Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - The Secret to Wealth and Health is in your Gut… Literally with Tina Anderson CEO of Just Thrive

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

“Gut health” isn’t a sexy combination of words… let’s be honest. But taking care of your gut might be the most important step in taking care of your overall health— which in turn, helps your wallet. If you’re feeling 100%, you’re more likely to perform better at work, have less medical debt, and be energized enough to go to whatever networking event you know you should probably go to. To make gut health cool, Nicole sits down with Tina Anderson, CEO of probiotic and wellness company Just Thrive. Beyond tips for gut health, Tina also tells Nicole about what it’s like to be business partners with her romantic partner, and how to pull off a career pivot.  If you’re feeling that you haven’t been giving your gut enough love, Tina is oh-so-kindly giving our listeners 20% off a 90 day bottle of Just Thrive Probiotic and Just Calm. Try it at: justthrivehealth.com and use promo code: MONEYREHAB.

One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that

I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details.

I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash, but I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your

reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. On the show, I've talked a lot about the intersection of health and wealth,

but I haven't specifically talked about gut health yet. I think gut health is like the girl next door in Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me music video. It's also so similar to how I feel about finance, actually. Gut health isn't a sexy combination of words, let's be honest. And in the health world, there is a lot of hype created around cheat codes that do sound really sexy. Like 5 minute abs, 10 day arm challenge that will change your life. But what's really important for your long term health is your gut. It's the same thing with finance. There's a push around these get-rich-quick schemes, and in comparison, slow and steady investment strategies don't sound that sexy, but it is the best strategy

for long-term wealth. So to make gut health cool, today I'm talking to Tina Anderson, CEO of Just Thrive, a probiotics and wellness company Tina co-founded with her husband, Billy. Tina explains why taking care of your gut is maybe the most important step in taking care of your overall health, which in turn helps your wallet. If you're feeling 100%, you're more likely to perform better at work, have less medical debt, and be energized enough to go to whatever networking event you should probably go to. Tina also talks about what it's like to be business partners with her romantic partner, what red flags she saw in the pharmaceutical industry, and how to pull off a career pivot. Tina Anderson,

welcome to Money Rehab. Nicole, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. You are here to bring sexy back to gut health. Am I right? Yes, we can bring sexy. For one, if you're involved in sexual relations with a partner that you're with, you don't want to have gas or bloating when you're doing those things. But on a more practical level, gut health is health. And when you have health, when you have gut health, you have overall health. We also talk about guts colloquially all the time. We say we have an intuition around something, so we trust our gut. So maybe it's time we just return the favor and give our gut the love that it gives us back. I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, back around about 10 or 12 years ago, the Human Microbiome Project was

launched by the National Institutes of Health. That study told us more about the gut than we ever knew before. And it's why you're hearing about it so often is that it's really hard to find any disease out there, any non-communicable disease that's not associated with some type of imbalance in the gut. Most disease is stemming from the gut. And again, you know, so many people associate all those digestive issues as having a gut imbalance or some gut issue going on.

And those are certainly very, very telltale signs that we have some imbalance going on our gut. But now we're starting to understand that skin rashes, acne, eczema, psoriasis, all of these types of skin issues are associated with an imbalance in our gut. Anxiety, depression, allergies, diabetes, cancer. I mean, it's like I said, hard to find any non-communicable disease that's not associated with some type of imbalance in the gut. And so our immune system is found in our gut. I mean, 80 to 90% of our immune system is found in our gut lining. So it's where we begin when we talk about health. Yeah. It's so interesting that

you bring up the mental health component too, because people don't realize that the gut health is connected to not only your physical health, which makes more sense, but to your mental health as well. You mentioned anxiety, depression. All of our neurotransmitters, like serotonin is a neurotransmitter, GABA, which is our calming hormone. So serotonin is our happy hormone. GABA is our calming hormone. Dopamine, all of these neurotransmitters are actually being produced in the gut.

Everyone always associates serotonin being produced in the brain when really the majority of it is being produced in our gut. So all of these really critical neurotransmitters are actually being produced in our gut. I would always tell people when you're trying to take care of your gut, meditate because the calmer you are, you're going to be supporting your gut microbiome. And then those signals will be sent back up to the brain. So there's a huge gut-brain connection. We call it the gut-brain axis. And the gut and the brain are connected by the vagus nerve. And we'll always talk about, I'm excited about something because I have butterflies in my stomach.

