1246: Mike Feldstein | How Bad Air Hijacks Your Brain and Body

26:09But if you're eating fish, this is a perfectly normal level of mercury to have in your blood. So I appreciate that nuance because they could have sold you on a very extensive mercury detox protocol. There was a guy who was like, you should do chelation, right? And the toxicologist was like, that is the chelation process, which is removing heavy metals from the body. He's like, it's so much more harmful for you than just dealing with this baseline level of mercury because chelation is like it's oversimplified chemotherapy for getting rid of heavy metals like you're taking all these other metals and other minerals out of your body you go you're like they're like you have too much of this thing here's 26 supplements to take and 17 drops and you're like taking them you're like like you might feel worse for a while i'm like this this doesn't feel right no yeah exactly this is like cutting off your nose to bite your face it's really it's he so he basically was like no need to go nuclear on it the reason this relates to what you were saying is the fact that you're testing for mercury oh my god you have high mercury Okay, do you have any symptoms?

27:04No. Okay, then go home. That was his moral of the story. So the mold is very similar from the sound of it. So, yeah, exactly. It's like, check your body for bacteria. It's like you're like half bacteria. You're infested. Yeah. There's all these little creatures living inside you. Right. So at the end of the day, though, it's not to say mold can ever be an issue. But unfortunately, because of the fragrances and things like that, we've lost our ability to smell. I tested probably a thousand homes for mold. and anyone I know who tests them do remediation, within five seconds of walking in someone's home, if they have mold or not.

27:35Just because you can smell it. Because you smell it and you feel it. It's a little more difficult to breathe. It smells musty. It smells damp. If you walk into a baby's nursery, it smells like poo. You don't need a poo tester or an airborne bacteria analysis. Unfortunately, we've gone to this quantifiable metrics, data testing thing, and we've all lost the ability to just trust how we feel and trust our sense of smell. and that's what this comes down to so if it smells musty and there's a black patch growing on the wall or there's water damage check your attic check under bathrooms and sinks and look for like bubbling drywall like the visual inspection and the smell is by far the best inspection of all that's why the best mold inspector is the mold dog um i've never heard of this yeah there used to be there's a few people who have like mold canines that's the best by far because they're gonna smell and they are going to go find the source of it.

28:29Amazing. But just to test your error and then they start investigating, basically just ripping out walls and stuff. Yes. That is similar to like being like your levels of whatever are high. Let's just do some investigative surgery. Take some injectable whatever. Let's just cut some holes in you and check inside. You're like, I don't think this is a good idea. Yeah. So people often go into debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars, rip their homes apart, move into apartments or homes that were moldier than their first home and debt and stress, and then they get much more sick. So I've been seeing this increasing at a large scale.

29:02And that's why as a mold remediation guy, how would we do mold removal? We'd remove the physical mold and we would scrub the air. It was very simple. Like, so the Jasper was very similar. It's basically the same machine that we would use to scrub the air from the mold. So like, I'm not, I don't think you need to test your tap water. Just get a water filter. While you let that horrifying thought settle in, here's some stuff that won't slowly kill your whole family. Probably. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Function. All right, so here's the deal. You know how I'm kind of a nerd for data.

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30:33Visit functionhealth.com slash Jordan or use gift code Jordan100 at sign up to own your health. This episode is also sponsored by Caldera Lab. I've never been a 10-step skincare guy, American Psycho anyone. For years, I didn't even use soap. But eventually, my skin started feeling dry and rough, and that's why I found Caldera Lab. It's simple, made for men actually works. Their flagship product, The Good, is an award-winning serum with, I guess they have awards for serum now. Anyway, it has 27 active botanicals, over 3 million antioxidant units per drop. That's probably a lot. It protects your skin from all the daily junk, pollution, stress, lack of sleep.

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31:37And since using it, people actually have told me my skin looks good, which is a weird compliment to get as a guy. It's high praise. I'm pretty proud of that. Skincare doesn't have to be complicated, but it should be good. Upgrade your routine with Caldera Lab and see the difference for yourself. Go to calderalab.com slash Jordan and use Jordan at checkout for 20 % off your first order. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators every week, it's because of my network, the circle of people that I know, like, and trust. I'm teaching you how to build the same thing for yourself for free over at 6minutenetworking.com.

32:08This is a down-to-earth, non-cringe, decidedly non-awkward course that is just practical stuff that'll make you a better colleague, a better friend, a better connector. A few minutes a day is all it takes. And many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. Come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. The course, once again, all free at sixminutenetworking.com. All right. Now back to Mike Feldstein. It's funny. This exact same thing happened. I thought we needed just the water in San Jose because I'm from Michigan. We have clean water. And there was a guy who was next door, and I was a doctor and he was just like, why don't you just get a reverse osmosis filter and then you know your water's clean?

32:47And I was like, this guy, you're onto something, right? Either test the water and hope that the quality stays consistent and periodically test it every month or just get a machine that cleans everything. City water is usually not good. Yeah, yeah. If you have well water, you have bacteria problems. If you have city water, you're going to have a lot of chlorine and potentially way too much fluoride because think about it. They're taking like rain water and other people's sewer water and they're disinfecting that water so it doesn't kill you. so like that's what more do like people are like mad at the city the city's trying to make us sick i don't think so they're trying to make it so the bacteria doesn't kill you immediately right and then you have to filter that drinking water and with air there's no intermediary so the rubber from the tires the chemicals the restaurants the forest fire the glyphosate the chemicals people are using in their in their bounce sheets all the toxic things in the world come into your home so i think we're going to look back in 10 years from now 25 years ago dentists didn't use masks or gloves.

