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EP 103 : Inside Hyperbaric Medicine And Real-World Brain Recovery -Craig Cook

• Sophia Delavari • Season 1 • Episode 103

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We trace Craig’s path from opera and Disney to leading a brain health center, and why service lessons matter in medicine. Hyperbaric programs, rigorous assessments, and real outcomes anchor a candid talk on grief, purpose, autism, and building a longer healthspan.

• Family values shaped by a traveling father and a legacy of work ethic
• Opera career, Disney culture, and the discipline of being fully on
• Hospitality in Dubai’s early days and how the city’s pace affects connection
• A pivotal loss leading to healthcare and service-driven operations
• Mentorship, listening twice, and earning trust in physician-led systems
• Moving abroad to find identity and independence from home expectations
• Brain and Performance Center programs and multi-domain assessments
• Hyperbaric oxygen protocols explained with durability and customization
• Autism support, data-led progress, and Xander’s communication gains
• CEO habits for brain health: early focus, decompression, mindfulness
• Lifestyle strategies for cognitive fitness beyond the clinic
• Case study on reversing cognitive decline post-retirement
• Healthspan over lifespan and practical definitions of better living


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SPEAKER_03:

Welcome to the Detached Podcast. Today I am hosting Craig Cook, the CEO of Brain Performance Center. Am I saying that correctly? I hope.

SPEAKER_01:

The Brain and Performance Center.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, absolutely. So thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

SPEAKER_01:

Pleasure. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03:

How are you feeling today?

SPEAKER_01:

Feel great.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Is that because of everything that you do?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it's one of the things that that keeps me grounded, I think. But uh yeah, family and uh and work, that's kind of how life is for me at the moment. So yeah, really, really excited to see how things continue.

SPEAKER_03:

So you just said family and work. So do you tie a lot of your happiness to your job?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I would say success comes with with career, yes. But also success and happiness is is rooted in family for me. So if I'm not successful in the home environment, then I'm definitely not happy at all. So for me, family first and everything else follows that.

SPEAKER_03:

When you were younger or when you were a kid, was like family such an important thing? Did you grow up in a household where family was really nurtured?

SPEAKER_01:

Family was important. You know, my my father traveled, let's say 11 months out of the year. So it was tough. And, you know, mum kept the family dynamic. But I don't have a big family. I don't have hundreds of brothers and sisters. But it was important to me. And then as my father grew older and he got sick, family became even more important. And then I started to build my own family and I could draw the parallels between what was important to me, what I did have in the past, what I didn't have in the past, and be able to become a version of myself that I thought this is what I want for my family, for my kids, for my wife, and to be able to put one plus one plus one together and have that engaging environment that was important in life.

SPEAKER_03:

So you just mentioned your father was away for eleven months of the year. What was he what was he doing for those eleven months?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he was uh he was a ship's captain. So he left home and he would go away for weeks and weeks at a time and be home for a few days and then jump back in and then jump back out. He was the real Captain Phillips, let's put it that way. So he traveled extensively and you know, gave us the the life that that we became accustomed to.

SPEAKER_03:

So yeah. How do you think that impacts you as a child and kind of growing up where like you know obviously your father has to go out to work, but not having the father figure there full-time?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was tough. Um, let's be honest. Dad was he was someone to be admired and revered and followed. And, you know, he grew up or helped to bring us up in a way in which we wanted to emulate the work ethic that he had and the passion for life. And his passion for the family was not necessarily about the time. It was about the ability to provide. And that for him was was his driver. So we all develop in our own different ways, but you know, he's not with us anymore, unfortunately. But he left a legacy of hard work, of passion for his family. And you know, I I think that's something that that's helped myself develop in in my family dynamic. So, you know, I'm in uh eternally grateful to him for that.

SPEAKER_03:

What kind of kid were you then growing up?

SPEAKER_01:

I was a geek.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I was a geek that played sport. My my brother was, you know, he was the cool kid at school. He was the sportsman that, you know, the stereotypical cool kid. I wasn't. I was the student, the music professional, and then as time became on and on and on and on, I guess, I I enjoyed life. And reflecting back, and no one's ever asked me this, Sophia, to be honest. So, you know, to sit there and think, what was school really like? Yeah, reminiscing is quite cool. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

You're welcome. I when you just mentioned music, I think you were an opera singer.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I wasn't really okay to go there, but you know, uh yeah, that was that was my that was my early life. You know, I I finished school and I then went off to study music. I joined uh an entertainment company. Was fortunate enough to sing with the three tenors.

