Take Control of Health Today for a Thriving Future with Sage Workinger

Michael: Hey! What's up, Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. I'm very excited to be back with you with another episode with my great friend, Sage Workinger. Sage, what's going on? How are you?

Sage: I'm fabulous. How are you?

Michael: I'm so good. You are the first person in the brand-new studio.

Sage: Love it and feel very honored. Thank you.

Michael: I'm super excited to have you here. It's been a long time coming, actually, you and I have tried to do this for almost probably a couple years.

Sage: Couple years now. Yeah. I'm trying to remember where we first met, it must have been a GrowthCon.

Michael: It was probably a Cardone thing. So, you're deep in the 10X lifestyle, obviously.

Sage: Yeah. Look, little 10X health representation here.

Michael: Yeah. You know, it's really funny because when I kind of rewind a lot of my journey over the course of the last few years, it's like if I would not have tried to, I was doing this thing called funnel hacking, right? Where effectively you find somebody's book or advertisement on the internet, you go through their entire set like how are their email systems, how are their newsletters? How's their fulfillment in their delivery? Trying to just give a better experience to my own customers and clients who are part of Think Unbroken. And Grant's book came, landed on my table and I was like, I have to read this. I read that book at literature.

Sage: Which book? He's got so wealthy.

Michael: Yeah.                      

Sage: Oh, nice. Yeah, that's a good one.

Michael: So, before we get into all that, because obviously we're gonna talk and go deep into health, something that I care tremendously about, especially considering I've not always had the best health and it took a lot for me to get to where I am today. But before, can you tell us a little bit about your backstory, kind of how you got to here today.

Sage: So, Gary Brecka, my fiance and I, my partner, we started a wellness clinic in Naples, Florida, little tiny clinic called Streamline Medical Group. And funny enough, we were introduced to Grant Cardone through a friend of ours, Alex Morton, who was going to invest in his real estate fund. And he told Grant, he had had such a great experience with us, with his health and his family and everything. He told Grant, I'll invest this money if you meet with these guys that I met. Grant was like, I got doctors hanging on trees, you know, like, why I don't need anybody else, tell me what to do. But he's like, fine, I'll meet with him, I'll give him 10 minutes. And Gary went over, you know, kind of gave him the spiel and we got, ended up getting labs on Grant and within, I mean, we always tell people, give us 10 weeks to really help us change you and follow the protocol but within two weeks, I think he called us back and was like, h*ly c*w like I feel incredible, what do you have me on? So, that was sort of the start of the journey with Grant. And I wonder even, did you go to the growth conference at the Marlin Stadium?

Michael: No, I didn't know where.

Sage: Okay, so you didn't know yet. So, we launched in like a month and a half, we launched the 10X health system, which at the time was just four products in a box that, you know, we basically created a company in like a month and a half to get rid of for this GrowthCon and that's what launched it Grant through, we probably had 500 clients at the time, if that, and he put almost 3,500 in our funnel.

Michael: Blew up your company, destroyed everything.

Sage: Oh, he kinda crushed in for a little bit there. But he stuck with us and you know, he was like, listen, that didn't work out. But we still treated his family still referred clients, we would do 10X events here and there. And eventually he was like, we really need to do something together, like something real. So, he had gone into business with Brandon Dawson and they had Cardone Ventures together. And we saw at that point how we could grow and scale the business in the right way. We had tried here and there to do it ourselves and it's not an easy thing to do so by ourselves. So, we joined forces and officially created the 10X health system, we went from, that was in September 2021. We went from eight employees, we're almost at 80 employees. I think the number is 78 yesterday. So, you know, almost 10Xed ourselves and we're just skyrocketing. We're looking to franchise across the country. We have all of these genetic tests that we're doing, blood testing, IV therapy, just incredible outcomes for so many more people than we were able to service and take care of on our own.

Michael: I love that. You know, in a former life in my early twenties, worked for a Fortune 10 insurance company. I won't say who, ‘cause I don't wanna get sued. But here's what's really fascinating about healthcare in America, it's not healthcare.

Sage: It's sick care.

Michael: It's sick care. And I remember once, I don't know if I've ever said this story on the show before. I was sitting in my office wearing khakis, I'm not the f^** kind of guy to wear khakis, but I'm like chasing money and I don't really know better and I'm in my early twenties. And this woman calls me and she says, Hey, I need your help. So this is Obamacare, right? So you could exclude conditions that were preexisting, you didn't have to write policies. I'm licensed in every state, so I know all the rules and all the things. And this woman calls me one day and she goes, my son has leukemia. Can you help me? And Sage, I was like, no, I literally cannot help you. This company will not offer you anything, they will not give you anything to support you or your family. She says to me, you're like the seventh company I've called the state can't help up like, what do I do? My kid's dying. And the next day I quit that job.

Sage: I don't blame you.

 Michael: And it was so much about like recognizing the truth of the society that we live in, where it's like you have got to become incredibly responsible for your own health and services even though we would love to think that this country, and I love America, let me rephrase that, this is the best country in the world, period. No questions asked. But they do not give a sh*t about your health. And so, you must become responsible when people will look at countries like Canada and Great Britain and Australians said, well, they have great hair care system like, if you wanna wait for 37 years

Sage: Yeah. You break your arm and it's like three months until you can get surgery.

Michael: Totally. And so, doesn't make sense. A big part of my healing journey ‘cuz as you know and many of the Unbroken Nations do, I mean, I was once 350 pounds, smoking two packs a day drink, like in the worst health humanly possible. So I realized the importance of it and I know you had your own experience with health that kind of shuttled you down this path. And I'd love if you'd share that with us, because I think that it'll help a lot of people understand the importance of like really getting into understanding your body.

Sage: So, Gary and I had owned the company for two years at this particular point, it was like right before COVID hit and the world was shutting down. We had been together in our relationship for five years, almost five years, so obviously we know each other very well. And it was November 2019, I remember it very clearly. I went to CVS or Walgreens and was getting my daughter some gummy vitamins. And I see this, you know, line of all these other women's ultra-multivitamin, gummy vitamins and I was like, yeah, I'll just grab pack two. I never took any multivitamins. I didn't ever really feel a reason to, but I was like, well, just in case I'm missing something, it'd be good to have, you know, little extra vitamins in my system. So, I grabbed this bottle, grabbed hers. Thank God I grabbed a good bottle for her, but I didn't grab a good bottle for myself. And that was sort of the start of this journey of figuring out what was wrong. And it seems crazy to think it would all go back to a simple multivitamin. But over the course of the next four months, November, December, January, and February, I slowly turned into a crazy person. I sunk in. I had massive anxiety. I think I've always had anxiety on and off my whole life. I just didn't fully recognize it, and also would blame those moments on something. Oh, I feel this way because of that. You know, we're running a business, small business together…

Michael: Which is reasonable.

