Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Chris Ashenden, Athletic Greens Co-Founder

Episode Date: April 25, 2018

This week’s podcast is with Chris Ashenden, the co-founder of Athletic Greens.Now I want to be totally transparent here – Athletic Greens is a partner of the podcast but I wouldn’t be comfortable having Chris on unless I fully believed in the product and their mission.In this conversation, we touch on Chris’ upbringing and how his experiences traveling around the world with his family shaped him -- and ultimately was the impetus for the creation of Athletic Greens.There were times where Chris was close to broke – living on a diet of rice and beans just to get by - but Chris never gave up.He refused to alter the quality of the product or the mission of the company even if it meant potentially losing everything.Chris is grateful he stuck to what he believed in and it becomes clear how his philosophy has rubbed off on the company.We discuss how to create a culture that stands for honesty and integrity and how to best develop trust with others.I hope this conversation inspires you – that it’s possible to do things the right way, live with integrity and still succeed in business – and for that matter life in general.And one last thing - support Athletic Greens and their mission while you’re at it!_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I'm Michael Gervais. And by trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist licensed in California, spending time in the trenches with people that are extraordinary at what they do, working on developing the mental skills so that they can pivot and adjust and pursue their potential. And the idea behind these conversations is to pull back the curtain, to speak with best in the world, people that are on the path of mastery, to better understand what they're searching for, what they're driven by. We want to understand their psychological framework and the mental skills that they use to build and refine their craft. This week's podcast is with Chris Ashenden, the co-founder of Athletic Greens. With complete transparency,

Athletic Greens is a partner on this podcast, but I wouldn't be comfortable having Chris on unless I fully believed in their product and their mission. And this conversation is a reflection of that. Okay. You know, I love the product. You know how much I enjoy the product as I talk about it in the ad reads, which don't feel like ad reads. They feel like celebrations of a great product that I use and enjoy. And I'd have Chris on anyway, because I want to understand how it is that he's built a model that does good for other people. It's built on wellness and health and has incredible scale on it.

So I'm interested in that. So from a business lens and a business skill, and just the fact that it is a product that I enjoy, this is like a double whammy for sure. So I've been using whole food supplements for a long time, maybe somewhere around 20 years. And I became exposed to Athletic Greens and I liked it. And I happen to be down in Australia where the CEO of the company is. And we had a lunch and I love their mission.

I loved how we articulated it, the way that they're building their business, the intensity around getting the formulation to taste right, to have a digestive process that works. And I was like, you guys are on it. And so we kicked off a nice little relationship that way. Then I met Chris as well. We started to work together and that basically led us to this conversation. We touch on Chris's upbringing and how his experiences traveling around the world with his family shaped him. And it is awesome what they did. And ultimately, how that was the impetus for the creation of Athletic Greens. There were times where Chris was close to broke, living on a diet of rice and beans just to get by.

But Chris stayed the course. And he believed in his mission and his vision and to do it the right way with the highest ethics. And it's rad. It's just flat out rad. It's exactly what you'd hope. And we worked to unpack how. How did he do that? What were the skills that he used?

What were the strategies that he employed to stay the course even when he was completely broke? And he refused to alter the quality of the product to stay mission-minded. And a lot of people were telling him as it comes out in this conversation, like, just downgrade the quality and sell it for a cheaper price. And he said, no, that's not how it's going to work. And I've got incredible respect for that. That's exactly how integrity works and high character works. And when you build that around a product that you believe in, I want to say good things happen. Not always though, because there are other things that take

place that expose, you know, businesses and practices that are unforeseen even, but this is a celebration of a product that I love as well as a person that I think is incredible in how they've approached life. So I hope this conversation inspires you and that it is possible to do things the right way and live with integrity in all the right ways. And, you know, I don't know. I love the idea when business and mission and wellness and potential, when they all hub together and we're able to create communities and products and services that, you know, are working to make, I don't know, it sounds cheesy, but make the world better, you know, and like, that's really kind of it. And one last thing, support Athletic Greens and their mission while you're at it. Go over to athleticgreens.com forward slash finding mastery

and check out the offer that they put together for us in our community. And with that, let's get right into this week's conversation with Chris. Chris, how are you? Michael, I am fantastic. Thank you. How are you? That's what's up. So first and foremost, thank you for helping support Finding Mastery and with your company and your vision and what you've done through Athletic Greens. This is a treat for me to be able to sit down with you and have this conversation. Michael, the treat is mine. Good, sir. Thank you for your support of us and our brand and our vision and just for being an awesome dude. I've had the pleasure of chatting to you previously and I loved every minute and I'm very excited to be here, man, and honored. Perfect. So let's start early. So you've created this brand and you've had a couple

entrepreneur efforts. is that right i've had a few entrepreneurial efforts most of which ended up uh failing spectacularly okay so how many did you get to before athletic greens um was quote unquote a success and we'll get to that more in that in a minute i had two successful businesses that both crashed for different reasons and then sort of coming out of that hole was sort of part of the process that ultimately led to the creation of Athletic Greens as a product and a company. So third real go at building a business to last. And when you think about your craft, is it nootropics? Is it building scalable businesses? Is it health and fitness industry like-minded ventures?

When you consider your craft, what is it? I think my craft is quite similar to yours, big guy, in that I see myself as really, really good at making friends. And I think you're absolutely world-class at making friends and and and I'm being I mean dead serious so I think my my real craft is in making friends and as part of that I have a a huge amount of pleasure in both um sharing joy or inspiration or or company with other other people particularly people I find stimulating. And I think my real craft has been leadership in an entrepreneurial setting through that desire to sort of share, help, inspire, grow with, and enjoy a process with other people.

If I look at where I've stumbled, it's where I tried to do things that weren't plain to my strengths. But my strengths are definitely in that human-to-human relationship setting. Yeah, so building relationships to build community. And along the way, you're bringing products and services that can hopefully – I mean if I'm right on the money with you here, tell me if I'm not. Is that building products and services that help people grow and change because that's part of your it sounds like that's part of your deal is like being in relationships where they're growing and you're growing at the same kind of clip hopefully absolutely i think that yeah absolutely man and obviously through both necessity necessity and

passion i old i was part of a team that built what i consider a world-class, world-beater product. But if I said, what is my superpower? It wasn't in that product creation. I leveraged very heavily the expertise of people far, far smarter than I am in that field. I was the entrepreneur that put it together. But if I look at what is my real craft, and I've thought about this for a while, my real craft is that human relationship element and inspiring them to step forward and take action towards either their own personal goals or towards the group's goals. Okay, so let's go back. The accent that you're bearing from New Zealand, right?

