The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #318 - Josh Holland

TRANSCRIPT

Josh Holland
Conventional shoes of today tend to immobilize our feet. I work on my feet as much as I work on the rest of my body because at the end of the day, it is what carries us through life, our feet.

It all starts with taking off our shoes and getting more in touch with our feet. When you ask your body to have it do all these things that it demands, but you've immobilized it, then it's like we're taking steps backwards and it's no surprise that we have feet pain and ankle pain and ankle stiffness, and that leads all the way up the system.

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, where we meet the world's top experts to explore the secrets of health, mindset, longevity, and so much more. Are you ready to take charge of your existence and biohack your life? This show is for you. Please keep in mind, we're not dispensing medical advice and are not responsible for any outcomes you may experience from implementing the tactics lying herein.

So friends, are you ready to join me? Let's do this. Welcome back to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. Oh my goodness, friends, I so enjoyed today's conversation with Josh Holland. Josh is so cool. As we talk about in this show, he has a wild upbringing and he ultimately became a celebrity trainer, including four years with Madonna. That's how cool he is. And yes, I do ask him about celebrity secrets when it comes to fitness. That was a really fun rabbit hole to go down. Get ready to have your mind blown when it comes to all things our feet. I'm talking about how shoes can negatively affect our health and not only lead to things like bunions and foot problems, but actually affect our joints, our body, our strength, our balance, so many things.

As I talk about in this show, I love wearing things like flip-flops, which you think would be more barefoot-esque since there's less shoe there. That's not quite the case. And I love wearing heels, which I knew were not good for my feet. And something I loved about Josh is he provides a very practical perspective to all of this, how you can still wear the shoes, the heels, the athletic performance shoes if needed. And then for the majority of the rest of the time, truly recover and take care of your feet with barefoot-style shoes. Definitely check out vivobarefoot.com. Use the coupon code MelanieAvalon to get 20% off site-wide. They have so many options, friends. Check it out. And these are not shoes that separate out for the toes. They look like normal shoes. They're just created to support the most natural environment for your foot. And I also love some of the other things we touched on, which is the role of mindset and awareness, even things like defensiveness and the role of the ego.

These show notes for today's conversation will be at MelanieAvalon.com slash barefoot. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out. I can't wait to hear what you guys think. Definitely let me know in my Facebook group, I have biohackers, intermittent fasting plus real foods plus life. Comment something you learned or something that resonated with you on the pinned post to enter to win something that I love. And then check out my Instagram, find the Friday announcement post. And again, comment there to enter to win something that I love. All right, I think that's all the things. Again, definitely get 20% off site-wide at vivobarefoot.com with the coupon code MelanieAvalon. They have a 100-day money-back guarantee so you have nothing to lose. This also would make incredible gifts for people. Without further ado, please enjoy this fabulous conversation with Josh Holland.

Melanie Avalon
Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I'm about to have. It is a long time coming.

So the backstory on today's conversation, probably about, I mean, it might've been a year ago or so now, a fabulous human being, Josh Holland, reached out to me, I think through emails how we connected originally, but we did a call. He is with a company called Vivo Barefoot. And on the call, I thought it was gonna be just, you know, your typical like brand call, get to hear about the brand, which I always love those calls. And it was so much more than that. Josh had such a cool, amazing story about how he got to what he's doing today, which I'm sure we're going to hear all about. And we immediately connected on all the things biohacking and health and fitness and foot health in particular. He really blew my mind when it comes to that. And then since then, so a few things. One, we actually met very, very briefly in person at the eudaimonia conference, which was amazing. And since then, I actually also read and had Mark Sisson on the show for his book, Born to Walk, and I didn't tell you that, Josh, but when I read that book, that even further just blew my mind about the role of our feet and our health and how we are just kind of, I mean, messing up so much in our bodies because of the shoes we're wearing. So I have had so many paradigm shifts, both from meeting you, from reading that book, from everything that I've learned.

So I am just so, so thrilled and honored to be with you here today to hear more about your personal story, talk about all the biohacking, talk about foot health. And we're both excited because we're both gonna be at biohacking conference next week, which will have already happened by the time this airs, but that'll be exciting. We're gonna get to hang out in real life. And I promise this time, it won't be like eudaimonia, where it was like, like a brief like high buy moment. I'm gonna come to the booth. We're gonna hang out, I promise.

Josh Holland
I love that. Well, first of all, thank you for having me and for the people listening. I hope to be able to at least shed some light into some of the concepts that that we share and some of the concepts that I feel like is a huge part of my life, whether it be my career, just my lifestyle in general. But I always like to thank the audience for tuning in, because, you know, at the end of the day, there's so much misinformation online.

And there's a lot of really good information online. And it's really up to people to kind of do their work to try to find out what's going to work best for them. And what I like to try to do is compile all of my experiences that I've gained throughout the two plus decades of the work that I do to try to dwindle down the most beneficial, the things that are going to move the needle the best for, you know, for certain populations. And so thanks for having me here. I'm excited to chat it out with you. And and I will say, I think I remember that almost exactly a year ago today, I think we, I think we briefly met at the biohacking conference, or at least I seem to remember you being there for sure. And then somehow, yeah, I think I reached out to you, because I thought, like, it would be nice to chat with her about, you know, what, what she thinks about the world of foot health and, and all of these things. And subsequently, after last year's biohacking conference, it sort of prompted me to write an article about the the lack of knowledge around foot health in the biohacking space specifically, because I saw it firsthand at the biohacking conference, you know, it's, it's kind of a shame that lots of people know so much about the brain and supplements and muscles and workouts and, and all the cold plunging and photo bio modulation and all of that is great. However, I didn't see much, if any, except our booth, really, I mean, there would be a few people walking around that that had barefoot shoes on. So of course, you know, we're speaking to the choir with those people. But why is the majority of people not really adhering to it, if we're really trying to optimize our total health and wellness, from the ground up, then we sometimes we start from the ground. Or if we don't start from the ground, we finish with the ground. But at some point or another, this is a another chain, or another link in the chain, that is the kinetic chain, and any the weakest point is the weakest link, right? And so you're only as strong as your weakest link. And so if you have faulty mechanics based on your feet and your lower limbs, then when what are we doing, right? So the article that I wrote is called The Overlooked Foundation, and it was published last year. And that's going to be one of the basis for the presentation that I give this year at the Biohacking Conference. So I'm looking forward to that.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness. Okay. So many things. Okay. Now I remember, I think it's going back to me.

I think I was supposed to come see you at the booth at the biohacking conference. Like, cause you know, you like scheduled all the people and I don't think I, if I came, it was like very, very brief and kind of a fail on my part. And then we did that phone call and that's when I really got to meet you more and okay. And then we will put a link to that article in the show notes and Josh, you're so right. I'm thinking about it right now. So like when you go to the conference and see literally like the, the creme de la creme of all the biohackers, people are wearing, you know, their blue light blocking glasses, like their EMF blocking material. So few people. Yeah. Shoes are not really, there's not many people that are actually paying attention to that. And, and I will say this is like the pot, what is it? Pot calling the kettle black. So I, I love my heels and I wear heels a lot. So I'm a bad person.

Josh Holland
No, but you see, that's the thing. You're not a bad person.

And in fact, I distinctly remember that we touched on that a little bit, because look, at the end of the day, like, if we if we want to just get right into it, and feel free to direct me however you want to go. But partly, like, I'm obviously biased because this Barefoot health journey has been a part of my career for a long time. So I grew up in martial arts. And I say I grew up in martial arts, because my family, we had a martial arts, a karate school in my small hometown of Chandler, Oklahoma. And it was started by my dad, he developed this system that was one of the first blended systems that I knew about. Because, you know, nowadays, we hear about MMA, which is mixed martial arts. And so everybody kind of blends the styles together. But back when my dad was and a late teenager, and, you know, young into his adulthood, he was taking different styles. And it was always this thing about which style is the most dominant style, my dad thought, well, really, the most dominant style is a blended style. And so he created curriculum, and began a school and he ultimately developed this amazing system. And so when I was born, my brother, he's a year older than I am. But I started when I was four years old, and my brother was five. And we worked our butts off and we learned all about martial arts and the fact that, and I will bring this back to feet and all that kind of stuff. But my dad, his system was so complex, because his life was so complex and multifaceted. So he was the chief of police in my hometown. And he was on the EMT team. So you, you know, anytime in a small town, you kind of have like one person doing loads of different things. And so that was my dad. And then he was also a storm chaser and

Melanie Avalon
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, the people that chase the Twisters, like in the Twister movie?

Josh Holland
Yeah, yeah. And what's really funny about that is

Melanie Avalon
Take you with him?

Josh Holland
Well, kind of, like, you know, obviously he wasn't going to put us in harm's way. But what he mostly was there for is to report it, not to get the footage of it, right? Which is different sort of style, like the Twister movie, you're going to see those guys are trying to get the footage and all that kind of stuff. And they're testing different things. But my dad was mostly there to kind of monitor and then give direct like feedback to the weather reports and things like that. So we would go and see them. But if you grew up in Oklahoma, chances are at many times throughout your life, you would have been affected by tornadoes for sure. So throughout my life, I've seen many, many tornadoes. And it's like we treated almost like like an adventure, so to speak, like we see tornadoes twisting in the air. And we instead of going down into the to the basement like we should, like a lot of times, because we see them so often, we go out and look at them and it's like this, you get a chance to kind of brag about it.

