Welcome to the Just Ingredients podcast. I'm Karin Lynn, and here we dive deep into the journey of healing and wellness.

If you're ready to learn, feel empowered, and take charge of your help, you're in the right place.

Welcome back to the show. Today I'm super excited because we have Phil from Phil's My Pharmacist, which you guys probably know. I'm sure you've seen him on social media. I'm like, how could you not see you? And he is just a wealth of knowledge. And so I'm going to pick your brain today. But thank you for being here. I just like hanging out with you. Like honestly, we see each other around a lot.

And it's always like this, oh good, I finally found a friend that I know in this big conference hall. So I love seeing you. I was going to say, we've run into each other at weird places in

Texas at a TikTok conference. Yeah, it's always the best. I love running into people that you know,

it's like, oh, good. It's like a safe place from it. We both understand. You know

what I mean? Well, you've figured out TikTok. I have yet to figure out TikTok. So I was at the conference trying to learn. You were probably trying to find new products. TikToks are like teenagers. You don't ever figure them out. Oh, that's actually. You get them for the moment. And then you use them and then you get them for the moment.

They're like, where did that come from when it was a great time?

And when they store them in the room. That's how curious. And then you use them. And then you get them for the moment. They're like, where did that come from when it was a great time? And when they storm in

the room, like, what was that? That's TikTok. Oh my gosh. That's hilarious, Phil. I can relate to that having I've had six teenagers now. Yeah. It's, you never know. That is funny. You come home. You get the chocolate cake ready and they storm their door and you're the worst person in the world.

Yeah.

Another day you're like, hey, can you come help me dig a hole? And they're like your best friend.

So TikTok's just like that okay i'm gonna run with that okay in fact though let's tell them well how did you go from a pharmacist to a pharmacist on ticot trying to educate everybody like what drove that so my dad was always played everything really tight to the chest, right?

So he never let me know when he's having good days or bad days. If I asked him he was tired, his answer is always saying, I'm always tired. Like I swear I heard that 7,000 times. And I thought to myself, I want my boys, because I have four boys, to have a relationship in which it's okay to be week without being a weak person.

Like you have a bad day.

And so what happened was we were going through 2021 and 2020 was terrible. I won't get into it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. It's like Voldemort now. I'm not mentioning it anymore. Well, I can imagine. Okay. You just said you're not going to mention it. Well, it's just a matter. It closed and pharmacy was probably closed. Yeah, the doctors weren't coming. It was like this huge deal. So in 2021, I took out of my own pocket, $280,000 to keep my store open. And you're seeing all these stores closing. What they were seeing, what they're seeing now, I was seeing in 2021 because of where my pharmacy was located. And I was a mess. And so I sat down with my boys and I took them all four of them on the table. I'm like, they were in this room. I'm like, I need to tell you what's going on. I explained to him that we were losing money, that I may lose the pharmacy and that it'll take sacrifice from the family. And my kids were stronger than I was. They were like, Dad, you're going to be fine.

We're going to figure you this out. If we need to move, we'll move, we'll do whatever we needed.

And so from their little oomph, I thought, okay, well, don't give up. They haven't yet. What can you do different? And two days later, so I was working almost every single day. And I finally had I had a day off and I had a friend, Jordan, call me up and he said, hey, come with me.

I need some help with my gym or doing social media post. And at that time, I had no social media in 2021.

Oh, interesting. He's like, come do it. I need somebody to do it. Can you help me out? I'm like, why would you need me? And he's like, well, you hit a demographic. I'm like, oh, you need an old guy that can still work out. Oh, interesting. And he laughed and he said, yeah. So I went and did it. And they were working with this group.

And this group is like, why aren't you on social media?

And so I'm like, well, that's a great idea.

...