[00:00:00] Hala Taha: Young and Profiters, we have an amazing episode for you today. It's very unique. We're going to be talking about how we can be younger for life, how we can be young and profiting forever. And we've got the best guest to talk about it today, Dr. Anthony Yoon. Dr. Anthony Yoon is a plastic surgeon, and he's also a social media star.

He's got over 10 million followers across all All of his different platforms. He's got 8 million followers on Tik TOK alone. So first I'm going to pick his brain about how his personal brand really helped to expand his business and create multiple revenue streams. We're going to learn about how he uses edutainment to attract new followers and how he expanded his successful career as a doctor to now live a more fulfilling life for himself.

We're also going to talk about how we can look younger from the inside out, the importance of food and exercise. as well as the different topical treatments that we should be using to look five to ten years younger at any given time. I can't wait to dive into this topic because I personally have such a passion for skincare and know a lot about it and Dr.

Yoon does such a great job of giving really hard information in a fun and engaging way so I think this is going to be a really enjoyable listen. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Dr. Yoon. 

Anthony, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. 

[00:02:12] Anthony Youn: Thank you so much for having me, Hala. I appreciate it. 

[00:02:15] Hala Taha: I am so looking forward to this conversation. I am a skincare fanatic. So I love talking about skincare. This podcast is young and profiting. So we want to look as young as possible for as long as possible.

So you are the perfect guest to have on the show. And so I really want to focus this episode on two main parts. Number one is your career and your career journey as a holistic plastic surgeon, how you got there, some of the lessons that you've learned along the way. And then I want to talk about how we can look and feel our best, how we can be younger for life.

[00:02:49] Anthony Youn: Sounds great. 

[00:02:50] Hala Taha: Okay, so I loved learning how you first got interested in plastic surgery. And I did find out that in your teenage years, you had a very personal experience with a major plastic surgery makeover. So tell us about what you were like in your teens and what that experience was like for you.

[00:03:07] Anthony Youn: Yeah, Hala, so thank you. Basically, I grew up in a small town in the middle of Michigan. We're the only Asian family So my parents immigrated from Korea. My dad's a physician. He's an obstetrician gynecologist And I developed and I think it was honestly a mutation because there's nobody in my family that's ever had this before But when I got into high school My jaw started growing and growing and growing and it wouldn't stop growing to the point where I graduated high school and my jaw was like stuck out so much that I could stick my tongue through the gap between my bottom and my front teeth.

My jaw stuck out that far. And so I ended up having orthognathic plastic reconstructive surgery where they broke my jaw, set it back, they wired it shut for six weeks, And that profoundly changed how I looked and in the end how I felt about myself. And so that really was the starting point for me of my journey into realizing that making changes to your appearance can really profoundly impact your self esteem, your self identity, How you carry yourself and that set me on the path to going into the field of plastic surgery.

[00:04:13] Hala Taha: How do you feel that that surgery impacted your future career wise? Do you think you would be as successful as you are today had you not have gotten that procedure? 

[00:04:23] Anthony Youn: No, because people would walk into my office, they would see me, and go, Well, if he didn't get anything done, why should I get something done?

And they would leave. It's an unfortunate statement on society. I mean, I joke about that, but there is truth to it, in that how you look, especially as a plastic surgeon, does make a difference in how your patients feel. look at you, and even if they decide to choose you as their doctor. Now, that being said, being a male plastic surgeon is very different than being a female plastic surgeon.

You know, I go to my meetings, and you see plastic surgeons who are in their 60s and 70s, they've had male docs who've had nothing done, they look kind of dumpy, they may be wearing really baggy, loose clothing, they've got tennis shoes on with suits, and then you see their wives, who sometimes are younger than them, who are very well made up.

You see female plastic surgeons, they don't show up looking like that. There is definitely an unfortunate, it's an unfortunate statement on society where men can let themselves go to an extent and people overlook it in a very different way than if that happens to a woman, so. Totally. Yeah, and that's a whole other, I guess, subjection that you have to unpack.

[00:05:34] Hala Taha: But it's so true. It's like, women are judged so much harder, whereas men, you're like, Oh, he must be really smart, and I want this smart guy to do my surgery. I don't care what he looks like. Exactly. I mean, I see 

[00:05:45] Anthony Youn: some of the plastic surgeons I trained under, and you just wonder, like, why don't you do some of your own medicine, you know?

Because, man, But it's just the way the world is right now. 

[00:05:55] Hala Taha: So for 

[00:05:55] Anthony Youn: me, having that operation did really change how I looked at myself. And so now, you know, I've dedicated my life to helping people to feel good about themselves, but using invasive procedures like that only as a last resort. 

[00:06:10] Hala Taha: I can't wait to pick your brain about holistic plastic surgery, what that all means.

But first, you are a huge TikTok star. So over 8 million followers. You've got over a million followers on Instagram. You've done such an incredible job. At what point in your career were you like, okay, I'm going to just embrace social media and make it a priority? 

[00:06:29] Anthony Youn: My career has undergone a lot of different changes.

So when I first started my practice, I basically moved to Michigan. I did a fellowship actually out in Beverly Hills, which is like an apprenticeship. So I worked under one of the top plastic surgeons out there. And he actually offered me a job and said, Hey, stay here. We're in Beverly Hills. It's one of the top practices here.

Join me and we're going to take over the city. And honestly, it was quite enticing. You look at it such a great place to operate. You got celebrities coming in all the time. It's great. But the thing that I felt that I didn't like was it really wasn't me. You know, I grew up in a small town in the Midwest and honestly, Beverly Hills plastic surgery was just all about the money.

And for me, I felt that there was more to it than that. And so I ended up moving back to Michigan. I started up my own practice in the outskirts of Detroit, suburbs of Detroit, where my wife's parents live. And my practice did not do well initially. I had no patience. And then all of a sudden, when I was out in Beverly Hills, We filmed an episode of Dr.

90210 back then. Now, Dr. 90210, you may be too young to remember this, but this was one of the first plastic surgery reality shows. It was on the E! Network, and every episode that aired, they would re air it hundreds of times. And this was back before you were doing a lot on social media and stuff. And so my practice started, I had no patients, then this episode airs, I'm literally in it for two minutes.

This Where they introduced me and then I leave and the doctor though in that literally two minutes I'm in said that he is moving to Rochester, Michigan. I made him an offer He couldn't refuse and he refused it and the next day after that episode aired my practice exploded And that buoyed my practice for years.

And so then I parlayed that appearance on dr 90210 literally two minutes into eventually doing a lot of national television shows like the Rachel Ray show, Dr. Oz. I was on those shows, some of them dozens of times, but kind of like an actor who starts realizing that the roles are going to younger, better looking people at some point.

I reached that point where the producers weren't calling me as much. They were picking other doctors who were, once again, younger and better looking than me. And I realized I had to pivot because that was drying up. And that's when I started looking at social media. 

[00:08:41] Hala Taha: I teach social media.

So I teach people how to grow on LinkedIn. I'm a big LinkedIn influencer. And one of the biggest pushbacks that I get is that they're like, well, Hala, you're like a pretty girl. Of course you have social media followers. What about if we're not attractive? And I always tell them it has nothing to do with what you look like.

So Anthony, you're an attractive guy, but you're not Bella Hadid, right? And I'm not Bella Hadid either. So talk to us about why it doesn't really matter about your looks. And especially when you are owning a business or you have a professional service, how can we leverage social media without it being about what we look like?

[00:09:18] Anthony Youn: I am 51 years old, and I know that there are a lot of better looking, more muscular plastic surgeons who are on social media than I am. Yet, why do I have more followers than any other plastic surgeon in the country? It's crazy. Like, I'm in Detroit, for God's sakes, you know? And really, I think what it comes down to is, I started focusing on social media probably back in 2017, 2018.

