Start With A Win - Crafting SUCCESS Through Toys and Sustainability | Brad Pedersen, Co-founder and Chairman at Lomi & Pela

Starting point is 00:00:00 What do toys, sustainability, and adventure have to do with business and personal success? Today we find out on Start With A Win. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we unpack franchising, leadership, and business growth. Let's go. And coming to you from Start With A Win headquarters at Area 15 Ventures, it's Adam Kantos with Start With A Win. Today, we have a great friend on board, Brad Pedersen. Actually, I mean, Brad and I go way back. We're part of an amazing mastermind with a bunch of other guys called the Dirty Dozen. There's not quite a dozen of us there. But what we do is we get together and we unpack business and personal success. Now, let me give you a little bit about Brad. Brad Pedersen is an award-winning entrepreneur,

Starting point is 00:00:49 angel investor, thought leader, and sought-after business coach. So get this, in 2008, we all know what economy we're all going through in 2008. He founded and scaled one of Canada's top toy companies. Brad left the toy business in 2018. It subsequently co-founded a company called Pela, P-E-L-A. Go check them out.

Starting point is 00:01:11 They created a new category of the world's first sustainable smart device, protective covers, basically sustainable phone cases because we throw so many of those darn things away. Brad wanted to do something for the environment, and he did. It made a huge difference. They also launched a new product. I encourage you to go out and buy one of these.

Starting point is 00:01:33 It is called the Lomi, L-O-M-I. It's a smart waste kitchen composter. Basically, it's a small device that sits on your countertop and it turns food waste into dirt, really high quality dirt that you can use in your garden and you can grow other food with. It's genius. Brad, you're killing it, man. Brad is a adventurer also. I mean, you wouldn't believe some of the things that he goes through. I mean, he's out riding his snow bike. He's, you know, surfing, parasailing. He's doing all sorts of crazy things. Brad, welcome to Start Over the Wind, my friend.

Starting point is 00:02:11 Man, Adam, I'm blushing. That introduction is hard to beat. In fact, I was going to say, I need you to like just be my PR person. I know I couldn't afford to hire you. Well, I mean, truth be told. So Brad and I were, last time I saw him, I think we were in Florida and we were working out on the beach in the mornings because Brad said, hey, I got this trainer here and this guy's going to kill us. Are you in? I said, absolutely, Brad's like jumping in and saving people. I mean, this is a real strong can-do person here. Brad, what did I miss in your background?

Starting point is 00:02:54 And by the way, Brad just wrote a book that comes out. Brad, what's the release date exactly? First week in November. Be looking for it this week. We're going to dig into the book also. Brad, tell me a little bit about yourself. What drives you? Clearly, I have a lot of issues in terms of keeping my attention because, yes, I've done a bunch of different things in my life. What drives me is curiosity. I mean,

Starting point is 00:03:22 what I'm doing today, there's no way I could ever have imagined starting out. Um, you know, I tell people my life is a series of happy accidents, um, just because I was willing to be curious, apply my creativity, and then most importantly, have the courage to try and just apply my, my agency towards initiatives. Um, the way, most of those didn't work out. I mean, you just painted this illustrious history. But between most of those mountaintop moments, there is a bunch of valleys. I tell people I have a PhD and DUMB

Starting point is 00:03:57 from the school of hard knocks because I have done all the wrong way. Tried to learn from those lessons. Sometimes I'm a slow learner and had to repeat them in order to try and get a learning a second time. But yeah, I mean, what drives me is just this insatiable curiosity of possibility. My motto in life is I want to die young as late as possible. And I'm really striving to keep ever youthful and explore the possibilities within. Jim Rohn used to say, in life, you may not be able to do all you find out, but make sure you find out all you can do.

Starting point is 00:04:31 And so I'm really living my life to make sure that when I'm laying on my deathbed, I unpack the possibilities of Brad Peterson, that there was really nothing left behind. And that's what I hope to do. And I know that's something you strive for as well. Brad, I mean, that's very inspirational. It's when did you start trying to be the best that you could be? Was this just kind of an overnight epiphany or have you always been this way? I know you've had a lot of great influences in your life. Yeah, no, I don't, you know, this is a great question because I, you know, the question is our entrepreneurs founders, are they, are they, is it nature nurture? Are they made or are they born? Um, look, I, I was a pretty average kid. And in fact, I would say I was a pretty mischievous kid. He'd just gotten into a lot of

