Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 580: Mike Matthews- Bigger Leaner Stronger Bestselling Author & Fitness Entrepreneur

Episode Date: August 24, 2017

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin interview best selling author, fellow podcaster and business savvy fitness entrepreneur, Mike Matthews. Mike is a prolific writer, having written a dozen books including Bigger Leaner Stronger, Thinner Leaner Stronger, The Shredded Chef and more. Mike shares a similar philosophy on fitness and nutrition and reveals all in this podcast about his philosophies and the inner workings of his business. You can find Mike at www.muscleforlife.com, www.legionathletics.com and you can also check out his podcast Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews. By the way, there is another full recording with Mike on his podcast with entirely new content. Finally, this podcast was filmed and the video from this podcast will be on Mind Pump TV (YouTube) Guys talk their experiences with marijuana (3:10) Adam getting into medical marijuana business Sal talks about his family member who used cannabinoids for his cancer diagnosis Sal used to cure severe gut issues (CBD) Justin talks about using CBD to recall memories (early football years) Guys talk about big businesses getting into the industry (17:00) Do you think everyone should smoke weed? (21:55) Anything can be overused/become addicted A Band-Aid Use to run away from things Brain development Guys talk supplement industry (29:00) Expensive to launch Optimize for growth What advice would you give for someone wanting to buy supplements? (33:30) Do own research about the company/brand Serving size to protein ratio How widespread is the shenanigans in the supplement manufacturer side? (43:19) Mike talks about Legion (48:40) Supplement industry changing? (51:10) Ingredients Organic Non-GMO Getting organic products from China Did Mike ever think about not getting into this industry? (59:40) Make the best stuff Confident in his execution Mike gives examples of successes and failures recently? (1:03:45) Unflavored whey protein App Guys talk business and revenue of success (1:09:25) Have good systems in place Find great people Culture Self-image vs. Body image (1:21:10) Changing actions Being aware Would you like to be coached by Sal, Adam & Justin? You can get 30 days of virtual coaching from them for FREE at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get our newest program, MAPS Prime Pro, which shows you how to self assess and correct muscle recruitment patterns that cause pain and impede performance and gains. Get it at www.mindpumpmedia.com! Get MAPS Prime, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint, the Sexy Athlete Mod AND KB4A (The MAPS Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Make EVERY workout better with MAPS Prime, the only pre-workout you need… it is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you via video instruction on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Get your Kimera Koffee at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Get Organifi, certified organic greens, protein, probiotics, etc at www.organifi.com Use the code “mindpump” for 20% off. Go to foursigmatic.com/mindpump and use the discount code “mindpump” for 15% off of your first order of health & energy boosting mushroom products. Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Also includes 20% if you purchase! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts! Have questions for Mind Pump? Each Monday on Instagram (@mindpumpradio) look for the QUAH post and input your question there. (Sal, Adam & Justin will answer as many questions as they can)

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND author of some top selling fitness books like bigger leaner stronger and thinner leaner stronger. And in the fitness world and the fitness sphere, there's few people that we really respect. Mike Matthews is one of them. He puts out good information. He's got a great following. So I reached out to him a while ago to maybe do some kind of a collaboration and you never know what you're going to get when you meet someone in person.

You know, you either going to like them or you're gonna think they're idiots or douche bags or whatever. Mike is a great guy. Like as soon as we sat down with him, I mean super transparent, super open. His motives are in the right place. We like him a lot. And so we recorded some episodes with him.

And in this episode. In entrepreneurs, I'm gonna perk up on this Incredible incredible mine for all you business my so if you're yeah entrepreneurs for sure this episode I think we had no idea what direction we were gonna go with him In fact, I think I think no none of us had the desire to just go into basic macro and because we're not basic bitches. Well, I mean, part of why we even decided to do that with him is obviously we look into someone like this before they come on and we saw already a lot of his, you know, his philosophies

with nutrition and training are very similar to ours. And so definitely we know the guy gets it and I think talking about that same old stuff would be kind of boring. So getting into peer into this guy's business mind. He's a very, very successful businessman. And very smart, very transparent. You can find Mike Matthews on his two websites. So muscleforlife.com is where he writes all his blogs

and fitness information. And then legionetheletics.com is where he writes all his blogs and fitness information and then Legionethletics.com Is where he sells his supplements and there's no affiliation. We have no affiliation with any of his products, but after meeting him I could say his products are probably legit probably good. So any as a podcast you got to check out his podcast He's again. He's a wealth of information from the sky. The podcast is muscle for life with Mike Matthews. By the way, 30 days of coaching, one of the most popular things that we've done, we get so much feedback on it, it's a way for you to get 30 days or 30 bits of information

that we think are the most important when it comes to fitness, health and wellness. And it's free. We wanted to give something free to everybody. All you do is you go to MindPumpMedia.com, register, and you'll get topics covered in detail, like proteins, fats, carbohydrates, calories, resistance training, cardio, mobility,

meditations, supplements. I mean, we run the whole gamut, and it's there, and it's free. So all you gotta do is go to MindPumpMedia.com and just register. So all you gotta do is go to mindpumpmedia.com and just register. So without any further ado, here we are talking to Mike Matthews. So I don't think I shared this with you.

So I was an athlete, grew up super religious. So I didn't do any drugs, I didn't have sex. I signed a purity card as a kid growing up. And when I was... This goes out to all the parents who think that's gonna make, if you force those things on your kids gonna make them turn out So I I started or I helped start two of the first medical marijuana clubs here in San Jose and The the way that happened was it was a client of mine

Who made an offer to me that I could not refuse Hey, and I had no and he wasn't even Italian who made an offer to me that I could not refuse. And I had no, and he wasn't even an Italian. I didn't know anything about cannabis. I didn't know anything about it at all really. I had a bad experience with it in my early 20s, the first time I ever tried it. One of my favorite stories.

So this is not for me and never will do this again. And I told him, I said, listen, dude, I have no, I don't know anything about this stuff. Why would you want me to do this? Well, I've seen the way you lead and you manage and I want to have six or seven of these and I would like you to oversee them Mm-hmm, and he goes, uh, you know, I know that you're smart enough guy You'll you'll figure it out you'll learn and and he goes I don't need you to be a weed connoisseur I need you to you know manage and lead people so

He may like I said maybe an offer I couldn't refuse. And I did that for two years. And during that process, I started for the first time ever reading about marijuana because I didn't care. So this is actually how Sal and I got it kind of connected. Was I had already gone through that process and then I find weed. I find it kind of was because it was the first. Oh, I think when we started when I started talking about cannabinoids, that's when you first fell in love. I did, because I was like, I had been,

I had been doing my own kind of research and reading and learning and trying, like I didn't know anything, so I'm like bottom. I'm trying to figure stuff out. And then I made this guy who had already been intrigued in reading that direction. And I was like, oh my god, a fitness guy that's really smart and healthy, but it knows a lot about weed. So we hit it off.

I had a different connect family member, close family member diagnosed with terminal cancer. So I just researched everything I possibly could on everything that could help that was not traditional treatment because the type of cancer that she had, there was no known. I mean, chemo radiation, nothing like that. You ask a doctor, they put her on the most aggressive chemo of all time and I said, what are the statistics show and he goes, it's not gonna do anything for.

Why do you? Exactly. Why do you go through it? Exactly, so I went through and I just researched everything I possibly could and the one thing that, believe it or not, had the most research supporting it was cannabis in terms of its effectiveness on actually

Proving quality of life not just that actually killing cancer. There was a study done in Spain by Dr. Guzman, I believe and and he studied on rats. And they gave the rats a untreatable multi-form glioma, which is a brain cancer, and high doses of THC actually cured it. I believe in a couple of the rats, and the other ones that prolonged their life tremendously, they still died, but it was just like, whoa,

what is going on here? Yeah, there's something there. And subsequent research on cannabinoids has demonstrated anti-cancer effects. Almost like what it does is it tells the cancer cell to die to program cell death, which is the opposite of what happens with cancer cells. That's where the apoptosis goes wacky in. There's zombie cells, they just don't die. And for whatever reason, cannabinoids tend to do that. And some cancers are very, very susceptible to cannabinoid treatment, not all cancers, but

some of them are. So this family member, mine, was given basically three months, three months of live. She had stage four, Lynitis Plastica, which is a form of gastric cancer, which is, if not the worst, doesn't say one of the they say that in stomach or it's a stomach cancer, but it's it's a the type of it's Linitis Plastica and they call it that. It means something literally plastic because it spreads out and it just doesn't stop. And I think the only cancer with the worst prognosis would be like a stage 4 pancreatic cancer. So she was three months and she ended up making it over a year and a half. Wow. And the chemo that she did end up going on, she did all these cannabinoid treatments

while she was on chemo. And by the way, this was a very traditional conservative Italian woman, like never had done anything. And the chemo that she was on, she was on three types of chemo, plus she was on a daily continual chemo pump. She walked around with a natural pump on her body. And the doctors like, yeah, you're going to feel terrible, you're going to know. And the first couple of treatments, she went through, she's like, she's sitting there talking to everybody and doctors are like, wow, how do you feel so good?

And she's like, I have weed, she's so happy telling everybody. But yeah, so that's what got me into all the research and stuff behind it. So that's pretty much it. And then how did it go from there to your own personal, like your decision to? So I had, I had severe irritable bowel syndrome, almost to the point where I thought I might have something

like Crohn's, which one of my family members has. I mean, it was really bad. I lost 15 pounds. Couldn't figure out what the hell's going on. And I had done food intolerance testing, which was helping probiotic treatment, which was helping us take a salium husk because my tendency was towards diarrhea

and not towards constipation. And I went on a trip to Belize with some friends and we're in Belize and my buddy buys a bag of weed from one of the cab drivers and it's like dirt weed, it's like shit. Like, you know, in California, you see what weed looks like in other places. You can see that they're total crap, right? So you have to smoke the hell out of it

to really even feel anything. So on vacation, that's what we did. And I had no symptoms of these gastroissures, but I didn't connect it necessarily at that point. I thought it's because I was on vacation and relaxed. Yeah. When I get back, sometimes... Maybe difference in food quality or... All that.

Something and this is what it must be. But while I was there, I was eating gluten. I was eating like, I told myself, like, I don't even care. I'm gonna do whatever I want. So I get back here, symptoms come back. I start to think, maybe it's the cannabis. Got my hands on some cannabis. And, you know and here in California,

actually, especially in the legal states, cannabis is bred to be very high in THC, because that's what people want, they wanna feel high. So I took that. That's the difference between weed now and back in the six seasons. That's a little higher Jason. Definitely.

