Pursuit of Wellness - Greg LaVecchia On Paving Your Own Lane, Bodybuilding, Entrepreneurship, and Working With Your Wife

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

Ep. #1 On today's episode we talk to my husband and co-founder Greg LaVecchia. Greg tells the story of how he fell in love with bodybuilding plus how he used his experience to help me on my journey. We dive into the complexity of owning a business with your significant other, and his mindset when it comes to success in business.    For Mari’s Instagram click here!   For Greg’s Instagram click here!   To shop Bloom Nutrition greens click here!   To download Mari’s workout plan & recipes click here!   2023 Goal templates click here!   Produced by Dear Media. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Today is an extra special episode because our guest happens to be my husband and co-founder Greg Lavecchia, an entrepreneur, two-time business owner, fitness enthusiast and husband, Greg. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Mari. I am so excited to be here on the first episode, which makes it extra special. I know. I can't wait to be part of this and witness you take over this space. Thank you. It was tough to nail you down. You have a very busy schedule. If you had to explain to someone who doesn't know you at all, how would you describe what you do for a living? I would just say I'm an entrepreneur or I'm in the social media space. If they want a little bit more detail, I would say I'm in the fitness industry, which probably isn't as accurate as it

used to be when I say that. But yeah, I would say entrepreneur in the social media space. How long have you been into fitness? Do you have a first memory in the fitness world? So unlike most people, I remember coming out of the womb with dumbbells in my hand. No, I always just thought strength and muscles were so cool, whether it's down to the classic masculine stereotype, action figure, James Bond, whatever it is. I remember just wanting muscles at a very young age, wanting to be strong at a very young age. I remember really like playing with weights, let alone just pushups, probably 11, 12 years old.

Did you have an inspiration when it came to fitness or were you just free balling? You know, when you're a kid, your dad is the craziest physique you've ever seen, right? Seeing just an adult flex his arm is all the motivation I think any child needs. But, you know, obviously this is before social media and whatnot. So I didn't have like some of the easy to reach inspirations that kids do today. But I would say, yeah, my earlier inspirations were just the people in my community in real life. I wasn't into sports, professional sports. My family's not really into professional sports.

So my inspiration was just our in real life circle. I know you dabbled in football a little bit in high school. Is that what introduced you to the world of weightlifting? Yeah, I mean, life has a funny way, right? As you're trying to kind of figure out who you are, you fall down the paths that society just suggests you go down. And even though, as I just said, I wasn't into professional sports whatsoever,

of course, I just kind of felt, it looked like I could play football, I guess. The kids who I was hanging out with were playing football and I decided to get into football. It was never really my thing, but I loved the training aspect of it. I loved the weight room. I loved the community that came with that weight room. I loved the independence. I'm not much of a team player, especially if I'm not the leader, just not really my personality.

And the independent control that I could have in excelling in the weight room was something that really stood out to me. Yeah. It's funny because I know you so well, obviously we're married and you are an extremely independent individual. And it's just funny how that has evolved into your entire career now. You are such a leader. And I think it's great that you have that self-awareness. And it's been amazing to watch you grow in that way. Would you say that nutrition and exercise were emphasized in your household growing up? Like what was the environment around food, health, etc.? The environment was home cooked, right?

Which I think is like a beautiful foundation for any health journey. Eating out was for special occasions. I imagine most people in our generation feel that way. Maybe in current adolescence, that's not really the case as much with Uber Eats, etc. But in my house, you ate home-cooked meals. And obviously, that came with frozen food. Obviously, that came with instant pancakes and margarine instead of butter. But my parents, with everything, just did the best that they could with their knowledge.

