Bold Moves Podcast
Introducing Bold Moves — a series that delves into the exhilarating stories of risk-takers. Join your host Mat Torres and embark on an emotional narrative journey with each guest, uncovering stories filled with suspense, growth, and triumphant success. Designed to inspire both cautious decision-makers and adventurous thrill-seekers, these tales provide wisdom and insight to navigate life's uncertainty. Perfect for anyone eager to learn, laugh, and conquer fear!
Bold Moves Podcast
S1:E12 - From 23 Jobs to CEO: Derrick Roe’s Bold Journey
From 23 Jobs to CEO: Derrick Roe shares his transformative journey of bold moves, resilience, and entrepreneurship in this inspiring episode of the Bold Moves Podcast. Hosted by Mat Torres, Derrick opens up about his struggles with holding 23 different jobs in his early years, the pivotal moments that redefined his path, and how he ultimately built a thriving business as the owner of Allure Infinite Beauty Med Spa.
This is more than a story of career transitions—it’s a testament to personal growth, risk-taking, and the power of perseverance. Derrick dives into how he overcame self-doubt, unlocked his potential through Toastmasters, and took life-changing risks to pursue his dream of entrepreneurship. From navigating failures to scaling his business to extraordinary levels, Derrick’s story is packed with lessons on grit, transformation, and building a life on your terms.
🚀 Key Takeaways:
- How Derrick turned 23 short-lived jobs into stepping stones toward entrepreneurial success.
- The role bold decisions played in reshaping his career and personal mindset.
- Practical insights into managing fear, failure, and the challenges of growing a business.
- The importance of personal growth, self-belief, and learning from setbacks.
- Derrick’s advice for making bold moves and embracing your journey.
Whether you’re chasing a new dream, navigating challenges, or looking for the motivation to level up, this episode is packed with actionable inspiration for your own bold moves. Tune in to discover the mindset and strategies that helped Derrick go from feeling stuck to thriving as a CEO.
Be sure to subscribe for more stories of grit, growth, and transformation with Bold Moves!
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#medspagrowth #medspaleadgeneration #spabusinessgrowth #boldfinancialmoves #howtogetmoreclientsformedspa #boldmovespodcastaz
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
00:49 - Mat Introduces Derrick Roe
02:52 - Derrick’s Pivotal Moment
08:31 - Additional Pivotal Moments
14:08 - Key Turning Points in Derrick's Journey
19:57 - Personal Life: What Was Your Wife Doing?
20:00 - Entering the Med Spa Business
22:15 - Transitioning Family Business Ownership
23:16 - Challenges in Starting a Med Spa
26:40 - Services Offered at the Med Spa
29:50 - When to Consult a Professional
32:25 - Cost of Med Spa Treatments
33:17 - Addressing Skin Concerns
38:08 - Importance of Skincare
40:55 - Collagen and Elastin Production Timeline
43:00 - Understanding Botox
44:55 - Weight Loss Injections Explained
48:40 - Finding the Right Diet
49:43 - Mechanism of GLP-1 Agonists
51:38 - Safety Considerations for GLP-1 Agonists
52:10 - Diet's Role in Health
55:57 - Duration for GLP-1 Agonist Use
57:24 - Other Injection Services Offered
59:46 - Benefits of TRT (Testosterone Replacement Therapy)
01:03:21 - Resources for Building Boldness
01:05:29 - Encouragement for Boldness Today
01:05:40 - The Importance of Taking Action
01:12:21 - Best Advice for Success
01:13:10 - Finding Dr. Mat's Services
01:13:33 - Final Thoughts
01:14:35 - Outro
LINKS:
All right, so this is Matt with the Bold Moves Podcast, and we are back. I have a very special guest. I have Mr. Derrick Roe, again from my BNI group. Derrick, how's it going? Yeah, it's good. How are you doing, Matt? I am doing pretty good. So just to kind of fill the audience in, Bold Moves Podcast, we talk about the bold moves, the risks that we've taken in our life, in our business, in our journey, and we just kind of like share about it. But man, dude, I'm super excited to have you on the show. I mean, like, tell the audience just like a little bit about you and, you know, your journey and where you've come from. Just kind of fill us in on who this other bald looking guy is. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. All right. I did that hair specifically for you, so. Yeah, so I'm Derrick Roe. I'm excited to be here. I appreciate you inviting me. So where I'm at right now is me and my wife both own a med spa in Tempe. It's called Allure Infinite Beauty. So we bought that business about six years ago and have grown it slowly throughout that time. Quickly, actually. Way too fast to reiterate. But we've got three kids, kind of like this American dream dial, but the business has really taken over a lot. So right now it's just busy season. I think it's just appropriate being on a podcast. Bold Moves, you know, it's a lot of stuff that's led up to that point. So right now that's kind of where we're at. Okay. So remind me and the rest of the audience, your motto or your slogan. So at the end of our little commercial, we have to give a little motto. It's memorable. So it is come to our place and then everyone says, we'll fix your face. I love it. So we do a lot of skincare. We do a lot of like resurfacings and anti-aging. So it just makes sense. But I wasn't going to go with it at first. Everyone thought it was funny, which I thought then was memorable. And apparently it is. Yeah. It's funny because like, that's what I remember. And I was trying to remember your other motto in there. And I, every time it come up, I kept thinking like, Oh, fix your face. But then, Oh, no, it's not that like something else. Oh, it is now. Yeah. We're stuck with it. Yeah. I'm glad because it does really, it does really like, like resonate, you know, it's just one of those things. Okay. So let's get into it. So I just kind of, kind of want to kick things off with a moment that just kind of really captures the intensity of your journey. What's one dramatic or pivotal moment in your life that just kind of like sticks with you to this day? Something that just really made you just stop in your tracks. Something pivotal that kind of brought me to this point, but I've had so many moments that have brought me to the next level, to the next level, to the next level that there isn't one. But if I had to go back and think of probably the worst and best moment is, so I used to, I got to go back a little bit to my younger years, my twenties and thirties. So I was working for a company delivering linens, uniforms, things like that. So in fact, even going further back, I had 23 jobs from the age of 16 to 20. I had 23 different jobs. I never held a job longer than two weeks. And I didn't know why I thought it was just because I was lazy or, you know, I don't know. I figured out very quickly. It was because more so I was unemployable. It's that I had big ideas. I had, you know, dreams and I couldn't be under the thumb of somebody. And so it took me a little while to figure that out. That's really why. In fact, I held a job for eight hours. One time, there's a funny story, but I didn't tell my mom for two weeks. So she thought I was going to work. I was going to a friend's house. So we'll get back to the pivotal moment part. But so I went through all of that. And then I went back to this linen company, actually three different times. I quit there twice with no notice. They kept hiring me back. I guess I was either that good or they just needed people. But I remember the last time I went back there in my mid twenties, I stayed for 12 years. And that was the longest stint I ever had for a job is because I was having a baby. And so I said, well, I need the insurance. I'm going to go work there. And then I'm going to quit as soon as they pay for the labor and delivery and all of that. So that I have some insurance and then I'm going to go follow my dreams again. And so I went there and I just stayed. And there were some pivotal moments in that one was when I was there. I'm going to get the timelines messed up. But while I was there, I was also dabbling in inside projects. I always had three jobs until this one really consumed most of my life, but I was trying to become a police officer at one point. And I got through a lot of that, but that's then when the state canceled all of the academies. So actually there was about 2000 of us. I dwindled down to seven of us. And I remember going and take the polygraph test. And that's, I mean, they just said we're done. Everything's been canceled. In fact, I found out later they fired everyone who was on probate on their probationary period as well after that, because the state had no money. And so that was a big hit. And so I still have to stay at this job and it was miserable. The job was extremely mentally taxing, physically taxing. I mean, you're carrying a hundred pounds on your shoulder all day long, running up and down stairs. You're going from stop to stop to stop 30, 40 stops a day. You're doing 14 hours, at least 14 hours a day of work. And so at that point in time. And so I did that. I tried to become a police officer. I tried a lot of other things during that time, but the only thing that stayed constant was this job, this linen delivery. And so I stuck with it. So this kind of pivotal moment, number one was I had a, I'd work Monday through Friday there. And then on Saturday, I would actually do tattoos and permanent makeup at my dad's place. That's what he was doing. And so I would kind of apprentice under him. And so I'd work there every Saturday. And during that time as well, I went to, so I'd work there, I'd work at the, at my other job, 60 hours in those five days, and then pull another eight hours at the shop, learning how to do those things. And then I became, during that time, then I also took the quicker nine week course. I became a real estate agent. I got on with a broker. And then that's when the housing market in Arizona crashed. And so literally the day that I got on with my broker, I had to make the decision, do I continue down this road or do I again, go back to this linen and keep doing that job? And I'd never quit that job at that point. It's that I was just doing both. And I was like, well, I have to keep it. It's the only secure thing in my life. So leading up, I had quit that job during that time. And I went to Utah, a buddy of mine was doing real estate coaching. So I said, Hey, I'm going to do that. I went up there. I started doing real estate coaching for people up there. And that ended up, the company ended up getting shut down. Again, they were doing, they found out they were doing shady things, not in my department, but they ended up getting completely shut down. And so I'm standing here in Utah, living, sleeping on a buddy's couch. And I've got my family at home, but I'm just trying to do everything I because it was more of that mentality of, it was very hard for me to stay employed. And so I just want, the thing that I wanted was, was entrepreneurship. It was, I want to own my own thing. I want every decision that I make to mean something. And I don't just want the mundane. And that again, was not something I had figured out at that time. So failure again, came back and kept working that job. They hired me back again and I had just finished. So we would work from about 4 AM to about five or six in the afternoon, every day. And that led to one of my clients on Saturday that came in, she was actually a member of Toastmasters and I'd never heard of Toastmasters. I had no idea what it was. And you have to know that at this time I'm trying to do all of these things. But what I later found out is that it was actually me that was the problem. And that's why all of the things that I was trying, I was failing at. And it was mostly because of the thing that I internalized. It wasn't, wasn't