Hannah Went | Co-Founder, TruDiagnostic | Pioneering Epigenetics, Transforming Healthcare, & Making Science Accessible

Hannah Went, a pioneer in epigenetics, is the co-founder of TruDiagnostic and founder of Everything Epigentics. She shares her journey from the early days of TruDiagnostic to its burgeoning role in healthcare. She reflects on the rapid evolution of epigenetics, the challenges of making groundbreaking science accessible, and the gratifying shift towards mainstream acceptance. Hannah also delves into her personal growth, emphasizing the transformative impact of "The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership" and her desire to be remembered as loving and impactful. 

Guest links: trudiagnostic.com | everythingepigenetics.com

Charity supported: Equal Justice Initiative

Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at podcast@velentium.com. 

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Host: Lindsey Dinneen
Editing: Marketing Wise
Producer: Velentium

 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Episode 041 - Hannah Went

[00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world.

[00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them.

[00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives.

[00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives.

[00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives.

[00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and I am so excited to introduce you to my guest today, Hannah Went. Hannah has a lifelong passion for longevity and breakthrough disruptive technologies that drive radical improvement to the human condition. She attended the University of Kentucky and graduated with a degree in biology. During that time, she had multiple research internships studying cell signaling and cell biology. After graduation, she worked for the International Peptide Society as their Director of Research and Content. Through work in the integrative medicine industry, Hannah saw an opportunity for a methylation based age diagnostics and started TruDiagnostics in 2020. TruDiagnostic is a company focused on array based methylation diagnostics for life extension and preventative healthcare serving functional medicine providers. TruDiagnostic has a commitment to research with over 30 approved clinical trials investigating the epigenetic methylation changes of longevity and health interventions. Since TruDiagnostics' inception, they have created one of the world's largest private epigenetic health databases with over 75, 000 patients tested to date. Hannah has since created Everything Epigenetics, where she shares insights on how DNA regulation has an impact on your health.

All right, well, welcome to the show, Hannah. I'm so excited to talk with you today. Thanks for taking some time.

[00:02:14] Hannah Went: Thanks, Lindsey. I'm excited to speak with you.

[00:02:17] Lindsey Dinneen: Awesome. Well, would you mind starting off by sharing a little bit about yourself and your background and what led you to MedTech?

[00:02:25] Hannah Went: Yes, absolutely. I've known since I was a little girl that I've always been interested in science, how the world works, how the body works. I remember being a little girl and going in our backyard, lifting up rocks, finding roly-polies and worms and getting all down and dirty. I was definitely a tom girl, if you will, growing up. I love sports. I loved connecting with people. So I also loved the social aspect of understanding how the body works as well. And I was very athletic growing up. So I played track soccer, basketball, sports all year round, essentially. I knew I wasn't good enough though, to go to like a D1 or probably even D2 college for sports.

So I was like, "All right, well, I'll just go to a larger university, maybe play some club soccer and really focus on my academic route." And I ended up going to University of Kentucky. It wasn't too far from me. I'm just from Ohio, north of Dayton, a small town called Piqua. And I did end up playing soccer, club soccer there, got involved in a lot of other activities. Ended up actually going into veterinary work, animal science. UK has a really good program for that. They have a really good agriculture department. I ended up shadowing a vet one summer and I hated it. It was one veterinarian clinic. So a lot of work, a lot of late hours. And I knew I wanted to have a family growing up.

So I was like, "Eh, let me just switch to general biology. Let me just open my doors." And fast forward to senior year. I was really interested in genetics and you know, how do we have these predispositions that are passed on throughout our family? How does that affect our health outcomes essentially? So I applied to genetic counseling school, which is a very new program. It's a master's program. It is where you get your master's essentially in genetics and counseling. So it's like the best of both worlds, exactly what I loved growing up. You have the science aspect, but you're sitting down and helping people actually understand their risk. Applied to school, Lindsey, and didn't end up getting in. So I was like, "Oh, I'm heartbroken. I'm still super young. My life's over!" type of deal, a big eye roll ,and thought it was the end of the world.

