How Eric Collett Unlocks the ROI of Better Sleep Thumbnail - Stop Sacrificing Sleep!

Hector [00:00:03] Hello, and welcome to another episode of How to Scale a Business. My name is Hector Santiesteban. I am your host, and our special guest today is Eric Collett.

Hector [00:00:12] Eric is a brain health expert who helps people upgrade their operating system. Eric, welcome to the show.

Eric [00:00:17] Thank you. It’s great to be here, Hector.

Hector [00:00:18] Give us a more accurate job description, position description, or title of what you do, and then we’ll get into how you help people.

Eric [00:00:26] Formally, I’m the CEO of A Mind for All Seasons, and we’re a company that helps thousands of people across the country improve their cognitive and mental health.

Hector [00:00:35] It’s something I think is so valuable. I got into this world when I remember hiring my first mindfulness coach when I was a sales trainer, because I was like, “I suck at sales training.” Control of my brain is really what I realized, and what I understood at some level, that there are people who have better mastery of themselves and are able to get better results.

Hector [00:01:10] What was your path, or how did you stumble into this realm?

Eric [00:01:15] I think “stumble” is the right word, because that’s what it was. I originally thought I was going to be a reconstructive plastic surgeon, and I was trying to stand out from all the biology guys by being a piano and saxophone performance major, which meant I spent lots of time in the practice room and sitting in class, and no time having any sort of a life.

Eric [00:01:35] So I pivoted. I studied interpersonal group communication and psychology. Then I got married my senior year of college, and by the time we were graduating, my wife and I were expecting our first child. I had the realization that $8 an hour as an assistant to a farmer’s insurance agent was not even enough to get an apartment.

Eric [00:01:54] So I stumbled into a job because I was desperate, in an assisted living community. I honestly thought I’d do it for like six months until I found my real job. That turned into nine years with that company. I got an administrator’s license, became an executive director, and ended up taking over a memory care community.

Eric [00:02:15] I spent seven years doing that. After 16 years being around people living with degenerative diseases that wrecked them, like Alzheimer’s disease that leaves you functionally like a newborn, I learned a lot about how to improve the lives of the people I was serving. How to take on someone with really challenging situations and find ways to make it a little bit better.

Eric [00:02:38] There’s a whole story of what led to jumping ship, becoming an entrepreneur, and starting a company in 2016. I did, and I still didn’t see what I now see today because I was just going to be a solopreneur. I was going to have more control over my time, my life, and my family situation.

Eric [00:02:56] Then a year into it, some amazing things aligned, and I was able to meet my business partner, Randy Audrey, who’s our chief medical officer.

Eric [00:03:10] He’s a brain health expert. He’s done fellowships with some of the top researchers and brain science experts on the planet. We went all in developing tools and systems initially to help people in assisted living do way better, reverse symptoms of cognitive decline to one degree or another.

Eric [00:03:30] That organically led to their family members saying, “You just helped Dad add 10 points on a 30-point cognitive test, and he’s got Alzheimer’s disease. What could you do for my brain?” It just kind of mushroomed from there. I never could have predicted the path.

Hector [00:03:44] Right. Especially, I think we’re in similar spaces where a lot of people say, “Oh, you’re kind of where the puck went,” or “You’re lucky to be where the industry went.” It seems that a lot of people are waking up to brain health and neuro health.

Hector [00:03:59] They’re waking up to neuroplasticity and the idea of needing to pay attention to their brain. I would imagine that 10 or 20 years ago, that wasn’t really on the radar for a lot of people.

Hector [00:04:10] What made you think this was worth building a business around?

Eric [00:04:20] As I think about it and look back, it was about the impact it could make in somebody’s life. When you spend 16 years watching people go from being functional, active, wonderful adults to unable to wipe their own bottom, unable to roll over on their own, hardly able to put any words together, it changes you as a person.

Eric [00:04:42] Early in the initial stages of developing our protocols and processes, I was seeing people back out of that. I was seeing people who hadn’t talked in a couple of years start putting some words together, or becoming more functional.

Eric [00:05:00] It hit me to the core. It was deeply impactful on the human level. But I also realized it was giving customers exactly what they wanted. We were changing the marketing message of some assisted living communities to, “We have powerful tools to help you hopefully never need what we have as far as full-time care.”