becoming part of my environment. She invited me and I went to Toastmasters and ended up being one of the biggest Toastmasters in Arizona. It was Dobson Ranch at the time. And so we got in there, immediately loved it. I immediately, I loved what it was. It was absolutely terrifying because you were in, you had at that point to stand up in front of people and speak. Well, where I was at with my job, I was doing the same thing. I was running this route over and over and over and seeing the same people, but I couldn't look anyone in the eye. I was, I was that scared, I guess, of people in general, that even when I would have them sign their invoices, I would be looking away. I don't know why. I just, I couldn't talk to people. After I went to Toastmasters and I just forced myself to keep going every week, it was like all of this opened up in, that was inside of me. And a lot of it too came from when I was, there's another pivotal moment if you want another one. So when I was 16, I was getting straight Fs in school. I didn't care. That's not something I wanted to learn. So I didn't care and I didn't learn it. I didn't do anything. And so my mom bought me a book and it was called the seven habits of highly effective teens. And I'll never forget when I, what I said, which at the time was, was, was hurtful, but now it was actually probably the best thing she could have said. And she handed me the book and she said, you know, here, I want you to read this. And I just said, well, that's not me. And she said, yeah, I know. And then she walked out and I was like, what? I was like, wait a minute. You're supposed to be my mom. Well, she was being my mom. She was like, I'm, I don't know how else to help you here. Read this book. That was the first book I read actually. And I read the whole thing, I think in like two And a lot of those concepts really stuck with me. I ended up reading rich dad, poor dad. And then I just started getting book after book, after book, after book. And I just started absorbing all of this. The problem is that it all just stayed inside my head. And the fear of just even talking to people was insane to me. I put everyone on a pedestal above me. And so I finished, I graduated high school. I will, I can say it here, I guess, is that only because my mentor actually, so I can consider not even a high school graduate. So, so that was another pivotal moment, kind of before all of that. So we'll fast forward, we'll go to the Toastmasters piece. And I think that really was the catalyst that released everything else. All of this stuff that was there was able to come out. And so within just a couple of weeks of being there, I was winning, they have awards called like best table topics, best speech, you know, best, there's a lot of I couldn't go anymore because I got promoted three times in four months at my job because of Toastmasters. It was like an overnight change. And so going there, just it completely unlocked all of this, this, this confidence to speak to people, to look people in the eye to, you know, if you've never had that fear, it's, it's hard to understand. And I'm still sometimes find myself there where I have to push myself. If I walk into a room, I have to introduce myself to everyone immediately, because if I don't, that all comes back. And then I just end up sitting in the corner. So I'm really antisocial, but very social when it when I need to be. So that's just what I've learned. And that's what works for me. But I so I got promoted three times, although the schedule didn't work out, it couldn't go back anymore. But it served its purpose at that point. So now I'm getting promoted, but then that took me away from my family. So then at that point, I was running routes, I was working 14 to 16 hours a day, I was in Yuma, Prescott. I mean, if you're not from Arizona, you don't know. But I mean, these places are three, four or five hours with each other, I was gone from my family for four days out of the week staying in different places. We were understaffed. So a lot of times I had to run routes, even though I was managing about 6000 different accounts. But I moved up through sales management, account management, logistics management, fleet management, all of these things. And it was miserable. And I hated every minute of it. But it was just momentum, I just kept going and going and going. And I knew that at some point, this was going to make sense to me. So going through all of that leads me to literally the pivotal moment that I've never felt in my life. And that was I had already worked about a 14 hour day that day. And I was at my kid's soccer game. He's about five years old at the time. And so I'm watching him, he's kicking the ball around and cheering for him and all this and my work phone rang. So at the time, I have to carry two phones because you're literally working 24 hours a day, that phone rings, there's a problem with, you know, could be a GE could be a dealership could be whoever, well, this was my manager calling saying, Hey, your guy, your your, your employee didn't service one of the largest accounts that we have in Arizona. It's about takes about four hours to service that account and deliver to all the departments, you're going up to two flights of stairs, carrying 80 pounds of clothes on your back, bringing down all the dirty clothes, and you're just doing that's four hours of just doing that all throughout the whole plant. And so he said, Hey, didn't go, but there's no option, you can't deliver tomorrow. That's just not an option, because they have to have clothes tomorrow to work in or else these 1000 employees can't work without their uniforms. So I literally had to go and say, Hey, I gotta go tell my son, hey, I gotta go. And this wasn't the first game, this is like one of the only games I was able to watch and my phone rang. And so I left, I drove an hour to the plant. And then I had to actually load the truck with, you know, these 1000s of garments and towels and all of these other things. And it's getting dark at this point. And I have to be at work again at four o'clock in the morning. So I have to go back to that place at four o'clock in the morning, yet I have to go and deliver to this place. So I'll make this part short. But I remember as loading all of this stuff, and I felt so stuck, I felt, I mean, just imprisoned that I can't go anywhere. I can't do anything else. This is all I know, everything else I've done, I have failed at. And I just remember, I'm gonna like tear up from it, actually. So I've never actually told anybody the story. So I remember just my body starting to ache, I've never felt this way before ever. But I felt like I can't spend time with my family. This is the most money I've ever made. And to look back, it's kind of comical to think that now, but it's the most money I'd ever made. All those jobs that I had quit and gotten new jobs for, I had always made a little bit more. And that's why I'd leave the last job to make another 50 cents an hour, I'd leave the next job to make another dollar an hour. And so I was always like trying to just make an extra little bit. Well, this is the most money I've made. And I felt totally imprisoned. Because if I left, I couldn't provide for my family. And I had nowhere else to go. I had been promoted pretty much to the top of where I could be at that time. And you have to wait for the next guy to die or retire to get to the next level in that case, or transfer to another state. And all this stuff is going through my head. And I'm just like, I'm stuck. I've never been stuck before. I could always quit. I could always go do something else. I could always go to Utah and do that thing or this thing. I could go and help a buddy or do construction. I've done everything. But I was like, but nothing will pay me this. And I'm just stuck. So my body was aching. I'm loading all of these garments. They're not light. And it felt like I was going to literally explode. And I've never felt that before. It's like veins were popping and my knees were getting weak and there's no one else there. So that we have like 400 employees that worked at this plant. And I was the only person there because I had a key to the gate. No one else was there. So I'm the one that's taking on this burden because someone didn't do their job. I have to go out and I have to take care of it. And that wasn't the first time that it's happened. But not only that, I had to leave my kid's game to do it. And I was only halfway loading and I'd already been there for an hour. And I still had to drive 30 minutes to the place. I knew this in my head and it was going to take me at least four hours to service the account. And then I had to drive back and unload the truck. So I knew I'm not going to get done till midnight easily. And then I have to be right back here in four hours. And so I remember just walking out of the truck and where the plant is at is the freeways right there. And so I remember just going out to the fence line on the freeway and just sitting on the ground and the dirt. And I just cried. And I had never cried really before. Like, not like that. My grandpa died. I cried for that. Sometimes in when they say like, I'm proud of you, dad, that brings me to tears. But this was different. And I just, it was like, everything was releasing. And I was like, I don't know what else to do. And I've never been in this situation before. That right there, I think is probably the most pivotal moment because that's when I finally, that's when I made the decision. I'm like, I don't have a choice. If I stay doing this and I've gotten to this point right now where, I mean, my brain was too big for my head. It felt like my eyes were going to explode. Such a weird feeling. And I tell you, I never want to feel like this again. I never want to feel stuck. I've got to something about this. And so that's really the moment when, and I did it. I went out and I did the, I did the job. I was back at four o'clock in the morning and that next day I had handed in my two week notice and I didn't even tell my wife, you know, she found out that I was quitting and that was our insurance. That was our everything at the time. And so I said, yeah, I'm quitting. I'm going to actually just, the only other option I had was to do the tattoos and the permanent makeup. And it wasn't really bringing in any money. You know, I didn't have a clientele built up at the time. I didn't even know where it was going to go. It was just kind of a backup plan at that point. And so I, I handed a notice and I quit and that's what started the trajectory of learning how to run the business. What I was doing with my craft and my skill. And then I just dove into entrepreneurship and I started listening to every, podcasts were actually new at the time that this all happened. So I was listening to podcasts. I was listening to DVDs that had had these old Tony Robbins DVDs. I mean, I would drive, I would drive to page and I would just be, take that disc out, put the new one. I'd be listening to all these Tony Robbins DVDs the whole time. It's all I consumed all the time. And so that helped a ton. I didn't know why at the time, but again, it was like, I've had these moments where like all of the stuff and the prep work that I did and I didn't know why I was doing it led to, oh, that's why. And then it just is this, this flood of, okay, I'm, I'm able to do all of these things because I'm able to look someone in the eye and talk to them. How crazy is that? Because of Toastmasters, but it was always there. It's just that all of these events brought it out. So it's kind of just failure after failure after failure. And now I'm at a point where I don't look at anything as a failure anymore. I think at this point, they're necessary. You know, failure and success aren't two sides of a coin at all. It's literally the exact same path that if you can get through those, they're just lessons. You can look back at things that