Episode #209. The First 12 Months That Define a Lifetime, with Hans Kullberg, CEO and co-founder of Avocado Health

Summary

---

Risk Never Sleeps Podcast – Episode #209

Title: The First 12 Months That Define a Lifetime
Host: Ed Gaudet
Guest: Hans Kullberg, CEO and Co-Founder of Avocado Health
Date: April 16, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Ed Gaudet welcomes Hans Kullberg, CEO and co-founder of Avocado Health, for an engaging and heartfelt discussion about the untapped power of parent confidence and competence in healthcare, especially during the critical first years of a child's life. Hans shares his inspiration, the company's mission, and how technology and empathy can empower parents and improve outcomes for children—drawing from both professional expertise and deeply personal experiences.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Critical Role of Parent Confidence and Competence ([01:44]-[05:30])

• Avocado Health’s Mission: Hans explains that Avocado Health is a "24/7 parent coach in your pocket" designed to meet parents where they are—primarily via text message—and address the most fundamental but overlooked challenge in healthcare: empowering parents to make informed, evidence-based decisions.
  • “That first year is the most critical year of a human's life. The second year being the second most critical.”—Hans ([02:23])
• Downstream Impact: The way children are parented in early life influences their health, development, mental wellness, and social outcomes.
• Bringing Trusted Information to Parents: The platform bridges the gap, replacing unreliable sources like “Google, Instagram, TikTok” with evidence-based, locally relevant guidance.

2. The Challenge of Detection and Diagnosis in Early Childhood ([03:28]-[05:30])

• Undiagnosed Delays: Only 3% of kids with developmental or behavioral delays are diagnosed before age 3, yet 20% are affected.
  • “Of those that go underdiagnosed, 70% of them have mental health challenges in their life.”—Hans ([04:16])
• Barriers for Parents: Shame, fear, denial, and lack of accessible professionals often prevent early intervention.
• Empowering Parents as Advocates: By providing parents not just advice but actionable steps (e.g., direct links to local early intervention centers), Avocado Health positions parents as their child’s best advocate.

3. Personal Motivation and the Power of Lived Experience ([05:33]-[06:42], [13:16]-[16:17])

• Hans’ Story: As a father of five, Hans’ mission is personal, driven by both parenting challenges and the tragic loss of his daughter Aviva at 10.5 months due to undiagnosed medical issues.
  • “My promise to my daughter, when I held her for the very last time, I told her, Aviva, daddy doesn’t know what happened, but I’m going to do everything I can to make sure no other parent has to go through that situation.”—Hans ([14:14])
• Empathy at the Core: Building trust and emotional support is as vital as information delivery.

4. How Avocado Health Works ([09:00]-[11:40])

• AI-Human Hybrid Approach:
  • AI provides personalization, fast info retrieval, and relevance; human experts—pediatricians, child life specialists—curate content and provide live workshops.
  • “It’s AI human hybrid. The way that we’ve built this out is really our team...have been able to curate a knowledge base, vetted evidence-based [resources]… then utilizing AI in what it does best: personalization, information retrieval, inference.”—Hans ([10:17])
• Platform, Not an App: No need to download an app—everything works through text messaging so parents don’t need internet access, only a phone.
• Scalability and Accessibility: Focus on equity—serves Medicaid, rural, and underserved populations; recently signed with an organization in Hawaii serving 30,000 families.

5. Go-to-Market, Scaling Impact, and Vision ([11:43]-[13:06], [18:02]-[18:54])

• White-Labeling and Partnerships: Can be adapted for any trusted community-based organization, supporting the “last mile” of communication.
• Affordable Direct-to-Consumer Pricing: $20/month or $200/year compared to prohibitively high costs of private consultation.
• Focus on Rural Health Transformation: Aligns with funding trends and the biggest needs (“the areas that need Avocado the most are…where the most funding is” [18:38]).
• Competing for Attention: Main competition is not other apps, but getting parents’ attention amidst information overload (Google, ChatGPT, Instagram).

