Jason Earle is a former Wall Street stockbroker and the Founder and CEO of GOT MOLD?. We discuss his childhood illness, chasing material happiness, enlightenment in Nepal, mold myths and mitigation, addiction and so much more.
GOT MOLD? website:
Mon, Oct 24, 2022 10:41AM • 1:49:01
Summary from the host:
Jason Earle is a man on a mission. An adoring father, incurable entrepreneur and indoor air quality crusader, he was the Founder & CEO of 1-800-GOT-MOLD? and is the creator of the GOT MOLD?® Test Kit. Allergic to nearly everything in his environment as a child, Jason’s asthma was so severe that he was initially diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.
KEYWORDS
mold, problem, building, home, find, called, day, house, started, thought, people, inspection, moldy, years, air purifiers, realize, friends, issues, wall street, musty odor
00:00
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This episode is sponsored by 511, a company that I’ve used for well over a decade and continue to use to this day. And 511 is offering you guys the audience of the behind the shield podcast a discount on every purchase you make with them. Before we get to that code, I want to highlight a couple of products that again, I personally use today. One of the most impressive products they just released is their rush backpack 2.0. Now for many of you, whether you’re going to the fire station, the police station, whether you’re traveling with your family, whether you’re taking training courses, we have to fly we have to drive you have to take trains, and I have to say I own multiple backpacks, many of five elevens different ones. But as far as a day pack, this one was the most impressive. There are so many different compartments, the way it sits on your back is incredibly comfortable. If you are a concealed carry person, there’s also a spot for a weapon. 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And that tag vest is trusted by law enforcement all around the country. So I mentioned they were going to offer you a discount code. So if you go to 511 tactical.com and enter the code shield 15 Shi e LD one five, you will get 15% off not just that one purchase, but every time you visit our store. And if you want to learn more about 511 Their mission their products, then listen to episode 338 of the behind the shield podcast with the CEO and founder Francisco mirallas. Welcome to Episode 603 of buying the shield podcast. As always, my name is James Geering. And this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show, Jason Earle. Now Jason is an expert in the world of mold and as a founder of one 800 Got mold. And this is a topic I haven’t yet discussed on this podcast but actually is very pertinent. I certainly have an issue with mold. In my previous home. I’ve worked in multiple fire stations that definitely were riddled with the stuff. And also after a fire we expose homeowners homes to moisture therefore the potential of mold. So we discuss a host of topics around this subject but as happened so many times with these guests. Jason also has a very, very powerful mental health story and overcoming addiction. So that becomes the other side of this incredible conversation. Before we get to this episode, as I say, every week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast making it easier for others to find. And this is a free library for you planet Earth. So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women’s stories so I can get them to every single person who needs to hear them. So with that being said, I introduce to you, Jason Earle enjoy. Jason, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time to come on the behind the shield podcast today.
06:02
Thank you for having me very much.
06:04
So where on planet earth are we finding you this glorious afternoon.
06:07
I’m in sunny, balmy Minnesota, sunny today, but not balmy, that’s for sure. I just relocated from New York City about a year ago. So I’m still getting adjusted to this, this climate and it takes some adjusting. That’s for sure.
06:21
So I would love to start at the very beginning. And you obviously have a very powerful early childhood when it comes to what you ended up doing as a profession, you know, the, some of the elements of the family dynamics. So let’s start at the very beginning. Tell me where you were born. And tell me a little bit about your family dynamic what your parents did and how many siblings?
06:41
Sure I I was born in central New Jersey, almost exactly equidistant between New York City in Philadelphia, in a little town called West Windsor. Actually, we’re not in even a little even smaller town called Edinburg and little rural area surrounded by farms, we had a little hobby farm sort of a nonworking place where we just rescued animals. My mom, my mom had a mic, my auntie used to say that there was a sign over our house that no one else could see, or that we couldn’t see what everyone else could see, which is, you know, the Statue of Liberty, there’s some language that’s bringing your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. So there were people would just show up at our house with animals and you know, occasionally with humans that needed help, and my mom was just that sort of open hearted nurse. And so so when I was about four years old, I had suddenly developed a bunch of respiratory issues. And I was brought to the to the to the pediatrician who said that they should actually bring me to the hospital, I’d lost 30% of my body weight in a three week period. And, and I was having all sorts of difficulties. And so they brought me to Children’s Hospital Philadelphia, which is a renowned respiratory clinic. And, and based upon the symptoms that I presented with and family history, they suspected that I had cystic fibrosis, in fact, they diagnosed me with cystic fibrosis on the spot. And so that was clearly a devastating blow. My parents had, you know, I was an only child and my dad had lost four of his cousins to cystic fibrosis before the age of 14. So this hit really close to home for him and doesn’t get much closer. And so six weeks later, they had a second opinion and fortunately, and evidenced by the fact that I sit here in front of you at 46 years old, I do not did not have cystic fibrosis actually what I had was asthma compounded by pneumonia. And when they tested me for allergies, which was one of my formative memories, they put me in like a pep booths kind of a straitjacket for kids, toddlers and drew grin on my back and then expose you to all the allergens and my dad said I looked at the ladybug, just a big swollen red back with with dots all over it and I tested positive for every single thing that they tested me for soy, grass, wheat, corn, eggs, dogs, cats, cotton clothes, sheets, you know soybeans, and I was grew up on that little farm you know, surrounded by all those things in abundance. And so needless to say it was itchy. It was mostly I had a lot of a lot of dermal sensitivities, I was constantly always itchy. And you know the family dynamic was was was a challenging one. I look back at my childhood very fondly, quite frankly. There might be a little bit of delusion there. I was basically raised by wolves that my parents were rarely around. So I was basically left with you know, I was a latchkey kid, I came home and did whatever I wanted for the most part. And I spent a lot of time outside a lot of time. And I don’t know if that was intuitively driven. Because the indoor environment was so challenging. My parents also had my I grew up with a long heritage of alcoholism. I mean, it runs deep. And my parents, you know, grabbed that and ran with it too. So so there’s a whole lot of that as well and there was you know, Mental health issues driven, I think, in large part by alcohol, but also that were somewhat late. And I believe, in retrospect, you know, my parents didn’t because they weren’t around. And because we had too many animals, the dogs and cats had their way in the house, they’ll use it as a litter pan, it began to the basement and then over time, as the dynamic in the family got worse, we start to see that it would, they were starting to use the living room and the dining room as a litter pan, and then it used to get cleaned up, and then it wasn’t getting cleaned up. And then next thing, you know, the whole house was a litter pan, I couldn’t have friends over. And it was that that’s when things had gotten. That’s when childhood was over
10:41
for me. And what I used was
10:46
10 and a half to 11/5 grade. And that’s also when they told me that they were getting a divorce, which I remember Pooh poohing my friends who were all upset that the parents were getting a divorce. And then it took me years to look back and realize how truly devastating that is to a kid. Even if your parents are fighting, that’s what you’re used to. And the idea that they would be going somewhere else. It’s just really, it hits the core. And so my mom had already made an attempt on her life at that point. And then shortly thereafter, another time, my dad flew the coop to off with his, his intern from the newspaper, little local newspaper that he owned. And they went off and had another baby. And my mom and I were kind of fight at each other’s throats until I was around 14. And then she kicked me out, she kicked me out quite a bit. I was I was a difficult teenager. But then the last time she kicked me out. I didn’t want to move back in. Because it’d been too many back and forth. And I had a little brother now that I wanted to get to know. And we had a big fight actually in front of my grandmother’s house, her mother’s house, lived right across from high school. So I would go there to work with my uncle after school. My uncle my I said, my, my mother’s brother. And one day, she came over to try to convince me to move back in and and we got into some pretty huge words. And, you know, she said, Well, fuck you, then I bless and I never want to see you again. And I so fuck you too. And she gets in the car and drove home and killed herself.
12:34
And so I it took a couple of days before I learned of it because she didn’t show up to work the next day, and someone else showed up to because they she’d never miss a day at work. She was just super focused and diligent, professional, as the administrator of the hospital, she were issuer. And so so they came into school and to let me know my dad, actually, they pulled me out of class and I walked into the classroom, I walked into the principal’s office, I figured, oh boy, am I in trouble, they must have found weed in my locker or something, you know, like I must be real trouble. And walk in there, my dad and my psychologist. So anyway, that was that was that was it that was a very challenging time. Because, you know, there was there was everything changed at that point. But it was within a few weeks of that. After the denial all settled in that I realized that. First of all, it wasn’t my deal. That was her deal. And that she had done what she what it was she attempted to do is to come over and cut ties with me. It was she it was already it was a third time she was she was she was committed to this and I was the last thing holding her here. And, and I and I was also experimenting with psychedelics at the time. So quite frankly, I would say I was using them. And and something settled in pretty quickly around that. And I and I credit the psychedelics, it took me years decades actually to look back at it and say, why did that make sense so quickly for me. But I reordered things in my mind about about her loss, and realized, first of all, I developed a strong relationship with the universe. And I really, really, truly believed that my relationship with her is better now than it ever was. And even it was healed very quickly, because I saw that she had lost perspective. And what it did was it took me and reordered my perspective. And from the within a couple of weeks of her death, I had developed a sense of optimism and gratitude that has only gotten stronger and deeper, as I’ve gotten older, because her failure has never lost has never as never lost my view. My mind’s view has never left my heart. And so So in many ways her death was the greatest gift that she could have ever given me. In fact, the way she died in fact, it made it so poignant that that that I just thank her every day. Yeah.
14:56
Well firstly, thank you for sharing that. I mean, it’s you know, it’s Amazing now, as I progress through the years of doing this podcast, like, the courage that people have, when they tell, you know, these kinds of stories, because there is an element of courage in the world that we live in, it’s not, you know, an easy conversation. But so many people have had these discussions, and what’s really interesting about yours, firstly, I mean, the heartbreaking element that you lose a mother or potentially both parents, you know, when one goes and has another family, and then the other one takes her own life. But I have had people on here that have had so much success with psychedelics, but we’re talking after the fire service after becoming a you know, after leaving the Navy SEALs or, and so to hear that, accidentally, be therapeutic. So soon, in a young man, I mean, that, again, in a way is a testament for the power of, sadly, something that’s illegal at the moment in our country, which needs to change but, but again, such a different lens of the same therapeutic than I’ve heard from all these people that did it after all that trauma.
