Ronnie Landis: Greetings and aloha. Welcome to another episode of the life mastery podcast show. I’m your host, Ronnie Landis. And we have a really, really exceptional episode for you today. This is with a return guest. His name is Mark Effinger and Mark Effinger is the CEO and founder of a company called Nootopia.

Nootopia is my absolute favorite brain performance, nootropic. Um, cognitive Enhancing Performance Company, and if you go to the website, www.nootopia.com, if you use the coupon code, life Mastery 10, you will get a discount on your orders. Highly recommend these brain supplements, and I’ve talked a lot about them on the show.

So again, you can go to nootopia.com to find out more about the products. So this is a return episode with Mark Effinger if you remember we did an incredible two and a half hour podcast a number of months ago. And there’s so much territory that me and Mark get to cover that we just had to do another podcast.

We’re actually planning on doing a third podcast, believe it or not. So there is a lot that we cover now in this episode, this took a number of different twists and turns. We start talking about brain performance and cognitive health. We go into addiction recovery. We talk about, um, I think we get into like pharmaceutical painkillers and opioids and helping people, um, understand healthy alternatives to those things.

We talk about the Nootopia product line and we get really deep into the form and the function of all the different products. We also talk about heartbreak as well. And how the Nootopia products actually supported me when I was going through a very painful breakup. And Mark also shares his inspiration for creating the company, which was all manifested from going through a deep, deep grieving and heartbreak process himself.

So we actually talked quite a bit about the process of grief and heartbreak and how to heal your heart and how some of these products can actually support you in that process as well. which is something that you may not think about when you think of cognitive enhancing, nootropic, um, brain performance supplements, but it is something that can support somebody in anything that they’re going through in their life.

So I thought that that was really fascinating and really meaningful conversation that we had so many other things that we talk about. So without further ado, let’s just dive right in with this second groundbreaking episode with my dear friend and colleague, Mark Effinger. Enjoy Mark Effinger. Welcome back to the holistic life mastery podcast.

Mark Effinger: Ronnie Landis. I’m so glad you called brother. So glad to see you at Asprey’s event recently. It was a, it’s always a joy. 

Ronnie Landis: Yeah. Yeah. Always a joy to be with you. As we were just talking before I hit record, just really grateful for your recent emergence or appearance in my life through Matt Galant, Wade Lightheart, bio optimizers, um, the greatest brain optimization, nootropic, neuro.

recovery company that you have founded, formulated, uh, just, just created, um, in Nootopia, just so grateful for you, for your team, your beautiful daughter, who, who’s become a friend, um, just everything that you are bringing forth to the world is so amazing and it’s so inspiring. And I’m just grateful to call you a big brother and a colleague.

Mark Effinger: You dude, I’m, I’m just, I’m humbled. And thank you, by the way, for including Lydie Day. She’s the best, as you know, uh, or maybe, you know, you found at the event, she really was critical in our ability to turn this into a real business. She was there at the kitchen table with me and. every day making capsules and struggling through it and figuring out how to do it right.

And, and, um, it was really powerful. Of course, the customizations were painful for her at that time. It was great. So yeah. Thanks man. So good to have you working with us. 

Ronnie Landis: Yes. Yeah. And I look forward to, to working deeper with you guys in multiple capacities along the journey. Um, you know, we did a two and a half hour podcast.

So if anyone that’s listening, if you didn’t listen to that, obviously listen to this, but then definitely go back over that podcast because we went really deep into a lot of areas. And this, this podcast will probably be no different and also different. There are some focused areas that I do want to get into one of which is to actually catalog the product line, the nootopia brain optimization supplement product line, because there is a wide spectrum of products that you offer.

And I wanted to do something really special that I don’t think anyone’s done with you yet, which is, I wanted to go through. My little treasure vault. And if you’re watching on YouTube, you can see, I got my little treasure vault box here, the Nokia box, which is amazing. And it houses. a treasure vault of all my favorite supplements.

And I want to mention this before we get in, because, you know, like you and so many of our contemporaries, I’ve been in the supplement game for, you know, 15 years. I’ve seen, I’ve seen almost everything out there. So many of my friends own some of the biggest supplement companies out there and I love all of them.

They’re great. However, there’s something really special about the Nootopia products. just from an energetic standpoint. And what I mean by that is each capsule, like they’re not just like a supplement in a bottle that like you just pop back. Like literally every single supplement is like a treasure to me.

I don’t waste any of them. I don’t misplace them. I barely even give them out. I just tell people where the link is and to get, get it themselves. I, every one of them is a, is a treasure because it holds so much potency and it also can dictate my state, meaning my mental and emotional state for that day.

And that’s what I want to get into today. I want to talk about the function and form of a lot of these products. So everyone that’s listening or watching. Has more of a, has more of a functional insight into how they can use the products, what products could work perfectly for them where they’re at. And, um, just give more of a overview of that.

Mark Effinger: Love it, man. That’s exciting. 

Ronnie Landis: Yes. Yeah. So before we, we dive into that, maybe we can just do a quick little overview on state selection. Like this concept of state selection, because most of the time, you know, you take a supplement and it’s like, It’s, it’s stimulating or it’s, there, there’s very like marketing terms of like the proposed benefits, but it’s not very specific and it’s not, it’s not very versatile.

It’s kind of one directional, if you will, kind of like caffeine on its own. So I’d like to discuss like what is state selection? What was that idea going into this? 

Mark Effinger: Great, great question. So let me, I’ll do a little bit, a tiny bit of history. Most of it would be redundant, um, based on our first call, but. My initial goal on developing these products was to help addicts get out of their addictive cycle and to be able to get the, the mental freedom they needed to perform.

And that the things that I found immediately when I started working with addicts, uh, was that, and this is a broad spectrum. These were everything from the homeless to the CEO. So, um, aside from the typical habit patterns that you might find in addictive behavior. Um, the, the chasing the dragon one on one where you’ve had an experience that was so transformational that you want to have it over and over and over again.

And we find a lot of people in this industry are, um, what, even if it’s not alcohol or drugs, it’s the next search for the new biofeedback material or the next three, right? It’s always the next thing. 

Ronnie Landis: Psychedelics. 

Mark Effinger: Oh, huge. 

Ronnie Landis: Yeah. 

Mark Effinger: Yeah. And I’m a huge fan of psychedelics, by the way. So that’s not a set in a negative, uh, fashion.

It’s a, it’s a, yeah. And the thing is you, you reach this state, you reach a high, whether it’s a, you know, a full ayahuasca experience or it’s a microdose is you get that, that aha moment of, wow, this really did have a minor or a profound effect on me. How do I do that again? And, um, and oftentimes that leads to this.

This repeating pattern again, chasing the dragon is a great, if you get a chance, just look it up on YouTube, but it’s, um, it’s Cartman from South Park, uh, chasing the dragon and you’ll it’s, it’s a kick, but it really illustrates what chasing the dragon is all about. Um, so what I, what I found was that, Most of the problem on the addictive behavior side of it, where people were continuing on an addiction that was definitely negative to their lives, it was really forming these bad, um, thinking patterns, bad thought patterns that were grounded in, um, instantaneous pleasure or our buffer from life, right?

It’s either. Heading towards pleasure or protecting from trauma or some other, um, issue. And oftentimes it was a biochemical neurochemical response loop that they had just trained over time. And, um, and so the first thing was I wanted to help people get a clearer head so that, because when you have a clear head, you have a tendency to make better decisions.

One is you’re able to take input from friends, family and, and mentors and actually go, okay, that makes sense rather than going, Hey, I know that you’re, you mean well, but that doesn’t apply to me because I need to go have, you know, crazy sex, or I need to go, uh, you know, do the right thing. any of these things that might be a problem.

And so, so that was the first thing. So if I could help give you a clear head, if I could give you the, the nutrients, the supplements, the extracts and the compounds in a form that would actually clear up the brain, um, that’s going to help you make a better decision. So that was part one. And then part two of that was a lot of the people that we, we got them, we went from, from at the, at the clinic.

They were stuck to anywhere from a six to 12 week rehab cycle, which was going to be anywhere from 16 to 27 different meds. And then at the end of it, they were going to have a prescription to two or four of those meds that they were going to be on chronically for, you know, till the end of time type thing.

And many of them had really negative side effects. And so I looked at it and said, well, what if I could do a combination of the right neurochemical precursors rather than the direct neurochemicals. I could get into the person in a pleasant form. It could quickly act to clear up the synapses so that they’re not kludgy and they’re not working slowly.

Um, there’s not, there’s not a lot of latency between the thought and the ability to act and which also improves, um, you know, cognitive clarity improves your decision making. But the next part of it was Um, they said, Hey, okay, I’ve got the clarity now, Mark, but I can’t do squat. I can’t get off my ass. I’m not motivated.

Um, and a lot of times, you know, dopamine stores, adrenal burnout or adrenal insufficiency or whatever happens to be the case. Those issues, their physiology, their cardiovascular system, and the rest might be down. Nitric oxide production at the cell level is bad. And what I found most significant was their ability to create the natural energy called ATP from the cell through the mitochondria was hammered.

It was just highly restricted. So what I did was the other side of the formula was Let’s bring up the mitochondrial activity. Let’s shuttle fat, uh, fats, you know, short chain fatty acids into the mitochondria and out at a rate that’s going to give them this wonderful ATP lift. That’s going to give them the energy to help them execute.

So now you’re making good decisions. You can execute on those decisions. That creates a level of success And that success is great fuel that can be the thing that keeps you from going back to the addiction Because the success is more fulfilling more meaningful more positive. You’re getting people around you going Hey, that was awesome.

That decision you made was killer. That thing that you did was awesome Um that follow through on that idea is great Horseman. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, you know what i’m talking about So, um, so that was the, that was kind of the thing. And then from there it was, okay, now that we got these people, you know, that are, that are running clear and they’re, they’re able to do some stuff.

What mood do they want to be in? What would be the state that they want to operate in to be the most effective at whatever they need to do? So for me, this was given to me by my business partners. Where’s my fingers? There they are. They’re that direction. There we go. So this was given to me in love for my business partners after doing a, an extensive, um, neurofeedback, um, uh, moment of neurofeedback.

And the, um, the doctor was trying to put electrodes on my brain and I’m fidgeting, or I’ve got an idea, or I’m. Making a joke or whatever. And, and, you know, and, and Matt leans over and goes fucking focus. And it was like, Oh yeah, right. What are we here for again? Right. Um, it was great. It was great. So this is done in love.

