Pursuit of Wellness - Husband/Founders Chat: Bloom Energy Drink, Addressing The Haters, Relationship Advice & Motivation for Entrepreneurs

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

Ep. # 118 On today’s Pursuit of Wellness episode, Greg is back to dive into the details of our exciting NEW product, the Bloom energy drink! We’ll explore the challenges of creating an energy drink, our commitment to balancing health and flavor, and a breakdown of the ingredients we chose and why. Together, Greg and I address the haters while providing motivation for female entrepreneurs. We also answer your questions on relationship advice, managing bad days, finding balance with each other, and provide fertility updates. Tune in for an intimate and personal episode with Greg and me! Leave Me a Message - click here! For Mari’s Instagram click here! For Pursuit of Wellness Podcast’s Instagram click here! For Mari’s Newsletter click here! For Greg's Instagram click here! For POW Brand Promo Codes click here! Sponsored By:  Visit clearstemskincare.com and use code POW at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. Again, that’s code POW for 20% off your first purchase on https://clearstem.com/ Get better sleep now with Blissy and use POWPOD to get an additional 30% off at blissy.com/POWPOD Sleep is the foundation of health, and there is nothing better than waking up feeling refreshed and ready to attack the day. Use code POW for 20% off your order at https://dreamrecovery.io/ Show Links: New Bloom Energy Drinks! Sucralose Bypasses the Blood Brain Barrier?  New Research Shows Artificial Sweeteners Mess Up Your Gut? Topics Discussed: 00:11 - Welcome back Greg! 01:00 - Travel and lifestyle updates 03:20 - Phone “Check Ins” 04:28 - Greg’s trip to LA 06:22 - Relationship advice and finding balance 09:21 - Fertility updates 10:38 - Greg’s thoughts on expectations 15:19 - Bloom energy drinks 23:03 - Analyzing the ingredients in Bloom 31:45 - Greg’s social media presence 32:45 - Key financial and investment advice 33:51 - Managing each other’s bad days 34:51 - Mari’s father and acclimating to America 38:26 - Fighting with each other 39:33 - Investments and getting acquired 39:38 - Relationship vs Mari’s fitness journey 41:04 - Where to find Bloom energy drinks

This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast, and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. Greg, welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me. I just pulled up to this fantastic studio. I've never been here before. I didn't know where I was going. I just saw Fee's new pink Barbie car. For the energy drink wrap that we wrapped the Bronco in, it looks insane. Very stoked to be back. Loving everything going on with Pal. I just want to kind of give the community an update since we last talked. We had such a good episode last time.

Everyone loved it. That's crazy to me because I leave that episode and I'm like, I feel like I just disassociate for now. I don't even remember what we talked about. It's so funny because I feel like you don't come off that way at all. No, anything with this microphone is a very intimidating thing to me. You guys should put like a stuffed animal over this. I don't even realize what's going on. But you get used to it. Like, I feel like the more you come on, the less you think about it. And that episode,

people loved it. So I'm glad. Just keep that in mind that people love what you do. So you were just in LA. I mean, we were in New York. I interviewed Hannah Berner. And then we had some fertility appointments. And then you went directly to LA and you were working through the week. And I was all alone. You were all alone. Would you like to speak to the neglect? No, the neglect is a big deal because Mari and I have spent a cumulative,

I mean, it's probably getting up there at this point. But in the last 10 years, we've spent less than 20 days apart. I don't think we've ever spent more than one week apart. Oh, in total, yeah. But cumulatively, 20 days in 10 years. Well, I can't even count that. But a lot of it has been taking place this week with my personal travel increasing more. So that was the longest amount of time that we've been separated potentially ever prior to the day we met.

Yes. And I was really proud of myself. And I spoke about this a little bit on my story. But I think it was the first time. And, you know, I have to say sleeping alone is like my least favorite thing ever. And I don't have Lulu right now because she's on lock. Really? Well, you like turn on noises at night. Yeah. And I don't even, you do things at night that I don't realize you do. And then I'll be in a room and I'll be like, why is it so quiet in here? I'll be like,

this is different than normal. So you don't miss me. You miss what I bring. What I bring. That's sad. Your amenities. What I mean is I miss having a body next to me because it makes me feel protected. And so I end up, it takes me longer to fall asleep and I kind of wake up

in the middle of the night and I check outside and I check the doors locked and like, I'm just more afraid without you. But other than that, I was really proud

of how I did this week because I hung out with friends. I did Pilates classes. I made my sourdough. I went horseback riding. I did this week because I hung out with friends. I did Pilates classes. I made my sourdough. I went horseback riding. I did a walk around the trail. I went out to dinner with people. So I really felt like it was my first time.

