The Bossticks - What You Need To Know About Your Food, Agriculture, & Produce Ft. David White - Farmer, Entrepreneur, & Man Of Faith

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

#658: Today, we're sitting down with the founder of The Squeezed Juice, David White. David is a businessman, fresh fruit marketer, farmer, entrepreneur, major junior hockey team owner, musician, man of faith, husband, father, and grandfather. His story is one of faith, perseverance, and hard work. Starting from humble beginnings, he went from a job selling fruit to owning a vertically integrated farming operation. Today, we have a conversation about the agricultural industry and how farming has impacted the produce people buy daily in their own grocery stores. He also shares information about what people should look for when shopping for produce, how to read the ingredient label, and business tips on dealing with setbacks and creating a successful company. This episode is brought to you by The Squeezed Juice Use code SKINNY for 20% off any order at shop.squeezedjuice.com To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. This episode is brought to by The Squeezed Juice. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you alone for the ride. Get ready for some major realness.

Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. I would say staying centered, having faith in yourself. and just, I'm just, I taught my son that, my daughter that, everyone in our company, I try to get them engaged and say, you know, your paycheck, your pay stub, you look at that, left side's what you earn. The right side is what went in the bank account. But get engaged in the middle. You know, care about that, wonder where your money went.

And try and teach people, whether being an entrepreneur or even if you're as an employee, just thinking at a higher level about things and what's ahead of you. So I think that was for me, the different things I went through. I never gave up. If you believe in it, okay, I'm going to put a lot into that. I'm going to believe in it. It's been very difficult. Walk through doors that are open and doors that close, they close.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Him and Her Show. Today we're sitting down with the founder of the Squeeze Juice, David White. David is a businessman, fresh fruit maker, farmer, entrepreneur, major junior hockey team owner, musician, man of faith, husband, father, and grandfather. And his story is one of faith, perseverance, and hard work. Today we're talking all about how to develop an entrepreneurial spirit, what you need to know about the agriculture industry, what is toxic, what's not, what's myth, what's not myth, what to look for when shopping for fruits and vegetables, the biggest shock about fruit juices you buy at the stores

and having an end goal in mind whether you're creating a company or any endeavor, really, and the key ingredients to a successful company. We also talk about how to achieve your goals and how to deal with setbacks. This was an incredible episode. David White is an incredible entrepreneur and has so, much insight when it comes to the agricultural industry, entrepreneurship, farming, and how produce affects our everyday life and what to look for. This episode's for anyone that's looking to be inspired, live better, and learn more. Also, before we get into the episode, the squeezed juice has generously

offered a discount for our listeners. Use code skinny for 20% off any order at shop. Dot squeezedjuice.com. With that, David White, founder of the squeezed juice, welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. What is something that the average consumer wouldn't know or understand about this space? Because obviously, I'm just thinking about it now. We've covered a lot of random topics on this show, but we have not covered this. So this would be interesting.

Yeah, tell us something that would, like, shock the consumer. When I'm walking up and down the shelves. What rated is a show? Oh, I mean, I don't think everything's been said here. This show is X, X, X, X, X, X. So go for it. Okay. Yeah, what's something that people just don't know? Probably the biggest in fresh fruit is, you know, permanent planting, especially with trees, which trees are incredibly important.

Like one of the greatest sequesters of carbon is permanently planted trees. Like that's what we're fighting in California. And I tell all my friends, I go, you watch, they're going to completely turn the table on this water thing and say, you guys need to replant everything. We'll get you more water and all that because the more trees you pull out, you know, the warmer it's going to get. Why are they pulling trees out in California? Because of the drought we went through. Oh, yeah. Okay. And, you know, years ago, a few governors ago, they had a plan when they did the California aqueduct and all that as California's population grew. They just grew the infrastructure for the water, and they just never did. So the L.A. Basin grew, the Bay Area grew, these areas grew, but they never increased the water infrastructure. It really would be a simple fix. And countries that don't even, like Israel or whatever, they hardly have any water, have abundant water now because they've learned through desalalinization and other things they use reusing their water. things like that. So there's a lot of cool things you can do now. But California has always lagged. We're very

reactionary state, right? We react to things. People get upset with me sometimes when I bash on California and I grew up in California, but I just feel like the political machine there is just so inefficient. I mean, I'm not even going to talk left, right side. I just think they are so inefficient over there at managing productive processes and budgets. I think what did they have like a deficit over there? Do they have like 30 something billion dollars? We went through. Yeah, he'd had a surplus and then now it's a deficit and they found a lot of stuff wasn't being shown, should have been shown.

But like we, very typical California, we went through a horrible five-year drought. They caught everybody off ground. So you let the reservoirs fill up right during the snow melt and all of that. And then farmers pull from the ground, you know, using groundwater, surface water, they call it, comes down the canals, comes from the mountains. So then they let those, they'll let those reservoirs get lower. and they prepare for the next winter. Well, we got caught that one next winter.