But really where my career took a huge turning point was at that failure point. I took a job, my best friend got me a position at a compounding pharmacy in Nicholasville, Kentucky, which is just a little bit South of Lexington. And that was when I was opened up into this entire medtech space of healthcare providers and the integrative functional medicine journey who were focusing on healthcare, like true healthcare, not sick care, not taking care of sick people when they're already sick, they're already doomed and just trying to bill them for all of these medications through insurance. So that's really how I've gotten to where I am today.

[00:05:23] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, that is so cool. Well, first of all, thank you for sharing a little bit about your background. It was fun to even hear about your childhood and how that theme of interest in all those different aspects has woven its way through your story. And I would love to hear a little bit more then about, okay, so what does present day look like and how did you end up where you are?

[00:05:43] Hannah Went: Yes, so I'll try and keep it short and concise. So this pharmacy was very innovative. It was the fourth fastest growing healthcare company in the nation in 2019. And it's really focused on the unique peptide products. It was again a compounding pharmacy by trade, meaning you can compound anything in all different dosing as long as you have a prescription from a healthcare provider by it. They grew really fast. So, you know, we always had regulatory agencies come check in, make sure we were doing everything correctly, which we absolutely were. But there was always this worry that these products made people feel better, but there wasn't a lot of quantitative data behind it.

So we were like, "All right. Well, what can we measure in clinical trials and institution review boards to really prove to people out there, 'Hey, these are having a massive underlying biological effect on people.' They don't just feel better." We used to joke and say, "People can become tan, they can become skinny, they can increase their libido from these products, but they also actually save people's life." They stabilize insulin sensitivity. They can help people lose weight who have metabolic disease. They can mediate a lot of the effects of specific autoimmune diseases. So there are massive impacts that these products had.

And we're like, "All right, well, if you had one test, like if you could measure one thing that really relates to all of those items I just mentioned, it's aging," right? These age related diseases. So, "how do you even measure age" is the follow up question and you can do that in all sorts of different ways. But there are actually these DNA regulation markers, like these on and off switches, called your epigenetics that seems to be the best way to measure aging.

So we really started measuring and doing clinical trials with these epigenetic aging biomarkers to prove the efficacy of these products. And what we ended up doing is just selling the pharmacy in 2019. It became-- oh-- pretty boring, I guess, for lack of a better word, because there were new rules and regulations in place by regulators on what you can and cannot compound. And then you have built my company now, TruDiagnostic, from the ground up. We have our laboratory in Lexington, Kentucky, and we started out with one goal, which was essentially to offer the best age testing. And now we're doing a lot of different things. So that's what I'm really involved in now on a day to day basis.

[00:08:10] Lindsey Dinneen: Wow. Well, thank you for sharing about that. And okay, so, so you embrace this entrepreneurial endeavor, which is a whole second set of-- I mean, obviously you have all the skills from your experience and your education and whatnot, but then to compound that with owning your own business and then setting up a brick and mortar, it's an actual lab and whatnot. How was that transition? Did you feel prepared for it? Did it catch you off guard? What was that like?

[00:08:38] Hannah Went: We were kind of creating TruDiagnostic behind the scene when we had the pharmacy. So like end of 2019, we were really creating it. But I do think it caught me off guard looking back where it was like, "Okay, pharmacy sold, full time TruDiagnostic. How the heck do we set up this lab at the beginning of 2020?" It was go mode. So we bought a building in Lexington. It was an old insurance building. We completely knocked out the top floor, which was offices, carpeted, not usable lab space and built the lab again, like I mentioned, from the ground up. So I joke and say, "I'm a construction worker. I was an interior designer." I was doing all of these other things. And of course I had a lot of amazing people helping me all throughout the way, but testing SOPs for standard operating procedures, creating those.

I remember the first day we were running samples in like trialing the protocol. I was here till 5am because we were thawing things and freezing things as part of the protocol and didn't even realize that was part of the step once we started to get into it. So yeah, it definitely took me off guard. And I think furthermore, we launched right before COVID 19. So it was the worst timing in history to launch. And you know, we did it anyways. And then the first year and a half, two years, it was a lot of follow up. It was a lot of cold calling. It was chasing or following up with these healthcare providers to use these kits that we sent out because we did a really nice promotion to get the product out there, but it was hard to balance because when COVID 19, this nasty pandemic, came into the U. S., you almost felt guilty asking the healthcare providers to focus on anything else, right? You're like, "That is not what you should be worrying about right now." So it was definitely hard to balance.