And I was doing Facebook and Twitter and that stuff, and it was doing okay. Really? But it wasn't until 2019 and then 2020, when the pandemic hit, I was one of the first OG kind of influencers, physicians on TikTok. The pandemic hits, everybody's at home, and my practice closed for two and a half months. Now, at the time, I had no idea how long it was going to be closed for.

I mean, it was a crazy, scary time for so many of us. And I realized at that point that I needed to do something to help people. I volunteered at my local hospital if they needed me, but God forbid if it's a pandemic and you need a plastic surgeon to come in to treat your patients, like, it's gotta be like the end of the world type of situation.

So thank God we didn't get to that point. But I wanted to do something to help people, and I realized that I don't have to put stuff out there to try to get patients to come in my office because it was closed. So I just started creating content that, for me, I thought was fun, that was entertaining, that was interesting, that was maybe educational, but not always, but that could even just help people pull themselves out of that horrible, crazy, scary time for 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 5 minutes, whatever it was.

That's what I ended up trying to create and that was when everything exploded. It was when I stopped worrying about being a quote unquote plastic surgeon that everything really exploded for me. And I think part of it was that people saw, number one, I'm doing my own social media. The posts weren't made by somebody else, they were made by me.

It was obviously me doing it. And then number two, I wasn't worried about having to say certain things, say things the right way. I don't curse much, but every once in a while you throw something like that in if that's really natural to you. And that's really when things did really well. 

[00:11:23] Hala Taha: I love it that you infuse humor into your content.

You have this fake feud with, I think, your best friend, Dr. Lee, which I just always think is so hilarious when you do those posts. So talk to us about the importance of infusing humor along with educating, because I know a lot of people are learning from you too, but they're also laughing with you. 

[00:11:44] Anthony Youn: Yeah, I think really what it comes down to is You have to look at it as edutainment, so anybody can follow 50 other plastic surgeons who will talk about where the scars go if you're going to get a tummy tuck, or what are the risks of having a facelift surgery.

And it gets boring after a while. So really, I think if you're looking at it as a true creator, and I think there's a difference between being a content creator and a physician who has an Instagram account, there's a huge difference there. The way I look at it is that I'm a content creator. I'm creating.

content. And it is a creative process. It's not, here are my before and after photos, or, hey, let me read basically a blog article that I wrote. It's, no, like, let me create content that's going to cause you to be entertained, that's going to actually draw you in. And that maybe, yeah, you can learn a little bit from.

But honestly, sometimes the learning aspect of it is secondary to just engaging with somebody. And so I think that really is key, is number one, looking at yourself as a content creator, not as a business person who has an Instagram account or a TikTok account. 

[00:12:49] Hala Taha: Totally. I love that advice. And I'd love to get a behind the scenes look at, you're a huge influencer, like you're competing with huge celebrities.

It's true though. 8 million followers on TikTok is nothing to sneeze on. Like you are literally competing with top celebrities. How has that actually impacted the finances of your business? Have you been able to charge more? Do you just have like a waiting list of clients? How has that impacted your business?

[00:13:15] Anthony Youn: So the way I look at everything is we're looking at it from a multiple streams of income and looking at it as trying to develop streams of income that are passive, which you have been great at teaching your followers about. And so, yes, when you look at the streams of income that I have for myself personally, I've got my own medical practice, so I still operate.

Two days a week. I have a full time medical practice. So that's one stream of income. I also have Extenders physician assistants nurses estheticians. So that's another stream of income for my practice I have a stream of income then for social media. I get paid by certain social media companies like youtube and tiktok Instagram literally pays me twenty dollars a month.

It's crazy. That's all they pay but And that's not as much as it used to be. At one time, it was a lot more than that. But I also have my own skincare company. And I do brand deals. So the brand deals have become a big part of it. So where let's say the social media companies maybe don't pay like they used to, like TikTok.

I make up for that with the sponsored posts that I do, and I turn down a lot more than I say yes to. And so then I have, like I said, my own skincare line called Yoon Beauty. We have skincare and supplements. That's a big part of another mode of income that we have, stream of income, and then those are the main things I can think of just offhand.

When most physicians they look at, we go to our meetings and they talk about, you have your practice consultants and you know what they talk about? They talk about how do you convert more patients to have surgery? How do you get more patients in the door? Hala, I've got a two year waiting list. I don't want more patients necessarily calling me.

I don't need that because it's already a huge waiting list. Then how do I impact people and help people? And then at the same time, profit myself off of that. 

[00:14:54] Hala Taha: So good. It's so inspiring. I'm sure there's so many people out there that are doctors, lawyers, accountants, they've got professional services. And it's like, you can parlay your experience into an online brand and then monetize that online brand and have multiple.

revenue streams, like you mentioned. So I didn't hear you say that you're monetizing your podcast, and you are speaking to the podcast princess. So if you need support monetizing your podcast, let's definitely talk about it. 

[00:15:22] Anthony Youn: We are working on that. So yeah, what happened is I had my book come out in January, Younger for Life, and I've had a podcast for many years.

But honestly, when my YouTube and all my video stuff exploded, I kind of put the podcast a little bit on the back burner. I still kind Did it here and there and stuff. And then once my book came out, I started really looking at what media in general, what was going on with the whole media landscape in general.

And I realized that I really need to refocus on the podcast because there's so many people that are listening. I listen so much. It's just for years. I thought that maybe I could do better with the video stuff, but now the video stuff is doing so well. It's like, Hey, you know what? I've got a little bit of extra time.

Let me focus more on the podcast. So we are looking now at monetizing it. It's been growing. It's back to much better than even where it was before I started taking time off of it. And that's a really exciting thing. 

[00:16:13] Hala Taha: You just mentioned time. You've got some time.

A lot of business owners who want to grow a personal brand online, they're like, well, I don't have time for that. I'm not an influencer. I'm an entrepreneur. Talk to me about how you actually make time for your content while balancing being an author, a podcaster, a doctor. 

[00:16:31] Anthony Youn: So I think that you have to look at it as these are things that you need to love to do.

So for example, For me, I operate every Tuesday and Thursday. I see patients every Monday and Wednesday, and I used to operate Friday mornings. Technically, when I started my practice, I used to operate all day Fridays, and gradually I brought that down to the point where I was just operating a few hours in the morning and then doing podcasting and social media and video creation and writing books and all that stuff after that.

And then I realized in the end, I said, if I get up an hour earlier on Thursday, that can make up for some lost time on the time I'm operating on Friday, I'll just do a little bit more on a Thursday. And now I dedicate all my Fridays to essentially podcasting and content creation. And then at the same time, what I'm finding is as I'm doing more and more of the social media and the podcasting and the YouTube and all that type of stuff.

I'm able to charge more for my surgeries, I don't take insurance anymore, and so I can really charge what I want, and that has allowed me to operate less, yet still make the same or more than I did when I operated an extra day. And now I spend that extra day doing other things, you know, I still love treating patients.

I love operating, but I also love a variety. You know, if I was one of those physicians that saw 60 patients a day, five days a week, year after year after year, I would burn out. It's just not my thing. I love doing a lot of different things, especially the creative stuff. And so that's allowed me to essentially add the creative parts in, and actually in the end make more money by doing that.

[00:17:59] Hala Taha: This is so great because I feel like a lot of people that are tuning in, they probably feel like handcuffed to their great professional services job, but you show that you can explore being creative, being a content creator, writing, podcasting, teaching others, and do stuff outside what you went to school for for 10, 20 years.

[00:18:20] Anthony Youn: The issue that people have, I think, is that there are so many bright lights out there. There's so many things that you can focus on and people then. They get inspired by listening to, say, you know, a podcast. And they say, well, geez, I want to get on YouTube. I want to start my podcast. No, do one thing that you think you're going to really love.

If you're going to get into this, focus on that. Do that really, really well. And then when that's successful, then start moving into the other things. Because I think what happens to a lot of Entrepreneurs, especially like a physician, is that they see all these bright, shiny objects. They go after all of them at one time.

