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LOUIS RASKIN
ABOUT LOUIS
Hey, it’s Louis.
Thanks for visiting my site.
I want this site to be a useful resource where you can get information on ways to improve your health, wealth and happiness. I aim to provide tools, strategies and resources on how to set goals and be more productive, start and succeed with online business, be as healthy as possible, and live your life to the fullest.
The reason I want to do this is because of what I went through when I was younger. Here I’ll share a little about that and how it turned me into the person I am today.
The Start
I couldn’t have asked for a better start to life.
The Crash
Growing up in a beach town, I would take advantage of that and go to the beach nearly every day, swimming in the ocean, laying in the sand, and soaking up the sun. Life was more than great. That was, until, my parents got divorced.
Soon after my parent’s divorce, I developed a digestive disorder called ulcerative colitis that landed me in the pediatric wing of the hospital.
The Hamster Wheel of Medicine
After my hospital visit I was put on different pharmaceutical drugs and intravenous medications. They all seemed to work for a bit. Then, eventually, they stopped.
During this time I lost an unhealthy amount of weight, my skin color became completely pale, my cognitive ability dramatically decreased, and any athletic abilities became non-existent due to my body not being able to digest nutrients from food.
All of this resulted in me losing all of my friends and becoming severely depressed.
Hope Found
Late into my freshman year of high school, I got a package in the mail from my uncle. In it was a book with a white and red cover titled “Restoring Your Digestive Health.” It was written by Jordan Rubin and Joseph Brasco. Oddly enough, Jordan Rubin grew up just 20 minutes from where I was living. He even went to the same university I wanted to go to (FSU). His story, which involved him going from an athlete in college to weak and hospital bound, and finally to healing himself, gave me something that I desperately needed; Hope.
Jordan was diagnosed with the same autoimmune disease as myself along with a dozen other diseases that I didn’t have. After traveling across the globe in search for a cure with no luck. he was finally able to find relief by switching to a specific diet of real, whole foods and taking certain supplements. He and Joseph Brasco authored “Restoring Your Digestive Health” and created the “Guts and Glory Program” as outlined in the book. Eventually Jordan went on to create Garden of Life, the fastest growing health and wellness company in the world for 5 years straight.
Eventually I was able to meet Jordan himself. It was a real honor.
When I read Jordan’s story I was so inspired that I read and reread the book over a dozen times. I learned about the food that we were meant to eat. I learned about the food that heals us and creates health. I learned about the foods that destroy our health. And I started wondering why the entire construct of society is set up to make the least healthy foods the most accessible while at the same time making the healthiest foods harder to get and more costly.
After reading the book, I jumped full force into the program, which involved a lot of homemade soup and different supplements.
It took a little under a year of being extremely strict and consistent with my new diet and lifestyle, but I was finally able to get off of all my prescription drugs. During that year, I grew 4 inches, gained close to 30 pounds, got my color back, and put my autoimmune disease into remission. I still didn’t have the same unlimited amount of energy I used to, and I needed to be really careful about what I ate, but the fact that I was off of all of the prescription drugs, 4 inches taller, and 30 pounds heavier after just one year of eating a healthy diet made me ecstatic. It’s honestly incredibly how eating real, whole foods can completely transform your health.
I went back to public school for my junior and senior year. I joined the tennis team. I made new friends. I applied to and got into FSU. Life was good.
A New Beginning And A Setback
After the massive health transformation I had in high school, I went off to college. Being away from home was great for me, but eating and living as healthy as I needed to in order to not get sick was a huge challenge. Late nights and frozen meals really took a toll on my already sensitive body. Then, when a long time friend and I had a turbulent falling out and I did poorly in my classes, the stress I was under was too much for my body to handle and I had to go back to the hospital.
The doctors gave me drugs that helped tremendously when it came to my stomach issues, but they came with a serious side effect.
Not too long after starting the new medication, I developed severe, nodular cystic acne.
A Blessing In Disguise
While the horrible acne was one of the worst things that ever happened to me, having to deal with it was sort of a blessing in disguise. I mean, without it, I wouldn’t have gotten back into natural health. At least with my digestive issues people can’t see what’s going on. But severe acne… that shit is literally covering your entire face…and shoulders…and back…and chest. It prevents you from fully expressing yourself. It prevents you from dating. It prevents you from so many things and opportunities. Physiologically it is nothing compared to ulcerative colitis. Colitis leaves you on the floor in agonizing pain. But emotionally and psychologically, it can be just as bad or even worse.