[00:10:23] Lindsey Dinneen: And yeah, my goodness. And honestly what resonated with me too is, you know, you're talking about, you've worn so many hats, obviously, as a business owner and setting this up. And I used to joke that, when I had a brick and mortar business and I was like, "On any given day, I'm everything from the CEO to the janitor."

[00:10:40] Hannah Went: I can relate. I can definitely relate to that. I remember we needed some kind of-- I don't even know what we need this for-- it was like some type of part that had to regulate water temperature or something like that. So a traditional thermometer wouldn't work. I remember I drove across the street to a pet store and I got something that belonged in a fish tank. And I'm like, " I don't even know if this will, will work." But I mean, we are just piecing everything together. It was like you were doing yet literally everything and anything that you could just because you wanted it to work so bad. You had that passion, that, that push. And you realized that the end goal in mind, which for us, it's really just to help our people, you know, people who are working with us, and our clients, whether that's anyone from now a healthcare provider offering our services or a researcher or academic collaboration, it's someone doing third party processing at our lab or even down to the end consumer client patient, whatever you'd like to call them that come directly to our website and do our testing.

[00:11:40] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Great. And that actually addresses my next question, which was going to be, so do you only work with healthcare providers? Is it a B2B enterprise? But it sounds like you also do the B2C and you can sell directly to them, to people who are interested.

[00:11:55] Hannah Went: Definitely. Yeah. When we opened, we had that one goal in mind, which is what we knew, which were our healthcare providers that we really transitioned from the pharmacy over to TruDiagnostic. So that was like our main customer at the time. And I think we completed that goal of offering the best aging diagnostic tools at the end of last year with a large study we did with Harvard.

But now what we've noticed and, of course-- we kind of got lucky in this sense, we would have never imagined where we are now-- is that epigenetics, these DNA markers, these on and off switches are really great for creating new and novel biomarkers. So you can predict almost anything with them. You can predict even how much you've smoked across your entire lifetime, how much alcohol you've consumed, your zip code based on where you live, just because of the environment you're exposed to and your behaviors in that environment.

So it's pretty crazy, obviously we, we didn't expect that and I mean it's just being really blown up and everywhere you, you look, I mean it's related to every aspect of life and of course changeable as well. So even, providers who are using this test on a patient once, they'll retest them every 6 to 12 months. And then of course people coming from our website, we just released actually a subscription model a couple days ago so people can start to retest this in more of a hands off fashion. even every three to four months if they wanted to.

[00:13:19] Lindsey Dinneen: Wow. So when somebody does your test and they get the results, is this something that you walk them through and say, okay "Here's where things stand now. If you make these tweaks, here's how things could stand?" Or how does it work from that perspective?

[00:13:34] Hannah Went: Definitely. So just to walk you through the process, you would get your kit, we'd ship it to you, you would prick your finger. So just a little blood spot card about the size of a quarter, you ship that sample back to our lab in Lexington and we get results back to you in about two to three weeks from the time we receive it. Then you would get all these different age related reports, some of those characteristic and trait based reports I mentioned, like this smoking and alcohol. And we, we do, so we can project you out saying, "Hey, if you still stay on this trend, whether it's aging faster or aging younger, here's where you're, where you'll be in six months, 12 months."

So it may be exciting to some, it may be scary to some, depending on where they are. Regardless, it's changeable. So if anyone's listening and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I don't want to know that. I'm so scared." If you've tested your genetics, that's in my opinion, even scarier. That doesn't change, right? You know your risk, you know your predisposition. So, this can all be mitigated through lifestyle factors, through supplements, medications, procedural based therapies as well. So we do give you recommendations on the report on what to do. You can absolutely again take it by yourself, but we can always help you and connect you with a healthcare provider if you're really wanting to go on this journey.