They do all of them not so well or half ass all of them, and then none of them really become successful. Then they get dejected. And so my recommendation really for people who are thinking about going into something a little bit different is to think about what you like to do. And my first love was always video.

That's why I focus on that. Even though I've written four books and I've got the podcast, it always was the video. And then once you really do that well, and you're really enjoying it, if you want to branch out, by all means, do that. But you don't want to be a jack of all trades, master of none. You want to start with that one thing that you know you're going to love, that you can really excel at, and then try to work your way out from there.

[00:19:30] Hala Taha: Totally. And it's so important with all these platforms. They all have different features and you got to learn the algorithms. You just have to figure out how you can get leverage and grow on one platform and focus there. And that's a lot of hard work, unless you have unlimited amounts of money. And you can hire people, but to your point, you did everything yourself, and that comes off so authentically, especially for your first main channel.

It's so important, I think, to do it yourself. 

[00:19:54] Anthony Youn: Totally agree. And I think, too, as a physician and as a creator, you want to look at whether you are a B2B person or a B2C person. So for example, I'm very B2C. You know, I have some plastic surgeons that follow me. I think they don't comment on my stuff because I think that I'm kind of a bit of an outlier.

And there's some doctors who don't like me. Some of them are who are jealous of me. But I have a good friend of mine and he is a B2B doctor where he has all the plastic surgeons and nurses following him. They comment on his stuff all the time. But he has literally one eighth, I think, of the followers that I have, but we create very different content.

And so, when you're looking as a physician or a professional, you're creating content. The first thing I encourage you to think about is, are you a B2B person or are you a B2C person? Once you figure which one of those out, then you want to create content for that person. None of my content is B2B. You don't see me creating any content for doctors.

It's all for patients, lay people, maybe nurses, you know, maybe support staff, but almost none of it is for doctors. And I know now if I put something out that's specifically for doctors, it's going to crash and burn because it's such a small fraction of my audience. 

[00:21:02] Hala Taha: I always say niche versus broad, but I really love the way that you put it B2B versus B2C.

Okay, so let's talk about holistic Medicine, you call yourself a holistic plastic surgeon. How does that differ from traditional cosmetic procedures? 

[00:21:18] Anthony Youn: This is a great question. It's something that I came up with many years ago as I hit this fork in the road with my practice. As plastic surgeons, we learn how to cut people open.

And the goal is always to bring people to surgery. And I realized when I had a patient with a terrible complication, That this was wrong, and that my goal for being a plastic surgeon should not be to try to bring as many people to surgery as I can, but it should be, how do I keep them out of surgery, yet still help them to look and feel their best?

And so, in my book, Younger for Life, the idea is it's a concept called autojuvenation, and it's basically how you can use your body's own natural rejuvenative abilities to turn back the clock naturally, But, in order to do that, you have to give it the right tools and the right environment to do so. And I firmly believe that if you incorporate those types of things, and it's what you eat, When you eat, nutritional supplements, skin care, and non invasive treatments.

When you focus on those five things, the vast majority of people can look five, even up to ten years younger, and hopefully not feel the need to have to have surgery. Because if anybody comes to see me and they say, Hey Dr. Yoon, I'm thinking of having a tummy tuck, or a facelift, or a breast lift. What's the worst thing that can happen to me?

I answer, you can die. That's the worst thing, because you gotta be honest with them. So anything you can do to prevent that, obviously you want to do. 

[00:22:39] Hala Taha: Anthony, I'd love for you to guess my age. I never share my age. Ever. I never share my age. And I'd love for you to guess my age. 

[00:22:50] Anthony Youn: 27? 

[00:22:52] Hala Taha: Oh my gosh. I'm 38. Oh, 

[00:22:56] Anthony Youn: look at you.

Oh my gosh. 

[00:22:57] Hala Taha: I really know how to stay looking young. So I never announce my age, guys, because I really get away with looking really young. 

[00:23:05] Anthony Youn: Yeah, you do. Well, but, but, but, but. With what you're doing, it's good for people to know that you're 38, because I think that with age does come wisdom, and people believe that you have more wisdom if you're older, too.

Whether that's true or not, I mean, I know people who are 50 who God knows they have no wisdom. 

[00:23:22] Hala Taha: Totally. 

 So first, let's talk about what is the difference between anti aging and reverse aging, because those are two different things.

[00:23:38] Anthony Youn: Anti aging basically means slowing down that aging process, because no matter what, it's going to keep moving forward. Reversing aging is actually looking or being younger. Now there's interesting things. Okay. There's a difference between a biological age and a chronological age. Okay. So you cannot change your chronological age.

You know, you're, you said 38. Yep. I'm 51. There's no way I can be chronologically 50. That ship has passed last year. You can't be 37, that's what you were last year. But your biological age is basically the age of your body biologically, on the inside, and that you can change. And those are those principles of autojuvenation.

By changing what you eat, by exercising, by taking certain supplements, all that stuff can actually reverse your biological age. Now, how much can you reverse it by, that's a big question. And there are people who claim to have a biological age nowhere near their chronological age, You know, you got to wonder, there's some people who use that as a marketing tactic as well.

[00:24:39] Hala Taha: I know who you're talking 

[00:24:41] Anthony Youn: about. The fact is, is that you can look at somebody on the outside and have an idea of what their biological age is, because what is on the inside will show on your skin. The skin is our magic mirror. I have a good friend of mine, Dr. Trevor Cates. She said, our skin is our magic mirror.

It is what's on the inside will show on your skin. The interesting thing is that, and this is where my book is a little bit different than some of the other anti aging books by certain scientists, is that there are people who will talk about different things you can do to anti age your body and increase longevity, but a lot of them don't honestly look that young.

And there are studies that show that the younger you look, technically, the longer you will age. Live. And there are actually twin studies that show that the identical twins, the younger looking of the identical twin typically lives longer than the older looking of the two. 

[00:25:32] Hala Taha: Wow. Yeah, 

[00:25:33] Anthony Youn: even though genetically they're the same.

[00:25:35] Hala Taha: That's so interesting. So I have a funny story about this. So Dave Asprey, who's coming on my show again in a couple weeks. I 

[00:25:41] Anthony Youn: love Dave. Dave's a friend of mine. 

[00:25:43] Hala Taha: Dave's awesome. So Dave came on my show a couple years ago, and I remember when he came on the show, he was like 48. And so I was like, Dave. You're 48 years old, you say you're gonna live to 180 and you're like, cut me off.

And he was like, Hala, that's ageist. He's like, I don't align with being 48. He was like offended that I called him 48 years old. And he's like, I am 27 percent of my goal of being 180 years old. I'm 27 percent years old. And I always thought of that whenever I thought about my age. I was like, man, I don't feel 38.

I feel like I'm like, you know, 25 percent of my goal. So. I feel with AI and all the advances in medicine and everything going on, I really truly feel that people are going to start looking so much younger. It's already happening. 30 year olds look nothing like they used to. Like I remember seeing 30 year olds and they looked so much older than what 30 and 40 year olds look like now.

Yeah. Yeah. And I just feel like people are going to really start coming forward. with their biological age versus their chronological age. Like, hey, medically, I'm actually this age. And I just feel like that's gonna really be the future because right now, I feel like sometimes I look really young. I go out and I feel like I look much younger than other 20 year olds who aren't working out and eating healthy.

I literally look younger than them. 

[00:27:04] Anthony Youn: Part of it is I think this generation are the millennials. They take care of themselves so much better. I mean, one of the shows I grew up watching was The Golden Girls. And I'm sure you've seen those memes on social media where you see Ru McClanahan from the Golden Girls where she was like 53 and then J Lo who's the same age.

And it's insane when you think about it. And JLo, as much as I personally, I'm not her doctor. So I have no evidence of any of this. I don't think it's just olive oil of why she looks so young, but I also don't think it's all plastic surgery. This is a woman who has taken a great, whether you love her or not.