I absolutely don’t take it as a front, but it’s also a reminder when. I was in business back in the nineties with a very famous technology guy named White Starnes, who had created a company called Tripwire, which was the leading, um, firewall data management platform to be able to protect you from, uh, distributed denial of service deal.

What’s called a DDoS attack when, when you’re, you know, your enterprise server is being hammered by, uh, You know, by some foreign country that’s trying to bring you down, um, their systems detected those packets, identified the packets rerouted the traffic and did all kinds of stuff. So, so why it, when he started that company, we had just, we had just folded our company.

We spent six years building lasers and he invited me to lunch and. He popped open his, his, uh, Motorola razor phone. Cause that was cool in 1998. Um, he pops open his razor phone and he, and he boots it and it, and it says. Focus, right? And he, and he, I said, cause I asked him, I said, why do you, why did you turn your cell phone off?

And he goes, let me show you. And he boots it up and he, and it says, focus across the screen. And he goes, I noticed that I could be really good above normal level at a bunch of different things. And I could, I could have a, a company doing this and another company doing that and a company making products and a company doing services, but he goes, none of them would get to the level that would make a meaningful change in the world.

He goes, the minute I started focusing, I went all in on this one thing. He goes, the world, it’s, it’s like the universe opened up and said, let’s do this, bro. And, um, it’s a really, really valuable lesson for me, uh, at the time. So we fast forward now, um, when we start talking about, uh, How do you optimize states?

What you start talking about, what you’re really saying is what are the specific neurotransmitters at what ratios? To get what outcome for how long with what, what potential downside, right? Like, um, like, you know, we’ve got, this is a product right here. It’s called a dope a drop. It’s of course it’ll go out fuzzy when I try to do that.

Right. Right. So, so the dope drops are really interesting product and. I originally built it to help men, um, shorten the refractory period between orgasms. I wanted to have a better orgasm, better quality orgasm, because some men have had an orgasm, but they don’t know the difference between one orgasm and another.

And there’s a whole spectrum of, of, uh, of orgasms. Some you could, you could walk away from, you wouldn’t give a shit about, and some are life changing. Yeah. 

Ronnie Landis: Some are like a whole, a whole, like, 

Mark Effinger: Yes. It’s like, yeah, it’s like every shocker in your body goes, I’m on bro. Um, and it’s very powerful when there’s a book that was written in the mid nineties called the male multiple orgasm.

I believe that was it. Yeah, it was great. Great book. I read it. And, um, and after going through the book, the guy that gave me the book was a Um, a totally ripped redheaded geek, one of the top engineers in the laser industry and who was married to this just incredibly beautiful, like, you know, like, like you would think going way outside his, his game pattern.

Right. And, um, and I asked him, I said, how, how did you ever. Find this girl and she’s like, uh, she was, uh, had her master’s in, I forget what she had her master’s in, but she was really bright. And, and, um, he goes, oh, and he goes, and he, he reaches in this old IBM desk, a gray steel desk with a rubber top reaches in.

And he went to the back of the second, uh, the second drawer down and he reaches this book and it says, you know, the, the secrets of the male multiple orgasm, and he gives it to me and he says, This didn’t hurt.

So it was great. So I studied it. My, my wife and I experimented with it. It was great. It was really good. But what I discovered was that there are these, um, where, especially when you have multiple orgasms is the first one comes from what you would normally, you know, right. Your scrotum, right. Does its thing.

And you feel that, but the second one comes more towards the taint. It’s like more centralized there. Um, and a little bit of this third chakras type of a very, uh, um, the third one is much more spinal. And when you get, if you can get to the fourth orgasm or past that, it is a full body full. It takes everything with you.

Um, when you think about, you know, everybody talks about sting and, um, tantric, you know, is tantric yoga, tantric sex, and, you know, where you set at the edge, you, you, you, You edge for an hour or two or three or four with your partner. And then finally, you may or may not let, you know, let go with it because you’re, you’re really not looking necessarily for the orgasmic experience.

You’re looking for the spiritual connectivity experience with that possibility and bringing you to that point of, of almost release. Um, so it’s great stuff. And so anyhow, I think I’ve elaborated on that quite enough. 

Ronnie Landis: It’s pretty amazing. And there’s like so many threads that we can pull on it as it relates to dopamine.

But I think this is actually a really great opener. Awesome. 

Mark Effinger: So, well, so, so I created this product for that specifically, and then I gave it to men and women. And they started going, Hey man, this is more than your objective. Um, they were using it for everything from dopamine recovery after, um, an all nighter on Facebook, getting likes and loves and, and Instagram to, um, to having an incredible day of, of whether it’s a sport or some other activity that.

that basically was one dopaminergic activity to another. And when they wanted to, and then they would often have this falling off a cliff. They would write all the activities over all the excitements over all the adrenaline and the rest is over. And then suddenly they fall off a cliff. They’re not happy.

They’re depressed. So I wanted to make something that made the highs better and the lows non existent. And to do that, I needed to create dopamine at three different levels. Um, so phenylalanine was the first kind of conversion because phenylalanine converts to acetylaltyrosine, which then converts to L DOPA.

Right, right. Then I wanted to use acetylaltyrosine with a thing called P5P, which is a form of B6 that’s super bioavailable, about 400 percent more bioavailable than typical B6, panathenic acid. And so, um, it did that. And then I said, well, how do I get dopamine into the system immediately without creating a down regulation of the, of the body’s own dopamine receptors so that you’re not, you’re not creating an addiction potential on that.

And so that was to use, um, two forms of velvet, velvet bean extract or two extraction levels. One was a 22 percent level of, of DOPA L DOPA out of velvet bean. And the other, so you still have a lot of the velvet bean, um, constituents, all the terpenes that help make it activated and balance things out. And then a 98 percent extraction so that you’re able to get that instantaneous dopamine hit without, and because you’ve got all these follow on dopamine, it’s going to go for between four and six hours.

You’re, you’re not telling the body to quit producing dopamine. You’re saying, I, I’ve got enough dopamine available. I can call this dopamine up. Let’s go use it. Let’s go put it to work. So it’s a great feeling solution. And I, one that I think is, uh, in our, in our whole mix of solutions. It’s one that is agnostic and you can use it for every different thing you’re doing.

I use it if I need like an upbeat and a brain flow because I’m getting on a podcast with Ronnie Landis, right? So I want to feel up, I want to have good, you know, verbal search memory, and I want to be able to actually have that Positivity vibe that we, we, you and I like to have together. Um, so I’ll do that.

And then what I do is then I say, okay, I’m going to pick, I’m going to take a dope, a drop along with that, because we’re going to have a number of kind of like blow your head off explosions of insight. And I want to be able to fully capitalize that embody it. And then like an NLP experience, I want to be able to call it up later and have that same kind of juicy experience.

Ronnie Landis: Okay, well, um, so first of all, I’ve done a dopa drop early this morning, and then I did an upbeat about two hours ago, so I am the full synaptic like kaleidoscope of activity. The full neural activity of that is is definitely priming with you right now and that’s that’s an interesting phenomenon to just like there’s so many unlimited rabbit holes when it comes to dopamine but synaptic.

See, but the, the, the dopamine receptors when they sync up with another fully online dopaminergic system is really amazing. And the dopa drops really highlight that. I mean, I’m feeling that in this moment, like I felt, I felt normal before, but as soon as you and I sync up, I can feel the whole system refracting.

Mark Effinger: There’s, uh, you know, it reminds me of the, uh, for people that are Star Trek geeks, the, the Vulcan mind meld, right. Where we’re connecting at the, at this cellular level. Um, um, when, you know, Ronnie, we’ve spent a, um, we spent a few hours together in meat space in real life. And it would, it’s always been phenomenal, um, in completely different, uh, events and environments.

And yet our ability to. Kind of take what’s surrounding us and turn it into a meaningful conversation. It’s very powerful. And I think that’s one of the really very powerful things about solutions like this is to be able to go, whether it’s with, um, a lover, a friend, um, uh, you know, a business partner, um, a brand new dialogue at a, at a coffee shop at, uh, you know, at nine in the morning and you’re just standing in line, being able to have that kind of sense of connection.

sense of love, um, and sense of transparency and willingness to give and to receive in a very open framework. I think that’s very powerful. And I think it’s something that people should, or people can strive for, they can actually accomplish. And it’s a life changer, especially for somebody like myself, an introvert like myself, who plays the part of an extrovert in real life.

Um, and it allows me to do it without getting the typical burnout that I would get where I want it. You know, typically as an introvert, I can go into a situation, I can explore that situation, I can contribute. And then I want to go hide for a couple of days to recharge my batteries. 

Ronnie Landis: That’s like the dopamine.

That’s the dopamine like swing, right? 

Mark Effinger: And that’s exactly right. Exactly. So the depletion of dopamine. And then the, the inability to confront, so inability to address stress or to address conversation or address anything else, you kind of want to recover, have your own conversation, you know, your own dialogue, and then try to get centered again.

And then you’re right. You know, you prep yourself, you get motivated, you want to go out. What I love about this is it allows you and I to have this connection. And, um, when I’m done here, I’ll be just as excited as I was while we were on a phone. I’ll go into Chastity’s office or I’ll meet with Mr. Robot or whatever.

And. I don’t want it to end. It doesn’t have to end. And I never feel that downside. So yeah, pretty powerful. And I’m glad you brought that up by the way that, uh, about the, the solution. It’s been a really powerful one for us, by the way, I just, just made it better. Just added another between 18 and 25 percent more dopamine depending on how your body converts it.

Um, yeah, I can’t wait. A good friend of mine, Matt, Matt Titlow, um, a good friend and a, and a, a compounding genius. Um, the founder of compound solutions and I, um, work together to, um, to make that happen. So 

Ronnie Landis: amazing 

Mark Effinger: to put the hat to Matt Titlow. 

Ronnie Landis: Okay. Well, this was perfect. So we got to explore the dopa drops, which are definitely probably my favorite of all of them all in all.

Um, so we have a number of others to get into. This really made me want to share a personal story that, that I just went through. I’m still kind of in the, the, you know, the, the healing or rehabilitation process, I would say, um, you know, the spiritual, psychological, um, rehab process that we all go through as a function of enduring life’s innately perfect, but oftentimes confusing and sidelining challenges.

Um, and so I actually just went through a really significant relationship breakup and you, you met my former partner, uh, at an amazing time. She’s amazing, but we, our relationship came to a head shortly after that. And we went through. A lot of unwinding. And as you know, and anyone that’s been through an authentic heartbreak, like a true heartbreak where you somatically are experiencing what it feels like to have your heart broken, all the emotions, a literal psychological death, and then, you know, it seems like when these things happen, it really is like a true initiation.

