When a Growing Business Loses Sight of Its Purpose

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0:00 If you don't make health care your priority when you're in your 20s, it'll become your priority when you're in your 50s. Once my heart started getting stronger and then the heart and the mind were both strong together cuz it's so important that the two of those are in sync in order to be wildly successful and move forward and have an impact on people's lives. It's really interesting cuz AFib has such an impact on our society today. It's tough to diagnose, it's tough to treat consistently, and at the end of the day it can have a catastrophic effect on your life.

If you feel like you're alone and you're you're on your journey, you just got this diagnosis which is a kick to the gut, there's people out there to help. I think we just need to you know, reach out a hand to everybody, make a difference. Hey there, I'm Terry Coutsolioutsos, founder of RevRx AI. We remove friction and architect revenue for medtech and consumer health practices. Welcome to Zero Friction. This is Terry Coutsolioutsos and I have an exciting episode today. With me I have Jim Kaveney. Jim is an author, an entrepreneur, and he's done a great job in the past of building a a world-class, high-performance educational team which was bought out. From then Jim went on to become an author and he started an organization called Unlimited Heart Health and Wellness. Jim, great to have you today. Give us a little background on yourself as an entrepreneur and what led you to write a book and then get into the health care industry.

Yeah, that's great Terry. Thank you very much for for the opportunity to connect with you today, too. Yeah, so the the long and short of it is, you know, throughout my entire life I always felt like I wanted to build something but I wasn't sure what that was going to be and so I I dabbled in a variety of different things throughout my life but most of my career was spent in health and biotech and pharmaceuticals, right? And I was a biology teacher by trade. So I went to college for biology, got certified to teach biology, got into corporate education and then when I was into the corporate education field I realized, "Hey, like I think I could do something better." So that's that's why I went out, I started my own learning and development company, which really tapped into the whole of concepts of not only understanding the the content that you that's in there, but also understanding the behavioral and the psychological framework of people that are out selling, out connecting with

Individuals. And so, built the organization for about 8 years, sold it to private equity in 2020. Not out of desperation, but more so more out out of an opportunity to say, "Hey, I I need to do something with this because I I want to I guess it was kind of the I want to prove that what I built was valuable and that people actually found found that what we did was was was good. I think that goes into the play when anybody gets into the entrepreneurial framework. It's the imposter syndrome.

2:35 It was like, "Am I really doing this? Am I really making something that's worthwhile?" But, along the journey of my entrepreneurial experience, I also became a patient with atrial fibrillation. So, at the very same time that I started my my business, I was diagnosed with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. And so, that is a you know, it's a it's a heart disease, which at the time I was 38 years old. So, of course I thought to myself, "I'm 38. I'm invincible. I mean, this this is not going to do much to me." And then I was completely wrong with that with that interpretation of what that diagnosis was. And so, as my business was growing rapidly, my cardiac health and everything else was deteriorating precipitously.

For probably for a a variety of reasons. One, the disease was progressive. Two, I was under significant significant stress related to my business, but you know, all was all was well and good. But, thankfully in in 2019, after a culmination of events between you know, multiple cardiac ablations, cardioversions, and finally a pacemaker in 2018, I I received my last cardioversion in 2019, and I've I've been AFib free since. So, that's awesome. So, now that's doing the quick math, that's about 7 years I've been AFib free. But, then I realized at that time I said, "If boy, if I were to die tomorrow, I wouldn't have much to leave my family. So, I'm going to put put out the for sale sign on the business." And from that, I was able to attract a significant amount of companies that came our way and said, "Hey, what what you built is really cool. We want we want to bring you on board." And so we decided to move in that direction. We we sold to private equity in in 2020.

Well, congratulations. That sounds like a nice little thing to to do after you spent years and years building and what a great space to be into in terms of like high-performance educated sales professionals and it all kind of fall falls in line with what we appreciate here at Zero Friction. Tell me about like you building a company while you were having these health issues. What was What was that like carrying both of those burdens like on your own? Yeah, so well, well, one you have to have an amazing team around you, right?