33:40As a kid, you would just drink straight from the hose and you would just drink tap water. That yummy metal, copper, whatever penny taste. And then we all learn. You're like, oh, you need to fill your water. And then we're like, oh, microplastics. And then once you realize it, when you get the plastic bottle, you taste the plastic. Yeah. Like if you just trust yourself. So I think we're going to look back and now in Asia, like I remember going to Kuala Lumpur and other parts of Asia were like, I went to a bank and every single teller had an air filter in each little room. I'd go to the mall and they'd have air purifier stores.

34:13So their air awareness is way more ahead. Why do you think that is? Is that a dirty city with a lot of pollution? I think the pollution historically was worse, which increased their air awareness. They're like, we're getting sick. I put this machine in my room and I'm breathing better and I'm sleeping better and I'm feeling better. It's like, why do we filter our water now? Because we realized that it was dirty. Taxi drivers in Beijing and Shanghai, they'll have this little tiny box. It's like the it's like the size of your, you know, a fat wallet. And I'm like, what is this? And they're like, it's an air purifier.

34:42And I'm like, I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but this 999 Timu air purifier that you've had in here for a decade is not cleaning all the air in this car with the doors opening every five minutes. Like it's not doing anything. And they're smoking, right? They smoke their cigarette and they blow it out the window. And they're like, don't worry, I got an air filter. And it's like, oh, China, never change. This reminds me of a Skeptical Sunday episode we did about expiration dates for food. and one of the subject matter experts, he was just like a food expert of some kind, I can't remember, I said like, what about this and the dates for this?

35:14What about meat? It's dangerous. And he goes, you know what? If you smell meat and it smells really bad, don't eat it. And if you smell meat and it smells fine, it's almost certainly fine, even if it's expired by a week or two. And I was like, why the date? And that was what the whole episode was about. But basically, to your earlier point, your nose is really good at telling you whether something is safe to eat or breathe or not, because that's literally the whole point. But all of these things like tracking your sleep, you know, if you track your sleep and you track your steps, not that you shouldn't, there's a lot of good data that you can get from that stuff.

35:48The downside can be, though, is going off the expiry date. You can go down a path of not trusting yourself. Yeah. To be like, do I feel like I need to walk? Like, did I move enough today? Yeah. Let me check my phone. Yeah, we're good. You get obsessed with that. I think I've mentioned on the show before that there were fires outside so I couldn't go outside and I wanted to get 10 ,000 steps. I walked around my kitchen island like a thousand times. Maybe literally because I wanted 10 ,000 steps and it was a smaller, it was smaller than this kitchen island. I went around that thing. It took like three and a half hours of me just walking.

36:22My mom was like, are you okay? Because I looked mentally ill, right? I was just walking around the kitchen island over and over and over until I had knee pain and 10 ,000 steps. It was just, yeah. And I've sat down and went, why did I do that? How important was it to get those 10 ,000 steps? Before we forget, I want to go back to something you said earlier, which was that some of these artificial smells are, I can't remember how you phrased it, kind of the new smoking. Synthetic, like fragrances are the new secondhand smoke. Yes, because whenever I get in an Uber, if they have those rock chunk things that they keep in the little can that smell terrible, like fake cherry, I tell the driver, I have to cancel.

36:59I go, oh, I'm sorry, I'm allergic to these. I don't know if I'm really allergic, but I will get a slamming migraine if I'm in that for an hour. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how to prove it. Christmas tree of death. Yeah. Or if there's one Christmas tree, I'm probably okay. If there's eight, which why are you using that many if it's expired, throw it away? Or do you just want eight times the cent? That to me is like, I can't deal with that. It makes me want to vomit. It makes me car sick. So it doesn't surprise me at all that these are bad for you. But I love data because I'm going off of I feel like these are gross.

37:29Which is actually what you should do. Yeah, I suppose what we should do. Another thing, Glade plugins, disgusting. It's the same as the Febreze stuff. Yeah. And it's heavily correlated to what we were saying before about the mold, because oftentimes the reason that people are desensitized to the mold, also the molds that are really bad for you smell the worst. What a surprise. Yeah, shocker. The ones that make you sick, you smell and you feel crappy. So because of all this synthetic fragrances, whether it's perfume, cologne, I can smell Speed Steak or Old Spice like across the house. Yeah, it's bad deodorant.

38:02So this is really cool. When cigarette smoking was very normal and you could do it everywhere, if you would tell someone to stop smoking, you were just like a bitch. You're an asshole. Yeah, you're the jerk who's running everybody's phone. It was your preference. Like, hey, stop smoking. Right. And you know, asshole, like you were just this annoying person. Right. Then we learned about this little thing called secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke was one of the greatest marketing campaigns, like positive marketing campaigns of all time. because it took it from you're giving my kid cancer. So telling someone not to smoke was like you invading on their fun.

38:36But when you realize that the secondhand smoke was just has cancer causing and making you just as sick as the person who was smoking it, that angered you, that galvanized you, that gave you permission to be pissed because now they were impacting you. Kind of like the covid stuff. It's like, you know, you're making me sick. So when someone else's choice is impacting you, then that gets people kind of fiery. And that's how you get emission and get things moving. Then the reason I call it fragrances of the secondhand smoke is because you're not the one who put that fragrance in the Uber, in the Airbnb, in the hotel room.