16:03
I cannot emphasize enough how how much I think that that reset things for me. And because it was, you know, accidental, so to speak. I’ve wondered, in fact, many people have asked me, you know, how’d you get over that, and it took me a long time to really connect the dots. And I thought I was just maybe lucky, or I honestly at some point, but man, I must be missing something here, you know, seriously, like, why am I not more upset about why am I not so distraught. And, and really, it comes from a knowing that you get from those experiences that you can’t get from listening, you can’t, that it’s not knowledge, it’s wisdom. And knowledge can be taught, but wisdom can can only be experienced and absorbed. So that’s, I think what those substances do is they bring you to a place and give you an experience that can’t be unlearned, give you a glimpse into something that’s so powerful, and then and then leave, and then leaves quietly, and allows you to hold that shape, that new shape that your mind is, is in and once you’re in, in that the shape never really never goes back to the old way. And, and that’s the gift. And sometimes it’s so subtle, you don’t feel different, but boy, you’re very different. You know, like you said, a different lens. And it’s such that you can’t see that lens, right, just like you can’t look at your own eye. But you see through it, and it’s a clearly a different perspective. And so. So that was that was 14. And then a year later, I got diagnosed with Lyme disease. And that was, that was a challenge, because I still don’t know if I actually had Lyme disease. But I got diagnosed with it, I got treated for it. So I got a huge amount of antibiotics, which caused a whole ripple effect of gut issues, microbiome issues and gut health stuff. But it also caused me to miss a lot of school. And I was already kind of a recalcitrant teenager. So I didn’t like to go to school, I showed up pretty much to hang out with the girls and to, you know, just see my friends. And so I kind of frequented school, if you would, but infrequently. And, but because I missed some of school and they kind of didn’t want me there. And I didn’t want they they essentially forced me to drop out of high school in my 11th 11th grade. So I started working full time at the gas station, where I met a guy who came in with a flat tire. And it’s a longer story, maybe for another podcast, but in essence, he came and recruited me, because I fixed his tire. And he was late for a meeting. And it was you know, it was just one of those fortuitous things and he gave me a huge tip. And I asked him when I saw him again later, I asked him if I could do him a favor if I didn’t that make sense. And he gave me a $50 tip for a $5 repair. You know, so I saw him a couple weeks later. And I said, Hey, mister, you know, I don’t know if you realize he gave me such a big tip. He gave me a $50 bill for $5 repair. And he says Why didn’t have 100? So I said, Well, I you know, I feel like I don’t know, I felt it felt awkward. And I said, Well, you know, what do you do for a living? So work on Wall Street? And I said, How about get me a job. And he said, Hey, you only get language ask for so call me by name tomorrow. Don’t ever bother calling me at all. So I wrote his number down on my hand. And he started laughing because he he pulled up his sleeve and he had stock quotes written all over his forearm. And he was able to fit right in here, kid. So anyway, long story short, I called at 9am. And he asked me and I and he asked me where I was going today. And I said to work and he said where and I said the gas station. And he said wrong answer. And I said can we do that again? And he said, sure. What are you doing today? Is it gonna work? He said where? And I said What’s your address? So I plan on my finest pair of penny loafers. My dad’s actually stuffed some tissues in the toes. I just put on my finest pair of jeans for my wall street interview. And I flip flop my way up to Wall Street, got to live by it by one of the train stations outside of New York. And so I went up there and and he took me under his wing. And you know, I was 16 years old. I had no business being in that business. But he he saw me as a blank canvas as a punk of clay. I think and Uh, and so he took me under his wing, he was the managing director of what became a notorious penny stocks scam firm, actually, and I didn’t realize what quite quite what was going on there until later, I left without any unscathed. And I and I and I went on to, to work, you know, with reputable firms and had a really nice credit for nine years. In fact, I own my own firm for two years at the end, when I was 25 years old. So I was the least likely person in all my school to end up on Wall Street, let me tell you that, certainly not you know, I unknowingly at the time, also, you know, at 17, I got my series seven license, which unknowingly made me the youngest licensed stockbroker in history, you know, the series seven. So that that made me that was, that was a shock to everyone, especially me, considering I failed Algebra One, you know, so I had to repeat algebra one. So all of this has been kind of a kind of a miracle upon miracle, because, you know, I would never have in a million years plotted out my person in that direction. But the next turn after I left Wall Street, that was that was that that was a whole different ball of wax. And that’s what brought me to here today.
21:04
We’re just going back to the childhood element. You talked about all the health problems that you had, you know, the the, the allergies, the Lyme disease, diagnosis, quote, unquote. Did you did you start seeing an improvement in your health as you progress from childhood into adulthood?
21:23
Oh, yeah, sorry, I left. That’s a very important aspect here. So when I was 12, that I moved out. And, well, I moved out a few times, but when I finally moved out for good, my respiratory illness, all but disappeared. And thank you for bringing me back to that. So I ended up all my wheezing went away. A lot of the all the dermal stuff, all the itchy skin, and most of my allergies, the outward manifestations of them went away. And and interestingly now, since I’ve been out of that environment now, I mean, it’s been like this for for 20 years. But I’m not I don’t test positive, as I’m not positive to any allergies at all, zero, none. So, absent that moldy environment, I I’m abundantly healthy, I don’t have any of any of the telltale signs or signs of someone who who had that kind of symptom profiles kit. And it was very clear in retrospect, that, you know, we had a damp basement and we had, you know, all of the all of the things that I look for now professionally, in, in our assessment business. And, and I also think, you know, when I look back at it now, and you think about what I’ve learned about mold and indoor air quality, and its impact on on human health, is that it’s a huge part of of, of illness in general is in inflammation based. And there’s also all sorts of chemistry going on with the musty odor, that there’s research that shows that exposure to the musty odor, can actually cause neurological issues, cognitive issues, depression and has been there’s there’s a big study out at Brown University 2007 Edwards, NASA who found a direct correlation between mold and dampness indoors and depression. He didn’t didn’t identify a causal component or whether it was the disempowered nature of someone who has a mold problem and is reporting it that doesn’t have the ability to it couldn’t tell what caused what. But later on Dr. John Bennett is a good friend of mine at Rutgers University tested the musty odor on fruit flies and found that they stopped producing dopamine, they stop reproducing, they start flying downwards instead of towards towards the light. And they develop a Parkinsonian like symptoms. So subsequent studies have shown neurological, additional neurological issues as well as damage to the mitochondria through exposure to the musty odor. So this thing that we used to think of as just an aesthetic nuisance, you know, your grandparents based on smells like musty, it’s just that musty basement is actually a health hazard, and also has the potential to cause emotional dysregulation. And so I often wonder now, a lot of my mom’s issues, or even my whole house, really, I mean, I was a depressed kid. circumstantially, sure, I could see her, but I was also I felt just the way that there was a heaviness. And I sometimes wonder if she didn’t just drink yourself to death, but she breathed herself to death.
24:23
Now, the reason why that’s so important, I think, is like I said, going back to that root cause and, you know, I truly believe that almost all deaths are preventable, you know, apart from the San Francisco earthquake or some of these things where you had no idea it was coming. And so when we look at mental health, from the psychology point of view, as I’ve, you know, been this perpetual student now, things like childhood trauma, you know, really, really come to mind in a multi generational trauma, organizational stress, sleep deprivation. I don’t know if your your mom as a nurse was working nights at all or, as you said, you know, had alcoholism and trauma generations prior. But another thing is okay, well what is, you know, nutrition? What are what are the elements that have pain, you know, back injury, and now mold. So, so you know, yeah, I’d love to you to expand a little bit more and especially, I heard you use the word mold rage in one of the interviews. So yeah, tell me tell me tell me the psychological profile that has been attached to some of these mold exposures.
25:25
So to explain mold and how it impacts people in terms of symptoms and psychological I think one of I think we have to realize that, you know, voc microbiol, VOCs, the musty odor, okay, that that scent is a potpourri of industrial solvents. Okay, so the most common voc or the most popular voc is alcohol. Right there, you know, anyone who that’s a voc, it turns into a gas at a specific temperature, liquid and another temperature, it’s volatile. That’s what makes it the volatile organic compound. And many of the compounds that are in the musty odor are, are, like I said, industrial solvents, alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, various different kinds of, of benzene, for example, is is commonly found coming from actively growing mold. These are carcinogens. They’re also I mean, if anyone’s ever spent enough time in a in a gas station, or even in an auto supply shop, you know, you can get a little little lightheaded. So you know, the chemistry is not it’s not, it’s not hard to see how that would just the, just the abundant Chemistry, Chemical. byproduct of it’s like a factory, really mold growth produces a factory of chemicals. And some of them are airborne, some of them are not, but none of them are good for your health molds, actually, its job is to break stuff down and turn it back into dirt. It’s doing its job. And if it’s doing that in your yard, but not so much in your living room. And when it’s doing that in your living room, and it’s producing these compounds. The first thing is that it’s giving you a message. So listen, if you smell it, take action on that if you smell something, do something I always say if you see something, smell something or feel something, do something, but also recognize that it’s actually releasing these chemicals. And in many cases, those chemicals are designed to get rid of other things that might be competitive. Right? So other molds, it’s killing other molds. It’s also trying to if it had its way, what did you eat your whole house? And you’re in the way, right? So anyway, a lot of the compounds that are coming off of these off of these off of active mold, trigger inflammation in the body. And inflammation. Actually, we have a psych psychiatric clinic, a very, very significant psychiatric clinic online that wants to prescribe our test kits for every single new patient, because what they’re finding is that with the exception of people who are seeking help due to relationship issues, there’s a degree of inflammation in almost every case that they see. So that means you know, whether it whether it be that they’ve got anger issues, or whether there might be some sort of other, you know, personality quirks that are causing, you know, outbursts or what have you. What they’re finding is that inflammation is is is commonplace in all of these. And of course, where do you get information? Well, so if food is a big one, obviously. And by the way, a lot of people have mycotoxins, which is the mold toxin, blame it on just air. A lot of the mycotoxins you get in actually come from food comes from processed food. You know, the sugars and grains are processed and stored in such a way that molds grow on them. And we, America actually has lower thresholds for that higher thresholds, right, we will accept more moldy food at our ports than any other country. Any other developed country, I should be clear, and so so the mycotoxins and the mold toxins can trigger all sorts of dysregulation in the in the in systems. In fact, I often think the mold is the great interrupter. It’s like if your immune systems the guy that’s juggling, I always think about the immune system as a juggler. Mold is like a guy across the room throwing baseballs at them. So something’s gonna give, you know, and so, so very common that people who have a mold issue especially if they’re if they’re if that musty odor is, is lingering, people who have sleep disturbances, it’s a very common side effect. So angry sleep too. And there’s a there they’re very disturbed dreams in many cases. Rate mold rage is a real thing. There’s there’s a, like I said, emotional dysregulation is extremely common. And just in general cognitive impairment brain fog, you know, this inability to make a decision. I know I need to do something I just don’t remember what I need to do kind of a thing. You know, I know I’ve anxiety. The really like Doom feeling that feeling that it that you know, something’s wrong, I just don’t know what it is. So everything must be wrong, you know, something, something’s coming my way. That’s the light at the end of the tunnel, no, it’s a train. And so that that those are all very, very common reports. And the problem with that is that most people don’t paint they don’t think about mold or to indoor air quality.
