Branding for Functional Medicine Practitioners and Coaches

Aaron, looks like we're live. Happy amazing day to you. How are you today?

Happy amazing day. Sachin. It's a beautiful day here in the Pacific Northwest. Happy to be here.

Yeah. You were mentioning that there's a heat wave coming through, is that right?

Yeah. The Pacific Northwest, we call it hot when it hits 80 and we're going to hit 95. Close to that. There's. It's a beautiful summer, but it's going to be a little, a little sticky.

Yeah, I know it's cloudy there. So is it cloudy when it gets this hot or does.

No, no. Like people don't know that this, the, the secret about the Pacific Northwest is that the summer is always like sunny, it's clear, it's beautiful. So I, I enjoy it. It's just when it gets a little hot, it's a little uncomfortable. So we'll see how long we last in this. My office here.

Awesome. You know, it was warm here in Toronto. Last week was really hot. And then yesterday it cooled down quite a bit and it, it only dropped a few degrees, but it was, it wasn't as humid. And I think the humidity, well, we know that the humidity makes it feel much hotter than it actually is. So as a humidity kind of lifted and a temperature dropped just a little bit, it actually felt kind of chilly yesterday, which was unusual. And it's, it's per. Today's perfect here in Toronto. So I'm excited to get some time outdoors. In fact, one of my meetings this morning, just before this meeting, was supposed to be a zoom call, ended up being a connection issue. So I ended up being a phone call with this person and I got to spend some time outdoors. So I'm already, already racking up some vitamin D for today.

Yeah, working. Working while you're walking.

Yeah, exactly. I kind of, I kind of love that now. So one of the things that I've done that I think be relevant to a lot of practitioners here is it's important for us to set boundaries of our time, but then it's also important for us to set boundaries on how we connect with people. So if you're finding yourself at the, at your wits end with zoom meetings or staring at a screen, we all know how, how bad that is for us, and it's something we tell our clients to do less of. And I always remind myself, I have this little quote that I have in my head that it says, replace screen time with green time. So if we can, you know, kind of shift from our screens to more greens, like not just Eating them, but consuming them through our eyes. Getting out in nature, it's such a powerful healing color and environment for us to be in. So set boundaries for yourself, ladies and gentlemen. Make sure that you know, if somebody wants to connect with you. Awesome. Go back to an old school phone call. Right. And go for a walk while you're talking to that person and you can kind of habit stack connect with that person because probably important information you're sharing, but you can be outside. So you know, just a little, little quick little tip, maybe we should do one of these where you're outside and I'm outside at some point in the future. That'll be fun. So we can actually speak to that.

I, I agree. You know, one of the things I noticed when you talk about habits, I was, I've been looking at my OURA ring scores and part of it's the heat. Like my heart rate is higher when I'm sleep. It's. And it's, I've been staying inside and I noticed my, my focus and my productivity weren't as good. So this morning I thought, I haven't. I kind of missed my daily habit of just getting outside. So it's standing on my lawn sometimes I'm holding my coffee, I'm waving at the neighbors as they drive to work. But just that five or ten minutes just sets the tone for the day.

Yeah.

And it's the simple things I, we, we sometimes forget. I have the most like the biggest impact on the rest of our day. So how do you start the day is really how you set the tone for everything that happens.

So. Yeah.

Great reminder.

You know, when you're outside barefoot, you're kind of stacking so many things on top of one another. Right. You're optimizing your. We're all electrical beings. Right. As we know. So you're balancing the electrical charge in your body by getting your bare feet on the ground. You're getting good circadian rhythm signaling from being outside in the sun. You're getting, you know, fresh air. So there's so many things that are hap. And you're increasing your dopamine. So there's so many things that are happening simultaneously that you'd have to take a handful of pills to even get that benefit. If you could even get that benefit in a pill.

Yeah. And maybe this kind of goes back to what we're going to be talking about today. But all these things that we do that no one sees, but if we start showing people what we do, it's going to seem a Little weird, but it's also going to be very intriguing to other people. I mean, that's probably how you discovered it, how I discovered it. And that kind of leads into, I think, our, our talk today. Like branding. How do you brand yourself and doing these things when you, you. Your video that, your reel that you posted of you doing squats on your lawn outside your house, you know, caught on and people are, like, intrigued by, by this stuff. So maybe we can introduce our. Our topic like branding. How do you brand yourself and how maybe some of these things that we do every day are part of that brand and people don't even realize it. Practitioners don't realize how straightforward it could be.