39:08When you walked in the mall, they're everywhere now. And synthetic fragrances, it's like natural flavors in food. It's like thousands of chemicals. so if you look like anyone could google it type in like what chemicals are in cigarettes that are in fragrances and there's a huge list like formaldehyde being right at the top and benzene you should try gpt this it's probably like the venn diagram is probably pretty nice it's very similar like formaldehyde benzene would be two of the really big ones but there's a lot more so the same stuff is put in the fragrances that's put in the cigarette i'm actually writing a blog post right now on this and the the ai image that i got generated was a guy smoking a glade plug-in So there's good news and bad news here.

39:47And I always tell people, I'm like, the only bad thing that happens if you put a Jasper in your home or in your bedroom is you will become an air snob. And they're like, ha ha, I want to become an air snob. Yeah. Yeah, you do. So all of a sudden, you're going to go to like friends' homes and family's homes. It's like, your home stinks. And you didn't notice it before. It's a great way to make friends. Wow, your home smells like shit. Yeah. How to not get invited back to Thanksgiving. Your home stinks. Things will bother you, you know. You're going to be asking people to open windows and doors all the time.

40:12It's an air problem. It's December in Michigan. Again, we're not opening the doors, Jordan. So your olfactory system is a fancy way of saying like your smelling system. Yeah. So get this. When you smell something delicious, you start salivating. Sure. So I learned this from Dr. Satchit Patel. Not sure if you know him, but he's great. He helps people lose a lot of weight and change their whole health and everything. And a lot of it is by how you eat. So he's like, never eat unless you're salivating. the idea is like that the salivation is a very normal part of the process that's what happens when you smell the food and then the saliva tells your gut like yo this is what food's coming i see some steak some broccoli start preparing the enzymes to break down and absorb the nutrients of whatever's coming so i've heard the stats vary but 50 roughly of the enzymes that get created in your gut are from your olfactory system from your ability to smell so if you've been smelling fragrances, whether that's from the speed steak or the cologne or the perfume or the Christmas tree.

41:11I'm getting ready to digest some ban or whatever the hell this is called. No, your body doesn't know food's coming. Oh, because it's masking all that. It's masked. So all of a sudden your ability to absorb nutrients is completely blunted. Your ability to absorb the nutrients and process it all. So it's huge and it impacts your, your weights and it impacts your nutrients. So what happens is, and that's why I actually started to smell my food more closely. Like when you take your food, it's amazing. Put the food to your nose and take a few deep breaths through your nose. If there's a few different things on the plate, smell each thing slowly.

41:42All of a sudden, you'll feel like a rush of saliva gets created. This is such a funny thing to do in front of other people. But yeah, okay, I'm following. I mean, people pray anyway. Like what is prayer? Like have a moment of gratitude, add a little smell. Give it a little sniff. Okay. Try it once. Smell your food and you'll feel just a rush of saliva get created. It's like, whoa. So your olfactory system regenerates every 30 to 60 days so what does that mean basically the neurons in your nose that are blunted from all the fragrances in your modern life when you stop using synthetic products and you start filtering the right home your ability to smell in 30 to 60 days is completely regenerated that's it so now all of a sudden you can smell food you start salivating more i find that eat way less and the air snob thing is not just a placebo because your system is much clearer and your neurons are replaced from all those fragrances and the Febreze effect that was blunting it.

42:34Because it doesn't just stunt it in the moment. That was my next question. There's a residual effect. So it permanently damages, it can permanently damage those. Up to two months. I did not know that. That's crazy. I just figured all this was really poorly understood. I didn't think people actually. But it's amazing. So there's a brand that I love called Primally Pure. They make really good deodorants and other products. They have a regenerative farm in Temecula. So they make all their own products. When you start using like a better, cleaner deodorant for a couple of weeks, all of a sudden those speed stakes are like repulsive.

43:03I could never stand that stuff. Even the, I think we were talking in the car, really expensive, you know, French perfume or cologne. I can smell it and I can go, this is good stuff. And if it's cheap or deodorant or whatever, I can smell that it's cheap. And I think it's probably just the chemicals they use. And if cologne or perfume has gone bad, I can smell that. Most people don't know that that stuff goes bad. You can tell a three-year-old bottle of cologne or perfume from a fresh one. And it's because the chemistry changes. And so a friend, a girl that I dated when I was in New York a million years ago, she was like a French nose, right?

43:38So she smelled different perfumes and ingredients and designed the fragrances. And she told me that I was the only other person that she knew who wasn't working with her that could smell all these different things. So this is not a blessing. It's not a humble brag because mostly I'm just smelling really disgusting things or comes in handy on the subway, right? It's an enhanced sense of smell, but really cheap fragrances give me a headache. They almost taste bad, if I can phrase it that way, and they burn my throat or my nose. That lemon glade thing? There's no lemons in there. There's no lemons in there, right?

44:08It's funny how the word chemicals is bad. Natural flavors is a really nice word for chemicals, and fragrances too. So I'm here to make you realize when you're saying fragrances, you're typically just saying chemicals. Chemicals, yeah. Well, everything is a chemical, so there's the other side of that. Yes. Basically, good air should basically smell like nothing. Yeah. Or like nature, like cedar, like pine, like what outside smells like. Close to nothing. Close to nothing. Yeah, exactly. So no essential oil diffusers. There are good oils. Are there? Yeah. Because I would think oil in the air is bad generally.

