New Longevity Model:Stem Cells, Deep Diagnostics & Reversing Metabolic Dysfunction With Jim Donnelly

There's a big problem in the health space, health category, and it's that because of the complexity, people tend to specialize in one piece of it. And when you specialize in one piece of it, things get very disaggregated. They're not coordinated, and you don't get the benefit of doing all the right things together in a, in a coordinated fashion. And that's when the real magic happens. And so when I started Humanott, I went out and raised money, and my investors' first question was always, are you sure you're not trying to do too much? This seems very complex. And my response to them was always the same. Well, riddle me what you would take out. Would you remove nutrition? Would you remove movement? Would you remove sleep? Would you pull out hormones, stem cells? I mean, you pick what you would pull out because once you start pulling pieces out, you eliminate the magic of having it all coordinated together.

Hey there, I'm Claudia von Boeselager, a former investment banker turned entrepreneur, longevity coach, biohacker, and mother of two. Once burnt out and overwhelmed with chronic health issues, I've transformed my life and helped thousands of people do the same. I've even reduced my biological age by 17 years. Yes, I'm 26 again. Now I'm here to share the tools, strategies, and inspiration to help you live healthier, happier, and longer. On this podcast, I interview world-leading experts in health, biohacking, mindset, and performance, and share personal stories and learnings to bring you the latest insights and tips. Think of this as your go-to space for real talk about all things health and optimizing your life. Ready to unlock your best self? Let's dive in. This is the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast.

My guest today is Jim Donnelly, founder and CEO of Humanaut Health, a pioneering clinic redefining health optimization and longevity medicine. Humanaut helps its members live with more joy, vitality, and confidence, and with less disease, discomfort, and uncertainty as they age. In a fragmented longevity market, the clinic stands out by offering a truly holistic, whole-person experience that integrates advanced medical assessment, personalized longevity protocols, and continuous behavioral support through accessible membership models.

The results?

A transformative approach that enhances energy, sexual vitality, strength, and mobility, helping people perform and feel at their best across every stage of life. Before founding Humanaut, Jim co-founded Restore Hyper Wellness, which grew to over 225 locations nationwide and earned accolades such as Inc. 5000's fastest growing companies in Texas, number 27, and Fortune's top workplaces in healthcare and biopharma, number 17. As serial entrepreneur, Jim also co-founded igoyougo.com, a Webby Award-winning travel platform later acquired by Sabre Holdings Travelocity. And has developed luxury condos, spas, and health clubs, including the Charlotte Athletic Club, experiences that ultimately inspired the creation of Humanaut Health.

Please enjoy today's conversation.

Jumping in quickly, it's Claudia von Boeselager. I absolutely love bringing you these conversations for free each week, and I can do that thanks to the generous support of our sponsors. These are brands I've personally vetted and believe in, and I think you'll love them too. Supporting them means you're also supporting the show and your own longevity journey. Thanks for supporting them. Now here's today's sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Carole Bike. Did you know that one of the strongest predictors of how long and how well you live is your VO2 max? It's a key indicator of your cardiovascular fitness. The challenge is VO2 max naturally declines by about 10% every decade after age 30. As someone who's always looking for the most efficient ways to optimize my health and longevity, I knew I needed something that fit into my busy schedule. That's where CAROL bike comes in. Backed by published research, this isn't just another stationary bike. CAROL uses AI-powered reduced exertion HIIT, or re-HIIT, to deliver the same cardio benefits as a 45-minute jog in under 5 minutes—just 2 short sprints. Studies show CAROL can improve your VO2 max by 12% in just 8 weeks, making you up to 10 years fitter. It's truly a game changer. If you want to future-proof your health and longevity without spending hours in the gym, check out carolbike.com/claudia for a $300 discount just for you, dear audience. That's carolbike.com/claudia. This episode is brought to you by Pendulum. If you've been listening to this podcast, you'll know that longevity isn't about quick fixes. It's about supporting your body at the root. And one of the biggest realizations I've had from talking with experts is that so many foundational systems, from your energy and metabolism to immune health and even mood, all start in your gut. That changed the way I approached my own health, and it's exactly why I'm such a fan of Pendulum. They're a science-driven company pioneering a whole new approach to gut health. In fact, Pendulum is the first company to bring live akromancia to market. This is a game changer. I recently started taking their Metabolic Daily, and I can tell you I'm already noticing a real difference. My digestion feels smoother, I have more consistent energy, and I love knowing that I'm supporting my gut at such a foundational level. For me, this is a cornerstone of longevity. If you're serious about your health and lifestyle, this is where to start, because when you support your gut, you support your entire body. And for you, dear audience, get 20% off your first Pendulum membership order by heading over to pendulumlife.com/claudia. That's pendulumlife.com/claudia20s. The discount is automatically applied at checkout.

Welcome to the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast, Jim. It's such an honor and pleasure to have you with us today.

It's my pleasure. I can't wait. And I've been looking forward to this for weeks.

So Jim, I love that your first company involved diving for golf balls among alligators and That's probably the boldest entrepreneurial origin story I've heard yet. Yeah.