What part of the island were you from? I was born in Wellington, but grew up most of my time in New Zealand was in Auckland. I also had a seven-year stint as a kid in Tokyo, Japan, and a year backpacking as an 11- and 12-year-old with my family. Okay, so when was Japan? Was that in between, backpacking? Yeah, so my father got a gig in Japan and dragged us all with him. And it was a heck of an experience because we realized very quickly coming from little old New Zealand to big Tokyo that you are a global citizen. I traveled until the end of January backpacking 44 countries with my dad's big backpack, my mom's medium backpack, and then my big sister's smaller, and then mine's smaller, and my little sister, who was eight, like tiny little backpack, staying in hostels in the world countries.

It was a very, very abject lesson in, one, how fortunate we were, and two, that we're part of this very much global community. Okay. I had no idea about this part of your journey. I can't even imagine. Well, I guess I can. I mean, I've been fortunate enough to do some backpacking myself and I understand a little bit of what goes into it, but not 14, 15 months. So what was that like? Is there a particular story or memory that comes to mind when you think about the essence of backpacking with your family? Just watching my family meld was a huge element because my father, who's a very loving, generous, caring father, was also a very hardworking, a lot of hours in the office father. And he loved his time with his family, but it typically, you know, 24 seven stints had been three, four weeks long.

And this was well over six months, 24 seven day in, day out. So it was just that changing dynamic of a family sort of learning to grow and be uncomfortable together was, was amazing. And my two sisters are absolutely two of my best friends in the world. And my parents are two of my best friends in the world. And I travel, I try to travel with them a minimum of two, five or six week trips a year now. And they sometimes sort of point out like, aren't they fortunate to have a son who wants to do this? And my sort of counter argument to them is aren't I fortunate to have parents that i'm delighted to travel with and that coming together of a family while exposed to all these

interesting experiences was was huge and the second thing that was huge was i caught hepatitis somewhere in either turkey or egypt and spent the last three months vomiting, mainly in third-world toilets through a lot of India. And it wasn't very pleasant. But that was my first big health challenge. How old were you? Twelve. Oh, my God. Okay, so before we get into that, it makes perfect sense why you're relationship-based.

Why relationships are so important to you because the five of you guys were connected. It was relationship based for those months in a very rugged way, you know, where you guys were just relying on each other literally to go from country to country and navigate and figure it out. And so you saw problem solving, you saw going with the flow. You saw that you had to be part of something rather than be the anchor. And so I'm imagining that that was foundational for you to set up your crown jewel. That being said, how did you get sick and what did you learn from it? It was something I ate. I think I was on the least robust of my family by quite a long way.

And something I ate. I think I was on the least robust of my family by quite a long way and something I ate just hit the GI and that was literally the end of that. I also had Jardia a little bit later and I think that the combination of those two things were the very first sort of GI gastrointestinal sort of problem that would later manifest itself in other areas. But absolutely with the family traveling man and being forced into other cultures with parents who demanded that we were open-minded. And we saw them embracing those cultures and making friends worldwide. And I think the ability to make friends and generally connect with a human being, particularly to make another human being feel that you genuinely care, and the secret to do that is to genuinely care,

then I think that's one of the greatest skills in the world. That's so clear, though. When you say it, it's like so clear. Yeah, but I think you do this as well. I think that's why you're so good at your job is because someone sits down next to you or in front of you or on a phone call with you. Very quickly, you've built rapport. They know that you are genuinely interested and really strongly care about their well-being, and you're phenomenally relaxed.

So very quickly, this is what happened when I was on a phone call with you. So speaking from my own personal experience, I promptly felt relaxed and found myself telling you all sorts of things I didn't expect to be saying and you combine that with a pretty serious intellect and and your training and i can see why you're top of class man at what you do it made absolute sense after about 50 minutes going why am i telling this guy this stuff okay so that's all cool now i'm starting to wonder oh you're about compliments you give compliments to people so they go, guy, Chris is so good. He's such a great guy. But that's not quite it because the things you just said – this is going to sound awful. The things you just said are actually the things I pay attention to in my – cultivating in my own life, right? of flattery and or a keen sense of like the essence of what people are about and it's probably the combination of the two that makes it um palatable right because sometimes people give you compliments like nope i'll tear your motive no that's not you know i don't i'm not a fan of the false compliments i think you can always find something to give someone a compliment about but

my theory on compliments and a woman on a wedding day no matter how bad her makeup she looks amazing you have to tell her and anything my anything my grandma ever put on ever she looked amazing and I think those two weren't false compliments but sometimes I was like what you go to some weddings man you're like what were you thinking but they always do look glowing and amazing on the day and it's very easy to say that. But in your case, big guy, your craft, I believe is the merging of those three elements. And I,

I pay attention, big guy, when, when you talk and when other people I admire talk and I'm not, uh, flattery, you know, as they say,

we'll get you everywhere. But that wasn't the idea. I was trying to just point out that I see in you some elements that I've tried to become good at. And I respect that very much because I can see that you are absolutely a master of some of those things. Brilliant. So what's happening right now for us? Thank you, Chris. Thank you for all of that, the awareness and the keen ability to articulate what is special in somebody else. Therein lies why you're able to lead men and women, right? Because it sounds like to me, and it feels like in this conversation right now, that you're able to find assets.

You're able to find what's good, what people are working toward and the skills that they have, notice them, recognize them, and then amplify, I'm guessing, amplify them through your working relationships. Yeah, man. I think the way I quantify it is if I can help someone identify a far more empowering question and the desire, the why behind achieving something that sort of is they feel either within their reach or just outside their reach and a willingness to step outside it, then if you combine those two together, you're off to the races.

Okay, I love that. So how do you get people to not get people, how do you encourage or create an environment for people? Oh, no, no. I want to go three ways. Encourage, create an environment and develop the mental skill for people to step outside of that comfort, to step outside of what the known world is to them, to take the adventure that you're, that you're hoping to shape with them. How do you do that? I think the absolute first thing is they must feel that they're in an environment where they're being empowered and supported. And that is both my actions, my words, and my track record.

If they come and join a team where people say, yeah, Chris has got your back and he will help you grow and develop in any way that he can. And I live that mantra. And I do. Even if someone wants to leave and take off and do their own thing, I am always encouraging because it just feels like the right thing to do. If I was sitting in that chair, that is exactly what I would have wanted one of my early bosses to have been like. and I try to foster that dynamic and from there is it is and I think you do that with your rapport building big guy and your quiet calm sort of good-natured confidence and I think from there it's just asking the right questions yeah and okay and listening listening to the answers so back to that genuine interest in another person's well-being, asking questions that are open-ended, exploratory, maybe probing, and sometimes intimidating and scary.

