Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Truth About Hair Thinning | Nutrafol’s Giorgos Tsetis

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

What if your deepest insecurity could become the catalyst for building something extraordinary?On today’s episode, we sit down with Giorgos Tsetis - engineer, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Nutrafol. As a young model, Giorgos faced the fear of hair thinning head-on and made a radical choice: to engineer a healthier, science-backed path. That choice would eventually serve millions and build a billion-dollar wellness brand.This is more than a story about hair. It’s about identity, confidence, stress, and what it takes to transform pain into purpose. Giorgos shares openly about the anxiety of losing something that defined him, the science behind whole-body health, and the leadership lessons that fueled his journey from struggle to impact.In this conversation, you’ll discover:Why hair health is a mirror of overall wellnessHow stress and lifestyle choices trigger genetic predispositionsThe importance of integrity and clinical rigor in building trustThe leadership philosophy that carried Nutrafol to a billion-dollar valuationLeadership lessons rooted in kindness and psychological safetyListen in and discover how Giorgos Tsetis turned one of life’s great personal confidence challenges—into a mission to elevate millions.Links & ResourcesSubscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindset!Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the one thing that quietly chips away your confidence in the mirror and the shower in your day-to-day life, but it also become the spark that changes everything? Welcome back. Or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Jervais, by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. Now, the idea behind these conversations is simple. To sit with the extraordinarily and to learn, to really learn about how they work from the

inside out. This is not about hacks or quick fixes. It's about understanding what they are searching. for, how they organize their inner world, and the psychological skills that they use to navigate a life of high performance. Today's conversation is with Georgios SETIS, a former model, engineer, co-founder and chairman of Nutrafol, who in his 20s began to lose his hair. What started as a personal mission to solve his own problem grew into a science-backed approach that would help millions of people. In this conversation, we talk about the identity-shaking experience of hair

loss, the connection between stress, health, and confidence, and what it takes to build something meaningful out of life's challenges. With that, let's jump into this week's conversation with my friend, Georgios. Georgios, this is like, I want to say it's a treat, but it's more than that. Like, I'm so happy to be able to sit with you to have a conversation about a life arc that you've experienced and co-created that I think all of us would hope to create. in our own lives. So what do I mean by that? This life arc where you're able to have the self-discovery process to feel some sort of pain, to identify it, and then say, how do I solve it, and then try

to solve it for others, and then along the way building a beautiful business. So this idea from pain to changing other people's lives and figuring out the structure for it, I think it's brilliant, and I'm so stoked to sit with you to talk about it. Thank you so much. It's an absolute honor yeah very cool all right so let's start at the beginning how do you capture your origin story what's important for us to know to really know you the business never started because we wanted to just build a business or make money it it was all started because we as a group of people were suffering from a very personal concern that we wanted to solve and you just brought it up as well I think it's important to do the things that you do in life for the right reasons.

And because it was such a problem, hair loss, not just for myself, but also for my business partner, we were just so incredibly dedicated and motivated to drive change. Yes, we contributed to the world and we helped millions of people, but it started with ourselves. The fact that it became what it became, it's just an absolute blessing. Okay, so let's get, let's go back a couple steps there. You're running around New York City as a handsome model in your 20s. Is this a 20s? Yeah, it was 20s.

Okay. And so you're living the life. And then you are like, wait, I'm shedding. My hair is in the sink or it's in the shower or whatever. So is that kind of how it started? Like, what's going on here? I'm losing my hair. So I started to lose my hair in my early 20s, and I was back in Holland.

And I never forget, I went to a dermatologist and he did a hair pull test. And he said, by the time you're 30, you're going to have a bald spot on the back of your hair. And I said, that's not acceptable. Is there anything we can do about it? And he said, well, you've got this pill, which was phenosterite. Take it and you'll prevent it. And so very early on in my life, I started to. be very proactive about losing my hair.

