She Built a Multi-Million Dollar Company From a Family Crisis | Catharine Arnston

Ryan Hanley: There was this little voice inside me that just said, you got to do something about this. I had no money, no education, but I just felt compelled to follow this little voice. And the trouble is there's so much noise in the marketplace and there's so many expectations, your friends, your parents, your fellow entrepreneurs, the government, the economy. And it's really easy to get pulled in so many different directions that you ultimately don't go anywhere. My suggestion, just turn everything off. Don't listen to anybody for any reason except yourself.

Catharine Arnston: I think that as an entrepreneur, we all know that you have too much to accomplish and not enough time to do it in. And so burnout is pretty easy to hit. And what I like to try to help people learn to do at least from a nutritional perspective and the algae is how not to get burned out because ultimately being an entrepreneur I feel is a marathon not a sprint and particularly if you're building a brand you can't build a brand overnight so finding ways to accomplish your goal and not burn and not die in the process.

Ryan Hanley: Yes. Because I saw a quote recently that really resonated with me. Whether you're an entrepreneur or you have a vision, it's about being of service, but it's not about servitude. And so I think in many cases, those of us with a big vision end up sliding into the servitude because we do have to sacrifice stuff. But you don't have to get to servitude. You need to pull it back to service and be realistic about what it's going to take so that you don't give up.

Catharine Arnston: Well, I think that's a wonderful place to begin. How did you get into this space to begin with? Energy bits, building this business, focusing on this particular topic. As a little girl growing up, this was your wildest dream. So what was the journey that got you there?

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, well, I knew as much about algae as anybody else that currently does, which is zero. Why would I? And I'm Canadian by birth and I mentioned that because all my education was there and I was pursuing a business career. I had an MBA. I have an MBA. And I only fell into this because my younger sister who I'm very close to in Canada developed breast cancer and her oncologist told her to change her diet to an alkaline diet because it would help with her healing. Didn't tell her what it was or why specifically it was good for her. So I'm just a good researcher and I love my sister. So she said, what's an alkaline diet? And I don't know, but I found out. Like that's what any entrepreneur would do. Hey, give me a problem, I'll solve it for you.

And so as I found foods for her, it led me to algae. Well, actually it was a plant-based diet because of the phytonutrients and the chlorophyll that build your immune system. And there's a lot of other sort of nuances. But this was 17 years ago, plant-based nutrition wasn't on anybody's radar. I think I do believe honestly that sometimes being an entrepreneur is just part of your DNA. I've just always been a problem solver, get out there and make it happen kind of person. So when I learned about all the powerful nutrients in plants, I thought somebody needs to tell the world. And it made no sense to me, but I decided I was going to be the one to do that. I had no money, no education, no nutrition education whatsoever, but I've always been very passionate about my choices. So I had passion in spades and went to school, got a health coaching certificate, tried to get people to learn about the importance of eating vegetables. Of course, every mother has been trying to tell their children that. So when I saw how difficult it was for people to eat vegetables, but I saw the science of how important it was, again, my little entrepreneurial brain said, you can find a solution. We don't know what it's going to be, but you can find a solution. That's what an entrepreneur does. They don't have the answers, but they have the desire to find them. That's the difference between just your average person and an entrepreneur. Everybody can know that they don't know stuff, but the entrepreneur says, I got to do something and they will find the solution.

So I just dug into everything I found for my sister when I was helping her. And when I got to algae, it turned out it was the most nutrient-dense food in the world, documented in 100,000 studies for all the health benefits from increased energy, increased focus, reduced diabetes, reduced any kind of chronic disease, et cetera. It's been used safely for 60 years in Asia, where it's a multi-billion dollar agricultural crop. They take it every day there. It's been endorsed by NASA, United Nations. The only problem with algae, so it seemed, was twofold. The quality of it sold in America was not very high because it was mostly grown in China and India, and nobody knew about it. Nobody knew what it did, nobody had been educated. So I decided I would do that. And that was basically 15 years ago.

I have since then poured myself into the science, understanding what this stuff is, why it works so well, why does it give people energy, why does it stop them from being sick, why does it improve their longevity, their efficacy, their sports performance. Why, why, why, why? And I have all the answers now and it's all science-based. But then in the process, I decided, well, it's not enough to know the answers. You have to help people understand the answers, understand why this is good for them. So then I had to pursue all the branding and the social media and the marketing. And that's what you do when you're an entrepreneur. Every time you hit a roadblock, I won all sorts of awards. I was on Shark Tank. I won a national award from Entrepreneur Magazine, same award that Daniel Lubetzky won from Kind Bars. But if you can't get people to understand your product and understand your message, having a solution isn't enough. You have to move it out into the marketplace.

And so entrepreneurs, we need to teach ourselves. We have to always realize we have a blind spot here, we have a blind spot there, and then pursue whatever avenue you need to follow to resolve the blind spot. I had to teach myself supply chain management, I had to teach myself graphic design, package design, management, finance. Yes, I have an MBA, but certainly not in finance. So this is the hallmark of an entrepreneur. You have an idea and you realize there's a lot of stuff you have to do to get the idea out to the marketplace, but you just hunker yourself down and you just tackle one problem after another. And the difference with me and many entrepreneurs may be the same is I didn't have any funding. We're completely self-funded, bootstrapped. And so in a bigger organization or one that is funded well, you might hire one person to do the marketing and somebody else to do the supply chain, somebody else to do the graphic design, somebody else. And so you all work together simultaneously to take this thing to market. When you're a solo entrepreneur, you don't have the luxury of all that. So I had to do everything myself. Sometimes I had to do it in consecutive. First, get the science, then get the package, get the product, get the branding. And now, after 15 years, it's finally all blending together. But it's because I refused to give up, because I saw what was needed. And while the market was not aware they needed it, I knew they needed it. And it was proven in other markets around the world what this stuff did and how big it grew as an opportunity.