But I always say, Lindsey, the first test is really fun. It's sexy. It's really trendy right now. But it doesn't mean much. It's just a baseline. It's telling you where you are, just like your hormones and your CBC panel, your second test is more important than your first third, more than the second fourth, more than the third. And so on and so forth.

[00:15:09] Lindsey Dinneen: Okay. Yeah. And you addressed something else that I was going to ask. So when people are interested, they'd like to do it, but they have this like, "Ooh, I don't know if I really want to know," how do you help overcome that? Is it because things are changeable? Like everything can be changed?

[00:15:26] Hannah Went: Yeah. Yeah. I'll even give you to an extent, I would say most of it, right. For the purpose of this conversation, yes. There are of course some exceptions, but my grandmother, for example, passed away from Alzheimer's when I was senior in high school. Right after that happened and what started some of my interest in genetics is I went and got my genes tested. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that was awful to watch her go through. Am I doomed, right? Am I going to have that same risk?" And my results came back. Well, I have this specific snip. It's a single nucleotide polymorphism. So this specific variant on my genes that's APOE 3-4. So this means I'm at a more increased risk to have Alzheimer's, and even at a younger age as well. I would say you have an even further increased risk if you're at APOE 4/4. So I'm not the worst, but I'm the second worst, essentially, and I'm like, "Well, this obviously isn't good. But this can't be it, right? This can't be the end of this story."

And you hear a lot of people say that too, people with metabolic disease or diabetes in their family. And, they may shrug and just say, "Oh, well, you know, I can eat whatever I want, right? I don't have to work out, like I'm doomed anyways, type of thing." And we know now that's not true, right? You're no longer really the victim of your genetic predisposition that we may have thought due to these epigenetic changes or the fact that it's changeable. So there are even peer reviewed published papers that come out showing estrogen, so optimizing your hormone levels can actually reduce your risk of Alzheimer's from an epigenetic standpoint along with everything else, exercising, eating very healthy, no artificial foods, flavoring. So you're, of course, always going to have that genetic risk, but you also have all of these other types of risks and you have this epigenetic risk, which should really be the main focus, because you're in the driver's seat again. You're no longer in the passenger seat. And that's really empowering to have all of that knowledge.

[00:17:22] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I know that the test is really important in terms of telling an individual exactly what's going on and how things can change, but in doing all this research and data collection, are there certain lifestyle things that pretty much everybody regardless should pay attention to. Is that a thing?

[00:17:45] Hannah Went: Of course, that's the multimillion dollar question and a very frequent one that we get. And the answer is, "Sure, yes and no, kind of, maybe so." And what I mean by that is you can look at all of these general population studies that come out, right? These clinical trials and look at what really moved the needle. But again, those are populational trials, so you really need to find out what works for you. I can tell you what works for me.

There is a study on this, which is why I wanted to try it first. So again, you can start to maybe trial some things based on results that are already out there, but I've tested my aging before and what I've noticed that really slows it down is caloric restriction. So it's not necessarily intermittent fasting or time restricted feeding or skipping an entire meal, it's just continual, 10 percent caloric restriction. So if you're on a 2000 caloric based diet, take out about 200 calories, which if you're eating healthier anyways, you may not even be hitting your intake of calories based on your metabolic rate and what your specific goals are. And I've noticed that helps slow down my aging.

I've also noticed that I need to do more aerobic based exercises. So things like VO2 max, increasing FEV1, we can actually quantify those on our test. So really VO2 max is your oxygen uptake, so how much oxygen you can get into the body. Your FEV1 is your forced expiratory volume, so how much oxygen you can get out in and out of your lungs. Swimmers have a really good VO2 max and FEV1. So I noticed I was doing maybe too much like weightlifting, too much HIIT type of workouts. So you can get a lot of feedback from those reports. So for me, personally, that's what works.