Sage: Yeah, exactly. You know, like, I'm worrying about finances, I'm worrying about payroll, I'm worrying about employees. You know, I blamed a lot of things on Gary. So, but during that four-month period of taking this stupid multivitamin, the anxiety was just through the roof like, I couldn't control it. I couldn't manage it. I wasn't sleeping at night. I sunk into a deep depression, and I have my daughter, so she was 11 at that time, there were days where, and it's like hard for me to talk about, but there were days that the only reason that I got out of bed was remembering I have a daughter I have to stick around for, I can't just go away. But there were days where I had suicidal thoughts for the first time in my whole life. I'd never felt that low ever, ever before. And I have had other bad times in my life, but there I couldn't pinpoint why I felt like that. Why can't I get out of bed? Why is it such a struggle? And it finally led to a full-blown panic attack for the first time, I've never had a panic attack before it scared me so bad. I thought I was gonna have to go to the hospital, my heart, I just like nothing felt right. I thought I was having a heart attack. I ended up on the ground, crying my eyes out over something that just didn't even really make sense. And that's when Gary was like, I don't know what has happened to you, but we have to figure this out. So, at that moment, literally I'm on the ground like crying, he shoved the Q-tip in my mouth ‘cuz the gene test that we do is a cheek swab so, he cheek swabbed me right there. The next day I had my blood pulled, I had a full LabCorp panel pulled, I had a full cellular nutrition assay done, test done and then I had this gene test. And when all the results came back, it was literally right when covid shut down. So, there was a period of two weeks that we kind had to close the business weren't sure what was gonna go on. And so, we were at home and it was honestly the perfect time for us ‘cuz it gave us a chance to take a deep breath and focus on ourselves. We were so worried about the business and so worried about other patients that we weren't really focusing on us and what was going on with me. And I think that Gary every day for like sitting down and researching it and figuring it out but what we saw is that for one thing that the LabCorp blood test, we measured my B12 levels and they were sky high through the roof, couldn't even be measured. But then the cellular one, at a cellular level, I was almost completely deficient in B12. And so that's when the light bulb went off for Gary and he was like, you are taking in a form of B12 but your body is not converting it and using it and that's so it shows like that you're taking it in but your cells aren't actually using it, it's just not processing in your system. And so that's where the gene test came in play and we realized it was all about methylation. And basically, what happened is I'm allergic to cheap forms of b12, I'm allergic cheap forms of 9. And if I was taking in that stupid multivitamin, the cheap B12 called Cyanocobalamin, which is cyanide based b12, it's synthetic. And then I was taking in high doses of folic acid, which is vitamin B9 in its synthetic cheap form. So, I can have Methylcobalamin or hydroxocobalamin, which are natural forms of B12, and I can have folate, five methyl folates, which is a natural form of B9, but I can't have the cheap forms and that multivitamin. And then on top of that, I was drinking emergency packets every day, which has then I'd have maybe an energy drink, like a five-hour energy or monster energy drink which they're all terrible for you, but you know, when you're not sleeping at night and you need something to get you through the day and you're sick of coffee but that had Cyanocobalamin in it. So, I'm taking in like heavy doses of these cheap forms of vitamins and it turned me into a crazy person. And I'm telling you, the second I stopped taking the vitamin and all of those processed drinks and foods and things, I was also eating bagels and cereal, you know, all these carbs that has been sprayed with folic acid, ‘cuz our government decided to spray folic acid on our grain source back in 1993. So, all of that enriched and fortified foods I can't process. And as soon as I cut all of that stuff out, I immediately felt better and then once I added in the right ingredients and the right raw materials that I was deficient I mean a world of difference. And I've never looked back, I haven't ever had a suicidal thought since I've never had a panic attack since. And honestly, even if I have anxiety, I know how to manage it better. So, I know like, before we got on this podcast, I even took my vitamins before ‘cuz I was like, just in case I get nervous, it like calms me down. So, there's a tremendous piece to this and that's when I knew if I can fix this in myself and manage it we've gotta get this out to the world. So, that was a big reason of joining, you know, Grant Cardone and Brandon Dawson and Cardone Ventures to do 10X health system ‘cuz I was like, we couldn't get this message out to enough people, and that's really the goal.

Michael: Yeah. And I mean, you look at that and I would have to assume, and let's go into it, there's probably a space in that time where you're like, am I crazy? Did something break? Like what the f**k is happening? And when I was in my late twenties, I was having five panic attacks a day. Oh my gosh. Like it was crippling. I could do nothing. My businesses collapsed. My health was horrid. And iI realized, like when I changed my diet, I read this book, called The Paleo Cookbook and that book changed my life and started me down this path of health in a deeper way because where I came from growing up in the Midwest, it was like not uncommon to drink and smoke and go to the bar every night and order pizza all the time. And I would eat chocolate cake for breakfast literally for breakfast, not understanding or knowing the implications of sugar of gluten, of the poison that is the American food systems. I mean, you go look at the health pyramid right now, like, how in the f*ck are food loops on, like, what are we talking about right now, Sage? Like, I look at the services insanity.

Sage: I thought it was a joke when I saw it come out when Joe Rogan posted it. I researched it and I was like, this has to be a joke. And you can see that the companies that paid to be on there, because it's literally saying Frosted Mini wheats and Lucky Charms, I'm like, okay, Kelloggs or whatever.

Michael: And you're like, what are you talking about? But here's what's so interesting, like I always come back to this idea that we live in the matrix. Now literally you wouldn't know ‘cuz we're in the matrix. Right? But from a hypothetical standpoint, you can look at this and go, why are we being set up for massive failure all the time? And there's a level of control that is happening in the world around from what you eat to what you consume, social media, everything and it's like you have to realize, you have to unplug yourself from this stuf. But is your imperative responsibility to be the one responsible for yourself. And so, when I come across people like you and Gary and amazing humans who are trying to give people information, it's like, here's what's really fascinating. In that period of time where you're struggling, the first thought for most Americans is, I should go to the doctor and get on a SSR.

Sage: Yep. Get a pill. Get a pill to fix it.

Michael: And what I've come to discover, and look, I've even tried them myself. I will say this, there's always room for pharmaceutical intervention under the right circumstances. But generally speaking, the right circumstances are very, very small. Right. The small opportunity for most people that they would actually need the theme that the doctors are trying to prescribe. And I remember working in this insurance company and seeing the, not only the claims come through, but the medications and people at my age, at the time, in my early twenties on like four meds. And I'm like, what are f** are you talking about. And then you get into the study is around food and it's like they are sponsored. You go down the chain long enough. And look, this is not conspiracy theory. So, let's be very clear that the writing is on the wall. At the end of the day, people in this country who run pharmaceutical companies and big corporations, they want you to be sick because they make money.

Sage: I saw an advertisement the other day where it was an ad that said, if you're already on an SSRI, an antidepressant, but it's still just not working enough for you, here's another pill you can take. And then when it lists off all the side effects of that second pill, it's insane, I'm like, why would you take the chance to fix one thing and then end up with five more problems and then you gotta take five more pills to solve those side effects? It's like, it doesn't make any sense at all. And it's sad that they've already admitted that antidepressants don't work and the whole thing is that it, if the solution to depression is to have higher levels of serotonin, you would think that the solution to the pill would be to raise serotonin levels, but they don't. They just take what little serotonin you have and they spread it out. So why not look for a solution that helps add serotonin into your bucket? And that solution is diet and vitamins and supplementation, the right raw materials and it sounds too simple. And a lot of times, you know, I get a lot of sh*t on social media because they're like, she, by the way, for all of America to know I'm not a doctor, I'm not a medical expert.

Michael: I'm also not a doctor, by the way.

Sage: Right. Let's just throw that out there because they're gonna be like, she's not a doctor, she doesn't know what she's talking about. And listen, you know, digging deep, deep, deep into the science, you're right. I don't understand that piece, but I understand what happened to me, and I know that depression.

Here's another example. This has just happened two weeks ago now, you know, getting a little a bit more recognized and especially Gary is, you know, being noticed for his knowledge in this wellness space, a lot of people send us stuff ‘cuz they want us to try it out, they want us to promote it, they wanna be a part of 10X Health, which is amazing. So, he tests the crap outta everything so, we turn into Guinea pigs basically. So, this product arrives, he puts it in a cup, he throws the water in it and he's like, try it. I should know better. And he should know better too to have read the ingredients and make sure, but I'm kind of in this like naive assumption that if you're gonna bring 10X health, something you've heard at least somewhere that we say, do not take folic acid, do not take cyanocobalamin, if I can just get two words in everybody's head of things to avoid, those are the two ingredients.

Michael: And quickly it's on the back of the label.

Sage: It's on the back of the label.

Michael: It's in everything.

