EFR 774: Misconceptions Surrounding ADHD, Focus, and Multitasking and How to Change Your Brain Chemistry to Boost Energy, Increase Clarity, and Have More Motivation and Confidence with Dan Freed

00:00 - Speaker 1 The following is an operation podcast production.

00:04 - Speaker 2 Saucier of a Michelin 3 star in France and I was so miserable. It was one of the worst time periods of my life. I completely burned out. When you achieve something like that, I get this fear of losing. When I started this company, everybody thought I was gonna fail. I was actually surprisingly happy, like I had nothing, had a lot of sacrifice to kind of get this company off the ground, and it was just like I loved what I was doing. I genuinely loved it, and I didn't have the same amount of fear. There were months when I couldn't pay my rent. My credit cards were maxed out, I was bootstrapping for a long time, but I didn't have anything to lose and I was doing something that I really enjoyed. A very common thread was they thought that they were failures, that they weren't living up to their expectations because they're so kind of like type A like I can do this and they just see the gap between where they want to be and where they actually are.

00:59 - Speaker 1 You guys have created products that start with kind of that end result, that end feeling, because for me I'm chasing results but I'm also chasing feelings along the way. Feeling good about what I'm doing versus just knowing that I'm doing is way more important.

01:11 - Speaker 2 Hi, I'm Dan Freed, the co-founder of Thesis. We make personalized new tropics to help everyone achieve their goals. Welcome to EverFord.

01:20 - Speaker 1 Radio. This is your number one source for inspiring content from people who are putting a purpose to their passion and truly living a life. Everford I'm your host, chase Tuning. This is EverFord Radio. As long as I can remember, people thought I was stupid, lazy or unmotivated. I started to believe it In school. I would read the same page over and over again without absorbing anything. At 16, I dropped out of high school and went to work at a sandwich shop.

02:05 That is the story of today's guest, dan Freed, founder of Thesis. Well, spoiler alert, he didn't stay at the sandwich shop, but he did stay in the culinary arts quite a bit, in fact. Well, not to skip around too much, he actually reached the top of his game, becoming a chef in a Michelin star restaurant in France. So you might be asking yourself how can a guy that went from being quote stupid, lazy or unmotivated pursue such an aspirational goal like that? How can he then go on to found a company that is transforming the lives, even biochemistry of thousands of other people? Well, that is what today's episode is all about. Welcome to EverFord Radio. My friends, I'm so glad that you're here with me today. If you have not yet done so. I ask this quite often, because it is the most important ask I could ever put out on the show. Take two, three seconds right now. Go to Spotify, apple Podcast whichever platform you are tuning in on right here right now, tap the follow button, subscribe button. It really, really really does support the show in some big, big ways. If you have subscribed, thank you.

03:14 Let's go ahead and jump in for our conversation today with Dan. What can you expect? Well, dan, he's gonna paint the picture of a story that I think a lot of us can relate to, one that is us against the world, us against the standards of success, of education, of professionalism, of making it and trying to just figure out. Why is this so difficult? Am I different than other people, or do I need to just craft an alternative approach? If that's you, you're in luck, because Dan is gonna share exactly how he did that over the years, the obstacles that he faced and how he was able to, dare I say, hack his own biochemistry, formulating, getting crazy like a mad scientist with all of these natural adaptogens, supplements, nutropics that helped him dial in exactly to what he needed. And he didn't just stop there. That's what I love about Dan and what I look for really in a lot of guests that come on the show is when you find something that works for you, when you find something that helps you move forward in life, you don't just stop there. You help others. You bring product services, missions, movements to the world, and that is exactly what Dan has done in the entire team over at Thesis.

04:30 Thesis crafts personalized and utropic formulas to activate every kind of brain Powerful natural ways to boost your cognition and productivity so that you can, quite literally, bring the best out of your brain chemistry. Nutropics isn't a new word. Maybe it's new to you. It's definitely familiar to me.

04:49 I have been using and loving all kinds of nutropics for many, many years now, but I gotta tell you, until I found Thesis and the way that they walk you through this brain quiz to really help bring attention to the areas that you struggle most with in terms of your memory performance, cognition flow state, and the way that they bring intention to their products and put you on the right path to get the results that you want, well, I'm hooked. I've been using Thesis, loving Thesis, for months now. It has been an incredible asset to not only my daily wellness supplementation but when I need to get my most important work done. In fact, for this podcast, I, for example, have been falling in love with their clarity product. How can they help you? How can Thesis help you today? Well, besides Dan's story being inspiration and motivation to us all, thesis can help you find the right blend that works for your brain, helping it to do what it does anyway, but a little faster and more efficiently.

05:48 You were gonna notice a difference within just a few days. I promise you I did, and results tend to compound over time. So stick with it. Figure out the intention, go through the brain quiz. I'm gonna have all this linked for you guys down in the show notes. I promise you you're not gonna be disappointed. In fact, they got a great deal for us here today as the sponsor of this episode. When you go to takethesiscom and use code ever for it a checkout, you're gonna get 10% off. That's takethesiscom T-A-K-E-T-H-E-S-I-Scom code ever for it a checkout to save 10%. As we're talking and as this is going live, we're still pretty new in the new year, january 2024. Do you believe in resolutions? Do you have one? Where's your mind, where's your resolution at right now?

06:35 - Speaker 2 So I don't have anything specific about New Year's, but it is a period where I get some time off.

