that magnesium oxidizes with the acid, it pulls the oxygen. So before we were talking about antioxidant, getting rid of oxidation in order to create the reaction, you oxidize the magnesium. And so use like a, say, citric acid. Magnesium, citric acid. They're both natural. And a lot of people are already taking magnesium supplement. You combine those two, and now that. I mean, it's not as simple as just. You couldn't just take a citric acid and a magnesium. They would never do it. But you combine those two, and the acid oxidizes the magnesium, and so it pulls the oxygen away from the water and it releases the hydrogen. Right. Fairly simple in theory. And we figured out a way to make that a powdered form so that we can add flavors and we can add other ingredients to enhance the benefit. So our first product that we launched with that is a powdered drink mix. It tastes like green apple, and because of the citric acid in there, it tastes like a fresh green apple. It tastes really great. [00:38:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:56] Speaker A: And you don't taste the metallic magnesium that's in there, and it's a prebiotic as well. So the fiber that's in that prebiotic, as it ferments in your gut, it releases more hydrogen. So you have this double shot thing where you get quick hydrogen energy boost. Brain fog gone you know, all those kinds of things. And then some more long term hydrogen that's getting released through the gut in the fermentation process. And so I think there's a lot of opportunity for innovation along those lines. I have a whole bunch of products now that we crack the code on how to do that. I have a whole bunch of products I'm interested in doing and I don't want to talk about any yet because I want you to steal my ideas. But there's some really fun things there. We are working on different form factors for the bottle and different endpoints. Bottle, pitcher. You know, we're always trying to get a lower cost bottle so that the entry level point is more accessible to people. But it's some of the hardware in there. The proton exchange membrane is really expensive piece of hardware. And so it's hard to get the cost down, but I think we can do it. And then some of the other things that are really cool that are coming out are different delivery mechanisms for hydrogen. So we have a hydrogen inhalation machine, we have a hydrogen bath unit where you soak in hydrogen water. And those are really, really fun. The hydrogen bath has unbelievable case studies and unbelievable research behind it. Eliminating subcutaneous fat and surface level fat, cellulite, things like that, skin, health, wrinkles. I'm forgetting my word. What's the psoriasis? [00:40:33] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:40:33] Speaker A: So it's very effective on psoriasis. There's clinical studies specific to psoriasis and the before and after pictures are amazing. [00:40:40] Speaker B: Wow. Is it like, do you hook it to like your, your faucet or how does it. The bath? [00:40:45] Speaker A: So our unit has a pump inside, so you have one hose that sucks water from the tub and one hose that puts hydrogen rich water back into the tub. And so you just let it run and you can run it before you get in, or you can let it run while you're in. And yeah, we, you know, anecdotal feedback we get from users is amazing. But the clinical researches and the studies are also amazing. So that's a real breakthrough category. And we're working. So right now the hardware is very expensive. It's like it's expensive for spas to buy that hardware. And so we're working on some solutions that people can hopefully get access to that, access to that kind of product in the home. And so if the stuff we're developing works out, then we'd be able to hit a much lower price point for home users and that would be great. We're also talking to a number of companies about integrating the hydrogen gas system into their cold plunge and other endpoints like that. So you could have like a hydrogen rich cold plunge. The inhalation is interesting. These, you know, the bathing and the inhalation aren't as well studied as the water. The water has, I think, 1300 and something studies, you know, and you're talking like 20 to 50 for each of those other endpoints. They're, they're fairly new and so more research needs to be done on those. But I've, I've tested the. I've got sleep apnea as well, so if I don't use my cpap, I'm just shot. Right. And I've tested the inhalation. Just sitting there and doing inhalation for 30 minutes. I've also tested it, like using it overnight with my CPAP and all these different things. I'm just playing with it because there's not a ton of research on it to see what the best dosage and use case is. But where spas are using it is they combine it with other treatments. So like while you're doing red light, they have you inhaling hydrogen and what will happen, like 30 minutes of inhalation is, you'll notice, like a big energy boost and you'll just feel really good coming out of it. So for spas, it's really great because no matter what you did in the spa, the hydrogen is going to make you feel awesome for the next couple hours at least. [00:42:51] Speaker B: So super cool. [00:42:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So you could go in there and get beat up in a massage and. [00:42:57] Speaker B: Right. [00:42:58] Speaker A: Come out feeling like top of the world. Yeah. It's kind of like I always wonder why when you take your car to the mechanic, they don't detail it and bring it back clean. No one knows what they fixed, but if it was clean, it would feel like a new car. Right. [00:43:11] Speaker B: So true. The place. [00:43:12] Speaker A: So it's like that same kind of thing with the spa. [00:43:15] Speaker B: Yeah, they do that. They actually do, like clean the car and it makes all the difference. And like, makes all the difference. Like, hey, I want to pay you more because the car looks great. Like who knows what you actually did, but you know. [00:43:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Your car gets dirty and you're like, I think something's wrong. Can you check it out? [00:43:30] Speaker B: Exactly, Exactly. So true. [00:43:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think it's kind of that same thing when you leave the spa. They want you feeling good when you leave, even though some of the things they do are to stress your body and to, you know. [00:43:44] Speaker B: Right. [00:43:44] Speaker A: Cause some healing but they, they want you to feel good. People are using it like that and combining with other therapies. There's some amazing studies with hydrogen and hyperbaric and. But it's really similar to the oxygen hyperbaric. When you go down that path of like a high saturation hydrogen mixture and hyperbaric pressure or oxygen, the results are very accelerated. But it's very dangerous to do that. So because it's under pressure and there's that much hydrogen or that much oxygen in the unit, if you were to have spark from static or something, you could have a big problem. And so there's been some. Actually some pretty horrible mishaps that. [00:44:29] Speaker B: Yikes. [00:44:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:30] Speaker B: No, no, we don't want. [00:44:31] Speaker A: So. So people are doing it more as a cannula where you're inhaling as you're in the hyperbaric or other endpoints like that. So you're not. Not your whole body's not fully saturated and that the benefits aren't as good, but the safety is. You know, safety is more important, so. [00:44:45] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:44:47] Speaker A: But there's some cancer studies with that and there's some really interesting things. And so if someone could figure out a way to do it perfectly safe, maybe that we'd have a real breakthrough there. But you know, if you want to be saturated, you can. Maybe that's the way to do it. Is like some kind of high pressure water you're in. Right. Hydrogen water that's pressurized like hyperbaric. That'd be interesting. I don't know if that exists, but it wouldn't be flammable. So we're inventing right here, Right? [00:45:11] Speaker B: I was gonna say we may just be onto something right here on the podcast. You know, it's the science to me so interesting. The science, innovation and the research. I like to, you know, I want to ask a question for consumers on the behalf of consumers because I feel like out there there's so many things. How do you know that the product, the company is actually science based versus just marketing hype? And I'm a marketer and I know that they. There's so much out there that isn't in integrity that is just marketing that someone just trying to sell you