Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 104 - Michael Brandt

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Join us for a discussion with Michael Brandt, founder of Ketone IQ. Cam and Michael cover what ketones are and how they can benefit your performance and mental functions.  Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Follow Michael: https://www.instagram.com/michaeldbrandt/  Thank you to our sponsors: Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off GoHunt: https://gohunt.com/ use code CAM when you sign up for $50 towards the gear shop + 10% off the GoHunt store Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off  Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Timestamps: 0:00:00 Where Ketone IQ Started & What Are Ketones? 0:04:56 Performance for SEALS, Rangers, and the Dept of Defense 0:07:17 The Science Behind Ketones 0:10:43 Ketones VS a KETO Diet 0:18:57 Ketones in Cycling & Combat Sports 0:23:51 Why Michael Chose Ketones 0:29:20 Investors, Production, & What’s Next 0:35:28 Ad Break 0:36:47 Ketones for Work VS Athletic Performance 0:39:40 Carbs & Salt 0:46:48 Michael’s College Experience - Changing Your Mindset 0:56:42 Being a Leader of Leaders 01:02:54 Michael’s Goals as a Leader 01:11:18 Constructive Criticism 01:13:48 Ketone’s Culture & Values 01:21:49 Good Notes: It’s Not Rocket Science 01:28:50 Keeping Yourself Accountable as a Boss 01:37:29 College at Stanford 01:45:41 The American High Education Crisis 01:55:28 Cam’s Parenting Method 02:02:15 Michael’s Parenting Advice: Us Against the Kids 02:11:46 Outro

Every step I take, I move my truth. Every time they tell me stop I use. Every comment hate that makes my feel. Gather up my energy and boom. I hear them talking, saying the way that I move it's so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. This is the Key Hammer Collective with Michael Brand.

How are you? Good. Good to be here, Cam. I can't believe we're making this happen. So Michael, this is your brainchild here. We'll go on camera 12. Or no, is this camera 12? Ketone IQ. Tell me about this.

And let's do a shot while we're, we're going to open the show. The IQ, I need the IQ. Cheers. Yeah, don't we all? Make me smarter. Your brain uses a lot of ketones. Oh, that one tastes good, too.

That's a peach. We've been working on the formulation a lot. Yeah. It's come a long way. Yeah. In 2019, my co-founder, Jeff, who you know. Yeah. And myself.

Great guy. Yeah. Yeah, one of my favorite people. We created the business, and in 2019, we got a $6 million contract with the United States Department of Defense Special Operations Command to create a drinkable ketone as high performance energy for physically and cognitively demanding missions. Wait, so tell me, so you got a contract for six million dollars. Did you have to pitch them on this or how did that work? Yeah, yeah. We for sure had to pitch.

You got to get a lot of different signoffs working with the DOD. It's a giant organization. So you've got to get different sign-offs from different parts of it. Research groups as well as the actual operator groups that are going to be participating. We do a lot of work with the 10th Mountain Group in Colorado. And so there's a lot of sign-offs. It takes a long time to work into the DOD. But luckily, they were interested and still are interested in, they call it human factors,

where historically a lot of the DOD funds go into arms, going to radar systems, going to hardware. And since the Gwatt, a lot of investment has gone into human factors. It takes a million dollars to train a Navy SEAL or an Army Ranger. And so if you're able to extend or improve warfighter performance in a meaningful way, that's worth something. And not to mention just the human factors, like taking care of our guys. Right. And.

But they're probably interested. Well, yeah, keeping them around performing at a high level for longer and better while they're doing it. Exactly. Right. So you made the pitch and then you had the data to show that this would, and how would it impact the soldier? Yeah, we had preliminary data already. Ketones aren't this totally magical thing that we invented.

Your body already makes and uses ketones. And scientists have known that for 100 years, that you can make your body make a lot of ketones. If you do a lot of endurance, so if you're running for a while, your body makes a lot of ketones. If you're fasting or you're starving, your body makes a lot of ketones. your body makes a lot of ketones. And you make it especially so that your brain can function when you're in these challenged states. Compromised.

Yeah. Just tell me real quick, what is a ketone? A ketone is a source of energy. Your body usually makes it from fat. So you turn fat into ketones, mainly to fuel your brain. Your brain can't use fat directly. You can use sugar in your brain,

but the issue with, if you're doing a 20-mile, 30-mile, 240-mile run is you run out of, of carbohydrates. You run out of glucose. And ketones are this backup fuel that's actually more efficient that your body makes naturally and kind of a slow way, but it's really efficient. So the basic science around ketones has been known for a while. People have been doing what's called a ketogenic diet where you can deliberately eat really low carbohydrates and force your body to make ketones and get all these benefits. But it's really hard to actually do that. And there's a lot of downsides to that diet. But the ketone molecule itself is really interesting. It's

really powerful and your brain especially thrives off ketones. So this is an initial insight that like, hey, like if ketones are so cool, why can't you go to the store and buy a shot of ketones? Why can't you just drink it if you're, you know, out on a 36-hour mission? There's only so much caffeine you can take before you have diminishing returns. Is there something with a better performance profile that you can have on top of or instead of just adding more caffeine when you're in that kind of challenged state? So that was the initial premise and there was a good science behind it. But you know, science is this active living field. There's always more to do. We continue doing more. We just got a $800,000 follow-on contract with the Navy Health Research

Center to look at some specific applications of ketones and concussions and TBI. The science continues to evolve just like, you know, just like any area. We're still looking, you know, faster computer parts, faster car parts. Yeah. Science is this living, breathing thing. So, like, what did you show that would improve performance, like for a SEAL or a ranger or that the Department of Defense was interested in? Yeah. But what, like, if you said, so if it's a double-blind placebo study, what would people taking this do better than somebody not?

And it was double-blind placebo? Was it? Yeah. Okay. And the challenging part of that, because especially if you've had, you know, more the older vintages of ketone IQ is that it's always tasted crazy. We made it taste a lot better. Yeah. This isn't bad right here. No, we made it come a long way. But even the, I would joke around, it tastes like cat piss, but even that I was used to it. And I started to like it. So it's just

like, I think it's the first one, you just don't know what to, what you are getting ready for. And so you take it. It's like, it's kind of unlike anything I've ever tasted before. But once I knew what it was, I'm like, this is, now it's like this triggering mechanism where I'm going to take this, it tastes like this, and I'm going to feel good. Yeah. So whatever. Yeah, it tastes like it. And so that was actually a challenging part of the placebo controlled studies is we had to

make a placebo that tasted crazy because if you have something that tastes nice and something that tastes crazy is like, oh, well, the crazy one's probably the one that works. Yeah. So we figured that out, did double blind placebo test and a couple of the specific markers that we were looking at was one is hypoxia. of low oxygen environments. So if you get altitude or deep sea, if you're in these contexts where you have less oxygen,

ketones really shine because they turn into cellular energy. We don't have to go super deep on it, but there's something called ATP, that's the energy currency of your cells. And you're able to create more ATP per unit of oxygen with ketones and you are with glucose, other metabolites. Okay. And so that was a big indication

that we showed ketones work really well. for that in hypoxia ketones help with performance. And the other area is cognitive efficiency, which is basically things like target practice when you're in a tired state. People are more accurate. Okay. In that double-blind placebo-controlled context. Is that what was the altitude, why the 10th Mountain Group was interested?

Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's interesting because I'm like, what can make me better? You know, we're always looking for that little edge. And I don't know. I couldn't really explain why I felt better or why I felt more or quicker or, but whatever,

I felt better taking it. And I don't really know why. Yeah. So that's why I was so interested in like, what the hell is this stuff and what does it do? It's really interesting, Cam, because as we're building out the brand, we could talk for three hours about the molecular chemistry, everything going on. I have a full-time research lead who has a PhD. from Oxford and metabolism.

We're doing a lot of deep science. We support a lot of other institutions, Johns Hopkins, UCSD. We have a dozen research projects that either we're driving or we're supporting the lead investigator on. But, but, but I'm trying to make this like also really simple because my goal is to have ketones everywhere. And I don't think the average person wants to sit down for three hours and understand all the ins and the outs.

Like when was the last time you read a manual before you had a cup of coffee? or a glass of wine. Like at a certain point, things just, they just work or they don't work. Yeah. So something I think a lot about as an entrepreneur is like these two pistons.

One is like going deeper on the science, publishing papers, doing that PhD level research, advancing the science, creating new knowledge, no understanding. But the other is almost like dumbing it down. Like how do I,

if it used to take five minutes to explain to someone, how do I have it take 30 seconds? How do I inspire someone to try it in zero seconds? They saw John Jones took it before his flight. Like how do I get into the like quick quicker pickup because I mean my whole the reason I'm excited there's a lot of ways to make money right in the world the reason I got so zoomed in down on ketones is that energy is the most important problem like if you can help people have better energy you know them do everything else right right and so that's the

north star for me that's what gets me excited every day is to make something that's meaningfully different that helps people especially in there's like compromised states whether you're it's hypoxia or we see a lot with people who have different types of cognitive decline. Ketones really help rescue brain activity and just in everyday people. It seems like it just shakes the rust off the chain. Right. And so if I'm able to do that, and again, part of that is doing the deep, meaningful science research and part of it is just making it like simple and chill and like just crack a shot and take it

and it'll work and go back to the head. It's nice to have that science backup though because, you know, I mean, it's great to have both. I mean, and you've clearly done the science backup, but I know for me, like, I'll have my breakfast and then I have my vitamins or whatever, then this is like with my vitamins, so I do a ketone. And then, like when I did the Eugene Marathon, I had a pretty good run. I took a ketone with me, took it at the half marathon mark.

When I did an ultra, the one I won earlier this year, ketones were, so I'm like, I don't know, But it feels like I'm performing better than I have, and I'm taking this and I haven't before. So if that was my double blind or single blind study, it works for me. But part of it is I trust what you're doing, and I trust, you know, your process.

So I didn't really have to get too deep into it. But I wanted to hear here on the podcast as we had a little time to talk. Super interesting because I know I did try the keto diet, basically, and get to a fat adapted state to where I was burning fat instead of carbs. And that's what I tried to do for the last, I did Crazy Mountain 100. And I was trying to switch my body to fat adaption basically,

which is, I guess, keto in some ways. So I've tried it before, but that's tough. Yeah. It's tough being fat adapted. How did you feel? I didn't feel great. Yeah, a lot of people feel run down. A lot of people, they'll feel, you know,

sharp at times, but it's a really hard diet to adhere to because you don't have the pop. Like carbohydrates give you this more of a pop. Right. The fat system, the being fat adapted, a lot of ultra-marathon, ultra-distance athletes are into that because you do have to be fat-adapted if you're going to go run 100, 200 miles. Your body has these different energy systems. You want to be able to tap into both. And where ketones are really interesting is they let you fuel through this other pathway,

through your fat pathway that's complementary to your car. carbohydrate pathway, but you don't have to do the keto diet. You don't have to choose one door or the other. And a lot of it is the mental benefits. A lot of people when they, they drink ketones, the way that ketones interact with your neurons is especially interesting. It's a fuel source for your whole body, but especially your brain has massive energy demand. And when you're pushing it hard on a run, you get really tired mentally. Like you lose focus. And that's where a lot of times things go wrong, whether it's like you trip and fall, you lose your focus or you just lose that willpower, like that your brain has that central governor that like a lot of times when you quit, it's not that

your quad or calf quit on you, it's that your brain quit on you and you've lost that like umph to to keep going. And so if you're able to supply your brain with more substrate, more fuel, more energy, then all the other systems work better because your brain's just controlling all of it. Is that where the IQ came in? is because it's like such a big input for the brain. Yeah. Having this. So when you were saying that, I was just trying to think.

So on a normal diet, say, and maybe you don't know the answer to these questions, but I'm just going to ask it anyway. On a normal diet, we're so used to burning carbs for fuel. Like everybody eats tons of carbs, right? Usually not enough protein. But on a normal diet where carbs are your fuel, how much on a normal diet is fat used for fuel?

Do you know? A lot of times people on the standard American diet are highly dependent on carbs or entirely dependent on carbs. A small portion. And then you go all the way back to a keto diet and then you're fat adapted so you're burning not many carbs

because you've trained your body to burn fat instead. Yes. So if you're on normal diet, Does your product, the ketone IQ, make those fat cells more available for fuel? Or how does that work? What it does is it helps your body to be better at burning ketones. So it helps you initially, it gives you energy that's not from sugar, not from carbohydrates. And you upregulate, you create more of the enzymes that allow your body to make ketones in general.

So you're able to snap into that mode more. and what I don't recommend necessarily is keto diet for everyone. We really don't consider ourselves a keto diet company. I don't push keto diet. I don't do the keto diet personally. I think it's effective for some people if you're trying to aggressively lose weight or you just really love the way it makes you feel. Yeah.