30:18
And one of the things that I tried to, to express to people is that you’ve got four basic human needs air, water, food, and shelter. And air is kind of the other side of the air and shelter are kind of, you know, two sides of the same coin. And, yet, we’re so focused on you know, our food, because we should be causes a lot of disease. And water, obviously, you need to drink that beer pretty regularly or you’re in trouble, but errand boy, you don’t think that much about it. But yet, if you don’t have it for a few minutes, you’re in big trouble. And it’s like that with most things, right? The things we take for granted the things that we’re most exposed to with people relationships, you know, whatever we that’s the law, familiarity, whatever you’re supposed to long enough, eventually you take it for granted. Air is the can you think of anything that you’re more exposed to? So you know, and so so you know, the thing about air the that many people don’t realize, is it that you’re not only is it your direct interface to the world, your direct interface, unfiltered interface, no, no, there’s nothing else this is this is the way you taste experience the world. You also do it an enormous number of times every day, if you to the average person breathes, breeze, 12 to 15 times a minute, if you do the math on is 20,000 times a day. So you do that more than almost anything else except for your heart beating. And, and, and so so. And you also have a lot of control over your indoor environment. Whereas you don’t have control over so many other things, certainly not the outdoor environment. And so this is what I encourage people to do is be aware of that. And recognize that that is such a powerful route of exposure for good things and bad things. And that if you recognize that and make investments, it’s a small investment, really, it’s more of an investment in awareness, small investments in some equipment, occasionally, maybe a service here or there. But getting your healthy indoor air is something that will pay dividends for the rest of your life, it’ll extend your life. Whereas if you don’t make that investment, that the penalties are also lethal, you will reduce your quality of life, it will reduce your family’s quality of life and you will reduce the length of your life, it’s that powerful is that, that binary, really, truly, in terms of its there’s an investment that you can make. And the the ROI is huge. And the failure to make that investment has huge penalties, it’s just that it’s it’s it’s like making a left turn or a right turn, it’s a T in the in the road, and most people just drive straight through, they just ignore that. But but that’s our mission here really is to help bring awareness to this subject.
32:45
Well, it reminds me of the last place I lived so when I moved to the States let me see we rented for a bit and then came back to Florida and got one of the houses that was thrown up in the you know, the housing boom before the big crash and oh eight and you know, seemingly brand new house beautiful, you know, this, this is this is a great place to bring my family and and raise them up. And as the years progressed, I did everything I stripped the floors, I stripped the walls, I mean, you name it, I you know, down the just the drywall and the concrete again, and I could not get rid of this smell this musty smell. And I went inside their handler, you know, and goes all kinds of gunk in there. And God knows what I was breathing doing that. But when I look back now my little boy had asthma most of his life. And ironically, since he’s moved out with CBD and some other things that we’ve done his his you know, he barely even touches an inhaler anymore. So now I look retro actively at that environment. Now I’m already sleep deprived, I’m already working 24 hour shifts, I’m going through a divorce. So that’s what I love about his conversations. None None of these, you know, people that represent any of these kind of lanes are saying, this is the only thing that causes suicide, or you know, whatever it is. But if you’re not taking into account that as one of the variables. In my case, for example, I was probably missing a huge, a huge contributing factor to the ill health that was happening in the four walls that I was living in before. And I ended up losing that home, I got divorce and it ended up going foreclosed. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. And we talked earlier about finding you know, the triumph and tragedy. That was definitely one of them. Because honestly, I would have bought those that thing had I known now what I know about, about all that stuff, and so even, you know, a seemingly brand new home like that, you know, can can hide. I mean, I’m assuming that there was probably weather damage. It was in Florida, it probably got leaked somewhere. And, you know, despite all the things that I did to try and mitigate, you know, what I thought would be the underlying issues. You know, it was the as you’ve heard you talk about the mold I couldn’t see that was probably going going on.
35:01
Yes, and by the way, there is no people like to think that a new house is going to be less prone to mold or old houses more prone to mold is these are myths. New House new hazards are actually made of multitude. sheetrock is the is like caviar for mold or lobster. It’s just like it’s a, it’s a delicacy, and it’s abundant. And so mold loves to eat new buildings, we build buildings out of paper mache. Essentially, my mentor says, we build self composting buildings just add water, you know, and he’s and he’s right. So there’s, there’s, you know, by the way, also doesn’t know anything about geography really, because I’m in Minnesota, you think I’ll just call it cold, cold makes condensation. So you get all sorts of weird stuff in the walls here, down there, you have the opposite effect for you air conditioning inside, keep it so called the inside and hot, hot, moist outside you condensation in the walls down there. So it doesn’t really matter where you are. But we live in buildings that have these very these environments, that mold really likes a lot, all it’s missing is the right amount of moisture. And so if there’s a moisture problem, even for a short while, you know, it starts to grow. If you have moisture conditions, like a defect, for example, like you may have had in your Florida House, it can be systemic, and you’ll never really truly know where the source of it is. Because it’s a it’s, it’s hiding in all sorts of interstitial wall cavities where you can smell it, but you can’t see it. And even oftentimes, testing results won’t show up positive, oftentimes, spore counts will be normal, because the mold in the walls, and that’s the most insidious type, actually the most insidious, that became the smell. And that that can happen too, sometimes, because of airflow is the way of building. So some sometimes, you know, you may not see something or smell something, you may just feel something. And in those cases, that’s where, you know, you have to get into, you know, maybe sometimes bring in a professional, but it is it is profoundly it is profoundly life changing, when you realize that the building that you trust to rest, and raise your family and to rejuvenate is actually a source of illness. And it brings up so many different feelings of guilt, you know, insecure, I mean, it’s just really it goes right in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right, you go right back to the bottom, you know, right back to the bottom, if your shelters making you sick, and then and then as a parent, it’s an awful feeling, you know, as someone who’s trusted to care for the people that are in those four walls, and that’s something I deal with a lot with people, you know, a lot, a lot of mold related illnesses, actually emotional. Truly. And, and it’s, it’s a vicious cycle, because the more depressed you are about it, the worse it gets, and you know, the whole thing, so. But, you know, the reality of it is, is that the this is, you know, I think everybody can look back at their lives and find a place where, where they have overcome something. And and now what they’ve learned has become useful, and that they can then turn this into something to pay it forward. And that’s been my mission here with GOT MOLD? is to is to create products and services to help people not have to go through what my family went through.
38:02
Now another thing that sort of is very pertinent to this audience specifically, there are very few professions where the employees of that profession are told they have to go and sleep somewhere else. So the first responders, especially, you know, the firefighters, every third day is my career, I have to go sleep in someone else’s building. And so you can be diligent in your own home and every third day, you’re at the mercy of a city or a county and how much value they put in that building. The military is another one’s actually one of my, one of my English friends, the British army, I don’t know if it’s the same now, but the description of some of the barracks that they were staying in, I would assume that there was probably mold, you know, in there, too. So talk to me about the we’ve talked kind of touched on the psychological mental health element, what are the gamut of diseases or disease processes you’ve seen physiologically on the physical side from these exposures?
39:00
So first of all people who are working in in public buildings I hate to say it but they have rights. You know, there are public employee occupational safety and health workers in you know, every city and and nobody wants to ring that bell. But but this is a it’s a serious problem. I mean, and I understand what that what that’s like it’s a very political thing and there’s it’s difficult but it’s very important that the to take action on those things for for everyone’s benefit. But in you know, even even before that, just looking at do I have mold exposure, how am I feeling, you know, typical upper respiratory things are that are the first and most common symptoms so hay fever like symptoms, sinuses, sinusitis, congestion, any sort of coughing, wheezing, so what mold really likes to do is if you’ve already got sort of a latent symptom profile, if you already have like a pre existing, like, like I said, I had to allergies I did. And my allergies have gone away, it brought out the allergies if your immune system goes on high alert, and all these things come out. And so, so it’s very typical for people to have recurrences of other things. And maybe even like arthritic conditions, people that suddenly develop a lot more, again, inflammation is a really common side effect of mold exposure. And so things that cause inflammation cause everything to kind of get out of whack. You know, there’s also lots of overlap between Lyme disease and the other tick borne illnesses and mold. chemical sensitivities are also really common with people that have chronic mold exposure. Oftentimes, people have chronic mold disclosure, develop chemical sensitivities, because the chemicals that are produced by mold, like I mentioned earlier, follow that sort of insolvent, they’re sort of like solvent profiles. And, and so I’ve seen consistently that people who spend lots of time in moldy environments become sensitized to things like just normal fragrances, they can’t go to the grocery store, you know, go to the hardware store, forget it. And, you know, those kinds of things are, are insidious, because they also, they also don’t, don’t just go away. So let me let me, let me make this point, that’s also really important. Acute mold exposure, which means you get exposed to it, and then you leave, will generally cause acute symptoms, they’ll go away. And you’ll feel better when you leave. If you’re spending a lot of time and you’ve got a chronic exposure to this stuff, it can change you, it can shake, and it can alter your body’s immune system, so that you and your nervous system so that you respond in a hyper sensitized way. And that’s why people who have mold sensitivity will have, suddenly their sinuses will not just get congested, they’ll shut down. asthmatics the respiratory shuts down, mold, does this mold, it sends the signal, there’s decay in here. And I believe that on an evolutionary basis, mold is the beginning of decay. And so evolutionarily, we, especially the women in our society, our have an innate sense of, of being able to detect that’s there. And that’s a problem, that’s a threat to our, to our, our health. And so you’ll see that the diseases that have these kinds of, you know, the asthma where the airways, shut down the sinuses, they closed down, don’t breed that stuff, don’t read that stuff. So the chronic exposure will also create these hypersensitivities to things like It’s like chemical exposures. And so, so it’s very important when someone has something like that going on, that they reduce exposure, that they run towards whatever solution they can, I know you don’t get a chance to choose what building you sleep in, but would do whatever it takes in your power to to get that corrected. And let me also emphasize something else. Mold is a moisture problem. That’s it, mold is a moisture problem. And so mold is not the problem. Mold is the symptom, it’s the very predictable natural byproduct is something that gets wet and stays wet. And it happens quickly, two to three days, it’s actually for 24 to 48 hours, according to the EPA, that’s how long you have to respond to dampness or or water problem that that
43:15
you have to either dry it out or or treat it. And so you got 24 to 48 hours before that’s an issue. And according to the industry standard, at 72 hours, you have to take everything that’s porous and absorptive that was wet and treat it like it’s a mold, like it’s mold, whether it’s visible or whether there’s visible mold or not. So in other words, the directives on how to deal with a mold problem are measured in hours and days. Whereas the problems that we talked about, and typical buildings that have these issues are weeks, months and years. Right. And so so the time these timelines, you know, you have to bring that awareness to any of these issues, that if a building has a must mold problem or musty smell, find the moisture, that’s the prime directive. And then get that corrected, the mold won’t clean up itself, you still have to clean up the mold, but it will stop growing. And it’s active mold growth in a building that causes the most illness. Excessive fungal matter in any building will is a problem especially for people who have sensitivities, and especially respiratory sensitivities. But active mold growth is really what causes the vast majority of really serious human illness.
