Hello, ladies and gents Robert Sykes Quito service.com and today we get special guest, mr. Newts on the podcast, he is the brains behind nutopia which is a nootropic based company and we dive deep into the world of formulating. We talk about different compounds if it chemicals how they react in the body, how they react in the brain and how they can be used to optimize your mental and physical performance.
So if you're interested in supplements and nootropics specifically, this is the podcast for you, I learned a ton I have no doubt that you will take. Something from this without further Ado, sit back, relax. Enjoy conversation with mr. Newts. Mr. Nix, how are you sir? Fantastic. So nice to be here. Hey, man, I'm excited to have. I'm excited to learn something here.
So, we were talking before I started recording and we're going to dive into how to get from sick to superhuman, which I think if no. But, I mean, I guess that's your tagline. Now, that's freaking awesome tagline. I like it a lot. Thanks, brother. So, yeah, that's that's kind of the key. I mean, one of one of the Things that Delights me is after having my own Health crisis is helping people identify where they might have.
And maybe it's an inherent weakness or it's a situational weakness and helping them kind of systematically drive through the factors to, and once you experience superhuman after being sick, it's, it's a, you know, it's freaking awesome. Totally green Manuel, I love a good origin story and you kind of alluded to you having your own Health crisis. So can you kind of Flesh that out a little bit?
Yeah, man. So, There was the first one was, I was a white rat in the military for a drug called Accutane. So this is I'm an old guy. So this was in the in the mid 80s and early, mid 80s, and I was put on Accutane for six months, with six months of follow-up treatments. And I didn't realize that that how caustic that that product was 10 years later.
I'm completely burned out. I had been building tech companies for a few years and and was very lucky that I was able to start and sell them and short order. First one was just under 12 months, the second one was just under three years. Next one was 11 months and next one was six and a half years with a couple of companies in between. And in that process as you are, well aware you can't start anything. You are the momentum any time you do a start-up totally?
Correct. So and I, you know, and I grew up my, I grew up blue collar and my dad always said just outwork everybody and you'll succeed in life, like, you know, like work work faster and harder than the owner and they'll recognize that and you'll get rewarded and he was, he was right. He was absolutely right. That was kind of my but as I went from from being a, you know, a pretty hardcore athlete to certain extent in my, you know, from the late teens to
through the mid 20s. And then starting companies you something's got to give and I was being ignorant. I let my my health go a little bit and the Accutane that they're, you know, the remains of the Accutane that were embedded in my system. They started to Peak so around and in the mid-90s I suddenly got up from my, from my computer. I've been sitting there for a few hours I walked. My wife's office and honey, I don't know what client and working on. I don't know what the project is.
I don't know what the goal is. I don't even know what day it is. I think I'm losing my mind and she took me by the hand and we walked around the neighborhood and she said, you know, you're really good at starting these things and you really good at selling them. It's that thing in the middle that you know, that kind of day after day where you just pour yourself into it. That maybe you're not so good at and so we were able to thankfully we were able to sell the company but I ended up at a
bed and breakfast. That couple weekend's later and the Doctor Who owned the been breakfast happened to be in ND natural path as well. And he just kind of grabbed me by the hand and he said, hey before we go in and have dinner with all these folks that are here. I notice it, I didn't. By the way, I didn't know.
This guy was a doctor. I just know he's going to be in be and I was going to just, you know, reboot my system and and he asked me about 20 questions and said, you know, I think he might be I write as V will take your basal metabolic rate will basically take your temperature first thing in the morning for the next four days and and we can make some assumptions so that was part one of the story and my temperature was three degrees below what it should have been.
So that was a clear indicator that I was in Dire Straits On the thyroid side. But in addition what he did was this really cool thing, he put me on a treadmill.
You put a 10 liter per minute, oxygen machine on my nose strapped, it to me and said just walk fast and and after 30 minutes of that's called e w exercise with oxygen therapy and after 30 minutes or so, this sore or opened up on my lat and it was about the size of a silver dollar and it was oozing, clear fluid, and he sampled it. We send it off to the lab and he came back a couple weeks later and said, hey, Hey you know that was Accutane, it was over 80% Accutane wow, that sorry yeah so
10 years of being like running the Hood to Coast every year which is 179. Mile relay race in Oregon from Mount Hood to the coast of the Lord to the Oregon coast doing Century bicycle rides and biathlon events.
Lifting weights aggressively living in the back of a health club actually, at one point and, and, you know, it with all of that athletic and Ver and sweating out every day and yet a decade after my last dose of Accutane that stuff was still embedded in my system and so that was kind of a holy shit, what's going on here, which led to one? Is it you got me on desiccated thyroid, which completely changed my life. My clarity came back by energy, came back, my ambition came back.
My intuitive sense came back, my decision-making was vastly improved. You're not making, you're not making decisions out of desperation, you're making decisions because this is the right thing and which is what happens when you go from. Being, if you're really sick, you're suddenly going survival mode, survival mode, instead of what's the best thing for everyone involved here? Yeah. And you know what I mean?
Totally not attained. This is relevant but I'm curious where you using Accutane for acne. What was the use case there? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I was from the, from the age of about 14 to the age of 23 I was on antibiotics, hardcore, antibiotics for acne, it's just a Cagney and So I was like and and but I had very cool hair, I think I'm thinking back to my sixteen-year-old 1977 yearbook picture that had to give up.
But I was a scrawny kid and, and, and, you know, and a stoner and, and an athlete the same time, but anyhow. So we fast-forward, I'm in the military and central California. I'm it's, you know, it's 120 degrees in the shade on the flight line. Line where I was repairing aircraft and I was being dowsed in in hydraulic fluid and oil every day and so that just exacerbated any kind of acting. I might have had. Yeah.
Um I had a really bad joke man. So I was on like Minocycline doxycycline all those antibiotics and then I got on Accutane but I was on Accutane for like three months and that worked. But man, yeah like it dried me out like I would go to school and people would say that I had leprosy like I was pretty embarrassing. No. Could I can I share a story? I my Accutane story go for it. All right, so I was I was in. I just going to sound weird or funny.