And so I think the the thing that we often forget, and this is in health care in general, the people we often forget that are most important in your journey is your caregivers, right? And so actually my business partner and my caregiver just happened to be my wife. So she she worked with me day in and day out. Now, thankfully she she's an absolute genius when it comes to operations. So she was running the operations of the business and so that helped precipitously for me because then that took off the you know, the the day in and day out grind of making sure that everything was, you know, all the T's and I's and things were crossed and it was more so just go out and build the business. Go out and connect. Do what you do best in talking to people, selling the vision, and and leading them in the right direction of how to make a difference in in what they were trying

5:15 To do. So that was exceptionally helpful. But the key thing for me when it came to myself, my own internal balance of the the business as well as my health was was making sure that my mind was strong. And so you know, I was never I was never Well, I guess I'm I'm I'm a student of psychological performance, but I never was classically trained in understanding what do you have to say to yourself? How do you What What are the words? What What is the performance of your of your own mind that you is required in order to be successful? I didn't know what that was, so I was started to read quite a bit. And then I realized I gosh, I while my my heart is weak, I need to make sure that my mind and my body is strong. And so I made sure that I was thinking the right things. I'm a faithful person, too. So I I said my prayers every single day, but I wanted

To make sure more importantly that I was I was in the right mindset, but also not ignorant to what was going on with my disease. And so as I was managing that, that really helped me get through a lot of what I was doing. And so what was great about it was then once my heart started getting stronger. And then the heart and the mind were both strong together. That's why you'll see with my with my business Unlimited Heart and my podcast AFibulous Life, there's a heart and a mind connected because it's so important that the two of those are in sync in order to be wildly successful and move forward to have an impact on people's lives. So that to me was probably the biggest biggest driver for me of being able to get through what I was doing.

That's pretty exciting from a standpoint of finding like how to optimize both of those things. And so it leads me to my next question. Having a-fib now became a main purpose for you and you've sort of built an infrastructure and a framework around all of that. What is your main purpose with the book and the organization? And what are you trying to deliver to the marketplace and and with other people like yourself? Yeah. Yeah, that was great. You know, what was interesting the book the book was not part of anything that I ever would have considered. You know, my father was classically an amazing writer and I I always said I had got my dad's skills of writing. I was pretty good writer myself. I never thought I'd write a book. But what was interesting is but as my business was growing, you know, we got we were ranked in Inc. 5000 three years in a row for being one of the fastest growing companies privately held companies in the United States. And invariably once once you get added to a

List, guess what? A lot of people start coming out to you saying, "Hey, you should do this. You should do that." And telling you that you're a you know, you're a genius. And so I I got a number of publishers that came out and said, "Hey, you are a business genius. You should write your story." And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm not really I'm I'm just a hard worker. I had an idea, I drove and I did it, and we Yes, we were successful, but my my story is not different than anybody else's that started small businesses and while they're successful, right? So, I'm like, I don't see a differentiator there." Anyway, so, literally years had gone by and they kept coming back every single year that you should write a book, you should write a book, and I said, "No, no, no, no." And finally, there was a a she's a now a friend of mine, uh Natasha Walstro and Natasha came to me and she

8:07 Was actually selling uh to that I should write a book. And she and I just sat and we chatted for about an hour on the phone and and she said, "You know, Jim, I've come to a conclusion." She's like, "I'm going to be a a sales person that doesn't sell." She's like, "I don't think you should write a book at all. You shouldn't write a book until you find what your absolute purpose is." And I said, "Great. Thank you. And then I'll I'll reach out to you, Natasha, when I'm ready." And so, a year passed by again, and in that journey, as I mentioned, I was reading tons of books, and so I I read a story about a gentleman who was going through his own cancer treatment and everything else, and he ultimately died from his cancer. But, the cool thing about what he did was he made sure that his experience was far different than what everybody else was experiencing. He made sure that his mind

Was consistently strong through his journey so that we he could go out on his own, right? And so, then I thought to myself, "Holy cow, if I ripped his oncology story out of his book, I could put in my story of my cardiac journey and how I used my mind, and while it was not always perfect, it was, you know, learning." I was like, "That's what the story's got to be." And so, so I wrote Unlimited Heart Health how to how to transform your pain into purpose with the intention not to say, "Hey, look at me, like I'm special," but more so, "Hey, look at me, I'm just a run-of-the-mill guy that started a business, got diagnosed, and figured to myself, I need to be on the better side of this. I'm not going to become a victim of my own circumstances." And so, that's where I I framed the book with the intention that, you know, as as Steve Jobs always said, "You never connect the dots moving forward. You only connect the dots in