Or just like her, she's taking great care of herself. She exercises regularly, she washes what she eats. I'm sure she uses great skincare. She protects her skin, and that can really make a difference. There are genetics, though. You know, genetics do play a factor in it, but we believe that's only about 20%.

It's that 80 20 rule, in that 20 percent of your aging will be determined by your genetics. The other 80 percent is what you do with them, is the epigenetics part of it. And then there's some people who benefit a lot from that. You know, I think the 80 20 rule is pretty generalized. If you are really light skinned, you're, let's say, Irish, that's going to be more than probably 20%, unfortunately, for you.

Same thing, like, if you are African American or even Asian. We do get the benefit, because of the melanin in our skin, of maybe being more than that 20 percent genetics, having us age a bit more slowly than somebody who's Irish, where that's on the other side of it. So, it's interesting, but definitely what you see on the outside does project what's on the inside.

Not 100%, but a good portion of it. 

[00:28:39] Hala Taha: Is it possible that if your insides are aging faster, that you actually look older than your age? Can you explain to us what are some of the signs that your insides might not be as healthy as they should be? 

[00:28:51] Anthony Youn: Some very simple thing that we know of is that the health of our gut, our microbiome, will really show on the skin.

And there are early studies now showing that if you've got, let's say, poor gut health, if your microbiome is unhealthy, if you're eating a lot of inflammatory type foods, then that will show on your skin as inflamed skin. So there are connections between skin conditions like rosacea, like eczema, even acne that do have a connection to the health of the gut.

And so anybody who's truly looking at skin care and skin health from a truly holistic perspective needs to do more than unfortunately what some of us have been doing for the last 50 years, which is just focusing on sunblock. And creams, you know, yes, that is an important part of it, but also the health of your gut is really going to show in that manner.

And we have direct correlations and studies now showing that. 

[00:29:40] Hala Taha: So let's step back a minute. Let's talk about your career journey a bit, because you started as a traditional plastic surgeon. So how did you then switch gears to be like, okay, I just want to reset here and focus more on holistic. What really reset you?

Well, 

[00:29:56] Anthony Youn: So I had this patient who I performed a facelift on, and at this point in my career, I was probably, I don't know, seven, eight, ten years into my career, and I thought that I'd hit the pinnacle of success. I had over a year waiting list. I had patients flying in from all over the country to have operations done by me.

And, and surgery, There are certain operations that we look at and we take pride in because we're able to do them. And they're typically the more difficult operations where the patients are very choosy on who does their surgery. So for example, if you're a general surgeon, that operation is the Whipple.

The Whipple is like a 10 hour pancreatic cancer operation that when you're in your training, if you're so lucky to see a Whipple, you're very fortunate. And those types of operations are only really done by the most experienced surgeons because they're so difficult. In plastic surgery, that operation is probably the facelift.

You know, patients will pick almost anybody to do their lipo or even their BBL, but you know that if they're going to do a facelift on you, they're going to cut open and lift up your face and stuff, that they're going to be super choosy in their doctor. So, HALA for many years, I literally graded the success of my practice based off how many facelift patients I had.

on the schedule, as ridiculous as that may sound. And I had a patient who flew in to see me, she had a facelift done, the surgery went perfectly, and she developed some terrible complications afterwards. And it really got me into thinking, am I doing the right thing? And I hit this kind of rock bottom and I started realizing what I'd mentioned earlier about the goal of my practice.

And so I spent many, many months trying to really look at and rethink what I was doing, and I started reading books. For example, in my training as a plastic surgeon, I got almost no training on nutrition. I never spent a single day with a dermatologist learning about skin. We didn't get this type of thing.

And so I realized that there was so much that I didn't know that I needed to learn. And I spent tens of thousands of hours basically reading books, studying, looking up studies, created my own supplement protocol for healing. that since then has been pretty much co opted by a lot of other companies. And I created this whole concept of autojuvenation and holistic plastic surgery.

And I read books from people who I'd not heard of until I really started digging deep into this, books by like Dave Asprey, you know, I read a couple of Dave Asprey's books. And all of these alternative holistic experts, whether they're naturopaths, whether they're biohackers, whether they're dermatologists, I was able to get a little bit from each of them to really come up with what I'm doing in my career now.

[00:32:26] Hala Taha: So interesting. And something that I want to call out for all of my listeners, some entrepreneurs, executives are listening in, and they're like, well, what do I care about looking younger? And I have to say, I feel like I have so much advantage in the business space looking younger. I literally feel like I have 10 years extra than everybody else because I look younger.

And that is such an advantage. So I'd love to hear your thoughts about Career wise, why is it an important thing to try to look and feel your best? 

[00:32:58] Anthony Youn: For my career being a plastic surgeon, if I walked in the room and I had huge bags under my eyes or something like that, then obviously that's going to impact how people feel about me, even though some of that may be subconsciously.

But also I think I see a lot of people who come into my office who are executives, who are business people, who are entrepreneurs, and they are coming in to get little tweaks because they know that what they see in the mirror doesn't match. How they feel on the inside. So we talked a little bit about how what our inside is mirrored by what's on the outside.

But there's only so much control you have over that. And you could be feeling great and be in great shape for somebody who's, let's say, 60 years old, but you're still going to have that aging. You can't, when you're 60, look like you're 35. It's just not possible, unless you're a freak of nature, okay? And there's very few people who are like that.

But if you're like most people, if you are lucky, maybe you're going to look 5, 10 years younger, and that's great, but sometimes No matter what you do, that's going to be a part of it. And so there are so many people who do find that when they look in the mirror and they feel better about themselves, that that can really impact their job performance and how they look at themselves as a business person, as an entrepreneur.

I've seen so many people in my practice, whether they have had surgery or not had surgery, whether they have just done some of the things that I recommend, the autojuvenative ways to turn back the clock naturally. And it has profoundly impacted their life in some ways that are somewhat indirect. You know, it's just by feeling good about yourself.

You're going to come across differently to other people. One way I think about it is we all know how it feels when we go to a store and we buy a new outfit and we put that outfit on and we're still the same person, okay, on the inside. But wearing that outfit, we feel in some ways better about ourselves.

Whether you're looking for Jones and for compliments or not, just the fact that we're wearing something new and we kind of like it, it makes us feel good. And that's what we should be feeling all the time about ourselves in general. And think about how you feel that way. You're going to project that whether it is subtly subconsciously projecting it or projecting it and knowing that you're projecting that.

[00:35:01] Hala Taha: And I feel like it has nothing to do with. being extremely attractive. It's almost just about being your best version of yourself and looking fresh and not tired and things like that. 

[00:35:14] Anthony Youn: And I think it's healthy, too. I think in the end, health is beauty. There are people who are in their 70s who have a lot of wrinkles, but you know they're healthy and they're beautiful and they project that, that way.

You know, good example of that, is Audrey Hepburn. She died, I think, when she was in her late 70s. And when she was at that age, she was still so beautiful. I don't think she had hardly any work done, but she was absolutely beautiful at that time. 

[00:35:37] Hala Taha: I have to check out her pictures at, uh, 70, 70 years old so I can have some motivation.

[00:35:44] Anthony Youn: She was one in, uh, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and as she aged, she just aged so gracefully. Like, I don't know if she's had a little work done. At that time, there wasn't a lot of work being done specifically, but she just looked great, and I think that we can project that. It doesn't have to necessarily just be about the wrinkles and stuff.

It truly is about the health. 

[00:36:00] Hala Taha: So speaking of that, you talked about autojuvenation. You threw that word out there. Can you define that for us? 

[00:36:06] Anthony Youn: So autojuvenation is how you can use your body's own regenerative abilities to turn back the clock. And it was those five things I mentioned earlier of what you eat, when you eat, nutritional supplements.

skincare and non invasive treatments. And so these are the five things I focus on in my book Younger for Life because those are the five things really that if you do really focus on that, I strongly believe that virtually everybody can look 5 to 10 years younger. So, what you eat is going to be eating an anti inflammatory diet.