Yeah, absolutely. Like, you know, as you were describing yourself, standing outside with your coffee, waving to your neighbors as they go off to work, you know, you're branding yourself. You're branding yourself as somebody who has the luxury of being barefoot in their grass while they've probably spent the last hour, you know, you know, trying to get their day organized and set up and, you know, doing all the other things that they need to do to then go to work. Like, who knows how long their commute's going to be. So everything we do is, is really branding, right? How we carry ourselves, our character, the things that we do when, you know, we're public facing the things that we do. A lot of times, you know, where a lot of practitioners, you know, a big area for an opportunity for all of us is how do we show up when people are there and how do we show up when people aren't there, right? What's the difference between those two? So the best, best advice I can give for branding is be yourself, right? That's the easiest brand to be, right? Be uniquely yourself, but not the easiest thing to do. It's easy advice to give, but not always the easiest thing to do. And one of my friends, Dr. Patrick Gentempo, wrote, wrote a book, and the book talks about how your brand is your stand, right? What you stand for is what your brand represents, and it's what people are attracted to. So everything that we do is part of our brand. You know, how we show up in the world, how we show up online. All of those things are part of our branding. And some of it's going to be intentional branding, of course, but. And positioning, right? Because we put our marketing hats on, but some of it's going to be unconscious and we're not even going to be aware of it and realizing that, hey, whatever, everything that we're doing is branding. Us. And, you know, even when you're hanging out with your friends, it's still branding you.

Right.

What do you stand for? What do you stand against? And so I think there's. There's a lot to this conversation, but it can be a simple conversation as well. And the rest of it is the application of it.

Yeah. I want to go back to, like, the being yourself. It's simple, and I know it's challenging. I know. For. For me, because part of it is you want to be. You feel like you have to show up a certain way to get attention. Right. To gather, like, the eyeballs. Right. To have people stop their scroll. So I'd be curious to know, like, how do you. You've been online and consistent for a very long time, and it just seems like a habit at this point. You just. Throughout your day, you don't even. It so much, just a feel. So how did you. Did you kind of start off just being yourself, or when did you realize, like, oh, what I say can actually just the way I say it is enough? You don't have to pretend to be someone else or you don't have to try too hard.

Yeah, I mean, I. I basically have. I have a filter. Of course, we all have a filter, unless we've had a head injury or something like that, but. So beer or two? Yeah. So my prefrontal cortex is working overtime, you know, because there's certain things I want to say, but how we say them also matters. Right. And so one of the things that we want to be as a brand is in some ways, we want to be controversial. And it's easy for us to be controversial, especially because at this moment, the truth is controversial. So it's easy for us to express the truth because it comes naturally to us. And it's controversial in many ways, especially in healthcare. So it attracts people's attention. Now, sometimes the things that you're gonna say are gonna be somewhat inflammatory, which is. Okay. Sometimes the stove has to burn your hand in order for you to recognize that it's capable of doing that. But really, like I would say for me personally, is I massage the idea in my head. I get these downloads. I massage the idea in my head, okay, how am I going to say this? And then I'm challenged by Facebook, because if you express yourself in more than a certain number of characters, then you lose the big font. Right. So then I have to create a quote card, which then adds a whole layer of complexity to this. So I know the algorithm is going to show it better if I do it natively in Facebook. So then now I'm challenged with taking this idea and making sure that the message is crystal clear with as little collateral damage as possible. You know, so there's always room for interpretation, and people see the world through their own lenses and their own experiences. So I always take that, try to take that into considerations, and I just put it out there. Whatever, whatever's on my mind goes through this filter, and then, you know, I try to condense it down into a short message. And what's really fascinating about having a consistent kind of philosophy, or golden thread as we refer to it as, is that I can look back at some of my posts from 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 years ago, and I can post them today because they're still true, maybe even more truer now than ever before. And the branding and the messaging, the paradigm has been consistent over that period of time. So that's another thing is that when we identify our, you know, who we are, what we stand for, what we stand against, then it becomes so much easier for us to position ourselves in the market because we've consistently been saying the same message over and over and over again. And there's going to be times where we can lean into our message. Right. Like we've been saying, our golden thread at Living Proof Institute is that the doctor of the future is a patient. And so that's the paradigm that we want to operate out of, and we want to create content through that paradigm, through that lens, and we want to empower people. So then all the messaging, it comes, emerges from that golden thread or has that golden thread, you know, wrapped into it. So for us, it. It makes it really easy to go back and say, hey, a year ago. Sometimes when I'm not sure what I'm going to say today, I just go back to my memories and I find a memory and I share that. And the cool thing is, is is it actually gets more eyeballs now than it did when I posted it three or four years ago. Because the community has grown, right.