It was my acne that really pulled me back into that healthy lifestyle. It forced me to stop eating frozen and processed junk and to start cooking organic meals from scratch. When I started doing that, both my acne and my digestive health improved dramatically.
A New World – Discovering Personal Development
While I was in college dealing with my acne and my stomach issues, I couldn’t help but think if anyone would actually ever be able to love me given the state I was in. The severe acne really took a toll on me.
When I was wondering how I was ever going to get a girlfriend, I did some google searches and came across a book called “The Game” that I ended up buying. Little did I know this would be the second most important book, if not the first, that I would ever read.
The main character in the book, Neil, starts off as a complete loser. Despite having a good job working for the Rolling Stones Magazine and getting back stage passes to amazing concerts, he just couldn’t get with girls. Throughout the book, he describes how he was able to change his life and become someone who was very attractive to the opposite sex. The part that blew my mind (which now is so obvious), is that the way Neil became better with girls was by focusing on improving himself; He didn’t focus on making more money, getting “better” back stage passes to concerts, or being super jacked (society’s norms of how to attract girls). Instead, he had a laser focus on improving and developing himself as a person so that he could become the type of guy who is attractive to girls. He learned interesting skills. He improved his wardrobe and appearance. He improved his mannerisms and posture, eye contact and vocal tonality. He improved his public speaking and improvisation skills.
What I took away from that book was that nothing is set in stone. And that if you want something great in this world, it is up to you to change what you can and develop yourself as a person so that you can achieve your goals. Later that year I heard a quote by one of my first mentors, Jim Rohn, who made everything make sense. He said “You can have more than you’ve got because you can become more than you are.”
The book “The Game” threw me into the world of personal development and self-improvement; which I will never leave. Not too long after reading it, I watched one of the best lectures I’ve ever seen. It was Jim Rohn’s personal development seminar. This was possibly the most important video I’ve ever watched. It taught me the basics about how to improve and live an amazing life. Jim said that “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with and the books you read.” When I heard that, I took it extremely seriously. I cut out about 90% of everyone in my life, went on amazon and bought about 20 books. I also signed up for a program by world renowned personal development coach Robin Sharma that taught about how to have success in all areas of your life. Robin said that the greatest achievers in the world have a maniacal focus on only a select few things.
Because I knew that without my health I wouldn’t have anything, and also it was in such bad shape, I put all of my focus on health and nutrition.
Slowly but surely I read more and more, and learned more and more about what true health really is.
I experimented with different dietary theories to heal my gut, heal my skin, feel better, look better, perform better, and be better. I dug into vegan diets, paleo diets, fasting, juicing, detoxing, and everything else you can imagine. I did colonics, liver and gallbladder flushes, infrared saunas, detoxes, and other alternative modalities as well. While I never felt 100%, I did get substantially better in most areas of my health during that time. All of this happened during my last year at FSU. And in 2013 I graduated pre-med with a degree in Exercise Science.
At that time, I wanted to become a doctor of Naturopathic medicine. When I discovered they weren’t/aren’t allowed to practice in my home state of Florida, I had to find an alternative. I decided to enroll in The Institute For Integrative Nutrition, a school that teaches people how to become certified holistic health coaches. At the time, despite me doing all of the different detoxes and diets, I still wasn’t as healthy as I knew I should be. I figured that by joining IIN I could kill two birds with one stone; get healthier and become a certified health coach to help people. So I signed up.
While IIN did teach me how to become a health coach, it didn’t actually resolve the health issues I continued to deal with. My energy wasn’t even close to where it should have been, my stomach still giving me trouble, and I would still get cystic acne on occasion.
Being scientifically minded (my degree is in Science), I searched for holistic and alternative forms of health care that were more science based.
That’s when I found out about a form of health care called functional medicine.
Functional Medicine – The Best Form of Healthcare
From what I was reading at the time, functional medicine sounded like a panacea. It seemed like the future of health care.
Functional medicine aims to get to the root causes of why people are sick. The best description of functional medicine is that it combines the holistic approach of eastern medicine that looks at the entire body as a whole, and it combines that with the science, testing, and technology of western medicine. A whole-body approach to healthcare with scientific backing; It truly is the best of both worlds.
The more I looked into functional medicine, the more convinced I was that it was going to finally solve my nagging chronic fatigue, acne, and digestive woes.
After doing copious research, I came across a school called Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. After talking to one of the representatives on the phone, I decided to sign up to become a certified functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner.