06:42 - Speaker 1 So Well, you get January off.

06:44 - Speaker 2 I don't get January off. January is our biggest month, but around Christmas is kind of this lull in between Black Friday and January. So for this year I had the opportunity to go to Argentina and to do some hiking in Patagonia, and most of the year it's just back to back non-stop, and especially right now it's in between these two very intense periods. You have kind of like the Black Friday shopping period and then you have January. So it gives me a little bit of time to take a step back and reflect. There's nothing particular about like making New Year's resolutions or anything like that, but I do some personal inventory See how far I've come since the past year, what I really want to work on.

07:26 I have more time to read, so I was up in the mountains just reading. I always have this long reading list that I very slowly make progress on and I read. One of my favorite authors is Robert Sapolsky, and I was able to read his entire new book and that just kind of like energizes me and has this great energy to start the New Year. We're obviously in an intense period right now. I do a lot of experimenting, so this isn't particular to New Year's or anything like that. I'm constantly trying new things, so I do this with products. I'm trying a bunch of different health and wellness products. I try everything from over-the-counter supplements to peptides to different types of. I did a stellate ganglion block a couple months ago.

08:18 - Speaker 1 I was just going to ask what's something you've done recently that's a favorite or one that Wow, this is working for me.

08:26 - Speaker 2 It was an interesting experience, the stellate ganglion block. I got it here at Hudson Medical and I thought they did an exceptional job with the procedure. I'm going to go do another one. I think that it was so one of the confounding factors I was recently diagnosed with Lyme disease. At the time that I went for the stellate ganglion block was right when I began showing symptoms and it was late-stage disseminated Lyme disease. So I didn't know it at the time and I think that some of the expectations I had for the procedure were to clear some of the symptoms of Lyme disease without knowing it was Lyme disease and that's not really what it's meant for. So now that I just finished a long course of antibiotics, I'm going to go back and I'm going to try it with a completely clear mind and body. But that's just like a part of my nature. I'm constantly challenging myself, trying different behavioral interventions, supplements, things like that to improve.

09:22 - Speaker 1 I'm hearing. What I heard in there that I really love is reflection, maybe not resolution, or more reflection, less resolution.

09:31 - Speaker 2 Yeah, so around the January time period, I would say it's reflection. Throughout the year, I'm constantly in experimentation mode and I'll try something, and it's perfectly normal for me to cycle through a lot of different, whether it's like a workout routine, a diet.

09:50 - Speaker 1 Fall in love with something let it go. Fall in love with something let it go.

09:53 - Speaker 2 Exactly. I just love experimenting and that's always been a part of my personality.

09:58 - Speaker 1 A lot of people right now might be in the mentality of more. I want to create more this year. I want to have more abundance, have more money, have more better health. I want more. I need to do more, be more, act more, save more. Is more the right word, you think right now? Is it like the right intention, but maybe not necessarily the right word? Is there danger in the concept of more?

10:29 - Speaker 2 I do think that there's danger. One of the most interesting things and I had this inside a couple of years ago I have a lot of friends that are incredibly successful. They're investment bankers, they're consultants. They have these really aspirational lives and when I would actually sit down with them, a very common thread was they thought that they were failures, that they weren't living up to their expectations because they're so type A like I can do this and they just see the gap between where they want to be and where they actually are, whereas everybody else around them looks at them as this huge success story and aspirational.

11:11 - Speaker 1 We wish we could be, there and they're like I've never gotten there.

11:15 - Speaker 2 Yeah, they just see that gap. It's that classic insecure overachiever and that's something that's kind of a new. I wasn't around those people growing up. I was kind of thrown into it. When I went back to school I ended up being surrounded by people who went to Ivy Leagues and just had this very different life path that I did and it was something that was a little bit. I just couldn't wrap my head around it where I would look at these people and they were so incredibly successful on the outside but they felt that they were failing and they were constantly. It was that more mentality. I just got to go to the gym more. I got to get more money. I have to get this promotion and it was driving them to be miserable.

12:02 - Speaker 1 It's that concept of I'll be happy when it's always the when right, it's never now.

12:08 - Speaker 2 I do a lot of gratitude practices. I am very ambitious but I try not to tie goals and outcomes to my peace of mind, my overall well-being.

12:22 - Speaker 1 How do you do that? Because I know a lot of people would love that, but it's harder said than done, right?

12:27 - Speaker 2 It's incredibly difficult, and I mean there's two, there's a lot of different states. I think one of the things that has helped me a lot is complete failure. I've just gone through so many. At the time, what I saw is catastrophic failures where I just lose everything. Have to start over and knowing that some of the happiest times of my life were in stages where, on the outside, my life appeared to be a failure.

12:59 - Speaker 1 Really.

13:00 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and the flip side is true. This was a realization that was beat into me a few times, where sometimes my life on the outside looked incredible and I had achieved everything that I had set out to do and I was so miserable on the inside. Really, my previous career I was a chef and one of my goals was to be Sausier of a Michelin 3-star restaurant. I had worked for years to do that and that is the most technically challenging position in the culinary industry. When I finally made that role and I was Sausier of a Michelin 3-star in France.

13:46 - Speaker 1 Set the goal, achieved it.

13:48 - Speaker 2 Exactly, and I was so fucking miserable. It was one of the worst time periods of my life. I completely burned out. So I lasted in that role I don't know three to six months, something like that, and I thought that I was going to quit cooking forever. I bought a one-way ticket to Thailand. I completely. I was like I can't do this anymore. That's how miserable I was.