44:26
Well, speaking of water damage, when I listened to your conversation and a great conversation on the holy health podcast, it kind of resonated with me because in the fire service, our goal is obviously to put the fire out but the secondary element we have to be mindful of is war damage. And when I’m hearing you talking about this, as a firefighter, it really kind of adds a story behind the moment that we can stop flowing water and structure and cover, you know, furniture and maybe some fend off some of the water that’s kind of running out, you know, it’s our responsibility from not only, you know the initial extinguishment element but trying to preserve as much of the the structure itself and not completely flood it and therefore, if not destroy their home create health problems for those homeowners down the road.
45:20
No doubt about it, I mean, water damage from fires is is is a significant problem. And it’s it would be, it would be beneficial if that could be handled more gingerly, of course, you know, you have to do what you have to do to get a fire and control. But it is it is, it is not uncommon, I’ve come across this quite a bit where the the house had a history with a fire, and that there was hidden water damage that had not been addressed properly. You know, a lot of people are quick to this brings up a really interesting point. Insurance companies love to do things inexpensively. They’re paying for the repairs, there, they handled that a lot differently than then you would pay then you would if you were paying for your own repairs. And so as a result, oftentimes, these assessments done post water damage, post fire, are done by people who basically work for the insurance companies. And so the repairs and the remediation are often quick and dirty with very little oversight, and almost no testing. And, and that in and of itself is a serious problem. I mean, thank goodness, we don’t have a lot of fires, you know, per, you know, on a per capita basis. But in areas where that does happen, similar problems, by the way happened in areas where there’s flooding of any sort like these, these 100 year floods that seem to happen annually these days, that’s often handled in a substandard way, as well. And so it’s really important when someone’s buying a house, you know, or renting even to pay attention to your trust your senses. It, like I said, if you see it, smell it or feel it, do something, you know, take action, get some testing done, hire a professional if you can find a qualified independent one. But also just trust your senses, and then get the data. You know, trust your senses, but get the data. So that’s super important. Anytime that you’re going to be at the, at the mercy of an insurance company, and it’s a health related thing. You know, sometimes you have to just step up a notch and take some things into your own hands.
47:19
So when you were talking about that kind of made me think of Louisiana, for example, and I have friends that went to Katrina, as rescuers. So you’ve got a double edged sword there, you’ve got the acute exposure that those men and women are exposed to while they’re trying to make the rescues. And then obviously, you’ve got all the poor homeowners after the water subsides that some of whom may be, as you said, at the mercy of an insurance job, where it’s subpar. And now they’ve just sent your there’s this national disaster, and now they’re they’re suffering the consequences in their own home as well.
47:54
That’s right. And even by the way, the outdoor air in those places can get pretty nasty, there’s something called Katrina cough, which is the, you know, the word for mold related cough, really, and that, that there were the mold problems down there were so bad outdoors, that people were having issues. So, you know, it’s incredible, and whether it’s indoor air quality is a problem because the stuff accumulates indoors, outdoor air is constantly changing, and it dilutes itself, you know, so you’re getting kind of a fresh breath of, of new microbes, every, every every breath. But ya know, it’s it is for your audience. You know, mold is a is a is a constant threat, you know, thank goodness, respiratory, respiratory protection is is is available. And I would also recommend that anybody 95 is not enough in a moldy environment. This is a practical tip for you, you should you should only use p 100. Or any any of the other respirators that also remove organic vapors VOCs because a big part of exposure to mold and mold grows, produces spores, which are the microscopic seeds that most people are familiar with. And also the musty smell, which we talked about at length. And there’s a lot of a lot of emerging science about the health impact of of the musty odor. And then the mycotoxins, which is what most people talk about, about when it comes to mold related disease, but actually, it’s probably responsible for the vast majority of cases. Regardless, in order for you to prevent yourself from being exposed to those things. It’s not enough to just have an NIT five particle mask. Also, if you have air purifiers, the same thing goes it’s not enough to just get a HEPA filter, because that’ll just take out the particles. If you’ve got a mold exposure, you want to make sure that you’ve got a lot of activated carbon in whatever filter you’re using. And so that would that’s what will capture the chemicals that make up the musty smell, or any of the other airborne chemicals that are common in modern buildings. I really do believe that we are the reason we have such autoimmune issues and respiratory from 1965 until now smoking is down 80% But deaths related to respiratory illness up 30% In the same period really Um, and if you do, if you look back at what’s changed with click cost, we’ve we’ve created tighter buildings. We’ve also, you know, our renovations are chemical laden, new floors, new paint, you know, the all the paints in the furniture coming from China, off gassing, we’re in these tight chemical boxes. And if you have enough moisture, you have a chemical box with mold. And so we’re re breathing that stuff, how many times a day 20,000. There you go. So that that’s the kind of thing that, you know, when you look, look at what we’ve done as a modern society, we’ve we’ve really created these, like I said, these chemical boxes that we that we live and work in. And so if you’re a first responder, or you’re in a position to where you have to protect those lungs, and you’re going into places that you know, is that you should be doubling up as much as you can, you should even consider using that. Even when you’re not concerned with some of the other occupational hazards, you know, I mean, that a proper respiratory equipment is properly fitted, I should also add properly fitted, respiratory equipment is definitely your best friend when it comes to this.
51:05
Well, speaking of that, and I want to credit again, the holy health podcast because she brought this question up, and it was a great, you know, question. This last few years, respiratory health has obviously been at the forefront of a lot of conversations, mask effectiveness has also been so it’s interesting, you’re talking about n95s and spores, versus my new virus. But uh, that’s another conversation. But, again, what I’ve talked about this whole two years is how do we make people more resilient, that’s the conversation that was never had healthier, you know, fitter, stronger, you know, better sleep time outdoors, all the things that create resilience. And again, now we’re talking about the mold exposure, reducing, you know, the, the strength of the respiratory system, increasing inflammation. So what have you got any kind of lens or perspective on what health would have done assuming what mold would have done was people exposed to mold and their reaction to, for example, a COVID virus?
52:11
Interesting. I can only speak anecdotally on that. My experience is that what mold does better than anything else is that it makes you weak. In so many ways, physically weak, emotionally weak. And, and the key to the key to optimal living, the first step in Optimal Living, is stop doing stuff that makes you weak. You know, that’s the first thing, stop doing the stuff that makes you weak, whatever that thing is. And in this case, it’s breathing. Moldy air or musty air. And so, you know, the My experience is that people who live in a moldy environment are more susceptible to all kinds of infections. It just opens them up to that. And so and then the opposite is also true. You know, the, I actually believe that there’s a you being exposed to small amounts of mold is good for you. There’s a hormetic response you can you know, I’ve been in so many moldy houses over the years, I almost feel like it’s like allergy shots for me. Yeah. Because they go in and out into a moldy house. And then I leave, and I go into my own home, which is measured and tested and air here I know is good. And I rest and rejuvenate here. And you know, by the way, we’ve never gotten COVID here, and we took a long time before we decided to do vaccinations. And we we were not exactly like completely isolated. And I really do think that healthy indoor air is medicine.
53:51
Absolutely. Well, it’s interesting as well because we’re talking about mushrooms and then the beginning of the conversation you were talking about the healing element of mushrooms. So the irony there so I want to get into you know, the testing and then and then you know the treatment but before we do the a journey from Wall Street to mold to tell me about Oreo and that that kind of path that you took.
54:12
Oh my. So after I when I was in Hawaii after I will definitely back up I after Wall Street I threw 20 pounds of stuff in a backpack, sold everything I owned and went on a walkabout and I was driven in large part by acquired voice inside my head, which was really my mom’s, which was about service. It was really about contribution to the greater good. You know, what are you doing with your life in essence, and, you know, on Wall Street I did all the things that people on Wall Street do when they’re in their 20s and they’re making a lot of money. I did all the wrong things and I did them abundantly and but I did take time occasionally to volunteer some for Operation Smile. I did a couple of international missions with them
54:56
is that the cleft palate organization because I had a Plastic Surgeon EJ would be one of the surgeons that will go over there.