Rears." And so, I looked at my life from a child as a as a child all the way up to my diagnosis and as I mentioned earlier I'm a faithful person so I I I believe you only go through things in order to make you stronger for those tougher challenges in life and so when I was reflecting on all the challenges I went through as a child and in high school and college and I realized when I was 38 I was prepared for my diagnosis and I needed to talk about that. So long story short I did that in the book with the intention at the backside of the story was now I'm going out and building something different. I'm going to build a business called Unlimited Heart Health and Wellness because guess what even though I was involved in health care and pharmaceutical biotech my care was great I was treated here in New Hampshire but there was significant gaps in my care and for as educated as I was those gaps nearly killed me and so that is what I

Said this like nobody deserves to have those gaps. We need to fill them. How do we fill them? We fill them with lifestyle modification, behavioral modification, those types of things and so that was the premise in the the the whole idea around building Unlimited Heart. You know it's it's really interesting cuz AFib has such impact in our society today. It's you know it's it's tough to diagnose, it's tough to treat consistently whether it's through medication, whether it's through therapeutic procedures. I mean there's all sorts of different you know and there's redos and and having to do procedures over and over again and it's it's one of those things that and at the end of the day it it it can have a catastrophic effect on your life from stroke and other implications as well. Tell me about like you're trying to create and connect with other patients that have AFib and you're trying to help them take control of their lifestyle and there's something that you'd mentioned to me in

11:18 Our our previous discussions around one of my goals is is to help others like myself create their own center of excellence around their health condition. Tell me how does how does Unlimited Heart do that? Yeah. Yeah I know. It's great great question. You know, so when I I look at what we and I know that you've been historically involved in in biotech and everything else and even just in general in health care, right? We we always hear like, "Oh, I'm going to go be treated at this hospital. They're a center of excellence for this and they're a center of excellence for that." And what was interesting, um you know, a few years ago I was at a conference at a patient conference and there was a physician that was sitting up there and he was talking and he said, "You know, 5 years ago if I posed it and he had a lightning of questions that he'd asked everybody, 5 years ago I'd ask people what was most

Important about longevity of life and everybody said at that time, 'Give me a lot of years. Give me 25, 30 years.' Now, 5 years forward to when this guy asked the same question, the responses were different. The responses was, 'I don't want 20 30 years of a crappy lifestyle. I want 15 years of quality and I want those 15 years to be so quality that I can thrive and feel like I'm growing and if I ultimately expire 15 years as opposed to 30, then great. I did it my way and I didn't I didn't weigh in on the system or weigh in on my family or whatever." And so I sat back and I thought to myself, "Holy cow, like everybody's looking for a fabulous life, right?" And so I said, "But but if you have AFib, how do you manage that?" So that's where I came up with the concept of AFibulous Life, right? So that's why I talk to people, patients, caregivers, health

Health care providers all the time about this. And so what we do in my my company Unlimited Heart is strategically connected as well in partnership with Nudge Health, which is a a large-size lifestyle modification company that's been in existence for about 5, 6 years now. And so what we do when we talk about people becoming their own centers of excellence, it is simply put is we we talk to those individuals and we find out what is what is holding them back from being their best. And invariably what we find is you have to approach the behavioral and the mental side of that person first before you can attack what's happening from a lifestyle perspective. And this isn't our our discovery because that discovery came back a long time ago there out of the University of Washington back in 2008 2008 to 2013 they did significant studies on the the connection between behavioral modification and lifestyle and if you pair those two together how much better the outcomes can be and so that's what we do. So we pair behavioral

Modification program with our lifestyle changes and that's where we're seeing people go from maybe they don't think they're full of anxiety or depression but when they start working with us anxiety depression scores precipitously go down and when those scores down guess what happens? Then their lifestyle modification improves because they're like wait a minute I got a reason to live here. I'm going to go out for that walk today. I'm going to go and hit the weights. I'm going to eat a little bit better. I'm going to see my grandkids.

14:10 I'm going to do all those things, right? And then then we become and we we build this beautiful cycle of health care for those individuals all of which can be done by themselves if they need to. Now we also know and I'm not going to paint a broad swath across across the United States but people need help, right? And it it's not it's not that you're weak. It's not that you're whatever but people need help to get through these things and that's what we're doing is we're holding their hand as they themselves become independently healthy. You know, it's I think there's a couple things you said to me that resonate really well. One is is that you know, when you feel out of control that's where fear that's where anxiety sorts of take over things sometimes.

