Healing Pain: From Sick to Superhuman with Mark "Mr. Noots" Effinger

Thank you for tuning in to the True Grit and Grace podcast. I'm Amberly Lago, and I'll be sharing inspirational stories of resilience and empowering ideas to elevate your business and your life, ignite your passion, and fuel your purpose. Thank y'all for tuning in to True Grit and Grace. This episode is proudly brought to you by Nootopia, the most powerful nootropics on the market today. And these nootropic stacks are taking the industry by storm because they're highly effective. And each formula is customized for you based on your strengths, weaknesses, and your goals. So you can get exactly what you need. And your customized formula help you really focus intensely, block out distractions, reduce stress and anxiety, enhance your creativity, Boost your memory and get rid of brain fog, and so much more. And the best part: there's a one-year guarantee, so there's no risk, zero risk to you to try them for yourself. So here's the deal: if you feel like you're not fully maximizing your potential, both personally and professionally, then you owe it to yourself to try Nootopia's formulas. They're a total game changer. Simply go to nootopia.com/amberly. That's N-O-O-T-O-P-I-A dot com forward slash A-M-B-E-R-L-Y, and make sure you. use that special code Amberly so you get your discount. Again, nootopia.com/amberly, and you can find that link in the show notes. And now enjoy the episode. Hey y'all, thank you for tuning in today to True Grit and Grace because I have a real treat for you. I've been excited about this. Today on the show, I have Mr. Noots— well, his name, Mr. Noots, Mark Effinger. He is the co-founder of Nootopia and the chief product officer of Bioptimizers. When I think of him, I immediately think he is the most interesting man in the world. Just don't tell my husband I said that. But he has charisma. He is a great storyteller. He is brilliant, funny, resilient, and his story of tragedy to triumph is just amazing. He has endured his own health battles and lost his love to addiction. And as a result of these events, he dove deep into the performance-enhancing nutrition world, which takes you from being sick to being superhuman. And it's put him on the fast track to developing compounds that would hopefully reverse— I think do reverse the elements of addiction. And that is when Nootopia was born, which basically unlocks your brilliance within, or Mark, as you like to say, helps you unlock your personal God mode. These brain-enhancing supplements bring clarity to the mind, energy to the body, eliminate the desire for drugs, and replace them with optimism for life. I'm so excited. excited to talk about your incredible story. So welcome to the show, Mr. Newtz.

Mark, thank you so much. Amberly, this is awesome. Am I speaking to you in LA?

I just got back from LA. I am now in Texas. I just recently moved back to Texas. So I'm in Dallas here in my little new home studio, and you are in your cool lab, which I love your background.

So I'm in, you know, it's funny, I'm in Burlington, Iowa. I'm in a little town of 30,000 right on the Mississippi. I can look out here and just see a glimpse of it. And yeah, and this was a journey as well. This is 2,000 miles from where I built the business. And my sweetheart and I, we put a huge map up on the wall in the dining room. And then we started going through Zillow and everything. And we said, okay, we can live anywhere in the world we want. We've got a technology-based company that, you know, and we have a lab. Where do we want to live? And we wanted to live in the US. We wanted to have that access. After 3,500 pinpoints on a map, we found this wonderful little town. It's like an arts community. And we live up in the, up in the hills here, just a few blocks from the office. So we can walk in an 1870s schoolhouse, was once a school. This is Burlington, Iowa, which is the home of Burlington Northern Railways. So everybody knows Burlington Railways, right?

Yeah.

And my mentor happens to be, at one time, he was one of the larger real estate developers in Dallas. And he is— he lives here. Um, he lived in Dallas for 30 years.

Wow.

Left Burlington for the big town. So kind of small world stuff.

Well, I tell you what, when I pulled in, we, we got here to Dallas, we moved back in December, and we were pulling up to the house and into the town, it said population 7,400. And I was like, oh my goodness, what have we got ourselves into? You know, but it was a good, good school district. And, you know, we We have a little golf cart and we drive around town on this golf cart, and it's so safe and so clean and everybody's so nice and it's very central. But it's been a big change after living in LA for 31 years. I'm close to family, so I love the idea that you're like, hmm, you know what, we're renting a house right now. We're kind of trying to decide where we want to live, so maybe we'll get out a big map and do the same thing.

You know, it was, it was really an experience. And we located, we had a lot of places. We had, we looked at Texarkana. We looked at obviously Austin. I am part of a university down there called the Wizard Academy, where we teach communication skills down in just outside of Austin in Buda, Texas.

And you also teach a lot of schools and stuff.

One of the big things, Amberly, is, is, um, you know, I'm, I'm a high school dropout.

Um, I am, I'm fascinated with that. And I'm sure it drives those professors crazy when you walk in and go, hey, I'm a high school dropout.

It is so funny to see. They just, their whole energy drops and they're going, oh shit, what have I gotten myself into? You know, I've been a successful serial entrepreneur and I've had successes and failures as well along the way. But I was actually announced over the high school PA in my sophomore year. I was one of the state tennis champions in my school as a sophomore. And I was making parts for nuclear reactors as a work. It's a, you went to school half the day and you went to work half the day and you got credit.

Yeah.

For going to work. And I had pretty high mechanical electrical engineering skills. And so, I got this job at a startup making parts for nuclear reactors out of very weird metals like titanium and hafnium and zirconium and molybdenum. And so, I'm making those parts. Well, I started making $7.35 an hour after about 6 months, 8 months.

And what year was this?

This is 1977.

Well, that was a lot. That was good money back in 1977. Oh yeah.

About $35 was minimum. I was making more than my My, my school professor in social studies, which is what they called it back then. And he was a cool guy. He let me argue. I would argue Marxism. I always thought Marxism was kind of cool. Not because of the name.

I was going to say, because of the name?

Yeah. But it was really great. And so I got cocky. The dean of boys, who was also the tennis coach, Don, gets on the, on the PA and says, and now I'd like to announce the 3 least likely to succeed in life. And that would be, and then I was number 3 on that list.

Wow.

Um, so that is just—

blows me away though. And by the way, I was on the tennis team, but I was so bad they made me water girl. So I loved it because I would bring them their jug of water, and then I got out of school early. I could leave and I'd go to the dance studio. But I was actually telling my dad about your story last night, and you wouldn't believe— he was like, now write down these questions. I need you to ask him these questions for me because He not only is dealing with a lot of inflammation and stuff like that, but he did some kind of test, EMG or something like that. I don't remember what it was, but I guess he has neuropathy in his legs and his arms. And I think that you had said you had some, some kind of nerve stuff going on with your legs because you were a runner. I don't know if you're still— well, you probably— you, you amaze me with all you do. But I also have a lot of nerve stuff going on, and I know a lot of the listeners do too. And so, before I forget, I cannot forget to ask you this question because my dad will be on me about it. What kind of nerve issues do you have going on?

I had a bicycle accident about 5 years ago. I just bought it. You know, I'd like been riding mountain bikes around town and I lived up on the river, in the Columbia River in Washington, Vancouver, Washington. And I would ride into work on a daily basis when it wasn't raining. I'm kind of a I'm a fair-weather outdoorsman, but it was great. And I would do a thing called park bench parkour where I would run around the dock and at every park bench, I would get down and I would elevate my feet and I would do a set of 40 or 50 pushups. And I'd do some dips and then I'd do some other workout pieces and then I'd sprint to the next one and do that. So, my park bench parkour routine, right? So, I got this bike that's really, really fast. I replaced my bike with it. I finally broken through our economic area of those. Every startup has these, you know, you just pour everything into it and you're down to your last dollars and suddenly something breaks through. Right.

Yeah. You've had like what, 19 companies?

This is the 19th, number 19. Yeah. You can thank, you can thank Matt Gallant of Bioptimizers for dragging me into another one. It was great. I literally go into my gym. I was turning 55, I think. And I just wanted to be in the, in the optimum shape for a 55-year-old. Kind of like Wade is doing right now. At 50, he's the pinnacle of what a 50-year-old vegetarian world-class bodybuilder can be, right? I mean—

Well, I'm 50 and I'm like trying to be my optimal. I'm not kidding.

