Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 140: Scott Norton, The Condiments Guy Who Meditates

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

Since invading the condiments market with Sir Kensington's, a line of ketchup, mustard and other spreads, company co-founder Scott Norton said meditation has helped him slow down and have better self-assessment under the stress of managing a start-up. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad, where the memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUT [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUT [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUT [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ I'm Dan Harris. Hey folks, what's the connection between meditation and condiments? We're going to get into that this week. That's what we call teas in the business.

We're going to talk about that coming up. But first, one quick item of business and then your calls. The item of business is, I want to promote something that I think you guys would like that is a new offering from one of our former guests here, Manou Shazamrodi, who was great guest. She was previously the host of a great podcast called Note To Self, which is all about our relationship with technology. So, she came on a few months ago and we got a lot of response to her interview and she is now hosting a new podcast called Zigzag. I have not heard it yet but I have nothing

but faith that it will be awesome. So check out her and her co-host Jen talking about all things having to do with our relationship to technology and more. So that's the item of business out of the way. Let's do the phone calls. But here's my caveat, which you may be tired of hearing, but I'm going to say it anyway, which is not a mental health expert or a meditation teacher. I haven't heard these calls in advance. So I just do my best to answer based on my limited experience. Here's call number one. Hey, Dan, this is Christine and I'm sure I'm Netherlands. I am just calling because I have a bit of a problem in my meditation practice. I used to meditate every day, but I've fallen a bit off the wagon. And I think the problem is that I want it all. For example, I've been doing breathing meditation

where I follow my breath. But then I also know about loving kindness meditation and I wanna try that. There's just so many different kinds of meditation and I want all the benefits and I am not really sure which one I should do. And I was just curious, I know that you do several different kinds of meditation styles

and I was curious if you have maybe a program the way you would at the gym where you have maybe a one day where you do love and kindness or one day where you're following your breath or maybe you do the one in the morning or one in the evening. Your help would be really great. Thank you so much and thanks for all you do. I'm really thankful for the podcast. Have a great day.

One of our first, maybe there was one other before this, one of our first international calls. I love it. And a great question, a really important question, because wanting it all is not unusual. We approach meditation, us type A strivers the way we approach everything else in our life with this sort of voraciousness. And so I think you're to be applauded for having the enthusiasm. But I am foreseeing that it might be hindering you.

I'm generally speaking, what I recommend for beginners is that there's a useful period of taste testing when you're looking at the different forms of meditation. Oh, I wanna try out a little bit of TM, maybe I'll try mindfulness, maybe I'll try Tibetan Buddhists, Zen, because there are a number of flavors. But after a while, I strongly urge you to pick one and go with it for a while, because if you just think about it, it's like the scientific method. It's how you're going to know,

you're not the only way you're going to be able to gather meaningful data is just by looking at your own mind over time, as I like to say to people, are you less of a jerk to yourself and others. That's my yardstick for knowing whether meditation is working. But the only way you're really going to get a sense of which practice is helping is to ultimately to land on one and stick with it. So that's what I would recommend. I think you actually, you're embedded in your question is the answer. I think you know that that too much kind of running around without a clear objective

is making you stuck. So I would say pick one and go with it. However, I would also say that the two options you listed going with the breath and loving kindness, I actually, and this may be, I hope this isn't hard to understand, I actually think of those two as very much complimentary and a pairing that can be used by somebody who's at your stage, which seems to me probably the beginner stage. So, that pairing of mindfulness, watching your breath, and when you get distracted, start again, watch your breath, and when you get distracted, start again. That's the basic mindfulness practice.

And loving kindness practice, which is, we've discussed this many times in the podcast, a lot of people, when they first hear about it, myself included, think it sounds incredibly annoying, and it actually is a little bit annoying, but it does work. We know this, I know this based on just personal experience, but also from looking at the science. The practice is to kind of systematically envision various people, various, even you can even throw in animals there and repeat these phrases of well-wishing. Those two practices, that wouldn't be like trying to do basic mindfulness and also doing TM and also throwing in some Zen and Tibetan all at once.

Those two practices were taught in conjunction, is my understanding, by this dude known as the Buddha, you know, millennia ago. So I would say if you want to start with those two, there is a way to do that, which is I just based on my own experience the way I would structure it is maybe set up where you're going to do several months of try to do five to ten minutes a day of the basic mindfulness. And then you can throw in a little round of meta either right there, stay there for a couple more minutes. Meta is, by the way, that's the old Buddhist term for loving-kindness meditation. That's the poly term for loving-kindness. Or you could do it as a separate but complimentary thing at another point in the day, maybe literally with your head on the pillow before you go to bed, I actually

think around of loving kindness meditation where you are again systematically picturing people and sending them these wishes like may you be well, may you be, sorry, may you be happy, may you be safe, et cetera, et cetera. As your head's on the pillow, actually, I suspect that could have a salutary effect on your sleep, both on your ability to go to sleep and your dreams. So give that a try. And I think that's a pretty good way to get started. You can get these guided meditations on places like the 10% happier app that might help.

