Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 164 Live - Founders of Nui Kristoffer Quiaoit and Victor Macias

Episode Date: January 8, 2019

In 2016, Kristoffer Quiaoit and Victor Macias discovered all the benefits of going on a low carb, low sugar diet and made it a mission to help people say NO to sugar to lead a healthier and happier lifestyle. They are both passionate about keto and about cookies, so they combined the two to make Nui--a super low-sugar, high-fat, delicious cookie fulfilling all keto dieters’ dessert dreams. They have since appeared on Shark Tank where they successfully teamed up with Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod) to reach more people and bring their keto cookie dreams to new heights. #MakeTheWorldAButterPlace Link to sign up for the ST Classic: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/super-training-classic-2019-tickets-53251741392 ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Find the Podcast on all platforms: ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YQE02jPOboQrltVoAD8bp ➢Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

Oh yeah. Hello. Hello. Hey, you can hear yourself, huh? Pretty, pretty amazing technology we got over here. We got amazing technology. Two turntables and a microphone. Something like that. Right, Andrew? Give or take a couple of microphones minus, minus the turntables. Power Project. We've got some fun guests here today, as always. We're always trying to bring people to you guys that we find interesting. Sometimes it's a world-class lifter. Sometimes it's somebody that's just done well in business. Sometimes it's somebody that's had to be creative. We're always trying to bring some different people, give you guys some different flavor, give you guys some different, different things to chew on. Because I think that perspective is what, uh, ultimately what a lot of us are looking for, because you might hear a message from one person. It might not hit you the right way. You might hear a message from another person. It still might not work.

But when you hear a message from people that, uh, that you vibe with a little bit better, then in the, all of a sudden you're like, oh, okay, I get it. This makes a lot of sense. So today I'm here with Neo cookie. Did I say that right? Neo cookie? Newey. Newey cookie. There we go.

Newey cookie. See, I already, I'm already, uh, I'm already messing things up. But, uh, I met these guys down in Los Angeles about a year and a half ago. Um, that we've been in contact for a period of time. They sent me some, originally they were called Keto Cookie. They sent me some Keto Cookies back in the day. And I just think it's great that you guys got a business together. I think it's really cool that you guys got in the front end of the Keto movement, basically.

There's been a lot of K keto companies that have kind of popped up since you guys started and i know that you guys have also met with my brother chris and you guys know him as well and so it's been great to be in contact with these guys and these are the kind of people that fire me up that get me excited because i know that as hard as i'm working in the stuff that i'm trying to do i know you guys are busting your ass too, and you guys are trying to make things better and trying to always improve. So, um, let's kind of kick things off with, uh, you guys just, you know, tell us, tell us about the company and tell us about kind of how you started. Yeah. So, uh, we started this about two, a little over two years ago. Um, I started keto, uh, after I got back from my honeymoon, I probably gained maybe

eight pounds on that honeymoon. Uh, it was like all you can eat. Yeah. And, uh, I lost all that weight. Um, I really did it because I heard about it on a podcast and, uh, for the mental benefits of it and cancer preventing um properties and then so i decided to try it i was never into diets i was the type that would say that would shit on diets but no you can eat whatever you want then i turned like 30 and that all changed right um were you not were you just kind of naturally um thin naturally in decent shape and then on top of that you exercise so you just thought you could eat whatever well i used to play basketball competitively so i used to carb up like you know what you were supposed to carb up eat every two hours and you know protein timing all that stuff and i thought

i could eat anything and then um then i got into the keto diet and i'm like wow this is a game changer uh i used to have a high level of anxiety um and also I used to nap all the time to the point where my parents thought I had a medical issue. And they're like, dude, Chris, why are you sleeping all the time? And as soon as I went keto, all that went away. My energy went through the roof. And I told Victor, I was like, hey, man, you got to get on this thing. This is a game changer. And when Chris told me, so at first, I was in high school i was a kid that could eat

anything right i'm like oh freaking large pizza everything's great and then i went to college and then beer and then i gained a ton of a ton of weight and i'd tried different diets it was like this whole yo-yo thing right i'd make progress and i'd redline because i'd be too aggressive and then i'd start over start over and then i tried keto and it actually turned out to be the easiest thing that i'd done and i lost uh up to now I've lost over 40 pounds. It's like melted off. That's awesome. And you guys have been on a shark tank, right? I mean, what, what has that experience been like? It's been crazy. Uh, I think it was awesome because we were able to share our story to, to more of the world and bring keto to the forefront.

And I mean, there was a lot of preparation. And I mean, we went and applied on a whim and we're like, hey, what do we lose except for a time? We heard about an open casting call at Morongo Casino over in Southern California. And then we're like, hey, let's just go. And so imagine we're like, all right, let's figure out. We're at this networking conference the night before. We're really tired. And we're like, Hey, let's just go. And, uh, so imagine we're like, all right, Hey, let's figure out we're at a, this networking conference the night before we're really tired. And we're like, I think we're going to be early. Seriously. I think we're like number 1000 in line. And it was like, it was like being on an audition for American Idol and just,

it turned into what, like a 12 hour day just to, to, to do the initial pitch to see if we move on to the next round. You know, it, uh, it must've felt good to get on that show and it must've been a cool experience, but at the same time, it must be really, really nerve wracking, right? Yeah. I mean, it's like, I don't know, you try to prep yourself for these things. You're like, okay, there's going to be like a lot of lights. There'll be big cameras and I'll be in front of like Mark Cuban and these different sharks that I've seen on,

on TV all the time. But then the curtain probably opens up and you get out there and you're turning into a M and M mom spaghetti, right? Yeah, absolutely. We thought we were going to be super confident going in there. And then the doors open up, my heart's beating really fast. Luckily we had prepared ahead of time. We knew that it was going to be high adrenaline and we would have to get the words out or pitch out there right.

And so we actually took this from Destiny's Child. We called it the Destiny's Child Method. So I had actually watched something on MTV, I think, about Destiny's Child, and they would run up a hill. And when they would run up a hill, they would sing. So they would get their heart rate up

and they'd have to get the words out. And I was like dude we should totally do that so we started doing pushups what about Destiny's Child

song were you guys singing that's actually how we make all big business decisions like what would Destiny's Child do that's right

but we try to like mimic as many of the things we would feel on the show as possible ahead of time. Right.

So whether it was drinking espresso, doing sprints, kettlebell swings, whether it was putting tape on our warehouse floor and standing where we thought the judges would stand, we just, we wanted it to be a reflex so that if we somehow froze, it would almost be on autopilot. Did you almost get that like cold feeling? Like where, like, you know, I've, I've done stuff like this before, um, where I went out and wrestled in front of like 10,000 people and I, and, and like, I prepped for it, you know, I've trained, you know, years for it.

And then you get in the ring and like, my like legs were gone, you know, like, uh, like I think all the blood flow was like in my stomach and it was just like, I felt cold, you know, I, I don't know if I was cold to the touch, but I felt like, I felt like I was cold, you know, and I just felt like I was almost not even there. Like I felt like an out of body experience. You guys get a little bit of that. It's like that fight or flight where your body's trying to protect itself and it's like,

uh, most, uh, important organs. Right. So you start to feel cold. Yeah. Yeah. We got that for sure. Right. So you start to feel cold. Yeah. Yeah. We got that for sure. During that time was, um, what did instinct kick in for you? Um, or, or was it, you kind of had to like stop yourself and realize, all right, this is happening. I got to hand it. Yeah. Some of the training helped a lot, you know, and, and it was professional wrestling. So like, there's a lot of little tricks that you can, uh, learn along the way, but you know, the, the beginning of, of the, uh, of,

of the match is kind of what got the cobwebs out. You know, you kind of hear that in football, you know, like, uh, the football team, like a lot of the guys, they need to get like hit before they're like, they're like, oh shit. Okay. I just got blown up now. Now I'm ready. Now I'm, you know, all my fears are gone because that's just probably hard as I'm going to get hit or, or whatever. And, and so this was this situation was kind of similar where i was able to kind of like relax into it as it as it went along but yeah at first i was like oh my god like only 30 seconds went by and i can't breathe and we're doing like a 10 minute match i'm like i'm screwed i think some of that at least if i can relate it to this

it's at first once we say hey sharks and we start our pitch, you just feel like, I felt, it was like I could just see white. I'm just going, I'm going. And then once we finish the pitch and the first question is asked, then I'm like, all right. Then you get the sound. Yeah. I'm here. Yeah. Then you got a lot more comfortable with it.

Yep. Yeah. And then from there, do you guys have any idea of like what's you know what's going to happen in the show because like a lot of like you know quote unquote reality tvs like kind of scripted or you know they go over stuff with you or is it kind of just like it all just happens right there kind of the way you see it presented yeah i mean we had no idea i think we watched a ton of videos of people pitching and all the questions they asked were like okay those are probably going to be the questions

that they ask. They're probably going to ask us about our revenue, how long we've been around, and what is our profitability. So we're like, okay, we've got to know our numbers. And so you would quiz each other on our numbers and go back and forth. And it'd be like 1 a.m. Sometimes we're leaving networking events and

I'll call Victor up and be like, hey, Sharks. What's their customer acquisition cost? You're like, leave me alone. Yeah. Yeah. But in terms of the sharks, so the first time you see them is the first time that you're seeing them.

Okay. So there is no double take, nothing like that. So we knew, we knew that we had to pitch and sell our business in the amount of time that we had. They maybe have a different in the amount of time that we had. They maybe have a different area, like backstage or something, where you don't end up seeing them? Yeah.

So you don't see them and then they tell you, all right, you're on. And then you go. Door's open. You're just walking. And you see them and your heart rates up and you're like, oh shit, this is Mark Cuban. This is really happening here. This is really happening. Did you guys know who was going to be on the show?

Because they changed them up a little bit here and there yeah yeah they told us a little bit ahead of time and then um from there we okay well we kind of know who's going to be on there how to be prepared for each one yeah did you have an idea of like who you were going to try to like uh solicit or sell the most i think um is that me going on i don't know hope not um i think for me it was i knew that mr wonderful would ask the toughest questions so more than that is all right how do we make sure we get past him and actually we ended up getting an offer from him um but i was really excited about mark cuban just because i've read his stuff and just it's almost like a bucket list i'm there i'm pitching in front of him. No matter what happens, like I, I did this part.

Right. Yeah. That's, um, that's really cool. Yeah. Mr. Wonderful. He gives out a lot of, a lot of deals, but, uh, unless you're really sharp to business, it's kind of hard to tell what he's given you, you know, cause a lot of times it's, uh, he does a lot of those royalty deals, right.

Where it's like, you know, he's, he's, and it's really smart, you know? And I think a lot of times he's, he's given people a really good deal, but I think a lot of times the sound of it doesn't sound, it doesn't sound appealing to them because people don't want to give up the money. Like at that time, you know, they were thinking it's an investment and it's, it's a, it's always like a roll of the dice. Like you might get paid back. You might, you might not. I think that's the way the investee likes to kind of keep it. Right. And imagine getting,

like we're there and then Mr. Wonderful's throwing a deal at us and we're trying to calculate, all right, does this make sense? And then Barbara's throwing a deal. And then, so with the lights on, it's like the light's on you. It's a lot to try to calculate.

Yeah. We have no pen and paper where we can write stuff down, take notes, use a calculator. There's no, no way. So you got to do it all in your head. And then, uh, how did things come to be with, uh, with A-Rod? Uh, it's cool. I mean, um, we still are in the discovery process. So, um, you know, for us, it was great to meet him and see where he's at, where his team is at. And he gets to know more about our business. And it's like a typical, like, you know, you're courting investors. They want to know more about your business.

We want to know about the investor and what value they have to give. Yeah. And I'm sure that like with him, he's probably got, you know, his hands in a lot of businesses or all the sharks really. Right. So they probably like your, your names probably get kicked up like every couple weeks and then they kind of check in with you is that kind of how it works yeah i mean yeah there's a lot of

stuff uh that they're in and so we're just part of the picture and so we're trying to see if it's a good fit for either of us and also i think a big part of it even when we started the business is we want to be grateful for where we are but at the same time step back and say right what is the best deal so yes being on shark tank's been amazing but we also want to make grateful for where we are, but at the same time, step back and say, right, what is the best deal? So yes, being on Shark Tank has been amazing, but we also want to make sure that whatever we move forward with is the best thing for Newey. Right. I've seen a lot of the progress you guys made. You know, you started out with the name Keto Cookie, which was really simple.

You guys were on a keto diet and you were trying to abstain or stay away from sugar. And you just basically made your own, made your own cookies, right? In the garage? Is that how it kind of, that's how it came to be, right? Yeah. So we had no baking experience and we're like, wow,

I really miss cookies. Let's see what we can make. And guys that bake, that's a hashtag. Is it really? Yeah. All right. We're going to use that hashtag.

Yeah. Yeah. So then we're like, okay, let's go to my mom's kitchen. I think we need a convection oven. We had no idea what to use it for, but then, so we go there then we're like, okay, let's go to my mom's kitchen. I think we need a convection oven. We had no idea what to use it for, but then, so we go there. You're like, what's a convection oven? I've heard of that.

I think we need to use it. And then we borrow aprons and then, you know, start researching how to make a cookie from scratch. And from there, we're like, okay, that's not keto. That's not keto. That's not, that has sugar. That has carbs. keto, that's not keto, that has sugar, that has carbs. And then we replaced it and did our research and just experimented like 20-something tries

and got to a cookie that we both thought was tasty. And then we had our friends and family try it. And it's one thing for them to like it and another thing to have strangers like it. Right. So I remember we had a deal. We said, all right, this is going to be officially a business if we sell, I think it was like seven.

We sell seven cookies to real people. We said, all right, this is going to be officially a business if we sell, I think it was like seven. We sell seven cookies to real people. We've got something. So I remember we sell one and then three and then five and then 10

and then 15. We're like, holy crap. All right, I think we have something here. We were still buying all of our ingredients retail. We were actually losing money

on every order. Just going to the store. Yeah, we were going to Whole Foods. People were a supplier. But still, it showed us there's a viable business here. People are interested in what we have, and they like the way it tastes. We paused it, decided to do a Kickstarter to do it right.

What was the first cookie? Was it the chocolate chip one? Yeah, it was a chocolate chip. It's funny because we would use pieces of a chocolate bar that was no sugar, and then they would melt and just turn into just this fudge uh the first bags we sent were like seep with oil we're like oh my god can we we sent this stuff out to people oh i got some oily packages i actually think that your the original cookies i think the oil seeped through like whatever it was in and then on top of that

seeped through like the box that it was in it's a it's a benefit it looked like i got like uh like an order of domino's pizza or something. That's how you know it's keto. Yeah. Yeah. It's got all the, all the fats in it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's exactly what it was like in the beginning. Yeah. Uh, how bad were some of these cookies at first when you first were experimenting, when you're making some that are, some are going to be good and some are going to be shitty, right? Yeah. I mean, the first one, I think it didn't even hold up together.