6. Insights on Parenting, Relationships, and Society ([19:07]-[20:47])

• Advice to His Younger Self: Invest in relationships; meaningful human connections matter most for both personal and professional growth.
  • “The most important currency of a child is the time and attention that you spend with them. Everything else is downstream.”—Hans ([19:43])
• Why Pediatric Care is Undervalued: Underfunded, overlooked, but offers huge opportunities—real impact, real change for the future.

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the Need for Parental Guidance:
  • “We all have questions, and we all have challenges. Lots of times we are just left to our own devices.” —Hans ([05:54])
• On the Power of Parent Intuition:
  • “Even though I’m a father of five, I would always say that mama knows best.” —Hans ([04:41])
• On Parent Advocacy:
  • “You have to really advocate for your child, but also for your family, because sometimes the doctor doesn’t actually have your best interest in mind.” —Ed ([07:20])
• On Trust and the Role of Technology:
  • “We’re talking about parents where their most prized possession is their child, and we’re talking about AI, where trust is paramount.” —Hans ([12:14])
• On Professional and Personal Risk:
  • “The riskiest thing I’ve ever done? Having a family. Putting my heart on the line with love... Love never dies. Love still continues even after.” —Hans ([24:22])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Hans’ Background & Surfing Life: [00:41]–[01:23]
• What is Avocado Health / Mission: [01:44]–[05:30]
• Challenges in Early Childhood Development: [03:28]–[05:30]
• Hans’ Personal Motivation & Loss of Daughter: [13:16]–[16:17]
• AI-Human Hybrid Model & How It Works: [10:11]–[11:40]
• Scalability, Accessibility, Equity: [11:43]–[13:06]
• Advice to Hans’ Younger Self: [19:07]–[20:47]
• Personal Interests & Rapid Fire Questions: [20:47]–[28:01]
  • Music & jazz: [20:50]–[24:02]
  • Running with the Bulls story: [24:22]–[27:51]

---

Memorable Moments

• The Emotional Story of Aviva ([13:16]–[16:17]): Hans shares the loss of his daughter and how that tragic experience spurred his mission to empower and equip parents.
• Running with the Bulls in Pamplona ([24:22]–[27:51]): Hans describes the adrenaline and risk of participating in one of the world’s most dangerous traditions, tying back to how he embraces risk both personally and professionally.
• The “Dipstick” Comment and Music Industry Stories ([21:01]–[22:39]): Lighthearted banter reveals Hans’s musical background, love of jazz, and fun side—underscoring how multidimensional leaders can be.

---

Conclusion

Hans Kullberg’s appearance on Risk Never Sleeps blends visionary thinking with raw humanity. Through Avocado Health’s blend of empathetic, AI-augmented support, Hans and his team are redefining what it means to protect, empower, and nurture families—starting from the very first days of life. For healthcare leaders and parents alike, this episode is a compelling call-to-action: your vigilance, questions, and advocacy are what shape a child’s future.

---

[For more about Avocado Health or to reach out: Service currently available via text message for $20/month, with a focus on partnerships for broader community access.]

[Find more risk insights at www.censinet.com]

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Welcome to Risk Never Sleeps, where we meet and get to know the people delivering patient care and protecting patient safety. I'm your host, Ed Gaudet. Welcome to the Risk Never Sleeps podcast in which we learn about the people that are on the front lines protecting patient safety and delivering patient care. I'm Ed Gaudet, the host of the program and today I am pleased to be joined by Hans Kohlberg, CEO and co founder of Avocado Health. What a great name.

[A]

Thank you, man.

[B]

We got a lot to talk about.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

And you get this interesting dichotomy between your name and your Persona here. Physically, I feel like you're a surfer dude.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You surf?

[A]

You hit the mark. I surf. I live in San Diego.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I'm actually half Filipino. You are okay, Swedish. So you might have. That's where me there. But very much the island. Blood is in my blood.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we have to surf. Do you board too? Snowboard? Skateboard? Skateboard. I do surf. Skateboard. What is that? You've heard of the Carver skateboard? You can. It's like a surfer board. Yeah, but on the pavement.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's cool.