The problem was that I started to experience a lot of side effects around those pharmaceutical drugs. And that's what later, what motivated me in New York City to say, you know what, stop, I can't compromise my health in order to keep my hair. I need to figure out something that is healthier. So Phanastricide is a tricky one as a medication because the side effects, there's some side effects that are pretty predictable.

But it doesn't happen for everybody. Yeah. I think you're comfortable talking about the side effect that you want. Yeah, it definitely doesn't happen for everyone. But it's a known side effect. It's not just decrease in libido, but sexual dysfunction as well. So as a young man, that was obviously problematic. There was a new study that was published.

I believe it was a university in Washington where they proved out, that the side effects can be prolonged. So sexual dysfunction post discontinuation of the actual drug. And that's what made me absolute panic. Because now, because every single time I stopped using phenostride, I started to lose my hair. So that was my experience. It doesn't mean that everyone was experiencing that.

But for me, it was an issue. So I needed to take control somehow of that situation because I just simply didn't want to jump it out. my health. So now you've got anxiety built on the top of it. Stress on top of stress. On top of stress. That's right. Yeah. Sleepless nights. And no exaggeration. All of that, right? Sleepless nights, anxiety. Loss of confidence. Loss of confidence. Yeah. And it was remarkable here in this year in your story arc is that you weren't really losing your hair at a way that is like, whoa, this is changing the way I look. But you knew that it could happen. It would happen. It was on.

the path for it so you're doing all the right kind of preventative steps but there's this anxiety sitting underneath of it and there was a side effect that was taken place yeah absolutely so so it was a very proactive approach but the evidence was there because my my father started to lose his hair in his early 20s completely bald my mother's hair was was thinning um and then i was losing one day i was counting my hair it was like 400 to 500 um hair's a day. That's too much. In the shower or in a comb? No, just even studying engineering and trying to. It was just raining hair. Yeah, yeah. It was absolutely raining hair. And it was also stress-related, but it's incredibly interesting because stress can trigger your genetic predisposition,

right? So, and nobody was talking about stress. So I knew that I was genetically predisposed. I knew that I was insanely stressed. So I decided to take a very proactive and preventative approach to it. Yeah, and that was the finastricide. Phenostrite, yes. And then you said, okay, I'm not doing that because of the side effects. I want to find another solution, and there wasn't one on the market that you felt comfortable with? Or, like, how did that start?

Yeah, so I took phenosteride for about nine years. So every single day I was taking this pill that was essentially blocking testosterone within my body, dehydrate testosterone. And that led to these side effects. and in New York City I simply want to have a solution that was not just effective but also very healthy for you and all the basic vitamins and minerals that were out there were simply not effective enough because they also just address dietary deficiencies now we all know that hair loss for men and for women is not caused by just dietary deficiencies it's it's hormonal related, it's inflammation related, it's stress related, etc. So together with my science biohacker

friend, Roland, we very quickly identified that the problem was multifactorial. So to address the problem through different angles. So that gave us hope because he, as a matter of fact, which is a funny story, he addressed his rheumathor arthritis very effectively with some very potent botanicals, nutraceuticals, targeting inflammation. And as a consequence of that, his hair started to grow back. He lost his hair early days as well. So that would led us to believe, okay, well, there's multiple factors. Nobody's talking about stress.

Nobody's talking about inflammation when it comes to hair loss. There must be a better way to address this in a healthier matter. And you went after this, like a supplement. You went after. That's right, because we've been told that just putting things on your hair is going to solve the issue, which, again, is not true. The problem is internal. I always believed in a whole body wellness approach. Your hair is essentially a reflection of your inner wellness or inner well-being. And if you want to make a change or a difference, you need to address it internally. That was always

the original hypothesis. Yes, you can support it topically, but you need to. You need to. You to address it internally and that's why our from the beginning our focus was or if it's not drugs then it need it need to be supplements but then how do you make supplements effective enough right and how do you approach that the best way possible the way we capture ideas matters for me the new remarkable paper pro move has just changed how i work on the go it's a digital paper tablet about the size of a paperback book it's light enough to slip into a pocket and it's also powerful enough to hold everything, notes, documents, and to-dos. Wherever work takes me, it goes with me. The writing experience is unlike anything else. It looks and feels and even sounds like paper,

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slash finding mastery to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. What have you come to understand about people's connection to hair, their hair? What are some of the, this is almost like tangential, but But I want to loop this back to identity if we can. But what have you come to understand about the narrative that we have about our own hair? It's a part of someone's identity. And that's big. And I continued to see that every day.