Because deep questions can be awfully intimidating. And so just because what's at stake is the potential rejection from another person. And what my experience has been when you ask a rich tonal question, and somebody their eyes light up or their physiology changes, you know that they're right into the good stuff, but they're just struggling to be able to say the thing that's real for them. Because oftentimes, tell me this is at least for me, oftentimes, it's like, what will they think if I speak my truth and they don't like my truth and their, their favor on me is important for my job or, or fill in the blanks. And has that been any part of your life experience to feel that same thing? Or is that not part of

your life experience that you, you, you've, you've decoupled who you are from what other people think you are long ago. Wow, that's a great question. I think if you can provide, again, that environment. So if they feel that environment is encouraging them to be honest. And if you're the boss or you're the founder of a business or you're the CEO, then anyone beneath you at all times knows that they're speaking to the boss the founder or the ceo and i think that has to be taken with a grain of salt because no one's going to say you know what you're a complete dork this idea is completely stupid and i don't even know why you tried it for two years or three years even if that's what they're thinking but what i encourage them to say

is i notice that we're doing this i wonder. And I would love us to pursue this other element because it seems to be more intelligent to me because. And I have that environment hands down. And I'm no longer the CEO, as you're aware. I've appointed someone who's far more capable than I am at that role. And he has gone on and built on that culture of transparency and trust and trying to speak your mind from both the happy side and the unhappy side because ours is a virtual business and it became abundantly like rapidly so clear that if we didn't really push for transparency and a willingness to point out when someone is unhappy with something then it very quickly festers and leads to discontent or great people leaving or

famous intercompany communication problems. But providing that environment first and then genuinely caring and listen to the answers second. And I think most people will tell you what they want and what's making them happy, what's making them unhappy very, very quickly if they trust you not to burn the bridge. How do you build trust? Well, I think it just comes from a couple of things. One is you must live what you say you're going to do. So I learned this principle of integrity from my father,

who was my first real mentor, incredibly strong, masculine father figure. And it was awesome and still is. And his whole entire life has been do what you say you're going to do and live what you say is important and he's done that in front of me and i think i've just emulated that from my father with my mother who is the world's best rapport builder and i you're one of the few guys I'd love to see go head-to-head because I think you know there aren't too many of you out there and I Mean to give you an idea like I moved into a building it took me three months to have all the you know

The security guards everyone else high-fiving me and asked me how you doing Chris? Everything's great. My mother was there for 24 hours and for two years afterwards The first questions they would ask me every day is how how is your mother, what is your mother up to? And I think that the combination of – and she does it, man, so genuinely that people feel it and just respond to her in a way that you kind of have to see it to really, really believe it. And you combine those two, which I think is just do what you say you're going to do, live that mantra consistently, because I think you can spend an entire lifetime building up trustworthiness and lose it in a fraction of a second.

And there's only one time I've lost my temper in the entire time of being in business, and I regret it profoundly. And the person I lost my temper to is still a friend, and we kind of laugh about it, but it was a deep regret. But other than that, I will do everything not to burn that trust bridge, because I think it's sort of the cornerstone of how our entire organization operates. are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people. It takes the right tools, the right information at the right time.

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It also helps tap into your own network more strategically, showing you who you already know that can help you open doors or make a warm introduction. In other words, it's not about more outreach. It's about smarter, more human outreach. And that's something here at Finding Mastery that our team lives and breathes by. If you're ready to start building stronger relationships that actually convert, try LinkedIn Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal. That's linkedin.com slash deal. For two full months for free, terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods.

And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put them on the spot. Stuart, I know

you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar.

It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually tastes good. Dr. Peter Attia, someone who's been on the show, it's a great episode, by the way, is also their chief science officer. So I know they've done their due diligence in that category. My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters and that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus recovery for longevity. And I love that David is making

that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com finding mastery that's david d-a-v-i-d protein p-r-o-t-e-i-n.com finding mastery so you know i'm listening i'm going it's so rich and it makes sense why your company feels i didn't know all of this, but even a fraction of it when we first met, I liked your product. And I liked how Adam designed his conversations and his words. And Adam is as the CEO that you've put in place there. And I just liked it. But now hearing this and the fidelity that you bring with you and the integrity to line up your thoughts, your words, and your actions. For me, the lining, the thoughts, words, and actions is the mark of somebody who is

incredibly on it and can do incredible things because they have that rich alignment. And that's in essence where wisdom is explored and the adventure of wisdom is revealed. And inside of that, you have done something extraordinary, which is you have trusted people by being trustworthy. Okay, easy statement to say. But when you talk about it, it sounds like it's really real. And I've got this thought, and I'd love to hear you bounce off of it because you've thought about trust a lot and put action toward it. This is not scientific. It's just something that makes deep sense to me is that, is there a formula for trust? And I say, there's two variables, time multiplied by behavior. So you have to put in the work, you have to do some time with somebody

and you can have self-trust and other trust, right? So you've got to put in time with yourself or others. And then the behaviors have to be consistent across variables. So they have to be trustworthy behaviors in calm environments rugged and hostile environments potentially and if you can get those two things for a long period of time like it's really good and so i'd love if you could just bounce off of that theory time multiplied by behavior equals trust oh my one great theory but firstly thank you for the compliments on both the product and adam i'm very proud of the product we've created 50 iterations and adam and the cult and like having someone of that caliber run our business and and what he's built on and how he's managed to and sort of

interchange with someone of your caliber oh and i see i see you in a very, I admire you greatly. I admire you greatly big guy. And so I'm proud of him in a huge way. And I think your little formula, you know, expressed in one sentence is... Somehow when you say it, it doesn't sound demeaning, but it's starting to go that way. No, no. I think your little formula, which just sounds so easy to say in one sentence is the crux of it all okay and on the money and unbelievably hard to deliver on if you don't believe in it and i think yeah yeah yeah i think the crux of it is little formula must believe in it and then live it and the little

formula becomes something huge yeah i i okay cool i thought you're taking me down a road no no no no not at all much bigger than that yeah wait which i i want to hear right i want to hear that because it's very easy to say oh you just phenomenally build trust in the workplace by by your personal behavior multiplied by many many many many repetitions and reinforcement and that's great but what drives that is the context that you're living by like what what are you trying to build what really matters to you and are you living that because i think people go through will very quickly see through anything that isn't really genuine so i think that like i said i'm not not not demeaning at all but no no no no no i i a thousand percent