Starting point is 00:05:16 trouble. Um, and maybe that teased out some of my entrepreneurial tendencies. Um, it really, you know, what, what was really, I'd say influential in my life is my father. He, and I think for most of us, you know, we look up to our dads. Your dad is your hero, irrespective of the type of background you have. I think deep down inside of every little boy, they look up to their dad to believe ultimately he is the guiding force in their life. And for me, that was true. And my dad was just always very, um, he's very driven and he was very disciplined. Um, he was committed to personal, uh, success and mastery at every level. It wasn't just like, you know, financially, but he looked at his entire

Starting point is 00:05:57 life that way. So, you know, he really led a life of example for me. And, uh, I, you know, I would just say there was a, there was a time in my life. He used to say these things I used to hate. And this one thing he said to me that just, it stuck to me with me to this day. He said, you know, in life, you're going to pay one or two prices. You're going to pay the price of discipline or the price of regret, the price of discipline. It's going to weigh something. It's actually going to cost you, but the price of regret will crush you under its weight. And it bothered me so much that I actually wrote it out and put it into a picture frame. And I remember doing this, like when I was 19 years old, I put it next to my bed and it was just that reminder in the morning. Cause I live up in Canada. And of course in the

Starting point is 00:06:40 winter time, it's dark and it's cold in the mornings. So when the alarm would go off and you'd want to roll over when the alarm would go off, I would see that first thing and it would just like prick my conscience and say, okay, you have to roll out and not roll over. This is a part of like the price of discipline that you're going to need to pay. And as we talk about, our friend Darren Hardy talks about the compound effect, like small, consistent disciplines over time, equal big outcomes. And yeah, so I think inspiration from my father and then just being curious. And once you start down the path of being a founder, I think most people who have those tendencies are looking for how they can grow, right? Because I think we

Starting point is 00:07:21 feel the most alive when we're either growing or we're giving. And usually those are interconnected by our business pursuits. So I was just curious and I wanted to grow. And so I started listening to things and reading things. And ultimately, Darren is how we got connected because I was just curious about how do I become more successful? And then he was the editor of Success Magazine. That's a good place to go to become successful, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, first of all, I mean, listeners Success Magazine. That's a good place to go to become successful, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, first of all, I mean, listeners, rewind this. There's a lot of gold in that.

Starting point is 00:07:50 You know, roll out instead of roll over. The price of discipline or the price of regret. I mean, those things, those weights are incredible to think about. And when you're about to go for the easy thing, think about those choices. Brad's father passed not long ago, but he had a great deal of influence on Brad and indirectly a great deal of influence on the rest of us in our mastermind group because of the great things that he has given to Brad to bring to the table and that Brad has unpacked. But ultimately, listen to the people that are really influential in your life and they can deliver amazing value

Starting point is 00:08:31 to help you find a greater self. Brad, you've been a personal development fiend, I guess you could say. I mean, you mentioned it here. You're always trying to get better. What does that look like on a daily basis for you? How do you continue to grow and get better instead of just, you know, you've made it, man. I mean, you're successful. Don't you want to retire and coast? But you want to just keep getting better every day. And I love it. And you surround yourself with people like that.

Starting point is 00:09:01 How do you, what do you do every day? And how do you motivate yourself to do that? Yeah. Yeah. Look, well, first of all, thank you. Those are very kind words. And, but I would say is that, you know, we belong to a mastermind together and you and I both know that within that mastermind, there are some really significant entrepreneurs who have achieved incredible outcomes. Obviously Dave Leninger, who you're closely connected with, is a great example of that. So you're either green and growing or ripe and rotting. There is no stasis in life. You never sit still. The minute you think you're coasting, you're actually going backwards. So we're constantly leaning into the possibilities of either getting better or growing older.

Starting point is 00:09:46 And I think one of the things I admire about just looking at nature, there's something called biomimicry, where nature models out for us exactly what are the steps to become successful. And in order for a snake to grow, it needs to shed its skin to grow into the next version of itself. And I think it's a great metaphor for human beings because as you continue to hit these new milestones where you think you've defined success, you start to realize that success is actually not a destination. It's a journey. It's a process. It's actually a never- ending process of refining you. And it's constantly shedding your skin. Like the skin that you have

Starting point is 00:10:31 today, it's served you for a purpose, but what needs to be true for you to become the person that you aspire to be? And part of that is associations, right? When you associate with people who think better, think bigger and yes, potentially better, I think it forces you to imagine how you can create a better future for yourself. And that doesn't necessarily mean just lining the bank accounts. Like I'm a very, I subscribe to whole life success. Like we're multi, we're complex beings. We are physical, mental, spiritual,

Starting point is 00:11:06 emotional beings. And it's a part of developing the entire you, not just one part of you. In fact, part of my history was, is that, um, for a long time I was out of balance. I was focused on just one thing or spent too much time in one thing for too long without actually, um, getting into balance and other areas of my life. So, you know, you ask how I go about my day and how I start my routines. I really set an intention every day to make small improvements in my physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. I make deposits every single day. And if you're not making deposits, I kind of look at them as like buckets that have slow leaks on them. If you're not putting more in the top, it's slowly leaking out the bottom.

