Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 196. Few Will Hunt 🦅

Episode Date: September 29, 2021

Everyone wants to eat! But FEW WILL HUNT.. Bedros shares with us the hockey stick growth that Few Will Hunt has cultivated, getting to 7-figures while still working full time jobs. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, and just as the brand speaks, everything here was earned through their dedication and hard work. 0:29 - Bedros introduces Joey Bowen and Drew Beech 2:28 - How did Few Will Hunt begin to lead the movement of earning over entitlement  12:35 - What was the process of making that first $1 from a sale 16:01 - The background of Joey and Drew 23:14 - Why you need to empty the tank fix your frazzled mind 27:52 - How important is quality is to your business 30:20 - Some big lessons for anybody starting a brand 38:14 - How pain brings you to new levels of growth 44:51 - Whats some feedback to help people make big strides in life   Connect with Few Will Hunt :   Instagram https://www.instagram.com/fewwillhunt/   See their latest drop :   https://fewwillhunt.com   Connect with Bedros Keuilian : Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bedroskeuilian/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/bedroskeuilian/ Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/user/KeuilianInc Twitter - https://twitter.com/bedroskeuilian LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bedroskeuilian/   Buy Man Up and get Bedros' High-Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/   Subscribe to My Channel for weekly videos: https://www.youtube.com/bedroskeuilian

We wanted to build a business that aligned with the impact that we wanted to have on the world, which was restoring the dignity of hard work. You know, less shortcuts, more earning. Hey, welcome to The Empire Show. My name is Bedros Kulian, and this is an inside look. And today we've got two really awesome guests. They're gritty, their blue collar, they are hustle, and they are humble. and they are the co-founders, two cousins of Fuel Hunt.

And you might have seen me wearing the Feudel Hunt gear for the last maybe year and a half or so. I'm not only a customer of the brand, but I'm also a fan of the movement. And so here today are Joey Bowen and Drew Beach. Welcome, dudes. Thanks for having us. Thanks for joining me. So, you know, the show was all about helping entrepreneurs in their money and their mission and their mindset. right and so you guys have had this crazy ass like hockey stick of a growth experience it was the end of

2017 when you guys made your first sale decided to actually sell something and then i mean here we are 2021 and already 2020 if i'm not mistaken was a seven figure year for you yes right and so that's a very short period of time to get an apparel company brand a movement and anything to hockey stick, having no background in an industry. So we're going to kind of dig into that today. And we're going to not only share your wins and your losses, but also tips, tactics strategies to help the audience so that they don't have to deal with the frustrations that you did as you came

up as entrepreneur. So first off, I guess the thing that I didn't know until I got on the phone with you was that for some reason when you sent me a box. the clothes, I just assume this is like this huge company with like hundreds of employees and all this thing. And then when we got on the phone and you're like, yeah, it's me and my cousin, you know, we both have like full-time jobs and, you know, and we're running this thing. I was like, tell me more. How did you guys even start the Fuehunt brand? Yeah, I mean, you know, like you said, two cousins. And when we spoke that first time, we were warehousing out of Drew's

basement. You know what I mean? So definitely humble beginnings. Drew and I, are like-minded, you know, we're hard workers, and we noticed a current in today's society that folks were no longer willing to work hard for the results that they wanted. They were preferring shortcuts over the hard work or the suffering sometimes that's required to build something great. So I think, you know, we wanted to build a business that aligned with the impact that we wanted to have on the world, which was restoring the business. dignity of hard work, you know, less shortcuts, more earning. Yeah.

What, and you know, whoever feels like they should chime in on this, feel free to chime in, but restoring the dignity that comes with hard work, what do you guys think happened to that? Because I feel it's completely gone. People lean into comfort and easy over adversity, suffering and doing the work. What happened to that? What happened to hard work? What happened to the dignity of that? I mean, in my opinion, technology and every efficiency we've created, we've also created in our lives.

So we now can press a button to turn on the TV or press a cup our hands to turn on the lights. And we just think of how we're always going to make things easier. We've done it to a fault, maybe. And nowadays in our education system as well, we're not taught to lean into things. and when the going gets hard to not quit, we're just taught to, and this is a whole other subject, but fall in line with society, and just do what you're meant to do,

or because society does it. Yeah. So it has been a lot easier for parents to encourage their kids to give up, start over, you don't like that, it's okay. Yeah. You know, it's, I guess it really started with, the whole like everyone gets an award for losing. Participation trophies for sure.

Yeah, yeah. I think that like Drew was hitting on our convenience society has, has conditioned us that shortcuts not suffering. Yeah. Right. Is the path to doing something great. And that's something that we didn't disagree or we disagreed with, you know, 100%. And listen, like in life we do look for efficiencies.