You know, when you're in a small town, you know, you have a slightly different perspective on what's possible. Back in, this is the early '90s, 1990s, you know, you did stuff that was a little less tech and interesting. And anyway, I saw this guy coming out of a golf ball water hazard and he had a bunch of golf balls in this kind of weird bag around his neck. And he was just sort of this sort of like really goofy redneck dude. And, um, I was like, man, I think we could turn this into a business. And we did. I did a business plan competition while I was at business school. We went up against the Harvards and Stanford kids and we kept beating them again and again. And my business school professor put some money in, um, had another guy put some money in and, uh, Next thing you know, I'm up to my neck in, you know, water and golf ball water hazards all over Florida and South Georgia. And the problem is that if you're in that temperature range, there's always gonna be snakes and alligators. And so, you know, we would take our divers that we trained to the Jekyll Island, which is a wildlife preserve. It's a great beach and golf course place, but it's a wildlife preserve. Couldn't remove the alligators. And the reason we took people there is because we wanted to take 'em to the scariest first to train, place to train. And the idea was if I would do it as the founder of the company, then it must be okay. And so I'd train these guys and we'd go to a water hazard. There'd be 20 alligators on the bank and I'd get in and alligators would get in. And it's really crazy what you can get used to if you do it enough. And they don't bother you. No. Stay away from the water hazards during mating season. So certain times of the year, if there's a really big one, you kind of go up a little harder, obviously. But no, never. I was really bothered by an alligator. I had a couple of divers that had different ways of approaching. One would always go try to find them and run at them to prove he was the boss. I never really thought that was a funny or a particularly smart approach, but you know, when you're an entrepreneur, there are snakes and alligators in every business. You know, these were literal snakes and alligators, but every business has these things that are scary, these things that if you don't sort of think about them the right way can kind of intimidate you. And I thought it was a good metaphor for an entrepreneur at a young age. Yeah, 100%.

And I wanted to ask you, what did you learn from that early hustle that shaped how you went on to build companies today?

Well, I think you do have to roll up your sleeves and do the dirty work sometimes. People have to know that you're willing and able to, you know, jump in and do hard stuff and do do the, like I said, the dirty work, just like you're asking them to do. I think that's a big thing. Obviously leading by example is sort of a corollary to that. And also I think it's having a deep understanding of the basic functions of a company. Business is recovering golf balls. You better have a pretty good knowledge of how to do that. And I think putting yourself in that position obviously makes you a better leader, but also it helps you find a better way. And so what we started doing rather than diving is we created these sort of big roller devices that would go work off the power takeoff of a tractor and they'd roll across the bottom of the water hazards and the balls would get caught between the discs that were about 5 feet high and they were the perfect tensile strength and you'd pull the discs up on the bank and you'd pick the balls out of the, out of the thing. So, you know, being in the water, you have time to think about a better way to do things. And so, I think when entrepreneurs put themselves in the middle of the key processes, they, they're better able to find a better way. Yeah.

And thinking outside the box as well. And Jim, you've launched and scaled multiple ventures across travel, hospitality, and health. What first drew you to the longevity and wellness space?

Yeah, I mean, my philosophy in life has always been to do businesses that I was passionate about. I mean, I certainly wasn't passionate about being in water with snakes and alligators, but I, I did love playing golf and it was something I did with my dad growing up. And so, you know, I got to be on some of the best golf courses in the world because of that business. And then as I got older, you know, your, your interests changed. You know, I did I Go, You Go as a former military brat who lived all over the world, who was born in Germany. Travel was sort of an essential part of my identity. And so that, that made a lot of sense. And I woke up about 10 years ago and that's why I did Restore. I was in my forties at the time and and I was starting to feel my age. I was starting to have some different kinds of pains, my joints. And it just made sense to want to feel better and perform better. And that's why I did Restore, bring all these things under one roof, like cryotherapy and red light and hyperbaric and IVs. And then you get a little older and things happen. And for me, a couple of really big things happened. Number one, Restore got really big, you know, 250 locations around the country. So you're helping people at scale, you're helping millions of people, you're seeing great results, and you realize that if you do something right and you create scale, you can help a whole bunch of people. But you also, you know, at that time, you know, a couple of other things happened. Number one, my dad died of cancer and, you know, Restore went a certain amount of the way, but it didn't go all the way. It was kind of like the— I always say it was kind of like the elementary school level. Everyone should be doing some of these things like heat and light and pressure, et cetera, et cetera. But it's not the true medical part of longevity and health optimization. So I just had this nagging feeling that I needed to take things to the next level. Um, and then when my dad died of cancer and I, there was nothing I could do about it and nothing I could have done to prevent it, um, you know, it kind of validated that. And the idea was Humane would, wouldn't have cured his cancer, but we would've caught it sooner. We would've caught it at stage 1 instead of the later stages. For his particular type of cancer, you have to catch it early. So, you know, Humane has its first priority priority is do really deep diagnostics and make sure people aren't in a really bad spot around the four kind of apocalyptic things: neurodegenerative issues, heart issues, metabolic issues, and obviously cancer. And then I got run over by a drunk driver. So there was a drunk driver, 65 miles per hour through a red light. I was 65 through a green light. And I was lucky to live, number one. I have, you know, I'm in Texas. I had a big truck that saved me, but I was pretty damaged. My neck was destroyed. My chest, my shoulders, my upper body was kind of a mess. And for almost a year, it was hard to sleep. It was hard to work out. It was hard to get comfortable. And I had access to everything. I had access to top medical experts, top physical therapists, top orthopedic folks. And then, and no one could really fix it until I found a particular stem cell doctor. Stem cells completely transformed my, my dynamic. I, I did stem cells in my neck and other parts of my body. And lo and behold, I was not only back, I in some ways was better. My knees felt like my 30-year-old knees. My Achilles tendon had been sore for 25 years and no longer sore. My neck, I haven't felt a twinge in my neck now for going on 4 years. And so that inspired me. I knew how to scale a business. There was no, what I would call longevity business or health optimization business at scale. And so I said, listen, I'm going to take this on. And if we can do this right, imagine the societal impact. Impact. So it's not just that we help people, but when you're helping people add 20 good years of living, i.e., 20 years of healthspan to their life, you're helping them at a time when they're at their height of power. They have their most influence, they have the most wisdom, they have their most financial resources. So you add 20 years to folks at the end of their life, you are going to have exponentially more impact than if you help people when they're, when they're younger. And that was just a really cool mission. That I thought was worth taking on.