Okay. next call. Hey, Dan, it's Mike from Toronto calling. I've been meditating now for about a year, maybe two years. And here's my problem. Almost daily, somebody will say something, and I think to myself, oh, meditation would help with that. How do you stop from being, you know, almost like an ex-moker or a jerk? Keep telling people that, oh, I could solve

that problem. You know, it happens with my wife, she's stressed, she's always looking at her phone and I keep feeling like saying, oh, you got to do start meditating. And sometimes I do say that and they look at me like, yeah, no, that won't solve the problem. And the problem is, it will solve the problem. But I don't want to keep telling people to keep meditating, but I'm always thinking it, how do you deal with that when you run up to it almost every day? Thanks, Dan.

We're at all international call-in show this week. It's a great question. Some of you may have heard me talk about this before, but even if you have, I think it bears repeating, and even bears repeating for me because you can't hear this enough. Don't proselytize. It's really annoying and it has a high, high likelihood in my experience of backfiring. And I say that I have a lot of scar tissue around this having tried to get my wife to do it, like deeply unsuccessfully for a few months back when I first started meditating low these many years.

Don't proselytize. It's not only is it annoying, but it's like you're basically, people hear it as you're broken. So you need this big thing meditation. Because non-meditators, I think they think, starting a meditation habit

just sounds like a big project. When a fact you and I know it's not really, but there is, it's almost certainly not going to work. Your instinct of trying to help people is a lot of a one. So I'm not criticizing you here. Definitely not criticizing you because this is a mistake I too have made. But, you, and your instinct, you're trying to be useful and helpful. So good on you for that, but I don't think, this is one man's opinion based on his limited experience, I don't think it's a good idea. I think that people are unlikely to take your advice. However, you can be useful, which is you can bring to bear the skills that are you are training through your own practice, which is being a good listener, handling the that behavior to model for other people who may ultimately, and this again is based on

my own experience, come around to wanting a little bit of what you have. That's a much, that's a much better way to do it. I think is a higher likelihood of yielding the positive results. That doesn't mean it's not going to be frustrating for you to watch your wife stuck in on her phone or watching other people suffer and you feel like you're hand-retired behind your back because you don't want to get in their face about meditation. But, you know, it's just almost certainly not going to work. So what's the point? So I think you're going to have to be mindful of that frustration and let it go and find other moves to make. And again, I think your practice is really useful because it can inform what the wise moves to make are in any given moment. By the way, you can have a conversation about technology use with your wife that doesn't involve lecturing her about that that she ought to meditate.

You guys can talk about tech hygiene without getting into whatever the fix is going to be. It's an important thing to discuss if you think it's getting the way of your relationship. And then one last thing, you said with a lot of confidence that you know meditation will work. I just want to urge a little bit of humility there because it may not. I mean, like, what do we know? I mean, you and I have gotten a lot out of meditation clearly. But we both know it's not a panacea. And I still do lots of dumb things that I think mindfulness could help me with if I was doing a better job at applying mindfulness to the thing. But here we are. I still eat mindlessly and I check my phone too much. I think I'm doing a better job of both of those things than I would otherwise be doing. But you know, I think, again, I urge humility because it may or may not work just because

it's working for you doesn't mean it definitely will work for somebody else. So it's a great question and again I want to make sure I'm not coming off as being golden here because I'm not. Your motivation is you want to be useful. I'm just of the view that it's not going to be useful to tell people to meditate. All right, let's talk condiments. This is an unusual guess for us but I think nonetheless you're going to get a lot out of it. His name is Scott Norton.

He's the co-founder of Sir Kensington. You may have heard of them. I'm not a big condiment guy, but they make, they call themselves the premier producers of all natural ketchup, mayo, and mustard. And they come these fancy containers. Scott is a really interesting guy. He's been named by a fast company as one of the most creative people in business and he's Forbes listed in his,

what are their 30 under 30. So he's got a really interesting background. He's engaged in a kind of on quirky business, but doing really well. The kind of business is a big business. So how do you bring mindfulness to bear in a big business where you're an upstart and you're trying to deal with the hinds of the world? Also, as I'm interested in this, given that I'm now in this unforeseen position

of being in a leadership role with a startup company, how do you bring mindfulness into the workplace? We'll talk about all all that with the man Scott Norton, here he is. How did a ketchup dude start meditating? Or how did a meditator become a ketchup dude? Oh, was it the other way around? Well, it's, I came to meditation when I was about 15. Oh, wow.