44:39I mean, I'd rather do it outside or open my windows or scrubbing my air. Yeah. But if you do that, you can get away with a little bit more. Yeah. Clean air for me, it's become more and more important as time goes on, just because I'm in that room in my office, in my studio all day. and I've got electronics in there. I don't know what that does. I used to be in a room with a monitor that I think generated a lot of ozone because you could smell it. And it would make me like, I didn't love being in there all day with that. And so having fresh airflow and things like that. But part of that could have been CO2.

45:08And I'm wondering about CO2 levels because I feel like when I'm in that closed room for a while, a couple hours, let's say I do a three hour podcast in my studio, I start to feel tired. And I'll turn the fan on because I think I'm hot. and then eventually that sort of circulates air. Do you have a CO2 monitor? Feel better for, no. I'm going to leave you one. Yeah, please, because I bet you I'm just breathing all the oxygen out of the room. I'm going to leave you one. I got one here. I take one everywhere I go. Yeah. I bring them on planes. I bring them on everywhere I go. So that room is soundproof, which means that air does not go in and out under the door.

45:40It does not go through the return unless the HVAC is on, which it never is because it's California. I almost never need it. And so unless it's hot as balls or somehow cold, the HVAC is off. and if I'm in there for three hours, man, it's yawn city. And I used to just think, oh, I need more caffeine. No. I'm tired from talking, but I'll be in there doing emails and it's like, nope, it's 10 a.m. and I'm already like beat. And I come in here, do a lap around the living room and I'm a new man. And so I'm convinced it's something with the CO2. And you can get a vent, a very, very quiet vent that will just vent directly outside and then it will just pull air in from the rest of your home and that will make a big difference.

46:14So I'll give you a CO2 sensor. Yeah, thanks. And you can track it. I'm so curious now because I was doing a little bit of a talk with my friend who's like a breathwork person. It's just ironic to me that we're obsessed with like breathwork and yoga. But then like the air you breathe outside of that 20-minute burst, screw it, whatever. And a lot of people are doing breathwork in moldy rooms with high CO2. Yeah, with a great plug-in masking the scent. Exactly. So I know that that air quality, that CO2 has got a mess with your cognition. And that's why everybody sleeps on planes. I always fall asleep on planes, yes.

46:45So CO2 is typically 1 ,800. So outdoor CO2 is like a little over 400. Indoor, 600 to 800 is normal. At 1 ,000, the brain fog starts kicking in. Planes are typically 1 ,800 to 2 ,200. By the way, planes have some of the cleanest air of anywhere. Because they cycle it in. If the filtration wasn't amazing, everyone would get sick every time. Yeah, that's what I thought. So very clean, like scrubbed air, but very high carbon dioxide. Is that just because it's so clean? They're not bringing in much fresh air, energy efficiency. How are they filtering the air, cycling the air if they're not bringing in the air?

47:18I mean, they're able to recycle it to be as energy efficient as possible. If they were breathing in more and more cold air, the heating cost would be pretty high. Oh, so they're not bringing in outside air in a plane. They're just scrubbing the interior air of the plane. I did not know that. That's gross. I'd rather. That's something I could have done that way. But the CO2 is high, and that makes you really tired. So if anyone's in, whether you're in an elevator or a classroom or an office, or if you're at a house party and you're just like i just need to go outside and get a breath of fresh air pay attention to if you're in an indoor space with a bunch of people and then when you go outside and take that first breath you're like ah yeah and i wish i could tell you jasper will solve this it will not yeah that's a you need fresh air it needs to vent out and i think like with all the climate stuff the thing that they should really be pointing their finger at is the carbon dioxide's going up because like it used to be 150 a few hundred years ago it's going up by two or three a year when they call like carbon gases, it's so unrelatable.

48:11But if you put anybody in like a closet with five people and they made it feel stuffy, you're like on this path in 50 years, outside is going to feel like that recording studio in terms of stuff. You're like, that is a scary thing that makes me want to take action. That's scary because it means I mean, my brain just doesn't work as good in that condition. Nothing works. So we're all going to have brain CO2 brain fog. I don't know how fast we can evolve, but probably not that fast. Yeah, probably not that fast. What about sleep. I've noticed that when I sleep with a window open, I just sleep better.

48:43And I don't think it's white noise. I think it's got to be the air. So yeah, that's why the ingredients of a good sleep, usually a comfortable bed, good pillow, hopefully non-toxic linens, clean air, cool air, and quiet. And if any one of those things is off, you're going to have a bad sleep. Like your sleep quality is only as good as the weakest link. So you could have the most comfortable bed in the world, but if it's really hot or really loud, or the air is really dry or really humid. Clean air is a huge deal, though. I always tell people like if you're buying one Jasper, put it in your bedroom, fan speed three and dark mode, you can get the air about 30 times cleaner in the bedroom.

49:19So fresh air is good with a window, especially if the CO2 is high. But scrubbing the air is like essential. So we did a study with 150 people using Oura rings last year. So we gave 150 people Jaspers in exchange for one month of sleep data. The average person slept 25 minutes more per night, 18 % more deep sleep. HRV scores went up a little bit and people fell asleep five minutes faster. Because think about it. The average indoor air is five to 10 times dirtier than outside. So if you think about it, at night you're sleeping, you're not drinking water, you're not eating food. Literally the only thing that's keeping you alive is the air.

