Episode 189: How You Health Can Destroy Your Finances, ft. Becky Granden

TRANSCRIPT

Johanna: Welcome back, everybody to the Alopecia Angel podcast. I’m your host, Johanna Dahlman. I’m so excited to bring you a very special guest, and before I get into this special guest, I wanted to also announce that I’m really excited to also showcase a future guest who’s coming soon. Her name is Eva Steinwald and she just summited Mount Everest. Her goal in life is to summit seven summits across each continent before 70 years of age. And so I just contacted her today and we’re setting up a date and I can’t wait to have her on the show, very inspirational lady.

And here in front of me today I have Becky Granden, who is a crypto investor, a biohacker, a health and wellness enthusiast. She’s also an entrepreneur, a financial controller, and just a smart and dear friend of mine all around. So Becky, welcome to the show.

Becky: Yeah, thank you so much for having me back. It’s always a pleasure to be here.

Johanna: Yes, so great to have you today. I wanted to talk about finance, healthcare, health in general and how we can almost safeguard ourselves with crypto, with other assets, with other opportunities out there. But then also really understand the intersection of finance and health and how this impacts our life, our wellbeing, and our future. Statistics show that a lot of bankruptcies happen because of bad financial planning, but then also because of ins, surmounted, healthcare costs out of pocket, or maybe trying to find healing and cures and situations to our health crisis. And there’s a cost to that. And so I wanted to get your take on this. If you had any statistics to share or anything else that you’d like to add to that.

Becky: Yeah, absolutely. So medical bankruptcy is the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US and so it ends up not just being a health issue, but a financial one. And they say sick care is more expensive than preventative wellness. Most people don’t realize how quickly chronic symptoms can turn into financial crisis. And so whether that’s the copays or the prescriptions, lost productivity time off of work, like it all really adds up quick. The system that we currently have is very reactive. It’s not necessarily proactive. And so. It rewards symptom management and not the root cause resolution. It really is why a lot of people stay stuck in cycles of medication and burnout and misdiagnosis.

Johanna: Do you have any personal stories that you’d like to share in regards to this? Or maybe stories from friends or family or people that you know of? I know after having a health and wellness center yourself, you’ve encountered so many people who are just desperately seeking for helps for health, for alternatives, and for, just a different way of treating themselves, because clearly conventional medicine has it wrong. It’s not doing us a service and just the opposite. It’s a complete disservice.

Becky: Absolutely. Yes, i’ve had my own personal health journey over the last decade. And really it all started when I found out that my house was full of mold and we had to make a really radical decision to tear our house down and rebuild it on nights and weekends. And so I know what it’s like to lose everything due to health issues, and what it looks like to rebuild after that. And to your point, yes, with my wellness facility, I was able to see how this impacts so many people so deeply. The time and money it takes to find the right diagnosis, like you said, and maybe just searching for the right person that can actually help them. I feel like there’s always a lot of money wasted on things that don’t work or the wrong solutions or potentially the wrong people as far as knowing exactly where to start.

Johanna: It is very difficult, even just for, something as simple as alopecia, which is not so simple and I’m simplifying that. But at the same time, you would think hair loss is very easy, let’s just go to the store and get some serums and get some, specialty shampoo and presto, we should be done. And it’s not that way. It takes people years to be truly diagnosed correctly and especially women. The statistics that show that women are misdiagnosed is a far greater than men in general. Also, statistics show that in general it takes around women, around 10 doctors to get treated, to get the right diagnosis, to get the right next steps, to be listened to, to be heard versus a man. Much of that is because of the lack of knowledge, education, and even research for women’s health compared to men.

But the thing is, it’s like the financial impact, the cost of not healing and not even healing correctly is also a big problem too. I actually have a client who came to me because he was, his family, had put him on JAK inhibitors when he was very young for his alopecia. The JAK inhibitors helped, but they also bankrupted his family to the point where, he’s fresh outta college, he needs to make it on his own and he also needs to pay for his own meds. These meds are not covered by health insurance and they’re costing him and his family an arm and a leg to the point where he’s: I can’t do this anymore. It’s just not sustainable, it’s costing more than my rent, it’s costing more than everything else and I just can’t do it.

