If anyone 20 years ago had described to Joe Kudla how his life would look now, he would have laughed in their face. The 46-year old rises at 5.30am for breathwork, meditation and yoga – before jumping .
Then the former “total coffee addict” will sip matcha, and is now more likely to be found detoxing his own liver with needles than swilling beer. “I was the classic sports-mad jock who probably drank and partied too much,” says the CEO of . “I’d come out of a toxic relationship, I was frequently in pain and generally not feeling great about myself.
” Joe grew up in Seattle with his doctor parents – a renowned acupuncturist father and psychologist mother, who were “really knowledgeable about gut health way before it became popular”. As a sports-mad teenager Joe played American football and lacrosse, but aged 15 was carried off the pitch with a back injury that would come to change his life. “I was running down the field and I got tackled and suddenly I was flat out on the floor, in crippling agony with a spasm-ing back,” recalls Joe.
“My dad lay me in the car, still dressed in all my pads, and drove me to hospital. It turned out I’d slipped a disc and it took weeks to get back on my feet.” Joe returned to his beloved sports after a few weeks, but the back injury, alas – which couldn’t be mended with surgery – played up frequently as he got older.
While studying accounting at the University of San Diego, Joe made it onto the uni teams, but th.