Obviously, looking back, I would have changed quite a bit. I think America's views on nutrition have changed quite a bit in the last 20 years. But with what our family knew, I'm very happy with what they fed me. Was that your question? It was my question. When did you start taking the reins with your own health and nutrition? I was pretty independent with almost everything that I did. I think I have a sibling. I have an older sister. She's five years older than me. So by the time I was old enough to really realize what was going on, which maybe I still haven't figured that out yet. But once I was in middle school, she was in high school. Once I was

in high school, she was in college. So I kind of identify as an only child. We're not very close. I love my sister very much. She's crushing it. We speak when we can. But I was pretty much similar to an only child upbringing. And my parents kind of, you know, trusted me for whatever reason. And with that came at a young age, grocery shopping for myself, cooking most of my meals myself. I was always like, I don't know, just looking back, I was ordering on the adult menu at a young age, probably because of the volume of food that I could consume at a young age. I was definitely quite a trash can at a young age, as I still am. But in fact, I thought there'd be a spread of food here. I'm a little disappointed by this podcast now. But yeah, so I would say I just had independence with my food. And similar to how I treat probably our finances since we met, there was very little budget associated with our food. Food was something that

was very sacred, whether it was the meals that we ate as a family, whether it was when we were grocery shopping. I think my mom would be on top of the coupons and whatnot, and we didn't shop at necessarily the most expensive store. If I was into weightlifting and I needed protein, for example, once I was 15, 16, 17, especially when I could drive on my own, there wasn't much of a financial limit put on the food that I required, which I thought was really cool. It was the idea of there's different budgets for different things that was introduced to me at a young age, which I don't mean to get too off topic with the question, but there

are. There's different budgets for different things. And it's just about principles, right? And it's not, it's not a matter of, all right, here's a $50 a week. You can spend this on fucking Chipotle, or you could spend this on, you know, secretly buying alcohol with your friends or whatever it is. It was like, here's a credit card. You can use this at the grocery store. And then like, if there was like bullshit that i wanted to buy like that was a completely different conversation or like my gas like one tank a week right like there was limitations set on other things but for food and this is still how i act

because or i think we act with our finances is there's not much of a limit that's the last thing we put a budget on yeah you know what i mean because it's the foundation of everything i would say that's true i think we spend the most money on our groceries. I mean, we will go to a farmer's market and buy the most expensive bread because it's the best quality bread or the best produce because we think it's the best produce. And we're definitely blessed that we're able to do that now. And I will say money wasn't a big topic in my household. And you and your family have taught me so much about finances. And I really appreciate that. And I think there is something to say about

delegating where you put your money. Yeah. And I mean, I'm the first one to say, if someone says, how can I kind of get financially successful? Obviously, there's many different forms of success. But if someone says, how do I get financially successful? My first thing is always get in shape. I'm a big believer that if you get your health in check, you get your diet in check, you start exercising more, you get the routines that come with that, it leads to more money. So I've always kind of seen it as an investment, right? And if I invest in my health, aka my food, because that's the foundation of health, then I will make it back.

When did the obsession with supplements begin? Because just to paint the picture for the audience, our pantry is exploding with vitamins, including our brand, of course. But you have been taking supplements since I met you. You're very knowledgeable when it comes to supplements. You taught me everything I know about supplements. When did that obsession begin? It's funny. I remember at a pretty young age, I had a family member who got cancer. And randomly, my mom, or not randomly, and my mom started as a result to buy palm juice, like pomegranate juice

and pomegranate tea or some shit. And I was like, why? And it was the idea that like antioxidants, maybe specifically this pomegranate ingredient was good for this form of cancer. That person ended up beating it. So from that point on, I just kind of recognized like the power of individual ingredients, I guess. And then when I started to research how to get muscle, I didn't even realize food had protein. I think we're talking 14 years old max. I didn't realize food had protein. I thought protein was whey protein. And so I ran to my mom and I was like,

mom, I've done all this research. Mind you, I can't do a lot of research. I'm not capable of comprehending research like that. I ran to my mom and said, mom, I found the exact type of protein I need. I've done all this research, you know, because if I presented this to her, then maybe she would let me get it, right? And I said, I need whey protein. I thought that was the brand. I didn't realize whey was a type of protein. I think everyone probably knows the exact product I'm thinking of, especially if you were around the

