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Xerxes Voshmgir:  Welcome to Challenging #ParadigmX. I am Xerxes Voshmgir and in my podcast I interview people who challenge the status quo. In this episode, my guest will talk about: Shit – our fecal matter and gut microbiome,

He will talk about, why fecal matter trade will be the future of health, how the corona pandemic could be solved by fecal matter transplants, how you can transfer your level of health to another person and to become a next level health influencer, why we need a dashboard to the human body and why all personal health data should be public. 

My guest today is Sequoia LaDeil Velez. I met Sequoia at TEDx Klagenfurt where we both were speakers. I was intrigued by his talk and that’s why I invited him today. Sequoia is the founder of a health company called Eden. Eden builds an ecosystem around the microbiome and the dashboard for the human body for biohacking our health. So, literally this shit is unreal! Decide for yourself if Sequoia is a visionary genius or simply a madman. 

Stay tuned!

Xerxes Voshmgir: Hi, my name is Xerxes, and today I’m here with Sequoia LaDeil Velez. Sequoia could you please introduce yourself and tell us who you are and what you do .

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: Sure! Thanks for having me here. My name is Sequoia. I’m a digital shaman, clinical herbalist, and my background is in psychology and nutrition. What I typically do is I work in the microbiome space. I really focus on nutrition and bringing together an entire ecosystem around the medical field. At the moment, we’re really focused on metrics. I’m really trying to understand everything that’s happening with you and your entire environment as well as trying to create a dashboard for the human body.

 Xerxes Voshmgir:  Why you do what you do?

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: I do what I do because I have a passion for helping other people. I really enjoy seeing people be at their best. I – in my younger age, or as a child or adult in my adolescence, I had, what’s called lead poisoning and this led poisoning as a child, I had to learn how to walk. I had to learn how to talk properly, and I was often made fun of in school and really, really bullied. But it just really brought me a lot of insights of not being able to speak properly and just to be an observer, just really observing everything. As I got older, I really didn’t mind health care too much and, as an American we didn’t really focus so much on health as like a big priority or a big topic.

I started, I became vegan and when I moved to Austria, I’ve seen that. the healthcare system was completely different. We had to put in our money and our resources into the healthcare system, which I was completely against. And it wasn’t until I felt this pain in my right arm that just felt like a slight muscle ache, as if I had done a workout of some sort and I wanted to go to the hospital and – actually, I did go to the hospital – and what they notice is that I have 14 blood clots in my right arm. Now, I was completely surprised because I was completely healthy. There were no other indications that something was wrong. And then they later found out that I had a blood clot that went to my brain as well.

And so they didn’t understand the real reason why all of these symptoms and, had, had came into play. And, and with my health, and I’m still to this day, there was no real way of diagnosing this. So, I decided to shift my focus more from nutrition, more from the psychology and more from this natural holistic way of helping people and moving that into a digital field – which is why I say digital shamanism – and really looking at what is it that happens within our bodies that  will give us the opportunity to heal ourselves, you know? So, that’s one of the reasons why I decided to dive deep within the entire ecosystem of our environment, of our medicines, of our microbiome. What within our microbes is allowing us to be at our best.

 Xerxes Voshmgir: Would you say that this, situation with the block cloths was the turning retirement point in your life? Or is there any other point in your life that you feel like had a major impact on what you do today and basically the way you think, the way you do your business and so on.

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: In hindsight, yes. I would say my grandmother, when she passed away, when I was 18 years old. She passed away from a heart attack, she was only 50 years old. But these are the things that can be ultimately prevented. But we have this way of looking at things that are linear, old version of taking care of your health, which is just a read something off of the internet.

And, so that played a big role in my life. Other than that what happened with me was just eye opening as to why we don’t have better systems. I mean, here we, we, we know the systems of our computers. We know the details, how they work, how to upgrade the software. The same with our vehicles. Yeah? How to change the engine, the oil, the gas, how to update something. We even have this dashboard inside of a vehicle. How fast we’re going. when the check engine light comes on. And so why can’t we do that with the entire, you know, our bodies. And that’s something that we really heavily are investigating and looking at so we can, you know, keep these, these impacts, from, from happening with anyone else.