Other threads in my life got pulled financial, structural, self confidence, my own identity with. My work, my energy, like, who the fuck am I right now? Like, how am I going to get through this? And I went through a really deep grieving process and I made the conscious decision to go all the way into it. I wasn’t going to pretend that this was not happening.

I chose to confront it and literally had to force my brain to confront it at every level because this was not my preference. This is not what I wanted. I was all in. But I had to confront the reality of what is now happening. And so I knew this was going to be a process. And so what ensued was a lot of, a lot of catharsis, a lot of grieving, a lot of emotional processing, and a lot of self coaching.

And I was pretty much alone for most of the three to four weeks. I share that. Because a, it’s something that we all go through, or at least if we’re open, if our heart is open to life, then it’s something that we’re all going to go through as a, as a opportunity to grow and evolve beyond who we used to be.

Sometimes we need these catalytic moments, um, to really transform ourselves. What I want to say is that one of the main things that I had in my arsenal to work through that and to stay. Functional because, you know, money, money, I didn’t know money was like being stripped is like, and I didn’t have the energy to manufacture the motivation speaking about dopamine to, to, to motivate myself to try to make things happen.

It was a full surrender process and, you know, the intrusive thoughts, the, all the stuff coming in, like using the new topia products. Got me through it and it, and it, but it, but it didn’t, it didn’t like numb me. Because that was my whole thing. I’m not going to numb. I’m not going to distract. I’m not going to medicate my emotions.

I’m going to fully go through this, but I need to keep my nervous system in my, my mind strong and solid to, to weather this storm. And the products actually supported me powerfully where I could go through my catharsis. I could fully collapse, but I could actually hold myself at the same time. I could coach myself through it.

I could actually have a productive dialogue with myself and reestablish that relationship to myself and, and be productive while also, Basically deconstructing the old me and the old life at the same time. So I just wanted to mention that, um, for, for, you know, just for myself, but also for anyone listening to know that this isn’t just about peak performance or getting shit done or being productive in your career or like in the gym.

This is something that can actually support you in your deepest initiation, um, and it help you get through those emotional challenges that quite honestly would sideline most people. Like some people never heal and recover from this kind of thing. It follows them for the rest of their life. And I’m just really grateful that I had that arsenal to help me make it through.

Mark Effinger: Dude, thank you so much for being raw and authentic on that. I, I share your pain. Um, I saw the connection that you had and have with her and, and, um, you know, it’s funny, uh, or maybe it’s not funny. It’s interesting. What got me into this was very similar. My own wife committing suicide on oxycodone. And the, the depth of my pain in that, um, can’t be measured as you’re, I’m sure you’re well aware how that goes.

And in the same way, I was very fortunate. I had a good friend, David McGinnis that made sure that I didn’t, you know, fall off a cliff, um, business partner and a guy that’s been with me through thick and thin. For decades now, we did PR web together and he was the best. Um, but, uh, in, in, uh, my, you know, the, the four years after that, it was all about how do I create something that’s going to get people to the state that you and I talk about, about being able to fully immerse ourselves in the pain and the, the intensity of.

The emotional challenge of having a, a once in a lifetime relationship and having it vaporized before your very eyes in terms of. The depth of, uh, maybe love or passion that we wanted and it turned into something completely different. The two cathartic events on that were one was the development of what’s now called Nectar X.

Um, that was the thing that, that in the end got me through that. And, you know, it was a lot of experimentation, a lot of trial and error. And the other was when at her wake, her, uh, former boyfriend. And I spotted each other. Um, and instead of being like, you’re the asshole that, that did X or Y, we embraced each other and had the most complete sobbing cries of our lives right there.

And you have to, there are tools that we can implement that, um, that improve the clarity that you get through catharsis. Right. There are those that numb it, a good whiskey, a good bong hit, some, some shrooms, or you can, you can try going the other direction, which is how hard can I embrace this event? Not to say, by the way, that shrooms aren’t great for catharsis, but, um, but what I mean is that rather than getting into a hyper euphoric environment, I get into a powerfully clear environment.

And then, um, like you said, Oh God, man, dude, I had been so fit there during some of those periods with her, I’d been so financially decimated from, um, from a business partner or a, or a situation. And having the tools that, um, that bring, uh, the bring you to a point where the decimation of your life pales in comparison to your hope and potential because of clarity, because of natural energy, right?

Um, there’s a, I have a, over in the corner over there, I’ve got notebooks from going back to the 1980s, how long I’ve been doing business back in the 1980s of ideas that I would have that I would sketch out on a notepad and I would date it and, and, um, put the year on it. And the reason I keep these notebooks around is whenever I feel like I’m, I’m less than I could be or less than I should be, or I’ll grab one of those notebooks, especially if I’ve had a major failure in a product.

Like I’m designing a product and it just doesn’t do what I want it to do or what it’s supposed to do. And it doesn’t do something else. It’s meaningful. And I go, God just wasted so much time and effort and energy and money. And I would open up these notebooks and I would just go look at some of the ideas that somebody else took and, and commercialized and made into a billion dollar company.

Um, and I go, okay, I did, I came up with this idea and I’m not an idiot. Yes. I, right. And there’s thousands of these ideas in, in dozens of notebooks. So maybe, maybe as much as I want to beat myself up, maybe I’m not as bad as I was about to write the script for. And maybe I just need to go give myself some encouragement and love, some self love, and then move forward into the next thing.

What’s the next problem that we need to solve or what’s another angle on that problem we can, you know, we can solve. So, Yeah, man. It’s, it’s powerful. I’m, I’m so glad that you survive are surviving and making it through that. You know, my, my, um, my wife very much like my sweetheart here, um, was, was such a beautiful woman, you know, walk into a room, stop a clock type thing.

Um, and so that, that pull is very, very tough because I, I remember, I remember thinking when we, when he, we had our first. Major breakup. I’m thinking I will never find that again. Oh yeah. I can find something else, but I’ll never find that again. And you know, which is, it was kind of a self that’s a self worth statement to a certain extent.

Right. Because, you know, in, in reality, I found, I found much better in areas that were more valuable to my big time spirit, um, you know, and, and, um, and in people that have much more robust, but, but man, it’s tough. It’s tough when the person you look at across the pillow sleeping at night in the morning looking at him going, my God, that’s the most beautiful thing in the world.

I could never imagine being without that, you know, it sets a new standard 

Ronnie Landis: was, it’s also, you know, and those are, those are very much like the preliminary, thoughts and the, the, the familiar associations, especially when you’re so deep in it with someone and you do truly love someone, I think men and women love each other a bit differently.

And that goes on unnoticed how deep men actually love and the quality and the unconditionality. When a man really does look, love a woman, you, it’s not that I don’t notice the flaws. It’s that I’m choosing to love those two, but through the entanglement process and the neurochemical rebalancing. And that’s, and that’s what I want to point out with this is that the, the ability to rebalance my neurochemical Set allowed me to rebalance my nervous system allowed me to put my tools into practice allowed me to get embodied into who I am as a separate entity.

And to do my, to do my growth work while going through the cathartic process, it allowed me to stabilize so that I could actually grow through this at a rapid rate instead of prolonging it. And a lot of those old associations started to shift. And that’s how I knew that I was actually healed in my attachment, my anxious attachment injury.

Started to heal and I became more secure when I, I noticed that I actually was not as attracted to her now as I used to be. And that was a huge thing that that wasn’t a knock on her. That made me realize like, holy shit, dude. You just did something really profound, really fast because you were over here decimated.

Your life was completely undone. And weeks later, you’re here, you’re working out every day, you’re stronger, your face, your everything is shifted and changed. Everyone’s responding to you differently. You have a new sense of confidence about yourself. And yes, that’s because I did the work, but I had the neurochemical support to be able to do the growth work and, and essentially become a new version of myself.

So that’s the part I wanted to really point out. 

Mark Effinger: It is. Um, so there’s a song, by the way, everything I do is, um, Uh, everything I do is backed by a lyric, by a song or an album. So, so if we venture into that area, just, just good. So you ready? Yeah. She’s come on down. She didn’t know what she was headed for.

And when I found out she was headed for, it was too late. Oh, so there’s a, it’s a great song by the guess who. Old band from the 70s, 60s and 70s, um, and called Undone, U N D U N. And it’s a great, it was one of those songs that during my, um, when my wife and I separated, it was the one that, you know, one of those lyrics that came in and said, okay, so our relationship isn’t heading the way I want and it’s not going well, but also maybe it’s not me.

Maybe it’s not all me. Like it’s a shared thing, right? Right. So I gave myself permission to not have it, all of that weight lie on me. And, um, yeah, great stuff. Great stuff. You know, I, the, the other side of it is, and it’s, it’s never failed is the, over time, the relationships that I’ve had have always been better outside of one stalker that just would not go away.

They’ve, they’ve always been. much more meaningful, valuable, um, learned, loving, um, understanding my own weaknesses, my own inherent weaknesses, um, and being able to, to put it in context and be able to be acknowledge it with. Um, you know, my lover or my friend, um, at the time, which breaks down another barrier and gets much more allows intimacy to come on at a much stronger level and the connection as well.

And then just be able to have her laugh at the fact that I’m, you know, I still play the ADHD role. I still get excited about stupid stuff. I still want to. You know, turn on Rick and Morty when she wants to turn on, you know, some documentary. Um, you know, it’s that kind of stuff. That’s the, that’s one of the most beautiful parts of our humanity is.

The relationships that wander in and out of our lives and, you know, and we contribute to and we leave them with something positive, hopefully, and they also bring to us a new level of connection and humanity. 

Ronnie Landis: Beautifully said. So beautifully said. I’m glad we went there. This is a, this was a great kind of segue into essentially how to rehab a broken heart.

Love it. And you mentioned Nectar X and I have to say that was actually one of my power tools. The instant, the instancy of the state change and the serotonergic dopaminergic kind of choline influx allowed me to immediately shift into a more of an expanded State that just opened up because you know when these things happen, your whole world caves in.

It’s like it gets very tight myopic. Yeah, very myopic. And it allowed free up that space and that bandwidth so I could, I could cognitively breathe and remember, oh, actually everything’s great. You’re great. It’s all good. You’re just going through something and put one foot in front of the other. So we’ve got the Nectar X right here.

Mark Effinger: Love it. 