appreciate the tone and texture of what you just added, like that authenticity and integrity. So basically, one sentence, easy to say, if you don't believe in it deeply, it's not going to come out for you. And I've heard a lot of your interviews, man, with some pretty amazing coaches in particular. And I think the level of trust that they instill in their team environment is huge because I think that's sort of the cornerstone of human, many parts of human

interconnectiveness is basically how much do I trust what this person says to me is real and how much do I feel that they care and they're going to support me if I fall on my ass. You know, Chris, so I've asked that question to thousands, like in the last two years, we've been in front of in corporate environments, over 30,000 people at eight hours a clip. It's been this amazing little business that Coach Caroline put together, but I've asked this question to thousands and thousands of people. What is your level of trust of yourself versus level of trust of others? And so we have a conversation about that. And usually people score much higher their trust of self versus trust of others. And one of those reasons is because trust of others was built. This is a hypothesis. Trust of others was built

between the ages of zero and two. If we follow good child developmental psychology, Eric Erickson there, zero to two before we could speak. So trust of others happens pre-verbally. And how do we sort that out? Well, did we get our needs taken care of in an exceptional way before we could even speak? That's how we begin to build the trust model. So it is complicated because it's hard to even put words why we don't trust somebody or why we're hesitant or hold back or why we're so giving and trustworthy and sometimes get burned by it.

And then there's one more piece that I think is really interesting, Chris, is that what people do when we ask them about the people that they've trusted the most in their life that have helped them become the very best of themselves is they have one single characteristic that threads through all those conversations. I bet you can guess what it is, but I'll jump to the punchline, is that the mentor or coach or the other person, the person that felt better about themselves had the sense that that other person really cared about them. Back to point number one for you is that when others, when you feel that others really care for you, you'll do so much, you'll go so much

further. And so that was, uh, I think at least three cool little insights around trust that I've learned over the last 18 months. Mate, it's a great, I really dig it. I also, I think the mix though, man, is the trust plus the genuine care. And I think where I genuinely care, you genuinely care, my mother genuinely cares, coaches in that team environment when they genuinely care, even if they're very hard taskmasters and demand a phenomenal standard from their team members. I think the genuine care and just the reflection of that and everything that they do over time, I think people thrive in that environment where they feel that someone else really, really wants them to succeed. And not just wants them, but deeply believes that they're capable of making that jump up.

So I think it's very smart insight, man. Yeah, so you're definitely asset-based. You're going to find the assets in people, build a safe environment, amplify those assets and strengths in people, and then see how far you can take the vision that you've done that lonely work, that alone based work to, to set for the, as an entrepreneur would to set for the team. And, and, and then I want to pull on this thread just a little bit further about mom. What is mom's name? Fiona. Fiona. So where did Fiona, where did your mom learn the skills of relationship? How did she become good at that? And did you ever notice that that became a double-edged sword where it became a challenge for her in a negative way? I've never seen a double-edged sword. I have seen her defend people just from her nature as

caring and giving. And so it's quite amusing. I've never seen my mother speak badly of anyone. Her bad thing is, oh, I don't know if I really want to spend all that much more time with that person. It's probably about as nasty as things get. Pretty nasty, yes. Yeah, functional relationship. And I think my mother got the phenomenal caring elements from her mother and has just always thrived off human interaction and i think if you genuinely care and it stimulates you you keep doing it it's a it's a warm fuzzy and i think that pursuit of warm fuzzies uh you don't have to pursue it very much if it's just part of who you are and it just

keeps ticking along then it'll it'll serve you for your whole life, particularly when what lights you up in my mother's case, and also my case is the feeling that you've, you've touched someone else and made their day. Okay, so you're challenging, and I love it, you're challenging a theory that I have about people that are world class exceptional what they do. And that oftentimes it's born out of some sort of neuroticism, some sort of internal stirring that takes place that breeds just the right amount of anxiousness, OCD, perfectionist. And none of those things are healthy, right? Not one of them are healthy. But if you can think about the inner drive that people come from to do extraordinary things, it is different, fundamentally different than most. And that's why they go the distance. And okay, so you're challenging that for me right now, which now I'm feeling really alive from a different angle, because it's like, okay, all right, good. So give me some evidence that you're not neurotic. And is that the case? Or

are you saying that damn it, Mike, I'm neurotic neurotic too like there's something screwy about why i'm trying to save the world through nutrition i i agree with you on the on the premise that the majority of people who step outside infinitely outside what most people would consider comfort zones and achieve exceptional things things tend to be some degree of special and that special could be uh some neurotic element or some deep dissatisfaction element or some phenomenal drive and i i agree when i've done we can come into sort of the whole mastery element later but i think in this instance, someone has done something exceptional without that, but hasn't necessarily stepped out of their comfort zone to do it. So I've built, I believe, a great business around a product that solved a huge problem for me and helped other people. And I was very dissatisfied with many elements of my life. And those were the

kickstarters that ultimately drove me to get out of the comfort zone to build a business to a very successful business and solve my problem build the business suffer for certain parts of it horribly but if I actually look back at where I really excelled in this entire process it was playing to my strengths which are almost innate but not really innate like I think I've always been a friendly, bubbly kid, and I've always loved people, but I've worked on the communication and the listening and the thinking elements to deliver a great result. My mother's case, she's not out of her comfort zone talking to a complete stranger and trying to help them out. She loves that.

It lights her up. It lights me up too. If you want to get into the mastery element, I have a couple of different definitions of mastery and they range all over the place. One of them, I think, is the ability without conscious thought to execute at an extremely high level. And when you first sort of ping the email, say, I'm going to ask you, what does mastery mean to you? That was the first thing that popped into my head.