You want to make sure you get sufficient amounts of healthy protein, cutting out the ultra processed foods. I'm sure Dave's going to talk a lot about this type of stuff when he comes on. When you eat is going to be adding a little bit of intermittent fasting into it. One thing that we do know is if you want to Age more slowly.

The number one thing you can technically do is calorie restriction, but calorie restriction is no fun. And so, another option would be to do intermittent fasting or time restricted eating. So, basically, it's giving your body short periods of time, whether it's 12 hours, sometimes 16, where you give your gut a rest and you let your body's natural rejuvenative mechanisms work itself.

It's called autophagy. Uh, I think that's important. And then supplements. I'm a big fan of supplements. Happy to talk about them if you'd like. Skin care and we can talk about a good skin care routine and then non invasive treatments are so much out there That's so exciting to turn back the clock without getting injected or getting cut on 

[00:37:30] Hala Taha: I'm gonna pick your brain on all of this So like you mentioned you've got this book younger for life in it.

You have a two minutes five years younger skin care routine Can you break that down for us? 

[00:37:41] Anthony Youn: If you are like so many people and you are confused about what to do with your skin and you go to Sephora or Ulta and you're like, what do I buy? This is the basic thing that everybody should do and if you do this, you're going to be way ahead of everybody else.

Takes just two minutes a day. So you start in the morning, you cleanse your skin with a cleanser appropriate for your skin type. And so if you've got kind of drier, more mature skin, then going for a more milky or hydrating cleanser is important. If you've got more oily skin, if you're sometimes on the younger side, then a more foaming cleanser often is better for skin like that.

After that, you want to apply a vitamin C or antioxidant serum. Vitamin C you can find, most skincare lines have it. We've got one called our CE Antioxidant Serum. But using a vitamin C serum in the morning is going to help protect your skin from free radicals. Free radicals are one of the main causes of our skin aging and using vitamin C will help protect it from that as well as help with blemishes and collagen production as well.

And then the third thing in the morning is to apply a sunscreen. I do recommend at least SPF 30. If you're going to be inside, do you have to wear it? Not necessarily, but definitely you're going to be out quite a bit, then sunscreen is helpful. That's all you have to do in the morning. Cleanse, vitamin C serum.

And then a sunscreen. In the evening, gotta cleanse your skin. If you only wash your skin once a day, make sure it's in the evening because you gotta get rid of the day's worth of dirt and grime and pollution and oil and all that type of stuff. And definitely makeup. So wash your skin at night, and then you want to apply an anti aging cream.

The one I usually recommend as a starter is a retinol. Retinol is a form of vitamin A. Most big skincare companies have a retinol. moisturizer. That's a cornerstone for our Yoon Beauty line, uh, retinol moisturizer. Science shows that those are the most potent anti aging creams out there if you don't have a prescription.

Okay, so use a retinol at night. If you have real sensitive skin, if you've got real sensitive skin, then use Bacutial. Bacutial is a plant based alternative to retinol. Appears to work very similarly, but it's not. more easily tolerated and technically that's it. Maybe once or twice a week, exfoliate your skin with a nice gentle exfoliating agent, whether it's an at home peel or like a scrub.

That's all you have to do. So really, that's a two minutes, five years younger. Morning, cleanse, vitamin C, sunscreen, night, cleanse, and a retinol. If you want to apply a moisturizer on top of that, if it's real dry, then feel free to do that. And then once or twice a week, exfoliate your skin. And that's all you have to technically do.

[00:40:11] Hala Taha: It sounds really easy, but I'm sure I have mostly male listeners, surprisingly, and I'm sure they're listening to this, like I'm not doing all that. 

[00:40:19] Anthony Youn: Alright, if you're a guy and you wanna say you wanna limit what you're doing, first thing is definitely use a facial cleanser, not bar soap. 'cause bar soap will definitely draw your skin out, apply the sunscreen if you're gonna be out.

If you're not, then at least do a vitamin C serum and then at night. You just gotta apply the retinol. You can skip the exfoliating part of it, that's fine. Just do those things. You don't want to get to that point where you're 50, 60, 70 years old, and you go, geez, why didn't I do any of this earlier? Now what am I gonna do?

[00:40:54] Hala Taha: So you talk about sunscreen, and sunscreen gets a lot of hate lately. Yeah, yeah. People are like, oh, it's a hormone disruptor. We think sunscreen prevents cancer, now people are saying it causes cancer with its harmful chemicals. People are saying it's the reason for everyone's low vitamin D.

Can you talk to us about maybe what kind of sunscreen we should actually look for? And then also, how do you feel about these sunscreen naysayers? 

[00:41:19] Anthony Youn: As a plastic surgeon, I can't tell you how many people have come into my office with a tiny little lesion on their face. It ends up being skin cancer. Then they come back to see me, they got a huge hole in their nose.

Or part of their eyelid is gone. Or part of their lip is gone. You do not want a skin cancer on your face. Period. Anything that you can do within reason to prevent that, you really want to do, okay? Because it can be absolutely devastating to your appearance. There are certain camps out there that have certain beliefs, and really, let me tell you a more moderate, moderate I think, approach to it, kind of middle of the road approach, is that there are certain ingredients in sunscreens that are considered by some to be hormone disruptors.

They are typically oxybenzone and octinoxate. Oxybenzone and octinoxate are the ones that are primarily considered to be hormone disruptors that also may be causing potential damage to the coral reefs. And so if you go to Hawaii, maybe some islands in the Caribbean, they actually won't let you wear certain sunscreens that contain those ingredients because they're concerned about that.

So I do recommend, in general, to avoid those, they're chemical sunscreens. There's chemical and there's physical. The chemical sunscreens basically are put onto your skin, they absorb into your skin, and then they create a chemical reaction to help prevent the damage from the UV rays of the sun from damaging your skin.

Physical sunblocks are made to sit on the surface of the skin and literally just block the sun's rays from getting to your skin. Those are the ones that are going to be thicker. Back in the day, there were lifeguards that would have A little, it looked like white paste on the surface of their nose. Zinc oxide, that's the main physical sunscreen ingredient.

That's what it is. So there are some people who say if you're going to wear sunscreen, use a physical blocker. And I think in general, you know, especially for children, that's what I recommend. Because they're going to physically block the sun and there's no concern about endocrine or hormone disrupting from them.

The problem with it is, is that if you are a person of color, then it can make your skin look ashy, give your skin a whitish hue. And so that's not necessarily all that great cosmetically then. And so if you do have darker skin, and you want to go with a chemical sunscreen, then I recommend ones that have been shown to not be endocrine disruptors.

Like ones with Avobenzone, Megzoral XL, those are two very popular ones. That you can use I think very safely And so that's the way I would look at it is number one If you want to go out in the sun, you don't want to get burned You want to try to avoid obviously the rays from causing aging of your skin and eventual skin cancer So definitely protect your skin with your kids use a physical blocker with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide If you can tolerate that and you've got skin color that will tolerate them by all means use that too If, however, you want something that's going to feel much lighter on your skin, that's not going to leave that white ish hue, then go with the chemical sunscreens, but pick ones like Avobenzone and Megzoral XL and try to stay away from Oxybenzone and Octinoxate.

And then answering your vitamin D question, yes, vitamin D is so essential and there's so many of us who are deficient in it. I, myself, 100 percent believe in the therapeutic qualities of the sun. I mean, I live in Detroit, for God's sakes. And when we're in the middle of the winter and you get a sunny day, everybody's outside like, Oh my gosh, it feels so good on our skin.

Do that. It's fine. Although studies show that if you are Caucasian, you only need 15 minutes a day of direct sunlight to your skin. to create enough vitamin D so that you are not vitamin D deficient. However, if you have darker skin, you need more time in the sun to get that. And so I think that there's a happy medium there somewhere.