SPEAKER_04:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

The real three tenors in uh Bosnia and Croatia. I did the peace concert series at the end of the Bosnian-Croatian conflict, and it was it was unbelievably awesome. And that was the start of my career. I then moved off to the US and uh worked for Disney and then grow tired of singing a whole Aladdin's A Whole New World to Kids 10 shows a day, and that's when I transitioned into hospitality and then ongoing into healthcare.

SPEAKER_03:

So how old were you when you moved to Disneyland?

SPEAKER_01:

So I worked for Disney Cruise Lines out of Orlando, and I was let's say 19, 18, 19 then, and uh spent some time there, enjoyed life, and then figured out that my friends working in the pool bar were having far more fun talking to people and dealing with people every day than I was singing Aladdin's Whole New World.

SPEAKER_03:

What were some of the unseen parts of Disneyland where we don't get to see?

SPEAKER_01:

I think one thing that stuck with me is it's a culture unlike anything else. Now, it was a gentleman by the name of Michael Eisner that spoke to us before I actually started with the company, and Michael Eisner was CEO of Disney at the time. And they're tough. Like it's no joke. It's not the happiest place on earth for no reason. You know, in a speech to the team, it's like, you know, quite honestly, people don't pay you to come to work having a bad day. You get up in the morning, you put your stage makeup on, and no matter how good or how bad your day is, you need to be the same every single day. Consistently, overtly happy. Now, you go home at night, you peel your stage makeup off, and you become yourself again. But what happens when you're on is you need to be 100% on. And that's one thing that's stuck with me forever. That conversation has shaped my leadership behaviors, has shaped my real life. And when you're on stage or away from home at the office, you have to be on because people don't want misery. They don't come to you because you're having a bad day. They come to you for fun, entertainment, health care, well-being, the smile that you may or may not be able to deliver. It's not important to them. Like they want to be loved and revered. And that's what was different about the culture at Disney to anywhere else, because people got it. You pour your stage makeup on. Sometimes it's thin, sometimes it's a meter thick, you know. We all have bad days. But at the end of the day, you can't be on stage having a bad day. You wouldn't be welcome anymore. So, from that perspective, yeah, it's it's definitely shaped my career.

SPEAKER_03:

So, where was the entry point then from Disneyland to hospitality? How did that happen?

SPEAKER_01:

I traveled back from Nassau in the Bahamas to Brisbane, which is hometown for me, um, on a flight beside the GM of the Sheraton Hotel in Brisbane. It's now not Sheraton anymore, but it was. And he's like, What do you do? Why are you doing this? Blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, you know, I'm just going off contract, I'm taking some time off. He's like, but you worked on a cruise ship, right? I'm like, yeah. Like, come and work for me. I'm like, okay. Said, give me a few days to get my life together, but thanks. That would be awesome. And two weeks later, I started the hotel and then grew my hospitality career. I spent a couple of years in Brisbane and then the lights of Dubai called, and I never looked back. For me, it became an opportunity to come and see what was happening in Dubai. I didn't come initially to move here. You know, the typical story of, oh, let's come and check it out, then I'll go home, pack up my stuff, and move for a couple of years. That was 30 years ago. That's a long time. And when you sit back and think, what was really here? Everyone knew everyone. There was no buildings between Dira, where I worked at the time, and the Trade Center, which was the first landmark. And then between the Trade Center and Abu Dhabi, there was one building. And that was the Hard Rock Cafe, which is where the marina is now. There was a nightclub there. That was where people hung out. And you sit back and think, if you drove to Abu Dhabi back then, there were speed bumps, it was a full day out, you had to pack your cooler box and off to Abu Dhabi. Now I live in Abu Dhabi, work in Dubai, and commute. Takes me 40 minutes, quicker than most people take to get to work, and they live in Dubai. So the UAE's transitioned so much. It's such an unbelievable place right now. And it's exciting to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_03:

Is there anything that you miss from the old Dubai to the new Dubai?

SPEAKER_01:

Definitely. I miss the fact that back then everyone knew everyone. Now it's such a transient place that at times it feels a little shallow. And because it's mushroomed so quickly, some of the foundations aren't as solid as they used to be. And you could go out and you would see people and know people like they were your friends. Now it's a little less like that. There's still places that you connect with people from the good old days, but you know, it's grown so quickly that it's a little more challenging to have that wholesome connectivity. Now it's a little more fast-paced. And that and that's okay. It's just different.

SPEAKER_03:

From your own experience in living here with the transient now that's going on with people coming in and out of Dubai all the time, and maybe people being a bit more disconnected and not actually nurturing those friendships, relationships. How do you think that's impacting people's mental health here in Dubai?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I think mental health is something that you get out of it what you put into it. Now, this is my personal opinion, and many people struggle with mental health, and sometimes it becomes too much of a competition. Mental health for me is if you take time to step back and invest in yourself and invest in your well-being and invest in your personal stability. You tend to struggle less than you try and compete with everyone else for the fastest car, for the nicest watch, for the biggest house. And when you put that type of pressure on yourself, that's when it really starts to hurt. And I was there.