It didn't come. The snow didn't come. The winter didn't come. Well, now you're caught catching up. So it's just a big swimming pool. The valley is just a, and people are picking, you know, putting straws in there. And so pulling the trees out affects this because you're going to have less water. Well, because you need the trees and all that to capture the carbon and it helps cool the planet.

It's you need permanent plantings. You need natural pasture land. You need a great documentary to watch is kiss the ground. that Woody Harrelson did it. And it really will show you a lot of what's going on now. This regenerative farming, like organic was cool. We're all trying to look into organic. I farm organic, but it's not sustainable.

Like your trees last half the time. You can't use, I mean, bugs are smart. They go eat the fruit white when they should when it's about ready to be picked. So when people say eat organic, what does that entail? Yeah, what does that mean? I always, I mean, we all know like organic instead of buzzword. What does that mean exactly? But I mean, what does it mean from from an actual agriculture planting, like sustaining that, you know, farm or system? Like what, what goes into that process?

Well, I know it's a lot. It's really to get certified. There's a USDA certified organic or the CCOF. We're with CCOF. You go through a number of things and get, you know, inspected and the type of chemicals you use have to be, you know, which there's a number of them. But you don't, you don't have enough of the of the good implements to keep the tree alive. And, hey, a lot of, of stuff when I was a kid and whatever. I'm glad we've cleaned up a lot of the things that farmers used to use. And they're being sold by the chemical company who's, it's like nurserymen. It's like nurserymen that sell us trees and things like that. I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot of other scope and scale to the industry that you're saying is like a shock that people wouldn't,

you know, understand. There's, or don't know about. And so we've cleaned up a lot. The air is a lot cleaner, a lot of the things we don't use anymore. And it's good to be enforcing on the chemical companies to come up with smarter, more sustainable, you know, things for us to use. I've been on a path for, I don't know, I think since 2015 or so to try to, because the California grid is a disaster. Yeah. Right. And so that's the thing. We have them. It's so impressive or, uh, it's oppressive on middle to lower incomes because the PG&E, Southern California, Edison, all the electricity is very expensive there. All the utilities are very expensive. So we really need a lot of help there on rebuilding that. But I've really been trying to get to a point where I could run my facilities off of my own

byproduct. And so different things we're doing. And I'm close to that. We started Trinity Energy Company, renewable energy company. And so I'm getting close to the point where I can, some of the fruit we throw away that you can't use for anything would get turned into, you know, methane gas and ethanol. things like that. Yeah, they got to figure something out of there. I know they're even talking about these electric mandates, but I'm like, I just wonder where the hell they're going to get all this from. I have a tenant in one of my buildings and was like, I was talking to one day and he was working on the high speed rail, a certain section that goes over to Hatchapie and down into L.A. He goes, David, you'll be dead and gone before the grid has enough power. The train will run. It would run,

but it would be just a regular Amtrak. Like, there's not enough power. So I'm no expert on that. I know that it's more sustainable for us and we're really close. I have all the equipment in now, but I already have a system set up where through solar batteries and generators to be able to run the facility all the time if the grid went down. As a consumer, what are some things that we should look for when we're shopping for vegetables and fruit, maybe fruit specifically? And what are some things that we should avoid? Like where you're like, oh my God, they use tons of pesticides and chemicals don't even go

there. We've got two things. One, to say something would shock you is that most supermarkets have which in some ways they need to, but a strict grade standards for which they'll receive the fruit. So there's a decent amount of fruit that gets rejected. I mean, we live in a business that we can't, if we had 1% problems over our whole year, a fruit that wasn't accepted, that'd be a rough year. You have to bring quality product. Yes. They're not going to accept it. They're not going to sell it. Because people buy with their eyes. So leading back to what you asked me, you buy with your eyes. Okay. Getting to know the fruit like a pomegranate. A pomegranate, it can be scarred up and have issues on the outside and this, that, and the other, and the fruit inside is fine. Okay. So you would just

feel that to see if it's mushy or, you know, it's got, you can tell if it's got some rot in it or things like that. It's not as easy as like a berry where you see, you might buy strawberries that see a little mold in there and you just throw them out. Someone just told me the other day. They're like, you do not give your kids apples without peeling it because there's so much wax on it. Is that true? I'm not an apple expert. I eat them. Been to a lot of seminars and things like that. The healthful benefits of fresh fruit and vegetable way outweigh over many lifetimes what you get from them and eating them fresh. Got it. Over the risk you're going to get from something like that. The biggest thing I can tell you, I met with a food safety expert probably close to 20 years ago. And he goes,

why you guys all in the valley are going to spend a fortune on food safety? Because I think whenever it was the spinach and somebody's saying started to have issues, because people just don't, wash their fruit and vegetables enough. There's stuff that gets on veg in particular, being on anything that's grown on the ground, but on fruit, the same. You can really e coli, any of the things no one likes to talk about can really be dealt with just by washing your, normally washing your fruit. I made Michael Fajitas last night and I forgot to wash the bell peppers.

