Building Community and Connection in Business with Craig Larsen and Dr. Peter Fotinos

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:18)
Welcome to The Bliss Business Podcast, where we explore how empathy can transform business from the inside out. I'm Tullio and my co-host here, Mike. Research shows that by 2030, just five years away, one in five Americans will be over the age of 65 Yet, despite advances in medicine, many people will struggle and still struggle with preventable conditions tied to aging, stress, and hormonal imbalance. Today, we're diving into how leaders can transform not only their businesses but entire communities by helping people live longer, healthier, and more connected lives. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Mike, please introduce our guests. We have two guests today.

**Mike Liwski** (1:08)
Two, yes. For our listeners who are used to seeing one guest, we're bringing you two today. A very important topic that are our guests today, Craig Larsen, who's the co-founder and CEO of Excel Medical, as well as he's being joined by Dr. Peter Fotinos. He's the Chief Medical Officer of the Excel Medical Company. Now, the company also operates under the name Male Excel and Fem Excel brands, so you may know them by those names. To tell you a little bit about Craig, he's got over 30 years of experience in executive leadership, including the experience of co-founding Acuesta Bank and the first cloud-based software in the US., which is quite a claim. Now, as well, he brings with him deep expertise in scaling businesses to profitability with over a decade focused on the healthy aging market, which as Tullio mentioned is only getting bigger by the day.
At Excel Medical, Craig leads the mission to optimize hormones and lifestyles, empowering people with proactive health solutions that promote long-term protection and vitality, which we know, I mean, who isn't seeking that, right? Now, Dr. Fotinos is globally recognized as an expert in the hormone replacement therapy, age management, and preventative medicine. And with decades of experience, he's pioneered innovative methods in hormone replacement that has improved the overall well-being of thousands of patients, which hopefully we'll get a chance to hear about some of those stories here today. And then as the Chief Medical Officer at Excel Medical, Dr. Fotinos is committed to challenging outdated medical guidance and advancing evidence-based approaches that put patient well-being really at the head, right? That's got to come first. And so we're so happy that you're doing that work, Dr. Fotinos. Now, he's also the co-founder of the Society of Proactive Medicine and leads the clinical vision at Excel Medical, Male Excel, and Fem Excel. So with that, gentlemen, we are so happy to have you here to talk to us about this important topic. Welcome to our show.

**Dr. Peter Fotinos** (3:34)
Thank you for having us.

**Mike Liwski** (3:36)
Welcome.

**Tullio Siragusa** (3:36)
Yes, I would have to say I will preface by saying I would not be nearly as functional without proper hormone therapy, but we can talk about that at all time. Now, let's get started with you, Craig. What inspired you to enter the healthy aging space and co-finding Excel Medical after years of experience building businesses in banking and technology? What made you go down this journey? Let's start with you.

**Craig Larsen** (4:01)
Well, it's a great question, especially when I set out and I told myself one of the industries I would never go into would be health care. So I find myself here and honestly, big reason I'm here is because of Dr. Fotinos. I was a patient when I was running a manufacturing company at the time. And I was late 30s, early 40s and I just needed some help.
I was getting low energy and things weren't working the way they used to. And I started seeing Dr. Fotinos because a friend of mine told me he was the best. And sure enough, I start seeing him and I get these amazing results that I just can't believe that other doctors didn't know about it. And from that experience, I did a lot of research trying to understand, well, how is this possible? This medicine's, Dr. Fotinos tells me this medicine is so great. And my primary care doctor tells me he's not doing, Dr. Fotinos is not doing me any favors. I should go off the medicine. And so I did my own research and sure enough, I found out Dr. Fotinos was right on the money. And this was just an opportunity. I saw it as an opportunity to get other guys like me and women that were also struggling with symptoms of aging and a way to spread the word and scale that business. And that's why I decided to come in and buy the business. And me and Dr. Fotinos became partners at that point. And start scaling that business.