Introduction
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: What is going on my friends? Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, AKA Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show considering the economy and the FDN course.
I know I said we’d be back with another interview this time, but I decided to do another solo episode first. And this is not continuing our series on the different labs that we have at FDN and what we do with those labs. This is something a little different.
I wanted to talk about the economy, becoming an FDN, is this a good idea for you right now with everything that’s going on? These are important questions, they’re things that are coming up more and more, and I want to have a real conversation about them. Now with this said, this is partly inspired by June of 2022, which was a record month in terms of new enrollments for the FDN course.
The FDN course has been out for 14 years (the philosophy has been over 20, but the course has been 14 years.) Every single year they’ve seen growth consistently, never one year where it dipped down. Then in June 2022, with all the things going on in the world, all the threats of economic crashes and all this stuff, we sit here and are lucky enough and blessed enough to have a record month for new people enrolling in the course. How can that be? Well, I think there’s many reasons for this and I’ll break this down.
What FDN Teaches
But first and foremost, I just want to say wholeheartedly and honestly, I believe that this is a perfectly fine, if not better time than ever to become an FDN or even start a practice as an FDN. I say that as someone who, I’ve only mentioned this a few times on this show, who recently started a business in March of this year (2022). And worse yet, an in-person business, something that people have to actually physically go to. It’s a light therapy studio that also offers functional medicine things. That’s a pretty big risk.
So, I’m saying this as someone who actually believes this through actions, not just believes this and says, oh, well, you should do it, but secretly I wouldn’t really do it if it was me. No, I actually did do it. And I think FDN’s online way of practicing (cause that’s typically what most FDNs choose to do and certainly what we help you with in the business side of things once you graduate, if you choose to you take us up on those resources), is actually a good option. I believe that.
Here’s why, what does FDN do? What do we serve? What do we teach you? And to sound simple, but actually hear me out on this, we are teaching you how to analyze functional lab tests through a unique philosophy and a unique lens so that you are not treating or diagnosing anything (we’re not doing that at all). We are looking for healing opportunities in the clients, in people who have probably been sick for a while who have most certainly been to other practitioners.
A Strong Mindset Development Routine No Matter the Economy
More than likely they have been told by Western medicine that everything is fine or that they’ve done as much as they can and are walking around with some type of diagnosis, usually one or more. Possibly are on one or more meds and some over the counter stuff. That’s who FDNs are typically serving.
So, those people are sick, right? They have chronic disease. Is there any shortage of those people? And do those people have money to spend on this stuff? That’s the main question. That’s really what matters in terms of the economy stuff.
So, I like to take personal responsibility for all things in my life. I’m someone, I don’t care how bad the economy gets. I’m almost delusional with it and there’s pros and cons to that, I admit it. But I think that there’s a personal development side to this. I think we need to get our mindsets right.
If you get your mindset solid enough and you know how to keep reigniting your fire, Zig Zigler, imperfect human (he said some things that I don’t agree with, but he was a great motivational speaker), said, motivation is like showering. It goes away and that’s why we recommend it daily. You kind of have to keep doing it.
If you’re someone that has a strong mindset development routine, I think you’ll be fine in even the worst of economies. Someone is always winning. Someone is always helping other people. Someone is always eating, making money, doing well, and thriving even the worst of times. You saw this throughout COVID. I’m not saying there wasn’t some tragic things that happened and not saying some people weren’t affected.
A Mindset Thing That Has Nothing to do With the Economy
There was a month in COVID, I had the worst month of my adult life. I had literally almost zero income coming in. I think it was about $1,200. It was really bad, man. That was really scary. That was one of the first months of the pandemic. Everything I did was self-employed. I wasn’t working for FDN in any capacity at that point.
My self-employed stuff, primarily revolved around work in schools. So, trust me when I say, I fully understand what it is like to be hit by this world currently and things that are going on. Now, in the same two years (and remember, this is someone that’s about to say what I’m about to say while also admitting I had one of the worst ones of my life in the pandemic), I’m having consistently the best ones of my life and am making the most money I’ve ever made. This is a mindset thing though, that has nothing to do with the economy.
The economy’s actually gotten worse over this time. I know how to get myself in the right state daily when I need to. It doesn’t mean I’m perfect every single day. I have lazy days all the time (days that I could have contributed more, I guess is what I mean by lazy.) But I know how to get back to there so that I can fix problems and thrive even in bad situations. That’s the number one thing.