supplement scene, you know, 15 years ago. But I wanted this bottle that said whey on the outside of it. And I thought that's what protein was. I didn't realize eggs, steak, whatever has protein. That was like the first supplement that I bought was a protein powder. How has your view on supplementation evolved since then, since the whey protein? I thought the ideal situation would be everything I ate was a protein shake, right? And then all my fat would come from fish oil capsules. And then all of my vitamin C would come from a vitamin C capsule. Well, now I realize supplements are to be added to the things that maybe my diet is deficient in or things that I just can't very efficiently add to my whole food diet regime that I supplement with as a result.

So when I met you, we were in college. You lived in a frat house next to my sorority house. It was the age of drinking till you blacked out, staying up until 3 a.m., little to no concern with your health. But I remember meeting you and being shocked at how concerned with health you were. You were cooking every meal. You were in the gym twice a day sometimes. What was it like to be in a relationship with someone who didn't care about fitness at all? Because I had pretty much never stepped into a gym at that point. I guess most of the people in my frat house and most of the people I surrounded myself with didn't recognize this.

Like to preface this, I was like pretty much trying to become a professional bodybuilder at this time in my life. Like all I really cared about was being as jacked as possible. And I just pretty much was positive that that would turn into something if I could pull that off.

Whether that was just attention or whether that was, you know, being recognized, right? Respect. I think every man just craves respect, right? And that's what I was chasing for. I think I was used to people not really getting it. If anything, they just thought it was funny that I ate all this, you know, chicken. And so I didn't expect anything else from you. It was kind of like my own thing. I didn't really talk to anyone about it unless they, for some reason, were in that scene with me. So, you know, it was definitely a niche,

especially 10 years ago. So yeah, I didn't really expect you to understand. So you didn't feel like tempted to encourage me or were you hoping that I would? You know, I don't even really remember before meeting you, like a girl that worked out, to be completely honest.

You know, females being part of the fitness scene is new, at least on mainstream, right? I mean, I wasn't like that active on social media. I didn't really use YouTube. I was in fucking Philadelphia, right? There wasn't really any women that I had ever met, unless they were athletes who cared about training. And it definitely wasn't weights if it was an athlete. Right. So when I went through what I went through and I came to you and said, hey, I'd like to get into fitness. So this is how I want to change my life. Were you excited?

How were you feeling at that point? Do you want to just kind of give a backstory on why you were coming to me to get into fitness? Yeah. So I was at a really rough point in my life. And I had dropped out of school. I had gained 60 pounds. I was on a variety of antidepressants, anti-anxiety, mood stabilizers. I was in a really, really bad place in my life. No job. Kind of realized that I was the only one who was going to get myself out of this situation.

And Greg was a huge inspiration to me. As I just mentioned, he was into fitness. I felt like he had control over his health and his life. And I went to him and said, hey, I want to learn how to do this. And you really were the first inspo for me. And I'm curious to know what that felt like. Because for two years, I wasn't in the fitness world. And all of a sudden, I was interested. So what was that like for you? I think it's funny because when you, this is always the case with life, but especially when you're younger, you don't realize what things are going to turn into, right? So that's why like, I think just today is so special. Like we're on your first episode of the podcast, and in the past, we would have been like, Mari's recording this podcast thing.