There are a lot of people who haven't seen it.

Right, Exactly. And just because you post it doesn't mean everyone sees it either. Right. Even if you do get a massive reaction to it because your friend's list is constantly changing, who follows you is constantly changing. So I tell people, listen, if you have a quarterly, all you need is enough content for a quarter, and then you can repurpose the content over and over again on social media because you. They tell us that people's attention Spans are shorter than a goldfish. So, you know, don't be too worried and, you know, scared. By having to create a ton of content, you can reuse and repurpose content, you know, really as frequently as you like.

And your, your feed has become almost like a, like a marketing playground. Testing your messaging. Right. So would you say you've learned more about your audience just by who's responding, like who your tribe is, by how they respond to you? Does it help develop your messaging around, like, the Living Proof Institute? How do you think about that? I guess experimental playground.

Yeah, I think our feed is a place where we can share a thought or an idea or pose a question. And the responses that you get can be very indicative of what people are interested in, and it's not always what you might think. And so that's what's really fascinating. Sometimes we have an idea of, oh, people really might want this. And then when we ask the question, we realize that they may not one day. Actually, this is a funny story. To your point here, it's just a playground. So I was teaching a group of practitioners how to create their lead magnet, and I said, well, let me do a demo video on Canva on how to create a cover page, and then let me do a post on, you know, how to share the download so that it gives people a template or a framework to follow. And in doing so, I created a, you know, just a mock cover because that's what I instructed them to just create the COVID page. That's the first step. And let's see if people want it. Right before you go and build this whole funnel out, let's just start by creating the message first. And I, you know, posted it. I said, hey, creating a guide on how to five ways to improve digestion without supplements and, and who wants it. And like 200 people responded and said, yes. So I'm like, okay, we're onto something here. But if nobody responded right, then I know that this is probably not worth creating. So depending on the size of your list and, you know, what your average response rate is and so on and so forth, you can gauge, right this, you know, your response rate is going to be based on the size of your following and also the consistency of your messaging. That's the other thing. If you just take the same, exact same thing and post it on your page, your response and reaction is going to be a little bit different because people might not care what you think about this topic or what you have to say about this topic because you haven't developed Yourself as, as an authority on this topic. You don't have to be an expert, a world renowned expert on a topic, but you just need to be an authority, you know, for that person who's reading your content. And you know, so react. Responses will vary based on how you've positioned yourself. Like if you've positioned yourself as somebody who helps people with digestive issues or you've talked about this topic frequently, then people might have, you know, might care about what you have to say about this topic. But if you've never posted anything about digestive health, then of course that may not be the case. So you know, use, use the feedback wisely. You know, don't be discouraged if you don't get a response in the very beginning. You really have to build that rapport up with people and not just what you have to offer, but how you offer it to them. Right? So think of Apple. Apple did a really good job at this. You know, they took a stand and their stand in many ways. Some people, you know, disagree with it, some people love it. So they have a closed network, unlike PCs. And so everything Apple does, they create a lot of their own software, their operating system and their hardware. And PCs don't. Right. There's, you know, there's an operating system and there's different hardware companies that create, you know, hardware and computers. Apple also took a stand that they didn't want IBM, right, Big Blue to take over and create a monopoly on computers. So they provided an alternative and they took a stand, a direct stand against some of these organizations. So for us we have to do that as well. We can take a page out of Apple's book and just get really clear on who we are and who we are for. They did some great work with their Think different ad campaign. That was a popular ad campaign and one of the quotes that I love sharing is from Sally Hogset, which is different is better than better. So how can you showcase, you know, through your messaging, through your branding that what you have to offer isn't better than what people are getting right now? It's totally different. And different means different outcomes. You know, if you do the same thing better, it doesn't mean you're going to get the right outcome. Right? If you replace the wrong part on your car, it doesn't matter the quality of the part or who's doing it. If it's the wrong thing, it's never going to get the results you're looking for. So even in your branding, how do you, you know, how you position yourself as Being different versus better allows you, as a, as a, as a messenger, to feel more confident as well. I'm confident that what I have to offer is different than what you're doing right now.