14:12 - Speaker 1 You set the most outlandish goal you could have for your career, achieved it, and then, not only was it just not what you thought it was going to be, it derailed you almost to the point of giving up your entire career.

14:27 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I was so mentally and physically sick at that point. And the other thing this is what's interesting, and this is one of the things that I'm starting to struggle with more now is when you achieve something like that, I get this fear of losing. So I think that's one of the things like. When I started this company, everybody thought I was going to fail and I was actually surprisingly happy Like I had nothing. I had a lot of sacrifice to kind of get this company off the ground. There were financial.

15:03 So it's only up from here, right, Exactly and it was just like I loved what I was doing. I genuinely loved it, and I didn't have the same amount of fear which is crazy I had I would say more financial fear, because there were months when I couldn't pay my rent. My credit cards were maxed out. I was bootstrapping for a long time and that doesn't feel good, but I didn't have anything to lose and I was doing something that I really enjoyed. Now that I'm doing really well, there's that fear of like what if something bad happens? And it's kind of counter-intuitive because, when you look at it, I've had these crashes where I've lost everything and survived and it's not the end of the world.

15:45 - Speaker 1 For a lot of people. I have to imagine and I've definitely been there myself in my own version of rock bottom. When we're at that rock bottom, maybe it's because we had a catastrophic failure. Our business went under, we lost our job, family circumstances, relationship ended. That feeling sucks, but there's a small percentage of people that will look at that and go. It is only up from here versus. I think where a lot of people get stuck is the fear of even trying. It's almost like the sick twisted comfort that we find in the discomfort, in the pain. If someone's there right now, they're at rock bottom. One of those horrible things just happened to them that I listed off what worked for you and what could you pass back to them to create a fictitious light at the end of the tunnel if they don't see one just yet.

16:40 - Speaker 2 I was actually having a conversation yesterday about this. I think that there's for me. I'm very fortunate that, as I said, I've hit rock bottom several times. The first time it was not my choice. I have ADHD.

16:59 I've struggled in school for as long as I can remember. I was suspended, expelled, dropped out and going through that process. I remember the pain when I was 16 and I failed out of high school and, like when you're that age, this is like the one path for you to have a life. And I ended up working minimum wage, fast food jobs and I watched my friends graduate high school and go off to college and I didn't have a choice. It was no matter how hard I tried to succeed in that structured environment, I just couldn't do it. And I was so demoralized and in so much pain for so long that it taught me something and it was just knowing that I could go to that place and survive. And you know, I got lucky. I ended up becoming a chef. I saw how I could actually excel at something and I wasn't stupid and I wasn't lazy and your environment changed, my environment changed.

18:02 - Speaker 1 A lot of people will recognize.

18:04 - Speaker 2 Exactly so. Environment.

18:05 - Speaker 1 It's not you, it's environment.

18:06 - Speaker 2 Environment has so much to do with everything. So, like when I do these types of experiments, I'm always looking at how can I change my environment, because that that's much different container yields different results, absolutely.

18:18 And it's also the the role. So I right now my job. Most days I sit at a computer. I didn't. I'm not meant to do that. So my great grandparents never stepped foot in a classroom. Computers didn't exist.

18:37 There was like that type of focus is so abnormal in the course of, like the timescale of human evolution. For some people they're able to adapt to this, this type of focus, better than others. So my sister she's a doctor and I grew up with her. I saw, you know, when she was eight, she would come home and she would sit down and she would just do her homework and no matter how hard I tried, it wasn't motivation, it wasn't intelligence, I just couldn't sit there and do it. I was bouncing off the walls and I needed help. And that help for me comes in the form of new tropics, though For some people it's medication.

19:20 I also do a lot of behavioral interventions. I taught myself how to focus. I learned different tools everything from meditation, dieting, workout routines, all of this stuff to really maximize that. But I strongly believe that without those core foundations I wouldn't be able to sit at a computer all day. And being a chef, I didn't need that. I didn't need new tropics. I didn't need any of those healthy habits because it's a very different type of focus, Right, Right, and I know that you talk a lot about multitasking. Being a chef is like the ultimate multitasker.

19:53 - Speaker 1 So true, so true.

19:55 - Speaker 2 My brain is wired to do that. Like I would have 10 pots on the stove, I would have a board with 20 tickets and I can do that better than so many other people and I could just manage that. And so that's where ADHD became my superpower and where it held me back in the structured environment of the American educational system. In the kitchen environment. It propelled me forward.

20:23 - Speaker 1 So, on that term of multitasking, I think a lot of people try to multilay, try to multitask and outside, looking in, we might to others look like we're good at it, but at least for me, I firmly believe for most people multitasking is one of the biggest lies that we can tell ourselves, unless you kind of like you, do a hard examination of what really works for you and really in which environments do you thrive the most, and something like that, I think, is a great example of where someone can multitask and you're very aware of input equals output kind of thing. But for most people that doesn't work. How can we really honestly examine multitasking in our life to see if it actually is creating more efficiency or productivity or we're just trying to cram it into our life?

21:15 - Speaker 2 I think it depends on how you would define multitasking. There's a lot of academic research on task switching and focus. I think most people, when they say multitasking, it's texting, working on something, watching something, and that's not really even multitasking, that's just distraction Multiple sensory input. Exactly, and so I told you I experiment with a lot of things. One of the most impactful things that I'm currently experimenting with is leaving my phone and my laptop at work.