[00:19:30] Lindsey Dinneen: Wow. That's great. That is amazing what you can test and gain knowledge about and then make those changes based off of. So on your LinkedIn profile, something that I was really intrigued by is you are a founding member of an organization, I believe, called Opscotch. Did I get that right? Okay. And one thing that really stood out to me, and I'd love to just hear your take on the organization as a whole, but you said part of your mission is to make biohacking accessible to everyone. And I really appreciated that. And I'm curious if you would share a little bit maybe more about that.

[00:20:05] Hannah Went: Yeah. Obscotch is a really cool community. So it is really democratizing the way healthcare I think has been viewed, even healthcare, like the model where we should go towards rather than that sick care. So it's making it a lot less scary. And I know that the founders of Obscotch, Spencer Coppin and Matt Christensen, and they're amazing people. They really set up this community as a way for people to have a support system. I think it can be really scary when you're entering really optimizing your overall health, what do you do? You see all of these ads, what protein should you take? What supplements should you take? They're just everywhere. Whose supplements really match the label? There are a lot of studies that show, that they don't even have promised ingredients on the label included in the supplement itself. So it's really confusing. And then you go down these rabbit holes and after a while, you don't know what you're looking at.

So if you're part of this community, you can choose to get a Whoop and to start tracking a lot of these markers. You probably know the quote by Peter Drucker, "You can't manage what you're not measuring," so they measure a lot of things. They do the biological age testing through TruDiagnostic, and then they do some other laboratory based testing as well. So there's different levels of the membership that you can actually get depending on how involved you want to be, but they also do these monthly quarterly type of challenges. So it could be to get your Whoop fitness score above 12 for 15 days of the month. So again, it really encourages people to come together and I love that community aspect of it. They've done a really nice job. And again, are just amazing people there. They're located in Canada too.

[00:21:46] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, nice. Yeah. So taking ownership of your health, but within a community, which makes it a lot, well, more fun, at least.

[00:21:54] Hannah Went: Yeah. And the community is awesome. That's probably a really good group for you to even look into, Lindsey. It's a lot of founders and entrepreneurs and people who have like wild backgrounds. And they're from all over the world too. So it's not just like, oh, you have to be in Canada. They do have a lot of like local meetups in Canada, which is really cool for things like cold plunging or running or, you know, scheduling dinners or seeing like Andrew Huberman, he was in town like a couple of months ago or something. So they put together the events and they also send you even like recommended podcast or YouTube videos to watch. So it's really curated health information if you're looking to optimize your own health.

[00:22:35] Lindsey Dinneen: Wow. Amazing. Yeah. And then, so another thing that I really enjoyed reading about you and your experience is, you mentioned that you appreciate taking complex scientific ideas and translating them into narratives that resonate with the intended audience. And I love that, and I think that's really important, but I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your process in doing that, translating very technical engineering science speak into maybe what other people who aren't in that world could relate to.

[00:23:14] Hannah Went: Yeah, definitely. So I have my personal company too, called Everything Epigenetics. So this is a, something TruDiagnostic wanted to do for a while is just educate others on epigenetics and what that means because there's a lot of education lacking out there. There's not much you can find. With all things that kind of got pushed under the rug in our early days, but I was just, " Screw it. I'll just make it mine." And I set up all of the social, the website domain and didn't do much with it for the first couple of months. And I was like, "Okay, I really want to get into this." And I think I started it at the end of 2022, so almost two years, which is crazy to say.

And, I used it as a way to really keep myself honest and involved in the research. So I'm not as involved in our research on a day to day. So I work with a lot of postdocs or PhDs who have created epigenetic algorithms or interpretations. And basically, hopefully break those conversations down for people to easily understand. It's still very high science and not as applicable, so it can be tough sometimes. But my real goal is just educating those on this massive paradigm shift we're seeing with epigenetics in terms of not only taking over traditional lab testing, but just medicine in general. I mean, it's causing a massive wave and really, I think, flipping our understanding of how this field works, how even really the body works.

So I don't monetize that at all. It's just something I do on the side. I have a podcast that runs every other week. And then I also am pretty active on Instagram doing these Journal Club Friday kind of spiels. That's where it's usually a video that's anywhere, I think, they're at least 90 seconds, but 90 seconds to four minutes long, just highlighting some type of research paper in the space and trying to do it in really simple terms that way people can understand it.

