Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Chris Cavallini: Take Extreme Ownership - 143

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

On this episode of Inside Look, good friend and CEO of nutrition solutions, Chris Cavallini, stops by to tell us about his abnormal upbringing and how he turned his life around to create one of the fastest growing meal prep companies in the world. Chris’ story is nothing short of inspiring and if someone like him can be an entrepreneur and thrive in these times, so can you!   “Adversity is necessary for optimal human development.” “The best thing that we can do to motivate ourselves to take action, is to simply think about what’s going to happen if we don’t take that action.” “That didn’t dictate my present or my future unless I allowed it to.”  “Problems give you purpose.” - Chris Cavallini   Here’s what you’ll discover: 06:48 - You need to change your mindset in order to succeed 13:10 - Killing the human animal to be reborn again 15:36 - Where to find the motivation to take action 19:15 - How taking extreme ownership of your actions can propel you forward in life 23:15 - The day that changed Chris’ Life forever 31:05 - Why Chris chose to form a meal prep business 36:39 - Problems don’t mean you’re doing something wrong 42:40 - Why educating your team is the best thing to do for your company   “Every sacrifice will be rewarded and every debt will be paid.” “Stay on offense.” - Bedros Keuilian   --   Follow us on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian / @chriscavallini   Buy Man Up and get Bedros’ High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/   Chris’ Meal Preps: https://nutritionsolutions.com/   Subscribe to My Channel for weekly videos: http://www.youtube.com/bedroskeuilian/?sub_confirmation=1 Youtube https://youtu.be/TLh8yNLe7SY

So you could be off the charts intellectually. But if you buckle and go running and hide and shell up anytime the slightest bit of adversity, it really means nothing. So adversity is necessary for optimal human development. Welcome to another episode of The Empire Show. My name is Bedros Kulian, and this is an inside look. And today we have a really awesome guest, my dear friend and founder and CEO of Nutrition Solution, Mr. Chris Cavalini. Welcome to the show, man.

Thank you so much for having me, brother. Yeah, man. So in addition to being an amazing shape, you are an amazing entrepreneur. Thank you. And obviously, nutrition solution, what you do there with that brand is, or that business, I should say, is prep meals, right, delivered all across the country. Yes, sir. To people who want to eat healthy and not make an excuse of meal prep. I mean, that pretty much. More or less, yeah. I mean, we basically simplify the process of getting in shape. Obviously, you know, we know that the quality of the foods we put in our body,

essentially determine a lot, right? And, you know, I go as far as saying it dictate your quality of life. So we basically take the decision-making process out of it for our clients, solve that problem, which is a huge problem for a lot of people. You know, the three-quarters of the adult population in this country, you categorize you, they're overweight or obese. You know, it's a, the obesity epidemic is a real thing. It is a real thing. And so you're not only helping solve the obesity epidemic and my background being obviously fitness and on the work outside of it and with the nutrition piece, that's the only other third piece that's made. missing is mindset 100% which is really what we're here to talk about mindset and then how you

launch your business because before the cameras rolled we were talking about today there is no easy business model no doesn't matter if it's meal prep franchising supplements whatever your thing is there is no easy business model it's all going to take work yeah real work we're going to talk about the work that it takes to build an empire that you have I mean you've got a pretty freaking awesome lifestyle anyone that follows you sees that and you have a very growth-minded optimistic, success-driven mindset, which must be accompanied when you're growing a brand. But you weren't always that guy. You were also the guy that was arrested. Basically the opposite of that guy.

Right. The majority of my life. There's no better, there's no soft way to say. You were arrested like 20 times, given a choice to you either go to, you're going to jail or you need to go into the military. Yeah. So tell us to start there. Yeah. Basically, so grew up under very untraditional circumstances. I was arrested 17 times prior to my 18th birthday.

Just didn't have stability, didn't have structure, didn't have discipline, didn't have just the normal infrastructure that, you know, children have to develop cognitively in a positive way. And basically, you know, was acting out, getting in trouble, just had very low confidence, just wasn't a happy kid. You know, I was an angry kid. And once I got old enough to actually have an outlet to lash out, which was in high school,

I started to just, I guess, come to the realization that I could actually do certain things to feel significant, to gain significance, to get attention. But those things weren't things that actually served me, but it was attention and significance nonetheless. So basically started getting in trouble, started with like, you know, very minor things like just underage drinking, trespassing. And then it escalated, you know, to possession of marijuana before they decriminalized it, assault with a dangerous weapon and so on and so forth. ultimately the state of Massachusetts got sick of seeing me in the courtroom. They realized I wasn't learning my lesson and basically gave me an ultimatum to either join the military or go to jail for seven months. And that's essentially what caused me to leave Boston,

leave the surroundings, to leave the environment that essentially made me the person I was at that time and basically allowed me to just discover a new way of doing things. Gotcha. So before we head into that journey of going into the Navy, and then the turnaround that you made with your life. Let's talk about, where's mom and dad? What are they doing? Why aren't they helping you?

Where's the surroundings? Where's the school teachers? What happens? Yeah. So my mom had me very young. She was 16. She wasn't the most stable individual. She had issues with drugs.

She had issues. I mean, her issues had issues from being completely honest. So my dad also 16 took off while she was pregnant with me. So he was never around. It's like kids having kids. Yeah. I mean, like legitimate. So basically when I was born, you know, my mother wasn't fit, you know, physically, mentally, financially, emotionally to take care of an individual.

Ultimately, I was taken from her care. I spent time in foster homes, group homes, ultimately ended up back with my biological grandmother who, you know, she doesn't fit the mold of a traditional grandma that's sitting on a rocking chair, you know, knitting quilts and making cookies. She had some issues of her own due to what my mother put her through. And, you know, didn't have a good relationship with her. I didn't have like a father figure, disciplinary and around to kind of, like, you know, beat my ass when needed. Set boundaries. Yeah, to teach me how to actually be a man and act with self-respect and discipline. So, you know, basically without that structure, without that system of consequences, I basically operated autonomously without any just positive direction as it were.