[A]

Yeah, it helps. Helps your turns, helps your cuts and everything else.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, what's the biggest wave you've ever done?

[A]

10ft for me is decent. Yeah, 10ft is. I'm not. We're not doing Mavericks.

[B]

No Mavericks.

[A]

I'm not that good. I like my life. I like my house.

[B]

I like my life.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All right, well, let's start off with sharing a little bit about your current company, your role, your organization.

[A]

Yeah. So our company is called Avocado Health. We are a 24, 7 parent coach in your pocket, addressing the most important fundamental challenge in all of healthcare that you've never heard about parent confidence and competence. Every single human on the face of the planet has one thing come. We've all been babies and infants in one point in our life. Yeah. We've all had a primary caregiver, usually our parents, maybe grandmother, maybe others that have taken care for us. For us is vitally important that parent makes well informed decisions, evidence based decisions in terms of how they are parenting. Because it has such a huge downstream impact in not only the life of the child, but also the health of outcomes of that individual. From physical health, medical chronic conditions, to mental health, behavioral, developmental, nutrition. Everything flows downstream from what that parent is actually doing, what they're thinking and how they actually raised that child. So that first year is the most critical year of a human's life. The Second year being second most critical. And so for us it's really meeting the parent where they are via text message on their phone.

[B]

Nice. Yeah.

[A]

As a parent coach. To be able to get them the evidence based information they need so they're not going down the rabbit hole. Google or Instagram, TikTok or other places where parents are currently getting that information and vice.

[B]

And who's your customer? The parent.

[A]

The users are parents. Our main customers are parent advocacy organizations working with alongside Department of Health. So this is a population challenge that. Yeah. That we face across America. We talk about mental health. Right. If I were to ask you, where does mental health really start? What would you say? In my head or what age? Sorry, what age does it change? Oh, what age?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Whoa.

[B]

That's a great question. We have a daughter that suffers from mental health and it was probably, and we're not really sure the origin, but it was probably in the 8, 9, 10 year old range, I think. I mean we saw it manifest itself later, a little later, but we think it started around that time. Yeah.

[A]

So a lot of times the normal answer is like teenage years. But for us in our clinical team, it really starts from day zero, from really the very first, if not before, in utero. There's a lot of the manifestations of how that child is being raised. And that parent child bond, which is completely very important for how that child progresses in terms of all relationships in life, really starts with how fundamental that child bond really is at birth and it progresses thereon. We live in a world where 20% of kids have either a developmental or behavioral delay. Only 3% get diagnosed before the age of 3. There's a huge gap. Of those that go under diagnosed, 70% of them have mental health challenges in their life. And so for us, really closing the gap is paramount. But how do you do that? Yeah, you go towards that parent's intuition where even though I'm a father of five, I would always say that mama knows best. Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We as parents, we know our children better than any other clinician. And lots of times we have questions that don't get necessarily get surfaced nor answered because of fear, stiff shame, denial, guilt, loss of emotions that get in between getting the right answer and then getting to the right resources. And so for us it's as simple as, hey, my 2 year old's not speaking. I don't know if I should be concerned or not. Right. We not only give them, here's some guidance, but also here's your local early intervention center in your area. Wow. The Phone number, address. You make an appointment on your child's behalf, really helping them be the best advocate for their child. Hence the name Avocado. It's really a play in words for advocate, really surrounding that child with that fundamentally nutritious foundation to start lives.

[B]

I love that. What inspired you to start the company?

[A]

Well, this is a very personal mission of mine. So I've been a serial entrepreneur for about 20 years now. Okay. And you don't look like that.

[B]

You look like you're, like, 12. No, I'm just kidding. There's a question I have to ask you, but I'm not sure if you're still 20 or not. So that's my.

[A]

So it's the Filipino blood. Yeah. I'm 41.

[B]

What?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So it's.

[B]

Keep doing it, whatever you're doing.

[A]

Thank you. But for us is, my wife and I, we're parents of five children. Five. And this comes from a very personal challenge that we've gone through. We know that no parent has a manual. No parent is given instructions to walk out of that labor and delivery ward. But we all have questions, and we all have challenges. Lots of times we are just. Or left her own devices. Yeah.

