How I Built This with Guy Raz - Lenny & Larry’s Protein Snacks: Barry Turner

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

When Barry Turner co-founded Lenny & Larry’s, the idea of selling a protein-packed breakfast muffin was practically unheard of: it was the early 1990’s, and protein-fortified food was not yet a thing. But when Barry was sidelined from a promising gig as an American Gladiator, he and his bodybuilding buddy Benny Graham decided to infuse baked goods with protein powder and sell them around L.A. Soon they were selling brownies, cookies, and cinnamon rolls, but mostly anonymously, as a white label business. Barry eventually sold the company, but returned years later to build the brand he’d always wanted, and to focus on one product, The Complete Cookie. Today a majority of Lenny and Larry’s belongs to Lion Capital, and the high-protein cookies—and other treats—can be found in over 30 countries worldwide.This episode was produced by J.C. Howard, with music by Ramtin ArabloueiEdited by Neva Grant, with research help from Katherine Sypher.You can follow HIBT on Twitter & Instagram, and email us at [e-mail]. Sign up for Guy’s free newsletter at guyraz.com 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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Airbnb.ca.combe slash host. Len Hoffman was a retired baker from Intamin's bakery. And the first thing he said, he goes, stop calling these recipes. He goes, these are formulas. And I was like, okay, he goes, this is scientific now, boys. So we get Lynn to start helping us with these products that we're working on. And we're also starting to do some private labor. for a pretty large coffee chain here in Southern California. And they're like, well, hey, I wonder what else these guys do. So they asked us about doing some scones. And we told them we made the best scones in the city.

Which was a total lie. Which was not true. It was just complete. You didn't even make scones. The guy, we didn't even know what the hell of scones was. Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz and on the show today how a former American gladiator found his true calling, lost it, and then found it again by building a top-selling protein cookie brand, Lenny and Larry's.

If you follow food trends, protein right now is an exploding category. Just to put it in perspective, in 2024, the global market size for protein-fortified foods was around $27 billion. But by the end of this time, decade, it's expected to reach close to $50 billion. Just take a look at the aisles of Whole Foods or even Costco. You will start to notice more and more products that help their protein content, whether it's crackers or nut butter or even ice cream. But back in the days when protein was kind of out of fashion in the 90s, two former bodybuilders entered the space with a pretty revolutionary product. It was a protein-packed muffin. This was in 19, when Barry Turner and his friend Benny Graham were out of work and struggling to make it in Hollywood. A few months earlier, Barry finally caught a lucky break when he was cast on the TV show American Gladiators.

But just a few episodes in, he got injured, and that was the end of his TV career as an American Gladiator. So one afternoon, Barry and Benny were talking about how boring their bodybuilding diets were, mainly chicken breasts. and egg whites. And they wondered, could you take protein powder and just mix it into things that are more interesting, like muffins or brownies? A few days later, they started to experiment, literally dumping protein powder into muffin mixes. And eventually, they found a recipe that worked. They decided to start a small business selling their muffins to local coffee shops around Los Angeles. The muffins did pretty well, but the business never really took off. So in In 2001, they sold Lenny and Larry's for a small amount of money and moved on.

But Barry Turner would come to regret that decision almost immediately, and it would take him six years to buy most of the business back. And that's when he started to turn Lenny and Larry's into a national brand of cookies, brownies, and other protein-pack treats. Today, you'll find Lenny and Larry snacks at thousands of locations across the country. The brand was really a pioneer in protein-fortified food. And Barry's path to building that brand was a windy one. He grew up in the 1960s and 70s in Hickory, North Carolina.

He was a pretty talented baseball player, but an injury on the field left him deaf in one year. So when he started college in Georgia, he set his sights on wrestling. I was living in a little town called Carter'sville, Georgia, and my mom had seen a guy had a wrestling ring in his backyard, and she told me about it. So I kept going to his house every day for two straight weeks, leaving notes, knocking on his door. And I kept saying, I want you to train me, I want you to train me.

And he doesn't respond. So finally he calls me one time, and he just said, he goes, look, dude, I've been traveling. I've been on the road wrestling. You know, all I kept saying was, just see me. I said, just see me. And maybe you'd want to train me. So I show up and he sees me. goes, you know, I think I could probably help you. So we train for two weeks, nonstop, seven days a week.

We're just training. And I learned everything I can about professional wrestling, how to fall, how to do a sunset flip, how to come off the top rope, flyed elbows, everything. And it was so much fun. And so within two weeks, he gets me a match. And you became a character? Or were you Barry Turner? No, well, when I showed up, I was Barry Turner, but when the promoter saw me, he goes, this guy's too pretty, we got to put a mask on him because I can't look better than the actual guy who's going to beat me. And the coolest thing about that is, man, when they put a mask on you, you just become someone else.

Yeah. So they put a mask on me. They called me Mr. Olympia. And they gave me a manager. I got a guy's name's Diamond Dave. He's wearing a red tuxedo with a red top hat. It was full-on, like, a major production. And I was getting picked up by a bigger group.

They were going to send me on the road, like, immediately. And this was like in W-A, W-C-W-T type wrestling at the time. And that's where I was heading. And that's what I really thought my career was going to be. I was going to become a professional wrestler and be very successful at it. So what happened? My girlfriend at the time thought wrestling was beneath me. I thought I could do better.

So I chose a girlfriend and didn't work out. Right. Right, but you did take her advice not to be a pro wrestler, right? And I guess instead you decided to go back to school to Georgia State University where you wound up meeting this guy, Benny Graham, who would, of course, factor into this story. So who was Benny? What Benny was, I actually met him at a gym. And he said, hey, I heard you you're doing, you're doing a little bit of pro wrestling, which you want to consider it again because I really want to get into it. And I said, yeah, I'd love to.

So he and I start training together and we just became instant friends. We were just kind of goofballs and having fun. And he was a personal trainer too at the time. And so he said, I'm training this lady and she has this movie script written for two guys that would be you and I. And she'll move us to California. She'll pay for everything. Do you want to go? And I go, sure, let me finish my schooling so I can get my degree.

He goes, we got to go next month. And I was like, hmm, let's go for it. And so we packed up and we went to California. Wait, let's just unpack this. Somebody was working on a movie script. Yeah, this lady, she had a little bit of money. So when people find people with money at that time, everybody's pitching a movie script around the country.