stuff. How can a consumer who's skeptical like myself, you know, how can you know that you're getting an actual science based product? [00:45:53] Speaker A: That's really tricky, isn't it? [00:45:55] Speaker B: Right. [00:45:55] Speaker A: Because most of it is hype, unfortunately. And you know, some of these irresponsible marketers will promise the world too. In the wellness industry, there's always somebody coming along saying they've got the cure for cancer and they've got, you know, and then they charge people way too much money and there's no results. And it's, and people that are, it's really pretty sad because people that are in those health situations, like if the pain is acute enough, you'll do anything to fix it. And so, you know, it's that balance of breakthrough science and trying things and, you know, experimenting to find some solution to your problem that traditional medicine hasn't and bad players fleecing people and taking all their money and, and so it's a really, really tough spot. And it's unfortunate too, because the people that are doing it the right way have the reputational destruction regardless because of the people that are doing it the wrong way. So it's, it's really tough. I think claims are actually a good sign. Like if it's too good to be true, it probably is. And so the claims are a good sign. It's, you know, if you go to their website and they're saying it does every single thing and does it the best ever and it's going to change the world, that's good. It's really tricky these days because I look at some of these speakers and, you know, I'm interested in logic and reason and took these kind of classes in college and you see the manipulation techniques they're using. But if you're not trained to see that stuff, if you're not familiar with it, you'll be manipulated by it instead of noticing what they're doing. I think Chat GPT is a huge help. I. [00:47:49] Speaker B: Right. [00:47:50] Speaker A: I've been using, you know, if you haven't used it, used it before, use it like you use Google and just ask it questions like you'd ask Google and see what it comes back with. And you know, you can ask it. Is this ingredient all it's cracked up to be? Is is it all hype or is there some science behind it? Can you share the studies with me? Can you read these studies to me and tell me in a plain language, have them make sense? It can do all those things. And that's a huge help for people, I think, to separ great fact from fiction. And the Chat GPT is going to err on the side of caution a little bit, but that's not bad. You know, it's going to be a little more careful, but it's, you know, you can decide then when you get all the information if you want to try it or not, that's what's hard about Google these days is every site is selling something and so you have to go to like 10 different sources to find anything that is truth and meaningful. And you're almost reading between the lines. And so doing your own research has become hard. And that's why I really like those chat tools like Grok. ChatGPT are two of my favorites. [00:48:59] Speaker B: Same. [00:49:00] Speaker A: They're, they're great for parsing that stuff out. [00:49:03] Speaker B: I agree. I use it too. You know, just, I'm, I'm a marketer and I know how the game is played and I've always said I want to teach a course on ethical marketing. I feel like I've said this so many times, I just need to do it because, you know, there's so many psychological manipulation tactics that are used. It's funny, I became a marketer after studying behavioral economics and it actually prepared me probably better for marketing than, you know, just marketing classes because a lot of what marketing is, is understanding what makes people tick and how to use that to get them to drive a buying decision. And in the wellness industry, it can be incredibly sinister because you have people who are looking for a solution and you can tell them all sorts of things and they're. [00:49:46] Speaker A: There's a lot of people preying on pain. [00:49:48] Speaker B: Exactly 100. Which is really unfortunate. Really, really unfortunate. I'm curious, you know, if someone is thinking about hydrogen therapy, hydrogen water, they're interested in trying it for the first time. What would you tell them for, you know, their first time? [00:50:03] Speaker A: Well, you know, the bottle, our bottle is $300, so it's a higher price point that is maybe not accessible to some people. So for an experimentation phase, you know, a lot of people before they're totally convinced and want to have an experience with hydrogen, that might be too far to go. I'm kind of an early adopter and kind of a nerd. And so for me that stuff is fun to just get it and try it. We do have a 60 day money back guarantee on our bottle. So if you did want to try it and it didn't work for you, no questions asked, you could return it. You're not out anything. But the supplement is also a much lower price point for having a hydrogen experience. The bottle is the purest form you can get and it's absolutely the best delivery mechanism. But you'll be able to tell from using the supplement if hydrogen is going to make you feel better. And so that's a great spot to go. You know, the way most of our customers are Using the supplement is they keep a few in their purse or whatever. And then if they forget their bottle or they don't want to take it with them to something, then they can just pour it into a bottle of water and it's really easy to do. And that's how most people are doing it. It's like a compliment to the bottle, not just using the supplement, but if, you know the supplement's 59 and you get a month's supply for that and you could definitely try it and see if. If it's going to work. And I think that's probably the lowest cost, easiest way to do it. If you had a friend with a bottle, have them pour it into a cup and drink it and just see, that would be. [00:51:38] Speaker B: Yeah, that would be really cool. [00:51:41] Speaker A: But, you know, sampling is a huge thing for us. We. I wish there was a way that people could try it. We do it at trade shows and events like that. [00:51:48] Speaker B: Okay. [00:51:49] Speaker A: And you see this thing happening where we. We bring some bigger equipment so people can fill up their water bottles and do whatever else. And then people will come back multiple times a day. They'll come back every day of the show. Like, I couldn't believe how well this worked. I can go and fill my bottle again if that's okay. Or I can't get enough of this, you know, so it, like, they get a good sampling experience with the hydrogen from that, and that's always great, but it's hard to do for the regular person, so. [00:52:18] Speaker B: Right. But I love the fact that you have the other delivery mechanism, you know, with the, the tablet. So that, that's another way that people can try. But really, really, really cool. I want to go into true or false because I have so many of these. We're talking about misconceptions that I would like to clear out. Ace, your daily hydration needs. [00:52:42] Speaker A: It's true. But it doesn't need to replace it. So that's a. That's actually kind of a misconception, is that people think once they start drinking hydrogen water, it has to be all of their water. I carry around a water bottle and a hydrogen bottle. And so I tried to do three bottles per day, eight parts per million. And that's. I found that dose works really well for me. And then when I have a flare up, like, of my arthritis a day that's rougher than the others, you know, it's stormy outside, I wake up in pain. Then I'll do like five bottles on a day like that. But you can use any other thing to hydrate in addition to, But I really say the minimum that you want to do is about three bottles a day. [00:53:25] Speaker B: Okay, okay. Interesting, interesting. Another thing I feel like people talk about, they say most people get enough hydrogen from naturally, from their food. Is that true or false? [00:53:35] Speaker A: Well, define most people, that would be the question. So like I said, said if you're very healthy, if your gut health is good, if your body's working just like it should, then it's true, your body should be able to do get enough hydrogen just from your diet, and I mean a healthy diet. And if you're staying very hydrated, like I was mentioning with a six year old little kids where their body's functioning just right, a six year old that's in great health, they probably would have no benefit. They would have no harm either, but they would probably have no benefit from the water. [00:54:06] Speaker B: Right. [00:54:07] Speaker A: But I think most of us, when you say most people, I think most of us aren't in perfect