Well, thank you for doing what you're doing because the world needs it. And not many would focus on scaling a longevity clinic because of the complexity. We were just talking before offline about that as well, that many people don't even know what they don't know when they're trying to do it. Can you elaborate a bit on the complexity of what you're trying to do in terms of really getting to root cause and having people understand their health to be able to add those 10, 20 years on to healthspan, onto their lives. Yeah.

You know, there's a big problem in the health space, health category, and it's that because of the complexity, people tend to specialize in one piece of it. And when you specialize in one piece of it, things get very disaggregated. They're not coordinated and you don't get the benefit of doing all the right things together in a, in a coordinated fashion. And that's when the real magic happens. And so when I started Humanaut, I went out and raised money and my investor's first question was always, are you sure you're not trying to do too much? This seems very complex. And my response to them was always the same. Well, riddle me what you would take out. Would you remove nutrition? Would you remove movement? Would you remove sleep? Would you pull out hormones, stem cells? I mean, you pick what you would pull out because once you start pulling pieces out, you eliminate the magic of having it all coordinated together. And so I had very strong conviction that it needed to be complex. It needed to include all the foundational parts of, of, of making people healthy. It needed to include this very rich toolkit that included some stuff that included, you know, think peptides, hormones, stem cells, medications. It included, you know, regenerative medicine, all of these things done in a coordinated fashion, driven by data and a large number of diagnostics, felt like the only way to do it. And I think we've kind of seen that we were right. Number one, we've tackled the complexity and have a really lovely offering. We've built a tech stack that enables a lot of the things that needs to happen from both a clinician perspective and a consumer perspective. We've built some things that I think are more engaging and fun when it comes to being a client of Humanaut versus a client of other folks. And, you know, we're to the point now where we're about to start guaranteeing success. We're literally starting in the new year. We will guarantee our clients that you will get the health outcomes that you want. Now, we don't say that without there being some conditions to that. So if you want those guarantees, number one, you got to sign the Humanaut Pledge. You got to pledge to live like a Humanaut, and there's 5 different principles around that. But it's things like you have to be very open to proactive preventative approaches. You have to be willing to adjust and make changes when you're not getting the results you want. You've got to understand that healthcare is not a solo journey. You know, there's, there's things like that. It's so, so nothing particularly controversial. It's all things that everyone that's, that's sort of in a smart intellectual person can say, yeah, of course I'm a human. And they make it sound really good. Yeah, yeah. And, and then probably just as importantly, or maybe more, is you have to sign our accountability protocol. So the accountability protocol very clearly lays out the things that you have to do on your part in order for us to give you a quote-unquote guarantee and your money back and things like that. And so what are some of those things? Um, you have to wear a wearable device. Well, of course, because our tech stack has a very sophisticated coaching platform, we're going to push you on movement and nutrition and sleep and those sort of things. And People lie. People downright lie. You say, hey, how did you move today? Oh, great. And you're like, no, you didn't.

Or they're delusional, Jim.

I found this as well.

People are convinced that they're super active and they've been sitting for 10 hours in the day.

You're like, how is that?

What wearables do you make them wear without branding?

It doesn't matter. We're wearable agnostic. We want you to wear the wearable that you're going to like and wear and it fits your fashion sense and all that. I wear an Oura ring, but there are many lovely wearables. Things like you have to check that at least. CGM?

Do you have to do that?

Yeah, of course. CGMs. You know, cuz once again, you're, you're looking at nutrition, you're looking at movement, you're looking at sleep, you're looking at stress levels and stress management. You're looking at neurodegenerative and cognitive health. And so those things have to be tracked. And, and, and so the way it works is that you come in and you get all these diagnostics, 150+ blood panels, up to 75 other bespoke diagnostics. We know everything about you, gut health, brain health, movement analysis, exoscans, MRIs. And then we take all that data, we run it through our, you know, sort of technology engine and our AI platform. We get results. We then have a very experienced clinical team that goes through those things and make sure that it's right. And there are no mistakes and it's perfect for you as an individual. And then we set up a care plan in place. We have what we call a Focus 3. So we're focused on the top 3 issues that are going to make the biggest impact. And then every quarter we adjust it and make sure we're making progress. And sometimes things fall out. Sometimes new things get added. You know, health is a constant journey, but you know, once again, you've signed up to do certain things. You've signed up for us to track you and do that. You sign up to things like you have to hit 80% of your goals. And so 80% of the time you've got to sleep according to what we agreed to. 80% of the time you've got to move according to how we We come up with a plan. 80% of the time you've got to eat right. And we don't leave it to chance. We check it. We work. By the way, we're not trying to catch you. We're not trying to beat you down. It's just that— The opposite. It's the opposite.

It's trying to lift them up, right? Yeah.

We're lifting you up. We're encouraging you. It's very positive. We give you a lot of agency. We give you a lot of information so that you're— an example would be people come to us sometimes and they'll say, listen, I want to have great results, but I don't want to use pharmaceuticals. And so use all the other stuff. It's like, great, you know, other people come to us and say, I don't care. I just want good results. Everything's on the table. Those both, we can work with both of those. They're different approaches, but we want people to have some agency and to be a part of the decision. 'Cause in healthcare, traditionally, people are not given enough information. There is no sort of back and forth. It's very one-directional and it's just not a great way to do it. It's no fun too. Yeah.. And so we do try to make this fun. And there's other things in the accountability protocol, but when you do that, we get amazing results and we cite some results. So 86% of our clients that come to us with metabolic dysfunction, they're either pre-diabetic or worse. Within 6 months, less than 6 months, 86% of them show no signs of metabolic dysfunction. And so if you look at the traditional metrics, it's 45% of people in 2 years can can achieve that. And so what we say is we're twice as effective and 4 times faster. And so amazing people, people 4 times faster, like a year and a half faster is massive in terms of impact it has on a human being.