Oh, I saw the big one. I saw it, you know, anyway, that I digress. So my dad was multifaceted. He created this system. It was a part of my life. It was what I did throughout my formative years. And so what was cool about it is we were practicing stretching and balance and strength and focusing on like how to build your chi energy from a very young age, because this is what the Eastern philosophies teach. And so when you grow up in martial arts, you can't help but like if you want to be good at it or proficient at it, then you learn all these things.

And what's also really cool is that everything was done barefoot. Everything was done barefoot. So you know, when you go to a tournament, yeah, you might walk in with your regular shoes. And we grew up with with not a lot of money. So we didn't have a lot of money to buy all these fancy shoes. And I say thankfully, because obviously, like in in parts of the world even today that are considered like third world countries or, you know, without a lot of money, shoes are kind of a luxury, right? And so if you kind of take it back and think back to like our ancestors, we were mostly barefoot. And you know, we don't see many like Bunyan problems in populations many, many years ago. And that was something I started to develop as I began to venture away from martial arts because once I got my black belt, when I was 12 years old, it was kind of a thing that my dad promised once we get my brother and I once we get our black belts, we could play whatever sports we wanted to play as long as we continue to continue to teach for the family business. And so I was like, yeah, so I ran ran track and played basketball. Basketball was my favorite sport and I absolutely love basketball. And I quickly realized that there's a difference between sort of this Eastern philosophy and this Western methodology. And when I started to understand that lifting weights doesn't slow you down and doesn't make you bulky, but can possibly make you stronger, faster and perform better, that was like, well, wait a minute.

Josh Holland
I kind of just gravitated almost completely away from martial arts. Now, I kept up with the stability components and the flexibility components and the quickness and things like that.

But I said to myself, I'm going to play professional basketball and that's it, you know, I'm just going to do it. And I worked myself hard and I made it through the ranks and went on to play junior college basketball, national championship. We lost in the national championship, but, you know, I played with a broken finger, you know, and then at the university, we went pretty far, did well. And I thought my career was over. And then I realized I was a late bloomer and I ended up moving to New York to pursue modeling and acting.

And that's when I kind of got into the world of training. And I met some people when I was doing some for a modeling shoot. I did like I worked with men's health several times and I connected with a trainer who was in charge of like putting out the programming and showing the different positions. And I went up to this guy and I was like, man, I've seen you here a couple of times and I kind of, you know, I want to I want to do what you're doing because, you know, you're just showing people how to do, you know, a certain movement, but you're getting paid more than I am, you know. And so he kind of gave me some advice on like how to go about it.

And I did because that's one thing you'll learn about me is like, if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. And I've got a lot of initiative and drive within me. And, you know, I also part of the reason why I moved away from Oklahoma is because I didn't want to be put into a box. I never wanted to be the guy that just stays in your lane. And I respect people that stay in their lane. So there's no shade on that. But I'd like to do all kinds of things. And I'm so curious about all kinds of things. And so when I was able to eventually morph into the person I am today, I'm thankful that I am able to work for myself and to be an entrepreneur, but also to be able to talk with people like you, Melanie, and to be able to, you know, get feedback from people that are listening to the show.

And I even have my own podcast and I get a chance to ask, you know, really good questions, really deep questions, but also hear feedback and take that with, you know, with nothing but love. Right. And then that's what allows me to just continue elevating as we live. And I think we should all be trying to evolve. And at the end of the day, like it's about thriving, not just surviving, not just trying to extend our lifespan, but to also extend our health span. And that's what I'm here to do.

Melanie Avalon
So amazing. I think friends, listeners can now see why I'm just obsessed with what you're doing and your mentality and your spirit and everything.

So, so impressive. And you ended up like working with celebrity clients and such, right? Like you actually made it in the training world.

Josh Holland
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's a that's a very interesting story. And I'll I'll give you some like briefs on like a brief kind of story, a trajectory of that, because it's very, very long winded. I could probably do 10 podcasts and to try to cover some of it. But essentially, when I moved to New York, I came here to sort of see what was out there for me. I wanted to travel the world. I wanted to experience more than what I was subjected to growing up in small town Oklahoma and then living in Oklahoma City. And so I started to read the reason why I said I was a late bloomer is because I started to play basketball just to stay in shape. Like I would play at a men's club and several men's league throughout the city here in New York. And I ended up like doing really well, like becoming MVP of these different men's leagues. And, you know, having like record games when I'm scoring like 50 plus points and, you know, shattering like like shooting three point shooting records and things like that.

And people were like, who is this guy? You know, and where'd you play ball? And and, you know, I told them I played at a small school in Oklahoma and they're like, you should be playing overseas or you should be trying to do something. And and so I'm like, yeah, I think so, too. But I kind of I kind of thought that sign me up. Yeah. Yeah. Like, how do I get started? And so long story short, the a gentleman by the name of Earl Rogers, who who is my manager still to this day, he's my business manager, but he's also my business partner in a few of the fitness ventures that I have. He happened to be connected to an NBA all star who was no longer playing in the NBA, but they were they were good friends. And he invited him to come watch me play one day. And he vouched for me after he saw me play and helped me to get a couple gigs to play professionally overseas. And so that led to me traveling, going to Qatar to play basketball for a bit. And then I went and then I played in Mexico, which was also pretty fun and awesome. In fact, it was probably too much fun because that's the reason why I didn't keep that job is because I was having too much fun. But, you know, it was the experience nonetheless. And and so from all of that, so my name is kind of getting out there because I'm in some of these magazines, I'm traveling the world, I'm doing all these things. And one day this lady comes up to me and was like, hey, you know, I've been kind of watching you over the past couple of months. And I think you have a lot going for you. And I want to present an opportunity to you. And she asked me to go and to audition for this this dance fitness craze back at the time. And and I went, I auditioned. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I did it. And that ultimately led me to becoming sort of well, like an assistant trainer to working with Madonna. And then from there, that morphed into becoming a full time trainer with Madonna for about four years and got a chance to travel the world with her, go on tours with her. And even to this day, I'm still connected with her.

Josh Holland
In fact, after there was a brief hiatus of me not working with her for a while, because I went off to start my own business, my own gym. And my company at the time was managing the core club, which is one of the the top private clubs here in New York and probably in the country altogether. And my company managed the fitness facility of that club for five years. And then I opened up another gym in Midtown in collaboration with Technogym. And that happened for a little while until, well, there was a big leak and then the pandemic happened, and so we shut that down.

And then I went on to to do like smaller biohacking facilities because I started to become more than just a trainer. I started to become sort of what you would call like a holistic trainer or a health optimization coach, because that's when I started to understand that there's more to life and helping people beyond how to curl, how to squat and how to do pull ups. But it was about, you know, what are the things that people can get the most out of the most bang for their buck? And I think at the very beginning of all that was my my first real like holistic certification, which was called the Vivo Barefoot barefoot coach. And so I became one of the first barefoot coaches here in the States. And from then I was off to the races because I learned so much about nutrition. And you would think like, well, wait a minute, this is a shoe company out of London. Like, what is it? Why are they, why are we, why is there a course talking about meditation and and sunlight and and this was way before what we know today, right? And I was so fascinated that I just was obsessed.

And this was a point in time when I was very close to thinking about getting Bunyan surgery, because I hadn't had never, never considered getting Bunyan surgery until I started having issues with my feet. And I realized that it was because I was wearing shoes while playing basketball. I was wearing shoes that were a size or sometimes two sizes too small because I thought that it gave me more support, quote unquote support. Right. And then when I was experiencing heel pain, I didn't know what that was. I now know that that was plantar fasciitis, but my toes were crowded and my arch wasn't able to spring and be dynamic the way it's supposed to be. And so something has to give. And so it manifested as heel pain to the point where I thought I had heel bruises. So then what did I do? I put heel pads in my shoes and that was almost a double benefit for me, which I thought was a double benefit, which was one less pain for the heel. Two makes me a little bit taller, right? Well, that did not go well. And so anyway, long story short, I learned how to undo all of that, right?

And it was mostly about allowing my feet to be a foot, right? To allow my toes to splay inside of a shoe to be more barefoot. Like it's almost like I can't even really fathom this notion of wearing shoes around the apartment or around the house because, you know, at the end of the day, well, I'll ask you this question.

Josh Holland
When you consider, and if you just take a moment to consider, why were shoes ever developed in the first place? Do you have an idea?

Melanie Avalon
Oh, I know something had to do at some point with the rich could afford it. And so it was like a status thing.

Josh Holland
for sure that and that would be mostly shoes with a heel on it. And that was because shoes back in the day, like people when people were riding horses, you needed something to be able to hook into that into the stirrup. So it doesn't sort of foot doesn't slide out.

Right. And so yes, that was a status symbol for people who could afford to be on a horse, right. But I'm talking way before that I'm talking like

Melanie Avalon
way before that. Okay, so like original, like first time we like put something onto our foot that was shoe-esque. So the question is why we did that.

Josh Holland
Yeah, why do you think that occurred?

Melanie Avalon
Okay, this is so interesting. Let me think about this because I was actually I was pondering this very concept.

I think yesterday because I stepped on something like I'm not sure if it was like a piece of glass and I could feel it in my foot but it wasn't really hurting and I was actually trying to like I was like looking at my I was looking at my heel and I was trying to find wherever this little piece of glass was and I was reflecting on how how thick our skin is on our feet and how they just seem natural and this is me who wears shoes probably more than I should but it's our shoes our feet seem like they're made to walk on stuff and not, you know, feel a lot of pain from it if that makes sense. I feel like before we were before we were wearing shoes, we probably were pretty fine like walking outside and like walking on the stuff. So it would be weird to me if it was for comfort. Alright, thanks for watching. I'll see you guys next time. Bye.

