Freddie Kimmel of FreddieSetGo On The Future Of The Global Wellness Economy
… “Fall in love with something.” The most important thing is to understand why you are trying to be well and why you’re trying to optimize or biohack. To biohack just for the sake of optimization feels like an empty container. I look around and see that the world is struggling and that we need people at their best. So “fall in love with something” is a powerful quote that resonates with me.
As part of our series about ‘The Future Of The Global Wellness Economy,’ I had the pleasure to interview Freddie Kimmel at the 2022 Biohacking Congress in Boston, Massachusetts.
Freddie Kimmel is a Functional Health Coach, Reiki Healer, Certified Personal Trainer, Gut Health Specialist, and proud cancer survivor. He helps men and women eliminate brain fog, bloat and belly fat through gut health. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, the Full Plate Podcast, An Excellent Example of Being Human, State of the Arts on LA talk radio and Dance Magazine. Freddie has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from SUNY Brockport, attended SUNY Fredonia, and is a graduate of the Institute of Functional Health Coaching.
He is currently living each day to its fullest in NYC and focused on creating more value than what he captures.
Thank you so much for joining us Freddie. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
It’s rooted in my personal experience with chronic illness. I was diagnosed with metastatic cancer at a very young age, at 26 years old. I dove right into that experience. I did all the chemotherapy you could do. I did five different surgeries to not only mitigate cancer in my peritoneum cavity, but also the adhesions and scar tissue that were a result of that. So it was a 15-year experience of me going through chronic illness. I was so frustrated. I was so tired of not being seen or validated. I just wanted to feel better, and wanted to be pain-free.
I found great benefits in the world of biohacking, stem cells, hyperbaric chambers, pulsed electromagnetic fields, red light therapy, elite supplementation, and liposomal formulation of glutathione.
I went from that place to where I wanted to be. Today I have ample energy and a clear connection with my thoughts and words. I travel all over the country and advocate for other patients who are lost and frustrated. I can deliver a message of hope that there is an opportunity for you to manage your true wellness, not just treat the disease.
What are your “3 things I wish someone told me when I first started my career” and why?
- That what I have to say is unique and valuable. It’s not about how many people are showing up to your Instagram lives, attending your talks, or reading your articles. It’s that you’re going to have a message, and there are going to be a very select few people that are going to resonate with what you have to say because it comes from you, because of your collection of experiences and traumas and victories. I have a voice, and I’m special and unique.
- Another thing is that the body has this ability to heal and autocorrect. It is an intricate divine integration of different organ systems, which will never be matched through technology or machine. We are the magic. Coming back into that deep knowing that I am a divine healing being is something that is a great thing to carry with you forward through every experience.
- Another thing that I wish somebody would’ve told me early on is that it’s about me, my health, and wellness. As much as I say I want to be an advocate for others and help teach that there are options and different ways, I’ve learned that the more I can learn from other human beings going through their experience, the more I become a better channel for information. And then I heal more. And the more I heal and embody all these things, I am a better living example. So it’s this perfect loop.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?
There are so many. Obviously, I have to give credit and props to my mother. I always have this image of her sitting next to me in the hospital, not sleeping for like 12 days in a chair for one of the significant procedures I went through. She has always given me loving admiration and affirmation. My mom is so kind and sweet and selfless in that way.
The people who have helped me along the way are podcasters, and they don’t even know how much they helped. The reason why I do The Beautifully Broken Podcast is that I got so much value from listening to Dave Asprey and Ben Greenfield. I’ve told some of them what an impact they’ve made. The way information is delivered through a podcast, me listening to two human beings share a story, just hits me on a deep, energetic level, and I remember all of it. I don’t have to go back and listen to a podcast. There’s something about sharing information in that way that’s so valuable.
Do you have a favorite quote that made a deep impact on your life? Can you share a story?
“Fall in love with something.” It’s come up a lot in the panels. The most important thing is to understand why you are trying to be well and why you’re trying to optimize or biohack. To biohack just for the sake of optimization feels like an empty container. I look around and see that the world is struggling and that we need people at their best. So “fall in love with something” is a powerful quote that resonates with me.
How has wellness played a big role in your life?
I love the term wellness because it really does define healthcare. Real true healthcare is to be well, to be vibrant. Wellness is how I move through space. It’s the energy behind the action of everything I do, whether connecting with a human being, opening a door, or putting on clothes. We can do that in a fashion that is gentle and kind and artistic. So I put wellness on everything. I’ll put that word, that dressing, on every action I do, and I think that helps. I know it is playing into long-term healing. My body speaking and moving and vibrating that way is bathing these cells currently in beneficial hormones to make a new copy of me that will hopefully be more magnetic, more able to create, and help people who are still struggling.
