Episode 18: Dr. Jason Wersland, Creator TheraGun
You’ve seen basketballer Kyrie Irving reach for it courtside and CrossFit’s ‘Fittest Man on Earth’ Mathew Fraser use it in the gym. In episode 18, I sit down with TheraGun's Dr. Jason Wersland, D.C., the creator of the crazy-looking tool made for muscle activation, recovery, and pain management. He shares with me the story behind his invention and his #hurdlemoment, a 2007 motorcycle accident that changed his life forever, sparking his quest to create an effective, portable treatment device for patients—including himself. We talk about what it’s like traveling the world educating others on the importance of muscle recovery and mobility, how his kids inspire him to be a better person, and share a few tears along the way.
"It's not work that I'm doing. It's the biggest blessing ever."
Emily Abbate: I'm sitting here with Dr Jason Wersland. He’s a chiropractor and the man behind TheraGun. How you doing?
Dr. Jason: Good.
Good. You're like surprised.
I was like, whoa. A question.
That's the least of your worries so far today. Before we really get into this episode, I think it's important. First of all to talk about what the TheraGun is. I feel like affectionately I think of it ... feels like a power drill, but moves kind of like a jackhammer, but it's for your muscles. So like why don't you tell me a little bit about that.
TheraGun is handheld percussion. I think people are used to vibration, but vibration and percussion are different mechanisms. If you think of the percussion instruments in a band or like a symphony or something, they're the ones that are really banging. So there's an amplitude meaning a distance that, that wand or something is moving. So the TheraGun provides a percussive force rather than vibration. So vibration, if you can imagine, would probably be like a horizontal movement and percussion is more of a vertical up and down movement. People use the terms jackhammer and jigsaw because it does kind of look like a power tool. But it's, it's honestly, a handheld battery operated, feel-good product. It doesn't matter where I go in the world. It works. It makes people feel good.
A lot of people may know it from seeing it either court side with Kyrie irving and the chief's defensive back Marcus Peters uses it. I was having a conversation the other day with the ‘Fittest Man on Earth’ Mat Fraser. He couldn't say enough good things about it. He told me that if you're going to have a quad heavy workout, he'll use the TheraGun to give his quads a quick once over before he gets going. And something like that gives him a one percent gain that he feels day after day after day and eventually those one percent gains add up. It's kind of crazy that you made this thing that like all of these major athletes are using. I think I read a statistic that it was like a hundred different pro teams are using this device.
Yeah. And that statistic is actually old. There's so many more now that we've been able to go outside of the box. But yeah, and it's surprising to me too because the, the fact that Mat uses it for performance is amazing. But that wasn't where it came from. So it's been a discovery for me as well as cool. And I love that Mat said that because that means he gets it.
He literally was like, this is how I get an extra edge. Like I asked him what the tools in his toolbox where to kind of get a, a one up on the competition and he said TheraGun is one of the tools in his toolbox.
It doesn't hurt that he's a good, a good soul.
So what I'd love to do, you said that obviously that wasn't the original intent for the TheraGun. I'd love to dive in from the get go and just talk a little bit about your backstory. So what were you doing, let's say about 10 years ago?
Ten years ago. Right now I was driving on a freeway heading to school on a motorcycle.
And what happened on the motorcycle?
I was a chiro and just finished school. I had a couple of things needed to do at my old school and I was driving there on a motorcycle and t-boned a Volkswagen Jetta going 50 miles an hour and the Jetta won.
Wow. Okay.
The cool thing at the time was that my life was all about being a chiropractor and understanding how to help other people and how can I understand the body better to be able to provide these services as a chiropractor then Bam, I'm a patient.
You always had an interest in getting into this field?
Yeah, always. It took me a little bit longer, right. A detour in my twenties, which is a whole other podcast. But I've always been fascinated with the body, how it moves, how it heals itself, all those things that I think people that are interested in the body like to think about it. So I decided the chiropractor was the way I wanted to go and, and sport specific. I also realize that there's a lot of people out there suffering. Typically, you don't go into being a chiropractor and think I want to work on people who have strokes. It's very rare you find that. So, you know, I think the popular thing was sports and athletics, but it really where my heart sits as people that are suffering that need the help.
So where did you go to school here in Los Angeles?
It was weird because I say Cleveland Chiropractic and people think it was in Cleveland, Ohio or Cleveland. The Cleveland Clinic or something. They have one in Kansas City and one here in LA. I went to the one in LA.