Starting point is 00:11:49 And the whole goal is to continue to put more in the top to continue to fill it up and then actually increase the capacity of your bucket, increase the possibilities of how much you can actually hold in that, which just comes from the evolution of shedding a new skin and becoming a better and brighter version of yourself. Wow. I feel like I'm getting a coaching session here. This is great information, Brad. And I always love when I get to sit down and have a one-on-one conversation with you. You have a lot of really good insight. And obviously obviously we pick our friends very carefully. And I'm honored to be able to spend the time with you to hear some of this wisdom and, you know, kick it around with other friends like, you know, Darren. You mentioned Darren Hardy.

Starting point is 00:12:38 And for those of you, I know I've said it before on a podcast, if you haven't read The Compound Effect, go ahead and get it. But I want to talk about another book I want you to get this week also. Brad just announced the release of his book. This week, Brad's book is out. Like I mentioned before, Brad was a toy king. I mean, this guy literally one of the top toy manufacturers in the world. And when I first met him, it was funny because we would all bring little gifts to each other. And he'd bring, you know, little trinkets and treasures and toys and lots of fun stuff.

Starting point is 00:13:15 I wish I was, you know, just a little boy again, you know, an 8 or 10-year-old, knowing Brad and his state. Now he's got adult toys like Lomi and Pila and phone cases and all sorts of other really cool stuff. Gadget for each year, I'm happy to admit. I know Brad is kind of also. But Brad wrote a book called The Startup Santa. Who's the book for and what's the premise behind this? Yeah, look, um, so the toy business is a really fun and exciting industry to be a part of. Um, it keeps you young at heart. Uh, you know, I subscribe to George Bernard Shaw's that we don't stop playing because we get old. We get old because we stopped playing the idea that playfulness is a part of our human, uh, potential and is a part of how we unpack possibilities. And it's part of how we discover and problem solve. And so we can all

Starting point is 00:14:12 go back in time and remember iconic toys that Christmas morning when you unwrapped that one gift that when you opened up, it was like, wow, it was the possibilities that you were going to experience by playing and interacting with it were incredible. So I really wanted to take that and, um, and, and focus on the principles that these toys teach. Um, and, and then some stories from my experience in life, because typically I, you know, having been in the toys for almost 30 years, I've experienced a lot of life. And mostly I learned from, I mean, I found in life that success is not a good teacher. It tends to be a sucky teacher. We learn more from the challenges

Starting point is 00:14:50 and the difficulties. And therefore, you know, most of the stories are things that went wrong, where I had learnings as a result of that. The toy itself, the principles that teaches, and then, you know, what are the principles that we can unpack from that? So it's really, it is focused on founders and business owners who want to, um, I guess get the benefit of the wisdom, my, my wounds. I mean, I would say that, you know, most people, uh, are looking to, to get into business, to grow business. They don't just get into business for a hobby. They're looking to, to grow it.

Starting point is 00:15:21 And so what I tell people is, you know, how many people want to 10 X their results? Um, and most people put their hands up. Yeah. They want to do it. And so what I tell people is, you know, how many people want to 10X their results? And most people put their hands up. Yeah, they want to do that. Well, how many people can work 10 times harder? And the reality is you can't 10 times you. So this book is designed to help young founders benefit from the wisdom of my wounds to achieve that results by just working smarter. And, you know, there's lots of books that tell you what to do. Uh, I tell people jokingly, this book is largely written to tell you what not to do. So it's like, Hey, this is what I did. It didn't work out. Don't work a minute, but I learned a bunch from it. So you can, um, you can actually benefit from that. And I really want

Starting point is 00:16:01 people to know that you're more powerful than your problems. You're more courageous than your challenges, more formidable than your fears, and that life is tough, but you can choose and prove to be even tougher if you're willing to just grow through it instead of go through it. And I think it's just a fun way to tell it in a way that you can relate to from the experience of toys. So you talk about some timeless toys in this and the lessons around those. Give us an example or two of that. Yeah. So there's so many. So we focus on GI Joes, Monopoly, Jenga, Etch-a-Sketch. I mean, again, these are all toys that I think most people would be familiar with. One of my favorites is Jenga. And if you've ever played the game, uh, you understand that