health. [00:54:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:13] Speaker A: So, and then the other side of that is there's some really great research on athletic performance and recovery. So we have a lot of extreme athletes, high performance athletes who are in perfect health, who are increasing endurance and recovery and having those benefits by supplementing with hydrogen water. And, and that's the other side of it because their demand, they also, you need electrolytes, right. Because they're sweating so much, they're working out so much, their demand is so much higher and so they're using hydrogen water to improve endurance, recovery, all those kinds of things. So the, the most people is where that gets cloudy. I would say it's true that some people don't need to supplement with hydrogen water and their body's going to create enough. [00:54:57] Speaker B: Okay, okay, fair. We were kind of talking about this. True or false. The wellness industry is oversaturated with unproven claims. [00:55:05] Speaker A: True. [00:55:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:07] Speaker A: One million true. Yeah. [00:55:09] Speaker B: It's unfortunate. You know, I always think about whether or not regulation will ever happen and what that would actually look like. [00:55:15] Speaker A: Well, there's already regulation and it just can't keep up. Right. Because it's like whack a mole. They try to slap these groups down and then they spring right back up and you know, it's even worse than ever because they can ship stuff directly from China now and directly from these other markets. So you'll be, they'll be advertising in the US market and it'll be a site that's going to ship from somewhere else in the world. And the government, US government can't regulate that. And Even Europe and other places, they have really strict regulations and they're getting stuff from all over the world. So I think the era of being able, the Internet has changed this so that the government can't keep you safe from those kinds of things. It's become your responsibility to keep you safe. And. And so just learning to read through the BS and do a little research of your own and do a little due diligence, because the liars are always going to lie. There's always been people selling snake oil. [00:56:13] Speaker B: Totally. Since the dawn of time. [00:56:15] Speaker A: Yep. There's. And it's the thing about the snake oil salesman that's so crazy to me is the energy that goes into that. There's so many legitimate products that if you just took that same energy and sold something that was real, you would be more successful. Because no one's going to come shut you down or give you bad reviews or pull the plug. But maybe they get a rush out of it. I don't know. [00:56:36] Speaker B: That's strange. It makes no sense. Yeah. Or people are driving me crazy on Amazon. Are legitimate companies having company. Kind of like what you were saying with Echo, ripping off the products, especially with supplements and pills and selling fake pills. Like, why would you. What are you doing? You know why and you don't. [00:56:55] Speaker A: There's no great way to know what's in those either. Right. How do you know? What they claim is. So they may say it's got all these great ingredients in it. [00:57:03] Speaker B: Right. [00:57:03] Speaker A: And maybe it's just filled with sugar. How would you even know? [00:57:06] Speaker B: How would you know? Exactly. It's wild. It's really, really wild. The next one, hydrogen therapy has been around for centuries. Trees. [00:57:13] Speaker A: It's false, but with a little bit of a caveat. [00:57:16] Speaker B: Okay. [00:57:17] Speaker A: So I mean, they discovered how to generate hydrogen with electricity quite a while ago, 200 years ago. And there are. But I say it's false. The caveat is there are some natural springs around the world that people have gone to for healing for a long time. [00:57:32] Speaker B: Right? Right. [00:57:33] Speaker A: And they didn't know why they were healing springs. But turns out that some of these have hydrogen naturally occurring in the spring. [00:57:39] Speaker B: Spring. [00:57:41] Speaker A: There's a bunch in Japan around Mount Fuji that people go to for healing springs that add hydrogen. And so they are low part per million. Hydrogen. It's only like a half part per million. But a lot of clinical studies are done even at a half part per million dose. And so it would make sense to me that people soaking in those springs would see benefits and they just wouldn't know what it was coming from. But hydrogen therapy as like a deliberate treatment is really 2008 was probably the big kickoff. [00:58:08] Speaker B: Right, right. Very interesting, Very interesting. How about this one? This is one that I feel like is controversial. There's no such thing as too much hydrogen. [00:58:17] Speaker A: That's true. Because you'll just burp it out or fart it out and your body won't absorb it, so you can't overdose on it. But it's, you know, once you've absorbed all you can absorb and your body has all it needs, there's no reason to take more. So but yeah, it's that you can't overdose, but there's a certain amount that your body can absorb. And so that kind of balance there. [00:58:44] Speaker B: Okay. [00:58:44] Speaker A: It's not like you could get past 100% of the hydrogen need you have. Right, right. You can only get a hundred percent of it. [00:58:50] Speaker B: Right, Right. The next few we've kind of talked about a bit, but I'd love your true or false answer on a few of these. So hydrogen water can directly impact your gut health. [00:58:59] Speaker A: That's 100% true. I don't know if I even mentioned that as a benefit, but that's one of the first things that people see and one of the biggest benefits people see. I've heard a lot of people, there's studies on. But a lot of people that have purchased bottles will report back, like, I had the worst acid reflux ever. No matter what I took, you know, the over the counter stuff, prescription stuff, I still had terrible acid reflux keeping me up at night. And then they drink three or four bottles a day of hydrogen water and goes away. [00:59:25] Speaker B: Wow. [00:59:26] Speaker A: And that's, that's huge for people. Right. Like that's one of those annoying things that is real suffering that causes real damage. But gut health restoration, with some people, when they start taking hydrogen water, we think it's about 10%. They'll have a really strong cleanse when they first start hydrogen water and their gut health then resets. And so with those users, we often hear either it was constantly constipated and now that's fixed, or I always had to run to the bathroom and now that's fixed. And so it's, it resets the gut health. So hydrogen is absolutely huge for gut health. And I think that's key because all the other things you're doing have to be absorbed through the gut. And so if you can improve the health of your gut, hydrogen complements all the other things you may be doing for your health. So it makes your Vitamins get absorbed better. Your clean eating, your food, your nutrients, all of those are going to be more readily absorbed as you improve your gut health. [01:00:20] Speaker B: Absolutely. This next one, hydrogen water can help reduce oxidative stress. [01:00:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that's one of the main things that gets studied, is very powerful antioxidant. And so, and the importance of that is growing every year we learn more and more about the what the problems oxidative stress causes. And yeah, you know, people read these studies like Reservatrol. Right. So red wine has some in it. And then people like, oh, yeah, I always drink wine because it's good for you. [01:00:50] Speaker B: Yeah, well, exactly. [01:00:52] Speaker A: Not exactly, but it is a good justification. Right. If I'm the guy selling the wine, I'm going to put that out there. And the same with chocolate. You know, I think there's a whole bunch of others. Someone's going to do a study that, you know those chocolate muffins at Costco or antioxidant or something. Back to the claims. Right. But hydrogen's very, very powerful antioxidant. The hydrogen wants to bind with the oxygen just in like in the form of water already. Right. They're attracted to each other. I don't know if I could justify saying it's the most powerful. That may be true, but I'd have to look at the up. But it really, really wants to bind to oxygen. [01:01:32] Speaker B: Very interesting, this last one in our true or false wellness trends often move faster than science. [01:01:39] Speaker A: That's interesting. It's hard to answer that because a lot of the trends are based on science. [01:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. [01:01:45] Speaker