It was like almost like pudding and no matter how we try to bake it just didn't uh stick together and then the other ones came out ugly and then eventually we we found a way we manually put chips into the cookies so it wouldn't melt right and uh we do like 20 it was in his mom's oven so we do like 20 cookies at a time and then when they'd be hot we'd get the chips and we'd put them in one by one, one by one by one. We're like, man, I don't know how the hell we're going to, we're going to progress from this, but yeah, they were pretty crappy. That's, that's interesting. And then, uh, in terms of like trying out all these different things, I mean, it must have like, you must learn a certain things, react a certain way in your system. You end up with a lot of trips to the bathroom, you know, trying all these different, uh,

sugar alcohols and all these different kinds of cookies. So our first cookie with chocolate chips actually had maltitol. And, uh, for some of you that don't know maltitol, if you have enough of it, you're going to run to the bathroom. And so we quickly found that out. And we also found out that it raises your blood sugar. So we're like, okay, we need to get this maltitol out. So along with the cookies,

that's how you guys came up with your toilet business. Exactly. Reinforced. I think, so in the beginning, we have MCT oil and I'm sure if you know, if you have too much MCT oil. Yeah, well some people are just sensitive to it, period, I think. Yeah, so some of the early batches, we put

a little more than we could definitely handle because you're trying all of these cookies and uh there was definitely some last minute runs to the restroom for sure what was the kind of hardest part of of going from like having an idea you're excited about to trying to like all right i think we have something like what's what's the next couple steps that you went through well uh one we were lucky that we were able to connect with other people that have been in business uh in the food world and so we asked a ton of questions so none of us have any experience in the food business or baking and so we just asked a ton of questions and um to the point where you know we might have annoyed some people but it was like hey you just want to learn we're sponges.

And we eventually moved into a commercial kitchen. So we got out of my mom's kitchen, moved in a commercial one. But even that had its speed bumps. Like our first batch, like we put cookies in the oven. We thought, hey, I think this works just like my mom's oven. So same temperature, same time. And then all of a sudden smoke starts coming out and we're like oh shit what are you gonna do what are you gonna do and then we we run to the

oven like you know our all the cookies are burnt people are running in is the shared commercial kitchen so all these like you know people have been in the food business for a while they come in and we're like oh man they probably think we're noobs which we were which we were um and but you know what we learned from it and then each But you know what? We learned from it. And then each time, you know, it's just a matter of just making a bunch of mistakes and failures and learning from it. And each step has just been a great

learning experience for us. I think a first step is also, I call it pulling the trigger. So many times we want things to be perfect. So one of the, when we were making the cookie, it was like, it's not good enough yet. It's not good enough yet. It's not good enough yet. It's not good enough yet. But really it was that we were afraid

that if we launched it, nobody would want it. So I think the big thing is knowing when to just pull the trigger and learn. So it's more like pull the trigger, fix, pull the trigger, fix. I think that if anybody wants to launch anything new, it's really just about launching it and learning along the way.

Yeah. I think it's a good way to do it, you know, is to don't wait around until you're ready. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I've heard people before say, you know what, I want to, I want to wait until we're ready to have children. And I'm like, oh my God, like you're going to, you're going to die without ever having

an offspring because you're going to be waiting your whole life. You're never going to be prepared for, you you know what this child's gonna bring to your life both positive and and uh and negative a lot of a lot of big changes happen and the same thing happens when you have a business so i think it's a really wise thing it's like yeah you want to be prepared but you're not gonna like really feel like ready and not everything that you put out. I mean, like, I mean, even Apple does it with their iPhone. I mean, all these companies, these huge, huge companies are like, you know, they test it and they do a bunch of stuff with it and they're like, okay, well now it just needs to go in the marketplace. Like that's the next

step. It needs to go out in the marketplace and the customers are going to tell us. And I'm sure you guys got a lot of feedback from people and that's probably led to the repackaging, the rebranding, the change in the flavor profile, coming up with different flavors. I'm sure you get a lot of people that's, you know, probably bugging you about, Hey, make peanut butter. And then boom, like you, you know, you hear it enough times like, Hey, maybe we should look into that. Right. Yeah. I think that's a big thing that has helped us out a lot is we've actually asked the community of like, what do you want, you know, or what do you not like? So in our first iteration, when we had malted salt. Cookie dough.

Some people want cookie dough. I think someone does. Yeah. Some people like cookie dough. Yeah. One of the best things that Mark's ever said, you know, we were talking about like our favorite cookies or whatever. And, you know, it's usually comes down to chocolate chip. And Mark goes, well, don't ruin that dough by

cooking it don't throw it in the oven just leave it as is yeah i think that's our next product coming up the cookie dough yeah yeah we'll uh we'll work on something yeah you were talking about not waiting until things are perfect do you have any examples with some of your products where you you pull the trigger and kind of learned as you went along? Yeah, I think it's been that way, uh, kind of from, from the beginning, you know, the first batch of slingshots I made, uh, you know, they were red, just like the ones that I have now, but they turn people's skin red. And, uh, I tried to get the dye and they smelled weird. They smell like chemicals. And I tried to get the dye out of it. And I ran it through our washing machine at home.

It broke our washing machine. And on top of that, it turned everything in there. It turned the whole washing machine red. And we couldn't really rinse that out very well. And then the product still turned you red. I mean, this is only like, there's only like 50 of them made or something. A really small amount. And they weren't really what I was looking for.

But even with that, I was like, you know what? I don't care. I'm going to still put this out. Like I wasn't selling them. I was handing them out to friends and stuff because I needed to get the feedback. People are like, well, it smells and it, you know, turning me red, but it does what you say it does, you know? And I was like, okay, my next step is to figure out how to not turn people red. And so there's been a lot of things like that. We, you know,

we'll make products, we test it the best we possibly can. Um, you know, no manufacturer has a hundred percent control over everything. So there could be something wrong. A label could come off or something could happen. But if we see it repeatedly, then we're like, oh, okay, that's, that's a major problem. We gotta go back and fix that. Uh, we gotta get the quality better. And, um, you know, we have warranties on stuff.

So if people have problems, they can, uh, we can exchange them for free, things like that. And so it's a lot of times, you know, I think people are scared and they put out a product that, uh, the customer is going to be really frustrated. Um, if the product's not perfect, but if the product isn't what you say it is, obviously that's a huge problem. Then it's now it's your job to make that right. It's your job to make that better. And, uh, the best possible thing that you can do is make the situation right. And maybe then some, so somebody orders, uh, some cookies from you guys and they're all busted or something, right? They're all crumpled up.

You, you, you know, you send them another box, maybe you send them a shirt and maybe you, you know, send them an additional thing that you guys just created that no one else has tried yet. Say, Hey, you know, sorry for the inconvenience. Well, now that person's pumped. Yep. And now they went from having this negative feeling about the company. And they were like,

shit, man, these guys sell crumpled up cookies. And now they got a much better experience. I think everyone understands, look, no, one's going to have a hundred percent accuracy,

no matter what business you're talking about. I mean, how many recalls are there on cars every year? How long have those companies been in business? So it gives you an opportunity. It's actually a great opportunity to make things right. And the customer's like, you know what? They did me right.

I'm going to continue to go with those guys. You are totally right. I think it goes back to when we were barely starting, there was this lady who was posting on all our social, really upset, like calling, messaging. We saw her. Yeah. And, and, you know, the initial reaction is like, all right, you know, let's just, let's just make her happy and kind of initial reaction is like all right you know let's just let's just make her happy and kind of kind of like let's let's move on but we actually like connected with her and said hey you know we're sorry we feel your pain she became one of our

biggest supporters and one of our biggest customers ever so it's an opportunity to make those people that are so passionate when they're angry more passionate about you when they're happy how do you um how do you go from, cause this is a huge hurdle for a lot of people. And a lot of times you'll see on social media, people, you gotta follow your passion, gotta follow your passion. Well, there's somebody right now with a nine to five who's like, fuck that. I can't follow my passion. Like, sorry, dude, I can't follow my passion. I got fucking bills to pay. You know, I got, I got stuff to do. I got obligations. I got, I got a wife, I got kids and I, you know, I have this job, I sell insurance or whatever it is.

Right. And you'll hear a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, they'll kind of encourage people. Yeah. Just, you know, quit your job. And, you know, and, and a lot of people just, they, they can't do, they can't just randomly do that. Right. And that, and I think we'd all agree that'd be a giant mistake.

Like, like that's not a good way to do it. I think we'd all agree that'd be a giant mistake. Like, like that's not a good way to do it. However, uh, maybe it's possible that while you're, uh, pursuing your quote unquote fortune that you're working on making a living at the same time. Is that what you guys had to do? Yeah. Um, in the beginning I had to like really hustle. So I remember I only had $40 in my bank account and I was like, what am I going to do?

I want to start this tutoring. This guy's rich, 40 bucks. So before Newey, I had a tutoring company and when I was starting, I only had 40 bucks in my bank account. So I wanted a job. I'm like, all right, where am I going to get an easy job that where I can have this flexibility to work on this tutoring company? And I went to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and said, hey, are you guys hiring? And they're like, well, we have a manager position. I say, hell yeah, I'll do that.

And then on, so I would work, you know, eight to four or five and then work on my business after hours and then into the weekend. And it was just, you know, I was continuing to build up my, my client base, build up, uh, we eventually started hiring other tutors. Did you get that advice from somebody or is that something you did instinctively? I think I wanted to, to go into something that I was really passionate about. And it was, uh, at that time is really helping change education. And I was like, I'm going to do whatever it takes. And it was

hard because my parents you know they immigrated here from the Philippines and uh they work you know my dad used to work four jobs and he worked hard and we didn't want us to have to struggle and work that hard you know but he didn't understand that we were watching him you know go through that process and that we understood what hard work means and what trying to live that dream means. And so I was actually living at home and they would throw job application after application and say, hey, go apply to this county job, go apply here. And, you know, I would apply just to keep them happy and then just go back to work on the business.

And then I remember I used to lie to my mom. Uh, she knows now that I lied to her. Uh, but I used to have a plus three rule. So like if I had a one, one family or client, um, I would add three. So to that number and tell that story. And then, so, uh, that one student became four in my stories and then five became eight and it just, uh, and eventually I didn't have to lie anymore cause we had like 150 students. Um, and, but the biggest part was sharing those wins and they understood that I was working hard. I was busting my butt.

So, um, I think part of it is you just got to believe in what you're trying to do. Um, and you know, sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't. But for me, I just wanted to just go after it. Were you in search of like, um, I like, do you, do you think that you kind of just, for whatever reason, just have kind of this, uh, entrepreneurial spirit where you were like, you could have potentially landed on, um, some sort of different creation of some sort, like rather than a cookie? Yeah, I think so. I think for me is about impact.

So at that time as education here, it's about, you know, changing people's eating behaviors and it's a big feat. I don't know. I'm attracted to the hard things, things that I thought might be impossible to do and like changing education. And then with food is like changing how people eat, making it really easy for them to cut out sugar. And I'm just drawn to that. I'm drawn to that. I'm drawn to the journey and each step of learning. You know, I learned a ton, especially in this business. How about for yourself? Like, you know, that that kind that kind of you know you're you got this goal that you you know that you want to somehow work for yourself yeah but like yeah we got to make a living got bills you can't tell you know you can't tell

your landlord like hey man i'm working on my passion no yeah no come back come back like next month and i might have the check but i might not because I'm working on my passion. Like he's not going to be like, oh, that's chill. That's cool. You're good. No. So I believe that it's one of our mentors calls it throwing more punches. I think that if you work on enough business projects, eventually one will work if you treat it like a side hustle. So I was a kid in kindergarten.

Kind of like hitting on chicks. Play that in numbers. So I remember in, we didn't grow up with much. It was the kid in kindergarten that would buy. Kind of like hitting on chicks. It's a numbers game. Play that numbers. Play that numbers game. So I remember in, we didn't grow up with much. So in kindergarten, if I'd ask my dad for money for a toy or something, he'd say, great, find a way to go out and make it. So I'm like, okay. You're like, huh? No. So I would buy big bags of candy.

What a cruel father making you work, making you work for it. So I'd buy big bags of candy, sell them individual pieces door to door as a way to make money. And then I'd like mow lawns and then I'd wash cars. And it was always something attracted me about being able to create my own future. So in junior high, while I was like in school, I'd be on online forums, learning how to build websites, you know, trying to, you know, build businesses online. In high school, I had this like. That's called being a nerd, by the way, just in case anybody was confused. I was a nerd. Most people don, just in case anybody was confused.

Most people don't even know the internet could be used to search stuff. But the thing is, it was, it was a matter of tries. Every time I learned something else, I learned something else. And I had, I had a day job before I quit my day job for my last business. And it was only because by the time that I quit, I was already making enough money that I could kind of transition over. But it really became the more if you if you have 10, 20 ideas and you really work on them as a side project, one's going to work. Did the money for either one of you have to be equal to or greater than what you were previously making? Or did it not matter as much because you kind of knew like, okay, I'm making less, but it really doesn't matter because I'm going to put more time into it. And that's going to create more, more money for me as well. For me, for me, it was less. I wanted to become a full-time

entrepreneur as soon as possible. And I remember I was at my job and I'm reading this book and there's a quote that says, do that in life, which you fear the most. I remember I walk right into my boss's office. You know what book that is? Yeah. It's actually for our work week, Tim Ferriss. Oh, there we go. So I'm walking in, I walk in, I sit down with my boss and I said, you know what? I just give my two weeks. And I remember this like feeling of panic sets in. I'm like, holy shit. I just got married a month ago. I should have probably talked to my wife. It was so instinctive. I can picture your boss, like going, give me that goddamn book. And he throws it out though.

It's like the third person that quit that day. He just fucking heaves it out the window. But, but it was at that moment, it was scary to do it and it wasn't as much, but it, it did have momentum. It wasn't just some, some, Hey, I'm going to start something. It had something that had traction already. Yeah. I think sometimes, um, you know, it's important that people do try to follow like a dream. They, they, they have a big goal, but at the same time, you don't want to send the wrong message and have this goal or dream that like may never happen. It might be this thing that's, uh, maybe it's a little too far fetched. Like maybe you're not, like maybe you don't have the, the work ethic currently to,

to even get to where you're thinking about. For you guys, have you, it sounds like you guys both, I mean, coming out of the gate, sound like you're both pretty hard workers. But has that intensity picked up?