And that is your brain sending signals down to your gut. And the reverse is true. If you're nervous about something, you have to go to the bathroom. This is not just like some woo-woo theory I have. I mean, this is documented in science and studied over and over again that there is this gut brain connection and they are talking back and forth to each other. And the better you could support that communication, the better both your brain and your gut will be. What are some of the signs that you're not supporting it correctly? That's what's so scary is that it's kind of like finances. You're not saving, you're not saving,

everything's fine. But then all of a sudden, you get to retirement and you have nothing left. I mean, it's the same thing. You're eating processed foods, you're being exposed to antibiotics and glyphosate, all these disruptors to our gut health. And then one day you have an autoimmune issue. And that's usually because it's the slow process of attacks on our gut. And so the most obvious signs are if you have the gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, any other type of digestive issues. But if you have allergies or any type of autoimmune issue, that is certainly a sign that you have a leaky gut or some imbalance going on in your gut. Generally, we've said anxiety and depression are stemming from an imbalance in your gut.

One of the reasons we got into this business is that there was never a focus on getting to the root cause. And that's what we're passionate about is getting to the root cause of an issue, not just putting a Band-Aid on a problem. The quick fixes, like you talked about, lose five pounds or take a pharmaceutical or take an over-the-counter because you're going to feel better. No, this is about the long haul. This is about getting rid of chronic conditions by focusing on our gut health. And if we have gas and bloating, diarrhea, constipation, skin rashes, someone that gets sick all the time, those are all signs you have some gut imbalance going on. And supplements can be such a hit or miss, and I've taken all of them over the years because I've struggled with this forever. I think growing up, even little boys are almost

seen as funny or cool if they fart or like poop jokes and little girls are don't do any of that because it's not ladylike. And so I think something around that happened to me when I was growing up. And so I've tried all these supplements and some of them straight up don't work or worse, they can be harmful. What are some of the red flags that people should look for when you're just shopping and you're reading those ingredient labels? Yeah, there are so many red flags out there. And unfortunately, there are some bad players in the supplement space. And you want to stay away from anything with artificial flavor. I mean, I've seen probiotics that have sugar in them. I'm like, are you kidding me? Sugar is such an offender to our gut health, and yet you're putting in sugar in a probiotic? And the biggest thing is

just finding products that have research behind them. And that is one of the biggest passions we had coming into this industry was raising the bar and elevating the standard in the supplement space. We came from big pharma. We know that research is a big part of it. And we believed that we wanted to elevate the standard in the supplement space. So we were bringing research-backed products to the market, and that was really important. So I would always say, try to find companies that have research and not just on one strain or one ingredient in a supplement, but on the whole formulation. How do these ingredients all work together? You don't see that a lot, but at the minimum, stay away from artificial ingredients, stay away from anything that has sugar in it, get to know the company that you're buying from, understand what they're doing and

what kind of research they're putting into the product. And it's hard because I'm a huge supplement consumer and I'm always researching, calling the company, finding out what kind of studies they have, but who has time for that? So it's awesome that you do that. I'm almost scared to ask what red flags you saw in the pharmaceuticals industry before you and your husband started Just Thrive. Was there a big thing where you're like, uh-uh, we have to do our own probiotics? There were a couple of big things. I will always say I'm a believer in pharmaceuticals for acute situations and emergency medicine type of situations, and maybe for a short time for a chronic condition. But what we saw is just there

was no emphasis on getting to the root cause of an issue. What we were seeing is just symptom relief. Instead of focusing on how can we prevent illness, how can we maintain our good health that we have when we're young? And that was never a factor. That's not a factor to this day in the pharmaceutical industry. And it's sad because they're in a business to treat chronic conditions. And what we saw in the pharmaceutical industry was actually a case where we won a bid at a large hospital system. And my husband, Billy, who was in the business, was working with a pharmaceutical rep.