And he had three servings. Whoops. And I forgot to wash the onion. No, but this topic, I think, is interesting because doing what we do and engaging in the world of social and podcasts, you see everything. And you see a lot of crazy claims. And I think everybody now is under the impression that our food is killing us and it's the worst thing ever, but they can't seem to answer why we're living longer than ever. And I think that there's obviously dietary issues that people need to face and you need to think about if you're eating natural foods or engineered foods or whatever. But in terms of our pro Does the produce actually gotten worse over the last 50 years? Or is it the same in people think it's worse? Is the process better? Like from your perspective being close to farming?

Oh, it's significantly better. Significantly. But I mean, I laugh every time I go in the store. And I see all the packaging. And there's a whole world and industry behind that. Clamshells, we call them the plastic containers that open, call it a clamshell. The bags, everything else.

All this that goes into merchandising and marketing. I mean, you've had that little roll of bags there, probably since I don't know when they first introduced it. You know, when did it first get there in the produce department where you peel the bag off and open it and put your stuff in there? You know, it's always been there. But through marketing and merchandising, that's the competitive nature of a bag and getting, you know, really good products out to consumers. but then there's a whole area we deal with on competing for, you know, there might be five or six major players in any particular category, right, at any one particular time.

And everyone's trying to, in every major supermarket might have two or three or four major suppliers of that particular commodity. So everybody's going by what that supermarket wants them to package it. I want mine in a bag. Like everybody's grab and go since going through COVID, right? We want grab and go, grab and go. We don't want to people touch. stuff. We didn't know what's going on with this thing. So, you know, Costco and the club stores kind

of pushed that envelope years ago, starting with that, you know, larger bulk package you could buy. So everything pretty much now is there's still some done loose, we call it on the shelf where you can handpick your peaches, this, that, and that they're put in a bag, your onions, whatever. But pretty much everything's going to package. Just grab a bag and go. What makes you see white space in the juice industry? Like, where were you when you decided, oh my God, I need to start squeeze juice. Probably in 2000, one of my customers, I was selling in pomegranates.

He goes, how come you can't get there a pain to open them and try to eat it? Why can't you take the seeds out? They really are. So I tried it. And then Palm Wonderful ended up getting started like that next year. And they called me to see how I was doing it. And I was like, who is this? And they've done a phenomenal job.

And I listened to him and I was like, I'm embarrassed to tell you how. I was doing on a little cherry line we used for Japan. And there was a little food safety, hazmat suits on and all that. And, you know, I lost my shirt on it. Fast forward, the juice market crashed about 10 years ago. Why? Just too much supply. And that's the thing.

Ag will, you know, people need to make a profit. And there's a fine balance between the banking system and the farming system. And, you know, it's all has to work together. And so when that crashed, like we were talking about before, only a small amount of the tree is actually makes it to the store. So what do you do with the rest? So if there's not a byproduct market for that that gives enough back to the ranch, then that commodity is not going to be sustainable. So I started with pomegranate seeds.

That was extremely difficult. And so we've turned that into a niche. And we're year-round in that. Found some really good farmers in different areas that produced during the summer when my California crop's done. You know, we're doing a lot of that private label. The big thing on supermarkets now is private label. So there's only a handful, like I told you,

and every simple. So the private labels are all pretty much being supplied by the same, you know, group of suppliers that are doing our own thing. So, but private labels are very big, very big thing now. Everybody wants to do that.

You go in Trader Joe's, you know, they're great company, love working with them. You know, they want to pretty much get everything into Trader Joe brand. So when you're in Trader Joe's and you're looking at all these great brands, what you're saying is there's a handful of suppliers that are basically

responsible for putting all those products on the show. On the package range. On the fresh side, yeah. I don't know anything about the grocery side. So the pomegranate juice is the first one you launched with. I'm getting better at my daughter told me I was mature enough to listen to Jordan Peterson now. So. Oh, you're mature enough to listen to.

I'm a mature enough. I think my dad just passed the maturity test too. I think he can listen to Jordan Peterson too. So I've been trying listening to him because my, like, especially my counting department, they'll say he's coming in for a landing. Like I'll go off on something over here and they'll like, okay, bring him back. Bring him back. So Peterson's really good at going and staying on something and getting back the original point.

So forgive me if I stay out there. She goes, all right, land the plane. Yeah, it's time to land the plane. So the arrows were first, then got into them again. And then the juice was just, you just don't know anybody who's getting it. You don't know where it's going. And so I looked at everything I have. So I'm trying to get all the byproducts I have that have no other home.

