Let your brain and body get in sync. That starts with clearing your head of extraneous thoughts. Let the activity or situation you hope to achieve flow unfold slowly. Feel it out, experience it, and be aware of the moment. But don’t rush; let it come to you. In my case, my first procedure was very methodical, slow, and relaxed. It follows my jumping jacks, usually a low-carb protein breakfast, and drinking lots of water. The AM cocktail is complete with low-dose lithium and lion’s mane, cordyceps, and turkey tail mushroom extract. In my case, I take a Breinfuel early afternoon. My team swears by the difference in my rhythm they notice. That is how Breinfuel evolved, my need for a better solution to retain intense focus for prolonged periods without crashing in the evening before or after dinner.
As a part of our series about “How Anyone Can Build Habits For Optimal Wellness, Performance, & Focus,” I interviewed Dr. Gerald Horn. He is the Founder of Breinfuel — the cerebral, better-for-you beverage designed to fuel the brain to respond with focus, alertness, and productivity. Currently, the Medical Director at LasikPlus Chicago, Dr. Gerald Horn’s background lies in ophthalmology, pharmaceutical science, and disruptive drug development. Having committed his career to maximizing the health benefits of modern science and medicine, Dr. Horn, among other pharmaceutical discoveries, invented an eye-whitening drop licensed to a major pharmaceutical company that in one year became the industry leader and #1 doctor recommended. He also developed a disruptive eye drop, “Liquid Vision” (PRX), to temporarily restore reading vision without glasses or contact lenses. Dr.Horn is an innovator in the ophthalmic drug development space, a four-time founder and pharmaceutical Chief Scientific Officer, and a holder of over 80 patents.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
My parents were born in Poland, survived WWII as childhood war orphans, and got married on the run at ages 16 and 21. They emigrated after the war through Ellis Island, speaking no English with nothing but the shirts on their back. My childhood was infused with unconditional love and the belief that I was meant to do something meaningful in this world. Looking back wistfully, I now realize we were destitute, but it never felt like it. They took us everywhere, and on weekends, we got together with their friends and smoked and danced and lived it up, treating all the kids with hugs and kisses like we were immediate family.
What or who inspired you to pursue your career? We’d love to hear the story.
Well, there were a few influences. I was a science nerd, had a great AP biology teacher — shout out to Mr. Bernardi Niles West (Morton Grove, IL 1967), and spent the summer of 1970 as an intern at the Roswell Park Cancer Research Institute in Buffalo, NY, just missing the chance to experience Woodstock. I went into medicine and fell in love with ophthalmology — a combination of science, optics, and a surgical specialty. My pharmaceutical career began when a marketing VP at a pharmaceutical company asked for ideas — and I threw out the picture we needed an eye drop that enhanced night vision. The next thing I knew, I was asked to try and model one. I studied it on a family vacation after dusting off the cobwebs from my three-inch-thick pharmaceutical medical school text (Goodman and Gilman). I came up with the idea that became my first “invention.” It is now called “Nyxsol” and part of a company called Ocuphire’s recent IPO, starting a phase 3 FDA trial early next year. My passion for pharmaceutical development just took off from there.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Was there a particular person who you feel gave you the most support or encouragement to be who you are today? Can you share a story about that?
There were two — my father, in particular, believed in me and that some of my ideas could make a difference one day. I’m sorry he is not around for me to let him know how much his belief in me has meant to me and my career paths. I also had incredible ophthalmology and pharmaceutical mentor, the late Dr. Lee Nordan, a world-renowned Ophthalmology pioneer, inventor, and luminary in the once nascent field of refractive surgery. I saw him seated by himself at a national meeting, grabbing a quick lunch and “cold-call” approached him about my eye-whitening drop that was going nowhere. He took me into his life from there, made critical introductions, and, using his brilliance, became as passionate about my ideas as I was. It led to a great collaboration and several start-ups. His wife and kids said we spoke together more than they did. He is sorely missed.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in your career? What lesson or takeaway did you learn from that?