21:56 - Speaker 1 So when you're done with work, it stays there.

21:57 - Speaker 2 It stays there and so that's it. It takes this distraction away, it allows me to be president. So when I come home, my fiance is there, I get to spend time with her, I get to spend time with my dog. I can't tell you how good it feels to walk home in the middle of New York without any. There's nothing, nobody can contact me.

22:21 Well, well, it's tough and it took a lot of discipline because I'm somebody you know I would go home and then I would be in emails and in Slack and I always wanted to be present and available. But when I actually took a step back and I was like how do I feel? How's my sleep? You know, what do I feel like when I wake up and I grab that phone immediately, before I even get out of bed, and this just takes all of that away. And you know, I don't consider that multitasking, I consider it like stopping the noise and the things that I didn't anticipate. I used to get this feeling in my chest, this kind of like, almost like an anxious feeling sometimes, and I couldn't really pinpoint what was triggering it, what's doing it without my phone, without having, you know, texts and emails, even if it's not negative. It just kind of like died down. My brain was used to listening for this little hit of dopamine or this impending disaster, and when I know that there's nothing coming, it was okay.

23:23 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and what happened by you not being as readily available as maybe you used to? Um, did the world end? Did your business go under? Did relationships suffer or did you find a new way?

23:38 - Speaker 2 Exactly Like this was counterintuitive, so like when I even just the thought and I've tried to get a couple of my friends and a couple of coworkers to try to do this and the first thing is like what if something happens? What if somebody needs to get a hold of me? And all of this I can tell you. You know, I run a very I have a very demanding role and I was somebody who was constantly in Slack trying to troubleshoot. Everything could wait and if it can't wait, somebody will pick up the phone and they'll call my fiance and they'll get me on the phone If it's really genuinely urgent and this is also part of me trusting my team to do that. Um, but we highly encourage people to log off from Slack, to not check their emails after working hours.

24:26 - Speaker 1 Have you found that that has helped you and maybe your team, your company um become better at a lot of things that a lot of people struggle with right now in terms of creativity, clarity, motivation, just the ability to to detach but still do more.

24:44 - Speaker 2 Yeah, so this is another. Creativity, especially when it comes to product, is my biggest kind of like superpower, and the more time I spend obsessing on how can we make our product better whether it's digital, whether it's the formulation, whatever we offer to our customers, the better we do, and I strongly believe that to that's the ultimate goal is to have the most effective product to deliver to our customers. One of the best times for this kind of like creative thinking is in the shower. It's, you know it's.

25:22 - Speaker 1 I'm going through the tasks and I'm going to ask and I'm, and so it's like I would monitor.

25:27 - Speaker 2 what do I think about in the shower when I have my phone I'm thinking about. You know, this is my first meeting for the day, or shit. This broke overnight. Um, this is something that I have to fix and it's usually very short term. It's troubleshooting a problem that isn't that important. It's not a huge priority. But because I have that recency bias, it's like I just woke up. I just saw this. I know I'm going to have to go in and deal with it. That's what I spent my time thinking about. When I don't have that, I'm starting to think a lot more long term. How can we do this new product and launch it? How can we build this new feature and that makes such a huge difference? And then when I come into work, I'm excited instead of being like shit, I have to deal with this problem. I'm like I can't wait to write this down, to scope this out, and I bring this other type of energy and all of those small problems they're not significant Like it hasn't hurt us yet.

26:25 - Speaker 1 And your opinion right now like it statement. What do you think is one thing or a couple of things that is stifling most people's motivation? Clarity, energy, memory, focus, all the things that we are gravitating towards to optimize right and to become more efficient and to get better at multitasking, or to set the right goal and put ourselves on the right path in pursuit of it. Is there one thing or a couple of things that you think trickle down the most and have the largest negative effect on people's outlets for those things?

26:59 - Speaker 2 I think it really depends. I do regular kind of like time audits what am I spending my time on? And just seeing you know what are my priorities and my goals and then where does my time actually go.

27:13 - Speaker 1 And how do you measure that?

27:15 - Speaker 2 I sometimes I use tools so I can do like screen time. Sometimes I'll actually manually track, like what am I actually doing? During some experiments I'll actually go in and like I track everything. So when I'm testing your tropics and I'm really into the formulation process, I have spreadsheets and I'm like how much did I drink? What did I eat? How do I feel, what did?

27:34 - Speaker 1 I sleep.

27:35 - Speaker 2 What's going on, yeah?

27:39 - Speaker 1 That's exciting personal data. It is.

27:42 - Speaker 2 And there's a lot of insights that come from that. I think some of the simple things. So I talked about phones and just kind of like constantly switching between different notifications. For me, a lot of that was spending time on things at work that weren't important, but you know, it's very easy for me to go through and like what were some of those things that you realized you were spending a lot of time on, but weren't that important, I mean there's everything.

28:07 I'll go into Slack and I'll see that. You know this customer service agent could have handled something better. And, like I, one of the things about being a bootstrapped founder is I've done just about every job at the company and we have incredible people there. But sometimes I'll get in the weeds and I'm like this should be done differently, or like our shipping times aren't what they should be, and I'll go off on all of these that it's not really a problem and we already have people that are handling it, that I don't need to insert myself, and that's one of the biggest things that I'm spending time of kind of like stepping back.