But I haven't been consistent. You were a very different 15 year old than me. I came to breaking my neighbor's windows at 15 and then more serious crimes after that. I also had my run-ins with the law. Okay. It's a young, you know, precocious skateboarder and... You grew up in San Francisco. I did it.

Yeah. San Francisco and the Bay Area. Gotcha. And which is, I think, kind of known for, of known for an interest in Buddhism and Eastern philosophy in general, but- Rear parents? You know, they weren't at all actually. They were both East Coast transplants, but I was like probably so many teenagers stressed

and anxious and was kind of an outsider and my mother actually recommended insight meditation really and yeah so she said you know there's this uh... this butis center down in our town in redwood city which is where i grew up and i went there and i really enjoyed it and i felt like it was a place i could have meaningful interesting conversations and i was just so I was just kind of open to anything. And I started meditating there, but I really didn't continue the practice at all on it. And it wasn't the kind of place that taught you how to meditate.

So to speak, it was more like you'd come there and you'd meditate and then it was over. And I guess I was maybe 15, so I didn't quite understand how to keep the questions going. I was maybe 15, so I didn't quite understand how to keep the questions going. And then I, so I actually, then much later in life, just about two years ago, when I was going through another really stressful period, decided to give it another shot and decided, you know, this was something that I always identified as enjoying meditation experience. I always identified it as someone that was reflective and through some good friends. So one of your previous guests, Jesse Israel, recommended that I talk to a Vedic meditation teacher and that's how I got back into it. So that's what you're doing now Vedic meditation?

It is, yes. Can you just describe for folks what that, what you're doing your mind in Vedic meditation? Yes, so Vedic meditation is a form of mantra meditation. And it's most simply repeating what could be described as a spokenless sound in your mind, over and over again. And that is essentially all that it is as a meditation practice. And obviously there's more detail to it than that in terms of preparation and in terms of how you sit and what environment is good for that type of meditation. But it really is as simple as that.

It is as simple as repeating a mantra. And I want to use the word in a safe focusing on the mantra, but always as the mind naturally does wander, moving back to the mantra and remembering the mantra. The most famous version of mantra meditation is the most famous varieties, probably trans and dental meditation, but they recommend people do 20 minutes, twice a day. What is your teacher recommend and what do you actually do? Well, so I'll answer that question in a minute, and actually it was transcendental meditation that was first recommended to me. My jazz hero? Well, it was by someone else.

It was by a mentor of mine. And so I got really interested in transcendental and like these kind of things I went to Jesse, and he was like, hey, actually you should give this Vedic a try. So I'm definitely not the expert in defining one versus the other, but very similarly, my teacher does recommend 20 minutes twice a day, and that is what a good day looks like, though I will be completely honest that not all days look like that. But I do always get the morning in. Really?

So that's pretty good. I think it is pretty good. Yeah. You know, it is pretty good. Yeah. For somebody running a startup, I mean, like, that's a lot. Yeah. I think it is pretty good. You know, it is pretty good. Wait a minute for somebody to run and start up. I mean, like, that's a lot. Yeah. I think you should give yourself some credit

and you've got a nine month old kid at home. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. And I will have a really understanding and supportive wife. So she's tremendous. She enables me to do that. That's great. Well, she probably, you're probably less of a jerk

in life and self-management. I hope so. Yeah. I hope so. But I, you know, you don't strike me. Somebody has the capacity to be much of a jerk in life and self-management. I hope so. I hope so. But you don't strike me as somebody who has the capacity to be much of a jerk, but I mean, I just met you. Well, yeah, we just met. And if I'm sloppy, then yeah, it's earned into a jerk. But hopefully, hopefully I don't.

And so it's actually funny because I think it is one of the very few things in life that I would get up 20 minutes early for. And it has been something that like so many people, and I'm sure your listeners are wide variety of people in terms of their meditation experience. Maybe they're curious about it, maybe they're very seasoned, but it's not something that it's not the kind of thing you should, you can or should measure return an investment for it, right? It's not like, okay, do this and then we'll get that. And I think so many things in life, especially as a business person, I think about return an

investment. And I think about, what am I investing in this and when am I getting out of it? And it's actually what's so beautiful to me is it's a time where I have the permission for myself and for my coach to say don't look at this as something that you have a measurable amount of resources that go in and a measurable amount of resources that come out. And so it's how do you justify it? I justify it by a recognition that the people around me who have embraced meditation seem to have an air about them that makes me want to be around them. So the person, the mentor of mine,

woman named Sue N Neville, who recommended meditation to me, Jesse, you know, a dear friend, and someone I count on in times of challenge, and other people in my life that are meditators, I recognize that they have a certain calmness, but also an intensity and an empathy to them. And I think that there's something in common. I also think it simply just feels good, right? So it's not like I could say, like, okay, you know, at 4, 4, 10 pm later that day, I reacted like this, but if I had meditated, I would have reacted like this.