No, no, it is. So, so I, anyhow, I bury my shoulder through a bicycle rack. It, it shears 5 of my ribs. 2 or 3 of them go into my lung. Oh my goodness. I shear my collarbone. I have— they're calling 911, and actually a bodybuilder girl comes and picks me up and drags me into the entry, right? It was great. And they're trying to call 911. I say, hold it. I'm an entrepreneur. You don't call 911. You fix the problem. And so, I called my office and said, hey, will you guys pick me up and take me home? They did. And they just propped me up, and I just, you know, I'm just like really in pain. And I call my chiropractor and I say, dude, I got to get in because he's got a great X-ray machine with 360-degree.

Yeah.

And he said, I can't see you till Monday. You know, it's Friday afternoon, out with the wife and kids. So, no problem. So, I just studied how to, you know, my former wife died of an oxycodone overdose, right? So, and it was intentional after being addicted for a decade. And so, having that, you know, going through that, going, I don't want to do that. I know that's probably not a good route. So, I started studying the nootropics that I was already building for our clients and saying, which ones of those would be most effective with the dopaminergic center, with GABA, and how could I kill the pain there? And so, I built that stack over the weekend, started taking it, went to my chiropractor, and yeah. And then, in 2 weeks, I was up and back in the office. And they said it was going to be 6 months. Like bedbound. And then in another 2 weeks, I was back in the gym. And in 6 weeks after that, I was lifting at my former, former weight. So—

That is incredible.

Neuropathy is problematic. I'm doing some stacks right now. Alpha lipoic acid is really effective when combined with benfotiamine or benfotiamine, which is a prodrug of thiamine, of B1. And those 2 together Do a really great job along with the nootropics of starting to repair myelin sheath damage. And once you get myelin sheath damage repaired, now you're not shorting out. And so you, the numbness goes away. I'm now at, in fact, just over the last 6 weeks now, I've recovered over 70% of the former neuropathy in my legs. So.

Okay. I need to know what—

I'll get you, I'll get you a formula. I'll write it down. I'm building a—

I can get for my dad. Yeah.

Yeah. Let me, let me, let me see what we can do on that. That would be interesting. He can be one of my white rats if he's cool on that.

Yeah, I mean, he's, he's like desperate at this point. It's so hard to—

How old's your pop now?

He is— let's see, I have to do the math. He's 72.

Any type 2 diabetic or type 1 diabetic issues?

No. And you know what, he was like— I think that I got my love for working out from seeing him work out as a kid. He was a stud, you know, drove a Trans Am. had a cowboy hat, like, was like ripped, shredded. I mean, gorgeous.

Wow.

And then he had a back fusion, and ever since he's had some problems. And I think he's in a lot of fear. So I think, you know, and I try to like pump in the positivity and, and the optimism, but I think we need some help there. So that's why I was like, Dad, I'm interviewing this amazing, brilliant guy tomorrow. I've got to talk to him about you because I think he has some stuff he's dealing with, with nerves. And so, yeah, that would be awesome.

I need to put you on speed dial. So in case my self-esteem ever feels problematic, I can just go, Amberly, who am I?

Oh my gosh. Well, you're, you're amazing. I'm serious. I was even like a little bit nervous before because I was like, oh, he's so smart. He's brilliant. I'm going to be talking to him. And I was actually cracking up at Some of the stories that you were telling. So I listened to the episode with our friend Carrie Jack, huge shout out to him for introducing us. And he was like, Amberly, I think you might want to meet my friend because he's got some things that could help you with the CRPS. And so I have to be honest with you, I was a little hesitant because I've tried so many different things. At one point, I was actually on 73 homeopathic pills and 11 different prescription medications. And there was one part of your interview that I loved the most, and you said, no, we make one pill. Why do you have to take a whole bunch of different capsules? You take one, put it all in one. I think it was when you were describing something about a new one that you're developing with mushrooms in it.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. And so I love that.

You and I have both been through physical trauma, emotional trauma, right? And I think that it's really important that we let people know that that's not something you have to carry with you. for the rest of your life. I just— Matt Gallant and one of our fantastic clients and a bunch of— a small handful of folks, we went to Palm Desert and spent a week doing brain training where we hooked up EEGs to the brain and we did biofeedback and neurofeedback, flying spaceships around with your brain and getting into alpha, theta, beta, delta level of brain training so that you can be more in love, you can be more open, you can be more trauma-free. And it was just this incredible week. And then we, of course, we supercharged ourselves with, with, you know, our Nootopia products. And it was just this amazing thing of watching you, you, even for those of us that feel like we're trauma-free because we've moved beyond, oftentimes there's a bit of baggage back there that we're still holding on to. for whatever reason and finding solutions, whether they're neurochemical, biochemical, physiological, spiritual, to be able to drop those things and realize that they're just holding us back from our complete power and self is, uh, is really empowering. So yeah, that's what we like to do. Right.

I love hearing you talk about like when you were, um, on one interview that I heard you on, you were talking about mitochondria and ATP and I was geeking out on you talking about the, like the process of how the, the, Everything, the supplements work. But I want to take it back before we get into more of that to one of the things that really fueled you to start doing this was your wife's addiction. And because I think that their addiction is on the rise.

Huge.

Huge right now with what's going on in the world. It is crazy. It's like, it's unbelievable. And with my nerve condition, it's dubbed the suicide disease because it's ranked highest on the pain scale, and there is supposedly no known cure yet, I like to say. And they just want to keep prescribing opioids and gabapentin, Lyrica, all the drugs. At one point, they were even infusing me with ketamine to try to reboot my nervous system. So I had $2.9 million worth of medical expenses, and I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I was sick of being on all these prescriptions and everything, and I just stopped. And I was like, I need to really get down to the root cause. And I've been able to like really shift my mindset and things like that. But there's so much trauma out there, there's so much addiction out there, and I love that you were like, I need to find something to help these people that have addiction. So what did you do when you first dove into like, well, how can I create these compounds? What did you start to look at with how the brain works?

I, I was really fortunate that I had a couple of really good coaches back in the early '90s. I had a, my first major health crisis going from being an endurance athlete and doing triathlete events and, and hardcore bicycling, you know, century rides on a regular basis. And, and I literally lived in the back of a gym during the '80s when I started my first company. And so, and, and, you know, I went from being the, the skinny tennis-playing runner To being the 215-pound, you know, 8, 9%, 10% bodybuilder in a very short amount of time while I was in the military in Central California. So suddenly— and I was a white rat for a thing called Accutane, which is an acne drug that's just very, very caustic. It is a liver killer. It kills your microbiome.

You're kidding me. It's that crazy?

Yeah, and it's pro-cancer. It's pro-cancer.

Oh my gosh.

So yeah. So, and I still feel byproducts of it today. And I go through little, I'll have a little lesion that'll turn into a tumor.

You're kidding me.

No, no, no. This is it. And that was 19— it was 1983 when I got on the product. It was the end of '83 when I got off of it. I was a— at the time they were testing it to find how safe it was. And because I was in the military, you're kind of signing your rights away anyhow. And I was 90 minutes from the Presidio in San Francisco. And so every 2 weeks I would drive to the Presidio. They would do exhaustive tests on me and they would give me mega doses of this stuff and then send me back. And so I was a, I was a great test case for it because they could throw a lot of stuff at me because I was an athlete. When you're that young in your, you know, your early 20s, mid-20s, nothing can hurt you, right? You're indomitable.

Or so you think. Mm-hmm.

