The Everyday Millionaire Show
The Everyday Millionaire Show
From Marine to Healthcare Innovator - Eric Rittmeyer of LifeMed (Full Podcast)
Imagine transforming your approach to health by harnessing the wisdom of a former Marine turned healthcare innovator. Dive into this episode of the Everyday Millionaire Show, where Eric Rittmeyer from LifeMed shares his inspiring journey from military service to the forefront of private healthcare and preventative medicine. Discover the profound benefits of advanced biochemical testing and personalized health optimization, particularly for younger individuals eager to maintain long-term vitality.
We explore LifeMed's unique concierge wellness model, focusing on age management, aesthetics, and cardiac preventative care. LifeMed's approach not only aims to optimize health but also to prevent major health issues before they arise, paving the way for a healthier future.
Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Show with Ryan Greenberg and Nick Kalkis. Alright, guys, welcome back to another episode of the Everyday Millionaire Show. We're here with Eric Rittmeyer of LifeMed. This is a long time coming, eric. I definitely appreciate you coming out and we have a lot to talk about today.
Speaker 2:We do. You said, we have three hours.
Speaker 1:We're no Joe Rogan, but we're trying, but yeah. So basically I went to LifeMed because I was having I wouldn't say issues, but my insurance-based doctors were not giving me the information or the guidance that I needed or wanted when I started training for Ironman events and ultra endurance stuff. And when I went to LifeMed it completely changed my outlook on insurance, that whole what I think is now a big scam and doctors and how they're incentivized in different ways. So kind of tell me, how did you end up with LifeMed doing what you're doing now?
Speaker 2:was offered an opportunity to come help build it, and it was just. I could see that this was something that obviously was going to be, you know, the way of the future. It's all about preventative medicine. That's where we're heading right now. It's about preventing, so we don't have to treat. So for me, it was just an awesome opportunity, at the right time, to jump into a business and give me the opportunity to spread the word for something that I believe wholeheartedly in and I'm an old head now compared to you guys, right? So when you hear that, you hear that phrase, when you love what you do, you're not really working. I always used to hear it and be like, yeah, whatever. Now I'm in the middle of it and I'm like this is what they mean when you talk about loving what you do. So for me, right place, right time, right people, right environment, right product I'm just an absolute heaven with what I'm doing.
Speaker 3:So when you worked at Patient First, were you like a nurse there, or what was your description there?
Speaker 2:I never worked at Patient First.
Speaker 4:He was the patient first.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:That was funny actually. I picked up and I'm like oh my God, we're derailing off this, Got it. Okay, I misunderstood you.
Speaker 3:I thought you said that's where you started, and then you saw how they were working things, and that's how you got into LifeMed.
Speaker 2:That's what I, yeah, start out as a patient first.
Speaker 1:So what brought you to become a patient of LifeMed? Because most people I feel like when they hear that you're going to see, like at least when I told people I'm going to see a private doctor when I have health insurance, they're like why would you do that? And I'm like, well, I wasn prescriptions for things that I didn't think I really even needed. What brought you to go the private route?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for me, like when I got with the Marine Corps chase we talked about this too, and I'm sure you look much better in a uniform than I do.
Speaker 2:We talked about this off camera. But for me it was like when I got with the Marine Corps, like I was bulletproof right when I was 18, get out and I'm 22, I hit 30. I'm like I got this, like my body's starting to fall off. I'm like I'm good to go. I hit 35. I'm like, dude, I'm good, I hit 40. I'm like I am indestructible, like I am just never, ever going to fail. 45 for me. I was like, okay, like this is what it's, this is what's up, right, I started lift weight anymore, I was whatever.
Speaker 2:So for me, at that point where I was like, okay, I got to get some stuff checked out, went in, had this full blood panel done, we did advanced biochemical testing, determined that I was low in testosterone amongst all the other markers that were just not optimized.
Speaker 2:So for me, going through the process and then firsthand, I was like, okay, this is what was happening to my body. I was hitting a point where I was just not capable of doing the things I used to do. And for guys I think we're kind of hardheaded with that, especially military guys Like for me, it was, like you know, improvise, adapt and overcome, like push through, and it got to the point where just physiologically that wasn't going to happen. So blood panel was done, started on the testosterone, and for me I just firsthand got to experience what I went through. And then that led to my obsession with conveying the message to others, especially young guys. So insanely important for young, for young people, to get their blood draws done, even though you feel good, to get baselines and see if there's somewhere to optimize.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would have never guessed, like, if you like, take my profile of what we do, what I do as far as like energy levels, all that stuff, that I was also low on testosterone and that was like one thing that led to a whole bunch of other you know kind of preventative stuff that LifeMed is now helping me handle. But so why not go to the insurance people? That's the million dollar question that I feel like I want to get the word out. I want to tell people why they should be paying to go to see a private person instead of going to that insurance-based doctor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I have some thoughts on this. First off, internally, with LifeMed, our blood draws that we do this advanced biochemical testing which checks almost 100 markers hormones, genetics, cardiac particle sizes, metabolic, kidney, liver function, glucose levels, thyroid levels, information, markers, vitamins. We check it all. I know you've had your blood draws done. Obviously we do run the blood through insurance, so that piece of it within our company is normally covered by insurance. You have co-pays, deductibles, things like that. Everything else is cash pay outside of the blood draw.
Speaker 2:My philosophy and my belief, my hypothesis as to why insurance doesn't cover places like ours, like preventative medicine, if we all let's just say right now have Blue Cross, blue Shield as our insurance providers, let's just say it's very unlikely that seven to nine years from now we're all still going to have Blue Cross, blue Shield. Right, I'm going to have a job change. I'm going to go to UnitedHealthcare. You're going to have a career change. Your wife's going to get a job, You're going to be with Kaiser. We're all going to have different insurance companies. Let's round up and say 10 years from now, so for insurance companies to invest money in people like us right now for things that really aren't going to benefit us until later in life. They're not going to spend the money because they know that 10 years from now they're not going to be insuring you. So why are they going to spend the money to invest in you for Kaiser to benefit from that when you're with them 30 years from now?
Speaker 2:So my philosophy with insurance I believe they're not covering preventative type stuff because they're not going to reap the rewards from it. The stuff that we're doing right now preventatively. Insurance is set up to fix things that are broken. Preventative medicine. They call it medicine 3.0, preventing, so you don't have to treat. This is all about doing things now to not deal with it later in life. Insurance companies don't want to spend the money because it's unlikely. I guarantee if you had the same insurance company on the day of birth to the day you die, 100% all this stuff would be covered because they would recognize that let's do stuff now so you don't get sick later.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting take on it. There's a lot of content out there that says you know, the insurance companies have basically incentives to keep to make us sick so they can treat us later on in life and the the doctors I feel like are kind of set up uh, the insurance based doctors are kind of set up for failure because they have to push through so many patients every day in order to turn a profit, Whereas, like I feel like what I felt like at LifeMed was that you're paying for that time with the person and spend like Nick's about to go do his follow up, where it's like an hour long meeting, where they're actually explaining to not just like your levels but what what each level means, and I think that's that's something that, like I've never had done at any other doctor or any other place before, and I think that's something that I've never had done at any other doctor or any other place before.