No, I don't want to say that. I've been getting better and better over the years. But this was like truly the first time I like really enjoyed my time. And I definitely missed you and we stayed in contact. Yes. But it was like a very nice week. And I think that really speaks to the community I've built here in Austin. I feel so comfortable

leaving you here. Yeah. Lack of a better phrase, right? Like you actually have a community. I feel like I could text the neighbors and be like, it's Mario. Okay. Actually, at one point you started doing this thing where like, I don't know if it's when you leave the house or when you come home to the house, you like send some sort of horrifying Amber alert to my phone that says check in with Mari. Yeah. And then you'll go MIA because I guess you're hanging out with a friend.

Yeah. And so I'm like calling Fi. I'm calling Fi's significant other. I'm trying to figure out what the hell's going on. And you were like, what do you mean? I just, my phone offered me to, can you please explain what that is to me on the podcast? I have no idea because I would be out and then it would, I would go home.

And it was almost before I even put it in the map that it was like, do you want to let Greg know you're on your way home? Like it knows that I would tell you what, and you're not even like registered as my husband on my phone. Like I don't even know how to do it. Why? You're not in a relationship on Facebook. I wouldn't even know how to do that. But it was like, want to check in with Greg? And I was like, let's hit it and see what happens. So I was like, sure. And it was like, it was horrifying. It said to Greg, my ETA, and then it had like a little thing showing him me on my way home. And it's like, Mari got home. I thought you'd love it. Well, now I love it. Whatever. Moving on. Okay. Well, I won't do that in the future, But I had a great week and I was really proud of myself.

How was your week in LA? Like what were the vibes? Absolute madness. It was prime day. And I don't know if people remember like pre-2022 Instagram, social media, e-commerce, Black Friday was our Super Bowl. Yeah. Right? So the day after Thanksgiving, in fact, we didn't even go to Thanksgiving for probably four years straight because it was just, that was the day before Black Friday and we had to prepare.

And then at midnight or whatever the time was, you would start posting and it would just be madness. The warehouse would be overwhelmed, da, da, da. And then, I guess,

like the modern day Black Friday is Prime Day now, which is this 48-hour period on Amazon where like everyone does huge discounts. I realized I should have gotten a Kindle. Like a digital

book thing? Yeah. That would have been a great purchase. Greg knows about my smut books, guys. That was very, do you call it girl math? Yeah. Like, oh, what an opportunity to buy things because things are on sale. But I do need a Kindle.

Sure. But we need a lot of things. But it was Prime Day. And that is now kind of our Super Bowl in terms of like the biggest sale of the year. And I mean, since you asked, we ended as the number one selling supplement on Amazon, which is the largest retailer in the entire world. We were the number one selling supplement, our greens powder. Period.

Which was like, it was actually, it was pressure. We were up till midnight. Obviously, the sale ends at midnight. The whole operation, the whole Amazon Prime Day is a PST operation, you know, the West Coast time zone. And so it was all hands on deck. The team absolutely crushed it. And yeah, couldn't be happier without Lent.

So you were there for Prime Day and the drink? The drink. You're going to just casually, the drink. Yeah, we'll get to it. And yeah, couldn't be happier without Lent. So you were there for Prime Day and the drink? The drink? You're going to just casually, the drink? Yeah, we'll get to it. But yeah, it was a four-day war. I'm happy I wasn't there for these reasons. I would have been, and let me explain this

because I think it's actually a good relationship tip. Try to apply it to whatever situation you have. I know that Greg is going to be a zombie version of himself when it's prime day. Like I'm not going to get the full romantic like present version of Greg. So it's almost better that I'm not there because it will prevent me getting upset. Yeah, I think in the last few months, maybe the last couple years, what I've realized about proper balance is you turn on different switches. You don't try to be a husband while you're an entrepreneur, while you're a friend, while you're a dog parent, right? Or while you're a son, whatever it may be. Sometimes you're an entrepreneur, sometimes you're a husband, sometimes you're a dog parent.