This is why I had such a bad experience as a kid, because nobody, I didn't understand that. Nobody explained to me that I could smoke too much because everyone always told me Oh, there's no like there's no real adverse effects. You can't like have too much That was the advice I'm being given as a you know 20 year old. Oh dude So I sat in a circle and just I'll just keep smoking it until I feel it and felt and had a horrible experience Scared the fucking living shit out of me and one another to do with it for years and years later. Stay away from it. It activates parts of the brain that also process fear and

paranoia. So I've had a couple instances myself where it's fucking terrifying. It's about it's a good four-hour shitty situation and then you come out of it and you're like wow, that was weird. But anyway, so I tried cannabis and it didn't help and So I thought oh that that, that must not have helped. Then I'm doing this research for this family member of mine and I'm reading about the other cannabinoids that are finding cannabis that are non-psychoactive that also have effects. And I realized that holy cow,

like I had to smoke a lot when I wasn't believes, it must have been low in THC and I was getting hold of these other cannabinoids. So then I got my hands on high CBD cannabis, which was, it still had a little bit of THC, but it was mostly CBD, and I use that, and boom, like totally helps. So from that point on, I used it medicinaly,

and when I say medicinaly, I mean it, like I vaporize it, or I eat it, and there are times when I use it for relaxation, like I would a glass of wine or whatever, but, um, additionally, it has positive effects. But I do want to be, I do want to also say that, uh, that doesn't mean it's not without its side effects and- That's an ass-ray, guys, concerned about the neck, the downsides. Absolutely. Uh, uh, you can, for sure, there are memory side effects that come from abuse of cannabis. So if I use too much I will find it more difficult to recall words or be able to be as sharp

It does stimulate and low doses and they found this in animals It does stimulate actually new cell neuronal cell growth, but at high doses it can cause Atrophy of certain parts of the brain, in particular, the hippocampus, which is for memory. Is that more on the THC side, though, versus the CBD? So the thing about CBD, that's interesting, is there's two cannabinoid receptors that we've identified. There's the CB1 and CB2 receptors.

One of them is in the peripheral central nervous system, predominantly, and one of them is in the, some of the organs and throughout the body. This may be why sometimes people feel more of a body high versus a head high. This is all speculation. But if you can a CBD, cannabis dial actually does not attach to either receptor, now they think there may be a third receptor we have an identified or it may mediate its effects indirectly to one of those receptors or it may have your body perhaps it may upregulate receptors

so that your own natural cannabinoid production. So it's hard to say what's happening, but we do know that CBD not only doesn't cause memory loss but it actually will mitigate memory loss if you use THC. Because this is what I've kind of experienced, because I had like a total stigma about, you know, marijuana and, you know, growing up, I tried to avoid it as much as possible, but it inevitably I would end up using it just like I would abusing alcohol, where I just get like super high and like paranoid.

And so that was one of those things. I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an

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I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an I would be able to get an That was one of the things, really, just meeting with these guys, not to say it's a bad influence, but it's definitely has reframed my thought process towards it. It's been one of those things on a low dose. I feel like definite effects of it.

I feel benefit, especially using CBD. I'm totally correlating things, but I played football, and so I smashed my head quite a bit, and all this research coming out that's scary as hell for me with CTE, but I have noticed just being able to recall things a little bit better. And I don't know if it's attributing it to that or it's just a better diet, but it's definitely

something that's interesting to me. Yeah, the anti-inflammatory effects or the balancing effects that they can do at the right amounts, right doses, which is by the way a lot lower, excuse me, and less frequent than stoners. We can use it. Right, sure.

It's like anything else that can get abused. I feel like almost anything in moderation, you can find some sort of positive or health benefits, even some of the hardest drugs out there that are illegal. I mean, most of them were used in medicine at one point. So there are ways to find benefits, but the problem with this and everything like it is, you know, people tend to abuse it.

But we abuse, I think, I honestly think the number one thing that we abuse as a country or nation or even worldwide is food. You know, no one talks about that. And it's just like, what if you look at all the stats that that's doing, I just, I find it funny when we demonize certain drugs that are out there and when we really look at the things

that are really killing us right now, is it really like all these hardcore drugs that are illegal and stuff? Or is it like the food that we're continually catching? Well, it's a very fascinating topic from just from a scientific standpoint because what you're gonna find is, mark my words, you will see this,

that cannabinoid medicines, I'm talking about pharmaceuticals, they're already dumping millions of dollars by the way in research in cannabinoid treatments, you're going to see a completely new paradigm in treatment of certain ailments with cannabinoid types of molecules. It's a completely different type of molecule. It acts on a completely different pathway. It's causing a reaction at the cannabinoid receptors,

which are, if I'm not mistaken, the most abundant G-protein coupled receptor in the body. So you're talking about a wide scope of application. There's a lot of money going into its treatment, for its potential treatment for diabetes, for all kinds of neural, neurological, you know, issues like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's. You're going to see it for inflammatory type disorders.

And I think what will happen, what will probably happen is pharmaceutical companies will find a way to alter the, you know, cannabinoids to make them non-psychoactive because that's one of the side effects that I think are definitely side effects that pharmaceutical companies don't want. Well, it's already happening. I'm super fascinated in seeing the companies. I know you're a businessman, so you can talk about cool things to watch right now or these people that are doing this. My cousin happens to be one of the biggest guys that do this right now, which is extracting the CBD to all the way to its purist form, which in the past, we had all these, you know,

when they would do it in the past with water and basic extraction methods or with butane bad stuff that you're getting, it was like, you couldn't get a very pure clean source. Well, they now have it broken down to where you can pull it out to its purist. I mean, to where it can be, but this is used as medicine. And you're seeing it happen already in the people that are going to the businesses that are already setting up those things in place

to make that happen. Because you know, once a big pharma gets a hold of it, it's going to... They've already got their hands on it. It's a machine. Yeah, GW Pharmaceuticals already has the, they've gotten orphan drug status on one of their medications. And they're, they've got the green light to produce.

That's for the seizures, right? Seasures, yeah. So for intractable epilepsy, there's, they're ready to become approved. They're studying it for Alzheimer's, diabetes, osteoporosis, and I can't remember what else. It's a company I'm I studied quite a bit. Well, you bought you bought GW. How long ago? That was a long ask. Yeah, I bought it a while ago, and it's a it's worth quite a bit now. It's very speculatory, so I'm not recommending

anybody do it. It's like you could, you any moment, but I definitely, it is an area of medicine that we're gonna see explode, right? Up there with the microbiome, like fascinating. You know what's interesting too, statistically speaking, when they look at the medicinal medical marijuana states, opiate use and all of them goes with it. That's the only reason why it's taking this long is for that exact reason because it's going to The initially it's going to hurt big farmer, you know, that's why I mean you say they got their hands where they don't they have

They're starting to get their hands around once they have a chokehold around it Then you'll see it go completely, but until they can until they can have that guaranteed money to supplement all the money They're gonna lose on opiates and things like that. Yeah, I know that's, you know who's got, oh, who's, who's invested a shit ton in land and getting ready to fucking produce?

You're talking Marble, dude. Marble for oh, has bought a shick since. Well, because they already make, they've got all the stuff that are there. You know what I'm saying? They've already invested quite a bit and there's some patents that have been going through for, the first GMO. You know what's a saying? They've already invested quite a bit and there's some patents that have been going through for the first GMO.

You know what's a bummer about that? It is, it will be, once the floodgates are open, it will be the race to who can produce the most, the best, the fastest, the cleanest, the purist, right? So, and unfortunately for those that saw this way in advance, like myself, and people that are connected to me, it's like, I don't have the power to even fuck with them. That's part of why I left it,

because I just, I won't have enough muscle to dominate it, like, it'll need to be dominate, because it's going to be dominated really quick. And by companies like that, that have the manpower, that have the structure in place already. And, you know, so many people reach out to me, and they want me to like ask me like that side of the like that was I was part of the very beginning. So being a part of the beginning was

in my opinion the better time to be there when they were trying to figure all this out. It was riskier, scarier for someone like me. Risk and reward, right. Right. But now it's like everybody is trying to get involved in it and it's going to the big, big companies that come. So everyone that's having making a good, making good money right now, it's gonna be short-lived, it's not the long game for sure. But I think it's crazy as to how different some of the states are. I think you're in Virginia, right? They're not a medical marijuana state.

I don't think so, but DC is. Yes. DC is, yeah, and then Florida, definitely not, but Florida, because that's where you're originally from, right? Florida, one of the highest in O.P. O.P. it, yeah. Now that's what, pills are big there too. Right, that's good.

Amphetamines and oh all that. Yeah. And then what was that one synthetic drug that was getting that I saw videos like crocodile or some shit. I just thought that's all. Yeah, like some dude zombies. Yeah, like eight someone's face. That's a scare shit.

On the in Florida. Yeah. That was definitely a Florida thing. That was it was Tampa. Wasn't that when we were down That's what we were talking about like the last thing I could see this happened We were down in Tampa visiting Bimpokolski Elliott whole stows guys and we were talking about when was the last time you heard Anything about Tampa and one of you two brought that up. Yeah, who's the best salts man when the guy was each

Jumping through the window Scary It's good, it's good times. All right, we're seeing a story of someone went to a drive through a fast food restaurant and threw a fucking baby alligator through the window. I don't know why, that's a Florida thing. Oh, you see, you hear that kind of story,

you're like, that's gotta be Florida up. See, that would be- That would be- Right, that would be awesome to do that in California. You would, if someone would shit in California to do that in Florida, they'd be like, oh shit, something got You would be someone with shit in California to do that in Florida But like oh shit something got in you know, they did it again For you if you threw a baby alligator in California, you go to jail for hurting the baby alligator. Yeah

True. Yeah, the person just threw that So sorry do you guys think That everyone should Smoke weed or yeah, totally no that everyone should smoke weed or... Yeah, totally. No. No, no, no. Some people do.

No. I mean, you'll think that like, anyone that doesn't is missing out and just doesn't get it. I'll tell you right now, there are certain people, there's a lot of people that I think should never, ever touch that stuff. Like I said, I've experienced the extreme fear and paranoia that come from having too much or having the wrong strain. It's a psychoactive substance, so it's going to have powerful effects.