I mean, again, like at the time, things weren't good, like on paper. You know, you don't want to see, you don't want that to happen anybody. You don't want to see a child that have to go through those circumstances. But again, like when you don't know any other way, it's not like I was in the Brady Bunch or the Partridge family or this perfect American home one day. And then the next, just going through some of the more tumultuous circumstances. So I only knew one way and, you know, those things essentially paved the way for me and ultimately help me. become the person I am today again at the time and even you know it wasn't until I was like 27 28 years old that I really start seeing the value in some of those experiences and hardships

that's always something right the the 2020 vision when you look back and hindsight you have so much more clarity and you're like holy smokes that suffering that adversity the pain there's a lot of growth associated with that but you only see that 5 10 15 years later well provided you change your mindset I mean a lot of people that go through what I went through statistically speaking they don't make it. I mean, they have a disproportionately higher rate of suicide, alcoholism, going to prison than they actually do of making something of themselves. So it's only when you're able to actually change your mindset. You alluded to a growth mindset, which is something that is just absolutely mandatory, provided you want to win in life. Did I actually start recognizing,

recognizing these things for what they really were, which were gifts? So let's talk about something. whether I don't want to put words in your mouth. That's okay. Whether it's high school or maybe after high school as you go into the Navy, was there any feelings, victim mindset towards like I'm the victim. I hate my mom. I hate my dad. Or was it at what point did you go, maybe there's, I have some control over myself.

Yeah. So that absolutely was there. But again, there wasn't an awareness. it was a victim mindset, right? It was just my reality. You know, in my mind, I felt that I would never have a positive relationship with a woman because of, you know, the relationship I had my mother, right? I was always just aggressive and just kind of had a tendency towards violence for reasons

that weren't really justifiable. And again, that was there because of the situations I went through some of the abuse that I was subjected to. All these things, these justifications that I would just use these past experiences to validate why I would be a certain way. And then when I got out of the military and started to really try to figure out what the next move was for me. And I went basically one night to the next from having structure and discipline and just order and purpose, a mission. I lost that from one night to the next and I quickly became lost again.

So when I was trying to figure out my life, you know, I was basically legitimizing where I was and the path that I was doing as a drug dealer for a lot of years. Post military? Post military. Yeah, I mean, I regress. When I lost my purpose, when I lost my mission, I just basically went, I mean, five years, I was in the military. But the previous 18 years of my life, I lived a certain way, I thought a certain way. And I regressed back into those patterns, just at a more mature level, I guess, we say. Sort of working in a strip club, again, like, that was not the proper atmosphere for somebody with the mindset that I had.

I mean, I was getting in fights with the customers because I was such an insecure person, the slightest bit of what in my mind. like disrespect. They didn't listen to what I said. I mean like it was on. I had something to prove constantly. You know, I was in just in that environment. It just wasn't conducive with the betterment of my life. I was just drinking to make work more enjoyable, messing with the girls, which is not a good thing. You mess with the girls after work, then you get to deal with the consequences like during. It was just so much drama and stress that I ultimately legitimately decided that I was going to quit and become a drug dealer. And then I spent the next seven, eight years of my life selling, Anabolic steroids.

So let's talk about that for a moment. You really touched on something that Napoleon Hill talks about in his book. He says throughout most people's lives, in fact, he says 98% of humanity, he defines them in his book, Outwitting the Devil and Drifters. Drifters. They have no purpose. Yeah. One of my favorite books.

And they have no purpose. They have no desire. They may feel a gnawing pain of purpose and potential, but they are not doing anything about it. They're drifting through life. and therefore suffering through anxiety and depression or what they think is anxiety, depression, overwhelm, sadness, so on. And he says, it isn't until you find definitiveness of purpose that you begin to get squared away.

Your confidence is established. Your credibility in yourself is established when you have that sense of purpose. Really what you're saying is, hey, my first 18 years of my life, I was pretty much a heathen, a troublemaker, just operate out of emotional impulse based on a limbic young man that had no structure. Exactly.

Then the court system says, man, you're going to the military or you're seven months in jail, and you're like, all right, I'm going to the military. For five years, you had a mission in the Navy, right? You had a mission, you had purpose, you had definitiveness of purpose. Like, you know, you're going to wake up

and you've got things to do. Interestingly enough, you said, overnight, as you get discharged from the military, shit, I got nothing to do. Yeah. And this speaks to all of us entrepreneurs because I've got a dear friend of mine who had a 300,

million dollar real estate business in five years built it up to 300 three billion dollars in sales went from 300 million to three billion dollars in sales and sold it wow in that five years he worked so fast on it and he sold this thing and he goes dude i've got no purpose like i'm depressed i'm in a funk i've got all this money yeah i've got an amazing beautiful family but i'm in a funk because if you are cut from the cloth of serving of doing for others you have to keep going And so before one mission ends, you have to line up another. 1,000 percent. There's no exception of that rule.

And a great example was, as you got discharged from one day to the next, you're like, shit, I'm back to dealing drugs, working in a strip club, drinking to numb the pain or alter your state. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So basically, the thing with the military, I mean, I had the opportunity to stay in. I was, there was like a $60,000 reenlistment bonus incentive, which, you know, $60 grand at the time was like $60 million today.

Sure. And again, like I opted to get out for one reason and one reason only. I wasn't willing to leave the city I was living in at the time. I had a positive association for once in my life with where I lived with the people that I had around me. And I felt good. I felt good for the first time in my life at that point. And I wasn't willing to roll the dice, you know, reenlist, still have my mission, still on my purpose, have a bunch of cash that I otherwise wouldn't have, but go somewhere where the possibility

existed that I wouldn't be happy and I wouldn't like the surroundings. And just I think that was obviously because of the first 18 years of my life. Sure. No stability. There was no place that you felt happy, safe. And now all of a sudden you're like, shit, I feel good here. Yeah. So I'm going to stay. And again, there wasn't an awareness of all this at the time. No, no. But looking back on it, I think that's obviously why I did what I did. That's exactly. In Joseph Campbell's book, The Power of Myth, he talks about the human animal versus a human being, right? It says a human animal is managed by fear and emotions and and irrational thoughts and the 51,000 negative conversations that happens on a daily basis.