Josh Holland
You're in the right track, yeah?

Melanie Avalon
Was it for comfort though, or was it for something else functional?

Josh Holland
Well, so okay because so here's the thing right and and and for the people who are listening I would invite you to also do the same thing that we're doing right now and Several of you have probably already said. Oh, I know why and and I don't necessarily think there's like one right answer But there's one main answer And it's I mean if you think about it Early or early early ancestors or early human beings They didn't have any protection on their feet and I say it like that because that should give you the answer we Developed shoes first and foremost to protect our feet from the elements period Right the elements being Temperature. So if you're out on the sand or the desert it's going to be super hot during the summer time, you know Right so you can burn your feet Also, if you're walking in a wooded area or whatever you can step on thorns or sticks or glass or whatever, right Rocks that would be uncomfortable Now it's not for comfort necessarily, but it was for protection because keep in mind back then If you got A puncture wound on your foot. There was no hospital to go to and yeah, you know You could put different salves and things like that, but it wasn't for comfort.

It was for protection Okay, and so then We can morph how that changed, right? There's probably even some images online you can find where they found like different leather hides that they could wrap around their feet Just to add another sort of layer But you would have never seen a hoka I mean, I don't want to shit on hoka But I mean you would have never seen a thick thick sold shoe back then because it just wasn't those materials around right? But somehow we've gone from that To where we are today and now it's literally almost like a joke especially if you think about someone like me who goes outside daily and i'm just blown away by what I see on people's feet and then to me it's no surprise that we have the issues that we have because Another thing that we do on top of not allowing our foot to move the way it was designed to move but we also sit way more than we should be And what I mean by that is like it's not that our ancestors didn't sit but they said on the ground They slept on the ground, right? And so they were getting these these moments of moving because if you sit let's say on the ground for For more than five minutes in one position chances are you're going to need to shift, right? And so that that shifting is getting movement. It might not be workout, but we try to work out today because we try to Undo or supplement our lack of movement whereas our ancestors didn't have to do that.

They worked out Functionally to live to thrive to to continue to procreate, right? So this is like you eat and you procreate and you have to go and hunt you for your food And so all these things that we don't do anymore.

Josh Holland
I get it. It's a modern modern society, but we can still allow our feet to Be flexible, which is what it's supposed to do.

We can allow them to splay so we have better stability And then we can give it like a layer of protection, but if it's for protection Anything we put on our feet then what are we protecting ourselves from when we're indoors? Yeah, so true I mean like I hope you don't have rocks and sticks and glass and thorns on your floor at home

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, that's so so.

Josh Holland
So this is this is how I think like from a foundational perspective and and I'm sure there's going to be so many people that have questions because trust me I get these questions all the time and it's I'm not here to be the expert on these things there's plenty of people out there like Daniel Lieberman is an amazing person to follow if you want to learn about like the evolution of humans and how they move and and and the different things right and I think you brought that up. But like if you really want to learn it from like that scientific perspective for sure dive into that and I can give you loads of resources. However, my job I feel like is to just make people a little bit more aware.

I love this notion of of awareness because we can make any situation be right as long as we want it to be right like if we want to say to ourselves. Nope, I got to have it because well, it's a part of my work and my job won't let me wear these. Okay, sure. Well, so you can do that or or like you you stated earlier and like we talked about before you love to wear heels perfect fine great but are do you wear heels in your home now and do you wear heels 24 seven or you're like no and so if you're going to stuff your foot into a foot cast or foot coffin then and and that's for any of us right then. When do we find time to undo that to unravel it so you're going to ravel it that's fine but then spend some time to unravel it okay and and what I mean by that just to paint like a super clear picture. I hope is if we break a limb. Let's say you know or or joint and we know what happens right you break a joint then you want to stabilize that joint or mobilize it immobilize it right so that it doesn't move because you want things to set and give it enough time and it's usually you know six to eight weeks when you you know brace it or you cast it put it in a cast most of the time we know what happens when that occurs after the six to eight weeks you take off the cast and what happens atrophy almost without fail you're going to have atrophy there are certain situations in which that's not so true however most of the time that is the case and that's what happens when you immobilize an area of the body for a longer period of time.

Josh Holland
So now if you consider why I call shoes casts it's because shoes conventional shoes of today tend to immobilize our feet now we're not talking about just six weeks or two eight weeks we're talking about six years to eight years and even more and there's people sometimes who they're at work all day in foot casts they go work out in foot casts and sometimes there's people who are even casting their feet with socks right because socks even cast our feet don't allow our feet to splay and so when you ask your body to to have it do all these things that it demands but you've immobilized it then it's like we're taking steps backwards and it's no surprise that we have feet pain and ankle pain and ankle stiffness and that leads all the way up the system and so then you go to your PT or you go to a trainer like me and we try to assess what's going on but we can't even get too far into the assessment because your ankles are blocked or your ankles are too rigid which is going to affect your calves and then your knees and then your hips and then your back and then your neck and then your shoulders and then it's like maybe you take off your shoes like let's just start there I don't even want to get into this war about what brand is the best and what style in this and that let's start by just taking off our shoes period and when I say take off our shoes I mean shoes and socks right then we start to build layers of protection if you need it right and then you make sure that the toe box is wide enough so there's like three main criteria that we we talk about at Vivo and that is thin wide and flexible we're now kind of using this this notion of of feel or sensory right that goes into there as well and so When it comes to looking for shoes, that's what I first and foremost think about.

Fortunately, because I've been a loyal proponent of Vivo for all these years, since 2009, I don't have to worry about choosing which ones, right? But it is interesting because therefore a while, even though I really understood all there is to know about feet and, well, not all there is to know, but I learned a lot about feet through experience and through learning, I was still finding myself playing basketball in a conventional shoe when I would go and play. And I would wonder why my feet would hurt so bad. I'd have Achilles tendonitis or tendinosis. I was like, you know, dealing with like knee pain and things like that. And I thought to myself, Josh, don't be foolish. You're preaching all these things about be barefoot and you know, barefoot first and this and that. And sure, like if you are a professional basketball player, then put your feet in those shoes and try to undo it when you're not on the court. But I wasn't being paid anymore to play basketball. I was just playing in my spare time, but I was getting the best Jordans out there and the best Nikes and the things like that. And so when I started having like really bad knee pain and ankle pain, and there was one time I thought I was, I thought I ruptured my Achilles and that literally changed everything.

Josh Holland
So now it's only barefoot shoes. A little trajectory there, but yeah, we can go down so many rabbit holes.

Melanie Avalon
No, I love this. So many thoughts and questions.

Number one, so, and I think we talked about this on the phone when we talked a while ago, but I, so I actually, I don't like wearing shoes, like in general. So I don't, I don't like socks. I don't like the constricting feeling of it. So I tend to in my life not wear shoes inside and then wear sandals outside. So like, or like flip flops. So shoes like that, where there's no, there's no outward constriction of your foot. How is that still, like, how is that not optimized or how might that still be problematic if I'm wearing like normal flip flops, sandals, like the thong type.

Josh Holland
I love this question. Really good on you to kind of pick up there because, again, one of the ways that I know how to speak to certain communities is by understanding what people are asking and what they're thinking, right?

And so I, like you, I thought that that was probably the next best thing is wear flip-flops until I understood what hammertoes are. So if you want, you know, people that are listening, if you want, Google hammertoes. And what you'll notice is that it's like, imagine trying to give a visual. Basically, when your toes are kind of scrunched towards the tips, and sort of like that first joint is pointed straight down almost, that's from over gripping. That usually occurs from over gripping. And that usually happens. I'm not saying it's all the time, but that usually happens when you have on a flip-flop or a thong of some sort, because you're trying, your body's trying to keep it from coming off.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, that makes sense.

Josh Holland
So, our toes are supposed to lift up and extend so that we can get all those really detailed musculature to work properly on the bottom of the toes. And so they get shortened because they're always trying to grab, right? So they get shortened on the bottom and they get lengthened on the top and then they just kind of stay that way. And then eventually you keep putting those into restricted shoes, then you start to understand why that becomes a problem.

And so, yeah, like I, even to this day, I have remnants of bunions. You know, I went far away from having to get surgery to where I am today. It doesn't give me any pain like it used to. In fact, I don't have, I have zero pain at my first met head, my first metatarsal head. So I don't get any joint pain there at all. And I'm the guy that was about to have to go and get surgery to correct it, so to speak, to put it in the proper position. And then on my right foot, there's times when I tend to hammer my second toe, the toe right beside the big toe, that one has a downward angle because I used to wear flip-flops all the time. I thought flip-flops was better than being barefoot, like if I'm going swimming or being on the beach, you know, and so I'm, I'm correcting it, I'm doing that, like I work on my feet as much as I work on the rest of my body, because at the end of the day, it is what carries us through life, our feet, it is our foundation.