I thought were earth shattering problems. And I look at them now and I'm just like, that's easy. Like that's nothing now, especially the problems that I'm facing now in comparison, but I thought those were just as bad as the things that I'm facing now. But looking back, that's taught me a huge lesson of, oh, that's just one more lesson. And that molds you into somebody that you can now, you know, be worthy or deserving to have another challenge. And until you get through that failure and that challenge, now you're worthy of taking on the next one and the next. And I think that's kind of a, maybe a philosophy of life is just, those aren't there to be against you. They're there for you. They're there for you to learn. And until you learn them, they're going to keep kicking you in the teeth. And then when you finally get it and you finally learn that lesson, you're like, okay, now that door is going to open for you. Now you can walk through there to get to your next teeth kicking session. But it becomes to a point where if you learn that that's necessary, it's not like getting kicked in the teeth anymore. It's not like you're, you feel like a failure in your eye, when else's eyes, you look at it like a lesson and you look at it as well. I have a quote that I got from, there's a show it's called Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I don't know. It's hilarious. I love it. You can just watch it and it's, you don't have to pay much attention, but they're funny. And it was this tiny little clip of this, cameo person that was only in one episode. And I don't think they meant to be groundbreaking, but he had gotten rejected from one of the girls on the show and he would just shrug it off. And he said, I'm excited to see what life throws at me next. Or I'm excited to see what life brings next for me. And then he walked away and that was it. And I like had to pause the show because I was like, I need to write that down. That's crazy that he took that. And he was, you know, he was in the show. He's supposed to be this high and mighty guy and he got rejected. And that was his response to was I'm excited to see what adventure life has for me next. And I'm like, that is it right there. And so I say that almost every day. And in some sense that, okay, we'll just see, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens next. I'm doing everything I can. I'm learning everything again. I'm going through these lessons as good as I can. And so we're just going to see what, what do you got for me next life? What other doors do you have for me? I'll open them. It's fine. As long as I'm breathing, as long as I'm taking care of my family, I'm going to keep going. And that's what's led from there to here at this point. How long ago was that when the linen company, sitting outside, you know, you're letting it go. Seven years ago. Wow. Seven, maybe eight years ago. Okay. Let me get my timelines off. Cause I was, I was doing so many things. They all kind of intertwined with each other, but that was my, yeah. Cause that was my last promotion. So it was, was your wife working too at the time or? Yeah. So she was working actually as she was working as an esthetician. So she was doing skincare. She was doing the thing that she's still doing now in the business that we operate. And we met in high school and then she started working for my parents doing skincare. And she's been there. She's left a couple of times to, you know, for other salons, but kept coming back to that one. So, so you started doing like tattoo work and stuff like that. Right. Right after. So like, how long did you do that? And then decide I'm going to open up a med spa. Like what, what was the timeline? It had to have been three or four years. So, so I had actually tried to apprentice in my twenties and that was a time when I was just wild. I was just, I know I don't want to do this. I want to do this. And I kept jumping from thing to thing to thing. And so I tried to learn it at one point. And me and my dad, we kind of butted heads with how he taught and how I learned and in different ways. And so I was just like, I'm out of here. I'm going to go do something else. And then when I matured a little bit and realized he was trying to help me, I came back and that's when I kind of just started doing it on Saturdays. And so I did that for probably three, maybe four years every Saturday. And because it was only one day a week, it was hard to build, build something a one day a week doing it. But I did learn the which helped. And at that point I knew that I wanted to own a business. I knew I wanted, in fact, that's, that's always been my goal is to own multiple businesses. Now my goals changed to where I want to own and sell, you know, restructure businesses and sell them. And that's kind of my next venture. But at that point in time, the shift between I want to do tattoos and permanent makeup to owning a med spa was really collaboration with me and my wife. You know, she really knew skincare really well, but at the time, I mean, there was no, there's no insurance. There was no anything. It was hard for her to build a clientele as well because of the way it was being operated. And we just decided, you know, I'm leaving. I'm going to come and work here full time and try to build a clientele, pay rent, do whatever I got to do. And we decided, well, let's do this for a little while. Let's see if it works. Now that's not probably the right way to do it. I should have dove in completely, but let's see if it works out. And then it just kind of gradually happened from there. There was never a decision at that point to say, I'm going to go from here to here. It was just, this is the next venture. Here's what I'm going to do. And it wasn't ill again, doing all of that prep work and not knowing why came to a point where, you know, my dad was, you know, wasn't doing well, he had to retire. And so it just, it just all kind of fell to where we could say, okay, well, what if we buy the business from you? And we had some plans we had talked about in that time too. I had meant a lot of, I met a lot of mentors that own businesses. So I'd had a lot of conversations with them and again, still reading books. So I knew that I wanted to own something, but that just gave me the opportunity to say, well, why don't we just go all in on this? And so at that point I presented it to my parents. I said, Hey, we're going to, we're going to purchase the business. Here's what it's worth. We're going to make payments. Does this work? This gives you an ability to retire. And we're going to grow this into something much larger because at that point they hadn't grown in years. They were happy with what they were making. They had had employees, but didn't really understand how to manage that or scale. And so they just didn't, it was just, it was my mom, my dad, and my wife. That was it. That was like the core group that was there. It was very, very small. So when we did that, we finally took over. We didn't know the risks that we were taking. We didn't know the bold moves that were being made at the time we were just doing. And so had I known, I hear this all the time, had I known what it was going to take, there's not a chance I would have started. Or if I would have known where we are, obviously I would have made way different decisions in the business. But we, we took the from, I think it was doing about 21,000 a month in revenue. And now we're 1,000 in revenue every month. And that happened in the first two years of us owning it. So we grew it. We bought a bunch of lasers. We took huge risks. And at the time, again, we didn't realize how big these risks were because we were just growing so fast. So. Done that. What were the challenges that you were hit with that made you kind of like, Oh man, this is a really like daunting thing. Mostly it was the money. It was the perspective of what was expensive and what wasn't. It was hiring employees, not knowing how to really cultivate and manage employees. I mean, and now it's, it's totally different. You know, you, you gotta find what works for them and they're hot buttons and you gotta, it's crazy to me. Some of them like praise more than money. That wasn't everything. I was like, I don't tell me, thank you. Just pay me more. So I found out quickly that I could pay them more and they just still didn't care. It was more like if I just said, thank you. So learning those little things. But when I go back to say the perspective of money perspective of what was expensive and you know, what your ROI could be from something, when you get into the med spa world, everything's over a hundred thousand dollars, every piece of equipment. Every, I mean, vendors are constantly coming to you. They're taking you out, they're whining and dining you. And you're saying, Hey, buy my $250,000 laser. And so at the time we didn't have any lasers. We weren't a med spa at that moment. And so what I was doing was comfortable because everything was in my perspective, it was cheap. The margins were big and you know, product cost. I could charge $600 for a treatment that cost me $12 to do. And I didn't pay labor because it was all at that point mine. And I could just reinvest that into the business or, you know, take a vacation, whatever I needed to do. But there was really no risk involved there. You know, if I dropped a bottle of ink, I'd just go get another one. It was no big deal. But when it came into saying, Hey, we want to become something, we want to become a med spa that needed to be lasers, lasers, injectables, which again are extremely expensive perspective wise. When you looked into it further, yeah, you had to, it's, it's a lot. You had to pay for a medical director. You had to pay for the insurance on the machine, the calibration of the machine, the insurance on the machine that also had to pay for the machine. And I didn't have $200,000 to buy a laser. So, you know, we got a loan, got an SBA loan, got another loan and another loan and people were just giving us loans. So fortunately we had, I had had another dabble in another business. So I had a blind and shutter company in my, when I was 21, a very, it was awesome. I was making a lot of money from that point in my life. I was making a lot of money, but it was very short lived and I just mismanagement everything. I just spent every dollar I made and that went under completely. And from that, it was that at that time I had to file bankruptcy because we had a house we couldn't afford. I had cars I couldn't afford. And it was just like a six month stint. You know, it was like very, very quick and then very, very at 21 years old. And so that was another, it was another failure, but it wasn't because I don't, that won't happen again. Or, you know, I know what led to that. And so it's not going to happen in my forties. It happened in my twenties. It's over with now. And so we worked really diligently on building our credit. And I think that's where the loans came in. And so we were blessed enough that people could look at us and say, Hey, here you go. Here's a hundred grand. And then go to another place. And here's 150 grand at the time, also not understanding that, you know, Hey, this all you have to pay, but you're able to cover it because it's busy. Great. No problem. Well, you're not thinking about what happens when it's not busy. What happens when you have a down season? What happens when it comes? And I wasn't preparing for winter. And so I think that was where the risk was on. That's why when I say the risk was unknown because I thought it was always going to be this way. And that was another huge lesson to learn because I'm still in some way, digging myself out of that through different creative ways, which are all lessons at the end of the day. Wow. So injectables, lasers, like what, when you say injectables, is it like Botox or something? Yeah, Botox filler, Sculptra. Okay. And then lasers, like what are you