The Strong New York Podcast

This week on Strong New York Podcast, Kenny Santucci sits down with Sam Tejada — former firefighter/paramedic turned founder of Liquivida. Sam has spent two decades in functional and alternative medicine, and he breaks down exactly what's really happening in the booming (and increasingly unregulated) world of peptides, IV therapy, and hormone optimization.

In this episode, we get into:

- How Sam went from fighting fires to building one of the leading IV therapy companies in the country
- Why the peptide and biohacking space has become the "Wild West" — and how to spot the bad actors
- 503A vs. 503B pharmacies: what actually separates a legit compounded product from a sketchy one
- Testosterone therapy explained — optimal ranges, dosing, esters (cypionate vs. enanthate vs. propionate), and how to manage estrogen and hematocrit
- Hormone optimization for women and why the conversation is finally changing
- The truth about competitive bodybuilding and why Sam walked away from it
- Wearables, blood work, and why data can help you — or quietly stress you out

If you care about your health, your hormones, or just want to understand what's actually in that IV bag or vial, this is a must-listen.

Connect with Sam Tejada
Instagram: @sammy_tejada

Connect with Kenny and Strong New York: 
Instagram: @kennysantucci
Instagram: @strongnewyork

Follow the Strong New York Podcast: 
Instagram: @strongnewyorkpod

This episode is sponsored by:
🔥 Celsius — the energy drink that fuels every Strong New York workout. Follow @celsiusofficial on Instagram for all the new flavors.
🩸 Marek Health — optimize your hormones, recovery, and performance at marekhealth.com. Use code KENNY for 10% off Diagnostics, Supplements, and Guided Optimization.
🤝 Founders Club — a trusted circle of 2,500+ builders across North America who share resources, open doors, and raise the bar for entrepreneurship. Learn more at FoundersClubOfficial.com.

Olivia Ormos is the founder of Mavn and co-founder of Model Volleyball, an event that has become a staple of Miami culture.

After years of producing events and managing influencer campaigns manually, Olivia decided to build the technology she couldn’t find anywhere else. Despite having no previous experience in tech, she bootstrapped Mavn, proved the concept and raised $1.5 million to continue scaling the company.

In this episode, Kenny and Olivia discuss: 
- How Model Volleyball became so successful
- The story of paying Travis Scott $15,000 in cash to perform on the beach
- Why friends and family may not understand the sacrifices required to succeed
- What every successful founder is ACTUALLY doing

Chapters: 
00:00 Meet Olivia Ormos
01:00 Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made?
02:42 Building Model Volleyball
05:18 How Model Volleyball Makes Money
08:01 Paying Travis Scott $15,000 Cash
13:39 From Influencer Marketing to Mavn
19:14 Building a Tech Company With No Tech Experience
21:30 No Plan B and the Loneliness of Being a Founder
27:28 The Connection That Closed Her Funding Round
29:14 Raising $1.5 Million and Setting a $600 Million Goal
32:56 Using AI to Design and Build Faster
35:17 Women in Male-Dominated Business Rooms
37:03 Why Olivia Ignores Her Competition
39:28 Sending 20,000 Cold Emails Every Week
43:32 Three Qualities Most People Are Missing

For more raw, unfiltered and strong conversations, subscribe to Strong New York to never miss an upload.

Follow us on Spotify for exclusive content:
https://open.spotify.com/show/7aZJACuPsaawNIbWTHUkBp?si=bbc2dde469e44982

Connect with Olivia 
Instagram: @oliviaormos

Connect with Kenny and Strong New York: 
Instagram: @kennysantucci
Instagram: @strongnewyork

Follow the Strong New York Podcast: 
Instagram: @strongnewyorkpod

This episode is sponsored by:
🔥 Celsius — the energy drink that fuels every Strong New York workout. Follow @celsiusofficial on Instagram for all the new flavors.
🩸 Marek Health — optimize your hormones, recovery, and performance at marekhealth.com. Use code KENNY for 10% off Diagnostics, Supplements, and Guided Optimization.
🤝 Founders Club — a trusted circle of 2,500+ builders across North America who share resources, open doors, and raise the bar for entrepreneurship. Learn more at FoundersClubOfficial.com.