And you're actually putting people in a position to take control of their life of the things that they actually can control. They can control their diet. They can control their exercise, their motion, their movement and they can build discipline around those things, right? So those are things that like as a human being like helps you sort of create a baseline foundation so that when the variables are getting thrown at you and the unknowns are coming at you, you always have a foundation to go back to. And you know, whether it's a community, whether it's your own sort of self-grounding in this situation, I think all those things really matter and you're just becoming a phenomenal enabler around all of those things.

And in a healthcare system that many times is unfortunately in our state of affairs is is a broken system. You know, we are the most innovative healthcare community in the world and in the US. You know, bringing innovation beyond any other geography in the universe. But how we deliver some of that innovation, how we deliver that care can also be very challenged because we have payers and insurance companies and it's just it's really not just a healthcare system, it's a healthcare system that's driven by capitalism. It's a healthcare system that's driven by what insurance companies will pay and not pay for. And I think that you're allowing people to take control of that part of their journey, too.

Which part of that anxiety in getting healthcare and and not knowing what is how do you like how you going to pay for it? In today's world, even though you might have health concerns, you might have a 9 or 10,000 dollar deductible. So, every time you're going to the doctor, you're pulling your credit card out for 250 or 300 or 500 dollars. Where 20 years ago, you know, you didn't have a huge deductible, you didn't have a huge premium. And the world has changed on that. And so, people are becoming consumers of their own health and what you and Nudge are doing is creating another channel where people can actually buy into their own health their own way. And I just think that's just a an incredible way to support a community like AFib because there that is a community, by the way. It is a It is a disease state that, you know, there's plenty of people out there. You can look in the news, you can look in the TV, you

17:12 Can pull it up on A on AI and you can see how big that implication is for our community. Yeah. Yeah, and it's it's so huge and and right, I mean it's I mean by no means am I the flag bearer for this, right? And there's friends of mine who have been doing this for a lot longer than I have. So, there's a woman Mellanie Truehills who founded stopafib.org and she was actually pivotal and next next week so starting September 1st, September is known as AFib Awareness Month. And that was she went straight up to Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. and said, "This is a problem in the United States." And right now in the United States we have depending on the the sources you're looking at, we have anywhere between 7 and 10 million AFib patients. And that's just going to go up by another 4 or 5 million in the next 4 years. It's a lot of people, right? And so so we just want to continue to raise awareness. And so

Between Mellanie and all the whole bunch of other friends that I've met over along this journey, it's we're we're coming together to say we need to scream a little bit louder because the impact is got to be done on a a large scale. How has industry, you know, supported these sort of ground these ground roots kind of programs that are being built up? So, talk to me about like pharma, talk to me about med device, talk to me about, you know, therapeutic devices and, you know, you as a community reaching out to them and helping tell that story, too. Yeah. Yeah, no, so I mean I'd be lying if I said it was it was going swimmingly.

You know, they the conversations that we have and we we've had wonderful conversations with a lot of companies and and we're still engaged. I can't share who we're we're working with right now, but there's a number of companies that say, "Hey, this this is viable and I think we need to do this cuz it's the right thing, right?" Other companies are concerned, you know, I get I I think rightfully so, like, "Well, if you if you go and we make all these people healthy, then they're not going to need my prescriptions, right?" So, there's there's that part of it. But, there's the also the other part of it is, "Well, yeah, well, maybe we're maybe we'd do that, but we also know" and there's by the way, this was done by a very large pharmaceutical company many, many years ago. They actually tracked lifestyle modification and adherence with patients. So, those patients that actually went through a lifestyle program were more consistently taking their medicine. So, this this

Pharmaceutical company actually saw like holy cow, like not only do we introduce them to lifestyle changes and they did this, but their medications continued to be prescribed and consumed. And it wasn't, you know, so it was it was a actually a positive thing. And so, I think that's where we're coming we're we're coming to a head, I think, pretty quickly. Um and this is not a political statement, but this administration is really driving like hey, we need to address like how what can we do ourselves to to lower the cost of care cuz it's it's ridiculous, it's out of control, and people are always complaining, but okay, if you're going to complain about it, get into the arena, right? And that arena might just be yourself, might be in in your own house, right? And so, so back to your original question is we're having really good conversations with industry. It does take a little bit longer than we we thought it would. Um you know, one of my one of my things when I was diagnosed