Ronnie Landis: Let’s let’s drop into that one. 

Mark Effinger: So that was, again, that was, that was the first product that I developed. And the way that kind of, you know, came about, I did, I had a software company with about 400, 000 customers, 396, 000 customers at the time. And we did brainstorming software. I was partnered with the founder of century 21 real estate guy named Marsh Fisher.

We created a product called Idea Fisher, and then, um, uh, that became a Thought Office and Thought Rod, which were our, our brainstorming products with a little bit different angle on it. And, so I had these really smart people I could send test tubes of crappy tasting powder to, as I was trying to build up, what are the things that you need to function well, cognitively, and what are the neurotransmitters that you need to modulate, At what level to get a reliable outcome for a reliable amount of time a predictable amount of time And what happened on that was I was getting there again.

I did 3 000 prototypes to get to the first working version 1. 0 of the product And each one of those was a different formulation. It was it was crazy. I had a little over 1100. Um of my good friends that used my software were willing to test something that it was untested. That was, that was, you know, uh, possibly illegal.

Um, and they did it, uh, thankfully it was all organic. So I didn’t, I didn’t worry about too much, but one morning, um, during the, at the near the end of that cycle, and I was getting pretty close. Um, my son who is a musician and actor, he came into my room. He was, I think he was 16 at the time. He came into my room, maybe 15, and he came into my room and, um, and he had been up till about 4 a.

1. With a bunch of his buddies. And we had taken one of the rooms of our home and turn it into a bit of a studio recording studio. And so, um, he came in and he said, I said, Hey man, we need some of your Jesus juice. That’s what they called. called Nectar Axe, which at the time was called NZT. And so I said, all right, all right, I’ll, I’ll help you guys.

I kind of had, I was the safe house. I was the house that the kids in the neighborhood could come to and know that all was well, and, and the parents didn’t worry about him cause they knew I was going to be a good oversight. Um, but they could also do the extreme things that kids want to do that, uh, that more conservative parents might.

You know, might be a little bit restrictive of so, so, uh, I made it up and I made one change to one molecule and that change was, um, this, the second part of the process I told you about, which was increasing the mitochondrial output. And what I didn’t realize, and this was more of a, um, mitochondrial biogenesis.

So it was a, a restoration and then a repopulation of mitochondria. And I didn’t realize at the time how important, um, neuro mitochondrial population was the mitochondria in a synapse and, and, um, And it was huge. And so they, they took it. I made up a, uh, uh, basically a picture of it. I poured it for them.

They went back in and they came back 40 minutes later, like totally jazz. You could see that they were like on the game. They go, dude, we just wrote a song in 40 minutes. We’ve never written a song in a, in, you know, a month, let alone 40 minutes. This stuff is rocking. I need more, you know, can we get more later on?

And, and so we did that and it was great. And they wrote four songs that day and that was the epiphany. And so, you know, so you, you look for, and I think that’s also one of the things. That I think it’s really important for listeners to note is that as you’re moving along in the world and you’re, you’re having these events, be aware, be cognitive of what’s going on.

Don’t be so disconnected because you’re so focused on this one outcome. Be open to the sideline outcomes might happen. And speaking of which, here was the, that’s, that’s how I funded my first technology company is TestTube Baby. And the reason that you have test tubes for the powdered drinks that we have is an homage to my first company back in 1990, 1986.

So fun stuff. Um, anyhow, it’s really, really important when I was Hyper focused on just the outcomes. I missed a lot of blessings and a lot of opportunity because I didn’t see it because it was shrouded in my own need to have the thing that I thought, I, you know, the outcome I thought I needed to have come to fruition.

And when it didn’t come to fruition, it was none of it was good. It all sucked. It was wrong. It was bad, whatever. And so one of the things that, that Nectar X has done is because we do a cascade of neurotransmitter activities. Especially with that product. That’s got a, such a huge blend. That’s 27 different nutrients, supplements, extracts.

compounds that that reduce inflammation, right? So your inflammatory response is subdued naturally by reducing inflammation, um, increase antioxidant potential, um, increased nitric oxide potential in the body. So you have all of these really great factors. Um, increase adaptogenic potential, which is really powerful, especially in what you and I were just talking about the, the in incurable stress of a broken heart.

Um, and that’s the adaptogenic response goes crazy. And as a result of that, you get a clouded head, you make shitty decisions. You feel remorse. You, you’re flooded moment by moment with kind of this, this grief that can overtake us and make us fully dysfunctional. And so, um, having a power tool, like I see nootropics are a power tool, right?

Uh, leveraging nootropics for state change is kind of the power move. So if you have the power of tool, you can make the power move. Then you’re much more in control of your life in control of your direction. And just like you had mentioned earlier, unlike a masking technology like alcohol or drugs of any sort.

Um, you know, a good bong hit instead of masking it. This gives you ability to lean into the pain, to lean into the anguish, to lean into the situation so that you can do it in a way that allows you to fully absorb the impact of it and while remaining indomitable. You’re not, you’re not right. You’re not resistant to it.

You’re not, you’re, you’re able to go, okay, I, I have the power to handle this pain. And I know that, that what’s going to come out of this is going to be, it’s, um, as Bruce Coburn saying, you get bigger as you go. Right. I’m going to become a bigger person. I’m going to become a healthier person. I’m going to become a more, a stronger person and a more loving person because I’m, I’m through this.

I’m not going to be cartoned. I’m not going to block myself. I’m not going to be hyper protective. I’m going to be, I’m going to continue to be loving and maybe even more loving and more open and right. I’m more vulnerable because I did live through it. I didn’t die. I didn’t lose my shit. I didn’t give up hope and NZT or what we call Nectar X now was developed as a solution to, to allow your body to modulate the neurotransmitters in such a way.

And the neurochemicals in such a way that you have very good lateral thinking power, which allows you to think creatively without losing focus and going deep into a prospect. So you could go from a lot of different ideas or a lot of different problem solving avenues or a lot of different interests to going, Oh, this is.

I want to go explore this one and then you can dive deep into that one while still being creative. 

Ronnie Landis: It 

opens 

up this like lucid menu. Yes. Right. So it gives you that expansive bandwidth of options that you wouldn’t be able to see or access before. And then you can kind of toggle almost like an in between altered state and then say, Oh, I want that one.

You can pick it and then lock in on it. 

Mark Effinger: Absolutely. And it’s, it’s cool because you’re drinking it. Like I’m drinking some now as we speak, because you’re drinking it. You’re able to meter out the amount that you’re taking at any time. And because the uptake is very quick into your, into your physiological neurological system, you know, if you need more or if you should back off a little bit, or if you can wait longer.

And so it allows you to modulate your cognitive performance throughout the day. And this I’ve been, this is day two of this. So I’ve been, I’ve been sipping on this for, for two days, day and a half now. And it’s, it’s been fantastic. And what’s. What it’s allowed me to do is we’ve, we’re working on everything from, um, we just made all of our products at Nootopia grass, meaning generally, um, uh, generally regarded as safe by the FDA.

So we’ve taken in every compound we’ve metered, checked, done a certificate of authenticity. And worked with the, with the companies providing the extractions for us to ensure that they were grass standard and certified by the FDA. So that’s been a really fun and interesting year, over a year now that we’ve been in that process.

So that was one thing. So that’s a lot of moving parts because we’ve got a lot of different compounds in those formulas. And some of them are very weird, distinct compounds that we extract out of Kucha tea or some, you know, Then we’re working with robotics, trying to figure out how to do automation of these very interesting powders that don’t flow like any powder you’ve ever used.

And how do you get compression of those powders? Once you get them into the cap, how do you do the layers so that they’re going to be satisfying the different characteristics matched to the individual’s intake and feedback forms. And then we’re dealing with the facilities where we’re putting windows in our facility and we’re building all kinds of, of, you know, we just put in hardwood floors.

We just did a, uh, um, you know, um, multi part epoxy floor in the lab, building the heating and HVAC system so that our employees have a wonderfully, uh, you know, controlled environment to work in and lots of, I like it flooded with light with daylight, but I But on hot days, I don’t want them to cook to death.

And so building all of those things in, these are all variables that you have to deal with. And one thing that Nectarex has been great at is it adapts to what I need to do by modulating the neurochemicals in a way, building that symphony of neurochemicals in such a way that I can operate at a, at an, at an elevated level.

Of management of these things without letting those, um, there’s variables overwhelm me. So I’m able to confront them at a good level and while still maintaining a clear head and being, uh, being kind to my employees and my partners and doing those things. Cause those can also be when you’re under that much stress, it’s easy to just blow a fuse and to say, fuck it, or, or fuck you.

And that’s not a very, that’s not a very generous way to operate in the world. So Um, so I’m very thankful to that. And, you know, one of the things that people don’t realize is that. if you’re really at your cognitive peak, you’re burning calories at a very high rate. And you’re also burning through neurochemicals, whether it’s serotonin or dopamine or anandamide, or, or, you know, acetylcholine, um, norepinephrine, you’re burning through those and accelerated, plus you’re burning calories as well.

You know, 20 to 21 percent of all the calories in your body are burned in your, you know, in the gray matter. So when you’re overclocking that gray matter, Because you’re under stress or you’re under, you’ve got to solve a lot of problems really quickly. I mean, my God, Ronnie, when you’re under, as you know, when you’re trying to solve big problems and you’ve got financial pressure, the, you know, Maslow’s hierarchy use, it’s, it’s, you very quickly can go from, from the top level, right.

To suddenly you’re going survival mode. What do I do? How do I keep this machine alive? How do I not fail? Right? 

Ronnie Landis: 100%. 100%. Yeah. And the more stress induced, um, you know, inflammation and just distressed distress, the hypo campus in the brain shrink significantly over prolonged times of stress, memory consolidation, memory recall.

Um, not to mention your sense of confidence in self esteem and in peace goes down significantly and it’s just this cascading effect resulting from that neurochemical and neurological degeneration is essentially what’s happening, right? You’re, you’re essentially Absolutely. Generating at a neurological level and your brain is shrinking.

Um, so this thing on stress is so important. And to have the, to have the chemical buffers, I said the neurochemical buffers that both, that both supercharge and preload the synapses and the neurotransmitter systems, the dopamine, the serotonin, the choline, but then also create that buffer. From the excess stimulation of these things is incredibly important.

Mark Effinger: Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise you end up making knee jerk reactions, you end up responding incorrectly, or you’re responding emotionally instead of going, okay, let me tie the emotion to the actual event. Instead of having this over emotion that isn’t really directly tied to that event. Maybe it’s a collection of a bunch of adaptogenic responses that hit all at once.

