How breathwork changed my functional medicine practice

All right, it looks like we're live. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to Perfect Practice Today. I am absolutely honored and thrilled to share with you somebody who I've known for many, many years, somebody who has personally transformed my life, somebody who I love as a friend and as a brother and as a mentor and somebody who has helped me impact, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of people through the teachings and lessons that he has shared with me. And he's going to be offering them with us today. My dear, dear mentor, friend, my brother, Giovanni Bartolomeo. Welcome, Giovanni, thank you for being here today.

Ah, Sachin, thank you so much for having me. It's funny as you're saying that I thought, hey, if I ever had satchin on, I had to introduce him, I'd almost say the exact same thing word for word. So I appreciate you, brother. Thank you for having me.

My pleasure. And I know this has been a long time coming for both of us. You know, I'm so excited to share you with our audience, put you in front of them so that they can kind of see behind the scenes of my own personal transformation that's been taking place, how we've transformed our functional medicine practice over the years to incorporate some of the teachings that you're going to be sharing with us today. And before we, we jump right in, what I love for people to do is get a sense of who you are. So I want, I don't want to give any labels. I haven't introduced you. I've only introduced you as my mentor because I think labels reduce you and reduce all of us down to preconceived notions. So I'd love for you to share. Who is Giovanni? Who is Gio?

Yeah, it's very interesting question. There's many layers to that. There's the kind of obvious response, like the things that I do, which I think is kind of what we're going to be talking about today. And the more challenging. What I've been asking myself lately is once you start taking all of those things that you do away, like what's left? You know, who's the person that's left and what really constitutes the essence of a human being and how do you want to show up in that way? So we'll leave that one for maybe another deeper conversation. But basically, I'm a dad. I'm a recovering serial entrepreneur, I like to put it. I can get into that a bit more and just someone who's really trying to live more in the moment and just be fueled by passion and be fueled by Being inspired and putting my energy into things that really get me excited in the morning, that have impact and that I feel will make a difference in a positive way. You know, I feel like the world is in such an interesting time right now. And to be, be alive and to be a part of what's going on right now is just. It's amazing and sometimes it can be scary, which I think makes it even more amazing, you know, but it's like, what do I want to contribute to what's going on right now and how do I want to impact others? And so, you know, the best way I can do that right now is through my community, through the work that I do, through the businesses that I kind of involve myself in. And so right now, where I find myself, after recovering of years of serial entrepreneurialism, just chasing money, trying to make money any kind of which way, I can, really beating myself up, draining myself emotionally, physically, mentally. I have elemental rhythm. Breathwork company. I guess it feels weird even call it a company. It's like a breathwork community, I guess that I'm a part of that. We teach people how to breathe better. We teach, we use breathwork in a way that can help people really get a lot of deeper self awareness about themselves, to maybe release blockages or limiting beliefs, and also to help get clarity and inspiration moving forward. And so we developed a whole kind of program around that which includes facilitator training. So I spend a lot of my energy and focus in that. And really it's just this incredible community of people that we've created. I also am partners in a project called Personal Development School. It's an online school that really just helps reprogram the subconscious mind in many different ways through video courses. And we've been scaling that for the last couple years. And I'm a dad and I'm passionate about things like psychedelics. I've made a documentary about that and advised for a few companies in that space. And really just trying to like let go of all the other businesses I've been attached to over the years, which I'm almost finished and moving into the next chapter is really just trying to create like more time for myself to really do what I really want to do, which is a lot more of the reflecting type things like the question we kind of opened with and maybe making music and stuff like that. So that's kind of who I am in a nutshell, I guess. Hope that answers your question.

Yeah. I would define you as a Renaissance man, somebody with multiple talents. Every time I Meet you. There's something new and cool I learn about you, and you're very well rounded, which I truly appreciate as well. I do want to give people an idea of how we met, just for some context. So my buddy Jordan Boxer, bless his heart, he actually invited me a few years ago to go to a WIM HOF training. And I said, okay. And so my friend Satip and Jordan, we both attended your WIM HOF training that you did in. I believe it was Bolton, if I remember correctly. And it was middle of February. And Jordan's like, bring your shorts. I'm like, what do you mean, bring my shorts? He's like, yeah, bring your swim trunks. I'm like, there's a pool there. He's like, no, just trust me. And so we get there and, you know, you're leading the class and you just had an amazing energy. And everyone there that was attracted to this training was. Was just very positive, uplifting. And I realized that everyone was there on their own journey, trying to find, you know, meaning to life and purpose and also looking to explore what the limitations and limits really, or the unlimitations of our body are. So by the end of that training, I was able to hold my breath for about three and a half minutes, which sounds. Doesn't sound like a very long time, but it's. I always tell people, if you want to know how long a minute is, hold your breath for a minute. If you want to know how short a minute is, scroll on Facebook. Right? A minute goes by pretty fast, depending on what you're doing. Or it can be really long, depending on what you're doing. And so I was so impressed with myself. I'm like, wow. Like, you know, Giovanni helped me unlock a power that I didn't even know I had a capability. I didn't know that I had. And then they're like, oh, put your trunks on. And we had to go outside in the middle of February and dunk ourselves in this, like, in this little kiddie pool with. That was filled with ice in the middle of February. And I remember it was, like, so interesting because there was about maybe about 15 or 20 of us, maybe even more. And we all took our turns getting in there for about 60 to 90 seconds. And then we couldn't bring our towels. We had to actually dry ourselves off. And, you know, so I was way outside my comfort zone. But when I left there, I felt so much more capable. I felt so much more alive. And I just really got, you know, sucked in. Isn't the right Word. But I. But I, you know, really got sucked into your vortex of energy, and just, you know, there was something that drew me into you. And maybe it's all the breath work that you're doing, maybe it's the way you carry yourself, but I felt this, you know, this kinship, and I felt this bond between us. And since then, we've become really good friends. You've mentored me to become a breathwork facilitator. You know, we've partnered on a few businesses together, and it's really fun to kind of watch you continue to grow. And here I am trying to grow each and every single day and reach for my fullest potential. And you've played such a huge role in that that I want to honor you and tell you that I'm so grateful because it literally changed the trajectory of my life. That training showed me what the potential is. But then. Or that Wim Hof training. But then when you really introduced me to the elemental rhythm breathwork experience, and I got to witness it for myself, that was one of the most profound things that had ever happened to me. And when you made it available for me to learn so that I could create this experience for other people, you know, I was. I think I was part of the first graduating class, if I'm not mistaken. Like, I raised my hand right away, I said, I need to learn this. And this is unfortunately something that nobody had taught us in chiropractic school. We didn't really learn about breathing techniques. Even in functional medicine, we don't really learn much about breathing. But as I started going down this rabbit hole with yourself with James Nestor and Patrick McEwen, books that you had recommended reading, I realized, wow, these yogis and this ancient wisdom is a lost art, as James Nestor calls it. We really need to bring it to the forefront, and who better to teach it to other people than yourself? Who better to, you know, get in front of more practitioners than yourself and myself and make this available to as many people as possible? So I know our relationship and our journey continues to evolve, and I'm super excited to see where it takes us. So let's get right into this, because I know there's a lot to cover, and I know that our time may be limited today. So what I'd love to start off with is, you know, an operational definition of what breath work is. This is. You know, we talked about this. Like, you go in and you might tell. Ask people what yoga is, and they might have a clear understanding of what yoga is. But you ask them what breath work is. And you can get a thousand different responses and there are, you know, many different breathing techniques. So I'd love to hear what your definition of breath work is.

