Introduction
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Well, hello my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show on IV Nutrient Therapy and The How Do You Health? Festival.
We have some great energy in this episode. There’s actually three of us hanging out, because we had two guests on at the same time. We are talking to Baldomero Garza, aka Baldo, and Jonathan Mendoza, aka Nurse Doza.
We are talking about Vitamin IV therapy, which is going to be really interesting. But most importantly we are talking about The How Do You Health? Festival. The How Do You Health? Festival will be going on in December in Austin, Texas. It is a Friday to Sunday event, so let me get the dates for you really quick. It is December 2nd, that Friday until Sunday, December 4th.
I will be there. I’ll actually be speaking for FDN at that event. We’ll have Courtney Jagoda there as well. And Courtney Jagoda, if you do not know, is someone who is on our course enrollment team. You might have actually talked to her if you enrolled in the course already and you are currently an FDN or an FDN in training. We would love to see you guys.
I’m sure there’s going to be a bunch of other FDNs hanging out because Austin is seemingly a hotspot for all things functional medicine, biohacking, all this cool stuff.
I’m going to read the bios for these gentlemen here and then we are going to get right into it today.
About Baldo and Nurse Doza
Baldo has extensive experience in education and sales, marketing, and startup business practices. He holds a certification in yoga, is a fellow biohacker, and loves mixing health drinks behind vitamin bars to help people feel good. His philosophy is to focus on the simple things that we all have access to, to optimize our bodies and create a healthy environment conducive to longevity. He believes that fasting, sleep, and exercise are the greatest tools and foundations for longevity, and that nutrition, supplementation, and meditation is how we maximize those tools. Climbing is also his passion.
Then Jonathan Mendoza, aka Nurse Doza, is the founder of MSW and co-founder of the Health Lounge, MSW Nutrition, and How Do You Health? Network in Austin, Texas. An Austin Native, Nurse Doza has been studying nutrition and its effects on our health for over 15 years. While in his last year of chiropractic school, Nurse Doza began nursing school so that he could eventually utilize the healing benefits of both body work and intravenous vitamins and minerals.
Now, MSW Health Lounge is an Austin hotspot for groundbreaking health and wellness, hosting regular lunch and learns and other events for the community to come together and learn about how to improve their lives with health. His passions include teaching, discovering new healing modalities, interviewing guests on the How Do You Health? Podcast, and traveling with his loved ones to anywhere with a mountain.
I think you guys are really going to like the episode. It’s just, again, really fun energy. Then we’re talking about some exciting stuff.
How Do You Health? Festival
They have the first, well, first that I know of, Health Lounge, where people can actually just come to hang out and talk health with other people.
Then they have what is probably going to end up being one of the flippin’ coolest health events of the entire year, How Do You Health? Festival. We’ll talk about how you can get a discount for that if you’re looking to come to it. We will shout that out at the end of the episode, and then you can find it in the show notes as well.
Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode. All right. Hello there Baldo and Nurse Doza. Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. How are you guys?
[00:03:22] Baldo: Great man. Thanks for having us on, for sure.
[00:03:24] Detective Ev: All right. If you are listening, because guys, we were doing audio way before we ever did video. Actually, the video side is something we only just started publishing recently, believe it or not. We did almost 170 episodes of this podcast audio only.
So, for those listening that are maybe confused, like, did I just say hello to two people? You heard it correctly. We actually have two guests today at the same time, cause these guys work together. I think this is going to be fun. I mean, my gosh, our 50 minutes already fly by as it is.
I feel like today’s going to be a total breeze and that’s why I don’t want to spend any more time messing around. I want to get right into it with you guys. One thing I do want to do because I want it more conversational, of course, but I will go with you guys individually, if you don’t mind.
Looking For a Higher Purpose
It’s so important on the show that we figure out the person’s background and how they got into this space. Everyone finds that interesting. No one gets into this space by accident.
I guess Baldo, we’ll start with you, my friend. How did you even get to this place that you’re in now? Like, how did you get to doing this stuff?
[00:04:17] Baldo: This will be great because it’ll be a segue to his way, because my way to get into the health space was because of John.
For me, growing up I was always an athlete. I even played college tennis. After that, I always found myself in different competitions. And John’s the guy that I always came to for advice because, he’s my best friend. Since college we’ve been best friends. Also, he was working in that space, he’s a nurse practitioner and a chiropractor.
Basically, what it came down to is that we both found ourselves in our lives in a kind of a crossroads. With him, it was really more like he wanted to practice a certain way. For me, I was being very successful in sales, I was actually selling Cutco knives. But I just didn’t know what that was going to lead to. For me, I just got caught in the whole, what am I going to do next here? Just sell more knives? And then the year after that, just sell more knives.
But for me, it never connected to a higher purpose. At some point, hearing his stories and, you know, I do understand the whole realm of health. I always pretty much took care of myself. At that point, I was not taking care of myself the best. I had just started to let go.
Finding Fulfillment in Helping People
At the same time, I knew his struggles and his genius that I wanted to help some way. We always wanted to own a bar together. Growing up in college we used to drink so much. It just happened that we stopped drinking.
I mean, he stopped drinking, then, because of that, I stopped drinking. So, we didn’t have a bar to really run anymore, or that idea of one. Then we decided to do more of a health bar. That’s how both the clinic started and then we also started a supplement company.
Then the next phase is we started a festival out of like, just trying to celebrate people doing health in different ways.
[00:05:51] Detective Ev: John, we’ll throw it to you.
[00:05:52] Nurse Doza: To kind of play off of what Baldo said, at the time when I pitched them this idea, it was probably around, I think 2016, 2015.
At the time in both of our lives I just got married, just bought a house, had a kid, and thought about having another kid. You know, he’s traveling the world, wants to continue to travel and climb mountains, and find a job that is fulfilling cause he’s not really happy. I’m at a place where I made the most money at a job and I wasn’t happy either.
I said, well, I think we can find something that would really give us this fulfillment that we haven’t found before. I think it comes down to helping people. The way that we knew how to do that was through vitamins and through nutrition and lifestyle changes. Because as a chiropractor, you know, that’s what we’re taught, to treat the body as a whole and do it from a natural standpoint as possible.
Vitamin Bar Idea – IV Nutrient Therapy
Then as a nurse practitioner, you’re taught medications and how to prescribe. I quickly realized that medicine wasn’t going to be the answer. It wasn’t going to fix everything. Most people thought medicine would, you know, be a magic pill.
So, when we got into starting a business, everything was from the ground up. My personal journey was diabetes in my family. I was pre-diabetic at one point. Baldo mentioned, I drank a lot, ate like crap, but somehow managed to be successful and somehow pull it together. Then realized I wasn’t keeping it together and said, all right, now I gotta work on myself and improve myself before I can start helping others. This is all going on while I’m becoming a practitioner.
By the time I get to get my so-called crap together, now it’s the point where me and Baldo are at Crossroads in our professional life and saying, hey, we want to try something different. Let’s go for this Vitamin Bar idea. It’s crazy enough to work in a place like Austin, Texas and we’re going to work our butts off to make sure that it does work.
So, you know, being a practitioner, you’re not taught business. But Baldo taught me business and he taught me how to do a business in a situation that it’s never been done before. It’s been the most fun ride I could ever have dreamed of.
[00:07:46] Detective Ev: I gotta just say, I noticed this immediately, the respect that both you guys have for each other. Like, you guys are the first ones, you’re like, oh, John did this for me. Then you’re saying, hey, well he knew the business side and did that. That’s just real friendship.