going to do with the lasers? I'm just curious. Yeah. So you have a, you have laser hair removal. You have, I mean, almost anything that you can. And have cosmetically on your face or body. I mean, a laser can take care of it. So if you need laser hair removal, spider veins, if you have red cheeks, brown spots on your face, sun damage, all the way to full out CO2 laser resurfacing. So you can take a woman that has wrinkles or saggy skin and you can take off her face, essentially. You can restructure it to where you can laser off the top surface. You can tighten different areas. You can do eyelid tightening with it. You can really get in depth with some of these lasers when you learn, you know, their advanced properties and you know how to use them safely and properly, we get amazing results with those. So do you get primarily women or do you get a mix of like both men and women? It's more men now than we used to see. I think it's becoming, men are just becoming more comfortable saying, Hey, I just need something done. Yeah. You know before it was like, no, I don't have anything. And now they're like talking about how many units of Botox they have in their forehead. So that's not right now. It's still about a 15, maybe 15% men, but it was even way less than that four years ago. Wow. So that's crazy. But yeah, most, mostly women and we service them in every walk of life. I mean, from hair removal, that's a lot of the younger crowd, um, to doing photo facials, to where it gets rid of like the sun damage, tightens the skin. That can be somewhere mid range. And then when they get older and haven't done anything, that's when we work on, you know, laxity of the skin, wrinkles, collagen production, elastin production, and that's all done through lasers. So really, yeah, it's like a thermal, thermal bio-stimulator is what they call it. Now, is that something you have to go in like on the regular, you know, like once a week, once a month, like somebody who's doing that, or is that like a one-time thing? Usually there's always maintenance involved. What I do in consultations is I take people through and say, you're in corrective phase or you're in a maintenance phase. And so if you come to me, typically you're in corrective, either something you want to fix. And so we work on that first and I say, okay, we're going to, we're going to diminish these lines, the scowl lines. We're going to tighten the eyelids. We're going to get rid of the redness. We're going to reduce this, that build collagen. Um, that's face, neck, chest. A lot of people neglect their chest just because, you know, it's, they put sunscreen on their face, but nothing on the chest. So we work on the chest. Um, maybe we'll even do some hair removal, whatever it is we have to do. And then we get them out of corrective phase into maintenance. So if we can get you into maintenance, that's where your question comes in. Is that, yeah, depending on what it is, typically you're doing less, I guess, less, um, harsh treatments. You're out of like the aggressive lasers and you're into more of kind of the fun stuff. So you can get, you know, hydrafacials, microneedling, things that are just, they're, they're less expensive, obviously, than you can get them. Yeah. Once every two, three months, every six months, just really depends on lifestyle and what you want. But once you stop doing something, we equate it to going to the dentist and getting your teeth clean and shiny, and then never brushing your teeth. And so, you know, we do a lot of at-home care. We are, we're pretty typically always the number of sales for our vendors when it comes to skincare products. Wow. Um, we have been, we have all kinds of awards. I don't even know where they're at, but it's more so about giving the client the right product. And if they can continuously use that at home, that keeps them from having to do other aggressive treatments down the road, but we need to get them from active into maintenance first. So how does someone know, like if they need to go some, like a, like, you know, to your place to get their face fixed, basically, you know what I mean? Like, how does, is it just a personal feeling? Like, Oh, I don't like how my face looks, or is there seriously like something wrong? Usually it's just the, I don't like something. Um, which it's, it's kind of staggering to me. A lot of women will come in, I'll do a consultation and they, they come to me and say, Oh, I have just got this one little brown spot, or I've got, and I gotta, they, everyone thinks they have to go to a, to a dermatologist or doctor for something. And if there's anything suspicious, yes, absolutely. Go see a dermatologist. That's where they're going to find out if it's something that needs to be biopsied. But when it comes to cosmetically, I point things out all the time. I never used to, because I thought it was somewhat offensive, but I just ask permission, Hey, can I be blunt with you and tell you, I see, and they may come in for one little, you know, brown spot, but I, I put them through this Vizia skin analysis machine. It'll scan their face. We'll put them in the computer. We'll be able to zoom in on everything. Look underneath the skin, really get a full spectrum of, of all of it. And it tells me the age of your skin also. So you might be 40, but your skin might be 50. And so our goal is then to take that, find out why it's 50 years old and fix that problem. And so a lot of women come in for that, again, that one brown spot. And I can point out and say, well, what about this or this or this? And I hear most of the time, Oh, I didn't know I could do anything about that. I didn't know I could fix that. I didn't know that could go away. I just thought I had to live with it for the rest of my life because they do go to derms and not all of them, and they don't want to do anything cosmetic. And so they just say, Oh, that's something you have to live with. And so when they come to me, they're just surprised to say, Oh, you can do that. Um, I actually had a client earlier today with the same exact thing. I did her permanent eyebrows. And then as we were doing the eyebrows, I was kind of talking about some other things, Hey, does that bother you? And she said, yeah, yeah. But you know, whatever, I can't do anything about it. And I said, well, yeah, I can do it right now, actually, if you want me to. And so she was so excited. And so I got rid of a bunch of, you know, charyngioma, these little red dots. We got rid of some sun damage, um, a couple of, of small keratomas of the moles. And so she left, looked like she got stung by bees, but in a couple of days, she won't have any of those imperfections on her face anymore. And she had no idea, no idea that she could ever even get rid of those. Wait, you can get rid of moles? Yeah. So like this thing I got in my head, like you can get rid of that? Yeah. Yeah. As long as, uh, as long as it's something that's been checked by a dermatologist, most moles have to be checked to make sure. Yeah. I go every year and they're like, Oh, no, it's fine. It's all good. Yeah. If it's benign, something like that, then yeah. Cosmetically I can get rid of it. And if you, if you get it done and again, I'm not, I'm not saying anything bad about derms, but if you get it done there, they're not caring so much what it looks like after they just want to get rid of the thing. And that's just what they do. So, um, they cut, they want to cut. It's what it is. So what I'm going to do is do it in stages. If I think I need to all at once, if I have to, it just depends. But I want at the end of the day for it to look cosmetically, like it was never there. And so, yeah, we can get rid of all of those little imperfections. So like, I'm curious, like, since this is elective, it's not really like an insurance thing, right? So like, what is somebody looking at out of pocket? Like, let's say for me, like say I got this mole thing, it's been like bugging me my entire life. You know what I mean? Like, what is somebody looking to pay for? So ballpark in that depends on what kind of tool I have to use or device. But typically for something like that, you're going to be running between 70 and 20 bucks. Yeah. Somewhere in that range. So insurance almost doesn't come into play even when that happens. And if it's just the one we at our place, some places charge by per mole, per skin tag, per, you know, cherry, mangioma, whatever, I just charge per time. So if it's going to take me 15 minutes, I charge for every 15 minutes. And so if you come to me, I can probably get 12 things off your face in 15 or your underarms or your, wherever you got skin tags or any of it. And so I just, I have all the tools I'm going to go to work. I'm going to get, take care of all of it. And that doesn't change the price. It's just, it's just what it is for the 15 minutes. So interesting. So what, what would you do? Like for something like this, what would you do? How long would it take? And does it hurt? So for that first thing I'm going to do is assess it. We're going to blanch it. I'm going to kind of press on it. See if it's vascular, if there's a lot of blood flow to it, or whether it's just pigmentation, it might just be basic benign mole. At that point, then I'm going to assess if it's vascular, I'm going to grab a, I'm gonna get real technical, but if it's something vascular, I'll grab a YAG, neodymium YAG laser, 1064, I'm going to grab. Or if it's just pigment, I'm going to grab a 755 or maybe an IPL photo facial device. Could even be plasma or high frequency. There's a lot of tools I have. It just been, what's going to be the best thing that at the end of the day will cause medically look better. Like it was never there in the first place. So out of any of those tools, I have to first assess it, say what's going to be the best path forward. And then from there, when you say, does it hurt? I guess one, it depends on your pain tolerance. Usually everything's just a little uncomfortable. Um, if it's something I know that's going to take me longer than two or three seconds to work on, then we'll just do a lidocaine injection. We'll numb it up. Um, we can even just do something topically. If you're, if you're more anxious, we do, uh, laughing gas pronox as well. So that's going to help with the anxiety. You'll still feel the pain. You just do not care at all. It's great stuff for these though. What I usually walk people through is if this is going to take me three seconds. So what, what's what you have, what you're talking about would take me about three seconds to get rid of really. And so if you can just take a breath, hit it real quick, we don't have to do any of those other things and it's gone. So, yeah. Like, do you, do you cut it or use laser? Like mostly with those, we would use laser. We would use some kind of a thermal burning method. Um, if it's a skin tag, we'll usually cut cauterized at the same time with either high frequency or plasma, but no, never really incisions or cutting or, or, you know, pulling anything out or having to sew anything or stitch anything Huh. And it doesn't leave like a scar or like, there's not like a, there's potential for it, but the way we work it again, where there's no, there's no suturing or physical cutting of anything. Uh, typically no, it won't. You have maybe, maybe a one or 2% chance of it leaving not a scar, but what's called hypopigmentation, which means that the opposite of a brown spot, you'll actually have less pigment in that area. So it'll look a little white. Typically also that's temporary. So that can be as soon as you get some sun, as soon as you get some pigmentation back in the area, you probably couldn't even find where it was. But it'd be flat because like every, you know, shaving your head, you know, like, it's like, I've nicked this quite a few times and it sucks, you know, I have to like, you know, and it bleeds and it's just not having to deal with that. That's, that