Xerxes Voshmgir: Okay, all right.   

Your field basically is a health,

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: My field is absolutely health, yes!

Xerxes Voshmgir: Biology, what else? Is it – it goes into neuroscience?

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: I try to stay, stay away out of the neuroscience, all of that – although all of those components are, are necessary. That’s a field that I don’t fully understand too much. However, I do understand that the gut microbes have a huge impact on a brain and the way that we think with our, with our emotions in a way that we feel, you know, the correlation also between those that have alzheimer’s disease, for example, there’s a major correlation with the, with the gut microbiome completely malfunctioning and out of order as well as when a child is sick or has, you know, a specific disease or is born with something. And very often you see the case that they have this malfunctioning within their gut microbiome.

So I, I’d like to say that the gut microbes are almost like the logical, the logic of a system, of a computer without that functioning correctly, the rest of the body can’t function correctly. And just so everyone has a bit of an understanding of what the gut microbiome is. It’s trillions and trillions of gut bacteria that are responsible for protecting your immune system.

Okay, can you elaborate on that?

Sure, so in a han body, 10%, I believe they say it’s roughly around 10% of our body is han, and the rest of it is alien and so I, I’d like to say that 90% of our gut microbiome. It’s more expressive as DNA. And so we have all of this alien DNA within us. Alien means just unknown. We have all of this alien DNA within us that we don’t fully understand how it functions. And so when you see different things happen around health, it’s typically coded there within the gut microbes. And so when there’s something that goes wrong, like the blood clots, in my example, there was a signal within my gut microbes that says, Hey, we’re trying to notify this guy. It’s not that my gut microbes are turning against me yet, but they’re trying to warn me: “Hey, you’re not feeding us as far as our nutrition, what we need!” So,the same thing happens with people that have heart attacks. If people are not listening to their gut, what happens is, is the gut microbes send off something to the body, or a great example, MATO which is responsible for blocking up the, the, the, the veins in clotting the veins which eventually lead to a heart attack. So all in all, it’s about listening to your gut and understanding what your body is trying to say to you.

Xerxes Voshmgir: Okay. Very interesting! So, would you say this is also where, where the phrase, listen to your gut comes from.

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: Absolutely, and it’s really interesting to see that they’ve been talking about this for thousands of years. But since modern day medicine has come into play, we’ve kind of forgotten how to really listen to our gut with the television that we watch all the time, with all the entertainment that’s out there, we’ve forgotten to listen to the one true thing, and that’s just the vehicles that we are.

Xerxes Voshmgir: Well, what comes to my mind, because I’m originally Persian and actually there we, when we talk about our heart so that we are in love and everything, we actually don’t use the term heart but we use the term gut. So, it’s interesting.

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: That’s very interesting.

Xerxes Voshmgir: So, yeah! So I don’t say: “I love you from my heart.”  I say: “I love you from my gut.”

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: Oh, that’s, that’s really interesting. Because it’s, you know. Absolutely. I think that that’s a nice feeling because it shows how in tune, you know, everyone, is in and it shows from a cultural standpoint. From that point of view, knowing that emotions tend to come from your gut, like depression as well.

Right? And so when people often feel depressed, you know, it’s, it’s coming from their gut. And that very often is connected to the lack of proper nutrition. Of course, the outside environment from the way that you think, which plays a, an important role, which is why meditation is very important to, to stabilizing or balancing your gut as well.

Xerxes Voshmgir: Okay, so  can you elaborate on that? How is a meditation, for example, connected.

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: So, it’s, it’s shown in recent studies that people that very often do meditation that have gut issues tend to lower that, those  inflammation levels. And so very often when people have these stomach issues where they can’t conse food properly, if they do about a five to 10 minute meditation for eating, and then everything gets settled and they can digest their food properly.