SPEAKER_00:

I lived that life. And it took a lot of introspection to be able to say, you know what? I deserve better.

SPEAKER_01:

My family deserves better of me. And things started to change when I took time to look inside myself. And I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_03:

Usually something has to happen for you to take that introspection and to reflect. So was there any kind of pivotal moment where you were like, all right, I've had enough?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. And I remember it as if it was yesterday. When my dad passed, I was working here in Dubai at one of the leading hotels, and it was peak season. And I went to work and I was, you know, someone that was dedicated to to what I did, and that was early up, very, very late night home. Nothing really mattered but that. And that was my work ethic. And it still is, but now I can prioritize things a little bit differently. Now that element happened one night, and I got a call from Australia. My father's oncologist said, You better get home. And you better get home now. And I went to my GM and I said, you know what? It's I need to go. He knew what was going on. And said, I'm sorry, it's busy season. You can't. So took off my badge, put my keys on the desk.

SPEAKER_00:

See you later. I'm out.

SPEAKER_01:

Now that flight home was one of the hardest that I've ever done. And I do the the trip to home in Australia or or my wife's home in South Africa on a regular basis. So I'm used to long haul travel. But I didn't make it. I didn't get home to say goodbye. And that to me was the trigger that put Humpty Dumpty back together again, I think. Because then I I figured out that the bright lights of hospitality wasn't what I wanted in my life. And I wanted to honor him and give back. And that's when I started in the healthcare space. And I joined the Cleveland Clinic. And it was something that at the time I didn't really know what to expect. But to be able to bring elements of my past in hospitality and entertainment into the healthcare space and turn a typical transactional experience in healthcare into a an opportunity to surprise and delight and to bring enjoyment into a non-enjoying experience. And that was when I really started to change who I was.

SPEAKER_03:

That's incredible. So when you went to Cleveland, what kind of position did you take and role did you take there?

SPEAKER_01:

So my role there was the executive director of hospitality and hospital operations. So worked in a non-clinical space. And I oversaw all the non-clinical facilities at at Cleveland Clinic Abu. And that was my entry into healthcare. I spent a good five years there. And then I was offered a position to oversee the international operations of Cleveland Clinic. And that was not only in Abu Dhabi, but other areas in London, in Vietnam, in southern U.S., some connectivity to Ohio, and I headed up a project in Saudi Arabia. So from that, I spent time there and then studied and put a lot more effort into my healthcare, let's say, credentials than I had done in the past. And figured out this was the space for me.

SPEAKER_03:

How was that journey like? Did you have someone to look up to and learn from when you were in that position?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I had some really strong mentors at Cleveland Clinics, not for the faint-hearted. And my entry from a let's say a hospitality professional into a space that is dominated by apex men and women. Yeah, it was Take the backseat a little rather get in the bus and be fortunate that you're in it or get completely off. So as a non-physician at that stage, it was important to learn. And don't have the attitude that you know everything because you don't. And the good part about working with the clinic is it was collaborative. Even though it was a physician-led organization, everyone's point of view mattered. People took time to listen. Whilst they might completely disregard it after they listened, they took the time to listen. And, you know, the educational process was steep. The place in Abu Dhabi is a factory. It's massive. Doing sh so many complex procedures. And what M42 has done to bring healthcare at that quality to the UAE is phenomenal. The leadership in Abu Dhabi, the leadership of Mubadla healthcare and Mubadla, the parent, was something that to be a part of that was truly inspirational. Following on from the footsteps of what I learned in Dubai. So to be a part of something like that, the setup, the creation, and the delivery was something that I will never forget.

SPEAKER_03:

At any moment in time, did you have imposter syndrome? Because to go from hospitality into kind of healthcare, like they're completely different. You've people sat in front of you that have studied 10, 15, 20, 30 years. How do you close the gap in information there and speak with confidence in front of these types of people?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think one of my let's say skill sets is, and I laugh because the the little birdie is sitting on my shoulder now. Like you know how life is in that world. And you know, part of my university degree, psychology and and behavioral science was part of my skill set. How to read people, how to be discerning, how to be political in situations that probably were difficult to navigate. So from that perspective, yeah, it was one of the things that was truly needed. Now, sometimes you needed to stand up and be counted. And sometimes I took a phrase that my father taught me, and I utilized it to the letter. And it was you were given two ears and one mouth for a reason. You need to listen double the amount that you speak. And sometimes you just sit. And when you speak, it better have conviction and people better listen. And over time, when you do projects, when you do things that benefit the organization, people start to think, oh, this is not just a kid who came from running a hotel or hotels or cluster of hotels. This is someone that can help us do good things to good people every day. So it was about those small wins at the beginning. And once I was able to chalk up those small wins, then I could get my teeth into other things and show what else I could deliver. It was really a really, really fun experience. A hell of a lot of work, but it was enjoyable.