And that could mean, so I've done a little bit of rally car driving. That could mean I'm not considering anymore how to execute this turn, that turn, anything else. I've gotten to the point that I can now drive this car largely by feel and my it leaves my brain free to think on strategy or outcome which is far far easier in terms of if you want to drive two or three corners ahead with your co-pilot telling you where you're going and you're going at sort of that 95 percent of sort of max threshold then this is much better than trying to figure out how to actually make each corner

because you'll go off the road really quickly. So I think that's one element of the mastery. I'm not, I think, but I have to be very careful in that I agree with you about the people who truly do dynamically things outside the realm of comfort for most people. I think they are driven by something. Insecurity, fear, dissatisfaction, something else that really pushes them through what most people would sort

of stop at the hurdle. But I think in the case of my mother, interfacing with other people, or myself interfacing with other people, or you interfacing with any one of the people you've ever worked with is you generally care. And I think you really enjoy the experience of that interaction. Yeah. Like here's the evidence of it is that, and sometimes I think maybe it's a selfishness, but I don't feel alive if I'm not in it. And one of the ways to be in it is like to really be curious and be engaged and like really trying to understand the complicated aspects of being a human. So if I can come from that place, I think it feels like, okay, the two of us need each other, right? I don't want to be selfish in that in any way, but sometimes it feels that way. Like I can't just

stare at my navel and try to figure things out. Like I get too bored. I'm too simple. And so like these, these wonderful engagements and one of my early mentors, what's up, Gary? He says to me, everything that you need in your life will be in this chair across from you and already within you. I'm like, oh, that's so good. That is so good. And that's so good. Okay. So, all right. No one's described mastery that way. So I can't wait to go back and take some deeper notes on how you articulated that. And, you know, I've got this thread behind our conversation right now, which is, okay, I get why Mike and Chris are having this really easy conversation because, you know, there's a monetary economic thing that's happening in the background. Athletic Greens, Chris founded, and that's

why Mike has him on. Bullshit on that. That's not it now. That is flat out not it. And so, because I don't know anyone like you that traveled the world. How many countries have you lived in? I've lived in six. i've been to 70 odd and how many are there 100 100 180 if you include 190 if you include all the different territories everything else yeah okay so you've been to almost half of the countries in the world you've smelt i have no idea what that's like and i want want to know, but then you, you, you ran into some GI problems, gastrointestinal problems. You took that suffering and you went on a mission and you created a product that I ended up, I don't know how many years later,

how many iterations have you been through athletic greens? 50, 51st is coming, coming down the pipeline. Don't change it much now. No, no, no. Making it better. Has to make it better. Okay, good. Okay, so that's my fear-based approach, right? So I haven't smelt that many countries.

I've been fortunate enough to be – my son is nine and he's been to over nine countries. And I feel like, yeah, I'm doing it. But then I hear you say like what you've done. It's like, holy mackerel. So favorite country, What is it? Like, what are the what are the things that come to mind? And I know, I don't know if you want to say where you live now. But yeah, I don't know if you want to say where you Colombia, and I love Colombia for the people, for the warmth and energy and vibrance of the people. I'm a people person. If I walk up to someone and just give a little bit of myself with warmth and, hey, man, how you doing? What have you been up to? I get warmth straight back. It's awesome. There are some areas of the world where it might take you a good five or ten minutes to try to get a bit of warmth back.

I like this environment. So I love the people here. And from sort of a social element, I mean, I don't know if you'd sort of want, you know, no one's going to say, yeah, I would get a group of 100 Colombians to build a crazy train and get it to run to the sick. Yeah, we're going to Germany. Yeah, we're going to Germany, right? But if you said, I want to have a party where everyone's happy and everyone's dancing,

irrespective of if they think they're a good dancer or they're just dancing for the expression of joy and they share that experience with other people, yeah, you'd fill it with Colombians. And I love that. I love that you've uprooted from your traditional ways of New Zealand and you've gone to a country that fits you. And my producer, Trevor Baru, just came back from Colombia and he said, I can't tell you how much your family's going to love it down here. Yeah, it's a great spot, man. And people are very warm and friendly. Look, Kiwis are very warm and friendly as well. And I think that in New Zealand, though, we tend to be very reserved. And most guys, if they talk about their feelings, it's I feel cold, I feel hungry, I feel tired.

And here, everyone wears their heart on their sleeves, which can take a bit of getting used to. But it's just sort of this other way of expressing the human experience. And it's not better. My parents taught us very early and showed us very early. You can't compare a culture to another culture. It's an apple to an orange. There is no better. It's just one's an apple, one's an orange. And you might find that you prefer an apple or an orange, but there's no better.

They're all valid. They all deserve to be there and they all have their merits. But I just find myself attracted very much to to this culture and it's interesting all the kiwis and aussies that come through here just love the place i think it's because they're free to express themselves without sort of feeling the crazy need to to you know do a bar crawl first oh that's interesting. So you're saying that alcohol lubricates emotions, which it does. It does. Yeah, it does. But you're saying that that's not necessary in the environment that you're in. No, not at all. I mean, they're crazy Latinos, man. They wear the heart on the sleeve. They're

full of life, full of passion, and a lot of fun to interface with. So that's what pulled me here. That's what kept me here, really. And quality of life plus that element. But I love Japan. I love New Zealand. I love Australia. I love the U.S. And I love Colombia.

And I think those places are places I could live again. But, I mean, I love so many places in the world. Mike, it's pretty hard to, to say, to say a favorite. If you're going to go traveling right now, my top of the list would probably be Turkey, Turkey and summer. Finding mastery is brought to you by momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday. What you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and

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Why do I love it so much? And it sounds like you're paying me to say that, but you're sponsoring the podcast because I love it, not the other drink. But why do I love it so much? I've been part of food supplement programming. So I've got this, let me pull back to really anchor a larger thought to get to the smaller thought is when I think of mindset, I think that there's at least, or when I think of high performance psychology, there's three elements. There is mind, there's

brain, and there's nutrition. Those three on a Venn diagram are really what I think about for high performance psychology. And I don't think that that's, there's no model that I've read. That's just intuitively what makes sense. That being said, nutrition has been a big part of my exploratory model of trying to better up. So why do I love your product so much? I think, I mean, one, I love that you love it. Thank you so much. I think you demand pretty high standards of yourself. And if you're going to embrace something, let alone align yourself in any way with something, you expect those same standards. And let's be honest, you grilled me on our earliest call, right? And you did. And it was awesome about basically the science

and the mechanics of how the whole product was put together, the element of no compromises, which is what I think we've done really, really well. And to make sure that your experience directly with the product was matched by what was fundamentally behind the product. And I think the reason why you like it is because it's an over-engineered product that most people who had had successful products in retail or online told me would never work because of the margin but I stuck with it because I believed that if it worked for me it would work for other people

and and that over time from that sort of continual use basis, we could end up with a great business. And that's what happened. So I think that's what it is, man. It was the combination of efficacy, belief in the no compromises, and understanding of what went into it. And so what is your GI tract like now? So as a young kid, it was –

