EP #125: The Science of Nootropics & The Power of Embracing Failure with Dan Freed, Founder of Take Thesis

(gentle music) Welcome back to another episode of Everyday in Dorfins, a mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness in daily living. I'm your host, Stella Stephanopoulos, and this week I got to sit down with the founder of Take Thesis, which is a personalized Neutropics company. Neutropics are essentially cognitive enhancers through natural mechanisms, and I was so excited to get to chat with Dan to learn all about the science behind Neutropics, the inspiration for starting thesis, and how it really came from his own struggles with ADHD and trying to really figure out how to stay focused. I would say one of the big themes of this interview was actually overcoming failure in life, and what that taught Dan. So really interesting to hear his perspective on how failure shapes our successes, and how his experience with failure led him to start a really successful company. We also talk about Neutropics and how they're situated in the wellness industry, some of Dan's wellness non-negotiables, some practices he does to enhance his creativity and joy, and of course, we talk about what brings Dan happiness and what sparks his endorphins. If you're interested in trying thesis for yourself, you can use the code Endorphins 10 for a discount on your order, so make sure you go to the website, check it out, and try it out for yourself. I'm really excited for you guys to tune into this episode. Dan has a really inspiring story, and I think that there's something really anyone can take away from this interview. Before we dive into the episode, reminder to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer. Don't forget to follow Everyday Endorphins on Instagram, TikTok, and for those who are based in New York City, next Thursday, April 25th, I'm hosting a live podcast event with a former guest of mine, Christina Hadrick, that was episode 119, exploring lessons from Greek wisdom and philosophy, and the podcast event that we're doing is basically an expansion to the interview that we did. We're gonna be exploring wisdom from Greek philosophers on happiness, cultivating joy, living a good life, and thinking about how we can translate that into modern wellness. So come for good food, for good vibes, to learn to meet new people, and if you're interested in joining us, you can grab a ticket in my Instagram bio, send me a DM, connect with me, I hope to see you all there, and get to meet in person. Hi Dan, thank you so much for coming on to Everyday Endorphins. - Thank you for having me. - I'm really excited to get into this conversation, something that I've been really fascinated by for a while, is the science behind utropics, what they do to the brain, what they do to the body, how we can use these types of products in our daily lives, and I actually had heard about thesis, and a while ago I can't recall how I first got introduced to your company, but it's kind of full circle that we're doing this recording today, because I remember hearing about utropics like a year or two ago, and so it's just really cool to get to sit down with you today, and talk about thesis and the founding story. So I wanna start there, really better understand what inspired the creation of thesis, and maybe if you can start with really what got you interested in the science behind utropics, and share a little bit with my listeners your own personal story. - thesis really started out of a personal problem that I've struggled with my entire life. I've always had difficulty with classroom learning, in the structured environment, in the American educational system, and it's really hard for me to stay focused. So, going all the way back to preschool, which I don't remember, I was actually expelled from the first preschool that I was in for behavioral issues, and then when I was six, the school forced me to see a psychiatrist, and they formally diagnosed me with ADHD. They highly recommended that I take medication. This was the late '80s, so they were just starting to prescribe, riddle into a lot of children. I was six years old at the time, so my mom was very concerned about giving such a powerful medication to a child, and back then there was still a lot of stigma around ADHD and medication, so she decided not to medicate me. And I went untreated. I continued to struggle constantly. I was always in the principal's office, getting suspended, had behavioral issues throughout my entire time in school, until when I was 16, I was failing most of my classes, and ended up dropping out of high school. This was a very difficult time period for me, so I ended up getting a job in fast food, and I watched my friends go on to graduate high school, go off to college, and I was still making minimum wage. It was a very difficult time in my life. I remember being called stupid and lazy, and I just couldn't understand why so many other people didn't have any issues. They could study, they could get good grades. It wasn't a problem for them, so I have a sister, and so I grew up with her, and I would see after school, she would just come home and she would sit and she would study for hours. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't do that. I was bouncing off the walls. I was trying every ounce of motivation I had to just sit there and do my homework, and for her it just seemed so easy. And now she's a doctor. She just always had that ability to focus, where for me it seemed almost impossible without something to help me. I ended up getting a lucky break in my early 20s and becoming a chef, which was life-changing for me. So the type of focus needed to excel in the culinary industry is completely different than what I needed in school and formal education. So ADHD became almost like a superpower. I could focus on 10 different things at once. I was really passionate about cooking and travel. And so I spent most of my 20s traveling around the world, cooking in some incredible restaurants and hotels. I worked my way up to a Saucier inside of a Michelin 3 star restaurant in France, which was such an incredible experience. So in my late 20s, I was an executive sous chef on board a cruise ship. And that's when I started to burn out. At that point, I was working 100 hours a week. And my job had evolved more into people management, supply chain. And I was doing a lot less actual cooking, which is what I was really passionate about in the first place. So I decided that I wanted to switch careers. But my options were very limited because I didn't have a high school diploma. I never went to college. I never even took the SATs. I decided that I wanted to go back to school. And I really wanted to get an MBA. So the first step in that process was to take the GMAT, the entrance exam for an MBA program. I got a study guide, and I started studying. And it felt like I was back in 10th grade. I just couldn't make any progress. I would sit down, read a page five times, and really struggle to internalize the information. In desperation, I tried anything that I could think of to help me focus. So everything from different workout routines, fasting, meditation, and that's when I discovered Neutropics. I had heard about them on a study forum. This was more than 10 years ago now. And I immediately went out and bought everything that I could find. And I used to take different ingredients and study. Most of them did nothing, but a couple of them worked. And when I figured out how to combine them into a winning formula, the results were life-changing. So when I went in to take the GMAT, I ended up scoring in the 99th percentile, which surprised the hell out of me. It allowed me to get into one of my dream schools in Seattle where I did my MBA. From there, I was offered a partial scholarship to do another Master's degree at Yale, where I got to study some of the science behind why Neutropics were so impactful. And because Neutropics were so transformative for me, I became an evangelist. I started giving away to my friends, my family. I was the crazy guy at dinner parties that wouldn't shut up about Neutropics. And it became a side projects for me. So I started making our original product in my apartment. And it was never really meant to be a business. Essentially, what our first product was, was it took the iterative process that I used to find my formula, which took six months and thousands of dollars of experimentation to finally get to my winning formula. And it compressed that process into a one month, less than $100 process. And before I knew it, it started to take off. I started selling to friends and then friends of friends. And before I knew it, people that I didn't know were texting me asking for Neutropics and I was delivering them all around New York. And that's when I decided to start a business. Wow. I feel like some of the best-- most of the best companies come from the founder experiencing some sort of direct problem and wanting to come up with a solution. And so you drew from your direct experience and the struggles that you faced growing up to develop something that clearly does work. And I want to backtrack a little bit too earlier when you mentioned that you really struggled in school. And even at the young age of being six or seven, going with psychiatrist. being recommended to take medication at such a young age. And you know, this isn't to say that medication isn't helpful. It definitely can be. But I do feel like in the United States, we tend to over-prescribe and over-medicate people, right? And just thinking about the trajectory of your career as well, going into the food and restaurant industry and becoming a chef and really climbing the ranks there, it's interesting how you were able to turn something that you saw as your weakness, something that people bullied you for and made fun of you for and something that, you know, maybe at the time you felt as if you weren't on the same path and trajectory as your peers. But you turned that weakness into a superpower by really, you know, taking that into your own hands and seeing that the way in which you operated as a kid actually was conducive to the environment of being in the kitchen, you know, being able to focus on a lot of different things at once. And I think that when we kind of take that reframe and that mental shift of letting the ways in which we behave and the ways in which we think actually be our strengths and leveraging them, that's a really powerful thing to do. But it's so easy to let our weaknesses feel as if, you know, they define us. So how are you able to kind of make that shift in your mind and let something that maybe was holding you back in the traditional education system actually enable you to accelerate in your career when you were working as a shaftoring that time. So at the time, I didn't fully understand it. It was just going from, you know, being called stupid and lazy and always having to struggle to a radically different environment where things were easy and it almost came natural. And it felt completely different. It was something that I was passionate about and I didn't really think too much about it. I just figured I knew I found what I wanted to do and I was really happy with that. Looking back kind of the perspective that I have now, my great grandparents never stepped