Blue Bag Moments
That’s kind of cool. You guys are just making me excited. I’ve been doing health stuff for about nine years, you know, and you could do a lot by yourself, right? But it’s always better with more. One of my best friends just had what I would call (and this will make sense in a second), like his blue bag moment.
The blue bag is something that I heard from the speaker, Chris Brady. What it is, it’s like those ice packs that you used to have as a kid. You break it and then the blue stuff kind of spreads out everywhere. Once it spreads, it never goes back to its original form.
I think for many people in the entrepreneurial world or like the health world, it’s like, I mean, you guys went from drinking all the time to, that’s not even something that you do. And you’re starting a health bar, which is the exact like antithesis of a normal bar, which is amazing. There’s these blue bag moments that we have in life, typically with entrepreneurship and other things as well, where we just say, You know what? Enough’s enough. I’m never going back. I’m going to do something else. And your form is permanently changed.
He just had that. He calls me up, he’s an analytical chemist, smartest guy I know. He literally says, Dude, I quit the job. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I got $25k saved and I want to go do something else right now. I’m like, what? So, he came to a business conference with to be two weeks ago. I’m like, it’s a changed guy.
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar: Healthy Connections
I’m just excited cause I see in you guys the respect that you have and the success that you’re having business wise. And I’m hoping to replicate a similar thing down the road.
I want to know more about this health bar. Cause I would imagine that is the first thing going through everyone’s heads. So, in any order. I mean, I’m not going to make you guys go like one after the other every time. That’s kind of ridiculous. So, whoever feels inclined to tell us about it.
[00:09:21] Nurse Doza: I’ll go with this one. The vitamin bar idea is exactly what you think of it in your head right now. It’s people smiling and laughing and conversing. There’s music playing in the background, and we have a really good time. I mean, that’s really what it is.
But the conversations and interactions, engagement all evolves around health and wellness topics. It’s very educational, it’s very matter of fact. It’s also open-minded discussions, which, you know, basically sets the environment for intellectual people attending and showing up to be at this Vitamin bar, right?
Because if you think about it, if you were a health and wellness enthusiast, like we all are, where do you go to hang out to talk about this with people? Because if you go to the gym, you’re not going to find it all the time there. I mean, that’s the truth. Then where else are you going to go? A smoothie bar?
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar: You’re Always Welcome
It’s like, we need to go to a place. And a lot of times I thought about it, being a chiropractor. I was like, well, you go to a chiropractor if you want to be healthy. Then I’m like, all right, well, what if we had a bar that people wanted to get healthier, they wanted to hang out here and be healthy all the time here? Imagine if like they came here every day or every other day, and that’s what started happening.
We created a health bar that was so welcoming to the person needing some kind of encouragement in that direction, to get to healthy. They found it with us. Everyone who comes in here is on their own path to health and wellness. Which I think is why we’re in this realm because we know that something helped us, we can help other people.
So, the vitamin Bar is more of that. It’s a community. And it’s a community where people can come together and know that they’re always welcome. Even during the pandemic, everyone was welcome, if you know what I mean. We wanted to make sure that if you always need help, you want to feel better, you want better energy, you want to lose weight, you don’t know who to talk to about your body, you know, like you can come to us. We’re always here if you want to talk about it.
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar: Deep Health Subjects
[00:11:02] Baldo: Now you gotta understand that it is a health bar. That’s why we call it that. I mean, the first name of it was the Vitamin Lounge. That’s what it was. But it is a holistic care clinic, right? So, if anyone needs anything, blood work, like anything that you would go to a regular clinic for, you can find it here, you can do it here. The only difference is that the setting is different, right?
The setting is we have really comfortable chairs. There’s always like some deep house music going on in the background. But people are talking about those issues that normally, even with your regular doctor, is hard to kind of like address those.
Sometimes doctors, even in your case sometimes, it’s like you’re pulling at the teeth just to get like, can you just tell me what’s really going on? It’s like, then they’re kind of embarrassed or like it’s a taboo subject. Well, you don’t get that a lot in our clinic or in our lounge. Because there is this setting and it’s almost like people, for some reason, people walk in, and you’ll hear some of the deepest health subjects or concerns or sicknesses. They’re just being spoken about out in the open, but in a very like, charming way.
Cause people are like, well you know what? My cousin had the same thing. This is what they tried. Now all of a sudden, it’s like there’s a support system while the music’s going and they’re having vitamin drinks and maybe they’re getting an IV. That’s kind of how that goes.
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar: You’re Gonna Feel Better
And then we have lunch and learn. We’ll bring in speakers from everywhere just to come give an hour thing and we’ll do free lunch for people. So, very much a communal environment that we set up. It’s kind of like what you do when you go to the bar, right? Like you drink with your buddies and no subject is taboo.
You’re just talking about everything cause you like, have all these drinks. It’s just that you’re not drunk and you’re not going to feel like crap the next day.
[00:12:35] Nurse Doza: You’re going to feel better the next day actually. And that’s the thing. What was really cool about it was we quickly realized because of this whole setup, anyone that showed up to our lounge was going to get healthier.
Like the second they walked in, whether it was a conversation, whether it was one of our vitamin drinks, whether it was a vitamin IV, they were going to get better. So, we knew that we had something special on our hands.
And we talked about like, how can we make this even more unique? So, what we started to do was customize the whole approach, right? Because there’s one side of it where you can come in and get a vitamin IV. At the time, we were starting like the movement with a bunch of other people who were opening IV clinics. It wasn’t the norm. Now it is, right?
At the time, people were like, why would you do a vitamin IV? Why wouldn’t you just take supplements? We’re like, well, it’s cause it’s the best way to put vitamins in your body. Okay, that makes sense. And after a while, everyone was doing them.
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar: Measuring Performance
Well, they came to us after a while because they were like, well, you know, I think there’s a reason why I need these IVs so much. Can you tell me why? So, we said, yeah, of course we can, we do lab work.
They’re like, What? We’re like, yeah, we do tons of labs. We do advanced lab work, which you all know about. And we said, so we can figure out exactly what’s going on in your body and we can play around with it and kind of see what makes you function better.
Then what we started doing was customizing the vitamin IVs. We started customizing the vitamin drinks they were having along with the vitamin IVs. What we started noticing was that people were getting better. And when you say get better, it’s like, well, how do you measure better? It’s like, how do you measure performance, right?
I say, you know, better energy, better mood, better sleep, better poops, better sex, better body, better mindset. To me, that’s feeling good. That’s what we were doing for people. It was very interesting because we’re using very scientific things that are taught in medical clinics and schools, nursing programs.
They’re saying, this is how you’re supposed to take care of the body. We said, yeah, but we’re going to make it fun. So that’s what this whole concept is.
[00:14:26] Detective Ev: I love you guys already. I just gotta say this is freaking awesome. Great attitude, great business partners together. I got a few questions. I guess a little bit different topics though.
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar: Catering to the Work Experience
So first, most obvious one is just to be clear here, so I could come in, and maybe I’m wrong, but like I could come in on Friday at 5:00 PM. Maybe I don’t even want to do any tests right now, but like, I just want to meet other health-oriented people. I’m traveling to Austin. Am I understanding that correctly? I can come in and just hang out there?
[00:14:50] Baldo: Oh yeah. People co-work here all the time. One of the first things that I said, look, whatever we do, we just gotta have the fastest internet. I don’t want someone leaving only because of the reason that they can’t download an email that they really need to check.
That’s such a basic concept, right? But it’s like, people just come because of that. Like, they’ll just co-work.