And that’s just one case scenario. Obviously, I mean, we can go a lot deeper into, to aspects of meditations that, that have been done by Brahmans back then where they talk about the Chakras and how everything is centered in that area. But you know, I like to look at science as well as the holistic approaches and see how we can merge those two to bring a balance between, again, the shamanistic world and also this a digital world that we live in.

Xerxes Voshmgir: And scientific world.

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: Correct!

Xerxes Voshmgir: Okay. All right. I see. Very interesting! Also, when you said 90% of the body is alien: What do you mean by that?

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: So, it’s not me who says that this is typical science.  It’s roughly around, you know, there’s, there’s some discrepancies. There is, some people say it’s 50/50. Some people say that it’s 80/20. And so, you know, all in all, just majority of the body is alien being unknown, undiscovered. We have yet to really, you know, dive deep in and understand these, these, foreign aspects that, have a huge play within our immune system.

So, a great example is if we look at blood work for the past, you know, few decades, decades, we’ve really just looked into blood work, the DNA of blood. But when we talk about the foreign aspect, you’re able to really get a deep sense of what’s happening only through your microbiome, which is your poop, your shit.

And so when you look at these things, you say: “Okay, why is this something that you know, that comes out of us? Yet it plays such a huge  impact in our entire immune system, our bodies, our brains, our sight. Why have we not looked deeper within that to really see, you know, how we can optimize our bodies in general?”

And so when, when we say 90% alien or whatever percentage alien, which is alien, which is the majority, it’s just really undiscovered. And that’s something that really makes me, you know, feel good about the field that I’m in because we really get to understand this aspect of, of, you know, it’s kind of like going on a new planet somewhere or being out into the galaxy of the universe.

How can we put this puzzle together and make it a benefit for all of us to utilize? Most people look at as kind of a disgusting or gross thing, but when you start to understand, obviously we don’t really enjoy anything that we don’t understand or, or, or we have a lack of knowing of  something there.

And that’s the same thing, you know, with, with poop, you know, you smell it, you’re like, this is disgusting, but when you know that there’s real data behind that, that can benefit you as a han being and not just you that can benefit others via fecal matter transplant, there’s something really special there.

And the science shows that with fecal matter transplants, you know, with the transference of them, they’re, they’re really beneficial for other people given your, your current status of your health.

Xerxes Voshmgir: Okay. 

 So please, explain what is a fecal matter transplant?

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: Sure! A fecal matter transplant is basically your microbiome. So, let’s just say someone goes and they go to the bathroom and they do a nber two, poop. You know, your microbiome and you know, there are really healthy, healthy individual. So you then take that fecal matter and you  would transfer that fecal matter to someone else. Yeah. There are two ways that you can transplant that. One of them would be, from no other end,which is rectal. The other one would be likely in a pill form, and then swallowing it and making sure that it breaks open inside of the gut. What that does then is that transfers all of those healthy gut microbes and all of your, a majority of your DNA.

And the amazing part is, is that you’re able to shift the other individual’s DNA. You’re able to shift their microbiome. Yeah. Not completely changed their DNA, but you’re able to shift it just enough to give them a healthy flora a healthy environment within them. So if they had some preexisting health conditions.

You can help them get rid of those health conditions. And so let’s just say someone is overweight or obese. If you take the, the, the microbiome of  someone who spent, who’s fit. And you transfer that over, then you see that those people then their metabolism speeds up. And it’s been noted scientifically that people have been known to get rid of arthritis, they, they no longer feel this, this pain and their knuckles are in their bones anymore. People have lost weight and this actually was discovered on accident a while they doing a fecal matter transplant for IBS, irritable bowel syndrome – which is just a lot of inflammation in the gut that just creates a lot of, you know, health issues.

When they did this transfer, they did that from an unhealthy person that was overweight. A few months later, the girl that, or the person that was feeling a lot better became obese or became overweight and no matter what she did to get the weight off of her. She just kept, she maintained that weight and then when they did the studies on rats, they realize, okay, wow, there’s a huge  play in this.