Sage: It's in everything and it's disgusting and this is how corporations are killing us. And so, they send this product and the funny thing is they put a good B12, I think they put in hydroxocobalamin, which is like a very expensive form of B12 usually if you're gonna see a good form in natural form, it's methylcobalamin. Hydroxy is much more expensive and harder to source. So, it was weird that it was like a really good b12, but then they still cheaped out on the folic and they put folic acid. I didn't pay attention; I drank the stupid drink. And then I look at the ingredients and I'm like, oh my God, I just broke all my own my rules, you know, by doing this, I almost made myself go puke because I knew I was gonna be affected by it. And Gary was like, you'll be fine, it wasn't that much and don't worry about it, da, da, da. So, I was like, all right, well, maybe I'll be okay. So, I let it go next day couldn't get outta bed. I was so depressed. I wanted the room dark. I didn't want anybody to talk to me. I didn't answer my phone all day. This is like the middle of the week. It's like a Wednesday. I got a million emails, a million phone calls, a million things to do. I couldn't do any of it. But in my mind, at least, I knew this is what happened, I had folic acid, I'm depressed now, it's gonna be outta my system in 24-hours. I just sleep this off, basically. So, I slept, I watched Netflix, you know, I ate salads, grilled chicken, took my vitamins, and the next day I woke up fine. That's how I know that, how big of a deal this is. And if I can just explain that to people and have them recognize it in themselves, what did you put in your mouth in the last 24 to 48 hours that is affecting your mental state? It's not just about your stomach hurting when you eat something you can't process. What did you put in your mouth that is affecting you up here? And when you start to look back on it, and you recognize it, then you'll go, man, I didn't realize that pizza or that mac and cheese I ate, that's what's making me feel cruddy. And so if everybody paid attention, then you know, then we'd have a much better world. But yes, they have to list it on the ingredient label, so you gotta flip the box around and really pay attention to what's on there.

Michael: Yeah. When I think about that and this space in which you said something like pay attention, getting inside of your body is incredibly difficult especially if you've been sick for a long time. You know, so I ended up getting a few different gut health issues, I got sibo, I got c-diff, I was hospitalized like on death bed and I just had gotten to the point where sick was like my normal, and it sucked. And I'm running companies, I'm doing all the things, but I'm suffering every day. And I remember just thinking, here's what I think it is, like it's almost learned behavior in some ways. My grandmother was always sick, my mom was always sick, my neighbors are, everybody was always sick all the time. I was like, I guess you're just sick. You know, I didn't know what it felt like to feel normal, and it wasn't until like I really got deep into trying to understand my own body that it, it started to make sense, you could lay it out on the table and I could look and go, wait a second, if I eat these gummy bears with red dye, 40 and blue dye seven and high fructose corn syrup and things of this nature, I'm not gonna feel good. And the mouth pleasure that you get out of it, like, that's great, it's like the best dopamine hit. Like, this is the greatest sh*t. And exactly the next day I'm like, I can't function, I can't think, I can't get out of bed and it's like, but we keep torturing ourselves. And I take it back to this, I go, if you walked into room and every single time you walked in that room, you got punched in the face, the first time you walked in, you'd be like, what just happened? And the second time you, well, we're dumb, we're humans.

Sage: Yeah, that's a good point. Okay. At least two jobs.

Michael: So, the second time you walk in, you're gonna be like, okay, hold on. What's going on? You're gonna poke your head in and but the third time, you're not going to go in. And I wish that people would understand, like, you don't have to keep going down this path. So, I wanna rewind again and go back, so you're in this place a few years ago, you're on this multivitamin, you're feeling the effects, you're on the impact of it. People want a quick fix, was it really as simple as stopping that vitamin that changed your life, or were there other interventions that you had to bring into play? Because I think people were suffering from anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, all things that I've also experienced obviously, that's a huge part of what Think Unbroken is, they go, is it really that easy?

Sage: I know and I never wanna say that, oh, this is just so easy, you stop taking this or you start taking that and oh you'll, everything will be happy and glorious. I never ever wanna put that out there, but I do believe that getting my protocol right, ‘cuz it wasn't just about not taking the multivitamin, I started to recognize, okay, I having some bad anxiety for a while now, and I just always found a reason to blame it. Again, I'm blaming it on starting a business and not really knowing what I'm doing, I'm blaming on working with my spouse who, you know, I love and adore, but can drive me crazy. So of course, you know, oh, well now I'm angry, or I'm upset, or whatever, because of something he did. Well, it wasn't that stuff, it was more internal, the things I was getting upset about because a lot of this genetic stuff, it's not just anxiety, depression, there's an anger piece to it. And I realized I would get like so mad about something and it could be over the dumbest things like, you know, somebody, the kids left their socks in the middle of the hallway again, or didn't do the dishes like I asked them to do, and all of a sudden just everybody's heads off, and that wasn't me. I was like, why am I being like this? This is not who I am. And so, it did take a lot of like internal, okay, I gotta really work on myself. And so, that's where I started to go to therapy but still like, yeah, I can work on all these things, I can do breathing techniques, I can talk myself into a positive space with affirmations and all of that stuff, but ultimately it was deep inside that I had to correct. And those are all great things, yoga and meditation and all of those things are great things to calm the mind. But ultimately, what truly fixed it is getting, giving my body the raw materials, it was deficient in. And so, when I did this gene test and we only look at five actionable jeans. I don't care what your hair color is, your eye color, if you got detached ear lobes, I'm just looking for five actionable jeans that tell us did you get the gene mutation from one parent or both? And that will help us determine how deficient you are in certain material, raw materials. So, for instance, the mother*** gene, we call it the mother**er gene.

Michael: I have that.

Sage: You do, huh? Welcome to the club. 44% of us in the population, and I think that numbers higher, I think so. But about 50% of us have this genetic mutation, and for me, I got it from both my parents so, I'm severely broken. So, we're severely broken, it's not functioning at all.

Michael: Explain what that is ‘cuz some people don't know

Sage: Okay. So, when you have this genetic mutation, it means, guess the easiest way to say is we are allergic to folic acid. So, if you take crude oil out of the ground, you can't just stick it right in your gas tank, it has to be refined in a gasoline before it can go into the gas tank, and then the car and the engine recognizes that fuel source. It's the same concept with methylation. Methylation is the process by which we take in a raw material and convert it or methylate it into a usable form that our body recognizes. So, in the case of b12, you can't just take b12 and then your body just knows what to do with it and then all of a sudden, its energy, it has to be refined it has to be methylated into the right form of energy that so your body can use it. So, there's a whole lot more science stuff to this. If anybody is scientific, they're gonna be like that maybe that's a terrible explanation. But for us that aren't scientists, it's English, you know, it's just simple way to explain it. And you and I are deficient in vitamin B9, it sounds too simple, but we are. And that gene can only function at a hundred percent if we have five methyl folates in our system.

So, you can get it through food sources like leafy greens and there's like a whole long list of foods that you can find, like legumes and nuts and seeds and things like that. You can find that on the report that we produce after somebody gets a gene test. And ‘cuz I always wanna tell people, I'm not trying to sell you, our multivitamin, I'm really just saying that yes, multivitamin is easier to take if it has the right raw ingredients, but you can also get it through your diet so you just have to take in the right form of folate.

So, one big thing that I think a lot of women recognize when they hear folic acid is if they've ever been pregnant or trying to get pregnant or whatever, their gynecologist, ob-gyn is gonna tell 'em, take high doses of folic acid, because they recognized in, again, this all goes back to the nineties, where they're like, you gotta take high dose of folic acid when you're pregnant because it prevents neural tube defects in pregnant women. And so, they're like, oh, let's give this to everybody, let's spray the grain source and because then everybody's eating bread and pasta and rice and cereal, and that's when cheerios, you started to see the labels on like cheerio's boxes say, you know, fortified and enriched with all these vitamins and minerals. So, they're making it sound like, hey, we're giving, even in Poptarts, you know, we're giving, this is healthy food for your kids. So, everybody starts whackings back all this stuff and all of a sudden, the anxiety, depression, ADD, ADHD, everything goes on the rise and everybody's like, oh, well now we gotta create pills for that, now we have Adderall and Vivants and Ritalin and we're pumping our kids full of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. I was an eighties baby, none of my friends had ADHD.