Well, OK… This is one of my biggest mistakes with the most significant takeaway and, I suppose, has some humorous element in retrospect from an outsider’s perspective — though certainly not mine! I developed a potential no-rebound nasal spray for nasal congestion modifying the same approach taken with the eye-whitening drop and read a bulletin that the military was looking for a nasal spray as a vehicle to allow scopolamine to be absorbed quickly for outer space use by astronauts who experience motion sickness. I felt our spray was ideal and looked at data on doses that would be two sprays in a single nostril for the equivalent to my version. We had just come home from a Halloween party where I wore a devil costume, still with red paint all over my face and ears.
My wife had a stuffy nose, so we took the scopolamine spray as it was also a decongestant. However, I neglected to notice that the data was two sprays in only one nostril, and we took it in both — double the dose. Scopolamine is hallucinogenic at higher doses, my wife and I don’t take recreational drugs, and we wound up in the emergency room, me looking like I just left some wild rave party, red ears and all. My sister tells me when she arrived, I told her if she had just let me research Hudson (her dog), it would save saved millions, and this would never have happened! Lesson one — never do any testing on your wife. Lesson two — remember lesson one. Lesson three — save testing for FDA trials.
The road to success is hard and requires tremendous dedication. This question is obviously a big one, but what advice would you give to a young person who aspires to follow in your footsteps and emulate your success?
The key to me that melds dedication and aspiration is to think far beyond “what’s a great idea to make money.” I’m sure inventors and people, in general, have had success trying to parlay a get-rich-quick idea. Still, a real opportunity to me evolves from every generation’s older ideas dying out and new ones ushering in that become part of the bedrock of our future. Tomorrow’s ideas and success flow from that fixture, so be aware that there are many opportunities. I would advise trying to start with something you are passionate about; without that, dedication is compromised. Breinfuel is an example — people are disruptively searching for healthier, better-for-you products, and I, as a disruptive pharmaceutical CSO found an opportunity to try and create a “better healthy beverage” — a challenge consistent with my background and my passion.
Believe you can make a difference, help people, or make their lives either more enjoyable or improved in some meaningful way. Take some time to explore the financial aspect of the opportunity and be sure you see a path that could be a win-win for you and your customer. Don’t shortcut that process. Once you hit on an entrepreneurial idea you genuinely believe in, have kicked the tires on, and have at least friends and family traction, you will need investors to start developing it. First, if possible, without quitting your day job.
One of the great takeaways from the accelerator Founders Institute I attended was this — get your minimum viable product out there. Don’t spend a lifetime tweaking it, and let the public’s reaction be the litmus test, judge, jury, and executioner, and if it seems to have legs improve on it from there. One great COO of a well-known, extremely successful start-up nutrition bar advised me — to start small, hyper-focus on what niche market you can make raving fans, learn from them, and modify your messaging first. Then expand.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
To this day, I believe my process for finishing the ingredient mix of any product was influenced by something I read in a biography of Thomas Edison. I never forgot how he “tried to discover a better rubber” than that from Europe. He was looking for how to increase the latex content. So, he famously tested 17,000 plant species until he discovered one (Goldenrods) that had a high latex concentration.
Eventually, Henry Ford came up with synthetic rubber, and it was Charles Goodyear discovered the key — vulcanization, a process that makes rubber durable and heats stable. Still, my approach to any idea is a derivative of this story:
1) free your mind to try and solve a problem; in this case, at first throw the kitchen sink at it, trying anything and everything to see what sticks. Not many of us would try seventeen thousand ideas to solve one problem, which is just a tiny part of Thomas Edison’s determination that led to his greatness;
2) for me I apply that to my fine-tuning of ingredients. Their effects never exist in a vacuum, each one evolves with a concentration that cannot be finalized without constant testing for changes in its optimal concentration relative to all the others that change and fine tune the final cumulative effect. That can create an interesting challenge to finalize a formulation for an FDA trial, or even CPG beverage ingredient concentrations like I did for Breinfuel. That is how it just evolved to 360 mg of a natural caffeine blend from green coffee beans, teas and their extracts after I added supporting metabolic fuels, antioxidants, and other potentially “brain supportive” additives!
Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Why does that resonate with you so much?