Anything that makes you feel good is addictive. There's also this reality. Anything that you take that has or use that has an acute or effect on the body, the body tries to balance itself out by regulating itself. We have a natural endocannabinoid system. We produce our own cannabinoids, and Andamide is one of them, and we have the receptors that we talked about earlier. If you have a shit ton of cannabis all the time, or you become a regular user, you can

expect to produce less of your own natural cannabinoids, or down-regular receptors. And there's, I mean, I'll 100% stand behind this. Anybody who has ever used cannabis regularly will tell you you do build up a tolerance. So is that a good thing? No, that's never a good thing. It's also a bandaid. Look, I use it medicinal-ly and I understand that it is a bit of a bandaid because why is my body

not producing the cannabinoids that I need? Why are my receptors down-regulated? I need to figure out the root cause and I'll tell you what, over the years of working with my nutrition, meditation, and avoiding certain things, like I don't have any artificial sweeteners, I avoid certain foods.

I need less and less and less for those medicinal effects. And the early days I would need it every single night. Now, probably two, three nights a week, and I would need it every single night. Now probably two, three nights a week and I'm fine, sometimes not even that. So you got to be smart with it. My hardest conversation I ever had to have was to my little brother who's 12 years younger than me. And having an older brother who was a part of these cannabis clubs, and here

he is at 20 years old coming up and he'd already by this time had already been introduced to Smoke and Weed. And having this conversation, I'll never forget how challenging that was for me. Because what I wanted to tell him, I had to also keep in mind like, okay, here's your brother in the middle of a business like this,

how many I tell you, stay away from something like that. And all I could really explain to him was that my experience with it wasn't until I, until I was almost really 30 years old. I was like in my late 20s. And so when I, when I experienced it, I had a different head on my shoulders in the average teenage boy or 20 year old that gets a hold of it. And so I really don't, I don't recommend it to anybody really unless you, unless you are in a grown-ass adult

and you have like sleep issues or you've got pain that you, and you don't want to take pills, or you're somebody who's like above 30 years old and you come to me with that. And that's just so you have a good head on your shoulders. I, just because real quick it can turn into just like smoking cigarettes or just like smoking cigarettes or just like drinking alcohol or bad food. I mean, it's real easy. I think you can get

away from you and it can be you can turn into something that you get high all the time and you don't do shit. And I watched my little brother starting to go down this path. And it was really tough for me to also sit there and tell him, wow, I'm in the middle of building this cannabis club. So that was a really challenging time for me. And I still struggle with it because I kind of see, and he's doing his own thing. He's often Colorado and snowboards. And he's happy doing what he's doing,

but I feel like a lot of what keeps him from excelling is, he loves to smoke weed all the time. And it's unfortunate who am I to tell him he can't, but I feel like a lot of what what keeps him from excelling is you know, he loves to smoke weed all the time and it's it's unfortunate. Who am I to tell me can't, but I feel like that's where people get it. Let it get away from them as they start getting high all the time. He used it to run away from shit like anything. But then I then I think it's no different than right. Like anything else.

You can do that with with gambling. But you know, on the developing brain too, the cannabinoid system plays a very crucial role in the development of the brain. And we know this for an absolute fact. So like for example, they have evidence that there are cannabinoids in breast milk. So when your baby is breastfeeding

and then just, I'm sure you have two kids with a breastfeeding and all of a sudden they're, afterwards, usually. You ever seen them like, milk drunk? They're high, they're high from the cannabinoids. It plays a very crucial role in development of the brain. So if you're a teenage kid and you're just bombarding your brain with cannabinoids

way more than what you would produce naturally, that's gonna affect the way your brains get developed. And you could cause... You saw research on this. I saw something a couple months ago on this point that it leads to that. It leads to that. I mean, a lot of young people were up in arms about it. Of course.

No, no, no. That's not true. Take away my weed. No. So, you know, think of it this way. I treat it like caffeine. The same way I treat caffeine, when I start to notice, like if I have to take more than like two puffs of something

to get that relief or get myself to settle down before bed, if I notice myself doing that, it's already my sign that, okay, I need to take a week off and just be away from it completely, just like caffeine. And so, but that's why I mean by how it can get away from you real quick, where you're just, oh, I don't get that same feeling. So now I'm going three, then four,

and next thing you know, you have to do, you have to smoke you're just, oh, I don't get that same feeling. So now I'm going three, then four, and next thing you know, you have to do, you have to smoke half a joint. You have to do it. So whole joint. And then it's like it turns into this, you're smoking an eighth a week a day. And that's now we have a problem. So I'll give you an example.

When a kid learns a new language or learns new languages, they don't develop an accent. You have a five year old, you could teach a five year old, three languages, and by the time they're adults, like they'll speak all three of them fluently with no accent. You take a kid past a certain age and try and teach him a new language, they'll learn it, but they've always got an accent. And that's because the basic structure of the brain that processes and develops language has been set by a certain age, meaning it's not as plastic as it was before, so it's just not going to have the same capacity. This is true for a lot

of things as your brain develops. For example, if you have a child, a baby, and you're constantly feeding in the lot of sugar and they grow up, there's going to be some permanent changes to their brain to where they may permanently have issues with sugar, and they can change quite a bit, but that basic scaffolding that basic structure just doesn't change. This is true with cannabinoids. You have kids, teenagers smoking a shit ton of weed. It's not like an adult who smokes it. You know, if you're

a 30 year old man and you get real high a bunch of times all the time, they decide to quit. Those effects will probably going to go completely away. If you do this as a 13 year old kid and you stop smoking weed, you know, you'll get some of the effects gone, but not all of them. And they're finding it'll affect your IQ. Some studies will show as much by 10 points per minute. So I definitely don't think it's a good idea for kids ever, except in the rare cases of intractable epilepsy or...

Medical. Exactly. Exactly. Interesting. Yeah. Fascinating subject, Mike. Something I don't know much about. That's a lot of stuff.

Well, you know, it's definitely, I don't know too many fitness guys that actually talk about it. That's why it's always an interesting topic when we get with somebody because Sal was the first other fitness guy that I knew that I actually had read more about it than I had. I mean, I was fascinated because I was in it and so I was learning about it. And then I meet this guy who took it to a whole other way. Well, you're in the supplement industry. It's going to start penetrating. It's going to start penetrating.

It'll be probably. No, I think Ben Greenfield is selling cannabinoids. He sells CBD derived from hemp because hemp you can get CBD. You're going to see it in fat loss supplements because it has an insulin sensitizing effect. You're going to see it in recovery supplements and sleep supplements. So those are three categories that I think you're going to start seeing a lot of... And again, the companies that are going to really dominate the ones that have this structure to build.

Yeah, they're very, very, very strong. Supply all right. Everything from the recreational to the medical to the, all these different supplements. Yeah, it's going to be vertically integrated. Yeah, it's coming. You know, the companies that really, we've talked about supplementation moving out of the sports nutrition space. I mean, the companies that, I mean, that's where

the insane money is because it's where the, oh yeah, I mean, supplements on the whole, you know, $100 billion a year industry globally. Sports nutrition, I believe right now is like 27 billion. I think it's projected to be rise to 45 years. Oh, I mean, it's growing, but it's, you know, so what's the big part? What's the big, who's making the big sales and supplements then?

If it's not sports, uh, which is general, general health stuff, stuff that you see in Walmart and that you see in Costco and Sam's Club. And, you know, so you have, in terms of the brands, I mean, I guess you have stuff like Kirkland, you have Nature's Pride, you have, I mean, if you just go look at the shelves, if you wanted to just go pick up your basic, simple one-a-day multivitamin or a vitamin C or a magnesium or a vitamin D or something like that.

Just your basic, you get like two-kind, what- Yeah, exactly. But who ultimately owns those, those are more like, those are just brands or like, imprint, you times what I put. Yeah, exactly. So, but who ultimately owns those, those are more like, those are just brands or like imprints, you know what I mean? So I actually don't know, I haven't looked too much into it because I'm more just kind of niched into sports nutrition.

But I'll bet you it's a handful of big, probably food companies and pharmaceutical companies that ultimately own seven different brands of supplements and they all just kind of, they are their own competition. Is there a reason why you haven't, because I've wanted to go and look into this direction of actually going into supplementation like the vitamin D, vitamin C,

like is there a reason why you haven't gone that route? I mean, how can I, how can I compete? I mean, what's the, Is that why? Is it because it's just the market's way too competitive? Yeah, I mean, I could see, but I feel feel like you're I would assume people who's buying from you is mostly your network So they I would think they would buy anything from you. So I feel like right now, for example I you know, I do a vitamin D supplement right so I would love to get that through a company that I'm already affiliated with

You know, even if it was two dollars to well, that's me I guess if even if it was two dollars, well, that's me, I guess, if even if it was $2 more, I would pay it because it's you. You know what I'm saying? And I'm buying it anyways, and it's like, you know, I'm going to order whatever you use by everything. Right. Are you buying your protein powder or whatever?

Yeah, it actually is on the list. Like, we want vitamin D would make sense. And there are a few, you know, probably magnesium would make sense for people that need to supplement with additional magnesium. And it's just we people that need to supplement with an additional magnesium. And it's just, we're not doing it. Omega-3 maybe too. I mean, I have that. I have a fish.

Oh, you do. Okay. You do have a fish, will. But could do, for example, a plant-based, like, could be a canal-g-based, something people don't want to do fish. And so we do have on the list to do some of these simpler supplements. It's just, I haven't done them yet because I've been focusing really what it comes down to is, I mean, it's mostly money. So it's expensive to launch products.

Now, these products are not the expensive, but the products that I'm in the middle of, like, you know, I'm gonna be doing a casing protein because a lot of people want it. A lot of people just like casing, they prefer it over way. They prefer it over, you know, any sort of vegan protein, but that's probably gonna cost me, I think at the end, probably about $20 a bottle

to do a good casing protein, and with minimum orders, let's just say when it's all said and done when you factor, and everything, it's probably $60,000 or $70,000 to launch casing, and then you gotta get it established, gotta get it going, blah, blah, blah. So right now we're focusing again on the stuff that is, I mean, I guess I look at it as kind of like the low-hanging fruit, the stuff that people are saying,

yes, please make that protein bar or stuff like that. Now, what do you say, so what kind of advice would you give somebody if they're gonna go buy supplements? Like, you know, it's obviously an unregulated industry, which I'm fine with. But what should be their litmus test? How can they know, what are some things that they can do to ensure that they're getting what they're paying for,

that they're getting quality and nothing else? Unfortunately, you have to do some digging as a consumer because ultimately what it comes down to is trusting the company and trusting the brand. I mean, you can look at labels and that can tell you some stuff. So if you look at a protein powder and you look at the serving size and grams,

look at how many grams of protein are in the serving size. If there's a big discrepancy there, if you have a big serving size, or let's say that you have a 30-plus gram serving size of 20 grams of protein, what else is in there? Also, looking at for talking about protein, looking at what type of protein is it? So weight constant rate, for example, is there something wrong with weight constant looking at the, what, if it's way protein, like what type of protein is it? So, way concentrate, for example, is, there's nothing wrong with way concentrate. It's just the protein by weight can vary widely. It can be as low as 30%, or as high as about 80%. Wow.