#mavn #stronnewyork #founders

At 23, Bruce Bryan was arrested for a murder he didn't commit and sentenced to 37.5 years to life. It took 29 years — and a signature from Governor Kathy Hochul — for him to walk free.

In this episode, Bruce joins Kenny to talk about the wrongful conviction that stole nearly three decades of his life — a crooked prosecutor, an unfit defense attorney, and years spent in Rikers Island and Sing Sing. But more than that, it's a conversation about mindset: how he refused to let prison define him, the difference between loneliness and being alone, and how books like Man's Search for Meaning helped him turn his cell into a classroom.

Today, Bruce is a patent-holding inventor (Judge Score AI, built to help prevent wrongful convictions), a board member at the Jericho Project, and an advocate who now returns to Rikers to speak with the people the system forgot.

This is a conversation about hope, discipline, and what it really means to be strong.

Chapters: 
00:00 Intro
01:17 Wrongfully Convicted at 23
08:32 “My Prosecutor Was Crooked”
14:17 The Brutal Reality of Rikers Island
19:02 Why Innocent People Plead Guilty
28:59 Building Winners Through Community
37:10 Discipline and the 29-Year Fight for Freedom
46:50 The Public Defender Who Couldn’t Defend Him
50:19 The Loneliness of Wrongful Imprisonment
53:28 Becoming a Thriver, Not Just a Survivor
59:55 Freedom After 29 Years
01:05:51 Materialism, Faith and What Really Matters
01:12:39 Creating Judge Score AI
01:17:42 Giving Back Through Fitness and Prison Reform
01:25:24 When Exoneration Comes Too Late

Connect with Bruce Bryan
Instagram: @bruce.bryan24

Connect with Kenny and Strong New York: 
Instagram: @kennysantucci
Instagram: @strongnewyork

Follow the Strong New York Podcast: 
Instagram: @strongnewyorkpod

This episode is sponsored by:
🔥 Celsius — the energy drink that fuels every Strong New York workout. Follow @celsiusofficial on Instagram for all the new flavors.
🩸 Marek Health — optimize your hormones, recovery, and performance at marekhealth.com. Use code KENNY for 10% off Diagnostics, Supplements, and Guided Optimization.
🤝 Founders Club — a trusted circle of 2,500+ builders across North America who share resources, open doors, and raise the bar for entrepreneurship. Learn more at FoundersClubOfficial.com.

#wrongfulconvictions #brucebryan #strongnewyork

Kenny Santucci sits down with Chris Davids (@EvolvedByChris) — a former physician turned attachment coach who dated 300+ women after his divorce and grew his following from 0 to 300K in six months by telling the truth about relationships.

They break down the anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment styles running most people's dating lives, why men and women process stress and "peace" completely differently, why chasing dopamine early kills relationships, and what women actually want from a man (hint: it's not his bank account).

In this episode:

• The 3 attachment styles that predict how someone dates
• Why "honesty" in dating isn't about looks or money
• Dopamine vs. oxytocin — why the honeymoon phase always ends
• Why smart people still make terrible relationship decisions
• What women actually want from a man

Connect with Chris Davids 
Instagram: @evolvedbychris

Connect with Kenny and Strong New York: 
Instagram: @kennysantucci
Instagram: @strongnewyork