It's perfectly good fruit that either was too ripe when it's being packed. It's got external defects, whatever else. The internal is fine, same as the ones with no external defects. And so I'm doing frozen stone fruit, freeze dried pomegranate seeds. We just did a fancy food show in Vegas, and that was a big hit. Smart. There for kids, I'm thinking freeze dried pomegranate seeds. I have a special variety that doesn't have a seed really in the middle.

So it works for that. The juice was one of those things because I have so much homo granite and mandarin. So people eat a lot of mandarin. Easy peel manor. Eat a lot of them, but no one really is really not a juice out there. So good. Especially like this. And it's a little different flavor than orange juice.

It doesn't taste same. So, and we're finding out that juice people are totally, juice consumers are unique. So I'm dealing with trying to get it out to people that buy the juice in bulk that may not want, they're not looking for the health benefit as much, like looking for. for a, from concentrate, not to say names or trying to take a sunny delight or something like that. That's a whole different part of the grocery store. For us, I kind of have a weird space. I'm being put in the premium juice set with naked and Tsuja and evolution and things like that.

There's not really a single strain, we call it, Mandarin, pomegranate. There's only one ingredient in both of those. Oh, that's cool. It's just pomegranate. And poms done an amazing job with pomegranate juice on the concentrated side. and we're just, we're going on the fresh side. And now the functionals we're doing are everybody likes a green juice. So we did the power one that has macha and jalapia.

But it's, but the base, most, a lot of these juices have water, coconut water, you know, from other countries. They have all these different things as a base filler. So ours only have the pomegranate or the mandarin as a filler. There's no water. Yeah, it's so funny. When I look for this kind of stuff, I'm always like looking for just something with the least amount of ingredients. Because I feel like there's so many ingredients in so many things now. I don't want to take the time to just like if I if I want a palm, like the other day I was looking for a palm granite juice.

I was reading about a benefit it had. And I was looking around like what is one with just the palm granite? Like obviously found it here. But I think that's the thing is as some of these companies have evolved, they've gotten so complicated with the amount of ingredients they have. And I think a lot of consumers just don't. Or they're out of integrity. I think some of them sell to big conglomerants. And then the conglomerant takes over and it's just not the same.

Right. Which is a bummer. I've run into that what you said a lot. Like, people are asking me like, what are you doing this for to flip it? Because most people in these spaces are trying to sell the private equity. Private equity has dipped its toe in California Ag and they love it. Yeah, we know the founder very well of Suga. Yeah. And that's a whole other story.

She's been on the show. But that's an interesting kind of story and example. Not to say they've done good or bad. It's just it's changed maybe a little bit from when she started. My daughter's favorite is lemon love. Is it the one with the cayenne? I think it does. I buy that one. They're all, they were. It's a ginger love. Yeah.

Yeah, they have some great stuff. So private equity is looking into the juice companies. Well, I know, I know evolution. I think Starbucks had evolution. Bolt House started as, I think, something like me. It started as a family farm type. And it got sold to a company. And then the company that bought it, I think bought. I'm just, this is a general knowledge I have. I think the company that bought evolution also bought Bolt House. So when you launch Squeeze Juice, do you have an end goal in mind? Like, is your goal to potentially sell it? Is it to just run it the best that you can for as long as you can?

Is it to, like, leave it to your kids? Like, I always wonder, as an entrepreneur myself, like, I love to hear people's, like, plan. I would love to know what, like, the systems you're doing to get to the end of that plan. I mean, we're fully vertically integrated. Like, I sit in the sales pit with my guys or six. of us. Like that's what I say, I'll never be off the cash register, you know, until my last breath. Smart. So you got to be engaged. And I, we have other interests. I mean, I have a major junior

hockey team and Winatchee Washington. We have some development hockey teams up there. So I'll have one day, a week of a couple hours I'll spend with my hockey gym. We have some other interests we do that I'll make sure I spend, you know, an hour or two a week with that manager, you know, and then make sure I'm seeing all the budgets and, you know, the cash budgets. I like a very simple, I like to see the year going forward. I like to see the months as the actuals have been determined that I see those going along and then making changes. And I like that for every company I have. That's kind of my finance background. And so that's worked well for me. But in this one, I love the farming. I love the, I love the marketing. I think now you don't have to be in the old days.

You had to be at your desk in Fresno. Now, it's a. it's not that way. There's been a lot of turnover. There's been a consolidation in the supermarket industry. You see now big ones trying to go through Kroger and Albertsons together. Much more centralized procurement around the country. So it's not at all like it used to be when I got in the business, but 35 years ago. So my goal is to with these byproducts is to provide a level of sustainability to the ranch that. So I'm kind of looking at the reverse, not for the beverage company to be profitable in that, but for it to be just cover costs and to provide sustainable money to each farm year-round.