Michael: Yeah. None. I was like, take your ass outside.

Sage: Just go outside and run around.

Michael: You weren't allowed in the house.

Sage: No. But it's never, even in class though. Like, I don't remember having waggy kids, like running around, like couldn't focus or anything like we all know, I don't know I just don't remember that stuff. It's kind of the same with the peanut allergy thing, nobody had a peanut allergy and now everybody has one.

Michael: Well, we're weak now.

Sage: Yes. What did we do to our food?

Michael: Well, I think that is what it is. What did we do to our food? And you look at it and you kind of measure what it is that we put in our bodies on a daily basis. And it's like you literally, you are what you eat and that is one of those things that it sounds so just regu like status quo, you are what you eat. But it's so true like, you know, as well as I do, like if I go and I eat pizza, right? You're gonna feel days over, right?  Like sh*t.

Sage: Like a food coma.

Michael: I will literally, ‘cuz I love pizza once a week I have pizza on Sunday afternoon. I'm like, I know I'm not doing anything the rest of the day. And I make it myself gluten free the whole night.

Sage: Oh good. Okay. So, it's not terrible.

Michael: I have gluten allergy, I always have. So, but I ignored it as a kid ‘cuz everybody was, like, oh no, you're fine. It's no problem that you're like throwing up all over the place like it's the nineties. We were more resilient then. And so, you know, I think that when you look at it and I don't wanna harp on the idea that people should have to go and eat a certain way. Right. Like we had a very strict diet and really more carnivore probably than anything these days. But it's like you have to be cognizant of what you're putting in and not to trust, I know this is hard ‘cuz we want to believe that the government has our best interest they don't. And so, they're struggling with anxiety and depression and you're on the SSRIs and you're like, it's not working. And it's like, maybe you do have to look a little closer at this diet. Here's what's interesting, as a kid, I always had anxiety, massive, massive anxiety. And I couldn't point it to the food, I still have it, right? It's something I've learned to control. It's something I've learned to exercise and breathe through and do the right things to navigate. And so, I'm not sitting here saying like, it's gonna go away.

Sage: Exactly. I agree. You still have to manage it, but it does help, do you find that when you take the folate pills, are you on the protocol? Like do you have all your vitamins and everything?

Michael: Yeah.

Sage: So, like for me, especially like on a Monday morning, I'm like, I don't even open my email until I take my vitamins and then give it 20 minutes because then I will be in a calm state to have the onslaught attack of all the problems that are gonna come my way that I gotta solve whereas if I open up my email and I haven't had my vitamins, it kind of sends me into a panic like, oh my God, I have so many things to do and I can't get all these things done, and I get all nervous about it. And whereas as long as I have my folate, I take my multivitamin, like I feel good, I'm ready to attack the day and I don't think I went back to that story about. Yes, it's about changing your diet, but it's also about getting the right raw materials, it took me three tries to get my protocol right. So, I always tell whenever I do a lab review with someone, I always share my story because I think it helps people if I say, I always say I'm very colorful ‘cuz I've got all the breaks except one. But even though that one that I have is green and should be functioning at a hundred percent, ultimately, it's the sandbag pass. And, sorry, I don't have like a example of it, but for people that haven't ever taken this test before, there's these five genes and when you start at the bottom one, it's like a sandbag passed to the next one.

So, in our case, that first one, the MTHFR is not operating properly and it's operating at 0% or maybe 10% at best. So, if that guy's supposed to pass a hundred pounds of sand to the next guy and he can only pass between zero and 10 pounds of sand, well then the next guy can't do his job and then so on, so forth up the chain, it's a domino effect.

So even when people have green breaks, there's green, yellow, and red, green is that neither parent passed that mutation on yellow is that one parent passed it on and it's operating at about 40% at best. And then red is both parents passed on at zero to 10% functioning. So, but if you've got a bunch of reds, then the whole chain is broken unless you correct the function of those genes and you can do that every day by adding in the right raw materials, whether it's through your diet or through supplementation. So, what I did is I had to kind of play with the vitamins and supplements, and it took me three tries to get it right and even as recently as like six months ago, I added something new to my protocol that was like, oh my God, I feel so much, I feel even better, like, I thought I felt really good and I was on a great protocol. And then I added one new thing again, I pigged myself and then I was like, wow, I feel amazing. Like all of a sudden, I'm clearer in the morning, I'm happier in the morning. I can get through the day so much easier. It was just like a game changer for me. So, I do think that people have to pay attention to things and that's kind of what we're here for with 10X Health is to help people not just guess. Don't just guess what your body needs. Don't just like take St. John's Word because you heard about it on a podcast or a commercial or your trainer or something.

Michael: This is the number one mistake of my life. I remember at one point I was taking roughly; I'll give you a dollar amount, not a pill amount, I was taking about $500 a month, I was like, oh, but they said that does this and this does this. And I was like, why don't I feel good?

Sage: Well, cause I wonder why sometimes you're doubling up on stuff and you don't realize it, and then some things are counteracting each other, or you're not taking it at the right time or with the right kind of food or, there's just so much to it. If you have a game plan, you have somebody that's knowledgeable to put together a game plan for you specifically that's when it works.

Michael: And that's what's so interesting. I think about it like this if you go and buy a car, you know exactly what's up, they give you documents, you sign it, you probably don't read the agreement, but you do it anyway. But at least you have something with our health, we don't have that, you can go do your annual checkup, which I would argue personally I don't think is nearly enough. Like I do blood work quarterly, I do as many scans and tests as I possibly can all the time, IV drips the whole nine because I want to make sure I'm functioning and operating at a high level because I personally am a type A overachiever psychopath.

Sage: You're the consummate, overachiever profile, it's you hold yourself to such a high standard that you are disappointed. You could get 24 of 25 things done on a to-do list and be that's crazy mad at yourself that you didn't get that 25th thing done.

Michael: I've literally had to like pull one of the hardest things that I have in my life when I think a lot of people do, especially, you know, I come from a traumatic background. But you a homeless kid being a drug addict at 12 years, like, I mean, that really shaped me into being like, I have to rely on myself. I have to figure these things  out. Yeah. I gotta drive forward at all times figured out. And then you add on these gene genetic mutations, you add on all the other things and it's like, I don't even know how to rest. When people are like, oh, I slept really well, I'm like, what is that? I need eight pounds of magnesium and melatonin to get those nights and. But I had to figure out the routine. I had to understand the why. And I think that if you're an overachiever, like there's nothing wrong with that.

Sage: No. It makes very successful people. And when I see a red comp tea meaning you got again, got it from both parents and it's not functioning…

Michael: Which just cause they never achieved anything.

Sage: So wild. Isn't that weird? Somehow. But they must have been, they had to have been hyper focused on something else. So, the AHCY, that gene break right below Comp T, and it can be act, even if it's green, it's a very rare one to have. So most people are green, but sometimes they're yellow. Red is like so incredibly rare. But I have a yellow A HCY, and so it leads, that one is like our addictive profile where people are usually addicted to drugs, alcohol, but maybe it's a good addiction, like working out. For me, it's, I'm a workaholic like again, I don't turn, I don't know when to turn it off. But I think if you learn how to shift those behaviors into something positive, like work or helping people, I mean that's, you know, that's what we do, it's hard for me to not answer a text message at, you know, 11 o'clock at night from a patient because I want to help people. I wanna steer them in the right direction. But it's hard to just turn it off and quiet our minds. I do have a trick for you though that might help. Tons of people relate to this stuff and I think that's where the more that I share my story and say, and like you, Hey, here is all the things have gone wrong in my life and this is how I'm solving it, and this is why I wanna help people solve their things, being that open and honest is what people relate to. I'm never gonna get up here and be like, I'm perfect and everything I do is perfect. It's not who I am. It's a dangerous place. I don't think I've ever been there, although we're a perfectionist because we're comp tea people. And we hold ourselves to a high standard, and then we expect other people to be held to that standard as well and then we find ourselves disappointed in people a lot. And so, we're really good people to have on like a group project because we're gonna get a like in college and high school, I was like, okay, you guys are all screwing this up, I'll just do it myself.