[B]

It's a very vulnerable state, too. Like, you don't know who to turn to. You trust the doctor. So you figure that if something was wrong, they would tell us. Right. And oftentimes that's not the case.

[A]

And that's the thing. How often, first of all, can you see the doctor? How accessible are they? It takes days. And not wasting it in front of them. And second of all, how much time do you get with them? The average. Well, child visit is 15 minutes, if that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But in that process, they're checking eyes, our heart, ears, throat, everything else. When it comes to development, comes to behavior, they don't necessarily have time to really understand, is this child autistic or do you have adhd? All of those require observations. And so for us, we live in a world in a health system where there's a chronic shortage of providers and they're overstressed, they're overburdened, they're overworked. But what do we. That's the wrong question to really look at. The right question is, what do we have an overabundance, a supply of. And that overabundance is really parents that love their child.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That want the best for.

[B]

And you have to really. To your point, you have to really advocate for your child, but also for your family, because sometimes the doctor doesn't actually have your best interest in mind. I'll give you an example of something that happened to me personally. So my oldest daughter, I told you, suffers from mental illness, and she also had endometriosis at an early age. And we. And she really suffered from it. So we found her a doctor that literally was the expert in the area. We're from Boston. And so we were able to get her in the program. He put her on an experimental drug, Lupron. And we noticed. That's when we started to notice the change in her behavior and her personality and everything. And she was a. And it was a pretty extreme. And so we went to the doctor and we said, we don't know what's going on, but, like, we feel like something's changed recently. And he said, and I'll never forget this, he said, well, I hope it's mental illness and not the drug. And at that point we said, what? Like, we're done? And then we did research, and we found, actually that was one of the issues with this particular protocol. So we don't know if that's when it started or if that was the trigger that started it or if it was a little earlier or whatever. But if we hadn't, we should have done our research earlier on the side effects of Lupron for children. We didn't do that. So we made that mistake. And we didn't realize how experimental the drug was at the time either.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I will say is don't be hard on yourself because it was a very vulnerable situation and you were doing the best that you could with the resources that you had. Right?

[B]

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. But no, I think I'm just supporting your mission and your vision. Because if you're successful, I'm assuming you'll be successful. Right. The power you give back to parents. An incredible journey. Like what? An incredible mission. Yeah.

[A]

We live in a world where there's a big trend in healthcare which is called direct primary care dpc, and that's all about that. Primary care physician is. Should be catching everything or should be as accessible as being able to text them. Right. The reality is most parents don't have that, but what we're doing is really empowering caregivers in a way. That's direct primary caregiver, Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And if it's an adult, we consult our physician. For a child, it has to go through the parent first. The parent has to take upon themselves to call the doctor to reach out or not reach out. Right. Where we see 40% of ER visits, utilization is preventable avoidable cuts, scrapes, bruises, a lot of things that are run on cost for in our world that we live in, payers dominate the system. What do payers care about? Reduction of costs. And there's a number of different costs I can talk about from premature births to neonatal intensive care unit hospitalizations, to ER and urgent care, to even developmental delays and behavioral delays that have a much longer term run on impact. But that goes all the way back to the state, the federal for actors that actually really do have the long term interest. Yeah.

[B]

So I assume you're built on AI like everybody else here, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

How is it helping you out as

[A]

human led technology informs so it's AI human hybrid. Okay. So the way that we've built this out is really our team of pediatricians, child life specialists, parina specialists have been able to curate a knowledge base, vetted evidence based from centers of excellence like American County Pediatrics, American College of Obstetrician Gynecologists, Chan Mine Institute. There's a lot of really great resources out there made for parents, public domain. Parents don't know where to find that. Yeah. And so for us it's really connecting. That being that connective fiber, if you will, and the connective tissue being able to really draw upon that and then utilizing AI in what it does best, personalization, information retrieval, inference, but really getting that in the form of the lowest level of frequency. If I were to ask you what's your most frequently used app on your fine, what would you say?

[B]

Mine?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Probably email or text.

[A]

I don't say text message. So if. Yes. A thousand parents, it would be text message. Yes. And so it is a mobile app. We're not creating a whole nother mobile app. We're going to use the most highly leveraged one. And then with that we wrap everything in empathy and care and then we'll follow up with one on ones with a child life specialist. Yeah, human level. This is still a very human level endeavor. When you talk about parenting, we have parent workshops every single week. We have one going on right now as a matter of fact. We do.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

But it's. But really just making sure that parents have those resources.

[B]

What type of skill do you have on the platform today? How many users do you have?

[A]

Yeah, so we just signed a really big fundamental relationship with a parent advocacy organization in Hawaii. They serve over 30,000 families and that's in the Medicaid population, that's rural population. That is those are the type of parents that need information the most. A lot of Times they're not seeing a provider, they're going to a doctor. And they have sometimes more of the chronic problems that than other places. So for them, they work directly with Department of Health. And one big aspect about our product is we're able to white label our solution. So any organization, entity, whether it's rural hospital, whether that's a community based organization, whether it's a parent advocacy group, they're able to, we know that trust is paramount, is in the very fabric of how we've actually really designed Avocado. We're talking about parents where their most prized possession is their child, and we're talking about AI, where trust is paramount. So for us, it's really being able to be part of that trusted brand where they know that local organization, they don't know us. And for us is really being able to be that backbone so that they can take their own knowledge set their own directory of resources. We can port that in. And then anything that is relevant to those questions, we'll send them to local resources. If not, we'll be able to answer any parenting question throughout.

[B]

Huddle. All right, so fast forward to 20 years from now. You're retired, your kids are all out of the house. What would you be doing if you weren't doing this job?

[A]

Surface are really good. Yes. Hopefully my body holds up. Yes, I would say so. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I told you, I've had a couple exits as well. Right now I don't necessarily need to be doing anything else. I'm doing this by choice. And it's out of a personal mission. And I probably might be doing this 20 years from now as well, because for us, I told you, this is a personal mission of mine. And one of our daughters, her name is Aviva. It's a very long story, but she unfortunately and tragically passed away. Oh, I'm sorry. Ten and a half months old, she had six different hospitalizations. Each and every time, the doctors couldn't figure out what was going on. They were confounded, they were confused, they were scratching their head. They didn't know where to turn. Every single differential diagnosis, A, B, C, D and E, all struck out. And they said, we really don't have any answers for you. And yet what we did have was mountains and mountains of data. 5000 pages of medical records. And certainly there were some anomalies. Sure. She had a condition that was intermittent called bradycardia. So it was slow heart rate. It happened once every three months. It wasn't common, it was inconsistent, but her heart Rate went down more than it should. And there's a few other things that were really different in terms of her medical records, but they really couldn't get the answers to her situation even now after. So she passed in November of 2020. It was the hardest thing that I've ever gone through during COVID And so my promise to my daughter, when I held her for the very last time, I told her, aviva, daddy doesn't know what happened, but I'm going to do everything I can to make sure no other parent has to go through that situation. And that promise is why I'm sitting here with you, Ed, and talking to you. Because, you know, it's the motivation, the fire that keeps me going every single day. I'm not doing this for any other reason than that. My motive is to really help parents, to really help impact their whole journey.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that starts by answering the small questions, to be able to answer the big questions. The how do I get my kids to eat vegetables? To how do I get them to sleep at night? And what can I do for a one on one fever? Or does my child have autism? What can I do about it? There's lots of different questions, all with different levels of acuity. But for us, it's being able to answer the basic questions to build that trust so that we're top of mind when they do have those more serious questions that they want to delve into. And for us, I would say our biggest competitor is actually the time and attention and awareness of that parent. Yeah, we're competing with Google, we're competing with Instagram, we're competing with ChatGPT. Yeah, we want to be that trusted high fidelity source where they're turning. And again, being on their text message is important. Being able to proactively reach out to them and say, hey, you're seven months pregnant, here's what you should know. Or hey, your child's nine months, here's a milestone they might be reaching. Here's what you can do to help stimulate that development. Those outbound outreaches to them helps instill a lot more confidence and trust in what we're seeing. Yeah.

[B]

So if my daughter, who has a young son and is pregnant again, wanted to get your app, how would she get it?

[A]

Well, app is technically the right word. We try to distinguish. It's not an app, it's really a platform. So because we don't have any mobile app, but it's really text message. So we're very focused on equity and access and making sure that all parents can have this similar to how Teladoc or Headspace or Maven Clinic or a lot of these other digital health companies have done really well. Their business model has been B2C to B where they went D2C first and then really their main focus is really on the B2B side. We're no different. That's well, well worn path. And so our D2C model, it is $20 a month. That's $200 for the year. That compares with in person or human, which could run easily $200 an hour. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's inaccessible and unaffordable for the masses. And for us, how do we bring down that level of fidelity to give 247 and what we believe even is a superior product. Right. But our main focus is really again aligned with the paradigm organizations. Right now we're focused on rural health transformation. There's a lot of really alignment of what we're talking about. Sustainable scalable innovation that reaches rural areas, that reaches the parents that don't get any resources at all. See the pediatrician at all underserved, but they're not uneducated. They know how to take care of their kids. They knew, they know support is always really going to help them along the way. And they use text message.

[B]

Yeah. Like you said, everyone's got a phone now, right?

[A]

Yeah. This isn't. Yeah. This isn't telehealth. This is telehealth. You need Internet access. Yes, that's right. This is mobile access. This is 99.9% of all Americans. So.

[B]

Yeah. What have you taken away so far from the last couple days?

[A]

Here you can talk to AI this, AI that. But for me it's really about having candid conversations with people who give a damn. And there's a lot of real innovation that's happening. There's a lot of things that look good. Right. It's really about having candid conversations with real change makers and decision makers. For us, we're focused completely on. On go to market. That's really. We're 100%. Our time is really dedicated to. So my biggest question I'm trying to answer internally for the company is how do we get Avocado in the hands of all across the U.S. right. Especially those that need it most.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And there's ways. And the really exciting thing about RHT is that the areas that need Avocado the most are coincidentally the areas where the most funding is actually going towards. And so we're. We're swimming downstream in that same regards.

[B]

So we typically like to also learn about the person behind the company. May I ask you a few questions about.

[A]

All right, Ask away. All right. I'm an open book.

[B]

So you go back in time and you see your 20 year old self.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What would you tell him?

[A]

I would say really invest in relationships. The biggest thing in life is really the relationships that we have and that social fabric that you have. Right. That's from a personal standpoint. That's also from a business standpoint in terms of your network. But for me it's really having. I'd rather have 10 strong relationships than 10,000. Yeah, that's right. And, and as a parent now, I know. And even from a child development perspective, the most important, important the currency of a child is the time and attention that you spend with them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Everything else is downstream. They don't want a toy, they don't want candy, they don't want anything else. They want your love, they want your time, they want your attention. Yeah. And if you give that to them, then you know they're going to be the best well behaved kid in the world. They're going to be smiling, loving, having a really great foundational relationship. And I think that's where all of healthcare really starts. And it's also the most overlooked, underrated, underfunded space. Yeah. For a lot of different reasons. Because of the mechanics that be payer led system. There's no. Pediatricians are the lowest paid subspecialty out there. Yeah. There's no funding, there's no CPT codes for us. That's. That also means there's an opportunity. And that means there's an opportunity to make a real impact. And not this save the world type of bs, but it's more about like how do we actually really make an impact within an AI because we can create billing this organization this time, efficiency that. But this is a real application of AI that can have a transcendental impact. And that's what I'm. My, my focus is really about helping increase human potential.

[B]

Nice. Music or movies?

[A]

Music for sure. All right. Saxophone. Saxophone. I'm a saxophonist.

[B]

Jazz.

[A]

Jazz. I love jazz. Yeah. Okay. I was a hip hop artist back in the day. You were? Yeah.

[B]

A hip hop artist. Can we find your recording somewhere?