28:49 - Speaker 1 Even though you know how to do it doesn't always mean you should be the one to do it.

28:53 - Speaker 2 Exactly. And then you know, I see I have a fiance and so I get. We live together, we've lived together for years and I can kind of see how she spends her time. One of the things about me I don't have a personal Instagram. I don't have TikTok on my phone. I see a lot of people spend so much time on those platforms and again, there's nothing. I don't think that there's anything inherently bad about it and especially, you can discover new hobbies, you can learn about things. There's a lot of positive things that come from those platforms, but if you've ever sat back and just watched someone Go through scrolling for an hour yeah, it is, yeah, I mean mindless self-indulgence Truly.

29:43 I mean, it's just you see them going through this like dopamine cycle, where it's like they just want that extra, like what am I gonna discover? What's gonna give me that little?

29:52 - Speaker 1 boost becoming harder and harder and harder to get that boost again.

29:55 - Speaker 2 Exactly, yeah, and it's just so. And again, I'm saying just blanket, it's not for everyone, but for some people where you see this behavior, where they're spending hours a day on it. It's really, really unhealthy in my view.

30:13 - Speaker 1 Hey friends, quick break for my conversation with Dan, but I got to keep the thesis train rolling because I I got to. It's my obligation to remind you about the incredible Benefits waiting for you when you had to take thesis. Calm, spend just a couple minutes going through their brain chemistry quiz and Get your customized formulation of nitropics delivered to your door in just a matter of days. This stuff is built for your brain chemistry. It doesn't matter if you think you are Low performer, high performer. If you struggle with brain fog, maybe you feel like paying attention is very difficult for you. No matter where you are on the spectrum of focus, of cognition, of flow state, they have something that can help dial you in even more, quite simply because they're made with potent active ingredients. They have a high bioavailability, meaning they're very quickly and efficiently Utilize in the body and metabolize and get right to work for you. Plus, it's backed. What I love most honestly is the clinically studied dosages and as I'm recording this little break ad here for you right now I'm sitting in the studio staring across the room and I have brought multiple packages in of thesis Neutropics into the studio because I don't want to keep this for myself. I want any client coming into the operation podcast studio here to be able to tap into just their most amazing Flow state possible just feeling cool, calm and collected, but very on at the same time. I'm staring at clarity, probably my favorite of all the new tropics. I love how they have these formulations named because it really does remind you of the goal that you're after and what is possible with the right formulation, talking about logic, energy, creativity, motivation, confidence and my personal favorite clarity. You can get them with or without caffeine. But my little hack if you go ahead and get the caffeinated version, it has an extra little small white capsule. That is the caffeine cap and it's about a hundred milligrams. And if you don't need it, want it. You already got your caffeine quota for the day. Go ahead and toss that baby to the side. You're gonna love the work that you get done. Maybe you get more work done or maybe you get more work done more quickly. No matter what your focus needs are, thesis has a formulation to help you get there. Help you get them more quickly and feel better to learn more. Start the quiz head to take thesis calm. That's T a k? E, t h e s I s dot com and you can save 10% at checkout with code ever forward. As always, this is linked for you down in the show notes under episode resources. But again, that's take thesis calm code ever forward to save 10%. If you don't love the way that you feel, you got a money back guarantee.

32:48 You mentioned it a couple times, but I want to jump into one of the really key practical ways that you have found solace and help in in energy, clarity, motivation so many concepts that are so important for Everybody, regardless whatever your, your task is or your goal is.

33:09 And it's something that is no stranger to me that I've been using in my wellness routine for for years and years in a variety of Different ways, and that's new tropics.

33:16 But what I love about what you all do it thesis is that it's it's not just hey, here's something that you might be familiar with, here's an ingredient, here's a blend that that does what it says it's gonna do. But in my experience, and everybody's experience, because you got to go through the same process is this Awareness quiz, this kind of walk through. You got to sit down, you got to focus, you got to answer questions about where is my mind going, where's my energy going, what, what matters most to me, and so I love that you all bring, first and foremost, the attention to the person, so that Awareness is the first step in everything, right, but then after that, it's this ability to then get things that are gonna directly Support me and directly support the things that matter to me, more specifically, the things that I'm really struggling with. Can you walk us through this concept of this brain quiz and how you are able to then give people Things that work, that are really curated for them?

34:15 - Speaker 2 Exactly so. The way I look at it, new tropics the the problem that we're solving is finding the right ingredients for each individual, and when I discovered new tropics it was more than 10 years ago now. I Was studying for the GMAT. It was something that I needed to get a really high score on in order to accomplish my goals. So I was desperate. I was willing to try just about anything. I heard of new tropics on a study forum and I went out and I bought every single thing that I could find and I meticulously cycled through you know formulations, different single blends. I would go into a coffee shop and just bring out a milligram scale and a bunch of white powders and was like weighing everything out, and Most new tropics didn't do anything. So no measurable impact. But I didn't give up and I went for months. I spent thousands of dollars and eventually I found some ingredients that worked really well and I Created a formula that was life-changing for me. So when I went in to take the GMAT, I ended up scoring in the 99th percentile, which was Surprised the hell out of me well beyond what I thought I was capable of.