Okay. So you get in this motorcycle accident and, like you said, you're the patient. What was that experience like for you? It must have been, I mean, completely mentally and physically debilitating.
Yeah. It's not unlike anyone else, you know, like accidents happen at the worst time. That's why they call them accidents, you know, I wasn't prepared for what was coming and I don't think anyone really is so without knowing it, I was like this little case study. Looking back on it now you have 20/20 vision. Looking back on things, my job gave me completely different perspective on injuries and gave me a real strong understanding of nerve pain and also gave me faith in the body's ability to regenerate and restore itself with the right kind of tools and motivation, you know? It was a terrible experience at the time because I had just finished school and student loans, like $200,000. I just started a practice with a buddy of mine in LA. I didn't know how I was going to pay the next month's bills. So I'm using my hands to create and make money, generate revenue, now suddenly I'm injured and I can't do that. So I think that that transcends across a lot of different things. Right? So no matter what you're doing, injury sucks. And I just happened to be in a situation where I'm a Chiropractor, now I'm injured, so now what do I do?
Right. Like what kind of injuries are we talking about?
My arm got cut open. It was a blunt trauma, and split my arm open at the time. And then I, the injury actually caused a lot of soft tissue damage in my neck and down the right side of my upper extremity. So it was basically a disc bulge disc protrusion or disc herniation because it completely bulged out. It was about nine millimeters. And in that space in your neck, there's not nine millimeters for anything really excessive. So it just caused a lot of nerve damage. So you start to atrophy in the my chest and I looked like a 12-year-old girl. So the muscles are gone. My daughter, I remember I was getting dressed or something and she was in the room and she's like, “Daddy, what's wrong with your boob?” Like one of my sides, there was no tone to it.
So that experience all of that was really, really difficult at the time and painful, and looking back on it now, it all really adds into the whole story.
How tall are you like give, give the people at home listening, like as sense of stature?
I'm 5-foot-11, 230 pounds.
So you're a big guy.
I am. I've always been big. My family is big so I've always been a bit bigger. I work out a lot. People always accuse me of being a UFC fighter.
So you're working all of this pain and this nerve damage and you're trying to come back from that. And what does that look like for you?
Well you get desperate, you know. Because I'm a chiropractor and had been trained to be a chiropractor. My options were a little bit more different or broad or whatever word you want to use than the typical person because in typical medicine you would get surgery right away, you know, and then you'd go through the rehab and I didn't want to get cut open, so understanding what chiropractic was and how know the mechanics in my body. Once I got that MRI on my neck, I was like, okay, I can do this. But, I had no idea what the pain was going to be like.
Would a doctor have suggested you to get surgery?
I did have friends at Cedars that were spinal guys and they looked at my MRI like, you have to get surgery. I said, why? Well, there's no way you're gonna be able to deal with the pain and it's going to cause structural damage in your neck where that you're going to have permanent nerve damage. And I'm like, that's good enough for me. So I just thought, you know what? I'm going to treat myself and I've got to buck up. I'm going to make this happen. But you just have no clue how bad that pain is and it's not so much the intensity, although it's easily an eight out of 10. It's the consistency, like it doesn't stop and think about the mental toughness that goes with that.
Yeah, a lot of toughness. In my head, I feel like I can draw some parallels to this. Like I can do it myself mentality. Like I can handle this, I can do that. But when it comes to pain … Man.
Man, you know, I think the interesting thing about life for me, and I've been through really kind of life challenging situations, you just don't know what you're going to do until you have to do it. You know, people say that, well, how'd you do that? Well, I'm sure if we talked with you, you'd have been through something that I would be like, what? There's no way. I think that's just a testament to us as humans, we can really go through a lot and still be able to make it work. Sometimes I sit at a stoplight, and when I see homeless people and the way they treat their body, I'm like, that's just a testament. This thing can be beat to hell and still be great. So yeah, you know, I don't pat myself on the back for getting through the pain. I just look at. It was an amazing opportunity for me to learn something that has been affecting a lot of people.
So you're working with the pain? Yeah. And when like at what point do things maybe started to feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel because how long was this recovery process?