And this pharmaceutical rep came in and said, guess what, Billy, this is awesome. We just won this big bid. And now my job is to go into each doctor and lower the number that they would prescribe this medicine so that they could sell more of the product. And my husband was like, this is crazy. I cannot believe that he's actually admitting it. And then kind of a light bulb went off in our head. We started thinking about, we had a relative who was on one pharmaceutical and started having a joint pain from the pharmaceutical. And then they put her on another pharmaceutical because the side effect was having a skin rash. Then they put her on another pharmaceutical and then she had stomach issues. And it was like she was on a half a dozen medications and never getting better. Here,

you're spending all this money on pharmaceuticals and all this, and you're never getting better. Here you're spending all this money on pharmaceuticals and all this, and you're never getting better. And nobody was thinking about the root cause. And so we're super deep thinkers. We read a lot of Dr. Wayne Dyer, and he would always say, do your life's work. And we weren't doing our life's work. And so we dove into this area that was very unknown to us, but we surrounded ourselves with some of the smartest minds out there. And that's our passion is getting to the root cause and empowering people to take control of their health. It's so similar to your passion, Nicole, because you're about empowering people to take control of their money and their finances. And that's what my passion is, is just getting people to take control of their health. The number one most important investment you can make in your life

is your health. Amen, sister. And we spend so much of our health working for wealth. And then in the middle of it, we spend our wealth getting our health back because we neglected it for so long. Yes, we see that all the time. My daughters are in their 20s and I'm always preaching them about their health. I mean, they obviously know, but even their friends, because we have got to take care of our health at a young age, especially now. We see chronic conditions with our young kids so much more than when I know when I was a kid. When I was a child, I knew one classmate that had a peanut allergy all the way from kindergarten all the way through graduating high school. And now, of course, we know. I mean, it's an epidemic out there. Kids have very

dysbiotic and unbalanced guts. They are suffering from allergies at an epidemic level. They're suffering from autoimmune issues at an epidemic level. And this is because of the world we're living in and all of these disruptors to our microbiome, our gut. Yeah, because it's not just the stuff you eat, right? It's the environmental stuff. It's all the chemicals.

It's everything that we're taking in. There are so many disruptors to our gut. One of the biggest offenders are antibiotics. So antibiotics save lives. And I recognize that, but antibiotics are over-prescribed. This has been shown in studies that the CDC has done that 50% of antibiotics are over-prescribed and people are taking them. And every time you take an antibiotic, it is killing off our beneficial bacteria. And we are killing off the bad bacteria, which is good, but you're also killing off our beneficial bacteria. And we are killing off the bad bacteria, which is good, but you're also killing off that beneficial bacteria. But it's not just antibiotics that we take. Antibiotics that are found in our meats,

our animal products. It's hard to find meat out there that's not dosed with antibiotics. And then antibacterial hand sanitizers, antibacterial hand soaps, very disruptive to our gut. And I know that's such an unpopular opinion these days, but we know that we are more bacteria than we are human. We are 10 times more bacterial cells than we are human. It's very hard for people to wrap their head around that. And yet we're dousing ourselves with antibacterial soaps. We're cleaning our surfaces with bleach products and things that say kills 99.99% of the bacteria. We need the bacteria. Most of our bacteria is actually friendly.

It's not harmful. It's that less than 1% of the bacteria that's actually harmful. And then, of course, there's stress. Stress is one of the biggest offenders of our gut health. So we are faced with these offenders of gut health. Like you said, the environment we're living in, the world we live in now of being stressed out, always on our phones, it's just worrying about money, whatever it might be. We're unfortunately kind of attacking our gut on a regular basis. The way I understood antibiotics was it was putting a nuke in your system,

getting rid of everything. And I guess that's why you introduced probiotics to put back the positive or pro-health. Just to break this down very simply for people, antibiotics, antibiotic, probiotic, pro is bringing back the positive to what potentially was nuked out. Absolutely. That's a great example. Probiotics are the friendly bacteria that confer a benefit onto the host, which is the body. So in the gut, these friendly bacteria that they arrive alive in the intestines and they have to convert a benefit onto the host. And that very part of the definition of being alive, the majority of probiotics don't even meet that part of the definition, which that's what's

so sad about this uphill battle of educating people about what actually works as far as probiotics. It's hard because there's so much misinformation out there. But yes, very fundamentally, a probiotic is a live bacterial organism that confers a benefit onto the host. And do you get all of them? Because sometimes you see it's a billion, trillion, zillion strains. How many strains do we need? So envision this garden that has plants that have been stepped on and trampled on and weeds growing all over that garden. And you kind of compare that to your intestines. Inside your intestines, there's good bacteria that are like those plants, and then there's bad bacteria that are like the weeds in the garden. And so for many years,