Yeah, it's a great question. It's something that we've been trying to just work on like how we define it because it's kind of like a blanket term, you know, almost like breathing, breath work. And it can mean a lot of different things to different people. And what's interesting, it's really early in the space and you know that because it hasn't really found this like def universally accepted definition yet. Right. Like as the example yoga you're going to get, you know, within a few kind of like, you know, exercise, kind of spiritual practice, kind of like movement, stretching. But people will have a vision of what yoga is in their mind and you know, a few different variations of that. So breath work, basically it's like the art of manipulating your breath to get a desired outcome more or less in a statement. What does that mean? Well, you know, there's pranayama, which is the ancient yogic technique. There's holotropic breath work, there's Wim HOF breathing, There's all these different ones that are coming out right now. Buteyko as a style of breath work. There's breathwork practices and there's breathwork experiences and you know what elemental rhythm breath work is. It's really just a style of breathing that helps the participant have a deeper self awareness to help them go into a space that they didn't even think was possible ultimately to see, see better, to see what might be holding them back, to release things that maybe they they weren't able to see and to help bring bring clarity into their lives. And so we, we've developed this whole program around that based on experience I had doing Wim HOF breathing. And when I first heard about breath work, I didn't even know what it was. You know, the first time I heard about WIM hof I was watching a video online. I thought, oh, this guy looks so cool. He's interesting. I'd love to share this with some friends. We used to get together and like have these little group meetings and just talk about interesting stuff because you know, back in 2012 or 2013, around then I didn't have anyone to talk to about like ayahuasca and like all these weird things that I was starting to get into. You know, it was really fringe at that time. But I thought, okay, this guy's inspiring and eventually you Know, I set. Once I saw him, I felt this real strong attraction to want to get to know him, to want to meet him. And I was in my, I told my wife, I said, yeah, I'm going to meet this guy one day. And you know, within a year we were hanging out in Toronto and I brought him in to do the live event here. And at his training, you know, over the course of the years, he invited me to do the first WIM HOF teacher training. And you know, we were jumping in frozen lakes and climbing mountains in our shorts. And that was the initial reason I wanted to go. Like, yeah, it's gonna be super cool to get a picture with Wim in my shorts. Like very ego based thinking, I'll put on Instagram, maybe we'll get some followers. And we went on this deeper breathing journey there where we just kept breathing and it seemed like, you know, a long time and I had this complete out of body experience and I remember coming back, was floating around the room and I came back and I was crying and it felt so good to cry, you know, as a man who's, you know, doesn't allow themselves to show emotions, I just had this really deep release and felt like a baby that was reborn and, and I didn't know what to make of it at the time. But when I came back I just felt deeper curiosity to explore that. So I started exploring all those types of breathwork experiences. So a lot of people that do pranayama, like, yeah, I breathe so hard but you know, I'm really there present in the moment. I feel changes in my body but you know, I didn't have these like deeper visual experiences. And me being a bit of a psychonaut and explorer of the mind, I was like, yeah, that's the kind of places that I wanted to go. And I just kept chasing that and just followed my intuition. And over the span of maybe a year or two, I really had refined this process that was able to allow myself to go there time and time again. And I started sharing it with people and they were able to go there and it was, it was so amazing to witness because like when I was facilitating WIM hof, you know, people are like, oh yeah, I have my breath three minutes. Like that was amazing. Going the ice bath, you see this sense of empowerment. But when they were having these like really deep experiences, like it was something totally different and being a part of being able to witness that and you know, like, I, I don't take any credit for the experience because I really believe that the experience is created by the person's willingness to kind of go all in and trust and just, like, let go, right? But to just. To be able to coach them through that, you know, to be able to hold that space, it was so powerful for me, you know, it was almost as powerful as if I was doing the experience myself. And that's when, like, things start to click. It's like, hey, you need to share this with people. And so we started just having classes, and those got full, and, you know, waiting list started, and. And then it was like, okay, what's next? You know, like, this was the craziest part of my life as an entrepreneur. I was like, hey, I really wanted to make the shift from my old business life, which was basically, how do you. How can you make money? What's a good idea? Didn't really matter what it was. If it was a good idea, I would try it. And I realized later, like, it brought me out of alignment with who I was in many occasions, which caused me a lot of pain and suffering. And so this one was like, hey, I'm really aligned with this. I want to do a business around it. So I opened a float studio in Vaughan. So sensory deprivation tanks, float saunas, eventually, like, breathwork classes. That was the main thing, because I wanted to have a community space to do the classes. But I didn't want it to be a hangout because I've had those kind of places before where people end up hanging out, ends up costing you money and whatever. And that experience really brought me face to face with some of my darkest fears at the time, which is my attachment to my image of success. When you're faced with potential failure, opening up a space, putting all of your life's investment in it, and then doubting if it was the right decision, if the places, if this area is ready for all these fears. But it shifted because there was a point where I released all that and was saying, hey, it's okay if I fail. It doesn't matter. Anyone who truly matters to me is not going to judge me or worry about me. I couldn't even put my finger on anyone who was afraid of judging me anyways. I tried to really focus on who's that one person who's going to judge me and it's going to really matter. And there was nobody. So I started just focusing on helping people. And then from there, just evolved. And then the classes got busier, and then Covid hit, and all the staff were like, hey, now you got to train us how to do this. And I was like, I don't know if I can do that. Like, I. I've never really taught in that way before. Like, I can run a class, but, like, to train someone to be a facilitator, that was like a whole new thing. Make a manual. So I said, okay, guys, I'll try. And we did it. We did it. And what was really interesting to me, it was two things. One was when I was faced with that question, can you teach us how to do it again? The eagle came back up. It's like, hey, man, this is your thing. This is unique. Only you do this. And if you teach all these people, then they're all gonna be able to do the same thing you can do. You know? Is that what you really want? And I was like. Like, the mind starts going off, and I just meditated on it that same day, and it was just like, the answer was a very clear yes. It's like, if you really, truly want to help people like you, the best way to help people is to teach more people to do these things, not worry about taking credit for it. And. And it's been, like, an ongoing challenge because, like, some people I've. I've trained in the past have gone on to do very similar things and take full credit for. And I catch myself, like, feeling that. It's like, hey, man, remember, like, it's not about ownership. It's about, you know, the net good. You know, like, is this thing you're creating really creating impact? And, like, you know, all those little things like, who's whose property is this? And all these, like, things that we fight over in business and capitalism today. It's like, that's what's really causing all these problems. It's like, hey, just allow that to drop, and just know that what's coming back to you is going to come in its own way. And so, yeah, we started. We started teaching people and. And training them and. And what was really shocking was seeing people like yourself come back and share the experience they had with their loved ones or someone special to them. It's like, oh, I got to connect to my dad in a way I'd never connected before. You know, we were crying together, and my dad never shows emotion or like, someone say, like, oh, I was able to connect with my kids, or like, whatever, and. And you can feel, feel, even though I wasn't in that experience, how powerful it was, because they're just sharing that. They're going back into that energy of that share. And so, like, that's when I knew it was like, okay, like, there's really something powerful here that we just got to keep going with. And. And of all the business I've done in my track record of serial entrepreneurial failures and successes, because I'm sure there's equal amount of both that gets to figure something out, this was the easiest because there was such value in it. And I felt it in my heart. And I didn't even, like, try to push it as a business. It really took two years. Like, just now we're really getting organized. In the last year, I was like, okay, like, are we going to really structure this for growth? Because it was all word of mouth. We were all just, like, doing it as it came, allowing it to expand and just like getting feedback, like how well things are working. And, you know, we're trying to keep it not too intense because I don't want it to feel like, oh, this is a job. And, you know, in the past or I've seen other people like, make maybe jump too quickly into their passion and not being ready for that real hard, hey, I need to make an income to survive type mindset, or else, you know, I'm going to end up hating this thing because I'm going to blame it for the problems. And really, you know, it could be anything else that really is blocking it.

