Optimal Performance

Podcast Transcript

Optimal Performance

Thu, Oct 20, 2022 11:06AM • 1:16:43

Summary from the host:

No one wants to face it, but it could be zapping your health.

MOLD. Auto-immune, asthma, brain fog, food sensitivity…

In this episode we cover:

• Mold exposure and asthma, depression, insomnia
• If you have a moldy crawlspace you have a moldy house

1-800-GOT-MOLD is the mold inspection company

• There is no such thing as mold free
• How vast is the impact of mold exposure in people’s lives
• Statistically, mold impacts lower income communities
• What the hell is mold rage?
• Every breath you take contains thousands of mold spores
• When the insides of buildings get wet, mold grows and doesn’t stop
• You have 24-48 hours to deal with a moisture issue before you have a mold problem
• We are holobionts – so are our homes

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

mold, problem, house, called, building, moldy, issue, moisture, fungi, home, air, breathing, people, dampness, basement, big, kit, spartan race, great, water

 

00:00

I’m Sean McCormack,

 

00:01

and this is optimal performance. Brown University did a study included 6000 participants, and they found a correlation between mold and dampness indoors and depression, right there with death and taxes, stuff gets whacked gets moldy. And if you leave it be, it will not go away. It can’t, it won’t. If anything, it will just get worse. What happens with mold is that it tends to bring out whatever your latent susceptibilities are. And again, it’s like kryptonite, it makes you weak. New house smell is cancer. It’s not a good smell. That’s a Pavlovian associated response, new car smell, new house smell, that’s cancer. And yet we are locking ourselves up in these chemical boxes and then wondering why we have unprecedented amounts of autoimmune disease and cancers of every sort and kind.

 

00:47

Oh, I know that’s, that’s not good news. You don’t want to hear that. But also mold is an issue for most of us. And that is Jason Earle from got mold, and his story is harrowing. When he was a kid growing up in a musty farmhouse, he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. And at that time, it was a terminal illness. And when they moved out of his musty home, he got better. And on this episode, we talk about the medical issues that are associated with mold. We talk about if you have a moldy crawlspace you have a moldy home, we talk about exposure to mold, bringing on asthma, depression, insomnia, mold rage is a thing. We talked about the vast impact of mold exposure. And in many, many people’s lives, you know, if you’ve got itchy nose that won’t go away, if you got brain fog every single morning, it might be a mold issue. I know that I’m sensitive to mold, I can tell when I walk into musty old offices and really dank, ancient buildings, I get sensitive, My nose itches, my throat itches. Maybe this sounds familiar to you. We talk about how the fact that we are breathing in 1000s of mold spores with every single breath we take, we can’t avoid mold. It’s all around us. But when it becomes a problem, where there’s moisture in your home, there’s something that you can do about it. And Jason has made a kit for people to test the mold inside their home. And this is the type of thing that man, you got to be brave. If you think it might be an issue, you should look into it. So you can go to God mold.com forward slash optimal performance. And he’s got a special offer where you can order a one room to room or three room mold detection kit to figure out if it’s a problem in your house. You know, as we talk about what biohacking is, it’s what’s in you on you and around you in the around you part is something that a lot of us really just ignore the detergents that we use EMF exposure and toxic mold may be major contributors to you not living your optimal life. So be brave, buckle down, listen to this episode. And really think about whether or not you should invest in one of his mold test kits. This could be the thing. If your diet is great, if you’re exercising and you’re you’re well slept, you don’t have that much stress in your life, this might be the one thing that is really crushing your health. So take a look. You can always find me on Instagram at real Sean McCormack, you can go to Sean mccormack.com to learn a little bit about how I coach and how I help people all around the world. uplevel their performance? I’m really excited to bring you this episode. It’s not convenient, but it’s important to know. And before we jump into this episode, I just want to make one request. If you love this podcast if you don’t miss an episode, subscribe, it really helps the algorithms detect us and brings optimal performance podcast up in the rankings. And also share this with a friend. If you’ve got a friend with a steak you’ll House share this episode. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, Jason Earle. Welcome everyone to the optimal performance podcast. My name is Sean McCormack. I’m a life coach, performance coach, wellness entrepreneur. And it’s my pleasure to bring to you every single week, the world’s leaders in the field of performance, so that you can live your life at its most optimal level. Plus, cutting edge ideas so that you can stay ahead of the curve in an ever changing world. Let’s dig right in. And I’m here with Jason Earle who is the founder and CEO of one 800 Got mold, and also Miko lab USA Jason, welcome to the optimal performance podcast.

 

04:25

Great to be here, Sean, thanks for having me.

 

04:28

Let’s start with the doom and gloom and give us an idea of just the the the actual impact that mold exposure can have on people’s health.

 

04:41

Oh, man. All right. This is fun. I the doom and the gloom. The good news is there’s good news, but I’ll give you the doom and gloom. So the bottom line is, is that the biggest problem with mold is that it is it’s so common, and it’s so pervasive that we overlooked most of the time, there’s generational ignorance around mold. I mean, the wives tales, and the myths, myths and misinformation that surround mold still pervade. I mean, the idea that bleach is the solution, these kinds of things still still exist in the in our culture. And these things are scientifically invalid. So but that’s coming from, you know, this mulch, mold, wipe it off kind of thing that our grandparents and great grandparents, you know, they had no say they didn’t have any insights or solutions in it. So, so this has gone on until, you know, basically last 20 years. So this is a very nascent industry. The whole idea of mold inspections, and mold remediation is brand new. And it didn’t exist 20 years ago, really, except for a couple of people that were kind of, you know, ahead of the curve, and maybe are too early to an industry. But anyway, so this, by some estimates, mold effects about 100 million Americans every year, through property damage, or through health effects. That’s about a third of the population. And so what does that look like? Well, so there’s the more obvious situations like, for example, the Mayo Clinic did a study in 1999, and concluded that upwards of 97%, of mold of chronic sinusitis, which is any, any sinus inflammation that lasts for more than 30 days, is, is mold and dampness, specifically mold related. That’s 37 million Americans. Okay. Asthma is 24 point 6 million Americans, and according to EPA, and Berkeley Labs, about 4.6 million of those cases are mold and dampness related. And so those are those are some two biggies that are on the respiratory. But you know, there’s also some really interesting stuff surrounding depression. Brown University did a study included 6000 participants, and they found a correlation between mold and dampness indoors and depression. And so, you know, how many people are affected by depression? How many of those might be indoor air quality related, right? So now you got sinusitis, asthma, depression, Peter, big buckets, right? Yeah. Then you’ve got the more insidious stuff. You know, the most typical mold related complaints are headaches, nausea, dizziness, and fatigue, believe it or not, upper respiratory, and all that kind of stuff is, is is also big. But you know, the most common health effects are actually much more nebulous, they’re more symptoms than signs. And, and so those kinds of issues tend to be undiagnosed, and but yeah, adversely affect people in a very serious way. Fatigue is a big one. And so think about the lost productivity associated with that. Think about Ole Miss work. Think about all of the poor decisions, poor parenting kids who live in living working, kids who go to school, and moldy schools, can’t learn, parents, teachers, rather, who teach in multi schools can’t teach well. So this is this, this says the ripple effect on this is massive. And then of course, that leads to more poverty, which of course leads to more crime. And so you could even argue the poor indoor air quality has an impact on our judicial system in our in our, in our jails. And seriously, I mean, it keeps the poor poor. And because it disproportionately affects the people who can’t afford to maintain buildings, or were not empowered enough to make the repairs and if they knew how to do so. So you really look at this, and I’m trying working on you ask a big question right off the bat. And I wasn’t, I love this question, because I’m working on it on taking all of these studies, and putting them together in a way that we can show the true public impact of poor indoor air quality. And just to sort of put a bow on it, because I could talk about this forever, as you can tell.