Michael: Hundred percent. I'm like, if I'm not leading the group, I don't wanna be in it.

Sage: I don't wanna be in it. We don't take micromanaging well, I don't like to be told what to do. Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me what to do. Because I'm like, I teach me how to do it. We're not trying to be a pain in the ass, but I'm like, teach me, but as soon as I've got it down, just leave me alone and let me go do it myself. And I've taken personality tests same way.

Michael: I've done every personality test on planet Earth.

Sage: It's crazy. And they're so spot. This genetic test is a personality test. So just knowing, like you're saying these little snippets and I'm like, oh, you got that gene break. You got that gene break. Like I know where you're at, where was I going with this trick? Okay. The secret to sleep. So, again, we are super deficient. Talk to your doctor. Oh yes. Please talk to your doctor. I'm not doctor, I am not a medical professional. Know how to read. So, Dr. Carrie Sarda is our medical director for 10X Health. She is phenomenal. She's been at ob GYN for 25 years and 15 of those years, plus she's been practicing functional medicine. This woman is incredible, her knowledge of being able to like look outside of normal medical practice is incredible. And so she is where a lot of this information is coming from, and me learning through my own struggles, learning what's worked for me. She and I have spent, you know, hours talking about this stuff and she is obsessed about methylation, just like Gary and I. And so, it was really awesome to like get somebody on board that really helped us understand it and learn from it on, from a medical background.

So my personal trick, and this is not medical advice, but my personal trick is you and I are very deficient in folate, the five methyl folate because of that broken MTHFR gene. So at nine, so I'll take a folate capsule in the morning, or it's in our 10X health multivitamin that Gary and our medical staff, we formulated this great multivitamin that corrects the majority of those gene breaks if you're green or yellow. But if you're red, then you have to take additional things. So you and I have to take additional folate cuz there's not enough in that multivitamin to supplement us. So, I will take a folate capsule at night before I go to bed. So, I take my sleep formula, which is magnesium, melatonin, and theanine. We have a TEDx sleep formula and then I take a folate capsule and I literally keep a bottle by my bed because it helps quiet the squirrels at night so I can sleep. And then inevitably, you know, I'm a mom, I had a baby so ever since I wake up at 4:00 AM cuz I gotta go to the bathroom. At 4:00 AM back in the day, I would wake up, I'd go to the bathroom, I'd wake, my mind would turn on, I'd start spinning and worrying about stuff that I can't control. So, I'd have a list by my bed and I'd write down all the things that I was worrying about and thought, well, that'll help me go back to sleep. But ultimately, I was up from four to six every morning and then I'd go back to sleep and think that sleeping from six to eight could like make me function through the day, which it didn't I was dead. So, at 4:00 AM I will take another folate pill and it just quiets the mind. It's not a sleeping pill though. You could take it in the middle of, you know, you could take it the first thing in the morning to help with the onslaught of emails or you know, things to help with your anxiety. But it just quiets the squirrels for me, calls me right down and I go right back to sleep. If I forget to take my folate, I was up till like two or three in the morning the other night and I was like, why can't I fall asleep? And then I remembered, I was like, oh my gosh, it's cuz I ran out of my folate. I gotta get another bottle. And as soon as I started back on that routine, it works perfectly. So try that.

Michael: Yeah. I'm the kind of person, like when I wake up, it doesn't matter what time it, I'm up, just gotta go crazy because I'm like, I slept for four hours.

Sage: It's not enough. So I'm the same way so I'll go to bed at midnight and I'm up at four and then my brain turns on, I'm exhausted. I need more sleep, but my brain won't let me. I even when I wasn't methylating properly would have shown tunes running through my head or a song on repeat, or I was laughing about this on another podcast, it was like Broadway show tunes. I'm like, I don't even see, I don't even go to Broadway shows, why is this song in my head?

Michael: Yeah. It's wild to me what your brain will do of its own volition. When it's not functioning at its optimal state. And I think for a lot of people, coming from a traumatic back, made me want to be a high performer. Once I started to navigate the world and I understood it a little bit better and I realized like I could escape from a lot of the things that were part of my life, it put me into this place where my health became last which was really interesting because it was like, on paper, you look at my life in my early twenties, you know, I'm making 150 grand a year working for a Fortune 10 company with no high school diploma, which is phenomenal. It's almost impossible. I'm driving a hundred thousand dollars car. I have all these, but my life is a disaster. Like when you really break it down because that thing about being hyper-focused on, one thing for me was chasing money so everything else went to the wayside, all my health, my relationships were so terrible, my friendships were awful. And I just kept thinking like it's everybody else's fault which was a really stupid thing to believe. And it wasn't until, and a lot of this, like, I get it, is about accountability and looking at your life and saying, actually the truth is maybe it's not actually anyone's fault, but you have to take some responsibility here because you are in this position now as a leader and in building what you're doing, where it's like, if you continue to leverage all the reasons why you shouldn't be successful, and you can even look it up the gene mutation. And you really could, I mean, you can always point a finger at something of this is the not successful, and you're allowed to do that, right? I'm not gonna take that away from you, but if you are one of these people and you're listening and you're a high performer, but there's areas of your life that you're sacrificing, I mean, what you guys have been able to build, there are sacrifices required a lot. I mean, you're in the process of trying to create a hundred, what is it, a thousand locations? Give people access to health in ways they never have. Like, you're climbing fucking Mount Everest and for some people, Mount Everest isn't entrepreneurship or business it's navigating paying the bills, it's getting the next job, it's taking care of the kids, it's being single parents, maybe you've got a disease, something is happening, you're chasing and you're climbing. When health should be the impetus, but it's not like how do you navigate all the other, like you personally, how the hell do you navigate?

Sage: I look back on before I got this figured out and like, how did I get through a day? I mean, I just struggled. And here's the thing I'm a very healthy person. I kind of always have been, I've never really overeaten, I've never been, well, I can't actually say that. I did go to college, I had to study abroad program in Italy. And I left at 120 pounds and I came back at 160. I actually gained 40 pounds in six months, my study abroad program in six months I came back and everybody was like, holy cow, your fat Like my sister straight up just said you, you're fat. Like what happened to you? 40 pounds in six months, but pregnant with my daughter for nine, 10 months. I only gained 30 pounds, so it was kind of comical. So, I can laugh about it now cuz it, but it took two years to shed that off. I moved to Denver and that's probably what helped ‘cuz people were so healthy in Denver and I know you lived in Denver for a while, but I think I was always like generally very healthy. And I tell people too sometimes when they have these, this gene tests and they have the genetic markers that should indicate that there's a lot more problems and they're like, well, I don't really feel that, you know, not so much like here and there I've had that happen, but not really. I'm like then accidentally correcting your methylation through your diet and what you're already taking. So, it's awesome, that's fantastic.

My sister, for instance, she and her husband tested their whole family and their little girls, and they're just so uber healthy that they were just accidentally already correcting their kids' Methylation but you can see such a change that if they go to a birthday party and they've got pizza and cake, they come home and it's a complete disaster. Total chaos. But now the older one, she's eight, nine years old. She's well aware of it and she's aware that, you know, aunt Sage, she sat me down the other night and she goes, I went to a birthday party and everybody was having pizza, and I knew I shouldn't have the pizza because I knew that the crust was gonna make me feel bad.

So, she's like, I tried to just eat the pepperoni and the cheese, but I did have a couple bites of the crust. She was just like justifying this whole thing to me. She's got massive anxiety, this one. And she's like, but then the birthday cake came out and had Oreo cookies in it and she was like, I thought if I just took a couple bites, it wouldn't be bad.