SPEAKER_03:

You just mentioned psychology, that you were studying psychology. Did you not ever want to become a psychologist?

SPEAKER_01:

No. Not at all.

SPEAKER_03:

Why?

SPEAKER_01:

It was just it was not my thing. It was at that time, it was something that I wasn't really interested in, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03:

How do you really know whether you're gonna be what you want to be from what you want to study when you're that age? Like in in your your early years.

SPEAKER_01:

You don't.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe some people do, but for me, what I studied and where I am now and the transition that's happened, people don't predict things like this. Like psychology now is exciting because of what we do at the Brain and Performance Center. But at that stage, I was like, nah, this is one of those subjects that you have to do, core subjects that are part of the program that you don't get a chance to opt out. So for me, it was it was just uh like not strawberry, not chocolate ice cream, it was vanilla. It was just uh there.

SPEAKER_03:

How important is it to run with your passion then when something feels vanilla? Should you kind of drop all your bags and run and go to the next thing and drive a passion?

SPEAKER_01:

For me, passion projects are so much fun. They're not just let's do it. They're really like let's go and smash it. Do you know what I mean? Like it's for me, I will find elements of passion in any project. But some things off the bat, like especially advocacy projects, are things that are not only necessary but enjoyable. And that's something that I'm excited by.

SPEAKER_03:

So I want to get back into like moving to Dubai. When you moved to Dubai, did you move solely on your own?

SPEAKER_01:

I moved on my own, yes. And I think it was something somewhat of a risk. I had friends here, and I thought, oh, let me follow them, let's see what happens. And very quickly, they went off and did their thing, and I went off and did mine. And when you move from Australia in a very insular environment to a more global city like this, things are different. You figure out who you are, you figure out, you know what? I came with this, I came to do this, but this is me now. Let me let me learn from myself. And I think it took me time to kind of get my feet on the ground because life was different. It was very different working in a hotel here than working in a hotel in Australia. My hotel were different. The the ability to do things here that I couldn't do back home was there. So it was it was an exciting time, but yeah, for me, I came with one vision, and as is typical in the UAE, very quickly that vision turns into something else and something else and something else. So yeah, it was it was not initially what I intended.

SPEAKER_03:

How do you think, or do you think it's important to move away from your home country to really embody who you are and figure who you who you are as a person, away from your natural habitat, away from the responsibilities of others, opinions. Like, do you think you could have really embodied who you are today being in Dubai at home?

SPEAKER_01:

No, no chance. And why is that? People at home still till today think that they can sprinkle the seeds and get involved and do things like this, but I'm a big kid now. I have my own responsibilities, I have my own wife, I have my own kids, and I laugh because my mother is 78 years old, but she still thinks that she has a complete say in everything that I do. And that that ship sailed a long time ago. I have a lot of respect for her, I have a lot of time for her, and I will do anything for her. But when I go home, when my wife and kids go home to Australia, things are so different. People are in bed by seven o'clock. Now, at seven o'clock, I haven't even left the office. Like here is so very different. And whilst I struggle now to connect to that life, they struggle to understand the life that we live here. And I think it's taken me time to understand that neither way is wrong, neither way is right, it's just different. And I think that to be able to be in this environment helped me figure out who I am. But being there, I would have probably still figured it out, but I may have been a little different.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's okay.

SPEAKER_03:

So I want to move on to the Brain Performance Center. What exactly do you guys do? Because I know you've lots of interesting assessments that you host inside uh the center.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's a it's a phenomenal place. Like I I owe so much to the center, to the visionary leadership, to the way in which this technology came to the UAE.

SPEAKER_03:

Now you say this technology, tell the listener what technology, because I'm fascinated by the brain and what we can essentially do or assess.

SPEAKER_01:

So Yeah, I think for us, we work in a number of verticals. Now, for us, we have a health span or longevity space. We have an indication treatment based, we have an executive function based, and we have a sports performance base. So I'll explain each one because it I don't want it to be overwhelming, because it can be. But let's let's assume, for example, envisage the largest hyperbaric oxygen therapy center in the world. We have a phenomenal facility. It's it's in Jamira Lake Towers.