And, and, and, what do you mean by, by the weight? By weight, so like, you know, a, per gram of, of powder, it can be as low as 30% protein, and the rest would just be, filler, carbs and, carbs and fats fats because it's just low quality Or as high as 80% that'd be like a higher quality concentrate. Usually you don't go above 80 You have that's where you get into isolates, right? And so like my my way is a hundred percent way isolate, which is where they've removed the lactose and they've it's basically just pure protein

It's like it's a it's not a 90 to 94% protein by weight. And so that's something when you see weight concentrate, you don't have to automatically go, it's shit, not necessarily. But there's a higher likelihood that it's shit. And then it comes down to, what do you know about this company and why do you trust? Because for example, I get contacted all the time by mainly, mainly raw suppliers from China. And, you know, if I didn't care about the quality of my products, I could, so my way costs me, I want to say it's like around $19 or $20 a bottle, right, my cost.

And I could cut that down to like $6. Wow. Maybe seven. Let's say seven. Holy shit, that's a big difference. And still be able to say that it's way no wonder no wonder guys They're fucking greedy in that industry because that easy so that it's it's it's good It's just saying like that easy. I was just like double your your profits. Yeah, yeah, like money. That's about it, right?

And then by the way your transparency the transparency is that you have in this is fucking great I really appreciate you going over even the numbers absolutely. I don't know anybody else that does that in the industry. Nobody does. Everyone's afraid too. Because even the people that claim that they're being straightforward about things, there's something that they're getting over. No one just closes everything. Absolutely.

I'll say on the whole, when you look at it from the top, I'll look at the financials. Like I want to be able to run Legion with a gross margin of around 40%, and a net margin of around, I mean, ideally, you'd be 15% right now. It's lower because we're growing and putting money back in, right? And spending money on exploratory marketing things and whatever, like it's not, I'm not trying to optimize for profitability at the moment. I'm trying to optimize for growth and you can't really have it both ways. But it's such an important thing for an entrepreneur to

understand what you just said right there. I should make you break that down. It is. You just said it so quick and so fast. But Taylor and I discussed this a lot, you know, off-air and stuff about the challenges of scaling a business. And people don't understand, you know, the outsider looking in, you see all these things that are going on. They must be making all this money and stuff like, well, no, not the outsider looking in, you see all these things that are going on.

They must be making all this money and stuff like, well, no, not if you're really, if you're doing a good job of growing your business, you're probably not making more money back there. Right, right. Especially when you have a cost of goods involved. And especially in my case, when the cost of goods is quite high, you know, it would be different if I were just selling digital products. And even then, I mean, there's still that, it's still, you're gonna, you're gonna have hemorrhage cash to some degree when you're growing because you have to try things. And, you know, like I was telling you guys, we tried using, you know,

Instagram influencers mainly girls with a lot of, a lot of, a lot of followers, millions and millions of followers. Lots of ass shots. Yeah, a lot of butts. Yeah. With like, Psalms, to see you. followers. We put ass shots. Yeah, a lot of butts. Yeah. With like, Psalms, do you see anything? I don't know, that's a word.

It's just the formula. Yeah. And so apparently those followers don't read much. Yeah. What else could you do? Yeah, that was a great story by the way. You guys did that and got nothing out of it. I mean, nothing, nothing that we could quantify.

I did feel, I did 150,000 we put into that. I do feel so much better about hearing that sort of this I felt really bad that we spent and you spent a lot more than us. So if I do, we didn't try that. And we did the same thing. I'm a little bigger, go home. Same success.

Yeah, same success. But yeah, so, you know, to your point with growing a business, I mean, there's just a, even if you go about it intelligently and you really try to lay things out and plan things out and be organized, it's a bit chaotic. And with that comes, yeah, it comes. My Tyson says it best, right?

Everybody has a plan to get punched in the fucking face. That's it. To get punched in the face. Point at the point. Yeah. So, yeah, so there's that point of like back to what you were saying. You know, my goal financially for the business is for it to be a good business and a profitable business, but I don't feel like I'm going for anything.

I'm not stretching to be greedy about it. That's where I feel like the supplement-ministry draws a lot of people that are not like. And the irony of it all, the irony of it all, is that you're actually playing the long game. That's going to make you successful in the long term. So you can definitely fool the market for a short period of time, but not very long, and then eventually flash in the pan. We've seen companies, we talked about shreds in the past, which is a great company that, and I don't mean great,

isn't awesome. I mean, a great example of flash in the pan using Instagram to own all these products. Like what? The Titanic of the industry. Yeah, I'm gonna show you. Just an example for future generations of not life. Right.

Yeah, I had them not do it. So you talked about these Chinese suppliers. How many supplement companies you think you're getting the product or supply from overseas? Is that like a big? It's definitely a thing. Wow. And so there are supplement companies.

It's very, I mean, because there are so many supplement companies, new little guys popping up every single month it seems like, right? And so you have people that from the outset are saying, yes, we, you know, I don't care about the quality of the product. It's take protein, right? And so you have people that from the outset are saying, yes, we, you know, I don't care about the quality of the product, it's take protein, right? I don't care how much protein is actually in this protein powder. I just want to maximize profits, and I want to be able to say that, you know, if this, if this were to get analyzed, that yes, it is, it is way protein, you know, that's it. Yeah, that's it. Protein, That's it. So you have people to do that from outset.

And then you have people, and those are like the scum-yus of the scum. And then you have people that actually want to do right by their customers, but they get screwed by the manufacturers. So that's a whole notary. Wow. And that's one of the reasons why the manufacturer I'm with, I pay a premium to view at them. They are not the cheapest by any stretch of the imagination. They're actually fairly expensive. But I know, like, one, I mean, they work with very, very big notches. They don't just only work with big sports and nutrition companies, but also just big companies are very big in the supplement space on the whole. And then they also work with pharmaceutical companies. And the pharmaceutical companies, obviously when we're talking about pharmaceutical compounds, they don't fuck around.

Like, you can't, you know what I mean? You can't kill people. about, from the pharmaceutical compounds, they don't fuck around. Like, you can, you can, you can. You don't kill people. Yeah, exactly. And then that also, though, tends to be the case with the supplement brands that these pharmaceutical and food companies own. The shenanigans is usually with, would be people like me, just private people that privately own supplement companies

are the ones that are more likely to try to cut corners because they're run by individuals that, again, are they're looking for the instant gratification of just cash. They just want cash and they want shit. They want bling. They want cars right now. And whereas the bigger conglomerates, that's not actually exactly, I mean, from what I've seen that's even though you might think that because they're a big conglomerates. That's not actually exactly, I mean, from what I've seen, that's even though you might think that because they're a big conglomerate

and they must just be a bunch of evil capitalists and all they wanna do is rate people, not so much actually. And that has been borne out in like even independent tests of, it was talking about protein again, where like for example, optin nutrition, which is owned by Glanbia, big farm school company, has a monopoly on way,

basically, they own the farm zone, everything. There's completely vertically integrated. The protein that I get the way, which comes from overseas, it comes from Ireland, is Glanbia owns the farm, so it's Glanbia, right? So, you either get... That sucks. You're making your competitor stronger by it.

I don't care. But at this point on, is, you know, do a billion dollars a year in revenue. They're the king. I don't know if we'll see what it'll take if someone can ever, you know, dethrone them, but, um, uh, discover a new protein. Yeah, that's what I don't even know what I mean, I'll be interesting. It's one of the best milk.

Yeah. That's a big market. The insect move is moving. Insect, I was just thinking that. Yeah. Insect move. That's a hard interesting. It is. It is a very long road for that one.

It doesn't taste bad though. Have you had it yet? I feel like no. Oh, it's not bad. I feel like that with that, my work if we find ourselves everything collapses. No, we find ourselves in like a mad max. I'll fucking eat some insect protein.

You can't even crack it. Yeah. It's staying alive. I'm eating some crick-a-protein. It's not fucking bad. We had bought, we had. I believe you. On some companies, some other.

Rounded up to powders. It's like not like legs are really tick bought, we had, I believe you on some company, some around it up to powders. It's like not like, like, it's really tickling you. Yeah, I know, but you just know. Yeah, you're just, you're drinking disgusting little bugs. Yeah. It, it's gotta be worth the hard to sell,

which is how, how, how widespread would you say in the supplement industry, would you say this kind of, these shenanigans are? Is it, is it just, it's, it's, it's, it's widespread. I mean, it's a, it's a problem for sure.

I've run into it myself. So in setting up a backup manufacturer, which is something that now is finally in place, I should have done it earlier because I ran into some, some supply chain problems with my manufacturer now because they were going through a transition where, um, so I was with a company called Integrity New Sutacles. They're based in Tennessee, run by a guy named Peter Miller, a super cool guy. He took really good care of me. And then his company was bought by a private equity group and they bought another company

called Cornerstone Supplement Manufacturer based in Utah. And then they wanted to merge them into one. They wanted to combine operations in Utah and it didn't go very smoothly. There were some problems. There was a time where I ordered. Pills are generally a 10 to 12 week lead time. It can go a little bit faster, but that's what you want to plan for on your inventory planning and your financial planning.

So, we had ordered, it had been, it took them a year to get us, so we were like completely just, and so during that period, when they were starting, things were starting to get rocky, and they basically was like triage. They had to decide, the manufacturer had to decide which accounts are going to get serviced in which aren't basically, because they have limited capacity in their lines and they're having all kinds of problems. So in that time, I was like, well, I could have prevented this. I should have had a backup manufacturer. That's one of those basic things.