And that's why I called that article, The Overlooked Foundation. And so at some point we have to address how well our feet function because we know what one of the most detrimental, vital things we have when we get older is our ability to not fall, our ability to stay erect, to stabilize, and that starts with our toes, not even just the feet, but with our toes. So if we can splay our toes and we have a, we tend to have a wider base of support, therefore we hopefully are activating more muscles throughout our feet, which makes our feet stronger, right? Which then gives us better ankle control and stability, gives us better calf control and stability, knee stability, blah, blah, blah. So then you're not having to, to find, well, you can work through the compensation movement patterns that we tend to get. And so every bit of every layer that you put on the bottom of your foot, whether it's a shoe or a flip-flop or anything like that, the less reaction time you have to make adjustments to keep you from falling over. And I like to bring up this question, and I've done this quite a bit, but I'll present it here. But Melanie, can you think of, and the audience as well, can you think of a moment in time in which you or someone you know has rolled their ankle while they were barefoot?

Melanie Avalon
I mean, I know people rolling their ankle. I guess they don't know. So that's when you, does that lead to long-term issue? That's not like a sprain or anything, right? It's just like, just.

Josh Holland
Well, I mean like yeah, like have you do you know anybody's like spraying their ankle rolled her?

Melanie Avalon
ankle okay oh like spraining their ankle okay I don't think I don't think I'm familiar with the terminology um I don't know I guess I never really have asked people what they were wearing when they sprained their ankle but when I sprained my ankle I was not barefoot

Josh Holland
Okay, well, I'm going to tell you the answer to that. Most of the people will not be able to say yes to that.

Because the I mean, maybe there's one or two situations that we know of, or you know, half of 1% of the population have probably experienced that. I'm not going to say it's never. But I can tell you this, when you're barefoot, actually barefoot, and if you, you know, don't happen to step on something that calls you to roll your ankle, chances are you're going to have enough time to react to be able to keep you from rolling your ankle.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. Basically, and this is what I was learning, so much of the information for our balance and our, you know, our proprioception and everything, it's, I mean, it's from our feet.

So if we're like cutting off that signal, it just, it reverberates through our whole body, presumably.

Josh Holland
Yeah, and and did you know that we have as many nerve endings in our feet as we do in our hands and and some of our most Sensitive pleasure centers in our body, right? So there's there is a thing called a homunculus. I don't know if you've heard of this or seen it But it's a direct representation. I think people should look this up h o m u n c u l u s And it's basically it refers to a small fully formed human or creature often in a miniature distorted form It looks really weird, but it it's it's trying to identify By showing you what parts are bigger those parts usually have like the biggest sensory processing areas, right?

And so You know the hands Like the the the feet should actually be a little bit bigger than than what we usually see on this but Our hands and I guess our lips our mouth all these have like so much sensory nerve endings, right? And the feet are like that as well and any time there is sensory receptors that usually means there needs to be some sort of like feedback that goes with that it's almost like Having a lock to like to having a lock with a keyhole, but never having a key Right, like I kind of see the the the lock itself Being the sensory receptor and the key being a sensory feedback, right or the sensory input so we need to give input so that we can make decisions on how we move and so I always say to people like if You had gloves on for a long period of time And you ask someone to sign your name and they were thick gloves like the thick shoes that we wear You would sign your name differently. It may it may be close, right? But it's not the same same happens with the foot you put on these thick shoes And your foot's not going to move the way it's supposed to move And i'm sure you know that there's there's populations in the world that maybe don't have access to their hands as much as they should maybe because of a like some kind of malformation in in their in their body or some kind of uh injury And sometimes they have to use their feet to do the thing that their hands can do We have that capacity. We just lose it if we don't use it And so yeah, I I just think it's very important that we understand that there's all these sensory receptors in our feet designed to get Information it's designed to tell us where we are in space like you said earlier proprioception But then what do you do with that? Right, and I i'm working on another article, but it's basically Trying to get people to understand that like some of the most complex movements or sports of today Things that you can think about like gymnastics or gymnasts.

Josh Holland
So like gymnasts and martial artists wrestlers boxers like most of these sports have no shoes or very minimal shoes And the reason is is because there's the the sport itself is so complex That you need to be able to have the most amount of feedback happening from the feet and so Like that's one of the things i'm working on because I was watching this show the other day and I saw these tightrope walkers And I noticed the shoes that they were wearing They're not wearing these conventional shoes that we typically wear Because tightrope walking is very difficult Right So you need to have the feeling in your feet to be able to find your balance and you'll find your center point and so, you know And again, i'm not here to like bash conventional shoes. Maybe I am a little bit but It all starts with taking off our shoes and getting more in touch with our feet

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I'll tell you, the moment I realized there was something here, and it was admittedly when I was quite young and didn't think about it much beyond I stopped wearing these specific shoes, but do you remember tone-ups? Do you remember?

They were by Sketchers. Oh, yes. Yes, I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the marketing behind them was they said that they, it was brilliant marketing, marketing, and maybe they did do this, I don't know, but they basically said that they destabilized your feet so that your body was constantly, like subconsciously contracting, so you would like build muscle by wearing them. That was what they, and it was brilliant marketing. I was like, oh, I can wear these shoes and like build and tone up my muscles. It was so interesting because I got a pair, and I started getting, and I was like, this was like middle school or high school, so I was not like having joint pain and stuff. I started getting joint pain very specifically in my knees, and I knew it was from the shoes, and I was like, that is weird. That's really weird, and I didn't really think about it beyond that, but I just stopped wearing them. I think that's so telling, like wearing this shoe that not only is cutting off the sensory input that we have from the world, but it's also like on top of that kind of confusing things even further. Like the fact that I was young and I started getting joint pain, very specific joint pain in my knees from it is very telling. I probably should have thought about it more at the time.

Josh Holland
Hey, I mean, the fact that you can recall that now and talk about it, it's very powerful because you're 100% correct. And you know, shame on them for utilizing true information, but like skewing it such that we think that it's beneficial for us.

Because yes, you are going to get more muscle activation, but not in the areas that you need it to be, right? Because you'll be in those tone ups, they're restrictive, but they're very cushioned, right? And then now you're forcing your calves to do more work. So then therefore, you're probably not rolling that out. You're not undoing that tension throughout the calves and the ankles. So then your knee joint has to take the brunt of most of your walking and your running or whatever you're doing in it, right? And so most people don't realize that when we walk, we're putting one to two times our body weight on a single foot. And if our foot doesn't splay properly, therefore the ankle has to try to find a way to stabilize and the Achilles and then the calves and then it's like this wobbly moment. And I know I'm over exaggerating it a little bit, but I'm trying to just paint a picture to show us that yes, there is going to be more muscle activation. But more muscle activation doesn't always mean a good thing. It's like if your back is, is your low back is super tight. Do you think it's good to go and, and, and strength train it every single day? You should definitely strength train it, but you should also understand what decompression is and make sure that you're not, you know, you don't have like, uh, you're not overextended throughout your, your low back and make sure that your vertebrae are stacked properly and you're put on a, a good chassis, so to speak, and maybe do some rotational work, get other muscles involved and then start to strengthen that properly so that that doesn't occur again. But you wouldn't constantly do that, which is what those shoes were asking you to do is to just constantly keep on trying to activate parts of the body other than the foot. But it starts from the feet.

Melanie Avalon
It's really, really interesting how crystallized the memory I have about it. It was that, that profound of an effect.

I'm pretty sure they stopped making those shoes as well. So here's a question because we're making this case for how there's so much benefit to the barefoot type approach to engaging with the world. Like it's just better for our bodies. We're going to presumably perform better. Well, actually that, that, that relates to the question I have. There is this whole world of shoes that are based around performance and athletic performance and supposedly helping you do better. So if, if there's somebody who's doing some sort of athletic performance, like running a marathon or racing or even basketball, like you said, is it better to train not in these types of shoes, but then when it actually comes to the game, like, or the event, should you actually wear those shoes? Like, do they actually improve your, like your performance when like you're trying to win the game?

Josh Holland
Love this question. The answer is it's very nuanced, right?

So it's not a black or white for sure However, if a person is going to choose I kind of alluded to this answer earlier if you're going to choose to do this sport or it's it's you're doing it as your profession then Yes, you do need to make sure you have the proper kit the proper Sort of shoes and clothing and all the different things to try to get the best performance you can for instance if you're going to because none of these things we're talking about necessarily are part of nature or is not What constitutes like living a healthy lifestyle? We're gonna be pushing the limits when it comes to running running marathons. It's not healthy for the body. It's not it's just really not right I've done it and you know, I questioned it I then recently just did the speed project in which a group of us ran from from Los Angeles Santa Monica all the way to Las Vegas in a relay style

Melanie Avalon
No way. When did you do this?

Josh Holland
This was a couple months ago.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my gosh, how long does that take? Wow, I cannot. I'm not, how long does that take?

Josh Holland
So, we did it as a team in 51 hours, and there were so many things around that. One, we were the first team to do it in barefoot shoes, so we used it to prove that it can be done.

Does it mean that it should be done? But we were proving that we live this barefoot lifestyle, and we've trained ourselves to be able to do this like our ancestors did, right? And so, yeah, you can do it in that manner. But the other part is that I think over the two and a half, let's just call it three days, I got about four hours of sleep. And so, that's not healthy. And then we're trying to eat food, but then you're coming up on a run almost like every 20 to 30... Well, we were basically, because there were nine of us, so we were running every three to four hours, right? And so, it takes time to come down from that, to try to calm your nervous system. Then you got to try to maybe eat, and then we're riding in RVs that are bouncing around, and it's in the middle of the dark out in the desert, so it's cold at night, and it's hot during the day. So, this is not natural, right? It's just not ideal.