And suddenly you’re going, ah, and you’re freaking out and you’re, you know, and you’re just being irrational. Instead, it allows you to have that rational thinking and then to have the cognitive horsepower to be able to execute on that thinking and having the right, the mitochondrial energy to also perform well.

Yeah. And, and not fatigue. I mean, mental fatigue is a real thing and we’re in an environment, um, we work in an environment where it’s information flows, everything, and there’s too much of it. And as a result, we ended up getting that fatigue. We ended up falling off our performance cliff and we need tools to help keep us up at that high level.

Um, especially if we’re, if we’re going to make our mark on the universe, right. Our dent in the universe, as Steve jobs would have said, if we’re going to do that. We need to be not just equal to the lowest common denominator. We need to be superior to it so that we can contribute at all levels at the lowest level of society where we can make a contribution to help get people out of the gutter and the highest level where we’re working with the Elon Musks of the world.

Interesting comment I heard yesterday. I, I’d heard it a while, a long time ago. Then I heard it again yesterday. Um, who was talking to it? Uh, it was, uh, Larry Bonet and I were talking. Larry Bonet is a really well known, um, executive coach guide and probably the most networked guy in the, in the United States that I know of.

And I’ve known Larry for a dozen years now. We just hooked up again at the, at the last event we were at, um, uh, with a, with an old friend of mine, Mike Kinnigs, um, the guy that started traffic geyser and a bunch of other infomercial toolkit, just a super, super smart guy, really neat guy with ambition, you know, written into his DNA.

And we were talking about Larry Page and Larry Page said, um, is, is this, this, you know, another billionaire was talking to Larry and said, said, um, you know, how should we administer our money? And he said, well, why don’t we just give it to Musk? Cause we know he’ll do something, you know, meaningful with it to change the world.

And it’s that kind of deal. You want to be the guy that people think of going. If I had a resource, it could be money. It could be connections. It could be, uh, you know, a laboratory, it could be, um, you know, people, it could be whatever it is where they think of you, you’re on their short list of people they can go to that would either help them make a good decision about this, or that they could hand their asset to and know, and trust that you’ll do something good with it.

And that comes with having cognitive horsepower combined with adaptogenic stress response mechanisms that are in order so that you’re able to follow through on that because you’re energetic, you’re able to follow through on that in a way that that has this check and balance this feedback loop that says, here’s the decision I think I’m going to make.

I’m going to make that decision. I’m going to get some feedback. I’m going to feel that decision is working well. I’m going to shift that decision. They call it a pivot in venture capital. I’m going to make a pivot on my company plan so that, um, because this isn’t working, but there’s a fragment of it that is, I’m going to go and take it.

I’m going to multiply that fragment, make a little shift and see if I can improve that. They know that they can trust you and trust you with their heart, soul, their, their finances or whatever, and that you’re not going to abuse it. You’re not going to use it just for personal gain. You’re going to go and do something valuable with it.

And that’s one of the by products of having stuff like Nectar X flowing through your veins. 

Ronnie Landis: That’s amazing. Amazing dissertation on Nectar X. That 

Mark Effinger: was fun, bro. Stream of unconsciousness, right? 

Ronnie Landis: 100%. And the next one is 

Mark Effinger: Upbeat. Ah, love it. All right. So One of the things, uh, one, do you like upbeat? I love upbeat.

It’s one of my favorite top three. All right. So I love it too. Um, and I do a combination. Actually. I load up, um, one of my, one of these magpacks, we’ve got these new magpacks coming out pretty quick here and I’ll load it up on the top. I’ll load it up with, uh, with brainflow and on the bottom, I’ll load it up with nectar or with, um, with uh, upbeat.

And then I take the combo of those two before I get into a, you know, like half an hour to an hour before I get into a deep conversation with somebody so that I’m at that state of being able to really deal with all those cognitive charges happening, get those synapses, synapses flowing, but also have that heart opening, um, energy and chakra where I feel love and connection.

I’m looking for the love and connection, even if it’s a, an adversarial potential relationship. So. Great. So that was developed. Um, if you think about what we were doing initially, right, let’s get people off of addictive substances. Let’s get their head clear. Let’s give them the energy to execute on that and let’s help them capitalize on the little bits and pieces of success that they’re getting by doing that.

Well, one of the, one of the big sub products of that or sub issues is often people were in this addictive state because they were depressed, they were not happy, or they were, they were having some kind of mood, um, destabilization. Um, and again, I’m not a doctor and I’m not recommending, this is not me saying that, uh, anything cures anything, but what I was able to do was kind of get to the heart of the neurochemical issues around, this unhappiness or, or this mood disorder, right?

He’s avoiding saying depression because the FDA doesn’t like that, but so what we, what I did was I started looking at those components and saying, what are those big issues and how in a single solution, a single capsule, could I address it enough? Could I address mood disorders, especially negative mood disorders, um, to be able to bring people up in a more positive state?

Thank you. And so I built a stack and, and one of the elements in the stack was I found that people that had a very low B vitamin levels, B vitamins are created in the gut and they’re, they’re right populated in the gut. So they may had shitty, you know, bowel flora from either a bad diet or from the drugs or from alcohol or whatever happened to be the thing.

Um, meth users were really bad meth and coke users because they essentially quit eating and then they’re poisoning themselves at the same time, the bowel floor starves and suddenly they’re dealing with an overgrowth of just really, really bad gut flora. So by optimizers, the parent company that, that, um, that owns my company or that, that owns a utopia, their core.

you know, products are about gut health. So they were instrumental in that. So what we did is we created a process, a process that said, I know that, you know, serotonin seems to be one of the, uh, one of the components around mood disorders. And what I found was that was true. In fact, though selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, some people, a fraction of the people find those very useful for helping them to either get through depression or to stabilize mood.

What I found more was that, was that getting good serotonin levels, which 90 to 95 percent are in the gut, Five, 8 percent are in the brain. And then the vagus nerve or vagal nerve is the conduit between the two that, that says very much like GABA. It says, Hey, I’ve got some serotonin down here. Why don’t you make some up here and let’s go party together.

Um, acknowledging that there are neurons all throughout your body in your gut. When you, somebody says, you know, what’s your gut tell you about that problem? That is often, you know, a certain urgent GABA, urgent activity happening in the gut, that’s trying to tell your gut level neurons that something’s going on.

Um, so really important. So I created this solution that, that restores your B vitamin levels almost immediately, and then works diligently to balance both, um, the, the serotonin levels in the gut. bring those up to a healthy level, support the gut bacteria as well that support serotonin production as well as get through the blood brain barrier and increase serotonin there while at the same time measured by the way very measured while at the same time introducing a tiny bit of GABA and a, um, a modest amount of dopamine so that those three key neurotransmitters are all working in harmony and then a steady flow of acetylcholine so that you’ve got the cognitive horsepower.

So now you feel more stabilized in your mood, possibly. more happy or more joyful or more open. And you’re thinking clearly because you’ve got enough acetylcholine to be able to process a synaptic activity that leads to, to, you know, making decisions and those things. And so that mood improvement or mood enhancement can make a, you know, a market improvement in how you’re operating at that moment.

So that’s how that came about. 

Ronnie Landis: Amazing. I mean, I learned so many different intricacies that make complete sense after listening to you speak on it. But I I wouldn’t even, I would not have even really considered a number of those different mechanisms. Um, you know, I was just thinking too, and I’m, I’m on a good amount of dopa drops plus upbeat right now.

Yeah, man. I was just thinking to myself is the combination of the two kind of feels like a form of MDMA and some people listen to that and be like, Oh, I know what you’re talking about. Some people be like, uh, what do you mean ecstasy? Um, let’s we’ll have a further conversation on that another time. We’ll check a different podcast.

Mark Effinger: Actually, that’s it. We will do another podcast on that. So a couple of things. One is, um, my, in the, in a previous lifetime, when we had the company called web nutrients, we, um, I partnered with a guy named Dolan Ramsey, one of a very close friend who, um, what we created was a Kava Kana based, a potentiated Kava Kana based solution that, um, called Katie that actually replicated Molly MDMA.

And it did it organically, naturally, safely, and legally. Playboy and Magnetic Magazine both wrote big articles on our stuff. They gave them to their people and had them try them, had them experience them. Um, uh, they went to, for, um, for EDM. com and Your EDM, they both went to a big rave in Florida. Um, I think Deadmau5 was the lead, uh, disc spinner and, um, and they did them.

Part of that insight, Um, bled into the formulation that makes up Dopa Drops. And in fact, we have a companion capsule to that, that we haven’t released. Matt, uh, Matt Gallant, uh, my partner and, and CEO in that are talking about whether we, whether we should do that, whether it’d be a good idea or not. We’ve held off to date, but it’s a capsule called Euphoria.

Um, and we both have, uh, have done those over the last year. We’ve been doing them on, on the regular, uh, and what it does is, so now you’ve preloaded your, your system with dopamine, this euphoria capsule, which is a two part, it’s a capsule in a capsule. As you’ve seen, a lot of our capsules are like that.

Think of it as a brain flow, but with all powders, um, and it basically does a thing called monoamine oxidase inhibition in the gut. So the monoamine oxidase inhibition inhibition, right? Um, the monoamine oxidase enzyme in the gut is what breaks down phenylethylamine, which your body normally makes your, your gut normally makes phenylethylamine is kind of an ecstasy type of, of, um, neurochemical.

So, but with monoamine oxidase, it breaks it down within four to eight minutes. So you may have euphoria, but it’s very short lived. And by the time you experience it, it’s already over. So what we did is we, um, built a stack of monoamine oxidase inhibitors that basically break down that enzyme or block that enzyme and extend the euphoria out to about a four hour period.

So you get this wonderful four hour period of it. The cool thing is you can reboot that again. through another, an application of another capsule. And so you can do another, so now you’ve got eight hours worth of this euphoric experience. It’s really, it’s really nice. And when I say euphoria, I don’t mean out of your head, I’m not grounded, right?

It’s, it’s euphoria in I feel really good about life. I feel great about this idea. I can execute on this thing I’m doing. I can write this article that I need that I’ve been painful. You know, I keep, I keep looking at it or this customer, this client project I’ve got that’s been bugging the shit out of me and I need to get done or this really hard thing.

I can approach it. Not feeling like it’s a hard thing, but feeling like that challenge, I’m up for the challenge. 