Right.

I'm not trying to be better than that person because then you're direct competition to their doctors or whoever else they're seeing to solve this problem. But if you position yourself as being different, and when they're tired of seeing all the experts and the quote, unquote, best people, now they know they need to try something different, not something better, so they can actually climb up or bark up the right tree. So we do our clients a huge service by correctly positioning ourselves, correctly positioning who and what we stand for. And that happens over a period of time. It doesn't happen overnight.

I see that a lot, like, a lot of things came to mind, like being different. A lot of docs, I think, have trouble thinking outside of the conventional model. Like, even. Even as a naturopathic doctor, we're. We're trained like family medicine practitioners, so we think we can only do things a certain way. Like, we. We think our job is primarily procedures and shots. Like, we can do these things here. But I know personally, I knew I didn't want to do those types of things, you know, you know, cleaning people's ears and like, doing the. I wanted to help people with their health and, like, teach people how to take care of themselves. And it's almost like giving ourselves permission to be different and not realize, like, it's hard, I think, for some of us to think we can be different. Like, it's almost like someone has to give you permission to be different and not just post generic health stuff online or, like, look at someone else and just reshare. But actually, I think what I found is when you can actually express yourself more authentically, that's more attractive to people.

Yeah. You know, so just to add to that, I think what's important for people to recognize when, when they hear this is that when you're trying to be different, you don't have to be different than somebody who has the same kind of messages. You. Right. So my message and your message, Aaron, if we're putting our brands out there and putting our stands out there, there's going to be a lot of overlap between them. In fact, I would say that, you know, just statistically, 80% of what we say is going to overlap, even if we have radically different avatars, because our paradigms are going to overlap. So, you know, it's important for people to realize who they're trying to be different from, from. You don't want to be different. I don't want to be radically and totally different from Aaron. So I'm not trying to out differentiate myself from him, I'm trying to out differentiate myself from who the avatar that I'm trying to get this message to is seeing. And that's so much easier for us to do, right? And you know, this day and age, you know, Tony Robbins always says, find an underserviced market and over deliver, which I totally agree with. And you know, healthcare, at least here in Canada, the service quality is not very high. Like the experience people have is, is actually quite poor from the feedback that I often get. You know, I had a client share a quick story and he's having some neurological issues. He's developed a tremor. He's seen like every quote unquote specialist under the sun to, to help him. And everyone's saying it's not this, it's not that, but we don't know what it is. We know what it isn't, but we don't know what it is. And so we had him do some blood work before he started working with us through his family doctor. And I said, it's something key to him. I said, can you please get a copy of your lab work? Turns out he had macrocytic anemia. So neurological issues, macrocytic anemia. I'm like, okay, we're onto something here. And I said, well, how long has this been going on for? Can you get a copy of your previous blood work? He said, my doctor said my blood work's always been normal. And turns out he's always had macrocytic anemia. So we went back four years and, and so now we've got him on, you know, proper B vitamin to support him. But, you know, it's amazing that I didn't have to be better, I didn't have to run better lab testing. I just had to look at it through a different lens. And that's a great story that we can even share, right? I'm not trying to be better than his practitioner that he's seeing. I'm trying to look at it slightly differently through a lens of what is optimal. Turns out he has. Liver enzymes have always been high as well. So, you know, word to the wise, always, always, always, no matter what your doctor says, get your lab reports and blood work, even if they charge you for it, sometimes they might charge you to make a copy of it. It's worth the effort to have that information in your hands, because when you need it, then you may not have it. And you might see things on there or patterns on there that sometimes your doctors kind of overlook.