So he chose the natural route. Because he thought it’s gotta be cheaper. It’s definitely cheaper. And on top of it, there are no risks, there are no black box warnings, there are no side effects. All you can see is progress and improvement from the time you start to, as you continue. It compounds in terms of reaping the benefits of going the natural route. The JAK inhibitors, the cortisone shots, all these medications, none of it has any guarantees. The only guarantee you truly have is working your biology, biohacking it, and really upgrading it from the inside out. That’s the true value here of learning what’s

needed, getting to those root causes and focusing on them so you can heal. In terms of the costs of not healing, what would you say would be some of them?

Becky: I would say the wellness industry profits off of confusion and for women especially, I feel like we’re targets of that, but we’re taught to be good consumers and not really empowered to be decision makers. I would say that, yes, just as you were saying, the out of pocket expenses are rising and insurance doesn’t cover most holistic solutions and really what people are mostly buying still isn’t helping. I would say the most expensive thing is to not get better. And the second most expensive is buying the products that don’t work. It really is taking your power back to look at these holistic solutions and natural remedies to get yourself out of that system of wasting money. With everything that we’re being targeted for as far as consumerism goes.

Johanna: Would you have any tips to our listeners in terms of what they should be thinking, doing, or asking or saying, in terms of looking at these next products or trying to get a true diagnosis or trying to get the true treatment? So for example, what I always like to say and reiterate always is that start asking your provider, because I’ve spent thousands of dollars looking at doctor to doctor from California to Denver to the Netherlands, back to the US seeking for answers. Whether it was a rheumatologist, a dermatologist. No one can give me straight answers, no one had results to show no one had before, and after pictures, client testimonials or anything. No one can tell me: Hey, my treatment that I’m offering you, my prescription that I’m offering you, is gonna give you these said results. No one could say that, no one can guarantee that, no one could promise that.

And so once I started, doing and seeing all these doctors, by the 5th or 6th one, I was like: Okay, you know what? Enough with the doctors, because I’m not going anywhere. I’m just like chasing my tail and I’m not getting anything out of it. I’m just wasting more time and money, and that was a frustrating part. And so what were some of the tips or clues for you to take back your power versus, still giving it into to all these specialists?

Becky: Yeah, I would say I had a similar experience to you of just doctor after doctor. Nobody could tell me what was wrong. Like with my example, my blood work, they always told me it looked fine. I was within normal range and my intuition, my body, like it didn’t feel fine. It didn’t feel normal. I would always just encourage people to follow that intuition. Don’t take necessarily the first answer you get as truth. I had several doctors tell me that I would be on medications for the rest of my life. And for me, that was just something that I wasn’t willing to accept. I knew that there had to be a better way. Always just fighting for yourself and just recognizing that even if your doctor’s well trained, they’re not trained in everything. They can’t possibly know everything. And so truly just always trusting yourself in this process, it would be the best piece of advice that I have because it’s everything.

Johanna: It is. When it comes to finances. So you’re a financial controller, you know your numbers really well, you’ve owned multiple businesses, you’re an entrepreneur. How can we safeguard ourselves from, let’s say medical mistakes, medical mishaps,

from, taking back our control and then also really seeing what else is out there. Because as someone who’s lived abroad. Not just in one country, but in 5 different countries who’s had to experience universal healthcare, who’s had to experience healthcare systems in the US at varying degrees, who’s had just so many different experiences where I want more options, I want more choice and sometimes you are not given those choices.

Sometimes you’re not given those options, and I think that’s probably the worst part. When you want something, you can’t have it. You can’t have it because let’s say in universal healthcare system, your dermatologist appointment is 6 months down the road, 9 months down the road, you’re on the waiting list till next year. Or even worse, when you wanna see a doctor, they say: No. When you wanna see a specialist, they say: No, you don’t qualify. And so these are some of the hurdles that I personally have had to go through that many women around the world still have to go through. This is one of the reasons why I created Alopecia Angel, because it crosses borders because we offer gold standard functional medicine testing worldwide. I want more people to have more options. It shouldn’t be only for a certain person or a certain population or a certain country. That should be available around the world. That’s my mission to bring healing around the world for alopecia. But in terms of finances, what are some ways that we can safeguard ourselves that we can maybe add to our portfolio, so to speak, and have another nest egg or another option, or another alternative?