It doesn't work like that at all, but there is definitely a feeling of relief and a feeling of contentment that can come with meditation, but not necessarily predictably, and not necessarily consistently. And so I think just knowing that it's really about dedicating yourself to the regularity and the feelings will come as they do is sort of a empowering experience for me. How do curiosity, who's your teacher? His name is Hunter Cresmon.

Hunter Cresmon, not a name I know, but now I do. Great guy. It's I bet. Most meditation teachers are. The thing you said before that I wanted to look back to was that you were having a particularly stressful time two years ago, was the content of the stress? Yeah, so so I I started accompanying you around seven years ago called Sir Kensington's.

I called it a startup, but is it still a startup? It's probably not still a startup. Well, how does one define startup? I don't know. I would I would say the United States of America is very much still a startup. Well, compared to France. Well, France is the newer gym is just as much a startup up in some ways, but we have more of a start at mentality. So I guess that would be no offense to France, but I think America definitely still has that start up culture. Whereas maybe France is a little more sentence ways. Yeah, no offense to the French out there. You think this difference on the other guy. I minor didn't

for in college actually, and still can't speak it. Anyway, carry on. So, yeah, we definitely still are startup and kind of our attitude and the way we think about forming our team and being outsiders, being a maverick when it comes to what we do, and really inventing our own solutions. So I think in that way, we're very much a startup.

And startups as, you know, all business is challenging because you're trying to move something from point A to point B, right? You're company, your team, the market, customers, and it's really challenging to change minds on that individual basis and on the organizational basis and on the cultural and societal basis. It's a lot of emotional energy that goes into that. To change people's attitudes about ketchup? Yeah, about ketchup, frankly, about anything. Right.

But people have, I mean, I was, my tongue was slightly in my cheek there, but people do have pretty hard core attitudes about ketchup, like unexamined attitudes. Like, yeah, I just, I use this. It's unexamined. It's a great way to put it because, you it because food in general, what we grow up with, is what we know and what we like. And ketchup is one of the first foods that children eat that you develop flavor memories around.

And because there's only one major brand that people know, it is exactly that. Is it the only brand that people know? Really? Well, you could probably name a couple. I'm not much of a catch up guy. You know, it's the big one though. And most importantly, if you could name other brands or store brands, they probably look and taste

exactly like Hines, and they probably have the same ingredients as Hines. So we need you to decide to take on Hines, where they like, you know, angry? We didn't hear much from them, frankly. They, I mean, they probably thought we were just a couple of foolish college kids that didn't know what they were doing, which we were. And then I think as we got bigger, maybe they reacted to us or thought through their

products differently, but we didn't hear much from them. And we always sort of focused on doing what we were doing. But when I started the company, I ran all the marketing, you know, from the branding to how we would communicate and win customers and what our strategy would be around communication. And it got to a point where while I was the founder

of the business and I really enjoyed a lot of aspects of that marketing role, I wasn't actually the best person suited to do all of that. And we were looking for a lot of expertise. And I was out of my depth, both in terms of abilities. And I loved to learn. So it wasn't so much that it was knowledge I didn't have, but it were interests that I didn't have. And I didn't actually have the will to or the interest in sort of achieving some of those capabilities that we're going to

be necessary to get at this to the next level. So you were stuck in a job where you had a lot of responsibilities you didn't want. And that was stressful. It is some form of that. Yeah, but it takes some self awareness to know that these are not your strong suits and to cry uncle. Well, it takes themself awareness and also without perfect self-awareness, which I didn't have,

it takes other people around you, telling you. Yeah. And it takes that. You have to be willing to listen though. Yeah, you certainly do. And I was asking actually, how do I give my gifts to this company that I started and that I love?

And what is it that I want to learn? And what is it that this company needs to succeed? It was within a lot of those questions that I took some time and had the space to come to meditation, actually. Because what I realized was one of the things that I lacked completely was reflective time. And that isn't to say that meditation is used to reflect on topics, right? But it was something that allowed me to slow down and move from fast forward, which is the kind of the default start-up mode to play, right, in terms of speed. And when you're at the speed of play, I think which meditation helped me achieve,

then all of a sudden you get better perspective on things. And you have the time to be more reflective, to have better self-assessment. And so I'm really glad that I came to meditation in that period, and that isn't to say that meditation like solved any problems in that regard, but I think it will help me, it will will it has helped me and it will help me navigate new challenges and and really see around the bend

So are you still saddled with responsibilities? You don't want or did that get sorted out? That did get sorted out Okay, but you don't think meditation was why the problems got fixed Yeah, I mean it's it's never one thing and I I want to be very careful about seeing meditation as a specific tool in the toolbox. I don't want to see it as a panacea. Well, you're in a podcast called 10% happier. So we don't do panacea around here. Okay, you're in a safe place.