The human being is literally operating out of faith and witnesses his life through his eyes or their eyes, right? And so, no, you're operating as a human animal just like we all have at some point and there is the, you know, not to not to pee on Jesus here for a moment, but let's just cross all boundaries for a minute. You know, the Bible talks about being born again as a Christian. Well, Joseph Campbell says it really is about killing your human animal being reborn as that higher consciousness, the human being. Something more.

Something more. So whether it's Christianity or you look at the power of the universe and that you're part of a greater collection, it doesn't much matter. But so you start getting into that lifestyle again because that's just your pattern. It's a fixed behavior, a fixed belief system. You don't have the structure. You revert back to what you know. Well, now it's worse because I'm actually making a lot of money. Sure. Antibolic steroids definitely bring in a lot of money.

Yep. And what happens that a shift takes place in your life? So this went on for many years. I'm partying, making cash, it's coming in fast, going out faster. And basically, you know, I'm getting older now, 25, 26, and some of the other drug dealer friends of mine started going to prison. And everybody started getting caught. Everybody started telling on each other. And, you know, I'm not a dummy. I'm aware that. it's only a matter of time. It's only a matter of time.

Before your numbers up. 100%. I mean, like, I didn't have a normal job. I didn't have a cover, right? I'm driving around at the time, meaning this is how stupid and just different, shall we say, I was the time. I had a fluorescent, orange Lamborghini and a fluorescent green H2 Hummer. I'll show you a picture after this.

I was that drug dealer. You're that guy. I was literally that, but I saw nothing wrong with it at the time. That's just so crazy. Huge advertisement. Yeah, right. So long story short, man, I started to actually really. think about what was happening around me and what was ultimately going to happen.

And that thought really consumed me. You know, I knew that it was only a matter of time and then I started thinking about, okay, when that happens, then what happens? And it wasn't the fear of going to prison. It wasn't the fear of getting in trouble. It wasn't the fear of losing everything that really bothered me and kept me up at night. It was the fear of regressing and feeling helpless again. It was the feeling of going back to be in that level.

11 year old kid who had to steal dirty clothes out of the lost and found at school. So I had new clothes to wear. I didn't want to be looked down upon like that. And I started to really just become just obsessed with that thought. And, you know, people often ask, like, you know, like, I just don't know where to find the motivation to do this. And like, I really want to do this. I just can't, like, figure out, like, what's going to drive me to do it. And they're looking for this, like, external thing. And honestly, like, a lot of times, I mean, the best, thing that we can do to motivate ourselves to take actions to simply think about what's going to happen if we don't take that action right and that's exactly what i did yeah because you know what would

happen if you didn't and the pain of that was greater than yeah yeah so were you were you then were you were you like shit i'm going to get out of this and sell the glow in the dark hummer and the Lamborghini before yeah so before the fucking poe poe oh yeah so i mean i thought that uh thought that uh I thought that I'd escaped clean and started transitioning out. I started just literally, I mean, I didn't have a normal job, so I had a tremendous amount of free time on my hands. I started reading literally anything and everything I could get my hands on as it related to becoming a better human being as it related to mindset.

I mean, this was like 2010, 2011, different ballgame then, right? There wasn't like shows like this. There was Tony Robbins videos on YouTube, and then just, you know, the hardcover books. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Brian Tracy and the Zig Ziglar is like the self-help books. All, all that. I just started reading it and reading it over again, reading over again, and just this learning to think different. I started making my bed.

The two things that I literally started to do, like the first action steps outside of reading, was making my bed and keeping my car clean. It was those two things. I don't remember where I heard to do that or I don't even think when I did it. I actually understood the value and how that kind of correlates to every, other thing, but I was so desperate. I just started doing it and then I quickly felt something that I'd never really felt before. And then that translated into keeping my entire. What did you feel? I felt a little bit of pride, man. I felt like, like, I felt good. I felt good. I mean, honestly,

I felt good to come home and to have my bed made. It felt good to get in my car and not have just a bunch of just shit and change and like, you know, just crap all over the mats and stuff. And I realized that by feeling good, I was able to think good or think better. And I just basically, then, you know, that translated into my entire house. There's no longer dishes in my sink. And all these little things just kind of started to add up. And it allowed me to just think more clearly and ultimately determine the path that I was on. And that's essentially what led me to starting my company.

Now, the question you asked is if I ever got caught. So in 2000 and, what was it, 2011 or 2012? 2012, I was set up unbeknownst to me on three separate occasions. They didn't come and actually arrest me until 2015. I had completely separated myself from my previous life, started my business was in. I don't want to say I was in a good place relative to now. I mean, it was horrible, but I was. You were in the struggle, the entrepreneurial struggle.

But I felt good because I wasn't that guy anymore. Yeah. I didn't have to go to bed every night wondering if, my door was going to get kicked in or like at any given moment the whole bottom could come from underneath so like the stress was was there but it was just a different quality a different caliber of stress long story short karma caught up with me they waited three years to come to come serve the warrant for crimes that I committed three years prior my bill was half a million dollars they wanted me to cooperate like everybody else and I just I you know taking responsibility over my

passed was what essentially allowed me to, I mean, I think that's the only thing that actually allowed me to even entertain the thought that I could start a company, that I could actually be somebody that does something that actually makes a difference, somebody that, somebody that actually makes an impact, or just something that I could do that I could actually just feel proud that I do. But it wasn't until I started taking responsibility over, like, sure, like, I didn't have the most traditional ideal circumstances coming up. Sure, I was subjected to abuse. Sure, I had a lot of bad things happen. But like I guess one day, you know, through the personal development, I started to realize that that didn't dictate my present or my future unless I allowed it to. And if it was

going to dictate my future and dictate my present, that I had the ability and opportunity to kind of reframe my thinking and allow it to do it in a positive, productive way that actually serves me. So I had a very positive, like to the core association with taking responsibility. So when they were painting this picture for me, as far as what's going to happen, if I don't cooperate. I'm going to lose my business. I'm going to like all this. Like it didn't even phase me because I just couldn't for a second imagine or entertain the thought of destroying somebody else's life because I wasn't able to take responsibility from my own actions. So I respectfully, and I was very respectful. I haven't always been respectful towards law enforcement. I very respectfully just,

I tried to articulate that and I felt good about that and I thought that they would respect it. I mean, maybe that was their way. I don't know. Like I said, they tried to make an example on me. Half a million dollars my bail was. That's unheard of. That's basically no bail. You know, I had to pay 10% of that to get out.