And I remind my consumers when I'm on consumer podcasts and entrepreneurs, you need to do the same thing. There are other precedents in my situation, not for algae, but people didn't know about chia or matcha or quinoa or bone broth or lots of other healthy things that had been around in other countries for centuries. And with entrepreneurs, you do need to do a little reality test to find out, is this thing that you have as a dream that you think is going to change people's lives, is it legitimate? Has it been used in another form? Maybe another country for another reason? And if you get to yes, then your challenge is how to take that knowledge and reinterpret it for, in this case, the American marketplace. North America is different from China, is different from South America. So you have to be prepared to know that you have a lot of work to do.

Catharine Arnston: Yeah. And not be dismayed by it, but be fueled by it, by the challenge. Look, I did it. Somebody gets it.

Ryan Hanley: So there's a lot to unpack there, but that was amazing. One spot that I'm really interested in is, so you're driven by love for your sister and to go out and find the solution and to help her and support her. So you develop an interest in the topic. And a lot of people develop interest in a lot of topics. However, as I think you rightly pointed out, how the entrepreneur sees the world is through this filter of curiosity where it's not just interest, but it's taking it a step deeper. So how did you, or explain your process or maybe even looking back how you would recommend today, how someone who has the true entrepreneurial spirit is looking at their set of interests that they may have or an interest, how do you determine, okay, this particular interest has the potential of becoming a product. That's a big leap, oftentimes a leap of faith in some regards.

Catharine Arnston: Oh, it was a huge leap of faith for me. Absolutely.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. So I'd love for you to talk through that transition from interest and developing knowledge and expertise in a field or an activity or a product to actually productizing it and turning it into something you can sell.

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Catharine Arnston: Well, the leap of faith was huge. And I'm just explaining what happened to me. And so there was this little voice inside me that just said, you got to do something about this. I had, remember, I had no money, no education, but I just felt compelled to follow this little voice. And the trouble is we are, there's so much noise in the marketplace and there's so many expectations, your friends, your parents, your fellow entrepreneurs, the government, the economy. And it's really easy to get pulled in so many different directions that you ultimately don't go anywhere. You get into a freeze state. And so my suggestion for those who are interested in following the way I did it was just turn everything off. Don't listen to anybody for any reason except yourself, but be aware that you have to listen closely to what makes you feel peaceful and joyful and energized. And not from an egotistical way, because I would tell people, your ego will shout, your soul will always whisper. And even if it doesn't make any sense, I would urge people to listen to that, because that's truth speaking through you and to you. If you want to do something because you want to show off to your big brother, or you want to show off to somebody, that's your ego. And so you have to really honor why it is you want to do what you want to do. And if it's from a good place and from the heart and from integrity, I say, go for it, but be aware it could be quite a journey.

And I used to speak at conferences for entrepreneurs. And I used to also say, you have to decide when you start a company and there's no wrong answer. Do you want to start the company because you want to sell stuff or because you want to build a brand? Building a brand is so hard. And the analogy I make is selling stuff is kind of like speed dating, very transactional, nothing wrong with it. And maybe you transact, transact, and then you sell the company and you maybe do it again. Building a brand is like falling in love. It's a lot of work. It takes a lot of time. You have to build trust. You have to keep showing up over and over and over again. It's not transactional. I decided I wanted to build a brand because building a brand is also about building a community. And that takes time. It's like raising a family takes time. Your kids have to trust you. So there's no wrong answer, but it will change the trajectory and your choices, depending on whether you want to just be transactional and sell stuff and then flip it, or you want to build a brand. And so building a brand is a marathon. Selling stuff is a sprint. And so it requires different activities, different speed levels. So for me, I was building a brand and I knew it was going to take a long time. I had no idea it would take quite this long. I figured, you know, five, maybe 10 years and I'm into 15 and we're just really starting to see a lot of wind beneath our wings. And we've been doubling revenue every year for the last four years. So what got me going was being able to shut out all the noise, all the expectations from my family, my friends, the media, and quietly sit with why I wanted to do this particular thing. And I will tell you, that's kept me going all of these years through the difficult times. And I not once ever thought of giving up. Not once. People ask me that all the time. When did you want to throw in the towel? Never, not once.

Ryan Hanley: Do you think that if you had decided early on, hey, I'm just going to productize this and go the transactional path, do you think that that path is easier to give up on than if you're going to brand? I guess what I'm saying is, if you're pouring your heart and soul into a brand, does that create more of a feeling of connection and an ability to ride out the downturns? Or does it not really matter? Do you understand what I'm saying?