Becky: I would say wealth creation is shifting and the traditional finance wasn’t designed for women. It, was actually built to exclude us from the power seat. Crypto really puts financial freedom back into our hands. There’s no middlemen. No gatekeepers, and no permission required. Most women weren’t taught to invest, let alone invest in themselves. But now we are and we really have that opportunity. Crypto is really a part of that awakening. It’s really a modern wealth strategy. And so, it’s about taking control and sovereignty, taking all that power back. In a world where banks can easily freeze your accounts and inflation is stealing your buying power, owning digital assets is really one of the most responsible things that you can do.

Especially on that inflation part of your money not only keeping up with inflation, but doing better than inflation. And so, really having the opportunity to multiply your wealth or assets in a way that sustain your healing. Healing’s going to likely be, or at least you should be considering your health as part of your long-term strategy. And so this is something really that I’ve found personally can keep up with all of the biohacks and the things that I wanna do to take care of myself.

Johanna: Interesting. So let’s assume that some of our listeners have been expats or are expats or have never heard of crypto. Where would we begin? Where do we start? What? Where do we go? Which website? Give us all the nitty gritty as if we’re the preschooler.

Becky: I would say you don’t have to be an expert. There are a few things that you really wanna take into consideration when starting this process, and a lot of those have

to do just around privacy and security. There are a couple tips for setting this up that I would recommend. The biggest one being you like create a new email address, one that you’ve never used anywhere else and never will use anywhere else. This will be used specifically for your crypto accounts. This is really important, with all of the hacks that we constantly have, all the threats of people stealing our identity, it’s a safeguard against somebody coming across your email address with a different hack and using it in this instance.

So that’s your layer one security in this. I would say there’s several centralized exchanges that you can use, it will all be dependent on the country that you’re in. Some of them are not necessarily available in every country, but some of the biggest ones would be like Coinbase or Gemini, Binance. These are all going to be a really easy on ramp to get your money from your regular dollars, whatever that is in your country into crypto market. Whether that’s putting it into Bitcoin or any of the other coins. I would say that’s where you would want to start. There’s a lot of resources on YouTube or you can follow people and see what coins are best for your risk tolerance.

I will say Bitcoin is gonna be like the number one as far as preserving your wealth. It’s considered the new digital gold. You’re gonna find all sorts of coins, crazy silly meme coins with dogs on them, those are gonna be more risky. But it is a point in time in the crypto market we’re gearing up for another bull market and really there’s a lot of money to be made on everything. It’s just that you wanna make sure that this is something that’s going to work for your long-term strategy. And I would say also reach out to me, beckygranden.com. I’ve got some great great resources that I can point you to. But yeah, this is something that it’s getting easier by the day for everybody to partake in and it is truly the way I view it, financial freedom, and it’s not going anywhere. So it’s here to stay.

Johanna: That’s fabulous. Thank you for anyone listening, and again, this is your first time and maybe even your first time, really forcing yourself. I’m just gonna use like someone I know a family friend where, she’s at a certain age, she’s like in her mid 60s and even going online, having an email address was like a big deal for her to have her AOL account. And then now with being forced to have a debit card or being forced to have an online account for banking is a big deal as well. And she’s very uncomfortable purchasing things online and purchasing anything really online because of the hacks, because of people getting their identity stolen and whatnot. So she’s very conservative.

From this standpoint, what are the security safeguards that we should know about besides, using an email address, signing up this way? When you sign up, let’s say for Bitcoin, is it like signing up for a bank account locally in your neighborhood, online and you just sign up, maybe go in person and show some ID, and then all of a sudden you have a bank account or is there a 2 step process where I have to show my passport or anything else? What are some of the safeguarding, because you, we’ve heard in the newspapers and on media where you know, lost so much money in crypto, and these are celebrities, these are, people that we know. So how is it that we can safeguard ourselves and be more intelligent than they are?

Becky: Yes, great question. You can consider this the same as signing up for a bank account. When you go to these centralized exchanges, like I mentioned Coinbase, they’re going to do something that’s called KYC, it’s Know Your Customer. You are going to have to prove your identity, you’ll have to provide either a passport or a driver’s license, some sort of governmental identification. It is a process where they will, if you want to attach it to your local bank account, they’ll do the process of putting small deposits into your account and you’ll have to prove that’s your account. You’ll have to link them that way.

And so, it is very much like a bank account proving your identity. I will say there are decentralized options where you can move money without proving your identity. That’s a little more further down the line. But for somebody just getting started, that’s exactly what you would do is prove your identity. And then as far as safeguards go. I really recommend that once you purchase whatever digital assets you’re after, whether it’s Bitcoin or the others, to purchase a hardware wallet, this looks similar to a USB drive. This is basically the idea of you would take your money off of the exchange, so you can think of it as going to the bank to take your money out and you’re physically putting it in your pocket.