But now, you could be the next, insert huge name, in two years, in one year, in six months. Who knows what happens to this episode right here. This sentence that I'm saying right now could go completely viral. That's how beautiful social media is. It's funny because the story that we're talking about, I'm actually flying into Philadelphia tonight

to where it all started. This is a very full circle 24 hours that I'm having. That's where we met, for context. This current story that Mari's talking about, I'm actually flying into Philadelphia tonight to where it all started. So this is like a very full circle, 24 hours that I'm having. That's where we met for context. Yeah. So this current story that Mari's talking about, we were in Philadelphia. And so I'll be going back to Philadelphia for the first time in five, six years where it all started. And right now we're kind of talking it all out. So this is kind of a beautiful moment. Unfortunately, I won't be going with you, but I couldn't trick you into coming with me. So I didn't know what it would turn into. In fact, everyone would constantly ask me advice about fitness, right? And it would never turn into anything, which is a whole other conversation about people

who start things and don't finish it or say they want to do something. And not saying that I expected you to be all talk or anything like that, but I guess I had no expectations. I'm also a very short-term thinker anyway. So I don't think I expected much, but of course I poured whatever I had no expectations. I'm also a very short-term thinker anyway. So I don't think I expected much, but of course I poured whatever I had into guiding you. But it's a tough situation, especially the situation you were in.

It's intimidating. And I had never, lack of a better word, worked with anyone who was trying to do what you were doing. I just knew how to help somebody lose 10 pounds for fucking Cabo or whatever spring break trip they were taking. Have you realized now that I'm never all talk? I've definitely realized Mari is somebody who is never all talk. And I'm sure you've heard Mari talking about the podcast for over a year.

And the fact that it took so long to get going, Mari lost sleep. I was very upset about that. It's a pet peeve of mine. I do everything I say I'm going to do. And if I don't, I hate it. It's an incredible trait. Did you ever expect us to take fitness and turn it into a career? And what was that turn like?

Like, when did that spark go off for you? So we come from a town. And again, I'm trying to make sure I'm talking to people who don't know who we are here. But Mari and I are from a town where everyone's doctor, lawyer, dentist, banker, very traditional jobs. So my passion for fitness, which for whatever reason, like, overlapped with our mutual passion for the outdoors, hiking, road trips, travel. Mari was obsessed with content creation. I can go into that whole story in a minute. But I thought I would have to work for a company that did these things.

Even once one of our businesses were started, I thought I would be going into a separate career than, of course, you were going into. I mean, it was just obvious to me that I wanted to get a job at REI and embrace kind of the outdoorsy things that we were into. As much as I was involved in fitness, on a personal level, I still had not even really recognized the business side of it. Maybe because I was just so deeply lost in the consumer side of it. Let's say you shop at Zara.

You don't realize you're shopping at this, you know, conglomerate, right? You think you're like, what a cute store. I'm going to try on this tank top. It'sara, you don't realize you're shopping at this conglomerate, right? You think you're like, what a cute store. I'm going to try on this tank top. It's not, you don't realize this business, this algorithm that you're walking through. All of this just kind of was us trying our best every single day and it organically turned into the beast that it's become. As you just said, not everyone listening knows who we are.

So I will go into this in a solo episode, but during this time in my life, I ended up losing 90 pounds. Nine month long fitness journey, which turned into a forever journey because the fitness journey never ends. It's always evolving. And that's what this show is about. Once I had lost that weight and I posted my first transformation photo, that's when things really took off. And I remember us just going crazy on trying to capitalize on that opportunity. Is that when you kind of had this aha moment that you're an entrepreneur at heart? Because you'd always had corporate office jobs and hated them.

So I'm curious to hear how that felt in that moment. I've always had an independent hustle type of personality and tendencies. You know, middle school, I was trying to sell candy and sodas out of my locker. Like I've always been into that whole game. I always had a job of some sort, which was generally like a very much like a hustle. And then you get tips from whoever, you know, whether it's at a gas station, pumping gas or doing oil changes, trying to get tips for, you know, overperforming or whatever it is, making someone happy. So I was very much like a hustle mentality. I don't think I ever would have really fell into like a fixed income job.