Catharine Arnston: Yeah, I think it totally changes things. Because if it's transactional and selling stuff, you make short-term decisions and it's like following the stock market and doing daily trades. And so it's very cyclical emotionally as well as financially. And I think it drives you to make some poor decisions because you're on such a tight timeline, which is unfair to yourself, quite honestly. Because whatever plan you have, I promise you it will take at least five times longer than you think because you're passionate about it. But remember, whether it's consumer or B2B, all those businesses, all those people, their lives are already full. Is there room for one more new idea? And if so, how do you get your one idea noticed more than the other millions of one ideas that are trying to get noticed? And so if you are deciding that it's a brand, it takes the pressure off of you from saying, I didn't achieve my goal this week or this month. But if you know it's part of the long plan, when things don't work out, you go, well, it wasn't a disaster. I learned from it. And then you go back and you try again with a slightly different approach. But if you're so transactional and put yourself under such pressure, your health suffers, your mental health suffers, your physical health suffers, your family suffers. And again, this wasn't about servitude. Suffering shouldn't have to be a daily diet. Yes, there's some compromises, but you should still be enjoying the process. And if there isn't, and if your enjoyment, sort of like relationships, if you're in a relationship and slowly there's more unhappy moments than happy moments, then maybe it's time to exit. And a business is the same way. If it's not giving you the joy, maybe either your approach to it needs some adjustment, or maybe it's just not the right one or the right time.

Ryan Hanley: So you brought up a really interesting point that I wanted to double click on, which is this idea of your idea is really just one idea of many in someone's life. And I think oftentimes when I do a lot of coaching of startup founders and leaders, when they're very early, it's tough for them to wrap their head around this idea that you brought up, which is you're not just bringing this new thing to market and it's additive to everyone's life. We all often are maxed on the number of brain cycles that we spend in a day. And what essentially you have to do is give your consumer, customer, client, et cetera, a reason to remove one thing from their life and insert yours.

Catharine Arnston: Exactly. And to me, and this is why I love you. So it's a two-step process.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, go ahead.

Catharine Arnston: No, please.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, so it's not just telling them about you. You have to tell them about you. Then they have to think, well, that's sort of interesting, but then I have to remove that. And what are the implications of that, both financially, emotionally, lifestyle? There's a million decisions. This is why it's so hard for people to change, to make changes in their life, whether it's their diet, their lifestyle, where they live. And so it's way more than just marketing to them. Or in my case, we educate, we try not to say we market, because that means they have to change something else to make room for this new concept, this new product, how they're going to do it. It's peeling an onion. It's not just here I am, buy me. It's here I am. How am I better than that? So here's my other suggestion to entrepreneurs. Go where the market you are a need to have, not a nice to have. And it has taken us a long time to find our sweet spot for the customer because they tend to be 40 and over because after 40, this is when they're having health issues. They are very motivated to unwind those health issues, whether it's diabetes, brain fog, weight gain, heart disease, cancer. Very motivated. When you're younger, you think you're impenetrable, like everything's going great. It will always go great. Well, it doesn't work that way. You hate to tell people.

So we have doubled down in this particular age group because they respond best to our product and our message. And the other thing you have to realize, whether you're a company or a product, there's a classic cycle. You have early adopters and you could be in the early adopter stage for one year or for 10 years or forever. But if it catches on, then you start going up the scale where you get into the main, the larger audience, whether again, it's B2B or B2C. And as you move up that cycle, your messaging changes, the distribution models for your messaging changes. But when you're in the early adopter stage, you have to stay very focused on those early adopters and get the ones that need your product because that's the only way to sustain yourself. And you'll learn from them too. They'll tell you things that will actually improve whatever it is you're doing, whether it's the packaging or the messaging or the blend of the product. But you have to be prepared for that cycle and be needed.

Ryan Hanley: There's a great book, I don't know if you've read it, which describes from a tech perspective the cycle that you're describing. I have it on my shelf. It's called Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore.

Catharine Arnston: Oh, yeah, I think I've read it years ago.

Ryan Hanley: And what it does, and I promise there's a question in this little diatribe, so bear with me for just a second. What he explains in that book is what he calls the chasm. You have your early adopters and your innovators, and that's on the left side of the curve that you're describing. Those are the people who they just, they've been dying for a new algae-based longevity product. They try everything. They got a cabinet full of supplements.

Catharine Arnston: The biohackers for us, yeah.

Ryan Hanley: Yes, the biohackers. They've asked me, crowd. And you realize that your product and market, for whatever reason, it's working with them, and that's great. And then as you discussed, there's this chasm from those individuals to the standard 47-year-old guy or gal who is looking to maybe they just went pre-diabetic and they're looking for some natural solutions to help with that. And now, as you mentioned, maybe your messaging has to change to get to them. And then here's where my question lies. I have found that a lot of entrepreneurs, and this is not just mine, this is as long as we've been talking about entrepreneurship, this has been a problem. How do you maintain your relationship with those innovators and early adopters while messaging to and starting to bring in that early majority and late majority consumer which takes your business to the next level? Because I know a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that because they feel like they're going to lose those people who got them there if they start to transition to that other group. Does that make sense?