 

08:31

People The CDC says that food is the cause of most chronic illness. And I agree it’s a big big part, right? Very double edged right? Food. Healthy food is nutritive it’s life affirming a extend your life allows you to do the thing, it’s its benefit. It’s it’s healing and cleansing. Whereas unhealthy food will take years off your life and is the opposite, right? Air is the same thing. Air is not neutral. There is no neutral air that like there’s no neutral food. There’s no neutral air, you’re either you’ve either got a life affirming life giving air, or you’ve got the kind that makes you sick and can be poisonous, there is no neutral. And so we’re working on putting that together. Because so far, it looks like air may be a very close second behind food and may even Eclipse food. And the thing that’s most insidious about it is that we are awash in it, we take it so for granted, right? If you do the math, you breathe 13 to 15 times a minute. And then you multiply that out. But 20,000 times a day. Can you imagine anything that you do more and that you’re less aware of than breathing? That that’s that’s the point here, right is that if you really look at it, it’s hiding in plain sight, right under the tip of your nose and yet you’re not even aware of it.

 

09:53

Well, that is the doom that is the gloom. I wanted to face that upfront. And some of those statistics are absolutely staggering. And I think for some of us who have experienced or are aware of their sensitivity to mold, they will attest when they walk into a room, you know, a dank, damp basement and some office building and they walk in and immediately their throat starts to itch a little bit, their nose gets itchy. I think that there’s a lot of people out there that that kind of know that they’re sensitive to it. But another question that I have is, you know, understand the predicament for a lot of people because going through the process of identifying a mold issue in your home or in your office, or even in your car comes with a fair, what potentially a costly, time consuming, and logistically challenging remediation that a lot of people just like, probably don’t even want to touch. They don’t even want to deal with it. Because it’s like, what are you gonna tell me that I gotta like, replace drywall or sell my car? Like, those are some pretty meaningful things. How much of an issue is that? Do you think in people’s awareness are willing willingness to be aware of this issue?

 

11:07

Naturally? That’s a great question. You intuited the primary obstacle actually, to, to people taking action on the subject? It is, it’s a very emotional issue. And it’s, I would argue that procrastination, it was actually on our website, we have a list of things you can do if you’ve got a mold problem, right? You can hire a professional you can, you can do a do yourself task kid. Or you can do nothing. And we have a picture of an ostrich with his head in the sand, or her head in the sand. And and that is the most common response to I think I have a mold problem. It’s just having this and we’re not what ended there is there’s nothing that could be less productive or actually more harmful than doing that. Because you know what mold does really well. It grows old grows. That’s what it does. And mold didn’t just pop in there. It wasn’t an accident. I mean, yes, an accident may have led to it. But it was a very predictable result of excess dampness and generally speaking those things don’t self correct. You know, buildings don’t have any immune system if they had a boo boo like water in that boonies be fixed, right. So that’s the way buildings work. And so and so we need to recognize that by ignoring a mold problem, what you’re doing is actually saying I’d like to pay more for that later.

 

12:26

Yeah, right.

 

12:27

You know, because or I would like to get sick, maybe because I’m not, I don’t have no problems. My life, I’d like to get mold sickness next. Right, just like piling on. So the idea that this will if I ignore it, it will go away, that works with some things, doesn’t work with mold, it’s death and taxes is a guarantee it’s up there who right there with death and taxes, stuff gets whacked gets moldy. And if you leave it be, it will not go away. It can’t, it won’t. If anything, it will just get worse. And so, so it’s a it’s a serious, serious thing. But most people, most people will will allow it to get to the point where they can’t allow it to get any further. And you know, they’ve reached sort of Max Max pain, maximum pain. And the problem with that, of course, is that there’s a lot of collateral damage. And the thing is that so there’s there’s a rat’s nest of emotions around mold, especially if you’ve got a family. Because the idea that you didn’t take action on it fast enough, you didn’t get that parent, I mean, we’re all such bad, we’re all we’re all we’re all constantly self judging ourselves, right? We all have. We all have internal dialogues, that if they were public, or if they’re made public, but people would, would probably blush, most people would probably blush. And this is this feeds right into that whole thing of being, you know, the guilt around Bamp, lousy parent or lousy partner or whatever. And, and the the the concern about, well, what if I do find a problem, you know, what, what kind of costs are associated with that, that stops a lot of people in their tracks, that’s part of the reason why we created a do it yourself test kit, that would be an affordable way for people to in the comp in the safety and comfort of their home without having to get permission from anyone else. Without having to, you know, even let anyone else know, you know, that their husband or wife who’s been saying, we don’t have a problem, you know, like, Give me a break, you know, we can’t afford that. That’s why we created the do it yourself test kit, because quite frankly, the I look at that as a tool for change as a lever for change. You know, the journey of 1000 steps. Journey with 1000s hips begins with over 1000 miles begins with one small step. And, and that’s the same thing here, you know, this isn’t an you can get stuck in and inertia with this stuff. And that’s why we we have the approach that we do, which is really more about, hey, let’s get to the root cause here. And that’s the other thing about this is this is the most important point. Let’s get this out of the way first, mold is not the problem. Mold is a symptom of the problem. Mold is what happens when stuff gets wet and stays wet. So what’s the problem? It’s moisture. Moisture is the problem. Moisture is the enemy of buildings, right? Excess moisture is the enemy of, of, of many things. And, and so our our job is to maintain buildings so that they maintain their ability to shed water and air. That’s what though wind, wind and water, that’s what building was designed to do. And when they fail you, it’s because they’ve generally failed to do one of those two things. And when they do that, then water gets inside or, or doesn’t get outside or it doesn’t get out. And when that happens, then you end up with a mold problem. And let me get on to the statistics on this. This is really important too. So according to the EPA, and EPA, rather EPA 24 to 48 hours to respond to a water damage issue, or even any sort of leak or spill before it becomes a potential mold issue. And according to the industry standard, which is called the IICRC s 520. You have 72 hours to deal with a mold moisture issue before it, it has to be treated as a mold problem, whether there’s a visible mold or not. And that’s for porous materials. So that would mean sheet rock carpet, carpet padding, upholstered upholstered furniture, drapes, things like that. So 72 hours, so you got 24 to 48 hours in the EPA 72 hours from the industry standard. And most people deal with moisture issues or maintenance issues with their building in weeks, months or even years. So the guidance from the industry standard and from the governing body. So you kind of have their their have done the research on this. They’re talking in hours and days. And most people do think about it in a much longer timeframe. And so what I’m encouraging people to do is be more aware of this and move quickly towards it because water damage is free or cheap to fix. It’s quick, it’s dirty, you know, you got to do it, do it. But But mold is not mold is expensive. And insurance does not cover it. That’s an important point too. And so really, it’s a matter of you know, if you see something, smell something or feel something, do something.