Ronnie Landis: Well, it’s like Dr. Hilah Cass in her book, natural hives. I mean, that, that’s the whole point of it, that what we’re talking. So what we’re talking about. Is natural highs, like what it feels like to be naturally high.

And anyone that’s listening that doesn’t want to get high or doesn’t do things consciously or unconsciously in order to get high is a lying. Our entire culture is predicated on getting high because most people are so damn low that we actually have to get high in order to function. But we maladaptive and not.

Not healthy or we swing to those weekend parties or raves or, or, you know, journeys or whatever, in order to compensate for the extreme kind of flatness that life can feel like when you’re neurochemically depressed or you’re not doing something that you live or you’re in a depressive relationship or whatever the thing is.

I mean, I, like euphoria is actually our natural state of being. 

Mark Effinger: Absolutely. There’s the way the pineal gland responds to, um, to these co factors. Anybody that’s done, um, uh, mushrooms that’s, That’s had a good mushroom experience or, or they’ve done LSD or any of the, the hyper euphoric compounds and it’s again, and it’s been in a, in a good environment for that and had the experience or somebody that’s been, um, I got to work with the founders who, um, who legalized psilocybin in, in Oregon and, um, You know, I, I, I’ve had my own experiences.

I played state tennis on it when I was a youth and it was, it was profound. I mean, you, I, it took my game to another level. Again, this is just anecdotal and it’s when I was young, but. For me at the time. And by the way, I, I had been almost suicidally depressed prior to, you know, I, I, uh, you’re proud of that.

So, um, so I was really glad that I had that experience, but what it does is it rewrites the script that you’ve been playing in your head and it, it opens up areas. I don’t know whether they’re spiritual or otherwise, but it opens up areas of your psyche that allow you to experience life through a different lens and focus on things that are maybe more important than what you’re, what you’re accustomed to.

And for me, it was transformational. My, my game went from a very technical game of tennis. I was just watching on the, on the flight back from, um, Uh, from Florida this last week, I was, uh, I watched McEnroe, which is the John McEnroe, the, the tennis pro. Um, and he was one of my, you know, one of my contemporaries, uh, when I was a kid, so he was when I was, I was just about the same age and, you know, we were playing the same courts, he was just playing at a level above mine.

And, um, and you know, what you see there is you see this, this warrior that’s going into battle every time he grabs a racket and that’s the way I was. But what happened was I went from being a warrior that had to have exactly the right grip with exactly the right racket with exactly the right string tension with, you know, right.

And all the factors had to be right for me to succeed to not giving a shit about what racket I had or what ball I was playing. I was literally. I was listening to very sophisticated Prague rock songs in my head, and I was dancing to them on the court and all of the strokes and all of the timing came to me instead of me working hard to achieve it.

Right. And I think that getting out of our own way, especially when you’re in something like you’re. You know, kind of the, one of the layers, one of the OS layers of this conversation we’re having Ronnie is how do you master change in your life? Like, how do you become a change agent, right? Somebody that embraces change because it’s inevitable and rather than be fearful of it, what are the tools that we can implement and what’s the thinking process?

What’s the mindset that we can adopt that helps not only make the change less painful, but It makes the opportunity for joy during that process happen so that we can find those little sparks that keep us from feeling that, that just the incredible weight of loss suddenly becomes instead of, I, I, gosh, I dude, I know this one so intimately.

So intimately is. When instead of that loss that just brings you down, it really curdles your gut. You can’t eat, you can’t sleep, you can’t, right? Nothing’s pleasurable. Instead of that, you feel that, and it turns into possibility. Instead of pain, it’s possibility. You go, oh man, Instead of this being a pain, I wonder what cool shit’s going to happen from this.

It’s kind of that feeling, right? 

Ronnie Landis: Totally. That’s, that’s what I’m talking about with my whole, what I was sharing before. It’s like, you know, I’ve been into metaphysics and occult wisdom and science and, and kind of like more niche. Fields of functional spirituality and hermetic principles and mentalism and alchemy, both the literal kind of periodic table of the elements alchemy and spiritual alchemy.

I’ve been into all this for a long time. And the word alchemy is a really, really important thing. And there’s a lot of talk, especially in kind of like my, the, the, the communities that I frequent, um, people talk about inner alchemy and transforming or transmuting. your emotions and your th it’s very difficult to ha If your body is in pain, you have brain fog, you h a hormone collapse, you h It’s very challenging to put that into practice.

It’s a great idea. It’s a great concept, but to actually, to actually what you just said, to be able to functionally go through the immersive experience of a collapse, like when I was going through it, there were times where I was on the ground. Like grieving. This was no longer even about the girl anymore, about the woman anymore.

This was something deeper. This was, this was like, this was something epigenetic in my ancestry that I’m grieving. And it’s like, D it’s like, and I’m going into it. It’s, it’s deep, deep. And then, and then after it, I come out of it and I’m like, Oh, well, that was, that was, that was a death. You just died. And now you’re fully functional.

You’re clear. Um, I’m able to talk to myself and have this conversation. So there was an actual transmutation that did happen, but it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have this kind of support that much, I know. 

Mark Effinger: It’s I, I’m so glad you said that not just because it’s a great pitch for what we’re doing.

It’s definitely a good pitch. Yeah, the Billy Blank method, um, is a, You know, um, whether you want greater focus or deeper emotions, a well architect, uh, architected nootropic stack is a killer app and right. And so I think about like that, most of us are victims of state change. We’re, we’re buffeted by our emotions.

In contrast, nootopia puts you in the driver’s seat. You become the instigator and operator behind the change. You own the mood, you master the method. That ownership of our own physiology, neurology, mood, focus, um, allows us to also, um, be comfortable with the inevitable shit that’s going to rain down on us at times and not have it complete, you know, take ownership of us.

Instead, we’re able to look at it with a connection with love, but we’re able to put it right here in front of us and go. All right, that you’re right. That is a that that doesn’t conform to what I was hoping was the outcome. And it’s it kind of doesn’t feel good. I emotionally don’t necessarily feel good about that.

But it also doesn’t envelop me and own me. 

Ronnie Landis: Right. 

Mark Effinger: It’s a thing that’s happening. I understand it. I’m going to be a, I’m going to be a, you know, I’m going to look at it as a third party. I’m going to observe it. I’m going to fully embrace all the stuff that I did there. All the stuff that happened, all the stuff that I was out of control of.

And at the same time, I’m I get, I get the opportunity to now move through this and I, and I know that something on the other side of this is bigger than anything I could, I could even dream up. It’s better and bigger and more meaningful and more powerful. And yeah, that’s the shit, man. That’s the good stuff.

Ronnie Landis: That’s exactly right. Oh my God. That just gets me so excited. Okay. Speaking of which, the apex of the human experience, let’s talk about this one because this is a very interesting one. And I don’t even know what to say about it yet because I have a lot more exploration. I mean, I’ve had my felt experiences.

But what’s interesting about all these products is that Every time I use it, it’s not, it’s never quite the same. It’s not, it’s not 1000 percent predictable. It’s, it’s pretty predictable, but it’s, but there are other factors that go into the experience. So this one, I’m still, I’m still getting to know. 

Mark Effinger: I love it.

Are you ready? Yes. 

You ready? Ready. The

Bradley Cooper effect. I just, I just bought a bunch of. Of um, there’s four different covers that went on the book. Um, the limitless book. So this guy, Alan Glenn wrote this book limit. It wasn’t called limitless. It was called the dark fields. It became the, the movie was written from the book, the movie limitless with Bradley Cooper.

And then of course they immediately, immediately did a reprint of the books with Bradley Cooper on the front cover. And so I’ve got all these different covers, but what we’re doing is we’re building a media kit with this book. We’re hollowing out the book. Putting mag packs in there with certain caps and, and some insights and then sending it to the press.

Cause we’ve never really done any, we’ve never done any aggressive marketing, but speaking of which I almost forgot this. Oh, that’s amazing. I invited Justin Timberlake to join us. 

Ronnie Landis: Hilarious. I don’t know what to say about that, but that’s amazing. 

Mark Effinger: Oh, I love it. All right. So Apex, one of the novel compounds that we use in our product is, um, a thing that we’ve, uh, created called super celastris.

So super celastris is a, um, an extraction of this, of what’s called celastris paniculata seed or intellectual seed. So it’s a very oily seed. And, uh, and we use the aerial parts of the seed, um, but unlike typical seed oils. it’s anti inflammatory and it’s highly cholinergic and it also improves the transfer of oxygen through the, um, you know, in the bloodstream through the blood brain barrier so that you’re getting a higher level of oxygen concentration in the brain.

So it also has its own, uh, inherent adaptogenic properties in the brain. So it’s not just adaptogens where it’s controlling the amount of adrenal output, um, that you’re right. Uh, and it kind of knee jerk reaction, cortisol release, those things. It does it in the brain where it controls the centers. of neuroactivity that then control those, those activities in the body.

So it’s the neuro receptor side of it. So it was created with that in mind. And what I wanted, um, and what I think we accomplished with it, at least people have told me that, and I’ve had that experience is, um, it, because it improves your silicone levels, because it improves your adaptogenic response at the neuro level, um, and, uh, and oxygen levels in the brain.

Along with all of the other components of the formula. including 30 milligrams of a compound called afrin, which is, uh, an extract of saffron, um, of Spanish saffron, which is very well known for its ability to create an extended level of serotonin. Um, and it’s, it’s been proven to be, and by the way, this is NCBI research back, it is more effective.

at um, at mood management. I’m going to call it mood management, not depression. I want to say depression here is it’s more effective at mood management than the top four most prescribed antidepressants. So 

Ronnie Landis: saffron itself, 

Mark Effinger: saffron itself. Yep. 

Ronnie Landis: Okay. Got it. Yep. 

Mark Effinger: 30, 30 milligrams of saffron and the, um, the uptake of it versus a, let’s say an SSRI.

Typically you have a two week cycle. Um, and then you end up on a, on a six week cycle and then you go to the back of the dock and they say, how’s it feel? And you go, well, it felt really great for the first couple of weeks. And then Kind of felt like it wasn’t doing much or I was kind of getting, you know, I wasn’t feeling as good and then they up the dose.

Ronnie Landis: Classically like it re, it like recycles those serotonin, they’re like the serotonin molecule. And then you have that, that classic dip where people experience even more depression. 

Mark Effinger: Right. Cause what you’re doing is you’re downregulating the receptors. You basically are, so neurons look like mushrooms.