the idea of taking a probiotic is throwing that probiotic in the garden. Most of those probiotics on the market won't even survive. They won't get to that garden alive. They're going to die. But let's just say for argument purposes that they did survive. They would plant a plant in that garden, maybe one or two plants in that garden, but they're not getting rid of those weeds. And they're also not helping those good plants come back to life. So it's not really about how many CFUs, that's what you were talking about, the 50 billion, 250 billion, you see crazy amounts of numbers in there. It's not about that. It's about A, how many of them actually

survive the stomach acid to get into that garden. And then what do they do when they're in the garden? The type of strains that we work with are very different. We are disruptors in the market. What we work with are these spore-based probiotics and they go into that garden and they attach to the cell wall. So they're attaching to the soil in the garden. They have the ability to get rid of the overgrowth of the weeds in the garden. And then they have the ability to help those plants that have been stepped on and trampled on and come back to life. So they're making our garden so much more lush and beautiful. It's a really different approach and much more effective approach. So I wouldn't be thinking about trying to put more in there. It's more about taking our own bacteria that actually belongs to us, but it's just not

flourishing in our gut and help bringing it back to life. You're so knowledgeable about this. Your background was actually in litigation, right? But you saw this need and you found this why and your passion. Filling this need, though, created a lot of time. You mentioned it a few times, reading studies, going into the research. I mean, that seems like kind of new territory for you. And I think this is a common crossroads entrepreneurial struggle. People see this great opportunity, but that would mean making a huge

pivot, probably a pay cut, a really steep learning curve to do anything about it. And it feels like the barrier to entry is simply too high when you actually go through the steps of what it would take to make that leap. So what was it that prepared you to make that huge leap from litigation to probiotics? I would say there's probably several. One was the passion behind it. I mean, I just really wanted to do something that was going to make an impact. And I was also surrounding myself with really, really smart people. This has been my mantra in business is just surrounding myself with people who are smarter than I am. And that's what I've done. I surrounded ourselves with one of

the top microbiologists in the country on gut health, and he was a huge asset for us. I also am a researcher because I'm a lawyer. I'm used to researching things. So even if I was involved in a case that had science involved in it, I would have had to learn the science behind something. But I really think it's always important that when you're starting a business or starting or whatever career path you're on, just that you're surrounding yourself with people who have done it before and that are smarter than you in that area. There's things that you're probably smarter at than someone else, but I'm a believer in surrounding yourself with people who have done it before and are smarter than you are. Totally. And that self-awareness is so key when you're

starting business to really just know what you don't know. And there's so much. And the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know as well. When you were getting started, was there a moment that you knew this was going to take off? We knew that this was game-changing. We knew what it was doing for people, but it took a while. I thought, oh my God, we have a product that works, that's so well-studied and undergone so much scientific rigor. I knew that this was going to do well, but I was a little naive to know that I really have to market it. So I was so focused on researching the science behind the strains that I wasn't really focusing as much on marketing. So once we kind of understood how to get our name out there and we were hugely passionate about educating our customers.

And so that has been helpful. So we have great customer retention, which is great, but I think it was just seeing some of the success stories from people that were life changing for them that has really helped us. Well, that is, by the way, a better place to focus, focusing on an amazing product. You can't market your way at a bad product. So you can always market your way once you have an amazing product, which you do. But the other way around, I think, is where a lot of entrepreneurs struggle. Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt.

I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward

your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash M great way to bring in some extra cash. limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to chime.com slash disclosures for details. I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash, but I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations,

messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host, so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host. And now for some more money rehab. And you also started with your husband, Billy, as you mentioned, what was the

process that you guys set up for working together and living together? Did you delineate roles? Did you tag team? I'm sure there was a lot of trial and error. No pun intended. Yeah, right. It's been really fun for the most part. I'm the CEO. I'm the face of the brand. I'm more involved in the day-to-day operations, but there's never a large decision that doesn't go by without me working on it with Billy and discussing it. And I wish I had some story that I could tell you that we overcame, but we've worked really well together. And people are always like, I don't know how you do it. And we have a deep mutual respect for each other.