So it's just a component of the fresh and everything else that we do that keeps it propped up. What would the average American or just average person in the world maybe not understand about running a farm? I'm sure a lot, but what are we just uneducated about when it comes to running an operation like that? First thing people probably bring up is labor. So like us, we're a year-round operation. So we pretty much keep our labor force in the field and in the production facilities year round.

So, you know, consistency of a labor force is one that's talked about. People that are working in the field, and this that's very skilled effort that they do. On pruning, like peaches and nectarines and plums particular is probably the most expensive by the acre. And probably people wouldn't know that. Like in the winter, you have to go to the tree and you start pruning the tree and cutting out limbs and things to prepare for the next crop year. the crop, then you've got to go through weather, then you get the bloom. Everybody loves looking at the bloom, but then it's very susceptible. That's the future fruit. So you can get hit with, you know, I don't like saying the words, but you can get hit with very cold weather. You can get hit with

different things that affect that bloom. Then it makes a piece of fruit. Then you have to go in and take pieces of that fruit off when it's little and throw it on the ground because the fruit can't, it doesn't make any sense to support all of that fruit on the tree. The fruit will all be too small. If you go into Whole Foods and you want to buy a peach, you're not going to buy one this big. The customers like it big, huh? And so, and the tree goes all different sizes. So it's real art form, the thinning it just right. How much of that is GMO?

I don't know anything about this. Like, can you go off on that? Like how much, when you see a huge ass strawberry that's literally the biggest strawberry you've ever seen, is that a GMO strawberry or is that just a big ass strawberry? Might be on creatine or something. It worked out. It works out. It's eating a lot of red meat.

Testosterone. When I think of GMO, I think of corn and things they've done to be pest resistant because you think of the old food pyramid and how we were going to grow food really cheap for the nation. That's how that old food pyramid, I remember when it was from the 60s or 70s or whenever it was made. And so a lot of that drove, I think, the GMO to design these row crops and large scale. And so as far as genetically modifying, like in the fruit business, there's breeding. Like you'll have a tree and it has a certain variety. So there's a different variety. People don't probably understand that.

I buy a peach during the summer. If you go through part of April, but May, June, July, August, September, 5, 20, 21 weeks, there's probably, there might be 40 different varieties of peaches that we're growing during that time span. They mature at different times. So you can get them to the market when they're supposed to and ship them in time so they're not go bad on our own coal storage.

So stone fruit in particular, we call it with a pit in the metals, the stone. But that's one most complex and expensive industries there is. And that's really got down to just a few major players now. You know, I was talking, I'm reading this book. It takes place in the 1400s. And part of it, they're talking about this crop that just gets wiped out. And I was telling Lauren, like, people have gotten so far away from understanding where food comes from.

Meaning, like, most people, even today, they're not even going to the grocery store. They're going on their phone and ordering. and then the grocery are showing up at their house. And I just don't, it's maybe some fault, but also for no fault as well, where people just don't realize the process and the labor and the work and the time that it takes to create, whether it's meat or whether it's food or fruit or vegetables, whatever, it just shows up at their house in a bag. And I was telling one, I was like, you know, back in the day, if you were a surf working on a farm and ice storm came through, like, you were done.

It was over. Well, I'm not as, it's been too long. I mean, a couple of documentaries have really impacted me. C-spiracy was one. You haven't seen it. My daughter, my daughter-in-law were not happy with me when I had them watch that because we all love sushi. So I still eat sushi, but it shows you, getting back to GMO, it shows you like if you watch Kiss the Ground, C-Spiracy. There's decisions being made on our behalf based on our demands, as small as fast food.

What does it take to get that much beef into the system to support all these different business models and that? And GMO has been really, it might have been in Kiss the Ground. I can't remember. It's been a few years. But that decisions we think about here, I'm not going to buy that as GMO. I'm going to buy this instead. To us, it's not that big of a decision, but it's impacted the rest of the world in a big way, like Africa and other developing countries that they haven't been able to get the food sources,

like you're saying. I got to remember which that documentary was. But bananas were just getting killed there, right? And there was a bug and they just couldn't fix it. And so they'd found where they could genetically modify. they added the gene from a strawberry or it's like it's not taking something from an animal or far as I understand. I mean we're not gym we're not in a GMO world at all but from why I understand they're using the genes from other like a raspberry strawberry strawberry something else to help

that particular fruit or veg ward off you know pests eating it was mature yeah yeah and I think that's the misconception people think as an entrepreneur there's a lot of people who are listening that are entrepreneurs or want to become entrepreneurs, what advice would you give them? Sounds like one thing after this conversation so far, what to me that's interesting about you is you seem very patient because you've had to experience patience on the farm. I'm glad I didn't have you sit at a desk. Yeah. Yeah, we didn't have you sit at a desk.