A: And a lot of the wellness trends, they're taking science, like really bleeding edge science and trying to create a therapy around it before it's really ready for the mainstream. So I would say for sure, wellness trends outpace science awareness. Like before the general public knows about it, there's a wellness trend that's pushing it. And then there's always fake trends that have nothing to do with science. But most of them are looking at really early studies and then trying to make some solution based on that study. [01:02:16] Speaker B: Very, very interesting. Love it. Now we're gonna move to my next part, which I love this part. This is our rapid fire where we get to ask you questions and we're looking for like very short sentences. This is actually a lot of the questions that I have today are to just get to know you more. You know, you so much in entrepreneurship, wellness, business want to know kind of what makes you tick. So allow me to dive in. The first one is what's your favorite wellness routine for energy? [01:02:45] Speaker A: Well, one thing you will need to know about me is I'm not good at short answers, so. [01:02:52] Speaker B: It'S okay. We. We want to hear all the things. [01:02:56] Speaker A: My perfect day. My days that go the absolute best. I get awesome sleep. Sleep is kind of a foundation for everything. I keep a hydrogen water bottle by my bed and I run it before I go to bed so that when I wake up in the morning, I drink it right away. [01:03:11] Speaker B: Cool. [01:03:12] Speaker A: And then I will do cold plunge. I only do a minute. [01:03:17] Speaker B: Okay. [01:03:18] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm not sure it even does anything for my health, but I. It does something for me because my days go better when I do it. And maybe it's willpower, you know, eating your vegetables first, doing something hard. But I really like doing it. And my days go better when I do it. And then get outside. I would say, me too. That's my best energy. Days are that. [01:03:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Getting outside first. I do the same. Yeah. There's something about, like, even just walking around the block at the beginning of the day that my mental clarity is a lot sharper and I just feel better about sitting down to tackle the day. Whereas if I don't do that, I just jump on calls. I don't know. I'm struggling by two o', clock, I notice. [01:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah, totally true. Totally true. And I've started doing something. It's hard to do when you're on a podcast. Right. But a lot of my calls, I work from home and I'm on the phone a lot. And a couple months ago, I was. When it started to warm up here, I was like, I could just go outside and do these calls too. [01:04:18] Speaker B: Yep, yep. [01:04:19] Speaker A: So I just wander around the yard and talk on the phone, walk down and get the mail, that sort of thing. [01:04:25] Speaker B: So I do that too. Yeah. Walking meetings all the time. [01:04:28] Speaker A: Yep. Get your steps in. Gets you outside. And, you know, you. Seems like the meetings go better when you're standing up and moving and your energy's better. [01:04:38] Speaker B: I agree. Yeah. It just feels more natural than, I don't know, sitting inside all day in a shining screen just seems, seems, seems off. But that's just me. [01:04:47] Speaker A: Have you seen the Kevin Nealon podcast that he does? [01:04:50] Speaker B: No. [01:04:50] Speaker A: Where he goes hiking with comedians? [01:04:53] Speaker B: No, I have not. [01:04:54] Speaker A: It's really interesting. [01:04:55] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. [01:04:56] Speaker A: They just go on a hike together and they film it, and the film quality is horrible. But the interview and the questions are interesting, right? [01:05:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:04] Speaker B: Outside. I love that. Love it, love it, love it. I have to do that. Yeah, I love it. What is your one daily habit? Wellness habit that you won't skip that you're like, every day I gotta do this. [01:05:16] Speaker A: My water for sure. [01:05:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:19] Speaker A: So I've tested this. So because it's, it's an interrupter I was trying to test to see if I was getting used to the hydrogen water. And so the benefit would be diminished because I'd grown accustomed to it. And so I chose some days where I didn't have any hydrogen water. And those weren't good. My body needs it and they were not good days for me. And so that's like my one thing that is my always my go to water first thing in the morning. And like I said, I try to do three a day and really I try to do three before like two or three o'. Clock. [01:05:52] Speaker B: Okay, interesting. Very, very interesting. How about snacks? Like what's your go to clean health snack? [01:05:59] Speaker A: Don't snack a lot. No. [01:06:01] Speaker B: Ah, interesting. [01:06:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair. Well, reaching for water when you want a snack is always a good move. Right. Because sometimes your body confuses dehydration with a craving. So you drink some water and the craving goes away. I love fruit. I'm a real fruit fanatic. Okay. So actually I did think of this. I love to garden. We're a little bit in the suburbs here. It's a little bit country. We've got horses and fields around us and so we've got an acre. My favorite go to snack is like something fresh that I pick and eat before it even gets in the house. Like cherry tomatoes or strawberries or blackberries. Oh my gosh, that stuff. That's amazing. And if I could have that all the time, all year round, the taste difference is just so even, like the organic best groceries you can buy, the taste difference from your own garden is huge. [01:06:54] Speaker B: It's huge. [01:06:55] Speaker A: So yeah. So I love that if you. That's my go to. Not necessarily my go to, but my preferred. If I can get it like a peach right off the tree that's warm from the sun and perfectly ripe so that when you touch it, it falls into your hand. I mean, best thing in the world. [01:07:13] Speaker B: Making me like, for me, I grew up in the east coast, so apple during apple picking season to like go and pick the apple right from the tree and bite into it. [01:07:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:23] Speaker B: Then you go buy a store bought apple and you're like, this is horrible. This is disgusting. [01:07:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it tastes like air. [01:07:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:28] Speaker A: Just tastes like air. [01:07:29] Speaker B: What is. [01:07:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I'm with you. [01:07:35] Speaker B: I'm curious. [01:07:35] Speaker A: What is and berries are the same thing. Berries are. [01:07:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:39] Speaker A: The blueberries, raspberries from the store look like raspberries, but they don't taste like anything. [01:07:43] Speaker B: They don't taste. [01:07:43] Speaker A: And you get a raspberry fresh off the bush, and you're just like, wow, this is amazing. [01:07:47] Speaker B: And strawberries, too. Strawberries, really? This is like. They taste like mealy water sometimes from the store, and then you pick it up the vine. You're like, wow, this is so flavorful. [01:07:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm like. Like every time I eat one, I'm like, this is the best strawberry I've ever had. Then I eat another one. Like, this is the best strawberry I've ever had. [01:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:03] Speaker A: Same pineapple in Hawaii. [01:08:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:07] Speaker A: When they pick it right there at the plantation and hand it to you, and it's just like, what is this? [01:08:13] Speaker B: So amazing. Then you get one from the amazing soap. You're like, what is going on? [01:08:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:19] Speaker B: So true. Oh, yeah. Fresh fruit. I think it's like that, to me, is also wealth. Like, being able to, you know, like. [01:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:28] Speaker B: Is just. Wow. It's a game changer. Absolute game changer. [01:08:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Especially like when you're young and poor and you can't afford anything at the grocery store and you're, like, eating the worst stuff, eating ramen noodles or whatever. And like, once you get a little bit of extra money and you can buy, like, good food, Good food is. [01:08:47] Speaker B: Such