Yesterday, I was sitting in a restaurant and somebody came to me. I don't want to disturb, but I just want to quickly share with you that you changed my life. And I was like, oh, my God, I got goosebumps. I said, I was losing my hair. As a matter of fact, I had some surveillance. rises on my face as well. And, you know, I fully, fully lost my confidence. As a matter of fact, you know, I felt incredibly lonely for a very long period amount of time. And we all know there's major consequences to that. That really what drove us in the beginning as well,

because just seeing and interacting with people and what they were going through when they lose their hair. And men can lose the hair and that's okay, right? It's a bit more known and accepted. But 10 years ago, when we started the company, women's hair loss was a big deal. There's still some taboo around that. So when women go through hair loss, the impact on their identity is astronomical. I met so many women who can give you another example, who would wait for the elevator to be empty. Because if there would be in an elevator full of people,

typically the light shines on your hair and it shows the concern right what I've witnessed is for many it became life limiting and that's big right life limiting so not being able to live your life to your fullest potential is concerning and that's what we have witnessed across the board and that's why I got so incredibly passionate and excited about driving change because hair sometimes could feel a little superficial, but it's still deeply, deeply personal to people. So there's the nutrition component, there's a genetic component, and there's a psychological component. All three of those combined, if they're not favorable or if they are favorable, there's a behavioral component. When you were designing the product that you wanted to take

for yourself, what did you want to make sure was in it? And then also, like, what are some things that you found now that are not in it that if you could go back or what, you know, that's because there's always this emerging kind of forward-pushing insights around nutraceuticals and supplements. So what did you want to make sure was in it? And then what are you curious about what could be a benefit moving forward? Number one was efficacy. The product just has to work. Otherwise, you're just building a marketing company, right? And I didn't want to be in that business. I gave my engineering business to dedicate my 10 years to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, and I didn't want to, to, hair so i wanted to make sure that it's legit and i'm going to be able to make a difference in people's

lives that was the absolute priority now how to go about that was this multifactorial approach so we selected nutraceuticals that were able to target inflammation to um address stress to address the dietary deficiencies to hopefully rebalance um with adaptogens some of those hormones that may be a little off because of internal and external factors and again that became the hypothesis and later we really proved it out through some pretty state-of-the-art clinical trials because essentially we did pharmaceutical-grade clinical trials to supplementation, which was also not necessarily something that was needed. I remember investors telling me, it's like, well, that's too big of a risk.

It's like you're spending a million dollars on a clinical trial. It's like you don't have to do that. You can get away with making claims based on single ingredients. It's like, well, my question was always, it's like, well, how do you, how do you deal with that? If you put all these ingredients together, you want to make sure that there's no counterindications or it actually continues to work. Hopefully there's synergy. So we, from the beginning, we just really wanted to make sure we're doing what was right

and proving it out. And that's probably what we're the most proud of. It's that research, that original hypothesis that's now published and worldwide recognized and now applied to not just hair, but different fields as well, a beauty of nutraceuticals and and these natural compounds is that you can multi-target an issue pretty effectively. So that just along the journey, it kept us going because that efficacy was incredibly, incredibly important. Also for us to change the conversation, to go back to that emotional component, it's like,

how do you resonate with millions of people, how do you change people's lives? Credibility is essential, and that's why we went to, from the beginning, we interacted with with physicians to educate physicians, dermatologists, plastic surgeons, people who typically to go to doctors for hair loss. We spent so much time with them to proudly show this new approach, which then allowed us to build this network and that level of credibility to be able to change that conversation. So we became the number one dermatologist recommended brand, and that was because we just very proudly were able to present that science. There you go. So That was a stepwise benefits.