[A]

I'm talking about dancing. Dancing. Oh, dancing. All right. But I have recorded a couple songs. My wife is one of 10 siblings.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

About six of her brothers and sisters are musicians. Really great musicians. Some of the best singers I've ever heard.

[B]

Really? Anyone we know or they, you know,

[A]

how the music industry Works.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's like. It's lottery tickets. Yeah. So I would say. No, you haven't heard them. They do have alpens out there, but. But that doesn't make them some of the best singing singers I've ever heard. So. So I've recorded some. Five songs with female brother in laws. Cool. That was for. For my wife for our wedding.

[B]

Beautiful.

[A]

Back in 2015. And so that was very special. That was very set with equipment and. Yeah, we actually had a recording studio. So one of. One of our other friends has a whole.

[B]

Oh, nice.

[A]

He has like Macy Gray. Erykah Badu.

[B]

Like, I went to Paramount Studios. Macy Gray.

[A]

Were you there? I was there.

[B]

Oh, you were?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I thought you looked familiar.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

There. We were there.

[B]

You know, it's so funny. I thought you. Yeah, on Sunday.

[A]

Yeah, on Sunday. Yeah. That was epic. That was epic.

[B]

Yeah, it was fun, wasn't it?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So what room were you in for the.

[A]

I was with Josie.

[B]

Yeah, me too.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. All right. I'm the guy who said dipstick. You remember the dipstick comment? That was me. I'm the dipstick guy.

[A]

That was not used.

[B]

But that was not used. That's right.

[A]

So my friend Mark, he runs a studio out in Williamsburg.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Cool. Not as big as Paramount Studios.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But pretty epic.

[B]

Yeah. That was pretty cool, wasn't it? It was so nondescript, too. You draw. I'm like, are we in the right location?

[A]

Which is.

[B]

Makes sense. No, it makes sense. Yeah. You just see the number on the.

[A]

Yeah. That makes it more special. Right? So that was incredible.

[B]

Yeah. What an experience.

[A]

I'm so glad I went. Just discovered a new jazz club in San Diego called Lulu's, which is Lulu's. Oh, this is amazing. But if you're ever there.

[B]

I love jazz. I love old school. Do you like Bebop, Erro or. Yeah, yeah. Thad Jones, T. Dameron. You know those names?

[A]

I don't know those names.

[B]

They're pretty. It's pretty deep. Yeah, but you probably know like Charles Mingus and Miles Davis.

[A]

Yeah, Miles Davis.

[B]

Charlie Parker. Of course. Yeah. How about Jerry Mulligan? J, you know him?

[A]

Don't have that.

[B]

Oh, west coast, too.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

No, you're on an island. What five records would you bring with you?

[A]

Oh, man.

[B]

Now it's only you on the island, so you get to play whatever you want to play.

[A]

So I'll say, artists of Frank Sinatra, big fan. Oh, all right. Yeah. And love Elvis. So cool. I wouldn't be able to tell you what record that's fine. That's okay. I'm very sappy, sentimental. I'm a Romeo. So the Eileen Isley Brothers.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Nice. Wow.

[A]

Motown. Anything Motown. Okay. Yep, Motown, Rikers. So I grew up listening to the 60s and 70s.

[B]

Yeah, me too.

[A]

Yeah. But. And then current day, like Bruno Mars. Bruno Mars is.

[B]

You gotta get to Vegas and go to his place in Vegas.

[A]

I do. Right. He's my brother. You know what, he's my brother. No, I'm. He's half Filipino. I'm half Filipino. We got the Filipino connection. But I always kid.

[B]

Yeah, you like the pinky ring? Is that the name of his place in the. In Vegas? I don't know.

[A]

But he's got the standing.

[B]

Supposedly like you can go there for drinks and he shows up and will play at night.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah, check. Are you going to hymns? No. No. Okay, Maybe Vegas. If you go to Vegas, what's the riskiest thing you've ever done?

[A]

Oh, man. Way to answer that would be having a family.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Putting my heart on the line. Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

With. With love. And what I will say is love never dies.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Love still continues even after. However, you're probably looking for a more entertaining answer.

[B]

Not anything.