And so when I'm a husband, I'm not, you know, working on my phone or whatever it is. When I'm working, I try to just check in with you when like, you know, we should be checking in. But so therefore, for a four-day, five-day sprint in LA, we did check in very little because I was entrepreneur for five days straight. But at the same time, I felt like you sent me flowers, which made me think you were thinking about me, which was very nice. I highly recommend doing that if you're listening. You sent me texts, you sent me pictures. I felt like seen enough, but definitely by Saturday night, I was like, okay, I'm done. Yeah. Come home now. So yeah,

I just wanted to speak to that. And then another update. Wait, can you say what I came home to? Sourdough bread. Sourdough bread. Bicycles for us to go riding around the neighborhood in. Yeah. So I should say Blue Jay Bikes sent me two beautiful e-bikes that are bloom green with brown leather. They have baskets on them. It's like my dream bike. It's the British spec. Yeah. English spec. Okay. And I surprised Greg with them. I's like my dream bike. It's the British spec. Yeah, English spec. Okay. And I surprised Greg with them. I put two huge bows and had them waiting in the garage and surprised him. Were you actually surprised? I was surprised.

And I mean, I love riding bikes. It was my first job working at a bike store. I just, if anyone has a suggestion for the largest helmet that I could put on Mari's head, that'd be great. The helmet I have is too big for my head. No, not literally size-wise. I mean, protection-wise. Large would not imply that. You mean the strongest.

The strongest helmet. The strongest helmet. I mean, I don't fall, but you're the clumsy one, clearly. So yeah, I had sourdough bread. We had like a big feast. We went to dinner last night at this place called Sushi by Scratch, which is like Joe

Rogan's favorite sushi in Austin. It was delicious and a really cool experience. Yeah, it was it was a very normally we're like a family style, large platters of food in the center of the table. So to have like someone hand you a bite sized piece 30 times in a row. Yeah, different to our norm. But and explain where everything's from and that whole thing. You know what it felt like? It reminded me of sampling this energy drink. Because you're like putting this one sip into your mouth and like wishing it around and like trying to analyze how it feels on your palate

or whatever it may be. That's what it tasted like when he handed me that Torah. Great example. And then the other update I have for the girls is the IUI. I wanted to let them know about, have I let them know about that? I don't remember. But a fertility update for you guys. I think I may have mentioned this, but Greg and I are trying IUI this month. So basically it's timed with my cycle. So I'll get my period. And then on day four of the cycle, you start taking letrozole, which helps you

ovulate. You get scanned on day 12 for a mature egg. If the egg is mature, they basically turkey based the sperm and the sperm is also cleaned. So it's like optimized and they put it exactly where it's supposed to go. So it's sort of like a non-invasive way of optimizing. It's not IVF. It's not that intense, but it like helps chances. So fingers crossed. We'll see how it goes. But I wanted to fill you guys in because I know there's a lot of girls who follow me who have done IUI or IVF and I just wanted to speak to it. Yeah, it seems to be like logistically optimized through a turkey baster, but also like pharmaceutically optimized with a couple, you know, short term medications. Yeah. So we'll see. Let's see what we could do. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much because I mean, I just know

already that I'm going to be really sad if it doesn't work. Like, obviously, I'll be sad. Can I go on a rant about how I feel about expectations? Please. I think expectations are the worst thing. If you were to speak poorly about what social media does, one of my top things that I feel like it does is expectations, right? So the expectation of, oh, let's go take this vacation to Disney World, and you imagine this incredible thing because you saw this influencer post about Disney World. And then when you go there, your trip is what real life is like. And it's not as good as what that expectation was

when you saw it online. So that's why when like you book a trip or you book a hotel, I'm like, don't even show me the pictures. I don't want any of these digitally optimized expectations of what that may be like, whether it's a restaurant, a hotel, you know, whatever it may be.