Starting point is 00:16:45 there's certain blocks you move and there's certain blocks you just don't move. Right. So we talk about the foundational blocks and the flexible blocks. And I relate that to values to, cause your values are where you commit your time, which is the most precious, uh, resource you have. You can't make more time. And, and uh the nuance to that is time and attention so those are the things that are most valuable most precious so be very careful where you uh invest that that precious resource of your time and i talk about in in my life that there's eight areas that i invest my time into so the eight are my faith my family my fitness and my finances and use finance as kind of like just the economic engine, whatever you're doing to create impact,

Starting point is 00:17:29 recreate the world, and you get paid for that. And then beyond that, I've got friends, fun, refinement. I know that's not a perfect F, but it's got an F in there, which is like learning and growing. And then finally, freedom, activities that actually build more capacity. And the idea that when we go and do our duty, does our reaches, that blows my mind with the potential for how I create more freedom in the life of others and myself.

Starting point is 00:17:55 And what I've come to learn is that some of those blocks are foundational. Like for instance, my faith, my family, my fitness, and my finances, those require a constant investment on my time. Whereas the other ones are flexible. They are good to invest time into, and you should constantly be thinking about where you invest that time into that. But ultimately, they are things that you could temporarily put on hold. Whereas foundational things, if you stop looking after your health, and I know you're a big health, you and your wife are incredibly fit and do amazing practice in terms of keeping your health but if you if you let that fade you know true wealth is health and if you don't have your health you can't really

Starting point is 00:18:33 give much of your capacity the rest of it so jang is just a great example of how you can apply those principles to to how you invest your time in the most important areas of your life and how to know when you're in balance and out of balance. And it was a fun way to tell the stories. That's awesome. And for those of you listening, understand that Brad is one of the most intentional people you will ever meet. And that there's a lesson in there for that. I mean, you know, he demonstrates that, you know, there's not life balance, there's a lesson in there for that. I mean, he demonstrates that there's not life balance, there's life intentionality. And he focuses on ensuring that he gives appropriately to where he needs to. So those are a lot of great lessons that I've learned from Brad personally,

Starting point is 00:19:18 because there's always a challenge, there's always a distraction. And there's always an unknown out there. But if you focus on those principles that Brad just listed, it makes life a lot easier. Brad, you used the term slow is smooth, smooth is fast. What do you mean by that? Yeah, look, I actually relate that to, I attribute it to the Navy SEALs. And I know you have a background from the military. And so certainly it's, I'm sure something you can relate to, but it's kind of like, it's combined with two ideas, slow, smooth, smooth is fast.

Starting point is 00:19:54 The idea, when I first started off in business, I would make a lot of decisions quickly. And often because I was making quick decisions. And by the way, the toy business is just very frenetic. It moves at a fast pace, requires quick decision making. But oftentimes I would create an incredible amount of whipsaw within my organization scarcity and uncertainty within an organization. And teams thrive on simplicity, clarity, and certainty. So the idea that slow is smooth, smooth is fast. better quality decisions that force you not to just to make, um, more thoughtful inputs from the key stakeholders around the table so that you're taking the time to actually make the right decision the first time. And then that creates smoothness, which allows you to particularly as you scale accelerated. So that's the first half of it. And then the other half of it is the idea

Starting point is 00:21:02 of advance, but protect the flanks. So the idea, again, if you, again, your military background, when the Navy SEALs are moving into a zone, they could be advancing at an incredible pace through a zone. But the one thing they never do is leave their flank exposed because most battles are lost through a flanking maneuver. So I think there's a creative tension between these two ideas that you're slowing down to make better quality decisions that, that reduce them out of drag and whipsaw with their organization. And at the same time, as you're growing and you're also protecting your flank and the way you protect your flanks is through increasing your capacity of your, your people, your systems, as well as your cash. Because I've learned the hard way that actually you can grow too fast. You can outgrow your balance sheet. So those three things have to be constantly reinvented in any kind of growth strategy. So true. That was actually one of the terms that we would use quite frequently when I ran the SWAT team. Because ultimately, you see

Starting point is 00:22:02 really successful teams that come in to make great accomplishments and they're not speeding up the process. They're actually slowing down the process in order to create those greater results. So huge plus, Brad, and I know you study a lot of different success principles and success directions from some of the most successful people on this planet. You also use the four C's and the four P's. What are the four C's and the four P's? Okay, this is a fun one. And it actually, so the advance of protective flank as well as slow, smooth, smooth as fast. That's actually a part of the GI Joe chapter. So I'll just kind of tease that out because I think there's a fun tie in there, but this one's about

