IAM512- Business Developer Provides Individualized Addiction Treatment

As CEO of Asana Recovery, Mark brings 20+ years of experience in business development and operations to help innovate and effectuate an exceptional, yet cost-effective, approach to addiction treatment that incorporates both traditional and alternative therapeutic methods and provides a truly individualized program of treatment for each client, thereby increasing the chances for real recovery.

• CEO Hack: Operating my business in front of the computer and leveraging remote work
• CEO Nugget: Have clean audited financials
• CEO Defined: The person who backstops at

Website: http://asanarecovery.com/

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Mark Shandrow of Asana Recovery. Mark, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Mark Shandrow 0:39

Thank you. I appreciate you sending the invitation out to me.

Gresham Harkless 0:42

Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you can join us. What I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Mark and hear about all the awesome things that he's doing.

As CEO of Asana Recovery, Mark brings 20+ years of experience in business development and operations to help innovate and effectuate an exceptional, yet cost-effective, approach to addiction treatment that incorporates both traditional and alternative therapeutic methods and provides a truly individualized program of treatment for each client, thereby increasing the chances for real recovery.

Mark, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Mark Shandrow 1:13

Yes, I'm excited about it. Thank you.

Gresham Harkless 1:15

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I want to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. What led you to get started with your business?

Mark Shandrow 1:22

Sure. Well, I appreciate that. Currently Gresham, this is my 10th year in this particular industry. This is the third industry I've been in. In my career as a CEO and entrepreneur, primarily the main business we are is a sauna recovery, which is a residential treatment center. What that means is that people that are suffering from alcohol or drug addiction, which I'm sure with increasing problems that are happening here in the United States, and it's something like one in 10 people, it affects their lives directly with either a loved one, family member or child is afflicted with drug or alcohol addiction.

Our program, we're located here in Southern California, and what we do is provide first what's called medical destabilization or detox. So what we do is we help the clients get all the drugs out of their system, and then they go through medical detox, which is where they have 24/7, nursing, they have a doctor there, they get the drugs and alcohol out of their system. Then this is the real hard part and then we can start working on them, really helping them identify what their issues are, why they keep continuing to destroy their life by using alcohol and drugs, and work with them through these processes through what are called evidence-based practices, where it's either DBT or a different types of therapy, to get them to number one, identify the problem.

Secondly, really learn how to cope with it and lastly getting our clients back to functioning productively in society, whether it's getting back to their job, whether they're going back to school, whether they're just going back to their family, and being a productive member, a member of their family household, that's our goal is to get people kind of on the right track in typically it's a 30 to 60-day stay, and then back into life.

Gresham Harkless 3:10

Well, I appreciate you for working with the clients and helping people out with that, and sometimes we just think about the clients that you probably work with directly, but as you mentioned in one in 10 of the families and friends and members of society that are probably have been impacted or maybe sometimes a negative result as a result of that. Being able to help out those clients, which kind of sounds like has a domino effect to help out like, the greater society as well.

Mark Shandrow 3:35

Absolutely, this affliction affects a lot of people, and it's really not an individual thing, I mean, it might affect you personally, but it has ramifications, right, that hit you, your children, your loved ones, and also financially. A lot of our clients, unfortunately, are business people, they're running their own businesses, and the businesses have put a lot of stress on them. They reduce that stress with the use of alcohol or drugs and what we do is try and get them to deal with that stress without those substances.

Gresham Harkless 4:04

Right. I definitely appreciate you doing that, and obviously bringing that up as well, too. Because a lot of times when people are extreme drivers, as often entrepreneurs and business owners are where they want to go, a lot of times, you don't take that time to kind of take care of yourself and make sure that you're having good well-being.

Sometimes you run off the rails and you try to get back on the rails before you have the opportunity to make those chances or decisions. I appreciate you for mentioning that, also of course helping out so many of the business community.

Mark Shandrow 4:32

Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure.

Gresham Harkless 4:34

Yeah, I know, you might have already touched on this, but can you take us through exactly how your center works and how clients can find out more information and get started?

Mark Shandrow 4:45

Sure. We're located as I mentioned here in Southern California in Orange County, about a block from the beach, it's a nice, tranquil kind of relaxing setting with the beach and a lot of parks and great weather and so half of the clients that we treat actually flying and from other states. Most people find us actually on the internet with our, at our website at saunarecovery.com and they're doing their Google searches, they identify our website, they look at it, and they call in, and they check primarily first to see if they're a candidate for our program. Then if they have the insurance that qualifies, we're currently what's called an out-of-network provider, so if you had like a PPO insurance plan, you'd be able to come to our program.