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ton of different prints and colors and they make great gifts because there's an option for literally everyone. Men love them too. They have over 1 million raving fans and you could be next. Try now risk-free for 60 nights at blissy.com slash powpod and get an additional 30% off. That's b-l-i-s-s-y.com slash powpod and use code powpod to get an additional 30% off. Your skin and hair will thank you. It's funny you say that because i actually was feeling really good about i actually maybe you actually make a good point because i was feeling really good about iui because i'd spoken to some people who were like oh yeah my friend just got pregnant with that oh so and so did your mom did and then i got i was conceived on iowa my sister your sister was. I went on TikTok and then I saw a bunch of like failed experiences

and that kind of put me feeling negative. So similarly, it gave you poor expectations when like optimism is everything, a manifestation. And now, you know what I mean? It's like, I don't know. The best thing we can do is just be hopeful but not get too attached to the results, I think. And we always have our plan you know of ivf in september if it doesn't work out so anyway i

wanted to fill them in and elephant in the room if you're watching on video which you can on spotify or youtube is that we have our brand new energy drink sitting between us and i wanted to talk about it boy you, this drink is literally the reason we moved to Austin, Texas. We moved here with a partnership with some really powerful manufacturers and business partners to create what we felt. Mari, I would love for you to speak on it. I mean, this is a made by women for women product. You want to explain what we got here? Yeah. I mean, we wanted to reimagine the energy drink and that's just point blank. I saw in the female energy drink space that there were not

many options and I didn't love the options that there were for many different reasons. And I knew we could do it better. And at the bloom girl asked for an energy drink. We did polls. We asked you guys. We've been asking for like over a year now. Yeah. And I think we always knew we wanted to do a drink. And we could see from consumer data that majority of Bloom customers were also buying energy drinks.

And I really wanted to make one that spoke to the Bloom girl. She's someone that wants it to taste yummy, has good ingredients, isn't a crazy amount of caffeine, but is enough to feel super motivated and focused. And I feel like this is the Bloom Girl in a can. It's currently exclusively with Target.

For how long? For the year. For the rest of 2024. And then we'll be... Who knows? Day by day. Okay, day by day. Currently on the shelves at Target. And we have four amazing flavors, raspberry lemon, strawberry watermelon, peach mango, and cherry lime. Let's talk about the process of making it

from the beginning. Like, where did we start? Well, we start with the formulation. And we worked with some of the coolest formulators that we've ever worked with in Bloom's history, by far the most advanced. And we basically just reverse engineered it from what we wanted the product to provide, which was gut health forward ingredients with low calories and amazing taste. You know, if you look at the ethos of what Bloom is, it's accessibility of better for you products. And accessibility is nothing if you're not affordable and if you don't taste good, right? So it's not accessible if you don't want to drink it. So therefore it has to taste good, which is where these incredible fruity

flavors come in. And then just like little touches like that apple cider vinegar that you want to get in every day anyway, has that green tea extract, that lychee extract within combination is proven to boost your metabolism. Prebiotics. I mean, the prebiotics, you get a little bit of that fiber to start your day, but not, you know, if anything, it's eliminating bloat. It's not adding any, you know, gastric distress with the prebiotics. And we tested that. We tested every amount of prebiotics to make sure that no bloat would happen. That was like a big fear. No, I mean, it's not even something that you necessarily notice with the prebiotic. It's purely just in there, which is what you want with

a supplement, right? You want to be able to just supplement the things that you're already drinking. And then there's literally ingredients that are proven to enhance your mood. So you drink the product, you have more energy, you're in a better mood, you're more focused, whether you're about to go crush a workout, crush your nurse shift. We see teachers posting about it, which I knew fired you today. So cute. So cute. And yeah, we're hoping to be like the face of the Target, you know, Target stores, energy drinks for the rest of the year. We flew in the entire Bloom team to Austin, Texas, and we were sampling flavors during that time.

And we tried like, oh my gosh, it was a crazy day because we started at like… I think we tried 12 versions of each of these 12 versions of each flavor. So that's a lot of energy drinks, guys. And that was like, for me, I personally, if I'm going to have an energy drink, I have to have it in the morning. And I'm like slowly sipping the can. And that's why I wanted to make this one like manageable for people like me, but it's still such a good kick of energy. But imagine having like shot after shot after shot of energy drink for like a whole day.

I was buzzing. I could barely speak by the end of the day because I tried so many. No, you probably had like four or five energy drinks. In a row. And I think at one point you just stopped talking.

I stopped talking. I was like, I'm so sorry to be unprofessional, but I just have to leave because I was like, this is too much for me. But it was such a good process because we really got to see the feedback from every single team member. And our team is really like, they are Bloom Girls. They're the demographic, they're the age range. And we all like pretty much agreed on every single flavor.