35:34 Essentially, what thesis does is it takes that you know six month long, thousands of dollars process and it compresses it into less than a month for less than a hundred dollars. And that's a data science problem. So we have users go through a quiz and then we compare their results to our customer base. At this point we have millions of people who have gone through the quiz, hundreds of thousands of reviews, and we take this data and we say where should you start? It's not accurate enough that I can say, after a three-minute quiz, this is gonna work for you, hopefully one day. Well, it keeps improving. But right now we say these are the four Formulations that you should start with. Try each one for a week, tell us. You know which ones are most effective for you, which ones you didn't like, and then we use your data to customize your box for the next month.

36:30 And you know what I saw in the industry. There are a lot of people like me. They come to new tropics but they just give up. So they'll try one Product, one ingredient and they'll say, oh, it didn't achieve my goals. New tropics, a bullshit, fuck this. And they just stop. We essentially, are on the journey with a customer. We're going through the process with them. If they have a negative experience. They can call us, they can talk to a coach were they're guiding them to get the best results. And Not everybody is going to get incredible results. The majority of people who try our products, we get them there.

37:13 - Speaker 1 I also want to bring to mind for the listener, an Important part of really anything that you set your mind to. That's kind of just said it, yet you have to set your mind to it. You can be taking a supplement, you can change your diet, you can do a lot of different things, and your inputs quite literally what you're putting into your body, and even you know, like new tropics, cross a blood-brain barrier. I believe there has to be a level of matched intention to that task, because If you just take something, it might work in the sense of Biochemically it's going to do what it says it's going to do, but if you're not focused, if you're not choosing to be present in the matter at hand, then I feel like you're really just kind of you're swinging and you might hit a couple balls, but versus stepping up to the plate and being laser focused on the task, on the ball coming down your lane, how many more direct hits you're going to get?

38:13 - Speaker 2 So I'll say it in a slightly different way. For me, I needed both Neutropics and behavioral interventions. I couldn't have one without the other to get kind of like the dramatic results. And it's the same thing even with you know, I was also prescribed Prescription stimulants, like there's no magic pill that, I think, fixes Issues with focus. For me, I needed to develop healthy habits. What I'll say, that's a little bit different from how you framed it. I don't think it's a motivation issue.

38:49 So, going back to when I was sitting there and my sister is just going there and studying for hours, I Was so fucking motivated. I wanted more than anything not to To be like this and I just couldn't do it. I needed some type of pharmacological help because my brain structure and my neurotransmitters are Different from my sisters, and that's okay. And once I got that, it unlocked this, this ability in me, and for some people that's medication, for some people that's new tropics, for some people it can come with like meditation and different types of exercise. I think to really, really get good results you need a mixture and then you get this. What happened for me? You know that this started 10 years ago. I got this flywheel going and new tropics was kind of like that cornerstone habit that Started the flywheel and gave me some momentum so that I could get a healthy diet and start going to the gym and and Start meditating and all of these things that I could layer on top walk us through if you can.

39:55 - Speaker 1 We haven't really actually defined new tropics. For any listener of my show that's been with me for a few years, they've definitely heard me talk about them here and there. But for the person that's new to new tropics, what are they, how do they work and what's so special about them?

40:11 - Speaker 2 So I'll give a really simple definition. Neurons communicate with neurotransmitters. That's how they'll communicate to the next neuron across the synapse. These are things most people know the names of. You know dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, gaba, and there's a lot of things that you can do to modulate the levels of neurotransmitters in the synapse. Just about everything you think and feel has Comes from this chemical interaction. What new tropics are? At the core are ingredients that will directly impact and Modulate the levels of neurotransmitters in the synapse, so that could be everything from precursor ingredients. So, actually, what are those neurotransmitters made up of? You know acids, things like that it can be. You know reuptake inhibitors. There's a lot of different things that you can do, and it's incredible that we're at the point that we have discovered ingredients that can do this.

41:19 - Speaker 1 What about the safety of some of these items? You're talking about crossing the blood-brain barrier, talking about our brains, and you know how we think and feel and operate. Are there any safety concerns in general, are these things? How well studied are they?

41:32 - Speaker 2 So the definition I gave you encompasses everything from prescription medications. I look at Neutropics as this blanket term of an ingredient that can impact the levels of neurotransmitters, getting down to kind of like what thesis as a company sells? We were in the US, we manufacture everything here. We have third-party lab testing. There are many Neutropics companies that don't have the same safety protocols, so I think it really does depend where are you purchasing these things? To understand and kind of like the risk level, yeah.

42:10 - Speaker 1 I want to pick your brain on one of my favorites. That has been one of my just like absolute favorite applications to, I'd say, my daily wellness routine, but especially when I'm when I need to get locked on a task. When I want to get locked onto a task but just not just get so fixated and tunnel vision, but just be present but allow what needs to happen to happen, and that's clarity. The light blue packet clarity for me has just been a game-changer. Can you walk us through what's in that and why do I feel the way that I do? Why do I love it?

42:44 - Speaker 2 So I love clarity. I take clarity most days. Today I actually took confidence. I always take confidence.

42:49 - Speaker 1 Another good one, yeah.

42:51 - Speaker 2 So confidence is aimed towards serotonin, and GABA makes me more pro-social. I still get a little bit of performance anxiety when I come on to podcasts. This really helps calm my nerves and helps with verbal fluency. Clarity is my go-to when I'm in the office and I just need to sit and do deep work. It has several incredible ingredients, so one that I'm really excited about is 7-8-dihydroxyflavone. It's a flavonoid that crosses the blood-brain barrier and behaves very similar to BDNF.