SPEAKER_03:

It is I've seen I've I've seen it, but uh for the listener, tell tell them what are the benefits of the hyperbaric chamber.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. I think what we have is a program. So we don't just do hyperbaric treatments. You don't come do a session and walk out and you feel amazing. You have a program. So we our program is designed to create a systematic change in the body. So for us, if you break your arm or cut your leg, you can see it. Something's wrong. But for us, we take a lot of our treatment facilities and target it at the brain. So if you have a wound in your brain, you would never know unless you had a stroke. But sitting here right now, if we did an MRI of yours and my brain, it would look very different. Mine, when I did the treatment myself, I did my first MRI and there were several white spots. Now, I'm not an old person. I'm late 40s. And I thought to myself, what is that? All right, Dr. Sharif, explain to me my MRI. It's like these little white spots here on the on the image, this is micro strokes that you've had. I'm like, micro strokes? I think I'm reasonably fit and healthy. It's like, yeah, but this is the aging process. This is might be executive function, you forgot your keys, you went to the shops for 10 items, you came back with two because you couldn't remember what it was. This is memory. So everyone has this. And over time, these become more complex, more challenging. And that's when we start to feel the aging process. So in our reverse aging program, what it typically does is we hyperoxygenate the brain to repair these things. So doing my MRI, my brain MRI now, you don't see white spots anymore. So for me, personally, who's done the program, we went through. A variety of assessments, and that is anything from physical performance, VO2 max testing, MRI, bloods, genetics, all of these sort of things. So you get your baseline. Where am I today? And that's a three-day assessment. It's very extensive. And then you have a post-assessment report. So the physician will share with you this is where you are now. Talk about what the goals are for the treatment. And it's fully customizable. So based on outcomes of your pre-assessment, then you're able to see where do I go next? So then you go into the hyperbaric suite for let's say for a healthy aging or longevity program, it's 60 sessions, two hours a day, five days a week for 12 weeks. Now that's not the only part of the program. You have neuropsychology, you have physical performance, you have dietetic. And these elements combine with the pressure of the chamber, which is actually like a first-class airline fuselage. It's you have your own tablet, your lounge seat, you breathe 100% oxygen for two hours, 20 minutes on, five minutes off, 20 minutes on, five minutes off, and there's a protocol that exists. So what it does, by doing that, it tricks the body into steady state like this, that your body's in hypoxia. So by overoxygenating your body, it then learns after a certain amount of sessions that that hyperoxygenation is steady state. And now at normal pressure and normal oxygen, your body's in hypoxia. You don't feel anything different other than the fact that your body replicates stem cells and new blood vessels the same as when you were a baby.

SPEAKER_03:

So what's the longevity in this program? As in, if I was to do this for two hours per day, right, for five days, and I stopped the process, when do I go back to my old.

SPEAKER_01:

So what research shows, and I want to be clear that this is clinical and scientific research. We're not a wellness center, we're not a spa, we're a highly regulated medical facility. And what our research shows us is that once you do the program in a healthy aging environment, not for indication treatment that we spoke about earlier, that the lasting effects can be for up to two years. And it can even be longer. But the minimum window is two years. Then people come back for a top-up for a boost. It may be even shorter. And it's customizable, as I said. Maybe it's an additional 10 sessions, 20 sessions to give you that boost. So from that perspective, everyone is different. Some people that are a lot older than us, and we have a client that's over 100 years old right now.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

Does things a little differently. You and me would also do it a little differently. So from that perspective, the baseline of the program is very similar, but there are elements that are highly customizable. Like we have a professional athlete with us at the moment that's not looking to extend his health span. He wants milliseconds of reaction time, or he wants to be able to have his executive function grow by this. And his program is customizable based on a 40-session program for a professional athlete. We have children with us with cerebral palsy or autism spectrum disorder or a traumatic brain injury, or who have recovered from a stroke that have an initial 60 session plus a small break and then a top-up of 30, 40, 50 session later. Some see benefits very quickly.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you have any case studies that are where it's been like seriously measurable with the outcome in terms of children that you've dealt with or with autism?

SPEAKER_01:

