Burnout, Fibromyalgia, and Reinvention. The Health Wake-Up Call That Built a Global Company with Sanne Kiilerich, CEO of ANF

In this episode of the Diamond Effect Podcast, Maggie sits down with Sanne Kiilerich, CEO and founder of ANF Academy. What began as a personal search for relief after Sanne developed fibromyalgia and chronic pain became a 14+ year journey into building a global company focused on nervous system support and frequency-based wellness.

This conversation is equal parts health, entrepreneurship, and leadership in fast-changing times. Sanne shares what she learned the hard way about running on empty, why she believes the nervous system is the foundation of performance, and how she thinks entrepreneurs (and parents) can protect their energy without living under rigid “perfect routine” rules.


In this episode, we talk about:
- Sanne’s path from fashion and the “hamster wheel” of entrepreneurship to a health crisis that forced reinvention
- A simple explanation of frequency therapy and why she calls it “plug-and-play” for busy people
- The difference between optimizing your health with freedom vs following strict biohacking routines that don’t fit real life
- Why sleep and recovery are non-negotiables for sustainable performance (and how wearables can help track progress)
- Leading a global business in the AI era: faster execution, higher expectations, and the new leadership challenge of keeping quality high
- Sanne’s perspective on raising kids for the future: critical thinking, cultural adaptability, and learning through real-world experience
- A message for entrepreneurs with an idea: test it, iterate, and stop waiting for permission


Memorable ideas to listen for:
- Why “reinventing yourself every Monday” is becoming the new normal for leaders
- The shift from long-term business plans to short, flexible planning cycles
- The mindset of building something people don’t understand yet — and staying committed anyway

Connect with Sanne on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanne-kiilerich-b69417/

Connect with ANF:
Practitioner education: ANF Academy —  https://anfacademy.com/ 
Direct-to-consumer wellness products: ANF Care —  https://anf.care/ 
Find a practitioner network: ANF Therapy —  https://anftherapy.com/
Sports performance programs: ANF Sports Pro —  https://anfsportspro.com/ 

If you’re a high-achieving entrepreneur who’s been pushing through exhaustion, let this be your reminder: your business can’t outgrow your nervous system.

If you enjoyed the episode, share it with a friend who’s in a reinvention season, and tag Maggie when it goes live so she can thank you and reshare.

Transcript

Sanne - ANF Academy & Maggie - podcast interview

Maggie Perotin: [00:00:00] Welcome, everybody, to the next episode of Diamond Effect Podcast. This episode is very exciting and special because I have a guest with me, Sanne Kjerlik, the CEO and founder of ANF Academy. Welcome, Sanne. Thank you for doing this with me. 

Sanne Kiilerich: Thank you very much, and hi to everybody in Canada.

Maggie Perotin: Awesome. If you could introduce yourself a little bit to the audience, and then we'll dive into questions about 

Sanne Kiilerich: I'm Sanne, and I started this journey with ANF Therapy with, together with my husband around almost 15 years ago. That's sometimes how it happens 'cause we were looking for a solution for myself 'cause I ended up with fibromyalgia after some other past events in my life, and even though Denmark has a very nice healthcare system, it doesn't offer anything to chronic pain patients like that. So we started out on a journey to find a solution for that with the background in frequencies and the medicine that my husband has.

He's also a, in the past, [00:01:00] professional tennis trainer. He's been working in Germany, Portugal, Italy, Spain, many other places, and that was back in the days where a tennis player only traveled with one person. That person had to be able to do everything. So he had a very vast background, and he understood that to solve the problem that I had, we needed to find something that could affect the nervous system.

But the only thing was that there was no delivery system of those frequencies actually to be transferred to the nervous system to be able to solve this thing. So with my background in design and product development, I set out on a quest to find exactly that, and within the first nine to 10 months, we had a solution, and we started to make it work.

First it was just on, on pain-to-pain kind of solution. "Ooh, it hurts my leg. Ooh, it hurts my here. It hurts my there." And then as we got through all of those things, we saw that once it's gone, it didn't come back, and with that, we started developing from, into all kinds of other things because one happy pain [00:02:00] patient brings a lot of other patients.

So we are now in the south of Spain, Marbella where we rece- receive therapists and doctors from all over the world doing our practical education after they've done the online part. So it's been a long journey around 14 years in this this whole development, but it's been really rewarding and also- an extremely interesting journey, taking us everything from US to South Africa to Saudi to Australia to so many different places in the world. So- It's it's really been it's really been a very rewarding but also very crazy journey. Oh, 

Maggie Perotin: I can imagine and I'm excited to dive deeper into it.

So let's start from the beginning because I remember when we initially talked before the podcast, you mentioned that, you've been an entrepreneur all your life and then ultimately the beginning of the current company and solutions you provide was [00:03:00] because you burned out, right? Because there was a lot of things going on and as your cup was getting empty, when there was additional stress going on, it resulted in, in health challenges.

So can you talk a little bit more about that? Like how you operated before and what you've learned through that experience? 

Sanne Kiilerich: Yeah, I think a lot of of us that starts out as entrepreneurs I had another company 15 years before we started this journey. And it was like a hamster wheel. That was in fashion.

I was ... my training is a fashion designer, so that's where I started. I worked in trends in London for many years for- ... for very big companies as well, and it's a hamster wheel. Like you get in there, and then you just keep running, and you don't know where to start, where to stop.

