Troy: Good afternoon, Austin. Hope everyone is having a great day today. Back here with the Austin Spotlight. My name's Troy Schlicker, as hopefully most of you know nowadays. But I'm here today with Jimmy Yen of Achieve Integrative Health. And just wanted to say thanks for joining me today,

Jimmy: Jimmy. Yeah, Troy.

Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to be on the show.

Troy: Yeah, it was really cool learning a little bit about your company. Obviously beforehand, I don't necessarily do probably as deep a dive of research as some people do, but also not trying to like, Uncover the where the bodies are buried kind of thing isn't never necessarily podcast either.

So not having to do go crazy with the research, but for people who don't know you which may be less than you think sometimes, because you have a pretty big online presence both on Instagram and TikTok and a few different places. But for those people who don't know, you maybe give us a little bit of your origin story about who you are and what you do.

Jimmy: [00:01:00] Yeah, so my name is Jimmy Yen. I am a licensed acupuncturist here in Austin, Texas. I have a practice and technically Cedar Park, Texas. It's the largest acupuncture practice in Austin. And I am I'm a UT grad, so hook them horns. I've been in Austin for a while, since 94. I actually went to one year of high school here in McCallum High School.

For those of y'all who know, it used to be one of the smallest high schools here in Austin. So I went there one year and then I went to UT and then I went to acupuncture school. And I'm also known as you say, I've got a pretty big following on social media. Branded myself as a TikTok acupuncturist, and what I do is just share biohacking tips on my social media page.

And while my clinic, I have a team a big team that provides treatments of Chinese medicine, traditional Chinese medicine. And our mission is really to help people restore [00:02:00] their body's natural ability to heal itself so that they can do all the things that they love to do.

Troy: That's awesome. Yeah. 1994 is definitely, one of the more tenured austinites at that point in time.

I've been here since about 2006 or so, so about 16, 17 years. And that's gen in a lot of, in a lot of cases that's oh, you've been here a long time. Yeah. 94 definitely is on the longer side of things. What was the pre make, get it to Austin, part of your life and journey.

Jimmy: I actually, before that I was actually in Taiwan, so I was born in Taipei, Taiwan. But I came here, my parents brought me here when I was about a year and a half. So I was born in Taiwan, but I was raised at Texan. So I've been in Texas majority of my life. But prior to coming to Austin, I was actually in t Taiwan.

My parents wanted me to learn my own language so I could speak it. So they took me back to Taiwan for [00:03:00] one year to learn some Chinese to Mandarin Chinese. And then knowing I have an older sister and she was about a year and a half older than me, she was already in UT Austin. And My parents are like, guess what?

Guess where you're going to college? So since my sister was already here ut was just the natural progression and so we moved I actually, my parents didn't move back. I came back and I lived with my sister for my senior year in high school, just so that we can dev, get the residency and so forth and.

So after I came back a year for my senior year and then directly went into ut. But even prior to that, I've lived in Wow, Dallas, actually Plano specifically Plano for a year. I was in Houston for two years. I was in also a very small town. Not many people know unless you're really a Texan.

It's a little town called Commerce, Texas, and it is about a year, not a year an hour and a half north of [00:04:00] Dallas, so it's near the Oklahoma, Texas border. And back then I believe the population was probably a thousand. So I grew up, I probably grew up, I would say grew up there in a small Texas town.

Troy: Okay.

What had you, what made you decide, did were, so initially when you were gonna college, yeah. Were you initially going for acupuncture and was that kind of the thought process going in? Or were you like a lot of college students where you ended up changing majors three or four times while you

Jimmy: were school?

Oh yeah. Let's just say I wanted to change my major multiple times. But I ended up not doing it. Thankfully. So I went to ut and I did change it. I started off as a chemistry major and then transitioned to biochemistry, so not too big of a change. So I ended up graduating with a biochemistry degree, bachelor's, and my original intention was actually to go to veterinary school.[00:05:00]

And so that was why, I majored in biochemistry, so that was my original intention. However, my, I would say after I graduated or close to when I was graduating I was at a fork in the road. And so at that time I was working part-time at a this frame shop. And at that time I met. A girl, and at that time, I had to make a decision.