55:03
Yeah, it’s a great organization. Billing Kathy McGee, the founders, and I’m very good friends with, with their son, Todd. And I met them when I was vile, I’ve met them through donations and volunteering. And it’s just a, it’s a wonderful group that I don’t even know how many countries are in now. But it’s just that they’ve really truly changed the face of the world if you’ll pardon the expression. And, and I did a one and Western Sahara and one in South America and Brazil. And I came back from those rejuvenated, I was exhausted by the work, you know, because you mean this, you’re in a several countries and they’re there. It’s not an easy thing to do. But, but I came back rejuvenated. Whereas when I took time off, if I took time off, when I was a broker, I came back and I needed vacation from my vacation, you know, I needed to detox essentially, so. So I knew I needed to do something where i, where i, where i was contributing to the greater good. And so I went backpacking. And this was right, I quit in August of 2001. And then September 11, happened. And so I went by train from New Jersey to La through Canada, and then flew to Hawaii. And while I was in Hawaii, I was reading a story about a guy who got sick from the hotel where he was an employee. And it turned out to be the biggest mold problem in modern history was a $55 million mold problem, the building was only $90 million to build new, interesting new construction, they basically gutted it and they had a vapor barrier on the wrong side of the wall assembly, they built it as if it should be in a warm climate, oh, cold climates have a warm climate. And so they had all this condensation in the walls. What happened was a made it found that there was little bit of mold, and they began opening the walls. And it was like Pandora’s box, it just kept opening it and went from 5 million to 500,000 to 5 million to 55 million. And so it was big headlines all over all over the islands. In fact, in the international real estate news, it was it was big, big headlines, and I was right there sort of Ground Zero. Of for this for for mold, right after ground zero for New York, actually just thought about that. But anyway, the bottom line is that this guy who got sick from the mold brought me it was like a deja vu moment for me because he had developed adult onset asthma and allergies and sensitivities to all these things that he’d never had a problem with. And and I thought, Geez, I wonder if we had a mold problem. And Alton road, and I called my father from a payphone which probably isn’t there anymore, and said, Hey, Dad, do you think we had a mold problem? And he just laughed at me? He goes, Jason with mushrooms in the basement, of course, we have mold. Why do you ask? And it was just so easy for him to just say that because it was never no one ever thought that mold? You know, that generational ignorance is how I think about it. You know, it’s not, it’s not a judgment against him. It’s just that it was that there was just no awareness around the subject. And in that moment, when he said that, I said, Do you think we think it was what might have caused some might have been, you know, part of my problem, I guess, Well, I certainly couldn’t help. Yeah, you know, not that he was going to do about not that anybody was going to do anything about it. But you know, anyway, again, not for lack of love, for lack of awareness. That’s just the way things were done back then. And so, but in that moment, I had a light bulb go on, it was truly one of an epiphany, that that’s what I wanted to do. And I wasn’t sure what that meant. But I became fascinated not with mold, but with how buildings impact our health. I couldn’t help but think that, that that, you know that this is a common thing that people were overlooking. And so I went looking on Google and, and I there was very little out there about mold and health very, very, very little in 2001. But I came back from from, from Hawaii, I flew home, I actually shortened my trip, because I came back and I was curious. And I ended up getting a job working for a mold remediation company. It was the basement waterproofing company actually, it was just starting to do mold remediation, because it really wasn’t an industry there weren’t like specialists doing this not in abundance. And I was I was working with those guys and quickly saw that they were even worse than the Wall Street guys. They were just taking advantage of consumers and overcharging them and stuff. And I figured there must be a way for me to do this business without without being part of that whole thing and maybe a way that can protect the consumer. So I was doing, I was looking for different technologies to detect hidden mold because I thought maybe I was starting an inspection business. And I heard about a guy who trained dogs to sniff out hidden mold in buildings and it’s actually my then girlfriend’s mom who told me very tongue she she thought she thought it was ridiculous because you know, they’ve got dogs trained to do what you do for a living. And I was like you said an insult.
59:36
But I wanted to know more about it because it was it was a fascinating concept. So I went down to Florida actually, a Safety Harbor met a guy named Bill wittstein, who trains dogs to find everything you can possibly imagine anything and everything. And he had trained one of the first mold detection dogs and he introduced me to a lengthy black lab named Oreo, who was about a year old at the time and she had been on doggy Death Row twice. She was she was a dog that Bill likes to say Your job to stay out of trouble. That’s what he was always looking for. And so he introduced me to her. And she had already gone through training, she got 1000 hours of mold training. The rest of the training was really to train me on how to how to how to interpret her her signals. And so I came back from Florida with this $14,000 Dog. I’ve no plans to do that going down, let me tell you, but I came back with this dog, and the basement waterproofing guy who the guy who in the company thought that he was going to take advantage of this opportunity to get some press for his firm called channel six Action News. They sent the consumer alert division consumer alert reporter to try to debunk me. She hit a bunch of mold in the house and instead of debunking us, we found it in minutes. And she endorsed us and I hadn’t even set up a an inspection company or anything. So when we formed LLC, called it lab results, because we did laboratory, we’re just Labrador Retrievers, and laboratory testing and, and my phone started ringing off the hook. And a couple of the cases were referred by some local doctors who had some patients who weren’t responding to normal, normal care. Some of them were pretty dramatic. And we went in, found the mold and got it got it corrected. They got better. And the doctors were like, wow, this is incredible. And so we started getting more referrals from doctors and more word of mouth, and it just kept going. And those some of those stories landed us on Good Morning America. And then we got invited to do Extreme Makeover Home Edition a couple times and a whole bunch. I mean, it’s been like, a groundswell that company became one 800 Got mold. And, and we went on it to do 1000s and 1000s of inspections, Oreo, and I, and it was profoundly healing at people often will call up and say, I’d like your dog to come over, you can leave the humans but we’d like your dog. She was magical. She had put her she actually she passed away after 12 years of service about six years ago. And she’s sorely missed. But what she did was she, she she helped us raise awareness about the subject, everyone at the end of the reporters love this. Because we got to use a rescue dog to fix sick homes. And that’s an evergreen story, you know, and so, you know, the impact that we made together with, you know, in the homes that we ran was one thing, but also, it was just one of those, you know, sort of heartwarming stories and, and they I look back at those years, with real fondness.
1:02:20
Beautiful. Well, firstly, Safety Harbor is a beautiful place my wife does or Opticianry sees there. So I get to kind of hang out there for a couple of days and gorgeous down there.
1:02:31
Yeah, I love the spa. They’ve got a nice little setup there. Yeah, CPR Resort and Spa.
1:02:35
Absolutely. That’s what that’s where it is. Yeah. Next to it with the manatees.
1:02:39
Yeah, you gotta make their water that they have there is it was supposedly a Ponce de Leon thought he discovered the fountain of youth. Because of the springs that they have there. The water that comes out of the mineral water there is really remarkable.
1:02:51
Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, all I know, is there’s a British cafe that does the best English breakfast that you will find in Florida. So someone’s drive just for that.
1:03:00
Now that I know that I, I, I crave a good English Breakfast sometimes. Thanks for the tip.
1:03:07
No worries, so So you found yourself in the testing area then. So talk to me about what the traditional testing looks like. Now, I know you have the kind of the home kit that you do as well. So for people listening, you know, what what are the the spectrum of opportunities for them for their home and or if it’s someone listening from the council’s you know, or city that’s looking for their professional business.
1:03:34
So, if you want to have your house tested for mold, right now, you have to hire a professional. And in most easy to get to get the scientifically valid results, you almost invariably have to hire professional. And that professional come up with a bag of tools and perform a physical inspection of the property and then based upon what they find or don’t find, then collect air samples. Not everyone does it but but everyone should. And and those air samples are then sent to a laboratory where they they’re analyzed for the the particulates that are that are found. There are other kinds of tests that also tested the gases and we highly recommend those as well. But in most cases, professional inspection is what’s necessary to get a high quality test. And so that was the sort of the basis for one 800 Got mold was that we came in as a as a non remediator to just do an inspection and testing without any strings attached if we’re not doing remediation. So that’s a very important part of getting your house tested is that whoever you do hire if you hire a professional is that they don’t also do remediation, and that their brother’s not in the remediation business, or their cousin. And it’s very important that they’re unbiased because inspection data is it can it can be used as a tool for for abuse. And so it’s very important that you find someone who’s really who’s really got a great reputation and that is coming To the independent. So that’s one side of the spectrum in terms of testing and the professional. Now, like I said, the 1000 or, or more in most cases, including lab testing on the other side of the spectrum all the way down at the $10 or so you can find these petri dishes at the checkout aisle, no, in the hardware store. Those are called settling plates. They don’t work. In fact, that’s not true. They work all the time. They don’t always grow mold. They don’t tell you anything. Because mold grows, mold spores are abundant. They were literally awash in them. There’s a fabulous book called The entangled life, which talks all about the kingdom fungi, written by Merlin Sheldrake, and I highly recommend anyone who’s interested in this to read is very interesting, very entertaining. And he says that every year, the Kingdom fungi produces 50 Mega tons of spores, which is the equivalent of 500,000, blue whales. So we are literally awash in fungi, fungal spores there, you’re not going to get away from that.
1:06:02
And so so the, the idea that you’d have put a Petri dish on on the table, and it would grow something is not, you know, a stretch. spores are everywhere. But the conditions that are made to allow them to grow are not in a petri dish, that’s exactly what you need. So you get $10, on one side of $1,000, or more on the other, that’s the spectrum, if you will of mold testing. In the middle, there’s a lot of junk science, there’s a lot of stuff that looks like it might be, you know, it’s it’s massive, there’s a lab that produces it. And it might be, you know, you collect this tape lift or a swab, or 99% of it is junk science, pseudoscience, junk science. And so it was with the frustration that we kept people call this one 100 gumballs. I mean, we were on all this national and all these national programs for all these years, people call us from all over the country, in fact, from all over the world, asking if we had an inspectors in their area. And then if we didn’t, in most cases, we didn’t, they asked if there was a test kit that we could recommend. And we looked high and low and couldn’t find one, and eventually just decided to make it. And so we put a dream team of engineers and scientists together to create the first scientifically valid consumer friendly air test kit for mold. And you can find, you can go to gmail.com. And take a peek at that. But the basically what we did is we took the professional air sampling pump that the guy would come in, if he was going to do an inspection in your house, we took that pump and shrunk it down and simplified it into a device that looks like this. Okay. And then that interfaces with air sampling cassettes, the same air sampling cassettes that you that you use as a professional, that are designed to capture the airborne particulate matter. And then we were secured an arrangement with the number one lab in the country, MIP and K. And so they do all the analysis, so someone would buy our kit. And it would allow them to collect air samples in areas that they’re concerned with comes with a prepaid mailer, or lab fees are included in the purchase of the kit. And then once at the lab, it takes two days to get the results back. And the results come with a really simple interpretation, green, yellow, orange or red result, as well as the lab results themselves. So professional could look at them and say, and then make their own determination, and a list of of recommendations on what to do next, depending upon the severity of what was found. And the reason the other big piece of creating this was that, that I realized that my parents could not have afforded my own parents could not have afforded the higher mold, it’s a mold inspector, through 100 got mold, it was out of reach. And so the big driving force for this whole thing was to help build tools and services for people to avoid having to go through my folks went through, but But I realized that healthy indoor air should not be cost prohibitive. Right. And that the idea that you you should be able to get this information, regardless of what your budget is, is what caused us to to create this kit. And now we know with the Gamel test kit, you can one room is 149, two rooms, 199 and three rooms is 249. And then once you use the kit, you can keep the pump, and you can reorder supplies, which is nice. So that each so the railroad supply, there’s $50 less, or one of them’s like $99 and then 149 for 2.199 for three. And the good news is that my folks could afford that my mom would have would have bought one of these, you know I knowing her the way she wouldn’t, she would have been very interested in this. And so that’s what this is about. This is about giving people the ability to do this without the cost or hassle or aggravation, or getting permission from someone to just test and see what’s going on whether it’s an even if it’s in a workplace. We have teachers using them. I’m sure people will be using them in firehouses and in barracks and things like that, because the results are the results and if there’s an issue that you now have justification for you to take action, whatever that means. If that means you have to change things on your own, if you may, you may want to put an air purifier in there which is exposure, look for the moisture source right Stop that. The bottom line is that we look at this as a tool for awareness so that people can can can take informed actions and so that it’s not a huge shift. He Said, She Said kind of thing.