But one of the easier ways, if you don’t have a mindset routine, if you think that’s all woo woo or cheesy, that’s fine. Then let’s use logic.
There’s No Shortage of American Clients to Work With
People have to spend money to work with an FDN and they have to have a health issue. So, if there’s a shortage of those people that have the money and a health issue, cause they do need both, then yes, you are right. FDN would be not a great thing to be pursuing at this time. But is that the world that we’re living in? Is that the reality? I don’t think so.
We have FDNs in 50 countries around the world. Keep in mind, since you work online, that’s definitely the most common route (again, you don’t have to do that, but that is the most common route), this means that with the stats I’m about to list off, you can be working with people from America.
I’m sure there’s many other countries where these stats would be very relevant and probably even more favorable to you as an FDN. Maybe there’s some that’d be less favorable. That’s fine. I’m just saying that the Americans alone that I’m about to mention in these stats, are more than enough for FDN to quadruple and then quadruple again, and there would still be no shortage of people for you to work with.
Check this out, about 30.7% of households earned over $100,000 in 2020 in America. In 2019, around 15.5% of Americans earned between $100,000 – $149,000 (that’s single individuals, by the way). About 8.3% of the population earned between $150,000 – $200,000. And about 10.3% of the population earned over $200,000.
National Health Stats of Americans
Just so you know, a top one percenter in America, most people think that it’s way higher than it actually is. I’m not saying these numbers aren’t impressive, but they think it’s higher than it actually is. They think, oh my gosh, that must be a million or 5 million or 10 million.
Top one percent is 417,000, roughly. That’s a lot of money per year, I’m not doubting that at all. But it’s not as much as you’d think. There’s a lot of people making good, solid money, way more than is necessary to pay for you as an FDN in your services.
So, then the question becomes, well, are there enough sick people? I would hope that this is obvious to you if you’re listening to a podcast like this, otherwise, you really need to start paying attention. I’ll list off some stats to boost your morale. Not that this is gonna boost your morale in the sense of where we’re going as a society, but it might boost your morale in terms of your ability to thrive as an FDN or functional health coach.
Approximately 39.5% of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lifetime. This is based on 2015 to 2017 data. Estimates show that nearly one in five Americans has a mental illness, which mood disorders are included in that. That’s around 20.9 million Americans, adults aged 18 and older, have a mood disorder. According to the National Institute of Health, up to 23.5 million Americans, more than 7% of the population, suffer from an autoimmune disease and the prevalence is rising.
Autoimmunity Prevalence is Rising
This is rising for two reasons total. One is because it’s literally rising. More and more people are exhibiting autoimmune symptoms because that is (maybe even more so than cancer, I could be wrong, but maybe even more so than cancer), very closely related to what we’re doing in today’s world.
I’m not saying that a lot of that cancer probably isn’t avoidable with lifestyle stuff, but I think it kind of comes from a couple core reasons. Where autoimmunity can be the toxins. It can be the food; it can be the artificial light. There’s just so many aspects of our modern world that directly lead to autoimmunity. And worse yet, it’s 7% of the population. Seven percent that they know of.
If you’ve ever dealt with an autoimmune disease, you know firsthand how long it takes to get a proper diagnosis and how many mystery symptoms you dealt with before you got that diagnosis. My mom, it took seven years for her to get a diagnosis of Grave’s disease.
Why don’t you look up how long it takes people to get diagnosed with autoimmune diseases on average. It’s a lot more than 7% of the population. And 7% is a lot of people because autoimmune patients are some of our main clients in the world of FDN. Why? Because the medical system was not made for them.
Even cancer, in many cases, is considered an acute. Emergency surgery might be required. Chemotherapy will be started immediately in many cases. They will get taken into the Western world rapidly. Autoimmune disease, Western medicine doesn’t have a lot of answers for. There’s pills and then there’s the removal of organs. It’s about as good as you’re gonna get.
Obesity Prevalence is Rising
Obviously, that’s not going to work so well for many people. It didn’t work for me. It didn’t work for my mom, even though they did all those things. Now she’s stuck without a thyroid on a lifelong medication. She still felt like crap afterwards. She still needed FDN even after doing everything that the Western medicine system offered her. There’s no shortage of people that need this stuff in terms of autoimmune.