43:26 - Speaker 1 Brain-derived neurotrophic factor Exactly.

43:29 - Speaker 2 And so it mimics the effects in a lot of ways. We have lion's mane, but we don't just have any lion's mane we have 500 milligrams of that's why I love it so much.

43:40 - Speaker 1 Lion's mane is fire.

43:42 - Speaker 2 And so this is what I'm talking about Lion's mane. There's several active ingredients we select. There's tons of lion's mane on the market. It seems like almost everything you can get coffees, teas, shakes, all of this stuff. But it really matters how much of the active ingredients are in there. And we went on the market and we tested I can't even count how many suppliers to select the ones with the right genetics, the right methods of harvesting, to have the highest percentage of active ingredients.

44:14 - Speaker 1 Of what you all offer right now. What do you think most people are? What should most people gravitate towards? What do you think is maybe that sensation, that goal that you see most people struggling with right now that one of these items with thesis could really probably help.

44:32 - Speaker 2 So, again, this is one of the things where I'm hesitant to talk about individual formulas, because clarity works great for you, it works great for me. Somebody else will buy clarity and it doesn't work for them, and I don't want them to think that they just give up. It's the same thing.

44:50 - Speaker 1 That's why they go through the quiz.

44:51 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean I'm trying to think of a parallel, Like if I I love the keto diet, I'll do it. You know, three months a year and I it's great for me. I know a lot of people. They just have such horrible responses to it. So it would be like if I say, personally I love the keto diet and then somebody else tries it and they're like fuck this, it didn't work, I'm never gonna diet, ever again. All I want to do is like that was me, with keto, for sure.

45:20 Exactly, and so, like our bodies respond differently, there's nothing wrong with that. If somebody tries clarity and it's not a good fit for them, that's perfectly fine. The whole goal of our company is we have ingredients that will work. One of the things that we found I don't know if you're familiar with our second product line, stasis.

45:41 - Speaker 1 I am now. Thanks to you, I'm in week two, okay.

45:45 - Speaker 2 So, stasis, we saw that there were people taking stimulants that were purchasing thesis, and stimulants can be anything from caffeine, nicotine. These are stimulants that the caffeine the majority of people in the US are taking caffeine every day.

46:02 - Speaker 1 Most are yeah.

46:03 - Speaker 2 To everything, to prescription stimulants like Adderall, vyvanth, methylphenidate. They primarily work by increasing levels of dopamine and norepinephrine. Unfortunately, they also increase levels of oxidative stress and cortisol in most people.

46:23 There's a debt to pay, there's a toll to pay with these, Exactly, and that shows up for some people with crass jitters, trouble sleeping. I'm somebody I was taking stimulants for years and it got to the point where I just couldn't take them. I'm very fortunate that I respond great to Neutropics and they've been able to get me everything that I need with none of the downsides. For some people they need to take stimulants and there's nothing wrong with that. There shouldn't be any shame or stigma to it. We created a product that's specifically designed to be taken alongside stimulants to fight oxidative stress, to modulate levels of cortisol and allow people to break through the downsides of crash, trouble sleeping and jitters.

47:10 - Speaker 1 That's just why I love Rat in society and in the world, and what I see thesis doing in terms of product development and stasis now as well is just, we have so much at our fingertips, natural resources, that we can put together in unique formulations and go through a brief questionnaire to just get our minds and our consciousness and our levels of awareness to a point of going okay, this is where I'm at, this is where I want to be, and these are ways that I can get there. These are things that have indisputable benefits to the body and in most cases, a lot of these ingredients all the research that I've done are so safe and so well studied. And our things that our ancestors have been using adaptogens, functional mushrooms, roots, things like that that just you know. All we need to do is just look back in time and now we got time and science and awareness. Put all that together.

48:04 That is a magical formula for motivation, clarity, confidence, energy, all those things Kind of getting towards the end here. I want to ask one question before the final what awaits us on the other side of motivation, energy, clarity? What awaits us on the other side of the tropics? What is? Can you kind of paint that picture of of achieving more, of maybe being more confident or comfortable in your skin, or just having the ability to take a deep breath after a long day and just knowing that you did your best and you're going to do it all again tomorrow.

48:42 - Speaker 2 That's a really good question For me. I am constantly challenging myself and you know, being a founder I signed up for my life is solving problems. It's constantly issues coming up and if things get to me now, you know that means that a lot of other people have tried to solve it and then it gets escalated to me because nobody's been able to. What's really interesting and rewarding is the complexity of the challenges that I have are so much more I when I think of seven years ago when I started the company, it was a lot of technical in the weeds, executing, and I had to learn those. I had to overcome those. So then it's like people management and then it's, you know, not just me managing one person, it's me managing somebody who's managing somebody, who's managing somebody and the the I, I, I love challenges, not always like you'll see it happening right now.

49:49 I can see your face earning and yeah but it's like, the people I get to spend my time with are incredible. I'm so fortunate Like the team that I get to work with now. I've never worked with people so talented, so motivated. Um, they're just kind of like compelled and drawn to the company and our board, our advisors and the things that I get to work on. They're not always fun, but I feel that each time I kind of I get this, you know, next level and through healthy habits and motivation and all of these things, it's just bigger and better and it gives me even more energy and I'm so grateful that that I'm here.