You're on doctor's orders to do a keto diet. But what's really cool is the power of a ketone directly to be able to fuel you. and not having to do this super restrictive diet. If you zoom out for a sec, that if you're training for an endurance event, 100-mile, you have these two systems. You have your fat system and you have your carbohydrate system.

The limitation of your carbohydrate system is, is it's small. You can only hold a couple thousand calories of carbohydrates on deck. Like your glycogen store. A lot of, you've heard of glycogen stores, and your muscles and your liver. That's why you do like spaghetti the night before,

marathon because you want to fill up with carbs. Exactly. And the glycogen stores. Yeah. You fully load up your glycogen stores. And then you burn through it pretty quickly. You just don't have more than a couple thousand calories of it. You can burn through it real easily.

Even in a marathon, you can burn through it. So you say like when you're running a marathon, how many calories an hour are you burning? It's like 500, 500. Okay. Yeah. So if you say it could be gone in six hours. Yeah. You know?

And then what? Yeah. Or wait, wait, no, no, six hours would. So that'd get you through a marathon. Yeah. I mean, unless you're going slow, but it wouldn't get you through 100 miler. Yeah. Right, okay.

It won't get you through 100 miler. You need the ability to fuel off of this other system, your fat system where even if you're a lean person, you have a hundred times more fat stored than carbohydrates. So fat is this long-term, larger amount of storage, a larger amount of fuel. And so endurance athletes are really good. at tapping and endurance athletes are really good at turning fat into usable energy and metabolizing it using it and so a well-trained athlete when they show up on race day they're good at both they have been doing so many runs they're really good at the fat adaptation and they've also

carb loaded the last you know 72 hours and their glycogen's fully replete so you want like both tanks all the way full yeah and then usually during a race you're also trying to eat a lot of carbs and cutting edge of endurance nutrition right now. Like David Roche who won Leadville this year, he was having like 100, 120 grams of carbohydrates an hour. You're trying to keep up with the amount of carbohydrate that you're burning, but it's hard to do so. So you have this other system, your fat system that's also going.

What's interesting about ketones is they go through that fat system, but they're immediately available. So you don't have this conversion from fat into ketones, is just kind of slow. Gotcha. But you're able to basically go through that lane on the highway, that pathway that's complementary to carbohydrates, but you're able to do it quicker and more bioavailable than just fat.

So it's not a one-stop solution. Like you want this total metabolic flexibility. You want to carb load. You want to be fat-adapted. And ketones give you this other additional fuel sores on top. I see. That especially your brain really likes that. Like your brain sometimes gets nimbled.

neglected. Like a lot of times people, athletes train every other part of their body, but your brain is, like, if you can say sharp, that can be the differentiator. That can be the willpower to squeeze it a little harder. It's a reason why like in a hundred mile or a 200 mile or they allow pacers because you're not making great decisions. Once you get to this point of exhaustion or so many miles into the race or you haven't slept, so then you can have a pacer, so you're not going off course, you're not, you know, making poor decisions. So it's like that, when you say that cognitive function, that I get that because that's what that is. That's why pacer's are allowed. And people do make terrible decisions at the end of races. So maybe, you know, this ketone IQ would help that.

Yeah, that's what kind of got me interested in a keto diet to start with is because I thought, well, if I'm 10% body fat, I weigh 100 or 170. That's what 17 pounds of fuel, right? Yeah. And where you said with carbs, you can only have a couple thousand calories. So I'm like, well, that's way more fuel. But it's not really available or not as efficient as carbs. So I like this idea of, yeah, you're going to train and you're going to get your body

used to burning some fat for fuel, mostly carbs, but also with the ketones added in. It's like that's what it feels like. I mean, is that why the Tour de France guys were so interested in it? Yeah. I saw this year a lot of those guys were using Ketone IQ. Yeah, the Pro Tour teams were real early in getting into, we've been working with the Pro Tour team since, you know, early days when we were working with, when we started working with the DoD.

So 2018, 19, the Pro Tour team started using it because they were looking for every edge. Yeah. Tour de France is gnarly. I don't have to tell you. It's 23 days, you're racing for 21 of them. and it's a stage race just for those that don't know that your timer starts on day one and once you cross the finish line on day one the timer ends and it starts again the next day next day and that goes on for three weeks and then whoever has the lowest cumulative time at the

end wins so the race is on every single day right and is brutal I mean you're racing one of those stages at like the pace of the guy all the way in the back would probably kill most people oh yeah that's No, they're freaks. They're absolute freaks. And so in that world, especially because of the way that cycling works where you're staring at a computer and you're seeing your watts, it's very quantitative that it was just a very natural pickup for ketones. It registers really quickly.

It's okay, this stuff is working. They saw the benefits just like it was very noticeable because of the numbers, the data showed benefits? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Because in other sports, right, you're playing football, soccer, basketball, all stamina as a component, but there's a lot else going on.

Cycling, running too, but especially in cycling, it's like A to B, and you're staring at a freaking computer. It's measuring it the whole time. Yeah. Yeah, because, you know, we talked about this as we're running and doing things today, but, you know, it would be nice in the running world to have that same kind of data, but because everybody's so different in running gate, running ability, what type of shape you're in, uh, cardiovascular cardiovascular, how efficient you are, so many things go in.

So it's really hard to look and say, if I run this pace, if I'm pushing this many watts, I can last for this long, you know what I mean? Because with running, so many other factors come in. But yeah, I mean, that's about as close as you get to a human body performing and having a measurable showing that these are benefits is the bike riders with watts and fatigue. and you know I know they're checking lactic acid so many biomarkers that they look at just make sure they're getting everything they can out of the racers so if it's good enough for them it seems like that's all the validation one should need I mean I don't know yeah yeah

it's been a good proof point to go in other sports early days cyclists picked it up and then it started getting into combat sports Connor McGregor caught one of it DM'd us he started using I think what it was was that his S&C coach was working on cardio stamina for him and was looking at the literature, Newsome European cycling teams and saw that ketones were really helpful. And so Connor McGregor hit us up, and then we got connected in with Jake Paul, and we've just been really pushing into combat sports more recently, because that's a whole other endurance and cognitive sharpness in the later run. That's super, I mean, that could be the difference between getting knocked in the face or not.

Like, it's, it really matters. So any, it's a different, totally different sport, which is kind of funny to me because, like, you know, I couldn't be more opposite, riding a bike versus fighting. Fighting. Yeah. But they have, what they have a lot in common is that the inches matter. Like, if you're off, I mean, on a bike, you could, if you're off by an inch, you could crash into something.

You see these massive wrecks in the, in the pro peloton. Not to mention, I mean, you can also just lose the race by not being, And in combat sports, the same thing. It's a game of inches. And so it's been cool to see the pick up there. You think about like fight IQ, right? So if you're making good decisions in a fight or even reaction time, you know, you can think like Connor was a big counterpuncher. Like when he won the belt against Jose Aldo, he threw out of through a punch, Connor just barely Nick Connor.

Then Connor came back with the big left actually. And so that, I mean, it was, it did. I think it, Aldo's punch did hit his nose. So you think, well, reaction time. If I was fighting and my reaction time and my performance and my money was on the line, I'd be taking one of these in between every round. I mean, right? Yeah.

I would. Every round, I would be like, give me one of those ketones. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. It's a cool area. I think a lot of times, you know, I talk about it a lot. I push a lot.

But it's, I always come back to the fact, like, there's a lot of ways to make money, a lot of different types of businesses, that the initial reason I picked this was I came in tops down into the space and looked at what's even interesting. That, you know, gatorade. Into what space? The human performance space. Okay. Yeah.

That I was early tinkering on a lot of these sensors and continuous glucose monitors and footstep trackers and measuring my cadence when I run like a decade ago before everyone had it. Was this because you were a runner and you were interested in your own performance essentially? Totally. Yeah. I was interested in it personally and then just started looking at the literature and predicting that, you know, we're going to see more of this. We're going to see more sensors on and in the body that people are going to become more

passionate about the biomarkers that drive their performance. And within that world, what's a lever that you could pull? It would be great to invent protein powder or caffeine or electrolytes if that didn't already exist, but those already exist. And I came very tops down like, what should exist that doesn't already exist? And one of our early investors, do you know Mark Andreessen? I know the name. He was on JRE recently. He's probably the number one Silicon Valley investor.

Okay. Runs a shop called Andresen Horowitz. They're early in Facebook. A lot of other just like prolific tech, coin base, a lot of early tech stuff. they were one of our first investors too because he just liked our thesis around the human body is a platform for innovation there's going to be something new

the next decade isn't going to look like the last decade especially given all the sensors on in the body and the proliferation of sensors like a decade ago it was weird to count your footsteps and now 50 million Americans have a Apple Watch whoop or something like that and in that world people just care more about hey, does this actually register?

Like, I don't know what the hell of Asa'i Berry does, right? Like, people care about things that actually show up and register. Okay, this helps my wadage on the bike or in sports in general. This helps me to have better power output or this helps me, you know,

get energy without interfering with my sleep score. The fact that you can measure these things is very powerful. So it's all to say, I came into the space tops down, like what could exist that shouldn't exist. If there was something cooler to work on, I would have gone and worked on that.

I wasn't like born to do ketones per se. I think my passion came from human performance in general and then just looked under a bunch of different rocks of like, oh, is Ashwaganda interesting? Is this interesting? What's actually interesting? What's the biggest needle mover? And that's where I kept coming back to ketones,

which is, okay, there's something interesting here. Was anybody else studying it at the time? Yeah, there's definitely scientists out there. There's research out there. I'm definitely on the shoulders of giants. I don't want to take too much credit. What I've done, what my company's done is commercialized it. There's a lot of people tinkering around in the lab

and doing some of the early science on it. DARPA was looking at it in the early 2000s. It is program called Operation Metabolic Dominance. So there's definitely science, definitely literature, and especially when you look at the broader literature around ketogenic diet and like making your body make its own ketones. There's definitely research around. That was kind of the inspiration input to me,

which is like, why isn't someone freaking figure this out? Why isn't someone scale this? And that takes work, right? It takes, okay, there's some interesting literature. Okay, let's see if we can get a DOD contract. Okay, let's see if we can get some cool investors. It's cool. Mark Andreessen, Andrewson Horowitz invested.

Okay, let's spool up production. No one who's really producing something. It's new, right? So long story short of how we make it is a fermentation process, very like cutting edge fermentation, but you got to find the right group to do that and convince them to, you know, do that on their machines. I'm like, trust me, I'm going to buy a lot of this. It's going to be a huge hit because check it.

It's one of those things. The analogy I always think about is maybe kind of simple is like throwing a party. Like you got to get a DJ. Then you got to get a venue. And then you got to get an audience. But in order to get an audience, you got to tell them that the DJ is going to come. In order to get the DJ, you got to tell me you have an audience in a venue. It's like, you kind of tell three different.

you tell a handful of different stories. Yeah. That like once they all come true, the whole thing comes true. Right. But as a entrepreneur, you got to like get the fire started somehow. Yeah. So it's like for us, it was like that early customer with a DOD, early production, early funding and just like tell everyone it's happening. And like, okay, guys, I guess it's happening.

Like I guess we're doing this. This is exciting. Yeah. And no one had ever done that part. People had like done some of the basic signs, but no one had really like spooled it together. Yeah. I mean, you got to hustle and you got to have your sales pitch essentially and you got to have your research because different, different, all those different aspects need, they want to hear different things, you know. The DJ wants to hear how much you're going to pay them, right?

How many people are going to be there and what type of music that whoever wants to, the guests need to know who else is going to be there, the big name. So, yeah, you're like adjusting your pitch to each person, and it has to like all come together to make it work. Yeah, that's super interesting. But to ramp up the production was that where the investors came in? And are you at production where you're satisfied with what you're selling now or what's the goal? Definitely the investor part helps with the production part where a lot of times there's a fixed cost. For us, there was a fixed cost to get it going. You got to ante up.

Yeah. No one wants to make a small amount of anything. When it comes to manufacturing, it's like, all right, talking minimum hundreds of thousands, probably millions of dollars. They want a big return. Yeah. To get a big return, you need a lot of product. Yeah.

And like, in our case, too, it's like, okay, we hired our head of product has a master's degree in chemical engineering. And like, okay, she's not working for peanuts, right? Like, everyone, it takes, it takes some. dollars to get things even going to begin with. And yeah, that's, I mean, I think a great reason to go and raise funds. I think a lot of businesses shouldn't raise money. Like if you have a profitable archery shop, like, don't, don't raise money.

Don't like just run your own business. But there's times where if you're really pushing new technology and there's a certain kind of momentum that you've got to get going and get the ball rolling to get production going to get customers to get like the whole flywheel moving. And if bringing in outside funding, bringing in investors helps to kind of spark that off. And that's what we did. I think that works for that type of business. And I feel what it was that you asked that on, oh, are we happy with the amount of production?