Yeah. And not degrading and suffering and all the extra expense and cost as well. So for someone listening, Jim, that might be thinking this sounds too good to be true, or this is only for the elite or peak performers. What would you tell them?

Well, I mean, I wrote a book about a lot of the stuff we did at Restore, and it was The Power of Right Away Wellness. And the publisher, I think, in a way made a mistake. He made us call the book Restore: The Power of Right Away Wellness. And the thing that I didn't like about that is it almost felt like it was going to be a propaganda book for all the money you had to spend at Restore. And one of the premises of that book was actually a lot of the stuff that you do is actually free. You know, like moving can be free, sleeping well can be free. And so we, we I absolutely lead with, let's do as much as we can without spending money. Then let's figure out where you are in terms of budget. Budget is more than money, but budget is money. Budget is time. Budget is cognitive bandwidth that you're willing to commit. And so, all right, we'll figure out your budget. And then at Humanaut, I very much have a mission of democratizing health optimization. And we have to use the word longevity for, and I'll talk about that in a second, but, but we really think of ourselves as health optimization. So depending on where you're at, we'll slot you into different membership levels. Those membership levels are very affordable on the lower end and obviously more elite on the high end.

Can you share just so people get a feeling of what that is?

Yeah. So on the lower end, it's $225 a month. You get, you know, absolutely more diagnostics than you would get in virtually any other thing out there. You get incredible guidance and we do all kinds of things to help you change your behavior so that you're effective. At the highest end, it's concierge medicine. It's a 5-person care team. That's $40,000 a year. By the way, sounds incredibly expensive, but those same— that same program has traditionally been over $100,000 a year. And so even at that level, yeah, I've seen it as much as $250,000.

$250,000 exactly in New York. Yeah.

Peter Attia was just on 60 Minutes talking about a $250,000 a year program. Now, listen, you're paying for a name. There, you're not paying for a better program. That same $250,000 program actually does less than our $40,000 program, but it's because we've set out to scale it. We've created different things that support it. We have this larger ecosystem of support and help. We've scaled things before. And so no offense to, you know, Peter Attia and what he's doing. We've actually scaled a business nationally and we know what it takes. And so we very much want to have a program that's the best in the world. And, and I will say the thing that's a little different about us is that we do all of the traditional medicine stuff. We have doctors that have lived and grown and learned in that world, but we also are very comfortable with the functional medicine approach, which is get to the root cause. And so I will say some of those other programs out there, they're kind of wed to the traditional side only. And so they're not going to go as deep into some of the other things like gut health, et cetera, et cetera, that we do. I, I will say those programs are north stars for us. We look at them, we believe many of the same things, but I do think we go further and have more tools in the toolkit because we are open to both the traditional and the functional medicine approaches to things. I agree with that. And by the way, there's, there's, there's different levels in between those two levels. Those are, those are two sides of the spectrum. There are things between that, that I think are quite lovely. Yeah.

Yeah. That's important to mention too. Go ahead.

No, that's it. I definitely don't want to be perceived as knocking any other program or knocking, certainly knocking a guy like Peter Attia. Obviously he's, the things he's done to bring awareness to this, this whole dynamic and the proactive approach. I'm a huge fan, but I also am, am very cognizant of what it takes to build a real business, scale a real business. And at some point I want to bring this to the masses. I love our clients. I love them at all levels, but I will not be happy until a schoolteacher can do regenerative medicine and afford it. A fireman can, you know, really lean into health optimization. And by the way, a rich developer and all these other— everybody. And I think we have very much said to people that, you know, I think we are uniquely qualified to do the full spectrum of people because once again, we've done it. When we would launch a Restore, we were just as happy to launch one in Wichita, Kansas as Manhattan and New York. New York, and they did really well. And I think that's actually harder than people think. And you've seen it in the longevity business. There's so many people that have this elitist, like, coastal sort of approach to things. And, you know, you have a lovely European accent, and so you're going to get a lot of those sorts of things. And it's like, sometimes, you know, you don't have to go be so fancy for the person in New York City and for the person in Wichita. You know, it's— there's certain things everybody likes a positive attitude. Everyone likes a good smile at the front desk. Everyone likes you to sort of know what's going on in their life. And those are kind of like core values for us that make this a lot more relatable outside of this sort of elite, you know, you know, these, these are places, by the way, I've all lived and traveled to. I love them. You know, I, I do come from sort of middle America and that'll always be important to me.

How do you think we can make this evidence-based health optimization accessible at scale without diluting quality and ethics? It's so hard typically to find the right people to make sure everyone's on the same boat in terms of understanding. There's so much information to understand. So how, in your view, is that scalable?