Speaker 2:And I think what's important is to recognize the role of a doctor. A doctor is trained to treat something that's broken. So they are not preventing, they are treating. So a doctor. This is called medicine 2.0, you get sick, you go to a doctor. They prescribe medication to make you better. That's what they're trained to do. It's the advent of antibiotics. This is how we're able to double our lifespan, essentially in the last hundred years, mainly because of antibiotics.
Speaker 2:So I think most people get into this mindset of I go to my doctor and all they want to do is write me a prescription. Well, you're going to the doctor because you got sick and they're writing a prescription to fix your illness. It's not your doctor's job to prevent your illness. It's your job, it's your responsibility to do things to stay healthy, so you don't need to go to a doctor to write a prescription. So I think if people kind of shift the mindset from I'm only going to the doctor to treat something that I'm sick about, as opposed to I'm going to be preventative and not get sick or do the best, we're all going to get sick, but I'm going to do the best I can to not get sick. It's like sending your kid to school and be like hey, teacher, raise my kid right. It's not the teacher's job to raise your child.
Speaker 2:Same thing with doctors their job's a treat. So they only have enough time in their schedules normally on average about 13 minutes to have a blood draw done to see what's broken and to address what's broken and to fix that. It's not preventative in nature. Their job is to treat stuff that's broken. Companies like ours, we view it through the lens of okay, you feel good and the majority of our patients who come out, you guys, when you came out, probably felt all right. Maybe a little something was off, but you felt all right, you weren't sick. We now look at that and go way deep into it. We don't just look at what's red on the panel, we look at what's yellow, what's green. Where can we optimize it? Is there anything we can detect in here that might show future issues that we can address right now, so it doesn't become a major issue? That's the biggest difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that, I think, is something that most people don't realize that you can go to these places for preventative, for proactive instead of reactive medicine. And I know, since I started going to LifeMed I've been going basically once a week and getting the Powerhouse Max shot with like a bunch of vitamins and everything. My wife's a teacher. She's been sick several times. I haven't been sick since I started taking those shots and maybe maybe I'm just making it up, but with all the vitamin C and all this stuff that I was potentially deficient in getting those those shots each week has, I think, in my eyes, helped a ton.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's definitely not just your mind but realistically, if you want to look at placebo, right. So if you have that placebo effect I'm a huge fan Like, hey, if we're giving you, if we're giving you an injection with saline has nothing in it and you think it's making you healthier and you're healthier, go for it. I'm a huge fan of placebo but I can say it's not the case with you. If you're getting those injections, that's just a bunch of germs running around. You have to do everything you possibly can to optimize every little to stay hydrated. Our IVs have 500 bags of saline. You can't drink as much water as you get intravenously.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did a. We did a triathlon recently. I can't do IV bags because I just pass, I just pass out, I'll just lay there, pass down so I get the IM muscular shot. But our last triathlon in Miami he had an IV company come to the Airbnb and gave me an IV and that's why he beat me.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So my wife was doing it. It was me, my wife and Melissa. We were all three going to do the IVs. And my wife gets her injection in there and all of a sudden she gets to be a sleepy girl and she starts laying over and I'm like, alright, get the IV out. So now we have an extra bag. So I'm like, alright, well, I paid for it, let me take it. So I take an extra bag. So I got two bags right the day before I race. Oh my god, talk about feeling hydrated and feeling good, no cramps, I mean, I just felt amazing those IVs are legit.
Speaker 2:I think it's the rehydration aspect of it. Obviously, we add nutrients into them. We have like 17 different ones B vitamins, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, glutathione, which is a liver detoxifier, we have all that. If you extract all the vitamins out of it and just get a 500 bag of saline intravenously, it's wild what it does. We are so under hydrated.
Speaker 3:I drink so much water, but the amount of water we drink like this you can't get what you get in a bag of saline. It's pretty wild, yeah. So obviously, Ryan, you know a little bit more about LifeMed than I do. Obviously you know the most, and I just wanted to get my blood work done two weeks ago. So for anyone out there listening, can you like explain what LifeMed, like who's LifeMed for, what does it do for them? And like why choose life med over just going to their primary doctor to get blood drawn?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's an awesome question. So I mean, the official definition of our company is we're a concierge wellness center, so we specialize in age management, aesthetics, facial contouring, lip fillers, botox, vip peels, diamond glows a lot of lady stuff. Some of the guys like it too. It's called brotox. Guys, guys, get Brotox.
Speaker 4:I haven't got it yet. Not my 11s, got my cruise feet, but yeah, our nurses, our injectors are top notch.
Speaker 2:I mean, we hire, we train, we only find the absolute best of the best. But then it's the cardiac preventative piece of it. Our medical director is a cardiologist. We're up to 13 nurse practitioners, three physician assistants, two other MDs, and then the hormone replacement therapies is really the core of what we do. But, to answer your question, nick, this is all about preventing, so we don't have to treat right. What gets measured gets managed. So that's a good philosophy to follow. If we don't measure it, we don't manage it. Meaning we pull blood, we find something that's imbalanced or not optimized, we have the opportunity to address it and deal with it now, before it becomes a major issue. So, as far as who's right or who's the best person to come out, any adult over the age of 18 who's looking to either optimize and or just get baselines, that's another thing. A lot of people are like I'm too young, I don't have to come out yet. Someone like you, chase, obviously you're 40, we check what's called PSA, prostate-specific antigen. So if we see that start to tweak, we might be like, okay, this is an issue, go to a specialist to have it checked out.
Speaker 2:We've had patients. One of our providers, actually one of our PAs, detected a level. It's called LPA, lipoprotein A, lp, little a. It's a genetic marker and it's a risk factor for, for cardiovascular disease. She saw an elevated LPA, some LDLs that were out of whack, cholesterols, all the lipids. She's like you know what, probably not a huge deal, but go to your, you know, go to a cardiologist, get this checked out. A couple of weeks later the guy's in for open heart surgery. The doctor's like hey, had you not detected this, you'd have probably been dead in about six months.
Speaker 2:So so, to answer your question, nick, I would say you know, we don't know what we don't know. But I use like the analogy with the Marine Corps. It's like we, we have a, if we're shooting an azimuth down range, and now we have GPS for this stuff and I was in the Marine Corps we use a compass, and so if I'm shooting an azim where I'm supposed to be, health, I believe, is the same exact way. You take something that's an issue like this right now, left unattended to, it becomes this major issue that could be detrimental. You could live a shortened life because of it as opposed to the issue. Is this big now we address it now, we squash it, we don't deal with it later on in life.