And I think that has been hugely important. I think in the end, if we really don't agree on something, usually I make the decision and he respects that because I'm more involved in the day-to-day operations. But I really respect his opinion so much. He was even more involved in the pharmato-day operations, but I really respect his opinion so much. He was even more involved in the pharma business that we came from. And I respect so much of what he built there. There have been times where he wanted to talk about something at night and I'm like, no, I can't talk about it anymore. Or he'd come home at lunchtime and I'm talking about something and

he's like, no, I don't want to talk about it. But we've been able to outline the times we should talk about it and times we shouldn't. But it's been pretty great to be honest with you. Has it made you guys closer? I think it has. Last year was 30 years of marriage, three amazing kids. We always felt that we married our soulmate. That's a great question. I think it has made us closer. I love that. Yeah. It's also just a really good philosophy that Billy goes by. I hope he uses it in your home life too. You are right. When Bush comes to shove, Tina wins. Happy wife, happy life. Nicely done, Billy. On another show I do with the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, Tina, we had a listener

come on the show who was running a business with his brothers and they said they didn't agree on how to handle a certain decision. They didn't have a system in place, which I think is really important to you as you're talking to other entrepreneurs to have these systems and processes in place to navigate a scenario where there's a disagreement and who wins that tiebreaker. How do you and Billy work through those times when your visions or your solutions might look different? Ultimately, you're going to win, which is great. So we kind of have to solve for X because we know the answer. Is there any insight that you can give us on how to get there? I don't know if I always win, but I would say that what I do is we read this book, Crucial Conversations, and we always know that we're going toward the same end result.

And we have to be brutally honest with each other. It's so funny. I read that book from a business perspective, but we've actually used it in our marriage. I've used it with my kids. I've used it with other family members. And it's having crucial conversations, meaning like putting all the brutal facts out there, but not in a mean-spirited way, knowing that we both want to get to the same place at the same time. Billy and I both want to get these products to as many people to impact their lives and their health and empower people. And so how we get there may not be the same way, but we just talk it out. And just putting egos aside, neither one of us have huge egos at all. And I think that has been really helpful too. And it's not about being right

or wrong. When Billy feels really strongly about something, I'm going to listen to him because he's not always, this is the way it has to be. So I think it's just kind of reading each other. That's really interesting. And that's important too. I was reading something about couples who have to create a system like on a scale of one to 10 of where this is in importance for them. So it sounds like he doesn't always cry wolf or he doesn't say everything is important, but you say, okay, well, on a scale of one to 10, how important is this situation to you? And if one person is like, it's a nine and the other person is like, it's a four, you just kind of have to give to the person that really called the nine out and be honest when you're going through those disagreements. It sounds like as romantic partners, as business partners, as both. Yeah, no, that's a great system. I may have to try it. That's a great idea.

I just started in my own relationship. I was like, okay, well, painting is really important to me for whatever reason. I win this one. But you can't call it all the time, I suppose. I'm sure you guys have had so many challenges over the years. Is there a story that you can share with our listeners about Just Thrive and how you guys overcame something that seemed insurmountable at the time? In the beginning, it was just, we have three kids. They were in high school and middle school at the time. And here we are trying to make everybody in the world healthier and trying to do everything we can to impact the health of our country. And yet here we are stressed out. I'm driving my kids to practice, laptop in tow, watching my son's baseball games with my laptop in front of me. I'm waking up at 4 a.m. I can't sleep. Here I am telling everybody

to meditate and be calm and do all these things. But it was very important that we never sacrificed our marriage or our family life, the two things that are most important to us. And it was hard. And I think from a business standpoint, I would say it was just, we've had counterfeiters on Amazon. People have counterfeited our product and it's really scary. Amazon is having trouble keeping up with it. They have a solution, but it's not really working right now. So it's been really tricky. And then what happens is our product gets sold under a fake label and then people take it. They don't think it works. They bring down the price of it and it's not our product. Did they know they were messing with a litigator? Yeah. Did that help?

I mean, I think it's helped a little bit, but there's a system that Amazon goes through and we put a blog on our website to help people navigate it, not just with our product, but with other products because it's a problem out there. And I think Amazon's trying to deal with it, but I've stopped buying supplements on Amazon because I don't even know if it's real or not real. And some products I'm more familiar with than others. So I just buy directly from the site or I go to a store that carries it and I try not to do it anymore until they figure it out. So hopefully they will. Because it's so easy to mimic something, send it from China. Nobody really knows the drop shipping situation. What advice would you give somebody who might worry about

that? You could A, just order from the company's website or go to a store that carries the product. I mean, there you're going to ensure that you're getting the proper product. And then if you really, really want to buy on Amazon and that's important to you, then I would just see who it's sold by and contact the brand that you're buying from and say, is this an authorized reseller of our products? We have a blog on our website about it that kind of explains where the authorized seller is and where they list the seller. So it's kind of tricky. It's not easy for people to understand where it's purchased from,