But, but you fast forward 10 years and I woke up one day, I was in my office, my wife's office was right outside of mine, and I came out about 11 o'clock in the morning and I said, honey, I've been working on this client for 3 hours. I don't know who they are, what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't know what day it is, and I think I'm losing my mind. And she took me by the hand and walked me around the block. It was a nice April morning and said, You know, you're really good at starting these things and you're really good at selling them. And it's that thing in the middle that you don't enjoy as much. And I think there might be something else going on. I had chronic nose drip and I was just, I just felt I would have a morning spike of any event that wasn't really great, felt like it was devastating, like my depression had started to come up or a depression. I wouldn't like to claim it as mine.

Right.

It was somebody else's that I was borrowing. would start to come up. And so, and what, you know, what happens in that case is you get this cortisol rush from this bad news you're getting on the phone or on email or whatever. This cortisol rush, it uses up your, you know, your body protects itself. So in order to protect itself, keep your heart from bursting out of your chest, it floods it with serotonin, right? Which is the majority of it's in your gut. And so it floods with serotonin. Well, now you have no serotonin. So, your serotonin is depleted. Now you feel like crap. You're foggy-headed. You can't perform very well. You just kind of go into a funk. You're just struggling to get anything done that's meaningful. And maybe 6, 8, 10 hours later, you just come out of it, but you don't have any energy left to perform anything. And you go through these cycles every day. So—

Well, you know what? When you're describing this, I swear, like having Complex regional pain syndrome, and your body is kind of— it's in fight or flight almost all the time. Absolutely. So I am like shaking my head. Yeah, I could totally relate to what you're saying, because although our circumstances are different, it still somewhat seems like it would be a little bit of the same, where your body, when you're in extreme pain, would release different chemicals. And so I am— okay, I just had to say that.

So carry on, because you know that feeling. my wife sent me to a bed and breakfast. I hadn't taken a vacation in about 7 years, typical alpha entrepreneur. And the guy greeted me, he's a 70-year-old gentleman who was in perfect health, downhill skier, competitive, beautiful place on a 40-acre estate. And it was just kind of a hand-hacked-together home. You know what I mean? Those ones that have so much character. There's a tree in the middle of the house growing out of it. And He just grabs my hand and he says, hi, Mark, how are you? So glad to meet you. He goes, hey, your hands are a little cold. It's such a nice day out. Are you— how's your body temperature? I go, I don't know. I mean, I wasn't really self-aware in that way. He goes, your eyes are a little bloodshot. Maybe— hmm. And he just keeps asking me questions and we go in and we have this incredible dinner with people from all over the world because he had been a Doctors Without Borders doctor who would go into, you know, into really bad places that were having crisis, and he would go help people. And just a super guy. And he said, you know, I think you might be hypothyroid. He goes, why don't we, why don't we take, um, your basal metabolic temperature every morning for the next 4 days? He goes, no guarantees, but maybe that'll happen. And he was right. And I started taking what was the gold standard at the time, Armour Thyroid. And so just supplementing with desiccated thyroid, which is full spectrum, right? Not Synthroid or some kind of a T3, T5.

I know all the—

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this was great. In about 6 weeks, I was feeling really great. I was having— I didn't have to take my afternoon nap to feel like I had the energy to finish the day. Um, I was just really rejuvenated. And then suddenly my head started getting really clear. And 6 months later, I'm negotiating a venture capital deal in New York, which was not my business. I had done some of that before, but it wasn't my— I was far away from where I had felt 6 months prior. 6 months prior, I felt like I could barely get out of bed. I felt like I couldn't deal with any stress at all. If anybody brought me stress, I would run. It was that kind of thing. I would just fold.

Yeah.

Or I'd go comatose. And here I was taking this very aggressive group of people, these technologists, these guys that own movie theaters, and these investors, and they were in a major fight. And I just smiled. I got up. I started writing on the whiteboard. I had no idea what I was going to write. But that getting my health back allowed me, just by the thyroid, just by the thyroid at that time, doing that. I did a detox as well. I started doing Fit for Life. Harvey and Marilyn Diamond, this couple, had this, you should probably not eat heavy foods in the morning because they may, they're hard to digest. And I had digestive issues because of the, right?

Yeah.

Of the problems I had. So, it was great. And suddenly, boom, I wrote the deal. We got it done. Everybody was happy. It was smiling. And I go, I'm back, brother. I'm back. And you know that feeling of when you finally realize— I'm sure you've had it on stage a number of times where you're suddenly syncing so well with the audience. You're telling them exactly what they need to know. You're seeing the heads going, that's it, Amberly. I know exactly what you're talking about. I need this. And that resonance that you get, that spiritual resonance of everybody going, Yeah, we're with you, suddenly elevates you to a new level of performance as well as a new understanding. It's almost like the things you need to say that weren't practiced, they weren't scripted, just flow out of you. And that's kind of an event. And then from then on, I just started, okay, I can do this. I can change my life. So, we got really healthy. We were, we were, all of our children were born at home. My first daughter in a hot tub. in a birthing chair in the master bedroom. And my last daughter, who is one of my closest friends still today, she was born on a leather couch in front of the fireplace at 10:00 AM. And it was great. But the midwife gave her 4— my wife tore a little bit. She was fairly small and she tore. And they gave her 4 oxycodone and those became her muse from then on.

Wow. And 4, 4, that's a lot.

4 oxycodone. Yeah. So, well, it was— the thing is, they said, here, take these 1 a day for the next 4 days, and that will help the pain. They wanted me to— they wanted me to do an episiotomy on her, and I'm not brave enough to cut my, my wife open. And so they just— she fell in love, and then she hid it really well. She was very good at masking those things. And a beautiful girl, she could go to any small doctor in town and say, oh, I've got some pain, can I get this? And, um, and so—

No, I think they've really cut down on a lot of that now, for sure. And what I— I always had such a healthy fear of pills, being addicted. Um, and I remember one time I was in the hospital bed in my living room when I got out of the hospital, and the nurse came over to change my bandages every day. And she came over and she was changing my bandages, and I just had tears rolling down my face. And I was— my arms were trembling, hanging onto the sides of the bed. And she said, did you take your pain medicine? And I said, no, I didn't. I don't want to take those pills. And she said, well, you need to get out of pain. It will help you heal. And so I did take pain pills, but I was very— I remember one time coming out of a surgery and I was in so much pain and I called the emergency number and I said, what do I do? He said, just take your pills, but don't overdose. And I'm like, That's the advice you're giving me? Just don't overdose? And so I was really, really— had a fear of that. And luckily, and I don't— it's a healthy fear. And I, you know, I'm— knock on wood, I never have a problem with anything like that. Um, because I know addiction doesn't discriminate. My little brother got on alcohol and pills, and now it led him down a road of where now he sits on death row in Texas. And so it's It's just such an easy thing for anybody to get into. And an easy thing to hide. Look, I hid my drinking from my husband, who's a cop. That took some skill. And then I'm like, uh-oh, honey, I actually have a problem. But how long did she— did she have this addiction before?

It was 10 years. It was just shortly after her birthday In 2008, she— I got a call. We had a private eye living across the street from us, and I had bought a house on the river, and she and I had separated and had divorced, and then we're getting— we're starting to date again. So we're seeing each other, and we have these 3 wonderful kids. So I was there on a regular basis, and I just bought the house a couple months prior, and the private eye called me and said, hey, you need to get your butt over here now. And I was going over there already. I had done some programming stuff in the morning with one of my tech guys. And so, it took me less than a minute to get there. Emergency crew just arrived. They stormed upstairs to the master suite and she was— this is harrowing to see. I hope nobody ever has to see this, but here's this beautiful woman on her back with a halo of oxycodone and OxyContin bottles.

Oh!

A gallon of cheap Rhine wine that was empty. And yeah, and it was just devastating. And he's the guy, the emergency guy's looking at me because she had no— her body temperature had already gone down quite a bit and she'd turned blue.

Oh!

And he's got a 6-inch needle with adrenaline and he's going, can we restart her? And I said, yeah, absolutely restart her. Let's Let's— if there's anything there, let's, you know, resurrect that. And, um, yeah. And so, um, in fact, the— I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of awful things that happen when your life is decimated like that. And they weren't there, so I took my kids to lunch.

