WellBuilt

On this episode of WellBuilt, Jon spoke to Brandon Marshall, former NFL Player, mental health advocate, and Founder of House of Athlete. Their conversation was educational, heartfelt, inspiring, and a lot of fun.

In it, they spoke about Brandon's battle with borderline personality disorder, and how his openness around seeking treatment has moved the mental health conversation forward in sports, entertainment, and mainstream culture.

They got into Brandon's own wellness practice, and how it includes a combination of physical training, nutrition, recovery, mental fitness, and the importance of intimate relationships and community. Brandon even shared how his own journey has impacted the mental health of his mother, brother, and close family members.

Last but not least, they dove into how House of Athlete is making elite training accessible to anyone who wants to unlock peak performance.

Enjoy!

On this episode of WellBuilt, Jon spoke to Vinh Pham, Co-Founder of Myodetox.

Myodetox is a modern physical therapy experience bringing a fresh look to the world of movement health.

They provide hands-on myofascial treatment and corrective exercise to reduce pain, improve the way you move, and prevent future injuries.

In their conversation, they covered Vinh's interesting path to becoming a PT, gaps he saw in the market, and how that led him to starting Myodetox.

They got into the ways in which boutique fitness has both validated and created a bigger need for PT. And spent time talking about his new book, Sit Up Straight, daily morning stretches and ways he recommends counteracting and developing awareness around our bodies natural tendencies to compensate.

Vinh has built one of the biggest and most engaged physical therapy accounts on Instagram. Follow him at VinhRehab, grab a copy of his new book, and check out Myodetox, to learn more.

And, finally, in case your parents didn't tell you, always remember to Sit up Straight!

JOON Benefit Recipients and WellBuilt Listeners can also get 20% off their first Myo session: https://joon.io/partners/myodetox/

On this episode of WellBuilt, Jon spoke to Josh Hix and Mustafa Shabib, Co-Founders of Season Health.

Season is a digital food pharmacy, using 'food as medicine' to support the management of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and kidney issues.

In their conversation, they got into the relationship between unhealthy diets and healthcare spend, and how bad diets make up a disproportionate amount of our investment in healthcare — ~80% according to Season.

Before Season, Josh was the co-founder of Plated, a meal delivery company that sold to Albertsons, and Mustafa had a technical background working on data in the healthcare space. They both began spending more time with one another and with Dr. Andrea Feinberg who started the Fresh Food Farmacy at Geisinger Health System, and had basically proven out their hypotheses around food as medicine on a smaller scale.

In their chat, they got into how Season is going to market, what Season's user experience looks like (combination dietician, chef, and personal shopper on staff), and how their business model is contingent on them making people healthier rather than taking a cut of the food people buy through their app.

Finally, they got into why the timing is perfect for Season. While there have been decades of investment in the consumer food world to entirely digitize that industry, there has been little to tie it back to healthcare, and Season is on a mission to do exactly that.

Check out Season Health, and enjoy!

On this episode of WellBuilt, Jon spoke to Eric Ji Sun Wu, Co-Founder of Gainful.

Gainful provides personalized performance products, including protein, hydration, pre-workout, and more, based on your lifestyle and wellness goals. They pair their direct to consumer offering with complimentary 1:1 Registered Dietitian support, so you can better understand what you're taking, why you're taking it, and how it's impacting your body.

Supplements and sports nutrition have traditionally felt like a blackbox full of unsubstantiated claims and ingredients people don't recognize or understand. That intimidating feeling you may have experienced walking into a GNC or other retail store, is exactly why Eric and his co-founder, Jahan, decided to start Gainful.

They and their team believe that technology has the power to transform the industry, people's relationship to nutrition and their bodies, and to overall help consumers achieve better performance and results.

In their conversation, Eric got into Gainful's founding story, how their service works, mistakes people make when thinking about protein intake and supplementation, and more.

WellBuilt listeners that want to try Gainful get 40% off their first purchase by visiting this link.

Enjoy!

This episode of WellBuilt, was originally a LinkedIn Live Jon hosted with Russ Laraway, author of a new book called "When They Win, You Win".

Russ was formerly Chief People Officer at Qualtrics, and is currently CPO at Goodwater Capital.

Before being a People leader he held Go To Market roles at both Twitter and Google. He was also a Commander in the Marine Corps. All this to say, Russ brings a refreshing and interesting point of view to the world of Management.

In his book, Russ touches upon his own experiences, business case studies, and other powerful stories to paint the picture of why "Managers are failing" and what we can do about it.

He rejects much of the conventional wisdom, for a simpler overview on what primary research and industry findings tell us makes a good manager, and how we can all lead in a way that measurably and predictably leads to more engaged employees and better business results.

You might find that many of the lessons in the book and in our conversation adhere to common sense. A great employee experience leads to a great customer experience, and they can reinforce one another in a virtuous cycle.

But the clarity, passion, and wittiness of his delivery and presentation, and the data he leverages to support his points, made it really fun and engaging conversation and the book an awesome read.

Grab a copy of "When They Win, You Win", and enjoy!

On this episode of WellBuilt, Jon spoke to Ankit Gupta, Founder & CEO of Bicycle Health.