At the time, 10% was everything. And then I still had to fight. I still had to pay the attorney fees, about a three-month process. The offer that was made to me was 24 months. And that was like the initial offer that is given in, like, you know, your first appearance. and it's like a normal business negotiation.

Typically, they put out some just ridiculous offer. And then you go back and forth for a little while and then you meet somewhere in the middle. They weren't willing to negotiate. That was a hard offer. They're standing firm on 24 months. From start to finish. So we basically decided to go to the judge for sentencing.

And against my attorney's advice, I wanted to go in and plead guilty. Now, again, this is not common. This is not, you don't pay an attorney. like a shit ton of money to plead guilty like you pay an attorney to get you off but I again I just I just became obsessed with this idea of taking responsibility due to all the positive things that have happened since I started to do that and I basically just told my attorney I was like I just I don't feel comfortable going up in front of a judge and expecting this individual to think

that the three times that I've ever broken the law were the three times that I happened to get set up I'm like I'm not going to insult their intelligence. I'm not going to disrespect myself. I was like, listen, I've made some massive changes in my life. I've made so many changes. I'm in a good place. I legitimately feel like I'm a good person now. I haven't always been.

I said, but I feel if we show this, I think they'll look at it a little differently because of just looking on paper about these crimes, the way it's written up, I mean, it makes me sound like, it makes me sound like a pretty profound drug deal. Like, they're talking about offshore accounts and all this shit.

I'm like, offshore accounts. Like, I had trouble making my bail. Right. You know what I'm saying? But that's the way they present it to position the argument in a way that they'll get the outcome that they want. So we decided to fight. We, you know, we gathered just character statements and I had people testify on my behalf. And, you know, the day of my sentencing, 100 people showed up that day outside the courtroom to be there for me, to support me.

And that made a big statement. I think that that sent a pretty strong. strong message to, you know, to the judge, to the prosecution. And in a shocking turn of events, Bedros, you know, that day I fully walked in the courtroom, ready, able and willing, had literally done everything I could in the last three weeks to set my life up for the very real possibility that I'd be going to prison that day for 24 months or more. Basically, when you go and you plead guilty, if, I mean, there's a chance there because you went through the legal process, you didn't take the deal. They typically give you more. But I was willing to

roll that dice and in a shocking turn of events, the universe looked out for me. And, you know, the judge basically said, after hearing the character statements, after, you know, reading all the testimonies that were written on my behalf that, you know, she determined that I had completed the purpose of prison on my own accord, which is rehabilitation. And for that reason, she didn't see any value in sending me to prison. And that was the day that my life changed forever. Not because I didn't go to prison. I could still be in prison to this day, have that gone differently,

but because I realized that, like, I needed to actually, like, pay this forward to the universe. The universe hooked me up. I'd done just enough to get off there, but I still had to make it right by taking advantage every single second of every single day. That's what I've been doing ever since. You know, it's funny. One thing I believe in is that every sacrifice will be rewarded and every debt will be paid. Where karma is concerned, like, I know every debt will be paid.

And the time I've accumulated carmic debt, it's been paid, you know, and it's been paid in some fashion, whether it's a physical injury or whether it's a financial loss or whether it's anything else, right? And, you know, it's funny that you bring up that carmic, you know, say, hey, you know, karma's a bitch and it finally caught up with you. And it is one of those things that catches up. But then look how it caught up with you again, because you decided to do the self-work. Yeah. You decided to effectively, I mean, what a profound statement by the judge. You effectively have done what the purpose of prison is, which is to rehabilitate yourself to become an active servant of society. And so you've got character witnesses and testimonies on your behalf. Great. Go have a good life.

She also told me something that day that still this day is probably one of the just kindest things that anybody has ever said to me. and she said, again, in open court, at my sentencing, that I should be proud of myself of everything that I'd done. I had wounded warriors that were there that I mentored. I had different organizations that I'd partnered with, philanthropy is super important to me. I had all of these people there, so she had got the real picture,

and for her to say that to me in that capacity was pretty special. And it was just also like the ultimate validation of the path that I was on and made me realize that I need to double, triple down on those things and do more of them. You know, speaking of validation, as someone, you know,

we became friends pretty quickly. And Ginger Mahal introduced us to Maharasia of WWUPS and as we became friends, I see something very clearly with my outside eyes looking into your world and that is it.

You really are a person looking for, and we all are. We're all looking for some kind of approval invalidation from society. Even though some people say, well, no, I'm not. We all are. But the way you look for that is in such a pure way, man. You were just a humble servant now. And I didn't know the Chris Cavalini of before. So it's hard for me to even picture that. But I still imagine, and if I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong. But when you had money and you had the Hummer and the Lamborghini, like, I imagine you were still taking care of your friends, like still being that guy who was,

I mean like taking care of like bringing everybody up together when I when I was in high school it's really interesting that she brought that up and I appreciate you bringing it up when I was in high school you know 16 17 years old like I would always have a little bit of money because I always worked I always worked I always had a little bit of money my friends didn't um I worked because I wanted to be able to get myself stuff because I never had stuff yeah like my other stuff having friends sure But when we go out drinking, I mean, again, we shouldn't be drinking, right? But we're drinking, I'm paying for the beers, right? At the end of the night, if I had $10 left in my pocket, I'd buy everybody McDonald's.