[00:15:07] Nurse Doza: But you gotta think about this, so you’re getting a vitamin IV which for anyone who hasn’t had one before, it takes about an hour. You’re sitting down for 60 minutes straight. What are you going to be doing for 60 minutes straight?
Well, think about most people during the workdays, they’re going to be working, right? So, they bring their laptop. What we do is we cater to that experience. A lot of people will come in and they’re like, hey, I gotta get on this call, I gotta jump on this, blah, blah, blah.
I’m like, do what you need to do. Just stick your arm out and tell us what kind of mix you get.
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar: A Legit Medical Clinic
If they call ahead of time, they schedule, the IV is literally waiting for them with everything they need in the bag based off their labs and with a very white glove kind of smooth operation.
So, you imagine like, well, what if I don’t do the IV? I’m like, Well just come and hang out. Listen to a talk. Just come in. That’s what we tell people.
Cause you imagine when we started this, it was very hard to explain it to people right away. Obviously, we’ve gotten used to saying it over and over again, but at first it was very different for most people.
So, they sometimes say like, I don’t understand, this is a medical clinic? I’m like, yeah. I have a license and everything to do all this stuff. You just gotta come over here and check it out. When they walk in, they got it. They just walked in, and you feel the energy when you walk in. You just kind of sit down and people have called it a vortex. People have called it like just getting lost sometimes.
But they’re just like, what is it about this place that I want to be here? And what’s cool is, I don’t know too many people can say this about their jobs. When Baldo and I started, we quickly realized we never knew who was going to show up at the lounge that day.
It was kind of a good thing, right? Because people were literally driving by, or they brought a friend in from town and they would bring them over. They’re like, hey, you gotta check this place out. There’s nothing like this. I don’t even know how to describe it. I just bring people here and just make them feel good.
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar: In and out All Day Long
We’re like, cool, all right, do this, blah, blah, blah, and then just throw it at them. They would be like, what is this? Like, what am I doing? This has to be good for me, right? I’m like, yeah. You’re actually detoxing your liver, revitalizing your brain, and balancing your hormones.
They’re like, what? Are you serious? I’m like, yeah, you just make sure that you do this more consistently than usual, and then you’ll feel the difference after a while.
[00:17:03] Baldo: What’s crazy about it is that IVs actually took a little while for them to start out, cause for like the first year it was mostly IMs, injections, right?
We had like different formulas. We had a menu kind of like if you go for a smoothie bar. They’re like, well, what kind of shot do you want? People would be like, well, let me get an eight pack. Because then they would come twice a week and they would be like, all right, I’m going to show up. I’m here for my shot. Like I’m going to take off, grab a drink. Then they just pop in and out all day long.
[00:17:25] Nurse Doza: That was the crazy thing. It was like a bar. And it is still like a bar. We have people who’ve come in two or three times a week. Sometimes they just come in, stop by and say hi. They’ll grab a drink. They’re just like, I just want drink.
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar: Convenient Health
What happens is we actually put a supplement store in the front cause we have a really good supplement line. Some people just come in and buy supplements. So, I never even see them come in for IVs or whatever.
They’re like, oh, so-and-so stopped by and picked up a bunch of X. I’m like, What? Like, yeah. They said hi, and said they were doing well. They were just checking in almost like, Cheers. I’m just like, Wow, that’s awesome.
What’s really great about it is like, you know Baldo was saying with the wifi, those little attention to detail things. Like now someone’s going to come there and know that they can get all their work done. They can put their headphones in, they’re not going to be bothered.
And we have their card on file, so they don’t even have to pull out their card. They just like, you got me right. Okay. I’m gone. Then they walk out. To me it’s convenient. This is convenient health at your fingertips, how you want it. It’s wellness your way.
[00:18:18] Detective Ev: Dang.
All right. I have an entrepreneurship-oriented question and then I have a health-oriented question. I actually think I’m going to start with the entrepreneurship one because our audience, guys, is a lot of people considering the FDN course. It’s people in the course or people that have already graduated. And naturally about 90% plus, I mean, it might even be 95% plus of the graduates are taking a more entrepreneurial approach.
Making it Over the New Entrepreneurship Hump
First of all, the fact that you guys are in Austin is amazing. We go down there a lot for conferences, and we have a lot of FDNs in Austin. So literally after this interview, I’m going to make sure to shout this out for you guys in our professionals’ group, cause I’ll have people coming in next week. So, this’ll be amazing.
You guys got great energy. But with the entrepreneurship side, my girlfriend, my business partner and I, we started what we call a light therapy studio in, I’m in Pennsylvania. We just started that in April of this year. It’s weird, it’s different.
We’re using red lights, but I also have UV lamps for vitamin D because we can’t really get that up here in the winter. Like from November to January you can’t get any and most people aren’t going out with a bunch of skin exposed in February or January anyway. So, it doesn’t even matter that you can get it in a sense.
We have a bunch of stuff in there, infrared sauna, it’s all light-oriented and it’s different. Like you said, I mean, some people come in, they’re like, what is this? And then they come in, they’re like, oh, I get this. This is cool.
You guys were doing something innovative, something new, and clearly just by going through the years here, you obviously have had success for yourself. Otherwise, you guys probably would’ve been outta business by now. You made it over that hump. Entrepreneurship can be tough.
FDN, we’re not reinventing the system. There are thousands of FDNs out there. So, I figure any advice that you might be able to give for that can help these guys.
Having an Opportunistic Mindset
How did you navigate a new space? How did you get through some hard times? Like what’s your advice for these entrepreneurs out there that are listening?
[00:19:54] Baldo: I will say this, when I got into this space, like I said, I had no health. What I would say first of all is let your passion drive you. You’re going to have to, because I mean that’s what was exciting for me.
Like so much was, no. No. No. You can’t do that. You can’t say that. No, you can’t do it that way. You can’t say it that way. Coming from a very strict business sales aspect, which I’ve done for many, many years. Many times, it was like, hey, let’s go, let’s try this. He’d be like, no, we can’t. You can’t do that.
This is a medical industry. He’s like, okay, well no, you can’t do that. You can’t give that. You can’t give commission. Like you can’t. All these like can’ts. For me it was always like, sweet. That means that I now have barriers. So as long as I stay within these barriers, then it’s easier to get more creative with it, because now I know I can’t go this far or this far.
Definitely attitude’s a big one, because you gotta see all those cant’s and why nots. You gotta see them as opportunities to like, well, sweet. That means that I have less things to think about so that I can allow my creativity to grow.
At this point, like what we became known for was free B12 shots. Our sign still says, Home of the Free B12 Shot, right? So, people come in, it’s like everybody gets a free B12 shot that’s never been here before.
Plenty of Barriers, Less Decisions
Usually, that’s the little nugget that once they come in, they see all the other things and they want to ask questions.
For us it was always education, right? It’s an opportunity to educate people on the different things. We made it very simple from the get-go. I think this is also an important point, to have your values and what is it that you’re going to stick to?
For us it was always, look, if any decision that we have to make doesn’t educate and or doesn’t help another business grow or another person grow in some way, then we’re just not going to do it. Right? Because as we started to get more popular, we had so many opportunities.
It was quickly like, but who is that helping? Is it only helping us or is it only helping them? Then it’s not worth our time because we want people to grow. We want other businesses to grow as well too.
Then of course, we gotta have an opportunity to educate. That made it so much easier. What happened was that we just put plenty of barriers so that we have less decisions to make along the process.
[00:21:55] Nurse Doza: I agree completely with everything Baldo just said. To just summarize it, that’s the very beginning phase of an entrepreneurship, what he just described. You can summarize that as one word. Mindset.