I was, I had to, the decision was, do I stay in Austin and pursue the girl or do I go to veterinary school? And veterinary school is in Texas a and m. That's, Texas, that's the only veterinary school in Texas, so that's in College Station. So I had a choice. Do I go for the girl or I go for veterinarian?

And so obviously I stayed, I pursued the

Troy: girl. Yeah. Obviously chose the girl. Any decision that includes those two, almost always goes Yeah.

Jimmy: Yeah. I made the smart decision. Yes. What [00:06:00] is that? We're 23, so 22 years later, she's still my wife. So I married the girl and we've been married for 22 years.

Troy: That's awesome. That's definitely was the right

Jimmy: decision for sure. But to answer your question, I didn't even answer your question. So then I, so if I had to stay in Austin, so I had to decide what I, what am I going to do? And so at that time, it just so happened my dad was talking to me about, oh, hey, there's an acupuncture school here in Austin.

So all of this was happening all at the same time. And. Chinese medicine has been part of my culture growing up, even though I grew up here in Texas. But my parents raised me with the Chinese medicine theories about how to eat, how to do lifestyle, how to, just basic natural healing.

I would say strategies. And so my dad was like, Hey, did you know there's an acupuncture school? And I was like, yeah, great. And then that got my foot in the door and the rest is history.

Troy: That's cool. And nowadays I've actually seen instances on different shows where the bets and [00:07:00] animals will get acupuncture as well too.

So maybe you can meld Oh yeah, meld the two together at some point. Although I'm sure there are some, just the same way medical school and veterinarian school are not the same thing. I'm sure there are definitely some specifics required for animal acupuncture techniques

Jimmy: as well too.

They're in the state of Texas, every state is different laws in different state. In the state of Texas, you have to be a veterinarian in order to do acupuncture on animals. Okay. So I wouldn't be able to do that. But I have veterinarians that are patients of mine.

Then they do acupuncture on their animals. And so a lot of times they would, they would consult with me. It's what do you do on humans? And then I would teach them what I would do on humans and they would do it on pets and it would work miraculously.

Troy: Cause Yeah, I imagine there's not, even though, again, I, even though you've seen it, I've seen it like on, zoo shows or different things.

No, they're trying to, take care of older animals that way. I would imagine that it's not such a popular Category that there's, specific [00:08:00] schools for that. The same way there are traditional acupuncture schools. So unless someone's specifically going to vet school and then to acupuncture school.

My guess is a lot of people who do that are probably getting kind more kind of side courses or, individualized training from someone like yourself who knows and can teach them the techniques that would be able, that they could potentially

Jimmy: use that way. Yeah and I'm not sure the how I, I believe veterinarians have just they have their own training in veterinarian acupuncture.

But it is actually become super popular. Yeah we actually have quite a few patients. The reason why they are trying acupuncture for themselves is because they first had their pets tested for them. And we know animals don't lie. So if it works on an animal, we know it's working.

So it is that goes to some people think that acupuncture's, but just a voodoo it's done on animals and if the animal improves, the animal can't lie to you and say, acupuncture doesn't work. And so we have a

Troy: [00:09:00] quite a few patients. The animals are like, you spent all this money on me.

I'm just gonna pretend like I feel better suddenly.

Jimmy: Exactly. Exactly. It's oh no. I just feel better. I just naturally feel better. No. But yeah, there's so many veterinary acupuncture is becoming so super

Troy: popular. Sure. Just the whole pet side of things in general, right? Oh, like the amount of money that Americans spend on their pets, whether it's food, toys, dog, doggy daycare, all those kind of things oh yeah, it's just grown exponentially.

So not surprising that acupuncture side of it has grown as well. When you were going then to acupuncture school was the. Thought process to start your own clinic and business kind of from the onset, like that was a, an early goal for you? Or was it just to go work at another practice?