20:09 Because I I mean, I don't know how many of as I mentioned, I had all the ablations in the world. I took lots of different medicines, everything else. I'm like, I'm going to go directly to those companies and I'm going to say, "Hey, I'm a patient. I used your product. Now, how do we do this together, right?" And so, if I'm having those conversations, they're going well, but they're you know, they're going slow, but they're happening. You know, and I I do agree with you that the the administrations our current administrations take on health care in terms of proactive health, exercise, diet, getting back to basic things around having a health care system that's more preventative in nature than reactive is such a like for me like a an eye-opening opportunity, an awakening for this country to actually kind of take that step forward. You know, I would say that from a device perspective, you know, I do think that there are companies that have patient that actually do have patient days and

They're very proud of the therapies that they offer and can create. And so, you know, if you're in my audience, I know there are people from Boston Scientific that will watch this. I know that there are people from J&J that will watch this. I know there are people from Abbott that will watch this and they are very big in that EP community which is designed to support and and treat AFib. And so, I would have to say to you like I'll I'll throw it out there. Whatever I can do to support within my network and those organizations, I'll I'll be happy to support anything you're doing in that direction because having worked for two of those three, I can speak to only the fact that I know that they are They actually have days where they bring patients into the company. They talk about the therapies and they talk about whether it's quality of life or a life-saving situation. They really do care about that and and they are looking

For different avenues to to find way to give back to the community or even promote how these therapies can make such a dramatic impact, you know, having a therapy versus just a drug or a drug and a therapy can improve your life and your mind, by the way. Yeah. 100% Yeah, and I will I would take you up on on that offer, right? And you're right. I mean the the conversations that we're having and and there's no the big caveat here is there's no malicious intent by anybody, by the way.

I'm just I just want to state that. But, you know, when you when you look at the AFib guidelines specifically, there's literally three pillars in which they manage it and you probably know this from your experience, you know, the first pillar and the number one and most concerning thing about AFib is stroke, right? So, how can stroke be managed, right? And that could be managed by a variety of things, whether it's a, you know, left atrial appendage enclosure or if it's medicine. Middle pillar is lifestyle modification. Like the second pillar is lifestyle modification and the third pillar is rate and rhythm. And that's where all of your ablations come in, right? So, nobody right now is addressing the the middle pillar and that's us and that's what we're doing.

22:58 And we we truly are and there's a number of companies that are out doing things, but they're not doing what we are doing and not getting the results that we are getting because of our approach. And I also want to say too, you know, from a from a reimbursement perspective, the our programs are fully reimbursed. Like CMS has been paying for our services for for years. So, it's not a it's not a money issue at all. So, it's not you mean will will some people might have to pay cash? Of course, but predominantly we are fully covered by Medicare and Medicaid. And so, it's and it doesn't matter. And the great thing about addressing cardio-metabolic disease is we do it as a a broad swath. So, it doesn't have to be, you know, you know, Unlimited Heart and Nudge have an indication to treat pancreatic cancer or atrial fibrillation. No, you don't cuz we're treating the whole person. And so, as long as you're treating the person

And not the disease, invariably you are treating the disease cuz you're making the patient stronger, right? So, that that's the beautiful thing about what we're doing. Well, and you're making everything else more effective at the end of the day. And that's really when you look at like something as tricky as AFib is to treat because the failure rates on therapies can be really challenging. You know, with left atrial appendage and with, you know, blood-thinning pharmaceuticals, I mean, the you can definitely reduce the stroke impact significantly. But on the therapeutic side, the things that you're talking about, diet and exercise, mental wellness, and all those things play right into how the therapy can actually be successful or not successful. And it I would think that that would just all tie into one big stream of let let's go not just do the therapy, but let's also make sure that we're doing the the lifestyle modification that's going to enhance everything as well. And that makes everything better,

Right? Yeah. I guess I everybody wants to be the most effective treatment out there. So, it would make a lot of sense just to grab onto something that's right there. And by the way, the the fact that you said, you know, most of the challenges around getting adoption for therapies and things like that have been the financial part and not having the reimbursement, but you've got the whole money trail there, too. So, there's you got the the the carrot factor already built into the system where it's right there. It's there. Yeah. And and I think that's probably one of the biggest kind of bang your head on the wall situation we often have is like we we've solved those problems, right? And yet people are like, "Yeah, but you know, well, we'll get there. What what what what are we what are we waiting for?