a game changer. [01:08:49] Speaker A: You just feel rich. Right? [01:08:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so true. True. Yeah, you do. And you, your bot, you're feeding your body with rich nutrients, you know, too. So it's a whole. Agree. I totally agree. I think that that's so, so important and so many. [01:09:00] Speaker A: It's one of those areas where we've really broken society. [01:09:03] Speaker B: I agree. [01:09:05] Speaker A: This is a total aside, but I read a whole bunch of books on World War II and how it changed the way we live. [01:09:11] Speaker B: Right, right. [01:09:12] Speaker A: And most of the food stuff that we're complaining about now are things that. That choices that we made so that we could feed soldiers and feed the world during and after World War II. Like canned goods, preservatives. [01:09:25] Speaker B: Right, right. [01:09:26] Speaker A: All of those kinds of things were necessary to be able to feed the troops and to feed Europe while they rebuilt and. And Japan too. We were sending food everywhere. And yeah, maybe it wasn't the perfect thing, but at least it got there and it wasn't rotted. [01:09:40] Speaker B: Right, right, right. [01:09:41] Speaker A: And we never stopped doing it. [01:09:42] Speaker B: It. [01:09:43] Speaker A: So when the need went away, we never stopped doing it. Big food factory food was developed to feed the world during the war. And that never went away. And so we need to get back to like how we ate and what we did before the war. Or even oils like cooking oil. That was not a thing before World War II. People would cook with tallow and other things and they needed all of the tallow and all of those natural fats to make glycerin for gunpowder. And so people weren't allowed to use those. They had to turn all those in and the government would use all of it to make gunpowder. And that was great because we had to defeat the Nazis. But we never went away from it. When the war ended and the need ended, we never went back to the traditional way we did it. [01:10:28] Speaker B: Crazy, crazy, crazy. Yeah. And it's so unfortunate because you have whole communities that you go for miles and there's nothing but process. [01:10:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:37] Speaker B: Convenience. [01:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah. The food deserts that they call them or whatever. [01:10:40] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. It's crazy. It's. [01:10:42] Speaker A: But even not in poor communities like you go to these places, Whole foods is great, but it's not as good as your garden. [01:10:48] Speaker B: Yeah, right. True. So true. Percent yeah. I'm like, that is to me like the new form of wealth. Like having fresh produce that you, you know, you know what's in it. You know, there's no pesticides. There's, you know, whatever nonsense is happening in mass produced groceries, you, you really can control for that. I think that, like, there should be a move meant more for that. But anyway, I could get on a soapbox about it because I think it's so important. [01:11:14] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, let's geek out for one more second. [01:11:16] Speaker B: Yes. I love it. I love it. [01:11:17] Speaker A: There's something like therapeutic and meditative about like digging your hands in the dirt. [01:11:21] Speaker B: Oh, 100%. [01:11:23] Speaker A: Like I remember when other jobs, when things were so stressful before I could go in the house, like, I couldn't bring that stressful me into the house. Right. So before I go in, I would stop by the garden. Garden. Pull some weeds, pick some things. [01:11:38] Speaker B: Right. [01:11:38] Speaker A: All of a sudden you're reset. You go in and you're just totally reset. [01:11:41] Speaker B: Agree. [01:11:41] Speaker A: There's something about it. [01:11:43] Speaker B: Agree. I feel like my. One of my favorite memories. I'm going to nerd out too. Helping my parents in the garden. You know, we would have strawberries and squash and being able to go out there. We had a mulberry tree growing up. So we would. My sister and I would. And you know, to be able to not only know our, like our friends, food was coming from, but then to be Outside and play too. Like, hey, we're so fun. I mean, such a true. [01:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah, you're getting the sunshine, fresh air, good food, like all of it's awesome. [01:12:11] Speaker B: Amazing, amazing, amazing. Curious, what is the one wellness goal that you're working on right now? [01:12:19] Speaker A: That's a good question. I constantly experimenting and like my big problems are in the rearview mirror with my arthritis and my weight and some of those things. And now it's like fine tuning, like, how good could I feel? And so, yeah, I'm trying to like make my arthritis like I went from using mega doses of steroids probably every month or more when I was really struggling to now that I'm on hydrogen water, my lows aren't nearly as low and my flare ups are way low. Less frequent like twice a year instead of 12 times a year. And the usage of steroids to get through those, you know, have to. Do they have these things, these dose packs. You'd go like six pills day one, five pills day two, you work your way down. I haven't had to use any of those in multiple years. And so that's really awesome. And now it's like, how do I make it so that I don't have any flare ups in a year? How do I make it so I don't have that? You know, and like my body, I'm way, way better, but I still can't run. I used to run a lot. I still can't run the pounding and the inflammation that comes from the running, my body will flare up from that. And so. And I'd love to get back to a point where I could be that active again. [01:13:42] Speaker B: Right, right. [01:13:44] Speaker A: I don't know if it's possible. You know, I don't want to do like the Brian Johnson thing where I become like a alien experiment or something, but I would love to like keep improving and tweaking and like learning what works perfectly for me. [01:14:02] Speaker B: I love that. I think that's a healthy approach. I actually, I love that you brought up Brian Johnson because I, you know, watch all the things he does and man, like, I feel so conflicted, to be honest. It's like, you know, you want to optimize your health. But. But then at what point, at least for me, you know, I think about what point I would feel like I'm no longer just living freely, you know, and just feel taking over my life. The routines, the regimens, the pills, the things, you know, I don't know, it's. [01:14:28] Speaker A: Really if he's, if he's happy, if that's what he loves to do. I'm all for it. [01:14:33] Speaker B: More power to you. Agree. [01:14:34] Speaker A: There's a YouTuber I watch, James Pumphrey. He used to be on a channel called Donut Media. Now he's got his own channel called Speed, and it's mostly a car YouTuber. Like a month ago, he did 30 wellness things in 30 days. And he would add a new thing each day. So by day 30, they're doing 30 different things for wellness. [01:14:53] Speaker B: Right, Right. [01:14:54] Speaker A: And took over his life. Right. And he was saying how much he hated it and how he wanted to just, like, start over. But there were things he found in experimenting with those that he will always do. I can't remember what he said, but there were, you know, and it's probably different for every person, but he did the red light and the cold plunge and the, you know, did all of things. And from that he was like, here are the things that made the most difference to me that I'll keep doing. And I think you don't have to do them in an experiment like that, but running some experiments on yourself and finding what works and what optimizes you and makes you the happiest and the best you can be, I think is really worthwhile, you know. Okay. So the one thing I am working on is I'm a real night owl and consistent bedtime. [01:15:37] Speaker B: Me too. Me too. [01:15:38] Speaker A: If I could get to bed at 10 and. And go to sleep, I would crush. Every day. [01:15:44] Speaker B: Same. [01:15:44] Speaker A: But sometimes I've got a really good idea at 9. 