But if you're going to choose to do something that is not ideal because it just means something to you, then, yeah, we need to think about what are the implications of those things. And one of those things is like when it comes to jumping, if you're going to be jumping like a basketball player is just jumping time and time and time and time again, obviously, that wouldn't be natural in nature. We wouldn't be doing that to survive. We're doing that, and it's completely out of the notion of just living. So you probably need to have a bit more cushion to try to absorb some of that impact. There's a caveat there, though. Usually when we cushion ourselves from that impact, it doesn't mean that the impact goes away. It just means the impact goes elsewhere throughout the system, right? This is why you see most of these guys with ice on their knees, ice on their backs, having all these issues, you know, their feet are being still restricted, this is why you're getting Achilles injuries and ruptures and tears and I mean, it's just like, yeah, it's going to happen, right? And we're talking about some of the best athletes in the world.

And I will tell you this, a lot of them now are starting to talk with us here at Vivo. And so kind of behind the scenes, we've been working with a number of professional athletes from the NFL to the NBA to the Major League Baseball, hockey. And of course, I mean, if you think about hockey, you're not going to see a barefoot hockey skate ever, right? Right. So to answer your question, yes, ideally what we would be doing is doing all of the work to make our feet stronger, get our feet moving and operating in the way that it's supposed to, and then put ourselves into the put a stronger foot into a conventional shoe.

Josh Holland
Hopefully it challenges the market to make a wider shoe. If nothing else, make a wider shoe. I think and wider at the toe box, not just the upper, but the entire toe box of the shoe. Some companies will will claim that they have a wide, a wide shoe, but maybe just the top part is wide, but the bottom still is narrow. I think that's false advertising.

If you ask me, this is like, why can't we just change the last of the shoe, which is basically the form or the mold that we use in today's world? We should just all kind of challenge the shoemakers out there to just maybe widen the shoe a little bit so we can at least have better splay so that we have better stability so that we can get stronger throughout our lower limbs so that we see less injury in our favorite sports with our favorite athletes. Again, I think and I think it is happening. It is. I see it slowly happening. So, yeah, I think putting a stronger foot in a conventional shoe on the court or on the field is better than just saying, well, it's not going to change. And this is what, you know, this is a basketball shoe and I play basketball and never doing anything about it. I think that's wrong.

Melanie Avalon
Have you seen any correlation between people's shoe sizes and how, I don't want to say like how beneficial their feet are, but I've always been really interested in how you can't always predict people's shoe sizes based on like how big they are, you know, like, or how tall they are? Is there, like, I'm just thinking like, why are, like, why do some people have smaller feet and some people have larger feet and does, does that make them more or less prone to issues with their feet?

Josh Holland
That's a really good question. And I, I've never really put that much thought into it. But this is an interesting question and an interesting conversation. A rabbit hole, we could definitely go down.

But I would imagine that because our bodies adapt very well to our environment, you know about epigenetics. Epigenetics is basically like the influences around us, our environment and how that shifts our blueprint that is our DNA and us ultimately as human beings. I think that the bigger we are, the more loading we have, the more gravitational force onto our feet, onto our body, that our bones, our muscles, our ligaments, everything has to adapt based on the height and weight of a person. So that's why you're probably most likely going to see bigger limbs or bigger feet, bigger hands for people that are bigger, because we're typically doing more, we're loading ourselves. But that's just a theory. I don't know. I hadn't even thought about that. But that's what comes to mind for me.

I think a common occurrence that happens in the barefoot space, when a person goes from a conventional shoe that is restrictive to more of a minimalist shoe or barefoot shoe, we tend to see that the foot gets stronger, and with more strength, not all the time, but usually gets a little thicker, a little bigger. And this is why sometimes when a person becomes a devotee like I am, you eventually just change out all your shoes. And I'm okay with it, because I'm not in fashion. But I can try to jazz up an outfit with my barefoot shoes, but I really don't give a shit if somebody says to me, you know, oh, what shoes you got on? And where's that? I don't care. Because I feel really good now. And I kept myself from having to get surgery on my feet. And I've helped a few of my clients and friends and family to understand this a bit more. Some listen, some don't, or I guess they all listen. But then some apply some of these ideas and others are just like, eh, I can't do it. And I'm here to just be a light and try to shed some light on this situation and open people's minds to this, to the idea of blah, whatever that is.

Melanie Avalon
Speaking of the bunions, I really love that conversation as well because my grandmother had them, my dad had them, and then I've always been told, like, you know, Melanie, you might get them. It's genetic.

I think that's something where people heavily think it's primarily, like it's genetic destiny. So it's really nice to know that you can adequate, you know, that you can actually take action and not have that happen, not have the surgery. My dad had bunion surgery. I remember that.

Josh Holland
Yeah. Here's the thing. I love these kind of conversations. I really do.

If you could see me right now, you'd have a huge smile on my face. Similar to this idea of epigenetics. This is very, very near and dear to me because I grew up in Oklahoma, a small town. My father on his side of the family, a lot of them were morbidly obese. My dad was morbidly obese. And it'll be... A year and a half ago, he passed away from a lot of the complications of him being morbidly obese. And it's one of those situations where as a kid, I grew up thinking like, look, I love my dad to bits and I love my family. I don't want them to die. And I'm going to do everything I can to not allow myself to get that way.

And you know how kids can be cruel, of course. But I remember in college, a couple of my teammates, I think they were ultimately trying to be helpful or whatever, but they'd be like, boy, you better be careful, boy, because you're going to end up being like, yo, dad, because he would come to the games. And I'm like, no, I'm not. And so it's probably why I gravitated towards what I do today. And what I realized is that, sure, morbid obesity could be genetic if you do the same things that your parents do and what their parents did. Because it's not like my grandparents were morbidly obese. They weren't. But my dad and he grew up, he's one of 13 kids. And so there's a lot of childhood trauma that goes with that. And a lot of, I think, like, empty nest syndrome happened. And my parents got divorced when we were young. And there was a lot of things that were happening around that world. But I think that epigenetic factors play a huge role when it comes to genetics.

So what I mean by that is, sure, if you are more prone to having bunions because it is in your epigenetic line, then if you tend to wear the same shoes and do the same things that those before you did, then you are more likely to have the same things that they had. It's just it is what it is, right? So like, if you took a set of twins, and both of them had the same sort of risk of developing bunions, and you put one in a different culture with a different group of people, and he was barefoot, and this and that, I would imagine, I don't know, somebody check me out on this. I haven't looked into it. But again, we're just having a conversation here. My thought would be that the one who does not adhere to the conventional shoes will not develop the bunion. That's just how I see it.

Melanie Avalon
Wow, was your dad, even when you were growing up and doing all the martial art type stuff like that as well?

Josh Holland
Well, in his younger years, no. He started to become really overweight when he and my mom first separated. And then when they went through the divorce, my mom took my brother and I, sort of took us away from him because in Oklahoma, at least back then, almost without question, the kids go to the mom unless it was something really terrible. And then we eventually, we had a bunch of hardships with our mom and, and the fact that she was with, eventually with like abusive boyfriends. And so we had to literally flee from those situations. We came back and then my mom's mother, our grandmother, she was riddled with breast cancer. So my mom had her hands full. So it was hard for her to, to have two rambunctious boys and take care of her mom and, you know, deal with everything else that had just happened in her life from being beaten to a pulp and all these things.

Right. And so, so it was interesting that, you know, we got a chance to go back and, and, and, and live with our dad. But when we first came back, it was like, whoa, we saw that he had changed so much. He had added so much weight. And that was kind of the beginning of the end, I think.

And, you know, throughout my life, when I, you know, became a trainer, I helped him to lose over a hundred pounds two different times, but, but it was just one of those things where, yeah, because in the end, when he, he had a fall and this was after that, like during the pandemic, he had, he fell and he came down with a COVID. And I mean, the fall didn't make him have COVID, but you know what I mean? Like during that time period, it was like he had COVID, he got through that weirdly enough. We all thought like, Oh, this is, this is it because, you know, like he has all of the comorbidities. So we thought like it's over. And he basically had a little cold for a couple of days and that was it. But that, even though he survived that and we were all happy, it kind of made him think that he was invincible. He can continue living the way he was living. And then he had a fall and, you know, it ultimately led him to have to go to the hospital. And then he never got out of the hospital for like two years.

Melanie Avalon
I'm so sorry.

Josh Holland
Yeah. So I say all that to say that I got bunions, but no one else in my family had bunions.

So it was obviously something that was developed, right? My dad was morbidly obese, but I'm not, right? And so it's like, yeah, maybe I am prone to that because the whole idea of background and everybody says, oh yeah, we got big bones in his family. You know, we got big appetites probably, right? And so, yeah. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Wow. Well, first of all, I'm so sorry about your dad. That's really, really horrible.

And you had a crazy childhood. And that's actually another example of people go through so much in childhood. And there's always the argument of nurture versus nature and everything. It just goes to show that you can be resilient. You can do amazing things with your life, regardless of what you go through. And actually, the genetic conversation reminds me of something I wanted to ask when you were sharing about your epic personal trainer work that you did with Madonna. Something I always thought about or thought about a lot growing up was looking at these celebrities who were in the best shape and doing all the things. And I always wondered, were they just born that way? Or were they physically? Or were they born mentally, just with the capacity to stick to something? Or is it that they can afford to hire the trainers? So working with the top elite of performers, physically, aesthetically, dance-wise, like with Madonna, what has it told to you about somebody's potential to really get in the utmost shape? How much of it is genetics versus not? How much of it is mindset versus their body? How much of it is access to epic personal trainers? What have you experienced?