Like it's just kind of the way it is I imagine the caveman At some point it was like all right I got this giant tree I need to chop it down I could either like pick at it with something Or I could take a rock and tie a You know a tree branch to it

And make a makeshift axe So you know Easier is A weapon of survival Of efficiency But now where we've gotten To live in this convenience economy Like

you can literally you just have to even i remember traveling and well i need to think ahead and book a cab for the night before now i just pull up an app and you're either ubering which is great it's convenient it's there but then now food can show up it's great it's convenient i don't even have to go out and start the car go to a place and the convenience economy the convenience lifestyle the comfort that comes with that has kind of led us into a place of comfort that's now counterproductive to the human race even surviving surviving and you know everybody even reaching you know their goals that started to condition us into thinking that the convenience that we have for food and taxis and things like that

that's the same type of convenience we can have for our goals right which is not true right well said and what that's done is it's also bred entitlement you know what I mean so they were you know the shortcuts and the entitlement they were two of the things that we saw happening in our places of business our daily lives society in general and like I said we wanted to create a movement, a community, a tribe of people that thought like us are willing to work hard for their results, right, to combat what was happening. Yeah, that's a very powerful thing you said. The convenience of having Uber show up, Lyft show up, your food show up through Grubhub,

hell, Instacart, you know, like you could literally, I just found out the other day, my wife was like, hey, look, you can take like a banana, and you can say I want the green banana, the yellow banana, the one that's yellow with the brown spots or the fully wrapped one, and then you just pick the picture and then it just shows up to your door, right? Which is nuts, but we've taken that convenience and people go, well, everything in life should be that convenient. And so if I try to launch a business and it didn't happen as quickly as my burrito showing up to my front door, then clearly this wasn't meant to be.

I need to go restart, restart, everyone's always restarting. And never really digging in and committing to the hard work required. you nailed it there and so to that point you're like hey we're going to create this community like how did the two of you even start that dialogue that hey we think hard work has become an endangered species like how does that dialogue even start well it started in our our workplaces where we were um spending our day day lives and every day we would call each other and commiserate for lack of a better word but just connect on because it was you are the some of the people you surround yourself with and jovie and i

felt like we were that for each other. And we were like, there's got to be people out there to think the way we do, like about society and the way things going and how you have to work hard and have a relentless refusal to quit. And we were like, let's start a community. And then Joey one day was like, well, the community actually came after this. But Joey one day said, you know what it's like? It's like everybody wants to eat but few will hunt when we were commiserating.

Yeah. And now at this point, you both had a job. Correct. Yeah, full-time employment. Full-time employment. And so what did each of you do? Because I'm guessing it wasn't in online sales where you weren't like, you know, Instagram marketers and all that stuff.

None of that. None of that. I was in sales and selling custom apparel. So that's where our background comes and I'm going to the industry. And Joe was in tech. Yeah, I was in technology, software architect. Yeah, software architect. But I was like, what did you say?

did like everyone sleep but few will hunt it and i was like we have let's put it on the shirt and then joey went back when was this in terms of timeline would you say 2017 yeah beginning of 2017 okay so beginning of seven 2017 this is just a phone call and you guys were commiserating as you say it was a daily meeting yeah yeah yeah on our commute home yeah yeah yeah we're both driving through there driving through the mean streets of philly but but you know what there's a there's a big lesson there right yeah you could just be listening to either talk news and hear about how the world is falling apart. Absolutely.

Everyone's, you know, the economy sucks. Everyone's getting shot and raped and mugged and, and Biden or Trump or whatever the argument is. Or you can just brainwash yourself with music, which isn't wrong with that, but you get lost in music on that drive. Or you got the option of, hey, reaching out and supporting one another

and you had this like daily meeting over a phone on your commute home where you guys are supporting and talking and connecting and this idea of, yeah, you know what it's like? everyone wants to eat but few will hunt yeah and then Drew's like hey wait a minute that's got to be on a shirt do you say that jokingly or is that no I was like I was like dead serious if we put that on the drawer I'll fucking rock that shit every day like I was like that I rock it that's literally the one that's wearing out the fast yeah yeah so a little more back story I'm a bow hunter yeah right so that mantra is something that we say at my family

cabin as like a celebration of the hunt sure resilience you know what I mean of uh self-reliance. Yeah. You know what I mean? So that's where the mantra came from, but it's applicable in pretty much every aspect of life. Every category of life, exactly. And so when was that online community created? Yes, we started that in 2017.

Because that was our avenue to sell that. When we decided we wanted to sell that shirt, because we originally considered just printing them for ourselves. Yeah, yeah. And when we decided, like, yeah, there's other people out there that think like us and work like us. You know, we were on Instagram at the time. We thought that was the best place to build the community.

And although we had a shirt, we weren't actively selling it. There was no selling environment. What we were doing was creating content and posts to attract people to the community. So to attract like-minded individuals to build that movement, that force. Yeah. Now let me ask you this. Was that a strategic play? Like, all right, we're going to launch an Instagram page to create a community of like-minded people

and then ultimately we'll sell them something? Or was it like, hey, we just want to be able to connect. It's like-minded people. Yeah, now there's no, I wish I could say there was a greater strategy at play, but no, there wasn't. I think it was out of the pure intention of building that community, that tribe. Yeah. And we thought, hey, it would be cool if they bought our shirt too.

Yeah, really. Yeah, and oh, by the way, they bought the shirt. Hey, we also have this shirt. Yeah. And it was literally just one shirt. Yeah. One shirt. We have.