My goodness.

And I said, you know, I knew it was going to be their last meal before. And then I said, hey, your mom is in the hospital. Um, it doesn't look good. We don't know what the status is, but we're going to go visit her right now. And I just want you to be prepared. And so—

So they were able to revive her there at the house?

They revived her. They revived her because on her driver's license, it said organ donor. And so what I didn't understand, and I wasn't, you know, I wasn't in that space, as you can imagine, I didn't realize that they were reviving her so that she would stay alive long enough for them to harvest the organs. to be able to give life to other people.

Wow.

So, a couple of— about 4 weeks later, we're having a wake at my home. So, we got a bunch of friends and family and this generic little car pulls up the driveway and this guy gets out and says, are you Mark Effinger? Could you sign for this? And so, I signed for it and it was this handmade paper box. I had no idea what it was or what was going on and I opened it up And it's, it's letters from all the people that had received her organs.

Oh my goodness.

What had happened to them, where they were at the time, how long they'd been with, you know, waiting on the organ donor list. Um, skin, her eyes are a trucker, a man, a male trucker has her eyes.

That is, that just makes me want to cry. Wow.

It was an amazing, like, like, you know, you, you look for a silver lining in everything that happens, right? And I'm not going to say that was exactly a silver lining at the time. Took me many years to get over the trauma of that. And—

Well, I'm sure, like, I mean, for me, when my stepmother committed suicide, there's still times when something exciting happens, and I want to call her and I'm like, oh, yeah, she's not there. And my dad, I flew out as soon as I found out, I flew, you know, to Texas to go be with him. And he had moments of anger and, you know, sadness and then guilt and shame. And I did too. And then a lot of anger. There's a lot of feelings to process when you lose somebody in that way. And I know for me, I thought, well, gosh, what could I have done? Maybe if I called more, maybe if I, you know, how come she didn't tell me it was so bad? Or, you know, all the feelings that you get. But there are silver linings. And wow, she gave life and so many things to so many other people. And then it really you know, just motivated you to do something to help others with addiction?

Well, I— so, so I knew this was a problem. I was, I was so fortunate, Amberly, is I had just worked with a guy for a few years to build and sell his company. It's called prweb.com. He— I was tweeting it. That was my, my notepad was just Twitter at the time. I'm just tweeting this. I'm just in total shock. Can't believe this is going on. And that's what's worse, it was on an iPhone 3. So if you remember how bad the keyboard was originally there. So, so David McGinnis, who actually lives just out of Austin, just outside of Austin, he tweets back and he says, he says, dude, you know, I'm always here for you, always here for you. And he takes a picture of a home, kind of a flat-roofed Frank Lloyd Wright kind of contemporary home right on the Canadian border in the US, up in Washington State. And then he takes a picture of the ocean and he says, he says, I've got your place. And he came and picked us up in his private jet, me and my kids.

You are kidding.

He took us up. He said, this is yours. And then we worked together for the next 3 years kind of getting through that. But what that did is it gave me the freedom and the possibility of, of taking care of the issue, which was why do people get addicted? Why do they stay addicted? And those things. So, not far from me through the strait was across a bridge in Astoria, Oregon was a rehab center that was run by a really cool guy that was an entrepreneur. He wasn't a medical professional. He bought it because it was a profitable center and he understood it. And he also had a big heart because he'd had a family member also die of an overdose. So, he let me come in once every 5 to 6 weeks and just on Friday night, which is the worst night of the world for an you know, an addiction center. That's when they— the paddy wagon pulls up and people are coming off and they don't know who they are. They're out of their minds, stoned on meth or coke or, you know, wine or whatever.

Mm-hmm.

And just off— so, so as I'm interviewing these people, I'm going, why are you, you know, why, why this? And they go, well, it gets rid of the pain or it gets rid of the trauma or it's, you know, or I started on methadone and I've— and, and whenever I'd run out, I would just go back to my dealer and get heroin. And so, so it was those kinds of things. I said, well, so why not go to rehab? And he said, well, it's embarrassing. It's expensive. It takes a long time. So if I have a job, I, you know, I probably am going to lose my job. And I'm probably going to end up, you know, if I miss— if I, if I go down the same road that I've always gone down, I'm going to miss the schedule. I'm going to go find my dealer again. Or all my friends are doing this anyhow. So I have no— core group outside of it, and AA didn't work for me maybe, or whatever. And so I'm going, okay, if I could do something that would be inexpensive, fast-acting, like 3 days, 5 days, um, would be permanent, they weren't going to be addicted to another, you know, couple of drugs after they were off the program. That was the other problem, is they would be on anywhere from 10 to 27 different meds as they went through the addiction process, right? And then at the end of it, they send them back to wherever and they're going to be addicted to 2 to 4 of those because that's kind of the program, right? The program is get you off of the street drug onto the verified drug.

Mm-hmm.

But it doesn't necessarily change their operating philosophy of life nor their ability to perform the same. You know, in fact, sometimes it's a lot less. you go from being a meth head that feels like you can conquer the world or a cokehead, you who's doing day trading and working as a broker and you're rocking it. And suddenly you have no motivation, no energy, no dopamine, right? No serotonin to feel happy. You have none of that. No GABA to feel chill. And so, as a result of that, you become this sub-operating or a sick human being. And so, in seeing that, the thing was, okay, Could I pull a bunch of neurochemical precursors together and cure, or at least help alleviate the symptoms of the pressure while actually healing the body? I don't want to just do a mask of the symptoms. It's not a Band-Aid. I'm going to go from the inside out. I want to solve the problem. And then which ones would work? And so I had enough of a biochemistry background.

And you know what? I loved chemistry. And I thought when I was a little girl that Until I was like, I'm going to be a professional dancer, one of the things that I wanted was to be a scientist. And I had a microscope and I used to dissect things and have a bug collection. I was just fascinated with that. Now I can say my, my oldest daughter is in medicine and she's doing that, so good for her. It's a lot of studying, but yes.

But you're going to live vicariously through her.

Yeah, I can live vicariously through her, but And a lot of things that you said, why people get addicted and why they maybe don't get help, I think a lot of it is shame. Like, there's such a stigma behind addiction.

Right.

And I think people might just be surprised at how many people out there are addicted, successful entrepreneurs that have either, you know, like you said, coke problems or drinking problems, or fitness professionals, like, that own a gym and they look fit, but they're having to take something every night just go to bed, and then they're having to take something to wake up and keep moving forward. So I like that you approach it as, okay, how can we heal the body? And not just a Band-Aid, not just something they're going to get addicted to, but what are some of the things that you need when you're, you know, to increase your clarity, to increase your energy, to get more optimism, to feel better? What are some of the things that are in these supplements that actually do that?

Here's the deal is if you take a look at your full physiology and neurology, we're typically fighting any number of key components. We're fighting inflammation.

Mm-hmm.

We're fighting oxidative stress. We're fighting maybe pain signaling, right? You and I both have suffered from that. And then, and then, you know, neurology, right? Neurology. And so we're fighting each of these components and often a nutrient deficit because of either the way we eat or the way we eat wrong, or, or we don't know which nutrients we're— you know, we're not taking blood tests every day to see how we're doing with our, our balance of B vitamins or other characteristics. So, so what I did was I started working with— the first thing I started with was what are some amino acids that would positively affect the brain in a meaningful way? So the first one I started with was pyroglutamic acid, which is this really weird, uh, pro-nootropic. Basically, it creates acetylcholine in the brain. And, but you have to use tons of it, 6 grams. It makes you sleepy when you take it because it's the enzymatic processing in the brain. So, it worked really great, but it got me down this pathway of going, okay, how do I make that better? And then—

And you know what? I'm embarrassed to say, do you know, I didn't even know what a nootropic was. I had to, I like Googled it.

You had to look it up?