1:10:11
Yeah, I think I’ve heard people talking about buying kits in fire stations. But when you’re talking about a lot of the junk science side, then that kind of invalidates the money they just spent. So to have this say they are up against a very kind of stubborn organization, and to be able to bring, you know, what you’ve just said, whether it’s from a union budget, whether it’s the guys at the station, guys and girls, just all chipping in. So they can say, look, I mean, these are, you know, we’re, this is the scale, and it’s a read, where we’re where we’re staying, you know, that would be an incredible tool. And obviously, you know, hopefully, the actual employer would be doing the testing themselves or bringing one of you guys in, because when you hear about all the potential health effects, and then something I talk about a lot as my profession is already under slept inflamed, you know, all the things that you’re talking about, and then you’re adding that other layer, you know, you are going to have acute response to to a fire station or a barracks, it’s filled with mold.
1:11:06
No doubt about it. I mean, and also, you’re already emotionally taxed. Yeah, I mean, it’s just, it’s really, it, the healthy indoor air, especially for first responders, is just not optional.
1:11:20
Absolutely. Now, with the mitigation, I mean, I don’t want to, you know, pull every single kind of action that you guys have in your tool belt, but say you are a kind of, you know, either a yellow or maybe towards the red, one of the things that a homeowner or a firefighter and a station can do themselves, and then when does it cross the line to, you actually do need to start bringing people in.
1:11:45
So the rule of thumb for mold remediation is, according to the EPA is a three foot by three foot section, they say 10 square feet, but that, to me is enormous. I think that that’s it, that’s way past what a homeowner should be doing on their own. In fact, I don’t even do my own mold remediation. And it’s not because I’ve got this huge budget, I mean, work because I’ve got all these services, because I’m humbled by how how, how heavy the impact can be if you if you handle those things, you’re responsibly. And so, you know, we have a book and ebook we produce called How to find mold in your home. And we post that actually on a on a page, a welcome page for your listeners at got mold.com/behind The Shield. And there’s an ebook there, it’s about 45 pages, it’s filled with inspection checklists, and FAQs, we get a lot of really positive feedback on this. And it’s great for people who aren’t ready to you know, buy a test kit or schedule an inspection or even pick up the phone and talk to someone. Because what we do in that book is kind of give you the ability to do your own inspection, look for things, raise your awareness about the things that are going on, you’re building, I feel like we need to start really realizing that your building is an extension of your immune system. It’s an Exo skin, an exoskeleton. And, and your it doesn’t have an immune system, your immune system. And, and the first that you you get signals from your building when something’s wrong, the same way you get signals from your body, when something’s wrong, you get pain from inflammation, what you would get with the building is you get a musty odor, that’s a sign that there’s an ache or a pain in the building. And that moisture moisture problem has been created. And your job is to pay attention to that. And, and so that’s why I feel like raising awareness about this is so important. Because you can get to it when it’s small, say water damage is free or cheap to fix. Mold is expensive. And so if you can get to it, when it’s still just water damage, then you can handle that on your own. I mean, you really don’t want to go past three days. So that’s very important. If you’ve got a water problem past three days, if you got sheetrock and it’s moldy, you may want to take a step back three square feet, three feet by three feet, rather not three foot squared, but three foot by three foot is a lot of mold. And so my suggestion is that, if you doubt that you should be doing it, you probably shouldn’t be doing it. The problem is, is that it is very expensive. So it’s very important that you become an informed consumer or an informed and informed occupant. And a lot of stuff is covered in the in the how to find mold book, The most important thing you could do is reduce exposure. And so you know, when you’ve got a mold problem or an indoor air quality problem, there are three things you can do. Number one, you can fix the source. That’s obviously ideal, but not always possible. The second thing you can do is you can dilute which means bring fresh air from outside. In some cases, you can do that mechanically, if you’ve got an issue with chemicals in the building, and that’s a long conversation. If anyone’s interested in those things. You can always go to gmail.com scroll all the way down it says got questions and drop a question in there or you can even drop a question on our Facebook page and I like to answer those for the public, but in any case, the first thing is source control. Second thing is dilution bring fresh air and you can’t really always do that, that’s sometimes you’re bringing in humid air from outside or from another bill. So that’s not not always a very practical thing you can do. The third thing, and it’s the most practical thing is air filters, air purifiers, you will need to filter the air I’m not talking to you know, there’s a lot of junk out there that with these zappers, and you know, whether it’s molecule or or ionic breeze, which the eye breeze of today, these things are not what you need, you need good old fashioned HEPA filters, with with carbon in it to reduce the chemical, the airborne chemical chemicals. But you need to reduce exposure. So that may mean you might want to relocate. That may mean that you you put in air filters. But those are the things that you can do. There’s not a lot of other choices when it comes to dealing with a mold problem. And then, you know, the big question is, if you’re going to hire a professional, how are you going to find them? And again, if you go to the How to go to how to find mold, look, in the back, we talked about some of the trade associations that train and certify inspectors in our industry.
1:16:09
Now, what point would a building become condemned? Because I know, that’s one of the things that there, I’ve stayed in fire stations that probably should have been knocked down, you know, decades prior. So at what point does it mean is it really just to kind of cost versus benefit when when the remediation outweighs the value of the building?
1:16:29
Yeah, because it’s very rare that I find a building that can’t be remediated. The, you know, only when it’s become structurally hampered. And that’s beyond mold, so to speak. That’s, you know, that’s really raw. And again, like you said, cost benefit, you know, there it basically if it’s, it has tremendous sentimental value, you know, or historical value, or monetary value, those those considerations weigh heavily on whether or not a building is to be sort of zeroed. And by the way, out of all the assessments I’ve done, and like I said, earlier, in the 1000s, I stopped counting a while back, the, I’ve only had to tell two people that this building was uninhabitable and beyond repair, at most cases, and I’m saying even with those considerations, even with, you know, the, the considerations of, you know, completely, completely cost benefit analysis. So, in most cases, it’s much scarier than the reality. But I will say this mold remediation takes a long time. And so to do it, right, you shouldn’t be in the building. And a properly executed mold, mold issue or mold remediation project takes about a month, between the inspections and find the contractors and scheduling and doing the work. And then there’s time in between where you’re running air purifiers, and then you’re going to do the inspection and testing at the end. And then there’s time for that the whole thing takes a long time, even with professionals. So it’s extremely destroyed disturbs your life. While it’s something you’ll never think I feel a little bit of my internet connection just kind of wobbled. It’s it’s very disruptive, to your to your life. And it’s not an easy thing to get through, which is part of the reason why I think why so many people who do good work in this space had an experience of their own, right, the reason that my colleagues, for other companies, the ones who were doing the best work had been through it, because they realize how hard it is to do it. Well, even if you’ve got everything lined up, and you’ve got experience, it’s hard to do it well. And it’s really easy to screw it up.
1:18:39
Now, just again, pulling from another conversation I had, I heard you talking about some of the myths as far as you know, using bleach and that kind of thing. So talk to me about what removal actually looks like, you know, some of the things that we think work for mold versus what actually works.
1:18:56
And that’s a great question. Thank you. So that up there in the top of the myths that we try to debunk is that there is no need to kill mold. You know, it’s not like you have to sneak up behind and snuff it out so that you can, you know, wrestle it in or so you can get out of the building, it doesn’t need that extra step. Mold Remediation, the root of remediation is remedy. And so that means the remedy here is to is to remedy the moisture problem first, then clean up the rest of the mold, not kill them all. So what that looks like is you fix the water problem whether it’s a you know, whether it’s a humidity issue, or liquid water doesn’t matter, you fix whatever’s causing that moisture to to accumulate or develop. And then you remove the building materials that cannot be cleaned. That means things that are porcelain absorptive like carpet, carpet, padding, sheet rock, insulation, ceiling tiles, upholstered furniture that’s gotten wet and stayed wet for any length of time. These kinds of things are, you know, when in doubt, throw it out, you just those things get removed. And then the rest of all of the exposed surfaces are then very methodically cleaned using HEPA filter vacuum cleaners and damp wipes. Contractors love to use chemicals. But they they’re leaving behind a chemical residue. And they’re also oftentimes using chemicals in lieu of cleaning. And that is a big no, no, this is just cleaning is really truly it’s demo controlled interior demolition, controlled in the sense that they do it in a bubble so that the dust they make in that space stays in that space. And then it’s surface cleaning and air scrubbing the whole time. That’s all it really is. It’s just a lot of work. And guess what contractors want the paycheck, they just don’t want to do the work. So they’d rather spray a chemical or a fog or, or or some other zapper buzzer or whatever kind of gadget they can do to they don’t have to have people in there doing the work. Bleach isn’t particularly common myth, and it’s a it’s a really important one to debunk because people, it’s generational ignorance is a perfect example of your grandmother’s, you know, was wisdom bubbling forth. But bleach is 97% water, and 3% sodium hypochlorite. That’s what that smell is right. So and it’s a volatile organic compound in the sense that it evaporates quickly. So when you spray bleach on mold, the sodium hypochlorite will evaporate quickly. Yes, it will bleach what’s there. So if you’ve got black mold, it’s no longer black. If you’ve got dirt, you know that it will bleach those things. But it still leaves those things behind. And even. And even if it does kill it, it leaves behind dead mold and dead mold is still just as allergenic and toxigenic is live mold. But it’s also giving you this false idea that you’ve done something to to to clean this up. But what you really done is you’ve just put 97% of that of water onto a onto a mold. So you’ve just added water to a water problem that sodium hypochlorite evaporates leaving behind all this dampness, you got dead mold there, and then all the live sports that are in the air will then land there, and then they’ll eat the dead mold. So not only have you not fixed the problem, you’ve actually amplified the problem. And there’s research out there showing that, that the mycotoxin production actually increases when you when you use biocides that the mold doesn’t like that. And so what it does is it amplifies and it fires off, it’s sort of like last round of ammo at you. Because you know, it feels threatened. And so you there’s very many unintended consequences to using bleach for remediation. And again, that also people use this in lieu of cleaning. So it really is truly a double whammy on the downside. You know, cleaning up mold, if you’re ever going to do it yourself, wear proper protection, you know, cordoned off the area, run air purifiers in there, you know follow the professional guidance to the best of your ability, but when in doubt, hire someone if you can. It’s really one of those things where you wouldn’t there are lots of lots of things these days that you wouldn’t want to do yourself and this is one of them.