Now let me say from a professional capacity, we have every person that enters the clinic is a case study. We do a pre-treatment assessment, we do assessments and monitoring during the program, and then at the end of the program, we do a post-treatment assessment. And you measure the delta to be able to show, let's say, data-driven analysis of where people have changed. Now you can feel it. For me, I felt it very quickly. But I can also see from a documentation standpoint and a data-driven standpoint, I've improved here, here, here, and here. Now, we spoke about autism, for example. From a perspective of our youth wing, we see a lot of children with autism spectrum disorder. And some have seen phenomenal change. Some see incremental change. And I would say that from a center's perspective, this is one of the most unique support treatments for autism spectrum disorder. Now, I think we all know that once you receive an ASD diagnosis, people want to say, you know what? There's no cure, or there is a cure, or there isn't. It really depends on the individual, to be honest. Now, I can say that from a standpoint of working at the center. But as you know, my son Xander was in a diagnosis that was nonverbal autism spectrum disorder. And like I said at the beginning, I owe where he is today to the Brain and Performance Center, to the chairman who bought this technology to the UAE, and to the team who delivered this program day in, day out, changed his life. And to go from someone who is completely nonverbal to be able to tell me, Papa, I love you, I can't put a price on that. That to me is real life. And I sit in front of parents on a regular basis and hear very common stories. When people come into the center, can you get the same results for my child? And I'm honest. Research shows that yes, we can achieve results in these domains. But autism is a spectrum for a reason. Some people are at this end, some people are at that end, some people are in the middle. But what I can say is this treatment program for my son's life has given him the ability to be the best version of himself. And that's all I can ask for.

SPEAKER_03:

At what point or stage did you figure out that he was autistic?

SPEAKER_00:

I didn't.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think that's what haunts me the most. My wife, Lazelle, she's she's a phenomenal woman. And she saw some things very quickly in life for her. Now, Xander had a couple of febrile seizures, and I rushed him. We rushed him, I was in the ambulance, but we rushed him to hospital. He blacked out.

SPEAKER_00:

So many challenging moments. And she knew. Mother's intuition, I guess.

SPEAKER_01:

And I had the Australian approach, ah, she'll be right. He'll be okay. He'll grow out of it. You know what that's like, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So Yeah, I think that It's like an Irish mommy as well.

SPEAKER_01:

She she she knew. And we went to a variety of places at tests, and ah, he'll grow out of it. He'll be okay. And then when I joined the Cleveland Clinic, I had access to all the care in the world. One of the best healthcare facilities on the planet. And they couldn't do anything to help him. Send him to this treatment, that treatment, this, this. He'll be okay. Okay, he's not enough, not enough. I don't want him to be okay. I want him to be the best version of himself. Now that may be like this, it may be like that, it may be whatever. But to give him the opportunity to show the world what he can do is what I wanted. And it took me at least four or five years to come to some level of acceptance. I just wasn't there. And denial was my friend. That that was my reality. And it created so much tension in my world that it was not fair for my family. And then when I joined the Brain and Performance Center, and we spent time bringing Xander for assessments. And it wasn't as simple as just start. He went through six rounds of intravenous immunoglobulin therapy to bring down the inflammation in his brain to allow him to be able to be safe inside the chamber. And he started the program. And he went through a really rigorous, intensive program. Did it in the first 20 sessions. We didn't see any change.

SPEAKER_03:

How did he manage inside the chamber, like or during his treatment? What was his reaction to all of this?

SPEAKER_01:

Honestly, I was shocked. He loves it. And I'll give credit to the to the youth team at the center. They are a specialist youth nursing, OT, neuropsychology physician-led center that know how to get the the best out of the children. And they said, take the mask home and you know, play with it, make it a toy. So every night before bed, we'd put it on. He'd put on his, I'd put on mine, and it would be, it would be our thing. So when it came time for him to go inside the chamber, it was fun. It was okay. And the kids aren't alone. There's always a nurse inside, and they have a chaperone that can go in with them. So if they need some parental or nanny or or whatever support, there's space for that to be available. You have your own iPad where you do your brain training exercises, or you have a break with game or YouTube or something else. And he was fantastic. But he went through the first 20 sessions, 23 sessions actually. And we saw nothing. My wife and I are looking at each other. What's going on? Like something's gotta happen. When? Spoke to the professor, stay the course. What you need to wait for is for this to create the systematic change in his body. Session 23. I remember it as if it was yesterday. Tucked him in, I co-sleep with Xander, tuck him in. Every night, Papa loves you.

SPEAKER_00:

And he looks up, you still gives me chills. And that was the start of the systematic change in his body.

SPEAKER_01:

From completely nonverbal, no words, nothing, to now saying things, counting, saying the alphabet phonetically, making other vocalization, and communicating with purpose. Now for Xander, he has now he works with an AAC device, which is a tablet that he communicates with. I want to start by saying he's not a hundred percent neurotypical, and he's not a magic pill that he was non-verbal autistic, and now he's not. That's not what I'm saying. But he now communicates, he can say words, he can sit in a classroom, he can communicate with his iPad, and he has a quasi normal life. Before he was not in that space. And I'm so proud of him for working so hard. And the fact that Lazell, my wife, has dedicated everything to be able to research, support, learn, and is still till today a student of this field that I'm eternally grateful for. I'll give you an example. She has a full day yesterday, goes home, all good, gets on a call at midnight with a support group from the US till three in the morning and learns about how gut microbiomes support or not support what Xander's condition has got and how we can better support him. Like, who does that? Like I don't have enough words to be grateful for the things that she does for our family every day. And we have two other girls, and they are they're blessings as well. But I can say that with Xander's initial diagnosis, it's taken a lot to be able to get our heads around it, let's put it that way.