Not good. So I was not a young kid it was not good so my i i was not a healthy kid i had many many stints of antibiotics growing up and the general the general doctor sort of paradigm at the time was yep has an infection let's dose them up and that and that's fine like i can't fault the doctors back back in that area for what happened. But I think what – there's many, many years of that plus the giardia, plus the hepatitis just led to this sort of not particularly robust GI tract and not particularly robust immune system. And when I had from then on really significant health challenges

and one was an intense period of insomnia, which was coupled with overtraining plus way too much stimulant use just led to this meltdown where I just started getting two or three hours sleep a night and was not a healthy young man for an extended period of time. I think that was the first challenge and then a little bit later when sort of the sort of in that catalyst area for ultimately for my athletic greens i just had years and years and years of where i'd kind of looked the healthy part i was playing good level of rugby in in sydney at the time and and looked at the business but i did four courses of antibiotics that year for upper respiratory tract infections and that's that's not good and i got to the point where i went on a beach holiday with a bunch of mates and got off the plane and was promptly sick they were all jokingly calling me the black lung and went off to the beach and i sat at home and coughed and just felt miserable uh and i think that that's it

and it was that process of being dissatisfied like really dissatisfied with the whole health element. And by then I was going to the toilet 15, 20 times a day. And I'd been to a lot of doctors and I kept going to a lot of doctors to try to figure out what's really going on. And it was that process, man, of sort of steadily disintegrating GI and general immunity that led to the clinic experience, a lot of blood testing, a lot of supplements customized to my biochemistry, dissatisfaction with that, and then a pursuit of something better. And the pursuit of something better led to the creation of Athletic Greens, the raising of money, the conscripting of experts,

and the formulation of a super product that was over-engineered because it solved my problem of getting it all in one place naturally and led to the lunacy of going to the US and trying to kick this business off. That's why I love it. Flat out, that's why I love it because it came from a real place and the solution was organic, right? Like you didn't start off like, God, I'll tell you what, I'm going to get annoyed for a minute. I see right now in the world of

the lenses that I see my, my businesses through, like, which is the psychology of humans, right? And it, so there's an upspring right now of mindset and psychology and high performance, this, that, and the other and mindfulness. And I'm going, oh, my God, what is happening? And I have to really temper myself to slow down, to take a breath, to say, it's all right. You know, like this is a good thing. And the stuff that looks flimsy and doesn't look like there's a whole lot behind it, but people are using buzzwords and catchwords to build on the back of businesses, it's okay. You know, like there'll be a swelling and there'll be a retraction and it'll be fine. And it'll help, it'll help everybody that's on the playing the

long game in this space. And then, so I think about your company in a very similar way after what you just shared is that there are lots of people, I should say, that just start companies by saying, you know what? Supplements, whole food supplements, it's a buzz. Let's get some, I don't even know what you get, and let's spray some vitamins in the bottle. And then, you know, 90% of them evaporate by the time a person opens it or they get to the, you know, even to the store. And let's call it whatever claims that we can because it's a wild wild west of of claims in food so that's why i love it that that's that's got to be it not everyone but many people in the supplement industry are chasing the fast buck man and a shark is i'm very very proud

that even when times got very tough and they did get financially very very very tough as in you know looking the sofa for change to go down the road to the cuban store when i was living in miami to buy rice and beans for a few days and i even took a screenshot of my bank accounts at the time just to say remember this feeling and i had a you know well over a million dollars of investor money invested in the development and the first batches of this product. And I was sitting there in a pretty dark place and I could have compromised and I did not. And I am very, very happy that I never did and that we continued to sort of push forward with the product I most believed in. Of the opportunities I had in front of me, it was what I just genuinely most believed in and over the years I think that that that

belief and no compromises element and just the fundamental belief that look I will make something I am extremely proud of that gives me a one and one a day effective sort of super supplement if you will which is exactly what I wanted when when we built it. And my parents take it. I'm very proud to stand behind it, to sing its claims, to have anyone look at it, scratch it, touch it, any way you skin it. I think I've built something that is genuinely different and walks the walk. Unfortunately, and there are some great other supplements out there and some great companies unfortunately i think in the industry many people are not on that uh particular they're not on the high efficacy path man or the high quality path but but you are i am we are

yeah let's roll let's go okay let's just go. They can go do their shit and they'll be doing the same stupid shit in 10 years and we would have moved onwards and upwards. Awesome. Awesome. All right. So let's go into that moment where you had rice and beans as your option. And nothing wrong with rice and beans. My wife is Cuban and I love rice and beans. But it's a good choice.

It's a $2 choice. That's choice. It's a $2 choice. That's right. It's not an expensive choice. Okay, so what did you do there? Walk me through how you go from a million in a dark place. And when you say dark, I'm assuming it is like, uh-oh, what am I going to do? I'm borrowed, I'm leveraged. Should I compromise

and cheapen the product to have a higher margin or whatever you're going to do to kind of get out of the hole? Like walk me through that. That's a good learner right there. I am pretty good face to face with people. And if you genuinely look to solve people's problems and you generally care and you listen, you can normally help someone with their problems. And that's what I think the inherent part of selling is. So I'm a pretty good face-to-face salesperson if I believe what I'm offering matches the person. If not, I've always been super honest to say I don't think this is the right match for you. So when we built Athletic Greens and the team got together and all the bantering went forth between naturopaths and doctors and medical

researchers, et cetera, to sort of determine, okay, how are we going to make this? And then we had to go through the burden of figuring out how to actually make it both mix and taste good without compromising, which was serious pain in the ass. Then I, you know, I'm an athletic guy and this is kind of a green space for me. So I'm just going to call it athletic greens and we'll do a whole bunch of batches and to ship it off to the U S and I'll go there. And because I love people and I'm good face to face, uh, I'll figure out this internet stuff, no trouble. And we'll be off to the races with this, with this business. And I was very, very, very stupid in terms of my assumption of what was going to be required to make it happen. And my financial partner just ran out of both,

first money and then patience. And I can't fault him. He's still my friend. And that relationship is very strong now. But I just burnt through the cash we had to try to get this off the ground i had a lot of inventory sitting there plus the various invested costs to have figured out how to make it in the first place and no cash in the bank so i just and he sort of said hey man i'm not going to put any more cash into this and it was at the time i you know i had the previous business i've been part of sort of disappeared. I faced bankruptcy. I'd lost a whole bunch of friends and family's money in a form of business venture.