1:22:58
One thing that was glaring as well, as you mentioned that mold produces benzene and benzene is something that we have to fight in the fire station because we’ve got these giant vehicles going into these bays. A lot of times the ice machine is right by the exhaust pipe of the bay you know so we’re getting all these carcinogens and again, you know sleep deprived and carcinogen exposure we have a lot of cancer at the fire service. So from an air quality point of view I heard you talking about some of your favorite companies when it comes to air filters because the one thing that firefighters love to bring into stations is their own catches try and improve that that 24 hour experience.
1:23:34
For sure. Yeah, no I so there are two companies that I really love. I’ve products I really love. I’m a huge fan of IQ err of the product. I hate to hate say it not so much the company these days. But I’m a huge fan of the product. They sell a particular unit called the Health Pro Plus that has got a huge amount of charcoal in it huge amount of carbon in it. And also they’ve got instead of HEPA they use oppa they call it hyper HEPA but it’s a it’s a finer finer filter, finer pour on the filter, and it captures atmospheric dust viruses and it’s a really powerful it’s the gold standard of air filters. But you pay for that. I mean you’re spent 1000 bucks on one of those. The the other company that I absolutely love is called mattify me di FY and I love that company because their units are really effective, they’re attractive and they’re really really affordable. You can get for for for a unit that will cover 200 square feet you can do it for under 100 bucks, which is just amazing. You can take that with you wherever you want. You know you can bring it with you at night, but the thing about air purifiers for them to be really effective. First of all you want true HEPA which is I mentioned this earlier, but HEPA is not enough. True HEPA means it’s a sealed cylinder. So in other words are sealed. There’s gaskets that prevent air from going around the filter. And so that’s very important. You might say well what is not what is What is the opposite of true HEPA, it’s not happening, right most it’s a HEPA filter the air should go through. And you see this with HEPA filtered vacuum cleaners often, which by the way, is another investment. If you really want to improve the quality of your air, get yourself a good HEPA filtered vacuum cleaner. Because if you don’t, all that stuff that sitting in that bag is going right out the back and smaller and more respirable pieces. And if you really wanted to try air quality, just vacuum with a regular vacuum cleaner, because you’re just spewing it right out the back. All the allergens concentrated, it’s nasty stuff, but the airport air purifiers by mattify. And also AccuAir, they make the small ones. IQ era has some that they’re actually appropriate for a vehicle to call them atoms. And so there’s really there’s the technologies are getting better and better. But there is really no substitute for good old fashioned filter, but air being forced through. So you know, don’t buy the hype, if you if you’re looking at air filters, and you see these things that are silent, or that they say they eliminate, they kill everything. Those are not recommended. There is unfortunately, is it is taking a fan and a filter and forcing the air through is what cleans it. And there’s really no shortcuts on that.
1:26:18
Beautiful. Well, I want to transition to some closing questions, we’re gonna be mindful of your time. You mentioned the entangled life. Are there any books, any other books scuze me that you love to recommend and it can be related to our discussion or completely unrelated.
1:26:33
Man, I tell you, I love to read I have back here in that corner is my success library. And so, you know, I have to say there are a couple a couple that sort of that I get out on a regular basis. One is the Untethered Soul by Michael singer. If you’re if you’re curious about meditation, but you don’t want to be you don’t want to hear the word. And you don’t want to hear it. Because a lot of people don’t want to be they want to talk about it. They don’t want to it’s a really annoying subject. That’s the book. And he’s just an amazing writer. And he also great audio book. My other in a similar vein is awareness by Anthony de Mello. He’s a Jesuit priest who, who doesn’t speak like a Jesuit priest. And it’s all about questioning the things that you don’t question. And bringing awareness to things that you’re not aware of, and, you know, our human interactions and some of the lies we tell ourselves. I’m a huge fan of of those two books on the subject of indoor air quality. I recommend never home alone by Rob Dunn. It’s a fabulous book, it actually talks a lot about PCR, which is the technology that that we all learned a lot about through COVID testing. He talks about how that came about. But this is way before COVID say he was was he was prescient to say the least. But it talks about all the critters that are in our house and the need to use less biocides, really, the to use less chemicals that we need really more diversity in our lives in terms of the microbes. And he talks about how that all all that plays in and it’s a really beautiful hilarious book, the entangled life is also up there. So yeah, I mean, I can give you but on this on the on the sort of on the side of there’s a kind of like spiritual health and wellness and then on the other side is sort of the, you know, the microbial stuff. So, which for me, kind of is a Venn diagram. I feel like there’s a nice little overlap, but most of that stuff if you look at it long enough,
1:28:38
I feel like you should write one microbes and mindfulness. I’m right now.
1:28:45
All right, well, the same question but slightly different vein. What about a documentary and or movie that you love?
1:28:53
Fantastic fungi. Right. Yeah, I mean, I, I just love Paul Stamets and everything he’s been working on for for all these years. Very, very inspiring. And, and I think, you know, the time has come for people to, to embrace these kinds of, you know, the reality that but the mushrooms and fungi have gotten a bad rap over the years, you know, but But Paul Stamets makes a very strong argument that, that the Kingdom fungi are actually the world’s immune system than the Earth’s immune system, and also the earth telephone, communications network. And so for that reason, I don’t even think about mold being a bad guy. I feel like mold is actually a benevolent force even in our homes. It’s, it’s it gives us the signals when something’s wrong. And if you don’t listen to ventually, then it will then you you they will force you out of the house, but I’m a big fan of fantastic fundraising.
1:29:55
Brilliant, you know, I’ve had that recommended before and I haven’t watched it yet. So I’m going to put that on my list. Thank you. All right, the next question, is there a person you’d recommend to come on this podcast as a guest? To speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the world?
1:30:10
Yes. Yes, I would like if you want me to give you a name right now. Yeah, please. Yeah, yeah. Kevin Sullivan, comes to mind. And, and he’s a, I actually am, I’ll be on April 13, I will be four years alcohol free. And one of the parts of the story that I didn’t weave in here is that when I went to Wall Street, I started drinking, if that’s what you do in Rome, you know, when in Rome do as the Romans do, and, and I knew at the time was a problem, because I quit drinking, I was 13. And then I started and I knew it was gonna be a problem. And it became a problem. And I persisted into a problem. And it’s such that I couldn’t even stop when I wanted to stop. And, and it nearly killed me. And I finally was able to put an end to that four years ago. Kevin is a dear friend of mine, but he’s also helped a lot of people with with addiction recovery, he’s been a fan of mine for 25 years, it just so happens, our paths re crossed, right around that time. And he has he works a lot with first responders and military, military and people with PTSD, and that are that are self medicating for these kinds of things. And he has a very beautiful way of articulating these ideas in a way that that that’s useful for for everybody, because I think we’re all have some sort of repetitive, repetitive behavior, or repetitive thought, that gives us a little bit of satisfaction, but also causes us problems. Everybody has that thing. Everybody has it. And so it just so happens to be more more acute with I think, people that are in high stress jobs. And he does a beautiful job of of helping people navigate those waters. So I would highly recommend him. I’ll have some other names for it, too. By the way, I’m sure after I after we finish up here, for sure.
1:31:51
Beautiful. Well, thank you. Yeah, he sounds like the perfect person. All right. Well, then the very last question before we make sure people know how to find the company, and if they want to reach out to you, what do you do to decompress?
1:32:04
I meditate, and I take walks. Meditation is core. For me. It’s what enables me to have space, there’s a quote on my desk in between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies your power of freedom of choice. And it was attributed to Viktor Frankl but probably or Stephen Covey, but it’s probably more like Viktor Frankl. But anyway, the bottom line is that, that space between stimulus and response, I never knew that there was a space there. As a stockbroker, that’s all you you, the idea is to not have a space, you know, get it and respond, you know, that you’re, you don’t respond, you react. And the the ability to see the, the stimulus and have a little bit space, so that you’re, that’s what meditation has done. For me, it’s given me the ability to see that not everything, not every ball that gets thrown at me has to be cat caught, or even responded to, not every idea that comes up is actually valid, you know, these things all are just this flow of experience. And so, meditation has given me the power to see, to see that space and to allow that space to be and, and it’s been transformative, to not just me, but everyone around me. And then the simple act of taking a walk, you know, so many exercises we do are unnatural, truly unnatural nature, we don’t do any of the things that people do in the gym. Very, very rarely, right. But walking is clearly something we’ve been designed to do. And, and I find that it gives me just tremendous, it gives me that space, it gives us you know, you can make it into a moving meditation, if you want, you can kind of and it’s also alone time where I don’t have my phone, or some some media coming into my into my consciousness. So those two things alone, are are sort of central to my whole wellness protocol, if you will.
1:34:14
You know, you touched on, you know, the alcohol journey. It’s funny when you said that you quit at the age of 13 because I have a similar story. I quit the age of 16. And I wasn’t binge drinking, but you know, growing up as a European, it’s very, it’s at dinner, you know, on Sundays and that kind of thing. And then I had a very horrific Ski holiday that ended in accidental drunkenness. But you know that that’s a hell of a long way. You’ve got the the trauma that you endured as a child with the being bundled up as a ladybird all the way through losing your mother. What was the lowest point that you had and then what were the tools that work for you after all those years to pull you out of that dark place?