Have you like learned discipline? Have you learned work ethic? Have you like learned, uh, discipline? Have you learned, uh, work ethic? Uh, have you learned even like willpower and has this stuff kind of grown with you guys as you've gone into this business? Yeah, absolutely. I think changing what I ate made a huge difference. I didn't understand that, you know, your mental clarity could go up as you change what you ate. And, um, that was part of it. I never thought I could meditate. So, uh, Victor's the one that got me into meditation and, you know, everybody just thinks

it's weird. Like Victor, what are you doing meditating, dude? What are you doing? I know. And I'm the type that I'm always thinking about stuff, you know, I'll go down this rabbit hole and then you'll say something and I'll think about something else, you know? And, and and uh i was like there's no way i can meditate for like 10 minutes and then victor's like hey just try

try one minute you know and then so i did one minute and i did two minutes three or four minutes seems like hours right yeah it does um and then even just like finding time to work out um just for the cognitive benefits is uh fitting that in the in the morning. So I can just work hard, work out hard, feel good throughout the day and just feel pumped throughout the day just to get, uh, things going. Um, but definitely discipline. And, and, uh, I mean, dude, uh, Victor's like the king of discipline because he has two kids and he's, uh, able to manage all of this with that, you know? Thanks, man. I mean, if I look back, I think that what helped is habits, right? Because we get to a point where Chris and I, we can't work harder.

Like there are no more hours in the day. So it's like, what are the habits and the routines that you do daily? And how do those kind of funnel what you do? And a big part is honestly prioritization. It sounds cliche, but if we only have so much time, then what we can change is what

we choose to do. And if we're able to focus on high impact decisions, that moves the needle. So if I kick this ball and it goes 70 yards versus kicking one five yards, 10 times, you know, I'll make more progress finding that one ball to kick that'll get the 70 yards. That makes a lot of sense. You were mentioned were mentioned having, uh, you know, the, the food really make a lot of changes for you. Um, and you said, you mentioned mental clarity, but like, um, what are some other things that you noticed from it? Like specifically? Yeah. Uh, decrease in anxiety. Uh, so like I mentioned before, I used to nap every single day, at least once, uh, most likely twice. Um, and like two hours, hour, it was like

an hour, two hours. And, and, uh, I was known as the napper in my family, like a teenager into your early twenties or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like I would just nap in random places of nap on the floor. I'd be on a coffee table and I just like take a nap. I did that in college actually. And, uh, man, I'm so tired. Yeah. And I think you're tired from being tired, you know, like that. Yeah. If I, if I sleep in, I feel exhausted.

I mean, it feels good to do it once in a while, but I still kind of feel groggy and tired from it almost. Exactly. And, uh, I didn't understand that there was another reality, you know, it was like stepping out of the matrix and, and like, wow, this is how great energy feels like. I've never experienced it like this. And I just got hooked on it. And then started looking into other areas of, uh, nutrition, trying to figure out how I can use it, um, as a, my tool as my, uh, you know, my weapon. I feel sometimes like I'm like a maniac and, uh, that there's, there's not that many people

speaking the same language, but there's more and more now there's maniac and, uh, that there's, there's not that many people speaking the same language, but there's more and more now there's more and more people, you know, and I, I don't want to, I don't want to discount, you know, anything that anybody's born with. But at the same time, I really, I strongly feel that diet and exercise can fix just about anything. And there's, there's other people that will go as far to say that, look, cancer, heart disease, diabetes. People know that through food, you can fight against ever having diabetes, at least type 2 diabetes. And people kind of understand through nutrition,, you can, you can, uh, manage heart

disease a lot better, but there's people that will, that will say that with proper nutrition and exercise that you can completely eradicate those diseases from, from the planet. And I, I don't know if I would go that far. Cause I think that sometimes we're born with, uh, you know, certain genetics, you know, we're, we're dealt certain cards and, you know, maybe, maybe you can't overcome everything, but I think I'm hearing so many people talk about depression and anxiety and I don't want to ever, I don't, I don't think I've ever dealt with it, uh, the way that other people have.

So I don't, I don't want to like undersell something that I don't, that I never truly felt, but I still think I can't imagine a scenario where diet and exercise doesn't at least help. Maybe it doesn't do everything, but I can't imagine where it doesn't at the very least help. And I I'd love to see, I love to see more people really give it a shot. And I think that there is room for medication in this world. And I think that medication does make sense. And, uh, it would be foolish for someone just to randomly go off medication that, that a doctor and some people agreed upon. However, I think that medication is a, it's a bridge that you can, you can utilize that

bridge for a gap in your life for a period of time where maybe things aren't right. Maybe you have bad cholesterol, maybe you have high blood pressure, and maybe you do need these medications. But while you're on those medications, why don't you further educate yourself into diet, into nutrition? Why don't you learn? Maybe there's some things you can do, and then maybe you can take less of that medication and maybe you can be off of it. But I'm hearing too many, there's too many young people that are really suffering from depression and anxiety. And I, you know, I would hope that they at least give it a good shot with some different diets, even a carnivore diet. It sounds crazy. All I do is eat meat. But what if you could, and I know it's a tough task, but what if you're in pain or what

if you have some severe heartache or you can't get out of bed and you're just not living a great life? You're sad. You know, what if, what if your food, uh, it's a daily battle, but what if your food was the key ingredient in the whole thing? And you didn't know, like, what if that food was making you sick? What if that food is making you sad? food was making you sick? What if that food is making you sad? I mean, I know for myself that, you know, when I go off my plan, even before I got like real deep into this, that it would throw me sideways. I wouldn't feel great about myself. I'd want to sleep in.

I can't imagine, you know, uh, mixing that with already having maybe, uh, some genetics that were your, your anxieties high, or just, you know, your, your, your coping skills are maybe different than the next person. So I always try to advise that here on the show, because I just think that it's something I keep hearing more and more about. And I just keep hearing people, they get medication from the doctor. And like I said, I think that's fine, but I think that they, in addition to that, they should try to be actively doing something about it. Yep. Yeah. No, I mean, when I've, when I've they should try to be actively doing something about it. Yep. Yeah.

No, I mean, when I've, when I've had like funks, I call them funks. Um, I noticed that if I look back to what's going on, I'm eating, like I'm not eating the way I should, and I'm not working out the way that I should. And the moment that I go to the gym or maybe like a cold shower, something to kind of shock your system, it really makes a big difference. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Over the holidays was like a test right so say all right i'll have a few more carbs here and there and then uh you know i'd have some mashed potatoes and then you know i was just out um at a uh watching wicked with my my wife and

then all of a sudden start feeling very tense like my shoulders are really tense my heart rate's going up and i'm like dude why do i feel really anxious right now and uh i'm like all right i'm no more no more cars i'm gonna cut this out and the next day i just went off of it and i felt so much better it was like night and day uh between us how how i was feeling in it and i think it's a huge thing that we need to figure out as a society is how do we get people to, to one, just really focus on nutrition. I know we have education, uh, at the same time, how do we make it very easy for people, you know? Um, and we just got to make it really easy, especially with food, making it very available. Um, I mean, that's what we try to do with cookies.

Cause we're like, shoot, you know, what are people's. Yeah. Figure out a way to make it, uh, as convenient as possible. Um, and, and we're starting to see a little bit more of that. Like, uh, we grabbed some, uh, in and out burger for you guys today. And, uh, you just go and you order it animal style or the flying Dutchman and, and, uh, you know, they know what that means. And you just get meat and get no bun. Like there's more and more places like that.

I think, um, some places where you go to that have a low carb option. I know like, um, some of the bigger chain places for a long time, they've had, you know, menus, uh, that have, you know, all this stuff in this category has 500 calories or less or whatever. And of course, no one wants to look at that when you go to like Applebee's or something, but at

least, at least there's starting to be some movement, you know, towards that. At least we're starting to see more of that. Even on an airplane where they serve food, a lot of times they're serving you a, um, uh, you know, on a flight, the long flight where they, where they serve food. A lot of times they're still serving you like a meat based something or other. So there's like a chicken or a steak or a, you know, it's not just, uh, you know, not just, you know, Mac and cheese or something like that. Yeah. I think even Chipotle is offering like, I haven't been yet, but lifestyle bowls. Do you hear about that? I think like paleo and keto bowls now. So it's becoming more and more available. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I mean, and I've always thought that too, when it comes to, uh, when it comes to Mexican food, it's like

they have a lot of great options already sitting right there. Yep. But then everything kind of gets blended together and now we have, you know, some outrageous calorie amount. Wrap it in a flour tortilla and make it a burrito and fry it. Right. Yeah. But Chipotle kind of makes it easy because you can kind of go in and select. And at least, and again, at least like we can make arguments about like eating out and, you know,

you got these different oil, vegetable oils and, but like, in my opinion, that's not where the fight is. You know, I, I don't think it's, I don't think it's a, I don't think it's worth, you know, sitting here and, and, and nitpicking everything that somebody does about whether a vegetable is healthier, whether a fruit is healthy or, or whether steak is healthy. It's like, come on, man. Like, let's, let's just agree that there's a lot of junk out there and it's problematic for people.

People have a hard time with controlling it and, and any diet that you try to follow, that's always going to be the key, uh, word is going to be figuring out how to have some sort of control. Yep. Um, I think that there are some really cool benefits to fasting and things like that, but I don't think it's, I don't think that just because you fast, you can eat, uh, 40% more calories, you know, and just because you do keto, I don't think you can eat 40% more calories. So I just think that there, you know, hopefully there's a going to continue to be more, you know, companies like you guys, and hopefully you guys get into making other stuff too, to, uh, continue to make stuff more convenient for people. Yeah. Yeah. We're, I mean, we're, we're focused on, on cookies for the short term, but we're definitely open. Our mission is to make it

easy for people to cut out sugar. And we chose sugar because we see sugar as the lead domino. Right. So you look at paleo, you look at a lot of these, like, what is really the main issue, at least the way we see it is, is sugar. So if it fits within that mission, we're open to exploring it. Yeah. And you have some people that will say, you know, it's not really sugar and America has cut back on sugar. Um, but I think, I think it's all bullshit. I think that there's someone like Lane Norton, he'll say, you know, the majority of calories in a donut come from fat. I'm like, okay, yeah, we realize that it's fried, you know, the majority of calories in a donut come from fat. I'm like, okay, yeah, we realize that it's fried, you know, it's fried, but anything that's fried, any snacks of any kind and any desserts, like if, if people could just get rid of those three things,

that would be, that would be a major, a major win. And I think, you know, when we're talking about sugar, now you guys follow a specific style of diet a ketogenic diet which doesn't really allow for a bunch of carbohydrates at all uh unless you've been doing it for a while then you can start to add some in but you know there's there's a lot of different types of carbohydrates you can consume there's a lot of different types of sugar you can consume and i think that it would be foolish for us to go way out of our way and say, hey, don't eat an apple. Don't eat a banana. Don't eat an orange. Because, again, what you're saying, by making it convenient, if we share this idea of like, hey, let's have balance, I don't think that's a good idea either.

Because when we tell people to have a balanced diet, their version of balance is not a very good one. They're not good at balancing that way, but when they have some more options thrown into the mix, maybe after they've gone on a diet for a period of time, or after they've shown some control, now we're starting to head in the right direction because maybe somebody that gets ready for a bodybuilding show, uh, maybe somebody that is really just really needs to lose weight. Maybe they're not, uh, consuming quest bars and keto cookies. Maybe they're using food first and then they're starting

to add some things back in as they kind of move along their journey. What are some of your thoughts on that for, for both of you guys, uh, on like, uh, you know, cheat meals and some of these different things when you guys are kind of in the zone or when you guys are communicating with people about this style of diet do you try to like show some restraint with some cheats or is it like just you know just enjoy yourself um i try to show restraint just because i know once i have like a donut right it's gonna trigger some sort of like crave for another thing and so i just you know as much as possible try to stay away from that if anything i'll have like a cheat like if it's a cheat it was not a cheat day it would be uh a cheat meal or we call it a yes meal or you know if it's uh worth so i

think what i've learned from this process is uh the carbs got to be worth it. You know, like, uh, I value carbs a lot more now than I used to. And it's like, I'll eat something. I'm like, okay, that wasn't worth the carbs or I'll eat it. I'm like, okay, that was good. Dude. I went through that with Christmas cookies and I ate about 50 of them. And I was like, none of these are worth it. Damn it. I kept eating one after another. And I was like, I'm like, all all these suck but i still ate like the whole you know i didn't just take a bite of each one i just i just kept going on and on it's a thing it's not very satiating right it just keeps going and going so like as much as possible i try not to go down that route but in case you all you know i'll slip up but i think part of it is also this idea of uh being okay it, like self-forgiveness.

I think for people that are using it as a coping strategy, they're like, oh, I already gave in. I might as well eat the whole pizza. Makes you feel worse. I had one slice. I might as well eat the whole pizza. And it's just saying, okay, this is okay. I'm allowing this for myself. And after this, I'm moving on to getting back on track.

And once we get into that mindset, I think it's going to make it a lot easier for people to transition in and out. So, yeah, so that's kind of where I'm at on that. Yeah, so when I'm talking to people that are interested, let's say, in getting on the diet, I feel that if I frame it in a way that you're never going to be able to have XYZ, it scares them from even trying.

So I don't recommend a cheat meal or a cheat day or whatever in the very beginning. I think once you get momentum, it's okay because it releases some of the pressure valve. So for me, it's more like psychologically, how do you get people to want to stick to it? And at least I know myself personally, if I know that I'm never, ever going to be able to enjoy whatever, whatever my, my indulgences, it'll just make it hell. So you might not buy into it at all. Exactly. Might not even try. So how do you get them to start, to, to start notice some results? And then, I mean, by that point they might not even want them anymore, but as long as you frame it like, Hey, you know, it isn't your, you are going to be able to have

something every once in a while. I think it makes it easier for people to try it. I think it's a huge component of, of diet is just to not give up. Just keep, just keep trying, like whatever, whatever the goal is. I mean, most of the time we're just talking about management of weight or even, uh, or even trying to lose weight. And you're going to have to have some sort of control over the diet that you selected. You're going to figure out some sort of overall food. There's some sort of control over the foods that you're eating. And a lot of times when there's bread and pasta and sugars and things like that, it's just really, it's hard to control. You just really want to, you just really want to

just eat, eat all of it. I mean, it's, it's so much easier. I mean, we, I have, uh, I have two kids. And then in addition to that, I got, um, uh, some nieces and nephews. And so there's like about five kids around me almost at all times. And, uh, our nieces and nephews, they're young, you know, and they're, you know, all of the under the age of 10 and even my own kids, uh, they, they did this a lot when they were younger, not so much anymore, but, you know, the kind of pop in and out of the kitchen, they'll say, you know, Hey, can I have a, you know, just like whatever, whatever snack we have, Hey, can I have a Chex mix or something like that?