Yeah. I'm never, I'm not happy till, you know, 8 billion people know about key times. I think, you know, I'm just, I'm just curious on the trajectory. So when was, when did you start selling? In 2022, we really started. So prior to that, it was this like science fair project where we were working with special operations command and selling to elite cycling teams. And it was super expensive. It was $30 a shot.

And some people were buying it. But it wasn't like we weren't in any stores. We weren't really a mainstream product in any type of way. We really basically turned the page. We figured out a way to make it at a much, in a much more efficient way. and we're able to bring down the price to four or five bucks a shot. And that I launched in 2022. Okay.

So it's really depending on when you start time. Like we've been on market for less than three years, but there's this kind of prior R&D chapter to the business of several years before then. Yeah. It seems like, so three years, it seems like, man, the trajectory is good. I mean, it's probably not where you want to be, but I see a lot of people. I see a lot of traction on it.

I see a lot of people talking about it or curious about it. So, I mean, it feels like that part's been a success. It's going well. It's funny as an entrepreneur. I'm never satisfied. It's a blessing and a curse. Like there's always, you know, my parents tell me I got to celebrate the wins more. It's like there's always the next.

Yeah. Like, okay, you make your first million. It's all right. Can we do 10? Like, can we do? Yeah. You know, you're hiring people. You're everything, like you're getting it all going.

You have, there's a lot to do. What I'll say is that. yeah, it's come a really long way. And a lot of people know about it. And I still think we're still super early. One of my favorite books is the Gatorade book. It's called First and Thirst. It's by this guy, Darren Ravelle,

and he talks about the whole Gatorade story. And Gatorade got started with the Florida Gators in the 1960s, and the idea of electrolytes was really weird. Right. To them it wasn't because they were the visionaries and they were like, okay, you're sweating out things besides water. Let's replenish those other things too. but early Gatorade it tasted crazy.

They were putting it in these cans and it was like corroding, rusting through the cans. It had all these bugs. It just didn't, it required a lot of explanation, crazy taste, all that. So it took decades before they were doing like Michael Jordan prime time, you know, orange bucket of Gatorade at the sideline

of the NFL games. It took years decades. I do think that the timeline is accelerated now because of the internet and technology and stuff. But like there still is that ramp up period. And I think that really in the last, year things have really ramped where we've gone from you know early day early days was just R&D project then it was like okay cool we're getting the kind of iron man set the like hardcore hard cores and now it's becoming like

you know we're for sale and vitamin shop and sprouts and we started working with john jones his team reached out to us and we've started working together and doing some cool partnership stuff doing a lot of he's really into the product and made some fun videos together yeah and so it's it's a It's turning this page from like, okay, you're hardcore, hardcore or you're like next ring out. John Jones is hardcore. I just mean that like a lot of people that watch UFC, it's getting into this broader audience where it's not necessarily everyone's doing an Ironman or a marathon. It's a lot of just everyday people who want, they like the way that they feel when they drink

a ketone IQ and they don't necessarily need to be training for an Iron Man or listening to a whole Huberman lab about like ketones and metabolism. Right. It's going out from there. Yeah, just a mental acuity part. I mean, anybody who has a job going into a meeting, I could see them saying, I need to be at my best for this. Yeah.

You know, because that's where people, I just remember going to meetings and be like, there might be the director there, the general manager there. It's like, you want to say good shit, you know, you want to sound good because they get that snapshot of time to judge you on. So I could see even for that, you know, it's not, it's not necessarily physical performance, but it's human performance, you know. And that's where, really, that's where we all are expected to perform, you know, at our highest level, is we're getting paid to be there and to do it.

So a lot of times the human performance aspect for most of Americans is a hobby, is like a passion type thing. But work, I mean, it seems like work is, they could always use something to be a little sharper. It's interesting the role that athletics plays as this kind of analogy, because you're right, like very few people are paid to be. an athlete. Yeah. It's probably not even one percent of people. A fraction of a percent of people are professionally athletes. And then a lot of the other people who are athletic, it's just a, their weekend

warriors are doing it in the mornings and riding the bike going for a long round on the weekend, that kind of stuff. And it's still this powerful analogy. We think about this a lot. Like I still love athletes. Like I think for the foreseeable future, we're going to be working with athletes, even though what you're saying is true that people, you know, they, they can put two and two together and say, hey, if this works for my, you know, evening sessions rolling around on the mat at jujitsu, like,

okay, I can take it also during the workday. I still like working with athletes and like letting people come to their own conclusion that, okay, I can work it, I can use this in like a conference room, but like, I like the, I guess the visuals, the culture, the like, there's something just raw about athleticism. Yeah. That inspires people. And then I think people can put two and two together that like okay if I'm sitting at my desk doing a PowerPoint okay I'll need energy for that too I'll need something that keeps me switched on but I guess the visual too of like how are you gonna make a cool piece of content around someone clicking on the computer that's tougher I'd rather show someone doing archery right like doing something physical I see you know as I said that and as you

were talking I was thinking about too that yeah we're not all professional athletes for sure most Americans do athletics as, you know, like I said, a hobby or weekend work type stuff. But when I was running 10Ks and I wanted to break 40 minutes, which isn't, you're not going to the Olympics, you're not winning anything if you break 40 minutes in the 10K, but it means a lot. It means a lot to that person. So could these, this help just a regular guy who wants to break 40 minutes in 10K do that? Well, then it's important. Totally.

Because we're all have our own PRs, our own little wins, and our own little, we're at different places in life. Yeah, we're not all going to the Olympics, but we all have benchmarks that we want to improve on. So if it's helping that, that's a win. That's how I feel. That's how I feel about a lot of things. Like wearing the super shoes or getting a sauna or whatever,

like getting those. Yeah, these incremental gains. Yeah, that arguably if you're not a professional athlete that if you only have 10 hours a week to dedicate to it, that all those little gains probably matter more. Right. If you really want to get as best as you can, given that limited time,

and if you have a full-time job as a lawyer, doctor, business owner, whatever, that that's, if you can afford it, getting the normatech boots or whatever, is probably a good investment. All of it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, because it's got me thinking, too,

because the carbs per hour is a big deal. So what if we had one of these with carbs, a bunch of carbs in it? Yeah, yeah. That would be the killer stack, right? Yeah, yeah. This is not meant to replace carbs, meant to stack on top of it.

Right. People are used to taking a gel, carb gel every 45 minutes or every three miles or whatever it is, that you would have ketone IQ on top of it. It's the whole point is it goes to this additive, complementary pathway. And so for us,

Yeah, like you're hitting on the button, which is, which is should we make our own like super stack that has everything in it? For now I'm playing Switzerland on it where like I'm friends with goo and Morton and everyone. And we just collaborate and it's all friendly because our real I really want to build the brand. The way that Gatorade built a brand around electrolytes, like I want everyone to know about ketones. They just own that one lane. Yeah. Gotcha. And it's always an option to do our own stack of.

ketones and carbs together, but what's, I don't want to give away too much on the roadmap, but what's more interesting to me is like, you know, working with other brands and letting them do a product that's powered by ketone IQ, where we're not directly competing against them. Like if we make our own, hey, this is our own proprietary ketones and carb thing, then all of a sudden we're competing head to head. And it's, there's a little bit of kind of navigating. I mean, like, I mainly want to be friends for as long as possible with all the other players in the space. Because I just think there's so much to do on ketones.

Right. There's so much value to create for the world or on ketones that I'd rather just a little thing, like sharing a booth at a marathon expo or doing a giveaway on social media or just, I'd rather stay friendly with people. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that makes sense.

Well, what have you used? I mean, you probably don't want to alienate anybody. But like, if you stack this with the cart, what carb do you take when you run? Yeah. Like, what gel? I mix, I mix a few. I like Morton.

I like goo. I like raw. Those are the main ones I use. I rotate through them. There's like different flavors I like. I'm not, you know, dogmatic. Oh, I won't use. And do you try to get in a certain amount per hour?

Yeah. So I'll do 100 grams per hour. That's what I go for. Gotcha. My stance on it is you should have as much as possible. Like if you're doing a marathon, doing anything longer than that, that you should basically max out,

that, like whatever you can take. How do you keep your stomach stable? Well, a lot of it is just picking the right carb. Yeah. So sometimes people feel better with this flavor versus that flavor,

this brand versus that. And then a lot of it's genetic. natural or you can train to it too a lot of people you know you get more of an iron stomach the more that you have it but basically that is the that is the exercise to fill in it's kind of personal like right which brand and then doing it in training runs and just getting that that iron stomach to okay yeah what can i have do i need to find the perfect one and stay with that one or do i need to actually rotate and have five different varieties of different gels from different brands and bring out the way to like max if what you're going for is a marathon PR you're trying to win an ultra marathon

then like my advice is max out on carbs and then on top of that I have ketone IQ because it's whatever you're able to take on carbs like ketones is just this other this other pocket this other this other pathway what do you do for salt I think salt's huge that I almost I like the salt tabs like the caps or I think the brand the brand I use yeah I've seen those like they're like a pink are the other ones you're you take in a pink little bag or like kind of you rip the top off and they're like they're almost like tom's size right altoid size yeah yeah okay I like those I like kind of chew because I like to keep my water as water mm-hmm because sometimes I just want water then I like to be able to kind of chew on those salt taps that's personal okay yeah because I know

and everybody's so different on that a lot of people get their calories in with their water you know get some carbs in there like I think tailwind yeah They might have carbs in water, right? Yeah, in their drink mix. But yeah, it's interesting. Then I know like Courtney, she eats a lot of like mashed potatoes in a squeeze bag. All right. Yeah.

And I don't know how I can't, I don't know if they buy them like that or make them like that. But it's almost like baby food. And that's just how she can take in those carbs, you know, and it's good on her stomach. Yeah. The Kenyans are really into it's called Ugali. It's like mashed up. yams. That's a big part. It's like mixed with honey or it might be a grain. Anyway, it's called Ugali and it's huge in East Africa. And yeah, it's basically like how

how much carb can you get in mashed potatoes. That's that's elite. Yeah. Yeah. I know that's what yeah. So I don't know if she's changed it up or not, but that is always the test in those long races is how can I keep taking calories in. Yep. Because once you are, unable or your stomach won't allow it or you're throwing up race is going to be tough you know a bad time you got to keep taking but i never you know this carbs per hour thing in measuring it hasn't ever really been anything i knew of it's always just hey you got to make sure you're eating and drinking and taking salt but there was never like in a you know number to it yeah so it's pretty new in the last couple years i think i don't know yeah it's one of those things like kind of stress test it like

push it to its limits that we're talking about like how do you get those that extra marginal gain it's like well what yeah what happens if in that part of the system you just push it all the way right and that's where i think there's a lot of gains left it's interesting yeah because you think of somebody like you know we talked about the weekend warrior type guy but then you talk like cole hawker who you know set the Olympic record at 327 the 1500 but what if you could get you to take a second off. So for that guy, or an athlete like that, could ketones give him that one percent? You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, right before the race. I don't know. That he doesn't have a lot of gains to get. Yeah. But one second is a lot in that venue.

Yeah, one second is a lot. Yeah, big fans of Team Silva, Cole's team. We've done a lot of work with them. We did a lot of work with them around the Olympics, too. They're great. Yeah, they're studs for sure. Oh yeah, he's the nicest, nicest young man ever and so talented. Geez. Yeah, talented, humble, hearts in the right place. Yeah, great guy. Good shot with a bow. Yeah. Yeah, so that's awesome. I mean, for you growing up, though, like, would you study in college? Yeah. In college, I studied computer science. Okay. I came from a just regular family.

I'm from Chicago, went to public school, nothing too special, fancy. I was fortunate enough to get into Stanford. That was a super interesting, eye-opening experience. How did you get in there,

just good grades or, like, isn't it hard to get in? Yeah, you need over a four point, right? Yeah, yeah, you got to have really good grades. And usually they're looking for some X factor.

Hmm. And what was yours? A few, I was class president. I just did extracurriculars. I was a big nerd. Yeah. And I worked really hard.

It was really curious. I was always curious. I did science fair. I went to international science fair. It sounds like I'm bragging. No, I want to know. Yeah.

I mean, I know my daughter was really good in school too. And it's like if you have like even a 4.2, you have a hard time getting into like a lot of good schools. I mean, it's just like, how can you even get better in a 4. But well, you can, you can get a 4.6 somehow.

Yeah. But anyway, so that's why I was curious about it. Yeah, yeah. I was always a curious person and, you know, just went for that extra inch. Like, you just asked. Like, I just asked my principal if she'd write a recommendation. And I think no one else asked. Were you always outgoing as it?

Yeah. Because a lot of kids wouldn't do that because they're too, whatever, self-conscious. Yeah. I started seeing it kind of. as a like the matrix or as a game when I was in high school

that you're in control of how you show up in a lot of circumstances. You have certain, sure, baked in characteristics of your personality, but you can also

try and it's more malleable than you think that if you want to have good frame in a certain situation, that's something you can work on. Mm-hmm. And just seeing that at an early age and like, okay, you can, you can have better posture.