 

17:12

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19:21

Great question again, man, you’re just you’re free so far. So the risks are the same but different. Not answer, but it’s an answer. And so the fungi that grows in those environments are largely different on the periphery, but they’re very, they’re very much the same in the middle. So what that means is so molds, molds or fungi in general, fungal spores are kinda like combination locks. They need exactly the right sequence of numbers in this case with the combination with it’s the right conditions. It’s the right temperature food source or nutrients source, a moisture activity. And an oxygen is also in there too. But you know, we’re just mostly talking about food, water and temperature. And so if those things are, are aligned such that the single celled spore itself, which is like a seed, if you will, it senses that these conditions are just right, and then it kicks off, it unlocks a metabolic process that creates this, this little chute that sticks out and begins to it looks at this what’s what’s around it, and it looks at its library of enzymes, I mean, the, the genius of the single cell is incredible. And then it figures out which enzyme is the right thing to release. And then it begins to create its colony or the network and then ultimately creates colonies and then creates more fruiting bodies to release more of these seeds and go forth. So that that but that that sport needed exactly the right temperature and moisture level and nutrition to for that sort of this equinox the stars to be in alignment, if you will, for the whole thing to kick off most of the molds that grow indoors and in it well worldwide, most of the molds that grow indoors are about the same because they like the conditions are very close to ours, mold fungi, in fact, are very, we’re genetically more aligned with more closely related to fungi than we are bacteria. And fungi is right there along with us. In fact all over us, right? If you if you want to read a fascinating book called, I contain multitudes by Ed Young, that’ll that’ll blow your mind. So about the microbiome. And, and we are we are we are basically, they call holobiont. We’re a creature of creatures, we really truly are, if you took the human out of us, we’d be this shimmering, shimmering combination of all these microbes is fascinating stuff in our homes at the same, our homes are exactly the same, and a healthy home actually has more microbes in it rather than less. There’s a great book called never home alone by Rob Dunn, if anybody’s interested in what the creepy crawlies are in your house, and it’s really funny, too. It will be it’s illuminating, and you’ll stop using antimicrobials, antimicrobial sprays, you’ll stop doing all that stuff, you’ll realize you need these guys. And so the fungi that grows alongside of us likes the conditions that are very that are right on the outside of our comfort zone where there’s a little bit a little cold, little damp, you get the condensation, boom, you got mold, little warm, little damp, right, you get different kinds of molds that like that hole, then that that sir, so there’s so you’ll see that those things on the periphery are different fungi. But in the middle, there are ones that tend to colonize pretty pretty commonly, when you’ve got like a typical wet sheet rock and a house that’s about 72 degrees. You know what I mean? Like those are the same critters, pretty much whether you’re in Scottsdale, I was in Sedona, by the way last week doing a mold assessment. So you’ve Sedona versus Minnesota where I am now right which is obviously a very different climate. But we said the same largely the same fungi. However, the reason that these things pop up is often different so like the building defects are different the building materials themselves in these buildings are different oftentimes because there’s less sheetrock there might be more plaster and things like that in those areas. Those things may have a big impact on what critters grown our house she rocked, by the way is the number one food source for most modern mold. And and it’s because of you know, it’s got it’s like a movable sandwich paper on the outside and ice sponge to hold the moisture in the middle gets wet stays wet long, long enough for that third three day mark to kick in. Right? She rockets wet and stays wet. It’s a perfect dream. It’s it’s like mold invented sheet rock, right. You know, it’s that perfect. And so those kinds of things have a big impact. And so more so I would say then where your house is, it’s what your house is.

 

23:55

Baths fascinating. Yeah, I can imagine I can mold a vintage sheet rock. That’s just silly. I like that. I would assume that where there’s water is the most likely place to have potential mold issue. I have to assume that underneath sinks or or behind sinks in kitchens and bathrooms where there’s sheetrock is probably probably major source and I’m talking about just sort of normal life, not like a flood event or you know, a leaky roof or something like that. But I think I remember hearing somewhere that if there was a leak underneath your sink if it wasn’t sealed properly and there was a leak and it got on the wood. There is guaranteed no matter how well you handled it. Maybe there’s a gray area there but no matter how if you didn’t handle it, you just sort of let it dry out on its own. It for sure has mold on it. It is is that consistent with with your experience like you’re the guy is it if there was water in My kids splashed behind the behind the sink in the bathroom, on the drywall probably. And if there’s water underneath the scene from a little leak, probably Is that Is that true?

 

25:10

Yeah, I mean, it’s there is no such thing as mold free. So this is that’s another important point there further to the idea that we have to have more diversity in our microbial world around us, right? We want to have mold in our environment. In fact, you can’t get away without having mold in your environment. It’s literally ubiquitous. You’re you’re breathing in and out right now. Take a breath. And exhale, you just breathe in 1000s and 1000s of mold spores. And so did everyone else who took a breath with us without any health, ill health effect in most cases, right, except for the people that are sitting in moldy houses right now saying, Jesus, this is terrible. I got to do something about this. And and for those people, you should get outside and and take some action on that right away. But the but the bottom line is that, that the the ubiquitousness of of molds is such that you have to make the difference between Do you have mold? Or do you have a mold problem. And the difference between mold in your house and a mold problem is whether or not you’ve got an active moisture issue, or whether or not there was a significant enough amount of mold that it can adversely affect the indoor environment. And what that means is this, if you’ve got more mold in your house, and you have outside, and this is literally the way most assessments are done, you do air samples, in addition to a visual survey, and you identify with other leaks and moisture issues, or, or potential for moisture issues. But when we do sampling, in fact, our mold test kit@gmail.com or any through one 100 Got mold or mold inspection business, anytime we collect air samples, we take an outside air sample. And the reason we do that is because there are mold spores outside. And what we’re looking for indoors is less and a bath bath, the same kinds, mostly the same kinds. And, and less than we find outdoors. Because we the idea is that they come in and they kind of settle out and you know, there shouldn’t be any new ones grow. And it shouldn’t be different kinds. And there shouldn’t be more indoors, that’s a clear indication that you have a different ecology growing and that there are things growing in your house, aside from your kids and your cats, you know, and so, so that’s what we want to watch out for. When you’re when you’re dealing with the difference between a mold, mold, presence of mold versus a mold problem. You know, the idea is that you’re going to have mold spores, you’re going to have in fact, some pockets where you may even have some dampness in your house, for example, in your shower. And so we look at mold versus, you know, timber, typically people call mildew, that sort of mold that’s in your house, that’s kind of an acceptable amount that’s basically hygiene related, right, as opposed to a defect of some sort that allowing a chronic moisture condition to persist. Those are the that’s a big difference. So behind under this, sorry,

 

28:02

can I interrupt you? Because the distinction between mold and mildew, I think is interesting. And I think it’s important because everybody looks at their, you know, the caulking around the tile in their bathtub, and they go, ooh, that’s pink, that I should do something about that in a year. But that is something a little different, right? Than then water damage underneath the sink. Right?