And, uh, we'll say, no, you can have a yogurt and they'll go, I'm not hungry. And you're like, oh, okay. You know? And so I think, I think hunger is actually a key component to diet that I don't hear enough people talking about. I think that you should be hungry. And I, you know, going through some of this fasting and stuff that I'm doing right now, it's really, it's really showing me and I'm learning a lot from it. I'm learning that like, this is totally not, your body should be hungry. And then when you're hungry, it's interesting. It's interesting how you act when you're, when you're hungry, but you're still trying to stick to a plan. Like I saw my wife last night, chow down on a ribeye. Like I've never seen before in my life. She could have sucked

that thing to a straw. Can I get a, Hey now, but but i mean it's because she was she was fasting and it's like well now and you said you place a lot more value on those carbs well when you fast and then you and then you go to eat again and for us we're doing a carnivore diet as well so that's our that's like our only option but we value that meal so much and we not only value, but we value that meal so much. And we not only value it, but we look forward to it. That's like, you're just, you're dying. You're, you're really craving it. And I think that's a good spot for people to be in. And I've been trying, I've been thinking about this a lot because any diet I've ever really

been on, I never really craved the diet food that I was eating with the exception of doing some keto stuff. And, um, there's been, there's been times, you know, at, uh, you know, nine o'clock, 10 o'clock at night, just like anybody else after you eat dinner, that's when that, that sharp craving really hits you. And, uh, many times I've just get up and I'll make like an omelet. I'll make like an omelet. That's predominantly like egg yolks.

I'll throw some cheese in there, some bacon. Now that's a ridiculous amount of calories that I definitely don't need, but at least I didn't go off the deep end or I'll reach in and grab and grab one of your cookies, you know, or a quest bar or something like that, you know, something or, or even for a while I was doing, um, just small pieces of dark chocolate. Like I like dark chocolate, but I don't like it as much as milk chocolate and so therefore i'd eat you know maybe uh this bo jackson rookie card worth of uh worth of chocolate and i'd be done with it it's like how many carbs was that 10 15 not a huge deal right definitely do you notice a difference between the hunger when you're eating more carbs than the hunger than when you're off of it because Cause like for me, when I was on carbs,

I was like, it was like almost like it was shouting hunger. And then when I went off of it, it was like, okay, you're hungry. And it's not as intense. No,

it's huge difference, you know? And now fasting is like not even, it doesn't feel, it doesn't, it doesn't feel like it's difficult at all. I mean, it's a little bit annoying because I'd love to go with you guys and go grab some food and sit down and chat.

But as entrepreneurs, you also learn that that's not even that productive anyway. You're better off either not eating anything or just having some coffee or something. Because if you're eating, you're not really talking. But other than the social aspect of it, it's, it's definitely not hard at all, but I know what you're saying when, when you, when your body's used to running on sugar, you know, there's the great, the great advantage of carbohydrates is that they, uh, are fast acting energy source. Uh, the bad, the bad part about sugar is that it's a fast acting energy source.

And so when that energy store starts to run low and your blood sugar starts to go down, then you start to become like a psychopath about your food. You know, you're trying to tell me something. He's trying to tell me something. Andrew's trying to tell me something. All I can think about is food, food, food, food, food. Fuck you guys. We're going to eat or like, uh, or I'm just being short or I'm being like agitated.

Um, you know, I actually have been, uh, sharing I'm just being short or I'm being like agitated. Um, you know, I actually have been sharing this with people as well. This is kind of more of a side note than anything, but, you know, if you feel agitated, you feel moody, you're not feeling yourself. And sometimes, sometimes when that happens, a craving will hit you and you're like, man, I just, I just need a glass of wine or I need, you know, I'm just going to eat a sandwich or whatever. Right. And, and, and that thought gets in your mind, but when that hits you, and it's going to sound like the biggest load of bullshit you've ever heard in your life, but I'm telling you it works. Go on a walk just wherever you're at. Just, you know, if you have a conference call, you got something that going on in a couple

minutes and you, you, you feel like you can't do that. Go on the walk while you're on the call, you know, get your body, get your body moving. And I've done this in the, I've done this before and had a lot of success with it. If you walk, go for a walk and you're still pissed off or still just not yourself that day, or you're upset or whatever it is, walk more and you'll be, you'll be surprised. It'll, it'll go away. You know, just, just the act of walking is enough movement to kind of knock back some of these either negative thoughts that you're having or these cravings that you're having. And it will set you. And then, and then plus it's going towards all your goals, your goals to lose weight or manage your weight. And, um, it's been very productive.

I give that a try. What's your, uh, current fasting protocol? Um, so every other day I fast, um, I do like, I guess I call it like a full fast, which is just, uh, I'm allowed to have water and coffee and I just don't, I don't put anything in the coffee. And then on the other, every other day I'll do a liquid fast. Um, and, uh, I can put some stuff in the coffee. I try to even, I try to pay attention to that too, cause that can get out of control really fast. Um, and, uh, and I have bone broth and I put some stuff in that bone broth and usually in the coffee and the bone broth, it's usually just butter could be coconut oil, MCT oil, um, salt. And that's, that's that's usually i'm not or sometimes an

egg i might put an egg in the uh i've actually put eggs in coffee too it actually is really good so what i do is i microwave you know whatever i'm gonna eat i get it like boiling and i just dump it on top of an egg i've done that with coffee and with uh it sounds disgusting but i blend it up my ninja blender and the thing just goes bonkers it goes goes goes crazy like four o'clock in the morning and wake up wake up everybody in the house but yeah that's pretty much what i've been doing and normally the fasts they last um you know somewhere between 18 to 24 hours or so but yeah i've been i've been enjoying it a lot what's up with your meditation how do you

how how often do you do that i do it uh daily 20 minutes so i've uh i try to do it right after i work out just because it helps i guess helps me get into like a deeper state state of meditation um it depends i like to kind of play around i'll use the oak app or I have an app called Brain.fm which sends like waves. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's like a meditation state. I've used that for sleep before. It works pretty good.

Yeah, or I'll do that for like focus if I'm at work and I'll like hit that station. You ever do that, Andrew? That was weird. What was that? It makes those weird-ass noises.

What's it called? Brain.fm. Oh, it's not like the ASMR type stuff, right? It might be. It's like brrrr, brrrr like it's like making all kinds of weird like different waves and it kind of alters your state it's pretty cool i haven't messed around with any of that stuff because i'm just like him i like i just overthink everything you know if i have time to sit alone by myself for a minute i'm thinking a million miles per hour no i'm the same way i guess that's why I like to do it right after a workout, just because it helps the mental

chatter kind of calm down a little bit. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. But it helps a lot. Where did you, like, when did you start meditating and why? For anxiety. Anxiety and especially starting a business, you know, there's a lot going on.

But I read there's this blog called zenhabits.net where it's all about like simplicity and meditation. And then like in a world where there's so much going on, kids running around a business, I'm like, I crave the calm, simplicity. And I started honestly with one minute. So I have to find a trigger. So after my shower, I would sit on the toilet for a minute, time myself and do it for a week, for a week, like, Oh, a minute, easy. Right. And then, okay, next week, two minutes, then five, then 10 and it's stuck. And I've used that for any other habit, like make it ridiculously easy. So it's almost laughable. If you don't do it, ramp up, ramp up, but, and it sticks. Right. And people can apply that same method to anything in life. I mean, you can apply that same method to your food. And this is

something I used to train a lot of people. And I I'd say like, man, I just really can mean, you can apply that same method to your food. And this is something I used to train a lot of people. And I'd say, they're like, man, I just really can't, I can't, I can't diet. And I'd say, okay, well, you know, it sucks that you haven't had a good experience with it, but, but I bet you that you could. I said, you think you could, you know, do better with one meal? You know, can you do, can you eat it, eat a healthy meal? And they're like, I eat a healthy meal every day. Like, okay, well, you know, what meal is that? And they'll say lunch. I have like a salad and then I'll kind of find out they use a lot of dressing.

And so I'll kind of correct them a little bit and say, okay, well, that's, that's a really good start. And then I'll say, okay, we know that you can do one meal. Do you think you can do a day? I think you could, do you think you can do one day? And, uh, I've actually had people lose weight this way. I like okay well there's seven days in a week and uh let's have you eat healthy more days than you don't but on the other days you can't just go hog wild either you gotta like at least pay attention a little bit but you can still kind of eat what you normally

eat and i told them to avoid bagels and donuts and some of these things. Sure enough, they lose five pounds, 10 pounds, 20 pounds. Cause it's not, it's not hard. It's not hard to just do something for a little bit. Right. And I like what you said right there, like make it so easy that it's laughable. And I think I want to get more people to that spot where, you know, not only, not only are these things, not only are things sounding easier, but the things that are sounding easier are actually fucking hard. You know, that's where we need to get people to be. Somebody says, Hey, I want you to do a hundred pushups at the end of your workout. I'm going to be like a hundred pushups.

Why don't you give me a real workout? You know what I mean? Like you want them to, uh, start to really crave, you know, things that are difficult. You kind of mentioned that earlier, kind of leaning into things that are, things that are tough. And I, I think that that's a really great place to be. Where did you learn about meditating or is this just, you know, you just kind of heard from somebody else or book or something?

Yeah. It's been around forever, obviously. No, but I mean the habit of habit of books and podcasts, right? So just always trying to figure out how to improve. When I was a kid, my dad would give me

self-help books in junior high. So I was always trying to figure out, like, analyzing myself. All right, how can I improve? Were you into that

or were you like, my dad's weird? No, no, I was actually into it because I was like, I'm in my head a lot. So I was thinking, always looking for ways to improve different aspects.

It was either that or you were a weird kid and your dad's trying to like, hey, give me a little hint here different aspects. It was either that, or you were a weird kid and your dad's trying to like, Hey, give me a little hints here and there. I listened, I listened to a lot of like, you know, podcasts and, uh, kind of like self-help almost type stuff. Um, when I'm in my car, you know, my car is my classroom and I, I, I, it doesn't matter

where I drive. Even, even just my short drive from my house to Starbucks, which is probably two minutes. I will not leave my driveway until I get something on where I can try to learn something. It might even be repetitive. It might be something I just heard the other day or something, but I like to just try to continually learn, continue to try to educate myself. And a lot of times my son's, you know, in the car with me and I can tell like when I'm listening to something cool that, that has a good message, then he doesn't put his headphones on.

But if I'm listening to something that's bugging him, then he'll put his headphones on. The other day we were driving and this guy was talking about his kids eating broccoli. He's bragging about his kids eating real healthy. Out came the headphones. Boom. But normally he'll listen to it and actually he'll he'll he interacts with it a lot and he'll say he'll ask me questions i'll like pause it and talk to him and you know he'll be like wow does it really work that way like you can really just

you know might be somebody having the message of uh you know you you can you can uh you can choose to be happy you can choose to be happy. You can choose to be sad. And then he'll be like, well, wait, you know, aren't some people just sad? Like, well, yeah, there's, there are people that are, that are more depressed than other people. And there are people that have more sad things happen to them, but really it's all about how you interpret the things that come at you and you can choose. And there's nothing wrong with being sad. It's actually, I mean, there's gotta be a reason why we have the emotion right there's a reason why we have the

emotion of being sad there's a reason why we have the emotion of being mad and it's okay to end up in those spots here and there because then it makes being in a good place feel that much better but you probably shouldn't hang out there all the time you know what i mean exactly exactly and i mean and that whole habit you have of just listening to the book or, or it's just, as you're talking about it, my, my kids just turned four. So we're listening to like baby shark in the car, but, but I do want to get to that point. I think it's great. It's like a way that you can kind of ingrain your habits in your kids. How do you, um, cause you have a lot of, you know, you develop a lot of beliefs, you know, Because you have a lot of, you know, you develop a lot of beliefs, you know, around like diet, exercise and how to live a life.

And, you know, I think about growing up, I remember my parents, like, you know, they repeat certain things over and over again. But sometimes, you know, it just go in one ear out the other. How do you like incorporate some of what you believe into your family and how do you get them to buy into it? Yeah, it's amazing. Uh, you know, the stuff that I learn and the stuff that I acquire from meeting with, you know, uh, other people that, that are, that kind of are seeking out a better life. Um, it's not for everybody in my family all the time. And I have to try to recognize like, where, you know, where's that line? And, uh, am I going to offend somebody if I start piling it on too thick, you know? Um, because I, I do have some beliefs, um, that I don't, that I don't outwardly share because everyone would immediately think I'm an

asshole. You know, like I, I think, you know, like, like eating bad food and shit, like, I think it's a weakness, you know, and then other people will get upset and say, well, some people have, and I'll just say, look, okay, that's, that's just my, it's my opinion. It's my view. And I've had a lot of weakness in my life before. And I've done that before. I've, I've eaten that way before. I've been 330 pounds. So I know, I know something about it, you know? Um, but it is something where, um, you know, I've heard messages before of like, um, uh, it's important to, it's important to matter to people, right? But you have to be really careful on who you're trying to matter to. Uh, I think, I think once you go outside your home, then you're broken. I think you're, I think you're looking for the wrong thing. I think

it's almost like somebody eating unhealthy food. You think that that's going to help you, but it doesn't help your position at all. It might've been a release for something. Cause you, maybe you're on a diet for a long time or something, but it doesn't do what you thought it was going to do uh cheating on your girlfriend cheating on your spouse it doesn't it doesn't you know what are you gonna and what now what now you're gonna spend the rest of your life with that person or like you know and i think that it's really important that you um you know at night you lock your doors, right? You check all your doors, check your windows, stuff like that. You lock everything up. Some people even have a security system and you're blocking everybody out.

I think that's what you have to do with your life. You like kind of block a lot of people out. And so what I learned over a period of time was I'm learning all these really cool, valuable lessons, but is this for my daughter? Who's, you know, 10, 11, you know, like, or is this like, wait, is this, is this for my daughter who's you know 10 11 you know like or is this like way is this is this way way too far down the road for me to like have this conversation whether it's way too serious you know um and then i can also like kind of try stuff here and there like if they have a certain issue or a certain thing comes up then i can share something with them that's something

that i learned that applies to what they're going through at the moment. And I can say, you know, Hey, did you know that like this can really work this way? And if I see their eyes kind of lighten up and they're paying attention, I might, you know,

go down that road further. But if I go to say something and they're like, Hey, are we going in and out? Then I'll be like, okay, well that's obviously not working, but I think you have to be careful with kind of who you give that full court press to and who you kind of drop some of the hints in, you know, casually with my mom.

And my mom's lost a lot of weight. She's lost about 80 pounds now, I think. We got her to start walking and all this stuff. But like, I never really sat down with her and had a, like a conversation of like, Hey, you got to lose weight. Like she's always known that she's had to lose weight. Um, and so I was always like, well, when the time's right, this will all kind of just unfold the right way. And she, she did it on her own.