I'm more interested in the psychology that set up the decisions that you make that led to the outcome. So the psychology is, I really want to help people, but I'm not going to just kind of spray some stuff, put it in a pill, pop it in, and say, look, these three things are known to decrease inflammation, and that's the solution for whatever. So you spend a bunch of money and took a risk to see if what you're actually building was working. That's right. And the point here is that you wanted, you really wanted to know if it was working because of what reason? Ethical reasons. Keep going. Moral reasons.

Because you didn't want to promise something that was not going to help somebody. Never. Okay. So then that leads to one of the maybe biggest openings is that now you're in the science community. You go to the applied scientist, MDs and physicians or whatever, and you show them what you found. And then it opens up. originally it was just an hypothesis so we're presenting a white paper hundreds of pages which was not necessarily proven but it made a ton of sense but we were so incredibly passionate about this

new approach because nobody was talking about the problem in a multifactorial matter that we're able to at least engage physicians which was very interesting because there was an appetite to addressing it differently. And even with a lot of skeptical physicians, because it's obviously needed for physicians to be very critical and skeptical, the way we handled that was we would just give product away to them. Say, you know what, let's just try it. We put our money where our mouth was. And it's like, you don't have to buy any products from us. Try it on your patience that you believe may need some help. It was actually that simple. Going back to your point, it was always approach from a very authentic way still today the number one message is we're not selling product

and of course we're selling product because we need to sustain ourselves and support our people across the board but the message was always like let's do everything everything in our power to set people up for success and help them and support them through this emotional journey that they're going through so imagine a world where the product would not perform First of all, we would not have the business at the size that it currently is, but that would never, ever feel good. Are you able to talk about the evaluation of the company? Yeah.

So you went from a startup, bootstrap startup, early seed funding. Basically put all the money we had into research, and we just barely made it to have physical product in hand, me and my business partner. It was just all in. Based on your savings account. All of it. Just all of it. It's like, this is it.

Or nothing. How many years later? Go back to Europe if it doesn't work. How many years later did you get your last valuation? The company got acquired by Unilever in 2022. That was well over a billion dollars. I exited the company in the beginning of 2025. And that was a multi-barying dollar.

valuation, which was an amazing success, not just of course for ourselves, but also for our people internally, our partners just across the board. And the reason why I feel comfortable mentioning those numbers is because it represents impact, it represents the amount of people, which are millions and millions of people who were able to support throughout their journey that we just feel very, very good about. finding mastery is brought to you by branch basics here at finding mastery we often talk about the power of aligning your thoughts your words and your actions and that includes setting up the spaces you live in with intentionality this same reflection led me and my family to take a closer look at the products

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for adults looking to lead fuller, happier lives. Listen to the Happiness Lab wherever you get your podcast. Huge, congrats. I mean, this is it. Have an idea, chip in, believe in it, figure it out, come from the place that you're talking about, which is to build something that is honest, have someone to say, yeah,

it looks like it's actually saying what you're saying, this is the science community, and then that's the efficacy piece, and then figure out how to take it as far as you possibly can. Congratulations on from pain to massive profits, you know, but what's in between is the commitment that you've made to the people. Yeah. Well done.