Well it happened in October of 2007. Most of the trauma from my accident really didn't manifest until about Christmas time and it just slowly started coming. I was getting cramps in different areas and not really understanding what was happening. It really taught me this process that your body goes through a trauma, so I can understand that now when I speak with patients, I get, Oh, okay, you're in that zone. Wow, this is coming up. So it was really kind of a cool thing for me to be able to go back time and time again and think about the process that I went to. By late January/February was when I kind of had enough of the pain.
So I started thinking really outside the box. None of this stuff, none of my modalities at my office were working. I was working with heat all that shit. It just, I really was frustrated because that was what we were taught to use and they didn't really fix me. So I'm thinking I have all these patients coming in for these issues and I'm giving him these lame treatments, like I need something better.
Right.
So now you go into February, now it's 40 days, 45 days and be dealing with this pain three in the morning and you don't get 10 minutes of relief. And I had to sit with my right arm on my head to take the pressure off the nerve. That's the only relief I got. So it went down maybe three or four. So now I'm dealing with a six and I—any movement was like someone Jabbed me. So you get to this crazy moment where, you know, they say necessity is the mother of invention. That's what was, that's what it was. I needed something and I didn't care what it sounded like, I didn’t care what it looked like. The first one was actually right there.
Yeah, Dr Jason just pointed to, ah. I also feel like it's important to disclaim the circumstances of which this podcast is being recorded. I'm visiting Dr. Jason at his new headquarters here in Santa Monica. The computer and the microphone are on a treatment table. The microphones propped up on a No Bull sneaker box and we're surrounded by a bunch of different toys in here. Yeah. Okay. So you decide, you decide that what you're doing, whether it's like different strengthening exercises, different types of heat therapy, none of it's working.
Yeah. It was just dealing with the pain. I just wanted the pain to go away. I wasn't trying to bench more, curl more, run more. It wasn't that. That wasn’t the thought at the time. It just, it was one singular thing. I needed the pain to go away and how can I do that. I was introduced to vibration, obviously through school and as a therapist, you're introduced to that. But this 2007, I mean foam rolling still wasn't that big of a deal then/ So if you think about the tools that I had available to me as a regular consumer, let alone a chiropractor, there weren't that many. So I started using this product I had in my office that vibrated. It was a variable speeds and it did not have variable amplitude. Didn't understand what that meant.
I was going to say about the people at home don't understand what that means either.
Variable speeds, I can speed up the vibration. I could make it go faster or slower, but the amplitude meaning how far it would come off my body and then back onto my body. I couldn't. I couldn't change that. So it was measured in nanometers, which is like super, super small. So it's like taking like those things you get at Brookstone or something and putting in your body. It just doesn't have really a strength to it. So that's what I was using for awhile and that really got me thinking like this works, but it doesn't work good enough. So I realized really quickly I need something stronger. What does that mean? Well, I needed. I was getting variable speeds but I wasn't getting variable amplitude. Okay, I need better amplitude and I need something I can hold myself and I need something that's powerful enough that when I lean on it—because I needed the pressure up in my armpit—that it doesn't stop.
So other products out there would. I’d prop it up and I'd get lean on it and it would bottom out. I'm like, lame. That thing sucked. Like who thought of this? This feels good on my ... grandma. Right? She might like it, but it's ... I'm done with it after three seconds. So it just kind of this cycle of searching and searching and searching and with my background I worked with power tools, so I laid flooring when I was younger and my parents, we had a farm and I worked on tools and there's just this mentality of like “figure it out.” And also the time I was poor. I was broke. I didn't have money. So I thought well even if it's $400 or a thousand dollars, I don't have that. There must be something out there surely, but I can't afford it. I'll just make my own room. One night sitting in my apartment in Clover City, went out to my shed, pulled out all my tools, brought them in, sat him down, put my hand on my head because I couldn't move my arm and I made something. Put a couple of things together, used it a couple more times, don't. Okay. That one, yeah, there it is. Propped it up on my leg, but a book underneath it and just shoot the shit out of my body. And I realized that the more violent my body shook, the pain would go away. So I'd have these moments of like pain-free. I get goosebumps. I breathe. It was really weird, and I'm like, what the heck's going on here? Like I haven't felt that in forever. No. And it was such a relief that I was like, okay, that's it. So I would, I would do it and then shower because it gave me a few minutes to shower and not have the pain. I would do it in eat, I will do it and go to sleep as long as I could. So I started using it to address my pain to get through my day. And that's how it started.