You just continue, and you don't really feel probably when you're younger, how much you actually use of your resources. ... And that tank doesn't fill up by itself [00:04:00] suddenly. Like at a certain age you start using, and it doesn't refill in the same speed as you're using the resources that you have, whether it's the mental resources, the physical resources, or- the energy resources that you have. That's, that kind of came to a very clear point for me when I ended up with with my health condition. And I had to find a solution because obviously I could not spend the rest of my life just on the couch in Denmark. And with so many rainy days, that was not gonna work.

So I think a lot of us, like a true entrepreneur at heart, you are also like a rubber duck. Like it doesn't matter how many beats you take- ... you keep surfacing again over and over again, but it does cost on the health account- ... if you don't take care of your health, right?

Maggie Perotin: So how do you take care of your health now? You're also running a company that helps people take care of their health. So what do you do personally? 

Sanne Kiilerich: Yeah. Personally, I do sports because first of all- ... I love sports. And second of all I use our frequency [00:05:00] therapy and our wellness program for for frequency programs that upgrades the nervous system.

So as you grow older- ... as you run out of resources, your body needs to be reminded of how to create those resources. So that's what we do with with what we do. It's simply to, to reinstate, you can say that- bio coherence in our body where the things are working optimal. So my body is working a lot better now at almost 50 than it did 20 years ago when I was just running.

So yeah, there's a massive difference. And because we have this plug and play system then if I feel that, okay, today we're going to do a podcast, like it's going to be creative and fun and it's gonna be a lot of information, then I put on the one w- I have here. So it's a little it's a little frequency disc that helps with the gamma frequency, which is where it keeps you in a flow, [00:06:00] so you can have a meeting with one of these on, or you can do creative sessions for your company or for your employers for hours and hours. And then at some point you'll start seeing other people get tired and you realize oh yeah, I have superpowers today." So so that's really interesting.

And the same in sports, I use it for when I play paddle. I play paddle at quite a high level here in Spain. Actually on, on the Grand Slam level. And most of the girls that I play with, they are half my age or at least 20, 30% younger than me 'cause I have superpowers.

Maggie Perotin: So if, for the listeners and viewers who are watching, let's say they've never heard of frequency therapy, they have no idea what it is. If you could explain like at the most basic level what it is and how it works and how people could use it.

Sanne Kiilerich: Yeah, of course I can. To understand the technology itself and how it actually transfers the frequencies and the nervous system picks it up, it's more or less like a [00:07:00] quantum physics explanation, which you don't need, only to apply it and then and then feel the benefits.

So I usually compare it to either one of two different things. A DVD those of you that are old enough to remember the DVDs when we had those. A lot of people didn't understand how can you put a whole movie on there with colors, with sound, with songs, with everything, and for three hours, and it's just a little disc, right?

But everybody knows how to put it into the machine and to enjoy it. That's basically the same with what we do. This little disc here is a very soft little disc that you can apply anywhere on the body. And once you apply it, the body itself works as the battery that starts it. So you don't need to put it into a machine.

You don't need to be connected to any cords or anything. So it's a plug-and-play system. You place it on, and then you can do whatever you would normally do for 72 hours, but you would be able to feel the benefits. So in that sense, you have a lot of freedom with this type of application [00:08:00] rather than all the other things that you can do to promote your health and well-being.

Some of them, or most of them, they are either connected to a cord or there is EMF or there is, like many different things that you have to be in a certain place while you're doing that. So this is completely autonomous. You don't need anything but to apply it. 

Maggie Perotin: Okay. So you mentioned that, there's some discs, let's just call them, that help you focus.

What else is there? What are other types of those discs and what can they help you with? 

Sanne Kiilerich: Yes. For the, for many of the entrepreneurs lawyers all that sector that we work with the C-suites in many different companies as well, and professional athletes the main ones that they always come to us for is the focus and clarity.

And what that actually does is that it speeds up the frequency that we have in our occipital nerves and in the nerve that connects the eye. [00:09:00] So that means that your reaction time is shorter than when you're not wearing it. So it has a physical output, it might look like some little things that you just put on and whoops, something's gonna happen.

But no, it's actually something that you can physically measure the outcome of applying these these ones. The other one is gamma- ... the creativity and flow, which is opens up for more connections within your brain and stimulates new pathways. So this is where new ideas, creativity, and everything else-

lives in your brain. So it's a plug-and-play system of connecting that one. 'Cause if you want to enter into the flow state or reach the gamma brain wave sometimes you have to meditate for hours and hours even to be able to activate that part of your brain. 

So we can do that without all that preparation.

So I usually say that there's two type of people in the world. There's the ones that has time, and then there is the ones that needs the solution, and those people are usually not the same. So it's very good to be able to add [00:10:00] that, ... at a much more rapid sp- pace, because- everybody needs something but very little people have time to do all the things that's needed to be able to optimize your functionalities in your body. We have beautiful garden here. Like I tell- Yeah ... I tell the staff that we have here as well, go enjoy the garden. Put your bare feet in the grass, do the things. Be in the sun for just five, 10 minutes a day, things like that. And they don't get out of the office, because we all have so many things to do. We all need something that works much faster, and especially entrepreneurs. Come on. There's nobody else that has less time in the world.

I usually say to people, I meet people every day, all day. And some of them go, "I had so much to do last week, it was impossible. I couldn't manage," i'm like are you an entrepreneur?" "No." "Do you have kids?" "No." I'm like, "I'm sorry, but there is no busyness in your life in the same way as the rest of us have to dangle."

So it's, ... it's really, That's the, that's where you get the, to the peak performance, it's entrepreneurship and parenthood. I [00:11:00] think that's- Yeah. ... that's a crossroad of chaos. 