So I think that speaks to like, the role the way I, it sounds like your work, your perspective is very collaborative. Like, even if there are things that are lacking in the system, like in terms of experience, you're still being collaborative. You're not tearing anyone down, you know, publicly, but you're, you're providing a different perspective, a lens. And I think it's that lens that people want help with. They're not, they're not trying to replace their entire. I think it's egotistical to think, oh, I'm going to replace someone's entire medical team. It doesn't work that way.

Right?

I'm a piece of that. I'm a member of that team and I want to work with everyone to help the person. And I wouldn't want someone else to tear me down because, you know, I've probably experienced that, you know, the other practitioners second guessing to the patient what I'm doing. And it just makes things very, like, very toxic. It's not very productive to have everyone just talking behind everyone else's back.

Yeah, absolutely. And here's the thing, like, I'll never tear down or point the finger at anyone individually when I'm posting, but I will point my finger at a common enemy. Because I think we can all agree that many practitioners are even coming out of chiropractic school or a naturopathic school or whatever. We're brainwashed to think a certain way, right? We're literally doctored, indoctrinated to think a certain way and look at the body through a certain lens and, you know, follow a script in some ways, right? So all of us get a bit of this in the training that we go through. Sometimes, you know, some professionals are going to be able to, you know, like functional medicine practitioners are kind of the wild, wild west cowboys, right? We're kind of doing our own thing and we're using as much evidence as we can to support the client. Whereas some people don't have that flexibility. So they can only look at your body through that one paradigm that they learned and they never deviate from that paradigm. And the unfortunate thing about that is that that same person can be, their health can be addressed through so many different vantage points. So, you know, there's nothing more powerful than a common enemy for your client. And we, we need to be very aware of who the enemy is. The enemy isn't the individual, the enemy is the system. It's the way the system is set up, really. From the ground up. You know, I always found it interesting, I was thinking about it this morning, that as a chiropractor, wellness is a big part of our paradigm. However, it's not necessarily part of our education. So if you want to get a wellness certification as a chiropractor, you have to actually take additional training to get that wellness certification. So, you know, many times it's important for us to recognize where our deficiencies are as practitioners and how we can work collaboratively with other members of the team of the individual. But going back to branding, we want the consumer to know exactly what we stand for and what we stand against. And I stand against people getting bad service. I stand against people going to a doctor and not getting their blood work properly evaluated. I stand against a practitioner who doesn't think outside the box. Right. And. But also, not only do they not provide a solution, but don't provide a referral either. Right. I think those things are definitely things that I stand against. And I'm willing to call those things out not on an individual basis, but on a system wide basis, because I know these issues are not isolated incidents.

Yeah. So taking a stand. I know we also take a stand against practitioners not having that freedom to be themselves.

Right.

We have a lot of practitioners from conventional settings that join our mentorship. And I know I joined this community because we're allowed to think differently. We experience the challenge of not helping people in the way that we know we can do. And if we're part of that system, it just. I know I didn't want to be in the constraints of a system. I never took insurance because I knew that one, I wouldn't get compensated for spending an hour talking about someone's nutrition, which seemed very counterproductive. And they would dictate and incentivize me to do things that I knew were not necessarily always in the best interest of the patient.

So.

But I know there are a lot of people who are scared not to, you know, to break free from the system because you can be very well fed in the right situation. You can be comfortable. So I guess it's part of it is being a little bit of a rebel, maybe, but you have to be a little bit rebellious in some ways to take a stand and make it your brand.

Yeah. And maybe somebody's. Maybe somebody's brand is to do it more gently. Right.

Yeah.

And tread maybe a little bit more lightly. So you can, you can tread lightly. And still take a stand and still be very clear. What I found historically is that controversy attracts eyeballs and it allows people to very clearly identify if they resonate with you or not. So a good brand, a good message is like, it's like a. It almost serves two purposes. So it draws the right people in and it removes the, you know, helps. Helps those who are unclear get clarity so they, they can make a decision whether following you or working with you or collaborating with you in a way makes sense or not. And giving people clarity is, Is valuable to them. Right. Because if our message is unclear, then, you know, and however we don't have the solution for that person, you know, getting them to tag along is not fair to them. Right. So I think giving people clarity allows them to decide, hey, is this the right place for me to be? If it's not, awesome, thank you. I can go somewhere else and find something that is what I'm looking for. So our brand gives people their time back and in some cases gives them their life back.