Catharine Arnston: Yeah, it's a great question. And it's a very big issue. And I've struggled with it as well. And so here's how I've managed it. First of all, for probably for the first seven years, six years, I was just by myself, just me. And then for the first eight years, I started hiring interns. Of course, I had to teach them everything. So they really didn't know anything except what I taught them. So for literally the first 10, it was me in a, but I was still sort of quote, a solopreneur. Once you start making traction in the marketplace, you have to change your management style and become a leader because now you are delegating and leading people who have expertise in areas that you didn't have or didn't have enough of. And this coincides exactly with what you're talking about, because I dove into the science because I was determined to give my biohacker community the hardcore science. In fact, I taught myself everything, but then I got my PhD last year in natural health. But so I was so married with the science and they loved the science. But as we started growing and reaching more general consumers, they didn't know the science. They didn't really want the science. They just want to know that it worked. And so I had to start hiring people who were experts in the more consumer marketing area to who would massage my science into a more general message so that we could communicate to them. I continued with the hardcore science because it also gave me insights that could then be massaged into the more general stuff. But it was a very difficult transition because you're transitioning from doing everything yourself, owning everything, and of course that's seven days a week, 12 hours days, to then managing. First of all, finding the right people, managing them, giving them the bandwidth to do stuff without you. For an entrepreneur, it is very hard to let go of the reins so that you can start building.

And the way we did that, just so you know, I recorded 200, and I'm going to do another 100, one-minute videos that we run on our website, Instagram, everywhere. One minute, maybe a couple or a minute and a half on algae for brain health, algae for gut health. You have to think. I have 15 years of research, and I was creating one-minute videos because I had to, I don't want to say dumb them down, but I had to neutralize them so they would be impactful for someone who didn't want that much science. So A, it's learning how to hire in these areas that will address consumer. We started doing retargeting and we'd never done any advertising for 13 of the 15 years, no advertising ever. But I got the word out about my products and what it did through podcasts. I've been on 350 podcasts, maybe 400 by now. So that was how we generally built the awareness on the science. But to get it to the larger group, we had to trim down the science, hire people that had more of a consumer marketing approach, do consumer events, make it more playful. Consumers want things to be playful, fun, beautiful graphics. Science-based people want stuff to be really serious and very detailed. So they're completely opposite. So you have to observe where you are on that growth plane and start creating new content for the new audience. Being aware it's going to take you a while. I mean, I have some videos of those little one minute videos on TikTok that have 3 million views. So somebody seems to be connecting with it, but it takes longer when you're doing consumer because now you may not be a need to have like you are for your early adopters. So you have to build that into your schedule of planned success.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, I think that's, I really like that where you went with that was outsourcing that expertise. Because I think a lot of people flail there and they think that their nerdiness for the topic that generated them so much interest in innovators and early adopters is going to automatically translate to that bigger community. And I think that advice you gave is absolutely worth its weight in gold. And guys listening, like this is really important because I think we all get stuck here. We get stuck in our zone of genius and think that everyone who ever buys our product is going to want to be as nerdy about it as we are. It's like, no, your nerdiness is the reason you created the product. That doesn't mean people who just want to go, you know what? My doctor said I need to get some more phytonutrients in my body and algae is the best form. I ChatGPT'd it. It said it's the best form. I'm like, this seems like a good product. They can still be a customer of yours and have no deeper information than that.

Catharine Arnston: That's right. And get all the benefit from it. And it's a skill. And I think that's a wonderful way of approaching it. And I'm really glad you went there. I'd like to make a suggestion. If anyone, I think it's on, it's not Netflix. I'm trying to remember the movie. Anyways, the movie is called Very Ralph. And it's the documentary about Ralph Lauren. And I loved it because, Grant, he's in fashion, of course, but all the things that he experienced were exactly what I was experiencing. He started with making ties himself. Why ties? Because it was very European. And of course at that time in the 40s, everyone in America was wearing skinny ties. And he tried to get into Bloomingdale's. Long story short, he eventually hired all designers. He had the eye. So his eye for excellence in design got him started. But when he started actually making clothes and expanding, he outsourced everything. Well, he hired designers. But it was him that made the final choices. And he built an empire based on understanding his customer and what they were trying to achieve in their lifestyle. It's an absolutely fabulous film. I saw it on an airplane. Very Ralph. Please go and watch it. It's very entertaining.

Ryan Hanley: We'll find it, and I'll have it linked up below in the description, whether you're watching on YouTube or wherever you're listening to the podcast because that's a wonderful take. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs that I meet, I'll ask them, like, what's the last documentary, business or otherwise, that you watched? And I find a lot of people will listen to podcasts for hours and hours, yet they'll completely skip biographical books or autobiographical books from people who have done what they're trying to do. Or they won't watch any documentaries around the topic or the ideas that they're trying to do. And there's so much to be extracted from these stories. And Damon John is a very similar thing. He started making hats, was literally sewing patches on hats himself and then going out on street corners and selling, and then that turned into shirts, which turned into jeans. And his story is his story. But it's this idea of being able to bring in outside help. And to your point, understand what your customers want.

Why do you feel, I feel this, I'll say, I feel that once we get past the early adopter phase of our business, many entrepreneurs lose sight of who their customers actually are. How do you continue to stay tapped into not just the nerdy innovators who want to go deep into the science of your product but how do you also stay connected to that next version who is just a 45 year old CEO who wants to feel a little better and is looking for an easy way of getting some extra phytonutrients into their body? How do you stay connected with that individual as their need changes as well?

Catharine Arnston: Yeah, well, that's a great question too. And so my answer is you have to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. So that means you constantly have to be pushing yourself out there into markets that you know nothing about, so that you can see how they operate and see where you fit in.