Jimmy: It was I wanted to work for somebody in the beginning because I've never ran a business. I have no idea how to do it and successfully. So I wanted to find someone that has been there, done that. And so [00:10:00] unfortunately when I graduated, this was 2004, there wasn't many acupuncture jobs available.

But I was very fortunate that a one of the, one of actually my classmates whose husband. Was a physician. And that physician, they lived in Waco and they were starting a integrative, one of the very first integrative practices. And so they were combining Western medicine with traditional Chinese medicine or acupuncture.

And she knew I did pretty good in school. And and she knew who I was and she's Hey. You want to come up to Waco and just help us start this integrative practice and you can be basically the department head for the acupuncture. And I was like, oh yeah, I would love to. I'd be honored to. And so I was very fortunate that I was able to start that way and work and help them develop the acupuncture department in the integrative clinic.[00:11:00]

Troy: Nice. And so then that once you started that and knew you probably didn't wanna live up in Waco, potentially for the rest of your life, you were kinda like, Hey let's now, like that gave you the confidence to start your own or were there some more steps along

Jimmy: the way there? Oh, there was a lot more steps.

And it's just the journey of an entrepreneur, I actually did not move up to Waco and for people, not to, for people. Waco. Waco. Other than wrong. To Waco. Yeah. Other

Troy: than over the last, as someone who has driven through it many times but over the last number of years, the traffic up there, because of all the expansion they've been doing on 35, has been.

Crazy. But otherwise it's a, it's, it is actually a wonderful city.

Jimmy: This was back in 2004, so there was Fair, fair enough. It wasn't that much. There was nothing out there. Yeah. They had, I remember they, they have restaurants, but they only have one of each type of restaurants. Sure.

And that's how, but anyways, so I was actually, I was living here, so I was living here in Austin, actually in Leander, and I was driving to Waco every single day. And so that was, three hours every single [00:12:00] day. I rarely saw the sun, cause I was getting up early to drive and then I was leaving late, so it would just be like dark all the time.

And so I did that for a few months and I love driving, but that got tiring. Sure. And so I was like, no, I'm not gonna do this. And my wife and I, we weren't going to move up to Waco. And so that's when I said, okay, I gotta come back, come to Austin and Just figure out what I'm gonna do, open a practice, because there wasn't other jobs.

I looked for other jobs, but nobody, at that time, there was not many successful acupuncture clinics and they couldn't afford to hire people. And so I ha I had no choice. But if I want to continue to practice, I had to open a practice by myself. Sure. But instead actually I found another acupuncturist and I said, Hey, you want to partner?

You wanna partner with me and let's open a practice together. And so that was actually my very first [00:13:00] practice. I opened that when I came back to Austin and it was in southwest Austin near the y no kill. And so we opened the prac, we opened the practice. Again, I had no experience building a practice.

I helped start that clinic up there. Sure. But being in a business and helping them build a business versus you starting it from scratch is completely different. And that business did not, we barely survived. We did about eight months of that, and it was, we were just not making money.

It was not sustainable. And so I was at another fork in the road. So I was in another fork in the road and I was like, what am I gonna do? Because we're not making any money. We're getting into more debt. I already had over a hundred thousand dollars in debt from school and I was just accumulating more debt.

And so I was, had to make a decision, do I, do something else, find another career, and or do something else. And actually at that time, one of [00:14:00] my wife's friends, Who is a nurse anesthetist. They're, they, they make really good money and they, when they graduate, starting salary that you come out and it's 150,000.

So I was like, maybe I should try that. And so temporarily at that time, I gave up on acupuncture. And I decided to pursue this nurse anesthetist. So in order to do that, I needed to become, I needed to get a nursing degree first, cuz my bachelor's was in biochemistry. I needed a nursing degree in order to get to the, a bachelor's in nursing in order to apply for the masters in nursing to become a nurse anesthetist.

And so I, I didn't really want to go through four years of another bachelor's, so I found A program actually in Texas Tech. And they have an accelerated program where they condense four years of nursing school into one year. And I applied for it and [00:15:00] thankfully I got accepted to it. And yeah, then I enrolled in that program and I, me personally, I moved up to Lubbock.