 

28:27

Yeah, but you know what, though, this is where this is where you really have to either become very Intune and start to look, you know, we move through our house. So quickly, check paint bathrooms are a great example. Even though you spend a lot of time in the shower, you’re busy thinking about the stuff that you don’t think about when you’re you know, you’re not in the shower, you’re trying to solve other problems and you know, you’re getting your other epiphanies and stuff like that you’re not really examining whether or not that’s grout in your that’s black on your on the grout or is that missing grout See, like you can have a lots and lots of mold on the ground and this is we laugh because people call us about the grout and they call us about these these things that are really generally pretty innocuous. However, we go there and we go ah, you know you may you call us for the stuff that you thought was on the surface. The what is getting behind those tiles is significant as soon as you have a gap of any sort and your grout or caulk drip drip drip drip drip drip drip that he handled with a big mold problem. I’ve seen bathtubs rotten out I’ve seen them fall through floors from a drip from the from failed call. I’m not kidding. I’m structural like, like, like money to type remember the movie? Yeah, yeah. This is not a joke, you know, like that stuff actually can happen and you know, I mean, even a small leak leak sinks a big ship, they say. And so the same thing goes with this and that’s an out of sight out of mind kind of thing and guess what happens? Get usually on the other side of that ACA, what’s usually right there at bedroom. So you got a wall there, that’s getting all moly and emanating that all the beautiful stuff that mold growth emanates the musty odor, which is metabolically active and many people are causes immune responses and sensitive individuals. And even some people who are two don’t think they’re sensitive, have real problems with the musty odor, and triggers asthma attacks and sinusitis and headaches, nausea, dizziness, and fatigue and all that stuff. So you put your drip, drip, drip on that in that wall behind the behind the tile, and you know, your credit. So those those insidious problems are a real health threat to many people, the more common health threats and the more common I should say mold, mold problems occur primarily in basements, crawl spaces, and many times, especially in cold climates, where there’s a real winter in the, in the, in the attic, you don’t see these problems really that often in warm climates, because it’s a condensation issue. But basements and crawlspaces are a big problem. And in areas where you’ve got a lot of air conditioning, you know, like, you know, Florida and stuff like that you’ll have stuff inside walls, you might have more problems like that in your in your climate too. But crawlspaces in basements are a big deal and, and people love to finish basements, using the same materials that they use above ground, but basements take on water and and water gets into them really easily and gets out of them really slowly. And so you know, we have a lot of on the consulting side of things basements, we see as probably the underlying cause of 30% or more mold related mold related health complaints. crawlspaces are really bad because they’re out of sight out of mind, at least at the basement, you go down you to see it, you know it crawlspaces you specifically avoid it because you know, it’s moldy. Yeah, your house is built on top of that. And a lot of your air goes through there, whether it be through HVAC systems. And so air gets in and also rises up through your house is not airtight. And so you know, a moldy basement or a moldy crawlspace is a moldy house. Foundation, air rises through structure doesn’t go down. Right? Let’s just force with a fan goes up through a structure. And so oftentimes, you know, when air rises in the first floor to the second floor, where does it pull it from? The ceiling? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, also comes in through the through the nooks and crannies comes in through the, the the little nooks and crannies are under your windows and your doors, you know, and also through the through the outlets and things like that, you get a little bit of infiltration that way, but the vast majority of your air in your house, actually, you’d be amazed how much actually is coming from the from the from the foundation in the basement. And so, you know, being willing to go down and look at these things is also you know, the ostrich thing, a lot of people just don’t want to do that. You know, that’s gross

 

32:48

down there. I don’t want to go down there. It’s all weird and gross and wet. No, like, whoa, okay, well,

 

32:54

there you go. Well, that’s exactly what you need to write. I mean, that’s like, you know, you wouldn’t say that if your foot was, you know, I don’t know, they I just feel like that we look at our buildings and think about them as the boxes that we store we live in work in and we store our stuff in. We these buildings, these buildings are these inanimate inanimate objects. And I have this this, this different view on this, I feel like our buildings are an extension of our immune system. Like an Exo skin or an exoskeleton. And the buildings also have have a have a lifespan. So let’s get personal with the building. Right? The building has a birthday, and potentially a death day. And its longevity is determined how, by how well you care for it. Right? Think about this. And so so I’m, and also the building doesn’t have an immune system? Well, maybe it does. Maybe you’re you know, and maybe when the building has problems and gets aches and pains and develops issues like inflammation, like the building has a problem buildings get old too, right. And so it develops aches and pains. And so you know springs a leak. Well, you know, that’s that happens. And so that the first sign of that is the moisture is the is the mold. The first sign of the mold is the is the musty smell. I’m actually feeling more and more every day that the mold is not doing anything to harm us. It’s actually doing it’s actually sending you a message like, you know, there’s something wrong with the house. Yeah, it may be benevolence in this thing, you know, and if you don’t listen to it, it gets worse and worse and worse. It’s a lot like inflation, the look at mold in the building or as inflammation in the building. Right? If you had inflammation in your body, you wouldn’t just take aspirin, you’d figure out what the problem is and you take care of that same thing with the house. If as it goes it continues as that inflammation. If it continues to go from acute inflammation where you don’t respond to it, it becomes chronic. That’s where you get the molds that everyone talks about in the news, the Stacie buttresses the toxigenic molds, those are the byproduct of chronic dampness. Look at it like chronic inflammation in the building. And so when the building gets sick, guess what happens to people get sick. Yeah, building heals, guess what happens? people heal. And so there is a symbiosis or mutualism there with buildings but we we look at this thing as as an inanimate object. And I really want to encourage people to think about our buildings as an extension of our immune system.

 

35:12

Yeah. This episode is brought to you by the Spartan Race. You know, I have always admired the people that I’ve seen online social media who go out and do these sorts of obstacle course races because I’ve never done one. And so I’m doing one and I invite you to come along with me on August 13, and 14th. I will be at the Seattle Spartan Race. And I would love for you to meet me there. I’ve started my training already. And I’m really looking forward to pushing myself You see, I hate running even though as a college athlete, I hate running and the idea of pushing myself to this level, to do something hard with this massive reward of Completion is something that I’m really excited to try. And Spartan has given me a bunch of free tickets to give away all you’ve got to do is film a short video of yourself training for the Spartan Race, and then use hashtag Spartan training and tag out Spartan and tag at real Sean McCormack and then send me a screen grab to earn a free race. It’s really that simple. All you got to do workout, do hashtag Spartan training tag Spartan, tag me on Instagram, and I’ll give you some free tickets. I mean, you can’t beat that offer. I would love to meet some of the my local Pacific Northwest friends and listeners of this podcast. And I’m also getting my kids involved. So hopefully I will see you at the Spartan Race in August. Yeah, that’s really a cool way to think about it. Because then it hopefully empowers people to take some action to do some research to understand what’s going on. And and that first comes with with diagnosing and assessing the situation I definitely want to go into the the kit because I want to understand that more clearly how that works. But I’m I’m my mind goes to, you know, for performance and optimization and biohacking stuff. You know, I think that that mold as a as a major issue for people who were into health and wellness kind of burst onto the scene with Dave Asprey on his Joe Rogan appearance. And he was talking about how there’s mold on coffee. And he told his story about, you know, the yak butter, and the coffee and all that stuff. And he also told the story about how he lived in a in a moldy home and got really, really sick, and it caused all this stuff. And he kind of points back to that is one of the major issues that he had, trying to stay healthy, he was kind of always fighting against an uphill battle. And what I want to do is just sort of clarify that that as as, as, as a mold problem, not just mold, but as a mold problem occurs, we breathe it in, and then that’s where it begins to affect our bodies. So given given, given that, understanding that, that we are inside of these boxes that are alive, that have that have these timelines, and that we’re we’re breathing this stuff in it really kind of it opens up the sort of picture about how we can think about this. And and if we, if we want to live in optimal life, if we want to be happy and healthy and rested with lots of love and our joy in our life, the air, the air that you’re breathing inside of your house all night long. And all throughout the day, with so many people working from home, it becomes it becomes a more pressing issue. So I would love to hear a story if you got one around a scenario where you met someone who was having I know that you have a story there too, but where you met someone who was having health issues, and it was directly directly connected back to a mold problem that was then sorted out mitigated and improved. And then so did their health after that. Can you share a story with us?