So it's not maybe always going to be applicable to everyday life. I think it's absolutely going to get there where we are able to measure epigenetics, see our exact plan, have everything served us on a silver platter. But we're a little bit far away from that now. And I think that's can be really frustrating to some people, but I think it's also as equally as exciting. And you have to keep in mind that this came out after the iPhone, after the first iPhone. So it only came out about, or I would say only became popularized about 10 years ago, which is very new. So we just have to be a little bit patient.

[00:25:51] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, that's fair. Well, thank you for helping translate some of these crazy things into more digestible pieces of information for those of us who maybe don't have that same background. So I do appreciate that.

[00:26:05] Hannah Went: Yeah, of course. It's really fun to just continue the conversation and start to break these complex ideas down.

[00:26:12] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, within your journey you know, as a scientist and researcher and entrepreneur and everything else, are there any moments that stand out to you that, that really affirm to you that you were in the right place at the right time in the right industry?

[00:26:34] Hannah Went: Ooh, that's a good question. I, I think yeah, I think probably a couple months ago, three months ago. So, we've actually joined with some other clinics on really pushing forward epigenetics. And I think we're starting to see everything coming together. So I think it is hopefully becoming mainstream. And that is just huge, because the vision for epigenetic testing is to be able to use one blood spot card, so really simple, easy collection method at a really cheap cost and getting every single biomarker back that you could possibly imagine: clinical lab values, hormones, inflammatory markers, vitamin levels, minerals, proteins, metabolites.

And I think, I remember just a couple months ago, when we really started to get an increased volume and testing, more healthcare providers just saying yes and super open to this idea. So I usually spend my day to day on calls with healthcare providers or our partnerships that we have with, whether it be wholesale or like resellers of these kits. And people are just starting to get it more. Like I remember at the beginning of TruDiagnostic, we always had to set up a call with every single account. It was, Hey, start from the top. What is epigenetics? Even before epigenetics, what is aging? How do you measure this? This is a really weird idea.

And now we're starting to see where people set up accounts with us and they don't even set up a call and they just start ordering, right? Or they set up a call and they're like, "Hey, I know what aging is. I know what epigenetics is. Help me market this to my patients. How do I sell this?" So, so we're starting to see that change and that's definitely not been overnight. To answer your question, right time, right room with the right people. But I think probably at the beginning of this year is when we started to really see that change, which has been super exciting.

[00:28:35] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, that is. It is because it's hard to-- it's great to educate-- but it is hard when that is your entire job day in and day out. And eventually maybe the science will catch up or the understanding of the science will catch up so that you finally get to this, you know, "we're getting there" stage.

[00:28:54] Hannah Went: I think it's hard, yeah, because you know, with us we speak with the healthcare providers. We speak with the academics, but we may not actually be seeing the end user, the end patient. So sometimes it can be hard. It's like, "Hey, what difference are we actually making?" And that can be a little bit of a pain point or a struggle. I think not so much anymore because our providers will come back and give us case studies or, you know, talk to us about some of their findings, which is really exciting. And that, continues to expand as we do these clinical trials and dive deeper into the research.

But I think we're TruDiagnostics sits right now is just an awesome opportunity because we are in between collaborators in terms of universities and academics and healthcare providers and patients. So we really bridge that gap as new algorithms, as new research is happening. We really do feel like we're at the centerfold and it's our responsibility to push that out to healthcare providers because there's no one really there to merge the two. So we'll start to see our type of healthcare providers we work with are willing to try anything, and willing to want the newest, latest, and greatest information as well to test on their patients. So they make for a really great group.

[00:30:04] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, that's incredible. And it's so great to hear about the ability to bridge the gap between an individual being able to take ownership of their own health versus-- doctors are amazing. I'm so thankful for every medical person-- but also it's nice to be able to feel a little bit empowered to take ownership as well. So I appreciate that you're able to start bridging the gap and, and help them make be more accessible. So that's great.

[00:30:30] Hannah Went: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

[00:30:32] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, so, pivoting the conversation just for fun, imagine that you were to be offered a million dollars to teach your masterclass on anything you want. It can be in your industry, but it doesn't have to be. What would you choose to teach and why?