Maggie Perotin: I agree. It forces you to be- Super organized, super effective with your time and so on if you're going to accomplish anything and move forward in anything.

100% agree. 

Sanne Kiilerich: Yes. Yes, for sure. No, I totally agree. So those are the go-to for the mental- ... performance part. And then what I always use, I put two here when I go to bed, and that's our Sleep and Recharge protocol. And that consists of two different devices.

One of them charged with the frequency of melatonin, the pre-process of melatonin. So it triggers your body to produce melatonin as if you were a teenager where you're producing the highest level of melatonin. And then the other one is programmed with the delta brainwave. So that means that your brain that reaches the delta stage.

So if you, for example, have a Whoop, an Oura Ring, a Fitbit, or an Apple Watch or, things like that, you will be able to see already after the first night your increase in recovery rate and the less level of stress if stress is what you're having while you're sleeping. So [00:12:00] even though it's an, a non-mechanical item, you can say it's only with energy- it does show directly on the readables. So either in, in blood tests, in different types of scans, in the wearables, like all of those things will show where it's taking your body. 

Maggie Perotin: Great. I definitely need to test. I know I was supposed to test before. But talking about entrepreneurship and motherhood and being busy, there we go.

I definitely- 

Sanne Kiilerich: There we go. There we go. There we go. That's exactly it, and this is also why we- Yeah ... we could see how much this could help pain patients, making them- ... autonomous in their life, and with athletes, they don't have to spend the same amount of time recovering and so on and so forth.

So it was a natural step for us to go to the second, the third level of making products that are readily available for those- everyday issues, and so things that we can optimize that literally only, I put them here, it takes, what? It takes one second before I go to bed. It's not something that I have to adapt to. [00:13:00] It's not something I have to do specific things an hour before I go to bed. It's not something that I cannot look at my phone before I sleep because it's sometimes necessary. Like we are here in Spain, we work with the US, we work with Australia, we work with Philippines, we work with everywhere.

If I cannot look at my phone three hours before I go to bed just because I want to increase my, my sleep quality, okay, I can increase my sleep quality, but I would definitely decrease my quality of service to my to my partners around the world. I think it's important that we s- we, we do what we like to do and what feeds our energy without all these rigid rules and all these things.

Like- 

... 

Sanne Kiilerich: 'Cause there's a lot of that going around, like with some of the big biohacking guys and longevity ones, like- ... you have to have a, an, such a rigid regime on a daily. You can't do this. You have to go to bed at 5:00. You, you spend your whole life trying to make one or two years more in the end, but you waste everything you have right now.

Like [00:14:00] I, I really enjoy that I can- Yeah ... that I can be free and I can optimize my body at the same time. So I can be with my kids, I can go with them to go for a paddle or go for a walk or go to the beach or, things like that. Just wear these and still optimize my body, so I don't have to put so much time aside to do these things- Yeah.

Yeah ... which I think is really where the world is going, like the AI of the body, it knows what you want. 

Maggie Perotin: I love it. So let's talk about how you run your business because of course we're here entrepreneurs and you're a successful business owner. Let's talk about that because you do have different partnerships, right?

Where you have clients who are medical professionals and institutions who help clients with more medical-grade devices, with pain and so on, and you also cater to direct-to-consumer, like me with, with the discs and so on. So how do you maintain the core [00:15:00] relationship in your business, especially that they're so spread?

What are some tips you could give to any entrepreneur? Yeah. 

Sanne Kiilerich: Obviously having something that you cannot replace with anything else is a winner yourself, right? With that I won't say that we are lucky, but we've been developing a method that nobody has been able to copy over the years. People have tried for sure, but they haven't been able to. That's number one thing being unique in what you do- ... I think it's really important. And a lot of people find it maybe easier to launch a product which is already there, but make an improved version of it or something like that.

And that's absolutely fabulous. Then they win on service or they win on, so many other things. So I think it's always assessing, like where are you most needed. So- Yeah ... so I'm there where I'm most needed most of the time. That's what I'm trying to do.

But obviously with therapists and doctors in, in 70-plus [00:16:00] countries some of them are waiting some time to get an answer sometimes which of course I want to ... i'm trying to clone myself with AI. That's great. That's great. So 

Maggie Perotin: you're you-

Sanne Kiilerich: We're working on that. You're 

Maggie Perotin: using AI yeah, to streamline and optimize.

Sanne Kiilerich: We are working a lot with with AI and it helps a lot. Not that we have reduced the team size 'cause that was not our purpose of using AI, but our purpose was to be able to improve our quality level and our service level and, those kind of those kind of things.

And then we are just able to do much more things in a short amount of time. In the last year we've rolled out projects that would have taken us very long time. Because we are very quality consistent, so when we do something, we know that we are doing it well.

We're not rolling out things that are not ready or, whatever. And it's just it's just fabulous to be able to roll out something much, much faster than before, but it's also a challenge. It's a challenge with the time that we are in and thank God I have these devices to put on, 'cause otherwise I would run out of energy.

I'd run out of mental energy [00:17:00] definitely. Because running a team size, even though we are only 30-plus people here we work with 2,000 therapists and doctors around the world, many different different distributors and, so on and so forth. And- it's really, I feel like coming in on a Monday morning, I'm reinventing myself from last week because the world literally looks different this week than it did last week.

It's not the same anymore. You cannot make a five-year business plan. It's impossible. Like when I started my business back 30-plus years ago they were talking about making a 10-year business plan, 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah ... 

Sanne Kiilerich: you cannot, you can barely do, you cannot even do a 10-month business plan today.