 

39:01

For sure? For sure. Well, first of all, let me get back to you brought up the the let me just go back to the the very beginning, which is in terms of human performance, optimal human performance. The mold I look at as kryptonite. It makes you weak. There’s nobody that it doesn’t make weak, it just doesn’t show up the same way in everybody. And so, you know, my experience has been five people live in a house, mold, mold is present. One person is is really sick, and oftentimes marginalized by the other four people, or at least by someone else there. And and then you ask the other people, which I always do, how they’re feeling ideally away from other people, by the way, you know, yeah, interesting. And, and usually you’ll get you know, just it’s it’s a diverse first symptom set, and you would think, Gosh, it can’t possibly be one thing causing all these different things. And then of course, there’s somebody doesn’t have any problems, whatever doesn’t get it, don’t give it you know, I’ll give me a call, let me know how much it’s gonna cost if they walk out the door. So that’s a typical profile of a home with a moat with a mold problem. And I’ll bring that up, because actually, it dovetails into the next part of the question that you asked me. It’s funny how when you get it fixed, suddenly the person who had all the problems feels a lot better, they may not get better right away, because the person often has other things going on. And so but, you know, removing that one, that one thing, but suddenly the other people have less problems to suddenly the other people are sleeping through the night, they’re having less emotional dysregulation. There’s a thing called mold rage, which is real, you know, suddenly, they’re not hacking up a lung, you know, in the morning, they thought it was just, you know, their, their allergies or whatever, and it was to their house. And or hay fever, you know, whatever they were blaming on, and, you know, suddenly, you know, they, they’re not as puffy. You know, there’s just a shows up in so many different ways, like a building inflammation shows up in human inflammation. I mean, this is really, we are so connected to this stuff, where it’s just nesting ecologies is how I look at it nesting like Matroyshka dolls. Yeah. And so, so the, the, the story that comes to mind is about Caitlyn Marie. She was four years old. When I met her, her mother, Jill, had been really struggling because Caitlin just kept getting severely ill like, like, like anaphylaxis, she her throat would close up. She had to be she was rushed off to the ER, you know, call 911 Ambulance is at the house, intubated, you know whether they should force a tube down your throat to allow you to breathe. This happened to her a dozen times. By the time she was four years old, and beautiful little girl. And mom, Jill thought it was for sure something in the house. She went to all these doctors, they all said no way. Nothing in your house could ever make you that sick. And she said, Well, you know, we’re gonna do an experiment. And they stayed with her parents, Jill’s parents, countless grandparents for two weeks. And she didn’t have an episode. She was having them on a regular, she was getting all sorts of like hives and all sorts of problems. So they figured it must be something in the house. Joe went back and did her own sleuthing. And she went into the crawlspace and found underneath her daughter’s room, a big puddle spiderwebs and you know, telltale signs of dampness as well as what she thought was a lot of mold and this insulation, slumping down, you know, typical sort of nasty crawlspace. And she said, That’s it. And so they moved out with the shirts on their back, they literally sold the house as is they then invested in the house that was built in a factory of prefabricated homes. So it would be built without being exposed to the elements. And it would be brought in basically and put together like a like a kit in a weekend. And so they they did exactly that. And again, she’s fine that entire time, the entire house construction and how like this is crazy, we’re in the clear, we’re going to have a safe place, right? And they move in and we’d run one rainy weekend and it was just rainy, rainy, rainy. They there, Kevin, and Caitlin, Kevin’s Kevin’s her little brother, we’re running around the basement.

 

43:32

Just just doing what kids do. And Kevin called up in a panic saying that Caitlin was wasn’t breathing. And so they brought her to the hospital. And and they thought for sure, you know, they had to intubate her again the whole thing and so her mother called freaked out a call doctor who she’s whose care her daughter was under and and he said first of all, you know, you need to calm down and he actually suggested a psychiatrist. She was panicking that hardly that that that severely. And anyway, long story short, he said, I had just gotten my mold sniffing dog Oreo. I just got I we just started working together and went to Hunter Gamal. This is 20 years ago, 25 years ago. And it was she was one of our first she called up and she was panicking anyway, we we had just done a channel six Action News episode where they tried to debunk us and they hit mold in the house and we’d actually found the mold and within three minutes instead of us becoming debunked, they endorsed us. So this is very early in my mold career. And and so this woman got she was talking to her doctor friend, Dr. Scott K, Princeton, New Jersey, if you’re listening to this, Scott, although it’s been a while. But anyway, and he would be he would listen to your show. He said listen, I saw this guy on TV. If you can’t see it or smell it, you might want to call this guy he’s got a mold something dog and as crazy as that sounds. And so she called she hired us and we went over there. And within you know, we did the whole assessment and we went down to the basement where the scene of the episode was and found some moldy lumber had been used to put the stairs and so the whole house had been built perfectly in in a client in And, but then they when they the stairs and the lumber that they used to build the stairs had been left outside on site and got moldy. And so they put it together with moldy lumber. And it was that minor it wasn’t I mean, I, you know, she was so sensitive, she was like the canary in the coal mine. And, and sure enough, you know, I give them the guidance on how to get it remediated. And they did and, and she was she was fine for she was fine for a long time. And then I got a call in the middle of the night she thought it was a company phone number, it was my cell phone. And it was her it was Joe Joe again. And she was freaking out. And so that helped give me a buzz in the morning and we’ll chat. So next day I went over there and had been another very, very rainy weekend are like very windy, rainy weekend. And, and having a rainy week rather. And we went in there and Oreo made a beeline right for the fireplace. And sure enough, the whole fire there had been water running down from the flashing they had been blown off during a storm and an Oreo. Nailed it. And so we are you know, arranged for the remediation and and she was suddenly got better again. Now keep in mind this is 20 years ago. In the years that followed, they were very effective at avoiding mold. And they would actually travel with their air purifier, they probably they would travel, bring it with them to the beach. But they became very good at avoiding it and being vigilant about understanding their relationship with their building and, and all that stuff. And so the the lack of the her ability to to avoid that chronic exposure, it enabled her to heal from it. And then eventually they were able to get her a cat. She always wanted a cat but she was so allergic to everything that they finally got her a cat. And then and she has gone on to because of her experiences. She’s She’s maintained her health. And I’m pleased to say that I got a letter from her recently that she is been accepted to medical school. And she’s pursuing this path because of her her own experience and her the fact that the doctors didn’t listen. And she wants to be the doctor that listens. Hmm.