Bicycle Health is increasing access to high-quality, integrated healthcare for people with opioid use disorder.

Their virtual care platform provides empathetic, affordable, person-to-person care at scale, including medication management, behavioral health treatment, support groups, and care coordination, supporting patients wherever they're at in their recovery journey.

In their conversation, they got into why opioids are over-prescribed and under-managed in the United States, and how this is impacting far more people than most of us realize.

They got into the different types of treatment for opioid addiction, and how Ankit came up with Bicycle Health's unique digital solution.

They got into the story, lessons, and culture behind the naming of the company, and why he named it after a bicycle!

And finally, we discussed what building a company focused on addiction has taught him about his own mental health, habit formation, and wellbeing.

Enjoy!

P.S. In preparation for their conversation, Jon read a book he referred to during the podcast, which we and Ankit highly recommend called Empire of Pain.

On this episode of WellBuilt, Jon spoke to Jacob Pechenik, Founder & CEO of Lettuce Grow.

Lettuce Grow makes it easy to grow your own fruits and veggies at home with a self-watering & fertilizing hydroponic vertical tower they call their Farmstand.

In their conversation, they got into how becoming a father got Jacob food-obsessed, and how this passion drove him to pivot his career from tech & entertainment to the food system.

Witnessing issues of food waste firsthand on a farm, and observing how transporting produce not only impacted the food's quality and freshness, but that it also is not very environmentally friendly, he began ideating on what the world would like if more people grew their own food at home.

Instead of growing crops to their full maturity, Lettuce Grow sends their Farmstand customers ready-to-plant seedlings. These urban grow operations are localized, which allows them to cut down the delivery time and optimize for the produce's freshness. They're also more efficient from a real estate perspective, since the plants are smaller in size.

Beyond Lettuce Grow's story, they got into Jacob's view on financing and pivoting a business, its relationship to parenting, and finally his passion for polo :horse_racing:

Enjoy!

On this episode of WellBuilt, Jon spoke to Sylvia Hastanan, Founder & CEO of Greater Good Health.

Greater Good Health (GGH) is an innovative primary care model centered around Nurse Practitioners (NPs).

GGH has a bit of a contrarian view when it comes to their business strategy. They are first and foremost optimizing their model for happy and healthy clinicians.

GGH strives to offer an amazing employee experience with generous wellness benefits and opportunities for personal and professional development. They believe doing so will allow them to build a best-in-class patient experience with better health outcomes.

In their conversation, they got into how Sylvia combined her nursing education with a business degree to uniquely identify this gap and opportunity in medicine.

They discussed why healthcare is moving towards value-based care from a traditional fee-for-service model, how we're at risk if we don't make the transition, and why NPs holistic education is perfectly suited for the future.

Finally, they got into what GGH means when they promote work-life integration rather than work-life balance as part of their cultural values, and tangible examples of this in Sylvia's personal and professional life.

Enjoy!

On this episode of WellBuilt, Jon spoke to Alex Lofton, Co-founder & President of Landed.

Landed is a real estate technology company with an interesting model and beautiful mission: They are making home ownership more affordable for essential professionals.

More specifically, they help education, healthcare, and public sector employees buy homes by providing access to funds, trusted partners and guidance.

They have a unique shared appreciation down payment program or coinvestment in a home since they've found that many essential professionals are able to afford the monthly payment on a standard mortgage loan but that saving upwards of 20% of the down payment with an expensive cost of living can be nearly impossible.

This program is designed to help these individuals and their families reach at least a 20% down payment, and avoid private mortgage insurance (PMI). In many of their eligible areas, Landed can contribute up to $150k of the purchase price towards the down payment, which brings the homebuyer's contribution to at least 5%.

They partner with employers as a way to get the word out there about Landed so if you're an organization or belong to a company in education, healthcare, and/or the public sector, and looking to buy your first home, feel free to check them out!

Enjoy

Thesis is a wellness company that makes personalized blends of nootropic supplements. Each of their blends has a different formula or list of proprietary ingredients to help with a specific type of mental state.

In their conversation, Dan shared his life and career journey, his own struggles with attention deficit disorder in school, and how nootropics helped turn things around for him.

Dan went from dropping out of high school to work at Subway making sandwiches to working as a global chef at Club Med to attending Yale in his late 20s and eventually starting Thesis.

Dan openly talks about how psychedelics have positively impacted his life. Thesis is a proud JOON customer, and one of their top goals with their wellness benefits program was to make psychedelic-assisted therapy accessible to their workforce.

Beyond using JOON for mental and spiritual health, Dan spoke about what using our platform says about their broader people and culture strategy. He is very bullish on investing in his team's personal and professional growth, and believes everything in building a successful company comes down to the people once you have formulated your product.

Finally, Jon and Dan got into some of Thesis' team rituals. Every Friday they try a new product from a direct to consumer wellness company, rate it, discuss it, and learn from the brand — this helps them with their own brand, allows them to better understand the market, and to also find new wellness-focused products that add value to their lives.

If you're interested in trying Thesis, Dan and the team have been gracious enough to give WellBuilt listeners 10% off with the code JOON.

Check them out and enjoy!