What have you come to understand about hair loss and hair growth that most people don't understand? it's a reflection of your inner health which is exciting because you can typically take care of your health you can you can take steps to live healthier better sleep better nutrition more movement more exercise which is quite empowering because if you live healthier you can also control the outcome of your hair which i think is is exciting that's not always true when the genetic component is very present, which is essentially your sensitivity to specific hormones. That may not be the case, but by being very proactive about your health, you can absolutely control not just

your hair, but just, you know, how you look, right? So I think that's exciting, which then also further reinforces the importance of just thinking in a preventative matter, not just for hair, but for everything in life. Okay, so that actually can do an interesting thing. That can create more anxiety. And I'll tell you, there's two sides to this coin. So you're coming from hope and excitement. Like, look, what I found is if you eat some certain things, you take some supplements of things that you're not getting, you reduce inflammation in your lifestyle, and you meditate, you do the right amount of exercise. You're kind of getting a whole full human experience to optimize from a nutrition movement and psychology standpoint. You're going to give yourself the best chance you can to be

vibrant, full stop, hair included. We haven't talked about sleep yet in its relationship to overall health. What have you come to find about sleep and hair health? Not sleeping right is certainly increasing inflammation and increasing stress. We know that. That's affecting indirectly hair. So cortisol going through the roof or even just being chronically stressed because of lack of sleep is certainly affecting hair. What do you do? to compete to sleep at an optimal level. Competing is a great word. I don't know if I'm competing.

I feel like I'm competing. Like I'm competing with all of the things that I want to read and watch and like have conversations with. I'm competing against that stimulation in life to say, no, no, hold on. I got to get these, you know, for me, it's like seven and a half hours is my sweet spot. And so if I don't get the seven and a half, damn, next day it's just harder. It's just hard. And I can do it for like three, four days, you know, six and a half, six for three, four days.

But after that, it's just like, it's a diminishing return that is demonstratively noticeable to me. So I feel like I'm competing. Maybe I've got the wrong framing because I'm working my ass on. I love that you're competing. And in a way, we'll all compete. But we're going to be honest, I really look forward to sleep. I really do. If I can sleep nine to ten hours.

Nine to ten. Well, it's hard to sleep 9 to 10 hours. It requires a lot of magnesium and everything very dark. But I would do everything to sleep more hours. So I'm trying to stretch my sleep to its maximum because I just know that it's not just about performance for me personally, but it's also just simply about mood. Like, how do you feel about yourself throughout the day? Do you feel sharp? Do you feel like you can make a difference?

You feel like you're a great parent or a great husband. To me, that's such a big part of life. I do everything in my power to feel the best I can. And for me, the more sleep, the better. What are you doing with that research that I just noticed? I haven't read it, but I just saw Pop, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, around in the next handful of years that they're going to solve hair loss. This is not from a nutraceutical standpoint.

Did you see that? Yeah, there's always. Yeah, there's always research and a lot of new great findings that can hopefully lead to that. Have you dug into any of it? Yeah, I'm aware of some technologies. And frankly, I'm hopeful it's going to happen at some point, now especially with the introduction of AI. I'm not against any of that. It's like as long as it helps people.

I hope that those technologies are not going to come with tremendous side effects we've seen it with. even ozempic it does one this right for for for many but at the same time it's there's a lot of things that we don't know is there connection with ozmpic and hair loss absolutely yeah we've seen it we've seen it across the board because of the decrease in in muscle mass and how it affects your metabolic systems the nutrient deficiencies when people are not eating the right nutrients or not absorb the right nutrients that absolutely leads to to hair thinning and hair loss which is which is concerning certainly so i want to get your gaze on what's coming next but there's one more thought i have here which is like what are you what are you making sure that you get in your diet to optimize

your health and then hair being a natural consequence of that health i'm not an expert when it comes to diet um but for myself i'm trying to eat with variety i don't necessarily believe in just very strict diets um know me or no fish or vegetarian just variety to me is important for me it's more about where do you get your food from and it's it's incredibly unfortunate that it's very hard to find foods that are not contaminated with toxins whether it's fish the heavy metals or or pesticides on your salads so I'm very worried about that so it's less about the types of foods it's try to eat with some