If you're lucky, maybe you can make one for 10 days or a couple of months, but besides that, what you know today is not what you're gonna know next week. It just goes so fast and and this is where, like we as humans, I don't call it external I don't call it artificial intelligence, I call it external intelligence.

Because what we are all able to do is that we are able to tap [00:18:00] into that external intelligence that we didn't have time to study. Like a lot of us- 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah ... 

Sanne Kiilerich: have admired people that are studying this or that or want to upgrade our knowledge in different fields, but we just haven't had the time because you cannot take 25 years degrees.

Yeah. Not possible. But today you can tap into that external intelligence, which I find that especially in health and wellness, more and more people are doing that, 'cause they don't wanna take pills, they don't wanna take medications, injections, and all that stuff.

So they're looking for things that are a healthier way to, to supply the things that we need in our body. And for us, that is perfect, because AI's very happy to suggest what it is that we're doing. Somebody's searching for frequencies or even things like that, many times we will come up with a solution.

So that's fabulous for us obviously. But I think it's one of the challenges that we're gonna see, and especially many more things, like every entrepreneur or running a small to medium sized business or, stuff like that, a lot more things is [00:19:00] suddenly on our shoulders because- Yeah

everybody that's working with us or for us, they deliver their tasks 10 times faster or 15 times faster than before. So by the time you delegate something, by the time you get it back in your face, it's shoot, like you, you can't plan for that, and then it comes back, like with a document longer, like it takes longer for you to read it and verify than it did for them to push the button . It just spits out like lots of places. So it's it really demands a lot of leadership these these years or this month, this today, this week. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah.

Sanne Kiilerich: But luckily AI is catching up on that as well, like helping business owners to summarize what the team is making,

Maggie Perotin: yeah. And I can see that, and it's a great point you're bringing because you're right. Even as a solopreneur, I'm pro- I am able to produce so much more and move so much faster because I use AI. So now if you have a team of 30 [00:20:00] and their productivity increased because you taught them how, let's say 10 times, that means a lot more comes your way a lot faster.

Exactly. So how do you, what are you finding yourself shifting as a leader navigating those changes, but also still having a team that you're leading that you want it to be highly effective. What are you finding works lately? What doesn't work? What do you have to adapt? I would love to know that perspective.

Sanne Kiilerich: Yeah. I think that, as a leader, l- letting them be more autonomous first of all, by helping them to install the right things in the AI so that the AI is being that critical partner, not just- ... the cheerleader. Yeah. Because in the beginning, AI's just cheerleading everything.

It's "Oh, you have a good idea. Oh, you have this, you have that." "It's fabulous," everything it spits out, like whatever random stuff. And then it comes to me, and it's not thought through, but- 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah ... 

Sanne Kiilerich: by the [00:21:00] time you get Claude to understand, I want you to be not only mine, but also my team's critical thinking partner.

So then from before, if I gave a task, then they would come back to me, I would be that critical thinking partner saying, "Listen, but did you think about that? Did you check this? Where by the time they come to deliver it now, it's more and more finished. Like it's- Faster, yeah

But if you don't take the time to instruct them of how to use the AI, then you will just end up with thousands of papers of stuff that is just spat out of, like cherry guts stuff. Yeah. Like ba like that, and doesn't really fit to the concept, so I think that's one of those things, but it demands as much of us as leaders or managers of of teams than it does of the team members themselves. ... It actually puts more loads on, load on us than it does on them, but it's really interesting to see, and it's interesting to see what part of the team want [00:22:00] to grow with the challenge- and which ones of them is not that interested to grow with the challenge, and so on and so forth. So it's it's very interesting times, like I, I find it I find it extremely interesting- Yeah ... I must say. Of, of the 30 years that I've been a business owner, this is definitely some of the most challenging but also interesting and fun and scary times.

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. And I can see that, I've ... When I was a corporate leader, you can see every time something changed or the company evolved, there were team members who would, be excited about it, who, who would just move on and get on with it pretty quickly. And then there's always, like a small number of team members that are more resistant, and it takes them longer and so on.

I worked for a company that changed relatively fast, but it still wasn't nearly as fast as now. Thinking about now and how AI creates so much change, if [00:23:00] you're not a person who can adapt to change fast, you're gonna have a lot of challenges- Yes ... and a lot of trouble, whether you're a leader, whether you're an employee.

Yeah. Just because as you say, sometimes you can't predict what happens and what changes week to week, not to mention month to month or year to year. So I think also- For sure ... as leaders, we need to hone our change management skills to help as much as possible our best team members to adapt and move that way.

Because definitely when you're a business owner, entrepreneur, you have more of that adaptability on you because otherwise you wouldn't have survived for many years. Yeah ... but when you're an employee, it's a little bit of different mentality, and I think more and more employees will have to adapt that entrepreneurial mentality when you have to adapt to change very quick.

Sanne Kiilerich: Yeah. No I totally agree. We've always been a relatively small team, yeah. We are very [00:24:00] fast- yeah ... to navigate and join. So the team here has been used to things changing- ... much faster than a corporate. Absolutely. Yeah. It's not everybody that are able to adapt, yeah.

And it's very funny to see that some of the ones that were seniors before, and then there were more juniors in our company, that's switching completely. The juniors- ... are taking over- ... and they are now the ones helping the other ones, so it's yeah, that is challenging, because some has suddenly will be, yeah, above the ones that they are usually below or reporting to- and so on and so forth. So a lot of this power balance is shifting, like incredible. But interesting. And we have meetings about it here because with something of what we are talking about often and I keep telling them, "Listen, the only ones being replaced here in the future is the one that doesn't know how to work with AI."