So you mentioned the CEO, whether it's an entrepreneur or whatever. We just launched a new program for executive wellness because the reality is once you become an executive at a company, small or large, particularly large ones, you're probably 50 or 60, and I can promise you you have chronic health conditions. When you have a chronic disease, whether it's heart disease, cancer, diabetes, it's not only your big problem, it's the company's problem too. If you're an executive and they lose you for two weeks, two months, two years, it's hard on the company.

So I created an executive wellness program from scratch that we're going to start pushing out. We've got three events coming up in the next four months, and we'll see what happens. But you have to keep going out there. I mentioned I was Canadian. I'm also a middle child. Anybody who's a middle child knows that middle children and actually Canadians are very subdued. We don't like the attention. We're not big, bold chest pounders. But I have had to push myself out there and learn how to be in the spotlight because people resonate with me. They like my presentations.

I've just hired a new role called Chief of Staff. They're going to get me on bigger stages, TV, because I have to be an entity. I have to be a brand myself, which is nothing I've ever wanted. I've never wanted to be famous. Maybe some people do. I never did. But I had to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable because I will do anything to grow my company. Well, within what's legal.

Ryan Hanley: And you won't get caught for it at least.

Catharine Arnston: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan Hanley: I'm joking, I'm joking.

Catharine Arnston: You do something and then you beg for forgiveness afterwards. So you have to just keep saying, well, who else needs this? And where do I find them? And how will I find them? And you just have to go out a lot and experiment with things. So that's what I've been doing, constantly trying new market segments. Some will work out, some won't. And observing what other brands in the larger audiences are doing.

I'm not a Kardashian. I'll never be a Kardashian. But they've had huge success with Skims, and they bring tens of millions of followers wherever they go. We don't have that kind of following. But there are lots of other consumer brands I respect, like Alo, the fitness company, or places like Oura Ring, and I observe what they're doing. How do they communicate?

I will say when you go into the consumer market, your marketing materials need to be as short as possible. We're talking two to five words. When you're in the medical area like we are, it's the opposite. You need lots of detail. We still do the medically related work with the American Naturopathic Medical Association. We do lots of holistic health. When I go to one of those shows, all the vendors' booths are loaded with literature. You can't read anything because there's too much of everything. I can tell they're never going to make it in the consumer world.

When we go, we stand out because we've now crafted consumer branding. Look at Nike, look at Apple. How many words are on their ads? One or two? Granted, they're multi-billion dollar companies, but they understand that consumers have a very limited time span and they're bombarded with so much. With consumers, you need to give them beautiful images and very little text. It's the opposite when you're doing something technical or scientific. You have to be able to do both if you want to go into both markets. It's hard.

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Ryan Hanley: So I want to change directions a little bit because one of the mantras of this show is your health is a competitive advantage in business. Health and fitness is very important to me, and I am absolutely a dabbler. I am one of those people who has a cabinet full of half-full supplement bottles from things I tried and was like, "Nah, this is nonsense." For some reason, almost like a warning graveyard, I keep those half-full bottles on the second shelf. It's a reminder: don't be a moron and keep buying things. For some reason, Instagram around 9:45 PM has me dialed on supplement marketing. It's like it knows that's a weak point for me.

But that all being said, I'm super interested in what your product does. I'm 44 years old going on 45. Just to give you context, I was an athlete my entire life, then let myself go. In 2017, I had a major incident. I essentially passed out before a speaking engagement. Dehydrated, stressed, not taking care of myself. Probably 25 pounds overweight, drinking too much, poor diet, not exercising enough, overstressed, no mental health regime whatsoever. The stress of the moment put me on the ground before I walked out. Thank God I was able to pull myself together and at least perform the gig. Although I would tell you it's bottom three of all the performances I've ever given for obvious reasons. I got it done, but I said to myself, this can never happen again. I'm in my mid-30s. There's literally no reason for me being in this place.

Since that time, I have been very focused on physical fitness. As I've shared on the show many times, I view that very much as a competitive advantage. I can get up early. I can stay up late if I need to. I can go an entire day if needed. Obviously, I don't recommend that for people. I think the whole hustle culture grind is a very tiny, small window of a season in growing a business. If you are continuing to live that lifestyle post that very small initial phase, you're most likely doing something wrong. It doesn't mean you don't have to work hard, but you get my point.

I'm very much in a healthy... I like the word "harmony." Finding harmony in your life. Balance is a tough word, but harmony is what I'm trying to go for. All that being said, I look at what you've created. There's one piece I'm very interested in. It's a very recent post on your Instagram channel, which guys, I'll have linked up. In the research I've been doing recently, I'm very dialed into this idea that a large part of our aging and energy loss is a lack of performance from our mitochondria. From the tiny bit that I know versus you about algae in particular, it's food for mitochondria. I'd love for you to start in that idea and then we can go wherever you like. This is mostly a selfish question.

Catharine Arnston: Yeah, no, it's great. The pharmaceutical industry is spending billions of dollars to figure out how to fix, repair, and protect the mitochondria. If people don't know what mitochondria are, they're in all of your cells and they effectively generate what's called cellular energy, also known as ATP. The analogy I make for people is that in a building, you can't do any work if you don't have lights. If you have a storm or your lights go out, you're stuck. You call maintenance and they come and repair the lights. So you're good on the building.