You know that guy. What was the premise of the movie? It was similar to the movie Warrior. If you remember the movie with Tom Hardy and Edgerton guy, back then it was about like that was like UFC type fighting for that movie and so it's kind of similar to that it was like you know

two guys we were going to be wrestling and so the idea was that you and Benny might star in it like you might be the Warriors yeah we might be the guys and be the main characters and kicking some ass and we're big we're big guys we're growing our hair really long so we just we had it we had

a look so yeah it was just one of the things where you just go you know what it's it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to move to California. I never in my heart believed a movie would ever get made, but I'd ever start in this movie. I just had an opportunity to go to California. And you were a semester away from graduating from getting your degree. Yeah. Because at that time, I was like, it was one of those things. I'm still kind of young. I'm like 29 or something at that time. Yeah. I can finish later. All right. So you get to L.A., 1991. And with the hopes and dreams of being in this film,

what happens? Well, obviously the film never gets made. So we're literally, Benny and I are just being paid by this person to just work out. We worked out twice a day. We ate. That's all we did was just get bigger and bigger and bigger. Wow. Yeah, seriously.

Like, can you give me a sense of how big? Sure. What's your height and what was your weight at the time? Well, six feet, the biggest I ever got weight-wise was 250, 250 pounds. Wow. That's insane. insane. I mean, I mean, can I ask you, this is not a very polite question. No, it's okay. I'm honest. Were you using steroids to get that big? At that, to get, yes, yes, I did. You have to. You can't.

You can't eat food and protein powders without. Cannot. My natural body, my natural body, I could get to, I got to about 2.17, I think was the biggest I got to naturally. And it's still a lot. It was still big. It's right. That's still a professional athlete. Yeah. And most people will not tell you the truth when you ask questions like that. But I just believe in being honest about everything. And by the way, does it have long-term consequences? I think it does for people who use it for a long time. I didn't like it. It would mood swings galore. I mean, you could be, you could be happy one day and you could just be, you know, throwing stuff at a wall the next. Wow. Yeah, it's not, it's like, especially if you're a pretty high-strung person anyway or just, very aggressive.

Volatile. Volatile. Yeah. So you, but you, that was your job is to get really jacked. for this movie. Big. How long did that last before it became clear that this movie was never going to pan out? I got paid for about a year. Wow. Yeah. That's a pretty good deal.

Not bad. Meantime, okay, so once you kind of find out this is not going to happen, you're already in L.A. You're this jackd dude. And you have long hair. Tell me about your hair. Yeah, I kept growing my hair to the point where it got down to my waist. What was that guy? Fabio? Fabio, yeah. Were you like Fabio? Yeah, he had cool hair. His hair was, his hair wasn't as wavy as mine.

He was like massive with long hair. So you had this really long hair and that was your look. Yeah, that was it. And meantime, Benny was also doing this, right? Yeah, correct. And you guys were sort of on this parallel path of you're in L.A., so you might as well keep auditioning for parts, right? That's exactly right. I was one thing I'll tell you is I'm not an actor And I never I didn't want to become an actor I just had a look I was big with long hair you could put me in in things

So I could audition for parts I read that you were on Duky Hauser I was a guy in a pool with a girl on my shoulders me Benny and I both were and on Duky Hauser we did we did the bodyguard with Kevin Costner Whitney Houston you were in the bodyguard what'd you play We were kind of nightclub kind of bouncers. There's a scene where they're coming in from the limousine, come into the Mayan theater downtown L.A., and we're kind of holding back the crowd because they're trying to get to them, whatever. And then in the scene, when she's performing, we're right there

at the stage. Wow. So how many seconds do you get on screen during the bodyguard? Honestly, it's maybe three, four seconds, five seconds backs. Yeah. I was in another movie too called Death Becomes Her. And I still get residuals for that. Is that with Merrill Street? Merrill Street, Bruce Willis. Yeah, it's like Bruce Willis. Yeah, it's like Bruce Willis. Plus, Barry Turner and Meryl Streep, we were all featured actors. But if you had a look, they could use you. So it's funny, and death becomes her, our titles were Beefy Guy. I'm not kidding you.

So I was beefy, I think I was Beefy Guy number eight. And we got, it was, it was such, I had so much fun because the other beefy guys in the movie, we were all just big hams on the set. And we didn't have to work that much. There was a lot of hurry up and wait. And we just, we hung out. That's all we did. We hung out.

We ate and we just messed around. It was a lot of fun. All right. So this is also the era of, and those of you under the age of 40 will have a harder time remembering this. But American Gladiators. This is a show on television where you had a bunch of like really strong men and women. And then you have contestants who'd have to battle them out in different scenarios, like trying to get a touchdown or trying to win a wrestling match or a jousting match.

Yeah. This is a huge, massive show. You find out about an open casting call in 1992. Yeah. And when you found out about it, what did you think? Well, the first thing I thought was, I'm going to go become an American Gladiator. Prior to that, I auditioned for a show called Knights and Warriors. It was like a knockoff show.

Yeah, a knockoff show, a medieval setting. It lasted one year. And Benny and I both go and audition for Knights and Warriors. Yeah. And they wanted both of us. And I said, no, thank you. I said, I'm going to go become an American gladiator. Huh.

So what was it, was it a one-day audition and they were going to make a decision at the end of the day? Or was it a multi-day thing? Well, it turned out to be a multi-day and multi-month process. And we do all the events. We're doing Powerball. We're doing jousting. We ran 240-yard dashes in front of these executives. Okay.

But it wasn't, but Gladius wasn't like boxing and stuff. No, no, no, it wasn't violent. It was like jousting with like padded jousts and wrestling. But guy, that that is violence. Yeah, I guess you're right. You hit somebody with a giant Q-tip, we'll call it. And it doesn't matter if it's padded. It's like when you're hitting at that speed, very violent show.

And so that day, we went through all these different events and I could do them all. And so they narrowed it down to 10 people that day and I was one of the 10 people. and then we all kind of come back and do some things and they narrow it down to three people. I expected to be in that top ten, but now when you get to like you're got a 33% chance of being on this show, your heart's racing a little bit. You're saying like, holy cow, dude, I'm a Hickory North Carolina guy. Just, you know, just this guy from the South. And I'm just thinking like, I'm about to be on that.

At that time, the hottest show on TV. I'm looking at a photo of you at the time. You were selected. I think people are going to make that assumption now. and you become cyclone. That's your character. They called me cyclone. They thought I was big and I was very fast.

And that's just the name they came up with. You were like 31. About 31, 32, yeah. Giant. You were just a giant. Like, your bicep is like the size of an adult head. I had some big arms. I still have big arms guy.