And so there’s a lot of research to this that’s going into this field right now. Not enough. Not fast enough. And that that kind of, you know, opens up so many doorways to health and really bio-hacking and a completely new way very often, right now we have this virus pandemic that’s going on, and this is an exceptional thing that we can look at: When we look at fecal matter transplants – no, let me back up a bit – when we look at microbiome and people that, you know, and I’m surprised that nobody has spoken about this solution because it’s obvious. It’s completely obvious for me. When you look at microbiome of a person over the age of 50. They lose somewhere in between 30% to 50% of their gut microbes, meaning that they lose these warriors that are responsible for protecting their immune system.

And as we get older, of course, we start to lose those microbiome diversity,  but that doesn’t mean that the microbiome ages, the microbiomes do not age at all. Those microbes don’t age. So, I’m really shocked that nobody has said: “Hey, we can take the fecal matter of younger, healthy people that will absolutely survive this and transfer the fecal matter to the older people to give them a fighting chance as we, you know, give them more diversity within their gut to protect their immune system.

We know that it works. There’s a few laws that the FDA requires, which is that their check for a few things that they don’t have, a certain gene that allows another person to become immune to certain medicines. That’s one of them as well as, you know, this, this, C difficile, I believe it is, which is highly contagious and can be very problematic longterm. I, I completely  understand that. But at this moment in this, you know, in any virus or pandemic like state the trading a fecal matter, even if people that have had the virus and gotten rid of the virus is a really great way to support people and help them. also build up an immunity completely natural and build up their immune system with a lot of strength.

Xerxes Voshmgir: Okay. All right. So basically what you’re saying is that a fecal matter transplant could be a solution to the corona virus pandemic?

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: I completely believe so. And I believe that fecal matter transplants are the future of health. I believe that we will, we will begin trading that on platforms based on health and based on your metrics, and this is, you know, why we’re looking at really exploring these metrics to help people, help people, you know, you know, a lot of people talk about: “Okay, wow, what you do, and putting it in the app type of format!”

You know, they  ask us: “Is this dangerous? You know, you’re, you have all of this data on people.” Well, it can be dangerous. Anything could be dangerous. Eating a bunch of bananas can be dangerous, but it depends on how you utilize that. Do you use those bananas or do you use that fruit to make a fruit salad? Or do you use it and just you abuse it? It’s the same thing with sugars as well. So for us it’s about, you know, I say one thing: If you believe that healthcare should be free for everyone everywhere, then the data around that should absolutely be open to everyone, not associated with you, but associated with your attributes.

And the reason for that is it can absolutely help the planet and help everyone that has the same attributes, just like you understanding. The DNA of someone on a deeper level, their gut microbes, the nutrition, you know, the way that they move, the environment that they’re in. And we can absolutely be this  artificial intelligence.

Let me back up just a bit. We can actually be this natural intelligence by bringing all of this together as a collective, as a people, that we’re, in essence healing one another by abundant amount of data together that’s allowing us to heal one another. And it’s kind of like, you know, it’s kinda like this tree and average avatar where everyone comes together and they’re connected to the tree.

Eywa believe it was. And it’s like: If we are coming together under this tree, and we bring together our data, then we can absolutely not just change the world of health, but we can change the world of bio-hacking and optimizing and becoming the best versions of ourselves, live longer trading, different attributes that will make us better.

  Xerxes Voshmgir: So, and you have a startup in this field  can you tell me what’s, what you’re doing at the moment, or what’s the plan, what you will be doing in the future?

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: So, yeah.  I would just, you know, say we started back a few years ago and we basically, we started off just with nutrition and as time progressed forward, I realized, okay, nutrition is not going to be enough. our goal was to really create this dashboard for the body and that’s just our complete vision.

How do we create a dashboard? And nutrition is not enough? So we added another layer on top of that, which was microbiome. And born to the microbiome aspect, this field is – it can be quite difficult because you have so many people that are competing against each other, not to change the field of microbiome, but who’s going to be first?

Who’s going to be better? And again, this goes back to this collective needing to create this collective to really make a difference. So now that we have this, you know, a few partners within the microbiome space. Okay, how can we record these metrics? And so now we’re getting these health metrics and we’re recording these metrics within

people are programming these aspects where you can look at the heart rate and you can look at the movement. All of these things that different health kits and softwares that they absolutely allow, but it’s about the context of them. And so what we’re doing, this work. It’s not just going to be a bunch of data.