She can't, she, she was like, Hey, you know, I want to, um, I want to read your book. She's like, I read it when you first put it out, but she's like, I didn't apply it. So I want to read it again. She's like, I read it when you first put it out, but she's like, I didn't apply it. She's like, I want to read it again. I was like, okay, great. Gave her a book, and then she's been on her way ever since. So a lot of times things have to come from within. I can preach stuff to you, but I don't know how much it's going to really connect

or really make a difference. And then on top of all that, some people will listen to something. They'll get information or they get educated on something. And you'll hear people say this quite a bit. They'll say, you know what? I read that book five, like four hour work week. Somebody might be like, I read that book five times and man, it gets better every time I read it.

And you're like, how is that possible? How does it get better every time you read it? Well, it doesn't get better every time you read it. And you're not really noticing things that you, you're not really noticing things that you didn't notice before. What's happened is the book didn't change. Obviously you changed and your perspective on those words have changed. And then those words will mean certain things to you at certain times.

And so that's why you can't really, uh, you know, be in class one Oh three when someone else needs one Oh one, right. You can't, you can't be kind of coaching above, uh, you know, who you're communicating with. So it can be a hard thing. Cause I feel like I have, um, I feel like I have a lot of knowledge that can, that can really help. Um, but at the same time, maybe it could really hurt. Like if someone's not ready to hear some of these things, or if somebody is not, somebody doesn't want me up their ass about their diet or their sleep or, you know, people like kind of need to go through their own, their own stuff. You know, and I, something I've tried to say on this show a lot is just tell people like, Hey man, like,

you know, I do that for a living. Like I, I help people with that. And if you ever want something, I'm right here, man. Any, anytime I'll help you with just, and just kind of reassure them that like you're there, you know, especially if they bring it up, if they're like, man, I'm getting too fat or this, this, or that's happening. Then I think that's a good time to kind of put that in there. But I try, I try not to, it's hard. I try not to, uh, push stuff on people that aren't listening.

Yeah. And I think also just like having fun with it um like the next person i see yawning on him like dude i talked to this guy named chris like he started a whole cookie cookie company with his buddy he used to take naps every single day and then blah blah they were on shark tank you watch shark tank right it's like yeah yeah did you watch this episode it's like oh my gosh yeah i do remember that it's like yeah he had a hard time with yawning and sleeping all day long too he switched to ketogenic diet and now it's like a nine day difference so kind of i don't want to say making it a bigger deal than it actually is especially if they're

kind of hesitant but just also just finding something to like make it more uh yeah i guess yeah like a bigger deal than it actually is because like, you know, it's like, oh, he, this guy knows A-Rod and it's like, dude, you're, you know, whatever, baseball fan. And it's like something that they can find that they can relate to, or, you know, like just think that it's, oh my gosh, that's freaking cool. What kind of diet was it? And that sort of thing, you know, and I do stuff like that with my daughter, you know, like we had a Brooke on here who was, she was a dancer and you know my daughter's getting into dance i'm like look that's where she started now she's in uh wonder woman you know it's like it's crazy you know you just do something to catch someone's attention yeah you want people to be

excited yeah exactly right you want people to be fired up yeah i think you brought up a great thing is about storytelling as well as like uh that's one way to break people's uh habits is uh using storytelling as a way to get in there you know into their mind and letting them be open to the information so like just sharing like oh you know i heard so-and-so lost like 40 pounds on this diet you know yeah you're not really telling to go on it but you're like hey this is like they're it's melting off they're feeling better and and they're like oh wow well it's amazing yeah and and maybe you know rather than saying hey like you know i know this person that lost a bunch of weight maybe it's more like uh somebody's frustrated and they're like man i don't have

time to work out and i you know i feel bad like i'm just not feeling great maybe the story that you share is hey you know what i actually ran into somebody the other day their mother of three they you know they work two jobs they just pounds. They just, they joined the gym a couple, a couple months ago. They changed, they changed their diet up and, and they're, they said they used to be depressed. They used to be X, Y, and Z. And now they're feeling the complete opposite. Now it's like, well, maybe that person totally relates to that story. Cause maybe those were all the hurdles that they were were listening just as we had a guy on yesterday um or was it yesterday yeah yeah yeah it was yesterday yeah we got on yesterday who who's a fan of the show and he was just sharing his experience with

uh uh you know switching over to a different diet and and losing a lot of weight i think he weighed 280 at one point and now he's like 210 and he's actually getting ready for bodybuilding show so he's like completely completely uh shredded but he's he has uh you know he's got like a 40 or 50 hour you know uh work week going on himself so he you know he's he's somebody that i wanted to bring on the show give people perspective because then people might look at me and they might look at you guys and like that's well that's your job and your job this is part of your job you're got the you, you got these cookies, you know, that you're, that you're, um, that you're trying to share with people that they don't have sugar. And for me, like, obviously this is a huge part of what I do. And they're just going to be like, oh, of course Mark's in shape.

You know, he's, he's got money. He doesn't have to worry about that. And he can just, he can just go lift whatever he wants, you know? And that's kind of the thought process. And so I'm kind of thinking, okay, well, if people think that, then let's bring on examples of other people that are, you know, they're not to where I'm at. And they're still managing to figure out ways of dropping weight and being better. Yeah. and uh being better yeah and also it gives people an opportunity because mark's uh basically our uh our plan our uh basically our mission is to make the world tell them everything it's okay well

this is the last thing and everything else is top secret uh the mission is to make the world a better place to lift okay and so you know some a fan of mark might see mark and be like oh my god that guy's huge like he's awesome blah blah i'm nobody but i can follow mark you know they'll be afraid to post like an instagram picture or whatever it is you know but someone like my fiancee she looks way different than mark thank goodness somebody can relate to her and they that can't relate to mark so you know she's following the ketogenic diet mark's always been messing around with keto. Um, it, it just grabs a totally different audience, you know, whereas she's, she's talking to moms or females, you know, whatever. And he's talking to

big Jack Terry dudes, you know, but it's all, yeah, it's all about the same diet though. Right. So it's, yeah, it's just kind of weird how what he's saying is like he spread to one person, that person is going to spread to other people. And then like we're all together going to make this world a better place to live. It's freaking cool. Love it. Yeah. So like, you know, again, with you guys like trying to get rid of sugar, like, dude, you guys are going to inspire so many more people to even just follow that lifestyle just because, oh, I can still have this chocolate chip cookie. It's like, dude, imagine what that's going to, you know, it's going to erupt into something even bigger. Well, it could have helped somebody, uh, hang

onto their diet, which in turn is helping save their life, which is wild, right? Like it's, um, I know you guys, you, it started out with you guys making it for yourself, which I think is an important message though, too. Like a lot of people will, will think that, um, you know, sometimes when you do stuff out of like being selfish, that it's a, that's problematic. Um, but I started my gym for the same reason. I knew I couldn't do it myself. And I, and I wanted to, uh, um, I still wanted a more convenient way than trying to go to like 24 hour fitness and try to figure out how to power lift there without seeming like a maniac and dropping the weights and getting kicked out and stuff like that. So I was like, you know, I I'd love to have my own space. And then it'd be great to be around other like-minded people that understand the goal and understand the mission.

So it was built off of, you know, me just having this necessity to, to, to want to do this stuff at a, at a higher level. It sounds like it's kind of the same thing for you guys with the cookies, right? Yeah, and what helps too is you know you're at least serving one customer. Right. And you're not the only one that thinks the way you do, but at least you can serve that one customer right, as opposed to, well, in business, right?

It's like, that's my target market. Let me learn about them. I don't know anything about them. Well, you know yourself, and you know there's other people like you and i think it makes it easier to build something that other people are going to want and it's awesome to hear the stories like um uh from other folks from the fans like how much that it has changed your lives you know from from lifting to even eating our cookies i think one of the biggest things is like getting messages from people who have diabetes who are like man you're like saving like you're literally saving my life that's huge

they can't enjoy sweets and then now you give them alternatives yeah it's like uh before i was you know i was about to go into chips ahoy and you know i found your cookies thank you so much and it just you know that's what makes it worth it for us is like hearing those stories and it just fuels our, you know, our mission. And, you know, no matter how hard this thing is, you know, that we're trying to build, like it's awesome just to hear those stories. Go ahead. Do you guys ever think you'll make like an Oreo cookie? That might be in the top secret. Oh, my bad.

In our master plan. Yeah. No, it's definitely something that we always try to make it fun. So what is something that is iconic and then how do you make it low carb and low sugar and delicious? That's awesome. Exactly. How is it easy and how can it taste good? We don't want it to be good for a healthy quote unquote item.

How can it just taste good? Yeah. So did you guys have any like formal education as far as like nutrition or like any, anything like that? Uh, I, I didn't. Um, I mean, I w I was, uh, you know, competing in basketball and I would just read books and nutrition, nutritional timing and protein, uh, timing. Uh, but I never really got super into it, uh, where I would take a class or anything like that. And so, but once I experienced what I felt, I got more curious of like, okay, why is this the way

it is? And as soon as I started talking to more people that were on the diet, it just became a rabbit hole of, you know, trying to find out, okay, how come, you know, people are, you know, some people that weren't able to walk before because their their body would they had this like syndrome where the body would eat their muscles up and uh looking for glucose and then they would go on keto and they're like oh yeah i ran like within a month i'm like that's insane there's no way that could happen uh and then talking to people like uh you know we met this family whose son had cancer, inoperable brain cancer at four years old. And, you know, he went on the ketogenic diet and, you know, now he's 10 years old.

And, you know, we were celebrating with him on his birthday. And it was really cool to see all these different stories. And at some point, these stories are hard to ignore. You can say, oh, well, there's not enough research, but at some point, some of the, you know, a lot of these stories are just so,

um, prevalent and, you know, and powerful that you can't ignore them. Yeah. We've walked over it twice now. What basketball competitiveness or whatever, what level did you get to?

Like, it's been killing me. You know, I was in the NBA and not, uh, so. Oh my God, it's been killing me you know i was in the nba and no no uh so oh my god it's jeremy lynn this whole time that was me so i went over to philippines to play ball um for about a year it was something that was eating at me like i need to go try it um otherwise i won't know if i could have made it or not and so like i used to i used to be in the gym like five hours a day uh before this starting from when i was in like high school

and um and then college is like oh you know i should focus on my studies you know and really focus on this but at you know at the heart of it i really want to play basketball and follow this passion so you know i just decided to take a risk and go after it and um you know it's great i got to play with people that were playing in fiba and uh guard six six guys i'm five eight uh and you know it's a huge learning experience it's a hard one of the hardest things that i've ever done because one training and two is like you know you're always like um there's always there's always failure you know like you don't make the cut on the team or you know things don't work out

because i was living in the philippines my papers didn't work out um i got hurt uh but what it really taught me is was was uh resilience and i don't think i could have gotten to this point without all that uh trial and tribulation through that experience so i think you you had the same thing with like with uh the wrestling thing too right oh yeah no i think it's huge it's important um you know i think sometimes uh sometimes it'll feel like you're really great at something and when you push into it further you're like oh okay i'm okay, I'm pretty good, but I'm not like that guy. And I'm not like that guy over there or that guy or that guy, you know, and then you kind of realize you're like, oh, okay. Like I thought I was, I'm good, but I'm not, you know, not, I'm not a savage like some of these other people.

And so I think, I think that's a valuable lesson. And it's a great lesson that you can learn. Probably, you probably only really see it in sports like you don't really obviously like you know when someone's intelligent but i think there's maybe like a block in your brain that that won't allow you just to kind of like uh surrender or admit that someone uh could could work harder at you harder than you in certain aspects but it's pretty clear when someone's faster than you, or it's pretty clear when you get on the court or when you get in the weight room that someone's

stronger than it's like, just obvious. It's like, okay, that guy's using a lot more weight than you or that guy boxed you out for that rebound a lot easier. I think there's, um, it's hard for people to kind of recognize. And I think it's a really valuable trait is to learn, you know, part of knowing who you are is knowing who you're not. You have to understand, like, okay, I'm not like him and I'm not like him, but I can be like myself and I can expand upon the things that I'm good at. And you hear a lot of people say work on your weakness. I'm not going to disagree with that 100%. It'd probably be a decent idea to bring up some of your weaknesses, but why not really hone in on the strengths, you know, and that's where you're going to, you guys seem like you both have always had good work ethic. It seems like you both want

to be creative and what job, you know, what better job than to work for yourselves, you know, is there than what you're doing? There's not one, right? No. Yeah, I mean, it's the job where the harder you work, the more output you get. Like, I just struggle with knowing that I'm somewhere where no matter how hard I work, the ceiling is capped. So it's this freedom, the ability to, you're an artist, you're creating something from nothing. Yeah, it is hard to, you know, figure out those times

when to pull back, right? That can be difficult. hard to uh you know figure out those times when to when to pull back right that can be difficult um i wanted to ask you too like what does your meditation look like because each person's kind of got their own version i know some people listen to music some people listen to stuff on their headphones other people say no that's not meditating you gotta go like you know you just be quiet and just sit on the floor like what does it look like for you and because you've been doing it for a while are you now able to kind of like do it randomly, like on an airplane or something like that when there's other people around?

On an airplane, um, it's, it's still challenging, but I have gotten to a point where I can, where I can, uh, do it a little more effectively there. But for the most part, it's morning workout, cold shower. If I, if I drive, so I have, like I said, two young kids and a wife, family at home. So I can't meditate at home. I meditate in the car. And what I like to do is I like to listen to music because it drowns out the noise. We talk about my brain won't stop running.

If I listen to something loud enough and then I just focus on my in-breath and my out-breath, I feel that after 15 minutes. So what I found is the minimum effective dose is 20 minutes. If it's any less, I don't feel it. So it's something about noise, noise, noise, and around minute 15. So I get like maybe two, three minutes of real quiet, but that's all I need.

Yeah, that's actually pretty fascinating. And it seems like a lot of things in life work that way. Like even when you sleep, you know, how much REM sleep do you get? You don't get that much, but it's supposed to be kind of the most important part is that, is that REM sleep. And I don't know what percentage it's supposed to make up of your, of your sleep, but like I have a sleep tracker and I've been, I've been tracking it for a little while. And it's like my REM sleep probably makes up like 20% or something, you know, it's a small percentage. And so it kind of goes along with what you're saying about meditation.

What do you use to track your sleep? Do you use the aura ring? So I used a ring that was like that, um, for a little while, but it just, it didn't fit me great. So I got a,

a Fitbit. Oh, cool. And, uh, I just started messing with that just like as of a couple of days ago. So yeah, I kind of suck at sleep.

I'm not great at it. How about you guys? I'm trying to work on it. I've been, uh, testing out Epsom salt baths. So right before bed. So I did it for the first time yesterday.

Cause like, Oh, we got to be up for early for a, for a flight. And then, so I did a Epsom salt bath, uh, and then had like a candle.