Because like I said, I didn’t have a business background. I have a healthcare background; he has a business background. He doesn’t have a healthcare background. So, we were teaching each other. But like you said, there’s tough times at the beginning.
Lead with a Loving Service
If you’re bootstrapping it, creating something from the ground up, if you don’t get up, you’re not eating. You know? So that’s how I look at it, right? That was our mindset.
It was like, all right, no, is not an answer. You know? If you tell me, no, that’s fine. I’m going to find another solution. That’s what he taught me. So quickly, I was like, perfect.
Then I have to be self-sustainable at the same time, so I gotta work on myself. Which he also taught me breath work, yoga, introduced me to yoga, which changed my life. He would be like, now you can just do that whenever, you have that tool. That’s cool.
Mindset was everything at the beginning of entrepreneurship. It’ll get you through tough times. Sometimes you just have to believe it will.
Then the second part, which I believe is what was a big success for us too, even to this day, is we have always led with our loving service. This has been taken from a mentor of ours. If you think about it, Baldo said this perfectly before. He said, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. I said, that’s fascinating.
He said, your passion is what’s going to be what motivates people to want to do the work and be involved and stay engaged. I said, really? He goes, yeah. That’s like the perfect sales pitch. I was like, okay. So, every time that someone showed up, remember, keep in mind we’re starting from ground zero.
People See Authenticity
So, one person walks in the door, we’re giving them the undivided attention. Well, when a hundred people finally walked in the door together, we’re still giving everyone the same attention. At least we try our hardest. Because we know they’re coming clear across town, sometimes out of town to come in here and see us and to see this. We gotta make it worth their while.
We think about like, all right, there’s that one time someone’s going to hear or say or think something for the very first time, and all of a sudden it changes their world the way that everything that we’ve done has changed ourselves. So, that loving service though, will never steer you in the wrong direction.
People see authenticity, they know you’re real and they know they can trust you, which is the next step into actually getting paid.
[00:24:11] Detective Ev: Well, and it’s an energy guys. I mean this seriously, I’m not one to say negative things, but I also won’t flatter people just for the sake of it. I mean, no. It just shows, it’s obvious.
You guys started speaking for five minutes and I’m like these guys are different. It’s a whole, not to sound too new agey, hippie, but like, it’s a consciousness, it’s a vibration, whatever someone wants to call it. You guys got a great one coming out in this podcast.
Now, switching to a health question, but still related to your business. I’m fascinated by any science that might be behind the IV thing because I go to a clinic near me. It’s in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. It’s cool.
A Question About the Scientific Evidence
I go there if like I was feeling a little rundown or maybe before I’m traveling sometimes. Or If I was doing a fast, it’s great to get those electrolytes in. I mean, they do a great job at that. And I felt those. I don’t always feel everything that they do.
I know you’re not supposed to feel everything that they do necessarily. But of course, I mean at least at their place, those treatments are a good amount of money. You could go in there and buy a $400 treatment.
Now, I believe it has validity. I have never sat there and looked one time at a study, admittedly. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff to look up, right? Is there science showing how much better this is? I mean, people keep going to these places, so obviously it’s doing something.
Why would someone come in here and pay these amounts versus just buying oral supplements for some of this stuff.
Commerical Break: Health Space Unmasked
Hey there friends. It is Detective Ev popping in here really quick. I just wanted to tell you; we still have our event going on for the Health Space Unmasked event.
If you do not know what that is, it is where we nerd out on the first Saturday of every single month of the year. So, depending on when you’re listening to this, if you’re listening to this in the future, you could still catch the next event that would be relevant to you.
But I’m looking for the people who might have been listening to this episode in the first two days that it came out. Then, you have not missed our November one yet, which is November 5th, 2022, at 8:30 AM PST all the way until 10:30 AM PST.
This month’s topic is Oral Health, Sleep, and Metabolic Balance featuring Reed Davis and Dr. Aron Gonshor. Dr. Aron Gonshor is the genius behind Fluid’s IQ Lab, which if you already train with us, then you know how great they are. If you do not know anything about FDN yet, and the labs that we use, totally fine.
Fluid’s IQ is a company that came in and saved the day for us when we really needed it, and we wanted to partner with a new lab. They are so willing to customize. They are fantastic for our practitioners and just for our company in general. So, we love these guys. And again, Dr. Gonshor is a genius.
So how you can get involved in this event and further events, is by going to fdntraining.com/unmasked. That’s fdntraining.com/unmasked. And of course, I will have that in the show notes for you guys as well.
Now back to today’s episode.
IV Nutrient Therapy: Better Your Biochemistry
And forgive my ignorance, but it’s a serious question.
[00:26:51] Nurse Doza: This is a very valid question and it’s something that we dealt with at the very beginning when we first started, especially coming from doctors, you know, like other doctors. Like why would I give vitamins in an IV? You know, that’s a waste of money.
That was part of when Baldo talked about the no’s before. He’s like, well, we can just ask for a bunch of referrals from doctor’s offices. I was like, no, they don’t like what we’re doing.
He’s like, why? I said, well, they don’t understand the science behind it. So, he would be like, well, what’s the science behind it? I said, well, it’s actually biochemistry. I said, have you ever heard of biochemistry? He goes, yeah, I’ve heard of biochemistry. You mean like carbon, and you know, magnesium and stuff? Yeah. Like that.
But what happens is the magnesium and the selenium go into your body, even the zinc goes into your body. Then you take in, form a recipe with it, and make hormones out of it. He’s like, what? I was like, yeah.
Like that’s why we eat, cause we need the nutrients out of the soil that comes from the food. Then we ingest that stuff, break it down, and use it for things like hormones and like neurotransmitters and detox. He’s like, what? So, that’s why we should take vitamins. I said, yeah.
But here’s the thing. When you take the right kind of vitamins, your biochemistry works better, which means your overall function will improve.
IV Nutrient Therapy: We’re Like Mechanics
So, when we look at labs, and this is a perfect segue into what you do, labs are actually the first thing that we’ve ever done. Even before we did a vitamin bar together, the clinic was a side gig for me, a few years before Baldo and I started together. I was doing just labs. I was doing house call telemedicine labs.
I didn’t have my nurse practitioner license yet. I was just doing it as a chiropractor. I was recommending supplements because I’m not going to recommend medicine. Supplements, you know, because that’s how much I believed in the research and all the peer reviewed articles that I had read before that I was like, wow, this is biochemistry. Like this is essential. This is our foundation.
So, I looked into more than just B12. Okay. I really looked into things like B9. I looked into things like glutathione. I looked into things like amino acids. I started studying epigenetics. What labs started telling me was it was a diagnostic scan of all the systems in the human body.
What we really look at is, when we look at labs, essentially, we’re a mechanic. When someone brings in their body, like the human car, essentially, they’ll say, I’m not sure which system is off, the light is on, aka their knee’s hurting or their back is in pain, right?
Okay, well let’s check the systems. Let’s do a diagnostic scan, order some labs. Okay, cool. And then you say, okay, well, we got your report back and this system over here, the one that deals with detox, well at checkpoint B, according to your labs, it goes left and it should go right.
IV Nutrient Therapy According to the Objective Data
I think because it’s going right or it’s going left, I think it’s because you’re deficient in this thing over here, which we noticed. This deficiency directly leads to malfunction of this organ and this system. And if we essentially give you what you’re missing, the whole thing works better.
So, everyone’s like, yeah, that sounds like it makes sense. I’m like, okay, cool. How do you want your vitamins then? They’re like, I don’t know, the best way possible.