I was in a Jesus rock band at the time when I was on Accutane and and I'm playing guitar and what's called a keytar, which back in the back in the 80s was pretty badass, think Duran Duran or think Will Ferrell with his keyboard tie, I like it. And right, so I'm playing Triumph fight the good fight which is a fantastic Rock tune. Um a power Trio out of Canada. And and I'm up on stage about 300, Baptist kids in the audience and I've got to hit this very high tenor, note,
that's almost Alto soprano. And and so I've got a I'm holding the sm57 microphone Shure microphone and I'm bending my neck forward and up and the Accutane of course was I my whole my skin. I was peeling, you know, that's like yeah you know especially around like the nose and the lips and Everything else. Well, I was so dry it out and this is I was six months into the my course of that point.
So dried out, I'm seeing this note, as I reach out my my throat cracks from right about my ear, my ear lobe down to my clavicle. Any and so I'm I'm doing this tune. I'm singing this quote-unquote secular tuned to a bunch of Baptist kids and I am and I'm, you know, and clearly God was was Was, you know was telling me exactly what that means but it was great. It was great. But that was, that was my my Accutane at its worst. It did clear my acne.
Yeah, but I didn't realize and I was on I was a I was body building at the time. They gave me mega-doses of this because I went from, I went from 135 pounds or probably probably 150 when I started it and I was I would I'd started bodybuilding with a good friend at the time. Scott Hazelton. And he taught me how to power lift. And I went up to 215 pounds and fairly reasonably low, body fat.
And so, as I'm in these Accutane test, they keep upping the dose and upping the dose, and I think it does and I think it does. So, and then doing this is again, back in the early 80s. And so, and I was so, I was part of the early tests on that drug. And, yeah, so it was really bad. So, 10 years later, you know, that they this comes out Anon Mi at as a silver dollar bleeding out, this Accutane. And, and that was my first epiphanies. There were one is once I got on
thyroid, it changed my life. Desiccated thyroid, just changed my life. I went from being burned out and and frustrated and foggy headed. And you know very tired to Super clear motivated. No naps and required for total performance during the day. Slept like a baby.
All these Actors that I've missed came back and the other was that there are processes that we can do like for me e w was this first one exercise with oxygen therapy where you can actually dramatically detoxify or change the composition of your body to a point where you can perform at a much greater level. You've of course found that with ketones as a as a ketone bodies, is a performance indicators.
Well no totally maybe it was all that the Catalyst for you really diving deep into formulations and just kind of, you know,
becoming your own chemist. Basically it was it was, I had done a lot of chemistry, I if we're this is just audio, but down here, March towards my left, I've got the original chemistry set, not the actual original, but the original year and model of the chemistry set, I was able to pick up off eBay a few years ago from my first chemistry set when I was six years old was like my big present nice.
And then I've got that one I got when I was a year later which is Three-piece. Big ol, steel chemistry set. Then my stepdad was a well-known microbiologist. And so he was my kind of guide to chemistry and microbiology and some of those things really, smart guy. Name is Jack Matisse and so I had this background in experimentation. I got my first laser when I was nine and a half years old by hand, I built my first radio and I was five and a half, almost six years old.
So I had a bit of a science background. I did a bunch of extraction things using vacuum pumps. And ice water and ice to alcohol when I was between the ages of six and nine years old. So I did have some, some kind of experimental background. I was reading Scientific American and and some of these deeper science, Publications and understanding the lingo. So you would then I want to make won the science fair project. It was like, I was the kid man I
was and it was never a volcano. It was, in fact my mother my mother would joke that she had to get dressed rapidly after I went to school. UND show until they because I'd doing bring somebody I did bring something so dangerous that the principal would call and say get this guy out of here, he's got to kill the furrow and in his class, I like it. So yeah, so I was fine but the real Catalyst was my wife. And I we had all three of our children at home all homers, and
a hot tub, and a birthing chair. And eventually the couch in front of the fireplace and during that last birth, the Midwife is before the Sackler Only took advantage of America in the painkiller Arena. The, the Midwife gave my wife for Oxycodone because she had torn a bit giving birth to my youngest daughter, Olivia who actually works for me now. It's great. And she fell in love with it and a decade later, she committed suicide on the very same drug.
So the Midwest it had on on. Yeah, I'm on oxycodone. So that was the Catalyst. It was 2008. You know, and I ran upstairs, I'd had a call from a neighbor who was a private eye who said, get up here, something's happening. And I ran up, there was an emergency vehicle in front of my house. I ran up to the master bedroom and she was laying On the on the
floor. And she was surrounded by a bunch of Oxycodone Oxycontin bottles and some methadone methadone syringe and and a bottle of really crappy cheap wine that it was empty. This is the middle for your wife. Where's my wife man? So yeah, it's sad. They were sticking a, 6-inch needle into her breastbone and the try to revive her because she was an organ donor. So, so that was, that was the
big one. And so, she passed away and, and I took three kids we moved up to Northern Washington and I and I buried myself back into biochemistry because I was very interested in how to get people off of addictive substances. That was the first kind of goal, and I knew enough to be able to put things together and try them out and I had a brain.
Burning software company at the Kaya, at the time called idea Fisher, which was, I was business partners with the co-founder of Century 21, real estate and he loved. He loved making jokes, he wanted to be a performer at one time. Yeah, she was a famous singer back in the 50s at one time as well. And and so we were making
brainstorming software. So I had a bunch of customers who are really smart people who valued cognitive performance and and so, I had these people, I could send test tubes of shitty tasting powder, to and say, try this. And let me know if it makes you perform better or worse or whatever. And here's an online form, you can fill out to let me know how that combination performed and I sent 3,000 different formulations to people.
And at the room at the end of it, 1000 of these beta testers, have tried different variations of these formulas until they kind of It. And it became this, this cognitive performance enhancer, and that's kind of what started this. I was afraid to sell it, I didn't want to, I didn't want to, you know, I wanted to give it to people. I wanted him to try it. And I worked in a rehab center about every six weeks.
I would spend time in a rehab center and just help them, you know, help learn what they're all about. Learn, why they were addicted. Learn, you know what the factors were about them and and I came to the conclusion that if I could help people. Detox quickly and painlessly and affordably. If I could help them to make better decisions by giving them some cognitive performance back and some maybe some, you know, cognitive repair some cerebro
repair. And then if I could help them get Natural Energy via ATP by the mitochondria so they can execute on those ideas. The end result would be an individual who's going from making successively, poor decisions because they were, you know, they were chasing the dragon. They were looking for the next hit, or the next fix to being people that were making better decisions and they had the energy to execute on those
decisions. And that little bit of success or a lot of success, since many cases that they achieved would become the fuel that dopaminergic fuel, that would keep them moving forward in life. So that's kind of how that whole thing came together and eventually, after after having a date, I was on a match.com date and I was in ahem Washington and had a date with a real estate agent. And we were a little tiny bar next to Washington State University and probably held it.