For years I thought this was my personal mantra evolved from an existential philosophical viewpoint of my philosophy minor in college, but it’s really as simple as I feel it is profound, and I’ve since heard it quoted many times:
“To live your life to the fullest, the only constant is you must continuously change!”
Existentially that is based at least for me on the concept that we are shut out from rationally understanding our existence and creation, giving rise to the power of faith that leads to a basis for me of individual belief in a universal god. But those same limitations in our ability to rationally understand creation is an undefinable basis for how we make decisions, where choice comes from unless we choose to follow religiously evolved interpretations of how we should ethically behave and make decisions versus an internal model we derive, evolve to, and increasingly consistently believe in. The more we accept we can only understand the infinite as the opposite of concrete concepts like the finite, the more we let the faith we accept to come to terms with the universe allow us the privilege of finding our internal moral compass from a set of ethics and beliefs in principles we must evolve personally and internally.
The duality of these two conflicting concepts is dynamic — faith and choice create a conundrum our brain must resolve, and with it comes acceptance that choice is not based on rationale or externally-derived certainty, it’s based on our hunch, our intuition, our experience. We must just let our judgments fly based on that internal awareness, and as that becomes more tangible we can choose to do so with more confidence, spontaneity, and without constant second guessing. Like a child floating through life on instinct, but for us with myriad choices every nanosecond, instinct evinced on this basis to increasingly synced, what we then call “intuition”. As a surgeon this had an amazing corollary — even without thinking about it every year over my decades-long career came a discovery, simple or profound, changed something in my technique or life for the better. The day I think I have reached the pinnacle of perfect technique is the day I get instantly old and draw a line in the sand as the surgical world will from that moment, slowly at first then at light speed, pass me by. The world marches on, science and life itself is a cauldron where infinite ideas collide every day, and new ones emerge — so if I want to forestall aging, becoming an anachronism, basically falling behind and out of step with the continuous advances in our lives we can take part in or “mentally age away from”, I came to believe in that credo — “the only constant is change”, and embrace it passionately as the fabric of a life well lived.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
“Liquid Vision”, technically called PRX, is a drop I developed that I think could help a lot of people and potentially is very exciting. It reversibly restores reading vision, developed in conjunction with an incredible partner of mine, Dr. Lee Nordan. It completed a Phase 2b trial successfully restoring reading vision by constricting the pupil to create depth of field effect without blurring distance. Normally any drop that constricts the pupil constricts the focusing muscle as well, so it is “stuck” in reading mode, blurring distance. Theoretically since it was able to constrict the pupil below 2 mm, it creates a pinhole effect that might create not only seamless vision — covering the range of bifocals and trifocals, but for some individuals might extend to distance as well. A Phase 3 trial will be needed to prove its safety and efficacy.
A project I hope to work on in the future is based on an idea for a more effective lower morbidity approach to treating shock — allergic, septic, toxic, ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) or ALI (acute lung injury). All of these conditions involve allergens or other toxins causing systemic leakage of our microvessels on a massive scale and possible exsanguination, requiring dangerous powerful constriction of all our major vessels to stem the leakage. This can result in end organ failure when constriction is too great, and death by exsanguination internally if it is insufficient to stop the leakage with about a 50% mortality. The fact is the redness of our eyes is caused by lower level allergens and toxins that basically do the same thing — make our microvessels dilate and leak. The drops we have been using are also strong constrictors of all vessels small and large and cause reduced overall blood flow which can have side effects. The drop I developed as an eye whitener addressed this problem discovering a way to selectively constrict the microvessels, was licensed to a major pharmaceutical, brilliantly named, branded, and marketed, and became an industry leader. The irony is the eye whitener treats conditions in the eye that on a small scale mirror the same pathology occurring in systemic shock. And selective microvessel constriction could be a key part of a next generation of more effective treatments.
OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the core focus of our interview. This will be intuitive to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out directly. Can you help explain a few reasons why it is so important to create good habits? Can you share a story or give some examples?
Since I am a science nerd, let me lead with this: the natural order of all elements in our universe is randomness. So, if order takes energy, it takes critical key habits to energize our brains, bodies, and life. Good habits position you to continually become, change, and advance, they are the essence of desire, wanting to live and believing life can be great with effort — good habits being the engine of that effort. At some point, the die is cast, and you are unlikely to reverse the damage — it’s in your DNA and mutated genes, unless life gives you a wakeup call!