would be, man, that's crazy. And this is the same reaction. Well, I just said the exact same reaction that I get from most people is that once I tell them what's capable, what we're able to do, one, they didn't even know it was in the universe that that could be done. And then two, when I tell them it's a simple procedure, I guess you could call it a procedure. It's so quick. It's so easy. There's, you might have a little scab there for a week until it falls off. Then they're mostly like, man, I should have had this done years ago. So yeah, that's interesting. Cause like, you know, I go to a dermatologist every year and like, they look at it and they're just kind of like, oh yeah, it's, you know, it's just there. And I'm like, okay, well they're like, it's not cancer. So, you know, just leave it. I'm like, okay. You know, it, for me, it's not a cosmetic thing. It's more of like, it's just a pain in the, in the butt to like shave my head and it's like annoying. Um, interesting. I guess a half cosmetic, I guess, but I guess I just want to, you know, as long as it's getting checked and that's what we make sure of. I've had at least over a dozen clients in the last six, seven years. That'll come to me and they're like, oh, I got the sun damage. Can you get rid of it? And they've been going other places and getting photo facials over the years, but that one just keeps coming back and then they keep going and they keep getting these laser treatments. But I look at them and I say, you need to go get that check. And they've never been told that before. It's just like, oh, the laser will get rid of it temporarily. I say, well, you need to get that checked. I can't touch it. It looks very suspicious to me. I won't work on anything suspicious until you give me the go ahead from a dermatologist. And I've had at least a dozen clients the last six, seven years that have gone and they're like, yeah, it's cancer. And so, I mean, even my, my, my aunt was one of them where about five years ago or so she had one right on the tip of her nose and didn't know what it was. Cleared up her cheeks, everything else. And I was like, that one looks weird to me. And then she went, ended up being a basal cell. And so she had to get radiation just isolated to her nose. But it was something, yeah, she never would have caught it. So yeah, I've had men in the lobby waiting, this has happened twice. I've had men in the lobby waiting for their wives to get something done. And I look over at them and I'm like, have you had that looked at? And then, you know, this just giant melanoma on their head and like, ah, men, you know, we don't want to go, go to the doctor. It's just inconvenient. So, and two different men and then their wives have come back and said, yeah, that was like, you saved his life basically, because never in a million years would he have ever gotten that looked at. So, it's just in the, in the world of skincare. People do, you know, they don't like the imperfections, but they don't think about the fact that your skin's an organ, just like anything else. And, you know, the more sun exposure you have, free radicals, high sugar diet, there's all these other things that contribute to it, but you can get skin cancer pretty easily, especially if it's in your family. Yeah. So it's, it's important to get those things checked out. Dang. I, I've recently noticed, like I started getting these, these little things on my. It's cancer. No, I'm just kidding. Oh man. Um, yeah, no, I, I gotta go to my dermatologist and figure that out. But like, I, it was just, I just noticed it over the past few months and like little, little marks here and stuff. Like, does that something you, you see, like, you can like, I'll take care of that little laser. Yeah. I mean that to me, it's not like concerning at all, but like little nodules, little fat pockets in this area here. Yeah. Um, that's, that's going to be either, could be kind of an allergy type of thing, or it could be, um, that you're just getting old. Yeah. So that's a lot of times you'll lose a lot of laxity in that area. You'll get pits and pockets in these areas. So, um, you do get to a point where you start needing things like filler, you start needing to do laser work. You'd start needing to do at-home care, um, because you lose that elastin. So a lot of people don't know, especially in Arizona, you lose 3% of your collagen and elastin every year. Really? Just because of how much sun we get more sun here on accident than most people get on purpose. And so it's just that UV rays are damaging your elastin and your collagen. Your elastin just holds everything up. Your collagen is more of your scaffolding. It keeps everything plump. And so when, when you age, you stop about, about age 30 to 35, you stop producing that your, your body stops repairing your collagen and stops repairing your elastin. And so that's why people, when they reach their mid thirties, they're like, oh, it's all downhill from here. Or that's when I really started noticing my aging. And that's mainly because you have what are called fibroblasts under your skin. Their only job is to really replace collagen and elastin repair. And they just go to sleep. They stop working. So going back to lasers, that's why the laser not only does the surface work, but it reawakens those fibroblasts and those fibroblasts go to work. They start repairing everything that's broken. We've already burned everything out with a laser. And in a way it's from almost from a seed again, it has to grow new elastin fibers to reconnect all that skin matrix. And so that's where you get your skin tightening. That's where you get your plumping. If you've ever seen anyone elderly that maybe they bump into a cabinet and they bruise all over their arm, they brush up against something and they're bruising because there's no more collagen. So it's just skin and bone and that's it. So when they bump up against anything, they're breaking blood vessels. And so for them, you know, these things do work. They're going to need a little bit more treatment, more bio-stimulators, things like that. But if you can catch it at a young age, when you, in your thirties, you'll, you'll really never stop producing if you can keep up with that maintenance. So in a way you're kind of pausing time in your thirties, even into your forties and fifties, we can still keep you looking that young. I look at pictures of my wife from when she was in her twenties and now she just turned 40 a couple of weeks ago. And she looks younger now than she did in her thirties, twenties and thirties. She looks better. Her skin's tighter, cleaner, and she really doesn't get much done. She just stays consistent with it. And so, I mean, that's like, that's a huge Testament. I can look back at photos and it's like, wow, that's crazy. But she hasn't stopped producing collagen and elastin either. So at what age does the collagen and elastin you said start to stop producing? Usually it's between 30 and 35, somewhere in that range. It's different for everybody, but that's typically the point for it. So, wow. So like, if you're in your thirties, you start that, you keep it. So like, what about for me? Like I'm like 41, is my elastin and collagen production done? And can I not reverse that? Or can I boost it up? Or like, how does someone like try to get that back? Um, for you? No, there's that's, you're done. There's no hope for you. It's over. For, uh, no, you honestly, you're catching it at a right age. If it's something that you're concerned about, usually as men, we don't care. In fact, in the industry, I also don't care as much as I should. I like to go golf. I like to go and do things. I'm always out outdoors. I'm running around. I don't get things done. Cause there is a long time with some of it, but I know that I, especially I'm 41 as well, and I need to start doing something. And so with, with what you were telling me, as far as, Hey, is it too late for me? You have probably stopped at this point, repairing a lot of the collagen. That's why you said, well, I just noticed this, you know, these things that are starting to happen. And you know, one, it could be that you're paying more attention to it. Um, and two, it's just that you are aging. So when you lose the elastin in your face, your skin is going to start to droop. You're just going to start to see the bags under your eyes. You're going to start to see the wrinkles, scowl lines, crow's feet all get deeper. And that's just, again, gravity pulling everything down because you don't have the elastin, which we call a bungee cords are all frayed and broken. And so what we do with laser and other biostimulation injections, so like Sculptra and other things we can inject that will produce collagen as well. And now exosomes and biosomes have come out to the field, which are total game changer. Uh, they're, they're almost like stem cells on steroids. And so once we do open up the skin with laser, for example, we can then go in with the exosomes and we put those into all of the channels that we open up, which helps rapidly heal the face, but also lives in the cells for six months. And so that helps also with the biostimulation of collagen and elastin production. So no, you're not, you're not too late for anything. You're actually at the perfect kind of pivotal moment of saying, okay, I need to do something to stay where I am as I'm aging and also regrow some of that collagen and elastin through those biostimulators. So that's, that's, that's the main job of a laser. Okay. So this biostimulant, like that's not Botox, right? Uh, Botox is a neurotoxin, which is not, not a biostimulant, but it helps to temporarily paralyze a muscle so that you don't make it worse. So for example, if I scowl, I have, I have just a few units right here in my, my scowl lines, and I used to have conversations with people before I was getting Botox and I would be scowling the whole time and I didn't know it. It was just a habit that I had produced. And so I would be happy and I would be talking to people and they would be very skeptical about what I was saying because I looked like I was pissed off as I was like smiling, but it was that scowl line was so harsh. And the more you flex that muscle, the more habitual that muscle flexes in that area, the deeper that Valley is going to get, and it's going to be, you know, worse and worse and worse down the road, 20, 30 years from now, where we're going to do a lot of repair work to get that undone. We fix them all the time, but Botox is the preventative for that. So if I remember working on a wrinkle, say on your forehead, I'm going to suggest that you get Botox first, because if you continue to do this while I'm trying to fix it, you're just, I'm fighting against that habit. So Botox will actually, um, the toxin, any neurotoxin there's Botox, isn't the only one out there now. They were just first to market. So there are some actual different and better versions of it, but any neuro neurotoxin that can deaden those muscles or partially paralyze them will, you'll eventually lose that habit. And that's kind of the main purpose of it is that I'm not fighting against it. You're not continuing to scrunch those muscles. And eventually after getting, you know, a few series of those done, your body will just forget that that was a habit in the first place and you won't do it anymore. So that's kind of the point of a, now when you get into like more fillers, fillers are still not really, biostimulator is not going to really produce a lot of college and they're just going to create another mass. So like if you need volume in your cheeks, that's a way to get volume instantaneously. So a lot of times we'll start with that, get you some volume and then we'll work on everything else while you, while you're able to have the instant gratification and then we can actually start working on repairing. What about, what about D fillers? Well, we, uh, yeah. All