You can speak more clearly. Like you can, it's hard to develop a sense of humor maybe, but like you could try, right? Like there's certain aspects that you can work on. And I think a lot of people have a set, okay, this is my personality. And I think I saw early on, I felt like in this matrix kind of moment where like, no, you can actually have this. You can grow and develop and get better at a lot of these aspects. A lot of people think are baked in.

You can be different. So I don't know if I was born outgoing. My parents aren't necessarily super outgoing, but I just put in sets and reps. Like I remember as a kid, I would just chat with the person next to me in line somewhere and try to make it like fun and not in like a weird way. Just like try to find something fun, relatable.

Like what? Why would you, how did you like think about like this just on your own? Or did somebody mention it to you? I just thought that it would be this. source of infinite value. If you're able to... Like empowering.

Yeah. If you have that skill, like if you're able to spark up a conversation with any arbitrary person, there's some, if you think hard enough, there's some Venn diagram overlap between you and any other person. Like there's something. Has it ever not worked?

I mean, yeah, because it's, yeah, sometimes people aren't in the mood. Or sometimes it's, you know, it's really hard to find what is that exact overlap. Right.

But sometimes it's not so hard. Sometimes it's just like, hey, what's good here? When has it worked? You got an example of like when it like you're like, God, this is amazing. Yeah, I mean, I just like, if you're at a restaurant or in a line somewhere, he's like, hey, what's good here? Oh, yeah. A lot of times if someone's been here before, oh, yeah, the ribs. Right.

It's like, and then you can make people give signals. Like if they want to continue if they're bored, they want to chit chat. Some people don't and you respect that, of course. Because most people wait to ask the waiter. Yeah. Which, of course, they're going to say everything's good. Yeah. But yeah, okay, a consumer would probably be more honest.

But yeah, I'm just curious about because most, most young, especially high school, are very self-conscious. I mentioned that too. Or like people say, I'm just not outgoing or I just don't, you know, I just, I'm not a people person. I think that's a fixed mindset. It's like saying I can't bench press. Right.

It's like, well, that might be true right now, but hey, you can probably bench the bar. We're a pretty amazing species. Yes. We can adapt to a lot of things. Yeah. If you're not a big talker, hey, people have overcome a lot more than just being a little bit more vocal. Exactly. And so seeing that that was an area that your personality, being outgoing is something that you can apply sets and reps to.

It was an early inside. I don't think I'm the best at it. Some people are super duper smooth and silver tongue of a diplomat. Like some people are just mass, like major charisma. I don't think there's such a thing as a natural, though. I think some people like, yeah, if your dad's a senator and you're in every conversation from a young, young age, you just got those sets and reps in early. Right.

And it was brought along with you. The same way that your son and your daughter can have sets and reps running up the hill. And so seeing it as a growth mindset and, yeah, we're all in our pet. I'm still growing up. I'm a 35. I'm a CEO. And I've gotten a lot better since I started this whole thing. And there's still a lot of ground to cover.

I know guys like Evan Hafer is like CEO of a publicly traded company. It's like, okay, like I'm learning. Like there's, but I never think about it as impossible. Like, okay, like I'm not there right now. I can't bench 300 pounds, but like you could get there. If that's something that you want to do, like if you want to be a public company, Fortune 100 CEO, it's been done before. People with less.

It's not impossible. It's not this fixed thing. Oh, I'm not. I don't know how that. worse I don't know if I have this it's like you can truly learn anything everything is plastic if you think about Evan specifically CEO of Black Rifle Coffee he was in the army he's in the military and so how does that prepare you to run a publicly traded company you know what I mean so whatever path he was interested in or

whatever think topics he was interested in he applied what he knew the skills he was developing in the military got hired on I think he worked to the C CIA and then now of a sudden they go public for $1.7 billion. It's incredible. It's like how does that happen? Yeah. That just being his military training didn't do that. Yeah.

That was just him. Just hungry to learn. It helped him, right? In the sense that leader of men, yeah, good communicator, good at, I think one of the best skills. Yeah, skills. One of the best things you can do is a leader I've found is hire other leaders and make it really clear when an opportunity or problem comes.

comes up, make it really clear who needs, who in the squad needs to lead through it. And a lot of times, the best thing you can do is, as the head honcho is actually tap yourself out and to say, hey, this problem here is an operations problem. I'm going to put in the guy with 15 years of supply chain experience. We're all going to listen to him. Okay, everyone, I'm the CEO. We're listening to this guy. Or, hey, like, we have this opportunity over here.

Okay, that's a content or a marketing. opportunity. How about we listen to the guy who's been doing content for 20 years and has gone viral a bigillion times? Like we're okay everyone we're going to go listen to this person and I think I mean I've gotten a chance to hang out with Evan a few times and hear his story I think he's really good at that kind of thing like he surrounds himself with great leaders and it's great at passing the ball where it needs to be on the field. And I think a lot you know I think a you know more novice take on what it means to be a CEO is that you're the decider on everything. thing. You're the boss to tell everyone what to do. And it's the best guys don't do that.

Right. There's a few decisions where you're actually the one, okay, like if it's really multifaceted or a company really hasn't seen that before or, you know, you kind of know what it happens. But you got to be honest. You got to be low ego. I'm like, okay, am I actually the expert or is, is there someone on the team who's better at this than me? And a lot of times when you're the expert as the leader, it's a flaw. It's like if you keep hitting that type of problem, like you got to hire someone who's really good at that type of problem. Or you're not developing your staff to the level they need to be.

Yeah, do you think it feels like a lot of CEOs would make that mistake, like trying to make every decision? Maybe not the ones who are successful, because if they're successful, they've obviously figured that out. Yeah. You've got to always be hiring yourself out of the job. And it's scary because then it's, you're like, oh, what do I do here now? Like, if you're spending all day, you know, running your warehouse and, like, you know,

running your warehouse and like your nights, weekends, you're doing this, this. And then all of a sudden you hire someone who's better than you at that. And you can feel like the, this has happened to me a few times in my career. You just feel like the bottom drops out. You hire that person. And the next day, you feel useless. You show up to where you're like, what do I do now? But that's actually what you want because then it's like, okay.

Yeah. Like let me let things settle. And then let me see where the next challenge, the next challenge. The next challenge, next opportunity comes up. I think a lot of people, it's easy to get attached to the work. And I think it's really important as a leader to be always hiring yourself out of the job. And then sensitive to what's next. And then you go and do that for a little bit.

And then I have this motto at the company, which is like, I don't like doing anything one X. Whenever we're doing something kind of, you know, one X, say we're doing like sampling at marathons. Like I'm always like, hey guys, I want to zero X this or 10x it. So meaning I want to either want to like, we're going to do it. Sure, we can do it one X for a couple of months. But then we're either going to hire the best person in the world at this or we're going to stop doing it. I don't like doing it a little bit. Yeah.

It's like a toe in the water. A toe in the water is to test the temperature of the water and you're either getting in or you're getting out. Right. And I think one thing that makes leaders good is they're not afraid to put that toe in the water. They're not afraid to go like do it kind of. Take that first step. Yeah. And it might be kind of shitty.

and duct tape together and okay i'm gonna i'm not the expert maybe i think i think i'm like pretty good at a lot of things like jack of all trades so i can kind of do a lot of things deece but once it starts to hit the first thing i'm thinking is like okay who's actually the best in the world this to the next level yeah yeah yeah i think i think there's this curse actually of like if you're too good as a leader like there's there's a certain archetype of leader that's almost the like the like dumb dumb CEO who's like actually really effective because it's like imagine like the like it's a regular dude who's like super friendly and affable well connected and they just are super humbled to the fact that they're not going to be the one to solve

the thing but they're going to go and find that person and I think there's this curse of if you're but they have to be confident they have to be confident because if they're not confident they think everybody's taking their job or or taking their power away but if they're confident in their decisions and their own ability then they're okay with delegating that yeah yeah yeah i mean i don't know yeah you're right you got to be you got to be confident in it you got to be i do think it's rare to be you know speak all the different languages to really find you got to know what really good looks like right that's a key thing like you got to know what a great lawyer looks like what a great chemist looks like whatever your line of work is right you got

to know what greatness looks like in that area to be able to tap it in. You don't have to be it yourself. I think it's a, as I said earlier, it can be a curse. I think a lot of what gives businesses off the ground to begin with is super talented leader who's really good at doing the actual work. And then at a certain point, that's a curse because like you actually need to hire someone else to do that because you got to go, let that thing go, do something. And I think that's where a lot of businesses, you know, hit some ceiling and there's, there's

that room to grow beyond it when you hire the right other leaders it's it's about being a leader of leaders yeah it's something I'm working on I don't I hope I'm not like I don't know everything here this is on my path kind of what I've been thinking about and right and and learning it on so I mean I've heard you reference a few different things like we talked about shoe dog so I know you've you know Phil Knight you've taken some things from that you've mentioned Evan with black rifle so do you try to take different things from different organizations, or do you have a blueprint that you've developed that you're trying to follow? Or how are you running your company now? Yeah, I borrow something from everywhere. Okay. I like to steal like an artist. I do believe that the idea of

leadership does not exist in this universal, true way that there's not like this textbook definition of, okay, this is what leadership looks like. You're going to see very different leadership styles out there. The way Oprah Winfrey leads her media empire, very different from how Joe Rogan leads his media empire, right? And like that's media. And you look at Calvin Klein versus Chanel, like fashion icons. They're leading their businesses in different ways.

Everyone's going to lead in a different way. And you got to find your own way of doing it. There's no one way to do it. Like some leaders are hyper-disciplined. every meeting starts it you know 59 past the hour and if you're early is on time on time is late everything is eyes are dotted teaser crossed other leaders are yeah other leaders are more you know loose or creative or this or that like there's a lot of different ways to lead steve jobs very different than film night right like you got a lot of different styles and so

i think you got to you got to steal the things that work for you like try a lot of things out see what feels right and amplify those. So I mean, for me, I think a lot about, I like Nike, I like Apple. I like designing products. I like the leaders who are really good at making things really simple and beautiful and everything else comes from there. If you can make a product that people just love that ideally doesn't require a manual that just brings you joy and is recognizable and is really simple,

And all the other things around that can, you can, you can assemble the team. You can assemble the supply chain team. You can do the marketing around it. You can do all the things. But when you think about Nike or anything about Apple, it's like, what's at the core of it? It's like the leaders are just obsessed with, like Phil Knight actually just wanted to make the best shoe. And everything else kind of emerged from there. I don't think he was like a supply chain savant.

I think it was a shoe, like a shoe design savant, especially with Bowerman too. Like that, I think they were obsessed with making the best shoe. And once that starts to take off, it's like you can kind of hire the other functions that need to exist to make the company thrive. But when I think about developing my own leadership styles, I'm not necessarily like, you know, finance wizard or this or that. But I think I, what I try to do a good job of is listening to people,

having empathy, designing products that people really love and bring them joy, fine-tuning the messaging, making the product really front and center. And then if that's really working, and then you can kind of build, hire out the different roles around there. What, I mean, so you're not where you want to be, obviously, but you're on the path. What's been the biggest key to your success

to get to where you're at right now in this journey? Yeah, I would say I've let go of who I was a few different times. I've changed a lot. I would say at the highest level, it's just ability to let go, Like to sell your first $100,000 a product takes a certain skill set to sell your first, your next million dollars. You've got to be almost a different person to sell your next 10 million.

We sold tens of millions. We sold over $50 million at ketone IQ. Like each one of those rungs takes just, you just got to move very differently. And so I would say at the highest level, it's the ability to kind of molt to let go of who I was, be able to put that person away. and like reinvent and become a new person. And it's look different each time. Like, you know, in the early, early days,

you got to be hardworking and talented and relentless. And it's just you and your co-founder and maybe like a couple part-time people. And you're just like jam it, willing it into being. And at a certain point, we're talking about this a little bit already. At a certain point, you got, that's like the exact opposite of what you got to do.

You got to take your hands off the controller and you got to be really good at hiring people. You've got to be really good at connecting and having a good network around you so that when new opportunities rise at the business, you already know who's the best in the world of that to go and hire. So I spent a lot more of my time now is up and out, connecting with people and learning how other businesses work

and meeting experts at different types of functions and thinking about where the puck is going in the next one, two, three years, talking to, you know, big companies and understanding how they think about innovation. And, you know, there's a chance at some point we'd want to sell the company. Maybe we go public. Maybe we sell the company and just keeping options open, and understanding how big companies acquire. Like, what do they look for in companies that they end up buying?

And, like, how do we, without being in a hurry to sell the company, like, how do we build a company in a way such that if we wanted that to be an option that we know all the right people and we're speaking the same language and we've built the company in a way that it can plug into Pepsi or Pepsi owns Gatorade? Then we could plug into a company like that or like curd, Dr. Pepper, or one of these other big public beverage companies. So I would say I have been okay with kind of putting my old self down and reinventing my next self.