I'm so curious to see what you guys love. Can you tell by the Target numbers what is doing the best? Well, the Target numbers right now are just people who bought it for the first time. We haven't seen returning customers yet, or at least I don't have that data yet. So it seems like strawberry, watermelon, peach, mango, and raspberry lemon are the top three. But who knows? I mean, the data can change every day. But what I will say is as of right now, we have already sold 100,000 cans in Target. Insane.

Which I thought there was maybe like two extra zeros on there by mistake. Like I'm kind of buzzing right now. Three days, right? Yeah. And it's funny because Cherry Lime is my favorite. I'm going to crack it for them. I know. It's very much that, I don't want to name a, ooh.

It's got a good crack, right? I'll crack this raspberry. Be careful, Greg. I know. I have a much that, I don't want to name a, ooh. It's got a good crack, right? I'll crack this raspberry. Be careful, Greg. I know. I have a history of exploding these lately. And I love the fact that we didn't use artificial colors or flavors or aspartame.

So freaking good. I mean, this is insane. And guys, go on TikTok. People have been reviewing this even before we announced it. Like, they were finding it on the shelves which is so hilarious and I just want to say

we appreciate the support so freaking much like I can't even explain the feeling of launching this and having you guys support and run to Target and message me and message Greg and tell us that you love it

it makes me want to cry because this space is so intimidating to enter because we're going up against giants. Juggernauts. And it was really bold of us to disrupt a space like this. It was a really big move on our part. And the team has been working on this tirelessly for over a year now.

The amazing teamwork that went into this drink is absolutely incredible. I feel like a documentary should be made about it. Blood, sweat, and tears. And the fact that this can was designed by like a 23-year-old on our team, young women made this happen. Everything. I'm actually going to cry. Everything about this. Everything about this was born from ourold on our team. Young women made this happen. Everything. I'm actually going to cry. Everything about this.

Everything about this was born from our in-house team. We don't use agencies. We don't do that. We do everything ourselves. And Greg and I are in every meeting. This was a labor of love. And to see the support from you guys is overwhelmingly emotional for us.

No, I mean, for whatever it matters, everything that you see here outside of maybe the logistics to get it to Target stores is female. Yeah. And then me, but... Yeah, let's just ignore that. No, Greg has really been

absolutely crushing this and it's... Right, but I'm one of a team of 80 is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, no, for sure. And we could not have done this without the team and we couldn't do this without you guys. And seeing you all enjoy it is like so fulfilling

and just know we're listening, we're watching. Give us feedback. If you want to see new flavors, let us know. But it's been really cool to see come to fruition. Cheers to that. Cheers. It's like so crazy to just hold it, you know? And for me, the design, I mean, you guys know I'm

a designer merchandising major and to have this branding, I mean, I personally think this can is like gorgeous and it pops on the shelf and it's just everything I could have wanted. And I'm just obsessed. So I'm so happy with how it came out. Now, with that said, I want to speak a little bit to the ingredients. So with the overwhelmingly positive feedback, obviously, I feel like any time I do something big or that gets a lot of attention. Disruptive, dare I say. Disruptive. There's always one or two people that decide to be negative, which I always say, if you don't have haters, you're not doing enough. And I think that's true. Like anyone I see doing something big or worthwhile, you're going to get hate. And it's a part of it. I think it's really sad. And I think

it's sad in particular because I noticed that women do it to other women. And I notice it through, and I've talked about this before, but even my position versus Greg's, like Greg has gotten nothing but positive praise from his male peers. And I think women love to, I mean, the women who listen to the show don't do this. And I absolutely love my community. But I've just noticed it becoming a trend, even on TikTok, this like fascination of women tearing down other women, making videos bashing Nora Smith,

who is this like super cute, kind chef who's like cooking food and people are finding issues with her. It's like, I hate this trend of talking shit on other people on the internet and public slandering when there's really no facts behind it. With that said, I, you know, I don't personally watch or engage with any hateful content made about me. It would not be good for my mental health. But there was like one or two people talking about artificial sweeteners. And of course, when you make an energy drink,

and anyone who has made an energy drink knows this, a lot of ingredients that go into an energy drink are very bitter and don't taste good. So for example- Well, the caffeine alone. We use natural caffeine. This isn't synthetic caffeine. This is derived from green coffee beans.