 

47:09

Wow, what a story. That’s incredible. You know, when earlier in our conversation where you gave some timeline perspective on how this really hasn’t been a thing until the last couple, you know, decades where people understand just where this is, you know, gives me hope that that not only doctors, but people like yourself will continue to innovate and beat the drum to talk about this issue. That is so inconvenient. And can also be such a such a health zapper for people. And like he said, We’re fish, we just don’t we it’s around us. We can’t see it. We can’t smell it. We can’t feel it. It just it’s just around us. So I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about some of the health issues that people can experience from a mold problem. And I you noticed that I’m using mold problem now religiously, because mold is mold. It’s all around us. It’s on? You know, it’s it’s right here above my lip. I’m breathing it in currently, but a mold problem. Can you tell us a little bit about you know, I have a specific question around, you know, like skin bacteria and impetigo. You know, stuff like that does does that? How How, how many different things can how many health issues can be experienced through mold issues?

 

48:38

My experience is that it’s almost infinite because what my own personal story was that I was, when I was four years old, I was I suddenly lost a lot of weight in a three week period, and was having difficulty breathing. And they brought me to Children’s Hospital Philadelphia, where they diagnosed me with cystic fibrosis, which was a devastating diagnosis to especially to my my father who lost four of his cousins to CF before the age of 14. So as a family, it was a hereditary issue, which is part of the reason why they diagnosed me with it. But the second round of testing was six weeks later. And actually they concluded that I didn’t have cystic fibrosis, but I had asthma compounded by pneumonia. And when they tested me for allergies, I was allergic to literally every single thing that they tested me for. So one of my formative memories being being in the Papoose and having the skin tests on my back I remember very well, I can still remember the smell. And, and my dad said, I looked like a ladybug, just big red swollen back with dots all over it. And so I lived on inhalers most of my childhood until I was about 12. And my symptoms went away because I moved out of the house. And I didn’t think about it again until after a successful career on Wall Street. And I was sitting there reading a newspaper article about a guy who got sick in the hotel where he was an employee. And he developed adult onset asthma and allergies to all these things that he was never had a problem with. So it was it was like a deja vu moment for me. That’s why I got into business is because it was It was I was on, I was on a mission to do something meaningful with my life, but I wasn’t sure what it was. And I just happened to have come across that, that, you know, that thing, that light bulb, while I was in the place that I was least expecting to, you know, I was sitting there just reading some local newspapers. And so the, in the absence of that chronic exposure, I’m not allergic to anything. The doctors who test me who refer patients to me test me. It almost almost almost like it’s fun. Because, you know, I’m a very documented highly allergic person, and I’m not allergic to anything. And so the these things, I think what happens with mold is that it tends to bring out whatever your latent susceptibilities are. Yeah. And again, it’s like kryptonite, it makes you weak. Most, most illnesses, you know, there’s only about 100, bacteria 100 bacteria, that causes human infection.

 

50:57

There are millions of species, millions, there’s about 100 that cause real problems. And it’s not so much the bacteria, that’s the issue is the abundance of it when it happens and what how it comes to, you know, same thing with molds. We’re not really, we are literally, you know, partners with these things. By the way, monkey, Kingdom fungi produces 50 Mega tons of spores every year, which is the equivalent of 50 500,000, blue whales, 500,000, blue whales, that’s spores. That’s just fungal spores, largest producer of biological particulate in the world, Kingdom fungi. And so you’re not going to get away with with not being wouldn’t be exposed that we just don’t want that stuff grown in our house. Yeah, it’s all it was all it is, man. It’s just we just don’t want that stuff growing in our house. So, so don’t create an environment that allows for that. And so, you know, the symptoms are wide ranging, because everybody has a different susceptibility profile, this thing that’s under the surface, the thing that if you get weak, that’s going to pop up, you know, and everyone’s got that some people have joint pain, some people have, you know, tension, some people have emotional dysregulation. Chronic upper respiratory is typical, but a lot of other diseases also overlap with mold exposure and the difficulties associated with with detoxification, like, Lyme disease is a big one. And chemical sensitivities is a big one. A lot of times mold exposure creates chemical sensitivities. A lot of times chemical exposure creates mold sensitivities. And so these things are it’s a giant Venn diagram, you know, and, and there’s a big muddy brown spot in the middle. And that’s kind of mold, you know, and it either causes or irritates almost every illness, it makes you susceptible to almost every kind of illness. I mean, there’s anecdotally there are a lot I mean, you can even say that mold mold is related to a lot of addictive behaviors, a lot of people are self medicating around that kind of stuff, the emotional side and the pain associated with it right. A lot of a lot of a lot of this a lot of discomfort associated with mold has to do with the disempowerment that comes with knowing you have a problem being unable to take advantage take you take care of it right think about all the renters that are mold problem, they can’t afford to fight the fight you know, some illness comes in many forms, you know, physical, emotional, and otherwise spiritual even. And I would argue that this this cuts right to the core of all those things. So you know, that’s why I always say if you see something, smell something or feel something, do something because it really is a matter of being aware of your environment. And you know, we get for basic human needs. air water, food shelter, right? This is my entire entrepreneurial thesis is to build solutions around you know, air water food shelter, it’s pretty sustainable right? But you know, air water food shelter so let’s let’s look at the shelter we talked about. Shelter you could argue is kind of air and water with at least its air on one side of that coin. You know, food for sure, super important, but the thing about shelters you can live without it for a long time. You wouldn’t do well for long we’re kinda like hermit crabs we don’t do well without our shell program but we can do for you know few weeks few months maybe you know food you can go a few weeks otherwise you start to get pretty skinny and things don’t don’t go well. Water you can go for a few days otherwise things get pretty gnarly to air man

 

54:27

you know you’re a few minutes and you’re in trouble but yet of all those four basic human needs what’s the one that people think about the least? Yeah, right air its air right you think about everything else first food for sure water Oh, yeah. But air is the one that you can’t do well with without for very long. And so it you know it is it is so it’s a double edged sword. The thing about Eric mentioned again is nutritive when it’s healthy, it’s and it’s beneficial. It’s it’s life affirming. And it’s literally lethal poisonous if it’s not and there is no neutral way Air. And so you know, I just think that and the other thing that people be aware of, and this is something I’ll leave with to it’s not just mold. poor indoor air quality is really the enemy. You know, when it comes to mold, it’s not the enemy, it’s moisture, this enemy. But when it comes to air quality, it’s just any sort of pollutant Gatti in VOCs are the paints, we use the finishes that we finish our floors, but stuff that leaves that new house smell that new house smell is cancer. And yeah, that’s not a good smell, that’s a Pavlovian associated response. That is, you’ve been trained to think that smells good, because you get rewarded people applaud you because you had to do renovation, or because you got a new house or whatever, new car smell, new house smell that cancer. And yet, we are locking ourselves within these chemical boxes, and then wondering why we have unprecedented amounts of autoimmune disease, and cancers of every sort, and kind, and fatigue and difficulty concept and ADHD and all the other stuff. And mold is part of that. It’s a big part of it. But the bigger part of it really is chemicals in our in our building materials. And so, you know, air ventilation, get yourself some good air purifiers in terms of actionable stuff. I also think that this is something that I want to talk about briefly, which is air filters of all the things you can do to improve your air quality, obviously, fix all moisture problems as quickly as possible. But I believe that air filters should be a required appliance in every single home a really good HEPA filter, in every bedroom, every living room, and any space that you think you might have an air problem. And ideally, you have an air filter that’s got a lot of carbon in it too. And so you know, there are a few brands out there that do a really good job with that, but you want activated carbon to take out the VOCs, or the chemicals, the smell the odor, and the HEPA to take out the particles. Because we live in these boxes that we just close up and we just set set our our heat and air conditioning, we just turn off our heat and turn on our AC turn off our AC turn on our heat, very few people open their windows anymore. And we just bring more of this stuff in from China and we don’t ventilate, we don’t, you know, we don’t deal with moisture problems when they manifest. And so all these things put you in a situation where you breathe 20,000 times a day, but you’re breathing the same stuff, especially with COVID 20,000 times a day. And so that’s 20,000 exposures, you are naked to this world and your lungs, you know, keep in mind, if you open that up, that is pure that is you are exposed to the world. That is your interface. And so, so be gentle with your love be recognize the delicacy and the intimacy of the air against your your insight. And that’s what I’m suggesting that people consider and when you’re doing is 20,000 times a day Boy, that’s a lot of exposure. So So mechanically, removing those things is very important and being aware of them, which is again, you know why we’re in the business of, of creating tools that allow people to measure these things.