Because- Yeah ... if I can have one person that knows how to work with AI and one that doesn't- Yeah ... the one that does will be the one producing, like 3, [00:25:00] 400, 500% better than the one that doesn't. Yeah. So nobody's, at least in our setting, nobody's being replaced unless- 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah

Sanne Kiilerich: they don't know how to use AI. Yeah. Because then they, they will simply fall off the train. Yeah. And it doesn't ... and actually the funny part is that some of those most slow to adapt has been the IT. Which is actually really hilarious, it's very funny to see that balance. It's it's brilliant. And but also the gap, we've always had a really flat organization you can say or relatively flat. But but it's changing, because the ones that really understands how to facilitate they just grow up the ladder, and there's nothing you can do about that, it's just a shift that's ... we don't want to change that in any way either. But it's, it will be challenging even in the coming year or two because those new ones coming in, they will have to drag, like some of the ones slower adapting, [00:26:00] which before it was the other way around.

But it's it's very... It's I love it actually. I do. I must say. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. It's like- It's like 

Sanne Kiilerich: a challenge. I always love a challenge. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah, I agree with you. It's very interesting times, challenging at the same time. There's so much opportunity and like ability for growth for us as leaders, right?

Not only understanding AI, but also navigating the, how employees adapt and how the dynamic, as you say, the power changes or the dynamic within the team changes because of it. So question for you, because I think we have kids around the same age, and when you look at, labor market or opportunities out there in the next, I know 10 years we can predict, but in the next few years as our kids grow, what do you think would be advice that you would wanna give them as they grow and enter very unpredictable times?

Sanne Kiilerich: Yeah. That's really [00:27:00] good questions. My kids, they're almost 11 and 13, the small ones my husband has from before. So he has some that are, just around 20s, and then he has those that are in 20s to mid-30s. 

And it's very funny to see also the change of those three groups, 'cause it's three groups of kids. Yeah. And it's very interesting to see. The small ones are the ones that are adapting fastest. They cannot facilitate the use of all these things, but they spot, they spot on the dot if something is made with AI, like whether it's videos or whatever.

And sometimes it fools me, i'm like, "Oh, look at this," "This is super nice." And it's like, "It's an AI video, Mom. Can't you see that?" And I'm like, "Oops." "Maybe I didn't see that," they're like... And they spot it, so they're trained to see these things faster, not even being able to facilitate or create a lot of things with AI yet.

But I understand. They come home from school and they say "I don't know, Mom. I think I just wasted most of my time today, because there was [00:28:00] noise in class and people were making funny things, and then we were learning Spanish history and we were, going through the names of the rivers or the mountains, and stuff like that."

And I'm like, "Oh my God, why do I even do this to my kids?" Like, why? Why do I make them sit there to learn something which you would never, ever need in the future? You will- ... you will not need To know by head a name of a river. That's the most insane knowledge to carry around.

If there's a limited amount of space up there, why would you fill it with that? So we actually had, as a family, we had many conversations about this and to figure it out. Okay, but where can we support them the best to be ready- Yeah ... for what's coming in the future, because- 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah

Sanne Kiilerich: what, how the school is today is not what they need when they are ready to go out and and have to start their journey as as adults. Yeah. So the outcome of that is is actually that as we have more travel [00:29:00] coming up- ... in the coming years to implement this therapy around the world in many different- countries as the local distributors they roll out we've been sitting down speaking to the kids and asking them, "How do you think we as a family can prepare for this? And what would be the best way to, to do this and that?" And what do they think about what they learn compared to what they potentially need in the future?

And one of the skills that I think is going to be a key factor- ... of what they need within the next five to 10 years is critical thinking. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Sanne Kiilerich: Critical thinking, and then be able to adapt to different cultures, to different people, Yeah ... to understand and be able to decode who's in front of them, yeah. And how to be around a different setting. So we've been speaking to them about it, and then they were like, "But why don't we just go to online school, and then we can travel with you guys," and, so on and so forth. That is the near future plan that we're gonna change [00:30:00] over to do that because of course the basics, the math, the, like the core skills and as what I keep telling them is that, of course, you can use AI for a lot of things, but the reason why AI exists, because somebody studied, otherwise AI wouldn't be here. And to be able to facilitate everything that AI can and to be critical on what A- AI's making for you, you also need to have a level of understanding.

You need to have a l- level of critical thinking and so on. So all the basics you need to learn, of course. But then- if we travel to Pakistan to implement NF Therapy and NF Care and we can bring the kids and they can do their three, four hours, whatever of of school that they have to do, and then the rest of the time they can discover the culture, they can discover, how different countries work, how different people work,

I don't think we can give them much better thing for the future, because then it'll be one month or three weeks in in the US, then it will be in Pakistan, then it will be in South Africa, then we will be in Saudi, then we will be [00:31:00] in UAE or in Dubai or wherever, or in Slovakia or in Poland, or, like you name it.

And I think that would give them one of those bases that they will be able to use in the future. That together with understanding of humanity, being a kind person, having empathy for what is happening around I think this is really important, so they would like to join us on that and then do what I said to them like, "I think it would be great, and if we do that, I think it'll be great if you can, join different cooking classes and different things and do some work, for example going somewhere."

We had an inquiry from Tanzania, the Physiotherapy Federation in Tanzania going there and then doing some some work to help with some of the things there. Even though they are young, I believe that they can offer something to, to where we are, we're going. Give them some classes of this or some of that, whatever [00:32:00] they can...