It was all happening at the same time. And I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and not particularly empowered. And I had all this inventory. And I sat there thinking, okay, what am I going to do and I had a couple days of literally eating rice and beans before I just stopped and went I'm I'm I'm smart in this I can I can figure out a way to to move on to the other side and I also sat down and my sisters who have both had their dabbles with with depression in their lives had had sat me down a few months ago and said said to me look no one else is gonna gonna recognize this uh because they're just gonna

see chris the way you are and think chris is like that but you're not the bubbly chatty friendly chris that you normally are and we think you're depressed and we think you should go see someone so see someone i did and she probably said what do you want i think she thought i was on a prescription hunt and i was like no no i'm good and that began the whole element of focus on happiness which you know is still on our label sort of this 100 focus on happiness approach and although it's probably going to come off now um you know as we try to articulate more clearly what our product actually does but the big it really built this focus on happiness approach. And I took a screenshot of that feeling of running out of cash

and just said, remember this feeling, and put it in a Gmail file that said good for stories. And it is quite good for stories. But I very quickly stepped out of that. And I stepped out of it just by really focusing on all the different things that made me happy and reading a lot about what made other people happy and a lot of it was the physiological element so I had to go for a walk in the sun every day I had to swim or immerse myself in cold water every day I had to do four minutes of intervals every day

I had to dance salsa four nights a week I just started doing these things to try to pull myself physiologically out of kind of feeling sorry for myself and just stuck to my guns on athletic dreams. And what I realized by then without money is I have a product that when I put it in front of very, very, very smart doctors, health and fitness influencers, Timothy Ferris, who grilled me like unbelievably on this product when he first tried it. And they all said, yeah, we love it, man. This is something pretty cool. And they said that we will tell our audience about your product when you're ready. And it took me nine months and many, many iterations to try to get a landing page that would actually convert this traffic. And in the middle of that time, I sat there and realized I shouldn't have called it Athletic Greens

because it's really not just for athletes. It's people who want to be better and sort of want sort of the best that's out there of the shotgun approach. The next approach, of course, is customized to your blood chemistry and buying everything individually. And I've actually done that. That's sort of the holy holy grail if you will but of a shotgun approach like one size fits nearly everyone this is what it's designed for and but i thought well athletic greens everyone's comparing us to the you know

powdered wheatgrass and we're considerably more expensive, but we're a considerably different cost structure behind the product, I should change the name. And it was then I dropped an email to Timothy Ferris, who I met in Argentina well before he was ever popular. And I'd never done anything business with him at all. I said, hey man, you're pretty smart at this stuff. I think I've named this product wrong. Our landing page will be ready in like two months. And I, I think I need to rename it. What are your thoughts? And he said, don't change the name. I just put it in the four hour body and just went to print. So that was the first I heard about it. And for good or bad, maybe for bad, but for good or bad, I said, okay, I'll stick with this name.

And one other guy who tried the product was the guy doing our landing page. And he gave us a couple of iterations. And literally, Tim's book launched, The 4-Hour Body. And he mentioned us in there. We started to get a little bit more traffic. Then the new page came on board. And it was a five-fold conversion. Because someone finally who understood actually a little bit about selling online

had built a very clean, easy to use, understandable website, not the horrendous thing I'd formerly had. And then I just went to the people who believed in the product and said, okay, please now tell your audiences and buff off to the races. And from there, just grew, grew, grew, grew grew grew grew but that sort of dark moment of no cash feeling sorry for myself feeling at the time better but now i completely understand uh what happened with my financial partner like i i see his side of the story very clearly and actually think he was very patient with me and i understand you know his frustration and dealing with a little bit of depression and sort of just sitting there going, I'm going to focus on the one thing today that I believe in.

And what I believed in was that I had built a very high efficacy product that I was delighted to have my name to. And I was going to build a business based around what I wanted in terms of marketing that product. And there were going to be no exceptions. And the only time in the last, that was 2010, the only time in the last sort of seven years where I've had really, really tough moments is the year and a half that I chased, I kind of left that purity of mission,

didn't mess with the product, but we started getting a lot more aggressive with our marketing. You know, trying free trials, trying this other stuff. And it just didn't deliver the customer experience that we wanted to. And we ended up reining all of that back and just said, you know what? We're a premium product. We don't need to apologize for being a premium product. In fact, we're consistently iterating to keep it more and more premium over time. And we're just going to unapologetically make the best thing that we can make and deliver that brand message. And I think that's what Adam has done so well,

is just clearly and consistently delivered on that brand promise, man. So that's the march from sofa, depression, I need to focus on my happiness, I'm not going to drugs, I need to focus on this business. And just doing going to drugs. I need to focus on this business. And just doing that day in, day out, day in, day out until we got it up and running. And I had about two and a half, three years where I was interfacing with a computer most days every day. That is not my strength. And if I look at where I did well was the building of this product, which was relationship-driven because very, very smart people helped me build this product.

And then putting it in front of very smart people and being genuine with my answers, like telling the truth. I use some financial, you know, not financial, nutritional whiz kid. No. But did I do thousands of hours of reading when we built this? Yes. Do I still do all that reading on the nutrition side? No.

I focus more on the leadership side over time. Do we still get very smart people who have PhDs and medical backgrounds to review this product? Yes. And do I listen to their suggestions? Absolutely. But I think, man, just that constant focus and iteration on, okay, how can I best serve our customers? How can I best serve my team? How can I grow my team? If I look at really what did I do best there, it was the interpersonal relationships and those were the strengths and the weighting that has given us nearly all the success. When you asked me at the very beginning, are you a Neotropics guy? I have some interest there. Are you a nutrition guy? I have very strong interest in history there. Are you a neurotropics guy? And I have some interest there. Are you a nutrition guy? And I have very strong interest in history there. Are you a business guy?

Where is your secret sauce? My secret sauce is in that human relationship. And that is my strength. So now most of my time is invested in providing an environment for really world-class people to both stimulate, be stimulated and grow. And it's empower them. It's challenge them and then it's try to help them make the jump up in their own psychology because at the end of the day it all comes down to psychology and adam is a guy if you look at when he started to now is is a phenomenally smart guy he started from me smart the intelligence hasn't changed but the capability

over time and the self-belief is just so awesome that he now runs this business far better than I ever did in that CEO role. And from that trust element, I trust him to run my baby better than I ever could, and I really mean that. Okay, so I want to tell you a story about Adam, but I want to share something that came to mind, is that as you were describing how you've done what you've done, I think that so many of us, we want to live an extraordinary life. And so many people listen to what you've done and say, God, I'd work that hard if I just knew what to do. If I had Jardia, if I had suffering, if I could identify my thing that I would work, that I would want to be that inspired and work that hard. And I'm okay with the down $2 in my pocket, like the downturn, because I know that if I could just do the work, it'd be great. Okay. I think people say that. I think they don't

really realize many people what it's like to be so down and so beat up emotionally or mentally or, and, or financially, physically, which you've had all of them. I don't say that despairingly. I mean that like I embrace that for you. And this is my throughput is that I think what you've done is that you've had the courage to be real with your emotions. And so what keeps, I see many of us stuck is we say, nah, I'm good. Nah, I'm good. Nah, it's good. Nah, I figured out. Instead of saying, oh, did I cause that pain for you? Oh my God. Okay. Oh, look at that pain.