59. [01:15:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:49] Speaker A: And I'll be up till 2 and. [01:15:51] Speaker B: So same as charged right here. [01:15:54] Speaker A: Yep. So. And then I pay for it the next day. But that's maybe the one thing I need to work on the most right now is consistent bedtimes. [01:16:04] Speaker B: It's hard. I feel it comes with the entrepreneurial wiring. Like, you're like, just sometimes I'm fire. And then. Yep. Yeah. 3:00am you're like. Is going. [01:16:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Once it starts churning, I know I won't be able to fall asleep anyway. [01:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah, same. [01:16:18] Speaker A: So like, once it starts churning, I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's just got to do. And so I wouldn't be able to sleep if I had that idea in my brain. Anyway. So I've figured out some tools for myself with my ADD or whatever that I can cope. Like, I make a not to do list. That's very helpful. [01:16:34] Speaker B: Yes. [01:16:35] Speaker A: Things I know that are important that I'm not going to do. Write them down. I'm not doing these. And I'M deliberate about it's a great and those kinds of things are helpful but every once in a while it's just like this is just happening right now. I'm not sleeping tonight, you know. [01:16:48] Speaker B: I agree so same I'm glad I'm not alone, you know in the struggle. I would like to move on to our next part. I also part I love breaking down wild trends. So we hunt tik tok, Instagram, all all the social media platform terms and find the wildest trends and I would love for you to just comment on some of these. So the first one is hydrogen water versus alkaline water. There's feel like there's like a beef between, you know the two. What are your thoughts? What's the science? [01:17:24] Speaker A: I'm grateful for alkaline water because it led people to hydrogen water. So there was a whole alkaline water trend. People were feeling benefits but when, when scientists would isolate for the alkalinity of the water, they would see no benefit. And then the unintended consequence of using electricity to make the water alkaline, it would produce some hydrogen gas. And so the it can't do that consistently. Once the plates get corroded on an alkaline machine, it no longer produces hydrogen gas. Takes like six or eight weeks. But you'll hear that a lot from people where they start drinking alkaline water and they feel awesome for eight weeks and then those benefits go away. But because of your the chemistry in your gut, the alkaline water is great for acid reflux. It's great for a few things. It can make coffee taste better. Some plants need alkaline water. But your gut is going to change. It's going to correct it automatically so it doesn't make it past your stomach and like no measured clinical benefits. And so all the research, you know, the studies are where the evidence is, right? [01:18:32] Speaker B: Right. [01:18:32] Speaker A: Thousand studies on hydrogen water and there's alkaline. Can't do that now. Some people like how it tastes. I don't think it's harming you if you like how it tastes like a coffee additive to make the coffee not so acidic, you know. But the health benefits are not real. [01:18:49] Speaker B: Interesting, interesting. How about this one? You know I just two two things I keep seeing on TikTok DIY ozone therapy and the hyperbaric oxygen therapy. What do you think about both of those? Are they dangerous? Beneficial? They fad? Are they fake? [01:19:08] Speaker A: Are people doing DIY hydrogen or DIY hyperbaric? [01:19:14] Speaker B: So DIY ozone. Ozone therapy I've seen on TikTok and then just also, people are talking about hyperbaric oxygen therapy. So you know, different. [01:19:22] Speaker A: Ozone can be pretty dangerous. I didn't know people were doing that. [01:19:25] Speaker B: That's what I thought too. [01:19:27] Speaker A: I've got an ozone machine that I use for deodorizing the house and the cars and stuff like that. [01:19:32] Speaker B: Okay. [01:19:33] Speaker A: Very effective for killing odors and. [01:19:36] Speaker B: Right. [01:19:36] Speaker A: But it's. If you're exposed to it for very long, like when you do that, you have to leave the house. Right. It'll make your throat burn like crazy and make you cough. So I don't know how they're doing it. You'd have to be very careful. [01:19:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:51] Speaker A: I know some. Some holistic medicine doctors that are using ozone treatments. [01:19:57] Speaker B: Right. [01:19:58] Speaker A: And I think in a setting like that where you have an expert that's controlling it, it's probably fine. Yeah. That doing it on your own at home makes me very nervous. [01:20:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:08] Speaker A: I didn't know that was happening. [01:20:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. And then the hyperbaric oxygen therapy, what are your thoughts? Is that a fad or do you think there's actually merit in that? [01:20:17] Speaker A: So I've never done hyperbaric myself. I. The science on it is really sound. [01:20:24] Speaker B: Right. Okay. [01:20:25] Speaker A: There's some pretty amazing things that come from hyperbaric. I'm not sure if it's fully understood, but you can get hyperbaric treatments from the hospital now. You can all sorts of things from what I've heard. And this may not be true, but some of the like, lower cost machines that people use at home just don't have the pressure. They can't get up to the pressures necessary to prove a real benefit. [01:20:50] Speaker B: Right. [01:20:52] Speaker A: You know, hyperbaric is very, very sound as a mechanism. Like we all thought Michael Jackson was crazy when he was doing the 80s. It turns out he's just way ahead of his time. Right. So in fact, there was a kid in a neighborhood we used to live in who'd drown at the lake. And he was non verbal. He was. They thought he was going to die and thought he was going to be brain dead, all those things. And they did a bunch of him hyperbaric treatments on him. And he went from like totally catatonic not being able to interact with anyone to he can say some words, he can communicate, he can look around the room, navigate his wheelchair. So we went from like vegetable state to like paraplegic almost, you know. So that was unbelievable result. And there's, you know, countless stories like that and research like that on hyperbaric. So. [01:21:45] Speaker B: Interesting. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I Keep seeing the two. Either someone trying I do DIY ozone therapy, and then also people talking separately, videos about hyperbaric. So anyway, this last, I want to ask you also seen it on TikTok, people with hydrogen infused skin care. Is this next level or is it a marketing gimmick? [01:22:04] Speaker A: I'd have to look at their formulation. The studies on hydrogen and skin are really awesome. Like I said, the. The hydrogen baths have unbelievable results. We've been working on developing some skin care lines where you will have a formula that you can put on your skin and it'll generate hydrogen near the surface of the skin. I would have to see how they're doing it because it's. You can't generate hydrogen before the fact. So if it's a two part formula and one part's an acid and one part's a magnesium base and they're having you combine those to apply to the skin, it could be legitimate and it would probably work really well. If it's a one part formula, then it's fake. [01:22:45] Speaker B: Interesting. Good to know. I'm gonna be looking on TikTok for the ones that I've been seeing again and like, see what it actually what they're trying to do. Very interesting. Good to know. Good to know. [01:22:59] Speaker A: I guess I'll put one caveat on that. You could mix it beforehand if it was kept under very high pressures. So if it was coming in a bottle that was pressurized. [01:23:07] Speaker B: Right. [01:23:08] Speaker A: Little oxygen bottle that you. I don't know. Then it could be premixed and the hydrogen would stay suspended in the solution. But anything else, it would outgas. Hydrogen's the smallest element. It's one on the periodic scale. Right. So it'll go right through plastic, right through glass. You can't hold it. Like when they fill up the rockets with hydrogen as a fuel, they'll lose 10% of the fuel before the rocket takes off because it's just outgassing. [01:23:36] Speaker B: Wow. So, yeah, so, yeah, very interesting. Okay. All right. I'm gonna, like, be scouting these products. I want to move on to our next section, which is our Reddit rabbit hole. So we scan Reddit for a few questions for you. I'm going to ask you two questions from Reddit. So this first one was actually found in the public health subreddit, and this is something that I've actually personally debated with and I'm glad that this person raised this. So is Big Wellness the new big pharmacy pharma? And they go on to say we often hear about Big Pharma and its influence on health care. But have we considered the growing impact of big wellness? The global wellness industry is now valued at $6.3 trillion, dwarfing the 1.6 trillion pharmaceutical industry and