In my late 50’s I developed a numbness that travelled down my arms and spread across my back during surgery. My hand felt weak. It was in the middle of a surgery day. I rushed to a hospital a few blocks away, took a stress test that was normal, asked to see a cardiologist, and we both agreed I wouldn’t be able to resume my life without an angiogram. My family was gathered around, and I was told there was a 1% chance that I wouldn’t make it. Thankfully, the angiogram was normal; it showed “normal for age” changes. I was relieved but not exactly happy. That was a wakeup call. I had some damage and it might not be reversible. I have three beautiful children, a great job, and I am treating my body like ____.
Unfortunately, before our bodies risk permanent damage, even cancer, even costing us our life, we may not get that warning. So not only are good habits fundamental to getting the most out of life and really living, they are essential if we don’t want to live either a compromised life with some serious illness or worse, but are our only hope of having any control over our future. As hard as good habits are, bad habits cannot be sustained for very long if we have hopes, goals, aspirations, desires, and above all want to experience something great in our lives, maybe even give something back, or leave a legacy for others.
In our minds it seems it’s still and always will be a battle. The battle of good vs evil rages, tick tick… Don’t wait till it’s too late.
How have habits played a role in your success? Can you share some success habits that have helped you in your journey?
I am not the right person for that question lol! As my son and co-founder would tell you, and my saint of a wife could verify, my success involves retaining free reign to have an uncluttered mind. I have always resisted filling my brain with mundane details — whether it was names, or even taking the time and energy to organize myself in the physical world around me, I am a contradiction in terms. In my personal life, my focus is somewhat in my head, and I avoid detail and energy spent on organization. Without consciously intending, the corollary was my professional life as both a surgeon and science researcher becoming obsessed with organization and detail that is entirely inexplicable to my family. Those at work know me as incredibly organized to the minutest detail of efficiency, and any opportunity to create even the remotest advantage for my patients with medication, technique change, schedule optimization, you name it. So at the risk of surprising you and your audience with bad advice, if you are or have a creative spirit, this one habit of mine may in moderation prove useful — think of your brain as filling up with either the kind of information you want to create around, or the kind of information that weighs you down and keeps your mind tethered to the ground. That still leaves plenty of opportunity for wellness, physical and spiritually uplifting life-altering habits.
Speaking in general, what is the best way to develop good habits? Conversely, how can one stop bad habits?
It might help to understand both the high stakes in life that hang in the balance of that question, and the moment to moment warfare we wage internally with virtually every bad decision we make, and the surge of protective support for all systems with every good. Every aspect of our life which we associate with good habits, those that foster better mental and physical health, better relationships, and better sense of well-being has an internal set of positive biomarkers, definable on multiple levels; and conversely everything we do that is a negative habit, from lack of sleep, poor diet, excessive drinking, smoking, anger, poor relationships… adversely affects our chemical balance. The brain, body and every cell every nanosecond take in oxygen molecules to convert ADP to ATP, and every aspect of our physiology — our glucose levels, toxins, our intake of processed foods, pollutants, etc determines whether that cell processes that next oxygen molecule cleanly or cleaves into oxygen-charged free radicals and reactive oxygen species. This chemical warfare of life and death starts out as an innocent imbalance every time it strikes. But like lethal missiles, think of every free radical of oxidative stress as a lethal missile sucking away pieces of cell membranes and damaging mitochondria and other cell structures like staccato machine gun fire. As teenagers our 2 billion cells can withstand loss of a few. But the damage is not forever fully reversible. Tissue damage begins to take its toll. DNA mutations begin, inflammation, immune system failure… Long before we realize it, we have knocked out millions of cells, created more mutations of our DNA than we have a clue about, and start along the road of accelerated aging — being increasingly difficult to counteract.