I think everybody can bring something to the world no matter the age 

Maggie Perotin: I 100% agree, and I agree that travel really expands your horizons, as you say makes you more even compassionate and considerate in how people live, right? That there's no one way to live. There's multiple cultures, multiple backgrounds, multiple things, and it allows you to see hey, my way of living is not the one right way.

There's million and hundreds of others, and understanding that, I found even in my... but the travel that I have done in my childhood and, later on in my youth really expanded my horizons.

And I do believe that's why I love to travel, and I believe kids should travel just to see. And I agree with you because I have been thinking about that what do my kids need? And even though it's school, maybe there's a lot of things that they're not learning that will really help them in the future.

But what is it that they can pay attention to? What I te- tell my [00:33:00] kids occasionally is that, first of all, you're building your social skills, right? Building friendship and navigating conflicts and learning how to be, understanding of others. Canada, and especially Greater Toronto Area, we're a very diverse city, diverse culture, and I love that.

So my kids go to school with kids from, with parents from different backgrounds. Most of them were born here, right? But the parents are immigrants, just like me and my husband or more of a, multiple generation Canadians. So they see that diversity and learn how to make friends, how to navigate people relationships.

Because I do think that people skills and that emotional intelligence will be key in the future just because more and more of technical stuff is just available, as you say, through AI, and you don't need years and years to, to learn this. And then the second thing is just the staying in that learning environment.

Because things change so [00:34:00] much, you have to adapt. And when you continuously learn whether it's station or not at this point in their age, it will allow them to not lose that, right? Whether it's three hours a day, it doesn't matter, right? But staying in that way where I'm learning through travel, okay, I'm learning discipline of, okay, I have to study for the test or whatever I have, so a little bit of that discipline, that's what really is key from school rather than, as you say, like memorizing the date in history or, or names of things like this.

Sanne Kiilerich: Yeah.

One thing is to study something about religion, for example- ... or study something about the tribes in Peru or, like once you've been there, you don't really need to study that much, yeah. You can spend a whole year studying something about the Jews and their traditions or the Arabs and their traditions.

Spending a week with a family of. whatever descent will give you that, but where you feel it in a physical [00:35:00] impact, which I- Yeah ... I really think is a great is a great way. And that's how I've learned myself. More or less everything that I've done is always been just trying it out.

When I started out with my first company, it was right after design school. I went to London, I worked for a trend forecasting company for a couple of years. I never worked in a fashion company, and I started a fashion company and people were like, "What? But how do you dare to do that?" "Oh, and have you made, like a business plan and have you done this and have you done that and have you thought it through and have you..."

Like all this have you, and for me it's like- ... listen, I can sit down and I can make a plan. I can do, I can spend four years perfecting a plan and the first week something happens and I cannot carry out that plan or something will not work the way that I expected it to.

Or I can just jump in there and I can try it out and I can stay on the least viable solution to test if this is something that can get wings or not, and then from there carry it on, yeah. So there's so many things that I would not have done in the last 30 years [00:36:00] if I had listened to those that say, "Oh, but have you?"

Or, and even my parents, "Oh, is this good? Is this safe? Is this smart? Is this..." But for me, it's just like trial and error, let's try it. Works, doesn't work. Let's try it. Works, doesn't work, so I teach the kids the same way, it's a- Yeah

My son, he wanted to do steak and rice the other day, and he never fried a steak before, and I was like, "Okay, I'm potentially having a really broken steak for dinner, or I might have a good steak," so then we talked about, okay, how do you make the perfect steak, and he asked AI, and how long time do you give it- and then what do you do, and you know what? It was perfect. I tell you. He fries steaks better than any of the restaurants in the house, and it was his first steak. It was perfect inside. Everything was great. The only thing was the timing. When do you start the steak? When do you start the rice? There was a little bit on, on that.

But besides that, it was brilliant, so I'm like, "Okay, just continue going with that," and then the day after, the little one was making burgers, and then, so now they've gotten [00:37:00] all into cooking because suddenly they have much more autonomous possibilities as well. Even though they're not very old, they can look it up, they can follow the instructions much easier than-

from a cookbook or, whatever, so I think they find 

Maggie Perotin: I think it's a thing because my daughter lately started, she wants steaks 

Sanne Kiilerich: I know. It's like they want to take care- Can you make this herself? ... everything. Yeah, exactly. "I wanna fry a steak."

And I'm like, "Okay. Take your scooter, go down to the supermarket and buy a steak-" and bring it back, and then let's see how it's going." Yeah. So now they are start, they are starting to enjoy that, and then starting to help cooking and doing all kinds of different things, and I think that's really lovely, like- 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah ... 

Sanne Kiilerich: they have more initiative than I had, probably at that age and yeah it's just, it's very interesting to see kids grow up. And also because this is my third set of kids, you can say. Because my husband already had two sets of kids by the time we met.

So he had the teenagers and the really young ones. So I saw those teenagers, I saw the young ones, and then the young ones became teenagers. My kids became the young [00:38:00] ones, and now they're becoming the teenagers. So I've seen it three times over by now. And then now the older ones, they're, they have, they're becoming parents themselves and so on.

And it's really interesting to see the difference between those three, sets, it's it's very interesting. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. And I love that, like what you mentioned even about entrepreneurship, right? That a lot of it is you just have to try things. You can't perfect.

It's okay to plan a little bit, okay, this is what I'm gonna do, but then you need to do it. Because it's impossible to predict every single thing that could happen and would've happened. If you wait for people's permissions or approval to do things, a lot of the time you're not gonna get it because their experience are different.