[00:30:47] Hannah Went: Ooh. What would I choose to teach and why? I think the ,there's a book that's really good that I think everyone should read and it's called "The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership." And have you ever heard of it before, Lindsey?

[00:31:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Nope, but I'm writing it down.

[00:31:02] Hannah Went: Yeah. It's awesome. So there, there are a couple of authors on the book, but yeah, Jim Dethmer, he would previously go to all of these companies and understand how their leadership worked. And it's a super readable book, super short, breaks it down in all of these chunks, depending on what you want to really focus on. He actually came and spoke to our company and it was really cool to learn from him about this. He doesn't do it much anymore. So, we felt very special to, to be able to have him. And It can act in all areas of your life. So it's not necessarily just leadership . It really extrapolates out to relationships, whether it be a romantic one, or not, or kind of a family one. It is really I think changed my outlook on a lot of things in life.

So I think I would want to teach something that has to do with that, that book. Jim's wife actually does a lot of the Enneagram work too. So the Enneagram test and understanding really your, kind of, why you're wired the way you are almost. Everyone has this conception of life. And you get to learn more about the way people think and how they work and why they do the things they do. So everyone did that test, the Enneagram test, in our company, and you can start to see these patterns and things. And it's just very useful information and it just makes everyone, I think, work together and flow together a little bit better too, which is awesome.

[00:32:25] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. It sounds like a great masterclass and I have it written down. I'm going to, I'm going to look it up right after so I can secure my copy. Yeah. So, and then how do you wish to be remembered after you leave this world? .

[00:32:39] Hannah Went: Oh, how do I wish to be remembered? Hopefully as someone who is loving and fun and taught the world something. Doesn't necessarily have to be epigenetics related, but I think people probably see me right now as someone who is like very busy running around all of the time, going from place to place, and I don't think I like that. That's just what I think my interpretation of me maybe would be from the outside. But it doesn't feel like I'm busy, right? It feels like I'm doing the things that I want to do right now and I don't think I necessarily even like the word busy, right? What does that mean? Everyone's busy. Everyone's doing something to a degree. So, yeah, I just want to be remembered as fun, loving you know, I think would also be remembered, though, just as hardworking, determined and yeah, willing to work hard to reach specific goals.

[00:33:32] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. Yeah. And then final question. What is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it?

[00:33:41] Hannah Went: Just my family, my husband, my sisters, my mom, my stepdad, everyone. So I get to hang out with them next weekend. I'm super, super excited. We'll be with them at their lake house. So I'm excited to be with the family.

[00:33:55] Lindsey Dinneen: Nice. Oh yeah. That's going to be wonderful. Well, Hannah, this has been such a great conversation and I so appreciate your spending some time with me today and sharing about your incredible journey and everything that's coming up too. And I'm so excited for you and for this mission and to see the company continue to grow and expand, so I do really appreciate you. being here. And we are so honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to the Equal Justice Initiative, which provides legal representation to prisoners who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, poor prisoners without effective representation, and others who may have been denied a fair trial. So thank you for choosing that organization to support and we just wish you the most continued success as you work to change lives for a better world.

[00:34:49] Hannah Went: Awesome. Thank you, Lindsey. I appreciate your time.

[00:34:51] Lindsey Dinneen: Absolutely, you too. And thank you also to our listeners for tuning in and if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I would love it if you would share this episode with a colleague or two and we will catch you next time.

[00:35:06] Ben Trombold: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium. Velentium is a full-service CDMO with 100% in-house capability to design, develop, and manufacture medical devices from class two wearables to class three active implantable medical devices. Velentium specializes in active implantables, leads, programmers, and accessories across a wide range of indications, such as neuromodulation, deep brain stimulation, cardiac management, and diabetes management. Velentium's core competencies include electrical, firmware, and mechanical design, mobile apps, embedded cybersecurity, human factors and usability, automated test systems, systems engineering, and contract manufacturing. Velentium works with clients worldwide, from startups seeking funding to established Fortune 100 companies. Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.