I’m like, okay, let’s put them in an IV. Some people are like, well, I’m terrified of needles. I’m like, okay, cool. We’ll put them in pills. Or how about this? You want to have them really fun? We’ll make drinks with them and now you can have a vitamin stack every morning instead of coffee. People are like, okay, how do I know this is working?
Because, you know, I can feel a difference. I’ve lost a little bit weight. Is it placebo? I’m like, okay, let’s check the labs again. What we started doing was we followed up all our labs with people and we basically turned everything into a protocol.
So, we say, okay, if you’re going to start this and you really want to be serious about it, cause we’re all science nerds, which everyone bought into. They say, yeah, I want to see my data. I’m like, this is objective data. That’s what labs are. It just tells me what’s going on in the systems.
Then it’s up to the practitioner, the individual to decide what to do about it. What we’ve decided to do is say, okay, we’re going to give you X, Y, Z and then we’re going to recheck the labs.
IV Nutrient Therapy: Effective Absorption
Here’s the thing. We don’t care about a diagnosis. And I’m going to just be honest. If you call it diabetes, I’ll say it is metabolic dysfunction. What about depression? I’m like, you mean mood issues? You’re like, yeah, I like that. I’m like, cool.
Because the way we’re going to view this is we’re just looking at what the labs tell us. You can tell me all this subjective stuff, your toe is on fire, all this. But what the labs tell me is completely different. So, when people start looking at it that way, they say, okay, so I’m not just getting an IV because I’m hung over.
I’m like, no. No, we’re giving you an IV because your immune system sucks, and this is the only way you’re going to absorb your nutrients and lower your inflammation. And we can show the lowering of inflammation in, guess what? Laboratories.
[00:31:05] Baldo: I’ll follow that up a little bit with the business side of that equation. Because for me, when I first started, I was like, I don’t understand why these things cost so much money.
And I get it like from a business standpoint, like vials only last a certain amount of time and they have to be at a certain price for it to make financial sense. Plus, you need an actual nurse, which means that that salary is a little bit higher. So, all those different equations are higher prices.
But we quickly figured out like, look, if we’re doing protocols and people are doing this far in advance, and if we can sell them packages of IVs and sell them packages, now they don’t have to pay $400 bucks for an IV. They can pay an average of $160 for an IV.
IV Nutrient Therapy Packages
They can come in once a month or once every other week. They paid a little bit because now it’s a business transaction. That’s the thing that was always so frustrating with coming into the health world. I don’t understand supply and demand, if I order more things, it should be cheaper from our end.
I mean you talk about NAD and how expensive NAD treatments can be, like thousands of dollars. Well for us, we average a NAD treatment for $250 bucks. We just do so much of it.
Some people have asked other places because we’ve heard this, how come their NAD is so much cheaper? They’re like, it’s cause it’s not real, or it’s not the good kind. No, it’s just that we do so much of it, and we could get it at a cheaper price. It just makes sense.
That’s how our business model has always been. And we’re a cash only business, so it always just made sense. Even from the suppliers, we’re going to pay you cash. We’re not trying to do anything with insurances or anything like that. So that’s kind of been the strategy since day one.
I mean, we even just said like, we’re going to do free B12 shots for free, because people will come in for that. It’s like, but if you really want a really cool shot with that whole thing going on with your detox, you should add these two other vitamins. It’s just another $20 bucks. They’re like, yeah, let’s do that. So, all of a sudden, we weren’t doing free B12 shots. You know, it did happen, but most of the time it’s like, no, no. Kick it up a notch for $20 bucks more. It just made sense.
Customized & Affordable IV Nutrient Therapy
[00:32:56] Nurse Doza: I want to play on something that he said just a second ago. So, you brought up the IVs. You said, hey, I don’t know if it’s working or not. I don’t know if I was supposed to feel something.
Well, Baldo and I have always taken cost into consideration, right? Because this is cash based, which we understand like this is hard earned money people are paying this for. We made a vow to make sure that no one ever walked away from one of our IVs and said, oh, I didn’t feel anything. Because if they’re spending that amount of money, I want to know that I felt something.
So, every one of our IVs was designed very different. Our formulations are completely different than most of the IV clinics around the country. You will not find ours. Ours are very unique because they’re so customized. You imagine like when you get exactly what you need, you can feel the difference.
Keep in mind instant gratification is really big on most people. Especially if you’re building a system up, especially a business. They’re not going to say, I spent $400, $300, $200, $100 and I didn’t feel anything. I’m not going to go back there again and try again and take two. That’s not going to happen. We can’t afford to lose customers. It’s like, we gotta knock it out the first time.
Now the second thing was, going back to the cost, I told Baldo we have to make sure that this is affordable because health should be affordable. You know, cause really, like, food should be free, sunlight’s free, like, you know, water should be free.
But our cost has to make sense.
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar for Every Walk of Life
So, what we started doing was thinking like, what if someone came in and just said, all right, I got $20 bucks on me. What can I do for 20 bucks?
It would be like the best thing I could do. I said, you could get a drink. You can get this supplement that you put on the tongue that gives you serotonin, dopamine within 20 minutes. Then you can get a free B12 shot. Here’s the thing, it hits 30 minutes later, you’re going to feel amazing. All that stuff detoxes your liver, so you’re reducing inflammation.
Then from a standpoint of saying, hey, this is essential, this is science behind it, I’m like, yeah, it’s all legitimate. You say for $20 bucks, I could spend $20 bucks on a lunch that’s going to inflame me and keep me constipated. Or I could go across the street and go get all these vitamins that’s going to make me feel incredible and add years to my life.
So, it quickly got turned into the idea of saying like, this has to be appealing to every walk of life, everyone who walks in here. If they can’t afford anything, we’ll give them a hug. Like honestly, we’ll give them a big hug and I’ll probably buy them a drink. I don’t care.
[00:35:13] Detective Ev: Yeah. It’s kind of genius too cause it’s coming from such a good place, but it’s also just genius from a business standpoint. Because when I’ve been into these places, I mean I know the one in my town, great people, love them to death.
I mean, the bare minimum is like $75 bucks. Like that’s the lowest one that you could do. Again, you can do things all the way up to $400.
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar Regulars
At least I’m somewhat educated on this, so I can go in and even if I don’t feel anything, I know in theory this was a wise thing to be doing when I’m sick.
But yeah, going in and spending $150, $200 bucks for most people on something that they might be skeptical of, and then they don’t even feel anything afterwards, it’s like, okay, well, I don’t know about that.
But by the way, I thought that was a great explanation that made a lot of sense to me. I mean, I’ve always had some common sense with it. Like, all right, vitamin C, for example, right? If I feel sick and I go get 10 grams of that, or whatever they put in the IV.
First of all, I know that even if I could take 10 grams of this, which normally I wouldn’t be able to, it’d make me very upset. I might have diarrhea or whatever. That’s not all getting absorbed anyway. So, as opposed to an IV, I’m actually able to take more and I can actually get more. So of course, there’s the benefit there.
Now, in a perfect world, I mean, how often would you guys like to see people coming in for this stuff? I mean, is this something that people in theory should be? I’m just saying, perfect world, wave a magic wand, every day, every other day, every week?
[00:36:24] Baldo: I mean, we have plenty that come in weekly. I think once a month is very common as well. We have a good chunk of people that come in weekly, like our regulars, right?