That’s content. This is what we get big data when we have a big data issue with, but it’s going to be: of this content put within context that you can allow another person to imitate the copy. What does that look like? That looks like if I, you know, if I go to sleep at 10 o’clock in the evening, but 10, 15 minutes before I go to sleep, I do a 10 minute meditation and then I go to sleep and then I wake up at, six or seven in the morning and I have a sleeping score of, let’s just say 97% and we will allow other people to copy you if you want them to be able to imitate you. And what that does within this healthy ecosystem that we’re creating will allow that potential user to make revenue by sharing their health metrics within that ecosystem and allowing someone that’s just slightly lower below their level of efficiency to become more efficient by imitating your 97% sleep average, as well as the heart rate and your movements without the day. So it’s not about just following the movement of people, it’s about following the metrics! The same thing applies with nutrition, although we have some things to play around with, the, gut bacteria, how these gut bacterias are shaped based on your nutrition.

And your movement. And so we’re still playing around with how to build these algorithms correctly. And, you know, it’s been a process, but we’re really happy to get to a point where our entire ecosystem is, really defined. Most people would say: “Ah, these guys, they’re wasting their time, they’ve pivoted. We haven’t, you know. We have pivoted, but we haven’t changed the essence of what our vision is, which is how do we create a dashboard for the han body? And how do we doby, encompassing this entire ecosystem that’s gonna make us,  completely better. Microbiome tests from this aspect are completely inefficient when you do one microbiome test.

It does nothing because your gut microbes are constantly changing. And you need to be able to understand how a person is consing food and how their environment is, and what their stress levels are like, and what can potentially even help decrease those stress levels within an individual. And this is where we tie in, meditation, sleep, nutrition, movement.

You know your interactions with people, what’s your work life like? It’s about the environment. this brings together one song for me its like: “Love and the marriage love and the marriage” and it’s like: What can you really bring together, that creates the, proper data?  You can’t have one without the other in this aspect. So you have to create an entire ecosystem of data to create context. And the marriage of all of this data is what creates this ultimate self, identity of who you are and who you could become.

Xerxes Voshmgir:  If I understand this correctly, basically you are in the microbiome field. But, , compared to other companies, what you do is not only do one time microbiome testing, but you create this holistic  ecosystem where microbiome testing is part of a bigger, , process where people track themselves the way they live and by doing that, they basically can see how well the health is and if it is on a good level, they can share this data anonymously and help other people to reach that level of health that they have. Is that correct?

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: So there’s, there’s, there’s a few things to, to fit within there. So microbiome testing is done one time very, very often with, competitors. And microbiome testing should be done on a monthly basis. Right. But it’s way too costly to do that. And it’s about getting the cost down so people can do the microbiome testing on a monthly basis we have a health company that with, within our ecosystem, microbiome testing is there that doesn’t  exclude the fact that we may be working with external partners to incorporate their microbiome testing with us. Because again, it’s not about competing against these microbiome testing companies. It’s about saying: “Guys, we need to  work together so we can make a difference in people’s lives. Most of all, rather than thinking about finances, let’s think about our own health.

Let’s think about our own families and what we can, you know, do to protect that and then share that with the rest of the world.” You know. in, adding to that, you know, it’s, we’re not just looking at the microbiome, but we’re looking at these health metrics that people can share. People can decide to not share that data with them, but you shouldn’t really expect anything around health care if you don’t share this data anonymously.

If you choose to, you can also share this publicly with people that you let choose. Follow you. You know, just as an an Instagram, you’re allowed to look at some, somebody’s profile.  Or if they have it as a private profile, and I, you know, I’m accepted into their private profile, then I can see the data that they allow me to see so I can imitate them.