All right. So you get the job. You're on this massive show. And you've got a serious career ahead of you. That's exactly what I thought. I was like, this is it. This is the pinnacle of my sports career. I didn't make it baseball, football, whatever, but this was my pro sports. Everything had led me to that moment, right? I felt like if anyone had earned it, it was me. Yeah. And, but then God has a way of saying, let me, let me deal you another blow. What, what happened? On my, I did eight shows,

and on the day that they called it, they said, this is your coming out party cycle. alone. They were going to make me a known. I mean, I was going to become, I felt like I was going to become a star. And so they said, you're in every event today. That means they're going to, they're putting you out there. The best event was power ball. People love power ball. So that's basically the guys that contestants are sticking a ball into these little cylinders. And there's three of us trying to tackle two of them. And so I dive. There's two guys that come together. I dive between them. I extend my arms and I wrap them up. And my bicep popped when I did that. Yeah, and my bicep was just gone.

It had rolled up in my arm. Oh. Complete detachment. Sorry to be gory, but it's what happened. And I wanted to hide it from the producers. It was like hanging meat off your arm. Well, it just, guy, what it does is it rolls up like a shade. It just goes up into your, up into your body towards your shoulder.

That's so weird. Yeah, it just complete. It attaches at your forearm. And painful? Up to that point, one of the, the most painful thing I'd ever gone through. It was just like burned, like somebody's taking a match and they're lighting your arm on fire for 24 hours a day. I could not understand it. But I would not, I would not stop.

I kept, I kept taping it and trying to shut off the pain. I didn't take pain pills or anything, but I was doing it. Because I, you understand, this was my moment. Yeah. There's nothing that would ever kept me off except a liability issue with the actual producers of the show. They said, you got to go. You got to go to the hospital. Wow.

So they ended that end of my career as a gladiator. So you were done. That was it. Yeah, I was done. Which must have been crushing because you had worked so hard to get that job. Yeah. If there's ever a time in my life being depressed, that was it. So here you are 31. Yeah. You kind of taste this moment of like stardom, like just the beginning of it.

And, you know, you're probably thinking, okay, here we go. And then it's over. Yeah. So what did you, I mean, obviously it to rehabilitate your arm. That was priority. Yep. And when you say you were feeling like down, like what does that, what do that mean? Feeling like a failure.

I worked my whole life. I felt like from the time, you know, being a kid, being an athlete to pick up the weights, you know, going through becoming a bouncer in nightclubs and wrestling, just everything I was just like leading towards. There was something. There was a pinnacle somewhere. And American Gladiators was my pinnacle. You could have cast me in a movie with Arnold's Force.

I wouldn't have taken that over being an American gladiator. And it just, yeah, depression is like not even, it's funny I'm talking about. I've never really, I've never really shared this with anyone. But when you're a proud person from the South, you don't talk about your feelings, you just, you just swallow it and you go on with life and you pick yourself back up. But, man, behind the scenes, I just, I didn't know what I was going to do. I was like, how do I, how do I top that? Yeah. Basically, how do I get that feeling of being, you know, being a success again?

All right. So you're going through this and trying to figure out the next step, I guess. Yeah. And Benny, he was on Knights and Warriors, that sort of low budget spinoff of American Gladius, also had an injury, like something that kept him from. Yeah, he tore his shoulder, labrum or something. And you can't make this up. We're sitting, we're literally two guys on these two opposite shows. We both get injuries.

And it's just that you, I'm like, are you serious? How does this happen? Yeah. So you guys are, you and Betty, are not sitting around trying to brainstorm ideas of, hey, what should we do together? You're just, you're two jack guys trying to recover, recover from your injuries and still eating probably insane amounts of protein and, right? Egg whites and chicken and rice. and whatever you can just stuff in your body. That's it.

And I guess one afternoon, you're just kind of eating all this food and to having a conversation. Yeah, just having a conversation. We're at Coffee Roaster Cafe and Marina Del Rey. It's our favorite little spot. And eating chicken breast and egg whites. And our thing was we always like to, like, before we'd work out, we'd always like, you'd have like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a cup of coffee, a muffin with a cup of coffee, something sweet with the coffee.

That was just our thing. So we had a muffin sitting on the table, and we were going to split that muffin and have a cup of coffee. It's just a regular muffin. Just a regular muffin. Yeah, just kind of a natural type muffin, nothing in it. And I'm eating chicken breast and egg whites, and I point to the chicken breast and egg whites. And I said, why can't we put that protein in that muffin? And I looked up, and it's like Benny had saw a ghost.

And he just goes, oh, my God. He goes, we're doing this. And I was like, you damn right we are. And that's all we needed. That was it. Okay. This is the light bulb moment. And you're like, why can't we put that into that?

And now, this is 1993. Mm-hmm. There were some, I mean, protein powders existed. Way powder existed at the time. Yeah, there was metrics was big. Metrics was kind of doing their thing. But it's funny, though, there was protein powder and there was protein bars, but there was nothing else. Metrix, right?

MetRX, right? MetRX, correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. GnC existed. Gnc existed. You get protein powders, yep. But there was no one putting protein in anything other than a protein bar. You didn't have to. You just, if you wanted protein, you ate tuna. You ate chicken, you ate steak, you ate eggs. Which is a pretty great way to get protein, let's be honest. The best way to get protein. It's just not convenient for everybody.

Correct. You can't take a steak on the go with you. Just munch on it while you're driving. Exactly. Exactly. It's done. Hang on, I got a steak in my pocket. I need to eat it. But there, then and there, you guys are sitting there, and both of you are like, this is it. And it's funny, you said light bulb moment. I always look back on it.

I go, this was a giant halo. It was like, this is not your moment where you can maybe go make a little bit of money. This, I think, is something bigger than that. I thought that from that very day. This is like a Renaissance painting. This is like Fra Angelico's ascension. It is. The halo right there on the angel.

That's it. It was our moment. Two podunk guys from the south is going to go change the world. When we come back in just a moment, Barry and Benny build a business, but not a brand. And Barry makes a deal that he regrets almost as soon as he signs it. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This.

I'm Guy Raz. So it's 1993, and Barry and his friend Benny are sitting at a cafe in L.A. where they've just come up with the idea to start a business selling protein muffins. There was no turning back guy. It was just, we're going to do this. We didn't know how we're going to do this. No consumer product good experience. There's no marketing experience.

There's no business experience. Nothing. And we just, we knew that day that was it. And so we did. didn't leave that table until we drew out what we thought the logo was going to look like. Huh. And we left there and went straight to a little natural food store, Rainbow Acres, and picked up some protein powder. We bought some muffin mix.