Well, first of all, like to scale it is part of the solution. It's like we're talking in the theoretical for most of the things in the quote unquote health optimization longevity. So things, no one No one has scaled it. And so because no one has scaled it, there is no sort of case study around how will we scale it. So number one, I think you have to be the right messenger and we are the right messenger in that no one can say that we haven't scaled something complex in the health and wellness business. When you do 250 businesses, you know, 250 locations at Restore, which is a medical business across 40 states in the United States, that's like 40 nations because every state has different regulations. Like you have to be the messenger. That, that can say we've done it. And if you look at my team, we've actually scaled several concepts. And so number one, there's belief. Everyone believes that we can do it. So now that there's belief, they start to look at your approach and they say, all right, that is exactly how I've always dreamed of practicing medicine. And so now you're kind of the cool kid on the block. It's like, I want to go work with the cool kids, you know? And, and, and I always say, I don't need 10,000 doctors. I need 100. So when you are coming from a place of, of a track record and pedigree that has this sort of cool thing that everyone wants to be a part of, it's actually quite easy to scale the number one hardest thing, which is the human resource. Then you have to be very, very comfortable building an appropriate tech stack, you know, and, and if you, you can't do that, and once again, if you haven't done that, it's really hard. And I say all the time, a lot of these businesses suffer from one of two problems. They're either too strong on the strong enough on the medical side, or it's a bunch of doctors that are incredibly strong on the clinical side, but they have no idea how to build a business. And getting that balance right is sort of a third or fourth kind of requirement. And I think we've definitely done that in spades. And then you have to have a slightly different approach to it. You know, I use words like fun for how we approach medicine. Like no one talks about fun. I talk about things like a guarantee on my product. No one gives a guarantee in medicine. I talk about things like an accountability protocol and things like that. I mean, I think your typical doctor just kind of wakes up and is jaded and it's like, well, I told them, but they're not going to do it. You know? And so when you put all those things together, I think people believe and belief is the first step before action. And then, then you have to start validating it. We, you know, when we opened our Austin clinic, it had to work. Work. And it has worked. You know, we had another record month this month, both in terms of people that we touched, revenue that we generated. And by the way, it's intentional, it's that order. Like, people impacted is our number one metric. How much money we made is sort of a distant, like, well down the value chain in terms of metrics. Because the idea is that if you're actually helping people and making impact, the money will always follow. And so, you know, those are easy things to say, but to put them in practice, requires some, you know, some experience. I tell people all the time, I could not have started with Humanaut. I've, the last 25 years, I still own high-end health clubs. I've done a med spa. I did Restore, you know, Restore scaled nationally. And, you know, we worked with General Atlantic, one of the top private equity businesses in the world. And so going through all that kind of gets you ready to now take on something like Humanaut. But if I had tried to start Humanaut, I would've failed. And I think there are far too many people in this business that no business being in it. They are chasing the wrong metrics, i.e., they start with dollars, number one. Number two, they have not put in the 20, 25 years of, of work, of building experience on different facets of the business. They want to jump straight to longevity. Even that little nuance sometimes tells me everything I need to know. We don't talk about longevity. We're a health optimization clinic and we're a health optimization clinic for two reasons. Number one, that is actually the key to longevity, like making people better day after day after day in the presence is what ultimately leads to, leads to longevity, you know? And, and I think that's important for people to understand. And then longevity is just so far out there. It's like, you know, just trust me. I've got time. Yeah. Yeah. And it just doesn't work.

What are some of the lessons from Restore that you intentionally brought to Humanaut? And what are some things that you've decided to do differently? I'm curious.

Well, you know, Restore was such a rocket ship for,, you know, we, we got momentum quickly and we were growing so fast that I think we probably didn't focus on the tech stack soon enough. And it's really hard to catch up. So, you know, we had tech debt, you know, for the entire time that I was the CEO and catching up when you're adding so many locations and franchisees, that was really hard. So we did not repeat that mistake. We put a ton of effort into the tech stack from day one, made sure we had that. This whole notion of making it fun, we talked about that a lot at Restore. And once again, And making it fun is not just words. It's not just go train new employees. It's things like community and other things. So we've leaned into building that sooner at Humanot. I think that we learned some things around how we deployed locations. So for instance, we would never have a big city, let's say Houston, for example, where we had multiple operators in the same city. All of the Humanots in Houston are going to be owned and operated by the same operator. So there's never any conflict between different locations. And that sort of thing. You know, I could go on and on with the lessons, but suffice it to say there were many. And those were some things we adjusted and did differently. Some of the things that we leaned into was, you know, Restore, I say all the time, we started by saying you had to be a West Point grad to start a Restore location. And there were a few people that slipped in that weren't West Point grads. But for the most part, that was our strategy. Our head of franchise development was a West Point grad. My wife's a West Point grad. I respect having been an Army officer, that world. And So it was a construct that made us a little better. It's not that you have to be a West Point grad to be a really lovely people, but at scale, West Point does a few things. Number 1, it's the hardest school to get into in the country, so you gotta be smart as hell to go there. Number 2, it's an engineering school, so you're taught how to make things work. Number 3, they're teaching leadership at the highest level, i.e., teaching people to follow a playbook. And then number 4, just for fun, they make it hard as hell. And then when you graduate, let's go ship 'em off to the hardest assignments and have them get shot at, and those folks are not gonna worry about the day-to-day little things that happen in a business. It's like, I've seen way harder. And so they tend to be really fantastic partners. And if you build a business on a foundation of something like that, it can withstand lots of different little imperfections because your foundation's solid. So we have a version of that for Humanaut. It's a little different, but, well, There's a lot of different things that go into the filter, but needless to say, you have to be operationally excellent, not based on your words, but based on things that you've done. You have to have capital capabilities that are pretty exceptional. You have to be a human that fits through our filter. And, and, you know, once again, I'm not going to get too specific on this because it's, it's nuanced, but let's just say if you've been divorced 4 times, you're probably not going to own a Humanaut location. By the way, lots of people get divorced. But you know, when you get divorced 4 times, maybe, maybe there's something going on there that you might not be the best partner. And that is another big thing. We do try to get to making sure people aren't delusional and making sure they're self-aware. And self-awareness is all about, we're all different, but knowing what your strengths are and giving us a plan for how you're going to lean into your strengths and help, you know, figure out how you're going to address your weaknesses. And so if you can articulate those things, then, and we have ways of validating, like if someone says, this is my superpower, we're going to go find out behind the scenes, if you're actually, you know, hitting the mark.