I think it had 20/20 tables total maybe 40 seats total and we're sitting there at a little booth and she says, hey you got to meet my my ex-boyfriend he's the coolest guy and he was up at the bar. It's so big tall, six-foot-four lanky guy. Comes down. And he's a, he's a Brit and he was the one of the lead photographers for Sports Illustrated, especially the
Olympic issues. And and he was just super nice guy and Mike and I hit it off, really well, fact, he and I hit it off as good or better than she. And I did of he's still a friend today and a customer and he he said, I said, hey, what's your biggest? You know, I write I'm in. I'm in kind of nootropic evangelism mode. But again, I II just have clear, test tubes of and and these capsules I developed as well.
These weird-looking capsules of these highly functional product, and I wanted everybody to try it because I thought it was so profound that with the way, it could improve your you performance. And I said, what's your biggest problem goes, man? He goes, I am so ATD because I can't, I just can't focus on anything and it's got worse as
I've gotten older. And I had a motorcycle accident at that, just about neutered me. And so my testosterone levels are really low and so I gave Test tube and I gave him some capsules. And the next morning he had to fly out to South Africa to shoot the guy they called Blade. Runner Pistorius was his name. He was a, he was a sprinter Olympic sprinter who had he was? His legs were cut off at the knees. And he had carbon fiber, you know, four legs and feet, and, and he was very fast.
Eventually ended up shooting his girlfriend and killing her, and going to prison for a while. I'll but but at this point he was he was the belle of the ball and Mike shot him and then texted me from South Africa going, dude, this shit's crazy good. I got the shot and it was, you know, he's good. How can I get more? And then when he got back to the states, he kept calling and calling and calling. And I never answer my phone. I was busy formulating, and eventually after a few months, I
picked up the phone. I said, Mike, I'm really sorry. I'm Blowing you off. I just, you know, don't know what to do, and he goes, Hey, listen. And he goes totally cool understanding us. But listen, I'm 30 minutes from you right now. I'm driving up, make me as much of that stuff as you can. I will pay whatever it takes and we met in a little restaurant.
And, and I gave them a bunch of test tubes of of this nootropic stack about 27, different compounds and that forced me into the decision-making of I need to make this available to people and that's great. So yeah. So since Is that what you all been doing that? It's pretty awesome. I mean, it's terrible, the situation that transpired to become the Catalyst for you
doing this. But it's good that you've taken that experience and put it to good use by trying to just help people wean off of their addictive substances and just help people's lives improve, you know, full-fledged but honestly, just gaining more confidence in themselves, that's freaking awesome. Yeah thanks man.
You know it's been it continues to be really neat Journey because we've thanks to I my company which was called Web nutrients back then was acquired just just about a year ago by a company called by optimizers and you know the folks maybe Matt and Wade either I am familiar with my optimizers I send me a bunch of magnesium. Awesome. Yeah those are the guys. That's one of our killer apps magnesium. Yeah. There there are credible. People and they said, hey,
here's the deal. In fact, it was kind of fun. They, they, they found me on Facebook because a common friend of the CEO, mackel aunt. And I poured out a bunch of test tubes of my products. I packaged everything in test tubes back then because I had funded a company using test tube babies back in the in the 80s. It's a long story won't get into a bit. But but he saw it, he said he
said, How do I meet that guy? And and so this guy Brad Costanza said, hey I know that guy, well, let me turn you on to him and so he didn't introduction and a couple months later or six weeks, later we got on his own call and he said, hey, are you interested in selling your company? I said, no, I'm not. And he goes great because I think we could probably do business. And so that's what we did. We he said, let's, let's do this man. He goes.
How about if I buy? Thousands of dollars of your product and try it. And then I'm going to do some analytics, some some testing of it on myself and my business partner Wayde and a bunch of other employees and friends of mine. And I want to try to see if your product is as good as they say it is. And you know customized. We customize everything for the individual. So we customize a bunch of formulas and kept doing it your month after month.
And eventually he said, hey let's do this, man. He goes. Let's form a new brand. Will call in Utopia. Yeah, and let's optimize our your products for these nine products, we had 30 something. At the time he goes, let's limit this denying and let's do the products that have been most fundamentally profound for me and and for my associates and let's focus on that. And we're going to hide you behind a mister newts moniker.
And we're going to we're going to use a vocoder so that we can do a podcast with you and you're going to sound like you're an FBI informant and it was great, it was great, but You guys, here's the deal man because if this doesn't work out of our relationship doesn't work out if you decide for any reason, this is not going to be a cool thing for you.
No harm. No foul, you go your own way, you're gonna have a bigger business and, and, and you'll be fine and we'll be, you know, and we'll go do our own thing. If it does work out we'd like the opportunity to, you know, to merge your business into this nutopia thing that we're creating and create it. And not only was it like the best move I had. A number of offers, I had three other offers on the company at the time that we're pretty significant and would have been great cash outs.
But I also the the dialogue with these people never seem to go into, we want to change the world or we want to make a massive difference in people's lives, or their health. It was always how much, how thin can we make the Marge or how, how big can we make the margins on this by using substandard product? Yeah. And and you know, how fast can we do to until we With this thing or take it public. And it, it was not the kind of the, it's not what I saw for the company.
And because of the experience of me getting into this, with my wife passing away and is I kind of had bigger plans for it, and I wasn't exactly hungry for more dollars. I was more hungry for making change and so it has been this incredible journey and you know, we've we've helped you know, tens of thousands over 100,000. Now people have an improved experience. Once in life, and that's kind of the goal continues to be that. Yeah, that is awesome.
And I mean, when it comes to business, like you have to, you have to build something ideally that fulfills you. And oftentimes, it's not going to be, it's not going to encourage from a dollar figure, like you have to have set especially with Like An Origin story like yours, like you want to be able to hang your hat on, something that you can be proud of that. You never had to sacrifice your integrity bit to build, and they can feel confidence.