They're gonna project their fears and experiences on you, right? So I love the fact that you knew what you wanted and you just went for it, right? It's like in business, you just have to know what you want, decide, and just go for it. Exactly. And figure out as you go and perfect it and improve it as you go.

Sanne Kiilerich: [00:39:00] Awesome ... 

Maggie Perotin: I think it's a recipe for being a successful entrepreneur and then a great thing to teach our kids to just try things, right? 

Sanne Kiilerich: Yeah. And to just test and to come up with solutions, yeah. Because when you can think the solution, then you can make it today. Yeah.

Before you could think the solution, but you would need five, 10 other people to make it reality, yeah. Today you can make many of these things themselves. Yeah. So I often challenge them, like even though maybe we have more possibilities to buy things than some other families have because of the hard work that we put in for so many years.

I still always push them to to either try to make something or come up with a solution or- ... the other day they wanted to go play golf, so now they are into golfing suddenly because they went with some friends. Now they're into golfing. And then, "Oh, then I need to have a glove, and then I need to have this, and then I need to have that," and all those things.

And I was like, "Can you come up with some sort of solution instead of going to buy a glove before you actually find out if you wanna do golfing?" Because you just end up buying like... Because a month ago it was skateboarding, and [00:40:00] two months ago it was, Yeah ... scooters. Yeah. And then it was football, and then it was hockey field hockey, and then it was, like something new all the time.

So I told them like, "Listen, we can go to the golf course. You can shoot all the balls. You can do whatever you want, but we're not gonna buy gloves today." "So find a solution." And so they ran into the room, and then it didn't take much more than five minutes. They came out, and then they had taken, and I th- I thought that was a really great solution actually because you need to have something that doesn't slip on the- Yeah ... on the- Yeah ... on the golf club. So they came out, with their hand in a sock where they cut holes for the fingers, and it was one of those socks that you use in the jump land because it has these plastic things under them- Oh, really?

so that it wouldn't slip,

Maggie Perotin: there you go. 

Sanne Kiilerich: Perfect. And I was like, "Great," that was a fantastic solution. That's exactly what you needed. You needed something that didn't slip. So then we went there, and they did that. And the next time then we bought the- Yeah ... the real glove, and and some people were like, "Oh, what is [00:41:00] that you're wearing on your hand? That doesn't look like a golf glove," or something like that. And they were like, "We're just testing out to find something that's better than what you have." So you know, like a bit of confidence there as well, it's but as I usually tell them, like- Being in front of solutions, not just walking in other people's shoes- Yeah ... that's how you get somewhere in life. And, in the beginning, people will always make fun of you until they realize, oh, this was actually something that's going to change the world.

And we've been through that for sure. The, in the beginning when we came with with this technology to physical therapy conferences or, ... medical expos and, stuff like that, people thought we were crazy, it's just like- ... what is that? What is even that?

And how can that do something, it's just a sticker. And throughout so many years we've been going through that. And then placing it on them, and then they feel that pain sensation changing [00:42:00] from a 10 out of 10 to a two out of 10 within minutes, that's when they start to realize, oh, okay maybe I was wrong about that.

And I'm really trying to te- to teach my kids not to have that preset judgment for things that they don't know about, yeah. I don't know how many times I still have to tell adults, "I understand that you don't understand this technology," and that's completely fair, and I'm happy to tell you about it, but don't judge it before you've seen it or, you try it. Because that's how you miss out on a lot of things in life, and if we hadn't believed our mission, and if we hadn't worked hard to achieve it, we would never have this company today. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Sanne Kiilerich: And if we had understood what we were getting ourselves into 14, 15 years ago, probably wouldn't have done it.

But as we just throw ourselves in there- Yeah ... we have found a solution that helps millions of people around the world every month with pain. So m- that's that's obviously, sometimes you just need to do things that seems crazy to everybody else- Yeah ... but it feels right for [00:43:00] you. And I think that's that's one of the things that's, that is really really part of that path.

Maggie Perotin: And I love that lesson because it's so true, right? It's it's even like with- part and hood, I think. If everybody knew what it takes to have kids, there would be no kids on this earth. 

Sanne Kiilerich: There'll be no kids. 

Maggie Perotin: M- For sure ... much less, right? And it's the same with entrepreneurship. And I see you say if you believe in something and want to achieve something, you just need to do it, right?

And then figure it out. And it's great that you held that belief because of course, especially in your case, when you're inventing something completely new, when nobody knows about it, they'll place their judgment on it without knowing what it is. Oh my God. You have to have that strong belief that will carry you because everybody around you is telling you that it's not gonna work or that it's crazy or whatever.

And- 

Sanne Kiilerich: Yeah, 

Maggie Perotin: absolutely ... I love that. 

Sanne Kiilerich: Absolutely. It's there's a lot of indoctrinated people in this world- Yeah ... and especially in this field. And yeah it takes a little bit of [00:44:00] of turning heads until they, they do understand it. But, and this is also not a solution for everybody.

Absolutely not. No. We don't want to be for everybody even because that doesn't that doesn't make sense for us. We go with those that go with us, and it's always been like that. And that's the way it has spread to 70-plus countries, because- 

Therapists and doctors that understands and sees the outcome of what we do- They come to us because they say, "Listen, this is something that we've never seen done before, but we can see the result is there. We want to be able to do the same results with our pain patients, for example, or other optimization, or people that doesn't sleep, or people that are stressed," or, like all of those kind of things.

So it's it's been something that's traveled from country to country, one by one over, over all these years and now it's hitting the big medical institutions, it's hitting the hospitals in the Middle East, in the US, and so on and so forth. So now it's really starting.