Follow the Strong New York Podcast: 
Instagram: @strongnewyorkpod

0:00 Intro
0:58 Why Dating Is Harder Than Ever
8:25 Chris’s Journey Into Relationship Coaching
11:50 Attachment Styles Explained: Anxious, Avoidant and Disorganized
18:58 Does Childhood Cause Avoidant Attachment?
24:41 Why You Cannot Love Someone Out of Avoidance
27:36 Avoidant Attachment vs. Narcissism
32:59 The Best First-Date Advice
37:19 How to Choose the Right Partner
41:21 Dopamine, the Honeymoon Phase and Why Feelings Fade
43:16 Friendship, Sacrifice and Compromise in Relationships
50:00 Why Smart People Make Bad Relationship Decisions
56:32 Why Relationships Should Be Run Like a Business
57:59 What Women Actually Want From Men
62:16 These are the Only Qualities Women Look for

This episode is sponsored by:
🔥 Celsius — the energy drink that fuels every Strong New York workout. Follow @celsiusofficial on Instagram for all the new flavors.
🩸 Marek Health — optimize your hormones, recovery, and performance at marekhealth.com. Use code KENNY for 10% off Diagnostics, Supplements, and Guided Optimization.
🤝 Founders Club — a trusted circle of 2,500+ builders across North America who share resources, open doors, and raise the bar for entrepreneurship. Learn more at FoundersClubOfficial.com.

#attachmentstyles #attachment #strongnewyork

Ben Greenfield built his life around mastering the human body, biohacking and optimizing performance with some of the most extreme methods possible. 

But behind the image of success, everything was beginning to fall apart. After nearly losing his marriage and family, one of the world’s leading biohackers was forced to confront a question no protocol could answer: What is optimization worth if it costs you everything that matters?

Today, Kenny Santucci and Ben Greenfield discuss:

- Extreme biohacks involving blood filtration, gene therapy and stem cells
- The dangerous “shortcut mentality” taking over the biohacking industry
- The three biohacks Ben believes can transform your health
- How Biohacking almost ruined Ben Greenfields life

0:00 Intro
1:34 Ben Greenfield’s Biohacking Journey
6:44 Self-Preservation vs. Generational Legacy
8:24 Ben’s Daily Routine for Family and Faith
10:10 God, Spouse, Kids, Health and Business
11:51 What Ben Sacrificed to Change His Life
16:34 How Much Money Is Enough?
20:15 Faith, Infidelity and Almost Losing His Family
26:30 Why Success and Validation Become Addictive
28:22 Why Young Men Need a Rite of Passage
33:17 Ben Greenfield’s Parenting Philosophy
39:29 Fitness, Sleep and Nutrition Ranked
42:56 The Problem With GLP-1 Weight-Loss Drugs
44:43 Ben Greenfield's Three Most Important Biohacks
50:01 The Biohacking “Shortcut Industry”
51:24 How to Avoid 'Overhacking' Your Body
53:53 What Biohacking Actually Means
57:19 Biohacking Products That Don’t Work
63:44 Why Optimization Leaves People Unfulfilled
66:35 What’s Next for Ben Greenfield?
68:08 The Boundless Documentary

For more raw, unfiltered and strong conversations, subscribe to Strong New York to never miss an upload.

Follow us on Spotify for exclusive content:
https://open.spotify.com/show/7aZJACuPsaawNIbWTHUkBp?si=bbc2dde469e44982

Connect with Ben Greenfield
Instagram: @bengreenfieldfitness

Connect with Kenny and Strong New York: 
Instagram: @kennysantucci
Instagram: @strongnewyork

Follow the Strong New York Podcast: 
Instagram: @strongnewyorkpod

This episode is sponsored by:
🔥 Celsius — the energy drink that fuels every Strong New York workout. Follow @celsiusofficial on Instagram for all the new flavors.
🩸 Marek Health — optimize your hormones, recovery, and performance at marekhealth.com. Use code KENNY for 10% off Diagnostics, Supplements, and Guided Optimization.
🤝 Founders Club — a trusted circle of 2,500+ builders across North America who share resources, open doors, and raise the bar for entrepreneurship. Learn more at FoundersClubOfficial.com.