IV Nutrient Therapy: Feeling Like a Superhuman
They buy packages. We’ll even do like, hey, you know, we’re going to do a yearlong package. If you buy like an IV a week, it’ll be like super cheap. Just because we can fund it that way. We can go to our suppliers, aka our pharmacies, and they’ll give us even better deals cause we’re just like doing, you know what I mean? It’s just regular business sense.
Because for them it was also the same thing. Like our pharmacies, they’re like, wait, so you’re willing to like do that amount? Are you sure you’re going to use it? It’s like, well, we will. It’s not a problem. You have to manage those statistics on what you’re using and all that.
But we get to that point. At some point, it wasn’t too late in our business that we got to where we were at least doing bigger batches. You know? Now we do that where some people would be like, just gimme a whole year and then they get it at a better price, and they come in once a week.
But monthly is common. It’s probably the most popular thing where people come in once a month. I’m just here for like my tune-up basically.
[00:37:23] Nurse Doza: I would recommend to people, especially cause we get this question. I get this question a lot too. I’d say, look, if you could do it weekly, like honestly, if you could get a weekly IV, you would feel like a superhuman.
I mean, honestly, there’s no other way around it because I’ve been doing that for a while and that’s why I tell people.
IV Nutrient Therapy: For Some, it’s the Only Way to Take Vitamins
The clients that can afford to do it, who do it weekly, they tell us the same thing. They say they don’t get sick. They have tons of energy. They never had jet lag.
You know, they never really go out and drink anymore because they know that their tolerance has gone down so much because they cleaned out their liver. They’re like, I don’t even want to drink. Why would I do that to my body? I feel incredible.
So, I tell people like, well, if that’s not for everyone, a month is probably like a good starter. Like once a month is a good treat for yourself. It’s a good investment. Really, $200 bucks. I mean, come on. For a month you’re going to spend $200 bucks on something else that’s crappy.
Look, depending on where your nutritional levels and deficiencies are at, that one IV a month, might last a while. And I’m saying like a couple of months. You know, weekly IVs, they should last a week.
The thing is some people just choose to take their vitamins that way. Especially like, some people have colon cancer, that’s the only way they can take their vitamins. You think about it, they’re like, my digestive tract doesn’t absorb anything.
You mentioned the vitamin C. They’ll be like, well, I have to put this in here. But the thing is, I’m like, you don’t just need vitamin C. You need L-glutamine, right? L-glutamine is needed for your digestive tract lining.
IV Nutrient Therapy: Best Quality, The Best Way Possible
Most people have digestive tract irritation, which means they have a loss of glutamine. So, what do we do? We put glutamine in the IV, go back door, basically. Go up into the digestive track lining, and now we start basically adding to the collagen that way with the vitamin C and with maybe B5, and maybe a couple other things.
All of a sudden, we’re repairing it without having to go through the digestive track, which basically adds less irritation on our metabolism.
[00:39:06] Detective Ev: You guys are going to get me; I’m going to end up going to this place every freaking week for like three months.
[00:39:10] Nurse Doza: I know. Everyone says that.
Now here’s the thing. On a side note, I want to go back to vitamin C. I know we’re pressed for time, but just a side note. For anyone who does vitamin C IVs, you don’t have to go more to get the benefits, just FYI. Just keep that in mind even with Vitamin IV dosages and ingredients. More is not better.
Imagine like, I’m not doing glutathione all the time. I’m doing it every once in a while, and just a little bit. I’d rather do more NAD. You know? Like right now, Baldo and I each do big NAD IV bags weekly in our bag. We add the NAD to all our other stuff. Then we basically increased our dosages over years now.
So, to me it’s like, well, I have a daily supplement regimen and then my weekly IVs now consist of stuff that’s the best quality that gets into my body the best way possible, right?
IV Nutrient Therapy Vitamin Bar: Let’s Check First
Cause the term “optimization” is thrown around a lot. But if you own a freakin’ vitamin IV bar, with the best supplements and vitamin drinks possible, and you can do labs all the time, you’ve gotta believe we’re doing everything too. So, we do it, we turn right around and do labs and say, is it working? If not, let’s change it.
What is your diet doing? Okay, let’s check food sensitivities. Let’s check stool samples. You start looking and you say, okay, if you figured all the stuff out, you get to optimize. That’s where the fun comes into play.
The term mitochondrial biogenesis was discovered 30 years ago, and we quickly realized that our bodies have the capability to make new cells and spawn off and promote longevity. But you can only do that if you put the body in the healthiest state possible.
Well, think about it. Most people have to either take supplements or change their diet or do something in order to get the nutrition they need. We say, look, I don’t care where you take your supplements from. But if you come here, you’re going to take the ones you need.
Okay, some biohacker told you, you need 20 grams of vitamin C IVs all the time. Don’t listen to that person. All right? We gotta see exactly what your body needs, cause you might not need that much.
[00:40:58] Baldo: That happens all the time. It’s like I heard on the podcast that this and that. I was like, Bro, like no, no, no. That doesn’t have to be true. Could it be true? Maybe. But you know, you have to look. You have to find out and look and ask the right questions.
Third Company: How Do You Health?
[00:41:10] Detective Ev: Gotcha. By the way, guys, if we go a few minutes over, not a huge deal. I appreciate it. I mean, there’s a lot of energy here. There’s three of us, so no worries at all. I thank you for being respectful to that.
Well, now by the way, I will probably end up doing an experiment where I go to the place down the road like once a week, just for a few months. I mean, it’s so close to our business. It’s like four, five minutes away. First of all, it’s just great networking, you know? I like supporting them, they’re great people. So, I think I just may do that. And if I do, I’ll shoot you guys an email or something. I became superhuman as promised.
I wanted to talk about the festival too, like let us know about that. Something I’m excited for. So, for the viewers that have no idea, what is it called? What’s going on? When’s it happening?
[00:41:44] Baldo: I’ll start with that. It’s called How Do You Health? Our third company is called How Do You Health? It started as a podcast. That’s what we named our podcast. It kind of stemmed from like a bunch of different conversations that were happening in the lounge. It was like so many different angles.
At some point it’s like, well, I want people to hear about these things because the whole idea is that it’s not up to any one person to tell anyone what they should do for health. It’s a bunch of recommendations, right? There’s a lot of like, hey, I tried this, or my cousin tried that. This worked, that worked.
Venue for a Month
It’s really about like you educating yourself on all the different modalities that exist out there and making the right educated guess or an educated decision on what’s going to work best for you. What makes you feel the best? So, that’s where that name came from, The How Do You Health?
It’s the idea of like, what are people doing for health? Then what can you take from that and make it your own as well. We even tackle subjects as business health as well. You know, what are people doing for the health of their business? We kind of like that.
We always have our Friends’ Miss, where we kind of throw a party for like our clients and close friends. During the pandemic in 2020, we were looking for a venue to do our Friends’ Miss. It was supposed to be for a day.
Someone offered us, one of the venues. Hey, since you’re paying $X amount for this one day, like, would you guys be interested in just getting the whole month and doing something with it? And we’re like, why? How much would that be? He gave me the number. I’m like, man, like, no. We wouldn’t even know what to do with it.
So, whenever we signed the contract for the day, for some reason on the way there, I was like, hey man, like I’ll give you like five grand for the whole month. Like, what are you going to do with it? He said, I need more than that.
A Full Month of Community Health Related Events
And I was like, well, I’m just saying we’ll fill it up every day. But you know, I just wanted to throw it out there cause here’s some money. Then he ended up saying yes. And we did, we filled it up for one whole month and we just ended up calling it like, well this is The How Do You Health? Fest.