So then really quickly, I'll have think you're probably going this direction kind of created the first one in February of 2008. The first version people think it was G1 but that was way later. And then in July of 2008 is when I was about 100 percent. I felt like, okay, I'm strong, there's no more pain. And I'd put it away. Like I was done with it. I did what I needed to do. It was kind of a selfish thing, but I put it away. Didn't think about it. A few months later I had a patient come into my practice, looked at his paperwork, looked at his injury, saw his MRI, and this guy was basically me. About the same age, had an automobile accident suffering from a nerve in his neck, his insurance sucked. He didn't make a lot of money, and I knew that if I didn't provide some way for him to be out of pain that this guy was going to suffer for a long time.
So I'm like, man, how do I tell this guy this? So brought him in his wife name and said, listen, I see what's going on here. And I explained to him how important it was to keep him out of that cycle of pain. Because when you're in the cycle of pain, I have to reach way down in there and pull you out. And as a chiropractor, I don't see you for like 15, 20 minutes a day. You have 23 and a half hours the rest of the day where you're suffering, and that's always going to win. So if I'm just trying to get you out of pain, I'm burning your money and you can do that. Right? So how about we get you get you out of pain so when you come in I can do some really good therapy
… and I think that that's like such an important take-away about like a great doctor because I can't tell you how many times I have been in and out of different physical therapist's office and and thought to myself that this feels like a massive waste of my time. And then I finally went to a physical therapist's office in New York City, Bespoke Treatments. I think, you know those guys as well. So Dan is a good friend of mine and his team there is excellent. It wasn't until I went to see Dan and he did like a few different things in one session and I walked into their office and I was like, that is what it's supposed to be. When you go to a physical therapist, they're supposed to give you homework, you're supposed to be able to do things on your own and they're supposed to teach you something. I had never felt like I really learned before when I walked into someone's office like that. So to hear you say that that's something that you prioritize, especially with your patients—I think that's so telling them the kind of person that you are.
Yeah, I guess that makes sense to me. I mean, why would I care more about your body than you do? Right. Like that's a lot of, that's a lot of disempowerment. So for me, and I've met Dan and I, it's really weird. We have these like kindred thoughts and spirits. He's a good dude, but I'm glad you experienced that because if you don't understand it until you have, when you do, it's like this kind of light bulb experience.
OK, so you have this man with his wife and your practice.
... and I explained it to him. She looks at me like, what are you nuts? And I, the next day I brought it back to the office and I share it with them and I showed him how to use it and I explained to him what he's doing at the time. Like it was a power tool, and I combined these two things and then made my own attachment and I use this little ball. There was a foam practice golf ball, you know, it's a little a rainbow, a cat toys, little foam ball.
That’s normal.
So I showed it to him, showed him how to use it. But what happened is he experienced the same thing that I did and I was like, wait, there's something to this. Fast forward now, thousands of people are doing it for the same reason.
… but my question to you is, obviously that doesn't happen overnight. No, these thousands of people don't just get a TheraGun in their hands, hands overnight. So how does one go from like this, this moment where you're this Aha moment to, all right, we're going to make this thing and we're going to make it something really great.
There's not one sentence to describe that. There's really not. I quit at least a dozen times. Fuck this. I don't have the time for this. This isn't going anywhere. You know, they say when you're the first to do something you’re crazy many times I was the crazy guy? Oh, you're that guy. You're the crazy chiro. That's the look I get. And it just, it was literally overcoming. And, and to be honest, dead honest, there's something about this thing that's bigger than me. It just pushed me and I couldn't sleep, I couldn't drive. It was always there like—don't let me go, don't let me go. And I would see it affect people's lives in such a positive way. That's what drove me.
I think it's really special, too. I had Sadie Lincoln on the podcast. She’s the founder of Barre3. She told me that when she finally concepted Barre3 in her head, she went into what she affectionately calls to be warrior state. And that's when you, your eye’s on the prize, you know you're doing the right thing. And when you've got that certain level of passion, it doesn't feel like work anymore.
No, it doesn't. And that's where I'm at now. I mean, I’ve had people say, how do you do that? Because I travel a lot. It's not work, swear to God, this is gonna seem super crazy, but I'm just sharing smiles. How’s that bad. Like it's not work. Travel sucks. Like in and out of airplanes with TSA and anyone that's in that industry is God bless them because that's a really tough thing, but it's what I'm doing is not work. It's the biggest blessing ever.