Okay, good. You can just the French. If it was not over-promising. Okay, yeah, if it was 100% happier than... Yes. And that's a different story, but... Deepak Chopra may have one called that, I, if it was 100% happier than that's a different story. Deepak Chopra may have one called that. 10% happier hell yeah. Absolutely.

So, why did you want to get in the ketchup business at all? Given the dominance of the opal randum. So random. So I always love the idea that the starting a company could create a platform for making some kind of change, right? Some kind of change in society, some kind of change in people's lives that you interact with your co-workers, and some kind of change for yourself, right, as a journey of learning. And... So, condiments naturally follow us.

Well, I've always loved food, and while it is totally random, we realized that this is now back in 2008, that food was changing in America. And then all of a sudden, things that, as you described, were unexamined, and were being examined. So all of a sudden, people were looking at organic dairy. They were looking at grass-fed beef. They were looking at cage-free eggs. And

younger generation was starting to ask, where does this food come from before it ends up on supermarket shelves? And across the entire supermarket, there was one area that hadn't really been looked at at all. Condiments, and specifically ketchup, hadn't changed in like 70 years. So the big companies spent a lot of time lowering the costs, asking how do we make this cheaper, but none of them were asking how do we make this better. And so this was an opportunity. It didn't really start as a business opportunity. More so like a curious, oh, that's really weird. I wouldn't even pot like, how do you make ketchup? Would it be possible to make one that's actually better?

Would people reject it? Like, how would you, how would you make it so that it made sense? And so bizarrely, of course, and I, I always say that, you know, opportunity knocks on the side door, more often than a knocks on the front door. And I always say that, you know, opportunity knocks on the side door more often than a knock on the front door. And I would agree with that. And I figured, you know, if I'm going to start a company, it'll probably be in technology. And, you know, not at all, like all of a sudden, this ketchup thing is something that's, you know, I'm starting to think about more and more. And we have this realization that if even if we were able to make a better ketchup,

We have this realization that if even if we were able to make a better catch up, no one would know that it's better. And even if it is the best catch up in the world, no one would necessarily just grab it and try it. And people will, they'll eat with our eyes before they taste with their tongues. So part of it was the challenge and the fun of asking how would we create something that would earn its place in culture and people would really want to welcome into their lives. And that's where the concept of the personality of Sir Kensington came from. Because we said, all right, if every ketchup is in plastic, let's be dramatically different and let's be glass, right?

More premium, we'll go with the fact that we're using whole tomatoes and the real organic sugar and of course we won't use any hyphoric dose corn syrup and so along with that if that's what's inside the bottle, well the bottle itself should be really nice and should feel like it's something special. And instead of being squeezing indiscriminately kind of you know put on people's plates let's be scooping ketchup. That's how we started. And rather than the ubiquitous Americana of most catch-ups out there, we said, let's be English. Is your ketchup healthy?

Or is it healthier? Well, so... Remember that you were probably not even alive in the 80s when ketchup was designated as a vegetable in that. Yeah. There was an uproar. Is yours closer to the vegetable on the spectrum? It is closer as a vegetable. That's a vegetable in that. Yeah, there was an uproar. Is yours closer to the vegetable on the spectrum?

It is closer to the vegetable. It's instead of using only concentrate, which is basically really, really rendered homogenous kind of cooked tomatoes. We do, of course, cook our tomatoes, but we start with whole tomatoes, and we blend that with paste. So you actually get a texture that's more similar to the tomato, and a

taste that's more similar to the tomato. So it is catch up, the taste like actual tomatoes. It still tastes like ketchup, but it's definitely going to taste closer to the actual thing. And similarly, we have less sugar and less salt. But to say something is healthier or healthier is frankly a very loaded term. Because nutrition is, you know, the jury's out on a lot of things. There's a lot of pseudoscience out there. And ultimately, you know, people want to eat what makes them feel good. Well, you give your baby your ketchup, I guess. Absolutely.

Yeah, I already have. Yeah. Okay. So when you decided to do this, it kind of reminds me of those that Tom and Tom lemonade, yeah, folks. And they also went to Brown. Oh, okay. Yeah. So they were actually probably somewhere in my mental, like, universe of, hey, it's possible to do something like this. I remember hearing one of the Tom's in the 90s at a talk he was giving in Boston saying something to the effect of, if I had known how much work this was going to be before we started, I wouldn't have done it.

To take on Coke and Pepsi, to go into the most crowded and vicious aisle in the supermarket and this is what you're doing. So has it worked? It has. It has worked. So, we, now, it was, it is a tremendous amount of work. And actually, that's one of the learnings, right? And people look at entrepreneurs, and they look at startups, and they look at successful companies, and it appears to be so easy, right?