foot in a classroom. The current, you know, structured environment of the American educational system is something that's very new when you look at how humans evolved over the last 10,000 years. I don't think anyone is really well equipped to sit at a desk all day. I think that some people are able to adapt better than others. So I mentioned my sister earlier. For her, it's just really easy to adapt to this new environment. For somebody like me, I didn't evolve to sit in front of a computer all day. And I need help. Some of that help comes in the form of behavioral interventions. So things like meditation, exercise, healthy habits. And some of that help is neutral fix. For other people that help might be medications and that's okay. Just understanding what you really need to function in your environment, I think is really important. Yeah, absolutely. And knowing that it's different for different people too, you know, health is super nuanced and it's also ever changing as well. So something that I really try to advocate also on my platform is recognizing that what might work for one person might not work for another. And that's totally okay. And learning what works for you and better understanding what your body needs is super important and learning to trust that as well. You know, I want to dive a little bit deeper into the science behind Neutropics. And you mentioned that you were able to study neuroscience at Yale and continue your education, post your MBA and learn a bit more really about what Neutropics can do for people. So would love to hear more about some of the biggest findings that you were able to take away during your studies and how that informed like the product development process, developing thesis and figuring out, you know, how people can use this type of product. So back then during my time at Yale, I studied cognitive science and public health among many other subjects. And what I learned there was how to go to PubMed and read clinicals, how to conduct systematic reviews and understand how these different ingredients were impacting with biology. Touching back on what you just said about really finding the right ingredients for each individual's genetics, their unique brain chemistry, their goals. And it's not just ingredients, it's behaviors. I strongly believe that people are adapted to have different behaviors, have behaviors impact them differently. And that's essentially what is at the core of our products. We understand that everyone is going to need a different set of ingredients to unlock their potential. And we're on this journey with somebody. So the way our product works is a user will go to our quiz, they'll complete a quick two to three minute assessment, tell us about themselves, tell us about their goals, and then we'll use that information to narrow down out of all of the different neutropics they could try. Where should they start? What are the four formulas that have the highest probability of being a good fit for their needs? We don't just narrow down to one. So we send somebody four formulas, a week supply of each. This is what one of the week supply boxes looks like. This is actually what I took this morning because I knew I was doing a podcast. And we allow people to try each of the four recommended blends for a week and to see how it interacts with them. And if it does improve performance, if they feel more energy, more clarity, more motivation, and then at the end of the month, we check in with them and we ask them how they respond to each blend, whether they'd like to make adjustments for their next order. And the goal is through this iterative process, we'll find the right ingredients for each individual. And we're in this process with each customer. They can reach out to a trained coach and provide feedback. We help them troubleshoot and really integrate this as a core habit in their life. Are there any specific blends that you find yourself gravitating towards? You mentioned confidence, taking it this morning before the podcast interview. But you also touched on there's motivation, there's clarity, I believe, and there's a few other blends, correct? Yes. And this is really important. Just like if I were to talk about a medication that works or doesn't work for me, just because it works for me, it doesn't mean that it's going to work for everyone. And we found that in our data that each of these formulas behave differently depending on an individual's genetics and environment. For me, the ones that I gravitate towards are clarity, I take clarity most days. Because again, going back to when I was a child, my biggest issue is the ability to sit and focus. And clarity allows me to get into this almost flow state where I can do deep work and be highly productive. I don't think that I would be able to have the job I have today without clarity. Confidence allows me to do things like podcasts, interviews, on my meeting heavy days, I'll take confidence. It helps with performance anxiety, verbal fluency, allows me when I'm going to interact with a lot of people, just makes everything smoother and easier. And then I also take energy primarily on days where I'm sleep deprived, especially when I'm traveling and I'm dealing with jet lag, clarity really helps balance me out. There are other examples. So I don't take motivation. It's just not a good fit for me. But a lot of our customers absolutely love motivation. I rarely will take logic. Again, it's just not a good fit for my genetics. There are a lot of people where logic is transformational for them or creativity for that matter. Creativity is not something that I struggle with and I can't even remember the last time I