Speaker 4:I got a question real quick. Please For the military people out there like why do you think the military doesn't do preventative maintenance? And it's just kind of the same as the insurance industries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good question, because you would think that you'd want people being optimized.
Speaker 4:They're investing in their people right, Totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question, Chase. I don't know the answer to that. I mean, this sounds bad to say my thought would. But if we're looking to and I think kind of the other, you know to be objective about this as a former Marine, I guess it's just kind of like you know you're getting as much as you possibly can out of this person and in conjunction with that you're talking normally about I don't want to say kids they're adults but 18, I joined when I was 17, shipped out when I was 18.
Speaker 2:You got 18 to 22-year-olds. So aside from some kind of major genetic predisposition, you know you're talking about people that even if there's something wrong internally, you're probably not going to detect it. And at 18 to 22, I mean, can you still optimize? Yeah, you probably can. I know some of the training I went through. I could probably been optimized with just a couple hours of straight sleep. But that's a very good question. That'd be something you would think. And we do work with a lot of law enforcement. So I mean, they're in their ones to first responders. They need to be at the top of their game because they're out there. You know they're out there running through the trenches. So good question though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what is the recommended time that you should have your blood drawn Like? Is it every year, every six months?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it depends on whether or not you start on treatment. To make a very general rule of thumb, a general statement once a year would be the recommendation, but depending what type of treatments you start on. So for a lot of our guys who come out who decide to start on testosterone replacement therapies, if you're a candidate for it, if you're healthy enough, after the blood draws are done, normally it's intramuscular injections where you shoot it right in your glute. We do them in office. We can also ship it to the house, we can show the guys how to self-administer.
Speaker 2:But when you start on one of our treatments, that would normally dictate the schedule as far as how often you have blood draw done. To make a very high-level statement would be once a year, let's call it. But again, if you start on different types of treatment, we want to monitor that, to make sure that dosing is correct, that you're not metabolizing it differently, that you're not getting too much, that nothing else is tweaking out. Because that's another really, really important thing that we do internally. Once recommendations are made as far as treatments are concerned, if a patient decides to start, the follow-up is equally, if not more, important to make sure that, again, dosing is right and also to make sure nothing else is happening adversely with any other type of thing going on with your blood.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so I'd like to talk about kind of the stigma behind testosterone replacement therapy, because it's one of those things that I feel like a lot of people look at as like like a negative thing, because it's like steroids or you're you're getting roid rage or whatever. So can we like talk about the the stigma behind that and why we think it's a bad, why a lot of people think it's not a good thing, and then when you go to these places like a lifebed, they're like this is the most important thing as a male that you could be. You know, doing um is making sure your your test levels are right. Um, why do you think that's kind of like a stigma?
Speaker 2:I think it's a marketing thing because right now let's be realistic it's 2025. I think if you go on any computer, on any social media, on your cell phone, everything you're going to see is you are a guy, you need testosterone replacement therapies, and that's pretty much what you see. And that's just not accurate because not everyone is a candidate for it. So I think at the very root of it is it gets marketed incorrectly because it gets marketed as it doesn't matter if you need it or not, just take it. That's kind of the way and that's not an accurate statement For the right person, for the right men who need exogenous testosterone, and exogenous is from the exterior. It's a game changer, not just for immediate menopause I talk all the time about women. You have to excuse that part Not menopause.
Speaker 2:Symptom relief For symptom mitigation for guys, lack of energy, loss of muscle mass, sexual vitality. If you have someone who presents with all these things we pull blood, testosterone is low you might be a candidate If you are and it's dosed correctly. And that's another important thing to point out. When you talk about TRT testosterone replacement therapy we're talking about replacing, restoring the physiologic levels. So, as a guy ages, testosterone was here, now it's here, we're just restoring at the physiologic levels. We're not putting you, we're not hyperdosing you to turn you into Lou Ferrigno or anything. We're just getting you back to physiologic levels. When you do that, when it's administered under the care of a provider and it's monitored, getting those levels back up again not only provide that relief but also the long-term benefits. We see patient after patient who see significant improvements to their lipids, their cholesterols, just with introducing the testosterone. It has very positive long-term impacts.
Speaker 2:That all being said, I think the big problem is just making the blanket statement that everyone, every guy, should start testosterone, and especially not for younger guys. We talked a little bit off camera about this, about guys who still want to have children. When you start taking testosterone from the outside, it's normally going to be a long-term, lifelong commitment that you're committing to at that point and if you're younger, call it under the age of 40-ish. There are some other medications that can accomplish the same goal of elevating testosterone. It's just we do it with your body's natural production Clomiphene, acg again, we talked about this off camera. These are things that we can give to men who are younger, who might need it, without giving them testosterone from the outside, because then their body is going to rely on it. They might have to stay on it for the rest of their life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really interesting and I truthfully had no idea that my testosterone was low and I'm glad that I figured it out now. Um, but the I guess one of the stigmas is like it's going to make people angry, it's going to give them. Is that that stigma is because of people like the Lou Ferrignos of the world that took a bunch of it to be a giant Jack bodybuilder, and that's probably why, yeah, when you get hyper fizzy a lot.
Speaker 2:I mean, here's the thing like again, I'm 50 years old, right? So I feel like my generation when I was a kid, when I was younger, coming through whatever steroids, steroids, steroids, the whole roid rage thing. I never subscribed to that, meaning that I never felt personally like the testosterone you were giving that person made them angry. If you were already an angry person, you might exacerbate that or there could be other imbalances, because once you start to give somebody testosterone, it can increase all these other levels. You have to monitor this stuff.
Speaker 2:So it's almost kind of like someone who gets drunk, goes out to a bar and gets drunk and they get into a fight and they become this mean person when they're drunk it's like the alcohol doesn't make you mean. It's just that in your normal life you're withholding it, you're suppressing it. The alcohol just totally loses that inhibition. It doesn't make you alcohol doesn't, and some people I guess you don't go out and get in the bar fights. You know that's who you truly are. I feel like the same way with testosterone, like it's not going to turn you into this wild person, especially not when you're dosing the physiologic, when you're giving just enough to restore it again, to replace it, to not abuse it. Use and abuse, right. That's the big difference there.
Speaker 1:So what is a normal level for a male, and do you, if you are, let's say, 50, do you want to have the same levels as somebody that's 30, or is it natural to have less as you get?
Speaker 2:older? Yes, that's another awesome question, right? So testosterone is measured in what's called nanograms per deciliter. So when you look at any panel, you're going to see a range from 250 to 1100. That's the general range.
Speaker 2:So where I think my non-medical because, remember, I'm not a medical person, so this is nothing medical, please anybody watch this. I'm not providing medical advice, don't take it, you would harm yourself. You don't want my medical advice, but just here to educate. So where I personally believe that that whole system goes wrong is they take someone they say oh well, that's normal for your age, right? So it's like me being 50. Normal for might be like 400 for my age if I'm not taking anything. Well, I understand, it's normal for my age.