Oh, the product is great, and the team is killer, and they put it all together, and it's a rocket ship. Well, I can tell you that inside inside it doesn't look like that. Success is not a straight line. And there's so many challenges and it takes so much grit and tenacity and that in your mind getting the goal is a straight line for me to be. But in reality there's so many challenges and so many setbacks. So we now are, you know, we're nationally distributed in grocery stores and Whole Foods is one of our biggest customers to give you an idea of kind of where we span.

And we also work with fantastic restaurants across the country and meal kits. And earlier this year, we were actually acquired by Unilever. Oh, nice. Yeah. That must have been a good payday. I mean, it's important for a number of different reasons. So for our team, for ourselves, for our investors, it was obviously great because it created

that benefit and that stability. And also, they are long-term thinkers just as we are. And they're a values and a mission-driven company, similarly, asking the question of not just what is good for business today, but what's going to be good for business and what's going to be good for society later on. And when we when we first started talking to them, you know, we weren't actually intending to sell the business at that time, but it was the the focus that they

have on the legacy and of the role of food to do good. That's really what gave us the confidence to move forward with them. Much more of our conversation right after this quick break. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting.

Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia and Kurt Brownleur, we will be your resident not so expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking, oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently?

And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. I want to amplify a point you were making about the, and then I want to ask a question about the stress of being start up about two years ago I co-founded a start up, also called 10% happier, which Meditation through an app. And it's like a rolling existential crisis.

Yes. It's constantly on the cusp of death. And are you are we doing the right thing? Are we going to make it through the next round of funding? It's just always stress. Yeah. And well, it's awesome. It's a co-numason adventure at the same time.

Absolutely. And I think you know, use this word stress. And so what I, what I try and, you know, conceptually think about what I try and tell my team is, stress is actually a choice, right? So there are, there are external pressures that are being put on you and your company, right? So phone calls that you make that don't get returned. And unexpected challenges and changes that maybe, you know, drain your bank account. So phone calls that you make that don't get returned and

Unexpected challenges and changes that maybe you know drain your bank account or a setback You have an employee leave or something someone does something stupid Those are all you know that's objective reality right there And it's actually going to be up to you whether those pressures turn into stress and yes Of course running a startup is stressful, but that's also, that's part of it, like the yoga of it, is that you have to realize that the journey is the reward and that every opportunity that you have, or every, every piece of pressure that's going to create stress, is an opportunity to gain a little bit of objective perspective on it, and a little bit of ground and a little bit of perspective.

And that's I think what allows anyone to do it for an extended period of time. And to have a sustained and continuous energy with it, you know, doing this for seven years, it has been incredibly stressful. And of course, even to this day, right, we go through periods of fat and periods of lean periods that are less stressful and periods that are more stressful. But we always try and tell ourselves and we always try and tell our team is what feels like friction is actually polish. And that those challenges, you can choose whether they're going to rattle you or whether

you're going to grow stronger. You can go back to journey as a reward because this is the type of saying that gets tossed around a lot. And I mean, it's indisputably true that you only get right now, it's always right now. By the same token, you do need to set and achieve goals. And yes, you do need to make sure you, you know, you're not so focused on journeying. They're just walking in a big circle all the

time. So how do you balance that? And how do you, how do you, how do you not get so hung up on the goal and then like try and, and gunning in that direction and getting everyone in your team to go in that direction that you miss, you know, like your actual life right now. Yeah. Well, it's not that the goal is unimportant, but it's to recognize that your emotional state at that goal, really, really just cracking a problem is just an invitation to bigger and more difficult problems. So you'll certainly set a goal for yourself, but it's not like that's the end. You're gonna have more to do from that point on.

And so you probably thought when you yourself to Unilever that your life was gonna be like all roses, but now there are a million new problems. Absolutely, and I always tell myself these stories, and that's part of what keeps us going, is we tell these stories and it seems like it it's, it seems like it's going to be great, and it is, and then it gets hard again, right? Like everything. Now, when I say the journey is the war that doesn't mean that goals are unimportant, it's actually the

goals that put us on those journeys, right? It's like, it's the mountain top. It's wonderful to be at the top of the mountain and see the vista and bask in that. I think there is definitely times for pride and times for celebration that are at those points of goals and at those points of success. But I guess what I'm saying is, it's important to not think in a binary way, like you tread your way through something and you should be unhappy or you should be in times of stress right until that goal is achieved and then everything is solved. It's just the same exact thing is thinking, oh, if I get this new object or if I go on

this next vacation, then I'll be happy. I just want something and when I get that thing that I want, I'll be happy. No, it's just completely temporary. This is partly what the Buddha meant when he talked about suffering. The Buddha's first thing he said was life is suffering. A lot of people mistake that from meaning like life is gonna suck always and forever,

but he just meant that if you, well he meant a lot of things, but one of the things he meant as I understand it is that if you live your life expecting that the next dopamine hit is going to do it for you forever, you're in for some serious disappointment. Yeah, exactly. And so goals are important, but it's also really important to enjoy that journey and to recognize that setbacks are not killers.