took creativity. Yeah, and you can really personalize it also to maybe what you need in the moment as well. Something that caught my eye and when we put together my own box and person lice that was creativity. Because I find myself to be a pretty creative person, but sometimes it's hard to think outside of the box or to iterate on new ideas as well. So I feel like that particular topic is really of interest to me and confidence also. I mean, who can't benefit from a confidence boost, right? And I want to also talk a little bit more about the science behind new tropics. So without getting too granular into the details, can you share a little bit more with my audience around like the specific compounds or really what the substance is that makes up the different blends? Like what can customers expect to really be putting into their bodies? And I know that we mentioned certain blends might impact people differently depending on their genetics, depending on their environment. But what exactly is it that people are taking when we think of new tropics? So, new tropics the way that I define them are ingredients that impact the levels of neurotransmitters in the trillions synapses of the human brain. The way neurons communicate are through neurotransmitters in between synapses. So between a dendrite and an axon, there's a small gap and everything we think and feel is controlled by the amount of dopamine, norapinephrine, acylocoline in these synapses. For me, I struggle primarily with focus. I do have ADHD and that impacts levels of dopamine and norapinephrine. Most of the ADHD medication is primarily targeted to those two neurotransmitters. What new tropics do is it allows me to adjust and modulate the levels of neurotransmitters through natural means. So each of our products are targeted to different neurotransmitter systems. Today I mentioned that I took confidence. Confidence has ingredients that are targeted primarily to serotonin and GABA. So it has things like althanein, ashwagandha, saffron, magnolia bark. Those are targeted to increasing or modulating neurotransmitters, GABAs and inhibitory neurotransmitter. Which has a calming effect. Serotonin can make people more pro-social and that's what I want to optimize for today. And I think that that's another one of the really key reasons why personalization is so important because I know primarily for me my dopamine and norepinephrine systems behave differently than other people and I really want to optimize to those two neurotransmitter systems the majority of the time. For other people it might be something different. This is giving me flashbacks to my cognitive neuroscience classes when I was an undergrad because part of my studies were also in neuroscience. But it's been quite some time since I have really refreshed a lot of what I've learned in college. But you know when we think about even just endorphins the happiness hormone. I mean I guess we can also think of serotonin as well. Maybe endorphins are more about inhibiting pain. But are there any specific formulas or different types of thesis products that are targeted specifically to endorphins or would it fall more under serotonin? More under serotonin endorphins are very interesting. So endorphins are usually tied with certain types of behaviors and it's a way of either mitigating a pain response or creating a reward response. Which is a great way to kind of like reinforce certain behaviors. So there's a lot of behaviors that will result in a release of endorphins. One of them that impacts a lot of people is exercise. I think for everyone after an intense exercise session there'll be a release of endorphins. But for some people that's stronger than others. My co-founder thesis he is in incredible shape and exercises regularly. And for a while he was my workout partner. I'm somebody where I have to force myself to exercise. It's not a fun process. And afterwards I feel a little bit better. But there are a lot of other activities where I do get this endorphin rush. Things like ice baths where afterwards I'm just smiling and I feel incredible. Because he was my workout partner I could really easily observe that we had very different responses to exercise. He loved it. He would just leave the gym. He would be smiling. He would be in the most incredible mood. If he didn't go to the gym he would you could see it impact his mood. Whereas for me while I still did get a little bit of an endorphin boost it was a much more blunted response. And I wish that I could have the same responses him. And I do think that the more regularly I go to the gym and the more I kind of like reframe things in my mind I am able to adjust that response a little bit. But I'm never going to be like him. And having that understanding was really valuable. And I've also found a lot of other things that do give me that endorphin release and I tend to gravitate a lot more towards them. Yeah I'm glad you bring up that example of exercise because obviously we do know that exercise does produce endorphins and that euphoric feeling. But like you mentioned that feeling might be stronger for some people rather than others. And it also can get to a point where over exercise can actually be really unhealthy right. So recognizing that there are other activities other ways that you can find that sense of joy and happiness and maybe that euphoric feeling as well I think is really liberating and also learning when to really listen to your body when you need to exercise. I think this is really difficult for people who were formerly like athletes or had a very athletic background and then transition into not playing sports anymore because you have to kind