This is what a hardware wallet will do. It’s considered cold storage and your assets are still yours, but they’re offline. The bank is no longer holding them for you. You are holding them for yourself and through this process. If the exchange, the bank was hacked, your money’s actually safe. Even though you use that exchange to purchase it, you’re in no way caught up in losing your assets because you physically have control of them. It’s something where you can easily take them off and put them back on, when you’re ready to cash out or exchange for a different currency, it’s just the reverse process. It is something that I will say for the first time or two, there’s definitely. Things that go into it, that you’re gonna wanna make sure that you’re doing it correctly. But once you do it a couple times it’s pretty straightforward and easy to do.

Johanna: Are there any fees associated, you know how some checking accounts, you have to have certain amount of money in there to avoid a fee, a monthly fee. When you have your eggs in a fertility bank there’s a fee for that. I feel like there’s a fee for everything. So I’m wondering if there’s anything having your crypto wallet.

Becky: There’s not any fees associated with either holding your money on the exchange or holding them in your personal wallet, but there are fees to transfer, and so you’ll see a fee to transfer every time, and it’s a minimal fee. I will say, depending on the blockchain that you’re using. And again, blockchain’s just going to be whether you’re using Bitcoin or a different coin they all have their own blockchain. It’s really minimal fees, but it’s all around when you are doing something, when you are moving money. There’s no fees just for having money.

Johanna: Gotcha., So show us or tell us and share with us some stories or maybe some situations in where it’s so beneficial to have crypto. Maybe there’s a time in that

you know of for you personally or maybe a family friend or somebody else maybe that came in the news where having crypto, having this, little nest egg over here on the side was so critical to their situation, to their finances, to their health.

Becky: I find that daily, it’s so critical. With the price of inflation for everything. It’s just really, if you’re not investing in something where it’s going up in value more than the inflation, you’re literally just losing money. I will say it’s definitely the reason that I was able to build a wellness facility in my community. For me it was big to give back to people to be able to serve those people that came in and really were just had been through the ringer as far as their health goes, and really just looking for solutions of that magnitude. I would say I see it all the time on social media, just really what this has done for families all over the world, having access to money that grows like this. And that is outside of government control, really

Johanna: access that’s a key word that keeps coming up for me. Having access, having access, not just to crypto and bitcoin and everything else, but access to gold standard testing, having access to providers, having access to information, having access to knowledge, to know how, to proven results, to just so much. That was probably my biggest hurdle was not having access as an American, as a global traveler and person, citizen of the world, living in different countries and still no access. Either because, I was being red taped and blocked from so many things within the Netherlands, within Japan, or anywhere else, but it’s just it’s upsetting, it’s disturbing, and creating access is so key so that everyone can have a better life, a better health, and also financial health.

I truly believe that they both go hand in hand, investing in our own health is key. And then also understanding that with our financial health, we can make improvements in all areas of life. And of course, when you invest in your health to me I only say and think that it’s priceless because you’re making moves that no one else can make for you, and you’re doing things that no one else can do for you. So for example, if you’re only subjected, so for example, let’s just go back to women’s health. In the Netherlands, I showed up as the American self. I’m like: I want my pap smear. I want my annual health checkup and this and that. And they looked at me like: Oh no, you only get a pap smear once in 10 years. And I was like: What? I was like: This is not happening. I want my pap smear now and I want it every six months. You know what I mean? Because that’s how proactive I am.

And the Dutch doctor there is just: Oh no, this is not happening either. I got my pap smear, but just once in the 5-6 years that I lived there. And then every summer I would come back to the US and get another pap smear because one way or another I wanted to be on top of my health, and when someone tells me no. Oh no, you found here, a sparring partner and I’m gonna find a way, one way or another. If I have to fly to another country like I had to for alopecia or for anything else, I will. But the thing is again having access. Like when your doctors are telling you, no, sorry, you can’t see a doctor even though I’m 40 years old and pregnant, this doesn’t sit well with me. Granted it was during COVID, so you do the best you can.