The result is we either age quicker — or we turn back the clock and bio-hack aging. Either the die is eventually cast that programs those mutant DNA cells to become cancerous, create neurodegenerative changes, heart disease, diabetes, or a host of other diseases, cortisol spikes, loss of well-being, depression, etc, it is chemical espionage against yourself; vs an endorphin high, stable glucose levels, pure oxygen burning relatively free of free radicals and oxidative stress, an immune system ready to protect, scavenge, and make sure all systems are go, a brain free to relax, think, dream, or drive high performance and great thoughts, an ultimate sense of well-being.
Let’s talk about creating good habits in three areas, Wellness, Performance, and Focus. Can you share three good habits that can lead to optimum wellness.
Please share a story or example for each.
Wellness is essentially defined by feelings of well-being, directly and almost daily affected by the oxidative stress you accumulate that day. Go to sleep with it, and you wake up feeling lethargic, apathetic, and unhealthy. Avoid it and you spend the day energized, able to focus, and perform at a high level of physical performance and mental focus. So, I think of wellness as the ledger by which the understanding of the causes and prevention of oxidative stress are measured.
Performance requires not only managing that ledger, but physically preparing your body for life’s stresses, and the physical development, strength training, and optimal basal metabolic index (BMI) we require to physically perform well. Also, our bodies require flexibility to avoid the strictures and injuries an inflexible body eventually succumbs to.
Focus, to me, requires the most optimally fine-tuned metabolic state, without oxidative stress, with low BMI, physical strength and endurance as a benchmark of how exercise also creates better brain blood flow and better brain health. But still more it requires a mind that can control extraneous noise, that can avoid incessant stress and being inundated with worry and problems, able to get into the moment. That authenticity, able to be in the zone, in the moment has a huge spiritual connection, achieving a meditative state leaving our minds free to engage and react with thoughts that are reflective, aware, and accurately responsive to their environment.
Can you help explain some practices that can be used to develop those habits?
The short answer: Relieve oxidative stress by filtering the chemicals your body absorbs from smoking drugs and alcohol, to processed foods, fatty meals, high sugar spikes and the like.
Provide healthy physical outlets by incorporating a regular physical workout from walking, one of the best for the brain and body, to building up muscle mass, to aerobic workouts, being careful not to totally exceed your body’s ability to sustain that workout and spike oxidative stress. I like to incorporate simple physical exercises I can do in minutes multiple times a day — at work team jumping jacks; at home angled push ups against my bathroom counter in a mirror with super slow reps allowing me to see muscles get pumped, and definition slowly improve.
Give your mind meditative release, either through disciplined meditation or learning other ways to control your body and mind to come in sync and filter out the noise of brain fog and obsessed thought. A simple trick I use every night: close your eyes when you go to sleep without trying to sleep — think about your immune system gaining a chemical advantage to work better just by the act of closing your eyes, which has been substantiated as likely true to some degree. This very act distracts your brain. Next note each breath, and slowly let each exhalation linger. Listen to the sounds around you. If I get into a zone of true authentic awareness, I can gradually relax my exhalation and hit my “nirvana” state — those moments following exhalation while my body has no need to start inhalation and my awareness becomes acute. If my ear is on the pillow I often hear and or feel the pulsations, same with my carotid pulse. Though rare, on occasion an overpowering endorphin high of true awareness, in those seemingly lengthy moments between needing any breath, infuse my entire being.
Can you share three good habits that can lead to optimal performance at work or sport? Please share a story or example for each.
Intermittent fast a few days a week, a minimum of 16 hours after a previous meal to preferably 20: our bodies do not require three meals or more every single day.
Find a way to break your real drug habit — that daily sugar high, by realizing you are setting off an absolute cauldron of oxidative stress unless you restrict it to a rare weekly treat.
Even though it’s a shameless plug it’s my true belief — try Breinfuel, the cerebral beverage I developed with natural caffeine sourced from green coffee beans, green teas and their extracts; with low glycemic short medium and long release metabolic fuels; a powerful blend of the antioxidants in coffee and more without the toxicity of the roast; and brain additives like zinc, beet root powder, and creatine (quicker brain and muscle ATP conversion) that create mental focus, physical performance and other potential health benefits from its potent antioxidant blend.
Can you help explain some practices that can be used to develop those habits?