My wife is like, what are you doing? Marvin Gaye playing in the doing man i'm not involved uh and so i tried that out and i slept really well i've been uh i've been using sleep tape so yeah uh you just put tape over your mouth yeah and um i i learned that from ron penna over at quest and um it helps out a lot i feel like I'm more rested using that sleep tape, just focusing on breathing through your nose. I think, you know, when you breathe through your mouth,

it's not as efficient in terms of, you know, getting oxygen to the blood and to yourself for it to repair itself. So it's an interesting thing that that helps out a lot. And then I have blackout curtains too to help out with that. But I mean, I'm, I've been trying to get on a routine, uh, just trying to sleep early, you know, for me, I get really, uh, excited and creative, uh, in the nighttime. So I have to like tone it down so I can sleep in that. I can wake up earlier in the, in the daytime. It's hard to like, just think I'm just going to do that tomorrow. You know, like I'll get that done tomorrow. But I think, you know, a good principle is just to, uh, you know, you don't

have to, you don't have to work until you're, um, until you're like finished with everything, but you should kind of work until you're like done, like quote unquote done. Like I'm done. I'm, I can't look at this anymore. I don't, I don't want to do this anymore. You know? And that's, that's going to be the hard part because you kind of always feel like you want to do it. But if you kind of asked yourself, like, do I really want to do this or rather sit down, you know, watch TV with my kids or whether I was, you know,

lay down with my wife or whatever it is, you're like, okay, well, yeah, I'd rather do that than, than do this. And that's a good time to stop. You know, it's a good time to like go home from work or it's a good time to, uh, to call it, to call it a night. Yeah. I think it's, uh, good to be aware of when you're diminishing returns is and, uh, and saying, okay, well, I'm going to come back to more sharper if I just take time off to, to rejuvenate, you know, it's like lifting, you know, you can't lift 24 hours and think you're going to get stronger. You got to take breaks, You got to rest. You got to recuperate to be stronger. So the same thing goes with like work and balance in that sense, in terms of resting and recuperating.

There's a book called Deep Work that I love, and it talks about scheduling in the fun time first. And you basically compress work. And you're not going to compress it to like an hour or two, but you're going to compress it. And within that amount of time, like I noticed that I get a lot more done and I have like an end of day ritual, end of work day ritual that helps me kind of turn off, which makes it easier to fall asleep. It seems like just kind of putting a cap on something too, is it is not a bad idea. I've heard many people say guys like Warren Buffett, like Warren Buffett has like 80 businesses or something crazy. And, um, you know, he said like, there's not really a lot of great things that happen in a meeting once it goes past like 20 minutes, you know? And that's, that's, it's, it's pretty true.

Actually, if you, if you've ever been in like a meeting where there's kind of a lot of people and it starts to go over like a 30 minute mark, you can sometimes, it's sometimes lose what it had originally, and it can kind of get almost negative. And it's like, okay, well now we're focusing on all the shit that we're not doing very well. Whereas originally the message was, Hey, here's how I think we can do some things better, which is kind of different than talking about where you suck, right? They're the same thing, but it's a different tone. And so I think it is important. I've been kind of learning that as I go along, but I also need, I have this weird need for like, I need to just like, uh, like I I'm working, but I'm, I'm not really doing a whole lot. I'm just like journaling, I guess you'd call it. I just sit there and scribble some stuff down in my, in my notebook, you know,

it's like kind of a form of, I guess you'd say personal development, you know, I'm not really big. I don't really read very often. Um, but I do like listen to audio books and podcasts and all different kinds of things. But when I do that, I don't just listen to stuff. I actually like take notes on it. But then I'll also sit there and, um, I'll kind of go through different parts of my business and I'll think, you know,

how can we improve this? And I'll spend a couple of minutes on that and I'll move into the next thing and let's write it out. And sometimes I write down stuff and I'm like, I'm like, this is a bad-ass idea. And then two days later, I look at it.

I'm like, that was kind of dumb. That's not actually that good of an idea. How do you guys know when you have a good idea? I feel it. I know it sounds, it's gut.

Like a lot of my stuff is like intuition. So I just, if it knocks me off, I'm like, holy crap. I know it's worth at least writing down

and revisiting. That's the worst when you have that feeling like, I gotta write that down. And you're like, you just think that you're gonna forget and you're like, where's a pen? That's the worst when you have that feeling like, I got to write that down. And you're like, you just think that you're going to forget.

And you're like, where's a pen? That's why the phone's awesome. Just jot it down on the iPad. Yeah. I mean, for me, it's, I don't know, I'll feel it. And then, like you said, it might, a few days later, it might be like, oh, that's not, that wasn't that great. At that moment, like, oh, hell yeah, this is a great idea.

And then I think part of it's also testing it i think one thing i've learned is getting people's uh perspective because my perspective is is way different than a lot of folks and um i have to understand that i'm not the smartest person in the room and and uh i want to see what other people think and if i still feel very strongly about it after that then you know i'll you know i'll go forward with it we'll go for it i think that's what like uh i love about working with victor is like we have our own perspectives and um like he shows me things that i don't necessarily see and vice versa and we kind of feed off each other and uh at the end

of the day after debating you come up with a greater idea after it so it's a it's a yin yang like people joke about it but a partnership is uh marriage without the sex right i mean it's like all right man you see what i don't i see what you don't and in the end we really do speaking of marriage without the sex you know ours didn't have that second part ours is yeah ours is just sex no with these two guys when i i had to i had to bring this to their attention when i first met them i was like i was on your keto cookie instagram and i'm like i kind of popped around i didn't like search through all their instagram stuff but i'm like man they're together a lot these guys are are really, these guys are really, these guys are really close buddies, you know?

And then I like, it had the keto cookie and it talks about what it was and stuff. And then there was like a rainbow on there. And I was like, I was like, what's the rainbow? Some pop it, you know? But I'm like, I think I see, I think I've seen pictures of them with like their wives or something, you know?

So then when I sat down and met with them, I was like, I got a question for you guys. It's been eating at me. What does this rainbow mean? As our wives are sitting in the back, they're like, what does that rainbow mean? Yeah, what is going on with that rainbow? What did the idea to change the company over to Newey, and what does Newey even mean? That was a chris idea um he it was at a time when when we were actually doing really well with keto like oh dude we're freaking crushing it let's do it and he's like no man i think i think we need to

to pivot and and focus on a different uh different area and then newie was the name that you came up with yeah so like it was actually it didn't happen overnight is a pretty much a year-long process and we're thinking to ourselves like hey there are people reaching out to us uh that aren't necessarily keto and they're wondering if they can eat this these cookies you know so like how do we make it really easy and we have to just meet people where they are right so uh like my parents they didn't think they could do keto you know they're at first uh they learned they're pre-diabetic and my dad is like really really into rice you know and he's like there's no way i can get rice and just going off what mark said earlier is like you just start

somewhere small right and uh and he was able to get rice you know in the evening or cut it down in half and then eventually he weaned off of it and got his A1C a lot better, dropped his A1C. And so that's what we're trying to do on the mass scale is how do you meet people where they are? They might not understand keto, know what it is, but they know that sugar's bad. But the big question is, how do I get rid of this thing that has been such a huge part of my life that you know it's what i crave it brings back a lot of great memories and that's kind of why we chose the cookies like this cookie has been something that people have cherished i'm like i love you know i want cookies you know holidays i want cookies and um and so that's where we decided to change the name and

we wanted something that fit our ethos uh for us is like creating something greater than ourselves and that would make a lasting impact and we found nui which means uh greatness and abundance in uh maori so we're like oh hell yeah that's that's that's the name and um yeah it's been a a fun process uh and you know we saw this as a bigger thing than you know keto you know we love keto but we know we we saw this as a bigger thing than, you know, keto, you know, we love keto, but we know we, we can serve more people this way. Uh, who's the detail oriented one? You're not looking at them.

Uh, luckily we have a team and, uh, they're detail oriented, way more detail oriented than we are. We can, we tend to be kind of in the clouds a lot. I mean, it's fun to be up there, but we do have people on the team to help us out. Do you guys kind of check in with each other a little bit? Like, you know, you're always talking about business, and I'm sure you talk about working out and some other things, but do you ever, like, check in with each other?

Like, dude, like, you know what? You need to take a couple days. Let's both take a couple days off. Or, like, you guys check in with each other like that make sure to see how each other's doing kind of thing i think yeah i think uh especially when we uh when we're out of the office so if we're like like here for example we're gonna spend the night we're gonna like hang out and then it's usually during that that time for like drinking a whiskey or something hey like what's going on with life right uh we we have like weekly check-ins where we like a founder's check-in,

but it's really when we're kind of like out, just kind of out of the office where we, but it's nothing like formal, but we do check-in. Yeah, it's easy to forget. Like we said, it's marriage without the sex. And, you know, we're like, hey, we should schedule date night.

No, like seriously, to be able to just check in, I think because there's so much thing there's so many things going on you're moving at 100 miles per hour that it's easy to forget uh where we're at and uh that's one thing that we've been trying to focus on is like how do we check in take a step back and you know you know work out some of the challenges that we've been having uh like you know hey chris you know this has been bothering me and stuff and then we talk it out and uh we're better you know partnership in that sense uh just by that communication i'm just going to knock the gun sometimes to just like battle it out if we

really need to just fight it out fight it out beat the hell out of each other you gotta watch out he's probably pretty quick with that basketball my calves but then he'll just be sitting there meditating you won't know what meditating you won't know what's coming next yeah he'll be uh he'll be floating um did you when you guys kind of started this did you like start to have like a business plan and like did you i know some people like they like to get real technical with it they've maybe uh you know gone to business school or they've read some you know books and things like that. And they, they're like, okay, well, next step is we need a business plan. We need a mission statement. We need like a, a branding book or, you know, some of these things you guys

go that far. Was that something you built later on? Um, so, so I went to a traditional business school. I studied entrepreneurship and that that's great. Cause I learned some theory, but also I realized that the perfect business plan, I had a lot of other ideas and I would use a business plan as a crutch to not start. Because it was, oh, well, my business plan isn't ready yet, so it's not going to succeed. Oh, I need to make sure that my mission statement is within this length. And I would use that as a tool to procrastinate. So with this, again, we were the market. We started by testing the business, see if we even had a business. And

from there we kind of built as we went. And the business plan changes, you know, it's like, if you're moving, you're testing out different things. So you're experimenting. And a lot of times it's not going to work out the way you thought it was going to work out and you got to adjust. So for us, it's like, it's not going to be perfect, but we're going to continue moving the ball forward. And I think now that we're starting to grow the team is that's where the mission starts to come in. Just so everybody's on the same page on what we're trying to accomplish. Just like you said, you know, making the world a better place to lift and getting the team on board with that. Because once the team is on board with that, then we can get our community on board with that.

And so that's where we see the value of it. But I think starting out, we're just like, like hey let's just go let's just move this uh and then we'll learn along the way and make our adjustments yeah i think um a lot of times with uh a lot of times people are maybe looking at like marketing and business plan before they really have like an idea rolled out and it's like well maybe you should maybe get the product out there first see how people like it you know that's what we've done with slingshot we've got the product out there and then people bought it and now just just now uh we're finally starting to do like we're actually this wednesday will be well maybe i guess would be our second commercial i consider our first

commercial so there we go but it's like our first official, you know, commercial, like something that we're specifically shooting, uh, for Instagram and Facebook, social media advertising. We've never done anything like that before. We've taken material that we've had already and kind of turn that into stuff, uh, you know, for, um, ads on, on Facebook and Instagram and stuff like that. Maybe a specific photo or something like that. We've done a little bit of that. That's only been in the last six months. But yeah, this Wednesday is the first time we're shooting like an actual commercial, which is kind of just seems so ridiculous because we've been around for so long. We've been around for seven years, but, uh, you know, it's important to continue to get that message out there to new

and older customers. Uh, it's also important to, uh, let people know, you know, what, what is our mission? Like, what are we trying to do?

And this commercial, um, I think we'll, it won't show you all of that, but it'll show you most of that. Give you some good insight into that. Very exciting. How about for you guys,

marketing wise, uh, what do you have going on? It's, um, you guys, do you guys, what do you have going on? Do you guys mess with Facebook ads and Instagram ads and those kinds of things? Yeah, we've been having Facebook ads. A lot of the traction has gone through Instagram.

So a lot of people discover us through Instagram, either through influencers or through people just posting about their cookies. I think that's one thing that we've been fortunate to have is these fans are like, oh, I love these cookies. I'm on keto or I'm on a low-carb diet, and they're posting it on Instagram. And, you know, it's like free marketing for us. And it's cool to kind of get the whole community on board with that because we don't have a budget for commercials at this point, you know. So, yeah, so that's kind of where we're at with that uh because we don't have a budget for commercials at this point you know and uh um so yeah so that's kind of where we're at with that i think that was it the owner of alibaba said one of the greatest blessings was having no money and i think when when you are short you know when you have a budget it forces you to be creative and get the most out of what you

what you spend yeah i mean this gym when i started, when we first started, we had like one place to squat, one place to bench, one small area to like deadlift in. And, uh, at that time we, we all, you know, we all would lift as a team. And because of that, we were all on the exact same page. We all were on the exact same program. Uh, we all understood how important it was to like not dick around and to be ready for your turn. Like we would go in a circle of like five or six people on one barbell, which could take forever to work out that way if you're not paying attention. But if you're paying attention and I'm watching you go, I'm watching you go, I'm watching Andrew go, then I get to watch each weight that you're using for each set. And I can be like, okay, I'm going to get, I'm going to pick up this 10 pound plate because I know that he's going to, he's going to need it. And boom,

I put it on the side and put the collar on and boom, he goes. And it, it just, um, it, it made us be a little bit more creative with the workout too, rather than, uh, you know, spreading everybody apart and have, there was other equipment in the gym, but if we were spread everybody apart, it would keep everybody apart, you know, and we wanted everyone to kind of stick together, have the same mission, the same plan going. And it really, uh, it really made for some, uh, really great workouts. And now, you know, now we have like more options because the gym is so much larger, but, uh, and that has its benefits, but there was something cool about like not having everything that you wanted, but also having enough of what you needed, you know? So it was kind of like not having everything that you wanted but also having enough

of what you needed you know so it's kind of like in that category you know um you guys have uh like in terms of like like how technical do you guys get or does somebody on your team get with um like who's our target audience you you know, what's the customer acquisition, you know, some of these kinds of, you know, business terms that you hear people throwing around, how, how into the weeds do you guys get with that? So we actually just took a sabbatical a few days, uh, like a week or two ago. Yeah. My time's all blurred.

Explain, explain what a sabbatical is to Andrew. He's having a hard time over there. It was more of a, of a, of was more of a mini retreat to do some strategy. Andrew's not allowed to leave ever. Yeah, this is all I know. Plus that's a pretty big word. So basically out of the office so that we could strategize and starting to formalize that more.