In your body, these things called mitochondria are not just the lights. They're also the electricity. They're the source of electricity and they generate all of your cellular energy. When I say cellular energy, it's not energy for running to the store or doing a great workout. It's your neurotransmitters, your lymphatic system, your heartbeat, your lungs, your digestive system, your metabolics. Everything requires cellular energy. If you have less cellular energy, it doesn't take a genius to figure out nothing's going to work very well.

The trouble is, as you get older, these little mitochondria inside your cells get damaged easier and they die. It's like having your lights go out. When your lights go out, you obviously have less energy. This contributes to brain fog, weight gain, heart disease, because these little mitochondria are just gone. It's documented in science that after 40, you have fewer and fewer mitochondria, and the ones that are there are damaged. It's called mitochondrial dysfunction.

I tell people I never eat alone. I always eat with my mitochondria because they're affected by the food that you give them and the nutrients that they get from you. There are a number of things that happen in the mitochondria. They have their own DNA, by the way. Most people don't know this. We have our regular DNA, 22,000 of those, and they last a lifetime. Your mitochondrial DNA lasts an average of 10 days. Why? Because a byproduct of this stuff called cellular energy, ATP, are free radicals. Free radicals are very damaging. You've heard of antioxidants. Normally, antioxidants have extra electrons that neutralize free radicals.

But in the mitochondria, that's the only cell in your body... and by the way, you have 2 million mitochondria per cell in your brain. Think about that. 2 million mitochondria per cell in your brain. There are like 5 million in your heart. Anyway, when they get damaged or when there are all these free radicals, the mitochondrial DNA is located right where the free radicals are. They're getting fried all the time. Antioxidants can't get in there normally because it has two membranes. It's like being in the ICU unit. Normally, antioxidants can get into a regular cell and get out, just like proteins can. With mitochondria, there are two membranes. I can tell you where the second membrane came from. It's all evolutionary science. But it prevents virtually all antioxidants from getting in there.

There are a few that can. One is chlorophyll. One is glutathione. And the master one is called... it's a long word, sorry about it... superoxide dismutase, also known as SOD. It gets into the inner membrane of the mitochondria and neutralizes the free radicals so they don't harm the mitochondria. The good news is your body makes this stuff for you from the moment you're born, just like it makes melatonin and hormones. But after the age of 30, eventually 40, your body slows down the production of this stuff called SOD until you hit 40 and then 45. So you're right at the cusp, Ryan, and you basically have none.

The best way I describe to people what this SOD, superoxide dismutase, does for you: you've all seen those golf umbrellas, right? They're ginormous. Whether you're golfing or shopping and you get stuck in a rainstorm, you pop that thing up, boom, you could get like 10 people under one of those golf umbrellas. You haven't stopped the rain, but you've stopped getting wet. Superoxide dismutase is the same way. It doesn't stop the reign of free radicals, which are a natural byproduct of ATP production, but it converts them to oxygen and water. So it protects the mitochondria from damage.

That works for you from the moment you're born till 30. By the time you're 40, that golf umbrella is about the size of a Totes umbrella. By the time you're 45 and then 50, it's about the size of a cocktail umbrella. The free radicals never stopped, but now they are hitting the mitochondria and they are dying and getting damaged. So you have less energy to think. You have less energy to fight diseases. You have less energy to get your metabolic health working. Nothing works properly.

The unfortunate news is this stuff called superoxide dismutase isn't found in any other food in medicinal quantities. There's a small amount in wheatgrass, but it gets damaged in the stomach lining. The highest concentration is found in both spirulina and chlorella, particularly spirulina, which is a blue-green algae. It's so helpful because as soon as you start taking this stuff, all the nutrients... it has the highest protein in the world, three times the amount of protein in steak, 40 vitamins and minerals. But it has this critical antioxidant that gets back into your system and literally turns the lights back on because it stops the free radicals. It neutralizes them so the mitochondria are protected and they can grow back. As soon as they start growing back, your lights come back on.

For women, a lot of it is brain fog. This is why women also suffer more from dementia and Alzheimer's. For men, it could be more physical. It could be anything. But as long as your mitochondria are working again, so are you. They keep you alive. So you need to keep them alive, but there's nothing on the market that I'm aware of that is as effective as spirulina and this particular antioxidant. We've done all kinds of little small clinical trials ourselves. By the way, there are 25 studies documenting the importance of superoxide dismutase for protecting your mitochondria, reducing inflammation, protecting your brain, preventing heart disease. It's a goldmine in terms of protecting your longevity and your energy.

I don't know if you're aware of my age, but I'm now entering my 70th. I mean, I just turned 69 last week. And I got my PhD last year.

Ryan Hanley: You look phenomenal. I don't mean that in a... I mean that in the most... you look amazing for...

Catharine Arnston: I know, right? I got to get him on some Spirulina.

Ryan Hanley: I tell you, for men, by the way, your hair grows so...

Catharine Arnston: This is all my own hair. There are no extensions. I don't use Botox. This is my own skin. This is my own teeth. I sleep well. I poop well. I know it's a sample size of one, but I take no medications. I take no other supplements. I was like you, Ryan, when I first started health coaching. I bought everything. In fact, it was funny because I used to have a microwave, but I never used it. So I used to put all my supplements on that little spinny thing in the microwave. Finally, I decided I'm not taking them anymore. I don't need them. So it simplifies your life.