Yes, I did. I had to look it up. Well, so, will you tell everyone what that is? Because there might be some listeners who are like me that don't know.

Oh no, I love it. I love it. So, a nootropic, it's a Greek word around the brain, right? And around the mind. So, they are neurochemical precursors that help the brain work better and to be able to provide a programmable state. We talk about programmable state, we're talking about, do I need to be happier today? Do I need to be more conversant? Right? You and I talked about Zamener Juice earlier.

Mm-hmm.

Do I need to be more effectively conversant? Do I need to have my heart open so that I'm More sensitive to people? Do I need to be super focused? So I need a dopamine flow coming in, right? Do I need to have my, you know—

Is that what dopamine does? It'll make you super focused?

Anybody that's ever been on Adderall, it's a stimulant. It's a high stimulant, like a methamphetamine. In fact, it is an amphetamine. Methylphenidate is what it is. So it's an actual amphetamine that recirculates dopamine between the neurons in the brain. There's a problem with that. When you start telling the brain that you've got the chemical in excess that your brain otherwise would be making by recirculating it, like think about SSRI. Okay? And by the way, this is not, I'm not a doctor and I'm not condoning doing stuff outside of your medical profession, but there's some insights that might be valuable because I consider our product a really useful tool that if you work with your medical professional, Mm-hmm. You may find that the amount of the meds that you're on can be reduced dramatically. The side effects can be reduced dramatically or eliminated. And in some cases, and I've got hundreds of examples, hundreds of clients, you can eliminate them completely by doing the right things, by, by really, really committing to an exercise routine, by making a morning ritual, some kind of a really set established routine.

Okay.

that you can get into that balances you and grounds you so that as you're moving through your day, you've got these reference points, right? Being thankful, being joyful. So, state optimization is the ultimate outcome of great nootropics. And nootropics are brain-enhancing neurochemical precursors.

And you say it so much better than me. I'm like, nootropics, and you're like, nootropics. So that's how you're supposed to say it. No, no, no.

I like, Amberly, I say nootropic all day long. I like it because I think that sounds cool. I think nootropic sounds like Bradley Cooper, if he walked up to you and gave you the limitless pill, you'd go, dude, it's a nootropic.

I'd be like, okay. But you know what? I have to say, I would much, I trust and I would much rather Listen to you and trust what you're telling me, what's going to help, than a doctor who has never been through trauma, who's never experienced pain, but just studied something from a book. The same as like I would go to the gym and hire a trainer who looked physically fit versus someone who looks like they're completely out of shape and just eats Doritos and drinks Dr Pepper all day. You know what I mean? So I would rather live— because you have experience and you've not only, you know, tested it, you've researched it, you've tried it, and you have shared it with others. So that's why I'm— when I'm just— first of all, when I learned your story, I was like, oh yeah, I definitely want to learn from him and try this stuff.

So it was 3,000— the first product took 3,000 prototypes. You now know of it as Nectar X.

Oh yeah.

I owned a software company at the time with the founder of Century 21 Real Estate. I was living in Newport Beach and he and I founded a company to help to build software to help people think more creatively. It's called Idea Fisher. And then we started working with Drew Carey and helping him write comedy with it and write his book with it. And then with Rick Warren, Pastor Rick Warren down in, you know, that area of town. And he got it to all of his associate pastors to help write their sermons and I want to do that. So, and then IBM used it and Apple used it and Nike used it. And so, all the big advertising agencies, Wieden and Kenny. So, I had this list of almost 400,000 really smart people that I could send that trusted me because my software worked well and we had coached them on how to be more creative and innovative. And I'd say, hey, I'm going to send you a blank test tube of white powder that's going to taste like crap. Can you take some of this, mix it with water, take it, and tell me how it makes you feel? And then I built a little online database and they would tell us how they felt. And then eventually I said, well, I'm only getting about 30% to 42% of the people are responding well and the rest of them are either neutral or negative. And so I said, what could the variables be? And I found out that your weight, height, age, sex, what meds you're on, how often you work out, when you eat, right? How sensitive you are to caffeine or coffee. What's your basic neurochemistry? Do you get freaked out easy or are you like Steady Eddie? Or do you have super high drive or are you like unmotivated, can't get off the couch? And so are you normally depressed? Are you the— right? Are you the Eeyore of the group or are you the one that is a cheerleader helping everybody else get going? Are you an introvert or an extrovert? And in assembling that, I started getting this data that I could turn into tweaks of these formulations.

How long did that take?

It took 4 years, 3,000 different formulations.

Oh my goodness.

It was intense. Thankfully, I had people like David McGinnis in my court going, dude, what you're doing is important. Keep doing it. And then I had these, as I'm handing these prototypes out, they're saying, hey, can I get more? Like when we started handing prototypes out, and Matt will tell you, Matt Gallant, our CEO, former addict, by the way, 13 years clean.

Wow.

Fantastic dude.

That's amazing.

Oh yeah. It's great. I mean, Matt's story is, is incredible. As we would hand Nutopia out, well, or as this product right here, our Color Genius, is we would just send samples to people who are, who are, you know, some well-known sports people, some well-known celebrities, some well-known chemists, some well-known influencers. And they said, I'm running out and I'm starting to freak out. Can I get more now? And it was, it was just right. And that feedback loop happened when I was doing this product. And it just so happened that the movie Limitless came out just about 4 months before the final formulation came together of this. And all of these people on my beta, you know, list that were getting samples said, hey man, this is a lot like the clear pill that Bradley Cooper's taking in that movie. And I said, well, what do I call it? And a good friend of mine, a very successful entrepreneur, said, call it NZT. Just go with it. And so, for about 5 years, Bradley Cooper was our unpaid spokesman. And I hope he doesn't come back and bite us. But we now work with his manager and the guy that sold the movie Limitless to the studio. So, I think—

That is incredible. What a story.

Very fortunate. When you think about the alignment that happens in your life, the people that show up when you need them, because you made an intention that this has to happen in my life and you are, you're meditating on it daily, you're praying on it, you're thinking about it, you're realizing it in your life. At one time, I built a race car. I crashed a race car back when I was 16 and I was really bummed out and I would drive into work. I worked at a clinical laboratory. I would drive into work every day and I would close my eyes at lunch, like with my sack lunch, and I would go through the gears of that race car. And I would feel the engine coming on. I'd feel the RPMs coming up. And I would feel it when I got into its power zone, right? When the torque and horsepower were all playing really nice with me. And I would hear the exhaust. Rotary engines have weird exhaust sound. And I would go through that. I would just go through that. I would feel it. And then I would take the last 15 minutes of my lunch break and I would call junkyards looking for parts. And eventually, I built a race car in 9 months that was better than the original one I built. The guy that built the Le Mans, 24-hour Le Mans RX-7 Mazdas happened to live in my town. Like, what's the chance? And I would, if I would bring my girlfriend in with me, he would work on cars with me and show me how to build race engines because she was cute. And he would, you know, he just wanted a cute girl around, right?

Oh my goodness.

Replacement for his poster, you know, his tool poster that you always see in garages. And so, it was this great thing, right? But those things happen. Matt and I, the way Matt and I met was a really great guy, Brad Costanzo, who's a well-known executive and life coach on Facebook. He empties out a bunch of these test tubes and everybody's going, what's that? He goes, this is the best nootropic in the world and it's customized just for me and it works. And everybody said, well, what about this? What about this? He goes, no, no, no, you don't understand. You know that I try everything. This stuff works. And Matt Gallant saw that, and he had been praying for the chemist or the individual or the opportunity, because he'd spent a lot of money doing it himself, for that person to show up that would be able to take him to the next level. And we got on a phone call, and I had a handful of offers on my company for quite a bit of money.

Hmm.