Josh Holland
So this is a good question, but I want to make sure I'm clear on it. So are you talking about, like, what have I seen that, like, allows them to get to where they are in terms of like stardom or what allows them to get into the shapes that they're in, the shape that they're in?

Melanie Avalon
to get physically in shape, because whenever I would look at celebrities growing up, I was like, is it just because they can afford to work with the best trainers and dietitians, or is it that they have the mindset, or were they physically born this way, or is it all the above?

Josh Holland
Okay. Oh, this is good. This is a good, this is a good question. You've got a lot of good questions, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon
You got good answers.

Josh Holland
So here's the thing. So Madonna is one of several high-level celebrities that I've worked with and still worked with to this day. And I've seen sort of a pattern amongst some of the most successful ones out there when it comes to their physical fitness and things like that. Because I think you could probably answer the question on your own to a certain extent. Because if I throw a question back at you and say, OK, if just having access to trainers is the thing, if that was my answer, then anyone that works with me should be in the best shape of their life, right? So that's not it.

So we know there has to be more than that, right? Because at the end of the day, anybody, I mean, I put content out for free all the time. But what makes someone decide to go, you know what? I want to work with this person because of X, Y, and Z. And then together, we build out a plan for them specifically. And one of the things that I've noticed about some of the highest performers that I've worked with is that when they set their mind to doing something, they're going to do it. And so if I can challenge them in the right way and I can program them to do the certain things and I have enough experience around more than just working out, because working out is just one fraction of the whole big piece. In fact, you know, you may know this, but I co-wrote a book called The Awareness Shift. And the reason why I wrote this book is because I wanted people to, I would always get people asking me, Josh, what is it you do? Okay, so yeah, well, I see you're a fitness trainer, but you're also like, you know, you talk about psychedelics and you talk about meditation and you talk about like, you know, barefoot stuff. Well, okay, here's a book that lays out basically the five pillars of optimal health and the way I see it. And with that, I've noticed that most of the people at this high level, they go, oh, okay, it's more than just the fitness piece, because I have it in like a triage effect or sort of like a top trickle down effect.

The most important one pillar, pillar number one is quality awareness. And so a person might think, well, wait a minute, Josh is a fitness trainer and a health coach and a biohacker, pillar number one is gonna be something real spicy, right? And no, it's awareness, right? Because we need to be aware of the fact that we need to make changes or we even can make changes, right? So that's pillar number one. And it goes way beyond just knowing we can make changes. But like, I think even awareness is like this idea of being able to meditate and what even meditating means and creating habits and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So that's pillar one.

Pillar two is quality rest, which is basically sleep and recovery, because I found that that gives a lot of bang for the buck when you can do that properly. Pillar number three is quality consumption, which is food, things we drink and the energy we consume around us, also epigenetics. Pillar number four is quality activeness. And pillar number five is quality exercise.

Josh Holland
So if you're doing all those things well enough, then when you get to pillar five, it's like the icing on the cake. You're building the base with awareness and then adding in rest and recovery to maybe add that there's a couple of ingredients that really make that cake fluff up, right?

And then the consumption part is, you know, getting the temperature right, making sure that it's going to, you know, set in there properly. Pillar number four is pulling it out without it falling. And then pillar number five is putting the icing on the cake, right? And so this is what I see that most people who are high achievers and, you know, top performers, they understand all of it. And if they don't understand all of it, they have people around them that help them to understand all of it. And so to your point, people at a certain level, they do have chefs. They do have trainers. They do have assistants and nannies and housekeepers to make their lives a little bit easier, whether that's good or bad, right?

Because I kind of feel like we are, I mean, there's a good book written by Michael Easter, you probably know it, called The Comfort Crisis. I feel like we should probably do more things to kind of get us out of our comfort zone than we should do more things to try to get into a comfort zone. Mainly shoes, but even something as simple as like, in the middle of the summer when it's hot outside, you think our ancestors put on the air conditioning? No.

Melanie Avalon
Oh man, I love my air conditioning.

Josh Holland
and I do too. I do as well.

But part of the reason why you can hear background noise right now is because it's beautiful outside right now. And you know what, I don't want to have the air conditioning on because like, I know we need to have, we need to be able to experience all the seasons because at the end of the day, we are human beings that have, have gravitated throughout this journey, we call life, having to experience the good, the bad, the hot, the cold, the balance of everything, dark, light, you know? But yeah, it's like, I think we need to feel into this, this idea or the thought around yin and yang. And again, that is like, this is almost like a full circle moment that brings me back to my martial arts upbringing. Because that's when I really started to understand what yin and yang was all about. From a very young age, I used to see these patches, and I would see these flags that have the yin and yang symbol. And I would always ask, what does that even mean? Like, what is it? And it's just all these theories around balance, basically, right? And so whether you call that homeostasis, or you call that circadian rhythm, or you call that the, you know, the cycles of the moon or whatever, it's just like there's always, there's a sense of balance throughout nature. And I think we need to kind of feel into it. And so that's, yeah, I don't know how I even got on that subject, but I hope that answers your question somewhat.

Melanie Avalon
No it does and first of all i wish i realize you had that book because i completely would have read it before this interview so i'm gonna have to read it now but i love i love that the focus on awareness because i'm just thinking back to. The question i had in my own evolution and my perspective on that which was when i was growing up i was like oh you know celebrities they can they have a lot of money so they can afford to.

You know have coaches and trainers and people who make them do the things and then when i experienced just how profoundly the like following a whole food space diet had on my health and i was like oh okay it's because they. You know they've realized this about food and so that's why they really get it and now I honestly I mean it's all the above, but I think ultimately it comes back to what you're saying and that. Like just this awareness like you've got to have like to make change and get the life that you want it really starts with your mind and your awareness about things I could not agree more.

Josh Holland
Yeah, there's a mantra I live by that I came up with at some point throughout my career. And I realized that I still live to it through, I still live with it to this day. And it goes like this, our bodies and minds adapt to what we do most of the time. If you want to change your body and mind, you must change what it is you do most of the time.

And that's that's what they're doing. Right. And so like if you realize that you are a person that is unorganized, but you see yourself as being like a top performer, then what do you do about that? Do you just let it be? Well, if you do, you're not going to be a top performer. So what top performers do is they recognize that about themselves and then they go and fix it. They either make themselves become more organized, or they find situations in which allow them to do that, whether it's AI today, or it's, you know, getting an assistant or multiple assistants, or finding some kind of community that that holds them accountable to being more organized. And that's just one example, right? If you are a top performer, and you treat yourself as such, right, like I want people to start trying to be more aware of the fact that they have the power to show up in whatever costume you want to put on, right, right, right now, I'm showing up as me, Josh, but, but there is this, this costume that I'm wearing, because I'm talking to this microphone talking to you through this microphone, right? But if I had put on the costume of being a scared little boy, or, you know, I had this like imposter syndrome, this would be a very different conversation. I'm showing up as the person that is very confident in what I do, very knowledgeable in what I do, and I've experienced a lot. So I have no choice but to show up in this costume today, right? This is the costume I'm wearing. And I feel I feel like we have the power every time we step out of our house, and we step out into this world, we have the power to put on whatever costume we choose to put on. If you feel like you can't walk from point A to point B without being scared of your surroundings, that's the costume you put on, you can do something about that, you can go and practice jujitsu, you can move, right? If you really are scared, you can move to a different situation, right? And so I feel like a lot of the people that I work with are people that are very confident in the things that they're able to do very well, but they're willing to admit in on the things that they're not good at. And they have their resources and the means to be able to go out and fix it. And that's what's the difference, I think.

Melanie Avalon
I love this so much. I'm curious. Have you? Okay.

So like, like for me, I, a reason I have this podcast is because I get a little bit overwhelmed or I don't know, exhausted by or maybe I'm just not interested in it. And this might come as a surprise because what I do is learning about things that optimize people's lives, but I actually don't want to work one-on-one with people. Like I don't want to take on the responsibility of trying to change any one person. So for me, it's like, I'd rather just, I often say that I'm not a lighthouse, I'm a flashlight. Like I just want to like talk to people and then like give people a flashlight so they can go figure out what works for them. Like I don't actually want to like individually help. I mean, I want to help, but like I don't want to take on fixing any one person.

And not that you're like fixing people, but I guess my question is, so you work with these incredible celebrities and people that you train and then, and then, you know, you have experiences like with your dad where, you know, he was in the lifestyle that he was in. So how do you, it's one thing when you're doing a talk or a podcast where, you know, people are showing up to listen. So it's not like you have to try to convince people of things if that makes sense. But in your day to day life, how do you take on either the opportunity or burden of seeing people, you know, living their life, wearing the shoes? Is it exciting to you? Is it a burden? Like trying to make change with people beyond when it's somebody paying you to be a trainer or like coming on a podcast or doing, you know, a speaker thing.

Josh Holland
I don't really ever see it as a burden because the moment it feels like a burden, I shift, we're in a shift, right? I, and I fortunately have the ability in in my life and my career, because I essentially work for myself. And I work part time for Vivo Barefoot now. And most of what I do is remote now. So I do have the, and I have a company called System Fit here in New York City, it's a fitness company, biohacking facility. Also that I oversee, but I don't have to be there day to day. And so yeah, I'm fortunate enough to be able to understand how I operate best. And I've tried to create that, right? So I try to create an environment that allows me to succeed, which then ultimately allows me to help others succeed.