Algae tablets are food. It's a whole food. It's not a supplement. Supplements are made from extracts, and they're made in factories with high heat, which deactivates most of the nutrients. What makes us special is we don't use high heat, so we preserve this particular antioxidant and pigments. Most of the other cheaper ones use high heat to dry it because they're cheaper, so they have to get to market quickly.

It's amazing what this stuff does, and it's very unknown outside of the medical pharmaceutical community, but I'm doing everything I can to help people. I say SOD is your SOS because it literally protects your mitochondria from damage and helps it regrow. There's obviously more science in there, but that's basically the bottom line. And you'll feel the impact. We call our Spirulina ENERGYbits because it gives you energy mentally and physically. In half an hour, you'll feel more alert. It doesn't take long.

Ryan Hanley: I love that you have mentioned multiple times brain fog. I think for a lot of people, especially when they hit 40 and get into their mid-forties in particular, brain fog is something that they start to live with. They just think, "This is just what it is now. It takes me a while to get going in the morning." You hear all these sayings and glib cliches that people throw out. I've said it on the show a million times: I refuse to go quietly into the night. I am going to fight aging kicking and screaming. I don't mean from a robotic, plastic kind of way. I mean taking just a small amount of time to do research, to try things, and to start natural.

This is the part that drives me crazy. I do take some supplements. I don't take a ton. I try a lot, but I keep it to a minimum as much as I can. I always try to go natural first. I had this experience recently, and I did share it on the show, where I had this testosterone scare. It was like I ran into a vat of molasses. No energy, no libido, brain fog. I didn't recognize myself. I went and saw my doctor. She said, "Well, it could be a bunch of things. Weren't you diagnosed with ADHD?" I was at that time. I wasn't taking any medication. She said, "Let's get you on Adderall. And I think it might have something to do with your cholesterol," which my cholesterol is genetically high. "Let's get you on Lipitor."

I'm like, wait a minute. Your recommendation for my... and I'm not trying to knock my GP, but this is the experience a lot of people have. If they're not crazy like you and I and like to dive deep into the research, if I didn't know, I would have said, "Hey, maybe this is the answer. Let me just pop some Adderall and Lipitor and I'll feel fine." And I wouldn't have. My point in saying that is... I'm very interested in your thoughts on maybe a better way of positioning this. Maybe not "why aren't people taught natural ways of solving," but how do people who are interested in ENERGYbits but also want to take that journey further into other places of natural ways of getting... how do they go down this journey?

If someone came to you and said, "I want to go down, maybe not quite as deep as you did, but I want to follow your rabbit hole," how do they get this education into their life? How do they know who to trust on some of this stuff? Obviously, you have proven in spades, not only in your marketing but just in the time we've been together, how knowledgeable you are. But there are a lot of brands out there that you just have no idea. Maybe you hit Amazon and it says so-and-so and you don't know what you're buying. How do you figure out where to go with this stuff?

Catharine Arnston: Yeah, it's very tough. A couple of things. There are associations. Functional medicine is a term used to describe physicians who have been taught to use food and herbs as the first line of defense, not medicines. You can go to the Institute for Functional Medicine. You can Google their website and you'll start to see some of the key doctors that are referenced, like Dr. Mark Hyman is very, very reliable. You can go to different shows like the Dave Asprey biohacking show or the American Naturopath show. You don't have to actually go to the show. You could just go on the association and start seeing what names are being featured.

I would suggest go to Amazon and buy their books and teach yourself some of what they're speaking about at these expensive conferences. You can spend $22 on a book and learn a lot. I need to write my book. Or you could just go online and Google their name and start reading their blogs and see what topics come out. If you want to go deeper down the rabbit hole, there's something called PubMed, where there are millions of scientific papers about millions of topics. That's how I taught everything I know, really. It's very time consuming. But if you want to go down that route, you could do that.

You could go online and Google the doctors, get their books, just like you taught yourself business. There are endless millions of great business books and strategy books. There are maybe not millions, but certainly tens of thousands in this functional health, preventative wellness category. So you can start learning.

There's a great show coming up. I'm speaking at it called Eudaimonia. It's in West Palm in November. They have 150 speakers. It's very experiential. You'll meet great vendors, you'll get speakers. If you start seeing the same people, the same cast of characters... and I'm delighted to be now included in this group of people because I just keep showing up and I keep providing science that nobody else is providing. You'll start to see where the truth is.

Learning is such a powerful tool. Give yourself a backdrop because if somebody starts saying something, you'll think, "Wait a second, that doesn't make sense because I learned in the book of blah, blah, blah." You'll be able to detect reality from market spin a lot easier. I pride myself and our company on providing education and data. We source everything. People know I've got the scientific reference, so they know I'm not... because my goal is to help people be better and to live longer, better, and do it in a way that's uncomplicated and natural.

I will tell you, the best things for you are natural and usually very inexpensive or free. We have a discount code for your community. When you buy a large bag and use the discount code, if you took 10 tablets a day of ENERGYbits spirulina in the morning and chlorella pulls out toxins at night, it's a dollar a day. You can't... and this will correct so many things. It's not the algae that's correcting the health issue. It's the nutrients in the algae that can't be found anywhere else. Algae is very affordable.

