Meet Joel Einhorn of HANAH in Venice

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joel Einhorn.

Joel, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up on the South Side of Chicago and have always been heavily into sport, playing golf and ice hockey before moving into snowboarding and bicycle racing. I started my first “business” at the age of 12, re-gripping golf clubs. I moved to Austria to study finance at the Vienna School of Economics and moved to Prague in 1997 to work on the first private placement in the newly formed country, for now, Czech mega corporation AVG Technologies.

My biggest turning point in my life was in 2008. While training for an Ironman in Prague, I was in a horrible bicycle crash. I left the hospital with a compound dislocation of my collarbone and a severe concussion that left me unable to sleep from dizziness. Western medicine could only do so much for me. Fortunately, I met an Ayurvedic doctor, who brought me back to life with a series of herbal remedies. Not only did my concussion symptoms subside immediately, my shoulder healed a month earlier than my Western doctors expected.

When I started training again, my training times were better, my breath holds were longer, and I felt as if I had a bigger engine. I was working in other languages, and my mind was clearer and faster. My Ayurvedic doctor said I could continue taking the herbs, but to make sure I knew where they were sourced. Herbs are like grapes: they are a product of terroir, and the quality and purity are heavily affected by soil, climate and weather conditions.

This leads me deep down the rabbit hole, and I ended up going straight to the source in Kerala, India, to partner with an incredible Ayurvedic doctor, Dr. V.A. Venugopal, whose mission is to help spread the healing powers of Ayurveda around the world. For the next three years, we worked together, testing various recipes and adapting them for the modern Western condition.

Finally, our first product HANAH ONE was born. It is a powerful, all-natural herbal tonic with 30 herbs in a base of honey, ghee and sesame oil based on 4,000 years of Ayurvedic knowledge, created specifically for modern life and the toll it takes on our bodies. I believe that HANAH ONE is the antidote to the effects of modern life.

Since then, we have been on a mission to discover ancient traditions that may help benefit our modern lives and working to help preserve those traditions and support the local communities.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Smooth is a relative term. I believe we all go through tests and struggles as well as amazing moments during our tour of the earth. It truly depends on how one looks at it. I always believed in making my own luck. If you work hard and put energy into motion, and repeat, good things happen. I’ve always had an optimistic outlook on life, and always had a connection to the voice that we all hear.

Whenever something perceived as “bad” happened, I would ask myself why this happened, what it means, and what I should do next. The accident was absolutely horrible. Looking at what could be the end of life as you know it is one of the darkest feelings I have ever felt. For two weeks I couldn’t sleep, and the risk of losing my life was pretty high due to infection risk. That has stuck with me since then in a big way.

There’s nothing more important than one’s health, in my opinion. There have been many ups and downs, wins and losses, but all in all I’ve been very fortunate to be a functioning human with the drive to persevere. I’ve definitely channeled my inner stoic and alchemist many times.

Please tell us about HANAH.
HANAH is a lifestyle and wellness company with a mission to preserve ancient healing practices around the world and adapt them into remedies for modern living. We currently offer herbal remedies from Kerala, India, and the Kingdom of Bhutan. Our recipes are intentionally blended and energetically balanced based on ancient texts from Ayurveda and the Sowa-Rigpa, Bhutan’s 2,500-year-old book of medicine.

We have been extremely fortunate to work with some truly inspiring athletes, creatives and entrepreneurs who love our products and believe in our mission. Climber and filmmaker Jimmy Chin, who shared HANAH products with the film team during the making of Free Solo, snowboarder Travis Rice, surfer Ian Walsh, skier Angel Collinson, ski mountaineer Kit DesLauriers and trainer and Rise Nation founder Jason Walsh, who trained Brie Larsen for the new Captain Marvel film, are just a few of the people who have supported us along the way.

HANAH is committed to sourcing only the purest ingredients and producing products using the time-tested ancient methods to ensure they deliver noticeable results. We believe in the concept of “beyond organic.” Our herbs are all wild-harvested from their natural habitat, where they are grown in alignment with their indigenous culture, following the natural seasonal growing cycles in mineral-rich soil, completely free of pesticides. We source all of our ingredients from local collectors, harvesters and independent farmers whose families have been tending the land for generations, following ancient agricultural practices and deep respect for the environment and soil.

Having witnessed the rapid deterioration of many ancient traditions around the world, we are committed to supporting the communities with fair wages that will preserve the integrity of these practices. We look for the best possible ingredients, partners and environmentally-sustainable practices, not the cheapest price.

We are the first and only company to develop a partnership with Bhutan and be able to export their ancient herbal remedies to the West (HANAH Cordyceps+ includes real, wild-harvested Cordyceps sinensis from the Himalayas of Bhutan and HANAH Turmeric+, which is hand harvested by a Bhutanese women’s collective of growers following ancient harvest practices).

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Becoming good at skateboarding. Spending a long time learning how to ride, making friends, having a session on a ramp or in the streets, progressing together, pushing each other past our limits. Skating was so hugely fundamental for the rest of my life in many ways. Getting good at something is really fun, and useful.

Pricing:

• HANAH ONE jar, $55
• HANAH Vechur Ghee, $54
• HANAH Ashwagandha+, $49
• HANAH Turmeric+, $42
• HANAH Cordyceps+. $168
• About to launch HANAH Shilajit+, $64

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hanahlife.com/
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hanahliving/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HANAHliving/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/hanahliving

Image Credit:
Paul Tryba, Tomo Saito, Justin Bastien

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