Like it's already it's already been done, right? So, so yeah, so we're we're excited with the direction of the conversations because they're happening more frequently and more powerfully as well. It's just it just takes time and we have to be patient and I I'm I'm just motivated to get up every single morning because and again, this is not a it's about me thing, but it's about us and what we're trying to do is to be a part of transformational, you know, disease state modification would be would be so awesome. And then I could officially retire. Knowing that your job is complete and your mission has been done. There you go. So, what's next on the horizon for you and your partner Nudge? And what what where do you go from here today? Like you you know, what's the next step, the next level of what you want to achieve?

25:59 Yeah, so I mean well, we want to I mean I I'd love to say we want to touch a billion lives, right? Which Okay. who doesn't want to touch a billion lives? But we we want to be able to and this will kind of carry off and pivot off to another area. The the I think it's a a blessing and a curse of what we can do, right? So, with lifestyle modification, there's so many different directions we can go. And so, the challenge though is like which direction are we going? Like you don't you don't want to be like a cat, right?

Following a laser. Like oh, this go over here. Let's go over there, right? So, I I say that because, you know, right now we're having deep conversations with obviously health care. And we're and we're embedding ourselves into clinics and hospitals and things across the country. So, that is a is a great play. But in order to really but that's that's getting the sick people, right? That's getting the sick patients. But if you really want to impact health care, then you have to get in and start talking about prevention. And and also, you know, primary prevention and who who is that, right? And so, one of the other key things I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but there's a large initiative going on right now across the country called rural health care transformation.

And so, we're heavily involved in that space as well. So, we're in five different states that I live in New Hampshire, so we're working in New Hampshire as well. With all intention to say, "How do we get to these areas where health care is so disparate, and we're not able to get the right thing, and and their life expectancy is is bad?" I mean, I'll I'll just put this in perspective. Dartmouth health care is all the way up in northern Lebanon, New Hampshire, right? The life expectancy in and around, I think 1 to 2 3 miles around Lebanon and Dartmouth is like 78 years old, which is pretty good. You go 5 miles out, 10 miles out, it drops down to 50. Like, that's a problem. Like, there's there's 28-year gap between those people that just live 6 more miles down the road than those that live Right, so what what is that? How do we fill that? And so, that's the gaps we're trying to fill. So, when we when we go

And we connect with all the states in the rural health care transformation, we're like, "We can be your partner. We can help facilitate these changes and provide this uh this input." Now, by the way, I I was remiss in stating like, "How do we do this?" And we we have 100 some employees across the country. We do this all virtually, by the way. So, yes, we use AI, but we use AI to aggregate all of the data that comes in cuz we capture daily data from all of our patients. So, scales, we're we're in integrating a continuous gluco glucose monitors right now, and then we're also integrating blood pressure monitors, things like that. So, we are integrating all sorts of different health care devices so that we can track these patients on a on a on a daily basis. And so, that's what you utilize our AI to But, everything is driven by people engagement. And so, anybody that comes to our programs, they get a case manager, they get a they get a nutritionist, a dietitian, they get a

28:33 Psychologist, they also get a coaches that are going to help them through on their monthly ways. But, more importantly, which I didn't know this a couple years ago, I learned of this, but the number one determinant of health is loneliness. And if people feel like they are alone, then they lose their will to live. And so, are these rural areas that way, right? Is that one of the key areas that's that's bringing that that that discrepancy? And so, how do we address that part? So, the cool thing about what we do there is we offer classes, so they can come into our Nudge University. And so, they can attend a cooking class virtually, right? Um they can attend just a session on mindset training or whatever it is, right? We have a variety of classes. So, the cool thing about that is though, you might have somebody from rural New Hampshire connecting with Miami, Florida. They've never met each other before, but now all of a sudden they're holding each other accountable. So, that's the cool stuff

Is now you get hey Susie, did you go do your 10,000 steps last week? Uh no, I didn't really do you know, so that's that's the community that we are trying to build. And the closer we can make that healthcare community, uh the better we're all going to be in the long run. That's awesome. So, you've got lifestyle management, you have educational webinars and workshops, you built a community, and now you and then you also have performance coaching, too. That's kind of your four pillars around your service offering. Okay.