So we’ll have three different categories of, of data sets at the moment where we will allow people to, to, if they want to allow people to follow that data. Then people can choose to imitate that data and of which they will be rewarded for in a form of a digital currency. And so it’s really important to, you know, not to say, Hey, here’s, you know, put your data out there and do something different with it, but allowing people to absolutely make money and be rewarded for, you know, great health behavior that they’re passing on through an entire ecosystem and allowing people to level up. So in essence, in the, in a nutshell, that’s absolutely what, what I do. That’s correct.

  Xerxes Voshmgir: So, in a way, if I understand correctly, it  is that people, apart from becoming healthy and healthier through that system, they can become somehow,  health-role models, health-influencers, and thorugh achieving certain goals. Also, not just get more healthy, but share this information, this data anonymously or publicly, if they want to be public health-role models, health-influences, and also earn money through that system or tokens or…

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: Correct! Absolutely. I mean, as we move on to a digital world with around not just digital computers and digitizing health, it’s going to be moving into like this digital currency, which we want to make sure that we’re a part of that entire ecosystem with health. I think this is extremely important, you know, anybody can be an influencer and that means that, someone that believes they’re overweight, there’s always going to be someone that’s even more,  overweight, right? And so it’s important for everyone to be able to play their role within health. And so let’s just say there’s someone who’s, 20, 30 pounds or kilos more over there their weight.  And, that person may feel like they can’t be an influencer because of these, attributes that they bring into the ecosystem but you better believe there’s someone just to step lower than them, that they’re just, you know, they’re those metrics that’s present within that individual is going to allow this other person at lower level to imitate that and bring them up. And that person that thought that they never could be an influencer is then influencing this person with their metrics, with the way they sleep, with the way that they’re starting to move and making progress. And then maybe what happens next is that person that leveled up to the same level by using those metrics is leveling up off of someone else’s metrics and  able to surpass that, and then maybe they have to go to that person next, sort of someone else within that same range.  within that ecosystem. So it’s really finding out like the ways, how can we really benefit one another. Right now, I believe when it comes to influencing content creators, data is so biased with the way that we view beauty with the way that we view everything with helping one another it’s just,  what is the word? It’s, just, you know: “Hey, look at me. Hey, look at this.” And within this, this is just all about taking action and allows people to absolutely do these daily actions that help them become better every single day.

Xerxes Voshmgir: So basically the way I understand this is: This is like a next level type of influencer where you for sample on Instagram, show pictures of yourself after you did work, all the shoulder work or whatever. He actually, you’ll go to a level where you share not just a  pictures in what you’ve done, but actually transfer your, level of health to other people.

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: Absolutely, it’s about the transfer of wealth. You know, I’m sorry, of health and health is wealth, you know? So that’s, that’s really important. Health as wealth  and we’ll absolutely be able to show that within the ecosystem. You know, by, you know, living these, these healthy lifestyle, you can create this health and wealth within your, your life in general.

And I think that that’s really important is to incentivize people to do better. And if they choose not to, that’s fine! Right now, you know, whatever action you’re taking, you’re not necessarily being rewarded or having anything taken away and nobody will ever have anything taken away from them within our ecosystem.

So, for me, it’s clear that we’re moving into a future that’s really kind of like a shared, weconomy when it has to do with health,  and this is really, really important for us to all really participate in if we want to see a real change and a real evolution, and really optimize the greater aspects of who we are and what we are to become.

Xerxes Voshmgir: So one question also I had  when you said, for example, when someone is a 20 pounds overweight. He can be an influencer for someone who is 30 pounds overweight, for example

, does that mean that you actually, you don’t take the metrics of a person who was like a famous sports figure because that goal is too far away. You need to slowly level up. Is that correct?

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: That’s right. So you can, you can take someone, let’s just say Arnold Schwarzenegger, yeah, or The Rock. You know, these are all people in some way. I mean, not to women, but you know, these are all people that we somewhat really admire when it comes to their health, and  it’s really important to us – or even J-Lo, right? You know, there are people that we look up to that we say, wow, how do they age like that? And what are they doing? And so if we want to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger, then what would happen is maybe we say, here goes 10 people that you need to go through to be able to attain this metrics of being Arnold Schwarzenegger, right?