So, what we ended up doing, I texted a bunch of the business owners in Austin, health related companies, food companies. We’re like, Dude, come tomorrow to this venue Native Hostel. I got a surprise, like kind of a gift for the community. We both all showed up.
I brought this big old calendar and I said, hey, we got this one place for the whole month. We can do whatever we want because we’re going to make this a medical establishment, so it won’t get closed down. We are going to be doing IVs and it’s going to be our clinic. But this is also an opportunity to, what do you want to do?
People say, I want to throw this kind of event where like, we’re going to have a yoga class and then we’re going to educate people about vegan food. Awesome. You can have that Thursday.
Like, we’re going to do this Friday and we want to do things with paleo and with keto. And I was like, Sweet. You have that day.
So, all of a sudden, we had a full month of events all throughout the day with workouts and light shows.
The How Do You Health? Fest, December 2nd – 4th
That cool thing about it is that next door there was like this little integration of an immersive art experience right next door. So, worked out a deal with them where it was like, hey, as we sell our tickets, like they also get a pass for y’all. Give me a price on that. That worked out.
And then one of the nights, the biggest night was we had a psychedelic education night, right? During the pandemic, it became a big thing. We’re like, what about psychedelics? What if we did this? And we’re like, look, I know it’s out there. I think it’s our responsibility almost to provide education on it so that people can make their own decisions and not just go and take a bunch of drugs for no reason.
We had speakers coming in and speaking about those things. We had panelists. We had people talking about women’s health and panels on that, and speakers on that. And that’s what it just turned into this whole festival.
Then last year, that’s what happened. They’re like, so what are we doing for the festival this year? We’re like we weren’t even thinking about that. But then we pulled it off again. We did a three-day event and we got speakers from everywhere.
So, then this year, same thing. First, full weekend of December, December 2nd through the 4th. How Do You Health? Fest, howdoyouhealthfest.com. You can go on there. There’s so many speakers, so many different activations, so many different light experiences and play experiences. Our big thing is that we want to add play to everything.
An Outdoors, Healthy Environment Conference
I think the number one feedback that we got last year, my favorite feedback actually came from vendors. They love the fact that they got to be part of the experience and that they also got to enjoy the festival and not just work the whole time because we did it in the blocks.
Like now it’s time to go hang out with the vendors and learn about them. Like now it’s time to learn about what the sciences are and the speakers and the panelists, and then like, now it’s time to go play.
You know, this year we have this company called Gel Blaster. They’re setting up this really cool experience that’s like great for environmental health because it’s kind of like a paintball, but it’s all biodegradable stuff. They’re going to give away prizes and so we’re going to have little contests.
Freddie Kimmel’s going to come in and bring some people from Broadway and they’re going to do like a whole skit with everyone that’s in attendance. So that’s going to be fun.
Last year we filled up a pool with ice and we did a group ice plunge, 6,000 thousand pounds.
There’s going to be saunas, there’s going to be, I mean, you name it, there’s going to be all the tech, there’s going to be music, there’s going to be dancing, there’s going to be workshops. It’s a really neat experience.
We’ve gone to so many different health conferences and like you’re inside of a freaking closed door, no windows. People are like smoking and drinking. We went to Vegas, and I was like, this is not a health conference. I mean it was cause the information was great, but the environment around it wasn’t exactly that.
The Dream of the Ultimate Festival for Health & Wellness
That’s a common thing. Like you’re indoors. The sun is probably the healthiest thing that you can do. So, let’s do that. Let’s do more of that.
[00:47:01] Nurse Doza: Well, I think the festival itself, as far as like the vision, the whole concept for the vitamin bar on the backstory is that I pitched the idea to Baldo about the vitamin bar lounge years ago out of a music festival.
That was one of our things, we always go to ACL Festival here in Austin. It just happened a couple weeks ago. We always go. And I was like, Man, what if just one day we created a festival that was just like, you know, a dream festival for us? What would that look like?
We’re not musicians and we’re not in music, we’re in health and wellness, right? But we’re still artists. So, we’re like, well what would the ultimate festival for health and wellness would be like if you had like all the disruptors there, all the educational speakers you can imagine, all the cool wearable devices, and there was great networking and immersions and activations and experiences.
So Baldo and I talked about it. We said it’s the experience of having a community where you could show up, not know anyone, and feel welcomed enough to ask a question and feel like you can. And then, you know, like I said, that group ice plunge, we did it with like 30 people. I mean, I didn’t know everyone in there.
High Vibe, Loving Service Atmosphere Festival
I mean we jumped in together. Some people were doing it the first time. We jump in there and then right after that we all hop into a mobile sauna.
There was like a trailer built out like a sauna and it’s big enough to fit like 10 or 12 people. We had like a masterclass in there. This guy, he started, it turned into a master class. But we were all in there.
[00:48:21] Detective Ev: Just throws down in the sauna.
[00:48:23] Nurse Doza: It was cool. Then like breath work happened afterwards. We had a DJ there.
We’re going to have like live painting this year. Because think about it, if it hits all the senses, like why do you even go to a festival to begin with?
You go there for the experience; you go there to feel alive. So, when people show up, I have to imagine there’s some people who don’t have a connection to others. Especially nowadays, mental wellbeing is the most important thing you could do for your body.
If you look at just showing up to a place that is so welcoming to others and so lifting. You know, like we genuinely only hang out with people, and only invite people to hang out with us who generally want to help others. If you imagine that frequency, the higher-level consciousness, that’s what the festival is.
People on high vibe energy basically saying, hey Bro, you look like you could use some help. What do you need from me?
The Most Groundbreaking Info Possible
I mean, that’s essentially how it is all weekend. What do you need from me? What can I help you with? I mean, yeah, there’s vendors and you know, you can buy stuff, but that’s not what the intent is. It’s basically saying, hey, imagine if you couldn’t walk into our vitamin bar. But you were like, hey, let’s throw a festival out of it.
[00:49:28] Nurse Doza: That’s what this is. It’s like walking into our bar, but for three days in beautiful Austin, Texas, outside on this land that has the most beautiful homes you could ever imagine, with some of the most educated speakers on the most groundbreaking information possible, doctors, practitioners, like actual doctors, like actual practitioners, not, you know, someone that took a weekend course.
You have people now saying like, this is what’s going on right now in health and wellness. You should be on the radar with this because this is what the future of healthcare looks like. And that’s what we’ve created.
Honestly, Baldo and I are attendees when we’re there, you know? We’re there listening. I’m excited about some of the doctors who are going to show up because I’m going to get a chance to geek out with them and listen to them. Like that’s what this place is about.
[00:50:19] Baldo: I also enjoy the fact that we work with people that have run the festival that are willing to make changes on the spot.
A Fire-side Chat Under the Starlight
Last year we had beautiful weather and at some point, someone’s like, Man, it would’ve been cool if the stage was outside. And I was like, do you think we can pull this off? It was like, we got 20 minutes before the next thing and then somehow, we pulled it off. We just we’re moving everything down here.
Then we just had this under the starlight experiences, and we set up all the chairs around this big fire. It was like huge bonfire. All of a sudden it was like a fire-side chat, but it was a stage instead. Like plenty of people were there hearing.
And the first one was our keynote on psychedelics and then followed up by comedy. At some point I was like, oh crap, it’s 2:00 AM. It ends at 10 PM. It’s a ranch so people would just hang out.
[00:51:01] Nurse Doza: Talk about adapting.
So last year we set up a DJ with the idea that everyone’s going to dance. Well, it didn’t happen that way. The DJ was after the psychedelic education and it was so mind blowing that night. I mean, we had tons of doctors, panelists, like everything, and it was great. And afterwards people wanted to talk about it. They wanted to discuss more.