of reteach your body and your brain like how to have a healthy relationship to exercise when you're no longer competing or performing at such a high level. So I'm really glad that you give that example. We'll come back to some more endorphin practices later in the interview but I want to shift back to talking about your journey, founding thesis, really again you know the science behind the new tropics. So something that really fascinates me is how you've kind of lived like nine lives. You know how this you know this difficulty in focus when you were younger and then you had this career as a chef and then you went on to pursue I mean a higher levels of education and became a founder and there's so many like inflection points throughout your career in your life. What were some of your biggest takeaways during those moments of challenge and hardship that you experienced because you're really well accomplished and what I love about your stories that it's really not a linear path and I think so many people get wrapped up in this idea that they need to hit certain milestones or achievements by certain ages or certain points in their lives but I think your story is such a great example that you don't have to follow a specific linear path. So as you've embarked on those inflection points and I'm sure of experienced challenges along the way what are some of the greatest takeaways that you've come to realize. So one of the important things to remember is I didn't really have a choice. So I failed out of high school. I wish I didn't. I don't know what would have happened. There's so many different ways that my life could have gone but that initial failure was incredibly painful and not being able to be successful. I had to find another way. So recognizing that I had nothing to lose. You know I was already outside of that normal linear path and it was basically impossible for me to get back on. So I learned how to take risks. When I became a chef it was really a lucky break. I also want to recognize that I got incredibly lucky. I was working as a waiter in a restaurant in Los Angeles. I think I was 19 and I had a regular customer that would come in a couple times a week during a slow period. One day he came in with a chef's coat and I mentioned to him that I loved cooking and one day I wanted to become a chef and so he told me that he worked at the hotel across the street. He offered that if I went in and applied he would help with the application. So I went in, filled out the application and the woman in HR looked at it and she saw that I never went to culinary school. I didn't have a high school diploma and she very nicely said that I was not qualified for the job and I told her that Chef Andreas had told me to come by and fill out the application. She picked up the phone, she called him, he was in there two minutes later and said hire him and they hired me on the spot. And this was kind of like one of the key learnings when I left that job and that job changed the trajectory of my life. I don't think I would have become a chef if it wasn't for that experience. I asked the chef why he took a bet on me. I said you know you have tons of people from culinary school applying to jobs here. Why would you hire me? And he said that he saw me working as a waiter and he knew that I understood how to work. I was always running around. I was always on top of stuff and I took my job pretty seriously. He said I knew that you could work hard and I could teach you how to cook. Whereas a lot of people will come from culinary school and they'll know how to cook but they won't know how to work. And so a lot of like really lucky experiences like that and just instilling a set of values that have stayed with me throughout my career. That's such a good point and it kind of goes back also to what we were speaking about earlier leveraging something that maybe you saw as a weakness really is a strength and also not tying like one form of learning or one outcome as something that is the definition of successful. Like excelling in the traditional academic system does not necessarily mean you're going to be successful. So you know how have you started to define success in your life because you've had so many unique experiences and you've been able to not let your quote-unquote failures define you or the next thing that you're going to work on or the next thing that you're going to produce. I have had a lot of failures and it's easy to look back into right now we're talking about a lot of the successful things that I've done. I kind of reframe even my failures were critical for my growth in learning. When I went to try to take the GMAT and get into an MBA program only one person thought it was a good idea. It was my old mentor. My parents thought I was crazy. I was very successful as a chef. I was making a lot of money. I was doing well to quit that and try to do something that is just about impossible or at least in most people's eyes impossible that even I didn't know people that had done it was a very crazy thing to do. My ex-girlfriend at the time, she sat me down and said, "Dan, I love you but you're not smart enough. There's no way you're going to do this." My mentor said, "I don't know what's going to happen but I know that you're going to learn." That was enough that studying for the GMAT and going on that experience trying to get into an MBA program was to the right path because I was going to learn and grow from it. And maybe I would get into an MBA program. Maybe I wouldn't, but I would still grow and be a step closer towards what I wanted to do. And having that framing things like that have allowed me to take much, much larger risks than