Didn't sell very well. It wasn't. Didn't sell very well. I don't, no one has the, I don't. It was my design expertise. Is that? phone call Joey we were so so amped up on that phone call that Joe went back and did some design work on Microsoft Word yeah and it was Photoshop me yes no and uh he sent it to me I'm

like let's print it and we put a black text on a gray shirt it was literally just text at that point and uh we I have the first one framed and that's the only that's probably the last living one that Not many people bought. So, if I remember correctly, was it November of 2017 that you guys sold? Like, actually made your first dollars selling the shirt? Yeah, we had a come to Jesus moment. And you probably remember the question that I asked, you know, do we have a blog or do we have a business here? Because we're both fully employed.

You know what I mean? We're creating content, which on a daily basis. For that IG page. Long form, Instagram content. for that page and a lot of sacrifice was involved. It was time consuming to make sure that we were putting out quality content that added value to the members of our community. And we're sitting on a bunch of shirts. And I called Drew and I said, look, you know, we have a community, but do we have a blog or do we have a business here? Are we really serious about starting a business that

aligns with the impact that we want to leave on this world? And we said, let's sell some shirts. so we created a, I think it may have been a Cyber Monday deal, something like that, and the selling environment was created, and we sold some shirts that day. All right, so let's dive into that for a moment, and I want to take you guys back to, like, you know, your guys' background and even deep, like, you know, childhood, upbringing and all that stuff, because clearly all this stuff, you know, sometimes work ethic, grit, hustle is factory installed. other times. It's a combination of factory installed and upbringing. But we'll get to that in a minute.

So it's that, you know, you guys are coming up on Cyber Monday. You have this conversation where, hey, man, do we just have a blog here or do we have a business? We've got a box of shirts. And clearly you guys chose like, no, I think we have a business. Having never done any kind of online commerce, how do you guys even make the site look? What does a site look like at that point? It was like this perfect, beautiful Shopify site. It was not.

We were not on Shopify initially. We were on another service that was primarily for blogs, which you could probably guess since we had a blog and out of business at the time. Squarespace, close. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're really, we were putting so much time and energy into the quality of our apparel, even though we just had one shirt. Yeah.

We weren't discussing that. Like the best one shirt you'll ever wear. Right, but we weren't telling anybody that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the site was bare bones, you know, one skew. We may have added a hat by that time. you know, an additional, additional skill, maybe, additional product. One page that just spoke about our mission, really.

Restoring the dignity of hard work and, you know, our goal of building a community of people that were going to change the tide in society, you know. Good on you. And talk about it. Couldn't be a better timing of that. And so a big lesson here for the Empire Show audience is that speed of implementation trumps perfection every time. You know, you could have dove into the rabbit hole.

of let me just see what the best online shops are built on, what plugins they have, what shopping cards they use, and graphic designers. And that is literally procrastination through perfection. Or do what you guys did, which was, hey, listen, we've decided we're a business. And if we really want to create this community and do something big with it, we've got to sell these shirts

and you leaned into just creating a... Action. Yeah, action, exactly. Creating a site and making it happen. So let's now kind of backtrack because, you know, as I get to know you guys, there's like layers to you guys, right? And so you guys are from Philly. Definitely when you and I talked, I was like, okay, he does sound like he could also be a hitman, you know, for hire on the phone.

And, but I could also tell, like, there was this, like, East Coast directness that I really love and enjoy about you guys, this honesty and integrity that I could sense just come through over the text. emails phone calls what does this come from is a factory installed does it you know mom and dad bring this up in you my my parents always something to respect first so I mean I think that's where our genuineness or our integrity comes from I mean me personally like they always tell me respect but and they always helped me hard work but they didn't teach me to value thinking outside the box I would say So when I first told them I was going into sales, they weren't happy at all. So they were afraid that I was throwing away my salary.

And I wasn't living the... Because you were commission-based? Yeah, I was taking a huge risk of throwing away my salary for commission. And then even up until recently quitting my full-time job and going all in on this, it was just a matter of risk. It was just they didn't teach me that. So I think a lot of it came through for me personally was it started my weight loss journey. When I was in high school, I was almost 300 pounds.

And my girlfriend at the time broke up with me. And I was sad as fuck because I was like, no girl's ever going to hook up with me. Like I was like 16. I was like never going to have another girlfriend. I was like, I was like, I was like, my mom, I was like, mom, what I got to do to lose weight? And she said, eat chicken and run. And that's what I just ate chicken. I fucking rode my bike.

I was too fat to run. Those are good, solid programs. Eat chicken and run. I love that. And that's what I did. I just literally, I feel like ever since then, I just had a mentality for just progress and being 1% better every day.

So I think that's where it started for me, at least. Gotcha. So there oftentimes is a significant life event that kind of tips the first domino, right? You know, you hear the alcoholic who's been a functioning alcoholic, his whole career, his old life, just making it through. There's that one thing that happens at that Christmas party or in the office. And it's like, oh, crap, he loses his job.