Making a positive impact on, you know, countless people which it sounds like, that's exactly what you're doing. I hope so. Yeah, we amuse the feedback says yes, let's see how you'd say? Yes, let's dive back. This time didn't opium. And so you get, its nine core products and they're all nootropic in nature right there. Are all a nootropic blind, correct? Yes, and actually, it's expanded to I think we got 11 or 12 right
now. So yes, and they're all, they're only Tropics, which means, they're basically, they're wrapped around it. So people think about nootropics they think about the Limitless move. And in CT, 48, if they know anything about that. If you've ever seen, if you haven't seen the movie go see the movie called Limitless with Bradley Cooper, it's a great movie. And I think it's really the thing that launched the nootropics. You know, that it brought it into the mainstream.
It wasn't just Dave, asprey doing some acting with modafinil or or, you know, some of the early, biohackers doing weird stuff with with, you know, drugs that are either illegal or pseudo legal and So the movie help to Harold in that, in fact, I probably owe Bradley Cooper a bunch of money for his his promotion of his undoing promotion of our product.
But that what really is important is, yes, we we do a thing called neurogenesis where we basically help your brain create create new neurons and trim burned-out dendrites and and clean out mitochondrion and form Newcomb mitochondria in the brain in the body. And all of these functions and those are the technical functions that are stuff does. But the more important part is we help you achieve Optimum
states of operations. So like, for me focusing is always been a challenge ever since Accutane Focus has been a challenge. So so building a stack, a stack, meaning a number of components that in a number of ingredients, that make up a finished product building, a stack that helps me Perform really well in focus for extended periods of time without feeling bad, like I never felt good on Adderall as my employees
called up the asshole drug. Because every time I was on it and they would come in to talk to me, I would bite their heads off and so that never felt comfortable to me. Plus it, they gave me restless leg syndrome because of vasoconstriction and and burnout adrenal burnout, which was just not fun. All of those, these are factors that are Effects of that. Now that's me.
I'm not saying that some people don't aren't really blessed by, by that particular compound, but for me, it just wasn't comfortable but was really comfortable was when I took in my early formula when I took piracetam and choline bitartrate and I did a little bit of caffeine and thin iron with that I suddenly performed well for about four and a half hours from really well really focused didn't feel like an asshole wasn't short tempered or anything and really got a lot of
work done. And now here we are. We you know, we fast-forward, whatever. This is 14 years, 15 years, 16 years, and I can on demand, I can go into a state. Meaning, I can go take a component, I can go into a focused state or I can take another one, I can go into a loving State. I can take another one that I can be verbally fluent. I can have a podcast and I can be able to recall certain aspects of life or were stories or interesting.
So the way that a neurochemical might work and I can do it with fluidity and and feel confident on it. Or I can do another one, where if I'm Intense or too intense. I take a thing called Xanadu, stick a couple squirts under the tongue and I chill out, but I don't fall asleep, I just am not anxious anymore, I'm not on edge.
So being able to select States and go into high performance States, whatever that is again Focus or loving or creative, or introspective or Chill. And knowing that I'm actually improving my body's ability to get into that state.
Every time I do a dose of this, I'm improving my ability to naturally, get into that state with, or without these compounds is a really powerful place to play because I can go from, I can go from work, where I've got to be highly focused, or on the creative, or I've got to get into management mode, or I've got to get an acquisition motor technology mode, where development motor biochemical, Assist mode. And I can go home to my sweetheart and not be obsessed
with work. And not feel like I've gotta have, you know, four martinis to unplug and and those are I think those are what people are really ultimately looking for is yeah I want to raise my performance level. I mean we we all want to be more cognitively capable but we also want to be more Effective at doing the things that are important to us. And that's a state change.
That requires State optimization State change and really, rebuilding neural Pathways and getting neurochemical and physiological and biological chemical balance. So that we can again get into those States easier, we can flow from one state to another without having this really difficult time transitioning and we just want to have more fun and get into flow more And totally, how do you test and control for variables of like like like people that are prone
to Placebo for instance. Like if someone consume something that they believe is going to result in them in touring a calmer state of mind. Maybe it's just a great sugar pill but like they take that and they automatically feel calmer because they went into it with the intention of this should make me calm, I had you control for them. Let's that's actually a great question. I love that because there is a certain amount of, of self State desire and optimization that can happen.
And I highly suggest people do that. So, rather than then gauge for it and go. Okay, let's let we're going to, we're going to give the same formula the same capsule to everybody. And then we know that 30 to 40 percent of the people are going to have a positive result on that. And the rest are either going to be neutral or negative. So, placebo effect 101. You were going to get anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of the people are going to be
responding placebo effect. What are with the differential is for us? And what we tested for there were 3,000 formulations. I did, by the way, to get to the first one that worked. So it was not it was not just happenstance and I had over 1,000 beta testers, they didn't all test, all the formulations, but in the end, The most effective formulations ended up in their hands and they gave us feedback. Here's what we found.
We found that in order to that that once you start isolating and you do A/B tests on people, you find that that you can suggest people into a certain state of being, but if you go blind and you send them something and say, how does this make you feel? That's a little more open-ended. So that gives you a little bit better. The other is is when we started customizing the formula based on your age height, weight sex, your workout or training schedule, and those are two different things.
Work out schedules are I want to sweat and I want to, I'm going to lift some weights or I want to run or I want a bicycle. I wanted to yoga training schedule. Is I have a goal in mind that I'm trying to accomplish and I am doing these sets of exercises and I'm doing this food program, a meeting like this, In order for me to, to get to a specific goal. So and a lot of times people think that I'm, you know, you're going, I'm going to work out
well, I do have a goal in mind. Well, that's the training program then Sonia not to deviate on that but that's critical. But once you get those factors and then you ask people, okay? Now that we know your age, sex, weight High, you know, eating habits in a rest. What are the goals? You're trying to accomplish and when we asked those goals, then it allows us that combined with your These other factors and the fact that we've got millions
millions of data points. Now, actually over, I think we've got over 20 million data points that we've accumulated over the last since 2008 and those allow us to, to basically do a deep dive into. The fact that if you're 180 pounds, you're 5 foot nine, you have 10% 11% body fat, you train
five days a week. Your primary training is Is lifting heavy weights and and you do hit, you know, high intensity interval training, three times a week on top of that and you're 27 years old, and your testosterone is running between 700 and 900, depending on what time of the year, it is. And what time of the month, it is, here's a formula that will match or will closely, you know, closer match then just a generic
formula, your physiology. And if your Sorry to be more focused to be able to have an eight hour or nine. Our attend our performance window where you really want to be a rock star and you want to be able to unclog after that and not feel like you're trying to minded mitigate a caffeine rush. We optimize that formula specifically for that outcome for specifically for you, we customize it individually to for
you as an individual. And what happens is by a combination of your Or data that you give us and the accuracy that data, our experience and our Deep dive into again, these millions of data points and then your feedback of taking our Solutions around the different times of day and time different events that you're trying to do to optimize against a change optimized were able to take that data and go cool. You need a little more CDP: on this next Formula.