the weight loss shots, um, GLP ones and semi-glutide, triseptide, all those that are out, which I think at this point, everyone on the planet is on some kind of a weight loss shot. They're so amazingly popular, but that's the, I mean, you can, you can actually devolumize with RF microneedling. Um, people used to do it on accident until we kind of figured out that we were going too deep, not we, but just the industry in general. Yeah. So RF microneedling, you can actually pull volume from areas if you need to. So you're actually destroying fat under the skin. If you're going at the depth into that fat cell layer or that subcutaneous layer and heating that up, actually destroying fat cells. And so if you're doing that for skin tightening and you're going too deep, you're actually doing the opposite that you should be doing and you're devolumizing this area and it becomes not tighter, but more lax. So yeah, we, again, we have, we have ways and we have tools for almost everything. So you were talking about the GLP ones and stuff. You guys don't do that. Yeah. It's a different nobody. Yeah. Really? Yeah. So we do the, uh, we do semi-glutide, transeptide, uh, there are huge lawsuits out right now with the pharmaceutical manufacturers of all of it. So we'll kind of see where that goes. But in the meantime, the industry has exploded in the last year, two years for, uh, lowering insulin. That's really its only job. That's what it does. Um, when you look at it from a 30,000 foot view, if it can lower your insulin levels, uh, you have the ability to burn fat. If your insulin levels are high, your body will not burn fat. You could go run 250 mile, you know, ultra marathon. You could go and bust out on the treadmill all you want. You're not going to burn any fat. You're just going to fatigue yourself. Use all of your, um, your glycerin and your other, uh, ways of energy. And you, you just can't burn fat when you're. So are they, are they like necessarily bad for you? Like, cause you've seen all these stories where people have like the Ozempic face or whatever, you know, like it looks like that they're gone. And there's like, you know, is that we have Ozempic butt. So we call it, is that a thing? Yeah. Like how does that happen? Like what, what, why does that happen? You're rapidly losing weight. You know, your skin, your skin can't keep up with the fact that you're losing weight so fast. So you see people when they gain weight too fast, you end up getting stretch marks. If you're gaining or losing it at a much longer timeframe, your skin has the ability to kind of retract with it or create new skin, larger skin molecules. Um, as you gain weight too, but if you're gaining or losing too rapidly, then the skin is just going to fall around it. So that's what that's, it's funny. You'd call it Ozempic face, Ozempic butt. Um, because now we're doing a lot more body contouring. So we're doing a lot more kind of a muscle building, skin tightening for butts and for faces and everything else because of that. But the, when you lower your, your insulin artificially like that so quickly, which is why a lot of people get sick because they don't really change their eating habits. And that's why their insulin is high is to protect them from all of the high sugar, gluten, things that they're not supposed to be eating. The high insulin levels are actually protecting them from that. When you artificially lower the insulin levels, all that stuff is entering your bloodstream and you get very, very sick. So some people will take the first shot. They'll be sick for a week or I've had clients sick longer than that. So we have to very much lower their dose and go slower with it. But it's, it's kind of like you have these two or three different levers in your body that you can pull, but you got to make sure this is the one you're going to lower your insulin. You have to make sure your diet is right. You're going to eat less. Um, you're not going to feel as hungry and that's, that's part of the ghrelin and the leptin hormones, but, and your, um, when you do eat something you're not supposed to or anything, even high sugar, gluten, all the stuff I was talking about that is going to make you sick and you're going to feel it instantly and it's going to last because now your body is trying to raise its insulin while you're artificially trying to pull it down. So you have to make sure you you're, they sell these online now, and I don't know, you're not really getting the advice that you need for it. But if you're doing it, you have to make sure that you're going to a place that's going to explain all of this to you and help you to understand. Here's why this is happening. And here's what we're doing inside of your body instead of just, yeah, take five mil, take five mil every week. Here you go. So, so right. So you said the right diet would the right diet be no gluten, no sugar, like what's, what's a, what's the right diet. So it's like, cause if I'm like, let's say like, Hey, you know, like that sounds interesting to me cause it kind of does, and I'm trying to keep my diet in check, which like I don't eat gluten. I don't dairy, sugar. Um, but yet my body is still all of a sudden gaining more weight. I mean, I'm like, I used to, I used to be a lot heavier. It used to be like close to 200 pounds, 60 pounds, somewhere around there. Like I was, I was a lot bigger. Um, and then I did lose a lot in my lowest point. I think it was like one 50. I was still in the army, uh, military, like, you know, right. How tall are you? Five, eight, five, seven, that's, that's small. Yeah. It was, it was small. Like I was 50 small and then it kind of hovered and stayed like around 175, 180. And then now it's kind of staying around 200. Um, but it's like, I'm not doing anything different, you know, diet wise. I'm still like maintaining the macros and everything that I would eat. But yet my body's like adjusting differently now. And it's like, it's like, it's kind of frustrating. Um, so it's just kind of like, oh, I've been hearing a lot about, you know, the GLP ones and semi glutides that you're talking about. And part of it scares me a little bit. Cause people are like, oh, it's just for diabetes and you're screwing up your body and then it's like, you know, can someone take it like short term or does it have to be like a long-term thing? And then, or you take it and then all of a sudden you stop and it just comes all back, you know what I mean? Like, what is, how does, what is the norm for that? And is it dangerous? Are you safe? So, um, I mean the, the, the safety efficacy of it. Uh, I don't, it hasn't been long enough. I mean, it's just used for diabetes, so I can't really explain the safety of it. Although there has been some studies out cause stomach paralysis, digestive paralysis, things like that. It's, it's, it's the 1% of 1%, you know, it's the scare tactic stories that are coming out, which you see maybe two of them and everyone freaks out, but it's like, there's a hundred million people on the shots right now. And so I think the safety of them is there, but the way I look at it may be a little different. And I'll answer both your questions. One is the diet piece and one is this is, um, you have to be on them for a certain amount of time, it's used as a tool to kind of reset you. So basically when you get on, say let's say some glutide and it lowers your insulin, it gives you the ability to lose weight and learn how to eat right. What's working for me. What's not working for me. Uh, what's making it, what's not making me sick because if something's making you sick, you shouldn't eat it either way, whether you're on the shot or off the shot. If it's making you sick, that means that your body is going into emergency mode when you eat that thing. And it's trying to stop whatever's happening in your body, whether it's a histamine response or inflammation. That thing you should probably avoid. So going on the shot, typically you'll start at a very low dose and then you'll level up and then you'll level up and then you'll level up and that takes about six months and each time you're getting a higher dose, but you're supposed to be learning what you can and can't eat during that timeframe and still moving. So you should be exercising as well. That's a huge part of it, not just a magic pill, because if you don't learn and you get off of it, your insulin will just rise again and you'll start gaining it all back. So it's again, it's a lever that you're pulling. That's the only difference. Now, when you get to your highest dose, we don't keep you there either. We get you on the high dose until you reach your goal. And then we step you down. So you're basically like, you know, like a pyramid. You're going to go up to the highest dose over time that we're going to slowly get you off. And by that time, that's typically a year to a year and a half where you've now learned what you can and can't eat. And you hopefully understood psychologically what can be accomplished because a lot of people that are on these shots have never known what it's like to be skinny. And so once they understand like, this is possible, I can be skinny. Hopefully they've learned what to eat so they can stay that way. Diet and exercise is huge. Now, when it comes to the diet piece of it, I have totally different views than most people, but I believe that the diet that works is the one that works for you. That's that I'll stand by that. I have a belief that just getting anyone that gets off process foods in general is going to feel better. They're going to feel amazing because they're not eating things that, I mean, I believe were put there to be addictive in the first place. They're there to make money. They're not there for your health. They don't care about your health. They care about selling a product. That's why cereal boxes are bright and shiny and right at a kid's eye level. Yeah. I mean, it's no longer a conspiracy theory. Yeah. Anyone that gets off of that. So there's this big fight between veganism and carnivores right now. If you're, if you are in that world and it's like, well, this is better than this and it's like, stop, I don't, I don't, it's not, it's just that you're off process foods. So I don't care which way you want to go. If you want to eat greens, if you want to eat meat in my personal opinion, I'm mostly carnivore and have been for a few years, it's amazing. Um, every nutrient that you could possibly need is in there. Now we won't go down that rabbit hole, but it's a lot of it. I think 80% or more of it is just not eating properly. Sugar is terrible for you. It's amazing. It tastes so good. Um, especially when it's an ice cream, but, but it's so bad for what it's actually doing inside your body. And it's actually what I was talking about before was you lose 3% of your collagen and elastin because of the sun UV damage, you actually lose another 3% per year on a high sugar diet. So you're going to create a lot more free radicals in the body. And it's actually going to help. It's going to destroy a lot of that collagen and elastin and help slow the production of all of it. So your people don't understand, and this isn't a health podcast, I understand, but people, a lot of people don't understand that. Well, I run into clients all the time. I have their undivided attention. They ask me these questions, these health questions, and I've had people tell me, well, but Honey Nut Cheerios has a heart on the box. And I had to scratch my head and I'm like, Oh, people really think that. Wow. They still do. Or, you know, it's, and I'm even okay with people drinking diet soda over regular soda. At least you're taking a step in the right direction, you know, and the studies on diet soda is actually pretty good, but it's that if you can at least substitute this for this, it's better than doing this. Um, but there's, there's just still a lot of people that don't understand the effects of sugar