I’ve Been Quiet. Here’s Why.

You are not a dataset. You are art and science. And your health deserves to reflect both.

I’ve been quiet - not because I disappeared, but because I’ve been building something(S).

When I left my full-time role at Equinox, it wasn’t a soft landing. It was a leap into a future I felt certain about - one where health wouldn’t just be reactive, clinical, or data-driven, but behavioral, cultural, and deeply personal. At the time, that vision felt a little early. Today? It feels urgent.

Over the past year, I’ve immersed myself in the cracks and contradictions of the health space. Watched buzzwords morph from wellness to biohacking to longevity. I’ve watched the consumer become smarter, more demanding. Watched AI inch closer to the center of it all.

And with every passing month, my conviction has only sharpened:

We don’t need another supplement brand or fitness tracker. We need a new operating system for being human.

Here is the thing….:

The systems are broken. The customer is not.

People want to take care of themselves now more than ever. We saw it post-COVID. We see it in the rise of Function Health, Oura, Whoop, and every single friend who now tracks their HRV. We see it in the questions people are finally asking their doctors.

And yet the systems - healthcare, politics, even consumer health - are still rooted in a past that doesn’t see the individual. We’re on the edge of change because education is rising. Social media is forcing transparency. People are asking better questions.

AI is our biggest unlock - but we’re scared of it.

The truth is, personalization isn’t a new idea. We’ve known for years that N-of-1 data matters. That the future of health isn’t about population averages—it’s about you and your unique data sets.

This idea isn’t revolutionary. If you're curious, I highly recommend The Age of Scientific Wellness by Dr. Leroy (Lee) Hood and Dr. Nathan Price - currently the CSO at Thorne Health and a professor at the Buck Institute - whom I had the pleasure of speaking with. They talk about Arivale, a company that aimed to do exactly this - and failed spectacularly. Why? The tech just wasn’t ready.

But now, AI is making this vision possible at scale.
And yet, most of the industry is still resisting it.
Instead of redesigning systems to be personal, we’re optimizing broken ones.

We don’t actually have “enough science.”

Sure, we’ve studied how iron deficiency impacts energy. But what about the biology of chronic self-criticism? Internalized stress? Heartbreak?

We know—intuitively and increasingly scientifically—that thoughts shape the body.

In Ellen Langer’s Counterclockwise study, older men who acted as if they were 20 years younger saw measurable improvements in strength, memory, and vision in just five days. Placebo research, like Benedetti’s work in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, shows that belief alone can trigger real changes in immune response, pain, and even dopamine levels.

But we’re nowhere near measuring this at scale.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT now has 400 million weekly users, and therapy ranks as the #2 use case for AI, according to an Andreessen Horowitz study - reminding me that people are searching for meaning and companionship, not “health” as we currently define it.

So while we chase metrics, we need to stay humble: you can only track what you know how to measure. And there’s a whole world of data we don’t even have language for yet.

So what do we do in the meantime?

We live at the intersection of art and science.

Track what’s measurable. Blood work. Sleep. Hormones. Microbiome. But also: feel into what’s intuitive. Your joy. Your energy. Your relationships. Your body’s signals. Your resistance. Your rituals.

This dual approach - equal parts data and self-awareness is the only real path toward proactive health.

Because personalization will be table stakes. In five years, no one will think it’s novel that your health recs are based on you. What’s not table stakes? The behavioral layer - the deeply human part of why we don’t go to bed on time, or stick to routines, or change habits we know are hurting us (but maybe make us happy?)

AI can tell you to sleep 8 hours. So can your doctor. But what makes you actually do it?

That question—the messy, emotional, behavioral one—is the one I’m obsessed with.

As for me? sleep is my non-negotiable.

Which is ironic, because for a long time, I wished it wasn’t. I used to dream (pun intended) of a pill that would let me bypass sleep altogether - just so I could live more, do more, be more.

But the truth is, nothing ruins my life faster than sleep deprivation.

Not skipping workouts. Not eating sugar. Not stress. Sleep, for me, is the foundation.

It’s what drew me to Equinox in the first place. The day I met Harvey Spevak (as sleep deprived Investment Banking Associate) I asked him - half-joking, half-terrified - what he thought about sleep. I expected the usual Wall Street flex: four hours a night, hustle culture, go-go-go. Instead, he looked at me so seriously and said, “I always prioritize sleep. Ideally eight hours.” (And yes, he still finds time for DAILY sprints. Sorry Harvey, spilling your secrets.)

I’ve never forgotten that.

Now, I sleep at least 8 hours. I function like crap on 6. And I no longer feel bad about it.

In fact, I protect it like a CEO protects a billion-dollar idea. Because for me—and maybe for you—that is the idea. That your body, your mind, and your rhythms are the product. You just have to listen.

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PS. If you’re building, working on, thinking about or have seen something in and around this world I love so much (luxury, health, etc.) please reach at julia@insearchof.co