As I mentioned, half of the people fly in. So we might get a call from a concerned husband, someone who's in college who's struggling, and it could be anybody, a grandmother, that is taking too many pills, an attorney that's drinking too much. They'll call us, we'll check their benefits to make sure they qualify, and then we'll do an assessment to make sure that this is the right program from there for them. That we can get, get them to where they want to be, and they'll fly in, and we'll pick them up at the airport, we'll shuttle them into our program. They'll be assessed by a doctor and a nurse and the medical team will make sure that we'll check up there, we'll do a complete blood workup, we'll do a complete health screening, wellness check, go through all of that stuff and then start detoxing them off of alcohol or the drugs.

A lot of times, especially with, for example, alcohol, and what are called benzodiazepines, you have a high propensity for seizure, and you can actually die from it from detoxing off the drugs. We help people manage through that process. If it's heroin, for example, those are mostly heroin, which is a big killer, the opiates now are killing something like 65,000 Americans a year, the opiates, you typically detox them off of what's called using a drug called Suboxone. You're not going to die detoxing off the heroin, but it's incredibly uncomfortable. So the idea is that these medicating drugs, allow them to detox off the drugs and help with the physical symptoms of nausea, and the headaches, that they feel like they want to come out of their skin. That usually takes about seven to 10 days and that's 24-hour nursing.

Once that happens, and their mind starts to clear up a little bit, then they start doing group meetings with a group, when they meet with a therapist, and other individuals in the program. We also do a lot of one-on-one therapy, where they're working with a therapist and trying to identify other problems, whether it's trauma related, whether it's PTSD, get a lot of PTSD, things like that are driving down their level, underlying addiction. Then at nighttime, they go to a meeting in the local community, and they understand that they need to live a life of recovery.

What that means is really managing this challenge that they have and adapting to it, and creating habits that support a healthy lifestyle, like you mentioned whether it's getting up every morning and doing meditation, whether it's getting up every morning and going to the gym, that's a big part of our program, a lot of this wellness, I mean going to the beach, taking time for yourself, really understanding that it's hard to go, you can't go 24/7 unless you have a drug. You have to really manage that.

In helping people understand that and working through those, and then hopefully getting them back into their family and then back to back to their life and being a productive member of society and continuing to grow and, and help other people. A big part of this journey in recovery for a lot of people is being of service to others and that's a big founding philosophy that our company has, as well as our treatment philosophy is that we're here to be of service to others, we're here to help other humans survive through this challenging world that we all live in. That's how you're going to become healthier if you help other people.

Gresham Harkless 8:40

Yeah, that makes so much sense. Again, I definitely appreciate that and I think so many times, I don't know if you definitely have heard this from clients, where sometimes when you're dealing with whatever the issue is, and sometimes you fall into that depression, and you start to cope with it, and drugs and alcohol that you feel like you're by yourself, and often you want sometimes to get the help, you want somebody to kind of lean on, but you feel that you're by yourself.

Sometimes those drugs and alcohol become those people that you as people I should say in air quotes kind of reach out to hopefully feel better and be able to deal with some of the things but that's why I appreciate you guys. You talking about those underlying issues, because I think a lot of times, you can gloss over that you can detox but if you don't really get to the root of what the issue is, it's hard.

Mark Shandrow 9:22

You relapse if you're not really dealing with it, you'll relapse and that's what happens, unfortunately, and the reason that our programs are so important for society is that people do relapse, and it takes sometimes it takes 2 3 4. You don't really want to have this conversation with the family but it might take them eight or 9 to 10 times, it's not a pleasant thing, but that's the reality.

Gresham Harkless 9:44

Yeah, absolutely. Are there like certain maybe like warning signs or things that people can hear from their co-workers or loved ones that may show that they do need to take that step?

Mark Shandrow 9:57

Yeah, that's a good question and I think it kind of comes in two different areas. Those who have been through some sort of recovery program and those who have not those who have gone through a program, and typically have a very fixed schedule and it's designed for that. They're working out every day, they're going through their meetings or doing what their groups are doing, they're sponsoring, they're helping people. When people start dropping out of their meetings, they stop working out, that's when that's a big trigger and that's a big sign. That's a huge sign, we're not participating.