in the body. They don't understand that your body, most, especially Americans, most Americans live in a chronic state of inflammation. And personally, again, and this is coming out all over the place right now is that inflammation is the biggest cause for all chronic disease. And again, it's not for debate it is. And so the things that it's causing in your body are all of the chronic things where you're like, well, I got this, I got that. And it's like it becomes so normal in our society to have an illness and be on a medication because all your friends are on medications and all your friends have illnesses and aches and pains and whatever, and brain fog. And it just goes on and on and on. If you've lived your life, your whole way, your whole life, that way, you have no idea what it's like when everything clears up, when you don't have aches and pains, when you're at a good, stable weight, when you're feeling good, when you know, the brain fog goes away and you're like, wow, is this what this helped my people feel? This is crazy. But we're so in tuned to the heart. Heart association says that Honey Nut Cheerios are good for you. I think a study actually came out a few months ago that put fruit loops above a hamburger as for health, that, that fruit loops were better for you than eating a steak. Wow. And so that's the kind of information that's being put out there. I can look at that and say, that's ridiculous. But me, I have to realize that that's not how everybody thinks. And so it's like they put a heart in the box so they can sell you the Honey Nut Cheerios. Yeah, that's it. So they're wasting red ink by putting that on there, making it bright and shiny, little smiling honey. I could never hurt you. You know, it's like everything in the world is marketing. Everything in the world is put there so that they can sell you something. We're the biggest consumers and that's, everyone's taking advantage of it. So that was a rabbit hole, but yeah, hopefully it answers your diet question. But at the end of the day, get off the processed foods. Shots are pretty safe. We do monitor constantly too. We're doing draws. We're making sure they'll, you know, be there for you. And it just, at the end of it, you can't be on it your whole life. It's something that you want to use as a tool to get you where you need to be, how to eat what you know you can eat. How long do you see people normally on it? Right now, two things. Not many people have gotten off of it. So as long as they're still safe, a lot of people will go down to the lowest dose and they'll stay there for a very long time. We've only been offering it about maybe two and a half, three years now. But yeah, we have people that get down to the low dose and then they start maybe going every other week with it. And so there's still kind of tapering off or they'll get off of it and then they'll gain and then they'll get back on it. And so for those, we have a different conversation with them that, you know, so that's also not healthy for you. But no, I think the other reason people tend to get off of it is because unless your insurance is in some way saying that you need it for a different purpose than weight loss, for it's a health reason or diabetes, then it's not the cheapest product out there. So some of these can be between four and $800 a month that you're paying for the shot. Seriously? Yeah. And so you have to be willing to do that for a good, you know, six months to a year, or, you know, until you hit your, your target weight and you figure out how to eat right now, that's a lot of reason why two people will quit. So they'll get about two months in or they'll get, they'll get sick and they don't really understand that they have to stop eating the things they love. And that's what got them there in the first place. And so they'll just, they'll choose that over what they really wanted in the first place. So they'll choose the ice cream. They'll choose the processed food and say, well, that makes me happy. So I don't want to do this anymore. And insurance usually doesn't cover that, right? Not for weight loss purposes. No, unless it's a medically necessary weight loss or it's a, like you said, a diabetes medication. And then do you do other injections like B12, like vitamin D, testosterone and like all that stuff? Or is it purely just, so hormones we're hormones we're getting into. We were into for a very long time. We're kind of putting that on the back burner right now because our business is going in a little bit different direction. Yeah. And so really it stops with IVs other injectables like vitamin injectables, B12. We do a lot of those. And the, the neurotoxins, tox filler, bio-stimulators, so hormones. I'm, I'm, I'm on, I'm on DRT. It's the greatest thing ever, but there's are also things you can manage with your diet. Where do you go for, for that DRT? Cause I, cause I am too. I'm just curious, like do you do it yourself? Yeah. So I've gotten them from different places all over wherever I can, but being in the industry, I have a medical director that does hormones. And so I'll just get my blood draws from her and she'll, she'll give me the testosterone from there. So most of the time you do it at your house. You don't go home with filled vials. Like you just have a vial, you take what you need and you inject it. So it's, it's pretty easy to do. Once you get past the first few, it's hard to inject yourself. But once you get used to it, it's pretty easy. So, but you have a medical director at your office that does it for you, but not, not open to the public for business type thing. It's just. Currently right now. No, no. We may bring back wellness, but a lot of the companies, med spas are going the med spa wellness route. And what we're doing is we're trying to, to build something that we can duplicate. And so we're going more of the cosmetic cosmetic laser health route, and then more like hairstyling. Interesting. So we're going to be salon med spa as opposed to med spa wellness. That makes sense. Now we may bring on wellness, but my thought is always right now that realm is pretty new. I mean, it's very, very new for med spas to also do wellness. And right now laws are changing so rapidly that just like with the weight loss shots, someone in Washington swipes a pen and you now cannot do it anymore. So I know a lot of people that 50% of their business is that in other States, that's what they do. And in certain other States, they've just completely said, Nope, we're done with that. And so now in a day you have to redesign your entire business. Wow. That's another reason I'm going to let this kind of flow through. I have a great business plan going in the other direction. And it may be brought back later, but right now it's just a little, it's all over the place. So I'll tell you really quick. There is so many boards that we have to comply with that when you really dig into some of the deeper rules of these boards and what they expect from you, they completely contradict each other. And so I know these are, these are fights that have been going on for a long time. But if you have the nursing board and you have the cosmetology board, there are certain laws inside of both of those that say, yes, you can do this. No, you can't do this. But since I'm under both boards, I, it's just kind of one of those be careful type of things. So I have to really follow whatever law seems to be the most stringent because this says I can, this says I can't, but these two boards don't talk to each other. And that's really, again, what gets messy in those areas because if they want to, they can come in and pull your license. But then you can say, well, yeah, but this board says I can and they don't care. So we, we, we, right now I'm staying away from a lot of that until they figure it out. Yeah. I will say the TRT thing is, is, had made a huge difference. Like I, I remember I used to have horrible sleep patterns. Like I would get up super late, you know, now I get up at like 5am every day to get my stuff more focused, more energy. It's like so weird. I never thought it would make a huge difference. My brother first turned me on to it and he was like, dude, you gotta go get this done. And I was like, what? And I was like not a believer for the longest time. And then I finally, finally had to, because I was just like feeling run down. It was just like, what is going on? And it was just like a night and day difference. Crazy. Like, I don't know. So it's while a lot of I'm trying to get my brother to do it too. Yeah. But a lot of men feel that it's demasculating to even consider the thought that I need more testosterone or, or what is that going to do for me? My testosterone is fine. I'm a man. And it's like, I get it. But I also thought that I used to run, I had run sprint triathlons and Spartan races and all these other things. And there was a point in time where I was like, I'm not recovering anymore. There's something wrong. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm pushing myself just as hard as I was before, but something's different. And I went and got checked and I was actually off the chart. There was no chart for where I was below. So I was basically a female with the amount of hormone or the amount of testosterone I had in my body. And as soon as I started on TRT, it was like a flip and a switch. So you gotta be careful. You do have to get your blood checked. You do have to go give blood. It will increase the iron in the, in the size of the platelets. So you do have to give blood. Um, and you have to check because if you're taking too much, that's when you, cause a lot of people won't do it because they think it makes them angry. Um, or like lives will be like, I don't know. He's just pissed off. I'm like, well, what are you saying to him? No, no, it's, it's because their testosterone usually is way too high and they can creep up pretty fast. So there was one point when, when the chart ends, I think at 1200, uh, I'm not, I think it's pretty, pretty much right. But the top end is 1200 and the bottom of it is 300. I was below that. But there was a point in time over the last few years that I got to 3000 and didn't know it cause I wasn't getting my blood drawn. Cause I was like, Oh, I feel good. I'm fine. You know? And, uh, I had to back off. So, but I could tell I'm like, damn, I'm getting irritated at everything. Wow. And so, um, fun fact, my, this is funny. My wife likes it watched a hippo documentary the other day. And so she's talking about hippos and they have the highest testosterone of any animal in on the planet. And so that's why they're just pissed off all the time. So that's why they're always chasing boats. And I think they kill more people in Africa than any other animal. Um, and they can run 35 miles an hour. So yeah, there's a fact for you. Interesting. That's a bold move. That's funny. All right. Very cool. Um, no, no, no. You're good. Um, just a few quick fire questions. What is your, your favorite book podcast or resource that inspires boldness for you? So I have two podcasts that I listened to pretty frequently, um, besides boldness, obviously, but it's, um, uh, Andy Fursella, it's called the relay F podcast. And then at my let, which is the ed, my let show, um, to huge, huge business owners, entrepreneurs, and they're just very factual when it comes to entrepreneurship. They do not glamorize it in the slightest. In fact, they are almost talking you out of it. Yeah. Um, unless you have the grit, you have the fortitude to actually pursue something, but they give real business advice. So those are really great podcasts. If it's something that you're, you're trying to say, Hey, do I have what it takes? You jump on one of those podcasts. Um, it's going to be really apparent really quick, whether you should be in the game or not. The, um, I have one book off the top of my head that I actually get out as gifts to people. Um, it's called as a man