So let me talk before about being a values driven company. And you've even talked about, imagine, like when you talked about this from an article I read about you, that when you're trying to think about the company's mission, you've said, imagine you're designing a religion. Talk about that. Yeah, that was from a recent one. That was a talk that I gave. I didn't know they would write that down and put it in there.

But, you know, we are such emotional creatures, humans. We think we are rational, but we're actually just really good at rationalizing. You know, we have this logical layer that is in many ways an illusion to us, but really we govern ourselves based on gut and based on feel. And so many things in life that we want, I don't think we actually know why we want them, but I think that there are things that religion offers that companies essentially and organizations have co-opted in order to grow and succeed.

And so let's give an example of that. I think, for instance, one of the things religion offers is a connection to something bigger than oneself, right? And I know it's a very different thing, but when you step into a BMW, right, or when you put on a Zara jacket, you are connecting to something bigger than just that piece of fabric. You think that people wouldn't put certain things on their cheeseburger that they're connecting to something spiritual? Or is that just that?

Okay, so we should be careful with some of these words here but but okay so spiritual right so what does what does that mean you know so there's there is I think along with connecting better greater than yourself there's also this concept of community right and people like me and a sense of tribe that I belong to. Walking, I walked from 59th Street Station up to here to the ABC Studios, and I saw two people that were going in different directions wearing the TCS marathon, New York City marathon, medals that they ran yesterday,

and two strangers high-fived each other. That they've never met before because they both participated in this marathon together, this cultural event together, and that connection bound them together in that moment and gave them the sense of meaning. So when you ask, okay, does eating, you know, a little bit of ketchup on your burger, is that spiritual? Well, there is something about food and identity that are very much drawn together. So of course, with a food that we eat physically becomes our bodies, but also the food we eat defines where we are culturally, where we are in society, what we identify with, what

we grew up with, right from soul food to what our ancestors ate. And there's a lot of identity in food, and food is one actually great way to connect to something bigger than ourselves and participate in that. And you could say that that is a spiritual connection, right? It may have nothing to do with a, like an all-governing force, right, that so many religions do, but I guess I do think that there is something that great organizations do to, and the same way that religions do, but I guess I do think that there is something that great organizations do to, and the same way that religions do, which is give people a sense of connection, community, a sense of meaning, and especially what they have is they have beliefs, they

have texts, and they have standards of behavior. And there's whether it's the laws that govern the United States or the commandments of Christianity, for instance, or whether it's the values that accompany espouses, all of these things are kind of these texts that you see in place that give people a sense of, here's what we are and here's what we aren't. And that binds them together. And that is essentially what culture is. And so when you talk about the company being valued, do you use the term values driven? Yeah.

What does that mean? So especially in food, there has been a lot of unscrupulous behavior over the last 70 years by food companies, especially coming out of World War II, where companies that produce food, we believe have a responsibility to society and a responsibility to the environment that is different than a lot of other industries, because what we make actually becomes part of people's physical bodies and has a relationship to human health and human nutrition. And it also has, in many ways, an outsized effect on what our food system and our natural resources look like when it comes to carbon emissions across the board.

There's a lot of responsibility that a food company, we believe, should have. And a lot of food companies have, actually successful food companies have taken a strategy over the last last 70 years since World War II of asking the question, how can we make products that are more addictive, that are as addictive as possible? And so there's a lot of work that's been done to make sure that once you eat a Dorito, you want to have another Dorito. From the color, to the texture, to the taste in your tongue, to the fact that when you crunch it, the vibrations move from your jaw muscle into your ears and give you that sort of synesthesia,

there is a lot of work that goes into making products more addictive. And so, in a lot of ways the values that have driven food companies have been purely oriented towards consumption, purely oriented towards shareholder value. And so as a as a values driven company and I don't want to by any means say that you know A, we're perfect or B, we're the only people doing this because we're actually a very small part of a much bigger food movement that shares the idea that food companies have responsibility to human health and nutrition and to the environment. Does it take your ability to compete? Well, the beautiful thing now is because of the internet and because of people's demands

for transparency, that has changed what customers and consumers are looking for. So it actually enables us to compete. Because before people didn't necessarily know the impacts personally or on the environment of what, quote unquote, bad food or big food might do. Now, if you have a Netflix subscription, it's saying, oh, do you wanna watch fast food nation or fat sick and nearly dead?