[A]

I will give you the entertaining. Okay. Because I'm a pretty risky guy by nature.

[B]

You have to be if you're a serial entrepreneur.

[A]

I have. I've ran with the bulls in Pamplon. Oh, damn.

[B]

The first time on the show. No, that's great.

[A]

Running with the bull.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

What was that like?

[A]

It was heart racing. It was heart wrenching. Yeah, it was. Have you ever been, if you know anything about it, Spaniards, they love to party all night long.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, I've been to Spain. I love Spain. Yeah. But you're right, they don't start party till 10 o'. Clock.

[A]

They got the wine, they got 5 in the morning, 6 in the morning. And so you have to get to this area where you know all of the runners that want to participate, which no ticket, you have free rein. It's complete open access. But you're going through all these parties and you're stepping over these bodies that are on the street. Sticky ground because of sangria. Yeah. In this little pen almost. And you're crowded around. So the street that they run down on is. Has a kink in it. So there's a. This, it's called Den Man's Corner. So we start after that.

[B]

Like you want to stay inside.

[A]

You can start before that, but I wasn't going to start before that. So I started like, right after that, after the bulls.

[B]

Oh, after the kink.

[A]

Will. Will, like, slide. Yeah.

[B]

If you get up against that wall.

[A]

Yeah. They're going with too much momentum. So. So you're standing there, and I remember it like it was yesterday. They have these, like, pollsters that were coming around asking, where are you from? And you only get the crazy. It's Americans, Australians and British. That was like, the crazy. That was a crowd. And they're like, how did you hear about this? Do you know what this is? Yada. And the last question was, do you know that you could die from doing this? My friend Larry Omar shat his pants and death in a minute. Yeah. And then the way they do it is there's two guns. The first gun goes off. They have all these bulls. Eight bulls and eight steer, that kind of come down this path and then that and that. That's about half a mile and. Or about 400 yards. And then the first they meet, there's some crazies that run towards the. The first time that they meet those people. There's a second gun that goes off that alerts everyone that, okay, they're coming to run, but you don't want to look like you're chicken and run into this. It's a stadium, but before the bulls get there. Right. You want to be able to, like,

[B]

brush down, say that you ran with the bulls. Yeah.

[A]

And so you're waiting, and you're jumping up and down, and you see the bottles of wine that are pouring down and people are taking picture. Oh, my. And by looking up, the reaction of where the bulls are, because you can't see from behind. There's too many people. And then all of a sudden, like, you hear everyone's jumping up and down. Everyone's jumping up. And then. And then it's like, okay, now the bulls are coming. Now they're full speed ahead. And the way that people actually get hurt and injured is from actually getting trampled over and pushed down to the ground. From other people. Not from.

[B]

Not from the bulls.

[A]

Yeah. You got to keep your elbows out. Oh, you stand. Do not get knocked down.

[B]

Don't go down.

[A]

Yeah, that, that. Because then you're trying to get up, and then you're going to be trampled on. Probably not by the bulls, by people. So. So my strategy was, like, get down or go as fast as you can, but also be cognizant of, like, where

[B]

the adrenaline must have been insane.

[A]

And then when the bulls came, like, straight over to the side. Yeah. You can't get out of the place because it's barricaded, but just let them pass and. And then run after them. So. Yeah.

[B]

Well, Hans, you're an interesting guest.

[A]

I'm going to have to have you

[B]

back on if you're willing.

[A]

All right. Every time.

[B]

I appreciate you and everything you're doing with your mission and journey. We're going to follow you. And again, I'll see you at, I'm sure at another event, but we'll have you back on the show maybe in six months checking out progress. We'll do it. This is Ed Gaudette from the Risk Never Sleeps podcast. If you're on the front lines protecting patient safety and delivering patient care, remember to stay vigilant because Risk never sleeps. Thanks for listening to Risk Never Sleeps. For the show, notes, resources and more information and how to transform the protection of patient safety, Visit [e-mail] that's C E N S I N E T dot com. I'm your host, Ed Gaudet. And until next time, stay vigilant because Risk never sleeps.