So it's. That's a great point. So we have to be very conscientious and not just creating controversy for the health, or else we become a tabloid.

Right?

You become like the gossip newspaper or whatever it is. You get the eyeballs, but no actual solution. Like, those are the things that show up in my reels now. It's like you're watching, you're like. And then you get to the end, you're like, why did I watch this? I don't. It didn't make my life better. I didn't do anything differently. So from an ethical point of view, the. Our brand, you're saying, has to come from our solution that we provide and make people, we're helping people be aware of that. We actually have that solution and why we think it's the right solution for, for them.

Yeah. And one of the first things that needs to change for a lot of people and your brand can do this is their paradigm. Right. So sometimes we have to kind of shake people awake to, to get them to kind of look at the world through a new lens. And that's what our paradigm is. It's the lens through which we look at the world. And so that can sometimes take a little bit of cage rattling to really bring them present. Right. And some people are going to really appreciate that. I get lots of compliments and comments from people saying, hey, I really appreciate this. And those are, those are your people, right? The people that don't resonate, they're not going to message you and tell you anything. But those that do are going to say, I really appreciate this because you're not afraid to tell the truth. You're not afraid to express yourself. And these are many of the feelings that I have, and it's great to know that you know those, that way of thinking is welcome here. So getting people to change their paradigm is usually the first step, the hardest step. But once you do, then it's all downhill in a positive way from there.

I think one thing we discussed right before this was the idea of closet followers. And I've experienced this a number of times. I think it was a year and a half ago, beginning of the pandemic. People were locked in, shut in. And I made a short video about burnout. And then I had a, like elementary school friend message me like a month or two later. He's like, hey, I really appreciated that video. Like, it really helped me get through that tough time. But he didn't comment on that post. He didn't like it, but he saw it. And it sounds like he did something or changed something in him. And one of the hesitations I felt, and I know a lot of practitioners feel putting themselves out there is like, oh, no one's listening or no one's watching. Oh, no one's gonna pay attention. I think one of the, probably the worst fear is like being ignored, not necessarily getting even, like being trolled, but just no one's seeing your stuff. But I realized, like, oh, people are actually watching and hearing and seeing it, even if they don't say something. And there's actually a lot of value we provide through that. It's not like they have to, they don't have to like come in and see us and we have to work directly one on one for them to get value out of the content.

Yeah, I love you bring up a great point. Because just to give a practitioner context and even to give this conversation context, next time you're scrolling through your feed, whether it's Instagram, Facebook, whatever, just make a note of how many times you like or comment. Out of the hundreds of posts that you see, how many of them are you actually liking and commenting? And the percentage is probably pretty small, right? I would say for most people, it's probably way less than 20% of what you're seeing. You're actually commenting it. That doesn't mean you're not reading it. It doesn't mean you're not associating that message or that comment or that image or that update with somebody's name. That's still happening. Right. Your brain is still processing all that information. So what I would encourage people to do is whatever number of reactions you're getting, multiply that by, let's be conservative and say 20. That's probably the number of people that are at a minimum seeing what you posted. So, you know, and then we have to create an engaging culture. So, you know, that means getting people to comment. Getting people, engaging people in their comments, like responding to them. It means asking questions. Right. It means inviting comments and that being part of your call to action. But over time, you know, it's going to build up and it can happen actually quite quickly. But yeah, multiply it by 20. And that, that gives you an idea of how many people probably saw what you wrote and who are now associating that idea with you. And that's, that's what branding is, is. Is an idea and an association with a brand, a company or an individual.

Right. So I thought one thing would be cool to do is that you. You post quite a bit and there's a few posts I noticed on your feed, and maybe we'll just go through one here. And I'd love for you to expand on it because the way you post can be so concise and it's open to interpretation. I just want to know, like, what's the thinking behind it? Sometimes I just want to be like, that's cool. So what do you actually like? What do you mean by that? You go deeper into it. The one that stands out to me is that I had to stop and think about was when food becomes a drug, it is no longer medicine. What was your thought process or what was happening? Were you, like, eating your lunch? Were you like. I'm just trying to imagine where it comes from.