Right.

And so it's feeling in a good space now to really move it to that next level. So I don't even know the question that started this, but that was kind of like the journey of explanation to get to, like, where we are today.

Awesome. And to give context. When was your first WIM HOF experience? When was that first breathwork experience for you?

So I probably watched that first video, like 2014, when I reached out to him. And we did the first training in LA in May 20th. No, somewhere in 2015. And the final certification was November 2016. I'm usually really bad with dates. The only reason I remember that is because it was during the. The US presidential election in 2016 and everyone was going nuts. Is Trump going to win? Is he not going to win? Like, half the people were there. It was a crazy time. And we were up in the Colorado Rockies. And obviously as a Canadian, I really didn't care watching these guys all freak out. But, yeah, that was the time.

Well, funny story, about that same time of year, my wife and I were in Florida at the time and she was there for a bowel obstruction procedure that she was having done. And so I do remember distinctly where I was during the election. It's kind of like 9, 11, right? Like, everyone kind of remembers where they were when it happened or when they heard the news breaking. So what I love about that. The reason I asked that, is because, you know, you've probably picked up a lot of things along the way. You've probably dropped a lot of things along the way, and you. You've really chiseled down the elemental rhythm experience for people to now benefit from. Right? So many of our practitioners, and I hope that eventually all of them go through this training because it's been so transformational for me. But everyone who's gone through it has had nothing but amazing things to say, because what's cool about it is that. Is that you don't just kind of sign up for it. You've had some sort of experience, and now you want to create that experience for others. And so as a breathwork facilitator, you've really got to hold space, right? Not a placeholder. You're a space holder for people, and it's amazing. And as you were even sharing the story about connecting with your father, connecting with a father. I don't know if you're repeating my story back to you, but that was my story. I used this breath work with my mom and my dad and my brother, and my dad just broke down. And he's usually not somebody who's very emotional, but he was holding on to a lot of shame and guilt for losing his business and, you know, putting our family in a tough financial position, and he was able to release that. And to me, that was like the greatest gift I could have ever given him, was giving him that. That ability to do that for himself. Right. I don't think anyone could have talked him into giving up that shame and guilt. It was something he had to, you know, go through on his own. And even when you were sharing the story, and as I tell it, I get goosebumps because it was such a profound, you know, shift in our relationship. And even for him to be able to release that, I know that that's good for his health, right? Our. Our issues end up in our tissues, and breath work is a great way to mobilize some of that pain and bring it to the surface and get rid of it.

