I’m at the Drawing Room, the cigar lounge near my house here in Orlando, waiting for the Andrew Tate fight with Chase DeMoor, a Partagas Series D No. 6 Cuban cigar in hand. I’m back in my ecosystem, everything I need within three minutes walking distance: The Aspire clinic, my office, the shisha lounge, my house.
I just got back from Dallas, visiting our new Aspire Rejuvenation clinic there. I didn’t do anything too special while I was in town, and yet our accounting team messages me: “Revenue jumped 30% while you were there.”
How does that happen? How does just setting foot in a place raises its value? The key is in authenticity, and that’s what this week’s newsletter is about.
Every New Aspire Clinic Is a Lesson in Pressure
When I opened the first Aspire Rejuvenation clinic, I was boots on the ground, damn near 24 hours a day for months until we could sustain ourselves. Our Aspire Rejuvenation clinics in Pennsylvania have my business partner, Dr. Joe Clark, nearby to handle the day-to-day. Dallas is the first location where there’s no ownership on site, no one so invested in the company that they’re grinding 24/7. How do I know that our Dallas location is performing at its absolute best, day in and day out?
I can’t move to Dallas, so these hurdles matter for the future because pretty much all our future locations, I’m not going to be at. Some clinic launches will be smoother than others. For those others, I’ll have to step in and right the ship.
Whatever happens, it’s all a giant learning lesson – to be a better businessman, a better leader, and a better me.
I Thrive Under Pressure
Here’s what I’ve noticed about myself: I thrive in struggle. I’ve taken so many hits to the gut this week, and yet, the more pain, struggle, and hurt I face the more I say: Give me more!
That’s my frame of mind when my back’s against the wall.
Someone asked me once: “Tomo, what would you do if you lost it all right now?”
My answer? If God gave me the opportunity (notice I said opportunity) to start from zero, I wouldn’t be a millionaire again… I’d be a trillionaire. Because under pressure, I work better.
Get yourself out of the failure mentality, the woe-is-me, victim mindset, and ask: When pressure hits the hardest, do I know how to step up?
The Million Dollar Thought Experiment
Let’s try practicing this mindset shift together: What are the chances of you making a million dollars in 2026?
Most people will say, “Slim to none.”
But now ask that same question differently: What are the chances of you making a million dollars in 2026 if your family’s lives are on the line if you fail?
Now what do you think most people are going to say?
“I will f#cking find a way.”
That’s what it takes.
New Projects & Industry Disruption—The $150 Million Math
I’m scaling Aspire Rejuvenation. I know this company can sell for over $100 million. How do I get there? Duplication and systems.
First, let’s do the math to find our top goal. We’ll start with this term, EBITDA — earnings before interest, tax, depreciation. Let’s say every clinic nets $1 million bucks. That means we are running at about 30% EBITDA. So, if I build 10 clinics, that’s $10 million net profit. Times 15x EBITDA? That’s $150 million I could sell my company for.
Second, let’s project the system we need to implement in order to get to that math we calculated. For example, we’re building our own EMR system right now with AI-enabled technology and digital automation. The reason for this, is that now my employees can focus on patient interaction:
- Talk to everybody on the phone.
- Shake everybody’s hand.
- Be involved with every patient.
That’s how we reach $150 million. We let the employees focus on what AI can’t do: interacting with the customers. Meanwhile, we allow our tech-enabled system to make everything duplicatable, and then we max that out 10x.
Guys, anybody can do this. I was a cop six and a half years ago. I didn’t go to business school. What I did is I figured it the f#ck out. I had no choice but to, because I was under a kind of pressure you wouldn’t believe.
I Cried My Eyes Out in the Parking Lot
When I first started Aspire Rejuvenation, I would go to the office in the morning and cry in my car because I was so stressed. If we didn’t make $3,000 that very day, we were bankrupt. I had my cry, and then I’d shake it off and get to work. We made that money.
We did that because every day I would start early and leave late. Next, I’d go to the gym, set up a booth, give out free T-shirts, talk to people, and hand out flyers until 9 p.m. Rinse and repeat, and that was my routine for years.
I didn’t pay myself for 24 months. I was buying food through the business, just barely enough to survive. I was sleeping in the office a lot of nights. Staff would come in and say: “Wait, weren’t you wearing those clothes yesterday?”
Yes, and that’s because I didn’t have time to change.