You need a little last stimulant stack. You need a little bit. Adaptogen and your B vitamin C to be higher and we then formulate the the stack with those changes in mind and in your next order, you get even closer to your ideal or if your body is changing, your brain is changing because you're advancing. We optimized for that as well. So you've got, like a difference Q for each customer which sounds like an inventory management? Nightmare. Ha ha ha. Yeah, yeah. It's so funny.
You say that because it's absolutely true. When I started this. We were literally measuring Nowt, each compound by hand, and we're talking about some compounds were two mg. Some were 10, some were 50, some were 250, and then, we were scooping those into capsules and into test tubes, you know, weighing out each one of them pouring it way, poor way poor. And then capping it and getting it to the customer and we were now running at a profit that's
for sure. Yeah, so about almost a year ago a year in July or yeah you're in July my business partners I had I had done a robotic certification, back in the, in the 80s and the early 80s. While I was in the military and I had a passion for robotic technology. And so I, I told them that we needed to have the intention of
picking up, a robotics genius. And so we kind of all agreed that we needed to have that and lo and behold in this town of 26,000 on the Mississippi River that I'm in, there happened to be a guy working, one of the largest Manufacturing.
Plants locally called with the called, but it basically they made the concrete, they made the machines, that make the concrete concrete tunnels and concrete, piping the pipe cities, the infrastructure for cities, the infrastructure for Dubai infrastructure for London and they're, you know, multi tens of millions of dollars machines, and he happened to be a robotics
expert working there. And we, we gave them a place to Say we gave him technology and some resources and he's creating these incredibly smart robotic technologies that help us to take those intake and feedback forms from our customers and put them into capsules using robotic technology to do very Precision. Fills with much higher position that we even had when we were measuring everything out by hand, nice. So yeah. That's exciting for sure. So wouldn't that be all rolled out?
We're I'm going to start showing some videos of it on the Bayou tribe on the Bayou tribe in on Facebook and on Instagram. But you'll the first robots hit the end of next month and then we'll continue to grow more. We built one really cool prototyping robot for our prototyping lab which is I'm in a twenty three thousand three hundred square foot building that is committed to basically building we've got a Bio lab
here. We've got a flavoring lab here so we do all of our testing and biological Discovery and here. And then we also have one in Bosnia where we have 20 phds or PhD candidates all working in a lab at the Birch University that are dedicated to just doing research for us. And so between those two, we're able to put that in practice.
So the end of this end of next month, which I guess starts tomorrow, the end of next month which is almost here, we'll have the first Production robot out which will do will help put together the upbeat and Apex and some of those and then we have and brain flow and and then we have another one coming to has even more Precision that will be doing powder fills in some of those. So super excited about that because one it's the really bitching to see to watch them.
Go to work. Yeah, I would imagine and the other is we have an AI expert in Bosnia who is taking the translation of all of These millions of data points and turning them into formulation profiles for customers. So that will continue to get even better and better eventually eventually if you can stick around long enough for the future, we hope to have either kitchen sized. You know, I units that are that would sit on, on your kitchen
counter or sit on your bedside. That will create your nootropic based on your aura ring in your Fitbit and your your whoop. Data every morning and it'll create the stuff that you need
that day for the activities. That your calendar says, you've got to have happening that day and that's kind of going to be pretty neat with nootropics requiring, so much of an individualized touch, it's got to be frustrating for for you to like see all these nootropic companies popping up that are just putting some generic probably less than efficacious dosage of these nootropic compounds into supplement and selling them with the significant market.
Like that's gotta Get at you, for sure. It's, it's combination of it used to be. It used to be, I would, you know, I would pass up a storm and say dang it, they're stealing our fire. And then when I realized our attention was so high and our customers, I still get customer feedback on my phone and text every day and it was that that that reminded me that they can they can go and play that game and hopefully eventually people
will realize that. That if they really want to make this a lifetime change for them that they're going to scale up. So yeah, I believe I've got I've got bottles in my lab from every manufacturer of every product out there not to copy but to take a look and say okay this is interesting. And also there was a friend of mine who made a thing called I believe it was six hour energy and his great customer at one
time. And he he was sued by 5-hour Energy and I guess 5-hour Energy has a trophy case of all of the companies that have tried to rip them off and rip off their formulas, rebuff their packaging and rip off all those things. And it's all the companies that went down because they you know, they played the lawyer thing. We don't play the lawyer thing but we do you know, we do really commit ourselves to always innovating ahead of of what we consider competition.
So yeah, I mean Superman you just be the best and then that kind of like paves the way for a lack of competition because you're just simply the best, you know, Yeah, actually we you know that man is what you do the same thing. Yeah, you gotta you know it's no fun if you're competitive in any at any level and even if you're not winning, doesn't mean you know beating the shit out of somebody else.
It just means being true to yourself and being true to your clients and Performing and creating something that's so novel and special that that you don't even think of the competition. I don't wake up and think, oh my God, who's who's the next nzt? T48 player that's going to use, Bradley Cooper's likeness on some ad. Yeah, I wake up in the morning and I say, what am I, you know,
what's the newest molecule? That I've discovered or my my guys in Bosnia of discovered that we could put to work that would make a Monumental change in somebody's life. That's way more fun. Yeah, totally man that gets you excited to. I mean, when it when it comes to compounds, when it comes to molecules, when it comes to specific, you know chemistry Within the body. A lot of people are very skeptical of supplements.
Lot of people put a lot of emphasis on supplements, like I come from a bodybuilding background where, you know, supplements are held in very high regard. Oftentimes to the individuals demise are spending a ton of money on supplements. That may not be efficacious and a lot of people on the complete opposite of the spectrum and are just incredibly skeptical towards any supplements.
And I think there's a lot of, you know, a lot of people and especially in the keto low carb nutrition space you know just really Placing emphasis on real food nutrition as opposed to supplement or it's just something you know, worthwhile for sure. But when it comes to actual compounds and molecules that people can ingest to consume to notice a difference, what are some Heavy Hitters? I mean, caffeine obviously is probably the one that most
people are familiar with. They can take caffeine, they can take 200 mg of caffeine pill and generally feel a tangible difference within 20 minutes or so what are some other legal compounds that have a similar, you know, No impact within, you know, a short period of time. I love it.
So one of my favorites is carnitine and there's there's, you know, Al car is the shorthand acetyl-l-carnitine, this is a very profound compound in terms of its ability to pass through the cellular membrane, and get into the mitochondria and help to improve both body, composition and ATP levels. So it as a byproduct of that basically it's shuttles short,
for short. Short chain fatty acids into the mitochondria and helps to, you know, basically enhance that that biological process so that you're getting more ATP out. You're getting your if you do it, right?
And you do it at the right dosage, you can actually start Browning your white fat or Beijing, is really, the term is you can start basically introducing mitochondria into white fat and that will That mitochondrial activity, will start burning the short chain fatty acids, that are located
within that white fat. And as a result of that, you're going to get more energy out, you're going to get leaner automatically and your energy level is naturally going to go up because you're not jacking yourself with caffeine. What you're doing is you're basically letting the ATP. Do its job, adenosine triphosphate, which is a byproduct of mitochondrial output and you're letting it do its job of basically clearing things up and improving that performance. What kind of deal?
that's a good one for L-Carnitine just like like 5, 10 grams a day Well, actually you can with acetyl L-Carnitine and there's a, there's a bunch of different forms of carnitine but still carnitine. You can you can do wonders believe it or not with 250 to 500 mg if you potentiated a little bit and you can do that through either gut Flora enhancing your your bowel Flora or by by triggering it with some other factors like like para with MCT, you know medium-chain.
Oil and you'll, it will automatically start converting that oil and we'll use that as fuel immediately. It's also a great way to improve kid, agentic activity quickly. But yeah you can do 5 and 10 grams, you don't need it. You if you'll find that there's a there's a performance point where you get up to about 2 grams and somewhere between 250 we have a product of two hundred and thirty eight milligrams in a dose and it you can feel the performance increase.
There's if you go to 500 mg, basically your, you know, increasing those doses, you'll feel profound difference in smooth regulated energy levels throughout the day as you get to 122 grams the performance levels that the, the apparent performance doesn't necessarily radically increase but you do feel the fat burning potential coming on. So that's a good one. CTP choline is one Our city choline is the other name for it CD: is really great for
providing additional. Choline it passes through the blood-brain barrier and what that does is it basically improves your cognitive performance of memory thinking Clarity and recall. So that's a that's a really valuable one. Try think some of the other killer went you know obviously caffeine and caffeine paired with the and I and caffeine paired with fats, we all know, you know. Coffee or Bulletproof Coffee.
The, you know where Dave asprey started with this back in the days that's actually a pretty sound formula for a fee and and if you've ever explored Andrew huberman, who's kind of a goat in our space. Yeah, he's great as last time. Yep. He's badass. And, you know, when he talks about like, you know, his morning routine, where you do a little bit of Cold action, and And sunlight first thing in the morning, 1530 minutes sunlight.
First thing in the morning, or at least light, even if it's cloudy out and don't don't drink your caffeine first thing in the morning. Wait, 90 minutes or two hours and then take your caffeine to allow the allowed the adenosine in the body to to, you know, flag a bit so that you're not caught in this. I'm going to plug the adenosine receptor in the brain, which is going to make me feel more
wakeful. But as soon as that's unplug from the Caffeine molecule the adenosine flows back into makes
you feel fatigued. And that's why people crash after coffee or they crash at 2 p.m. and if you just hold off on your caffeine and my hack to his act is if you do decaffeinated coffee, first thing in the morning and then you do your caffeine, caffeinated coffee, a couple hours later or I'll do a nootropic as well or I'll do one of our nootropic drinks, then your performance will increase and you won't have a crash in the afternoon, so you can be really sharp and you won't feel
At that otherwise degrading side effect. So you, so, there's so many more brother. There are so many mother as you're well aware? Yeah, nice work on that. I'm assuming that people are consuming, just too much coffee, too much caffeine in general. The the ability for them to take note of some of these other compounds. Their system is likely going to be shunted quite a bit, right? Yes, absolutely.
And there's a once you you know what you've wean yourself off of caffeine, which you can do in two weeks, pretty pretty successfully in two weeks. I did back in the 90s when our Earthly man, you be so proud of me. I love it. I love it. So gossip back in the, in the early 90s or the mid 90s. After I discovered, my first nootropic, which is called huperzine a, which is a acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. Meaning that the enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine in the
brain. After the acetylcholine, is may be done one memory transition, it breaks to down, it puts it to rest if you if you block that I'm from breaking down these little, choline, it will keep flowing in the synapse and keep your cognitive performance up. So back then, what I did is I, as I got this compound, which is naturally extracted and and I gave it to you, 20 Intel engineers, and I said, what two things one is, I want to see if your performance.
We want to set a baseline Performance Based on the number of thought, particles or units of thought that you apply every day. Like the number of emails you exchange the number of During sessions, you have meetings, you know how many times you have to come up with an idea how many phone calls you and alade and and mail and all the rest of the any of these activities were to measure that.
Then we're going to wean you off coffee over two weeks and systematically, replace it with huperzine, a and after two weeks there, now off coffee using huperzine a as their kind of wakefulness solution. But more importantly, was a cognitive solution and we saw these individuals go from, what was a measurable after we did all the measurements we back. They're back labeled them and said okay we were handling this
much data per day. We were working this many hours to get this much measurable work, done.