And so I get excited to work with people. And when there's a new challenge, I get excited. That's just why like, you know, I didn't divert away from when you asked me some of these questions that I hadn't really thought about. But I'm like, I get excited about these kind of questions. I'm like, Oh, wow, this is good, because this might creep into one of my next talks that I have, right? And so I think to myself, I'm such a such a curious person. And I love how we as a as a people how we operate, whether it's like whether a person looks at it as they operate from a dark place or from from a light place, whether they think it's good or bad. I'm just fascinated by how people operate. And that's why I catch myself sometimes watching like murder mysteries, or, you know, I love comedy, I think comedy is one of those things that's like it takes us to be a good comedian, it takes a certain amount of wit, timing, experience, awareness, I think awareness is huge to understand if you really are good, you know, and also another thing is like people who go on these like reality shows and people who like, who think that deep down inside that they're amazing singers, but they may not be, like, I'm fascinated by that. I'm fascinated by the process of someone bombing on stage as a comedian. I'm just fascinated by it, not to say that I want to see that happen. I want everybody to win. To be honest with you, all ships rise with the tide, right? So I want everybody to win. And so but when I do see people struggling to win, I'm fascinated by that as well.

I'm fascinated by what works, but I'm also equally fascinated by what doesn't work. Why? Because it allows me to understand what will work. And so, so I take on every opportunity as a true opportunity to learn. So as much as I'm teaching, I'm literally learning. And I know that sounds cliche. And I know people say this all the time. But that's literally what I'm feeling in my heart right now.

Melanie Avalon
I'm the same as you with The Curiosity. I launched a third podcast called The Mindblown Podcast and it's literally just random topics because I just love exploring the world and I'm so fascinated by it and so curious. So yes, we're very similar there.

Josh Holland
I like the name of that, by the way.

Melanie Avalon
I just love mind-blowing stuff when you actually feel your mind blowing up because you're just so mind-blown. Okay, so this is so, so incredible.

So for people who are excited and want to explore this whole barefoot movement world and get Vivo barefoot shoes, where should they start? Is it basically... So here's a question. Is it basically anything goes like, can a person get any shoe at Vivo barefoot and it shouldn't, in theory, work for them? Or is there still within the catalog of shoes some will be better for certain people?

Josh Holland
Yes, the latter is correct. So what you may notice if a person goes to vivobarefoot.com, you may notice a plethora of different styles and colors and, and, and best uses for the certain categories. So there's now ranges for what do you call it, like outdoor, there's performance, there's what I'm actually on the website now, just because I want to look through it again. So I know exactly, but there's outdoor performance, everyday sneakers, boots, hiking, road running, trail running, training, everyday work, right? So there's there's different styles for sort of different things. And you don't have to like, look at it like that and keep it like that it could literally be you could take like the modus flex and use it as your running shoe, if you're well trained, if you know what you're doing. So I think I like how they have it broken down into different categories, because that's a good start.

It's like, okay, what are you looking to do? Why are you here, basically? And then from there, depending on what you what you want to use it for, then we can kind of give you the reasons why the shoe the shoe might be designed in that way. And so, like, like, maybe give me a hypothetical, like what, what, what do you think most people would go to the to the site to get

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, so I think, I mean, there's different categories of people. So like for me, it would be, you know, I said before, I'm like the sandal type person. I want just like the everyday fit, non-enclosed shoe that I can wear to the grocery store and stuff.

Josh Holland
So then you would go to the section called women's sandals. Right? So, I mean, right now, currently, there's there's four styles on the page, there's a tracker sandal, there's a census yin slide, the census yin sandal, and then the sandal to unisex. So those are the four options right now.

But that's because, you know, again, you asked me and also within each of those, there's like two or three different colorways and and so on and so forth. So there's that right. And I also like to say that typically when I'm working with people on sizing, because I get this question a lot, well, I don't know what size I'm like a seven and a half. Okay. If you may notice that on the website, we don't do half sizes. And so I mean, there's like 10 and a half for women's is a half size and four and a half for women's is half size, but the rest of them is just 5678910 10 and a half 11. So what we typically say, this is my advice, right? And I've seen this time and time again, if you fall in between, and you're new to the barefoot or minimal shoe, then I would say size down. And the reason for that is because when you're if you're used to being having to having your toes scrunched in a constrictive shoe, when you finally get into a shoe that is very wide and allows your toes to move around and splay, you might think that it's too big. But that's actually the point, right? So that's why I always say I would prefer for them the size down.

And then good news is is that you probably already know this, but they're really good at exchanging. Because right now, this is going to change soon. But right now, it's still all online here in the US especially. So they have some retail stores in the UK and other parts of the country or other parts of the world. But in the US, it's coming soon. So stay tuned. But right now, unless you come to like the biohacking conference or some of these these events that we're at, you might not ever get your chance to put on the shoes to try what the sizes are. So you either have to buy them hope they fit well and work for you. If they don't, you send them in, you get them exchange them or refund them or whatever. And then they also have the Revivo program, which is pretty cool in that they will allow you to basically send in your tattered shoes, your old shoes, and they will sort of refurbish them for you.

Melanie Avalon
So cool.

Josh Holland
Yeah. And so, and then I forget like how, how it fully works because, you know, like even this is, well, it's not part of what I do on a day-to-day basis, but I know that I think you can either have them redo it for you and you buy them back or they sell them online. But I think it's cool because that's also getting into this whole, this whole conversation around sustainability and recycling and, you know, more their shoes are becoming, what is it called, like biodegradable. So they're getting closer and closer and closer to like having a hundred percent biodegradable shoe, which I think is very admirable from a company to think about.

And keep in mind, like this is a company that like the two co-founders Asher Clark and Galahad Clark are seventh generation cobblers and, you know, or shoemakers. And they've been at this for a long, long time. And it's, you know, they, so they, they know what they're doing in the Clark's family. They're really amazing. And it's like, I love that it's not just about at the end of the day, selling a pair of shoes. They're coming up with all kinds of solutions. They're partnering with different charities and they have all these different pop-ups all over the world. And like here in the summertime, I'm going to be going over to do like a work retreat in this area out like in the outskirts of London, way like hours away. But we get a chance to like sit with each other and sleep in, in yurts or tents and, and like go swimming together and meditate together and walk, do these pilgrimages together. It's like, it's a really fun company to be a part of. And that's why I've been so devoted and loyal over all these years, because it's just speaks to my heart and I'm very well aligned with it and it just makes sense.

So I will go back to answering that question a little bit. When I see people show up like to do a session with me or I'm trying to help someone and they've got these, these shoes that I would deem horrible, I can't let it, I can't take it personal, but I do kind of go, Oh man, if only I could help this person. And then you see people become so defensive. It's almost like trying to challenge someone's religion or challenge someone's eating style or, or dating style or whatever. It's just like, whoa, relax. Like I'm just saying, you know, I like these shoes because you know, my feet are able to, to, to, to operate better and it helps me to live a better life. That's it.

You know, you don't have to do it. And then, and then people always ask me, Josh, why are you all your socks, toe socks? Well, because I want my toes to be able to wiggle and move, you know, doesn't it feel weird? No. I mean, it doesn't, but I can see why you might think it does because you're not used to it, but, you know, try it out. See what you think.

Melanie Avalon
So so amazing. Yeah, I will just say to the defensiveness part, that's something that I feel very strongly about.

And it goes back to the awareness thing, which is, I think one of the most profound epiphanies I had was that anytime I feel defensive about something, like it's not the other person, you know, it's something in me that is feeling threatened or that I'm upset about or that I need to work on. And if we all just realize that, then we would stop blaming each other for all the things.

Josh Holland
I love that perspective. And that is one thing I like to talk about a lot because it helps me throughout life a lot.

So I'm glad you brought that up because I wasn't even anticipating talking about this, but this is when we can talk about the ego. And I learned this and what I mean by the ego as in like literally the entity that is the ego, not like this negative connotation, but the ego is there for us to let us know who we are, right? And when I had one of my most profound psychedelic journeys, I realized that the ego is literally there to protect us. Right? It thinks that someone's saying something bad to you or negative to you. It thinks that that's a danger. So let me protect you. And sometimes those protective mechanisms manifest in different ways. You can be defensive, you could get angry, you can do all these things. But if you kind of take a step back, become a little bit more aware and say, I got it from here, ego, thank you. Like you're not needed in this moment because this is not a real danger, right? This is just someone that kind of hurt my feelings. You can be honest with yourself about that. Like, yeah, that hurts my feelings, but you probably are right about, or there is something in there that I think may make sense and it's hard to do, right? Let's face it. Like if somebody's yelling at you, it's hard to go, you know, I'm not gonna react right now, but we'd have the capacity to do that if we become more aware.

Melanie Avalon
I'm so I'm I'm so obsessed with this topic. So I'm glad we're it's so it's kind of like the flashlight thing. It's just so eye opening because you can use it as a tool. Now I kind of get excited when I feel defensive because I'm like, Oh, okay.

Like what? What am I insecure about here? What can I work on? And it's really freeing because then you don't worry about you don't have to worry about blaming the other person as much. And then like you said, when you get on the flip side, it's helpful because it helps you understand more why people are reacting the way they're reacting. And then you can know also that it's not about you, how people react.