Speaker 2:But what if I want to optimize that? What if I want to feel better? What if I want more energy, more sexual vitality, the ability to maintain muscle mass, which is so critically important for long-term health, the retention of lean muscle mass? What if I want to do that? What if I want to restore it back to the levels where I was when I was in my 20s? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:So if we take that person, regardless of your age, and get you back up to that thousand-ish level. So if you look at any of the studies there, they all show kind of the same thing. If you're getting it back to that normal level, it's going to help with the cardiovascular stuff, it's going to help retain muscle mass, it's going to help you live better, it's going to help give you more energy, because we do have to put it something on quality of life as well. And for a lot of guys who come out, you know again, they're, they're, they're, you know, dude, I can't like, I have no energy left. I'm putting fat on in this mid region, that visceral fat that's so dangerous for cardiovascular disease.
Speaker 1:All those components yeah, I um, I mean, I've been pretty transparent about mine. My level was 150 and I didn't really feel a lot of the symptoms until I I guess you know we got to talking about more of it. And then I'm like, oh well, maybe I guess I am a little bit less, you know, energized than I used to be and that's like the range you're saying is. That's a big range right 250 to 1100. Do you think that most males should be closer to that 1100, be aiming for that 1100 number?
Speaker 2:see a big component that's symptom related also, right. So if I have someone, so technically, if you have a, if you have a testosterone level below 250 nanograms per deciliter, you're medically diagnosed what's called hypogonadic. So that's technically a medical condition. If you're below 250, set aside age, that's that's, that's a thing. Um, it's all symptom related, right. Right. So if I have, if I have a male that comes in and he's like hey, I'm 45 years old, I have no symptoms whatsoever, I feel decent, I feel good, and we pull his testosterone levels, he's 300, 350. He doesn't feel bad, he has no symptoms.
Speaker 2:So you're not just going to want to recommend testosterone, just to take it. So a lot of it's symptom based. We have plenty of patients who come out who have no symptoms whatsoever. We pull their blood, their levels are low, possibly could optimize. But if there are no symptoms?
Speaker 2:Because then again, what you always have to remember is, especially with testosterone, once a guy starts taking it at some point our body's natural production will suppress. It's our pituitary gland. It releases hormones called follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone. That stimulates the testes to produce testosterone. That's a closed-loop system. So our testes are constantly talking to the pituitary gland. If testes are low. Hey, pituitary gland, give me more, I want more. It releases FSH, stimulates the testes more testosterone. When a guy starts taking it exogenously we're using bioidentical testosterone comes from yams primarily. When your body's getting that exogenous testosterone, all the testes know is I got enough. So that sends messaging back to the pituitary gland I'm good to go. So FSH, lh, suppress at some point.
Speaker 2:After long enough of suppression, your body's ability to make it on its own. Depending on how old you are, you might not be able to make it on your own again. Hopefully it kicks back in. But where does that fall? How long does it take? Nobody really knows that. So, before you start on this stuff, you have to make certain that number one, most importantly, you're healthy enough for it. Number two, do you have symptoms? And number three, are you willing to commit to something that's going to be a long-term thing? These are all questions you have in combination with your doctors, with your spouses, with your friends, but it's a decision that should not be taken lightly.
Speaker 3:So what causes? I guess in a general sense what causes it to drop or get lower over time.
Speaker 2:So this happens naturally. So this is part of our evolutionary advantage, if you want to call it that, hundreds of thousands of years ago, when we're out in our tribes, right, we have to go out, we have to hunt, we have to defend, we have to reproduce. That's when testosterone levels go up. At about the age of 30, we see that testosterone start to drop off Naturally. Start to drop off naturally. It declines. As men, there's really nothing we can do to stop that decline. We can slow it down, keep our BMI low. That's a very big thing. For every 5% increase in BMI you accelerate your testosterone age by about 10 years. So maintaining a decent BMI is a very important factor. But as evolution has it, as we get older, we don't need to defend as much anymore. We don't need to reproduce because we have children, essentially, who are doing that for us. So evolution says that testosterone just starts to drop to the point where, as we age, it can go down extremely low. So it's part of what happens with us. Some people view it as okay. It's our bodies telling us we don't need it anymore, so we shouldn't replace it. Again, I respect that if somebody wants to do that. But if you look at all the studies, it shows that replenishing it can have some long-term benefits. So it's part of evolution that just says we don't need it anymore because we don't have to go out and hunt and protect anymore.
Speaker 2:What's BMI, body Mass Index? So it's just a simple equation that takes your height, it takes your weight and it gives you this number. It's not very accurate. In the military you can relate to this chase, like my last year in the Marine Corps. I'm in Okinawa, japan. I was 185 pounds. My body fat was like nothing.
Speaker 2:I go, I get up looking at the scales, like five, nine, like one, 85. And they're like you're overweight. And I'm like, okay, so they send me to medical. I go into the jet, the colonels in there it's like dude, what are you doing here? It's like they told me I'm overweight out of my face. So that motivated me enough. I ran my PFT in 18 minutes and three miles. But so it's just a very, very, very quick and actually a very antiquated way looking at someone's overall cardiovascular health, because it's not very predictable for cardiovascular health. But it's a simple way to say height, weight. This is your BMI. Is this high? As a guy, you want it below 25%, preferably lower. The lower the better. But once you get above that you're considered to be obese and that can be.
Speaker 3:That can be an issue. So it's a quick way to determine whether or not someone's obese. Do you think? Do you think there's a strong correlation from when kids are young and back in the day when kids used to actually go outside, versus nowadays? Kids aren't outside as much to where they're going to grow up to have less testosterone than they would if they were, you know, back when we were younger and we were running around outside.
Speaker 1:I was going to go on and I'm going to add to that because I was going to ask something very similar. I've went into rabbit holes on YouTube about almost exactly what Nick is saying, but about the food that we're eating as well. So do you think there are outside factors that have changed in society that are causing these things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. And it's very difficult to gauge where this all starts because we didn't have the data back then to even know. I mean, I think, if you look at it now, the lack of physical activity 100% plays a role in all of this. Again, I'm 50. There was no such thing as internet or anything when I was a kid. It was go all out and from sunup till sundown, seven days a week. That totally plays a role in whether or not someone is overall healthy. Right, the lack of physical, it's 100% plays a role.
Speaker 2:Diet, all that stuff, the chemicals that go in food. Yeah, I mean, is there a way to equate it, to say, okay, based on this food that you're consuming, has this much of an impact? That's extremely difficult to say. But you know, I would say that the lack of physical, you know, being in front of computers, being on your cell phone, all this kind of stuff, these are just factors that there's no ifs, ands or buts about it. It has to contribute negatively to testosterone and just the I hate to say the loss of masculinity, but I do feel like it's just the. You know, men are meant to go out and to hunt and protect. That's part of what we did 100,000 years ago. So I feel like if we don't activate those things or at least do something that's going to stimulate that stuff, you're going to lose it, and I think that's the result of what you see.