And it's happened every year or so. Yeah, I mean, that just has me wondering how much of that reinvention is internal versus external. Would the people that you work with see the same year? but the change is inside. You're looking at things differently. You see things differently, but they see the same Michael.

It's interesting. That's a really good question, Cam, because it's led to some interesting conversations because sometimes the relationship changes. Some people grow with you, and they're right there alongside you, and other people, they're maybe more the same. And they say, would they say,

You've changed. We're not, I mean, it's like a negative. Well, it might be because maybe for instance, I in the past was more in the details and in the work and more attentive and more caring. And then at a certain point, no, okay, we've hired X more people. We have X, Y, more dollars coming into the business. We have more expectations, maybe added investors. And like now the way I relate to people is more like, hey, I'm just going to say what needs to happen. And you either hit it or you don't hit it.

And I'm not in there to like mentor and coach and do the work with you in a way that maybe I used to be. And that does lead to challenging conversations sometimes because it's a different, it can be a different working relationship. And you can communicate about it. You know, I think fundamentally most of these conversations, they round up in a positive way where it's like, okay, let's all be that way. Let's all grow in that same way together. The company's evolving.

We're not this R&D project that maybe was the case. Five, six years ago. We're a lot bigger guns now. We're still very small, but, like, you know, a lot bigger than we used to be. And the way we need to move is a little bit different. And so having those conversations with people. Yeah, I do think I've changed. And I think you've got to always be pinging.

The one thing I think it hasn't changed is just being honest, communicative. of like full transparent like open heart open kimona like just honest and if it's not working with someone like talk about it like is are you good at that those because you know a lot of bosses per se aren't well not a lot of them because if you're good you're good at communicating but how is that one of your strengths to be able to be have honest dialogue with people even if it's hard i'd say so that yeah yeah and i think that's a good trait for leaders i think again And like, especially as the business grows, I'm not necessarily the expert at all these different areas.

But being able to communicate with people on what the business needs and how that relates to their function and how they're doing at it. And how can I help you hit that goal? Like, what resources do you need? I can't directly help you, but like, is it, do you need to hire a number two? Do you need to learn a new skill? Do you need to take time to do that?

do you need to take on less work? Do you need to redefine the goals in some way? Like working with people, having those open conversations. Yeah, I would say it feels natural to me, but as you ask the question, yeah, I would say something I'm good at. Yeah, like just keeping it real with people. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. I would, I mean, that's what it takes to be successful. It seems like guys who aren't or leaders who aren't that, it's going to be rough. it's going to be rough to grow you know I think I'm always

good people along the way I think you always the goal one of my goals is the leader is to say what's going on it's George Washington crossing the Delaware

like it ain't pretty it's cold as shit some of us might die it's rough but like saying hey this is the map this is what we're going to go and do

and being honest and not hey we're going to cross the Delaware it's going to be great guys I think I think some leaders can be kind of overly candy-coded and like trying to rah-rah and like I actually think that

backfires in a major way I think the best thing you can do as a leader is is be honest and to provide that true north that guiding star and that sometimes includes bad news sometimes that includes bad news about how you know to a specific person on how they're doing hey we're crossing the Delaware you need to work on your paddling yeah like on that side of the boat you're falling behind and like that just that is and being able to to say that. And I think at a certain point you kind of build a reputation around you

for people just know that you're a no bullshit person. And, you know, no one likes being on the receiving end of it. But then, you know, if they have something to say about someone else, oh, the other side of the boat is too heavy or something. You know, then like they appreciate having a leader who can say what's real to be honest. To that side of the boat. And I think it's good to build that brand.

And I think about it like, And just be compassionate about it. It doesn't mean being like bullshitting people or hiding the, hiding the truth or being nice for no reason. It just means being, I think the most compassionate thing you can do is be honest. Yeah. Yeah.

Honest feedback. Even if people don't want to hear it. It's like, yeah. Yeah. A lot of people don't want constructive criticism. You know, because they feel like they're being whatever. Well,

that's something that we look for a lot when we're hiring people. And it's a big part of our culture. culture's ability to take feedback, be able to give feedback too. Like I always think it's weird, you know, it's not a good sign if someone's not willing to, you know, give me feedback. If they're not willing to like challenge me, I try to be opening, open and welcoming of it. Like, you know, I don't know everything. Like I'm hiring people who are smarter than me in some way that expand the organization

in some way. Like, if there's a blind spot, like I need you. Part of the job is to come to me and tell me what we could be doing here. If I knew everything, your job would be obsolete. Like, I don't know everything. I'm looking for people to come in and really help me guide the ship. And so it's a two-way thing. It's like give me feedback, be receptive to feedback.

And yeah, it's not for everyone. And I don't mean that in a like overly judgmental way. It's just like we have a certain culture and it's not for everyone. And that's okay. Like there's other jobs that are going to be way easier, way more chill. maybe not as ambitious and lucrative and all that stuff but like you got you kind of I think about it like a professional sports team like we're here to perform at a really high level and win big together and do great things and if you want a more like chillax lifestyle like I have no moral judgment on that

like right maybe me out of fresh out of college or me when I'm older like maybe me in another lifetime like that's a fine job there's no there's truly i mean it in my heart like i have no judgment on that it's just that the company that i'm running right now is not that and so the best thing i can do is fly the flag and be really honest with people when they're interviewing or we're doing performance reviews like this is the culture and if if it's like it's got all these pluses and we're going to go and do great things together and it's going to make people's career and we're accomplish great things. It's going to be a lot of hard work,

but we're the type of people that like carrying rocks up mountains, like all of us, like that's just in the culture. So if you're down for that, like, cool, we're going to have a lot of fun. Right.

Yeah. And just flying that flag. I feel like as a leader, one of the best things I can do is just communicate, like, who we are and try to scare people away if it's not for them

and try to attract the right people that that is for. So the culture is just hard work, take no prisoners, do cool shit, make an impact. Is that the culture? Yeah, yeah.

We actually have it written out. Like we have our cultural tenants. Yeah, we. What are they? Oh, sorry, put you on this line. Yeah, yeah, no, it's good. This is good. Our first one is play to win.

Because I think a lot of businesses kind of lost side of that. Okay. And they went to like, okay, the whole point is to, you know, optimize your employee happiness score or something, which we're not. running a slave camp. I want people to be happy. Like that is important. Yeah, that's not. But they're measurable though. But that's like we are also playing to win.

I think about, you know, like Oregon Ducks, right? The number one football team in college football right now. Like they're playing to win, right? Like winning is winning and you want good morale. That's a part of it. You want people to enjoy their time and yeah, have satisfaction of it. But like the idea that hey, like there is an objective measure of how we're doing. and like some people just are better at making correct decisions. Like smarter people are are smarter, hardworking people are harder working.

Like that there is this just like pure play to win. We have a few other. We got eight of them. Okay. This isn't like when Tanner graduated Ranger school. Yeah. They had to say the Ranger Creed. Yeah.

You know, you got to memorize that. So this isn't that. Yeah. This isn't the Ranger Creed. Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, one of my other favorite ones.

is constructive feedback that, yeah, we were talking about it earlier, it's like the ability to detach your ego and kind of pin the work up on the wall. And we talk about the work and it's not an attack on you. Take the emotion away from it. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big part of our culture. I'm really big.

Quality of communication is another one that. How, what do you mean quality? That I just expect people to be really good at written communication, verbal communication, that the ability to, and I really actually, I mean, as it's written is actually that written communication is the spine of the business. So you can have conversations. You have phone calls, face to face. You can brainstorm, whiteboard. But like what's actually going on in the business is what's like written down. Our quarterly goals and then how we judge those quarterly goals.

all written down. There's a big project. There should be a document about it, like a memo. It's something to define what's what success looks like, what the different roles are, who's responsible for what, that everything else is a means to an end, like a conversation, a phone call, a whiteboard, like that's all great. That's all built off the written communication. Yeah. The game plan. Yes. Okay. And so I think there's some opinionatedness inside of that, which is that this written communication is the spine like we're going to go on a big trip and do a lot of stuff like there better be a document for it it can't just be like lucy goose phone calls or this person knows half of what's going on this person knows another half this it's like the the way to get everyone

on the same page well there needs to be a page yeah i would always hate when i had issues like when i was superintendent they'd say well i called them and talk to him i'm like i want to fucking read it yeah I want to read what what you guys talked about. Yeah. I want to see it because verbal on a phone call is who knows what. Yeah. You never know what was said or what wasn't said. But so I definitely get that.

So who comes up with who writes this document? Is this you? Yeah. Or are you tasking people with this? Oh, for given projects? Yeah. Yeah. I try to not be the one writing it.

Back to what I was saying earlier that usually there's someone better than me. at the given role. So if we're switching manufacturing facilities, then a head of supply chain needs to run that. And I'm going to be a stakeholder, very opinionated, always reserve the right to override if it doesn't smell right to me. But basically the whole reason I have a higher head of supply chain is to run that process. If there's a big content project, our head of content will run it. If there's a big new product development. We're updating our formula. We're launching new stuff,

like our head of product. We run that. So I try, I think one of the best things I can do as a leader is to identify the work that needs to be done and then nominate the leader who needs to lead that. And then I'm really big on ownership. Like that's another one of our core values. Yeah, that'd be a good one.

Yeah, that a dog of, I was the saying, a dog with two owners dies of starvation. Mm-hmm. that I don't I hate it when two people own something right as I don't know who I who do who who do I give a back rub to when this thing yeah knocks it out of the park or who do I deliver feedback to who does HR is going to talk about your back row yeah who do I who do I give a you know yeah bonus to when the one the thing goes well or yeah you know who do we give critical feedback to that when it's two it's just the spider man meme everyone pointing at

everyone so ownership really important and I can't we're at a scale I can't own everything and the amount of work that's going on there just needs to be different owners so one of the things I find myself often doing is as a leader is seeing opportunities that come up or problems that come up that don't have owners and a lot of times there's this you can I can see these telltale signs where a lot of people are spending a lot of calories thinking about this thing but no one's fully owning it's a lot of meetings it's a lot of This person has knows kind of two thirds of what's going on. This other person knows a quarter of what's going on.

Like there's no one person who's really like driving it and deciding it and putting their stake in the ground and saying, hey, here's this what needs to happen. It's a lot of people kind of nibbling at the problem. And no one really driving it. And that's where I'll come in and say, okay, like, we got to cut this out. Like this person, you're the expert at this.

You're running it. we're all going to give you our feedback, let you know our thoughts, but you've got to write the document. I'm holding you to account for a high quality solution here. Yeah. You run it.

And I think that's one of the best things I can do as a leader is to, when there are those jump balls where no one's doing it. A lot of things in the business are really obvious. Like the finance guy owns closing the books every month. Right. When you're growing really quickly,

there's always these new frontiers, these new things that come up that's like, who owns that? Does that, I don't know, we got to, we want to do something cool inside of our, we're doing a lot with vitamin shop right now. We want to do some cool stuff inside of the store. Does a marketing team own that or does the sales team own that? Yeah. Well, you guys got to talk, but like at the end of the day, I want the marketing team to own that.

That's the person's got to document it and really drive it and then collect feedback from other people. But at the end of the day, who am I holding accountable? Who's getting the backrub slash bonus or whatever? or who's getting the critique on it. That, yeah, to your question, like, do I write every document? No, it's I try to really empower other people. Yeah, and I think, I mean, some people, I mean, I don't know, I can't speak for your business, but some people like being the person who just chimes in

on everything. They don't really, they can't really, they're not accountable to it, but they got big opinions on it. And then you say, okay, well, why don't you run this? And they don't want to do that either, you know? But so the opposite of that is have you had people new in the organization that have just, you just can tell that, God, this guy or this girl is capable of so much. Yeah.

What do they do to catch your attention as a whatever that maybe they're not a senior employee yet? But you're like, this person has a future. What do you see in somebody like that? You want to know what it is, Kim? it's that they take really good notes out of meetings and they share them. That's something that a junior person can do on day one is if they're in a meeting,

what went down, what was decided, who's owning what coming out of here. To me, that's a signal that this person gives a damn and that they are just seeing clearly and they're attentive. And inside of that too, right?

A lot of times there's within a meeting, there's a lot of mini jump balls. There's things that are discussed, Oh, we should really do that. It's like, yo, is that happening or not happening? Like, oh, we should. Like, oh, we should. Like, right.

It's like, is that happening? Are you owning that? Are you owning that? Yeah. Oh, you're busy. Okay, it's not happening. Okay. Like, let's really define what the outputs are here.

So it's this, you know, no, because a lot of great things are brought up that kind of don't make it out of the meeting. And then you're thinking about it later going, God, didn't we talk about that? Yeah. And so, yeah, to your point. Oh, yeah. We talked about it. But, you know.

Nothing never happened. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's where I think taking really good notes is this like sneaky way in that if I was junior in an organization, that would be my method to climb up. You know, one of the parts is like volunteering to be the note taker. And then making sure that all the items discussed have an owner and a next steps and that that's shared. Is it like the minutes of the meeting?