But is there anything else? There certainly is. The U.S. obesity prevalence was 41, (we’re not talking overweight), obesity prevalence was 41.9% in 2017 through March of 2020. Do you think that went up throughout the pandemic? Because at one point, I thought, this is great. So many people are going to take their health seriously, and all these transformations are going to happen.
I was even subject to regressions in my health habits. It turns out that when you’re worried about a global catastrophe, it’s a little easier to make excuses with our health things. I’m perfectly subject to that and guilty of that myself. It turns out that it didn’t work out so well for many people.
Yes, there’s a few cool stories and we watch them on Instagram reels or Facebook or whatever. We see people making these wonderful transformations. They are great, I look up to them. I’ll continue to watch their videos. That’s not most of us. I’m gonna guess it’s a lot higher, or at least notably higher than 41.9% now, as if 41.9% wasn’t enough.
Type II Diabetes Prevalence is Rising
In 2015, around 9.4% of the population in the United States had diagnosed Type II diabetes, including 30.2 million adults aged 18 years and older. Wow! Nearly a quarter of those with the condition do not know they have it. So, in fairness, this study might be accounting for those that don’t actually know that they have it. Let’s just say it was 9.4% even with those that don’t know they have it. Still, a lot of people.
Type II diabetes is a condition that people do not need to deal with. That is a lifestyle disease that is well documented, even in Western medicine, that is reversible. It can be healed. I’m not talking about Type I. They would probably be some good people to go help.
[00:11:53] Detective Ev: Among U.S. adults aged 18 and older, crude estimates for 2017 through 2020 were that 38% of all U.S. adults had prediabetes. This was based on their fasting glucose or A1C levels.
With the absolute most respect that I could possibly give, when someone tells me that the economy is the excuse for not starting FDN or any other functional program out there (forget FDN for a second, even though I love them), that is an excuse that does not make sense. It doesn’t stand up against the data. It’s not logical. There are more people out there suffering than ever before.
And if you’re listening to this, I would guess it’s not just because you’re bored and wanted to click on a functional health podcast today. I’m guessing it’s because you’ve dealt with one or more of the conditions that I just listed and probably other health issues out there. So, you know firsthand how hyper focused your life becomes when you’re dealing with health issues.
Life Becomes Hyper Focused Around Health Issues
I know some people ignore certain things like obesity, a little easier and diabetes. I’m not saying it doesn’t weigh down on them in the back of their head. (And that was not a lame pun by the way.) But you know, it doesn’t weigh down on them in the back of their head, but it’s something that is normalized.
People confuse it because it’s very common. They think it’s normal. I think it might be easier to go through your daily routine with this. If you have a legitimate autoimmune disease or cancer, I promise you, you’re not worried about the latest TV episode. You’re probably not thinking about your career as much. It might even be pretty hard to think about your family outside of the fact of like, what am I going to do for my family now that I’m so sick.
Your life becomes completely focused and wrapped around the health issue. People will do whatever it takes and pay whatever amount of money they need to pay so long as they know that the person in front of them can help them. I know this because I have been through this myself.
When I was 18 years old, I started working a random sales job. Actually, I guess I had turned 19 at that point. I just turned 19, I’m starting to work a sales job. It was one of the first legitimate, real jobs I ever had outside of the ones that I had from my family members.
Sick and Unable to Keep Up with Job Demand
I started working at 12, but again, that was all family member stuff. My family had two small businesses. So, I would go and help them, absolutely hated it. Not the working with my family, that was actually, very fun and rewarding. But the work that was being done was not so much fun.
So, I got into sales, I was doing car sales stuff. This was actually to get out of college. It’s a whole long story, but I know some people do not think so favorably about my fellow car salesman and women. I just got to specify I did this because I was interested in just getting out of college. I didn’t want to go, I knew it wasn’t for me.
My parents wanted me to prove that I could make money outside of college. So, I looked up what can make good money? I read that it was sales. I actually was looking for real estate jobs and then a car sales job came up. Low and behold, I got hired a couple weeks later to get out of college.
That’s how I got into car sales. My point is, I got into that. I didn’t like the job, that’s one thing. But I couldn’t even maintain it anyway. Car sales is already pretty demanding with the amount of hours that it has, but I was sick. I couldn’t keep up with the demands that it needed.