That's where Texas Tech is and. But my wife, she had her job here. She just started her job and she was here in Austin. So we had to be part. Yeah. And so that was the decision that I made at that time. And I did one month about that. I did one month in the program. And. I would drive back on the weekends.

I don't know if you've driven to

Troy: Lubbock. I've been to Lubbock once and yeah, it's a track. That's enough. Yeah. It's, there's not a whole lot to see on the way to, around yeah. That it is the perfect drive for self-driving cars is what,

Jimmy: so it's an eight hour drive, right? Yeah. So I was driving eight hours one way on the weekends, and then I would drive back to school.

When the weekend's over. And so after a month of that, my wife and I, we were just like, man, [00:16:00] I mean we're, it is just tough on your marriage being apart, right? And we're like, okay, no amount of money is worth being apart. And so then I made another decision. So I decided, heck, okay this is not worth it.

So I decided I'm gonna, I'm going to give it one last try. I'm gonna come back to Austin and I'm gonna open my own practice by myself this time and this time I have no choice. I'm going to make it successful. So I. Unenrolled out of the program for, from Texas Tech, moved back to Austin Leander and started my practice, my current practice in 2007.

And since then, when, when all your ships are burned and you have n you have nowhere to go but to succeed and you're, you have to succeed. There is no other choice, and you do whatever it takes. And then, 2007 till now I have the largest practice It all worked out great. No,

Troy: That's awesome.

Like I [00:17:00] say, it's, and I think it's an important story to tell that, right? Like a lot of times, again, being on social media like you have a relatively large following, but like you get to say that you're the largest, practice here in Austin and all those things, which are true and awesome, but a lot of people don't realize the struggles that most successful people have to go through in order to get there.

It's not usually just a straight line from, Hey, I graduated to. I'm, now run the most, the largest practice in Austin, Texas type of thing. There's struggles along the way that could have potentially taken different turns or choice say, choices that could have been made.

Had you decided to stick out the nursing program, like you'd probably be a little bit different place today.

Jimmy: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And it's, I, it's pretty much, I quit twice in my life. I hate quitting and I don't consider myself a quitter. You can say pivot. You can say quit. You can

Troy: say quit.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's one of the things though that like people sometimes aren't, Especially people who are successful academically. Because [00:18:00] if you're successful academically, usually you don't have any failures until you're out in a profe like so for the first 22 years of your life, you're successful cuz you're usually getting A's and D's in school and passing tests and that kinda stuff.

And so it can be extra hard to. Fail in something like, the joint business, the partnership with the other acupuncturist because like you're just not used to dealing with things not succeeding. So but Right. Had that, like there's also a scenario I'm sure where that could have worked and you would've been moderately successful enough to keep it going, but not really that successful and maybe not.

Yes. Have enjoyed it as much as I'm sure you're able to enjoy having your own practice. Yeah. What you do now.

Jimmy: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It was definitely learning experiences and I don't, it's I appreciate all of those experiences, all those hardships and hurdles that, that I went through, cuz I definitely would not be where I am today without those,

Troy: it helps you appreciate the success more, right?

Oh yeah. [00:19:00] If it's not. If it, if success comes too easy, sometimes it's not enjoyed and appreciated the same way as if there are some struggles along the way.

Jimmy: Definitely. I would think I, yeah, if success came more easily I think we tend to be less grateful for, for everything that happens for the people around you, the people that supported you when times were tough.

And but going through those struggles you can identify, and it reminds us to be grateful to those people and also to be empathetic to people that are starting out sure. That are going through those struggles right now. Yeah, that's

Troy: right. To not have the judgment on somebody else who's maybe not as successful in their current endeavor right now, because you've been there, I've been there, most people have been there where it's like, Hey, you're not it's not always just success upon success.

And so like when somebody else is struggling, again, part of the reason that I like I started the podcast was, it's interesting to hear. Other people's stories and journeys about them going through struggles and the challenges to hopefully [00:20:00] become successful at their career one point in time and that, and to realize that it's worth taking those chances.