And here we are. Six weeks later on this product and what we're finding is that we're doing this much more which was at the time it was a third more roughly, a third more thought particles or events every day for this group of Engineers they will to get done and the big wake-up call was holy shit man in Stead of just driving yourself hard with this wakefulness fluid called coffee, which is as much a, you know, it's it's a it's something we kind of feel like a warm blanket
versus a Performance Tool. Yeah. By replacing that with huperzine, a, they were able to give this what was measurably a third more performance. But that third more is not, it's not a linear curve by taking them from roughly sixty to ninety percent of a performance curve, 80 80 to 90. They were doing oftentimes that third more measurable performance was almost like doubling their performance every day and that was a critical thing. So that was kind of my first.
Aha, you can actually just bring an Aussie nay Yeah, just huperzine am low-dose some people don't react. Well, some people they do just fine on the first dose but they, their body naturally does not break down. They don't have a lot of this. This enzyme that breaks down the Silicon acetylcholinesterase enzyme, they don't have a preponderance of it. So you start getting too much choline in a synapse and you'll start getting a fucking fuzzy fuzzy or foggy head. So you want to you want to
balance That out. But if you have the right, if you're using up, choline at a good rate and a lot of these in these Engineers were there were definitely big brain, guys using a lot of cognitive horsepower. They seem to have a really great performance and I personally used it and it's a component of a number of our Solutions as well. And then there's things. Like here's a here's a great one. DHEA, you know that one?
Well I would assume. Yeah, I'm kind of, I can't use it because like I competed natural bodybuilding. So they've been incredibly, extensive banned substance list. So anything that I can't use peptide, I can't use anything here, like, they're super strict, so, you know, you know, Wade, light heart that does not sound bad. Okay, so, wait, wait, is the is the president of by optimizers the company that okay. Yeah, owns was Michael. Yep. And he's a three-time world
champion, natural. Builders 19 is way class, so yes and he's same thing he goes he goes look man and he just did his last competition. He did he did the Iron Man in Venice Beach and then I'm trying to member where the last show was seen in Canada or Texas. But yeah, but he you know, he proved himself again. I think it was top 5 this time but but he's got three championships behind him. And same thing is he's guy. We also, we also do a lot of like again, we Mais, every solution we do.
So we when we have to make them wada or NCAA compatible, we know what to exchange for another component. And actually, we're working diligently right now to make everything wada and NCAA applicable, because it's just tough to filter on by our current product line up there. Anything like, what on your current product lineup is not approved by like any of the natural sanctions.
So what you couldn't take? Well, here's the deal because we customize everything, you could take everything, you just. Let us know that you can't have DHEA pregnant alone. You can't have. I'm trying to think of the, there's a couple of stimulants. You can't have that are that are, you know, legal stimulants, but they're but they're not water compatible because you said and box, and I tried this a juice and I tried the mental reboot p.m. and I'm pretty sure
those are pretty clean. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah and yeah and we are mental reboot. Am now an R 0 bar are our ultimate focus. You them. Which is yep. The ultimate focus now is wada and NCAA. So we just finished that formula. That will be coming out in a month. Yeah. So this crazy helical and of course are what's all of our suite products as well? Our Sleep Products and our we have a thing called College. Genius, which is our nootropic mushroom. Drink tastes incredibly good.
It's very deeply chocolaty and we have a new flavor coming out as well, and it's the every dose 18 grams of. It is equivalent of eating a pound and a half of pure lion's mane, raid Rishi cordyceps mushrooms. So it's very powerful and really does a great job of improving cognitive performance and and reducing fatigue and improving adaptogenic performance as well. The Those who forget exactly.
Pretty cool, man. One of my employees has a grow tent and he's got it set up in my warehouse right now. He's growing nootropic mushroom. So he just gave me this like, massive pound and a half of lion's mane. Yesterday, I got to figure how to cook but it's pretty cool. He's growing this stuff here on site and I've got on this lion's mane, though. Oh, that is so cool. I love that. Yeah, I and by the way you can make lion's mane steaks, they're absolutely incredible.
How do you hooking me? Just like slice them and then like saw Taemin brown butter or something? Yeah, yeah put him about put him about three, quarters of an inch. I do butter. A little bit of like you can you know, obviously you can salt it, you can flavor with garlic and and then I do a little bit of extra virgin olive oil as well. And it is an incredible especially you know another your Ketogenic.
It is incredible compound. And it the cool thing is you'll sleep like a baby on it. It doesn't put you to sleep but it's very effective for sleep. And the other thing is, if you're using an aura ring or equivalent, to measure your Delta and your REM Cycles, you'll find that after the second or third meal of those, you'll find those numbers increase substantially nice. Now, that's exciting stuff. I'm going to play around with it, for sure.
With the last little bit of time we got left here, I'd love to just kind of here. How you personally break down your day, knowing what, you know, know what kind of compounds are using how you structure your, your, you know, stimulants how you structure your nighttime routine that was the typical thing look like for you to optimize Human Performance and productivity. I love that.
So, one of the first things is, I, when I wake up outside of a really recognizing what a great life I have, like, I'm, I'm prayerful in that matter. Is I like to reboot my system immediately upon, wake up with a 17 to 20 minute, binaural audio enhanced power nap, which is basically, I've got a, an application called, possesses P. Zi. Zi zi and I, I wake up guy, go pee. P. I drink about 24 ounces of water usually, with a little lemon in it.
And I, which I have at my bedside before I go to bed. And I'll take some, I'll take if I'm depending on what activity I have for that day. I will take one of my nootropics with a very low stem or no stem version. And so, I'll do like a, I might, I might do a brain flow, which is very, very typical for me. I'll do a brain flow and maybe an apex, those are two of the different. Apps. And then I will immediately go into this power nap and and what that does is I do I use it as a
memory consolidation tool. I often do problem solving at night I'll get into the to sleep routine in a second here but I use my sleep cycle to at night to detox my brain. So and when I wake up in the morning, what I do is I typically have pretty active dreams and so I use it as a way to too. To solve problems. Like, I'll look, you know, I'll go. Okay, I've got this activity and need to do to today. Who are the people? I need to have involved? What it? What do I want to bring to the
table on this thing? What are some new, or emerging Technologies? Or, or people, or, or substances or molecules? That would be valuable for us to address with this. And how do I want to distribute my energy today? And then I go into this, kind of like, by pre-loading that power nap, it immediately gets me into State and that state is When I wake up out of that power nap, which the this is apps walks you through that. It's kind of guided, although I turn the voice off.