He's about to lose his family. And he's like, I'm going to do something about this. And that's when they go into AA. I see men who go come into the project, you know, a significant life event has happened, either panic attack, anxiety attack, some kind of a crisis where they feel like, all right, man, I'm about to turn 40, 45, 50, and I feel like I'm living someone else's dreams and I don't, I'm not following any kind of internal passion that I have. I don't feel like I'm living my purpose on this planet yet I feel the gnawing of greatness

within me. So it's a significant life event that's in your face. Hey, for you, man, it was like, look, you're almost 300 pounds and you're in high school and girlfriend breaks up with you and you're like, whoa, whoa, like, this is painful enough where I need to do something about it. And, you know, the podcast that we did a couple weeks ago, Craig and I, where we talked about fitness is the ultimate gateway drug. And, you know, mom, I think, gave great advice. I know a lot of the fitness people watching this and nutrition people watching this.

And I know that's my industry guys. And you're like, wait a minute, you can't just eat chicken and run. What about all the muscle you're going to hold off? What about the results that you saw that gave you the confidence to wake up the next day? And maybe you started doing some research. Maybe it wasn't ultimately all chicken and running. at some point you start doing resistance training and finding out macros. But you know what?

In the beginning, if it just needs to be chicken and run, then God damn it, let it be chicken and run. Something that would be sad about keeping it simple. Yep. Right? And action. And like that's, she gave me a simple plan. Clear action. And even to this day, like, back to one of the points you're making was like, everybody wants to start a business.

And I hear that all the time. But there's a lot of work and action that goes into actually making a business. And like you said earlier, you could sit around planning your business all day or planning your weight loss journey all day. But it's just a matter of doing something. Yeah. I mean, I literally, when I had my gyms, premier results before I started a Fit Body Boot Camp, clients would come in and they were like, we're talking like 350, 400 pound clients, new clients. And I'm like, why, why did you wait until you're 350 pounds?

Why not at 300? Why not at 250? Why not at 200 pounds? Well, around 250 pounds, I started doing the research. I want to do paleo and keto and this and that. It's like, you know what? What if you, you know, obviously if I had known your mom then, what if you say chicken and ran?

You know, right? But there is something to a simple plan that you execute on. Like, all of life is about taking the complex, making it simple, and then execute. And as soon as your brain wants to be complicated, make it simple again and keep executing. Then you want to complicate it, make it simple and execute one more time,

And you go, holy fuck, I did it. I got there. And Joey, what about you? Like, was there some, you know, mom, dad, and it was an internal drive to decide, like, hey, there's something to be said about hard work and I'm going to lean into it. Because everyone else is leaning at the comfort.

And then, like, I feel like we're unique birds here sitting at this table. Or we're just like, hey, we want to suffer. I think, you know, my parents had me working early, you know, 12 years old working. What did you do? So my first. job was working in the rectory of my parish answering phones.

Okay. And I did that so well that I got promoted to Sacristin in the church. So that's the guy or the gal that sets up for like the mass and the weddings and the funerals. It's a lot of responsibility there, yeah. It is early mornings, a lot of responsibility. Yeah. I mean for a kid, right? Exactly.

Yep. Yep. Yep. As a young, as a teenager, young teenager. And then from there, I started working in a funeral home. Doing whatever I needed to do there. So I would detail cars. I would work the door at funerals Things like that and then from there I went to a moving truck, right? So you're seeing a pattern, right? Like you know Hard work got into me early and

What that helped me realize was I felt really good when I worked hard Because I felt like I was accomplishing something. Yeah, you know what I mean? So I've just had this. crazy internal drive ever since then to work hard and accomplish yeah i mean because it felt good early on you realized that it felt good to work hard be tired and accomplish something yeah yeah now my parents are both very hard work i mean i watched them hold down two three jobs a piece you know growing up so that had something to do with it and like i said they exposed me to the hard work early and i can't thank them enough for that that's great you know you know it's funny people

we reach out to me. They're like, hey, man, I can't sleep at night. I'm anxious. My brain's working. I'm stressed out. I'm like, you know what, have you considered going to sleep tired? Like, what do you mean? Empty the tank. Yeah. Go empty the tank. Just go to sleep tired. I go, what do you mean? Well, I work a full day. Go and just run and for every mile you do, do like 100 pushups, and then run another mile, do 100 pushups. And you do that for two hours. And you'll be so exhausted that you will just fall asleep because your brain will think about nothing. Again, it goes back to our first few words on this episode, which was everyone leans into comfort and convenience so much that the tank on every level, in terms of energy, because then what you, we consume caffeine, carbohydrates,

all these, we consume all this energy, but then we don't put it out. And then we go, no, it's 10 o'clock at night, I got to go to bed. You've done nothing to empty the tank. The craziest thing is when you empty the tank, the next day you wake up, you have potentially more in the tank. You go even harder the next day, which everybody's, ah, if I empty the tank today, I'm going to be so tired tomorrow. Actually not. You know, at least in my, in my eyes, my experience, if I empty the tank, I empty the tank every day the next day, I have that much more space in the tank, you know, to go even harder. So, yeah, I mean, I'm very fortunate that my parents exposed me to hard work early. And I got bit by the bug, you know, the hard work bug, and I've just had that drive ever since.