Well at this point in the interview it comes down to one thing. Look yourself in the mirror and decide who you want to be — mentally, physically, and undisciplined or disciplined. Think about your reflection in the mirror and how an evolved, super-healthy version of you will look.
You know what to do. Now go out and do it — and don’t let oxidative stress age you prematurely and leave you with destructive disease processes later in your life. Start now! Slow down aging and enjoy the new paradigm — suppress oxidative stress and you transform your health, as well as physical and spiritual well-being.
Can you share three good habits that can lead to optimal focus? Please share a story or example for each. Engage your brain in a mental exercise regularly.
Consider one or more of lion’s mane mycelial (capsules) and fruit body (liquid) extract; low dose lithium — less than 1 mg per day. Eat a low-glycemic, low-carb diet with plenty of protein, low or medium-chain triglycerides, and cruciferous green leafy vegetables. If you really want to achieve incredible focus, slowly sip ½ a Breinfuel, or if you are used to caffeine, a full one. Note whether you experience noticeable clarity of focus, cognitive endurance, and how your brain feels a few hours later, and even on arising the next day.
Can you help explain some practices that can be used to develop those habits?
Think about the natural difficulty involved in changing bad habits to good. Expect that something different has to happen to shake you out of your routine, and make quick simple but effective changes to your daily routine:
Take a hot shower, relax. End it with a cold one 10 seconds minimum and work your way to 30 seconds as you get more used to it.
Get some blood flow going before you get dressed. Do 10 jumping jacks with a 4-count for every one (40 total).
Stretch moderately.
If you’re not intermittent fasting, add a cup of black coffee, preferably with grass-fed butter. Repeat in the afternoon. Alternatively sip a Breinfuel before or after lunch.
As a leader, you likely experience times when you are in a state of Flow. Flow has been described as a pleasurable mental state that occurs when you do something that you are skilled at, that is challenging, and that is meaningful. Can you share some ideas from your experience about how we can achieve a state of Flow more often in our lives?
I never met Michael Jordan, but this question is directly related to something he taught all of us. After every single great performance his answer to how he played so well is the same:
“I found my rhythm.”
For me that is essential to my evolution as a surgeon, learning how to find that rhythm. It’s a very learnable strategy that can be applied to many different disciplines. In my case it starts with preparation. Don’t just show up and expect to get into a state of flow. Prepare. Be organized, take care of your body and brain before the moment or event.
Let your brain and body get in sync. That starts with clearing your head of extraneous thoughts. Let the activity or situation you hope to achieve flow unfold slowly. Feel it out, experience, and be aware of the moment. But don’t rush, let it come to you. In my case my first procedure is very methodical, slow, relaxed. It follows my jumping jacks, usually a low carb protein breakfast, and drinking lots of water. A low-dose lithium and lion’s mane, cordyceps, and turkey tail mushroom extract complete the AM cocktail. In my case, I take a Breinfuel early afternoon. My team swears by the difference in my rhythm they notice. That is in fact how Breinfuel evolved, my need for a better solution to be able to retain intense focus for prolonged periods without crashing in the evening before or after dinner.
Ok, we are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
There have been many many health trends:
1960’s The diet pill craze
1970’s The liquid diet
1980’s The dexatrim diet
1990’s The low fat diets
2000’s The coconut oil craze
2000’s The juice diet (chewing releases nitrates dilating blood vessels)
2010’s The gluten free diet
2015’s The vegan diet
2018’s The keto diet
2020’s My prediction: Biohacking aging and DNA mutation –
Principles for preventing, alleviating, and reversing oxidative stress
A coffee, tea, or Breinfuel
B low glycemic sugar, protein, and medium chain triglycerides
C antioxidants (vitamin C, E)
D beet root powder and other pigmented fruits and seaweed
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them 🙂
Gee that is the best question!
Mark Cuban, Paul Stamets, Joe Rogan, Phil Mickelson, Dr. Fauci, Joe Poppa (CEO Bausch), Stuff You Should Know Chuck Bryant and/or Josh Clark.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Check out @breinfuel on all social platforms, and I will be posting weekly blog articles on our website as well as sharing snippets from video and audio interviews I do throughout 2021.