Eric [00:05:20] And if that’s not in the cards, if you already need to move in, our goal is to get you back home as soon as possible.

Hector [00:05:30] I don’t know if it was intentional or intuitive, but there’s all these alignments of things. Health, business, people waking up, and you coming online to what’s possible in the science and the supplementation and the health.

Hector [00:05:50] I would imagine that if you tried to start this business 50 or 60 years ago, there wouldn’t have been as much research or knowledge to serve people with. It seems like you’re taking advantage of something that’s ripe.

Eric [00:06:03] That’s absolutely true. It’s really been the last 15 or 20 years that the knowledge has exploded, and it’s accelerating. I think it’s going to keep accelerating.

Eric [00:06:10] I’m grateful that it’s opened so many more people’s minds to even think about the concept that, “Hey, I’m not stuck with the brain that I have. I could do something about that.”

Hector [00:06:23] My grandma had Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. I never knew her. I only knew her post that sort of thing. Growing up, I thought, “Oh, we just get it and then that’s it.” But it seems like that’s not the case.

Hector [00:06:44] What surprises entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business leaders about brain and neural health? What misconceptions do they have?

Eric [00:06:59] A lot of people fundamentally confuse what is common with being normal. People assume it’s normal that as you get older, your energy level is going to sag, your memory is going to get worse, and you’ll get foggy.

Eric [00:07:20] A lot of people push that back and try to ignore it, even though they’ve got this suspicion or fear that things are going to fall apart. So they think, “I’ve got to do as much as I can right now.” In some ways, that’s self-sabotage because a lot of people push themselves too much when they’re young.

Eric [00:07:46] Another thing I see lots of business leaders missing is this: many of my clients are entrepreneurs who recognize, “My brain is my tool in this knowledge economy. We’re not earning our living by brute force labor.” They recognize they want their tool to be as sharp as possible.

Eric [00:08:10] I hear from them over and over that they’ll come back and say things like, “I thought I needed to reread David Allen’s book on productivity so I could get more done in my day, because I wasn’t doing as much as I was when I was younger.”

Eric [00:08:25] And when we help them improve their cognitive scores by 20% to 30% over a few months, they say, “I just needed my processing speed up, and I’m getting so much more done in the day. I needed to understand the root cause of why my energy was sagging every afternoon and I felt like my mind was mush.”

Eric [00:08:45] Now that they’ve dealt with the physiology, it’s like they had a hardware upgrade. I like the analogy of hardware versus software. The soft skills, conferences, books, and podcasts are like software, and everyone knows what happens if you load new software on old hardware.

Eric [00:09:10] Ideally, you upgrade the hardware, and you keep learning and developing the software. That’s a dynamite combination.

Hector [00:09:19] You think about the old axiom: work harder, not smarter. That is the exemplification of that. What’s coming online for a lot of people is that, like a bicep or any other muscle, there are ways to grow or improve the brain.

Hector [00:09:40] We’ve been having conversations at this event about ways to biologically improve and upgrade your hardware. What are some of your favorite mindsets, tactics, or strategies that people can practically do to upgrade their brain health?

Eric [00:09:54] Setting biomarkers aside, because there’s lots of stuff that could be measured to deeply personalize this, and I think all that matters at a deep level, there’s a lot you could never medicate or supplement your way out of.

Eric [00:10:10] If I had to pick one thing at the top of the list, it would be difficult, but I think sleep would have to be right up there.

Eric [00:10:20] For so much of human history, especially 20th and 21st century history, so many people think, “I’ll sacrifice my sleep.” They make their health negotiable so they can pull other stuff onto their plate, and it’s health that gives way.

Eric [00:10:40] They say, “I won’t sleep as much tonight. I’ll stay up till four o’clock in the morning getting this project done.”

Eric [00:10:50] Now we know sleep is literally when the brain takes out the trash. That’s when the glymphatic system runs. If you’re asleep, your brain shrinks a little bit. The ventricles, the fluid-filled spaces, open up.