Don't eat McDonald's, by the way. You know what I mean? I've always been like that. Like, for some reason, that's always been important to me. And now I just, I continue to do it just at a different capacity, not so much buying McDonald's anymore, for anybody. Right, right. Let me ask you something.

Do you think that was factory installed for you? Because it wasn't like mom or dad were around to be like, hey, son, why don't you go and help people and be a servant and if you have a dollar, split it with the people. Like, was that factory installed or did you learn that from someone? I honestly think that maybe I stumbled upon it once kind of by accident and then maybe felt something that felt like something I wanted to experience more and I kind of just ran with it. I got to tell you, to me, it was, I learned that from my dad. I saw how my dad, when we came to the United States, I was six years old, after three years of being here in the country, he opened up a tiny little tailor shop in Anaheim and people would come in like,

Hey, you know, the shop's name was Joseph, but my dad's name is not Joseph, it's Gregory, but they called him Joe, because it was Joseph's Taylor. And like, hey, you know, my button popped off my pants, and he would go, okay, you wait in the waiting room and I fix for you. And he would just fix that. And they go, what do I owe you? Like, don't worry about it. Go.

And I remember my mom getting upset and I'm like, hey, man, we need that money. You could have charged like 50 cents. But he knew that that was going to create some kind of reciprocity. And he really did it without expecting anything. but he also knew there was greater value in fixing that button for free than trying to extract the 50 cents from it. If nothing more than the feelings of pride and the feelings of purpose he gets, I mean, that's the thing a lot of times like mathematically on paper, certain things don't make sense. But if you feel good about doing something, that in itself is worth its price and gold, probably times 10.

Yeah. So let's shift gears into entrepreneurship. And guys and guys watching and listening to this episode right now, I want you to understand that suffering is good. for you. Suffering exposes a man to his highest self. Suffering will expose a woman to her highest self. Like you don't know where your limits of potential and purpose and your adversity quotient, your emotional quotient. You can go take a test and find out your IQ. Like the average American is like at 100 IQ. You can go take a test and find your IQ. You don't know your EQ, your emotional quotient and your adversity quotient, how much adversity you can take. You don't know what your

purpose and potential quotient is until you suffer enough and realize that. like, man, I really know how to persevere. Touching on that really quick, you said something about your IQ. You could score off the charts on an IQ test, okay? But the moment you're faced with adversity, the moment the heat is turned up, the moment stress kicks in, okay, cortisol levels shoot up. Cortisol has been shown to have the potential to half one's IQ. So you could be off the charts intellectually.

But if you buckle and go running and hide and shell up any time the slightest bit of adversity like is faced and let's be honest when you're on this climb like you're going to face it often it really means nothing so yeah adversity is necessary for optimal human development yeah i agree 100 and i as i look back i realize holy smokes everything you went through was now going to get used because it helped build your EQ muscles your IQ muscles your aq muscles right your adversity quotients and now you're ready to go into business but i'm curious why meal prep? Did you stumble upon that? Or were you like, fuck it. I was buying McDonald's for everyone. So I've got carmic debt to pay there. Like, how does that happen? Yeah. So I dedicated my life

to personal development because I was trying to figure out what the path forward was. One of the things that I discovered through my personal development journey was the importance of giving back and philanthropy. I do at a much different level now than how I did it when I got started. I didn't really have much back then I had my time. Read in a book that, you know, going to, like, give back, serve the homeless. Like, if you're in a rut, you're not feeling good. Like, you're going through some struggles. Go help someone who needs help more than you.

And when I did that for the first time, it basically just woke me up to a feeling that I'd never experienced before, which is just gratitude, pride, purpose. And, you know, I'm in that capacity. And I decide, I'm like, look, I want to do, this is what I want to do. Not necessarily feed the homeless, but I want to do something where I have the ability to actually help people and just experience those feelings all the time. And ultimately, you know, when I was trying to figure out what the hell I could do, I, you know, fitness is always important to me. And a big hole in my game, a big hole in a lot of people's game, was the nutrition

aspect. When you're younger, you can get away with a lot more and still be in pretty good shape. Basically an opportunity came across my way to actually like start using a meal prep company myself. This, I mean, very small, it wasn't even local to the city I was living in. It was local to South Florida about four, four and a half hours away from where I was living. And basically, I wanted to just start using these meals to kind of like get in better shape because that was something I also realized throughout my, you know, journey of just observing successful people is most successful people like they prioritize their health they prioritize like their fitness and i and i was aware of this and i was like well you know i i can't have a business

now i can't be like an executive i can't maybe have some of these things that these people have but i can certainly improve on my level of fitness because that is obviously something i'm noticing here and uh that's basically how it started and and again like when i when i started using this for myself because i wanted to prioritize my health and get fitter and i started eating I started feeling better. I started thinking different. And then, you know, that's, I kind of was like, whoa, holy shit, there's an opportunity here. Because when I started doing it, I was a, I've always been an influencer.

I mean, I may not have always influenced the most positive things, but I've been an influencer night. Right, right. So I knew a lot of people from nightlife from the clubs, just being the man about town. So when I started doing, like purchasing these meals from this company in South Florida, basically like a lot of other people sort of say, hey, like, you know, well, let me get some information about that. So I became like an unofficial sales. salesperson for this company. I was like literally just feeding them all this business, feeding them all this business. And basically, I don't know if I ever actually told this story

before. The individual who was running the meal prep company was a recovering alcoholic, like serious, like serious, serious. And basically he relapsed, like fell off the face of the earth, like took people's money. I mean, the business wasn't like officials, like all cash and all that. So there was multiple people. There was a lot of people who had paid for, product that they didn't get and basically like I was the unofficial point meant and now you're the face of that brand yeah and literally like to just kind of preserve my reputation and to just not go out like that I basically I figured it out I figured out how to keep this going without like having them involved anymore and they just made it happen that is nuts yeah that is nuts so as you got into it

and you realize all right I'm going full blown into legitimate entrepreneurship and when I think about meal prep like every business has its own challenges, right? Like, you know, with Fit Body Boot Camp, everyone on the outside sees how quickly we grew in eight years as a franchise to over 600 locations international. Great. On the inside, we see all the different audits that the Federal Trade Commission has to put us through. We see that all the different states, or 13 different states that you have to register with every single year. And it is questionable whether they will let you sell franchises that year in their states or not. And so every business has adversity and obstacles. I imagine, I don't know, with meal prep, you have to estimate, because you're in a growth base.