That being said, you know, Mari's story is really interesting. So Mari and our story, Mari entered social media on Instagram with that post. And this is a time where earlier on in Instagram, I wouldn't say like you're an OG by any means, but earlier on in definitely the female fitness scene where most of the female fitness scene was competing, like in like bikini competitions and like professional competitions,

which I don't know how interested you were in going down that route. It obviously didn't turn into that. But a lot of these influencers, and I am speaking mostly about women here, they were saying, I'm a business, right? They were taking pride in the fact that this page is a business. They're an entrepreneur, which was so cool. I mean, they were originators in this space. They were fucking crushing it. But there was aspects of their, air quotes, business that were not similar to a real business.

They would not run ads, for example. So from my marketing background, I saw this opportunity and I was like, we need to get this transformation in front of more people. We need to run ads for people to come visit your page. So, which, this sounds weird, but this was frowned upon. Like this was like a frowned upon act that Mari was going to run ads about herself. It was embarrassing to me. It was. And I don't blame you. And because it was lowbrow, it wasn't classy, which is so funny because insert classiest

brand in the world, whether it's a $3,000 handbag or a $200,000 car, they run ads. And these influencers would die to be in those ads, but they won't run ads about themselves, which I always found very odd. There's just so many social stigmas attached to the way you operate your own business or operate, especially a name as a business like you. So we started to run Facebook ads, opened up a credit card, ran ads with whatever money we had, which definitely wasn't much. And we tried to get your follower count up. And of course, people saw this incredible transformation and said, I need to follow this person. Because you have two seconds to get someone's attention. It's an

attention economy. Let's be real. Everything's just trying to get someone's attention. We had this thing that would definitely get people's attention and they would click follow. And just organically, you were getting a flood of dms saying how can i do what you did so we would help them in the dms and we would essentially be coaching people on their weight loss journey in the dms quickly we were like we need to make some sort of guide some sort of instant download guide that we could just send everyone to help them with their fitness journey this was like such an exciting time and none of it made any sense to us. Looking back, it's crystal clear.

But of course, this was all just us taking wild swings at this. And we were so excited. This was the first time my Instagram had ever blown up in that way. I was getting all these notifications, all these DMs. And we were like, oh, God, we need to be on our phones 24-7. So we were. We would be at the gym answering messages and it was a hustle for sure.

It was a hustle. So people were, we were helping people in the DMs and then we made a guide. So I'd start with a nutrition guide. We made a gym guide and essentially we would run these ads. People would say, hey, I want you to help us. We would chat with them for a bit. And then we would say, if you PayPal us 10 bucks,

we'll email you this guide, right? They'd send us a screenshot, PayPal-ing us $10. We'd email them the guide. And then normally, it would stop right there, the relationship. I imagine for most people, it would stop right there. We would help them. So they would essentially be paying $10 for probably thousands of dollars of weeks of coaching. And we would help them through what we knew,

whether it was working on ourself or working with all these people. So our knowledge quickly snowballed through their fitness journey. And we realized that if we got more transformations and helped more people, one, it was just fucking awesome. Two, it would grow our reputability, our validity,

and we would turn this into more than just you. Right. So we would be like, oh, Mari did it, but like she can't help me. Well, look at all these other people I helped. Right. And so from there we released more guides and then we made our first physical product, which was horrifying. It was a booty band. So the cotton booty band, you know, we, I mean, I'll just give away how this works. It's no secret now, but Mari was one of the first, you know, especially women in this scene in America selling a cotton booty band. So we went on Alibaba, we tested a whole bunch of manufacturers. We found this beautiful man in Pakistan who we still talk to this day. There's actually a wing at the plant called the Mari Fitness wing. That brand is now

called Slay, but it was called Mari Fitness. And we funded for him to buy all these machines to help us scale this business up because it was scaling so quickly. But anyway, we started to sell these booty bands, which of course complimented the workout guides. So in the workout guides, we would have exercises that you would need a booty band for. And that sounds a little schemey, maybe, like trying to get people to buy more. One, this is business. I hate to break it to you.