especially when you're buying something that's a consumable, like something you're ingesting. It's one thing to buy a counterfeit bracelet or something. It's not good for the brand, but at least you're not consuming it, but you don't know what they're putting in the products. It's definitely scary. I am scared. I actually am thinking back to what I must have bought on Amazon. And I think that's such an important lesson. On your website, you have different products at Just Thrive. Can you walk us through the different products, who they're for, what makes them different, what people should know when they're trying to choose? If you go on our website, it's justthrivehealth.com and we focus on gut health, but our flagship

product is our probiotic and it is where everyone should start. I mean, I feel very passionately about that because this is what we need to start with. When our gut is inflamed at all, which unfortunately the world we're living in, a lot of people's guts are inflamed, you aren't absorbing nutrients. So you could be taking vitamin D, vitamin C, multivitamin, but if your gut is not absorbing those nutrients, it's a waste of money. So it really makes sense to just start with the probiotic. It's called Just Thrive Probiotic and Antioxidant. It is a spore-based probiotic.

It is game-changing in the probiotic space. We are disruptors in the market, very heavily researched. We also have a prebiotic, and that's something that you could add to it, which creates more diversity in your gut microbiome. So back to that garden analogy, the prebiotic is kind of like the fertilizer. So it's like the food for the garden. Problem with a lot of prebiotics on the market is they're feeding the weeds and the plants. Ours is a precision prebiotic. It's only targeting the beneficial bacteria. So it's only feeding our good bacteria. We also have a new product called Jute Just Calm, and that is a probiotic strain that's

called a psychobiotic. And that actually helps us with those external stressors we deal with. But I don't want to overwhelm everyone. We have health coaches and product coaches on our team, and we really invest in educating the consumer. So I think the best place to start would be the probiotic. A lot of times people will start with that and the just calm because everybody's stressed out right now. And so it's really calming and it doesn't make people tired. It helps bring down cortisol levels, makes you deal with those stressors that we're dealing with on a daily basis, makes you deal with them that much better. But you could always call and set up an appointment with our health coach or our product coach and learn more about them. What's the truth or myth around refrigeration? That is one of the biggest myths out there in the probiotic space. So people

will always say a probiotic is a good probiotic if it's in the refrigerator. Well, to me, that's a sign of a very weak probiotic because if a probiotic needs to be refrigerated, it means it can't even withstand the room temperature on the store shelf. So if it can't withstand the room temperature on the store shelf, how in the world would it ever survive your body temperature, which is 98.6? And the answer is they don't. The overwhelming majority of strains of the market are dying by the time they get to the intestines. And if you remember, we went back to that definition, it has to be a live microorganism that confers a benefit onto the host. And

most probiotics don't even meet that first part of the definition of being a live microorganism. So even if they're not killed by the body temperature, they hit the stomach acid, which meant to be the gastric barrier. Most of those probiotics on the market will die trying to get through that stomach acid where the spores have this endospore shell around themselves and they don't. And that's why. But yeah, that is one of the biggest myths out there that to be a good probiotic, it needs to be refrigerated. It needs to be alive in our gut, not alive in the refrigerator. It needs to be alive when it gets, not alive in the refrigerator. It needs to be alive when it gets to our intestines. It's one of the things that I had always

believed until I discovered Just Thrive and that I thought, I can't take my probiotic today because I need to bring a cooler or something. But you have done such an amazing job in making all of this so accessible. So thank you personally. And thank you for all of our listeners. At the end of our episodes, Tina, we ask all of our guests for a tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. Can you give one final tip you've given so many great ones already that listeners can use to help their gut health for free? A lot of it is avoiding things, avoiding processed foods, avoiding foods that have antibiotics

in them, just trying to eat clean, whole, real foods, just staying away from the middle section of the grocery store and eating real foods and just really trying to avoid a lot of the processed foods and sugar and those types of things. Your diet really does matter. So focusing on the good food that you're putting in your body is huge. If you are now convinced that you haven't been giving your gut enough love, Tina has oh so kindly given our listeners 20% off a 90-day bottle of Just Thrive Probiotic and Just Calm. And a portion of every purchase goes to Vitamin Angels, a nonprofit organization that saves the lives of millions of children and moms-to-be

all around the world by ensuring that they get the vitamins and minerals they need to stay healthy and strong. To get this 20% discount from Tina, go to justthrivehealth.com and use promo code MONEYREHAB. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at moneynews and TikTok at moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video

content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.