And. And, yeah, it was kind of direct at what you shared with me, but it's not isolated to that. I've heard that so many times, so many times that people share that exact same thing with my sister, with my mom, with my father. And we shared this moment. And I also find that in these breathwork experiences, like, because of that share like this, this bond is created, this level of trust, this level of, of like connection deepens, you know, and, and it's why I think it's like the best tool to build community. You know, you start doing a class and you start having amazing connections. They want to bring people, they want to introduce you to people. Like it's like the best way to build a community and to deepen relationships by far, but better than anything I've ever experienced and, and to the issues in the tissues comment like, you know, I can't prove any of the stories I've heard, but I hear some crazy stories of like transformations after breath work, of physical changes, emotional changes, mental changes. Like, you know, I heard one story today about a brain surgeon who did his first breath work and was suffering from insomnia and you know, had the best sleep of his life after. And I was able to now sleep again or another. One of our facilitators was sharing one of one of their clients. They've been working with it for over a year now now and they've reduced their depression medication from 150 milligrams to under 20 milligrams. And this is not by any means expected results. These are just anecdotal stories. Another one which I thought was pretty crazy was a guy who we did a session a couple months ago and at the end of it had this crazy release, crying cathartically for about 30 minutes and, and shared after he went to this, went back into this childhood experience where you know, he grew up in one of those like Christian type cultish Mormon experiences. It was really hard on him to have a self identity. Ended up putting himself in a cage in this experience and was able to allow himself to let himself out of the cage in the experience. He shared after that, in that moment that he had been suffering from gut issues, autoimmune issues for the last 10 years. Very painful. If he eats certain food, foods, he'd be like, you know, going to the bathroom, passing blood in his stool, like all kinds of crazy stuff. And that moment he said, you know, I felt all this pain leave my, my stomach area. And he goes, I think I've cured myself. And like for someone to say that right after the experience, okay, we'll see. You know what I mean? It's not like yeah you did. It's like, no you didn't. It's like we'll see. Like, like that's what was in the back of my head. But I Was just really grateful to be there with him and just like thank him for sharing and. But the cool thing was I got to. So this was in Peru and I got to see him about a month and a half later and I totally forgot he shared that story. He's like, hey man, I really need to tell you something. Like, hey, what's up? He's like, yeah, you remember, Remember that experience? He's like, it's gone. It's like, like I still feel better. Like I can have a beer if I want to and it doesn't like kill me. Although I don't like to drink a lot of beer, I can have one now and not feel like, oh my, I can't do that. And I'm like, holy shit. Like, you know, like that's. That's insane.

And.

And like there's hundreds of them like that, you know, there's hundreds of them like that that are very similar, I think to like what happens in the psychedelic experience with psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. And that's why we've kind of like also started creating these level two trainings where it's almost like a breathwork coaching where you can go like one on one with someone and really start helping them dig deeper into the things that are maybe holding them back or start getting self awareness and help them to pry a little bit deeper. Because we find it an amazing pathway in like trying to. We start seeing the signs of the brain and what happens when you start doing breath work and how the brain waves change and make it much more malleable and suggestible to different changes. The default mode network in the brain changes activities during breath work as well. And we think that's also what psychedelics do. Helps to really change the activity in default mode network. We're also seeing changes in heart rate variability with breath work. So there's a lot of systems pointing in directions. And what I found was, okay, like once you get into that state, once you get them into that really peak bliss state, how can you now guide them into an experience? And that's kind of where like the shift happened for me when it was like moving them into gratitude and like self reflection and to like self forgiveness and all these things. And it just really opens up these incredible experiences. And, and the amazing thing is, is even though the meditation is the same every time, you can change it if you want, but that same really like cornerstone meditation, it's a different experience every single time. People come for a whole year straight to that same class and said every single time was different. In a new way. Because as humans, we have so many layers. There's so much to peel through and to work with that you can probably do that for the rest of your life and keep growing and expanding. So, yeah, I don't know. I keep rambling on here, but I hope that answers your question.

No, it's really great. Just so people know, what's the default mode network? I'd love for people to understand that better.

So. Yeah, so default mode network is. Is an error in your brain. And. And when you're focused on something like a task, it's not very active. Okay. So like, I'm focusing on having this conversation right now, and so that part of the brain is not gonna be very active. But when I'm. When I'm stopped doing something, it gets really active in some people starts ruminating, just thinking about negative thoughts or the past or the future. And they say it's really related to, like. Like depression, anxiety, ocd, all these things. And they find that some of these things, like psychedelics, can help reset or normalize the activity in the default mode network. Right. So it's just this part of the brain. I think it's the neocortex, the front part of the brain that I guess has evolved over time. And they say that's where the ego resides in that part of the brain. And so breath work completely shuts that off. If you've ever been in a breath work. Some people think they're sleeping, and really it's the first time their minds are shut off. And like, I don't know, I didn't feel like I was asleep, but, like, I. I came to, like, 10 minutes later, like, I was just so. Like nothing was happening. It's like, yeah, because most likely just shut off your mind completely for. For however long that was. And so. And so there's a lot of research in there, specifically with psychedelics. The bigger problem with breath work is it's hard to sell. So. No, no. Companies are really like, hey, let's invested a lot of money in figuring this out. You would think that if they really cared about helping people, they'd invest whatever is the most promising. But we know that's not the case. Right. But at least they feel psychedelics is monetizable, and so they're getting a lot of awareness there. But I think you can reach the same places, if not deeper places, because the feedback I get a lot is people will say it's just as powerful as an ayahuasca experience or plant medicine experience or even More profound. Like, we've gone to retreats where they've done the plant medicine and it was intense or confusing and I know it's doing its thing, but the breathwork gave them clarity. Like it was really pinpointed and they felt like they did it. They felt like that was something that I didn't need, something outside of me. I was able to bring myself there and experience that. I think that's very special for a lot of people to experience. And the other thing I'll say also about breathwork facilitation is, you know how you said, like, you wish all of your community one day would have to take the training or could take it. I think like everyone in the world, you know, like, imagine your household, like, hey, I'm gonna do Friday night, I'm gonna leave breath work for the family. And you know, like, then other days someone else can lead it. It's a different style, a little bit different. And like that's more of like an engaging pastime rather than watching tv. It's like, hey, we can do some breath work. We can share our experiences. You know, anyone can do it. And, and you, you kind of hit the head on. The nail on the head was the only prerequisite is you should have an experience first. Because once you have that breathwork experience, a lot of people will come out and say, I want to. It's like intuitive. It's like, I want to share this. I want either bring all of my friends or learn how to do it. Like, it's so clear. It's like, and anyone can do it. You don't need any previous knowledge, experience. You don't need to be a yogi. You know, you do be like a WIM HOF instructor or a breath master, anything like that. You just have to feel inspired and you can learn how to do it right. Like that's kind of your experience, right? Like you had an experience and you're just like, okay, I'm in.