49:52When you test the average air inside, you're breathing in mold, bacteria, VOCs, bug particulate, fragrances, paint fumes, everything. Yeah. So your body is somewhat playing defense. It's dealing with all that stuff. When you turn your bedroom into a clean air sanctuary, your body can heal itself if you get out of the way. What about babies and kids? Are they more susceptible to dirty air than adults? Average adults. So you eat three pounds of food a day, two or three liters of water, and you breathe 17 ,000 liters of air. Adults breathe about 15 to 20 ,000 times a day. Toddlers breathe about 60 ,000 times a day.

50:26And newborns can breathe 100 ,000 times a day. So their respiratory rate's much higher. So they're breathing more, their lungs are smaller, their immune system is less refined. So that would probably be the case there. It is a toxic world out there. How about a breath of fresh air from those that make this show possible? We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Jasper. Quick side note, the guest today, Mike Feldstein, he's the guy who created Jasper, which we have all over the house because it works so well. I'm not just saying that because he's here. We've tested a ton of different air purifiers over the years.

50:59Mike came up with Jasper after working on home restorations after wildfire, so he knows what bad air really looks like, smells like, does to you. He basically realized the stuff people buy for their homes, it's just not on the same level as what's used commercially. So he built Jasper to bridge that gap. Industrial-level performance, but it's quiet, it's efficient, something you don't mind having out in your living room. What I like is how it reacts. You cook, the air changes, it ramps up, wildfire smoke rolls in, it kicks into gear. It's also been great for allergies. My whole family breathes just a little bit easier with these things running.

51:28Last year, they sold out when he was on the show. People had to wait, and their inventory is actually running a little bit low again. Now is really a good time to beat the rush. It's also the best deal. So if you want to check it out, jasper.co slash Jordan is the link. Code Jordan gets you 25 % off. But honestly, even if Mike weren't here, I swear I'd still be talking about it. And I have it before. It's that good. That's jasper.co slash Jordan. Code Jordan. This episode is sponsored in part by Airbnb. be. I've been so burned out cranking out content lately that all I can think about is travel.

51:59There's just something about stepping out of your routine that hits the reset button like nothing else. I got a trip to Patagonia coming up, which I'm ridiculously excited about. It's that magic of meeting new people, trying foods you can't pronounce, exploring new cities. That's really what travel's about, frankly, not the checklist or the perfect itinerary, but the experiences and connections you make along the way. Those moments end up being worth more than anything you buy, which got me thinking. While you're off exploring, your home is just sitting there empty. Why not host it on Airbnb while you're away?

52:28If you ever considered hosting, but you were worried maybe it'd be too much to manage, Airbnb's co-host network can help. With Airbnb's co-host network, you can hire a local co-host to manage everything, from creating your listing and messaging guests to on-site support and even design and styling. So while you're away, you can rest easy knowing your home is in good hands and your guests are happy. it's a smart way to turn your space into a source of additional income without adding to your plate. If you've ever thought about hosting but you want a little help, find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host.

52:59This episode is also sponsored in part by Shopify. I've got a lot of friends who run businesses. Every single one of them who sells online uses Shopify. They've even shown me the dashboard. You can see all your sales metrics. You run your store right from your phone, which is pretty awesome. So when a friend and I launched our own e-commerce business recently, of course, we went straight to Shopify. That's the sound of another sale on Shopify. the platform powering millions of businesses around the world. Shopify runs about 10 % of all e-commerce in the US. What makes it great is how easy it is to get going.

53:26You build a store with hundreds of beautiful templates, tweak everything to fit your brand, and use Shopify's built-in AI tools to write product descriptions, headlines, even enhance your product photos. And when it's time to grow, Shopify's got you covered with marketing tools, inventory management, shipping, returns, all the stuff that usually gives you a headache. So if you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into with Shopify on your side. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash Jordan. Go to shopify.com slash Jordan.

53:58If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment, support the amazing sponsors who make this show possible. All of the deals discount codes and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable over at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. You can also email us if you can't find a code. We'd love to help you with it. I'm Jordan at jordanharbinger.com. Yes, it is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Mike Feldstein. I always gift people an air filter. Usually get them a Jasper when they're having a kid.

54:30Yeah, I kind of figured it would be because one thing I noticed that's kind of, I don't know, ironic is people will have a baby, right? And so one of the first things they do is they go, we just repainted the nursery. And I'm like, that's a nice thought. But now you've got this paint latex paint off gassing in the room and they go, don't worry. The baby is a month out. And I'm like, still. And then it's like, okay, well, but then you put all the baby blankets and the pillow and the stuffed animals and the crib that you assembled is all in there. Getting all of that stuff stuck to it or whatever.

54:59And the diaper pail and the diaper pail. Okay. I hadn't thought about, I'm on a war against diaper pails and I got a new baby at home right now. Yeah. Oh, that's right. Right. So anybody who is having a baby soon or is going to have another baby, I would recommend five, six months. I know you like to wait till the end, but as early as you can, if you want to paint and do all that stuff, do it as early as you can. You know, don't get a used bed, but if you can get a crib secondhand, that would be a good idea because it's already off-gassed. What's off-gassing? I probably should have explained that.