Yeah. And, you know, I read a quote. I forget who the author was. So if you all of them know who the author of this quote was, you know, do a screenshot and then tag me and write down the name of the author on this in your stories there. But it was something like the rent that we pay for our space and time on this planet is service to others. and I think that is so accurate, man. And I think what ends up happening is when we're anxious, depressed, overwhelmed, stressed out, it's because we are not paying our rent.

The rent is not being paid. We don't go to sleep, tired, exhausted, tank, empty. And subconsciously, you do have a sense of guilt. You're like, I am freeloading off this planet. Whereas we are all wired to have a sense of significance, fulfillment. it feels good to be able to do something, build something, grow something, impact something. And if you didn't, you just kind of played a video game and then screen sucked on Netflix. And then food showed up and out of convenience.

You just, you know, squash it down your gullet and chased it with a soda or a beer just to wash it down. Like, you're looking like an animal. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, especially today, I think that there's a lot of folks that treat life like it's a playground. Right? Yeah. You know, moving from amusement to amusement from pleasure to pleasure when it's really, It's a battleground. You should be setting up a battle for yourself on a daily basis that you have to work hard to win so that it gives you some kind of purpose and confidence.

Can I just pitch you guys the next mantra? Just think, I want you to think about it. Let's do it. It's actually just inspired by you. Let's do it. Life's not a playground. It's a battleground. Yeah.

Like, you nailed it. It really is a battleground. Like every day we should, I mean, I heard someone say, like, we're like, nine meals away from literally killing our neighbor, which is, you know, three days of not eating. Like the moment your family doesn't have three square meals a day for three days in a row, you're about to go attack your neighbor and take their food and their water, et cetera.

Like, a battle is going to ensue literally. And Lord knows there's a battle in our heart, a battle in our head, a battle at work to keep our job, run our business, working against the competition. And yet everyone's treating life as a playground. That's such a powerful, powerful, powerful, example that you laid out there. So going back to then, so you guys are having these conversations when you're driving home from work and of course you're like, hey, everybody wants

to eat, but few will hunt. As soon as I read that on the T-shirt, I'm like, that's it. That's it. Everybody wants to be the CEO, but few are willing to make CEO decisions. Like, at the end of the day, every single person in my company can turn to someone else and go, hey, what do I do? The only person, I can't turn to anyone. Like, the buck starts and stops here. Like, I got no one to turn to you and go, what do I do? Like, I got to make a decision. I got to make the moves. I got to take the risks and I got to live with the consequences. Sure. And so not a lot of people want that role in responsibility, yet they love the lifestyle and

all the perks that come with it. And so as you guys are making this brand, one thing that I noticed about the gear that you're selling is it is like really super high quality stuff. was it an intentional thing especially when you're you guys weren't really funded it's not like you guys each put a hundred thousand dollars out of your pocket no so you could have used cheaper shirts and sold more shit

you went super high quality what's what's the mindset there so well real quick we've used every bit of it has been savings and just our own harder money we were working to fund our business what we were doing in our day jobs

but from the beginning we Joey and I always said quality is going to come first. We're going to differentiate on quality, quality of community, quality of products, and quality of service. And from the beginning, we were always using the top quality threads, top quality manufacturing. And at first, it was not profitable at all for us because our cost of goods were so high that we were not making any profit. The economics were trash. They just didn't work. But we committed really one day we're going to sell this many shirts and we're going to drive this cost down to this to X dollar and we're going to actually be a profitable business.

And we stayed true to that from the beginning because that was literally, we made a pact of that quality quality products. And that's what we did. And it finally got us. I mean, when you really look at the start line, like 2018 was your start line. Yep. Right? And here we are in 2021. You guys are a seven-figure company.

and what, doing it a thousand orders a month, right? Over. At least. At least. And so quality of community, guys and gals listen to this as you're building your companies. Like these are non-negotiable. Quality of community, quality of product, and quality of service.

That's what we've built truly non. That's what we've built Fit Body Boot Camp on. That's what I built the project on. People are like, why is a project so expensive? It's like because I have literally the best in class and instructors, the best in class and venue, the follow-up, the lifelong brotherhood that you belong in, and the annual two meetups that we do every year. All those things are literally designed on quality that are not negotiable for me.

I could make it cheaper, but I wouldn't. It would cheapen the experience. It would cheapen the outcome. And this is what you guys have built if you will hunt on. What are some of the learning lessons? Like if you had someone sitting across from you, they're like, hey, man, I'm about to start my own brand. Could be apparel.

Could be a movement in terms of anything. Could be a supplement line. But I'm going to sell it using social media, the interwebs. What are some of the big lessons you're going to give them? First and foremost, I would say keep it simple, right? If you are kind of like what we were speaking about earlier analysis by paralysis, if you're going to sit and analyze what's the perfect platform, you know, what's the perfect plug-in, what's the perfect keep it simple start moving take action first and foremost when we were having

our calls on a daily basis you know what i mean when we were full-time employed we would come up with a simple action item every evening for each one of us you remember that yeah yeah oh yeah one thing that we could do to just move the ball forward down the field that night just move the ball forward that's it yeah and we kept it very simple you know which it helps to the ball forward you know which be good at compartmentalizing, right? Because there's a lot going on. Yeah. But if you can just focus on one simple thing daily and take that action, it will yield. You know, they'll have a high yield from it. So keep it simple would be one of the things I would say, for sure. Yeah, I would also say provide value. I feel like that was always one of our core focuses was like, we're not just selling T-shirts.