Went back to my kitchen and started baking these muffins within two hours. We opened up a bank account that day with $1,400. I don't know why it was $1,400. Maybe that's all we had. And we did a DBA doing business as. So this all happened in the very first day. And the business was going to be called what? Lenny and Larry's.

You decided it right then and there, you're going to call it Lenny and Larry's? Right, right then. Even though you were Benny and Barry. Yep. We always called each other something different. It was, again, something goofy. Our names would change every day. It was just something stupid we did.

And so we wanted to create these characters. And we said, Benny and Barry sound like real people. Lenny and Larry sounds like two characters. And that was it. I think people overthink things. Now that I look back on this, I think people overthink trying to get the perfect name or the perfect design or whatever rather than just doing it. All right. So it's going to be Lenny and Larry's.

Yeah. And what when you guys were talking about this in that initial, did you say a snack food brand or did you say let's just make baked goods or what do you remember? Yeah, we were thinking we're going to put protein in every. Everything. Just protein powder, like way powder. Way powder is going to go in, cookies, muffins, brownies. We started crazy ideas of popcorns and granolas. We're just, we're thinking of everything we can put this, put protein in. What did you guys do? Just got like muffin mix and like from the grocery store? That's, that's all we did. Apple cinnamon muffin mix and some way protein. Seems like a lot. Seems simple enough. Okay.

You take out some of the flour and you replace it with protein. It's got a way. work, right? Of course. And it did not. The muffins actually baked, but they were hard as a rock. And we weren't discouraged. We go, we can find somebody that can do this. That's what we kept saying. We knew it was, it wasn't out there, but we said we can do this. Yeah. So we find a bakery in Santa Monica called Montana Bakery, small little bakery, and said, hey, here's what we're going to do. Can you guys help us? We said we just need help putting these recipes together. Did you know the owners of the bakery? We did, and we just met them, and they were, it was just two brothers. So we just struck up a friendship, and they started baking muffins for us.

So they agreed to help you figure this out. And what, you said to them, look, what did you say to them? Well, we just said we're trying to get a certain amount of protein in these muffins. We didn't want to really use refined sugars. We wanted to use something healthier. Now, we're already thinking about how healthy these things can be. Yeah. So we're thinking we wanted to use like a fruit juice,

concentrate in place of sugar. So we're just, you know, we're thinking even further down the road than just making protein muffins. And by the way, in those early days, what were you using for protein in the muffins? We started with way, and that was our, that was our protein source initially. And what happened, the muffins tasted great. They just wouldn't have a crazy good shelf life. And they started to bind up. They started to get a little harder over like just too soon. But But we did actually, we launched with weight protein muffins. Okay, so this bakery did make, they came up with a formulation. Yep.

And the plan was, you guys bake these muffins for us, and then we're going to take them off your hands and do what with them? We're going to go sell them. We had no idea who we were going to sell them to, but we knew we could sell these. And our first, it's funny, our first account was the coffee shop. We dreamed up the idea. That coffee shop in Randall, right? Yeah, yeah. She said, Joni.

And Johnny goes, yeah, I'll give you a shot. And I can remember, Guy, our first invoice, we were selling these muffins for like a dollar and 20 cent a piece. And our first invoice for our business was $13.20. That was the first invoice we ever issued. And so they would just sell them like in their display case. Yeah, they put already put them right by the register. We were big. I don't know why.

We were always big about, hey, if you could put these by the register, that'd be great. And how many. And then presumably also going to. to some other coffee places or did you try gyms? We did, we did Rainbow Acres, Natural Food Store here locally, and we did Gold's Gym in Venice, and we did a local health food store called Mrs. Gooch's before. Oh, yeah, which was eventually bought by Whole Foods. And so how long was the shelf life for the muffin?

Probably like four days or something like that. And it wasn't so it wasn't packaged. Was it packaged? Yeah, it was packaged. We had them like a plastic wrapper, and then we had a sticker. We had a label, like a label sticker. put on top of it. So you would hand package them yourselves.

We would hand package them ourselves, correct. We had a machine. Muffins from the bakery. Muffins from the bakery. We had sat there at night with our little crimping thing, and we would crimp. You basically put the package into the crimping machine crimped it. It would seal it. And then you'd slap a sticker on it.

Slap a sticker on it, yep. And what was the flavor of the muffin? We did apple cinnamon, we did blueberry, and we did a lemon raspberry. Those were our three flavors. And how much protein in each muffin? I think back then around 15 grams. Wow. Yeah.

So this is early 90s. This is like really before the protein revolution, which is we're going to get to it because it's – I would argue just starting now. And only now are you really seeing an explosion and protein, protein, protein, protein everywhere. At the time, who did you think was going to buy these? I'm assuming you thought it was going to be like bodybuilder types. We did. But to be honest with you, we really were developing these. We said for the average consumer.

We thought if we could make a, we coined a term later called Better Bad, but at that time, we thought if we could get them to stop eating, you know, Little Debbie's or Chips Ahoi and come to this. Because we thought bodybuilders would enjoy it as like a little cheat treat. But we were really targeting the average consumer. So the idea that you were trying, you were thinking was, hey, maybe we could, we could, if we pitch this as a healthier for you muffin, because there's protein and, but there's still this sugar in it. There's still a sugar in it. There's still. carbs in it, but people didn't care about it that much as the same time. But you thought, okay, if we can get people to think, okay, protein, fiber. Was fiber or something? It was. Yeah, we started. We had added fiber already into that product, yeah. And they tasted as good. They tasted fantastic. People talk about it to the day, they go, that's still the best product you guys ever made was your protein muffin. Wow. Yeah. All right. But now this is a, this is a small business. I mean, this is like a tiny business. You're going, I mean, you're selling

And $15, $20, $30, $50 were the muffins at this copy shop and that coffee shop and trying to collect that. I mean, that's a tough business. Listen, we weren't even small. We'd have taken small. We were smaller than small. Yeah. We just, it was just a crazy little idea that we were so determined to make it successful. So tell me a little bit about what a typical day was like.

Was the, okay, you were not baking the muffins. You had this bakery making the muffins initially. Yep. So I had to bring in some money, so I was doing some personal training at Gold's Gym in Venice. I had clients. My wife was a personal trainer. I met her at Gold's Gym in Venice. Okay.

You were married. This is your... This is my second wife, the one I've been with now for over 30 years. Cheryl Sandy. She was a personal trainer. I was a personal trainer, and we had just had one son at the time, and we would just trade off. Like, she'd go to the gym. I'd watch my son.

