Meet Johann Helf of Lotus Blooming Herbs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Johann Helf.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Johann. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
In 1990, at the age of 18 and fresh out of High School I found myself deeply depressed and questioning my purpose. My girlfriend had suddenly died in a car accident, and thoughts of suicide dominated my mind. In an effort to escape my misery I sold my car and moved to Thailand where I medicated my emotional pain through heroin addiction.

After four 1/2 years in Thailand, I resolved to try and overcome my drug habit by entering a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Nepal. It was there that I was first introduced to meditation, Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan Medicine. I spent several months in the monastery clean and sober and then moved to New York City to study theater and acting. I inevitably got right back to drug use, and this would kick off many years of limited success in the theater alternating with arrests, jail, failing health and broken relationships. I was a mess, to put it mildly.

In 1999, I traveled to the foothills of the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh, India and again entered a monastery in an attempt to clean up my act and find spiritual peace. It was there that I studied Tibetan Medicine and discovered a legendary herbal substance known as shilajit. A Yogi who had just finished a decades-long cave retreat befriended me and offered me this strange, black, gooey tar that was believed to have unmatched curative as well as mystical powers. He put some in my tea and felt a palpable energy course through my body.

I became obsessed with this rare and fascinating substance and found out quickly that it was nearly impossible to find in an unadulterated form. I lived in the mountains practicing meditation, studying medicinal herbs and learning as much as I could about shilajit. I was seriously considering becoming a monk and spending the rest of my life there. After nine months of sobriety in the monastery, I made the fateful decision to drink a gin and tonic at the Delhi airport on my way to Thailand for a visa run.

This kicked off yet another alcohol and drug-fueled episode that would last years and would end with me feeling hopeless, demoralized and suicidal. In December of 2002 at the age of 31, I reached out for help, and fellowship of sober alcoholics offered me support and guidance. I got sober and have remained so for 16 years. The first five years of sobriety I diligently practiced Vipassana meditation, studied Traditional Chinese Medicine, waited tables, pursued theater and film roles, managed a rehab, and worked on skid row in Vancouver at a safe injection site.

My life was improving dramatically, but I still felt unfulfilled somehow. I again returned to India. This time I stayed for several years and deepened my meditation practice as well as my foundation in sobriety. I met an Ayurvedic doctor in Gujarat, Dr. Jay Sanghvi, at a Vipassana retreat and stayed with him and his family. The subject of shilajit quickly came up, and he showed me on a map the remote areas where I could find it as well as educating me about the different grades and properties of this wonderful medicine.

I bought a motorcycle in Delhi and headed into the high and remote reaches of the Himalayas searching for an authentic source of shilajit. This was a long, difficult and sometimes dangerous journey involving yogis, military skirmishes, landslides and snow storms of which an entire book could be written but, to make this already long story short, I was ultimately successful! My discovery of authentic shilajit culminated in my introducing this substance to the Western World, starting my business in Los Angeles and, most importantly, discovering my passion and purpose in life.

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?
Building my business required me to travel a rough road both metaphorically and literally! It is a stretch to call some of the Himalayan goat trails I traversed on my motorcycle roads! Even rougher than surviving the furthest reaches of the Himalayas was learning to navigate the ins and outs of the more mundane realities of running a business.

In the beginning, I did everything myself and made countless mistakes. From creating a supply chain and formulating new products to complying with a myriad of governmental regulations and building a website, I had to slowly and methodically address each issue one at a time with no outside help and very little money. I love having adventures in wild and remote places, but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of running a business, I still get overwhelmed.

I have had no formal training or experience in creating and running a business. Things like accounting, marketing, and social media stress me out to no end. Through great fortune, I married a beautiful and social media savvy woman who has taken over most of those tasks that I find so difficult to face. When my wife Tina became my business partner, I had been in business for seven years.

I had accumulated quite a robust email list of customers whom I had never once emailed and had an Instagram page with about six photos from 2012 on it. Tina has completely turned that around and also created bi-monthly blog posts about the Ayurvedic lifestyle for our customers. We met three years ago in Ayurveda school, and she has been the biggest blessing in my life both personally and professionally. If I had any advice for new entrepreneurs, it would be “get a partner”!

Lotus Blooming Herbs – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Our primary purpose at Lotus Blooming Herbs is to provide rare and meticulously sourced Ayurvedic herbs and formulas while at the same time protecting the people and environments where these herbs originate. Unlike many nutritional companies that simply order raw material through international wholesalers, we prefer to personally source our ingredients.

This allows us to not only obtain truly exceptional ingredients but also ensures that the people whom we deal with are treated with respect and paid fairly. The family that we source our shilajit from has been collecting and using shilajit for hundreds of years, and they are experts in grading and purification techniques.

When I met them for the first time they were suspicious of my motives because they had been cheated so many times in the past by unscrupulous business people. My willingness to pay them fairly has resulted in economic benefit for their entire village. My respect for them and their unique knowledge of herbs has resulted in their respect and support of me and my business. Every time I visit them I feel like I am being welcomed home.

When we introduced our second product, Authentic Chyawanprash (a rejuvenation formula with 35 different ingredients), we spent three years carefully sourcing each ingredient from different farmers and collectors throughout India. This is a painstaking and very costly process, but it is the only way to ensure that we obtain the most potent ingredients and that the people producing them are treated with respect.

I firmly believe that in order to be successful that success must be evenly distributed. This may mean that our products are more expensive and less profitable than other companies offerings, but the customers we do have to appreciate our unwavering dedication to quality, tradition, and fairness.

As a result, we end up with a very loyal customer base and a great reputation. We don’t concern ourselves with constant growth or greater financial success. We instead focus on producing the very best products available and harming no one. So far this attitude has resonated with our customers, and we have been able to maintain a small but thriving business.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Honestly, I can’t think of one moment I am most proud of. Taking pride in something means I must have done something special or important. The truth is that I can’t take credit for anything good that happened to me.

Any success I’ve had whether in business or in my personal life has been a result of the assistance, trust, and generosity of others. I can tell you what I am most grateful for and that is the kindness of other people!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lotusbloomingherbs.com/
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @lotusbloomingherbs
• Facebook: @AuthenticShilajit
• Twitter: @LBHerbs
• Other: shop.lotusbloomingherbs.com

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