This episode is brought to you by Juvent. If you or someone you love has been struggling with chronic pain, arthritis, poor bone health, neuropathy, circulation issues, or even something as frustrating as constipation, This could be a real game changer. The Juvent Micro Impact Platform, breakthrough technology trusted by leading doctors and supported by over $45 million in research. Stand on the vibrational plate for 20 minutes and its gentle micro impacts work at the cellular level to stimulate circulation, strengthen your bones, and ease pain naturally and effectively. And because I want you to experience this for yourself, Juvent is offering you $300 just head to juvent.com/claudia. That's juvent.com/claudia. And use the code Claudia to claim your discount today. This episode is brought to you by Kineon. When it comes to longevity, it's not just about living longer. It's about staying active, strong, and pain-free as you age. And that's exactly what the Kineon Move+ Pro helps you do. It's a wearable red light and laser therapy device that works at the cellular level to reduce inflammation, ease pain, and speed up recovery naturally. I love that it helps support your body's own repair process, not just mask symptoms. It's portable, easy to use at home, and trusted by athletes, biohackers, and health enthusiasts who want to keep moving and performing at their best. If you're ready to move from pain to possible, head over to kineon.io/claudia. That's kineon.io/claudia to get 10% off your Move+ Pro. This episode is brought to you by Calocurb. For those of us who struggle with food cravings, Calocurb is a natural, science-backed way to support appetite control and reduce cravings without relying on synthetic appetite suppressants.. Its key ingredient, amarasate, works with your body's natural GLP-1 response to help regulate hunger signals and promote a feeling of fullness. Clinically evaluated and made from botanical ingredients, Kalocurb encourages mindful eating and healthier portion control. Personally, I take it before going out for a meal or whenever I feel cravings creeping in. If you want to experience it for yourself, visit kalocurb.com/longevityandlifestyle.

And use code Claudia10 at checkout. You're true to your word exactly as well. And I think one thing that really comes across, Jim, is your ability to create an amazing culture. And I think that is quite unique. I'd love if you could share a little bit about— you talk about joy, you know, using specific words, right? What are some of your secret sauces in creating such strong cultures of high-performing individuals?

Yeah, I mean, first of all, I'd probably be a pretty crappy CEO of a company that didn't have a pretty big mission. I think that it has to start with that, that the things that we do are, I would say, good for society, good for humans, and when done well, are going to have a really big impact. And so I think that's an ingredient that's important for me because I find that it's much easier to attract really great people to something like that than to something that's all money-driven. Number 2, I think that I am pretty vulnerable. I I'm very clear with people, like who I am and what you're going to get with me. What's important to me, how I expect you to view the world. And I have some very foundational things like you got to get your priorities straight. And, you know, I say all the time, faith, family, friends, then you start to talk about where does work fit, but it isn't in one of those top 3, you know? And once again, what your faith is, I'm not telling you that. I'm just saying. Like, gotta have some kind of a moral compass and construct that keeps you going in the right direction. By the way, that's the most important thing. You know, if you're a guy that's like, man, I'm gonna work and, and, and, you know, work's the most important thing. It's like, come on, man. If you're a kind of guy that's going to miss your kids, like sporting events and, and, you know, like, come on. Now, now what I'm very quick to say is that does not mean that we don't work incredibly hard. That does not mean that there aren't times when work is the thing that you have to lean into, but it's like, get your priorities straight and it's selfish. Like, I think that happy people are better people and better employees. And, and, you know, I also, you know, say to people, you have to be interesting and you have to be interested. And so once again, you bring a bunch of interesting people together that are really smart and mission-driven. That's a way better place to work. And then interested means that there is something in your life that you have leaned into that was important to you beyond yourself. And if you can't give me an example of that, then to be quite frank, I'm not going to take a chance on you. I don't care what the cause is. I don't care, but you got to be able to articulate something bigger than yourself because it's all about track record. Don't tell me, you know, like show me what you did. And there's a few other things, you know, I say as a company motto, a day that for me, a day that I don't cry is a day that I don't feel, a day that I don't feel is a wasted day. So I say number one, be comfortable with me crying. You're gonna see me cry, and you're gonna sometimes be like, why the hell is that dude crying over that little thing?

So can I just imagine this? Are you weeping at your desk?

Like, what's going on, Jim? Well, weeping's probably the wrong word, but there are definitely tears, and it drives my wife crazy, once again, who's a West Point engineer. But I think people do understand that I really do care, and I really do feel it. And I think that helps. And what I say to people is, once again, you don't have to cry every day. Literally, but metaphorically, you should feel something at the place you work. Life is short. And if you don't come in every day and feel connected to what we're doing in a deep, passionate way, then why are you doing it? Like, go find something else. Life's too short. And so I think people understand some of those things and we're pretty loyal. Oh, expect high performance. Once again, you put together a bunch of very talented people, it attracts more talented people. Then you try to adjust and do the things you have to do. You know, it's funny, I say to my team all the time, this is the least fun business I've ever done. But it's about being self-aware and about telling people, hey, at this stage of the company, we're in the hard part, we're in the grinding part, we're in the figuring things out part. And so there's gonna be a lot of adjustments and all that. And I said, when we come on the other side of that, it's nothing but fun and joy and all that sort of thing. So, you know, once again, you gotta be real with people. I think that that's part of a good culture. You have to be real. And if you're not real, people see through it And they just kind of, they're not going to be as good. And so what I mean by that is typical companies I've hired, as I go hire a bunch of high potential young people, they'll run through walls, they'll do whatever you tell them. This business required a different approach. This business required great track records from all the executives. And so they're great. I love working with them. It's super fulfilling. But when you say do something, like their first question is why. Their first question is not like, how high? It's why? You know, once again, that's all great. That's what we need.

You need to take a breath and be like, okay, well, let's go.

But there are times when you're like, just one time, say how high, please. Just go. Trust me, I've done this. I can synthesize some things.

I think it's a generational thing too.

But anyway, there's a little bit of generational thing for sure. And, you know, I have lots of friends who complain about the younger generation and I say, come on. Them in. Like, the thing that I love about the younger generation is they're super passionate. They actually do want to be working on something that's good for society and a cause that's bigger than themselves. And the trick is you just have to motivate them the right way. If you don't motivate them, they're horrible employees, but that should be true of every employee. And so when motivated properly, I find the younger generations to be quite fun. And I was a little stunned the other day and hurt when one of my new employees was talking about, you know, the different cohorts. And she says, "What are you, Jim, a boomer?" And I was like, "A boomer? What are you talking about, a boomer? I'm not a boomer. Those are old people." You know, anyway, it was just kind of funny. That's funny. Did it make you cry, Jim? It made me cry inside. That was one that was like— And by the way, nothing against boomers. It's just we all kind of have in our brain— I still feel like my 25-year-old self in my brain. It's just a hard thing to deal with, but, but no, you know, you, you gotta lean into, you know, we all, we're all headed in the same direction. Exactly.

It's a one-way ticket, as I say as well. Jim, I wanna touch on regenerative medicine and the future of longevity. So what are some of the breakthroughs in regenerative medicine and health optimization that you're most excited about right now? And where do you see that developing in the next 2 to even 5 years? Yeah.

You know, listen, a lot of times when I talk to people, people, they are looking for this like amazing, like insight and this huge breakthrough. And I actually am very quick to always bring people back to it's the foundational stuff that is really the most impactful. So like one, one thing I'll say about regenerative medicine, I did not want to be just a stem cell clinic. And there's a whole bunch of reasons for that around the way you can do marketing and other things. But the reality about stem cells is stem cells work much better when you're healthier. And so when you're a health optimization business, helping to get people in as good a place as possible, regenerative medicine works much better. And so that's the first insight. And the first thing we've learned is that if we can kind of get someone to embrace the whole health optimization dynamic of our business and then lean into regenerative medicine, they get better results. And so, so that's number one. Number two, it's, it's it's part of a bigger thing. It's like, get them healthy, but then also make them understand, like, okay, stem cells alone are not going to get you there. Stem cells are the thing that's going to get you to a certain point. Now we then got to start moving. We got to start doing all this other stuff. It's like, and you got to be ready for that. If you think stem cells are a magic button, I'm going to walk into a room, I'm going to get an injection, voilà, I'm done. Then like, then you're probably not a client for us. Now, the funny thing is that does happen sometimes with stem cells. It is a holy mackerel. Like I walked into a room, someone gave me an injection and I am better. Well, with you, with your neck, you were saying before it was a game changer. 100%. It was, it was within 2 weeks, my neck was the neck of a different human. Like I was like, I do not believe this. This. And like I said, it's been 4 years now. But, but, you know, once again, setting expectations, I think that's the key. And so people go out and they read all this stuff and it's a miracle and I'm going to go get the miracle. And so we're very quick to make sure we give people a realistic expectation of number 1, how it's going to work, how long it's going to take, what they're going to have to do as part of making it, you know, and if someone says to me, I don't know, I can't drink for 30 days, I don't know. It's like, yeah, you can't drink for 30 case. Like, yes, full stop, sign up, full stop. Yeah. And, and if you can't sign up for that, like, we're not doing it. So there's a lot of stuff like that that I think people just gloss over that's super important if you're going to have a really lovely regenerative practice that makes, makes impact. And, and then, then you get into all the, all right, what are the best stem cells and, and those sort of things. And, you know, one of the first things people ask us, well, I know you guys do adipose fat cells from your own body. And I know you do umbilical cord cells, like which one's better? So, okay. My answer is always neither. They're, they're both good. They have, they both have their sort of pluses and minuses. But at the end of the day, they both work great. And so we're going to price them exactly the same. And you're going to pick, and you're going to pick probably based on some deep-seated philosophical political leanings you have. So for instance, if you're anti-vax, for instance, you're probably going to use your own stem cells. Just, you know, if you don't care about that and you do a bunch of research, it's very easy for you to go down the rabbit hole of, well, of course I want umbilical cord stem cells because those are new and fresh. And, you know, and so anyway, we just educate people and, and tell them where they're right, where they're wrong, and, and let them be a part of the decision. Then you get into the, like I said, the suppliers and all that. And, you know, once again, I don't want to get into all those deep specific But, you know, at the end of the day, there are lots of different stem cells that work. There are lots of different suppliers that are great. The flip side of that is there are also a lot of suppliers that there is no way in hell you should ever use them. I'm a big fan of doing stem cells in the United States because there's some real accountability. I think there are some big misconceptions around stem cells in the United States. We do everything that, that they do outside of the United States with one exception, but we do umbilical cord stem cells. We do adipose fat stem cells. We do your hair, your skin, your sexual parts. We do joints, tendons. We do it via an IV. We essentially do everything that you would go out of the country to do. The only thing we don't do is, is what they call culture-expand umbilical cord stem cells. And that is something you can't do in the United States. But what I would say is in some ways that's actually an advantage because naive stem cells that haven't been culture-expanded in some ways have greater efficacy. Legacy. And so I say, listen, if you go to a place that says culture expanding is their thing, it's like, how many times do they culture expand those stem cells? And they're, ah, I don't know. Well, maybe they've done it twice. Maybe they've done it 30 times. You know, you don't know. Their financial incentive is to keep culture expanding them because it saves them money. And so what we say is, if, you know, cause, well, why are they doing that? And they say, well, cause they can give me more stem cells. And I said, well, we can give you more. We just give you more vials. Is it, well, that's going to be more expensive? It's like, well, not necessarily. Let's compare price. And because we're trying to scale this and because we're trying to democratize this, we actually find that we can give people a lot more naive, you know, not culture-expanded stem cells than a lot of places outside of the country. And so I always do a fun little thought exercise where I say I get my 10 richest friends in a room and I say, hey guys, good news, we're going to go to South America, we're going to put strange things in our body, and we're going to pay $30,000 to do it. Who's in? And I always joke that one guy in enthusiastically raises his hand, and that's the guy we kick out of our friend group. It's like, no, no, let me be very clear. Some of those clinics are lovely clinics. They do great work. I'm not knocking them per se, but what I am saying is they're great till they're not. And when something happens, would you rather be dealing with a stem cell provider in the United States, or would you rather be dealing with a stem cell provider outside of the United States in a place like Mexico, in a place like South America. No offense to any of those countries or any of those clinics, but full stop, it's a better situation to be dealing with someone in the United States where there is a very established set of rules. There's a very established way that you then deal with things. And so I think that we, we're doing it in a better way. We're doing it in a more rigorous way. We have many more things that we put in place to make sure we stay between the lines. And I'm very, very proud of that. And once again, there are situations where I will send someone to another clinic. Like there are use cases where I say, hey, our job is to get you the best solution. I think in this very limited case, a better solution would be over here and we're going to make a referral for you. And instead of you being at the back of the line, we're going to get you at the front of the line. So we are sort of a rising tide raises all boats and there's plenty to go around kind of company. Company, but we do have some conviction around, you'd be surprised what you can do in the United States and it's the best place to do it.