#biohacking #biohacks #bengreenfield

Matt Hughes is widely regarded as one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time. He is a UFC Hall of Famer, two-time UFC welterweight champion and the first man to defeat Georges St-Pierre inside the Octagon.

After a near-fatal accident in 2017, Matt was left with a traumatic brain injury, but he's been rebuilding ever since. That’s where Clifford Morgan and Kenetik come in. 

Kenetik is a sugar-free, caffeine-free ketone drink designed to provide an alternative source of fuel for the body and brain.

In this episode of the Strong New York Podcast we cover: 
- What happened to Matt Hughes After Fighting 
- What Are Ketones
- How ketones may support energy, focus and brain health
- Why doctors told Matt his recovery had reached its limit
- How Matt Hughes Became a UFC World Champion

For more raw, unfiltered and strong conversations, subscribe to Strong New York to never miss an upload.

Follow us on Spotify for exclusive content:
https://open.spotify.com/show/7aZJACuPsaawNIbWTHUkBp?si=bbc2dde469e44982

Connect with Matt
Instagram: @matthughes9x

Connect with Cliff:
Instagram: @cliffgammaceo

Connect with Kenny and Strong New York: 
Instagram: @kennysantucci
Instagram: @strongnewyork

Follow the Strong New York Podcast: 
Instagram: @strongnewyorkpod

This episode is sponsored by:
🔥 Celsius — the energy drink that fuels every Strong New York workout. Follow @celsiusofficial on Instagram for all the new flavors.
🩸 Marek Health — optimize your hormones, recovery, and performance at marekhealth.com. Use code KENNY for 10% off Diagnostics, Supplements, and Guided Optimization.
🤝 Founders Club — a trusted circle of 2,500+ builders across North America who share resources, open doors, and raise the bar for entrepreneurship. Learn more at FoundersClubOfficial.com.

#matthughes #ketones #brainhealth

Phil Daru has trained some of the biggest names in combat sports — Dustin Poirier, Amanda Nunes, and countless UFC and ONE Championship fighters — and built one of the most respected performance training brands in the game. 

In this episode, Kenny sits down with Phil to talk about the concussion that ended his pro fighting career, the framework he built at American Top Team that shaped how he coaches today, and how he's now applying those same principles to busy executives and entrepreneurs through his partnership with Marek Health.

We get into readiness tracking and auto-regulation, why wrestling is the real foundation of great fighters, his Mount Rushmore of trainers, his brief stint in bodybuilding and powerlifting, and what he's building next — a certification course, a new HQ facility, a book, and a returning podcast.

#PhilDaru #StrongNewYork #MMA #UFC #StrengthAndConditioning

CONNECT:  
Follow Kenny: @kennysantucci
Follow the Strong New York Podcast: @strongnewyorkpod
Follow Phil Daru:  @darustrong

This episode is sponsored by:
🔥 Celsius — the energy drink that fuels every Strong New York workout. Follow @celsiusofficial on Instagram for all the new flavors.
🩸 Marek Health — optimize your hormones, recovery, and performance at marekhealth.com. Use code KENNY for 10% off Diagnostics, Supplements, and Guided Optimization.
🤝 Founders Club — a trusted circle of 2,500+ builders across North America who share resources, open doors, and raise the bar for entrepreneurship. Learn more at FoundersClubOfficial.com.

00:00 – Intro: Welcome Phil Daru
01:30 – What makes Phil stand out after 20 years in the industry
04:15 – The 2-hour intake: understanding a client's true "why"
07:40 – Training fighters vs. training executives
10:20 – Readiness tracking: RPE, HRV, and the green/yellow/red system
13:00 – The concussion that ended his fighting career
16:45 – Opening his first gym at 22 while still fighting pro
20:10 – Scaling from an 800 sq ft gym to 11,000 sq ft
23:00 – Phil's Mount Rushmore of trainers
28:15 – Learning the conjugate method from Louie Simmons
32:00 – Making pro debut at 155 and the brutal weight cuts
36:30 – The final concussion and the decision to walk away
40:00 – Chasing the competitive itch: bodybuilding, Strongman, powerlifting
46:00 – Top 3 things every trainer needs to know
50:30 – Why wrestling is the real foundation of elite fighters
54:00 – Blocking out the noise: what separates elite fighters mentally
58:00 – Building Marek Health's performance division
1:02:00 – What's next: certification course, new HQ, book, and podcast
1:06:00 – Where to find Phil Daru