Mindset and Willingness to do Anything to Heal
That’s a job that, thankfully, once you get home, you get to shut off. You’re not doing anything for car sales once you get home. Like it is a job that it’s truly done when you leave the office, but I couldn’t handle those hours there. I couldn’t stay consistent with that. Other things were happening in my life. I never really had a real job for a few years later. That’s when I had my first consistent thing.
My point is, what do you think my mindset was at that time? Do you think I was thinking about anything else other than my health issues and how to feel better? No, that’s exactly what I was thinking about all the time. I wanted to know what did I need to do to get better? And I was willing to spend any of the little money that I did have to get better. I was willing to borrow from family members or ask family members for help. Thankfully, my parents were very supportive.
I’ve shared this story a million times on this podcast in various episodes. I went out at 21 years old to California with my best friend, Jake with $1,200 total between both of us, with no plan to learn from more natural oriented people. That was my idea at the time. I figured that there was more natural oriented people in California. We drove from Pennsylvania. We spent four or five months out there working delivery jobs and stuff, which we did not have lined up before we left, by the way.
The Economy is Not a Legit Excuse
What basically happened is we got into the delivery job because the money started going down and down and down. Turns out $1,200 goes pretty quickly in most places, let alone in San Diego, California. I can only imagine what this is now, too. This was five and a half years ago. But today, I’m sure that probably goes out every two days. Still, my main focus in life was how do I get healthy? And I will spend any amount of money that I need to. I’ll figure out how to get it, to get well.
I know this is long-winded, but I’m trying to paint the picture in your head and really solidify this. If you don’t want to take an FDN course or another health coaching program or another functional coaching program, that’s fine. But if you’re using the excuse that it’s the economy that is preventing you from doing this because no one’s going to want to buy this, that is objectively not true.
There are plenty of people. Our coaches are literally having the best months of their lives right now. That’s what’s generally happening. Some people have started to hire FDNs that were never hiring FDNs before, cause they need extra help in their practice. They’re working under them.
People have wait-list practices where you can’t even work with them for a couple of months. There are certain FDNs out there (this is not what we charge standard, this is people that have been doing this for over 10 years), charging $10,000 for a single client to work with them now, because that’s the service that they can provide to them.
The Economy Isn’t Hindering Many People’s Ability to Afford Good Health Programs
There’s no shortage of this guys. There’s no competition, unfortunately. I wish there was because this is one of those things where the best thing that could ever happen is you legitimately can’t do this job because it’s so oversaturated. We are nowhere near that day. I don’t even know if that’s going to be seen in my lifetime to be honest.
We need a lot of people on the front end, helping out with this. That could be you. If you don’t want to do it, that’s fine. But please don’t let the economy be an excuse. There are plenty of people out there that will do this, that have more than enough money to do it. There are tens of millions of people in America right now that are making over $200,000 a year.
Even if you were charging somehow $10,000 for a client, cause you’ve been doing it for 10 years, do you really think they’re worried about that if it’s for a health program, such as the one that we offer? I don’t think so. I don’t think that matters. I don’t think that’s a big deal. I think you’re going to be just fine.
Obviously, this podcast today is a little off the cuff. I don’t want to seem ranty or preachy, that is not my intention whatsoever. But I get upset because I know that we need as many people out there doing this and our mindsets are usually the reason that people are not getting out here and doing the work.
The program’s as good as it can be. It’ll continue to get better, but it’s as good as it could possibly be right now. It is working for thousands of graduates all around the world.
There’s Complete Support in the FDN Community
You wouldn’t even believe some of the stories. I can’t even share half of them because unless you’re in the community and you actually know these people, you wouldn’t even believe that they’re able to do some of the things that they would do. You’d think I’m just overhyping the course.
So, it’s there. We’re here to help. We have a whole community while you are training. You’re immediately, once you sign up for this course, immediately a part of a community. You join the Facebook trainee group; you’re now connected with the founder of FDN. You’re connected with the mentors. You’re connected with other people going through this, just like you.
Then once you graduate, you can choose to join AFDNP, which is our Association of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioners. And once again, you are in the community, only now with people who are taking this a hundred percent seriously, actually wanting to go do this as work, and are doing this in the real world, living it, learning the business stuff, doing the things that they have to do.
You are supported 100% of the way every single week in FDN. Whether you are a graduate or a trainee, you have the opportunity to get on live calls with other people who are doing the work and interact with them and interact with the founder of FDN. That is true for both trainees and graduates. It’s a great way to keep your spirits high, to get your mindset in the right place.