The other people that haven't gone through recovery are just kind of, which is a lot of it's just dealing with it, are they drinking and using too much, is this affecting their personal life? Because it's affecting their work? Are they being irresponsible? Here's another one, are they taking high-risk, a lot of high-risk activities, whether it's dealing with driving under the influence, using intravenous drug use, dealing with prostitution and kind of sex industry, and a lot of those high-risk behaviors are associated with substance abuse. So if you see those people, the best thing to do, and that's the kind of what do you do? How do I deal with this, it's not an easy thing to confront somebody who has an addiction.

The best thing to do is get with their family, try and figure out a plan with family and friends and then ultimately, what you have to do is confront that person, you have to do an intervention of some type, and let them know that you guys all care, that you're important to them, and that they need to get help, and hopefully be able to line something up where once you intervene with them and discuss that they're on a plane or bus in the car, going to treatment to get clean and start working on themselves.

Gresham Harkless 11:45

You've already might have already kind of touched on this session, say, I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. It could be for you personally or for your organization, but do you feel like it's that being of service, which kind of sets you guys apart and makes you unique?

Mark Shandrow 11:58

Yeah, exactly. I think that's the secret sauce with me personally, and all the businesses I've owned, and run. Then also this one is being of service, always looking at, I mean, we talked about it a lot, this is a customer experience, what's our customer experience, like how are we being of service to them? From the first phone call they make to the website of that they land on to, when they walk in the door, I mean for us, it's very light interaction, a person is in your care, 24/7 for 30,60, 90 days, that's a lot of touching.

You want to make sure that all of those, everything is lined up, and that you're focused on giving them that great customer experience, but also being a little bit more individualized and that's one of our unique selling propositions for our particular company within this industry is that we are. We work on being, there are a lot of evidence-based practices that say, you do this to this, and it works. But then there's that personal touch and that's what we try to do. What's that extra something? For us it's, you'd be surprised in our business, we identify when we first interact with the client that wants to come in, they've committed to coming in, coming in, we identify either a person place, or thing that is special to them.

Gresham Harkless 13:18

I definitely appreciate that. Appreciate you for doing that. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app or book or habit that you have, and I know you've had multiple businesses, but what do you feel kind of makes you or helps you to be more effective and efficient?

Mark Shandrow 13:33

If someone told me this a long time ago, one of my first mentors, what I've tried to do is, he was a real estate guy, and had a lot of apartments and office buildings. This was back in the early 1990s and he was like, I try and operate my business as if I was in a wheelchair sitting on my desk. That's kind of what I try and do. I as much as I liked the human interaction, which I do, I still try and operate all my businesses, whatever, again, to from what we're doing here in front of a computer, in my desk, and then leveraging people, vendors, staff, employees, virtual assistants, that was a huge one for me.

Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Workweek book was very impactful for me, and changed my thinking about that, maybe 20 years ago, when it first came out,

Gresham Harkless 14:21

That definitely makes so much sense. Now what I ask you for what I call a CEO, nugget, and this is like a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Mark Shandrow 14:31

It comes down to when you're trying to exit a business when you're trying to grow it or when you're trying to recapitalize it and what it is is audited financials. One of the biggest mistakes that I've made throughout my business career. I had in the previous company that I had before this one was we did about in 2015. We did over 100 million in revenue, and the company completely collapsed and went bankrupt because of our cash constraints and the cash just wasn't there. We were trying to sell a business. We were trying to recapitalize it, or we're trying to get financing. We couldn't do any of those because we did not have good clean, audited financials.

Gresham Harkless 15:10

Yeah, that makes so much sense. I appreciate you sharing that with us and I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on this show.

So Mark, what has being a CEO meant to you?

Mark Shandrow 15:23

What is my definition of being a CEO is the person who the buck stops at. Your every single thing and the company is your responsibility.

Gresham Harkless 15:33

I appreciate that definition. I appreciate that perspective. Appreciate your time, even more. What I want to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and listeners know. Then of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you guys are working on.

Mark Shandrow 15:48

You can reach us, me, asanarecovery.com. My email, you can always email me, at mark.shandrow@asanarecovery.com. I'm happy to respond.

Gresham Harkless 16:02

Awesome. Thank you so much, again, Mark. We will have that link and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. But thank you again, for that reminder, as well, too, because we all have a platform, we all have the ability to make a better world and we do that a lot of times by the actions that we take.

So first of all, thank you for doing that and thank you for of course reminding us of that. I hope you have a phenomenal day.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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