Eric [00:11:00] Your brain makes about a cup and a half of new cerebrospinal fluid, and it bathes your brain in that fluid to flush out the amyloid beta that builds up in the Alzheimer’s brain. It flushes out cellular waste and debris.

Eric [00:11:10] If you’re not getting seven to eight hours of deep, full sleep, then you’re hosed as far as cognitive functioning. You’re definitely going to have a drop.

Hector [00:11:23] I remember in the sales organization I came up in, one of the competitor offices’ mantra was, “Team no sleep.” Their ethos was to sacrifice sleep in exchange for whatever, and not realizing those have long-term ramifications that you don’t always see.

Eric [00:11:42] I think they even have short-term ramifications. Knowing what I know now, if I heard a team saying, “We’re team no sleep,” I’d want to run away and say, “Oh my gosh, those are the underperformers.”

Eric [00:11:56] Even if they were great, think of how much more they could do if they truly optimize the tool that they’re working with.

Hector [00:12:02] Are there things you see people are lying to themselves about when it comes to sleep? Are there downstream effects people aren’t connecting to sleep that are impacting their work?

Eric [00:12:14] Downstream consequences: I think they’re lying to themselves about weight loss, for example. Lots of people have problems with metabolism, and they want to lose weight, but they tell themselves, “I just need to exercise more.”

Eric [00:12:40] If you’re not sleeping well, it’s very difficult to lose weight. Sleep affects metabolism.

Eric [00:12:51] Even if someone has read the research or someone has explained it, they drift into thinking, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that doesn’t affect me as much.”

Hector [00:13:08] We had a conversation this morning, and it’s specific for everybody, but if you could give general advice when it comes to supplementation or nutrition, are there things that have a larger impact than others?

Eric [00:13:25] I do. It depends on an individual’s personal situation, but there are a few supplements—having done blood work with thousands of people—where I think there are a few things almost everybody needs to be supplementing.

Eric [00:13:40] One of the most important things for people to understand is that most people purchase a supplement because of an outcome they want, and there’s a marketing message that says, “This supplement is supposed to do this thing.” They say, “I have that symptom, so I’m going to try it.”

Eric [00:14:00] But one symptom can have 20 or 30 different root causes. What matters is why you have that symptom.

Eric [00:14:10] If someone feels foggy, the biggest reason you’re foggy—going back to our earlier conversation—is you’re not sleeping. You might be able to hide the symptom with a stimulant or caffeine, but that’s not the root cause.

Eric [00:14:30] Ideally, you consume a supplement if you need something supplemental, and you measure it with a blood test wherever possible. Or maybe you have a cognitive test where you understand, “I have a memory problem, so I need more of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, so I’m going to use a high-quality choline supplement.”

Eric [00:14:59] Or, “My B12 level is 250, and optimally it’d be over 1,000.” Now we can measure something, apply an intervention, and adjust it.

Hector [00:15:13] To play devil’s advocate, there’s a listener saying, “How does that translate? What’s the ROI?” When you talk about low B12, that’s low energy. If someone doesn’t have energy, they can’t finish their task list. They don’t have the capacity to make extra calls or do whatever it is.

Eric [00:15:40] What makes it harder to show up in your business than your negative voice getting in your head and having a field day with you?

Eric [00:15:46] If you have low folate, low B9, you’re highly likely to be at least anxious or more depressed, if not even suicidal, if it’s low enough.

Eric [00:15:56] If you don’t have enough B12, it can affect your energy level. There’s also research that links that with psychosis and hallucinations. Obviously most people who are running businesses are not out hallucinating, but if you want to talk about how much mental health matters, you’ve got to have the right ingredients on the pantry shelf.

Eric [00:16:19] We’re all trying to make this recipe every day in our brains so things work the way we need them to, so we can show up for people. Entrepreneurship is hard enough without physiology not being there to support us.

Hector [00:16:32] We don’t have the base hardware. If that’s not working in working condition, it makes it hard to layer on anything on top of that.

Hector [00:16:40] What else might go into someone taking care of their brain?

Eric [00:16:51] I’ll give a summarized list, and we can unpack any of them.

Eric [00:16:56] Brain training matters, meaning novel cognitive experiences. We’re not talking about doing crossword puzzles, but you have to create conditions where the brain has a reason to make new synaptic connections and become more resilient.