So obviously when you're an entrepreneur, you wear a ton of hats. And we've gotten to the point this year where we're defining more clearly what those hats are and kind of who's responsible for certain things. Do you guys ever get, you guys always see eye to eye? Do you guys get into it here and there or get frustrated with each other? Yeah, we get into it. Yeah, we get into it.

But I think at the end of the day, we understand that, you know, we're both looking out for each other and we're both looking out further for newie and the team and so no matter what like debates that we have you know we understand like oh okay and honestly like the best ideas really do come from that debate if it's not worth debating maybe it's not something worth pursuing yeah one time we were in a meeting i think we were going like we're really heated or at least our team thought we were heated and then and then at the end of it they're like their eyes were wide open like whoa what just happened and then we're just like oh okay cool you know yeah because you guys are like bros in a way where it doesn't really matter to me you know you know you know you're not trying to insult each other you're just saying you know what you feel about the company

and how to move it forward right exactly and i think it's just saying, you know, what you feel about the company and how to move it forward. Right. Exactly. And I think it's also, if you don't say what you feel as early as possible, that's when it builds up and resentment happens. And that was, that's when shit gets bad.

When you guys were starting out, did you start to kind of think about like budget and some of these different things, or did you just kind of just literally just kind of just go? Uh, I think that's one thing that we're trying to work on and improve is just, you know, understanding like, OK, this is what your budget is for us is like we would go by feeling like, can we like what do you think the ROI is going to be on this? You know, on these ads on this in this channel, if we spend this much on Facebook, what are we hoping to get from it? If we spend this much on Facebook, what are we hoping to get from it?

And so as we go along, like we're actually formalizing our budgets right now just because things are moving so quickly. We need to actually give people, you know, their boundaries. Like, okay, you can spend this amount on like free product. Like this is how much product we can give out. Yeah. And some of it, I think it's like martial arts where you level up in belts, right? So maybe at the white belt level, you don't necessarily need to worry about that. But once you get to blue or whatever, then it's like, okay, now the need is here. And now let's build that, those structures, that, those systems.

Right. And I think, you know, maybe, uh, like you're saying you, um, would use those business plans as a crutch. And I'm sure a lot of people probably fall into that category where they're, they're, they're kind of overthinking it. And they're thinking like, I'm going to need this money to come in in order to do this. And it's like, well, if you can figure out a way just to maybe get the thing out there in the world, then maybe, you know, maybe that would be a good idea. Then you can kind of start to figure stuff out from there. If you have a shitty product, I mean, people are

going to let you know. Yeah. And the thing is, I think a big mistake that happens is people that spend, let's say, three months on a business plan to then try a product and find out that it's shitty, as opposed to somebody that within three months, you can try four to five different things. It's like, how do you throw more punches, see what's going to work and then focus your time on building the plan. And now that, now that you guys are starting to get more organized and get things together, is that a little bit weird for you? Is that like a little bit of a tough adjustment? I guess it's like lifting if you haven't really lifted that much. It's just going at it a little bit at a time and picking up, working that muscle.

And then it gets better and better each time. picking up uh working that muscle and then it gets better and better each time like um i'm i'm typically like more not disorganized but not organized at the same time and uh putting structures is kind of a weird thing for me is like i'm usually just like oh we're going this direction or this direction and um but but this process of doing it over and over again, it gets better and better each time. And we, like we, when we went on this, you say sabbatical, you make it sound like it's 30 days. It was like literally two days, two days of, uh, getting away.

And, uh, you know, we, uh, we went deep into strategic planning and it's something that we hadn't done before and it was uncomfortable, but just like lifting, it's uncomfortable at first, but you do it more and more and it gets, uh, you know, to be second nature. And that's what we're working towards. You guys maybe, uh, avoid that in the past. Cause you were either a, like just didn't have the knowledge or B, uh, we're kind of nervous about maybe that would like hamper creativity and maybe that's just hamper the way you normally operate.

If there was too much organization going on. Definitely. and i think in the beginning it would have uh it really would have i think it goes it goes in stages um and we're we're at a point now because we have a team and they need to be accountable for what they're doing that that has to be built but i think there's actually room within structure it sounds weird but to create room for creativity as long as you you kind of put in this area and you prioritize it you're able to to have that free-flowing time uh to keep the business going forward i saw that documentary that dr dre was in and you know he he they basically just said like they're like he he has a watch but like we don't know why because he's never on time anything and like but a watch, but like, we don't know why, because he's never

on time to anything. And like, but what he was saying is like, I don't feel like I can really confine anything to time because it like, it just throws me off. And then they talked about like some of his other habits of like, he'll, he wears the same, not the same clothes, but he wears the same, uh, type of clothes every single day. I'm sure he's got hundreds of these things, but where's the same shoes but he wears the same uh type of clothes every single day i'm sure he's got hundreds of these things but wears the same shoes every day i think steve jobs did similar things where they just didn't have to have you know as much decision making each and every day because that can kind of you weigh on you it can waste time and then uh you know dr dre they just said

like he just takes a super super long time with uh producing stuff he just but he just allows it to happen he just allows it to whatever amount of time. He just, but he just allows it to happen. He just allows it to whatever amount of time it's going to take. He just allows it to happen because he knows in the end, the way that he works, it's still going to be a better product, you know? And I've always kind of felt the same way. I was kind of, we started bringing people in here and we started to try to organize stuff. I was like, oh man, it made me nervous.

Made me sweat bullets. I was like, I don't know if it's going to, if this is going to work, but, um, you know, it works well enough because we, we all learn, learn each other. We learn, uh, how we operate. And then we kind of go from there. Would you say that a big part of it is if you have the right team in the right places, it actually allows more freedom for you to be creative because you know, they've, they've got their shit taken care of. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, my wife and I, we because you know they've they've got their shit taken care of yeah yeah you know my wife and i we you know we her and i used to do every job that there there is you know and uh we don't have to do that anymore and so we're able to spend more time on on other things which is which is huge i mean just about every day i try to spend about an hour or two um just by myself

just it could be i could be doing just about anything. Um, sometimes every once in a while I just completely waste time. But I think that, I think even the time wasted, I think is valuable. Like, I think I just, I sometimes just need to do that because what human being doesn't waste time here and there. And so, um, I think some, you know, and sometimes, you know, you might have to just, uh, you might have to like look up or follow stuff that you're just really interested in, which might be kind of quote unquote a waste of time, but still might be of value to the company, which is just like maybe me watching other people lift or something like that.

Just, you know, I see someone deadlifted 900 pounds. I might get fired up and I might watch a couple of videos from that person. Or there's some new video on the carnivore diet. Now, that's not what I should be doing, but it's maybe what I want to be doing. And so I might gravitate towards that. But I try to leave some time every day to get my learn on and to continue to try to educate myself. Because I think ultimately the ability to communicate and be able to get the message out in as many different ways as possible is going to be the key yep what else you guys got going on what's uh what's coming up next you guys got any shows you got to go to or

uh you got a new release that you're excited about or i know you guys released the the ginger cookies and those have been those those have been successful. And anything else popping out that you can talk about without killing anybody? Oh, I mean, we've gotten a lot of requests for a variety pack. So people have just been, you know, Hey, I want to try your cookies. I want to try all the flavors. So we're working on a variety pack right now. And then we're trying to release a product every single, every three months.

So we just released four packs too. So it's an easier way for people to try the cookies because I know for people that haven't tried them, a box that we offer, the price might be a little high. So offering an easier entry point has helped a lot. Oh, that's cool. Are your cookies available on Amazon? Yeah, you can get them on Amazon and at eatnui.com. So.

And was that a hard transition to, to, to do that? Like, was that a difficult thing? Because, you know, you're giving up some margins and it's kind of, it's hard to make sense of it sometimes. Yeah. You know, but Amazon is a definitely necessary evil of like what's going on today. evil of like what's going on today. Uh, you know, I, I personally think that like, if you're not part of it, it makes me kind of almost wonder like if you're a legit company or not, you know, like, cause I'll look up stuff and I'll be like, how are they not on Amazon?

I don't like, and then I might not even order it. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely a necessary evil. Uh, they do take some of your margins, but we're like, Hey, uh, part of our thing is how do you make it easy for people to, to one, uh, cut sugar, but also to find us. Right. So, um, that's one way that, that they find us. Um, most people will look on Amazon before they even Google the product. So we're like, Hey, you know what? Yeah. That's a new thing. People use Amazon as a search engine

now, which is pretty wild. Yeah. So, um, again,, again, we did it last year, a few months ago, and our launch went well. I mean, I think what's helped is that we like to be very transparent with our community, tell them our goals, be very vulnerable as well. And we also launched the new flavor in conjunction with our Amazon launch, and we were excited about the opening day. What do you guys think was the hardest part in just getting this business off the ground in the first place hardest part um i think just uh finding how finding out how we're going to sell it um we're trying to decide hey

are we going to go into retail or are we going to go e-commerce first? And because we hear a lot of people like, oh, you know, I can't wait till I get on the shelves of Whole Foods. And that's the goal. But we are fortunate enough to talk to a few people who, you know, like, well, you know, if you go into Whole Foods and they don't like, like, they're not selling enough, they're going to buy your product. You're going to have to buy your product back. It's like 10 grand. they're not selling enough. They're going to buy your product. You're going to have to buy your product back.

It's like 10 grand. And also, I think we heard on the podcast with Tom Bilyeu from Quest, he's like, you know what? Build your fan base online and then bring them to retail. And so that was one of the big decisions that we had to make moving forward. But just hearing people that have done it before

made it a lot easier for us to make that decision. I think a lot of it, at least for me make that decision. I think a lot of it, at least for me, was psychological. I think a lot of entrepreneurship is psychological. So it was every day, how do we do something that's outside of our comfort zone where we might feel a face rejection and just doing that consistently, um, I think is, uh, is what helped, but that was the biggest barrier, like doing something that where we might fail. What do you think is, uh, maybe the most valuable lesson that you learned in being an entrepreneur that you could share with someone else that's listening right now that, you know, wants

to, you know, someday own their own business? I'd say go for the home run. Now, don't leave everything to just for the go for the home run. But if like, for example, Shark Tank, if we had had we would have never tried out for that we wouldn't have you know we wouldn't have gotten the i guess the success that we have now so it's no matter what you do plan for for today but always go for the long shot yeah i think one of the big things like just going off what victor said is this just think bigger than what you think you're capable of you'll eventually stretch yourself to be able to accomplish at least

something close to that, if not that, that particular thing. So like we could have said, well, there's, you know, there's 40,000 applicants on Shark Tank. There's no way we could get on there, but we were like, no, let's, let's do it. And we didn't just go in there like, oh, I hope we get on there. Let's, let's really prepare. Like we're, we're going to be on there. And that's made the huge difference is that expectation and setting a higher bar for

ourselves. And even some of the contacts that we've built, if it wasn't for Chris reaching out to you, or maybe some people would have said, hey, well, I'd never get the time of day or this or that. We wouldn't have had a chance to sit down and actually learn from you. And it's happened that way with other contacts as well. i think that's a really valuable lesson i learned was like i i don't really i don't i don't like to like bother people i don't i don't like to ask for shit yeah it uh it just doesn't feel right i don't i don't like um i don't always want to like throw a slingshot on people and, but it is, it, that's what I chose to do, you know?

And so, um, I mean, if I'm not going to do it, who, who is right. So, uh, I got to take some risks and sometimes, uh, maybe go outside of what my normal personality might be. And I got to shove a slingshot on Joe Rogan. I got to shove a slingshot on this athlete and that person. And maybe not everybody's going to always like it, you know, and maybe they're going to, you know, be mad that I even was that forward and just stuffed them into it, you know, but it is, it is a necessary thing.

It is part of being in the space. And, you know, if you don't ask, um, you know, somebody that's leveled up, if you don't ask them some questions and how you ever going to really learn it. Yeah, absolutely. I think, uh, we wouldn't have gotten to where we are now if we went ahead and ask, uh, people that have been in it, you know, like asking them for advice and being humble in that sense and, and saying, Hey, I don't know all this stuff. And like, what, what have you done? You know, what is your experience? What do you suggest that we do in, in, uh, in growing this business? And I think when I first met you guys,

was that your first time meeting Ron as well? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the way that that worked out, I mean, had you not reached out, not now you met, uh, you know, you met myself that kind of bootstrapped this uh invention right well then now on top of that you meet this guy that created a multi-billion dollar company quest nutrition i don't think anybody in the history of like the quote-unquote nutrition food space has done it any better than them i mean it's just unreal so you got a chance to rub elbows with both of us in that one day. Yeah. It was perfect.

That was unreal, man. We're just at home. We're like, wow, I can't believe what just happened today. Yeah. Well, that was cool too. Cause when I, when I, but, but see, like, it's not, these things are not by chance though, either, because when I mentioned to you guys, I was like, oh, these guys are going to probably, you know, pop up around there.

And he got excited. He was like, oh, I was like, I love those cookies. You know, he was all pumped. And it's like, well, if you guys didn't lay down the hard work already or if you're still stuck in that business plan yeah you know hey we got this idea we were thinking maybe we'd make these cookies but we're not it's like nobody wants to hear that shit you know yeah i think you know a lot of people are afraid of at least reaching out or asking right i think i reached I reached out to you when you're on Instagram live and then I asked you a question about like-

Did I tell you to go fuck yourself? No, but I had asked you, you know, what do you tell yourself in the morning, you know, to get yourself pumped up and refocus and what's your self-talk? And you sent me that message and that was an awesome opportunity. What the hell did I say? You told me to keep it a secret.

But I think a lot of it is a lot of people are like, oh, there's this fear of rejection. And it's a matter of like, you know what? What do I lose by reaching out and what do I lose by um what i what i lose by reaching out and what i lose by not reaching out and so i think a lot of people forget that

it's like what am i losing by not doing this certain thing and that's a good way of looking at it yeah yeah what what are you missing out on if you don't you know so what you ask for something and someone's like hey i, I know. Yep. Yeah. You know, like maybe like some people with business are very private, you know, they, they, they don't want you to know anything about their business. You know, they want to try to keep it all under wraps. But I think in general, the, the day and age that we're in now, I don't think there's really a lot of secrets that can be kept anyway.

Yeah. Somebody wants to find out your co-packer or who made your whatever, who designed this or that. I mean, they can dig and they can probably come up with some answers if they, you know. And it's like, that's not the game though that we're playing.

The game is about execution. The game's not about where you get your shit made. Because, yeah, anybody can do that. That's the world that we're in now. You can Google search stuff and you can start to find stuff and you can probably, a slingshot or make a cookie or brownie or whatever it is that fits the keto diet. But can you execute? Can you get the right packaging?