I mean, this is her at eight, nine years old justifying just like we do. Oh, if I just have a little bit of this, it's not gonna be that bad. You know? Same with me having that stupid drink. Oh, maybe one drink of it won't be that bad, but she's like, but felt terrible for the whole next day. And it's because she cannot process that junk food. But she recognizes it and she's like, I'm not gonna do that again. I'm gonna, you know, either bring my own food or I'll eat beforehand. And we had a whole like, conversation about, you know, maybe next time you just have your own, you bring your own separate cake for your friend's party, or you eat beforehand so you're not tempted to eat the pizza saying that.

Michael: But I do the same thing. You're not never gonna catch me eating airplane food. I'm not gonna eat most things at restaurants. It's like, it's not worth it. When you're trying to able create something, and I wanna go into that again. When you're trying to create this, like, there are things you have to give up. I think that people really struggle with that and for me, a lot of what I've had to give up are just the behaviors that don't lead me towards the goal. You know, I was, I've been lucky enough to have Tom Bilyeu you as a mentor in my life for a very long time. And he and I had this really powerful conversation and he was like, only do things that move you towards your goals. And I was like, that's so true, that's health, that's dating, that's relationships, that's everything. And so, when you have these big goals, like, and you guys are trying to not only run a family, you're on the road more than probably anyone I know. And I'm on the road all the time you guys are on the road more than me. What do you have to give up? Like what are the things that you've taken off your plate or removed from your life? So that you can actually have the success that you're wanting because I think there's a stupid mentality in the world that people are like, you can have everything. I'm like, you can have everything that you want. If you're willing to give up all the other things. So, what is that like for you?

Sage: So, I would say like right off the bat, two things. So, one thing about like the traveling and eating and what do we have to give up and look out for? I haven't eaten, I really never, thank God my parents were good. Never really fed a soda or fast food. So I don't crave any of that kind of stuff. So, with all the traveling that we do, we are just constantly on the road and I think your body adapts to having to eat crappy food like here and there. So, as much as we were trying to eat healthy out, it's just inevitable that you're gonna end up having to eat airport food or you know, grab, like I'm drinking my Starbucks coffee, that's not my favorite thing to drink cuz it's not organic. But I'm on the road and it's hard to find the things that you would do at home on the road. So, but then we spent a month at home, which felt like a vacation. And I ordered all organic food, all organic meats and Pasteur rides, eggs, all this good healthy stuff. My daughter is been she's with us over here. She started a homeschool program in January because we were on the road so much, and I wanted her to be with us and go to these events and podcasts and meet all these cool people and learn all this stuff and outside of a classroom. So, she's been helping, I've been teaching her how to cook and my gosh, she's like amazing, she can look at a recipe, order the groceries, put the recipe together. I'm like, h*ly hell, somebody made me dinner. This is fabulous. But she's learning like how healthy all this stuff is. So, we really ate clean for a solid 30 days and then we went out to dinner, a really nice restaurant in Miami, and Gary and I came back and we were both sick as dogs that night. And then it was like four or five days later we had to do another dinner out with some people and again, came back home and we were sick as dogs and I was like, okay, we're just gonna have to learn to like either change up what we're ordering at the restaurant if I order a salad and grilled chicken, I'm usually good watch what the salad dressing is. I know, but I'm learning that like, I mean, we never order stuff like mac and cheese and I'm not tempted for things like that. But even like if you order Brussels sprouts, you don't know what kind of oil they're frying it in or cooking it in and that goes back to like, I think it's a big seed oil thing now we're kind of going down a rabbit hole of a whole, of realizing all the seed oils that are in everything. And at restaurants, they don't change out the fryers and I mean, I don't eat a whole lot of fried food, but regardless if you're having something that's cooked, it's got junk in it. So, I try to eat more like, raw stuff and salads and grilled chicken kind of things to avoid that.

But then the second piece that doesn't have to do with diet is not allowing negative behaviors to really take over my day. And I think that's, again, you and I, we've got these breaks that allow our minds to just overthink over process, over worry. And I would allow negative behaviors to take over my day a lot. And I'm really learning I just can't do it like I have to find the positive in things. So even if a problem's coming at me, I need take a deep breath and say, okay, yes, maybe that is an issue, maybe that is a problem, but how are we gonna solve it? And then let's also look at all the really cool positive things that are happening that trump the negative thing and change my mindset and change that shift in how I get through my day. I find that I'm a lot happier that way. So, I guess those are two random very different things to answer your question.

Michael: Yeah. It's easy to get trapped in negativity though.

Sage: Also stop watching the news because there's nothing, I can do to change it. It may make me sound stupid that I don't know all the things that are going on, but it's all negative. It's horrible.

Michael: If you ask me what's happening right now…

Sage: You don't wanna know. Every time I turn it on, I'm like, oh, I shouldn't have.

Michael: And the reason why I don't is because I take my mental health so seriously. It's so incredible because everything, like even I did this kind of science experience experiment on myself recently. I love film like I'm a huge film person. In fact, my first legal job as a kid was working outta Hollywood. And I intentionally, I was like, blockbuster wouldn't have me. I'll never forget this, I had to take a personality test to get a job at Blockbuster and they said I wasn't qualified at like 15 years old. And I was  like, okay.

Sage: So because your age, but what was the personality? Did they ever tell you 20 years ago? That's crazy.

Michael: And so like, I do this test and then they literally reply in the email reply, they're like, you're not personality. I was like, bro, videotapes. Oh, what you talking, what is this like? And so anyway, I get this job at Hollywood Video. I'm in love with film, like there's nothing better to me than watching an amazing film, so and that's how true, even to this day, my favorite respite you, if you can't get ahold of me during the day, it's cuz I'm out of movie theater because I've taken it's hours, that's my thing.

Sage: That is the thing that will turn our minds off.

Michael:  And I'll phone off, even though I know popcorn on the movie theater's turning, I'm doing it sometimes it's gonna happen. I do that like I'll make my own popcorn avocado oil. Anyway, I did this test and I said, what happens if I watch no action movies? No horror movies. No thrillers for 30 days, it was better, huh? It's incredible the shift in my mind. Well it's interesting because if you think about it, your brain doesn't know how to decipher reality from fiction. Right. And so, I did that and suddenly I was like, wait a second, I feel so incredibly different because I'm not being consumed with negativity and violence and suffering. And it's like the real world has enough of that time. And so we keep putting that in and it's like, with these things, you know, you have so much in front of you every single day to take your attention. And if you're like me and I have a massively addictive personality, I'm leading somewhere with this. When you have an addictive personality and it's in your genes and it's in your blood, it's in your bones like how do you navigate the world? Because for me, I know some people, like I'm not addicted to anything, I'm like, bro, if it weren't for the fact that I wanted to have a better life, I'd probably do heroin right now, seriously ‘cuz that's just the nature of who I am. I feel it in my bones. Literally. So if you are a person and you go and you do a gene test and you have all these markers, four addictive personalities, overachievers high. How do you navigate reality?