I hadn't had any problems previously, so that's why it never really occurred to me. But then when it did happen, I was like, yeah, it's pretty obvious. You don't want to have all your manufacturing exit. It always seems obvious when you get fucked. me, but then when it did happen, I was like, yeah, it's pretty obvious. Like, you don't want to have all your manufacturing exactly. It always seems obvious when you get fucked. So I go out and I'm looking, right, found a company that had all the certifications look great. They're based in New York and one of them to run to do the multivitamin to start with, right?

Because I need multivitamin. It's like, I need it right away. So let's start with that. And I told them that I'm going to send the product to Eurofins, a big respected lab to get tested, to ensure that everything is there. Because again, a lot of manufacturers, what they'll do is they'll give you a great price. So you say, this is what I want. Even if you want to make a good product, they're going to be like, okay, here's your price. And you'll be like, wow, like, I mean, again, we get pitched by not just random Chinese protein peddlers,

but also other manufacturers that will say, hey, we'll make your pre-workout for, you know, 60% of what you're paying right now. And that's also, so if I were naive or maybe, again, care, or just saying, I like money and sure whatever, then I could do that as well. And then what they would do though is, so come back to the story. So this manufacturer in New York runs multi vitamins and I tell them, I'm going to get

them tested. And also before I pay for them, like I want, I'm going to make sure, I want to make sure that, you know, I'm getting what I want and what I'm paying for and so he does it and I sent him off to get it tested and it comes back that They're basically his vitamin C pills So I didn't pay and I was like wow Just wasted my time though like I was telling you I was like what the fuck was the point of that? I told you as you mean I guess you just thought maybe He's gonna call my bluff or something or maybe I would just

How did you know to have the smarts to do that? Did you have just an idea because of the margins? Like you're just like he's offering this to me for so cheap. He's got no so wouldn't have went like his price was good And I expected to be a little bit lower than you know capstone is the name of the company I'm with right now Because again like capstone. They're not they're not the the the cheapest, but now we're past all that stuff. They've been really good now. They have everything streamlined, and that transition is that period is over. But, but still know, his price was a little bit better,

but it wasn't so low that, because if that were the case, I would have just moved on. Because if you would have come like at $6 a bottle, and then I know, yeah, I would have just moved on. Because if you would have come at $6 a bottle, and then I know, yeah, that's gonna be vitamin C. And what sucks about this is, you're talking about vitamins, minerals, protein, like herbs, there's herbs, blends and stuff. Like how do you, you know how expensive it is?

Yeah. I do know. As I've done it, my multivitamin has, it's not just vitamins and minerals, there's 14 other things in there and some of them are herbs. And so like- That's like specific testing.

Yeah, I think, if I remember correctly, how much was it for SoTry and FizzName Multivariant? It was, I want to say, five to $6,000 just to test that one product. And so, you know, a whole round of testing, which I've done several times with capstone for the same reason, just because I wanna make sure keep them honest, so to speak. I wanna say his 30-ish thousand dollars, just to know that like what you're getting is real. You know what I mean?

That's cool. That's crazy that that's your responsibility to do that. Yeah, I mean, a lot of companies don't do it, which is, you know, also something we're gonna be, so there's like a little internal kind of evolution that we're going through. And it's something I want to do from a, I mean, it's a branding play,

but I think it also is going to, I want to kind of maybe set a standard for the other supplement companies, that consumers can hold other supplement companies up to. So like one of the things, so a few of the things are gonna be, we already, we're already good with transparent formulations and using education and not hype to sell. And at least internally making sure that, you know,

what I'm selling is what I say it is. But I wanna, I want to kind of push this a little bit further because obviously right now, the evidence-based fitness movement that that whole space is growing and more and more people are using science or appealing to science to sell things, right? Whether it's to sell programs or products

or even sell themselves. And it's not very hard to do if you want to bullshit people because you can just use big words and make it sound like you know what you're talking about And you see more if we're talking supplements more and more of that a lot of a lot of these new supplement companies that are popping up are their Their angle and their their copy will read soon it appears and reads very similar to mine, right? And so it's gotten to the point where she went at when I first started Legion

There weren't very many companies that were talking about clinically effective doses. For example, that you didn't hear that phrase very often. And they, while some companies would, I mean, I would say they'd make passing references to scientific research. It was very lazy. It's not like they were really trying to dive in and justify the product scientifically. It was more just like, oh, yeah,, there's some studies that say this is good. So here we go. You know what I mean? So when I first started,

like what I was, my approach was unique. And now it's not so unique. Unique, a lot of people are doing these. Well, I didn't know that. So you say you were one of the first guys to really start doing that. Because you see it. That I know of,

to do it the way that I'm doing it again with like no proprietary blends, so fully transparent formulations, clinically effective doses, but then also in the sales copy, it where it's very educational, and it's explaining why every ingredient was chosen and why the dose was,

why we set the dose where it is, and citing research that anybody can go access and read if they want to. Yeah, three years ago when we first met before we started Mind Pump, we talked about some of the trends that we saw in the fitness industry. And one of them had to do with the supplement industry

and I made this very, I was very passionate about it and I said, look, what we see right now, what we're seeing with food right now is going to start to carry over into supplements. For example, you know, seven, eight years ago, Safeways, Lucky's, Nob Hill, you know, all these major grocery store chains did not have organic sections at all. To get organic food, you had to go to Whole Foods, you had to go to a specialized store. Now all grocery stores, hell, your 7-Eleven now carries products that will say organic on them.

And I said, watch what happens, it's a supplement industry. You're gonna start seeing all of them moving that direction. And we actually had a friend, his name sounds like Mo Connolly, who had a supplement company. And I had a very subtle right there. Very subtle. I had a huge argument in debate. I leave it in a real name.

Because you wanted us to promote a supplementally. And I'm like, we can't sell your products because they're all artificially flavored. They're all full of all these chemicals and shit. And we're not going to promote that. And I said, if anything, you need to pay attention to the market because it's starting to shift. And it's going to be a problem and you should shift before. And I think I'm right.

I think it's starting to happen already. I mean, what do you think? Absolutely. I mean, that's one of the things that I saw initially. And I'm also just believed in personally. So all of our stuff is naturally sweet and naturally flavored. And no unnecessary fillers or junk, no food dyes, stuff like that's not necessarily,

do you really care if your pre-workout is? Green, yeah. Yeah. Horde, Hulk green. Electric yellow. Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, just like kind of a pinkish color. Do you give a shit?

So, and you actually can, I mean, like so our blue raspberry flavor. Yes, it's blue But it's not art if it you can you can you can change you actually have a natural natural molecule natural smurf extract in it Making it blue smooth smurf it Yeah, that's the secret Let it out. Yeah, it's anabolic jerk enough smurf So I get it, but when it so it was the other day who kind of was like maybe a month ago, I think someone tagged us on a post by what's that supplement company that's the fuck the physique guys are all

in and uh oh global no global that's one of them too ghost which I don't know much about them global formulas. Was it that or no what's the other one the one that what's his name owns that lives in the area. Little evogen. Yeah, evogen. Oh yeah. So evogen has like, he's naturally flavored, yeah.

We're on video too. I knew what it was by just doing that. You know, you know what I saw in the video. I know that I know that I know that the guy is, but he sounds like a little meatball. Yeah. We're just, we're just fucking throwing people out of the bus.

I don't know, I don't know, he was talking about. Today is bus-jucked. Smooch, yeah. Smooch,monnelly. It sounds like a people. But I saw them had a product that was like, no artificial flavors, and like, look at this motherfucker. I was doing that shit from the beginning.

Yeah, it started to happen. So do you see the market totally growing that? Yeah, to the point where it's gonna be, it have to be next year, so it's gonna be a pain in the ass. But we actually want to, we already use non-GMO ingredients, but I would like to move, I mean, if we can move to fully organic, I'd love to do it. I actually, I just am not sure if it's possible for the, from the perspective of sourcing certain ingredients, and then also price.

Some organic ingredients are super, super expensive. And unfortunately, like sure I could do that, but I would have to... Should I get a price by like $9 or something? Yeah, and I can't do that. So what I'd have to do is I'd have to pull ingredients out so I'd have to sacrifice product efficacy, basically, for just to have it be fully organic.

So, I don't know if I'll be able to go to where it's like a 100% organic line, but we want to... But that's the direction. Yes, move to is make it as, or make everything as organic as possible. And that's not, I mean, that's partially a marketing play because I do agree with you.

That's definitely where the trends are going. But also, I agree with it personally, like I eat mostly organic food. And even if it's just for nothing else, just reduce my exposure to glyphosate and pesticides and herbicides and stuff. And also, it's been, obviously, you guys all know this, that organic produce, like certain fruits and vegetables are more nutritious. There are more vitamins and minerals and good things in them, and that's why I'm eating it. Yeah. Like sure. I've eaten, it's just kind of my diet,

so I've come to enjoy it, but in the end, is the cauliflower as tasty as the french fries? No. So why do we eat the cauliflower? That's because it's good for us. And the irony of all of this is because the organic market is starting to grow so fast because it is, it's exploding. Yeah. The Amazon's whole thing. Yeah, look at Costco. Go to Costco, there's like so many organic things,

like three years ago, weren't even in there that a lot of the organic stuff I hate to say is gonna piss people off, but a lot of the organic products we get now from China. Like they're sending us organic. Oh my God. Yeah, I know, exactly. And who's watching that whole thing?

You know, we talked about the whole thing. I'll say that it's not everything that comes from China is bad. It really depends on the company. And that's where, if we're talking about manufacturing. I'm glad you said that. So what do you need to keep explaining? Yeah, so that's, so, you know, we get,

I know that Capstone gets some of their ingredients from China And I know they get some of their ingredients from India which also is can be hit and miss Especially stuff like spirulina. There's good spirulina that comes from India. There's bad There's good spirulina that comes from China. There's bad What's the difference being good and bad? Just contamination. Oh, well, yeah so That's where again you have to have From if it as the supplement, I mean, I'm not the manufacturer

I'm the as the as the company or the as the seller as a person that's you know creating the products That's up that's on me to know The how how the manufacturer I'm working with like how much do I trust? their Raw sourcing, right? And are they, because that's where manufacturers, they cut corners where they can pad their margins are getting just cheap inferior raw,

like take beta-aligning, there's a big difference between the patented karnasine, which is high potency and just some low potency crap you can get from China for a fifth of the price. Big difference, all you know is on the, if you're just a consumer, you don't know that. You just go, it has beta-align, beta-align, beta-align. No, it's not.