There’s a gap between them. There are pumps. Neuron pumps on each of those mushrooms. And then you’ve got the gap and the gap, you have to, you have to, um, have enough of an electrical potential, chemical, electrical potential to jump the gap with whatever the neurochemical of choices. Yeah. So, so let’s call it serotonin in this case.

So what happens is you have a calcium ion cloud that surrounds the synapse. And that keeps the compound, the neurochemical of choice, it keeps that neurochemical from flying off into the ether, into the rest of the brain matter. It also provides a signaling component that basically says when the, when the compound flows from this neuron to this neuron, past the neuron gap.

It’s going to, it’s going to trigger that, that neuron or neuronal activity in this case, serotonin output, which is kind of, we think of it as an antidepressant normally. And then it flows it back to the original neuron. So it’s basically reusing that That serotonin that’s search selective serotonin. So the kind of serotonin reuptake inhibitor.

So it, it inhibits it from being sucked up into the neuron. It’s transmitting to and going away, being dispersed. So in that process, the signaling molecules are going, Hey, I’ve got as much serotonin as I can take. Why don’t you quit producing it? I don’t need any more. Right? So the minute that calcium ion cloud dissipates and the serotonin does its last flow and it’s finally reuptaked, um, you are running at a serotonin deficit.

So hence the reason that people feel like crap when their doses over 

Ronnie Landis: how convenient the pharmaceutical industry to create something that forces you into dependency. How isn’t that convenient? 

Mark Effinger: That is really exactly. Yeah. Now, and the same thing goes for, um, the dopaminergic like Adderall, um, is except of course you’re dealing with dopamine now.

So now what you’re doing is you’re using, um, you know, methylphenidate or like think methamphetamine. With an emphasis on the dopaminergic receptors and you’re going, we’re going to flood those dopaminergic receptors all day long. We’re going to, we’re going to just crash them. And then eventually we’re going to quit because right.

The drug is going to wear out and you’re going to crash and you’re going to feel unmotivated. You’re not going to have very much dopamine. You’re going to probably get depressed to a certain extent. Anybody that’s rolled on Molly. And, and has that, you know, the, what they call the, the three day hide in a corner, you know, right on the Molly depression, that’s exactly what can happen when you do those kinds of controlled environments, especially if they’re pharmaceutical grade, they can have those effects.

Um, so what, what I wanted to create in this was a full spectrum neurotransmitter cascade that had a very long half life. That didn’t have any cliff. So it doesn’t fall off a cliff of performance. And that what, what we ended up with, it was a 12 to 16 hour high performance, nootropic that, um, allows you to perform like I’ve, uh, a couple of weeks ago, I, I took, I don’t, by the way, not, I wouldn’t suggest you take it daily.

You will adapt to it after three or four days. And what you want to do is you want to get that fresh. neurotransmitter juice that comes with that. And so, um, and I was taking it and it was 11 o’clock at night. I’d been up since 5 45 that day and I was still running strong. And I, and my decision point was then, which is really cool because there’s no STEM.

It’s not a STEM product. You just naturally feel good because it’s doing the right neurotransmitter balance. And again, ATP is, is at work, but 11 o’clock at night. So my decision was, do I write another White paper on one of our solutions, or do I go to bed and I decided to go to bed and I felt I slept great.

My, my aura ring stats were, were really good, but it gives you that chance. It gives you that choice because cognitively you’re still doing fine. Your energy levels are great, but it’s not a wire, like a caffeine wire. Um, but if you close your eyes, you can go into that REM state and then Delta slate very quickly because it’s not overriding your own right classic formation of neurochemicals.

So your dentisine, you know, is still rising and you’re, you’re feeling the benefits of that. So let me, let me show you something. Can I show you something 

Ronnie Landis: worse? 

Mark Effinger: So, um, so I, I spent some time doing a really hardcore, uh, um, biofeedback, uh, training, try to get it. And, and then when we left. We, and this is very expensive, you know, 20, 000 type thing, um, a week working with the best guys in the world and doing some technology, but this is a product called Mendy.

Put it on. You sync it to your, to your phone. And what it does is there are sensors in here and those sensors are measuring the amount of, of, um, prefrontal cortex blood flow and prefrontal cortex oxygen. And on the app, what you’re doing is you’re flying a ball around using your mind. You’re articulating a ball.

It’s really, it looks like a, it looks like two brains in a yin yang mode. Yeah. And there’s, they’re swirling and then you’re, you’re making it go up and it’s got a little measurement in the lower corner of far right corner. You’re doing the mentalism. Correct. Yeah. You’re mentally shifting it. So what was cool is, is taking apex, sipping on Nectar X.

And watching my because because what happens when you’re doing this, right? You’re you’re you’re training this ball to go up and you’re using your your brain at that level You’re fatiguing your brain you’re using epithelial choline Okay, you’re using up dopamine you’re and and so as a result of that you’re really you know, you’re you’re Burning calories in the brain you’re burning up the available, you know, whether you’re you’re ketogenic or whether you’re you know Relying on a little glucose to keep you going either way.

You’re burning it up and it’s really interesting is so you’re doing that well, you take a um, you take an apex and sip a little bit of the nectar and Nectar of the gods. And it pulls you into this incredible space of pushing this ball, this revolving brain ball, way past your numbers, keeping you up there for an extended period of time.

You do this in 15 minutes segments and you can do it back to back, but normally you’re good for 15 minutes. Then you want to go close your eyes, take a break, do it again. You know, maybe, maybe 10 minutes later, 15 minutes later, this time you’re just able to reboot, reboot, reboot, reboot, reboot, and what you’re getting out of it.

Is the ability to control the amount of oxygen and blood flow in your prefrontal cortex, which means that your executive decision making power is really high. So your ability to make nonjudgmental, highly critical, what may be highly emotional decisions without having the emotional load is incredible.

And so you can stay focused for extended periods of time. And the cool thing is this trains you to be able to get into that state like that automatically. Okay. So then you can boost that state or augment that state by doing a little nectar. Doing a little apex. And it’s this iterative thing where I’m making my brain more effective, faster, more agile, but also more focused.

And so this is one device. So here’s the other device. You ready for this one? So that’s what, that’s one that I do. So I’m now doing that on a daily basis. I’ll wake up in the morning and I do a binaural audio power nap for 20 minutes. Really it’s, it’s my meditation. And I, I organize my thoughts and I, I, you know, become one with the universe for a little bit.

And then I’ll put this on and I’ll do a 15 minute before I go run the steps over by my, my home. But here’s the other, other tool. This is another exciting tool that I love. So this is cool. Yeah. I 

Ronnie Landis: use one of those. 

I love that 

one. 

Mark Effinger: Yeah. It’s, it’s incredible. So this is like, This is like taking a very psychedelic compound.

Um, it uses an area of nine LEDs. Um, and it, it does some feedback, but it, it, it basically, you say, I want to be, I want to, I want to program better sleep, or I want to program better endurance, or I want to program better focus or whatever. And you go into the state and it arranges the Ellie, the flickering LEDs in a You actually use it with eyes closed and it produces Fractal patterns and other kinds of things where it brings your brain through this, this really wonderful scope of, of highly focused and then suddenly anarchy and, and then highly focused.

And it, and by doing that, it’s training your brain, how to get into those states on demand. Very, very powerful device as well. I love it. I love it. So, you know, that’s, 

Ronnie Landis: you know, the people behind both companies, I do good. Cause I need to get a car. I need to get one of each of those. 

Mark Effinger: Awesome. Awesome. And it, and it great.

I, I, um, well, we’ll, we’ll take this one offline. Cause there’s some other interesting aspects of this that, um, I’m excited about, especially, so here’s, here’s the deal. You can go to a, a 10 or 20, 000 neurofeedback, um, biofeedback training, and I highly recommend you do it. Um, whether it’s 40 years of Zen or bio cyber, not, or any other ones.

Um, I think it’s really a valuable experience. And both of those are world class. What Dave Asprey’s got going on 40 Years of Zen. Um, what they’ve got going at Biosybernaut. They’re really incredible, highly immersive experiences, really powerful for getting rid of trauma or for reducing trauma’s effect on you.

Um, when I do it, I, we work with a, uh, an incredible woman named Jondi, who is my EFT coach. And she guides me through using, um, Uh, emotional freedom technique, um, or they call it tapping, right? Um, working with that and she’s probably one of the most intuitive human beings I’ve ever met and, and going through that and, and basically, you know, we talk about, about the baggage that we carry in life, what, What EFT has done for me is it’s systematically, um, reduced the baggage and in many cases eliminated the baggage by addressing, by doing exactly what you’re doing now, by immersing myself in the trauma from when I was young, or these events that happened along the, along the way, um, and looking at the trauma and looking at yourself and the trauma Kind of getting friendly with that event, debugging it, defragging it of all of the power that it has over you so that you can see it authentically with love.

And allow you to move to the next traumatic event if you want to, or just to basically know that that luggage that you’ve been carrying around, um, you know, that where the wheels fell off years ago and you’ve just been dragging it with you, suddenly you’re not having to, to manage that overhead, which means here’s the cool part, which means you’ve got a fuckload of bonus, uh, potential.

To be able to use that isn’t burdened by the overhead of that trauma. And it is, it’s, I got to tell you, man. So when McAllant first said, Hey man, I think you should do some biofeedback. It’s a neurofeedback. I said, okay, cool. Cause that sounds very cognitive, right? And I’m all about the brain. I’m all about getting the cognitive thing, you know, working.

I’m, I’m all about that. He never told me that I was also going to do trauma therapy, right? Because probably if you would have said that I would have said, I’m not ready. But as a by product of combining the two, doing neurofeedback, doing biofeedback, and then taking a break and doing some trauma therapy, the ability to jump back into cognitive therapy or cognitive performance stuff, doing biofeedback.

Is multiplied significantly. So the outcome of that was significantly higher of it. If versus if I would have just focused on doing a cognitive performance stuff and not dealt with the overhead that I’ve been carrying with me for decades for decades, dude, I’ve been carrying this shit with me for decades.

And to, and to, you know, To have a guide, a loving, kind, really cool, really insightful guide. When I, when I’m working with her, I’m, I’m watching her, you know, we’re, we’re doing some tapping some of the time. Um, she’s doing it some of the time alone. She’s also taking notes. She’s listening to. What I’m saying and what I’m meaning and then helping it, helping me to recognize that.

And also she’s getting like these direct downloads, these kinds of spiritual downloads of this is what’s really going on and then sharing with me her insight. And I’ll tell you, there’s few things have been as transformational as, as her participation in, you know, in these otherwise very cerebral activities that we do.