1:34:57
Oh boy. I had a lot of dark moments, I was a very persistent alcoholic. I mean, I really I was going to, I was just persistent, I thought one day, I would just be able to just hang it up. But I just kept having all of the things accumulate all the things that that that are clear, clear evidence that you have a problem. But the thing that finally got me to at the end, well, first of all, I’m when I was 13, my I brought my friend to a party, and he almost died with booze that I’ve supplied. And that was that, for me, that was, that was just unacceptable. And then I saw my parents and I saw my grandparents and that was just like, for me, I thought I’ll nip this one in the bud. You know, fast forward, Wall Street, I’m young, I was intimidated by you know, all these guys. And their bonding was, let’s go to the bar, you know, and I wear a suit. So they I went into the bars with these guys. And they, they, you know, it’s just I, I fit right in now whenever carded me. And I started drinking, you know, about two years into Wall Street, really. But I was pretty insecure about it. But But anyway, it was, it was it was when I was Sarah, my better half mother of my two children. She and I had gone out to a long weekend up to upstate New York. And and a series of accidents happened and we lost the keys to our air b&b. And, and slept in the car. It was very embarrassing. And it was cold. And she and I got into an argument and got into some and I and I pushed her not to hurt and I just pushed her back actually and we were in and she fell in she hurt her thumb and it was it’s not even like that big of a deal but I’d never heard her and and then we then we then proceeded to get you go go back out have brunch, good once we woke up and had our wits about us and we went out and had brunch, and then proceeded to act irresponsibly again and long story short ended up getting home. And I realized that I had had probably damage our relationship beyond repair. And and, you know, I don’t talk about this much, but I’ll I’ll share it with you, I ended up and I’m not even, I’m not even depressed, I ended up with a belt around my neck. And I ended up with the the first responders coming to take me out, I ended up in Bellevue wearing these, these these famous green socks, these with the treads on them. And and they you know, they let me go back out, you know, first thing in the morning, because that was not a threat to myself or anyone else. And I don’t even understand how that all descended, quite frankly, it was just what it was drunk. It was drunk. It was drunk. And it was it was it was the it was it was sad. It was pitiful. And it was also the end of my rope. Literally, I had, I was exhausted, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. And, and I at that point, I surrendered and I threw myself into a 12 step program. And, and I just I completely surrendered to the whole thing and realize that, you know, I had gotten to the point where I was a hazard a liability to everyone. Not just me, but everyone around me. And, and I and I also quite frankly, I you know, when they when people say that that experience brought me to my knees. I never understood what that meant. And I started saying it, I realized, ah, it’s because they had to learn how to pray.
1:38:53
And that’s what it did. For me. It got me in touch with a level of spirituality that I couldn’t have. I thought I had been in touch with, especially around my mom’s death and all the years in between. But but the booze and the and the humility that came out of not being able to stop. You know, the other thing that happened was that my my withdrawal symptoms were so bad that I I was I was I was drinking all the way through the you know, all the way around the clock because my hangover would turn into shakes and sweats within an hour. It was It happened faster and faster and faster. And every time I quit and I get had some time. I would I would have another drink and I’d be right back to where I was. It was It was unbelievable. I mean that there would be no tolerance and OPI it’d be a huge tolerance again, but I would have these withdrawal symptoms that were just about I knew I was going to die. I just knew if I kept doing that I was going to die. And that was going to continue to hurt people around me and that it’s amazing what it took. It’s really amazing to me how stubborn that that that addiction was and is and and how many of my friends are still wrestling with that. But I I think it was really what what it came down to was that I, ultimately I put Sara in harm’s way. And, and that, that I could deal with my own stuff. But as soon as the moment I heard her, that that that had destroyed myself, it just I don’t want to say self esteem. But it made me I feel so much less than it writes eyes me. really truly. And it made me willing to to put up my hand and really ask for help.
1:40:31
Oh, again, thank you for sharing that. I’ve done 600 episodes now. And there are some very glaring common denominators come out of all these human truly all walks of life, who were talking about mold mitigation, you got Navy SEALs, you got, you know, all all people from all over the world. And that’s one of the most powerful things that happen. You know, I just had someone the other day tell me that that was when there they I think it was children plural, said, you know, Daddy, why, you know, you scare us, I think all you know, the, the mother had said that the children are scared of you. And that was this person had been through a lot of stuff in their life and said that was the worst shot that ever taken as a firefighter. And then the, the help that the 12 steps have created, whether it’s the narcotic side, whether it’s alcohol side, so many people on this show, have found that so incredibly helpful, you know, and it was kind of, you know, a couple of decades ago, you thought that was just what Rich film stars did, you know, went to the 12 step program, but it’s so powerful to hear that firstly, you know, it’s never too late to have that epiphany. Secondly, you know, that these steps into work so well. And thirdly, the healing elements, especially as you get to the service side of it, you know, that that creates longevity in that sobriety. So, thank you so much for sharing that.
1:41:54
Yeah, the 12 steps are, I often say take alcohol out and put in anything else. And it will help you live a better life, it’s about living responsibly, it’s about owning yourself owning your side of the street. It’s about you know, a code, it’s basically a code of how to live. And it just so happens that we forget how to live when we’re self medicating. You know, we’re trying to say, we’re so busy trying to quiet things down and to, and to navigate in a very impractical and dysfunctional way. But I find that forgiveness is, is is just universally powerful. And most of what the 12 steps did for me was taught me how to forgive myself, for the things that I’ve done. And in turn, it’s made me a kinder person to me, which has in turn made me a kinder person to others, because you will only treat others, the way you treat yourself and the internal dialogue most of us have is, is appalling. And you know, I haven’t motherfuck myself in years now. Because, you know, that’s just I no longer speak to myself that way. And as a result, I don’t speak to other people that way, too. It’s kind of interesting, right? But the real benefit that came from from getting sober was that about a month afterwards, Sarah got pregnant. And I now have two little boys once three and ones nine months old, that have never seen me drink, and will not see me drink. And so I broke a cycle, which is, which was extremely important to me. And and so I look back at my mom suicide, Lyme disease, my own out my parents, alcoholism, my alcoholism, even hurting Sarah with my own hands, which you know, still still brings tears to my eyes. I still look back at those things. I look back at those things more and more, with a deep sense of appreciation. These are the gifts, no adversity should be wasted. That’s I feel like if there’s a book to be written, maybe it’s microbes in mindfulness. But there’s also this this, no adversity should be wasted. They’re there, they’re there. They’re there to be used as stepping stones or as tools to help others. least that’s my take.
1:44:04
Beautiful Well, I mean, I agree 100%. And the what I love about this, when when we were first connected, I was like, Well, what a great topic, mould fire stations health. But then, you know, when two human beings sit down and talk and you know, one has the courage to tell their story, there’s so much more that comes out of it. And again, as much as I know, the mole conversation is going to have a huge effect because I know, we all live in houses and buildings and everything. You know, this side I think is so important to discuss as well. And the more of these stories that people hear the more they realize that they’re not weak, and another loan and there absolutely is hope and help out there. You just have to find whatever that kind of you know, final door that opens for you that door of realization that sends you on your own personal path.
1:44:50
No doubt about it. And a big part of that, by the way, I should clarify that the 12 steps what that does. What it did for me was it gave me a community of people around me that I could I’m All my friends, I mean, I have a lot of friends that still drink. It doesn’t bother me I have a neutral relationship I bought my alcohol was my buddy for so long. I can’t, I can’t, you know, I wrote a letter, thank you letter. It was actually a breakup letter. But he said, listen, we’re gonna see each other, we’re gonna, you know, we just can’t hang out anymore. You know, I mean, it was one of those. And, and I kept it. I didn’t know where to send it. But but you know, I think that the community that you get from these kinds of things is super important. And the isolation, it’s the exact opposite of addiction. Addiction is about isolation, in many cases, many times. And so the the, and the antidote to that is community, its connection. And by the end connection, the thing that keeps me sober is my connection, my family and the people I’m out helping. And you know, that whole thing is suffering forcing. And so, you know, that any, anyone who’s who’s struggling with that, now, I agree with you, this is the shame about addiction is the shame about addiction. Right? So the fact that people don’t want to talk about it exactly why we need to talk about it. And that’s why it takes a loudmouth like me, you know, I have no problem sharing my story, because I like to listen to myself talk. My ego loves it, but also really, I think that there’s, there’s some, there’s someone here listening to this, that’s gonna go Holy shit, and I need to just, I need to, I need to put my hand I need to reach out. And if that one, if one person in amongst your listeners does that, then you know that this will have been worthwhile?
1:46:23
Absolutely. Well, I think, you know, people will be curious to learn more about the company. But I think what’s more important that to me, is that we’ve heard the person and the why behind the company, and that really makes, you know, makes a an organization that people absolutely should you know, gravitate towards. So if people want to learn more about your company itself, find you on social media, where are the best places for that?
1:46:48
Sure. Again, we created a welcome page, I got mold.com/behind, the shield, which is where you’ll find the ebook, as well as a coupon code. For anybody that’s interested in test kit, there’s a 10% off coupon code there. You can always get in touch with me from the homepage, there at@gmail.com. In the bottom of the homepage, there’s a question field, or a contact field. Also, we’re just getting started on social media. And so we’re at facebook.com/got, mold, and also Instagram, got mold. And then professionally on LinkedIn, I’m also starting to get more active there. We were in stealth mode for the Tet with the test kit for a long time. And so having just launched a few months ago, we’re starting to get our social media like legs underneath us, but and the you can always send questions to questions at got molded.com as well.
1:47:46
Beautiful, and I’ll put that link in the webpage for this episode, as well as we will find that James gear and.com On this episode. Perfect. Jason, I just want to say thank you. I mean, when I sit down with a few, like words scribbled on a piece of paper, you know, I don’t know where it’s gonna go. And it’s been such an amazing conversation. So, as I say, to so many people, especially when they’re visiting some elements of their life that you know, may kind of be pulling the scab off the wound a little bit, having the courage to tell your story, obviously, all the work that you’ve done on the mold side, which I know is going to, you know, move the needle on physical and mental health as well. But, but also, you know, putting your story out there for others. I can’t thank you enough for coming on the podcast today.
1:48:28
I can’t thank you enough for being here. You know, it is stories that go unheard are not useful to anybody. And so, you know, if, if, if anything, this is all about pay it forward. So, if one thing could be useful to someone else here, then then that will make it all worthwhile. So, thanks again, James. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