50:33 - Speaker 1 I want the listener to really pick up on that. The complexity of the challenge. That is the mindset that we're after here. Um, thank you for for that answer. I really felt that that was a very present answer. I could see you mulling it over. I could see you kind of just I'm sure you know kind of maybe flashbacking to some situations and that renegotiation, that reestablishment of a relationship to issues that before we're at rock bottom, kept us there. But once you kind of appreciate the complexity of the challenge, you kind of only begin to see solutions.

51:10 - Speaker 2 Right yeah, and the one thing you know, as I was just looking back, I wouldn't. There's no shortcut. So if I didn't solve those in the weeds challenges, then the company wouldn't have grown and then I wouldn't also have the skills to deal with these challenges. So seven years ago I couldn't the things that are on my plate now. There's no way that I had the skills, the tools to actually overcome it, and so it's just constantly like how do I learn more, how do I grow so that I get you know in six months when who knows what's going to come at me? I have, I'm capable of doing it, and that's such a huge gift.

51:53 - Speaker 1 I couldn't think of a better way to go into my last question. And yeah, a little preview here from my man Kenny. But ever forward, those two words, what do they mean to you? How do you, dan, live a life ever forward?

52:09 - Speaker 2 So I told you, I've started back at square one several times and it doesn't always feel like I'm moving forward. I was a chef at the top of my career at 25. And then I my career went off a cliff and then I started all over from when I switched from being a chef into going to school when I was 28 and everything. It was just like being the top of my field and somebody highly respected, to being at the bottom, somebody who didn't even graduate high school in a master's degree program and trying to start over. The thing that I see that was always.

52:53 I was always learning and growing and even when I failed and even when on the outside it looked like I took a step back or starting from nothing, I had gained tools, skills, experience that were so valuable. I might not have appreciated it at the time, but looking back now, there's no way. Things are constantly coming up and I see this. One of the incredible things that I get to do now is mentor people and to see people going through that journey and to share some of my experience, and it makes it click so much more now when I see other people going through it that I remember at that time what it felt like and I didn't think I was moving forward. I saw it as a huge step back, but in retrospect that was necessary. That was a step forward. I just couldn't see it.

53:53 - Speaker 1 Sometimes we are succeeding so slowly it feels like failure right, and it kind of takes these moments of reflection to have to really look back at the past in appreciation to go. The suffering was necessary, the uncertainty was necessary, so that I can have understanding about it now but create wisdom for the future.

54:22 - Speaker 2 Exactly.

54:25 - Speaker 1 Daniel. Well, I know I could talk about thesis all day long. What you all are doing there have, like I said, not only been just a huge value add to my daily wellness, but just so specific to certain tasks. I love that you all have products that almost almost kind of take the thinking out of what I want, because my oh, like that's the word that I'm after that's the feeling, that's the end result that I'm chasing, and I think that I know that it helps me and I firmly believe it can help a lot of other people as well. And I love that you guys have created products that start with kind of that end result, that end feeling, in mind, because for me I'm chasing results but I'm also chasing feelings along the way. I want to know that what I'm doing is tied to a positive feeling, or I know that I can. At least I can get there. Feeling good about what I'm doing versus just knowing that I'm doing is way more important, and you all definitely helped me with that. So thank you.

55:18 - Speaker 2 Exactly. I love hearing that one of the again I during the darkest periods in the company. I go through customer testimonials and I just know that I'm on the right path. Knowing that our product has meaningfully changed so many people's lives is so deeply rewarding.

55:40 - Speaker 1 And also quick little hack. Um, you all have caffeinated and decaffeinated versions and the first time I tried thesis it had caffeine in it, and I'm a guy that really I monitor my caffeine levels in terms of dosage and timing. And there's this hack. For anybody out there listening or watching Uh, if you get the one, it's the little white pill is the extra usually fourth pill is the caffeine pill. Throw that baby out If you already hit your quota for the day. Um, that's a little quick little hack that I realized.

56:06 - Speaker 2 Yeah, we make it really easy to adjust. Yeah, um, I love the taste of coffee. And so sometimes I'll have a bunch of coffee, coffee in the morning, just because I'm so used to it. Um, and then I will take it without a coffee.

56:21 - Speaker 1 Clarity. Clarity with also um, excuse me clarity or motivation with a cup of coffee. I'm unstoppable. It's a game changer for me. Yeah, Uh. Well then, working my audience, go to learn more about you and thesis. We're going to have, of course, all this link down the show notes, but where can they go to connect with you guys and learn more?

56:40 - Speaker 2 Take thesiscom is our main site for personalized neotropics, and then we have a separate site. Take stasiscom, for anybody who's taking stimulants and wants to help balance them out, and then we'll give your listeners a discount code.

56:57 - Speaker 1 Oh, amazing Okay, Thank you.

56:58 - Speaker 2 What would you prefer as the code?

57:00 - Speaker 1 ever for the audience.

57:01 - Speaker 2 Yeah, so we'll do ever forward for a discount for all of your listeners.

57:05 - Speaker 1 I guess, seriously, you have heard me talk about a lot of different things over the years, but when I take thesis, when I take thesis, I'm on point Uh, and I love the ability to, like choose my own destiny, choose my own path. Um, so do yourself a favor, take the brain quiz, check them out, give it a world. Your future self is going to thank you. All right, dan, and I thank you.

57:25 - Speaker 2 Thank you.

57:27 - Speaker 1 For more information on everything you just heard, make sure to check this episode's show notes or head to ever orwardradio.com.