I myself don't wear sunscreen every day. If I'm going to be out a lot, then I will. But if I'm just going in and out from the car and stuff, I don't. And so I think you need to find what you feel is appropriate for yourself and definitely for your family. 

[00:45:05] Hala Taha: I totally agree on that. That was like a sunscreen masterclass.

So thank you for that. I love to do advanced treatments. I'm taking my skincare very seriously. And so I used to go to the salon and do radio frequency treatments and they are phenomenal. I love them so much. I really don't do Botox or anything. Like I've just been doing radio frequency. And I even have at home machines now from this brand Amiro, who I need to get a sponsorship from them because I'm always shouting them out, but they have red light, radio frequency, micro currents.

It's so awesome. And I use them all the time and it's saved me so much money. So I'd love to just hear your thoughts about using these things. at home machines or even getting professional spa treatments to actually build collagen. I think it's just a little bit more effective than the topical treatments.

[00:45:58] Anthony Youn: Yeah, I think that those are great. And I think that right now we're hitting a renaissance where there's so many at home devices that can be helpful. I think the first thing for your listeners, if you say, Hey, what should I start with? The easiest thing is to get a red light therapy, either a mask. Or a red light therapy handheld or a tabletop device.

So red light therapy, we know, the idea behind red light therapy is that the energy from that red light gets taken up by the mitochondria of your cells. And mitochondria basically are the powerhouses of our cells, and it causes our cells to create more ATP or more energy. So, essentially, the red light energizes your cells to be more youthful.

And there are studies that do show, not a lot of studies, but there are studies that do show that using red light therapy can increase the elastin and the collagen content in your skin. So, I'm a big fan of red light therapy. I do it myself at home, not as much as I should, just because I always forget, honestly.

I do it a lot on my head because I have a, Laser helmet that I used because my hair, God forbid, was thinning a bit. And so that definitely helps. So the first thing I would recommend would be red light therapy. There are at home, as you mentioned, radio frequency devices. There are at home laser hair removal devices and stuff like that.

And I think more and more those are becoming more and more powerful and safer and safer to use But the first thing I would recommend would be red light therapy because I think that one Has the most science behind it and probably the most potential benefit And then if you're going into an office setting Part of the reason why I don't do red light therapy, too In addition to forgetting about doing it is I do do treatments in my office And those are obviously going to be more powerful than those and so whether it's certain chemical peels.

One of our most popular treatments is Morpheus 8. That's radiofrequency combined with microneedling and that's a really good skin tightening, non invasive skin tightening treatment. There's so much out there that's really exciting. 

[00:47:44] Hala Taha: Yeah, radiofrequency to me I think is the future. I feel like there's going to be radiofrequency spas that open up and so many people don't know about it and it's I think the fountain of youth in my opinion.

Okay, so you mentioned your hair loss. I recently became single and so I am of the age where now I'm starting to go on dates with guys that are losing their hair. 

[00:48:07] Anthony Youn: It's a sad statement on us. 

[00:48:09] Hala Taha: Yes. And I could tell it's affecting their self esteem and I want to whisper like, just go to Turkey, you know, you're rich.

But you actually did not do an invasive treatment. So talk to us, to all the guys out there that are having receding hairline problems, thinning hair, what are some options for them? 

[00:48:24] Anthony Youn: If you're a male, or even if you're a female, and you are noticing your hair thinning, there is a very stepwise process I recommend you go through, and I do put that in the Younger For Life book, but the first thing you want to look at is stress, okay?

So, stress will make your hair get thin. Are you in a stressful time in your life? And if you are, then that's something you want to deal with. You know, meditation, yoga, all those things are great. Getting more sleep, okay? But if you're like, no, I'm actually not stressed, I'm happy and stress is not an issue for me, Then the next thing you want to look at then is nutritional deficiencies.

Now, you can see a functional medicine doctor and they can do a ton of labs on you and see where you have a nutritional deficiency because a lot of nutritional deficiencies can cause thinning hair. Whether it's iron, vitamin D, zinc, a lot of different things can contribute to it. Once again, the lazy approach to it, which a lot of people will do, is you get a nutritional supplement like Nutrafol that basically has everything you need.

And so Nutrafol, not my company, but they basically have a men's version, they have a pre menopausal women's version, a post menopausal women's version, a vegan women's version, and a postpartum women's version as well. And these are nutritional supplements that basically are all in one. So whatever nutritional deficiency, they'll take care of it.

So that would be the next thing I would recommend, would be to getting on a nutritional supplement in case it's deficiency related. The next thing after that is going to be red light therapy or a laser helmet. That's what I use. Typically, you wear those for anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes a few times a week.

And that can help. After that, you want to look at topicals, okay? So, obviously, the most popular topical is going to be minoxidil or Rogaine. There's men's strength and women's strength. Here's a little tip. Women's strength is BS. If you're a woman and you want to use minoxidil and they'll have a men's and women's, they charge more for women's, but it's weaker strength and women can use the men's strength.

It's so stupid. So feel free to use the men's version of minoxidil if you're a female and you're thinning your hair. If you don't want to put yourself on a pharmaceutical, which that is a pharmaceutical, basically it's a medication that side effect is growing of the hair, then you can try topical rosemary oil.

There's a small study that shows topical rosemary oil may have very similar effects to thinning hair as minoxidil, but with less skin irritation. And so adding a topical like either rosemary oil or minoxidil definitely recommend. If that's not doing it, you want to give yourself a good six months of doing all those things.

If after six months you're seeing no change at all, or it's not enough of a change, Then the next step would be PRP injections, where they draw your blood, they spin out the platelets, which are chock full of growth factors, and then inject it into thin areas of your scalp. That you do need to do a couple of times a year to keep it up, but that can really help as well.

That's going to be the stepwise progression that I recommend. Treating your stress, treating your nutritional deficiencies, red light therapy, topicals, and then none of that works, then you may want to go to some injections. And then going to Turkey and getting a hair transplant is way down the list.

Unless, unless in this situation, Hala, if you've got a bald area, then none of these are going to treat it. It's only for thinning hair. But if you got like in the crown, you got a big bald patch in the crown, then yes, that's going to be hair transplants. 

[00:51:40] Hala Taha: Such good advice. I'd love to stick on food for a bit.

So can you talk to us why it's important to eat a variety of foods? 

[00:51:49] Anthony Youn: Well, the number one thing with the variety is going to come with the fruits and vegetables. One of the main ages of our skin, as I mentioned earlier, is free radicals is oxidation. So the way that happens basically is that because we are alive, our body has a metabolism.

It's like a factory that's creating energy and we've got byproducts of it like the exhaust from your car. These byproducts are called free radicals and they can damage the DNA of ourselves that they build up to a too large of an extent. So just the fact that we're alive, our body creates as a consequence of being alive, free radicals.

And then our body will actually create antioxidants to neutralize these free radicals. And if you're in a very healthy state, if you're like Dave Asprey, then the amount of antioxidants that your body is creating is probably very similar to the amount of free radicals your body is creating and you're in a good homeostasis.

However, if you're exposed to a lot of pollution, if you're eating a lot of ultra processed foods, a lot of deep fried foods and things like that, if you're smoking, Then, those free radicals can be much greater than the antioxidants that your body is creating, and that creates a state we call oxidative stress, where those free radicals are so numerous that they're now attacking the DNA of your cells.

That can lead to premature aging and even potentially cancer down the line. So what, once again, stops those free radicals, neutralizes them? Antioxidants. I mentioned earlier when we were talking about skin care, vitamin C, and vitamin C being an antioxidant. Antioxidants are basically in the pigment of the fruits and vegetables that you eat.

And so if you eat only, let's say, orange fruits and vegetables, then you only get a certain type of those pigments, a certain type of antioxidants. But if you eat the rainbow of colorful fruits and vegetables, now you're getting a wide variety of those antioxidants, and hopefully a lot of them, to neutralize the free radicals, and to slow down or stop that premature aging process.