I'm feeling about not being good enough or not knowing what to do. The anxiety of not knowing if it's going to work out. Oh, look at that. That's real. And then, so tell me if I'm off now, you had the courage to feel all of those relationships built from your mom's and your dad's model of integrity, match your words and your walk with your mom being about relationships. You put those two things together. You have the courage to feel, which is a prerequisite for a relationship-based approach in life. And then you've got a workhorse to be able to come through that courage or that

vulnerability through courage and then put the work in. So that to me, when I'm thinking of Chris, that's how I'm thinking that you've done what you've done is that courage to be vulnerable, to be open and true with your emotions. And if I'm wrong, I want to keep going for a second. If I'm wrong, tell me. But I want to encourage folks that are listening to get real with the emotions. There's no such thing really as mental pain. It's emotional pain, right? The thoughts lead to the emotions or thoughts lead to emotions. So it's dealing with the emotions, an incredible signal about how we can structure or change or embrace particular thoughts and thoughts patterns. And so I hope, I hope that

you've just stimulated and reawakened in a very cool way for me, the importance of that aliveness that comes with emotions. And I, for early in my life, I was not good at it. And it took me somewhere, I think there was a transition in early college for me to from a relationship that i was building with my now wife to say uh-oh like there's way more that i need to go much farther i need to go and so okay enough about me back to you like is that is that close is that well man that's a huge compliment man and thank you very much. Thank you very much. Also, I think you are a master of your craft and very astute. So I think the courage to be vulnerable and then face it and just go for it anyway was a huge part of it. But I think the courage to be vulnerable with smart people who've joined onto my vision.

And Adam's amazing, but he's not the only guy man there's like sam crystal brian they like there's a phenomenal group of people who who sort of aligned their vision their star with me for a while and i think being vulnerable with them has led hugely to the trust element there you go back to trust yeah there you go there you go yeah no no i'm i'm being serious and when i coach some of these guys on okay now they've got a couple of a players reporting to them how do you interface with a true a player and i said you don't have all the answers man and they have to realize that you don't have all the answers but what they must believe profoundly is that you are willing to do whatever it takes to work with them to help them get the result that they're striving for and that's

that's sort of the fundamental basis. So I think the willingness to be vulnerable, I wasn't comfortable, man, in Miami. I was not comfortable interfacing with my computer for many years. I grew very frustrated because it was so outside my core competency. If I look back at it now, I should have really invested far more of my time on the relationship elements. Because I mean, for a long time we were a very small skeleton team and then it began to grow. it by just consistently delivering on my personal brand promise, which is you can trust me. I trust you. I want to empower you. I want to help you achieve what you want. Let's, let's do this together. That's been my secret sauce, man. So very, very astute of you to, to pick it up. See, I was thinking about your vulnerability to be open with your sisters and then with your

therapist and then with other people like but it started way back with mom and dad you know like them fostering that and look you're also in columbia where emotions are um free spirited yeah and so like you're there for a reason mate okay awesome all right so where does where does athletic greens go next? Man, there's a whole new look packaging and a sort of a re-articulation of sort of what's the real idea behind how this product is set up and partnerships with people who – we've gotten to the point now where we're not a massive business, but we're a strong business. And we have a very strong brand message and philosophy, which is sort of that self-improvement. Here's this sort of complete sort of – the catchphrase is the most complete supplement sort of for a better you. We tend to attract the I want to be a better version of myself type of people and just continue to share that message, man. Have more people work with us to

to sing our praises so really fostering again the relationship side and the brand alignment side and i think you know that i look at i look at how amazing it's been to have the support of someone like yourself um the same say with someone like timothy Ferris and I think what we're now you know I think the relationship with foster with you is is literally a turning point for our business it it marks a turning point in our business as we're now realizing you know we don't actually need to do this alone and just buy heaps of meter on Facebook what we'd rather do is find people who believe in what we are all about and are willing

to align their brand with us. And that's, that's the next evolution for us as we grow as a business. Brilliant. I love being part of what you guys are doing. And I've shared with Adam, I think I shared with you that I've got some ideas for some supplement. I need either need guidance or partnership with some, some other products that I'd like to see. And I don't, I'm not suggesting that you fold them into ag athletic greens but um some guidance of some stuff that i'd like to get going with so i'm stoked to be part of your community brother so thank you thank you man we're stoked to have you and we would love to be part of that oh yeah good okay good all right so

then let's let's um we'll we'll follow up on that later but let's talk about where people can find you athletic greens.com forward slash finding mastery. I say it so often. Like I love it. So that's one place that people can go. Where else can they learn about you? And you might be off the radar, but I don't, I don't know that for sure. But like, where can people find you? So first of all, man, when I first heard your, I'd listened to a few of your podcasts in the past and I listened to you on Tim Ferriss' podcast and and that's how i came back to to your podcast i thought this guy is very genuine um very different by the way when you're sitting in the seat speaking to you um it's like you are an absolute master of that that-sponsored spot,

I got goosebumps because it was real. It was what you thought, what you felt, and your experience. There were no words from us, and I got goosebumps. And I messaged Adam. I said, holy shit, man, like how fucking good. Sorry for the swearing. How good was Mike's read of that? And I got goosebumps right now. Goose happy by the way and i you know i was just i was just so stoked i was so

happy and it really made my day and i've been so proud of like just that whole element ever since so i'm not that much on social media i i used to be and then over the years it sort of became five or ten minutes a day and now it's less than two minutes a day. But Athletic Greens is. Athletic Greens can be found on Facebook or Instagram at Athletic Greens. And we have a pretty awesome customer service team who are a customer happiness team who you can interface with, ask any questions, harass, do whatever you want. They have hired and cultivated and encouraged to be as woman friendly as possible that's what's up so for folks that are still trying to sort out if athletic greens is for them just go try it you know like really go try it and then you know i i i

want to maybe have a follow-up that go deep in the weeds on the actual product choices that you've made maybe we can do that some other time i wanted this to be a conversation about you your insights and for people to have a takeaway like if they want to start something from ground zero that is authentically aligned with their vision and mission in life that that's what you've captured and so that's what i wanted this conversation to be like and maybe you know and maybe maybe i do it with one of your scientists, you know, and we just go into that. We just nerd out in the weeds about choices that they're making. And, and so people can fill that quest as well for themselves. So Chris, thank you, brother. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me, man. Thank you. Okay. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Bye-bye.

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