On this episode of the Strong New York Podcast, host Kenny Santucci sits down with Giovanni Vaccaro — co-founder of Glamsquad, an on-demand beauty service platform and founder of Peak Mode Coaching, his high-performance coaching business for executives, founders, and entrepreneurs.

Strength isn't just something you build in the gym — it's a mindset. Giovanni breaks down his journey from shampooing hair 25-30 times a day at a top Manhattan salon to building a beauty-tech company from the ground up, and the mental toughness, discipline, and "radical responsibility" that took him from stylist to CEO to executive coach. This one is packed with lessons on staying strong through setbacks, building unshakable habits, and why nobody is coming to save you.

In this episode:
- Growing up in an immigrant Italian family and the blue-collar work ethic that shaped him
- Paying his dues: 2.5 years shampooing hair before ever touching scissors
- The "light bulb" moment that led to founding Glamsquad
- Building the mental strength to shift his identity from "hairstylist" to "entrepreneur"
- Why imposter syndrome is actually a sign of strength, not weakness
- Hiring for your weaknesses and killing the "self-made" myth
- Glamsquad's near-collapse during COVID — and the strength it took to rebuild
- His non-negotiable 5am routine: meditation, prayer, gratitude, training
- Training for his first marathon and the obsession behind elite performance
- The 3 things every strong, high performer has in common
- "No one's coming to save you" — radical responsibility and ditching the victim mindset
- Why he started Peak Mode Coaching and how identity-first coaching builds mental strength

Chapters:
0:00 – Intro: Radical responsibility & don't play the victim
2:10 – Welcome Giovanni Vaccaro + Strong New York 10th Anniversary
4:00 – Growing up Italian, working for his father, discovering the salon world
8:15 – Telling his dad he wanted to be a hairdresser
10:00 – Starting at the bottom: 2.5 years to become a stylist
14:30 – Building a client book & why every person is an opportunity
18:00 – The Glamsquad "light bulb" moment
22:00 – Shifting identity from stylist to entrepreneur
25:30 – Imposter syndrome as a sign you're playing a bigger game
28:00 – The power of a great business partner
32:00 – Hiring for your weaknesses, not your ego
36:00 – Launching Glamsquad & the slow build to viral growth
41:00 – What makes a great Glamsquad pro (and the hiring process)
45:00 – Money vs. purpose: what really drives high performers
50:00 – His 5am routine: meditation, prayer, gratitude, cold plunge
55:00 – Training for his first marathon & building mental strength
59:00 – The 3 non-negotiables of every strong, high performer
1:03:00 – "No one's coming to save you" — radical ownership
1:08:00 – Losing weight at 13 and the discipline that followed
1:14:00 – Glamsquads' worst year (COVID) and the rebuild
1:18:00 – Why he started Peak Mode Coaching
1:23:00 – Identity-first coaching & closing thoughts

CONNECT:  
Follow Kenny: @kennysantucci
Follow the Strong New York Podcast: @strongnewyorkpod
Follow Giovanni Vaccaro:  @giovannivaccaro

#GlamSquad #EntrepreneurMindset #Selfimprovement 

This episode is sponsored by:
🔥 Celsius — the energy drink that fuels every Strong New York workout. Follow @celsiusofficial on Instagram for all the new flavors.
🩸 Marek Health — optimize your hormones, recovery, and performance at marekhealth.com. Use code KENNY for 10% off Diagnostics, Supplements, and Guided Optimization.
🤝 Founders Club — a trusted circle of 2,500+ builders across North America who share resources, open doors, and raise the bar for entrepreneurship. Learn more at FoundersClubOfficial.com.