thinketh. And it was written in like 1888 or something by a psychologist, James, something, I can't remember his last name. And it's, it's, you have to read like one paragraph a day because it's every word means something. It's a very thin book, but it takes a long time to get through. It doesn't flow, but every word is deep. And so it talks about how on the inside, whatever we are, whatever we take in, it's like that garbage, garbage out mentality. We are creating everything around us all the time. Everything is our fault. Everything to us is because of decisions that we've made in our entire lives, every decision, every thought, every intake, every output, every friend that we've hung out with, every advice that we took, everything is that we are the ones that are holding and create those and everything in your outside environment, just a mirror of that. It's just a lens of that. And so, uh, that's a, that's a great book to read. There's a lot of, and my light has a book called the power of one more. Um, and I mean, there's, there's so many good ones. Atomic habits is great. I just finished that one. That's another part of what I do is I got that from Toastmasters too. And when I was 16, I was telling you about that first book is there's never not a book that I'm not reading. So, I mean, I'm probably at book 1000 at this point in my life. Um, and as long as you can get some nuggets out of it, it's worth it. Nice. So yeah. In one word, how would you encourage someone to be bolder today? In one word, it's the word is do. That's the only thing I can think of right now is that, um, can I explain the word? Yeah. Is that right? Okay. I thought this was a game show. Nope. That's it. Just do. That's it. This only comes from, from everything that I did that I said was my fault all throughout my life is that I overthink and overanalyze absolutely everything all the time. I make things more complicated than they need to be because I feel like that's accomplishing something in somehow in some ways. Like, well, that's an easy basic concept. How can I make that more complicated? Think, think, think, think, think. Most people don't ever do. They just think and they just tell people they're gonna do, but they don't actually do it because what they're really doing is they say, I'm going to go do this. They're really asking for an opinion. They're saying, what do you think? Cause whatever you think is what I'm going to go. I'm going to do. Um, they're trying to rationalize why they should quit the thing or not pursue the thought or their dream by telling other people they're going to do something or telling themselves, I should do this. I'm going to do this at some point. And then really their habits, their actions are, but there's a football game on, but I can smell popcorn coming from the living room. It's midnight or whatever. Hey, my friends are calling me. We're going to go to the bar. Those every single one of those actions is keeping you from doing. And so do is would be, would be the word. And there's a, there's a cool movie. It's called, um, we bought a zoo. Have you heard of that? Super cute movie. Like, uh, it's a comedy, but it's anyway, Matt Damon and they bought a zoo with him and his family. It's really cool movie. Um, but he has a concept in there where he talks about 15 seconds of courage. And so this is something I had to do. It's in the magic of thinking big, which is also a really great book that if you can just have 15 seconds of yourself, that shut your brain off. Um, when I used to do it to do door to door sales, and that is ridiculously hard. You have no idea who's on the other side of that door. And so you literally walk up to the driveway and I shut my brain off and I just, my body just robotically goes up to the door and knocks. Well, once I knock, it's too late. Yeah. Once I hit the call button on my phone, I could stare at the number and be like, okay, what am I going to say? What am I, I don't know. Okay. What if the conversation goes this way? What if it goes that way? And you have these, you have the conversation in your head and it never goes that way. Yeah. So when I look at the number, I hit go. And then I'm like, then I start to think, well, it's already ringing. So I have to do, and it's always fine. Yeah. It's always fine. It's not difficult. So, um, so anyway, thinking about it, having that 15 seconds of courage, if you can just take that one thing from this podcast and say, I'm going to make a bold move, but I don't know what to do. Just do something. Tony Robbins has a great quote that is as soon as you make a decision, you have to do something towards its attainment immediately. I don't care if it's the smallest thing, if it's a phone call, um, if it's going and calling like talking to a friend or going and knocking on a door, um, making a, making a note for what you're going to do and then doing it, just doing something towards its attainment. It creates momentum, pushes you in that right direction. But I would say 99% of the people that ever think of, of I'm going to start a business, I'm going to make a move. They stop right there because they say, well, that might be difficult. And it's, you're only putting a difficult stamp on it because you don't know how to do it yet. And so you're, the only reason you put that difficulty on it is because you don't know how to do it. And there's no excuse for that. None, especially in this age, our generation is crazy. We have had no cell phones, no internet. Then we've had internet cell phones and now AI. Yeah. This is the craziest generation, but there is absolutely no excuse because you have all of human data and information at your fingertips, 24 hours a day on your phone. If you don't know how to do something, it's your fault. Yeah. So it's lack of skill or lack of will. And most people just have lack of will. Yeah. Because the skill is there. You can read it, but you still have to do it. You have to do the thing. Yeah. Period. That's so crazy. I never knew what it was called at 15 seconds of doing something because I used to suffer from the like severe call reluctant. Like I would, I'd have the phone, like I'd look at it and I would like think, okay, I could go this way or that way. I would get my screen up and get resources ready. And like, okay, got to have, well, what if they say this? So I got to put this up. Okay. Well it could go this way. And then it would just be like spending 20 minutes in one call. And it was one of those things where I don't know what happened. And it just clicked where it's like, just, just don't even think about it. And I did what you were saying. You just, okay, just, okay, now it's go time. There's no going back now. You just got to do it. And it never goes how you think it's going to go in your head. Like, like you're saying, I don't even need all these resources that I pulled up because it doesn't even go that way. And a lot of the times, you know, it's just, they don't even answer the voicemail, you know, it's like, yeah, right. You know, you just wasted 20 minutes to leave a voicemail. So yeah, it's, it's just interesting because it makes a huge difference because once you do that and you keep going, the next one is easier. The next one is easier. And then now you're just flying through stuff and you know, you just couldn't, you wasted so much time planning. It's. And then that might be for another podcast, but that's momentum. Momentum can work against you and it can work for you. And that's, that's momentum. You're, you're just creating it. You're giving the stone a push. Even though it's not moving very far, you're just doing something towards its attainment. And then the next push is a little easier. And then it starts to roll and it's a little easier. And if you stop, you have to start all over again. And so what you were talking about that paralysis by analysis is that you're like, Oh, I need more. I just need more information. Let me, let me figure. Okay. Let me do this. I just need more information before I start. The best way to make a bold move. And I'll go there again. Really quick is that is to start. Yeah. Stop trying to get more information. I did that for 20 years. I'm 20 years behind now. Not really, but I did that for forever was just start because then you'll get more information. There's another mentor of mine that talks about most people live by a philosophy of like ready, aim, fire. I don't know if you've heard of that or not, but it's like ready, aim, fire, but it's more like ready, aim, aim, have doubt, talk to somebody, see if that's the right way to do it. Research the bow, research the string. Am I using the right arrow? I don't, you don't know because you haven't even fired an arrow yet. So what he does is it's backwards. It's ready, fire, aim. And so basically it's pull it back, shoot the arrow, see where it goes. Now you have way more information to make a better decision, way more information. And it's like, Oh, I was three feet to the left. Well, what are you going to do now? You're going to research it. No, I'm going to fire another arrow. Now I'm two feet. Now I'm two feet. Now I hit the target now. So by the time someone is just now navigating and trying to figure out what they're going to do, you've already made all the mistakes that need to be made and you're light years ahead of them. So there's another one. Man, I feel like you're like a version of me in an alternate reality. Cause there's so many things that you say that I relate to. And I'm like, me too. So crazy. Um, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received? Oh boy. Um, the best piece of advice. And I, it's not the best. It's just one of the really good ones too, is that if you can help enough other people get what they want, you'll ultimately get what you want in return. And it may not be the thing you thought you wanted. It's just the thing that you deserve. So if you can focus more on others focused, like even with you inviting me on this podcast, you know, you're, you're helping others. You're doing more for other people. That's part of our BNI as well. I mean, the networking groups, you're, you're trying to do more for others. And especially now people don't do that anymore. It's very self-centered. It's very social media. It's very me and that's what that's probably the best piece of advice I've gotten is just help as many people as they, as you can achieve what they want. And there it's impossible not to get what you deserve at that point. Yeah. That makes sense. All right. How can people find you? How do we, how do we get ahold of you? So my home address, no. Um, uh, so I'm on Instagram. Um, our company is allure infinite beauty. It's one word. Um, or at that med spa guy. Um, those are the two best places to find me. Um, I have all my information on the Instagram you, as far as phone numbers and all that. So cool. Is there anything that we didn't cover that you want to share before we wrap up for today's episode? No, I mean, it's a lot. Um, you know, some people can only handle so much information. So, I mean, it's a lot. And, um, at some point, yeah, I'd like to come out again and maybe we can go down some rabbit holes. Dude, I have a feeling there's a lot more we could talk about. Yeah, that's, that's awesome. Like I said, I, I, I feel like a lot of, there's a lot of shared, like, um, just experiences that is that I relate to a lot. So that's been, it's been fun, dude. Like I I'm glad you came on the show, man. Like, like, uh, and it's, it's just interesting. Cause you get to like, you know, get to know people like on a different level and then you realize there's a lot of similarities or, you know, whatever. Um, but yeah, no, it's been fun. And I think I might, uh, to pay a visit to the, to the spa, to kind of take care of, uh, maybe fix my face. That's awesome. But, uh, yeah, man. Um, it's been cool. Uh, this has been the boldness podcast and until our next episode, uh, we out.