And he and I got on the phone, and he said, do you want to sell your company? And I said, no. I said, I want to change lives. And he goes, all right, we're in. And so, you know, we spent a lot of time working together and getting to know each other and dating. We spent a long time dating. We didn't want to have a walk of shame after, you know, inking a deal too fast. And those kind of people show up when your intention is right, when your goals are above your own self-serving. And—

I could not agree more. I mean, it's so— I just had a situation like this happen. Um, where I had this, I want to change lives. I want to really impact women and have them, you know, share their story and, and impact more lives. I want it to be a ripple effect. And I thought, I'm going to do this in-person event and happened to have one of my favorite speakers agree to come and speak at the event. And I had this vision of where I want to hold it. And I'm not kidding you, the very next day The owner of that studio texted me and said, hey, you've been on my heart lately. When can we catch up? And I'm like, I was actually going to call you. Can I come see you? And so, thank people come into your life, uh, situations happen. So I'm like, I'm just trusting and I'm gonna, you know, at lunch close my eyes like you did and envision how it's gonna turn out. So—

Go through the gears, Amberly. Go through the gears.

I'm gonna go through those gears. And speaking of gears, by the way, what kind of motorcycle did you ride?

I raced for Kawasaki at one point. So, it was a— started in the 650 class and then went to 750 class. So, street, you know, very, very fast. You know what it's like when you're going around a corner at— well, you know, we used to warm up our bikes. I lived in Central California and we would go to Mariposa and Yosemite to kind of practice, right?

Yeah.

Because we had a lot of switchbacks and a lot of great, great road work there, and the roads are really clean and you can definitely lean down. And so we'd go 145, 160 miles an hour, head down.

Oh my goodness.

Blowing through stop signs because you're out in the middle of nowhere and you're not thinking about what danger— and you're in your 20s, so you're indomitable.

Oh yeah, I was that way when I was in my 20s. And I'd have people come up, like a guy come up next to me in a Porsche and be like, hey, you want to race? I'm like, yeah, and beat him, you know. Yeah. It's like an adrenaline rush. It's so much fun.

It's so great. And then you're going, so you're going, let's say you're going 150 miles an hour for 10 miles. You get used to how fast that is. So, when you back off to 120 or 110 to go around a corner with your knee on the ground, and you've got to throttle hard to be able to break the back tire loose, to be able to drift around that corner, otherwise you won't make it. You'd end up in the barbed wire fence. It's that kind of thing where you suddenly are time shifting. shifting. It's a really important thing for people to realize their performance limits, not to kill yourself. Like, you know, we've both done a little bit of that, but—

Yeah.

But to understand that we're capable of so much more than we really believe. And getting yourself into a little bit of white-knuckle situation once in a while to either wake up and say, thank you so much for this incredible life I have. But on top of that, going, I survived and now I can thrive as a result, knowing that I'm not going to die When I push myself that hard or when I do that thing, right? To me, it's the, it's that ninja state. You know, we call it sick to superhuman, right? So that going from sick to suboptimal to optimal to superoptimal, and then like every once in a while becoming Barry and turning into—

Well, see, I want to be at that level all the time. Where do you think most people nowadays lie? Like, on the scale from sick to superhuman, where do you think most people lie?

I think most people are running at a suboptimal state. Part of it from COVID from fear, from economic woes, all of the— right? It's always, if it bleeds, it leads in the newspapers, right? So, you don't hear all the great stuff that's going on. You hear that we're going to be in a depression or recession. Michael Burry's going, this is going to be worse than 2008. You've got people who are still, you know, they're going, do I wear a mask? Do I not wear a mask?

It's so crazy. Am I going to get the needle? Do I not get the needle?

It's crazy. So, Because of that, it is confusing. It is disorienting. And our belief in our ability to, as human beings, we need more people like you that are going, look, we are not going to just make it through this, man. We are going to thrive through this, right? We are going to get into, instead of survival mode, we are going to get into thrival mode.

Yeah. No, I lived in survival mode for way too long and I refuse to live in survival mode anymore. In fact, you know, I just got back from a trip. I love being at in-person events. I love hugging people. I just love connecting with people and And I got back and was a little sick, and my dad was like, well, you're gonna have to start wearing masks on a plane. And I said, Dad, I can't wear a mask. Well, I won't wear a mask when I'm at a conference and I'm speaking to people. And I said, no, I just need to get— really build up my immunity. I think there's a different way of looking at it. It's like, no, I will just get stronger. I will get more healthy. I will really lean into what can I do to really boost my, my, my energy and build my immunity. So instead of thinking I gotta shut down, I gotta put a mask on, I'm like, right.

You know, when you talk about that, when I started really focusing on physiology and neurology back in the early '90s, the first time I, I built this company once and I sold it to a partner a couple years later. And then I rebuilt when my former wife passed away is I, I bought the domain back, paid off all the debts that that company had and started again.

Wow.

Right. With a new mission. And one of the things I started, I was a technology guy in the laser technology and computer technology and internet technology back in the '90s and way beyond that. Still am to a certain extent. And one of the things that you always do on a server that is the thing that runs your company, right? The main computer server that runs your company and a big enterprise is you build up a fault tolerance system for it. So if the power goes down, this thing kicks in in milliseconds. Computers don't go down. The lights are off for just a millisecond and suddenly they're back on. Everything's right. So, building a fault-tolerant physiology and neurology became my goal. Like, I want to make it so that when the power goes down, when the solar flare comes, when I ate like crap, when I drank too much last night, when I partied till 4:00 AM, when I didn't take care of myself, when I was on the road for 6 weeks, eating the wrong food, living out of hotels, Out of a bag, when I wasn't in my meditation practice, whatever the thing is that your grounding thing, when I wasn't doing that, I needed to have a physiology and neurology that could, that could handle that and do it elegantly and still make me, help me perform at a very high level because that's my expectation of myself and that's what people expect of me, right?

Yeah. I'm like, yes, that's what I want. And I mean, coming, being with you here now after being on the road, I was in Denver, I was in Orange County, I was in LA, I was like all over the place. And it is, it takes, your body kind of takes a toll when you're not eating the foods that you usually eat, or sometimes you might have to skip a meditation practice or your morning ritual or all that. And so, Yes. I think we all want something that can help us just feel better and thrive. Not survive, thrive.

Right. Well, and that's the thing. So, most people are sick in some level. They've got some condition like you and I both talked about neurology and pain mitigation, those things. So, I'm going to call that sick. That's like the worst thing in our current physiological neurological program outside of any exterior stuff. That's sick. So, the first thing we want to do is we want to try to, one is take a look at the other strong areas of our life, right? Of our physiology and neurology. and boost those so that they're kind of like doing a StrengthsFinder test or a Myers-Briggs test where you start to understand who you are, or you take a Braverman test, or we have a neurochemical test at the front of nutopia.com that you can just click the link. It's free. And it's going to give you an analysis of the different neurochemical dominance and deficits that you have. So that— because when you know where you're dominant, one, it gives you confidence. Oh, great. I've got a lot of dopamine.

Cool.

I don't have to work as hard on the dopamine part of my life, but my serotonin sucks. My GABA sucks. I don't have any anandamide, so I'm not feeling a lot of pleasure, right? Those kinds of things. My acetylcholine is in the toilet, so my thinking processes are muddled or my memory sucks or whatever. So, being able to analyze those and know those, that gets you up to this, you know, this kind of next level of of neurological physiological performance, right? So, you're at suboptimal now. So, now you're suboptimal in the things and you're not masking the thing that you're weakest at. You're pulling it up with you because you're going to reinforce it with some of the neurochemicals you need to start handling that stuff, right? So, you're going to drag them with you through taking and really accelerating your strengths.

Mm-hmm.