Starting point is 00:22:46 monopoly. Um, and people think that the, uh, when you think of monopoly, most people are thinking of it from the perspective of capitalism and greed. And I spent a lot of time in the chapter talking about the difference between capitalism and free enterprise. And, uh, most people think it's like socialism versus capitalism. Those are the two things. I actually think now there's a third way to think about it. The free enterprise, the key word there is free freedom, creating more freedom in the way that people live and do life and possibilities and abundance in life. Whereas capitalism is, so the pie is only so big big therefore i need to take so much of the pie whereas free enterprise talks about an ever-increasing pie that you know increases

Starting point is 00:23:32 the possibilities uh within people on the planet um so the four p's are what most people are pursuing in the pursuit of capitalism and it stands for power prestige pleasure and possessions and most people think that's what's going to make them happy that one of those four p's if they can get those or more of that in their life that that's actually what's gonna you know bring them true happiness and joy in life and adam you and i both know because we hang around some pretty you know successful accomplished people that actually that doesn't bring much happiness and in fact i look at it more like heroin that you know you get a hit it gives you that dopamine it gives you that uh those those feel good drugs but then it's like

Starting point is 00:24:15 you got to go back and do it again and now it's like okay the car was you know it was a bmw and now it's got to be like uh a land rover which has to become like a Bentley, which has to become, yeah, it just gets, there's never ending as a result of chasing that. Whereas true joy, which I believe comes from alignment of your beliefs, your values, and your ashes, when they're all in integrity together, then true joy comes from living in the four C's, which is challenges, contributions, which come in the form of creativity and or charity, and connections. And if you think about it, your best memories, like if I asked you what your top three memories are in your life so far, I bet you'd say something like, well, when I got married, when my kids were born, maybe

Starting point is 00:25:05 when I, you know, I built this business with my business partner and we celebrated some milestone. All three of those are examples of connections and or challenges or some sort of creative pursuit that allowed you to express yourself. And that is alignment again between what you believe, what you value and how you live your life, the integrity of those three things. And so I'm, I'm thinking about that. If people could look at, um, the return on their investment being, how can it create more experiences that are, that are spent in the four C's versus being pulled down the trap of the four P's,

Starting point is 00:25:43 which there's just never enough of that. You're just going to continue to find you need more and more hits. And that's certainly, I don't think, something that's enduring or valuable to either of us. Wow. If you're not filling up your toolbox with new business insight and tools out of this conversation,

Starting point is 00:25:59 I don't know what to say other than go get Startup Santa. You can find it at StartupSantaBook.com or where all of your favorite books are sold. I know it's on Amazon, so go check that out. This book is full of incredible insight, and Brad does not waste your time with fluff. It is really good. The stories are fantastic. I encourage you to grab a copy of it.

Starting point is 00:26:29 Brad, thank you for writing this book. This is, I mean, it's a fantastic book. I love it. And it comes out this week, new release. Let's put Brad on the bestseller list, everybody. Brad, I do have one question that I ask all of our amazing guests on this show. And I know you have an incredible answer because I've spent time with you, buddy. And that is, how do you start your day with a win? Yeah, man. I appreciate you. I appreciate

Starting point is 00:26:56 this question because I know we subscribe to so many of the same beliefs, but I think my shirt says it all. If you can't see my shirt, it says grateful dude. Grounded in gratitude. You can't hold a scarcity mindset when you fill it with abundance. And I start my day every day exactly the same way, which is basically spending time in prayer, in reflection, journaling, reading something positive. I mean, you can't get a hold of me between when I'm up at five and at seven o'clock when I finally kind of turn on the world and let whatever's in the ether come at me. Those two hours are sacred to my day.

Starting point is 00:27:37 And I've just included a little bit of stretching in it now. So I'm trying to loosen myself up because I'm not the most flexible dude, but I am definitely very grateful dude. So soon to be a grateful, flexible dude. That's what I'm trying to loosen myself up because I'm not the most flexible dude, but I am definitely very grateful dude. So soon to be a grateful, flexible dude. That's what I'm working towards. There you go. Ladies and gentlemen, make sure you check out Brad's new book at Startupsantabook.com.

Starting point is 00:27:56 Brad Pedersen, great friend of mine, incredible member of the Dirty Dozen Mastermind group, and just a wonderful person making wonderful changes on this planet for the good. Brad, thanks for being on Start With The Wind. Adam was awesome. Thank you so much for your time today.

Start With A Win - Crafting SUCCESS Through Toys and Sustainability | Brad Pedersen, Co-founder and Chairman at Lomi & Pela

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