It is the most, if I gave you a spoonful of natural caffeine, it would be like you had, what's it called, a sour head? You'd be sour in the face. L-theanine, apple cider vinegar, like these things don't taste good. They taste very bitter. So in order to get those good for you ingredients and the benefits in a drink, you need to be able to make it taste good at the same time, which is a very delicate balancing act. And things like monk fruit and stevia won't cover those flavors. Oh, it'd be awful. It would be awful.

And of course, we want to have it zero. We want to have it only 10 calories, zero grams of sugar. Yes, which is important to our customer. We listened to our customer and that was important. And us. And us, exactly. So when choosing a sweetener,

we went with sucralose. Reason being, sucralose is one of the most studied artificial sweeteners that there are. We wanted to stick with the fruity flavors and we knew we could achieve that with a low amount of sucralose. And we were asking the formulators who are some, again, one of the most, you know, established food scientists that we've ever worked with, let alone that I've come across on the internet, they were just telling us how sucralose has been studied for 40 years and is literally the most studied molecule. More than 40 years. More than 40 years, the most studied molecule that they have ever come across to show how safe it is. I pulled this quote from Lane Norton, who has a PhD in nutritional sciences. I'm actually going to bring him on the show. I'm really excited.

Oh, that's awesome. Human randomized controlled trials say that people who consume artificially sweetened beverages instead of soda or sweetened drinks lose significant body fat and body weight and their markers of insulin sensitivity and metabolic health all improve as well as their markers for cardiovascular health.

There is no evidence to say that sucralose is damaging. All of the rat studies showing any toxicity from sucralose are because the rat is given over a thousand times the dose that they are recommended to get. So by no means should you consume sucralose all day, every day, but to have a serving size amount is not going to cause any damage.

There is more data from a safety perspective than any other molecule tested by the FDA. That quote comes from Peter Atiyah. So the reason I bring this up is that I had some comments saying, oh, but you have guests on your show that say artificial sweeteners are bad. I have had guests on my show that have said everything is bad. And I think that the problem here is that people assume that I live and breathe by everything that my guests say. And that's not the case. I've had guests on where I agree with some of what they say and I disagree with some of what they say. My whole goal of this

show is to hear different perspectives and have education. And it is of my opinion that if you are eating whole foods and living your life well, 95% of the time, having one beverage with artificial sweeteners is not going to kill you. For me, this is a treat that gets me going. It tastes good. It gives me motivation. I had one at the gym today. I have zevias at nighttime that have artificial sweeteners. It's not like I'm consuming them all day long. And if you're someone who's throwing shade about sucralose, I would take a look at all the things you consume every day because I promise you, you have artificial sweeteners in those. This has a safe, studied, evidence-backed based amount of sucralose. And I feel really good about it. And I would not have put it out if I didn't. I sit here and ask questions because I genuinely care and I want to put information out there

and I love doing this. So anyone talking shit on another female, putting valuable information out there, I have no words. If you would like to create something better, go out and do it. Put your money where your mouth is and do it yourself. Create your own show, create your own drink.

I think the hilarious thing about people on the internet who spew hate is that they never create anything of their own. The only thing they create is negative content. I hope you go to bed feeling good about that. I personally would not. It just makes me sad. And luckily, I've gotten to the point where the minute I see anything negative, I just block the person and I move on with my life, which is what I would recommend doing for anyone listening. But it makes me sad to think about like our team or any other women trying to do something amazing, feeling discouraged by that.

And I really hope you guys don't, because I have to say, if I let every negative comment along my career get to me, I wouldn't be here right now. So you got to be willing to push through that. Guys, sleep is so important when it comes to everything health-wise, skin health, weight loss, metabolism, mood, energy, the way you show up every day and there are certain tools you can use to optimize your sleep and if you've listened to my episodes with todd anderson you may know about

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Let's do it. Okay. Oh, I would just like to read this quote before I move on. You can always tell who the strong women are. They are the ones you see building one another up instead of tearing each other down. Guys, we got to build up other women. I literally would reach out to someone

with a competitive company to me and say, fucking kill it, bro. You do that. I've seen you do that. I do. I don't care. I don't feel competitive with other girls. It makes me happy when I see other female podcasts on the charts.

I want that. Like, why wouldn't you want that? Sorry. Why is Greg all of a sudden getting active on IG? You know, the reality is, is after Prime Day, I had a couple of drinks. Oh. And I decided to update my Instagram for the last, for the first time since 2020. You were drunk when you did that? I was drunk. Oh, at least you're honest. Walking home from Great White in Venice Beach. It's late. The issue was that you're asleep with that time zone. Why is it a problem I'm asleep?