But what are some tools that you think are really important in an entrepreneur's toolbox? Faith is a big one. You have to have a really good support team. behind you. My wife's been incredibly supportive and my kids have. And that's important to me that, you know, the short time I'm here on the planet, I don't know how long that's going to be, but, you know, I want to make it worth something that I was here, you know, that I added something to the whole narrative. And so I think you have to have a vision or a goal of something you really want to accomplish. It doesn't have to be that. Certainly, I told my son that the other

day, Gunner, he's 30. I said, what would 30-year-old Gunner say to 25-year-old Gunner right now? let me tell you, 60-year-old David would tell 30-year-old David a lot of things. What would you tell it? I don't know. But I hadn't really thought about it until the other day. It was like, I really want to start to think about that. I've been trying to, you know, you look at what other successful entrepreneurs have done, but really, it's your journey.

I mean, I was in, it's been a long time ago, but I was in martial arts for a number of years. And that was very impactful to me. I recommend martial arts, too. It doesn't really matter which one, I think, per se, is the instructor. Did you click with somebody? Did you, you know, I particularly spent a little bit of time in Ikeeto and I got my belt and karate, but in Ikeedo really about the center and being centered. There was something on Jordan Peterson's four-part series here, four-part series he has on there from a friend of his that was about that being centered.

And so I would say staying centered, having faith in yourself and just, I'm just, I've taught my son that, my daughter that, everyone in our company, we have a little over 600 employees. I'm like, I try to get them engaged and say, you know, your paycheck, your pay stub, you look at that. Left side's what you earned. The right side is what went in the bank account. But, you know, get engaged in the middle. Be, you know, care about that, wonder where your money went. And try and teach people, whether being an entrepreneur or even if you're as an employee, just thinking at a higher level about things and what's ahead of you. So I think that was for me, the different things I went through. I never gave up.

You just can't. If you believe in it, like in this, I believe in the juice. It was a good product. Okay, I'm going to put a lot into that. I'm going to believe in it. It's been a very difficult road to be on. But I'm going to keep, you know, like walk through doors that are open and doors that close, they close. 600 employees is a shitload of employees.

How do you, how do you lead 600 people? I need some tips. Well, I don't know what they're doing right now. You know what? Building a management team, I'm very proud that organically we built up all our management from inside. The gentleman who runs my packing facility started as a welder with us and he does a phenomenal job. I'm lucky that one of my closest male friend is farming partners with me. And we share a lot of the same interests.

Also helped me at the packing house and that. And so I think building relationships, treating everybody, you know, that they match. I mean, the golden rule is not really complicated, right? So as long as you wanted to treat yourself good, then it works. Right? I want to treat somebody else like I want to be treated. So I think if you develop the right management structure and the right people and they do things the way, and you let them incorporate in things that, you know, have their own signature on things, but you have, you have to, the, whatever got you where you are, that entrepreneurial drive that you really wanted as long as it wasn't, you know, strictly financial. or something like that. And that may work. I mean, look at how many different kinds of entrepreneurs

are every different kind you can think of. And there's people have a lot more than me and the people have a lot less of me. So I don't know what the actual answer is, except that I just never give up, be tenacious. On sales side, make another phone call. You know, it's all statistics in sales. If you decide to go down that road. And there's sales and everything. Everything we do, there's sales. And so it's okay, it's not working there. Find another lane. Find another opportunity. When you get a know or you have a setback, where does your mind go? What's your immediate process? And I'm sure you've gotten better at it as you've evolved in your career.

But early days, I think there's a lot of people listening that start something and then they struggle. And I would just want to be clear. Like, I've started a bunch of things and struggled in many things. But I think people sometimes they look at the end success. So look at someone like you and say, okay, easy for him to say. Or they'll look at, you know, something like this. I'll say easy. But what I wish we showed more of in the early days was all of them.

setbacks. You know, even in the juice, got started and okay, you can have a great product. But if people don't know that story, people have to hear this story that, okay, they're literally taking fruit that couldn't be put in a bag and go on the shelf, so they squeeze it. Our machines actually peel the skin off of the mandarin and the pomegranate so it doesn't get the oils or the in there. It's high pressure pasteurization, which is magic. He uses high pressure instead of heat and boiling or a concentrate, so it's fresh. and came out with the base products. For all I knew, people tried them.

They said they were great and it's going to fly off the shelf. Well, that was the opposite. And that space is actually shrinking in the stores. So then you reach out to different areas like a grocery outlet or something and say, hey, and get partnered with them. And they're like, yeah, this is fantastic. Well, because of my, because I'm vertically integrated, I can say to each of them, what do you want to do?

Where do you want to sell it out? That's very not common in the beverage industry. I'll be like, what do you want to sell it out? What do you want to make? What do you need me to bill you? Okay, we're good. What is more common if you're not vertically integrated? They're having it somebody produce or copack it for them.

You see that happening a lot of thinking alcohol. Sure. A lot of, you know, I'll read between the lines and see people that are, there's guys behind the scenes that are signing up celebrities and getting them to, you know, put their name on it and then they're partnering in it and they build it up and then they sell it. And so they're getting co-packers in that in different areas to, you know, make the tequila or make the, all of that for you.