I have so many more questions and I'm just worried about time finishing up, Jim, and respectful that I'm sure you have a million and one things to do. What excites you most about the future of human health optimization and what are you looking forward to? What do you want to share with my audience in this regard?

Yeah, well, listen, what I would say is that we are now seeing results at scale. We're now seeing incredible results at every age. And as a, as a person that's now 56 and 60s on the horizon and, you know, 70 and 80 are in the future, it is quite amazing what people can do when they take the right approach to health optimization. And I'm seeing that improve. And then once again, I'm also seeing that it isn't the crazy stuff that's getting great results. If we lean into a fundamental foundational approach that hits all of the key things, movement, nutrition, sleep, stress, cognitive health, like we can create amazing health outcomes. Then what you're setting yourself up for is all this crazy new stuff that's going to be amazing over the years. But until you get the foundational stuff right, you're wasting your time. And so I'm incredibly encouraged by how far the foundational stuff can take you. And then I'm incredibly encouraged by everything from therapeutic plasma exchange and 20 other things that when you've done the right things and set up the right foundation, it's really cool to see that next 1%, 2% in the results. I think regenerative medicine is going to continue to develop. I think that it's going to be able to address many of the things that currently are sort of taboo to talk about around neurodegenerative things and things like that. And so I'm just so optimistic. I think that everything that's happening in the, in the, in the world of longevity in terms of research and money flowing to it is going to produce some great results. But I just encourage people to once again, not jump straight to the 1% stuff at the end. You know, lean into someone that's going to use data, lean into somebody that's going to really understand the fundamental parts of it, lean into someone that understands coaching and behavior change. It's easy to tell some people something, it's hard to get them to do it, you know, and so lean into that. And then if you still are ready to do all the other stuff, you know, we do all that stuff and there are, there's some other great options out in the world and just be a little discriminating. It's your health. You're not buying a handbag. You're, this is your health. It is the single most important thing that you can spend money and time on. It's like, why do so many people make it like their 4th, 5th, 10th priority?

I just don't understand. Yeah, exactly. I think you helped to simplify that and make it easier. So Jim, where can people follow you and follow and understand more about Humanaut Health? And where would you like to send them to?

And we'll link it in the show notes. The simple, the simple place is humanauthealth.com. I would say I'm easy to find on LinkedIn, Jim Donnelly, Humanaut Health. I would say some of our doctors like Amy B. Killen, follow her on Instagram. She's very fun. You want a really lovely doctor that understands women's health and hormones, peptides, sexual health. Amy's a great follow. Yeah. You know, they're really lovely. And by the way, I'm the least sort of compelling person in the company. Like, go follow Amy and people like that. They're so lovely in terms of their passion, commitment, charisma. And I'm really proud of that. I'm like I said, I'm the boring one. Anyway, it's, it's, it's been lovely. So thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you for the support. If there's anything I can ever do, of course, let me know and I'll be offended if I don't see you in Austin here pretty soon.

Yes, exactly. Well, Jim, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for what you're doing to democratize this for so many people, for the firefighters and the teachers that all deserve this type of medicine. So thank you for what you're doing in the world. I know it's not easy. Really, really appreciate it. And thank you, dear audience, for tuning in again today.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Hi everyone, it's Claudia von Boeselager again. Before you take off, would you like to get a short email from me to you several times a month month with top tips, insights, and strategies to help optimize your life, health, and business. This could be interesting posts or articles I've read on life and longevity optimization, cool biohacking or lifestyle products that I've discovered, and other fun things to help you be at your best. It's a very short piece of inspiration for you, so if you want to receive it, check it out by going to llinsider.com. That's llinsider.com, and leave your email to get Next one.