I want to do this for other people. You know, like, I got this really amazing testimonial today from a client and I think you probably know this already, but just for our listeners, we start every event that we do. We have a three day event called Perfect Practice Live. And we start every morning with breath work and we also start the entire event. We actually have a special evening on Thursdays before the event even starts, where we do a breath work with anyone who wants to attend who's part of the event. And we usually have around 200 people that are attending live. On Zoom and I walk them through the elemental rhythm breathwork experience. And I just got a testimonial today, so it's so timely. So I'm going to share just the first few sentences. And this is a lady named sue and she, she is part of our program, but it started with breathwork. She said, I completed the Living Proof Metabolic and Lifestyle Reset program and business mentorship. If I had to sum it up in one word, it was transformational. It all started with an incredible breathwork activity that set the stage for my transformation of body, mind and soul. And then she goes on and on from there. But like, it's amazing because we were able to take her through this journey, wipe the slate clean, right? You know, have her in a suggestible state where we could install a new set of programming, a new set of self awareness, a new set of skills for her to, you know, be supported with. And we were able to hold space for her. Right? And that's one of the things that people are looking for these days. They're looking to be heard and to be seen and for somebody to hold space for them. And that doesn't really happen in a lot of settings, right? It doesn't definitely happen in as much as doctors might try it. It often doesn't happen in doctor's appointment because usually not enough time. It's definitely not happening when you're in the hospital. Right. It's not often happening in the work environment. So we're not often surrounded by somebody who's intimately connected to us and devoted to helping us transform and having that person hold space for us. What I also love about the breath work is that it can be done in person, in a setting with a group of people, which I think it's most powerful at its peak. Then, however, it can also be done on Zoom and you know, with the pandemic and the way our business runs, we've been doing pretty much all of them on Zoom and I've done a few in person ones as well. But I can say for me personally, it's opened up so many doors. So, you know, it's. Oh, it's given me so many stages and opportunities to share this with people and provide a unique skill set that. Where I'm not competing with anyone. Not that I. Not that I position myself that way, but there's. I'm not stepping on anyone's toes because this is still so fresh and so new in our industry. And now I get invited to do breath work, whereas before I used to get invited to talk about A whole bunch of other things. This has been, you know, the topic that I found to be very interesting and passionate towards. However, there's a huge demand in the marketplace and very few people are actually able to, you know, or very few people have the training to be able to do what we do. But I know we're trying to collectively change that because I know it's your mission to get more people aware of this technology. My mission to get more people aware. And I want practitioners around the world to be able to offer something like this because it's so simple and there's more to it that there's more to breathing than obviously, the elemental experience that people have. Because as a coach, we also talk about things like mouth taping and proper nasal breathing and different breathing techniques to conjure different states of physiology that we want to go through. So there's. There's so much more to it than the experience itself, because we're breathing 247 whether we have the awareness or not. And, and helping people create more awareness around that has been very beneficial for them. So we've seen benefits in our business because it allows our clients to show up more, you know, as themselves and peel away these layers of things that are limiting beliefs and holding them back. And it's opened up a lot of doors and stages for me to get on and for other people in our community that have gone through the training to get on because it's in such high demand. So I would love your thoughts on what doors has opened up for you as well.

It's. It's pretty incredible the way people want to give you opportunities once they've been to one of your breath work classes. They just want to be your friend. They just feel so like they, they owe you something. And I'm just like, no, no, listen, glad you had the experience. But yeah, it just kind of snowballs once you start really just focusing on just delivering that experience. And as you said, I think it's really important. Well, two things. One, the opportunity side. I think there should be more breathwork facilitators than yoga instructors and are probably outnumbered at least 50 to 1 right now, maybe 100 to 1. So I think we can at least close that gap. I think we have a way bigger market than yoga because anyone can do breath work any age, you know, any. It doesn't matter what physical shape you're in or anything like that. Anyone can do breath work. And I, I think it's got more benefits potentially, you know, than. Than yoga. Like, I think they can work well together as well. But I don't like to knock yoga because I think yoga's a great thing as well, and it's amazing, but I just use it as a comparison. And as far as doors, it's open like the same thing. Speaking opportunities, you know, like, I teach down at Rhythmia a few times a year. I've been invited to advise on companies because of sharing breathwork and allows me to just create so many different connections. I met you because of it. That was from the WIM hof breathwork. But you meet all these people and now you have all these friends and if you stay in touch with them, you need anything or a favor, you put it out there and people are just willing to help you or connect you or whatever. There's just so much. And I love hearing the stories from my facilitative. Yeah, I did a class. This one guy, he ended up, you know, being part of this network of like 300 entrepreneurs. And now I'm, you know, in this network of entrepreneurs doing breath work and had all these other opportunities, arrives out of it. And. And for me, it's. It's really just like being open to possibility. You know, just showing up and be like myself and express myself in a way that feels good to me and just sharing that unconditionally. Just really just trying to create the best experience with no expectation who's coming to class. Sometimes you get surprised or some interesting people show up and they're going to want to help and share with you and that's great and we'll see what happens. And a great book for me was a surrender experiment which really helped me just be present into each moment of every situation. Just be open to what outcome comes on the other side, good or bad. My personal opinion is the more you put out there. Sorry about that. The more you put out there, the more you give, you know, the more you open to receive. As long as you're open to receive, like, the more is going to come back your way. So.