Two, it was just cool. Like we loved the booty band. Like you were constantly trying to grow your ass. I still use it. Yeah, it's in our garage. And it's in our garage gym. And so it was an awesome product. We literally sold a million of those.

And it was an awesome product. We literally sold a million of those. And it was hyper viral and essentially every dollar we made from those booty bands and those guides, we funneled directly into more advertising to grow Mari's page. And this is not buying followers. This is not someone saying, I bought followers. This is someone saying, I put my message out there because no one else would. I did it. It happened to create organically the most beautiful community that I feel like exists upon an Instagram influencer. So from there, of course, came Bloom, which complimented those guys. But I feel like you have another question. Bringing it back to our

relationship a little bit, because I think that's what people are really interested in. Obviously, Greg is incredibly entrepreneurial and I have been surprised at how much I love business and I think marketing in particular is really interesting to me, but I was always very passionate about content and talking to my audience. There's nothing I love more than connecting. And I think I was able to do that through creating videos, sharing tips, taking them to the grocery store with me. So we really balanced each other out in that way. What has been your experience

working so closely with your significant other? How do you handle that? Do you have any tips for anyone listening who does that currently or would like to? Just for the record, I don't know anyone who works with their significant other. I've actually never been asked this question. I mean, people ask for shits, but like, I don't know anyone who does it or let alone has pulled it off.

Lauren and Michael. Yeah. Who own Dear Media, of course. Shout out to them. They're fucking awesome. It's funny because I was always very insecure. And I'll make this about me, even though it's about us. No, I'm just kidding.

No, it's about you. I was always very insecure in just my capabilities which I can go into why another time but I don't have an ego but I was able to or I was blessed to gain these people around me

who complimented all of my weaknesses. What do you mean you don't have an ego? Who complimented all of my weaknesses and insecurities to the point where now I have an ego about my team. And the foundation of that ego that I have with my team, which I'm obviously a crucial part of, but I'm nothing without those other people, specifically Mari, of course, is taking on life, that now I'm just so confident in you and I. So as you were saying, you're able to communicate. I can't communicate.

Communication is building brand. Communication is building community. I have zero skills whatsoever with that. It is truly a flaw of mine where I can never be an entrepreneur without those things. I am not an entrepreneur without you. I'm nothing without you. I'm a bad friend I'm a bad business person without you. You don't mean that you're a bad friend

You mean that I help you be better, right? That is what I mean. I would not consider you a bad friend Thank you, but you compliment my weaknesses and help me embrace those things that I do truly want but for some reason I'm weak at Yeah, yeah, how do you feel like it has affected our relationship over time because you have the Bloom products in front of you? Sorry, I didn't even answer the original question. It's fine. Okay. It's fine. This is who you are. Yeah. We love a good. You're getting the real version of me. We love a tangent. Can't remember anything. You have the Bloom products in front of you, the greens. I think a lot of people listening have probably heard of them or seen them on TikTok at this point. Bloom has skyrocketed, I think, past what we could have imagined.

For those who don't know, Bloom is mine and Greg's supplement company and the greens are our best selling product. How has the explosion of our business impacted our relationship in your eyes? So entrepreneurship at the purest level. So for anyone who doesn't know, we're self-funded, right? We never had any backing of finances or anything like that. So there was quite a bit of just pressure put on us and responsibility put on us. Oh, by the way, we don't know anyone who is a successful entrepreneur. We still barely know anyone, or at least that we can tap into and ask for advice. I feel like we're starting to get out

there more and meet people. Yes, but now we don't really need it as much. So when we needed it, we didn't have it. So there was a ton of just confusion and pressure, fear on not only our mental health, but our finances, which we still, that part we still deal with. With our friendships, with our family members, we've had to skip Thanksgiving. And we had to decide together, are these sacrifices worth it? I think we both agree that they were. So I would say that was just pressure put on our relationship,

which by the way, there was huge points, if not a majority of this journey has been uncomfortable. Life's weird with comparison, especially when you're in the social media space. I mean, everyone looks so goddamn happy on Instagram and all the relationships look so perfect. I'm constantly listening to podcasts where they go, oh, I've never been in a fight with my wife. Like, motherfucker, you got divorced two years after I heard that.