Sage: Well, I think a big piece, again, I'm gonna go back to the supplement side. When people have addictive behaviors, there are supplements that can help control your homocystine levels. So homocystine can be measured in your blood. So that's how like, If somebody comes to us and they get a blood test done, let's say they don't do the gene and the blood at the same time and they do the blood test first. We measure homocystine levels. So if those are off the charts, that's when we can say you're not methylating something properly. And then we recommend the gene test. Then also same thing, if they get the gene test done and they're super colorful and they've got a lot of breaks, then we recommend that they get the blood test done ‘cuz there are things you can see them really work together because you can see thyroid problems, you can see high blood pressure, hypertension issues, hormone imbalances. So, if you've got a lot of times when people, when I wasn't methylating properly, my thyroid went outta whack because it wasn't converting anymore, T4 into T3 the right way. So, if I had gone to a doctor, they would've put me on thyroid medication. My hormones were totally outta whack. I became estrogen dominant, like 700%, it was contributing to my crazy that all of a sudden, I was like, had this band, you know, I go from being skinny to having this band of like fluid in the front of my stomach that I'm like, well, where is this coming from my pants aren't fitting. So, that was estrogen dominance, there's just so many pieces to it besides just the anxiety and depression. My OCD kind of went out of control, not like OCD, like I flip light switches or things like that, I do count things, but I like things super organized. I don't like things out of place. You're probably very much the same way. Your place is very nice and organized, it makes me happy, like, this is so clean but it's in your jeans and it's funny because there's so much internal chaos that we crave, external organization. But I think that the internal chaos can also get the best of people. And so, back to the addiction part, I've met people that have gone to rehab like nine times, I have this one guy that I met at an event and he got up and spoke about his struggles and all his addictive behaviors and rehab nine times. And I was like, you know, please take this test. If you don't have this gene break, I'll pay for the test myself. But Annie did and then when, once we put 'em on the right protocol and a lot of it is, you know, and again, I am not a medical expert, but things like glutathione, which is the mother of all antioxidants that really helps, it cleans the liver, it flushes the liver and toxins out and that also helps balance homocysteine. So does TMG something called TMG, I don't know if you're taking Sam-e. Sam e is a great supplement that helps balance, especially if you have a red comp tea, it helps balance this circle of methylation that basically the idea is we're just looking to lower homocysteine levels and when you lower them and get them into balance, a lot of that addictive personality and those behaviors calm down cuz now it's not, your body isn't seeking, you know, that dopamine hit. We're balancing serotonin and we're balancing dopamine. And a lot of people come to us after they get on the program and they're like, oh my God, I feel amazing, we're like, you don't feel amazing. You just feel normal. That is what you're supposed to feel like. God did not intend us to feel like shit all the time. We are supposed to be happy, we're supposed to be healthy. We're supposed to be functioning well and not have brain fog, and not be depressed and not be sad or not be angry. I mean, again, there's a gene, there's a temper gene in there as well. And I can see that in people and go, a lot of times when I see that gene in people, I'm like, wow, you wear such a good mask like, it's incredible, some of the people that I think that I know and I don't really know, because they wear such a good mask of like positivity and happiness and smiling and preaching from the stage, like all this opportunity and amazingness and then, but deep down I see that chest and then I deep down it's like, oh my gosh, you are struggling severely internally, you're just hiding it and masking it so well, and they're like, how do you know that? Like, I see it in the genes. Yeah. It's super wild.

Michael: It's hard to navigate that, you know, I remember I was in a Men’s Therapy, late twenties, early thirties. And one of the guys says to me like, he goes, you don't know how to be angry. You talk about this mask. Like I was massively masked up angry. And I was just like, nope, not allowed. Stuff it down. And I've realized like anger or amazing, amazing tool. And it's something we need to fill if you can't fill one emotion, you can't fill any of them like I truly. But one of the things that, it sparked a thought, you know, when like dealing with thyroid or estrogen levels or testosterone levels, or if you have diabetes or whatever those things are. Today when we go to the doctor, doctors frequently say to us, oh yeah, it's in your family history. And I want to talk about that for a second because everybody in my family, historically that I know anyway, has had type two diabetes. Type two diabetes is. No thyroid issues, generally speaking, unless you have something like Hashimotos is not genetic, right? So, what is happening in our medical system where doctors are telling people like, this is in your DNA, it's in your genes like what is that about?

Sage: So, you're right about type two diabetes. I mean, that's a sugar control issue. So when we see pre-diabetic people all the time and we're able to reverse it just by again, simple diet changes and the right supplements, and you can do a slew of different things depending on, you know, how big you've may have gotten. During Covid, I actually lost my taste and smell. I had the me too, so I lost it for almost two months completely. And then when it came back, it came back as something called Persia, which is a distorted taste and smell so everything tasted and smelled like rotten sewage so for 18 months it was like I wanted, I had to wear a nose clip to eat or it was bad. I also had Fantasia, so, which is just phantom smells, and so because it was the rotten sewage thing. I was constantly blaming Gary for farting. So, I was like, babe. He's like, I swear I didn't, and I'm like, but I smelled something, we had moved into a new house and I thought that something was wrong with the sewage system. So I was constantly having plumbers over like, don't you smell that? Like, I thought I was nuts. And it was just this stupid covid thing that happened. So, anyway, when I corrected and fixed that I did my blood because during that period of time I couldn't eat meat, I couldn't eat vegetables, all of it just made me want to vomit. The only thing I that I could eat was some fruit and carbs seemed to be okay ‘cuz it was very plain and then dairy like, so if I was gonna have like spaghetti and sauce, ‘cuz I couldn't have a meatball, it couldn't just be red sauce, it had to be cut with Alfredo because it would just calm the sauce down or whatever. I had a horrible diet. I was like surviving on protein shakes. But what happened is because of all the fruit and the carbs that I'm all of a sudden eating, ‘cuz nothing, I couldn't eat anything else. I all of a sudden went into the pre-diabetic range. My A1C levels were like 5.7, 5.8, like right at the very beginning. But I was like, oh my God, I'm a healthy person. This is not who I am. I can't believe I'm pre-diabetic. This is scary. So, I corrected it. I thank God, got the covid thing under control and got that fixed after two years, but then I corrected it by cutting out carbs, co cutting out sugar, not eating fruit, and then going, you know, very good fats. I wouldn't say it was keto because I'm not super good at the keto thing, but probably like more paleo like you are and good salads and healthy oils and seeds and nuts and stuff avocados, and then I was good and I reversed it. I also took Berberine, which is a natural root, that's a supplement that I took to help Mac chromium, capsules, methionine and acetylcholine. I just like very simple, basic things. Got it right back under control no problem. But diabetes, if you go to the diabetic website and you look at their food, like recommendations, it is like a perfect diet to become diabetic. They're like, drink some orange juice in the morning, have some granola, throw some brown sugar on it, it's insane what they say to eat on there. I'm like, no, like if anything has bacon and eggs and some avocado, like that's a better diet, like better breakfast than having granola or oatmeal and brown sugar. I think that they want us to be sick again, it's sick care and they're all in bed with one another and they don't want us to be healthy, so that's why things are packaged up so fancy. And if you look at the labels of this stuff and it's like all natural. There's nothing natural about having a list this long of words you can't pronounce.

Michael: I discovered something really interesting if you actually Google what natural flavors are, it's terrible. And I had to stop drinking soda water, I actually I stopped drinking soda water. I didn't even look at that because of Gary, I was listening to somebody's show or we were having, I don't remember. And he had mentioned something about it and he said, natural flavors and then I went and looked it up and it's like there is poison. Well I thought cuz like I'm not a big drinker. I'll have a glass of wine on the occasion. But if I'm out with my friends and we at a restaurant like soda water. I don't want to drink a cocktail during the week, I gotta like, stay sharp. And I discovered this, I was like, heartbroken. I was like, even soda water is now tainted. We have nothing. We can have nothing. We're gonna wrap up shortly, I want to go in this, from my perspective, when I took control over my health, I felt everything in my life shift. My friendships, my relationships, my family, my community, my business, what I'm doing now, everything became different. I think unfortunately a lot of people measure life through this scope of trying to make things better. I don't believe in better, I can't lay better on a table and measure it. But I can measure different, how did I feel yesterday versus how do I feel today. And we're not saying like, don't enjoy life, we have the cake sometimes. Yeah. Whatever man. Everything in moderation. You're gonna die anyway. Right. I watched my grandmother die suffering 30 medications, diabetes, dementia's type three diabetes. She was overweight, a lot of this was her fault. I'm gonna call it what it is her fault because she chose to go down this path and sure we don't have the information we have today. Without the YouTubes, I would not probably be in the level of health I am today. But she was a person who smoked cigarettes on an oxygen machine and like you did this, like, you made and I watched suffering. And I just want to tell people, and it doesn't have to be right, break it because your parents suffered because your brother or sister do, you don't have to, but you have to be the one to take control. And as I've got deeper in this, I did things like the genetic testing with you guys, actually the first time we met was at Ken Joslin’s event a few years ago in Atlanta. And I did the swab, I did the blood work. I remember that went down the path because for me it, it felt really, Because I'd done all these other tests, but until you guys, I didn't know about the gene test.