Yeah, another question for you is, you know, this came up in a conversation I was having with somebody else.

I apologize.

That's okay. That's okay. So I was having a conversation with somebody who is an empath, right. And identifies as an empath. And when you have these type of emotions kind of boiling to the surface for people, for somebody who may be sensitive to these type of energies. Can you comment on that or do you have any tools that can be helpful for somebody who might feel that way?

Yeah, for sure. I have a few opinions on it. These are my own opinions. So, so there's, there's things you can do which, which really help to kind of like release energy from the body, like grounding yourself, you know, to mother Earth. So using some smoke and sage and, and different things like that, taking a cold shower, an ice bath, the way you prepare yourself coming in. But I also think a lot of like holding onset energy is also like due to some sort of like core wounds that people have experienced in their life where they hold on to energy and they're not able to let it go because there's a kind of like an expectation of like, how do I put this in a way that makes sense? Like they want to help everybody and they feel responsible for healing people and they want to make sure so they just absorb everything and hold on to it and not allow it to kind of like flow through them. And when I'm going to breath work, I'm just like, you know, I'm being a servant of the universe and nothing is mine. I just allow it to flow through me, allow the work to flow through me and I allow whatever comes through. Like it's not even going to touch me. Like my vibration. I put it at a level that if there's anything dark or negative or emotional, it's like it's not mine, like it's not going to touch me. But if in your mind you start believing that and then you start telling yourself that and you're like, oh, I picked up all this energy from that person or I felt that you can feel energy from people for sure. But whether you're going to take it on, I think that's a choice people make. And again empaths will probably argue me to death on this. But I ultimately think, you know, if you're going to believe that, that that belief is going to make you feel a certain way. Right?

Yeah, I would. I definitely say that our identity, right. So if we identify as somebody who holds on to other people's energy, then that's exactly the reality that we're going to try to create. And, and perhaps phase one of recreating that identity is using these secondary tools like sage or I know some people use crystals or essential oils, getting outside grounding, cold baths, showers as you mentioned. But I think the real reframe for people is to create a new identity that I can hold space for people. But I'm vibrating because I'm working on myself and doing the self work. I'm vibrating on a frequency that doesn't attach to that energy that Holds space for it, but doesn't, you know, become entangled with it.

Right. And so, yeah, like sometimes I'll like, like the thing in breath work though, you're gonna feel a lot of things. Like when you're facilitating, like you're gonna feel the energy shift in the room. You're gonna feel like when you go into this wave of emotion, come over and you know intuitively, sometimes you say things that just come out of nowhere. They just like when you're present, it's like you say a prompt that you've never said before. And then afterwards someone's like, hey, when you said that, it was like so timely. It was exactly what I need to hear. And I think the same thing goes about like the energetic. It's like, you know, if you, like I said, it's like really the what you believe is kind of what you're going to experience and what you're going to attract. That's my own personal experience. And I've seen both ends of it. You know, I've seen when I believe things were going to go wrong and fail, that everything I did was, was in that space, in that energy. And when I kind of got over that and saw the truth of it, when I rechange reprogram some of my beliefs around what it meant and what success meant and what failure meant, I could change the way I was like feeling in my life around certain things. I could see the possibility out of it. Whereas before it was like, I can only see the ways that it could go wrong, the way it could fail. And all the downside, I think the same thing is energetically, if you feel that, like, hey, absorb everyone's energy. Every time you're around someone, you feel a little bit, you're gonna start like feeling it. Like, I'm sure I don't know if you've experienced it, but like, you know, sometimes when you think you're sick, you start manifesting symptoms or you start tricking yourself that like, hey, I feel sick or is that a fever? And then you maybe someone goes and googles it online and they see another 20 symptoms. Like, oh my God, I feel a lump in my neck or my, I'm got a fever. Like, you know, the mind is a crazy thing and the ability to manifest and create things is like what you put in there. And the retention particular activating system. The mind starts trying to seek it out and experience it because it thinks that's what you want. Okay, we're gonna feel this way. Okay, that's what you really Want. So let's crank the temperature up now. You get a fever?

I don't know. I think you being able to say that so elegantly comes from doing the work. Right. So what's some of the work that you've done to be able to raise your vibration or to, you know, to be able to, you know, to hold space for people and, and, and not latch onto that. I know it's the mindset, but there's. There's probably some. Either books you've read or experiences that you've had or, you know, things, lessons that you've learned. Anything that jumps out to you.

Yeah, the most important thing is, well, there's two things. Curiosity and intuition. You know, being able to be curious about life and potential and why things are the way they are, including yourself and the way you think and the way you feel and trying to feel into what intuition is and listening to that kind of voice, it's always trying to kind of steer you. And the mind is always trying to stay in what's certain. It's always trying to say, like, hey, I understand this. This is comfortable, or it's uncomfortable, but it's certain. So I don't want to go into uncertainty. And the curiosity is what killed the cat, but also probably enlightened the cat. At the same time, you know, you get curious and say, okay, like, what's out there? So, you know, those are two, like, things that I think are very important and, and each person's journey is going to be completely different. You know, where that. Where those two things lead them. But when you start listening to it, you'll see there's certain things are going to be really pulling you strongly in different directions. You know, whether it's just in business and it doesn't have anything to do with spiritual. I think everything is, Is part of your spiritual journey. Even like your business, your schooling, everything. You know, the way you feel like, oh, I can't stand this, or I can't be in this place, or I can't work here, and people are trying to get a hold of me and who has a house phone anymore? My house line keeps ringing. I can't silence that.

They're calling you to do breath work.