Speaker 3:So from the business perspective, is there any competition locally or nationally with LifeMed?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's lots of clinics now who are popped up, who are, you know again, their, you know their focus is on this. I think they recognize now that, hey, this is something that a lot of people are more interested in. I think COVID played a big role in this, just basically helping people to recognize hey, the absolute best thing you can do to prevent illness is to remain healthy, and at some point you're going to get sick. We are all susceptible to it. But I think the takeaway from the whole pandemic was the people who fared the best on the other side of it were the ones who went into it the healthiest. So I feel like there's lots of places I'm a little biased. It's obviously the company I work for, so I'm a little biased here with this.
Speaker 2:But we absolutely do things very, very differently, and we just had a big company meeting today and one of my messages to all the staff was hey, it's very easy to make people feel good by giving them pharmacological medications, whatever IV bags, vitamin B, vitamin C, testosterone, whatever it is. It's very easy to do that. The difference is what we do internally, I believe, is we make people feel better mentally, so when people come in, they know what they get with us. You get smiling faces, you get people who want to be there. You get very smart, highly educated people who have devoted their lives to making people feel better. This is just next level stuff, but it's ultimately about how we make people feel, because the medication only goes so far. When people come in, they want to feel good when they open up that door. They want to know someone's going to remember their name, someone's going to remember their name, someone's going to remember their family, someone's there because they truly care about that person. That's the biggest difference is what we do, I would say.
Speaker 3:And that's why I scheduled the appointment, and it was two weeks ago. As I mentioned before, the show and the service there was great. I'm not a big fan of needles either, like Ryan, and when I got the needle I was so close to passing out and she's like if you pass out on me, I'm going to have to redo it all over again. So I literally was just on the brink of passing out and I woke up and for like 10 seconds I had no clue where I was and I finally got it done. She broke out the pixie stick, as I mentioned. I haven't seen one of those since I was like 12. And then I got my sugar back up and it was good to go.
Speaker 2:They're pretty magical. The one thing I would recommend moving forward next time if your blood draw is done, because that's a common everybody's if someone walks in and they're not fearful of a needle, right, you better have a little needle phobia when you walk in Like, get me up, I'm good to go. I mean, even the guys that got tattoos right, I'm still like there should be a little phobia. Drink in a men's, because also, we want you to fast eight hours prior. No food. The water is so insanely important. The vast majority of our patients who have problems with with the blood draws which is a very small percentage of people who do, but the ones who do almost every single time it goes back to probably the lack of remaining hydrogen.
Speaker 3:You're looking at 50% of the people right now. I mean right. You guys are skewing these numbers. Yeah, you guys are skewing these numbers man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah In the military.
Speaker 4:We're used to this. It's like, all right, tell me up Like let's get it over with and it's crazy because, like, mentally, I'm not afraid of needles.
Speaker 3:It's just when I'm around, when I stare at a needle when we were having our baby four years ago in 2020, I'm like this is not a fear, like I'm going tope at the time and she, as soon as they stuck it in her and started pulling the blood out, like I passed out. I wasn't even getting the needle, but like I wanted to face my fear and it just I just couldn't.
Speaker 2:That's a very normal thing. I will say the one.
Speaker 1:My hands are sweating talking about it.
Speaker 2:I think the main thing what's helped me a lot with this and with a lot of patients who come through a little bit of a shift in how you think Maybe this will help. I hope it does a little bit. I think the main thing with people having needles and making them feel like weak in the knees and passing out is the thought of getting a needle to remove stuff, to remove blood from your body, as opposed to getting an IV to put a needle and to put stuff into your bloodstream. So I feel like for people coming in to get the blood draws done, when we hit you with the needle, we're pulling that out, but if you're getting the needle to get the stuff going in, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. But it's normal in people. I mean, it's very common to have that food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it don't matter if it's coming in or coming out, I'm passing out.
Speaker 1:The lady knows me, now that I get the special chair, I can't go. It was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened. Like I was in to the columbia office, has the blood draw like right next to the waiting room. So there's people there, the door is open and the lady's like doing it and I'm slowly fading and she's like are you with me? Are you with me, buddy, are you with me? I'm like, uh, not really, not, not really.
Speaker 1:And then the next time that I went in for the follow-up, I'm like we can't do it here again, because, because all of those people the nurses, everybody came with like glasses of water and the pixie sticks and this, and that I'm like this is the most embarrassing thing, as, like a man, like I'm, like I feel like, you know, I was a hockey player, like I was, like I'm a tough guy and I'm passing out in front of all these people and all these women are here trying to give me water and all this stuff. I was like take me in the back somewhere where nobody can see me and lay me down and do it that way.
Speaker 2:The crazy thing is how they handle it, because I'm not a medical person. So when I see somebody getting like that, I'm not a medical person. So I see them like oh my goodness, oh my God, what's going on? The nurses are like, yeah, no big deals, like I got him, like they're like holding up against the wall, like yeah, I want mayonnaise on my sandwich. I'm like I'm like freaking out. They just know that stuff Like you got to have, like our again our nursing staff, everybody, it's just the whole medical field to me. I'm so fascinated by it because that's so not what I'm able to do, Like I just can't when I see people passing out, but it's not uncommon. You guys, obviously you're. You know, you got the, you got the ratios. You're messing with the ratios around here, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, so one thing uh that I wanted to talk about was life meds marketing strategy and the way that, like, we have uh other companies in this area that I never even heard of before, and the only reason I even know about them is because I wore one of the LifeMed shirts to a buddy of mine's house whose wife happens to be a nurse practitioner one of the competitors and I was like, oh, that's here in Savannah Park or Annapolis. I've never even heard of that. I've been going to Columbia because LifeMed is what you see, so can you give some insight on kind of your guys' strategy there? Because any gym I feel like that I've been to around here doesn't matter where you're going to see somebody in a LifeMed shirt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our strategy is to let everyone know that we exist and to also let people know that we are for everyone. We do not we have all of our pricing. That's, I feel like, very doable for the average everyday type person. This is not something that's like outside of someone's ability to afford. What we do we are all about and me personally being the mark you know, being marketing is my thing. I absolutely infatuated with it. It's just I don't say no, like I love being out there, I love bumping elbows, I love talking to people and ultimately, what it boils down to is just letting people know hey, these are things that every single one of us should be doing. We can live better, we can live healthier, but ultimately, getting the word out that boots on the ground right, it's just guerrilla marketing. It's Marine Corps 101. It's like just in the trenches just doing it day and day and day.