She'd come home. We'd swap off. I'd run to the gym. and they go to the bakery and, you know, package muffins or whatever had to be done. And were you presumably driving the muffins to every little location that was selling them? Absolutely. We'd get up at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, go deliver them around town just so I could be back to the gym by 7 maybe to train a client. I mean, it was crazy. It was just like, I don't know, I never. You're driving around a car at 4 o'clock in the morning in L.A. or even down, sometimes down to Anaheim just to deliver a bunch of muffins.

And it was just you and Benny. Just me and Benny. So I would think in like that first year, maybe you do $10,000, $15,000. Maybe. But it's exciting. It felt exciting. Yes. To know that you're spending X amount of dollars, you're bringing in a wide amount of dollars at the end of day, you're like, hey, we've got money left over every freaking week.

This is incredible. We're making money. Okay. But the formulation still is a challenge, right? because you're not getting a lot of shelf life. And I guess this starts to change when you meet a guy who is a retired baker, a guy named Len Hoffman. Who's Len Hoffman? Len Hoffman was a retired baker from Entemann's bakery.

And our business had started growing. We started, so we outgrew the little baker in Montana, and we ended up baking at a bakery in the Valley, Green's Bakery. It was a little bit bigger. And Green's kind of... In the San Fernando Valley. Correct. But Len Hoffman was friends with the owner of that. we told Lynn what we were doing.

And the first thing he said, he goes, stop calling these recipes. He goes, these are formulas. And I was like, okay, he goes, this is scientific. Now, boys. So we get Lynn to start helping us with these products that we're working on. And we're also starting to do some private label for a pretty large coffee chain here in Southern California. Private label meaning that they were not Lenny Lary's. They were just selling it as their protein muffins.

Yeah. It's called the coffee bean and tea. Yeah. And how many coffee bean and tea leafs were there? At that time, there were over 100. Wow. And you were servicing all of them? All of them, through their distribution center. So you got a contract with them. Correct. We were selling our products to some of their independent stores. And they're like, well, hey, I wonder what else these guys do. So they ask us about doing some scones. And we told them we made the best scones in the city. Which was a total lie. Which was not true. You did not even make scones. Guy, we didn't even know what the hell a scone was. Or a scone if you're in certain parts of the world.

So somebody said, hey, listen, for you two rednecks, that's a biscuit with fruit in it. And we said, okay, we can make that. And so that was one of the first products that Lynn Hoffman actually helped us with. It was reduced fat. I don't know why at that time they were doing these reduced fat scones, but that's what they wanted. Not protein scones. Not protein, just reduced fat. Reduced fat.

So we saw an opportunity, and we made these amazing scones, and it quickly became their number one selling product. Wow. And because they the scones were such a success at coffee bean, they, what do you think they said? What else do you guys do? Yes. And you said, what do you need? Because now we saw opportunity there. We're like, okay, we can, if we get this private label business going, we can use that money and help to grow our brand. So they wanted some new cheesecakes. So we started doing that for them. And then they, they ask us about if we could do things like bun cakes. And the answer was always, yes, we can do this. We can do this.

But again, not protein. These are not protein products. These aren't protein products for them. But then when we started showing them protein products like high protein cinnamon rolls, they were like, okay, this is interesting. So we started selling them some of our newest protein dimensions. This is not Lenny and Larry's. This is their product.

This was a chance to actually, we're actually making money now. And it got the point where we ended up, we were delivering pallets. a product to their distribution center. So much, the business was booming so much on the private label side. We had to go buy a big truck to deliver it seven days a week. We were dropping off product. Wow. So this is, you guys are bringing in?

Like $400,000, $500,000 a year. Now it's starting to make some good money. But you're not building your brand. Not building our brand. Still working it behind the scenes. Don't get to be wrong. We did not give up on it. Our day was spent like, we just kept opening up more and more accounts locally.

started getting some independent 7-Elevens that could actually take product without the approval of the corporate office. Just the muffins, though. Just the muffins, yeah. And then we started developing more products. We came up with a brownie, high-protein brownie at the time. We came up with a high-protein cookie. And we still know we're on to something. Then things change one afternoon.

Which was? Which was. Benny was delivering product to coffee bean, and I got a call that he got rushed to the hospital. He had a deviated septum, so he had a surgery done, and they had lanced in artery, didn't know it at the time. So he bent over, was picking up something, and blood just starts gushing. Oh, Jesus. So he gets rushed to the hospital, almost dies. Wow.

He realizes he wants to leave California and go back to Georgia and be around his family. So we tried to manage this, we'll call it as an East Coast, West Coast business, but nine percent of our business was on the West Coast. Let me just pause for a second, because I know that, I guess this is around 2000 when he moves, but I think, you know, most of your business, probably 95% of your business was coffee bean and tea leaf, right? Yeah, yeah. And Benny has this kind of life-changing experience.

He decides he wants to go to Georgia and you're going to run the business by Coast. But that's hard, especially in the sort of the pre-internet, pre-Zoom era. Yeah. And that meant that you were probably delivering all the product and dealing with all the, you know, the, you know, billing and collection and all that stuff. And he probably wasn't able to do that much that way. No, at that time, we were, it wasn't big enough to do East Coast, West Coast. So basically doing 99% of the work for half the money. Yeah.

And it does take any one along to figure that out. That's not a good model. And so you want to change. So what do you do? You say, either I buy you out or we sell the business. So we put the business up for sale. In 2001. 2001.

And who was the buyer? Don Crouch and Jim Felder. They were two friends. And who were they? They were just two local guys lived in the Valley. And they saw potential in this business. as a white label as a white label yeah yeah they like they like the brand but they really they thought the white label business could they could turn it into something yeah and what roughly

what did what do they pay for it in 2000 they paid uh 480 000 so not not ideal but not bad not not not yeah not not not bad at least least we created so we made money along the way we created something that had value and uh it was kind of cool that you uh could sell a business for you know almost a half a million dollars that you created from just an idea. Yeah. And they got those accounts, though. They were going to continue to talk about me. They got everything.

Yeah, they got everything. How'd you feel about that? Was it, did it feel like a relief, you know, Benny's gone? No, it's just a, again, regret that I should have just bought him out. And then Don and I were sent in the parking lot talking after we had done our deal. And Don said, you and I should have just partnered on this. I said, I 100% agree. And so Don and I remained friends as he owned the business.