Yeah, well, our our pillars are driven are driven by lifestyle medicine, right? So, those are the key key pillars, right? And so, the behavioral modification, lifestyle changes, sleep disorders, right? Avoid avoiding risky behaviors. Uh number two or number three, well, I don't know which number we're on. So, you know, and it's and and this is funny is like I was listening to an electrophysiologist last week say, "Listen, I I want people to avoid risky behaviors, but I also don't want people to feel like they're they're become boring." So, like if you want a glass of wine, have a glass of wine, right? But have two glasses of water after that glass of wine, right? So, it's kind of the one of one of those weird things.

But so, we want to make sure that people are addressing those things and finding the right balance because you can you can you can dabble, right? You can dabble and have some fun and then and then also, more importantly, 85% 90% of the time focusing on a healthy lifestyle. So, how, you know, if I were a patient and I wanted to get connected, like how are you is this sort of like a direct to consumer sort of process for you, or are you actually going to health care systems and building programs, and then people enroll through you know, their acute care environment? Like, what's sort of the the model for that?

Yeah, I mean, so we we can do and we do address, you know, the one-sy, two-sies, right? But that model that model is exceptionally difficult because you're just grabbing one here, there, and everywhere. So, we are attaching ourselves to the systems that exist, right? So, that's why right right out of the gate we're straight in with health care cuz that makes the most sense. But as we're having success in that area, now all of a sudden we're getting large employers who are coming to us and saying, "Hey, my cost of health care is ridiculous. What can you do?" And invariably, why is the cost of health care high? Well, cuz people are on GLP-1s or something else, right? So, it's shooting health care through the roof. Not that we're against GLP-1s, but you also need to balance. So, we're we're talking with employers. So, that's the actual So, when you say, "What's the next uh things that they're doing?" So, we're talking with employers. And invariably, you know, the insurance companies are telling us, "Get in with

31:43 The large employers. Show us some success there. Then then we'll answer to our our customers." Right? So, that's kind of what the the game we're playing a little bit there. And so, we're having great conversations across that. And so, I think that's that's really where we get more people involved is getting 10,000 employees on a plan and, you know, trying to use that as opposed to one patient every day. So, what is the the cost of treating a patient with AFib on an annual basis? Or what's the what's the economic implication of AFib to society? Not to the patient, but just, you know, loss of work, cost of therapy. Just like, what does it typically cost a somebody that's AFib?

With with a lifestyle changing without a lifestyle change. Yeah, well, so I'll just I'll put Let me Let me put it this way. And this was actually just released last week, by the way. So, the American Heart Association just released new performance and quality metrics for the management of AFib. And in there, one of the key new performance metrics that they've said, and this is going to be eventually it'll be adopted, you know, down the road once more data comes out, is lifestyle modification. It never was never included before, it's now included. So, like how do we do that?

And so, I state that is cuz I'm I don't have it in front of me, so I might get my numbers a little off, but the annual cost for an AFib patient is about $65,000. That's That's an annual annual cost for an AFib patient. A run-of-the-mill patient without AFib is about 30,000. So, there's a $36,000 increase if you have AFib. Now, that's is just looking at some basic numbers. I know when I had my ablation and everything else that meant my cost was probably closer to $100,000 on an annual basis. So, it's significant. But, what I can tell you and we don't have specific numbers for AFib and the impact of lifestyle, but I what I can tell you generally across the marketplaces that we've worked in. This, by the way, doesn't come from, you know, some lax data points. So, we we're currently working with Corewell Health out of Michigan. They're one of our largest institutions. They're the largest health care provider in Michigan, and we've been working with them for years. And so, what we did for

Them was this, we actually treated Oh, gosh. Well, it's actually a small number. It's 660 patients. Now, why is it 660 patients? We actually treated close to 3,000 patients, but with with Corewell Health, but they said, "Hey, we want to go to our patients that are also on our health care plan." So, not only are they coming to our hospitals, but they're on our health care plan cuz we have we have better control over them. And so, we we worked with them, and so we we tracked what was the cost of services prior to going on to Nudge, and so we looked at 12 months of that, and then they went on to our Nudge program, and they did that for 16 weeks, by the way, just 16 weeks, so that's 4 months.

34:16 16 weeks, and then they started tracking what was the cost of care for those patients post that. What they found, I tell you, is is dramatic, was we saw a $3,800 savings in in cost of health care on that 12-month span. Wow. So, we were able to lower that. So, do the math. $3,800 * 600 patients. That's a small number. Times that by 6,000, 60,000, 600,000, right? Those numbers are huge. pretty quickly, absolutely. It does. And so, the impact is there, but here's the here's the other thing, right? So, we're lowering the cost of care, but because we're fully reimbursed, guess what happens? The hospital system also gets a stream of revenue coming in. So, we're lowering the cost of care, making them better patients, getting the sicker patients in first, because now all of a sudden those patients that are that were once clogging up the arteries, no pun intended, are now better patients. So, now the the the funnel of patients is able to run a little smoother in, right?