But anyway, I think. It's constant work. It's constant work. And I think as a very late, as a very recent, we've realized just how much the effort that we put into our fitness, the effort that we put into our fitness, the effort that we put into our businesses, the effort that we put into everything, we need to almost put more into just our relationship. And so whether that's I write you a note every morning, whether that's you making me pancakes Sunday morning, whether that's just making sure we try to go to bed together every night. Have dinner together every night. Definitely. That's a huge one with no fucking phones, right? So.

I think we could have a whole other conversation about love languages because we've definitely realized we have different love languages and that's been a whole journey in itself. And I think it's easy sometimes to let things go by in a flash. You know, like Bloom changed so much just in the past six months. And it's taken us a minute to even adjust to that change. It'd be like, whoa,

how do we handle this as a couple? Like we're not just co-founders together. We are married and we need to prioritize that too. Yeah. And I think recognizing that like everyone's different. So it's like, all right,

we made a couple bucks. Well, you know what should make us happy? Sitting on a beach and getting sunburns. That's going to be kick-ass, babe. We've worked this hard. Let's go celebrate and go to the beach. And then any hardships that we've been going through, specifically in our relationship or now our marriage, we'll iron that out, getting some sunburns. We don't like sitting on the beach. We get very upset. We will probably get into a fight within 15 minutes if we go sit on a beach and try to sip on a mimosa. We could last 15 minutes, but like after the 16th minute it's over

So realizing that we are not the same as everyone else and coming up with our own Formula and taking a step back to figure out what that formula looks like of course you listen to the podcast You might even read a relationship book But there is no set formula of what a happy relationship looks like because everyone's unique especially us we're two shit shows trying to make this work on an individual level and you know trying to come up with your own recipe for for happiness within your relationship okay i want to jump into a fan q a because the fans have a lot of questions for you i feel like we got pretty deep you're going to have to come back all right wait can I pause you really quick before the segment?

I came. I brought you a chocolate bar, your favorite chocolate for after the podcast. Speaking of relationships. And I know, but you see, that's not Mari's love language. Me like bringing Mari shit isn't a great thing for Mari. No, I'm not really a gift person. So that was really, you clearly haven't been listening to me at all. Exactly.

But also, I'm just super stoked about this podcast and congrats. That, I love a word of affirmation. Thank you. I was making eye contact during that too. I appreciate it. I didn't walk away mid-conversation. We've had a lot of eye contact this whole conversation. I'm lucky you haven't walked out the door.

Okay, time for a fan Q&A. The fans have a lot of questions for you. You have kind of become a bit mysterious in the past year. I don't love the limelight. The first question for you is why don't you go on camera anymore? Someone said who even is Greg? I love the community that Mari and Bloom

have been able to accumulate or build or whatever. It's like it's so special when we run into you guys in the street around the world. It's like, you know, it's magic. Why don't you want to be on camera? Why aren't you in my content anymore? Maybe I just like release it. Social media kind of scares me. And, you know, it's not, I guess your content just going out into the open world and getting people's feedback.

Feedback scares me. I see what it does to people. It's just something that doesn't really bring too much value to my life. That being said, as I get older and get more comfortable with who I am and my values and I can stand by them more strongly, I think I'm getting more comfortable, as we are seeing right now, getting more comfortable kind of getting out there. How did you know Mari was the one for you? I knew Mari was the one for me. She doesn't believe me. I knew Mari was the one for me the day I met her.

So Mari went to my high school and is a year older than me. She actually grew up about two miles away from me. I had no idea any of this the day that I met her. We had like a subtle referral from a buddy, a mutual buddy that we went to high school with saying like, oh, like this girl goes to your college. You should go meet up with her. So we met at some sort of fraternity, sorority thing, Greek life thing.