[00:53:43] Hala Taha: I had a doctor on the show one time, Dr. Gundry, who told everybody to give fruit the boot. Yes. And I remember for like six months I didn't eat fruit and my mom was getting so mad at me. She's like, eat your fruit. And I started and I was like, yeah, I feel much healthier eating fruit. 

[00:54:02] Anthony Youn: Yeah. The argument is that fruit is filled with fructose and fructose is a sugar and sugar is the great ager of our bodies.

And so. And so I think you take that belief and then you can then project it into, well, then don't eat any fruit at all. But the fact is, is that there is so much more to fruit than the fructose. There is a ton of fiber and fiber helps to slow down the digestion of that fruit and the sugar that you get, the sugar spikes and the fructose and all of that.

And there's a ton of antioxidants, there are vitamins and minerals, and there are phytonutrients, which are even parts of the fruit that we don't even understand that are so good for our bodies. My dad, he eats a big plate of fruit every morning. You know, he's Korean, he is 83 now. And I swear to God that you take away some of the physical movement issues that he may have as he's getting older, but he's going to live to like a hundred.

And part of it is because every day he is infusing his body with these antioxidants because fruits are filled with antioxidants as well as vitamins and minerals and phytonutrients and fiber being so good for our body as well. So I am not one to I'm not a fan of fruit juice and fruit juicing because now you're taking all that fiber out.

And so you are getting the sugar spikes. But if you're eating an apple or an orange or a pear or grapes or berries are great. Those are great fruits that it just does not make sense to me. As a physician, that those would be bad for you, at all. 

[00:55:32] Hala Taha: I totally agree. I totally agree with you. And how about meats?

What is your perspective on meat? Because sometimes I see vegans and they look beautiful. Sometimes I see vegans and I'm like, you look sick. You know? They actually look sick and tired. So I'd love to get your perspective on that. 

[00:55:49] Anthony Youn: I consider veganism to be a more of a moral choice than a health choice in general.

I admire vegans. I think that their hearts are in the right places and I have friends of mine who are vegan and some people really, I think, do great with that. But I think that there are a lot of people, myself included, and I went not vegan, but I went vegetarian for a while and I found that I feel much better if I have some type of animal protein.

getting some type of meat for me. There are different perspectives I think it's important to bring up. I have a good friend of mine, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, she wrote a best selling book about how important protein is to muscles and how especially women as they get older don't get enough protein and that can be really harmful to the aging of their bodies and I do believe that that is true.

But also when you look at anti aging scientists, the more protein that you eat, the less long you live, essentially, because you are in a state where you're building up muscle and that's technically not the best thing for overall longevity in the end. And so there are confounding factors here. And so the way I would look at it is physically as you get older, you need to have sufficient amounts of protein for your skin because your skin is filled with collagen and collagen is a protein.

But also for your muscles because you don't want to have a situation where, let's say, you fall, you break your hip and when you break your hip over the age of 50, there's like a 20 to 30 percent mortality rate in this first several years afterwards. So as you get older, you want to be strong and you want to be vibrant and you want to have strong muscles because that's going to keep you physically alive longer, but at the same time, you can overdo the protein to an extent where maybe isn't so good for you because now you look at longevity genes and what these scientists are looking at.

So I think for me when I look at protein, I look at getting sufficient amounts of protein so you feel strong, you feel healthy. Definitely do weight training. Resistance training I think is so, so incredibly important as you get older. But at the same time, choose your sources of protein very wisely.

Choose grass fed beef, pastured pork and chicken. You're limiting the amount of these kind of factory farm types of meats and fish that you know isn't necessarily as good for you. 

[00:57:53] Hala Taha: I'm totally agreeing with you on all these fronts. Fermented drinks is something that you bring up in your book, Younger for Life.

And I actually eat yogurt every day, and I have since I was younger. And I'm like, maybe that is a factor to why I look so young. But why fermented foods? 

[00:58:10] Anthony Youn: So, fermented foods are great for the microbiome. So, fermented foods are chock full of probiotics, which are beneficial bacteria for your gut. And I mentioned earlier when we talked about gut health and skin health and there being this direct correlation.

You can take a daily probiotic and I do recommend that for everybody. I recommend at least 3 billion colony forming units a day of a probiotic. But you can ingest that as well with drinks like kombucha. One of my favorites is kimchi. You know, I'm Korean, so I love kimchi, but eating these kind of fermented foods and drinks, I think are good because you can really help support the microbiome.

And that's something that I think it's interesting, Hala, because 15 years ago, you'd ask doctors, Oh, what do you think about the microbiome? And they would poo poo. Traditional physicians say, Oh, that's all hogwash. So what are you talking about? And now we know that the microbiome is so incredibly important.

to the health of our entire body. You know, I'm talking about skin, but our whole body. And so some of the best foods you can eat are fermented foods. 

[00:59:07] Hala Taha: Yeah. I feel like gut health in the last 10 years has just become so popular and well known and shaping everything that we do, even like brain health. I talk about it all the time on my show.

So like I mentioned, skincare fanatic, Anastasia Fassia Beauty. Have you heard of this girl? I have. Yes. We're all obsessed with this girl. She does facial massages, where basically she's saying, if you do these facial massages, you'll look young. She's got really good results. We're all hooked. I spent 250 on her course.

It expired. I never took it. I'll spend another 250 to get that course again, because I want to know what she's doing. And I do learn a little bit from her here and there and incorporate it. And she seems really smart. So what is your thoughts around these fascia, I don't even know if I'm saying it right, facial massages?

[00:59:59] Anthony Youn: I think that there's some good and some bad. I think that doing facial massages is good for increasing circulation. It can help to push out fluid and swelling. I think all of those, that is very, very good. But I also think that physically it's not going to change the structure of your face. And so I do question some of the results and whether those are some of the results when I see, and I'm not going to say specifically her, but in general, when I see people say, Oh, This is me before face shoga and this is me after.

Look how snatched my jaw is. Honestly, I can make my jaw look snatched from the side literally by mewing, by lifting the tongue, my tongue up to the roof of my mouth, take a before and after and people will be like, Oh my gosh, look how amazing that is. But it's like, yeah, I'm just lifting the tongue up to the roof of my mouth.

And so I think that there is definitely some short term benefit for doing facial massage. It's relaxing, once again, increases circulation. When you've seen the actual physical structure of the face like I have, you know, I do a lot of facelifts. I lift the skin up to the face. I see the facial muscles and the fat pads and all that.

It makes zero sense to me that by just doing a certain massage on the outside is going to physically change that. It's the same thing when you look at people who have what are called thread lifts, where these threads, barbed sutures are placed under the skin and they claim it's going to lift everything up and, and yes, you may get a little temporary result, but it is not powerful enough to actually change the architecture of your face.

jowl, which is fat that hangs Down over their jawline. It's a little fat pad And I when I lift up the skin to a face if I could see that fat pad there And sometimes what i'll do is I will liposuction part of it away to reduce the size of it Other people will try to suture it up higher and stuff But it makes zero sense to me that by massaging it you could literally physically move it into a different position When there's so many fibrous connections and layers of the face and stuff like that Unfortunately, there's a lot of information on social media that You It sounds too good to be true, but people believe it anyway.

I debunked a video recently where somebody said that fillers, and we do fillers, but I'm also one that's about fillers but in a very conservative manner, where some guy says if you get fillers in your lips, it can migrate all the way up to your forehead. And then people have taken it from their forehead and they pushed it back into their lips.

And I don't know what he's talking about, but people believe this and it went viral. And it's just like, think about it. Just take a moment and think, can you actually move something from your lips all the way to your forehead? There's so many different things in the way. It makes no sense. So I think that's where we have to think with the facial massage, you know, is that going to truly get rid of facial fat by massaging it?