Just like you would in a StrengthsFinder kind of a program, right? So now you're at suboptimal. That's going to get you to optimal. So now you're at optimal, means you're drinking the right amount of fluids a day, you're exercising, you're doing breathwork or whatever happens to be the thing, right? You're being cognizant of how you feel and going, I feel like X, so I know what to do to feel like Y, what I really want to feel like, right? So you know what you— you know whether you need to take a power nap for 5 minutes or just close your eyes and be thankful or whatever that thing is, right? Then, so that's going to get you to optimal. And most people are running between suboptimal and optimal and they're cycling between that. They're cycling between what they normally feel like and then kind of like subpar normal. But every once in a while, when you get those things aligned, when all the stars align in your neurochemical and biological needs, you suddenly go to super optimal. So, you get to that super optimal and super optimal is a place that most people haven't experienced since they were 8 years old and they were super excited for Christmas and they just had everything was coming right and they're just pumped, right? And so, getting to super optimal is a really powerful experience for people. And here's the cool part, Amberly, you can live in super optimal. You can actually fine-tune your neurochemistry and your physiology to live in that optimal to super optimal space. It's really great. You can cycle in and when you get there, you're so far above what most people's baseline operating OS is that they see you and they go, how do you do it? How do you do all these things? How do you stay positive in the face of all of this stuff? How do you keep going? How do you do that one more thing that makes the difference between mediocrity and superior success? And it's by getting those neurochemicals in alignment. Getting your physiology fine-tuned. But here's the cool thing. Once you get there, right? You kind of know how to modulate that. I just want to— I, you know, today I'm going to chill. I'm going to spend more time listening, spend more time watching people and helping people and just being sensitive to it. But tomorrow I'm going to be a monster. I'm going to be killing it.

I'm going to bring the thunder tomorrow. That's right.

I'm going to be Gary Vee all over again.

Right?

So, we do that. And then suddenly we go, oh, I know. I know the one thing. I'm going to take some Nectar X that I've got modified to this performance characteristic because I filled out my customization form and my feedback, right? And I said, I want this to be my dopamine day, baby. And so, you got your— right?

Yeah.

So, you got your dopamine and your adrenaline, your adrenaline, right? And you go, all right, I want to have that state. And I'm going to be that rock star today because I'm getting on stage, or I want to get off the plane and I want to be able to really, really move things, or I'm working with this very tough client and I want to be able to move them. And I know to move their state from where they are in depression or just sub-performance up to this super performance. Right?

So, what I need is focused savagery if that were the case? Rawr!

I'm the Poster child for ADHD. And so, but I didn't—

That's why you're so successful.

Right? Right? It's a superpower. Don't let people tell you it's not. And so, I needed my employees when I would only take Adderall about twice a month. But my employees, when I would take it, they say, oh, you're on that asshole drug. And then they would shun me for the day and tell me, just go do something that just is your heads-down thing. And I realized that I just lost my emotional connection with them. Because I'm a pretty kind leader, lead by example, lead by model, lead by love, right? And at that point, I was not a fun guy to be around. So, I said, what can I design that's going to help me get out of that? And that's where Focus Averagy came from, was making a solution that had a very high level of dopaminergic activity with just enough GABA activity that I wasn't a jerk.

Wow.

And I could move the needle. And so, I got the best of both worlds, right? I got the focus I needed, but I could smile at people and be nice. So, Matt will get on Call of Duty. He'll do focus savagery. He'll do some Xamner to make him so he's not a total jerk. And then he'll fire off and he goes, my kill-to-death ratio is rocking.

Oh my gosh. Well, you know what? I've never been diagnosed with ADHD or ADD. I've But I was always getting in trouble in school, and I'm put in the special learning disability class. You know, something's wrong with her. And then they're like, no, I don't know what's wrong with her. Then they tested me for talented and gifted, and they're like, oh, she's actually smart. She's not in the— they called it the short bus group.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I was called. And so then they moved me into TAG, which was for talented and gifted. And I do have— you know, I think that I can be very, like, I feel sorry for my sister. Man, I'm all over the place. But as you can see, I, I do love the, you know, the focused savagery. Maybe that's great.

I've got a modification on that that I'm making. I'll make sure you get some of our early prototype list. Um, it, it's a really cool mod to it that brings up the serotonin at the same time, and it makes it last longer. So that, um, it's really neat. The, the cool thing is once you understand how your neurochemicals work, And who you're dealing with, you can fine-tune, you can almost like, like read your mind and go, okay, I know exactly what you need now.

Yeah, well, I love that, you know, I filled out the whole like questionnaire kind of quiz on just to see what would I— what I needed in, in my box. And so I thought that was really awesome that you do that. And I would love for you to share where people can like try out these amazing supplements. And take that quiz.

I love it. So if you go to nootopia.com— and do you have a special link, Amberly?

Yes. Yes. If you go to nootopia.com/Amberly, you, you are so generous, you can get a 10% discount. So again, that's in the show notes, and it's on social media and everywhere you look. nootopia.com/Amberly, and that's N-O-O-T-O-P-I-A.com. And, um, yeah, look it up in the show notes, but also it's Nootopia Brain on Instagram. I follow y'all on Instagram as well.

Oh, nice. Well, and we just, um, if you go to nootopia.com/amberly and then find the Collagenius link, you'll get a chance to check out our new product. We just launched this yesterday.

Oh, that's awesome.

It is an incredible full, uh, spectrum mushroom and collagen blend. That it naturally tastes just like chocolate. And every dose, which is just 2 little spoonfuls, every dose is the equivalent of 1.2 to 1.5 pounds of pure mushroom extract.

Oh, that's incredible. But tell 'em what the mushroom extract does for you.

Well, aside from neurogenesis, there's a thing called BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor. And we, we use this incredible lion's mane extract. that we've developed that when you take that component of it, what it does is it creates blooms of new brain cells and you'll feel it. You'll actually feel your brain sparkle with these new brain cells. So, if you're going into an environment where you want to learn something or if you're going in an environment where you're trying to actually create new neural pathways, you and I talked about trauma. When you're trying to beat trauma, you don't just look at trauma and go, ah, and then eventually not ah. You need to build a new pathway that says— Steve Martin said it in The Jerk, his foster dad. He says, son, he goes and he holds up and he looks at the ground. He goes, son, 2 things, shit. There's some poop on the ground and chinola. And chinola, I think, was chewing tobacco at the time. He goes, learn the difference.

Right?

And so— You got to reprogram the brain. Well, to reprogram the brain, you need new active brain cells. And this is what gives you new, active, waiting for you to program brain cells so you can create new pathways to success in your brain. You can create new moods. You can create new, enhanced, new relationships in your brain with the good memories, with the good thoughts, with the good stuff.

So, you think someone who is like 72 years old that has pathways that are kind of negative would be able to take this and kind of open some new pathways and start to focus on some positivity?

Guaranteed. And, and, you know, and, and I'm getting it for my dad. Everything we do, when I build a stack of these capsules, we start with, let's get your B vitamins right. So let's do a highly concentrated methyl B stack so that your, your vitamins are, you know, you get your B vitamin levels are retained, right? We couple that with a bunch of anti-inflammatory components to eliminate as much inflammation as possible in your body, cuz most people are fighting inflammation at one level or another.

Mm-hmm.

And if you can reduce that or remove it, then suddenly you have a higher baseline to be able to work with in terms of cognitive performance. A lot of people are fighting so many physiological traumas, right? Oxidative stress, right?

Oh yeah. Gut health, leaky gut.

Hormones suck, right? All of that. And Bioptimizers, our parent company and partners, Bioptimizers is a leader in gut health because of those situations that occur. If you've ever gone into— I have gut health issues because of a byproduct of being a, you know, white rat for Accutane. So P3OM, which is a probiotic that we have, is an incredible solution for me to be able to cure that. And we're doing upgrades on all those right now. It's incredible products. So getting yourself into that state of physiological high performance so that when you want to go into neurological high performance, it works a lot better. The nootropics are much more effective. And then choline donors and some of the other components that basically say, okay, now I've got the neurological horsepower. How do I use it? And that's where the choline donors, which are a component of every nootropic, and that's choline is the memory and thinking and the thought processing component or neurochemical. And when you've got that firing, it's really incredible. You can think faster. You can memorize faster. You can remember better.