Strength Sharing Benefits of the FDN Community
Conferences are also great for this. Come visit us at some of them. We’re going to be doing a lot in the next few months here. We’re at KetoCon. I’ll get a full list for you guys soon. But if you are listening to this as we released right before KetoCon, we will be there.
Reed will be talking; Reed’s wife will be there. I’ll be there. Joe Pate will be there. Elizabeth Gaines will be there. She is one of the fan favorite mentors who helps the trainees out so much. She’s a wonderful person. We’re here. Okay. And one of the ways that we stay strong is the community.
I know how much these people help me. They helped me so much during the pandemic and I don’t even think some of them realized it. But I’m just very aware, like most people, I think, of the things going on in the world and it took its toll on me. It’s not like it was perfect, but to be able to come to a place every single day, where I saw people kicking butt in their businesses, still maintaining their health, or getting healthier than ever before, I needed that, man.
The point of a good community is that we all take turns being strong. Not everyone’s going to be strong all the time. So, you get to steal in a very positive way some of the other’s strengths when you’re low, and you get to give that strength when you’re high. It’s an amazing, amazing thing.
Was this always true of FDN? No, it wasn’t a community at one point. But the good news is, it is now, and it’s only growing and it’s growing rapidly.
Special Things Happen When You Take That Leap Whatever the Economy
Again, last month, June 2022, beautiful thing happened, it was the month we’ve had the most people ever joining the course in one month. Most amount of people ever, despite the economy, despite all the things going on. So, if you have an excuse for why you can’t do it, maybe it’s a legitimate one. Maybe it’s not the time for you. But please don’t make it the economy thing.
We have your back, the numbers do not back up what that’s saying, and this system is as good as the best when it comes to getting people well. If we are having trouble, which we’re not, then there are bigger issues in the world than we can even imagine. So, we’re all going down together no matter what you were doing which probably is not a great thing financially, anyway. I think this is a solid place to be.
I’m going to stop preaching. I’m going to stop seeming ranty. I don’t want to do that. I just needed to put this out today because I hope the people that are on the fence about this or are feeling called to do this in today’s world, are willing to take the leap.
There’s something, I’ve noticed it in my life at least. There’s something really cool and special that happens when we have the guts to take the leap to do something that we know we should do. It’s not like it’s going to be a perfectly bumpless road while we’re figuring it out. But there’s something that happens where it seems like you’re taking care of, and it seems like even on those bad days where there is maybe a little bump in that road, it’s still better than your best day somewhere else, if that makes sense.
Encourage Yourself in the Hard Times Whatever the Economy
Your worst day on your path is still better than your best day somewhere else. I know some people might not get that, but for those that do, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. I know that’s true for me.
I will be back with another interview. Got a really cool one coming up for you guys. I’m excited to bring that out. With that said, regardless of what you decide to do after today, I hope you are well, I hope you stay tough during these times. If not the FDN community, make sure you are around people who can support you and help you out.
It is not untrue to say that it’s going to be tougher to earn money and be financially stable in the upcoming world. I think there’s going to be a pretty big hiccup for a little bit. But just remember, someone out there is still winning. Someone out there is still growing. Someone out there is still thriving during this time and actually using it as an opportunity.
Tens of millions of Americans, there is no way all of them are smarter than you and more knowledgeable and more educated than you. There is no way, not all of them. And they’re going to make over $200,000 this year. They’re going to make more than $200,000 this year, that’s something to think about.
I’m not saying that to degrade anyone. I’m saying that as someone who says that to himself when I have my pity potty days or my negative Nancy days, I remind myself that there are tens of millions of people out there doing crazy cool things. There are 3 to 4 million Americans, at least, that are making over $400,000 a year. That’s crazy.
Conclusion
We can figure this out, man. There’s no way they’re all smarter and more educated than all of us. Find something you love, stick with it, keep pushing. I think those types of heights are achievable for all of us.
With that said, if you like the information that we share and if you like my little rants and preachy things (even though it wasn’t supposed to be that), please consider leaving us a five-star review on Apple and or Spotify. If you would be so kind as to do that, I would love you even more than we already do.
Remember, you can try the FDN course completely for free by going to fdntraining.com/tryfdn.
Please be safe, please be well. You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com. We’ll talk to you guys again soon. Thanks.