We're providing our community value. And that's one thing I see people. who sort of in any business nowadays is they just want to sell, sell, sell. They don't even stop the thing. How is anyone benefiting from this product? Or how am I delivering value on a consistent basis to my community or my customers? So we've always focused on, I mean, we focus on value first and beginning to a fault, as we said. But we were always value focused. That's why you also have such a loyal following, too.

I believe so, because, you know, we've always, we made a pact to do right by our community members. You know, and that three-prong quality approach that Drew mentioned, I mean, it was rooted in the fact that we're going to provide more value than we get in return. So in other words, we're going to provide so much value for this shirt that you're going to buy at X amount of dollars that it just makes sense. Yeah. You know, and you want to, you want to wear it. You know what I mean? Because of your association and membership in the community.

Agreed. I think also part of the reason why you want to be. to wear it's so bad. It's like what Bader's just said earlier is he opened the box and he read the he read the fuel hunt everyone was even a fuel hunt and he was like I fucking get that like that's it. Yeah. And either you get it or you don't either you're one of the few or you're not. Yeah. You know I think going back to the battleground we each we each have the first battle I think we each face every day is one in our own minds right? Mm-hmm. So for Drew and I being able to wear a piece of apparel that reminds us what we're made of,

the potential that we have and what we can accomplish on a daily basis is important. You know, flying is important. It's exactly what it is. Like, every day you wake up when you wear, when I wear anything fuel hunt, it is a reminder.

I mean, average is the enemy. One of my favorite shirts that you guys sent me. Everybody wants to eat but fuel hunt. Grit. What was the one with the comfort? The pain. The pain.

Comfort is a slow death. Comfort is a slow death. I love that. comfort is exactly that it's a slow death. That shirt, like, you know, comfort is a slow death, right? Prefer pain. Yeah, prefer pain. Someone will read that and go, why would you want to prefer pain? Why would you want to prefer adversity and discomfort? Like, and if they don't get it, they are just not part of this community. And what I love about the brand is that it is so polarizing. And part of the, Part of that might be because I know I'm a polarizing figure because I'm either loved or hated.

There's not a lot of in-between. I either get like love mail messages or like death threats. But I also think when you're launching any kind of business, like Elon Musk, he's like, this is how a car needs to be like, yeah, but it doesn't need to. No, it does. It needs to be just like this, not what Honda or or Chevy or Ford is doing. And he's a very polarizing figure, and you either love him or you hate him, but there is no in between. Was this an intentional thing for you guys? Yeah, it was.

It was. I mean, the strength of it. We wanted our message is to be strong and bold, right? Because your own mind is pretty polarizing, right? You can get up out of bed and your mind says, you just don't have it today. You know, the self-talk starts, the negative self-talk starts and it starts to beating you down. And it's strong and it's bold, that self-talk. It holds people back from achieving what they're truly meant to achieve in life sometimes, right?

So what we wanted to do was create a whole line of shirts. When you pull your drawer open, you start flipping through it. Am I going to wear my luck favors hard worker shirt today? Am I going to wear my comfort as a slow death? And you're just rewiring your mind. I'm going to fly this flag. And it's telling me what I need to do and what I'm capable of. And I'm going to go do it.

Boom. And like you said, I feel like just because we own the place, we don't have that chore. A lot of people have that chore because that's the fuse uniform for the day. You know, we're all, even you, big, you're like, what People Hunch are I'm going to put on today to let people know that I'm one of the few and I'm not like

I'm not like you and I'm not like that person standing behind me in line in that story but yeah and you know it's funny is when I when I when I wear the shirts

the people who get it don't just go like hey I like your shirt they're like dude that's an awesome like they react like they react and you can tell like they're part of the community

maybe they're not following few will hunt on Instagram maybe they haven't bought a shirt, but they get the mantra. Any one of the mantras they get, you know, because I've been told plenty of times, oh, man, you are lucky to be the CEO of so many companies. Motherfucker, who reached out to me in 2020 and said I'm lucky to be the CEO of a fitness franchise when the coronavirus was just like shutting us down left and right?

You know what I mean? And so luck does favor the hard workers. And when you wear that shirt and when things aren't going your way and you happen to catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, you're like, wait a minute. I know how to get lucky right now. I just got to stop being a little bitch and start working harder. Like that's how I build my luck. Right?

And then when I lean into comfort, because I'm human, comfort just kind of sets in. It's like, hey, hey, hey, wait a minute. There's a slow death. Like literally, like you can see what's in your closet and you're wearing it. You're wearing motivation and inspiration and like this almost like a blueprint of what you ought to do that day. And so for me, I was telling you guys, like in my closet, Marlin, our house managers, has like all my shirts are color-coded. and since majority of the stuff I wear black.

It's blue because it's date night tonight. Going fancy with the wife. But Marlin's got all of my stuff color-coded, and I'll literally go through, and it's almost like picking, like what level of inspiration do I need today? Your attitude going to be today. What is my attitude going to be today?