Speaker 2:Again, summertime we go. I did like 350 events last year, right. So it's like we just go and our staff's on board with it. They love it. We love getting out in the community. I meet so many awesome people and that's a cool time. I mean, sometimes it's a little crazy, like this weekend I got the boat show. I got an event, a power lifting event. I got the Ravens. We do the tailgates down at Jimmy's. That's wild, by the way. Yeah, jimmy's tailgates are wild. I 100% believing in what we do. There's just no substitute when you have a core of people who are all in on whatever that mission is, we live and breathe it.
Speaker 3:So are you guys going to have a booth up at the boat show this weekend?
Speaker 2:We are. Yeah, it's Money and Fairgrounds.
Speaker 3:I'm going to stop up there, probably Saturday or Sunday morning.
Speaker 2:We'll be there Friday through Sunday. Yeah, that's just why that gets last. Last, I've done it for this, my third year, I think, doing it. Just people come through and it's crazy because also come through wearing our shirts, like I'll be, like you know, it's crazy like driving down the road, people beeping the horn with me so my truck is all wrapped up.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna stop light me. People beeping the horn. I think they're like flipping me off or something. They're like waving like lifeblood shirt. I'm like throwing cards out the window. It's just, it's gotta go to the grocery store. Like I gotta be careful how I drive and I don't get in too much trouble. People wear it.
Speaker 1:Like that's the. That's the funny part about it, cause I think another thing too like is the quality of the stuff that you guys put put out there. But like I wear LifeMed shirts all the time and when I left the first day with like the similar bag that um that you gave me, it was just stocked with all of this cool stuff. Like I've been rocking these shaker bottles and rocking the shirts and I think that's an awesome strategy of getting the word out there, because there are people that are wearing it. I mean, he wears that sweatshirt damn near every day, just about every day.
Speaker 4:I mean, let's be real though, like I don't want to typically wear, I don't wear branded stuff. I like my bill, I like my cut t-shirt no brand. But when you have something that's really quality, you guys do the black on the black. It's nice stuff, it's just hard not to wear it and it also becomes kind of like a camaraderie right.
Speaker 2:It's almost kind of like being in the military. When I see somebody with a Marine Corps sticker, I'm laying on the floor, I'm like Semper Fi, hurrah, do or die, hurrah, devil dog, it a double dog. It's like wild. It's like the same way with life med. I was the grocery store actually.
Speaker 2:I was in there, probably like last week I think it was, and I ran into a couple that I knew I'm talking with them and, um, this guy comes walking in, he's wearing it, he walks by, he's a point his life med hat and my buddy's like dude, what was that all about? Is that like some kind of like credo or something like? It's like a jeep thing, bro. He's like pointing we have new people, new hires, come in, we get ready to hire new people. It's like I always tell them I'm like look, I said the people you're going to be dealing with, it's not just the staff, that's really cool. The patients, like 99% of our patients who come in there, are so cool when someone walks in and they're like you're like hey, what's going on? And the common thread, I think the common denominator, is these are all people who are investing in themselves. These are people who are opting to do things now to help them feel better. It's just, it's a cool, awesome core of people.
Speaker 3:I got a difficult question. It's not super difficult but a little difficult. How many LifeMed shirts do you think have been given out?
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness. Um, I mean I it's, it's well in the hundreds of thousands. I mean it's definitely. I mean I would say any given event. I'm giving away two, three, I might have to assume. Wow, that's actually a really good number.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's a metric that you should. You should just know to get your shirt prices down. You should be like yo dude, I just bought 300,000 shirts from you. Let's get me a dollar off a shirt.
Speaker 2:Our shirt guy definitely loves us and we love him. It's a very reciprocated name. Craig's his name. He's an awesome guy. He's a wonderful guy. Good question, nick.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just, we canvas it. It's the shirts, it's the hats, it's the sweatshirts. I mean it's well on, pure insanity. I mean it's just wall, it's a ceiling, it's floor to ceiling. It's just, we're just ready to start slinging it. Summertime when that kicks in, going down the beach, we do the white model and open the poor girls open. We have the plane that flies by. We're actually wrapping a bus down there. This year we got a few boats. A few of our patients took their boats and wrapped them with LifeMed stuff, it all in man. We're just 100% sold on this and the shirts are a big part of it, but it's the other, anything that's going to get our name in front of people. We have the plane that flies over the stadium. You'll see it there this weekend for the Ravens, although it's dark, it's night game. Probably won't see them flying over this year, this game, but the rest of them. Anywhere there's people collected. We're going to get our name in there one way or another.
Speaker 1:Well, we host a quarterly event. It's coming up next week, so we'll have to get you on the next one for sure, because we have like 200 investors that come to network and stuff and half of them show up in LifeMed shirts already. So it's funny. I would love that.
Speaker 2:Do you know how much we spend on them? But it's a very substantial portion of our budget. A lot of it, too, is referral-based. There's no substitute for word of mouth. We're so fortunate to have so many of our patients who are all about getting their friends and family to come in. There's nothing Me personally my phone's nonstop with somebody referred somebody to me, whatever. Obviously, women's health is my main passion. I love helping ladies, but there's nothing better than having someone who trusts you enough to refer their family. So we treat everyone with the white gloves. But when they come through referrals it's like next level. My cell phone, you know it's seven days a week, legitimately, and I love it Like I never let my phone go to voicemail.
Speaker 1:Well, it's funny, like you say referrals, but the reason you're here is because you reached out, because we were talking about Lifebed on the podcast and I guess somebody that you know listens to the show and heard it and not only you but another, jennifer, maybe somebody else reached out like on, I guess, one of our videos that I was talking about life med. So you know we were talking about it like we were plugging you guys without even plugging you guys. Usually people pay us to do that kind of stuff so we're, we're like happy I'm at least nick has got to get through his, you know, second consultation or whatever. But like I am super, super happy with the service and like I've been telling everybody about it and how it's helped me and how I've found out things about my body that I've been going to doctors for years and never had known.
Speaker 2:And that's exactly what it's all about, you know, and I feel like just as like a life lesson. I guess, again, being 50 years old, being an old ad, you know it's like treating people correct, it's not. It doesn't matter what business, it doesn't matter if it's somebody at the grocery store, right, it's just treating that person with respect. And I think what that translates into in business is the feeling for the majority of our patients that they're part of something. It's not just getting written a prescription to take medication. They know they're part of a family, they're part of someone who truly cares about them, and that's what I think is just so significant about to differentiate us from other companies. It's the ability to amass that group of people who have the full package smart, compassionate, intelligent, kind. All of these things together just make for this perfect ingredient to say, okay, this is going to fit well for people and they're going to recognize that we do it differently than anybody else.
Speaker 4:Eric, the year is 2030. Where do you see life, man?