variety but but then I'm doing everything in my power to clean my vegetables as baking soda and vinegar oh you're old school way you are yeah of course the old school way so wait you'll soak you'll absolutely yeah I've got some help but you know I'm not it could be good for you yeah so I've seen some of that's a full-time job yeah just soaking vegetables and making sure that your salads are actually clean so take strawberries for example you're soaking them in vinegar and baking soda vinegar. For how long? At least 15 minutes. And then you wash them and put them back in the fridge? Or you wash them and eat them. Yeah. Or freeze them. Okay. And then and then you consume them afterwards. Okay. That's a good one. I started to get very much into this because

because of the kids and the young children that I have. Because we have immune systems that can handle those toxins, but especially for children, children, it could be concerning. So you had a family member that had a significant health scare. And you and I've known each other for a long time, the listener wouldn't know that. And you came back and you were on it with turmeric. And you gave me some really good turmeric. Like, it sounds like a weird, like two nerds talking about high quality tumourics. Are you still bullish on the benefits of tumor? I think it's, first of all, it's one of the most studied botanicals on the planet, properly studied. But it addresses is CRP, inflammatory biomarker, and I'm a true believer, certainly, because I think at the root

of a lot of diseases is inflammation. So if you can rebalance and target that on an ongoing basis, I think that's incredibly beneficial. So I just, I think the listener will be interested is that almost every night, not every night, kind of like your gratitude practice, is that I'm chopping turmeric at night. No way. And yeah, like just stuff, organic turmeric that'll just buy from wherever. I chop it up, throw it into some boiling water. and then I've got a great tea and then I eat the turmeric after it's been like... Amazing.

Yeah, and so it's one way that I get tumor in. I also supplement with it. Right. Yeah, making sure it gets absorbed, I think, is... So you need a little black pepper in the tea. Absolutely. With a little black pepper and... Yeah, for optimum absorption.

Yeah. Key. All right, let's move on. Like, you've got this ability to see around corners and see down the path. And you're in a unique perspective is that you built something that's significant, you're in the vibe of the whole thing,

you're transitioning away from an operator of the business. What are you interested in when it comes to health over the next, call it three to five years as a horizon? Health is one of my core values, so I would love to further double down on that. And of course, we're talking about physical health, but also mental health. Why is mental health on a decline?

And obviously, there's a lot of factors that play a role there. So I would love to focus on ways to elevate humans and drive impact that way through health because ultimately I believe that it's all about how people feel about themselves on a daily basis. We've seen that with Nutraful as well. It's like helping them even a little bit with a hair and it's making them feel better and a little bit more confident and they're becoming better humans. It's incredible. moment someone feels optimal and confident they're able to also drive impact in the world and help others to do the same. So this ripple effect is magic to me. I want to focus there and especially

now with the introduction of AI, I think that's an exciting future. I know that not everyone thinks about the future in an exciting way when you think about AI, but I think from a health perspective, we're going to make some tremendous progress to reduce suffering across the globe. Amen. Finding Master is brought to you by David Protein. One of the lessons I've learned working with some of the best in the world is that consistency matters. And one of the ways to help drive consistency is to find ways to remove blockers in your day.

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Okay. You just sparked an idea about, like, I'm remiss to not talk about your leadership jobs. And so you've grown a, you know, a significant business. what have you come to understand that is important for other modern leaders to open the aperture to people's potential? Like what is a thing that you do as a leader to help others be their very best in the organization? And this is really what Finding Master is about.

Our consulting agency is to take from elite sport to big business, the best practices to help people be their very best from a psychological perspective. So can you speak to leaders, modern leaders right now, about. a couple things that you've come to understand to help the employee base or the other leaders and the team to be just a little bit better. Yeah, the workspace is so fundamental to how people feel about themselves. It came organically to me. I like to be kind. I hope that the future of leadership is kindness. I think if everyone would be a little kinder in the world, it's like, that's a better place, right?

And I think it starts by that because, and we created a culture around kindness and caring for one another. So if you don't care for each other within an organization, it's incredibly hard to then express that care and that kindness externally. So I always intuitively knew that we have to become very intentional about treating our people extremely well. And that created a lot of joy and it created community, which is also such a big part of longevity and just feeling good about yourself. So kindness is a big one for us.