If you had there's, again, you would've had to probably leave Austin since there weren't really any openings, but there were, there would've been other way things you could have done, like you say, gone to be a nurse practitioner. I'm sure there were maybe More on the coast where acupuncture was maybe more accepted and there was more chinese medicine and some of those kind of things, you could have moved somewhere else to go work at someone else's practice that way too. Yeah. So there were other avenues that you could have taken that would've been good too. There's nothing would've been anything wrong with those, but probably not as satisfying as where things are now.

Jimmy: Yeah. And it's I think the biggest thing was, having your ships burned. We, a lot of people talk about, burning your own ships. I didn't have ships to burn. They were all burned for me. My family was not a wealthy family. We we I remember growing up on food stamps and so it is very, having your ships burn for you.

I think I actually take that as an advantage because. You don't [00:21:00] have anything to burn versus if you have ships to burn, then you have to go over that hur hurdle of burning your own ships. But when you don't have any ships to burn, you have no choice. Yeah. You either, either it is like sink or swim. And so thankfully I swam

Troy: very good.

Yeah, no, like I say, I'm very much if you have that safety net Yeah. Like it's, it is possible to. Cut the umbilical cord or kinda leave that safety net to really see if you can succeed. But a lot of times it's hard to truly make that change. And again, it's probably one of the reasons that had you finished the nursing program and gotten into That field.

And then again, if you're making a hundred, $150,000 a year doing that, it'd be really hard at that point in time to be like, Hey, let me leave this program now. That I'm starting to make some income and go back to the, who knows if this is gonna work out. And yeah. And try and at that point it wouldn't have been, I have to sink or swim.

Cause I'd been like, oh, I've already got this degree that I can fall back on and just go back to work at Seton.

Jimmy: Yeah, exactly.[00:22:00] And I think it depends on the person. I think, because not everybody, I. Has that entrepreneur personality. And not everybody, is that the right path for them?

Some people are, their strength is in academia or a more structured environment versus entrepreneur is chaos. In the beginning. And so not everybody can handle that chaos, and it's not healthy for everybody to have it. Thankfully. That is my personality and I love entrepreneurship.

But it isn't necessarily for everybody.

Troy: No. And yeah, again, there's, like I say, I enjoy talking to other people that are small business owners because I do find that exciting and interesting, but yeah. It's definitely not the type of career for everyone and. Yeah. Even entrepreneurs and small business owners wouldn't be successful.

If most entrepreneurs and small business owners, if they didn't have the support of people who don't wanna be, that wouldn't be as successful as either, right? Cause like absolutely at some level you need some organization and some structure [00:23:00] to really to make the thing take off and grow. But you also need that engine that the entrepreneur usually provides, especially early on Yes.

To think outside the box and work the wild and crazy hours and deal with the stress of shoot, we don't know where the money's coming for payroll in two weeks at this point in time. Yeah. And again, that stress and that craziness isn't for most people, which is perfectly fine as well too.

So it's definitely a blend of. Different types of personalities and different strengths and weaknesses that make a

Jimmy: business successful. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm definitely learning that right now since I'm working on expanding. And so having different personalities, on your team is super important.

Troy: I would say that seems as the largest acupuncturist here in Austin or clinic feels like the next Austin thing you need to do is have the north and south locations, right? That's what every Austin business that's successful does, is oh, we gotta have our north location.

Because if you live, north of 35th Street, you're not [00:24:00] gonna drive down south past the river. And if you live, south of the 7 0 4, you're not gonna come up to. South Dallas is people like to call it who, Yeah. Who live down there. And is that something that's on the agenda for you guys, you think at some point?

Or would it be more just another location, a little bit more, towards, round Rock hu up north still for you guys?

Jimmy: Oh, absolutely. That's been, that is part of one of my plans. Expansion plans. It is to have, actually I would like to have 10 clinics all around Austin. And I did have two clinics prior to Covid.

And then I had to condense when Covid happened. But now we're on, yeah, I want to expand. So my goal right now is to have 10 clinics around Austin, and then after Austin, then I'll go to Dallas, Houston, San Antonio. That's the goal.