Am I just going to walk around like, hey, you know what? I don't want to be average because that's the enemy, or, you know what? Comfort is a slow pain. Like, what is my attitude going to be, and it is so cool to be. able to don that, to be able to wear that, and to be able to represent that, and, like,

people either get it or they don't. Yeah. Yeah, some messages are intentionally bold. I mean, the shirt wouldn't do its job if it said prefer discomfort or just go half comfort today. Yeah. You know, it's prefer pain. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because that's what you're shooting for. Yeah. What is it about pain that really helps people evolve, grow, move forward? I mean, clearly there's something that you guys have figured out because, I'm, it's, is part of the brand. Yeah, I mean, me personally, I think it introduces you to who you truly are. And you may not like who you meet initially.

But that's a revelation in itself, right? Because then you can say, I have some work to do. There's some growth to be done here. So, yeah, I mean, that's... Yeah, I think our minds work a lot like our muscle. You know what I mean? They've got to be broken down and they build up. And pain transfer, preferring pain transfers to all...

different aspects of life. It's not just in the gym. Yes, are you probably getting in the gym if you're one of the few most likely because we believe in building that muscle. But also you're stepping out of the comfort zone in your career and your promotion, like you're working harder for a promotion or you're starting a new business or you're making your relationship better with your, with your spouse. Like there's just all other ways of preferring discomfort that make you a better human. And it starts with getting uncomfortable and preferring pain. Yeah. I think you drop something that is super powerful.

I'm going to repeat it for our audience. And that is that your mind is very much like a muscle. And it needs to be broken down to be able to get rebuilt stronger. And for those of you that don't know, since I'm a nationally certified personal, actually my certification has expired about many years ago. But I was an A certified personal trainer many, many years ago. Well, you don't know that, you know, when you're working out in the gym, you're not actually building any muscle.

You're tearing your muscle fibers down. You're tearing your muscles down and under a microscope, there's these microscopic tears in your muscle fibers. And then your muscles go, holy crap, this guy curled, whatever, 45 pound dumbbells and tore us down. We need to start getting stronger so that 45 pound dumbbells can't tear us down. Next time you use 50 pound dumbbells and 55, et cetera. And so you keep adding more muscle tissue. But the breaking down happens in the gym. You're not getting in shape.

You're actually breaking down. That's the soreness that you feel. The rebuilding is where we get stronger. more resilient. And so the mind is no different. And that breakdown must happen. The microscopic tears must happen to create neuroplasticity and new neuro pathways.

And when you do, you're like, man, my synapses are firing faster. I have a wider zone of discomfort. You know, like some people just kind of lean into the sides of their comfort zone. Like, that's enough. You keep leaning into the sides of your comfort zone. It expands.

And it's like, holy crap. man, I could really step into a lot of discomfort, and I'm comfortable in that area. And so that's a really powerful point, Drew, that you made is that you've got to break the mind down in order to build it up stronger. Without it, there is no other way. I wish I can say, go read a book and understand the concepts of resiliency. You could read a book and understand the concept of resiliency, resourcefulness, how to be relentless. But go and suffer. When the sun goes down tomorrow, start hiking, and do not stop hiking your city until the sun comes back up, until you see the sunrise. I did that with a group of five other people here from HQ,

last December 5th. I called it suckfest. Hey, we're going to do suck fest. So basically you're awake all day, and then at night instead of sleeping, sun goes down, start hiking the hills of Chino Hills. We did 37 miles and 13 hours, and it was without training on purpose so that you could feel the pain. You could feel the blisters under your feet. Your knees were swollen, but you just keep going through. And before the cameras went on, I was like, hey, when we do it, I get to meet the best side of me and I get to meet the darkest side of me. Yep. I see the light and the dark, which reminds me of another shirt that y'all sent me recently, which was, help me, was it the Reaper? Reaper tea, yes. Yeah. Which was, was it go through your darkness and? Yes,

through your darkness, live in your light. Past through your darkness, live in your light. Like, literally, every single mantra that's on the shirts, I live. I realize, like, you put yourself through so much discomfort where you're hungry, you're tired. It was December 5th, so it was cold.

Nighttime. Cops are stopping us because six people walking through the hills of Cheeto Hills. Like, what the hell are you guys doing, right? Sure. I was like, we're just going to keep doing this until the sun comes up. They're like, all right, go.

Have a good time. And by that morning, you're like, I just did something. something that like more than a marathon. Like that was the equivalent of like, you know, 37 miles. And I think that qualifies as some kind of something. And so anyway, this December 4th, we're doing suckfest again of 2021. And this time, the goal is to literally do two exercises in BK strength in the gym,

run out the front door, run around the building, which is two-tenths of a mile. And we do that 137 rounds of that, which should last between 12 to 15 hours. and will have done a full marathon and over 4,000 reps. Just imagine a level of soreness. Is that overnight too? What's that? Is that overnight or is that daytime?

I'm lobbying for doing it at night. Don't give my days. So that if we do it at night, we'll also be sleep deprived. Right? And that's just a whole new level of fuck uppery. Yeah. Some of the people who are softer around here,

not necessarily in this room, because I know Ed's a savage, but some of the people are like, man, you know what, if we did it during the day, if we start at 5 a.m., we'll probably be done by like 6, 7 or 8 p.m. We can all go to dinner afterwards. I'm like, dinner. Like, what?