They actually paid me to really kind of manage the coffee bean account because they knew how valuable it was. And I had a great relationship with coffee bean. Do you remember feeling similarly to how you felt when you were out of American Gladiator when you injured yourself? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like something ended that you just didn't want it to end. I still had the passion for my brand.

and it was like, it was just kind of like giving it away and never watching it, never giving it a chance to grow up. It was six and a half years. Six and a half years. Yeah. Somebody asked me one time, what did you, what did that six and a half years cost you? I said, it just cost me time because it came down to being very scattered and not having what I call a hero product.

We had all these products that we can make, but none of them were. the one where you just went to, yeah, this is our calling card. This is what we're going to be known for. You never focused on like, this is the thing that only we make and only we can make it great. Yeah, we made too much stuff to really focus on one that could be a winner. Now, we still had our brand, but I said it was the majority of our business was coffee bean. And nobody knew your... Nobody knew the brand. No. Locally, you did. Like, we would have, yeah, Magic Johnson was a big fan of our brand back in the day when he was still playing with Lakers. and he would see our product, you know, and he'd always buy it at Gold's Gym. And somebody would say, hey, magic, that's Lenny and Larry.

He'd always, he'd stop and say, oh, man, I really love your product. So we had those types of things where we had people that knew us in L.A., but nowhere else. Yeah. So when that ends, you're 40. Yeah, 2001, yeah. And one kid or two? Yeah, two from my previous marriage, two daughters, and then my two sons. So I had four kids at that time.

Right. So there's a lot on your plate. I mean, that's no joke. Yeah. True. So, all right. So you are out of Lenny and Larry's. And then I guess over the next few years, you do a bunch of different things.

Like you go to real estate. I think you even made some money, right? I mean, you got out before the bust. Yeah, it did well, actually. Yeah. And then I read that like you did some work, like you went to work for a software company for a while. Well, that's the interesting story. story there. So one of my good friends, Michael Vinny, he was working with these guys in a software

business and they wanted to meet me. I meet these guys and they've got this little software company they're doing and it's kind of computer monitoring software. And so they asked me one day if I would like to join them and I was like, well, in what capacity? What do I know about software? Right. And they said, we don't know. We said, we just think that you could maybe you'll run our company one day. And I was like, okay, so I hung out with these guys. I call it hanging out with them. they were paying me to hang out with them. And it's just, you know, I'm learning, I'm learning about the software business, but I'm also learning how to market online direct to consumer. And so after a year of being there, they said, we'd like to make you, you know, president of her

company and let you run our company. And so I'm running the software company called Awareness Technologies. And we're selling computer monitoring software. Now, this is at the height of like the NBC show, Catch a Predator. So we're working with, you know, law enforcement, agency, schools, you know, parents, et cetera, because the software captured everything, every keystroke, every email, every website visited. And we were doing great. I mean, this thing was catching fire. But I was looking at this. I'm just like, well, if I could do this with software, imagine what I could do with if I have my old company back. I could sell direct consumer snacks. And it was just, you know, kind of putting it out there in the universe. And that's when Don Crouch

to reach out to me and said, I need help. I'm about to shut this thing down. He calls you, says, I'm going to shut this thing down that I bought from me. He had, because he said, I don't, I don't know what I can do with this. I don't know, I don't know where I can go with this anymore. Was he still supplying coffee bean? Still supplying coffee bean. And he had a little bit of other, like, private label stuff. He may have, he was doing locally. And he said, I'm about to shut this thing down. Would you ever consider coming back? So we did some quick negotiations, and I said, yeah, I'd just throw caution to the win here. I'm in. He said, well, you want to come back.

You want to come back. Be a 50-50 partner with me. 50-50 partner? Yep. And did you have to buy some of the back? Yeah, it was very, it was very cheap. Low. It was a low. Okay.

So you were able to buy 50% of the company back and basically be the partner again. Yep. What was, I mean, I'm just kind of sounding. kind of a dumb question, but teeing you up for her. But I'm curious in your mind, what was exciting about that prospect? I mean, he would, he left six years earlier. Yeah. He'd not been involved for six years. Yeah. What was exciting about coming back to this thing? Now I got to do what I wanted to do from the very beginning, which was build this brand. Money didn't excite me. Building my brand excited me. I wasn't scared at all. I got my baby back.

When we come back in just a moment, Barry has the second worst day of his life. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2007, and Barry's bought back half of Lenny and Larry's from its current owner, Don Crouch. I wasn't scared at all. I love going back into the unknown, but I was so confident that I could turn this into whatever. I originally thought Lenny Lary's could be, which was a brand. And a funny story, I walked in the office the first day.

We had a small little office in Encino on Ventura Boulevard. And jokingly to Don, I just said, okay, I said, sit down, shut up and watch what I'm about to do. And we had a big laugh about that, right? But coming from my experience working in the software company and working with these guys who were very brilliant guys, by the way, in terms of marketing. I felt like I could launch the first direct-consumer snack food company that was kind of a protein fiber, all-natural. I felt like that's what I was going to do.

And so the first product I wanted to launch was a high-protein brownie because everyone was doing protein bars at the time and no one had done a brownie. Let's talk about building the brand. Sure. Sure. You need a logo. Yeah. You need packaging. You needed to get it into shops.

I mean, you had the muffins in some, a few places. So let's talk about first, first of all, the logo. Okay. Because I don't know if everybody knows what this looks like, but today it looks like two crazy dudes with like clown hair. Yep. That's the logo. Yeah, that's the logo. Lenny and Larry's.

Yeah. And our original logo was mine and Benny's actual faces or hair. That was original. It was like a real photo. But when I came back, the first thing I said I'm going to do is I want to create a caricature. It can't be a photo anymore. So we create a character of the logo. It's basically a giant afro with two heads stuck in it.

Two heads and always say one head of hair. And one head of hair. Yeah. And you're going to come out with your own product, Lenny and Larry's, in shops, and it's going to be a brownie. It's going to be a brownie. And so we find, I find someone to manufacture the brownie. We designed the film, everything. thing, we ordered 72,000 brownies, 36,000 of two flavors, had those shipped to a warehouse

that we rented, and we're sitting there were 72,000 brownies and said, now we have to go sell these. You did not have any commitments? Nope, not a single commitment. And how long would these brownies last? Oh, they would last, yeah, 15 months easily. Oh, okay. Yeah, these had a really good shelf life, yeah.

So how did you sell them? First thing, we walked into the Whole Foods office in Sherman Oaks. Did you have a connection there? Well, we did. I didn't know who was working there. We just showed up at the office one day and see one of my former buyers. She walks in and she goes, I remember you. And I said, I remember you.

And she said, what do you have? And I showed her. She goes, I love this. Let's put it in. Wow. That's it. That's it. How much protein in each brownie?