Yeah. You know, I'll be totally transparent. A lot of my ideas come from messages that I'm probably either downloading that I need to hear myself, and then. And then I'll be like, maybe somebody else needs to hear this. So, you know, that's, you know, truth be told, that's where a lot of my content comes from, is probably stuff that I need to hear. But nobody's saying it to me except this voice in my head. And I would imagine that if I need to hear it, others probably need to hear it as well. I'm really big on kind of mixing words around in a sentence. So we've all heard Hippocrates say, let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food. But now food has, you know, or what we call food is, you Know, has a very loose definition. So when Hippocrates was defining what food is and what medicine is, this. We're talking about whole, healthy, naturally grown, organic, you know, ethically raised foods. What we call food today is, you know, highly processed, chemically laced. Right. Very artificial, packaged. And so is that really food? But it's actually not. It's designed to be a drug. Right. It's designed for you to become addicted and consume it, even though it's against your best interest. Right. People know this stuff is bad for them, but you can't just have one because these foods are designed to be like drugs. Basically, this day and age, 80% of what you find in the supermarket is a legal drug. It's designed for you to consume more than you should, more often than you should, and no matter what it does to you, people have a hard time giving up these foods. So it's become a drug now. And so when the food becomes a drug, which is a food you're addicted to, you're consuming it for the wrong reasons. You're not consuming it to nourish your body, you're consuming it to nourish your emotions. Or there's something there that needs to be unpacked. Right. And it could be a variety of different things. That's a whole different conversation. But then it's not, it's not medicine anymore. Right? It's. It's harming your body. So it's kind of a, you know, modernization of that idea. And as, as you can see, there's a lot that can be unpackaged there. But, you know, there's room for interpretation of it. And then, and then when you see the message, it becomes very clear as well.

Yeah. And to bring it back, back to branding, like, as you explained that even if I, I have a similar, like, thought, like, you explain it differently and think about it differently and that you actually make it obvious to your audience how you're thinking about it. And that's what creates the expertise, you know, your, Your experience. You demonstrated your expertise by explaining that because you actually, like, thought about it and you created some insights around it. And, you know, I've actually been, like, inspired by your post to like, you know, share. Share more openly and like, actually share my thought process. There's a lot going on in here, but sometimes it's like my, I need to dial back my, my prefrontal cortex a bit. But when I do share, it's like, oh, people, you know, resonate with that. And it's okay if some people don't or I post something and it doesn't really go where I want it to go, but at least I got it out there, out there and I processed it and there's actually a lot of benefit to sharing it in for us personally. Yeah, it develops the thought process and our own insight into it.

Yeah, there's definitely some massaging that goes into it. Right. Especially if you're trying to get a short, concise and to the point to appeal to two things, the algorithm and to appeal to people, short attention spans. So, you know, the more consistent we are with our brand, the more clear we are with our brand, the more we kind of rattle people a little bit just to. Just to stop them in their tracks. Sometimes we need to do that. We need to get them to stop their scroll. You will offend some people. That's not the intention of branding, but that's one of the byproducts because your thought process might be radically different than the way they think. And that's. That's okay. Right. You're giving them clarity, you're giving yourself clarity and you're giving your customers clarity. Right. Just like companies like Apple. Right. If you want end to end integration, if you want everything to sync the way it's supposed to then and work as efficiently as possible, that's what we believe is the best way. That's what they've decided. Right. But if you want to have an unpredictable user experience, not knowing how this software is going to work and connect with this hardware, then, hey, there's a whole other ecosystem that you can go to. So giving people clarity allows them to be more decisive. And the more decisive people can be, the faster they can find their path towards health. Because at the end of the day, I want everyone to be as healthy as they can be, whether it's through me or somebody else. And the only way that that's going to happen is if we give them clarity that either we are for them or the right fit for them or we are not the right fit for them so that they can look somewhere else to find someone else who is.

I think that's a perfect place to put a bow on it. You said you wrapped it up really nicely.

Awesome. Thank you, Aaron. This was fun and I hope this was helpful for those that tuned in. And I invite everyone to just, you know, continue to consistently put your message, your thoughts, your golden thread out there. People need to hear this, as we always say, now more than ever. And that need continues to grow. And again, remember, you're not trying to out differentiate your peers. You're trying to out differentiate the current solutions that are being offered to your ideal customer avatar, and that makes life so much easier. So put your message out there and we'll see you again next week. All right, Aaron, talk to you soon.