Are you going to cause fat to go away? Are you going to take platysma muscle that has gotten droopy and excessive and make that muscle suddenly shrink down in size? Like, it just doesn't make sense when you really think about it. There is some magical thinking unfortunately involved with some of these cases.

[01:02:59] Hala Taha: I don't know. I'm still a believer she does a good job, . 

[01:03:02] Anthony Youn: I don't wanna say anything specifically about her because No, I know. I know I don't know her. But in general, I think that there's a lot out there where people make these claims. For example, I saw this one video I debunked where a guy had a tattoo on his hand and I said, you wanna know, I don know how to get rid of this tattoo.

You take some sugar. And he just got that. Generic sugar table sugar you put that on there You put a few drops of olive oil and you rub it and he rubs it rubs it and he goes for five minutes Then afterwards tattoo's gone and he shows no tattoo there and it went viral 

[01:03:33] Hala Taha: Oh my god, it makes no 

[01:03:34] Anthony Youn: sense because that pigment is in the dermis It's in the deeper part of your skin and nothing rubbing olive oil and sugar is not going to get rid of that But people put makeup on over it and they try to it's just it's silly.

So yeah, 

[01:03:46] Hala Taha: there's a lot of bs out there I agree. Oh my 

[01:03:49] Anthony Youn: gosh 

[01:03:49] Hala Taha: So a couple last questions here on skincare. So Botox, now Botox has been going on for so long and people are doing Botox in their 20s, their 30s. I personally feel like Botox can make people look older and that like their skin gets very thin looking and their eyebrows start to look very far apart.

So I feel like people really overdo it with Botox. However, I'm not a plastic surgeon. expert like you. So I'd love to get your perspective on Botox. 

[01:04:20] Anthony Youn: Botox is probably the most popular cosmetic treatment in the history of the world. We do a lot of Botox. The first question people have is, is it safe? In my practice, we've probably done 20, 000 injections.

We've never had a major complication from it. So I think it's good, but people can get overdone by Botox. I don't think it's going to thin your skin necessarily, but it can thin the muscles under your skin. Sometimes that's a good thing when people have overgrowth of muscles, like the master muscles on the sides of your jaw.

You can cause those muscles to atrophy or to get thinner and some people actually will like that because it can thin the jaw a bit. But I think really in general, it's a paralyzing agent, so it works well for the upper face. So basically, crow's feet on up, it can work really well for, but you've got to be very careful when you go below, because it can also cause your face to not move naturally.

And so you really want to use it in a conservative fashion. So I'm a big fan of it. I get Botox myself done occasionally, but Definitely it's something where the amount is a big deal. 

[01:05:13] Hala Taha: Yeah, and I'm not gonna lie. I've done it a few times. I've done it a few times. I just feel like the people that do it a lot, it could get a little crazy.

How do you feel about jaw filler? 

[01:05:25] Anthony Youn: I do a little bit of jaw filler. The issue with jaw filler, so the idea is that if you've got a real narrow jaw line, then I think jaw filler can be very helpful for some people to widen their jaw. And sometimes by adding filler there, it can even simulate like your skin's a little bit tighter because it fills the area out a bit.

It's not truly a lift as it's more of a filling out. The issue I have with jaw filler and why I encourage people to be very careful with it is because we've got, uh, certain, uh, blood vessel called the facial artery that comes along the jawline and basically it goes right underneath the jawline and then it curves up right around where the jowl area is to go basically up to the nasolabial folder your smile lines up to your nose and if somebody is not being real careful and they inject filler into that facial artery you can have major major problems with what we call vascular occlusion that can cause areas of your skin to turn black.

It can cause people to even go blind. Rare, rare, rare, but it can happen. So, just be very careful with fillers. Botox, worst case scenario, you get a droopy eyelid or something like that, it goes away after three or four months. Filler, worst case scenario, you can go blind, you can necrose or kill off parts of your lip or your nose.

Just be very careful with filler. And make sure it's a hyaluronic acid filler if you get filler. Don't do any of these permanent or semi permanent fillers. There's no antidote to those and they can be very dangerous. 

[01:06:44] Hala Taha: Anthony, thank you so much for joining the show. I end my show with two questions that I ask all my guests.

They don't have to be related to the topic of the show. The first one is, what is one piece of advice our young and profitors can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

[01:06:59] Anthony Youn: Focus on one thing at a time, get that thing done, and then move on to the next thing. Because once you get that source of income or whatever done, you're going to start making a profit off of that first, then go to the next thing versus having a bunch of projects that are left undone where you're making nothing off of them.

[01:07:16] Hala Taha: Love that advice. And what is your secret to profiting in life? 

[01:07:20] Anthony Youn: My secret to profiting in life is honestly thinking about other people. Because in the end, if you focus on the needs of other people, it will come back to you, sometimes exponentially. So if you only focus on yourself, in the end, you're gonna end up alone.

And so really focusing on the needs of others. It always works out in the end. I do believe in karma and I think what you put out there in the universe will come back to you one way or another. 

[01:07:43] Hala Taha: And where can our listeners learn about you and everything that you do? 

[01:07:47] Anthony Youn: Well, thank you. Well, I've got my book Younger for Life, but I have got also my podcast, The Dr.

Yoon Show, where we cover all these health topics that we've talked about in the podcast today. So those are two great places to find me. 

[01:07:58] Hala Taha: Amazing. Thank you so much for your time. 

[01:08:00] Anthony Youn: Thank you, Hala. 

[01:08:01] Hala Taha: Well, guys, I hope you loved that conversation as much as I did. It was very entertaining for me. And Dr. Anthony Yoon is so inspiring. And I think that there's so many people out there just like him who are in a professional services job, who are just dying to be creative and to share some of their wisdom with others in a fun way.

Anthony shows that even if you're a busy surgeon, you can manage your time and your schedule in a way that allows you to be an influencer and expert on the side. and to make money while doing it. He dedicates every Friday for content creation, and he's raised his profile so much that he can now charge much more for his surgeries.

But Anthony's goal is to help as many people as possible, and not just to operate on them. And that makes him all the more credible and compelling. I loved his concept of autojuvenation and tapping into our own body's innate ability to heal and rejuvenate. You can look five to 10 years younger without any procedure or treatment.

And as Anthony put it, The younger you look, the longer you'll live. And quite frankly, the better you'll do in business too. Taking care of yourself and looking your best really matters. It just does. And nowhere is that more apparent than our skin. Our skin is that magic mirror that reveals how well we're doing, not just on the outside, but on the inside as well.

And whether it's red light therapy, wearing sunscreen or switching from bar soap to a facial cleanser. Okay. There's some simple steps you can take to improve the health of your skin and your body and improve your appearance in the process. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting. If you listened, learned, or profited from this conversation with Dr.

Anthony Yoon, then please share this podcast with someone. Who wouldn't want to learn how to look five or ten years younger? And if you did enjoy this show and you learned something, then take a couple minutes to drop us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Guys, I read these reviews every day. They always make my day.

And if you enjoy this podcast, if you listen to it on your commute, if you listen to it while you're working out, if you listen to us every single week or every single day, let us know how you feel about it. Give us some feedback. Let other people know how you feel about the podcast so you can help us get more listeners.

And if you did enjoy the show and you learned something. Then stop what you're doing real quick and drop us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Guys, it is totally free to listen to this podcast. You learn from it every day, every week, when you're working out, when you're driving, or however you tune into the show, you're learning.

And the number one way to thank us is by dropping us a review. Plus, I love to read them. They make my day. If you guys prefer to watch your podcast as videos, you can find us on YouTube. You can also find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name, it's Hala Taha. And before we go, I want to give a big shout out to my awesome Yap Media family.

Thank you so much for all that you guys do producing the show, booking the guests, preparing the research, making the videos. Writing the show notes. You guys are just awesome. Thank you for all that you do. This is your host, Hala Taha, aka the Podcast Princess, signing off.