-- break --
I'm back here sitting down with Dr Jason Wersland. He is the creator of the TheraGun. So talk to me about how the first TheraGun really came to be like were you looking at prototype after prototype?
The first TheraGun was actually my fifth version. Technically we released it for sale the same time we launched the website which was in the middle of 2016, so may, June of 16. Then in August of 2017, release the G2. So we created what is now the g two that everyone knows. So it's the, it's the sixth version over all these years and it's just, it's been a work, a community product. That's why sometimes people like you did this. I've championed it a little bit, but man, I couldn't have done this without so much input. I mean, we have different attachments that were created for by friends of mine that were so cool and willing to just let me have the information to make that. So the fact that it has a 12-volt battery, that's definitely something I wanted, but to get the confirmation from other people that were using some of my first versions. Dude, the cord sucks. You need a battery. So you know, you asked like how did it get here? It was a lot of input, a lot of help and something in the universe that just wouldn't let me leave it.
So you're saying that not every TheraGun has like a rainbow cat toy on the end of it?
If you want one of those limited edition, I think we can make it happen.
I think it's important to note that. How much does the TheraGun retail for right now?
I think the G2 is $599.
I think that obviously with anything that costs a substantial amount of money and some people are going to look at that price and be like, wow, that's a lot, there's a barrier to entry of sorts, right? For someone that wants to benefit their mobility, what are some kind of easy suggestions you might have for someone who really can't afford a TheraGun.
Great question. There are other products out there that do provide vibrational therapy to your tissue in the body, and it responds to that. There's the constant pressure from foam rolling. Some people that have used the product for a while, we'll say this is foam rolling made easier without pain. So I think it's two parts. Number one is you're kind of using it in the same areas. The second thing is you're kind of looking for that same outcome. So I'm not a huge proponent of foam rolling because I think sometimes your margin for error is so high.
Why don't you really quickly, for someone that may never have picked up a foam roller, what is the goal?
Controlled trauma. What you're doing is that you're stimulating the body's natural response to either flushing out post-exercise toxins. I'm kind of working out what people referred to as trigger points or knots in their muscle and post-exercise pain. I'm super sore from riding a bike and doing a spinning class and I just want that pain to go away for a long time. Sure, foam rolling does that, it helps with that. So your controlled trauma is matching the muscle and the body recognizes that. So it sends these healing properties there to kinda help and heal it. There's some science that proves that vibration and percussion actually inhibit the Golgi tendon. I know it's a lot to science. The Golgi tendon is the white tissue of our body, which is what we feel when we're tight, when you like, wake up or you're getting ready to play or work out or something. That means the body's not mobile enough to move and feel safe. So how do I do that? Well, traditionally you would stretch and ride a bike and warm up and get your body moving and heat your tissue up so that you feel “ready.” There's some science coming out of the shows and static stretching actually isn't really good for our bodies and if you could provide some sort of mechanical stimulation, vibration, percussion, foam rolling, anything like that, you're going to help facilitate that range of motion increase and your body's ability to move better. So to answer your question directly, there are other products out there. There's one called the thumper that you can buy at a Brookstone. It has variable speeds. The thing that's really tough to duplicate is what we've found.
I always call it the secret sauce—the amplitude frequency and torque of our product. Right? So those three things combined are what really makes it. And I had to learn this, believe me.
Why is it important to be mobile in the first place? Like what does that do for you?
Well, the more mobile you are the more healthy you are. The less mobile you are, the more dead. You are. So I say mobility and balance. If you look at a little kid, 8-, 9-year-old kid who has his mobility and balance, that's healthy. Now you take a 90 year old person, they have the total opposite. Zero flexibility, zero mobility. They're closer to dying. So in my practice, that's usually what I would say to people. If you have balance and mobility, you're alive. The less amount of balance and mobility you have, the more dead you are. That's it. So my goal as a physician, as a chiropractor, as a health practitioner, is I want you to have more mobility and be more balanced.
I can tell that you really meant that because you were excited
I love it because it works. There's a way to do it.
Aside from mobility work, what do you think is a way that people are unintentionally neglecting their bodies on the regular.