In the beverage industry, you get a lot of that. Like, you can find co-packers that'll make something up for you. hey, I want this kind of shot. I want this. And I'm coming up with more disruptive type beverages here really quick. I'm going to have some exciting ones we're going to be doing. So when I hit that no, you know, because you'll, I'll run into a VP of a major healthy food store chain that may say, this is fabulous, this belongs in the store.

And then you can hit the procurement side of it. And they're like, no. And plus in this area, they'll look at it once a year. and maybe a year ahead of that year and say, think about, you know, if they're going to put it in or not. So it's not their fault. It's just as things that became more centralized in the retail industry. It's like they're not as nimble. Corporate world's not as nimble.

Like, you know, I can be very nimble? And somebody say, hey, can you make this kind of shot or whatever? Because now we're going to get into the, I wasn't going to do the shot world, but now I'm going to do it. So can you do this kind of shot? Yes. So then you do the recipe, come up, do a focus group, see how it tastes. Everybody likes it. Okay, bump.

you know, probably next month or so, we'll launch a shot. So that's, that's not normal in this industry. It might take years to, you know. You just move way faster. But if you know the people at Suja, I mean, they've done an amazing job. So, I mean, they look at all the skews, we call them, individual things. And it takes a lot of love and passion into the, like, I like green juice. I didn't, I didn't, some of the other ones I was buying it.

I didn't like this one, a little sweeter because it uses our apples. It's delicious. Uses our apple parade, which makes, we're going to have some kids drinks coming out. I'll give my kids all this. Yeah, my grandsons went nuts over the man. The thing is, kids love juice, but you want to get him a good juice. Good juice. Right.

So I don't want to give them like a crop juice, but my kids will go crazy. Yeah. What is the secret to 37 years of marriage? That's a long time. I give Michael all the tips you can take. Well, you brought up no before. So don't ever say no. I know.

Just don't ever say anything. It's like, oh, never say no. Don't speak. She's saying don't say anything. Is that? So I just, well, I married a marriage family. family child therapist also. Perfect.

That helps. A marriage family therapist. Yes. Her parents were a therapist? No, she is. She is a therapist. She stopped practicing when she stayed home and we, you know, decided that, you know, found a way to make it work.

We didn't have any money back then, but we found a way that she could stay home and be with the kids. We thought that was important for her. But Lisa's, she ever since then, she uses it every day. She's, all we all her friends, family. She's using her therapy on me every day for sure. You're trained up. What's the trick? What's the trick to being married that long?

I guess a lot of things is finding a balance. We're faith-based too. So I make so many mistakes every day. I just stop counting them. So, you know, we have that in common. I know just trusting each other. And she's full-blooded Armenian. So when she gets mad, it's, yeah, I give in.

You should say that. I make so many mistakes every day. I have more time to hear that. I like how he says he makes so many mistakes. I feel like if I give her like one inch, she's going to take the whole mile. Well, just like a mistake that he made this morning is that his latest is to turn on an alarm. And the alarm is literally like a succession theme song. No, it's not.

At 6.30 in the morning. Is that like the greatest show? It's the greatest show. It's the greatest show. But I don't need to hear the theme song at 6.30 a.m. in the morning when I'm trying to get some shut out. No, it's not that. I think. So I told him last night I said, I'm going to sleep in the other room.

The piano part, the gling, bling, bling, bling. dreadful to wake up to. And it's like I was told my broadcast channel, I'd rather a marching band waking up. I really would rather. Try the marching band. Yeah, well, try the marching band. I don't want to be woken up with an alarm.

What's the school that's around here? Yeah, get the school to come, you see to come out. Anything besides the succession theme song. No, it's not that theme song. You just think that because I had it as a ringtone. 24th theme song. I, it's the worst.

I had the Jack Bauer 24 like the, what is it? Star Wars, the Jedi. Like, I can't. You want something different. Yeah. So you should take some notes from this podcast and just do what I say. Let me tell you something.

I picked the ones that come on the iPhone. There's one that's like a soft. Those are even worse. That's what I have. No, guys, can we wake up with our circadian rhythm or a hatch? Let me tell you something. Whatever sound it is, she's going to be upset about it. She wants me to creep out of the room in the dark.

Yeah. Because you know, we're in winter right now. And so I need the alarm because I don't have the sun to wake up. No, I have a chime machine. I like chimes. Chimes. Chimes. You can put wind chimes.

in your room and a fan. I was gonna, yeah, a giant fan and me just yeah, the wind chimes. Honestly, just sleep in another house. Well, I read this article in the wall rate. You just have to turn the fan on.

That's right. I read this article in the Wall Street Journal where these people were saying that the key to marriage is you have to go in other bedrooms and then other, I'm like, well, maybe you shouldn't even be married. Maybe that's the keys. You should just like go live in several places and not.