SPEAKER_03:

So you mentioned you were in denial for quite some time. Did that drive a wedge in between you and your wife at the time? Because that must have been quite difficult.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I I would say that I'm sure that she was tremendously frustrated with me. And the blessing that I have is that she's a phenomenal woman. Maybe too understanding at times. But she'll call me out on my nonsense. And, you know, even though I'm not gonna like what I hear, she's right. And I'm smiling because she's gonna listen to this and think, you know what? Yeah, I call you out a lot. It's not only one and two times, you know, a month, it's one and two times a day. But, you know, I think that from a denial standpoint, yeah, I think my lack of acceptance did frustrate her quite a lot.

SPEAKER_03:

I can imagine. So being the CEO of the Brain Performance Center, obviously, brain performance, brain health is very important. How do you manage to stay on top of your brain health whilst being a CEO? Because as we all know, CEOs don't have a very light plate.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, there's there's plenty on the plate and uh and that's okay. And I take it back to the conversation before about my father's work ethic. I live in Abu Dhabi and I work in Dubai. I get up every morning. I'm in the office before six. And for me, that window of time between when I get there and when everyone else gets there is when I get my work done. When everyone else gets there, it's then about giving time to the team, giving time to the clients. And then it's time to take time for me. And I think in my early leadership years, I never took time for me. And it might sound selfish, but I used that time for wellness activities, whether that be mindfulness, whether that be fitness, whether that be spending time in the hyperbaric chamber myself. And without that, I would not be in a good place. The one thing that I really do enjoy, and people think I'm completely nuts, as I enjoy the drive between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. That's my unplug space. In the morning, I'll be listening to podcasts, may even be yours. The ability to calm down or build yourself up over that 40 minutes is implicitly important to my mental health. I'll leave here today, I'll go back to the clinic, I'll do some things around the center, then I'm going home picking up Lizelle, and then I have dinner with a client in Dubai tonight. But those two trips backwards and forwards gives me the ability to unravel what happened today before I get home and face the bright lights of three kids and a wife and a family. It gives me the opportunity to be the best version of myself in front of them. Whereas if I just took a 10-minute trip home, that decompression space wouldn't be there.

SPEAKER_03:

So what makes a good CEO?

SPEAKER_01:

Now that's a really good question because different attributes and different skill sets are important in different situations. Now I'd say that you need to have a toolkit that you can take out so many different tools when they're required. But like I said before, two ears and one mouth. You need to have a good listening ear. And when you speak, you need to be decisive so that people do listen. Now, what my team will tell you is that I'm very engaged with them. I'm in the trenches, I'm part of the care process, I'm part of the sales process, I'm part of the customer experience journey. I don't just lock myself in the office. Now, meetings are important. But meetings aren't important if nothing else happens after them. I don't enjoy, and my team will also tell you, I enjoy sitting in a meeting for the sake of having a meeting. There's nothing that transpires out of it, we wasted everyone's time. Not just mine, but everyone's. So I would prefer to get in, get out quickly. Stand-up meetings are always good because people don't want to stand up for very long. So efficient, short, sharp bursts. But for me, I won't say that anyone's skill set as a CEO is more important than the other. You need to be able to utilize a full suite of services when you need them. And it may be as simple as a charming smile with a client that's really difficult. Or it may be an astute business conversation when you're presenting budgets to the board. Do you know what I mean? Like you can't just say one's more important than the other because it's really not.

SPEAKER_03:

That's a good answer. It's an answer that I haven't had before. So to move on to brain health, right? Like, what can I do for my brain's health that's outside of a clinic in order to keep on top of it?

SPEAKER_01:

So one thing that I would say is really important is diet and exercise. And when I say exercise, I don't just mean physical exercise. So let's assume you're not part of the Brain and Performance Center, you're not part of any other medical or or whatever treatment program. And you're just at home, just you. What do I do? I need to eat well, I need to exercise, I need to get the blood moving. Now, when I mean exercise, it doesn't have to be running 30 kilometers a day. But it needs to be in and out getting the butt blood moving. Now, mental fitness is as equally as important as physical fitness. And just getting moving for me is what's really important. You can eat well and you can have cheat days. And we all have them, even though people won't speak about it. Yeah, yeah, I eat so well. I'm very clean, I don't do this, I don't do that. You're gonna have a day when you think, I really want this. And the minute that you prevent yourself from it is the minute that you start that internal struggle. Now, the old age saying of everything in moderation, I subscribe to. I was a lot bigger than I am now. And for me, the ability to be able to turn it on and turn it off when I need to is important. I used to travel a lot. I was on the road 300 nights a year. And when you think about how that plays with your diet and exercise when you're in a different city, a different hotel, a different airline, every single day. You eat junk. Not because you want to, but because your body is completely shattered and you don't take the time to invest in yourself. So I think the long answer to your question is what I just said. But the short answer is more take time to invest in yourself. And that can be fitness. It can be eating well. I'm not saying always healthy, but eating well, eating nutritious food, taking time for mindfulness breaks, even Pilates and things of this nature to get your breathing centered, to get yourself centered is really important. Take time to invest in yourself.