Speaker 2:To owning the world. I mean we're going to be nationwide. That's where we're going right now. We're going to open up in Philly. It's another good question. You didn't tell me we had difficult questions here today. Although when he said he had difficult question, like please don't be math, please don't be math, I mean we're we're growing and we're going to continue to build it. They will come. That's the old, that's the old adage, right, and it's like for us, we're going to continue to to build them out. We're going up in the Philly. That's going to be a true test, mainly for me, that's a market that I'm going to be going nonstop with it. But ultimately, we just want to reach as many people as we possibly can, to get this out to as many people. It's affordable, it's doable, everyone needs it. So I feel like, if the business model is correct, you scale it out. So by the year 2030, we hopefully will be nationwide.
Speaker 2:And you guys have three locations now, so we have four. Right now we're getting ready to be number five up in Philly. That's going to be our fifth one.
Speaker 3:So I guess for the listeners, where are all four of the locations now? Timonium, Columbia.
Speaker 2:Timonium, columbia, bel Air, rehoboth Beach, delaware, and then getting ready to be right outside of Philly Westchester, glen Mills.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize you guys were down at the beach too.
Speaker 2:We're with beach, we're right behind I have to say this slowly the seashell shop Somebody going to ask the question ask who works at the front desk.
Speaker 1:Who works at the front desk?
Speaker 2:Sally, you get a Sally sells seashell, got it. They get worse.
Speaker 1:So what is one of the hurdles that you guys face for opening up a new shop and getting boots on the ground and getting that stuff In Philly it's a couple hours away. What are some of the hurdles that you're expecting to take on?
Speaker 2:The biggest hurdles are staffing, obviously, because you can build whatever you want to build if you don't have the people to run it. So that's what we put so much emphasis on is just finding the right people, because there is a unique individual that we have to have. They have to be like a unicorn, right, they have to have all these things together. So staffing is by far I mean that's the most important thing, because, again, we can build this beautiful facility and we can spend all this money on making it look pretty, but if you don't put the people in place and if patients aren't treated correctly, they're going to go elsewhere. It's why we get so many people coming to us from other places. They just weren't appreciated, or they tell us they didn't feel appreciated where they were. We know every patient that walks through our doors has the option to go to all these different places. What are we going to do differently? And I say this to all of our staff, I say this to everybody this is a good life lesson.
Speaker 2:People will forget the things you do. They'll forget the things you say. They will never forget the way you made them feel, and that goes with any part of life. This is called pattern recognition and emotional tagging. You can go back like a song on the radio, right, if you can hear a song right now from 20 years ago that will click in your mind. You know where you were, who you're with, what you're wearing, what the weather was like. People attach to feelings, and when you do stuff to make them feel good internally, this is called effective presence. When you make them feel good internally, they don't even recognize it, but they gravitate towards that because they feel awesome. And again, I'm not talking about medications here, I'm talking about emotionally. I think we've gotten very good at putting together a team of people who are very good at making our patients feel good about themselves.
Speaker 1:So you do some mental toughness coaching, right. What would be why somebody would come to you for that? Because we are actually launching a coaching, a business coaching, based around real estate investing platform that's going to be rolled out. Why would somebody come to you for mental toughness coaching?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I've actually backed off the mental toughness coaching quite a bit just because I devoted so much now to mainly the women's health stuff and the marketing stuff. But I mean, mental toughness, in a nutshell, was just emotional control. Uh, we get no training on this. We go through a school system that teaches us to memorize, regurgitate. We don't get taught how to express our feelings, especially as men. Suppress it, don't deal with it. You can't tell people how you feel. It's a sign of weakness. That's dangerous. So mental toughness, in two words, is just emotional control. So I spent about 20 years and I still do a lot of this, but it's just all about helping people to recognize that we're emotional creatures. We're hardwired to feel first and think later. Instead of trying to suppress that emotion, which is not possible, learn to recognize it. Learn to understand what's causing it. Then get to the core of what's causing it and find constructive ways to respond.
Speaker 2:The problem is we go through life reacting. We are emotion-based. Something happens, we react. So we allow all this exterior stuff to totally control us. Something happens, we react. Something happens, we react as opposed to responding. When we do that, we process information logically. It's like taking a deep breath. Now we can respond to the situation instead of reacting knee-jerk, saying things we're going to regret, harming relationships, ruining business transactions In real estate. You've seen this Everybody gets high in emotion. Emotion and logic are inversely related. I call it emotional intoxication Emotion goes up, logic goes down. When you get drunk in emotion, you have no control over what you say and do and stuff falls apart Relationships, business transactions, depending on your line of work. People could die Law enforcement, military if you allow that emotion to get the best of you, creates bad situations.
Speaker 1:So mental toughness 101 is just emotional control. How did you learn about this? This is something that I feel like nobody really talks about, especially men. How did you get so comfortable with the topic?
Speaker 2:There were two things. Number one, I would say it was the Marine Corps, which is what really kind of spurred it. But it took me until about my early 20s, I think, to recognize like I'm a firm believer. And everyone's kind of born with something. Some people are athletic, some people are artistic, some, you know, born with something. Some people are athletic, some people are artistic. Whatever it is, I went through the vast majority of my life not knowing I was just good at everything I did. I was never out wild awesome at anything. I was good, I was okay with that.
Speaker 2:It took me until, probably about midway through the Marine Corps, I recognized I'm good at people. That's my gift. I can connect with people. I can diffuse hostile situations. I can hear an opposing point of view, I'm able to listen with the intent to understand, not with the intent to reply.
Speaker 2:So for me it was like once I recognized that that was my gift and it sounds cheesy to say whatever, but once I realized that people were my gift, then I was just on this mission to try to find a way to bottle up what it was I thought I was good at and born with and then just get that message out to the masses so they could strengthen relationships, they could be happier, they could live longer, they could formulate, they could deal with opposing points of view. Right, the society we live in right now, we're just incapable of hearing what someone says if we disagree with them. So this is something I felt was very useful. So it was kind of taking something I feel like I was born with and then just packaging up in a way that I could say here try these things and see if you have positive results from it in relationships and in business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I I think as, especially being in the military, it's it's always hard to get across like how, how you feel as a male, and then you go to the doctor and they're asking you how you feel and you're like, oh no, I'm fine, but you know, you have some type of pain knee pain, ankle pain, whatever it is, and it is it's. It's very difficult to explain that and to express that. What do you say? What do you say to those, those young, the young guys like me that have those troubles?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, I think, as it relates to the emotional component, and for young guys especially, you know, if you're still at that stage where you're in relationships, you're not yet married or whatever you know, the ability to have deep, meaningful relationships does require you to accept the fact that you're an emotional creature and that calls emotional capacity. I've written about this right, we all have this capacity to feel emotion. The issue with most relationships, I believe, is you have two people who have varying levels of emotional capacity. So, doing a scale of 1 to 10, if my scale of emotional capacity is a 3 and my spouse is a 10, once I get to 3, I'm full, I'm good to go, I need no more. If she's at a 10, she doesn't have enough right, she's not at that point. Her capacity has not yet been met. So I think in most relationships you have one person who's I'm good to go. What's the problem? No big deal. The other person is starving for more.