Josh Holland
Very powerful. I'm glad you brought that up, honestly. That makes me smile because it is, even me just talking about it and you bringing it up, reminds me that it can slip for me as well. Just because I'm bringing up some interesting ideas and thoughts and we're both having some really good bits of conversation doesn't mean that either of us have it perfect. We struggle all the time, right?

We all struggle. And I think when we can be more honest about those things to ourselves, we have the capacity to really grow.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I cannot agree more. Also, I'm really excited.

My sister is going to be with me at the biohacking conference, and she's also into all of this. So we're, you get to meet her too, so we're going to come see you and we can talk about.

Josh Holland
all the things. Awesome. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited.

Melanie Avalon
It'll be so fun. And so for listeners, okay, I'm sure they're super eager and excited to get a pair of Vivo Barefoots and or multiple pairs. And Josh and Vivo is so kind. So listeners can use the coupon code Melanie Avalon and they will that will get you 20% off your order, excluding sale items and kid shoes.

So for that, go to Vivo Barefoot.com, use the code Melanie Avalon to get 20% off. And like Josh was saying, they have a very generous return policy, I was just looking on the website, and it's 100 days, no questions asked. So you really have nothing to lose. And only a lot to gain, like a lot to gain. So and there's so many options. I was looking before I like there's so many options. And I really like the styling. It's like very unique, like the colors and everything that you guys do.

Josh Holland
I'm glad you're saying that now because that hasn't always been the case for them. I know that was a sticking point for them as a brand for a while because when I first got introduced to Vivo Barefoot, it was maybe a handful of styles and they weren't that good looking. But keep in mind, I was on this path of not really caring because I was learning so much and I was just so excited that I didn't have to spend all this money to get bunion surgery. So for me, it didn't really matter.

And then it just started blossoming into all these different styles and colors and things like that. And keep in mind, people will... It's still a learning curve. You still have to... It's almost like an acquired taste, I think. But what's really cool is that any moment, especially in this big city of New York City, any moment I'm out and about and I see someone or they see me with Vivo's on, it's kind of like the, if you know, you know. And I love that. It's very similar when it comes to like...

Melanie Avalon
and glasses.

Josh Holland
blue light blocking glasses or like locks, you know, like I have my locks. And if I see someone else with locks, it's just kind of like a head nod and a bit of a smirk and you kind of get it. It's like, I know the struggle, bro. You know?

And so I mean, with Vivos, it's just like nowadays, it's kind of, it's getting harder and harder to tell because it's starting to look more like, like the quote unquote conventional shoes that are out there and a lot more styling. And so you're going to start to see this pop up in more fashion brands. And I hope, I hope that when I'm saying this, whenever this comes out, I'm hoping that this would have already happened. But like, we're hoping to get more involved in some of these fashion brands. And, and not, not because like we want this to be like fashionable necessarily, but we want to let people know that it's okay to also make this into fashion as well. And, and it's like, I don't know if you've seen the the unbound documentary, you have to check this out. If you if you're on the website, go to the collections section. And it says women's collection and then unbound is right underneath it. That's one to definitely watch. It's a it's a short documentary. I forget how long it is. I mean, I think it's like eight minutes or something like that. Maybe a little bit longer. I don't remember. But it's very powerful, especially for women, especially for women. I mean, it's like the whole notion is that I'll just read it off here really quick, just for people who are listening. Unbound is unstoppable. We've come this far in shoes that work against us. Imagine where we could go barefoot. For centuries, women have been told that beauty is pain, that blisters and weak feet are the price we pay for style and persistent foot problems have nothing to do with the narrow, pointy and healed shoes we've been squeezing into. Spoiler alert, they're wreaking havoc on our feet and overall health. Even you're not so innocent cushion sneakers. So we teamed up with visionary filmmaker Becky Huttner, fashion reimagined and Oscar nominated producer Melissa Robledo food Inc. to create Unbound, a story of women's footwear liberation. Unbound is a celebration of women stepping into their power as they question what's quote unquote normal, reclaim their natural strength and discover the joy of barefoot movement.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, amazing. Okay, I will put a direct link to that and I'll have to watch that. That is incredible.

Josh Holland
It's super powerful.

Melanie Avalon
This is so cool. And I'm just looking through all the shoes. You guys even have ballerina shoes.

Josh Holland
Exactly. I mean, that's then that's what I'm getting at. It's like, when people, it's like, I think a lot of people just want to quickly disregard anything that goes against what they because when when I ask people usually I do like these seminars or speaking engagements, I'll ask them, what do you think when you first hear barefoot shoes? Oh, my goodness, there's a whole load of different things out there. But most, most of the people think of the the five toe shoes, you know, the the five finger shoes. And that's not what we're doing here. Not that that's wrong. But that's just not what we're doing here, right? And or Palova, right? I think you just had them on, right? It's like, there's nothing wrong with that. It's like, it's a it's great. But that's a harder sale to someone or it's harder to get someone to get their head wrapped around that because it goes so far against the sort of norm of today.

And so where we are is like, we're trying to like, provide wide, thin, flexible shoes for all types of people. And then, you know, when you get into the specialized category like sports and Olympic athletics and marathon running and things like that, okay, yeah, we've designed a running shoe, but you're probably not going to see many people running marathons in those shoes, a few crazy ones like us. We've done it. But, you know, you're not going to see the bulk of the of the society doing that because, well, they're going for comfort. They want to go faster and farther. So yeah, put the restrictions on your feet, do what you got to do. But then hopefully you can get away from that when you finish and then take care of your body. You know, I want to see more people going out and doing foot baths and pedicures, men and women. I want to see more people doing foot massages. I want to see more couples loving each other and giving each other foot rubs. I want to see that express itself in the world today, not just because I work at Vivo, but because I think this has been a huge, like a huge bit of like, love to my life and my career. And so I want to share that with as many people as I can.

Melanie Avalon
I love this. And I'm glad you pointed that out because I know my audience is really familiar with Puluba, which I do love as well.

And I'm glad you're emphasizing. So these are not like these actually look like they look like real shoes, normal shoes.

Josh Holland
And by the way, I have a lot of respect for Mark Sisson and what he does. And, um, you know, he actually, one of my first ever health coaching certifications came from the blue, the prime, primal blueprint, uh, primal. Yeah. Primal blueprint health coaching program. And, you know, and I've had, I've had many conversations with him directly at events and things like that. Great guy.

I love what they're doing because again, all ships rise with the tide. So if we're getting more people thinking about barefoot, if they don't like the option of the toes, then they're most likely going to find vivo at some point. Right.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, no, I'm the same way. I'm all about abundance and, you know, supporting everybody that's furthering the mission. And so I'm so, so, so grateful for you and Vivo and everything you guys are doing. So, and I love that we're ending with a prescription for pedicures and massages. That works for me.

So as a reminder friends, you can go now to vivobarefoot.com use the coupon code Melanie Avalon to get 20% off your order. I cannot recommend this enough. Also, this will make really great gifts for people just saying. Well, Josh, this has been such a beautiful, incredible conversation. I just really, really enjoyed it.

I appreciate so much what you're doing and your spirit and your mindset. And it's really incredible. Can't wait to see you really soon. The last question I asked every guest on this show, and it is just because I am so obsessed with the importance of mindset in our life. So what is something that you're grateful for?

Josh Holland
I'm grateful that I have the capacity to be aware. I'm grateful for many things, obviously.

I'm happy that I'm living in the world that we are in today. I think this is one of the most unique times that we have ever lived. Some will say it's good, some will say it's bad, but I'm happy that I have awareness. I'm happy that I have life. I'm happy that I have a support structure around me and people that cheer me on when they feel it's necessary. And equally, they will tell me when I'm fucking up, if I'm fucking up, I'm grateful to be alive and I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be on this platform. I could go on and on and on, but I'm just grateful to be alive and to be thriving. And I want to keep that until my last breath.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, I love it so much. I cannot agree more.

And you were saying about Grateful to be Alive today. I, we were, I don't know. On the Mind Blowing podcast, we've been going through some of Mind Blowing things from the past, like for example, did you know that the chainsaw was invented for childbirth? What? Yeah. Like things like that. And it's like, okay, we have it really good today. We're not like using chainsaws. You blow my mind. I know. Um, but so even just the, the fact that we are privileged enough to be aware that our modern conveniences are, aren't doing, you know, this damage. And now we're able to make change with things like, with, like with this Barefoot movement, like that's just something to be grateful for.

You know, that we're privileged enough to even have this awareness now. And, but, um, yeah, no, this was amazing. Thank you so, so much. I can't wait to see you next week. Oh my goodness. And, um, we'll have to have you back in the future. This was really wonderful.

Josh Holland
I would love that, and I would love to have you on my show one of these days soon, if any of your audience are interested. My podcast is called Simply Walk The Talk, and you can find me at Joshua J.

Holland on all social media platforms. It's Joshua, the letter J in between, and then Holland. So Joshua J. Holland. And yeah, hopefully we can get some content together soon, and let's get you hooked up with some shoes.

Melanie Avalon
Perfect. I know I'm excited. Oh my goodness. Well, thank you, Josh. We'll put links to all of that in the show notes. You're the best. I'll see you soon. Thank you. Have a good rest of your day. You too.

Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. For more information and resources, you can check out my book, What Win Wine, as well as my supplement line, Avalon X. Please visit melanieavalon.com to learn more about today's guest. And always feel free to contact me at contact at melanieavalon.com. And always remember, you got this.