Yeah, you could say that. Yeah. Yeah. And then who? Then you got action items. I care more about the action items. I don't care like, okay, in minute 47, we discussed apples and bananas. It's like, I care more like, okay, yeah, we're going all in on apples.

And Alice owns it. And like, that's done. Because when I see someone doing that, it's like, okay, this person has like executive function. Like they understand how to organize a team and how to assign ownership. And they already get a lot of the good stuff. and they care and they already have a lot of the good ingredients. So to your question,

I'm like, okay, if someone's junior, how do I kind of spot if they're going to excel? That's a big one. Are they able to take good notes in a meeting? It sounds so simple,

but it's one of those things like... Usually it is a simple thing. It's communicating. It's the notes. It's showing up. It's, I mean, it usually is a simple things.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I think, I mean, you see a lot of people, like, I think you call it. Like, a lot of people who, they're real good at strategy. They're chiming in on this or that. I'm allergic to that, man. Like, someone who has just, like, a lot of opinions across different areas of the business. Like, I appreciate it.

But, like, what are you doing? Like, what are you, like, what are you, like, what's your name next to? Right. And then once your name is next to, I actually want to hear more about what you have to say about everything else. But there's no person at the company who's just, like, sprinkling. strategic thoughts around the rest of the company. Like, that's my job.

Like, I mean, I even I own specific threads of execution. Like, that's not a real job. I don't know, just being a strategy sprinkler, chimer in, or it's not a real job. No, it's true. That's, that's true. I, you know, my son who went to work where I worked on the construction crew, as low as you can get, as a low as you can get. And I told them, I said, just take notes.

Have a little notepad. Little jobs that you guys didn't quite finish. Maybe it needed loam with some grass seed on it or they had to dig up in waterline or service or something like that. Just make a note of it. So then when somebody asked, hey, do we got anything to catch up on? You have your notepad. Nobody told you to do it. It's not your job necessarily.

But it's no different than like I would see somebody. They'd go to the job and you'd see two guys show up. One guy gets right in the middle. how can that one guy who stands back waits for somebody telling what to do the guy who gets right in the middle to see if they can help that guy i got he's got my attention yeah you know what i mean yeah of course he doesn't have to nobody told him to do anything nobody told the guy standing back what to do but you just see that hunger to be like i want to i want to be an asset yeah and uh so your note your note taking to me it's a different environment because it's not construction but it's it it's the same because they're wanting to make a difference. They're taking notes. They're keeping track. They're like being helpful.

And like anyone could do it, right? You're not asking for like some crazy thing. It's anyone could do it. And it shows what you're saying, that you want to be an asset, that you're trying. And that goes so far. Yeah.

I think a lot of problems are not rocket science. Even when you think about rocket science. A lot of the pieces are like you break into parts. We were talking about with archery. And I went out for my first time today. My brain's still spinning on everything. Yeah. And what you're saying is like kind of stacks.

Once you got your 10,000 hours in, like this stuff that I'm really chewing through in my. Right now you're thinking about all the little things. Pretty soon that will be subconscious. Right. After however many reps. Right. So if I watch you go in bow hunt, to me that looks like absolute mastery genius. Like, wow, you're playing six-dimensional chess with the, you've got a live animal.

You're out in the will. I don't even know how really out of bow work. I don't think I loaded the arrow the same way twice in the row. Like you're clearly there. But then each component piece of that is like pretty solvable. And I think that's true across a lot of domains where the component pieces are solvable. That like you brain surgery really freaking hard, but like, you know, it's hard because it's 15 years of training. But like each day of the training, if that's something that you really wanted to do,

It's like read this page of the textbook. Make sure you understand it. Show up on the test. Like say what you knew. Like do like learn this technique. Learn this. Like every piece of it is understandable into principle. I really do believe that you can learn almost anything by, you know,

breaking it up into small enough chunks. Yeah. Yeah. I think what, okay, what makes a person like naturally smart is I think that they can like chew through more bites faster or like bigger bites. Oh, I can just read that page once and I can get it. We've all met that person who's just like, boom.

Like boom. Got it. Other people, I might have to read it three times. Like, but at the end of the day, I think you can be really smart by just having the attitude that it's all bite-sized chunks and being honest with yourself about the size of the bite that you can take off and just taking it piece by piece by piece. Yeah. That you can be good at, you'd be great at guitar, right? Like, why couldn't you be great at guitar? Yeah.

I don't know if you're great at guitar. I wouldn't surprise me if you were great at guitar. No, I'm not. I'm good at one thing, Bo on it. Yeah, because it's so simple. And I would just tell, like, the guys at work, it's like, just give me eight hours. Fucking work eight hours. That's all.

I'm not asking for too much. I want you to be productive for eight hours and be the example. So all the shit you're bitching about, are you, how are you? Are you the example then? So are you doing it perfect? If you're doing it perfect, perfect, perfect. you're the example give me eight hours of the example and that's it it sounds so simple but there's a lot of little parts to that a little bite-sized chunks that you have to navigate through but yes it's it's

i think we overcomplicate things yeah yeah another thing that you remind me of with that one too is you got to be the example yourself too yeah that it's really important i i try to think about what i would do without the title like constantly that that like, yeah, there's this world where people have to listen to me because I'm the boss. Right. But there's the leader by title and there's the leader by action. Yes. And we've all seen that person who, yeah, this guy isn't the boss, but everybody listens to him.

Yes. You know what I mean? And that's a person you want to make the boss, by the way. Exactly. That if someone feels like they need the title in order to be effective in your org, they're thinking about it backwards. It's not good. I want the people who are effective at driving change. And then, okay, yeah.

They've got to respect you. They got to trust. you regardless what your title is. Yes. Yeah. And I think it's an important check. I try to do on myself, which is, yeah, would people listen to me if they didn't have to? Like, am I actually delivering it in a logical, inspiring way that's painting the opportunity

of what's possible, that's the right direction for the company and for this person's career and the way that they play into it? That, you know, if I was an alien from outer space presenting it in this way, you didn't have to listen to me. But would you still, that is the communication? is the thoughtfulness is that all there. I know it's I know there's always that like oh I'm the CEO co-founder card like you got like you trump card you got to do it but I think if your style of leadership like you can't

play that card too much people are going to tell you to go after yourself like there's a lot like especially with the team that we have everyone's super talented everyone could get a million other jobs tomorrow it's like you can't retain the best people by like bossing them around you got to constantly I again it's exercise this work for me is like strip away your own title or authority and be effective just on on the own merits of what's coming out of your mouth versus like because I told you so right have you had to I mean have you had to learn that or did you naturally have that that do you think in you that you could be objective and step back and be like are they are they listening to me on on my merits or

How did you develop that? You know what's funny, Camas? I think I had that part more naturally, and the part that was less natural was listen to me because I'm the boss. Okay, yeah. I actually think I started more collaborative and let's do this together

and like let's, you know, I'll voice our opinions and decide what we want to do. Because some people will be like, some people, if you say, what do you think, some people will be like, fuck, I don't know. You're the boss.

You tell me. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know if you got people like that, but there's some people who, because if they make a decision, then all of a sudden they're responsible for it. Yeah. You know. And yeah, I don't know. Well, yeah.

I mean, you want people who want to make decisions too. Like you want people who are empowered and feel like they have some authority that they're given a goal set and they have some discretion on how they want to achieve that, that especially if they're thinking about it all day. And you as the leader might be thinking about it. with a fraction of your brain. Five minutes. Yeah. So if you go in and tell them, like, do it this way. It's like, I think with the right type of person, you're actually better off, at least

trying to listen to them, that if they're smart, capable, have subject matter expertise, they're thinking about this problem all day. Like, I like to at least hear them out first. Yeah. Like be the leader that speaks last. Like, okay, what do you think? How should we go about this before I interject with what my. idea is I try to not rush in with like oh it's got to be this way so what do you think like here's the

problem are we aligned on what the problem is or what the opportunity is what do you think we should do about it and then yeah if it's the right person like they should be expanding your capabilities but i know what you mean i think they're you know i think people also want a leader who leads like you you can't always be in that mode of like what do you want to do or playing socrates i think i think there's there's a mix of it that certain problems are like tractable okay this is this applies inside of here this you know it's a supply chain problem or packaging problem or a marketing problem but the whole picture needs to all come together and that's that is the job of the leader you can't ask you can ask for input but like that's the key you got

then you can't you can't empower these people to make decisions and then if it doesn't work ideally you browbeat them because then obviously they're not going to chime in again or the next time. So yeah, it's like you you want people to feel listen to. And then also if you decide as a CEO to like, yeah, I appreciate what you said, but I think I'm going to do this is to not make them feel stupid for their idea if you decide not to do it. So it's like there's so many different layers to like and fucking everybody's different. Everybody's got this different personality that takes feedback differently or criticism differently or whatever. So. So it's a tough job for sure.

Yeah. I think you got to be okay just taking a lot of egg on your own face. Like you gotta be okay with just apologizing when you did, if you stepped on someone's flower bed, you know,

like if you rub someone the wrong way, I think, because at the end of the day, everyone knows that you're leading the damn thing. So you don't need to like. Yeah, keep reminding them. Yeah. I think it's better to have humility

and be the first to apologize or the first to address if something feels like rough or off or anything like that. So my attitude of never saying sorry is not good. Look, there's different ways to bleed. They'll take that as weakness. No, I think, look, I think there is something to that as well. You know, it's what I was saying earlier. I think everyone has their own style.

Some people, you say you're sorry. They may double down on it and be like, yeah, yeah, you whatever so I think it depends I think it's like I think you gotta be care okay I think it's fair I think you got to be careful what you apologize for right I think it's like if someone's feelings were hurt but it's because they made a mistake and you've corrected them on it it's there's nothing to apologize for right so it's it's a matter out okay what I what do I apologize for is you know I got I got two kids at home I'm running a lot I'm sometimes sleep deprived or cranky or whatever, something happens, and I just, like, rail on someone.

And I can tell that there's a cloud hanging over their head for a day or two. And like, all right, like, let me just, look, I make this right. Yeah, let me make this right. I know I was in a weird state. I try to be really aware of my energy and try to have my conversations. I'm in a right mental spot. But, you know, if I know I was tripping, like, right? Like sometimes you're in a weird spot.

Yeah, I got to... We're humans. Yeah. I think it does go a long way to let people know that you know that you like did the wrong thing. But I think it's different from what we were saying earlier. Like, I don't think you should just apologize easily either. Yeah. Yeah. Car blanche.

Okay, I was like, just kept thinking about this. So when you were in high school, you had these things you wanted to work on. And you had your, you said your principal. wrote a letter to Stanford. Yeah. Is that what? Yeah. So you just said, could you help whatever?

What was the discussion? Yeah, that I'd done a lot of interesting things above and beyond school. National Honor Society. For sure. All the stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. And I just asked her because, well, I got in her head as far as like, it reflects well in the school if someone goes to Stanford or Ivy League.

Right. And our school didn't have a ton of those people. Like, you know, a kid here or there. It wasn't like a feeder school to. Right. And so I kind of got in her head. I was like, hey, I think we got a shot. I was like, we got on the same side of the table together.

Like, I think we can do this. Yeah. And I'd done enough stuff above and beyond the schoolwork and whatnot that I thought she could put help put together a good pitch. And she was game. And it was like, yeah, cool. Like, I think there's, yeah, an interesting story. I said, okay, this guy has got like class president vibe. And I got almost perfect on my.

A-C-T-S, I got like a 35. Like, I was like, okay, I have some dynamism. I'm like, Valedictorian? I actually wasn't. I was, my grades was probably my weakest. I had good grades,

but I was, you know, I wasn't top of the class. I was good at test scores. I was good, a lot of extracurriculars. My grades, I just got into it with a couple of my teachers.

I just thought like my high school chemistry teacher was not a cool person. I had a hard time. Anyway, but I did a lot. My grades are good enough, I guess. And then I did enough of these extracurriculars that were, you know, some of them that were technical.

Some of them were more like EQ, like just being, being a people person type of thing, the class president stuff. And big, I was four-year varsity on soccer. I had this like. Yeah, good mix of stuff. Good mix of stuff. And then just like really pushed it through, campaigned it through, tried to, I just kind of, was like, what's the game here?

Like principal and then did anybody else write? anything for you? Yeah, I think I got a couple other teachers. I think I was part of that. I think the principal thing was above and beyond, and then I got a couple other applications in. I think you had to get a couple of teacher recommendations. I don't know if that's still a thing.

And I think my teachers, I didn't know. I did little things like I was, I remember this makes you sound like such a nerd. And it's half my life ago, honestly. But it's like little things like everyone else asked their teacher for a recommendation, like the day before it was due, the week before it was due. Like, I remember I came in on the first day of school. Yeah.