 

57:57

Yeah. One more question before we dive into the the kit and the services because I definitely want to I definitely want to highlight those. You know, what, what I think was sort of implied is that if you remediate effectively, and you get the source of the moisture removed, then likely, if you have a sensitivity or an expression of a sensitivity, you will improve. But I guess my question is more around once you maybe you’ve been blasted, maybe you lived in a in a really, really problematic place for a couple of years. And it’s India, you know, it’s it’s been there for a while. And that’s what that is. And that’s what this itchy nose is. And that’s what the sensitivity to gluten is and that’s what’s your anxiety is? Based on your understanding, what are some of the best ways to get that mold then out of our systems, their detox protocols? You know, is it activated charcoal, like what what have you found to be the most effective methods for taking care of your of your own sort of physiology. In addition to figuring out the moisture issue going forward.

 

59:22

detoxing is, is is very popular. Our body does a really good job of it normally, if you give it the resources it needs and to get out of the way. We let we have this thing in our site where we think the only way to get something out is to put something in Uh huh. Or more is better because we you know, have a little is a little works and more must be better. These are these are problematic narratives, to say the least. So, my experience has been that the first step to detoxing is to stop talking. Mm. It sounds very simple, but also, you know, so the first thing you do is stop stop exposure. You know, you’re not, you know, I eat my pay my past life I used to, I used to drink and when I drank, I would do all sorts of things to deal with the consequences of drinking. And I realized it took years and years and years to realize that if I just wanted to stop the consequences, I just stopped drinking, and I belong Behold, I did and oh my god, all these problems that I had went away. So the first step, the time is the detox dot detox is to stop boxing. And, and so when it comes to, you know, mold is obviously removing it reducing exposure. So, you know, if you got an air quality issue, you could do three things. This is an important point that you can either deal with the source or remove the source, which is not always possible practical, but that’s remediation, right, when you can do it, get rid of it, fix the water problem, remove the mold, cleaning up, restore the property, don’t on one condition, that’s ideal. That’s the first thing that’s the ideal thing, but it’s not always possible. The other thing you could do is you could filter the air and that’s using, you know, HEPA filter, HEPA filters, and all those kinds of things or you can dilute and bring fresh air in from outside. The first thing you want to do is is address your air quality issue, or address your exposure to it first. And then once you’ve gotten that under control, whether it means you’ve relocated or you fix the problem or you’ve reduced the exposure to the point where you can’t smell it, seal it or feel it right you can’t see it, smell it or feel it then you can do things to accelerate detoxification, you can do things like saunas, exercising cold water, hot water, you know, cold exposure, and hot exposure, you know, these kinds of things to sort of squeeze you and, and, and facilitate, you know, the, the, the natural processes that you already have. There are doctors that are in the business of helping people detox from mycotoxins and, and that is sometimes necessary, but oftentimes, it’s not on most mold related illnesses, not mycotoxin base even though most people who talk about this all they want to talk about as mycotoxins, most of the time they’re actually they’re finding out the microbial VOCs. The musty smell is actually the underlying cause of a big chunk of it. And and that’s a detox detox by but it does you detox the same way you detox from alcohol, because via alcohol is voc and your liver, and those pathways are good at night. If you have a problem with detoxification pathways that’s different. And there are a lot of people that do they estimate 25% of the US population has a mutation genetic mutation called the MTHFR. mutation, and a lot of people MTHFR if you if you if you spell that out, you’ll see a lot of people feel that way about it. It’s a mofo. Yeah. And, and so so those people have issues and some people have a hard time with, with with sulfur pathways, which also can be problematic because there’s a supplement called glutathione, which is used in detoxification, that’s a naturally occurring compound in the body. And very potent, but it goes through the sulfur pathway, and people sometimes have a problem with that. So So I generally steer away from recommending detox supplements and protocols and things like that, because much like any other situation, it depends on the person. It depends on on what so what I generally I’m a, I’m a root cause kind of guy, fix the moisture problem. Stop the mold exposure, get yourself some air purifiers, open your frickin windows

 

1:03:34

and, and kick it out there and sweat. The other thing is and this is a big one ready for this people. Change your diet. And this is what nobody wants to hear. But most mycotoxins if you’re gonna do if you have mycotoxins and a lot of people listening to this, have had probably some mycotoxin testing, which is really common. And they found that they’ve got high levels. Look at your food if you’re eating processed foods, corn grains of any kind, sugar, most mycotoxin exposure is actually from food. We import moldy grains, no problem. Ask Dave Asprey but the moldy coffee right so like, you know that we’ve the data on that it’s pretty stunning. There, we actually import grains that are get turned away because of mycotoxins at other ports throughout the world. We will buy moldy grains so probably put it right in right in our in our food supply. And these things are you know, oftentimes, they’re, they love to live in fats, right so they tend to stick in us for a long time and you know, their metabolic their hormonally active you know, they can cause all sorts of problems in the long run. And you know, many of them are carcinogenic so the the food thing is a big deal. So the when I say detox stop taxing you one thing that changed my life was going on a no sugar, no grains diet, and allow your body to purge those things, eat, eat, eat clean. And then you don’t have to detox your body will do it, breathe clean, drink clean, these things are simple in their, on their face, but sometimes they require significant changes, and, and so, but it’s all connected, you know, what you eat and what you breathe and what you drink and all that stuff and how and your relationship with the buildings that you live in work and are all all all coalesce around your general awareness or your general health. And to ignore one of those things, you might as well ignore all of those things, because they’re all inextricably connected.

 

1:05:37

Well said, yeah, well said. So as we as we head to the, to the conclusion of this, this conversation, you obviously built businesses and incredible tools around this to empower people. And now that we have a greater awareness of how pervasive this issue is, for so many of us, and I tell us how the kit works? How do you how do you do it? How does it work, what to do after that?