Maybe not being him physically, but imitating this lifestyle enough will eventually gets you to the point. That you’re either the same as him or you’re above him. In many ways, there will be different challenges that we offer within a platform where people will be able to play these games and offer challenges like who can meet these challenges within a one week period.

Also with partners that come to our platform, whether that’s Nike or Adidas, where they have a special challenge that people are able to go through. And I  think that this is, really unique perspective of gamifing you know, an entire platform around health and lifestyle.

Xerxes Voshmgir: Sounds very interesting. The last question that I have, about your startup is: Because you talked about fecal matter transplants before, is this also going to be part of what you will be doing.

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: Yeah, I think this is something that we will, we’re definitely looking at moving toward in the future, and so we want to be, you know, the nber one company that’s helping, helping people trade their fecal matter based on their health. And so essentially, you know, a lot of people have made fun and call it a shit-trade but that’s kind of what it is. It’s a fecal matter trade rather than the transplant and trading your health genetics. But there are things that we have to identify first because you can’t just trade these genetics without knowing, you know, a certain amount of factors that are present there. And that’s kind of  what’s been happening when other people have been trading their fecal matter is that you don’t understand the their lifestyle and where they’re going. And so I believe that the future of health, also, when children have issues in trading these, this fecal matter. Is really, really important. I mean, one of the first fecal matter transplants, if you will, that we receive as when we’re born.

Right? Because it’s, not just that, a fecal matter, but it’s the microbiome that our mother gives us when she gives birth to us. And then these, microbes they grow and they influence us, And so it’s really important to, understand, and that’s the very first, fecal matter transplant or microbiome transplant, if you will, is transferred over to us.

 Very often when women have the,  cesaran and the’re cut open, these microbes don’t go over the child. And they very often  have health issues because of the lack of transfer of this microbiome. And so, general, that’s an area that we do want to go into. That’s an area that we believe is going to be the future and the, it’s paramount for the future of health and fecal matter transplants will absolutely do a lot for changing people and helping people become more optimal.

Xerxes Voshmgir: Very interesting, thanks for sharing that.

  My next question is really : what is in your opinion the paradigms that need to be challenged in your field, in biology and biochemistry, in esspecialty the health sector.

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: The paradigms that need to be changed are that data around health and biology should not be private. It should be public. If we have to  pay taxes on something. in general, you know, we always, you know, the governments and whoever always wants to know what is it that we’re purchasing? What is it that we’re doing with our money?

Because they want to make sure that they’re getting the right amount of money. And if we want the right amount of health within health care. We need the right amount of data. And so hiding and keeping this data private and thinking: “Ah, I don’t want these people to have my data is the same thing that’s going to kill people.”

And it’s so important to stay alive by sharing what you can, you know? So, the paradigm that needs to be changed there is the aspect that we need to share our data as much as we can, we need to come together. We need to stop privatizing these things. The GDPR is actually holding us back more so than putting us ahead.

Yeah, there are some aspects that are there that’s, that’s there to protect  us. But overall, the GDPR is making the bigger companies more powerful.  How do I mean that: I mean that these huge corporations had this data and they held it for a really, really long time and then we had the GDPR come into play. So, smaller companies it’s difficult for them to have data and even compete with these larger companies that have these, you know, backwards business models that have taken advantage of the public. And so, in retrospect, we really need to look at certain areas.  that revolve around public safety, public health, public benefit, and make sure that anything associated with that, decoupling the, the identity from those metrics or whatever the case may be.

The data  that’s connected with the user and saying: Here goes this health data, we need to share it publicly and put it somewhere where everyone can attach to it that not just doctors  can say: “I know what to do with this data.” But the public, we ourselves can say, this is what I’m going to do with my data and I have a choice over my health.

Xerxes Voshmgir: And, if I understand that correctly basically the microbiome or the fecal matter that we have is, somehow a big data database, of our body and, of our genetics. Is that correct?

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: You nailed that absolutely.