Speaker 2:So for men especially, I feel like we have to get very good at recognizing that feeling we have is awesome. 100% of our feelings are okay. It's how we respond to them, and if we're not able to be very good with processing emotion. It's going to ruin relationships. It's not going to allow us to have deep, meaningful relationships, and the older I get, the more I recognize that is the absolute secret to life. It's deep, meaningful relationships Obviously stay healthy. All that good stuff.
Speaker 2:But if you want to live a long time and be happy, there needs to be a significant amount of emphasis put on your emotional well-being. And if you're not okay with emotions, if you try to suppress them, ignore them or turn them off all of which are impossible it's going to wreak havoc. It's the old saying don't hold your sneeze, as if you do, your lungs are going to collapse. Right when I was a kid, that was a thing. Don't hold your sneeze, your lungs are going to collapse. Emotions are the same way you try to express their feeling is anger, is rage, is violence. They have not been taught how to properly articulate. I call this an emotional vocabulary, feelings vocabulary. What's causing that emotion? It's okay, don't try to stop that feeling, just learn constructive ways to express it.
Speaker 1:So I love that and I think that's super, super helpful for listeners, for anybody that's struggling emotionally to kind of grasp that, and I think that's super, super helpful for listeners, for anybody that's, you know, struggling emotionally, to kind of grasp that. Before we wrap this up, we want to plug your books here. Can you show those books?
Speaker 3:to me.
Speaker 1:So what.
Speaker 3:The Emotional Marine.
Speaker 2:Can you tell us?
Speaker 3:a little bit about that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's actually camouflaged. You probably can't see it, nick. You know, bought a camouflage shirt the other day. Put it in my closet I can't find a damn thing. I bought a camouflage shirt the other day. I put it in my closet I can't find a damn thing.
Speaker 2:So the Emotional Marine was my first book. I published that back in 2019. It's just it's mental toughness and emotional intelligence secrets to make anyone instantly like you. So it's just a book where I give some simple tips on things anyone can do to increase their levels of emotional intelligence. The downside to IQ is you're either born smart or not smart. It is what it is. There's nothing you can do about it. I was born not smart. I can't fix that EQ. Our ability, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skill these are all things that any living breathing human can optimize. You can get better at communication skills. You can get better at handling opposing points of view. So that book was just simple tips to help anyone formulate relationships, to meet people, new people. It was mainly for guys. Just because we're a box of rocks, we're not very good with that stuff. So that book was great.
Speaker 2:I mainly wrote that for my speaking business, my mental toughness business. I wanted to get television airtime so I wrote that book to be an author to get on TV. I've done a thousand shows because of that over the last I guess probably 19,. So six years now. So that book's just all about how to connect with people. The other book that was my heart and soul right there, so I know it doesn't look like it's only 100 pages and written in crayon with big pop-up pictures and large margins, because us in the Marine Corps we have a hard time with reading and writing. I published that one February of last year and that was really my heart. So with LifeMed I recognized very quickly as I was trying to learn everything about what we offer, because in order to market the business I had to understand what we offered and prior to a few years ago I didn't know what a red blood cell was.
Speaker 2:I have no medical training whatsoever, so I had to learn everything. As I was learning about our services, I could not stay away from the women's health stuff. I kept gravitating back to women's health. I was meeting all these women hot flashes, night sweats, brain fog, insomnia, hair thinning, weight gain, sexual vitality, vaginal atrophy, vaginal dryness, urinary tract infections, heart palpitations, skin irritations, emotional disturbances, weight redistribution in the mid region All these women I'm just. At all these events I kept going back to it, going back to it, going back to itbalances. All the studies, all the literature, all the podcasts, my one-on-one interactions with our patients, our providers, our medical director, our MPs, our PAs that's about three years worth of information that I put together and tried to put into writing Very easy to digest.
Speaker 2:For women to be able to read this book, because when they go through it, all women go through menopause. It's the only for women to be able to read this book, because when they go through it, all women go through menopause. It's the only universal female medical experience. All women go through it. That's a very simple, easy to read book, because women in the medical system just do not get sufficient amounts of attention. They get pushed away. Don't eat chocolate chip cookies, don't drink wine, take some anxiety medication. So the medical system is not set up to help women go into that stage of life. The average woman spends a third of her life in postmenopausal years, so deprive them of quality of life is not fair. It shouldn't happen that way. So that book is written by a guy who has no medical training, who can hardly read or write. But it's all about educating women. So the first book I love. It helps relationships. The second book I'm just. That's my whole heart, because I'm so passionate about helping ladies.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So that's the menopausal Marine play on words.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I did the emotional Marine. So when I started to write the second one, I was like what am I going to title it? And I was thinking like not today menopause, not your mama's menopause. I'm like what am I going to? I'm like why not stick with the theme? Do my TikToks? All that kind of stuff? I catch a ton of crap Because the first thing people want to say is Eric, you're a guy, what are you doing talking about menopause?
Speaker 2:And I'm like it's dangerous to not accept someone's research on any topic merely because we don't have credentials or letters after our name, right? So I'm not providing any medical advice whatsoever. But to not listen to someone because they're either not the same sex or they don't have a college degree Again, that for me is just my research, is no medical advice. I put a little thing in there called Genma just education, not medical advice. So all I'm doing is providing education. Anything I put in that book, you can go and look it up and it will confirm that I'm giving you statistical data. I'm not giving opinions in there. This is all about data that I found. So that truly was really, really my. Again, I'm infatuated with that book and with Helping Ladies.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great man and we'll wrap this up, but anybody that's out there that's listening to this we have a heavy, obviously local listening group. If you're you said Bel Air, columbia, timonium Rehoboth now going to be in Philly you need to go to LifeMed. You need to get your levels checked. I can't thank you guys enough for all the stuff and support that I've gotten the, the followup calls, the blood drawn, the, the medication, whatever it is. Um, every time you go in there you do feel like the people really care. Um all the facility well, I shouldn't say all of them, cause I haven't been to all of them, but the ones that I have been to are like, state of the art, super nice, everything. You feel like it feels a little bougie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it feels a little bougie yeah, it feels, a little bougie, you know you leave with a nice little package and, um, you do feel you do leave feeling good. So if you're out there listening, um, at least go give it a try, even if you're looking at two guys that literally pass out. Every time we go to this place, we voluntarily go and pass out in front of people, uh, just to just to feel good. So you got to get out there. Eric, thank you so much for coming on the show and yeah, we're looking forward to a long-term relationship with you guys.
Speaker 2:Appreciate you guys. Thank you for this yeah it was awesome. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, can't wait to come back.