What are my other go-tos? Sleep. Does it cost you anything to sleep? No. But you have to have high quality sleep, which means you have to have good sleep aesthetics. You have to have a dark room. I wear an eye mask. Keep it cool. Have a routine every night. Never apologize for going to bed early because that's when your body repairs itself. Sleep is free.

Movement is also free, whether you're walking, running, or lifting weights. You could lift a rock outside if you didn't have weights. That's free. Breath is free, whether you're just doing deep inhales or meditation.

The other thing, and I know the poor sun has been beat up so much, but it's actually important for you. If you want to learn about it, there's a guy by the name of Jack Kruse, K-R-U-S-E, who has a two-hour video. He gave a lecture at the Vermont Nutritional something or other in 2017. He talks about how important it is to get sunlight into your eyes in the early morning because the early morning is when you get the most red light. I'm a big fan of red light devices. If you can't get the red light from the sun, that would be another option.

Back 2,000 years ago, the Indians used to get up at sunrise to do yoga. Why? It was good for them, but it was to get the red light from the early moments of the sun, which is very healing and generates energy for your mitochondria. The things that are best for you are either free or very affordable, but it takes discipline to follow them because it's easy to pop a pill. Unfortunately, medications mask the symptoms. You had symptoms. They're going to help with the symptoms, but they're not helping with the cause of the symptoms. The cause of the symptoms is what you want to ultimately gain or correct because that will cascade and remove the symptoms. But it takes extra work. Nine times out of ten, it comes down to something going off with your mitochondria. That's why I love spirulina so much, because that gets to the root cause.

Ryan Hanley: I love that. I'm glad you brought up the sleep part. I know guys who have this terrible sleep schedule, yet they'll take all these pills to mask the fact that they just didn't get good sleep. I'm like, you could cut your pill budget in half if you just got like seven to eight hours of decent sleep a night. I'm not even asking for a lot. Just seven to eight hours of decent sleep. Half of the need for those would go away. You wouldn't even want them. Your body wouldn't even crave them. Then you reap the full benefit of things like ENERGYbits because it's not making up for the bad. It's amplifying and clearing even more of what you have there.

I'll leave you with this because I know we're getting up against a number. When you're talking about sleep, I recently, because of Dave Asprey, added a PEMF mat to my bed and do grounding work while you sleep. I keep a Whoop. When I talk about stuff with people, a lot of my buddies would be like, "Oh, what do you think you are, a fitness guru?" They love to give me crap, which is all fun. I love ball busting. But I also will tell them, "Look, I literally have data. I have data to show you when I added the PEMF mat, my sleep scores have consistently gone up five or six points a night."

Catharine Arnston: Yeah, so there's something happening there.

Ryan Hanley: Right. They think it's nonsense, and whatever, it's not nonsense.

Catharine Arnston: The trouble is new ideas get challenged and laughed at. There's a set series of steps for every new idea. It's always ridiculed. They ignore it. Then finally they go, "I guess you were right."

Ryan Hanley: I sleep on a grounding mat.

Catharine Arnston: The chlorella algae, which we call Recovery Bits, has a green label. It has the highest tryptophan in the world, which is a precursor to melatonin that helps you sleep. We generally recommend the spirulina in the morning or afternoon before a workout because it gives you energy, focus, and satisfies your hunger. Then the chlorella at night. By the way, they're very tiny tablets, about the size of a baby aspirin, but you need at least 10. 30 is better. When you take them, especially spirulina, you can eliminate five other supplements. You don't need a multivitamin. You don't need CoQ10. You don't need fish oil. You don't need collagen. You don't need biotin.

And chlorella, if you take chlorella every day, it has the highest chlorophyll in the world. You don't have to ever eat another vegetable in your life. What do vegetables do? They give you chlorophyll and phytonutrients and they improve bowel movements. What does chlorella do?

Catharine Arnston: Give you phytonutrients, fiber, and improve bowel movements. So if you don't like vegetables, you are in luck because these two algae will fuel your brain, protect your health, remove the toxins, improve your sleep, and give you basically optimal performance and optimal life from food. It's the first life on earth from a billion years ago, and it's still here. So it's doing something right.

Ryan Hanley: This has been a wonderful conversation. I appreciate you so much. I'm so glad we got a chance to chat. The company is ENERGYbits. I'm going to have links to Instagram. I'll have links to your website.

Catharine Arnston: Yes.

Ryan Hanley: Is there any place else that you'd like people to connect with you if they want to dive deeper, or if they want to try ENERGYbits and get involved?

Catharine Arnston: Yeah, well, if you're going to try them, use the 20% discount code that we have for your community, which is "ryanhanley" — all one word. We do sell on Amazon, there's no discounts there, but some people just prefer to buy on Amazon. And if you do have a particular question, just email us at [email protected]. We do all of our own customer care. I have written the 600 answers. Personally, I wrote every single one because I used to do customer care too — remember, I was a solo entrepreneur. We're all hands-on. We're here to help. We don't outsource it to a third party because we're all about giving people back their life and to do it in a way that's effortless and natural. And so because we need entrepreneurs — we're the ones that are changing the world — I want you to stay healthy. I want you to stay motivated. I want you to stay happy.

Ryan Hanley: Well, I appreciate that so much. And when you do write that book, give me a call. You've got an open invitation to come back on. I'd love to have you. Thank you so much.