Because I would have probably just called you, but I had nothing to do. So I wreaked havoc on Instagram. You posted like kind of a thirst trap. You know that, right? No, get out of here with that. You're the only beverage I'm supplying. This is so uncomfortable, but you know the book I'm reading? The smut book?

Can you give me a question, please? What is it called? Court of Thorns and Roses. Everyone's asking if I picture you as the characters. I don't have enough context of what this is. The girls know. The girls will know. Can you speak to any key financial or investing advice?

You know, the reality is, is we don't exactly have much of like an investment portfolio. The only thing... I just made my first investment. You definitely did. But, you know, 99% of our portfolio quotes is, you know, our personal brands. We invest in ourselves. And that's been really, it's treated us very well doing that.

I imagine we'll continue doing that for the foreseeable future. And I suggest any other people with, I suggest anyone else explores that option. Mm-hmm. I guess we've invested in our business, our house. Yeah. We just got land. Well, the things that we feel like we could control. Yeah. I personally feel like I'm not very financially literate. So I rely on people

that are, just to be honest, like we have a personal finance team. I trust you and your family, you know. How do you manage each other's down days, mental health down days? I think we just try to communicate them as soon as possible, right? Because if you try to bottle it up and you don't communicate it, then it's just like, why is Mari in a bad mood? Or why is Greg in a bad mood? And so if you communicate it as soon as possible and you just make sure that that's in the universe and hopefully we can support each other through that or give each other space or whatever it may be that we need. I feel like also love languages come into play here because we both like different things. So you loved when I made sourdough and like when I cook for you

or when I like pack your supplements for you, like an act of service. And then I just need you to tell me that I'm like, nice. You know? Yeah. I need like a hug and for you to be like, oh my God, you're stunning.

Yeah. Okay. Tell us something about Mari that we don't know. People might not know Mari's dad was a diplomat. So that's what brought Mari to the United States. So Mari's father's career is like this insane experience that I've been able to watch from the sidelines, you know, now that I've met you of this, you know, worldwide lawyer who participates in the United Nations, whether it's in New York City or Geneva in Switzerland. And it's been incredible to watch. You're making me sound like a nepo baby.

Oh, I would not say it's, you know. Lucrative. A lucrative career necessarily. It's very like mission driven, which is kind of interesting because I feel like I'm very mission driven as well. But yeah, my dad is very cultured. When I moved to the US, he was a diplomat for the UK for three years. And then he changed his job within the UN so he could stay in America.

And he was a genocide lawyer for a little bit, which was really interesting. And this funny thing happens when people who are immigrants come to the US or go to any other country. Or what I've noticed with just Mari's family and your guys' peers is if you work for the UN or your mother got a job at an international school, you don't really end up acclimating to American culture because you're not really spending any time in American culture. So both of those things are true. My dad worked for the UN. My mom is a French American school teacher. And we spent a lot of time, like people always ask me why I still have an accent.

And it's because all of my friends were international. Like we were in this newcomers group and all we did was hang out with people from like South Africa and the UK and Scotland and all over the place. So like I didn't really ever, I didn't acclimate to America until I was in college. I mean, while Mari finds the next question, like just to ride on that,

I kind of have this like human passport, not in the sense of I can get into other countries, but in the sense of like, if we were to go to France or we go to London or we go to London or we go to Italy, Mari's ability to just get us around and figure out where the bathroom is, is like outrageous. I mean, I don't know how a normal, you know, total, total middle of America person does it. I would be totally overwhelmed traveling internationally if I didn't have

Mari next to me being, you know, my compass, to say the least. Well, I grew up, my mom, both my parents are like obsessed with travel. So, I grew up traveling and we traveled very low budget. So, we'd take trains, buses, planes, like we weren't taking car services. It was very like every mode of transportation possible, staying in motels. My parents would like send me into bakeries in France to get our order for the day. And like I was shoved into other cultures quite quickly. I went to a French nursery school. So I do feel like that's a skill set that they really gave me was the ability to adapt. They're both great with language. I love other cultures. I feel like I'm good with like culture etiquette,

like assimilating in that way. Like for example, in France, when you walk in somewhere, you say, bonjour, ça va? Like you ask how someone is, you say hello. Like you have to greet someone and be polite. Meanwhile, Greg would probably run and be like, oh my God, I love the town.