And the second one is psychological safety, which allowing people to truly speak up and challenge us and challenge the leaders. Super important when it comes to innovation, in my opinion. So in parallel, what we did, it was also trying to just break down hierarchies as much as possible. and stay away from bureaucracy as much as possible. And I know that's hard because hierarchies are there in order for things to, I guess, function. And I give you some examples. Like, you know, I never wanted to call myself a boss, right? I was always with the people versus just people working for me.

It was always paid attention to the details and still do, right? I work with people and people not work for me. We're all on this together, right? And that's how we pursue our mission. that's how we're going to drive this company forward and this is how we're going to impact people's lives. So we build a culture around that. And that's frankly one of the most beautiful things. I often say that there's nothing better in life to do great things with great people, right? And companies do that, right? It's a great way to connect and pursue a mission there.

So that's something probably that we are still incredibly proud of. And I feel very grateful that all the people, including the new CEO, Cindy, who's amazing, carries on with that mindset. Would you say that's your signature as a leader, is kindness? I would say so. The reason why I hesitate is we all have our moments, right? But you want to care for people. I think it's very important to care for people. How do you repair when you lose your mind about something?

six hours of sleep you know whatever there's no excuses for being a jerk to other people but like let's say you have a moment and it's public how do you go about working through that if it's public and public meaning more than one person three right yeah exactly if it's if it's public and you feel like you you you cross the line um apologize big time own it and i've done that like i've I've done that quite often where it's like, you know, I'm sorry. You know, I shouldn't have responded that way. Owning up to it and learning from that experience, I always try to get better and to learn from my mistakes. Nobody's, of course, perfect.

Yeah, apologizing and then being there with everyone, I think is incredibly important. Is there a mistake that comes in mind that is a good learning tool for me as a leader and the listener about how a successful business operator, you know has learned from a mistake one mistake is partnering with the wrong people that don't have the right or similar intentions right now i'm interested i partner up with people who um who i know they're going to be there for me for the organization uh when things don't go well everyone wants to be a friend and wants to be around you when things go incredibly well i'm way more interested in okay who who are the people who are going to stick by you during difficult times? How do you,

how do you suss that out? Yeah. Do you hire slow? Do you hire fast? It's a great question. I don't look at resumes anymore. I do that quite intentionally. I want to know who that person is.

I'm less interested in what they've done in life. I want to dig deep to understand what they're up to, what they care about, what they values are. So I really try to spend a lot of time around that to ideally in person. Because even now in the virtual world, it's like you're missing so many clues. Since all that nonverbal communication is being stripped away. So I'm really trying to understand who you're dealing with and what their intentions are to make sure that any commitment or any partnership is set up for success. That's really trying. That's really something. I'm trying to exercise and try to get better at as we move forward.

What do you hope people would know about how to live a great life that you've come to learn by, you know, the way that you've designed and co-designed your life? What I realize now is that after having had so much success with the company, what I don't want to do is waste precious time with the people that I love the most, building companies and trying to make a difference and trying to elevate yourself, it also comes to sacrifice, right? And as long as you're aware of that sacrifice, I think then it's okay. But there is certainly sacrifice that takes place. And I admire people who don't try to do that and spend a lot of family time and spend a lot of time with their loved ones, with their children. There's so much

joy that people can find throughout those experiences. Yeah, living in great life for everyone means something very different for me it was pursuing a mission solving problems for myself and hopefully being able to help many more people to do the same that's what drives me but at the same time really making sure that I'm a good father I'm a great friend to people and just a good human by just constantly challenging myself and trying to be better and everything in life is incredibly important okay two hinge ideas The tension between your teammates across the organization, you wanting them to live a great life, being with their loved ones family, and also wanting them to meet the objectives that