Which takes an entire team of itself. And good luck trying to figure out that whole thing because you might have have to get 20 000 of these things made or 10 000 you know and now like your little idea that you had that was this like small thing and now it's like okay well that'll be a thousand bucks it'll be five thousand but i'm like oh oh shit okay now this uh idea that i just had you know is now turning into a twenty five thousand000, uh, experiment. Yeah. It gets out of control quickly. Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, you were making that analogy about the, uh, the home run and, um, something I want to share with you guys. I think I might've shared it yesterday, but you know, the baseball analogy of, of a home run, you know, being, being able to,

you know, knock the ball over the fence and depending on how many people are on base, you get X amount of runs for it. You know, you might get one run if no one's on base and, or you can get as many as four, but in business and in life, when you go up to bat, if you knock it out of the park, there's not a limit on the amount of runs that you can get. So in one at bat, you know, at one at bat in business, you can get a thousand runs. You can cash in really big. It could be something that, that changes your life forever.

And that's what happened with you guys. You're like, okay, we're going to embrace this diet and we still want to eat stuff that's sweet, man. This is no fun. Like this, this diet sucks. We want, we want to enjoy something that, uh, still, uh, hits our cravings, you know?

And you did that. So congratulations on that. I think it's awesome. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, man. Thanks so much for just all the wisdom. Anything else over there, Andrew? Yeah. These guys ate nothing but newie cookies for seven days straight. What the heck was that? You guys were dying. I remember that. What was that like? So, you know, we wanted to put our money where our mouth is and to prove that it was ketogenic. And in no way is this a claim that it is, that this will put you in a ketosis state. We're not making claims. We decided to go completely off the rails, eat, you know, burgers with the bun, French fries french fries pasta and get off keto and then uh we're like all right let's try to get back into ketosis by eating nothing but cookies for seven days straight

so we ate we ate uh 16 cookies a day a day 1800 calories we didn't want to do a you know a huge calorie deficit to show that like oh is this calorie deficit um we got into deep ketosis like um normally ketosis like 0.5 millimolars um we got to three or in four so it's kind of like you've been fasting for like three days and that's what it showed us and um it was definitely it's not as fun as you think it would would be. I won't do it again. Because at some point, you know, you're always having like the sweetness in your mouth all the time. And we were craving like steak and, you know. My daughter was having scrambled eggs and I was just like salivating looking at her.

Yeah. So we're just craving savory stuff. But, you know, it was a great thing to see. I think we lost a combined of what, eight pounds in a week, in about a week. We had different strategies, too, because how are you going to eat 16 cookies? So, like, mine was like, I'm going to front load them and eat as many as I can and then just space out the rest. And Chris was like, no, I'll split mine up into what? It was like four meals of four.

Yeah, it was like four cookies every hour or every couple hours. And then I was like, I'm going to try your way. And then I tried your way. We ended up switching. But it was crazy. We documented everything. It was the YouTube video on it somewhere. And again, it was just like, man, how do we take this to the next level and just show what our product can do?

That's crazy. And did you have like anything with the cookies or just water? Water or coffee. Yeah. Water and coffee. Yeah. you have like anything with the cookies or just water? Water or coffee? Yeah. Water and coffee. Yep. Coffee would be pretty good. I remember watching that and I remember like what I really liked about it is you guys were

like very transparent, like somebody that's just trying to just make a sale. It'd be like, I feel great. This is awesome. You guys were like, man, I'm not feeling so great, but I am in ketosis. I think you got the keto flu right really bad so bad yeah just because i didn't compensate for the loss of electrolytes so i think by day four i threw in some like none tablet tablets or like salt in my water right i felt so much better but i was i was dying like it's not amazing with keto diet with a little bit of salt or potassium or some

of that stuff can really it's a good big change. Yeah. It can really change the way that you feel. Anything else? That's it. All good to go. All right. Thank you guys so much for coming on.

You either, one of you guys have any more questions you guys were asking me a couple. So, uh, I mean, actually, um, yeah.

So here we go. This has happened before on this show where it goes for another hour. So, so a question that, um, I used to ask in my, my past life was what is your, uh, male standard? So when you have moments, when you feel like you don't want to get up in the morning or, you know, you need to keep pushing where you're feeling anxious, what does your internal dialogue, what do you say to yourself to keep going? Is it like a mantra or something you believe? It's pretty rare that I get hit by that. And I think that if you, a lot of people are into like programming, right, in their training.

And I've never really programmed my training. And I've never really, I've never really programmed my, my, my training. I've followed other people's programs before, but it was less effective than me just doing what I want. And part of the reason for that was that I've been lifting for a long time. And so what I'll account for is I'll count for the workout, but I'll also account for what is it going to take? Like, what is this workout going to cost me? And I think in my everyday life, I try to think about like, what is this going to cost me?

You know, if I, if I hang around and, uh, you know, I, I, you know, I don't know, go out, let's say I go out to drink. Okay. Like makes total sense to go out and have a couple of drinks with some friends. A lot of people do that. A lot of people really enjoy that. Um, but what's it going to cost you? It could cost you your life if you drink too much and you drive, right? I mean, that's, that's a pretty damn big price to pay. It could cost you a night in jail. If you got a, you know, a DUI or something, it could, it could just cost you, um, the fact that you got a little

too drunk and you woke up a lot later than you used to. There's a lot of things, right? And I try to evaluate, you know, what, what is this going to cost me? When you think about, you know, buying like electronic devices, a phone or a television, or just, you know, there's a price. It costs a certain amount of money, but then the real cost is watching it. You know, you know, there's a price, it costs a certain amount of money, but then the real cost is watching it. You know, you're, you're spending a lot of money, you know, time is money, right? Time is money. It doesn't matter who you are. Anybody that's got a job is getting paid, uh, for, you know, getting paid hourly, whether they want to like, think about it that way or not. Like I get paid hourly. We all get, even if you're on a salary,

you can still get paid hourly in some way and you can still break it down into math that way. And I think that I'm always trying to think about like, what's this going to cost me? So rarely do I think that way. Rarely am I like, man, the last thing I want to do is get out of bed. It's been, I would even kind of say that it's,

it's probably been a pretty long time. I don't think I'm ever thinking of like, um, like I don't want to get out of bed. I might be thinking of how the fuck am I going to get out of bed? Because a lot of times I'm really sore from a workout or I'm a little beat up and I'm like, man, like, okay, what parts don't hurt? What can I swing off the side of the bed first to get momentum to get going? But, um, I'm usually pretty positive. I try not to allow, I try not to allow for negative self-talk to come in. And

even if I start talking negative, I try to correct that the best that I can. Um, but in those times when things like that do happen, um, like let's say I wake up and I'm just tired. I will just evaluate it. I'll just take a moment and I'll say, does this really make sense right now? Should I actually really be up at four o'clock in the morning? Um, is this something that I need to do for me? Or is this like, you know, am I being influenced by the outside world? And I want to show everybody that I'm a hard worker. So I'm going to stay up even though I'm tired. If I'm legitimately tired and I didn't get to bed till 10 30 last night, I'm probably going back to bed. And I'm probably just gonna say, you know what? You're an idiot. You need to get to bed earlier. That was, that was not a good, you know, what you did the night before cost you, but you got to get your sleep

because we can't set forth the action that we want to go with, you know, the journey that we want to go upon unless we have our sleep. And I actually think that everything is a building block off of the food. I think the food is the huge part. The food helps us sleep, food, sleep. You don't ever have to worry about ambition ever again. You got a fire lit under your ass 24 seven. I wake up every day and I might move kind of slowly, but I feel like I'm getting launched out of a cannon. I feel I'm like fired up. I'm like excited. I'm like, what, you know, what can I do today to, you know, make things, make this company better, make, uh, my family better, make myself better.

And I, I kind of look at each day as an opportunity, uh, to do those things. So it's pretty, it's pretty, pretty rare that I wake up and I'm, you know, kind of groggy or, or thinking about, you know, just, just snoozing it out, but I will rationalize. I think, I think that's an important thing. That's what makes us human. And, you know, you know a uh a giraffe or something like that or a gazelle like doesn't have an option of of being like i'm just gonna like chill over here for a little while right they don't have those options um you know a lion has to has to kill a certain amount of food in order to live right and as human beings we have the ability

to have a little bit more rational thought towards stuff. And it's okay to be distracted. It's okay to fuck around and play a video game for a little bit. It's okay to, it's okay to not have everything like, should everything be geared towards your goals? Like probably not. Like, cause you may not have like a specific goal. Like I probably pretty rare, but maybe people should, but probably be pretty rare if you'd have a goal, like with your wife, a goal with your daughter, a goal with your son, like, cause it's just, you don't think about that. The goal is obvious.

I'm going to raise them. I'm going to protect them the best that I can. I'm going to provide for them in every single way that I can. And, uh, you know, each day is going to be a little different, but maybe you don't have like a set goal for that. So therefore, like not everything you do all the time is going to always align with, uh, these goals. Maybe, you know, maybe you help your neighbor out with something and has absolutely nothing

to do with you making more money for your company has nothing to do with, um, your, you improving your family or your own life. It's just, you just, the guy next door needs help. Or maybe the fricking FedEx guy starts chatting with you about something. You just talk to him just cause you're kind, you know, like not everything has to always align with everything. And so, um, you know, for those reasons, I try to have rational, like my self-talk, I try, I try my best to, to try to rationalize stuff the best I can and move on from those things and not get in my head about, is this the right thing to do or wrong thing to do? Um, when I have decisions to make, I try to make them, you know, like even just

what shirt I'm going to wear, what pants I'm going to wear, what shorts, what socks, I try to just, you know what, it's, it's fricking, uh, you know, four o'clock in the morning, or a lot of times I'll pick stuff out before I wake up. Um, and when I pick it out the night before, you know what, it's, it's fricking, uh, you know, four o'clock in the morning or a lot of times I'll pick stuff out before I wake up. Um, and when I pick it out the night before, I'm like, I don't care. I'm just gonna put this boom, boom. Okay, good. I got all the stuff I need to wear for tomorrow. And then I'm going to bed.

Things like that. Cool. Well, speaking of going to bed out, what's like, do you have a nightly ritual and a morning ritual? Um, I, I do try to get to bed pretty early. You know, I try to share the message with people that I don't set my alarm to wake up. I set my alarm to go to bed. Um, because I think sometimes when people are sharing this message of, I wake up at 4 AM, first of all, I've said this a million times. I don't wake up at 4 AM every day. Um, it's,

it is on most days, but I don't wake up at 4 a.m. every day. I'm not a maniac about it. It's just depends on when I got to sleep. And, uh, I kind of just have at least a minimum requirement of about six hours of sleep. Um, I do when my alarm goes off to go to bed, which is usually like around, it just, it kind of depends on the day I might adjust it here and there, but it's usually sometime between seven and eight. I'm not actually like sleeping at seven o'clock at night. I'm not usually actually sleeping by eight o'clock even, but, uh, a lot of time it's just like, okay, this is the time to like shut things down.

Okay. Uh, you know, let me see, you know, what's going on with my kids. You know, they got their homework done. Are they prepared for the next day? Might check the fridge, make sure there's some stuff that I, cause I cook for my kids every morning. I might make sure there's, you know, stuff that I can cook up for them in the morning. Um, and I might lay out some clothes cause I like to, I'd rather than trying to shuffle through, uh, everything at four o'clock in the morning and wake my wife up. I'd rather just have that

all prepared. And those little things, those are things that have helped me get ahead. You know, I think a lot of times people are thinking about getting ahead of other people, but maybe you should just think about getting ahead of yourself, which is kind of a weird way to look at it. But could you be, you know, could you be two years ahead of where you are now? If, uh, if you spent your time better, I think we can all admit, yeah, like if I did a little bit better every day, I could be way more efficient. Um, and so maybe, maybe your company could be, you know, maybe your company could be two years or a year ahead of where it is now. If you guys were right, if you're going to, you don't want to be a maniac about

these things, but, uh, the more prepared you are, the, you know, the more set you are for things, the better off you are. Uh, I also like to take a shower. Um, now I've, most of my life, I've been someone that showers in the morning, but because of like when I lift and stuff, I usually have to take two showers just because of the way it works out. Cause I don't like to go into bed, uh, without a shower. And then sometimes in the morning, I like to take a shower, just kind of wake me up. So sometimes I end up taking two showers, but I like taking a shower at night. It also saves me time. So depending on, you know, depending on when I get up and how I feel, I, I might, you know,

I might pop into the shower. I might, you know, I might, uh, I might just say, screw it. I'm just going to start my day. And some things that I like to do, I like to, um, like just kind of be by myself and there's, there's no one's awake. So I'll just hang out at my kitchen table and I'll just, uh, I'll grab my notebook and my, my pen and I'll just sit there and I'll throw some headphones on and I'll listen to either music or listen to a audio book or listen to a podcast or some YouTube video. And I'll just write stuff out. Probably, I mean, my favorite person to listen to is Jim Rohn.

I'm sure you guys know who Jim Rohn is. I mean, just the amount of information that came from that guy is just absolutely overwhelming. It's ridiculous. And so I'll listen to stuff like that, but I actually take notes on it. I try to pay attention to it. Um, other things I might do, like I said, I might go through like a checklist of things, uh, with the business. Um, I might look at my calendar and, you know, like just the other day I was like, I don't know, I just saw my daughter walking by and I'm like, Jesus, holy shit, man, she's getting tall. And I'm like, I haven't really hung out with her, Jesus, holy shit, man, she's getting tall.

And I'm like, I haven't really hung out with her, just her and I in like a little bit, you know? So we do stuff as a family a lot. I ended up doing stuff with my son because he's getting older and he's coming here to the gym. And obviously like I have date night and stuff with my wife. And I'm like, I haven't spent any direct time with Quinn.

So I told her the other day, I was like, we're going to go on a date. And she's like, okay. She's like kind of annoyed by it. Right. She's like, okay, dad. And then, uh, this morning she texted me, I was at, I was at Starbucks and she's like, she goes, how about on Wednesday, we go to the mall and, uh, and she's like, you can buy me a bunch of presents and then we can go out to eat. And I was like, all right, sounds like a date. I never been so pumped for something in my life. I'm pretty, pretty excited about it. But I mean, those are the kinds of things that I try to check in with and try to make

sure, you know, each stone calls Steve Austin. Those are the kind of things that I, uh, I try to go through like, you know, morning and night. I also like to get to Starbucks. Uh, I don't go to Starbucks all the time, but I like to get there in the morning before there's anybody else in there. Like today I was customer number one.

I just, just little things like that. They, they get me excited. They get me fired up. That's awesome. First person through the door. That's awesome, man. Thanks for sharing that. That's cool.

All right. Strength is never a weak. This week, this is never a strength. Where can people find you guys? You can find us at eatnewy.com or on social media at eatnewy.

And individual, you got individual Instagrams? Yeah. At Keto Christopher. It's K-E-T-O and it's Christopher with a K and two F's.

So K-R-I-S-T-O-F-F-E-R. And I am vm Macias 12 on Instagram. Catch you guys later.