Yeah, right. The universe is calling. They got an answer for me. And the other thing is, like, there are no real answers, you know, like, I haven't figured it out, but you have deeper awareness and you start asking different questions. Whereas, you know, a question before that I would probably ask myself was like, asking for an answer like, what am I supposed to do with my life or, like, what I business decision or, like, this isn't that. It was totally, like the wrong questions to ask, you know, it was. Now I'm just really like, trying to figure out what it even means to be a human being and, like, trying to drop judgment of, like, good and bad and, you know, we live in this world that's so dualistic and just trying to, like, understand the other side's point of view and seeing, like, where they might be coming from and dropping attachment to both that opinion and my own opinion at the same time and just saying, hey, like, it's okay, like, to have this like this. This is perfect right now. Maybe the earth needs what's going on right now, and I'm just here to observe and be a part of it and play with it, you know, just be here and do my thing right through to the end, you know, am I going to get swallowed up in some, you know, crazy war or, you know, collapse of the market and lose everything? Yeah, but that could be a fun experience in this, like, video game of life, which I'm here for, like the Instagram minute, you know, I don't think life is going to. Is more like the holding your breath kind of 80 years. It's more like a scrolling on Instagram 80, 100 years, maybe more. It's like, what am I going to do while I'm here? Am I going to really waste all my time worrying, but just exploring and trying to understand myself and try to have deeper experiences? Read a lot of books, different philosophies. Found plant medicine. That was a big one. It's not for everyone, but really opened my eyes to a lot of different possibilities, I guess. You know, about the universe, about life, you know, having death experiences in there and really understanding that it doesn't end there. Or at least that's what it was trying to show me. And then like, things like breath work, like breathwork, something so accessible. Ice baths, being out in nature, like, really just spending time in nature, you know, shutting off your phone, just going there and just being quiet and observing your mind and how crazy the mind is. And, you know. So, yeah, like, there's. There's a lot of things, but I think it's like when you hear something that jumps out at you that you feel curious about. When you hear something that comes up a few times and you've noticed it, like, that's to bring your awareness to, like, go check that out, you know, because usually that's your intuition trying to pull you In a direction. So all those things I mentioned, there was a point in time where it just started popping up and I felt this kind of curiosity to it it. And then I had to dive in and just find out what it was all about. And there's nothing better or more important than your own personal experience. You can read all you want. The books. I started with the books when I had, like, my first kind of like, oh, my God, what's the point of living? What's the point of life? This is all meaningless. Read as much philosophy as I could and thought I had an understanding, but I didn't until I had the real world experience of, like, facing all those fears or, you know, psychedelic experience or whatever. And then I started to understand a little bit about what they were talking about.

One thing I love about you is the wheel, see mentality. So I love that you're kind of pluripotent. You're open to whatever possibilities and whatever potential is out there. And you never, in my experience, have passed judgment. So even when I get excited about an idea or, you know, with everything that's happened over the last two years, it's like, like, do you think this is true? Do you think this is going to happen? You're like, we'll see. I'm like, I need to get to that level of enlightenment where.

You know what I figured out? I would go crazy trying to have all these potential outcomes and, like, none of them would happen. It would be something else that I could not even see. And a friend of mine put it in a really interesting way. My friend jj, he's like, you know, there's the things that you know that you know that you know, like, you know, your functional medicine coach, and you know that you're a dad and you know that you're good at certain things and you're a breathwork facilitator. And there's things you know that you don't know. Like, you know, you're not a brain surgeon. You know, you're not an astronaut. You know, you're not good at, you know, calculus, maybe, I don't know, maybe you are good at calculus. You probably would be, but anyways. But then there's the things you don't know that you don't know that you're still going to discover and you're still going to figure out and that are going to happen. That possibility that wasn't a possibility yesterday, that tomorrow is a possibility, you know, and when I went through my experience at building elemental, what I looked back and saw after was, yeah, that space in those years, like, now it's got potential to make some money. And maybe when I. When I made it, part of it was like, yeah, I want a space to connect, but I also wanted to make money because I needed an income. But that really wasn't the initial intention of it. But when I look back at the businesses I have now and the relationships and the opportunities I have now, all those came out of that. So it was a space planting ground that was seeds to create connections with people that then saw me as a person they wanted to do business with. And then I created all these other opportunities, you know, But I couldn't see it back then. But now looking back, I can see it. So now it's like, okay, like, anything that happened. So in those days, if you would have gave me, like, an eject button, like, at month, I don't know, 12 after, you know, going through construction, opening for three months, even month 18, I would have pressed it. You said, give me, like, the reset going back, and if I look back and I would have pressed it now. I said, that would have been the stupidest thing you could have ever done in your life.

Right.

But I would have done it in that moment.

Right.

And so for people who are in a spot right now, they're just launching a business or having a tough time, just, like, there's something beautiful on the other side of this challenge if you can work your way through it and figure out what. What the whole purpose of it is. It always works like that. And we. And I think the world is designed in that dualistic way so it can challenge both sides of it always. If it was perfect and easy, it wouldn't grow or learn or anything like that, you know? But you have, like, this crazy perfect, like, yin yang. You know, the world, like, you look at yin Yang, and there's a swirling energy with. Inside of each of it, there's the opposite, right? And it's necessary to continually evolve and grow and challenge and learn. And when I remind myself of that, it's like, yeah, everything is perfect, even though it doesn't feel good all the time. And don't get me wrong, like, when I say this, like, oh, this guy's. This guy never feels scared or upset. Like, yeah, like, I get challenged. The most interesting thing this was another conversation I had over the weekend was like, you get over one challenge, and you get this kind of plateau where you feel really good, and you're like, oh, man, things are really good right now. They start knowing, hey, something else is going to be coming around the corner eventually. Another challenge to just really check. Check me, because I signed up for this. This ongoing growth in life, and it's like, okay, but now I welcome it when it comes. It's like, it's going to be hard. I know it's gonna suck for sure, but there's gonna be so much growth that can come with something like that. Right. And. And to remember that, in my opinion, we've lived this life many times, you know, so even through death, you're still having this experience. And I don't want to die, but I know, like, one day I'm gonna have that experience, and it's probably gonna be amazing. It's probably nothing like what my mind thinks and it's probably afraid of right now. It'll probably be some crazy beautiful, like, beyond your wildest dreams experience. And, you know, when that time is right for me, like, let's bring it on, you know? Anyways.

