Introduction
Hello. Hello. FDN people. I hope you guys are doing well. We have a cool Live. Today we’re going to be bringing on Brandy, who is someone really important at FDN, like THE person at FDN. But she stays behind the scenes, so it’s kind of cool to get to talk to and hear from her expertise. We’re going to be talking about doing FDN around the world. I’m going Live with her right now.
There we go, Brandy. Hello. How are you?
[00:00:23] Brandy Buskow: Hey Ev. How’s it going?
[00:00:23] Detective Ev: It’s going well. I realize we never get to talk as much as we used to, so it’s nice to see you.
[00:00:28] Brandy Buskow: Oh goodness. I’m sorry. Touching things on my screen. Making it all look weird. Yes. Good morning.
[00:00:33] Detective Ev: Cool. So, Brandy’s up in Canada and I’m in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. As you guys know, you can always drop where you’re from below. This is more relevant than ever because we’re actually talking today about doing FDN around the world.
It’s kind of interesting, Brandy, because we started the Health Detective Podcast, for example. You know, if you start any podcast, you don’t have major celebrities on, you get maybe 10 downloads if you’re lucky, all from your home country and stuff. And now it’s amazing to see we have Australia, UK, Canada, fighting back and forth every month for who has the second most listeners with us outside of the US. We got Thailand.
And so, it is possible to do FDN around the world. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, we have practitioners in 50 countries around the world now.
FDN Around the World: Working Remotely
I know that’s more your expertise than myself. So, if you don’t mind, what I’ll do today is I can comment on this from the podcast side and the people I’ve interviewed around the world, but I think you’ll be able to speak to the legality of this, the technicalities of this, and how this works.
Yeah, let’s just start off with the simple. Why can we do FDN around the world? Why is this something that I can’t just do in the US or Canada for example.
[00:01:34] Brandy Buskow: It’s a great question. And the beauty of the FDN course is that we aren’t limited to just working with people that we can see face-to-face. I would venture to guess, probably 80% of our FDN practitioners work remotely. They have a home office; they work with clients all over the world. We can do sessions via Zoom and that allows us to reach many more people.
If we were just siloed into just our local area, we wouldn’t be able to reach as many people as we like. And I’m sure Reed has probably talked on here before, but his mission is to help as many people as possible get well and stay well naturally. We can do that at FDN because we have that global reach.
The beauty of it is, is that when we established our medical director program, which is our lab program, when Reed started the FDN course in 2008, we have really worked hard to make some really great relationships with lab companies worldwide.
FDN Around the World: Getting Test Kits into & Out of Countries
We do have distributors that we work with in Europe. We also have a company in Australia. Many of our lab partners in the US and now Canada, because Fluids IQ, one of our biggest partners, is based out of Canada, they can ship all over the world. So, we’re able to help people globally, which is amazing. I think that’s one thing that also sets us apart from many other practitioners, we’re helping people everywhere.
[00:02:47] Detective Ev: Yeah. Please correct me if I’m wrong here, I know this is not true for all 50 countries that we’ve already worked with and all the countries in the world, this would be a little tough, but as countries become more and more popular in the course, even in Australia, they have different units of measurement and they might use some different labs. Don’t they actually get slightly different parts of the course? Like they get different trainings to actually learn how to apply those labs in their country.
[00:03:09] Brandy Buskow: For sure. Specifically, Australia, yes. We do have some separate training for our Australian practitioners specific to the test that they would be getting. Otherwise, the test that we teach in the course is available worldwide.
One of the things I always tell people, especially with our sales team, cause we talk to a lot of people, India, South Africa, Mexico, England, I mean, all over the place, is that we can get a test kit into any country in the world. That’s never a problem. We can get a test kit into any country. Where there may be an issue is whether or not the samples can be shipped out of the country. We have found that the majority of countries, there’s no problem with it.
FDN Around the World: A Diverse Community
You know, there’s a couple, potentially, where there may be some issues. So, what I always recommend, if you’re living in a country where you’re unsure if we can do testing, here’s the question to ask. Talk to your local couriers and say, “Is there any issue with me sending exempt”, this is a key word, exempt “human specimens out of the country?” They’ll be able to tell you quickly, they’ll know what that means.
From our experience, there’s very few countries that cannot ship out of the country. Meaning we can ship to every country and most countries can ship the specimens out of the country back to the lab so that we can work with them. So, we help all of our practitioners everywhere be able to access testing for themselves and for their clients.
[00:04:30] Detective Ev: Excellent. And if you’re just tuning in and wondering what we’re talking about today, we’re actually talking about FDN and how it works around the world.
Yes, the company started in USA so, that’s great and all. But over time, I mean we have practitioners from everywhere. I actually always say it’s kind of fun getting to do the podcast cause this is one of the most diverse communities I’m a part of. You know, you’ll go into AFDNP, which is our professionals’ group, and you’re talking to someone from Europe, you’re talking to someone from Asia, sometimes Australia, Canada. It’s actually really cool getting to talk to everyone.
FDN Around the World: Putting Yourself Out There
Just think about the staff, right? Like all the different time zones we have to go through just to set a darn meeting, right? You gotta check with Ireland sometimes and then parts of Canada and USA.
So, if you’re just tuning in and you have questions about how FDN works around the world, this is definitely the time to ask. Otherwise, we’ll just keep going through stuff ourselves.
Now to be clear, if hypothetically it was one of those rare circumstances where someone’s country that they’re trying to do FDN out of is just a place where maybe they can’t send the labs out of, that doesn’t actually stop them from going through the course, right?
I mean, of course there would be an issue with them doing the labs on themselves and that is a part of the course, but they could work with clients from America or Canada or somewhere else, right?
[00:05:40] Brandy Buskow: Absolutely. And that’s what I kind of talked about off the top, is that we’re able to work with anybody around the world.
Me being in Canada, I have clients in Canada, the United States. I’ve had clients in Australia. I had a one in Russia. I think I actually worked with one in South Africa as well. We can work with anybody anywhere in the world.
So, if you’re a practitioner and your particular country is maybe a little bit difficult with the testing, the good thing is, is that you can work with anybody. If you’re willing to put yourself out there, you can work with people outside of your country and still be successful.
FDN Around the World: With or Without Labs
The other thing that I like to tell people is, what you learn in the course is still extremely valuable even without testing. There’s a lot of things that we can teach people and we can coach people on even without the testing.
The other thing that we do really well is we teach you how to look at testing from a different perspective. We’re not looking at the numbers and saying, okay, well let’s give you this for that. We’re taking that broad overview of a test and looking at it differently, like, who is this person? What are these test results telling me?
So, even if the only thing you could get in your country, let’s say, is blood work or maybe it’s a food sensitivity test from a local lab, you can still work with that information, get information about your client, and work with them using the principles that Reed teaches in the course. There’s lots of ways that you can support people and we give you that foundation and that structure in FDN to work with clients, with or without labs, and still have them see results.
[00:07:06] Detective Ev: “What are the most important tests to use no matter where you are?” I would just go off the top of my head and say, the food sensitivity test seems to be one, because it’s not going to always be the same test. But you could get a food sensitivity test, I’ve seen at least, just about anywhere.
FDN Around the World: Making Strides with Food Sensitivity Alone
But then again, I’m learning something today too, cause I didn’t realize that most of the time if there was any problem, the problem would be shipping it back out. I didn’t know that even shipping it in is rarely the issue. So, based on that knowledge, Brandy, I mean, what would you consider the most important test to use no matter where the person is?
[00:07:39] Brandy Buskow: I would have to agree with you with the food sensitivity test.
Even here in Canada where we have socialized healthcare and don’t have things like LabCorp, Quest, and a lot of those direct-to-consumer lab companies, I can still go and order my own food sensitivity tests. And I think that is true in most countries.
I’m sure you’ve seen it, Evan, but a lot of practitioners have seen the food alone, like even just finding that part out and making shifts with the food, can make a huge difference with clients.
So, I would definitely say that if you can get a food sensitivity test and maybe the only other thing that you can get is blood chemistry, and we have an amazing, advanced blood chemistry course that is available to everybody. Let’s say the other one that you can get is blood chemistry. That can be very valuable. You could take the D.R.E.S.S. principles that we teach you in the foundational course and be able to help your clients make change.
[00:08:27] Detective Ev: One thing I’ll add on. I think this is something that’s probably going to, even if they’re watching the replay, it’s going to go through someone’s head. They’re going to say, wait a second. No, my specific country has laws that only doctors can order the labs and stuff.
FDN Around the World: You Don’t Have to Be an MD
Well, a lot of FDNs aren’t doctors to begin with, guys. We do have MDs that go through the course. But like myself, for example, I’m not a doctor. Brandy’s not a doctor. That’s one of the cool things about FDN.
You’re getting trained in how to actually analyze these things. And yes, we have a medical director program, which is the doctors who are able to facilitate these orders for us. But I’m never the one that has some paperwork there that says, Evan Transue ordered this lab. That would be illegal, so we don’t do that. I’m not a doctor.
I think that’s where there’s a disconnect for people sometimes where they think, I’m not a doctor, I can’t do this. It’s like, that didn’t even matter anyway. In fact, sometimes we have doctors that go through the course so that they can utilize our medical director program in other states and other countries, if they’re based out of the US at least. Because they might only have a license, let’s say in Pennsylvania. And so, they want to work with clients all around the country or world.
It’s not that they’re giving up their license, but they’re basically ordering through our medical director program because it gives them more freedom than even their licensure as an actual doctor gives them. I think that confuses people a little bit if it’s the first time that they’ve heard it. But you never have to worry about that because you’re never the one ordering the labs; and you’re definitely not the one running the labs on the individual.
FDN Around the World: Research-Use-Only Tests
I wouldn’t have Brandy in my office and take a saliva sample from her, that’s not what we do. Brandy is running the test on herself. It is a self-administered test that you are analyzing the results of. Does that make that clear or do you think that’s good for everyone?
[00:10:01] Brandy Buskow: Yeah, and I think that’s a great distinction for us to talk about is the test kits that we’re sending are considered self-tests.
So, you can collect the sample at home, as Evan said. You’re not going to a doctor’s office where they’re collecting your saliva, they’re collecting your stool, they’re collecting your dried urine. You’re doing that at home, then you’re sending it back to the lab.
These tests, I like to use the word that Dr. Gonshor uses. The tests that we use can be considered “research use only”. The reason that that’s important is because when we’re using them, we’re trying to gather information about that person, not to diagnose them.
If you’ve ever heard Reed talk about the FDN course, he says, we don’t diagnose anything specifically, it’s all metabolic chaos. We are looking at, what are the clues or what are these tests telling us are the underlying stressors or things that are going on in this person’s body that’s contributing to their health complaints. And what can we do with lifestyle to help make improvements?
We’re not prescribing anything. We’re not going to look at a marker, like I said earlier of, oh, your cortisol’s high. Let’s give you something to lower the cortisol. That’s a this-for-that approach. That’s what we do in conventional medicine, that’s not what we do as FDN practitioners.
FDN Around the World: Looking at All the Evidence
We say, why is your cortisol high? What’s going on that’s making that happen? What can we do? What can we help you adjust in your lifestyle to lower your stress and bring that cortisol down? Not just, here’s a supplement. That’s a big distinction.
That’s why when we’re talking about testing, it’s important to understand this is not standard tests that your doctor’s going to order for you, look at the results, give you a diagnosis, and write you a prescription. That is not what we do. That’s why we use the labs that we use because it gives us a lot of information about the different body systems so that we can have a big picture.
I like to use this analogy when I’m talking to people. If I’m a detective, the Health Detective Podcast, we like to use that word, if I’m a detective and I go to a crime scene, I want all the evidence. I cannot solve the crime if I only have one piece of evidence.
Liken that to, if you only run one test, you’re not going to get all the big picture. We gather evidence so that we can see what is going on with this person. Let’s uncover as many of those underlying stressors as we can, and then let’s give them recommendations and things they can do with their lifestyle, whole body approach, to make improvements in their health.
[00:12:21] Detective Ev: Absolutely. I have something to add to that, but I want to get to the questions first. Thanks for asking. “Self-tests, so even if not an FDN practitioner, a person could test themselves but just not know how to read the results?” They would have to have the doctor, I guess, to facilitate that order.
FDN Around the World: Medical Director Program
That’s what our medical director program does. But I mean, I guess in theory, if you could get a doctor to somehow do that, yes, that would happen. But I would be a little careful with that because if you don’t have the philosophy that comes with FDN or even something similar, I’m not just saying it’s only FDN, but FDN or something similar, the best that you would ever be able to do then with those labs without training is treat the paperwork.
You would only be able to tell if something’s high or low if you don’t know anything else about that and don’t have the training. I mean, that might work in allopathic medicine to the degree that allopathic medicine works. But if you’re watching a Live like this and trying to get the results that we get, you’re probably going to want that different level of analysis.
So yes, in theory, some of these labs, I guess, could be acquired by the consumer but most of the time they would need to be facilitated by a doctor, and that’s what our medical director program allows us to do. That’s one of the perks that you get as a certified FDN practitioner. It’s not just take a few classes and, basically, everyone gets a certification.
My girlfriend is going through this right now, and she went to college. She is consistently impressed with how intense these practicals are and the testing that she’s going through to actually have to graduate. She feels like she knows a lot about this. I can tell every time she gets off one of these calls it just boosts her confidence more and more. You leave FDN feeling like, all right, I know what I’m doing here.
FDN Around the World: Looking Through an FDN Lens
So, again, long way of saying, yes, you could, I guess, get these labs. One, it’d be a little tricky. And two, I mean, at best you would just be able to see what’s high or low and I think that’d be kind of risky. I just don’t know why someone would want to do that, I guess, is what I’m trying to say.
[00:13:55] Brandy Buskow: Yeah. I think that’s where we go back to, if you’re living in a country where, let’s say maybe there is a difficult time getting the specimens out of the country, but you can get a food sensitivity test and maybe blood chemistry, you’re still going to want to have the proper training to look at it from the perspective that we look at it as FDN practitioners. It’s one of not treating the paper, but actually having a good thorough intake process with your client, understanding what their areas of concern are, and then getting as much information as you can to create a lifestyle protocol.
So, if you live in, and unfortunately, China is a country that’s difficult, so let’s say you live in China. You could still take this course, learn a lot of information, and be able to have protocols and an understanding on how to guide your client in the different areas of their lifestyle where they can make improvements even if all you can get maybe is say, a blood chemistry and a food sensitivity test. You can make change.
FDN Around the World: The Cost of FDN’s Course
But if you’re just going blind, and I’m sure anybody on here has done that. If you go online and you do your blood work and you’re looking up, what does it mean when my TSH is high, you’re going to get so much information, it’s confusing. Then you’re going to think, well, I found the answer because it’s high, but there’s so much more information that you need to know.
That’s what we do as FDN practitioners. We look at the whole picture. We don’t look at just one marker.
[00:15:16] Detective Ev: Absolutely. By the way, that was a good question. Feel free to comment again, I just wouldn’t understand why someone would necessarily want the tests without the training. I might be missing something and feel free to shoot us another comment.
Someone else said, “How much is the training? How many weeks or months is the program?” I can take some load off you with this one. The training right now, I realize it updated, right? So, what is it, $8,995, now?
[00:15:36] Brandy Buskow: $8,997, yes.
[00:15:37] Detective Ev: What you can actually do, and one of the things I love about FDN, is they offer you payment plans all the way out until like 24 months, and it’s in-house. It’s not like you’re going through a third-party credit check. You can do that and get it even at a better rate. But I think 24 months is more than enough if someone’s serious about this kind of thing. Yeah, you can do it through that.
FDN Around the World: Finishing the Course in 8.9 Months
In terms of how long the program will take, I think the average right now, I remember Reed was at a conference with me recently, I think it was like 8.9 months. He was very specific. These guys track their data. But it can be done I think reasonably in as little as six months if the person’s putting in a lot of effort.
My girlfriend and best friend are both going through right now, I already mentioned that she was going through. She started in September and she’s about to graduate, technically, in a couple of weeks, assuming she passes everything, and she’s been doing well. That would’ve been about six months. But Maddy’s also put a lot of effort into it.
And my best friend’s also on the same pace. He started a little later but will be graduating a little later. These people were able to do this in six months. And Maddy works full-time currently, so she did that with a full-time job, and she has to handle me. Between all those things, you know, if she could finish FDN in six months, I think that you guys can do it as well. So, you can be out there doing this work.
I’ll answer this question as if it already came up because this was something I got all the time when I was on the course enrollment side, Brandy. People wonder like, well, can I do this work though if I’m on a 24-month payment plan and I finish in six months? That’s how much FDN believes in their system? The answer is, yes. So, you would’ve only paid like a fraction of what you got the value of, right? And you got lab tests included in the course, that’s the crazy part.
FDN Around the World: Educational Content Plus Mentoring
Just the lab tests themselves would’ve accounted for almost six months of your payments already. Yet, you can be out there charging what we charge as FDNs.
We have a whole thing that we do in person, local to me. I mean, we’re charging $4,500 for a three-month program. That is what FDNs should charge, at the very least. Even if you’re new, even if you’re charging a bit less than that, you’re still doing pretty well for yourself. That’s what it is.
Someone said, “Where can we look at the curriculum?” Thank you. I know something offhand, but that’s probably linked to the podcast.
[00:17:27] Brandy Buskow: You can go to our website, functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com. There’s a nice pretty tab at the top that says, Programs. If you click on Programs, you have access to our course curriculum. We also have a course tour there as well, so you can get a behind the scenes look.
I think this person was the one who asked about how long it took, so I want to just expand on what you said, Evan. So, yeah, it takes about eight to 10 months. There’s about 150 hours’ worth of educational content, plus 11 hours of mentoring time, which means you get one-on-one with a mentor, where you get to practice what you learn. It’s a role play scenario. You get 11 hours with a mentor, and then optionally, there’s two hours per week of calls that you can attend for extra support.
FDN Around the World: FDN Course Support
One of them is with Reed for an hour. And the other one is with our lead mentor, Elizabeth Gaines. You could ask her questions, you can get feedback, and then our support is also always there. So, you can always email support if you need anything. It’s really important for us that you feel confident and that you’re able to get through the course. We want to make sure that we’re supporting you.
Hopefully that answers all of those questions. Thank you, Jo. Yes, the link is also in our bio as well.
[00:18:36] Detective Ev: We’re throwing out the mentorship too, because when you and I went through the course, there was mentorship, but it’s just expanded so much since five, six, or whatever. How long ago did you go through Brandy? It was a while ago.
[00:18:47] Brandy Buskow: I graduated January 2nd, 2014. It’s been a while.
[00:18:52] Detective Ev: Yeah. I didn’t start until 2017. The mentorship was just set up so much differently.
What FDN always does, everyone gets this, you’ll get a post-grad interview. That’s just them getting feedback, like, how can we make it even better? And everyone gets this, which is crazy when you think about how many hours go into just that over time.
It’s been so much fun to see, like my friends and girlfriend going through the course right now. They get this Facebook training group, right? They’re going in and they’re supported by like hundreds of other people and the staff. Reed’s hopping on there. Reed’s almost 70 years old and is hopping online with these people just to help out.
FDN Around the World: A Great Time to Join FDN
I mean, guys, he’s got this company running like a well-oiled machine. Now Brandy’s, basically, in charge at this point.
He doesn’t have to do this, is my point. And he’s still hopping on with the trainees. He’s still hopping on with the graduates. He does the same things on Friday, lecturing for this stuff.
It’s a cool time to join still because we’re big enough that we have all these systems in place for you and just small enough that you could still get direct access to the original founder of this who’s been teaching in some way for 20 years and directly as a course for whatever that is, 14, 15 years almost. That’s awesome.
One thing that I wanted to go back to, since I don’t see any other questions in the chat right now. And if you are just tuning in, this is a great time to ask, I mean, technically any questions about FDN, but specifically about how FDN works around the world, cause that’s the main topic today.
You had mentioned China as an example as being a country that is tough. I’m sorry to throw you a tough question cause this might be case by case. Let’s say though, I’m someone in China. I want to go through the course, and we know that the labs are going to be an issue. This does matter because part of the cost of the course is I get these labs to run on myself. Does that change at all or is that too tough on the person?
FDN Around the World: International Lab Partnerships
I already think the course is underpriced as it is, as someone who went through this. I know I work for them, but I’m also unbiased cause I didn’t work for them for the first three years that I did this, and I thought it was underpriced.
So, would that change at all, or would it just be like, hey, it’s still the same price and you can get the labs maybe when you’re out of country? How does that process?
[00:20:38] Brandy Buskow: That was a great question. Everybody who enrolls in the course gets four test kits included in their tuition to run on themselves. So, you get to be your own first client and you get to experience the process.
If you live in a country where the labs are difficult, there’s very few times that we have found, like our team works very, very hard cause we want you to get the labs. Even in China, we’ve had this happen. We may not have been able to get all four but we’ve at least been able to get them two.
And we’re always working with lab companies and finding distributors that can work with us. That’s why we are establishing partnerships with labs internationally. Like I said, we have one in Australia that does have an Asian distributor that will ship test kits.
Now, not all of them can go. But we’ve been able to get at least two so you can get the information and then we can give you some guidance on, maybe check with your doctor for these other tests to see if we can get some more information. I don’t recall ever a time where we couldn’t at least get one to two test kits to somebody in a difficult area.
FDN Around the World: International Supplement Suppliers
Like I mentioned, China was one of them. Unfortunately, during COVID times, South Africa was another one. We were able to get kits in there, but it wasn’t that South Africa wasn’t allowing the specimens to come out, it was that there was a lockdown on the borders.
What we did is we actually established a relationship with somebody in South Africa that knew the regulations and was able to support our practitioners there, get access to testing locally. That’s one thing we pride ourselves on is we’ve always been trying to create these relationships with labs so that we can make sure that our practitioners have access to them.
The same is true for supplements. We’re always working on that. That’s something big we’re working on right now as well, is trying to find as many supplement suppliers as we can so that regardless of where you are, you have access to supplements because that can also be difficult. That’s one thing, like I said, we work really hard on.
I see Vonya’s question. Yes, there is testing in India, so absolutely. It’s interesting, we had quite a few people from India reaching out to us lately, which is exciting. We love to hear from everybody. We have a couple of trainees in India currently. So yes, we can do India.
[00:22:47] Detective Ev: I’ll make the next one easy because @roadmaptovitality said, “What about in Canada?” Canada, and correct me if I’m wrong on this, I think that’s our second biggest country in terms of like the amount of FDN practitioners. Brandy is in Canada. She has always been in Canada while doing FDN.
FDN Around the World: Doing FDN in Canda
[00:23:01] Brandy Buskow: Yes. I can definitely speak to that question. No problem doing FDN in Canada. In fact, one of the labs that we teach you in the course, Fluids IQ, their lab is based in Toronto. Three of the tests that are included in tuition come from Fluids IQ in Toronto. The nice thing is, as a Canadian, when you become a practitioner, you can open an account with them, and you can pay in Canadian funds.
Now, the other tests for Canada, they do come from the US, and they are in US funds, but it’s really easy. There’s not a lot of restrictions here in Canada. And if you have any questions, we’re happy to answer any questions you have about your particular country.
[00:23:39] Detective Ev: Not that she really cares, but just out of respect, I won’t mention her name, but I know like one of our most successful FDNs right now is based out of Canada. She’s killing it guys. She’s making enough for several FDN practitioners. It definitely can be done up there.
“How about practicing in Europe and places like Denmark?” I actually don’t know the answer.
[00:23:58] Brandy Buskow: Yeah, absolutely. One of our big lab partners who distributes worldwide is based out of Denmark. We have a lab partner where they specialized in the logistics of shipping, and they’re based in Denmark.
[00:24:10] Detective Ev: Very cool. @roadmaptovitality asked again. I love this back and forth, Brandy, we’re killing it. “Do you use CellCore products?”
FDN Around the World: Not Lab nor Supplement Loyal
One thing you want to understand about FDN, and I’ve mentioned this in other Lives, this is actually one of the parts I love about them most, is we are not necessarily lab loyal or supplement loyal, although we of course try to teach certain things in the course just to not be confusing.
That’s why Fluids IQ is a major partner of us. We still use Biomatrix and stuff with a lot of the supplements. But when I say we’re not loyal to one, it’s because we don’t necessarily care about the lab or supplements, we don’t have any deals with them. We want to know what works best for the specific thing that we might be working on.
So, even though we don’t teach CellCore in the course, the good news is, yes, we do have access to it. Actually, I just got my approval the other day. If you go on their list of approved practitioners, CellCore’s kind of one of the harder ones to get into. It so happens that you asked about CellCore, it’s a tougher supplement company to get into. And right on their list, they have Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioner. So, I got registered just probably six or seven days ago for our business cause I wanted some of their Para 1, Para 2 stuff. So yes, you can get that as an FDN practitioner.
Then the good news is, I always tell people this, we never talked about this enough on the sales team, if you are a health nerd, the amount that you spend on the course, and then the wholesale pricing that you get on supplements, if you live long enough, I promise you, you’ll get the money back just in wholesale.
FDN Around the World: FDN Vetted & Recommended
The amount of money my family and I save on these like 40%, 50% discounts on supplements, I have spent enough on those to make way more back than what I spent on the course. It’s kind of cool, right?
Any other questions about doing FDN around the world, feel free to shoot them below. I know we’re at the 30-minute mark.
[00:25:42] Brandy Buskow: Let’s talk about the supplement question here, Evan. To your point, we’re not completely tied to one company. Again, because we’re international, not every supplement company is available in every country.
I remember back when I started, the only thing we ever talked about was Biomatrix. When I started, I had to go on the website and look at what are all the ingredients, and then go to the health food store locally and look up those ingredients and find something similar. That’s why we’ve changed to, we have some that we recommend because we’ve vetted them, they’ve been around for a long time, they have a lot of high quality.
But you’re free to use whichever supplement company that you want. If you have a favorite company that you want to use, you can do that. There’s no hard and fast rule of you only have to use these ones. That’s again, because we’re international, we want it to be flexible for our practitioners everywhere.
[00:26:30] Detective Ev: Absolutely. Even in the course, if we went into every little supplement lab that I could get access to as an FDN, it’s actually overwhelming. It’s more just cool to learn about it. This is the set stuff that we’re going to use in the course. This is vetted. We know that this always works. This is good.
FDN Around the World: D.R.E.S.S. Lifestyle
Then it’s just more like the gift that keeps on giving when you’re graduated because I must have accounts with like 10 to 15 different places. Not that you have to do that cause you can use things like Fullscript, I suppose. But it is just kind of cool. I like having the accounts myself and just being able to get the wholesale orders and we use it a lot in business.
One other thing I wanted to touch on, if there’s no immediate questions is, just because we did this before, but we didn’t really elaborate on it. I think when people are first hearing about FDN, whether it’s through the podcast or through our marketing or whatever, I think they initially think that it’s only labs, right? That’s what we are, is just lab training.
You had actually mentioned, well, hey, even if you didn’t have any of the labs, you could still do FDN. I think if it’s someone’s first interaction with us or first couple interactions with us, that might be confusing. So, I’ll touch on that a little bit and then obviously I know you will have some way to elaborate even better.
One of the things you guys gotta understand is that FDN primarily is a lifestyle changing modality, right? We learn about things like D.R.E.S.S., it’s our acronym for diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction, and supplementation. In my opinion, even though I’ve worked with some really tricky clients, and in fact I was a tricky client myself in terms of how complicated my case was, when you nail down D.R.E.S.S., which we teach you extensively in the course, D.R.E.S.S. does not necessarily require any labs whatsoever.
FDN Around the World: Accelerating Healing with Labs
You will get people 70%, 80% better all the time. Or they’ll get themselves better by just applying the things that you taught them really. So, what I do think more often than not, it’s not always the case, but more often than not, the labs are more or less an accelerator to get the person feeling a lot better, a lot quicker.
Because yes, if you are someone who’s been dealing with health symptoms like I was at 20, 21 when I went through the course, I’d been dealing with health symptoms since before five years old. If you just start changing your lifestyle, even if you do it dang near perfectly, you are right, it could take several months or even a few years just by changing lifestyle for the body to heal naturally.
Now, if you get labs involved, and you figure out just exactly what areas got most affected by you not living the best lifestyle for the last whatever it was, 10, 15 years, that’s when you have those healing opportunities, we can really accelerate this healing process. I hope that makes sense to people, but that’s how I look at it.
It’s like, even if you just put someone through D.R.E.S.S., I think given enough time, the vast majority of people would actually get better. The labs can just be a great accelerator for people that we work with, and they’re sometimes very sick and they’ve been sick for decades. That’s why they want the labs. They need it. They want to feel better quick.
FDN Around the World: The Importance of the Big Picture
[00:29:06] Brandy Buskow: Yeah. And we’ve experienced this, Evan. I mean, you’ve been around when we had a lab go away. Like, there was a lab that just closed its doors. So, labs come and go. And while it’s important for us and we pride ourselves in like we are one of the best programs that teaches you how to look at labs differently, we cannot discount the importance of D.R.E.S.S. Because that’s what we do. That’s the lifestyle program.
The other thing that I wanted to mention is, a lot of people focus on supplements. You can’t out supplement a bad diet, not going to bed on time, or being a stress case, like you just can’t. So that’s why it’s important to focus on all of those areas of lifestyle. I think FDN does a really great job of teaching you the framework that you need to use with your clients and helping you to look at things differently.
I’ve said this a few times. If you really understand FDN, and the more you practice it, the more you understand the importance of the big picture. Because it’s so easy for us to go down a rabbit hole and a nuance of one little area and we forget that we need to look at the big picture. That’s where you get results. Because that’s what conventional medicine does.
You go to a specialist for every single thing. Say, okay, I’m going to go to a specialist for the gut. Oh, now there’s a skin issue. Okay, now you’re going to go to a dermatologist. Oh, now you’re having headaches. Now you’re going to go to a neurologist. It’s not fixing the problem.
FDN Around the World: The Importance of Lifestyle
We learn in FDN, Reed calls it clinical correlation, but also, we learn really good observation skills so that we can really help our clients and not get dragged down into the weeds where every other practitioner has gone with them, and they haven’t gotten results.
So, I love that you said that. Labs, we definitely pride ourselves in that, but it’s not the be-all end-all. You can still learn a lot from the FDN program if labs went away tomorrow.
[00:30:56] Detective Ev: Absolutely. It’s like if we have them, why not use them? That’s just intelligent to do. But we can’t get caught up in that and we don’t want to misrepresent ourselves. It’s lifestyle at the end of the day, but we just happen to be also very good at the lab stuff.
I’m glad that you mentioned that idea of that lab closing. I think that was the ultimate testament to what Reed had been talking about, almost hypothetically, for years before that. Like, oh, we don’t really need a lab. No, we really didn’t need the labs.
We saw what happened during that temporary thing in the beginning of the pandemic. And FDN not only made it through, it actually is bigger than ever before and continues to grow. So, it doesn’t matter, we’re still getting people healthy and still helping them.
“Is HTMA a part of the curriculum?” HTMA is not a part of the curriculum in and of itself. It’s a good question and it’s similar to the supplement question actually because we’re not loyal to any specific lab necessarily. But FDN was created around Reed Davis’s expertise in running labs with over 10,000 clients.
FDN Around the World: Foundations First
It’s crazy how that worked out. In his world, he was not using HTMA at the time. However, one of the cool things about FDN is all the labs that we get access to as graduates. We do get access to HTMA labs. You can order them through our medical director program once you graduate.
Shameless plug, if you don’t mind. We always gotta shout out our friend Kendra Perry. She is an FDN herself. She has one of the better HTMA courses out there. I haven’t gone through it because I’ve only just started using HTMA on and off in the last six months. I’m excited to do that. From my understanding, she is very good at teaching it in a way that still is in alignment with a lot of the FDN principles.