So it's not like, all the customers that I have, and so I need this much cabbage, this much meat. You have to get that. Plus, you have to assume that they're all still going to buy, number one, and number two, you have to account for growth. There has to be some kind of health department code. Of course. Like your version of the Federal Trade Commission. Right. So how do you start navigating that stuff?

Well, you don't know any of that in the beginning, right? But you don't let all that hold you up. You just start. You just start with the doing and you figure it out as you go along. But, I mean, all those things you just said, I mean, I probably didn't actually start really thinking about or thinking like that period until a couple years in. I mean, I didn't have my own, when I was put in that situation where this guy just basically took everybody's money, relapsed and fell off the face of the earth, I didn't have a business. I didn't have any employees. I didn't have any know.

I did not a cook. I had none of these things. I basically went to a local catering company and basically pitched them. I was like, hey, look, so if I need this amount of meals with these portion sizes, I can pay you this? Can you do it? And then we came to terms, and I would buy them from them and then flip them for a just poor profit to the individuals, this many individuals buying customers at the time.

But basically, you just figure it out, man. You just have to do. You just have to do and figure it out and just do your best. If you try to do your best, it tends to always work out. And that doesn't mean you won't have problems. In fact, that actually means you'll have more problems faster, but the problems is how you learn. The problem is what give you the opportunity to grow.

You cannot, problems give you purpose, man. People need to reframe their programming as it relates to problems because they think that problems make them unique, like their problems mean something is wrong. It's not true. It's not true at all. You're right. Problems do give you purpose because as long as,

as you're willing to lean into those problems and solve them. You've got to go out of them head on immediately, aggressively, and with extreme prejudice. You have to embrace it and welcome it because the thing is, like a situation will escalate into a problem and a problem will escalate in a full-blown crisis, the longer you leave it on address. And that's what people tend to do, right? They know something's wrong. They see something's wrong. They feel something's wrong. But they don't address it. And it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And for a little while, you can, you can, you can actually ignore it to where it doesn't like impact the normal way of life, whether it's business and personal, but literally ultimately it will be one day to the next, that problem will now consume

everything. And that's when, that's when things really get nasty. And I've experienced that. Oh, I think we all have, right? I was the king of procrastination and avoidance. Yeah. And at some point, I realized, holy smokes, I'm having these anxiety attacks and I can't figure out why, yet I've got a shit ton of problems that have gone addressed, many of them now are in crisis mode. And that might give you the anxieties and the panic attacks. I believe that stress and anxiety, the stress that comes from anxiety, I believe that it comes from our objective awareness or knowledge that something isn't right, yet we're not doing anything about it. That is stressful. Because the fact is, like, you can have a problem going on, but as soon as you start taking productive action

towards that problem, it doesn't feel as bad. That's just a fact. Like you feel, I mean, you're making progress. Even if it's just taking that first step, that's progress. And that's where good things come from. That's where good positive, that's where happiness comes from. That is. As progress. So you got to, I mean, you've got to identify it immediately and not pretend that one day it's just going to correct the history of the world, right? Debateably, how long the earth has been here. That has not happened one time. history of this species, problems do not go away. They only get worse. They get a lot worse. And the problem is if you don't address things, it'll get to a point where legitimately it affects

everything, personally, professionally. And that's when things get really, really nasty. And the spiraling out of control will present itself your life. You don't want that. You're right. You literally end up getting fully consumed by it at some point. But at some point, it was also a very manageable issue. Yeah. I just fixed that one issue. We see that with, employees. You see that with vendors. You see that with marketing. Like, all right, home prices are going down. Okay, the cost of marketing is changing. Competition is increasing, but I'm still going to do things the same way because it's just safer. It's just what I know. Well, if you see home prices going down, competition getting extreme, social media, maybe just maybe the economy's changing

and you have to pivot and look for a different way. But again, issues to problems, to crisis. I think we should always be looking for a different way. I think we should always be looking for a better way. I think that's what the growth mindset is. I think that's what humility is. It's not, like, you could be good at something and still be working to improve on that. You could be, I mean, if you're terrible at something, hopefully you're setting your actions up and hiring people and whatever to where that offsets that. But I think humility is just, which obviously probably one of the most sought after character traits

that we can have as human beings and entrepreneurs, it's not just, you know, being, you know, just like overly, like humble and practical and all this. It's always looking for a way to do things better, regardless of how good or even great those things are currently going. Amen. I mean, that's basically a recipe to avoid complacency. Amen. So as we get towards the end of this, I want to talk about some stuff that will literally give our

viewers and listeners the opportunity to make more money, grow their brands. Yeah. You did grow nutrition solutions pretty quickly. Yeah. What piece of advice would you give to someone? Because whether it's nutrition solution and it's meal prep that shows up to your door across the country, or it might be supplements or apparel. Sure.

There's a lot of stuff that fall in line with similar types of marketing and systems that you do. How, what did your initial phase of growth come from? Oh, man. You're able to trace back and go, it was like this person or this thing? When we, there's been so many different stages of the company. When I started the company again, like meaning when I took over, again, I didn't have a space. I didn't have a team. I was getting the meals from the catering company and I would load them up in the back of a hatchback station wagon.

Then I borrowed from a friend and we'd meet in a parking lot, essentially located to the nine customers we had in Jacksonville, Florida, 95 degrees outside. There was ice blankets. It was just embarrassing. So again, it was word of mouth in the beginning. But like even though the product wasn't great, even though. I guess the logistics, shall we call it, weren't ideal. I cared about all of those nine people. I cared very much about to make sure they were satisfied.