See how that works for you. It was a strange article to me because I'm like, basically what we're saying here is that like the key is to just not actually be together. Maybe steps like Dick Van Dykes are separate beds before the separate rooms. Lucy and Ricky. Sometimes I read things in this modern world we live in and I feel like we're just completely, like it's a joke. Like we're upside down. Like the key to the marriage is to be away from each other. I'm like, are you just saying that maybe then don't be in the marriage. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. And sometimes you are so annoying that I could see why the Wall Street Journal said that.

I think it was written by somebody that's completely wacky and is not in a good marriage. How many hours are you together a day? A lot. A lot. You're probably like you and your wife. It's like we're partners. I'd say 12. 12.

In the morning. In the morning. And then we have in the morning, an hour maybe. And then I, when I come home. So maybe five, six hours. Okay. We're together a lot. You might have a time issue.

So we might have a little bit more time. We do like being together. It's like codependent. Co-dependent and independent. Yeah. But it just depends which way the wind's blowing that day of where we're at. That makes your journey. so exciting. If I had had had a little bit more shut-eye this morning, I think that I would be really

into being with you. We've known each other since we were 12. So it's been a long time. Long time. Not 37 years. You had Dr. Peter Atia on here. We did. I'm halfway through his book. He was on that limit list. I saw him on National Geographic with Chris Hemsworth. That was a great series. So he got me into kettlebells. And I actually bought the on-it kettlebells, the primal ones. Those are good. The gorilla head? Yeah. Those are good. All the girls, everybody in the office saw them coming in so they all wanted them. So I'd buy kettlebells for everybody. Oh, that's not.

So cute. But he's, I love him. Yeah, he's a good one. Yeah. So I'm halfway through his book. We, like, it's sometimes interesting. We get to sit with people and it's sometimes surreal that they're on the show because we're big fans. Like, you know, we've been fans of him for a long time.

Yeah. And we had an author in here yesterday that it was a real experience. It was like, oh, I read your books for a long time, you know? Then I'm just like talking. Right. And now we get to drink our favorite. juice companies juice and meet the founder. Which juice should everybody start with? If I were to pick, I think just, I'm going to say mine first. I would start with the pomegranate. And I think

it also would taste so good in tequila. All of these juices, though, are so good. I got to try all of them. I'm going to give them to my kids. Which would you tell our audience to start with? I believe we just started in central markets here in Austin. They should be in the stores by now. I think they have the functionals. We had the focus, the immunity and the green. So if you're here in the local market, those should be in central market. The pomegranate is fabulous. You get your antioxidants.

It's a fresh product. If you like pomegranate juice, it tastes like pomegranates. Squeezed juice did a sample pack for you guys. So I think that's a really good place to start too. They can go and sample all the juices. You can go on shop. gusedjuice.com and use code skinny. and you get a discount and a sample packet you can go buy so you can try the juice.

Yeah, they can buy the sample pack for 2499. Love it. And that'll have the five juices in there. And then it's a, with the skinny code, is 20% off. Amazing. Anything on the site. And then we're going to give away a couple sample packets. All you guys have to do is follow at the squeezed juice on Instagram and tell us your

favorite takeaway from this podcast on my latest post at Lauren Bostick. and I feel like everyone should go get the sample pack. Absolutely delicious. My new favorite juice. Thank you for coming on. I learned a lot. Yeah, and I really like it's very good time because I got super into Palm Granite because of the antioxidants.

A lot of people are taking glutathione for the antioxidant benefits. But, you know, I think having this juice, I try to take like at least eight ounces a day. Oh, good. Yeah. Well, we'll get you hooked up. You know what my favorite way to drink like a pomegranate juice is? Because I'm not drinking at this moment, alcohol. You take a wine glass, you put a little bit of squeezed juice,

pomegranate juice like an inch, and then sparkling water and ice and basil. Nice. It's like a cocktail. It's really good. Yeah, they're good in cocktails. Yeah. Yeah, I can tell. David, thank you for coming on.

No, thank you so much for having us. We really appreciate it. And please tell Taylor, your daughter. Thank you for coordinating. We appreciate you. My daughter and my daughter-in-law, big fans. What's your daughter-in-law's name? Allison.

Allison and Taylor, shout out. We love you. Hi, Allison. Two things before you go. You can watch us now on YouTube, so you can go on YouTube, search the Skinny Confidential, and watch our entire episodes on your computer or TV.

Also, you should know, Michael and I are doing a him and her newsletter. So basically it's a him and her tip of the day, five days a week. And the tips are very specific, as you can imagine. And then we also have a monthly favorites. So basically we collect all our monthly favorites, everything we've bought and used and tried and put it in one monthly newsletter for you.

To sign up for that, go to shopskinnyconfidential.com and sign up for the newsletter. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time.