I think most people are comfortable with. That's such a good point. And it reminds me of just having a growth mindset, right? So rather than focusing on some sort of outcome or thinking that things are super black and white or binary, I'm either good at this or I'm not good at it. Approaching situations from the perspective of, well, where can I grow? How can I learn from this? And inevitably we're going to experience failures in life on a small scale and maybe on a large scale. And so knowing that those experiences are inevitable, not allowing them to be something that you define yourself based off of or something that you think is going to impact the trajectory of the next part of your life or the next part of your career, I think is so critical. And it really comes down, I think, to your self-concept and not allowing those limiting beliefs to really define who you are, right? You know, you mentioned that your ex-girlfriend said, you know, Dan, that you're not smart enough to do this, but it has nothing to do with that. And there's no point in creating those narratives around yourself that will just limit your ability to take those risks in life. Yeah, and it was a belief that she had, I think there was a limiting belief of hers. It wasn't that she didn't care about me. It was just, it was so crazy and so outside of what she believed was possible. And I think one of the fortunate things that I've had is this experience with failure because again, going back to that failure of dropping out a high school and all the struggles I had with school, I became comfortable with it because I didn't have a choice. One of the assignments that I remember from INSEAD, we had to write about our biggest failure and then share it with the person next to us. And so I'm in this big classroom. It's the soft skills course and the professor gives us this assignment and I just sat there thinking and I looked at the woman next to me and she also wasn't writing. And so I said, you know, this is really hard. And she's like, yeah, I'm trying to think of my biggest failure. It's like, I think it was not getting into Stanford. And for me, it was the exact opposite. I was thinking, I have so many catastrophic failures that were so painful that it's hard for me to choose one because there's so many. For her, she took this very linear path and she was so successful and it was just completely divergent mindsets. Sometimes I feel like, you know, in those types of situations, if someone says, oh, my biggest failure is not getting into Stanford, it's a little like, I don't know, I feel like those responses, I think it's maybe a reflection of like a lack of some sort of self-awareness because if that's your biggest failure, I feel like you have to kind of rethink some of the experiences that you've had in life or just how maybe you've approached them. And I'm not calling out this person in particular. I mean, I've even struggled with that as well. The question, what's your greatest weakness, right? Or tell me about a time that you failed. Sometimes I think, oh, what is the time that I failed? I can't recall this actively to the forefront of my mind. And I think that's a sign of needing to be maybe a bit more introspective and really think about maybe times in life where you haven't succeeded in the way that you thought you were going to. So I think it's a good reminder to maybe a bit more introspective in those moments. I do think that everybody has a lot of different types of failures and being introspective and like really analyzing that would be beneficial to everyone. And I regularly do that. I do post mortems on a lot of things that I do. I also think that there are some people that haven't had major failures and the way that I look at it and this is one of the values in our company. If we're not failing, then we're not ambitious enough. And it's hard to tell somebody who's in, you know, a top role at an investment bank or in a consulting company who went to the best schools that you're not being ambitious enough. But really, I do believe most people, if they're only achieving success, they haven't pushed themselves to what they're capable of. That's a really interesting standpoint and something that I really want to think more about actually because I in the past few months have really been trying to redefine my own relationship to my ambition and what success means for me because I think it's created a lot of personal limiting beliefs. And so I want to table that and come back to it because I think that's a really interesting point that you bring up. And when we think about failure more broadly, a lot of those experiences cause a negative emotion, right? You know, self-deprecating emotion or behaviors even. And it's hard to feel a sense of joy and happiness when you feel like you're constantly failing all the time or you've had a lot of failures, right? And just given everything that you've mentioned during this interview and all the lessons that you've learned, how do you define happiness now? What does that look like for you? And what are some ways that you try to cultivate joy in your life? So there's joy, which is I always make sure that I spend a significant amount of time with my partner away from work and we go out. We just went to a great dinner last night. Sometimes we do a lot of different activities together, having a strong social circle. So having other people from my life over and I'll still cook for them. I rarely cook, but every once in a while, I'll have a small dinner party at my house and doing things that really inspire joy. I just got back from a trip to Patagonia. I got to do some great hiking, be outdoors, go