But I will tell you, like I fired my midwives 3 times because each one was more incompetent than the other, and it was only the last one that I actually felt confident with because she had over 3000 births underneath her, which is probably more than your general doctor anyways, in the US. I don’t know too many doctors who are doing more than 3000 births within their career. So the thing is, it’s just like access is so huge and it’s such a sticking point because I feel the pain for those living abroad, and I feel the pain for those who feel stuck in general, doesn’t matter where you live. So creating access is huge, but also getting the right information, getting the right tools, techniques, knowledge, know-how, and getting those proven results. So going back to crypto, going back to Bitcoin and all these other things that. It is very new because it’s been around for what, the last maybe 10 years or more.

Becky: It came out of the financial collapse of 2008, I think we’re a little over a decade old.

Johanna: Okay, a little over a decade. So still very new, and there’s still more to see and more to come. And so is this like anything in tech where you wanna get in early or get in as fast as possible before the gold rush?

Becky: Yeah, exactly. I would say everybody thinks they’ve already missed the boat. Bitcoin is at a all time high. But I will say just based on, what’s happening around the world and specifically in politics, there’s lots of countries right now that are looking to make a Bitcoin strategic reserve. People are really understanding that this is the future and. I would just say that it’s never too late. Today’s better than tomorrow. But, get in as yeah, as quick as you can and what makes sense for you because there is a lot of upside opportunity now and I don’t see that stopping at any point in the future.

Johanna: That’s fantastic. Is there like a starter guide that you can create or that maybe you have for our listeners, therefore, they can go to your website, have this starter guide and understand like step #1 Do this, step #2 Do this, and give. A few steps of like how to get started into crypto, maybe some other resources, maybe a book you’re writing or anything else that you’d like to provide. I think that would be huge for our listeners, anyone who’s interested in this. To me, I also feel like it’s never too late to get better financial health and then also get better health and hair in general.

It’s never too late to regrow your hair, it’s never too late to get healthy to do all these things that we wanna do. Just like I mentioned earlier in the podcast before starting the episode, the lady who wants to summit all seven continents and Mount Everest here recently that she did in May. It’s never too late and she’s almost 70. It’s never too late to accomplish our goals as women and to strengthen not just our education, but also our health goals and financial goals. Because truly they go hand in hand. Anything else that you’d like to share with our listeners? Anything else that we should know?

Becky: Yeah, I would say it’s perfect timing that you’re asking about the resources. I am just finalizing an intro guide to crypto. So if you reach out to me at beckygranden.com,

I’ve got a page there that you can submit your email and I’ll reach out to you. Make sure that you get a copy of that because yeah, I’m very passionate about this and I think it is for everyone. And so I wanna help people do this the correct way where, you’re not part of the next breach or anything like that. So reach out to me there.

I would just say this entire industry it’s about becoming sovereign. It’s not necessarily you’re out here being a traitor, it’s like really taking your power back. So yeah, I’m excited for the future and I look forward to helping as many people as I can.

Johanna: That’s beautiful. Thank you so much, I appreciate that. That’s huge because the more we can advocate for ourselves, make decisions, not out of fear, but out of a knowledge base is so empowering. The thing is, before in my alopecia situation, and maybe in your own health journey, you saw things from a fear based situation: Oh no, this is gonna happen. Oh no, this and this and this. And you start opening yourselves to all these worst case scenario options, when in reality if you just sit still a little bit, find the right path, even if it takes a little bit longer. I know my journey was 4-ish years and yours was probably a more than that or a little bit less.

But at the same rate, once we start realizing what it is, those next steps that we need to do. Take out all the noise, take out all the misinformation. This is where we’re like, I got this and this is where now my hair is better in my mid 40s than it was in my late 20s. This is where now my health is so much better in my mid 40s than, probably my teens and so much more. And so this is the beauty of advocating for ourselves, getting on the right path, getting a tailored approach. I’m sure if people wanted a consultation with you or one-on-one coaching or anything else, I’m sure you could work that out with them. But the same thing here. It’s never too late to get started and it’s now is the time. So sooner rather than later.

Becky: Absolutely.

Johanna: Where can people find you if they wanted to connect with you?

Becky: You can find me on Instagram at Becky Granden or you can find me at beckygranden.com, is my website. So yeah.

Johanna: Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time, for your wisdom and your knowledge. I appreciate so much, and I know my listeners are gonna get so much out of this, and especially once they start on their path towards sovereignty and through crypto.

Becky: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Johanna: My pleasure.