Troy: That's another thing with a real entrepreneur too, is so it's funny, I don't know that if you would necessarily consider yourself that since if you didn't necessarily grow up that way, but like you scratched that itch obviously in, in doing the [00:25:00] businesses, but now that you've done that, it's now what's next?

It's that never satisfied with oh, this is going really well and I'm really grateful that it's going well. But it's we now we gotta keep, we gotta keep building, we gotta keep striving for the

Jimmy: next thing. Yeah it's for me, everybody has their own reasons why they want to expand.

For me, it goes back to my mission. So my mission of helping 1 million people with their health, restore their health. And so I can't do it by myself. I learned probably a few years into my practice that me, solo practitioner, I can only help so many people every single day. There's only 24 hours in a day.

And there's only how many days in a week, right? And so that's why I knew I need to hire team members to help me because they can, help my clinic, help more people exponentially. And so to the reason why I want to open so many clinics is because, I want to reach my mission of helping 1 million people.

Now, that's from one mission is to help people restore their body's health. I also have a mission [00:26:00] of, hey, My profession, I love my profession and it's not getting recognized as much. Here in the us. All over the world it is, but here in the US it's still growing super slow. So that's another one of my passions to help elevate my profession.

And that's another thing why I need to have more clinics because with more clinics, more popularity, more voice, more will that a stronger voice, then people will start to listen. And then the last passion that I have is, I love corporations. I love like Dell, ibm, apple. And the reason why I love those corporations is because I would like to build a business where that business.

Is supporting and providing for 4,000 families. Sure. That is just, I would say the pinnacle of success for me is to build something that per, that supports 4,000 families. I just, that just makes me, excited when I talk about it. Yeah,

Troy: no, I [00:27:00] think that's something that a lot of people don't, obviously there's a lot of.

D both sides of the aisle or spectrum as far as the bad corporations and all that kind of stuff. But it's like at the same point in time, those corporations, while they, a lot of them make a lot of money, like they are also supporting a lot of employees. Yes. And a lot of people and stuff too.

And so there's definitely some good things. And again, obviously like in most businesses or most things in life, there's ways that most businesses and people individually can improve on things, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're, anything's usually all bad or all good.

Jimmy: Exactly.

Exactly. I know the corporations get a ba bad rap. Yes. The way to do things, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just talking about the fact, the positives of it. How many, just like Austin, you've seen it. You're a realtor, right? You're in your real estate, and so you've seen the influx of people.

That's all because of corporations providing jobs that they are supporting thousands, millions of families. That's just for me, it's just so out outstanding. Yep. [00:28:00]

Troy: So going, you mentioned that like your profession that you know kinda eastern mess, Eastern medicine is, still slowly growing here in the United States. I feel like it's gotten. I do feel like it's gotten significantly bigger. It's not that it's significantly big in comparison to Western medicine Yeah. And stuff at this point in time. But like a lot of things in life, whether it's food or just regular culture or medicine, there's been definitely in the last 20 years a much. Better influx in mixing of different types of things. But I do feel like unlike food, which is really simple cause it's today I feel like Chinese food, and tomorrow I feel like Mexican food. A lot of times when it comes to medicine, people tend to have a, try to have more of a consistent approach.

And so if you're used to, Hey, I go to my doctor and my doctor causes you pills, or my doctor, says to do whatever. It's rare. It's more rare that you deviate off that course and be like let me try. Eastern medicine for this one [00:29:00] thing, but western medicine for this thing. And so I think that can be one of the challenges in it growing.

But obviously health and wellness in general is something that is important to a lot of people. And there's a lot of people our age who I don't, there's, it feels like there's a lot more healthy people our age than there were when we were. In high school and college type of thing.

And you didn't see people in their, forties and fifties being as active and seeming like they're still in their twenties or thirties a lot of times.

Jimmy: Yeah. And I, I forgot when, but if you remember back then when, the medical the the surgeon general, the medical Research or all that stuff.