vastly exceeding the 78.5 billion dollar global vaccine market. While wellness can promote healthy lifestyles, its unchecked corporate expansion raises concerns about its influence. What are your thoughts? I love this question. Very interesting. [01:24:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I've thought about this before, but I would say I'm not as concerned about it because it's fractured. So pharma is consolidated and they have power. There's two pharmaceutical obvious for each congressman or senator in Washington. They're, you know, so they've got like institutional power. They've structured the FDA and other governing bodies to keep out anyone else from entering the industry. And so there's, there's power there that doesn't exist in the wellness industry. And the wellness industry is more fractured. I mean, when you look at big pharma, that 1.7 trillion is among mainly five companies. Right? [01:25:19] Speaker B: Right. [01:25:19] Speaker A: And in wellness that might be 5,000 companies or more. And so I would get very concerned probably if you started to see a lot of consolidation where you were getting these really big, powerful wellness brands that were aggregating and having lobbying power and all sorts of things. I think that's where the corruption can really come in. There's a very interesting trend where the distrust of pharma is on the rise and people want to try wellness products. [01:25:47] Speaker B: Right. [01:25:47] Speaker A: I was surprised that the industry is that big. That really is. I wonder what they're including in that. They might be including all organic food. [01:25:55] Speaker B: Right, right. [01:25:57] Speaker A: And then, you know, it's like. What do you mean wellness? [01:26:00] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:26:00] Speaker A: How are you defining that? But yeah, if, if it was starting to consolidate into a few big players who were really powerful, then my concerns would go up. But it's so fractured when there's so many little. And, and there's definitely a trend in this way. Like functional medicine is a huge trend and I think will be a big disruptor over the next 10 years, where you're going to a doctor who's a functional medicine doctor who's prescribing peptides and pharmaceuticals and supplements and hydrogen water and trying to give you more of a holistic approach to your health. I think that trend is going to be huge. And as soon as someone cracks the code and starts doing this the right way, the big healthcare companies will start consolidating those and rolling that up because they'll see that they can make a lot of money doing it. And that's bound to happen. But yeah, I think the fracture is what keeps it safe for a minute. [01:26:53] Speaker B: Agree, agree. Yeah, it's, yeah, very disjointed and also can be very confusing to the consumer because, you know, trying to figure out who you need to go to. Do I go to, you know, naturopath? When do I go, need to go to this, you know, irate a person, whatever it may be, like, there's still a lot of education that needs to be done to help people to get there. [01:27:13] Speaker A: Would you have to. And, but also on the, the opposite side of that with the confusion, the confusion and innovation are you can't have one without the other. You can innovate without causing some confusion and some disruption in the marketplace. And so it's a sign that there's some really healthy and interesting things happening because people are innovating like crazy. But that also leads to the confusion fusion because it's not normalized yet. [01:27:35] Speaker B: Which actually leads me to our second Reddit rabbit hole question, which is a little bit related. So this was in the anti consumption subreddit. This person just drops a question. Are supplements just another form of wellness consumerism? What are your thoughts? [01:27:50] Speaker A: What do you mean by that? What, what is the, you know, what's the concern that they're addressing there? [01:27:56] Speaker B: You know, I, I'm gonna throw what I. My interpretation because, because I've actually heard people say this and they're like, you know, I was talking to another entrepreneur who completely went off supplements, was like, you know, I'm not going to be doing any supplementation. I think it's a scam. You know, I feel like people are just trying to sell me things I'm gonna do. They became, oh, my gosh, I'm totally blanking. They went, they went keto, and then they became Carnivore. And they're like, I'm getting everything I need from eating meat and I don't need supplements. It's just, they're just trying to make me spend money. And, you know, I paused. It was really interesting. Very smart person. We have these debates and I, you know, I was shocked by his stance on, on this. [01:28:38] Speaker A: Okay, so I'll throw in a quote that I have said many, many times. [01:28:41] Speaker B: Right. [01:28:42] Speaker A: But specialty diets and specialty wellness are the designer genes of the 80s. [01:28:48] Speaker B: That's what I. Thank you. [01:28:50] Speaker A: And, and it's a flex. For most people, it's a flex. Like, why do you buy, I don't know, designer stuff? Why do you buy Louis Vuitton? It's got the logo all over it. That's why you buy it. You want people to know you can afford it. And people don't do those really specialized things and stay quiet about it. They do them because they want people to see that they can do them and they can afford to do them. [01:29:16] Speaker B: You see me over here and I'm like, I'm not trying to knock anyone. Do you? You do you boo. But like, yes, you, they actually, you start to see a kind of like hive mind effect. Like one person does it and they're talking about all the time, then the next person, the next one. And if you feel great, amazing. But I agree with you, like people aren't typically like hush hush about what they're doing. Typically. [01:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah. But there are some really cool things coming. Wellness for wellness sake. There's some really cool things coming. So I can tell a guy about a new mitochondrial test that's really easy to administer. In the past those have been like a muscle core sample. So no one ever did it. But they have a blood test, there's the genetic tests you can do and being able to know what medicines your body needs by monitoring your genetics and your mitochondrial function and then only choosing the supplements that actually work that your body actually needs. Because if you don't know, it's like random acts of supplementation. [01:30:13] Speaker B: Yes. [01:30:14] Speaker A: You don't know if it's working or not or if your body needs it or not. And, and I think that happens a lot. There's a lot of waste of people taking things they don't need. And so as the testing improves and the access to the testing improves, there's a real possibility for savings and health improvement because people will choose to supplement with the things their body needs to supplement with and ignore the rest. [01:30:37] Speaker B: Agree, agree, agree. [01:30:39] Speaker A: And I don't know if you've ever tried the Carnivore diet or keto have. They're hard to do. But I did feel pretty good. [01:30:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. Hey, do, do you. Because. And also everyone's wired differently. Their body needs different things. So you know, hey, more power to you. But it does feel like a lot of times people jump on a bandwagon and yeah, it kind of, it feels more like a flex than I'm doing it because this is what's working for me. And you get people who get to that state and that just is their life. [01:31:08] Speaker A: But yeah, I've got another friend who's a really funny guy and he says all the time, time when we talk about something, he's like, is it trending. I only do things that are trending. [01:31:17] Speaker B: I love it. [01:31:21] Speaker A: He's making fun of all those people that live like that. But a lot of people do that. They just want to be a part of something cool, right? [01:31:28] Speaker B: Yes. Yes, absolutely. I know we're just about at time, but if you have a few minutes, I would love to jump to our last section, which is what's in your metaphorical bag. I know us some cool things. So if you have some other cool things to show us, that would be amazing. [01:31:43] Speaker A: I'm pretty basic. Maybe I'll extend my bag a little. I. When I leave the house, my eyes are very sensitive because of my arthritis, so I always have sunglasses. [01:31:53] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. [01:31:53] Speaker A: I actually hate sunglasses, but I always wear them outside. And then I always have my flask with me, and I always have a water bottle