So I think there's a big push right now, our lifestyles kind of support this high intensity training. So you have this 45 minutes. I'm going to go do this HIIT class, I'm going to do a Spin class, I'm going to run to this thing. We don't take the time to prepare our bodies for this high intensity training for however many minutes you're going to do that. And we don't take the time for our bodies to recover from that. So you just bolt out the class, take the class, and you're brought back to work. I showered, I got back in my desk or back to what I was doing in the time that I wanted to. So there's, there's all these things around us, the support that. But there's really been nothing to help treat ourselves. You have to, you have to schedule a massage. For the record, love massage therapists. This does not replace a massage therapist. There's something super valuable to having someone put their hands on you and move your tissues and touch you in a way that massage therapists can only do. You can't duplicate that. But this is something to kind of bridge the gap between those painful days where your shoulder might be sore and you don't have the time to see a massage therapist. To answer your question, I think nowadays it's the high intensity training that people are participating in and not taking the same amount of time to treat their bodies from the wear and tear it gets.
Totally answered my question. Speaking of wear and tear, I feel like you probably experienced that a fair amount because of your ridiculous travel schedule. So like, give me like a snippet of what you've been up to for the past month.
I was in Poland, Germany, France, New York. Got back, was home for a few days, like two days. And then I left for China. Actually Seoul, Korea. I was there for there for five days, Hong Kong for five days, Shanghai for three days, Beijing for five days, flew back, got back at 1:30 in the morning, and the next morning at seven I flew to hang out at our family farm. So it's been nonstop.
How do you find balance when you're constantly on the go like that?
You know, my, my form of meditation is working out. That's where I get a chance to just kind of let it go and breathe. I try to work out, I try to breathe. I have these little routines that I do. It really depends on what hotel I'm in, to be honest with you. I do Insanity as often as I can. You know, depending on the situation and where I'm at. I definitely don't do Insanity the day I'm going to travel because then I'm doing the exact thing I told you not to do.
So I stay active, you know, I try to, I try to eat right. I mean I’m a sweets guy. But I try to plan. Like, where am I going? What am I doing? How can I fit in a workout?
When you look back over the last 10 or so years, what has been some of the best advice that you've been given in your career?
Consistency. There's a post that The Rock put up that had something about the level of success as it’s relative to your ability to be consistent and that's hard. I feel like patience and consistency don't apply until you're over them. Like I'll be patient. Be patient. If you're impatient, be consistent. They wouldn't tell you to be consistent if you were inconsistent. it's doing it every single time. Like when I wake up in the morning I had to do what I had to do that day and I had to keep doing it and keep doing it. And when I tell you I quit a dozen times, there were days I'm like, screw this, I'm not doing this today. For some reason, that habit just jumping right back on a couple of days later and doing it again. So that was a good one. I've had some really good friends of mine that I looked to more like kind of spiritual guides, therapists and they've said, you know, you just have to listen to that voice inside and stay focused and believe and trust.
I met this kid in Seoul, Korea who asked me the same question. We're having dinner and he didn't want to hear the question. I just said, you have to keep going.
Why didn't he want to hear the answer?
Because it was, he was to the point, I can tell that he was worn out and he created something that he wanted to release and he kept putting his head against something and I didn't know that. I didn't know enough of his story, but as I was saying this, I see him tearing up and he was really emotionally responding to what I was saying and I asked him more about it and it was just—he's like, I knew you were gonna say that, I have to keep going.
I know obviously you're passionate about your product, but on those days that you felt like just so exhausted, what other factors in your life like really kept you going?
Kids for sure. That there's no way I was gonna let them down. I have to.
I need to fight back tears here.
Kids for sure and you know, setting a good example for them and this, there's something about it. I can't explain it. There's something about this thing that I couldn't shake, you know, I'd quit.
How did you come up with the name TheraGun?
I spent like, three or four years on names and I don't even want to tell you some of the names. One night I was sitting, I was working with a buddy of mine. We were in the SAG building on Wilshire and it was late one night. We were both in our offices working away, doing reporting and stuff and he yelled, I got it! He said come in here! I went running into his office and he's sitting there and he said it TheraGun and I was like, whoa.
I remember when I came up with Hurdle I was sitting in my apartment, not even thinking about the podcast. I was just talking about some stuff with a girlfriend and I looked at her with so much sincerity and I said, I just need to get over this hurdle.
I get that a lot. I totally understand you're talking about it.
It just happened. It was like, yup, that's it, and then all the other things started to happen that warrior state started to happen. It was like, alright, well now we've got a name. We're talking about hurdles, but like I care so much about health and wellness and I'm a certified personal trainer. This is what I'm good at. So I'm going to talk to people that care about wellness and we're going to talk about these hurdles and we're gonna get through them together and sit here and probably cry half the time and that's just what we're going to do.