Eric [00:17:10] Exercise is huge for brain health. There’s tons of research on what exercise does.

Eric [00:17:16] Diet certainly matters. You can’t outrun a bad diet.

Eric [00:17:24] There’s too much tribalism about diet, and too many people think there’s one diet for every human. If they argue there’s one best diet, they probably don’t understand physiology very well.

Eric [00:17:40] Humans are very different. My 16-year-old son who is training for cross country and running 10 miles a day is metabolically in a very different place than an 80-year-old that’s been sitting on the couch for 40 years.

Hector [00:17:54] It’s important that you bring that up: everybody finds what works for them. What I know didn’t work for me is when I used to get a California burrito in the middle of the day. To digest all of the carne asada and french fries that were wrapped up in delicious—it had its repercussions.

Eric [00:18:09] Maybe we could talk about a couple principles illustrated by your example, because we get further with diet when we leverage principles.

Eric [00:18:20] One is: we should eat according to our goals. If your goal during the workday is steady energy, something that’s going to cause your blood sugar to spike and crash works against your goal.

Eric [00:18:33] Better to have the steak, maybe have an avocado with it. Prioritize the protein and the fat because you’re not going to have as much of a sugar spike, and that keeps your energy steadier.

Eric [00:18:46] I eat very differently during the workday than I do in the evening, or after a heavy workout, because the goal is different.

Hector [00:18:54] Any other things that you think are helpful and valuable for people?

Eric [00:18:57] A couple other things I’d throw on the list.

Eric [00:19:00] Dental health is often overlooked. Lots of people who donate their brains to science and die with Alzheimer’s disease are found to have P. gingivalis bacteria living in their brain. That’s the bacteria involved in gum disease.

Eric [00:19:20] There are things that can happen in the mouth where that bacteria could be leaching into the bloodstream, igniting an inflammatory response.

Hector [00:19:27] What are some telltale signs that people think are fine, but their dental health or their mouth is actually not?

Eric [00:19:33] There are obvious signs. If your gums are swollen and bleeding, you have gum disease, or your teeth are deteriorating.

Eric [00:19:44] But we’ve seen clients with totally normal, regular dental X-rays. When their dentist did a cone beam CT scan, they found pockets where bone was etched away and they were leaching bacteria into the bloodstream.

Eric [00:20:10] Another sign could be a blood test: high-sensitivity C-reactive protein might be elevated. That’s a general marker of inflammation, and one thing that could trigger it would be a dental infection. There are clues and things to look for.

Hector [00:20:26] People becoming more online to the importance of these things outside of just brushing your teeth and don’t have a cavity. It’s a little more than that.

Eric [00:20:36] We talked about supplements. I would also mention stress management.

Eric [00:20:46] Stress affects us in negative ways. When people have chronically elevated stress, it causes deterioration of the memory center of the brain, the hippocampus. That’s also ground zero for most Alzheimer’s cases.

Eric [00:21:00] People miss that stress management is not only about eliminating stress. You can’t get rid of every stress, and I don’t think we should either. But what we neglect is intentional counterbalances.

Eric [00:21:10] If stress goes up, are we intentionally doing everything possible to have a commensurate increase in our counter strategy?

Hector [00:21:24] This is great. I’m sad that we only have a half hour to get into all this. I’ve got a couple more questions, but if people want to find out more about you and go deeper, where’s the best place for people to go?

Eric [00:21:37] The easiest is to go to http://amindforallseasons.com.

Eric [00:21:46] If they want to take a self-assessment that looks at lifestyle factors and even their understanding of some biomarkers, if they go to http://amindforallseasons.com/energy, they can take a free assessment and learn a lot about where they are as far as their brain health.

Hector [00:22:02] Last question. In your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

Eric [00:22:07] I love that. I’ll borrow words from one of my good friends, who’s a tremendous business leader and a mindset coach for professional athletes. I’ve heard him say many times, “When you get comfortable being uncomfortable, you become unstoppable.”

Eric [00:22:22] The more I step into discomfort intentionally, and the more I take calculated risks, the more things scale. I find more solutions that way, and that’s been helpful for me.