with me. Let's see. AirPods. I have two sets of AirPods. I use these so much that I burn through. I go through about four of these a year because I drop them or I don't take very good care of them, but I always have two at a time. So I have one charging while I'm using the others, and then I swap them when the battery goes dead and charge the others. So I'm on the phone a lot. The iPad, with my pencil here. [01:32:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Key. Yep. [01:32:30] Speaker A: The ability to write on the screen is great for me for note taking and thinking through things and so. Oh, oh. And then actually, I am a geek, so these are things that are just right here because they are kind of in my bag, but my starlink. [01:32:47] Speaker B: Oh, no way. Oh, how cool. [01:32:49] Speaker A: My starlink Rome. I don't know if you've used one of these, but it gives you the freedom to pretend like you're at work. So. So these are. It was just a little guy. [01:33:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So cool. [01:33:05] Speaker A: That goes all over the place with us because we can throw it on. [01:33:10] Speaker B: The car, dialed in, ready to go. Yep. [01:33:13] Speaker A: Take it everywhere. And then maybe the last thing that I would encourage people to try that's like in my bag all the time, are the new AI tools. I've become a real power user of AI. There's the AI agents where you can. Like the first Generation is asking ChatGPT questions or interacting with it. [01:33:33] Speaker B: Right. [01:33:33] Speaker A: The agent model is giving these more complex assignments and sending them out in the world to do things. There's one called replit, that's a software development agent. [01:33:43] Speaker B: I'm. [01:33:43] Speaker A: And it's amazing what it can do. [01:33:46] Speaker B: Crazy, right? [01:33:46] Speaker A: So if you're like thinking, I've always wanted to start a business, but I don't know how to build a website. Replit will build your website with you not knowing anything about code. You just tell it what you want it to be and it'll start building it and then. Yeah. So when AI tools first came out, people treated them like they were going to do your homework for you or they were going to write the paper for you. And they're not good at that. They don't function very well that way. What they are is they leverage your brain and just like any other tool we've had in the past and so they can make your homework better and get it done faster. Just like when I remember I was in college in 96, I graduated high school and I was taking classes my freshman year. Like half the people at school didn't know what Google was. And I'm like doing my research, doing all the stuff on Google and I'm done 10 times faster than everybody else. And they're like, how are you doing all this? I'm like, just Google it. It's not that big of a deal. Just look up the sources on Google. They're going to the library and doing the card catalog. [01:34:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember the card catalog. [01:34:50] Speaker A: Yeah, the Dewey Decimal System. Actually just watched a video on the Dewey Decimal System a couple weeks ago and it's a really smart system. I never understood it, but it's pretty brilliant. And I'm like, I get it now but I'll never need it, but now I get it. [01:35:05] Speaker B: Right? [01:35:06] Speaker A: But in ChatGPT and Grok and all these tools are the exact same now their ability to generate images to help you research, refine your ideas, write text, they're not great at connecting ideas, they're not great at metaphor, they're not great at storytelling in the way that humans really tell a story. But they are a major shortcut on research and learning and getting you smart about something. And so I'm highly dependent on those now. It's a life changer. So same if you don't know them, you're going to get left behind. [01:35:40] Speaker B: I couldn't agree more. I mean what my other company, the marketing agency, we're working on building a tool for some of the fractional teams that we work with and it would have taken us a year, year probably to stand up the tool. I myself, I'm pretty non technical. I just know basic like HTML, css, front end stuff. I mean I was able to knock something out pretty quick in one of those 2am nights. I was like, this is wild. This is crazy. What you're able to do everything from like. [01:36:08] Speaker A: I used to do a lot of coding, and I kind of got left behind as I got busy. And I really enjoy it, but I get left behind. I didn't keep up on the latest tools. [01:36:16] Speaker B: Right. [01:36:17] Speaker A: And, you know, so you'd hire developers to do these things. And now with replit, I feel like I've been unleashed because I'm not dependent on finding the right guy and then waiting for him to build it. [01:36:29] Speaker B: Right, Me too. [01:36:30] Speaker A: And I'm just. I'm doing it from my phone, and so in between calls, while I'm waiting for something, I jump on and give it a task. Fix this, build this, improve this. And, you know, just 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, I probably put, you know, 30 or 40 minutes into it a day, and you're building something amazing. Build an app, build a website, build a special piece of software. I. I created an app the other day that would go scrape LinkedIn for. Is for a buddy that he has the sales thing he's trying to do, and he didn't know how to get leads. And I'm like, dude, just go do this. [01:37:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that's it. [01:37:06] Speaker A: He's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, I'll do it. I build a scraper, it goes to LinkedIn, looks for very specific types of people, and then connects him to those people. [01:37:15] Speaker B: Amazing. [01:37:16] Speaker A: It took it an hour to do that. [01:37:18] Speaker B: It's unreal. [01:37:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:37:20] Speaker B: If you're not using really, really cool sales process, you're. You're honestly screwed. Like, what you can do in terms of what we're doing on the agency side, in terms of outbound outreach, I would have had to hire 10 salespeople where we're able to stand up agents and just have them drive our. A lot of our outbound. It's crazy. [01:37:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and the training is. The training is big too, because you have to teach it, right. You have to invest in it. [01:37:43] Speaker B: Right? [01:37:43] Speaker A: But I've spent a lot of time teaching it about me, about my family, about, you know, interests and the things. And so now I can say, hey, I need to come up with a birthday gift for my wife. What suggestions do you have? And it's like, well, she likes this, this, and this, and this is coming up. And maybe you could try these things as a gift. Right? And so just all those kinds of things are amazing. And then I always tell, like, sales guys, I'm like, before you get on a call, jump on, chat, GPT ask it about the company and the person you're talking to and what they would be most interested in in our pitch. [01:38:15] Speaker B: Right. [01:38:16] Speaker A: It's a huge time saver. [01:38:17] Speaker B: Huge time saver. Huge. Absolutely. Love it, love it, love it, love it. Oh, Josh, I could talk to you literally all day. I feel like we could, like, nerd out on, like, 10 million rabbit holes. [01:38:27] Speaker A: We're gonna stop recording, and next thing you know, we'll be talking about alien abductions and conspiracy theories. [01:38:32] Speaker B: 110%, actually, because I have some theories on that. Thank you so much. You're just an incredible, incredible wealth of knowledge and, you know, just really cool. Congratulations on all the success with. [01:38:47] Speaker A: Yeah, this was a lot of fun. [01:38:48] Speaker B: So much fun. Truly a joy. And just your health transformation is so inspiring, you know? [01:38:55] Speaker A: Well, thank you. [01:38:55] Speaker B: Congratulations. Seriously. I know. I can't even imagine how hard. I know so many people with arthritis, with autoimmune disorders, and it's. It just. It takes over your life, and to be able to really find a way to transform your health is just no easy feat. So just congratulations on all that you've done. Really. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. We'll have to have you back on as you guys launch new products, by the way, because I'm endlessly fascinated. [01:39:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And we'll just keep you in the loop. We'll send you stuff to try as it comes out. [01:39:21] Speaker B: Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you, Josh. [01:39:24] Speaker A: Thank you.