55:29So off-gassing is, think about that new car smell, new home smell. You bring in that bed, you get that whiff of formaldehyde that stays for a while. Yeah, yeah. Off-gassing smells basically formaldehyde. Yeah, okay. And it could take a year for something to off-gas. And when things are manufactured in a factory, as soon as it's assembled, they wrap it up tight. They wrap it in plastic. They ship it up. Yeah. And then you open it in your home and bam. So little baby, just got born in a hospital. By the way, I've been saying this a lot and it's been a lot lately, but if anyone's, we're local in Austin.

56:01So if anyone is having a baby in a hospital or a home birth in Austin, we will bring a Jasper to the hospital, to your birthing suite for free. And you get to take it home. That's a gift. That's Jasper's gift to the next generation. Well, I believe that it's the adult's responsibility to give their kids clean air. And part of the mission at Jasper is if the parents aren't going to do it, we'll do it for you. So, and that way that kid's going to be breathing clean air. So if you're in Austin, that is a little perk that we offer. But those diaper pails, man, if it smells like shit, it is shit. And if it's shit, it's bacteria.

56:30Put the diaper pail outside of the baby's room and then empty it. If you're going to use it, empty it every single day. And if you still disagree, then I have a little challenge for you. Put it in your bedroom. Put it in your bedroom. One night, one night, see what it feels like to have dirty diapers in your bedroom. And if you can't tolerate it, it's funny. Like people love their babies and you do anything for your babies and then you literally put them six feet away from a poop canister. Yeah. And I like that as an example because it's like it just shows how much things are just a lack of awareness.

57:01Yeah. All you have to do is be told that once and no one argues that everyone's like, oh, shit. No pun intended. Yeah. Jeez. That is gross. How do people take advantage of the free Jasper? Just message us. Go to our website. Contact us. Okay. Tell us a week or a month or however much the more heads up you can. and then we'll either send it to your home or we'll drop it off at the hospital and then you take it home. That's your baby's first gift. That's pretty cool. That's pretty nice of you. So people who heard the last episode that we did, I don't know, a couple years ago now, they ordered the Jasper after the show.

57:29A lot of people did. And they said that it was backordered, which, you know, I'll pat myself on the back. Maybe we ended up selling plenty of Jaspers. You did. Did you end up shifting your manufacturing? I mean, this is a little inside baseball. I don't know how much people care, but I'm curious because manufacturing stuff is a huge pain. You have tariffs now. How is that all shifted? It's been a two and a half year process to add a second factory. It's just not very responsible business to have one factory, especially when people are trusting you to have that filter there every six months. So we have added redundancy to our manufacturing.

58:02We're trying to build a factory in Texas. It is so hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is so, so hard to manufacture here from the cost of land. And you just think about like, when you think about it, you just imagine like the labor and then you're like, wait, no, the land is way more expensive. Right. Like when you look at a commercial lease for a building, it's like 50 to 60 ,000 a month. Then you're like in China, it's 5000. So you don't realize it's the real estate. Then it's the cost to build the building. Then it's the electrical cost. So it's not just like the labor and can we get steel and paying people more money?

58:33It's the whole thing that makes it nearly impossible. There's a during COVID, a guy also from Texas, who's a friend of a mutual friend of ours. He wanted to make masks domestically. And he was like pulling out all the stops. Like, how do we do this? How do we get the material? I need this. So I was helping him source special kinds of fabric for these masks. And one of the ways that he got stuck was it's very, very expensive to buy machines, import machines, and put them on enough land to make it worthwhile in the United States. Even in Texas where it's like, hey, we're not California. We don't have all these dumb rules and regulations that are stopping business.

59:08It's like, it's still 10 times the price. And in China, they have these companies that do basically like third party skilled manufacturing. Yeah. So you can call and have 5000 people show up who know how to do assembly. We don't have that. We have that for like construction, kind of like temp workers and stuff, but not so much for manufacturing. Wow. So they're just so well built. And it's very frustrating. Yeah. Because like every bone in our bodies want to make the product here. Yeah. But it is very, very difficult. Yeah. But we will be able to. We will be able to do it. It's probably going to take us about two years to manufacture in Texas.

59:46We will be able to do it. Also, America only can make 20 % of the steel that we need as a country. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Where do we get it? Canada? Like Turkey and like a bunch of different countries. I figured we bought it from Canada. Yikes. No, it's coming from all over, but America can only produce 20 % of the steel that we need in the country. And it takes 25 years to set up more steel production. That sounds like a national security issue. It's not good. Yeah. Yikes. Especially when you put it, China can have 5 ,000 people show up overnight and assemble things and we can't do that here.

1:00:15And also, we don't have steel. Somebody email me about this and make me feel better or worse and we'll do a show on it. Man, thank you. This is really interesting stuff. I never really think about air quality. Like I said, after the first episode, it was something I just never focus on. Before I let you go, you're building a school. That's kind of a departure from clean air or is it? No, it's not. Okay. So my daughter, Aria, she's five now. When she first started going to school, she was two and a half. And when she started first week, she comes home, boogers, stuffy nose, cough, sick. Yeah. She got better for like two days, sick again.