I would start with FDN and see if this works. I promise you it’s going to work pretty well with or without HTMA. Then those are things that probably are best to add on over time. I’ve seen applicability to it, and I’ve seen applicability to a lot of different labs that weren’t taught in the main course.
There’s a reason that Reed taught it the way that he did. He doesn’t care what labs we use. HTMA doesn’t mean anything more to him than salivary hormone testing. He’s not loyal to any of those things. It’s what worked over and over again in all these clients that he worked with.
So, if you want to access it, go through FDN, but we won’t teach it in the main curriculum, no.
[00:32:54] Brandy Buskow: HTMA is a great test and a lot of our FDN practitioners use it but it’s considered a next-level test. You want to get the foundations in place first.
FDN Around the World: Advanced Courses & More Testing
And if you do take Kendra’s course, she will actually reiterate that. The reason we don’t have an HTMA course is Kendra is an FDN practitioner. Her course is amazing, and we recommend it. So why reinvent the wheel?
You do get access to the testing post-graduation. We have over 60 tests in our medical director program. Let’s talk a little bit about this cause then they might get the question, well, if I can order it and I can’t interpret it, how is that helpful?
So, whenever you order something through our medical director program, you always have the option to have a 30-minute consult with one of our clinical advisors who can support you. Now, those sessions are not meant to teach you. They’re not going to teach you all about the HTMA in 30 minutes, but they can help you with that particular client and those test results and help you to see if you’re on the right track and give you some insights.
So, beyond the five foundational tests that we teach you in the course, you have access to more, and you can schedule a clinical advisor consult anytime with one of our FDN clinical advisors. They can support you on any new test that you want to add.
But I always tell our new graduates, because we do a post-graduate interview with every single person who goes through the course to get their feedback, I always tell them, get comfortable with the foundations first. Feel really confident with those, then if you want to learn about more testing, you can dive into some advanced courses and some more testing, and that’s the time to do it.
FDN Around the World: Education on Top of the FDN Foundation
But don’t feel like you have to know every single test before you can help somebody, because then you’re going to get stuck and then you’re never going to help anybody. You have the tools that you need with the foundational course, and then you can add on as you go.
[00:34:38] Detective Ev: It’s fun to add it on as you go because now you have the philosophy, right? Like you understand how to look at this stuff. Most of these labs, not all of them, but I’m thinking about for example, another one that comes up often is like the OAT. You can run that through a few labs. One of them is Great Plains, it’s a popular one.
Great Plains, because they want you to run their labs, of course, they have training on the OAT that you can go to. But it’s really important to have that FDN philosophy beforehand. Listen, I’m actually not speaking directly on Great Plains. I don’t know what they teach. I just know that they offer this education. You might find that’s maybe a little bit more treating the paperwork.
I don’t know what that specific lab, again, just saying that in general, some of these labs might be more treating the paperwork. So, now you’re getting the education on the lab and what the markers mean, but you also have it through this FDN lens, and you’re able to kind of combine this.
That’s where it’s like, all right, yeah, we could teach 60 labs in the course and charge $30,000 for it and it’s going to take you three or four years. That would be a little ridiculous.
FDN Around the World: Supporting Clients Further
Or it’s like, all right, let’s nail down the foundational stuff that works 80%, 90% of the time in the way that you want it to. It always works to some degree. I’m saying 80%, 90% of the time in that, like that is literally all you need for the client to get to where they want to go. Eighty to ninety percent of the time I have found that the FDN foundational course gets them to where they want, in that amount of percentage.
But you might find 10% to 20% of the time, maybe the client got 80% better doing the foundational stuff and they have been disciplined for six to 12 months. Okay, cool. Well then, we have an array of things that you can choose from to make an intelligent decision with like how can we support this person a little further?
I was one of those people that needed it myself. I ended up doing the HTMA cause I felt a little rundown last year. It turned out, I mean, I don’t know if it was actually FDN, it was more me not doing something properly, right? But that HTMA was support for me through that time. So, totally cool to use all that stuff.
Someone said, “I like the KISS method.” And if someone doesn’t know what that is, that’s keep it simple, stupid. Yes, even though FDN obviously dives deep and nerdy into the lab stuff, we do try to keep it as straightforward and simple as possible through the main course. Then if you want to nerd out, trust me, we got plenty of that in post-graduation in our professionals’ group.
FDN Around the World: Book A Call
With all that said, Brandy, we’ve been going for 40 minutes. I want to definitely shout out the Hormone Workshop. But in terms of the topic of how to do this around the world, is there anything else that we needed to hit on today?
[00:36:49] Brandy Buskow: I don’t think so. I think we covered it.
You know, we pride ourselves on being an international country’s company. So, if you are international, you have some questions about your specific country, feel free to reach out to our team. If you go to our website, there’s a button there that says BOOK A CALL. It’s no pressure. Their job is to answer your questions.
So, if you have a specific question about your country, book a call. Talk to one of our course advisors and they can answer your questions.
[00:37:13] Detective Ev: Excellent. All right.
Then just while I have you guys, because we’ve been getting so much outreach because of this, like a lot of people are interested. Someone said, “silly, instead of the stupid.” Yes. I’ll use a better acronym next time.
Oh, we have one more question. “How do we navigate on the health coaching regulations that other countries might have?”