they've said that they're going to meet as a good teammate to kind of move the mission forward. So it's the objectives that they are responsible for, mapped up against the personal lives that they also want to have. So how do you manage the tension between that? And then there's a secondary, which is the tension between you have established a great product, but you're built on innovation. Nutrifal was built on innovation and evidence. So I want to get the hinge between, the tension between meeting the demands of the job

and spending time, loved ones outside of the workforce, and resting on the laurels of the product that you've built that's well established and innovation. So can you hit both of those? Yes. it starts by making sure that at least people feel good at work. Because if that is toxic in whatever way that impacts everything, right, you're spending a tremendous amount of time at work. So really investing in activities in ways to support each other during hard times, doing good times, celebrating things together is essential. And then of course, as we are a wellness

company if you feel that people are stretched too thin or when you feel that there's too much anxiety and too much pressure because of deadlines because of innovation right because we need to focus on what's next and what's what's big or a large launch or whatever that may be allowing people and empowering people to to voice that right to voice that so they can they can step back and do whatever is right for for them. So we introduced many tools around that to make sure that people can do what's right for them. There's always going to be tension between performance at work and time spent with family. But if people pursue purpose or mission within an organization, it becomes exciting. It becomes a part of life. That's why I'm worried about AI. Like when a lot of people start

to lose their jobs. They're not just going to not necessarily lose their income, right? But they're going to lose purpose. So for me, my work is purpose. I'm sure for you it is as well. That's something that I'm trying to think about quite a bit. But overall, yeah, truly making sure that people are happy within the organization so they can be the best version of themselves outside of the organization

while making sure that they remain very healthy from a stress perspective. and allowing them to take time off. We had people, sometimes we had mechanisms in place where we force people to take off because, yeah, we felt like that was what was right to do. Yeah, very cool. And then the tension between the product that works and innovation, like making net new products.

Yeah, that's quite challenging as well because when you invest millions of dollars in clinical trials and you're proving that a specific formulation is working, what that does, it also, So typically, and you see it in a lot of organizations, it demotivates. Yeah. Right. It demotivates to introduce something new because introducing something new also comes

with risk. It also comes with potential confusion. One of our mantras within our organization was always keep growing. Obviously, that's pretty broad. And a lot of people, that means something, of course, something different. But we always try to evolve. Our risk appetite was quite large there. So investing in new technologies and investing in clinical trials to make sure that we offered to our customers, to our patients, the best solution possible was always the North Star.

And I'm very grateful and happy that that turned out to be well. But again, we continue to innovate. Yeah, there's always ways to do better. And science evolves. Science is dynamic. So the more we know, the more we grow and the better we need to evolve. You know how I've loved about this conversation, Georgios, is that, um, I can feel the kindness that you are wishing for other people.

I can also appreciate that what kind of kicked off the whole thing was your appreciation for a multi-disciplined solution. And the way that you're answering your questions is also very clearly aligned with the multi-dimensions that go into just about anything. So I can see your leadership. I can see your character virtues and values underneath and embedded in all of your answers.

And I can also see like this, excitement and hope for what's next. And I'm excited to see what you go build next. I'm excited to where you go place your gaze to see what is coming next for you. So thank you for showing a model of what it means to go from a phase of suffering to find a solution, to work from that place to help multiple millions of people to be just a little bit better in their life. And then along the way, embedded in a delivery system, which is a business and a model of business, that is an emblem for modern leadership. So thank you for the model.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much, and I'm incredibly excited to know and to hear everything that you're working on because you're changing the world in such a phenomenal way by caring for people and elevating millions. So that's incredibly exciting.

Awesome. Yeah. Appreciate you, George,os. Thank you very much. Next time on Finding Mastery, we're joined by the legendary Howie Mandel, comedian, creator, and long-time champion for mental health. Howie pulls back the curtain on life behind the laughs,

from chasing fame to redefining success and how speaking openly about his struggles with anxiety and OCD helped spark a cultural shift. Join us Wednesday, October 1st at 9 a.m. Pacific for this unforgettable conversation. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast

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