And like, whenever school started August. And I was like, ready. I was like, all right, Mr. Lessig science teacher. Like, I want you to, right? And like, no one was coming to him then. So, like, he spent a week or two on my. Beat the rush. Yeah, I beat the rush.

And little things like that that, like, is it? Is it always Stanford or? That was my top dream. Okay. For sure because I always knew I wanted to do something technical. And I always knew I wanted to do it inside of a, like not just an engineering school. I didn't necessarily want to go to MIT or Caltech

because I like the other stuff too. I like the, yeah, just other types of people. I don't want to just being around engineers all day, but I knew I wanted to go into engineers. So Stanford's the best. It's engineering,

but then also has a lot of else good stuff going on. And the entrepreneurship side too, just that Silicon Valley, it's got a lot going on. There's a lot of just energy coming out of there. We got, even back then it was like Google and. Yeah. A lot of connection, networking potential.

Yeah. Yeah. And you thought about that as a high school kid? Yeah. I think I've evolved and learned a lot as well along the way, but just knowing that, yeah, it's an entrepreneurship center. It feels really creative, good place to come up with ideas and build companies off of those ideas that the, you know, Ivy Leagues have their own vibe to, them that feels more like kind of, you know, finals club and you're like who's who. And it's more like this high society kind of thing, which is, you know, all well and good

in its own way. But it was, it felt like less enterprising, less entrepreneurial. And more like, okay, you're, you're getting into the old boys club. If you go to like Yale or something, you're getting into skull and bones or something. Like, yeah, that's its own game. I don't want to knock it. It's just for my, for me, for my personality. I like the kind of inventiveness, entrepreneurial.

oldness. I wanted to go check out California and all that stuff. And yeah, it was interesting. I think Silicon Valley is a really interesting place. It's a lot of, I would say, American dynamism, American innovation comes out of there. I think it's been interesting, you know, I think it's shifted a lot, right? Like Elon and Tesla moved to Texas and I think Silicon Valley in some ways have spread out. But I do think, you know, I believe in American dynamism. and I do you think America should continue to lead in technology and that especially then like when I went there 15 years ago that Silicon Valley was this like very inventive place and just good capitalism like good people like creating something from nothing and creating value for society and making a lot of personal wealth from doing that and that like that just felt like something really like American and something really concentrated. there in particular. Okay.

Because I mean, so, I mean, this path now has changed because you said computer science is where you went to Stanford, right? So that's not really what you're doing. It's did the entrepreneurial spirit you mentioned, is that the connections that happen at Stanford or did you still continue on with computer science? Is that what you got your degree in? Yeah, yeah. I started computer science and then this interesting path because I started seeing, I started

getting into like this new frontiers of technology around like wearables and sensors and like all these things have computers inside of them all your aura rings and Apple watches and seeing that okay the smartphone was this platform that gave rise to all of this innovation and that this next wave is all of these wearables sensors on in in our bodies and it was a jump I think you know computer sounds are super interesting I think it's fast fascinating, all the stuff going on inside AI, I just took the jump. I just thought human bodies, a platform for innovation is super interesting. And I don't know, just like don't put yourself in a box.

I learned a lot of good fundamentals in undergrad. And then I'm just curious about a lot of things. And I don't think you should, you necessarily need to be like limited in what you did in undergrad for four years. Right. But I think I got good, just brass tax ability to, you know, chug through information. and design systems and think, think through things. And then looking at nutrition and building the,

starting building the building box there and spotting ketones. Yeah, you basically just pivoted into nutrition and human performance. And then at this point, it's like hired the subject matter experts on the component pieces inside of there. So it's, yeah, it's been an interesting path for sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, I just, I didn't know the, the history of your path, essentially.

Yeah. I just know where you are now. Yeah. So that's why I'm just, you know, and knowing I have, you know, kids in college, I just curious how you went about that. I was trying to get my daughter to apply to these different schools too. And Stanford was one of them just because it's a West Coast. It's not, it's not Ivy League, but it's a great school on the West Coast.

And anyway, she didn't do it. So, yeah. It didn't matter. Yeah. No, it's interesting, too, because I think. that, you know, there's good and bad too, right? There's, I think, some really great things. But I think, I think American higher education is going through a, you know, transformation

or maybe you could call it a crisis right now. We're just dealing with a lot of, I think, cultural issues. And I think we're figuring out our way. I think that, you know, look at American college campuses and you see a lot of, you know, a certain type of politics, a certain type of, like, thinking. to a point where it's like, I think it's gotten, again, I went to college 15 years ago. I think it's gotten a lot worse since then

where it's like you really are constrained to like a certain type of thinking. And I don't think that's what school's supposed to be about. I think you're supposed to go to school to have a forum for different vantage points. And I think that that's what's, special about America and free speech and freedom of expression and and we need to make sure that we don't lose that.

Yeah, the term people used with colleges is indoctrination nowadays. And like parents are worried that their kids are going to go get indoctrine into this, this certain mindset or this certain political sphere essentially. And so that's where and now, and I don't know, I mean, I don't know if this is what you're talking about too, but so on the, on. on the opposite side of that is like young people are having success without going to college. Yeah. You know, because there's, as you mentioned a couple times, there's a million different ways to make money.

Yeah. You know, so do they need that college path? If they're smart, can they make their own way? And now it's like you see these kids making, I mean, Logan Paul, Jake Paul. Yeah. I don't think they didn't think they went to college, did they? I don't think so, no. They're doing pretty good.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're outliers essentially. Yeah. But still. I think on the average, the idea of going to college probably net good for people. I think it's going to a place where you can dedicate time and attention to learning, be really focused. Like when was the last time you read through a full textbook or did like dedicated semester long study? The next time would be the first time.

There we go. Yeah. So there's something special about it. Yeah. Like in theory, right? Like there's something, there is something special about it. I think for the average person, you can really get ahead. Yeah.

I do think that we need to be careful about things like student loans where I want to say as carefully because I do think that there's a lot of different types of thinking that are required in society. But if you incentivize too much of a type of degree that can't get a job or that requires student loan forgiveness, Like, if you get an engineering degree, like, sure, it's nice to get your student loans forgiven. But, like, if you got an engineering degree, you're probably going to get a good job and pay them off in a few years. Right. So a lot of times when we're talking about student loan forgiveness, because someone got a degree that, like, wasn't super useful for society.

And maybe that's not something we should, like, incentivize society where I think it's one thing. if you know if you if if that's a decision that you want to do or you come from money and your parents want to cover it or you're you're actually just okay with going down that route and then then sure but i think it's not necessarily good i don't know like we every year in china they graduate more engineers than the entire american workforce and so i think we need to be careful about the incentive structure that we set up in society i think that at the end of the day the jobs that people need, the jobs that society needs,

I think the system generally corrects for that. I think the system generally works where, hey, if we need more engineers, if we need more airline pilots, whatever, that those jobs will be created, and then people will be incentivized to go towards those jobs and people will take the education path

that leads them to that job. I mean, I think we need to be careful about, like, putting too much finger on the scale of, like, oh, this random degree in anthropology. Like, I don't want to, I want to be careful to not knock it. Because, like, if you really want to go get a degree in anthropology, like, I'm not going to knock it. But, like, I don't think you're not going to make enough money to pay off that student loan. Yes. And if that's okay with you, if your parents are ball in or if you're fine with that or what, like, please do it. Like, I don't want to be saying that shouldn't exist.

But I think it's a tough spot for the government to be like. financing that for free. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, there's some jobs where you realize that these people got this degree, maybe even a master's degree in their, it's kind of a crazy example, but they're working at Starbucks because there's no demand for their degree. Yeah.

And how are they ever going to pay back that student loan? I think one of the things that vocational schools do well or that you were saying like not even going to college is that there's this kind of honest. that, okay, I need to develop myself into a person that can contribute to society. I need a job. I need to be good at some craft in order to contribute to society or a company or in one way or another.

You're contributing to society in some way and that's why you're earning a paycheck. I think that there's aspects of American higher education that have lost sight of that. Right. That like this degree doesn't need to lead anywhere. I think it's a disservice because I think people should think about that before It's crazy that as an 18 year old you can sign up for like $200,000 of debt. Yeah. Like when out like if I'm 18 can I get a $200,000 loan to start a business?

But the colleges are like yeah, good to go. Great. Here you are. I think I think it's a racket. Honestly. Yeah. We put on a little bit of a tinfoil hat. I think that it's a I think there's some conspiracies inside of there where yeah,

who exactly is incentivizing that. loan and who's profiting off of it. It's not necessarily helpful to the person taking out the loan and it's not necessarily helpful to society. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. You know, if I think about it too, I can just think about Truitt. He graduated from Oregon, the School of Journalism, advertising, I think a minor in political science, which, you know, is probably an easy one to get what are you going to do with that but um he's now he's quit his job that he was doing advertising for and now he's just influencer and he said like because i just did a podcast with him when he was here for thanksgiving just because he's you know going chasing greatness but uh he said his job

now how does that help society you know it's not like he's a firefighter or a cop or a working in the hospital type thing. Is his job, he's making more money than he did at his job that his degree was for. Yeah. But what is he doing? Yeah. And so then you're like, well, is inspiring people worthwhile? I think so.

I think there's a role for art and entertainment and inspiring people. I think that's real. If everyone was a coal miner, you know, like if everyone was just lumberjack, Yeah. Would it be any fun? I do think there is a role, like a great chef, a great artist. You can argue at the margins as being an Instagram influencer, a artist. But I would say it's in the bucket of like, yeah, if you're meaningfully inspiring people,

then what's really the difference between that and, you know, writing a popular newspaper column 25 years ago? Right. That's a good point. Other forms of art and entertainment. Yeah, I think there is a role for that type of spot in society. I think the key factor is that he's good at it and is able to generate a living that people actually like the product, so to speak, that he's delivering to the world. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think that what I brought up, I believe, is that, you know, a lot of people are taking shots at this generation that being soft and weak and, you know, especially young men. And so he's the opposite of that, essentially. So that's useful. That's because if he can inspire other young men to chase greatness, so to speak, maybe it won't be in running marathons and jeans, but maybe they're chasing greatness is something else that's impacting society.

And so him being at this beacon that young men could look to and be like, I need to be more dedicated to whatever is life. That's useful. for sure. That's impacting the world in a positive way. So, yeah, you can look at anything and just, you know, pick out this one path that maybe isn't that noble or whatever. But let's not ignore the other paths. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think he's doing all right.

Yeah, I mean, of course, you know, I'm always going to be biased to my kids. Yeah. Yeah, I'm curious for you. Like, what's advice that you would give to a young parent? I'm a young parent. I got a almost three-year-old. I got a newborn. You seem like your kids are crushing it. You got one of your sons was a ranger. We're just talking about Truett.

Sounds like your daughter's absolute whiz crushing it at UFO and math. Like what would you do? What advice would you give to your? Okay. What's something you think you did well? What's something you think you didn't do well? I did. I pushed my kids hard.

definitely the boys especially Taryn my daughter you're oh as a dad it's like you have a different if I raise my voice at her she would cry right I did nothing but raise my voice

to the boys so I was like I think that I did well on emphasizing being physical and performance with the boys and with Taryn

not as much much, but more the intellectual. I could just see that the strengths and weaknesses of each of them. You know, the boys, we were always very tough sports. We were playing basketball all the time against each other. We were us telling them, you know, you don't have to be the best in the world, be your best, give your best effort. And I just always emphasize that life is competition.

If you guys are going to be anything, you're going to have to compete and you're going have to win. Otherwise, I don't know what you're going to accomplish because that's life. That's how it works. That's how men rise up is by winning. And that's just how it goes. With Taryn, it was just like, okay, let's be smart. Let's do, dedicate and be the best student and read and it was just so different. So if I looked back on it now, it would be like I probably shouldn't have put all the eggs in the basket on the boys on performance, you know, because I just emphasize. I said, yeah, hey, you need to get good grades. And that was about it. Or if they got a bad grade or, you know, neither one of them were like Taryn in school.

But probably that was my fault. But I would be like, what the fuck is going on? A C? You know, so that was about my, I could have done better at that. I could have done because who's to say that? that being the most physically gifted person, what does that mean? Maybe that doesn't mean that much.

Maybe it just meant a lot to me. And I should have been more on the intellectual side. So yeah, I mean, I don't know, I just think that just reminding them that, you know, they're gonna have to compete to get anything worthwhile in life. Yeah. I think that was useful. Yeah.

They hated it at times. But. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that message is watered down a lot in the recent generation in the last couple of decades. I feel like it's a lot of... Well, everyone's a winner. Yeah.

Kind of like in this, and not everybody's a winner. And I would say one thing I did say too is like we'd go to the movies and we're standing in a line. And I would tell them, I said, look around here. I said, look around. I said, this is average. I said, we're not average. And if you look like these people, you're not average. you're at this that you failed i said we have to be better than this we're you need to be better

because if you people compare themselves to average all the time i'm like i don't want to fucking compare myself to that i want to compare myself to the best yeah so that mindset is i think important yeah yeah why do you think we've gotten to this spot where you know participation awards and everyone's good for showing up and probably just because everybody wants to win So if they can't win at the highest level, they lower the level. Yeah. To feel like they won. Yeah.