20 grams. 20 grams. And to be clear, you did not, sugar was not an issue. You weren't worried about sugar and carbs. Nope. I felt like, again, I was still catering to the masses and not the bodyboater fitness people. Yeah. I always said if I could be in two retailers at the time, it would be 7-Eleven at Walmart. That's the only groups I wanted to sell to. And not to minimize what this product was and how innovative it was, but basically it was a sweet, sugary brownie, but with a lot of protein. Correct. It was basically a protein bar, but it tastes like a brownie in the shape of a kind of a square. So I had to be different there too.

All right, but 2008, I mean, this is super innovative. Nobody's making a protein brownie. Nobody's making a protein brownie. So you get into a few whole foods in the L.A. area? Yeah, actually, yeah, the L.A. area, and then it just snowballed from there. GNC accepted it. Vitamin Shop accepted it. They said, okay, now we're on to something.

And all the while, though, we had a little product. I don't want to jump ahead, but there was a little product. It was a cookie. It had a label on it and it had a little, like a sheet in the back that you could print our nutritionals on. And we sold that locally to 7-Elevens and a lot of office buildings and stuff like that. This is a protein cookie. Correct. But it didn't have a great shelf life.

And it's a clear package. You can see the package. And light oxygen can destroy it, but it had a couple weeks shelf life. And we remember a call we had with Vitamin Shop. And vitamin Shop said, if you could get a shelf life on your cookie, we would take that also. And I went, okay. Because how long did the cookie last? A couple of weeks.

And that was because of the packaging? Yeah, because of the packaging. Yeah, because of the packaging. And so I had a light bulb moment again. It's like I got to design a film for that cookie. And we did. Then I would say the rest is history, but the cookie just became an absolute monster. I wanted, like, again, I wasn't creating a low-sugar product.

I was creating a freaking cookie. It had flour, it had sugar, it had everything, 400 calories. It became popular with college kids, construction workers, teachers. People that could say, for a buck 99, I get this giant cookie. It's very filling. I'll grab my Red Bull and I'll grab a lanylory's cookie. I mean, one cookie I'm looking at today, I think it's probably similar. 10 grams of fiber, 16 grams of protein, but 26 grams of sugar.

Yeah. But I guess you just were like maybe people can choose this. It's marginally better than an Oreo or a twinkie. That was it. That was everything. I want to create a better bad. I want people to make a better choice. And nobody's going to go from eating a little Debbie to eating some sort of protein bar.

It just there has to be a stop in the middle. Yeah. What do the cookie retail for? Retail from anywhere from like $1.99. to 249 that range. And how much did it cost to make? Less than 50 cents, around about 40 cents. That's like a LVMH bag.

Yeah. It's like making a Gucci bag. It costs them like 160 bucks. They sell for like 3,000. Yeah. We weren't shy about making a profit. What we liked about is that we were, we never had to raise money. We never had investors, never had debt.

So, okay, so by 2014, are you still primarily in California only? No, we're everywhere at that time. We're really starting to take off. 2014, we're about doing about 11 million in revenue. So you hit $11 million in sales by 2014. Yeah. Purely or mainly on the strength of the cookies, not the muscle brownies. No, the mussel brown was still there, but the cookie is the one that just literally caught fire. Why do you think that is?

I mean, I think the answer is just because cookies are much bigger, more popular snack. than brownies. That, well, that's it. And a brownie is considered a decadent treat. It's not something you would eat every day. You'd eat a cookie every day. Even though, like, nutritionally, they're pretty similar. Yes, exactly.

But it's funny guy, when we talk about, like, when we talk about sugar and carbs and, you know, all this nutrition stuff, you and I are in still in the minority of that world. The rest of the country is still trying to make a better choice, but they're not going to make an extreme choice. so people still want to have their, you know, cake and eat it too, they'll sacrifice something in order to eat a something that's just a little bit less bad that had some nutritional benefits to them. I completely agree with that. I think that's exactly right. I think that just has a tiny number of people care about sugar and carbs. I think most people, you're right. If they see protein, fiber, they're good.

They're not worried about the carbs or the sugar. Okay. So you're just growing like hockey stick. Hockey sticking. So, all right. I guess around 2015, you are at a trade show. Yep. And you guys are hot ticket there, right?

Hot, yep. We just finished, I think it's 2014, at 11 million. And we're going to grow probably to, you know, 18 million or something the next year, whatever, in 2015. But I got introduced to a gentleman named Nick Giannuzi. and Nick is an incredible attorney. It represents pretty much every CPG brand that's been sold. He's always represented them. Nick pulled me aside and just said, I love your brand.

He goes jokingly, he just said, stop effing around and start doubling your revenue. And you're going to get noticed. And I was like, okay, it inspired me to want to really turbocharge my sales. So we went from 11 to 27 million. one year by opening up accounts and actually managing servicing the accounts we already had. How many employees did you have? 2014, 2015, we may have had seven. God, with 27 million coming in?

Yeah. That's an efficient business. And that's the only way we knew how to do it. I never believed in hiring when you didn't have to hire. I believe in paying your people more money that are there. Yeah. And we had a great, we had a great small little rag tag team. And from there, 27 million turned into 94 million in revenue the next year.

By 2016. By 2016. And what percentage of that do you think was the cookies? Probably 90%. Were you worried at all that, you know, this was not going to last, that you would have competitors coming in? I mean, in other words, did you think, like, we better really make a bunch of snacks because otherwise we're just going to get General Mills or Nabisco is going to come in and do this? I'll be 100% honest with you. I have never in my life worried about a competitor, a so-called competitor.

And that's not being cocky. It's just like if I'm worried about what someone else is doing, then I'm not worried about what I'm doing. So I didn't care what you were doing. I was building a brand. But I thought a bunch of other things along that journey that could have destroyed my business. Like what?

Well, one was an issue with one of our manufacturers. Got a call from one of our retailers in Florida said, hey, we're I'm starting to see these little, we'll call them little bugs. They're in a cookie, no kidding. Like a little, and they're called meal moths. So they get in flour, like flowers been sitting for a long time, whatever. Oh, yes, I've seen that. I've had that.

Okay. So have that happened with a, like a retailer for, and now social media is out there. And the first thing people do is they want to start posting. You're just, oh, yeah, yeah. And I had to take that on myself. I literally post, I was doing our own social media at the time, and I actually posted my own phone number and just said, anyone who gets, I said, I'll trust me out. I said, I'm going to handle this. I'm going to, you know, I apologize to everyone or whatever. And it was real quick. We were able to isolate it real quick because it was one flavor, and we knew the actual group that actually made it.