So, that it's a it's a win-win all around. It really is when you think about it, cuz even when there are problems, they're not horrible problems. And so, you know, length of stays are shorter, the the algorithm of treatment is simpler and not as complex, and the outcomes are better for everybody. That's better for the patient, it's better for the payer, it's better for the provider, because the patients are coming in, they're leaving, and everybody's kind of feeling better about it. So, and then again, when you talk about this $4,000 per patient, and you start multiplying that across multiple markets, that really starts playing a major implication economically in our health care system, because again, like when you talk about Medicare and Medicaid and private pay and all those types of things, it's really got to be a dramatic impact on somebody's pocket, for sure.

100% 100%. And I I would love it for a day, you know, where we actually reverse the whole thing and we actually pay people to be healthy. Wouldn't that be great? I mean, you know, that'd be or at least a tax reduction, you know, that'd be kind of a cool a cool play. But, I won't get into fiscal policy at this point. No, but it's it's nice to see the administration pushing and really kind of looking at that proactive care with Bobby Kennedy, and I think he's really been a a real inspiration, not to be political either, but I think it's been a a really pleasant surprise to have somebody take such a a proactive look at healthcare and really try to present it that way. So.

Yeah. Yeah, let's go ahead. No, no, please go ahead. I was going to say any other last closing words you might want to close it with the the audience on? No, I mean it just just grateful really first to be a part of your platform. And just to I think the biggest thing that we want to get across is obviously we mentioned that the centers of excellence, but more importantly is that nobody has to be alone, right? If you feel like you're alone and you're you're on your journey, you just got this diagnosis which is a kick to the gut.

36:58 There's people out there to help and we can do that. And not just us, but there's so many companies and so many people that are willing to help each other out. So, I mean we just need to eat and you know, reach out a hand to everybody, make a difference, and then I think we could just generally see a huge change in in healthcare and outcomes here in the United States. Well, good. Jim, I have one last question for you. And it's a it's a question I I ask all my guests and one day it's I'm I'm hoping to actually just make a full episode on just this one question. So, current day Jim has an opportunity to go back and visit 22-year-old Jim or 18-year-old Jim, whenever Jim was going to make a right-hand turn or a left-hand turn in his life. And if you could offer earlier younger Jim one piece of advice only, just one piece, whether it's personal, professional, financial, whatever it might be, what would that one piece of

Advice be? And you know, it's coming from a guy who's accomplished so much by the way over the over span of a a short career and you've been a successful entrepreneur, you've written a book, you have developed a a company with purpose and intent and mission. And so, I think you'll have a a pretty good perspective on this question. Yeah, thank you. I you know, I think simply put I guess the the two words would be compound interest. And I mean that in two and a a number of ways, right? So, compound interest from investment strategy, right? That's one thing. But compound interest when it comes to your health, you know, I when you when you when you were doing things in our 20s, we think we're invincible.

We don't realize what the impact is going to have on your 30s. And the same thing for your 30s and 40s, right? It all builds up, right? And so it's like if we don't as as a friend of mine said to me the other day is if we don't make health care your priority when you're in your 20s, it'll become your priority when you're in your 50s. And you don't want to be working on the negative side of thing. You always want to be in control. And so that's why I I've got two young boys that are 17 and 18. And so I'm like, guys, whatever you invest in now, that is going to compound on top of it it right? So when we look at health care and what we can do, your decisions as a 20-year-old will impact what you do you do as a 30-year-old and the 30 will impact the 40. And so I probably would have, you know, listen, I went to college, I made bad choices. I

Probably drank a little bit too much sometimes, but I think that would be the thing. I would I would just look at what you're doing now because it's going to impact where you're at, you know, 10, 20 years from down the road. Well, good. That's a great mic drop for Jim Kaveney, Unlimited Heart Health and wellness. Thank you for being here today and sharing your story. Thank you, Terry. Appreciate you. Enjoy your day. So let's connect. Let's find where your revenue's getting stuck. Book a call at revrx.ai and build your revenue engine.