I hear you. When you, when you hear that name and you get that feeling, it's undeniable. I get it.
If you have the opportunity to give someone a book, what books do you like to gift to?
The Secret? You remember that from a while ago, from a while ago, probably 10 years ago or so. The Secret is one that just talks about intention and how to live with intention and understanding how to work with within the powers of the universe because there are universal laws and just understanding of those things that to me is something that I always go back to it. I'm reading The 50th Law. I don't know if you've read that; a really cool book and inspirational book. The last person that I would have thought that would have written something like this, but it's a really cool book.
I feel like in conversation lately, 50 Cent has been coming up a bunch. I think it's actually because he's been on this episode of Million Dollar Listing that's been on repeat lately and so all of a sudden he’s relevant.
I didn't know that. People share books with me all the time and unfortunately I'm not a huge reader, but I love people that inspire you to just keep pushing forward. Totally. And trust the universe.
What's one of the most rewarding thing that has happened to you in the last couple of years with this new opportunity?
It's hard to say one thing because it, I just, I keep getting blessed and surprised and blessed and surprised, you know, the first time going to Moscow and thinking what the heck am I doing here? And then seeing that people knew what it was and they were so excited to see me and hear what I'm presenting about this new science. So it's, I'm serious. It's tough to answer that right now because I feel like my life is just an enormous amusement park and everywhere I turn is amazing experiences, but I think the most basic thing is everywhere I go, people smile. Like I treat them and they smile it. That's powerful. I get to work with amazing athletes like, you know, people that would be considered top in the world.
I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm one of the best athletes. I didn't want to say, I know you don't want to blow up my spot, but I hear you.
It's so powerful. I just thought of this, I think there's the things that ignite me are when I find some science validation because for the longest time I was crazy. Like there's no way. Kelly Starrett is a really well-known person in the wellness and the treatment field. He's a great guy and a lot of our paths criss cross and we've get chances to catch up and the last time he was just like, I love this analogy. He said if you're lighting a fire with a match and it keeps blowing out and I come over with a blowtorch and I liked that fire—do you care how it happened? No. It worked. Like what? Do I have to see and explain to you the science why have this torch and made that fire? I love his attitude. It gave me ... it really gave me strength to be like, really, you're gonna argue with me about this, put it on you and tell me it doesn't work. So it’s the little things like that really like, okay, that just pushed me into that next level
We talk about rewarding situations, but what has been one of the biggest failures that you've experienced that has really taught you one of the biggest lessons?
Unfortunately trusting people. That's probably been one of the toughest things. I would share stories or insight on things that I was doing and it would come back around eventually and get me. I don't know, that's a tough question really. It's, I think, I mean people don't know this, but I've been through four different partners and I've had to bail myself out with all of those partners. I mean the road to get to where I am now and what you see was not easy. It was, it was five hard years. I'm just figuring it out and grinding through and just kind of having it be my, your only resource, you know, it's just interesting how things work.
You have an opportunity to give yourself that guy immediately. Post-motorcycle accident. One piece of advice. What is the piece of advice that you give to him? Looking back on it now?
It's funny you asked that because I've had the opportunity and as a chiropractor you, I've had that opportunity and I see that look in people's eyes. The best thing I can do is give them faith. This isn't permanent, it's not going to last forever. Trust and that faith. Yeah.
[[break for tears]]
It's interesting because I feel like no matter what the hurdle is, it's like they all happen to teach us a lesson. Right? So when you look back on that accident and like how scary it was at times and how you were like, how am I going to be able to use my hands? How am I going to practice? I just spent the last three, four, five, six, eight years with this goal in mind. In seconds it's changed, but now—what you said that was 11 years ago, October 2007—11 years later we are sitting in your brand new office in Santa Monica and that's because you had the mental toughness to not only believe that you were going to get through that without getting surgery, which is bananas, but then continue on to keep your head up when you had this idea. You had faith that you could create a product that was epic. And that's dope.
Yeah. It's overwhelming. But it's a cool thing.
It's a cool thing. It's a cool thing that you get to help a lot of people.
That's a huge blessing.
Thank you. Thank you for sitting down with me.
No, thanks for doing this. This is really cool. I'm glad you're met in New York. It was kind of serendipitous.