So I kind of step in in that way, you know? Yeah. Make sure everyone, because you're not being intentionally rude. It's just how you are. Yeah. The enthusiasm of it all. This person said,

not a question, but just had my first Bloom Energy drink. Yum. She had strawberry watermelon. I like it. Love to hear it. What do you guys fight about? I feel like we haven't had a fight in a while.

Yeah, if we do, it's just like a, you know, we're both tired or both, you know, being impulsively emotional. We haven't had a large, like, rational big topic that we were overly upset about yeah i feel like we've gotten pretty good about fighting um if we ever fight it's just more of a conversation that needs to be had you know yeah which if i heard that like two years ago not that we fought a lot but like i didn't realize that that could like exist within a relationship so it's been pretty nice we used

to fight more i've been pretty honest about that because like colorado we used to fought a lot, but like, I didn't realize that that could like exist within a relationship. So it's been pretty nice. We used to fight more. I've been pretty honest about that because like. Colorado, we used to fight a lot. Well, we were stuck in the house together all day working. Yeah, that's a good point. I think our lifestyle was very tense up until Austin. And attached by the hip. Yeah.

You just kind of like get sick of each other. Not sick of each other, but you end up getting, you know, short with each other. It's not healthy because you stop appreciating each other as well. Totally. Talk about the process of getting acquired. We haven't been acquired. We have a small investment that we took on in January of this year, but Mari and I are still by far the largest shareholders of Bloom Nutrition and call the shots and are the bosses. Whoa. Do you guys think you'd still be together if Mari didn't go on her fitness journey? Yeah. Probably not.

What? What? Why wouldn't we be together? Oh, because I feel like I wouldn't have become me. Oh, I think we would be. Really? Yeah. I don't know, babe.

I think so. I wouldn't be this cool. I think so. I wouldn't be this cool. I think you would. Well, I look back and I'm like, oh my God. Like you even sent me a photo of us the other day from the night we met. And I was like so embarrassed of my behavior. You know?

Yeah, but I was doing the same shit. I know. You know, I've evolved. I know, but don't you think like if I hadn't ended up having some goals and motivation and passion in my life, you would have been like, what's this girl doing? Yeah, if you were someone with no goals or passions, maybe we wouldn't be together,

but that doesn't have anything to do with your fitness journey. But I feel like before my fitness journey, I was the girl who was kind of like… But so was I. Really? I don't know. I don't feel that way about you. I guess we saw… I see you differently. a lot of hope in each other when we met.

I saw the best version of you. I guess same. Through the clouds. Yeah. Okay, well, I think we'll end it there. We've gone for a while. Thank you so much for coming on, Greg. Thank you for having me.

Will you give them some info about where they can find the drink in their local Target? It's in every Target nationwide. So check it out. If you go over to the grocery section, generally speaking, you'll see a whole, and they call it an end cap, like the part right in the aisle at the end of the energy drink aisle, I guess. You'll see a whole end cap with four giant shelves of Bloom Nutrition. We're keeping it super stocked. They have over a million cans right now, so you'll probably be able to find it. I saw it getting stocked up in Hawaii today, so literally all 50 states. Oh my God. Yeah. Even New York City, which is the toughest, because those targets are small. Do us a favor. If you see us on your shelf at your local target,

take a pic. Definitely. Tag me and Greg, because we're really curious what the shelves look like across the states. We are waking up at five in the morning tomorrow to go shoot at a Target, actually. And it might rain. I'm freaking out, but it's fine. It's okay. Yeah, it's fine. It's not supposed to rain till 9am. Oh, good. But we're going to go do a photo shoot at a Target. We're so excited.

And let us know what you think. Tell us your favorite flavor. Love you guys so much. And I'll see you in the next episode. Bye. See y'all. Thanks for joining us on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. To support this show, please rate and review and share with your loved ones. If you want to be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast or video player. You can sign up for my newsletter to receive my favorites at marilowelland.com. It will be linked in the show notes. This is a Wellness Out Loud production produced by Drake Peterson, Fiona Attucks, and Kelly Kyle.

This show is edited by Mike Fry and our video is recorded by Louise Vargas. You can also watch the full video of each episode on our YouTube channel at Mari Fitness. Love you, Power Girls and Power Boys. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational

purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor or health team.