No, I love that. I thank you for sharing that because I've always admired that about you. And it's. It's a journey, right? So we're constantly trying to move in that direction where we. We don't become so attached to a future that we have. We know we have some control over it, but a lot of times we get hung up in what other people are doing, right? And other people's futures and other people's possibilities where we can just stay in our breath, stay, you know, tuned into our own energy, work on raising our own vibration. And then, you know, we signed up for this and we have all the tools that we need, you know, to create transformation for ourselves and, you know, that moment when we encountered. At some point in the future. Giovanni, I'd love to. I'd love to ask you, how can people experience this? Because that's one of the first things we talked about, is getting people to experience more firsthand. Right. What the breath work can do for them. Because it does. There's nothing to sell, right? It just. It resonates instantly with people who do it. And then what they're left with is like, how do I do this for other people? How do I create this amazing people or this amazing feeling for other people that I love and care about? So where can they experience that? Is there somewhere that we'd like to send them?

Yeah. So the first, easiest way is just to reach out to Satchin and convince him to hold a live breathwork experience for all of you guys. That would be, like, probably the best experience. Secondly, we have a website elemental rhythm.com there's recorded experiences on there. I would look for the Elemental Rhythm breakthrough experience on there. And we do offer live classes every Monday. So there's. We do like a seven day free trial for the website access. So you can just go on, do the class and then, you know, cancel your membership. So it's totally free. And then if you feel called to, you know, we have facilitator training every three months and we're expanding that because we're teaching people how to teach facilitators now so that we can, you know, have all these like, almost like yoga teacher training so people can teach other people how to do it. And that's where we really want to spread. So we had our first one just in Ohio in person, you know, last week and it went amazing. And we're trying to find people that want to, you know, have this in their toolkit. Whether they do it, you know, full time or in conjunction with, you know, being a functional medicine. I think it's a great combination. Or like a coach or a personal trainer, like almost anybody could do this. And even if you're not any of those things, like, so we have some lawyers, we have some police officers, firefighters, like doctors that are part of. We have all different walks of life who are facilitators. So, so yeah, just go on the website. We have the facilitator training on elemental.com you can find a time. We do it both online and we do it in person. One of the things that I just wanted to touch on as well you mentioned earlier was the best experience is in person and then it also works online. But we also realize is some people actually allow themselves to go deeper in the online experience because they feel safe, because they're at home, they're not afraid of people judging them. And we found like people that have really resistant in person can have even deeper experience at home. So it really just depends on who you're delivering it to. Sometimes it could be better online. And we've done the full training online and some of our best facilitators came out of that online training. So it really doesn't matter. It's up to you online or in person. And if you have questions, just reach out. You know, we have a great team that is always looking to find, you know, the next most amazing breathwork facilitator, which. Which hopefully is one of you guys listening.

Awesome. Well, we'll be sure to share the link so people can learn more and become more familiar with your work. It's been Again, transformational for me. And I look forward to continuing our friendship and mutual mentorship of each other's personal growth and business growth. Thank you for being such an amazing influence in my life and in my family's life. You've transformed it in more ways than I can express. So I appreciate you greatly.

I really appreciate that, Sachin and same, you know, thank you so much for all that you do within, you know, this business and in your personal life and, you know, the way you're such a great leader and role model, mentor. And I can also go on probably for hours here, but just I appreciate you so much. So thank you.

Thank you. Well, thank you for you for listening, tuning in today. Thank you for taking time out of your day. I know how valuable it is, and I hope you got value out of today, because it is my ultimate mission to help you create your perfect practice. And it starts by having the right tools to build that practice. And I truly believe that breathwork is one of those tools that allows us to, you know, liberate people from their pain, from their suffering, and allows us to give them. Gives us a tool that goes beyond supplements, goes beyond lab testing, and it equips people with a newfound skill set, but it also equips them with a clean slate, which I think a lot of people need. You know, they need to reset metabolically, but a lot of times they need to reset emotionally, mentally, spiritually. And breath work is something that can do that for people. Thank you once again, Giovanni.

I'll just add one more thing to that, is that when people take the training, the one thing they don't realize because they take because they want to serve others, but what really happens when they go, go through that experience is they all the breath work and teaching they're doing creates a transformation within them. We see that time and time again. People that start to train and come out are two totally different people. And that's what we want because those people now can share from a place of understanding of like, oh, breathwork changed my life. Same thing. Like, most of the practitioners here probably had a health issue and went to functional medicine and got inspired by how, hey, this actually works much better than what wasn't working before. So I just want to leave that as the last thing about, you know, potentially become facilitators. You will feel like experience changes within yourself at the same time. So thank you, Sachin.

Yeah, excellent, excellent point. Thank you, Giovanni. Yeah, it's who you become in the process, right? So it's like a new version of yourself. Emerges as you go through this journey. And you just start discovering parts of yourself, you know, spiritually, mentally, physically, that you didn't even know existed. And as you shed, you know, because as a facilitator, you go through the breathing, right? Because we start many of the sessions with breath work. So you're definitely increasing the cadence compared to the average person. And you're peeling those layers that Giovanni talked about. So, you know, you're shedding that. That old skin that isn't serving you anymore. And, you know, a new you is revealed. The real you is revealed. Not a new you, the real you is revealed.

Amazing.

Well, thank you, everyone. Thank you, Giovanni. Lots of love to you and appreciate all of you for tuning in. We'll share the links where you can connect with Giovanni's work. And, you know, I invite all of you to at least explore the possibility of adding this to your tool belt. Your clients will thank you profusely, over and over again, and you will thank yourself. Your future self will thank you for moving your practice or adding this tool to your practice, because it will be a step in the right direction for you.