So there's that, and then there's fill volume, right? So to be compliant with CGNP, you can have a variance of about 10%. But that's like meaning that label claim and what is in there needs to be, you know, 90% of what is supposed to be in there. But, you know, there are manufacturers that will, if they know that you're not on top of it and you're not going to hold them to it and you're not going to check it out yourself, it won't necessarily, you know, they'll fill it to 70%, so they're talking about caps in particular, you know what I mean? So, and that's obviously just profit for the manufacturer.

Did you know all of this when you got into this business? No, I mean, you were pleasantly surprised. Yeah, it was kind of a learning process, which again, I'll credit Peter from, that was the first manufacturer I found that really took good care of me. And so I had, in a sense, I mean, I wouldn't say it wasn't just like a mentor that just taught me everything, but Peter was, I mean, he is still, obviously, and he just, he just is not

with capstone, he's with another company now, but cool guy, honest guy, and showed me the ropes to some degree. And then there was also just being in the space and having experiences and talking to other people and it's just whatever. When you really immerse yourself in something, you learn stuff, you know what I mean? So.

What was it, what, go ahead? No, do you attend, do you attach yourself to people like that when you meet them? Like, because it's so rare, I feel like in this industry, when you meet someone who's like, fucking smart, got a shit together, like you like you yeah yeah yeah and then usually try to see what I can do for them as well you know what I mean like I don't like to run around asking for favors generally so like I usually won't ask people for things very much I'll be more I'm more interested in what I

can do for them so then if at some point I do need to ask for a favor, it's like no problem. I think it's kind of silly and annoying when I get it quite a bit where people ask me to do random things for them when I don't even know them. It just doesn't make sense. Why would you ever think that would work? At any point when you're doing this, when you're entering the market and you're learning about all this shit, where you like fuck it, I I'm out. I don't wanna do this anymore. No, just because, again, I believe that I can just do it the way that I wanna do it, and I knew that meant that

mine. What gave you that confidence, though? Is that just, cause you, did you recognize right away that you were smarter than who you were going up against, or did you, when did you, you brisk? Yeah, just basically. Yeah. Yeah. No.

Well, so there was one thing that was like going into it, I wasn't, my goal wasn't to create the biggest supplement company because you can't be, I mean, I'd say this probably applies to any industry. You can't be the biggest and the best. But that's particularly true in supplements, right? So the biggest companies are never going to make the best products because they're

always going to be reliant on retail. And if anything that is, let's say any sports nutrition product that is on the shelf of GNC, unless we're talking protein powders from very like on's protein powder. For example, it tests, I mean, there have been a lot of independent tests that have been posted on Reddit and stuff and whatever. And on generally checks out. And again, that's coming back to Glambia, has no reason to fuck around.

It would be really against their interests. So it would crush them? Yeah, it'd be stupid for what. They already, you know, just that. They already have a piece of the pie already. That's just on as just one of their brands, billion dollars a year, and like I said, and they have a completely nople on the way market.

So why risk that for, why would they ever want a amino spike? That would make no sense. Oh, so you're saying, so on has the direct connection to the, the, the, Columbia is owns on straight up. So, um, and, and, what else do they own? Mm, ABS, I think, and,

ABS, they, they may have bought BSN as well. They may have in Columbia. I don't, I'm not sure. They own a number, they own a number of That's when you're gangster when you own competitive. Yeah, it makes sense I mean again because and that's what they do in food food companies big food companies buy Oh, dude, he's for big format will buy big Urba like you have a big organic though by organic products. Yeah So so yeah, so

Going into it again, my goal wasn't necessarily to create the biggest, the biggest supplement company. I, you know, hundreds and hundreds, a hundred million dollars a year in revenue. I wanted to do, I mean, it's, yeah, it's kind of cheesy, but I want to create, I want it in my, at least to my standards, I want it to make the best, the best stuff, you know what I mean? And so, and in terms of my personal confidence in, um, in being able to do it, uh, I guess, um, if I, so when I go back and I was looking

at it, um, it just seemed, it seemed straightforward. Like, and this is maybe something there's a subconscious element. And, and I've, this is how in business, I'll just, when I, I'll know, I have a good intuition for things that will work. And when I see something and I feel strongly about it and I see it in my mind of, this is where this could go. And when I have a personal conviction that like, oh yeah, that's gonna work. Like there's, you know, I just, there's something

that will flip for me and I just go, yeah, that's gonna work. Like there's, you know, I just, there's something that will flip for me and I just go, yeah, there's no way that fails. Like if I just execute, there's no way that it's- Just a matter of execution at that point. So, and then, and then I'm confident in my ability to execute. And again, it's not just me, I've recruited people also that are very good at execution. And also very good ideation as well.

And so like there's that, I know that I can get things done and then also I know that I can work really fucking hard. So like, if there are people, sure, there are people out there that are smarter than I am, can have better ideas, but can they outwork me? You know what I mean? And so that's also been kind of a culture that I've cultivated with my team. Again, everyone works hard. They put in time and they don't fuck around and they get shit done.

And it's not something that I have to, I'm not a slave driver. I have to run behind them and micromanage them and be on them to finish every little task. It has kind of just naturally developed. Now that all being said, can you give us examples of times when you thought something would succeed and didn't fail? Yeah, sure.

So most recently we released a vegan protein, right? It's like a pea rice, a quinoa, and hemp blend. And so there was a lot of hype on it on social media. People were freaking out about it. I can't wait for this can't wait. And released it and sold like, I want to say maybe like 500 bottles in the first week, which is bad. Like, you know, when we released our fish oil, it was like 3000 bottles in the first week. And since then, it has now caught up. And because there's a point, we have to look at it from a cash flow perspective, where

if you're not selling enough of an item, it's not worth having. Because you just have minimum orders you have to work with. So how much cash do you want sitting in your warehouse is what it comes down to? Which has got to be a pain in the ass when that you figure that out, and then you have to cut it off, and then you got to deal with the handful of people they are going to be dealing you right. Yeah, so we've had that so. 500 people. Yeah, yeah, so we've had it. We've had it. Now, it looks like the name of the product is Thrive. So it looks like it's going to be fine. It looks like it's, I mean, it did not meet our expectations at all. From that sense, it was like, and it also was just interesting to see

From that sense, it was like, and it also was just interesting to see that the disconnect between the hype of people saying how excited they are to the actual hardline numbers. And, you know, that's, I've come across that and just reading about marketing. And this is my first, I'd say, like, that stands on my mind experience where surveying is great, and we've done correctly. But don't think that just because people tell you they're going to buy something that they will. And don't think that just because people say they're really interested in something, then they're going to buy it. It's very different. It just is. So that was an experience that we also had that with unflavored wayprotein. So like there's a huge market for unflavored. That's what I would think. Especially on Amazon, there are a few companies that are destroying, and that's all they do,

is unflavered shit. Naked is one of them. Good branding. I don't know who's behind it, but they're smart. They know what they're doing, at least from a marketing perspective, from a branding perspective. They've done a good job. We thought that it would be kind of a no-brainer for us to have unflavered. We didn't expect it to to explode

But it just didn't do well at all like we just just we looked at that I mean I wasted a bunch of money on doing I believe yeah, we had we had five pounds We have like two point two pound way and then we have five pound for people and you can essentially when it comes down to Per serving you're you're getting it for like ten or 15% less per serving if you're buying the bigger one. And so the bigger ones, I mean, that's cool, but they're very expensive, my cost. And like, again, I'd say, I don't know the exact number, but probably it's somewhere between $40 and $45

or something per bottle for me, right? And minimums are, I want to say, 1500 to 2000 bottles. And so, had a bunch of unflavored five pound way. or I want to say 1500 to 2000 bottles. And so had a bunch of unflavored, five pound way because again, we thought that it's a lot of way to be hanging around. We thought we'd do well. It's like 100K and just unflavored, big bottles

of unflavored way. And they sat around for months and months and months. And again, so like that shit matters though, because especially when you're trying to aggressively grow a company and then funding it myself. Right, your margins are already thin. You don't have cash for them.

Cash is everything, cash was everything. So if we weren't counting on having that money tied up for as long as it was tied up, which then just means you have to your constantly, you know, just juggling your financials basically. And so, you know, a couple examples of that, also the app that I did as another example or something that was, I just went into it.

I mean, it was a lesson of, and that's a mistake that I tend to not make is miss or underestimating effort. That's a mistake that I tend to not make, because mis or underestimating effort, that's also something that, when I'm like looking at, when I'm considering doing something, you have to consider because an opportunity costs anything, right, if you're gonna do one thing, you're not gonna be doing something else,

and it's one of those things where in the beginning, when you're just getting into something, you say yes to everything, right, because who cares, the cost is your time, and the opportunity cost is low, because your time isn't worth shit in the beginning, because you don't have anything. So, you know, you just jump at everything you can do,

jump at say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, but then it flips as you become more successful, you have to learn to say no to a lot of things, right? We had this conversation not that long ago, where we were, you know, I remember when the business hit that point where you have to look at your time now is you're breaking it down like, okay, I could have even though in the past I would have done that because any exposure or anything is doing anything is good, but not when you could be potentially doing something else.

Exactly. I mean, you're guys, so in your business that comes down even guests, right? So in that if you were just starting, it'd be a lot of yeses, get whoever you can and then try to make those conversations as interesting as possible and just get rolling. But now with where you guys are, you have to be picky and you probably have to say no to a lot more, you know, you probably people reaching out all the time where it just doesn't make sense, nothing personal. It's just because if you're gonna sit down

and spend time with that person, you're not going to be spending time with someone else that might just be- That would love to be on the show and spend time with that person, you're not going to eat or you're not, yeah, exactly. You're not gonna be spending time with someone else that might just be- That would love to be on the show just as much as that person, actually. Yeah, in the beginning I had a couple of friends that were guests on our show. They were interesting, they were definitely experts

in their field, and then later on, like a couple of years later, you know, I'd have other friends who knew them, like, hey, do you wanna interview me? So I can talk about it. I'm like, uh, sorry, I can't. I got on the guest, come in right now. So I can talk about it. I'm like, oh, sorry. I got a little guest coming right now. Yeah, can't do this time. Yeah, well that happens in a business though.

I think it's a, and one of those crucial points, I find that there's these, it's like a step-it ladder. Absolutely. And there's these points where a lot of business that's where they can't figure that piece out. Yeah, usually that correlates to income or revenue. I mean, you'll find that, you know you'll find that it is usually tremendously difficult to get to break the seven figure so that it to get over a million dollars a year in revenue.