swimming and mountain lakes, things like that. As far as happiness, I think it's a little bit different. I think that it's important to have a lot of joyful moments. I don't think that I always need to be happy. I think that I've chosen to be in a position where, as CEO, I'm constantly underqualified. The company is growing every challenge that I'm up against. Most of them I've never faced before. And it's forcing me to grow. Growth is deeply rewarding to me, but it's not always fun. And sometimes there's pain and sometimes I'm not happy and sometimes things are tough, but I made the decision to do this and it's deeply, deeply meaningful and rewarding. And so I continue doing it. I'm really glad that you made this distinction between happiness and joy. And the comments specifically around not needing to be happy all the time. I'm sure you're familiar with toxic positivity, that concept where we kind of overcracked on happiness or it's this idea that positivity or being happy is about being happy all the time, which it's not because life is going to throw us challenges. It's going to throw us curveballs. We are going to experience failure. So something would actually be kind of wrong if you were just striving for being happy and feeling joyous every single moment of every single day. That's just not natural. And frankly, we need those experiences that are a bit more difficult. We need to be able to sit through negative emotions. So that the more joyous positive emotions that we feel are a bit sweeter and help us move through the harder times. So something that I really try to advocate on every day in Dorfens is the importance of seeking out the small wins, the small joys every day so that you can feel in control of your health and well-being and happiness, but also recognizing that it's necessary to experience negative emotions. And that it wouldn't actually be healthy to be happy all the time. So I'm glad that you bring that distinction up. And I think it's something that people need to hear more of too because it's really hard to reconcile with that when maybe you are going through a more difficult time. There's such a desire to want to get out of that experience and emotion and to just want to be happy. But sometimes going through something a bit more difficult is actually necessary and builds that sense of emotional resilience. So I love your response there. Dan, as we wrap up this interview, I want to land with a question that I ask every guest on the podcast and you might have alluded to an answer to this earlier in the interview when we are talking a little bit more around joy. But my final question to you is what is something that can be a practice, habit, anything that brings you a bit of endorphins every single day. Something that's part of your routine, something that you look forward to. So the first thing that comes to mind is cuddling with my dog. She is incredible and she's changed my life. I mean, anytime I'm having a bad day or things are tough, I can always go there. She has unconditional love. There are other things that other practices that I do, even if not daily, things like ice baths every time I get out of one, I have a smile on my face and it feels great. I just got back from hiking, being outdoors in nature or something that I don't get to do as often as I would like, especially being in New York. All of those, you can feel it. That's where you feel this physiological response. It's not even like a conscious thing. It's just like, why am I smiling? I feel so great and remembering that those things are out there and accessible whenever I need them. I love your response. responses and I resonate with a lot of them as well. I wish I had a dog, so I can't relate to your response on cuddling with the dog, but those are also responses that I hear across a lot of the interviews. And then it's a good reminder that there are many things in life that we can come back to that do spark joy and make us feel good in ourselves and ourselves in relation to the world around us. So I really love that Dan. Thank you so much for coming on today. It was such a pleasure having you as a guest in getting to explore the science behind utropics, how they can impact our functioning, how we can incorporate them into our routines and really inspired by your own story and how you've built such an incredible company. So where can my listeners follow along and stay connected with thesis and try out product for themselves? I know we have a discount code as well, which I'll link in the show notes, so people can get their very own blend of thesis. Yeah, our website is takethesis.com and anyone who comes can figure out which ingredients are best for their unique brain chemistry and goals. It's a process that we've taken hundreds of thousands of people through and, you know, utropics have been so transformative in my life. It feels incredible to be able to share this with other people to see how it's impacting others and their success. You can use the code Endorphins 10 for a discount on your first order. And thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation. Yeah, it was such a pleasure having you. Thanks again. (upbeat music) Thanks for listening to this episode of Everyday Endorphins. If you liked what you heard, make sure to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever platform you prefer. You can also follow along the Everyday Endorphins Instagram account to stay up to date with episodes, future events, and all things related to mental health, well-being, and happiness. Don't forget to keep spreading Endorphins and find things in life that bring you joy every day. Until next time. (upbeat music)