I was probably too nervous to even talk to you about 18 times. And then on the 19th time, it was Halloween. I was probably 17 and a half tequila shots deep. So I had the confidence to go say hi to Mari. In fact, I was dancing on a table and the table broke. I was badly injured. Mari went outside with me to just lay down for 20 minutes. And that was the night that we met. Mari was in a Toy Story costume, which was very American of you. Shout out to you. How did you know I was the one?

I just, I thought you were so beautiful. I thought, at first glance, of course, I didn't know you yet. I thought you were funny. We had fun together. And I guess I could just immediately realize that you were, you brought something out of me that I didn't know. And I, I didn't, that I didn't even know that I wanted. And you were just so different than anyone I'd ever met.

I told my mom about you almost right away. I went, tried to go get some fucking nicer clothes right away. Cause I just had gym clothes at that point. So I got my shit together. I probably changed my once a week haircut to once every three days for a couple of weeks on some Guido shit. And I might even hit some tanning beds once or twice just to try to reel you in. What do you do when your vision for your life doesn't align with Mari's?

I feel like, can I answer? I feel like we work to make sure we are aligned. I think we talk about our future a lot. Yeah, I think just staying in communication and compromising here and there, of course. I don't have a clear-cut answer for this, but we try to just stay on the same page at all times. And let's say I have things that I want to do. I can do them myself, and you can go do some things yourself. And that's cool as long as we cheer each other on in the process, even if we don't give a fuck in reality. Last fan question. How do you deal with pressure at work?

Several pharmaceutical drugs thrown into my morning smoothie. But on top of that, you know, it's fitness and it's... Greg is not recommending that anyone does that. He's not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. But elaborate on the fitness thing. How does that help you deal with pressure? You know, I think success is just someone's ability to tolerate stress. And with success, with challenges comes tremendous amounts of stress, whether that's, again, just stresses on different parts of your life, sacrifices, et cetera. And I think if you're healthy, you're getting your sleep, you're in good shape, you're doing your cardio, you're working out, whatever, you're pushing yourself physically, then those stresses just diminish a little bit and they become a little bit more tolerable. But like, of course,

there's been some gems that I've introduced recently as of the last year, like the sauna. The sauna has been huge for my stress, especially incorporated with the ice bath. That's been huge. Obviously, that's like a little leveled up. Like, I don't think most people can do that on a regular basis, but they probably could. I mean, if you really wanted to. But the sauna and the ice bath have been huge for my mental health. Fish oil has been huge and overall gut health has been huge. Of course, like the greens is part of my gut health routine. Hashtag greens. Hashtag greens. And sleep, getting enough sleep. sleep but yeah just trying to do something hard every day physically that isn't work related seems to really be the recipe for

being able to balance it all now it's time for the question we ask every guest i started this podcast because i believe everyone's pursuit of wellness looks different what does wellness mean to you the world is survival of the fittest and not just physical fitness, obviously. So I think that wellness to me is being as fit as possible in as many departments of my life as possible. And not everything can be a 10 out of 10, but I'd rather have everything be a 7 or 8 out of 10, then some things be a 10 and some things be a 2. So if I could be a multimillionaire, but my relationship's a 2, that's not wellness. But if I can have 7s or 8s across the board, I consider that what I strive for in my wellness.

Does that make sense? Makes complete sense. Greg, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was amazing chatting with you. I think we'll have to do a part two. So if you're in the audience right now and you have more questions for Greg, go comment on my recent Instagram post. Greg, we can't wait to have you back on. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Go comment on my last Instagram at Mari Llewellyn with the guest you want to see next. I'll be picking one person from the comments to send our bloom greens to. Make sure you hit follow so you never miss my weekly episodes. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to share and leave a review. See you next week.