If I had to start over, here’s the #1 advice I’d give my younger self.

In this post, I want to share the one thing that I believe has contributed to my success more than anything else.

If you're an entrepreneur struggling to gain traction despite trying different strategies and tactics, maybe you feel a lack of clarity or direction, have creative blocks or find it hard to stay productive, then you might find this helpful.

For context, I went from being a broke/completely lost college student to doing decently well in business. At one point, we had a launch that did $189k in a single day (this took months of preparation so it’s not really as wild as it sounds).

Anyway, if I could go back and give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be this: stop worrying about what most people are focused on (chasing the latest strategy, hack or marketing scheme). These things can definitely help, but they’re too micro.

To get disproportionate results compared to everyone else, you want to focus on things that have asymmetric returns. In other words, what are things you can do that produce outsized outcomes? It might sound controversial, but the thing that’s given me the highest ROI has been optimizing my health.

The reason I say “controversial” is because in our world, you’ll constantly hear things like “sleep when you’re dead” and other hustle culture mantras. And look, I completely get it. Entrepreneurs are competitive and we’re always pushing everything to the absolute limit.

But here’s the thing: I know it sounds insanely cliché but being in business is like running a marathon EXCEPT instead of going at it for a few hours, you're in it for 10, 15, even 20 years or more. When you look at it this way, entrepreneurs are essentially athletes. And just like it would be ridiculous for an athlete not to seriously focus on their health and conditioning, the same should hold true for entrepreneurs.

Now for some background, I’m not someone who’s ever been terribly ill or anything like that. I always ate what most people considered a “normal” diet and did all the “right” things. But for a long time I still struggled with low energy, anxiety, brain fog, and just an overall lack of creativity and productivity. Like most people I was constantly just trying to patch things up. I was doing anything to just keep things moving forward.

But doing this is like playing the game on EXTREME difficulty.

One day a mentor of mine who runs a very successful software company mentioned that he was doing this “detox” thing, so I got curious and looked into it. Little did I know I would end up down a massive rabbit hole researching everything from holistic health and functional medicine to naturopathy, detox methods and even ancient healing traditions.

This was BY FAR the best decision I ever made. I got in the best shape of my life (lost 63 lbs) and improved everything from my productivity, focus, clarity, creativity, to decision making and overall sharpness. It’s like unlocking one door and suddenly finding every other door wide open.

And in a world where people are more distracted than ever and constantly being fed this grindset mentality, this gives you an insanely unfair advantage. Because while everyone else is running on fumes, you’re able to operate at full steam. This creates a gap that puts you leagues ahead of the competition.

I can tell you from personal experience that it’s no coincidence that everyone I know who’s WILDLY successful (way beyond me) treats their health as a top priority. When your health is dialed in, instead of constantly feeling like you’re pushing a weight uphill, life feels more like rolling downhill. Everything just flows better.

So anyway, here’s what I’ve learned from hundreds of hours of deep research and experimenting:

A lot of health problems (ESPECIALLY neurological ones) start in the gut. This is because your gut and brain are deeply connected via multiple pathways. This is where the saying "gut feeling" comes from.

When your gut is messed up, it creates inflammation in the body which extends to your brain. So if you’re struggling with clarity, creativity, feeling like you’ve lost touch with your intuition, anxiety or just overall feeling foggy…fixing your gut is HUGE.

This is a complex topic and there are plenty of great protocols depending on how deep you want to go, but very quickly, here are some simple things that helped me a TON:

• Only consume foods in their natural state, as nature provides them. This is crucial. A lot of products we think are natural aren't. Commercial dairy sold in supermarkets for example is heavily processed. If you speak to farmers, a lot of them will tell you commercial milk isn’t even real. They call it “water with chalk”. When food is modified (even in the slightest bit) your body doesn’t know what to do with it which leads to internal chaos.
• Avoid lectins
• Avoid alcohol

Besides focusing on gut health, another big part of it is keeping your body’s natural balance in check. When that balance is out of whack, all sorts of issues can happen. Not to sound like an alarmist but if you just look at the data, in the past century alone over 100,000 new chemicals have been introduced to our environment, and our bodies just haven’t had time to adapt. So unless you’re reading this from a remote cabin tucked away deep in the Himalayas, far away from any modern civilization…then you’re likely exposed to toxins on a daily basis.

The good news? You can take proactive steps to counter this. And one of the most effective strategies I’ve found that has helped me and countless others is detoxing. Think of detoxing like spring cleaning for your body.

I could go on about different detox methods for hours, but here’s the basics: focus on getting the bad stuff out and preventing them from coming back in as much as possible.

By “bad stuff” I’m talking about heavy metals, mycotoxins, preservatives, herbicides/pesticides, and all the other junk that clogs up our systems.

To get the bad stuff out:

• Sweat as much as you can (sauna and exercise will accelerate benefits 10X)
• Fast as much as you’re comfortable with (24hrs or more triggers autophagy which is your body’s natural self cleaning mechanism)

To prevent the bad stuff from coming back in:

• Be mindful of what you’re putting IN & ON your body and the products you use in your home

The most successful people I know pay attention to every detail: their food, their water supply and all the products they use from skincare to household items. They’re mindful of where their food is grown, how it’s prepared, even the type of cookware and cleaning products they use.

I can write about this for hours, but here’s the bottom line: it’s impractical to understand every single ingredient out there, so just don’t use anything that has things you can’t easily recognize.

I know it might sound extreme, but the reason these people achieve outlier results is because they’re willing to do what most people aren’t willing to do. To get extraordinary outcomes, by definition, you cannot be “ordinary”.

Am I saying you absolutely NEED to do this to be successful? No. There are plenty of people who don’t. But why not give yourself that extra edge? Why not stack the chips in your favor as much as possible?

The final takeaway I want to leave you with is that your body is insanely good at fine tuning itself. Think of when you get a cut. Your body’s ability to patch itself up is almost like magic. And it wants to do this with everything. Every ache, every discomfort, every illness. But society has conditioned us to think that the answers lie outside ourselves in different products.

I’m not saying everything out there is bad, but the reality is that at least 90% of what’s marketed to us is often more harmful than helpful. And constantly drowning your body with this stuff is what gets in the way of your natural healing process.

Grocery stores for example are filled with refined/industrially processed foods, sugars, partially hydrogenated fats, refined flours and wheat products, processed dairy, artificial sweeteners/additives and so on.

These are things that are high in calories yet low in nutrition. They contribute to weight gain while simultaneously starving your cells of the nutrients they need to thrive. It’s destructive. Just because something sits on a store shelf, DOES NOT mean it’s safe for you to use or consume. Just being aware and making small, sensible changes that fit your personal situation, is already a significant step in the right direction. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress.

Anyway, as I wrap things up, I want to leave you on a positive note.

Remember: you have full control over your health and outcomes in life. With the right decisions, you can become the best version of yourself that can achieve anything you’ve ever dreamt of.

If you’re a fellow entrepreneur (or aspiring one), I’m curious what have been your biggest health obstacles?

And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop them below or shoot me a message!

TL;DR: The biggest game-changer for my success as an entrepreneur has been focusing on my health. Instead of stressing over the latest marketing hacks, I dove into improving my gut health and detoxing. It seriously boosted my energy, creativity, and productivity. Prioritizing health gives you an edge when everyone else is running on empty. Little changes in what you eat and how you care for yourself can make a huge difference. Don’t sleep on your health—it’s key for the long haul!