Our Story
It still feels crazy. Crazy that it’s been ten years since my family and I actually took the leap and started Activation Products. That we’ve spent ten years searching for products to give people better quality of life. Ten years supporting healthy people all over the world and helping them sustain their best selves, naturally.
“The hardest part is accepting how simple the answers are.”
-Ian Clark, Founder
It’s hard to believe because ten years ago, my health was at rock bottom and I nearly lost my life. It wasn’t alcohol or drugs… My health crisis was caused by something a lot more dangerous:
Ignorance. Let me explain.
I used to live my life like I was running on empty. Overworked and under-rested. Never thinking about what I put into my body. Eating the ‘standard’ American diet. At 46, that all changed. I woke up to the sobering fact that you reap what you sow. I’d neglected my health for years, thinking I was invincible, thinking nutrition didn’t matter.
I was overweight. Sick. Nearing a breakdown. I just didn’t know it.
You see, when you work 90 hours a week… when you’re buckling down trying to put food on the table for your family (I’ve got a big family)… you put your health second. I wasn’t being reckless but I was being thoughtless. Eating whatever was in front of me. Taking pills for any problem that came up. Ignoring stress.
Then it happened: My life changed…
My body started to unravel. Doctors told me I was suffering from multiple conditions. They said I probably only had ten years left. They wanted to open up my gut, stuff me with pills, manage the pain. I didn’t want to manage anything. I just wanted to be healthy again.
I wanted my future back. I walked out of that doctor’s office hopeless. Lost. Trapped by regret. Frozen in thought for days.
“What if I had done things differently?”
“What if I had done things better?”
It was my oldest son (Anthony) who snapped me out of it. He woke me up. Reminded me that this is the real world. That things only get better when you make them better. I remember the day he came to me. He was calm, collected. He told me…
“You’re sick and broken. You don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself.”
In that moment I decided to take my life back. In that moment I decided that if I was broken, it was time to rebuild. I looked Anthony in the eye, got up from my bed, handed him the family camera and told him to take a photo of me…
That’s me. Well, that was me. I’m not proud of it. Not because of the way I looked, because of the way I felt. Sick. Depressed. Tired. That guy right there was staring into an early grave, ready to try anything to turn back the clock.
That was the day Activation Products was born.
You see, to me, Activation Products didn’t start off as a company. It was an idea. A vision of a brighter, healthier future. A promise of feeling good (naturally), of youthful aging and of reaching the top level of health no matter your starting point.
My Starting Point: Ground Zero
It didn’t matter. I had faith. I knew there had to be a natural way to rebuild my health from the ground up, and I was determined to discover it.
I asked my doctor to hold off on the surgery. I wanted to give myself some time to make things better on my own. I took a huge risk doing that and I don’t suggest you ever ignore your doctor, but I felt like I had no other options. I didn’t want to be sliced open. I didn’t want to live the next ten years relying on pills. To me, that was giving up.
Anthony and I started reading everything we could get our hands on about nutrition, superfoods, you name it. We completely changed the way we ate. If my problems started in my gut, we figured the solution should start there too.
Around that time, someone introduced me to supplements. Specifically, powdered strains of microalgae. One of them was a marine phytoplankton supplement. Right away, I knew the marine phytoplankton was the only one I was interested in. I noticed that it started to change my health, my perspective and my life. But I knew it could be better. I knew if I could get my hands on clean, raw, unprocessed marine phytoplankton it would be a hundred times better than the processed powdered versions.
The next day I quit my 90 hour/week job and Anthony and I started traveling and researching full-time.
We went to Europe, to California, to British Columbia; searching for the cleanest source of this tiny ocean plant we could get our hands on.
We found our miracle plant in Spain.
Rather than growing the phytoplankton in an open pond environment or taking it straight from the polluted ocean, a group of marine biologists was using a photobioreactor to create what was essentially a sealed off mini-ocean. They were able to eliminate pollutants and have greater control over genetic selection this way.
It was the cleanest and most powerful marine phytoplankton either of us had ever tasted.
That was it for me. I couldn’t go back. The feeling was incredible. Every day I could feel myself getting exponentially healthier. I was used to feeling worse as I aged but this was the opposite. Every day, as I grew older, I felt better and better.
I knew I had to share this feeling with as many people as I possibly could and Anthony knew it too. We flew back home immediately.
That was when Activation Products became more than just a vision.
My 16-year-old son Allan coded a makeshift website for me and within a week, we were up and running. Anthony was in charge of marketing, I was in charge of product development, and Allan was our IT guy.
We were running the whole operation out of our basement. Ordering batches of marine phytoplankton and mixing them with ocean minerals fresh-to-order. We called it Oceans Alive, and we were sharing this amazing stuff with as many people as we could. I continued traveling back and forth to California, discovering new superfoods and foundational nutrients that were helping me rebuild my body. My health was improving by leaps and bounds.
After some time I went back to the doctor and my results shocked him.
I was still suffering from some pretty intense health issues but every day I could feel my body getting stronger, healthier.
Then I got even luckier. I met a man who pressed raw seed oils. We started talking. I told him about my gut issues and health problems, and he handed me a bottle and suggested that I try some of his oil. Now, I know it sounds crazy, but within the first three days I could tell something was different.
I felt like I was suddenly giving my body the exact thing it had been missing. It felt like healing in a bottle.
I got linked up with the German engineer who developed the pressing technology to make these powerful oils, and the rest is history. Activation Products started growing almost as quickly as I was healing.
My sons and I moved out of our basement and started renting a building in a small town in Ontario, Canada. We started hiring more people. Expanding our business. Reaching thousands, tens of thousands of people every day. Sharing the products that changed my life with people looking to improve theirs.
Over the next ten years our company grew, but the values and principles remained the same. We were always searching for the best ingredients, the most vital nutrients; reaching for the top level of health. We wanted to do everything we could to spread the word about the natural approach that had helped me so much.
Fast Forward to Today.
That’s me now. Healthier than I’ve ever been in my life. I didn’t just recover, I didn’t just rebuild; I was reborn. These superfoods have given me a second chance. A new lease on life.
Activation Products has grown, but we’re still a family business. We employ about 50 people all together (half of them my kids…haha). Some of us are experiencing top level health, some of us are still rebuilding our bodies, but every single one of us has the same drive I had ten years ago. The same hunger for discovery. The same commitment to feeling better and better day by day.
We’ve dedicated the last ten years to uncovering superfoods and products that make people feel better. If you’ll let us, my team and I want to share those discoveries with you.
I’m here to tell you one simple thing that I nearly had to lose my life to really learn:
What you put into your body counts.
It makes a difference. It really does. Functional, foundational nutrients transformed my life. Every product you see on this site can change your life too. I guarantee it.
Whatever issues brought you here today can be solved. You just need to take a leap of faith. Our products are naturally improving quality of life for thousands of people right now. Don’t live your life running on empty like I did. Don’t settle for subpar health.