Yeah.

You can call up those old memories that you've been trying to go, I remember reading that somewhere. You can suddenly see the page you could read it on. You see the paragraph where it was. You could see the pull quote from that page and the image that was the illustration for that page, because you've got those neurochemicals firing and bringing it forward.

This is freedom when you can get all those firing, because a big fear of mine was when the pain from— and I don't even say my pain, I say the pain from CRPS would get so elevated that it would make me to I couldn't think, I couldn't, I could, I couldn't, like, I would lose my words. And I remember one time I was trying to just do an Instagram post and it was taking me 2 hours to even write the caption. I could, and that's scary. That's so scary. So when you have something that's a solution that, you know, oh, it's like, it's freedom. It gives you peace of mind that, that you can thrive, that you don't have to worry about those things. And being, you know, somebody who's a writer and a speaker, that was always kind of lingering in the back, like, oh my goodness, what if the pain gets so elevated that I can't think straight? So yeah, you're, you're helping more people with not just addiction, not just depression, um, but the freedom to go out there and live life to the fullest. So I love what you're doing. And I, I really thank you so much for your generosity of sharing the products with me. And just coming on and sharing more about, you know, how you even developed these and how they came about and some of your stories. So again, tell everybody the best place to find you, find products, and take that quiz.

So first, go to nootopia.com/amberly, and you'll get a 10% discount, and you'll get our 365 That's amazing. We don't want you to be unhappy about it. Here's the deal, is the— one of the worst investments you can ever make is a bad nutritional supplement that doesn't do anything. We stand behind it, and we know— I, I could not have worked with these guys if they weren't as committed to experiential nutrition as we are. So you, you should take it and feel it, take it and feel it. It's going to be that kind of experience. So, go there and at the top you'll see this button. It'll say, take your neurochemical test, right? Click that button. That's going to give you an analysis of your neurochemical test and you're going to be able to use that no matter what you're doing in life. You're going to be able to apply that and say, oh, I'm dominant in this. I'm sub-dominant in this. I've got a real problem here. I've got a deficit. And that'll give you a guide. And then when you come out of that, then we give you an opportunity to take a look at at our different programs that we have available for you. Um, our subscriptions are great on the Newtopia line, and, and in about 3 months you're going to receive them in this beautiful magnetic cases that you'll be able to—

You're kidding! That's cool!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is our, our new mag pack that we've been working very diligently the last year to bring these to market.

Um, I like that, but I do— I have to say, I love this. I love the test tubes. I think they're really cool.

Quick story on the test tube. I should have brought it down. But so, I started my first company. I funded it with test tube babies in 1984. So—

You amaze me, the stories that you have.

So, in 1984, the front cover of Life Magazine was, in this one issue, was the 10-year anniversary of the first in vitro fertilization. So, wow, that's really cool. Might've been '85, but I think it was '84. So that comes out. I called my stepdad who owned this clinical lab that I'd worked for when I was young. And I said, Jack, I need some venture capital. Right? I just, I knew the name. I'd been reading Inc. Magazine. I thought I was a business guy. I've been studying business really hardcore, interviewing entrepreneurs for, you know, since I was young. And he said, what's going on? I said, have you seen Life? And he goes, yeah, I've got a copy of that on my desk. And I said, Yeah. I said, I'm going to make little test tube babies and I'm going to sell them at the mini-marts in town. And he goes, well, a couple of things. One, you should probably get your high school diploma before you start asking for money. And he goes, second is, that sounds like a pet rock. That's interesting, but good luck. I'm out. And so, I go, all right. Well, I'll figure it out. Right? Well, a week later, I would ride my bike at minimum 30 miles an hour to and from the airbase that I was on in Central California, in Atwater, California. And I rode back, and I would always ride back for lunch because it gave me another 5-mile hardcore ride one way, so 10 miles. And then I would be able to lay out in the sun, take a little micro nap, scarf down my lunch, ride back. And as I'm riding in, there's a UPS guy putting a bunch of boxes on my front porch. And I'm going, I wonder what the heck that is. And he has me sign for it. And I have this little envelope. And in the envelope was a card from my stepdad that says, dear Mark, here's your venture capital. Love, Jack. And I opened it up and it was Vacutainers, the things you use to take blood samples.

Really?

Right? It was 2,000 Vacutainers.

Oh my goodness.

They were expired because— and they were sitting in the back of the warehouse I used to work in. They were expired because they had the coagulant, the anticoagulant in them goes bad after 6 months.

Oh.

And so, so he sent me 2 and they didn't cost me anything. They were just, you know, they were excess inventory that went bad, that dated out. And so my girlfriend at the time, my best friend who lived with me at the time, took this big pot of hot water and we would drop 100 babies at a time into it. Little tiny plastic babies you'd use on, on baby shower cakes. And, and we'd put them in there. They would soften from the water. We'd stuff them in the test tubes and then pour a little bit of Rit dye in to make them either blue or pink. And those funded my first company, which was a laser company.

Oh my goodness. Where did you sell them?

Well, I sold them in little mini marts in Central California.

You did?

I couldn't— my neighbor was— worked at 7-Eleven, Southland Corporation.

Yeah.

He said they will never— he goes, by the time that's out of the news, they'll, you know, it'll be no good. So he said, I would recommend the little Hispanic-run or Indian-run or Asian-run mini marts. Because these guys are really great to work with. They're really fun. They're honest. And they have their, their, their front counter is where they keep the magazine rack so it doesn't become a library.

Yeah.

So, so they can do it as a tchotchke right there. And then I was also, I would do some worship work at my church. And so I would ride my racing motorcycle to church in my racing leathers with a, with an Ovation guitar strapped to my back and a New King James Bible bungeed to the back of my bike.

You were like a chick magnet for sure.

It was so, it was so funny. So, I'd ride there. So, I'd lead worship. Well, the pastor's wife comes to me and he goes, hey, I hear you're doing some weird thing with a test tube and babies or something. What is that? And I'd sold about 800 of them in the mini-marts. And so, I pulled one out because I thought they were really funny. It was really fun. And the little card on it said, you know, I had a little cute little thing like what I'm doing with test tube babies and You know, keep your test tube baby, you know, you know, temperate and don't put it in the freezer or anything like that. And then it said on the back of it is I said, I'm selling these to save money to start a real company. And that was like, like they were just my venture capital, right? I didn't, I didn't consider them a real product. It was just a transition to make money for my real company, which was going to be lasers. And so—

You're a true entrepreneur for sure.

Well, she looked at that, she looked at that and she goes, how many you got left? And I said, I got about 1,200 left. She goes, great, we'll buy them all. And I said, what? And she goes, no, no, no, we're going to go to Planned Parenthood and we're going to give these out. And, you know, right? Because I'm at this conservative church and they thought that that was right. So, anyhow, that's how I sold the rest of them. I made enough money to buy a laser. While I was on the way to getting my medical testing at the Presidio in San Francisco, I had to pass through San Jose. I saw Spectra Physics, which is a laser company. I brought my cash. I brought my cash, not a checkbook. I brought my cash. And I snuck my way into R&D and I bought a laser from them. And then I brought it back as I built my prototype of a laser projector for, you know, artists on stage. Right? And yep. And so that was how I started my first company.

That is amazing. And I'm sure with 19 companies, you have amazing stories. I could sit and talk with you all day about every That's why I said when we first started, you're an incredible storyteller. So, um, you guys, don't y'all love him? I'm just, I'm just so grateful to have you here. Thank you.

Thank you.

And thank y'all for tuning in. And again, y'all check out, go take that quiz. It's actually kind of cool to take the quiz and get to know yourself a little bit more when you go to newtopia.com/amberly. You can also get your discount with the code Amberly. And Mr. Newtz, Mark, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, darling. You're awesome. I really appreciate you.

Thank you. And I'll talk to you soon. And, uh, I can't wait to try your new product too. Awesome.

Awesome. You got it coming your way.