That's a big milestone. Then, I'd say probably 10 million is that's another big, very, very few businesses ever break 10 million dollars of revenue in a year. And depending on who you listen to, some people, they say that kind of in the middle there that's also, whereas think of it as in terms of the progression isn't necessarily linear, it's more step-wise. So you hit a certain level and then you're kind of plateaued and you're working, you're working in the business.

So you can then break through to the next level and the challenges are very different as you move up. So I know that, you know, so then getting from, okay, so you've gotten to 10 plus million, you know, in revenue, in annual revenue, that what got you there won't, and in most businesses, will not get you to the 20s, right? And that's just another game. And usually what that comes down to is personnel and that because that's where scaling the business, if you don't have good hiring processes and good onboarding processes and training processes. And if also you're not willing to get rid of people that are not working, it's very hard to take a business. And again, this is generally speaking from that 10 million year revenue range to the 20s.

And then again, so like the what got you to 20 won't generally get you to 50. That's like the general kind of. So I normally say one to three, then the seven to 10, then the 50, and then the 100. And it's like very few get to hear, very even less get to hear. Even it's crazy. There's in that middle, though, for sure. There's in that 20s, which is, in the case of Legion, what I'm going through now, and I think we're doing all the right things,

and we're putting, it's just a lot of work because we can talk about in absolute numbers. So, you need to, if you're doing things that are, let's say you could add something that increases your revenue by a million dollars a year, right? That's significant. And then if you're doing two or three million dollars a year, that's big. You just greatly increased your revenue relatively speaking, but if you're doing 15 million

dollars a year, and depending on how much work it takes to make an extra million dollars a year That's fine, but you have an you know you've you've increased your revenue by 7% And depending on you know if that costs several let's say months of your team's work to really put that in place That several months that are gone. You know, I mean if you and if you do that If you can do that twice, let's say try again the next thing doesn't really work and then by the end of the year, let's say you have two real winners that have increased your revenue by 2, maybe 3 million in that year. Sure, you've grown, you've grown whatever it is, 10 to 20 percent, but that's 10 to 20 percent in a whole year went by.

So you have to figure out what are the, how do you, how do you, how do you, what are the big levers that you can pull that are going to, you know, give you that 30 to, let's say, I mean, let's say 50 to 60 to 70% growth for the year, if you want to, if you want to break, if you really want to break through. And again, a lot of that is, it comes down to business infrastructure, I think, systems in place, and because as you add more people, it gets more chaotic. And if you don't have good business systems in place with your business, if it is relying more

on extraordinary people than extraordinary systems, that's a very difficult business to scale. You know what I mean? It's hard to find. Exactly. Extraordinary. And it can be hard to keep them, too, because... Then they get really good and they want to do their own thing.

Or they get offers to go somewhere else, and depending on the culture of your business and how much they believe in it and how much they believe in you, they may not... If it's just a job to them, if they're very good at it, but it's just a job because what you're doing doesn't really, it doesn't really resonate with them, and they'd rather be in a different industry or they'd rather be doing something else, or in some cases, they'd rather be working for someone else, because a lot of business owners and CEO types

are really obnoxious, and it would not be fun to work for. So, you know, all those things really, I mean, they can work for you or against you. And when you, again, when you get into that, where you need, let's say, you need 20, 30, 40, 50 staff to work efficiently for the business to work, now you really need a good administrator. It's not just about like everybody kind of,

you know, just getting their individual things done and everyone just pulling their own weight. It has to remind you, because you were an athlete, it has to remind you of sports so much. To me, I have so many parallels and I'm talking about a hockey team or a football team. And like everybody's specific roles,

everything from the coach to the trainer, to all the athletes, to the positions on the, I mean, I feel like that's real, when you start getting to a level where you're running a $10, $50, $100 million business, that's when you start looking at it like that, you know, where there's just all these, there's 50 people on this team and every one of these pieces are extremely important for their role in learning how to lead an orchestra. I think it's, it's, it's, it's what's sad about it is that today we're not taught as kids what goes into all of that and the benefit of all of that.

We don't know that. So like if I, if I go out and I interview, you know, 100 random people and I say, hey, you know, Beyonce made $100 million last year and that's her money. She made that herself. Do you think she deserves it? Most people be like, absolutely, man, she works so hard, like she's a hard worker. And if I say, okay, well, you know,

this CEO over here of this particular company, you know, paid himself $100 million, do you think he deserved it? Oh no, not at all. Like, you know, he's taking all his money. And he's like, people don't realize the amount of work, and not to say that Beyoncé doesn't deserve it and the other person does, but it's, it's, there's a lot that goes into it and every penny that they make goes into investing,

or most of it goes into investing, building this business and building these jobs. And it's just, we don't know this. I feel like, I feel like, I feel like you have a very large company, probably one of the most stressful jobs you could ever ask for. And you need to be a fucking genius. I feel like you can't, none of us are in a position to talk shit about anybody like that. Like, I know there's people that don't we talked about Jeff Face those other day, right? I know there's people that don't like him and there's people that didn't like Apple freaking Steve Jobs.

Yeah. You know, I know there's these people when they talk shit about them because maybe how they use their money or how they treat their employees, but I feel like until I can provide as many jobs for other people as those people, I have no place. And it's not just no place in that conversation. If I haven't provided as many jobs for other incomes for other families, you know, I'm saying how is anybody in a position to talk shit about somebody like that? And it's not even, there's that, but there's also fact that, at least if it's not in a corrupt way, if somebody built a, you know,

10 million or a hundred million dollar business, they did it because they were serving a consumer. They're making a person's life better in some way, shape or form. I like to use Bill Gates as an example. Bill Gates now is one of the most prolific philanthropists in modern times. And so people, when I tell people like, what do you think of Bill Gates? I think, oh, he's a great guy. But they don't consider that when he was the guy who created Microsoft, he probably did more

for more people with Microsoft in terms of positively affecting people's lives, not just as employees, Microsoft in terms of positively affecting people's lives not just as employees But his product people that used his product and those products brought tremendous amounts of wealth To the to the world and fed people and how's people and I love to say that to people kind of fuck with people I'll ask them I say who do you think you did more for humanity Bill Gates the philanthropist or Bill Gates the businessman and Most people out of philanthropist actually Probably Bill Gates the the businessman because of the things that he created. And I think we, you know, I would love, I really would love modern education to start to teach children these things because we just don't know. We don't realize, you know, what goes on behind the scenes and all of the good things that come from all the fucking hard work.

Because most people, they see somebody at the top or they see somebody who's leading this big company or this big business and they think, oh, that person is just so fortunate, so easy. Like, look what they're doing. You have no idea. These people are working the most hours, the most stress, and they're doing things that most people, you could give a person. I could take someone off the streets

and put them in that position, say, here you go, your salary's $10 million a year, but you gotta handle all this. And within a month, they would quit. Yeah, absolutely. Within a month, they would stop doing it. For sure. If they just had to go shadow that person for,

I don't even think they have access. They'd be wore out, just fallin' around. If I had to, if I had to, the end of the first week, because let's just start with like, having to wake up early and, you know, no more watching TV, just start there. I'm just really, yeah, not for me, sorry. Yeah.

Put out international affairs. No, no, really. Let alone having all the responsibility and having to be the consummate problem solver. And so, I mean, that's, but it's first just the basics of what it takes to be able to run in those circles. And I've seen it firsthand. I've seen it through. I mean through my own work and the people I've met, but even previously, my dad is an entrepreneur, a successful dude. And I've met a lot of people through him and you know, seeing people that

are very, very successful and you know, in one case, so there's a guy, his name's Bob, he's in his 70s now and he built up a company called Pharmacyclix and he sold it for 27 billion dollars and he self walked away with five or something. And so he's in his seventies, and he's been, I mean, he's been working probably, I would say, 70 to 100 hours a week for his entire life. Like, this is all this guy has done. His first big win was he built, it was a cookie company.

So he bought into a cookie company that was failing and then turned it around and then sold her for about a hundred million dollars and another big win was robotic surgery got into robotic surgery Made it into this whole thing his next big thing was a cancer drug and the story is You know, it was he had put everything on the line and it wasn't looking good similar to like any long musk type story when you know When SpaceX was down to its last money. He had known that was his last money, was the last launch for SpaceX and it had borrowed money just to make payroll at Tesla and shit.

And in the end though, and it was with Bob's companies, it was just so many things we're going to have to happen that were unlikely, so many unlikely, certain deepest things that have to happen, but it all happened. So now here he is in his 70s unlimited money. What's he doing? He's just started another company. And he's doing that, that's just, that's how he is. And the other part that I try to tell people

or talk to people all the time about is that at least in, like I said in mostly free societies, the people, the consumer has all the power. We have all the power. So if we don't like something, we vote with our dollars. We just, we can put them out of business tomorrow. Tomorrow, you've got people walking around like,

hey, you know, too many liquor stores and alcohol's bad and just stop buying it. Guess what, it'll disappear. Or look at all these magazines promoting all these horrible ideas, you know, body ideals, which we talk about all the time on the show. Well, it's not gonna exist if we stop buying it. We have all the power, so we can control

what we want, what we don't want, and really, what are your thoughts on the body ideals? On the body ideals? And what we think on people's, what's that? I think it's unbelievably distorted now, man. Yeah, I mean, I think there's some value, though, in peer pressure, for sure. I mean, there's research on that.

It's like weight loss research that peer pressure is effective. There's no question. I mean, I don't agree with this. What is it, love yourself at any size or anything we have these morbidly obese people where they're just saying, they wanna tell themselves they're beautiful?

No, you're fucking not. Well, you look really bad. That is not beauty. Salas said something really good the other day on the show. Actually, there's, you know, when there's a difference between self image and body image. That's right. So if you're, if you have a problem with food or whatever and you're massively obese, you can say objectively like, man, my body represents my poor health. And I don't like it.

It doesn't mean I'm a bad person. It doesn't mean I don't deserve respect. It doesn't mean I'm not a human. It doesn't mean I don't love and I shouldn't be loved. Those are all still true, but you can have an objective body image. People confuse it too. So you have people

who are just as sick, who look ripped and lean and fit, who've identified with their body, who that's their value. And I think some people, am I sick, do you mean physically or you mean mentally? Both, both physically and mentally. There's, I mean, we work with people and taking drugs and doing things to make themselves look a certain way. When drugs enter the picture, I mean, or just the star and taking drugs and doing things to make themselves look a certain way.

