Seizing the Years with Robert Gielow
From being scouted as a young runner in the former East Germany to navigating a love-hate relationship with sales and eventually landing in the world of omega-3s and pharma, Robert Gielow’s journey is a masterclass in unexpected pivots, internal grit, and the long game of identity. We talked about everything from cellular health to sport and legacy, but what really struck me most was his raw honesty about rejection, self-reflection, and the pursuit of excellence without applause.
“My first coach told me, ‘Robert, you’re so ordinary. You’ll never achieve anything in life.’”
That line haunted him for decades, but instead of letting it define him, it became a catalyst and actually one that helped shape the choices, chances, and chapters of his entire career from a pretty young age.
So, Robert began running at eight, and by his teens, his training was nearing professional levels. He was part of a system that still carried echoes of the state-run scouting programs of East Germany, where talent was identified early and rigorously developed. But he wasn’t just good at it; he also really loved the winning part. He loved numbers. He loved clarity. Those things didn’t leave him when he left the track.
In college, a Canadian mentor who helped him secure a scholarship to a U.S. university delivered a wake-up call that Robert wasn’t ready to hear at the time. “You can keep training to be an 800-meter runner,” his coach had told him, “but it’s never going to take you where you want to go. Or… you can lean into your diesel engine, accept you’re built for distance, and become something truly special.” It’s the kind of advice that sounds simple, but only lands when you’re ready. And at that exact moment, Robert was not. Not yet. He kept chasing his dream race even as his body and coaches told him otherwise.
It took a marathon (which he basically signed up for almost as a joke!) to change everything. With just five months of training alongside a full-time job, Robert finished in the top 20 at the German national marathon championships. His time? Wait for it… 2 hours and 30 minutes. Not bad for someone who "wasn't built for it." “That’s when I thought that maybe that coach was right all along.”
There’s something universal in this. How many of us keep chasing the version of success we’ve idealized in our own minds, even when life and our natural talents are (sometimes clearly!) nudging us elsewhere?
I shared with Robert how that same lesson had shown up in my own life. How I resisted the call to teach after leaving my training and the classroom behind, only to circle back years later when the world made it impossible to ignore. You don’t always want to do what you’re good at. But sometimes, you’re being handed something ( call it a gift, a path, a clear signal) and the hardest part is accepting it.
That dissonance between what you want and what you’re meant for is something we all navigate, whether in sport or business or love. And Robert puts it plainly:
“Sometimes your gift isn’t what you wanted. And your dream isn’t what you’re gifted at. But when they finally meet, that’s the sweet spot.”
We spoke about impatience, too. Not just the day-to-day kind, but the restless inner drive that refuses to accept walls as permanent. For Robert, that quality, once a frustration, became an unexpected strength. “I can’t stand still. I hate waiting in line for anything. But maybe that’s my gift. It’s not a weakness. It forces me to keep moving, to look for the other way forward.”
Robert’s ambitions were shaped, like so many of ours, by the world he grew up in. In the former GDR, there were no entrepreneurs, and I mean literally no company owners. Everything was state-run. His highest vision? Becoming a managing director. “That was the biggest title I knew. It took years to even imagine something beyond that.”
But over time, his discomfort with taking orders and with being boxed in became too strong to ignore. And when he stepped into ownership, he found the liberation he didn’t know he’d been seeking all along. “Now that I’m solely responsible for my decisions, I could not be happier. Work doesn’t feel like work anymore.”
As the CEO of Mentry Pharma, I asked Robert what trends he's seeing emerge in the health and wellness space. His answer? “The pace of discovery is lightning fast,” he told me. “What’s true today might be outdated tomorrow. You have to stay adaptable. Curious. Humble. He referenced a documentary he’d recently watched on Netflix about the microbiome. It stuck with him, not just because of what it revealed, but what it exposed: that we’ve only mapped 3% of it. And yet, entire product lines and startups have been built on that 3%.
“It’s wild,” he said. “You either say, ‘That’s not enough data! I can’t build on that!’ or you do the best you can with what you’ve got. But you have to know that it could all change tomorrow.”
That duality of trusting current knowledge while being open to reinvention is something Robert sees as both a challenge and an opportunity. It’s showing up in everything from AI-driven diagnostics to women’s health to the booming (and often misunderstood) “longevity” industry. “Longevity is such a buzzword,” he said with a grin. “Ask 10 people what it means and you’ll get 10 different answers. But at its core? It’s about holistic health. Getting the basics right. Movement. Sleep. Real food. Community. From there, you can start to optimize.”
Robert lights up when he talks about this space. You can tell it’s not just a business to him, it’s a continuation of the same drive that once pushed him on the track. The same engine that refused to stand still. So, I took the plunge and asked him about creatine. As a former athlete, he knew it only as a muscle-building supplement. But working with longevity-focused clients exposed him to its wider applications, from brain health to cognitive recovery. He believes, just like iron, vitamin D, and omega-3s, creatine will eventually become a household staple. Part of a new baseline for proactive health.
And it makes sense. If performance in sport once meant milliseconds shaved off a finish time, performance in life now means staying mentally sharp, emotionally balanced, and physically capable for as long as possible. Surely, that’s real longevity.
“It’s about quality of life. Not just lifespan, but healthspan.”
That shift is something I believe more of us are waking up to. It’s no longer about pushing harder. It’s about pulling wiser. Taking stock. Going long.
As our conversation drew to a close, I asked Robert the most basic and most revealing question of all: What supplements do you take yourself? “All the ones I preach,” he laughed. “And I keep them in the fridge.”
For him, it's less about following a rigid daily protocol and more about tuning in. He takes vitamin D, occasionally Omega-3, and uses plant extracts for overall balance. He’s learned to listen to his body after travel, after heavy meals, when something feels off, and respond accordingly. “I’m not a rabbit,” he joked, “but when I’ve been eating too much meat, I just crave a big salad. My body tells me what it’s missing.”
This kind of intuitive approach to wellness is something we kept returning to. Especially when discussing women’s health, hormonal fluctuations, or autoimmune conditions (which I’ve experienced myself). The truth is, even before we talk about supplements, most people are missing the mark on the basics: rest, real food, movement, and social connection.
“I daydream about a time when a GP might say, ‘Let’s up your creatine, get more sunshine, maybe even adopt a dog,’” I told him. “There are so many lifestyle tools that could be part of the prescription.”
And when it comes to creatine? Well, neither of us could think of a group (beyond completely unresearched edge cases) that wouldn’t benefit from it in some way. It’s one of those rare, versatile tools that feels… almost universal. “Is it for you?” we both agreed, probably, yes.
Thank you so much, Robert, for sharing your story with us!
If you would like to be featured or know someone who would be great to feature, please don’t hesitate to email rachael@jenerise.com 😊
We all rise together,
Rachael Jennings | Co-Founder + CBO, Jenerise