It was 2015 when I signed up for FDN. By that time, I’ve read over a dozen books on health and nutrition, was a certified holistic health coach, and studied exercise science and food & nutrition science in college. I thought I knew a lot.
Boy was I wrong.
The Functional Diagnostic Nutrition course completely blew my mind. I learned so much detail about the human body and the practical ways to actually heal it from FDN. While going through the program, I bought the tests that they recommended to buy. I bought the supplements they recommended to take. I followed the protocols they recommended to follow. And I modified it a bit based off of other resources. The results were beyond phenomenal.
My chronic fatigue finally went away.
Before, I needed 8-10 hours of sleep every night. And most days I would still get pretty tired regardless of how much sleep I got. Once I took care of my adrenals, HPA-axis (hypothalamus/pituitary/adrenal connection), and mercury toxicity, my energy skyrocketed. Before, I could only run maybe 1-3 minutes before I would get winded and simply couldn’t go any further. Now, I can run for miles without getting tired.
My digestion finally become normal.
After struggling for years with terrible digestion, I was finally able to get the best results I’ve ever had by using functional medicine. That is, thanks to specific dietary, lifestyle and supplement changes, my decades long digestive problems finally went away.
After 5 years, my cystic acne finally cleared.
Along with my chronic digestive issues healing, so did my skin. My severe acne became a thing of the past. No longer was I plagued by giant cysts on my face. It’s not an overstatement to say that Functional Diagnostic Nutrition was a real life saver for me.
Once I graduated from the program I started helping people using functional medicine techniques. I’d talk with people around the country, helping them overcome health challenges. It was a very rewarding experience.
During this time I also helped my dad lose about 30 pounds and get his health back. My neighbor saw his transformation and also asked for help. Eventually I had a few people I was coaching locally.
Eventually I began to think about how I could turn the advice I was giving people into a system that anyone could follow. I looked at what I was doing, and what I learned from all of the different books on health, nutrition, psychology, habit-formation, coaching, personal development, self-improvement, and longevity over the years, and I decided to take all of that and throw it into comprehensive health and wellness program called “Organic Life Body.”
I spent every day for about 2 years creating the Organic Life Body program, which was set to launch January 2018.
Changing Careers
It’s quite amazing how, at any moment, you can choose the direction you want your life to go in.
For years I worked on my health and wellness business.
It was literally the only thing I did…every day, all day.
And then, in late 2017, I discovered something called cryptocurrency.
Without getting too technical here, cryptocurrency is a new technology that is, in a nut-shell, digital money. Basically, cryptocurrencies make it possible for you to send money (aka cryptocurrency) to anyone, anywhere, instantaneously, without any fees, all without the need to go through an intermediary like paypal, venmo, western union, or even a bank.
The amazing thing about cryptocurrencies is that, because they’re digital, that means that you can program them to do certain things. For instance, you can create online contracts and program them so that when one person fulfills their end of the contract, the digital money (cryptocurrency) is automatically sent to the other party. Since the terms that both parties agree on are programmed into the online contract, that removes all issues regarding trust. You know it’s going to happen because it’s programmed in the contact. This is just one of many different use-cases for cryptocurrency. To learn more about crypto and earn up to $50, sign up to Coinbase Earn here.
When I started reading about cryptocurrencies, it was the first thing that was able to take me away from health and wellness in years. I became so obsessed with crypto that I stopped everything I was doing and spent every waking hour researching it.
Crypto was so exciting to me that I dropped everything to focus on it full time. I created a new company called Cryptolete to help teach people about crypto and how it will change the world.
If you’re interested in learning about cryptocurrencies, I made a free course available at free.cryptolete.com that goes through what they are and how you can make money with them.
Going All In
After a couple weeks of researching crypto, I made the very difficult decision to quit my health and wellness career and dive into the world of cryptocurrencies. This was despite me spending my life savings and the last 2 years of my life building the Organic Life Body health program.
But that’s just the thing…
At any moment, you have the choice to change anything you want.
It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’ve been doing up until the moment.
You are always in control of your life.
You always have a choice to move your life in the direction of your dreams, or to stay stagnant.
The choice is yours!
Cryptocurrencies were so captivating to me that I dropped the only thing I knew and started a new company in an entirely different industry.
Then I started another one called Cryptorays because, well… why not?
And now, I’m here!
It hasn’t been easy, but it’s definitely been fun.
And while a lot has been done, there’s still so much further to go.
Thanks for reading my story.
Stay awesome,
Louis