Yeah, when drugs enter the picture, I mean, or just the starvation that some people will do. So I think in an attempt to... Being chronically, being chronically, calorically deprived, though, is not gonna be as unhealthy as being obese. No, but you can get it that way if you really push it, of course, but you're right, absolutely.

And it's not nearly the epidemic that chronically overfed is. Yeah. But if you, you know, I think they're trying to solve their own mental anguish by instead of them saying, you know, they feel us pain, right? Because they're overweight. They see people look at them differently. They fit and close differently. They move differently. They feel terrible. They don't like what they see in them. They don't like what they see. There's that perception too. Don't forget, there's also that perceived like, I know I don't look good. Now, anytime somebody says something that I don't like or anybody does something I don't like,

I'm gonna see it through that filter and oh, it's because I'm fat, or oh, it's because I'm short or whatever, right? It's because that, so it kind of self perpetuates. And I think people try to solve that, that English for themselves by throwing it all out and saying saying fuck it I love all of this and I'm gonna own it and I'm and it sounds empowering. Yeah, it's actually not it's not empowering

It's ego building. It's no different than like I said the other people the other side of it. I mean it's delusional It's delusional, but you can have a body image that says hey, man. My body's reflecting my poor health I need to work on that, but doesn't mean I don't think I'm a great person or I'm bad. This is just something I need to work on. That's that healthy. Do you think you'd really feel like you're a good person though? If you let yourself go that? I do, I don't think anybody's perfect.

I think it's a facade. I think it's something that I think that's a reflection of their own insecurity and so they're overcompensating. I think that's what that is. I think that's, I'm pretending to be super confident myself, but deep down inside, I'm screaming, you know. I mean, because if you're, if you are constantly engaging, if you're constantly doing things,

and this just, I think this extends beyond just eating, but if you're constantly doing things that you feel you shouldn't be doing or not doing things that you feel you should be doing, that you're just not gonna feel good about yourself. Right, I mean. Well, not just a physiological going to feel good about yourself. Right. I mean, not just the physiological level, but the emotional level. Absolutely.

But there's also your actions really determine your feelings and your attitudes. And so it's much easier, I think, to, so if somebody wants to make some big change personally, it's much easier. I think to look at what actions can we change that will naturally inculcate the beliefs and the ideas than it is to try to dive into the subjective and sort out, why do I feel this way? And if I could only feel differently, then I could behave the way that I want to behave. I think it's much easier to aim at changing actions, even if it starts with very simple actions.

First step to awareness is taking a step, right? And they're both the same thing. And what I mean by that is, let's say I'm morbidly obese and I feel like shit, I can just say look, that's it, I'm gonna avoid soda and lose 15 pounds. And that's gonna feel better. I'm gonna start walking.

Yeah, for three minutes a day, I'm just gonna walk. And that's gonna make me feel better and help me look at myself differently and help me examine myself, but the flip can be also true. I can also look at myself, become self-aware and be like, what am I doing to myself, which will then make me make those decisions? I don't think that they're separate.

I do think they're all connected and they can both be manipulated and worked with. But, you know. But in the end, only the effort wins, though. If you're not willing to exert effort, and I think this is just in life, right? Of course, but the effort wins, though, if you're not willing to exert effort, and I think this is just just in life, right? Of course, but there's a level of, I think we don't appreciate the level of unawareness

that people can live in, like literally can literally live in and not like I've, like people will have no idea how bad they feel until they come out of it. Or have no idea. Well, I mean, I know for us, how many clients, I'm sure you two have dealt with that, you know, tell you I feel good. Like, oh, I feel good.

Yeah, no, I feel great every day, but they just, they've never really, truly felt what their, how their body's running. When it's being fed optimally, it's being, it's rested, it's training correctly. Then all of a sudden, it's like, oh shit, no, I really feel good now, but they had no idea. So, there's also, you know, people at that world.

We're all probably at, you know, suffering to that something to be right now. Absolutely. We could all feel so much better. Right. You know, if we were doing things differently, what do you all know that? So you chown with those things, those things might be for us

personally, are we going to be different? But I mean, I, I believe that of myself, for sure. Oh, no, we talked yesterday, the other day about, you know, with the last podcast we did together was the whole sleep thing. Like I didn't put that together until a way later. I didn't, I mean, my, my idea of like sleep back then was like, I'll sleep when I'm dead, you know, like lazy sleeps for quite a few hours. Yeah. That's, I mean, I remember saying things like that where, but I didn't think I really needed it. I didn't know it was making that much

of a difference until you start to pay attention to those things. Oh, shit. Well, look at that. Yeah. I think that we have to appreciate it though. We really have to appreciate where people can be. I mean, I know people who will, they won't even look in the mirror. People eat to escape. People don't even pay attention to what they're eating. It's kind of an escape.

They're just feeding themselves and not having any idea of what's going on. They've actually done studies where they've had people do mindfulness practice as while they're eating. That done studies where they've had people do mindfulness practice as well. They're eating. That's it. They've done nothing else. All they did was say, before you eat, take a few minutes,

a few seconds to think about what you're about to eat. Sit down. Don't have any distractions. Don't be on your phone. Don't watch TV with every bite, savor the meal, chew it 30 times, consciously swallow. Like do this whole like bring awareness to what I'm doing while I'm eating, and people lose weight.

They lose weight because they just become more aware of what they're doing to themselves. So and this is reflective, this is very reflective in what we're finding with you. Look, the obesity epidemic, there's so many different causes to it, but part of it is, they just don't know. And you know this by the way, people feed their kids because I know all- It's unfortunate. It's extremely unfortunate, by the way, people feed their kids because I know- That's just unfortunate to see. It's extremely unfortunate, but I'll tell you what. Well, when they feed them healthy, right?

But they're, you know, they don't feed themselves the same way, because they're just like unaware. They want their kids to be super healthy, but at the same time, they're- I think they probably see more just unhealthy. Yeah, healthy. Yeah, that too. Do you know what you see what I,

so I shared on the podcast recently, I totally flipped out on my mom for trying to give my little niece a popsicle. And what why I got upset was because three times the baby said no, and she's still trying to give it to her. What's the point of that? Right. But what I put together and realized is, you know, a lot of people have such a bad relationship in connection with food that they, it's like this rewards it's like you're trying to buy

the child's love because you know when she puts in her mouth, she's going to light up and be like, oh, and you know, she's going to, which is, you don't really realize why she does like it. I wonder if it's darker than that though. Maybe not consciously but subconsciously. It is. People love taking me down a little bit. Well, if you're struggling with something,

you, it's like shodden for you. You get some sort of gratification by seeing other people struggle with the same thing. And on the flip side, you don't wanna be around, you don't wanna be reminded of it by, let's say you see someone who does not struggle with it at all And he's very strong and area every week a lot of people There's that cognitive dissonance there where it's like you just don't you want that to go away

Yeah, and you know, I've seen that with them. I've been there myself, but I've seen it I just think of friends of mine growing up that had you know video game addictions and just random stuff. Like where it's bad. And they would, a couple of them were, they had that mutual understanding that were a mutual delusion, basically. So you have people that, you know, where it just, if they, if someone is engaging in a clearly destructive habit, they tend to be around other people that are doing it,

and it tends to be self-reinforcing. Completely. And they all justify each other, and they all feed each other's rationalizations. Oh, absolutely. Confirmation by. I'll tell you what, I was gonna go into a trip. I was going on a trip to a sunny beach area.

Okay, beautiful beaches, we're all gonna be in bathing suits. And it was a group of people that were gonna go group of friends. And they had the trip planned, and then, you know, they invited me to go later on. And my friend said, when these people found out you were gonna go, everybody was like, oh, fuck man, I gotta go on a diet, like, you know, oh man,

I don't like that, he's, you know, not because I'm a, they like me, we're all friends, but the fact that I'm a fit guy reminded them that they themselves now are gonna become really self-conscious about their bodies or whatever because it reminds them, you know, just like you're saying. It reminds like if you get your video game addicted friends and they're around a bunch of people

that like to go outside and do shit, like they're gonna be like, it's gonna, and especially when they know they shouldn't, you know what I mean? That's it. There's a part of them that they have these moments of clarity where they're gonna be like, it's gonna, and especially when they know they shouldn't, you know what I mean? If there's a part of them, they have these moments of clarity where they're like, yeah, I'm fucking up. You know what I mean?

They're not gonna change. But if they project, that's where it might happen. So then they end up putting that front, that's the same thing that we talked about what you're saying with the really obese girl. That's, you know, oh, I look so sexy, love my body, like that's her projecting, her insecurity just in a different way.

You know, I hate toin in this and wrap this up But we have to get our boy over to the airport right now. He'll miss his flight. Oh, yeah, it's really a time. Yeah God, dude, what a good time. Yeah, Mike. You're one of my favorite absolute. I'm not saying this because I don't I don't because I say what do you want Man, you're right here No, you're oh by the way, you're one of my absolute favorite guests, man. I appreciate you coming down. Thank you. I'm looking forward to it.

We'll be together at that. And we have Spartan race. This is my first time doing something like this. Oh, excellent. I've been on a few other people's podcasts, but not, you know, it's a handful. We ruined it for you. It's gonna be nothing.

Yeah, I'm so happy. It's just like, everybody else is gonna suck this. This is the 1010. Yeah, now you literally, we set the bar, bro. Literally bang the hottest chick in the world. And now everybody else is this ugly. I'm gonna sit and you can't go down from this. That's just life.

But I mean, we have, I'm an L one letter audience. No, I don't know if we're airing this, but we have no affiliation with your product, or anything like that. So people think we're trying to promote. No, we're just asking you on this questions and I appreciate your transparency. Absolutely. These kinds of things are fun too. Oh, we have a blast doing promote. No, we're just asking you on his questions and I appreciate your transparency. Absolutely.

These kind of things are fun too. Yeah. Oh, we have a blast doing it. Yeah, absolutely. Check this out, go to MindPumpMedia.com, get yourself enrolled in 30 days of coaching, it will cost you zero. Zero dollars, it's absolutely for free.

Also, go to YouTube. We post a new video every single day. The channel is MindPump TV or MPTV, you can find it on YouTube. And finally, find us on Instagram, Mind Pump Media, MyPage is Mind Pump Sal, Adam is Mind Pump Adam and Justin is Mind Pump Justin. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy,

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