So I just use the, the changes in the by narrow frequencies as my guide. When I wake up out of that, I'm sharp as a tack, I'm ready to go. I'm happy and positive and from there, a, my newts have started to kick in. So in that 20 minutes or so. So it's roughly 30 minutes by the time that happens. The new started to kick in and so you can start feeling these, this kind of flow of Of cognitive performance happen.
And from there, it's really am I, you know, in my fasting of my intermittent fasting that day or do I need to get something to eat in the next hour or two? And I will use things like you've got Xander juice there. So, I'll take typical take some Xander Jews because the Gaba levels, examiner juice dramatically improve my, my Gaba levels. So, instead of having this overactive brain, I've got Highly focused but not not brittle mindset.
I get a brittle mindset when I when I over caffeinate right here, I've kind of I kind of get a little bit edgy and so the examiner brings my level of clarity up but it does it in a very smooth, relaxed way. So it's very Zen in terms of that. And then typically, what I do is I'll sip throughout the day like right. Now, I've been sippin since about noon today. I've been sippin on Kane power solution in 24 ounces of water. And that power solution is has very low, stimulant level, but
it has high dopaminergic level. So I'm getting this nice dopaminergic activity. It also has it has some ketones salts in it which helped improve my cognitive performance as well and stabilize blood sugar and yeah and then I'll use it out and then this evening The thing called Gaba Licious with my sweetheart gobble. It's this is a is a high Gaba drink, very delicious green, appellee tasting, drink that non-alcoholic, but it gives me that same feeling.
I would have if I had a martini and and I feel chill and I feel capable and we'll hang out. And we'll talk, she works with me as well, and she's bright as all, get out. And she's our Archie flavor us to, as well. As the person that really spins plates, the most around here. And so we'll talk about stuff. But we'll talk about it in a state of kind of of humor and interest and curiosity and fun.
Maybe take a few notes and then unplug and then it's on to Yellowstone Yellowstone. I've heard a lot about that shit. It's pretty popular right now. Dude, man, you got it. You have to check it out and there's three. Three separate shows. There's I think it's 1853 1923 and then Yellowstone. And that's the order in which to watch them and they are the same show but they're in different eras. So it's very powerful. And you don't have any issues falling asleep, having just want something.
What's its really? I'm glad you asked mention that. So, we spent the last few years because I have, you know, my my whole life has been wrapped around kind of problem solving, and entrepreneurial Ventures, I've always had my brain has been wired to be on 24/7, that's not very healthy for sleep. So, over the last few years is actually over five years.
We've been developing something that would just released earlier called Sleep breakthrough and it's Optimizers product, and basically it's in non melatonin based powder, drink powder that you take just before bed, I take it about three to four times a week. And what it does is I take it about an hour before I go to bed. And it brings my parasympathetic system into focus and allows me to really relax and it's like I feel that my eyelids relaxed.
I feel my whole energy start to relax and it just gets me into a great state and then if Really going to have trouble sleeping at night. What I'll do is I'll do a few sprays of what we call Dream optimizers. It's a sublingual spray that does have a microdose.
And when I say microdose, A barely measurable dose of Melatonin combined with 5-HTP and, and a California, poppy seed extract, and some other cofactors, one called P 5 P, which is a very bioavailable form of B6 and what it does is it increases serotonin in levels and the conversion of Serotonin to melatonin so that you can actually get very high Dream response, your REM Cycles, go through the roof and and then to as my coup de Grasse, I top it all off with a metal reboot p.m.
which takes advantage of the fact that your brain shrinks when you go to sleep and what happens is cerebral, spinal fluid flows around the flows around the capillaries, and it drags Zealot, the detritus, the exhaust of the ATP that's happening every night as well as some other Co Factory or Co processes that are a byproduct of the liver.
And it drags him, out of the out of the brain through the spinal fluid out of the body and basically cleans your brain or detoxifies, your brain every night. And that can be very powerful for waking up, crisp. So, that's kind of a, that's a one routine, like a not combined with work. Outs and, you know, I like to train and I like to do e w and I like to Sprint up. We have a we have the curvy street in America here so I do
Sprints up, that street. Nice. Yeah, I like the idea of not leaning too heavily on melatonin, for sure. I feel like that's oftentimes when people reach for when they have a hard time falling asleep, but I've tried to stay clear of just over using melatonin. Yeah, yeah. It can become very addictive. It down, regulates the pineal gland and it's not and melatonin production. So it can become very addictive. Quickly, and then suddenly doesn't work at all.
And and you don't want sleep, is the world's most powerful stimulant? Yeah, you want your sleep to happen and so I'm using like this herbal tea that's made from valerian root and whether it's, you know, actually having an impact or maybe it's just me thinking it is. But man, I take that. And I'm like, knocked out after about 20 minutes. Oh, no, it's Valerian. Is extremely effective Gaba. And the, the valerian root
extract Tract is super powerful. We the only reason we didn't use it in this, in this particular product is that we found that the half-life was so long that even when people were using the Sleep product, is they would wake up after seven and a half for eight hours and it would still have a little bit of a lingering problem in wakefulness. And so we wanted to avoid that, can't you? Yeah. That makes sense. That makes less sense. Well, awesome.
Mr. News. I'm super excited but will you get Cookin the robotics is really And you definitely want to keep me posted on that. Oh, yeah, man. Where do people go to find out more about you, in Danville deeper into your world? So nutopia.com is our website, I think what we have, you'll have it probably on your show nuts.
The I probably have a coupon code for for your listeners and then no Topia brain on Instagram and and by optimizers and nutopia on Facebook. And and if you go to Mark out, if you go to facebook.com slash mark effinger, you can find me personally and I Die post occasionally and usually it's philosophical mumbo jumbo. If you don't see me on no spoon on LinkedIn, I know, I know Lincoln, I like them. I'll link into that to man. It's all good. Right on that. Awesome.
Well I appreciate, thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate you bringing me on and really appreciate your mission and what you're doing. I think it's really powerful and I think it's really critical for people to actually realize that they have the potential to make dramatic changes. Changes in their physiology and neurology as well. Yeah, and likewise, if there's anything I can do for you, my all means just let me know. Good sir. You got a brother take care.