You drink water. We're going to sleep hunger. Yeah, you drink water and you go to sleep. You know, so anyway, we'll see how it unfolds. But either way, it's going to suck because it's suck less. But the whole idea is actually a Japanese tradition called Misogi, which is like you cleanse, you do something very difficult that's unlikely to get finished.

It's so hard on you. It's a cleansing for the new year to come. And that's kind of where I got the idea of it. Yeah. Yeah. And so, guys, kind of big takeaways. If people, someone's starting a business, someone looking to transform in their health and their fitness and their mindset and their relationship, what are some big breakthroughs that you guys have had? Because you've had such a meteoric growth in your business that I know has come from this byproduct of just choosing intentionally to,

to go through pain and adversity. What are some feedback that you can give folks who can leapfrog in life? I think lean into what works is something that sticks with me. It's like we were trying all different things and then one thing would work and then we were like, let's do more of that. So that I feel like applies to business or health.

You know what I mean? If cardio is working, then do a little more cardio. Keep doing more until cardio stops working. and then figure out something else. And same with business. So one, ads working, leaving that ad, and that ad might try up, and then you have to move over to something else.

But I think that would be one big takeaway from me when starting this business. I think it's a great takeaway. For sure, yeah. Go back to keeping it simple, which is what we did. Pick one thing. I would say sacrifice. You're not going to get around it. It must be done. You know, so if you're

serious about, starting a business and making it successful strap in because there's going to be sacrifice you're going to be sacrificing your time you're going to be with your loved ones not necessarily just your me time your time with your loved ones your family your wife your kids you're going to be sacrificing your money your ego I can go on and on yeah so sacrifice is uh is key you need to be extremely comfortable with it for many years now we've done nothing but that's the magic the consistency of sacrifice. You know, anyone can do any one thing once, right? People are like,

yeah, I made it do the project. I'm like, hey, listen, the project, the 75 hours of the project wasn't like the magic. It's whoever you discovered during the project when you flip that switch and chose not to ring the bell and choose to lead, communicate, problem solve, and use teamwork, that has to get carried on through the rest of your life. You can stop doing that when you die. And they're like, oh, shit, I get what the project is all about now. I discovered this new version of me and I need to carry this person with me from this day forward. And flipping that switch to turn that person on, right? It's not just, I mean, you have to do hard things.

You almost have to recreate the project. That's exactly it. If to make an obstacle course for yourself in life to bring that person back out. The more and more you do that, I think then you become that person on a more consistent basis. Nailed it. You know, it's funny you say that, right? Because, like, every year I do something hard like that, like the suck fest.

but then I can't just wait for that year, that date to come in December. So every week, every Sunday, I train legs for two hours because I just know I can beat the crap out of my legs. And then I'll go attack the hills for an hour and do a hike. It is the most uncomfortable hike, especially at 230 pounds. Like, I'm not light on my feet. And so I do that because it's almost like I got this mini-Misogi that takes place every Sunday that resets me

and reminds me of the, of the savage that I am and the capabilities that I have right before my hardest day of the week comes, Monday. You know, it's very intentional. Yeah, exactly, which I was going to say, I attack Monday, and then there's the attack. I shit you not, this seems like it's a commercial for fuel hunt. It is not, but like literally everything about the brand,

like literally you have a shirt. It's like black on black attack, and I love that because on those days that I wanted just intentionally go heavy on whatever it is I'm going to do in work and in life and business. All right, I'm going to wear that a tacks shirt. All those designs, those badges that end up on our apparel were all inspired by events and difficulties and challenges that we had while we were building this community and ultimately this business.

Yeah. You know, we didn't sit around a table and say, what would be cool to put on a shirt? We sat around a table and said, what are we living through right now? Yeah. and how can we create a bold, strong message that reminds us of the action that we took to get through it and share that with others. Good point. So if our friends want to learn more about the two of you and the Fee Will Hunt brand, what's the best way to get in contact or connect? Yeah, on Instagram at FeewillHunt or FewwillHunt.com.

Best way to do it. And by the way, guys, if you're watching or listening to this and you end up going to Feeble Hunt, com and you buy something do me a favor man when you wear it uh take a picture of yourself share it in your stories and i want you to tag me and i and i will reshare it i want you to tag me and i will reshare it and i want you to tag of course fuel hunt as well and i'm sure these guys will reshare it and the reason is i i always describe fuel hunt as a movement instead of a it's not an apparel company i just feel like it's a downgrade to call it at a clothing company apparel. It's a movement. And the movement is long overdue of restoring the dignity of hard work.

And you guys are leading the charge. And you guys are doing it in such an awesome way where quality is non-negotiable and in the most polarizing way, which I love about the brand. We're just getting started. And you're just getting started. We're just getting started. Exactly. It's the very beginning. Well, listen, thank you so much for joining me on this episode. I appreciate you. Appreciate you guys. And as always, guys, be sure to leave us a five-star review on the iTunes and great comments, share this episode, and don't you forget to tell your mama. See it.