1:00:49And all of us were sick constantly. She wasn't in bubble wrap. So basically the doctor reading online, talking to doctors, like it's totally normal till your child's like seven, they have to get every infection and build up their immune system. I'm like, I don't understand because she was on planes and we were at hotels and we were traveling. She didn't get sick there. She's been exposed to a lot of people. Why schools? I'm picking her up from school and I'm like, literally, if you designed a classroom to make kids as sick as possible, they got a perfect grade. So think about the way the school was built.

1:01:18First of all, two Glade plugins. I would unplug it every single day when I would pick her up and I would hide it and every day it would be replugged in. they have toilets in the class with no ventilation so there's two toilets with a diaper pail no window no fans windows that don't open carpets that don't get cleaned horrible fluorescent lighting harsh chemicals and cleaning products that they're using after hours we switched aria's school and we gave the school jaspers for every classroom and instantly aria stopped getting sick what a surprise because like when we kids are gross they are really boogers and poops and breathing and coughing.

1:01:54They get each other sick all the time. I started reading more and more into this. And there was a study done in Finland where they put air purifiers in 50 % of the classrooms and absentee rates in teachers and students dropped by 30%. They put air purifiers in half the classes, the classes that were cleaning the air, absentee rates dropped by 30%. So the school is called Kindling Academy. We purchased the school in our neighborhood in Austin. The whole purpose of the school is we're going to try to reduce absentee rates by 50 % by creating the healthiest school in America. So what are we doing?

1:02:23jaspers in every class whole building water filtration we're getting lighting systems that actually match the circadian rhythm of the sun so throughout the day the frequency of the lights will change and if it's a cloudy day or a sunny day on your iphone kind of like that yeah but like it will match the weather so if it's a sunny day versus the cloudy day the frequency of the lighting will match the sun that day huh that's kind of cool the class what does that do again well it's just unnatural for your body to go outside and then come inside to this very artificially lit environment like your body's like tripping out doesn't know what to do i wonder if I can do these are all like what it Phillips hue bulbs I would recommend um as a low-hanging fruit I would set them up to go red in the evening they do they go red and they get really dim so that's like a pretty good way orange and then they go red or something like that yeah so the idea is public schools are funded on attendance that's why they have all these truancy laws so you can't miss more than two weeks of public school or they like do hearings and you get in trouble and all that because that's how they're funded so our thought process is if we can reduce absentee rates by 30 40, 50 percent, it becomes financially aligned for the public schools to create healthier buildings.

1:03:25I see. Wow, that's smart. And we were trying to find a good school for our kids. And they were either like awesome and outdoor and kind of like nature hippie schools. Yeah, we got one of those. But like they wouldn't teach them to read. Yeah, you can't do math, but you can climb trees. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or it was completely the other side where it's like they're teaching them to be these little baby geniuses and they don't get to go outside at all. Right. I'm like, it's not that much to ask for both. And like kids should be excited. Like kids love kids. Why don't they love school? School should be fun.

1:03:50So we're like, how do we take a school where they're mostly outside? We're going to build screened in porches around the whole school so they can kind of have that indoor, outdoor, fresh air environment. So basically pay teachers well, make really healthy environments, track the attendance, track the sick rates and inspire people to try to do the same. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. I never really thought about schools being super unhealthy and also that you could make it financially. You could basically can make it profitable or at least financially aligned for them to have the right kind of lighting, right kind of water, right kind of air.

1:04:18Yeah. So we're going to, and by the way, this is another thing. Right now we're only doing Texas because we got overwhelmed on the last few podcasts. Yeah. But any school in Texas, if your kids are in private schools, message us and we will donate Jaspers to every class in your kid's school. Nice. We can only do it with private schools because public schools are a pain in the ass to deal with. Because you need like 16 lawyers to clear having a device in the classroom. But if your kid's in a school or if you're a teacher or a principal yourself and you want clean air in your school, hit us up. We got the babies.

1:04:48we got the kids. Mike, thank you very much, man. I appreciate it. It's one of those topics that I just didn't think I would care about until you realize it affects your sleep. It affects your health. It affects your muscle growth. It affects your cognition. For me, I know everyone says this, but I'm actually ADHD and it's hard enough for me to focus. Having low oxygen content or smells bugging me is the last. I just don't need more distractions. Once you find out that air is kind of connected to like every aspect of your performance i had this recent insight that was i think the reason that people don't pay attention to air is because it's free yeah so like food you like you get really hungry and then you have to go buy it like you physically you get thirsty you have to go get it but air is so abundant and free that you're not really like thinking about the quality of it and how it impacts you and then it's not all the same so once we got aware of better food and better water we started to take action also though with water you taste it and you go, yuck, something's not right.

1:05:43But very, unless you, like you said before with mold, unless it's like, holy crap, what's wrong with your home? Yeah. It just smells mostly like nothing and, or it smells the same equal bad for years at a time and you just ignore it. So, you know, the interesting thing about this timing is, so yeah, last time I was on the podcast was about five or six weeks before Black Friday. Oh yeah. And we were back ordered two months. Yeah. Whoops. Yeah. Black Friday. No, dude, it's awesome. Co-Jordan was a big hit. But this time, no Code Jordan, guys, because it's already Black Friday right now. So I think for about one more week, it's$400 off on Jasper.