They were saying smoking was a, was healthy Sure. Way back when, right? And so it, it's not for me when I say I want to elevate our, my, my profession, it's more about educating, right? Because. Chinese medicine is not, this is not the superior medicine when it comes to acute care. And [00:30:00] I definitely, I love western medicine.

It's I started studying it when I was in college. But it has every medicine has its place. Sure. So it's more, for me, it's about educating the public to let them know they have options. It's not to force people to be healthy or to choose, Chinese medicine. It's to let them know, hey, there are options.

And if you actually want to fix a problem, a chronic disease, I'm not talking about you get in an accident, your, your hand is barely hanging on your body. Please go to the emergency room. Don't ever come to an acupuncture clinic cuz we ain't gonna sew you up. Okay? Yeah. We're not gonna save you.

You need to go to western medicine. You go to the hospital. That's where Western medicine saves lives. They save countless of lives. Sure. And I'm very appreciative of that now when it comes to chronic, but you're not in an acute situation every single day. Majority of us are not, a majority of us are in chronic situations.

They've been a disorder that's been there for a long time, like diabetes. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity insomnia.[00:31:00] These are chronic disorders. Now, Western medicine has this strength of. Providing symptom relief, which means it takes away the symptom temporarily, but it's gonna come back once you stop the medication.

Sure. You're, if you're relying upon medication to regulate your blood pressure, if you stop that medication, your blood pressure goes back to where it was before. It's still a problem. That's what they mean by masking a problem. And so what I would like to do is to let people know, Hey, if you want, it's your choice.

If you don't want to fix your problem, then stick with the pill. That's okay. But there are people that want to fix the problem, and what I mean by that is getting their body to fix it by themselves. Because most of us were not born with high blood pressure. Something happened. We were born healthy.

We were born healthy. Something happened, and now we have high blood pressure. So what does that tell us? That means our body has the ability to regulate our blood pressure [00:32:00] by itself without any treatments. So Chinese medicine has the ability to help retrain the body to go back to where it was, which is self-healing.

That is what my definition of truly fixing the problem. If you're taking a pill, it doesn't matter if it's an herbal pill, if you have to take an herbal pill to sustain your blood pressure, that's still not fixing the problem. That's still masking the problem, but the difference of Chinese medicine, Is that it has the ability to retrain the body, the brain to heal itself so that your body can start healing, your body can heal your blood pressure by itself.

It can heal your diabetes by yourself. It can heal your insomnia, your migraines, your neuropathy. It can heal all those by itself again. So that's what I would like to do is just provide more information so that people know they have options.

Troy: Yeah. Now you say the human body's a pretty Miraculous.

Machine for lack of a better word, and, but but it's also, [00:33:00] again, it, but it also does a great job of staying in homeostasis, right? Yes. It's hey, if you're gonna sit all day for eight hours plus a day, yeah. Guess what? We're gonna get really comfortable doing that, and then it's gonna make it a lot harder to be super active if you're going to, Compensate for a bad knee or a bad whatever, bad hip. And not and just again, may, maybe you're not even necessarily masking it through medicine, but, hey, I'm just not going to do activities because when I do them my knee hurts. I'm I'm just gonna, walk and go to work and stuff and give up sports or, whatever those things may be that your body's gonna get to the point where it's great, we're just not gonna be able to.

Do anything active at any point in time, but it's going to, that's not a great way to, to pain avoidance or just avoidance in general is generally not a good way to live for your body or for life in general.

Jimmy: Yeah. It's like symptom avoidance. Yeah. You said it exactly right. Our bodies are so brilliant, it's so resilient.

It can adapt to anything. That's the [00:34:00] beauty of our body, right? And yeah, it can adapt to unhealthy lifestyle situations. And Like you said, people will just give up things, give up other things. Maybe they're not doing some type of treatment, they're just, okay, I'm just not gonna do it anymore.

I love playing tennis, but I can't because my knee hurts. My knee keeps on swelling, so I'm just not gonna play tennis anymore. But here's the thing is those people, sometimes later, 10 years down the road, they're like, man, I wish I could play tennis again. And here's the thing, there is a chance that they could.