But something like this is something that [00:45:00] even with AI you cannot shortcut that journey, because it takes a certain time for a product, for a concept to mature, Yeah ... so that it has been through these things. And I can see today that we have a massive advantage because we've actually been so long on the way that in itself gives some baggage to the solution-

and to the project, yeah. So when we hit the medical distributors in Saudi and Pakistan and South Africa and the US and so on and so forth it really weighs on their scale that it's something that we've been thoroughly working through for so many years. So- so this is this is a very very good thing.

So it's not everything that you can just fast pace and I usually say it's the same as you can grow a strawberry very fast, and you can mature it very fast, but it just won't taste well, because it hasn't gotten the sun, it hasn't gotten the love- Yeah ... it hasn't gotten all those things.

No matter how many chances we have to fast-track things today there is still a maturity [00:46:00] to, to most to most of the things. So it's very easy to get an idea- Yeah ... and it's a completely different things to bring it to life. Yes.

And I love all these things with entrepreneurship, and I love to see all these things flourishing and and coming out and it's nice to see that a lot of people had a lot of good ideas for a long time, they weren't able to carry it out, and now they actually have a better chance to carry out some of those things because it's less it's less heavy in the investment from the beginning.

I, I wish that many of the things that we've done over the last 14 years that we hadn't done it before this year, 'cause oh my God, we could have done it for tenths of the price or less. It's But the, but it's all part of the, it's all part of the journey. 

Maggie Perotin: Part of the journey. Yeah. 

Sanne Kiilerich: Yeah, it's part of the journey.

Maggie Perotin: For sure. 

Sanne Kiilerich: It's part of the journey. 

Maggie Perotin: So when people, where people can find you, how they can connect with you, so whether they're individuals or, health and wellness practitioners, how do people get ahold of you? 

Sanne Kiilerich: For the practitioners, we have [00:47:00] ANFAcademy.com. And this is our collective of our education, whether it's for the physiotherapist, whether it's for the wellness professionals- if it's for sports coaches and trainers and so on, or even if it's with the animals. We work with a lot of animals as well. So we have the same sort of sticker the discs, the devices but a bigger size for camels, horses, like all the bigger animals. Their nervous system is bigger, so therefore we need a delivery system that is is a bigger shape.

And then for the individuals if it's individuals in the wellness, in the entrepreneurship and all that, they go to ANF.care, which is our page where we have products directly to deliver.

There will be five of the products that are there readily available. But sending us a message, for example, "Oh, I would really like to do liver detoxification," or, "I would like to do this or that," then we can open up for those products. But they're not on the open page as an entry-level product because there's a little bit of [00:48:00] testing and and trying.

Like once you apply it the first time, you you usually start with one of those five products, and then you can grow on from there. And then we have our practitioner network. For those that have pain, have different organ dysfunction or, whatnot, that will be on ANFTherapy.com, where you can find practitioners to contact, or you can always write one of our chats in the different websites and we will help you find the nearest one.

It's not all of them that are shown on there 'cause some of them- ... they are so full they don't take any bookings unless it's on recommendation, or some of them, they work in clinics where they're not allowed to advertise it, but the clinic does, and so on and so forth. So it is a little bit d- different, but we are never any further away than a chat.

And then for athletes we have a specific a specific program for- 

... 

Sanne Kiilerich: Semi-pro athletes and professional athletes, and that's on ANFSportsPro.com. So all of them are ANF Care, ANF Therapy, ANF Academy, ANF Sports Pro, ANF Animal. 

Maggie Perotin: Then 

Sanne Kiilerich: they are all there. [00:49:00] Yeah. 

Maggie Perotin: And if you share those links with me, we'll put them in the show notes.

So before we finish, one last thing, a message to an entrepreneur who maybe has an idea, whether it's a brand-new idea or, as you say, an improved idea of something that exists. What would be a message you have for them? Just fucking do 

Sanne Kiilerich: it. Yes. There, there's only bad ideas. The only bad ideas that are there is the ones that are never being tested, right?

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Sanne Kiilerich: Because you don't know if it's a good or a bad idea. And I don't know how often I meet people that are, "Oh, I've been dreaming about an, being an entrepreneur for the last 10 years," and I'm like, "No, you have a wish." Yeah. But a wish is something completely different. A dream is something you actually carry out.

So that's the difference. Take action and do it, and especially now with all the help, you don't need to have a 10, 10 team people anymore. Now you can ask AI to outline a lot of those things. So it's a [00:50:00] completely different game today starting something than it was before.

It's more crowded in the market for sure. But the speed of, in which you can get things out and with the limited cost that you can get things out today there's no reason to not try it, but ask AI first to be your critical thinking partner, then propose the idea and then he will tell you or she will tell you if it's already been done, if it's already out there and whatnot.

Don't waste your energy on things that's already there, so- 

Maggie Perotin: Love 

Sanne Kiilerich: it ... go and go out and go and do it. You made- 30 years, 30 years into the game I would never have done a day different really, even though some of the days it looks shite. But yeah, there is nothing that can... the true flame of entrepreneurship I don't think you can shut that off.

Like I would be miserable if I had to work for someone. 

It just wouldn't work for me. 

Maggie Perotin: Thank you so much for doing it with me. I really appreciate you and thank everybody [00:51:00] for listening. 

Sanne Kiilerich: Thank you. And I'm looking forward to see whatever results you guys are making out there or whatever things you are, you're doing or trying out the devices.

I'd love to, to see some sleep results coming in. It's it's always super interesting to see it applied in so many different places.