So anyhow, Big pump there. That’s apex apex is endurance. Use it on, you know, use it judiciously on occasion when you need it. It will, it will allow you to perform at an extended period of time by reinforcing the key neurochemicals you need to have endurance and improving the oxygen in the brain too, which is a key factor in that as well.

So we come in 

Ronnie Landis: amazing. There’s so much built into each one of these. It’s like its own little adventure and journey and, and. The product line is pretty extensive and all of them do work together. And I’ll say for everyone that’s considering, um, purchasing the products, they also have a really amazing booklet that they put together that gives you a full education on the products.

So many things about just like nervous system, brain optimization, stress reduction, and then different formulations or stacks. That’s the word different stacks that you can use different products for. So there’s a whole manual that, that really educates you on everything. And 

Mark Effinger: yeah, we also have a really, I mean, one of the, one of the things now this one was, um, I, you know, I’d like to say that I, um, I came up with the Genesis of it, but that would be a lie.

I, I was making a capsule. I was making a really cool capsule, um, mushroom cap, uh, highly concentrated with the dominance in, in, um, you know, lion’s mane and then red reishi and, and, um, chaga and. And what happened was my sweetheart, who happens to be a five star chef and is now our flavorist here at, at mom, we call this mom, by the way, this is new topias lab, new Toby and by optimizers lab.

We call it mom meaning masters of molecules. So we’re the, we’re the masters of molecules. I need to get a cape or something. I’m not sure. But, but as I was creating these capsules, she was cataloging and putting the certificate of authenticity and the, um, where the, you know, where the mushrooms were grown and what part of the world and, and how they were extracted and those things.

And she noticed that they had these kind of chocolatey overtones, these notes, um, and cocoa notes. And so she put them together and without even, without, without even flavoring it. She was able to get it to taste like the deepest, richest dark chocolate ever. So this product is incredible cognitive enhancer and adaptogen blend.

Um, we call it collagenious. It’s probably a misnomer. Yes. It does have three grams of collagen every dose, but, and collagen is great for the brain as well, but it’s really a pound and a half of medicinal mushrooms in a highly concentrated. Um, very clean extraction process that isolates and then recombines the key molecules that the mushrooms are known for.

Each of the four key mushrooms we have in it. So anyway, it tastes great. I put, I have it with my coffee. So I’ll, I’ll take a, a big overflowing scoop in the morning, which is a little over half a dose and I’ll, and I’ll have it with a, with a non caffeinated, a decaf coffee in the morning. And it basically makes it into a decaf mocha.

The reason I do decaf, it has to do with a guy named Huberman. who recommends that you don’t have caffeine first thing in the morning. You wait 90 minutes and um, that way you let the adenosine burn off so that you’re not, you’re not dealing with an adenosine load in the morning. That’s going to cause fatigue later on in the day.

So 

Ronnie Landis: if you have, if you have a caffeine or coffee addiction, Nootopia is the perfect solution for that, by the way. 

Mark Effinger: Perfect. 

Ronnie Landis: Yeah. 

Mark Effinger: I love it. 

Ronnie Landis: There’s the call. I love the Call of Genius. It’s everything you said. I, I like to just do like a couple scoops in the morning, just like in a shaker bottle. Yeah. It’s the thing.

Mark Effinger: Yeah. I’ve, I’ve done it. I’ve added it to protein shakes, I’ve added it to smoothies. I’ve, I have it. I love it with my coffee in the morning, and I also love it solo. Um, we’ve had, uh, we’ve had one of our clients, a, a well-known podcaster as well. Um, just he actually will scoop it straight out of the thing and just do dry, dry scoops in his mouth.

Chuck it down. It’s great. Um, Carl and Nora’s his name, Carl, big shout out brother. Um, good guy. So yeah. What else, man? 

Ronnie Landis: Man, there’s, there’s still so much more and yet we’re like, we’re, we’re almost two hours in now. So I’ll tell you, you 

Mark Effinger: want to light up another one in the near, in the coming weeks? I think 

Ronnie Landis: we’re going to need to, 

I think, 

I think let’s do that 

on a 

part, part three.

Uh, 

Mark Effinger: I’ve got some new stuff, I’ve got some new stuff, including, I showed you this clear fluid filled capsule. There’s an insert going in this, there’s a, there’s a, just like, um, you have in the brain flow where it’s a capsule inside a capsule. Yes. Um. Okay. And the reason we did that friends is, uh, one capsule dissolves at the pH of your stomach acid and the other one dissolves at the pH, the more base pH of pasture duodenum into your upper intestine.

And it allows the, the compounds to actually disperse into the bloodstream at different times and then meet up and be passed through the blood brain barrier. So they create a very unique chemical reaction by utilizing the two different parts of the stomach to, to create that. But what’s this? Funny you should ask.

Ronnie Landis: Did I? 

Mark Effinger: Ronnie, did I leave you with any of this, uh, when I, when we last met? 

Ronnie Landis: No, I’m gonna need, I’m gonna need a healthy dose of whatever that is. 

Mark Effinger: So I’ve been working on a, on a compound, Matt and I and Chasity have been working on a compound. What, what it started out with was what would be the most effective way to convert, uh, short chain fatty acids Uh, into, um, ATP through the mitochondria and that led to obviously carnitine is one of the, you know, key molecules, but there, there, there are some sideline molecules to carnitine that are incredibly potent.

And one of the things we found in, in a combination of a couple of these molecules was the ability to almost completely eliminate inflammation in the body. We spend a lot of time in development of our products of creating a layer that’s an anti inflammatory layer. And it’s very effective at helping to energize the nootropics because you get rid of the, again, that, that kind of stress on your body, that inflammatory stress in your body.

Now your body has more energy and freedom to go work on other things that are important. And in our case, we, we love to use that opportunity to amplify, um, the effects of, um, to amplify the effects of. Of, um, the nootropics, but sorry, I, my real estate agent wants to talk. Um, but what we found was that with this spray, a micro doses of spray, two and a half milligrams, which is one spray and up to four sprays gives you, um, between 50 and 80 percent of the effect of a capsule of this for, uh, reducing body fat and increasing the shuttling of short chain fatty acids into the mitochondrion out.

But what it does is it almost eliminates all inflammation in the body. So if you can imagine that, I mean, four sprays, that’s a, that’s a morning microdose. That’s 10, 10 milligrams total of our compound mix. And that is enough to eliminate your inflammation for anywhere from two and a half to four hours.

And then what you can do is you can just take a spray. One micro display every hour and keep it at that state of elimination for, for old guys like me and for people that are having, um, issues with inflammation, chronic inflammation, especially I have a, a nerve in my back that’s pierced. And as a result of that, I have numbness, my legs, which results in a shortening of the nerve fiber and the, the telegram of nerve signaling to be able to go, where’s my foot?

Exactly. How far have I stepped? What angle is my, my, you know, my ankle, um, those kinds of things. So a lot of that has been obliterated after this car accident I had a few years ago. This has restored almost all the feeling in my legs. But in addition, any of the joint pain that I might have or muscular pain I might have is completely gone.

And as a result of that, my wakefulness has improved. So I feel more awake again. I’m not wired. I’m not high. I’m not buzzed. I’m just more wakeful because I have less inflammation in my body. And it’s, and of course, and I’m increasing the number of mitochondria in, especially in white adipose tissue. Um, It’s, so it’s Beijing of the fat, but it’s also increasing mitochondrial output because it’s doing the fat shuttle with short chain fatty acids.

So you’re getting these compound effects that are really profound. And so I’m, I’m, we’ll, we’ll be releasing this shortly and I’m, I’m super excited about it. I think it’s a game changer. We’re doing human testing on it, by the way. 

Ronnie Landis: I, well, I’m, I would love to be one of your, one of your extensive, extensive Guinea pigs.

Sign me up for that, please. Thanks. 

Mark Effinger: Will do 

Ronnie Landis: everything, everything you guys have done and will do is absolutely groundbreaking. I mean, and I don’t really like, I don’t get this excited about products these days. I mean, I love a lot of the stuff out there, but I don’t get this 

excited 

and stay excited and get more excited and more excited that this, What you guys are doing is absolutely incredible.

And it feels like it just accumulates and gets better and better. The more you do it, the more, the more you apply the energy that you get from it more than anything. Um, so we, we went into so much and yes, I would definitely love to set up a part three with you to go over the rest of the product line. Um, so I don’t know if you have anything else you’d like to leave the audience with before we check out 

Mark Effinger: a couple of things.

One. Don’t deny yourself the opportunity or possibility of experiencing what it’s like to live as completely. I, I almost hate to throw around the term superhuman because it’s overused. And especially in the biohacking space and the rest from, take it from an old guy, who’s been through hell and back, um, and, uh, and a much younger guy who’s, uh, who’s, who’s dancing well with the transitions in life as a change agent.

Um, there is. You, until you’ve actually pushed yourself with some of these, some of these compounds, you, you seriously have no idea how great life can be. The experience of life can be, this is not an addictive solution. This is a gateway technology that allows you to, to get into state on demand. And to elevate your baseline so that even if you’re not doing these things over time, your baseline is up and you know how to get into that state just by making the mental bit shift that says, I want to be happy.

I want to be intuitive. I want to be loving. I want to be forceful and direct. I want to be authentic, right? Um, and 

Ronnie Landis: you said, I want to be happy and having the accessibility and the neuro, the neuroplasticity to change it. That in of itself is a life changer. 

Mark Effinger: I, I absolutely agree. Um, I’ll, I’ll share in our next get to get in our next get together.

Um, we should also talk about the, the relationships that we’ve had around this, both, both the, the kind of, you know, male, female relationships and also friendships and family where we’ve. We’ve seen what can happen when people don’t leverage their potential. And we’ve seen what, what can happen when somebody that somebody said has no potential leverages themselves and suddenly becomes a super, a superstar.

Ronnie Landis: Absolutely. I love that 100 percent jotting that down, Mark Effinger. It’s always a pleasure and an honor and a privilege. Thank you so much. And, um, uh, all the show notes, all the links will be in the show notes. Every kinds of them. Yep. And if you’re listening to this right now, you’ve already heard the intro, so I don’t need to tell you that all the information is going to be in the intro.

You’ve already heard it. So with that said, thank you so much, Mark and everyone listening. Thank you. And we will see you or see you or blah, blah, blah, blah. I’ll edit that part later. 

Mark Effinger: Love you, Ronnie.

Ronnie Landis: Yeah, it’s my reach my, my, uh, logical capacity.