If they just get their bodies right, obviously they have to exercise, they have to, change their diet. Those are two def everybody knows, watch what you eat, get out and move more. Everybody knows that, but nobody does it consistently. If everybody did that, actually just took those two things, right?

All the doctors would be out of business. It's because we don't do those things. Yeah. But healing can be very simple. It's not easy, but it can be very simple. But yeah, no we tend to [00:35:00] just give up on things that we love to do. And I'm like, I'm trying to say, Hey, you don't have to, you can do everything that you love to do.

Troy: Yeah, no, I'm definitely the other way. I'm like okay, how can I what's a way that I can make that happen? Versus oh, I just have to give it up. So again, I feel like for a 43 year old, I'm probably one of the healthier ones. I know I'm one of the healthier ones based on some of the activities and stuff that I'm able to do, and it's okay, trying to find ways to continue to stay healthy.

Because that's the other thing too, is like a lot of people don't realize how long. We're likely to live with that confluence of Western and eastern medicine and stuff that's happening with people and just nutrition and all those kind of things like. For me, both on my mom's side of the family, my grandpa and my great grandpa live to be over a hundred years old, and oh wow.

There's a chance that there's a legitimate chance that I could do that. And then when you take into, like if in life insurance nowadays, if someone's born today, they're like, they do life insurance and stuff based [00:36:00] on 120 year old table. There's, process that people are gonna start to live that old in another a hundred years based on just the advances in.

All different kinds of technology and it's if you're really gonna live another full lifetime or more the last thing that I want to do is have to live it in a wheelchair or exactly, not be able to get outta bed and stuff. So it's like how long can you continue staying as active and as fit and is able to do as many things as possible for as long as possible?

Seems like a pretty worthwhile goal.

Jimmy: Yeah. And if not for yourself, what about your kids? What about your, if you're gonna live 120 years old, you're probably, you could see your grandkids and maybe even your grand grandkids. It's do you want to be, sitting in a wheelchair watching them, or do you want to be walking

Troy: with them?

And yeah enjoying the experiences instead of just being a spectator

Jimmy: in them. Yeah, that's, yeah. You said it. Yeah.

Troy: For people that, yeah, for people that wanna find out more about you guys, what are the maybe some of the best ways [00:37:00] to learn more? Get in touch?

Jimmy: Yeah. I would say follow me on social media at Achieve Integrative Health.

You can find us on TikTok. We're everywhere. TikTok, Instagram Facebook. We're on Pinterest, LinkedIn YouTube where else? Everything. Yeah. I think Twitter. Yeah. So find us at Achieve Integrative Health. And we can start there. Start the conversation. If you want to learn some biohacking tips, I offer free biohacking tips on those channels.

And if you actually need some customized care, customized help, and you're here in Austin, Texas, or near the vicinity, we have people driving from New Bronzeville St. Marcus. Coming to us there's a reason why we're the largest. We get, really great results and people are willing to drive an hour, two hours one way just to come see us and get the results.

Oh. So yeah, if you're,

Troy: my, my mom doesn't live in the area, but she has ra arthritis [00:38:00] and she drives over an hour about once a month to go see her specialist. For that. Yeah for for a good. Physician, doctor, expert. It's worth The time and energy. Oh yeah. To make that happen. For sure.

Jimmy: Yeah. Cuz you're gonna save time.

Time is the one asset we never get back. Once you lose it, it's gone. Definitely. So if you want more time with your family, more time to do the things that you love to do, then you want to shorten that healing time and so you find the best.

Troy: Definitely. I really, Jimmy I really appreciate you taking the time to, to join me today on the podcast and it was super fun, interesting conversation to hear your story and talk a little bit about health and wellness as well too.

Always a fun topic for me.

Jimmy: Yeah. Thank you Troy. Thanks for allowing me to share my story and share my passion for Chinese medicine. It was fun. I love doing these things. Appreciate

Troy: it. Hope everyone has a wonderful day out there. Thank you.