 

1:06:05

Sure, well, if if you if you don’t mind, let me back up for a minute and to kind of why I created it, because I think that that helps explain a lot about how it’s best to use. So one 800 Got mold is our Mold Inspection Company. And, and it’s, it was really this, it’s the vehicle that we use to learn how to better serve the people that we serve. So I had no business being in this business, when I started this business, you know, there’s no academic track or training back then especially it was kind of you had to pursue it aggressively. And so. So you know, and that’s the way I kind of do things I’ll just jump in, and my ignorance, and I’ll let my ignorance get in the way. In this case, what we learned was, well, we developed the, you know, high end, mold assessment and remediation consulting practice, most of our customers are affluent, single family, homeowners. And, and while that’s a good business, for us financially, and otherwise, very satisfying, we learn, we truly improve the quality of save people’s lives, man, I mean, how often to get a chance to say that, and we do that all the time. And that’s a very deeply satisfying way to move to the world. However, we had to turn down 10s of 1000s of people who called us over the years to do a mold inspection, because simply they could not afford it, many of the people were outside of our coverage area. But they also couldn’t have afforded us even if we were living right next door. And my own parents, you know, I grew up with that when my parents had no money, my parents could not have afforded to hire us to navigate a mold problem in, in my own home. And, and so that never sat well with me. You know, that always bothered me. And so it’s with that concern that we decided to create something that would make Mold Testing affordable to anybody. The World Health Organization, said that healthy indoor air is a basic human right. And I wholeheartedly agree with that I you know, air, water, food shelter, right? Like these things, none of those things should be cost prohibitive. And especially healthy, healthy, healthy, should be default. Yeah, I think you know, like, and, you know, it just it makes sense for everybody, by the way, because you know, we would reduce just so much it’s such a huge burden on our on our on our world to just have, you know, those healthy options be the default. But anyway, the bottom line is we are where we are. And and so the the we put a Dream Team number of years ago, we put the dream team of scientists and engineers together to put to create a do it yourself test kit that uses the same reliable test results, test methods that we use, through one 100 Got mold and mold inspection companies use worldwide.

 

1:09:08

But we did it in such a way that we remove the need to have all the hassle and complications associated with trying to find and hire a professional. And so if you wanted to have your house tested for mold right now, you’d hire a guide and you’d come over a GAO would come over and they would do a physical inspection of your house. And then they would determine where they should collect air samples. And those air samples would generally be in most cases on air spore trap cassette. So in specially engineered cassette that captures the airborne particulate matters that that are floating around in the time that you’re sampling. And so you have an outside air sample and then you grab the entire samples, those that that in order to do that. You have to have a special pump air sampling pump on a tripod, it’s $1,000 it’s calibrated. So what we did was we figured out how to create that professional quality air sampling pump but are a fraction of the cost. And so that interfaces with the same professional cassette that you would get that you would use if you had a professional. And what we did was we we worked out a special arrangement with the number one lab in the country. And who got acquired by the number one lab in the world, by the way. And so, so we have the the top quality analysis available across the board. So the same quality, you won’t even get this if you hired most professionals, professionals don’t want to pay what we pay our lab. And we are now doing we offer that on a do it yourself test kit. I mean, it’s like private labeling. If you were if you were in the jewelry, business, private labeling Tiffany’s, you know, I mean, it’s really, you know, the quality and the consistency. And that’s, that’s our lab partner. And so you collect the air samples in the room. First of all, let me back up, we encourage people to do an inspection of their home. And and so actually, we created a on on our website, we created a welcome page for your listeners, where we’ve posted a an ebook called How to find mold in your home. It’s at gmail.com/optimal performance. And you’ll find the e book there, which was 45 pages of inspection checklists and FAQs, we generally recommend people who are starting with this concern to look at that first, get familiar with it, oh, that’s what a professional would do. And they would they would go, they would allow their eyes to be their guide. And since we’re so busy moving through our house, we’ve generally recommend to people slow down a little bit and take a closer look at the things that you would normally just walk right past. And then based upon what you find what you if you see something, smell something or feel something in specific rooms, we recommend that you focus on those rooms. And so using our air sampling pump and the cassettes that are included, you can test either one, two or three rooms, using again, the same same spore traps that professionals use. And then there’s a prepaid return mailer, that you would then once you input, you go to gmail.com, and fill out the forms and tell us where you collected the samples and where you want the report sent and all that good stuff. I should also mention that there, the kits are a fixed price. So it’s 149 for one room 199 For two and 249. For three rooms. That includes shipping, and lab fees, there’s no surprises when you buy the kit that, you know, you don’t have to go to pocket for anything else. And the prepaid return mailer goes directly to our lab partner where they analyze the samples. And then the report gets processed through us where you get an interpretation of the raw lab data, you get a three page report, the with an interpretation is the first page green, yellow, orange or red depending upon what we find. Second page is the lab data formatted in a really easy to understand way. And the last page is where we provide resources and recommendations based upon what was found. The the, what was there at the lab, the turnaround time is two business days. So we try to provide a rapid turnaround ideally, by the time you when you drop in the mail, you’d have report within about a week or so. And then once you’ve used the kit, the pump is yours to keep. And many people are taking advantage of the fact that we also offer refills. And so for if you have once you have the pump, you can retest and you can buy supplies at a discount. Many people actually share the pump with a friend. And they can get samples at a discount as well. So so once you’ve got the pump, one room only is only $99.02 rooms is 149. And three rooms is 199. Again, no surprises, no fees, no hidden charges. And, and so far, you know, we’ve been we just released this out of beta just a couple of months ago. And some of the stories were really remarkable. I mean, it’s it’s been it’s been gratifying to see that the exact content that we that we had embarked with is caring for a lot of people who were saying that they couldn’t afford an inspection they couldn’t afford they couldn’t even thought about this are now getting the peace of mind. Right? They may not always get the answers they want. But many times it’s not that they want the answers is that they want validation or they want you know, to be able to go to the landlord and say no, you know, this is not this is not an opinion, this is a scientific reality, you know, where their husband or the wife or their or whomever. And so, so far so great. You know, I have to say that this has been a long road but but so far, so great.

 

1:14:32

Awesome. The fact that now we have each the ability to do it in such a professional way at home through you is really, really incredible. And And again, I’ll say it to sort of just echo what you mentioned earlier, it’s like this is we’re this is a new industry. This is a new type of consideration set for living a healthy lifestyle, understanding what’s going on in your home what you’re breathing in. Just so many great tips, things to think about from this, from this conversation, this, I really encourage everybody to, to take a look, go to gmail.com/optimal performance, and just do some research. You know, don’t don’t take Jason’s word for, like, go do some reading on your own, the website is structured in a way that has a ton of great information. And just like anything, you know, just like, just like your fitness, just like your nutrition, just like your sleep, you know, if you ignore it, it’s not gonna get better. You know it unless you do something about it and begin to take responsibility and make some action, then it’s, it’s, it’s not going to get better. So, this is so great. Well, we’ve already told people where to go the the final question is a fill in the blank question. And this can be based on anything and everything that you know, and you can elaborate as much or as little as you wish, but if you would please fill in the blank. Everyone would benefit from knowing

 

1:16:08

the root cause. Yeah.

 

1:16:12

Yeah, the root cause. Absolutely. Here here. Jason Earle. This has been such a great conversation. I really thank you for this. I really do. This is such a such an opening up of awareness. I think for so many people. There’s people have never even considered this before. And now after this episode, they will be educated and empowered to do something about it. So thank you so much for joining me today on the optimal performance podcast.

 

1:16:39

Thank you for having me. This has been a true pleasure!