So we're able to isolate and pull all that product. But anything to damage your reputation, it just makes you, you don't sleep at night. Yeah, for sure. I mean, but still, I mean, but still, I mean, Even with all of that, like, as you mentioned, I think by 2016, I mean, you guys are doing like almost a hundred million dollars in revenue. Yep. And then I think that same year, you decide you're going to find, you're going to sell it. You're going to sell the brand again. Yeah, well, it's only because people start, that's what people start coming for you. And you're just, you're fielding call after call after call.

A lot of the general, not general mills, but general mills type companies will say. Yeah, big companies. Yeah. big companies are coming for you. They're asking about you. They want to buy your company. And we had 28 interested parties right out of the gate. And then I'm like, shit, pardon my French, but we had just moved in this beautiful warehouse office. I was just just starting to enjoy this. I didn't really want to sell. And then you're starting to field like some big offers for your business. And you accept an offer from a group called Lion Capital. Correct.

First of all, I'm curious, was there an option to go to get acquired by a big food brand? There were a couple at the table and they had made offers. And I'm just being honest with you, if I was going to sell it. I was going to sell it. Highest bidders. Highest bidder was it. All right. So they were the highest bidder.

And they acquired you for, I think it was a mixture of cash and equity, right? Yeah. So they bought, end up buying 75% of the business. And we at the time, now you understand, this is seven years ago. So if you're equating it to the value of today. So at the time, we were valued at $250 million. Not bad. And so we sold 75% of the business. And it was just because how our business was structured. We were in S-Corp. It had some value to them. And so Nick Giannuzi, who I mentioned earlier, he represented us. He was our attorney. And he told us, point blank, he said, don't expect to get the second bite of the apple. You mean they were going to just hold on to it forever? Exactly what they've done. All right. So this begins a period of what you're still in today. And they're not on this in this interview.

So I want to be careful and mindful and respectful of them. So I'm going to play the part of defending them a little bit here. But you are still in this situation where you own still a chunk of the business. Correct. And technically you're on the board, right? I'm on the board. Yeah. Okay.

But when you left, when they bought you out. Yep. They replaced you with a new CEO, right? Correct. You said that the first time you sold it, 2001, was the worst day of your life. Terrible. When you sold it for the second time, you say it was the second worst day of my life.

Yep. I still live by that. I miss my people more than anything. These are my team members. These are people that help me grow this business. So, yeah, to this day, I wish I never would have sold my company. Okay, so while you're, the company, okay, they take it over, you're out as the CEO, but you're still an advisor ostensibly. Yeah.

But, and look, I see Lenny and Larry's everywhere. Every time I go to Whole Foods, I see it everywhere. It's a, it's a, it's a, that logo just pops. I see those, that, that Afro. So I'm under the impression that things are swimming are great, going great. You have a different view here. You are not happy with how it shook out. You're not happy with the current owners of the brand.

Not at all. I have no problem saying that. We're not each other's cup of tea. And it's just bad decision after bad decision, bad hire after bad hire. They hired, this is no lie, within six months of selling the company to them, we went from 17 employees to 59 employees. The business didn't triple. They only grow the business about 6 to 8% a year, if that. They destroyed profitability.

I felt like I handed them a Ferrari and they turned it into a Ford Taurus. But what would the – I mean, listen, I'm looking at their portfolio. This is clearly a sophisticated group. I mean, they own kettle chips. That's just some food. But they own beverage and hospitality and jewelry and licensing, personal care. I mean, they're clearly they've made a bunch of cash in different places. Like, there's no question on my mind.

I think you're being nice by saying sophisticated. Okay. They would never have had me stayed in that chair because they used a term one time. It always rubbed me the wrong way. After they bought the company, they said, we need to professionalize the management in this company. And that means we weren't professional enough in their advice. Then you fast forward about four or five years later, they go, we got to go back to being an entrepreneurial brand. Well, that's what we were. That's what we always were. It was an entrepreneur brand. And they never really embraced it because they had to come in. They had to show

we know what we're doing. And they just don't. Okay. Here's the thing. Because again, And, you know, we don't do this. This is not a documentary show. Yeah, yeah. I only have you on here. So I've got to be respectful of line capital. And I, there's, you know, there's emotional. It's like a house.

It's like a business. It's like anything that somebody creates. We're, I'm emotionally attached to how I built this. Yeah. Right. The reality is that you can just let it go if you want to and just say, you know what? I'm just going to let it go and I, whatever, it is where he is. Oh, and I have.

Okay, okay, good. The fact, the fact that we're talking about it is fine. Like I said, I don't... It's healthy. That's healthy for you. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think about them ever. Yeah.

Do a board call even now and then, whatever, but I don't, I don't even, I don't comment on the call. I don't go on the screen. I'm just on mute and I'm listening. But, yeah, then there's always two sides to every story. And I 100% agree with that. Here's the thing, right? And this is like a fear that I think a lot of people have. Okay.

Especially as they get into their 50s, which is you've had some success in your professional life, whether it's a business or you're working for a company or whatever. And for a variety of reasons, that ends. And you can live for the rest of your life. Yeah. Like, right? You can be, you can live off what you made and live a good life. But you lose that purpose, that sense of purpose, which is really scary. 100% guy.

That's, it's so important. And no one, you're never going to understand it unless you've lived it. Yeah. But I did care about my brand a lot. When you look back on this whole journey and you think about where you got to, because you did really, you did really well. Yeah. You know.

Here I am. How much of where you got to do tribute to the work you put in the grind and how much it has to do with getting lucky? I think 100% to the work in the grind. I know a lot of people out there have gotten lucky. Yeah. I don't use words like hope, luck. wish and try. Yeah.

I just don't like the word of luck. My thing was always said, luck wins you the lottery. I created my own lottery. That's Barry Turner, co-founder of Lenny and Larry's. By the way, I think there's something you're not telling me that I think you're concealing from me here, which is I'm looking at the cast of that movie you were in, Death Becomes Her, and Fabio was in that movie. You know what?

You are right. You did not tell me that. I forgot about that. Fabio was your co-star. Well, you weren't star. You and Fabio were in a movie together. Yeah, there's Fabio. I wonder what he's doing these days.

He seems like a nice guy. I think he's done some self-parody stuff. Yeah, that's my buddy. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And please sign up for my newsletter at guyraise.com or on subsubstom. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with music composed by Rumtine Arablui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Catherine Seifer. Our audio engineers were Patrick Murray and James Keely. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, Sam Paulson, Chris Messini, Carrie Thompson, John Isabella, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.