Can you share with our readers what innovations you are excited about in the health and wellness industries?
I’m excited about voice print technology. The idea that we can record the voice and garner information about how the body is in balance from a voice print. The idea that the expression of my organs, tissues, and bones in a certain emotional state is different from the flip side of that emotional state. The idea is that we can use this voice as a biofeedback loop, in real-time, to sing a song back to the body. I mean, that’s wild stuff.
Even at Stanford Medical, they’re using certain sound frequencies to arrange stem cells in a dish to make heart tissue. They’re also using different diagnostic tools to use a voice print to identify viral infections with up to 99.8% accuracy. I think the idea that we’ll have energy and frequency sound medicine coming into the market in the next couple of decades is so cool.
As you know, COVID-19 changed the world as we know it. Can you share some examples of how health and wellness companies will be adjusting?
I think we must be able to better educate people on what health is and what wellness is. A lot of times, we fall into disease. We think we’re only going to lean into it when our body is responding in a way of deficiency or sickness. But there are so many ways we can measure health from home. We’ve got insight trackers, and keto meters to measure metabolic rate. We’ve got bio straps to track heart rate variability and nervous system tone. So we can look at the body differently. We can see dysfunction long before it settles into these chronic disease states. So I think prevention would be one thing health and wellness companies could be mindful of. We can get all this great information from the body’s biorhythms, heart rate variability, ECG from home and then make a course correction to our lifestyle behaviors. This will really play into long-term health, wellness and longevity.
In my work as a Board Certified Wellness Coach who caters to the cancer survivor community, I have found the theme of “second chances” to be a powerful motivator. What keeps your spirit still firing?
- It’s my “why.” My why is well defined. I’m here to be a clear channel for this information on next-level health, wellness and vitality. So I’m excited to get out of bed in the morning. I’m incredibly amped up to be able to have a podcast where I can talk to inventors, wellness providers, and functional medicine coaches that are changing the game in the field. Keeping current, and having access to those human beings again makes me excited to get out of bed in the morning. So a purpose-driven life and feeling like I’m doing something that matters is my number one.
- Number two, immersing myself in the community. Being at live events, hugging, touching physical people, and hearing someone’s keynote live is so different from watching a replay of a webinar. So being in a physical community is important.
- Another thing that really keeps me going is seeing people have this experience of a complete transformation. Witnessing people that are in radical remission of late-stage cancers and seeing people reverse their type two diabetes or their chronic insomnia for decades is inspiring.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in the wellness industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
Well, we have to change our perception of stress. If we think about just taking stress down a notch or managing stress, you’re signing up for a lifetime of working against a force that’s greater than you. Instead, work on your perception of stress and what stress is. So that would come with a redesign, or a reframe of your lifestyle.
In today’s age, we have a perception from social media of how much I need to do to feel like I have value on the planet. But it’s probably about 10 times less than that. I’m guilty of that as anybody else, scheduling myself with too much. More is not better.
I think to prevent burnout people need to utilize prescription nature. They need to be in nature, barefoot, in sunlight, in salt water and immersing themselves in that more times than not. It can’t be a once or twice-a-year type of thing. We have to live in resonance with nature.
The other thing, the easy one, is to develop a program that is full of great tips and tricks around sleep hygiene. All too often we just don’t honor the body’s clock. We are really going to benefit from that deep restorative sleep. So we have to engineer nature into the bedroom; cold temperatures, an environment free from non-native electromagnetic fields two hours before bedtime, and keeping conscious about the artificial blue light that is going to upset your circadian rhythm.
You are a “wellness insider”. How would you describe the “perfect wellness experience”?
How do you take the experience of an amp coil or a hyperbaric oxygen or light path LED, and how do you integrate that into the other 24 hours of the day? I think that comes with the intention behind the action. It’s sitting down with a wellness experience and asking, what do I want to get from this? How do I want to use it to amplify my message or my purpose? How do I bring that tool and embody that for the other 24 hours in the day or the next week or the next month? I think that comes with intention, the thought process, self-guided neuroplasticity, or even some emotional freedom technique or journaling to really integrate that.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I continue to invest in my community of biohackers. I lean into the podcasters in this wellness space like Nathalie Niddam, Kristin Weitzel, Luke Storey, Joel Evan, and we share what’s working for us and what’s not. What’s a more effective way to tell a story? How, as influencers or wellness insiders can we be an advocate for our product without being dogmatic? How can we always be aware that new improvements are coming down the pipeline? So really being committed to the fact that it’s the path and the journey and not being locked into brand recognition. I think that’s important in this field.
How can our readers follow you online?
They can listen to The Beautifully Broken Podcast and visit my website freddiesetgo.com
This was very inspiring, Freddie. Thank you.