I cared very much that they understood the proper schedule of how to consume the product to get the best results. And I've literally just emulated that at every single level. Like the best things that we can do initially, when it doesn't matter how much money you have or don't have, if you really care and care about your customers, care about your clients, care about giving them the best product and service possible,

things tend to work out well. And the best way that you can do that at scale is to make sure that you are consistently training your team and showing your team. You can teach people how to care, all right? There's people who don't know and people who don't care. Sure. Right?

And from my experience, most people just don't know, but they want to. And by teaching them, by showing them why you want them to do the things that you want them to do, and then you give them the opportunity to do it, when they experience that positive feedback from the customer, then it becomes hardwired in them. So I think the best thing that people can do is just focus on training your team on a continuous basis. Training is not something you've done, it's something you do. And it should legitimately start from day one.

It should be a constant, consistent process. it's an investment. You're investing in your team. You're investing in yourself. You're investing in your company. You're investing in the future of your company. And the only way to get better is by training, training and experience. You know, one thing you said they're really stuck with me.

I mean, look, these nine people that were meeting you in a parking lot that was centrally located to everyone, they're... Chris, they're meeting you because they want prep meals, portion sizes, et cetera, protein carbs, fats, right? But you're like, hey, guys, hold on. Let me just tell you the optimal way to eat it so you can get the best results from it. You went the extra mile. That's not what you were selling. You weren't selling like programming. You were selling the meals.

Right. But you offer the programming knowing that it'll give them the best results. It's your duty and obligation to do that. And I'm guessing word of mouth still is probably one of your. In fact, I know for a fact that word of mouth is one of your fastest growing sources of new customers. Yeah. And just let's just clarify that for the audience. Right.

I think a lot of people that start businesses, they rely on word of mouth. Like, well, word of mouth, I have, my sign says open. So that means people are going to go do the work for me. Now, you have to do the work, so they do the work for you. You have to give them a reason to talk about your company. You have to go above and beyond. The way that I communicate this to my team is to look at every interaction with the customer, whether it's a phone call, whether it's an email, whether it's a handwritten thank you card,

or just a supportive message that were right on the box. So it's like the first thing they see when they open up their order. You have to look at that as an opportunity to show that person that you actually care. Because when people know that you care and they feel like you care, then they start to actually believe. And we're not selling food. We're not selling meals. I know nothing.

I mean, I know a little now about food just because, you know, last eight years, I've kind of had to learn some stuff. But what we're selling is a better way of life, a better way of doing things, a higher confidence. overall like looking better, feeling better, and performing better. And the only way, the literal only way that that will ever happen, the only way that our clients will be able to experience the lifestyle transformations that so many have using

our company over the years is by staying consistent. You don't buy one week of nutrition solutions and then like, you know, the game changes. You have to stay consistent and consistency is something a lot of people struggle with, especially as it relates to the food that they're putting in their body. So by going above and beyond and prioritizing the customer experience, just providing them just customer service that like nobody else does, it makes them want to continue to do business with you to where they're staying consistent. And then when they stay consistent and they get the results,

then, I mean, now, like you have a lifelong advocate. And that's what it is. It's about turning people into lifelong advocates. And you have to be on offense to do that. Just sending them your product is enough. There has to be, look, we're very competitive 2020 world right now. There's a million businesses that do what you do regardless of what you're doing. And you have to do something to consistently separate yourself from everybody else.

And the fact is hopefully your product is good, you know, but how much better is it actually going to be in the competition? Typically, it's not landslides like above and beyond. So you have to do something else that is. And I don't understand why this is. I can't identify with it. But most companies do not prioritize service. They do not prioritize the customer experience.

Huge, huge vulnerability. And today, by the way, customer experience speaks volumes because it used to be word of mouth. Now it's world of mouth because of social media. Yeah. Like if I get a card that's stuffed right into my nutrition solution packaging and I open it, my iPhone's right there. I'm going to take a picture. I'm going to hit my stories.

I'm going to tag you. I'm going to tag nutrition solution. And people don't realize that. The service above all else needs to be prioritized at the highest level. And so if somebody sends you this mug, right, and you get this, people aren't just going to be running around, like, posting the mug and talking about the mug and the mug company and all this. But if they got the mug and then they got a phone call from an actual human being and just said, hey, Bedros, I just, this is Chris. I'm with the mug company. I just want to thank you for your reset order and just let you know if you have any questions or anything else we can help you with in the future.

Just know we're here. And again, like, thank you so much for the opportunity. Like that in itself right there, people are like, it would literally probably like below their mind. It's the little things like that that create a situation where people feel obligated to tell somebody they know about the business, about your company. They feel obligated to do the word of mouth work for you. Which makes me think of the book by Robert Chaldeenie, influence, right? He talks about the six weapons of influence and one of them is the weapon of obligation of reciprocity. When you go the extra mile, they feel indebted.

I feel indebted to go and tell others and refer others to your business. I mean, that is a business system. And you're not doing it for like the shitty, manipulative. Like, you actually do it because it's the right thing to do. By the way, it feels really good to do it. And it just so happens. It has those positive consequences as it relates to the business as far as the word of mouth, as far as the customer loyalty, as far as increased retention and all those things.

But it absolutely has to start at the top. It has to come from the CEO. And it can't be just something you tell somebody. You have to show them. You have to show them again. You have to continue showing them. And you actually have to just actually be of that mindset. Love that.

And let's finish off with one thing. And this is something that I, the moment we met, you told me about this. And I'm like, man, I'm going to be best friends with this guy for a long time. And it's because I love pouring into my team. Like, every time someone starts brand new here, we go, hey, welcome to Fit Body Boot Camp. This is an amazing career for you. One, you're going to be very high speed. Two, this is also a personal development program.

If you don't like the idea of that, you can leave now. Like we just have that down. Can I just tell you, I'm really happy that I didn't say this before. We just jump right into this. But when I was waiting for you to come down, I was in there, in the hallways, drinking at least six people that walk by me. So I'm just like, is everything okay? Can I help you at something? Can I get you anything?