This week on Strong New York Podcast, Kenny sits down with Sam Bakhshandehpour, President of Merchants at Bilt, the platform that turned paying rent — historically "the worst day of the month" — into a rewards-earning, community-building experience.

Sam's story starts long before Bilt: fleeing Iran with his mother at age 6 during the revolution, believing his father had been executed, then rebuilding a life from nothing in America. That immigrant grit carried him through decades in hospitality — running 80+ hotels and 50+ restaurants, including time at the Ritz-Carlton — before he came in-house at Bilt to help build what he calls a "B2B2C" neighborhood commerce network connecting your home, your merchants, and your travel into one loyalty ecosystem.

In this episode, Kenny and Sam get into:

• What Bilt actually is (hint: it's not just a credit card) and how it evolved from a rent-rewards program to a full lifestyle platform
• Why one in four apartment buildings in the U.S. — and over 100,000 mortgages a week — are now on the Bilt network
• How Bilt's AI concierge orchestrates everything from dinner reservations to Lyft rides to gym check-ins
• The hospitality lessons Sam learned running nightlife, restaurants, and hotels — and what "the gold standard" of hospitality really means
• Why merchants are racing to connect with new tenants the moment they move in
• Bilt's next frontier: health and wellness, HSA/FSA integration, and Sam's vision for AI-personalized nutrition and recovery
• Building real community in a hyper-connected, increasingly isolated world

If you've ever wondered how your rent, your credit card, and your neighborhood favorite restaurant are all quietly becoming part of the same ecosystem — this one's for you.

CONNECT:  
Follow Kenny: @kennysantucci
Follow the Strong New York Podcast: @strongnewyorkpod
Follow Sam Bakhshandehpour:  @sambakhshandepour
Follow Bilt:  @bilt

#StrongNewYork #Bilt #KennySantucci #RentRewards #Hospitality #Fintech #NYCPodcast #Wellness #ImmigrantStory #LoyaltyProgram

This episode is sponsored by:
🔥 Celsius — the energy drink that fuels every Strong New York workout. Follow @celsiusofficial on Instagram for all the new flavors.

🩸 Marek Health — optimize your hormones, recovery, and performance at marekhealth.com. Use code KENNY for 10% off Diagnostics, Supplements, and Guided Optimization.

🤝 Founders Club — a trusted circle of 2,500+ builders across North America who share resources, open doors, and raise the bar for entrepreneurship. Learn more at FoundersClubOfficial.com.

Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Dave Rabin (co-founder of Apollo Neuroscience) joins Kenny Santucci to break down why modern life feels so complicated — and why it doesn't have to be. From his new book "A Simple Guide to Being Alive," Dr. Rabin explains the neuroscience of bottom-up learning, why Gen Z is the first generation to score lower on cognitive tests than the one before it, how screens hijack your nervous system, and why feeling safe is the foundation of learning, healing, and manifestation. They also get into caffeine, nicotine, and nootropics from a neuroscientist's perspective — and why we should treat plant medicines with respect instead of abuse.
If you've ever felt like you don't know how to sleep, calm down, or focus — this episode is your reset button.

#Neuroscience #StrongNewYork #ApolloNeuro #MentalHealth #podcast 

CONNECT:  
Follow Kenny: @kennysantucci
Follow Strong New York: @strongnewyork
Follow Dr.David Rabin: @drdavidrabin

This episode is sponsored by Celsius, the energy drink that fuels every Strong New York workout. Visit @celsiusofficial on Instagram to see all of their new flavors!

This episode is sponsored by Marek Health. Optimize your hormones, recovery, and performance. by visiting marekhealth.com. Use code KENNY at checkout for 10% Marek Diagnostics, Supplements and the Marek Health Guided Optimization signup.