Responsibility Over Victimhood
A high-pressure situation either breaks us or finds us. I use my situations, I don’t let it use me. People are very susceptible to that little inner voice, that demon of victimhood. It’s easier to be a victim than it is to be responsible.
It doesn’t matter what you do, whether you’re a bricklayer or an entrepreneur or an artist, it’s all hard work. Some is higher pressure than others, but all require responsibility and taking ownership over our successes and our failures.
Next, this is your insider’s look at the latest in health and wellness!
Health News
Headlines:
GLP-1 Weight-Loss Drugs Face New Mass Litigation Over Blindness Claims
Large Brain Imaging Study Links Ultra-Processed Foods to Structural Brain Changes
A federal judicial panel created new multidistrict litigation to centralize lawsuits alleging that GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Trulicity caused partial or complete vision loss. The claims focus on optic nerve injury. Manufacturers deny causation. The lawsuits follow a 2024 study that raised concerns about GLP-1 use and optic nerve injury.
Here’s what everyone’s missing: These drugs have been used in diabetes since the 1960s and 70s. GLP-1 research started in the 1980s. They discovered gastrin back in 1905.
So you’re talking about a very long-term medication. Yet just miraculously, because people are using it for weight loss now, the drug has a problem? I don’t buy it.
Common Sense Over Causation
Let’s use common sense here. People aren’t eating food. Why? Because they’re taking too much.
There’s a massive overdose issue with this drug. Massive over-prescribing. Clinics are not doing right by their patients. There are clinics that do it properly. Mine is one of them. Anybody doing it the wrong way should be punished.
GLP-1s stop hunger. If you overdo it and you stop eating completely, you’re in severe caloric deficit. Muscle wasting happens. Your body starts shutting down processes. Is the eye injury happening because people aren’t eating? Because they’re not nourishing themselves with vitamins and minerals? Because they’re completely malnourished?
The science is not backing what these people are saying, that GLP-1s directly cause eye injury, because it’s never happened before with diabetics using these drugs for decades.
Who Actually Needs GLP-1 Drugs
There are people saying: “I want to shed 10 pounds.”
If that’s you, you don’t need a GLP-1 drug! You need to go on a treadmill and put the fork down. This is the problem with society: I want it now. Let me get a pill.
The problem is improper medical guidance. Profiteering clinics are over-prescribing it, prescribing doses that don’t make sense, not giving nutrition guidance, not telling them enough protein. They’re not properly treating these patients.
It’s the exact same thing Big Pharma does. Here’s a pill for your ill.
Ultra-Processed Foods and Brain Changes
In other news, an international analysis of nearly 30,000 brain scans found that high consumption of ultra-processed foods is associated with structural differences in brain regions tied to appetite and self-regulation.
My daughter eats lamb chops off the bone, steaks, whole eggs, and no processed foods. This little girl is two years old. She’s stronger than five-year-olds. More agile. Braver. More intelligent. She’s speaking in full sentences. There’s a huge difference in development when you feed a child how they’re supposed to be fed.
Animal fats and cholesterol are the best things for a growing brain. Your brain is almost all cholesterol. So is your entire hormone system. So what happens when kids are eating Trix cereal with highly processed milk?
It’s child abuse. You’re literally disabling and crippling your child. Food companies make these things more addictive on purpose. The lesson from this is obvious: Stay away from ultra-processed foods, especially for our children.
Podcast Insights:
Fix Your Hormones or Stay Sick — Here’s Why | Tomo Marjanovic
I was a guest on a new podcast this week, The Self-Made Show with Matteo Pittaluga. I explain why optimizing your lifestyle comes before supplements, treatments, or medication, and why mental health and hormonal health are inseparable. We dive into why generic medicine is failing people, how the system is designed to create patients instead of healthy humans, and why your health should be treated like a custom suit, not a one-size-fits-all prescription.
This is an episode you won’t want to miss, and you can check it out at the link above.
Tomo Challenge of the Week: Just Go
Winners just go. Losers sit and second-guess and cripple themselves in analysis paralysis. It accomplishes nothing when all you need to do is say: Here’s my problem. Go.
Go where? Go to your office. Go to a whiteboard. Go to a notebook. If there’s literally nothing you can do right now? Go learn something.
This week’s challenge is simple: Just go.
Stop sitting still while the pressure builds. Pressure either makes you or breaks you. The only difference is whether you use it or let it use you.
Thank you.
~Tomo