I don't know. I'm not sure. Yeah. Yeah. What's interesting. I mean, you can't have a society where everyone's a winner, just by definition. Like, there's going to be an average. But I think if you have more people trying to exceed their capabilities and like lifting the average up, that would be a good thing.

Like you're always going to have an, not everyone can actually win everything. But I do think the. drive to win, the drive to be really good at least like something. And that like excellence is excellence. I feel like we've lost it. And yeah, it's, I think we're turning. I feel like there's actually a tide shift and we're like coming back to it. I hope.

I mean, you mentioned what I didn't do. I thought, and this was a big one for me is Tanner, my oldest, he had, he was the deputy here. He worked at the jail. was a good job making good money, corrections officers. It's like, you know, it's important. People need to do that. And he quit that job to join the army to be a ranger. And then I, and he just said, I thought, did I screw this up?

Because I was like, it's okay to have this regular good job. We need that job. But he was like, no, I have more to offer this world. Then I was like, is that my fault? Because what if he would have said I had more to offer this world? went to be a ranger, got deployed, and was killed. Would I, I mean, and that happens, you know, so it was it me putting in his head

that a regular job wasn't good enough? That, I don't know. So I was like, I had to, you know, and I was like, I think I screwed up. It's okay to have a regular job. It's okay to just go to work and come home and have a family and raise your family and pay your bills.

that's okay but by then it was too late because you'd already signed up yeah but i was so that was like it i don't know most of the time as being apparent i i feel like i didn't know what the fuck i was doing yeah and i didn't know i thought i was too hard and on them and i was pushing them too too much and now everybody says oh you must have done great but i'm like i didn't feel like i didn't know what i was doing i was young and i was an you know idiot yeah but i yeah also Also, my wife has helped because you have to have that balance. The dad is generally the disciplinarian, and that's just kind of how it works, but you have to have that other side too. So luckily, Trace was around to give them love.

I mean, they knew I loved them, but they probably wondered sometimes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that balance, the teamwork. One thing my wife and I always remind each other is that it's us versus the kids. Yeah? that when it gets weird, like it started with us. Okay. And, you know, our daughter's just crazy.

And sometimes, you know, we're just stressed and sleep deprived and this and that. And it's like, we're not going to let these kids win. When? We're not going to let them come between us, drive a wedge between us. Like if we're being short with each other, right? Like, oh, yeah. Like that, no, like, we are going to join forces against our kids. Is it?

And we're going to, we're going to stay solid. Like we're not going to let them split us apart in a way. With the goal of raising good kids. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I mean. Is that, yeah, we want to raise great kids. It's a matter of that when, you know, we're stretched all the way thin.

And if we're arguing with each other, because, you know, trying to pack the car and go somewhere. And it's just easy to snap off between me and my wife. And then it's just that kind of, okay, let's regain our footing. And it's like, it's us versus the kids. Like, let's make sure we're good. And if we're good, okay, then we have something to provide for the kids. Like we got to be, okay, we're tripping. Like we're sleep deprived or rushed or short-tempered or whatever.

Like let's make sure we're good. And then, okay, let's, you know, yeah, maybe our toddler's being irrational and needs to change her shoes every five minutes. Can't decide what shoes she wants to leave the house in. But like, that's no reason for us to, you know. Because if you're snapping at each other, you're probably going to be short with the kids too. Yeah.

And then it's just a shit show. Yeah. No, I can't have that, man. Yeah. I see. Yeah, yeah. That's a good approach.

You're definitely smarter than me. So whatever you're saying, I'm sure it makes more sense. I'm learning, man. I think it's a, it's a lot of fun. I can say I've learned a lot in the last couple of years. Learn a lot about just,

yeah, composure. Because kids really match to your energy. Yeah. They're not verbal, really. I mean, my almost three-year-old, yeah, she knows some words, but you can't have like a logical conversation with her. So a lot of it is setting and pacing that if she's freaking out, we need to calm down the situation.

Like, I got to be calm. But you can't calm a crying baby unless you're truly calm. Right. You got to set the pace and set the tone for the whole family. And that's something I've really learned. Like I can't freak out. It doesn't matter how stressed I am or I got this phone call to make, his email to send or this is blowing up or whatever.

It's like within the context of the family, if I got to be the even keeled guy, okay, let's drop in and be there. Let's really be present. Let's be that way. Let's set the pace for the family because no one else is. And if you don't occupy that role, it's just chaos. Right.

And I think you mentioned you can't have a, a discussion with your daughter, but that body language is, it's no different than, I don't want to say dogs and animals are the same, but a dog can pick up with somebody stressed out or if you're hunting, like animals can pick up your body language because that's how they communicate. Well, a baby or a toddler because they can't explain their position, you know, like an adult can, it is, they're picking up body language. And so, yeah, that being that, that leader and that strong and that, no matter what happens, we're going to be okay.

That's so important. Because kids need that. Families need that. And a lot of times, you know, Tyler's freaking out. Like, they actually just want to feel safe and telling them, hey, we're not going to do that. We're going to do it this way because I'm keeping you safe. And yeah, you're not going to get your exact way right now. Maybe next time.

Maybe not. But we're going to do it this way because I'm in charge and we're going to, this is the way. We've got a program for the day or I'm going to keep you safe here. I think another thing I've learned, too, is also being okay with some of the silly shit. Like, I've looked at a lot of ants crawling around on the sidewalk in the last couple of years camp compared to, you know, the last couple of decades. Because sometimes it's okay. I think, you know, I don't have the energy to drive every single minute of my toddler's life. So, like, I can't, not everything can be a fight.

Not every, like, if we're in a hurry to get out of the house, okay, we're going to drive the outcome. But sometimes, like, I don't know, she wants to flick the light on and off in the car before she gets off. Sometimes I think about them, like, all right, cool. You know what? Let's flip it on and off 20 times. Like, let's go. Like, let's like, because part of me also just kind of gets it. I was that kid.

Like, she's not trying to cause trouble. It's just literally, I don't know. It's kind of fun to flick the little. Intertaining. Yeah, yeah. Just what kids do. Yeah. And being able to let her just express herself.

Express herself, be a kid, play around in the world. Like, it is pretty. cool I remember that feeling yeah you flick the light switch and that light ball goes on yeah yeah let her enjoy it like if she's doing that instead of playing some stupid game on the phone like mm-hmm sure like like let's do that and and so not always being in full disciplinary and like being that way when it when it's needed but trying to do I do I always have to say no to every little silly thing like some of the silly stuff yeah let it let's roll with it see you are smarter

Dude, I wouldn't have done that. I feel like I'm kind of bragging my, on a couple of things, a couple of tricks in my sleep, but I'm mainly figuring it all out, dude. I don't know anything. I think no new parent has all the answers. I mean, and if people act like they do, I just don't think they're being honest.

Yeah. It's so it's hard raising a human perfectly. It's just because we're not perfect. So how the hell could we do it perfect? You know, and there's, we're emotional sometimes. We're stressed sometimes. And yeah, we just do the best we can. But yeah, there's nothing as, there's nothing more rewarding than feeling like you've raised good people, good, good humans.

I mean, that is, that's everything. I bet. I mean, I'm early, but it seems like it. No, I'm sure your kids are going to be great. And I, you know, I appreciate the advice. I always try to get advice whenever I can because I think we've lost a lot of that, with the nuclear family, two parents and the kids live in a house. It's like we've lost the village.

We've lost the communal, like, you know, in the old days, it was a bunch of families lived together and the kids kind of cross-pollinated. And you had more of that, you know, you're living on the same block as your cousins and your street, as your brother, sister, everyone. And like, you're learning a lot. So when you're, by the time you're having a kid, it's like, well, your cousin had a kid. last year and your brother had a kid two years ago and like and you all live together and you know you know how it goes yeah and that kind of tribal wisdom i think we've lost a lot of that to now is

just okay a couple of parents in a are you know you got your first kid pops out and you're like what the hell i i've never held a baby before i'm just watching youtube videos trying to figure this out yeah and so i'm always very humbled to the fact that we've lost i've lost some of the context that used to exist. And so I'm always trying to like learn, draw from other people around me who I feel like are doing it well. Like, okay, what did you do? Like, give me a tip, give me a trick.

Yeah. Because I think in the old days, when there was no YouTube, no Googling of everything, somehow people figured it all out. And I think actually people were less clueless back then. Like, it was just more of that tribal wisdom. Right. You're just around it more. Yeah.

I mean, and I think you asked my wife something, I don't know what, but she just said that the boys saw me doing it. So I think that the lead by example adage that I used earlier, I do think, because there's that whole thing where you do as I say, not as I do, you know, I mean, I just think that you have to be the example. And so I would always just do what I do. Yeah. Freaking work.

Work every day. And I wasn't asking them to do something I wasn't. So I think that's where you're going to excel also because you're a hard worker. You're dedicated. You're eager to learn, humble. And it's like, that's all going to be reflected in your kids. And so I think your kids can be amazing. I hope so, man.

I appreciate that. Yeah, no. I have no doubt, no doubt. I mean, I don't know. It's, yeah. there's nothing more rewarding for sure than being a parent it's fun oh yeah it's is I will say it's interesting it's not always fun it'll be more fun it'll be more fun when they get older and they can share in some of the stuff you do yeah yeah yeah I'm looking forward to that like going on going on

run with my kids like right now they'll hate that but yeah yeah just kidding just kidding your kids might love it uh yeah it's uh I don't know it's pretty crazy um but you know what here's what here's what I do know. You know what this is? This is your new boat. Beautiful. Can you believe this? I've been looking forward to this for quite some time. Yeah. Well, we got to run. I wish I could have run better today having leg issues, but we got, I think we still had a good time on the mountain. We don't have twice. I mean, it's pretty good for whatever you're saying. Yeah. But what I love most about what I do here with lift, run, shoot, and just having outliers like your. yourself here is sharing my life. And you know, I got to share the lift run shoot, the

bow rack with you, shooting arrows, lifting weights, hitting the mound, carrying the rock. And it's just like that means so much to me. It's like that you were, you're busy. You made yourself available to come in and have a taste of what I do. And that I can't tell you how much that means to me. It's, uh, you, I mean, this experience just nourishes my soul. And it's just like, I can't. That might sound cliche, but this is what gets me through. Just days like this that I love. I just love sharing it.

Likewise, brother. It's cool. The lifestyle that you've built, the groove that you're in and that you invite people into it. It's amazing. I'm thrilled to be here. It's cool. I've been binge watching a bunch of these episodes.

I've been thinking about that rock. I was like, oh, what's it? Yeah. Oh, you did great. I still can't believe you didn't set it down. Because people have said had big goals like they're never doing this, never doing that. Can you get it up in this time? And it just doesn't happen because it's so fucking hard.

And I don't blame them because if I had never done it before, I'd be like, what? I just need to get this rock off my shoulder. But you never set it down. And it's like, I think that willpower, that thing that we talked about, we wish we could measure. Whatever you have is like it's unique. And it's not what everybody has because that rock is over half your body weight. And it's just like you're a fucking beast. So I hope it

It becomes a normal thing for people to do I think there's one takeaway It's yeah I'm not a freak of nature I'm a 135 pounds soaking wet I run a lot I lift a good amount and I just didn't want to take no for an answer And yeah I think you can go a lot with Just super glue in that switch to on

And just just going and definitely really You know things get a lot A lot of times things get hard, but they don't get harder. I would say carrying the rock, it got to a point where it was very hard, nine out of ten. But it didn't go beyond that. Right. Like, it was just hard. And it's like, okay, if I can I do one more step?

Yeah. Can I do 10 more steps yet? You said, if you've made it halfway, you can make it all the way. Yeah. It's like when someone throws you a football and like you got a finger on it, you probably could have gotten a few fingers. You probably could have gotten a hand. Like if you can touch the ball, you could catch the ball. If you can do half of the thing,

as soon as I'm at 51%, I'm like, okay, there's only 49%. Like I've already done, it's all downhill from here. Yeah. So like, let's squeeze it, squeeze it all the way out. So anyway, I've been thrilled to be here.

It's been a great day. Won't forget it. Oh, me neither. And, you know, aside from just what I've gained from you personally, thank you. Ketone has been a part of the show, sponsor of the show. And I'm excited to talk about it

just to educate more people. on the benefits of it because again, I've, I'd take them every day, love it. And it just, it just means a lot to me that together we're in this, in my little part of the world in this show that we're helping celebrate something new that could help people perform at a higher level. And I thank you for that. Thank you. Yeah. Thrill by what you're doing. Happy to be doing our small part to help support all the good stuff coming out of here. All right, brother. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, guys. Keep hammering.