1:06:18So Jasper is normally$1 ,199, and right now it's$799. After Black Friday season, though, if you use Code Jordan, like let's say you're listening to this episode weeks or months later, Code Jordan will forever be$200 off. Nice. So that will never go away. But right now happened to be the cheapest time that Jasper will ever be. We basically don't ever do sales except for the week of Black Friday. And that is right now. So Jasper's are$400 off right now for about one more week. So we might be sold out by the time you heard this. But if we are, it'll be a few weeks or so. And I firmly believe that cleaning up the air quality in your home is by far the lowest effort.

1:06:59You know, you don't have to take a sauna every day. You don't have to journal. You don't have to go to the gym. Like do those things too. You don't have to meditate. You don't have to cold plunge. Very few things are so good for your health and your energy and your sleep that don't take willpower every single day. That's why. Me too. My willpower is not great. This is one thing I do. So the website is JASPR.co. And if you really do like using Code Jordan, throw it in there. Maybe it will save you a couple extra bucks. We'll see. Yeah, nice. We'll link to it in the show notes. Normally, I don't allow people to pitch like that, but whatever.

1:07:28I was going to do it for you. It's Black Friday. That's right. It's Black Friday. Pay those bills, Mike. Pay those bills. Black Friday. Thanks for coming in, man. All right. Imagine facing a rare, incurable disease and finding out that AI could repurpose an FDA-approved drug as a potential cure. That's the breakthrough achieved by Dr. David Fagenbaum and the mission of his company. I'll never forget, the doctor walks in the room and says, David, your liver, your kidneys, your bone marrow, your heart, and your lungs are all shutting down. That's it. Like, we've tried everything. There's nothing more that we can do.

1:08:01I was terrified. I was like, had my last rites read to me, Of course, no one thought that it was even possible that I could survive. You're dying from this horrible disease. Chemotherapy just gave you a little bit of a window, but it's probably going to come back. So what's your game plan to prevent this thing from killing you? Well, the only way to get back is to use the tools that you have within reach. I'm like, shit, I've got this horrible disease. And the only way that I might be able to save myself is if I can find a drug that's already at the CVS. And so my mission then became, could I figure out what the hell's going wrong in my immune system?

1:08:33so then maybe I could find a drug that already exists that could treat it. I'm not supposed to be here. Like, my drug wasn't made for me. It saved my life. It was always there. I am completely on fire about this idea that there are drugs at your nearby CVS, your nearby Walgreens, that could help more diseases and more people, but the incentives aren't aligned for us to do that. So we created Every Cure a couple years ago because we believe that every drug should be utilized for every disease it possibly can, regardless of whether it's profitable or not. 80 % of our drugs that can help people today and tomorrow, no one's doing any research whatsoever to figure out more uses for them.

1:09:15Tune into episode 1005 of The Jordan Harbinger Show to explore how existing medications are bringing new hope to those confronting elusive illnesses. Huge thanks to Mike for joining us once again. And if today's episode made you question everything you're breathing in right now, good. Because wildfires don't just burn trees. They leave chemical souvenirs in your lungs for months or even years. And your home is not just a home. It's an ecosystem full of CO2, mold fragments, synthetic fragrances, and VOCs that your body is quietly dealing with in the background. The truth is, clean air is one of the most overlooked pillars of health, cognition, and recovery.

1:09:50We optimize our sleep. We optimize our diet. We optimize our workouts. Some people out here doing cold plunges at 4 a.m., but we ignore the literal thing that we breathe 20 ,000 plus times per day. Links to Mike, the new Jasper Research, and more will all be in the show notes. Share this episode with somebody who lives in a moldy apartment and calls it character, a parent who wants better for their kid than fluorescent lit brain haze or a friend who thinks synthetic lavender is healthy. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show all on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

1:10:20Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, our newsletter, We Bit Wiser. The idea here is to give you something specific and practical that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, your relationships in under two minutes. And if you haven't signed up yet, come check it out. It's a great companion to the show. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Don't forget about 6 Minute Networking as well over at 6MinuteNetworking.com. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. And this show is created in association with Podcast One.

1:10:49My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tata Sidlowskis, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time.

1:11:15This episode is sponsored in part by Cup of Justice Podcast. Ever feel like you want to understand the legal system better? Well, you can start that journey by diving into the Cup of justice podcast. It can be tough to grasp the complexities of our justice system. I'm a lawyer, non-practicing now, and it's complex even for me, but it can be a lot easier when you've got the right guides. Mandy Matney and Liz Farrell, the journalists who famously cracked open the Murdoch case, teaming up with renowned attorney Eric Bland. This trio brings together a blend of legal expertise, journalistic rigor, and a relentless pursuit of truth that makes the murky waters of justice clear and accessible.

1:11:44We're all bound to encounter the legal system at some point, so why not get savvy about it while enjoying captivating stories from both the newsroom and the courtroom. It'll be your gateway to gaining the knowledge and tools you need to navigate or even challenge public authorities. Check out Cup of Justice wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored in part by the Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a great new podcast can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Let me save you some hassle. Check out Something You Should Know with my friend Mike Carruthers. Every episode is packed with fascinating insights that you can actually use.

1:12:12Mike interviews top experts on topics that shape your life, like how to optimize your brain chemistry, the best and worst ways to apologize, probably could use that recently why couples hate to talk about money no matter the topic mike asks the questions you'd want to ask getting straight to the good stuff and the conversations are always engaging always insightful guaranteed to leave you a little smarter than before they've got thousands of five-star reviews but do you even need that i'm recommending it and you don't need other people's opinion right at this point i would hope anyway give it a listen just search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening to something you should know