Sage: A lot of people don't or they pull genes that you can't do any, again, these are actionable genes you can take action and correct them. The other ones, it's like, what are we gonna, okay, great. I know that like I can't do about your earlobe.

Michael: My eye colorer, it doesn't matter. And so it's like I went down that path. I got healthier. I'm still continually always getting healthier. And I'm in a space of health maintenance now, not sick maintenance, take no prescription drugs, don't do anything. But a lot of it came from the willingness, right? And look, I'll never sit here and be like, it's inexpensive because your health, however you wanna look at it, is worth everyhthing. If you gotta cancel Netflix for the year and get rid of YouTube and premium, I use YouTube premium's like the greatest money on like, but if you have to get rid of these things, get rid of the Starbucks, get rid of the going out to eat to do these tests, and there are a few hundred bucks, it will change your life forever.

Sage: Well, and the gene test, your genes are never gonna change. So you take the test once, it's 599 with us, and you'll take it once in your life. It's a cheek swap, so you literally get shipped to your house and you can do it on yourself for your kids, your family. And then once you mail it back in, the results come back and put together, you know, we put together special protocol per your genes.

Michael: Where do they do this? I wanna drop.

Sage: So if you go to www.10Xyourhealth.com, so that's where you can just immediately order the gene test and it'll get shipped to your house. And then if you want more information on 10X Health, then it's 10Xhealthsystem.com. So, that's where we'll share more about IV therapy, blood labs, superhuman protocol. We have a really cool superhuman protocol. And then also places where we get a lot of nurses and a lot of doctors and, you know, NP’s and PAs that are looking for jobs cuz they're just so sick of the system. So you can look and see where we're hiring all across the country and we're franchising so we are accepted. I think we've got 44 states approved and we're just getting into, you know, hopefully starting to roll out the franchises here soon.

Michael: We need more actual healthcare. And I want to encourage people to take this test.

Sage: Because health is wealth. I know and it's not just about money, but like you were saying, if you feel better when you wake up ‘cuz you've gotten a good night's sleep and your mind is clear and you're awake and you're happy, then you're gonna attack your day differently than if you didn't sleep, you're depressed, you're like dragging yourself out of bed. It's just a whole different mindset shift. But it shouldn't be such a struggle, it shouldn't have to be every day. I have to do good today. It should just be like, I wanna do good. Let's go get this done.

Michael: And this is a controllable variant, you know what I mean? Like if a plane crashes, like you cannot control that. Right? But you can control your pasta crash. And so it's like, yes, do this one time and then when you can afford it, if you can't afford it now do the blood work know where you are. And in fact, a lot of the markers for blood work, you just go get your annual physical 99.9% of insurance companies are required to do your annual physical for you, covered by your insurance. Go and then tell your doctor. People have to understand this. Tell your doctor to do all the tests, it's incredible what's actually covered under insurance. And if you do that, if you go and cover, if you go talk to your insurance company, say I want all these tests, they'll lay out what is actually covered and that's really important, right?

Sage: It's so true. They don't cover certain things that we like to see though like vitamin D three deficiencies. We see it all the time, especially in people who have darker skin cuz you're not getting in the sun, also if we're wearing a lot of sunscreen hats, covering up long sleeves, D three, we see D three deficiency all the time.

Michael: Number one ‘cause of covid.

Sage: We were called snake oil salesman when Covid came out and we were telling people, boost your immune system by taking vitamin C, zinc, and D three with k2. The K2 part's very important.

Michael: Thank you for saying I was literally about to say that.

Sage: Yep. I'm not a medical professional, but this is what I know. I literally was told that we were snake oil salesmen. I'm like, oh, that's funny ‘cuz we ended up being right.

Michael: I made it almost through the entire Covid experience without getting, I got it at the end.

Sage: I got it at the very beginning. But we also had an IV clinic, so when people were sick thinking they had the flu, everybody and drove, we had a very popular business, right before Covid, like October, November of 2019, we started seeing it and my whole staff went through it, we all got sick, we just didn't know what it was. Because we were getting tested for the flu and they were like, that's not it. No, it's not pneumonia. We don't really know what it is. You're just sick. Stay home. So, we kind of knocked it out of our system and the we all had the antibodies, we were good to go after that.

Michael: And you know, at the end of the day, like health is everything. It's gonna change your world relationships, it's gonna change your sex life, it's gonna change your bank account, it's gonna change your ability to do a lot of things.

Sage: And on the relationship piece, Gary and I have never gotten along better than when we started this process, got on the right protocol. It's funny and our family we can all tell in each other who's taken the vitamins and who hasn't because for me, I might be snappy, more snappy at the kids for him, his ADHD gets out of control and he is bouncing all over the place. For my daughter, she gets a little cranky and I can just tell when she hasn't had her vitamins. So, I'm like, Hey, everybody, take 'em. 20 minutes later, everybody's happy again, everybody's calm, everybody's got a smile on their face. So, it's a non-negotiable in our family like, you take your vitamins and that's what we do. So if everybody does that every day, you remember like, this is what's making me feel better, it's a game changer.

Michael: My thought is, especially if you live in a food desert, like, go and get your vitamins, get the right vitamins, do your research. If you live in America, you have access to healthcare in some capacity, take advantage of it. Even if you're on government healthcare, there's still annual checkups that are covered by insurance. So do your research. Call your insurance company. As we wrap up here, of course, have to ask you the famous last question, but thank you for coming in. Thank you for sharing your story folks, go to 10Xyourhealth.com. Do this test. It's one time. I don't ever, ever, ever talk about shit I haven't done. And so, this was a powerful experience for me to go through this process, work with your amazing team, look at my life a couple of years forward from that and truly in the best health I've ever been.

Sage: We built this business on word of mouth. I mean, in the beginning, Gary and I, we sucked at social media, we didn't have the money to pay for advertising or marketing plans, and every single client we gained was through word of mouth, you know, you having a story, feeling better and sharing that with people you care about. And we still have a very grassroots approach. I mean, we're a bigger company now, certainly, but just by us speaking on stage and on podcasts and sharing our stories has really helped to like get the word out in the message that I never say cure, but it is fixable. There are things that can be done to help so nobody should suffer.

Michael: I agree. And that's what Think Unbroken is about how do we bring this information to the masses? Right? And I thank you for being here and so my last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Sage: Now I got goosebumps cuz put me on the spot here. To be unbroken just means caring about yourself in a way to, I mean, it's always going to be about health and especially mental health in our world is just so important. And it's just about every day waking up and taking those steps to make sure that every day I have to think about not being broken, I guess. So I never wanna say, again, like you said, it's not like this is just a fix that works for every, you can take one pill and just make it all go away every day. I have to, I could struggle if I didn't pay attention to what I was doing. So, to be unbroken just means paying attention to my health, what am I doing every day to make the right choices for me, my body, for my family, their bodies, and correcting that function so that we don't struggle and we don't have the mental issues that that run in my family.

So, it's super important. I love this message that you share. I love that you share your struggles and you're open and honest with people so that they know that they're not the only ones. I think that's the biggest message that we can help people with is sharing like you're not alone.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. So, and again, “health as wealth” Thank you for being here. Unbroken Nation, thank you for listening. Please like, subscribe, comment, tell a friend. Remember sharing this, leaving a comment, telling someone about it. You could be the reason why we continue to create the change that we're seeking in the world.

And Until Next Time.

My Friend, Be Unbroken.

I'll See Ya.