Xerxes Voshmgir: Okay. So basically when you talk about, that data needs to be public you also talk about, the microbiome data that can be analyzed, but it’s not yet very much analyzed the way I understand it.

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: No, I mean, our health data should be public every, every bit because if something happens with me and I, as I said, with the blood clots and these factors are put there alongside with all of my, my data or metrics within the system, and I survived that.  There’s a large, large window for someone else to survive the same thing because now those metrics are put out there that can help out someone else that’s going through that same thing.

It’s so vital that we put out these, this data out there. Publicly, so we can help one another. And again, a lot of people may have some issues with it because they believe that their identity identity is going to be connected with this. It’s about decoupling the identity and making that user anonymous along, away from that data that they deem as something that they want to be private.

  Xerxes Voshmgir: Please tell me, how do you envision a future, how do you, imagine or re-imagine a future that is going towards a better future of us as hanity, especially in the respect of your field?

 Sequoia LaDeil Velez: I imagine waking up in the morning getting your health stats  immediately when you walk into the bathroom and you look in the mirror. Having this entire overview of knowing everything that’s happening within your body based on your gut microbes in the bacteria that are present, you have a list of options of meals that say: “Hey, these are your options that you can eat for breakfast.

This is the amount of time that you have.” And just really moving throughout the day effortlessly, that whenever you see something that’s going wrong with that body or that users is experienced since some type of stress or health things that you can find a time within your algorithms to say, you should meditate or if you have five minutes: Here’s what we’re suggesting to you that you do this, and this just isn’t based off of us. This is based on everyone sharing their data of what makes them better, and this is what I imagined a future to be like, that nobody has to worry about health and that when something does come up into their life or within their families, their mom, their dad, their  brother, their sister, their son or daughter.

That they can say, okay, we need to result to a fecal matter transplant and we know just the place to go to and we know that that will be a solution. This is what I imagine a future with. It’s just everything is tied in and that you have a dashboard to your body rather than, as of right now, we’re literally the one vehicle that we have, which is the han body.

We don’t have a dashboard. I want you to imagine one thing. If you’re driving a vehicle and the speed limit says go 90 miles per hour or kilometers per hour, and you don’t have the, dashboard in your vehicle to see how fast you’re going, when you’re about to run out of gas. If there’s something wrong with the vehicle, you’re going to feel completely are uncomfortable.

We should feel completly and uncomfortable right now that the technologies around us have these dashboards. Have all of  these traits that make them better and that we don’t have this. And so our mission and our goal is absolutely to bring that forward so we have a better future and we can take the power back into ourselves and say, I’m responsible for me. I’m responsible, for changing these aspects. That’s going to optimize myself.

  Xerxes Voshmgir: So my final question is. When you look at the future and from the perspective of your future, look back on your life, what would you like your legacy to be? In the sense of what impact do you want to have had in this lifetime for hanity?

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: Actually it’s quite simple: For people to know who they are!

That’s it! For everyone to know exactly who they are.

For everyone to  feel that sense of what they’ve become. And I believe that we can truly get there by sharing things. You know, they say sharing is a greater form of caring and we typically limit this within our household, but expressing that because the world is our household, that’s what I truly believe is, is a way that it will allow us to go deeper within ourselves.

So. Recognizing who we are! 

Xerxes Voshmgir: That’s a powerful message. So yes, thank you very much Sequoia  that you took some time. And, yeah, I’m sure you will be back at some stage again.

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: I hope so. 

Xerxes Voshmgir: I wish 

you 

all the best for your, for your work, for your passion. I have to say the way you talk about this and your startup and yeah, have a good day.

Sequoia LaDeil Velez: Thank you for having me. Alright, do you have a good one. 

 Thank you for staying tuned for this edition of Challenging #ParadigmX. If you liked this episode with Sequoia LaDeil Velez, feel free to share it with your community so Sequoia’s message gets spread even further. Also, please hit subscribe, and if you like this podcast, you can support it through Patrion. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me or write into the comments section.

Next week, we’re up with the next episode of Challenging #ParadigmX. So until then, I wish you a great week and say: Ciao!