Or I guess it's not fast food nation, it supersies me, you know, or there's so much in culture, right? Michael Paul is wonderful writing about this. You know, if you've subscribed the New Yorker, obviously, that's a bubble in and of itself. But every couple of issues, there's a big piece about food and food culture and a lot of the change that's happening in here. So actually, what people are starting to look for, thankfully, are companies that take a similar tack and a similar bent. And so when we talk about being values driven, that means that, you know, number one, our product values, if it's not food, it doesn't belong in our food, right? So, no chemicals or synthetic sweeteners or anything like that. If we don't love it, we don't launch it.

So this is something that really comes from a sense of personal authorship that we really want to be excited about, not necessarily something that was developed and test well in consumer groups, but we don't really believe in. And then we're only as good as the company that we keep. So we need good partners to be good partners. And that's the way that we treat our suppliers and the way that we treat our customers with a focus on the relationship rather than the transaction. So these are the things that our product values is a company. And then we also have our core values that really govern our behavior in our day-to-day

life that I can go into as well. Or you can see by Googling us, but those things that govern our products and those things that govern our behavior, that's what makes us value-slap. And is it hard in the daily, hurly, as specifically interested now in terms of the atmosphere in the office and how you work with your suppliers, basically just being good human beings.

Is it hard to be nice in an environment where you're under, you've got a business? Absolutely. It's extremely hard. It's a huge source of tension. And with everything, right, there's this dialectic between what team members, right? You want to make sure that everyone, let, let's say is both fairly compensated and also you're doing the right thing responsible to your investors and their co-workers and now our owners, right? And that's just one example. I mean, how, like, how long should you give someone if they're failing to improve in a job where

they're supposed to be contributing, right? And you might say that doing the right thing by them is giving them more time and giving them more tools and giving them the benefit of the doubt. And you might say that the right thing to do for the organization, for their coworkers even for them is to determine that it's not a fit for the organization, that they're not a fit. And, you know, there's always this dialectic, and there's always this tension,

healthy tension between the two. But what these values do is they don't give you an answer, but they give you guidelines, and they give you mental frameworks to make these decisions. I always tell my team that our values are tools for them to make decisions with. So our first values that our secret ingredient is people.

And so, when it comes to a people challenge, we've done a lot of thinking about what that really means in detail, but how do we make sure that, you know, above all, that we recognize that all of our results and all of our successes come from our people? Or, for instance, our fourth value is think-long term. So, how do we think not only about the first order implications of a decision we're making, but of the second and third order implications? And we may create sales this year, but what are the results are going to be next year?

You know, is it repeatable? Is this something that we can build on? You know, those impact both how we treat each other, but they also impact our strategy. As your meditation practice had any bearing on your ability to embody these values or none at all? Yeah, I think my meditation practice has helped with these because, as I said before, it slows me down. And so it offers more of an opportunity for reflection.

And also I think what meditation fundamentally is, is a tool for helping you understand the world objectively and seeing the world as it truly is, right? Experiencing on a sensory basis, watching the mind and feeling what the body is feeling. And, you know, mantra meditation may not be as focused on that as insight meditation or other forms of meditation which I also kind of practice at other odd times. But when you are able to achieve an objective understanding of something, that is when you can make the best decisions.

Yeah. Insight meditation is basically, or Vipassana, the word that is used, the ancient word, seeing clearly. You know, that's the point. Exactly. So when you have that clarity, when you see clearly, when you have a practice in getting outside of yourself and achieving some kind of objective perspective, decisions become much more likely to be right. Is there anything that I should have asked you that I didn't ask you?

Man, not that I can think of. People want to learn more about you where they work and they go and you and your company where they will work. Oh great. This is the plug zone. Yeah. So, if you are interested in trying Circhens�tons, go to wherever find condiments are sold. So, go down to Whole Foods or go to your local supermarket and ask if they have it. And if they don't, ask them to bring it in. And then you can find us online at Circhens�tons.com, but websites aren't so interesting anymore, so follow us at SirKenzieKittens on Instagram for amazing meal inspiration and food pictures.

Sweet. What about you specifically? Do you have your own? Yeah, I'm SWHNorton on Twitter and ScottNorton.org if you want to see my speaking engagements and where I'm headed next. Cool. Scott, thank you. It's an education.

I feel like I know much more about the condiment world than I ever did. Oh, you're just getting started. I know. You're at the tip of the iceberg. Thank you, sir. Great job. Thank you so much, Dan. Thank you so much, Dan.

Okay, that does it for another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast. If you liked it, please take a minute to subscribe, rate us. Also if you want to suggest topics, you think we should cover or guests that we should bring in, hit me up on Twitter at Dan B. Harris. Importantly I want to thank the people who produced this podcast, Lauren F. Ron, Josh Cohen, and the rest of the folks here at ABC who helped make this thing possible. We have tons of other podcasts. You can check them out at ABCnewspodcasts.com. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with 1-replus

in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey.