Shantanu Srivastava on Breaking Free From Pharmaceutical Dependency

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Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. Now, the way I have approached it is to keep, try and keep that to the minimum and then do the right things faster. Not do the wrong things. There's something that I've always believed in is pushing hard doesn't solve the problem quickly, rather could compound the problem or break the fundamentals. But can, can I find ways to do the right thing but do them faster?

Step into the world of success with Your Brand Amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I'm your host, Anika Jackson, and I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies, and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. I'm really thrilled to have today's guest who has built some of the biggest brands in global consumer health, including Danone, Opela, Twinings. But it was deeply personal issue, Shantanu, that had you walk away from a conventional playbook and co-found Wellness Movement, which this is something that I've been seeing a lot of people who I've been interviewing lately. Are in this world. And it's something that I'm also seeing a lot with people outside of the podcast, just in my realm, realizing that we have to focus on these issues. So first and foremost, shantinu sri vatsava, thank you so much for being here. And I'd love to hear about that journey into having these big roles, building up these big companies, and then realizing, oh, there's something else affecting my life, my family's life that I need to focus on.

Indeed, Anika, there is. And thanks for having me on the show. I'm delighted to be here and lovely to meet you. As you said, it's been a bit of a journey for us together with my partner, and she and I together founded this new initiative, which was after, as you said, several years of corporate life and brands and innovation and products, a bit related in the health and wellness area. The reason we got into this was largely driven through our own lived experience. And our own personal experiences on how we interacted with the healthcare system across markets. And my career has taken me across quite a few countries, lived in quite a few places. And then that was kind of an aha moment for me going through my own journey to realize that, okay, there is, there is a gap and there's something that we can do about this. And then a few years back, my wife and I got into this and really are trying to build something that can bring value to more people like us.

Wonderful. And part of it is that you've lived with type 2 diabetes, correct? And again, this is something a lot of people and of all ages are being affected by.

Yeah. That was indeed the trigger, so to say, Anika Jackson Jackson. Yes. I, I have been a type 2 diabetic since my mid-twenties actually. So quite long term and without getting into the reasons why, but it was fairly well managed and, and I, thought I was always very conscious of my food habits, my lifestyle. I was regularly taking my medication as well. But after over 20 years of living with the ailment, there reached a point where all that I was getting from the healthcare system was more and more medication and reaching to a point where the professional advised, okay, you need to start taking insulin now. And I was quite taken aback because it was not acceptable to me to say that there are no other ways to manage this. And yes, it's a condition you live with. It's not curable. But I was always wondering, why can't I find more other ways? Particularly when, when we as a family and me personally as well are willing to make a lot of lifestyle adjustments. And then that gap kind of triggered a few actions I took. I was lucky enough to get the right advice at the right time and fortunately have been in a kind of a reversal, or at least a reversal trend for the last 4 or 5 years. And then that triggered the thinking that, okay, there is a gap. And then what I went through, I need to try and do that for more people.

And I know in the United States we all have the Band-Aid of we just get prescribed more and more medications. And you alluded to living in a few different places. So I'd love to understand a little bit more about the diff— disparities and the differences you saw between different countries' healthcare systems.

Sure. I mean, my experience is spanning, and we are Indian origin, so all early life was back in India. That's where I learned that I have this ailment, and my initial period was still back there. We have lived a bit in Europe as well, in Paris, and then we have been in the UK for the last 9 years. So yeah, I've seen the 3 different systems. Now, underlying thing, Anika Jackson, where it kind of bothered me was, and it's also a bit, it's not entirely the healthcare system, it's how we as humans have been trained and how the healthcare system has been set up. It's always been a problem-solution approach. You have a problem, take a medicine. And the entire approach is symptomatic relief, or at best management. And the thing that any ailment underlying is a natural phenomenon. And can we address the underlying phenomena? Can we at least better manage the underlying phenomena? That is not always curable just by a medicine, but you need to do more around it. Now, the way I have seen, to your question, the healthcare system, and I know there are reasons for it being like that, but mostly it has been back in India. It's, it's, there is public healthcare as well, but private healthcare is the go-to. It's, it's, it's reasonably priced. It's not expensive, as expensive as the Western world. And the entire approach, even when I look at my friends and family, the way I grew up, was, okay, I have a problem, I go to a doctor, I ask for a prescription, and I start taking medication. To the extent of the way the culture and lifestyle has built, that if the doctor tells me that, okay, you need to stop eating XYZ, or you need to stop sitting around all day, working out, running, I don't like that advice, and I change the doctor. So at a cultural level, that is something that the healthcare system also grapples with, right? So the doctors tend to, okay, let me give you a quick solution, not tell you things that you don't want to hear. And then in the Western world, if I draw a contrast with, say, the UK system, which is public healthcare, entirely free healthcare, is optimized and designed to prevent serious illnesses or to cure serious illnesses. So how can I— and there's this clear range. If I specifically talk about type 2 diabetes, that, okay, this much of a range is tolerable, you are not risking serious problems, so you can live with this. And if I push the system that, no, I want to further improve, what can I do? Then that's where you start to see gaps. Two extremes. But then across the two, what we felt, Anika Jackson, was really there are there's a gap on people understanding the correlation between medication, supplementation, lifestyle, food habits, and the day-to-day stress and routine and sleep quality, etc. And all of those work together to help manage such conditions. And that's a space we wanted to really start to make easier for people to access. Mm-hmm.

So talk about how you came up, right, with Healthfirst. You are a neuromindfulness practitioner and coach certified. You serve on several boards with startups in the food and wellness space as part of your work. And you, the two of you, had to sit down and go, what, how can we help be part of the solution, not just continuing people on the path of medicine or ill health?

Yeah, it was, it was, it was a slow journey, Anika, to be fairly honest about it, right? So In a sense, to give the due credit to my partner as well, who's the co-founder, she took the first step. And then you spoke about my background and my career. She's from a similar background, a marketer all her life in food industry and so on. And a few years back, she chose to leave that and completely go into health learning. At over 40 years of age, she left working, she went back to college, started to study nutrition. Health, lifestyle coaching, herbal medicine, and really dived into that field. So that created the know-how. And if you look at our website as well, that's why she is the health brain in this venture. She has built that know-how, she has built that expertise. We have been married over 20 years. So she had me as a, so to say, a live demo.

Right.

A guinea pig. Yeah, kind of a guinea pig. Yes. And she tried lots of things with me. And I had, if I can take the credit, I had the commitment to follow. And that worked for us.

Nice.

Now, going through that journey and looking at our friends circle, relatives, and lots of other people, and particularly when I reached that stage, incidentally, this was just around the COVID period, just before, and whereas literally searching for What else can I explore? How can I better manage this situation? And as I said earlier, I've managed to find somebody who gave me the right advice. The lockdown period, it's a strange thing to say, but the lockdown period helped because I had surplus time and I could do a lot of things. And I was largely home, so I could even change my food habits. So things improved for us. Then we thought that, okay, what was the things that I was missing when I was trying to address this? One was access to the right, so to say, basic knowledge and understanding. Yes, my partner's knowledge helped, but that's not accessible to everyone. Even when I was trying to reach out and figure out being a vegetarian of Indian origin, my food habits were very carb-heavy. And I was trying to explore how do I change that. And eating meat is not the solution for me because I'm vegetarian. And then I figured out how to do that. On lifestyle, on sleep, similarly, and even on medication. So I'm not at all off medication, and I'm not claiming that is the right thing to do instantly. But what medication interacts with what kind of supplements and what kind of food, and how can that combination be optimized? These kind of things. So we kind of figured out the gaps through our own experience and through various interactions. And that's when we start to say, okay, we need to create an ecosystem. A movement which addresses all the gaps. It's not about coming up with one product and trying to sell it, but create the ecosystem where somebody like me in the future has easy access to the ecosystem that can support him or her. Last point on this, the reason the name Healthverse, and it was— and then we as a family are quite, quite a big movie buff, to be honest about it. We were regular followers of the Multiverse universe. All the movies. And then that triggered the idea, and we thought that there should be a similar Healthverse.

Yes.

And that's what we— that's how we came up with the name.

Well, I relate to so many things that you've said about figuring out, you know, when we have the time to be really intentional, we can really optimize our health. But then we— when we layer on various parts of life, kids, work, other family members, friends, what kind of food supply we have around us, what kind of medical we have around us. It can get very complicated, very fast. And then that's when we look back at our pictures and go, that's when I was in optimal health and I wish I could get back there. And so understanding the frameworks that you're able to help supply and understanding what steps we can take at any one point in time, because I'm like you, if somebody tells me this is the plan that you have to do for exercise or for something else, I am probably not going to follow it. I'll probably rebel against it and push against it because it's not my natural inclination. So for me, you know, this is something I feel like not just me, but everybody listening is probably looking at constantly is what are those tweaks we can make? How do we take those baby steps? So can you walk us through that process of, you know, obviously you lived it and then you and your partner figured out what we can put together so that other people can experience this. I'd love to hear what is the first step in that process and what does that look like? And I'm sure it's a little individual for different people.

To clarify, Anika, is it— are you asking about my journey on managing diabetes or our journey on creating Healthverse?

The journey on creating Healthverse.

So the gaps or the steps we took on Healthverse, first, yes, of course, thinking about what is the concept, what is the idea? And as I mentioned, inspired by multiverse, the Healthverse. Now, thinking through our journey and talking to people who were on similar journeys, there were 4 gaps we identified which were actionable and which would create that ecosystem. First is a self-learning resource. Now, many a times it happens, and more so in today's time of now AI, a few years back Google, etc. There's a lot of information out there. So access to information is not the problem. Credible information that is relevant to my situation is always the challenge. And so what first thing we said, okay, let's try to create a self-learning platform where for relevant healthcare topics, people can get their first level of insight and knowledge. It's not intended to be a deep dive and a complete detailed diagnosis on situations, but for a starter, it gives you a deep enough insight to understand your situation and why it happens and what are the surrounding influences that trigger it or deteriorate it over time, including some provocative things that people might not want to hear. That creates a good understanding. Then you said, okay, once people have that understanding, what is the next thing they would like to do? Is there's always merit in still a human conversation, and you want access to people who can reconfirm, challenge, validate your understanding or build on it. There are enough and more health practitioners, health coaches, and people are there. Here again, the problem tends to be not paucity, but plenty. Who do I talk to and who can I trust? Our intent is to build that consultation platform as well as the second pillar. So, and then my partner is one of them, but through her network, through our network, we are looking at really genuine people who are committed to helping others, not just consultation for the sake of it, and try and get them on the panel. It's early days. We are still very much building, but that is, I'm telling you the intent where we want to take it. So far on our HealthWorks website, only these two pillars are live because we have been able to activate those two. But next, where we want to go is build a community around it, which is in a normal human behavior cycle. You learn something, you validate or confirm or build on that, then you want to interact with people going through a similar journey to pick from their learnings and their experiences. And that is the intent of building a community around this topic. Think of people exploring all kinds of alternate healthcare avenues, be it acupuncture, TCM, yoga, mindfulness, meditation, alternate medicines, or even pharma space. And how can all that come together to create a 2+2=5 effect? And then the next thing we want to do, which is still some distance away, is actually come up with the right product solution. Think supplements or functional foods, which can bring the final solution. And then all the pillars of the ecosystem should connect and complement each other.

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

Oh no, we help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

Get a quote at libertymutual.com or with your local agent.

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That's beautiful because you're helping meet people where they're at every step of the way, including with the right practitioners for them. And it's not just AI telling you what to do, right? It's that human-to-human connection that's so much more meaningful. And then the community. I think we all do better when we have community to bounce ideas off of, to commiserate with, to have ask questions too, based on their experiences, right? And then also to affirm what we're doing and to get the kudos and the people cheering when we are getting into better health. And that's for any kind of system, whether it's health, wellness, business, coaching, whatever it might be. You have a really clear strategy and outline. Is it starting as a global movement? Is this starting as something that you're trying out first in the UK?

No, we're trying it out small scale and we are based in the UK. So right now we are trying to build that community, build that following in the UK. And given our Indian origin and a big network back there as well. So what I'd say, and these are the two very diverse markets, very different lifestyles and food habits. So you're trying to build this in UK and in India. Small steps, baby steps, and, and then depending how it goes, we will see where to go next.

Yeah. Well, and you mentioned that your wife is the health brain and you are known as the growth brain. So what does growth look like for a wellness movement versus a traditional consumer brand where you both have had backgrounds in and experience in? And where do you think those two worlds do intersect?

Well, the good thing, and then I'm leveraging on my corporate experience here as well. The good thing is in recent years, the two have started to overlap a lot more than if I rewind, say, 5, 7 years back. Lots of brands, lots of organizations I see now are genuinely starting to engage with the community and be more purpose-led than just product selling. So the intersection point, or the way I see it, is when I say we want to build a movement, we are not starting by saying I want to sell a product.

Mm-hmm.

And then sincerely, and the way we have gone about this is, as I said, so I am still doing other things as well. My wife, my partner, is also working still. So this is not a full-time venture, and we are deliberately not trying to put financial pressure on this straight away because that might compromise the purpose that we have defined. So our first intent is build that community, genuinely find few people who we can feel proud of, that yeah, that person feels we have helped them, and then use that understanding to further grow and build. We will down the line get to a business and a P&L. And hopefully that will be profitable. But that is down the line. And then on the other end, consumer brands start with, okay, I have a business to run and money to make. They grow, they get to a sustainable scale, and then they start to expand and engage. Yeah. So the starting point is two ends of the spectrum, so to say. But as I opened by saying, what I feel good about is that convergence is happening more and more. And more and more, particularly heritage brands, some of the biggest brands are coming more into the community and working with them rather than talking to them.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of articles recently about brands like Doritos and Frito-Lays and other brands like that taking some of their products off the shelves, which are full of dyes, which are products that are a little bit worse than the other versions of their products, I guess you could say. And I think that's really important. And I also appreciate that we're starting to see more influence from other countries because we know that Europe has more stringent policies as to what colors you can put into your food that are not natural, right? Or ingredients. And I think that is starting to carry over in the United States. Which is really lovely. So we see what you're saying in action, and that's a case of brands doing things, perhaps course correcting or coming back to the right, quote, way of doing things. You are taking the time to very intentionally build your brand and be really deliberate and smart each piece of the puzzle, right? Each step along the way so that you're not going to have some of these perhaps brand mistakes or hiccups that larger brands can have. You also, besides the corporate experience and building this yourself, you serve on different boards, as I said earlier, for different food and wellness startups. What is a common mistake that you see founders make when it comes to their brands?

In the startup world, Anika, and that's something I have observed across, right? So, and which is true to some extent with big companies and big brands as well. But applies more in the startup ecosystem. Now, what is the reason to start a business from scratch? And many a times I have seen in my experiences, the reason is either— and it's happening a lot in the tech world as well, right? You have a product which is a tech breakthrough or unique new solution that you have developed. Or if I go into consumer goods, then some new ingredient or some new claim that has become viable because of regulation change or because of, because of the mix. It then moves on to figuring out who do I want to sell to and how do I sell it to that person. And then that's something in my advisory roles I always push back on that. Yes, it's okay to start with a product idea and then great to have it. But the next step, the immediate next step needs to be what I like to say, who, what, and why. And that needs to be really thought through, right? Because I might have a great product and a great idea. I need to be clear on who am I going to serve, what value will I deliver to them, and why will they choose me. Not being able to think through all three of these, the who, what, and why, is the challenge I see a lot in the startup world. Whether it's B2C or B2B, I apply and just the who changes, right? If it's consumer or businesses or whatever. But that is, that is the rigor that I try to drive in my advisory roles.

Yeah, it baffles me that people wouldn't start with that work to begin with because you might think something is amazing, but if you don't have an audience and you don't have people who actually have a need for that and it's going to offer them a solution that will help them, whether it's in health, right? Help them be more efficient at their job or whatever the case may be. It, it's just baffling. And as somebody in marketing and digital marketing and who's worked in publicity so many times, I've had clients who have a business, they've already established it, but then we have to go back and do the work of really understanding and honing in on their mission, vision, values, positioning, key markets, all of that research that they skipped over.

Yeah. And to be fair for them, and I've been part of that space in my career as well, right? When you have a great idea, when you have a great product, it's fair to get passionate about it. And it's fair to just want to run with it. But it's wiser, in my view, to pause and think of the who, what, and why.

Yeah. Turning a little bit to your neuromindfulness, right? You're a certified neuromindfulness practitioner, which honestly is something I haven't heard of. I know people in spaces who do a lot of mindfulness work, who mindset, who work with different parts of the brain and resetting. So can you talk a little bit about what that means and how does that help you when you're leading organizations, including your own?

Well, the reason I got into this, the reason of the interest is dating back to my growing up days back in India, where I had early exposure to yoga. And you know, within yoga there is element of pranayama and meditation. So I had early exposure even during my teen years into that space. And even at that age, I used to find it very useful. And then left India, grew away from it. But I was always interested in that space. What triggered it again for me to get back into it, Anika, was during my work and corporate work. And I have been in global roles for the last 12, 13 years. So a lot of travel, fair degree of stress, I would say, fair degree of difficult situation management because of travel. Food habits are disturbed, sleep is disturbed, so on. So there was a moment where I felt, no, I need to find my grounding and I need to figure out why I do what I do, why I react the way I react, why I get stressed about certain situations and why I should, how I should handle it. So the reason I got into this was to figure out my own life and manage my own stress and my own environment. Once I got into it and I got some insights and how the neural system works, how people behave, why they do what they do, and what are the default response systems in our body and mind, and how it affects, I was able to apply some of it into my own life and my own habits. I have led teams, I have worked with very diverse set of people as well. And then I started to see those patterns in people I was working closely with. And I started to see, or rather understand deeply, some reactions which on the face of it seem like weird, maybe, and upsetting or annoying or irritating at times. But then once you understand that, you start to see deeper and you start to connect the dots and see why a person is reacting, behaving in a certain way. That's when I did further deep dive and started to do further degree and study on becoming a coach around it and senior practitioner around it. And then over time, I started to apply it. So I don't use it professionally. It's not like a professional service that I get into around mindfulness and coaching, but I use it for my own environment, my teams, people I work with. Wherever I see the openness, I actually I've changed companies, I've changed roles, new teams. I use these fundamentals to build trust. I use these fundamentals to manage stressful situations and help people manage stressful situations. And also to navigate through different cultures. Being in international environment and in global roles, it's, it's normal human tendency. As an Indian, I might have a different response to the same thing versus you. And being able to understand that and why you or I react the way we do really helps navigate through that. I found it really useful since then in my professional life and personal life as well. So I stick to it. Yeah.

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Wonderful. I'm multicultural, so I'm actually Thai and Lao on my mom's side. So I have that culture, I have the American culture, and then I have Zen practice, which has helped me when I'm in those stressful situations as well, to take a step back and reflect. And it just changes. The way that you think, the way that you look at the world, the attitude that you'll bring to a situation that could be quite complex, as you said, dealing with people from all over in these organizational roles that you have. So I applaud you for figuring out how to weave that into your leadership style.

Thank you so much, Anika Jackson Jackson, and lovely to hear you're from multiple cultural background as well.

Yeah.

And, and you are into Zen as well?

Yes, I am a Buddhist, Theravada Buddhist, but I work with a former Zen monk and have gone through, you know, different training modalities just to recenter and be, be fully myself. And I think those are all important things. Anyway, we can figure out how to be healthier with our emotions, with our mind, with our spirit, with our bodies, as you have also been. Learning and going through and figuring out how to bring these modalities to people in, in different ways.

That's amazing. Probably I need to catch you for another follow-up conversation on this topic then.

Happy to. So I imagine this has also helped you and your teams get out of being reactive all the time. But when people are going back to your startup experience and even your own brand, oftentimes we feel like we're reacting. We know what we want to do. We maybe start, but then it's a, sometimes becomes about survival. Maybe we made, we did a wrong step in one part of the process. So what do we need to think about strategically to make sure that we don't get into that fight or flight mode as entrepreneurs, that we stay a path and don't start panicking and becoming overtly reactive?

It does happen a lot, uh, Anika Jackson Jackson, and, and not only in the entrepreneurial space, but even in corporate environment. And I'm sure you would have seen that as well. Quarterly target is behind and you need to deliver the quarter's target and you need to find a way to do that. Now, my experience and my— the way I have always approached it is consciously take a few sidesteps to tide over the crisis. Do not change your purpose. Do not change what the reason you exist for. The way I like to approach it is I acknowledge that I have a specific short-term problem, and I might need to do a few things which are not necessarily my guiding light, but I'm going to do them because I want to stay on course for my North Star, and not doing them might derail me from my North Star. Then it becomes reasonable to be able to do that. How far you go in those exceptions and what kind of exceptions you make really is a value call that people need to assess and take. And at times there might be cases where that, okay, I have to take the hit and it's too much of a stretch to make the exception or to do XYZ. But in many cases, in my experiences, within reasonable stretch, it's possible to find solutions and find ways to overcome the short-term problem. Now, in the entrepreneurial world, in the startup system, it is more challenging because in many cases It's all about survival, right? And particularly when the company that I start, if that is my means of livelihood as well, I have to grow, I have to make profit, I have to make money. That's the guiding light. Now, the way I have approached it is to keep, try and keep that to the minimum and then do the right things faster, not do the wrong things. That's something that I have always believed in is Pushing hard doesn't solve the problem quickly, rather could compound the problem or break the fundamentals. Yeah, but can I find ways to do the right thing but do them faster?

And how do you differentiate sometimes between— I mean, I know you mentioned values, and I do think that's a big part of it, is do you go with this object that will help you reach maybe your overall goals of being financially stable starting to get sales in, but the person you're selling to or the person that you're taking money from isn't necessarily the road you want to go down versus staying in your values. And maybe it is a slower road and you, you aren't able to get to that, to figure out how to make it move more quickly.

I, I'll give you a practical example from our own business, right? So I said my partner is also practicing consultant on nutrition and health. She does work full-time as well. So she does this only on weekends. So there's two parts to it at a very small scale. But to make the point, how do you assure revenue? There are two ways. She gets X number of inquiries and those are like just to understand what is the problem. Can I really help you or not? One approach could be I try to monetize every inquiry I get, and that way you can maximize revenue. The other is if I get 10 inquiries and I have 10 initial calls and 4 of them I realize that, okay, I cannot help you, so I would rather tell you, okay, go to somebody else or do XY something else. Being able to take that call is, is the right thing to do. Now still, if I have financial pressure, I would try to get more inquiries in so that I can still say politely decline where I feel I cannot help rather than accepting every inquiry even and trying to just make the money and give advice even though I know that I cannot genuinely help the person.

Yeah.

So a small example, but that is what I mean by trying to do more of the right thing rather than leveraging every revenue opportunity. Yeah.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. And that's— I love that example. So thank you for sharing that with us. Wellness and health. As we mentioned at the very beginning, we hear a lot about this nowadays. We see big brands trying to showcase the things they're doing that will be healthier for everybody. I have a lot of guests that I speak to. I see a lot of people in my life practicing different modalities. So the space can be fairly saturated. How do you make sure that Healthfirst, the things that you're putting into the world, aren't just going to go off of trends and that you are creating a brand that really becomes recognized for the intentionality and the honesty and transparency and the community that you're putting into it?

Yeah, and, and you're right, Anika, there's the health and wellness space is really booming and that's That's the great part. That's the good part. And that, that does represent rising consciousness around it and rising, increasing effort being made to do something around it. Now, not everyone will survive, and we could be one of them who don't survive, and I completely acknowledge that. But where I see a bit of a gap still, and particularly if I talk of, I won't name any brands, But if I talk of a lot of tech-powered health services or platforms or appliances, apps which are focused on measurement, various kinds of measurements, body measurements, energy measurements, etc., etc., etc. Is measurement solving a problem? You might tell me how many calories I'm burning in a day or how many calories I'm eating, etc., etc. And you might give me a means to track that, but tracking that and knowing that data, is that going to solve my problem? Not necessarily.

Yeah.

So I always prefer to think that, okay, do I really solve a problem for you, or am I just leveraging a trend which is enabled by technology or enabled by social media becoming very popular? In the health supplement space, I see a lot of traction for ingredients that become famous. It was mushrooms a few years back. There will be something else coming up soon. And then lots of brands come up talking about that ingredient, not realizing, particularly— and if I take my own example, somebody with long-term type 2 diabetes needs to be very careful about interactions. If I just go after a trend and take, say, an X ingredient, I'm taking some other medication I'm doing few other things, how do they interact together? And is it safe for me to take that supplement though it might be natural, etc., etc. So for me, it's important to stay rooted to, am I genuinely helping somebody? And not with just one little part of it, but trying to give them the full picture and be honest that, can I help you? I cannot help you. I think that is, players who focus on that, they lost. Will stand the course.

Yeah, I think so too. I mean, I've tried different apps that track how many steps or how many glasses of water, track your calories, track your sleep, but don't necessarily, maybe they offer a few suggestions, but not anything that's going to help me sleep longer, not wake up in the middle of the night, right? Without perhaps medication, but the app that tracks the sleep is just telling you how many hours of a deficit you have. It's not giving you that other piece of information, right? Or, okay, you should drink this many glasses of water, here's the calories, but maybe counting those calories in that way isn't what's right for your body and for your health situation. So, your point is very well taken.

I have a personal point of view on this as well, Anika, right, on all these measurement apps enabled by technology, right? There's a tendency— I'm part of that as well, right? So I'm not at all putting the blame out there, but our body signals everything that happens with us. And when we start to rely too much on technology to give us data of measurement, we start to lose that sensitivity to body signals. And that's, in our personal point of view, that's not a good thing to lose, right? The body will tell me if I'm short of sleep. I'll feel it. And if I start to rely on data to tell me that I'm short of sleep, I might lose that sensitivity.

That's a really good point. Where do you see Healthfirst in 5 years?

Well, I'll say something philosophical around it, right? What will delight us first is to have impacted positively a sizable number of people. And if I can find another X number of people, and I will deliberately not name the figure right now, But if I am able to find X number of people who have had long-term underlying health condition, type 2 diabetes, blood pressure, anything, and have managed to rebalance their medication, lifestyle, and other alternate ways and reduced their dependence on medication. So in, in few years' time, if we can say that, okay, we have impacted X number of people this way and positively, that will greatly delight us. And I do believe that if we are able to do that, the business will succeed.

I hope to bring you back on when you have launched more and you can tell us that number. I do think metrics like that are really good to measure by, just to see, did I help these people? Did I make a real impact in their lives? And then maybe realize that that goal wasn't the goal you needed. Maybe it was more people that you actually ended up helping. Maybe it was less people but with even deeper assistance. So that'll be a fun conversation to have when—

I'm looking forward to get to that number, something that we can feel proud of rather quickly. But it's a slow burn, Anika, to be fair, and that's why I'm avoiding quoting a number right now, right?

Yeah.

It's a slow burn. It's a slow burn. We have not even fully launched all the services and platforms that we intend to.

So for those who are listening, many of whom are based in the United States.

Yeah.

Can they still follow the journey? Can they still register on a website that they are interested in getting information?

On HealthWorx?

Yes.

Yes, of course. I mean, we are live now. Our website is live, healthworx.uk. We are also live with our Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. Pages. I'm very much present myself on LinkedIn as well. So, and then I do call myself co-founder and director of HealthWorks now on our page. And then we are starting to build that. And I'm soon almost in final stages to start a bit of social media presence as well. It's not been really active so far, but I'd love, or rather very, very delightful, welcome people to join us and follow us on our social media handles and then start to share more content for them to really learn from.

Yeah, fantastic. Well, we will link in the show notes so that people know how to follow the Health First journey and to reach out to you if they have questions. Maybe somebody who's listening needs an advisor, not that you want to add more to your plate, but I, I think this has been really valuable to really think through those steps we need to take. And even if somebody's been in business for a long time, it's always good to go back and take another look, refresh. And this is a message that it has been really prevalent on the podcast lately is we all need to take that time to take care of ourselves, take care of our health. If we don't do it for ourselves, no one is doing it for us. And if we don't have it for ourselves, we can't do as much for our community, for our families. So Shantanu, thank you so much for being on the show today. Coming in all the way from the UK. Do you have a final thought, poem, verse, motto, words of wisdom that you'd like to share?

Well, thank you so much for having me on the show, Anika Jackson Jackson. It's a pleasure to be joining this show with you. Words of wisdom, thought I'd like to leave for people is look after yourself. And yes, I know it's Probably a cliché to say that, but I think in the current times and the way the environment is evolving, given the pressures around work and economy, etc., I think it's really important to prioritize health and well-being. And within that situation, do our best to really look after ourselves.

Yeah, fantastic. I feel very at peace after this conversation. So thank you for bringing that energy to the show. Hopefully everybody else who's listening or watching this episode feels the same. Be sure to connect, follow Health First, connect with Shantanu on LinkedIn, and leave us a rating review. Share this episode if you liked it so that more people can discover Your Brand Amplified. I'll be back again in a few days with another amazing guest to share their story and their journey with you. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of Your Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out at yourbrandamplified.com.

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