[00:37:30] Brandy Buskow: This is a broad question, but I’ll attempt to answer it. One of the things that’s important for everybody to understand is that there isn’t like one licensing body for health coaching. It doesn’t exist. There are organizations and there’s boards, but there’s no like legal regulations for health coaching.
FDN Around the World: Health Coaching Regulations
Having said that, the one thing that’s important to keep in mind about FDN is that Reed came from a law background. It was very important to him that what we do as FDN practitioners is well within our scope of practice.
We do not cross the line into diagnosing and treating or what doctors do. They have their place; they do a great job with what they do. We stay in our lane and teach you in the course the right language to use, how to stay within your scope so that you are doing things ethically and legally. There’s no law anywhere that I’m aware of that prevents you as a health coach from giving lifestyle advice.
[00:38:26] Brandy Buskow: The only thing that may be an exception would be places that you have to be a nutritionist or a dietician to prescribe a diet or meal planning. FDNs do not do meal planning or prescribe diets. We give you recommendations, but we don’t do any prescribing. That’s the only place that I’m aware of where there are regulations.
But there’s no rules about giving lifestyle advice of you should go to bed on time, you need to move, you shouldn’t be eating a ton of sugar. There’s no law that prevents you from giving advice like that.
[00:38:57] Detective Ev: I always forget to mention that about Reed having that law background. We are as by the book as they come. We provide the paperwork for you too in the course, it’s a terms of service agreement, letting them know that they are agreeing to, one, let you see their lab test results and two, basically give them educational type of insights on it. That’s all it is.
FDN Around the World: Insurance Coverage
The only way I can picture this ever happening, and I am speaking from a limited scope cause I’m just thinking about US, but I know here there’s been a push for maybe health coaching to get covered by insurance, which sounds really nice on the surface. But the second you go through insurance, just like certain chiropractors have here and just like certain acupuncturists have here, they are allowed to limit what is actually covered by insurance and what you’re allowed to do.
When you go to a cash-based chiropractor or acupuncturist in America, they can do whatever they need to do and want to do. If I go to a chiropractor that’s insurance covered, great, my insurance covers it, but they can only do like three or four different main types of adjustments, versus, my chiropractor’s got some crazy stuff that’s really cool going on over there.
So FDN, it’s never going to be covered by insurance the way that we would want it. As long as we’re cash based and you have the proper terms of service, I can’t see anything preventing us from doing what we’re doing. We’d be living in a pretty crazy world if that happens.
[00:40:09] Brandy Buskow: The insurance statement is you don’t want to be covered by insurance because if your services are being covered by insurance, the state is then going to dictate to you how much you get paid.
So, if you’re working for a doctor as a health coach and your services are covered by insurance, you might get $30 an hour. If you work for yourself, and that’s cash basis like Evan said, we have FDNs making $200, $300 an hour in their packages. So, it’s not always a good thing.
Stress and Hormones Workshop
I do understand there’s some practitioners that want to do that, they want to work for doctors, they just want to do coaching, and that’s great. We’re not against that. We need more people who want to do health coaching and be out in the world and help people. But overall, there is no, like large governing board that governs health coaching.
[00:40:54] Detective Ev: Absolutely. Last thing I want to shout out for you guys, a separate topic, but again, a lot of people have been super interested in this is our Stress and Hormones Workshop with yours truly.
I’ll be hopping on with Jo Pate. She’s another person here at FDN, so you guys have probably seen her a couple of times definitely on our Instagram. She’ll be co-hosting with me and we’re going over 70 plus slides really getting you into our world of FDN. It’s an $11 workshop. You guys know how much we give out for free if you just think about like the podcast and Instagram and stuff.
Eleven dollars in our world is actually going to get you quite a bit. You will get to see how you can apply the way that we think about hormones, specifically, into your health coaching practice, even if you never go through the course. And we’ll also give you a really nice teaser if you are interested in the course. Then you can actually see, this is what they teach.
So, if you’re interested in that, it’s going to be Live, March 2nd, 7:00 PM EST for myself, 4:00 PM PST. Then we got people all around the world. I’m sorry, you’re going to have to do the rest of the conversions yourself. But that’s 4:00 PM PST, 7:00 PM EST. And that’s United States.
Conclusion
Go check that out. If you can hop on Live with us, there’s a Q&A at the end, too. It’s going to be about two hours total. We’ll go through the slides, teach you a lot about hormones and stress, and then we will do the Live Q&A. Even if you can’t make it directly, you will have a lifetime access to the replay for the $11.
So, if you’re interested in that, do one of two things. You can either drop the word hormones below, or since we’re about to end the call as well, you can actually DM us. We have real human beings that talk on our Instagram, it’s not a chat bot. You will get to talk to one of our staff members. Just shoot them a message in the direct messages spot and let them know that you’re interested in that Stress and Hormones Workshop, and we will get you signed up.
I think we covered quite a bit today. I can’t believe it’s already been 50 minutes, Brandy. It was nice talking to you.
[00:42:37] Brandy Buskow: It’s always great, Evan. And I hope a lot of people learned a lot of things. Again, if we didn’t cover any of your questions, feel free to reach out to our team. We’re happy to answer your questions. We want you to feel confident in your decision in joining the FDN family.
[00:42:48] Detective Ev: Cool. All right. Thank you, guys, so much and I hope you have a great weekend.
You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com.
To hire an FDN Practitioner, go to fdnthrive.com.
For a FREE eBook, go to fdnthrive.com/steps/.