So, instead of going and dancing with the DJ music, they had it in the background and they had conversations along with it. The DJ came up and I’ll never forget, she was like, no one was dancing. I said, what are you talking about? Like, I was dancing when I was talking to this guy (like not in front of me).
A Revolutionary Concept
We were under this beautiful tree, and we were talking to all these people, and the beats were making us kind of like sway. We were jamming out. We weren’t talking over the music that much. So, it was like the perfect tone. She was like, huh? I said, yeah, you set the perfect setting for us. The experience was perfect.
This year we have a DJ now who’s going to be doing that all throughout the day.
[00:51:55] Baldo: She’s an environmental DJ. She’s going to be feeling the vibe and then playing with the vibe.
[00:52:00] Nurse Doza: So, if you need a break from learning, you can go chill and get higher vibration by a DJ on a lawn overlooking hills. Like it’s, you know. Come on.
[00:52:11] Detective Ev: This is so cool. I mean this seriously. Cause I’ve talked about other events on here all the time, so people know I’m not lying if they’re a regular listener. That description made this the one the most excited to go to in the past couple of years. I mean this could be awesome.
And I love the fact like what a novel concept, a health conference that actually has outside elements. How is this even revolutionary? Right?
But my friend Ben Azadi and I were just talking about this the other day cause we were at a biohacking thing in Miami. Listen, I understand how complicated it is to actually host a conference that people have to bring money in, and you have to be able to kind of rely on the weather. I get that that’s tough in a lot of places, especially Miami. It could start thunder storming at any time.
Detective Ev Will Be Speaking at the Festival
But still it is at least somewhat ironic when I’m in there at 7:30 AM until 6:00 PM and I’ve never gone outside yet today, basically at all, right? Cause I took the Uber there, I was in the hotel before, and I’m sitting here talking about biohacking and red light and all this crap.
I’m like, what about the red light that’s free outside on Miami Beach? And the grounding I could be doing and swimming in the water. It’s kind of funny.
But guys, first of all, I can’t wait to have you back on. I would hope that this is already an invite that you would accept. I gotta have you guys back on. This is great energy. We needed way more than the hour today.
I want to finish up with just two quick things. One is going to be simply like, where can people find everything?
Oh, and by the way, for those that are listening that don’t even know, I’ll be speaking at How Do You Health? I just found out that because Reed had something come up that weekend. I’m usually the fill in for Reed, so I can’t wait to throw it down, talk about some labs and other good stuff.
With that said though, just go through it again. Where can people find the health bar? Where can people find, How Do You Health?, all of that stuff first. Then I’ll get my last question for you guys.
Where to Find MSW Lounge & The How Do You Health? Fest
[00:53:43] Baldo: The Health Lounge in Austin, I mean, they’re all pretty simple. There’s MSW Lounge. MSW: Mendoza Sports and Wellness is what that stands for. mswlounge.com takes you to, like, you can even book online appointments. But it takes you to our place here in Austin.
Idovitamins.com is our supplements.
And then howdoyouhealthfest.com is how you find the festival. Then we do have a code for you guys. It’s http://howdoyouhealthfest.com/FDN for 20% off tickets. So, if anyone wants to attend, they’re more than welcome to do that. It’s going to be a blast.
We will be releasing daily tickets next week or in two weeks from now. But right now, they can buy three-day passes. I mean, with a discount, it’s like $160 investment for a full weekend of like just hanging out with friends and seeing all sorts of fun stuff.
[00:54:31] Detective Ev: Excellent.
Thank you very much for offering that to our community too. We have a lot of FDNs in Austin.
We were just down in Miami. Some woman, I hadn’t even met her before, she’s like, oh yeah, we came to this conference because I heard it on the podcast. I’m like, that’s amazing. So, I’m hoping that we can draw some people in ourselves.
I’m looking forward to seeing you guys and just really seeing what is probably going to be the future of our kind of health conferences, right? Maybe the MDs will keep doing their stuff. But this kind of stuff, that’s the future.
Signature Question: Meditation and Controlled Breathing
Final question for you guys, and it’ll just be like an in order thing. We’ll do Baldo first and Nurse Doza next. I always have a signature question on this podcast, and it’s one that can be really simple, but also a little thought provoking depending on how you want to take it. Because in our space, we’re big thinkers about health.
The question simply is, if you could wave a magic wand, so each of you individually, you could wave magic wand and get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health, whether that’s literally do one thing, or you get them to stop doing one thing (it could be either), what’s the one thing that you would get them to do?
And yeah, Baldo, we will start with you.
[00:55:32] Baldo: I think that for me, I would say, it’s kind of a combination. But the answer is meditation and to be very cognizant of your breathing. For me, that’s the most important thing.
There’s so many times that I find myself in a certain situation, and the first thing that I notice now is like, well, how am breathing? When I feel like I can’t control anything else, then I can at least control my breathing, slow it down. Usually what happens is that I start getting solutions for different problems that I’m thinking about or that I’m stressed about.
It’s kind of reverse engineering, right? Like the breath is the first thing that happens. But for me, it comes from the meditation. My meditation in the morning is kind of like a calibration. That way, whenever I know that I’m not in that state, I can easily bring it back through my breath.
Signature Question: No More Processed Sugar
[00:56:16] Nurse Doza: That’s a good one actually. I knew you were probably going to say that.
Mine would be, everyone would stop eating processed sugar. And he probably knew I was going to say that too.
[00:56:25] Detective Ev: Leaves us with two things to think of.
Guys, again, we’ll definitely have you back on. I think I speak for the audience already. Just the energy was really fun today. This has been really cool. Thank you, guys, so much for taking the time to come on with us. We’ll see you guys on some meetings of course, but I’ll also see you in December and I’m looking forward to it.
[00:56:40] Nurse Doza: Yeah. Can’t wait to see you, man. Thank you for having us, Detective Ev.
[00:56:45] Detective Ev: All right, my friends. That’ll do it for today’s episode with Baldo and Nurse Doza. That’s a heck of some names we got here, right? We got Detective Ev, Baldo, and Nurse Doza. I mean, what could you want more on a podcast?
I hope to see you guys at The How Do You Health? Festival. I could be wrong, but to me, I mean, this seems like it’s going to be the event of the year.
We’ve really experienced a transition in the conferences since the pandemic happened, right? A lot of people have the access to information that they’ve always wanted. We get that online. It’s not something really revolutionary at this point. The internet’s been around for a while. So, when people go to these conferences, I mean they cost money, they cost time.
Conclusion
They want more, it seems, than just learning. They want an experience because we can go learn at home. We don’t have to dress up in a suit. We don’t have to sit there in an uncomfortable seat for eight hours or 10 hours or whatever it might be. We want to have an experience with it.
I feel like these folks that are running this are geniuses because they’re focusing more on the experience mixed with the education instead of just the education part.
I could be wrong, but to me it sounds like a good time. Definitely, as a fellow biohacker, it sounds like a good time. So remember to check that out. Link is in the show notes.
You can also check our Health Space Unmasked event in the show notes. And as always, if you’re looking to try the FDN course, we have that in the show notes as well. You can try completely for free and there is no credit card required.
Finally, if you like the information that we are sharing, please consider leaving us a five-star review on Apple and or Spotify. If you’d be so kind as to do that, we would love you even more than we already do.
I am looking forward to talking to you guys again soon. But until then, please take care.
You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com.
To hire a coach, go to fdnthrive.com.
For a FREE Health Review, go to fdnthrive.com/match/.