And I'm just like, you just did. Thank you. So you're doing a tremendous job with this culture. And it's obvious that it's something you prioritize. It really is. and I see tremendous value in it because, dude, we work like closely together, eight, nine hours a day, five days a week. I want these people in here to be as evolved as I feel I am.

Why would you want to work around a bunch of bucks sticks? Right? Yes, I like that. That's definitely an entrepreneurial term. So, so tell me, before we wrap up here, tell me some of the things you do to invest and pour into your team. Yeah, so a lot of things. And, you know, basically everything that I did to turn my life for,

and the things that I continue to do to evolve, which is personal development. Every day in Nutrition Solutions, there's one hour mandatory personal development. We have the whole building wired with speakers, so it'll play in every department. And personal development hours like church, like there's no talking, they're listening,

they're getting, they're still working, but they're listening. I pay them to do two workouts a week, really hard workouts, not little, you know, you're on a treadmill at a leisurely pace texting. I think I've seen some of those workouts on IG, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, somebody vomits pretty much every single time.

It's very hard training. It's early in the morning. It's like a combination of like a boot camp, crossfit, high intensity. I get after it where, I mean, we're building mental toughness out there. We're building discipline. We're seeking out discomfort. I have, we have ice baths that will fill after the workouts. The team will sit in the ice bath.

And like, I've had some people on my team legitimately sit. completely submerged an ice bath for five minutes. That's really impressive. I don't know if you've ever done that, but that's a long time. But again, these are things that I recognize the value when I'm trying to help them build their confidence, build their mental toughness, seek out discomfort, embrace that discomfort. And then, you know, doing it at the beginning of the day, now they're primed physically mentally and they go and they attack the day and they crushed at a higher level. These are all things that I became made aware of through my personal journey that I'm now just bestowing on the team. Another thing that we do is every Friday,

we do community service as a team, whether it's going and feeding the homeless, going to the local boys and girls club, cleaning up the property, feeding the, uh, bringing like, you know, our, protein donuts and, and different snacks to the kids there, or just going out into the, uh, like surrounding neighborhoods that, you know, aren't like super upscale and just cleaning up in the streets, philanthropy, giving back, helping people as a core value at our company. I want them to get a taste of that because, you know, it's not picking up trash. It's, making the world a better place. It's leading by example, another core value of our company.

We do that, you know, not just with like the lifestyle, but just with the things that we do in the world. So, you know, these are things that are really important to me, man, and gratitude. Every morning, morning meeting, all departments come together, standing in ranks, military ranks. We have a paramilitary style structure there. But before any business is discussed, 90 seconds,

listen to some tranquil kind of meditation music, and we do 90 seconds of gratitude. That's awesome. And when we talk about earlier, as you said, look, it's 20-20, it's super competitive in the entrepreneurial space. It doesn't matter the brand or the industry you're in. These are the slight edges that a company uses to win and crush the competition. I mean, that's the bottom line. When Chris can be as evolved as he wants, but if his team is a team of crop dusters while you're a fighter jet, you're not going to battle with crop dusters.

You have to build that slight. edge into customer service, into behavior, into mindset, into, you use the words, attacking the day. Not just coming in and working. No. Attacking the day. That's a very different mindset, very different approach. The outcome is substantially different.

Stay on offense. Offense. Yeah. And so those of you that have well-established businesses out there where you have, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20, 200, 300 employees, team members, you must pour back into your team because if you don't, you will see high turnover and you will see your competition eating your lunch. Chris, is there anything else that I missed that I should have asked you that I didn't? Brother, honestly, just as to add to that last point, the other part of that is it is so rewarding.

It's so rewarding to pour into your team and to witness them come in at one place day one, and then, you know, month three, six, a year, 18 months down the road. They're just a completely different person. And not only does it impact them on a personal and professional level, that carries over into their personal life as well. And who knows how many other people, you know, they'll influence in a positive way. It spills over it into the entire organization. If the individual is growing, the team is growing. If the team is growing, the business is growing.

And as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, look, you want to have things set up in such a way where your team gets all the credit because they're making all the good decisions. They're out there. They're getting after it because of the mindset, the training and the things that you've instilled in them. There's nothing more gratifying than that. And that's how you know you actually have a real. real business and you can actually call yourself an entrepreneur and not someone who has a job. Well, that's a really good point. I mean, here you are. You travel a lot. Obviously,

with technology, you can always be remote. But talk about building up your team so that they can take responsibility of the business. They get that sense of fulfillment, allowing you then to travel and then continue to grow the brand, both your personal brand and your business brand and be the voice of it. Yeah. Like that's what this level of pouring into your team does. It frees you, it allows you to buy back your time and to do this higher level work. Because as much as I I love chef and I got to meet your chef. Like he couldn't be here doing this. It has to be you.

It has to be the face of the company, the guy that went through the struggles. And the only way you could free yourself is to be able to pour into them and empower them. Took a lot of years to get to the point where I was like comfortable leaving for like even a day. But then, you know, when you realize, like because you're not really trying to do that.

You're just, you think that, oh, this is what I have to do. I have to be here and manage all of this. And I have to be here all the time. Otherwise, go to shit. If that is your current situation, which for a lot of people it is, for a lot of years, it was me. That just means you have to do things different.

You have to get better. If you want people to get better, you have to get better. I mean, literally, there's no exception to that rule. It all starts with the example you set, and it basically starts with you realizing that you're not as special and as great as you think you are, right? You've got to get people a shot. You've got to get people a shot.

As simple as that. So how do our viewers and listeners find you? Yeah, at Chris Cavalini across all platforms, C-A-V-A-L-L-I. And if you dig the vibe, I have a podcast to start today podcast, which we've got to make a link up when you come to Tampa at some point.

But yeah, wherever you find your podcasts. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for watching and listening to this episode of The Empire Show, an inside look into Nutrition Solution and Chris Cavalini, the founder and CEO. And of course, I know you'd love this episode.

And if you did, the best thing you can do is pay it forward by simply leaving awesome reviews on Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and of course, taking a screenshot, sharing it on social media, tagging us, and of course tagging your mama. We'll see you later.