SPEAKER_03:

So when we talk about brain health, when people retire and they don't use their brain actively, how have you ever seen that come into your clinic where people have retired and then their brain is just kind of switched off? Is that reversible? How can someone manage that? Because I often hear when people retire, it's the worst thing ever for them.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'll talk about a client of ours that's current. For obvious reasons, I won't share their name, but this gentleman was a peak performer, still currently in Dubai, extremely well known, and someone who has been successful in business, multiple businesses, and retired. Two years later, he started to feel severe cognitive decline. And he came in and he spoke to myself and the medical director, and he said, you know what? I'm not myself anymore. I used to be sharp, always on, aggressive in business. Now I just can't remember anything. I lose my keys, my wallet. It's in my pocket, but I can't remember where I put it. Something's not right. Now, we did a MRI scan of his brain, and like I spoke about those white spots. There was a lot of white spots. And that was the aging process that's kicked in with him extremely early. He's early 50s. So he's not an old person. And we saw his brain look like someone who was late 70s. And it was a shock to him and a shock to us to have someone who is so successful, so widely respected, so accomplished be in that condition. So our medical team created a program for him. And it was very different to the usual program that we had. He had multiple MRIs to get check-in marks, just to ensure that not only was it a functional scan of his brain, but other testing that was needed to be done. Now, from that perspective, we sit back and think, can we? So what was originally discussed was yes, we will be able to see some improvements in some of these debates. But what we found was like nothing else on earth. He was so committed to the program, every little bit of the program, that not only did it start to regenerate the tissue in his brain, but it completely reversed from having a phenomenal percentage. I'm gonna say over 60% of his brain was affected by these white spots. Right now, he's finished round one of the program, and he wants to do it again, not because of what it needs to repair in his brain, but it's what it's made him feel like he can achieve. And where we are now is there's, I think, three or four small little white spot affected areas. And for him, data was important, but how he sleeps, how he feels, how he performs, how he functions in daily life has really transformed him not to being the person he was before, but in his words, a better version of where he was before. So we have a phenomenal amount of testimonials and case studies of people that have changed their life. And I can say from the pre-assessment to the post-assessment, we don't see people that go backwards. There's progression in one domain or another. And for me, when people are improving their quality of life, are improving areas that weren't as good as that when they came in, I can go home and sleep a happy man at night because the team do a phenomenal job in helping people live as best as they can for as long as they can. And we don't ever say we're gonna help you live longer. We we have a number. What yours and mine is, I don't know yet. But we don't say at the clinic that we're gonna make that number more. It's not what we do. We don't help people live longer, we don't extend their lifespan. But what we do is we help them live as fit, as healthy, and as high quality of life as they can for as long as they can.

SPEAKER_03:

Amazing. So, because it's called a detached podcast, I often ask this question. So, what would you detach yourself away from that's limiting you today?

SPEAKER_01:

That's a great question. I and I think probably the the reason why it's so good is because you didn't brief me, you were gonna ask it. Because then you don't have an opportunity to curate a response, right? So I think for me, you spoke about imposter syndrome before. Now, there's days when I wake up and I think to myself, how did I end up doing what I do now? Like a kid from the coast in Australia that has now had the ability to work in some of the most phenomenal hospitality organizations, healthcare operations, and gets to get up every morning and go to bed every night with a phenomenal family, with a company that is at the cutting edge of medicine that changes people's lives every day. Like pinch yourself. Like that's not normal. How does that even happen? So if I could detach myself from something, I'd love to lick that little guy off the shoulder and say, you know what? It's a hell of a lot of work. And I deserve to be here. I deserve to be able to have impact and influence over people's lives. Because most days I sit there and think, how did this happen? I love it, but how did it happen? So that'd be probably one of the answers, I'd say.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it sounds like you've been dreaming with the lid off. Because if you have imposter syndrome, some days you're doing the right thing, I think, personally speaking. But I just want to say thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It's been a great pleasure.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much, Sophia. It's been great being here, and thanks so much. I wish you all the best.